DENNIS O’NEIL: Comics Education
If you’re a dedicated reader of movie end credits, the name Michael Uslan might be familiar to you. If it isn’t…let’s remedy that.
If you know of Mike, it’s probably because he was executive producer of all the recent Batman flicks, including Catwoman and The Dark Knight, coming to a theater near you next June. He’s also been involved in producing a lot of other stuff for screens both large and small. And he’s done considerable writing, some of which was for comic books. I first met him when he was a law student at Indiana State University in Bloomington, where he was teaching the first accredited college course in comics and a related correspondence course; he was nice enough to invite me to meet his class.
Mike’s latest project – and here we come to this week’s real subject – is a documentary movie on comics super heroes to have its world premiere on September 15 at the Montclair Art Museum which is located, no surprise, in a town called Montclair in a state called New Jersey, a short drive or train ride from New York City. The movie screening is part of a much bigger deal, an exhibit of about 150 examples of comics art and related stuff at the museum that is currently there and is not leaving until January 13th of next year. The screening is scheduled for 4:30 in the afternoon.
And if you’re still not satisfied, if that isn’t enough…On October 13th the museum will shelter a panel discussion on comics which will put Mr. Uslan, Danny Fingeroth, Tom DeFalco, and me in front of anyone who cares to show up, listen, ask questions. Genuflecting and flinging rose blossoms at us are optional.
I haven’t visited the exhibit yet, but everything I know about it indicates that it’s worth going a bit out of your way to see. If you do – go out of your way to see it, that is, or even if you plan to see it without going out of your way – you might want some info. You can get it by visiting www.montclairartmuseum.org or phoning (973) 746-5555. And while I’m in reporter mode, one final thing, the museum’s address is 3 South Mountain Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07042
I believe that at one time it would have been customary to, at this point, urge you to “be there or be square.” Aren’t we glad that time is past!
And aren’t we glad that comics have come to a place where respectable institutions promote and host educational efforts on their behalf? Well, yes, with some qualification. Producing comics isn’t the informal, loosey-goosey business it once was, and so maybe a little less fun. And I, for one, am not entirely comfortable with all this respectability. I’m not happy that pretty young women behind checkout counters call me sir, either. But better respectability than oblivion and, come to think of it, better being called sir than oblivion, too.
RECOMMENDED READING: Walden and Civil Disobedience, both by Henry David Thoreau.
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.
Spoiler Alert: This week I’m discussing the three Jason Bourne movies and I may wind up revealing plot points, especially of the most recent film out, The Bourne Ultimatum. If you’re planning to see the movie, go see it first. More fun that way.
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Okay, I’ll get this over with real fast. Sci-Fi Channel’s new Flash Gordon show really sucks. I sat through the 90-minute pilot, and I sat through the next episode. No more. Life is too short.
creator Alex Raymond is not in the opening credits. Hell, he got better (far better) treatment in that campy movie from 1980. Say what you will about that movie, compared to this waste of time that movie was [[[Citizen Kane in Outer Space]]].
It’s autumn.
Everybody knows (or should) that slasher films can be enjoyed en masse with crowds screaming and jumping in unison, while torture porn is best appreciated in the privacy of the home. Because, really, theres no surprises or shocks in torture porn, just gross-outs. And, while it can be fun to go ewwwww in unison, many t.p.s don’t even have that kind of sadistic imagination involved.
Okay, I admit it. I’m still a fan of [[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]], the long-running teevee series that featured four robots and a loser riffing on a couple hundred B-flicks… if you’re feeling particularly generous about that “B” part. Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy were among the show’s writers and producers. They were also performers – Corbett with the eighth season, Murphy with second season. Nelson, who was head writer from the start, played odd parts for the first four seasons and took over the lead when creator Joel Hodgson left the show at the beginning of season five. The show ran from 1988 through 1999 and begat a feature film.
George McManus (1884-1954), once a household name via his long-running domestic-shenanigans comic strip Bringing Up Father, stands as a practical embodiment of the comics’ industry’s cinematic possibilities. The last of his comics-into-movies adaptations, Jiggs and Maggie Out West (Monogram Pictures; 1950), came to hand recently during the excavation process for a fifth volume of novelist John Wooley’s and my Forgotten Horrors film-book series.
After two years of discussion and rumor, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine movie is finally a go.
