Author: Mike Gold

MIKE GOLD: “Fly” – A Whole Different Type of Super

When it comes to reviewing individual comics, I’d rather shed attention on stuff produced by smaller publishers; Marvel and DC get enough ink. Besides, it’s more fun to mock their trends than it is to analyze their product. I’d rather focus attention on really good stuff from smaller publishers you might not have heard of than really bad stuff of which you might not have heard.

Many comics shops do not have the resources to really back these titles. They’ve already bet the rent (literally) on the latest megacrossover stunts from the big lugs. Fine – so you may have to poke around a bit to find my recommendations. Hey, I grew up with the thrill of the comics hunt; welcome to my past.

So when am I going to get around to the damn review? Glad you asked.

There’s an operation out in Pennsylvania called Zenescope Entertainment. They’re best known for their sundry Grimm Fairy Tales comics and other horror-oriented stuff like Charmed, but today I’m going to wax on about a different type of horror – the horror of drug addition.

Zenescope reveals the high-concept of their new series, Fly, a mere two issues old: “What if there was a drug that gave you the power to fly? How far would you go to possess it and who would you hurt to get your next fix?” Okay, that sounds interesting.

There’s a real story here, and that’s something we don’t see very often these days. Writer Raven Gregory (The Gift, The Waking) establishes believable characters with whom the reader can identify. The premise is simple, but the execution is deep. The good kid gets in over his head. He loves to fly even though he’s having his issues adjusting. He just begins to realize the stuff that gives him this ability is fast acting and fast addicting. And he doesn’t know what to do about that.

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MIKE GOLD: Fantastic Fifty

Let me tell you a timely story.

Almost fifty years ago, my parents piled my sister and me into the car for a drive to DeKalb, Illinois. Since my sister was about to start college only three of us would be coming back. Always concerned about his children’s cultural upbringing, Dad stopped by a phenomenal bagel joint called Kaufman’s in what was Chicago’s Jewish neighborhood at the time. While he was stocking up on carbs, I was ordered to go across the street to an ancient drug store, the type that had a genuine soda fountain, three huge magazine racks and a separate and equally gigantic rack for comic books. My father disliked feeding my habit, but he wanted the drive to college to be as peaceful as possible and the best way to insure that was to buy me some comics. The stunt still works to this very day.

Sadly, as much as I scoured the racks I had read everything that was likely to catch my eye, and even some of the fringe titles such as The Adventures of The Fly, Our Army At War, and Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane. But I would be damned if I let such an opportunity pass. I discovered a sort of superheroish first issue from an unnamed company that I associated with monster titles that I generally passed over.

My dad came into the store to pick me up and pay for the damages. I gave him one solitary little pamphlet. One. He was amazed. “Only one?” I shrugged. “Well, we’ve gotta go, we’re late.” He literally flipped a dime across the room to the ancient man behind the counter and we began our hot, tedious trip with warnings to my young just-turned-11-years-old ass that I better shut up and behave.

I proceeded to read my one and only comic book. Within a couple pages, I was hooked. It was a monster comic, but it was also a superhero comic. It was drawn by a guy whose work I recognized and appreciated from his brief time with Green Arrow, Private Strong, and The Fly. By the time I finished the book-length story, which was rare in those days, I had already decided to reread it.

Several times, as it turned out. Dad and I both got lucky.

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MIKE GOLD: Whips and Comics

In this very space a few days ago, John Ostrander said, “By this time next year, we may know if we’re still viable or making buggy whips.” He was referring to comics creators, to comics fans, and to the entire comics art medium.

The first person I heard refer to comics with this term was master cartoonist Stan Lynde. In case you’re challenged in matters relating to newspaper comic strips, Stan was the creator and writer/artist of the strips Rick O’Shay and Latigo. He’s a master storyteller, a brilliant humorist and an artist of fantastic prowess. The time was close to 20 years ago, and Mike Grell and I were at a very enjoyable comic book convention at Billings Montana. One of the promoters promised to introduce me to Stan. This was a real fanboy moment for me.

As it turned out Stan and Lynda Lynde were two of the nicest people on the planet, and probably the universe. After dinner (where I consumed the best prime rib ever), they invited Mike and me to their place in the bluffs overlooking Billings. There Mike and I gazed upon acres of Stan’s paintings, original strip art, awards, historical memorabilia, and simply awesome sundry stuff. We talked for several hours and the subject got around to his career. Stan shared all kinds of great stuff – how one of his assistants was Robert Crumb, who, in many respects, was the anti-Stan Lynde. How Little Orphan Annie creator Harold Gray was an egotistical, arrogant bastard – those are my words, not Stan’s. And how, when he was coming to the end of his tenure his signature creation Rick O’Shay, his first wife asked him how long he was going to be making buggy whips.

