Tagged: pop culture

The Point Radio: Katee Sackhoff & Eliza Dushku on “Batman: Year One”


This week, one of the most revered story arcs in DC history becomes a direct-to-DVD feature. BATMAN YEAR ONE hits the shelves and we talk to Katee Sackhoff, Eliza Dushku and long time WB Director Andrea Romano about translating the comic to film. Then there was New York Comic Con – what a weekend – and do we have news for you!

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

The Point Radio: SANCTUARY Secrets & DC’s Million Sellers


We’ve got more secrets to share from SyFy‘s SANCTUARY, as Amanda Tapping gives us hints on this season’s shocking finale (still a few weeks away). Plus DC sells five million comics in just a few weeks, and NY Comic Con is ON and we are on the floor.

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

NYCC PULP PANEL TAKES CENTER STAGE!
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NYCC PULP PANEL TAKES CENTER STAGE!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Pulp Panel at New York Comic Con
Leading voices of Pulp Fiction Gather

New York, NY (October 4, 2011) The leading voices of Pulp Fiction will gather at New York Comic Con for an examination of a unique American genre; Pulp Fiction. This Panel will explore the roots of pulp and look forward to the exciting efforts of today and tomorrow in comics, prose, e-books, audiobooks and recorded drama.

Panelists include: Nick Barrucci, Publisher of Dynamite Comics (The Shadow, The Spider), Greg Goldstein, COO of IDW (The Rocketeer), author and historian Will Murray (Doc Savage’s Wild Adventures), historian Anthony Tollin (Reprinting classics via Nostalgia Ventures), Mark Tepper (CEO Radio Spirits), Wade Hosth (Pulp Historian) Mark Halegua (Pulp1st), author Jim Beard (Fourteen Miles to Gotham City) and author Adam Garcia (Green Lama).

Bonfire Agency’s Ed Catto will moderate the panel.

“We’re expecting a robust discussion celebrating everything new and fresh about this unique genre. And we’re also planning on giving away a plethora of free prizes to panel attendees,” said Ed Catto.

The Panel is scheduled for Sunday, October 16, 2011 from 1:30 to 2:30 in Room 1A02 of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center at 655 West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan.

The event is open to all registered attendees of the New York Comic Con, space permitting, and has been made possible by special arrangement with Ghost Light Films, Inc., Reed POP and Bonfire Agency, LLC.

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About Bonfire Agency LLC
Bonfire Agency LLC is the marketing community’s first advertising and promotional agency specializing in helping brands reach and deepen connections with highly influential, but difficult to engage, pop culture consumers. This demo, labeled by some as geek or comic culture, is comprised of incredibly passionate, tribe-wired fans of everything from comic books, video games and action films to underground music, sci-fi inspired television and cutting edge adult comedy. Bonfire’s mission is to find ways to build relevant bridges between brands and a diverse audience of consumers that just might become their most effective advocates. The agency was founded in January 2011 by marketing veterans and pop culture specialists Steve Rotterdam (former Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at TimeWarner’s DC Comics) and Ed Catto (former Senior Vice President at Ogilvy and Reed Exhibitions). For more information, visit www.BonfireAgency.com.

About ReedPop
ReedPOP is a boutique group within Reed Exhibitions that is exclusively devoted to organizing events, launching and acquiring new shows, and partnering with premium brands in the pop culture arena. ReedPOP is dedicated to producing celebrations of popular culture throughout the world that transcend ordinary events by providing unique access and dynamic personal experiences for consumers and fans. The ReedPOP portfolio includes: New York Comic Con (NYCC), Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2), Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East & West, Star Wars Celebration V, New York Anime Festival (NYAF), and UFC Fan Expo. The staff at ReedPOP is a fan based group of professionals producing shows for other fans, thus making them uniquely qualified to service those with whom they share a common passion. ReedPOP is focused on bringing its expertise and knowledge to world communities in North America, South America, Asia and Europe.

The Point Radio: Plunging Into SANCTUARY Season 4

Executive producer and star Amanda Tapping, along with fellow castmate Robin Dunne, take us behind the scenes at the SyFy hit series SANCTUARY with plenty of perks at season four plus Rosanne is back yet again along with…The Fly?

 

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Here Comes Space Kid!

Space kid – honorary deputy of the Space Patrol!

Space Kid! is a pulpy, old-school, retro-sci-fi, all-ages fun-and-adventure weekly webcomic by John MacLeod. Launched in June 2010, Space Kid is a weekly web comic with a new page posted every Sunday — all previous pages are still up and easily viewable so you can read Space Kid’s adventures from the beginning at http://www.spacekidcomics.com/.

If you like your sci fi mixed with pulpy fun, then give Space Kid a shot.

About Space Kid:

Welcome to the 26th century — as viewed from 1950.

Space Kid! was inspired by artist John MacLeod catching sight of a graphic on a T-shirt: a retro-cartoony style drawing of a big-headed boy in a classic retro bubble-helmet spacesuit. That drawing suddenly triggered a huge wave of flashbacks to the sci-fi junk from the 50s and 60s that he grew up on and loved. Things like The Jetsons, Adam Strange, Marine Boy, Magnus: Robot Fighter, most of the Supermarionation shows, the Legion of Super-Heroes, Perry Rhodan, and other Googie visions of the future that saturated the pop culture of those days, and which he found so much fun and so terribly exciting as a kid. And more flashbacks, to things from the old days which he didn’t discover until much later, like the 50s sci-fi work of Osamu Tezuka and Cyborg 009 and Star Blazers and Dan Dare. According to MacLeod, You will find echoes of all these [and probably lots more] in Space Kid!

You can read the adventures of Space Kid at http://www.spacekidcomics.com/.

The Point Radio: Finding Evangeline Lily


Evangeline Lily has found her way to the big screen again, starring this weekend with Hugh Jackman in this weekend’s REAL STEEL. We talk about the film, her passion for writing and life after LOST plus Horror Genius Wes Craven reports on how SCREAM 4 begins that francise all over again – plus NBC drops the axe on two shows.

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

‘A NEVER ENDING BATTLE’! DOCUMENTARY SET FOR NYCC SCREENING!

‘A NEVER ENDING BATTLE’! DOCUMENTARY SET FOR NYCC SCREENING!

NEWS RELEASE 

Contact: Ed Catto

O: 917.595.4107

Ed.catto@bonfireagency.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 New PBS Documentary to Preview at New York Comic Con


“A Never-Ending Battle” Celebrates Comics’ Superheroes
and their Creators


New York, NY  (October 3, 2011)   “A Never-Ending Battle,” the first episode of a new film from the creative team responsible for the award-winning PBS documentaries “Broadway: The American Musical” and “Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America,” will be screened in front of an audience for the first time at the New York Comic Con, the East Coast’s largest and most exciting pop culture convention.


Featuring rare footage along with new interviews with legends such as Joe Simon, Stan Lee, Jim Steranko, Neal Adams, Michael Chabon and Jules Feiffer, segments of the first episode – “A Never-Ending Battle: 1938-1954” – will be previewed on Friday, October 14, 2011 at 4PM in Room 1B01 of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center at 655 West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan.  An on-stage interview and Q&A with filmmakers and cultural historians Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon will take place immediately following the screening.


“We’re really excited to preview our film to fans at New York Comic Con,” said Emmy Award winning filmmaker Michael Kantor. “Because so many incredible talents have given us interviews, I think of this screening as kind of like attending six all-star panel sessions at once.  We are also very eager to get fan reactions and feedback.”


“As a comics fan from back in the days of Second Sundays at the McAlpin Hotel, it was a privilege for me to sit down and hear so many legendary creators spin new tales I had never heard before,” added Maslon, the film’s co-writer, as well as an associate professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. “This documentary series will mark the first time that we’re able to tell the grand epic of the American comic book heroes on a scale that they deserve.”


The event is open to all registered attendees of the New York Comic Con, space permitting, and has been made possible by special arrangement with Ghost Light Films, Inc., Reed POP and Bonfire Agency, LLC.




About “A Never-Ending Battle”


With principal production funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, “A Never-Ending Battle” is slated to air as the first episode of a three-part series on PBS stations early in 2013.  The series will explore the American art form of the comic book superhero and its complex interrelation with American culture over the last 75 years.  Throughout this period, comic books artists, writers and publishers have unleashed thousands of exotic, bizarre, heroic and seductive adventurers upon the American public; some have become instantly recognizable all over the globe, many have crashed miserably under the weight of their own lack of inspiration—all were created in the hopes that they connect with some aspect of the American consumer.  In this regard, the film explores how the evolution of the costumed crusader reflects our social, political and cultural history.  Fervent fans, casual viewers, and everyone in between will discover much to marvel over in this informed overview of the adventures of America’s most popular genre of historic fiction.


About Ghost Light Films, Inc.

Founded in 1996 by Michael Kantor, Ghost Light Films has produced a range of award-winning documentary films for PBS and cable television that explore the history of the arts in America. Most recently, Kantor served as Executive Producer on “Give Me the Banjo” which was narrated by Steve Martin and will air on PBS on November 4, 2011.  In 2009, Ghost Light created the six-part PBS series, “Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America,” which was produced with Thirteen/WNET, New York in association with BBC-TV.  The series, hosted by Billy Crystal and narrated by Amy Sedaris, garnered both critical acclaim and outstanding ratings, earning Mr. Kantor and his co-writer Laurence Maslon, an Emmy nomination. In 2005, Ghost Light Films produced three hours of documentary material to accompany the 40th anniversary release of “The Sound Of Music,” including a documentary hosted by Julie Andrews.  That same year, Ghost Light garnered the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction series by co-producing “Broadway: The American Musical” with Thirteen/WNET New York, NHK Japan and BBC in association with Carlton International.  In association with Metropolitan Entertainment, Ghost Light produced “The Lullabye of Broadway: Opening Night on 42nd Street” for PBS, and has produced segments on artists such as Quincy Jones, David Mamet and Arthur Miller for the Bravo cable network and for Thirteen/WNET’s “EGG: the arts show.”  “A Never-Ending Battle” is a co-production with Oregon Public Broadcasting.


About Bonfire Agency LLC

Bonfire Agency LLC is the marketing community’s first advertising and promotional agency specializing in helping brands reach and deepen connections with highly influential, but difficult to engage, pop culture consumers. This demo, labeled by some as geek or comic culture, is comprised of incredibly passionate, tribe-wired fans of everything from comic books, video games and action films to underground music, sci-fi inspired television and cutting edge adult comedy. Bonfire’s mission is to find ways to build relevant bridges between brands and a diverse audience of consumers that just might become their most effective advocates.  The agency was founded in January 2011 by marketing veterans and pop culture specialists Steve Rotterdam (former Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at TimeWarner’s DC Comics) and Ed Catto (former Senior Vice President at Ogilvy and Reed Exhibitions). For more information, visit www.BonfireAgency.com.


About ReedPop

ReedPOP is a boutique group within Reed Exhibitions that is exclusively devoted to organizing events, launching and acquiring new shows, and partnering with premium brands in the pop culture arena. ReedPOP is dedicated to producing celebrations of popular culture throughout the world that transcend ordinary events by providing unique access and dynamic personal experiences for consumers and fans. The ReedPOP portfolio includes: New York Comic Con (NYCC), Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2), Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East & West, Star Wars Celebration V, New York Anime Festival (NYAF), and UFC Fan Expo. The staff at ReedPOP is a fan based group of professionals producing shows for other fans, thus making them uniquely qualified to service those with whom they share a common passion. ReedPOP is focused on bringing its expertise and knowledge to world communities in North America, South America, Asia and Europe.



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The Point Radio: SNL Vets Try Prime Time Comedy


After a summer long publicity build up, Fox has debuted TERRA NOVA in primetime – did you see it? Series star Stephen Lang tells you what you may have missed, plus SNL Vets Maya Rudolph and Emily Spivey mine for prime time comedy gold in NBC‘s new UP ALL NIGHT. And an ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT movie – and series?? Really?

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

The Point Radio: Those BIG BANG Girls and The WAREHOUSE 13 Finale


As CBSBIG BANG THEORY returns this season, two recurring characters are moved to regular status and we talk to them about it all. Melissa Rauch and Mayim Bailik share their excitement about the new season, while over on SyFy, WAREHOUSE 13 closes off season three and Eddie McClintock talks about what we can expect from Monday’s finale and the upcoming Christmas episode.

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

CEOs in Comics: Villains Earn, Heroes Inherit

CEOs in Comics: Villains Earn, Heroes Inherit

Ted Kord as the Blue Beetle. Art by Dick Giordano.

Image via Wikipedia

How did we never make this connection before?

While the ruthless corporate CEO as villain is pretty much a stock character in modern pop culture, superhero comics have always conspicuously placed successful businessmen on both sides of the hero/villain divide. Yet an interesting, and perhaps counterintuitive, pattern recently occurred to me. Just off the top of my head, here are some of the most prominent superhero characters who have, for some significant chunk of their histories, been portrayed as CEOs of large corporations:

Bruce Wayne (Batman)
Oliver Queen (Green Arrow)
Tony Stark (Iron Man)
Ted Kord (Blue Beetle)

Here are the first four CEO supervillains who spring to mind:

Lex Luthor
Wilson Fisk (Kingpin)
Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias)
Norman Osborn (Green Goblin)

Ok, comics geeks, pop quiz: What do the four heroes and the four villains each have in common?

The answer is that none of the four heroes founded the corporations that bear their family names: Each of them inherited their wealth.

Adding to the list of inheritors: Charles Xavier, Garfield Logan (from stepdad Steve Dayton who was a self made billionaire and for a while, a bad guy). Who else can we add to the lists– and who are the exceptions that prove the rule? And where do we put Scrooge McDuck?

via CEOs in Comics: Villains Earn, Heroes Inherit.