Category: News

Zack Snyder on the ‘Watchmen’ Director’s Cut

  • News
  • July 30, 2008

watchmenewcover-9620664Director Zack Snyder has said he’s trying to stay faithful to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen graphic novel, but that has left Snyder with a whole lot of material and a whole lot of cutting ahead of him.

Slash Film does a good job of sorting through Snyder’s comments about his film adaptation, leading to some speculation on what could be in store for future director’s cut releases.

It was already announced that there would be an animated Black Freighter movie being released around the time when Watchmen hits cinemas, but apparently the extent of its involvement in the Watchmen mythology won’t end there. Snyder made mention that they’ve also filmed the transitions featured in the graphic novel that take the main storyline into the Freighter comic. So even though those wouldn’t be a part of the theatrical cut, they would show up the “super duper director’s cut,” as would the other creations they’ve been working on.

Being that the film is already running at about 3 hours, and Warner Bros. wants to cut it down to 2 and a half, this makes me wonder if they’ll actually be releasing two different director’s cuts: one with the original cut of the film, and one with the extended new cut. If that were the case, that would mean the extended version would probably be running at about 5 hours or more. As much as I love all things Watchmen related, that does not sound ideal. I would love to see Snyder’s full 3 hour cut, but adding in more content beyond that seems excessive. I understand the desire to incorporate the outside footage, but I don’t want to see the flow of the storyline get repeatedly chopped up by hopping between that and stuff that’s only thematically related. I assume it’s issues like these that made creator Alan Moore claim the graphic novel was unfilmable. Some of the things he did with the comic are things you just cannot translate straight to a movie. Which isn’t to say I’m not excited to see the extra footage; I just think the segments will operate more smoothly as its own entity.

Much more at the link, including quotes from Snyder.

Most Embarrassing Moments of Autobiographical Comics

  • News
  • July 30, 2008

persepolis_cover_big-2595052The Onion A.V. Club offers yet another entertaining and creative look at pop culture, this time ranking the "most unflattering moments" to appear in autobiographical comics.

They come up with a list of 30 instances of awful humanity, though I’m sure the list could’ve been much longer. For instance, not a single mention of Jeremy Tinder is an Asshole, which seems like a goldmine for this type of enterprise.

Here’s a sample from Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis:

When a boyfriend cheats on her, she falls apart; eventually, she makes a sullen escape back to her family in Iran, where she mostly finds them comforting, but she itches under the loss of liberty. Caught away from home in makeup and with a male friend, she distracts her potential persecutors by inventing a charge against a stranger, and self-righteously abusing him as he’s carted away to who knows what unpleasant fate. But the worst part comes when she later brags and laughs about her cleverness to her grandmother, who righteously, furiously reminds her of her family history and her responsibility to others.

The Comic Book Wedding Program

  • News
  • July 30, 2008

scan0001-1-7536806Artist Dusty Higgins recently sent over what is pretty much the coolest thing since the wheel made of sliced bread: a wedding program drawn as a comic book.

Did I mention the bride and groom fight ninjas?

In addition to being an editorial cartoonist and illustrator, Dusty draws some comics. So, naturally, when his wedding was coming up this summer he asked his bride-to-be if he could draw their wedding program.

She agreed, surprisingly enough.

What you see at right is the result, the cover image as Dusty and his now-wife fend off attackers on their way up the aisle.

From what I’ve heard, the wedding went off without a hitch, or a ninja attack.

A larger image and inside pages after the jump.

(more…)

How Matthew Goode Got the ‘Watchmen’ Gig

  • News
  • July 30, 2008

You may have heard of actor Matthew Goode. He was in Matchpoint and The Lookout and has a big new movie coming up called Brideshead Revisited.

Oh, and he plays Adrian Veidt in that little Watchmen flick.

In an interview in the Orlando Sentinel about his role in Brideshead, Goode also shared some interesting background on how he got the Watchmen role:

His nerviest turn to date, in The Lookout, is what he says got him the role that will almost certainly make him world-famous. He is Adrian Veidt, "Ozymandias" in the new film of the acclaimed graphic novel, Watchmen, one of the most anticipated movies of 2009.

"I’m auditioning on my hotel room toilet, in front of a sheet [a video audition], reading two scenes, one of which has me remembering that I’ve killed 15 million people," he says, laughing. Brideshead wouldn’t have prepared him for that. "I got that part because of The Lookout.

"I hadn’t read the [graphic] novel, but I did, and went, ‘Oh my God! This is ridiculous. So complicated. But [W atchmen] is everything you want to play as an actor, all those gray areas, and in a movie millions and millions of people are dying to see."

Foster Children, by Elayne Riggs

  • News
  • July 30, 2008

It’s finally official. On Saturday in San Diego, IDW announced a new project based on Peter David’s Sir Apropos of Nothing series of novels, to be written by Peter with art by Robin Riggs. “Art” as in pencils, inks and colors — or, as those wacky Brits say, “colours.” Don’t ask me why, they have enough trouble pronouncing words correctly without trying to spell them right as well. Anyway, Robin and I are both pretty excited about this miniseries, and not only because the offer came at the same time as my current job offer so it means we both get to celebrate employment at the same time.

