Neilalien : A Doctor Strange Fansite : A Comic Book Weblog  

Dave Gibbons Draws Stan Lee's Green Lantern [Comics Continuum]

Posted 31 July 02001 - Permalink

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Geez. You get bummed a little bit that Kevin Smith is doing Black Cat instead of Doctor Strange. You enjoy a summer day. You take a weekend out of town to visit friends. You blink. And a week goes by without a post.

Preview: Black Panther #35 [Comic Book Resources]
As if you didn't know already, the Defenders guest star in this issue. You can just tell it's going to be awesome (these images are in rough black and white).

Positive review of Defenders #7 [IGN]

Jim Lee On Stan Lee's Wonder Woman [Comics Continuum]

Peter Paul To Claim Government Agents Manipulated Stan Lee Media [Splash; story seems to have disappeared from NewsMax.com]

The internet is abuzz about Marvel's New Authorized Fan Site Policy [rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks (Google) (136 messages as of this posting); Marvel Universe Message Board threads/posts here, here, here, here, here; Defenders Message Board thread Defenders Non-Page comes down, Kurt Busiek saying he heard Marvel's lawyers wanted to just shut everyone down; Defenders Non-Page Statement; added within the next couple days: here]

Open Letter to Joe Quesada [Newsarama]
This piece, and the resulting message board, seems like a good attempt for all of us to get our minds around Marvel's no-reprint/overprint policy and its effects, after Joe Q's apparent insult-athon at the San Diego Con (with follow-up response to DC VP). (Jemas has already had his insult-athon with his comment that retailers who were against the no-overprint policy needed to take IQ tests.) To me, Marvel's policy always felt like a bad idea because it limits product availability and retailer options at a time when we need to get more people able to buy comics. I respect Joe Q, he's orchestrated a turnaround at Marvel, and a healthy Marvel is more inclined to put out a Doctor Strange book. I like how he battles the doom-and-gloom-negativity and the self-hate in the comics community/industry. He can come off as a smarmy one, though. And although the logic is severely questioned, I'm sure that the Marvel brass think this policy has been a helpful factor for the bottom line while Green Arrow #6 sits on the shelves. But there has got to be a way to meet in the middle with retailers. Maybe Joe Q and Jemas really are trying to replicate the boom of the speculator market?- which means they've somehow forgotten the bust.

Usenet poster "Living Tribunal" weighs in on recent Marvel firings with a Dr. Strange perspective (but also, unfortunately, with a sexist perspective as well) [rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe (Google)]

Posted 30 July 02001 - Permalink

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Black Panther #35 features an extended fight scene with the Defenders by Calafiore, who apparently is a big Defenders nut [Defenders Message Board, thanks to Anti-Grimm]

Posted 22 July 02001 - Permalink

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Marvel Panel at San Diego Con [Newsarama]

There we have it, Doc fans. Once again, we get the shaft. We're such a hard-luck crowd. It's like being a Mets fan. But at least we got each other.

Posted 22 July 02001 - Permalink

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Marvel getting heavy-handed on fan sites? [rec.arts.comics.marvel.* [Google] via ComicGeek] [Marvel's Authorized Fansite Program]
This could be the beginning of the end for this website, my friends. Maybe Marvel won't actually go after anyone. Maybe it will be a tempting offer for more site exposure and officiality and rules that are not prohibitive. Maybe it is a set of Nazi rules from a corporation limiting my self-expression, my ability to say that the latest appearance of Doctor Strange sucked like (insert curse word), etc. Maybe Marvel could've just closed everyone down and still will and will tolerate nothing. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.

Posted 21 July 02001 - Permalink

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Defenders #7 review [SpinnerRack]

Posted 20 July 02001 - Permalink

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Tom Brevoort briefing at San Diego Con [Newsarama]

Posted 20 July 02001 - Permalink

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Doctor Strange in Legal Action Comics [image at ComicGeek (large pic)] [Danny Hellman's website]
In a small piece called "Sex Lives of The Super Heroes" by Lasky and Dino, Dr. Strange and Dr. Fate are shown together, with Strange telling Fate, "Watch the cape! Watch the cape!" Blasphemous! Hilarious!

Dr. Strange in Legal Action Comics

Posted 20 July 02001 - Permalink

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Discussion of the Kevin Smith Dr. Strange rumor [Warren Ellis Forum via ComicGeek]

Posted 20 July 02001 - Permalink

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An early/mid-week San-Diego-Con-related All The Rage hopes to hear more about this rumor soon: Kevin Smith will be writing a new Doctor Strange comic for Marvel.

