Hey, Hey, The Gang's All Here!

Vacation is officially over. The kids are all home as of last night and we're already swinging back into chaos. On the plus side, it also looks like it will be business as usual for the wife and me for a while. That interview with Bear McCreary that's been burning a hole in my hard drive will probably be hitting the 'net later today sometime and the same with my Keith Giffen Update (feat. my interview with Colleen Doran, of course).

So, that's good news.

Also, speaking of interviews, I managed to grab a book yesterday that has me pretty excited. It's called The Art of the Interview: Lessons from a Master of the Craft and it's by Lawrence Grobel, the interviewer's interviewer. The book is all about learning the craft of interviewing or acts as a guidebook on how to hone your already existing skills. So far, I'm already in awe of the thing and I'm busily working my way through it.

I take the interview schtick pretty seriously and I'm always trying to broaden my palette, if you will. It's important to me that I do my best not to just ask those 10 simple questions that you see in too many interviews, these days. You know the ones. They often include little gems like, "Where do you get your ideas" and "What's your favourite colour"? What disheartens me is that there are so many prominent internet comic journalists (none of whom I will name at this point) who rarely rise above this. I don't know if it's a matter of volume, or laziness, or what it is (I'm sure I'll think on it some more, now) but it's just damn sloppy and not very interesting to read.

Anyway, I'll likely be posting on this topic, as well as the book, in a future post so I'll leave the discussion at that, for now.

I've also got some linkblog stuff to do a little later and I'll be sure to mention when and where the interviews go up when they are live.

mike

T for Trailer

The Warner Bros. V For Vendetta site has gotten a facelift and they've also posted the official teaser trailer for the film. It looks better than I thought it would but the music they chose to go with the images is a bit too...swashbucklery for my tastes. I would have preferred something a little less "action film" and something a little more "psychological thriller", you know?

Still, if Warner wants the common people to come to this in droves they have to play up the Matrix connection and the action bits, otherwise it's just another poncy, dull British film, am I right?

Anyway, go check it out for yourselves.

mike

What's New?

My kids have gone away for the week with their grandparents. They've gone up to my wife's parents' cabin and we've been left to our own devices for a few days, which may go some ways to explaining why I haven't really done anything online yet that I said I was going to this week.

What I have done is hang out with the wife, hang out with a friend who stopped in from out of town, a little housework, some life planning, a lot of reading and I've watched a lot of bonus features off of my Return of the King extended edition DVD.

I'm feeling pretty cool, calm and relaxed now. I've been home for about a year, now (maybe even longer), and since I haven't been able to get a vacation out of the house, it's kind of nice to be able to have one while still in it. I feel a little bad that I haven't gotten to a few things that I wanted to have done this week, but not too guilty. Except for the Salon pitch, none of it was attached to a paying (or potentially paying) gig, so I'm not losing sleep over it.

Anyway, that's a bit of a State of the Union address for my world. I'm going to go and do a little bit more relaxing before I get back on the horse and spend too much time in front of the computer again.

mike

The New Comics 9

The new comics I'll be gunning for this week are as follows:

HELLBOY THE ISLAND #2 (OF 2)
HERO SQUARED #1 (OF 3)

Not too bad a list. Couple of bucks and I'm set 'til next Wednesday.

mike

Got What I Was Looking For

Huzzah! I've now received the two e-mails that I've been waiting on since Friday of last week. I had Colleen's answers come in yesterday, I believe, and Bear (who, it appears, has been knee deep in scoring episode 6 of Battlestar Galactica) has just managed to get back to me with the clarification I needed to move ahead with Part Two of his interview.

I'm too wiped out tonight to get their stuff up but I'll be posting their respective interviews tomorrow, for sure.

UPDATE: Hey, I even heard back from Seth Fisher, which is good news. It looks like he'll be out of ouch until August, though, so we won't be seeing that interview come together until later next month. I'm in no hurry. The story he's drawing for Legends of the Dark Knight still has three issues to go, so we got time.

mike

Hating the Waiting

I was going to put up Part Two of my Bear McCreary interview tonight but I have a section that needed confirmation from Bear and I haven't heard back from him yet. I suppose I could have run it and changed it after the fact, I mean it's not like I have thousands of people checking these things out, but I don't really like doing that and I'm not technically stuck to a deadline so I wait instead.

I'm also waiting on some answers from the amazing Colleen Doran. I mentioned last night that I was hoping to get her to finish the old interview and this morning she sent a reply saying she would. She's a peach, that Colleen. I should go out and buy some A Distant Soil just to give a little back, you know?

