Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise
Stormtroopers in Seoul with soul K-Pop:
Author: Glenn Hauman
Newsarama has a virus AGAIN?
Promoted from comments here:
I’ve gotten the same virus TWICE from The Rama in the past two days…I go to the site and my OneCare tells me that the software n.exe is trying to access the net and I tell it no and then my firewall, auto-updates, and virus protection fail, won’t re-open and pop-ups start…I had to do a system restore. Done with the site over the computer. Accessed it on my phone and got a message saying there was a problem with it’s security certif. Guess I’m onto a new Comics site! :(
Guys?
Irredeemable #10: Boy, Mark Waid must’ve hated ‘Action Comics’ #442
Warning: We’re discussing Irredeemable #10, out in stores this week, and we’re probably going to spoil a minor plot point. You might want to read it first before you go any further.
Based on part of Irredeemable #10, I can tell that Mark Waid read Action Comics #442 at a very impressionable age– specifically “The Midnight Murder Show” written by Cary Bates, with art by Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger.
And he was struck by the sheer implausibilty of it all. And re-reading it, I can’t blame him.
Let me recap the plot a bit: Late night talk show host Johnny Nevada, host of GBS’s “The Midnight Show” has been kidnapped by the psychotic and trigger-happy “Touch” McCoy and his henchman, Louie, because all criminal henchmen in Superman stories are named Louie.
Nevada is being held for ransom of ten million dollars. (In 1974, that was enough to stun a TV network– in 2004, ABC spent more than that on the pilot of Lost, and today, there are pilots rumored to cost fifty million dollars. My, how times change.)
To catch the kidnapper, Superman hatches a plan to goad the kidnapper into shooting, which he will be able to hear with his super-hearing. So Superman goes on The Midnight Show and goads Touch into shooting his .45
at Carso– er, Nevada, which Superman will hear fire from across the
city, and can get there before the bullet travels the distance to hit
Nevada.
All well and good, except that Superman has forgotten that a .45 caliber bullet travels at 800 feet per second. In a 20 foot room, it will take 1/40th of a second.
In
that time, the sound of the gunshot will only travel 28 feet. It’s not
going to matter if he’s faster than a speeding bullet if he can’t hear
it before it hits the target.
We won’t even get
into the argument of how Superman knew how far away the shot was or the
exact direction to fly off in– suffice it to say that it’s a
completely implausible story.
I mean, really– TV networks caring about the hosts of their late-night talk shows?
Interview: ‘Farscape’ and ‘Scorpius’ writers David Alan Mack and Keith R.A. DeCandido
BOOM! Studios announced today Farscape: Scorpius, an ongoing series starting in April. Written by series creator Rockne S. O’Bannon and David Alan Mack (the Star Trek novelist, not the artist on Kabuki, just to get it out of the way early) it finds everyone’s favorite black leather clad villain deposed from his throne on Hyneria and making a bold new discovery that could put him back on top of the Uncharted Territories.
We took some time to chat with Dave (with Keith R. A. DeCandido, the scripter for the Farscape ongoing series, throwing in little bot mots because as readers of ComicMix know, he just shows up everywhere) and asked him about the new series, and what it’s like to write a story from the antagonist’s point of view.
ComicMix: There are precious few comics that have been
focused on the bad guy in the story… but is Scorpius a bad guy?
David Alan Mack: He
certainly doesn’t see himself that way. From his point of view, he’s probably
the only rational actor in a universe populated by fools and madmen. Of course,
Scorpius is not going to judge his own actions using our brand of moral
compass. He is, in many respects, an amoral individual.
In my opinion, Scorpius is willing to espouse a sense of
duty and offer his loyalty to whomever appears to be on his side, and in the
moment when he makes such a declaration, it’s possible he even means it. But if
he needs to betray his allies to accomplish what he thinks is the most
desirable outcome for himself, he won’t hesitate to put knives in their backs
and twist the blades.
Keith R.A. DeCandido:
Oh, he’s definitely a bad guy—at least by the standards of the people
reading the comic book (and who watched the show). When we first met him at the
end of the first season, he tortured Crais for no good reason, just to be
absolutely sure about something. Scorpius admitted up front that the accusation
Crichton had made simply had to be false, but Scorpius was still willing to
torture a Peacekeeper captain just to be 100% sure.
ComicMix: And yet
he does it in such a mannered and genteel style. Very precise. Play out a little bit of the Scorpius series for us. Where are we starting from?
DAM: We catch up
to Scorpius while he’s in self-imposed exile. He’s been kicked off Hyneria by
the triumphantly returned monarch Dominar Rygel XVI. Left with nowhere to go,
Scorpius is on what one might consider a contemplative retreat.
Then, as Bogart said in Casablanca,
“destiny takes a hand.” Scorpius finds himself in the right place at
the right time, and he makes the most of a new opportunity.
ComicMix: So this
is a decent place for new readers to jump in and get up to speed?
DAM: Absolutely.
The first four-issue arc of Scorpius is
designed to introduce the character to new readers by interspersing flashbacks
from his past, while detailing the new political situation brewing in the Farscape universe, especially in the
Uncharted Territories. (more…)
Now you can talk like a Jagermonster from ‘Girl Genius’!
Hey, hyu!
If hyu are a schmot person, hyu’re probably already readink
Girl Genius by Phil und Kaja Foglio. But hyu might be vonderink, “Hey!
How kan Hy schpeak in de liltink tones uf a Jãgermonster? Iz much betta ten pipple!”
Vell, vonder
no more! Now hyu kan be erudite, vitty, und hendzum too!
Saturday morning cartoons: The Little Mermaid– don’t call her Stacy
Or she will mess you up.
‘Twilight’ graphic novel sets first printing of 350,000
Twilight: The Graphic Novel
will hit stores March 16 with a first printing of 350,000 copies. Yeah, sure, it sounds impressive for comics, and it is, but put it in perspective– over 15 million Twilight books were sold in 2008, with 1.3 million copies of Breaking Dawn selling on the first day of release alone. More interestingly, Deb Aoki notes that the book is already in Amazon’s Top 10 two months before shipping.
Entertainment Weekly‘s Shelf Life blog has a look at the cover and interior art, plus an excerpt from an interview with Twilight
author Stephenie Meyer. (A 10 -page preview plus the full Q&A will
run in the new edition of the magazine, which hits stands on Friday.)
Twilight: The Graphic Novel
is adapted and illustrated by Korean artist Young Kim, with input from
Meyer, whose series of young-adult novels has sold 53 million copies
worldwide. The book is coming out from Yen Press, a division of Hachette, which also produces the Twilight prose books. (more…)
Spider-Man has his Webb: Director named for ‘Spider-Man 4’
Here’s the press release from Sony:
CULVER CITY, Calif., January , 2010 – Marc Webb, the director of the Golden Globe nominated Best Picture (500) Days of Summer,
will direct the next chapter in the Spider-Man franchise, set to hit
theaters summer 2012, it was jointly announced today by
Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios.
Written
by James Vanderbilt, Webb will work closely with producers Avi Arad and
Laura Ziskin in developing the project, which will begin production
later this year.
Commenting on the announcement, Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony
Pictures Entertainment, and Matt Tolmach, president of Columbia
Pictures, said, “At its core, Spider-Man is a small, intimate human
story about an everyday teenager that takes place in an epic
super-human world. The key for us as we sought a new director was to
identify filmmakers who could give sharp focus to Peter Parker’s life.
We wanted someone who could capture the awe of being in Peter’s shoes
so the audience could experience his sense of discovery while giving
real heart to the emotion, anxiety, and recklessness of that age and
coupling all of that with the adrenaline of Spider-Man’s adventure. We
believe Marc Webb is the perfect choice to bring us on that journey.”
‘Torchwood’ coming to the US?
The Hollywood Reporter says that Fox is developing a stateside version of the U.K. hit series Torchwood.The project is from BBC Worldwide Prods., with original series creator Russell T. Davies writing the script and the original producing team is on board. In addition
to Davies, exec producers include Davies’ producing partner Julie
Gardner (former head of drama at BBC Wales for the show’s first season)
and Jane Tranter (another BBC vet, now exec VP programming and
production at BBC Worldwide Prods. in the U.S.).
Also, some of
the current cast — most likely John Barrowman, who plays the immortal
Captain Jack Harkness — might star if Fox orders Torchwood to pilot.
As
for the new show’s plot, the U.S. version will contain a global story
line compared to the more localized sensibility of the first two BBC
seasons.
No word if this ends up being the fourth season of Torchwood that we talked about back during San Diego.
Robert B. Parker: 1932-2010
Robert B. Parker, the man behind the Spenser, Sunny Randall, and Jesse Stone mystery series, as well as the Appaloosa westerns, died this morning at his writing desk at the age of 77. Parker had written over sixty novels and won the Grand Master Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America.
I’d seen a few episodes of the 80’s TV series Spenser For Hire with Robert Urich and Avery Brooks (Spen-sah!) when it first aired, but I was introduced to Parker’s writing by DC Comics. The Spenser novels were a secret passion of a lot of the editors and writers there because of Parker’s elegant and compact style. I picked up on them and devoured them all.
I suspect one of the hidden appeals of the Spenser novels to comics writers wasn’t the mysteries themselves– Parker once said that his mysteries weren’t hard to figure out– but the moral dilemmas and character choices that came out of them. They weren’t so much whodunnits as whatthehelldowedoaboutits.
For many people around the world, the names Spenser, Susan Silverman, Sunny Randall, and Jesse Stone evoke more of Massachusetts than the Kennedy name does– and that’s saying a great deal.
I met Parker a few times, and he was just about what you would have expected from his prose or his appearances in some of the Spenser TV movies– thoughtful and cordial, yet without pretense. I am saddened by his passing, and wonder how I’m going to be able to reliably tell in the future when spring has come without a new RBP novel to mark it. My sympathies to his wife Joan, and his children David and Daniel.
