Tag Archives: Netflix

March 6, 2019 · 11:30 am

Emerald City Comic Con 2019: Dark Horse Comics Announces Schedule

Stranger Things #1 Convention Exclusive cover by Kyle Lambert

And we’re off and running with ECCC News! If you’re in Seattle and love comics, then you’ll be at Emerald City Comic Con, March 14-17, 2019. For all you Dark Horse Comics fans, have you heard….Dark Horse Comics Stranger Things #1 Convention Exclusive cover by Kyle Lambert is debuting at ECCC! Get your hands on one of these at the Dark Horse booth (#2208) or the Official ECCC Store while supplies last! Check out more ECCC Exclusives http://fal.cn/i92Q

And here’s your Dark Horse schedule of ECCC events…

Press Release:

Visit Dark Horse Comics at Booth #2208 during Emerald City Comic Con to meet some of your favorite creators and get your hands on some free swag, such as comics, pins, posters, and more! Get colorin’ on our communal coloring wall! The wall will feature pages from the #DHColors Coloring Book line! Canvases will vary throughout the weekend but include pages from Steven Universe Coloring Book Volume 1, The Legend of Korra Coloring Book, Avatar: The Last Airbender Coloring Book, Jurassic Park Coloring Book, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Coloring Book.

Dark Horse Direct will have a display with exciting upcoming products in the Dark Horse booth. Check it out after your favorite signing!

Special appearance in the Dark Horse booth from our friends at Happymatic Photo Booth! Come by with your friends or in cosplay and get your picture taken as a souvenir – for FREE!

We’ll also have a variety of Dark Horse comics, graphic novels, art books, and collectibles for sale in our booth.

Check out our signings and panels, too!

DARK HORSE ECCC 2019 SIGNING SCHEDULE

All creators signing in our booth offer their autographs for FREE. FREE prints, comics, or posters are provided for most of our signings (while supplies last). You may purchase or bring items to be signed; however, we may restrict the type or number of items to be signed as necessary.

Lines may also be closed for some signings due to crowding or time restrictions.

All events are subject to change. Some restrictions apply. Please see Dark Horse Comics staff if you have questions.

THURSDAY, MARCH 14

11:00 AM-11:50 AM:

ALIENS VS PREDATOR, PREDATOR: Brian Albert Thies

12:00 PM-12:50 PM:

TOMB RAIDER, TOMB RAIDER: INFERNO: Phillip Sevy

1:00 PM-1:50 PM:

WILLIAM GIBSON’S ALIEN 3, ANGEL CATBIRD: Tamra Bonvillain

STARCRAFT: SOLDIERS: Andrew R. Robinson

2:00 PM-2:50 PM:

LIFEFORMED: CLEO MAKES CONTACT, EXTRAORDINARY: A STORY OF AN ORDINARY PRINCESS: Cassie Anderson

3:00 PM-3:50 PM:

EMPOWERED: Adam Warren

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: Todd Nauck

4:00 PM-4:50 PM:

PROS AND (COMIC) CONS, SECRET LOVES OF GEEKS, SECRET LOVES OF GEEK GIRLS: Hope Nicholson, Amanda Deibert, Megan Kearney, Tia Vasilou, Vita Ayala, Valentine de Landro

5:00 PM-5:50 PM:

BEASTS OF BURDEN: WISE DOGS AND ELDRITCH MEN: Benjamin Dewey

FRIDAY, MARCH 15

11:00 AM-11:50 AM:

CRIMSON LOTUS: Mindy Lee

JOE GOLEM: OCCULT DETECTIVE: Patric Reynolds

12:00 PM-12:50 PM:

ROCKET ROBINSON AND THE SECRET OF THE SAINT: Sean O’Neill

1:00 PM-1:50 PM:

GOD OF WAR: Tony Parker, Chris Roberson

HELLBOY AND THE B.P.R.D.: 1956: Chris Roberson

2:00 PM-2:50 PM:

