(Today: What lurks?)
Geeks in Paradise
From Allnerdreview , here's an interview with the Advertising and PR Coordinator for WizKids, Jason Mical (aka "Brother Magneto") conducted at the 2004 Toy Fair - a sort of industry trade show for toy products being launched in the coming year. While much is veiled in knowing smiles, it should be of some interest to Heroclix fans .
Slightly dated, we now know that the "mystery set" being mentioned is Marvel's next set, Ultimates , as mentioned in earlier posts; that's due out sometime in June, around the 23rd I believe. We also know most of the figures seen for DC's Unleashed , which the article writer decided not to mention because he was asked not to.
Highlights include: Hints of one or more big surprises for the fall. Vague indications of more double-sized figures and perhaps new licensing agreements that will allow them to provide vehicle pieces. There's confirmation that no off...
Posts
"Because the best stories are told after dark…"
Long time Legends APA buddy, illustrator, storyteller, and most assuredly Canadian, Dwight Williams has let me know that the cover and five pages of a title he and Chris Gumprich have created are available for viewing. It's called Evening Shift . At last word it's to be released this summer. ( Note: I didn't notice the link there to the ad my first, rushed time through. Now I see that it's being solicited for release in May. 24 pgs, b&w.)
Go take a look and sign up for email updates.
(Today's topics: Gray issues and muddied waters)
Grey Tuesday
An alert from Warren Ellis led me to Grey Tuesday . Additional info can be found here . I'm still wading into the nuances of copyright issues and the unintendedly (by the founders of the law) immortal and culturally-deadening forms they've mutated into in an increasingly corporate-dominated society - enough that I have a decided leaning, as this abominable sentence demonstrates. However, this specific instance is new enough to me that I have no immediate comments on it. Moreover, I'm not a fan of sampling per se, but I recognize that this issue may transcend a matter of taste.
As it's happening today, though, I invite you to look into the issue.
Mixed Message
I want to thank Tony Collett for the pass-along alert on a piece concerning Ralph Nader's association with organizations that through a mixture of covert and deceptive fees, mostly at the collegiate level, extract money for groups rightly or wrongly claiming to be operating in the public interest. This is an important issue on two levels: An alert that these built-in, often non-negotiable fees exist, and that Nader is a party to the system that creates and sustains them. For that message, I commend the author for fulfilling the role of a journalist.
Other biases in the piece, however, are strong. It would have been far more effective if the author, Radley Balko , stuck to the underlying and worthwhile alert to the public and apparent hypocrisy of Nader being involved in organizations that attempt to either pick the pockets of, or even directly extort money from, people seeking an education. That part is what people need to know. However, if one is to ma...
Parties of the third part...
Before wading any deeper into this, I want to make it clear that I'm not claiming to be anything more than a casual, armchair political observer. For me, the central thrust of running through these issues is self-education.
Yesterday's announcement of Ralph Nader's entry as an independent candidate for the presidency has reopened old wounds and an older debate. I'm not going to get into the former, as the true and important twofold lessons of the 2000 campaign is every person's vote counts.., unless it's not counted . So, I'll stick with the old debate: Are we locked into a nominal two-party system?
When it comes to a three (or more) party race for the presidency, I've come to believe that trying to force it at the level of the presidency is the wrong way. Besides everything else, it's the sort of move that is most likely to succeed primarily on a "throw the bums out!" initiative and land someone...
Spoiler?
Okay, so Ralph Nader announced on NBC's Meet The Press this morning, that he will, indeed, be running for President this year. This, of course, immediately brings back the election of 2000, and the recriminations that followed, as Al Gore won the popular vote but ultimately was judged to have lost in terms of electoral votes. Worse, in the final battleground state of Florida, all indications were that the votes for Nader, had they instead gone to Gore (as the presumed candidate closer to what they wanted than Bush was) we'd have had a different president over the past three years.
Saturday, when we knew that Nader was going to be announcing yeah or nay on the question of another presidential run today, Mark Gibson invoked the above and expressed that those like Nader should be working within the two party system, not outside of it.
As with so much in life it's a gray area for me.
Nader and his camp, much as was the case with other thi...
Your day hasn't been as bad as it might have been
An email just came through that Kevin Smith 's father, Tony Ford Smith , passed away just before noon today. It was the end of a very painful, debilitating illness. The man was only born in 1949, and chances are he hadn't even hit his 55th birthday -- and given his condition for months now, what difference would it have made? That's such a terribly young age to go in the 21st century. Kevin's put a brief banner image memorial on his comic shop's website .
His pain's over, though, and there has to be an element of relief and comfort in that for Kevin and his family.
(Today's topics: The Form of Comics, Science!, Heroclix updates - with a late addition to the clix situation )
Trading Down?
In an Newsarama interview with Chris Oarr , Crossgen 's VP of Sales, they discuss that company's return to publishing trade paperback collections. Initially, I was reading it all with an upbeat interpretation, until hitting the following section:
NRAMA: So basically, you’re saying that there might have been some erosion of the monthly sales due to the rapid release of the trades?
CO: Yes. There certainly are series, and for me, Preacher is a great example – it’s a juggernaut in the direct market in terms of trade sales. Like a lot of people, I fell into the habit of reading Preacher as a graphic novel series, not as a comic series. We definitely found, as we polled retailers and listened to fans, that we were creating that culture for many of our series that actually needed a steady monthly readership to remain viable.
I can...
It's Science -- If it Serves..?
I know it's been noted in several places, but I'm compelled to spread the word. Wednesday saw a report organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists , alleging the Bush Administration has suppressed and distorted scientific reports that were inconvenient to them. While the UCS is a liberal advocacy group, the report was endorsed by many who aren't associated with UCS, some of whom even having served in Republican administrations. (The UCS link I've provided is to their Action page; I did this because it brings up several related issues of interest, also demonstrating some of the items they're currently focusing on, and their main page appears to be loading verrrry sloooowwwly at the moment.)
Some more Heroclix info
Shot from another angle at Toyfair 2004, on the side of the box in the lower left hand corner we can see that Ghost Rider will be part of this set, too. So, that joins the blurry image I showed a couple days ago of versions of Captain America, Spider-man, Dr. Octopus and Wolverine (the last quite clearly in the "Ultimate" theme style) that boneyard was gracious enough to pass along. Also courtesy of boneyard is the latest confirmation of confirmed and rumored info on Ultimates . It's the first place I look for new info on the set.
It's been confirmed that despite the title it's roughly half mainstream Marvel Universe and half "Ultimate" versions. I'm hoping that in most cases the "Ultimate" version will look close enough to the mainstream for me to ignore the differences. From what we can see of the Spider-man and Cap, it looks as if it won't be too jarring for me.
As of this posting the on...
He's dead already. Could it hurt?
As noted the other day, the WB has cancelled Angel .
While I've yet to see one of these really accomplish anything, sometimes it just feels good to do something by way of an appeal. So, here is a Support of Angel petition, and a slightly dusty (the text makes it clear this one was started pre-emptively) Save Angel petition.
Keep in mind that the WB cancelled it because just under a paltry 4 million people tuned in each week , so one has to wonder how high the signature count would have to be on these (and be verified, no less) before anyone would have reason to pay attention.
Still, I was interested enough to do a little searching, so I thought there might be some others out there curious about the same thing.
*** Update ***
The following is from James Marsters , who plays Spike:
"Quick Postcard Campaign to Save Angel
Unfortunately, emailing networks or posting in online petitions is a waste of t...
Ultimates Clix?
I'm a long-time comics fan and enjoy playing Heroclix , a strategy game involving tiny plastic sculptures of various heroes and villains. With another DC-based expansion due out late in March, attention's already shifting towards the next, new Marvel set, and the information's beginning to flow.
Courtesy of boneyard , it's been confirmed that the next Marvel set will be called "Ultimates," and be based on these modern relaunches of Marvel's classic characters. As I'm not being asked to swallow the new stories along with them, so long as they look good and are playable, I'm fine with this -- however much I may be opposed to Marvel's "Ultimate" line in principle.
The photos I've been pointed to so far are to be found in a banner-type ad and shots of several of the new boosters -- though the Galactus in the foreground is a 2004 convention exclusive, and the loose clix shown are from the alread...
You're Soaking In It... For All Eternity! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!
Courtesy of a ghoulish streak of nostalgia in Mark Gibson , I've just learned that the actress who played Palmolive dishwashing liquid shill "Madge", Jan Miner, died yesterday at the age of 86. Click on the link and scroll down to items from Feb. 17th, as Mark has it taken care of over there. He takes it to the extent of reminiscences of some other, long-time tv pitchmen and women, each with his or her peculiar product obsession.
