District 9

District 9 is a science fiction movie. It is an action movie and it is a thinly veiled allegory. Now I like allegory, but much of the time science fiction stories are dragged into unnecessarily because, well frankly like that embarrassing double-jointed aunt who comes over for Christmas and keeps showing off her ability to reach back and grab her ankles, well she's good at it despite the fact that it's obviously embarrassing for her at such an advanced age. Same thing for sci-fi allegory. It's good at taking the heavy political messages and weaving itself through them but too often the author get lost in the cool "special effects" moments and drops the proverbial ball. In short, that's what's happening here in District 9.

The set-up is that there's this ship, a huge spaceship like the one we got in the early 1980's in V: The Mini-Series, but instead of dealing with an alien plot to take over the world and a beautiful alien baddie played by Jane Badler, we get what looks like a derelict ship filled with humanoid insect creatures who have arrived malnourished and dying. Not only is there no sense of wonder at first contact, the film begins with faux-interviews with the local human inhabitants, filmed chronologically 20 years after the fact, and it is a hate-filled bigot fest. The "prawns", who have built a shanty-town below the ruined Mothership, are petty and disgusting, living short and disagreeable lives for sure, but the humans (both black and white) are even more brutish than their alien neighbors. Did I mention that the film was set in South Africa?

I get the heavy-handed analogy. The "prawns" are the interstellar immigrants, the latest challengers in an already crowded sea of competition, and the humans want them moved out, in camps away from the city, in smaller more crowded spaces so that they can live even shorter and more disagreeable lives. It's a downer of a movie for sure, but the script never gets too bogged down with the thematic skeleton and the director gives it a grimy coat of sci-fi cool action like Halo meets Mad Max meets Alien Nation.

Still, my biggest complaint of the movie isn't about the allegory, heavy handed or not, but about the set-up. When science fiction is good on the screen, it's because the writer did his homework and made the movie follow its own internal logic. See Alien, Blade Runner, god even David Lynch's Dune had a better raison d'etre. It doesn't have to be hard-science, you don't need to dot all the eyes and cross all the tees, but you shouldn't be spending too much of the movie wondering why things are happening the way they are happening in your movie. You should not be asking questions like:

What is the significance of the spaceship? Why did they come to Earth? Why are so many of the prawns barely intelligent and yet one of them is a genius with a genius in the making son? What makes him special? Why did it take 20 years to collect the space juice? If the space-juice is the ship's propellent, why did it trigger a genetic mutation? Or even: if the ship has no juice, then what's keeping it up in the sky?

There are a hundred similar questions, I could go on, but I'd say that I'm not revealing any spoilers to say that none of them were satisfactorily answered. I get that the racism is what is keeping the characters from asking these questions, that it took one character to spend 70+ hours in another man's exo-skeleton to start asking those questions, but a film has certain basic needs regardless of plot and character and thematic content. It needs to make sense. It's an exciting movie. It's made a ton of money for such a small film and my fellow geeks have raved about it, calling it the best sci-fi movie of the Millenium, which it is clearly not.

One More Day

Look, let me get it right out and say that my favorite comic-book character is Spider-man. Always had been and always will be. He's funny and loyal and human, with the pre-requisites of a real hero. Not the gun-toting Dirty Harry, of the ant-hero Wolverine variety, the one that chick's dig and adolescent a-holes aspire to be, the real kind of hero, the sort that we all wind up being, the one's who live quiet and desperate lives punctuated by loneliness and heart-break. Oh, his life is still exciting. He's got a rogues gallery of villains like no other hero in comic-books: Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, Mysterio, the Vulture and Sandman, Wolf-Men and Kingpins, even cold-hearted alien doppelgangers have graced his pages. But the real culprits, the real villains that have run Peter Parker's life recently has been Marvel Comics itself and specifically Joe Quesada its moronic, meat-headed Editor-in-Chief.

About a year and a half ago, J. Michael Straczinsky, the creator of Babylon 5 and renowned Spider-man author was finishing up his long running term on the flagship title. He had saved the the comic from goombah editorial directions before resulting in a character Renaissance, from one of the lowest selling titles after the ill-conceived clone saga to a top selling title under his watch. He did it with innovation, an exploration and expansion of the myth and an adult sensibility. It wasn't the Spider-man I grew up with certainly but it was the Spider-man of today and if you were yearning for a simpler take on the character there was always Ultimate Spider-man the concurrent systematic reboot written by Brian Michael Bendis. Instead of telling the stories he had planned, JMS was forced into a corner by the dim-witted blockbuster mentality that writer Mark Millar forced on the Marvel Universe with his Civil War, darkening up the character even further, changing the status-quo and revealing his secret identity to the world. In my opinion it was a character ruining event for sure, one ok'ed by Joe Quesada I might add, but they compounded it. Instead of running with it for a time, using it to organically re-mount the character, Marvel chickened out. Instead they planned an event for Spider-man that took every noble attribute of the character and washed through the sewers of New York.

In the comic, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson like the movie reality references, fell in love and got married. They handled the stressors of life and mutual careers and settled into a normal life of committed matrimony. He had super-powers, he saved New York but he had the love of a beautiful woman behind him to urge him on. It was the character arc of an adult with great power and great responsibility. Peter Parker may have been a kid with the same ideals but he had grown. He was no longer the eager nebbish with glasses and girl problems that secretly fought crime as the flamboyant Spider about town.

