This season, NBC’s PARKS AND RECREATION has been focused on the big wedding of Leslie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Adam Scott), but was that game changing episode a “jump the shark” moment for the show? Amy, Adam and producer Michael Shure all explain to us why that isn’t the case. Plus the FANTASTIC FOUR movie reboot moves forward and Mark Hammil says “Yes”, “No” and “Maybe” on STAR WARS
You what they say – 12 million people can’t be too far off. This new run of episodes of AMC’sWALKING DEAD is breaking even the records they set a few months back. we talk to showrunner Glen Mazzara and cast member Steven Yeun on what it’s like at the center of this success storm. Plus bad news for the DEXTER comic and the LOBO movie.
It’s a little bit of sports, a little bit of science fiction and all action. SyFy is set to debut ROBOT COMBAT LEAGUE with man-controlled machines battling to survive. Series host (and WWE Superstar) Chris Jericho, explains why the new reality show is really a wave of the future. Plus Valiant offers a comic book bargain, and everyone on the net is asking Who Is Writing GREEN LANTERN?
We’ve got more, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, this time talking with stars Emmy Rossum, Thomas Mann and others on how they worked at bringing familiar characters to life. Plus comics sales kick off the new year in a BIG way, and Zelda comes out of retirement to give Dark Horse Comics some big news.
We begin our look at the new film, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, first talking with creators Kami Garcia and Margret Stohl, then director Richard LaGravenese who moved the project from book to film and actor Jeremy Irons who steps into a key role. Plus Marvel tries its hand at the romance game and the JLA movie hits a road block.
This is going to be old news by the time you’re reading this, but as a card-carrying DFH I am still obsessing over the gender and racial politics of the Super Bowl. And also the nerd politics.
First, a disclaimer: I’ve never been able to figure out football. Even when my son played it in high school, I couldn’t understand the rules. I know there are two teams fighting over a ball. I know there “downs,” and they matter. I know it isn’t soccer, which I do understand. So I’m only watching for the commercials, and because every other television station has surrendered and is running reruns.
(And even then, I switched to the Law & Order marathon on TNT occasionally, especially during the black-out.)
The commercials were depressing.
And they were depressing for a lot of reasons. For one, they weren’t very good. I get that, for the most part, they aren’t aimed at me, an older woman who isn’t into beer and lives in a city where she doesn’t have to own a car.
(I should say, however, that if anyone could manipulate me into buying a car, it’s Jon Hamm and Willem Dafoe.)
There were celebrities making unexpected appearances, like Oprah and Seth Rogan and Kelly Cuoco and Tracy Morgan and Paul Rudd. And, most surprising, dead Paul Harvey.
There were ads for summer movies, which are fun to see when it’s cold out.
There was the gross Go Daddy ad, which I believe is deliberately bad so we’ll talk about it, and therefore I’m going to stop now.
On average, the ads celebrate bros. The people in the ads are men who drink beer and eat chips and drive around. If there are women, they are either unobtainable sex objects (who are obtainable if you use Axe body spray or drink Budweiser) or affectionate scolds. It is as if to be a woman is to be the responsible adult, and that is to be avoided at all costs. A real man has no impulse control, and if he’s successful, women will take care of him.
If this is what men want, that’s really sad. I would be more inclined to believe that it’s what the advertisers want men to want, and so they try to sell this attitude along with their product. Or maybe the lowest common denominator is lower than I thought.
As a palate cleanser, you might enjoy this. I can’t say the men in the ad are particularly my type (big pecs don’t do it for me), but the ad is funny, to the point, and assumes a certain amount of intelligence in the target audience.
The other thing I learned from the Super Bowl this year is that, even though my initial reaction was that making this movie was a stupid idea, I desperately need to see The Lone Ranger.
SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman and the Comic Book Industry of the Future!
Last week I started telling the tale of Mike Richardson, CEO, publisher and owner of Dark Horse Entertainment and the hit he has put out on me. Please refer to part one before reading this.
After years of back and forth Mike Richardson finally gives me the OK to proceed with my graphic novel, The Underground – A Story of The Underground Railroad.
I’ve written hundreds of pages and produced dozens of preliminary drawings for the project but now it was time to produce the book.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
This was (is) a dream project and I wanted to do wonderful if not award winning work on it. I was so happy it was finally green lit I did the one thing I shouldn’t have: I became obsessed with the process.
I wrote the full script like a comic book script, breaking down each panel on the page complete with captions and word balloons. Didn’t like the first draft so I did another. Didn’t like that so I did another.
