Welcome Back, TV!

It’s almost January, which means that TV is coming back after the holiday dry-spell. Here are the good shows (ie, the ones I watch) and when they’re returning.

Wednesday, Jan. 6
Modern Family (ABC), 9 PM
Cougar Town* (ABC), 9:30 PM

Sunday, Jan. 10
Chuck premiere (NBC), 9 PM

Monday, Jan. 11
Chuck regular time (NBC), 8 pm
House (FOX), 8 pm
The Big Bang Theory (CBS), 9:30 PM
Castle (ABC), 10 pm

Thursday, Jan. 14
Grey’s Anatomy (ABC), 9 PM
Private Practice (ABC), 10 PM
The Mentalist (CBS), 10 PM

Tuesday, Jan. 19
White Collar (USA), 10 PM

Thursday, Jan. 21
The Office (NBC), 9 PM
Burn Notice (USA), 10 PM

Wednesday, Jan. 27
Psych (USA), 10 PM

Tuesday, Feb. 2
Lost (ABC), 9 PM

Friday, Feb 5
Smallville: Absolute Justice** (CW), 8 PM

Tuesday, April 13
Glee*** (FOX), 9 PM

Thanks to the Ever-Useful Michael Ausiello for the info.

*I’ve gotten sucked into Cougar Town. I didn’t expect to like it, but as a few of my friends told me, it’s not entirely about Courtney Cox’s trying to make it with guys in their 20s. In fact, it’s really not about that at all. Some of that occasionally goes on, but the theme of the show is about adjusting to middle-age. There are several characters – of both genders and of various ages – that help explore that from various angles. It’s quite well done and very funny in the process.

**Not a Smallville fan anymore, but the costumes for the Justice Society characters in this look fantastic and amazingly faithful to the comics versions. I’m curious to see how this works.

***I’m very on-the-fence about Glee, but haven’t completely given up on it yet. The ludicrous storylines are offset by Jane Lynch and some of the other characters (Kurt, Puck, and – surprisingly – Quinn).

Fishnet Fridays: Smallville Zatanna and Black Canary’s angry creator

Zatanna on Smallville

So the big news this week was that Zatanna’s going to be on Smallville and she’s going to be really, really hot. I almost care.

I’d care a lot more if Smallville hadn’t already killed my interest in its version of a character I like even more than Zatanna. I’ll be watching for stills of Serinda Swan in costume and that’ll determine whether or not I watch this show again after a couple of blissful years of skipping it.

I got cranky thinking about Smallville, so…

Here’s something to put me in a better mood.

By Cal Slayton.

More mood improvement

A couple of Black Canary sketches

By Rob Ullman.

By Victor Santos.

Carmine Infantino vs. DC Comics

Black Canary’s co-creator (along with writer Bob Kanigher) Carmine Infantino wrote a letter to DC Comics complaining – amongst other things – about not getting paid for his creation.

Concerning the lack of payment for my creation “The Black Canary”: it may be your legal right but have you no concern for the moral issue?

I’m not informed enough about the details to comment on it (except in a very general way that writers and artists ought to be fairly compensated for their work, and that “fairly” isn’t necessarily a synonym for “according to the contract”), so I’m just pointing out that the letter exists.

Stuff to Watch For: Chloe and Captian Action come to comics

“She’s got to have a different spin.”

I have mixed feelings about Chloe’s joining the supporting cast of Superman comics. On the one hand, it’s something I’ve been hoping to see since about the second season of Smallville. On the other hand, the whole reason I love the character so much was because of her unrelenting loyalty to Clark even though he didn’t return her feelings, and that’s exactly the thing they’re taking away from her comics version.

It’s probably not a coincidence that I’ve become less and less interested in Smallville since Chloe moved on from Clark and started dating Jimmy Olsen either.

Gettin’ some Action

Here’s another one I’ve got mixed feelings about, but this time for purely selfish reasons. I pitched Moonstone on their new Captain Action license and lost out to Fabian Nicieza. Which is no reason to be embarrassed, for sure. But part of me is curious to see what Nicieza came up with, and the other part is naturally thinking that there’s no way it could be as cool as mine. Either way though, I’m really curious to check out the #0 issue in April.

Links: Smallville sucks, Thunderbolt Hurt, and Peek-a-Boo Cap

Science Fiction

• SciFi costume exhibit at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle.
• Kaylee from Firefly is joining the cast of Stargate: Atlantis.

Superheroes

• Even though I enjoyed most of this season of Smallville, I was never what you’d call “excited” to watch it. I think I’ve lost interest and am watching it out of a) habit, and b) curiosity to see if they’re even going to try to make it flow into a reasonable representation of the familiar Superman mythos. In other words: I just want it to be over. Adding Supergirl to the cast next season does nothing to change that.
• Crap. I knew it wasn’t going to happen, but I held out hope that somehow Sam Elliott would be invited back to reprise the role of General Thunderbolt Ross in the new Hulk movie. No such luck. Instead, we get… William Hurt? This is the first change from the Ang Lee film that I’m disappointed about. I mean, not just losing Elliott, but William Hurt? He’s going to have to really stretch himself from the sleepy performances I usually see him give.
• Okay, this is hilarious. Kyle Baker’s posted a couple of pages from the last issue of his maniacally fun Plastic Man series for DC. The humor is an obvious parody of the dark, “mature” comics that DC and Marvel have become so fond of, but apparently not everyone got the joke. Just goes to show how uptight some comics fans have become. Still… funny!
• I don’t know anything about the I Know Joe Kimpel blog. Is it written by Joe Kimpel? Or just someone who knows him? I’ve no idea! I don’t even know who Joe Kimpel is. All I know is that someone paints nice pictures of Mary Marvel and Supergirl. I wish he (she?) kept the Black Canary one going though instead of turning her into Batgirl.
• Marvel is developing a Captain America movie that’ll be half modern tale and half period piece.
• They’re also still trying to work out an Avengers film.
• And speaking of Captain America, Bully’s post about about Cap’s playing a very frightening game of Peek-a-Boo has to win like “Post of the Year” or something.

Writing is Hard

• Stephen King’s dusted off an old, previously unpublished novel from his Richard Bachman days. It’s called Blaze. What’s interesting to me is his “Full Disclosure” forward (scroll to the bottom of the Amazon link to read it) that gives insight into what he calls “trunk novels,” which is early work that you were never able to find a publisher for. I hear that most first novels are unpublishable except, as in this instance, when you’ve made a name for yourself and have a following of fans who want to read everything you’ve ever written. That’s not negative commentary about King, whom I love, I just think it’s cool that even he had a trunk full of unpublishable novels. It’s also interesting to hear about how his opinion of that material changed a couple of times.

Links du Jour: The trouble with Wonder Woman, KITT for sale, and no love for Star Wars

Sorry. Busy day yesterday. Catching up today.

Adventure

• Wonder Woman is a character who’ve I’ve always wanted to be interested in, but whose comic I’ve never been able to stick with for very long. I’ve got a longer post in me about why that is, but apparently, I’m not alone. The Roar of Comics expresses some of the same feelings I have, and Fortress of Fortitude offers a sound suggestion for how to fix the problem.
• Speaking of Wonder Woman, TV’s Wonder Woman Lynda Carter is going to be on Smallville on April 19th, playing Chloe’s mom. Now if they’d only get Adam West for an episode or twenty.
• More Draw Mary Marvel goodness.
• I could’ve sworn I mentioned the Rex Libris movie before, but I’m not finding it in my archives. Anyway, it has a scriptwriter now. Rex Libris is one of my favorite comics. It’s about how a librarian/secret agent who routinely has to track down overdue books from alien warlords and the like.
• KITT for sale.
• I’ve been scratching my head over why DC wants to publish another Green Arrow: Year One mini-series when they’ve already got a perfectly good one. I wasn’t planning on getting the new one until I just learned that Andy Diggle is writing it. I’m curioius though. In the interview behind that last link, neither Diggle nor the interviewer so much as mentions Green Arrow: The Wonder Year and that seems like a huge elephant in the room that they’re ignoring.
• Man, I love Jeff Parker. He’s doing everything he possibly can to get a second Agents of Atlas series going. First he’s got the team appearing in an upcoming story in Marvel Adventures: Avengers, and after that they’ll show up in Spider-Man Family.

Science Fiction

• SFX magazine just ran a poll to determine its readers’ favorite scifi movie. Surprisingly, Serenity came in at Number One, beating out Star Wars. In response, Geek Monthly lists 12 scifi films that are better than Serenity, but also leaves off Star Wars. Are fans getting tired of Star Wars? If so, why?

Other Comics

• If you’ve been wanting to try a new graphic novel, but didn’t know where to start, Tom Spurgeon’s Top 50 Comics from 2006 is the perfect place. It’s an amazing list. Some of them (like The Ticking and Kampung Boy) I’ve read and completely agree that they need to be on the list. Others (Absolute DC: The New Frontier and The Complete Peanuts, for example) have been on my wish list for a while now and Tom only strengthens my resolve to buy and enjoy them. But best of all are books like Elmer and The Mourning Star that I’d never heard of and can’t wait to read now.

Writing is Hard

• Paperback Writer is becoming an indespensable site for me. Now she’s got a killer list of online dictionaries to bookmark, including the Gun Dictionary, the Knife Glossary, and the Japanese Sword Visual Glossary.
• Illustrator Jesse Hamm has a useful article about things that comics writers have to keep in mind when writing scripts. Though he has a lot to learn about the art of collaboration (he seems to see it as a battle), he makes some great points about thinking visually and sequentially.

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

• This is roundabout news, but I trust the source. According to Warren Ellis‘ email newsletter, word from Aaron Sorkin’s office is that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is pretty much dead. It was “temporarily” replaced by Black Donnellys to see how that show would do in the time slot, but now that Donnellys has been cancelled, the slot’s going to a reality show about wedding crashers. That sucks. I liked Studio 60 a lot, and I loved seeing Matthew Perry on TV again.