Studio 407 and NIGHT AND FOG

We talk with the boys from Studio 407 comics about their new projects including the upcoming collected edition of “Night and Fog”. Then we talk about the glory of Hammer films, the future of Comic Book inspired films, and the tribulations of small-press publishing. Is it easier to get into Film & TV than Comics? Tune in and see


The development of a non-returnable "direct market" distribution system in the 1970s coincided with the appearance of comic-book specialty stores across North America. These specialty stores were a haven for more distinct voices and stories, but they also marginalized comics in the public eye. Serialized comic stories became longer and more complex, requiring readers to buy more issues to finish a story. Between 1970 and 1990, comic-book prices rose sharply because of a combination of factors: a nationwide paper shortage, increasing production values, and the minimal profit incentive for stores to stock comic books (due to the small unit price of an individual comic book relative to a magazine).

 

In the mid-to-late 1980s, two series published by DC Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, had a profound impact upon the American comic-book industry. Their popularity and the mainstream media attention they garnered, combined with changing social tastes, led to a more mature-themed, darker tone nicknamed by fans as "grim-and-gritty".^{[citation needed]} The growing popularity of antiheroes such as the Punisher and Wolverine underscored this change, as did the darker tone of some independent publishers such as First Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and (founded in the 1990s) Image Comics. This tendency towards darkness and nihilism was manifested in DC's production of heavily promoted comic book stories such as "A Death in the Family" in the Batman series (in which The Joker brutally murdered Batman's sidekick Robin), while at Marvel the continuing popularity of the various X-Men books led to storylines involving the genocide of superpowered "mutants" in allegorical stories about religious and ethnic persecution.
Though a speculator boom in the early 1990s temporarily increased specialty store sales — collectors "invested" in multiple copies of a single comic to sell at a profit later — these booms ended in a collectibles glut, and comic sales declined sharply in the mid-1990s, leading to the demise of many hundreds of stores. In the 2000s, fewer comics sell in North America than at any time in their publishing history.^{[citation needed]} Though the large superhero-oriented publishers like Marvel and DC are still often referred to as the "mainstream" of comics, they are no longer a mass medium in the same sense as in previous decades.
While the actual publications are no longer as widespread, however, licensing and merchandising have made many comic-book characters, aside from such perennials as Superman and Batman, more widely known to the general public than ever^{[citation needed]}. In particular, several movies and videogames based on comic-book characters have been released, and such heavily promoted events as Spider-Man's wedding, the death of Superman, and the death of Captain America received widespread media coverage.

 Prestige format

Prestige format comic books are typically longer than standard comic books, typically being of between 48 and 72 pages, and printed on glossy paper with a spine and card stock cover. The format was first used by DC on Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. The success of this work led to the establishment of the format, and it is now used generally to showcase works by big name creators or to spotlight significant storylines.
These storylines can be serialized over a limited number of issues, or can be stand-alone. Stand-alone works published in the form, such as Batman: The Killing Joke, are sometimes referred to^{[by whom?]} either as graphic novels or novellas.

Independent and alternative comics

Main article: Alternative comics

Comic specialty stores did help encourage several waves of independent-produced comics, beginning in the mid-1970s. The first of these was generally referred to as "independent" or "alternative" comics; some of these, such as Big Apple Comix, continued somewhat in the tradition of underground comics, while others, such as Star Reach, resembled the output of mainstream publishers in format and genre but were published by smaller artist-owned ventures or by a single artist; a few (notably RAW) represented experimental attempts to bring comics closer to the world of fine art.
The "small press" scene continued to grow and diversify, with a number of small publishers in the 1990s changing the format and distribution of their books to more closely resemble non-comics publishing. The "minicomics" form, an extremely informal version of self-publishing, arose in the 1980s and became increasingly popular among artists in the 1990s, despite reaching an even more limited audience than the small press. "Art comics" has sometimes been used^{[by whom?]} as a general term for alternative, small-press, or minicomic artists working outside of mainstream traditions. Publishers and artists working in all of these forms stated a desire to refine comics further as an art form.