Speaking of buying, I picked up a few things today and yesterday that I thought I would mention. I hit the LCS and grabbed me a copy of just about everything I had on my 'to get' list except Love & Rockets because my shop doesn't seem to carry issues for the racks, anymore. And while I'm on the topic, I have to say it just as a reminder to myself: "If you have contact information for the Hernandez brothers it's probably a good idea to use it," wouldn't you say? That just sounds like good advice and I've been sitting on this for months.

Anyway, I also grabbed the first issue of Smoke which looks fantastic but I haven't had a chance to read it yet, so the jury's still out. I'm forecasting that I'll love it, though.

Out of the bargain bin I picked up some anthology stuff today. Two issues of DHP and the Comico Christmas Special from '88, I think. The DHP issues feature stories by Brubaker, Eddie Campbell, Moebius and Jodorowsky and Pekar and Sacco, while the Comico book has a Dave Stevens cover, with Steve Rude & Al Williamson, Bill Willingham and Tim Sale inside. I couldn't say no.

I grabbed some books from the library, too. My curiosity got the better of me and I picked up a Star Trek: Voyager trade, as well as Usagi Yojimbo Book 2 and The Magic Flute by P. Craig Russell, based on the opera by Mozart. I'm looking forward to checking those out.

I guess I also bought a DVD today - Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero. I've been waiting for a while to pick this one up because it's the only Batman Animated DVD I don't own and it disappeared off of shelves in town about a year or so ago. I guess with Batman Begins hitting theatres, the old stock has sort of risen to the surface in the hopes of capitalizing on the movie's popularity.

I guess it worked.

I haven't cracked it open yet but I'm in no hurry. I've seen it a million times and I have it on VHS, so...whatever. I guess I can make some more room in the media storage now that I don't need that tape anymore.

Well, I can't say that was the most interesting post I've ever made but there you have it. I think I'm going to go watch some Stargate and maybe hit the sack.

mike

Writing News

Man, for the last couple of days I've been busy putting a lot of different things together. For starters, I decided to get off my duff and finally send a query to Salon.com. My wife was scolding me for not turning an interview I had into a paying freelance piece, which I had to agree with, so I've been putting together some writing samples and a pitch letter to send. I'm hoping to have it all done by tomorrow so I can send it off and start the waiting game. They say you have to wait 2 or 3 weeks before giving up on them, so the sooner that process starts the better.

I'm also putting together a pitch for a non-fiction book that I never realised I was sitting on. Again, it was the sometimes loud and always wise wife who made me see it as it was, and now I'm kind of excited about this whole thing. I don't know if anything will ever come of it, or if I even have the stamina to go through the process of putting together a book, but for now, it's got the juices flowing.

Lastly, I've been doing a lot of work on my website, Meanwhile... as I've mentioned in previous posts, and just tonight I put the almost final touches on a new Giffen Update for The Daily Dispatch, my Keith Giffen related Newslist. I'm waiting on word from Colleen Doran about an interview that we had done but never finished. I wanted to use it in the Update and would rather use the complete version rather than the half finished one, but I'll take what I can get. If she's too busy I'll run what I have. Still, I hope she's not too busy.

Tonight I have to finish my Bear McCreary interview and I have my David Fury interview on deck for when that's all finished.

Man, if only I was getting paid for some of this.

mike

Comic Zone Surprise

I'm standing in a grocery line today and I take a glance at the latest issue of Disney Adventures Comic Zone thinking my 8 year old daughter might find it interesting to read since she kind of likes comics. While flipping through it I was pretty surprised to find a dinosaur strip inside written by Walt Simonson and drawn by Arthur Adams. I'm flipping by and I catch a glimpse of an art style that I'm familiar with. I'm thinking, "I know this guy, who is this?"

I don't know if this is a reprint of something or if it was done originally for this book, but I'm thinking of picking up a copy for myself now. My daughter can buy her own.

mike

Three Small Words

International. Serenity. Trailer.

Go now!

mike

Jim Aparo Passes Away

According to various sources, legendary comic book artist Jim Aparo has passed away. I was never a big follower of his work but I always appreciated his professionalism (how many young turks have turned in as much work on time in the last 10 or 20 years compared to pros like Aparo), and there's no denying the guy was a solid illustrator and storyteller.

I think it's unfortunate that most of my experience with Aparo's work comes from his time on Batman and during the whole 'Knightfall' storyline - not his finest work, to be sure (but now that I think about it I should see who his inkers were at the time). Still, I did run across an issue of Aquaman from the '70s a few years back that he had pencilled and I remember being pleasantly surprised at how great it all looked.

I think this may be as good a time as any to hunt down some old DC comics, don't you?

My condolences, of course, to the family for their loss.

mike

The New Comics 8? (I've seriously lost count...)

Coming out and going into my file at the LCS...