That phrase impressed me. Were newspaper strips buggy whips? Maybe. Continuity strips certainly were – today, we have Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, Alley Oop, The Phantom, Mandrake, Judge Parker and barely a handful of others. Tracy’s picked up a few papers since our pal Joe Staton took over the art; on the other hand I know Mandrake is still alive solely because it’s online at King Features Syndicate. But the argument itself stayed with me, and during the past two decades I’ve endured the effluvium of the buggy whip factory as it surrounded the comic book medium.

The fact that the newspaper comic strip form remains alive is due to the Internet: a lot of newspapers run lots and lots of strips on their websites and the major syndicates have very low-cost services which email comics directly to their subscribers.

Not to put words in Brother John’s mouth, but the Internet is the only thing staving comic books off from the buggy whip wing of the American cultural museum. I think John’s right: we should know in about a year if that works. If not, ComicMix will become, oh, I don’t know, either a B&D site with all those whips, or a B&B site where you can score a nice home cooked meal.

As we passed midnight Stan drove us back to our hotel. As we were walking to the door and I said something to the effect of “hot damn.” Brother Grell responded, “You better believe it.” Even then Mike and I were two hardened veterans of the comics racket but we effortlessly allowed ourselves to bathe in the most crystal clear waters of fanboy heaven. We shared a truly inspirational time and we actually leapt up in the air out of our shared enthusiasm.

And that’s why I think comics might just have a future after all.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

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MIKE GOLD: Hey, Here’s A Surprise!

Well, I’m having fun.

Back when we started out, ComicMix used to run all these fabulous columns written by all these swell writers and, well, by me too. Those columns disappeared after about a year and a half and a lot of people told us they wanted ‘em back. Among those people were most of the columnists themselves. And me. Man, I bitched up a storm. And nobody can bitch up a storm like me.

So we re-geared out operations (that term creates the ambiance that we actually have a clue as to what we’re doing), and, effective right now, we’re reinstating our daily columns. Joining returning writers Dennis O’Neil, John Ostrander, Martha Thomases, Michael Davis and myself are two newcomers: Marc Alan Fishman and Mindy Newell.

You know Marc from his frequent contributions to ComicMix. He’s just a kid, which is weird because his wife is pregnant with a smaller, younger kid. A life-long comics fan who knows his barbecue, Marc is part of the mighty Unshaven Comics crew. That’s at www.unshavencomicsonline.com, where he’s joined by his buddies and my pals Matt Wright and Kyle Gnepper. Together, they publish indy comics that are truly worth reading; that’s how we found Marc in the first place. Check ‘em out at their website.

Chances are pretty damn good you’ve also heard of Mindy. She’s making her return to comics here at ComicMix; she spent about five years editing at Marvel Comics and ten years writing such features as Wonder Woman, Catwoman, the Legion of Super-Heroes, American Flagg!, Daredevil, Black Widow, The Next Wave… you get the idea. She’s also an operating room nurse, which I think might come in handy around here. Somebody told me – I think it was Mindy – that I cannot live on barbecue alone. I try.

We’ll be focusing more solidly on comics than we did last time around. Not to say we’ve abandoned the heavy political/social stuff: Martha, Michael and I have been writing those type of columns every week for www.michaeldavisworld.com for a couple years now and we’ll be continuing to do so until we get arrested for sedition.

But here at ComicMix we’ll be mostly talking about comics and directly related media and phenomena. We’ll probably be talking about the comics related movies and teevee shows and, if we can find somebody wealthy enough to buy tickets, even to comics related Broadway plays. Perhaps I’ll even do an expose about just how many Wonder Woman statues a 35-year-old woman can squeeze into her basement apartment.

Most important, we invite you to join in on the fun. We’re in for some hectic times in the greater comics world. DC is recreating itself again, and Marvel going nuts with special events. Everybody’s got something new, and new publishers continue to pop up like rabid Whac-a-Moles. Please feel free to comment until your fingers fall off. It’s probable that the relevant columnist will play in and we can get a nice little dialog going. Think of ComicMix as sort of like Twitter with an attention span.

And bring along your sense of humor.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil!

National Cartoonist Society Winners Announced

The annual National Cartoonist Society annual awards were awarded Saturday night. The prestigious Reuben Award for cartoonist of the year went to Richard Thompson for the newspaper strip Cul de Sac. Jill Thompson was selected as best comic book artist for Beasts of Burton, beating out Stan Sakai and Chris Samnee, and Joyce Farmer and her Special Exits took home the prize for graphic novel, beating out Daryn Cooke and James Strum.

