Yearly Archive: 2008

Generic Respect, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • March 11, 2008

reeve-dreams-4-3273602Don’t bother putting on airs, Messrs. Man (Super and Bat); you’re nothing special, not any more. These days, you’re just two more members of a rather large club that includes cowboys, cops, private eyes, combat soldiers and guys who fly space ships to other planets and solar systems and galaxies. Serial killers who slice and dice sexy teenagers are in the club, too. And critters that are normally harmless but mutate into gigantic sociopaths.

While you weren’t looking, you’ve become a genre.
 
Of course, if we want to get sniffy about definitions, you always were, in comic books. Almost from the beginning, here were cowboy comics and detective (or Detective) comics, and monsters and spaceship jockeys were early joiners, too. And you guys, the superheroes. You were the most popular and emblematic, of the comic book good guys, but you had peers.
 
Movies were another matter. Oh, you guys showed up on what was called The Silver Screen pretty early in the form of serials or, if we want to get fancy, chapter plays intended for the Saturday matinees, which were populated by kids who, in my memory, made a hell of a lot of racket. Even there, you were a bit of an aberration, outnumbered by the gumshoes and gunfighters, and not deserving, apparently, of cinematic and dramatic niceties. And, while there were cowboys and sleuths aplenty in the movies made for after-dark showings to the kids’ moms and dads, no superheroes ever made the leap to, ahem, serious entertainments.
 

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Paramount Announces New ‘Indiana Jones’ DVDs

  • News
  • March 10, 2008

raiderssmaller-8864262Even though Paramount already released a superb DVD box set of the Indiana Jones Trilogy back in 2003, they’re doing it again. This time around, the new DVD releases of the classic trilogy will be available individually instead of as an exclusive box-set like before and will be released on May 13th — just in time to whet your appetite for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull‘s opening on May 25th.

These "Special Edition" DVDs, as they are being called, boast new features and exclusives not found in the earlier box-set releases. According to Paramount, some of these features and exclusives include interviews, discussions and new documentaries about the making of the three films that give audiences a new insight and appreciation for these classic films.

Examples include:

 
Indiana Jones: An Appreciation– The cast and crew of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull pay tribute to the original trilogy
 
The Melting Face–A recreation of the amazing physical effect of the villain’s melting face in Raiders of the Lost Ark, including Steven Spielberg and George Lucas commenting on the evolution of visual effects and CGI
 
Locations–Travel across the world to discover where the films take place and where they were shot
 
Friends and Enemies–Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Indiana Jones writers discuss how they created the most iconic characters in film history, including a look at new faces in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
 
The Women: The American Film Institute Tribute–The three Indiana Jones women (Karen Allen, Kate Capshaw and Alison Doody) reunite for a discussion
 
Interesting note: There’s been no word yet on whether these new Indiana Jones DVDs will get the Blu-Ray treatment. They’ve already been shown in HD on the HDNet Movies network, so why not release them in Blu-Ray now that the "format war" is over?
 
For a complete list of all the special features and other details about each of the three new DVDs, check out the official Indiana Jones site.

MegaCon ’08: Adrian Pasdar Talks ‘Heroes’

  • News
  • March 10, 2008

adrian-pasdar-7134605If MegaCon 2008 is any indication, anime fans are also huge Heroes fan. I was front and center among the 600-person crowd at Saturday’s Adrian Pasdar Q&A, thanks to ComicMix friend Jimmy Palmiotti, who moderated the discussion with the Heroes actor.

When asked, "If you could take anyone’s powers on the show what would it be?" Pasdar smiled and said that very question has been brought up many times among the cast and they all came up with the same answer: If you want invisibility as a power, then you’re a pervert. 

Pasdar said he’s very happy with only having the ability to fly, especially since his favorite comic character is the Silver Surfer. However, he wouldn’t mind having invisibility, too. According to Pasdar, his son asked him once how he can be a crime fighter with only the ability to fly, explaining, "What happens when you get to where you are going, and you don’t have a gun or a badge?" The question later turned up in the show as part of a conversation between Pasdar’s character, Nathan Petrelli, and his brother, Peter.

Pasdar added that his "dark side" would’ve enjoyed the role of series villain Sylar, though.

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Demons of Sherwood: Living Up to the Hype

  • News
  • March 10, 2008

 In today’s brand-new episode of Demons of Sherwood, by Bo Hampton and Robert Tinnell, there’s something strange happening in the forest.

It might be a dream, except Marian’s missing.  So what’s with the chattering teeth?

Credits: Bo Hampton (Artist), Bo Hampton (Colorist), Bo Hampton (Letterer), Bo Hampton (Writer), Mike Gold (Editor), Robert Tinnell (Writer)

More: Demons of Sherwood

 

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On This Day: The First Telephone

  • News
  • March 10, 2008

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.

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Updates on ‘Thor’ and ‘Ant Man’ Films

  • News
  • March 10, 2008

march10ant-4805093Empire 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.

 

NY Times Goes Behind the Scenes With ‘The Dark Knight’

  • News
  • March 10, 2008

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:

  • The Dark Knight  cost $180 million
  • Nolan on the previous Batman films: "If the people who are making the film aren’t taking it seriously, why should we?"
  • The cast and crew commenting on the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker
  • Gotham will have a new bright, shiny look to contrast when the city is thrown into chaos
  • Nolan’s home is just down the street from 1960s TV Batcave entrance
  • 30 minutes of the movie were shot with IMAX cameras, including the entire opening (a first for any major motion picture)
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Interview: Mark Evanier on ‘Kirby: King of Comics’

  • News
  • March 10, 2008

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."

kirbykingofcomics2-4852077COMICMIX: 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.

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Josh Howard Previews ‘Dead@17 Compendium’

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Josh Howard, the "comic book and pin-up artist" behind Viper Comics’ Dead@17, The Lost Books of Eve and Clubbing (from DC’s MINX imprint) has posted a preview of the upcoming Dead@17 Compendium on his website.

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.

 

Review: ‘Secret Invasion Saga’

secinv-4353522A few years back, DC released the super-thick, super-cheap Countdown to Infinite Crisis to lead into the company’s massive Infinite Crisis event. In addition to recapping the years’ worth of hints that led to Crisis, the issue also contained some crucially important events, including the death of Ted Kord (Blue Beetle).

Marvel now has pulled that page out of the summer-event book, releasing Secret Invasion Saga last week as a free lead-in to the looming Secret Invasion of the Skrulls. While I can’t argue about the price, the content was more than a little underwhelming. In fact, I fell asleep while reading it. Twice.

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 and Skrull history as well.

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.

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