From last night’s College Championship edition of America’s Favorite Quiz Show^®, Jeopardy!:

The category was “Graphic Novels,” and The Surrogates shared the column with such titles as The Photographer and Maus.  Young James from Santa Clara University went on to win the evening’s contest, a victory that I like to think Brett Weldele and I contributed to.  An utterly false assumption, of course, but I like to think it anyway. 

It’s not as good as an appearance on Sesame Street (in my opinion, the epitome of pop-culture notoriety), but we all “got a charge out of it,” as Grandpa used to say.  On a less egocentric note, I find it significant that the graphic novel art form is now assumed to be so ubiquitous that it merits a series of five clues to be read by Alex Trebek, with not a one of them referencing anything published by Marvel or DC.

We’ve come a long way, Baby.

Here’s the scene: I get home from Best Buy yesterday and install my new Blu-Ray compatible DVD player, purchased with the sole intention of watching myself on TV for a whopping 6½ minutes (see yesterday’s post).  I postpone my onscreen debut until my wife and kids are home, so we can all revel together in the wonder that is me.  The moment they walk through the door, I gather the family around me, and with remote in hand I power on the player.

My two-year-old begins screaming.

Poor child, I say to myself.  The screen is dark because the DVD is loading, and he doesn’t understand that in mere moments his beloved father will be awash in glorious 1080p HD. 

As expected, when at last I appear, a hush falls over him.  Yes, Son.  It is I, your father.  The face that brings you joy.  The calm voice that soothes you to sleep.  The keen intellect that earns the sustenance to make your belly round and your bones strong.    

He looks at me, looks back at the TV, and then looks at me again.

“No watch Daddy!  Watch Dora!”

I power off the player and turn on Nickelodeon as instructed.

Child: 1.  Ego: 0.

The Surrogates movie releases today, both on regular old DVD and Blu-Ray HD.  Both versions come with a smattering of bonus features, but exclusive to the Blu-Ray edition is a 6½-minute featurette (starring yours truly) titled “Breaking the Frame: A Graphic Novel Comes to Life.”  Touchstone’s press release describes the featurette as a visual exploration of the evolution of Surrogates from graphic novel to major motion picture from the earliest designs and sketches.  Last Friday, MTV’s Splash Page blog posted an exclusive clip:

I’m pleased to see SteepleJack have such a presence in the featurette, but also a bit confused because he is perhaps the most glaring example of an aspect of the graphic novel that did not come to life on the screen, his character having been omitted from the adaptation entirely. 

If anyone is looking for me (or, for that matter, my maternal grandmother) at 10:00 a.m. EST this morning, I’ll be at my local Best Buy purchasing my first Blu-Ray compatible DVD player, so I can watch myself for the entire 6½ minutes.  My self-absorption knows no bounds. 

Eagle-eyed, Atlanta-area cartoonist Brad McGinty has stumbled upon something that I’ve heretofore kept under wraps: my Hollywood acting debut in the Surrogates movie.  It wasn’t a speaking part, and I’m only on screen for a moment, so I wanted to see how long (if ever) it took for someone to notice.  Brad takes the prize, having spotted me on November 13. (And he found it before my maternal grandmother, who I’ve no doubt holds the current world record for repeated viewings.  No small feat there.)  I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to my uncle, for whom this revelation probably cuts deepest.  I tried to land him a role as an extra in the movie, to no avail—apparently the clout associated with writing the source material extends to me and me alone.

For all of you nonbelievers, Brad has gathered the evidence:

That the movie based on my book lost its opening weekend at the box office to a flick with the word “meatball” in the title seems a slap from the backhand of fate.  After all, I’m of (mostly) Italian descent, and my fondness for sauced orbs of ground beef is well known to all with whom I’ve made acquaintance.

Homemade pasta, tomato gravy, and meatballs have been a staple of my diet for as long as I can remember.  It wasn’t until I was twelve, however, that I had my first meatball sub.  I was spending the summer with my grandparents in Providence, Rhode Island, and Grandpa Joe took me to his brother’s restaurant, the Vulterno Club.  We sat at the bar, where he ordered a meatball sandwich for me.  Meatballs in a sandwich?  I’d never heard of such a thing.  I mean, I liked sandwiches.  And I loved meatballs.  But combining the two into a single culinary delight?  What genius had this cook wrought?  Some old-timer sitting a few stools down chuckled as though I didn’t know what I was in for, warning that my impending lunch would have the size and heft of a Sunday paper—too much for a kid like me to handle.  I left not one crumb on the plate.  Ever since that day, if you’ve got a meatball sub, then I’ve got the time.

Now my beloved meatballs have undone me.  I should’ve seen it coming—I’ve watched enough mobster movies to know that when you get whacked, it’s your best friend who does the deed.  But if you’re going to come in second, better that it be to a children’s movie than an ’80s dance retread.

