About a year ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration unveiled a series of nine large cigarette package labels that add vivid images to existing text-only warnings about the dangers of smoking. These new “enhanced warning labels” include pictures of corpses, a diseased mouth, lungs, and throat, and infants threatened by second-hand smoke followed by phrases such as “Cigarettes cause cancer” or “Smoking can kill you” and an 800 number for help.
The labeling system, part of the Family Smoking Preventing and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, was to go into effect this September until a group of tobacco companies sued to block the requirement. While one federal judge ruled earlier this year that the warnings violated the free speech of the cigarette makers and granted a preliminary injunction, an appeals court in a related case disagreed, making it likely that the issue will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
I was listening to a report about the ongoing case on NPR two weeks ago and I was particularly struck by the kind of language that the judges, federal officials, anti-smoking advocates, and constitutional experts used to describe the images and their impact on consumers. read
Archive for the 'Comics' Category
4thletter.net
It’s frivolous in the face of this, but it bears being said: everything matters when it comes to race and racism. Even these stupid old comic books that I spend my time reading. Everything is a brick in the wall or a straw sitting on the camel’s back. Race, as a concept, is ingrained in our society and way of thinking. It’s inescapable.
That understanding, that knowledge of the fact that race is way more than just the Ku Klux Klan and being scared of black people, is why I looked at Mark Millar’s assertion that he was going to create a top 10 black hero with the sidest of side-eyes. A quote, again:
cause here’s the thing. Millar sees dollar signs. He’s over here thinking “Black people are cool now, guys!” and trying to figure out how to get a black dollar. He wants to ride a wave, to capitalize (and please believe I mean “convert into capital,” meaning dollars) on a trend, and that trend? That trend is my life. It’s not even a trend at all, it’s the blood that runs through my veins and my mom’s and my grandparents’ and everyone before them. I’ve been reduced to a column on a spreadsheet.
And I’m supposed to trust a guy whose idea of Cool Black is Samuel L Jackson, who was surprised that black people suffer from the same conditions as white people, who has consistently portrayed black people as objects of scorn for his white protagonists, who made a big to-do about creating an “African-American Hulk” in his crappy comics so that he could do a joke about how it’s weird that people call black Brits African-American sometimes and have a dude living like he’s straight out of a rap video to create a top 10 black hero? A guy who sees dollar signs, rather than dreams, when he thinks of black people? “You speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings.” There’s a gap in there between us, and it’s not a nice one.
Click to read article
Three years ago at the bi-annual conference for the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Brannon Costello and I began considering the possibilities of the question:how do comics represent the South? To what extent do comics creators wrestle with what Scott Romine calls the “qualitative geography” of the region, that elusive sense of place and specter of history that shadows nearly every author, poet, or artist whose creative aspirations wander below the Mason-Dixon line?
Black Panther Redux & Reduced
Marvel has just announced that the Black Panther will be replacing Daredevil in his comic. Instead of ruling Wakanda This BP will apparently haunting the alleys of Hells Kitchen.
I applaud Marvel for continuing to use BP, but they should stop. Stan Lee had a true vision of the character something that the folks currently running things clearly don’t have. Despite that he never had any real authority over the character Christopher Priest wrote the definitive BP. Despite editorial changes his writing and treatment of the character rose above whatever the character was involved in. Interestingly Priest even wrote the first hardcore street BP, so what we see in the Daredevil will again be something that Priest did first. Its simple Marvel, bring the man back
The Dollar Bin has given possibly the best interview of Priest ever, where he talks at length (one Hour) about his run on BP click here for interview
Related Articles
- Agent of S.T.Y.L.E.: Wakanda Wild Side with the Black Panther
- Black Panther battles ethics – Los Angeles Times (mmcelhaney-media.blogspot.com)
Cover via Amazon
Kevin Michael Richardson is a voice actor who provided the voices of several Star Wars characters, such as K’Kruhk on Star Wars: Clone Wars and Jabba the Hutt in the film Star Wars: The Clone Wars. His credits include Captain Gantu from Lilo & Stitch, Goro in Mortal Kombat, the second voice of Skulker on Danny Phantom, Sarevok in the Baldur’s Gate series, Jolee Bindo in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Crunch Bandicoot in two of the Crash Bandicoot games, Tartarus from Halo 2, The Joker in The Batman, Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek in Ratchet & Clank, Antauri in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Openly Gator from Queer Duck, and Barney Rubble from modern-day animated series and movies based upon The Flintstones,Maurice the Aye-Aye from The Penguins of Madagascar,the unbeatable guardian of the time portal in Samurai Jack, “and he also was the voice of Exile in the late ’90s cartoon Road Rovers“.
