According to the Greenwich Connecticut Time, a local resident in the mega-wealthy community is spending two million dollars to build himself a home theater.
Yeah, I know. Big deal. Well… this home theater is built in the form of the Batcave. Or, given the multitude of visions over the years, a Batcave. The 12,000-square-foot private home will include a Batcomputer, Batmobile, Batsuits, a 180° screen, a deafening sound system, gargoyles and an Bat-elevator, eliminating the need to hit the switch mid-way down the Batpoles. With luck, the whole thing should be done by Thanksgiving.
The company that’s doing the build-out, Canada’s Elite Home Theater Seating, says they’ve done this once before, so the Connecticut Batcave isn’t exactly original. Hey, what do you expect for two million bucks? There’s no word if there will be a dinosaur and an even bigger giant penny in the “cave.”
The property owner is maintaining his anonymity. I wonder why.
Here’s a sucky way to spend one’s birthday: voiceless with a serious summer head cold. Bitch, bitch; moan, moan. Okay, I had a great day-before-my-birthday in Manhattan lunching with Danny Fingeroth and dinnering with fellow ComicMixer Martha Thomases. Nine hours of fantastic conversation in the best thing in life with your clothes on.
Sadly, as the overly-breaded but otherwise tasty General Tzu’s was being presented to me at our Greenwich Village dungeon of culinary delight, I was starting to sound like a frog in a blender. By the time I was on the subway back to Grand Central Terminal, I was grateful somebody bothered to invent texting. The gifted Miss Adriane picked me up and dragged me home. That was birthday-eve.
On birthday day, we first had to ransom my car back from the shop – I can’t complain; 100,000 miles on one battery is pretty damn good and I guess you really do need functioning breaks. After a quick stop at Walgreens to clean them out of toxic chemicals and chocolate Twizzlers, we returned home. As Miss Adriane procured the prerequisite chicken soup, I retired to celebrate the anniversary of my mother’s major inconvenience in a time-honored way: I picked up my stack of comic books (e-comics; I’m nothing if not hip and trendy in my dotage) and commenced to read.
As luck would have it, there wasn’t a winner in the bunch. Only one or two sucked; the rest were poignantly mediocre. This is not to say that I hadn’t read some worthy stuff while on the train to Manhattan – I consumed all the good stuff as a matter of fate and ill-planning. But you’d think that out of a dozen or so hand-picked titles, there’d be at least one that reaffirmed my fannish enthusiasm. Let us remember: I was under the weather, and my cockles needed to be warmed.
There were three New 52 titles in the electronic pile. All 12th issues. None motivated me to pick up the 13th, two months hence. There are a number of New 52ers I really enjoy: Batgirl, Batwoman, All-Star Western, and everything with the words “written by James Robinson” on the credits page. These weren’t them. The most enjoyable of the DC books was, oddly, the only Before Watchman mini I’m reading: Night Owl, and that’s because I’d read prescription warning labels if Joe Kubert drew them. Reading Kubert, for me, is a lot like drinking chicken soup. You might have to be Ashkenazi to fully grok that.
The Marvel titles were okay; slightly better in that none chased me away. But, damn, why is it that each and every good Marvel “event” series has four times as many issues as necessary? Okay, we know the answer to that one. Still, the Avengers Vs. X-Men series was established to put Marvel on a somewhat different course for a while and it’s doing its job. It’s not a reboot, it’s just your standard dramatic shuffling of the Marvel deck. But it should have been over by now.
The so-called indies were all over the map as they are supposed to be, so my luck of the draw was simply a bad hand. No, not bad. Just mediocre. Too many unnecessary middle-issues in overly long story arcs. I regret the day publishers decided to put six solid pages of story in each 24-page issue, and I look forward to our next GrimJack series to once again prove you can actually put 28 pages of story into a 24-page issue… without being Stan Freberg, and, yes, that was just to see if Mark Evanier’s paying attention.
Okay, all that sucked. On the other side of the scale, I got more than 200 emails and Facebook shout-outs from friends old and new. That’s great anytime, but after a speechless day of aches and not-breathing and a dozen mediocre comics, all that made be feel on top of the world. And not in the Cody Jarrett sense, either. To one and all, my deepest thanks.
Daughter Adriane and I finished the day watching Paul, a genuinely funny and essentially heartwarming movie written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I’m a sucker for anything with Jane Lynch that doesn’t involve high schoolers spontaneously combusting into song, and Pegg and Frost have never disappointed me.
Moral of the story: when you’re feeling low, reach for something positive and funny. Tomorrow is… another day.
Thursday: Dennis O’Neil… Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing?
