By Mark Coale

There was plenty of talk last week about what kind of success WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE would have this weekend at the box office.

Well, it caused quite the rumpus, taking in almost $33 million and easily winning the week.

From the point-of-view of someone without children who didn’t go through a childhood divorce, it was very well made but melancholy. Certainly worth your time. No more details for fear of the comments section being flooded with whining of anti-spoiler zealots.

Longtime wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano passed away today at the age of 76. In the 1970s, Albano was one of the big three managers in the WWWF, along with the already-deceased Classie Freddie Blassie and The Grand Wizard.

In the 1980s, Albano became a crossover celebrity after appearing in Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” video and parlayed that into things like the Super Mario Brothers Super Show television show.

By Mark Coale

Sure, we published our first issue in [cough] years and it was great to see old friends and discuss not being able to watch either the England or US matches with FMB, but can anything really top finding this book in a 50-cent bin?

So great for all the wrong reasons.

While everyone marveled at PLANETARY 27 finally being published, a much less important book will also debut this week.

The often-delayed issue four of ODESSA STEPS MAGAZINE makes its first appearance at the Baltimore Comic Con this weekend (see earlier post for more details).

In this issue, you can find such diverse things as an interview with Jamie S. Rich talking comics and Criterion DVDs, sportswriter Dan LeBatard, an academic article about STARMAN and lots of wrestling wackiness both north and south of the border.

And only three bucks. Surely a bargain.

You can find it at the Odessa Steps Magazine booth (#138) in Artist’s Alley. There’s also a good chance you can find THE BEAT HERSELF at the booth, likely haranguing the helper monkey on why it took so long for this to be published.

This is THE BEAT breaking in here and congratulating Mark on getting out another issue of ODESSA STEPS! The last time it came out people read fanzines. Perhaps after seeing this, they will again. Please stop by and say hi and get a copy, and once again, THANK YOU MARK COALE.

By Matt Maxwell

So this wasn’t the first comic show in Long Beach. Not so long ago, Wizard used to have their LA-based show in Long Beach. And back then, it was pretty good. Decently-sized, good crowds, some programming, a collection of bars and restaurants nearby that you could sneak out to instead of paying eight dollars for a slice of pizza. Had great conversations with both Grant Morrison and Darwyn Cooke at those shows, and had a good time (since it was only a little over an hour away from where I lived at the time and was pretty cheap as these things went.)

Then Wizard moved their show to the LA Convention Center and it promptly became a ghost town. LA-based people no longer treated it as a vacation (Long Beach is about a half hour south of downtown and a pleasant enough destination), but as work. That and, though it’s being rebuilt and gentrified aggressively, downtown LA by the convention center isn’t that great a place to hang out (though leaps and bounds better than it used to be in the nineties). Marvel sent a delegation and DC stopped sending theirs. The LA show never really recovered. I exhibited there once and attended once, neither time was all that interesting (but the light crowds made for a good set of convention training wheels as it were.)

I was pretty interested to see that the same crew was bringing the show back, no longer under the aegis of Wizard (how often do you see that phrase typed out?) and with a very comics-centric focus (though Nintendo easily had the largest booth there). Sure, sign me up. If nothing else, it gives me a good chance to see my friends in Orange County. Maybe sell some books. Granted, it’s no longer a trivial task to get down there, but it’s not all that much of a trip either. As Sean T. Collins writes, “I’ll eat that.”

Just don’t eat at the concessions. They’re really expensive. Nearly four dollars for a bottle of Coke? Really guys? I pay less than that at SDCC, which is more or less my metric for convention costs. I suppose they’re more expensive in NY, which I may get to find out for myself next year. That’s really my big complaint, so if you’re here to listen to me whine about how terrible things were, don’t read any further. Next year, I’ll bring my own water in or something. Four dollars. Really.

(more…)

According to an article in the Sunday New York Times, The Twilight Zone turned 50 years old last Friday.

It’s easy to mention “To Serve Man” or “Time Enough at Last” as your favorite episodes, but what are your favorite “hidden gems?”

