Author: Martha Thomases

The Boys Goes To Star Trek

The Boys Goes To Star Trek

  • News
  • October 12, 2007

Variety reports that, among those cast in J. J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie is Simon Pegg, star of Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. He’s slated to play Scotty, the role made famous by James Doohan. The same story says John Cho (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) will be Sulu. The film is scheduled to go into production next month, with a Christmas 2008 release date.

(For those of you who don’t get the image at the right, Darick Robertson based the look of character Wee Hughie on Simon Pegg. So even if you haven’t seen Shawn of the Dead or Hot Fuzz or even that Doctor Who episode he did, you know what he looks like. Simon also did the introduction to The Boys trade paperback, and is a big comics fan.)

The Star Trek movie, co-starring Leonard Nimoy, has been fully cast with one important exception: the role of James T. Kirk. William Shatner holds out hope.

Television Review: The Legion of Super-Heroes

Television Review: The Legion of Super-Heroes

One of the major criticisms of comics like The Legion of Super-Heroes is that the series is so old, and has so many characters, that the continuity is too convoluted and complex for new readers. It would seem to be an unlikely candidate for television, a medium not necessarily known for depth nor consistency.

This past Saturday, the first new episode of the season explored the origins of Timber Wolf. I’m old enough to remember when Timber Wolf was introduced, in the late 1960s. In fact, I still think of him as a “new” character, one of the edgier Legionnaires with a mysterious, tortured past.

The animated Timber Wolf also has a tortured past. Like the original, he is Brin Londo received his powers from his father. On this episode, written by comics veteran J. M. DeMatteis, Brin is charged with the murder of his father. The Legion convicts him of the crime, and he flees to clear his name.

Unlike the original, this Timber Wolf is angry and violent, not shy and timid. He fights first and may ask questions later, or may run off and hit something else. In this, he is not unlike the other Legionaires. The others will often burst into a room and start attacking whatever seems to be abnormal. Of course, since this is children’s network programming, they rarely actually hit anyone, but instead use their powers, aiming rays of energy, cold or heat in a way that is not easily imitated by anyone without a squirtgun.

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MARTHA THOMASES: Every Picture Tells a Story

MARTHA THOMASES: Every Picture Tells a Story

  • News
  • October 6, 2007

It’s great to have the comics on ComicMix now. I knew they were always planned to be part of the site, and so the site seemed to me to be a bit empty without them. Now the place seems to be filling in nicely, like a garden in mid-May.

Besides enjoying free comics from the comfort of my home, able to get them without even putting on pants, I find this format is great for my calling as a leading comics’ missionary.

Ever since I grew out of being a kid who loved comics, I’ve tried to encourage people to join my in my love of the medium. It wasn’t easy. When I was a teen at boarding school, there were a few other girls who like to read romance comics, and we would amuse our dorm-mates by reading them aloud. Unfortunately, it was the romance part that was most appealing to my peers (which was demonstrated when they also read True Confessions magazines out loud), and no one really wanted to read anything else.

In college, underground comix were cool, so I found people who shared my interest. These were heady days (in more ways than one), with all kinds of new stories from Robert Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Trina Robbins, Skip Williamson, Jay Lynch, Spain and many many more. The National Lampoon had comics pages in every issue, and people like Neal Adams did spot illustrations. My Superman habit was still considered kind of weird, but no weirder than anything else – certainly much less weird than Spiro Agnew.

And then, I moved to New York, and the world opened up. The direct market was a newborn, and there were six comic book stores within a mile of my apartment. Some specialized in undergrounds, some in superheroes, and some mixed it up. It was great. I could find anything I wanted.

Everything except people that I knew. My then-boyfriend (now husband) would come with me to Forbidden Planet, then the largest store near by. He didn’t like comics as much as I did, but he would look at the books about film and animation.