Neilalien's response: tempered enthusiasm. We've heard it before. Like this Smith interview in May [CBR] where he expresses interest in a Doctor Strange book and has a secretive new Marvel project. And All The Rage isn't the most reliable source for things that ultimately turn into reality. Still, it's good to hear rumors about Doc at all- especially when a new book and good talent is involved. Just based on Doc's fantastic appearance in Smith's Daredevil V2 #5, I would trust handing the character over to him for, oh, say, multiple years. Cross your fingers, Doc fans!

I can always count on ComicGeek to scour the tip sheets and tabloids for Doc items to send my way. Thanks!

Posted 20 July 02001 - Permalink

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Review of Defenders #7 (Spoilers)

It looks like Marvel is rolling with the criticism-punches this title gets. The October solicitations say, "Watchmen? Yeah, right." Not that the book was ever supposed to be high art. Nor does it need to be. I'm enjoying the book. I look a little more forward to it every month. Now on to the usual suspects:

Posted 19 July 02001 - Permalink

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Info about October comics are out, including Defenders #10 cover image and mini-spoilers [Marvel.com via Defenders Message Board]

Posted 19 July 02001 - Permalink

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Did You Invest In Marvel This Spring When Neilalien Told You To? ;)

On 24 May, I blogged this 21 May IndividualInvestor.com article, the one with the quote, "They say the time to buy is when there is blood in the streets, and this particular street is flooded with it. As such, we reiterate our Buy rating but caution that Marvel remains a highly speculative investment at the present time." Marvel closed on 24 May at $2.39 [Marvel daily historical quotes at Yahoo]. It's trading at $4.12 as I type this morning. Wow- a 72% increase in under two months. On 1 May it traded at $1.95.

But is now the time to sell? Of course not. You buy when the blood is in the streets, and you sell when the stock is drowning in hype, stellar news, front page articles in financial magazines, and buy recommendations. Sell maybe around the Spider-Man movie.

Disclosure/Disclaimer. I do not own Marvel stock. I did not tell anyone to buy it (the emoticon above means I'm joking). I'm not advising anyone on when to sell it. I'm generally negative about Marvel here, so I'm pumping nothing. If you take stock market advice from a Doctor Strange fansite, then you are an utter idiot.

Posted 18 July 02001 - Permalink

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The Disappearing Comic Book [LATimes.com via Comic Book Resources]
As stated by CBR, this story provides nothing new to us who read about the comics industry every day, but it's a light informative article for the mainstream.

Comic books win the culture war, become common and universal, and thoroughly conquer Hollywood- but the comic book itself is still dying in obscurity. Maybe the medium is dead. And what of the characters in comics books? Just like with actors when silent movies became talkies. The comic book iconic characters who are able to jump from the sinking ship into movies, cartoons, newsstand magazines, online comics, video games, etc. are the ones which will survive. Blade starts a movie franchise, while Aquaman doesn't get the nod for regular inclusion in Cartoon Network's new JLA series and disappears.

What of Doctor Strange? Defenders is a monthly appearance, but not too deep. Witches sounds like Doc's Boring Watcher of the Marvel Mystical Universe role. I'm sure there will be more mini-series, one-shots, guest appearances. Not to sound alarmist- but if all the gloom-and-doom predictions for the comic book are true, and will come true in the near future, and if interest in comic book movies is cyclical- then Doctor Strange fans really have only one recourse before the dustbin of history. David Goyer's movie has got to be made, it has got to be within the next couple years, and it has got to be good.

Posted 18 July 02001 - Permalink

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Sweet Erik Larsen Doctor Strange from upcoming Defenders #7 [Defenders Message Board]

Posted 16 July 02001 - Permalink

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Federal Investigation of Stan Lee Media Leads to Indictments of Peter Paul, Three Others [Comics Journal]

Posted 15 July 02001 - Permalink

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First look at Defenders #7 [Mile High Comics]

Posted 15 July 02001 - Permalink

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ABC's 20/20 Story on Peter Paul Ran Last Night [excellent Splash] [ABCNews.com]

A man sues the Clintons because he couldn't bribe them. Ridiculous.

The Stan Lee Factor re: this story is pretty low now. I'm kind of sick of the story at this point. The 20/20 piece is a good escape point. So I'm going to stop blogging about this. Stan, you picked the wrong business partner. Time for all of us to move on. Nuff said.

Posted 14 July 02001 - Permalink

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Infinity Abyss Update [Newsrama]
Dr. Strange is one of the stars. Debuts later this year or early 2002. A team of heroes save all reality from a terrible oblivion.