This went on for about a year. Then one day I realized my problem, the format the script was in was not working for me. I then wrote the story as a novel. After about three months I realized writing a novel was a stupid as shit way to do a graphic novel.
Duh.
Then I figured it out, write the script as a novella (short novel) then illustrate that.
Duh.
That process took another few years.
Before I go on it’s important for me to tell you that like Mike Richardson was busy with a multitude of projects during the years it took to green light my project, I had nowhere near the workload of Mike but while working on the Underground I also had numerous on my plate.
I don’t want to give you the impression that all I was working on was The Underground and was taking years to complete it. During the time I was working on the Underground I was also the head writer on a television show, creating content in a joint venture with a large entertainment company, not to mention writing two books and writing and illustrating another graphic novel and writing two weekly columns, one of which is for ComicMix.
However, Mike Richardson runs a massive entertainment company, yes he has a staff but Mike makes it a point to be involved and he takes the time to make sure the project is right before he green lights it. That’s why Mike’s involvement took the time it took.
After my project got the go ahead no matter what else I had to do it doesn’t matter I should be finished with the Underground by now.
And…I almost am.
Finally.
It will still be a few months but in an effort to show Mike some of what I’ve been doing I’m premiering some of the art here. Hopefully Mike will see this and call off the hit.
I hope so; the last two people who owed Mike a graphic novel were Tupac and Biggie.
We aren’t trying to be cute in saying that NBC’s CHICAGO FIRE seems be be heating up the network’s Wednesday nights. Series star Eaamon Williams and creator Derek Haas talk about how the series keeps it real – and safe – plus the comeback trail is getting crowded with new material on TOMB RAIDER, Ralph Bakshi and The Thunderbirds!
It took a project like THE FOLLOWING to lure Kevin Bacon to series television, and he tells he just why he made the move plus James Purefoy talks about why his serial killer character is so hard to hate. And have you heard about BAR RESCUE? The hit SpikeTV series is heading into it’s third season and host Jon Taffer explains what we may have missed. Plus ENTOURAGE is headed to the big screen and John Byrne heads back to DOOMSDAY.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
– 1 Corinthians 13:11
Uh uh.
Leaving aside the gender issues that run rampant through our so-called holy books, I find myself about to enter my seventh decade with a computer full of rock’n’roll songs, shelves full of toys, and a plastic figure of Howdy Doody watching over my bed as I sleep. I revel in childish things.
So when I saw a story about Mattel’s latest attempt to revive the Max Steel line of action figures, I was curious. And then a little bit horrified. And then fascinated again.
When I was a kid, I loved team-up comics. The Legion, the Justice League, the Teen Titans – they were great because I could imagine myself as different characters depending on my mood. If I had friends who were also into comics, there were enough characters that we could each play our favorite. It was fun. We didn’t need any accouterments except maybe towels tied around our necks as capes.
In the 1980s, when my son was a boy, the ways corporations marketed to kids had changed a lot. My husband and I were real opinionated about it, and we had bunches of rules. We didn’t allow him to watch any cartoons that were created just to sell toys. No He-Man. No G.I. Joe. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were okay, because they were based on a comic book that was a satire of Frank Miller’s Ronin. The rules relaxed as he got older and better able to understand how marketing worked. Also, at four years old, he could tell the difference between a Tex Avery cartoon and a Chuck Jones cartoon.
Here’s what I noticed as a mom. Favorite characters came and went. Ghostbusters. Dick Tracy. Batman. Turtles. Whatever was in vogue, the kids would run around the playground, pretending to shoot (or send rays out of their hands, or wave swords). The names of the characters would change, but the game was always the same.
Back then, kids didn’t have computers. There was only television and, if the family budget allowed it, books and comics. Kids knew the story lines of their characters, but there was still a lot of room for running and fighting evil.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening here. According to the article I cite, Mattel is creating a rather ornate web site with lots of information about the various characters and what they can do, even before the toys are available or the cartoon goes on television. “The intent of the wide distribution is to create viral marketing on social networks,” said Bob Higgins, the executive vice president for children’s and family programming at Fremantle. “Around the world, kids will start hearing about this,” he said. “Kids want to do what their friends do. If they are watching Max Steel, they want to be a part of that party.”
Before I buy my kid a toy, I want to know that he will actually play with it. Not hold onto it while he sits in front of the computer, but play. I want it to engage his imagination so he makes up his own stories, or thinks of ways the characters could participate in his own life.
Toys are media. They are how children learn about the world and how they fit into it. I don’t want my kids to learn that their place is in front of a screen, absorbing content.
