Yearly Archive: 2008

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear starring Ian McKellen (X-Men, Lord of the Rings, The Shadow) and Sylvester McCoy (the seventh Doctor) has been videotaped and will be broadcast this fall in America on PBS, according to theatermania.com.

Directed by Trevor Nunn (Les Misérables, Nicholas Nickleby, Cats), the production was taped in HD TV and will be broadcast throughout the world. It will also be available on DVD.  

The production debuted last April at The Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon and travelled throughout the world, ending its tour on London’s West End. McCoy played The Fool, McKellen the King.

Javier Grillo-Marxuach has posted some early photos from the set of the The Middleman, the TV adaptation of his Viper Comics series.

The photos were taken during filming of the pilot episode, and feature the cast of much of the film’s lead roles, including Matt Keeslar as "The Middleman."

Reuters reports that nominations were announced today for the 28th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards, highlighting the worst performances, pairings and other elements from the list of films released in 2007. Big-screen adaptations of comics found their way into the nomination list once again, with Nicolas Cage earning a nod in the "Worst Actor" category for Ghost Rider, while Jessica Alba received a "Worst Actress" nomination for her portrayal of Sue Storm in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Also nominated for a Razzie was Bratz, a live-action film based on the popular series of toys and produced by former Marvel Studios chairman Avi Arad. Prior to the film’s release, Arad described Bratz as "X-Men for girls."

Previous recipients of the "Golden Razzie" award include 2004’s Catwoman (seven nominations, four wins) and 2005’s Bloodrayne (six nominations, no wins).

Over at The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon has posted a great interview with Richard Thompson, the creator behind Cul de Sac and Richard’s Poor Almanac, among other projects.

The interview provides a look at the daily routine for a creator balancing multiple ongoing projects and the struggle to keep things fresh. It also provides a few funny examples of the relationship between a creator and his/her editor, as described below.

Nowadays my editor, Ann Gerhart, doesn’t ask for a rough, or even any idea of what I’m doing, so I guess we’ve reached a level of trust, or maybe nobody’s reading it still. The only complaint I ever remember getting from Gene [Weingarten, a former editor of Thompson’s], whose motto is that he edits for humor but not for taste, was when I used the phrase "fart-catcher" to describe a presidential aide twice in as many weeks and he found that excessive.

Over at the official Watchmen film site, director Zack Snyder has posted an interesting explanation of how storyboards play into his production of a film, and even included a few boards from the much-anticipated adaptation of the Watchmen graphic novel.

The boards feature several scenes involving the character of Rorschach, played by Jackie Earle Haley.

As you can see from these frames, my storyboards aren’t necessarily super-finished art pieces on their own. I often find that the frames that get the most detail are the ones where I’m stalling – thinking of the next shots. In contrast, if I already have a sequence sorted out in my head, the boards tend to be much sketchier.