He often plays characters based on and satirizing comedian Bill Cosby, such as on Family Guy (with the voice of Jerome in the 7th episode of the 8th season) and The Boondocks. He also voices Cleveland Brown, Jr. and Lester Krinklesac in The Cleveland Show. For complete list click: wiki
“How old characters like Bruce Wayne and the various Robins were supposed to be.
“It doesn’t matter. You must understand these people aren’t real,” Morrison said to laughter. “Batman is a mythical figure. I’m being funny, but I’m not being funny. They don’t live in the real world. It’s like this theory I’ve been developing – you know what they always say about kids? That kids can’t distinguish between fantasy and reality. And that’s actually bullshit. When a kid’s watching ‘The Little Mermaid,’ the kids knows that those crabs that are singing and talking aren’t really like the crabs on the beach that don’t talk. A kid really knows the difference.
“Then you’ve got an adult, and adults can not tell the difference between fantasy and reality. You bring them fantasy, and the first thing they say is ‘How did he get that way? Why does he dress like that? How did that happen?’ It’s not real. And beyond that, when you’re dealing with characters, they exist on paper. They’re real in that context. I always say they’re much more real than we are because they have much longer lives and more people know about them. But we get people reading superhero comics and going, ‘How does that power work? And why does Scott Summers shoot those beams? And what’s the size of that?’ It’s not real! There is no science. The science is the science of ‘Anything can happen in fiction and paper’ and we can do anything.
“We’ve already got the real world. Why would you want fiction to be like the real world? Fiction can do anything, so why do people always want to say, ‘Let’s ground this’ or ‘Let’s make this realistic.’ You can’t make it realistic because it’s not. So basically Batman is 75 years old, and Robin is 74 years old. They don’t grow old because they’re different from us.
They’re paper people.
When asked how old is Batman and Robin at 2010 San Diego Comic Con
Alphabets the Superhero Way
Over at Unrealitymag they created an alphabet that is a fan boys dream
The A-Z of Awesomeness,” a series of illustrations by Neill Cameron, where he takes each letter of the alphabet, crafts an absurd sentence around it, then brings it to life with an excellent drawing as you can see
See the whole thing click here
Mike Grell, Hero
Tyroc the first separationist!
Shawn (Noir) Martinbrough
“Noir means visually stylish and dramatic, people still invoke the style in different films and television shows, music videos, etc…
The Sopranos is very Noir!”
Shawn Martinbrough illustrates many DC and Marvel comics, including Superman, Detective Comics, Batman, and X-Men. Other clients include LucasArts, Playboy, and many others. In 2004, he was named one of “Washington, D.C.’s Best” by The Washingtonian. He lives in Washington,D.C.
Martinbrough’s work has been published by DC Comics, Vertigo and Marvel Comics, illustrating stories ranging from Batman to the X-Men. How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling is his first book, released through Watson-Guptill Publications and The Nielsen Company.
Shawn Martinbrough facebook
Woverine, the Secret is Out
Wolverine is not a great film, its not even a good film. After a stunning opener, with Wolverine and Sabertooth fighting side by side through every war fought on U.S. soil the rest of the film is reduced to all the expected stereotypes. What makes Wolverine worth watching is for the first time Logan’s origin is explained and this time it’s definitive.
Over the 30 odd years this character has been around, Marvel for whatever silly reason felt it important that Logans history remain a mystery, that by revealing his origin the character would lose its appeal.
This has resulted in more confusion than the character was worth?
Is Logan from Canada or the U.S.?
Is Sabertooth Wolverines father or the other way around?
How is it Logan dosent know his past?
Other writers have attempted to address Logan’s origin, example: When Grant Morrison did his historic run on New X Men he explained While on board the Weapon Plus satellite, Wolverine also learns about his mysterious past, which we never see, but is apparently so upsetting that it causes Logan to attempt suicide. click here for full article
Marvel ignored Grants explanation (which really wasn’t an explanation) choosing to capitlize on that interest by releasing a mini, then ongoing series called Origins. Which still explained very little.
Once you watch Wolverine however all those questions are answered and now that its on the big screen, Marvel has to change the character to fit the Hollywood version. And I for one am happy the secrets out
See it!
