George Miller Leads The Justice League!

It's official. George Miller is directing The Justice League for Warner Brothers.

Before today I felt indifferent at best about this movie. You try to cram that many superheroes into one room and it's probably gonna be a clusterfuck of Schumacherian proportions. But this is the director who brought us The Road Warrior and Babe. This is the only guy who ever remade a Twilight Zone episode that surpassed the original. There's going to be (has already been) a lot of kvetching about what heroes and villains should be included/left out. But I'm telling you right now none of that matters. I don't care who's in this version of the team. I don't care if the set piece is Blue Beetle versus Starro. As long as Miller is directing we're assured a unique and thrilling action adventure.

Okay, no Vibe. But that's my only stipulation! Otherwise Miller has carte blanche.

Not Even Kirby Could Help Disney's Black Hole

The current and surely final issue of Disney's Comics Zone digest reprints the first few installments of Jack Kirby's Black Hole adaptation. Yeah, I know I told you it was in another issue HERE, but it looks like I was mistaken. Look for the issue with those annoying little shits from that wretched High School Musical on the cover (You know, I really shouldn't bust on High School Musical. Sure, it's garbage, but who am I to judge? I liked Grease when I was a kid. Grease, ferchrissakes! And I wasn't even gay.* Just lame.)

The art is credited entirely to Kirby, yet I can't help but think there was another inker involved. It looks a little too smooth for the Kirby of that era. The King pays careful attention to detail in recreating the robots and sets from Disney's sci-fi opus, but doesn't bother to capture anyone's likeness. There's not a single Borgnine in the bunch. I guess he was working from pre-production reference material. At least there were no glaring inconsistencies like Al Williamson's purple Yoda. Unfortunately not even KirbyMagic can save the famously dull story. By the third page I realized I had no idea what I was reading and just looking at the pretty pictures. I'd love to see the rest of this, but Disney Adventures just went belly up. Maybe it's time someone reprinted this as a Treasury Edition!

The rest of the issue is pretty solid, except for the aforementioned High School Musical material. It's not even an actual comic, but a "sneak peek" consisting of nothing but character illustrations (Cut 'em out and pin 'em up! Suitable for framing!) for a forthcoming issue. Well, at least DA's cancellation saved us from that pile of suck.

*Actually, I was totally gay.

Schulz And Peanuts

The current issue of Vanity Fair has an excerpt from Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis. Just look for the issue featuring the ghostly visage of She Who Used To Be Nicole Kidman. This is an unprecedented biography. There is relatively little known about Schulz, whom I consider to be one of the definitive American artists. From the Publishers Weekly review-
For all the joy Charlie Brown and the gang gave readers over half a century, their creator, Charles Schulz, was a profoundly unhappy man. It's widely known that he hated the name Peanuts, which was foisted on the strip by his syndicate. But Michaelis (N.C. Wyeth: A Biography), given access to family, friends and personal papers, reveals the full extent of Schulz's depression, tracing its origins in his Minnesota childhood, with parents reluctant to encourage his artistic dreams and yearbook editors who scrapped his illustrations without explanation. Nearly 250 Peanuts strips are woven into the biography, demonstrating just how much of his life story Schulz poured into the cartoon. In one sequence, Snoopy's crush on a girl dog is revealed as a barely disguised retelling of the artist's extramarital affair. Michaelis is especially strong in recounting Schulz's artistic development, teasing out the influences on his unique characterization of children. And Michaelis makes plain the full impact of Peanuts' first decades and how much it puzzled and unnerved other cartoonists. This is a fascinating account of an artist who devoted his life to his work in the painful belief that it was all he had.

Harper releases the book October 16.

Amazon has a little Q&A with Michaelis HERE.

Narnians With Kids- UPDATED

It must be Popular Fantasy Book To Film Day today. No sooner do I post some filler tripe about Harry Potter chachkies than this comes along. Cinematical has the poster for the new Narnia film, Prince Caspian-

Disney says they're commited to producing every Narnia book, once a year, just like Mr. Jackson did for Middle Earth. I'm late to the Narnian train myself. Just yesterday I finished the first book, The Magician's Nephew. As I was the last to find out, Magician's Nephew is more of a prologue than an actual novel. But I still enjoyed it. This is surprising because I've found that I generally don't like traditional modern fantasy. I read it only because my daughter started in on the books and I wanted to keep up. So now I have a renewed interest in the Narnia series. After I read Wardrobe I'll have to check out the movie, which right now looks to me like a bland CGI test reel. From what I understand, it's actually not a bad adaptation. So perhaps the book will help me appreciate the visual splendor of thousands of cartoon manbeasts running across the grass with spears and swords and shit.

UPDATE 9/20- IGN.com says production on the third film, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, has been delayed. It's now scheduled for a May, 2010 release date. Guess it's not so easy to roll like Jackson. Read the full article HERE.

Defend Hobbits and goblins and viking trolls right HERE.

The Many Faces of Potter

The last book may have been published this summer, but you haven't heard the last of Hogwarts. We've still got two movies and countless DVD editions coming down the pipe. DVDActive has specs on a new DVD gift set coming out December 11th (just in time for Xmas, of course). How crazy stupid is it to have this much crap for a series that isn't even complete yet?

Speaking of the books, Philadelphia's City Paper has an article about the numerous editions published around the world. Pity poor Mary GrandPre HERE.

The article links to a gallery of variant covers.

Sweden really knows how to rock a Potter cover:

I'm not sure what book they're reading in Italy:

And in the Irish edition it seems as though poor Harry is struck dead by the train before he even gets to Hogwarts:

Building A New Generation of Online Consumers and Penguins

Slate.com has a couple of articles up today examining online social sites for kids. They take a look at some of the biggies- Webkinz, Club Penguin, Millsberry. Click it HERE and HERE to read the articles. I was surprised to learn that these sights are targeted to middle-graders. My daughter is a member of Club Penguin and she's only eight. Being a clueless dad, I figured she was hob-knobbing with other kids her age. Perhaps she is, but apparently most of the members are 'tweens or middle-graders or whatever the hell else we're calling 12 year olds these days. I walked away from these articles feeling confident that Club Penguin is the best of the lot. It seems to be the site most devoted to conversation and e-hanging out, as opposed to mindless consumerism.
Speaking of mindless consumerism, Webkinz is the worst offender I've seen yet. To give you some idea of what I'm talking about, here's an excerpt from the Slate article-

My daughter and I went to an actual store where I purchased a $15 stuffed poodle that came with an access code allowing entry to the paid part of Webkinz.com, a site owned by the stuffed-animal retailer Ganz. The goal at Webkinz: to accumulate enough wealth to keep your stuffed-animal avatar living in the kind of style to which a Leona Helmsley pet could become accustomed.

It encourages a vapid collector mentality not only online but in real life as well. The more crappy little dolls you buy at the mall, the more crappy little virtual characters you can have. Crappy little virtual characters that exist to work virtual jobs so they can make virtual cash to spend on more useless virtual crap. Now the makers of Webkinz claim this teaches kids responsibility because their online counterparts have to earn money before they can spend it. On crap. Of course these claims are pulled from the ether as there has been no research done on these new games. Such defenses remind me of my own bullshit justifications for playing so much Galaga back in the day, "But mom, it teaches hand/eye coordination!" It seems to me the site teaches kids that money is made to be spent on superficial garbage. Sure, kids hardly need to be taught to want every shiny trinket they see on the shelves. But by making kids "work" to earn their virtual trinkets, Webkinz is legitimizing the pursuit of materialism by equating it with responsible adult behavior.
Club Penguin is guilty of this as well. You may not have to buy any stuffed penguins at the toy store, but you can buy fashion accessories for your penguin characters. And I have to shell out six bucks a month. That's real bucks, not virtual bucks.

Ideally, I'd like to see all the shopping activities expunged from these sites. My own version would combine one of my daughter's favorite computer games, Zoo Tycoon, with Club Penguin. Instead of shopping for hats and boas, your virtual penguin uses it's penguin cash to build an aquarium or an amusement park. Other penguins can join in and help. Then after your park is finished, you open it to the public and voila- an online social destination you paid for and built yourself.
I like the social interaction aspect of these sites. I don't belong to the group of parents wringing their hands over time lost on the playground playing with "real" kids. My kids do plenty of that as well. These sites can be the 21st century equivalent of having pen pals. As they open up and more kids join, my daughter could end up going to a penguin party with kids from all over the world. And that's pretty cool.