Here are a few of mine:

- “Long Live Walter Jameson” - Just how old is Kevin McCarthy’s history professor?

- “Back There” - A time traveler (Russell Johnson aka the professor from Gilligan’s Island) tries to save Lincoln.

- “Will the real Martian Please Stand Up?” - Which diner patron is part of an alien invasion?

- “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” - A rural man (James Best aka Roscoe P. Coltrane) shows up at his own funeral.

- “Steel” - Lee Marvin takes place of his robot boxer in a fight likely to kill him.

Tip of the hat to Peter Sanderson for pointing out the article on his Facebook.

It might not be new (since the Star Trek movie reboot has been out for a few months now) but there was no way after seeing these in the grocery store tonight that there was not going to be a post on THE BEAT about them.

I mean. Seriously. Star Trek Eggos.

Last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, while plugging his new movie, THE INVENTION OF LYING, Ricky Gervais showed a drawing of the character designs for his upcoming HBO animated series (based on the podcasts he did with partner Stephen Merchant and bald Manc Karl Pilkington).

Ricky looks remarkably like Fred Flintstone.

Steve is tall.

And Karl still has a head that looks like a [censored] orange.

The show will apparently begin in the US in January.

The woman that inspired the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” passed away at the age of 46 from Lupus.

From the WaPo obit:
…

Mrs. Vodden’s connection to the Beatles dates to her childhood friendship with schoolmate Julian Lennon, John Lennon’s son.

Julian Lennon, then 4 years old, came home from school one day with a drawing, showed it to his father and said it was “Lucy in the sky with diamonds.”

(tip of the hat to the always-right Kurt Busiek who posted this on his Facebook page.)

Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta would have been 92 today.

Viva El Santo!

Congratulations to Michael Emerson, for his Emmy win tonight, for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. You can keep your Don Draper. I’ll take Benjamin Linus as the best character currently on series television.

How long ’til Lost starts again?

I may have lost the memo, but I believe this is a national holiday on THE BEAT CALENDAR.

The trailers for WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE and THE FANTASTIC MR FOX.

Continuing coverage of all things Miyazaki at THE BEAT, let’s look at the opening weekend in the United States for PONYO.

The picture finished ninth this weekend at the box office, with $3.5 million weekend gross on 927 screens, for a per-screen average of $3,782. It was fourth among new films opening last weekend, finishing behind DISTRICT 9 ($37 m on 3049 screens), THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE ($19.2 m on 2988 screens) and THE GOODS ($6.9 m on 1838 screens).

This makes it already the third-highest grossing Miyazaki movie in the US. According to Box Office Mojo, it’s only $1.2 m behind HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE, with SPIRITED AWAY at #1 with $10 m.

It probably goes without saying this is the most screens ever for a Miyazaki movie. SPIRITED AWAY was on 714 screens, a far cry from the paltry 129 for PRINCESS MONONOKE. I remember having to drive over an hour up to Philadelphia to see MONONOKE and that was the closest it came and I think only lasted 2 weeks in the theater.

As for critical acclaim, it’s currently at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, wth 79 positive reviews and 5 negative. (What’s wrong with those people?)

I saw it Friday afternoon and was thoroughly entertained, although perhaps not as much as some of the more “adult” previous works in the Miyazaki canon. Certainly a hearty review for anyone with kids the age of the characters in the movie.

Posted by mark coale

(The second part of a series on how not to spend Comic-Con week at Comic-Con)

After spending most of the week in San Diego, but only one day at the actual con itself, it was off to the Bay Area for the previously-discussed Miyazaki festivities at Berkeley. But before seeing the director, the previous day was spent making the trip from San Francisco Airport to Santa Rosa to visit the Charles M. Schulz Museum.

(For the super-nerds: Not only did I want to go to Santa Rosa to see the Schulz Museum, but wanted to drive around town, since it was the setting for my favorite and perhaps the most underrated of all the Hitchcock movies, SHADOW OF A DOUBT.)

It’s fair to say that anyone coming to California for Comic-Con really should make a detour to the Schulz Museum, as it’s one big love affair to Schulz and all the lovable characters (and Lucy) that populate the world of PEANUTS.

