On this day in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell conducted his first successful experiment with his newest invention, the telephone. He used it to summon his assistant, Thomas Watson, with the now-famous words, “Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.”
It’s been over 130 years since then, and we’re still addicted to calling people we could just as easily walk over and see in person.
Empire Online has the latest news on two Marvel movies currently in development, Ant Man and Thor, straight from the mouths of the directors behind the projects.
Ant Man is being written and directed by Edgar Wright, the English director responsible for Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. In regards to the pint-sized hero’s big screen adaptation, Wright said:
“It’s written and we’re doing a second draft of it,” said Wright. “It’s going to be less overtly comedic than anything else I’ve ever done. It’s more of a full-on action adventure sci-fi film but with a comedic element – in the same spirit of a lot of escapist fare like that. It’s certainly not a superhero spoof or pastiche and it certainly isn’t a sort of ‘Honey I Shrunk The Kids’ endeavor at all.”
Wright was mum on the subject of casting and whether or not the Ant Man in the film will be Scott Lang or fan favorite Hank Pym.
While Ant Man is chugging right along, the god of thunder seems to be stuck in neutral. The film adaptation of Thor, scheduled to be directed by Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, Layer Cake), is currently in a holding pattern until the parties involved decide on the future of the project.. The Odinson hath been forsaken.
The Sunday edition of The New York Times included a special bonus for comic book and movie fans: a great in-depth article with Christopher Nolan, director of Batman Begins and its upcoming sequel, The Dark Knight.
Feeling grim that you missed it? As the Joker would say in The Dark Knight promo poster "Why so serious?" You can read the article on the Times website.
Highlights from the article include:
If the entertainment industry was a baseball team, Mark Evanier would be the utility infielder. A quick glance at his resume and you’ll see a career that spans the worlds of comics, television, film and animation, and a creator who’s found success playing a variety of roles in the creative process.
He began his career working with the late, great, comics creator Jack Kirby, and their friendship endured beyond their initial professional association. Evanier’s name can be found on the writing credits of television series such as Welcome Back, Kotter, as well as various animated series, including Dungeons and Dragons, Thundarr the Barbarian and Garfield and Friends. His portfolio of comics work includes a longstanding partnership with Sergio Aragones on Groo the Wanderer and the current, ongoing DC series The Spirit, based on the popular Will Eisner character.
Evanier also acts as administrator for the official online home of Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strip, and maintains a regularly updated blog about comics, film and the entertainment industry as a whole on his website at www.povonline.com.
I spoke with Evanier about the recent release of Kirby: King of Comics, the biography of Jack Kirby he authored, as well as his work with The Spirit and Pogo. We even found some time to talk a bit about his experience at AnthroCon, and his introduction to the world of "Furries."
COMICMIX: What are you up to today, Mark?
MARK EVANIER: Today I’m working on the foreword for the collection of Jack Kirby’s O.M.A.C. comic that DC’s going to publish. I had to do some proofreading and finalization on a new Crossfire story that’s going to be published, and I’m working on the Garfield cartoon show today. See, if you do enough different things, you don’t do any of them well. But they’ll think you’re versatile.
CMix: Kirby: King of Comics, your biography of Jack Kirby just hit shelves. Can you tell me a little about your relationship with Kirby? How did the biography project come about?
ME: Well, we first met in July of 1969, and a few months later he asked me to become his assistant. I worked for him for a couple of years and then I left and we stayed friends. Then we had a fight, and then we became friends again.
Jack was kind of my brilliant, eccentric uncle for a while there, and early on in our association he gave me a clue that he’d like me to be a historian of his, also. One of the things that intrigued me was that he wasn’t telling me what to write or what not to write. Jack was very committed to the truth. He was kind of obsessive and he always thought that he would come off well in any history if people just wrote the truth.
I always knew that I was going to write stuff about him, I just didn’t know what form it would take or when I’d write it. But then, after he passed away, his widow said to me, "Listen, when are you going to write a book about Jack?" I said, "Oh, do you think this is the time?" She said, "Yes, please do it." I agreed to do it and she helped me a lot and gave me all of Jack’s personal papers and effects and such.
I’ve been working since Jack passed away, which is 14 years now, on a humongous-sized book about his life. It’s still a few years off in the future, so when the Harry N. Abrams Company asked me to do an interim book to tide people over, I took a look at what I was doing and realized the massive book I was writing was getting too mired in minutia to the point where I thought a lot of ordinary civilians wouldn’t be able to make their way through it. So I thought I’d do a sort of simplified version first.
Josh Howard, the "comic book and pin-up artist" behind Viper Comics’ Dead@17
While his work has trended more towards the T&A over time, I’ve always been a fan of his storytelling ability as much as his art. In fact, during my time with the-company-that-shall-remain-nameless, I even convinced him to write a great little column about life in the independent comics scene. Howard showed a real knack for the written word that, to be quite honest, impressed the heck out of me. While his old column seems to have been "disappeared" due to a recent redesign, it’s good to see that he’s been keeping busy.
There doesn’t seem to be any release date set for the Dead@17 Compendium, but Howard has indicated the collection will feature a mixture of touched-up and brand-new art — as well as an abundance of near-naked girls beating the snot out of zombies, demons and each other.
A few years back, DC released the super-thick, super-cheap Countdown to Infinite Crisis
Marvel now has pulled that page out of the summer-event book, releasing Secret Invasion Saga
Instead of actually telling a story, this issue is essentially a whole bunch of material culled from the Marvel Encyclopedia (look under "Skrull"). In one of the world’s longest internal monologues, Iron Man thinks over all the events that have led to this point (the reveal of Elektra as a Skrull, etc.). He covers the latest interstellar goings on from Annihilation
While it’s nice to get a primer on things, the issue is extremely high on text and completely bereft of any new developments. If Marvel was planning on hooking new readers to the event, there’s no big eye-grabber here. They may have made some fans among insomniacs.
Between this, the grammar-unfriendly "Who do you trust?" marketing blitz and that bizarre Blair Witch-like video, Marvel’s off to a bit of a rough start to the Skrull invasion. Of course, they could probably shoot themselves in the foot and it would still sell like hot cakes with golden frosting.
You don’t have to have read superhero comics for any great length of time before you get the message: perseverance plus righteousness will defeat the enemy every time. Despite the “maturation” of commercial comic books, this essential message remains at the core of the superhero concept.Where does the time go? Why does nobody complain about having an extra hour to sleep in the autumn? And does anyone really feel the need to answer rhetorical questions? Our weekly ComicMix columnists may not have the answers, but they still make for good reading on a truncated Sunday:
And don’t forget our special ComicMix TV broadcast covering the midnight release of the Dark Tower comic sequel! Now can that wind stop howling please? Some of us are trying to catch an afternoon kip.
Anyone who thought that MegaCon was a small secondary gathering of Florida area comics and fantasy/anime fans could not have been more mistaken. I was one of about 30,000 people at the Orange County Convention Center (that figure does not include artists, writers and exhibitors).
To give you an idea of what the scene was like, there was even a huge line of people still waiting to get in an hour before the show closed Friday night.
Friday, I was lucky enough to get in early with the exhibitor crowd thanks to ComicMix friend and top-notch retailer Jamie Graham of Chicago’s Graham Gracker Comics and was able to get in on the pre-show activity. Anime played a HUGE part in MegaCon this year, with not only hundreds of fans dressed as their favorite characters, but displays of everything from DVDs to popular Japanese snacks — including the unoffical treat of anime fans, Pocky. There was even someone who dressed as the snack.
Comics played their part in MegaCon as well, with appearances that ranged from creators such as Darwyn Cooke, Dick Giordano, Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, David Finch and Mark Waid to some of the most innovative and revolutionary indie and webcomic publishers in the scene.
Pop culture was represented by guests that spanned over four decades, ranging from John Provost (Timmy from Lassie) to Adrian Pasdar (Nick Petrelli from Heroes).
There’s a small photo gallery after the jump, and we have an interview with Heroes star Pasdar hitting ComicMix this week.
Oh, and special thanks to new MegaCon owner Beth Widera! (more…)
Magician/comedian Teller (of Penn and Teller fame) recently produced this short film about the potential impact of a zombie outbreak on the denizens of Las Vegas. It’s a great indication that the silent half of the Penn and Teller duo might be just as funny if he said something once in a while.
While all of the Living Dead films have shown us what happens to the no-name John and Jane Does of the world, what about the performers? Who will live? Who will die? Who will play the Tuesday night show?
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