Tagged: DC Comics

Veronica Mars Goes Wild

Veronica Mars Goes Wild

  • News
  • June 19, 2007

 Over at www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin someone on DC’s staff spilled the beans about the fate of the beloved Veronica Mars.

During a chat this week : "Jonathan in New York: I work at DC Comics, and you’ve got some big love here. There’s a bunch of us who take your word for gospel, and though it’s already sorta out there, we just wanted to send some info your way on the Veronica Mars comic books. They’ll be published by our WildStorm imprint, which is based in San Diego, and R.T. [series creartor rob Thomas] is looking to be firmly on board. We’re even hoping for a late fall release of the first issue. Hopefully, more to come…Keep up the good work!Jonathan, we love you. Tubers, buy DC Comics."

No doubt there will be more about this at San Diego next month.

MARTHA THOMASES: Daddy’s Home

MARTHA THOMASES: Daddy’s Home

  • News
  • June 16, 2007

My husband really liked the column I did on Mothers’ Day (Brilliant Disguise #4). My stepmother also liked it. As a result, I feel a huge amount of pressure this week, as Fathers’ Day approaches.

Perhaps this is as it should be. Fathers, at least in literature, exert pressure. So do mothers, but fathers are much more stern about it, and send out much more of a mixed message. Zeus’ father ate him, for crying out loud. Jesus’ father sent him to die for our sins. Lear punished the only daughter who dared to tell him the truth. Jor-El proved his love by sending his son a universe away.

Fathers are stern. Fathers are cruel but fair. Fathers are distant. Tony Soprano? Please. Even today, on television, the best father, on Everybody Hates Chris, proves his love by working so many jobs he’s only home long enough to sleep and offer a bit of advice, if he’s lucky. In comics, the kindly fathers (or father figures) of Ben Parker and Thomas Wayne are all dead, inspiration only or motive for revenge. Jonathan Kent is the exception that proves the rule, depending on which continuity you’re in.

(more…)

HEROES CON: DC Cans Flash

HEROES CON: DC Cans Flash

  • News
  • June 15, 2007

At the Heroes Convention in Charlotte, NC, DC Comics’ Executive Director Dan DiDio announced they company was cancelling The Flash for the fifth time, this time replacing it with… The Flash? The fourth series will end with #13 (#14 and #15 being "false-solicited," according to DiDio), the sixth will be written by long-time Flash fanboy Mark Waid. No other details were revealed. For the record, the cancelled titles are: Flash Comics and All-Flash, from the 1940s, The Flash from the 1950s through the 1980s, The Flash from the late 80s to the early part of this decade, and the now-current Flash: Fastest Man Alive, the most short-lived of the bunch.

Several new books were announced: Countdown to Mystery, the new home of Steve Gerber’s unpublished Doctor Fate series (a new Eclipso series, will lurk in the back) and a Challenges of the Beyond, featuring a team of multiverse-hoping superheroes that may or may not include Donna Troy and Jason Todd.

Artwork copyright DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Cusack Wants To Be A Watchman

Cusack Wants To Be A Watchman

  • News
  • June 14, 2007

According to MTV’s movie site, John Cusack of the famous Chicago Cusacks acting horde, wants to be a Watchman. And he’s told director Zack Snyder all about it.

John wants to play Dan Dreiberg, a.k.a. Nite Owl II, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s tribute (so to speak) to the original Blue Beetle. Cusack wants the job, and he smiles hungrily when he says it.

No word on if his sister, Joan, wants in as well.

Cute characters copyright DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. Thanks and a tip o’ the hat to Rich Pachter for the lead.

52 To Prose and Sound

52 To Prose and Sound

  • News
  • June 13, 2007

Hot on the heels of our Infinite Crisis review (audio edition) comes word that 52 is getting the exact same treatment: a novelization this July by Greg Cox, and a full-cast audio adaptation by GraphicAudio.

Greg tells our Glenn Hauman: "I thought I’d shamelessly plug the 52 novel, which goes on sale in a couple of weeks. If nothing else, this is the first gay Batwoman novel, which gives it some small claim to newsworthiness!  :)" Probably so; those introductory issues of 52 have been up-priced in some venues and doubtlessly will be footnoted in next year’s Overstreet Guide.

Thanks for the news, Greg. We’re looking forward to both versions!

Artwork copyright DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

DENNIS O’NEIL: A Superman For Our Time

DENNIS O’NEIL: A Superman For Our Time

  • News
  • June 12, 2007

When we’re in a somber mood, which is an easy kind of mood to be in these days, we hope that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were not prophets. Joe and Jerry were, of course, the creators of Superman, and way back in 1938 they told what’s become known as Superman’s origin story.

Surely you’re familiar with it; it’s been retold and edited and redacted and emended and amended and recast in comics, in movies and books and on television, and probably video games, for these past 68 years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some earnest young writer is, at this moment, reworking it yet again. But in the event your long-term memory is gebollixed for some reason, I’ll give you the trading card version.

Jor-El, a scientist, tells the poobahs of his civilization on the planet Krypton that their entire world is soon to disintegrate. The poobahs refuse to believe him and – oops – the darn world does blow itself to bits. Jor-El does manage to get his son away in a spacecraft before the final blooey. The kid lands on Earth and becomes a mighty champion of justice, etc. etc.

If I were to rewrite this familiar story, I might consider making Jor-El an environmentalist who’s worried about, let’s say, global warming. And maybe, in this version, the poobahs are politicians who take Jor-El’s carefully reasoned and scientifically unimpeachable work, which Mr. El has presented in the form of a document, and had someone with negligible scientific credentials edit Mr. El’s writing so heavily that it’s meaning is altered.

I mean, my suggested revamp isn’t really too far from the original, is it? What’s scary is that it isn’t far at all from some recent real-life history. And that’s why, despite my great respect for Messrs. Siegel and Shuster, I hope they’re lousy prophets. Remember how their story ended? The poobahs insisted they were right and Jor-El was wrong, despite plenty of contrary evidence, and – Blooey!

If we were to redo, once again, what Joe and Jerry began with, we might consider expanding it to allow a look at the poobahs. The trick in doing this kind of thing is to ask, if these fictional characters were real, what kind of people would they be? Not conventionally “evil;” at least, they wouldn’t think of themselves as “evil;” no one does.

But arrogant, certainly: so sure of their own unchallenged superiority that they feel they don’t have to listen to, much less heed, anyone else. And prisoners of their own egos, which would not allow them to admit ever, being wrong. And not only greedy, but able to rationalize their greed, if there were a profit to be made from their acts.

All that would congeal into deep, impenetrable ignorance. Not lack of education, nor stupidity, but ignorance, which, in this context, we might define as a refusal to acknowledge the truth that’s available to them.

I’d like to read that story. In a comic book, not in a newspaper.

RECOMMENDED READING: The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins.

Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.

Artwork TM and © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

MARTHA THOMASES: Gangster of Love

MARTHA THOMASES: Gangster of Love

This may come as something of a shock, but tomorrow night is the last episode of The Sopranos.

Now, I’m not the world’s most dedicated fan. I came late to the party, not tuning in regularly until the second season. I tend to be suspicious of critical darlings, afraid they might be uplifting and good for me, or depressing and bleak. However, in this case, my husband and my son were both enthusiastic, I recognized the name of creator David Chase from The Rockford Files, and so, one night, I didn’t get out of my chair when the distinctive theme song came on.

It would be nice if I could say that I was hooked on the brilliant acting, the profound scripts, even the incredibly realistic portrait of middle-class values in New Jersey. That would be a lie. I tuned in to watch Michael Imperioli, because I thought he was really cute.

Over the years, though, I got sucked in. Watching these characters week in and week out (not counting the breaks that lasted over a year) helped me to identify with them. No, I’m not part of organized crime, but I, too, tend to offer my loved ones food when they come to tell me about their problems. I’m not a hired killer, but I’ve been angry enough to want to take someone out to the woods and leave them there.

Serial fiction, like soap opera, comics and Harry Potter books, are especially good at enmeshing the audience with the cast of characters. What The Sopranos has done so well with the form is to take people who are evil, who kill and steal, and make them so mundanely human.

When I read a Superman comic every week, I feel like I’m spending time with a friend I’ve known since I was five years old. He’s in the media in a major media market, probably knows a bunch of the same people I know. Bruce Wayne has a penthouse in midtown, and is a big part of the city’s party circuit, a beat I’ve covered. The Legion of Super-Heroes is like a big dorm, and I lived in dormitories through high school and college.

So, even extremely unrealistic comic book characters present no challenge to me. I can bond with them no matter how inane nor how two-dimensional the writing. Even though they have super-powers (or at least super-human self-discipline), I can find things in common that make it possible for me to relate to them.

But Tony Soprano? He lives in (gasp!) New Jersey! He works in a strip club. Both of those things put me off, even before we get to the guns and the beatings. Carmella wears a lot of make-up, has lunch with her lady friends a lot, and seems to care about jewelry. These are not qualities common to my friends or me. How do I relate?

(more…)

Big ComicMix Broadcast Turns 50!

Big ComicMix Broadcast Turns 50!

Our Golden Anniversary Broadcast is stuffed with pop culture nuggets that include more with Quantum Leap‘s Debroah Pratt and a profile of the upcoming Heroes Convention with organizer Sheldon Drum.  There’s plenty of news including 20 or more ways DC Comics wants our Christmas cash and a trip back to when one of he guys making hits on the radio was named…Luigi!

Please Press The Button. Your weekend will never be the same!

MIKE GOLD: The Sound of Crisis

MIKE GOLD: The Sound of Crisis

If you’ve been taking careful notes while reading my sundry ComicMix entries, no doubt you’ve noticed I’m quite a fan of audio drama. There are a lot of reasons for this, the least of which is that I prefer driving to all locations within a thousand mile radius instead of subjecting myself to the massively frustrating incompetence and arrogance of our air transportation industry.

Ergo, I have a lot of time to listen to stuff in my car, particularly around convention season (May through April, each year). I’ve got a six-disc mp3 player buried in my little 2005 Ford Focus hatchback, which means I can program enough sound to drive from Connecticut to California without actually changing discs. I (literally) just got back from a round-trip to Chicago, my most frequent location, accompanied by my patient wife Linda and my beautiful daughter Adriane. All three of us are comics fans.

Usually, I program a Nero Wolfe adaptation – brilliant stuff, wonderfully produced – and one of Big Finish Productions’ full-cast original Doctor Who shows. And some other stuff – lots of music, some comedy (Firesign Theater, Jack Benny, or in this case The Marx Brothers), maybe a podcast or six. But this time, I was armed with GraphicAudio’s adaptation of Greg Cox’s novelization of the DC Comics miniseries Infinite Crisis.

All three of us had read the original miniseries, all three of us had read much of the sundry miniseries that lead up to Infinite Crisis, and all three of us figured that by listening to this adaptation we might, this time, actually figure out what happened in the miniseries. Not that it really matters, as we’ve lived through 52 and One Year Later and World War III and now Countdown and we’ll probably sucker down and read Final Crisis after that. After all these years, DC still has problems maintaining a cohesive thought.

The GraphicAudio adaptation is only the first half of Cox’s book, and is clearly labeled as such. The second half will be out soon; it was listed in last month’s Diamond catalog. The adaptation is neither full-cast audio nor a straight-forward spoken word reading. There is a narrator who dramatizes the narrative (hence his title), but when it comes to the actual dialog each character has his or her own voice. With original music and full sound effects, it works quite nicely… although I did have to get over my initial disappointment that it wasn’t a full-cast audio theatrical production.

I hadn’t heard any of GraphicAudio’s other work, although there is a heck of a lot of it. They adapt many paperback action-hero series such as The Destroyer and The Executioner (and others), and if the quality of these productions matches their Infinite Crisis, I might check a few out.

We were particularly impressed by the production itself: the original music and the sound effects were appropriate and gave the two-dimensional world of original audio much needed depth. They summarized all of the various miniseries that led up to Infinite Crisis in the three minutes before the opening credits, which was all that was necessary to provide the backstory.

(more…)

MARTHA THOMASES: Last Man Standing

MARTHA THOMASES: Last Man Standing

When I was a teenager, the environment of my hometown became poisonous. To save me, my parents sent me to an alien environment that seemed to be a universe away, filled with people so different from me they might have been a different species altogether. No one knew anything about my home, nor about my people’s civilization and customs. Instead, I had to hide my true self until I understood how I fit in and what I had to offer the strangers with whom I lived.

No, I’m not Supergirl. I understand how you could be confused, because the resemblance is striking. However, I did find myself in a similar situation to Kara Zor-El. Instead of being a Kryptonian from Argo City sent in a rocket ship to Earth, I was a Jew from Ohio sent to an Episcopalian boarding school in Connecticut. Instead of being part of the majority as I was at my public school in Youngstown (there were so few kids in class during the High Holy Days that they could bring comics to school!), I had to go to chapel five times a week while the priest swung incense.

Many of my classmates had never seen a Jew before. Others, more worldly, would say things to me like, “You’re from Ohio? I have a friend in Wyoming. Do you know her?” For the first time in my life, I wasn’t part of the majority culture. I learned what it was like to be a minority.

There’s a lot to be learned from the majority culture.  Not the least of it is learning where you, as a minority, fit in. You learn your place. You learn how to get by. You learn another point of view, that of the majority.  That’s what taught in school. That’s what you see on television and in movies.

If you’re lucky, you take your experience as a minority and use it to understand how other minorities feel. You know what it’s like to be on the outside, looking in. In my case, as a Midwestern Jew, I could imagine how it would feel to be African-American, or gay, or Asian. I could take my own experience as a minority to imagine the experience of people who were other kinds of minorities.

Fiction helps. For example, when I read Amy Tan’s The Joy-Luck Club, I read about a society where, no matter what you did for your parents, it wasn’t enough, and that it was more important in a marriage to find a husband with money than with imagination. I was convinced that being Chinese felt just like being Jewish.

Comics help even more, if only because they are produced more quickly than novels. In The Legion of Super-Heroes, we can see how Chameleon can shape change to fit in – but chooses not to. Princess Projectra tried to hide her snake form at first, but learned to exult in it. The theme of three X-Men movies has been a metaphor for the dangers of the closet, of hiding your true self to pass for straight or, in this case, non-mutant.

(more…)

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks