ComicMix Quick Picks: NY Anime Festival grows, comic sales hold, and Hugh Jackman doesn’t stop the show
Get ready for a special
“still-recovering-from-fasting-on-Yom-Kippur” edition of ComicMix Quick
Picks. Yesterday was pretty busy, and here’s a roundup of the stuff we didn’t get to:
- New York Anime Festival attendance was up 16 percent from last year. And according to data from this past August, comic sales have held very steady, even through the econopocalypse. Are these signs of a recovering economy, or signs that our kinds of people just can’t cut this stuff out of our budgets?
- Popular British football (that’s soccer to us heathen Americans) comic strip Striker ended its 24-year run in British newspaper The Sun ended–without telling readers. Hilarity ensues.
- Marvel second-in-command Tom Brevoort explains why Alpha Flight seems to be unable to stick around for very long in their own series: “But
when you drill down, the core concept of the series is based on
geography, which is very limiting — they’re like the Avengers, but in
Canada.” - Sam Rockwell, who’s playing Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2, dropped some plot SPOILERS in an interview, if that’s your thing. We’ll say no more.
- Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig stopped a performance of their Broadway show “A Steady Rain” in the middle
to chastise– you guessed it– someone who forgot to turn off their cell
phone. After pissing off Wolverine and James Bond, it’s a wonder the
guy made it out of the theater alive. - Heroes ratings continue to disappoint. Who wants to place bets on the exact date and time it gets canceled?
- Columbia Pictures just bought a spec script for a movie called Supermax, about a prison full of people with creepy superpowers. The problem is that they’ve also been developing Super Max, a vehicle for DC Comics hero Green Arrow, also about a prison for people with powers. Now, the rumor is that even if it gets a name change, the thematic similarities may kill the comic book-flavored movie in favor of the new one. How fair is that?
- Former Terminator Summer Glau has been upgraded from “Dollhouse guest star” to “Dollhouse regular cast.” Joss Whedon’s been wearing out his rolodex for the show’s cast, huh?
What else did we miss? Tell us in the comments.
Freshly picked from only the finest and most pedigreed blog bushes, here’s the stuff we didn’t get to yesterday:
Candace Bushnell, the writer whose Sex And The City columns were the inspiration for the TV series and movie, has bounced back from last year’s cancellation of Lipstick Jungle on NBC and chosen the web for her new venture– a new series called 
In the second episode of Crazy Sexy Geeks, our new weekly series meant for both die-hard fans and people new to comics, hosts Alan Kistler and Carrie Wright head to Barnes & Noble and then 
So your parents loved Robert Downey, Jr. in Iron Man but don’t think comics themselves have anything to offer? Your friends loved V for Vendetta and The Dark Knight and are curious to read comics now but aren’t sure where to start? This is the show to help them all out.
, 
), and others still to come.
Face front, true believers, because Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau, along with actors Robert Downey, Jr. (Tony Stark), Scarlett Johanssen (Black Widow), Don Cheadle (James “Rhodey” Rhodes), and Sam Rockwell (Justin Hammer), were on hand to screen some previously-unseen footage at SDCC tonight. Newsarama was there, and 
If you’re anything like me, your interest in the upcoming animated Marvel Super Hero Squad Show was pretty low, based as it is on a line of toys and comic strips meant for kids too young to know that proper superhero stories involve lots of rape and horrible gory messes. Which is to say, I thought it would be fine for its target demographic, but a little too lowbrow to have the same level of grown men in tights and Neil Patrick Harris musical numbers that the discerning adult requires. 