I immediately think of how tv shows used to have commercials using the characters and settings in the show, helping to merge the commercial and the program in a fashion that younger audiences might have only seen in The Truman Show . Billy Ingram has collected a huge catalog of such ads, including an assortment of cigarette ads done this way. Seeing Fred & Barney sneak around back to take a Winston break, waxing rhapsodic over their drug brand of choice while Wilma ...
The Horse Race
I stepped away from looking at the political scene for a few days, but with yesterday's Wisconsin vote behind us, I want to harp on the same points again -- though with updated numbers.
So far the pledged delegates and superdelegates combined give each of the candidates these numbers of votes come the Democratic National Convention:
Kerry —590 (roughly 27 % of the total delegates needed to secure the nomination)
Dean —200
Edwards —186
Sharpton —15
Kucinich —2
Delegates needed to win the nomination: 2,162
I continue to be appalled by the race, and how so many Wisconsins fell into the same line of thinking that last week's states saw: They would have voted for Dean, but they "knew he couldn't win." This is doubly appalling when the media spin is that this has been a Kerry/Edwards race, despite Dean having been ahead of Edwards. It's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as most people only know what they're told.
...
(Today's posts: Of Mouse & Muppets, Warren teases, comics in the mail, a nice surprise from Wizkids, Where'd my vote go?, Popeye's menage a trois, If you can't hear it you'll never know, and Angel staked.)
Kermit in Hell
I don't care what Jim Henson's daughter says, if Jim's aware of the sale of the Muppets to Disney I find it hard to believe he'd be that happy about it. Maybe were it sold to the Disney of the 80's or before - maybe - but by now ..? Eh.
At least it doesn't have the sting that Theodore Geisel must be feeling in recent years as he watches his heirs pick his bones to make themselves wealthy.
A little reconsideration...
...has me thinking that even now it's probably not so bad a match between Disney and the Muppets. My initial reaction was based more on the thought of yet another property going into the eternal lockbox of Disney, where lawyers will keep any of it from moving into the public...
Comics du jour
My comics arrive in semi-monthly packs from Westfield . Today brought the latest box, and it's a light, odd mix:
JSA #58 The penultimate issue in the "Black Reign" story arc. The concluding piece will be in Hawkman #25, which I've ordered. (That'll likely be the last issue of that series I get, as this latest incarnation of Hawkman is almost completely uninteresting to me.) This story arc's a good one, as a momentarily reformed villain (Black Adam) has shown his true colors as a hero from another age, one of eye for an eye justice and pre-emptive action involving deadly force. That he's recruited a variety of others, including some heroes of one stripe or another, has made it a family matter for the Justice Society.
Thor #74/576 : I'm a couple issues behind on this arc, wanting to let them build up. The current arc (a long one), wherein Thor has ascended to the throne of Asgard and has imposed a benevolent but chafi...
A Clix Coolness Surprise
Today's mail brought me a limited edition Heroclix piece: 4-Eyes .
It's a medic piece from the Cosmic Justice expansion , a minorly modified version of the Easy Company Medic. At 18 pts it's just two points more than the experienced version, with additional Support (that's the power that enables a piece to heal an ally) and a range increase of 6 from the experienced's 4, so he can fire farther if one chooses to use him for an attack.
It was a random prize draw for having participated in one of the venue events over the past several months. A very nice surprise to just show up in the mail.
"If it wasn't written down it never happened..."
The above was a quote from a co-worker some years back, one Mike Davis, and it's a simple bit of CYA reasoning that comes to mind every so often as so functionally useful as to be considered true -- once one waives off the tree falling in a forest philosophical trappings.
This comes to mind as I'm reminded of a push being made to protect voters from malfunctioning and/or tampered-with electronic voting machines. The Computer Ate My Vote campaign is something I meant to mention last week.
The gist of it (as you'll see if you click on the above link) is that many of the electronic voting machines being pushed as a solution to the 2000 election's dangling chads problem don't have a printed nor printable verification. People make their selection and trust that that information is properly recorded. Tests of many of the machines have not only demonstrated serious security flaws, but some...
I wonder if spinach was an aphrodesiac in one of these...
