Pandemonium Written by Chris Wooding, Art by Cassandra Diaz Scholastic Graphix, 160 pages, 12.99 (softcover)/$22.99 (hardcover)
Chris Wooding is a successful young adult writer who has been carefully dipping his toe into the graphic novel world. In 2009, he blended words with illustrations in the largely successful Malice and is back this month with his first full-fledged graphic novel, Pandemonium. Clearly the first in a series of stories, the book creates an all-too-familiar fantasy world, populates it with stereotypes and tries to have some fun along the way. Instead, it all feels creaky and done better before.
First of all, the premise is straight out of The Prince & The Pauper but has done far better as the movie Dave. Here, teenage Seifer Tombchewer is plucked from his backwoods village and summarily brought to the castle so he could impersonate the missing Prince Talon and keep the kingdom of the Darkling Realm safe until he has been returned. Of course, in their royal arrogance, they never bothered to explain his absence to the worried family, nor did they take the time to properly instruct Seifer before his first public appearance. While intended for comic relief, it just shows how poorly thought through much of the story has been.
It’s hard to take the story and characters seriously when they have absurd names like Lumbago or Snaggleface, from the land of Fang. Really.
Seifer has to play Talon and in so doing, proves to one and all how his simple village ways make him a better ruler and heir to the throne than the prince himself. Ho hum. Where the story really gets interesting is the relationship he forges with Talon’s younger sisters, especially when they learn the truth. Additionally, he falls for Carcassa, daughter of gambling addict Baron Canasta Malefica, come to court to beg for help and gets it with interest. Meantime, the prince’s fiancée is due back soon which will only complicate things but first he has to survive the machinations of those who kidnapped the prince and scheme to bring down the government.
Wooding makes things somewhat interesting by giving the people bat-wings and some have the natural born ability to conjure magika. But he then goes and spoils it with anachronisms so Seifer worries about being a “wuss” and Cassie sends a letter “economy”.
He is not well served by Cassandra Diaz, making her professional debut. Her Manga-inspired art is stiff and simplistic with no real style of her own coming through. Like the story itself, we’ve seen this art before and done better. The advance reading copy from Scholastic only has the first 16 pages in color and she uses a nice subdued palette which helps differentiate the characters far better than her line art does.
While some may like the humor and tongue-in-cheek approach, I merely wish that the 8-12 year olds this is aimed at actually were given better material.
It’s not a black or white world. The world is made up of many shades of gray.
Yet somehow when something happens to a black character “racism” always clings to the debate.
There has been a flurry of activity since DC cancelled StaticShock. The DC official line is the book was cancelled because of sales. Some fans think DC should have kept the book alive by whatever means necessary and only canceled the book because they did not think enough of the character to change direction.
Some think that DC cancelled the book because Static was black.
What do I, co-creator of Static, think?
I don’t care why they cancelled the book. I care that they cancelled the book.
A guy once put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed. I didn’t care why the gun jammed, I cared that the gun jammed.
Sometimes the reason for something is not nearly as important as the thing.
In the almost 20 years that Milestone, I company I co-founded, has been around I’ve never publicly commented on the direction of the Milestone universe. Never a word on the management rather I was with the company or not. I’ll do it here, but just to make a point.
I did not like the book.
Moving on…
I mentioned in a post on ComicMix last week that there are some who think that DC cancelled the book because Static was black but somehow fail to acknowledge that DC published the book in the first place. I love people who don’t let little things like the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
Over on my website, Danny Donovan wrote an amazing piece about the cancellation called “Not shocked.” A reader wrote a wonderful comment making the case that DC’s actions regarding the Static cancellation had strong overtones or racism.
I do not believe DC cancelled the book because of some racist agenda.
So why do I say the writer’s comments were “wonderful?” Because he presented his case, backed up his thoughts and wrote them in a clear concise way. I don’t have to agree with someone to acknowledge they make a good case.
A few years ago during The Black Panel at Comic Con International I addressed one of the many rumors about Milestone Media by telling the audience how Denys Cowan started Milestone and I co-signed, period. Milestone was Deny’s baby and without Denys Milestone never would have happened.
Never.
Ever.
Ever!
Soon after Comic Con, a blogger went on line and wrote that “his sources” told him that my “version” of Milestone’s origin was not the way Milestone started and because Denys (who was on the panel with me) didn’t say anything after I made my comments, somehow that meant I was lying.
Like I said, I love people who don’t let little things like the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
So, me being me, I went online and told this guy that his “sources” were wrong. He came back with “these are very good sources” and he was standing behind them.
He was standing behind “very good sources” instead of giving me (who was there) the benefit of the doubt. What I did next was tell him I’d give him ten thousand dollars if he could prove what he was telling thousands of people on the net. If he didn’t prove it then he should give me ten grand or shut the fuck up.
He shut the fuck up.
The comment on MDW made by the guy who suggests racism had a hand in the cancellation of Static gave a few examples of DC purposive prejudice towards black characters and creators.
And… he made some good points. I know of one instance when he was on the right track. He did not give particulars so I cannot say for a fact that he was talking about the following incident but it fits the general description.
When Milestone started negotiations with DC there was one meeting in which an important high-ranking DC executive said that when it came to black characters in the market place, black meant death. He went on to suggest we don’t show the characters in any ads so as not to turn off the public. He finished once again with, “black means death.”
At that moment one more racist word out of his mouth may have meant death if the looks on the faces of Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle and myself meant anything.
Here’s my two cents. That guy was an asshole and people in the industry generally accept that he was out of touch and yes I felt at the time he was racist. I was in his office once admiring a photo of a sports car he had on the wall. “Maybe one day with a lot of hard work you can have a car like that,” he said with a smile.
I reached into my pocket and showed him my car keys. “I already have one.”
The look on his face was well worth the distain he showed me from that moment on. He never spoke to me again unless he had to.
I believe he was racist and because he was a high-ranking member of the DC staff I believe he could be a problem. Was he a problem? I can’t say for sure.
Jenette Kahn and Paul Levitz were his bosses and they believed in Milestone from day one, so fuck him. I saw him once after he left DC, he was very pleasant and so was I. Why be decent?
As Denys says, “too small, throw it back.”
That was then, this is now…
Hey Bruce! How you living? Guess how many sports cars I have now!
Here’d something that’s never addressed in these “DC is racist claims” concerning Milestone.
The founders.
No founder of Milestone would stand for any Jim Crow shit. Not now, not then.
It will never happen and if some people would just look at the backgrounds and resumes of the founders they would know that Milestone is made up of people that Ice Cube famously said are ‘the wrong niggas to fuck with.’
Has race been an issue at DC? Yes! Race is an issue everywhere. The question is when race becomes racism. DC did not cancel Static because they were racist; they cancelled Static because the fans did not want to see one of the greatest characters ever created fighting a giant fish.
A giant fish??
Really?
Lastly, DC took a risk with Milestone but almost twenty years later Milestone is still here, still a topic of conversation still a great universe with great characters and I’m sure that Static is a risk they will take again.
As Captain Kirk said, “Risk? Risk, is our business!”
One of the great things about being part of the all pulp staff is the ability to read great pulp.The Black Centipede was given to me generously by Chuck Miller, and the book is a fascinating read.This doesn’t have a very one dimensional approach to it.Heroes could very easily be villains, and even the staunchest villain has some heroic qualities to them.The dark side of humanity is made commonplace, and Chuck Miller does it seamlessly.The characters are believable and they feel human, much more so than many other stories.
Chuck himself is a fascinating man. I discuss with him Black Centipede, his other projects and the nature of man.
All Pulp: Who were your writing influences growing up?
Chuck Miller:I guess comic books would be a major one, since i’ve been reading them since literally as far back as I can remember. When I was 8 years old, I was given a copy of the Complete Sherlock Holmes, which made a huge impression on me. I’m a die-hard Holmes fan to this day. And not just the Conan Doyle stories– I really love a lot of the pastiches that have sprouted up, beginning with The Seven Per-Cent Solution and The West End Horror by Nicholas Meyer. I loved the way Meyer involved Holmes with genuine historical persons and events, and I do the same thing with the Black Centipede. In Creeping Dawn,he has encounters with Lizzie Borden, H.P. Lovecraft, Frank Nitti, and William Randolph Hearst.
I also started reading the paperback reprints of the Shadow and Doc Savage stories when I was still a pre-teen, and those stuck with me. I very much preferred the Shadow, because he was so mysterious and had an air of the supernatural about him, though there was never any hint of the occult in any of the stories. Later on, I got into the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout, and those would become a major influence in terms of narrative voice. I was really captivated by the way Archie Goodwin’s personality came across in the writing, and I try to do the same thing myself, as best I can. Just about everything I do is in first person. I like to get really deep inside a character’s head, and I’m really not very comfortable as an omniscient third person.
