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L.A. Times Festival of Books Wrap Up

 Books, Comics, Community, Events, Marvel / DC  No Responses »
Apr 222013
 
Flash has just run around the world. Again. The Justice League showed off their best moves before reading "I am Aquaman: Justice League Visits Atlantis," which is part of HarperCollins' "I Can Read" series.
by staff writer Laura Davis

That’s it for LATFOB 2013. What a dizzying assortment of books, talks, characters and people! The Trojan marching band was spectacular  despite the heat, and it seemed that after a week of heartbreaking and terrifying news, everyone was ready to enjoy a pleasant weekend. Festival organizers made not only the impressive food court at USC available to attendees this year, but about a dozen gourmet food trucks were also on hand, so people had a huge variety of choices, and were generally able to get food in a reasonable length of time. Many festival fans are still upset over the venue change from UCLA to USC, but USC has plenty of shade and plenty of places to sit and take a break, a flat campus, and better parking and accessibility. As great as the festival was at UCLA, it’s better at USC.

This year, Warner Bros. had an even greater presence in the Children’s area, featuring the Mystery Machine and Scooby Doo, and Justice League characters, activities, and photo opps. Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Flash put in an appearance on the children’s stage to read from I Am Aquaman: Justice League Visits Atlantis, and the kids were mesmerized.

Lucy Dahl, daughter of Roald Dahl and inspiration for his Matilda, gave a warm talk, and in reply to a question about advice for young writers, she shared a letter written to her by her father on December 10, 1986, while he was writing Matilda:

“Dear Luke (that was his nickname for Lucy, she explains), the reason I haven’t written for  a long time is that I have been giving every moment to a children’s book…and now at last, it’s finished and I know jolly well I’m going to have to spend the next 3 months re-writing the second half. The first half is great, about a girl who can move things with her eyes, and about a terrible headmistress who lifts small children up by their hair and hangs them out of the upstairs windows by one ear. But I have got now to think of a really decent second half, the present one will al be scrapped: three months’ work gone out of the window. But that’s the way it is. I must have re-written Charlie 5 or 6 times, although no one knows it.”  She laughs and adds, “Well, now you do! So, I think that to answer [the] question, it’s not easy to write stories and to get them right.  I know that one of his biggest fears while writing, and I’ve heard him say this many times, was to lose the attention of his reader and to keep them with him all of the time.”

Authors Austin Grossman, Scott Hutchins, Lydia Netzer, and Robin Sloan formed a lively panel, Fiction from the 22nd Century; and John Scalzi gave a great talk, in conversation with Richard Kadrey. We’ll feature full coverage on both of these events shortly.  Stay tuned!

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Wonder Women! PBS Documentary Airs April 15

 Comics, Hero Community, Kickstarter, Marvel / DC  No Responses »
Mar 192013
 
What language would Wonder Woman have spoken?

This coming April 15, PBS will air Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines, a documentary about Wonder Woman and the real life women she’s inspired.

Wonder Women!  traces the fascinating evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman. From the birth of the comic book superheroine in the 1940s to the blockbusters of today,  this film looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.  The director takes you behind the scenes with Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, comic writers and artists, and real-life superheroines such as Gloria Steinem, Kathleen Hanna andothers, who offer an enlightening and entertaining counterpoint to the male-dominatedsuperhero genre.

The documentary is directed by Kristy Guavara-Flanagan, and produced by Kelcey Edwards. It was the subject of a successful Kickstarter campaign that ended about this time last year, made its debut at the SXSW Film Festival last year, and has won countless awards.

Now that the film is done, it’s being taken on tour around the country through May. If you have the opportunity to see it in a theater setting, by all means, do so.  If you can’t, watch for it on PBS.

Links

Upcoming Screenings

Asterisks denotes that the filmmaker will be in attendance for Q&A after screening

Video Of The Day: Wonder Woman

 Video Of the Day  No Responses »
Mar 052013
 
wonder-woman-nina-bergman-1a

We know about the Man of Steel, and we know about Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy of Batman films.  And we know that if Warner has any plans at all to go toe to toe with the Marvel juggernaut and the Avengers movies, and J.J. Abrams signing up to do the next Star Wars movie with Lucasfilm, that they’d better get it in gear and start working on that Justice League movie that seems all but inevitable at this point.

But a major missing puzzle piece is Wonder Woman.  There is a Wonder Woman movie currently in development, but no director or screenwriter has been signed so far. Yet Diana Prince is the third member of the Big Three that really ought to have her own film.  Joss Whedon walked awy from a Wonder Woman television series when the investors and studio execs tinkered with the concept so much that it was unrecognizable as Wonder Woman by the time they were done.

But what if they put veteran stuntman turned filmmaker Jesse V. Johnson at the helm – could Wonder Woman kick some butt at the box office? We think she could.  This new short viral film may just put those fears to rest as Danish singer Nina Bergman takes on the title role in this engaging little featurette Johnson has produced.