It was 1978, and the electric current going through DC Comics’ offices could have lit Times Square. Vice-President and Production Director Jack Adler was strutting around like a proud papa. For the first time in what seemed like a millennium, Marie Severin was paying a visit.
If you were from outside the donut shop, you’d think the President was in the house. Work came to a complete stop. Everybody swarmed to the production department to meet, or to see once again, the famed artist and gifted humorist. That she toiled for the company’s competition and yet received this reception is an acknowledgement of her talent and abilities.
The masterful colorist of the legendary EC Comics line, Marie worked at Marvel Comics for decades as an art director, a penciler and an inker. Her credits read like a Who’s Who at the House of Ideas: Doctor Strange, the Incredible Hulk, Sub-Mariner, and Robert E. Howard’s Kull the Conqueror. That’s quite a range, but she was best known for her satirical work in Marvel’s underrated Not Brand Echh, a book worthy of Masterwork edition if there ever was one.
She was even better known within the industry for her sense of humor. I have never met a person who wasn’t a fan of her work – and a fan of hers, personally.
174 pages of analysis, history, interviews, photographs and about a zillion examples of her work, including a healthy amount of unpublished work – much of it in-house stuff reflecting her breathtaking sense of humor. Tributes abound: Marvel and EC honchos Stan Lee and Al Feldstein, Jack Davis, John Romita, Mark Evanier, Tony Isabella, Roy Thomas and maybe a dozen more folks, all fronted by a foreword from ComicMix columnist and comics luminary Denny O’Neil.
Marie has been one of the most important and most creative people in the history of this medium. Marie Severin: The Mirthful Mistress of Comics tells you why. If you’re already a fan of hers, you either have this book or it’s on your short list. If you’re not all that familiar with her legacy, you need this book.
On the left, the cover to Marvel Comics’ Captain Marvel #3, drawn by the gifted Ed McGuinness, out on sale in several weeks. If the first issue is any indication, it’s worth reading.
On the right, the cover to Fawcett Comics’ Master Comics #105, cover-dated July 1949 featuring Captain Marvel Jr., drawn by the legendary Kurt Schaffenberger .
You might think I’m going to jump up and down screaming “Rip-off! Rip-off!” Well, what do you think this is, The Comics Journal? No, McGuinness is an honorable man (well, to the best of my understanding; I haven’t checked to see if he has an arrest record or anything) and, clearly, it’s the modern Captain Marvel nodding to the classic Captain Marvel – in each case, one of the many – and we have ever right to infer this is a tribute. A common, and noble, practice in comics. This ain’t Roy Lichtenstein trading off of other people’s work.
But it does deserve kudos (not the granola bar; get a dictionary). Ed reached back 63 years to what, in my mind, is a classic cover of the late golden age. This is no small feat, as Kurt (who I knew and worked with in the 1980s) followed in the wake of the artist most associated with Captain Marvel Jr., the astonishingly talented Mac Raboy .
So I wanted to bring this to your attention. Usually, when artists want to reflect back on previously published work, they go for the cover to Fantastic Four #1 or Amazing Fantasy #15. In fact, there’s a slew of such covers and, from time to time, I’ll be reflecting awkwardly upon them. Until then, let’s hear it for Ed McGuinness who reminds us of two legendary characters: Captain Marvel Jr., and Kurt Schaffenberger.
It was an interesting party. Held in a Mason lodge, I got to hang out with The Point’s Mike Raub, former ComicMix columnist and book writer and moviemaker Ric Meyers, and Adriane Nash, the one woman condemned to be both a ComicMixer and an employee of arrogantMGMS. And a whole bunch of old friends, about 72 of which used to be in the comic book retail business.
It’s not that I would be friendless if not for the comics racket. Since I spend a healthy amount of time in politics, social services, broadcasting and more dubious endeavors, I know a few folks who couldn’t tell the several dozen current Spider-Men apart – and politely couldn’t care less. They humor me nonetheless.
But it is safe to say most of my enduring friendships are comics-related. I’ve known Mr. Raub for, damn, three-dozen years. Glenn Hauman and I met when he was a “small” child hiding in DC’s darkroom, back when the Earth was still cooling. John Ostrander and I have been buddies since before Watergate; we met through Chicago theater connections and were both herded into a corner at a party in those ancient days because, as comics fans, we “had something to talk about.” Ah, those days when geeks were treated like… geeks.
The list goes on and on. I’ve had the privilege and honor to work with my friends and that has worked out wonderfully more than 99% of the time. There are maybe only two or three people I regret working with – I’ve mended fences with others; creative egos are a mixed blessing and I’ve got one that’s louder than a Sousa march. There’s only one person in comics I actually wish to murder; I’ve spent less time and energy in broadcasting and that list is both longer and older.