Jeff Parker and Steve Kelley were designated best newspaper comic strip cartoonists for Dustin, Mike Lester took the book illustration award for The Butt Book, and Glenn McCoy won the newspaper panel cartoon award for The Flying McCoys. Other prize winners included Michael McParlane for newspaper illustration, Gary McCoy for gag cartoons, Jim Benton for greeting cards, Anton Emdin for magazine illustration, Gary Varvel for editorial cartooning, Dave Whamond for advertising illustration, Dave Filoni for television animation (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), and Nicolas Marlet for feature animation (How to Train Your Dragon).

The NCS 65th annual awards dinner was held in Boston over the past several days. The artwork (above) was contributed by Mad Magazine’s Tom Richmond.

 

DC Revamps Again! And Again! And Again!

Hey, kids! Guess what? DC is revamping their line again, for what seems like the 1,000th time since Crisis On Infinite Earths. What a shock! How original!

O.K. Here’s the poop. DC honchos Geoff Johns and Jim Lee, both exceptionally talented comics creators, are going to make “bombshell announcements about the future of Superman and the entire DC Universe” on Saturday, June 11th at the Hero Complex Film Festival. Maybe this time they’ll stick to it: if Geoff and Jim are behind it, there’s some cause for hope. If they stick to it.

Even though control of DC Comics has passed through several hands since the first Crisis, perhaps the concept of leaving well enough alone will grab somebody this time. The DC Universe has gone through so many needlessly confusing transformations a roadmap to the place would give M.C.. Escher vertigo. With a small “v.”

Good grief, I’m getting tired of writing this story. I’m going to link to the Los Angeles Times so you can get what’s passing for news here.

Jeffrey Catherine Jones, 1944 – 2011

Noted illustrator and sometime comics artist Jeffrey Catherine Jones died yesterday of complications from emphysema.

In comics, her work appeared in Heavy Metal, the various Warren magazines, Epic Illustrated, and many, many others. Committing herself to illustration in general and expressionism in specific, she was a member of the legendary Studio along with Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith and Bernie Wrightson. Jones’ illustrations graced a great many science fantasy novels (Michael Moorcock, Dean Koontz, Fritz Lieber, Andre Norton, and others) and magazines as well as publications such as The National Lampoon.

Her work has been reprinted in a number of albums, most recently IDW’s [[[Jeffrey Jones: A Life In Art]]]. This ironically titled tome was released at the beginning of this year.

Jones married Mary Louise Alexander (now Louise Simonson) in 1966 and had a daughter, Julianna, the following year. In 2001 Jeffrey had gender reassignment surgery. In recent years she suffered from numerous ailments, but had made a sadly brief return to the drawing board last month.

In one of the highest compliments imaginable, illustrator Frank Frazetta called Jones “the greatest living painter.”

‘Torchwood’ Adds All-Star Guests. Lots of ’em!

OK, you know [[[Torchwood]]] is returning July 8th. And you know Bill Pullman is now part of the cast, joining John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Kai Owen, and newcomers Lauren Ambrose, Alexa Havins, Mekhi Phifer, and Arlene Tur. You know this because it’s all been reported here on ComicMix, right?

Well, then. Let’s expand upon this some. This new season of Torchwood also has a whole bunch of interesting guest stars. In politically correct yet still tantalizing alphabetical order, we’ve got John DeLancie, Frances Fisher, C. Thomas Howell, Ernie Hudson, Wayne Knight, Nana Visitor (hot damn!) and Mare Winningham.

Not bad for a ten episode cable run. But that’s not all. There’s plenty more Torchwood ahead.

There’s going to be a Torchwood webcast series called Web of Lies, which will star Eliza Dushku. It’s being written by producer (and former Battlestar: Galactica, Dollhouse, and Tru Calling Buffy writer/producer) Jane Espenson, and she’s been Tweeting the news all over the smartphone world. There are implications that Dushku might appear in the next series on Starz/BBC.

Meanwhile, John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Kai Owen, Mekhi Phifer and Alexa Havins are doing new full-cast audio dramas for the BBC. A three-parter is currently being recorded in Los Angeles, with more coming in the future.

Man. Nothing for two years, and now more Torchwood than you can shake a stick at. I’m hyped; it’s my favorite teevee series.

