Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Return of the King

In 1971, Jack Kirby made a kind of half-hearted effort to get into publishing his own work. He and his son Neal formed a company called Communicators Unlimited, with myself and my then-partner, Steve Sherman. Jack really didn't have the funds to be a publisher, the rest of us were woefully low on know-how, and others did their best to convince Jack it was a bad course for him...so Communicators Unlimited only issued a couple of folios and prints, plus one rather nice book. Copies of Kirby Unleashed now go for a nice piece of change in the rare occasion that you can find one. Fortunately, you don't have to go hunting. This December, TwoMorrows Publishing will bring out what I'm sure will be a lovely facsimile of this legendary biography/portfolio created in Jack's studio using his own files. Best of all, Steve and I will get the chance to correct some of the dumber typos we made. Sounds like a must-have to me.

• Posted at 6:17 PM · LINK

Free Pix

If you're going to a Target store between now and Sunday, and if that Target store offers digital photo service on the premises, you might want to print out and take along this coupon. It's for 25 free digital prints and I don't see any catch.

• Posted at 5:01 PM · LINK

Florida Aftermath

There are quite a few veteran comic book artists who've retired to Florida and who found themselves in the path of Hurricane Charley. One of them, Nick Cardy, was evacuated from his home town to another city...and then Charley made an unexpected turn, missed the town where Nick's home is and slammed into the city to which he'd been relocated. But Nick is fine and insofar as I can tell, so are all the other artists who live in the state. Deep exhale.

• Posted at 4:56 PM · LINK

Color Me Purple

On the topic of colorization, I've received...well, more messages than I have time to answer, either one-on-one or in some proper posting here. It's a complex subject because it gets us off on the topics of, for example, who has the creative moral authority to say that a proposed change in a movie or TV show is proper? Or if we agree that a certain alteration in a movie is "wrong," should that be a matter of law or merely of consumer avoidance?

I don't have set-in-stone opinions about much of this. I do think that an awful lot of what is done to old movies in their conversion for free TV or home video constitutes a revision of the original work. One example of many: The mania of film buffs to locate and restore excised footage — even scenes the filmmakers wanted out — makes for a change that I think is sometimes greater than colorization. But that's generally considered an act of preservation and respect, not of desecration.) The point I was trying to make was that the old dire prophecy that a colorized It's a Wonderful Life would obliterate the original has not occurred. To me, the only problem with those new Three Stooges DVDs that offer both colorized and original versions is the price tag.

I'll write more about this when I have a chance. Today, I'm spending way too much time arguing with a company that wants me to pay $338 more on a cellular air time contract for a phone that no longer works. They'll gladly replace the busted phone for $199 or I can get it for $49 if I sign with them through August of 2006. You can just imagine how happy this makes me.

• Posted at 3:55 PM · LINK

Tales of Terror (cont.)

To further complicate matters, there's a poll out today that shows Bush and Kerry tied in Colorado.

• Posted at 10:39 AM · LINK

August 19, 2004 • Current • August 17, 2004