We didn’t know what we were in for when FX debuted The Americans last February. The Cold War story of Russian spies embedded in suburban Washington D.C. was fresh and fun with winning performances from Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, and Margo Martindale. With the second season ready to arrive in a few weeks, our friends at 20th Century Home Entertainment are offering ComicMix readers an opportunity.
The Americans, Season 1 blasts its way onto Blu-ray and DVD February 11th. There’s no better way to celebrate than by entering to win a Blu-ray copy of Season 1 to add to your collection, as well as a Russian styled Ushanka hat. Be careful where you wear the hat though, your neighbors may begin to think you’re an undercover Russian KGB spy!
To enter for your chance to win, simply answer the below question.
What year was the U.S.S.R officially dissolved?
A) 1972
B) 1991
C) 2003
D) 1983
Give us your answer by 11:59 p.m., February 11. Open to United States and Canadian readers only. The judgment of ComicMix will be final.
Synopsis
Secrets can be deadly in this suspenseful thriller about undercover Russian spies in 1980s Washington. Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) seem to be a typical suburban couple, but they’re actually lethal KGB agents plotting to bring down America. As the Cold War escalates, Philip and Elizabeth must take extreme measures to continue their mission and keep their true identities hidden. But when an FBI agent moves in across the street, they become ensnared in a pulse-pounding game of cat and mouse.
Blu-ray & DVD Features
“The Colonel” Commentary featuring Joseph Weisberg, Joel Fields and Noah Emmerich
My last ComicMix article ran Tuesday past, January 29, 2014. When first posted the image used was so small it almost unreadable. Mike Weber posted the following in the comment section
Heh. That S.H.I.E.L.D. cover you reproduce so illegibly small at the column head was knocked off in the ‘80s for the back glass on a pinball machine named “Blackout”.
I had nothing to do with the art, Mike.
I think since no other art on the site is in such a state, perhaps Mr. Gold did so purposely. He’s fed up with my stuff arriving with but a few minutes to spare and what better way to show me he’s not standing for my shit than sending me a “I’m not standing for your shit’”email this?
There are many reasons why the art is reproduced in such a manner. The top four are listed below:
a) He’s not standing for my shit.
b) Because I’m black.
c) He’s not standing for my shit and I’m black.
d) Or, maybe (and let this be real the actual reason), there’s an issue with the site.
Guess which reason won’t be mentioned during the annual Black Panel at the San Diego Comic Con?
Someone is bound (A Plant? No!) too ask the question, “why is ComicMix disrespecting the most influential and sexist black man who has ever worked in comics?” That person I have never met will certainly follow up with “how can ComicMix hate when he’s committed to finding a cure for sex addiction in pretty women between the ages of 18-21, feeding the hungry and preaching the gospel?”
Then the completely unknown to me person will undoubtedly bring up how each of those noble undertaking are more time consuming than the other (from last to first…give that a sec) and ComicMix should be boycotted.
The following was posted by Doctor R-Man
Hey, Michael.
A bit OT, but I have a question.
Exactly what licensing issues are preventing Milestone characters from seeing use in DC stories?
Could you guys please allow DC to continue to use the characters? I’m hoping you could give DC a chance and sort this out.
It really doesn’t help for a character like Static to be stuck in limbo.
Doctor,
Milestone has decided if DC wants to use our characters they are forbidden to use any person of color in any of their books. They must also stop using the word and the color black. Frankly, we don’t see what the big deal is. We see this as neither unreasonable nor racial.
What do I consider an unreasonable demand?
Let’s see…a letter from a lawyer telling me to stop doing something a million other people are doing. Well, I can’t stop doing it because I have no control over where it’s being done.
But! If I could stop it I would.
Not because I give a flying fuck about some lawyer that my lawyers would destroy like the Seahawks destroyed the Broncos, no, I’d do it just to see the realization of just how dumb a move this was dawn on those who had the letter sent.
That realization would come fast, hard and often when they have to answer the question of why send a cease and desist letter on the eve of Black History Month that demands the removal of a black iconic character from a place where that character is being recognized as a part of black history?
That’s what I would consider unreasonable and what the black press and public would consider racial. I don’t see it as racial but what I see can’t stop what people think.
