Tagged: Mike Gold

THE REMIX: The Strange Case Of Michael Davis

I get it.

Mike Gold is the boss.

I entitled my return to ComicMix; “The Remix” thinking it was a devilishly clever way to return. Since I’ve been back I have not once seen that title grace this column.

So I get it, Mike Gold is the boss.

Wait a sec. Mike has a weekly blog on my website, michaeldavisworld.com (MDW). I wonder how he would feel if his next piece for MDW was under the title “Gold’s Balls” or “The Golden Balls’ or “The Golden Balls Forum?”

Don’t ask me why I feel the need to add “balls” to every title I come up with. It could be because I’m stir crazy! As of this writing, Saturday, evening August 27, I’m stuck in my electricity dead hotel room in Connecticut (CT) and I have no idea when I’ll be able to get back to L.A. because of hurricane Irene.

I once dated a girl named Irene. She was a bitch also.

So since it’s dark and there is no power in the hotel my choices are to read a book by flashlight, go to sleep or play or read with my iPad.

Or, I can just be alone with my thoughts.

Er…nope.

I do not like being along with my thoughts. Never have. I tend to go to real dark places when I’m alone with my thoughts. I am absolutely positive one of the reasons I’m a workaholic is because it gives me something to do so I am never alone with my thoughts.

I’m in CT for my cousin’s Nila’s wedding.  I love Nila from the bottom of my heart. She is the only reason I would have gotten on a plane (I H A T E T O F L Y ) and came to CT with the knowledge that Irene was on the way.  At the wedding, I gave a speech in which I spoke directly to Nila recounting our journey together as family and reminded her of some of our adventures together. She’s more like a little sister than a cousin and my trip down memory lane made us both cry.

When I said I cried what I meant is I…I…shit. You got me.

When I got back to my room after the reception I became a bit misty eyed again as I continued to recall the days when Nila was a little girl and I was still her cool cousin Michael. I decided that I would be alone with my thoughts this evening because my thoughts were filled with such happiness. Then I remembered I had a ComicMix piece do.

So here I sit typing my Remix…no, my Michael Davis ComicMix article at 2 in the morning wondering just what comic related memory could I write about that would continue my happy trip down memory lane.

Like a shot to the head it came to me.

DC Comics.

It’s no secret that I’m had a love and hate relationship with DC Comics. It’s also no secret that no matter the relationship I’ve been an unweaving fan of the DC comic book universe.

Given how things have been between DC and me you would think that I would have sworn off DC like Antony Weiner swore off tweeting.

It’s even more baffling when you consider that my very first comic book was Avengers # 43.  My second comic was Fantastic Four #73. I loved those books! They were great and I was a die-hard Marvel fan until my mother brought me home a Flash comic book. I don’t remember what issue it was but I was hooked like an addict on all things Flash. THEN I saw Superman #199 in which he raced The Flash!

Since then I’d been a solid. no joke. DC Comics fan. Don’t get me wrong, I love Marvel Comics. I still get goose bumps when I think of Silver Surfer #4 when he pimp slapped Thor or when the Hulk beat down of Sub-Mariner as drawn by Herb Trimpe.

I stopped reading comics for a long time. It was Frank Miller’s Daredevil that pulled me back in.

This is really strange. Marvel brought me in and Marvel brought me back when I left but DC remains my number one comic book universe.

I have no idea why it’s DC but I know that memory has something to do with it.

I could go on but my iPad is down to 50% and I don’t know when I’ll be able to charge it again and I simply cannot fall asleep without reading so I’m going to use some of that 50% to read some old silver age comics. I’ll read a few DC and a few Marvels.

Why?

Because that way I can be alone with my thoughts and memories and the hotel room will be the only dark place I visit tonight.

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold 

MARTHA THOMASES: Comics, Quality and Obscenity

Inevitably, when discussing the best way to market comics to a larger, non-indoctrinated audience, someone will suggest “good writing and art” as the sure-fire remedy.

The mirror image of this is accusing publishers of employing “cheap publicity stunts.” I was on the receiving end of this charge from Gary Groth of The Comics Journal when he was questioned about the Death of Superman in USA Today. Naturally, I was miffed, because I thought my salary proved I was not cheap.

(I’m sure that’s the occasion when the most people ever thought about The Comics Journal.)

The premise, in any case, is incorrect. Or, rather, it should be. In publishing, the editorial department should decide what to acquire (or, in the case of comics and other work-for-hire situations, solicit) and the marketing departments (which include publicity) should promote this material to the people who would most enjoy it.