So this comics donut shop, to paraphrase Chico Escuela, has been berra berra good… to me.
I’m all backward-looking because this Saturday is my birthday – I turn real, real old; I mean, Mel Brooks old – and seeing all these old friends in one room was a heady event.
Despite its massive expansion (says the man who refers to the San Diego convention as the “black hole of media shows”) and the generational differences and the public’s near-acceptance of geekdom, there remains a closeness in the comics community that, to my experience, is unparalleled elsewhere. Even people who truly hate each other are on a first name basis.
I highly recommend it. This is one hell of a donut shop.
You’d think with the Olympics going on and all that sloppy security Mitt Romney told us about, the authorities would have more important work to do than to count the number of penises (peni?) Howard Chaykin can squeeze into a single comic book. But – obviously, since I’m writing this – you’d be wrong.
I got an email from a British comics shop owning friend of mine, subsequently confirmed by our pal Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool, that Chaykin’s Black Kiss II #1 was the only title missing in his shipment from Image Comics. Knowing I have a long-standing friendship with the writer/artist (and, ahem, edited his American Flagg! and Blackhawk), he thought I’d be amused.
He’s right about that. Howard’s pushing 62 – not quite as hard as I am – and he’s still raising a ruckus. He’s more than my friend. He’s my hero of the week.
With the Olympics in town, perhaps the Brits are simply wallowing in testosterone and can’t handle Chaykin’s multitude of peni. Perhaps they can’t tell the difference between Black Kiss and Beano. Or maybe they’re simply very insecure.
Howard’s response to me was “And I can only hope Canada is next!”
Black Kiss II #1 goes on sale tomorrow at the more sophisticated comics shops across the nation.
We don’t want to think we’re all just one brain-vein rupture away from committing murder, but most of us know in our heart of hearts this is so. To avoid that horrible prospect, every time something like the Dark Knight slayings happens we try to pin the blame on … something … somebody.
Attention-hungry quack shrinks who have never met the accused killer in Aurora Colorado let alone examined him or even studied his still-unfolding life history run to the nearest media outlet to promote themselves and their baseless theories – baseless because they don’t know the suspect or his story. And the media, like greedy whores in their own gravity-free reality show, lap it up and put it all in print and on the air as though there’s actually some legitimacy in these pontifications.
Liberals clamor for gun control, nonsensically posturing that if there were no guns there would be no killings. This is like blaming water for drowning. Mr. Holmes – and I note the American Way caveat of innocent until proven guilty – seems to have been resourceful enough to come up with alternatives, as the 24-hour stand-off at his booby trapped apartment clearly illustrates. Sure, citizens need assault weapons only slightly more than we need personal tactical nuclear weapons, but it doesn’t take a PhD in science to make a weapon of mass destruction. 20 minutes alone at a Home Depot should do it.
Modern conservatives say if everybody were armed, the shooter would have been put down early. Right. In a dark theater. Many of these same people put down Scientology or Mormonism because they think that stuff is wacky.
Some media, in their insatiable need for gaudy art, blame the comics – in particular Frank Miller’s best-selling Batman work. At least this gets Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan off the hook for creating a villain with a name that sounds just like the Republican presidential candidate’s Achilles’ heel. Of course, there have been about a million Batman stories published 73 years and you could find hundreds of similarities within the greater Bat grimoire. In fact, the whole Joker-gassing-the-public bit dates back to the earliest stories. I can’t forgive Frank for The Spirit, but people who are trying to conflate the Colorado shootings with his work are lazy slobs.
The fact is, James Holmes is a smart, highly accomplished young man of 24 from a church-going family in San Diego, California, the nicest city in the nation. That’s reality. Some cheap-shot artists are braying “somebody should have said something!” Well, his high school friends said he was pretty normal. His colleges acquaintances said he pretty much kept to himself, although there are reports he would frequent bars and other public places and engage in rational conversation, even up to a few days before the killings. I don’t think Philip K. Dick could have seen this one coming.
Again, reminding us all that he is merely the suspect and hasn’t been convicted of anything, Holmes appears to have simply snapped. Perhaps this happened a couple months ago when he started the process of dropping out of his post-grad programs. It would have taken him that long to put together the guns, the ammo, the hand-wired bombs and whatever else turns up.
I’m not saying he’s insane, at least not in the legal sense of knowing right from wrong. That’s a matter for the prosecution, the defense, and the jury. I’m saying he snapped. Just like anybody could snap. Anybody who feels he or she has nothing to lose, or something important to prove. Under the exactly wrong circumstances, that can be any one of us.
And that’s the true horror of the Aurora Colorado Dark Knight shootings.
