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'Men of Tomorrow' is by Gerald Jones.
Comic-Con 2013: A look at past comic books and a glimpse of the genre's future
It's that time of year again. You know, when every headline writer on earth breaks out the "BAM!," "POW!," and "ZAP!"
Yup, Comic-Con International – the world's biggest comic-book and pop-culture convention – is being held this weekend in my fair city of San Diego.
Visitors and reporters spend much of their time on the convention floor, but there's more to Comic-Con than booths, posters, and celebrities. Walk upstairs and you'll find dozens of serious-minded seminars about topics like the history of comic books and the evolution of superheroes.
Can't make it to America's Finest City to hear about these hot if geeky topics? Never fear. Gerard Jones, the San Francisco-based comic-book historian, artist, and author of 2005's "Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book," is in town and took questions about eight decades of comics.
Q: How did comic books first come into being?
A: They came out of the newspaper comic strips, which were mostly humor along with things like Tarzan and Dick Tracy.
The first comic books were just reprints of the newspaper comics, a way for people to read their favorite strips with continuity. But some publishers couldn't sell newspaper reprints and began to commission new material.
The artists were largely guys who were trying to make it as newspaper comic strip artists but hadn't made it. They tended to be young, oddball, and not quite as sophisticated and polished; their work was seen as unfinished and not ready for prime time
For example, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were consistently rejected when they were peddling their Superman idea to the newspaper syndicates. One syndicate said it was an immature piece of art.
Q: Why did this kind of work become popular?
A: There was an audience that wanted this rougher, more peculiar stuff that wasn't refined by art school and years of experience. And a lot of kids wanted that raw connection with the fantasies of the artists who weren't much older than them.
Most of the guys who created the stuff that lasted were in their late teens or early 20s. They could tap into the action and adventure that kids wanted but couldn't get enough of in the newspaper comic strips.
Q: How were comic books groundbreaking in terms of reaching kids specifically?
A: Newspaper comic strips were sort of like broadcast TV: You had to reach a broad audience. If a strip was only being read by 12- year-old boys, it wouldn't survive. They had to appeal to kids, older kids and adults to some extent.
With comic books, publishers discovered there was a big enough audience of just adolescents out there to support the industry. In a way, comic books were the first business built almost entirely by purchases by kids and teenagers.
Q: When did comic books begin to seem disreputable?
A: Early on. For the most part, comics were frowned on by pretty much everyone. No one would even have linked them to movies or even early television as a respectable medium.
Some early publishers did really sleazy pulp-fiction magazines, and there were shoddy, bottom-end publishers. The comics were vivid and energetic but very unpolished, and a lot looked crass and vulgar to people.
And a lot were about guys fighting. They really leaned heavily on violence, more nonstop combat than you'd see in a movie.
Q: Comic books came under fire in the 1950s as contributors to juvenile delinquency. That seems silly now, but were the critics onto something about how the comics were violent and sexualized?
A: Some were very gruesome and very sexualized, with cruelty and sadism going on in a lot of stories. Parents were legitimately alarmed with some reason. But there was this huge backlash that gutted business to the point where nothing that wasn't safe for an eight year old would see print.
It was really a little kids' medium until you get to the '70s, when the older fans become a bigger part of the audience – the old, hardcore beleaguered fan boys who kept arguing that this stuff was worth looking at and saving.
Q: When did comic books take a turn toward the dark side?
A: That came out of the mid-1990s, when it became the style to do the self-referential, queasy-making, rough, dark and violent comics.
Part of it was the pop culture movement of the times, when you can see the similar things in action movies. You get more and more of the scary and gritty approach, the "Terminator" style.
It was the point when the audience became almost entirely people over 20, those who had read a ton of comics when they were younger and grew tired of the old templates. They wanted to be startled.
Q: Where are comics going now?
A: The big superheroes – Superman, Batman, the Avengers – aren't changing much. Not that much inventive stuff is being done. It's in a conservative phase since it's so much being driven by the movies. What you see on the screen is similar to what you see in the comics.
There's also a movement toward more lightness which shows up in things like the "Avengers" movie, "Iron Man" and "Thor" – more of a sense of the superhero as light and funny as opposed to dark and haunting.
Q: What else is changing?
A: One of the great things about comics is how they've been such an easy-entry and democratic field.
