Category: Celebrities

Brainiac On Banjo: Flying High!

Brainiac On Banjo: Flying High!

Might as well jump. Jump! Go ahead and jump! Get it and jump. Jump! Get ahead and jump! “Jump!,” written by David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen, and Eddie Van Halen.

© Daniel Wilsey High Flight LLC

I have a new hero. It’s a person I’ve never met, I didn’t know was alive a month ago and who no longer is alive now. But in those brief nine days, she certainly made her mark.

A couple decades ago, my chiropractor told me I can no longer jump out of airplanes. I have never incurred an injury during my eight jumps, so I’ve been pretty annoyed about that. Yeah, I know: parachute jumping is kind of off-model for me. I couldn’t even do the rope climbing bit in high school gym class for fear of falling.

I loved the fact that, having taken the right precautions and working with experienced professionals, it was unlikely I could screw up parachute jumping unless some asshole weisenheimer got the law of gravity repealed right after I left the airplane. And, yes, I was quite aware that “gravity” was and remains just a theory but, trust me, you don’t need to jump out of a Cessna to prove it. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Flying High!”

A Few Words About Keith

A Few Words About Keith

Last night, as I write this, daughter Adriane came downstairs while I was watching a typically clever and compelling docuweird from James May. I knew from the expression on her face I was about distance myself from Mr. May’s well-honed sense of humor.

Adriane carefully informed me that my old friend Keith Giffen had died. Such an event has grown all too typical and they all hurt, but, damn, this one came right out of the blue. My editor Mr. Harrison and I were just talking about Keith on our weekly video Squadcast and I remember cutting myself short under the belief that Keith would get his due from us later. Yeah, well…

I’m going to ignore my journalism teachers and not give you the mandatory obituary routine. If you are not familiar with Giffen’s work, there’s a couple tons of it on the trade paperback racks at your favorite bookstores. I will point out that Keith co-created a many great characters and concepts, including Rocket Raccoon, Lobo, Ambush Bug, and the latest version of the Blue Beetle, Jamie Reyes, presently of motion picture fame. His Wiki page is quite good and most likely getting even better right now.

But all the bios and reflections cannot do justice to his work and his approach to storytelling. The word “unique” is an absolute term: either something is unique or its not and one thing can not be more unique than another. Keith Giffen’s work was unrelentingly unique. Keith Giffen was unique.

In all the decades I’d known him, I had never had a less-than-remarkable time. His wit, his charm and his creative courage were his and his alone. When first you encounter one of his stories your response likely would hit the high end of the vaunted Richter What-The-Fuck scale. By the time you were done with that first story, chances are you’d start looking for his other stuff.

Or it might just piss you off. Art is like that, and so was Keith. He told his story, his way, and did so brilliantly.

The first memory that escaped the attic of my brainpan was a conversation we had in 2016 at a massive party that preceded the world premiere of the first Suicide Squad movie. Dan DiDio and DC Comics threw one hell of an affair and everybody who was anybody in comics and was in the New York area at the time was there — and plenty of people flew in as well. I told Keith how much I was enjoying the work he and Dan had been doing recently and, while I was fumbling for a clever way to say “my appreciation seems to be the kiss of death” Keith kept interrupting me.

“Have you read my Scooby Apocalypse?” he asked repeatedly, cutting off my praise of his other recent work. “Well, no, I haven’t,” I admitted. “I think it will surprise you.”

It certainly did. Evidently, it also surprised the folks at Hanna-Barbera, which was and remains part of Warner Bros., as does DC Comics. Evidently, they had a hard time recognizing DC’s often brilliant reimagining of their characters — and when it comes to bringing home the animated bacon, nothing does that more consistently than Scooby-Doo. And Keith found an alien heart deep inside the property, and he ran with it. Proudly. And deservedly so.

I should add it’s become my favorite of Keith’s work. Well, his living work, at least.

Several days ago as Keith was dying from a stroke, he composed a farewell note for posting after his death. If you are about to check out of this reality, you’re going to have a hard time doing a better job than he did. His farewell was pure and complete Keith Giffen. He posthumously posted “I told them I was sick… Anything not to go to New York Comic Con, Thankx. Bwah ha ha ha ha.”

That New York Comic Con is happening right now, this very weekend, and Keith is wonderfully all over it.

That, my friends, is how to go out in class and style.

His work, of course, lives on. Along with his friendship.

Pop Culture SquadCast Live – Episode 16: Special Guest – Craig Rousseau

Pop Culture SquadCast Live – Episode 16: Special Guest – Craig Rousseau

Mike and Bob are back this week with artist Craig Rousseau. Enjoy the show.

Craig is comic artist who has been working in the field for over two decades. He got his start with long run on Impulse from DC Comics and is also well known for his work on Batman Beyond, Harley Quinn, and Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane at Marvel Comics. His creator-owned project The Perhapanauts that he works on with writer Todd Dezago is a classic example of embracing the magic of the comics medium. Recently he has had excellent runs Killing Red Sonia and the Young Hellboy franchise.

You can watch below or go to our Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch pages directly to interact. Continue reading “Pop Culture SquadCast Live – Episode 16: Special Guest – Craig Rousseau”

Pop Culture SquadCast Live – Episode 15: Special Guest – Tom King

Pop Culture SquadCast Live – Episode 15: Special Guest – Tom King

Mike and Bob are back this week with writer Tom King. Enjoy the show.

Tom King is an award winning writer of comic books such as Batman, Mister Miracle, Vision, Sheriff of Babylon, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Human Target, and his latest release Wonder Woman. He has also published the critically acclaimed novel A Once Crowded Sky. A former intern for both Marvel and DC comics, King spent time in the counter intelligence division of the CIA before beginning his career as writer. He has been churning out hit after hit for the past decade and has worked with a Who’s Who of amazing comic artistic talent. We are happy to have the opportunity to talk to him on the SquadCast and hope you enjoy the conversation.

You can watch below or go to our Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch pages directly to interact.

Brainiac On Banjo: How Does Tom Brevoort Relax?

Brainiac On Banjo: How Does Tom Brevoort Relax?

No place to hide… no place to run. The mutant age has now begun! Magneto’s hordes are on their way to pillage, burn and plunder, but there’s one team that will not yield, the team that strikes like thunder! — Theme song for Pryde of the X-Men (unsold 1989 television pilot) written by Robert J. Walsh.

It just so happens I have a lot of respect for Tom Brevoort. He’s been editing over at Marvel Comics since they were published on papyrus scrolls, and he’s been doing a damn good job.

That says a lot — looking at the history of our beloved medium, comics have had a tendency to eat up editors and spit them out due to our incessant squirming. The job takes knowledge, skill, and perseverance to keep straight all those characters, and Tom’s job for the past quarter-century has been to oversee the surfeit of Avengers titles.

The last time I counted, that means Brevoort had to keep track of enough costumed characters to squeeze out the population of Chongqing. Yeah, look it up.

I can understand why he’d be interested in doing something new. Sure, I’ve got a short attention span, but what the hell, he’s earned the right to kick back and try a few “new” characters on for size.

You know, like taking oversight over the X-Men titles. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: How Does Tom Brevoort Relax?”

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

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

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!

“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

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

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”

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””