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Brainiac On Banjo: Go West!

Brainiac On Banjo: Go West!

Posted on by Mike Gold

“And if California slides into the ocean like the mystics and statistics say it will, I predict this motel will be standin’ until I pay my bill.” From Desperados Under the Eaves, written by Warren Zevon

When word finally was released last week that Marvel, a.k.a. Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, Marvel Animation, Marvel Television, and Spaceballs the Marvel, is going to consolidate all of its operations in “Hollywood,” I think just about everybody had the same feeling.

“Holy shit, what took these people so long?”

However, the next thought differed from cynic to cynic. Some comments represent the chauvinism we have always seen between towns. “My city is better than your city and my dad can beat up your dad.” OK, fine. When it comes to comparing cities, it’s a matter of taste and choice. Honest, east coasters, there are good bagels in California.

Where Marvel and DC live does not dictate where the comics industry has any sort of Mecca. Combined the two publishers might have about 70% of domestic sales, and I say might because people are pretty tricky about what is a comic book and what is a children’s book. Bookstore sales take longer to track, as bookstores take returns. There’s lots of great comics to be found in that other 30% Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Go West!” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Kiss The Boo-Boo (UPDATED)

Brainiac On Banjo: Kiss The Boo-Boo (UPDATED)

Posted on by Mike Gold

“If a bad president can come in and take away our rights and we’re dependent on a good president replacing them in four years to give us back our rights, then we do not have any rights. If politicians can take or distribute them, then they’re not “inalienable” and they’re not rights.” — George Carlin.

Hmmm. Let’s see now. Rapist. Pederast. Killer. Kidnapper. Destroyer of families. Fraudster. And, now, extortionist. All because several very smart, very well informed and very courageous comedians hurt the Emperor’s petty, childish feelings.

Worse still, we have grown used to this. We have come to expect it. It’s not unlike the mass shootings our fearless overarmed pals on the Rabid Right who believe they, personally, need to own more guns, larger guns, and faster guns. The Second Amendment is America’s ED pill… but they loathe the Amendment before it, the First Amendment. These dumb fucks can’t count. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Kiss The Boo-Boo (UPDATED)” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Hamburger In Four-Colors

Brainiac On Banjo: Hamburger In Four-Colors

Posted on by Mike Gold


“Saw a big Brangus Steer standing right over there so I rustled up a fire, cooked him medium rare. Bar-B-Q’ed his brisket, a roasted his rump, fed my dog that ol’ Brangus Steer’s hump.” From Eat Steak, written by Jim Heath.

Some find the term “comic book” to be annoying. By and large these pamphlets, now in many different forms and media, hardly are “comic” in the traditional sense of the word. Most contemporary stories are more or less along the lines of “let’s stop the world from ending,” although there are quite a number of tales about “what should we do now that the world has ended?”

We have another term that is of similar usage, although it’s a much more acceptable term. That word is “hamburger.” There’s no “ham” in hamburger. The United States Food and Drug Administration — assuming it’s still in business by the time you read this — has strict rules on how hamburger meat can be made, prepared and sold, and quite frankly these rules sound pretty useful. Well, unless you’re a vegan; I do realize several vegans actually read comic books, before they eat them.

So you can’t find a hamburger made out of ham… and it’s damn hard to find a comic book that is comic.

Sure, there’s Mad, the wonder of my childhood and the entity that made me what I am today — well, that and the original Mars Attacks! cards. I discovered Mad when I was eight, having swiped a copy from my sister’s comics stash. I immediately conned my parents into subscribing. Back in those days we had “funny animal comics” and that category included Harvey’s ghosts, devils and ghouls as well as Dell’s Disney and Looney Tunes titles. But while these stories often were funny, they weren’t really “comic” in the LOL sense of the word. Please note, I greatly enjoy the works of Warren Kremer and Carl Barks; both then and now.

