Yes, that’s George Lucas, folks. So far it sounds like all he’s doing is producing, not directing, this film based on the script by the American Way writer John Ridley, and as long as it stays that way, things should go just fine.

And we’re back. Here I am, coming to you from Columbus, Ohio. The ride over was long, but uneventful, and now I’m in my new apartment with my friend and new roommate Max Ink. I’ve known Max for a number of years; he’s an immensely talented and influential cartoonist and he’s been gracious enough to not only set me up at his place, but to spend today showing me around town. I’ve even gotten to meet some of his friends.

To say that this is far removed from NYC would be a pretty big understatement. The cool places tend to be more on the periphery of town for the most part, and I got to see some of them today. Figuring out the buses is proving to be a bigger challenge than I thought, but at least there are a lot of them. Where we’re living feels like the outskirts of town, but Max insists it is part of the city proper. Doesn’t matter, though, since we’re planning on moving again later this summer. The lease is up on the apartment, and Max wants to move to a nicer neighborhood. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m positive I can make this work, but it’s gonna take some time.

So this is it. After 36 years and a few months, I’m about to leave New York for what will presumably be for good. Last night was my going-away party, and I had an even better time than I expected. I held it at this place in Queens called Bohemian Hall, which has the last outdoor beer garden in New York. Very popular spot in the summertime; an hour after opening and it was already filled to near capacity. I thought at first I might need two tables, but as it turned out, people arrived late, so when someone would leave, they’d be inevitably replaced with someone else, so the table was never too cramped. I had most of my close New York friends there, including some from out of town. I had a lot of beer. It was great. I spent today, my last full day in NYC, with my out-of-town friends through Queens and Manhattan. I got in a couple of hours ago and finished packing.

It still doesn’t feel quite real. I can’t believe that after all my plans, all my preparation, it’s finally come down to this. Like I’ve said before, it’s possible I could come back after a time, but I’m determined to go through with this. If I don’t do it now, I’m gonna regret not doing it, and that would drive me insane.

Good, bad… New York will always be a part of me. But that part of my life is over now.

My next post will be from Columbus, Ohio.

Holiday on Monday means new releases get pushed back a day…

Return to Wonderland HC
Raven Gregory interview

Raven Gregory’s reimagining of Alice in Wonderland gets collected in a hardcover.

Also this week:
JSA Classified #38. Art by Shawn Martinbrough.
Justice V1 TP. Pencils by Doug Braithwaite.
Immortal Iron Fist #15. Pencils by Khary Evans.
New Warriors #12, Young Avengers Presents #5 (of 6). Written by Kevin Grevioux.
Thor #9, Marvel 1985 #1 (of 6). Pencils to the former and cover for the latter by Olivier Coipel.
Satchel Paige HC, SC. The two-time GCA winner is offered again.
Sentinels Anthology GN

Also notable:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull #2 (of 2)
Batman #677. “Batman: RIP” continues.
Final Crisis #1 (of 7), All-Star Superman #11. Grant Morrison writes two of the hottest comics on the market, including the former, DC’s big event mini-series for 2008.
Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men #1. Whedon, Cassaday, mutants, blah blah blah.
King-Sized Hulk #1. Red Hulk fights a lotta heroes. Written by Jeph Loeb.
New Avengers #41. Secret Invasion tie-in.
Fathom #0. Michael Turner’s little side-project.
La Perdida TP, What It Is HC. Two GNs by two outstanding women creators - Jessica Abel and Lynda Barry, respectively.

Less than a week to go until The Big Move and yeah, I’m getting nervous. I’m still in the process of whittling down the things I’m gonna take with me to Columbus and throwing away the junk. you would not believe how much junk I’ve accumulated over the years - artwork, comics, clothes, books, assorted papers, CDs, tapes, art supplies - if nothing else, this move has forced me to finally get rid of all of it and it feels great. I’ve moved entire boxes of comics into one of my closets, knowing that there are more than a few I’ve yet to read and probably never will at this point. I suspect I’ll cut back on my comics buying for the first few months I’m in Columbus.

I feel I should stress the fact that I’m reserving the right to change my mind and return to NYC at some point in the future if things don’t work out. I’m treating this like it’s a permanent move, and technically it is, but I’d still like to have that back door available to me.

On Sunday I went to the superhero costume show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s not bad. They have fashion wear from big-name designers inspired by superhero costumes, past and present, along with costumes from superhero films and TV shows. I don’t know the first thing about high fashion, so I can’t critique the show properly - I mean, the fashion wear, to me, ranged from the utilitarian to the bizarre, but they were all kinda interesting interpretations, I guess. Lots of people were there to see it - young and old and in-between. If nothing else, this show has definitely come at just the right time in American pop culture history.

