With Christopher Nolan in town this week shooting The Dark Knight Rises, we’ve come across a possible version of the opening credits…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8UiJmCN_K4[/youtube]
Hat tip to Steve Saffel and Peter Sanderson.
November 4, 2011
NEW Radio Set: Box Thirteen, Volume 2
Radio Archives, known as a leading producer of quality Audio collections as well as a popular purveyor of Pulp Fiction announces the blending of the two in its latest product line. Not only is Radio Archives adding twelve new audiobooks to its future lineup, it is doing so with the direction of perhaps the best known Pulp expert and author of the modern era. Acting as series producer, historian/author Will Murray lends his name to Radio Archive’s newest line of audiobooks. Will Murray’s Pulp Classics are now available from Radio Archives and take both Pulp and audio to a whole new level! 
Yesteryear or Today, Pulp Fiction is where readers find adventure, suspense, justice, and thrills a minute! And The Pulp Book Store is where the finest of Pulp can be found! Whether you’re seeking Classic Pulp tales from legendary authors or you’re looking for new tales of derring do by today’s writers, all of it and more is right here for you in The Pulp Book Store!
Review of “The Genghis Khan” from Doc Savage, Volume 1
By now you know, unless you’re a fan who really reads nothing but comics and sees/hears nothing that’s not comics related: we had us a storm, we north easterners, and it was a humdinger. Lots of snow – lots! – before Halloween which royally screwed things up hereabouts and drove Mari and me onto the wet and gleaming roads looking for a motel with a vacancy because our house had neither heat nor light. Main problem seemed to be that the trees still bore leaves and their weight, added to the weight of the snow, caused the timber to fall, much of it across power lines. Cue music:
Away in a manger
No crib for a bed,
Poor little Denny
Lay down his bald head…
Okay, wrong holiday and we did a bit better than Joe the Carpenter and his family. We found a Holiday Inn near the Jersey border that had suffered a cancellation and so we didn’t have to spend the dark hours in a cold house, a car, or a manger.
And you know, I’m not complaining! I choose to live here, partly because I like the seasons and, as Diana Ross admonished, “take the bitter with the sweet.” Mari and I can consider the whole thing an unexpected little adventure, though if the power hadn’t returned this morning, I’d probably be calling it something else.
Of course, if I lived in Peter Parker’s New York I wouldn’t be bothered by meteorological matters. Same would be true if I lived in Metropolis, Star City, Gotham City…anywhere in comicbookland. There’s seldom snow there, or much rain, not a lot of wind or heat or humidity, and that’s a minor league shame. Not that I’d want Pete’s Spidey suit sticking to his armpits, or Batman have to put on galoshes over his boots. But in a story, weather can be a tool. It can add texture and realism to the fictional settings, complications to the hero’s various quests (and without complications, those quests aren’t terribly involving). It can even be a major plot point, one that drives the action of the narrative. Or a source of humor. Or a reflection of the protagonist’s psyche. It can establish mood and it can help to establish locale. It could give a city character, as fog does for London and San Francisco or rain does for Seattle.
What is the weather like in Star City? Does the local television weather guy begin every report with, “It looks like another bland day here in our area…”
The exception, as is so often the case, is Central City, the New York doppelganger where Will Eisner’s Spirit fought whatever Eisner thought up to give him problems. It rains there. And snows. And gets warm. And the stuff is a joy to read, and if you’re looking for some recommended reading, well…most, if not all, of the Spirit stories have been reprinted. What I’m saying is, no excuses.
But for now…Hey look! A tree has fallen across my front yard. That hasn’t happened since…the damn hurricane a few months ago.
Maybe I should move to Metropolis.
FRIDAY: Martha Thomases
In what may be the really profitable digital strategy for DC, Batman: Arkham City
These sales figures are more than double the number of units the previous title sold in the same time period, and has already solidified the games rank as a contender for one of the top-selling titles of this year. Also, the game currently stands as the highest reviewed PS3 and 360 game of this year on Metacritic.com with average scores of 96 and 95 respectively.
Building on the intense atmosphere and story from the original game, Batman: Arkham City drops players into a section of Gotham, shut off from the main city, and over run by the inmates of the former asylum. Gangs wage war against each other and a new threat looms to take over Gotham as a whole. Cameos from Catwoman, Two-Face and more from Batman’s Rogues Gallery litter every single scene in the game, and coupled with the excellent storytelling, make it one of, if not the best superhero game ever. Look for our review in a day or two.
The patron comic book of Monday Mix-Up has always been The Brave And The Bold, a comic book that delighted in mashing up weird combinations of characters, usually Batman with characters that made almost no sense to combine with, like Deadman, Kamandi, Jonah Hex, Sgt. Rock, Adam Strange, Lois Lane, Scalphunter, the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Unknown Soldier, the Guardians of the Universe, the Joker, R’as al Ghul, and the House of Mystery. This tradition has been carried on in the TV series [[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold]]], which has included many of those combinations and added Space Ghost to boot.
But for some, those combinations just aren’t going far enough. For those, we present The Brave And The Bold: The Lost Issues. Now you can find the missing team-ups with Batman and Jack Bauer, Iron Man 2020, Spider-Man 2099, Harvey Birdman, Groo, Galactus, Dirty Harry, Darth Vader, and Adam West.
Not to be outdone, if you delve into the archives you can also find all the missing Marvel Two-In-One issues where the Thing meets Young Justice, Vampirella, Wallace & Gromit, Tintin, the Warlord, Snoopy, the Spirit, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Walking Dead, and Thing #2 and Thing #1.
Outside my window it’s January in October; the snow is falling in thick full flakes, the wind is howling, and the steam radiator is hissing and spitting heat while I write this. I just finished watching Captain America: The First Avenger. The perfect movie for a day like a day like this, when I’m all warm and cozy inside while a little Ice Age is raging on the other side of my window.
It’s a really great movie, totally true to its comic book roots, and yet with just enough of an underpinning of truth that enables – for me, at least – a total suspension of disbelief. I haven’t felt this way about a super-hero movie since I first saw Superman. Yeah, I dug Batman Begins and Dark Knight and I’m looking forward to The Dark Knight Rises. And I liked the X-Men movies, even though they were all about Wolverine – hell, the guy even makes a quick cameo (brilliantly done and totally in character) in X-Men: First Class; but Superman and Captain America are movies that leave me walking on air and just full of joi de vivre.
So much of the credit, like 99% of it, goes to Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of Superman, and I think, in the same way, 99% of the credit for the success of Captain America goes to Chris Evans. They both really get it. They get that these characters are representations of, characterizations of – no, the embodiment of the American dream, the American ideal, the “gee whiz, this is the best country in the whole world, and I am one damn lucky fellow to be living in it” experience.
When suits at Marvel made the decision a few years ago to kill Captain America, I was so upset. Honestly – and I mean this in the best possible way – it was for me as if Christopher Reeve had just died all over again. Reeves had proved himself a true Superman, a true American hero, in so many ways; and his death was, for me, an end of an era. And then, a few years later, and all for the sake of $$$, for publicity, Cap is dead. And I felt like – well, let me put it as succinctly as I can:
This country is fucked.
In 1957, Elia Kazan directed A Face In The Crowd. Starring Andy Griffith in his film debut, it’s the story of Lonesome Rhodes, a hard-drinking country-western singer pulled out of obscurity and given his own radio show by talent scout Patricia Neal. His “down-home” philosophical spiels soon lead to his own television show, leading to worshipful fans, drooling sponsors with money, and political influence. Now drunk on power instead of alcohol, Rhodes is a manipulator of Machiavellian proportion. And although A Face In The Crowd was not considered a success during its theatre run, it has proven to be, as so many of Kazan’s movies were – prescient in its depiction of the overtaking by pop culture and big business of the American political system.
