Author: Michael Davis

Michael Davis: The Fanboy Guide to Girls • Part 2

  • News
  • October 12, 2007

527_4_0022-6169816Welcome to the first Fanboy Guide To Girls Dating Review And Quiz! Judging from the comments and dirty looks I’ve been getting since last week’s column I see that there is a need for this type of high quality help for many of our Fanboy Nation!

Fanboy Nation trademark and copyright Michael Davis. You never know when something will catch on!

So, young Fanboy, you have your sights set on a young lady. She’s cute and you are trying to work up the nerve ask her out. Great! So here is a step-by-step guide to get her to say YES and begin your loving relationship…with a girl!

Step 1: Say hello to the lady in question and after she says hello to you… leave! That’s right, just give a taste of your coolness and walk away. Chicks dig a man of mystery!

Step 2: A day or so later walk up to her again, look her in the eyes and say,  “I would like to have lunch with you.” Don’t forget to smile – unless you have gold teeth like those idiot rappers. When she says yes, you tell her where to meet you and walk away. If she says no, you calmly look at her and say “Oh I’m sorry I wasn’t talking to you.”

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MICHAEL DAVIS: The Fanboy Guide to Girls • Part 1

  • News
  • October 5, 2007

m-davis-9259250Wow, the site looks great! I really like those drawing of the columnists that…oh, they’re not there. Well I’m sure if there was an issue, the artist (who knocked himself out taking time out of his VERY busy schedule to draw them, sorry I mean the award winning artist who wrote the curriculum for the Museum of Modern Art’s art school) would have been told before he looked at the site and saw they were not there.

I’m sure of that.

Sorry. As Peter David would say, I digress. This column is about girls!

Girls, Girls, Girls!

When it comes to girls we comic book, movie, TV, video game and toy fans have been labeled geeks, nerds, losers, and fanboys – to name a choice few. In most popular culture fair we are often portrayed as the hapless idiot who has no idea how to talk to girls.

Sadly, this is true.

We are those geeks, nerds, losers, and fanboys that people think we are. Well, I’m not, I picked up girls like they were lint and I was a dust buster. You know why? Because I’m FUNNY! Look, you may not think I’m funny, but I am funny! How do I know that I’m funny? Because I’m paid to be funny!

I have written funny TV shows, funny comics, and funny columns. So if someone writes YOU a check for being thin even if strangers come up to you on the street and scream “Have you called Jenny yet?” then you are thin.

And even if nobody wrote me a check, I would still be funny!  Not in a Brokeback way, but in a ha ha kind of way.

See? That was funny!

Not as funny as not telling the artist who broke his back working with horrible photos to help develop a new look for a website and not telling him that there was an issue (the same artist who has a building named after him at a magnet school of the arts) no, not, that funny. But it was funny!

A sense of humor is sooo important with chicks! The problem with some of us (read: YOU) is that what you think is funny requires background information for it to be funny.

Consider this, that girl you are talking to (trying to talk to) may not get that Halo 3 joke you just told her. That blank stare you are getting is a good indication that she does not get the joke or get you.  It’s possible that the young lady doesn’t have Halo 3. It’s possible (sit down this may floor you) it’s possible they may have never heard of Halo 3.

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MICHAEL DAVIS: All My Children…Suck

  • News
  • September 28, 2007

allmychildrenpic-1497654I know, I know, no fanboy out there in the land of Heroes, Star Wars, Star Trek and the like even watches soaps on daytime television.

Sure you don’t.

Well I do and I have done so for over 20 years. That among other reasons is why I, fanboy, have a lovely Asian goddess in my life while you identify at 30 with the kids from Superbad.

So make fun of me all you want, I don’t have to visit the “Love You Long Time” website to get my kicks. Part of that is because I watch soaps and I am sensitive.

Yes, sensitive.

I know that mostly women watch soaps but I have learned a great deal about women from watching soaps. What have I learned? Well that’s another column which I’m writing (called The Fanboy Guide To Girls) but I will give you one example of what I have learned about women from watching soaps. If you are on the phone they will pick up the extension and listen…guaranteed.

The one and only soap I watch is All My Children. I LOVE THAT SHOW!

Or I did…

What follows is an open letter to the head of ABC Daytime or the Executive Producer of All My Children who ever is responsible for turning the best show on TV into the reason I am thinking about joining a cult. For all you readers who don’t watch the show (sure you don’t) I will try and explain some of the goings on by way of AMC facts*

Dear Sir/Madam or Satan,

I am a black man born and raised in the mean streets and housing projects of New York City. I have seen people shot, been shot at, been beat up, robbed etc. In fact just about any thing your writers can come up with on the show that happened to Jessie (You remember Jessie don’t you? No? Well Jessie was that black street kid that Jackson Montgomery adopted who simply disappeared from the show.) Well, I’m the real life Jessie.