ASTONISHING X-MEN #11
DEFENDERS #1 (OF 5)
MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #2
LOVE & ROCKETS VOL 2 #14

Wow! That's a lot of Marvel books this week.

mike

The New DVD 10

Couple of things out this week with a few honourable mentions.

Constantine: I'm still fascinated by this movie and I'm looking forward to picking up this 2-disc special edition later today. It features 18 minutes of footage and an alternate ending never seen before, as well as commentaries, music videos and featurettes. It looks like a sweet little package to me, and there's nothing I like more than deleted scenes and a commentary track. I'm looking forward to seeing the little bonus at the end of the credits that I missed in the theatre as well. I think this set and me are going to be very happy together.

Swimming with Sharks - Spoecial Edition: Back before Kevin Spacey was a household name, this little movie gave me a chuckle. I can't remember where I had heard about it originally, but I rented it one day on the grounds that it was bitingly funny and well done. It was, probably still is (I haven't watched it in a while), and in this new special edition, I'm sure it's a picker upper for the next time I'm at the DVD store. At the very least a renter to see what kinds of features are on it, since I couldn't find a listing as of this writing.

The Crow - Wicked Prayer: Last and maybe least (I haven't seen it yet, but I'll probably watch it today and say a few words about it), the new D2DVD Crow movie features Eddie Furlong, Tara Reid and David Boreanaz in what could be a desperately horrible movie, or a pleasant surprise. I moderately enjoyed the last Crow movie with Eric Mabius, so unless this one takes dips into City of Angels territory, it should be watchable. I'm looking forward to seeing Boreanaz (watch for his new show Bones in Sept.) but he's playing a bad guy looking for immortality so it could be over-the-top-lame or he might pull it off. I'll post thoughts on the movie later.

Honourable Mentions: Dead Like Me Season 2 is out. I love Bryan Fuller but never watched this show despite hearing great things about it. The Farscape - Starburst Edition: Season 2 Collection 1 also comes out today which is an affordable way of picking these discs up if you gotta have your Farscape.

Until next time.

mike

A Little Game of LinkBlog Catch-Up

I've been bookmarking stuff to save for a rainy day and it's just taking up a bunch of space so I'm going to do a bit of linkblogging here so bear with me...

Monsters & Critics has this article talking about Warner Bros. and Darren Aranofsky recruiting comic book artists to "create original works of art interpreting [the] forthcoming sci-fi fantasy film The Fountain." The likes of Geof Darrow, Dave Gibbons, Jason Alexander, Olivier Bramanti, Seth Fisher, Phil Hale, James Jean, Mike Mignola, Jon J. Muth, Kostas Seremetis, Bill Sienkiewicz, Barron Storey and Martin Wilner haveall signed on to the program and we'll be able to see their interpretations being posted to the film’s official web site, one a week, starting in mid-august and running 'til the film's release.

It's just sad that FOX is engaging in this ridiculous lawsuit with Sony Pictures Entertainment. FOX is contending that Sony's movie Zoom is directly infringing on their X-Men franchise.

What?

My guess is that FOX is looking for reasons to delay the production of X3 after their recent problems with directors and scheduling. And seeing as how X3, like Alien 3 and many others before it, is one of those movies that had a release date before it had...well...anything...I smell possible doom for the house of X.

Or they could take my advice and just wait for Singer to finish Superman!!!

UPDATE: One very good reason why my plan won't work.

I think I caught this link over at The Comics Reporter a while ago. As a rule, I never turn down an opportunity to pick up anything illustrated by Jon J. Muth, so I was already happily indoctrinated into Muth's world for young readers being the owner of his previous two childrens books, Stone Soup and The Three Questions. With Zen Shorts I decided to break the silence and take the opportunity to link to the story and help spread the word.

I guess if your kids aren't bringing home Scholastic order forms every month you might be just as much in the dark as the other guy.

Hmmm...Strangely enough, that's all the links I can find that were backlogged. Go figure. Maybe I've been slipping them in and not thinking about it. Or maybe I've been deleting them as other Bloggers mention them over on their sites. Who knows? Not me.

Until next time...

mike

The New Music...ummmm....8?

Frank Black - Honeycomb (Narada): Hot off the heels of his reunion with former bandmates, The Pixies, Frank Black returns to his solo career with his latest album, 'Honeycomb'. Now, I haven't had the opportunity to hear anything off of this album yet, but according to the fine folks at AMG it's a much quieter album with little or no rock. A kinder, gentler Black, if you will.

Anyway, I enjoy the guy's stuff so, while I may not be breaking down the local A&B's doors to get this one tomorrow, I'll definitely put it on my list of things to get when I have the cashola.

mike

Gussyin' Up 2: The Reckoning

Went back in and changed some stuff over at Meanwhile.... Tidied up some of the sections, changed how some of the site is organised as well as some section names. I wish I knew enough HTML to redesign the whole site but, alas, I'm not that good. The overall design is functional but dated. It could use an aesthetic overhaul.

