The Mix : What are people talking about today?

How to follow the thread

How to follow the thread

It’s no coincidence that The Fates of Greek mythology are female. The sisters sit and spin, each thread the life of a mortal. One sister decides when a thread will start, another adjusts the tension and thickness, and the third cuts it at the end.

Women are frequently storytellers. Sit around a playground and listen to the moms chat, or go to a laundromat, or the communal dressing room at Loehman’s. You’ll hear epic tales of finding a bargain at the designer rack, or intrigue and scandal at the PTA. You’ll hear detailed comparisons of size and technique.

Men tell stories to each other, too, when women aren’t around. Or so I’m told.

Are men’s stories better than women’s? I doubt it. Are they different? Perhaps. Are they told differently? You bet!

In her insightful book You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tannen describes the different ways men and women use speech. In general (and Tannen goes into more detail than we have space about the range of individual exceptions), women use conversation to establish common ground; men use it to establish hierarchy. This would suggest that we tell our stories for different reasons.

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600 bare thighs

600 bare thighs

Starting off, I want to issue a warning to the readers out there who aren’t fans of scantily clad, bronzed, chiseled goliaths who seem to have leapt from the pages of Men’s Fitness Magazine. If you aren’t, much like this reviewer, you may not enjoy the true essence of the two-hour epic which is 300.

600 bare thighs aside, I wasn’t a huge fan of Zack Snyder’s interpretation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel. I place most of the blame not on Snyder, but on Robert Rodriguez. Their promotion play was established by showing off the “graphic novel” style of filmmaking, which is essentially comparing the comic book pages to the frames of the film, fast-cut, music video-style editing, heavy rock soundtrack, and shooting the majority of the film in front of a green screen. Now I’d hope the majority of you realize at this point that the style I just read off was identical to the style that Robert Rodriguez practically invented for 2005’s Sin City.

Now in playing devil’s advocate, I could say that the reasoning behind the similar styles lies with the fact that they are both done in Miller’s vision, and his artistic didn’t change much between the two graphic novels, and you could be asking at that point “Why should the film style change between the two films?” I’ll tell you why, dear readers. If this film was done with Rodriguez behind the helm once again, or even with his “Troublemaker Studios” at hand (which is where the majority of the green-screen activity was shot) it would have been far more acceptable.

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The Onion on Captain America’s death

Captain America, the comic book character created during World War II as a patriotic opponent of the Nazis, was killed by sniper bullets in a recent comic. What do you think?
 
Monica Chan,
Systems Analyst

"But who will avenge him? If only there were a group of ‘avengers,’ if you will, organized for that purpose."

(Copyright 2007 The Onion)

Maybe Cap was lucky

Maybe Cap was lucky

One of the more interesting comments on Captain America’s passing was this from blogger Ari Emanuel on the Huffington Post:

"It’s hard to be a star-spangled Super Soldier these days. Given the lip-service-only support this administration gives our troops, the patriotic hero would have to fight evil with a substandard red, white, and blue shield, and be stop-lossed into an endless tour of duty.

"The only upside to the good Captain’s death? If he had survived his wounds, he might have been sent to Walter Reed."

But more to the point, this follows what we saw at the end of Civil War. Cap’s side was winning everything but the argument – and that was more demoralizing to him than anything else, that the people didn’t understand his point of view, and were happy to knuckle down to authority.

Cap’s death is relevant because now we get to have a real debate as to who we want as the symbol of our country. Who picks up the mask? Who gets handed the shield? Who will speak for America – and who should?

Expect a big debate on this, here on ComicMix and in the rest of the world at large.

 

Remembering Yvan Delporte

Bibi’s Box has gathered together a number of remembrances of comics writer Yvan Delporte, who died on March 5.  Bibi notes that Delport " was the editor-in-chief of Le Journal de Spirou (Spirou), a Belgian magazine, between 1955 and 1968 during a period considered by many the golden age of Franco-Belgian comics."  Francophones can see lots of nice visual homages to Delporte here – the sentiment certainly comes through even if you can’t read the language.

 

Who killed editorial cartoons?

Who killed editorial cartoons?

While visual controversy is said to boost the sales of newspapers just as sensationalism ups the ratings of cable news shows, it’s also true that many people in charge of these institutions tend toward the conservative or timid.

