“Comic Book Convo: Is’Nana the Were-Spider Creator Greg Anderson-Elysee”

The Shadow League: What is the basis of Is’Nana?

Greg Anderson-Elysee: Its pretty much a father and son, coming of age story.  The son of Anansi the Spider from the West African and Caribbean mythology.  Anansi is the god of stories.  The story is, he continues the legacy of Anansi but at the same time trying to find his place in the world.  In the book, I’m trying to introduce a lot more black mythological gods and deities and heroes.

Whether they’re from Africa, Caribbean or African American folktales, I just want to showcase that we have awesome characters, gods and deities that match up to Hercules and Zeus, the Greek gods and the Norse gods, but we can do our thing, too.  And with our own characters.  A lot of us just haven’t been educated in knowing who they are.  That’s what I’m trying to do with Is’Nana the Were-Spider.

TSL: You’re on the second volume now and things are steadily progressing.  What’s that been like?

GAE: It’s been amazing. I’ve just launched a Kickstarter and today we are very close to the goal.  We are currently sold out of volume one.  People who missed out on volume one will have the ability to pledge on volume one and volume two at the same time…

https://kickstarter.com/projects/1942007293/isnana-the-were-spider-the-ballads-of-rawhead-and

https://theshadowleague.com/comic-book-convo-is-nana-the-were-spider-creator-greg-anderson-elysee/

“‘Young Justice’s Season Three Release Date: ‘Outsiders’ Teaser Confirms January Premiere”

“A new teaser confirms Young Justice Season 3, officially titled Young Justice: Outsiders, will premiere on DC Universe Jan. 4, 2019. The 26 episode season will be split in two equal parts. The latter 13 episodes will premiere separately sometime in June, according to the DC Universe release schedule from New York Comic Con.

Outsiders will be the second original series to stream on DC Universe, and will premiere shortly after the conclusion of Titans Season 1. After Outsiders, Doom Patrol is expected in February then followed by the second half of Outsiders that summer.

New characters include Troy Baker as Geo-Force, Jason Spisak (also Wally West) as Forager, Zehra Fazal as Halo, as well as Arrowette, Thirteen, and Spoiler. At San Diego Comic Con, lead character designer Phil Bourassa explained the artistic inspiration for this season.

“Kirby’s work is many things. He’s practically the author of an art form, in terms of the way he approached comics. There’s just an epic scale with his stuff so it fits in nicely with the Young Justice universe, because we are going for epic,” he told Newsweek…”

https://www.newsweek.com/young-justice-season-3-outsiders-release-date-teaser-dc-universe-1219999

“Marvel Cinematic Universe: Pepper Potts’ Evolution Has Paved the Way for Rescue”

“Last month, a leaked photograph of Gwyneth Paltrow on the set of the still-untitled and much-anticipated Avengers 4 swarmed social media. Although the image has since been deleted, the sight of Paltrow in an armour not unlike one of Tony Stark’s own creations had many excited fans speculating that Pepper Potts would finally appear as Rescue, her superhero alter ego, in the next film.

As a part of the MCU since the beginning, and in an era when Marvel boss Kevin Feige insists that the future of the MCU is (predominantly) female, Pepper Potts’ transformation into Rescue is a very organic progression. Having first appeared in the Tales of Suspense comics series of 1963, it wasn’t until Matt Fraction and Salvador Lorocca’s 2009 ‘World’s Most Wanted’/The Invincible Iron Man series, on discovering a suit Tony has made specifically for her, that Pepper suits up as Rescue…”

http://fandom.wikia.com/articles/marvel-cinematic-universe-pepper-potts-rescue

 

“Hasan Minhaj Breaks Through Dunk Fatigue With ‘Patriot Act'”

“I never really thought about Dunk Fatigue until I saw Hasan Minhaj, on his new Netflix show Patriot Act, masterfully working around it.

What is Dunk Fatigue? Well, let us take as a baseline that public life currently is full of people who are pretty easy to dunk on. And let us define “dunk” as a satisfying joke or barrage of jokes mixed with truths, cathartic and merciless, ostentatious and totally sincere, done in front of an audience eager to cheer. Any time you see a headline that says “[SO-AND-SO] DESTROYS [SUCH-AND-SUCH] OVER [TOPIC],” where said destruction takes place in a video you can watch that’s just someone talking, that’s probably a good old dunk.

One of the challenges of a show that involves a lot of dunks, like Last Week Tonight or Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, is that after a while, it can find itself dunking on the same people over the same things…”

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/29/661624301/hasan-minhaj-breaks-through-dunk-fatigue-with-patriot-act

“Peter Farrelly On Setting Aside Raunch-Comedy for Prestige Drama With Green Book”

“Your track record as a director of dramatic emoting is not a known commodity. I’d love to hear about your process of coming across this material, connecting with it, and deciding to make this kind of career pivot — to direct something that’s not just entertaining, but had the potential to be poignant.

Farrelly:  People had asked me over the years, “Do you think you’ll ever do a drama?” And I always said, “Yeah, sure, when it happens.” Like, I didn’t plan these things; I just kind of did what the universe dropped into our lap next. Some project would come along, we’d get interested, and we’d do it. And then one day I ran into Brian Hayes Currie. And he’s telling me he’s writing a screenplay.

