The Mix : What are people talking about today?

The Secret is out

The Secret is out

I’ve been rooting for Pulp Secret to flourish ever since their executive producer, my old college friend David Levin, first gushed to me about it.  And in the short time they’ve been around the site has branched out from their 5-minute video news segments to a weekly talk and interview show to David making good on his vow to give away items in his prized comic book collection on a regular basis.

But for me, there was still something missing.  And some of it had to do with me not being able to tell the three young white male self-amused hosts apart.  I’m sure they’re nice guys and all, but it was (as the Brits say) much of a muchness.

Now finally, with webcast #18, the video news segments have a female face.

She’s Ana Hurka-Robles, a director and writer from NYC who’s been behind the camera until now.  Says AHR, "I’m part of a small crew that produces the episodes, so I get a chance to direct, shoot, write, research, and edit. I know that film degree would come in handy some day!"  (I think someone else may have "edited" her name up there.)  You can catch her on-screen debut here, at about 3:45 into the webcast, but she narrates capsule reviews in webisodes 10 and 15 as well.

Thanks, David & co., for expanding PS to include the other half of the population!

Early word catches the spider, man

Early word catches the spider, man

Mark this down in your Week-At-A-Glance: If you’re hankering to get the early word on Spider-Man 3, Ebert and Roeper will be reviewing the movie on their hit teevee show the weekend of April 28th.

As of this writing we don’t know who Richard Roeper’s guest critic will be – Roger Ebert is recovering from cancer surgery and whereas he will be making an appearance at his "Forgotten Movies" film festival, he is still at least one operation away from getting his voice back. However, he does stand ready to review silent movies.

Ebert and Roeper airs at various times in sundry markets;  you can use their "station finder" (http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/ebertandroeper/) to discover the local whens and wheres. This show will air sometime between Friday, April 27th and Sunday, April 29th.

 

Rosenbaum redux

Rosenbaum redux

A couple months ago we reported Michael Rosenbaum’s confirmation that the next season of Smallville will be his last.  Now in an interview with JewReview’s Shmuel Reuven, Rosenbaum reveals more news of the show and talks about his character.

"It’s a great year, the ratings are consistently high," Rosenbaum notes. "Our show’s ratings are just as high as the first couple seasons. We’re creating more and more fans… Next year is going to be the biggest year of all; it’s the final year and everyone’s going to see what Lex Luthor is really capable of."

Rosenbaum also expressed his interest to follow up Smallville with roles in more comedies.  The full interview will be up in a couple of weeks.  I’m still not over the idea of an "entertainment website for The Chosen People."

INTERVIEW: Harlan Ellison, part 1

INTERVIEW: Harlan Ellison, part 1

Harlan Ellison is a force of nature.

For more than 50 years he’s published stories and novels, written for television, movies, and comics, created an award-winning CD-Rom, lectured widely, performed TV voice-overs and spoken word recordings, and been an all-around pain-in-the-ass curmudgeon. This month alone, Deep Shag Records issued his newest CD, On the Road with Harlan Ellison (Volume 3, no less) and a 105-minute theatrical documentary about him, Dreams with Sharp Teeth, will have its premiere at the Writers Guild in Beverly Hills on Thursday, April 19 (for information about all of this, and to get tickets for the Guild Event, go to www.harlanellison.com).

Dark Horse Comics just released Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor Volume Two, a book ten years in the making, with contributions from Gene Ha, Curt Swan, Martin Nodell, Gene Colan, Jay Lynch, Eric Shanower, Tony Isabella, Richard Corben, John Ostrander and more.

I first heard Ellison speak more than 25 years ago, at an event to which ComicMix sensei Denny O’Neil brought us. I no longer remember precisely what he said, but do remember being so angry about it that I was awake all night, arguing with him in my head. Ten years later, when the rabbi’s sermon provoked a similar response, I knew I’d found the synagogue for me. Jews are like that.

Reb Ellison is still schooling. Our interview started off awkwardly, as we called to arrange a schedule and Mr. Ellison wanted to go with no notice. After a pause while we ran out to buy batteries for our antique cassette recorder, we began.

HE: I live my life principally by one adage – Louis Pasteur: Chance favors the prepared mind. Thus, if you call me, you should have batteries. Now we know we’re running. Now you can interview me. Go ahead.

CoMx: You have a new graphic novel, you have a new CD, you have this movie coming out. Why now?

HE: Because though I’m incredibly humble and shy, I am, nonetheless, famous … I’m a cultural icon. Everyone gets their 15 minutes, and if they have some talent they get their 15 minutes repeatedly. My 15 minutes have been going on since about 1955.

One finds, at this age, the most annoying thing you have to worry about is cultural amnesia. For most of the little imbeciles today who live on the Internet, for whom nostalgia is what they had for breakfast, all the golden things and evil lessons of the past have no significance, no meaning, no understanding that whatever they do would not be possible had not the world, its artistic heroes, villains, done what they did before their smug, ignorant li’l asses were born. They know nothing, and are arrogant that they know nothing. “Bite me” is their mantra. They don’t even know the name of who won on American Idol last year or who came in second or who won the Academy Award, much less who Sojourner Truth was, or Lanny Ross, or Tris Speaker, or Subotai, or Klimt or Frank Buck, or Eddie Condon, or … or anything earlier than Sanjaya Malakar and Beyonce’s thong.

