Category: Columns

Mindy Newell: Weekend Hoosier?

dc-bombshells“I’ll make it.” •  Jimmy Chitwood (Maris Valainis) • Hoosiers (1986)

Wow. Two weeks. That’s a long time to wait with bated breath. My apologies to everyone who turned blue while waiting to find out if I had broken my ankles.

To reprise: A little more than two weeks ago, Wednesday July 9 to be exact, I fell down the last flight of stairs of my apartment building. Immediate, serious pain in both feet and ankles – my knees weren’t doing so great either. Afraid to move, I yelled for help, but nobody came – it was 6 in the morning – and as I reached for my cell phone…duh! I had left it upstairs. But somehow, whether it was through the surge of adrenalin rushing through my veins or just pure stubborn idiocy, I got up, gritted my teeth, and shuffled/hobbled to my car.

Just using the gas and brake pedals sent sharp knives up my legs, but I told myself that if any bones were broken I wouldn’t be able to be doing this. I didn’t drive to my local hospital though; I wanted to get to work where my friends were, who happened to be nurses, plus of course there would be doctors. I wasn’t thinking clearly, I just wanted someone to tell me that nothing was broken;

I had some crazy idea that I could stick my feet under the C-arm and have Fantastic Frank, as Stan Lee would say, X-ray technician extraordinaire, also as Stan would say, take a picture and ease my fears – or not. I don’t know why I didn’t just go straight to the ER at the hospital across the street – it’s a Level One trauma center, and I had visions of sitting there all day while other, more seriously ill and wounded people were seen and attended to; and let’s face it, I didn’t want to know that I had broken anything, because I was supposed to fly out to Indianapolis on Friday – the day after tomorrow at the time – for the wedding of my cousin, Delightful Devin to his beautiful Marvelous Maria, as Stan would describe them.

See, I kept remembering a tale my brother had told me about how one autumn morning he and a bunch of his fellow residents were out having a game of touch football, and how one of the guys fell and was moaning and clutching his leg and saying that he had broken it, and how my brother and his band of merry medical men jeered him, saying “don’t be a baby, get up, walk it out,” and how they made this poor guy play out the rest of the game before taking him to the ER, where they all discovered that, yes, indeed, the guy had broken his leg.

So I was a mess, physically and emotionally.

But as I was laying on a stretcher in our Post-Anesthesia Care Unit – PACU, otherwise known as the Recovery Room – and realizing that the ice pack and cold soda cans weren’t do a thing, and that the pain was getting worse, not better, I admitted to myself that I was being really stupid, because the only way I was going to know if I had broken any part of my ankles or feet would be courtesy of an examination in the ER….

…where I discovered, that regardless of whether or not my bones were broken, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. I wouldn’t be getting on any plane in less than 48 hours…

…because the second worse thing happened on that fucked-up miserable day:

My driver’s license wasn’t in my wallet!

Where the fuck was it!

Shit! Shit! Shit!

By the time I was admitted and seen (by a fabulous, young, handsome physician) and told that I wouldn’t need X-rays, that I just had majorly “soft tissue damage” to my ankles and feet, i.e, really bad sprains, and was discharged with the usual instructions about ice and heat and elevate and to “try to walk normally so nothing stiffens up,” all I could think about was oh my fucking god how the hell am I gonna get on the airplane for the wedding?

I was desperate. No, I was beyond desperate; I was a madwoman.

That afternoon I tore the house apart looking for my license. Then I called the New Jersey Division of Motor Vehicles; hell, I even went there – I swallowed three Advils before leaving the house – and, yes, I was trying to “walk normally so nothing stiffens up.” I brought everything I could think of to identify myself, including the driver’s license renewal form I had just received in the mail and my passport – which expired four years ago and of which the DMV informed me that the cut-off date for expired passports as identification is three years – and for my troubles the bitch at the DMV sneered after explaining my situation to her: “Well, I guess you’re just shit of luck.”

I should have reported her. But I was tired, my feet and ankles were really, really hurting me despite the Advils, so I just left.

