14 articles

20 hours ago

It’s getting to be the Fourth of July and so it’s apropos to think about this country, what it is, what defines it, what makes it America. Those are somewhat large topics for an essay of 500-700 words (which is where I usually clock in) so we’ll just confine ourselves to one small area.

We deal with pop culture here at ComicMix so let’s think of pop culture icons, those things that we use as symbols of this country. We’re going to focus on one – American movie star/icon John Wayne. Marion Robert Morrison (Wayne’s borth name) made gobs of movies, usually westerns, war movies and detective films. He was a star in the old fashioned Golden Age of Hollywood sense of the word. No one was bigger.

Everybody and his/her brother does an impression of Wayne. My brother does one and I have different versions. »

- John Ostrander

2 July 2016 5:00 AM, PDT

DC’s Rebirth brings with it a commitment to the tenents of the brand before things got overtly grim and gritty. No better examples crossed my desk this past week – opening up my now monthly shipped comic pack – than Titans and The Flash. Forgive me, I’m not actually sure if they are supposed to be preceded or followed by the Rebirth moniker… the shop keep explained it to me a week ago, and I honestly don’t even remember now. But no bother. Each issue was read and absorbed, and I’m here to finally say the words:

DC put out some great comics.

Titans directly follows the Rebirth one-shot reintroduction to the Dcu from a few weeks back. As you’ll recall that’s where (Spoiler Alert) we learned the Watchmen may be big baddies in this new version of the Dcu, that there’s up to three Jokers running around, »

- Marc Alan Fishman

1 July 2016 10:00 AM, PDT

Is The Law In Astro City An Atrocity?

I have to admit, the city fathers of Astro City are smart. They won’t tell me where Astro City is. Okay, it’s somewhere on the eastern face of the Rocky Mountains, but that could be anywhere from New Mexico up through Colorado, Wyoming and into Montana. I don’t know which state Astro City’s in. So those smug city fathers think I can’t analyze Astro City stories, because I won’t know which state’s laws to use in the analysis.

Wrong!

I don’t need no stinkin’ laws to analyze the law. I can just make it up as I go along.

Which leads us to Astro City v3, #33 and #34. Hey, it had to be leading us somewhere. Super villainess Cutlass asked retired super villain turned civilian Steeljack for help. Someone was committing crimes and framing Black »

- Bob Ingersoll

1 July 2016 5:00 AM, PDT

This column was assigned to me so that I might bring you, Constant Reader, some insight into popular culture and, if we’re both lucky, a few laughs. It’s not supposed to be a virtual therapist’s couch, wherein I share with you the tortured depths of my very soul.

Bear with me. This week, you might get both.

When I was young girl approaching puberty, my mother explained to me that no boys would like me if I was fat. In case I might forget this, she repeated it numerous times throughout my adolescence and beyond. She wasn’t being (deliberately) cruel; she was passing on the life lessons she learned from her own parents. Too bad her words had precisely the opposite effect.

In any case, I would probably obsess over my body and what it looks like no matter what my parents said. I’m a »

- Martha Thomases

29 June 2016 10:00 AM, PDT

I’ve beaten back the technological revolt happening in my apartment! It’s a time for celebration and joy. So two days ago, I saw the Batman Vs. Superman Ultimate Edition at a special event in theaters. On purpose. Seriously.

I purposefully dragged my fellow ComicMix columnist Joe Corallo because I couldn’t suffer through it a second time alone. For the record, he agreed to go and then was confused as to why he agreed. Also, I purposefully did not tell Mike, our fearless editor, that we were doing this since he tried to talk us out of seeing it the first go-around. (I only wish I could see his face when he reads this.)

A little backstory, I hated it the first time. I remember stumbling out of the theater wondering how the studio executives could have let that happen. How? Why?! Still, for reasons unbeknownst to me, »

- Molly Jackson

29 June 2016 6:51 AM, PDT

This series does not necessarily have to be connected to Allison’s webcomics, if the reader doesn’t know of that connection. One of the three main characters — gothy center-of-all-drama Esther De Groot — was a major character in Allison’s strip Scarygoround, but Giant Days is a mildly alternate version of that Esther, who went off to college in about 2004 from that strip and landed in college in about 2013 in these comics stories. (That’s one long road trip on the way to school!) And this comic is set entirely at college so far, with no excursions back to the Tackleford of Allison’s webcomics, and I don’t expect there to be any.

Giant Days is about three female friends: Esther, tightly wound Susan, and happy-go-lucky Daisy. Allison is amazingly good (particularly for a man) at writing about young women and their friendships and daily life — Giant Days is »

- Andrew Wheeler

29 June 2016 5:00 AM, PDT

Dark Night: A True Batman Story, written by Paul Dini, drawn by Eduardo Risso • Vertigo Comics, $22.98 hardcover, $13.79 digital.

Wow. This one is tough.

It’s tough to read, it must have been tough to write, and knowing that makes it even tougher to read. Of course, doing so is at the reader’s discretion. The writer had no choice but to live it.

Dark Night is subtitled “a true Batman story” and, well, it is. It is true, and it is a Batman story. And it’s Paul Dini’s story.

Paul is one of those people who needs no introduction. However, if I don’t give him one I’ll be taunting the ghost of my junior-year high school journalism teacher, and after reading this book I don’t want to piss off anyone in the ecto-sphere. Mr. Dini is the well-celebrated writer of animation, television, video games and comic books. »

- Mike Gold

28 June 2016 4:00 PM, PDT

I’m done.

