Monthly Archive: June 2007

Gaiman’s Beowolf in IMAX 3D

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  • June 29, 2007

Beowolf, the new film directed by Robert Zemeckis with a scrpt by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, is set to hit screens November 16.  Filmed in a computer-animation style similar to The Polar Express, there will also be an IMAX 3D version that will debut at the same time. 

The voice-actors for the film include Crispin Glover (my density!), John Malcovich, Robin Wright Penn, Angelina Jolie, Ray Winstone and Anthony Hopkins, among others. 

"IMAX 3D has enabled us to tell stories in a whole new way, and we are very excited to offer moviegoers a chance to experience Beowulf in this incredible format," said Robert Zemeckis in a company pres releasae. "IMAX lends itself to the incredible image detail in Beowulf and in 3D, it will transport the audience directly into the story."

The Unseen Shadow!

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  • June 29, 2007

weisingershadow-copy-7461246The Shadow, everybody’s favorite seminal pulp crime-fighter, has been getting a lot of play here at ComicMix – largely in anticipation of volume nine of Anthony Tollin’s series of Shadow reprints to be released in about three weeks. In case you missed the story and are short on time, this volume reveals in detail how the first Batman story was a point-by-point rip-off of a previously published Shadow saga.

So, on the lighter side, today we offer two alternate views of crime’s nocturnal nightmare. The black-and-white piece is by long-time fan and historian Russ Maheras and poses the question "What if The Shadow had been a 1960s Mort Weisinger comic?" This isn’t quite as odd as it might seem: Weisinger, of course, was the classic Superman comics editor of the 1950s and 1960s (and story editor of the original teevee series), and Superman creator Jerry Siegel wrote The Shadow comics for Archie during this period. Russ captured the style of Mort’s books to a tee.

silver_age_shadow-copy-8978565The color piece, by Dial B For Burbank’s Robby Reed, suggests the cover design of a 1960s Shadow Annual as if Street and Smith published it in the style of DC Comics’ 80-Page Giants. Dial B For Burbank is one of the most innovative pulp-and-serial sites I’ve seen, and we appreciate his allowing us to share an  advance look at the art.

The Shadow is copyright Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc., Condé Nast Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. They know what evil lurks in the hearts of fans!

Thanks to Russ and KK for the swell stuff!

Buffy Meets Rocky Horror!

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  • June 29, 2007

2533172894-5764566Well, it was bound to happen, but it looks like some die-hard Whedonites have taken the next step in interactive theater by touring the musical episode "Once More, with Feeling" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show has been touring for a few years at local indy theaters, and is coming around again this summer to the IFC Theater in New York.

Much like the dying breed of Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings done around the country, the show is at midnight, and plays the episode with subtitles behind a cast that acts out each song, move-for-move. Also included is Buffy-Okie and surprise guests from the cast and crew. You can believe that this ComicMix reviewer will be at the event in NYC with bells on, and I’ll have all the details for you shortly after. For a complete list of showings, and all the info you need, check out the Official Myspace page right here!

Martha Jones to chase Captain Jack?

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  • June 29, 2007

agyemf0-1506390Over at Doctor Who, Martha Jones, the tenth Doctor’s second companion, is getting tired of unrequited love. Next season, she’s starting to look at everybody’s favorite object of lust, Torchwood‘s Captain Jack Harkness.

It seems Captain Jack has been working his sexual magic on the latest companion. According to the London Daily Mirror, when the 30th season of Doctor Who goes up next year, Martha will not be in all episodes – but will pick up the slack by appearing in a number of episodes of Torchwood. A new companion will join the cast of the former series, and Martha will not be in this year’s Christmas special. However, singer Kylie Minogue will co-star in the latter event.

The 29th season of Doctor Who ends in Britain tomorrow with the last of the three-part battle with The Master (John Simm, star of Life On Mars). This season is already being broadcast in many parts of the world, including Australia and Canada; it goes up in the United States on the SciFi Network a week from today.

 

MICHAEL DAVIS: Not What You Think

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  • June 29, 2007

michael-davis100-5274434Years ago I wrote a column for Comics Buyers Guide (CBG) called Picture This. I actually started writing that column even before Peter David started writing his. Being the professional he is, Peter has been able to sustain his column But I Digress for well over a decade. I lasted a few months before I simply stopped writing it. Demands on my time and personal life caused me to abandon what truly was a great gig for an even greater magazine.

Now I’m writing this column and have managed to keep my deadlines (except for one little itsy bitsy time when I got my column in late and it had to run on Saturday instead of Friday) for twenty weeks and I am having a great time.

There are some people who still remember my Picture This column. If you think I am a raving manic now you should have seen me then. I pissed off more people than Katharine Harris did during the 2000 election. In my career I have also written guest columns in a few magazines as well as a few editorials over the years in various outlets. Those people who know me know that I am a shameless self-promoter. That said, in all of the hundreds of articles I have written I have never plugged a current deal that I was involved in. I may have mentioned what I was working on but never with any eye towards getting people to go out and watch what I was doing on TV or buy what I was publishing in the comic stores. In fact in all my ranting over the years I have only written about one subject more than once.

That subject was rumors.

I just heard a recent rumor that has compelled me to write about a current project I’m involved in, The Guardian Line (TGL)

I was recently talking to Lovern Kindzierski on the phone. Lovern is one of my best friends and we are working together on TGL. I have a book open and I’m looking for an artist and asked Lovern if he knew of anyone. He then mentioned that there is a creator in a comic book chat room saying that UMI (TGL’s parent company) does not pay their creators.

At this point I would usually launch into a tirade and make a few cleaver attacks on the unnamed creator.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy News & Links, June 28th

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  • June 28, 2007

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Mad Magazine goes for the easy jokes with their “Rejected Star Wars Stamps.”

The UK’s own Guardian newspaper wonders why science fiction is more popular now on TV than it used to be, and blames 9/11.  Others have already pointed out that the Guardian seems to have forgotten the mid-90s surge of SF and Fantasy TV (Buffy, anyone? Babylon 5, perhaps?), but at least they’re saying nice things…

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist is running a contest to give away a few copies of Jay Lake’s new novel, Mainspring, set in a clockwork solar system. (That bizarre mental image you just got? Yes – it’s exactly like that.)

Did you know that ABEbooks.com (the noted conglomerator of used book retailers) has been running a contest for Harry Potter-related poetry? And that the entries, so far, are not nearly as horribly soul-destroying as you might expect?

James Maxey, author of the new novel Bitterwood, ruminates on how to create dragons.

Jonathan McCalmont has been to see “The Ugly Side of Fandom,” and reports back about what he has seen.

Hey, didja notice that the cover from last week’s New Yorker was by Pixar artist Lou Romano? Romano explains how he got the job, and what went into it, on his blog this week.

Artwork copyright E.C. Publications. All Rights Reserved.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Reviews, June 28th

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  • June 28, 2007

The Agony Column loves Matthew Hughes’s new far-future philosophical detective comedy The Spiral Labyrinth, and doesn’t care who knows it.

OF Blog of the Fallen reviews Tobias S. Buckell’s second novel, the space opera Ragamuffin.

Strange Horizons reviews the new Mike Resnick-edited anthology of future police stories, Alien Crimes.

Blogcritics reviews Interworld, by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves. (An amusing sidenote: Gaiman recently explained how he and Reaves originally pitched the idea as a movie, couldn’t get any interest from Hollywood, and wrote it up as a novel instead…only to have Hollywood come begging.)

The St. Marys-Mt. Druitt Star (one of my favorite newspaper names, by the way) has a very short, and not terribly useful, review of Cornelia Funke’s acclaimed Young Adult novel The Thief Lord.

David Louis Edelman (author of Infoquake and all-around smart guy) has been re-reading all of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth stories and blogging about them; he’s just now gotten to that interesting item, Unfinished Tales.

Kate Nepveu reviews Charles Stross’s Hugo-nominated novel Glasshouse.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy Interviews, June 28th

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  • June 28, 2007

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Fantasy Book Critic interviews Austin Grossman, author of the swell new superhero novel Soon I Will Be Invincible.

Locus Online has posted excerpts from their interview with Nalo Hopkinson, author of The New Moon’s Arms, from the June issue of the print magazine.

Locus Online has similarly posted excerpts from the interview with Holly Phillips, also from the June issue.

CNN recently talked to Michael Chabon about his new alternate history novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, in which the Jewish homeland formed after WW II was in the Alaska panhandle.

SciFi Wire chats with Tim Pratt, author of the Asimov’s Readers’ Award-winning (and Hugo Award nominated) story “Impossible Dreams.”

Stage Noise has a podcast-interview with SF novelist Sean Williams and then (separately) with Jeff Wayne, creator of a War of the Worlds musical. [via Talking Squid]

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Comfort Con 2007

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  • June 28, 2007

By this point you’ve probably read so many con reports on the MoCCA Art Fest that they’re leaking out of your brain (the best place to catch most of ’em is the Collective Memory link at Tom Spurgeon’s place), but some things probably bear repeating and others definitely bear linking to, so here’s how I saw the day.

Despite physical limitations and transportation difficulties which prevented me from attending on Sunday, I found MoCCA to be one of the most comfortable conventions I’ve attended in a long time, in many senses of the word.  The temperature both outside and within the Puck Building was ideal; the AC was working well and Manhattan was going through a few wonderful early summer days of negligible humidity and temps in the low ’70s, making for a great weekend to be out and about.

Moreover, the minute I walked into the first of the four exhibition halls (three on the first floor and a large ballroom on the 7th) I felt welcome and put at ease.  Professional informality and friendliness abounded from pretty much every table.  Nobody put on the stuck-up "we’re better than the mainstream" indie airs that had given me pause in years past.  The talent level ran the gamut from folks just starting out with photocopied minicomics (and places like ComiXpress make it easier than ever to self-publish slick-looking stuff) to major imprints, from homegrown to foreigners from as far away as Scandanavia.  As many have reported, the gender mix seemed to be about 50/50. 

As Cheryl Lynn noted, "There was also a wide range of people from different ages attending… There were also people of different races and ethnicities there as well. There were black women! More than I could count on one hand even! Sweet!"  The happy diversity truly reflected what Heidi has called Team Comics — a great example of the amazing possibilities of the medium and a real sense of "we’re all in this together."

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As you can see, ComicMix was well represented at this convention as well.  Shown above are Kai Connolly, Mike Raub, Martha Thomases and Mike Gold.  Not pictured but present for the obligatory and always-wonderful ComicMix dinner were Glenn Hauman, John and Arthur Tebbel, Matt Raub and yours truly.

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Con co-organizer John McCarthy did a terrific job, and even had a few seconds to let me snap a photo of him.  More observations and photos below. (more…)

Transformers Get Animated

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  • June 28, 2007

The Big ComicMix Broadcast #60 slams in with news on the new Transformers Animated series, DeGrassi High in comics, the next 30 Days of Night series, some new stuff coming to a cable box near you plus more on Occult Crimes Task Force with Rosario Dawson and the creative team *and* a trip back to when we had those big mirrored balls in our ceilings!

Whew!

Press The Button – or we’ll bring back disco!

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