The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Let’s you and him reconcile

Let’s you and him reconcile

Via Budgie, for your reading pleasure comes this post by artist Jesse Hamm on the ways in which writers drive him crazy, followed by a three part rebuttal by Mark Waid on why certain artists should perhaps choose their words as carefully as they choose their illustrations.  Beyond the sarcasm and vitriol is some terrific information and useful advice on the collaborative process in comics.

World War Free!*

World War Free!*

ATT & T and Blizzard Entertainment today announced a free, two-week direct-download trial of World of Warcraft.  The game is available at the AT & T blue room gaming site (http://www.attblueroom.com/gaming). 

The press release claims this is the longest World of Warcraft trial available.  It also claims that WOW is the most popular multiplayer online role-playing game, with more than 8.5 million subscribers.

"World of Warcraft‘s following is phenomenal. Its universal appeal extends to both experienced players and those brand new to gaming, so we’re thrilled to offer an extended online trial edition," said Glenn Broderick, executive director of gaming, AT&T.

* You thought this was going to be a post about that 52 spinoff co-written by our own John Ostrander, didn’t you? Made you look…

Jimmy Palmiotti speaks to ComicMix!

Jimmy Palmiotti speaks to ComicMix!

This time we talk about ComicMix a bit (!!!) and troll for some comments and we offer the lowdown on Marvel’s special Captain America convention edition (???), connect the music of Coheed & Cambria to Image Comics (Star Wars meets the Matrix?), uncover one of DC’s best kept secrets (no snitching!), we hear from writer/artist Jimmy Palmiotti and do a little kung fu jive and sing together for world peace – all in 10 exciting minutes.

All you’ve got to do is press the button:

JOHN OSTRANDER: The headline quartet

You’ve done this on tests. Which of the following doesn’t fit?

  1. Celeb fashion flops
  2. Crafting the perfect lawn
  3. Man films own death by meth
  4. Clearing home clutter

If you picked “Man films own death by meth” then give yourself an A. I plucked this quartet as is from my MS Hotmail account; after I sent off an e-mail, a screen popped up asking me if I wanted to go back to the message or to the inbox. In the left margin, there were also some news stories that I might want to pick. These were the four headlines to choose from. Three innocuous bits of news fluff and one fairly grotesque news item.

Each headline had equal value. The type sizes were all the same size. Suicide is given the same value as “Crafting the perfect lawn.” They’re all just newsy bits, one no more important than the next. In a list we sometimes assume that the top or the bottom items have the most impact but not so here. Exchange the top two items and nothing really has changed. Put the suicide item at the top or the bottom and the list changes but nestle it in the middle and it’s just one more bit of fluff.

I’ve been looking at our little headline quartet and reacting several different ways. In this context, with everything being the same, death has no more importance than crafting the perfect lawn. It’s just another widget headline. If everything has the same value, then what has meaning? “Man films own death by meth” is grotesque, it should horrify. The quartet suggests otherwise to me. There is no sense of priority here, that this one thing is more important than this other thing. The context of its appearance in this quartet suggests that the death is mundane.

Which might raise the question – is it more important? An unknown man films his own death by meth. Should his death mean anything more to me than celeb fashion flops? Is his death noteworthy or the fact that he filmed it? If there wasn’t video, we wouldn’t care. Just another meth user screwing up his life. I’m not going to pretend that I care deeply about every person who dies; I don’t. The deceased may have family and friends who will mourn him; I hope he does. Me? I’m mostly appalled but that’s about it. Maybe for me it IS just another widget headline.

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Spider-Man 3 at Tribeca Film Festival

Spider-Man 3 at Tribeca Film Festival

The Tribeca Film Festival, normally held entirely in Manhattan’s Tribeca district (it stands for "TRIangle BElow CAnal street") today announced Spider-Man 3 will have a star-studed gala premiere in Queens at the UA Kaufman Astoria 14 Theater.  With a marching band, a "black" carpet and lots and lots of celebrities, it’s the culmination of Spider-Man Week in New York.

The Festival will also present other screenings in other boroughs, which the press release says will be free and open to the public.  "Tribeca is thrilled to be premiering Spider-Man 3 and to be a part of ‘Spider-Man Week in NYC,’" said Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the Festival. "Bringing exciting and new events to NYC and its community is one of the major goals of the festival.  Hosting the U.S. premiere of Spider-Man 3 in Queens and celebrating the release throughout the festival will give us the opportunity to reach out to a new community as well as to the devoted fan-base of the Spider-Man series."