Aside: Will someone please explain to me why the New Jersey DMV cannot simply look up your credentials via computer, including your picture, especially when you’re 61 and have been a licensed driver since the age of 17? Will someone please explain to my why the New Jersey DMV sends renewal forms – generated by computer – to licensed drivers but still requires six million forms of ID when you go to renew your license?

Aside continued: Especially when, after getting home and calling the Department of Homeland Security and finding out that yes, I should be able get on the plane even though I had lost my driver’s license because they could, by searching the system – looking up on their computers – identify Mindy Newell as a born and bred citizen of the United States with no stains on her record and not on any “No-Fly” list. And by the way, the person I spoke to at the DHS was really nice – she didn’t say, “Well, I guess you’re just shit of luck.”

Still, I was worried about my driver’s license. My writer’s imagination took over. What if someone had stolen it out of my wallet, and what if that someone was a terrorist/jihadist, and what if he or she used my driver’s license for some nefarious and horrible deed? Yeah, I went straight to that – never mind using my license to get into my bank accounts and screwing up my credit and finances.

I finally laid down and elevated my feet and put one of those gel ice packs on my ankles; I also lit a candle, and this nice Jewish girl said a prayer to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things and lost causes. (I asked him to help me even though I’m Jewish, “because your boss was.”) And I threw in some Wiccan blessings, too.

Well, let me tell you, this Jewess’s prayers were answered.

Though not right away.

By Thursday my feet and ankles were black and blue and swollen, but by walking carefully (though “normally”) I could get around okay. Though more than once I stepped the wrong way and OWWWWWW! But still no license. I was very depressed and worried; called ye old editor Mike for some cheering up and a pep talk. It helped…some. (No offense to Mike.)

Thursday night. No license. I had just sent off the column you read two weeks ago. Then I noticed my checkbook, lying on the radiator cover that is next to my computer. What was it doing there? I picked it up. And something – or someone? St. Anthony? – made me open it.

There it was.

My driver’s license.

I don’t know how the hell it ended up inside my checkbook.

“Hey, St. Anthony,” I said. “It’s me again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

On Friday the only trouble I had at the airport was lagging way behind Alix, Jeff, and my grandson as we walked to the gate. Oh, and security did check my ace bandages for, I guess, any hidden weapons. They didn’t make me unwrap them; just ran a metal detector or something over them. So while so many of you were fulfilling your dream of attending the San Diego Comic-Con two weeks ago, I was in Indianapolis, that fair city, at the wedding of Delightful Devin and Marvelous Maria (as Stan would say), and telling everyone was a great guy good ol’ St. Anthony is.

Or maybe it was the Wiccan blessings?

 

•     •     •     •     •

And to bring this back to comics…I read Ed Catto’s column (She Made Me Do It! Fangirls Lead The Way at San Diego!) with interest and delight. It’s so gratifying to know that women are standing up and proudly proclaiming their fangirl status and being noticed and appreciated.

Back in the dark ages (the ‘80s) when I first became a professional writer at DC, I was so innocent of the “old boys club” in the comics world that I had no idea that it was considered weird for a woman to love comics and/or to write them. Besides, there was my editor, Karen Berger, our own Martha Thomases, and so many other women at DC; and over at Marvel there was Louise Simonson and Jo Duffy and Bobby Chase, just to mention three. So I walked around the halls of DC for a very, very long time before it dawned on me that I was “unusual” in any way – to me it was just about loving the medium, it had nothing to do with gender. And when I went to conventions, I met plenty of professional women creators: Kim Yale, Joyce Brabner, Colleen Doran, Jan Dursema, Trina Robbins, Jill Thompson, Wendy Pini, and so many others.

You want to know how innocent I was? When people – especially younger women–tell me that I was a “glass ceiling” breaker, or that I was an inspiration to them, I used to say “I was?” And not in any make-believe false modesty, either. I just didn’t get it.

Now I do.

But if I was, so then also were all the above and all the women who have worked in comics and newspaper strips and graphic novels and all “sequential storytelling and art” since the industry began.

Brava!

