Weekend Reading: Breyfogle, Batman, Whedon & Wild Cards

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Interviews, Reviews, Television, Independent,

Welcome to the back to school edition of Weekend Reading. Here are a few things better than homework, unless your homework includes classes at MoCCA.

Everything’s Archie: Norm Breyfogle is interviewed by Matthew Price over at NewsOK. The subject? Archie and the gang at Riverdale.

George R.R. Martin: You know what’s coming up in November, back in print after a decade? Wild Cards 1, expanded with new stuff.

Witchblade: Author Paul Bishop has a favorite Forgotten Book. It’s the Witchblade tie-in novels based on the short-lived TV series with Yancy Butler that was based on the Top Cow comic book without Yancy Butler.

Batman Under the Red Hood: SF Signal has a review of the just-released DVD.

Donald E. Westlake: Whether writing under his own name or his many pseudonyms, Westlake is one of my favorite crime-and-caper writers.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Breyfogle, Batman, Whedon & Wild Cards

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Comic Book Jobs: Marvel, Viz, Tokyopop and Time Warner Interns

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Television, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, TokyoPop, Viz Media,

If you want to break into comics via by following the traditional corporate path instead of freelancing, you might try your luck at being an intern.

There’s usually no money involved, you can get some college credit and you’ll be doing important comic book work like getting coffee for the office or picking up someone’s dry cleaning.

But you’ll get to see how a comic book company works from inside its cubicles and that will either thrill you or horrify you. Companies often hire from their old intern pool when staff jobs become available so this is also a way in, should you do a good job, impress the heck out of the right people, and network like all those books tell you.

Viz Media, the San Franciso-based manga and anime company has a 2010 Fall Internship Program bursting with part-time opportunity in a number of departments: Animation Production, Design, Editorial, Information Technology, Licensing, Magazines, PR & Marketing, and Sales & Retail Development.

Click to continue reading Comic Book Jobs: Marvel, Viz, Tokyopop and Time Warner Interns

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Weekend Reading: App TV, Scott Pilgrim, Scooby-Doo and Brian Keene

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Reviews, Television, Independent,

If you want to know where the future of TV and games is headed, check out this piece at Gaming Business Review by my old buddy Chris Ulm. A co-creator of Rune, co-founder of the Ultraverse (it was his idea), and now the CEO of Appy Entertainment, he thinks a lot about those kinds of things.

This’ll get you started: “The living room right now is a no-man’s land of standards and cables, universally poor and inconsistent user interfaces, huge numbers of channels, multiple boxes of hardware, hated cable companies, and multiple video game systems, each with its own proprietary hardware and expensive software.”

Scott Pilgrim: John Scalzi explains the failure of Edgar Wright’s movie in terms we can all understand: the value of nerd-love.

The Cleveland Show: Tom Spurgeon’s brother interviews voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson, the voice of Cleveland Jr. and countless other characters.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: App TV, Scott Pilgrim, Scooby-Doo and Brian Keene

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Comic Con International 2010: The Smurfs

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Movies, Television, Independent,

-Smurf’s up! In the smurfing world of Smurfs, Papercutz has the smurfing Smurf rights and will smurf out some graphic novels for the smurf market.

Written by Yvan Delporte and illustrated by Peyo, the Smurfs began life in the Belgian comic magazine Spirou back in 1958 and eventually spawned an award-winning and long-running Hanna-Barbera animated series back in 1981, and a series of Random House graphic albums around the same time.

And now in seeming anticipation of the

Comic Book Jobs: Checking Out Craigslist

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Television, Video Games, Marvel Comics,

I love checking out Craigslist. It’s like channel-surfing with classified ads. You can always find interesting things, and before you know it, several hours of your day have vanished. Let’s see what comic book jobs are out there:

In New York, A.P.N.G. Enterprises has a “bold comic book series” called New-Gen, which they’re rolling out “for multiple platforms including movies, TV, video games and of course more comics, distributed by Marvel.”

And they need a couple of interns for three-months, rewarded with college credit. Specifically, they want “people who know and have a passion for comic books and science fiction to help us get the word out about the world of New-Gen.”

If you’re up on the social media apps, and aren’t afraid to go old-school by handing out fliers or working their booth at the New York Comic Con in October, poke your resume over there.