Visit our own hoppin' online social scene HERE!

Dorkin & Dyer Talk About Godzilla and Super Martian Robot Girls

Nick and Nora.
Steve and Eydie.
Evan and Sarah.
Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer have always been the coolest kids on the indie comics scene. Dubious praise, to be sure. Their prolific mountain of work simultaneously celebrates and eviscerates geek culture. Evan's (in)famous Milk & Cheese comics brought the hate and Sarah's Action Girl let gurls into the clubhouse. But comicbooks like Dork, Hectic Planet and The Murder Family are just the tip of the iceberg of larfs. They've also created comics for Disney Adventures, Nickelodeon, and Mad Magazine to name a few. Their television writing includes Space Ghost Coast To Coast and the cult favorite pilot The Eltingville Club for Cartoon Network, Superman and Batman Beyond for WB, and now a bold new step into the youngest demographic of all. The two are contributing to Nick Jr's new show for toddlers, Yo Gabba Gabba (see me pimp it HERE). Their work on YGG has already received rave reviews from their 2 year old daughter, Emily.

NWK- What did you guys bring to Yo Gabba Gabba?

Evan- We brought signs that read, "Please Hire Us." And some sandwiches and folding chairs. And we had Emily hold a little sign that read, "I'm So Hungry. Please Give Daddy a Job". After a while we were asked to leave the premises by security. Sarah started a scuffle over one of the sandwiches.
It got pretty ugly.
I made that stuff up, by the way. There was no fight, we just left.
Um, anyway, we worked on the Super Martian Robot Girl cartoon segments. That's what we brought. Brang. Brung.
Did.

Sarah- To be, uh, serious, the main thing we brought was a comic-book aesthetic to the show. There was no other animated segment with a "comic" look until we came on to do the SMRG animation design.

NWK- How did you get involved?

Evan- Christian Jacobs called up asking if we wanted to work on the Super Martian Robot Girl segments.

Sarah-We've known Christian for years. We met after an Aquabats show and have always stayed in touch. When the first YGG! clips went online I showed them to Emily, and when we found out that Christian was one of the people behind it I wrote him to tell him how much she loved everything. We ended up talking YGG! on and off until we ended up doing the design work.

Evan- He had sent the original pilot material to us pretty early on, way before there was any talk of us doing anything for the show. We were fans, and Emily was pretty much hypnotized by the DVD, so getting the offer was pretty exciting for us.
They were doing the Martian Girl segment in live action , and they wanted us to design her costume and do the art for the facsimile comic book the characters read before the stories kick off. They wanted the comic to look like a Marvel treasury edition. We based the back cover on back cover of the first Treasury, a Spider-Man head drawn by John Romita, with burst lines around it.
To try to make a long-ish story short, the segment was rejected by Nickelodeon, and in an effort to save it Christian decided to rework it as a Flash cartoon utilizing the original live-action vocal track. They wanted the art to match the comic book covers and interior panels, so we were hired to adapt the segment to animated form. Sarah did an animatic-style storyboard breakdown, and then we designed all the characters, props and backgrounds, using the live action as a guideline.
We also did key mouth positions and poses. Animators at Wildbrain did the actual animation.

Sarah-Wildbrain did the test SMRG segment, the "Jumbo Shrimp" segment from "Summer". After Nick Jr. saw that and approved the rest of the segments, the work was divided between two different animation teams: Gibbs & Keri Rainock ( http://monkeygrinder.biz/) -- who are another married couple with a little girl, funny enough -- did two; Sean Dicken and Gooby Herms did the other 5 as well as designed the one we weren't able to do.
Nickelodeon was happy with the cartoon version, and we ended up designing the rest of the segments, save one done by some other folks because of (our) tight schedule.

NWK- Did you gear your material towards a specific audience, yourselves or your daughter?

Evan- We worked a specific job with specific parameters, so things were pretty much laid out and obvious. You kind of know what not to put in all-ages material. The material has a few small nods to things adults might get, like a guy who looks like Tarzan mixed with Johnny Ramone, for instance. But a lot of that was pre-ordained by the live action, and you don't want to get too cute when your real objective is to entertain small children. We just tried to do solid work and put as much into it we could under tight deadlines.