Obviously, it goes without saying there is tons of Schulz artwork in and around the museum, from the giant mural in the lobby to comic stripped tiles in the restroom (bathroom reading has never been so appealing).

While I was there in late July, there were two featured exhibits in the museum. The one that was nearing its run featured a number of strips and memorabilia commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day. The exhibit had both PEANUTS strips done by Schulz over the years related to the anniversary, as well as personal artifacts from Schulz’s time in the army during World War II.

The other exhibit, which had just opened the day I was at the museum, was the second of three under the heading “The Language of Lines.” This one is called “How Cartoonists Create Characters” and is filled with original art from the Golden Age up until the present. Sure, it was great to see a BARNEY GOOGLE strip from the 1930s or a page of PRINCE VALIANT art, but, given my age, nothing was cooler to see than an original CALVIN AND HOBBES strip.

The neatest thing among the permanent exhibits may be a re-creation of Schulz’s studio, complete with his longtime drawing board. Eagle-eyed visitors will want to be on the lookout for the NHL’s Lester Patrick Award, which Schulz was given in 1981 for his contributions to hockey, as well a Peabody Award, given for A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS.

Any visitor to the museum will also want to venture across the street and have lunch at the Warm Puppy Café, which is part of Snoopy’s Home Ice, the ice rink Schulz had built in 1969 and was opened by a skate by Olympic darling Peggy Fleming.

Although the museum was set up at Comic-Con (you could have easily missed them, like everything else that wasn’t a movie booth), it’s certainly no substitute for a visit to the real thing.

Posted by Mark Coale

Posted by Mark Coale

During our high-powered breakfast (maybe brunch by the time Ace and FMB got there), The Beat requested that I try and write more for the site. So, here’s the first article about the non-SDCC portion of my travels recently.

I had always planned on only doing one day of San Diego, but for a while, wasn’t sure what to do for the weekend before coming back to the muggy Mid-Atlantic states. There were many possibilities: baseball games, futbol matches, even going to see Monument Valley. The deal was sealed when I found out that the legendary Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki was going to be in Berkeley doing a Q&A in conjunction with receiving an award from Cal’s Center for Japanese Studies.

When I told friends at the Con that I was only staying for a day (plus Preview Night), most were dumbfounded that I would make the trip for so brief a trip. But when I said that I was going to see Miyazaki, almost everyone immediately said, “Oh, that’s understandable” or “I wish I could go.” One unnamed Eisner winner said they were jealous and wondered how they could pull strings to maybe meet Miyazaki while he was briefly at the Con Friday.

It was certainly worth the trip. I haven’t watched his SDCC panel with Pixar’s John Lassiter, but I presume it didn’t have the coziness of his Berkeley talk. It was not in a small room, but a 1000-seat auditorium on a college campus likely beats trying to watch a cramped and sweaty panel in Room 20 or Hall H at the Con. And there was thankfully no one dressed as Ashitaka or Kiki. The closest we got was a number of people carrying Totoros in with them to the talk.

It’s always interesting to go to a panel where a translator is involved, because often, Miyazaki would make a joke and about a quarter of the room would laugh and the rest of us would have to wait for the translation to understand what was so funny. And Miyazaki made plenty of jokes during his 90 or so minutes on stage.

Miyazaki, prompted by moderator Roland Kelts, talked in a mostly-playful manner about some of the elements most associated with his films, such as nature vs technology and the use of female protagonists. He expressed dismay for how disasters are seen as “evil,” even though they are just part of nature and often have a cleansing aspect to them.

When asked about good and bad characters, Miyazaki said he often doesn’t have true villains in his pictures, since he did not like to make his animators draw evil people.

There was also discussion about Studio Ghibli’s animation practices and Miyazaki’s desire to continue making traditional animation films done with cels and not CGI, even though it was like “being in a raft in a sea full of speed boats.”

The Q&A session, both the moderator’s inquiries and the audience question portion, quickly sped by and Miyazaki was soon off the stage and a very satisfied audience poured out of the building, with a lot less pushing and shoving than one probably found in San Diego.