But Doctor, I (sorry Peter) I digress.
The above two examples are just plain stupid and I’m sure you get the joke that they are two fictional (as of now) instances that illustrate just how wrong a wrong move could be.
To your question about Milestone and DC: other than non-compete clauses and then only when necessary, I don’t comment on contractual agreements when those agreements are still valid that has all the making of a wrong move.
I have no idea where you heard this from, but I’ve got a pretty good idea – if I’m right I feel it’s a bit of a bitch move to say a contract is preventing you from doing something as it always cast the other party as the bad guy. It’s like the police saying someone is a person of interest. Everyone thinks that person is guilty.
Consider the source, when one party feels it needs to speak on what they cannot do because of an agreement there is always a self-serving agenda.
I’ve heard everything from Milestone is preventing DC from using the characters, Milestone is going to Marvel, Milestone runs the east coast drug trade and DC owed us money so Doomsday was sent to kill Superman because of that debt.
My dear Doctor, even if something is true, until it’s confirmed it’s hearsay. On that note, I’d like to take this time and confirm rather or not it’s true or not. The hell with not commenting.
This week the Tweeks review Disney’s new flick about the making of Disney’s Mary Poppins, Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks. Does anyone think we should let ComicMix EIC Mike Gold share his opinion of Walt with our starry-eyed tweens?
Well, 2014 is six days old, and though I’m not too maudlin about it, I’m glad 2013 is over. It wasn’t my worst year ever – that was pretty much 2006, though 2009 does come close, for reasons that I’m not going into here because some things do have to stay off this page – but 2013 was the year I lost my father. No, he isn’t dead, but he is gone for good, and this is how I know.
We (Glenn, Alix, Jeff, and Meyer Manuel) were visiting my parents on New Year’s Day. I had brought my father up to an apartment from the nursing home division; my parents live in a continuous care adult community. We were having either a late lunch or an early dinner, and one thing about my dad, he hasn’t lost his appetite. He eats everything put in front of him, even eggs, which, in fact, he actively disliked. Anyway, my brother made a joke about how there’s nothing wrong with Daddy’s appetite and how, even when he was in a coma last year, somehow if we put food in his mouth he ate it. We all laughed (a sad, kinda bitter laugh, I think), and then all of a sudden my mom started coughing. She kept coughing. Hard. And all of a sudden I realized she wasn’t just coughing, she was choking.
I went to give her the Heimlich, but Glenn had realized what was going on the same time I did and got to her first. It took a couple of too many abdominal thrusts for comfort, but it worked, thank God. Mom sat down, cried just a little bit because she was really scared there for a moment (of course), drank some water… and I realized that my dad had just sat there during all this and continued to eat – no, wolf down – his french fries. He had been completely unaware of what was happening to his wife of nearly 66 years, of what had nearly happened. All he knew was his french fries. He was just staring at wherever it is that he stares at and eating his french fries. “That is not my father,” I thought. “My father is gone.”
So, so long, 2013. I hope the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
And hello, 2014.
What would I like to do this year?
Like Marc Alan Fishman, my fellow columnist here at ComixMix, I’d like to get back to the comics shop this year. Unlike Marc, I stopped going because of the financial blues I’ve been living with for the last couple of years, and I dream of the day I have real discretionary income in my checkbook register again. I’m making inroads, but sometimes the dream is overtaken by the nightmare, if you know what I mean.
I’d like to get off my procrastinating ass and talk to Editor Mike about a story idea that’s been floating in the back of my head for more than a couple of years. It could encompass all sorts of genres if I’m a good enough writer – a little bit of soap opera, a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of thriller, a little bit of romance, but not a little bit country or a little bit rock n’ roll. It can address a bunch of issues like racism and politics and evolution and love and hate and family and madness and sanity. That is, if I’m a good enough writer, which is the fear that keeps me procrastinating.
I’d like to stop thinking that my dreams are merely the flights of fancy of some crazy woman and act on them. Like, what the hell, why not work into a script the story of my father and his sharing a bottle of Scotch with Lord Mountbatten in Burma during World War II to Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg, whose father was a chief mechanic who was responsible for keeping those P-51 Mustangs flying the Hump in the C-B-I theatre during the war? The worse that could happen is that I hear nothing.