 Artist recognition

Some comic books have gained recognition and earned their creators awards from outside the genre. Thus Art Spiegelman's Maus won a Pulitzer Prize, and an issue of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman won the World Fantasy Award for "Best Short Story". Though not a comic book itself, Michael Chabon's comic-book themed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Popular interest in superheroes increased with the success of feature films such as X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002). To capitalize on this interest, comics publishers launched concerted promotional efforts such as Free Comic Book Day (first held on May 5, 2002). In addition, filmed adaptations of non-superhero comic books, such as Ghost World, A History of Violence, Road to Perdition, and American Splendor, followed.

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The KING OF TV visits Fandom Planet

Powers and Carr host royalty on the Fandom Planet this week. Its Paul Goebel! We talk television, and what shows are, were, and should be good. We suggest shows that should be brought back on the air, and discuss what shows should be put out of their misery. Plus what does it really mean to “jump the shark” or have a “Back Door Pilot”? You’ll get the whole story.


Technique
An animated feature film may use 24 different drawings per second of finished film, sometimes even more, if several characters are on the screen simultaneously. Due to lower budgets, Saturday morning cartoons are often produced with a minimum amount of animation drawings, sometimes no more than 3 or 4 per second. In addition, the movements of the characters are often repeated, very limited, or even confined to mouths and eyes only. An exception to the 24-frames-per-second rule is when animation is "shot in twos" in which 12 drawings per second are used and the switch to 24 frames per second is for quick events like explosions or "wild takes".

[edit] Early Saturday morning cartoons

Although the Saturday morning timeslot had always featured a great deal of children's fare before, the idea of commissioning new animated series for broadcast on Saturday mornings caught on in the mid-1960s, when the networks realized that they could concentrate kids' viewing on that one morning to appeal to advertisers. Furthermore, limited animation, such as that produced by such studios as Filmation Associates and Hanna-Barbera Productions (the predecessor to Cartoon Network Studios), was economical enough to produce in sufficient quantity to fill the four hour time slot, as compared to live-action programming. The experiment proved successful, and the time slot was filled with profitable programming.
Some Saturday morning programming consisted of telecasts of older cartoons originally made for movie theatres, such as the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons produced by Warner Bros..

[edit] Watchgroup backlash

Parents' lobby groups like Action for Children's Television appeared in the late 1960s. They voiced concerns about the presentation of commercialism, violence, anti-social attitudes and stereotypes in Saturday morning cartoons. By the 1970s, these groups exercised enough influence that the TV networks felt compelled to lay down more stringent content rules for the animation houses.^[5][6][7]
In a more constructive direction, the networks were encouraged to create educational spots that endeavored to use animation and/or live-action for enriching content. Far and away the most successful effort was the Schoolhouse Rock series on ABC, which became a television classic. Just as notable were CBS's news segments for children, In the News and NBC's Ask NBC News and One to Grow On, which featured skits of everyday problems with advice from the stars of NBC primetime programs.

[edit] Decline

The decline of the timeslot began in the late 1980s for a variety of reasons, including:

• The rise of first run syndication animated programs, which usually had a greater artistic freedom, and looser standards (not mandated by a network) such as G.I. Joe, Transformers, ThunderCats and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.^[8]
• Increasing regulation of children's programming content, including educational requirements and advertising restrictions, which limited the creative options for such shows.
• The rise of cable TV channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network which provided appealing children's entertainment throughout the week at nearly all hours, making Saturday morning timeslots far less important to viewers and advertisers. Cable channels also have the additional advantage of being beyond FCC content regulations, meaning they do not have to abide by educational or advertising regulations. Currently, there are at least ten channels specializing in kids programming.^[9]
• The proliferation of the commercial toy or toyline-oriented animated program in the 1980s also led to advocacy group backlash and a decline in such programming. Many of these programs implemented public service messages at their conclusion to address these criticisms.
• Increased popularity of video game consoles and, by the late 1990s, the World Wide Web.
• Many of the same networks who often showed Saturday morning cartoons began airing similar programs in the afternoons during the weekdays, usually when most children were out of school already. This practice has been discontinued as of late, but it was common throughout the 1990s.
• An increase in children's participation in Saturday activities outside of the home.^[10]
• The success of live action Saturday morning programming for kids and teens (such as NBC's Saved by the Bell) which led to the development of more live action shows and teen programming, squeezing out cartoons.
  For more details on this topic, see Teen NBC.
• The gradual loss of most of the American companies which were at one time, iconic and prolific producers of children's television shows. For example: Filmation, Hanna Barbera, Ruby-Spears, Sunbow Productions, DIC Entertainment, Saban Entertainment, Marvel Productions, and Rankin/Bass, all of which are now defunct. Other noted producers such as Sid and Marty Krofft, while not officially defunct, are much less active in recent years due to their advanced age.
• Beginning in the late 1990s, the offshoring of animation production to other countries. Currently, one of the leading producers of Saturday morning cartoon programming is Canada's Nelvana, a division of Corus Entertainment. The earlier popularity of imported Japanese animation such as Robotech also contributed to this.