Smallville – We Truly Knew Ye

I’ve checked with my cadre of DC contributors, staffers and fans current and past. While it’s impossible to decide on an exact number, the consensus is that in the past ten years the teevee series Smallville painstakingly built a cohesive and linear universe of DC characters while, at the same time, DC Comics reinvented itself in whole or in substance approximately 14 thousand times. Guess which was more entertaining.

And now Smallville’s gone. Pushed out of the way for still another Superman movie that, like the comic books, gets to ignore everything that has gone before it. That’s not entirely bad: Superman Returns was so awful I was thinking of getting rid of the memories by electroshock therapy.

Instead, I watched Smallville. At first I was there out of professional and fanboy curiosity. It was good but not great, and I stuck with it because my wife enjoyed the show. In time, Michael Rosenbaum’s performance as Lex Luthor grabbed me, and when they introduced John Glover as his eviler father, the tension between the two was riveting. When they brought Green Arrow in (using the Grell costume) and started really building their version of the DC universe, I got absorbed.

Then they brought in Erica Durance as Lois Lane. I enjoyed her performance and her character so much I felt like I was betraying my own childhood. More DC characters were introduced, heroes and villains alike. As they moved away from the Kryptonite-villain of the week and developed Zod, Darkseid, and the first interesting Toyman ever, Smallville moved towards the top of my TiVo must-record list. After ten seasons the show had more storylines going on than Soap – but by the time that final episode aired last night, they had resolved or at least tied-up just about everything. It was remarkable; the fact that so many of the actors from earlier seasons returned was even more remarkable.

At its best, Smallville has been about the human drama, and its science-fiction environment rarely mitigated this. It is in this spirit that the two-hour finale was produced. Some might find this to be overbearing; respectfully, I think those people have missed the point. If you take this element out of the story, all you have left is a comic book – in the most clichéd and repellant sense of the term.

The production team also avoided the trap of giving each character their moment to shine. Whereas most had sufficient screen time, this last episode was all about Clark Kent, as it was, by and large, from the very beginning of the series.

This is not to say that there isn’t a kick-ass story here. Two of them, in fact, with enough villains to fill the Justice League’s dance card. Darkseid, Granny Goodness, Lionel Luthor, and of course, his son Lex.

The finale was not flawless. For one thing, everybody showed a lack of respect for how gravity works, not to mention security on Air Force One. The big scene between Lex and Clark was pretty much lifted from The Dark Knight; thankfully, both the characters and the performers make it their own. Technically, this show was at least as proficient as teevee gets. If it were a theatrical movie, it would have been in 3-D, and that would have screwed the pooch.

Teevee is teevee. It’s not comics, and shows come and go all the time. Smallville’s decade was a remarkable achievement, and it set the high-water mark for superhero television.

At the end of the ten-year day, you will believe a man should fly.

 

Swiping From The Best

Swiping From The Best

Those of us who enjoy the ancient and nearly-dead form of the newspaper comic strip know that the first successful regularly published strip was Bud Fisher’s Mutt & Jeff. It was enormously popular, running from 1907 through 1982, and reprints remain available each day online through various newspapers and through the gocomics.com service. Yes, it’s dated and the best stuff – the original strips that were actually done by Fisher – are quite good, if you are in for that sort of thing. I most certainly am.

Mutt & Jeff went on to Broadway, to silent pictures, to animation, and to a strong and ongoing presence in comic books starting in 1919 with a series of reprints from Cupples and Leon. When the contemporary comic book started in the mid-30s, Mutt & Jeff were right there from day one, in the first issue of the first regularly published comic book, Famous Funnies. The duo and their entourage continued in comic books published by Dell, DC and Harvey until 1965; the overwhelming majority coming from DC Comics in All-American Comics and in their eponymous title, which ran for 103 issues.

So it was with amusement and some surprise that I greeted today’s reprint (above) on gocomics.com. You see, I’m also a Smothers Brothers fan. The still-performing team is enormously talented, politically erudite, and very, very funny. What amused me is that today’s Mutt & Jeff gag was lifted, lock, stock but no music, from a classic Smothers Brothers routine. It’s so classic that I have even played it on my Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind show on getthepointradio.com.

The routine was the very first track of the Smothers Brothers’ very first album, released way back in 1962. It was written by Tommy’s friend, the brilliant Pat Paulsen. Later that decade, Pat became a featured performer on the SmoBro hit variety show, and he ran for president (in the sense that Pogo and Alfred E. Neuman ran for president) in 1968, 1972, 1980, 1988 and 1992. The song was called “Chocolate” and was part of their stand-up act for over fifty years.

Well, it you’re going to steal, you should steal from the best.

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