There have been a huge number of influences on my writing, in terms of both style and content. Hunter S. Thompson, Philip Jose Farmer, Flannery O’Connor, William S. Burroughs, Dorothy Parker, Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick… it just goes on and on, really. I have taken a little something from each of them. And not only books, but movies and music as well. I bring in a lot of very diverse elements. It has been said that my work is very unique and original. The fact is, the Centipede is very derivative character, but he is derived from so many wide-ranging sources that he appears to be completely original.
AP: Why pulp?
CM:That happened sort of by accident. About 20 years ago, I came up with an idea for a comic book calledThe Optimist.It never went anywhere, but I had a huge cast of characters I had created for it, and they continued to simmer in my head after the project was finally abandoned completely back in 2001.
A couple of years ago, I decided to really get serious about the writing. I’d always wanted to do it, and I was in a position where I could devote a lot of time to it, so I did. For subject matter, I went back to The Optimist. The original concept was a post-glory-days superhero saga, vaguely similar to The Watchmen. I didn’t want to do a comic book– and had nobody to draw it even if I had– so I just did it as an ordinary prose piece. The protagonist, Jack Christian, was a grown-up superhero kid sidekick whose mentor had died under dodgy circumstances 12 years earlier. Jack, a down-on-his luck alcoholic by this time, returns to the city of Zenith, where the tragedy took place. He encounters a number of retires heroes and other oddballs. Among these was the Black Centipede, who was originally intended to be a fairly minor character. I wanted him to be a genuine oddball– he is based in part on William S. Burroughs– and he was the only character cast in the mold of a traditional pulp action hero from the 30s.
So, anyhow, I wrote this novel, and the Centipede started stealing scenes. He ended up with a much bigger role. When I finished, I started promoting it myself on the web, making it available for free in hopes of attracting a publisher. It really didn’t stir up much of anything, though.
At one point a friend of mine told me she didn’t think many people would want to sit and read an entire novel online, and suggested I do some shorter pieces if I really wanted to get noticed. Since The Optimist didn’t lend itself to that, I decided to explore the past of one of the supporting characters. The Centipede was the obvious choice for this. I wrote a story set in 1957, “Wisconsin Death Trip.” I enjoyed doing it, so I went ahead and wrote a novella called Gasp, Choke, Good Lord, an homage to the EC horror comics of the 1950s, guest-starring the infamous Doctor Fredric Wertham, author of Seduction of the Innocent, and EC publisher William M. Gaines. And I posted all of this for free on a blog I put together. I created a rather elaborate history for the Centipede, which included him being not only a “real-life” crime fighter, but also the star of a highly-fictionalized pulp adventure magazine published by William Randolph Hearst.
Well, to cut a long story short, I got noticed by Tommy Hancock of pro Se Press, who was very enthusiastic about my work. After a bit of back and forth, it was decided that I should write a novel for Pro Se, which I did. That novel was Creeping Dawn: The Rise of the Black Centipede.
AP: What did writing Creeping Dawn teach you as an author?
CM: I’m not entirely sure. I guess I learned to tell a story with a specific word count. Now that it’s published, and I have read it in book form, I noticed several things I really didn’t like about it, and i have tried to avoid those while writing the next one.
AP: One of the things that I really found fascinating with Creeping Dawn was how you write about the more monstrous parts of people.From Lizzy’s past to William’s own acceptance of things.You make it seem so normal.I’m kind of jealous, but also wondering where those ideas came from.Is this something you’ve always thought?Or did it just fit the context of your story?
CM: All of that comes from my own life. My mother died when I was very young, and my father just sort of went nuts after that. He deteriorated mentally and emotionally for about five years, and then ended up killing himself. And I had a front row seat for the whole thing. So I have always been conscious of this darkness in the world, that seems to be just under the surface of everything. That is somewhat analogous to what the Black Centipede refers to as the “Dark Power,” though in his fictional world, it is more literal and manifests itself in more overt ways. But, in my own life, I’ve always been aware that things and people are not really what they seem to be, not exactly. And if you look even just a little way beneath the surface, you’re apt to find a nasty surprise.