I have been watching All My Children for over 20 years. I have been a fan for that long. I own All My Children trading cards, Erica Kane Barbie dolls, and hard cover books on the series. Let me tell you something, when you are a 6’2” black man with a Erica Kane Barbie on your mantel, that’s a fan. No matter what happened to me during my day on the street I could always look forward to coming home grabbing a Cherry Coke and losing myself in the lives and loves of the citizens of Pine Valley.

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MICHAEL DAVIS: The Big Payback

  • News
  • September 21, 2007

michael-davis-100-9283354AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGG!!!

I had another S-No-C all ready to go when O.J. Simpson gets arrested! Damn, damn da-damn damn. As long time readers will know I have evoked O.J.’s name in the past so it’s falls on me to comment on these recent events. As I did when Paris Hilton was arrested. I was on her ass (figure of speech) long before her arrest so when she was arrested I had to comment.

How do I come to write about events and people before they become even more news worthy? Because I Michael Davis am really M.O.T.U. Master Of The Universe! Not to be confused with He-Man Master of The Universe, no I am M.O.T.U. Master Of the Universe and I have been calling myself that for well over 10 years, as my business cards and money clips proudly display. Ask anyone who knows me that’s been my line for a long long time. However over the last week or so I have gotten many calls saying that Jeremy Pivin on the television show Entourage called himself that on a recent episode. Just so we are clear, if you ever hear anyone say, ‘Hey, there goes The Master Of The Universe.’ They are referring to (wait for it) …me.

Sorry, as my friend Peter David says, I digress. Back to the idiot at hand. For those of you living under a rock or living in Atlanta, O.J. (which stands for original jerk) Simpson was arrested over the weekend for – get this-armed robbery, kidnapping and a host of other charges.

And he was arrested in Las Vegas, of all places! What a lot of you may not know is that Vegas has a less than stellar racial past. Oh you may know the glamour side of Vegas, but let me clue you in, Vegas is not the place you want to be arrested if you are black. When black people say ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ We are talking about bodies.

So, now Mr. Simpson is facing life in prison because of his stupid, STUPID actions in, of all places, Sin City.

You can’t make this stuff up.

When I say stupid, I do mean stupid – as in dim, thick, dense, slow, brainless, din-witted, obtuse, just plain stupid. How did this guy think he could walk into someone’s hotel room with a bunch of guys (some with guns) and rob them? Yes, he says it was his stuff. Yes, it looks like he was set up. Yes, there is a lot more to this than meets the eye.

But no one cares. This is the Big Payback.

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MICHAEL DAVIS: The Real World

  • News
  • September 14, 2007

michael-davis-100-1317750I am lucky enough to know some pretty influential people in the entertainment world. When I say “influential” I mean people who have positions where they can “green light” work. They can give the “yes” to make your idea a reality or hire you to work on an existing project.

I have been fortunate in my career to “green light” some things. I have tried to give as many talented people as I can opportunities to take their ideas or talent to the next level.

We all know that the comic book community is responsible for some of the greatest creative endeavors in the history of the world. That’s right, I’ll say it again, the comic book community is responsible for some of the greatest creative endeavors in the history of the world… of the world.

I am very proud to have contributed in a small part to the industry and even prouder that my mentor program has produced some amazing talent.

But…

What burns me is the lack of foresight and professionalism by some of the best in the industry and what really burns me is the new guard coming up who have this terrible work ethic. One glaring example of that work ethic: lateness in the comic book industry has become a standard practice.

Blowing deadlines has been a staple of comic book business for decades. I have blown a few myself. When I did ETC for Piranha Press DC’s ‘mature reader” imprint (way back when DC liked me) I was so excited that I got that gig that I was determined to do the best work ever! ETC was a five issue 52-page (per book) mini-series that was to be the first thing out from Piranha. You would think in all my excitement I would have taken it a bit more serious.

I thought I did take it serious. I thought. I was wrong. I was stupid.

I spent way too much time doing “research” and such. So after two months I had no finished pages. Oh, I had done something on all 52 pages. But with a week left on my deadline, I had NO finished pages.

I hated the way that book turned out. The funny thing about ETC is it was almost universally hated… except in France. I’m not kidding. I still get fan mail from France on that book.

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MICHAEL DAVIS: Reading is Fundamental

  • News
  • September 7, 2007

rif-1245405My friend Tony Isabella has mentioned that I give a good rant, Tony; this is about to be the rant to beat all rants!