[edit] Current state of Saturday morning cartoons

While animated production is still present on most broadcast networks on Saturday mornings, it has been noticeably reduced. Because of FCC-mandated regulations that began in the mid-1990s, broadcast stations were required to program a minimum of three hours of children's educational/informational ("E/I") programming per week.
To help their affiliates comply with the regulations, broadcast networks began to reorganize their efforts to adhere to the mandates, so its affiliates wouldn't bear the burden of scheduling the shows themselves on their own time. This almost always meant that the educational programming was placed during the Saturday morning cartoon block. NBC abandoned its Saturday morning cartoon lineup in 1992, replacing it with a Saturday morning edition of The Today Show and adding an all live-action teen-oriented block, TNBC, which featured Saved by the Bell, California Dreams, and other teen comedies. Even though the educational content was minimal to nonexistent, NBC labeled all the live-action shows with an E/I rating.
CBS followed NBC's example by producing a Saturday edition of The Early Show in the first two hours of its lineup and an all live-action block of children's programming. The experiment lasted a few months, and CBS brought back their animated CBS Storybreak series.
In 2004, ABC was the last of the broadcast networks to add a Saturday morning edition of their morning news program, Good Morning America, in the first hour of its lineup. Prior to that, especially through the early 1990s, it was not uncommon for ABC affiliates to preempt part or all of ABC's cartoon lineup with local news programming.
Fox carried little or no E/I programming, leaving the responsibility of scheduling the E/I shows to the affiliates themselves. The WB was far more accommodating; for several years, they aired the history-themed Histeria! five days per week, leaving only a half-hour of E/I programs up to the local producers to program.
Boomerang, a spin-off channel of Cartoon Network, currently specializes primarily in reruns of Saturday morning cartoons from the 1960s and 1970s (the majority of which come from Hanna-Barbera, which, like Boomerang, is owned by Time Warner). It is not unusual to see the major networks rotate reruns of older series (usually less than ten years, because of E/I content) instead of airing a new production, since the children who watched them the first time are not the same children who are currently watching Saturday morning cartoons; Cookie Jar Group's programming blocks have made extensive use of this strategy, as do channels that are intended for digital subchannels (e.g. qubo).

[edit] Units of larger entertainment companies

[edit] Disney's One Saturday Morning/ABC Kids

By the mid-1990s, broadcast networks were now becoming units of larger entertainment companies. ABC was bought by The Walt Disney Company, which began airing all Disney-made programming by 1997 and cancelled non-Disney made productions (with the notable exception of The Bugs and Tweety Show, which continued to air until 2000). After being purchased by Disney in 1996, ABC began airing their Saturday morning cartoons in a programming block titled Disney's One Saturday Morning before switching to a block of live-action and animated programs titled ABC Kids. Many of the block's shows are produced by Disney and also air on Disney Channel or Toon Disney. Only two animated shows currently air on ABC Kids, while the rest are live-action.

[edit] Nick Jr. on CBS/Cookie Jar TV

CBS was purchased by Viacom in 2000 and thus aired Nickelodeon-made programming from 2000 until 2006, a year after Viacom was split in two with Nickelodeon going to Viacom and CBS becoming a part of CBS Corporation. The two parties ended the Nick Jr.-branded block, which was be replaced by the DIC Entertainment (now Cookie Jar Entertainment) produced KOL's Saturday Morning Secret Slumber Party on CBS in fall 2006. A reimagining of the block, KEWLopolis, with a greater amount of animation, premiered in fall 2007. On September 19, 2009, KEWLopolis was re-branded as Cookie Jar TV.^[11][12]

[edit] Fox Kids/4Kids TV

From 1990 until 2008, smaller networks like Fox aired child-friendly programming, former ones are Fox Kids and Fox Box (later 4Kids TV), both animated and live-action, on weekday afternoons in the hours after most American children were let out of school (outcompeting the syndicated afternoon children's programming on the remaining unaffiliated channels in the process). Several animated series of note, such as Digimon, Batman: The Animated Series, Eek! The Cat, Bobby's World, and Animaniacs, came out of these afternoon programming blocks, and some later appeared on their networks' Saturday morning programming blocks. Live action shows like Power Rangers, Goosebumps and Big Bad Beetleborgs also aired on the Fox Kids Network.
On December 27, 2008, 4Kids TV ceased airing, and Fox no longer airs Saturday morning cartoons.^[13] Fox became the third broadcast network, following PAX and UPN, to completely abandon kids' programming, and has replaced the programming with a two-hour block of infomercials called Weekend Marketplace; several stations, like they did for 4KidsTV, have been allowed by the network to decline to carry it and allowed them to shop it to another station in the market, especially those stations which had never carried Fox Kids to begin with in the Fox affiliate switch of 1994. They plan to also fight the FCC mandated rule of showing E/I programming, in hopes of a repeal.^[13]

[edit] Kids' WB/The CW4Kids/Toonzai

Every weekday afternoon since 1995, and sometimes mornings, too, until 2001. During the era of weekday blocks, Histeria! was usually included to provide E/I content. Kids' WB moved, name intact, to The CW when The WB merged with UPN. Kids' WB aired Saturday mornings on The CW, and it aired on Sunday mornings on WUPA in Atlanta. The block ended its run on May 17, 2008, and on WUPA it ended on the next day. A block of programming from 4Kids Entertainment, separate from the Kids block on Fox called: The CW4Kids, replaced it one week later. The CW4Kids was closed on August 7, 2010. It was replaced by Toonzai on August 14, 2010.

[edit] Discovery Kids on NBC/qubo

NBC, which had a partnership with the Discovery Kids network to broadcast the channel's original programming, reentered the Saturday morning arena with new, original programming in September 2006 as part of the qubo "edutainment" partnership, which involves numerous parties, including parent company NBC Universal, ION Media Networks, Scholastic Press, Nelvana, and Classic Media, all of whom providing the programs for the Saturday morning block. qubo also airs on Ion Television. A Spanish-language version airs on NBC-owned Telemundo on weekends.

[edit] Cookie Jar Toons

On November 1, 2008, This TV launched airing a daily children's programming block called Cookie Jar Toons. Cookie Jar Toons is programmed by Cookie Jar Entertainment.^[14][15]

[edit] Cookie Jar Network

The Cookie Jar Network (formerly DiC Kids Network) is a syndicated children's programming block that airs selected Cookie Jar Entertainment programs on various local Fox, MyNetworkTV, The CW and Independent stations to provide them with a source of Educational/Informational (E/I) programming required by federal law.


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Dangerkatt visits Fandom Planet - Moriarty & The Prophet

This week, SAX and Tim meet Daniel Corey (writer) and Anthony Diecidue. (artist) for DANGERKATT and its Graphic Novels Prophet and the brand new Moriarty. Along the way, the boys discuss independent publishing, digital distribution, and the new Green Hornet movie. For more information and to get your copy of these great graphic novels, visit www.dangerkatt.com and tell them Fandom Planet sent you!

