Comics Events in LA: Week of 11/28/10

You don’t have to sit at home alone reading to get into comic books and graphic novels. There are always great events going on that celebrate the vitality and creativity of comics. Just here in Los Angeles, there are more events I can ever make. But I try, and so should you. You never know what you’ll discover.

Here are some local Los Angeles events coming up that celebrate the sequential art form.

This week:

Wednesday, December 1: NEW COMICS DAY! Find your local comics specialty shop.

Wednesday, December 1, 8 PM: Comics podcast Bagged & Boarded: Live! returns with Matt Cohen and Brendan Creecy for a broadcast at SModcastle, 6468 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles 90038. Tickets: $10.

Wednesday, December 1, 8:30 PM: Talking with Gods, a documentary on comics writer Grant Morrison (All-Star Superman), will be screened at Hi De Ho Comics & Books with Pictures, 1431 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica 90401. Tickets: $0. (more…)

A day to give, not just to thank

Tomorrow the United States (the American one, in case you weren’t sure) is celebrating Thanksgiving. So the blogging may stop for a few days. So I’ll leave you with this overly flowery, overly sappy message until I get back. Enjoy your foods!

Thanksgiving is a day we typically use to give thanks. While I’ll be doing plenty of that too, I’m going to stop short a bit and just give.

At around noon o’clock tomorrow, I will be performing with the Magic Meathands at a church in Inglewood that reaches out to the at-risk and homeless community. The church will be giving them a Thanksgiving meal, and we’ll be giving them some entertainment.

We do a lot of these kinds of shows, and I couldn’t be happier doing them. When I tell people about it, I think some people think it’s quaint. Some have a look on their face similar to how they would respond if their grandmother was getting involved in community theater. Good for her. She’s getting out and doing some cute little play acting to occupy her time. It’s not “real” theater of course.

As far as I’m concerned nothing could be further from the truth. These kinds of shows are challenging. Most big time comedic performers flat out couldn’t do it and don’t do it. They probably wouldn’t want to do it because they would sense how instantly humbling, demanding, and ultimately risky it is to engage an audience that is more concerned about immediate survival than catching the latest  TV show or movie. Remember, these shows are improvised. There’s no script, there’s no second take, there’s no cutting to commercial, there’s no warm-up act, there’s no one coaching the audience when to clap and when to laugh. We are flying without a net. And when things don’t click, you really know it.

So why do these shows? Because when things do click (and at this point, we’re pretty dang good at making sure things click) the reward is so much greater. The shared experience of laughter can be powerful and never more so than when that laughter gives temporary relief from overwhelming troubles. In those moments, no one is homeless or unemployed. No one is fighting addictions or emotional instability. I’m no longer the performer, they’re no longer the audience. We’re people agreeing together that life is surreal, weird, and funny. We have become a spontaneous choir of laughter. And from that transformation, we as a group have created joy. And if people in such desperate situations can find joy, there is hope.

Happy Thanksgiving. Be thankful for what you have. And find a moment to give.

13% of comics made by women

There are likely more women making comics in North America today than ever in the history of the industry. Never has there been a greater variety of creative voices and material. It’s a great time to discover comic books.

But just because it’s better than ever…

Comics material produced by women creators only makes up 13.2% of comics released to retailers and book stores in November so far, according to Ladies Making Comics. This excludes manga imported to North America and web-comics, which would no doubt boost that number significantly.

The comic book world is still very much a boys’ club. The industry was started by men, most of the material was created to appeal to boys and men, most of the businesses have been run by men. Of course there have been exceptions, but they were just that: exceptions to the rule. So the fact that the percentage is in the double digits should be celebrated. Just 10 years ago, I suspect that number would be half that number.

And more of the good news is that more and more female creators are no doubt inspiring new female creators that are growing up on some excellent material, so a mushrooming effect will take place. It’s frustratingly slow and there are still a lot of maddening obstacles, but I believe it’s happening. Nowhere more so than with web-comics, it seems. This is an amazingly fertile ground for fostering imaginative talents and they don’t have to break into a male dominated corporate structure to be seen. They just have to be good, produce material on a regular basis, and have some savviness with social media. And then you get things like Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton, Girls with Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto, Stop Paying Attention by Lucy Knisley, Fart Party by Julia Wertz, Templar, Arizona by Spike, Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran, KinokoFry: A Collection of Comics by Rebecca Clements, DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Diary by Erika Moen (which has sadly come to an end but is still a fantastic read), and many more. Have any favorites?

