Tagged: small

ComicMix Six: Sucktastic Super Powers!

ComicMix Six: Sucktastic Super Powers!

  • Uncategorized
  • June 12, 2009

So, you want to be a superhero? Not a problem. Oh… you’re not a billionaire orphan with years to dedicate to the martial arts? Don’t fret! I’m sure you can play in a lake of toxic ooze, or get bit by a genetically unstable super-wombat, right? Well… even if you don’t have powers, don’t feel bad. Cause there are some folks out there in comic-book-land that would have been better off as bartenders or stock-boys than crime-fighters or super-heroes. Don’t believe me? Well kind citizen, scope this list of lameoids out, and see sometimes it’s no so bad being normal after all*.

Night Man – Johnny Domino was just your run-of-the-mill jazz musician with those totally hip round sunglasses (Superboy anyone?) and that always fashionable accessory… the dangely cross earring in one ear! Too cool for school you say? Well, without warning, an alien bolt of lightening hit a cable car, which in turn hit Johnny’s convertible, and a piece of shrapnel wound up in his head. Talk about a crappy Monday! Well, lucky for Domino, the shrapnel caused him to gain super human abilities! These powers combined with a kevlar vest and a grappling gun allowed Domino to take to the night and don a name shared by his underpaid jelly doughnut eating brothers-in-arms! Johnny Domino is the man who need not sleep… He is the man who can sorta hear your dirty thoughts… He’s the man who doesn’t need night vision goggles to see in the night. Johnny Domino is Night Man!

Mr. Brownstone – That’s right kiddos… Not everyone gets a superpower and decides to become a hero. Sometimes they decide to become a minor villain! Garrison Klum was born one of those despicable mutants you’ve heard of. When puberty hit, did Klum gain eye lasers capable of destroying mountains? No. Did he gain a flexible metallic shell allowing him to become invulnerable and superhumanly strong? Nuh-uh. Did he gain the power to teleport? Yes! But… not himself mind you. Garrison only gained the mutant ability to teleport small amounts of liquid! Now, give the guy some credit… he renamed himself after a slang term for heroin, and teleported a few ounces of the good stuff right into Spider-man’s heart! Sure he ended dying from his own teleporting brother literally teleporting inside him and exploding out of him (ew.)… But give him credit. The world gave him a lemon of a power, and hey, he made lemonade.
(more…)

ComicMix Six: Television for the next generation of fandom

ComicMix Six: Television for the next generation of fandom

  • Uncategorized
  • February 17, 2009

We were all kids once and, let’s face it, for many of us there was a particular television show or short that caught our attention and grabbed our inner-geek by the shoulders to shout “Look at me!” Whether you had a particular fondness for Interplanet Janet (“She’s a galaxy girl!”), Underdog, or Super Grover, chances are that something you saw in early childhood helped shape you into the fan you are today.

My sister and I always loved Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends (new action figures are coming out this year!), and my niece is a huge Power Puff Girls fan. This got me wondering what shows will inspire today’s budding geeks. The great thing about these days is that DVD and the Internet make it possible to view not only the latest children’s shows, but everything you feel that old nostalgia for as well. However, today’s children aren’t always as excited about the Wonder Twins or Cowboy Curtis as Mom and Dad may have been. Here, then, are some more recent selections for the latest generation of fans:

1. Backyardigans
From Pirates to Samurai to Space-Travelers and everything in-between, this colorful and musical CGI-animated show (formerly aired on Nickelodeon, and now available on DVD) is all about five anthropomorphic neighbors whose imaginations take them on adventures to faraway times and places. While teaching children about the value of friendship and imagination and introducing several styles of music and dance, this show also stirs the core of future gamers. You see, the characters, Austin (a kangaroo), Pablo (a penguin), Tasha (a hippo), Tyrone (a moose), and Uniqua (a creature vaguely reminiscent of a child-sized pink ant), are like a game group. They meet, they create characters, they play out their roles and scenarios as their game characters, and then they have a snack. If you’ve ever gamed at a con, you know this drill.

(more…)

ComicMix QuickPicks – January 16-18, 2009

ComicMix QuickPicks – January 16-18, 2009

The weekend wrap-up of comic-related news items that might not generate a post of their own, but may be of interest…

* Tom Mason interviews Dan Thompson about his new strip RIP HAYWIRE at Comix 411.

* The Comics Reporter: Dan Vado on the recent changes at Diamond:

…the thing that slaps us up in the face most is the raising of the Purchase Order benchmark to $2500. What that means is that every book needs to generate $2500 of revenue (that would mean a little over $6000 in sales at retail based on the discount we give to Diamond) in order to be listed with Diamond. That does not mean that Diamond is going to cancel or not carry books which appear in the Previews but do not reach that benchmark, but it does mean that if you have a line of books which consistently do not meet that mark, you will not be getting your books listed in the Previews for long…

…what few books we published as floppies will probably not ever see the light of day. While a first issue might sell well enough to meet the benchmark it is more than likely that everything from a second or third issue on will not. Again, I think your average reader might be shocked at how poorly some comics sell. So, if you’re a small publisher or a self-publisher and your plan is to release a mini-series and then collect it as a trade, those plans might change.

It’s a tough spot for everyone to be in. Diamond is in essence asking everyone to sell more in a recessionary environment or find themselves out of the catalog. Short term, a lot of publishers are going to find themselves with no distribution.

Read the whole thing.

* And while we’re getting depressed on comics economics, we have Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics and Games on the Current State of the Comic Market. Via ICV2. Also, who says the Book Business Is Dead? Why, Jason Epstein does… here’s his Autopsy of the Book Business. I’d be slightly more worried if Jason hadn’t been calling the alarm for 15 years… on the other hand, it doesn’t mean he was wrong then or that he’s wrong now.

* It gets even uglier: Anderson News Warns of ‘Implosion’ in Mag Business:

Magazine distributor Anderson News CEO Charlie Anderson is warning of an “implosion in the business” as his company attempts to impose new charges on magazine publishers, according to a report in Folio. Anderson, which represents over 20% of magazine distribution in the U.S., is demanding that publishers pay an additional $.07 per copy distributed (gross, not net of returns) to return magazine distribution to profitability for his company.  “The business has not been profitable and has not been for a very long time,” Anderson said.  “What we are trying to do is give some stability in the channel.  Short of that, there will be an implosion in the business.”  Anderson says he believes that three of the four magazine wholesalers that distribute magazines nationwide are unprofitable.

* Even uglier than that: theBookseller.com reports that book sales were discounted by nearly a billion dollars in England last year.

* Can it get even worse? According to Tom Spurgeon, yes: more newspapers can fold– the Minneapolis Star Tribune just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy– or they could just cut back on their comics sections. And we haven’t even heard about bookstore returns.

* Exhibits examine ties between Jews and comic books — although it amazes me that I find out about an exhibit at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island by reading a newspaper web site in Richmond, Indiana.

* Sir John Mortimer, the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, has died.

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

Manga Friday: The Dregs

Manga Friday: The Dregs

  • News
  • January 16, 2009

Manga Friday took a little holiday for the last couple of weeks, and it may take more holidays in the weeks to come. Looking back on my recent columns, I’ve said an awful lot of “and here’s the next volume in a series I’ve reviewed four times” and “this week’s books have nothing in common” – and neither of those are quite what I’d hoped. I think I’m reviewing too many of the same manga, too often, so I expect to cut back on Manga Friday substantially in 2009, unless I start seeing more different things.

I expect to keep reviewing stuff here on Fridays, but there may be somewhat less of the specifically Japanese/Korean stuff for a while. (Or possibly not – whenever I try to predict something like this, I’m usually wrong.) But I’ll save the name “Manga Friday” for when I’m looking at books that would be called manga by that legal construct, the “reasonable man.”

So, for this week, I have three books, arranged in ascending order of volume number:

The Manzai Comics
Story by Atsuko Asano; Art by Hizuru Imai
Aurora, January 2009, $10.95

This opens with an odd hint of yaoi, as large, athletic, energetic, popular student Takashi Akimoto begs small, weak, timid (generic manga hero Type 1) Ayumu Seta to “please go out with me” and “do it with me.” Takashi actually wants to form a manzai comedy team with Ayumu, but he’s either too dim or too focused on himself to actually say that for several pages.

(Apparently – I have no personal knowledge of this, but several references agree – the dominant form of comedy in Japan is manzai, two-person acts, rather than sketch comedy or stand-up or improv. Think Abbot & Costello or Crosby & Hope.)