Or write it up as a short story and submit it to, oh, I don’t know, where do you submit a war story these days? The web is my best bet, but exactly what site? I’ll have to buy a current copy of Writer’s Digest.
Or maybe I can do in comic form after all, only then I have to find an artist. God, I wish I could draw and just do my own stuff; the toughest part of being a writer only (only a writer?) in a visual medium is seeing everything in your head so clearly but not being able to translate the whole picture onto the page.
Did I ever tell you that artists amaze me?
I’d like to go to San Diego this year. Yep, I’ve never been to the San Diego Comic-Con. I can hear all the groans now from those who have walked the floors of the convention center, hear all the complaints about how it’s not about comics anymore, that it’s now a marketing tool for Hollywood. But I don’t care. I’d like to experience it at least once. I’d like to go to some panels and I’d like to star gaze just a little bit (but not collect autographs because autographs have never interested me) and I’d like to see people I haven’t seen in too many years and I’d like to go to the beach and watch the sun set into the Pacific Ocean instead of rising up out of the Atlantic.
And I’d like to write Wonder Woman again, and do another Lois Lane book. I’d like to sit down over a cup of tea (I don’t drink coffee) or a glass of wine with Gail Simone and meet Kelley Sue DeConnick and hang out with Martha Thomases (I want to pick up knitting again, Martha!). I’d like to be on a panel about women in comics at a convention and talk about the harassment going on and challenge some of these jerks in person – you want me take me on, you’re welcome to try, assholes.
And I’d like to say thanks to everybody who read my column in 2013. Thanks to everybody who wrote in response here on ComicMix and on Facebook and the League of Women Bloggers. Thanks for all the different opinions and the discussions they engendered.
And thanks to Mike Gold and Glenn Hauman and Adriane Nash and everybody at ComicMix who continue to let me open my big mouth right here, every week, every Monday, for better or for worse.
Hello ComicMix readers! My name is Jen, and I’m really excited to be joining the fold here so I can expand the arenas in which I nerd out about comics, movies, TV, books, and any pop culture ephemera that strikes my fancy. I host a podcast to dive into stuff that’s under the radar, take a look at how things in popular culture now got there, and muse about where trends may go in the future. But exploring pop culture in the written word is another beast entirely, and it’s one I’m pumped to tackle! So let’s get to it!
My favorite TV show is Doctor Who. I embrace every opportunity to talk about it, and have maybe, possibly, sometimes (read: definitely, absolutely, often) turned conversations about entirely unrelated things toward the Doctor, and why the person I’m talking to really should give him a shot. In fact, I’m such a big Whovian that I’m part of a show that does an improvised episode of Doctor Who twice a month! All this being said, I’m sure you can imagine that I had no shortage of invitations to viewing parties for “The Day of the Doctor,” my beloved series’ 50th anniversary special. Yet I didn’t say yes to a single one. Because I hate the group watch.
In the past few years, “event TV” has been making a concerted effort to regain the time-of-broadcast viewership it lost to DVRs. And of course, the fear of encountering spoilers on Twitter or Facebook before getting to view an anticipated show has also helped to draw audiences back to consuming TV at broadcast rather than after the fact. With more people consuming event TV as it airs, maybe it seems natural that viewing parties would become more common. If we’re going to be watching something we enjoy, and our friends are going to be watching the same exact thing at the same exact time, why not do it together? A lot of people I know not only embrace this philosophy, they take it a step further: if we all love Doctor Who or Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, then why get together only for the anniversary special, or last episode, or season finale? Why not group watch every episode to maximize the amount of shared enjoyment?
I’ll tell you why not: because other people are distracting! I don’t want to sit next to a fidgety person while I’m trying to keep the myriad of characters in Westeros straight. I don’t want to miss the second step of one of Walt’s plans because someone in the room with me starts commenting on the first step. And I definitely don’t want to pause for someone to go to the bathroom just as things are getting really timey-wimey. When I love a show, I become pretty OCD about preserving the dramatic flow and catching every detail, and I just haven’t found these things to be possible in a group watch environment.
That being said, the distraction of other people isn’t even the largest deterrent to the group watch for me. The biggest reason I don’t like to view my favorite shows with other people is the fact I tend to react… let’s be generous and just say strongly to the shows I love. “The Red Wedding” made me cheer loudly (feel free to call me a monster, but I think they had it coming), it’s hard for me to think of an episode of Doctor Who that didn’t make me cry, and the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad filled me with a mix of emotions so intense I was literally shaking. I love that TV shows can move me to such extremes, but I’m not exactly dying for other people to see that happen, nor do I want to struggle to hold in my reactions for the sake of not embarrassing myself and distracting people around me.
So for the sake of everyone involved, I’ve gotten in the habit of declining invitations to group watch. But even though I don’t like viewing parties, I still feel bad turning them down. After all, I like my friends – I just don’t want to watch TV with them. Conveniently, I spent the day of “The Day of the Doctor” traveling, so I could truthfully say I wasn’t able to watch with anyone rather than having to fess up to the fact that I wouldn’t want to even if I could. But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced my dislike of the group watch is defensible. If my friends like a show enough to get together to watch it, I don’t think they’ll blame me for liking it so much that I want to relish every second of it. After all, they already know what an OCD nerd I can be.
I’m guessing that throughout an average lifetime we meet approximately 25 billion people. I could be wrong, but that’s what it seems like. After all, not all of these folks are worth meeting – and more than a handful of them are truly disgusting.
Well, tomorrow morning ComicMix is going to do you a favor: we’re going to introduce you to a clever, funny, intelligent and knowledgeable person who is definitely worth meeting. This is because tomorrow morning, at 8 AM EST-USA, we’re happy to say you are going to meet our newest columnist, Jen Krueger.
I could say a lot about Jen, which is weird because I’ve yet to meet her. Outside of the fact that the entire continental United States separates us, it is clear to me that if we were to meet for an early dinner our conversation would last until closing time, and then continue in front of the restaurant. Okay, I’ll admit this is usually the case when two expatriated Chicagoans meet, but Jen is… amazing. I know this because I’ve read her first ComicMix column – the one you’ll be reading tomorrow morning – and I’ve seen some of her other work.
But given the fact that we have yet to meet, I’m going to let Jen describe herself. According to the official ComicMix Book of Rules and Regulations, she’s going to do this in the third-person.
Jen Krueger is a writer and improviser living in Los Angeles. Ask her and she’ll proudly tell you she hails from Chicago. Don’t ask her, and she’ll probably tell you anyway. Jen is the Associate Director of the L.A. Indie Improv Festival and runs Friday night indie improv show The Manifesto Show with her team Comrades. Jen also hosts PrePopCulture, a podcast about pop culture before it pops. She owns one Calvinball, two sonic screwdrivers, and has degrees in Curiosity and Advanced Curiosity.
You’ll get to know Jen better after you read her first ComicMix column, right here on this unique slice of ether, Tuesday morning.
Which calls up the need for a bit of housekeeping.
You might ask “Hey! What happened to Emily S. Whitten?” To which I respond: you didn’t read her November 26th column… so I’ll encapsulate. For the next six months, Emily will be deep in work so she’s shifting to a monthly posting schedule, on or about the 25th of each month. She will be back to her weekly posting schedule after May 2014… and we miss her already.
Now you may ask “Hey! What happened to Martin Pasko?” To which I respond: hmmm… maybe we’ll run a contest.
Happy Saturday, ComicMixers. I hope you all grew a bit too fat because of your gluttonous Thanksgiving feasts, fractured your hips whilst storming the gates of big box retailers on Black Friday (because you really needed that 65” 3D flat screen with cappuccino maker at 80% off), and have since settled back into the doldrums of another bleak and cold winter. Yes, that’s right. I hope for your depression. Your pain. Your sadness. Why you ask? Because, Mr. Bond… everyone loves a villain.
Villains are more fun to write, are they not? Villains can do what we can’t. Say what we won’t. Fight dirty, and then laugh all the way to the loony bin. Villains can cheat. They can lie. And they love to steal. They vex our heroes, and force them to define themselves. In much of the fiction we nerds adore… it’s the villains that truly make our heroes. But what then, makes the villain great?