Competition and market forces closed down most of the direct market accounts in the Village. Forbidden Planet shrank. The stores that were left, quite naturally, sold the merchandise that was available. Since a lot of such product was T & A, the stores started to seem seedy and creepy. People who might be interested in comics didn’t want to go into a lot of these stores. Women, especially, were skeeved out by the impossible physiques of the women on the covers and in figurines. If I could talk them inside, they would want to get out as quickly as possible.

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MARTHA THOMASES: If I Could Talk to the Animals

MARTHA THOMASES: If I Could Talk to the Animals

  • News
  • September 29, 2007

Is there anything more wonderful than a super-pet?  A companion who can do anything you can do, and more.  When I was a kid, there was nothing I wanted more than a super-pet to call my own.

Actually, what I wanted was Krypto.  I lived in a relatively small Ohio town, with a backyard, and I really wanted a dog.  My parents decided I could have one for my tenth birthday, so throughout elementary school I daydreamed about what kind of dog I would get.  If I had Krypto, we could go for romps in space (not that I would have named “romp” as one of my favorite activities at the time, since no one I knew ever had one.  Still, they looked like fun in the comics).  We could play the greatest games of fetch ever.  Krypto could help me hide my toys from my sister.  Krypto could help me in my never-ending efforts to dig a hole to China.

On the other hand, there were leash laws in my neighborhood, and I wasn’t sure that I was strong enough to take Krypto for a walk.  And what did a Kryptonian dog eat?  In the comics, sometimes we’d see him with a massive bone from a dinosaur.  There weren’t a lot of those at Loblaws Supermarket.

Ace, the Bathound, was not as cool.  I couldn’t understand why Batman needed an animal companion.  I didn’t understand how Ace could communicate any information from clues he’d sniffed.  And I didn’t understand how the mask was a fool-proof disguise.

When Supergirl got Streaky, the supercat, I wasn’t as interested.  Streaky didn’t have much of a character.  No one I knew had a cat.  I didn’t understand what the big deal was about an animal that wouldn’t do tricks and wouldn’t play with you in the back yard.  It was only when I moved to college and lived in a dorm room that I understood feline appeal.  A cat may not fetch, but is a good study-mate, keeping to itself or purring in your lap while you got your work done.

Supergirl also had Comet, the super-horse.  The intent, I think, was to appeal to girls who are said to be especially drawn to horses for all kinds of psychosexual reasons.  I like horses okay, but not enough to clean out stalls or braid their tails.  Later, when it was revealed that Comet was sometimes a centaur and sometimes an enchanted man, it got too icky for me.  Still, a flying horse would be big fun.

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Fishhead, Fishhead

Fishhead, Fishhead

  • News
  • September 28, 2007

Terrors lurk in the American South and they burst through the screen in Fishhead, the new graphic series from artist Mark Evan Walker, writer Michael H. Price and Larry Shell, appearing on ComicMix.com every week starting Monday, October 8th.

Like a combination of All the Kings Men and Saw, Fishhead is adapted from the early work of classic early 20th century horror writer Irwin S. Cobb.  This is the story of a man born with a surprising resemblance to a catfish, and living in the Big Splayfoot Swamp during the Great Depression.  With his freakish appearance, he is the subject of much speculation.  Men fear him and fish seem defend him.  And, one day, he is picked up by a traveling circus and taken for display to the rest of the world. 

Michael H. Price is best known amongst the Gothic-terrors enthusiasts for his Forgotten Horrors series of movie-genre encyclopedias and, with frequent collaborator John Wooley, a chronic-to-acute Forgotten Horrors column in Fangoria magazine. Price’s outcroppings on the comics scene have included The Prowler and Spider series of the 1980s and ’90s, with Timothy Truman’s 4Winds Studios; the Carnival of Souls graphic novel (Midnight Marquee Press; 2006); and appearances in such anthology titles as Heavy Metal and The Big Book of Unexplained Phenomena. A long-running collaborative relationship with Robert Crumb has yielded several stage-play versions of R. Crumb Comix (1985–2006) and two original-cast record albums.   Price is Associate Editor of The Business Press, a board-room journal, founding President of the Fort Worth Film Festival, Inc., L.L.C., and a noted Texas musician.  His latest album is Waiting for Slusgot.  Michael also writes a weekly column for ComicMix.