 

Ed Catto: The Retail Panel That Started 35 Years Ago

Maxwells Another one of the panels I moderated at San Diego Comic-Con was called “The 7 Comic Shop Archetypes.” “Who Will Triumph, Thrive and Survive?” was the admittedly over-the-top subheading. The purpose of this B2B panel was to explore the business aspects of this retail outlet that serves as both the sentry guard and encouraging ambassador for the exploding world of Pop Culture. In many ways, comic shops are on the frontier of one-to-one customer service for many communities and customers.

IMG_2923I was excited to start this panel on that Saturday of SDCC, but I think it really started way back in the ‘70s. I clearly remember that point where I had graduated to buying my own comics each week. Before that, my dad had bought me a comic each Sunday after our traditional Italian Pasta Dinner. He’s a very generous guy, and sometimes still buys me comics. Now I had reached a point where I was really into purchasing comics myself with money I earned. Imagining myself as a “world’s greatest detective type,” I took great pride in discerning the shipping schedules for all the comics.

I learned that Thursday was the day they’d rack the new comics. And then I decrypted the Marvel monthly schedule. The Avengers always showed up on the first week of the month, then Captain America and Thor the second week, Spider-Man was the third week and Fantastic Four was always the last week of the month. This was well before the Diamond Previews catalog existed, and I was still a couple of years away from discovering fanzines like The Comic Reader.

So each Thursday I’d ride my bike down to Maxwell’s Food Store at Five Points in Auburn, NY. In typical upstate New York fashion, this was a wonky place where five roads intersected. Maxwell’s, a family owned store, was a kind of “prototype 7-11” style convenience store. When I was there, the stock boy always lurked about, suspicious that I would steal comics. After a while I tolerated that. But I never got used to the “aren’t you a little old for those funny books?” stare from them all. Thankfully, I think that’s stigma’s finally been erased for today’s comic buyers.

One day, on my way home, with my stack of new comics, I saw an incredible sight. Right next to the local barbershop, a man and a woman were moving boxes into the tiny storefront. (We never got our hair cut there – he wasn’t Italian). And they had a sign out front: Kim’s Collectible Comics and Records.

Wow!

I was jumping outta my skin. I introduced myself and pestered them, anxious to go into their store. But they just weren’t ready and explained they were opening the next day. They gave me the “come back tomorrow” line, and I sure did.

The next morning, I was there waiting for them to open up…. and, as you can guess, I went back again and again.

Since then, I’ve always had the good fortune of having a great local comic shop in all the places I’ve lived:

  • Comics For Collectors in Ithaca
  • Million Year Picnic, New England Comics and Newbury Comics in Boston
  • Chapel Hill Comics when I was doing my graduation work at UNC (“Go ‘Heels! Dook sucks!”)
  • Joker’s Child when we settled down in New Jersey
  • Midtown Comics & Jim Hanley’s Universe were perfect for a weekday visit when I commuted into NYC

And now I’m lucky that I can always rationalize a comic shop trip when I’m traveling.

Comic Shops are an important lynchpin for Pop Culture. They also represent a vanishing breed of community-based retailer. Most of us no longer have a neighborhood butcher, a neighborhood vacuum-cleaner-repairman or a neighborhood bartender. Even the person who does your hair probably doesn’t have an exclusive relationship with you. Some of us are lucky enough to have independent, neighborhood bookstores, but not many.

But to many consumers, comic shops are the place where they can find a friendly advisor as they walk down the perilous path of pop culture. And at the same time, they provide a real world “water cooler” opportunity to speak face-to-face with someone passionate and knowledgeable.

Last year at this time, Business Insider proclaimed, “The Comic Book Industry is On Fire, and it’s not just the movies.” Reporter Gus Luben talked about the increase in graphic novels and comics and about the perfect storm of media exposure and conventions. They projected the sales of just comics and GNs at $870 Million at that time. As you’ve been seeing if you’ve been paying attention, that’s all just increased and intensified in 2015.

In my job, as I help connect brands with pop culture in authentic ways, I know that more companies and marketing agencies take geek culture more seriously. Smart marketers understand how important comics shops can be in developing those conversations and relationships. You didn’t have to attend my SDCC panel to understand that.

