Weekend Reading: Kirby, Dick Tracy, Godzilla & Jimmy Olsen
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Reviews, DC Comics, Marvel Comics,
Everyone but me is at WonderCon this weekend. And I know this because of all the Facebook updates and Tweets that keep showing up in my inbox.
For those of us not walking the con floor and buying comics and debating the future of comics, let’s see if there’s something we can read:
Superman: Nikki Finke prints the letter that the late Joanne Siegel sent to Warner Bros. regarding the Siegel estate’s ongoing legal battle over Superman.
For those in need of some history about the current incarnation of the Warner empire, it begins with Kinney Parking Company which “was a New Jersey parking lot company owned by Manny Kimmel, Sigmund Dornbusch and mob figure Abner Zwillman. Prior to its public listing in 1960, it merged with a funeral home company, Riverside, and then expanded into car-rentals, office cleaning firms and construction companies."
Kinney National Services, Inc. “which was formed in 1966 when the Kinney Parking Company and the National Cleaning Company merged. The new company was headed by Steve Ross."
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Kirby, Dick Tracy, Godzilla & Jimmy Olsen
Advertisement
The Cape Not Booted Yet
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Television,
The Cape, the new NBC series about a wrongly-accused cop who dresses up as a Batman-like hero to fight corruption in the mythical Palm City, has debuted.
Trained by circus people – that's right; he has all the powers of the Big Top – cop Vince Faraday (played by David Lyons) uses his cape like Cirque de Soleil uses ropes.
He's got a regular villain too, because the evil businessman who framed him also moonlights as the series' bad guy. Plus, Firefly's Summer Glau is also on hand.
NBC needs a big hit, or even a little hit, following their fall to fourth place in a 4-network race. So how did the debut actually do in the ratings?
Click to continue reading The Cape Not Booted Yet
Weekend Reading: Vertical, Fantastic Four, Cowboys & Aliens and Lost
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, DC Comics, Independent, Marvel Comics, Viz Media,
Happy holiday weekend for those of us in the US who love a long weekend, some grilled meat and a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon. And since there’s no football game, you can spend that extra time surfing the internet. Here are some links to fill the game-less void:
Vertical: Given the significant changes at manga publishers Viz (massive layoffs) and CMX (DC shuttered the division), it’s interesting to read about someone with a little different take on events. Rod Lott at Bookgasm has a chat with Ed Chavez at Vertical (publishers of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack, among other things). “While I will always say there is plenty of grade-A material to license from Japan available, access to those properties has become quite limited over the last three to four years. I find it curious that this lack of competition has occurred during the recent decline of the U.S. manga market.”
Steve Perry: The death of the Thundercats and Timespirits writer is just about the saddest way for a comic book creator to go. Johnny Bacardi exchanged correspondence with him recently, but I don’t want to spoil his story, except to say that it’s one you’ll want to read.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Vertical, Fantastic Four, Cowboys & Aliens and Lost
Weekend Reading: Iron Man, Geek Chic, Chip and Dale and I Love Lucey
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, DC Comics, Marvel Comics,
Lots of good stuff going on as we slide into the weekend. We’ve got Iron Man, Archie Comics, Douglas Adams’ Monty Python connection, Chip and Dale and tons more.
Let’s start with my pal Bob Greenberger, the noted comic book writer, novelist, tie-in writer, and a guy who actually knows how to make a physical comic book/graphic novel (all that production/printing/binding/press run/distribution stuff). He has a new book out. Iron Man: Femme Fatales has just been published by Del Rey and it should keep fans happy post-Iron Man I movie and pre-Iron Man II movie. Bob happily blogs about it at his website where he reposts this nice review. I haven’t read the book yet, but I snapped up a copy off the rack at Wal-Mart to feed a little royalty money Bob’s way. I also reshelved the remaining copies to give Bob a better display. That’s how I roll, people.
Harry Lucey: The animator John Kricfalusi has a nice gallery of great Lucey covers from assorted Archie titles at his blog. The covers are absolutely stunning in their simplicity. There’s a “Get Off My Lawn!” part of my brain that wishes the books still looked like this.
Geek Chic Daily: Nikki Finke has a few details about the Hollywood playas lining up behind Gareb Shamus’ new online presence.
George Tuska: Marvel and DC artist George Tuska, so prominent in the comics of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s has passed away at 93. Mark Evanier has a nice look at Tuska’s career. Here’s a real nice original art page by Tuska—no superheroes, just guns, gangsters, street scenes and a hot girl in a bikini. He was from the generation of comic artists who all knew how to draw people, horses, cars, the folds of clothing, and characters in hats who could still make a guy in an iron suit seem believable.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Iron Man, Geek Chic, Chip and Dale and I Love Lucey
WATCHMEN WEEK: Watchmen Links Galore! Hurm.
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,
Yes, it’s time to go all out and turn today into a linkfest in honor of Watchmen, both the graphic novel and the upcoming movie. Some of this stuff has been linked to from elsewhere and some of you may have already seen it and read it. But there’s good stuff here and it’s worth seeing again and again.
WATCHMEN TICKET SALES: Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily has the latest stats for the upcoming Watchmen movie, including this gem: “purchases for 124 IMAX screens now account for 1/3 of all Watchmen online ticket sales.” When you click over there, be sure to read the comments for the obvious geek haters and their funny prejudices.
BLOTCHMEN: Kevin Cannon created this as his 24-hour comic in 2008. Blortshack wakes up…hungry for plums. Not an actual Watchmen parody…that’s what makes it fun.
WATCHMEN = POPEYE + RORSHACH: Oh Scott Kurtz, you are The Genius Who Makes Me Laugh.
Click to continue reading WATCHMEN WEEK: Watchmen Links Galore! Hurm.
Recent Galleries
Advertisement
© Gear Live Media, LLC. 2007 – User-posted content, unless source is quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. Gear Live graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, videos, articles, blogs, forums, scripts and other service names are the trademarks of Gear Live Inc.