One on-topic item I wanna pass on here: One of the fixtures at ECBACC for the past few years has been filmmaker M. Asli Dukan, who is in the final stages of completing her documentary about blacks in science fiction, Invisible Universe. She still needs to raise some money, though, so visit her site and check out her trailer, and if you can, make a tax-deductible donation.

One of the greatest things about being involved in comics for as long as I have is that it has enabled me to travel around the country and see places I normally would never go. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, San Francisco, San Diego… I’ve been lucky enough to have visited all these great cities and more, and to have met so many different people, all as a direct result of being a writer/artist/editor/whatever. In many ways, it has made me appreciate my hometown of New York that much more. To an extent.

I’m a New Yorker through and through, and a part of me always will be. There are so many great things about this place that I enjoy, and I’m always finding new things to like as well. At the same time, however, there’s an awful lot about this town that I not only hate, but despise. As a result, I’ve had to question whether the former outweighs the latter. I’ve decided that it doesn’t.

Seeing other parts of the country (and other countries as well) has instilled in me a longing to travel more. As New Yorkers, we become so used to being the center of attention all the time and having so much of everything that it’s easy to forget sometimes that there are other places to live… and that while some of those places might not stack up to NYC in some aspects (and few do, let’s be honest), they have their own charms that make them just as worthy to settle down in.

At this point in my life, I need to live someplace smaller. Someplace that’s not as hectic and hostile and expensive. No place is perfect, I know that, but I need to see how other people live and try living differently, for awhile, at least… which is why I’m leaving NYC at the end of the month. I’m not ruling out the possibility of moving back one day – it’s certainly possible – but for now, I’m treating this like it’s permanent.

I thought about many different places to go to, but I finally settled on Columbus, Ohio. It’s a great comics town; I’ve been there before lots of times for both SPACE and the Mid-Ohio Con and I’ve made many friends there. It’s small enough to not be this great big monolith of a town like NYC, yet big enough that I wouldn’t be bored. They have a vital art community in general, in fact, and it has a growing reputation as a multicultural hub. This is exactly the kind of place I was looking for. It would be nice if it was closer to the east coast, but that’s the only drawback I can see (I’ll miss going to the beach in the summertime).

This is by no means an easy decision. I’m leaving my family and many of my friends behind, not to mention a lifetime of memories. It’ll be scary as hell. This is what I want to do, however.

I don’t expect this blog to be affected by the change. Jon and I have already talked about my move and he’s cool with it. Certainly I can still write about comics from Columbus as easily as from New York, and while I can’t guarantee that there’ll be as many comics-related events to go to over there, I expect to find new and different things to write about.

I’m looking forward to it.

Been reading the new book about the anti-comic book crusade of the 40’s and 50’s, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America by David Hadju. Fascinating stuff. Among the more enlightening elements the book emphasizes is how easily children who were reading the crime and horror and romance and war comics of the era were so easily swayed by adults who thought they were acting in the kids’ best interests, without ever giving much thought as to what the kids wanted. So many lobbyists tried to find a smoking gun to link comics with “juvenile delinquency,” and if there wasn’t one they’d assume one. This book puts the fight over comics in true historical perspective, using events like World Wars One and Two, McCarthyism, and other pop culture elements like film and television, to provide context to the situation, and of course we get to examine the perspective of many of the great creators of the era, too, from Will Eisner to Bill Gaines, Harvey Kurtzman, and many more. Well worth reading.

Also, there are some elements of note to readers of this blog. I mentioned awhile back about how Seduction of the Innocent author Dr. Fredric Wertham had views on minorities in comics. According to Plague, Wertham was very down with the Negro community. He was friends with Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, and in 1946 he opened a psychiatric clinic in a Harlem church catered specifically to low-income blacks. While he strove to provide treatment there, he also did some research on the effects of comics on young readers at the clinic. The conclusions he drew were flawed, however - read the book to find out more.

There’s also some discussion of Matt Baker, in the chapter on romance comics. In addition to his strong work ethic and sharp eye for anatomy, he apparently had movie-star good looks. And of course, his work on the first graphic novel, It Rhymes With Lust, written by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller, is talked about.

Here’s PopCultureShock’s own Ten-Cent Plague feature, and Newsarama’s interview with David Hadju.

I got home kinda late last night and didn’t feel like doing any posting. That’s why this is late.

Tangent: Superman’s Reign #1 (of 12)
interview with Tangent writer Dan Jurgens

First issue of this mini that continues the stories of the parallel earth where Superman’s a black guy, among many other changes. (BTW, Jamal Igle takes over as penciller beginning with the second issue.)

Also this week:
Batman and the Outsiders #5. Cover by Braithwaite.
Justice League of America #19, Avengers Classic #10. Written by McDuffie.
Everybody’s Dead #1. Zombie mayhem on the campus in this new mini illustrated by Dave Crosland.

Glyph Comics Awards news: Jamar Nicholas is returning as host this year. I’ve sent out a statement announcing it; hopefully you’ll see it turn up on the comics blogs or elsewhere. He’s a terrific guy and the perfect one to host the show, so I’m glad to see him back. Also, ECBACC has updated their website.

Cheryl lays the smack down on DC for the Vixen whitewash. Valerie provides her two cents as well. I don’t see any way DC can spin this. From what I can tell, this goes beyond a coloring mistake; it looks a lot like the artist was not told Vixen was a black woman. And that makes you wonder what the editor of this book is smoking. Either s/he wasn’t aware of this basic fact, which makes you question what they’re doing editing a DC comic in the first place, or it was a deliberate mistake. Neither option looks very good. It’s the kind of thing that makes you wonder… like this guy does.

Also: Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s progeny are set to star in a new film based on a graphic novel.

And on a sad note… when I was still editor of UVC, I recruited a young woman named Sharvonique Fortune to write a piece for our Black Women in Comics issue about black women in animation. I’ve just been informed by my pal Jen Hachigan that her husband has suddenly died. Don’t know any details. My condolences go out to her and her family.

Movies mean a lot to me, and so too, in their own perverted way, do the Oscars. Is it nothing more than a popularity contest? Yeah. Do they get things wrong almost as often as they get things right? Definitely. Still, as a film geek, I can’t help but get caught up in it all year after year, and this year is no exception.

I saw No Country For Old Men on opening night. It was drizzling rain, and the line wrapped around the block. I’ve always been a Coen Brothers fan, and everything I’d read about this film convinced me this was gonna be their biggest one yet. Unfortunately, I was a little drowsy that evening, so I ended up drifting in and out in places. As a result, I thought I had missed the ending – I couldn’t recall what had happened to Josh Brolin’s character and whether or not Javier Bardem caught up with him or not. As we know now, their fate was deliberately left unresolved. I saw it a second time a couple of weeks ago after reading discussions about what that ending is supposed to mean (I also talked about it with friends at Mid-Ohio Con over dinner) and it makes a bit more sense the second time around, I think. I believe it was never Brolin’s story, it was Tommy Lee Jones’ story all along – he does begin and end the movie, after all. It’s a wonderfully resonant film, one that lingers in your memory for many reasons – the cinematography, the tension of the script, the characters. It’s very reflective and thoughtful in a way most modern movies aren’t.

I haven’t been as freaked out by a film as much as There Will Be Blood in years – not since Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. It amazes me how deeply this has been embraced by a large number of filmgoers, because I found it so difficult to sit through. Daniel Day-Lewis’ character is repugnant on just about every level imaginable and there’s no redemption for him in the end. Yet I cannot deny that this is a remarkably well-made film. Paul Thomas Anderson and his cast and crew knocked it out of the park in every category, and it absolutely deserves every accolade it has gotten – but man, is it a tough film to watch. I can’t love it, like many do, but I can appreciate it.

I wasn’t willing to believe the hype around Juno for a long time. I kept seeing the trailer during the fall, and I kept thinking, “Okay, this looks like it’ll be cool and all, but no way is this a Best Picture contender.” Well, that and also “Hey, it’s Kitty Pryde, J. Jonah Jameson and Elektra in one movie – cool!” (Speaking of which, if Ellen Page wins Best Actress, do you think she’ll choose to come back for a fourth X-Men film? And if so, how much will she ask for?) Most of the talk around this one has centered on the screenplay, by the ex-stripper turned Hollywood phenom Diablo Cody (indeed, this has been an outstanding year for women auteurs). Yeah, the dialogue is more than a little self-aware and clever in the beginning, but if you stick with it, the movie’s heart shows through in the end. It’s very sweet and entertaining, and it’s always good to see at least one comedy among the Best Picture contenders. Oh, and it also made a ton of cash! Best Picture, though? I dunno…

I think people had the wrong idea about Atonement. Yes, it’s a romance, but the romance is tangential to the really important story, that of the character Briony, portrayed by three different actresses at three ages. I think people were expecting something more traditional, like The English Patient or Shakespeare in Love or Titanic and this isn’t exactly like those films. The ads didn’t help much – at one point, the radio ads included some contemporary pop-sounding music which does not fit with the film’s tone at all. I enjoyed it a great deal, but it no longer looks like the sure thing it once did.

Michael Clayton was a good, enjoyable film but it’s not Best Picture-worthy. In what was a killer year for movies, the fact that this got in over The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Into the Wild (saw it twice! My favorite film of the year), Ratatouille (also saw it twice), American Gangster, Zodiac, and Sweeney Todd, among others, is questionable at the very least. Does it really come down to the star power of George Clooney? Maybe. I can’t see this winning the big prize, but stranger things have happened.

I believe No Country will go all the way – Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay for starters, possibly more. Day-Lewis has Best Actor sewn up. Julie Christie in Away From Her is the favorite for Best Actress, but I think the winner here will be Marion Cotillard from La Vie en Rose. Oscar loves biographies and they love ingenue actresses, and while it is in French, I suspect Cotillard’s transformative performance will enable the Academy to look past the subtitles. Supporting Actress is a toss-up. I think Tilda Swinton will take it but I’m rooting for hometown girl Amy Ryan, who went to my old high school! Juno’s gonna get Original Screenplay (though Clayton could challenge here).

I’m in an Oscar pool this year for the first time, started by Stagger Lee writer Derek McCulloch. I’ll let you know how I did.

Off-topic for a second: I’m still in shock over the news that Heath Ledger is dead. Just doesn’t make any sense at all. Obviously he will be remembered most for his role in the groundbreaking film Brokeback Mountain, but we comics fans have reason to mourn as well because he’s gonna be in The Dark Knight this summer as the Joker, a role that has generated phenomenal buzz already. (And yeah, I’ve already seen comparisons to Brandon Lee and The Crow.) Naturally, I wish his surviving family well. Watching TDK will be a surreal experience to say the least. Ledger had the goods, that’s for sure.

Anyway, I do want to tell you about my new project, so let’s do that now…

I consider myself a small press guy. That’s how I got my start, way back in 1993 when I was still in college. I’ve learned a great deal about myself and the industry in general through self-publishing, and I’ve been so very fortunate to have made the friends that I’ve made as a result. I began self-publishing with an eye towards breaking into the industry, i.e., working for Marvel or DC or both. Now, though, I’m more interested in making comics for myself.

Make no mistake, at some point I would love to create the next Blankets or what have you, but for right now I just wanna get back in the game and have some fun telling stories. And for me that means returning to my mini-comic roots. Of course, a lot has changed from when I began, not the least of which is the advent of the internet. Not sure how I’ll adapt to it - but at least I’ve got this blog to help out.

Normally I’m a writer-artist. This time I’m just writing. Partially to hone my writing skills and partially to work with people I’ve wanted to collaborate with, for one reason or another. I’ve already completed the first of several story ideas I hope to use and I have an artist. Details to follow (what’s the point of giving it all away at once?), though I will say that my plan is for making 24-page ashcans, with covers by me, and my goal is something I haven’t had in a long, long time - a table at the Small Press Expo this fall.

From time to time this year I’ll write about my experiences self-publishing; the things I’ve learned, the struggles I’ve endured, in addition to providing updates on the books, hence the new category.

New Warriors: Defiant TP

The first TP of Kevin Grevioux’s New Warriors relaunch.

Also this week:
Infinity Inc #5
Beyond TP. Written by McDuffie.
Nextwave V2 TP
The 99 #4

Two more weeks to go for submissions to the 2008 Glyph Comics Awards; if you want your book in the running, email me at rich.watson@gmail.com before it’s too late. In the meantime, check out this interview I did with Pam about the GCAs.

For those of you in the NYC area, Comic Book Club, the live comics talk show here in the city, will have Kyle Baker as a guest tomorrow night at 8PM. Details:

Tickets: $5
Online: ThePIT-NYC.com
Phone: 1-800-838-3006
Questions? 212-563-7488

The Peoples Improv Theater
154 West 29th Street, 2nd Floor
Between 6th and 7th Aves.

Marlon Wayans joins the cast of GI Joe.

Unsolicited plug: Now that it’s the new year, I’ve got my Keith Knight 2008 K Chronicles Calendar on my wall and I’m very happy. Got it from him at San Diego. I, naturally, highly recommend it for your wall if you don’t have one already. (The calendar, that is, not the wall.)

Off-topic, but I feel I gotta say something about it since everyone else is: the “One More Day” arc of the Spider-Man titles is over and it has ended the way everyone feared it would. I gotta agree with Fandom Assembled on this one: I believe Joe Quesada’s made a big mistake. Even if you buy his argument that Spider-Man’s appeal is stronger as a single man, there are better ways to dissolve his marriage to Mary Jane than what we got - ways that don’t stretch credibility to the breaking point and call into question events from twenty years ago (at least). And if what JM Straczynski said is true - that Quesada justified all the changes by saying “It’s magic; we don’t need to explain it” - well, that’s just insulting to the reader’s intelligence.

The new status quo begins with the new arc “Brand New Day,” starting this week (as Amazing Spider-Man now ships thrice monthly). Lot of fans around the net saying they won’t buy it. They’ve talked boycott before. We’ll see how much of a hit ASM takes (if any), but I doubt it’ll be much. We fans are ultimately creatures of habit, and more often than not, we like our habits too much to break them.