Postmodern pulp-fiction artist Mark Evan Walker works as a commercial illustrator in the magazine, newspaper, and advertising fields; and as a theatrical set designer, muralist, editorial cartoonist, and storytelling author. A steady contributor to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Walker has illustrated more than seventy-five pulp-thriller stories. In the theatrical realm, he has designed and painted more than 400 stage productions and serves as a stage-setting mentor to some of the Southwest’s more prestigious college-preparatory schools. He and Mike Price have recently completed a short-story collection called What You See May Shock You, being prepped at Midnight Marquee Press of Baltimore. Walker and Price first worked together during 1998–99 on the Southern-Fried Homicide series of crime-and-horror comics from Cremo Studios and Larry Shell’s Shel-Tone Publications.

In Fishhhead, Price and Walker combine issues of race, class and economics with zombies and circus freaks. Kidnappings and crime involve slapstick humor, homicidal apes, moonshine and ancient, unspeakable curses, for a series that will have readers laughing through their goosebumps.

Here’s what they have to say about their latest graphic novel project.

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The Girl and Her Dinosaur

The Girl and Her Dinosaur

  • News
  • September 26, 2007

Coming this October to ComicMix –The Adventures of Simone & Ajax! This is the story of Simone, a fun-loving 20-year-old girl, and Ajax, her friend who happens to be a small, green dinosaur. Together they find themselves in a series of strange and wacky adventures, taking them to many different lands, times, and places. Simone is not so much the leader of the duo, but more the instigator, looking to have fun and often acting before she thinks, getting herself and Ajax into trouble and so into their adventures. She’s not dumb, just over-zealous. Ajax, the dinosaur, is the more sensible of the two. While deep down he loves adventure, too, he’d rather ponder and worry before leaping into the fray.

Simone & Ajax’s adventures take them around the world, and off it, as well as to any time or place, be it Atlantis, the Moon, Santa’s Workshop, Victorian England or the grocery store. Sometimes strange adventure comes to them at their home in the ruins of Rene de Chartre Cathedral. Their adventures are "a bit like the best issues of Cerebus, and a mood that harkens Bone" (Toph, Overstreet’s Fan #21). It’s a buddy strip, but all in all, The Adventures of Simone & Ajax is a fun and exciting comics series that will attract readers of all ages looking for exciting, zany adventure stories.

Creator Andrew Pepoy was born in 1969. After abandoning such worthless pursuits as becoming the President or an accountant, at age 10, he decided to draw comics. Soon after, he met the classic Buck Rogers artist, Rick Yager.

After many years of publishing fanzines, and while still attending Loyola University Chicago, Andrew sold my first professional work and was soon working for Marvel, DC, and other major comic book publishers on such characters as Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, The X-Men, Mutant X, Scooby Doo, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Simpsons, Betty & Veronica, Godzilla, Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and many more. Starting in 1995 I also wrote and drew my own comic book feature, The Adventures of Simone & Ajax.

In 2000, he was asked to redesign the Little Orphan Annie newspaper strip, which he drew for the next year. Andrew is currently working on various comic books, including writing and drawing a revival of Katy Keene for Archie Comics, and developing new ideas for comic books and comic strips.

Andrew lists his influences as “Roy Crane, Dan DeCarlo, Russell Keaton, Bob Lubbers, Matt Baker, Alex Raymond, Charles Schulz, Mark Schultz, Steve Ditko, Enoch Bolles, George Herriman, Henk Kuijpers, Francois Walthery, Wally Wood, Bob Oksner, Don Flowers, and so many more.”

