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Carnage in Tyrone, PA as local man stole comics

  • News
  • February 20, 2019

Crime and Carnage does not pay!

Joshua A. Wiser, 33, is accused of walking into The Comic Vault, 1130 12th Avenue, on Feb. 7 with eight comic books he was trying to sell, including a collectible “Amazing Spider-Man” No. 361. According to Altoona police, the owner of the comic books discovered they were missing from his home and called the comic book store to alert the owner about the missing issues.

Amazing Spider-Man #361 is the first appearance of Carnage— is this what Trump was talking about in his inauguration speech?

Originally at www.altoonamirror.com

Win a “The Little Mermaid” Blu-ray Disc

It’s hard to believe that Walt Disney’s The Little Mermaid, credited with revitalizing the company’s animation arm, is turning 30. To celebrate the studio is re-releasing the film on February 26 as apart of their Bl-ray Signature series. They want you to be part of the party and have provided us with a copy of the Blu-ray disc to giveaway.

All you need to do is tell us which character in the film is your favorite and why. All entries must be received by 11:59 p.m., Monday, February 25. The contest is open only to North American readers and the judgment of the ComicMix judges will be final.

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Nebula Award finalists announced; Black Panther, Spider-Verse nominated

  • News
  • February 20, 2019

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA, Inc.) has announced the nominees for the 54th Annual Nebula Awards, including the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, the Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book, and for the first time, the Nebula Award for Game Writing. The awards will be presented in Woodland Hills, CA at the Warner Center Marriott during a ceremony on the evening of May 18th.

2018 Nebula Award Finalists

Novel

  • The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
  • The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)
  • Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (Ecco; Orbit UK)
  • Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Macmillan)
  • Witchmark, C.L. Polk (Tor.com Publishing)
  • Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)
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Mary Poppins Returns to Home in March

Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns, the irresistible, timeless sequel based upon the Mary Poppins Stories by PL Travers, has had audiences dancing in their seats and critics singing its praises, earning Academy Award® nominations for best original song, best original score, best costume design and best production design. Directed by Academy Award winner Rob Marshall, who helmed screen adaptations of Chicago, Nine and Into the Woods, and starring Emily Blunt, Golden Globe®-nominated for her role as practically-perfect nanny Mary Poppins, and award-winning composer, lyricist and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda as charming lamplighter Jack, the fantastical film arrives into homes instantly on Digital 4K Ultra HD™/HD and Movies Anywhere March 12 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™ and DVD March 19  — with a sing-along version and never-before-seen bonus features.

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The “Black Panther” Problem

Black Panther has seven Academy Award nominations.

Damn.

I saw Marvel’s game changer the first week it was in theaters.  I stopped going to movies during the first-week decades ago, but I know so many people who directly or indirectly had some input. I wanted to check it out asap.

Black Panther did something few movies accomplish becoming a pop culture “have to.”  Much like E.T., the question was “What did you think of Black Panther?” Not “Did you see Black Panther?” The film is a massive success, and frankly I have witnessed few pull off what this one did— namely, become a national conversation. 

And the original flick wasn’t bad either.

I enjoyed the movie, but my admiration was for the overwhelming effect it had on people, particularly Black people. Never in a million years did I EVER think a Black grandmother and I would be talking superheroes standing in line to buy popcorn.

Most of the older people of color I know regard comics as just for kids. This 80-year young woman first took her grandkids to see it with the intention of seeing another film while they were watching BP. Noticing mostly adults and a few kids, she decided to sit in to make sure it was age appropriate.

I met her at her second screening— this time, no kids. She had come with some from her church group. What she thought she knew about comics wasn’t new to me. 

  • She was amazed at the amount of Black superhero content out there.
  • Marvel Comics was the only comic book company she had heard of.
  • Superman Batman Wonder Woman were all from Marvel she thought.
  • DC was the District Of Colombia.

These beliefs play an essential part in comics diversity and the lack of such there seems to be, but I’ll cover that in “The Ugly Side Of Comics Part 3.”

The major takeaway was how happy she was that Black Panther would pave the way for Black Superheroes (read: Role Models) in the not too distant future. 

There is renewed excitement in the Black Comic community, some who likewise believe THIS is the moment for BLACK SUPERHEROES from Black creators.

What could be a better time with Black Panther nominated for not just an Academy Award but SEVEN, including BEST PICTURE? The expectations are growing that the hunt is on for the next Black superhero and for good measure it should come from a Black creator, so it’s authentic.

