Can A Man Still Fly? Happy Fourth of July (Video)
Superhero movies, should still be this good, for the world. And I am saying this against that craptastic Green Lantern movie produced. What the fuck happened … ?
Image Comics’ ‘The Big Lie’ Asks Some Big Questions
Brian Truitt writes in USA Today:
It has been nearly 10 years since 9/11, and the tragedy is still on the minds of many Americans. One of those, writer and artist Rick Veitch, is convinced we haven’t been told the complete truth about it.
The questions surrounding that fateful day power the themes and story of his new Image Comics series The Big Lie, which debuts Sept. 7 and reteams Veitch with fellow artist Gary Erskine.
Veitch structured the story similarly to the 1963 Twilight Zone episode “No Time Like the Past,” in which a man uses a time machine to try to “fix” three events: warning a Hiroshima policeman about the atomic bomb, assassinating Hitler before World War II and stopping the sinking of the Lusitania.
In The Big Lie, the heroine is a woman named Sandra, who lost her husband, Carl, during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.…
Student Creates LEGO Helmet So You Can Listen To Comics
Kirstin Butler writes on i09:
A student in product design at the University of Dundee in Scotland, Robson created the toy with his own memories as inspiration. He said:
When I was young I played with LEGO a lot and all I used to read was the comic stories in LEGO Club magazines, I’d like to give something back to them as they helped me learn to read… I’ve been looking at what I enjoyed in my childhood to apply to new ideas and solutions of today.
By inserting the LEGO-brick USB into a slot in the helmet, the lucky kid wearing it can follow along with the comics, games, and puzzles in the subscription-only magazine.
Our only question is, when can we order the adult-size version?
Batman Arrested On Rooftop In Michigan
So often, real-life superhero-ing goes terribly, terribly awry. WDIV Detroit reports on a bizarre arrest — the photo below is the actual suspect in question:
A 31-year-old man dressed as the comic book character was arrested Wednesday in Petoskey after he was seen hanging from the wall of a downtown business on East Mitchell Street. The Petoskey Department of Public Safety said officers pulled the man back onto the roof and found a baton type striking weapon, a can of chemical irritant spray, and a pair of lead lined gloves.
The suspect, a Harbor Springs resident, was arrested for trespassing and possession of dangerous weapons. He is being kept in the Emmet County Jail.
Lost At The Con
[disinfo ed.'s note: The following is an excerpt from Lost At The Con, new fiction from Big Shiny Robot's Bryan Young.]
A political writer for a second rate, online news magazine, Michael Cobb is assigned by his editor to cover a sci-fi and fantasy convention in a bid to humiliate him.
Since Cobb can’t afford to turn down the job, he heads to Georgia and dives head first into the world of Griffin*Con, renowned the world over as the Mardis Gras of geek conventions. In Atlanta he finds a place that takes geeky debauchery to new heights: science fiction and fantasy, cosplay, booze, sex, comic books, drugs, slash fiction, and more.
This scene takes place on Cobb’s first day at the con:
My heart sank, killing the warmth of the drugs. The urge for locomotion finally returned to my legs and I continued my sojourn to the elevator.
That feeling of flying high without a safety net returned as the elevator doors I’d finally reached opened with a sharp DING.
And there before me was a Darth Vader…
Superman Giving Up American Citizenship
What I want to know is why he didn’t do this after the Bush administration lied through its teeth in order to launch two never-ending preemptive wars. Needless to say the usual suspects are outraged at Superman’s perceived lack of patriotism. The Guardian reports (thanks to Lynne C. for sending us the link):
After years of declaring he stood for “truth, justice and the American way,” Superman has provoked the ire of rightwingers by threatening to renounce his US citizenship.
In the latest issue of Action Comics, which went on sale on Wednesday, the Man of Steel decides to take the step after he intervenes in a protest against the Iranian government.
After the Islamic regime brands his non-violent protest as an act of war taken on behalf of the US president, the DC comic hero says he will renounce his citizenship before the United Nations.