I said, “What is it?” He said, “True story about this black concert pianist named Don Shirley, who in 1962, his record company sent him on a tour of the South. He was nervous about going, so he hired a bouncer from the Copacabana, like, the best bouncer down there, an Italian guy, sixth-grade education, who’s racist himself. And somehow after this trip, they became lifelong friends…”

https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/peter-farrelly-on-trading-comedy-for-drama-with-green-book.html

“Can Barrier-Breaking ‘Black Panther’ Become The First Superhero Movie Nominated For Best Picture?”

“I grew up a white Marvel Comics kid and never thought about how it would be to not see heroes who share my skin color. The overwhelming success of Black Panther might change that for future generations. Michael and Ryan, you guys were also comic book kids. How did a lack of Black characters make you feel, and what did Black Panther mean to you as the rare exception? 

Coogler: That’s how I found Black Panther. I was into comics, coming up in the late-’80s, early-’90s, and there was a comic book shop right across the street from my elementary school. We would go there in between school and basketball practice. We would read the books. We didn’t have money to buy them, but they’d let us thumb through them.

I went in and asked the guy, “Are there any Black comic book characters in here?” I really was searching for it and that’s how I found out about Panther. He took me over and showed me some issues that Panther was in. He kind of pitched me who he was and so I learned about him at an early age, literally seeking out — there wasn’t a word for it yet, but representation — I was looking for it there.

That’s how I found him…”

https://deadline.com/2018/11/black-panther-ryan-coogler-michael-b-jordan-lupita-nyongo-interview-news-1202499543/

“From Elastigirl to Edna, How Incredibles 2 Women Kick Butt”

“When we talked to Incredibles 2 director Brad Bird, he made it clear the movie doesn’t have a female lead because of the #MeToo movement. He came up with the idea of putting a woman front and center “right on the heels of the first film,” which came out in 2004.

“That’s the oldest idea in this current movie,” the filmmaker said. “We don’t really respond to whatever the thing of the moment is. We just kind of tell the stories we want to tell.”

In this film, Elastigirl is the one with a job, fighting crime, while Mr. Incredible stays home taking care of the kids. The film features other strong female role models too.

But before we go on, a warning: If you haven’t seen Incredibles 2 yet, we’re going to unload a ton of spoilers…”

https://www.cnet.com/news/from-elastigirl-to-edna-how-incredibles-2-women-kick-butt/

“Superhero Stan Lee Fought for Justice and Diversity with Relatable Comic Book Characters”

“I met Peter Parker in February 1963. It was a heady time for a 10-year-old boy. The Mercury Seven astronauts had made anything seem possible and now here was a red-and-black costumed human arachnid staring at me from the cover of “Amazing Spider-Man” #1 at my local drugstore comic book rack.

“The Fantastic Four think I’m trapped! But they don’t suspect my real power,” the Spider-Man proclaimed, surrounded by four other colorful characters that were not as polished or familiar as Batman and Superman, my usual comic book fare.

I was hooked. And I wasn’t alone. Marvel Comics, the publisher of Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and a new wave of strikingly different comic books, became the comics company of choice for an entire generation.

Most of the credit for that goes to Stan Lee, for decades Marvel’s top writer and editor, who died this morning at age 95…”

“How Margaret Stohl’s ‘The Life of Captain Marvel’ Repositions a Feminist Icon”

“Carol Danvers has seen some change over the years. The character — who first graced comic books as a U.S. Air Force Officer in 1968 — was immortalised as the first iteration of Ms. Marvel in 1977, and despite being alluded to in 2005’s House of M, did not ‘become’ Captain Marvel until Kelly Sue DeConnick’s phenomenally successful run of the comics in 2012.

Carol’s backstory has seldom seen major change over the years, yet now, in Margaret Stohl’s The Life of Captain Marvel, we have her origin story retconned in the most perfectly subtle way. What if the Kree blast that was responsible for Carol Danvers’ powers was not the only factor in her transformation: what if it merely awoke something that had been present the entire time?

It begins in Issue #1 with Carol fighting in battle alongside her fellow Avengers. Something is bothering her, a repressed memory from her past, and soon Danvers is on the ground clutching her chest and gasping for breath. It becomes unbearable, her anxiety acute, as painful memories of her alcoholic father and the anniversary of his death resurface….”

http://fandom.wikia.com/articles/how-margaret-stohls-the-life-of-captain-marvel-repositions-a-feminist-icon

“Elizabeth Olsen Would ‘Love’ Scarlet Witch to Get Solo Marvel Movie but Hints It Could Only Be X-Men Crossover”

“There’s been a huge gaping hole in the MCU ever since Disney and Marvel Studios first conceived their first ambitious decade. And it has become a question that is asked more and more.

That questions is, ‘what about the X-Men?!’

It seems that even the stars of Marvel Studios have begun to ask themselves that question, as Elizabeth Olsen revealed her hopes for a standalone Scarlet Witch film are based in the X-Verse. In fact, the 29-year-old star admitted that she would ‘love’ to have her character to get a chance at her own leading role – though it would still see Paul Bettany playing a key role as Vision.

Clearly having delved deep into Wanda Maximoff’s print history, Elizabeth told exclusively told us that she wants to see one of Marvel’s most famous story arcs become the vehicle for a Scarlet Witch movie.

“‘I would love to [do a standalone], and I would love it to be House Of M, which is a comic book series of The Vision and Scarlet Witch having a make-believe family…”

https://metro.co.uk/2018/04/10/elizabeth-olsen-would-love-scarlet-witch-to-get-solo-marvel-movie-but-hints-it-could-only-be-x-men-crossover-7455193/