CALAMITY KATE: Magdalene Visaggio, Corin Howell

THE GIRL IN THE BAY: Corin Howell

3:00 PM-3:50 PM:

MATA HARI: Ariela Kristantina

LAGUARDIA: Tana Ford

4:00 PM-4:50 PM:

BERSERKER UNBOUND: Mike Deodato

GRENDEL: Matt Wagner

5:00 PM-5:50 PM:

STRANGER THINGS, STARCRAFT, PROJECT TBA: Jody Houser

SATURDAY, MARCH 16

11:00 AM-5:00 PM:

FIGHT CLUB 3, BAIT: Chuck Palahniuk

5:30 PM-6:30 PM:

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY: HOTEL OBLIVION: Nick Filardi

SUNDAY, MARCH 17

11:00 AM-11:50 AM:

BANDETTE: Paul Tobin, Colleen Coover

PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES: Paul Tobin, Ron Chan

THE WITCHER, COLDER: Paul Tobin

12:00 PM-12:50 PM:

MINECRAFT VOLUME ONE: Sarah Graley, Sfé R. Monster

1:00 PM-1:50 PM:

THE ONCE AND FUTURE QUEEN: Adam P. Knave, D.J. Kirkbride

2:00 PM-2:50 PM:

DISNEY RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET: CLICK START–A SELECT-YOUR-STORY ADVENTURE: Amy Mebberson

3:00 PM-3:50 PM:

MYSTICONS: Megan Levens

DARK HORSE ECCC 2019 PANEL SCHEDULE

Please join us at the panels below, brought to you by Dark Horse Comics and friends! Please visit this link for more panels featuring Dark Horse creators and guidelines for attending panels.

THURSDAY, MARCH 14

Artists Who Write: The Craft and Creation of Comics
12:15 PM – 1:15 PM
TCC L3-R3
Panelists: Tana Ford, Adam Warren, Matt Wagner, Cassie Anderson

Many comics creators possess a diverse skill set that they’ve used to carefully hone their craft of sequential storytelling. Join Dark Horse and a panel of creators as they discuss turning an idea into a full-fledged story, and how they continue to keep their art and writing fresh.

Marketing Your Own Comics Without Being a Nuisance
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
TCC L3-R1
Panelists: Melissa Meszaros, Cara O’Neil, D.J. Kirkland, Daniel Barnes, Sarah Graley, Paul Tobin, Greg Smith, Anne Smith

The key to success in comics is knowing you are the direct line to your fans—but how do you shamelessly promote your work without going overboard? Join marketing teams from Oni Press and Dark Horse Comics, with a handful of successful self-made comics creators to learn the best social media and marketing tactics for your self-published comics.

FRIDAY, MARCH 15

Peeling Back the Layers: The Process of Bringing a Comic to Life
11:15 AM – 12:15 PM
TCC L3-R4
Panelists: Tamra Bonvillain, Tony Parker, Magdalene Visaggio

It takes a team of talented individuals to bring a comic book to life. Join Dark Horse and a panel of writers, artists, colorists, and letterers whose creativity and hard work produce the best comics on the shelves. Dark Horse would like to peel back the layers on the work of comics’ unsung heroes and celebrate their contributions to our beloved art form.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16

Stranger Things Publishing
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
WSCC 611
Panelists: Elizabeth Schaefer, Spencer Cushing, Jody Houser, Ibrahim Moustafa

The story of Stranger Things continues in the official books and comics! Join editors from Dark Horse and Del Rey Books, along with author Gwenda Bond (Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds), writer Jody Houser (Stranger Things comics), and artist Ibrahim Moustafa (Stranger Things Free Comic Book Day comic) as they explore the further adventures of our favorite characters from Hawkins, IN.

Dark Horse Manga
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
TCC L3-R1
Panelist: Carl Horn

Dark Horse’s history with Japanese comics can be traced back to the company’s earliest years, with a legacy that includes such legendary series as Lone Wolf & Cub, Berserk, and many more! Now, Dark Horse continues to publish some of the industry’s best-selling titles, like Mob Psycho 100, Unofficial Hatsune Mix, I Am a Hero, Danganronpa, Blade of the Immortal, Cardcaptor Sakura, and many more! Join Dark Horse Editor Carl Horn for a look at the past, present, and future of manga at Dark Horse!

SUNDAY, MARCH 17

Growing Up With Comics: Introducing Younger Readers to Graphic Storytelling
10:45 AM – 11:45 AM
TCC L3-R1
Panelists: Sean O’Neill, Sfé Monster, Sarah Graley

Comics are a great way to get kids interested in art, reading, and storytelling—and, well, they’re fun! Join Dark Horse comics creators to discover and discuss the ever-growing library of incredible all-ages comics!

Charles Forsman’s ‘I Am Not Okay With This’ Picked Up by Netflix

‘I Am Not Okay With This’ by Charles Forsman

Charles Forsman is a wonderful independent cartoonist. I have had the privilege to review his work. Mr. Forsman creates work that is usually intended for a relatively small audience. That is the nature of comics, especially niche comics. But things can get turned on their heads. Just imagine, a highly obscure copy of an underground comic is sitting in a trash bin when it’s picked up by a movie director and he’s so thrilled by it that he’s compelled to move heaven and earth to turn it into a hit television series. That’s what happened with Forsman’s The End of the F***king World, now available on Netflix. And it’s happened again. This time without any trash bin. The news it out that Forsman’s I Am Not Okay With This is coming to Netflix.

‘I Am Not Okay With This’ by Charles Forsman

There’s something about the fresh and quirky goodness of independent alt-comics that can catapult them from obscurity to crazy full-on stardom. It won’t happen to most of the self-published comix out there but it happens. So, don’t try this at home unless this is a labor of love first and foremost. Otherwise, it won’t work. Painfully honest stories have a greater than average chance of getting attention. That’s part of it. The rest is just the right mix of hard work and a bit of good luck. While you wait to enjoy I Am Not Okay With This, check out The End of the F***king World now on Netflix:

I Am Not Okay With This follows the misadventures of Sydney, an unassuming 15-year-old freshman with telekinetic powers. Be sure to visit Charles Forsman right here. I Am Not Okay With This is a 160-page graphic novel published by Fantagraphics Books.

4 Comments

Filed under Charles Forsman, Comics, Fantagraphics Books, graphic novels, Netflix, Television, Young Adult

Tagged as British Humor, Cartoonists, Charles Forsman, Entertainment, Fantagraphics, fantagraphics books, graphic novels, Humor, Media, Movies, Netflix, Pop Culture, Publishing, Television, Writers, Writing, Young Adult

July 23, 2017 · 9:00 pm

Netflix Movie Review: ‘To The Bone’

Lily Collins in “To The Bone”

If you subscribe to Netflix, you have seen or may plan to see “To The Bone.” As a major movie with a prominent star performer, the pressure is on to strike an authentic chord on the theme of eating disorders. One key factor in all this is that, if someone with an eating disorder is viewing this, they will know better than anyone else if only lip service is being paid or if something real is being said. Anyone in crisis wants to experience something real. Those who are loved ones, are certainly eager to understand and to help, but, in the end, it is always going to be up to that person who is struggling to find his or her own way out. What a movie like “To The Bone” does well is not to pretend to have all the answers. The movie is not there to magically solve anything. At best, the movie is there to open a window into a world, offer some perspective, offer up a look but make no claim to providing the ultimate solution. In all this, “To the Bone” succeeds.

Ellen (Lily Collins) is a 20-year-old anorexic girl who believes she has her eating disorder under control. She does not seem to want to listen to anyone’s advice on what and how to eat and yet she does not seem to completely close the door either. In a word, Lilly Collins gives a performance that is powerful. No doubt, she commands the screen with her gentle presence. Make no mistake, “To The Bone” is the sort of movie that matters. If one could only see every individual viewer reaction, it would light up the night sky. Collins is authentic. And writer/director Marti Noxon gives us an authentic screenplay and movie. It’s done by evoking that spontaneous feeling of sink or swim: giving the character room to fail so that she can summon the strength to turn the corner of her own free will.