But I don’t think you have to give in to it. I think there is good in the world, too, but sometimes you have to wade through some pretty toxic sludge to find it. In “Creeping Dawn,” the young Centipede seems to believe that the darkness is the true power, the only thing worth striving to understand. But, being the kind of person he is, he doesn’t want to give himself over to it. Instead, he decides to oppose it, as a way of measuring its scope and capabilities. In the beginning, he isn’t motivated by a desire to see justice done. He is simply curious. He wants to understand the world in a way nobody else ever has. Quite a bit of hubris on his part, really.
In the second section of “Creeping Dawn,” which is set six years after his experience with Lizzie Borden, we see how he becomes a crime fighter, and how he goes about establishing himself in the city of Zenith, in a series of events that revolve around the rise of a shadowy new crime lord called Doctor Almanac. In the beginning, the Centipede is very ruthless and reckless and he ends up in trouble with the law and the press. But his cause is taken up by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Hearst is a fascinating historical figure, whose public and private life make him a great cast member for the Black Centipede series. Through some devious and underhanded maneuvering, Hearst transforms the Centipede– in the mind of the public, anyhow– from a dangerous, psychotic vigilante into a national hero. In addition to this, Hearst launches a Black Centipede pulp adventure magazine, featuring highly fictionalized accounts of our hero’s adventures. This is another example of how things appear to be a certain way, but are really something entirely different. The real Black Centipede is not the Doc Savage-style paragon the public perceives.
The Centipede is a celebrity akin to Doc Savage and other classic pulp.
Nothing is black-and-white. But there is right and wrong, I believe. Sometimes it takes even a good person a long time and a lot of mistakes to make the distinction and choose one or the other. Most of my villains have some heroic qualities, and most of my heroes are criminals at heart. They do kind of believe they are somehow above the rest of society, and have a right to disregard the rules. Life is a process, a constant parade of choices. A villain can choose to be noble, a hero can choose to act deplorably.
In “Blood of the Centipede,” the next book in the series, the Centipede gets a bit of a moral compass in the form of Amelia Earhart, who has been asked by President Roosevelt to keep an eye on our hero. I don’t want to go into any more detail about that now, except to say that, as the series progresses, we will see our hero evolve in some interesting and unexpected ways.
AP: If you had to pick just one scene, what was your favorite in Creeping Dawn and why?
CM: I guess the one I had the most fun writing was the Centipede’s accidental invasion of doctor Almanac’s secret headquarters. I got a kick out of describing his sort of gleeful approach to lethal violence. And then, of course, that whole episode led up to his first encounter with Stan Bartowski, a Zenith police officer who becomes a friend. He’ll be an important mainstay character throughout the series. He’s also sort of a comic foil, since a lot of things the Centipede says to him sail right over his head. I put a lot of humor in the stories, and strive to strike a good balance.
AP: Can you tell us a bit of where you want to take the Black Centipede. He’s gone from supporting character to a mainstay.Would you be happy to continue writing him or are there are other things you like to work on?
CM: I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the Centipede. He’s pretty versatile, and I have lots of plans for him. But I do have a number of other characters I want to develop into their own series. “The Incredible Adventures of Vionna Valis and Mary Jane Kelly” is one of these. http://theblackcentipede.blogspot.com/2011/09/their-first-adventure.html
It deals with a peculiar pair of “psychic detectives.” I’ve done a couple stories that I posted on my blog, but they have yet to be officially published. However, they live in the same world as the Black Centipede, and they appear briefly in the second Centipede novel. So does Doctor Unknown Junior, a very businesslike sorceress whose adventures I want to get out there one of these days.
AP: Are you working on anything else at the moment?
CM: I have something coming out in February from Pacific-Noir Press. “The Bay Phantom Chronicles Episode One: The Return of Doctor Piranha” is the first tale of the Bay Phantom, a 94-year-old, retired pulp-era masked hero based in my old home town of Mobile, Alabama. In this one, he is befriended by Janie Marie Colson, a young college student who is helping him write his memoirs. Complications arise when the Phantom’s arch-foe, 98-year-old Doctor Piranha, is released from federal prison after serving a 70-year sentence.Piranha, of course, swore revenge– no matter how long it took…
And I am involved in the Pulp Obscura project from Pro Se and Altus Press, which will be coming out throughout 2012.
UNDERWORLD AWAKENING pulled in a 25 million dollar box office and we sit down with Kate Beckinsale who says she was more than glad to return too her role in the franchise, plus we begin our farewell to the NBC series CHUCK, as Ryan McPartlin and Yvonne Strahovski talk about wrapping it all up.
Real Steel is an interesting blend of the underdog sports movie and science fiction, and from the first frame, you know exactly what will happen by the time the end credits roll. There’s nothing wrong with that since we knew exactly what was coming in Rocky or Remember the Titans and both were strong, entertaining films. The challenge for the director and cast is to make arriving at the inevitable conclusion as entertaining as possible and in this case, the film exceeded expectations.
Coming out tomorrow for home video from Touchstone Home Entertainment, the Shawn Levy-directed film looks terrific and has rock solid sound so you hear the gears grinding and Danny Elfman’s score soar with fidelity.
The story is set in 2027, a time when human boxers have been replaced by oversized robotic creations that are basically Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots controlled by a video game interface. Atop the heap is the most advanced bit of Artificial Intelligence in the hulking Zeus, built and controlled by the film’s sort of bad guys, the too cool to be true Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) and Farra Lemcova (Olga Fonda). Way down the food chain is former boxer and failed robot boxing controller Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman). He owes money, his life sucks, and he’s so focused on finding the next fight to earn some cash that he is merely existing, not living. That changes when his old flame Caroline dies and he’s summoned to court to sign away all parental rights to his son Max (Dakota Goyo), a smart and smart-mouthed 11 year old. In need of a cash infusion, Charlie agrees to take Max for the summer so his Aunt and her husband can take an unencumbered Italian vacation in exchange for $100,000.
(January 23, 2012 – New York, NY) DC Entertainment, home of the world’s greatest super heroes, today unveiled an unprecedented giving campaign to fight the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa. This multi-million-dollar commitment over the next two years will be supported across all Warner Bros. Entertainment’s and Time Warner’s businesses and feature DC Entertainment’s iconic Justice League characters, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg, issuing the call to action, “We Can Be Heroes.” The announcements were made at a press conference today in New York by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros.; Jeff Robinov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group; and Diane Nelson, President, DC Entertainment.
We Can Be Heroes will support the efforts of three humanitarian aid organizations working in Africa—Save the Children, International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps—as part of the global effort to fight the current hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa. The region is suffering its worst drought and famine in over 60 years, with 13 million in need of critical assistance and 250,000 facing starvation in Somalia alone. Each partner organization was chosen for its track record of effective and expeditious humanitarian aid efforts in Africa.
We Can Be Heroes will be supported via promotional exposure across all of Time Warner’s divisional advertising platforms (Warner Bros., Turner Broadcasting, Time Inc., HBO), generating millions of consumer impressions and creating crucially needed awareness of this crisis worldwide. Save the Children, International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps will equally share a corporate donation of at least $2 million over the next two years comprised of cash donations, employee matching funds and consumer matching funds.
“Warner Bros. has a long history of corporate philanthropy and outreach, and this campaign proudly continues that tradition,” said Meyer. “We are a global company, and this is a global issue. By marshalling our expertise in consumer and fan engagement and creating global awareness, we hope we’re able to inspire others to join us in becoming ‘heroes’ and make a difference in the Horn of Africa.”
Disney’s Anne Frank is an animated film released by Disney in the spring of 1989. It is very, very loosely based on The Diary of Anne Frank, but takes a lot of liberties with the source material, adding a talking animal sidekick, a Nazi necromancer Femme Fatale, and a Happily Ever After ending.
Despite Disney’s assurances that they understood the sensitivity of the source material, it was critically panned for its handling of the Holocaust, particularly the ending, where Anne liberates Auschwitz. It was a Box Office Bomb and was largely buried by Disney. Since Vindicated by Video.
C’mon– you know Disney would do a live action version if they could cast Lea Michele in the lead.
The Uchronic Press is proud to announce “Uchronic Tales: The Zeppelin,” our debut release. This action-packed 18,000 word novella by W. Peter Miller with a cover by Mike Fyles features the premiere appearance of Clark Tyler, a man that trouble seems to find. Or perhaps he is just good at finding it. This story is available now on Kindle, with Nook and all other formats to follow as soon as possible.
The Uchronic Press is here to serve all readers that crave action, excitement, and a bit of an edge in their pulp adventure fiction. Our stories take place in an alternate past, a uchronic world greatly like our own, but with a dash more mystery, danger, and the macabre. Here you will find heroic adventures, outlandish science, ferocious alchemy, mystic forces, and an alternate history just slightly larger than our own.
Uchronic Tales: The Zeppelin features a young Clark Tyler, an American airman caught up in a conspiracy that threatens to turn the tide of the Great War. Reich Zeppelins have been bombing London mercilessly, but the night one of them takes a strange detour could turn the tide of the war. The Germans have kidnapped a mysterious passenger and it is up to Clark Tyler and a band of elite commandos to stop the massive airship Eisern Feist from returning her secrets to the Fatherland.
In the months ahead, danger will put Clark in a number of Uchronic Tales. Look for stories featuring the classic days of Hollywood, earth-shattering danger, lost civilizations, and bizarre visitors from the unknown aether.
How many times have you thought that, or dreamt it, or talked about it? I think everybody does. It’s in our natures, y’know?
“If I knew then what I know now…”
What would you do?
I wouldn’t be a nurse.
I’d go to film school. UCLA or NYU. I’d aim to be a film editor.
I love movies. So, in keeping with Mike Gold and John Ostrander’s columns about the movies, I thought I would list some of my favorite movies and why I love them. In no particular order. Because every time I pick one as my “all-time fave,” I remember another and hastily move that one to the top spot.
Casablanca: Two men. The woman they both love. And Nazis. Who doesn’t love this move? Humphrey Bogart. Ingrid Bergman. Claude Raines. Sydney Greenstreet. Paul Henreid. Peter Lorre. Conrad Veidt. And Dooley Wilson. Who doesn’t love this movie?
Strasser: What is your nationality?
Rick: I’m a drunkard.
Who doesn’t love this movie?
Renault: And what in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Renault: Waters? What waters? We’re in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.
Who doesn’t love this movie?
The Searchers: In the post-Civil War West, two men relentlessly follow the trail of the Indian who killed their family and took the youngest daughter in the post-Civil War West. One wants to save her. One wants to kill her.
“That’ll be the day.”
As John Ostrander said, John Wayne’s greatest role. Also starring Jeffrey Hunter and Natalie Wood. And directed by John Ford.
Bridge On The River Kwai: “Be happy in your work.” In the hell of a Japanese prisoner of war camp in World War II Burma, a British colonel’s ego and pride blind him to his collaboration with the enemy as he leads his regiment in building a bridge that will stand for the ages. Sir Alec Guinness. Sessue Hayakawa. William Holden. Jack Hawkins. Directed by David Lean.
“Madness. Madness.”
The Best Years of Our Lives: Three World War II veterans and their families adjust to life after the war ends. Fredric March. Myrna Loy. Dana Andrews. Virginia Mayo. Teresa Wright. And Harold Russell, who lost both his hands, which were replaced by hooks. Directed by William Wyler. As significant today as when it first premiered in 1946.
Ben-Hur: The proud scion of an aristocratic Jewish family. The ambitious Roman who was once his best friend. Set against the background of the Roman Occupation of Judea during the time of Christ, it’s a story of love and hate, sin and redemption, blame and forgiveness. Charlton Heston. Stephen Boyd. Jack Hawkins. Haya Hayareet. Sam Jaffee. Finlay Currie.
Quintas Arrius: “Your eyes are full of hate, forty-one. That’s good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.”
There’s also The Godfather I and II. Gandhi. Saving Private Ryan. Waterloo Bridge. Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Forbidden Planet. You’ve Got Mail. Alien and Aliens. The Day The Earth Stood Still (the original, not that travesty with Keanu Reeves). Lost Horizon. Bringing Up Baby. Mr. Lucky. The Lion In Winter. Basically, anything with Katherine Hepburn and/or Cary Grant. And more.
Movies based on comics? Spider-Man 1 and 2. Superman 1 and 2. Iron Man. Captain America. Thor. The Road To Perdition. Ghost World.
Watchmen? Not so much.
I’m sure I’m missing quite a lot, but what the hell…
Chris Wooding is a successful young adult writer who has been carefully dipping his toe into the graphic novel world. In 2009, he blended words with illustrations in the largely successful Malice and is back this month with his first full-fledged graphic novel, Pandemonium. Clearly the first in a series of stories, the book creates an all-too-familiar fantasy world, populates it with stereotypes and tries to have some fun along the way. Instead, it all feels creaky and done better before.