Odd history buffs and readers of Alan Moore's Watchmen have heard of "Tijuana Bibles," but I had no idea that some of them featured Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Popeye, Olive Oyle and Wimpy in sexual situations . I may have to look into this book , though it's not clear which of the "bibles" have been reproduced. I suspect that the Disney icons have considerably powerful guns protecting them.
A Safe Silence?
A pass-along from Elayne Riggs leads me to direct your attention to a piece Neil Gaiman posted on Monday. The US Department of Education has declared almost 200 programs inappropriate for closed-caption funding.
I'm willing to give the Dept. of Education a little benefit of the doubt in that they (like everyone else) have limited funds to be passing around, and so perhaps they simply tried this method to determine items of either greatest cultural merit or currency..?
Angel: Network Stake Through the Heart
I've just found out that the current season will be the last . I've been enjoying this season in particular, and am irritated to see it being brought to a close when the cast and creators still feel they have more places to go with the characters and their world.
Some quick reactions from Joss Whedon can be found here .
Not a huge matter in the scheme of things, but it's one of the few shows I make the time to watch each week, which - looking at most of what else is on the WB - isn't likely something I'll be saying about whatever they replace it with come next fall.
I wonder what the possibility of it being picked up by SCI-FI would be?
Blink and someone else disappears
I felt terribly out of touch (well, that's a normal enough feeling for me, but sometimes its bite's a little sharper) to find out only tonight that Philadelphia radio fixture Ed Sciaky (pronounced "SHOCK-ee") died back on January 29th.
Deeply into the music, he was one of those people who never thought of himself as being the attraction, concentrating always on pushing what he felt deserved an audience's attention. He'd fallen farther into the background for me in recent years as he ended up being most closely connected with hosting a Sunday with Springsteen program. (Bruce Springsteen was one of the acts he helped promote decades ago, giving Bruce and the E-Street Band airtime back when they were unknowns.) I've never been a Springsteen fan, so this latterday spotlight was something I paid attention to only to the extent of knowing what to avoid on a Sunday night.
Though his status from the era of p...
Chewie!
Those of us following the story of Chewie , a roughly 45 lb Chow-mix about to be unceremoniously evicted from his Central Florida home , are waiting for the latest word . Today is one week since the papers were served, declaring that his owner had one week to find him a new home or have him taken away. Down to the wire.
If you have a possible lead on helping out, click on the website link above or just contact Darren at docnebula01@juno.com .
Sometimes it's just that simple
Somewhere in my short time of using this system I developed the misconception that it would automatically slap a single comment marker at the end of a day's posts, and so proceeded to simply edit the same post over the course of a day to add what I wanted.
Obviously I was mistaken. Thanks to Elayne Riggs for pointing me to the embarassingly easy solution.
Why I didn't just look at my first day's entries... I have no idea.
Publishing, e-Publishing, Copyrights, etc. Past, Present and will we be allowed a Future?
The latest pass-along from Warren Ellis is a public domain transcript of the text delivered yesterday by Cory Doctorow at The O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference. To say it's worthwhile reading is to understate matters.
I've added Cory's blog to the roll call.
As you will see, I've taken to adding the new material for the day at the top, so it's more obvious. The Haloscan comment codes are embedded in the Template, which means that they remain at the bottom of a day's entries. Anyone who can offer a quick fix to that (presumably putting code in my individual blog entries, so each piece will have its own Comment link at the bottom?) will be appreciated. (A "quick fix" means I have to be able to do it quickly and fairly painlessly, btw.)
Corman's Poor Four
Because I promised someone, here's a review I wrote in 1994 ...
I'm not even keeping up with the odd-numbered days now.
It's simply been another busy week and there's much more left of it.
Concerning Chewie
The search continues to find a home for Chewie , a roughly 45 lb Chow-mix about to be unceremoniously evicted from his Central Florida home. Tomorrow will be one week since the papers were served, declaring that they had one week to find him a new home or have him taken away. The search continues.
If you have a possible lead on helping out, click on the website link above or just contact Darren at docnebula01@juno.com .
***
I'm excited by an announcement regarding cloned human embryos and embryonic stem cell harvesting , and hope that the Bush administration and its Bible-thumping wing doesn't muck around with it this time. As things stand the research climate's gotten so chilly here in the US that I've come to expect any such announcements to be coming from other parts of the worl...
