NYCC 2009: Costumes, costumes, costumes! Part 2
And even more! Let’s go cosplay crazy, starting with two sides of the American superhero…
Monthly Archive: February 2009
Batman sequel on hold until 2011
According to E! Online, a sequel to The Dark Knight is two years away. At least.
Director Christopher Nolan has inked a deal with Warner Bros. to helm Inception, based on his own screenplay. The sci-fi action film "set within the architecture of the mind" aims to begin shooting this summer and hit theaters in summer 2010, according to the studio.
This probably shouldn’t surprise anyone, though. It was three years between Batman Begins, and last year’s The Dark Knight. In between, Nolan made The Prestige, starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival magicians.
The only potential problem, of course, is if they want to do another Terminator sequel for 2011, which would keep Bale’s schedule very filled and could conceivable dilute the impact of each film in theaters.
NYCC 2009: Intellectual Property Primer
One of the concerns for comic book creators is is protecting their rights. In support of that, New York Comic-Con had a panel on Saturday called "Intellectual Property 101", put on by three lawyers in the entertainment business. Thomas A. Crowell, Sheafe B. Walker, and Walter-Michael Lee, attorneys specializing in entertainment law and intellectual property, gave an overview and answered questions from the audience.
Several forms of rights are involved. The first is copyright. Under current copyright law, a work is copyrighted automatically upon creation. In the United States, copyrights are valid for the life of the creator plus 70 years. In "work for hire contracts", copyrights may be for 95 or 120 years.
There is no requirement have anything special in the work such as a copyright symbol, or to register it to have a copyright. However, registration of copyright was strongly recommended. Copyright registration establishes a formal legal record of a copyright’s existance, dating from when registration was made, and gives you greater ability to collect damages if the copyright is infringed. The "poor man’s copyright" practice of mailing yourself a copy of your work to establish copyright was dismissed as obsolete and not doing anything useful.
Copyright registration can be handled on line by going to http://www.copyright.gov/register, or using paper forms. The Copyright Office encourages online registration, and charges less for it. Online registration has a $35 fee, whereas paper forms will cost $45. You will need to provide contact information for the copyright holder, a copy of the work being copyrighted, and the fee.
In answer to a question, it was stated that you could use one copyright registration to copyright an entire series, as in a continuing comic book. There was no requirment for a sperate filing and fee for each issue. It is also possible, though rare, to get a copyright on a work in progress that is not yet completed.
Partnerships and work-for-hire agreements present special challenges. (more…)
‘No Heroics’ emigrates to US TV
Great, another British comics invasion, only this time it’s on television.
ABC, jazzed from its success transplanting Life On Mars, has okayed a single-camera comedy based on a British series called No Heroics about superheroes with limited powers hanging out in a bar. Jeff Greenstein (Will & Grace) wrote the pilot along with original show creator Drew Pearce. Heidi Macdonald reports:
The UK version is out on DVD for all you all-region peeps, and thanks to Mr. Pearce, we got to sample the show*, which, like many Britcoms, puts its hapless cast into worse and worse social situations where not all their powers can save them. The UK show was quite funny, and featured a zillion in-jokes for anyone who actually reads comics, as well as a dark view of the social pecking order among the long underwear set. Hopefully a Stateside version can retain both elements.
It’s an ABC Studios production. Funny how that works nowadays…
NYCC 2009: Costumes, costumes, costumes! Part 1
We told you this was a costume heavy convention… let us show you some of the best cosplay we saw. (Thanks to Jean Krevor and Kim Kindya for roaming the halls with me.)
ComicMix Quick Picks – February 11, 2009
Today’s collection of items may not be worth a post of their own, but may be of interest:
- An online Heath Ledger fan club has put up an online petition calling for Warner Brothers to withdraw the role of the Joker from Batman movies once and for all. They already have over 2,000
supporters"freaks." They’re also on YouTube, Facebook and Flickr. - The Battlestar Galactica prequel spinoff Caprica will be available on DVD and as a digital download on April 21 of this year but will not air until the show is ready to launch on SciFi– a full year later. Caprica, which will lay the groundwork for a 22-episode series scheduled to launch in 2010, is executive produced by BSG‘s Ronald D. Moore and David Eick and Remi Aubuchon (24) and stars Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales and Polly Walker.
- Blambot presents the grammar of comic book lettering.
- Danica McKellar (The Wonder Years, The West Wing) will become lead math correspondent for the weekly Science Channel series Brink, joining host Josh Zepps. Danica graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a degree in mathematics, is co-author of a published proof, and wrote two math books for junior high girls, called Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math and not Break a Nail and Kiss My Math.
- The CW is collaborating with publisher Alloy Entertainment on a one-hour drama pilot adapted from the book series "The Vampire Diaries". Kevin Williamson (Scream) will write and executive produce, working alongside Julie Plec (Kyle XY). If the CW wanted vampires, why couldn’t they bring Buffy or Angel back?
Anything else we missed? Consider this an open thread.
Torchwood’s John Barrowman on new show on BBC America
Waiting for the new season of Torchwood to start? Jonesing for more Captain Jack Harkness? We have something that might tide you over…
BBC America has just picked up a new musical theater reality series featuring John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack. Any Dream Will Do, with eleven 90 minute episodes, will chronicle the search for a new male talent to play Joseph in the West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Graham Norton hosts the series which also showcases Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Any Dream Will Do makes its U.S. premiere on March 29 at 8 PM– and if that’s not enough for you, it will be followed by a one-hour special The Making of Me: John Barrowman.
All right, you fans of Jack/John… get going.
Wolverine and the X-Men go Manga
At New York Comic Con this weekend, Del Rey Manga announced the latest information on their two new manga-style retellings of Marvel Comics properties, Wolverine and The X-Men.
Both books will be all-new stories with original art — consider them a "radical re-mix" of the well-known comics characters.
Wolverine: Prodigal Son, with story by Antony Johnston and art by Wilson Tortosa, takes a shonen manga approach. It’s an American characater with a Japanese spin, and according to Associate Publisher Dallas Middaugh, to add to the international flavor, the author is British and the artist is Filipino. Due out at the beginning of April, this book will be extremely different from Marvel’s version, and does not require any prior knowlege of the Marvel continuity.
X-Men: Misfits, with story by Dave Roman and Raina Telgemeier and art by Anzu, is also a complete re-imagining of the X-Men universe and characters, mixing shojo conventions with elements of the classic X-Men story. It focuses on Kitty Pryde as the protagonist, telling the story entirely from her perspective. In this version, Kitty is invited to attend an illustrious academy as the first girl at an all-boys’ school. Release is scheduled for May 26.
Roman’s previous works have included comics Jax Epoch and Agnes Quill, and Telgemeier worked on the Baby Sitters’ Club comics for Scholastic.
According to Roman, the student body is a collection of bishonens who represent different subcultures. Cylclops is depicted as a "emo rocker." Nightcrawler is a goth. Angel is a "preppy pretty boy." Their looks are also inspired by real-life celebrities such as Justin Timberlake (Angel) and Zac Efron (Pyro). You’ll even encounter a Tim-Gunn inspired Magneto. "We had to distance ourselves from the characters as they were," said Roman, and consider "who were these characters to us, and who else they could relate to." (more…)
Review: ‘Labor Days’ by Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy
Labor Days, Volume 1
By Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy
Oni Press, September 2008, $11.95
Some kinds of double standards will never die. Take a brutish young American male – dull, unattractive, drunken, and stuck in a dead-end odd-jobs business – and he’s both boring and contemptible. But turn him into a London boy, with the same face and job, demeanor and intellect, and suddenly he’s a hero. This hero.
He’s Benton “Bags” Bagswell, the man who put the “never” in ne’er-do-well. And these two New York-based creators knew that if they made him a Londoner, made him a British boy, then he’d be loveable rather than the lumpish prole the identical New Yorker would be.
Bags opens the story on a morning after the night before – his girlfriend has just dumped him for terminal being-Bags reasons, and a package has been left on his front step, for him to take care of professionally. (On the first page, we see Bags’s flyer, which says “I’m your next handyman for hire! Benton Bagswell’s the name. Are your chores bores? No job is too mundane for me!” Now, I haven’t hired a handyman in some time, but I thought they generally list things they’re reasonably good at, such as carpentry or plumbing or C# coding or knitting, rather than proclaiming that they’d do anything at all, as long as there’s a quid in it for them. One wonders if this approach works for Bags, and, if so, why? It reads very close to the kind of code used for drug transactions and other nefarious activities.)
Would you buy a 30 page comic for $5?
A braintrust question for you, as you rush off to buy your Wednesday fix of comics, and you lament the upcoming price hike from $3 to $4. Please take a second to consider…
The average comic gives you around 22 pages of story and art. And there are a lot of marginal titles out there that probably will be axed. There are also a lot of comics writers and artists without regular assignments and idle time on their hands. Would it be a better deal to bump the price to $5 and raise the page count to 30?
Surely there would be a lot of books this could work for. Spider-Man is already published three times a month, an eight page back up story would be the equivalent of an extra issue a month now.
Or do you think that in this economy, five dollars is just too much for any comic, even one with 30 pages of story and art?
Leave your thoughts on the matter in the comments section, please.
