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 Thursday, August 09, 2007
Will I See You in Chicago?
Posted by maggie
As schedules turned out, I won't be heading for Wizard World Chicago until tomorrow morning -- and it'll take about five hours or more to drive there. So at the moment, it's back to packing and trying to remember what to take along. As was the case last year, Comics Buyer's Guide will be (as we say) walking the floor, rather than staking out a booth -- so I can't guarantee where I'll be when (though I'm hoping to contribute somehow to Mr. Silver Age's Friday panel at 3:30 p.m. in the Marshall Rogers Room). And Friday night I'm heading to a silent movie (thanks to the ongoing enthusiasms of Andrew Pepoy, who makes the arrangements in advance). And and and. You can see what I look like, if you check this blog's header, above. Say hi! You'll also spot me from the cameras I'll be toting. I don't know whether I'll ever be able to post it, but I've got video from the February Javits Center show and the San Diego show. Let's see what I can get in Chicago!
8/9/2007 2:44:21 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Wednesday, August 08, 2007
And Who WAS That Masked Man?
Posted by maggie
No, not The Lone Ranger. The other masked man. Photo taken Sunday at Comic-Con International: San Diego. The gear is authentic. So who is it? 
8/8/2007 4:15:00 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Other Eisner Awards Photos
Posted by maggie
I'm sure you've already seen lots of photos of Jonathan Ross kissing Neil Gaiman at the July 27, 2007, Eisner Awards. Heck, we posted some of my shots of The Snog at CBGXtra.com. But I thought you might enjoy a couple of other photos. Top one is Neil taken aback to be receiving the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award for the Many, Many Good Things He Does. (His comment on his website: "I said that the world of comics was a family, and you look after your family.") Second photo is of The Dynamic Duo of the Evening: Award Wrangler Jane Wiedlin (of The Go-Go's) and Master of Ceremonies Bill Morrison (of Bongo). One Eisner Award winner had been presented with a sort of World Wrestlers Belt and had left it onstage, which was just as well, because it looked great on her, don't you think?  
8/8/2007 4:11:08 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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I Have the Key to the Marvel Vault!
Posted by maggie
Wow! Running Press has just sent me a copy of The Marvel Vault by Roy Thomas and Peter Sanderson, a so-called "A Museum-in-a-Book" that looks to be a gem of considerable luster. The promotional material said it's scheduled for release in October, but Rory Root had copies at his Comic Relief booth at Comic-Con International: San Diego. (The only reasons I didn't buy a copy there were the combination of its being heavy and my concern that it'd get damaged in shipping. The copy I just received here, by the way, came through fine.) I'd drooled over it at the show, after a fast glance through its pages -- and I still haven't had the chance to do much more than gloat over it in the presence of other CBG staffers: "Nyah, nyah! I got a copy of this incredible volume! Weep with jealousy!" It's a spiral-bound volume, full-color, its 192 heavy pages packed with information. But wait! There's more! It's the sort of thing we always dreamed of: not only a history of Marvel from 1932 (with a photo of Publisher Martin Goodman) to 2007 (complete with promotional images from 2007) and beautiful reproductions of lots and lots and lots of art, but also ... Also plastic pockets containing stunning goodies in carefully designed formats. "Sketches" from 1941 and 1942, reproduced to look as if they were, indeed, pencilled on aged drawing paper that had been stored away ever since. Faithful (albeit reduced) reproductions of postcards Bill Everett sent to his daughter in 1956. A repro of Stan Lee's original synopsis for Fantastic Four #1. And more, more, more. And that's just from an initial glance through the first 70 pages. This is a must-buy for any Marvel fan. ISBN 0-7624-2844-9. $49.95. Wow.
8/8/2007 2:52:00 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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If You're Trying to Reach NYC People Today ...
Posted by maggie
... you may not be able to, because that area is suffering from nasty weather on 8/8. Daughter Valerie just called to say she was fine, though it took her three and a half extra hours to get to work at E. 57th and Second. A tree hit her train, etc., etc. Many offices, stores, and the like will either be short-staffed or unable to open. So, if you were planning that chatty conversation with someone at Marvel or DC, you might want to wait till tomorrow.
8/8/2007 10:54:35 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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A Picture Is Worth ...
Posted by maggie
... well, whatever. The point is that I've finally had a chance to save some of my con photos to disc and have gone back to embellish some earlier postings. (And discovered that I told the same anecdote twice. Sigh. The learning curve is loooooong.) So, even if you've been devotedly reading this blog right along, you might want to zip back through the archives to see what may have been illuminated since last you visited.
8/8/2007 8:21:04 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Media Views of History
Posted by maggie
We have a movie-watching group at the office. A number of staffers in different Krause Publications departments meet for lunch once a month with a goal of discussing a film (picked the month before from one member's list of three). This month's pick was Ivanhoe, starring Robert Taylor. I watched the DVD last night, and it brought to mind my favorite reference book regarding this sort of film: The Hollywood History of the World (1988, New York: Beech Tree Books) by George MacDonald Fraser (author of the Flashman series), who gets past the criticisms of this era of such films (too clean-looking, for example) to look at the accuracies of historical movies. Though he does have such remarks as:
To some extent, Hollywood has had to create the Middle Ages in its own image, and has not been helped by the fact that men in armour are difficult to take seriously. They not only look clumsy and overdressed, clanking about and inviting ribaldries about spanners and tin-openers, they seldom sound right either. This is largely the fault of Sir Walter Scott, who imposed his own style of 'Look-for-the-knight-of-the-Fetterlock-fair-Rebecca' dialogue on the Age of Chivalry, setting a pattern which survived well into talking pictures; in the 1950s they were still 'prithee-my-liege'-ing away because it was the traditional thing to do, and audiences were supposed to expect it.
(I note that the Ivanhoe screenwriter didn't do that. Good for him!)
Fraser comments on his suspicion that, "however faithful the research, costumes, weaponry, and the like, no representation of medieval combat can give us a wholly accurate impression of what it was really like ... I would still like to see two modern armies clad in plate and mail, the cavalry cap-a-pie on shire horses, and equipped with the best our museums could provide, and let them get on with it. I have a notion that within fifteen minutes they would all be prostrate, yet this, presumably, did not happen at Crecy or Bannockburn or Agincourt. We know that only a small proportion of medieval fighters wore full armour, but they are the ones I am concerned with, and I must suppose either that combat took place in slow motion or, more probably, that there was a technique to wearing and moving in armour that has been lost. I also suspect, in the face of scholarly opinion, that our ancestors, whatever their stature, were stronger than we are, and anyone who doubts this will oblige me by going to Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum and lifting, let alone wielding, one of the two-handed claymores on display there."
Discussing Knights of the Round Table:
This, and other armoured epics, owed much to Robert Taylor, who was not an obvious costume player. As a clean-cut heart-throb of the late thirties he seemed to belong in slacks and sports jacket, but while he was no Flynn or Power or Fairbanks when it came to swashbuckling, he had something they lacked, an air of stern but good-natured gentlemanliness. It seemed to fit him exactly for the tales of Walter Scott, and it is pleasant to think that he brought something of the great enchanter's work to millions who would never have ploughed through the originals.
Going on to Ivanhoe in particular, he comments that the film holds to the Scott novel, "more or less."
... besides sundry jousts there is a most realistic duel between Ivanhoe and Bois-Gilbert ... Anyone interested in the technique of the medieval weapon known as the flail (a spiked ball and chain on a short handle) will find this scene illuminating.
Yes, ouch.
In any case, it's interesting that -- despite comics' focus on action adventure -- comic-book stories involving that era have always been minimal. My guess is that, not only is there a hesitation about doing historical adventures because of the problems of accurate portrayal of an era, simply drawing the doggoned armor (not to mention the horses) is too tricky for many artists of today.
Even more of a tip of the hat, then, to Eric Shanower for his Age of Bronze series, in which he not only tells the story of an even earlier era well but gets correct the scholarship of his images.
8/8/2007 6:51:13 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Just Read Black Adam #1 ...
Posted by maggie
Grim 'n' gritty (well, what did you expect with one of those patented rotting-body covers DC produces every so often?) Part One of Six, but I was intrigued by a plot direction I hadn't foreseen. The story by Peter J. Tomasi (drawn by Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, and Norm Rapmund) involves the Fawcett characters still further with the DC universe. Nope, never saw it coming.
8/7/2007 4:45:47 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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I've Said It Before, and I'll Say It Again
Posted by maggie
There's something about blogging that brings out the "here's what I had for breakfast" streak in many of us. I bought SuperPhone so's to post during the San Diego show: planning that I could post each event as it happened, serving as a news feed and as a way to maintain my own notes. It would be packed with all sorts of gossip and wise perspective. Instead: Here's what I had for breakfast. And I kept lousy notes. Let's take a look: July 25: I chatted with (argh! " chatted"! speaking of the streak in many of us! I don't just talk with people; I chat with them) Milton Griepp, as we waited in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport waiting to board the plane for San Diego. He was calling in fixes for his ICv2 magazine, and he said his cab driver told him he'd already taken a couple of other Madison residents to the airport for the trip to SDCC. Getting on the plane, I walked by (and said a quick Hi! to) Neil Gaiman, who had the first seat in First Class. Other con-attendees-to-be were seated elsewhere on the plane. Nice. Wrangled calls from Brent (coming the next day) and Karen Kraft (who used to be a Discovery Channel producer and planned to attend the SDCC briefly -- whch she did). I realized I still wasn't recognizing my new cell phone ring. I was That Annoying Person You Know So Well: Who's the jerk who's not answering the cell phone? Oh. Me. Oops. (Yeah, yeah, here's what I had for breakfast.) The flight attendant wrapped up the opening speech with, "Thank you for your tension." Later in the flight, one of the attendants near me opined that there wouldn't be another Harry Potter film because the actors would be too old. Har. (I have all sorts of commentary on Hallows, but this is probably even less of a place for that discussion than it is for breakfast details. I will say that the book demands a second reading to get all the juice out of it, and I've now [Aug. 7] begun listening to the great Jim Dale audiobook version.) July 26: Overheard one Comic-Con International: San Diego volunteer talking to a new recruit: "Floor Manager is a thankless job. You walk the entire floor for four days, telling exhibitors, 'You're breaking the rules.' " Comparing and contrasting the Marvel Postage Stamp Presentation (2007) to the DC Postage Stamp Presentation (2006): There was less of an "event" feel about it. The DC unveiling made a point of including the comics creators connected with the stamps in question; the Marvel unveiling didn't even pay tribute to the fact that Len Wein (co-creator of Wolverine) was in the audience. And the Postal Service booth? It was #5500, and I did try to find it, trudging along the wall from booth to booth, but with no success. People did assure me it was there, but the show is so vast that most displays get me to look for them once -- and only once. (I did try repeated visits to the booth at which Ron Goulart appeared, but he was never there as I drifted by, doggone it.) Let's post this so's not to take a chance on losing what I've written so far, OK?
8/7/2007 1:37:55 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Monday, August 06, 2007
How Do The Big Guys Do It?
Posted by maggie
Home today, in the office for a while, then off to Wizard World Chicago. Not much time to breathe, much less do laundry.
8/6/2007 10:51:01 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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Did the Airline Rules Change AGAIN?
Posted by maggie
So I'm in the airport early and hoping to leave on an earlier flight, as I've so often done with United. I'm traveling with carry-ons only, Northwest obviously has seats left, so can I get on the earlier flight?
Only if I fork over $25 more. Sure, I will. In your dreams. What sense does that make? Now, my fingers are crossed regarding United, hoping its policies haven't morphed this way. If they haven't, I'm thinking it's United for me from now on.
8/6/2007 10:46:50 AM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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 Sunday, August 05, 2007
Did I Mention ...
Posted by maggie
... that, between them, Peter David and Mark Evanier have lost ME since last year? That's no abstraction: The two have slimmed down to a staggering -- and inspirational -- extent. They mentioned something about eating less. Hmm ...
8/5/2007 4:02:42 PM (Central Daylight Time, UTC-05:00)
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