Category: News

THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF MISS TILNEY
“Cub Reporter Henrietta Tilney is sent on her first assignment, to interview accused mass murderer Lord Beowulf Harwood. But young Henrietta quickly finds out there is much more to this story and its subject Lord Harwood. Will this plucky young reporter get her story and survive with her life intact?”
A Penny Dreadful in three parts!

Written by David Doub
Art by Sarah Elkins
Colors by Danielle Alexis
Letters by Joamette Gil

Buy Now at Amazon
Buy Now at Barnes & Noble

STRANGE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES
Delve into a world full of crime, horror, and murder. Set in a 1900’s enhanced with the machinations of steampunk. Follow the struggles of a group of renowned people as they fight against a hideous evil that threatens their very existence.

Created by Terry Pavlet / Sam Gafford
Covers: Terry Pavlet
Writer : Sam Gafford
Interiors: Rosaria Battiloro

Buy Now at DriveThru Comics

Art: Scott “Doc” Vaughn (not Lance Star art)

Art: Felipe Echevarria

Airship 27 Productions has announced the artist for Volume 4 their wildly popular pulp anthology series, Lance Star: Sky Ranger. Artist Scott “Doc” Vaughn will join writers Bobby Nash, Sean Taylor, Andrew Salmon, and Jim Beard and cover artist Felipe Echevarria for the continuing adventures of America’s Favorite Air Ace!

Look for Lance Star: Sky Ranger vol. 4 coming from Airship 27 Productions.
For more information on Airship 27 Productions, visit them on-line at www.airship27.com and www.gopulp.info

For more information on Lance Star: Sky Ranger, visit www.lance-star.com
Lance Star: Sky Ranger volumes 1, 2, & 3, and the Lance Star comic book “One Shot!” are still available.

Your first thought at seeing this review is: “Why on earth is ComicMix reviewing this?” First of all, we’re a pop culture site; but more importantly, this is a film filled with marvelous British actors we have enjoyed in countless genre offerings. They deserve to be seen in just about anything they do and when you put them all together, it’s a British version of The Expendables, the geriatric edition. When you have Judi Dench (the current Bond films), Maggie Smith (Harry Potter, et. al.), Bill Nighy (the Pirates of the Caribbean series), and Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins) acting together, you sit down and pay attention.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a charming, well-written, well-acted film that is actually about something. It was directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) and based on Deborah Moggach’s novel These Foolish Things. The cast is fortunate to still be working, but many of their peers – and many of us – are not working as we age, and our future has come into question. The film follows these Brits as they decide to relocate from their homeland to a more affordable retirement community in India. They were suckered into believing the glossy brochure, without stopping to investigate. The reality, of course, is far worse than imagined and now they have to deal with the decisions they have come to make.

The film, now out on DVD from 20^th Century Home Entertainment, plays things with a light touch while the subject matter is fairly heavy and resonates with our aging elders here, too. There’s Dench as a recently widowed woman who finds 21^st Century technology baffling, and Wilkinson, who lived in India as a young man and has desired for a return. Nighy and Penelope Wilton (Shaun of Dead) blew their retirement savings on funding their daughter’s failed start-up so make this move out of desperation. And there’s Smith, playing a racist who only came to India for a quick and cheap hip replacement operation. It’s not all bleak as Ronald Pickup plays a retiree hoping to score with some of his compatriots, his ardor still running hot.

Sharp contrasts are drawn between the characters and their motivations for making such a major move so late in life. How they react to the decrepit hotel, run by the charming, enthusiastic and overwhelmed Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) propels much of the story. Jaipur, where the story takes place, is beautiful and squalid, a composite of modern day India.

The film follows the characters and over time we watch some adjust, some struggle, and many fight. It’s a school of fish out of water, prompting a lot of cultural miscues and comedy, but it overlays a poignancy that this stellar cast projects in a nice, subtle way. They learn things from the local people, and each other, while they also teach Sonny a thing or two, letting him finally take the belated steps towards a mature adulthood.

The film has its predictable moments but you’re smiling through most this and you want a happy ending for all concerned, which you (for the most part) get. It’s immensely satisfying and worth a look.

The transfer to Blu-ray is good, not great, and has fine audio. There are a handful of perfunctory extras that are too short for the subject matter, such as Behind the Story: Lights, Colors and Smiles (2:34) and Casting Legends (3:55). The exotic and picturesque locales get their due in Welcome to the “Real” Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2:55) and Trekking to India: “Life is Never the Same” (2:45).