Comics In Comics: Bluewater's ELLEN DeGENERES Is True FEMALE FORCE, Selling Out In Less Than A Week

With the market for superhero comics cornered by DC Comics, Marvel, and Image, many smaller publishers like Dynamite Entertainment and Bluewater Productions  have turned to licensed properties for their bread and butter.  It's a task that has brought both companies success; with fantasy and science fiction titles like William Shatner Presents and Ray Harryhausen's Wrath of the Titans,  Bluewater's Founder and President Darren G. Davis has definitely scored some wins for his small Bellingham, Washington-based publishing and production company. 

But surprisingly, Bluewater's greatest successes haven't come from the traditional genres that feed many a comics fan's appetite.  Instead, the publisher's recent line of non-fiction comic book biographies, a genre that comics have rarely explored, has been their big win and earned the publisher spots on Live with Regis and Kelly, The View, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, with write-ups in The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, USA Today, abbracadabbling,  and numerous other blogs and media outlets.   In addition, Bluewater's unauthorized bio-comics  earned them MTV's award as Best Buzz Generator of the comics industry for 2009.

Female Force, the first title in Bluewater's biographical line, is the source of that Buzz, and the popular series remains very much in the public eye. Published monthly,  the comic offers self-contained examinations of strong and influential women who are shaping modern history and culture. Past issues of Female Force have featured Michelle Obama, Princess Diana, Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, and others; their second issue,  Female Force: Sarah Palin, published just after the 2009 Presidential inauguration, sold out in less than a month and has since gone on to a third and even fourth print run, the Going Rogue edition.

We get a huge comedic kick out of Ellen DeGeneres and have been loving her daytime talk-show for years (in fact, we're watching it on the Home Office LCD right now!). Being the Ellen mega-fans that we are, we were psyched when Bluewater announced their plans last year to bring Ellen into the Female Force family for the series' 13th issue.

Female Force: Ellen DeGeneres hit comic shops across the nation just over a week ago, and in a testament to the popularity of both Ellen and the Bluewater series,  Issue #13 has already sold out. That's before our favorite  comedienne has even had her chance to chat the book up on live TV, something we've been anticipating for days.  But the comic, written by Sandra C. Ruckdeschel and penciled by Pedro Ponzo, has still received plenty of national attention, being featured in such mainstream publications as MTV, People Magazine, US Weekly, and E! Entertainment Television.

Thankfully, for the scads of Ellen fans that still haven't gotten their hands on a copy, Bluewater stated just last night that a second printing of the comic is already in the works. Featuring new cover art, Female Force: Ellen DeGeneres - 2nd Printing should see a release date by mid-summer 2010.

The one week sell-out rate of Female Force #13 puts Ellen ahead of former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin's Female Force #2.  We don't think that fact should cause too many Tea Party problems, but that's not to say Ellen's comic book bio hasn't already found some controversy.  At Ellen's request, Bluewater provided free advertising  - and will be donating a portion of the  comic's proceeds -  to the Humane Society of the United States, an organization Ellen publicly champions.  Earlier Female Force personalities have made similar charitable requests, but Ellen's has drawn fire from pro-hunting organizations that have threatened to boycott the issue.

We say 'whatever' to that; the comic book buying power of pro-hunting organizations in the United States isn't what we'd call, well, existent.  It's an empty threat, and kudos to Bluewater Productions for not sharing those pro-hunting peeps' concerns.

If you're thinking of picking up a copy Female Force: Ellen DeGeneres - which we strongly encourage you to do - you probably want to know what you'll find inside along with those pesky Humane Society ads.  Told from the point-of-view of the comic's writer, the comic's story follows Ellen's life from her youth in Louisiana and her days on the comedy club circuit to her  controversial sitcom and finally to her present as an Emmy-winning daytime talk show host and judge on American Idol.  

As with the series' earlier issues, Female Force: Ellen DeGeneres  is fully an all-ages read. Neither Ruckdeschel's writing nor Ponzo's art is close to stellar, but the story is thorough on the details and doesn't shy away from portraying Ellen's life as an openly lesbian performer, her support of gay rights and California's attempt to legalize gay marriage,  or the more controversial and profound points of her career.  Nothing needs to persuade us to be any stronger supporters and fans of Ellen's than we already are, but Female Force certainly reminded us why we've loved Ellen for years. And we learned a few things along the way, too. 

While the personalities selected for Female Force are important for being today's 'movers-n-shakers', their greater importance lies in the power they lend to Female Force itself.  Each issue has its own innate appeal that's different from the one before, and the potential of finding brand new readers is realized each and every month. It's a brilliant concept, actually, and to its great credit, the series has bridged the gap between comics ability to entertain with their natural potential to educate.  As much as Ellen DeGeneres has bravely broken down walls for gays and lesbian rights in this country, Bluewater's Female Force is breaking down many of the barriers that have held comic books back for over seventy years.

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 Be quick! First printings of Bluewater Productions' Female Force: Ellen DeGeneres are still available from our very own Amazon shop [here]! Amazon's also taking pre-orders for the second printing of Ellen's comic [here].  Or, to find an issue today, call the Comic Shop Locator Service at  1-888-COMIC-BOOK or visit them online [here].

Female Force: Ellen DeGeneres (2nd Printing)

Stay with your favorite comicsblog for more coverage of Bluewater's breakthrough bio comics, including what they've done for Michael Jackson and what they have in store for another one of our female faves, Lady Gaga! 

LOGAN'S RUN: Journey...or Destination? PLUS: William F. Nolan Signs in Portland Tomorrow!!

"Sometime in the 23rd century...the survivors of war, overpopulation and pollution are living in a great domed city, sealed away from the forgotten world outside..." 

If those words strangely compel you to slip into a skin-tight black jumpsuit and go for a jog like the one we just got back from, then you're either a fan of Logan's Run or just really, really weird.  Oddly enough, either notion's appropriate, considering that Logan's Run creator William F. Nolan's idea for the 1967 novel he co-wrote came from a presentation he gave for Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont's science fiction class at UCLA in 1963.

Nearly fifty years later, Nolan's protagonist Logan is poised for not just a new 'run,' but potentially a marathon.   One leg of this futuristic race will happen just 24 hours from now, when Portland-based comics retailer Things From Another World (TFAW) hosts a special in-store event with Nolan himself.  If you're in the area, abbracadabbling your way over to TFAW's Portland location to meet the legendary science fiction author and geek his signature would be a very worthy way to spend the afternoon, we think.  Get your directions to TFAW and the event's 411 right HERE.

While Nolan and co-author George Clayton Johnson's milestone science fiction novel was published while Star Trek was airing on television,  Logan's Run's influence on science fiction  was most directly felt thanks to the 1976 MGM movie adaptation starring Michael York. The  movie version did alter several facets of the book before it was brought to the big screen, but the essence remained the same.  The story follows the adventures of Logan 3, a “Sandman” charged with hunting those who flee rather than surrender themselves to “sleep.” A jewel embedded in each person's hand at birth changes colors every seven years, marking the stages of life, until it turns black after 21 years -- one's lastday. As Logan himself nears the completion of his allotted years, he begins to hear whispers of a place called Sanctuary where runners can escape the Sandmen and the obligation of Sleep. Logan resolves to use his lastday to find Sanctuary and destroy it... but of course doubts cloud the way.

The movie's popularity also spawned a short-lived Logan's Run television series, an ongoing comic strip published in the United Kingdom, and an equally short-lived comic book series published in 1977 by Marvel Comics here at home.  (Logan's Run was also attempted unsuccessfully a few years later by former publisher Malibu Comics).

But now Nolan and Logan's Run are back in comics - and going strong.  Although Nolan himself was a comic book writer by trade, having worked before his novel years for Whitman Comics, a division of Walt Disney, writing Mickey Mouse stories, he's not the chief scribe behind Logan's latest comic incarnation. Instead, he's licensed his creation to Vancouver, Washington-based Bluewater Productions, who developed the idea for a new the ongoing series, Logan's Run: Lastday, written by Paul J. Salamoff with art by Daniel Gete.

Lastday's first issue hit shelves in late 2009, but what ever additions to the post-apocalyptic world of  Logan's Run the comic may make, it's Daniel Gete's new costume designs for the series - like the new look for the stormtrooper-esque Sandmen - that are of particularly important to Nolan.

Under his arrangement with Bluewater, Nolan has approval of all story and design elements for the new Logan's Run series.  While many creators would want such an agreement to ensure  their visions aren't somehow terribly disfigured by other creators, Nolan's control is of greater significance.

While he hasn't directly stated why the 'look' of his new Logan's Run comic is so important, Nolan did tell Comic Book Resources last summer that part of his reason to get Logan back in the the fan boy public eye was to push Warner Bros along on their much-delayed Logan's Run movie remake.  Warner's optioned Logan's Run twelve years ago, with seven writers and four directors having been attached to the project since. More recently, Joel Silver has been named as the film's producer, but Logan's Run is just one of a dozen-plus films Silver appears to have on his plate for the next several years. Even so, and with Bluewater's help,  Nolan's trying his best to 're-energize' Logan's Run so that the race his character began a half-century ago will finally find a suitable finish line.  

Bluewater Productions has built most of their comics lines around properties like Logan's Run.  Aside from their biographically-slanted titles Female Force and Political Power, their most popular books include Ray Harryhausen Presents, William Shatner Presents, Vincent Price Presents, and Legend Film's Plan 9 From Outer Space.   So, for Logan's Run to find new and deserved life in comic book form - especially at Bluewater Productions - is a fitting realization for an older yet still-resonant science fiction property.

Yet unlike their other creator-licensed titles (with the possible exception of William Shatner's), Nolan's involvement with comic books seems primarily motivated by his feature film aspirations.  To us, this brings up an entirely new matter of debate - namely, comic books not being an end unto themselves, but simply as a potential marketing vehicle that exists only as material for an eventual Hollywood pitch.

It's the hope of any creator - writer or artist - that their work might one day reach today's highest pinnacle of media success and become the next summer blockbuster, but few (Radical Publishing's The Last Days of American Crime being one) have been positioned like Nolan's new Logan's Run series.  Despite the intentions and the comic's purpose for Nolan, a comic book's purpose is to entertain -- and to the extent Salamoff and Gete's Last Day does, we think, should be the sole reason to support the series or judge it by.  Beyond that, our jury's still out, and only two things are certain. (1) You can bet your Nike's that we'll be returning to this topic in a later blog and (2) if there's any good reason to find yourself at Things From Another World's event with William F. Nolan tomorrow, it'd be to address this very question with the author himself.

If we're not on the blog tomorrow, you'll know exactly where we are. 

Our love of science fiction and graphic design's wave of minimalism meant we had to share this fantastically redesigned Logan's Run movie poster by Tom Muller.  Muller included the piece as part of the Now Showing exhibition at London's Cosh Gallery. Although it ain't cheap, Muller's Logan's Run has been made available as a 50 cm x 70 cm Giclée print on Da Vinci Archival Art Paper in a limited edition of 25 , offered by Wear It With Pride on their site HERE.  And you can check out more of Muller's sweet designs on his website, HERE.

Captain America Gets Censored ; Sarah Palin Gets Vamped in REPUGLICANS

The concept of Right-wing political pundits like Anne Coulter,  Lou Dobbs, 'Mr. Fox News' himself, Glenn Beck, and former Alaskan governor, Going Rogue  author, and all-around loose cannon (or is that screw?) Sarah Palin being meat-puppet disguises for a horde of undead unfriendlies could be a little far-out -- but in a world with a Tea Party Movement, anything's possible. 

Boom Studios is taking our point and driving it home - like a proverbial stake right through the heart of the Grand Old Party.  Repuglicans, a “completely unfair and not balanced take on Republican Party leaders and apparatchiks,” is an upcoming 128-page, digest-sized book by artist Pete Von Sholly with “wry commentary” by writer Steve Tatham. From the comic's cover (below) -- on which Palin's a vampire and Fox anchor Glenn Beck's a zombie, it's more than obvious that the humor is much deeper than simply 'poking fun'.  Von Sholly, Repuglicans' illustrator, doesn't mince words over his comics intent -- to show "... the true face of the right, and it’s not pretty."

Here's BOOM! Studios' official Repuglicans press release:

If you're not used to seeing comic books go political like Repuglicans, there's a pretty good reason why. In fact, comics have almost always steered clear of getting to embroiled in party politics -- even 'real-world' stories set in the many fictional comic book universes would feature fictional presidents and political parties. But that was before Barack Obama. Since Obama's campaign victory, the comics industry and its creators have been vocal with their support - the President has appeared unauthorized in numerous comic book stories since his election, and his first such appearance in Marvel Comics' Amazing Spider-Man #583  resulted in the issue becoming last year's best-selling comic book.

The last twelve months have seen many Obama comics cameos - and some have featured him as the comic's main character. Moreover, Washington-based Bluewater Productions 

has found bona-fide success with their two biographical lines, the all-political Political Power and occasionally political  Female Force; Force published a best-selling biography of Sarah Palin last spring.

Most recently, Marvel's been back in the political cross hairs for the current issue of Captain America, which contains a scene depicting several militant, anti-tax protesters carrying signs that read "Tea Bag the Libs before they tea bag you!" While the scene (below) wasn't intended to reflect the Tea Party movement, widespread conservative protest over the issue's content prompted to Marvel's EIC Joe Quesada to issue a public apology to the Tea Party as well as to promise that the offending scene would be deleted from future printings of Captain America #602. [link]

Marvel's Captain America retraction pissed off many within the comics industry, including Marvel and DC Comics freelance writer and Boom Studios' Editor-In-Chief Mark Waid. Last week, Waid posted to his Twitter account that he felt "humiliated and mortified" that "Fox News is able to bully [the comics industry] into apologizing to lunatics." As you can imagine,  the topic is still being much discussed as Tweets both pro and con. 

 

As a series, Captain America was once known for tackling touchy topics like political (and Presidential) corruption, as in Issue #175's portrayal of a story that mirrored  (though  also tried to distance itself from) then-President Nixon and his involvement in Watergate. But times have changed: Nixon didn't demand a public apology from Marvel  for any unintentional similarities, the internet-media connection didn't exist, and Marvel Comics itself is no longer the idealistic rogue of its 1970's hey-day, but instead a cog in a monolithic corporate machine. 

 Controversial Captain America #602: Tea Bagging...and Getting Bagged

We'll go out on a limb and say that Waid's reaction to Marvel's self-censorship had  almost everything to do with Repuglicans becoming a reality. He didn't create it, but he made it very clear to the creators who did that their project could call Boom its new home. Soon, Repuglicans will be on the racks, a very large target for the same voices that protested and won victory over Captain America, as they'll undoubtedly assert similar authority again.   The talking heads at Fox believe that in this crazy and screwed up world of our's, anything's possible. And maybe anything is - except an apology from Boom. [Source]

Coming Attractions: CLASH OF THE TITANS

I learned how to say the words 'Harry Hamlin' and use them in a sentence back in 1981, when MGM's mythological masterpiece Clash of the Titans slipped into theaters between the second and third chapters of George Lucas' Star Wars epics. While the movie -- with a small $16MM budget and an impressive cast of later-day Hollywood heavy-hitters like Lawrence Olivier, Ursula Andress, and Burgess Meredith -- couldn't hold a Grecian torch to Star Wars' widescreen special effects, its evolved into something of a midnight hit since I first saw it at Tucson's El Dorado Six, and developed a respectable cult following. Besides, I never was the kind of boy who'd judge a movie by the size of its CGI, anyway. After all, what little I did know of Ray Harryhausen, the film's producer, already told me that Lucas' movies owed much of their existence to the director and animation pioneer who, much like myself then and now, had grown up with a passion for dinosaurs and fantasy.

I'm still following Harryhausen's stuff, especially through Portland, Oregon -area Bluewater Productions' line of Ray Harryhausen Presents comic books. My appreciation for his model-figure style of animation hasn't diminished a bit, either. But after seeing the newly-released theatrical trailer for March's Clash of the Titans remake, I've no qualms about passing the Olympic torch to a new generation of Gods and Goddesses.

Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation, Avatar) steps into Hamlin's Perseus' sandals and squares off against Ralph Fiennes' Hades, God of the Underworld and all-around uber-villain, while Liam Neeson succeeds Olivier as the all-powerful Olympian, Zeus, in Warner Bros' Titans redux, directed by Louis Leterrier. As with its predecessor, the hero of Leterrier's Clash of the Titans is Perseus, who sets out to defeat the vengeful Hades before the dark deity can wrest control of Mount Olympus from his brother Zeus. That Zeus also happens to be an unaware Perseus' father adds to the drama, no doubt.

(For the classical mythology buffs on the comicsblog tonight, both movies do stray from the original Greek tale. Find out what Perseus' real story is here and here.)

Warner Bros' official movie site states the movie's "The ultimate struggle for power [that] pits Men against Kings and Kings against Gods. But the war between the Gods themselves could destroy the World!" Even from this synopsis, and certainly from its very title, Titans has all the makings of a superhero sword-and-sorcery mash-up. The formula alone is evidence that Warner's remake leaves Harryhausen's Saturday afternoon cinema approach back in the 80's. And the stunning special effects, if not the top-tier thespians who'll raise their swords and remove their shirts when the movie hits in March, all but remove any trace of the movie that once made Harry Hamlin's chest famous.

The first Clash of the Titans theatrical trailer - which we've got in HD for you below -- was released in mid-November, but the film's posters hit the internet less than 15 hours ago. Abbracadabbling's one of the first to post these mythological masterpieces, and if you're jaw dropped as much as our's did when we first saw 'em, then all the trouble we went through to get these babies certainly paid off. We'll see you at the theater when the film opens -- on March 26th, 2010.

(Presented in High Definition)

CLASH OF THE TITANS

Springfield: My Nice Little Town

I'm taking a bit of a detour from comics tonight to touch on something a little closer to home. And to do just that, I needed to find the answer to a bit of trivia. So I asked around. Raley didn't have a clue. My cousin didn't, either. Tell me, do you know how many towns or cities in the United States are named Springfield?

If Rand McNally is to be believed, the answer's thirty-four. [One source I found quibbled there's actually thirty-five Springfield's in the country, the plus-one belonging to a ghost town somewhere in North Dakota.]

I'm blogging to you live from Springfield #25 in Oregon. #25 lies just across the Willamette River from Eugene, the state's third-largest city. [Eugene's also the place my fascination with comics began, way back before I even entered first grade. Mom used to buy me the big Treasury Editions that Marvel and DC Comics published in the mid-1970's. But lest I digress, that story will keep for another blog.] If you're really curious about the lay of the land, I've got a map you'll love here.

Portland's the regional Metropolis, less than a hundred miles away on Interstate 5. Whenever I get one of my cravings to immerse myself in civilization, up the road I go, pedal to the metal. It's very safe to say the highlights of my stay here in Oregon have been those trips to Portland. The city's cool and green, rivers and bridges all about, and it's a comic town. Dark Horse Comics and Bluewater Productions call Portland home. So does Brian Michael Bendis and Rick Remender.

To its credit, Eugene does have two comic books shops. Springfield, unfortunately, doesn't have any. But the little town I call #25 does have: 73,465 neighborly folks, a really big Wal-Mart that's always open, and as of this weekend, a Fall rainy season making an early comeback.

Although I'd never been to #25, the town seemed strangely familiar to me from the moment I stepped off the train from San Francisco. I was experiencing firsthand the immense power of popular culture. From my subsequent adventures on the internet Googling Springfield, I got at least a snapshot of how that power's reach.

Popular Culture has a very long arm, of course, and I can't say I was shocked in the least by what I found. Dismayed, yes, but not shocked. I learned that if Americans are able to tell you anything about Springfield (and most can), it's that a family with the last name Simpson live there. Although things varied a little between the forums I Googled, the majority of the twenty-something posters really believed that the Simpson's town of Springfield, which was either founded in 1987 when the characters first appeared on the Tracy Ullman Show or in 1989 when The Simpsons debuted, literally exists.

The discussions weren't debating Springfield's existence; rather, the forum members I found were thoughtfully presenting their own rationales as to which of the real world Springfield's was also the place where Bart went skateboarding and Lisa went to school. The top two contenders seemed to be the Springfield's of Massachusetts and Illinois, with Illinois the most popular choice. That kind of made me shudder. If it weren't for my list with thirty-four names on it, I probably would've picked Illinois, too. For a rounded education on Homer's hometown geography, go here.

Okay, I'm kidding. I was a college freshman when The Simpsons became a staple of my Sunday nights, old enough to understand the subtle differences between animation and reality. It certainly seems like those lines have been blurred in the last twenty years, though.

I'm a lucky guy. While most of Generation Y only thinks 'Simpsons' when they hear Springfield, I'm happy to say that I do not. That word only makes one thing pop into my head: GI JOE.

Several publishers have made the rounds publishing GI JOE comic books, but none of them have come close to Marvel Comics' GI JOE: A Real American Hero by Larry Hama and Mike Vosburg. Marvel launched the series to correspond with the 1982 debut of Hasbro's toy line, and I was instantly sold on both.

GI JOE was hands-down my favorite and I read each issue ten times if I read them once, and Issue #10 (1983) probably got read twelve at least. The story, "A Nice Little Town Like Ours," introduced COBRA's most sinister base to JOE fans everywhere -- a Stepford suburbia of a town with a very dark secret, and its name was Springfield.

Hama also hinted that the Springfield of Issue #10's storyline may not be the only one in the country prone to a nasty snake infestation. Even after all this time, I still think that idea is more than awesome.

I haven't gone out looking for any COBRA agents since I made my temporary home #25, though I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to search before I get back to the Bay. I did manage to pull some photos out from the old album, however. If you'd like to drop by for a visit, I'm sure I can find a day or two to show you the sights.