The powers that be at Marvel had been quoted for some time as being against the current reality. They wanted to reboot him to that original continuity, strip away the trappings of the adult and make him a kid again. Quesada met with the Spider-man editors. He laid out his long standing plans, ones that he had held since he had been a freelancer. He wanted the marriage ended. He thought Spider-man needed to be single and younger, more reflective of the losers who had taken Peter Parker to heart for over 30 years. Quesada thought divorce for Spider-man would create a darker undercurrent and wouldn't free him of the last 15 years of continuity, so instead, he sanctioned this even darker monstrosity: One More Day.

In One More Day, Aunt May is threatened for the umpteenth time with death. Having already lost his Uncle Ben, Peter is unwilling to stand by a let her succumb to old age and injury. He realizes that his powers alone can't fix the situation so he calls on Mephisto, the demonic ruler of the Marvel underworld, and he requests an audience. He bargains with him for Aunt May's life. Mephisto agrees but in payment he requests to strip from him the love that he has for Mary Jane and vice versa. He brings back Peter's life, the life he once had as a struggling photographer at the Daily Bugle. He brings back his best friend, the deceased Harry Osborn, and Peter wakes up the next day alone, Mary Jane has disappeared to Hollywood again and his Aunt May is alive. Finally, to contradict both Civil War and post-Cival War continuity, Mephisto takes all memory away from every character in the Marvel Universe that remembered that Peter had ever been Spider-man.

In this bastardized continuity Peter had never married Mary Jane. They had a long-term relationship that he barely remembers but sometime in the past instead of marrying they broke up. He never developed the organic web-shooters that the movie continuity referenced. Everything else remained the same. Every story counted, except for this one small piece of the puzzle. Peter Parker had been a clone, he fought the Beyonder and even brought back a symbiotic alien with dental problems, but the one regret for the company that publishes his comic is that he got married? That was the irreparable harm they wanted to fix with Spider-man? Joe Quesada wanted him to be more accessible to new readers, a lighter hero with less emotional and physical baggage. He wants Peter to be more like the kids who read his comics. So he has him make a deal with Satan?

This is what you get when "pencillers" make creative decisions. When Joe Quesada took over as Editor-in-Chief at Marvel he brought with him the experience of a an assembly-line drone. They handed him keys to the Marvel Ferrari and he has succeeded sure, obsessing over the engine or the transmission, the technical details and the surface sheen, but he hasn't been able to create something new. He doesn't know how to redesign the Ferrari. That is what artists do. This is the legacy of Image Comics. What is also clear to me is that Joe Quesada doesn't understand Spider-man at all. The vitality of the character is that despite its age, he's been able to grow and change with the times while always maintaining his dignity and the core of what makes Spider-man a hero. By returning him to a kinder simpler time, a more innocent one referencing the early issues of the title and specifically the Steve Ditko run in the 1960's, he has taken the character outside of Marvel continuity, stranding him in a thematic cul-de-sac, a curiosity but nowhere near the vibrant and important character he was before this travesty of a storyline began.

The Shadow of the Wind

I'm not a big fan of event books, the ones that you find amidst the best-sellers and the beach reading, the ones that are on everyone's recommended reading list. They bore me. A plucky protagonist, in these days usually an anachronistic nod to modern tastes and sensibilities if its a period piece, a meandering plot with a load of self-referential psycho-babble, or more than likely just a transposed True Crime novel aping a Silence of the Lambs, pandering to the least common denominator.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is oddly none of these and all of these. Let me explain. The book is set in post-war Barcelona but not any Barcelona that I recognised. It's as if the quirkiness of the city, the colorful and inviting qualities of Dali and Gaudi, the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell, was gray-washed out, darkened and in its place the city was blanketed by a layer of soot or decay equal to any inflicted on the literary London by Charles Dickens.

This is a foreboding place, a place of violence and Gothic tragedy, and our guide into this labyrinthine world is a 10 year old boy named Daniel Sempere. He's a bookseller's son, inquisitive and intelligent, but fiercely loyal to his father (who is a widower) and the people of his neighborhood who guide and protect him. In the beginning, his father takes him to a cemetery, but he quickly finds out that this cemetery houses books, thousands of lost and endangered books, and not people. I'm not giving anything away to say that Daniel is given a book in this Cemetery of Lost Books that will change his life. It is called the Shadow of the Wind by the fictional author Julian Carax.

My impressions of it? The Shadow of the Wind is a very modern novel, with all of the tricks of meta-fiction, very self-referential, but not so terribly manipulative as I've read in the past. It is a piece of fiction that explores itself: a book about books and about reading and writers. It references Gothic romances, pulp-fiction, early weird tales, and especially post-war roman noir. It is also highly influenced by different media, especially the modern Spanish cinema of Alejandro Almenabar (The Others), Pedro Almodovar (Bad Education), Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage) and Guillermo del Toro (The Devil's Backbone). It is atmospheric, bordering many genres, and smartly written. It doesn't talk down to you, but it allows itself to breathe and relish in the absurdity of its own plot. You can tell that the author is enjoying himself, revelling in the act of storytelling.

He has big plans for the series. 5 books that share many of the same characters, a timeline spanning generations, covering the grand story of Spain in the last century, interweaving the individual stories, books separate from each other, but intertwining their narratives and their characters, shining new lights on the previous and subsequent books, for a very modern take on an old storytelling tradition.

With that you might also think the novel no more than a construct of plot and events, made by machines for machines and yes we have all read these sorts of books before: twist endings tacked on after the fact, red herrings and manipulative narrators nudging you along at a breakneck pace so you don't see the flaws in the plot sure, but so that you also ignore the holes in characterisation and that ultimately have nothing to say to you as human beings. This is a smart book sure, but it is also a wise book. It teaches about the power of love, and duty, and family, and like all great books it leaves it mark: it is quotable. Here are a few.

• Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not for the merits of who receives them.
• We exist as long as somebody remembers us.
• Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.
• Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart

A wonderful novel. I can hardly wait for his next one.

Seven Samurai

Watch a movie once and most times it'll lose its luster, the luster a movie fanatic like me feels every time he walks into a darkened movie theater, because more often than not the movie is flawed, a pale regurgitation of plot and character. It's not that Hollywood has nothing new to say, and hasn't for years now, but that the rest of the world is throwing up duds as well. Most times I bear with it, quite often a modern film has an interesting turn on a familiar trope, but the test is in watching it again: A History of Violence, Children of Men and even Watchmen were all films I enjoyed much more the second time around. Classic stories, told well, with none of the artifice or flatulence of undercooked art-house theatre, which brings me to this weeks review. Oh, did I not say that I was going to start the blog again with some recommendations?

Seven Samurai. Akira Kurosawa. Three and a half hours with an old-school intermission inbetween acts. Samurai movies are a dicey bunch usually. Talky most of the time, morality plays about duty and honor, while we confuse them for Westerns and steal from them blind appropriating their history, telescoping their myths into a 20 year window that we call the Old West. The chanbara films depict hundreds of years of lore but the best of the bunch were made early, by Akira Kurosawa before he became the legendary film-maker, revered by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, and spent the last years of his life struggling for funding. Last Man Standing, Magnificent Seven, even Pixar's A Bug's Life has stolen from this film. The plot is simple: Japanese villagers are struggling with a bandit problem, they hire samurai to help them and the samurai teach them how to defend themselves, as one way of life gives way to another.

But Seven Samurai is a masterpiece alright. So many of its scenes have been re-shot, roles recasted, set-pieces stolen, whole swaths of film redone to suit modern audiences over and over again, even Kurosawa couldn't help himself later on in life with Kagemusha and Ran, two films highly indebted to his first films. Still, the original holds true despite it all. It's wrily funny, not bogged down with the sort of cultural asides that generally need asterisks at the bottom of a page, and entertaining as hell. What more could you ask for.

Tales of the Wizard World -1

Wizard Con LA, yes I know it's Wizard World but no one calls it that, Has come and gone yet again leaving many people wondering what happened?

This was Wizard's third year at the Los Angeles Convention Center but you would be forgiven thinking it was their first.

I arrived an hour early on the first day and was directed up stairs to stand in a line by an ill informed volunteer. This is standard at all conventions. They are hungry for warm bodies to deflect the wrath of attendees. Twenty minutes later the the loud mouthed barrel on legs in charge of the staff vociferously told my wife and I we we're in the wrong line and sent us back down stairs.

Of course there were three lines down stairs. One was for people who'd already been up stairs and registered. Running parallel was a line for people waiting to go upstairs to register. The third line was for people who hadn't preregistered doing same day purchase and registration. Of course no one knew which line was which. Leaving my wife in what I thought was the correct line I ventured to find out where we should be. Five minutes later there was a great shuffling of bodies as my inquiry made many realize they were in the wrong line.

Five minutes after that Loud Mouth came down to sort out who got to go upstairs next. Not us of course we were split into a fourth line to keep the registration line from going out the door. He then proceeded to take 4/5th of the line up stairs leaving a bewildered group wondering what was going on . Ten minutes later he came back for my group which set off complaints from those left behind. Once that was straightened out we were on our way to registration.

Thirty minutes later we reach the front of the line. The tickets had been purchased under my wife name so she had to show her ID the register noted that she was who she said she was in a lap top computer handed us a copy of Hulk #1 for each adult pass told us to take as many badge holders as we needed from the box on the counter and sent us on our way. No programs, no updates, no goody bags. Those familiar with conventions know these things are customary to show gratitude to the attendee and to let them know what is happening at the show and what changes have been made. I found out later why they were reluctant to hand out their programs but thats a story for later.

The real kicker was that the security guards were handing out badge holders at the door for people who didn't wait in line to register!?!?!?!

On Bizarro World they nod their heads in bewilderment at how Wizard World is run. Please return for further Tales of the Wizard World.

To be continued

-CJ

Who are the people in your neighbor hood?

Met a number of new people at LA Wizard Con Friday.

Dirk Strangely

Artist/Writer Dirk Strangely who has a panache for the odd and macabre:

David Malki

Artist and all around jolly good fellow David Malki pervayer of guffaws and satires

Allen Drinkwater (right)

Allen Drinkwater, a rabid Star Wars fan with a tauntaun size bone to pick with Mr. Lucas, put his frustration to prose and called it Victory!.

 Triple G (Jennifer, Mandie and Jessica)

Vivacious costumer Mandie with the power to create a costume over night and modesty not to brag. By day Mandie with her cohorts, the wonder siblings Jennifer and Jessica, seek to design the most awesome of video games at Triple G! (GIRLS GOT GAME!)