Johnson self-financed the film – this approach is fast becoming a way of getting noticed in the motion picture business.  He’s recently directed the WWE action film  The Package starring ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin.  Could this be his way of throwing his hat in the ring?

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Could Romeyka (Ophitic) Greek Be Wonder Woman’s Dialect?

 Comics, Marvel / DC, Superhero  No Responses »
Mar 292012
 
What language would Wonder Woman have spoken?
by Melanippe of Themascyra

What language would Wonder Woman have spoken?

Probably not literally so, but this archaic Greek dialect, preserved in the folds and nooks of the rugged Black Sea side of Asia Minor, may be as close as any living person will get to hearing Themiscyran.  After all, only a little over 100 kilometers west of Trabazon, the heart of the Romeyka-speaking area, is Aretias, the island formerly sacred to Ares, where Amazons were alleged to have worshipped; and another 200 kilometers along the coast is the river Thermodon (or more recently, Terme), next to which the original Themiscyra was built.

Dr Ioanna Sitaridou of the University of Cambridge has been studying this small population – only about 5,000 – of Romeyka-speakers.  The most distinctive feature of their language, which was preserved by colonial isolation (as Icelandic and Appalachian English also were) is the retention of the infinitive case, long vanished from modern Greek.  The dialect also has several pronunciation variants, and other grammatical features not seen in demotic Greek.

The name ‘Romeyka’ itself is from around the 500s C.E. (give or take a few centuries) when the Greeks referred to themselves as Rhomaioi ()or Romioi (), virtually all Greeks having become Roman citizens. The name which modern Greeks now call themselves and their language,”Hellene”, developed Byzantine Christian implications of paganism, looked down upon by the Imperial state.  Curiously enough, the modern Romeyka-speakers are almost entirely Muslim, having not retained either Olympian worship nor Byzantine faith due to the cultural pressures of the area.

Although there is a little debate on the somewhat simplified, popular-news version of Dr Sitaridou’s studies, there is no question that the preservation of yet another modern-civilisation-threatened cultural variation has value and importance.  If nothing else, Romeyka provides a glimpse into the evolution of a language that used to rule the Occidental world – a common past for Europe and half the Americas.

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Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man Cheer Children at Georgetown Hospital

 Charity, Comics, Hero Community, Real Life Superheroes  No Responses »
Mar 252012
 
The Dark Knight joined Wonder Woman and Spiderman at Georgetown where their superhero powers comforted children fighting life-threatening illnesses.
Washington, DC (PRWEB) March 24, 2012
The Dark Knight joined Wonder Woman and Spiderman at Georgetown where their superhero powers comforted children fighting life-threatening illnesses.

The Dark Knight joined Wonder Woman and Spiderman at Georgetown where their superhero powers comforted children fighting life-threatening illnesses.

While the news and speculation about Batman being pulled over by local Maryland county police has been extensively covered by national news outlets, the complete story of the Caped Crusader’s run-in with the law has not been known until now. Batman left his underground cave last Wednesday to travel to Georgetown Hospital in Washington, DC to visit with children with cancer and other serious illnesses as part Hope for Henry’s annual Superhero Celebrations.

“Fortunately, the FAA did not intercept Wonder Woman’s invisible plane and Peter Parker was able to swing ‘under the radar’ to get to the hospital without being accosted,” said Laurie Strongin, Executive Director of Hope for Henry. “Once local law enforcement understood Batman’s critical mission they were quick to get him on his way.”

The kids visited by Batman, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man – hematology/oncology inpatients and outpatients being treated at Georgetown – enjoyed their time with the superheroes, and were treated to time in the Batmobile; gifts of superhero toys and books; caricatures of themselves posed as superheroes; superhero photo booth pictures; and much, much more.

The superheroes return to Washington, DC on Monday, March 26, at 10:30 am to spend time with pediatric cancer patients at Hope for Henry’s Superhero Celebration at Children’s National Medical Center.

About Hope for Henry

Hope for Henry Foundation (HFH) improves the lives of children with cancer and other serious illnesses by providing carefully-chosen gifts, like iPads, and specially-designed programs, like in-hospital birthday parties, to entertain and promote comfort, care, and recovery. To date, Hope for Henry Foundation has served more than 5,500 children at hospitals primarily in Washington, DC.

Hope for Henry brings smiles and laughter, hope and magic into the lives of these children and their families. The organization was founded almost 10 years ago to honor the legacy of Henry Strongin Goldberg, who died at age seven of a rare, fatal disease. Henry’s struggles were featured in a New York Time Magazine cover story in 2001, and more recently chronicled in a best-selling memoir, Saving Henry, penned by Henry’s mother and executive director of Hope for Henry, Laurie Strongin.

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