Besides, a world where the sky rains meatballs does sound pretty cool.

Well, today’s the day:

I’m told that during one of her routine checkups, my maternal grandmother asked her doctor if he would be so kind as to keep her alive to see her grandson’s movie on the screen.  I’m pleased to say that Dr. Gaeta has fulfilled this addendum to his Hippocratic Oath, which probably wasn’t that difficult, my maternal grandmother being a picture of health.  If she’s not camped out at her local theatre right now waiting for the doors to open, then she’s prone on the sofa with a washcloth on her forehead because this is all too much for her to take.

Do yourself a favor and see the movie this weekend, lest you bump into Gram one day and suffer her wrath.  Because she will ask you if you’ve seen it.  You have been forewarned.

Dwight and Swain are a couple of guys from Atlanta that host Sidebar, one of the finer podcasts I’ve had the pleasure of being a guest on.  Their latest episode is up, featuring a rather extensive interview with yours truly.  The interview runs over an hour, covering everything from how I got my start in comics to how the Surrogates movie deal came about, and more.  You can check out the Sidebar website and download the episode here.

(WARNING: We get a little loose with the language during our conversation, so this one’s not for the kiddies.  Apologies to my mother, who certainly raised me better.)

A cool keepsake arrived on my doorstep, courtesy of Disney’s International Promotions Department:

As a child of the 80s, Russia has always held a certain amount of foreboding for me. When I was in high school, John Clark’s older brother, a captain in the U.S. Army, brought home a Soviet tank commander’s hat from one of his tours abroad. For a kid reared on Firefox and Red Dawn (and who could forget Dolph Lundgren’s stone-faced portrayal of Captain Ivan Drago in Rocky IV), it was like holding something I wasn’t supposed to for fear that it would taint my soul. After all, I was living in South Florida with parents for whom thirteen days in 1962 were still a vivid memory. History class offered a constant reminder that the Cold War might spike a fever and plunge the planet into Mutually Assured Destruction. Even the Russian alphabet was alien: How could my globe read U.S.S.R., while their Olympic athletes sported red jerseys initialed C.C.C.P.?

It’s nearly two decades since the Wall came down, and today a guy can write a comic book in Atlanta and have it play on screens in Moscow. Maybe the bear is in the woods no more, but something about this poster still seems forbidden to me, as though it was smuggled out from behind the Iron Curtain by a defector, rather than delivered to me express via DHL. Meanwhile, in the next room the newswoman is describing a proposed Massachusetts law as so draconian, it sounds “straight out of Soviet Russia.” Old habits die hard.

I’ll be back after the Labor Day weekend with the introductory installment of this website’s final recurring feature, 5 [blank] I Like.

Breaking Benjamin’s new single, “I Will Not Bow,” will be featured in the Surrogates movie, and they’ve posted a music video to their MySpace page that contains some new footage:

Breaking Benjamin – I Will Not Bow – Official Music Video (HQ)

This begs the question: Other than online, where are music videos seen these days?  My first memory of MTV is my oldest cousin, Joe, watching Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” from my grandmother’s dining room table.  (Not my maternal grandmother, the one who said I wasn’t a beautiful baby, but the paternal one.  Come to think of it, my paternal grandmother was a no-nonsense gal prone to giving people the finger—in a loving way, you understand—so I wouldn’t be surprised if she put bush beating aside and said I was straight-up ugly.)  I also remember watching MTV on New Year’s Eve as the calendar left 1983 behind, the first sounds of 1984 being Eddie Van Halen’s keyboards on “Jump.”  I remember 120 Minutes and Yo! MTV Raps.  Yes, I grew up during the halcyon era of wall-to-wall videos—turn on the channel now, and you’ll see everything but videos.  It’s no surprise today’s bands are planting so many of their marketing seeds in Internet soil. 

On a separate note, Brett Weldele, artist on The Surrogates and self-described blues/tronica musician, has identified one of the songs in the Surrogates trailer as “Ursa Minor (Neutron Mix)” by Celldweller.  No word yet on other possible contents of the motion picture soundtrack (or if there will be one).

Addendum: My aforementioned paternal grandmother was a bit of a movie buff.  She’s passed on, leaving me to wonder what she would’ve thought about current developments in her grandson’s career.  Would an image of Bruce Willis as Greer have supplanted this poster, which for as long as I can remember was taped to the ceiling above her bed:

I think not.  Hollywood may be able to detonate the top off of Nakatomi Tower, but nothing could tear Burt Reynolds from Grandma’s devoted heart.

ign has the exclusive on a new featurette titled “A Look Inside Surrogates,” giving you a glimpse behind the scenes of the upcoming movie adaptation.  It shows some new footage, plus a bunch of mini-interviews with director Jonathan Mostow and the cast.  You may also notice a cameo by a certain graphic novelist, name spelled correctly and everything: