Yearly Archive: 2008

‘300’ Leads Saturn Award Nominees

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  • February 20, 2008
Today, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films announced its nominees for the 34th Annual Saturn Awards. Topping the list with 10 nominations is Zack Snyder’s 300 with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix following a close second with 9. Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is in the third spot with 8 nominations. 
 
Some of the other films being honored with nominations include The Golden Compass, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Spider-Man 3, which all recieved 4. Also in contention for the coveted Saturn award are The Bourne Ultimatum, Eastern Promises, Enchanted, Grindhouse, Stephen King’s The Mist, No Country for Old Men, Stardust and There Will Be Blood, all of which received 3 nominations. 
 
Turning to the smaller screen, Lost found itself with 7 nominations while Dexter slashed its way to 5 and Heroes stood tall with 4. The Academy also announced two special awards that would be given at the ceremony this year:
 
Director Guillermo del Toro will receive the coveted George Pal Memorial Award and author Tim Lucas will be given a Special Achievement Award for his 2007 book: Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark.
 
This year’s awards show will take place on Tuesday, June 24, in Universal City, California. For the complete list of nominees and more info, head on over to the Saturn Awards official site.

Zack Snyder Thanks Fans With New ‘Watchmen’ Pic

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  • February 20, 2008

Recently, Watchmen Exec. Producer herb Gaines posted his thoughts on the film at its official site now that principal photography on the film is baically complete. Now, the film’s director, Zack Snyder, has followed suit and has posted some thoughts and reflections of his own.

But this time, its not just kind words from Snyder, he’s also included a bonus gift for fans as well — a brand new pic directly from the film itself. This new pic will show, as Snyder says in his post: "How it looks when it all comes together." Sadly, the pic doesn’t reveal the look of Ozymandias, Nite Owl, Doctor Manhattan or really, much detail about the film at all.

However, it does give us Rorschach setting fire to a guy, which is pretty darn cool and will certainly whet the appetite of Watchmen fans everywhere. Heck, it did for me. Come on Zack, how about some more? Soon.

Check out a much larger version of the new pic after the jump.

Watchmen hits theaters March 6, 2009

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It’s Hammer Time on EZ Street

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  • February 20, 2008

Scott and Danny continue their adventures at the Baltimore Con in today’s all-new episode of EZ Street, by Mark Wheatley and Robert Tinnell.  

Scott discovers his inner fanboy geek, and the fate of the vampire movie option is revealed.  Can you spot the industry guest-stars?

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Also, be sure to check out FEARnet’s coverage of this week’s episode of EZ Street!

And now, a special message from EZ Street‘s Robert Tinnell about this week’s episode:

Given that today’s episode of EZ Street touches upon the legendary Hammer Films, once-upon-a-time horror powerhouse from the ’50s through the ’70s, it seems like a good time to point out another connection between the company and comics.  Since the early seventies a devoted fellow by the name of Richard Klemensen has periodically published the ultimate Hammer Film magazine – LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS.

The most recent issue, #19, features an in-depth look at the career of Hammer’s greatest director, Terence Fisher – the man responsible for many classics of the genre, including HORROR OF DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED.   There has always been a natural crossover between comic and film fans, particularly horror films, but if that isn’t reason enough to attract ComicMix readers consider this: for several years now Klemensen has featured covers and interior artwork by several notable comic artists, including one who may well surprise you.

Neil Vokes knows a thing or two about horror (THE BLACK FOREST won a Rondo Award for Best Horror Comic – thanks, Neil) – in comics and film – and he’s been contributing marvelous black-and-white interpretations of Hammer stars and scenes from films for years. Adrian Salmon is a British artist whose work appears often in DR. WHO comics(and who co-created, with me, the character of Terry Sharp – a film director who battles supernatural forces while working at a studio much like Hammer in the ’60s).  And then there’s a guy named Bruce Timm whom you may have heard of.  Timm is a major Hammer fan and has been contributing some marvelous work to LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS for years – including a few covers. 

Great articles and interviews, rare photos and stunning artwork – LITTLE SHOPPE OF HORRORS is a tremendous magazine worthy of picking up.  Visit www.LittleShoppeOfHorrors.com to see examples and for ordering information.

The Eagle (Awards Nomination Forms) Have Landed

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  • February 20, 2008

Nominations for this year’s Eagle Awards are now open. The nomination site appears to be in beta right now, so it might be wise to leave off participating until they’ve got the bugs ironed out. However, it appears that anyone can participate.

The winners of this year’s Eagles will be announced at the Bristol Comics Expo in May.

The Eagle Awards are the comics industry’s longest established awards. Acknowledged as the pre-eminent international prizes, they have been featured on the covers of leading US and UK titles across the last 30 years.

Review: ‘Confessions of a Blabbermouth’

Mike Carey is a noted writer of both comics and prose – Lucifer, The X-Men, the “[[[Felix Castor]]]” novels – but, one might ask, what does he know about being a teenage girl? Probably not a lot…but he does have a secret weapon on his side: his daughter Louise is a teenage girl, and she’s the co-writer of this particular project.

Confessions of a Blabbermouth is the most recent publication of DC Comics’ Minx arm, which aims squarely at teenage and tween girls. (You remember: the audience that never, ever would read comics, so it was no use ever trying to get them interested – no, really, it’s just not worth it…until Sailor Moon ignited the manga boom and suddenly American comics companies were sitting on the sidelines watching those girls buy billions of dollars of Japanese comics? That audience.)

I’ve reviewed Minx comics twice before for ComicMix – Re-Gifters and Clubbing last August, and The Plain Janes and Good As Lilly in September. And the book that was most successful out of those four was Re-Gifters, written by one Mike Carey (without any assistance from anyone in the target audience), so I had high hopes for [[[Blabbermouth]]].

 

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Mike Richardson Announced as Stumptown Fest Guest of Honor

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  • February 20, 2008

The Stumptown Comics Fest, an annual celebration of comics and cartooning art in Portland, Oregon, recently announced that it has chosen Dark Horse Comics founder and head-honch Mike Richardson to be its special Guest of Honor at this year’s event.

Festival organizers chose the accomplished (and extremely tall) Richardson for many reasons, some of which are detailed in the events official press release announcing Richardson’s selection:

Under his direction, Dark Horse has gone from a tiny startup during the black-and-white boom of the ‘80s to the biggest independent comics publisher in the nation, featuring such talents as Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Neil Gaiman, and the late comics legend Will Eisner, and revolutionizing the industry’s approach to licensed properties through innovative Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Conan, and Aliens/Predator stories.

The Fifth Annual fest will be held on April 26th-27th, 2008, at the Doubletree Hotel Lloyd Center in Portland. To find out more info on the Stumptown Comic Fest, a great event showcasing some exceptional art and artists, check out its official site. 

Marvel Drops 14 New ‘Iron Man’ Movie Wallpapers

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  • February 20, 2008

Usually, I don’t get very excited when Marvel, or any other company for that matter, releases a set of wallpapers for an upcoming movie. I don’t really use them on my computer so they aren’t all that important to me.

However, in this case I’ll make an exception. A jet-boot using, intelligent armor wearing, energy ray throwing, ex-alchoholic leader of the Avengers exception. This is Iron Man, after all.

The latest set of Wallpapers feature all your favorite Iron Man cast members, some in new scenes, including Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, Gwynneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes and Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stain (aka Iron Monger).

There’s even a couple of Iron Man himself in action and one of director Jon Favreau as well, just to round out your collection. Go get ’em.

Iron Man hits theaters May 2nd, 2008.

Top Cow and Myspace Comics Announce ‘Pilot Season’ Winners

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  • February 20, 2008

velocitycyblade-6505422Recently, Top Cow Productions and MySpace Comic Books announced the winners of their Pilot Season contest, the first annual event which encouraged established comic book writers to create a pilot for a potential series using characters already well-known by comic fans. During the contest, five potential winners were submitted and the MySpace Comic Book community was told to "Take Control" and vote to determine which two charactes would get their own series in 2008.

The winning titles chosen by over four million voting fans were Velocity and Cyblade, two of the dynamic female characters from Marc Silvestri’s Cyberforce. Both new series are slated to debut in the fall of 2008, just in time for Cyberforce’s 17th anniversary.
 
The new Velocity series will be written by Joe Casey, whose previous credits include The Last Defenders and Youngblood, with art by an as-yet undetermined artist. When told of his new gig, Casey was, as you might expect, excited.
 
"I couldn’t believe the voting topped four million votes," said Casey. "Better than a New Hampshire primary! If only that many folks would buy the comics…! In any case, the Pilot issue was only the beginning of what we’re going to make sure is a wild ride when the new series hits in the fall."
 
The other winning series featuring the character Cyblade will be written by Joshua Hale Fialkov of Marvel Comics Presents and Punks The Comic Book and Rick Mays, writer of Kabuki and Gen 13. Flalkov was also very excited about his latest project and eager to get started.
 
"I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who voted for the book, and I’m positive they won’t be disappointed with where the series goes," said Fialkov. "It’s going to be balls-to-the-wall explodo, and I’m psyched to be along for the ride."
 
For more on the contest and the winning series, head on over to the Pilot Season official site.
 
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TV Back Talk, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • February 20, 2008

elayne-riggs-100-9837088Many people in this country are experiencing the age of interactive television for the first time. In other countries such as the UK, they’ve had a version of this for some time, in the form of a curious informational additive known as teletext, a useful imp that lives in the bands of the picture that we don’t normally see, and which can be accessed by Brits wanting to know the local weather, transportation timetables, sports scores, and lots of other stuff that most of us in the US can only get online or through cable systems. Here in the US I’ve just discovered my digital cable system has interactive channels that can personalize my weather, traffic, pretty much whatever I want. And that’s not even counting the on-demand entertainment, a tiny percentage of which is available at no extra charge!

And bully for the 21st century and all, but I’ve been interacting with my TV since I was a kid. And I’m not just talking about Winky-Dink.

Romper Room aside, I think I always suspected the people on TV couldn’t see me or talk to me. I understood the idea of shows being recorded for anyone to tune in to, or not. The shows were still there even when I wasn’t watching them. But none of that prevented me from talking back, from letting what I saw affect me to the point where I had an immediate, visceral reaction. As I recall my Dad couldn’t stand it, he’d be there constantly reminding me “they can’t hear you!” Then again, maybe that’s Mom. Dad was the first person on his feet cheering whenever the Yankees took the lead, and yelling about what a bum the umpires or managers were when the game wasn’t going well. So it’s not like the apple fell very far from the tree there.

One of the great things about being married to Robin is that we have many of the same pet peeves about what we see and respond to on TV. One of my biggest annoyances is the increasing use of subtitles when the person being subtitled is speaking English. Occasionally the speaker will have something of a thick accent, but I’ve seen subtitles used with Scots and Irish and even Americans from southern states. Now come on y’all, a lot of that down-home drawl does get to be a bit much, but it’s not a foreign tongue! The only thing subtitles have in their favor is that they, like news crawls on the 24-hour cable stations, encourage reading. Even when they’re misspelled. (more…)

Marvel Earnings Report Reveals Upcoming Project Details

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  • February 19, 2008

Marvel has released its quarterly company earnings report and according to Comics2Film, many interesting things were revealed in the report, besides how much money Marvel made or didn’t make. According to the site, the report also gives clues about Marvel’s slate of live-action films as well as several new animated titles including a World War Hulk direct-to-video feature and Super Hero Squad TV series.

The Planet Hulk film, planned for a February 2010 release, is being produced by Marvel’s animation partner Lionsgate and joins a roster of upcoming films which already includes Hulk Vs., Next Avengers and Thor: Son of Asgard. However, according to the report, Marvel isn’t just working on direct-to-video animated films, they are also planing several animated TV projects as well.
 
The company is developing a large roster of animated TV series such as Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes, Spectacular Spider-Man, Wolverine and the X-Men, Iron Man: The Animated Series, Hulk: The Animated Series. They are also working on a show called Super Hero Squad, which is a version of the well-known heroes geared towards a much younger audience. 
 
Finally, the report may also reveal that Matthew Vaughn, who was attached as writer and director of the live-action Thor feature, may have left the project because now its listed as "writer engaged" instead of "writer and director engaged." So, some interesting bits of into there. Who knew you could get so much great stuff from an earnings report? I’ll have to pay attention to those more often I guess.
 
Of course, if the Vaughn info turns out to be true, we’ll bring you all the details right here at ComicMix.

 

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