John Wilcox is Famous!

By Robert J. Sodaro
Have you ever wanted to be famous? Yeah, me too. Only, how to go about it has always been a question. Well, if you are a fan of the comicstrip Moose and Molly, you might have noticed a trend that been occurring over the past several months. There has been a name (more than one, even), which keeps cropping up in the strip.

Well, according to strip creator, Bob Weber, Sr. there are certain names that due to their unique alliteration sound funny (to Mr. Weber, anyway, and since it is his strip, who’s to argue?) so he keeps using them. One of these names is John Wilcox.

Well, the name John Wilcox isn’t a made-up name, it is the name of a real-life individual who is also a good friend of Weber’s. More than that, John Wilcox is a writer, photographer, comicbook colorist, musician, and cartoonist himself. (He has colored The Amazing Spider-Man, Excalibur, and Rom Spaceknight for Marvel, and has written and colored for several other major publishers, including Elvira, Little Archie, & Felix the Cat.

To date, John (or rather his name) has appeared five or six times in the strip. Some of those appearances have been here, here, and here. Evey indication is that he will appear again. For more about John, you can visit his Web site, or just keep reading Moose and Molly.

Bring on the Bat Pooch!

By Robert J. Sodaro
OK Kids, Everyone has pets, right? Superman has Krypto, so doesn’t Batman deserve his own pooch? Apparently someone thinks he does...

Graphically Designed.

I just read the following in GD USA, one of the Graphic Design trade publications that I receive. DC Comics received the cover for the February issue (hey, I was on vacation, and just noticed it in my stack of “to read” stuff.) In the publication’s Seen and Noted section was this blurb:

Heroic Challenge

To keep the iconic hero fresh, DC Comics and Warner Brothers asked Little & Company to re-energize the Superman brand and keep it relevant to modern audiences. The resulting brand book helps Warner Bros. business units, licensees and mass merchandisers understand the essence and value of the brand, as captured through vintage and modern imagery and stylized language. The project dovetails with upcoming plans for the release of the movie, “Superman Returns.”

Personally, I was hoping for more, but that’s really all that there was. Anyway, an image of the cover can be found here" Needless to say, from some of the interior graphics (seen here in this post), it appears as if Little & Company have actually developed some sort of internal "branding" book that defines the new look.

Now wouldn’t that make for a cool collectible, eh?

Is Nothing Sacred?

By Robert J. Sodaro

Like all of you, I’ve been reading comics as long as I can remember. As many of you all know, I’m a Spider-Man fan. Therefore I’ve always hated it when a real-life (or TV) thief breaks into a high-rise, and is referred to by the press (or the cops in the show) as Spider-Man.

So you just know how much I’m going to hate this story of a real-life thief, wearing a Spider-Man mask knocked over this California Comicbook store.

Is Nothing Sacred?

By Robert J. Sodaro

DC Comics’, WWII hero, Sgt. Rock (who lead Joe Kubert’s comicbook incarnation of Easy Company — a real-life U.S. Army unit that was the basis for the HBO series A Band of Brothers) will return to print in a six-issue series written and drawn by the 79-year-old Kubert.

As reported by Jewish World Review the rugged, agless, iconic war hero has returned this week with the first episode of a six-issue miniseries touting a Jewish-theme.

Sgt. Frank Rock, DC Comics' premier war hero, has been around since the late 1950s. It has been nearly two decades since DC published regular World War II adventures featuring Rock, but the character continues to pop up every now and then.

The entire JewishWorldReview story can be read here.

Back when I could afford it, I read nearly every comicbook I could get my hands on, and Sgt Rock and Easy Co. was one of those. It has been a while since I’ve read a rousing WWII comic (especially one written and illustrated by Kubert), so I’m thinking that I just might have to pick this one up.

Given the darth of Jewish heroes in comics (oh, Hell, in much of fiction) I strongly urge the rest of you to do the same.

Is Nothing Sacred?

By Robert J. Sodaro

While it may be considered somewhat incestuous to reference one’s own blog postings (on another blogsite even) in this forum, I just haven’t been seeing any chatter about what is going on in Spider-Man’s various titles, in regards to The Other storyline (either here, or on the other sites I frequent).

Thus, as one of the resident reviewers of SpiderFan.org, I felt that someone should chat about these event, and I’ve nominated myself. Now, if you don’t follow Spidey’s titles, then perhaps you won’t care about what is going on, and if you do follow his adventures, you most assuredly already know.

Still, I should warn you that this posting does contain spoiler elements as it does discuss the on-going plotlines (the stories in question in this post all occurred last month, so the specifics are probably already known). Hence, with that in mind, and with everyone sufficiently forewarned, you are all invited to make the leap.

Is Nothing Sacred?
Robert J. Sodaro

OK, by now others may have seen this story, I’ve already seen it in a couple of places, but I thought that I’d post it here as well; sort of to “alert the troops” as it were. The story is this, just recently a Richmond, VA man was convicted for looking at cartoon images of young girls being forced to have sex with adults. He is the first person who has been convicted of a 2003 federal statute that makes obscene cartoon drawings as well as photographs an illegal form of child pornography. While I’m happy another sick-o pedophile, pervert, scumbag is off the streets and put away where he won’t hurt anyone, I can’t help thinking that that this sort of Thought Police kind of law can only wind up being bad for our industry.

Please, keep in mind that I am, in no way, shape, or form defending this guy, or what he was doing (looking at these kind of images, and printing them out on a public computer at an Unemployment office while supposedly “Job-Searching”). I can’t help but to think that there is a metric ton of this type of Anime already out there, and while it was once risqué, “blue” or NSW, it is now potentially (if not actually) illegal, and we as comicbook fans, retailers, and pros, should be aware of this.

To be sure, according to what I’ve read on the matter, the guy was already a convicted kiddy sex-offender who was, by the terms of his release, legally prevented from being around kids, or looking at any material considered to be pornographic (especially kiddy porn).

As one blogger put it,

“Nobody is defending child porn, but if a cartoon can be child porn, what about literature? Is "Lolita" child porn? Hey, even the Bible has racy stories that involve incest. How about an abstract painting with a title that suggests underage sex? How about a song about it? — Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen." To find out how a man can get incarcerated for over 1,000 years for possessing cartoons”

Personally, I find this all a little bit chilling.