Author: Glenn Hauman

‘Twilight Saga: New Moon’ takes opening day gross record from ‘Dark Knight’, midnight record from ‘Harry Potter 6’

  • News
  • November 21, 2009

Apparently, some people like people who dress up as bats less than people who should be turning into bats (if they were real vampires).

Taking the record for the biggest one-day and opening gross, The Twilight Saga: New Moon raked in an estimated $72.7 million on approximately 8,500 screens at 4,024 sites, according to BoxOfficeMojo. The Dark Knight was the previous title holder with $67.2 million on around 9,300 screens at 4,366 sites. New Moon also took the midnight opening record, taking in an estimated $26.27 million at 3,514 sites showing the movie starting at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The previous benchmark was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which conjured $22.2 million at 3,003 sites for its midnight opening.

At $158.4 million, The Dark Knight still holds the record for biggest weekend (Friday-Saturday-Sunday) ever… so far.

Why continuity matters, dammit

  • News
  • November 20, 2009

Doris Egan, former producer on Smallville and current producer on House, sums up why fans care about continuity:

I’ve never forgotten when I was a kid, watching a show called It Takes a Thief. Throughout the series, the hero would say, “I’m a thief, like my father and my grandfather before me.” Then suddenly there was an episode where a woman asked him why he became a thief, and he told a story about having been a geologist and getting into thievery almost accidentally. And this wasn’t presented as a lie. You can tell the difference; even as a kid, I could tell the difference. They expected you to accept this – for this episode. A few episodes later we’d go back to the previous story.

I’ll never forget how betrayed I felt, because I loved that series with a love only a pre-teen can feel. And I thought, “Someone had to have noticed that. If nobody else, the star must have noticed. And yet nobody fixed it. Which means… I care more than they do.” It was disillusioning and depressing.

Which is why I’m a continuity believer.

Certain franchises should have that printed in giant signs over the doors to their offices. The fact that their audience cares more about the story and characters they are making than they do should shame them. They care more for free than you do getting paid for it.

And when the franchise holders take money from you for it, it’s even more deplorable. How many times have you bought a comic book or novel tie-in that said “This is the real backstory! This is what really happened in the missing year between these two events!” only to have it waved away later by management fiat?

We hear people say, “oh, it’s a tie in, it doesn’t count” and I call shenanigins. You sold it with the franchise trademark on it. You have a reasonable expectation that it ties in with the story. It’s particularly annoying in the case of tie-ins, because the folks who follow them often spend a LOT of money on them. And you know what? It actually benefits the franchise holder if it all ties in well. Look at Dark Horse’s sales figures on Buffy The Vampire Slayer before Joss Whedon was closely involved and after, and see the sales spik– er, skyrocket. By not having a strict continuity between properties, the franchises are leaving money on the table.

What say you?

grimjack-iphone-gui-3-0-9898483

ComicMix and IDW on the iPhone and iTouch

  • News
  • November 18, 2009

grimjack-iphone-gui-3-0-6600606

We are proud to announce that our publishing partner IDW has launched new iPhone apps that will allow it to sell digital comics in dedicated storefronts; one for all IDW and ComicMix titles, and others specifically for Transformers, Star Trek, and G.I. Joe comics.  Each app is free, and comes with different free comics.  Consumers can then buy other IDW titles from within the apps.

ComicMix titles currently available are:

  • GrimJack: Old Friends (available for free)
  • GrimJack: Killer Instinct #1-6 (issue #1 available for free)
  • GrimJack: The Manx Cat #1-2
  • Jon Sable Freelance: Bloodtrail #1-6 (issue #1 available for free)

We’ll be adding more in the future, of course. The app also has everything from Astro Boy and Bloom County to The Rocketeer and Tank Girl.

IDW is the first comic publisher to offer in-app purchases (although several third party companies, including Comixology, Panelfly, and iVerse, all offer in-app purchases of the titles they offer).

So please, download the free app and try it out, and post any and all feedback here in comments. We want to know what you think, and how we can keep improving what we’re doing.

‘Global Frequency’ back to TV?

  • News
  • November 18, 2009

Global Frequency, the DC/Wildstorm comic, might be back in play as a TV series.

You may remember that in 2005, Mark Burnett (producer of Survivor) and John Rogers (who would go on to write the comic Blue Beetle and create the show Leverage) created a pilot for the WB. The pilot wasn’t picked up; however, it got leaked to the Interwebs and became the most watched pilot that never got picked up.

Now the industry magazine Production Weekly has just posted the following on Twitter: The CW will again try to adapt Warren Ellis’ comic book “Global Frequency,” this time Scott Nimerfro will script the pilot. Scott Nimerfro has written for Star Trek: Voyager, Tales From The Crypt, Perversions Of Science, The Outer Limits, Stargate: Atlantis, and Pushing Daisies, and was an associate producer on the X-Men movie.

Warren Ellis, creator of Global Frequency, sent out an email with the headline “I couldn’t possibly comment”.

We understand. And we couldn’t possibly embed a video with footage from the original Global Frequency pilot that should never have been released out on the Internet. That would be wrong.

Here’s hoping Michelle Forbes is still available.

Ken Ober: 1957-2009

  • News
  • November 17, 2009

Ken Ober, best known as the host of the MTV game show Remote Control, has died at the age of 52.  No cause of death has been identified as yet.

Ober was the host of the series for five seasons on MTV, airing first in 1987.  The series helped launched the careers of several notables, including Colin Quinn, Kari Wuhrer, Denis Leary and Adam Sandler.  He followed the series as producer of Mind of Mencia for Comedy Central and also as a consulting producer for several episodes of The New Adventures of Old Christine on CBS.  Ober got his start as a stand up comedian on Star Search in 1984 where he was named the Comedian Champion.

If you want to get a bit nostalgic with us, come on along with us back to the late 80’s… and yes, there may even be an odd comic book tie-in for this episode:

‘Least I Could Do’ creators offers webcomic scholarship

  • Uncategorized
  • November 16, 2009

ryan-sohmer-and-lar-desouza-5820993It seems the least Ryan Sohmer and Lar DeSouza could do was offer a full scholarship.

Ryan announced on the Least I Could Do website on Friday that they have created “The Rayne Summers Webcomic Scholarship”, at The Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont:

Beginning in the fall of ’10, we will be covering the full tuition for
the selected applicant. The applicant who, I might add, is working
towards a career in webcomics. Over the course of the next 5 years, we
plan on adding 1 student per year, thus by 2015, the Scholarship will
be putting 5 students through the program per year.

This scholarship will be managed by Blind Ferret, though there will be
heavy involvement from others in our field, in the form of a board of
Directors and a selection committee.

More information will be forthcoming in the next couple of weeks,
including fund raising events, application rules and deadlines and
more. Keep an eye on this space.

Applause, applause, gentlemen. And this actually hints at a bigger question– why hasn’t any other comics company stepped up to fund such a scholarship? There’s the Dave & Paty Cockrum scholarship at the Kubert School that’s funded from the sale of Dave’s personal collection and through the tireless efforts of Paty and Clifford Meth, and Diamond and First Second also had a scholarship at CCS, although it’s not clear if that was just a one time thing.

Why doesn’t DC or Marvel have any? Do they actually have some that are so poorly promoted that I’ve never heard of them? Or would they rather just draft straight from high school into the major leagues?

(Note: of course, DC and Marvel both have internship programs, I went through one from DC. But they do require you to be where the office is, and you have to be there during 9-5 hours, which is hell on a college class schedule.)

Review: I’m disappointed by Mark Waid’s ‘Strange’ #1…

  • Uncategorized
  • November 16, 2009

strange-1-cover-9085293Oh, not by the comic itself. The book reads well, is entertaining, puts our boy Stephen in a different place than he was, and the art by Emma Rios is fun and quirky, calling to Ditko without ever calling to Ditko.

It’s just that Mark didn’t do what clearly needed to be done… the tale should have been titled “[[[Strange Sports Stories]]]”.

Really, guy, you’re slipping.

‘The Looking Glass Wars’ movie adaptation in the works

  • Uncategorized
  • November 16, 2009

hatter-m-3-cover-5486823A movie adaptation of author/producer Frank Beddor’s young adult book trilogy The Looking Glass Wars is in the works.  During an appearance to promote the third book in the series, ArchEnemy, on Good Morning America on Friday, Beddor said he was working with producer Charles Roven (The Dark Knight, Rex Libris) to bring The Looking Glass Wars to the big screen.

The series has already spun off a graphic novel version and the spinoff series Hatter M, written by Beddor and Liz Cavalier with art by Ben Templesmith in volume 1 and Sami Makkonen in volume 2. A lengthy preview of the series can be found at HatterM.com.

Mark Wheatley at Towson University on graphic novels

  • News
  • November 14, 2009

Today’s 18th Annual Baltimore Writers’ Conference will feature Mark Wheatley writer-artist of Lone Justice, Frankenstein Mobster and EZ Street, as well as Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down and The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958 and others.

Now in its 18th year, the one-day
conference at Towson University in Towson, Maryland will bring together aspiring writers from around the mid-Atlantic
to learn about writing from published authors, agents and editors.
Panel sessions will cover a variety of topics including screenplays,
poetry, creative nonfiction, blogging, children’s books, thrillers and
travel writing.

The conference is sponsored by
Towson University’s Graduate Program in Professional Writing, TU’s
College of Liberal Arts, Johns Hopkins Master of Arts in Writing, and
the City Lit Project.

Registration includes all panels, lunch and the closing wine-and-cheese reception. Admission for the general public is $95, and for students (with identification) the price is $50.

For more information, visit the Baltimore Writer’s Conference online, email prwr@towson.edu or contact Geoffrey Becker at (410) 704-5196.

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks