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Lots of great stuff this week on the internets. Here’s a few things to occupy you ‘til Monday.
THE GREEN LAMA: The Green Lama was created as a Shadow imitator in a story for a 1940 pulp magazine called Double Detective. It was written by Kendell Foster Crossen. The character made the leap to comics later that year in Prize Comics #7, then jumped to his own title in 1944, still written by Crossen. One of my favorite blogs, Killer Covers Of The Week, has a terrific overview of Crossen’s work and his pseudonyms, and his career as a detective novelist who also wrote for the TV series’ 77 Sunset Strip and Perry Mason. Now that GL is in the public domain, he’s currently appearing in Project Superpowers, from Dynamite Entertainment, courtesy of Jim Krueger and Alex Ross.
MAD MAGAZINE: Senior Editor of MAD, Joe Raiola, recently made a stop at the Everett Public Library (Washington) to talk about “The Joy Of Censorship.” HeraldNet – the online news service for Snohomish County has the details.
Click to continue reading WEEKEND READING: Green Lama, MAD Magazine, Dollhouse, and Blazing Combat!
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According to the publication “Chase’s Calendar of Events”, “Detective Comics” # 27 hit newsstands on May 1, 1939. Wikipedia has it as May 2nd, but since I’m a librarian, I’m going to go with Chase as a more reliable resource. Instead of going through a history of Batman and talk about such things as the 60s TV show and the recent Chris Nolan Bat-films, I’ve decided to take a more personal approach. I mean lets face it, as a comic fan you know the history of Batman already. For you older fans you’ve experienced it first hand. Some of you are old enough to remember watching the 60s TV show when they first aired on ABC. So I will discuss my experiences with the character.
I will be 35 years old this July. So I have been alive for half of the 70 years that Batman has been in existence. My first experience with the character did not come with a comic book. It came with a TV show. I was introduced to Batman with the old Hanna-Barbera Super Friends cartoons. In these cartoons, Batman was far from the cool character that we would eventually see in later years. In fact, the Super Friends Batman was pretty lame. The character was portrayed as being just about helpless if he didn’t have his utility belt. Still, I liked him and Robin and I liked super hero cartoons in general. Looking back at these old cartoons with my oldest son who is four, I do not enjoy them because they are quality stories and adventures. I enjoy them more for nostalgia purposes and laugh to myself at how lame some of the things are on those old shows. But had it not been for the Super Friends, I never would have been introduced to the character.
At the same time these cartoons were on Channel 11 here in NYC, they also would air re-runs of the 1960s Batman TV show. Again, Batman was not the cool character that he is today. Adam West’s interpretation of the character was of course very campy. A young man who works in my library as a page looks at old clips of the show on YouTube and wonders how this show was successful and I said that this is all we had; this was all we knew about Batman.
I was not aware of what was going on with the comics at the time I was watching these shows. I did not begin reading comics until about 1984 and then I was only reading Marvel Comics. I picked up an issue of Batman sometime after I started collecting and the book didn’t really interest me. I don’t really remember why, but it wasn’t until 1989 and the first Tim Burton Batman film that coaxed me into giving Batman comics a second look. I vividly remember leaving the Valentine theater in the South Bronx on Fordham Road. My friend Elliot’s grandmother worked there as an usher and we were able to get in and see free movies. I enjoyed the movie and wanted to continue the Bat-experience so I decided to go to my comic book store that was located just down the block.
Click to continue reading Happy 70th Birthday Batman!
“LOST” returned this week after a brief hiatus with the 100th episode of the series. The episode is entitled “The Variable” and it was a Faraday centric episode. Before I begin my review of tonight’s episode, I must admit that last week - in a moment of weakness - I read a spoiler for tonight’s episode. I really tried not to, but I knew a death was coming and I just had to find out. Well, I read the spoiler and I was shocked by who it was going to be and I was also very sad. I like this character. The character is not my all-time favorite, but I do like the character a lot. I like all of the remaining characters that are currently on the show - I don’t want to see any of them go. I checked imdb.com and it says that this character is in the last remaining episodes for this season. So maybe the character is not dead. Young Ben was shot and it appeared he was going to die, but he didn’t. Quite a bit of information is revealed in this episode. This was a good episode and it sets up for some big events for the final episodes of this season.
Spoilers…...............................................................
Click to continue reading LOST Review 4/29/09
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: Disney, Pixar, Atomic Robo and John Stanley
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,
Free Comics! Hooray! I know it takes a great deal of time, effort and money to pull this thing off, and I’m grateful to all involved, especially Joe Field (Flying Colors Comics) who first pitched the idea. I have no insight into whether or not it actually grows the industry, brings in new readers or whatever, but it sure is fun and it gets me to my LCS on a not-Wednesday and I usually grab a couple of extra things at cover price.
