Archive for May, 2006
X3 – Wasn’t this supposed to be the bad one?
I saw X3 over the weekend and I gotta say, I enjoyed it a lot.
The best thing about this movie was it *moved.” It didn’t spend time debating weighty issues. It didn’t introduce you to ever member of Xavier’s school. Half the characters, I never heard their names. It’s not a bad thing. You got the impression of a universe of characters without adding another hour’s worth of long Claremontian conversations.
X3 spends less time on its “issues” than the other two, but I think it presents more issues in a more balanced way. X-Men always deserves credit for making Magneto not completely evil, but in X3 not even the humans are evil. And in X3 we got a much better sense of the X-Men as a team than in the previous movies.
Quick thoughts: Halle Berry, as usual, is the weakest link. The riff on masturbation was killer. X2 had more character development, but who cares, the third act was boring. I did not see Wolverine’s “solutions” coming. Flaming cars are cool — heck yeah!
Monday Morning “Guess the Artist”
(Sorry, due to the Memorial Day holiday, this is getting posted late…)
Welcome to all our new readers. This is a little game we play every Monday, where I put up a page of art from the early career of some of today’s well known comic book artists. Use the comments section to make your guess.
(click image to creepify)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006)
Alex Toth R.I.P.
Alex Toth died Saturday. He was 78. His health had been poor for awhile. But according to his family he did begin to realized how much of a footprint he had on people’s lives. Toth reportedly recieved 20 bags full of get well cards (as well as a newly erected website) when he was in the hospital earlier in the year. As probably I’m gonna go, Alex was found dead at his drawing table. In the past ten years, I’ve come to admire and seek out some of his work. There was a handsome book called Alex Toth by Design that I’ve checked out more times from the library than I can count.
Classical music and cartoonists
Classical Bytes is issuing music CDs of famous classical composers, with cover art by famous cartoonists. The likes of Mozart, Chopin, and Vivaldi are covered by the likes of Jim Woodring, James Sturm, and Peter Bagge.
(via boingboing)
Rocket Science, update
Rocket Science, the monthly one-panel comic strip Tim Fischer and I are doing for Melt magazine, is also available for viewing online. It’s on page 53.
(Vol. 2, Issue 10…we’re mentioned on the cover, right under Joan Jett’s belly button! Sweet!)
For you Columbus folks, you can pick up a free copy at most of the businesses along the High Street corridor. The Laughing Ogre has them too, as do some other retailers like Hot Topic and the like. It’s the glossy, full color little 4″ x 5.5″ mag with lots of bar and club ads, movie reviews, music interviews, and the like.
Andy gets a shout out
“Another young artist I did quite a bit of work with was Andy Bennett. Andy was a bit raw and inexperienced but he also had a lot going for him. He was willing to try anything, he was hard working, and he had a style that I personally liked. He had the tough task of taking over for Vince on Saint Germaine but he did well. I had him do a four issue series on Ghost Sonata which was a tough task as it was a drama with talking heads but he pulled it off. I see that he is still involved in comics and I know that he’s been working on some titles for Moonstone.”
Former Caliber publisher Gary Reed remenisses, in his latest column on Komikwerks.
Gaiman on the myth of Superman
Neil Gaiman and Wired senior editor Adam Rogers write about The Myth of Superman. It’s a short, fun read.
“Schwartz quit writing Superman because his bosses were telling him to put in things that he thought were out of character. That was admirable, but really, the specific stories we tell about Superman – the what-happened and what-he-did – don’t matter that much. Superman transcends plot. We retell his tales because we wish he were here, real, to keep us safe.”
(via boingboing)
Small Press shout out
John G. is a musician, zine king, comix creator, and a friend of the Ferret from Cleveland. If you haven’t checked out his blog, drop by Nine Panel Grid now. Lately, he’s been doing a lot of show flyers for indy bands, like this killer one:
Now that’s how you do it, kids.
Panel gets some international love
Check out this cool e-mail I got last night:
“Hi guys.
I have just read your Myth number 5 and your Panel number 6, and I just loved them. especially number 6.
My name is Andrés Indaburu and I live in Barcelona. I will pass your stuff around to my friends, I am sure they will like it as much as I did.
Take care
andrés”
Warms my heart.
I haven’t griped about this in a while and I know you’ve all missed it:
I finally stopped by the Laughing Ogre last week to check out their back issue sale. While I was browsing the store a woman came in and asked the girl behind the counter to recommend a comic book for an eight-year old who likes science fiction; the girl thought long and hard, and finally came up with Bone for an answer. Now, with all due respect to that excellent comic series, not only is it not science fiction, but it ceased publication a couple years ago!
In the entire friggin’ comic store there isn’t a new ongoing title to give to your kid or nephew or whatever to get them started reading comics? I did notice the Marvel Adventures titles, which struck me as patronizing– the same reason I wouldn’t read Spidey Super Stories in the third grade, but preferred the “real” Spider-Man comics. I saw nothing universally accessable while I browsed the shelves, and I suspect it’s possible the Ogre lost a potential reader for the next ten years by being unable to offer that lady anything close to what she asked.
On a related note: I put down my stack of back issues after browsing through the first volume of Essential Tomb of Dracula to admire the Gene Colan art and seeing the Lord of the Undead battling an evil brain floating in a jar. S**t yes, that’s more like it! Taking the tpb home, I was surprised to see Marvel’s new rating, “T+”, printed on the back. Every comic reprinted in this volume was comics code-approved back in 1973; why are they putting their age-restriction rating on the Essential edition? Do they think it will sell better by branding it as unaccessable to younger readers? Twits.
Ghost Rider trailer
You can watch the trailer for the Nicholas Cage Ghost Rider movie on Apple’s trailer website.
The visuals look impressive in concept, but the execution leaves something to be desired. The trick with CGI, especially as integrated into an otherwise “realistic” setting, is to make them look seamless. The action scenes from this movie, however, just look like segments cut directly out of a computer game and pasted into the movie.
Oh well, at least Nic Cage finally got to make a superhero movie, so we won’t have to read about him going up for a role in every single comic book movie announced.
New storyline in Lifelike
This week marks the beginning of the 12-part story “Smoke Break” in Lifelike, my webcomic. Art is provided by 2005 Day Prize winner, mpMann (who also did the art for the “Double Cross at the Double Down” story.)
Reality TV
OK, this is way off-topic, but it’s still fun. If you became famous, and then not-famous, and then went on the Surreal Life … which other six washed-up has-beens would you want in the house with you? Here’s my list:
1. Downtown Julie Brown – wubba wubba wubba. If she’s not available, then Kennedy.
2. Trishelle from Real World Las Vegas – you need a hot chick/train wreck
3. Mark Linn-Baker — “Perfect Strangers’ Cousin Larry. Just ‘cause.
4. Gerardo — Rico Suave. C’moooooon. If he’s not available, then Slater from Saved By The Bell.
5. David Crosby – Why not?
6. Nichelle Nichols — Star Trek’s Uhuru! Classes up the joint a little bit. 
Your pseudo-comics, pseudo-LOST news item of the day
McFarlane Toys to produce action figures based on the TV show Lost.
“The toys will be released this fall, according to the trade, with the first selection of six figures to include: Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Locke (Terry O’Quinn), Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) and Shannon (Maggie Grace).”
Which begs the question: who the hell wants a Shannon action figure?
Monday Morning “Guess the Artist”
Welcome to all our new readers. This is a little game we play every Monday, where I put up a page of art from the early career of some of today’s well known comic book artists. Use the comments section to make your guess.
(click image to get yer motor runnin’)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006)