Category: News

Yep, that’s a lot of Twilight fans. Now of course, the cruel thing to do to Warren Ellis would be to tell them that he’s writing the graphic novel…

Robert Sanchez tweeted: “is in line at hall h. so long. i can see tijuana from here.”

Hat tip: Kristopher Tapley

Good news for big fans like myself of Jeff Smith’s Bone. Comic Book Resources just posted a press release from Scholastic promising four new graphic novels, the first new story in that universe since 2002’s Rose. Don’t take my word for it:

First to be published will be “BONE: Tall Tales,” coming in Summer 2010, written by Jeff Smith and Tom Sniegoski, and illustrated by Jeff Smith, featuring new art and stories with favorite BONE characters. In addition, Scholastic will publish a highly-anticipated expansion of the BONE world—the Quest for the Spark Trilogy. Overseen by Smith, the trilogy will be written by Tom Sniegoski and illustrated by Jeff Smith. “BONE Quest for the Spark: Book One” (Fall 2010), “BONE Quest for the Spark: Book Two” (Spring 2011), and “BONE Quest for the Spark: Book Three” (Summer 2011) represent the first time Smith has continued the adventures set in the valley since the publication of Rose, the prequel to the BONE series.

It seems a little odd that Smith won’t be writing the characters that propelled him to indie stardom, but if you’re anything like me, next summer now can’t come soon enough. Go check out the press release for the full story, including some interesting sales figures and a little more background on Bone newcomer Sniegoski: Press Release via CBR

This is the line outside Hall H to see Twilight previews and cast members– the estimates are about 1200 overnight campers, from what I hear. And like all vampires, they will be up late. Let’s see if they all sparkle first thing in the morning… (Photo hat tip: Vaneta Rogers.)

Here it comes, folks… hope you’re ready. We can already see some of what Marvel is going to be pushing hard this year, particularly with principal photography just finishing… (Hat tip: Ryan Penagos.)

This LJ post from urbaniak sums it all up:

I’ve enjoyed many a Jamba Juice so I was disappointed to learn that their current marketing campaign features a blatant ripoff of David Rees’s detournement classic Get Your War On.
Rees, of course, is appropriating free stock images but the Jamba Juice
campaign is not doing the same thing. They are appropriating what Rees does with those images,
right down to the way he renders his word balloons. I have no idea how
the case would hold up in intellectual property court and Rees says on his website he’s not interested in legal action (only a boycott). But it’s plain as day: Jamba Juice ripped him off.

Through the miracle of modern googling I learned that the marketing agency behind the Jamba Juice “Summer Bliss is Back” campaign is an LA shop called Neighbor. Their unintentionally hilarious website
positions themselves as paragons of crunchy, earthy, green, do-gooder,
one-world decency. According to their manifesto: “You get conscious,
inspired, ethical, engaged, genuine, positive and purpose-driven work
that grows your business and your people all the while making the world
a better place.” Ad man, heal thyself.

The worst part of it is that people are going to think that David Rees endorses this stuff.

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” And with Neil Armstrong’s words, the human race officially became post-terrestrial.

No one can fault Warner Bros. for not giving their best marketing effort to get people to come find out for themselves why the fans and the mass media have been falling over themselves to hail Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen as the greatest graphic novel of all time. Last summer they hooked the geekerati at Comic-Con International and spent the fall and winter making certain the rest of the world knew the film adaptation was coming. When the press reviews began hitting, the mixed commentary all talked about the difficulty of translating the dense, layered narrative into a film regardless of length. Some found it faithful and well-done while others couldn’t follow the story and thought it was too somber for its own good.

While the diehards attended more than once to sop up every nuance, the rest of America seemed not to care anywhere near as much. For those of us familiar with the language of comic books and graphic novels, we easily followed the movie while those less versed found it off-putting despite the brilliant 12-minute opening that set the stage. As a result, the film earned just $107,509,799 domestically and with additional $75,225,483 from international screens, it stands as a commercial disappointment.

As I said in my review last March, the film was not at all a creative disappointment. There are sharp performances, especially Jackie Earl Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and while there are favorite characters missing or diminished, the movie does a solid job condensing the story. Still, it feels constrained and probably would have worked better as either two films or an extended premium cable miniseries (although that would have been prohibitively expensive to mount). Now we have additional footage in [[[Watchmen Director’s Cut]]] being released tomorrow by Warner Home Video. It’s available in standard and Blu-ray editions, each packed with extras. Here’s a sample:

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