Dave Kellet

Artist/Writer of the greatly successful Online Comic 'Seldon' Dave Kellett. Personally introduced to me my 'daughter' Wildelf Girl -

I have made tentative agreements to interview these fine citizens of the fan community. I be posting the interviews arrangements are completed.

Please follow the links to their sites. Each is fascinating in their own right and I'll endeavor to help you understand what drew me to their work.

-CJ

My New Best Friend

I have a new best friend. It's small and bright and fast. It does things that many much larger cousins can't or won't. I can do everything I'm used to doing with it, I'm on it right now in fact, and it weighs about 2 pounds.

It's my new netbook, a small laptop built by ASUS, the EEEPC 900, and it can surf the net wirelessly or write a report but more importantly it goes wherever I go. It comes with Linux preinstalled, a light version of Xandros Linux which can easily be converted to a full Windows-like format. I have Skype, an all-in-one Messenger compatible with Google, Yahoo and MSN, Mozilla Firefox is standard, it comes with a full version of Open Office which is fully compatible with Microsoft Office and a small smattering of games. I can install Windows XP if I like but I won't, though.

Drawbacks? The key board is substandard with little space between them, the screen is only about 10 inches wide, and the battery life is about 4 hours, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. Number one positive? For about the price of a month and a half's worth of gas, I can replace my bulky and heavy laptop, with one the size of a hard back book, and fly.

BfHerbie

A little explanation about my nickname, there will be an exam later. My name is none of your business. I am a recovering nerd, geek, space-cadet, of the sort that used to play Dungeons and Dragons, collect comic books, and go to Rennaissance Fairs in character. I am not ashamed of my past. I still partake of certain comic book conventions; the only important one that gathers every year in San Diego, I watch Summer blockbuster movies without a hint of irony, and I like big-haired anime. I love Hong Kong movies, too. I have two kids who play video games. I have no qualms about sharing my interests with them. The Nerd Revolution was not only televised, we all own the 5 disc box set with the director's commentary.

It's a real vindication for my me and homies who rolled through the barren wasteland, taking the abuse from the preppies and the mods, the cha-chas and gangsters, the pocket-protectors in hand. We graduated, went to school, grew up and took over. We built the iPhone, created the Web, invented Windows Vista, shot the Matrix, built Narnia, and crash landed on Lost island.

I'd like to say I've grown up. I have greater responsibilities and I no longer immerse myself blindly in imaginary worlds. Yet, there is still a great part of me that can't forget where I've been and that's why my nickname is Herbie: B(big), f(fat), Herbie (Popnecker) who is a parody super-hero comic from the 1950's. He's ridiculous and so am I. It keeps me grounded.

Polish Power

Just finished another book in Duane Swierczynski's ouvre, roman noir updated for the post-internet age. It's called Severance Package, to go along with the book I finished last week which was The Blonde, and I've got to say: as trashy, black-hearted fun, I haven't been into an author like this since I "discovered" Andrew Vachss for myself. If that doesn't mean anything to you well, I'm sorry let me break it down. Take a little film noir, a little tragicomedy, and a whole lot of the old ultra-violence. Some of it shreds credulity to bits, but hey I'm not too particular for fun Summer reading.

The Blonde is about a guy who gets poisoned in an airport bar by the titular blonde and then needs to help her stay alive amidst high-tech espionage and non-stop action. Severance Package is about a guy who works for a high-stakes financial firm who gets called in for work one Saturday and finds out that the firm is actually an black-ops intelligence front but that the operation has been closed and all involved have been ordered eliminated. It's high concept, but not high camp, and Swierczynski pulls it off.

Next step for me? I'm reading the Wheelman.

Wicked

I'm still dragging from the great night I had, a night I'd been planning with my girlfriend J. for awhile now (it was her birthday the night before) and I'm still having the music running through my head.

We saw Wicked (how very upscale), and while I don't usually like big production number musicals I did like Wicked. Yeah, I guess it was the witty digs at the political establishment and the humorous bits between the showstoppers. There was a bit of Disneyland to the staging, the dragon breathing fire above the actors a bit much, but the shadows of the original stars Chenowith and Menzel were still present despite lesser talents in the L.A. production at the Pantages. I usually hate the Pantages for its big musical histrionics, but this was a musical for the age after excess, controlled yet wooly I would say, and it was in the end: just great. Cool songs that I could sing in the shower to. A bit of snarky commentary at the political and musical establishment and overall another beautiful night amongst many others for me and my girl.

AFI Top 100 Challenge

I’m back dedicated readers, all 3 of you with renewed vim and vinegar. Today’s post is a challenge from my friend Hannah. She’s taking the AFI Challenge to watch the top 100 movies of all time. I decided to list those that I’ve watched are in my own top 10 list, and dedicate myself to watch the rest by the end of April. Think I can do it? Let’s go.





Here’s my Top 10:
01 The Godfather 2
02 Singing in the Rain
03 Lawrence of Arabia
04 Sunset Blvd.
05 Chinatown
07 To Kill a Mockinbird
08 Maltese Falcon
09 It Happened One Night
10 Taxi Driver

Here are the candidates that I have surprisingly not watched:
4 RAGING BULL (1980)
11 CITY LIGHTS (1931)
12 SEARCHERS, THE (1956)
17 GRADUATE, THE (1967)
18 GENERAL, THE (1927)
19 ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
23 GRAPES OF WRATH, THE (1940)
26 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)
27 HIGH NOON (1952)
28 ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
36 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, THE (1957)
37 BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE (1946)
38 TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE (1948)
42 BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
43 MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)
44 PHILADELPHIA STORY, THE (1940)
45 SHANE (1953)
47 STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, A (1951)
49 INTOLERANCE (1916)
51 WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
53 DEER HUNTER, THE (1978)
58 GOLD RUSH, THE (1925)
59 NASHVILLE (1975)
64 NETWORK (1976)
67 WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966)
70 CLOCKWORK ORANGE, A (1971)
73 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969)
75 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967)
77 ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976)
78 MODERN TIMES (1936)
79 WILD BUNCH, THE (1969)
80 APARTMENT, THE (1960)
82 SUNRISE (1927)
84 EASY RIDER (1969)
87 12 ANGRY MEN (1957)
90 SWING TIME (1936)
91 SOPHIE’S CHOICE (1982)
95 LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE (1971)

I’ll list my post-challenge top 10 to see if any changed.

What I'm reading: DEEP BLUE #1

One perk of attending conventions is you can find things your local shop doesn't have. At Wizard Con LA I found Mythic Publication's premiere title "DEEP BLUE"

This tale of the last surviving human in a robot dominated world is a collaboration of Bragi Shut and Lewis Fenton's well thought out plots, Shut's sharp writing style and Roc Upchurch's complementary art style. It's rare to see as first venture this well balanced; if not for the credits I would think it was the work of a single writer/artist.

Roc and Bragi

The subject of the story Benjamen Dobbs was a wage slave who literally slept through the robot revolution. Details on why he is the lone survivor are left for later. What see is are the details of his existence as the machines test subject in excruciating detail. The machine in charge literally and figuratively of dissecting Dobbs has an unusual desire to find answers to questions that have plagued humans throughout their existence; what is the soul, where dose it reside and how dose it relate to sentience. A Cartesian automaton would be bad enough but this machine believes he is a robotics wounder kin eemployed at Dobbs' work site. This incongruity has lead Dobbs to believe the his inquisitor is playing head games the likes of which is the discovery of a human finger nail, not his own.

I could draw parallels to Terminator or I, Robot but that glosses over the subtle underlying story.

Dobbs' captivity leads to larger questions. Why has the inquisitor not corrected the error of Dobbs' identity? There are trillions of data bytes on human anatomy that cover the subject in great detail; what use is a living biological specimen? Dobbs has escaped on several occasions only to be caught and returned to his cell. Shouldn't he be under constant guard? These are into plot holes but but part of puzzle that is yet to be reviled.

How can I be sure ?

The inquisitor has Dobbs under constant surveillance. The implication is that he is part of a larger experiment that is only being hinted at. Also the fingernail seems to have been deliberately planted. The inquisitor seems to want Dobbs to search for the owner of the mystery body part.

Lastly we have "Vinny" a large subplot to the story.A law enforcement robot who 'escorts' Dobbs to and from his sessions. Having been given a name and engaged in conversations with Dobbs suggests he'll have a larger role in the future. A friendly mech is understandable if Dobbs is to have any chance at survival.

Mythic Publications is in negotiations for distribution of 'Deep BLUE" and should have it in you local store soon. I recommend you keep an I out for It.

Web site coming soon www.mythic-comics.com

Herbie fears a Ho

So Herbie attends Wizard Con Saturday with his kids and I volunteer to show him around.
For the proud few who've listened to the pod cast you know Herbie is not regular convention goer. I usually can get him to stay for about an hour then he gets bored and is ready t leave especially if he has his boys.

The differences between us can be quite striking at times. I enjoy browsing vendor and artist tables feeling out those people who are the most interesting. I can also spend hours just browsing dealers without feeling the pressure to buy but knowing when to snatch something up because it could be my only opportunity. I've tried to impart these skills to my son 'J' a hardened veteran of conventions having attended Comic Con in San Diego 12 times in his eleven years. Each year my wife and I gauge his progress and afford him a degree of freedom accordingly.

Herbie and his sons have few if any convention skills which I blame LEX for. Oh yeah LEX! Haven't mentioned her before. It stands for L (el) X as in ex-wife. LEX is a mundane. She aspires to be middle class and socially acceptable; needless to say we never got along. She couldn't understand fandom in any form as it was not career advancing and was therefore a waste of time.

I often found myself, extra badges in hand, waiting in vain for Herbie to arrive during the LEX years. This was also true for gallery openings, movie premiers, parties and what have you. The worst part of it all is that LEX is reaching beyond the divorce papers to keep him in check.

I wanted Herbie to meet with the people I lined up interviews with. I can say for a fact that adults talking about talking is not a young child's idea of fun. My son per our set rules requested to go play with his purchases for that day and invited Herbie's sons to join in. Herbie had to nix the plan because LEX would give him nothing but grief if anything were to happen. I didn't try to assure him nothing would happen because I can't make that claim. I've just had more time to train my son to were I have a level of confidence he'll do the right thing. Do I worry about 'J', all the time! There just comes a point where you have to let them explore on their own.