 

John Ostrander: VOX

the spectre

As part of the Kickstarter campaign for Tom Mandrake’s and my new project, Kros: Hallowed Ground (which, by the way, is still going on at x.co/kickkros), I’ve done a number of podcast interviews, which have been fun, and I always try to listen to them. I want to get an idea of how Tom and I sound to the fans who might be listening. However, my voice always surprises me. It’s not how I hear myself. I’m told this is the same situation for many people. How you sound to others is not how you hear yourself.

The same has proven true in my writing. Every writer develops a “voice” – a style, a way of expressing oneself that is unique to the individual writer. If authentic, it will reflect your views, your values, how you think, how you feel, how you react to the world around you and so much more.

Can you imitate someone else’s voice? Of course you can just as all the Elvis imitators out there try to channel Elvis Presley. It’s a whole industry. Within that industry are variations and nuances as each imitator tries to develop their own “voice” as Elvis.

In addition to all your own experiences you add the influences that work on you. What you read, what you see, the music that you hear and so on. One of the ways you develop your voice is by imitating the works that have made an impression on you. You take a bit from here, a touch from there and gradually it becomes how you express yourself. Imitation is certainly permissible at the beginning but, to be a good writer, you must develop beyond that. You take what you learn and make it your own.

The first time I came to the halls of DC comics, I met several editors including Dan Raspler who would later become the first editor on Tom Mandrake’s and my version of The Spectre. Dan did a double take when he saw me and confessed he was startled. He was a big fan of my work on GrimJack and, from my writing, he thought I’d be a big burly and surly young biker type. Instead, he got a genial, balding, pudgy white guy edging into middle-age. I’ve been told I’m very personable and pretty easy to get along with. Some editors have said that if you can’t collaborate with me, you can’t collaborate with anyone. I don’t think that’s how my stories read and that surprises me as well. Dan was right; I write like a surly biker. My work is often cynical, with a dark sense of humor, and I love conflicted characters. I prefer villains to heroes. That’s not who I am in life but it is how I am on paper. And, yes, that sometimes surprises me.

So if you meet me at a convention, come up and say hello. I don’t bite. (Hard.) I’m not that guy you’ve encountered on the pages I’ve written. Overall, I’m pretty nice.

Just don’t cross me.

Kidding.

 

 

Tweeks: SDCC 2015 Part 2: The Haul!

This week is our 2nd San Diego Comic Con Recap…and our HAUL!  See all our stuff (well, most of our stuff) we got at the con, watch us play KISS pinball,  & hear our exciting stories about the Scholastic Party, meeting Jem, the fashionably nerdy mixer,  Holland Roden, Snoopy & Belle in fashion, & a lot of other stuff.

 

Marc Alan Fishman: Marvel – Make Em’ Laugh. Make Em’ Laugh!

Ant-Man

Howdy ya’ll. I’m back from Nashville. And you know what they say about Music City: What happens in Music City, stays in Music Ci… wait, no, they don’t say that. Feh!

It was a day-job convention. It was exhausting. It was very much not about comics, pop culture, or anything fun. But since ya’ll wanted to know, I saw Barbara Mandrell’s mansion and it was everything I expected it to be. Isn’t this cool, kiddos? I’m not even one paragraph in, and I already need to utter ComicMix’s favorite catchphrase, stolen directly from Peter David… But I digress.

So this past weekend I was able to enjoy Marvel’s latest movie, Ant-Man. And I emphasize how much I enjoyed it. Amidst a well-balanced story that juggled the motifs of loss, fathers and daughters, mentorship, and morality, there was an underlying current of pure joy that rooted the near-two hour run time with positivity. This spat in the face of the pre-movie trailer roll, which included Fantastic Four, as well as both the teaser and full trailer Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice: Brow Furrowing: I Hope You Bleed: Don’t You See How Much I Care? It leaves me dumbfounded and baffled to ask this – have Warner Bros and Fox simply not paid any attention to Marvel Studios for the past seven years?