Colorado officials state they believe James Holmes, 24, the man they charged with killing at least 12 people and wounding over 70 others at The Dark Knight Rises screening in Aurora acted alone. He was arrested minutes after the incident was phoned in wearing a helmut, a gas-mask and a bullet-proof vest and carrying two Glocks and rifle. Holmes’ hair was dyed red and referred to himself as “the Joker.” Whereas he offered no resistance and waited for the police near his car in the multiplex parking lot, Holmes’ apartment is heavily booby-trapped with incendiary devices and people living in his building and at least four other buildings have been evacuated.
The usual flame-throwers in the media responded in their sadly predictable manner. The Washington Examiner suggested the shooter was acting out a scene from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight comics. ABC suggested the shooter was a Tea Party member; they later recanted. Countless individuals are blaming the incident on a lack of appropriate gun control. Various police departments across the country have dispatched officers to ward against copycat killers, and Warner Bros. has withdrawn the trailer to their movie Gangster Squad, which was attached to The Dark Knight Rises.
Holmes had been in the University of Colorado’s neuroscience studies program studying towards his PhD. He was in the process of withdrawing from the program at the time of this incident.
At least one dozen people were killed at the midnight screening of the Dark Knight Rises at the Century 16 movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado this morning. A gunman wearing a gas mask — evidently an imitation of the movie and comics villain Bane — was arrested at the scene. According to the Associated Press, 16 people are in critical condition as of this writing.
24 year old James Holmes was placed under arrest. He offered no resistance.
Various theater locations have increased security, and a Paris debut was cancelled.
This is a breaking story, and as in the case of all such stories, facts unfold slowly and sometimes misinformation comes out. Details as they develop.
My original First Comics partner Rick Obadiah, who is not prone to outrage (I took care of that part), sent me an email a couple days ago expressing his pissed-offness at a piece in last Sunday’s New York Times.
For those who don’t have time to click-through, the Times essentially gives credit for the whole creators’ rights movement to Image Comics, now enjoying their 20th anniversary. I have no axe to grind with Image and I don’t think Rick does either; this is another case of typically sloppy reporting from the fantastically over-important New York Times.
In his email, Rick correctly points out that the stuff attributed to Image Comics started with First and with the other so-called independent publishers of the time: Eclipse, Comico, Now, Malibu, and others too numerous to name. I won’t quibble with the definition of “independent” – back in those days the term really meant “not Marvel/DC.” The Comics Buyers Guide even listed Disney Comics as “independent,” and that was the day I stopped using the term.
As I pointed out nearly 30 years ago in the pages of sundry First Comics, the creators’ rights movement on a publishing level started with Denis Kitchen and his fellow “underground comix” providers. The actual creators’ rights movement pretty much started on Day Two of the comic book industry when folks like Will Eisner, Bob Kane, William Moulton Marston and Joe Simon and Jack Kirby negotiated their own deals with the existing publishers and retained certain rights and/or received cover billing and/or creator credit and/or royalties.
But we – First, Eclipse, Comico, Now, Malibu, and the rest – took all that several steps further. Creators received certain ownership rights, cover billing, creator credit and royalties. Perhaps that was tame by today’s standards, but in 1983 this was akin to torching the Great Teat. We paid a price for this: all of those companies are now extinct, although some lasted nearly two decades – a good run in publishing. But we had nothing to take to the bank in terms of actual ownership when times got rough, when distributors went out of business and when investment-mania boiled over.
Once we started offering fair deals, DC and Marvel pretty rapidly started offering some of these rights under certain circumstances. That didn’t make them competitive on the creators’ rights front, but they provided acceptable safe haven to creators when times got rough on the independents front. And that includes me, and I am not ungrateful.
Did Image take this one step further when they went into business a decade later? They goddamn well should have and, yes, of course they did: the company was started by a half-dozen of the top writers and artists in the field. But Image isn’t a publisher in the traditional sense – to its credit, it’s more of a vanity press without the negative connotations of that term.
Image – and Dark Horse and more recently IDW and Dynamite – were built on the shoulders of the founders of First, Eclipse, Comico, Now, Malibu and the rest, and on our investors and our creative talent who took big risks breaking from the clutches of DC and Marvel without any guarantee those doors would reopen for them should the desire arise.
Again, I do not blame Image in the least. I blame the lazy, self-important “journalists” at the New York Times for having a historical point of view that fails to go beyond recently emailed press releases.
Here’s a secret. It is well known that the New York Times has never run comic strips. But this was not because comics were too lowbrow and well beneath their dignity. That was just their typical arrogant posturing. The New York Times didn’t run comic strips back when Pulitzer and Hearst started the medium because they couldn’t afford the fancy color presses. The paper of record, indeed.
