Are X-Men Human?

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A podcast covering a comic book question that leads to a real-life lawsuit:

Reporter Ike Sriskandarajah tells Jad and Robert a story about two international trade lawyers, Sherry Singer and Indie Singh, who noticed something interesting while looking at a book of tariff classifications. “Dolls,” which represent human beings, are taxed at almost twice the rate of “toys,” which represent something not human – such as robots, monsters, or demons. As soon as they read that, Sherry and Indie saw dollar signs. it just so happened that one of their clients, Marvel Comics, was importing its action figures as dolls. And one set of action figures really piqued Sherry and Indie’s interest: The XMEN, normal humans who, at around puberty, start to change in ways that give them strange powers.

So Sherry and Indie went down to the customs office with a bag of XMEN action figures to convince the US government that these mutants are NOT human. That argument eventually became a court case that went on for years. Joe Liebman, former international trade attorney for the US Department of Justice, helps us understand the government’s side. And Ike, with help from director and producer Bryan Singer, reflects on the story of the XMEN, and tells us why this case is so poignant for anyone who’s fought to be different without being cast as an outsider.

H/T: Boing Boing and SlashFilm

Three Inches – A Failed Pilot Review

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With little to no promotion and pretty much no information about it, Syfy threw up a pilot for the show Three Inches. The show was originally ordered in early 2010, but it seemed to languish in development hell for awhile. Then, when Syfy moved forward with Alphas, they decided to see if they could make Three Inches seem more different. That failed and the show was shut down. But in the dead of winter, in the dead time between Christmas and New Years, Syfy decided to throw the pilot on. I happened to run across it on the channel guide and decided it was worth a watch. And it’s probably good it didn’t move forward. Read on to see why.

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Captain Freedom by G. Xavier Robillard

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It’s been a fad for awhile to make superhero novels into satires. The possibilities are endless for the satirical targets because of the ability of superheroes to morph into whatever niche is needed. There are some that were done well (such as Rick Veitch’s The Maximortal and Bratpack) and then there is Captain Freedom. It’s not that Captain Freedom is bad, since it does have some really good ideas. It’s more that it’s lazy and doesn’t really due justice to any of them. It seems like Robillard is more interested in the cheap laugh that doing a true satire. Let’s see where the book went wrong.

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The Immorality Engine by George Mann

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While I got tired of Mann’s Ghost series with a steampunk superhero, his Newbury and Hobbes series of steampunk detectives is still going strong with the latest episode The Immorality Engine. The title is a play on words with an engine being used immoral purposes that could also be used for immortality. And we get some nice development in the relationships between Newbury, Hobbes and Bainbridge. So let’s see what happens in this latest book.

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RIP Joe Simon

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From CBR

A prolific artist and editor in his own right, Simon remains best known for his longtime collaboration with artist Jack Kirby. The pair created multiple characters and genres for the burgeoning comics medium in their early careers before Simon moved on to life as a solo editor and artist before earning acclaim as a biographer and historian and battling Marvel Comics over the copyrights on his and Kirby’s most famous creation: Captain America.

Thoughts from Mark Evanier as well.

I also need to write something about Joe himself. He was an amazing man, too often wrongly viewed as just the “business” side of Simon and Kirby. Jack was the better artist — even Joe admitted that — and Jack had that ultrahuman work ethic that allowed him to labor at the drawing table all day and all night. But if you asked Jack who did what in the Simon-Kirby parlay, he usually said, “We both did everything.” That was true. Joe wrote, Joe drew, Joe inked. And he especially excelled in managing the money end of things because he understood publishing and contracts and such matters — a rare skill among comic book creators.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

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Continuing with my recent trend of reading literary authors experiments into genre fiction, I just finished Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf. The book is different in that there just isn’t the same number of books being written about werewolves as there are about vampires and zombies (I’ve heard the Twilight books have both werewolves and vampires, but I have no desire to read them). The book touches on one of the reasons why werewolves don’t have the same literary presence as other supernatural beings. They only change for one night a month and while they are changed, they are wild incoherent monsters. Zombies are always zombies and vampires are always able to talk. The literary challenge of werewolves is simply higher than other such beings. So let’s check in on the last one.

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No Heroics review

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A couple years ago, ABC tried to bring in another British comedy to the US when they cast Freddy Prinze Jr in the remake of the UK comedy No Heroics. I hadn’t seen the show, since it hasn’t been released in the US, but, thanks to a friend of a friend, I was able to view all 6 episodes recently. And let me tell you that I’m so glad that it wasn’t able to be redone in the US. Part of the fun of the show is the swearing, drinking and sex talk that makes up most of the dialogue and I truly doubt that ABC (or any other major network) would leave that in. It stars a bunch of people that you’ve probably never heard of if you don’t watch UK television and is (in Warren Ellis’ words) “funnier than a comedy show about bloody superheroes has any right to be”. So, let’s talk about “No Heroics”.

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Bill Willingham interviews Bill Willingham about the Fables/Once Upon a Time controversy

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Bill Willingham has interviewed himself to discuss the controversy that has arisen about Fables and Once Upon A Time. For those of you unfamiliar with it, ABC optioned Fables, wrote a pilot and declined to move forward, then they came out with Once Upon A Time. Many people have assumed that it was done to screw over Willingham, but he sets the record straight.

Just to reiterate that there’s no war here. If you like “Fables,” you needn’t dislike “Once,” and vice versa. Join me in wallowing in all of it. And then take a look at all the other grand stuff out there right now, or coming down the pike. Along with “Fables,” read “Kill Shakespeare” and “The Unwritten,” “Memorial,” “Mice Templar” and “Mouse Guard.” Read “The Stuff of Legend” and “Castle Waiting” and all the other gems in the same general category. It’s the new age of old time stories. Along with “Once,” I’m looking forward to “Snow White and the Huntsman” and “Mirror, Mirror.” There can’t be enough different takes on this character, which very much mirrors the way it worked in the olden days. The Brothers Grimm didn’t collect one version of every folktale; they discovered dozens of versions of each one, because it’s the nature of folklore to be altered to suit every different folk who wants to make use of it. Why should today be any different?

The Adjustment Bureau movie review

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As a huge Philip K Dick fan, I love to see that his stories are being spread out to a wider audience by making them into movies. But I am somewhat conflicted since most of the movies are mediocre at best. The latest movie to make its way to my HBO subscription is The Adjustment Bureau. Based off a short story from Philip K Dick about a man who accidentally gets a peek behind the scenes of life, the movie pleasantly kept a lot of the same basic ideas with only a change in theme. Dick’s story (“The Adjustment Team”) is about reality (as a lot of his stories are) while the movie is more about predestination. Let’s take a look at the movie. (Warning: Spoilers ahoy).

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Zone One by Colson Whitehead

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We’re in interesting time in the genre universe. Mainstream writers are dropping in and writing genre books and some are even staying around and playing in the genre universe for awhile. The latest to jump in is Colson Whitehead with his post-apocalyptic zombie novel, Zone One. One of the advantages of literary writers playing in genre writing is that we can get more well-written genre books. The disadvantage is when they try to write it in a literary style that really doesn’t work well with the subject matter. Whitehead’s novel leans more to the disadvantage side. Let’s check it out to see what doesn’t work.

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