Comic Events in the NOLA or Wizard World New Orleans the Prequel

With Wizard World New Orleans only a weekend away, it seems like a number of comic events just keep popping up. New Orleans never really had a large scale Comic Con until now, and it seems many are embracing it.

Last Saturday was the Flying Zombie Launch Party held at BSI Comics.  Flying Zombies a new self published comic by Matt Gravin and Monty Smith.  They ran pretty late and they had tons of food and alcohol to appease the masses.  It was a lot of fun, and you got to get your picture taken with a tire, a fancy tire painted red white and blue with hands and eyes, but a tire none the less.  For more information check out the website: Flying Zombies

Last night, was an Image Comic signing party at the always fun Crescent City Comics.  CCC knows how to put on a party, hell they put on enough it should be second nature, and of course free beer always brings the crowds.  Every few months they put a great party, and this time was no exception, maybe even more fun since they Nathan Edmondson of the new comic Who is Jake Ellis?, Kody Chamberlain of Sweets: A New Orleans Crime Story, and Rob Guillory of Chew.  New Orleans got lucky with this tour in that, it is one of the few Who is Jake Ellis tour stops that involve other writers/artists, though Rob and Kody are no strangers to New Orleans.  Each were there with their comics, and Rob Guillory with comics, hardback covers of Chew, and Poyo shirts.  Stop by CCC over on Feret Street, great shop with some good people.

This coming Friday, from 2-3pm Media Underground Comics will have Phil Jimenez signing comics, and there will be free stuff to give away.  This one is a little harder to do with it being during many people's work hours on Friday, but if you can make it, have fun and bring a comic or two to get signed.

Finally, More Fun Comics on Oak Street will be having their own sales event from Friday through Sunday where they will be staying open late, and will also be having some Live music and a DJ at times.

So next Saturday and Sunday, be at the convention center.  It will be a lot of fun, and if you miss(ed) any of the above signing, everyone but Nathan Edmonson will be at Wizard World to sign even more stuff.

P.S.
Don't forget that 4 months from now NOLA Comic Con will moving downtown to the Westin Hotel in Canal Place this year.

Na na na na na na .......The Cape

I will just start this out saying that I actually liked The Cape.  Was it a great show? No, but it was fun for an early episode. It is seems a little Batman reminiscent, but The Cape is no Batman.  The Cape has gotten pretty beat up in just a two episodes.  Watching it reminded me of the TV show The Flash from 1990 which I have been slowly watching with my friend Walker aka anaraug.  I enjoyed The Flash tv series, but also know it is horribly bad.

Whereas The Flash has some 90s cheesy effects such as speeding up the camera, The Cape has the new cheesy effect called CGI.  The whole cape is pretty much made of CGI when it is in use. It stretches to crazy lengths, it becomes slightly rigid at time, and it wraps around people and items to pull them toward the user.  No the cape is magically, or all supposed to be illusionist tricks and a specially designed cape for a carnival act, but it is supposedly made up of some material called Spider Web which is apparently as strong as Kevlar.  The main villian goes by the name Chess, and while chess he wears a near full head mask while also wearing rook shaped contact lens.  That way you know he is creepy and crazy.

So Vince Faraday is a cop for Palm City, a city that is full of corruption and a falling apart police department.  Then there is Chess who goes around terrorizing the city.  Chess captures Vince, straps the Chess mask on his head and convinces the police and news that Vince is Chess.  The basics are there.  You got a man who is believed dead once a tank explodes near him; he can't go see his family so people don't know he is alive; and he has been taken in my come carnies.  It is with the carnies that Keith David makes his appearance, and it is a good one. So far, probably the best part of the show has been Keith, as Max Malini the head of the carnies, teaching Vince how to do illusions and using the game to his advantage.  Finally, they introduce Summer Glau as "Orwell" as in 1984 Big Brother, the Oracle (of DC Comics fame) like character who assists from an ear piece and helps with the technology.  So far she has had a very minor role that will hopefully be expanded upon soon.  The also introduced a group of assassins they call "The Tarot" which seems like they will have at least enough villians for The Cape to fight as there are Tarot cards. They only introduced "The Tower" card so far who liked to poison things.

The first two episodes were nothing great, but I have seem worse stuff say on the air for a long time, and also see better stuff cut before a full season.  It embrasses the cheesyness of the genre, probably a little too much, but it kind of works so far. You never know what is going to happen with these shows, but I think it may fit a niche spot for people right now.

Racism/Anti Racism and Political Correctness ....and Batman?

So this week we heard that New South Publishing is soon to publish a new version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer that has every occurrence of "Nigger" replaced with "Slave" and any occurrence of "Injun" with "Indian".  The claim is so that the book will no longer be banned in class rooms, and can now be read again by the next generation.  I of course find this ridiculous that the book was ever banned.  Yes the book has some terms that are offensive, but that is part of the book part of the story Mark Twain is trying to tell.  I would love to go into this more, but I won't here. Its not about comics of course, but it is this mentality that seems to be pushing too many things today.

But there is another side of racism and bigotry happening as well.  Boycott-thor was started recently in protest to the Thor movie on the basis that Heimdall, the Sentry of Asgard, of Norse mythology is being portrayed by a black guy.  Who knew that a made up European gods had to be all white, but Council of Conservative Citizens (statement of principles) who started the boycott know that if you are European you must be white.  Of course they have missed the whole point where Marvel's Asgard is a "small planetary body" and making the Asgardians an alien race in Marvel, but forget that, that is just in comics, this a movie!

Next, apparently the Batman comics have been offensive to the Europeans as well, this time, specifically, France.  For those who don't follow comics, Batman aka Bruce Wayne is starting Batman Inc. and is going around the world recruiting other heroes like himself and making them "Batmen" of their particular cities/countries.  Batman selects Bilal Asselah as the "Batman of Paris" who happens to be French but born from Algerian Sunni Muslims.  Warren Huston and a few other American bloggers have been upset by the "PCness" of this move and the acceptance of an French Muslim being the savior of Paris. Huston's Blog Post on Batman He claims that this only undermines the struggles with Muslim youth riots in France, and why can't a "true" Frenchmen stand up and be Batman.

None of the people "outraged" by these two specific incidents happen to be Eurpean at all.  All have been American bloggers and organizations.  Huston, from the Batman story, has gone to claim that leftist are "unable to reason or read English".  The anger over these stories are insane. The reaction because of an Asgardian is black, or a Frenchmen is a Muslim immigrant. I'm just not sure what else to say.  The world is getting crazy.  Outrages over nothing. People getting offended over the statements that have nothing to do with them.  I do wonder what will be next.  I have already seen people complaining about Larfleeze being seen has Corporate America, and others complaining that Archie Comics introduced a homosexual character.  Who knows what will be next week's uproar?