The Green Hornet is a masked superhero, created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker for an American radio program in the 1930s. The character also has appeared in film serials in the 1940s, a network television program in the 1960s, and multiple comic book series from the 1940s to the present (2010). Though various incarnations sometimes change details, in most incarnations the Green Hornet is Britt Reid, a newspaper publisher by day who goes out in his masked "Green Hornet" identity at night to fight crime as a vigilante, accompanied by his similarly masked Asian Wheelman Kato -- who drives their car, equipped with advanced technology, called "Black Beauty". The Green Hornet is often presented as possessing fair to above average hand-to-hand combat skills and is often armed with a gun that sprays knock-out gas (a sonic blast weapon called the "Hornet's Sting" was added to his arsenal for the television series).


Originally, the radio program was to be called The Hornet, but the name was changed to The Green Hornet so that it could be more easily trademarked. One relatively minor aspect of the character that tends to be given limited exposure in the actual productions is his blood relationship to The Lone Ranger, another character created by Striker. The Lone Ranger's nephew was Dan Reid. In the Green Hornet radio shows, the Hornet's father was likewise named Dan Reid, making Britt Reid the Lone Ranger's great-nephew.


The Lone Ranger property was sold to another company in the 1950s, which resulted in a legal complication that precluded The Lone Ranger being directly associated with the Green Hornet (though a comic book from NOW Comics depicted the Britt Reid's living room furnished with a painting of a man dressed very similarly to the Lone Ranger, and the radio series had expressly indicated the presence of just such a portrait hanging there).


During World War II, the radio show's title was used as a codename for SIGSALY, secret encryption equipment used in the war. "The Green Hornet" also became a popular nickname for Lieutenant-General George S. Patton, due to the unique and attention-getting uniform that he proposed for tank crews, which featured a gold-painted football helmet. Supposedly, while Patton was testing it after development (which he funded out of his own pocket), one Army trooper said "Look! It's the Green Hornet!" and the name followed Patton for years[citation needed].


Professor Moriarty's first appearance and his ultimate end occurred in Doyle's story "The Final Problem", in which Holmes, on the verge of delivering a fatal blow to Moriarty's criminal ring, is forced to flee to the Continent to escape Moriarty's retribution. Moriarty follows, and the two apparently fall to their deaths while locked in mortal combat atop the Reichenbach Falls. During this story, Moriarty is something of a Mafia Godfather; he protects nearly all of the criminals of England in exchange for their obedience and a share in their profits. Holmes, by his own account, was originally led to Moriarty by the suggestion that many of the crimes he perceived were not the spontaneous work of random criminals, but the machinations of a vast and subtle criminal ring.


Moriarty plays a direct role in only one other of Doyle's Holmes stories: The Valley of Fear, which was set before "The Final Problem," but published afterwards. In The Valley of Fear, Holmes attempts to prevent Moriarty's agents from committing a murder. Moriarty does not meet Holmes in this story. In an episode where Moriarty is interviewed by a policeman, a painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze is described as hanging on the wall; Holmes remarks on another work by the same painter to show it could not have been purchased on a professor's salary. The work referred to is La jeune fille à l'agneau; some commentators[1] have described this as a pun by Doyle upon the name of Thomas Agnew of the gallery Thomas Agnew and Sons, who had a famous painting[2] stolen by Adam Worth, but was unable to prove the fact.[1]


Holmes mentions Moriarty reminiscently in five other stories: "The Empty House" (the immediate sequel to "The Final Problem"), "The Norwood Builder," "The Missing Three-Quarter," "The Illustrious Client,", and "His Last Bow." More obliquely, a 1908 mystery by Doyle, The Lost Special, features a criminal genius who could be Moriarty and a detective who could be Holmes, although neither is mentioned by name.




Viktor Yevgrafov as Professor Moriarty in Igor Maslennikov's TV series.Although Moriarty appeared in only two of the 60 Sherlock Holmes tales by Conan Doyle, Holmes' attitude to him has gained him the popular impression of being Holmes' arch-nemesis -- as "The Final Problem" clearly states, Holmes spent months in a private war against Moriarty's criminal operations—and he has been frequently used in later stories by other authors, parodies, and in other media.