But when it comes to sheer off-the-wall humor, the stuff enjoyed by readers who preceded me became relatively extinct. Humor need not be linear, and it really shouldn’t be so constrained. I had to wait until the underground comix movement of the late 1960s for that sort of stuff, which I truly loved. This stuff changed the way I viewed American comics. I became friends with the likes of Jay Lynch, Skip Williamson, and Denis Kitchen, three brilliant cartoonists, who had they been born two generations later, might be in El Salvador today. Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Hamburger In Four-Colors” →

Brainiac On Banjo: Important Advice For Freelancers

Brainiac On Banjo: Important Advice For Freelancers

Posted on by Mike Gold

Well, we know where we’re going but we don’t know where we’ve been, and we know what we’re knowing but we can’t say what we’ve seen — “Road To Nowhere,” written by Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz, David Byrne, and Jerry Harrison

The Ritz Brothers “Here Kitty Kitty”

Deadlines are a pain in the ass, but let’s face it: you became a freelancer because you were tired of holding down a real job. However, work is still work no matter what the clock thinks, and that realization puts you on the Road To Nowhere. You are going to have to up your “cover your ass” game, and I’m going to lose a few friends by letting a few cats out of the bag.

You can not succeed without knowing the rudiments of grammar school arithmetic. Yes, yes, I know. No math. That’s the main reason why you quit flipping burgers. Nonetheless, it is important to know how to do some simple addition and subtraction, the latter simply being adding in reverse. Here’s why: Let’s say your deadline is 11 AM Monday, and it is now 7 PM Sunday. You think it will take you about three hours to do your work. You’ve got dinner tonight, the latest issue of Hey Kids! Comics! to finish, and those teevee shows aren’t going to stream themselves. Then, it’s time for your late-night snack (you are a freelancer; act like one!), and then, you should get a little sleep. When do you start on your deadline?

Well, like everything else in life, that’s a trick question. Your deadline is 11 AM, it will take you three hours to do the job. You weren’t going to do it the night before; if you were, you would have started it back when you landed the gig. So you’re going to subtract three from eleven and start working at 8 AM.

Yeah, of course you are. Out of habit, you’re going to stay in bed until 9:30 or until your brain starts working. At some point, maybe around 10 AM, you’re going to remember you should wash the dishes. After all, everything in life is a choice.

Okay. Let’s say your editor actually gave you a real, honest deadline. I realize there’s only one editor in the history of deadlines who does this, and he’s the one writing these words right now. Silly me. “If you treat people honestly, they will be honest with you.” This is, give or take, the funniest thing I’ve ever said.

However, more frequently I’ve had to explain why they put the word “dead” in “deadline.” We’ll talk about the psychology of editing some other time; this piece is to offer advice to freelancers. So here’s some advice.

First, become an editor. Listen to the talents’ excuses for being late. They know what they’re doing, as they do this part for a living. Write down or memorize the best ones. Then, when you are freelancing and your editor wants to know if you are still among the living, use one of those excuses. Of course, you’ll need to remember which lines you’ve used on which editors — that is how lying works.

Second, just before your assigned deadline brays, put your smartphone in “silent mode” the way you’re supposed to when you’re at the movies or in Colorado attending the Beetlejuice musical. In fact, you might actually be at the movies — that’s a very handy source of motivation when it comes to blowing off deadlines.

Third, check out the weather conditions. If you are not in the same city as your editor, then you have been experiencing severe storms that have been knocking out power all over the county, and you don’t have a clue when the power company is going to fix the lines, and if your editor has a problem with that, ask them if they have a dial-up fax machine. It will help if you know they do not in advance.

Finally, if you are lucky — and, really, this is turning a pound of shit into a shit soufflé — your editor will be representing a corporation that owes you money. That isn’t hard at all; DC Comics has owed me $250.00 for a couple years now, and it’s worth more to me as leverage than its rapidly diminishing spending power. So when your editor is putting the arm on you, change the subject to “hey, I wish you were as diligent about paying me for my work as you are demanding that stuff!”

This can be great fun. If you get in first and your editor hasn’t read this piece (which is likely), you’ll be treated to a lot of amusingly defensive grunts and groans. Swiftly change the subject to the WGA strike — particularly if you’re working for DC (Warner Bros) or Marvel (Disney). Then, just as the topic devolves back to deadlines, seize the high ground and tell your editor you have got to get back to finishing your assignment.

You know. The assignment you have yet to start.

(With apologies to Chris Ryall, Jack C. Harris, Bob Harrison and all my other editors who did not know they were road-testing the details in this column.)

Brainiac On Banjo: How Does Tom Brevoort Relax?

Brainiac On Banjo: How Does Tom Brevoort Relax?

Posted on by Mike Gold

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

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” →

With Further Ado #220: More Chasing After Zorro

With Further Ado #220: More Chasing After Zorro

Posted on by Ed Catto

Every fan or collector is always hoping to stumble across some treasure that everyone else has overlooked.  Why-oh-why can I never find a mint copy of Fantastic Four #1 at the local garage sales?

It wasn’t Fantastic Four #1, but when I found Chasing After Zorro by Britt Lomond at a local church’s local book sale last month, I did find something special.  This is an actor’s recollections of his time on the 1950s Disney TV Show Zorro. Lomond played the bad guy in the first couple of seasons of this show.  (Although I learned that Walt Disney had wanted to cast him as the hero originally.)

Disney+ just put this Zorro show up on their streaming service, and you know what? It’s pretty good!  To celebrate this, I excerpted a few chapters of the book in last week’s columns.  And as it turns out – it’s very difficult to find a copy of this book.  Collectors have seemingly paid several hundred dollars to get their hands on a copy.

So in response to fan requests (I think from fans who have been looking for this book for a while), I wanted to excerpt a little more of  Chasing After Zorro. Here’s Lomond’s thoughts on episode #2, entitled “Zorro’s Secret Passage”. It’s kind of the story about how Zorro sets up his version of the Batcave: Continue reading “With Further Ado #220: More Chasing After Zorro” →

Brainiac on Banjo: At Last!

Brainiac on Banjo: At Last!

Posted on by Mike Gold

You might have heard a soft chuckling sound wafting in the breeze a couple days ago. That would be me.

Last Monday, the staff at Image Comics voted to form a labor union – to be specific, the Comic Book Workers United. Their statement leads with the following:

For years, comics publishing workers have watched our professional efforts support creators and delight readers. Sadly, we have also watched that same labor be taken for granted at best and exploited at worst. Keeping our heads above water was the new normal before the pandemic and since its onset we have been expected to take on even larger workloads with fewer resources.

Our workforce, and the comic book and publishing industry as a whole, is overtaxed and undervalued. This is detrimental not only to general staff but also to the creators we are paid to serve and the audiences they in turn work to entertain. Our labor is integral to the comic book industry. It requires specialized skills, dedication, and makes quality publishing possible. We love what we do. But loving what you do doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t ask for improvements to your working conditions. It is with this in mind and with great hope for the future of Image Comics and the comic book industry itself that we announce our intent to form a union and request voluntary recognition. Continue reading “Brainiac on Banjo: At Last!” →

With Further Ado #155: Back to Normal? Conventions and Movies Are a Go.

With Further Ado #155: Back to Normal? Conventions and Movies Are a Go.

Posted on by Ed Catto

Slowly, ever so cautiously, things are getting back to normal.  This was a big weekend for movies as Marvel’s Black Widow debuted in both theaters and on the Disney+ Streaming app.  Variety reported that this movie generated $80 million in the theaters domestically (far beyond any other post-pandemic release) and another $60 million via Disney Plus Premier Access, where you had to fork over another $30 bucks.

That worked well for my brothers and their families, who are vacationing together and created a fun shared experience.

I have no idea what that bodes for in-theater movies vs. seeing them on streamers.  I will say it was a bit odd to see an ad for an Amazon series (Tomorrow War)  before the Black Widow theatrical movie that my wife and I attended.

But all in all, it felt really good to be in a theater again. Even the annoying people in the theater weren’t really annoying – it was so pleasant to be enjoying a movie in a social setting again.