And now we have Herman Cain. Everybody knows him as “The Pizza King,” and who hasn’t seen his “Imagine There’s No Pizza” performance? (John Lennon must be rolling over in his grave. Yoko, can’t you sue him or something?) But did you know that he’s also a gospel singer, and performed on the 13-track album Sunday Morning released by Selah Sound Production & Melodic Praise Records in 1996? Did you know that he writes an op-ed column that is syndicated by the North Star Writers Group to over 50 newspapers? Did you know that he has written numerous books – Leadership is Common Sense; Speak as a Leader; CEO of SELF; They Think You’re Stupid – and that the latest, This is Herman Cain: My Journey to the White House, is on the bookshelves now, and that he is not only campaigning, but on a national book tour as we speak? And did you know that, until he formally announced his candidacy, he hosted The Herman Cain Show on WSB-AM in Atlanta? Lonesome Rhodes, you’ve met your match!
So is he just a huckster peddling his wares? Well, let’s see. Did you know that Cain was on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve in Kansas City? And that he was the chairman of the Omaha branch? (It’s not surprising that Fox News never reports on that, since the Fed is one of the big bad bogeymen under attack by the Repugnanticans.) And that he sat on the boards of some of America’s biggest corporations, including Nabisco and Whirlpool?
So he ain’t just a huckster, he’s a corporate toady and a bankster too! (Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Together, are you listening?)
And since 2005, and ending when he announced his candidacy, Herman Cain worked for Americans for Prosperity (AFP), a right-wing political action committee (PAC). You know who funds AFP? The Koch brothers!!!! You know who’s Cain’s campaign manager? Mark Block, his co-worker at AFP. You know Cain’s senior economic adviser, Richard Lowrie, he of the totally huckster 9-9-9 tax plan? Guess where he met Cain? Yep. Lowrie sat on the AFP board of directors until Cain announced his candidacy.
Yeah, good ol’ Herman Cain. He’s just a regular old joe. A face in the crowd.
Watching Shane now.
Come back, Cap. Cap. Cap, come back. Come back, Cap! Caaaaaaap!!!!!!!
TUESDAY: Michael Davis
There is no such thing as nonfiction. There’s only story.
I ‘spect I have some ‘splainin’ to do on that one, Lucy.
Story is a narrative comprising selected series of events arranged towards a desired effect. That’s the same whether you’re telling a Batman story, a newstory, a history, a biography, a novel, a short story, a screenplay or what have you. What determines what events the storyteller chooses to emphasize, de-emphasize, omit, invent, re-interpret, or fudge is whatever ends or point that said storyteller wants to make.
“Newstories?” you ask. “You’re describing the news as all fiction?” You can prove it yourself. Something happens and it’s on the news. How The New York Times covers that event is going to be different than how Fox News covers it. Witness Occupy Wall Street.
The difference between fiction and “non-fiction” is that in fiction we make up the events (although in historical fiction, we often use real events) while the reporter, the biographer, the historian usually use actual events. I have read histories or biographies where there are so few known historical facts that the biographer/historian spends time speculating on what “must” have happened.
In no case, however, are the events they describe exactly what happened. They would have to describe every little thing that occurred without giving one item more emphasis than another. It is not reality; it is the writer’s story of what happened. All the events in a newstory or a history or a biography happen through the lens and the filter of the storyteller, which is formed by that storyteller’s own experiences and point of view. It may be further informed by the editor or producer or director or the PR guy.
It’s all story.
When I’m writing, two of the key questions I have to ask is 1) whose story is it and 2) what story am I trying to tell? The answers to those two questions make or break the story. I maintain it’s no different elsewhere.
Science books? No different. The events are the data and the writer emphasizes or de-emphasizes which data according to what he or she thinks is relevant.
Text books? Oh lordy, are they ever becoming fiction. I know people who work in the text book industry and what goes in, what gets left out, what gets emphasized or de-emphasized depends on the largest school districts and what their school boards want in them or left out. Those districts are in California and Texas, by the way, and they determine what story gets told. If you’re kid is getting creationism taught as a theory equal with evolution, it’s because some powerful school districts have decided that’s part of the story to be taught.
But numbers don’t lie, right? Math books are non-fiction.
