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Lance Roger Axt/Bill Dufris on Starstruck
Starstruck Audio Drama
Audio drama is a craft that I’m glad to see alive and well, and aiming to adapt to new technologies. One current example is Starstruck, soon to be released by The AudioComics Company. As described at the site: “Buck Rogers meets Barbarella meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide the Galaxy… The Off-Broadway Sci-Fi Comedy Masterpiece that spawned a comic book revolution comes to audio October 31! Written by Elaine Lee with Susan Norfleet and Dale Place, featuring characters from the comic by Lee and Michael Kaluta. First on compact disc, and pay-per-MP3s downloads, Starstruck rides the airwaves later this fall!” To mark the impending release, I interviewed AudioComics Company’s Lance Roger Axt and Bill Dufris.
Also as noted at the website: “Starstruck compact discs will be $22.95, not including tax and postage and handling. These are 4-panel 2-disc eco wallets … The cut-off date for CD orders is October 20, 2010. Your CD will be mailed directly to you on November 3, 2010, so when you place your order, make sure you write down your correct mailing address. Compact discs will be mailed first class USPS … Please note that these CD’s are not available in direct maket comic book stores or big box book stores like Borders, this is an item you can only purchase from the AudioComics Company webstore. And unfortunately these are only available in the States, but for our overseas Starstruck fans, the MP3 downloads are forthcoming, and worldwide. Info on MP3 downloads to come next month.” As Lance told me prior to finalizing this interview: “AudioComics has been a five year journey which is now finally taking shape, and I’m pleased to say that Bill and I have, beyond this inaugural production, at least ten other comic-to-audio projects to keep us busy between now and the end of 2012!” My thanks to Axt and Dufris for the interview. Also, please be sure to check out the AudioComics page on Facebook.
Tim O’Shea: First off, Lance, I saw your post about attending San Diego–can you talk about how much you enjoyed meeting Stan Freberg?
LANCE ROGER AXT: Some people came to San Diego to see Tron or Green Lantern footage, others wanted to see the cast of True Blood; me, I wanted to meet Stan Freberg. And I’ll tell you something, I can honestly say that I was humbled to be in his presence. It’s been brought up on many forums and comments pages, especially in the wake of the passings of Frazetta and Williamson, to appreciate the artists who are still with us. In my case, those artists are people like Stan Freberg, the Firesign Theatre, Yuri Rasovsky, Tom Lopez of ZBS. These people took radio drama out of the golden age, the “old timey” way of writing and acting, and showed audiences that with audio there are no limitations…so, yeah, meeting Stan was a real highlight of my first trip to SDCC. Not to mention he was the nicest, most approachable person, both he and Hunter. It’s hard to find the words now…the sound man’s gone silent.
Biscuits and Bellyrubs: September 12 Edition
Here’s the latest installment of Anna Trodglen‘s Biscuits and Bellyrubs (for September 12).
Biscuits & Bellyrubs #7 (September 12)
To quote Trodglen: “First of three part epic! To be continued next week…”
Reviews of Astro City Special: Silver Agent, I Am An Avenger, and Hawkeye & Mockingbird
Astro City Special: Silver Agent 2
Normally my comic reviews run as part of Robot 6′s weekly What Are You Reading? feature, but family events (and falling asleep on the sofa) caused me to have to scramble this past weekend and only submit part of my reviews. So, this week, I have opted to run the remainder of my reviews at my own blog.
First up, after years of wanting to know the full story of the fate of Astro City’s Silver Agent, readers finally got that closure last week in the final installment of the two-issue Astro City Special: Silver Agent. Busiek’s fortunate in that addition to possessing an affinity for time travel stories, Busiek has the understanding to write such stories effectively. Too often time travel in comics is a muddled mess, not so here. So much of the appeal of Astro City’s success is the sense of community and family that permeates some of the series best stories. In this final installment of the tale, Busiek gives us an incredible couple of moments with Alan Craig/Silver Agent and his nephew Thomas. It’s a bittersweet and touching scene that goes to the heart of why Busiek remains one of my favorite writers in comics.
I was pleased to get a double-shot of writer Jim McCann this week. In the first instance, McCann and artist Chris Samnee teamed up for a short story in the I Am An Avenger five-part anthology miniseries. I’ve not been a faithful reader of The Young Avengers over the years, so I was pleasantly surprised to find how entertained I was by this short story. I’ll admit that part of the reasons this story clicked with me is that McCann tied the old Avengers guard with the present day, utilizing Clint Barton/Hawkeye as a common ground.
My other McCann fix involved Hawkeye & Mockingbird 4. The characters have been going through some rough times in recent issue, not that the challenges evaporated with this issue. That being said, McCann is able to inject his sense of humor with the dialogue in this issue. McCann’s approach to the modern day version of Marvel superheroes imbues it with a fun vibe that reminds me of 1970s/1980s comics writer, David Michelinie. In addition to the character banter, I was pleasantly thrown by the Phantom Rider curveballs that appear in the final pages of this issue.
Biscuits and Bellyrubs: September 5 Edition
Here’s the latest installment of Anna Trodglen‘s Biscuits and Bellyrubs (for September 5).
Biscuits & Bellyrubs #6 (September 5)
Biscuits and Bellyrubs: August 16 Edition
Here’s the latest installment of Anna Trodglen‘s Biscuits and Bellyrubs (for August 16).
Biscuits & Bellyrubs #3 (August 16)
Biscuits and Bellyrubs: August 8 Edition
Here’s the next installment of Anna Trodglen‘s Biscuits and Bellyrubs (for August 8). Enjoy.
Biscuits & Bellyrubs #2 (August 8)
Anna Trodglen Launches Biscuits and Bellyrubs Webcomic
Regular readers will recall when I interviewed Anna Trodglen at the start of this year. As an official friend of the blog, I got the headsup when she launched a new webcomic, Biscuits and Bellyrubs (that I believe will run twice a month at the Facebook page of her husband, Dugan). If you don’t use Facebook, I reproduce it here (with a link back to the FB page).
Anna Trodglen's Biscuits and Bellyrubs
Having talked to Anna, I know this is only the first of many she already has completed. There’s a Lynda Barry/Matt Groening vibe to her work to some small extent, but Trodglen has her own distinct voice, I think.
Dean Haspiel on Harvey Pekar
I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on Harvey Pekar. But his impact on the comics medium is obvious. He was found dead early on Monday morning. My condolences to his family as well as his many friends, collaborators and fans.
If you’ve read my interviews in comics over the years, you know I have a hell of a lot of respect for Dean Haspiel. And not surprisingly, as a frequent collaborator and friend of Pekar’s, his appreciation is a damn fine read. Kudos to LA Times’ Geoff Boucher for getting Haspiel to write the piece.
I love Haspiel’s closing line, which I quote here:
“I can’t wait to see what Harvey Pekar and Edward Hopper cook up but, fingers crossed, I won’t be able to find out for a good while longer.”
Damn straight, Dean. Thanks for sharing, sir.
Johnny Bacardi on His Pop Culture Perspective
Posted by admin in comics, episodic TV, Music, pop culture on April 21, 2010
A sample from one of Johnny Bacardi's many pop culture outlets
In terms of pop culture insight, I wish I was as informed and diverse in my knowledge as Johnny Bacardi. Bacardi and I have similar tastes on several fronts, but his knowledge is amazing. How amazing? I had to interview him in hopes of learning a fraction of what he knows. You’ll note I did not link to his website in this introduction, but only because I could not pick one distinct site. We discuss many of his sites in the course of this email interview, so please follow the links there. And thanks to Bacardi for his time. Did I mention I’m amazed there was any such thing as cable in the 1960s (as he briefly mentions)?
Tim O’Shea: You have a diverse appreciation covering almost every aspect of pop culture, can you recall what your first form of media (TV, film, music, comics or what) that first caught your attention as a kid?
Johnny Bacardi: Hm. Probably a children’s book of some sort, most likely a Little Golden. I remember having an illustrated version of The Night Before Christmas, and another about Beany and Cecil, who were on TV when I was small. My folks subscribed to several magazines, as well as Reader’s Digest. Of course, not long after came comics and music and TV (our small town had cable very early on, in the early-mid 60s- 12 channels, but still!), all at sort of the same time, around 1963 or 64. You see, I could read before I started preschool, as early as age 3. Don’t ask me how, I have no recollection of actually “learning”. I blame comics, with the picture/word association thing going on. This led to a lot of heightened expectations for me, which, sorry to say, I spent most of my formative years failing to live up to.
Missed Last Week: Joe Sacco’s Playlist
Posted by admin in comics, Literature, Music on March 11, 2010
Footnotes in Gaza
Many folks may already be aware of it, but if you are not–Paper Cuts (the NY Times literature blog) features an author offering his or her musical playlist on a weekly basis, in its Living with Music feature. It’s a great concept that I look forward to reading every week.
I meant to mention this when it first appeared, but am now catching up on things. Graphic novelist/journalist Joe Sacco was featured last week–and I have to say I never would have pegged him for a Wings fan. Be sure to also look into Sacco’s latest work, Footnotes in Gaza.
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