Comic Book News
A Comics Odyssey – Issue 3
By Wayne Hall Mar 25, 2011, 1:10 GMT
Inspired by the recent events involving Charlie Sheen, VATICAN ASSASSIN WARLOCK is a dark satire where an actor named Charlie is a supernatural hero, battling the forces of evil in Los Angeles with his two partners – who are literal Goddesses.
The line between comics and other kinds of entertainment - like television, movies and digital/internet sources continues to blur.
In this week’s news, you’ll see several stories where this takes place, so let’s get into this week’s “comics in the headlines” news items, all taken from the revamped www.scifipulse.net website:
Cartoon Network Teaming With DC Comics
With Marvel Comics working so closely with Disney XD, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that DC Comics has found their own cable network partner.
According to deadline.com, a programming block called DC Nation will be appearing on the Cartoon Network.
The series will be “populated with event programming, interstitials, exclusive behind-the-scenes of theatrical production and an insider look into the world of all things DC,” the site reported. “The block, whose content will be produced by Warner Bros. Animation, is the latest effort under Time Warner’s new mandate to better integrate DC Comics with the company’s film and TV divisions.”
Comics The Starbucks Way
Starbucks introduced the newest additions to the Starbucks Digital Network, in partnership with Yahoo!, as The Economist, ESPN Insider Rumor Central, Marvel Digital Comics and Mediabistro were revealed on stage at the company’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders.
Building on the Oct. 2010 launch, the network continues to serve up a collection of hand-picked premium news, entertainment and lifestyle content along with local insights and events.
Powered by free Wi-Fi, it’s accessible via laptops, tablets and smartphones in nearly 6800 U.S. company-operated Starbucks stores. Today’s line-up gives free access to premium content covering global news, sports, comics and careers.
“Following the fall launch, we’ve continued to seek feedback from our customers so we can continue to shape and grow the Starbucks Digital Network in a way that is authentic to the Starbucks Experience, inspires conversation and invites new customers to experience our content offering when they visit their neighborhood Starbucks,” said Stephen Gillett, Starbucks chief information officer, executive vice president Digital Ventures. “Today we’re broadening the offering and will continue to develop the network’s channels with a spectrum of new content.”
On the Entertainment Channel, watch for the upcoming arrival of the Marvel Universe as Super Heroes, mutants, aliens, armor-clad super-geniuses and thunder gods join forces with the Starbucks Digital Network on Apr. 23, 2011.
Known for engrossing stories and a library of more than 8,000 characters, Marvel Comics gives Starbucks customers unlimited, free access to its full library of Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited. Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Wolverine and others await to captivate as customers explore the comic realm and imagine fighting villains with a cup of coffee in hand.
‘Vatican Assassin Warlock’ (A Dark Satirical Novella) Now Available On Kindle!
Inspired by the recent events involving Charlie Sheen, VATICAN ASSASSIN WARLOCK is a dark satire where an actor named Charlie is a supernatural hero, battling the forces of evil in Los Angeles with his two partners – who are literal Goddesses.
When someone murders someone very close to him, Charlie must use all of his considerable Vatican Assassin Warlock powers to avenge the death, only to discover that nothing… and no one… is quite what it seems!
Written by Max Brallier (CAN YOU SURVIVE THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE?) and Brendan Deneen (FLASH GORDON)!
You can download the book for your kindle right here
Probably the biggest release this week was Marvel’s FF #1. Here’s the description from Marvel.com: “It’s the FANTASTIC first issue of FF! A bold new direction for Marvel’s First Family featuring new members, old friends, older enemies and uneasy alliances that will send shockwaves through the Marvel Universe. With stunning art work by Steve Epting and Paul Mounts, please join writer, Jonathan Hickman, on the second massive arc in the bold new direction for the ‘World’s Greatest Comic Magazine.’”
The title actually stands for Future Foundation, which I think allows the cast of characters to expand into aliens and enemies alike. The art’s good, and the story unfolds in an attention-grabbing way.
Let me quickly get to my concerns.
We all know that Johnny Storm will be back someday. Just like Steve Rogers and Bruce Wayne and every other mainstay in the bigger comics companies, it’s just a question of when. That always bugs me.
Adding a villain to the group, especially the one who’s joining them, smacks again of Star Trek by adding a Klingon to the bridge crew. That Reed accepts it bothers me. We’ll see how that works itself out.
So, I guess it is best to just accept this as a temporary thing and enjoy the ride. I’ll be buying the book for a time to see how it goes. I’ll let you all know how it works for me.
Last week, I reviewed Xombi #1 from DC Comics.
During the past week, I had the chance to interview John Rozum, who created the character some time back and who is happy to be back writing him again.
Wayne Hall: There’s a lot of religious imagery and characters in Xombi, which is somewhat unusual for a comic. What inspired you to include that in the book?
John Rozum: When I started it, it occurred to me that if we were dealing with a world where occult and supernatural phenomena, characters and objects existed as real, then various religious organizations would probably have their own staff members, or agents, who were specifically assigned to investigating these phenomena, such as Nun of the Above and Catholic Girl, or took it upon themselves to investigate it, such as Rabbi Sinnowitz. It just seemed like a completely natural extension of what I was doing.
Catholic Girl was something I’d come up with as a bit of a joke, a riff on all the characters like Bouncing Boy and Lightning Lass, where their gender had to be part of their superhero name; Batman, Wonder Woman. Dwayne always said that there was no way I’d ever get to use her as a character at Marvel or DC, but I worked her in at Milestone because I knew he’d let it happen. I decided to take her seriously here, and Nun of the Above came about because I felt she need a mentor, so now we had a super-powered Nun, too. They ended up being quite popular.
Hall: Even though David Kim has unusual abilities, I notice that you ground him very firmly in everyday life, like having Chet, a friend, over to watch movies with in Xombi #1. Do you consider him to be a “hero” or something else?
Rozum: He’s actually at Chet’s apartment, which got a makeover since David was in it just a few weeks earlier in Xombi #12 of the original series. David is very against being a superhero, though I don’t even know if that term really applies to him. He’d do whatever it takes to go back to being a normal person with a normal life, but recognizes that’s not an option, so he does what he has to.
The weirdness is not going to leave him alone, so he’s decided to be proactive about dealing with it. The pull away from his normal life, and his desperate need to keep having one, is a big part of this first story arc and the series as a whole. I realized immediately that having a character who couldn’t die also meant that I couldn’t place him in mortal jeopardy as a means of keeping the reader interested, so there had to be other stakes for him. His relationship with his friends from before David became a xombi took the place of physical danger for him and it gives a nice contrast to the weirdness that plagues him.
Hall: What do you have in store for Xombi that you can tell the readers about?
Rozum: There’s a bit of tragedy in the life ahead for David Kim. Much of what has come before has been David trying to figure out how he’s going to let his fiancé, Dalila, know he’s now a xombi without driving her away. She’s been physically absent throughout the series, and the time has come for her to return and for the two of them to be reunited. Let’s just say that things don’t go as well as David hopes they will and leave it at that.
For the full interview, you can check it out here at www.scifipulse.net.