The keystone to all great villains starts with motivation. Without a driving purpose, a villain (or really almost any character) is a waste of space on the page / screen / what-have-you. At their cores, some nefarious ne’er-do-wells are ultimately about nothing more than pure chaos. Veritable forces of nature – think Doomsday and his ilk – tend to enjoy the decimation of the universe. Other thinkier sinners may have less base-instinct for kabooms, as much as a need to simply horde money, power, women, et al. Arch-nemeses existence ultimately centers around a singular entity through which their evil deeds all align towards. As we’ve seen in several instances, without his Dark Knight to motivate him, the Joker (perhaps the quintessential arch-nemesis if ever there were one) is rendered useless. Scratch that. Minus the bat, Puddin’ is merely banal. At the end of the day, it’s those underlying conjectures that are needed to add the gravity to real villainy.
Motivation aside, the quality villains come well-equipped. Be it with metallic tentacles, an Infinity Gauntlet, or just an amazing intellect, good villains trump their heroes’ arsenal at almost every turn. The ideology of solid story-telling is to create that all-too-important anti-climax, that moment where you truly ask yourself “How in the world can they win?” The best villains though, are more than means to an end. When faced with opposition, the best villains do the unexpected, be it with with sheer force in numbers, an opportune slight-of-hand, or a nasty reveal. Recall Lord Vader pulling the trigger on Alderaan. Or perhaps Ozymandias, what with his “Oops, I already enacted the evil plan… like 30 minutes ago, dudes.”
In pro-wrestling nothing is more beloved by smart-marks than a great heel turn. When Hulk Hogan sprayed that nWo logo onto the freshly beaten chest of the Macho Man Randy Savage, the crowd erupted. Children cried. Old men high-fived. After a decade of flag waving and vitamin eating, Hogan got to blame the fans and give out more than a few nut-shots. Great bookers (thems be the writers behind the scenes, dontcha know) understand that nothing puts their baby-face over harder than finally being able to topple the hated heel. Nothing makes that heel more hated than doing everything possible to be hated. Much could be translated into the rest of the fictional worlds we dilly-dally around in.
I started out this li’l column declaring that everyone loves a villain. I say it because without opposition, there’d be no reason for heroes. In the real world we seek to create villains to justify our actions. Not to be too political here, but let’s be honest: not too long ago, a very powerful man accused another powerful man of having doomsday devices in his secret lair. And like all good heroes, we put on our special capes and super suits, and all but salted the earth where that villain camped out in an effort to keep our loved ones safe. And while many would second guess the call to arms without real evidence… we all just knew that the villain was always up to something. I mean, crap, a while back, the guy had beef with our guy’s father! At the end of the day, these are the stories we need to tell ourselves to go to sleep feeling safe. In this world, real villainy is less a singular physical being as much as a collection of prejudices, ignorance, and abstracts.
Lucky for us, in the end, the villains always lose. Luckier still, the best villains we know will remain forever in fiction. As the poet Linnell said… “I don’t want the world. Just your half.”
December must be The Tweeks’ favorite month: Day of the Doctor, Hunger Games: Catching Fire and a new Disney animated movie- Frozen. A Disney animated movie featuring two main characters who happen to be sisters! Which gives us a chance to open up to our reader a debate we have hotly debated in the ComicMix offices: which one is the evil twin, Maddy or Anya?
Nobody talks more smack about black people than other black people.
There are about a zillion different ways black people describe another black person screwing up. Many of these definitions are stereotypes that would get a non-black person pimp slapped if spoken.
Not being black and telling someone who is that their watch is set to C.P. time or that Obama is the H.N.I.C will surly produce at least a “you looking to get your ass kicked” stare but more than likely a pimp or a bitch slap.
No.
No, I’m not going to tell you what C.P. time is nor what H.N.I.C means or the difference between a pimp and a bitch slap. The “you looking to get your ass kicked” stare is unmistakable, so much so, Helen Keller would get it.
If you don’t know these things, you’re clearly not black. I’m thinking that most non-black comic fans, at least those here at ComicMix, are pretty informed as to what means what and who and who not to say it to.
