Comics/Graphic Novels

Off-Panel: October 9, 2014

Paul Montgomery

Staff Writer

In addition to comics, Paul thrills to Frank Capra and kaiju movies, crime fiction, TV dramas, professional wrestling, and whatever the Muppets are doing at any given time (hopefully in combination with those other things). He tweets as @fuzzytypewriter

Comics stuff happens every day, despite the nefarious efforts of Ghost Fred Wertham and his gang of sampling bias collecting ghouls. Here’s some links.

“Dynamite Entertainment is proud to announce the January 2015 launch of King, an epic comic book event that marks the 100th anniversary of King Features Syndicate, the print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation. The celebratory event will bring history’s most famous comic strip heroes – Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, Prince Valiant, The Phantom, and Jungle Jim, to comic books with five miniseries that build to a grand crossover in May. Helmed by top-tier talent and raising stars of the comic book industry, each launch issue of the King event features an interlocking cover by acclaimed artist Darwyn Cooke (DC: The New Frontier, Catwoman).

The creative teams of the King event include writers Ben Acker and Ben Blacker with artist Lee Ferguson on Flash Gordon; Eisner-Award Winner Roger Langridge with artist Jeremy Treece on Mandrake the Magician; writer (and line editor) Nate Cosby with artist Ron Salas on Prince Valiant; writer Brian Clevinger with artist Brent Schoonover on The Phantom; and writer Paul Tobin with artist Sandy Jarrell on Jungle Jim.”

Dynamite slams evil (and boredom) with a lineup of “King” comics, starring Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, Mandrake the Magician, and The Phantom. Cover artist Darwyn Cooke headlines a roster of exciting and inspired creative teams.

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“The video is part of Franco’s “Making a Scene” series on Aol Originals, where Franco and pals spin a wheel twice, two movie titles come up, and they have to throw them together. They’ve all been quirky and funny, but this one is probably the oddest of the bunch.”

Visionary Franco, James Franco, has James Franco’d a scene from Beetlejuice in Batman costumery. There is a video document.

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“Untangling the behind-the-scenes threads of the various Marvel movie universes is currently as overwhelming as keeping the actual Marvel multiverse straight, without the benefit of any official handbooks to guide you or Peter Porkers to lighten things up a bit. And as if the confusion around Robert Downey Jr.’s cryptic hints about Iron Man and rumors regarding a massive all-franchise Marvel crossover weren’t enough to muddy the storylines—and make you consider becoming a fan of something less convoluted, like tax law—recent days have also brought a flood of reports regarding the Marvel properties at other studios, i.e. Spider-Man, X-Men, and Fantastic Four. To summarize these reports as concisely as possible: Marvel wants all of its characters under one roof, and if it can’t have them, it will do what it can to crush them. Also, at the rate we’re going, comic-book movies will soon replace the commodities market.”

The AV Club reports on the Kramer Vs. Kramer level school ground squabble over the rights to Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four, on both page and screen.

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calvindestroysacity

“The result? Calvin caused $15,955.50 worth of damage over the course of Calvin & Hobbes‘ 10-year run, ranging from a $2 broken jar to a flooded house that would cost $4,798.83 to repair (there also charts, even if they’re incomplete). It breaks down to $1,850.55 a year.”

Somebody calculated just how much damage Calvin caused with cohort Hobbes between 1985 and 1995. That we know of…