You’ll find Andrew living in a condo with a turret on the north side of Chicago with his wife (and assistant), Chris Atkinson, and two odd cats.

Here’s what Andrew had to say about the upcoming stories.

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Thank God It’s Munden’s

Thank God It’s Munden’s

  • News
  • September 24, 2007

Lots of people think their neighborhood bar is a place where anything can happen. Well, at Munden’s Bar, anything can happen – and does, frequently. It’s located in Cynosure, the city that serves as the intersection for every dimension, real or unreal, magical, demonic, scientific, holy or a mixture of all. Munden’s is the kind of place where the regulars can include gladiators, gunslingers, wizards, aliens, dancing girls, and a watchlizard named Bob.

Munden’s was created as part of the award-winning GrimJack series by John Ostrander and developed in tandem with legendary director Del Close. Nearly every story was self contained. The main writers, early on, were Ostrander and the legendary Close who had been director and teacher at Chicago’s Second City Improv group for twenty years and worked with his students who graduated to Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show. Del was fascinated by the potential of comics and, together with Ostrander, devised some strange and wonderful stories.

Each weekly story (starting Fridays on ComicMix.com) will be drawn by a different artist, and will run the gauntlet from unsettling drama to broad satire to hilarious slapstick.

Now we’re bringing it back. Del is no longer available, having died a few years back (he willed his skull to the Goodman Theater and, supposedly, there it rests although there has been some questioning of late as to whether or not it is actually Del’s skull). Our first story, however, is a tribute to Del and will be drawn by legendary Chicago underground artist, Skip Williamson. It involves the skull of the great sorcerer, the Amazing Del, that is sitting on the Bar as part of its latest farewell tour. The visit, however, is interrupted by the Reality Police who find the Bar in violation of several laws of reality (as defined by the Reality Police) and try to arrest the skull as well for not actually being the skull of the Amazing Del. Mayhem. . . and comedy. . .ensues.

So pull up a stool while we ask John Ostrander about what’s going on at Munden’s.

JO: We’re doing new Munden’s Bar stories – eight page short stories set in the bar that GrimJack calls home. Stories originally showed up in the back of the book and we had a great compilation of guest writers and artists, including the immortal Del Close who, at the time, was the director and teacher at Chicago’s famed Second City and had been guru to a great many comic minds in the latter part of the last century. The new set of stories will be just as wild, strange, and funny. I seem to recall that a newbie named Martha Thomases is doing one. I’m really looking forward to hers.

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MARTHA THOMASES: Hungry Heart

MARTHA THOMASES: Hungry Heart

  • News
  • September 22, 2007

Before he started to host The Daily Show, I saw Jon Stewart do his monologue on one of those charity benefits organized by Denis Leary. Comparing Yom Kippur to Lent and, therefore, Jews to Catholics, Stewart said, “You give up something for 40 days. We go one day without eating. Even in sin, you pay retail.”

When this is posted, I’ll be fasting. It’s true that, as a Jew, a woman and a New Yorker, I appreciate a bargain. However, that’s not why I don’t eat. It’s also true that going without a few meals is nothing new to me, being the compulsive bad dieter that I am. Most Saturdays, I eat a piece of fruit for breakfast and then, because I have a zillion chores, nothing else until dinner. So, this Saturday, I won’t have my morning apple. It’s not a big sacrifice.

The sacrifice is forgoing the errands. On Saturdays, I go to the Union Square Green Market. In the fall, it’s a riot of color and smells, with fresh herbs, heirloom tomatoes, summer and winter squash, and dozens of different apples, pears, peaches and pumpkins. For this city girl, it’s a reminder of the natural world, with its cycles of life and death, fertility and harvest. Going to the Green Market is a way for me to forgo the usual cerebral products with which I clutter my day, and to be a mom and a wife, caring for my family and being a part of my community. Plus, I get to talk to farmers, which is a rare and glamorous thing to do in Manhattan.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the culmination of the Days of Awe. I should have spent this time examining my behavior, accepting responsibility for my mistakes, and doing my best to fix them. Instead, I’m thinking about what I’ll be missing for one day. This is something I should fix. Ah, the circle of life.

