Michael Hutchison: February 2007 Archives

Checker Books has the license to print more volumes of CrossGen's trade paperbacks. For instance, Volumes 1-4 of Sojourn were released by CrossGen, but they never got around to issuing trades for the rest of the series, so now CrossGen has released Volume 5 this month.

Today, I created a new CrossGen trade paperbacks store, with the new Checker releases front-loaded to page 1. I don't know if Checker can republish any out-of-print trades (some of the later trades such as the second volume of Way of the Rat appear to have been printed in very low numbers and are hard to find).

I'd love to see more volumes of Route 666 and Ruse, as well, plus trades for Brath and El Cazador.

Checker, it appears, has the rights to the books and isn't paying the creators anything. It sucks, especially since I'm friends with Dixon and Scott Beatty and I really think an honest company would throw some small payment their way, but Checker is under no obligations to make good on CrossGen's commitments. I know, bloodless corporations are unfair and all that, but DC, for example, has paid Chuck and the artist some royalties for redesigning Firefly into a marketable character, even though they had no legal obligation since they were redesigning a character that DC owned.

Another consideration: what are the legalities of releasing CrossGen's unprinted work, possibly even finishing half-completed stories? Chuck Dixon had a finale for winding up Sigil with issue #43, but the book was suddenly canceled with #42. Could Checker release a Sigil volume 7 (which will be short, otherwise, covering only issues 39-42) with the finished story, making that last volume far more marketable? Same goes for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and many other works that were probably in various stages of completion when CrossGen imploded.

This way the fans get closure, Checker has more material to market (and more of a selling point for the volumes) and the creators could get a little payment for their work. It's worth considering, if Checker has the legal right to do it. I realize Checker is a reprint company, but it's not without merit.

Tom and Jerry cartoons are a secret plot of THE JEWS!

This guy's all over the place. Walt Disney has gotten something of a rep of being an anti-Semite, not in the "printing literature" sense that Ford was, but having the standard ethnic stereotypes and opinions of the day...most obviously in the Big Bad Wolf disguising himself as a Jewish peddler in the original, uncensored version of the "Three Little Pigs". Yet here the Walt Disney company is accused of an organized plan to change the world's opinion of the Jews for the better using their animated mouse.

It's rather surprising that this cleric does not know the name of the Disney Company's cunning and winning mouse. You know. The leader of the club that's made for you and me.

It's not Jerry.

Tom and Jerry are not a Disney product (or is that "products"?), they're Hanna-Barbera!

That said...this idea that in Europe the Jews were dismissed as "mice" is the whole basis for "Maus". And it does make you look twice at that old Looney Tunes cartoon produced by the Sloan Foundation where the European immigrant mouse comes to America and learns about production and consumption.

On April 29th, I'll be appearing at MicroCon in St. Paul, Minnesota. I hope you'll all show up!

This is going to be an interesting con. For one thing, thanks to ComicSpace I'm meeting many Minnesota-based creators and hoping to see them there. Also, this is the first convention since Phil Meadows took his leave from the Metro Med project (at least, in his capacity as the artist) and Shooting Star Comics closed up shop, so I'm now actively searching for talent and publishing. I'll be doing a lot of portfolio reviews.

I hope you'll join me there.

You're all wondering if I'm despondent after what happened to my favorite superhero this week in "52"?

Are you kidding?

SPOILER SPACE FOR THIS WEEK'S ISSUE OF 52

Hopefully you've all seen this by now:

As the Mountain Dew web site (which has a longer version) says, only Chuck makes fun of Chuck.

More Chuck Norris fun:

Stunning! "For Your Consideration", the latest Christopher Guest movie, was just in theaters at Thanksgiving and it's out on DVD the week before the Oscars! Obviously, that was a planned rollout to coincide with the Academy Awards, since that is the subject of the movie.

I can't wait to see it! Well, technically, I have waited to see it.

Mike Evanier reports that Bob Oksner has passed away.

Bob worked on newspaper comic strips including Dondi. Bob did a lot of work on funnybooks, from Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis to Ambush Bug, but he also worked on Superman, Wonder Woman and even Elvira when she hosted House of Mystery. He retired from art completely in 1986.

Bob Oksner, 1916-2007. R.I.P.

Robert Bavington and I have been trying to arrange to talk on Skype, which he can only do from his girlfriend's computer. Since he's in England, a third of a day ahead of me, we just haven't been online at the same time.

I tell you all this so that you can understand how I started the following AOL Instant Messenger conversation:

...and they finally roll out a laser comb that helps a guy grow hair!

I used to use Rogaine, but I stopped because all it did was grow this whispy peach fuzz. This comb thing is supposed to promote the growing of thicker hair. Who knows, maybe a combination of Rogaine and this comb would turn a person into Cousin It.

It's the dream of many of us bald-paters, anyway. I remember watching that moment in "Simpson and Delilah" when Homer runs down the street sobbing with happiness at his newfound hair. It was supposed to be funny, but all I could feel was wistful. (In 1991 I had already been losing my hair for three years!)

$600. Ah well, let the early adopters try it out. It'll be cheaper someday.