Numbers are made to lie all the time. We got into this economic mess because of the fiction some people sold using a selected set of numbers. If someone is spinning the numbers, then they’re telling you a story using those numbers. In other words, a fiction.
Events happen all around us all the time. Thanks to the wonders of the cel phone, the tablet, the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, and on and on, we are constantly bombarded with more events.
Story is how we make sense of the world, of existence, of our lives. We emphasize some things, de-emphasize other, omit a ton of stuff in order to create our own story, one we can live with, cope with, make some sort of demented sense of.
Story, and fiction are not lies per se; they are interpreted reality. What we experience, how we interpret it, is all-true but none of it is completely true. It’s all fiction to some degree. None of it is the complete truth. The part we play in each story varies according to which story is being told and who is telling it. I am, hopefully, the hero of my own story but I may be the villain or antagonist of another, a supporting character in yet another, a cameo or background character in many others. Same for you.
It’s not a bad thing. Story is how we make sense of reality. The more stories we hear, the wider our understanding of that reality. Just keep in mind – everyone has a story to tell. Just ask yourself – why are they telling you a given story? Why am I telling you this one? What story do you make of it?
Make it a good one.
MONDAY: Mindy Newell
Typing that title hurt. A lot. It’s been stated here time and again: I am a Kyle Rayner fan. Here I sit, sarcasm sitting in its glass jar next to me, legitimately about to make the argument that my favorite character in comics be given a dirt nap… and I don’t mean the Steve Rogers–Bruce Wayne dirt nap kiddos. I mean the Gwen Stacy sleep of the pulpy gods. But why, you ask, would I suggest such a fate to the character that inspired this bearded bloke to make comics himself? I paraphrase Dr. Denis Leary:
“Elvis Presley should have been shot in the head back in 1957. Somebody should’ve walked up behind Elvis in ‘57 with a 44 magnum, put the barrel of the gun right up to his brainstem and just pulled the trigger, so you can remember Elvis in a nice way. Wouldn’t it be nice to remember Elvis thin, with a big head of hair? Maybe that gold lame suit. Wouldn’t that be nice? Because how do you remember Elvis? You know how you remember Elvis. He was found in the toilet with his pants around his ankles and his big fat hairy sweaty king of rock and roll ass exposed to the world and his final piece of kingly evidence floating in the toilet behind him!”
And as I look on the career of Kyle, since 2005, I see a fat Elvis, crapping on the pot.
Kyle Rayner was brought into the fold of DC Comics in January of 1994. After they wrote off Hal Jordon as a villain-turned-martyr, they introduced new blood into the comic. Kyle represented everything Hal didn’t. He was timid, indecisive, and anything but fearless. All he was, was a kid with an amazing imagination. A kid given the ultimate toy, and a universe to save. For lack of a better M.O., Kyle Rayner was DC’s Spider-Man. An everykid being shown that with great power rings comes great responsibility. It was a bold move. And over ten years he was given free reign to learn, and grow. I grew with him. Kyle joined the Justice League (during the fantastic Morrison run), and became the POV character we could get behind. While Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman were the serious heroes, Kyle was the kid who could still yell “cool!” Simply put, with Kyle Rayner, DC had the bold and inventive reboot they’re so desperate to have now.
In 2005, Dan DiDio and Geoff Johns decided that the comic book world had enjoyed too much of this “modern” era and declared the silver age be reborn! Hal Jordan was resurrected, and with it took every last ounce of thunder Kyle had mustered in his 10 year tenure as the torch bearer. This is the moment folks, where, had I the will power, I would politely take Rayner’s ring and hurl it into the sun. Ever since “Rebirth” Rayner has floundered, flopped, and died a slow and pitiful character death. Ask ole’ Geoff or Dan, and I’m sure they’d feed you a brilliant line on how he’s still “relevant and as awesome as ever!”… Let’s go to the tape!
Since 2005, Kyle Rayner has… uh… got chummy with Guy Gardner… and… became Ion until they gave that to another alien we’ve since forgotten about… and … uh… got taken into Parallax for an issue… put on a blue lantern ring for a day… oh! And at some point his mom died, and he lost 17 girlfriends. Some died. Some blew up. Others turned out to have daddy issues. Ain’t it riveting?
