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Tom Artis’ Marvel Kids

Our friend Doug Rice passed this unpublished story along to me, and I wanted to share at least the splash panel with you ComicMixers out there. It lead off a 1993 project called “The Marvel Kids” – its intent is obvious from the art.

Doug wrote the job, and our late buddy Tom Artis was the penciller. Al Vey rounded it off with the inks. It’s a shame the project didn’t go anywhere, as the creative team had more wit and charm than a barrel of pie-throwing monkeys at a Cirque Du Soleil gig.

(Artwork copyright Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

May sweeps at ComicMix

May sweeps at ComicMix

We’d like to welcome Michael A. Price to the Mix — see his Forgotten Horrors #1 below.  It’s always nice to have another contributor take the heat off an overworked news editor!  Between him and Martha (who’s occasional column now has a name, Brilliant Disguise) and Robert and Matt and Glenn, I’m starting to lose count…) Here’s our round-up of regular weekly columns:

Mellifluous Mike Raub‘s podcasts keep getting Bigger and Broader:

And don’t forget our very special premiere videocast, in which EIC Mike Gold hints at greater things to come…

MICHAEL H. PRICE: Spider-Man 3’s spectacular overkill

MICHAEL H. PRICE: Spider-Man 3’s spectacular overkill

It helps to remember, now that a third Spider-Man epic has arrived to herald the school’s-out season at the box office, that the title character had started out as the comic-book industry’s least likely recruit to the ranks of super-heroism.

The idea of a human being with the proportionate strength of a spider had been kicking around since the 1950s. Comic-book pioneers Joe Simon and Jack Kirby seem to have arrived there first, with an undeveloped concept known as the Silver Spider. The inspiration ran afoul of a publishers’ bias against spiders and other such crawly creatures, the bankable success of Batman notwithstanding. But Simon and Kirby steered the basic notion into print in 1959 with a change-of-species Archie Comics series called The Fly – capitalizing upon an unrelated but like-titled hit movie of 1958.

By the early 1960s, Kirby was slumming at a low-rent publishing company that was soon to become the influential Marvel Comics. Kirby and writer Stan Lee had recently found competitive leverage with a band-of-heroes comic called The Fantastic Four – grimmer and edgier than the fare offered by big-time DC Comics. DC’s Superman and Batman franchises anchored a line of costumed heroes who got along well enough to have formed a super-heroes’ club.

Lee and Kirby’s retort to DC Comics’ Justice League magazine had been a Fantastic Four whose members quarreled and exchanged threats and insults. After Kirby had raised the Silver Spider as a prospect, Lee and Steve Ditko envisioned Spider-Man as a teen-age nebbish, afflicted with superhuman abilities by a bite from a radioactive spider. Artists Kirby and Ditko combined qualities of strength and neurosis in the character design: Superman’s alter-ego, Clark Kent, wore eyeglasses and feigned social withdrawal as a disguise; Spider-Man’s alter-ego, Peter Parker, wore eyeglasses because he was a nearsighted dweeb.

The embryonic Marvel Comics, having little to lose and plenty to prove, launched Spider-Man in a failing magazine and hoped that somebody might notice. Sales figures spiked against expectations. Lee’s unsophisticated attempts at philosophical depth struck comic-book readers of the day as comparatively profound. Spider-Man’s début in his own title involved a violent misunderstanding with the members of the Fantastic Four.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies date from times more recent (2002-and-counting), but they recapture well that early stage of 45 years ago in which Peter B. Parker, alias Spider-Man, marks time between altercations by wondering whether he deserves to be saddled with such responsibility. Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 (2004) is generally regarded as one of the more mature-minded comic-book films, reconciling sensationalism with provocative ideas.

Editor’s Note: SPOILERS after the jump…

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Best headline ever

Best headline ever

My favorite story headline was run by the New York Daily News after a bus and subway strike that had crippled the city was resolved over the weekend in time for the start of the work week. The headline: Sick Transit’s Glorious Monday.

But now, the AP has matched it with a story about tightrope performers converging on South Korea to compete for a $15,000 prize by crossing the longest high wire ever, over a half a mile long, suspended over the river in Seoul.

The headline: Skywalkers in Korea cross Han solo.

Hat tip to Tom Galloway.

Free Comics Day hits The Big ComicMix Broadcast

Free Comics Day hits The Big ComicMix Broadcast

Primed for Free Comic Book Day? Pumped up or punked out At Spider-Man 3? We cover it all on the Big ComicMix Weekend Broadcast, including news on Casper”s return, the next Superman Movie, More Star Trek in comics, and a quick drive by from Flo & Eddie! Plus we conclude our Comic Book Masters Series with a visit from an Oscar winning cartoonist who helped bring back The Golden Age Of Comics!

Press The Button – or no free comics for you!

Spider-Man 3 sets new records everywhere

Spider-Man 3 sets new records everywhere

Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood reports: "I’m told Spider-Man 3 beat Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 for the biggest U.S. opening day ever in film history. The threequel  Friday shattered the $55.8 million mark set by P2 last year and took in $59 million. Based on the first day’s performance, the studio believes the film will delivers in the +/- range of $135 mil to $145 mil for its first three days of release. A better estimate will emerge Sunday morning when the studio will release its full report with exit surveys and international figures to date.

