Category: News

The passage of time sometimes seems like a dream when reflecting back, which is appropriate when you realize that it’s been 20 years since Neil Gaiman, along with a host of brilliant artists, first introduced the world to The Sandman and created a series that is considered required reading by many.

10 years ago, Gaiman released The Sandman: The Dream Hunters, as a prose novella and a standalone story that could be read without prior knowledge of the earlier volumes, with illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano. Final Fantasy fans may be familiar with Amano for his design contributions to the popular videogame series.

This Wednesday, DC is marking the 20th anniversary of Sandman with the first of four issues of the comic adaptation of The Dream Hunters by P. Craig Russell, an artist whose career spans over 30 years across various publishers and genres in the comic industry. The first issue of The Sandman: The Dream Hunters comic adaptation will feature a regular cover by Yuko Shimizu with a variant cover by Russell.

P. Craig Russell is also no stranger to collaboration with Neil Gaiman as a contributor to the original Sandman series. His most recent work was the graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline from Harper Collins, which is also due out as an animated feature in theaters next year.

I recently spoke with Russell about The Dream Hunters, Neil Gaiman’s confessions of originality, and the art of adaptation.

ComicMix: For those who may not have read the original prose story, what is The Dream Hunters about?

P. Craig Russell: It’s an original story told in the style of a Japanese fairy tale. It’s the story of a fox who falls in love with a young monk. She falls in love with him and his soul is stolen by a rich onmyōji, who is sort of like a wizard, and the fox then takes her revenge on the onmyōji.

If you haven’t read it, it’s a beautifully written story and I just found out for the first time in Neil’s notes that he just wrote for the first issue of Dream Hunters that the story he told in his afterword to the original book, was that this was based on an old Japanese fairy tale which, in fact, it wasn’t. He made it up entirely. (more…)

Better start your 2009 Christmas letter to Santa now because you’re going to want The Beatles video game.

MTV has managed something unique: getting the rights to turn the fab four into a video game in an age when you cannot download their music catalogue.

Apple Corps, EMI Music, Harrisongs and Sony/ATV Music Publishing have, according to Variety, signed a deal allowing MTV to work with Harmonix on the game.  The announcement occurred Thursday in London. Harmonix, known for Rock Band, has been granted permission to us 45 songs from the Beatles’ playlist from EMI.

Everyone made certain to stress that this game will be apart from Rock Band and no Beatles music will be heard there or even Activision’s Guitar Hero.

"The game is in development," said Apple Corps CEO Jeff Jones. "We don’t want to talk about how it will turn out a year from now. We’re in the process of creating the game."

Yes, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono Lennon have all been made aware of this development and have been apprised as to the design, layout and rollout of the game. This was the culmination of a 17 month process and the contracts were finally signed four weeks back.

Giles Martin, son of legendary Beatles’ producer George, will be overseeing the music for the game and stressed, "We are trying to present the songs as they were played, adhering to the (original) mix."

Does the game announcement mean the influential music from 1962-1969 will finally be made available in mp3 format?

It’s "the biggest puzzle and so illogical that the Beatles music is not available for use on MP3 players," Martin Bandier, chairman-CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, told Variety. "Maybe the fact that this deal is done will offer an impetus to Apple and EMI" to finalize a deal, he added.

The article noted that with this deal in place, Led Zeppelin remains the final major musical act to eschew lending their songs for commercial exploitation.

The King of Cool himself, Samuel L. Jackson, booked two new acting jobs this week. Up first is the widely reported remake of The Last Dragon. Jackson will play Sho’nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, a part originally played by the late Julius Carry.

The Last Dragon, released in 1985, focuses on a young martial artist named Leroy Green. He travels New York City to achieve the Last Dragon, the highest level of martial arts accomplishment. Those who achieve the Last Dragon possess the Glow and become the greatest fighter alive.

In the film, the character of Sho’nuff is a tough-talking egomaniac, a character type that Jackson typically excels at. The Hollywood Reporter describes one of his character interactions:

"[Sho’nuff’s] spiel included asking ego-driven questions like ‘Am I the baddest mofo lowdown around this town?’ Each time his gang of thugs answered, ‘Sho ’nuff!’"

Says Jackson of the role: "I’m a huge fan of the original and look forward to bringing Sho’Nuff into the 21st century."

The film will be produced by John Davis and Kerry Gordy. Gordy is the son of Berry Gordy, the man behind the original The Last Dragon.

Jackson also landed a role in Quentin Tarantino’s latest picture Inglourious Basterds, which is intentionally misspelled. Jackson will provide the voice of the narrator, who isn’t present often in the film, "but mostly pops up at random time in the script to add some context and background info" according to The Playlist. The Web site also says that Maggie Cheung has been cast in the film as Madame Mimieux, a French matron of the Cinematheque, one of the film’s centerpieces. She also takes in a homeless Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), the film’s female lead.

The announcement of David Tennant’s withdrawal from Doctor Who overshadowed his win for Outstanding Drama Performance at the National Television Awards this past week.  He beat out costar Catherine Tate although the series won the Most Popular Drama award.

Tate, who collected the Drama series award alongside Executive Producer Russell T. Davies, said "I know it’s won the award for the last three years, but I was sweating that we wouldn’t the year I joined!"

Meantime, the UK press has been in overdrive handicapping who might be the next Doctor, a game ComicMix indulged in not that long back. Tennant himself joined in the fun saying, "I’ve always been a big supporter of Wee Jimmy Krankie and I, you know, if it wasn’t me it was gonna be him, her, him. So the campaign starts here for me, to get wee Jimmy Krankie in the TARDIS and big Ian Krankie as the companion. I think that works." (more…)

So there you are, shopping on eBay and it seems like a good price for that lot of cool comics. But what are they really worth? Isn’t everything “rare” and “hard to find”? Now  we point you in the right direction to check up to the minute prices online free,  plus:

• Time Tunnel comics again
• Viper’s Villains gets optioned for the big screen
• A great tribute project in stores this week

Ok, let’s practice for when you hit the polls Tuesday. Make your choice and Press the Button!

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via or RSS!

It’s been a good week for J. Michael Straczynski.  First, his Changleing film opened to good notices and box office.  Then he was announced as the writer for the forthcoming remake of Forbidden Planet.  Now, the New York Comic-Con has announced him as its first Guest of Honor. The growing convention will be held at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan the first weekend of February.  Featured guests announced to date include Mark Brooks, Bob Budiansky, Cliff Chiang, Tommy Lee Edwards, Larry Hama, Kris Justice, ComicMix’s Frank McLaughlin, Robert Place Napton, Ivan Reis, Alex Robinson, Christian Slade, Herb Trimpe, Ron Wilson, and Leinil Yu.
 

In keeping up with the comings and goings of DC’s comic book franchises that have plans to segue to the silver screen, here we have put together Warner Bros. more recent plans on making that adaptation for some of our favorite heroes, as well as some other characters and how close we are to seeing them in theaters.

Wonder Woman

In January 2001, producer Joel Silver approached Todd Alcott to write a Wonder Woman screenplay, with Silver Pictures backing the project. Early gossip linked actresses such as Mariah Carey, Sandra Bullock, Rachel Bilson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones to the role of Wonder Woman. Leonard Goldberg, speaking in a May 2001 interview, named Bullock as a strong candidate for the project. Bullock claimed that she was approached for the role, while Lucy Lawless and professional wrestler Chyna both expressed interest. Lawless indicated that she would be more interested if Wonder Woman was portrayed as a "flawed hero." The screenplay then went through various drafts written by Alcott, Jon Cohen, Becky Johnston, and Philip Levens. By August 2003, Levens was replaced by screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (Birds of Prey).

In March 2005, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures announced that Joss Whedon would write and direct the film adaptation of Wonder Woman. Since Whedon was directing Serenity at the time, and required time to research Wonder Woman’s background, he did not begin the screenplay until late 2005. According to Joel Silver, the script would cover Wonder Woman’s origin and include Steve Trevor: "Trevor crashes on the island and they go back to Man’s World." Silver wanted to film Wonder Woman in Australia once the script was completed. While Whedon stated in May 2005 that he would not cast Wonder Woman until he finished the script, Charisma Carpenter (Angel) and Morena Baccarin (Firefly) expressed interest in the role.

Despite telling people, "It was in an outline, and not in a draft, and they [studio executives] didn’t like it. So I never got to write a draft where I got to work out exactly what I wanted to do." Whedon is known to have actually finished a screenplay that was not met favorably by Warner Bros. or DC.

In February 2007, Whedon departed from the project, citing script differences with the studio. Whedon reiterated: "I never had an actress picked out, or even a consistent front-runner. I didn’t have time to waste on casting when I was so busy air-balling on the script." Whedon stated that with the Wonder Woman project left behind, he would focus on making his film Goners.

A day before Whedon’s departure from Wonder Woman, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures purchased a script written by Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland. Set during World War II, the script impressed executives at Silver Pictures. However, Silver has made clear that he purchased the script because he didn’t want it floating around in the industry; although it has good ideas, he doesn’t wish for the Wonder Woman film to be a period piece. By April 2008, Silver hired Jennison and Strickland to write a new (modern day) script that would not depict Wonder Woman’s origin, but explore Paradise Island’s history.

According to an August 2008 article in The Wall Street Journal, featuring Warner Bros. president Jeff Robinov speaking about their DC property films, a Wonder Woman film is among other super-hero films currently in "active development."
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