Click to continue reading Comic Book Jobs: Checking Out Craigslist

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Preview: The Walking Dead #76

Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Reviews, Television, Image Comics,

While the past issues (not to mention the publicity behemoth that is Comic Con) of The Walking Dead have prompted readers to tune into AMC when October rolls around, AMC’s website is now showing love to series readers with a 6-page preview of issue 76.

Wondering what happens to Rick after trusty Michonne’s blow to his head? Check out the preview after the jump and make sure you snatch up a physical copy—in your local comic book store today!

Click to continue reading Preview: The Walking Dead #76

Read More | AMC

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Weekend Reading: Comic Con International, iPads, and Zeroids

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Movies, Television,

Welcome to the first post-San Diego version of Weekend Reading. I’m not linking to any convention reports because, well, other people do a much better job of tracking them all down. However, I will link to this. Mark Evanier does a much better job than I ever could of explaining how the Hollywood invasion of Comic Con International is not only necessary but welcome.

Spurgeon V. Field: There are many reasons why Tom Spurgeon won the Eisner this year at San Diego. This is one of the reasons why he should win it next year, too.

iPad: If you’re thinking of getting one, Beau Smith can make that decision easier for you.

Up, Up, And Away He Goes: James Bond and Superman screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz has passed away. Says The Guardian‘s classy obit: “In 1977 the director Richard Donner recruited Mankiewicz to work on the script of Superman, for which he received the credit of creative consultant, a fancy name for script doctor.”

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Comic Con International 2010: Super Ray and Dean Haspiel

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Reviews, Television, IDW Publishing,

One of the things I enjoy most about the San Diego Comic Con is that I can always find stuff I didn’t know existed before I trundled down an aisle and stumbled across it.

The Birth Of Super Ray was one of those. Created by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel, and published by IDW, the black-and-white, 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch, ashcan-sized delight ties into Ames’ TV series, Bored To Death on HBO. You know, the one with Zach Galifianakis, Ted Danson and Jason Schwartzman.

The Birth Of Super Ray stars a stylized Galifianakis as a guy who - thanks to a subway accident - inadvertently becomes Super Ray, a character that the Galifianakis character created as a webcomic. Now, Super Ray has “a great responsibility to guard and protect Brooklyn.” The Birth of Super Ray is a fun, silly comic; a great freebie to drop into my bag as I made the rounds. My only “complaint” is that the whole thing wasn’t in color. The cover coloring is so awesome, I’d've liked to have seen it throughout.

If you missed your copy, you can download it from the HBO website.

[Artwork: Cover to The Birth of Super Ray, © HBO]

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Weekend Reading: Comic Con International, Gene Colan and The Inferior Five

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Movies, Television, DC Comics,

Apparently, there’s some kind of comic book thing going on in San Diego. I hope enough people show up and it catches on. I never get tired of hearing jokes like that!

The talk of the convention – or I should say one of the talks of the convention – is that DC is getting ready to make the move to the West Coast where its big daddy Warner Bros. is located. It makes a lot of sense, from a dollars-and-cents pov. You can get a lot done faster if your comic book resources are right next door to your movie resources and you don’t have to fly everyone out for meetings or Skype 10 times a day. More importantly, if DC’s on the Warner lot or in a building that Warner is already paying for, they could eliminate the overhead on their NY offices (which could be a huge annual chunk of bucks). And since corporations routinely operate this way, it’d be a sneaky way to have mass layoffs of the people who can’t or won’t go and get rid of any entrenched deadwood that’d be too hard to dismiss without cause.

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Comic Con International, Gene Colan and The Inferior Five

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Olivia Munn Says Suck It, Wonder Woman

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Television,

Geek goddess and fanboy icon Olivia Munn is the host of G4’s Attack of the Show (for now it seems) and pops up now and again on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show as their Senior Espionage Correspondent (among others).

Now she’s letting her geek flag fly ever more proudly with her new book, a memoir entitled and on sale now: “Suck It, Wonder Woman.”

With Wonder Woman now in the news with a new costume and a new direction, the timing could not be better for a book with that title. Also, too, Comic Con International is right around the corner so comics will once again be in the nightly news cycle (if only so TV networks can run pictures of guys dressed like Stormtroopers and Klingons).

And, she’ll probably be there as well on behalf of G4. (I wonder if she has trouble booking a room?) And she’ll probably interviewing those same cosplayers. But at least she’ll have the sense of where they’re coming from, unlike, say, the manscaped fratboys who cosplay as journalists on TV.

Click to continue reading Olivia Munn Says Suck It, Wonder Woman

Read More | Olivia Munn

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