Just over an hour after arriving Herbie had to call it quits. His youngest was tired from walking the floor and bored; his oldest was too to a lesser degree. After saying good-byes and taking request to look for missed titles I decided to spend the day searching for books I wanted since the panels I wanted to see were not child friendly and over by then. 'J' and I went our separate ways, he to play with his toys and I to search. A half hour later feeling bored and a little lonely 'J' sought me out and stayed with me as I searched dozens of long boxes. He kept himself entertained by pulling books from the boxes to read. I felt very happy and content that 'J' could patiently wait for me as I flipped though thousands of randomly ordered books.

I don't know if Herbie will ever be a regular con goer. Many's the time he has kicked himself upon hearin what he missed, but nothing has ever really motivated him to put in the time and effort needed. Herbie is making plans for San Diego this year. I guess we'll know how things worked out by July 28. That's the day after for those keeping track.
-CJ

Marvel Comics doesn't care about Spider-man Fans

Friday 2:30 pm at LA Wizard Con they held a panel were fans could ask questions of the team behind 'Spider-Mans Brand New Day!'

What I took away from it: the new team inherited a god awful storyline, their going back to what made Spider-Man 'Great', sales are up so get over it. This is the attitude that drove me from Marvel Comics from 1998 to 2005.

My greatest pet peeve about writing is the cop-out. When authors don't trust their carters enough to let them grow and move on they either change them so much their unrecognizable or they regress them back to avoid conflict.

Marvel's line on Spidey is that he needs to be that 20 something 'Every Man' that people can relate to. He needed to be unfettered by a wife so hew could relive those wacky years when he was perpetually standing-up dates (yawn). Why couldn't he get a divorce? Didn't test well in marketing. Then why not Kill off Mary Jane? Would effect the charter too adversely if her death was his fault. Sounds more like Joe Quesada didn't want to be the one people pointed to about the whole unmasking fiasco so a quick fix was thrown together and let the new guys deal with the mess. I just hope that's not a ramp with a shark behind it I see ahead.

The new team talks about how excited they are about bringing back old villains and the hi-jinks that will ensue. The one thing they were adamant about was aunt May will ALWAYS be park of the Spider-Man mythos. Spider-Man needs aunt May to worry over and remind him of how he failed to save her husband. I still don't see why they need aunt May for this role. It couldn't have easily been transferred to Mary Jane.

The thing I think Marvel is missing in this mess of a reboot is that now Pee Parker in his late twenties lives with his widowed aunt having no steady girlfriend or intimate relationships because he's to busy running around in tights tying up men in bizarre costumes.

He needs a wife and he needs one NOW!!!!!!!

-CJ

Woo Hoo I'm back Baby!!!

I hope everyone is well. There has been a nasty strain of the Flu working its way around LA. I've avoided it so far but everyone else I know, especially Herbie, has been stricken. I on the other hand I have just recovered from a burned out motherboard on my laptop.

So much has happened I must get to:

• We lost Gary Gygax and Dave Stevens in just over a week. These two great men helped shape pop culture in the 70s and 80s and I was there to watch it unfold.
• A number of films have come and gone doing lack lust box office sales which may be more a reflection of the economy than their quality. Jumper was better than I expected so there is a good chance we'll see a sequel. 10k b.c. got a disappointing first place on its opening weekend.
• Hype for Iron Man is going off the charts and may just deserve it. 
• The Hulk on the other hand, which comes out the month after Iron Man, has had only one trailer. Bad sign.
  
• The 8th Harry Potter fill is slated for release in 2011 while Horton Hears A Who starts today.
• With Geneon quitting anime production and book sellers putting limitations on the number of titles they carry is the Japanese pop culture invasion at and end.
• And last but not by no means least today is the first day of Wizard Con LA. I'll be interviewing fans and professionals to get other opinions about these and other topics.

I'll be posting again soon.

-CJ

What I'm Doing - Sewing Things Up

The days are growing warmer and the first hints of spring are in the air. It’s that magical time of year when fan boys and girls have just one thing on there mind; costuming.

Some people get bitten by the bug and run around looking for something to wear while the veterans have been planning for months and are gathering final material to make their work just right. This may not hold true for all but convention season is just around the corner and this is crunch time for the dedicated costumers and cosplayers

I fall some were in the middle since I do very little costuming for myself. I’ve been costuming in one form or another since I was a child. As a teen I fell in with the renaissance fair crowd. In the last decade I’ve been doing mostly sci fi and recently Cosplay. I can’t begin to count the number of costumes I’ve done. This last year I made 17 costumes: the most ever in a single year. I’d only planned to make three but I kept getting requests and volunteered and the number kept growing. My sanity was sorely tested. I’m determined to keep the number of costumes I make this year to a minimum.

I was in the Los Angle Fashion District with a friend shopping for this year’s projects when I met some young people planning to do a group cosplay of power rangers They were very enthusiastic about their project but hadn’t settled on a season yet. It was fun to talk with people new to costuming. The girls had been to Comic Con International and wanted to make group costumes for this year.

The same day I kept running into a hardcore cosplayer as well. When you pick a fairly obscure anime such as “Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn!” that's nothing short of dedication. Unlike the younger group I found myself talking shop with this woman and her friend. It’s good to hear other’s opinions on the merits of different materials and commiserate over wardrobe malfunctions. We both share a desire to improve our metal working skills.
Metal working?

