Word on today’s scheduled mediation between Gary Groth and Harlan Ellison and their assembled legal teams: Postponed until June 28th!

The rescheduling was necessitated because of a conflict in Groth’s schedule, according to Ellison’s lead lawyer, John Carmichael.

However, Carmichael says that all the lawyers involved are looking forward to settling the matter. Carmichael himself is eager to resolve the dispute “so my client can get on to more productive things and we can all put this behind us.”

Who wouldn’t like a piece of the Silver Surfer? Maybe even to carry around in your pocketses.That must have been what 20th Century Fox and the Franklin Mint were thinking when they cooked up the “Silver Surfer Quarter”, above. Since the Zenn-La native does not appear on any US States quarters, he had to be stamped onto existing currency. But shockingly, putting an ad on legal tender is against the law!

The U.S. Mint said in a news release Friday that it learned of the promotional quarter this week and advised the studio and The Franklin Mint they were breaking the law. It is illegal to turn a coin into an advertising vehicle, and violators can face a fine.
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“The promotion is in no way approved, authorized, endorsed, or sponsored by the United States Mint, nor is it in any way associated or affiliated with the United States Mint,” according to the release. The federal mint did not say whether the studio or the private Franklin Mint would face a penalty.

The altered coins are quarters honoring the state of California that entered circulation in 2005. They feature George Washington on the front, as usual, but a colorized version of the character on the back. All 40,000 are slated to be in circulation throughout the country by the end of Memorial Day weekend, and about 800 were released in each state.

There was a huge Star Wars convention in LA this weekend to celebrate Star Wars’ 30th Anniversary, which kicked off all sorts of news and notes and photo ops .ICv2 News has the ultimate skinny:

The upshot of all this attention? Star Wars is a more potent force now that it was when the first movie exploded onto the scene. Star Wars merchandise last year accounted for $1.5 billion in retail sales, a small fraction of the $22 billion the franchise has generated since the first movie premiered. And the masterfully created marketing events surrounding the anniversary demonstrate that Lucasfilms is very capable of continuing the popularity of the brand even without any new feature films.

The big news was the debut of the trailer for the CGI CLONE WARS cartoon. It’s set in a time when everyone is alive, so it’s kind of bittersweet, like “The Death of Speedy”, but it should also suit George Lucas since he won’t have to deal with pesky human actors any more. (Yoda: “We keep stepping in Dooku!”) Plus more General Grievous, and we love General Grievous.

There was also a mass Slave Leia photo shoot, proving you can have six whole movies of action, and the one cheesecake moment will be the one everyone remembers. Although as Cecil points out, its the rearview that separates the great Leias from the also-rans.

Oh yeah, and Stormtrooper Elvis got his own mini-bust from Gentle Giant, which was raffled off for charity.

We are just too swamped to do our TUF recap this week! Luckily Rafael Kayanan has a very thorough examination of the surprising Lauzon/Cole fight. As far as we’re concerned, the most notable thing about this episode was Lobstah, fight instigator getting kicked out while in the middle of making lobstah chowdah!!! That was tragic.

“Protect yourself at all times” is an old boxing adage which fighter Cole Miller found to be a very relevant one in this week’s segment of TUF when he faced the excellent, but sometimes wild ground and pound style of Joe Lauzon.

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Yet another manga/manhwa publisher jumping into it, as UDON Entertainment, the long running comics packager, launches its own Korean comics line:

What is Korean Manhwa? Combine unique storytelling techniques and manga-influenced artwork with the rich and diverse culture of Korea and you’ll end up with the latest craze in Asian comics! UDON Entertainment has partnered with Korean publisher Haksan to bring the best Korean Manhwa to North America and English readers everywhere in the Fall of 2007.

UDON’s new Korean Manhwa line launches this October with Star Project Chiro Vol.1, a romantic comedy that take a young girl through the often harsh world of pop stardom: “Eun-Yo Song has beauty, popularity – everything a girl could want! After a chance encounter with pop-singer Nan Lee, Eun-Yo finds herself getting caught up in the world of super stardom. But little does she know that Nan Lee has plans of his own for her…and she’s about to fall into his trap!”

Next, in November, a new take on a timeless classic will surprise and enchant you in the action/fantasy Dorothy of Oz Vol.1: “When Mara Shin’s dog Toto gets lost one fateful day, she follows his trail along some yellow brick road and ends up in the wonderful land of Oz! Everyone instantly starts calling her Dorothy, but these aren’t the cowardly lion, brainless scarecrow and heartless tin man adventures you remember. This fantastic fairy tale features familiar characters…but with a definite action/animated twist!”