The 8th Annual Free Comic Book Day event is coming up this Saturday, May 2 and looking over the list of what’s going to be available (remembering that my mileage may vary as much as your own), here are my top 5 wants:
ATOMIC ROBO AND FRIENDS (Red 5 Comics) by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener.
I’ll let the boys’ own website explain why Atomic Robo is just a six-pack of awesome. Here they are talking about the first AR collection: Atomic Robo and The Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne is “a collection of his exploits from a secret mission for the U.S. Army in 1938 to unearthing a long-forgotten underground complex in modern Italy. In between he battles a 5,000 year old steampowered pyramid, Stephen Hawking, and the rigors of Mars.” And they’re giving away a free sample of the newest series? Include me in. Besides, they’re already Eisner-nominated, the first step towards getting Eisner-nominated again! Plus, the start of a new run, Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time #1, hits the stores on Wednesday April 29th, so it’s twice the Robo action this week.
NANCY AND MELVIN THE MONSTER (Drawn & Quarterly) by John Stanley.
John Stanley is a comic book genius and rightly so. His name deserves to be as well-known as Stan, Jack, Steve, and Will. This promises to be a great sample of his work on both Nancy and his own creation, Melvin The Monster (and serves as a sneak preview to D&Q’s forthcoming Melvin collection). The want list was invented just for this book.
Click to continue reading FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: Disney, Pixar, Atomic Robo and John Stanley
Q&A: BOX BROWN, Bellen!, and Love Is A Peculiar Type of Thing
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Interviews,
If you’re not familiar with the work of Box Brown, run over to his site and check it out. Then come back here. It’s the internets; I’ll wait. Box has been doing his own webcomic, Bellen! (Ben and Ellen, see?) since 2006. In addition, he won a Xeric Grant for his big, fat collection of cartoons called Love Is A Peculiar Type of Thing, which can be ordered from Diamond Comics right now.
Recently, a revised version of Bellen! was nearly syndicated by United Features, but Box pulled it when the syndicate let go of its progressive comics editor, Ted Rall. Box says his work has been influenced by both Charles Schulz’ Peanuts and James Kochalka’s American Elf, so let’s chat.
TOM MASON: Were you surprised to win the Xeric Grant for Love Is A Peculiar Type of Thing?
BOX BROWN: Kinda shocked, really. When I created my proposal the book was only a little more than a third finished and I put it on hold between mailing the proposal and receiving the grant. It was a great fire under my ass to get moving on finishing the book.
TOM: What was it like becoming your own publisher?
BOX: There’s a lot of work in publishing a book like this. I had done a lot of self-publishing in the past but nothing of this magnitude.
TOM: What surprised you about it?
BOX: I had no idea what it would be like dealing with Diamond or “marketing” really.
Click to continue reading Q&A: BOX BROWN, Bellen!, and Love Is A Peculiar Type of Thing
Well, the pain pills for my broken wrist have worn off enough so that I can form reasonably sane thoughts. Or so the german would have us believe. People come into my fine comic store, The Phoenix of Westchester, and are always complaining about the new generation of superheroes - dull, trite, been there, done that. Then I tell them MY secret identity as an assistant editor at Marvel. I am going to hire you to write a new Marvel comic. You can have access to 70 years of Marvel’s library. All I need from you is a new super power that no one has ever thought of and a story line to go with it. Not so easy, is it?
So today’s review is of a fine new comic put out by the reputable publisher, Moonstone. It is called M.I.L.F. Magnet. If I have to explain what a Milf is, you might as well stop reading now. The story is about a young superhero named Taser, who, of course, shoots out electricity. He is a poor excuse for a hero who works with the Bastions of Justice whose members ridicule him all the time for his, well, .....shortcomings. Through a comedic series of events, he gets caught up in a love spell which makes his life….interesting. All women cannot stay away from him. A friendly wizard can only modify it so only women over 40 find him irresistible. Much sex and hilarity ensue.
I only brought this book into the store because I found the title hilarious. True, it is border line pornographic and it is surely rated R. But it is probably the funniest book i have read in years. Of course, none of my customers will buy it, but they all have read it and they have all laughed out loud three or four times. It is apparently a one-shot, but I hope they continue it. Real laughs are not easy to come by these days.
