Dann's 12-word comic reviews

War Heroes #3 (Image) by Mark Millar & Tony Harris

Finally! Terrorists get superpowers, kill soldiers. Traitors have change of heart. Rescue!

Destroyer #5 (of 5) (Marvel MAX) by Robert Kirkman & Cory Walker

WW2-era superhero takes on death and kicks its arse. Satisfying finish.

FVZA #1 (Radical) by David Hine & Roy Allan Martinez

Mock zombies/vampires web site inspires cool adaption. Vampire terrorists attack America!

GRANDVILLE by Bryan Talbot (HC)

Talking badger detective uncovers 911-style conspiracy in alternative Europe. France rules!

My weekend: Boxers, boogeymen & braaaaaaaaiiinnnnns

SOMETIMES, I have the coolest job in the world. I had Friday off work (I only work three days), but I'd got an invite to attend the launch of The Contender Australia.

The launch - on the rooftop of the swanky Tilbury Hotel in Woolloomooloo - guaranteed free food, free booze and a chance to perv on host Charlotte Dawson. I got all three wishes. :D

I also chatted with a few of the aspiring boxers competing in the reality TV series including Junior "The One" Talipeau, Luke "Kool Hand" Moloney, Kariz Kariuki and Josh "Cast Iron" Crenshaw. I didn't talk to the series' bad boy, Sonni "Jungle Boy" Michael Angelo, but he made his presence felt on the day. The charismatic-but-crap fighter (from all reports) hijacked the speeches much to the amusement of the attendees and the consternation of the FOX8 suits. All in all, beer and barbecued meat on a beautiful sunny day in Sydney? What more could one ask for?

THAT evening, AW invited me to a free screening of Paranormal Activity, the low-budget flick that's supposedly this year's Blair Witch Project. Made on a US$15,000 budget, it's already raked in more than US$20m in America. I think it'll probably do very well here. Frankly, it's a shit-scary lil' flick - not "the scariest film ever made" as some over-excited people are claiming, but it has lots of bumps, jolts and startling moments, and the ending will stay with you long after the film ends. Hell, despite the fact that Michael Jackson's This Is It was blaring in the cinema next to ours, and I had a chick behind me who was constantly telling her boyfriend, "I'm scaaaaared", I still found Paranormal Activity to be an effective chiller. My recommendation? Go see it with your fave rooting partner and watch them cuddle up next to you during the spooky bits.

ON SATURDAY night, I did something I rarely do these days: I PAID for a movie ticket. Yep, I plunked down my hard-earned for a ticket to an advance screening of Zombieland. It was a part of "A Night Of Horror Halloween Screenings" held at the Dendy Newtown, as part of the Fantastic Planet Sycney Sci-Fi & Fantasy Film Festival (fuck, what a mouthful!).

Being Halloween, a ton of folk dressed up for the occasion, my personal faves being the cutie done up to look like Harley Quinn and, fittingly (considering what happens in the film...don't worry, I won't spoil the surprise for ya), two blokes in full Ghostbusters costume...including working ghost-busting apparatus. Awesomely geeky work, fellas. :D

As for Zombieland, I thoroughly enjoyed this gory comedy romp. Woody Harrelson is back, people, and he's funny as fuck! And, I have to say, I love fast-running zombies, folks. It just adds to the scariness - I'll never take slow-moving zombies seriously again.

Anyway, do yourselves a favour and go see this flick when it premieres in Australia - it is a fucking hoot. Best film of the year? Hmmmmm...quite possibly.

The great Smith's Chips "Vote For Me" Challenge (GRAND FINAL)

vs

WELL, the moment of truth has arrived. First, here's an interesting fact: I've checked Woollies and Coles all over Sydney and Aline's Caesar Salad is virtually impossible to find (the reason why it took so long to do this final taste test was because it took until today to track down the last packet of her flavoured chips at a Woolworths in Harris Park!).
The other finalist, Lucas' Late Night Kebab, still has a few packets left on sale, maybe a handful.

The buttered popcorn flavour? A reasonable number of bags have been sold but there are enough left to make you realise it wasn't too popular with punters. And guess who's lumbered supermarkets across Sydney with boxes and boxes of shitty unsold chips? Yep, BBQ Coat of Arms. So no surprises there on why these last two flavours bombed in the semifinals.

But let's not muck around any longer. It's time for the final!

Lucas' Late Night Kebab: A great taste and they definitely leave you wanting more. A damn fine flavour.

Aline's Caesar Salad: Probably the more gourmet flavour of the two. Whether I could eat more than one or two packets in a single sitting is debatable as the flavour may be too intense. But as a stand-alone packet of chips, Aline's really effin' rocks.

