Author: Glenn Hauman

Gregory Noveck Leaves DC, Takes Helm at Syfy Films

noveck-300x265-8632672The press release came out late yesterday:

Gregory Noveck has been named to the newly created position of Senior Vice President, Production, Syfy Films, charged with launching projects for the new film company which the two companies announced in December. Noveck will report jointly to Mark Stern, President of Original Content, Syfy and Co-Head of Content for Universal Cable Productions, and Co-Chairman, Universal Pictures, Donna Langley. Noveck will work closely with the Universal and Syfy creative teams to find projects to develop by leveraging Syfy’s experience in developing genre content.

Noveck most recently served as Senior Vice President, Creative Affairs and Executive Producer for DC Comics where he established a new Film and TV division to help deliver quality content by mining the extensive DC Comics library. Feature projects included Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Watchmen, Red (for Summit Entertainment), and the upcoming Green Lantern, with television projects ranging from Smallville and Human Target to over ten animated DTV features. Prior to that he was Senior Vice President of Silver Pictures Television, developing and producing series and pilots for producer Joel Silver. Noveck previously served as Senior Vice President, Creative Affairs and Producer at Platinum Studios, where he established and grew the Creative Affairs department for Film and Television, overseeing all aspects of production and development. Projects included Cowboys & Aliens (Universal/DreamWorks) and Jeremiah (Showtime).

Syfy Ventures and Universal Pictures joined forces in December 2010 to create Syfy Films, a new film company that will develop and produce Syfy branded theatrical motion pictures to be distributed by Universal. The new entity will leverage Syfy’s genre expertise to produce human and relatable theatrical releases from the worlds of science fiction, fantasy, supernatural and horror. Beginning in 2012, Syfy Films will distribute one to two films a year through Universal Pictures. Mark Stern and Donna Langley jointly oversee the operation.

Very interesting. Diane Nelson is consolidating her position.

As for Gregory, he’s certainly shown the ability to do a lot with limited budgets, which will serve him well at his new job, as Syfy, and Universal’s new owner Comcast, have a reputation for keeping a tight control on purse strings. We wish him the best of luck.

Why We’re Stopping Using Twitter Tools

We’re getting sick and tired of Twitter Tools, the WordPress plug-in from CrowdFavorite. Specifically, because their product is supposed to automatically create one daily post from all the tweets from our account.

One daily post. Not thirty-eight, as happened last night; nor the numerous other nights they’ve created multiple posts that have gone out, pushed all our stories off the front page, choked our RSS feeds, and generally made a mess of the place.

As they’ve been unable to track down the problem in any of their support forums, we’ll be leaving them shortly. We understand Twittinesis isn’t bad, does anybody else have any other recommendations?

Twitter Updates for 2011-05-10

Amazing Spider-Man

Window Closing Wrap-Up: May 9, 2011

Amazing Spider-ManBefore I lose the last of the laptop’s battery power, a bunch of things you should catch up on:

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.

Happy Mother’s Day!

We’re off taking care of our own moms today, so I’m going to just link to Ty Templeton’s list of the Top 7 Bad Mothers in Comics. Although how he missed Rorschach’s mom, I’ll never know.

Of course, we all know the worst mom in comics is the one that threw your comics away– or even worse, claimed that you read them too much, and so tore up your copy of [[[Batman]]] #251, “The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge” by Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, in front of you to prove a point; an event that scarred and twisted you to this very day, and then she wonders why you want to put her into a home…

…perhaps I’ve said too much here.

Love you, mom!

Read “Hammer Of The Gods: Back From The Dead”!

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With all the interest in Norse sagas because of that movie opening today, we would be remiss if we didn’t remind you about you Hammer Of The Gods, the series from Michael Avon Oeming (Powers) and Mark Wheatley (EZ Street)!

This is the saga of Modi, a young Viking who was given amazing powers from the Norse Gods, literally carrying the power of Mjollnir, the hammer of Thorr… and a destiny to shake the world.


In the original 2004 graphic novel (which was recently reprinted by ComicMix and IDW, and is available for sale now) Modi came to terms with his strengths and weaknesses, fell in love with the Valkyrie, Skogul, and became a hero. As the new series starts, Odin, the king of the Gods, decides to peek in on the world of men. He travels to China, and soon Modi and his men must follow.

In addition to Oeming and Wheatley, there are contributions from John Staton, Neil Vokes, Guy Davis, Matt Plog, Tim Wallace, Brian Quinn, Scott Morse, Ethan Beavers, David Beck and others.

Read the series online now— or buy Hammer Of The Gods Volume 1: Mortal Enemy from your local comic book store or from Amazon!

The Frick Museum aka Avengers Mansion

The Real Avengers Mansion

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Today I learned that Avengers Mansion, home to stalwarts like Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and do you really need me to rattle off the full roster, is based on a real place in New York– the Henry Clay Frick house, a city-block sized mansion at 1 East 70th St., right opposite Central Park. (The theoretical address for Avengers Mansion is 890 5th Avenue, which is in the same location.) Today the building houses the Frick Collection of art and is open to the public– so it’s quite possible Joss Whedon could shoot there.

This was brought to my attention by Gothamist (yes, I know, it should be covering DC, not Marvel) which had a brief piece showing a number of the secret rooms in the Frick that aren’t shown to the general public. Of course, even Gothamist wasn’t allowed to take photos of the Quinjet hangar.

Frick himself, incidentally, was the Lex Luthor of his day, known for strikebreaking and being at least partly responsible for the Johnstown Flood, and was dubbed one of the Worst C.E.O.s in American History by Portfolio magazine.

Wind is warm in Smallville by riza turker

Wednesday Window Closing Wrap-Up: May 4, 2011

Wind is warm in Smallville by riza turkerClosing them on my browser so you can open them on yours…

Anything else? Consider this an open thread.