It never works like this. Publishers want to attract the largest possible audience, and they’ll instruct editors to jump on the latest trends, whether that’s sword and sorcery, black and white indies, steampunk, graphic novels, television and movie adaptions or whatever. You’ll notice that’s a jumble of genres and formats, not a single directive. That’s the kind of thing that makes editors lose their hair.

But wait! There’s more! Sometimes marketing people think they know more about what makes a book good than the editors. I’m thinking of one person at DC (now a vice-president) who boasted to retailers that he wouldn’t promote a book he didn’t like. I have no doubt that he thought this was the honorable thing to do, but it does a disservice to his employers and to the retailers. The marketplace is not made up of people with exactly the same taste as this vice-president. By limiting the options he offered to them, he limited their sales.

I didn’t like every book I promoted. However, I knew that there were potential readers for every book, people who would be entertained and amused and involved. I didn’t necessarily know these people, but I wanted them to be happy, so I wanted them to know about our comics.

It’s not a perfect system. At the time, DC published about 70 titles a month across all imprints. There weren’t enough mainstream media outlets to cover that much. I had to pick and choose what was most relevant to the media I was pitching. Again, trying to match the story to the potential audience was the key. I’m sure I made mistakes in my choices. I’m sure some worthy projects didn’t get their share of attention.

No one is going to argue against quality. It’s like arguing against apple pie and Mom. Maybe there’s an opposing side, but only opinionated and obnoxious people like Mike Gold and I like to argue for the sake of arguing. And because of our Talmudic tradition.

Unfortunately, when it comes to comics, quality is like obscenity – I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. And what I see as quality you may not.

Lots of people enjoyed the Death of Superman storyline and its follow-ups, and lots of comics cognoscenti sneered at them for enjoying it. A lot of these people are preemptively sneering at the New 52. I hope they’re wrong. I hope it works.

I hope it brings happiness to millions.

Martha Thomases, Dominoed Dare-Doll, will spend next week looking for Spider-Man at Walt Disney World.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

Mike Gold gets Dick Giordano Humanitarian Of The Year Award from HERO Initiative

  • News
  • August 23, 2011

We are exceptionally proud to note that our own Mike Gold, Editor in Chief of ComicMix, was given the first Dick Giordano Humanitarian Of The Year Award from the HERO Initiative at this year’s Harvey Awards ceremony at the Baltimore Comic-Con. The award was presented by Mark Wheatley.

While note was made of Mike’s long career and assistance to various creators and causes, and the publishing of Dick Giordano’s last major comics work, White Viper, he was singled out this year for the efforts in raising money to save comics writer John Ostrander‘s eyesight.

In his acceptance speech, Mike thanked Gail Simone and Adriane Nash, who worked with him on fundraising.

Mike is a 30-year veteran of the comics industry, having served as group editor and director of editorial development for DC Comics, founder and editorial director of First Comics Inc., and publisher of Classics Illustrated. Prior to ComicMix, Gold had been editorial director for ArrogantMGMS, creating intellectual properties and overseeing media and ancillary rights and packaging comic books published by numerous comic book imprints, including Image, Acclaim and IDW.

He was a pioneer in the creation of an American market for graphic novels, and edited more than three-dozen graphic novels and anthologies, including the bestsellers The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, The Joker: Stacked Deck, GrimJack: Killer Instinct, Jon Sable Freelance: Bloodtrail and American Flagg!.

In addition, Mike has an extensive background in the media and in the youth social services field, having been a broadcaster and radio personality, director of communication and education for a major Chicago drug abuse prevention program, cofounder and director of communication of the National Runaway Switchboard, and creator, and managing editor of Video Action magazine.

He has been an author and editor of, or contributor to, more than one dozen books, including, as Mark was quick to point out, [[[How To Draw Those Bodacious Bad Babes of Comics]]] with artist Frank McLaughlin. His work has appeared a wide range of newspapers and magazines, including The Chicago Tribune, The Realist and the British edition of MacUser magazine.

He has also served as a consultant to the Organic Theater of Chicago (home to Dennis Franz, Joe Mantegna, Ray Bradbury and David Mamet), the Stratford Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Theater, to numerous political efforts, and to The Child Care Center of Stamford, an award-winning Head Start and early childhood education program, as well as a media coordinator for the Chicago Conspiracy Trial.

Mike has received numerous awards previously, including the prestigious Comics Buyers’ Guide Award as favorite editor and the Golden Apple Award for best comics limited series (Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters).

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MICHAEL DAVIS: Has Comic-Con Jumped The Shark?

