X-Men illustrator dies in Superman pajamas

From CNN.com:

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) -- Wearing Superman pajamas and covered with his Batman blanket, comic book illustrator Dave Cockrum died Sunday.

The 63-year-old overhauled the X-Men comic and helped popularize the relatively obscure Marvel Comics in the 1970s. He helped turn the title into a publishing sensation and major film franchise.

Cockrum died in his favorite chair at his home in Belton, South Carolina, after a long battle with diabetes and related complications, his wife Paty Cockrum said Tuesday.

At Cockrum's request, there will be no public services and his body will be cremated, according to Cox Funeral Home. His ashes will be spread on his property. A family friend said he will be cremated in a Green Lantern shirt.

At Marvel Comics, Cockrum and writer Len Wein were handed the X-Men. The comic had been created in 1963 as a group of young outcasts enrolled in an academy for mutants. The premise had failed to capture fans.

Cockrum and Wein added their own heroes to the comic and published "Giant-Size X-Men No. 1" in 1975. Many signature characters Cockrum designed and co-created -- such as Storm, Mystique, Nightcrawler and Colossus -- went on to become part of the "X-Men" films starring Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry.

Cockrum received no movie royalties, said family friend Clifford Meth, who organized efforts to help Cockrum and his family during his protracted medical care.

I didn't really like his artwork, but definitely not the way one wants to go out.

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Orlando: Xavier Institute for Higher Learning

My powers were tested for the first time today at the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning! I'm too young to enter the school yet, but one day I will wear a costume and fight crime!

Micro-Heroes Phenomenon

I don’t know why it took me so long to notice this, but there are cute little icons of comic book and movie/TV characters all over the web. People like to use them for avatars on bulletin boards. When I saw that everyone on one of the boards that I visit was using them, I started to do some research into where all of this came from. As usual, Wikipedia provided the answer (the writing for this entry is surprisingly poor for some reason):

The original versions of these micro-heroes were made by Donar and widely used as graphics for signature files on the message boards at ComicBoards.com.

Originally, they were based on a template from the site of a company marketing an applet which used Java to make similar graphics. Resourceful fans changed the little people that were originally in the animation, and animated them as their favorite super-heroes.

The company, assuming that these creative animators couldn't have made these micro-heroes without their Java program, sent an e-mail to each of the micro-heroes sites threatening them with legal action if the micro-heroes remained on them. The original version of the micro-heroes soon disappeared.

The problems with the company came about, Donar lost interest in making them and moved on to other projects. Before leaving he started the Lilguyz mailing list and Bobster (Robert Bradley) and Torch (Rich Bellacera) came up with a new template.

Now with the inclusion of new creators (of any and every age), the number of micro-heroes created with the new template far exceeds the original version and includes television and film characters, toys and fictional characters, and new micro-heroes sites continue to appear covering many different areas of interest with creators scattered throughout the world.

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The images are pretty adorable and they cover many films and comics, but I haven’t seen any Battlestar Galactica ones, which is a surprise.


[Side note: The writing style isn’t always consistent, but why would anyone ever pay for an encyclopedia again now that Wikipedia exists for free? But the danger is that malicious people will hack the shit out of it, put up bad info and kill a good thing.]

Legion of Super Villains

A few weeks ago terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Administrative Maximum United States Peneteniary in Florence, CO. This prison, nicknamed Supermax, houses 394 of the most infamous characters in the penal system including:

• Terry Nichols, accomplice to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (who was himself housed there before being executed).


• Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center attack.


• Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali and Wadih El Hage, convicted of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.


• “Shoebomber” Richard Reid.


• “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski.


• Olympic park bomber Eric Rudolph.


• Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who is serving life for spying for the former USSR.


• Woody Harrelson’s dad, Charles Harrelson, who is serving two life sentences for the murder of a federal judge.

Uh, am I the only one here who grew up reading comic books??

They’ve put nine supervillains in the same facility and given them almost four hundred potential henchmen.

I know I’ve seen this plot before. They’re going to team up and break out!

I hope someone has the Justice League on speed dial.

Upcoming Movies

Checking out IMDB, there's not too much on the horizon as far as movies go. I have my doubts about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though I did like it when I read it back in the early 80's.

May is all about Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Everything else will be destroyed. It's the Summer of Sith!

June will be dead for me. I have absolutely no desire to see Batman. Bewitched might actually be funny, but I don't pay to see comedies.

War of the Worlds comes out in July. I can't see how this could not be decent. I hear that Lucas is pissed that Spielberg is going to be eating in ROTS's take. Actually, I'm pissed too. Not about the money -- nothing good ever gets released in August or September. I wish they would push the release back a bit.

The Fantastic Four comes out in July also. Again, I'm not interested. I don't care for comic book movies. I'm sick of that genre.

August looks as bad as June. I hope the Doom movie tanks. Video game movies suck too.

September. Bad as well. The Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie Corpse Bride is the only thing vaguely interesting. To me, anyway.

November. Nada! I will not pay to see a Harry Potter movie.

December. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Can it be the next Lord of The Rings? Probably not. But it will be one of only three movies I pay to see in 2005.

Also in December: King Kong. Can Peter Jackson do well with a script not based on one of the best written stories of all time? His zombie movies weren't just bad -- they were awful. I have my doubts here. The fact that Jack Black is the male lead makes me roll my eyes. I hope PJ proves me wrong.

If King Kong bombs, does that make it more likely or less likely that we'll see The Hobbit by 2009?