Printing mistakes and distribution snafus have plagued us all comic-wise the past few weeks. We help you catch up on what you should and will be seeing in the comic stores, plus:
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Bluewater Productions has added William Shatner to their growing line of celebrity endorsed comic books. Following in the footsteps of Ray Harryhausen, Vincent Price and Roger Corman, Shatner will have comics based on his novels including Man O’ War and Quest for Tomorrow. These will be published as miniseries, continuing the stories with talent yet to be announced.
His TekWar, written with Ron Goulart and an unnamed fourth title round out the commitment between the actor and the publisher. TekWar will also be a continuation. All four are scheduled to come out in the first quarter of 2009, available in comic shops as the hoopla surrounding the reboot of Star Trek edges towards its May 8 release.
The TekWar universe was adapted previously by Marvel Comics in the early 1990s and ran for 24 issues, written solely by Goulart. Darren G. Davis, president of Bluewater, has promised the ongoing series will be more faithful to the source material which ran in nine novels. It was also adapted as four telefilms and a one-season syndicated series starring Greg Evigan.
Bluewater’s publisher Darren Davis said in a release, “Mr. Shatner is a savvy businessman and a creative mastermind. We’re honored to be partnering with him and are confident our efforts will create comic books both his fans and ours will embrace.”
“With all of these comics, I have final approval," Shatner told the Los Angeles Times. "This is not a licensing arrangement; this will be me involved very directly throughout the process. They are going to do adaptations of my ideas and also sequels; they will be in the stores in March of 2009. I loved comics as a kid. I used to sit under the sheets with a flashlight and read Superman when I was six in Montreal and now, with the comics as they are today, it’s thrilling, really.”
Of the old Gold Key comic adaptations of Star Trek, Shatner enthused, "Oh, they were great. They always made me look so skinny."
This is how a rumor starts. A star visits a studio and is spotted leaving, carrying something that might be indicative of something new. In this case, someone spotted Eva Longoria visiting the offices of Marvel Studios and was seen walking out with a stack of comics. Suddenly, the spies at Film School Rejects has concluded she had a preliminary meeting to discuss her participation as Janet Van Dyne, a.k.a. the Wasp, in the planned 2011 Avengers film.
Could they be right? Sure. Could she have been paying a social call about any number of things? More than likely.
Is this newsworthy? You decide.
Of course, it does give us an excuse to run a picture of her in a wasp-like outfit.
Previous Action:
Following a car explosion, femme fatale-a-bot Cameron goes haywire and tries to kill her sworn protectorate, John Connor. John spends the next forty some-odd minutes on the run with his mother Sarah while Cameron pursues vigilantly. Eventually, her programming is restored to normal. On the other side of town, the lead singer from Garbage a ruthless CEO named Catherine Weaver gains possession of super-computer The Turk and reveals herself to be a T-1000 variant.
Mission Briefing:
Sarah and company move to a new home. As it so often happens, a naked man from the future shows up with a gunshot wound and warns about something bad in two days at a power plant called Serano Point. The man dies, and Sarah decides it’s time to investigate.
The power plant turns out to be a resistance stronghold in the future. Sarah and Cameron manage to get jobs as temps at the power plant. There, Sarah meets Carl Greenway, the paranoid employee in charge of taking the plant online in 36 hours. He confides to Sarah that he has reason to suspect that there are problems with the reactor, but a pullout would lead to the project being shutdown.
On the day of the supposed "bad thing," Sarah notices Greenway acting rigidly. Derek Reese goes to Greenway’s house and discovers the man hanging from the ceiling, meaning the Greenway with Sarah is a Terminator. He initializes a meltdown, but is ultimately issued a smackdown courtesy of Cameron. In the process, Sarah exposes herself to some radiation, but Cameron clears her of poisoning. Later, Sarah discovers a slew of cryptic bloody messages in the basement written by the naked future guy before he died.
At the plant, an executive announces that this and six other plants will enter a partnership vowing to use advanced technology preventing human error. Later, the executive shape-shifts into T-1000 superchick Catherine Weaver.
Further Damages:
Following John’s decision to trust Cameron despite trying to (wait for it) terminate him, Cameron warns the young leader that he can no longer be trusted. A series of brooding montages follow, resulting in John hooking up with fellow teenage outcast Riley. John invites her to his new house, where she meets Sarah and the gang to much disapproval. Riley spends the night, though all signs indicate that the no-pants dance did not occur. John gives her his cell phone number, but when she calls, she has to start the conversation by saying the current date. For some reason, Riley isn’t weirded out, and she calls him later under this protocol. (more…)
Way back in the late 80s, or maybe early 90s, an inker working on one of DC’s superhero comics rendered a female form rather more like the Lord made female forms than the mores of the time allowed. The editor dealt with the problem by putting a color hold – a purple one, I think – over what some would have deemed offensive nudity. Sex always wins. The lady’s charms shone clearly though the purple haze and a fuss ensued.
I remembered this anecdote when I saw, in the New York Times, an item about a Batman comic describing “a two page action sequence that is filled with foul language…uttered by (a) heroine…
“A black bar covered the blue words, but it was too transparent and allowed the text to be read.” Sex always wins and maybe “foul language” at least doesn’t fight fair.
According to the Times, the print run was destroyed. Having made more than my share of blunders when I sat in an editor’s chair, I know how easily goofs like this can occur and I hope the ensuing fuss doesn’t devolve on the editor, whoever he or she may be. As a certain Secretary of Defense said, stuff happens.
But I’m curious. Did the creative folk always intend the offensive language to be covered? Surely not. Why go to the bother and expense of lettering copy that no one will read? Easier, one imagines, to simply do the black bars in the first place, though as a storytelling strategy, that would be questionable; why pull the reader out of the story while they puzzle over the meaning of the black bars?
Okay, the copy was meant to be seen? Didn’t somebody wonder if such language could cause trouble and…I dunno – ask around?
Maybe someone saw it as a free speech issue. If so, I’d demur.
I think the First Amendment is the crown jewel of the Constitution, and, personally, I can be a potty mouth. Much of my choirboy vocabulary was left on an aircraft carrier and much of whatever was left in the gutters of the East Village, pre-gentrification. But I think the way things are marketed creates expectations, and it’s not playing fair with the customers to thwart those expectations. Anything – and I do mean anything – should be allowed in the public arena, but if one buys a book bylined Henry James, one should not be subjected to a story by Mickey Spillane.
Comics have come a considerable distance in the few years since I left editing. Hell and damn, once verboten seem okay both in comics and on TV, and a few gamier locutions are beginning to pop up. But I don’t believe the medium – comics – has evolved to the point where authentic street lingo is expected.
A final consideration: The question in matters like this is always a simple one. Does it help the narrative? Is the vocabulary the writer is using his way of showing off, or does it serve a larger purpose? Any vocabulary that tells the story is almost certainly the right vocabulary, though I’d expect to get argument on this. In the case of the Batman comic we’ve been discussing, I don’t know, and probably never will.
RECOMMENDED READING: Redemolished, by Alfred Bester
Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and The Shadow– among others – as well as many novels, stories and articles. The Question: Epitaph For A Hero, reprinting the third six issues of his classic series with artists Denys Cowan and Rick Magyar, will be on sale in September, and his novelization of the movie The Dark Knight is on sale right now. He’ll be taking another shot at the ol’ Bat in an upcoming story-arc, too.
Veteran actor and host Trey Farley (Bend it Like Beckham) will host Sci Fi Chanel’s latest reality show, Chase.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Chase will be an hour-long show following contestants playing laser tag against one another for prizes. Each week will pit contestants against one another in landmarks around Los Angeles.
The channel has ordered six episodes and the series will debut November 11 in the 10 p.m. slot.
"I actually like where [the writers have] taken the whole storyline this year for everybody, including Elle," Kristin Bell told Sci Fi Wire about her participation Heroes season three.
Her character, the electrically-charged psycho Elle Bishop, will be seen in some 13 episodes this season. Her connections to the other characters will be explored showing she is more than just the daughter of Robert Bishop (Stephen Tobolowsky), one of the earlier generation of powered people.
