Author: Robert Greenberger

Given the success of Pirates of the Caribbean, other pirate films were expected to come roaring onto screens but surprisingly few have gotten out of development.  The first to actually make it to the cameras may be the DreamWorks production of Blackbeard, a biopic of Edward Teach.  Mania is reporting that Bourne Supremacy director Paul Greengrass is likely to sign on to direct.

The screenplay is by David Franzoni (Amistad) which Variety has reported would take a more real world view of buccaneers complete with their treacherous ways.  Pat Croce, who wrote Pirate Soul, about the 1690-1730 era, was on board along with producer Barry Josephson.

According to Mania, the plot goes something like this: “Edward Teach is in the employ of Britain’s royal navy and fought for the queen in the War of Spanish Succession.  During that time he had a protégé who served with him as his first mate.  When Britain withdrew from the war in the early 1700’s, many men of the royal navy were disavowed.  Teach, feeling betrayed and without a country to call his own, turned to piracy.  With many of his disavowed sea fairing comrades, he took a ship and using his honed skills and intimate knowledge of the navy’s shipping routes and pots, began exacting his revenge.

“Becoming an increasing threat, the British navy directed Teach’s old protégé, now a captain, to hunt down Blackbeard and put an end to his tyranny.  For the most part the story will be based on some truth but the protégé subplot is completely made up and, if successful, will be used again.”
 

The fourth and final week of the auction to raise funds to restore Jerry Siegel’s childhood Cleveland home has begun. The auction runs through 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2008.

After two weeks, the $50,000 goal was met and exceeded.  At the conclusion of week three’s auction, organizer Brad Meltzer reported that more than $70,000 has been raised. “In every city I’ve been to, people are throwing in a few bucks, completely unprompted,” Meltzer told Comic Book Resources. “This is the week that will decide the extent of the work we do on the house. So even if you don’t bid on the walk-on part in Heroes, thanks to all who buy a shirt or donate even ten bucks to the cause. It all matters.”

The Glenville Development Corp. has scheduled September 27 as the day they clean the Siegel homestead on Kimberly Avenue. Volunteers are being sought to rake, sweep, plant flower bulbs (in red, blue and yellow of course) and paint and make small repairs to porches and the exterior of some houses.

The top money-earner has been the $14,101 bid for an illustration by Jim Lee to depict Superman and the auction winner. (more…)

What do you do after winding down your comic strip, which you have produced daily since 1979?  You go to Peru to act as an interpreter, of course.

Lynn Johnston, whose For Better or For Worse ended on August 31, told the Peterborough Examiner that she is off to South America.

"I’m on my way to Peru," she told the newspaper. "I’m working with a medical team, as an intermediary between patients and physicians." She got a taste of this by accompanying her dentist husband on a trip to Honduras a decade ago.  Not knowing the language at the time proved difficult for her so she came home and studied Spanish and is now fluent enough to make a valuable contribution.

"This is something I’ve dreamt of and have wanted to do for a very long time."

And she’s doing it alone since her husband of 30 years left her on April 23.  The dissolution of her marriage came at a time she was already planning to wrap up the original material for the strip and plan the rest of her life.

She took the news hard and found herself creating a series of paintings to reflect her evolving mood.  Her children — Aaron, 35, and Kate, 31 — provided tremendous emotional support but it fell to Johnston to assume control of the company that merchandises the strip and its characters.

It was a learning experience for her and she wound up having to downsize the company in the wake of the divorce and the strip’s natural conclusion.

He had also emptied their joint bank accounts, leaving her in a financial hole that came as a rude shock. "I’d been like a little kid, like a five year-old. Tell me how much I can spend this week, Dad," she described. "If I was not astute as a businessperson before, I suddenly had this overwhelming education within a month in which I had to learn how to do everything. It’s empowering actually because you suddenly realize there’s all this stuff you should have been doing all along."

What she does know is art and storytelling and in addition to revising her earliest strips which now run in the newspapers, she is also branching out.  Farley Follows His Nose will be her first children’s book, due out next spring from The Bowen Press.