Gear Live Comic Book News: Articles Tagged Bruce Timm

Bill Morrison Mobilizes for Metro Entertainment

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Bill Morrison at Bongo Comics is putting together a huge benefit to aid Metro Entertainment, a Santa Barbara comic book store that’s hit a rough patch.

Bill wrote about it on a recent Facebook post: “I've received donations of art from some of the best artists in the comic book business (I don't like to drop names, but...NEAL ADAMS!!!) and I'm blown away by the generosity of my fellow artists. But I need more heavy hitters to come to the rescue if I'm going to reach the goal!”

Later, Bill ran down the list of those who have already helped out: "So here's a list of artists I've received donations from, or who have already put something in the mail to me! Neal Adams, Geof Darrow, Gilbert Hernandez, Herb Trimpe, Eric Powell, Bruce Timm, Paul Smith, Evan Dorkin, Al Jaffee, Dave Gibbons, Kelley Jones, Dean Yeagle, Humberto Ramos, Jim Woodring, Tone Rodriguez, Tom Richmond, Tim Burgard, Peter Krause, Robert Pope, and John Rozum. More to come, I'm sure!"

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Shaun McLaughlin and Cheapjack Shakespeare

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

My buddy Shaun McLaughlin was a producer at Warner Bros. and responsible for some of their best Bruce Timm-related toons like Batman Beyond, Static, and various incarnations of Justice League. It adds up to over 400 episodes of prime animated entertainment, so he knows how to make something with mass market appeal.

He’s moved on to freelancing, pushing several projects through the development wormhole, including both an animated feature (with Omens Studios) and a live-action one. But when you’re in development, you get a lot of down time while you wait for people to make decisions, give notes, and update their social networks.

You could watch a lot of TV or surf the web or blog about your cat, but Shaun’s put his thumb-twiddling time to good use and come up with a nifty little project with his biz partner Gabriel Benson: Cheapjack Shakespeare.

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Comic Book Jobs: Who’s Hiring? Marvel!

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Marvel Comics,

My favorite superhero cartoons are the DC ones from Warner Bros. where Bruce Timm and friends are at the helm. In fact, if someone just put a show on the air called “Bruce Timm & Friends,” I’d watch it. But the Marvel Comics cartoons have made vast improvements over the years and while I’m outside of the target audience these days, my sons get a kick out of them. Now the Marvel Studios down in Manhattan Beach, California are looking for some help.

In their Animation division, they need a Coordinator in Development and Production. It’s an entry-level deal, and you’ll be working across all of their shows (both regular series and DTV) and pitching in wherever support is needed. In the corporate world, this used to be referred to unofficially as a “floater.”

The job description has a lot of functions – it’s longer than anything you’ll be able to do in a full week – so just be satisfied knowing that you’ll be doing everything someone above you needs done from tracking, monitoring, researching, coordinating and stuff like that. One perk is that you’ll be hiring and managing interns and managing the search for key production and creative positions (which makes you my new best friend).

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Nicholas Meyer, Sherlock Holmes and Scarlet In Gaslight

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies,

Now that a new Sherlock Holmes movie is about to debut with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law as the celebrated detective and his erstwhile medical companion, I managed to remind myself through a haze of egg nog fog that I have a Holmes connection in my past.

Almost everyone has at least one showbiz encounter with a celebrity or famous person. The internet is chockful of them, but Mark Evanier has the best ones. He lives the kind of life that resembles 1940s Hollywood where you could spend all day working with, say Dick Powell or Bette Davis, then just walk into a restaurant and bump into Clark Gable or Myrna Loy and join them for a burger and fries. I too have a showbiz encounter but mine involves Sherlock Holmes, and we never had lunch together.

Years ago, I was working for Malibu Comics which was getting ready to publish a collection of Martin Powell and Seppo Makinen’s moodily-gothic Scarlet In Gaslight mini-series featuring Sherlock Holmes up against Dracula. Somebody, I believe it was Martin, suggested that based on the subject matter, wouldn’t it be great if Nicholas Meyer could be persuaded to write the introduction. At that time, Meyer had written a couple of very well-regarded Sherlock Holmes novels, The Seven Percent Solution and The West End Horror, as well as the screenplays for The Seven Percent Solution and Time After Time (H.G. Wells Vs. Jack The Ripper) and been responsible for two of the best Star Trek movies (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). So a big name indeed, in the land of the funnybook fanatic. And while his name on the cover might not have driven many sales, it would still be cool to get it.

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Weekend Reading: Mo Willems, Bruce Timm, TMNT and Wally Wood

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

Another big week for people with money to throw around as Nickelodeon just bought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for $60 million. This is yet another reason why it’s great to hold onto your copyrights. If you’re just working on Batman And The Outsiders #128, you already know it’s a basically a boilerplate work-for-hire contract, but if you’ve created Dingo, Rescue Dog Of The Outback get that thing copyrighted in your name and hold onto it. Because it’s always better for you to have the control - and any related money - than it is to just give it away to a corporation. In the meantime, if you’re tired of reading about contract negotiations, take a look around the internet and discover what folks like Mo Willems, Alan Kupperburg, Bill Crider and Bruce Timm are up to. Here’s how you can fill up your weekend:

Alan Kupperburg: Steven Thompson over at Hooray for Wally Wood, has a nice interview with Alan talking about his days working for Wood. Great stuff. Here’s a taste: “So then he (Wood) asked me if I could pencil Cannon for him. I took the pages home and opened up my T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and copied out the appropriate panels and adapted them to the situation. And Woody flipped out. He said, ‘You’re hired.’ Within three weeks I was also writing Sally and Cannon.”

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