In the Doyle stories, narrated by Holmes' assistant Dr. Watson, Watson never meets Moriarty (only getting distant glimpses of him in "The Final Problem"), and relies upon Holmes to relate accounts of the detective's battle with the criminal.


Doyle himself is inconsistent on Watson's familiarity with Moriarty. In "The Final Problem", Watson tells Holmes he has never heard of Moriarty, while in The Valley of Fear, set earlier on, Watson already knows of him as "the famous scientific criminal."


Moriarty's weapon of choice is the "air-rifle", a unique weapon constructed for the Professor by a blind German mechanic, von Herder, and used by his employee Colonel Sebastian Moran. It closely resembled a cane, allowing for easy concealment, was capable of firing revolver bullets and made very little noise when fired, making it ideal for sniping; the weapon became infamous for being Moriarty's favorite tool. Moriarty also has a marked preference for organising "accidents". His attempts to kill Holmes include falling masonry and a speeding horse drawn van. He is also responsible for stage managing the death of Birdy Edwards.


Holmes described Moriarty as follows:


"He is a man of good birth and excellent education, endowed by nature with a phenomenal mathematical faculty. At the age of twenty-one he wrote A Treatise on the Binomial Theorem, which has had a European vogue. On the strength of it he won the mathematical chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appearances, a most brilliant career before him.
But the man had hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind. A criminal strain ran in his blood, which, instead of being modified, was increased and rendered infinitely more dangerous by his extraordinary mental powers. Dark rumours gathered round him in the University town, and eventually he was compelled to resign his chair and come down to London. He is the Napoleon of Crime, Watson, the organiser of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected in this great city..."


—Holmes, "The Final Problem"
The "smaller university" involved has been claimed to be one of the colleges that later comprised the University of Leeds.[3] However, in Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography, the "smaller university" is said to be Durham.[4]


Holmes also states Moriarty wrote The Dynamics of An Asteroid, describing it as "a book which ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticising it."


Doyle's original motive in creating Moriarty was evidently his intention to kill Holmes off. "The Final Problem" was intended to be exactly what its title says; Doyle sought to sweeten the pill by letting Holmes go in a blaze of glory, having rid the world of a criminal so powerful and dangerous any further task would be trivial in comparison (as Holmes says in the story itself). Moriarty only appeared in one book because, quite simply, having him constantly escape would discredit Holmes, and would be less satisfying.


Eventually, public pressure and financial troubles forced Doyle to bring Holmes back.


A point of interest is that the "high, domed forehead" was seen as the sign of a prodigious intellect during Conan Doyle's time. In giving Moriarty this trait, which had already appeared in both Sherlock Holmes and the detective's brother Mycroft, Doyle may have intended to portray Moriarty as a man having an intellect equal or greater than that of Holmes, and thus the only man capable of defeating him. Moriarty died when he fell off the Reichenbach Falls and Sherlock only faked his death to protect Watson from being pursued.[5]





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Call the Fandom Planet Hotline & Tell US What You Think

Hey, Gang. Like the show? Hate the Show? Think we were too harsh on Jonathan (we apologized to him personally)? Let us know. Call the Fandom Planet 24/7 Hotline. Call & Leave a message and tell us what you think, what you'd like to hear. Got questions for the Robot Cowboy? Call us. Wanna know more about Sax's relationship with Allison? Call us. Wanna tell Powers why the 1970's SHAZAM series was the greatest TV show of all time? Call us. Just pick up the phone and dial : (865) 4TIM-SAX (Yes, you can text us, too!)

Race issues in Geek Media with Ed Greer

Powers and Carr discuss racial issues in comics with guest comedian Ed Greer. Why is Luke Cage cooler than the Black Panther? Why doesn't DC have any cool black heroes? Why is Bruce Banner so stupid and Rick Jones is the luckiest boy in the whole wide world? An insightful, provocative discussion split in two parts, the boys do their best to openly discuss comics, marketing, race and comedy.

(The following content is provided courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League)

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. Racial separatism is the belief, most of the time based on racism, that different races should remain segregated and apart from one another.

Racial Separatism

Racism has existed throughout human history. It may be defined as the hatred of one person by another -- or the belief that another person is less than human -- because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person. It has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations, and legal codes.During the past 500-1000 years, racism on the part of Western powers toward non-Westerners has had a far more significant impact on history than any other form of racism
This belief was not "automatic": that is, Africans were not originally considered inferior. When Portuguese sailors first explored Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries, they came upon empires and cities as advanced as their own, and they considered Africans to be serious rivals. Over time, though, as African civilizations failed to match the technological advances of Europe, and the major European powers began to plunder the continent and forcibly remove its inhabitants to work as slave laborers in new colonies across the Atlantic, Africans came to be seen as a deficient "species," as "savages." To an important extent, this view was necessary to justify the slave trade at a time when Western culture had begun to promote individual rights and human equality. The willingness of some Africans to sell other Africans to European slave traders also led to claims of savagery, based on the false belief that the "dark people" were all kinsmen, all part of one society - as opposed to many different, sometimes warring nations.
One important feature of racism, especially toward Blacks and immigrant groups, is clear in attitudes regarding slaves and slavery. Jews are usually seen by anti-Semites as subhuman but also superhuman: devilishly cunning, skilled, and powerful. Blacks and others are seen by racists as merely subhuman, more like beasts than men. If the focus of anti-Semitism is evil, the focus of racism is inferiority -- directed toward those who have sometimes been considered to lack even the ability to be evil (though in the 20th century, especially, victims of racism are often considered morally degraded).
In the second half of the 19th century, Darwinism, the decline of Christian belief, and growing immigration were all perceived by many white Westerners as a threat to their cultural control. European and, to a lesser degree, American scientists and philosophers devised a false racial "science" to "prove" the supremacy of non-Jewish whites. While the Nazi annihilation of Jews discredited most of these supposedly scientific efforts to elevate one race over another, small numbers of scientists and social scientists have continued throughout the 20th century to argue the inborn shortcomings of certain races, especially Blacks. At the same time, some public figures in the American Black community have championed the supremacy of their own race and the inferiority of whites - using nearly the identical language of white racists.
All of these arguments are based on a false understanding of race; in fact, contemporary scientists are not agreed on whether race is a valid way to classify people. What may seem to be significant "racial" differences to some people - skin color, hair, facial shape - are not of much scientific significance. In fact, genetic differences within a so-called race may be greater than those between races. One philosopher writes: "There are few genetic characteristics to be found in the population of England that are not found in similar proportions in Zaire or in China….those differences that most deeply affect us in our dealings with each other are not to any significant degree biologically determined."
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X-Men Scribe Scott Lobdell joins the show

This week on Fandom Planet, Powers and Carr are joined by legendary X-Men scribe Scott Lobdell who dropped by the planet just to hang out. Join the boys as they discuss why new comics are so damn expensive, what Batman does in his free time, if The Flintstones owned a raptor, and who would win a fight with Popeye the Sailor Man. The boys are also joined by Scott's friend Jonathan who believes that there is now a class of "geek poseurs" existing among us. This is the first, the premiere episode of Fandom Planet. Forward it to all your friends!

Scott Lobdell (born 1963) is an American comic book writer.


Career
He is mostly known for his work throughout the 1990s on Marvel Comics' X-Men-related titles specifically Uncanny X-Men, the main title itself, and the spin-off series that he conceived with artist Chris Bachalo, Generation X. Generation X focused on a number of young mutant students who attempted to become superheroes in their own right at a separate school with the guidance of veteran X-related characters Banshee and Emma Frost.

Lobdell also had writing stints on Marvel's Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, and The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix mini-series with artist Gene Ha. He wrote the script to Stan Lee's Mosaic and an upcoming film from POW Entertainment featuring Ringo Starr. He also participated in the Marvel Comics and Image Comics (from Jim Lee's WildStorm) crossover mini-series WildC.A.T.s/X-Men.

As of August 2008, Lobdell is the regular writer for Galaxy Quest, a series published by IDW Publishing, with art by Ilias Kyriazis, centred on the eve of the re-launch of the Galaxy Quest series, now titled Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues.

To date, he has written the majority of the The Hardy Boys Graphic Novel series by Papercutz.

Lobdell has also performed as a stand up comedian[1] and is reportedly good friends with Gilbert Gottfried.[citation needed]

Lobdell is referenced in X-Men: The Animated Series episode #46, "One Man's Worth", where he poses as a human used to fuel Trevor Fitzroy's mutant power to travel through time. The scene shows Master Mold saying "Lobdell, I have a job for you" he is then grabbed by Fitzroy who absorbs his life energy and creates a time portal. Lobdell created Paranormal Activity: The Search for Katie with art from Mark Badger it was released in December 2009 on iPhone.[2]

Bibliography
The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix (4-issue mini-series)
Alpha Flight vol. 2 #1-12
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (with Fabian Nicieza) #47-59
Daredevil #376-379
The Darkness #23-38
Excalibur #31, #35-41, #53, #58-60, #68-71, #75-82
Fantastic Four #1-3, 4-5 (with Chris Claremont, 1998)
Galaxy Quest #1-5
Gen¹³ #45-54
Generation X #1-28
Ghostbusters: Displaced Aggression #1-4
Iron Man #1-7 (1996)
Manifest Eternity #1-6 (Wildstorm, 1996)
Uncanny X-Men #289-349, 350 (with Steven Seagle)
Wildcats #1-9 (1997)
X-Factor #90-95, #106
X-Men (vol. 2) #6-11, #46-69, #110-113
Awards
His work has won him a good deal of recognition in the comic books industry, including a nomination for the Comics Buyer's Guide Award for "Favorite Writer" in 1997.[3]

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Warehouse 13's Allison Scagliotti visits the show!

In this special PREVIEW EPISODE, the boys are visited by Allison Scagliotti herself to discuss not only her current role in SYFY’s “Warehouse 13,” but also to acknowlege SAX and the fans for their tremendous work on the #AllisonScag4Cassie Twitter phenomenon. Laugh along with Allison as she discusses her co-stars, plot lines, her work with iCarly and what it’s like to be in a room with Powers/Carr (hint: it’s not as creepy as you think!). And watch a budding romance rise and fall between Allison and our own Robot Cowboy.

Allison Glenn Scagliotti (pronounced /skæliˈoʊti/; born September 21, 1990) is an American actress. She had a recurring role on Drake & Josh, portraying the character Mindy Crenshaw and currently appears as Claudia Donovan on the SyFy television series, Warehouse 13.

Scagliotti has had various small television roles during her career including stints on Zoey 101, One Tree Hill, and CSI although she is better recognized as Mindy Crenshaw on the Nickelodeon series Drake & Josh.
Her first lead role was as Maddie in the critically acclaimed and groundbreaking film Redemption Maddie.
Scagliotti also portrays the character Claudia Donovan in the original 2009 series, Warehouse 13 on Syfy. Her character was introduced early in the premiere season, joining the main cast for all subsequent episodes.
She appeared as Jayna, the female Wonder Twin, in the 8th episode of the ninth season of Smallville.^[1]
She has appeared as an invited guest on the show Destination Truth, and was a guest on the 27th episode of The Nerdist Podcast, hosted by Chris Hardwick. She also guest starred in Episode 5 of Eureka Season 4 as Claudia Donovan in a cross-over episode.
She will soon be appearing in the indie film "Losers Take All", set in the 1980s rock music scene.
Allison is also a bit of a comics buff, and currently she is being considered to play one of her favorite comic book heroines Cassie Hack in the upcoming flick Hack/Slash.^[2] In an interview on the Fandom Planet podcast with comedians SAX Carr and Tim Powers, Allison admitted she carries pepper spray. IBID]^[3]
She is currently attending Glendale Community College.^{[citation needed]} She is the first cousin of professional wake boarder Alex Scagliotti and also the first cousin of Kevin Pfeffer, lead singer/songwriter/guitarist of "Five Minutes to Freedom".^{[citation needed]}

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