I have a tiny Len Wein story which is almost inconsequential, but it gets me to my eventual point. Years ago, I had created a comic book property called Dinosaurs For Hire that was published by Malibu Comics. It attracted some media attention and a couple of deals were put into place. One of those deals was an option by 20th Century Fox to turn my characters into an animated television series.
There was no way Fox was going to let me be involved in the project – I was at the time just a comic book writer, after all, who had merely created the characters – but they invited me down to attend a courtesy meeting with the writer assigned to the project.
So I headed down to the Fox studio one afternoon. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the conference room and was introduced to Mr. Wein.
Click to continue reading Let’s Rebuild LEN WEIN’S Comic Book Collection!
DC Comics Review: Battle for the Cowl: Arkham Asylum
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,
Rating: ***1/2*
I’ve been picking up the “Battle for the Cowl” (BFTC) one-shots and mini-series that have been coming out. Normally I don’t pick up all of the spin-offs of event books, but because it’s Batman, I’ve been getting them. Some of it’s been good and some of it’s been bad. I wasn’t expecting much from the Arkham Asylum one shot so I was happy to have really enjoyed this story after I read it. I enjoyed it so much I decided to write about it.
This issue reminds me a lot of one of favorite comic stories, “Arkham Asylum: Living Hell” by Dan Slott. In this story, Slott introduces a slew of unknown residents of Arkam Asylum including Humpty Dumpty and Jane Doe. The writer of this issue of this BFTC one-shot David Hine sort of picks up where Slott left off and introduces a few characters of his own.
In the story, Arkham Asylum has been destroyed. It was destroyed and most of the inmates are now on the loose thanks to the Black Mask (see the BFTC mini-series). The director of Arkham Asylum, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham has returned to the ruined asylum to try and find some of the inmates who were not in the general inmate population. These inmates include: No Face, Mirror Man, and the Hamburger Lady. What’s interesting about these new characters are as of right now, they don’t seem to be threats to anyone. They just seem to be mentally ill people. Now that may change - especially from what we see in the ending of this story. Maybe these characters were introduced as new villains for the new Batman and Robin debuting next month. I don’t know.
Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Battle for the Cowl: Arkham Asylum
Chris Ulm was the guy who came up with the idea of the Ultraverse. I should know - I watched him do it. When Bob Jacob merged his Acme Interactive with Malibu Comics and became co-president with Scott Rosenberg, he wanted some ideas about what Malibu could do in its post-Image Comics years. “And bring me steak, not sizzle!” he demanded like a little kid who wanted the biggest piece of birthday cake.
Ulm pitched a couple of ideas. One was “Hire Jim Shooter” (which the company almost did, 2 1/2 times over the years). The second was the idea that became the Ultraverse (though its working title was the Megaverse, until we discovered that it was already a trademarked universe). Ulm served as Editor-In-Chief of the Ultraverse and co-created Rune with Barry Windsor-Smith.
After Marvel bought Malibu Comics, Ulm and took a look at his employment agreement and realized he could do something else. He went north and jumped into video games at Oddworld Inhabitants (check out Abe’s Exoddus and Munch’s Oddysee!). After Oddworld, he went to work farther south and joined the game company Sammy which later spun off into his own High Moon Studios (where he worked on the Bourne franchise and created the Darkwatch vampire western video game). Last year, he stepped away from Sammy and with some of his Sammy pals, including one-time comic book writer Paul O’Connor, launched Appy Entertainment – a game company that makes applications, apps, for the iPhone.
Click to continue reading CHRIS ULM: The Ultraverse and Appy Entertainment
DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #853
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,
Rating: ***1/2*
Part two of “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader” is finally here. After a long delay, we see the conclusion of the so-called last Batman story. Is it really the last story? Of course not. The story of Batman does not end here. It is simply a new beginning. A new beginning for Bruce and a new beginning for the world of Batman.
In the coming weeks, we will see a new man take over the role of Batman with the end of “Battle for the Cowl”. Then we will see this new Batman, along with a new Robin, fight crime as the new dynamic duo. But before all of this happens, we have the conclusion to this story. I enjoyed the first chapter of this story. It continued the surreal type of storytelling that we saw Grant Morrison present with his RIP storyline. I think the difference in this tale and that one is that although it was surreal, I still understood what was going on in “Whatever Happened” and I enjoyed the overall story. I didn’t have to reread it the way I did with RIP.
In “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader” Batman is dead - or at least he appears to be. A funeral is being held in Crime Alley with all of his friends and enemies coming to pay their respects. Batman is viewing all of this with a mysterious stranger. Part one ended with Batman trying to figure out what’s going on. So what is going on here? Lets see…......
Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Detective Comics #853
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