Yes, metal working. Forget those images of effeminate nerds hunched over sewing machines; the modern costumer is a jack of all trades. As one progresses in costuming the attention to detail increases. Little things like belt buckles can make or break a costume. Ask anyone who does Star Wars costumes about belts and you’ll get a Homeric tale to rival the search for the Golden Fleece. As for storm troopers that would make the Odyssey seem like a trip around the block. So a word to the curious if not wise; start small.
How to get started will be one of the many things I’ll be covering. I plan a running theme we’re I’ll give hints and resources to aspiring costumers. I hope to do interviews with old hands and novices to help flesh-out what costuming entails.
Till next time.
-CJ

What I'm Thinking: Color in comics

On Sunday February 10, 2008 several cartoonist protested a little thought of subject; the lack of comics drawn by minority artist.

I have to say that I had not heard of several of the artist mentioned. Cory Thomas, "Watch Your Head", Jerry Craft "Mama's Boyz", Charlos Gary "Cafe con Leche" and "Working It Out", Steve Watkins "Housebroken", Keith Knight "The K Chronicles", Bill Murray "The Golden Years", Charles Boyce "Compu-toon" and editorial cartoonist Tim Jackson. None appear in my local papers. Being African-American you would think I’d be more aware of minority artist and you’d be wrong. As with any product you have to advertise so people will know it’s available. And this is how I see Sunday’s effort to shine light on this subject.

I can now say I have read most of the titles and can honestly say I’m now a fan of some, so Mission accomplished. But wait there’s more to the story than getting a few people to read a strip on line. For cartoonists the true goal is wide syndication of a title. Much like a recording artist gets residuals when they’re played on the radio cartoonist see financial gain when a large number of periodicals carry their work. Here’s were the real trouble lies.

When an editor of a paper or magazine says they don’t think a comic strip is suited for that publication or their not in the market for any new strip this is a legitimate reason. It is the job of the editor to set the tone for his readership and whoa to those that make a misstep. If the same editor is looking to replace a poorly performing strip but won’t consider any new strips with charters of different race or ethnic background because they already have a minority comic and don’t need another this is tokenism and that is just wrong. The emphasis should always be on quality. The solution is to not take any aspect of a comic strip into consideration other than is it a quality product. If a third of a news paper’s comic are ethnic or minority and boost the sales, so be it.

Now for those who are champing at the bit to say I’m wrong to insist on preferential treatment of a single group please take a moment to re –read this article from the beginning. I’ll wait…Done? Good, let us continue.

The comic industry is cut throat it can take years for a good artist to be recognized as such. Aaron McGruder’s “Boondocks” was as iconic as was Bill Watterson’s ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ each setting a very high bar for industry standards. As an avid comic reader I will always demand quality. Of the eight artist listed above I can honestly say I will be following the work of four and reading two on a regular basis. Which two, you say? That is my personal opinion and I’m not here to influence anyone. Go read them for yourself. If you think any of them should be in your local paper write your editor and let them know. Can you do that for a brutha!



-CJ

What I’m Reading: Young Avengers Presents #1

Continuing my ‘charter introspection’ train of thought I find sometimes the introspection isn’t for the edification of the charter but the audience.

The end of Marvel’s Civil War storyline we find ourselves coping with the demise of their most iconic charter Captain America. I see Marvel’s post Captain America era as a metaphor for the transition the country is going though. The topic is covered in many of their titles. One such title is the Young Avengers Presents, a six issue mini series of a gimmick created to bring in more teen readers. I was originally surprised at how well the regular issues are written and this six book installment is no exception.

The first installment “Patriot” Eli Bradley is having a crisis of faith. It is mostly talking heads (the writer did sneak in the obligatory two fight scenes) with Eli dealing with the contradiction of being a black man with the code name Patriot. A brief history lesson touches the trails of African Americans setting the stage for our young hero’s search for enlightenment. Eli crosses paths with former teen hero Bucky Barnes. After some teen angst with standard comic book conflict and subsequent resolution Eli catches up with Bucky at Captain America‘s old digs. The two talk about Eli’s conflicted feelings without coming to a real conclusion; which is fine.

The charters introspection is not meant to resolve their issues but is an invitation to the reader to explore their own thoughts. As we read the questions and responses it’s natural to interject our own opinions into the conversation. No definitive answers are reached leaving us to interpret just what dose patriotism mean in the post Captain America era.

I will miss Captain America. So far Marvel has been using his demise to good effect. I just can’t say how long this will last. Comic publishers, Marvel and DC especially, are not known for their restraint and the news of things to come has been very disturbing. I can only hope good sense will ultimately prevail.

Who’m I kidding, pistol packing Captain America is on his way and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. I’ll just enjoy the good storylines while they last.

-CJ

Countdown to Mystery

My mind doesn’t work like most. I need a constant feed of information which is quickly processed and filed away. I do well in subjects that require critical thinking and problem resolution. This means I usually know the resolution of most stories early on. I don’t have Holmsian deductive powers; I’ve just seen the same stories rehashed so many times in so many ways. I’ve come to appreciate charter introspection. The struggle not just know but also understand; why?

Where am I going with this? Wouldn’t you like to know?

Ok, I’ll tell you. I’ve been reading DC and Marvel’s reboots; Countdown and Civil War respectively. Countdown gave some twist and turns but was just the latest incarnation of the decennial Crisis saga bringing back the lost worlds I grew up with. Civil War on the other hand was more a reflection of the current social-political atmosphere. Guess which I enjoyed more. These stories were too large to be contained by year long story lines. The number of lose ends would make a wonderful afghan rug. Year two brings us not a broad sweeping story lines but tidy little mini series that reflect on their larger predecessor and try to make sense of the less well planned changes.