Not the best start to a Monday
I'd spent very little time online this weekend, so it was only this morning that I found out that Julius Schwartz had died over the weekend. A man much-beloved in the comics industry, the quintessential comics fan and almost without dispute the father of the Silver Age of comics, the industry will be far poorer for his passing. Information on and tributes to Julie will be found all over the web, but an excellent place to start would be with Mark Evanier . Despite being 89, Julie was not some inactive name from yesteryear, as you'll find by reading the tribute pieces Mark and others (he lists several) have written.
Updating Saturday morning's post , with the clock ticking down to this Friday no one's come forward with a temporary refuge for Chewie, a roughly 45 lb Chow mix down in central Florida. It appears Darren has a lead on an animal shelter in Orlando, but they currently have no way of getting there. (I'm not even going...
Comics & Me A little history on me as a comics collector. (Artificially, retroactively placed back in the early part of my blog.) The core of this was written back around the close of the 20th century, when my return to comics following the only time out I'd ever taken was looming large. I've rescued that from a long-unused website and began to freshen it up. I mainly wanted something to link to off the main page. Yes, the unfortunately named but I've grown to accept that, comic books. They became a growing passion with me since shortly after coming across them around the age of 6, which would be way back in 1966, when a copy of Fantastic Four #52 found its way into my hands -- it was most likely something bought for me as a car drive entertainment when we were moving down to Levittown, PA in the move from Rhode Island. It wasn't until I had turned 8 when I really began collecting them, though. My early and strongest connection was to the Marvel Comics of the 1960...
Any Central-Floridian Dog Lovers?
A halting week of blogging gives me next to no audience, and such a puddle as I have is likely already aware of this, but I wanted to do my small part. A friend of well over a decade, despite only knowing him through text, Darren sent out a plea last night . His brother, Paul, was just served papers that he has 7 days (6, now) to find a new home for his roughly 45 pound dog, Chewie. Moving isn't much of an option, especially with such ridiculously short notice. If he can't find a new home he'll have to go to the pound. If you or someone you know is interested, he can be reached at docnebula01@juno.com.
A headache saw me seeking quiet, dark places last night, so I didn't see his call for aid until this morning.
Just a quick one at the start of a busy day. Two political notes, because they're on my mind and I believe they're important:
I came across an excellent piece on how Dean's scream at that post-Iowa primary rally was taken grotesquely out of context and framed as a loss of control, with similar elements framed as anger.
Keep in mind that the Democratic race isn't necessarily as over as many would like people to believe. Despite all of the Dean-bashing, he's still doing better than Edwards and Clark, though most of the mainstream media continues to cast him more as history than current events. As of Tuesday's primaries the delegate breakdown, pledged delegates and superdelegates combined:
Kerry : 246 (roughly 11 percent of the total delegates needed to secure the nomination)
Dean : 118
Edwards : 100
Clark : 81
Sharpton : 4
Kucinich : 2
2,161 is the number needed for the nomination.
I've added website links for each of the ...
I don't intend to make this a politically-centered blog...
...but it's difficult not to wander into this territory during an election year, especially on the night of one of these clusters of primaries.
I'm not seeing anything in the third party variety I can even get behind conceptually this time out. Among the Dems, as of tonight's projections Kerry appears to be the annointed one. (At last look he was taking DE, MO and AZ.)
The only bright spot of the political evening is that Joe Lieberman, having been apparently soundly thrashed in DE where he's been putting in so much time and effort, has officially pulled out of the running. The most positive association I have with him is his likeness to Pat Paulsen , who ran campaigns with similar levels of charisma, but at least Pat wasn't serious.
The whole "electability" spin continues to irritate me. It reminds me of a Python sketch, where Hitler - now calling himself Hil...
...and we thought Crazy Eddie was insane.
I finally took a look at the Bush administration's proposed budget for 2005 . (Which would be in force starting next October.)
$2.4 trillion.
Okay, it's a big country and an expensive one to run, so the base figure - while well beyond anything mere mortals can wrap their minds around - isn't to be dismissed out of hand.
However... consider that this not only includes a 7% increase for the Pentagon (and, interestingly enough, a 7% cut of the EPA budget -- though that's almost certainly a much smaller sum), but there's nothing in the budget to cover the cost of Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He'll ask for that money after the November elections.
We're getting deeper in a hole, and the political calculation of having the current tax cuts expire this year, before the elections, all but guaranteeing they'll be renewed, tells us this will continue strongly into n...