It's always been so easy to get work out in comic-book form that you couldn't get out as a movie. The gatekeepers tend to be loose and new and untutored talent can get out there. That's increasing as web comics become more popular. Eventually what they're pioneering will be reflected by Marvel and DC.
Q: Superheroes like Batman and Superman have been around just about forever. Are any new ones being developed that could have staying power?
A: Spider-Man and X-Men are about 50 years old and those are the most recent popular superhero creations. I don't see anyone really glomming onto new superheroes.
There is this fascination with old heroes who have been around for longer than many of the fans have been alive. They have almost a mythological quality because they have been around forever, but it's exciting to see them re-injected into the present.
Q: Is this a good thing?
A: It's nice to have a sense there are these heroes who have been there for a long time and link us all the way back to World War II and the Depression. Past generations knew the same heroes, and that's a good thing.
J.K. Rowling said in a statement that she 'feel[s] very angry that my trust turned out to be misplaced' in the law firm Russells. (Lefteris Pitarakis/AP)
The person who leaked J.K. Rowling's pen name is revealed
The mystery of who leaked J.K. Rowling’s secret writing identity has been solved.
A partner of Rowling’s law firm, Russells, named Chris Gossage was aware that Rowling was behind the novel “The Cuckoo’s Calling” that was billed as written by Robert Galbraith, according to Reuters. According to the news agency, Gossage told the best friend of his wife, Judith Callegari, and Callegari was the person who tweeted at a Sunday Times columnist last week, stating that she knew Rowling was behind “Cuckoo.” This prompted the newspaper to launch its own investigation and eventually uncover the fact that Rowling was behind the book.
“Whilst accepting his own culpability, the disclosure was made in confidence to someone he trusted implicitly,” the law firm said of Gossage in a statement. “On becoming aware of the circumstances, we immediately notified J. K. Rowling’s agent. We can confirm that this leak was not part of any marketing plan and that neither J. K. Rowling, her agent nor publishers were in any way involved.”
Rowling made a statement about the leak as well and did not sound happy.
“A tiny number of people knew my pseudonym and it has not been pleasant to wonder for days how a woman whom I had never heard of prior to Sunday night could have found out something that many of my oldest friends did not know,” the “Harry Potter” author said. “I had assumed that I could expect total confidentiality from Russells, a reputable professional firm and I feel very angry that my trust turned out to be misplaced.”
Rowling’s publisher, Little Brown, is reprinting “Cuckoo” to meet demand now that the author’s identity has been revealed. Before it was known that the “Potter” author was behind the book, reviews were extremely positive but sales lagged. However, now that the truth is out, the book is currently at the number one spot in sales on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
In her initial statement on the revelation that she was the “Cuckoo” author, Rowling mentioned she “had hoped to keep this secret a little longer.”
“Being Robert Galbraith has been such a liberating experience,” the author said. “It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.”
'Hamlet' will be preformed by the Globe Theater company all around the world. "We’re not going to leave anyone out," says artistic director Dominic Dromgoole.
'Hamlet' goes on tour everywhere – literally, everywhere
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t." These words from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" rather perfectly describe the plan just announced by the Globe Theatre company: to spend the next two years taking "Hamlet" to every country in the world.
And they do mean every country. Artistic director Dominic Dromgoole has told The Guardian that, “If we’re going to do every country in the world, it has to be every country, we’re not going to leave anyone out. All the ‘Stans, South and North Korea – we’re very keen to get into North Korea.”
Antarctica will be included as will – of course – Elsinore, Denmark, where the play is set.
Dromgoole said that the planned trip is a wonderful way to keep the company in everyone's minds and that they are looking forward to their extensive tour.
This journey will start on April 23, 2014 to celebrate Shakespeare’s 450th birthday and will begin and end at the Globe itself. Because the company are determined to perform in every country, in some locations there will only be one showing before the crew moves on to its next stop.
Details are available at the Globe Theatre homepage and those interested can sign up to be kept abreast of the tour news. The group can also be followed on Twitter at @WorldHamlet.
Reese Witherspoon will star in and produce the big-screen adaptation of the memoir 'Wild.' (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
'Wild' movie adaptation secures a movie studio
The movie adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling memoir “Wild” has found a studio and will begin filming this fall.
Fox Searchlight Pictures will bring the movie to the big screen and producer and star Reese Witherspoon called it an “extraordinary company that continually strives to bring original, inspirational films to the marketplace.”