“It was good to be back in a theater, in the dark, with a crowd. It didn’t matter what the movie was,” said Steve Rotterdam of AfterShock Comics and Bonfire Agency. It seems likes that was the overall reaction to seeing movies in the theater.

Professor Larry Maslon of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University made it back into the theater too:

So, in the summertime, our family decamps to a small town on the North Fork of Long Island that has only one movie theater.  Until the summer of 2020, of course, we saw all our summer movies there, and that means opening day of all the MCU movies.  Last week, I took my 13-year-old Miles and his pal to see the opening of Black Widow. Unlike our MCU excursions in New York City, where there are hundreds of fanboys in the debut audience, this weekend I was the only fanboy in a small audience of, say, 25 (and Miles, but only sort of because he’s more grown-up than I).  When the requisite MCU fan-service Easter egg joke appeared halfway through Black Widow (no spoilers–figure it out yourselves, it’s a heck of a reference), I shrieked with laughter. 

After the movie, Miles was furious with me:  “Dad, you always do that at a Marvel movie–you’re the only one laughing at these in-jokes.  It’s so embarrassing.” 

“Yes,” I replied, “But you only noticed because we just started going back to the movies.”

Back to the CONS?

It was a busy weekend for me, as I also attended my first live comic con in forever too. Ken Wheaton, a comics pro who’s never lost his excitement for collecting, launched Rochester’s newest comic convention, The Empire Comic Fest.  Upstate New York has a rich history of wonderful cons, and there was definitely an impatience to get things going again.

Emil Novak of Buffalo is holding a convention there next Sunday, and long-time “Convention Maestro” Teddy Hanes has several conventions on the calendar too.

It was refreshing to be back at a convention.  This one was focused on back issues, with dealers selling high value books.  A strong retailer from Buffalo, Dave and Adams, also exhibited, and it was encouraging to see and hear their enthusiasm.

I found a few treasures there – two Big Little Books (I’ve been looking for that Space Ghost one for years and years) and on issue of DC’s Korak, Son of Tarzan. I do believe this issue is a bit of a landmark and I’m eager to write about it next week.

As you can see from the photos, a good time was had by all. And isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be at a local comic convention?

 


 

 

 

Brainiac On Banjo: Publish and Perish?

Brainiac On Banjo: Publish and Perish?

Posted on by Mike Gold

“I need you, but I hate to see you this way / If I were Superman then we’d fly away / I’d really like to change the world / And save it from the mess it’s in / I’m too weak, I’m so thin / I’d like to fly but I can’t even swim” — Ray Davies, (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman, 1979.

You might have heard the news. It’s been bombarding El Casa de Oro all week, and it’s been blitzing the interwebs to the point where I’m thinking of upgrading my dial-up. But just in case you’ve been away chasing after the Perseverance Rover, I’ll make my journalism teachers happy.

This past weekend, AT&T sold control and most of their ownership of their WarnerMedia division to Discovery Networks, owners of the many, many Discovery “cable” channels, HGTV, the Food Network, TLC, ID, Animal Planet, the Magnolia Network, and the Discovery+ streaming operation. They call this stuff “reality programming” but, as we all know, reality is in the mind of the beholder. As far as I’m concerned, that million-dollar vaccine lottery is the only reality show.

AT&T had only recently bought what they now call WarnerMedia — Warner Bros, CNN, HBO, Cinemax, the Cartoon Network, TCM, TBS, TNT, and a bunch of other stuff. If you can read the six-point type, you’ll discover they own some publishing as well, such as whatever is left of Mad Magazine and the meandering DC comics. Ma Bell went into so much debt to do this deal that, upon reading the report, King Midas reflexively picked his nose.

After acquiring that Denali of debt load, AT&T came down with a severe case of buyer’s remorse. I’m sure the stay-home-or-die principle that governed most thinking humans these past fourteen months did not help one bit, but it wasn’t a very good deal in the first place. After all, what does AT&T know about running the Home Insurance Building of media (sorry; “I.P.”) companies? Continue reading “Brainiac On Banjo: Publish and Perish?” →