That’s here at ComicMix. Over at Bleeding Cool where I write another column it’s another story.
I’m convinced that the vast majority of those readers are, well cool. Some however, a small but very vocal group, would read up to the word “time” in my title and with a quickness The Flash would envy, post a comment explaining to me that Captain Planet is not a time traveler. After reading the first sentence the comment would continue with “nor is he black.”
Now, remember, I said the vast majority of Bleeding Cool readers are cool.
I fully expect somewhere on some “I’ll never get any pussy” comic book forum to see a raging discussion about how Michael Davis said all Bleeding Cool readers were…hell I don’t know what they will say I called them. I didn’t word that paragraph like a Dick & Jane book so I’ll get dozens of different takes on how I offended them.
But I digress (sorry Peter). If you want to know the 411 of any or all of the above have someone else ask a black person. Preferably someone you’d like to see get pimp slapped… one of those Bleeding Cool clueless haters would be my choice.
“Hey my main man, you’re black right?”
“Excuse me?” said the man whose skin color makes Wesley Snipes look like Edger Winter.
“Yo Holmes, you H.N.I.C on C.P. time? And if so what does that mea…”
PIMP SLAP!
No. That phrase was just wrong.
BITCH SLAP!
Better.
Shit.
I just realized I couldn’t really get my point across without divulging what C.P. time is. Well, I could but I’d have to be a lot wittier than I am up to. I just flew across the Pacific Ocean and boy is my penis tired!
What, were you expecting the punch line to that old ass joke to be…and boy are my arms tired?
Nope. Don’t get the penis joke? Black guys do. But you can find out without putting anyone at risk for a beat down. Ask a fat white girl. They get it.
Because I’m just exhausted from lack of sleep, jet lag and fat white girls I’ll tell you what C.P. Time means.
It means Colored People Time, a none to subtle insinuation that black people are always late. It’s a silly outdated stereotype and within the black community we use it mostly in jest.
Mostly.
There’s always an exception to every rule. In the case of the massive show I’m curating for the Geppi Entertainment Museum, Milestones: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture & Beyond, that exception numbers three.
So far.
That’s three artists whom I reached out to months and in one case over a year ago with the show info. They all accepted and they all have… lets just say been late.
The amount of work submitted on the call for entries website was staggering so I didn’t have to call a soul. Big names submitted, new talent submitted, new stars established journeymen, you name it we saw it on the website.
So like I said, I didn’t have to call one mofo (ask).
Out of respect I contacted a few select artists because quite frankly these people are just so fantastic they were invited by me to show without having to submit and be juried.
Most of those people are TCB (ask) and all is good in the world.
But, oh, those three…
Those three are working my last nerve. Look, I’m 100% positive that I’ve overlooked someone whose work deserves the exaltation this show will bring him or her. It’s bound to happen. I’ve seen hundreds of artists work but I may just have missed someone who should be an obvious choice. The people I called were on a very short list and I have not heard a peep from these people in months.
OK. I’m sure (really) they won’t let me down after I extended my personal invite so I’m sure all will be right in the world…
But if it isn’t…
They will kick themselves when the show opens and becomes an international phenomenal success.
If it doesn’t it’s all John Jennings fault. “I don’t want any artist in the show whose skin is darker than a paper bag.” I can’t believe he said that either. But Tatiana El-Khouri (who will surely be as responsible as John) said “I don’t want any women in the show taller or prettier than me, and they must all be illiterate.”
Hey, I know, simply unprofessional. But what could I do? I was unaware of any of this as I was waiting to hear from these three artists…
In case you weren’t already aware, The Middleman campaign on Indiegogo has just a few days left before concluding. It has proven to be a great success already, but there is still time for fans of both the TV show and the comic to get in on the action.
The Middleman‘s creator, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, was kind enough to sit down with us and answer a few questions about the crowd-funding campaign and the incredible world he hopes to bring back to life with your support.
ComicMix: To begin with, how would you describe The Middleman comic and the TV show to someone who has never seen or read it before? Javier Grillo-Marxuach: It’s basically Gilmore Girls meets Men in Black… uh, ok, that may not be the best explanation… it’s the story of Wendy Watson, a young art school graduate with few prospects who – after an encounter with a giant monster at one of her temp jobs, is recruited by The Middleman: lone operative of an organization so secret that even he does not know who they are. Joined as a team, The Middleman and Wendy fight all threats extra-, infra-, and juxta-terrestrial, dispatching monsters, aliens, robots and mad scientists while always living up to the Middleman motto “fighting evil so you don’t have to.”
CM: What inspired you to create The Middleman in the first place and what were the influences behind it? JGM: At the time I wrote the original script – in 1998 – there were a lot of “monster of the week shows” on the air – like Buffy, The X-Files, Angel, Charmed, what have you – and I felt that the genre as a whole lacked a certain “genre awareness” – every one of these shows featured people fighting aliens and monsters and so on, in a hermetic universe in which there seemed to be no popular culture and all these mythologies needed to be explained fresh. I thought – “if a geek lived in these universes, no one would have to explain zombies to her!” Also, I wanted to bring a little optimism to the genre – a lot of these shows dealt with the idea that I call “the tragedy of heroism” the notion that being a hero will mess up your life (just ask Peter Parker) – I wanted a lighter, more affirming take on the genre.
CM: When you decided to resurrect The Middleman, why did you choose the crowd-funding route over more conventional methods? How has the crowd-funding experience been for you and the project? JGM: Because we have an established property with a small, but devoted fan following, crowd funding has been a glove-like fit and an extraordinary experience. I think crowd funding is a great way for someone like me, who has a property for which there is demand, but maybe not enough demand to catch the attention of the major studios. Through crowd funding we have about a thousand pre orders for our new book – to a company like Disney, which owns the media rights to The Middleman, that’s not a large enough amount to move the needle – to us it’s more than enough to make a great product that truly does honor to the characters and to republish our old adventures in an exciting way. Our fans have really stepped up to make this new book, and the webstore reprinting all the legacy material, and the cast reunion/live reading possible – so in addition to everything else, the experience has been enormously validating.
CM: Your crowd-funding project has been tremendously successful. Since the campaign has already surpassed its goal, what stretch rewards can contributors look forward to at this point? If your current top stretch goal ($85,000) is surpassed, do you have plans for another one? JGM: Well, we have five days to go as I write this, so I am not placing bets on getting to our second stretch goal – but it all boils down to this, if we go past the 85,000 we will put any additional money into maybe doing a new book in color, or additional middlebooks down the line… it is all about keeping the Middleman alive.
CM: If you could tell one story in The Middleman setting that hasn’t been told yet, what would it be? JGM: The great thing about The Middleman is that we have established that there have been Middlemen all through history – thanks to the crowdfund, we are going to reprint a one-shot called “Legends of the Middleman” which we originally put out in ’06, and tells the stories of barbarian Middleman, Victorian Middleman (in which he face “The League of Professional Jealousy” when Phileas Phogg, Van Helsing and Tesla team up to stop him from solving all their cases) and World War II Middleman… in the TV show we did a story about a cryogenically frozen Middleman from the 60’s (played fabulously by Kevin Sorbo!)… but if i had my pick of any setting… I would do a Gerry Anderson Supermarionation Middleman story in which he teams up with the Thunderbirds!
Our thanks to Javier Grillo-Marxuach for taking the time to speak to us. Be sure to check out the crowd-funding campaign over on Indiegogo while there’s still time. I think I speak for all of us when I say I’m very excited for The Middleman‘s return.
We didn’t know what we were in for when FX debuted The Americans last February. The Cold War story of Russian spies embedded in suburban Washington D.C. was fresh and fun with winning performances from Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, and Margo Martindale. With the second season ready to arrive in a few weeks, our friends at 20th Century Home Entertainment are offering ComicMix readers an opportunity.
The Americans, Season 1 blasts its way onto Blu-ray and DVD February 11th. There’s no better way to celebrate than by entering to win a Blu-ray copy of Season 1 to add to your collection, as well as a Russian styled Ushanka hat. Be careful where you wear the hat though, your neighbors may begin to think you’re an undercover Russian KGB spy!
What year was the U.S.S.R officially dissolved?