WINNER (BY A WHISKER): Aline's Caesar Salad

BUT hell! They're both fucking great! Congrats to both Lucas and Aline for coming up with two winning flavours. Nice one, guys! :D

Be a hero

BE a hero and donate to The Hero Initiative. At the very least, buy this comic and help out some of the people who created your favourite comics of yesteryear.

Comics sales: comparing 1966 to 1969 to 2009

I think comics have more to fear than the Black Lanterns

I FOUND this interesting item while perusing Uncle Scoopy's Other Crap earlier this week. Uncle Scoopy's thoughts on comics and their decline in sales - as part of a larger story on the year 1966 - is fascinating. More of my thoughts at the end of this piece.

"My best memory of that era: comics sold for twelve cents. Twelve cents may seem outrageously cheap to you, but in fact, the 12-cent cover price had been considered scandalously high just a few years earlier, in 1962! I remember it well. The top-of-the-line comics had sold for 10 cents from more than a quarter of a century, from 1934-61. Dell led the market up till when they raised Walt Disney's Comics And Stories to 15 cents in 1961, and the superhero lines went up to 12 cents in early 1962. That famous Disney comic peaked in 1953, when it was the top seller in the comic world with a circulation of more than three million. By the time it had raised its price to 15 cents, its circulation had already declined to about a million. It was already dying, but the price increase nailed the coffin. By 1968, although Dell had dropped the price back to 12 cents in order to compete with the super-hero titles, the famous Disney comic had dropped to a tenth of its 1953 circulation, and its circulation was no longer near the top titles in the category. By then the top Disney comic was 34th on the list!
In 1966, the legendary Disney title was still hangin' in there in 14th place, two spots higher than the up-and-coming Spider-Man. Here are the top superhero comics of that year ranked by average circuation:

1. Batman DC 898,470
2. Superman DC 719,976
3. Superboy DC 608,386
4. Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane DC 530,808
5. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen DC 523,455
6. World's Finest Comics DC 513,201
7. Action Comics DC 491,135
8. Adventure Comics DC 481,234
9. Justice League of America DC 408,219
10. Detective Comics DC 404,339
11. Metal Men DC 396,506
12. Amazing Spider-Man Marvel 340,155

Note that Marvel had not yet begun to loosen DC's grip on the market. There are 12 superhero comics on that list, and DC has the top eleven!

The story had changed dramatically by 1969 because Marvel made inroads. That line was hipper than DC's, and more in tune with the concurrent cultural revolution. DC still trod on old, familiar ground, and had really screwed up the signature Batman title by making it jokey like the TV show. Here are the 1969 comic book sales figures:

1. Superman DC 511,984
2. Superboy DC 465,462
3. Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane DC 397,346
4. Action Comics DC 377,535
5. Amazing Spider-Man Marvel 372,352
6. World's Finest Comics DC 366,618
7. Batman DC 355,782
8. Adventure Comics DC 354,123
9. Fantastic Four Marvel 340,363
10. Thor Marvel 266,368
11. Incredible Hulk Marvel 262,472
12. Daredevil Marvel 245,422
13. Captain America Marvel 243,798

You can see that DC was still hanging on the top slots, but with greatly reduced numbers. Batman had lost 60% of its circulation in just three years, despite the free advertising provided by a hit TV show! In terms of comic sales, the New Campy Batman was the New Coke of its day.
Marvel had launched six titles into the top 13 by 1969, and was flooding the market with new titles, thus spreading out the fairly flat circulation of the total category among more titles. DC's individual titles had thus been deflated to the point where the #1 comic in America in 1969 was no longer Superman or Batman, but the dreaded Archie! (The charts here show only the superhero titles.)

Those 1966 and 1969 circulation numbers for individual titles may seem small compared to the three million amassed by Walt Disney's Comics And Stories in 1953, but are still enormous by the standards of today's fragmented market. Here are the top titles in September of this year. They include a variety of price points:

1. Blackest Night 3 $3.99 DC 140,667
2. Captain America Reborn 3 $3.99 Marvel 108,240
3. Batman And Robin 4 $2.99 DC 106,835
4. Green Lantern 46 $2.99 DC 103,579
5. Wolverine Giant-Size Old Man Logan 1 $4.99 Marvel 93,744
6. New Avengers 57 $3.99 Marvel 85,526
7. Green Lantern Corps 40 $2.99 DC 83,042
8. Dark Avengers 9 $3.99 Marvel 79,662
9. Batman 690 $2.99 DC 76,936
10. Uncanny X-Men 515 $2.99 Marvel 73,523
11. Amazing Spider-Man 606 $2.99 Marvel 70,118
12. Ultimate Comics Avengers 2 $3.99 Marvel 68,539
13. Thor 603 $3.99 Marvel 65,210
14. Amazing Spider-Man 607 $2.99 Marvel 62,517

For reference, the venerable Superman title, issue 692, could manage no better than 58th place, with a circulation just below 40,000. Action Comics, issue 881, had numbers almost identical to Superman."

I'm stunned by how low those "top-selling" titles are in 2009 - clearly, there's been major fragmentation in the marketplace due to the sheer quantity of new titles being published each month.

[It's same situation with the magazine industry (speaking from an Australian perspective only): too many titles in a crowded marketplace means that circulation figures have (in general) dropped remarkably in the past 15 years, even for the so-called top titles like Woman's Day and New Idea. And look at TV, ratings have declined because the networks are now competing with Foxtel (and the many HD stations available, too, not to mention DVDs, the Internet and people downloading their favourite shows on broadband).]

Speaking of the Net, I would suggest that the World Wide Web and computer games have also severely hurt comics sales in the past 15 years. There's too much else for children and teenagers to get into these days, so comics (which are relatively expensive) wind up being the less appealing entertainment option for many kids.

I'm not sure what the future holds for comics. I don't believe they'll ever disappear for good, but they're gonna become more and more a niche product for an ageing fan base. Hell...I rarely see someone under the age of 18 in my local comic shop. Nor do I see many kids reading comics on trains or buses or when I visit friends who have children.

I guess Disney and Warner will keep Marvel and DC, respectively, alive as the comics are essentially advertising for upcoming Hollywood movies, which is where the real money lies. Still, it's sad to see such a beautiful artform in what appears to be an irreversible freefall.

What would Audrey Hepburn think...?

I DON'T recall any nudity in the 1961 film version of Breakfast At Tiffany's. :O

Clearly, this recent English stage version has sauced up the story considerably - Holly Golightly's pert bottom is played by the delicious Anna Friel.

What I read on my holidays in South Australia. By Dann Lennard (age 42 1/2)

ART OUT OF TIME by Dan Nadel

I PICKED up this book earlier in the year, but held off on reading it till I was on holidays recently. I needed a good toilet read during my 3000km, 10-day cross-country ordeal...er, vacation.

I've been eagerly anticipating reading Nadel's book for months - yet at the same time putting it off...maybe 'cos I feared I'd be disappointed once I started reading it. I'm weird that way, I guess.

Anyway, this overview of a bunch of obscure, brilliant, eccentric or just plain mad comic book artists and newspaper cartoonists was a fascinating read, although a bit hit'n'miss.

The author claimed this was a look at "unknown comics visionaries" from 1900-69, but some of them didn't deserve to be featured in the book, I reckon.

For example, Howard Nostrand and Bob Powell were pedestrian horror artists from the 1940s who got a guernsey on the strength of one offbeat yarn apiece. Rory Hayes' underground stuff was no better or worse than most of the amateurish UG stuff churned out in the late 60s.

Others got into the book for newspaper strips that barely lasted a few weeks or months. Herbert Crowley's The Wiggle Much (1910) is downright disturbing, but I don't know whether he deserves a place.

Admittedly, Harry Grant Dart's The Explorigator (1908) is wonderfully illustrated in a Little Nemo kinda way, as is Norman E. Jennett's Monkey Shines Of Marseleen (1909).

And Garrett Price's Wild West adventure serial, White Boy (1934), warrants a book of its own except there weren't enough episodes produced to fill a book (even a slim one).

Despite a few misgivings about the worthiness of some entries, there's no doubt Art Out Of Time has inspired me to order some other books collecting the works of Dick Briefer (of 40s/50s Frankenstein fame), Fletcher Hanks and Ogden Whitney's Herbie.

Overall, I loved this book and I appreciate Nadel's enthusiasm for (obsession with?) some truly oddball comics and cartoon strips (and their equally oddball creators).

BAT-MANGA! by Chip Kidd et al

SPEAKING of oddball, brilliant book designer Chip Kidd has compiled this wonderful collection of an unusual, largely undiscovered (till now) aspect of the Bat-mania that swept the world during the mid-60s courtesy of the Batman TV series.

It appears Japan took Batman and Robin to their crazy collective heart and bought shitloads of bizarre Bat-merchandise especially made for the local market.

There was even a shortlived manga series based loosely on his exploits.

Bat-Manga! collects many of the comic strips - translated into English but still retaining a distinct Oriental weirdness. There's also oodles of photos of Batman toys, trading cards and other shite sold to eager Japanese kids during the 60s.

Holy Bat-crap - this is fascinating stuff. And as per usual with a Chip Kidd book, it's beautifully designed.

THE 3 GEEKS: GOING TO THE CON by Rich Koslowski

This cheaply printed TPB of the original three-part miniseries (published in 2000, I believe) was a quick, fun read. It takes the piss out of comic book fans and comic conventions. And, frankly, there can never be enough piss-taking of conventions and convention-goers. I've been to a few myself and this series really nailed the absurdity of it all, especially those sad fucks who walk around all weekend dressed as a Klingon or a Star Wars stormtrooper. Sheeeesh.

I picked this up at a second-hand store in Adelaide for $10, so it was a bargain.

OPTIC NERVE #1-4 by Adrian Tomine

The real find of my second-hand storing were these rare mags from 1995-97. And I do mean RARE. They are almost impossible to find on the Net (I later discovered). Even the collected TPBs aren't easy to track down. So this was a major score for me (only $12 for the four issues).

Anyhow, I've seen Optic Nerve floating round my local comic shop for many years, but I'd never picked up a copy until now. I don't know why I waited so long.

These B&W anthologies - featuring bitter-sweet short tales about some very fallible people going through some bad-to-really-fucking-bad situations - remind me a lot of Dan Clowes at his finest (most depressing). For a young guy (well, he was back in the mid-90s), Tomine had/has a lot of talent.

Some of his tales like Echo Ave. (#1), The Connecting Thread, Summer Job and Pink Frosting (#2), Supermarket and Hostage Situation (#3), and Hazel Eyes (#4) have a disturbed, haunting quality that stayed with me long after I'd read them.

If there's one negative, I'd say it's that Tomine's tales are unrelenting in their bleakness. There's only a couple of strips that would be considered "lighthearted" or "hopeful", and I'm probably stretching the definitions of both words here.

Still and all, Optic Nerve is fucking brilliant and I feel compelled to seek out TPBs of his later work.

Who says there's nothing good on YouTube?

THESE are some screen grabs from Framing Hanley's Lollipop. Someone descided the emo kids needed a hot video of webcam cuties getting (discreetly) nekkid while sucking on lollipops. It's all very arty and tasteful.

Well...maybe not that tasteful.

Check out the full three-minute clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxsz-AaGwpc. It'll make your day.

PREVIEW: Dead Set

'Big Brother' host Davina McCall has had better - more alive - days

THERE'S a double-whammy of zombie goodness running this way: Dead Set is coming to both DVD (late November) and SBS One (premiering Monday, November 9, at 10pm).

Anyone who loves Big Brother (or, even better, HATES the reality TV series) and the fast-running flesh-eaters of 28 Days Later and Dawn Of The Dead (the remake) is gonna love this horror miniseries laced with heavy doses of black humour.

It's Friday night at the Big Brother compound. Inside, the housemates are preparing to lose one of their group in the weekly eviction. Outside, a large group of fans has gathered. Meanwhile, adjoining the BB house, the production crew are furiously working against time to make sure the eviction episode goes off smoothly. They are pushed, prodded and verbally abused by their permanently stressed out, arsehole producer Patrick (Andy Nyman).

Production runner Kelly (Jaime Winstone) is having her own problems with her strained relationship with boyfriend Riq (Riz Ahmed) and a dodgy mobile phone.

But that's all gonna pale into insignificance by the end of the night. All over Britain, riots are breaking out and civil unrest is growing. Patrick is afraid the live eviction is gonna get bumped for news coverage - in fact, something much worse is about to happen.

Everywhere, the dead are coming back to life and attacking the living. They in turn die and return as zombies - fast-running creatures eating anyone still uninfected.

As zombies descend on the compound, a massacre takes place and no-one is safe - the audience, the production crew, even host Davina McCall. No-one that is except a bunch of blithely oblivious contestants inside the BB house.

But what happenes when they eventually discover the world has been overrun by zombies? And how will they fare keeping out both the growing hord of undead monsters gathered outside the house - and the few remaining survivors desperate to break in to what may be the only safe place left in the country?

Dead Set is a dead-set riot: funny, ferocious and bleak, all at the same time. Featuring a great cast including Big Train comedian Kevin Eldon and ex-The Bill star Beth Cordingly (who even gets nude for a shower scene).

DANN SAYS: You'll wanna come back for seconds. Yum, yum!

Which is hotter...?

HERE'S American Idol cycle one winner Adrianne Curry dressed up as Slave Girl Princess Leia (above), Wonder Woman AND Silk Spectre at some convention. So....which costume is hotter?

Go to http://www.egotastic.com/entertainment/celebrities/adrianne-curry/adrianne-curry-is-slutty-slave-leia-slutty-wonder-woman-and-slutty-silke-spectre-005041, check out the pix and make up your own mind.

Personally, I think all three are smokin'. :P