White guys can play in the Black pop culture space, but it’s not easy. Authenticity is key. As an example:

  • Eminem: Authentic
  • Vanilla Ice: Nope

Regardless of all this Black Panther buzz, it will never win Best Picture, and frankly, I don’t want it to win. Why? We are not ready as an industry for what would come, and I suspect neither is the Academy.

What would happen?

The planet would explode from the massive number of haters in America who see superheroes like the grandmother did, as kid stuff.

In all the articles on Black Panther nominations, I’ve seen the writers never fail to mention it’s the first superhero film to be nominated. The interesting thing about that is seldom did I see ‘first comic book’ film to be nominated. Another result of a comic book movie winning: producers would look to produce comic book movies that could also be nominated for prestigious awards.

Think Lobo staring Daniel Day-Lewis.

America as a whole still thinks about comics as they do the slinky toy—stupid and useless. Both good only to entertain those not old or smart enough to appreciate what real art is. Americans see reading as something they must do (I have to brush up on…) or want to do (…just want to lay in bed on a beach in front of a fire on a desert island, etc. with a good book). Comics have no place in either of those categories.

The Academy has faced all sorts of drama over diversity, and lo and behold, look at the Best Picture nods this year— three out of eight feature Black story lines.

Black Panther, BlackkKlansman and Green Book and another Black themed film If Beale Street Could Talk received three Oscar nods, including Regina King for the best-supporting actress. That’s not a coincidence by any means. Hollywood wastes no time when it comes to image.

Image, that’s one of the reasons Black Pantherwill not win Best Picture.

I liked Black Panther, but it’s not the best picture out of a field that also features Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Roma, A Star Is Born and Vice.

The odds-on favorite is Roma. I have not seen it and know zero people who have. Why this film isn’t in the Best Foreign Film category is beyond me— that aside, it seems the type of message film Hollywood likes to showcase as a way to cement their ‘fine art’ persona.

Black Panther won’t win because Hollywood wouldn’t knowingly take a cultural hit by defending a ‘comic book’ movie.

I think the film to beat is BlacKKKlansman. That sends a message that the Entertainment industry is diverse, and pimp slaps the Trump Administration as a bonus.

Sadly, I think those in the Black comic space waiting for Hollywood to make their creation the next Black Panther are wasting their time. More on that in “The Ugly Side of Comics 3.”

To recap:

  • Black Panther will not win Best Picture
  • The Industry isn’t ready if it does
  • Hollywood isn’t ready so it won’t

Now the good news.

This is a glorious opportunity to DEMAND from Hollywood the RESPECT comics deserve.

  • Credit on screen with the power players
  • Mention the creators in all press across all media
  • Industry involvement in charitable events
  • Hollywood support for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

There is a comic book property up for SEVEN ACADEMY AWARDS— now is the time we start acting like the creative genius’ we are.  Or we can go on complaining about silly shit. Shit that never leads us any closer to the promised land of respect.

Bill Maher is a prominent voice of common sense to some on the left and a bleeding-heart liberal to some on the right. Regardless of how you feel about him, there is no denying he carries a lot of media weight. You would think a guy as current and hip as Bill would know that comics can be serious literature. He didn’t know or didn’t care— regardless, his influence is vast and he thinks comics are juvenile tripe. He passed that along to his viewers. Since his first comments were met with a bit of anger Bill has doubled down when called on his stance.

Time Magazine thinks comics can be significant works of literature which is why Watchmen is on the Time 100 Greatest Novels list. Just click the smiley face and see for yourselves. Somebody get that info to Bill.

One last thing: last year a Marvel executive said, ‘Diversity does not sell.’ Black Panther features an all-Black cast begins in Africa ends in an African American hood is dotted throughout by Black inside jokes and has hard Right-wing haters.

Can’t get much blacker than that.

The film made a BILLION dollars in less than four weeks and is the biggest grossing superhero movie of all time.

Hey Marvel, diversity does not sell? Oh well, Black Panther may be a fluke.

How’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, working out for you?

Into the Spider-Verse Swings Home in March

CULVER CITY, Calif. (February 18, 2019) – The Academy Award® Nominee for Best Animated Feature Film, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, swings onto Digital February 26 and on 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack, Blu-ray Combo Pack, and DVD on March 19 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Animation. From Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the uniquely creative minds behind The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street, the film offers a fresh vision of the Spider-Man universe with a groundbreaking visual style that’s the first of its kind.

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Humble Bundle Releases a Must-Read Collection to Benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Humble Bundle Releases Collection to Benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

  • News
  • February 19, 2019

If you love comics, you should love the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which fights for your right to read comics without the threat of censorship. And now, the good folks at Humble Bundle have curated a fantastic collection including comics like Lumberjanes, Saga and Attack on Titan, all to support comic creators and businesses in need.