NWK- You guys have done kids material for years. Has parenthood made you approach your writing differently?

Evan- Speaking for myself, no.

Sarah- No, although I can't say it never will.

NWK- Unless their parents are hopeless geeks, do you think kids will be reading comics in the next ten years?

Sarah- I think kids will always read comics, in magazine, on the web, in books...I don't know if kids will be going into comic stores though. Then again, how many of them do now?

Evan- They'll still be reading manga in ten years. A few will be reading Archie, and hopefully things like Nickelodeon and Mad Kids will still be in operation. Highlights still has comics, I think. But the manga books are the only real force in kid's comics now, which is fine by me.
For years there was practically nothing selling to kids. DC and Marvel obviously don't want to create kids comics, or can't, or in DC's case pays lip service to them with the Cartoon Network stepchild line. A small number of kids will read their parent's old comics, Little Lulu, Disney, old all-ages superhero stuff without any of the current "mature readers" rape or mutilation stuff.
Emily already pulls down my Astro Boy books because the character appeals to her. She flips through Pokemon storybooks and she mangled up a Superman Adventures collection we were in. She might end up liking comics. But she might also end up sick of comics living with me.

NWK- What kind of childrens shows or books do you (or Emily) enjoy or recommend?

Evan- Rolie Polie Olie, Pee Wee's Playhouse, the 60's Shirley Temple T.V. series (which adapted kid's books, including a puppet version of Winnie the Pooh), the Pippi Longstocking movies, Yo Gabba Gabba (honest), Pingu, My Neighbor Totoro, Frog & Toad and Curious George model animation shorts, Cheburashka.
That's almost everything she's watched, we don't let her zombie out in front of the tube much. She'll have plenty of time to kill when she's older and unemployed. I'm pretty sure she's seen Teletubbies and liked it but we never got back around to it. I think she'd watch Pokemon non-stop if we got into it. One day, I'm sure, it'll happen eventually. We have some of the vinyl toys and she fell for them hard.
She also likes a lot of Takashi Miike films, Audition and Ichi the Killer, especially. Okay, I'm kidding. She actually likes Beat Takeshi films.
Book-wise, we read a lot of Little Golden books to her (pretty much the "classic" and older ones which have much better art by folks like Tenngren, JP Miller, Mary Balir, et al, and aren't hack job ads for toys or movies). Emily inherited our children's book collection and she has a lot of her own. She really likes a picture book called Hug, another called Love and Kisses, some of the Pokemon storybooks, Margaret Wise Brown books.
A couple of Godzilla storybooks. I have a big 80's Bandai Godzilla downstairs and she got into Godzilla playing with that. Hardcore collectors would wince watching her knock him around the room. I got over it a while ago. Toys have been the gateway for a lot of her babyhood geekiness.

Sarah- I'd like to point out that when Evan says "big 80s Godzilla" he means like, 2 feet high. Huge. Emily drags him around the house holding his hand. It cracks me up every time.

NWK- Assume you have total control of the comics or animation industry. What would you do with it?
(feel free to include your new policies for children's music, film, literature, etc.)

Evan- Get rid of all commercials in kid's television. Same goes for DVD's, especially the Disney ones. There's more, but that's number one.

Sarah-It's far too complicated to go into here but from everything I have read and looked into, I honestly think that most of the trouble with media for kids is the ads. I'd rather her play a videogame than watch commercial tv any day. We are 100% dvd-only (except for YGG) and even then you can't escape it. When Emily is older and I can't personally zip past all ads, we will definitely be working to mitigate the effects of advertising.

Evan-I can't stay awake long enough to even think about what I'd do to the comics industry. If I was in charge a lot of books would get canned tomorrow, and a lot of people would lose their jobs, that's for sure. But that's what would happen if anybody in comics became the all-powerful Emperor of Trash.
I'd order up a ton of old strip reprints, import some foreign comics I want to read, punch up the kid's offerings and marketing, come down hard on the direct market, break up Diamond's monopoly, change a lot of contracts, cut a lot of old cartoonists in on their creations, return some artwork to the rightful owners, burn a lot of comics, and probably sink the industry or get shot at the San Diego con by a disgruntled former editor-in-chief of DC.
Books: Ban Lemony Snicket.
Music: Ban They Might Be Giants. Ban all folkies.
In general: Ban any bullcrap project designed and marketed to supposedly make kids into prodigies.

NWK- Are there any plans to expand your careers towards more toys and clothes like the stuff on Jinjur.com?

Sarah- In the long run, it's something we're hoping to do. We have had a lot going on in our lives (not just Emily!) in the last couple years and we hope to feel totally caught up sometime early next year, at which point it's something I will be looking into more seriously. I've had some conversations but nothing has actually come to pass yet. In the meantime, if an opportunity presents itself I would say yes!

Evan-I'd love to do more toys, but we aren't in a position to make our own. We've done some toy designs and one-off custom figures, for charity and for a gallery show. We may do some more toys with SLG Publishing someday, but there's nothing on the board at the moment. Recently we designed the Milk and Cheese vinyl toys for SLG, but that's not for kids. Most kids. Some folks don't mind letting their kids read Milk and Cheese, bless their drunken hearts.

Visit www.houseoffun.com to see anything and everything Evan and Sarah are up to. From there you can link to Evan's live journal for updates on his newest projects and much kvetching about what irks him. Also from there you can visit Sarah's blogs about cool and freaky cuisine and crafts.

You can find Yo Gabba Gabba weekday mornings at 10:00 on Nick Jr.

Evan and Sarah also have a new comic called Biff Bam Pow coming out soon. It's a compilation of their superhero stuff from Nickelodeon Magazine. They will still produce occasional comics for Nickelodeon and Mad Magazine until the grim reaper eventually comes to collect those publications as well.

Let's chat it up on the message board HERE.

IRON MAN Trailer with 100% Less Fanboy Cheering UPDATE

Cinematical tells me a commercial for Iron Man (aka- The OMG Most Bestest Looking Movie Of Next Summer) will hit the airwaves next week. The commercial "premieres" during MTV's The Hills on Monday, September 10th. After that it can be seen during The Daily Show, CSI, Andy Griffith(!) on TVLand, and all over Spike TV, of course. The next day it hits the internet on Apple's Quicktime site. Word is the trailer is made up of the same footage shown at Comic-Con. I caught that presentation as soon as the bootleg video leaked to the net. It was muddled and grainy and people were talking and cheering over it and still it made me lose my shit.

UPDATE:

Apple has spared us the trouble of sitting through some shitty television (All apologies to Jon. And Andy.). The trailer is available on Quicktime NOW! Watch Tony Stark rock the block HERE!

Visit the message board HERE.

Kingdom of The Crystal Skull?

That's the official title. I like it alright. It certainly has the pulp ring to it. But then again, so did The Phantom Menace. It's actually a little strange that this title harkens back to the inspirations from the 1930's. The story supposedly takes place in the 1950's, so why not have the title harken back to that era? I guess it's because there just weren't any amazing high adventure movies playing the matinees back then and Indiana Jones & The Colossal Atomic Creature From Venus wouldn't work either.
Also, and this may just be a generational thing, but the title kind of makes me think of the Raiders rip-offs that were so prevalent in the 80's. The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull fits right in with Treasure of The Four Crowns and Alan Quartermain & The Lost City Of Gold.

Whip it good on the message board HERE.

Madeleine L'Engle, 1918-2007

Author Madeleine L'Engle died Thursday. She was 88.

A Wrinkle In Time was the first chapter book I ever read. I was eight years old and considered reading a "real" book quite an achievement. I noted to my mom there were only two small pictures (diagrams to help explain the theory behind time travel) and that was it! The rest was all words! I was pretty lucky to choose Wrinkle as my first foray into pure literature. As you probably already know, it's an excellent sci-fi/fantasy tale. I recently reread it when my daughter (8) recieved a copy for her birthday this year. I would dare say it remains timeless. I know people like to throw that word around about every fantasy tale from Beowulf to Harry Potter, but I think it applies here. The suburban household where Meg and her family live can still be any house today. The physics applied in the plot are still being examined today. Until we get those floating homes on The Jetsons or Uatu reveals himself to teach us how time and the universe really work, this series will endure.

Click it HERE for a look at the latest editions of the Time Quintet.

Click it HERE for a nice little write up in the Times.

Visit the message board HERE.

Disney's Final Adventure- Updated

It was bad enough in April when we lost the Nick Jr. Magazine. Now we're losing another olde fashioned reading periodical. This November will be the last time you see Disney Adventures on the racks at the checkout line. The colorful digest packed with comics and Disney promotional material thinly veiled as "articles" is another recent victim of this whole internet thingy. It's sad to see it go. I always made a point to pick up the special Comic Zone issues for my daughter (It was perfect for car trips). The comics were fun stuff from a lot of genuinely talented folks. Jeff Smith, Evan Dorkin, Mark Evanier and Art Adams were just some artists and writers who were able to bring their work out of the comic shops and into kids' hands. I think I'll especially miss Glenn McCoy's Tall Tails, his offbeat take on Mickey and Goofy.

Heidi MacDonald at The Beat (Publishers Weekly's comics blog) offers a nice send-off. She also links to remembrances from past contributors. Check it out HERE.

There's more depressing news attached to this. Roger Langridge, New Zealand's answer to Don Martin, produced a Muppets comic for DA. The Muppet Newsflash blog reports that the mag's cancellation has left Roger's cheese in the wind. Read about that HERE.

UPDATE!

I just wanted to mention that the issue currently on stands (pictured above) reprints a rarely seen Jack Kirby adaptation of The Black Hole! Here's a taste-

A New Age Of Discourse And Reason

Yesterday I dropped a Hamilton on the Nerds With Kids domain. You can now officially access the blog by typing www.nerdswithkids.com. This saves you the additional labor of typing ".blogspot." Who luvs yuh, baby?
Now I'm revving up a message board. I find the comments feature on Blogger to be kind of clunky and awkward. A message board frees up conversation and opens the door to different subjects. So click the link below and let the world wide web know exactly what you think about Maurice Sendak or The Transformers.
If you don't care to register, I'm pretty sure you can still post stuff as a guest.
If you're one of the few who posted on my old SlackTest board, you're already registered. It's the same board. I erased all those great old posts about MODOK. Sorry. That's all a part of the glorious cycle of life.
And of course you can still leave a comment on Blogger if that's how you roll.
I've got an official domain name. I've got a message board. There's no stopping this train of awesomeness now!

THE NERDS WITH KIDS FORUM. CLICK ME!

The Wizard Of Oz Shops At Hot Topic

As far as I'm concerned, Todd McFarlane retired sometime in the mid 90's. He's been spending the past ten years dabbling in toys and such the way senior citizens dabble in watercolors or square dancing. Now he's dabbling in film again and the results promise to be as original as Marilyn Manson's ooo!-scary take on Alice In Wonderland.
McFarlane is teaming up with writer Josh Olsen (A History of Violence) to make a film Variety calls "...a revisionist take on the L. Frank Baum books that hatched The Wizard of Oz." This is not to be confused with that other announced "reimagining" of Oz starring Zooey Deschanel. This version is presumably inspired by McFarlane Toy's bizarre line of Oz S&M figures.
Here are some pearls of wisdom from the same creative genius who brought us Spawn Vs. The Pedophilic Ice Cream Man: "My pitch was ‘How do we get people who went to Lord of the Rings to embrace this?’ I want to create (an interpretation) that has a 2007 wow factor. You’ve still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she’s much closer to the Ripley from ‘Alien’ than a helpless singing girl."
Clearly this man has a firm grip on what makes Baum's classic work.
Now, as I said, the screenwriter is the same man who adapted A History Of Violence, so this may not suck. From Variety's article- "I saw those toys, and Dorothy as some bondage queen isn’t something I want to do. The appealing thing about the Baum books to me is how wildly imaginative they are. There are crazy characters from amazing places. I want this to be ‘Harry Potter’ dark, not ‘Seven’ dark."
Here's the aforementioned McFarlane Toys figure of Dorothy as bondage queen:



You know, I may not mind seeing Zooey Deschanel in this version after all.
Find the full Variety article HERE.