ManCoaster

Magic Meathands sketch comedy video #4!

Written, directed and edited by Nikki Turner, and starring Shane Boroomand and Travis McElroy, with Mary Benedict and Liz Gill. There’s also a quick appearance by me in the crucial role of the Ticket Taker.

This was the most production heavy of the initial batch of videos we made, complete with green screen and CGI velociraptor with missile launching arms. We had to cut the velociraptor because he kept blowing his lines.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy! We’re having a blast making these for you, and more are in the works. Stay tuned! (Or… stay internetted. Or whatever.)

Archives:
Magic Meathands Original video #3: Pants – A Nightmare
Magic Meathands Original video #2: Fun and Games
Magic Meathands Original video #1: Eddie the Enforcer

Comics Events in LA: Week of 11/21/10

You don’t have to sit at home alone reading to get into comic books and graphic novels. There are always great events going on that celebrate the vitality and creativity of comics. Just here in Los Angeles, there are more events I can ever make. But I try, and so should you. You never know what you’ll discover.

Here are some local Los Angeles events coming up that celebrate the sequential art form.

This week:

Wednesday, November 24: NEW COMICS DAY! Find your local comics specialty shop.

Wednesday, November 24, 8:30 PM: The Meltdown 5: Surprise Thanksgiving Show with stand-up comics Will Weldon, Baron Vaughn, Matt Kirshen, Ed Salazar, and Rob Delaney, at Meltdown Comics, 7522 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 90046. Tickets: $8.

Friday, November 26 & Saturday, November 27, 9 AM – 9 PM: Thanksgiving 2-Day Sale with 50% off most product at Golden Apple, 7018 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles 90038. Tickets: $0.

(more…)

Open Call for Laugh Makers, Joy Givers

The Magic Meathands Comedy Ensemble have really been picking up steam lately, which thrills me to no end.

Last night, as part of our expanding Comedy Outreach Project, we did an hour-long live show of improvised comedy for a group of women at the Alexandria House here in Los Angeles. We had tons of fun, and really look forward to our next show there in February. Tonight we’ll be returning to the Joy Center at the Hope for Homeless Youth in Echo Park. We perform there once a month and have made some great friends. It’s always a good time. The Meathands’ Comedy Outreach Project is a big part of the group’s mission, and our base of regular organizations that we visit is growing. We bring comedy to people who may not have the means to come to us. We bring laughter to the greater Los Angeles and Southern California community, instead of holing up in a theater somewhere expecting people to come to us. It is a tremendous gift for both us performers and our audience.

That’s not to say we don’t do the more traditional shows everyone can attend. Every first Friday of the month we perform at Mission IMPROVable’s Westside Comedy Theater in Santa Monica, opening for the hilarious Waterbrains. We also have regular appearances at The Spot Café & Lounge in Culver City, including our popular Family Friendly Night every second Saturday of the month with Jump Start Comedy Improv. I’m extraordinarily lucky to have this outlet where I get to perform to a live audience usually once a week, sometimes more. Seriously, this is like manna from heaven for someone like me. (No surprise I’ve done well over 100 shows with the Meathands.)

I’m also getting to stretch other creative muscles. Through our recently launched sketch videos program, I get to write, produce, direct, and edit comedy shorts. Hey, I’m actually using my college education! What a concept! This program is sure to grow in the future, and we’re already talking about doing a web-series.

OK, so you get it. I love the Meathands and I’m a big suck-up. Yay for me. Well, if you’re in the Los Angeles area and this sounds like something you would also enjoy, we just so happen (complete coincidence, I’m sure!) to be holding auditions for new members. If you’re interested and are a comedic actor/improviser 18 years or older with training in performance level improvisation, email your resume to our director Bill Johnson. Workshop-style auditions will be held on Monday, December 6 at 7 PM. Callbacks will follow the next evening, Tuesday, December 7. See here for more information about being a main company member of the Magic Meathands.