Ant-Man, much akin to nearly every other movie in the Marvel Movieverse, ensured that laughter permeated the periphery of nearly every scene. When wonderful things happened, a quip wasn’t far behind. When things got awkward, Paul Rudd’s Paul-Ruddyness broke the tension. And when the world needed to be saved, grimaces were grimaced, long enough to solve the problem. And then, on with the yuck-yucks. This is as it was in Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Avengers (1 more than 2). By the time Thomas the Tank Engine was ramrodding YellowJacket in the mush, I’d realized I’d not frowned once. My usual resting bitch face ached from the corners of an upturned mouth – a feat only last realized when Captain America: Winter Soldier was on free cable while I was in Nashville.

It begs me to ask: who here caught themselves smiling during Man of Steel? Who caught those sneak peaks of Batman v. Superman or Suicide Squad, and rocked back and forth in their chair with glee (save perhaps for our own John Ostrander, who is given a pass while The Wall is given quality screen time and played by a wonderful actress)? The only time we may have had the slightest guffaw might have been when Lex “Not the Facebook Guy” Luthor cackled that “the red capes are coming.” Suicide Squad‘s trailer did elicit a chuckle from me – but only when I was snarkily grimmacing at Will Smith’s Men In Wild Wild West Robot Independence Day impression of himself. And the less I say about the dark nightmare that Fantastic Four is to be the better.

In all of these cases I simply can’t understand the logic, or the lack there of. Marvel has been killing the box office with each outing. Paired with a ton of licensing deals for merch, streaming contracts, and cable air-play, it’s literally the cash cow they can’t stop milking. Every new movie could spin-off a trilogy. And with Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter making dub-smash videos showcasing that even on TV Marvel can’t stop having fun… it’s starting to become ludicrous to me that the others in the same space seem to think that the polar opposite must be the key to hidden treasure.

Forgive me if I get a bit philosophical before I wrap this up. More often than not, we turned to the funny books with the capes and cowls because they were fun. And while the industry at large grew darker over time – at the core, the fun remained.

And now, even amidst massive hits like the Walking Dead or Crossed (which is about as bleak as they can get), you can’t shake a stick without hitting brilliant explorations of innocence and joy. Beneath any layers of dread, angst, or fear, our pulp roots cling hard to the light in the world. Superman is, was, and will always be a symbol of hope. To yoke that with the sadness and pain of reality – and then double down with a dour and fighty Batman – is to celebrate those things that simply get in the way of how we want to feel when our heroes are given the opportunity to become that much more real.

If DC (and Fox) can’t see the forest for the trees… all they have to do is lighten up. Forgive me: Someone get those Pepsi-drinkers a god-damned Coke, and let them really taste the difference. There’s a reason why 7-Up ain’t even in third place, kiddos.

 

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #366: ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPICIONS

lawassOkay, a show of hands, who’s ever heard them say this one on a TV show? POLICE: “You’re under arrest.” SUSPECT: “On what charge?” POLICE: “Suspicion of murder.”

Why did I think a show of hands would work in a written medium?

Here’s a little tip for the next time any of you might be writing dialog for a police procedural; unless you’ve got Joan Fontaine married to Cary Grant in a Hitchcock movie, there’s no such thing as suspicion of murder. Or suspicion of anything, for that matter.

In our criminal justice system, all crimes are statutory. That means laws were written which created the crimes and defined the crimes’ elements. Let’s take murder, for example, because that’s the crime people are arrested for “suspicion of” committing on TV. The elements of murder are, most commonly, that the actor 1) purposely, 2) caused the death, 3) of another person. So if Cain shoots Abel with a gun and Abel dies we have a crime of biblical proportions. We also have all the elements of murder. But if even one element is missing, we don’t have murder. We may have some crime, but it’s not murder.

Say Cain didn’t know the gun was loaded then shot Abel and Abel died. Then Cain wouldn’t be guilty of murder, because Cain didn’t kill Abel on purpose. It would be some form of a negligent homicide, but not a murder.

Or if Cain shot Abel and Abel didn’t die, you wouldn’t have a murder. You’d have an assault of some sort, but not a murder, because no one died.

Finally, if Cain killed Abel, but Abel was a dog you wouldn’t have murder, because no person died. You’d have some form of animal abuse, but not a murder. (And calm down, PETA, no animals were harmed in the writing of this hypothetical.)