This is a story all about free will. Eating disorders are a form of addiction, a way to control. Recovery is about finding a way out but it ultimately won’t work if the person in crisis is not in the driver’s seat. This movie works with all of this in mind. What we see is a series of stops, starts, falls, and attempts to get back up. The pace is slow because there is no magical cure to instantly bring one back from the brink. That said, we end up coming right back to the main character of Ellen in an intriguing cyclical fashion. Family tries to help. A charismatic therapist (Keanu Reeves) steps in with a tough love approach. There’s even a blossoming romance with a new boyfriend (Alex Sharp). But, in the end, we keep coming back to Ellen, alone–and yet not alone, processing things bit by bit.

Part of Ellen’s backstory involves her posting drawings about her anorexia on Tumblr that end up going viral. Not only that, one anorexic female fan of Ellen’s art kills herself. Her parents send Ellen the suicide note. It is a perfect example of how there are no easy answers, no one simple explanation to why this or that happens. It is in that spirit that this movie shines.

However, if there is a problem attached to this movie, it is simply that eating disorders are not simple matters nor is anything involving them. The obvious difficulty in making a movie about this subject is inherent in the process: Lily Collins had to undergo a severe, and life-threatening, weight loss. Sure, one can say it was a highly monitored process and the actor and the director took every precaution. Ultimately, there is no easy explanation to the ethics involved. On the one hand, the movie succeeds in opening a window. On the other hand, it opens up other issues about what such a movie owes its audience. Well, the movie is on Netflix for all to see so that train has left the station. Viewers will need to make their own call. The good news is that the movie itself does have something real to say.

8 Comments

Filed under Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Movie Reviews, movies, Netflix

Tagged as Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Entertainment, Lily Collins, Movie Reviews, Movies, Netflix, Pop Culture, Television

April 17, 2016 · 7:00 pm

Netflix Review: UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT Season Two

I’d been reading one of my favorite dark fantasy/horror writers, Dennis Etchison, when I took to watching the new season of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” Now, this show may appear to simply involve wacky hijinks but the connection to the likes of Etchison is significant. Kimmy Schmidt, created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, is a show of high quality in more ways than one may expect. Etchison’s short story, “Inside the Cackle Factory” is quite fitting. Ostensibly, it is about how TV sitcoms get approved. However, the veil of secrecy keeps slipping to reveal sinister underpinnings. And so it is with Kimmy Schmidt: the veil keeps falling.

Ellie Kemper and Amy Sedaris

Now, I’m only suggesting a touch of horror. We know it can be a short distance between comedy and tragedy and that horror need not require a drop of blood. Another dark comedy on the same track is the now classic, “Strangers with Candy” (1999-2000) starring Amy Sedaris. This is the show about a 46-year-old former drug addict and prostitute trying to get her life together by literally going back to high school. This is so key to what I’m saying that I’m doing cartwheels right now. “Strangers with Candy” proves that dark comedy is often the best comedy. It had Stephen Colbert and David Letterman involved. And, the cherry on the top is that Amy Sedaris plays an ongoing character on Kimmy Schmidt!

Ellie Kemper getting her Kimmy Schmidt on!

Amy Sedaris plays the role of Mimi Kanasis, best pal to Jacqueline Voorhees (now Jacqueline White as she is newly divorced from her cheating billionaire husband). If this sounds like a lot of plot development going on with this show, you’d be correct. But it all makes sense. In one respect, the show is sort of spoiler-proof as it is broad comedy on one level, just fun satire like you got from “Seinfeld.” However, it does want to have it both ways with investing in character development. This, odd combination of edgy whimsy and heart-felt exploration of character tends to work out pretty well in this case.

