Mood:
caffeinatedTopic: Comic Book Movies
TODAY'S FEATURE - Blog #3202: Saturday night we watched the DVD of the film "Will Eisner: Portrait Of A Sequential Artist'. This brand new release was brought to my attention by the Director of the film, Andrew D. Cooke of Montilla Pictures, when I met him at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con International, (SDCC). The film was one that Tina and I had see a premiere of a while back at an earlier SDCC. Unfortunately we had not seen it all at that time due to program scheduling conflicts. The fact that it was in association with 'Comic Book Artist' Magazine, and its Editor, Jon B Cooke - who was the writer this film, was an additional plus to my wanting finish viewing this film on DVD and mention it here in my Blog. Before I start though, I'll be upfront with you, my blog reading audience. When I first started reading comics in the late 1950's, Will Eisner was already out of comics / comic books. He had closed down the publication of 'The Spirit' in 1952 due to the ever increasing cost of newprint. Will didn't come back to 'comics' until being invited by the late Phil Seuling in 1972, when Phil invited him to attend his comic con in NYC. There he was amazed at how underground comics had come into being, after being introduced to them by Dennis Kitchen. (Side note by Michael: By that time, I had already caught the 1st Wave of Marvel Comics Madness. DC Comic Book Titles were mostly over 100 issues by the time I started to 'collect' comics in 1962. Marvels were mostly starting with number ones. Being a 'completist' at heart, and loving the 'Marvel Way' of doing things, along with my hero worship of Stan Lee, I became an early 'Marvel Zombie'. Thus Will Eisner wasn't even on my 'radar' in the early 1970's.) Will's return to comics was prefaced by reprints of his 'The Spirit' newspaper supplements by Dennis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press, until his first sequential art novel, which he called a 'Graphic Novel', 'A Contract With God' was published. The film goes back to his roots. His parents, their meeting, and ensuing marriage in 1915, and his being born in 1917. In the Summer of 1939 Will developed 'The Spirit' for 'Busy' Arnold, but Will retained all rights. A Side Note: There were many quick stories told in this 96 minute film. One that struck me was his love for 'Krazy Kat', which is celebrating its 100th Birthday this year. As announced in the 2010 Comic-Con International Souvenir Book I blogged about earlier here. Other stories were told by Trina Robbins, Sergio Aragones, Scott McCloud, Dennis Kitchen, Stan Lee, Jerry Robinson, Art Spiegelman, Kurt Vonnegut, Joe Kubert, Gil Kane, and oh so many more well known individuals! Several of those shown in the film have passed away. I remember seeing so many of the them in panels at the SDCC in earlier years. Matter of fact, the film has several clips of some of those persons mentioned above in interviews conducted at the SDCC. For those of you that don't know of Will Eisner's previous works, his history, and what he contributed to the comics industry, this is a really good film on DVD for your reference library! In addition to the film itself, there are a few additional Special Features on the this DVD: 1) Shop Talk Takes - Interviews recoded on cassette tapes by Will for his column'Shop Talk' conducted during the 1980s. Some taped inteviews were with Neal Adams, CC Beck, Milton Canniff, Jack Kirby, and Joe Simon among others. 2) Selected artwork - There was good music playing in the background while the photos and illustrations were shown. Which was good because the early pictures shown in this feature were direct from the film. The colorized versions were also shown as well as this feature unraveled. Many more additional photos & illustratins were added as the feature continued. We watched the whole of this featurette. 3) Credits / Links - Lots of credits and links for follow up reasearch if desired by the viewer! Whew! There was a LOT to this film and features on this DVD. It made a perfect showing for our Saturday evening, coming down from our previous weekend's high at the San Diego Comic Con International itself! For those of YOU that would like to see a clip of the Film itself, here is the link to the trailer! My comic book grade for this DVD is a NEAR MINT (NM) 9.4! Because it was well researched, very well presented, Plus there were additional valuable features added on the DVD itself! You can find it for sale at the web site: Montilla Pictures. The cost of the DVD version is $19.99 plus shipping. The Blu-Ray version is $25.99 plus shipping. BTW, We have a couple of back issues of 'Comic Book Artist' Magazine in our online store. We picked up another couple of dozen of them at the SDCC, which we will be listing shortly. You can find those issues of 'Comic Book Artist' listed here in our online store. --------------------------- As an Addendum, both my wife, Tina, and my youngest son wanted to add a couple of thoughts to this blog post today on the film: Tina: She thought that this was a good history of the man she had seen briefly at several Comic-Cons before Will's passing on January 3rd of 2005. Her comic book grade for this DVD is a VERY FINE PLUS (VF+) 8.5 grade. Vinnie, (my tween-aged youngest son): NOTE: Before this film, I knew nothing about Will Eisner except for the Eisner Awards named in his honor. This past Saturday night, we watched the film, 'Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist'. It taught me much of the history of when Will Eisner was a kid all the way up until his death. I learned about how The Spirit was first in the comic strips of newpapers, then later became reprints in magazines. What I found interesting about his work was that the title, "The Spirit," was never lettered the same way twice. Each issue would have you almost thinking it was a different magazine with the same title, because the way Will designed it ranged from being written in calligriphic-looking writing to being written in the scenery or in what appeared to be pipes or electrical cords. He obviously put much detail into the titles themselves, as well as time for thinking up the new style. Overall, I believe Andrew D. Cooke did a magnificient job on the presentation, and putting it all together to direct this film. If I had to give it a Comic Book Grade, I would give it a Very Fine Plus (VF+) 8.5. --------------------------- In Summary, my thanks again to Andrew D Cooke for bringing to my attention that the DVD / Blue-Ray format of this Film was premiering at the SDCC. And that it would also be For Sale this past week at their online web site. It was great to meet You at the SDCC and to finish watching the film! Plus being able to view the Special Features only found on the DVD once we arrrived home! PLUS...My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now at the 3,200 total posts in number! I do appreciate your continued reading and support of this Blog! ~ Michael D Hamersky @ ComicBookCollectorsBlog.com
http://www.comicbookscircus.com/
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Note: Our online comic book shop carries many different genres of comics, magazines, graphic novels, and comic con promotional items at the link seen below. 
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Quite honestly I've got to tell you that I have met Marie Severin a few times before at this Comic-Con in San Diego. I haven't seen her there in a few years, so the photo here and at the top left is from 2001, which happens to be the same time period of the self caricature she illustrated that was used for this issue's cover.
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Talking about comics: if YOU are a comics creator, (writer, penciler, inker, colorist, letterer, etc.), OR even a Comics / Magazine Publisher, feel free to contact me regarding YOUR works for a possible mention / review!
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• 60th Anniversary of Beetle Bailey
The 'DC Comics 75th Anniversary' pages and articles were well written and presented that even a newbie to the Comic Con would find interest in this pages allocated to this topic. Besides, there are a lot of comics fans that are interested in the 'Big 3' as well as other DC Characters. Well written articles, and Fan & Pro art used in this section!
60th Anniversary of Peanuts - A good feature on the latest Milestone that the Peanuts gang has hit this year. Those that enjoy 'Peanuts' will like this section of several articles.
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Talking about comics: if YOU are a comics creator, (writer, penciler, inker, colorist, letterer, etc.), OR even a Comics / Magazine Publisher, feel free to contact me regarding YOUR works for a possible mention / review!
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These are my thoughts about the San Diego Comic Con International 2010.
I think this place has become too famous for its own good. My dad tells me stories of the Comic Con in 1973 [Well, the same story over and over ;) ] and it is somewhat hard to believe that this was at one point, very small with very few attendees. It is also hard to believe that it used to be mostly a convention about comics. Now-a-days, it is crowded, but it is about comics and pop culture, which brings in way more audience. More attendees means more money to spend on programs, but I think the numbers are way more than what's needed to host great entertainment.
The previous cons' freebie table was full of great stuff that was valuable, but this year it didn't have much. In the previous years, they would give out magazines and other valuable things, but this year, the table was covered in advertisements. Nothing really of value was found, so we didn't spend much time there.
And last, but certainly not least, for crowd control, they should sell less tickets than they do now. I am surprised there hasn't been any accidents of people getting run over and injured because they tripped and people ran over them trying to go through the door to the exhibit floor (or at least any accidents like that, that I haven't heard of yet).
My thanks to those of YOU that have read today's blog post! I do appreciate that! 
Talking about comics: if YOU are a comics creator, (writer, penciler, inker, colorist, letterer, etc.), OR even a Comics / Magazine Publisher, feel free to contact me regarding YOUR works for a possible mention / review!
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Autographs - There are separate parts to this - Under the Sails & at the Exhibitor Booths & Off-Site.
Freebies Table (Under the Sails) - You gotta be kidding! This was the 'worst selection' of items I have seen in my many years of attending this con. I found three (3), count 'em...3 items of any value during the whole 5 days & 4 evenings. And I went by that table a lot going back and forth between program halls! What were they? The Animation Magazine with Tron on the cover, The Prometheus Project Book 1: Trapped by Douglas E Richards, and the Uncle Jam Quarterly (magazine) published by Phillip Dana Yeh. I no longer pick up posters as they are too hard to handle, (even with a tube that we brought for this). 
Security - Contrary to what I've read since coming back from the Comic-Con...I found the Security this year to be the best yet in many years! 
Fullfillment Room - To go from the above topic to One of the Worst, IF Not THE Worst thing that happened to us at Comic-Con is because after feeling good about how Security controlled themselves and the crowds this year, our early morning on Sunday fell really flat. 
The 2010 Events Guide - Yesterday I mentioned how we enjoyed seeing the schedule posted online. The schedules were both published timely and for an app to use with your smart phone. However I found that using our new Droids that way added to the problem of our Droids' batteries running down. 
2010 Souvenir Program Book - Would you believe that it is two and a half days after the Comic-Con and I STILL haven't been able to read this in its entirety? 
On-site Newsletters - This publication is a really good idea. Unfortunately the few areas it is distributed at are far and few between. 
Small Press Section - I will be covering this area in more detail in the weeks to come. That's because once again I found several Indy Publishers that I had not come across before at this Con or other comic cons. However, and there's that 'however' again...This section is so far removed from the 'Artists Alley' that there seems to be a very wide gulf between these two sections. This is probably on purpose, but it makes it very hard to see both sections on a timely manner, or refer people to either. 
Off-Site Parties / Events / Etc. - This is one "area" that this year I consciously made the decision to invite my youngest child to attend the Comic-Con with us, knowing full well that we wouldn't be able to attend as many Off-Site Parties / Events.
My thanks to those of YOU that have read today's blog post! I do appreciate that! 
Talking about comics: if YOU are a comics creator, (writer, penciler, inker, colorist, letterer, etc.), OR even a Comics / Magazine Publisher, feel free to contact me regarding YOUR works for a possible mention / review!
WEB PAGE NOTE: This blog post is written for the IE Browser standards. Chrome, Safarai, Netscape, Firefox and the others serve the page up differently, sorry about that!