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Martian Child showing its literary roots, sort of

Martian Child showing its literary roots, sort of

One of the films that might get lost in the 10 billion dollar summer is a little film called The Martian Child, based on the Hugo and Nebula award-winning story by SF writer David Gerrold which, despite the title and pedigree, isn’t really a science fiction story. It stars John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Joan Cusack and Richard Schiff, and will be in theaters June 29th so that it can be mercilessly crushed by Live Free or Die Hard.

And while I realize that it won’t have all the neat merchandizing opportunities that Spider-Man 3 will have, based on the promotional image on the website (reproduced here) and used heavily in the trailers, all I can say is:

Nice product placement, guys.

Why “The Lone Gunmen” got axed

Why “The Lone Gunmen” got axed

We seem to have an unofficial theme of sorts today.

Fans of The X-Files remember the Lone Gunmen, the trio of brilliant but socially inept hackers and conspiracy experts that made comic book fans look socially un-inept. They were spun off into their own short-lived TV series, which recently became available on DVD.

But some wondered: How could a show featuring such popular characters get cancelled so quickly? Was it some sort of evil scheme? Who was to blame? Why was that guy in Fox’s programming division constantly smoking?

Finally, we have an answer – in comic book form, no less, which means that we can talk about it here and still remain within our theoretical charter.

Dean Haglund, better known as Richard "Ringo" Langly, has written and drawn an autobiographical story of what happened to the Lone Gunmen – how they found out about the series, how it lived, and how it died. The art is reminiscent of a cruder version of William Messner-Loebs, and the story reinforces every dumb story you’ve heard about Hollywood. He’s selling it on his web site for a pretty high price, but if you ask nicely, I’m sure he’ll autograph it directly to you.

ROBERT GREENBERGER: Death be not proud

ROBERT GREENBERGER: Death be not proud

The rule of thumb used to be that the only characters that stayed dead are Uncle Ben, Bucky and Barry Allen.

Some version of Uncle Ben is running around in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man; Bucky turns out to have survived and is now the Winter Solider; and if you believe Dan DiDio’s “slip” of the tongue, Barry Allen may be here soon.

It used to be a big deal when a character died. Amazing Spider-Man #121’s cover, as Spidey faced those nearest and dearest to him with a cover blurb promising one was going to die compelled us to buy that month’s issue. It worked, sales spiked, the status quo was different and people were buzzing.

In 1985, I participated in the planning and, ahem, execution of Crisis on Infinite Earths. One of the key housecleaning elements had to be the elimination of both major and minor figures, heroes and villains, civilians and loved ones. The hit list, as seen in the Absolute edition, evolved as editors and management weighed in. Killing the Flash and Supergirl were the shockers while few cared if the Bug-Eyed Bandit survived or not. Still, these deaths were supposed to be permanent changes to the DC Universe, although few of them have remained dead 20 years later.

By the time Superman died in 1992, the freshness had long since worn off as deaths had been faked (Professor X, Foggy Nelson), undone (Jean Grey, Iris Allen), or were too minor to care (I Ching).

Since then, characters have continued to die and come back with stunning regularity. As a result, the death of a major figure has been more of a blip than a major event, making one wonder what it will take to get people really stirred up.

Much has been made of Captain America’s death and I was among those scoffing at the permanence of his condition. Less has been said about the return of their first Captain Marvel, plucked out of the time stream before his death from cancer (as wonderfully told in a Jim Starlin graphic novel), an altogether new kind of cheat.

Marvel isn’t the only company wheeling and dealing with the Grim Reaper.

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Warner Bros. loves men….Metal Men!

Warner Bros. loves men….Metal Men!

It looks like Warner Bros. Pictures  has greenlit Metal Men and looking to get the final pieces in place. So far, Eric Champnella is slated to write the script. You may or may not remember Champnella’s last picture about Bernie Mac attempting to break his own baseball record while wise-cracking at a bunch of "nuckle-headed kids" in Mr. 3000. I personally can’t wait for a jive talking Iron slapping around the rest of the Metals and calling Platinum his "beeyotch," but they might be going for a different approach.

Slated to produce the picture is Lauren Shuler Donner, who was responsible for bringing X-Men to the big screen as well as the Keanu Reeves movie Constantine. Fingers crossed on this one!