Mark Millar’s Trouble: Pedophilia the Marvel Way

Some geek scouring of Amazon revealed a listing for a hardcover collection of the 2003 Marvel Comics mini-series Trouble by Mark Millar and Terry Dodson scheduled for release on June 8, 2011. Yup, that’s the cover of the first issue from 2003. Classy, no?

Mark Millar has made a significant name for himself, most notably to the public at large for being the creative mind behind the Hollywood movies Kick-Ass and Wanted, both based on comic book mini-series he wrote (the former with artist John Romita, Jr., and the latter with J. G. Jones). (Terry Dodson is also a pretty popular comics artist, having worked on characters like Spider-Man, Wonder Woman and the X-Men.) So it makes sense for Marvel to mine its back catalog for material with Millar’s name on it. But I have to admit I never thought this comic would ever see the light of day again.

The concept is that Spider-Man’s Aunt May and Uncle Ben, while teenagers and not yet married, go on a double date with Spider-Man’s future parents to a resort in the Hamptons for summer vacation. It’s never explicitly stated that’s who they are (no last names are ever given), but the intent is pretty obvious. The story soon turns into a very special episode dealing with teen pregnancy.

As if that wasn’t blasphemous enough for longtime Spider-Man fans, Marvel inexplicably decided that instead of comics art on the covers, each of the five issues should use uncomfortable pictures of young girls in bathing suits, like the one creeping you out right now. The idea was to have French photographer Phillipe Biabolos mimic the covers of romance novels in an effort to draw in female readers. Idea and execution don’t always stay on the same path.

You see, this comic was supposed to help resurrect the long stagnant romance genre in comics, which was huge in the late 1940s and early 1950s, bringing in tons of female readers. But in 1954 the comics industry felt pressured to create a self-censorship board following some heated Senate hearings on the dangers of comics to America’s youth. So romance comics became boring and people stopped reading. By the 1970s the genre was dead. Flash forward to 2003, and Marvel Comics realizes that drawing from a demographic consisting of just over half the population could be a pretty good strategy. So they decided to give romance comics a go again. And then proceeded to royally botch it up with creepy covers of possibly under-age girls and an unnecessary connection to Marvel’s superhero mascot.

The series, conceived and written entirely by men who work almost exclusively in the superhero genre, failed to find an audience in comics shops. Many of those stores had very likely never tried to sell a romance comic before. And let’s be honest, they had an uphill battle. I have a hard time imagining someone who would be interested in romance comics feeling comfortable buying something with that cover. It’s got Pedobear written all over it.

As you might expect, it was lambasted by readers and drew a lot of critical ire at the time. In fact, it faired so poorly that the softcover collection of the individual issues, which would have been distributed to bookstores so female readers might actually discover it, was cancelled. Who knows? Maybe book stores took one look at it and refused to carry it. Regardless, the aborted graphic novel seemed to be an unspoken message of “Forget it. It never happened.”

And yet, here it comes again. Has it aged well? I guess we’ll find out. I’d love to hear Mark Millar or Terry Dodson’s thoughts on the comic now with some time passed. Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada and former Marvel publisher Bill Jemas were also heavily involved in the concept and design of the comic, so I’m curious about their thoughts as well. Any regrets? Any realizations that maybe this could’ve been pulled off better? Or did everyone just overreact and misread everything?

(It should be noted that sometimes these super-advanced Amazon listings end up being completely wrong. So it’s entirely possible this never comes out. But it’s a good excuse to revisit this failed attempt at reaching female readers. Quite a few major comics publishers have plenty of examples. And sometimes they even get it right.)

Kids Comics: still a struggle but worth the fight

The general consensus among mainstream comic book publishers is that comics aimed at kids, or all-ages comics, don’t sell. And sadly, they’re usually right.

Take for example the apparent cancellation of the endlessly charming Thor: The Mighty Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee. Even an impending big Hollywood movie of Thor couldn’t generate enough interest to sustain the series past eight issues. Why? Maybe it’s because there are also about four other comics starring Thor or some Thor-like character and who can keep them straight? Maybe it’s because too many comic book stores cater to their established audience base of young-ish to older adults who aren’t interested in an all-ages comic book no matter how much praise and acclaim it gets.

So kids comics are doomed, right?

Not quite. Fortunately a growing number of comics stores actually do have enough business savvy to diversify their customer base. In support of this, Diamond Comics, the primary distributor for comics shops, has been amping up their KidsComics.com website, now with a handy-dandy order form kids and parents can print out to make sure their local store orders what they want.

And more effectively, and unlike ten or more years ago, there are now other ways for comics to find their audience. As examples, walk into a book store and see how long it takes you to stumble over a display of Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. Granted, they technically aren’t comic books (or graphic novels), but often not far from away are copies of Bone by Jeff Smith, Owly by Andy Runton, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz adaptation by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, The Muppet Show Comic Book by Langridge himself, and lots more. And they’ve all been selling very well. Yes even the Twilight graphic novel adaptation by Young Kim. And tons of manga too, plenty of it age appropriate (see Manga4Kids for recommendations – I’ve still got a lot to learn myself). The School Library Journal has a great blog to help find Good Comics For Kids.

There are also great web-comics for kids online. Two of my favorites are the whimsical Abominable Charles Christopher by Karl Kerschl and the delightfully absurd Axe Cop by Ethan Nicolle and Malachai Nicolle (age 5!). LunchboxFunnies.com is a good place to start, although they sadly haven’t updated for several months now. Hopefully it’s just temporary. There have been a few sites attempting to track age appropriate web-comics but sadly most are over a year old now, basically ancient artifacts in internet time.

Plenty of the above mentioned comics have been released as digital comics on mobile devices and online through services like ComiXology. Although they have yet to parse out kids comics to make shopping easier, they do have age ratings, which helps a great deal. Much of Atomic Robo by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener is recommended for kids 9 and up, and it is regularly among the most downloaded.

So kids comics do sell. You just have to know how to get them to kids.

What does a nightmare sound like?

I was very intent on creating a specific musical soundtrack for the video that posted yesterday, Pants: A Nightmare. So, as a little behind-the-scenes exclusive, I’ve posted the music I wrote and recorded for the sketch video. It’s at my Acoustic Roundtable profile which I nearly forgot existed. I’ve posted the final music that was used in the video as well as an earlier demo-type version.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, although I’m constantly frustrated by the limitations of my musical abilities. Even so, the overall effect, and several specific moments, achieved what I was going for. So I’ll consider this a success, and keep learning.

I actually thought about putting this up on iTunes to sell, but I doubt I could get away with charging 99 cents for a 40-second atonal instrumental.

For those that care about this kind of thing: I used GarageBand to record this. There are three tracks of guitars (2 with some kind of distortion effect). These were recorded live with my nylon-stringed acoustic guitar, a pretty clean, folkie sounding instrument, so I was pretty happy with how dirty and electric-ish I could get these. There’s a vocal track with the ambient vocals effect – I think I did just one take, maybe two. The rest are instruments imitated by GarageBand that I played with my keyboard or mouse – two horn parts (high and low) and strings.

What do you think? Ever have a nightmare sound like this?

Pants: A Nightmare

Magic Meathands sketch comedy video #3!

This one has a whole lot of me in it. I wrote it, I co-directed it (with fellow Meathand Kevin Callahan who was a great help in breaking this sucker down so we had a super-efficient shoot), I starred in it, I wrote the music (or as I like to call it, sonic enhancement), I edited it. So there’s me all over. But it would simply not exist at all without the Magic Meathands. The fantastic camera work is by Wendy J.N. Lee (she also provided invaluable technical consulting). I absolutely love the freaky taunting by Shane Boroomand, Lara Sterling, Travis McElroy, Kevin Callahan and Mary Benedict. And of course Nikki Turner as Mom. Getting her costuming to work was way harder than I expected but it came out way better than I expected so it was way worth it. Way.

I hope you enjoy it. If so, please comment, give it thumbs up at YouTube, favorite it, forward it on, and all those other things people do on the Interwebs.

Check back next week for the fourth and final video from our first batch of videos.

And there’s more to come! Yesterday, we shot another batch, and again one of them is written by me. So it’s off to the land of editing with me once again. You’ll probably start seeing the second wave in December or January.

Archives:
Magic Meathands Video #2: Fun and Games
Magic Meathands Video #1: Eddie the Enforcer