The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Maximum villainousness

Maximum villainousness

Wizard is reporting that writer David Goyer has sold an idea to Warner Bros. for a movie focusing on DCU supervillains.

In Goyer’s vision, which he’s developing with fellow writer Justin Marx, Super Max would take place in a maximum security prison housing supervillains where a wrongly convicted Green Arrow has been sent and where he faces a number of inmates he helped put there in the first place.

Goyer tells Wizard, “He’s Green Arrow for the first 10 minutes of the movie, and then he’s arrested and his secret identity is revealed… Of course, tons of people try to kill him while he’s in there. We’ve populated the prison with all sorts of B and C villains from the DC Universe.” Goyer promises fans will recognize plenty of names.

Goyer is also planning a miniseries or graphic novel tie-in with the film.

Spidey 3 gets sneaked for MySpace members

Spidey 3 gets sneaked for MySpace members

MySpace will host a "Black Curtain Screening" for Spider-Man 3 on April 30, 2007, exclusively for its members, several days prior to Sony’s release of the movie on May 4.  Where the screening will be held is entirely up to MySpace members, who can cast their vote now for one of ten cities at http://www.myspace.com/blackcurtain . The choices are Cleveland, OH; Cincinnati, OH; Honolulu, HI; Indianapolis, IN; Kansas City, MO; Louisville, KY; Salt Lake City, UT; San Jose, CA; Savannah, GA; Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL.

And their continued assault on ComicSpace continues…

Honolulu?

 

Emerald City Con reports

Emerald City Con reports

Heidi Meeley at Comics Fairplay, which had a booth at this year’s Emerald City Con, is collecting everyone’s ECC reports to put all in one place.  If you wrote about the con and your report isn’t included in her listing, please let her know.

A link post like Heidi’s is one of the best ways to record for posterity everyone’s memories of their participation in the yearly comicon circuit, and it’s hoped that other con-goers can put something like this in place for other upcoming gatherings.  Although we suspect a San Diego report link post would be a near impossibility…

Big Iron Man screw-up

Big Iron Man screw-up

Newsstand distributors have released some misprinted copies of Iron Man #16, wherein pages are printed out of order. Expect to see these on eBay shortly going for far more than their worth by any objective measure.

Reports of copies of Iron Man #16 printed with their pages out of order appearing in various Borders bookstores in the midwest started surfacing over a week ago, but it must be stressed that  not all newsstand copies are the misprints.

The direct sale version of Iron Man #16 has been delayed for this very reason. The "correct" version will be in comics shops this Wednesday.

The question that leaps to mind isn’t "how could this have gotten through?" as the printers are, like anyone else along the assembly line, only human; but, "there’s still newsstand distribution?"  In fact, most towns have their central newsstand outlets, big-box bookstores like Borders, supermarket spinner racks, and convenience store shelves. However, only a fraction of the comic book titles published are distributed outside of the comic book shop network.

Artwork copyright 2007 Marvel; All Rights Reserved.

Felix sues clock

Felix sues clock

Felix, the world’s oldest cat, has reached into his bag of tricks to whip out a lawsuit.

The Otto Messmer creation who first appeared in Pat Sullivan cartoons dating as far back as 1912’s Felix Saves The Day has taken offense at the popular Kit-Kat Klock. The clock dates back to the 1930s; it’s taken Felix a bit of time to file the papers. Next time, he should pull an opposable thumb out of his bag of tricks. However, it should be noted that the Kit-Kat Klock had been marketed in the past as the "Felix Clock."

Felix has been a perennial in comic books as well as on television and in both silent movies and talkies. Kit-Kat Klocks are no relation to the popular candy bar, whose manufacturers may be waiting on deck for their turn at bat.

Zippy on Jay Kennedy

Zippy on Jay Kennedy

Well, here’s something you don’t see everyday.

As our Elayne Riggs noted last March 16th (check it out on our search engine), King Features Syndicate Comics Editor Jay Kennedy died at the age of 50. Tributes were offered by cartoonists all over the world, but perhaps the most unusual and one of the most heartfelt appeared in today;s  strip, by Bill Griffith:

It’s a little word-heavy, even for Zippy, so you might want to check out a larger version at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer‘s website, seattlepi.nwsource.com/fun/zippy.asp

 

Superthunderstingcar!

Superthunderstingcar!

If you ever wasted spent hours in front of yor TV watching Gerry Anderson and his puppets, you’ll be flabbergasted by this performance by late, great Peter Cook and Dudley Moore :

Hat tip to Lisa Sullivan for finding this depravity.

MIKE GOLD: Casting the first stone

MIKE GOLD: Casting the first stone

Don Imus uttered a phrase that was heard around the world. Of course, his radio show is broadcast across the world on sundry radio and cable television stations, but you get the idea.