I am soooooo pissed. I had two columns ALREADY written so I could get ahead on my ComicMix deadlines. I have a great deal of work to do with my comic book line, a new project called The Adjuster (you will hear about that soon enough) and The Underground from Dark Horse, so I wanted a few S-No-C’s in the can so I could deal with those projects but then…

LAST SATURDAY I WATCHED THE TV SHOW CNN’S NEWSROOM!

I have no idea why they call this show CNN’S Newsroom. News is supposed to be reported fairly. This show was SO biased that it reminded me of the McCarthy witchhunts of the 50s.

The host of any news show should be impartial. The host of this show was about as impartial as a Jewish mother who has the choice between saving her child or Hitler from falling off a cliff.

The show focused on Black Entertainment Television’s (BET) hard-hitting satirical video Read A Book that asks the viewer to (wait for it) read a book. The key word in all of this is satirical, as in satire.

The creators of the video were on the show but were never given a chance to complete a thought. The host kept cutting them off. He would ask them a question and not let them answer. That’s real journalism right? They should change the name of the show from CNN’S Newsroom to Shut up while the host talks.

The “panel” consisted of concerned parents. In another journalistic milestone, there were NO parents on the opposing side. All the parents on the show hated the video. I told Reggie Hudlin when he first showed me Read A Book some months ago that some people would have a issue with this. I said some people.

Little did I know that the chorus CNN choose to sing would only include parents that hated the video? How fair is that? Let’s see, let’s have a new show debating the war in Iraq. Our panel will be George Bush, Dick Cheney and… that’s it! All you will need for CNN’S Newsroom.

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MICHAEL DAVIS: That’s Just Wrong

  • News
  • August 31, 2007

michael-davis-100-6337867For the last two weeks my articles have been light hearted and funny. Well I thought they were funny. I think I’m a funny guy (not in a brokeback way) but in a kind of “That Michael Davis is a funny guy” in a ha-ha kind of way.

Now there are plenty of people who think I’m not funny. That’s fine. There are people who think I’m an idiot. That’s fine. There are even some people who think I’m a genius. That’s fine. In fact that’s my favorite assessment of me.

Notice a trend here? If you don’t think I’m funny, if you don’t like my column, heck if you don’t like or agree with me, that’s just fine.

From day one of this column I have been right up front on where I stand. Actually it has been a staple of my writing. For those who may be new to this site and my column here’s a very small snapshot of some of what I am about.

I am a liberal Democrat, except when it comes to violent crime. In fact if it was up to me I think violent criminals should be put to death during half time at the Super Bowl. So it’s fair to say that I am a conservative when it comes to crime. I think people should be able to worship whoever or whatever they want. I think that people who treat their dogs like members of the family are nuts. I think DC comics are the best in the industry. I don’t think people should insist you believe what they believe. I love hip hop, I hate bluegrass. I think the Beatles are the greatest band in the history of popular music. I think Michael Jackson is the greatest performer ever. I love Frank Sinatra. I hate the TV shows Real World and Sweet 16. I love the TV shows All My Children and Family Guy. I think George Bush is the worst President in the history of America. Lastly, I firmly believe that you CANNOT regulate morality.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg on what I believe. You may agree or not. In fact if you don’t agree with anything I said and think I’m an asshole, that’s fine to.

But I’m not wrong.

On the flip side I don’t believe that you should be able to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, smoke cigarettes, climb a mountain, jump out an airplane, hunt deer, eat raw fish. I don’t believe that dogs should see therapists, that Paris Hilton is sexy, that NASCAR is a sport. If you believe any of that then more power to you my friend.

I think some of those things I don’t believe are just stupid. As an example, I think riding a motorcycle without a helmet is your suicide waiting to happen. I ride a motorcycle and I won’t even look at it without my helmet. In fact in over 10 years of ownership I have never been on a highway.

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MICHAEL DAVIS: It’s a real mad mad mad world part 2

  • News
  • August 24, 2007

michael-davis100-2162058Last week my article started with what I see is an obvious trend among comic book companies. That trend was the ‘mad angry look” that many comic book superheroes spout when they are looking out from a cover or poster. While writing the piece I came upon an idea to create some “Happy Heroes.”

So I created a super group called Happy Heroes! (Happy Heroes tm & copyright Michael Davis 2007 any unauthorized use will result in a harsh letter from the firm of Starve And Die, Attorneys-at-Law.)