I'm not too psyched for the series. Neilalien is generally not a fan of the Infinties. Primarily because of the way crossover after massive crossover totally disrupted the Sorcerer Supreme title. That charge isn't fair here, since Abyss is a self-contained story. The Infinity Gauntlet TPB is a good read, I own it, and I have tremendous respect for Starlin. He does Doc okay. But except for a brilliant insight or two, I was never sold on his portrayals of omnipotence and cosmic entities. (I don't think I've ever been sold at all, which is odd for a Dr. Strange fan to say, since Doc deals with god-like beings all the time- but that's an essay for another day.) I get no particular thrill in seeing the heroes of the Marvel Universe get wasted just to see them get wasted (my same objection to Punisher Kills The MU). Thanos is Darkseid. And Adam Warlock, let's face it, is one of the lamest characters in the MU. Didn't read much after Gauntlet, so I can't have a fair opinion about it now- but after Gauntlet, interest was and remains low.

Still, it stars Doc, and I have responsibilities this time around (this website)- so Infinity Whatevers cannot be ignored as they have been in the past. It better be good.

Two new black and white pages from the series will be posted each day to www.starlin.com. I'll be checking them out. Starlin's site, btw, has a beautiful design- but the splash page sucks, everything is too tiny, and the pop window action has got to go.

Posted 13 July 02001 - Permalink

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Iconic Introspection: Making the Big Three Sympathetic [IGN: The Column of Tomorrow]
As equal time, and an apology for my recent crack about DC stories, I offer this link. A good read despite being three too-long summaries of recent DC comic books. The bit about how icons are difficult to change through character development, but can still grow through character introspection, warrants more consideration.

Posted 13 July 02001 - Permalink

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A Cause for Marvel: Rise of Films Based on Comic Books [LATimes.com via Splash]
Can Marvel ride out its current cash problems to the pot of movie gold on the other side?

PS- As Neilalien's audience knows, nothing irks him more than an article like this, when it lists all the Marvel properties being developed into movies without mentioning Dr. Strange. Is there really buzz for movies of third-tier characters like Iron Fist (just another kung fu movie) and Werewolf By Night (just another monster movie)? Grrr.

Posted 12 July 02001 - Permalink

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A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Bank [HeroRealm: Behind The Register]
I've read two rants by this straight-talking comic-shop veteran Jeremy Shorr of Titan Comics and I like the guy already. Learned a little more too about the challenges of running a comic book shop.

Posted 11 July 02001 - Permalink

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This Friday night on ABC's 20/20: Stan Lee Media Co-Founder and Indicted Man Peter Paul

Hillary Accuser Takes Charges to Bush Justice Officials, ABC News [NewsMax.com via Splash]

Neilalien Poll: What do you think when you read about Peter Paul?

  1. A man who probably stole a lot of money from a lot of people, who probably fled to Brazil to avoid justice, a man with no credibility who is probably making wild unrelated unsubstantiated claims to somehow avoid justice, who has allied himself with, duping, or is being duped by, a right-wing conspiracy still obsessed with destroying the Clintons, so obsessed they will ally with a probable past and present criminal.
  2. A man who heroically came forth with proof of illegal Clinton campaign financing, went to U.S. prosecutors, but they were Clinton-appointees, and now he is a victim of their left-wing-conspiracy retribution with their charges of securities fraud. Meanwhile, Stan Lee Media was a simple dot-com boom-and-bust fatality in which Paul had no illegal hand. Paul was on legitimate business in Brazil, and now is correct to stay there to avoid wrongful imprisonment and remain free to continue his honorable fight.

Posted 10 July 02001 - Permalink

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Oh, this takes me back and puts a grin on my face: A review of Spidey Super-Stories #8: Spidey vs. The Wall [SpiderFan.org]

Posted 9 July 02001 - Permalink

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On Writing Comics [Pipeline]
I guess Dennis O'Neil's new book The DC Comics Guide To Writing Comics is a little light. Some good alternative recommendations are offered here.

(This shouldn't really be a surprise since DC stories themselves tend to be a little light. :) )

Posted 9 July 02001 - Permalink

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Marvel Entertainment's new website launched today [Marvel.com] [Dr. Strange's bio in a new spot] [official press release at CBR] [IGN interview with Your Man@Marvel]

My expectations must have been skewed by all the hype and delays, because I was looking for revolutionary redesign change. It's essentially the same site, but with a black background now. That must mean edgier. Main navigation (still using tabs) has been shaved to Comic Previews, Community and Shop. Simplicity is good, but you don't want to make the user click the mouse more to get to internal pages of information. More online comics (good). More attempts at community-building (polls, etc.- good- message boards not up yet?). I was afraid they were going to add superfluous, distracting, slow-loading, crappy "interactivity" and Flash and animation everywhere- and it's admirable that they restrained themselves. (I don't get the interview quote: "You'll see less text and more art, which will make for quicker download times.") The Bios are supposedly revamped- don't see much change with Doc's (the Power Grid is lame). Pushing the Spidey movie and the X-Men cartoon more (they should be doing that). Looks like they changed the info architecture- now everything that is comics-related is in a new comics main sub-directory- probably since Marvel Entertainment is soooo much more than comics now, right? No seriously, that's good, cleaner (just don't make those URLs too long).

Maybe there were a lot of back-end improvements that we can't see straight on.

I think the site should take design elements from comic books. There should be borders, panels, balloons. Right off the bat, the 2x2 structure of the home page should use comics book panels, with the titles of the features in speech balloons instead of grey tabs. There are too many disparate elements, nothing looks related or part of an overall branding scheme, all the fonts are varied (take the yellow tabs and the blue onsale button, for example). The four items currently on the home page featured prominently should be in the small Marvel Buzz column (are DD shirts in the Marvel store and one character bio really that critical?)- while the timely news features and interviews in the Marvel Buzz box should be what's featured prominently. If your bread and butter, like Marvel's, is the development of iconic properties- a pull-down menu to lame bios is pathetic. They were on the right track with the Black Panther site, but it looks like that is gone now. Every major iconic property should have a mini-site with a message board, mailing list, news on its movie plans, summaries of past books, a blurb about the current book, a preview of the next book, a list of appearances for collectors, etc. Each mini-site should be unique but with similar branding and structures so that they all feel related. Anyone who's actively posting to a Usenet newsgroup or on Comicboards about Marvel or hosting a Marvel-themed fansite is an opportunity Marvel missed for its own community. Overall, the website of Marvel Entertainment should say "comic books" and "media entertainment empire." I don't see it.

The changes made seem like they can only be positive, but the site remains a standard outing. I'm sure they have a great team doing their best with only six people and the challenge of a website like Marvel's. I have the luxury to be all tough and critical and spew my half-baked ideas. I wouldn't mind being on their website team right about now, actually. :)

Posted 9 July 02001 - Permalink

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Some Items While Neilalien Was Away

The biggest piece of Doc news: Rumor: To pay off Bryan Hitch's debt to CrossGen, is Marvel donating Doctor Strange to CrossGen for a story? [All The Rage; thanks to ComicGeek]

Reviews of Defenders #6 [IGN] [X-Axis] [SpinnerRack] [Silver Bullet]

Is Clinton-era corruption getting a pass? [Chicago Sun-Times via Splash]
Political columnist Robert Novak picks up the Peter Paul story.

ComicGeek's Strange Days comic strip storyline featuring Neilalien ends its classic run [Parts 1, 2, 3]

Gods and Dinosaurs [Sequential Tart]
Nice interview with Walt Simonson. When Walt rediscovered Marvel Comics in college, he was inspired to try his hand at comics. What did he do first? A Doctor Strange four-page fragment.

Marvelonline.net ISP and Email Closed [Splash]

Posted 7 July 02001 - Permalink

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Review of Defenders #6 (Spoilers)

The upward trend in this book continues (#5 remains the strongest book of the series so far).

Hulk's narration and all his names for people started great, but grew tiresome. The amount of his talking style that we get in a normal book is enough for me. His normal talking amount and the narration combined was a bit much.

Great manifestations of the Curse (Hulk when he fell off; trying to convince Red Raven they literally could not leave; Namor when he gave chase; preventing Banner from staying more than a few moments).

I'm more pleased with Doctor Strange in this issue.

People may assume that as a big Doc fan I am upset that Doc got knocked out by the Hulk. Well, what I am really unhappy with (still) is the high intensity of the group in-fighting. But I have no problem with the KO. Hulk's the strongest there is (or is that Namor?). That blow probably would have easily killed a normal man. Doc's always-on protections make him much more than a normal man. Hulk probably held back too because he really likes Doc. Hulk's angry reaction to his imprisonment makes total sense. No gripe here. If Doc had shrugged the punch off, it would've been nonsense. Doc's not above the fray. A quickly erected Shield of the Seraphim might have been cooler, though, than the whole concussion drama. It's clear the group really cares about Doc/each other from their reaction to the punch.

Doc was very competent this issue. Finally, a spell! The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak! Cheese and crackers!- something other than an energy blast! And wound up in a ball was great. It held the Hulk. Didn't we just debate the strength of the Bands here? Maybe Hulk was playing possum, though. I believe this is not the first time that it's been shown that Doc can turn the Hulk into Banner with a wave of the hand? His idea to summon Banner to defuse the bomb was a good idea, and I did like how the Curse got in the way without portraying Doc as an incompetent oaf.

Nighthawk and Namor's talk was excellent. All the good characterization in this series so far has flowed through Nighthawk, the Defenders #1 fan. His Avengers rant was right-on.

I wasn't as interested in Red Raven as I thought I would be. The Headmen captured my fancy more. But we know they'll be back soon.

Great cliffhanger. It'll be a long wait for #7.

Posted 7 July 02001 - Permalink

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