Suspicion is not a crime whose elements are defined in a statute. At least, I’ve never seen any statute which created a crime called suspicion and I’ve looked at the statutes of a lot of states. If your jurisdiction has a crime called suspicion on its books, let me know. I’d love to find out what it’s elements are. (I’m guessing oxygen, because it would be a lot of hot air.) However, because there’s not crime called suspicion on the books, the police can’t arrest someone for suspicion.

In the same way that the police can’t arrest you for suspicion, because it’s not a crime, they also can’t arrest you simply because they suspect you committed a crime. An arrest has to be based on probable cause not suspicion.

To have probable cause, the police have to be able to establish that it’s more probable than not that every element of the crime exists. (You do remember the elements of the crime, don’t you? We’ve talked about them periodically today.) The police also have to be able to establish that it’s more probable than not that the person they suspect of committing the crime, performed the acts which violated the statute. If they merely suspect someone, but don’t have probable cause, they can’t legally arrest that person.

In Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that the police may temporarily stop someone if they reasonably suspect that the person may be about to commit a crime. If the police see someone who looks like he’s casing a store he intends to rob later, the police may reasonably suspect he’s going to commit a robbery. In that case, the police may stop that person and ask him questions find out what he’s up to. Once the police have done that, they have to let the person go. The bad news is they can’t arrest him. The good news is, as the person knows the police are on to him, he’ll probably abandon his plans to rob the store.

If the police happen upon a crime – say someone has just been murdered in an alley – and the police see somebody lurking around, they may reasonably suspect that somebody met the body while the body was still alive and killed him. Under the Terry rule, the police may approach that person and ask him some questions. But they may not arrest him no matter how reasonable their suspicion may be.

Sometimes while questioning the person they suspect, the police get some actual information which gives them probable cause. A witness might come up and say he saw that person commit the murder. Or the suspect might make the classic Murder, She Wrote http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086765/combined mistake and says something about the corpse that only the murderer could know. Once something like that happens and the police get probable cause, then they can arrest the person. But not before. Not when they only suspect him.

So, if the police can’t arrest someone for suspicion of committing a crime, how did that whole cliché start? Here’s my theory.

Last week, I talked about another common, but illegal, police practice: the investigatory hold. That’s when the police put someone they suspect of committing a crime into custody so that they can investigate the matter further. If the police get enough information to charge the person, they will present the case to the district attorney for formal charging. If they don’t they’ll release the person. I suspect arresting “on suspicion” was simply another way of saying performing an investigatory hold that the police started using because it sounds cleaner. It sounds more like the person being detained actually did something wrong – after all, he’s suspected of something rather than being investigated.

Well, police in movies and on TV, anyway. Did the police in the real world ever actually say that? I don’t know. But I have my suspicions.

Martha Thomases: Bill Cosby Remembered

Bill Cosby Snow White

Hello, everybody! This might be another column in which I am wrong.

Well, not entirely wrong. We’re talking about my personal opinions and tastes, and while you might not like them, you can’t exactly say I don’t have those particular feelings.

So, here it is: I think Bill Cosby is really funny.

I don’t think he’s a good person. I don’t think he’s the same person as Dr. Huxtable or Alexander Scott, because those are fictional characters with writers putting together the words they speak.

But I think his stand-up is, for the most part, really funny.

By his stand-up, I mean his stories and his jokes, the ones he tells about racing with his friends when he was a kid, or going out to dinner with his wife. I most definitely do not mean his lectures to the African-American community about pulling up their pants or not cussing.

Those jokes, the ones that I like, are something I’ve shared with my friends since high school. We could convulse each other by repeating them, no matter how many times we had laughed at them before. Those remain some of my fondest memories of bonding with the women who remain an amusing part of my life.

Is it possible to separate the work from the man? Can I ever watch The Cosby Show again and laugh?

I would like to. And I would like that choice.

In the wake of all the terrible allegations (and disclosures!) about the real human being, Bill Cosby, a large number of media outlets have stopped running his programs. And I understand that, because these media companies need to be conscious of their bottom line, and they can’t seem to supporting a serial rapist.

Because, apparently, a lot of people can’t tell the difference between Dr. Huxtable and Bill Cosby.

Nothing I’m saying should be interpreted as a defense of Cosby. I’m not saying that the crimes he is said to have committed are less important than my need to be entertained.

I’m saying that The Cosby Show didn’t commit any crimes. The work is separate from the star, even when that star is the creator and producer.

There are people working in comics who, in their personal lives, act abominably. I’m not going to call out any one in particular, because none of these people is a public figure and I’m not talking about criminal actions, but I tend not to support their work with my entertainment dollars. I won’t stop you from doing so, if you enjoy the work.

I’m much more likely to noisily air my displeasure when the work itself is repulsive to me, either personally or politically. For example, I’m certainly not going to watch this new Adam Sandler movie when it comes out, unless reviewers tell me the depiction of Native Americans is the exact opposite of what the link describes. And I’m going to have trouble with Mr. Sandler’s work in general, because of this story told by Rose McGowan and others.

Is Adam Sandler the only person in Hollywood with offensive politics? No, of course not. Do I sometimes find myself at a movie that I wouldn’t want to support? Yeah, it happens. I’m not consistent. I contain multitudes.

In the meantime, can someone bring back Barney Miller? That was really funny and, in my memory, was remarkable inclusive and understanding for its time.

Dennis O’Neil: Science Says You’re Wrong If You Believe…

Pluto

Now I know that some of you are huge – huge! – science fans while others… well, you might prefer to get your science from old Julius Schwartz comic books. (Remember those old filler features that Julie ran? “Science Says You’re Wrong If You Believe…”) You guys – you Juliers – can consider your class dismissed until next week. You others?

Let us consider Pluto. No, not the Roman god of the underworld, or Disney’s canine, and certainly not Popeye’s archenemy – that was Bluto-with-a-B. We mean the planet. Pluto-the-planet has been much in the news this past week because we put a spacecraft within about 7000 miles of the planet’s surface which, in astronomical terms, is the back yard, and it sent back a lot of data and will continue downloading information for months. So, at the end of the process, we’ll know a lot about Pluto and maybe have some of the Big Questions answered, stuff like why/how are planets and solar systems formed and what the heck are we doing here, anyway.

Oh, and you fussers out there – I know that poor Pluto is no longer considered a full-blown planet. A few years back the people whose job it is to do things like decide on the classification of astral bodies, folks like Neil deGrasse Tyson, decided Pluto was too small to qualify as a planet and so they renamed it a dwarf planet and dwarf-schmarf, say I. The naming business is all arbitrary anyway. The universe doesn’t classify. We do. As human activities go, this one is pretty harmless and if you want to use the “dwarf” label, be my guest. But I’ll stick to calling that orb at the edge of our solar system a plain old “planet,” thank you very much.

Did I mention that I’m fond of (planet) Pluto? A decade ago I made it a character – well, an object, really – in a novel. I’m not sure why. I guess I thought my plot needed something at the far reaches of the solar system and Pluto, 4.67 billion-with-a-B miles away, certainly qualifies.

I got all the information I needed about it from a book I can recommend Don’t Know Much About The Universe, by Kenneth C. Davis. It’ll also tell you about the other planets and the sun and like that. Readable and informative.

Why bother to do this (very minor) bit of research? Maybe it’s my journalism background or maybe I just need a good laxative, but I think we writers, even we fiction writers, have an obligation to society not to spread misinformation. That’s the politicians’ job. If you’re equipping your hero with a Whoseatronic Ray Blaster, you can make it be or do whatever you like. You’ve just made it up, after all. But if you use something that’s real, be accurate. There’s already enough bad info out there.

And by the way…Science Says You’re Wrong If You Believe That Pluto Is that damn dog.