Some time ago I decided to make the page an online resumé rather than an e-zine. I think I've mentioned that before here on the blog at some point, but I think with the way I've organized the site now, it's a bit more representative of that goal than it was before. There's still work to do, but I believe the 'heavy lifting' aspect of it is done for now.

I should also mention that my David Fury interview has been transcribed and I'll get to formatting it this week. The long journey nears its end and I know a lot of Whedonesque folks who will be happy to see that happen.

I'm off to bed. Be back later with more musings.

UPDATE: Rather than start a whole new post to announce it, I just posted an old 1997 interview with Walt Simonson on the site. It was one of the first Q&As I'd done with a comic pro and we cover a whole bunch of stuff including Michael Moorcock's Multiverse, Jack Kirby's Fourth World, Star Slammers and more. If you're a Simonson fan, you should check it out.

mike

Serenity #2 Preview

There's a 4-page preview of Serenity #2 over at DHC if you're aiming for a fix and can't wait 'til the second issue hits the stands. It looks really good and I'm itching to get my hands on this one as much as the next guy. Not sure which cover I'll pick, though Bradstreet's Book looks really sweet.

mike

Gussyin' Up

What does it say about my Friday night that I spent most of it fiddling with my various webpages?

The spirit just sort of moved me to make some improvements to the ol' Blog and Meanwhile... proper that probably won't be apparent to the average web traveller, but should make their experience just a little bit better. For example, with the Blog, I've gone and added Haloscan comments because I found that I like how they work on everybody else's pages and figured it was time to take the leap myself. I also signed up for some traffic monitoring which I've been meaning to do for a while but never seemed to get around to.

I also went through and streamlined Meanwhile... a little bit. I cleaned up some folders that were getting cluttered and taking up space which made a little extra room for newer interviews that will be going up soon (David Fury is on the way, I promise you!). I also fiddled with the cover images for the Brett Matthews and Bear McCreary interviews. The ones I've had until now were sort of meant as temporary images and I didn't like the way they looked so I did some tinkering to fit them into the overall scheme of the index page. As I was sorting things out I also came across some wonky code which I went in and corrected. Again, not something that will probably be noticed but I'm happier for it.

Anyway, it's late and I'm starting to get a bit weary so I'm going to shut down for the night.

mike

Fantastic Parker

I think it was either by e-mail or in the comments section of Jeff Parker's blog where I learned that he would be the writer for a few issues of Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four. His run on the book starts with #2 (which was partially written by him - his first official issue will be #3) and considering how great his Spider-Man issue was, I figured I'd give his FF a try as well.

After seeing this preview over at Mile High Comics' First Looks section, I think I'm going to be happy I did. The artwork by Carlo Pagulayan looks great and, as I said before, Parker on story is a no-brainer, so check this one out when it hits the racks on July 20th, 2005.

mike

Catching the Chronicles

This kind of comes out of left-field, but I've recently decided that I want to complete my Young Indiana Jones VHS video collection. Not the most popular set of videos in the world, but I've always been a big fan and supporter of the show since it's inception. For many Indy fans, it was huge to have these first 12 tapes released (altered as they were into 90 minute films) to the general buying public after so many years of collecting dust. Unfortunately, it would turn out to be an equally huge disappointment when Paramount refused to release the rest of the set after a few months like they had advertised. I bought most of the tapes when they came out in 1999, but I never managed to get them all. At the time it didn't seem like too much of a problem since I had some of the episodes taped from when they originally aired on ABC. Time, a weak pocketbook and an overall lack of commercial popularity have left me with a few tapes left to be sought out.

Anyway, lately I've been trolling around looking for the remaining tapes I need to finish my set. I've done the eBay thing, and checked some other online vendors and I think I'll be able to find them all right, but I'll be paying a bit for them after the currency conversion.

The Chapters I still need are:

06) Spring Break Adventure (Princeton/Mexico - 1916)
11) Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life (East Africa/Congo - 1916)
17) Masks of Evil (Istanbul/Transylvania - 1918)
20) Mystery of the Blues (Chicago - 1920)

Again, I have Chapters 11 and 20 taped off of ABC, and half of Chapter 06, but the completist in me wants the even dozen.

mike

I'd Like to Thank the Academy...

I just wanted to pop on mention that I seem to have gotten some good responses on my interviews courtesy of the fine folks at Whedonesque (who have been virtually supporting this Buffy Post Mortem thing since the beginning) and some of the regular posters at the BSG message board at SciFi.com. Thanks to everybody for checking them out and I'm glad you enjoyed them.

I'm having kind of a rough night so I'm going to shut down for the day.

mike