Then in December, Magical JxR Vol.1 tells the story of two teenage wizards and the young girl they befriend: “Jay and Aru are two of the most popular students in wizardry school. However, before they can graduate, they must venture out into the REAL world and fulfill a one year magic contract with a human girl named Cho-Ah. Is Cho-Ah ready for a whole year with two enthusiastic wizards-to-be at her beck and call?”

With more titles planned for 2008, these three new ongoing series are just the beginning of UDON’s Korean Manhwa line. For all the latest news on these and future Korean Manhwa releases, head to the all-new www.KoreanManhwa.com .

STAR PROJECT CHIRO Vol.1 (ISBN 978-1-897376-11-9)

DOROTHY OF OZ Vol.1 (ISBN 978-1-897376-31-7)

MAGICAL JxR Vol.1 (ISBN 978-1-897376-61-4)

We were cleaning up this weekend, and came across a few historical curiosities which we may post over the next few days or so. First up, a bizarre photo taken c. 1993 at the amusement park Magic Mountain of (clockwise from the top) Robbie Busch, Stephen DeStefano, Kyle Baker and The Beat. What’s notable here is that the green screen effect produced a stigmata in the shape of Charlie Parker’s head floating over Kyle’s chest. Kyle is just that powerful!

Man, we are trying to get away from all the Gender Wars, but all the good links seem to circle back around, like Michaela Reid’s write up on the “Having Our Say: Black Women Discuss Imagery” panel at the ECBACC a few weekends back.

4. What would an ideal state look like?

* RL: “There should be a gazillion small companies putting out what needs to be said, however they need to get the truth out. When you tell your own truth, people follow.”
* LAB: In an ideal world “every major publishing house would be giving Anne Rice dollars to people writing speculative fiction.” She said that 60% of all paperback sales are romance novels, and that publishers tend to put all the money and promotions and good distribution deals into a few big authors. “They’re all putting Danielle Steele in her Rolls Royce. There’s a huge pay disparity.”
* CLE: “Utopia? I’m so used to just fighting for the most minute recognition. Just to walk into a comic book store and see a diverse range.”
* RL: Talked about how there is often a defensive backlash against comic book creators of color: “When you do start bringing things to the light, people get upset.” She said she had gotten a lot of negative reactions to making the main characters in her Sand Storm comic books, which are set in ancient Egypt, black instead of fititng into the “Elizabeth Taylor” white Cleopatra that so many people are comfortable with.

Reid has more coverage of the show here.

We always liked the All Ages Reads feature in Newsarama — actual kids reacing kids comings and giving their thoughts. This time they look at The Black Belt Club and Abadazad — I was particularly curious about the latter, because after a HUGE publicity push for it last year from Disney is kinda dropped off the grid entirely. :

I have several problems with the new format. First, there just isn’t enough of what made it great in the first place – comics. I counted 24 pages of comics out of the 144 pages in the first issue; if my calculator is to be trusted, that’s a tad over 16%. Second, the books are just too small. At roughly 8” by 5”, the books just aren’t big enough to do Ploog and Bell’s magnificent work justice. And because of the page frame that is supposed to look like we’re reading a book within a book, the comics are even smaller than they could have been. It looks like the pages were photocopied at a reduced percentage and they just don’t hold the same magic as the original at all. In addition, the text in the comic sections is so small that anyone over the age of 40 will have trouble reading it. Not that I’d know that from personal experience or anything.

These complaints aside, Abadazad is still high-quality literature and is recommended for readers of any age. It would make a great read-together book for younger kids and their parents. Abadazad definitely belongs in children’s libraries and could be used to great effect in classrooms – it’s a shining example of great storytelling.

Shelby says: I like that it’s in the form of a diary but she’s talking to you, too. The whole idea of the story is interesting because it’s different from everything else. I just like the idea that Kate goes to another world and the made-up characters in Abadazad are cool because they’re really different from the creatures on earth. The pictures are important because it explains some things that you can’t really do in words. Sometimes in books there are really good descriptions of characters so you can understand what they look like and you don’t need pictures, but in Abadazad it’s like impossible to describe some of them, so the artist has to draw them. The art has got a lot of color and that makes it look really good. Mostly kids who can read and their parents will like it.

I don’t have too much to say about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. It should have been called “At Ordeal’s End.” I was sorely disappointed by POTC II, and III is cut from the exact same cloth, since it was made at the same time. A glance at the stillstells the tale: every one is crammed, packed and ugly, just like the movie.

I’m going to talk about the movie a bit and I’m going to discuss the ending in depth, so PLEASE, only click on more if you are fully prepared for SPOLIERS.

I MEAN IT… S P O I L E R S

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While the holiday weekend has left people more interested in barbecues and outdoor exposure, a few developments. First J. Bone has posted the above image.

But see also this (!).