“Humble Comics Bundle: Start Here!” features over 40 comics and graphic novels from publishers including BOOM! Studios, Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, Image Comics, Kodansha, Top Shelf and more, spanning America, Europe and Japan. The Humble Bundle: Start Here! kicks off February 13th at 2:00 p.m. and runs through March 1st at 1:00 p.m., Eastern time. For more on the available titles, visit the Humble Bundle website.

Originally at www.pastemagazine.com

REVIEW: Robin Hood

I understand the compulsion to find a fresh take on a classic tale. After all, you have the weight of literary history and beloved film adaptations to contend with, so a straight remake would be boring. But, when you tackle a Robin Hood tale, it has to be set in a plausible time and place, with characters that make sense.

The legend of Robin Hood dates back to the 13th or 14th century and in time grew in scope so it wasn’t just Robin versus the Sheriff of Nottingham, but came to encompass King John and the Crusades.

There are so many ballads and poems to draw from for inspiration that a nice, historically accurate film would have been welcome. Instead, Director Otto Bathurst and screenwriters Ben Chandler and David James Kelly went in entirely the other direction, creating a fantastical Medieval world that was visually stunning and entirely devoid of interest. Their Robin Hood took more than three years to realize and arrived with a thud, a critical and box office failure, The film, out now from Lionsgate Home Entertainment, is really not worth you time despite a fine cast.

We have Taron Egerton as Robin of Loxley and he can handle the action just fine but lacks the charisma of his predecessors. Playing the token Morgan Freeman role this time is Jamie Foxx as Little John, a staggeringly dumb concept. Better is Ben Mendelsohn as the villainous Sheriff and Paul Anderson as Guy of Gisborne. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that Eve Hewson is wonderful as Maid Marion, enlivening a rather emotionally dull story.

Robin is pressed into serving his King during the Third Crusade and dislikes the violence inherent in the system only to return and find home has been corrupted. He has to swing into action to right wrongs and restore a sense of justice to the common folk. All well and good but the internal logic is faulty throughout and the production design suggests this is set on an alternate Earth where “Gatling” bows spit out arrows and the technology is way beyond that of the time period we know.

It’s all a lot of noise without a heart. Even an uncredited cameo from producer Leonardo DiCaprio can’t help this mess.

The movie is out in a variety of formats including the 4k Ultra HD, Blu-ray, Digital HD combo pack. Here the film’s 2160p transfer in 2.40:1 is superior to the content. Everything dazzles the eye thanks to the 8K source resolution, finished in 4K. This is stunning to watch, making the lack of content even more disappointing. The Blu-ray version is pretty nifty to watch, too.

Thankfully, the Dolby Atmos track is more than on a par with the visuals.

Given the lack of demand for this disc, they certainly spared effort on the special features. We get a bunch of Electronic Press Kit features and little else of note. There’s Outlaws and Auteurs: Reshaping Robin Hood (1:04:28); Outtakes (4:38), and Deleted Scenes (8:26), none of which would have made this a better film.

Bumblebee Comes to Earth March 19

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.  – Hailed as “fun, action-packed and exciting” (Scott Mantz, Collider), director Travis Knight’s thrilling new film BUMBLEBEE lands on Digital March 19, 2019 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD April 2 from Paramount Home Media Distribution.

Boasting an impressive 93% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, BUMBLEBEE is filled with “personality, wit [and] imagination” (David Fear, Rolling Stone).  The Digital*, 4K Ultra HD, and Blu-ray releases are packed with over an hour of exciting special features, including an all-new BUMBLEBEE motion comic following the beloved AUTOBOT on his next adventure. Plus, check out deleted and extended scenes you didn’t see in theaters, including the original opening of the movie, enjoy hilarious outtakes, and see G1 (Generation 1) TRANSFORMERS robots on CYBERTRON through the eyes of BUMBLEBEE with exciting Bee Vision. 

The perfect gift this Easter, BUMBLEBEE on 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack or Blu-ray Combo Pack also includes an exclusive printed version of the new motion comic featuring BUMBLEBEE in a standalone side story (for a limited time only).

The 4K Ultra HD disc and 4K Ultra HD Digital releases** feature Dolby Vision®, which brings entertainment to life through ultra-vivid picture quality with spectacular colors, highlights that are up to 40 times brighter, and blacks that are 10 times darker.  The film also boasts a Dolby Atmos® soundtrack remixed specifically for the home to place and move audio anywhere in the room, including overhead***.  In addition, both the 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Combo Packs include access to a Digital copy of the film.