“We are so excited to be working with Fox Searchlight to bring Wild to the screen,” the actress said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Searchlight presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula said in a statement of their own, “We have long been huge fans of this visceral, inspirational and moving personal story with such a strong female perspective. It has been a dream of the studio to work with Reese Witherspoon and we are thrilled to be partnered with her, Bruna Papandrea, Bill Pohlad and Nick Hornby.”
As mentioned by the studio, “About A Boy” and "An Education" screenwriter Nick Hornby is penning the script for the film. The project has yet to secure a director.
Strayed wrote of the announcement on her Facebook page, "I'm thrilled about this news!"
Witherspoon won an Oscar for her role as June Carter Cash in the 2005 film "Walk the Line" and recently starred in the 2012 movie "Mud" and the 2011 film "Water for Elephants," which was based on the bestselling novel by Sara Gruen.
Strayed’s book follows her journey as she decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail after her divorce and the death of her mother. The book was originally released in March of 2012 and was later chosen as a selection for Oprah Winfrey's book club. It's still at number 6 on the New York Times combined print and e-book nonfiction bestseller list more than a year after its publication.
Rainn Wilson starred as paper salesman Dwight Schrute in 'The Office.' (Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP)
'The Office' actor Rainn Wilson will release a book in 2014
“The Office” actor Rainn Wilson will write a memoir – kind of.
Wilson is writing a book for Penguin Random House imprint Dutton. He says it will chronicle his time growing up, a period in which he lived in New York, and his time acting on “The Office,” but says he wouldn’t attach the word “memoir” to the project.
“If I were in my 80s, had cured a disease and survived a war, I would be entitled to write a memoir,” he said in a statement. “No. The guy who is best known for playing a paper salesman with a bad haircut, tweeting fart jokes and starting a quirky spirituality website does not merit a 'memoir'. For the time being, let's call it a 'Serio-Comic Examination of my Life in Art, Faith and Comedy. And beets.”
The book is scheduled to be published in fall 2014.
Wilson is best-known for starring as salesman Dwight Schrute on the NBC comedy “The Office,” which ended last year, and also appeared in the 2008 movie “The Rocker” and 2010’s “Super.”
The entire cast of 'Game of Thrones" from season one. Some are still with us, others will be replaced with new faces.
New 'Game of Thrones' characters revealed
We're all waiting impatiently for season four of HBO series "Game of Thrones." Nothing new about that. What is new is the announcement about two new cast members – Mark Gatiss and Pedro Pascal – who will be joining the "GoT" family in season four.
The role of Mark Gatiss, who has had a hand in writing, producing, and acting in "Dr. Who" as well as playing Mycroft in "Sherlock," will be kept a surprise according to Entertainment Weekly. The point of this is probably to drive viewers insane. After all, the books' author, George R.R. Martin, makes a habit of keeping readers on the edge of their seats constantly. Why should it be any different for viewers?
Thanks again to Entertainment Weekly, we do know that Pedro Pascal will be playing Prince Oberyn Martell from Dorne. He is also widely known as The Red Viper. Series creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss said that finding someone to play the “sexy and charming, yet believably dangerous; intensely likable, yet driven by hate” Red Viper was not exactly a walk in the park. Happily, they have succeeded.
Pedro Pascal is a veteran of TV series such as "Graceland," "Red Widow," and "Nikita" just to name a few. Hopefully, his experience with acting in intense series such as these will have properly prepped him for portraying a charming and deadly man out for revenge against The Mountain for killing his sister.
Seeing as Martin has a penchant for killing off his characters, it’s probably a good thing that so many new ones are introduced through out the series. Other characters that Entertainment News says we can look forward to seeing include Mace Tyrell and the Magnar of Thenn.
Season four of "Game of Thrones" is expected to premier in spring 2014, with a very rough guess of 255 days to go.
The 'Harry Potter' films star Daniel Radcliffe (r.), Rupert Grint (second from right), Emma Watson (second from l.), and Matthew Lewis (l.). (Discovery Times Square/PR Newswire)
Harry Potter's Diagon Alley: visit on Google Street View
Harry Potter fans, can’t make it to the UK to do the Warner Bros. studio tour?
Not to worry. Google Maps has got you covered.
Through the Google Maps Street View, viewers can now virtually walk through the Diagon Alley set that is part of the studio tour in the facilities in Leavesden, Hertfordshire. The sights available include many storefronts, including those of magical bookstore Flourish and Blotts, Ollivander’s wand shop, ice cream parlor Florian Fortescue’s, and the joke shop owned by mischief-loving twins Fred and George titled Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.