There are many Jews who are fine people who don’t, for one reason or another, fast on Yom Kippur. There have been years when I haven’t fasted, when I went to work and ignored the holiday. I was in my twenties, determined to recreate myself as an individual separate from my family. For the last two decades, however, I’ve gone to services and enjoyed them. I enjoy them. It feels good to say the prayers on the same cycle every year, as my ancestors did. It’s funny to listen to the stomach grumblings of the people around me, the contrast between our spiritual and biological impulses.

Fasting is supposed to give your body a chance to detoxify, to eliminate the crud we accumulate in our regular lives. Fasting for one day probably doesn’t get rid of many toxins, but it allows me to clear my head, to consider how lucky I am to be able to go without food by choice, instead of being forced to starve by circumstances. Saying ritual prayers and fasting separates me from the mundane, and lets me see life as a glorious blessing.

When I walk out the synagogue doors, the air is usually clean and clear, and Central Park is bathed in sunlight. When the sun sets, and I dip my apple slice into honey, it can sometimes be so unbearably sweet that it makes my cheeks hurt. I’m so grateful to be alive that I know this year will be worthwhile.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess of all things ComicMix, promises to write about comics next week.

Skating on Black Ice

Skating on Black Ice

  • News
  • September 21, 2007

Neil Kofsky bets his buddies he can jump his motorcycle over a pile of bikes behind a bar. He clips the last cycle in the bunch, and has to escape from its owner through the alleys. He tries to hide in a coal chute when the bottom vanishes and he finds himself falling onto a floating man of war 15,000 feet in the air.

This is no ordinary floating boat. It’s battling fighter planes.

All this happens in the first three pages of Black Ice, the new graphic novel from the legendary Mike Baron and Nick Runge, a new artist whose first work was Mike Baron’s Detonator (October 2005).

Mike Baron has been one of the most innovative and honored creators in comics since he broke into the field with Nexus fifteen years ago with artist Steve Rude.

Mike has written numerous mainstream comics, including Marvel’s The Punisher and DC’s The Flash and Deadman. He is also the co-creator of Badger, Feud, Spyke and a number of other renowned titles.

He has been nominated for Best Writer in the Kirby, Harvey and Eisner Awards numerous times, and has won several Eisners for his work on Nexus. In his spare time, he writes novels, short stories and screenplays, works out, and rides his motorcycle through the countryside.

Nick Runge is 22 years old. His parents are both artists – his father teaching painting, drawing and design at a local college, and his mother is a graphic designer. He was studying art in Fort Collins, CO in 2004, when he met Baron, who saw Runge’s paintings in a gallery. His other work includes inking Gene Simmons’ House of Horrors for IDW and Fear Agent for Image. He’s also penciling and inking the covers for IDW’s new Badger mini-series.

Here’s what the boys have to say about their new project.

CM: Tell us about Black Ice.

MB: Black Ice is a heroic fantasy about an American teen who falls through a wormhole into an alternate universe. Two civilizations are at war: the sky-dwelling Luftar, and the militaristic Helmut. Young Neil finds himself in the middle of the fight, attracted to the captain’s daughter, and forced to fight to the death against a jealous prince. And that’s just the first issue. The series is really about how alien technology (Neil’s) affects civilization. It’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court for the space age.

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MariFran O’Neil On The Mend

MariFran O’Neil On The Mend

  • News
  • September 20, 2007

MariFran O’Neil, wife of columnist, comics sensei, and dear friend Denny O’Neill, is recovering from a stroke she suffered late last week.  She’s out of the hospital, in a rehabilitation facility, and we have no doubt that she’ll be out and teaching her students very soon.

ComicMix sends best wishes for a speedy recovery.

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