Synopsis

CYBERTRON has fallen. When OPTIMUS PRIME sends BUMBLEBEE to defend Earth, his journey to become a hero begins. Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld), a teenager trying to find her place in the world, discovers and repairs the battle-scarred robot, who’s disguised as a Volkswagen Beetle. As the DECEPTICONS hunt down the surviving AUTOBOTS with the help of a secret agency led by Agent Burns (John Cena), BUMBLEBEE and Charlie team up to protect the world.

BONUS FEATURES ON 4K ULTRA HD COMBO, BLU-RAY COMBO & DIGITAL*

  • Sector 7 Archive
    • Agent Burns: Welcome to Sector 7
    • Sector 7 Adventures: The Battle at Half Dome (All-New Motion Comic)
  • Deleted and Extended Scenes
  • Outtakes
  • Bee Vision: The Transformers robots of Cybertron
  • Bringing Bumblebee to the Big Screen
    • The Story of Bumblebee
    • The Stars Align
    • Bumblebee Goes Back to G1
    • Back to the Beetle
    • California Cruisin’ Down Memory Lane

The BUMBLEBEE DVD includes the feature film in standard definition.

BUMBLEBEE will also be available as part of a BUMBLEBEE & TRANSFORMERS 6-Movie Blu-ray Collection arriving on April 2.

A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO/DON MURPHY Production

A BAY FILMS Production “BUMBLEBEE” HAILEE STEINFELD JOHN CENA JORGE LENDEBORG JR.

JOHN ORTIZ JASON DRUCKER PAMELA ADLON

Music by DARIO MARIANELLI Costume Designer DAYNA PINK Edited by PAUL RUBELL, ACE

Production Designer SEAN HAWORTH Director of Photography ENRIQUE CHEDIAK, ASC

Executive Producers STEVEN SPIELBERG BRIAN GOLDNER CHRIS BRIGHAM EDWARD CHENG

Produced by DON MURPHY & TOM DESANTO LORENZO di BONAVENTURA MICHAEL BAY MARK VAHRADIAN

Based on HASBRO’S TRANSFORMERS™ ACTION FIGURES

Written by CHRISTINA HODSON Directed by TRAVIS KNIGHT

Review: Oberon #1

You might already know that Aftershock Comics is on a roll. In just three years, they’ve won Diamond’s Publisher of the Year award (for publishers under a certain market share) and have pushed several properties forward to media deals.  It’s a publisher that seems to attract smart talent and then provides the support and freedom to create strong work.

Aftershock Comics’ tagline is “The Year of Reading Dangerously.”  That has the sense of urgency and the zing that the entire industry needs.  In fact, I’ve been hearing John Siuntres talk about Aftershock on his excellent Word Balloon podcast (Aftershock is a sponsor).  An interview with creator of Moth & Whisper inspired me to pick up a series I probably wouldn’t have otherwise, in fact.

One of Aftershock’s most recent debuts was Oberon #1.   The king of the fairies, Oberon, may be best known for his role in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, but it turns out the character was a part of mythology long before that.  

This story is about the journey of a smart young girl, Molly, who is introduced to the world of fairies and finds an alternative to her humdrum life.  But all isn’t as it seems, as both Molly and the readers struggle to understand the truth and the reasons behind all the character’s seemingly-sinister motivations.

Writer Ryan Parrott weaves an adventure that has the threads of many tales.  But with his urgent pacing and true-to-the-ear dialog, he never lets the reader feel as if it’s simply a rehash of anything we’ve read before.

The art is compelling and fresh.  Serbian artist Milos Slavkovic employs a breezy, engaging style that propels the story along and is gorgeous to view. He’s not much on inky blacks, but his various line weights delight the eye. He offers a varied visual texture for fans who want to either rush through the adventure or just leisurely linger. It’s all evocative of Michael Kaluta, Walter Simonson and J.H. Williams, with a veneer of Terry and Rachel Dodson to give it all a silky smoothness.

Slakovic also provides innovative panel layouts, without being overwhelming. He also offers a lovely pallet of colors, especially leveraging a lot of purples, and oranges to set Oberon apart from the crowd.

Of note: Aftershock provides several pages of their next series, Stronghold, as a preview so it feels as if there’s a back-up story in this comic.   This marketing tool gives the whole thing a little more substance and value to the reader.

All in all – a compelling first issue. I’m a bit worried about Molly and will keep reading to ensure she’s all right. But I’m not entirely sure she will be.

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