Posts

Posted on

Station Identification

I feel like I’ve got a bunch of new followers recently, so perhaps I should introduce myself.

I’m Graeme McMillan, a writer for Wired.com’s Entertainment section and the Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog, as well as other places on a not-so-regular basis. You might have seen my work at Time.com, io9.com, Comic Book Resources, Newsarama, Playboy magazine and Comics Alliance, amongst other places.

In addition to all that jazz, I also co-host a podcast every two weeks called Wait, What? that can be found here. For that site, I also write weekly reviews of comic books.

If you’re on Twitter and don’t follow me, I’m @graemem.

I like chocolate chip cookies, pizza from Dove Vivi and you. Well, maybe; I don’t know you well enough, just yet, but you seem nice enough.

Posted on

It may just be another big summer movie that opens with $90 million+ and then fails to hit $250m domestic. As big as this debut is, and I don’t want to remotely discount it, it’s basically in the same sandbox as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Godzilla which both struggled to cross $200m domestic… [Nonetheless,] this debut, an original space opera starring a cast of mostly (aside from Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper in vocal roles) non-stars (Chris Platt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, and Benicio Del Toro are names of varying recognition without being box office draws) proves two things. First it means that there is no summer slump. Audiences will flock to theaters if the film debuting is something they all want to see. Second, it means that Marvel can do whatever it wants now. So if they choose not to make a female-centric or minority-centric superhero film, it’s because they just don’t want to.

Scott Mendelson ponders the implications of Guardians of the Galaxy’s success. (From here.)
Posted on

In a sense, Thanos has accomplished more good deeds—helping heroes overcome their differences and learning to work together as a team—than bad ones. His master plan better explain why he wanted to create all these groups to stand against him, otherwise he’s officially a dope. At this point, a better comparison for Thanos than Emperor Palpatine is Dr. Claw, the shadowy puppet master from the Inspector Gadget cartoon, who spent the entire series ordering people around while he sat in a chair, and was repeatedly outsmarted by a little girl and her dog. Thanos even kind of sounds like Dr. Claw.

Thanos’ incompetence wouldn’t be so problematic if every Marvel villain besides Loki wasn’t a complete and total dud. From Iron Monger to Abomination to Whiplash to Ronan The Accuser to the guy from Thor: The Dark World whose name I couldn’t even remember until I looked it up on Wikipedia just now (it’s Malekith), they’re all interchangeably generic evildoers with interchangeably generic evil plans. The glimpses of Thanos are used to paper over their blandness with the promise of excitement down the road. These bad guys might be bad, they insist, but just hang in there; this purple guy will be really nasty.

Matt Singer on the problem that is Thanos in Marvel’s movies so far.
Posted on

The metaphor at the center of the X-Men is like chum in the adolescent water: Our bodies are changing in ways we don’t understand and aren’t prepared for; we all want to be special, but more than that, we want to be special together. We want kinship and purpose, and to have the power to lash out at those who hurt us as well as the restraint to not.

For all of that inclusion, you still didn’t encounter too many black faces in the pages of comics. For every African Princess or African Prince or Inner City Disco Mercenary, you had…well, a princess, a prince and a hero for hire.

The wonderful Marc Bernardin writes about the creation of Genius, his series with Adam Freeman and Afua Richardson, over at Wired.
Posted on

Continuity is Tribulation: Graeme on the new Captain Victory | Wait, What?

Continuity is Tribulation: Graeme on the new Captain Victory | Wait, What?

If nothing else, you have to give Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers credit for refusing to ape the Kirby aesthetic in any way.

In which I am cautiously won over by the new Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers series, out this Wednesday.

And because I am terrible at pointing this out, I shall now. Hey, people who follow me on Tumblr and may not know this yet: I do a every-two-weekly comic book podcast with the inspired, inspirational Jeff Lester called Wait, What? which you can find here. If you like my random comic ponderings here, it’s like that only with better humor and more conversation. As part of the whole shebang, Jeff and I both do weekly written reviews, which you can find here.

We also run a Patreon campaign to ensure that the time spent making comics ponderings for you doesn’t send us to the poorhouse, which you can find (and support!) here. As of this month, 10% of what we make via Patreon goes back into other comic-related Patreon campaigns, because both of us wanted to give back in response to the generosity of our listeners and readers.

Feel free to share with all your comic-loving buddies, especially if they have too much money and time on their hands.

Herein ends the plug.

Posted on

Do you listen to music while you write? If so, what’s your go-to for a work soundtrack? If not/additional question: if you had to pack three TPBs/OGNs to re-read for a super-long flight, what would they be?

I could’ve sworn I answered this last week, but apparently not. Hrm.

Anyway: I can’t listen to music when I write. It bleeds into my head and ruins my concentration. Even if I’m writing outside the house and there’s ambient noise, I’m nowhere near as focused as I am when at home in the quiet. It’s annoying, because I like music so much and feel limited in my time to enjoy it, but it’s the way it is.

As to the second question – let’s cheat and say I’m downloading three books to the Kindle so I don’t have to worry about weight/storage issues. Given that: Alec: The Years Have Pants by Eddie Campbell, a Kirby Fourth World collection – maybe the second of the DC HCs from the other year? – and All Star Superman, off the top of my head.