In the Harry Potter novels, Diagon Alley is an area full of shops, located in London, which is only accessible to those who live in the magical world.
According to the site The Next Web, Google’s project represents the first time the movie set has been photographed.
Be sure to check out the wanted posters hanging on one edge of the set, which include those for notorious villain Bellatrix Lestrange, a couple for misunderstood convict Sirius Black, and some for Harry Potter himself when the government puts a reward out for his capture. (And if you’re trying to maintain the illusion when you’re looking through the street view, keep your eyes averted from the green screen on one side.)
Check out the street view here and see how many Potter places you can spot.
Alice Munro decides to retire as an author at age 82.
Can authors ever really retire?
Author Alice Munro recently created a stir when she announced her retirement from writing, following an example set by novelist Phillip Roth, who declared last autumn that he had also written his last book.
Munro is 82, and Roth is 80, each well past the standard retirement age. Even so, the idea of writers trading their keyboards for gold watches still seems unusual. One of the small benefits of writing, after all, is that one can presumably continue doing it at any age, and many authors keep plugging along, despite the march of years.
John Updike, who was still publishing work until shortly before his death in 2009 at age 76, made the case for keeping at it in one of his last essays, “The Writer in Winter.”
“An aging writer has the not insignificant satisfaction of a shelf of books behind him that, as they wait for their ideal readers to discover them, will outlast him for a while,” Updike told readers. “The pleasures for him, of bookmaking – the first flush of inspiration, the patient months of research and plotting, the laser-printed final draft, the back-and-forthing with Big Apple publishers, the sample pages, the jacket sketches, the proofs, and at last the boxes from the printers, with their sweet heft and smell of binding glue – remain, and retain creation’s giddy bliss.”
But as Munro pointed out in her interview with The New York Times, there’s also a lot to be said for putting down the pen and enjoying life. “There is a nice feeling about being just like everyone else now,” she said.
A few days after Munro’s big splash in The Times, though, author Oliver Sacks published a Times essay about the joys of turning 80. He said he wants to keep working indefinitely. “When my time comes, I hope I can die in harness,” Sacks wrote.
The question of retirement for a writer boils down to personal choice, of course, but all the recent attention on the topic is a potent reminder of the wordsmiths who are still churning out poetry and prose, even in the full bloom of maturity.
Here, as a suggested theme for summer reading, are some recommended titles from five senior writers who are still on the job:
1) Oliver Sacks. Even at four-score years, Sacks routinely makes the bestseller list with his intriguing tales from the world of neurological science, including “Hallucinations,” just out in paperback. (Vintage, $15.95) Sacks proves as good as ever in this nonfiction account of what the eye sees – or thinks it sees – and the author’s reflections on his odd experiences with psychedelic drugs make this perhaps his most personal narrative yet.
2) William Zinsser. The celebrated author of “On Writing Well,” a classic guide to the craft, continues to work as a writing coach at 90, even though the recent loss of his sight forced him to give up his online column for The American Scholar. The essays from that column were recently collected in “The Writer Who Stayed” (Paul Dry Books, 14.95). Also available from Paul Dry’s backlist are two classic Zinsser reprints: “American Places,” his travelogue of national landmarks, and “Mitchell & Ruff,” his account of a pivotal visit to China by American jazz musicians in 1981.
3) Edward Hoagland. Hailed by John Updike as “the best essayist of my generation,” Hoagland is still knitting sentences together at 80, as evidenced by his recent essay collection, “Sex and the River Styx” (Chelsea Green, $17.95). Hoagland’s essays display the emotional complexity of a novel, and they have deepened in emotional resonance as Hoagland has matured. “Summer won’t be endless now; nor episodes of drama and romance,” he writes of aging in “A Last Look,” a landmark essay in the book. In spite of that, Hoagland still finds the winter of his life full of adventure – and insightful observation. “Alaskan Travels” (Arcade Publishing, $22.95), Hoagland’s reminiscence of his travels in the Great White North, is a great companion title.
4) Mary Oliver. Cited by The New York Times as “America’s bestselling poet,” the 77-year-old Oliver crafts poems in the tradition of Robert Frost, offering introspective musings inspired by the New England landscape. “A Thousand Mornings” (Penguin, $24.95) shows Oliver at the top of her form, especially in “Today,” which expresses her views on the serenity of aging: “Today I’m flying low and I’m / not saying a word. / I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.” Penguin plans to publish a collection of Oliver’s canine poems, “Dog Songs,” in October.
5) W.D. Wetherell. Novelist and essayist W.D Wetherell turns 65 this year, but retirement doesn’t seem likely for one of America’s most consistently engaging writers. In “Yellowstone Autumn” (University of Nebraska Press, $24.95), Wetherell recalled coming to terms with aging while spending his 55th birthday in Yellowstone National Park. “The Writing on the Wall” (Arcade, $24.95) his 2012 novel, is an engrossing tale of a woman who seeks solace in an old vacation house, only to discover that she’s not really alone. But my favorite Wetherell book is “On Admiration” (Skyhorse, $12.95), an autobiography improvised from the author’s survey of people he’s admired over the years. “No book like this has ever been attempted before,” he says in introducing his concept. The desire to find something new, even after decades of experience, is what keeps many seasoned authors writing – and seasoned readers following along.
Promo shot of Kristen Bell, who plays Veronica Mars, for the Veronica Mars movie.
Veronica Mars seals a book deal
Veronica Mars is making a comeback after a six-year hiatus. Not only is a movie scheduled for a 2014 release, but now there is a book deal featuring the sassy young TV detective as well.
Kristen Bell played Veronica Mars in the popular TV show which ran from 2004 to 2007. In the show, Veronica, then still a teen, wooed and won audiences with her portrayal of a young detective-in-training working in the fictional town of Neptune, Calif.
Fans mourned when the show was cancelled. But then, last year, Rob Thomas, the creator of Veronica Mars, joined forces with Bell to create a Kickstarter project and raised $5.7 million to give Veronica Mars new life in a feature film.
Now, according to Entertainment Weekly, “Vintage Books has announced a two-book deal with Rob Thomas and Alloy Entertainment to publish additional adventures of Neptune’s resident detective.” The first book will begin where "Veronica Mars: The Movie" leaves off, with Veronica at the age of 28. The book is scheduled for release in spring 2014.
Thomas, who says that he originally intended Veronica Mars as a young adult novel, adds that he is, "thrilled that [he's] going to get the opportunity to continue telling Veronica Mars stories in a form I've loved and missed".
The show's many fans should be overjoyed by this project which hints at a sustainable future for the young detective. The TV version of Veronica Mars won considerable acclaim during its three years of life. The show was nominated for two Satellite Awards, four Saturn Awards, and five Teen Choice Awards. It was also featured on AFI's TV Programs of the Year in 2005.
'Saving Mr. Banks' stars Tom Hanks (l.) and Emma Thompson (r.). (L: Charles Sykes/AP R: AP)
'Saving Mr. Banks' trailer explores how 'Mary Poppins' was adapted for the big screen (+video)
The first trailer for the film “Saving Mr. Banks,” which follows the story of how P.L. Travers’ children’s novel “Mary Poppins” became a Disney film, was recently released.
The movie stars Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson as Travers, who is wary of Disney and his production team’s wishes to turn her beloved book into a movie.
The trailer shows Thompson traveling to Los Angeles to meet with Hanks and his company about the possible film. As seen in the trailer, Travers apparently had no patience for those who didn’t get her creation right.
“Introducing the creator of our beloved Mary,” Disney writer Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), who would pen the screenplay for “Poppins,” announces as she arrives.
“Poppins,” Thompson corrects him. “Never, ever just Mary.”
She also was wary of the movie getting the Disney treatment (“I know what he’s going to do to her,” Thompson says during the trailer. “She’ll be cavorting and winking”) and impatient of Disney-like cuteness.
“Responstible is not a word!” Thompson snaps at the Sherman brothers (Jason Schwartzman plays Richard and B.J. Novak plays Robert), who composed the music.
“We made it up,” Schwartzman tells her.
“Well, unmake it up,” she says with finality, causing him to hide the sheet music for “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
But the most important sticking point, according to the movie, was Disney’s misguided idea (at first) of what the story was really about.
“You think Mary Poppins has come to save the children?” Thompson asks Hanks. “Oh, dear.”
Other cast members include Colin Farrell as Travers’ father, “How Sweet It Is” actress Victoria Summer as Julie Andrews, “The Fighter” actress Dendrie Taylor as Disney’s wife Lillian, and Paul Giamatti as Ralph, who meets Thompson at the airport in the movie’s trailer.
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