A few responses from the blogosphere.

Laura Hudson:

Oh, Joe Q. How could anyone read anything perverse into this picture of bleeding, half-naked women strung up in chains, with drops of moisture glistening on their breasts as probing tentacles creep towards them? You heard it from the man himself: this is a totally innocent picture of kick ass women fighting the Brood, and you’re a dirty, dirty pervert for thinking anything else. Also, I particularly like how he tries to cash in on some sort of feminist cred by citing the woman who brought us Drain, a story about a sexy Asian vampire named Chinatsu who likes to lez it up with other sexy female vampires, and decapitate dudes while making jokes about “head” and licking her loooong sword. But you know, I’m probably reading too much into that too.

Kalinara

That said, there seems to be the prevalent idea in these defenses that the product isn’t offensive because the producers did not intend it to be so. That the product is being “misconstrued” as sexist.

It doesn’t work that way.

Adam Hughes does not get to determine what of his work offends people. Joe Quesada does not get to determine what covers set us off. No one gets to make that decision except the person who is offended. To that person, the work is offensive.

Peter Sanderson

Hughes asks, “is it really a sexist or misogynistic act if it wasn’t intended that way on the part of the people doing it? . . .are you seeing something that’s either not there, or that the artist never intended to be there?” First, this demonstrates a lack of understanding of human psychology. Certainly, a person can be subconsciously sexist or misogynistic. Certainly people can consciously hold prejudiced opinions without being aware they are prejudiced: they consider their opinions to be correct. D. W. Griffith was reportedly surprised that his film Birth of a Nation (1915) was attacked as racist, though today that is the unanimous opinion of cinema scholars. There’s that song in the musical Avenue Q, “Everybody’s a Little Bit Racist.”

Moreover, even if Hughes did not consciously or unconsciously have sexist intentions, that does not mean that people who interpret the statue as sexist are wrong. Certainly artwork can be interpreted in ways of which the artist was not consciously aware. A Freudian interpretation of Oedipus Rex is not invalid simply because Sophocles died centuries before Freud devised the term “Oedipus complex.” If an interpretation fits the artwork, it is justified whether or not the creator agrees with it. This is a basic principle of criticism, long accepted in academia, and comics writers and artists had best wake up and take notice. (Not surprisingly, Neil Gaiman recognizes this principle, as can be seen from his introduction to The Sandman Papers, Fantagraphics’ 2006 anthology of academic essays about his work.)

J. Caleb Mozzocco:

Beyond the fact that Quesada doesn’t see a problem with the cover (A state of affairs I had imagined and found perhaps just as bad if not worse than an intentional use of the imagery to stoke it’s most negative and perversely sexual connotations), I was surprised to hear him say publicly that he’s not a “deep follower” of manga.

Um, should you really be the Editor-in-Chief of one of the biggest American comic book publishers and not be “deep into” the most rapid-growing and widely-read type of sequential art storytelling? Admittedly, it does explain why Marvel’s dozen or so attempts to attract the manga audience have all fallen flat (with a few vestiges of such initiatives seemingly succeeding despite Marvel’s efforts, like Runaways surviving the doomed “Tsunami” line or Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane lasting as long as it has and racking up rave reviews), but, Jesus, if I was Quesada I’d have copies of Fruits Basket and Naruto under microscopes in a big Marvel lab somewhere, with Marvel staff scientists studying the things around the clock and I’d be calling once a day to ask if they’ve managed to identify and reverse engineer whatever it is that makes kids love those things so much.

Also Lea Hernandez has remixed the cover to make it a little less hentai and Misty Knight ethinically accurate.

film ick has scoop:

Later this year – if all goes well – Neil Gaiman will be directing his first feature film. It’s an adaptation of his Death: The High Cost of Living mini-series, and – of course – he’s scripted it.

This was the film he was discussing with Guillermo del Toro at the meeting a couple of weeks back, as I suspected. I’ve now had this 100% confirmed.

What more do I know? That the film will most likely shoot in late autumn, early winter, and in the UK, though the comic takes place (mainly) in the US.

LaBeouf’s involvement geos back at least two years

Young actor Shia LaBeouf, who starred in Warner Bros. Constantine, told SCI FI Wire that he’s been working with graphic novel writer Neil Gaiman to bring his Death stories to life on the big screen.

George Gene Gustines examines the concepts from TV which are now being used in comics , like “Show runners’ and “seasons.”

¶In “Countdown,” a new weekly series from DC Comics that began this month, Paul Dini, who worked on ABC’s “Lost,” is serving as head writer.

¶The new “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series from Dark Horse is being promoted as the never-produced Season 8 of the “Buffy” television show and is written by Joss Whedon, Buffy’s creator, who is credited as the comic’s “executive producer.”

¶Marvel Entertainment is also adopting the “season” mentality — a fresh number of issues and then a break — on high-profile series like “Ultimates” and “Young Avengers.”

¶Platinum Comics has adapted television’s “show runner” concept, used to describe the top writer-producer on a series, into a “comic runner” for their Web-only titles.

We did like this from Platinum:

Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, the chairman of Platinum Studios, which offers Web-only and traditional printed comics, conceived the position of “comic runner” to help produce his company’s online titles.

“The comic runner is basically an entrepreneur who is running a small business,” he said. Mr. Rosenberg called it a “tough job” that required the ability to get comics from idea to final product regularly.

The comic runner must also be the spokesman for the property, helping to make decisions about publicity, merchandising and television or film development.

In olden days, this was often called being an “self-publisher” or an “editor”" but we’ll take the fancy modern title, too.

§ Early manga champion Frederik Schodt profile

§ LA Times looks at Minx line

§ Video of Frank Miller talking about the Spirit at Cannes.

§ Milo George tracks the political donations of your favorite cartoon types.

The Comics Reporter has posted the Annual Guide to San Diego Comic-Con, which is as definitive as it gets. His list of lodgings ranked by desirability has 22 categories, and in our 20+ years of con going, we’ve known someone to utilize all 22! Even jail. The guide contains many shockers, like this:

2. In eight years of staying there, four days per visit, the only comics-related person I have ever seen in the Westin Horton Plaza’s exercise room is Kevin Eastman. In general, use of hotel facilities like pools, hot tubs and exercise rooms seems to be really light during the convention weekend. Taking a couple of extra hours in the morning to pamper yourself or get in a workout can be fun and a great stress reliever.

Kevin? Didn’t see THAT one coming! Also THIS

3. The security people at the Hyatt will follow you into a bar in order to yell at you for not obeying their orders, but you pretty much have to take a swing at one to get thrown out. Don’t test this.

is not true, as we have been thrown out of the Hyatt bar, although that was a long time ago. Things may have changed.

Also, your press types may want to note that the con is closing down press registration on June 18th, which is really, really, really early, but they are trying to keep down the people who show up on the day of and get in for free as members of the press. Professional registration closed on May 1.

Jeff Lester tracks down an early work by Bryan Lee O’Malley: Spider-Man: Doctors, an early reader for kids. O’Malley ‘fesses up:

Yeah, it was one of the first things I did in comics, way back in 2001. Go ahead and run images if you want.

Christopher Butcher actually helped me colour it, which is why it’s so pink. That was right before we moved in together.

Just visiting old friends.

[Photo by Elim Mak.]

Gary Groth is paging all Pogo fans to help with FBI’s upcoming Pogo reprints:

We are requesting the help of Pogo collectors who may have original art or high quality reproductions of Walt Kelly’s Pogo strip.

We are currently assembling Walt Kelly’s POGO: The Complete Daily & Sunday Strips. We are looking for the best possible black-and-white reproduction of both Sundays and dailies — especially the Sundays. If you have original art or proofs that you would be willing to let us scan, we would be grateful if you’d contact us. You may e-mail me directly at:

groth@fantagraphics.com

(Please put POGO in the header). Thank you.

Gary Groth
Fantagraphics Books

The animated PERSEPOLIS, co-directed by Marjana Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud has shared the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film tells of Satrapi’s girlhood in post-Revolution Iran. The film will be released this fall in America by Sony Classics. It shared the prize with Stellet Licht, a tale of forbidden love among Mexican Mennonites directed by Carlos Reygadas. The Romanian 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Cristian Mungiu wpon the Palme d’Or

.

Bill Amend won the Cartoonist of the Year Reuben award in a ceremont mast night, according to Editor & Publisher. Amend ended the daily run of the strip last year, but continues it as on Sunday’s only.

Other winners from the article:

– Best comic strip cartoonist: Stephan Pastis (“Pearls Before Swine”/United Media).

– Best comic panel cartoonist: Hilary Price (“Rhymes With Orange”/King).

– Best editorial cartoonist: Mike Ramirez (Investor’s Business Daily/Copley News Service).

– Best newspaper illustrator: Laurie Triefeldt (“World of Wonder”/The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J./United).

– Book Illustration : Mike Lester
– Greeting Cards: Carla Ventresca

Carter Goodrich also won an award for OPEN SEASON in the animation category.

Looks like WP crashed for about 12 hours. It’s been acting a bit unstable lately — hence all the double postings. I’m hoping we can get it stabilized next wee. In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions on what to do with WP, feel free to leave them. I’m going to lay off the postings (Except for the TUF recap)to try to keep things on the DL. Everyone have a great weekend!