“I’m tired of having my actions construed as instruments…
Interview with Comic Artist and Writer David Mack
I had the opportunity to conduct a series of interviews with one of the more inventive illustrators and writers working in comics today, David Mack.
I still remember the first time I encountered his graphic novel series, Kabuki. I was just browsing around a Barnes & Noble, buzzing on caffeine, and this beautifully illustrated hardcover book found its way into my hands.
It’s not hard to be taken in by the art, really, it is both graceful and bold — but I actually laughed out loud when I started reading it — there was a section where the characters were talking to one another, and then moving through a building. Now most sequential artists would draw panel after panel of them walking and talking, West Wing style, maybe breaking it up with different angles and whatnot so it’s not just a bunch of talking heads. But you just give us a top…
Teenager Builds His Own Homemade ‘Death-Ray’ (Video)
What a great hobby for the budding comic book super-villain. Could Lex Luthor do this in his youth? Nice work. Via Eric Jacqmain’s YouTube:
The R5800 is my latest and greatest solar creation. Made from an ordinary fiberglass satellite dish, it is covered in about 5800 3/8″ (~1 cm) mirror tiles. When properly aligned, it can generate a spot the size of a dime with an intensity of 5000 times normal daylight. This intensity of light is more than enough to melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete, turn dirt into lava, and obliterate any organic material in an instant. It stands at 5′9″ and is 42″ across.
A Look Into DR Congo’s Comic Book Industry
Panel from 'Luve ya muntu' by Bruno Luya Muzuka.
Fascinating stories and art from a country which has seen incredible unrest. Thomas Hubert reports from Kinshasa for BBC News:
For comic book fans around the world, a handful of cities evoke strong images: superheroes jumping from skyscrapers in New York; Tintin running across a building in a Brussels mural; wide-eyed schoolgirls looking for romance in Tokyo.
But colourful cityscapes, designed by local artists, are finally putting an African capital city on the comic map. The place is Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and it is not difficult to see why.
Complete with dusty boulevards, monster traffic jams in blazing sunsets and so-called shegue, or street children, such comic portraits of the Congolese capital are among the main features of the style developed by home-grown talent.
Decades of shared colonial history with comic-mad Belgium certainly had an influence on the emergence of the Congolese comic…
Real-Life Superhero Prevents Seattle Carjacking
A dorky but effective way to fight crime? A Seattle-area man was being carjacked when a local “superhero” named Phoenix Jones intervened to chase off the criminal. Jones is a part of a crime-fighting unit called the Rain City Superheros and keeps his true identity hidden, transforming into his alter-ego each night in the back of a comic store.
Racism Row Over DC’s Muslim Superhero
From Comics Alliance:
“Another day, another racist freakout over non-white superheroes. But unlike the hilariously dishonest racism we saw when the Council of Conservative Citizens called for a boycott of Marvel’s Thor movie on account of a mythical Norse god’s depiction as a black man, a recent round of conservative attacks on Nightrunner — DC’s Muslim Batman of Paris — are prejudicial in a more insidious way. While the CCC put forth a laughably tenuous justification for their outrage, it was with respect to one specific character in one specific context. The argument against Nightrunner, led by conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston, is based on the bigoted belief that a Muslim superhero is by definition an exercise in deceitful political correctness, and that Muslims are natively evil.
Introduced in this month’s Detective Comics Annual #12 and Batman Annual #28, Nightrunner is a 22-year-old Algerian Muslim who’s lived in Paris his entire life (it seems reasonable to assume he…
The Year’s Best-Dressed Graphic Novel
Chapter 16 asked me to have a chat with Jim McCann and Janet Lee in order to get to the bottom of their new graphic novel Return of the Dapper Men. The book has been selling out following a wave of rave reviews and this wide-ranging chat included talk about the Big Bang, the nature of time, innocence, experience and the nature of the relationship between men and their machines:
Can you hear a buzzing sound? No, it’s not Rudolph’s nose on the fritz. This is a holiday surprise that finds two book creators with Nashville connections giving Santa a run for his sleigh with what looks to be one of the season’s hit holiday gifts.