"They’re showing more of her human side," Bell told the site. "She’s this vaguely barbaric, unfeeling, antisocial adaptive killer who’s coy. However, she’s had some tough decisions to make [over the years, and the writers are] giving her more depth. There are flashback scenes showing that she’s intricately woven into people’s lives before you met her. She met a lot of [the characters] before she was introduced on the show."
Season three, entitled, Villains, kicks off one week from tonight at 9 p.m. on NBC.
Framelight Prods. Has opened its doors for business and has promised to take edgy and innovative graphic novels and turn them into exciting feature films for Fanboys of all ages. They also happen to be fairly obscure properties.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the company is fronted by producer Jeffrey Erb and entrepreneur Robert Robinson Jr. They have financing to produce up to eight films over the next five years with budgets ranging from $20 to $80 million.
Their first announced projects include the obscure Dr. Deth with Kip and Muffy which ran in the color incarnation of Marvel’s Bizarre Adventures. The short series was written by Larry Hama, better known for his work on Bucky O’Hare and G.I. Joe, and artist Bob Camp. The violent series was noteworthy given the innocent appearing artwork akin to Peanuts belying the horrible events being depicted.
They have also optioned Deadworld, originally published by Caliber Press, later Image Comics, and now available through Desperado. Created by Gary Reed, the zombie series was a forerunner for the genre that continues to this day.
Sins of the Fallen and a version of 1001 Arabian Nights were also optioned from Joe Brusha and Ralph Tedesco’s Zenescope Entertainment. The former posits that the vilest criminals throughout history were fallen angels with an agenda.
"We don’t want to traditionally option a title; we want to partner with the creator on every aspect of the production," Robinson, founder of communications companies Xportical, B2BCast and Supply Marketing, told the trade.
"We weren’t the only producers wanting to make movies based on these creators’ babies, but we were the only ones inviting them in as co-producers," said Erb.
The new studio is constructing offices at Norristown Studios, a 300,000-square-foot studio and soundstage facility being built in Pennsylvania.
Many people complaint that some serialized shows are tough to follow given their serialized nature. Complex ones, such as Alias or Lost, certainly have shed viewers who miss even one episode and get confused when they tune back in. These days, DVD box sets help a lot but not everyone likes to buy or even rent these.
For those people, today is an important one as both G4 and Sci Fi Channel begin rerunning Lost from the pilot episode going forward.
Sci Fi Channel will air the two-hour pilot and the next two episodes tonight beginning tonight at 7 p.m. Every Monday night the channel turns over all four hours of prime time to the series so you can get caught up in time for the new season’s debut on ABC sometime in January. The minisite also provides context and clues.
G4, on the other hand, will be offering one episode per night, beginning tonight at 9 p.m. but will offer them in their patented 2.0 format, with interactive elements plus on screen data such as facts, character profiles and creators’ commentary and polls, games, and chat functionality available online.
DelRey Books made a splash in 1977 when it published the novelization to s mall little film called Star Wars. Ever since, they have been mining the Lucasfilm Universe with great success, regularly landing on the best seller lists and making stars out of their authors.
It’s no surprise then that DelRey and LucasBooks announced a renewed agreement, continuing the publishing line through 2013 with the promise an additional 35 novels and 10 nonfiction titles.
"Our relationship with Lucasfilm is treasured," said Gina Centrello, President and Publisher of the Random House Publishing Group in a press release. "We are extremely proud of our Star Wars publishing program, which is the cornerstone of the Del Rey list."
Howard Roffman, President of Lucas Licensing, said in the same release, "The legacy of Star Wars publishing began with Del Rey. "For more than 30 years they have been a superb partner with an unflinching commitment to keep Star Wars fans informed, entertained and enthralled.
Among the titles launching in 2009 are the first three in a new Star Wars multi-book, multi-author story arc following directly in the footsteps of the Legacy of the Force series. The nine-book, three-author series, Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi, will break new ground by being the first multi-book Star Wars series to be published all in hardcover. The series, which will be published over the space of three years, will launch in April 2009 with Outcast, by Aaron Allston; the other two authors planning and penning the nine novels will be Christie Golden, known for her Star Trek fiction and Troy Denning. Also to come is The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, to be released in 2010 in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of that film, along with a continuation of the hugely successful series of Star Wars Essential Guides.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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