"In addition, Sony estimated that SM3 grossed approximately $104 million worldwide yesterday, the highest single day gross in global box office history. The film delivered $45 million Friday in overseas ticket sales. This opening weekend, SM3 will definitely make more than SM1 ($114.8 mil) or SM2 ($88.1 mil) at U.S. theaters.

"Peter Parker set house records at several theaters across the country where sell-outs were common throughout the day Friday. The two highest grossing theaters in North America were the Lincoln Square (which includes an IMAX theater) in New York, which took in $158,158, and the Arclight in Los Angeles, which reported $144,926 worth of ticket sales."

No wonder Spidey has such a swelled head.

FCBD: Robert Kirkman in NYC`

Free Comic Book Day started with a bang at Jim Hanley’s Universe in New York City last night – or was it a howl?  Robert Kirkman (Invincible, Marvel Zombies, The Walking Dead) was on hand to launch his new book The Astounding Wolf-Man.  The signing is the first of a series of five appearances across the country this weekend to promote the new book.  “If giving the book away for free doesn’t work, I don’t know what will,” said Kirkman.

Kirkman described his new book as “An action-packed superhero romp.” The crowd that packed the aisles of Jim Hanley’s Universe were certainly eager to pick up the premier issue.  Now that he has a book on zombies and a book on werewolves Kirkman said, “I think I’d like to do mummies.”

With comic book properties especially hot right now Invincible has been optioned by Paramount.  “I’m working on a draft of the screenplay right now.  There’s no casting yet.  No director either,” said Kirkman.  For those with more of a zombie jones Kirkman said, ”There’s interest in a The Walking Dead movie.  My agent is listening to offers all the time.  We’re waiting for the right one to come along.”

We asked him why he thought zombies were so hot these days.  “People like zombie comics when they’re afraid.  The last surge in popularity of zombie comics was at the height of the Cold War.  Now the war on terror has the same atmosphere.  The media is full of fear,” said Kirkman.

As for what’s next, “The Walking Dead and Invincible are both going strong towards issue 50, that’s pretty exciting.  Marvel Zombies 2 is also about to get going,” said Kirkman.

Batgirl’s bid for equal rights

Batgirl’s bid for equal rights

Oh sure, we could link to the Avi Arad interview, or the many mainstream news articles on Free Comic Book Day, but everyone else is doing that, plus due to burnout from another killer work week we aren’t going anywhere today.  Not to our local comic stores, not to the movies, not even outside for any fresh air.  We just can’t justify reading and watching brand-new stuff whilst there’s so much almost-new stuff which we have yet to peruse.

Okay, we cheated a little and read some MySpace Countdown even though we’ve only just finished 52 #48 and won’t even get the last few issues of that title for a few weeks.  (We know 52 is finished because Greg Rucka sounds even more burnt out than we do.)  If we were the impatient type we could probably read them at a comic shop today — but no.  We’re getting a bit old for this.  We actually remember a time, for instance, when women weren’t paid nearly as much as men, as pointed out in this PSA from over 30 years ago which Tom Peyer found:

Ah, nostalgia.  Thank goodness that sort of gender discrimination’s no longer going on!

MARTHA THOMASES: 52-Skiddoo

MARTHA THOMASES: 52-Skiddoo

This is the week that DC’s 52 came to a close. The company’s first attempt at a weekly comic since Action Comics Weekly more than 15 years ago, unless you count Mike Carlin’s interconnecting but freestanding Superman series. It was, by most accounts, a commercial and critical success. 52 re-defined what comics can do, as narrative and as pop culture events.

When I was a kid, a comic event was a much smaller achievement. I started reading comics when I was five (for those of you keeping track at home, that was 1958). My parents would go to the train station on Sunday mornings to pick up the just-delivered New York Times, and I’d get to buy a comic. One comic. Because it had to last all week, I wanted the one with the most story. Eventually, after lots of trial and error, I decided that DC was the best for me.

It’s not that I didn’t sample Marvel. I did. But the book I tried had a story that was continued next month. When I looked for the next issue thirty pulse-pounding days later, it wasn’t there. Newsstand distribution was like that. I was happier getting a DC book, with two – sometimes even three – complete stories in each issue.

(Kids today, they have it easy. They can buy multi-part stories in trade paperback collections. In my day, we had to walk to the convenience store, picking up deposit bottles so we could afford to buy comics that might not even make it to the racks. In the snow! With no shoes!)

This is not to say we didn’t enjoy events. I remember in 1961, when there was a “novel-length” (that meant it took up a whole issue) story, “The Death of Superman,” that made me cry when Krypto said goodbye. There were Wonder Woman stories where she used a Paradise Island computer to imagine what it would be like to have adventures with herself as a baby (Wonder Tot) and a teenager (Wonder Girl). Basically, just being allowed to get a comic was enough of an event.

In those days it was assumed that most kids would read comics for a couple of years in grade school, then discover the opposite sex and go one to other amusements. There was no reason to worry about continuity, because no one expected the readers to stick around long enough to notice.

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