Alex Ross, among the greatest comic book artists of my generation, put his spin on President Barak Obama, superhero, with the April cover of Wizard magazine's "Super Obama: Special Collector's Edition." Subtitled: "A Comic Fan Storms the White House," you might think it's all about the president's taste in comic books. But no. It's about other presidential cameos within plot lines, with Mr. Obama's appearance in the recent Amazing Spider-Man #583 as the touchstone.
Most noteworthy among the nine other examples was JFK's appearance helping Superman protect his secret identity by posing as Clark Kent in Action Comics #309 - the comic book came out a week after President Kennedy was assassinated, but it was too late to recall the books.
Wizard bills itself as source for "comics, entertainment and pop culture." Although print editions of comic books still sell - and just this past weekend, a rare copy of the first Action Comic featuring Superman brought in $317,200 at auction, sold to John Dolmayan, drummer for the rock band System of a Down - the Web is making waves, too.
The magazine notes that among the biggest annoucements at the recent New York Comic-Con was that Marvel's new "Spider-Woman," by Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev, is "the first-ever comic series envisioned, designed and built from the group up to simultaneously as both a printed and Digital Motion comic."
It'll begin streaming online at Marvel.com to coincide with the May release of the feature film "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."
The other notable story about comic books and the online nation is about a fan revolution of homemade trailers. "Where the previous trend in fandom was to make five- to ten-minute short films - think Sandy Collora's 2003 DC-meets-Predator mash-up, ‘Batman: Dead End' - budding marketing types are now using increasingly affordable effects software to forge seak previos of desired comic and game adaptations," whether or not they're really happening. As an example, it points to a trailer that supposedly shows Brad Pitt as Lion-O, Hugh Jackman as Tygra, Vin Diesel as Panthro and lots of "Farscape's" Gigi Edgley in a "Thundercats" movie. It's looks like a professionally made trailer for a real film, except that imdb.com lists "Thundercats" for 2010, but no cast, and the movie has been percolating since at least 2007.
Well, Mr. Obama has been called The Internet President, so hopefully he considers that he's in good company with comic books and the Web.
Posted
Mar 16 2009, 02:04 PM
by
Sharon Eberson