 

Molly Jackson: Art for the Geeky Masses

Art for the Geeky Masses

This past weekend I went to visit my sister’s family in North Carolina. While I was there, we took a special trip with my now 2-year old niece to the Greensboro Children’s Museum. That was where I saw the most amazing piece of wall art.
This piece you see above is called A Piece For Pop created by Paul Rousso. It was commissioned for the children’s museum in memory of its founder, Jerry Hyman.
Art is meant to evoke emotion in any viewer. When I saw it, I abruptly stopped in my tracks. It struck such overwhelming nostalgia and happiness in me. This sculpture highlights so many things that I love, from childhood to adulthood.
The fact that it is hanging in the children’s museum is perfect. I’m happy that my niece will grow up seeing it and I hope that it will impact her in a positive way. As she gets older, I can’t wait to explain all the different parts that she won’t know to her. This is a great way to share my geekdom and childhood memories with her.
I made a point of checking out Rousso’s other works. He has done some wonderfully geeky pieces but this one is still my favorite.

As comic readers, we are exposed to art on a regular basis. Sometimes I don’t know if we always appreciate what is created for us. Artists are not always recognized and lauded for their work. It is up to us as readers to highlight the work that inspires us in our lives.

Take some time today to enjoy some art. Feel the emotional ride it gives you. Thank the artist for their creation if you can. Share the works that you love with the people in your life. It will be worth it.

Box Office Democracy: Ant-Man

Ant-Man is the latest anticipated failure from Marvel Studios, the film that will finally break the spell that Marvel has on box offices and show that they can make films that people don’t like and that don’t make very much money, a Cars 2 if you will.

This isn’t that movie.

Ant-Man is totally charming and breathes fresh air in to the parts of the superhero formula that are beginning to feel particularly stale with some fun heist elements and a killer supporting cast. Besides, Doctor Strange feels more like the Marvel failure movie, right? All the pressure is on you, Benedict Cumberbatch; how long can all these people be fooled by your pasty charms?

Taken at the very broadest strokes, Ant-Man is the first Iron Man movie repackaged. New and potentially dangerous technology invented by a wise benevolent scientist with a bit of an attitude is turned in to a weapon for evil by his unscrupulous bald business partner and action comedy ensues. Where Ant-Man veers off the path is by splitting their Tony Stark into two parts: Michael Douglas plays the genius scientist Hank Pym, an elderly version of the Stark superego, and Paul Rudd is the hunky wisecracker safecracker Scott Lang, Tony’s id but with better hair and tighter clothes. There’s nothing groundbreaking, clever, or even particularly surprising to be found in the plot but it all works well enough and Rudd’s charm is capable of saving scenes that otherwise would be pretty insufferable. (For further reference, see most of This is 40.)

The supporting cast is what saves this movie from some rather poorly thought out subplots. Lang is supposed to be doing all of this dangerous stuff to stay out of jail and reconnect with his young daughter and those interactions and the ones with the cops determined to put him back in jail are the kind of things that most movies turn in to the worst kind of crap but Ant-Man fills that part of the movie with Judy Greer, Bobby Cannavale, and Wood Harris… and I can’t be mad at having to watch those actors. Similarly the movie revolves around a heist and includes Lang’s old criminal buddies whoa re there to provide comic relief and while David Dastmalchian doing “generic foreigner” is rather grating, Tip Harris is quite good as the getaway driver and Michael Pena steals every scene he’s in as Lang’s closest criminal confidant. Seriously, forget the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe— I would much rather watch Cannavale, Harris, Dastmalchain, Harris, and Pena play cops and robbers than see whatever part Rudd has to play in Civil War.

That’s the tragedy of the Marvel movie set up though, isn’t it? The things I liked about Ant-Man were in the fringes and not so much in the Ant-Man parts, which were fine, but kind of whatever and because of the way these movies are scheduled I know there’s not even an opening for a sequel until the winter of 2019. I suppose if this were some revelatory breakout hit they might be able to get it in a little sooner but it wasn’t and they won’t and so I’m more or less stuck waiting more than four years and two installments of Avengers to get back to the good stuff here. These are good problems for Marvel to have, too much good stuff in their movies to get back to in a reasonable amount of time, but it puts a weird kind of pressure on the other films. If there are parts of Inhumans or Captain Marvel that are particularly bad I’ll be sitting there thinking “this is where we could have gotten more Ant-Man, but no” and that’s not entirely fair. And I’ll definitely be thinking it while watching Cumberbatch screw up Stephen Strange who should absolutely not have a British accent.

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