Discussion about the death of Captain America probably won’t die down for awhile, and that’s just how Marvel likes it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t glean all the humor we can out of this event. To that end, in Episode 95 of The Fred Hembeck Show, the cartoonist presents a scenario wherein he sees dead people. Right said, Fred.
While we’re on the subject of Moonstone Books, Johanna Draper-Carlson reports that they’re looking for pitches for Captain Action, the toy figure from the 60’s best known for being other heroes, as well as a short lived comic book in the 60s from DC.
Quoth Johanna: "Moonstone wants to give CAP his due in comics! We’re looking for proposals of no more than two pages. The premise is entirely up to you! Create a NEW “back story” as well as set CAP on a course for new adventures! We’re looking for that one GREAT IDEA, and we know it’s out there! (Please remember that CAP is a licensed property, and as such, if approved, would be considered “work for hire”.) All proposals will be subject to review. You can e-mail proposals to contact_us@moonstonebooks.com."
There has been quite a revival of interest in the old pulp heroes over the last year or two. Moonstone Books launched with the pulp-like exploits of Kolchak the Night-Stalker before adding characters such as The Phantom and The Spider, while Anthony Tollin has relaunched The Shadow and Doc Savage in two lines of facsimile reprint editions. In Hollywood, Sam Raimi has signed on to produce a movie about Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze. With so much renewed interest, we here at ComicMix thought we should dig a little deeper.
The energetic Joe Gentile has been running Moonstone Books for a decade now and has grown the line from a one or two comic books a month outfit to a burgeoning publisher of not only comic books but prose works. I chatted with him by e-mail to learn what’s been going on.
In the interests of full disclosure, I have written one story for Moonstone’s anthologies, with work beginning on a second, and ComicMix columnist John Ostrander has contributed a story to the recently released Kolchak prose anthology.
Robert: Joe, for those not in the know, what is Moonstone’s mission?
Joe: Well, we thought there were some niches that weren’t being filled in comics. We thought that if we could fill some of those, perhaps (with promotion and advertising, which we did a lot of at the beginning) we could bring either new people or readers who left the hobby, to come back to the comic shops. Great stories was always our #1 priority, all things else aside.
SciFi Wire reports that NBC.com will be auctioning off some of Tim Sale’s artwork from Heroes in two separate auctions (beginning March 26 and April 2) to benefit the Epilepsy Foundation, a favorite of Heroes cast member Greg Grunberg, whose son Jake is an epileptic. Here’s the official bidding site. I can’t even imagine how much Hiro Battles T-Rex (above) will go for…
According to the Hollywood Reporter, John August has been chosen to write the screenplay for New Line Cinema’s adaptation of the DC comic Shazam!, currently enjoying a resurgence thanks to the writing and art of Bone creator Jeff Smith. August has served as screenwriter for a number of Tim Burton’s recent movies, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride and Charlie the Chocolate Factory.
But it wasn’t Smith to whom August turned for continuity advice. Instead he had a session with Geoff Johns for "idiot checking" to keep it true to the characters that readers expect. "I think we’re going to be able to be really faithful to the mythology and yet make it completely transparent for people who have no idea who the character is," August said, adding, "It’s a unique opportunity to do a comic book movie where the character in it actually read comic books."
The will be produced by Michael Ewing and Peter Segal; Segal is also set to direct. Let the casting call speculations begin!
Have you sprung forward this morning? Feel like you’ve missed an hour or so? Well, come spend another one with us catching up on the weekly columns you may have missed! Here they are all in one place for your convenience:
Yeah, John and I switched days this week, for reasons which you will discover when you read our respective columns. And of course, Mellifluous Mike Raub is making history thrice weekly with his podcasts:
Lots of surprises in them thar audios! And as a bonus for our first month online, here are our past roundups:
One other thing. You may have noticed the site redesign starting, with the addition of more items per page and such. Trust us, there’s much more to come!
Because Battlestar Galactica fans demanded it, and they didn’t even know it! Also because hey, it provides the SciFi Channel with more airtime filler and they don’t have to work to get it. In any case, the newest bit of viral interactive fun care of SciFi is the Battlestar Galactica Videomaker Toolkit, which allows viewers to insert sound, visual and music clips from the show in their own homemade four-minute masterpieces, which they can then upload to the site in a sort of contest where the winner will be shown during the airing of a future BSG episode.
Maybe we’ll get to see a cool Starbuck resurrection scene, combined perhaps with a Stephen Colbert green screen kinda deal…
DC Publisher and President and writer Paul Levitz gives ComicMix a major interview, Frank Miller’s 300 reviewed, Tim Sale’s Heroes work goes up for a charity auction… all this and, yes, Timeline and even more on ComicMix Podcast #12, available right here:
Cartoonist Barry Deutsch aka Ampersand reposts a lengthy analysis from his blog archives comparing the oeuvre, if you will (and if you won’t, I certainly won’t), of Charles Schultz’ Peanuts versus Jim Davis’ Garfield.
Deutsch subjectively crowns Peanuts the winner in every one of his self-defined categories of Originality, Humaneness, Emotional Life, Egalitarianism, Grace and Humor. Fortunately, Lasagna is not one of his categories, or it wouldn’t be such a clean sweep.
Andy Mangels, curator of the online Wonder Woman Museum, writes to apologize for the belated heads-up about a Canadian TV programme called FANatical, which airs weekly on the TVtropolis channel.
Seems this past week’s episode featured musings on Andy’s favorite character, featuring interviews with him and Anina Bennett (pictured at right at last year’s Wonder Woman Day charity event), as well as appearances by Terry Dodson, Anne Timmons, Matt Clark, Paul Guinan, Michael Eury and others. As this episode aired last Tuesday with a rerun this morning at 9:30 AM Eastern. Does anyone have a YouTube excerpt they’d care to share?
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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