David Sparks and Casey Liss join John and I to talk about getting into comics as an adult. It's a brisk listen, despite the runtime. This is yet another new sub-thread of show types, where we help people on the show off the top of our heads.
You have no idea how sweet, sensitive, and smart a comic book called Sex Criminals can be.
Read MoreMy pal John Gholson tweeted a link to this story, which is partly an obituary of cinema owner/operator Bill Schulman, but more a compact history of his family independently owning and operating movie theaters in non-metropolitan towns in Texas:
One of those theaters included the Manor East 3 in Bryan, one of the first six theaters in the world to implement the Dolby Sound stereo system. This theater was so popular, “The Man from Snowy River” ran 38 consecutive weeks, longer than it ran at any other theater in the world. Mr. Dolby himself visited their theater in Bryan when it showed “Star Wars.”
It's a great series of stories that not enough people will read. Just as important is Gholson's personal tribute to the man:
That key allowed me to go in and make up and break down the films that would arrive, but also (with Mr. Schulman’s permission, of course) allow me and a guest or two to sit up in the formerly “coloreds’ only” balcony of the old place on weekends and watch trash cinema (biker flick The Devil Riders, faux-documentary Forbidden Sexuality and Texas-made stag cheapieCommon-Law Wife) and Woody Woodpecker reels that he’d collected over his many years of theater operation. I can draw a direct line backward from my current job as a movie critic and blogger to the days when I was a teenager with my own access to a movie theater any time I wanted.
My friend John Gholson shares the best timeline I've seen for the seismic shift in DC Comics's relations with creators over at Gutters and Panels.
The abrupt announcement/unannouncement/"we never planned to do X" culture over at DC troubles me in the same ways John describes his own feelings in the article. There are some great stories being told at DC, but the treatment and respect for creators has seemed to go off a cliff.
I love DC characters, and I love a fair amount of work being done there. Scott Snyder, Gail Simone, Peter Tomasi, and Bill Willingham (and occasionally Geoff Johns) have been pulling off some outstanding storytelling, among others.
It's tough to be as excited about them as a brand when they bring in an ostensible "brand person" (Diane Nelson) who spends four years doing an abominable, high-profile job of brand management.
If I'm not careful, I might pull a Horace and do an objective comparative analysis of Marvel and DC, cross-indexing sales data, editorial shuffling, and cancellations.