Countdown to Mystery’s reflection on the new origins of Dr. Fate and 90’s marketing gimmick Eclipso (do you still have your plastic diamond, I do). Needless to say the Eclipso storyline with its extraterrestrial fights and mutant Bolsheviks dose little to hold my interest. Dr. Fate on the other hand has drawn me in with a sympathetic charter detailing his transformation to master of the mystic.

Psychiatrist Kent Nelson a man of science and reason has been given an honorary doctorate in the supernatural. The trouble with this is Dr. Nelson starts his journey of enlightenment at the end of a booze fueled downward spiral into depression. His attempts to rationalize what is happening to him through an internal monolog of self-diagnosis help us understand the struggle accept his fate.

The only parallel I can think of are The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever; which I must confess reading only 2/3 of the first book. At the request of family and friends I abandoned my goal of finishing the book due to the bouts of depression it caused me. Covenant is a cynic who feels wronged by the capriciousness of the world and reflected his anger and self loathing he feels on others. This made him an unsympathetic charter in my mind and his amoral actions only reinforced my disliking of him and lead to my dark moods. I even found myself questioning the charter of the people who recommended the series to me. Covenant constant fight to deny what may or may not be a hallucination are necessary for the final resolution of the story but I don’t think I’d want to live in world with such a messiah.

In contrast Dr. Nelson takes on the burden of his actions. Intuitively he knows that hallucination or not he must hold to his principles and act accordingly. In book 2 the demon Negal offers to take Burr, an unscrupulous acquaintance of Nelson’s, as a sacrifice to end their conflict. Dr. Nelson doesn’t hesitate in coming to his defense recognizing Burr is ill not evil. He could have easily acquiesced to Negal’s demand justifying Burr’s sacrifice as the ravings of a depressed mind seeking retribution for a perceived injustice. Burr would have gotten no more than he deserved and the fantasy could be seen as merely wish fulfillment.

Dr. Nelson later takes on the burden of trying to understand the woman Inza Fox when Negal consumes her after she rescues him from himself. Inza was (is?) an independent comic publisher whose books he finds though the psychoanalysis of them may hold the tale of an injured mind trying to heal itself thought art. The charter of Inza feels to well thought out to be thrown away in such an off hand manner; I hope I’m right. As Dr. Nelson reads her stories I found myself wanting my own copies to read (hint hint) and looking forward to what I hope is the inevitable rescue of Inza so we can get the truth behind the speculation.

You may have noticed I’ve never referred to Dr. Kent Nelson as Dr. Fate. This is because, as Negal and other have found, Dr. Nelson is not Fate; yet. He may not be fate at the end of this mini series, I hope not. A short path to greatness is a false trail the real path is long and arguose. This is the dawn of the ‘Tenth age of Magic’ the new rules seem to have some basis in technology and the sciences and still need to be written. I’m hoping the writers make use of story arch to show his progression. It would be nice to be included in the tale that defines the new magic and not have it handed to us piece meal at the writer whim. One can only hope. (Damn I say that a lot)

So Countdown to Mystery is worth getting for The Dr. Fate storyline in my opinion. The Eclipso ( I can’t shake this image of him in puffy sleeves shaking maracas ) storyline you can take or leave as you so desire since the two currently have nothing to do with one another; thank God for small favors.

-CJ

I notice the strangest things when people die.

Heath Ledger was born on the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and died the day after the celebration of his birth. A random thought for an inexplicable death.

I didn’t know the man personally and have no clue as to why he is gone. Thousands of people lose their lives in their prime but ledger’s celebrity means that more people will know and care that he’s gone. I can not say I’m sad to hear the news just bewildered.

I’m not a sentimentalist if you hadn’t already guessed. I’m very dispassionate when comes to death. My greatest concern is for the people he leaves behind. My heart goes out to his daughter Matilda Rose. I can’t imagine growing up in a world full of people who think they know your father when all your memories of him stop at age two.


When I spoke to Herbie today we both had to agree that this reminded us of Brandon Lee’s death. Both were 28 and had a career changing comic book movie pending. ‘The Crow’ was well received and Brandon’s tragic end help cement it as an iconic fan movie. Ledger on the other hand had an established career and an Oscar nomination to his name. He was currently working on Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'. Word is Ledger finished principal photography on this film and was in New York for a short vacation before going back to finish effects shots. They were able to digitally add Lee where needed for ‘The Crow’ in ’94 so we may be hearing about Ledger again in ’09. For now we have six months till see what may be his final performance.

Early reports have Ledger’s role as the ‘Joker’ being transcendent. This was not going to be your father’s Joker or even you grandfather’s. Word is that Ledger’s Joker steals the movie in a cheerfully psychotic way. Not Cesar Romero’s buffoon or Nicholson’s Punchinello. If what has been said is true Heath Ledger has made the character his by using dry wit and a whet stone to carve out his own brand of humor. I’ll let you know if this is true after July 18th.
Heath Ledger has attained the eternal youth that is cinema and joins the list of Nick Romano's many acolytes.

"Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse”
Heath Ledger
4 April 1979 - 22 January 2008


-C J