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The Pilgrim by Mark Ryan and Mike Grell debuts on ComicMix

The Pilgrim by Mark Ryan and Mike Grell debuts on ComicMix

  • News
  • November 14, 2008

Today on ComicMix, we’re starting a new story from Mark Ryan (Transformers) and Mike Grell (Jon Sable Freelance, James Bond: 007) that goes places no other story will go, starting from World War II to today’s war on terror to realms unknown. It’s an espionage story unlike any other, based in historical facts that are almost impossible to believe– why did Ian Fleming recruit Aleister Crowley for the war effort, anyway?

The Pilgrim is written by Mark Ryan, who has one of the most varied careers you will ever encounter in your life: as an actor, going from originating the roles of Magaldi in Evita and Nasir in Robin of Sherwood to playing Bumblebee in Transformers and appearing with Eric Idle at Carnegie Hall while wearing a green dress; as a fight director, he taught Keira Knightley, Stellan Skarsgard and Clive Owen how to swordfight; as a writer, he’s written Green Arrow for DC Comics and The Greenwood Tarot for Harper Collins– and those are the jobs we can tell you about. When he says "If I told you, I’d have to kill you", believe that he would and that he can.

Mark was inspired to write The Pilgrim upon learning about the use of psychics and occultists during World War II by Allied forces to influence the minds and strategies of the Nazi leadership, which helped save Britain from invasion. “The Pilgrim intertwines historical characters with modern paranormal capabilities used in intelligence-gathering operations to infiltrate hostile governments,” said Mark.  “It unveils a dark secret history involving classified occult research and the unmarked graves of unsung heroes who gave their lives in these desperate yet vital operations.”

Mike Grell, the comic legend behind Jon Sable Freelance, the Warlord, Green Arrow, Iron Man, James Bond, and many others, was so impressed by Mark’s script that this is the first project that Mike Grell is drawing that he didn’t write himself in over 25 years. And with the talents of Jason Millet coloring and John Workman lettering, The Pilgrim is a heck of a ride.

If you’re a fan of Warren Ellis’s Gravel or Charlie Stross’s Laundry series (or you can’t get tickets for Quantum of Solace this weekend) you’ll love this tale. But don’t take our word for it– start reading!

Review: ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 3: Wolves at the Gate’ by various

Review: ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 3: Wolves at the Gate’ by various

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Vol. 3: Wolves at the Gate
Written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard; Illustrated by Georges Jeanty
Dark Horse, October 2008, $15.95

I have to admit something right up front, by quoting myself:

Not only have I never read any [[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]] comics, I’ve never seen the TV show – or the movie it spawned from, or the [[[Angel]]] spin-off show. Nor have I played any Buffy card games, fondled the increasing number of muppet-y creatures, written BtVS fan-fiction, or attended Buffy-centric conventions.

So I came to [[[Wolves at the Gate]]] a complete innocent. Sure, I have a vague sense of who Buffy and the rest of the Scooby gang are – see? I even know the term “Scooby gang” – but not much more than that. I was surprised to see the guy named Xander has only one eye, for example, and I imagine most of the people reading this have had entire conversations about whatever episode it was when he lost the other one.

I didn’t think that would be a big problem, but one of the first things I realized after opening Wolves at the Gate was that it wasn’t aimed at people like me. When the plot synopsis on the inside front cover says things like “these Slayers must prepare for an impending war with humans and a mysterious new Big Bad, Twilight” and “Also, Dawn: still large-ish,” it’s clear that this series is to let those who are already fans revel in their knowledge and have some more stories about characters they already love.

And that’s cool for them, it’s just that, y’know, I have to figure out how to review this thing. (My apologies: the aggressively colloquial, post-Mamet cross-talk is infectious.)