I’m So done trying to help anyone do anything.

I’m done with the Black Panel, the Bad Boy Studio mentor program, and Dream City my free management company.

Don’t know any of my work? Here.

My disdain started when a rumor damn near became fact. The rumor spreading like a Donald Trump lie was that Milestone stole their business plan from Brotherman. It damn near broke my heart.

But then, the show of support for Milestone was overwhelming!

I could hardly contain my tears of joy so much was the love I felt from the thousands of fans who stood by us. So with all the love shown us why was this the beginning of the end for me?

Because there was no love, the above paragraph was an invention just like the rumor.

Instead of love many, some thought to be friends, jumped »

- Michael Davis

28 June 2016 2:00 PM, PDT

Independence Day: Resurgence is inexcusably boring, the kind of movie script I would expect if you went to one of those experimental Google A.I. routines and asked them to make a summer blockbuster. None of the ideas feel clever or new but instead a naïve attempt to maximize potential profits.  It’s a disaster movie mixtape with a couple alien cliché deep cuts thrown in to appear hip. Resurgence tries so hard to traffic in the positive memories we have of the original Independence Day and while it’s occasionally evocative enough to stir that up, it so much more often completely fails to not only carry the weight of the first movie but to even be a coherent film.

The original Independence Day was particularly relatable because we were offered so many different slices of life. We saw the goofy scientist and his nebbishy father, we saw the »

- Arthur Tebbel

28 June 2016 5:00 AM, PDT

Last week it was announced that Aftershock Comics will be launching a new superhero series in September named Alters. The series will be seasoned comic writer Paul Jenkins’ second title with Aftershock, and it’s drawn by Leila Leiz. Though it will feature a few different kinds super powered humans, referred to as Alters in this world, the central character currently getting all the buzz is Chalice.

The gravity manipulating Chalice will be joining the ranks of characters like Coagula on the incredibly and embarrassingly short list of trans superheroes in comics. The hook for Chalice is that while Chalice presents as female, her civilian alter ego presents as male under the name Charlie Young. At the start of the story, Charlie is a college student who is currently transitioning in secret to Charlie’s family, though some friends may be aware. We just don’t have all the details on that yet. »

- Joe Corallo

27 June 2016 2:00 PM, PDT

For those who came in late, a bunch of fans crowdsourced the funds to make a Star Trek fan film, Axanar. The funding campaign was outrageously successful, earning over 1.1 million dollars. That large an amount of money set off Paramount’s sensor array, and they quickly filed suit against said fans for unauthorized use of trademarked items. The folks behind Axanar counter-sued, claiming Paramount didn’t have hold of all the items they claimed.  It was going to get testy (and potentially untenable for Paramount if any of the points made in the counter-suit were deemed valid) until J.J. Abrams stepped in and convinced Paramount to calm down.

In response to said events, this week Paramount released a series of guidelines that fan films must follow in order to stay on the right side of the law, or at least on the right side of Paramount’s battery of white-lipped attorneys. »

- Vinnie Bartilucci

27 June 2016 11:15 AM, PDT

If it takes a village to raise a child, it seems to require an international village to kill a terrorist.  In the contemporary military thriller Eye in the Sky, the moral and legal issues resulting from the decision to launch a drone strike against three of the most wanted causes discussion,  consternation, and a lot of hand wringing. Out Tuesday from Universal Home Entertainment, the movie is available as a blu-ray combo with Digital HD.

Helen Mirren is the woman in the center of the action, orchestrating the American done opeeators, consulting with Alan Rickman, safe at headquarters,  and desperate to take these enemy combatants out. The problem: they are readying suicide bombers in a residential neighborhood so collateral damage is a given so limiting it becomes the challenge as they race against the clock.

Director Gavin Hood wrings as much tension out of the situation for 92 minutes, but he »

- Robert Greenberger

27 June 2016 10:00 AM, PDT

Hey, guys, I’m home.

I was going to tell y’all about my absolutely fabulous weekend at the Denver Comic Con, but besides bringing home great memories, super inspiration, and renewed zest to write a children’s book and some comics, I also brought home…

Something not so pleasant.

It started with a sore throat on Wednesday morning—my tonsils were swollen and it hurt to swallow, but I felt all right otherwise, so figured it was from the air conditioning and popped an Advil along with my tea and usual dosages of Vitamin C and D3 and all those anti-oxidant supplements. And I felt better by the afternoon.

But it didn’t go away. Not really. I felt okay enough to visit with Alix and Jeff and my little Meyer on Thursday night (and really ate too much of absolutely delicious home-made pizza), but I awoke on Friday »

- Mindy Newell

27 June 2016 5:00 AM, PDT

Hollywood embraces certain heroic brands time and time again. I think Dumas’ Three Musketeers (spoiler alert: there’s really four of them!) holds the record for movies most frequently adapted from a story. But another property has been capturing fans’ imaginations for over 100 years, and he’ll be swinging into theatres again this summer.

The Legend of Tarzan debuts July 1st. This movie stars Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie and Alexander Skarsgard. Fans are hopeful. Of note, this movie opens with a “civilized” Tarzan in the city London. But the hardcore Tarzan and Edgar Rice Burroughs fans know there’s always something rumbling in the jungle.

In fact, I recently wrote about Tarzan: The Beckoning. Dark Horse is re-issuing the 80s miniseries by master artist Thomas Yeates. You can read my column here. But right now, I’d like to put on my metaphorical jungle pith helmet and explore »

- Ed Catto

14 articles

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