But they are quick to label geezer and old coot everybody who did anything the day before they were born. I consider myself very lucky still to have a large following and a loyal following in these parlous times, and I think, some interesting enemies, too.

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Spidey fame for your favorite kid

Spidey fame for your favorite kid

Looking for a gift to get the child in your life who’s just wild about Spider-Man?  Why not look into getting a personalized photo CD of a Spider-Man cartoon with said child’s photo digitally mapped onto the space where Spidey’s face goes, for a full-length cartoon?

Sayeth Kideo, "This 26 minute action packed animated adventure DVD includes bonus features such as a photo personalized music video featuring the1960’s theme song, as well as an educational tutorial on spiders in a segment titled ‘Learning with J. Jonah Jameson’." 

Because really, who’s more obsessed with spiders?

A look at Sunderland

A look at Sunderland

Forbidden Plant International leads us to another glowing review of Bryan Talbot’s amazing Alice in Sunderland by Steve Flanagan. The catch is that Flanagan’s review is illustrative, done in the style of the book it’s discussing.

Flanagan’s 7-part comic strip review discusses Talbot’s presumed influences for this book, his stylistic choices, perceived structural weakness and subject matter.  Pretty heady stuff, and Flanagan’s not afraid to puncture his own pomposity.

It works better, of course, if you read the book first.  By that time maybe the traffic will have died down from Flanagan being BoingBoing’ed.

Marvel’s fun with numbers

Marvel’s fun with numbers

Marvel editor Tom Brevoort mentioned he had a problem with the way certain parties referred to the Marvel Universe as "Earth 616" — a designation he mistakenly credited to Alan Moore.  He promptly followed up by passing along the actual origin of the appellation, courtesy of Alan Davis, who notes, "Although credited to Alan Moore, like much of the other Captain Britain folklore it was in place before he joined the book."

Interesting background reading for people who like behind-the-scenes stuff, and far easier for me to follow than Alan D’s analysis of who owns Miracleman

A sticky videogame

A sticky videogame

Via Wil Wheaton, it took a team of 10 engineering students at UCSC five hours and 6400 sticky pieces of paper to re-create the first level of the arcade game Donkey Kong.  Here’s a silent time-lapse video of the assembly:

And here’s what it looks like in the daytime:

 

I hope they got extra credit for this!  The work is visible at the E2 building at the university until the beginning of May.

MIKE GOLD apologizes to William Shatner… and Denny O’Neil

MIKE GOLD apologizes to William Shatner… and Denny O’Neil

I realize the whole concept of a public apology has become somewhat tainted, but I hope Mr. Shatner and Mr. O’Neil each accept mine in the spirit in which they are intended.

When the first episode of Star Trek was aired, I thought the show was rather lame. I had just turned 16 and I wasn’t all that much of a teevee viewer. That summer I took up an interest in a young woman who was a dedicated Trekker, long before the term was invented. Ergo, my interest in the show waxed. As we headed towards the awesome events of 1968 my interest in television in general waned as, sadly, so did my relationship with the aforementioned young lady.

As Star Trek’s popularity picked up in syndication, I managed to catch all the episodes, but with growing popularity grew derision towards its star. I found the jokes made about Mr. Shatner’s stylized performance to be hilarious, and I even did my own on radio. At the time I knew better: I remembered his fine performances in The Twilight Zone (perhaps the most famous episode of that praiseworthy series), on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (where he co-starred with both Leonard Nimoy and Werner Klemperer), and most significantly, in the lead on The Andersonville Trial, an astonishingly brilliant teevee movie directed by George C. Scott and co-starring Cameron Mitchell, Richard Basehart, Jack Cassidy, Martin Sheen, Buddy Ebsen, Albert Salmi. That’s one of the best casts ever assembled for a broadcast, and Shatner – its star – was more than up to the task.

Mr. Shatner proceeded to healthy runs on numerous series, but the jokes went on and on. My own attitude began to lighten up when I realized he had a strong sense of self-awareness about Captain Kirk. His own parody of the character in the movie Airplane: The Very Stupid Sequel (I think I’ve got the title right, but iMDB doesn’t list it as such) was brilliantly self-effacing. I figured somebody else wrote that part. But his performance as William Shatner at a Star Trek convention on Saturday Night Live – the famous “get a life” moment – well, even if somebody else wrote it, Shatner wasn’t playing a character. He was playing himself with a truth and honesty essential to successful comedy.

Damn. That was good.

Since then, Shatner showed his comedic prowess in a variety of television commercials, most notably those for Priceline.com. But the world moved and changed when David E. Kelley hired him to play the part of Denny Crane for a run on The Practice, knowing the show was to spin-off into Boston Legal, unless ABC changed its mind (ask our friends – off the record – at DC Comics about Lois and Clark).

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Edward Norton as Bruce Banner

Edward Norton as Bruce Banner

Step-sibling Cinematical (say that three times fast) is reporting that: "Bruce Banner and his massive green alter ego will be played by Oscar nominee Edward Norton! Best known for his superlative work in movies like Primal Fear, Rounders, American History X and Fight Club (oh, and Death to Smoochy), Norton steps into a role vacated by Bana — and I for one think it’s a really excellent choice on the part of [Louis] Leterrier and his Universal overlords."