Considering this was likely a once-in-a-lifetime event (how often does Miyazaki appear in public in the US, now, if ever), it was certainly worth skipping out on SDCC.

How much work did the Lost brain trust put into their (last?) Comic-Con panel presentation? A lot, according to an article in today’s NYT.

“Is it too late for when Carlton and I come out onstage for there to be giant towers of flames?” Mr. Lindelof said (mostly) facetiously.

Tip of the hat to Peter Sanderson, since we saw the story first from his Facebook link.

Posted by mark coale

Paste Pot Pete by Colleen Coover

[Special to The Beat by Mark Coale]

As I told a number of people, I stopped coming to SD in 2003 because it had gotten too big. And after one day, I’m glad I’m leaving tomorrow.

Exhausted is just the word that came out of most people’s mouths. And those were from people with booths, who presumably weren’t constantly on the go the entire day.

I love how staffed the show is now, but it seems a smidge too draconian. You couldn’t go more than 10 feet without a Con volunteer or red-shirted security person making sure you only went out the exits and kept lines from turning into quagmires.

Man, the lines. Even the short ones were long. Long lines upstairs to get into panels. Long lines downstairs to get free nick-nacks or books signed, be it comics pro or C-list celebrity. Lines at the ATM, lines at the food court. And then there’s the rumored two-mile line for the Twilighters.

Let it be said I can’t recall a bad incident today with a Twilighter. Maybe they all did leave after the panel and never even set foot in the hall.

I vented in an email to a few people last night about Preview Night and won’t repeat them all here but just wanted to say that “real weapons” are banned from the convention center (although I saw an Elektra apparently brandishing sais), the “fake ones” that are oversized could be just as much of a hazard.Costumers, please leave your giant novelty Manga Swords or Death Scythes at home next year.

On the plus side, it was great catching up with people probably not seen since the last time I was in SD. Had some wacky conversations about goofy 1960s villains a couple times today. Got a couple books to peruse. But still missed many people I knew were in the hall and never saw once. Hopefully, they’ll be at one of the more intimate shows like Baltimore or Charlotte soon.

And now, a vacation from this vacation.

In the immortal words of Kimbo Slice, “I’m done Gus.”

To engage in a rare-bit of self-promotion, I finally posted an interview I did for the new Oni Press book YOU HAVE KILLED ME by Jamie S. Rich and Joelle Jones. We did the interview last summer, but the book was delayed and the next issue of ODESSA STEPS was delayed. And here we are. YOU HAVE KILLED ME will debut at San Diego next week. In it, we talk about the new book, some old books and our mutual love/obsession with the Criterion Collection.

And that art, by Joelle Jones, will eventually be the cover of the next issue of the magazine, hopefully debuting at Baltimore this year. (Of course, we said that last year too.)

Posted by mark coale

As us nerds remember all too well from high school, the “jock clique” and the “geek clique” don’t often mix well. So, imagine what it was like the other day when the Mets (the favored team in Stately Beat Manor) arrived at their hotel in Pittsburgh to see a furry convention going on.

That led to a discussion about on the air last night between Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez. Uniwatch has the transcipt, including this gem:

Hernandez: I saw a guy with, with his pet beaver. He had his hand, he was stroking it, he was petting it. [Long pause.] I’m serious! It was a, like a stuffed animal, and he was comforting it. Very bizarre.

No word about whether Mr. Met got any action from anyone dressed like a cat.

[posted by mark coale]

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that there will now be TEN Best Picture nominees instead of only five. Certainly done for marketing reasons (more pictures with Oscar nominations, don’t you know?), the question to ask in these here parts is: How does this effect both “genre movies” and animated features?

Thoughts?

Megan Fox is thinking about dressing as Slave Girl Leia at Comic-Con.

San Diego might explode.

The game was created 25 years ago today. Learn more about the creation of “the world’s greatest video game” here.

I don’t know about you, but I played TETRIS so much when I was an undergrad in the late 1980s, I would see the shapes when I closed my eyes, trying to get to sleep at night.

And now, there are kids still playing it today on their Wiis and on their cell phones.