When last we left the Happy Heroes, The Grin, Smiley and Gay-Man were being attacked. By the way that’s Gay as in:

1.    Full of light-heartedness and merriment

2.    Brightly colored

3.    Having or showing a carefree spirit

4.    Gives great dinner parties

As I was saying, when last we left the Happy Heroes The Grin, Smiley and Gay-Man were being attacked by their archenemy Dark Comedy. He had already blasted The Grin in the chest and had turned his attention and ray gun to Smiley. Gay-Man was hiding…eh, I mean seeking refuge in a closet so he could plan his next move.  

Page 4.

Panel 1.

Dark Comedy is now pointing his weapon at Smiley. Smiley is looking around for Gay-Man and by Gay I mean:

1.    Full of light-heartedness and merriment

2.    Brightly colored

3.    Having or showing a carefree spirit

4.    Likes Dick…Tracy

Dark Comedy: Where’s Gay-Man?

Smiley: I’ll never tell.

Panel 2.

Dark Comedy shoots Smiley in the kneecap.

Smiley: AHHHHHHHHHGGGG! GAY-MAN IS IN THE CLOSET!!!

Panel 3.

Dark Comedy is standing above Smiley who is rolling around on the floor holding his knee.

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MICHAEL DAVIS: It’s a real mad mad mad world part 1

  • News
  • August 17, 2007

michael-davis100-4885353What is up with heroes today? I just got back from Wizard World Chicago and as I was walking around the con I took notice of the posters, billboards and other comic company signage. What I observed with little exception is the look on the heroes faces… they all looked mad. I mean they looked pissed.

I ask again, what is up with heroes today?

Do all the comic companies have a template for posters? Stop me if you’re seen this: the hero or heroes are standing with a smoke filled background or battlefield usually the background is an orange or red hue. They stand with this look of utter anger. They all look like the first words they would say to you upon meeting you at a funeral is I will kick your ass!

I remember when Superman would… smile. Wow, what a concept a hero who stands for truth, justice and the American way smiling once in a while. I remember when Superman was a role model and he would stand there with his hands on his hips legs firmly planted on the ground looking out at the reader with a HUGE smile on his face.

Heck, I remember when Bat-Man would smile from time to time. I saw a poster at the DC booth with Wonder Woman looking out at the viewer with that “mad look.” From what she looked like on that poster I am now sure that even comic book characters suffer from PMS.

Hey, I’m sure that there are posters and characters out there that smile or project a more positive attitude. I just don’t see them. Now Marvel and DC know their audience but there seems to me to be an effort out there to make everybody “hard,” as the rappers say. This look is not new to the comic world. In fact it’s ripped off completely from Hip-Hop.

When’s the last time anybody ever saw a rapper smile on an album cover? The “Hard” look is everywhere. Look at high fashion models and that stupid look… football players… baseball players… heck, now opera singers stare out from their posters looking like Biggie Smalls.

As I said before Marvel and DC know their audience and they are the market leaders, so this is what the public must want.

But (as you knew there would be) …

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MICHAEL DAVIS: You’ll never work in this town again

  • News
  • August 10, 2007
sexist-disney-rejection01-2084722
 
What you see posted above instead of my picture is an actual Walt Disney Company rejection letter from 1938. When I found this on line I freaked the heck out. I mean look at it! It says, in affect, “Look here, bitch you can’t work here because you’re a girl!”

Before you start marching on Disney, remember this was a vastly different time in America. It’s fair to say that me writing that I dated white women would have been just cause for me to fear for my life in 1938 in some parts of America. We have sure come a long way!

Or… (Place ominous music here) have we?

There are still people in this country who think that women and other minorities are not equal.

It’s the year 2007 and the ERA has not been pasted. The Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, is still not part of the U.S. Constitution.

What is up with that?

It’s the year 2007 and there are only 35 states that say that women are equal. So how far have we come?  I know from experience that there still exists racism in this country. Statistics prove that sexism still exists. The “glass ceiling” is a frequent topic for documentaries and ‘special reports’ on news programs.

This Disney letter got me wondering if sexism and racism are real factors in the entertainment world. I have been on hundreds of TV pitches and never felt it was a factor. I, like a lot of black people have a sort of radar sense when it comes to discrimination.

No, I am not the sort of person (but I do know black people like this) who blame everything on being black. Have you heard any of these? They did not hire me because I’m Black. They won’t rent to me because I’m Black. They think I’m darker than them because I’m Black.

Now replace “black” with “woman” and tell me have you heard these? They did not hire me because I’m a woman. They won’t promote me because I’m a woman. They think I’m female because I’m a woman.

I used to think that some deals of mine were killed because I was black. I realized that it was not because I was black, it was because some people in positions of power did not like me.

 

sexist-disney-rejection02-2007809

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