Without giving anything away, consider a scene that can be read as a faux pivotal moment. It seems that a certain train departure is significant and may very well interrupt a “boy-meets-girl” connection. But, hey, no worries, the train is running two hours late! “Wow, what a break for that couple meeting up! You guys are running two hours late!” yells Kimmy to an Amtrak train conductor. He smiles and says, “And you thought we were just a train company. Far from it! We make love connections happen!” It is a funny and silly scene but it also does involve an authentic connection, sans irony, between characters. You can say that is a Kimmy Schmidt trademark. As Jerry Seinfeld has famously said of his show, it is devoid of any “very special moments.”

Tituss Burgess as Titus Andronicus, no…Titus Andromedon!

The reason for the tension between broad comedy and authentic connection on Kimmy Schmidt is that this show, as opposed to Seinfeld, is about something instead of nothing. It has a pretty heavy premise and the showrunners carry that as a badge of honor: young woman survives fifteen years hidden away in a bunker and now tries to rebuild a life in New York City. It is a premise very much in the spirit of Strangers with Candy. It’s not pure comedy but it provides some of the biggest laughs you’ll find. And it’s definitely NOT a typical comedy-drama, infamously known as a “dramedy.” It is coming from another place. That is why I think the touch of horror is so important: this is a show that is meant to make you laugh as well as unsettle you, take you out of your comfort zone. And, in that regard, it is doing a bang-up job.

Carol Kane (Lillian Kaushtupper) and Jane Krakowski (Jacqueline White)

It is because Kimmy Schmidt resides some place other than a typical sitcom that the show becomes this broad venue upon which masterful writing can discuss various themes. With the character of Lillian Kaushtupper (played by Carol Kane) we explore the conflict between old urban neighborhoods giving way to gentrification. Lillian doesn’t always have the best responses but she offers a compelling portrait of someone who finds herself being pushed out in the name of progress. With the character of Jacqueline White, we have a latter-day “The Awakening” story by Kate Chopin. Jacqueline comes to realize in middle-age that her whole life has been a sham of social climbing in Manhattan. She makes various awkward attempts to be true to her Native American heritage. Then we have the character of Titus Andromedon (played by Tituss Burgess) who is forced to do more and live more after having come out gay. Originally born Ronald Ephen Wilkerson in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, Titus Andromedon experienced his own awakening that led him to live in New York City. However, in the intervening years, he has frittered away much of his promise as an aspiring actor/singer.

Tina Fey as Andrea Bayden on “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”

Finally, we come back to Kimmy Schmidt. Who is she and what does she want? Well, as she learns from stumbling into a friendship with a psychiatrist, Andrea Bayden (played by Tina Fey), she has a lot of work to do on her own personal baggage. For starters, she is too helpful. Again, without any irony, Andrea suggests that Kimmy is an “enabler.” Kimmy, the good doctor points out, is too busy trying to help others, perhaps more than for their own good. And, on top of it, Kimmy is avoiding helping herself. She, after all, was kidnapped and lost fifteen years of her life huddled in a bunker with three other women. The cult leader abused the women. Pretty dark stuff in the background that keeps coming up to the surface like PTSD. Ah, but if only the good doctor could take her own advice. It’s not like Andrea is in the driver’s seat, especially with her having Kimmy as her own personal Uber driver. Very funny, and very touching, stuff. It takes formidable comedic, and general writing, chops to pull of a show that has bite as well as provides a hug. See for yourself. If you have not already, go on your merry way to Netflix and get all caught up on Season Two of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”

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Filed under Amy Sedaris, Comedy, Dennis Etchison, Entertainment, Horror, Humor, Netflix, Television, Tina Fey

Tagged as Amy Sedaris, Comedy, David Letterman, Dennis Etchison, Entertainment, Horror, Humor, Media, Netflix, Pop Culture, PTSD, Stephen Colbert, Television, Tina Fey, Writers, Writing

June 25, 2014 · 4:00 pm

Occupy Google and Saving The Internet

If you don’t take a stand for net neutrality, corporations, like cable companies, are more than happy to sound off against it by creating fake people’s campaigns. Corporations are people too, right? Time is running out to make YOUR VOICE heard in the latest test to a free Internet.

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