For those of us who’ve often wondered where we can see the cartoons these editors have rejected as being too hot to handle, David Wallis’ new book Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression presents about a hundred of them all in one place, from creators like Kirk Anderson (above), Garry Trudeau, Ted Rall, Anita Kunz and Doug Marlette, as well as " unearthed gems by legends like David Low, Herblock and Norman Rockwell," complete with the stories behind the rejections.  Guaranteed to get a good discussion going about the fine line between editors doing their jobs and cartoonists answering their calling.

Scribe nominees announced

Scribe nominees announced

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers has announced the nominees for the first annual Scribe Awards, honoring excellence in licensed tie-in writing for books published in 2006. The 2007 Scribe awards will be given out at a ceremony at Comic-Con in San Diego.

Their first annual Grandmaster Award, honoring career achievement in the field, will go to Donald Bain, author of the Murder, She Wrote novels and the ghostwriter behind Coffee, Tea or Me and other bestsellers.

The nominees are:

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Tintin heads to the big screen

Tintin heads to the big screen

Tintin, one of the most popular comic book creations on the international scene, is headed to the movie theaters coutesy of Dreamworks and producer Steven Spielberg. The movie has a projected budget near $100 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

George Hermi, better known as Herge, created 23 Tintin graphic novels before he died in 1983. Spielberg has been sitting on the rights since shortly before Herge’s death. Tintin already has appeared in five movies — two live action and three animated — and two animated teevee series. The classic Tintin in Tibet graphic novel was adapted into a London musical last year.

 

Nancy Drew draws

When you think of famous fictional females and hear "teen sleuth," I’ll bet only one name comes to mind. Well, other than Veronica Mars.

Did you know that Nancy Drew stories are now being published in graphic novel format?  NY-based company Papercutz is serving the teen and tween markets in a big way, and it’s about to get bigger.

Papercutz, whose Nancy Drew #1: The Demon of River Heights won the Benjamin Franklin Award last year from PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association, also puts out young adult graphic novels featuring those other teen mystery-solvers The Hardy Boys, as well as Zorro and a really adorable-looking "teenage Charlie’s Angels" book called Totally Spies.  But it’s Drew that’s going to draw this summer, as Warner Bros. will be releasing a Nancy Drew movie this June 15 starring Emma Roberts, the star of Nickelodeon’s hit show Unfabulous.  And ICv2 reports that WB will be using the graphic novels to promote the movie.  The GNs will be given out as prizes in on-air radio promotions, and will also be available as the "Gift With Purchase" during the movie’s mall tour in major markets.

Papercutz is also seeking artists to help draw their graphic novels, particularly those "versed in the manga style."  Nancy Drew is currently drawn by Sho (Sei) Murase, a woman of Japanese and Korean descent who grew up in Spain, then moved to Canada and now lives in California — a real multicultural phenom!  She’s also the author of Sei, Death and Legend published by Image Comics and is currently also working on the graphic novel series ME2 for Tokyopop.

Expanding comics exhibitions

Expanding comics exhibitions

For those who, like me, were disappointed that the Masters of American Comics art exhibition was fairly literal, in that all 15 of "the artists who shaped the development of the American comic strip and comic book during the past century" just happened to be white and male despite vast historical contributions to the artform by women and non-whites, you’re not alone, and Eye Trauma Comix is doing something about that.

Eye Trauma’s purpose is to "curate exhibitions which showcase in the gallery setting areas of sequential art that might otherwise be overlooked or underappreciated."  To that end, they’ve planned a two showings for this year and next.  From April 4 through 25, their exhibition Other Heroes: African American Comic Book Creators and Characters will showcase at Mississippi’s Jackson State University, featuring just about every major black American comics artist of note.

And in late 2008, they’ll be presenting Out of Sequence: Underrepresented Voices in American Comics at the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  That exhibition plans to focus "on work by women and minority artists, experimental and small press comic creators, webcomics creators, and the contributions of comic book writers, inkers, colorists, and letterers," and will run from October 24, 2008 through the end of the year.

It’s great to see organizations step up to fill the gaping holes left by previous retrospective exhibitions, and even more hopeful to see this happening at the nation’s colleges, where the future of the comics industry is being cultivated.