This weekend I watched the movie [[[Paul]]] on BluRay. It seemed so lame to me when it first came out. When I saw the previews I decided I’d avoid it like Stevie Wonder avoids driving. I only rented it because it’s one of the few movies that I have not seen On Demand and I get so many free rentals movies from Blockbuster I feel that I’m wasting my money if I don’t rent something. I’m about to give up my Blockbuster membership for NetFlix just as soon as I remember that’s what I want to do.

Anywho, I took [[[Paul]]], [[[True Grit]]] (I really wanted to see that in the theaters but I’m just so damn busy) and [[[Rango]]] home to my massive flat screen.

Hey. I’m a man and size matters.

Well, size matters if it’s big. If not then, not so much, at least that what guys with little flat screens tell themselves and by little flat screens I mean penis.

True Grit was GREAT. Rango was not. I’ll leave it at that. On the other hand, Paul was really good. I enjoyed it and realized I’d made the same mistake with this film as I’d made with [[[The Iron Giant]]] and Galaxy Quest. The previews and marketing were so freakin bad on those movies I just stayed away.

In Paul, Comic-Con was a nice little backstory. Yes, it was centered on nerds but what are you going to do? The movie started at Comic-Con, ended at Comic-Con and was referred to many times during the film.

I watched Paul Saturday night. Sunday, the day of this writing, I was flipping channels and stopped when I saw the face of my friend David Glanzer. David is the head of marketing and publicly for Comic-Con and was a guest judge of a show called Cupcake Wars.

I try to never say never but I’m pretty damn sure if I did not see David I would have never watched a show called Cupcake Wars. That show has as much appeal to me as a show called Towel Wars or can goods conflict or The Peanut Butter Lick Off. You know I could see watching the Peanut Butter show if there were hot women contestants. The more I think of it I would watch that show and now the show sounds like a good idea!

(The Peanut Butter Lick Off. trademark & copyright Michael Davis 2011. All Rights Reserved.)

But I digress (sorry Peter). I was talking about David. Not Peter David. I watched the entire show not caring rather or not who won (who the fish cares?) but rater I watched marveling at the genius of David and Comic-Con. Clearly, appearing on that show as a guest judge in his capacity as the head of marketing and publicly for Comic-Con is a fantastic way to market to people who may have no clue what Comic-Con is.

Then it hit me— has Comic-Con jumped the shark?

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MICHAEL DAVIS: Spanish Harlem – The New Spider-Man, Part 2

Please read part 1 from last week before reading this. Thanks!

Spider-Man: The Rice And Beans War
By Glenn Beck

When Manny awoke he was looking down the barrel of an Arizona State Trooper’s gun. He and Juan and the illegal brothers and sisters they were transporting to a better life in Arizona were all sitting on the side of the road hands on head encircled by other State Troopers.

Something in Manny’s head was tingling, as if it was some kind of warning. Manny looked around for something he did not know what until he found it, the spider he was bitten by.

“That’s your spider sense, Ese!” said the spider.

End of part 1

Part 2

Manny quickly reclosed his eyes hoping to wake up from the dream soon. “This can’t be happening. OK. Get a grip Manny, get a grip.” He thought while keeping his eyes shut tight as if the tighter they were the less real the situation will be.

Manny thinks, “OK, it’s possible that Juan and I were stopped by State Troopers. That’s possible. It’s also possible that I’m on the side of the road with my illegal brothers and sisters we were transporting to a better life in Arizona. It’s impossible that the spider that bit me is talking to me. That’s just not possible. So that means everything that’s happening is not happening. I must have had some bad rice or bad beans in my rice and beans.”

“It’s happening, Ese.” Said the spider. You better open your eyes before one of these troopers take them being closed as a threat.”

“Now I know I’m dreaming! How in the world could a state trooper take my eyes being closed as a threa…”

“This wetback’s eyes are closed…gun!”

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MINDY NEWELL: What If? Just Imagine!

773573-297x450-1131902A little over a week ago, the United States of America was on the verge of defaulting for the first time in its history. The chaos isn’t over – witness the roller coaster ride of the stock market over the last seven days – but that week the pundits on radio, on Fox and MSNBC and CNN, and on The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert, conservatives, liberals, progressives, Tea Baggers (excuse me, I mean Tea Partiers) – everywhere you had ears and eyes in working order, people were bloviating (to borrow a word from Bill O’Reilly) about the #1 question on everyone’s minds….

What If The United States Of America Defaults?

Mike Gold and I spent hours on the phone talking about the possibility – well, to be truthful, I was the one ranting about the goddamn Repugnanticans (my own coined word for what passes as the party of Lincoln these days) while Mike –who would be described by people like Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin and Karl Rove and Rick Perry and Dick Cheney as nothing but a typical gadfly of the lefty Jewish intelligentsia cabal – tried to reassure me that the U.S. wouldn’t default. And in that strange way in which my mind equates things, the What If? and my column and comics and politics started swirling and mixing and merging and uniting and jumbling up all together like that giant melting pot America is supposed to be, and somehow I ended up equating the political wars of 2011 with a little Marvel comic book called What If…? and DC’s sundry imaginary stories of pick-your-favorite-DC-hero.

What If was a comic book I loved. The “Imaginary Stories” of DC captured my, well, imagination. They validated the child whom I had been, the fantasist that is still there, has never left me, and I know never will. That girl was always asking questions, always dreaming, always wanting more; she believed – still believes – that the world is more than we know, that magic is real and impossible things do happen. Things like, What If? I lay on my back and stare into the blue sky long enough, I’ll be able to see through and into and past it to the very depths of the universe, and maybe even all the way to the very end of the universe where I would see – what? God? Another universe? The Door at the End of the Universe? Things like, looking out my window late at night when the world is fast asleep and the lilac tree outside my window is gently stirring from the breath of the South Wind, perfuming my room with What If?

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MICHAEL DAVIS: Con Man

I came home from the San Diego Comic-Com last Sunday night around 9:30. I went to bed around 9:32. I slept all day Monday and most of the day Tuesday.

Why do I need so much sleep after Comic-Con? Because I had maybe 20 hours sleep total the two weeks before Comic-Con and five hours sleep during Comic-Con.

Here’s my Comic-Con recap.

Friday morning my annual Black Panel did a tribute to my fallen partner Dwayne McDuffie and I do think we did him justice. It was supposed to be a joyous celebration and for the most part it was, but there were a few times when the tears did flow. All and all it was great being around fans, friends and pros that all loved Dwayne. The highlight for me was the video taped message from Wayne Brady. In it Wayne told the audience what a big fan of Dwayne he was. that was cool!

Also at the Black Panel, I announced the “Search For The Next Great Graphic Novelist” contest! FAN, Final Draft and my imprint Level Next are sponsoring the contest. More details to come right here at ComicMix!

Friday afternoon saw me as a panelist on the cool ass upstart panel, “The Nappy Hour.”  I make it a point not to do any panels except The Black Panel while at Comic-Con. The Black Panel is so much work that doing another panel is simply out of the question and I’m asked to be on at least four panels every year. Keith Knight, the founder of the Nappy Panel, had a bit of a run in last year on the net. Years ago the run in would have turned into a war but now the kinder, gentler Michael Davis look for other options than to smite those who dare to speak ill of me. FYI: Keith did not speak ill of me and in fact it was me that took something he wrote the wrong way. If you know anything about me you know that when I’m wrong I own up to it.

Keith and I decided to do what black men don’t do. We decided to talk! Then we decided to do each other…each other’s panel. Get your mind out of the gutter! The Nappy Panel was so much fun that I’m thinking he and I should create a panel that would showcase the best of The Nappy and the Black panels. What do you think, Keith?

A few hours after the Nappy Panel I met with co-publisher of DC Comics Dan Didio to talk about a possible project. It was the first official meeting I’ve had with DC in over a decade. What happened?  Well…

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JOHN OSTRANDER: How Piracy Made Me A Comic Book Writer

One of the questions I’ve been asked most frequently over the years has been “How do you break in to comics?” – usually by someone looking to break into comics themselves. My standard answer is, “Through the roof with crowbar in the dead of night.” The true answer is – I don’t know. I got into comics because Mike Gold, who was then starting up First Comics, was my friend and liked my work as a playwright and knew I really loved comics and wanted to see what I would do given a chance. So I guess my answer is, “Make friends with someone who will someday become an editor and give you a shot. And then don’t screw up.” Not the easiest advice to follow.

The main reason Mike gave me a shot was one particular play – Bloody Bess – that was co-written by myself and my long time friend, William J. Norris, with Stuart Gordon on plotting assist. The play was performed first by the legendary Chicago theater company, The Organic Theater, and you may know some of the people involved back then. Stuart was founder and director and, if you know him for nothing else, you must know him as the director of the film, [[[Re-Animator]]]. You may know some of the actors who were involved such as Meschach Taylor (Designing Women), Dennis Franz (NYPD Blue), and Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds, Fat Tony on The Simpsons).

The play was begotten because Stuart wanted to stage a Jacobean revenge tragedy but he couldn’t find an actual one that he liked. It was the height of Watergate and Stuart claimed you could smell the desire for revenge in the air. So he decided to commission a new one. It was about pirates because we were also aware of two actual female pirates – Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

Mike liked the play a lot and came more than once to see the show. All of which brings us to the real reason to write this particular column – to re-tell one of Mike’s favorite stories from my theater days.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Hacking Up Letter Balls

JOHN OSTRANDER: Hacking Up Letter Balls

I wrote last time about digital comics and I realize there was another big question for me as we cross the digital Rubicon into this brave new world: will there be letter columns?

Now you might point out to me, “John, most comics don’t have letter columns now.” I’ve always felt that was a mistake. In fact, I think it’s one of the reasons for the decline of comics, if not of the entire Western Civilization as we know it. My first work in comics appeared in a letter column. During the Overlord saga in Thor, I pretty much figured out who the mysterious Overlord really was. (I think it was Odin or some manifestation of Odin or something.) I even was awarded a Mighty Marvel No-Prize for my efforts, which was supposed to be for service above and beyond the call of duty to Marvel before they cheapened it for giving it out to every slob who wrote in and said, “Make Mine Marvel!” and yes it still burns me today that they did that but never mind. (For those of you who are interested, the No-Prize consisted of a an envelope mailed to you that clearly stamped “No Prize” on the front. You opened the envelope and it was empty – there was no prize! That was the gag. My first reaction was that somebody slipped up and forgotten to include my No-Prize in the envelope. I did eventually get the joke. I’m not always real swift but I get there.)

I had a better letter published in a Savage Sword Of Conan.  One story had Conan betrayed by his female companion and he snarled at her, “Waitress!” Of course, they meant to say “Traitress!” Obviously, an error no one caught but my letter tried to prove that it wasn’t an error but a nice bit of characterization, showing that Conan obviously had bad experiences with female serving staff; thus, the worst thing he could call the wench was “Waitress!” I remember my closing line was, “After all, have you ever seen the big Cimmerian lug tip?!” I figured the letter was clever enough to make the letter column, and it did.

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DENNIS O’NEIL: Universal Upheaval!

So the universe upheaved and a gap appeared in time and here we are, at the far end of that gap. (Or the near end, if we’re looking backwards. But never mind.) We’ve again grubbed residence in Comicmixland and vowed to deliver weekly blather.

But, with a deep bow to Bill Maher, we have new rules—or to be exact, just rules, since when I last did this nobody mentioned rules, though I did promise Mike Gold and myself to do at least 500 words per installment, lest I be mistaken for a carbuncle. The 500 word deal still holds, but Mike has added a new proviso; subject matter should be somehow related to comics.

Pretty draconian, huh?

Actually, Mike’s edict doesn’t much close any doors. First, a lot is happening in comics and related media per se and, second, virtually everything in our media-drenched, perpetual-news-cycling global civilization is connected. Always has been. Really. Remember the butterfly effect: The sumbitch flapping around a garden in Tokyo today will cause your hat to blow off next Tuesday and the breath I just took may have contained an atom that was once part of Cleopatra. (And, more painfully, the monetary crisis in Greece may bump your mortgage.) And we all come from the same place, out there among the stars in the baby cosmos.

So yeah, the world is a vast network of interconnections, and it’s a lot easier to see that now that it was a century ago. It shouldn’t be much of a rhetorical trick to write about comics and still acknowledge that other things exist, and are worthy our notice.

(I wonder: could you have a comprehensive knowledge of comics, beginning with [[[The Yellow Kid]]] and ending with…oh, I dunno – Chris Claremont’s run on [[[X-Men]]]? – could you know that and be ignorant of the history of the United States in the Twentieth Century? Maybe not.)

But where to begin?

Well, this week, nowhere. I’ve already burned away 329 of those 500 words and unless I want to content myself with knocking off a few haiku, there isn’t much room left for pontificating. But next week? Hey, this has been called the summer of the superhero movie, hasn’t it? And although I haven’t seen all of the films in question, and probably won’t in the next seven days (Thor has already hammered back to Asgard, which I think is somewhere just off Sunset Boulevard, and is not available for viewing) but doesn’t utter ignorance of my subject qualify me as a pundit? Darn right! And what’s happening behind the cameras—the changes in management—is worth a bit of uninformed opinionating, too.

A final note: In the previous incarnation of this feature, and in a comic book that the aforementioned Mike Gold and I worked on a couple of decades past, we recommended books we thought might amuse our readers. I’d like to continue recommending reading, but not every week, just when I come across something I think will be of particular interest to y’all.

Happy trails…

FRIDAY… Martha Thomases

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