Last Wednesday Mr. Imus referred to the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team as “nappy headed hos.” Sadly, he wasn’t referring to the late Dan Blocker. On Friday Imus apologized for his remarks in no uncertain terms, and his host company CBS said they’d put his show on a tighter leash.

Now, I’m a First Amendment absolutelist, and there’s not “but” at the end of that sentence. If Winston cigarettes wants to resume sponsoring The Flintstones and the broadcasting outlets want to advertise it, that’s fine by me. It’s free speech, and it always applies to all sides of any debate.

That doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t react to it. If you don’t like Imus for any reason whatsoever, you don’t have to listen to the show. I don’t because after 40 years it’s grown self-righteous and lame – in my opinion. But that’s my right. You don’t have to sponsor it, you don’t have to broadcast it on your affiliated station.

But let’s remember one thing. Everybody says stupid things from time to time. Anybody who has ever been married knows this. Rev. Al Sharpton, who has called for Imus’s termination, should know this – particularly after the Tawana Brawley situation, which Sharpton properly explained away by saying “because I believed her.” He should grant Imus the same license. He made a stupid mistake.

Predictably, everybody you’d guess is calling for Imus’s well-endowed scalp. He committed the sin of unthinking political incorrectness, and he did so in as little as three words. It’s not as if he’s got an entire career making such offensive statements, like, say, Bill Donohue or Louis Farrakhan or any number of other people I could mention.

A couple years ago, Farrakhan renounced his extreme statements and we were expected to take that at face value, and I did. Should we not grant Imus the same opportunity? Last week, in response to his skewering on the current episode of South Park, Donohue admitted he comes on “a bit strong” and he said he laughed his ass off at the teevee show. Should we not grant Imus the same understanding?

Back in the day, my radio show on (then) WEAW-FM in Chicago was followed by a half hour from the syndicated Reverend Carl MacIntyre, a man so far to the right he actually “exposed” both the FBI and the Boy Scouts of America as Communist plots. One of his listeners tuned in early and heard me playing the Grateful Dead’s version of “Turn On Your Lovelight” and got all offended, saying I was promoting prostitution. Like Sharpton, she filed a complaint with the FCC. Being more liberal times (it was during the Nixon Administration) the FCC overseer ruled in my favor – but only after the radio station spent more in legal fees than they did on my show.

Imus was stupid. Don’t listen if you don’t want to, but let everybody else make up their own minds.

Cartoonist Johnny Hart Dies

Cartoonist Johnny Hart Dies

Johnny Hart, of B.C. and Wizard of Id fame, died Saturday while working at his storyboard in Endicott NY. He was 76. 

B.C. appears in more than 1,300 newspapers worldwide – quite an achievement in these days of newspaper mergers and disappearing strips.

No stranger to controversy, some of Hart’s cartoons had hard Christian themes. A Sunday page published on Easter, 2001 was deemed by many Jews to be quite offensive – a menorah transformed into a cross, accompanied by Jesus Christ’s dying words. According to the Associated Press, critics said it implied that Christianity supersedes Judaism. Similar themes have appeared in the strip since, leading to a number of cancellations.

Nonetheless, both B.C. and Wizard of Id (produced by Hart and Brant Parker) will be remembered as two of the funniest and most clever newspaper comic strips launched since World War II.

Ironically, he quotes Jesus in today’s Easter strip (reprinted below) saying "Assuredly I say to you today you will be with me in Paradise." Here’s hoping for you, Johnny.

Blades of More Box Office Gold

Blades of More Box Office Gold

For the second week in a row  Will Ferrell is the top box-office draw as Blades of Glory remained the highest-grossing picture of the holiday weekend, according to the Associated Press.  The film took in $23 million, followed by Disney’s animated Meet the Robinsons with $17 million.  Ice Cube’s Are We Done Yet was third, with $15 million.

Grindhouse, the hilarious send-up of B-movies made by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, earned $11.6 million, according to early estimates.  This is considered to be a disappointing showing, as it was expected to top the box office with grosses in the $27 million range. 

"With these two filmmakers’ pedigree and the overall cool factor that this film had going for it, you would have figured it would have done a lot more business," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.  However, with a three-hour-plus length, the movie could be shown only half as often as the other films.

Grindhouse played to big crowds on the East and West coasts but failed to click with audiences in the Midwest and South, Weinstein said.

With theatrical receipts, overseas sales, television and home-video revenues, Grindhouse"will turn a profit on its $53 million budget, Weinstein said. The company hoped that word of mouth from those who did see it would sustain it at theaters in coming weeks, he said.