Ayumu is not just an ordinary shy boy – well, he’s a manga hero, so you know there’s got to be some horribly dramatic thing in his past – he considers himself responsible for the car-crash death of his father and older sister because he was clinically depressed (and completely untreated as well). So he has the standard “I just want to be normal” complex of the dweeby manga hero in spades.

(more…)

Arcana Makes Deal for 5 Film Adaptations

Arcana Makes Deal for 5 Film Adaptations

  • News
  • December 22, 2008

Arcana Studios has optioned five of their titles to Legacy Filmworks in a co-production deal that also involves production-finance group Bron Management according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Paradox, starring Kevin Sorbo (Hercules) will be the first of the quintet to reach the cameras. Brenton Spencer (Stargate: Atlantis) will direct the story of a “homicide cop on a parallel Earth ruled by magic who investigates a series of murders committed by a previously unseen means: the power of science” The script adaptation has been handled by the 2005 miniseries writer Christos Gage and his wife, Ruth Fletcher Gage (The Breed).

Deboragh Gabler will producing the five films on behalf of the Canadian based production company, working alongside Bron’s Aaron Gilbert, with Arcana founder-publisher Sean O’Reilly receiving executive producer credentials.

Chopper, produced for Arcana through Martin Shapiro’s Night Owl Studios, was originally developed for Platinum Studios before moving to Arcana.  Written by Shapiro, it will be illustrated by Martin Montiel and Rodney Ramos with a cover from Tony Mauro. The first issue was previewed at Comic-Con International in July but has not been scheduled or solicited by Arcana nor does it appear on their website.  Night Owl’s site describes the premise as:

“Combining the chills of supernatural horror with the excitement of action movie gun battles and car chases, the first issue of Chopper reveals the origin of the chopper-riding Angel of Death and how he became a headless ghost. Jeremiah Payne, an ex-outlaw biker turned fanatical soldier of God hunts down and exterminates evil sinners. He meets his match when he runs into a headstrong cop determined to bring him down.”

The third property is  Sundown, which was a three-issue miniseries from writer Jay Busbee and artist Jason Ossman.

Arcana’s website offer this synopsis:

“Arizona territory, 1880. Someone’s killing preachers, and New York City reporter Will Dalton heads west to cover the story. Will and his brother Clay, a small-town sheriff, begin digging for the truth behind the murders. But they soon find themselves on the front lines of a horrific war for the very soul of America! Sundown is a terrifying three-issue tale of the Old West where sometimes, dying just means you’re switching sides.”

Arcana was founded in 2004 and has comics, webcomics and custom comics produced ever since.  They made a splash this fall as  the home for the comic book in carnation of The Greatest American Hero, which was released last week. They also produced Red Lotus, animated webisodes for Spike TV.
 

YA Friday: ‘Chiggers’ and ‘Thoreau at Walden’

YA Friday: ‘Chiggers’ and ‘Thoreau at Walden’

  • News
  • December 19, 2008

Manga are temporarily in short supply around here, so the usual “Manga Friday” slot is being taken by a close cousin. (Think of this as just another wacky hijink, Patty Duke Show-style.) Instead of manga, I have two books for younger readers that came out earlier in 2008, one very clearly for girls, and the other more gender-neutral.

Chiggers
By Hope Larson
Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Ginee Seo Books, June 2008, $17.99 (hardcover) and $9.99 (paperback)

Chiggers is set at a summer camp, and the major characters are all tween girls. (If I’ve figured it out correctly, they’re all in eighth grade.) The viewpoint character is Abby – she’s the first one to arrive in her cabin, this year, and ends up a little out of step with her cabin-mates. (Larson doesn’t tell the reader this – she doesn’t have any narration – but we see Abby nonplussed several times by her very-slightly-more-worldly friends.

Abby’s first bunkmate leaves very quickly, due to chiggers. (Look ‘em up, if you don’t know. And be glad you don’t live in the same places they do.) And she gets a new bunkmate: Shasta, who all the other girls quickly decide they don’t like. Shasta’s a little full of herself – she’s on medication, can’t do a lot of camp activities, got hit by lightning, is one-eighth Cherokee, has an older Internet boyfriend – but Abby genuinely likes Shasta.

Chiggers is low-key; there are no major events. (Even by the overly-dramatic standards of a twelve-year-old girl.) Abby and Shasta meet, become friend, squabble, make up. Abby also meets a boy who thinks she looks like a half-elf – and I’m afraid I can remember a time in my own life when I would have thought that was a nice thing to say to someone. (Luckily, Abby takes it the right way.)

(more…)

Manga Friday: Three, Two, One!

Manga Friday: Three, Two, One!

  • News
  • December 5, 2008

This week, in a desperate attempt to disguise the fact that he doesn’t have any coherent way to tie the reviewed books together, Andrew Wheeler will adopt a “countdown” format to write about three brand-new Manga volumes.

Adding to the difficulty level: he will also write about himself in the third person, for no good reason.

Kaze no Hana, Vol. 3
By Ushio Mizta and Akiyoshi Ohta
Yen Press, December 2008, $10.99

This is the end of “Book One” of Kaze no Hana, in which not nearly enough is wrapped up and hardly any indication is given that the series will continue on to a “Book Two” sometime, somewhere. (For those who are lost: reviews of Volume One and Volume Two.)

To recap briefly: Momoka Futami is yet another typical cute Japanese teenage girl, who just wants to live a normal life. But she’s actually part of a family that has spent the past few hundred years defending the world against the minions of an evil god that was trapped under a mountain, using eight “spiritual swords.” There’s also an opposed group that wants to free the evil god – they don’t seem to consider him evil, actually – and they use “sacred swords,” which are totally different in a way that’s never been clear.

Kaze no Hana has a fairly large cast of people with vestigial (at best) noses, and it’s difficult to tell them apart much of the time. This book also has a lot of talking and emoting rather than fighting monsters, though one character does turn out, unexpectedly, to be a werewolf. There’s also a huge plot problem that gets resolved exceptionally quickly, leading this reader to wonder if perhaps the original serialization of this story was hurried to a conclusion quicker than the creators had planned.

(more…)

Jesse Stone Returns to CBS

Jesse Stone Returns to CBS

  • News
  • November 6, 2008

Robert B. Parker may be known for his series of Spenser novels, but his second creation, Jesse Stone, is gaining popularity through a series of CBS telefilms starring Tom Selleck. A sixth chapter has been announced as now being in production.  No Remorse has started shooting in Halifax, Nova Scotia for eventually airing.  A fifth telefilm is completed with no airdate.

Jesse Stone is a small town Sheriff in Massachusetts who fights his alcoholism and unhealthy addiction to his ex-wife, now living in the area as a local television news reporter.

The new film will be an original story, not based on one of the seven novels in the series which launched in 1997. Night and Day will be published in the first half of 2009. Stone inhabits the same universe as Spenser and Parker’s other creation, Sunny Randall. In fact, Stone and Randall was an item in several novels but their emotional commitments to their exes kept the relationship from continuing.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new telefilm tells of Stone “having been suspended by the local town council, moonlighting for his friend, State Homicide Commander Healy (Stephen McHattie), by investigating a series of murders in Boston.”

Kathy Baker, Kohl Sudduth, William Devane, William Sadler and Saul Rubinek will all be back in their familiar roles with Krista Allen joining the cast.

The teleplay is from Selleck and Michael Brandman, who double as executive producers.

Review: ‘Burma Chronicles’ by Guy Delisle

Review: ‘Burma Chronicles’ by Guy Delisle

Burma Chronicles
By Guy Delisle
Drawn & Quarterly, September 2008, $19.95Delisle has a quirky history for a newish graphic novelist: he’s in his early forties, a Canadian long resident in France who spent ten years working in animation (both in France and overseeing animation production various places in Asia) before quitting that to concentrate on his graphic novels. And his first two major books – [[[Pyongyang]]] and [[[Shenzhen]]] – were both the stories of long trips to those cities (the capital of North Korea and a booming city in southern China, respectively) during the course of his animation career.

I should point out here that the country calls itself Myanmar now – since a coup in 1989 – but that many governments, including both France and the USA, still call it Burma to show that they don’t accept the legitimacy of the current government to make that change. It’s not clear if Delisle intends his title to be a political statement, though he does explain the difference between the two names on the very first page of this book.

[[[Burma Chronicles]]] is the story of another long stay in an Asian country – another relatively oppressive dictatorship, at that – but it wasn’t for his work, this time. Delisle’s wife works as an administrator for Medecins Sans Frontieres, an international non-profit organization that brings doctors and health care to parts of the world desperately in need of it – and this trip was because her work took her there, for a posting of fourteen months.

(more…)

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks