Category: Celebrities

Pop Culture Squad > Celebrities
Brainiac On Banjo: It’s A Cruel World After All

Brainiac On Banjo: It’s A Cruel World After All

Posted on by Mike Gold

We’ll travel hand in hand across this wonderland. Strike up the marching band. ‘Cause nothing can stop us now! – “Nothing Can Stop Us Now” written by Christopher and Elyse Willis.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Be afraid of keeping your mind open. It might turn you gay.

I had spent over a half century loathing Walt Disney, and for very good reason. He was a horrible person. Walt was an anti-semitic fanatic of the extreme right wing as it was known at the time, a central figure in the America First movement that provided the platform adapted by our current infestation of MAGAts. He was so severely anti-union that he fired one of the greatest animators of the 20th century, Ub Iwerks, the man who created (or co-created; open mind, remember?) the mouse that started it all, M-I-C-K-E-Y. I could go on and on, but oddly that’s not my point today.

Disney eventually died, and his empire came under new management — in good part because some of his family members did not share his extreme world views. The company was lead, and once again is being lead, by a man of Hebrew heritage. That alone should have defrosted Walt’s corpse. Their attitudes evolved and, somehow, remarkably, they have become the poster mouse for the LGBTQIA+ movement. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: It’s A Cruel World After All” →

Brainiac On Banjo: The Rasputin of TV Animation!

Brainiac On Banjo: The Rasputin of TV Animation!

Posted on by Mike Gold

“Now it’s been ten thousand years. Man has cried a billion tears for what he never knew. Now man’s reign is through, but through the eternal night the twinkling of starlight so very far away, maybe it’s only yesterday.” In The Year 2525, written by Rick Evans.

For a brief few years, Rasputin was a very powerful man in pre-Soviet Russia. He pretty much ran the joint during World War I and was perceived generally as a mystic and a healer; in fact, very little is known about his life. However, we do know a lot about his deaths. He made it through a near-fatal hemorrhage in his thigh and groin in 1912. Two years later, he survived being stabbed in the stomach.

In December of 1916, members of the Tsar’s inner circle decided he he had undue influence over the Tsar and was a good part of the reason the nation suffered from threats of revolution Thus, they decided to kill him. He was poisoned. Twice. That trick didn’t work either time. Then he was shot three times – once in the forehead, which has got to hurt — but he recovered from all that as well. Shot a fourth time, the conspirators dropped him off of the Petrovsky Bridge into the Malaya Nevka River. It took authorities two weeks to find his body, which had been trapped underneath the thick river ice. His boss abdicated less than three months later.

Fun fact: according to Wikipedia, Rasputin’s “daughter Matryona emigrated to France after the October Revolution and then to the United States. There, she worked as a dancer and then a lion tamer in a circus.” She died in a Los Angeles suburb in 1977.

Clearly Rasputin was a hard man to do away with and, remarkably, so is the animated television series Futurama. Happily, fate smiled on the better of the two.

If there’s an award for aggressive conflation, I hereby bestow said award upon myself.

Futurama, created and developed by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, ran on the Fox network from 1999 to 2003. It returned as a series of four home video-first “movies” in 2007, was revived at Comedy Central between 2010 and 2013, and in July Hulu will begin airing 20 new episodes over two “seasons,” which, these days, could mean anything. Of course, everything — including the movies, each of which have been chopped up into four-parters — is in syndication and has and might still appear on more cable networks than Dick Cavett. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: The Rasputin of TV Animation!” →

With Further Ado #241: SXSW Part 1 – Vault Unbound

With Further Ado #241: SXSW Part 1 – Vault Unbound

Posted on by Ed Catto

My head just about exploded at the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals (SXSW) this past week. This is an amazing event- kind of like the love child of San Diego Comic-Con and a musical festival and a business conference with a ton of forward-looking panels. There’s so much to dissect and analyze. I’ll be doing a deep dive in next week’s column.

But to give you a taste of it, I will focus on the lone comic panel at the SXSW this year – the Vault / Def Leppard / Kajabi panel.

This was a high-profile event that was designed, on the surface of it all, to celebrate Vault’s upcoming Hysteria project with Def Leppard. Phil Collen of Def Leppard was on the stage, along with Vault CEO Damian Wassel and Kajabi’s Sean Kim as part of the new Headshell imprint. Continue reading “With Further Ado #241: SXSW Part 1 – Vault Unbound” →

Pop Culture SquadCast Live: Special Guests Ed Catto and Jamal Igle

Pop Culture SquadCast Live: Special Guests Ed Catto and Jamal Igle

Posted on by Bob Harrison

Join our hosts Mike Gold and Bob Harrison as they talk about all things Pop Culture tonight. There will be special guests, including PCS’s own Ed Catto, and comic book creator and artist Jamal Igle.

You can watch the stream below, and we are also broadcasting live on our Facebook and YouTube pages.

 

So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #079: “Dear Dwayne”

So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #079: “Dear Dwayne”

Posted on by Marc Alan Fishman

Dear Dwayne,

I know you prefer to be called by your full moniker,  Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but I want to speak to the person behind that particular mask. Put the eyebrow down. Send your posse on a 20 minute break. Place your phone on airplane mode, and place it face down on the table in front of us. It’s just you, me, and the millions (AND MILLIONS) of my fans reading this. Cool? Cool. 

You need to stop it. Seriously. C’mon, man. You know what I’m talking about. Really? You’re going to make me say it out loud? Fine.

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

We loved when you dabbled your toe into acting. That turn as your own father in That 70’s Show? Great. Playing an alien version of yourself in Star Trek: Voyager? Uhhh… let’s come back to that.. And hey… your first trip to Saturday Night Live? Pitch perfect. Seriously. Better than any “sports stars” they featured prior. You then took the summers off in 2000 so you could become the Scorpion King (which, I assume was why you were on SNL). Like many fans… I actually went to the theater to catch your first starring role. Because it would either be good, or we’d have something to replace that one flick where Hulk Hogan made a dude crap himself.

And hey. It was fine. 20 something years later? I can’t recall a single scene, line of dialogue, or action sequence. But I do recall you fighting the late Michael Clark Duncan, and thinking it was cool. 

After that? I really want to commend you. You started taking interesting roles. Get Shorty. The Rundown. Walking Tall. Southland Tales. Were you “generic badass tough guy” in most of them? Sure. But the scripts were smart. And because of it, you looked smart. Not just catchphrases and stuntman body slams. Versus previous wrestler-turned-actors — Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, and Jesse Venture — you seemed to have more depth, better comedic timing, and pathos (when called for).  Continue reading “So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #079: “Dear Dwayne”” →

Spotlight Squadcast Interview with Michael Nathanson

Spotlight Squadcast Interview with Michael Nathanson

Posted on by Bob Harrison

We are roaring back into the new year with more exclusive Pop Culture Squadcast interviews. This latest episode was recorded last month while we were at LA Comic Con. The folks there were able to connect us with this opportunity for an exclusive one-on-one interview.

Actor Michael Nathanson has recently launched a unique and interesting podcast called Playing Dead, and he was gracious enough to spend some time with us talking about the project. We discussed the origins of the concept and some of the interesting things he learned through the process.

The concept for this podcast is that Nathanson, who played Sam Stein in Marvel’s The Punisher on Netflix, spends time talking to actors and other film professionals about the experience and mechanics of dying on-screen. It is a great concept, and the interviews are extremely well crafted and executed.

Nathanson is a very talented actor who has been in dozens of roles in TV and Film. In addition to his main cast role on Season 1 of The Punisher, he was also a major part of the Cinemax series The Knick as Dr. Levi Zinberg. He has appeared in films such as Young Adult, Side Effects, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Our conversation, while focusing on Playing Dead, also veered into the realm of Geekdom. Nathanson grew up reading comic books and loving sci-fi. We nerded out a little bit, and I hope you enjoy the conversation. Continue reading “Spotlight Squadcast Interview with Michael Nathanson” →

With Further Ado #202: Greg Hildebrandt Part 3 – Rita, Bettie, Shannon and a Pin-Up Calendar

With Further Ado #202: Greg Hildebrandt Part 3 – Rita, Bettie, Shannon and a Pin-Up Calendar

Posted on by Ed Catto

In the third part of our With Further Ado conversation with Greg Hildebrandt, we (finally) get to discussing his two new calendars, and start with why this famous fantasy artist has a new Pin-up Calendar coming out.

Please enjoy Part 3 of my interview with Greg Hildebrandt:

Ed Catto: That’s fantastic! And let’s shift – I want to be mindful of the time – let’s shift to the Pin-Up calendar. You’ve been inspired by pinups and it looks like it’s going to be beautiful.

Greg Hildebrandt: Well, I was born in 1939. So, I was aware of these things. You became aware of these things, even before you got to puberty. I was a little kid, and my grandfather had all the calendars. My father’s father. We’d go over to Grandma and Grandpa’s, and back in the day, they were very “old worldly” almost, even though my grandfather was born here, his wife was born in Austria. He had all these calendars in the basement, but basically, they were all Gil Elvgren‘s! (i.e., Pin-Up Calendars)

And I remember them lined all up. And going down (to the basement). Tim and me would go down and study them. Aside from once you were interested in girls, aside from that aspect. and we would go down and study them. We were just blown away by the painting of them, especially the style – that broad painterly look that he did. That was my first really focus for knowledge, or information. about Pin-Up art.

And then, of course, a man would always have the magazines. You would look at the magazines. With the photography that would never match the art. It would never match the art in those men’s magazines. They just didn’t have it.

EC: Yeah, the Vargas painting would be better than the photography.

GH: Absolutely. Absolutely! It’s like they’re trying for some perfection thing, or idealization. You know, I know, it’s dangerous to talk about this stuff these days, but there was a certain standard that they were after.

For a lot of them, their women start to look alike, and then there’s almost too much of a kind of a similarity. When I started my series, I wanted to have very individualistic people.

My approach was for each to be individual, and in each of these are I’m trying to tell a little story.

EC: There is so much story in each image!

Editor’s Note: There is more art from the calendar past the jump.

Continue reading “With Further Ado #202: Greg Hildebrandt Part 3 – Rita, Bettie, Shannon and a Pin-Up Calendar” →

With Further Ado #201: Greg Hildebrandt Part 2 – Warm Light, Cool Shadows

With Further Ado #201: Greg Hildebrandt Part 2 – Warm Light, Cool Shadows

Posted on by Ed Catto

In last week’s With Further Ado (the 200th Smash Issue), in the first part of my interview with the talented Greg Hildebrandt, we focused on that famous Star Wars poster. In part two of our conversation, Greg and I talk about color theory, art school, classic movies and how these all inspire his approach to art (and specifically his creation of a Tolkien work-in-progress). This candid conversation offers a fantastic way to learn more about what makes this incredible artist tick.

* * *

Ed Catto: I will ask you about these two amazing 2023 calendars on sales soon. But one of the things I love about work, and your collaborations with your brother in the old days, is that you always have such a sense of warmth; warm ‘glowy’ colors and that sense of cool colors.

Greg Hildebrandt: Yep! That’s a big, huge thing for Tim and me, I know that our awareness starts with Technicolor movies. Hollywood Technicolor movies. I can remember those biblical Epics. Where you’d have the set. They would be outside. They have beautiful blue lights coming in through the window, torch lights – tungsten 25 kelvin type lighting…and then the cool light! That was like – waugh! I remember, there was one movie: Forever Amber. (Note: a 1946 Linda Darnell movie) I haven’t seen it in about ten years, but the incredible lighting! The tints! Warm and cool, warm and cool. Hollywood was huge.

Then when we discovered Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth. He became our “main man”, as far as American illustrators go. Wyeth, you know Treasure island…

And we kind of grew up on them. My parents had those books. I remember growing up on that stuff as a kid. And Technicolor movies! Lighting was always an issue. It wasn’t always only the lighting in Technicolor films, but the black and white movies. You take Gregg Toland – Citizen Kane – the lighting; that was a key thing for Tim and me, is to grasp it. It’s still there. It’s one of the main devices that I am still focused on. Continue reading “With Further Ado #201: Greg Hildebrandt Part 2 – Warm Light, Cool Shadows” →

R.I.P. Comics Legend Neal Adams 1941 – 2022

R.I.P. Comics Legend Neal Adams 1941 – 2022

Posted on by Bob Harrison
Photo by Gage Skidmore at 2019 Phoenix Fan Fusion

The comic book industry has lost another giant. Neal Adams passed away yesterday on April 28. 2022. He was 80 years old and passed after complications from sepsis. Adams’s work as a penciller and storyteller left a massive impact on the medium, and his efforts in creator rights advocacy led to policies that have benefited untold numbers of creators that followed him.

Adams worked in commercial advertising art at the beginning of his career and also worked for Archie Comics in the early 1960’s. He later worked for both Marvel and DC Comics, but his work on Batman and Green Lantern / Green Arrow in the 1970’s is where he began to leave his lasting legacy. The work he did with Denny O’Neil on those books was transformative in comic book storytelling. He also published creator-owned independent works with Pacific Comics and Continuity Comics among others.

He was also an activist for creator rights and is credited with helping to push for the credit for creating Superman that Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster were long denied. The practice of returning original art to creators is another innovation that he fought for along with various attempts to create creative community collective bargaining units. In his later years, he lent his art to several projects intended to highlight resistance to Nazi aggression during the Holocaust.

Neal Adams was a legend in his time. He was inducted into every Hall of Fame in the comics industry that you can think of and was responsible for helping to nurture the career of young creators. His legacy is immeasurable, and he will be missed.

So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #073: Time for My Annual Existential Crisis

So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #073: Time for My Annual Existential Crisis

Posted on by Marc Alan Fishman

This past week, I was beckoned to the throne of my day job, seated firmly near Knoxville, Tennessee. As I volunteered to make the trek by land instead of air — due in part to carrying some precious cargo (art for our building) — I had the benefit of a 9 hour journey to and fro with which to collect my thoughts.

On the way down, I was asked to give a listen to “The Oz Principle”. For those uninitiated, it’s a decades-old business book about the importance of accountability. To say that I was able to listen to it and not careen my Dodge Grand Caravan into the bluegrass hills of Kentucky whilst hearing the 1,983,957th passage about how we must stay above the line in order never drop below the line, always keeping in mind that we must always see it, own it, know it, and lastly do it… well, it’s a g-d-miracle. Business books are always a mélange of vague musings written by boring white people trying their best to suppress their inner racist / conservative id that clearly wants to just shout “WHY CAN’T YOU JUST PULL YOURSELF UP BY YER BOOTSTRAPS, WILLY?!”. Maybe I’m the biased one. But I digress. Continue reading “So Long and Thanks for the Fish, Man #073: Time for My Annual Existential Crisis” →