Simply put, with Hal as the lead green meanie, Kyle fails to matter in the great scheme of things. As Barry Allen came back put Wally West out of a job, so too, does Kyle remain a waste of ink. The whole concept of legacy is so strong at DC (far more than Marvel…), but with the reboot, and continual Geoff Johning of the multiverse… legacy is fast becoming nothing more than an MMO title.
And so, this September, DC rebooted its entire universe. With Hal continuing to be the star of the flagship series (mainly because he was the star in a wonderful flop of a film this summer…), and John Stewart (affirmative action at it’s best!) and Guy Gardner (because we all love angry Irish guys, right?) over on GL Corpse (pun intended), what was Kyle given to do? Well, with GL: New Guardians… He’s the top banana in an adventure that will undoubtedly:
1. Have him shack up with a random space chick. And then she’ll die.
2. Have him wear a plethora of rings, resulting in him changing costumes 10 more times.
3. Remove any semblance of his character, and have him shout various generically heroic things as he saves the day.
4. At some point, he’ll mention all the good things he’s done as a Green Lantern, reminding us Raynernauts that he mattered there, for a while.
5. He’ll grow a bitchin’ half-beard.
I’ve been through the first two issues of the series. I’ve yet to be impressed. It’s like a cattle call for all the last two years worth of Lantern D-listers, all brought together for yet-another-unforeseen-prophetic-battle. Rayner will end up working with Bleez (the slutty Red Lantern), Arkillo (the tongue-less Kilowog of the Sinestro Corps), the Orange jelly-bean thing from Larfleeze’s lantern, Fatality (the only character in the DCU to have even less to do since Kyle Rayner’s original run on GL), an Indigo Lantern (who we still know nothing about, nor care about at this point) and Saint Walker (all will be well, and have some milk!).
Two issues in and nothing has happened. Seriously. 40 pages of content that has seemingly set up a single final splashpage of him in some kind of White-Lantern getup. As if we haven’t seen that before?
Ultimately, if DC wanted to ‘shake things up’ with their reboot, it was the perfect time to shed some dead weight. Since the love affair with all things Silver Age is still in full swing, the world simply doesn’t need a Kyle Rayner. And as one of his biggest fans, I’d much rather have seen him retire his ring for a desk job… instead of continuing to not-matter in the grand scheme of things. He could take a seat next to Wally, and they could simply wait until the next crisis. Or until someone recalls why he mattered in the first place.
SUNDAY: John Ostrander
On the list of simple comic book truths: Superhero comics need major female superheroes. I like the idea that the Flash should be a woman. A speedster called Jesse Quick briefly took over the role:
It’d be great if The Fastest Man On Earth was a woman, but DC is conservative with the characters it considers its most valuable properties, so I doubt they would go with a female Flash, even though that’s the best way to get a second woman into DC’s Big Five of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and the Flash.
That argument doesn’t apply to the Atom and Green Arrow.
Walking home from food shopping, thinking about this week’s column. Thinking about all the “news that’s fit to print” (and some not) about the portrayal of women in comics. And I thought, has anyone written about the portrayal of men in comics? I’m talking down and dirty, hot stuff, glistening muscle, chest hair or no chest hair?, blue brown or green eyes, skin-tight costume, hunky super-duper M-E-N.
Distaff geeks unite!
I’ll start. Off the top of my head, and in no particular order:
Now for the “live-action”:
uh, sorry ‘bout that. where was i? she said sheepishly.
No quibbling allowed on the next four. I am the columnist. I am allowed my all things Buffy. Anyway, maybe they started out as live-action characters, but they all appear in comics now. And don’t give me any lip about any of them not technically being superheroes. I don’t see you fighting demons and vampires and saving the world over and over again.
What’cha think of my choices, fellow geek women? Who are yours? Martha, y’ wanna start?
TUESDAY: Michael Davis
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