Although their celebrated new book takes place in a fantastical world, Jim McCann and Janet Lee both trace their roots to Nashville. McCann, a native Nashvillian, moved to New York in 2004 to become a successful comic book…
Happy Saturnalia To All!
A celebration dear to the hearts of the Disinformation team at this time of year is Saturnalia, one of the most popular Roman festivals. It was marked by tomfoolery and reversal of social roles, in which slaves and masters ostensibly switched places, with expectantly humorous results. Saturnalia was introduced around 217 BC to raise citizen morale after a crushing military defeat. Originally celebrated for a day, on December 17th, its popularity saw it grow until it became a week-long extravaganza, ending on the 23rd.
Our favorite exposition of Saturnalia has long been the Electric Sheep comic strip, no longer easily available on the web, but we dug in the crates and are pleased to bring it to you. We did find it here and in a video created from the original website posted to Funny or Die:
WTF: Spider-Man Is Now A Broadway Musical?!?
Lesley Stahl gets the first look at the rehearsal and production of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” the most ambitious and expensive musical ever brought to a Broadway stage on a recent 60 Minutes:
R. Crumb Opens Up
Portrait of R. Crumb by Christian Lessenich (CC)
A new R. Crumb interview is a rare thing indeed. Enjoy his telephone conversation with Deborah Vankin of the LA Times, interspersed with background yells from his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb:
DV: What comics are you reading these days?
RC: All I read anymore is investigative journalism. You name it. Scandalous political stuff, the pharmaceutical industry, all that crap. I’m fascinated by that stuff. There’s many heroic underappreciated investigative journalists. Celia Farber, Jon Stauber – “Toxic Sludge Is Good For You” is a great book. Naomi Klein – Jesus, I read her latest book and found that really impressive. “The Shock Doctrine.”
DV: “Genesis,” which was a success both critically and commercially, is behind you, what are you working on these days?
RC: Aline and I are working on a collaborative book together. It’s from WW Norton. Since “Genesis” sold well, they’re up for anything I’m involved in.…
Grant Morrison On ‘Sinatoro’
Grant Morrison, comics legend and star of the legendary disinfo.con (view clip here), has conquered the world of comics but has yet to crack Hollywood. He’s now writing the screenplay for a live-action independent movie, ‘Sinatoro,’ with director Adam Egypt Mortimer. They tell MTV News‘ Rick Marshall about the project:
MTV NEWS: First off, tell me about the poster image you released for “Sinatoro” during Comic-Con — the one with the astronaut in the middle of the desert and the blackish cloud pouring out his faceplate. Given how little we know about the project, what are you hoping to convey about the film with that image?
GRANT MORRISON: Well, I wanted it to say that we’re dealing with classic material, the American myth, the idea of the road movie and the notion that the road can take you anywhere and adventures can happen. That’s always been at the very basic root of the American imagination. We wanted to show that, and of course it had to be Route 66, which is the daddy of all roads. The idea of the astronaut was to kind of suggest that our character was somewhere that looks familiar, but it’s not really familiar — it’s a place that will be familiar to all of us one day — but he’s kind of an explorer in another land. There’s an actual astronaut in the story, so it kind refers to him a little, but it’s mostly the notion of being an alien on your own planet, and in your own environment…
The Cartoon Adventures Of Vladimir Putin
My favorite new cartoon is Vladimir Putin Action Comics, about the in-office adventures of the former president and current prime minister of Russia. The ultimate lesson is that within the exterior of a hard, authoritarian man lies a soft, fuzzy center.
Tea Party Comics
Editorial cartoonist Ward Sutton gave the Boston Globe’s comics page a tea-party-friendly makeover; “There’s a growing concern among a certain segment of the country that the comics page is out of step with mainstream values.” Check out the patriotic versions of strips such as Calvin and Hobbes:
