Author: Van Jensen

SDCC: The ‘Watchmen’ Panel

  • News
  • July 26, 2008

watchmenewcover-9648004Friday’s big event at Comic-Con was probably the Watchmen panel, which featured director Zack Snyder, Dave Gibbons and the main cast.

Snyder showed off a new, less-PG trailer, described at CBR:

The trailer opens with a shot of Rorschach, then cuts to a giant Dr Manhattan blasting apart Vietnamese soldiers. We then see Rorshach searching an apartment. His morphing mask gets a lot of play. We also see the Comedian’s armor, a plain-clothes Night Owl collapsing in sorrow. And a flashback of the heroes in better days.Ozymandias’s fortress rises from the desert, Night Owl and Silk Spectre kiss in front of a mushroom cloud, Time pieces feature heavily, we see the Owl Jet in flight, and the clip ends with the Comedian falling from a window, the bloodied Smiley falling after him.

During the Q&A, a familiar cowl-covered face showed up to ask Snyder’s favorite character from Watchmen:

“That’s a good question, Batman,” he [Snyder] said. “That’s not really a fair question, though”I like them all for different reasons.” Fans booed. “Everybody likes Rorshach best, so that rules him out.” Next up was Comedian, which he also skipped over. “The girls… awesome, but also a cop out,” he continued. “Maybe I’ll just stay with the girls; I like the girls best. Thank you, Batman.”

SDCC: Rockne S. O’Bannon Writing ‘Farscape’ Series

  • News
  • July 26, 2008

Back in June at Heroes Con, the joke was made that John Byrne would be working with Mark Waid and Boom! Studios on the upcoming Farscape comics series, which quickly was turned into a bona fide Internet rumor (whoops).

There’s now a no-joke announcement on the Farscape writer, and — surprise, surprise — it’s Rockne S. O’Bannon, who created the TV show. Much like Joss Whedon continuing on Buffy the Vampire Slayer after it’s TV run ended, O’Bannon will pick up where the show left off.

From a release:

"This is a dream opportunity for me – to get to continue the Farscape saga," O’Bannon said. "The comic book series starts off directly where the PEACEKEEPER WARS mini-series left us. It’s like we’re finally getting to experience Season Five of Farscape. Not only that, but the stories in the ongoing comic series will completely tie into the upcoming Farscape webisodes. Farscape lives!"

"I can’t tell you how incredibly excited I am that Rockne will be part of the comic-book team. I’m a fan, and he’s one of the best writers around," said BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid. "I’m doubly pleased that both Rockne and The Jim Henson Company folks have responded to the idea of making this series a direct continuation of the FARSCAPE TV series rather than an out-of-continuity tie-in. For fans of FARSCAPE, and with the show’s creator involved, the comic series will fill that outer-space-sized void the show once occupied. In short, it’s going to be frelling awesome!"

For a YouTube video interview with O’Bannon, check the jump. (more…)

SDCC: ‘The Brave and the Bold’ Trailer

Warner Bros. wasn’t all about Watchmen at San Diego on Friday. They also showed off the trailer to the upcoming The Brave and the Bold animated series.

It’s a pretty funky cartoon, from appearances, with a score that harks back to the Adam West days. Watch it below.

Image Founders ‘United’ for Comic Series

  • Uncategorized
  • July 26, 2008

It’s been a big week for Image, which started early on Comic-Con with the revelation that Robert Kirkman is joining the publisher as a partner.

Friday brought word that all the Image founders (minus Jim Lee) will be joining together on a six-issue miniseries called Image United. They’ll be providing art, while the story comes from Kirkman.

The artists are: Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, Todd MacFarlane, Whilce Portacio, Jim Valentino and Marc Silvestri.

Comic Book Resources caught up with Kirkman, who explained a bit about the project (which scores an amazing 100 on the Probable-Delayometer):

It’ll be a six-issue series. It’s not going to focus on individual characters in the issues. It’s going to be an all-encompassing, grand, epic crossover featuring all the characters together – intermingling and working together and fighting together. It’s going to have the unprecedented art team of all the Image founders minus Jim Lee, and it’s going to have every creator drawing their own characters, so it’s going to be a hodge podge of different art on every page where all of the Savage Dragon figures are going to be drawn by Erik Larsen and all of the Youngblood characters are going to be drawn by Rob Liefeld. Every time Spawn appears, he’ll be drawn by Todd McFarlane and so on and so on. It’s going to be a unique reading experience, and we’re very excited about that.

SDCC: Fox’s Special ‘Wolverine’ Surprise

  • News
  • July 25, 2008

jackman-3662401Fans already had seen quite a lot at Twentieth Century Fox’s Comic-Con panel — getting early peeks and cast Q&As from The Day the Earth Stood Still and Max Payne — when they got quite a surprise from a man with wicked sideburns.

Fresh off a plane from Australia, Hugh Jackman snuck in to announce that shooting had just wrapped on X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and to unveil a clip from the movie. Newsarama has the details, including the big reveal that Gambit will show up in the film.

“I’ve been waiting to bring Wolverine to Comic-Con for years,” Jackman said. “I owe you guys my career.” He pointed out that the three X-Men movies never did huge presentations at SDCC for one reason or another and said there was no way he would miss it this time around.

Jackman then earned huge points with the gathering by not only lavishing praise on Wolverine co-creator Len Wein, and then ran offstage to shake Wein’s hand, who was sitting up front. Is it any wonder fanboys love this guy?

Jackman told Wein “thank you for creating this character. It made my career,” he said.

The Aussie actor talked about the film being action-packed and bad ass, and said to expect ‘lots of berserker rage in this one.’
 

SDCC: Stephen King and Marvel Make Video Comics

  • News
  • July 25, 2008

Hot on the heels of announcements of the pseudo-animated versions of DC’s Watchmen and Image’s Invincible, the Wall Street Journal breaks early word that Marvel will join that game with an adaptation of an unpublished Stephen King short story.

Marvel’s announcement probably will come today. The story, N, will be available in 25 installments starting next week, available for download on iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere.

It’s sort of a tie-in promotion for King’s new book of stories, including N, from publisher Scribner. And no one’s sure what to expect:

For Scribner, the venture is a shot in the dark. There’s no way of forecasting how well the videos will translate into book sales. While Scribner’s corporate sibling, CBS Mobile, cites Nielsen data showing that roughly 14 million cellphone users in the U.S. pay for video services, it doesn’t know how many of those people are regular book buyers. However, the links from the videos to the NisHere.com pre-ordering Web site will allow Scribner to get a sense of how many sales result from video viewings.

Mr. King is optimistic about the video’s prospects. "I think they’re readers," he says of likely video viewers. But he admits that the venture is "something of a test" whose outcome isn’t certain.

 

SDCC: Radical Making Movie News

  • News
  • July 25, 2008

Comics and movies meet at Comic-Con, and this year Radical appears to be the most forward gal at the dance, so to speak.

The relatively new publishing company announced recently that a film version of its Old West action series Caliber is headed to screens with John Woo attached to direct. In balmy San Diego, they’ve announced another three series getting development deals.

The company has also made deals for Hercules: The Thracian Wars and the mecha book Freedom Formula. Blog@ notes:

Radical Publishing is introducing the five-issue series this week at Comic-Con, and will release the first issue in August. …

The comic, created by Edmund Shern, is set in a future in which racing exo-suits have replaced fighter jets. The story centers on Zee, a genetically engineered racer who transforms himself into the hero of a dying city.

SDCC: Kevin Spacey Partners With Devil’s Due

  • News
  • July 25, 2008

Shortly before Comic-Con started, word spread that Devil’s Due was bringing a major celebrity mystery guest, who was then shortly revealed to be Kevin Spacey.

Kevin Spacey? The actor? Yep, that guy.

At Comic-Con on Thursday the sort of odd pairing was explained, which ComicMix‘s Chris Ullrich reports:

Devil’s Due partners with triggerstreet.com to find new comics talent and hopefully get them to the big screen

Kevin Spacey (co-founder of triggerstreet.com) said when asked why they were doing this, "Because comics are taking over Hollywood"

Triggerstreet started as a site to allow aspiring filmmakers to upload content for peer review. Now you can upload comics for the same purpose (and to be discovered, I suppose). Here are their uploading guidelines, which were just posted:

* The page size should be 6.875" wide x 10.438" high.
* The page count should be a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 10.
* You may also (optionally) upload an icon / avatar
associated with your Comic. The image should be 85 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall and in GIF or JPG format.
* Your Comic should be uploaded as a .pdf file.

SDCC: The Marvel Panel

  • Uncategorized
  • July 25, 2008

warmachine004-9764518No huge news yet from Marvel in San Diego, but they did reveal a few upcoming projects at Thursday’s creator-dominated panel, according to various reports.

CBR’s Andy Khouri was there, and listed off the major news:

[Kevin] Grevioux and [Mat] Broome will be coming out with a new title called "Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel." It’s about a black superhero in the late ’50s and early ’60s, who is the most popular hero in the country — but he wears a mask to hide his skin color. When he is revealed to the public as a black man, President Kennedy calls the Blue Marvel to the Oval Office and implores the hero to stand down so as to not disrupt the ongoing Civil Rights movement. Blue Marvel agrees and forty years later his greatest villain returns, and Blue Marvel is the only one who can stop him. The miniseries begins in November and runs six issues.

Grek Pak will write "War Machine," a new ongoing series illustrated by Leonardo Manco. The title will replace the outgoing "Iron Man: Agent of SHIELD." "You will soon see the humanity of Jim Rhodes and War Machine. The book will be HARD. CORE. Around the world, tyrants and madmen are committing the worst atrocities imaginable. Jim Rhodes is going to take on the responsibility of taking them on upon his giant rocket-equipped shoulders." The book begins in December.

Garth Ennis return to the Punisher with the weekly "Punisher- War Zone" miniseries. It’s six issues and begins in December. It takes place in Ennis & Dillon’s Marvel Knights run on "Punisher."

David Mack will adapt Philip K. Dick’s "Electric Ant" for Marvel, with Paul Pope providing cover artwork.

Newsarama offered pretty similar coverage of the panel (and coverage of the X-Men panel), and had this note about a possible big cosmic event:

A fan complimented the cosmic books – Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy – and asked if they’re going to intermingle with the rest of the Marvel Universe. McCann said there were "really big plans" for Marvel’s outer space characters (and not just the ones in the aforementioned two titles), and said more will be revealed at the Secret Invasion panel Saturday.

SDCC: What if Grant Morrison Met Stan Lee?

  • News
  • July 25, 2008

stanlee-1939755Here’s a bizarre bit of "Only in San Diego." Grant Morrison and Stan Lee agreed to partner on a new superhero… Let that soak in.

We’ll see if anything comes of the planned partnership, which came about during a panel featuring the two creators at which they discussed their work with Virgin comics. They also talked up some existing work, including Morrison’s MBX animated shorts. CBR reports:

After a short delay, the panel kicked off with a quick video — an electronic press kit prepared by Virgin — giving a glimpse of Grant Morrison’s "MBX." "MBX," a series of animated shorts, will launch online later this year, and the video showed some behind-the-scenes footage of the motion capture technology and even a glimpse of the characters in action. The characters, based on Hindu mythology but re-imagined by Morrison for the 21st century, fought robots on what looked like a post-apocalyptic landscape. With their energy bows and laser whips, the fierce combatants held off the mechanized swarm. …

Stan Lee, when asked what drew him back to writing comics, said it was "the idea of coming to Virgin and working with new artists on new projects. It’s like the early days at Marvel to dream up something brand new. It’s exciting and I can’t wait to get started."

Then Lee added, "of course — to compete with someone like this," referring to Morrison, "I wouldn’t have been so eager if I had known."

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