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Review: ‘The Venice Chronicles’ by Enrico Casarosa

Review: ‘The Venice Chronicles’ by Enrico Casarosa

The Venice Chronicles
By Enrico Casarosa
Atelier Fio/AdHouse, November 2008, $19.95

Sometimes it seems like people live in completely different worlds. For example, I live in an America where a guy named Andy can marry a girl named Chris, have a series of decent jobs in book publishing, and go on occasional vacations to theme parks.

But there’s also a world made up of people named Enrico – who have cool movie-industry jobs, like doing storyboards for Pixar – that marry equally cool-named people like Marit – a modern dancer – and go on long vacations to Venice with her parents, zoom across Italy to meet his parents, and have dinner with Hugo Pratt’s daughter along the way.

I’m thinking it’s the names: Enrico just goes with Marit in a way “Dave” or “Bob” doesn’t. If I’d been named Siegfried or Joao, my life might have been as interesting as Enrico Casarosa’s.

And, speaking of Casarosa’s life, we finally come to his new book, [[[The Venice Chronicles]]]. It’s a diary, in watercolor over pencils, of that trip to Venice (and other points in northern Italy) – which I think was in the summer of 2007. It has the look of a sketchbook, but most of the pages were drawn after the trip – though there are sketches and watercolors drawn at the time mixed in as well.

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Andrew Wheeler Named Eisner Award Judge

Andrew Wheeler Named Eisner Award Judge

  • News
  • November 9, 2008

ComicMix’s own Andrew Wheeler has been named a judge for the 2009 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. The five-person panel will select the nominees, who are then voted on by eligible members of the comics industry.

The 2009 judges are:

• Amanda Emmert, owner of Muse Comics & Games in Missoula, Mont., and communications coordinator for ComicsPRO

• Mike Pawuk, teen-services public librarian for the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Parma, Ohio

• John Shableski, a sales manager for Diamond Book Distributors

• Ben Towle, cartoonist, educator and creator of Midnight Sun

• Andrew Wheeler, comics reviewer, blogger and former senior editor of the Science Fiction Book Club

As always, the awards will be presented Saturday evening during Comic-Con International in July.
 

ComicMix Interview with Ray Wise

  • News
  • November 9, 2008

Wise DevilFor years, in television, many hybrid series involving both science fiction and comedy have come and gone. It’s a fine line to juggle the fans of a pretty strict mythos (whichever that may be, they are all pretty strict) to also keeping the show fresh and witty for people who may not be into the science fiction or fantasy element. Reaper happens to be one of those shows that has walked the line successfully for a season and is already planning on doing it again in season 2. We got a chance to grab Ray Wise, who plays the show’s antagonist—the Devil himself—about his role in the show and some things to look forward to.

ComicMix: With the WGA strike hitting Reaper mid season last year, do you think it effected the story of the overall season, much like it did other shows that were effected?

Ray Wise: While it didn’t effect the story, it did however effect the logistics on when we would be able to come back and start shooting. We do know that the network [CW] had some decisions to make as a result of the writers’ strike which lead to coming back for a second season in doubt for a time, but I’m happy to say that we’re currently on episode 9 of a 13 episode pickup. the current plan is to air those news episodes either in January of March of 2009, and once those are on the air, we think we may be able to do some more.

CMix: Speaking of season two, can you give us any kind of hint on what The Devil might be up to this season?

RW: Well we’re going to be more character relationship oriented this season. We plan to delve a little more into each of the characters’ relationships with one another. We plan to find out a little more about the hierarchy of Hell, and even some more appearances from the Nether region will be arriving here on Earth. There will be plenty of conflict, and to sum it all up; all hell is going to break loose!

CMix: There was an interesting relationship in the first season between your Devil and Bret Harrison’s Sam, almost a love/hate relationship. Are we going to continue down that road this season?

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Manga Friday: High School Hijinks

Manga Friday: High School Hijinks

  • News
  • November 7, 2008

I warned you that we’d be back to high school before we knew it, but did you listen to me? (OK, maybe you did. I don’t really know, to be honest.) It’s that time again: to cavort with sword-swinging, vampire-snogging, dog-spirit-cavorting high school students! To see lots of stylized tears, food-gobbling binges, and unexpected nudity! To dive completely into fantasy worlds in between soul-crushing exams of our own! (The last may only apply to actual Japanese high school students.)

Inukami!, Vol. 1
Art by Mari Matsuzawa; Story by Mamizu Arisawa
Tor/Seven Seas, November 2008, $9.99

Take one boy, the surly, horny, self-important scion of a family that has been training Inukami dog-spirits, and using them to protect the world from evil spirits, for a long, long time. Add a spunky young Inukami, almost completely innocent about the outside world but utterly unwilling to follow that boy’s orders in anything. Mix together with gratuitous near-nudity and plenty of unresolved sexual tension (but surprisingly few panty shots). Warm to room temperature, and serve on a shelf with dozens of very similar works.

He’s Keita. She’s Yoko. Together they…well, they don’t really fight crime, and they don’t even do much battling of demons. What they mostly do is squabble with each other. Keita demands that she obey him, totally and completely, and Yoko refuses. Actually, she doesn’t so much refuse as utterly ignore his every order, and push him around herself, with judicious uses of her power to teleport other items around. (Such as Keita’s clothes away from him, as happens several times.) She also gets him to wait on her hand and foot, even though he’s sure it’s supposed to be the other way around.

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Inside Fangoria Graphix

Inside Fangoria Graphix

  • News
  • November 7, 2008

The announcement that Fangoria was returning to comic books came as a bit of a surprise so we decided to go right to the source.  Associate Editor Troy Brownfield chatted with us this week on the whys and wherefores.

ComicMix: Hey Troy, welcome to ComicMix.
 
Troy Brownfield:  Thanks, Bob.  It’s great of you to have us.
 
CMix: Fangoria Graphix failed last year and Scott blamed the lack of support from the magazine and website.  Since it was all owned by Tom DeFeo, how’d that happen?
 
TB: Love the easy questions first, Bob.  Let me first clarify a few things for everyone.  Fangoria Comics never failed; Fangoria Comics was ended.  How is that different?  Well, Fangoria Comics was performing at a sustainable level in the Direct Market, at a terrific level in mass market bookstore chains, and very well at conventions.  However, as anyone in comics knows, there is a certain cost associated with paying talent, printing, producing books, etc.  While we would have been doing fine as our own entity, by the end of summer 2007, it was apparent to all that the larger Fangoria Entertaiment was in financial trouble.

Tom DeFeo, who was merely a co-owner at the time (via Creative Group), tried his best to keep us going.  In fact, it was Tom, with our Executive Editor Scott Licina, who put together the comics line in the first place.  It essentially came down to a vote, and Fangoria Comics, along with other facets of the group’s operations, was simply shut down.  By March 2008, the entire conglomerate of interests (Creative Group, etc.) entered bankruptcy proceedings.  What came from that is that Tom DeFeo’s new company, The Brooklyn Company, emerged as the sole owner of Fangoria Entertainment.  Creative Group is no longer involved.

One of Tom’s first orders of business was to call Scott and get things back on track.  Since we’ll be doing more than just straight comics, it was decided to rename the segment Fangoria Graphix.

As to Scott’s remarks citing lack of support, that goes back to things that existed in the previous configuration.  The important thing now is that there is direct, daily communication between Scott, Tom, and Fangoria Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Tony Timpone.  Managing Editor Mike Gingold, myself, and James Zahn from our New Media Development segment are involved with things as needed.  Scott, James and I talk frequently about what needs to be done with the comics, etc., and we’re all working on various ends of that.

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Review: ‘Conan: The Hand of Nergal’ by Truman and Giorello

Review: ‘Conan: The Hand of Nergal’ by Truman and Giorello

There have now been eight generations of teenage boys to thrill to the exploits of [[[Conan]]], one for each decade since he first appeared in [[[Weird Tales]]] in 1932. The oldest cohort is likely mostly dead; the youngest one will mostly wander away once they get drivers’ licenses or beer-purveying fake IDs. But Conan endures – some of those fans do stick around, and there are always new ones. And, even though Robert E. Howard – remember him? The guy who created Conan and wrote the stories about him that were actually good? – has been dead for more than seventy years, Conan stories keep appearing.

Why, I have one right here:

Conan, Vol. 6: The Hand of Nergal
By Timothy Truman and Tomas Giorello
Dark Horse, October 2008, $24.95

Dark Horse, when they got the Conan comics license some years ago, rebooted the series, to follow Howard’s hero starting with his earliest adventures and to adapt or include Howard’s original stories along the way. (The intentions of the long-running previous series, from Marvel, had been intermittently the same, but twenty-three years leaves room for a whole lot of “more or less,” and they’d gotten pretty far in Conan’s life. I’m not sure why there’s no love for the older Conan, King of Aquilonia – especially since Howard’s very first Conan story was about that part of his life – but, in comics, the preference has always been for the young, half-naked barbarian.) [[[The Hand of Nergal]]] reprints issues 47 through 50 of the Dark Horse series – along with one of those most bizarre manifestations of the modern comics scene, the “#0” issue published much later than #1 – and sees Conan still quite young.

Hand of Nergal is based on a two-page, two-part untitled fragment – the title is from Lin Carter, when he “adapted” it into one of his own third-rate Conan stories – that’s currently available in [[[The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian]]]. I’ve just glanced at it myself – it’s two bits of atmosphere, with no plot: Conan finds an unconscious hot babe on a battlefield, and gloms her with his sweaty paws, while, meanwhile, a city named Yaralet is vaguely uneasy about nothing that gets described.

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Election Day, ComicMix style

  • News
  • November 4, 2008

Everybody else is watching the results come in, after they go out and vote. But we are a comic book / pop culture web site. We know what the real debate is:


Get your own Poll!

Vote, and give your reasons to the exit pollers in the comments section. (Hey, it beats hitting refresh on fivethirtyeight.com every ten minutes.)

‘X-Men’ Are ‘Waiting For Godot’

‘X-Men’ Are ‘Waiting For Godot’

  • News
  • November 3, 2008

If you’re not based in England but need a reason to travel to London, well, here you go. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are about to share the stage together.

That’s right, homeboys! Magneto and Professor Xavier have mutually knocked over their respective king pieces, deciding on a "gray" middle ground over a "black" or "white" dominant party, and are starring alongside one another for an on-stage production of Waiting For Godot.

Okay, yeah, before you leave, we’re talking about theater. No major shifts in the sociopolitical dynamics between mankind and mutantkind, but, hey, this is pretty close.

The two well known thespians, who shared the silver screen with each other as Erik Lansherr and Charles Xavier in the X-Men trilogy, will star alongside each other in Waiting For Godot on The West End, according to Variety.

The trade reports, "Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart will topline a Brit production of Waiting for Godot that will launch a U.K. tour in March ahead of an April bow at the Theater Royal Haymarket."

American audiences will recognize the actors as having shared the screen as nemeses in X-Men, but Stewart and McKellen had previously costarred in Every Good Boy Deserves Favour in 1977.

Waiting For Godot focuses on two men waiting for a man whom they’ve never laid eyes upon before, but know that his presence is incredibly important to their own self-worth. McKellen and Stewart play the two men, Estragon and Vladimir, respectively. The play is written by Samuel Beckett, and despite multiple attempts, has never seen a film adaptation. Waiting for Guffman, filmed and written by Christopher Guest, plays on Godot‘s themes without being a direct knock-off.

If anyone has tickets to London, please direct yourself to ComicMix. We’ll trade you in beets and other various candies.

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