First of all, it’s Peter, whom we’ve both known for a long while and who’s an absolute delight even though he’s never introduced us to his equally-famous friends like Harlan Ellison and Billy Mumy. Secondly, I love the character of Apropos… well, not exactly “love,” he’s kind of a despicable rogue, but I love his adventures, and I love the conceit of a character who’s supposed to be secondary and an afterthought suddenly being the protagonist of his own stories. It’s kind of like if women were lead characters in their own right instead of love interests and fridge fodder! What a concept!

Anyway, the other reason I’m loving the idea of Robin doing a Sir Apropos comic book series is, even though it’s going to be parodying bits of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, art-wise Robin wants to bring to it a sort of Hal Foster Prince Valiant vibe. I think the first story Rob and I ever did together, a 2-pager called Sailor’s Wife, had this sort of feel to it, and the whole medieval atmosphere worked really well with his penciling style.

So Rob has been immersed in Foster these past few weeks, going over all his Prince Valiant collections, studying them for inspiration and visual ideas. He even taped together a number of 11 x 17 sheets to make a page (see photo) the size at which Hal Foster originally worked. It’s easy to see how much more illustrative you can get when you’re working 30 x 40. But it takes a true master to know how to draw so that no detail is entirely lost in the reproduction. (more…)

ComicMix Radio: Kumar And The Guide To DC Hell

 We’re back from Comic Con and ready to hit the comic shop in search of so much we saw previewed on the floor in San Diego, plus:

  • Kal (Kumar) Penn shows us how he landed on Fox’s House
  • Keith Giffen prepares us for this week’s visit to the DC Version Of Hell
  • ComicMix‘s Denny O’Neil warms up the BatCave for Gaiman

Get a pen, your shopping list and then Press the Button!
 

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via badgeitunes61x15dark-8659514 or RSS!

 

 

SDCC: Leaked Comic-Con Movie Trailer Round-Up

  • News
  • July 29, 2008

As many know, Comic Con International has become more about showing off secret footage of upcoming TV and Film projects than about actual comic books, and for those unable to attend this year, or the attendees who weren’t fortunate enough (or patient enough) to make it into the major halls for the presentations, we’ve put together a small round-up of the leaked footage from this year’s show.

      NOTE: This footage was not taken by anyone on the ComicMix staff, and we are only linking to previously published video files, so don’t sue us.
wolverine poster
Starting it off is the biggest of the projects: the trailer (in two parts) for X-Men Origins: Wolverine:

  2. Saw V Teaser Trailer
  3. Friday the 13th Trailer
  4. Lost

  5. Spread the word!

Comic-Con Photo Gallery: Creators, Sights and Swag

  • News
  • July 29, 2008

As the Comic-Con chaos winds down and everyone deals with the last of the canceled flights and catch-up time, I figured it was a good time to dump the rest of the photos off my camera and provide a final hodge-podge of sights from the show floor (and beyond). Here, then, in no particular order, is the contents of my camera.

Oh, and keep an eye on ComicMix later today for my round-up of the show and the general San Diego Comic-Con International experience. It’s a big one!

By the Power of Hefty Marketing Budgets! It’s the Mattel Booth!

(more…)

SDCC Interview: Mike Mignola on the Hellboy Universe

  • News
  • July 29, 2008

hellboy2poster-00-8033153Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy has certainly been a star in the comics scene for some years but the spotlight must be shining a little brighter now that his franchise  includes two hit movies.  We were lucky to get a chance to talk to him briefly at the show this year about the future of his book, the impact of the movies on his own storytelling, and the difficulties of letting go of the art chores on the book.

“If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I don’t know what’s going to happen to the book,” said Mignola about the notion of passing the book off to other creators.  He said he couldn’t imagine letting go of the character the way Todd McFarlane has let other people work on his most popular creation, Spawn.

When asked if, given that, it was hard to stop being the artist on the book, Mignola said it was at first — but he really likes the look of the book these days and he’s fond of the work Duncan Fegredo has done for the book.  “Besides,” said Mignola, “if I was still doing the art it would take forever.”

Readers of Hellboy are undoubtedly aware of the way Mignola uses real-world mythology, so we asked him what we should be brushing up on for his upcoming books.  He said they were going to be doing a take on some British mythology and that the content would be similar to the second film in a few ways.

We also asked if he was concerned that Guillermo del Toro’s film franchise seems to be building to a very different conclusion than his comics are. “The only thing that worries me is that the third movie will come out too soon,” said Mignola. Adding that he had a very firm plan for the comics and that this plan might take 15 years to be realized in the comics.

SDCC Interview: Robert Englund on Horror Films and ‘V’

  • News
  • July 29, 2008

Unless you’ve lived a very sheltered life for the last twenty years or so, you know all about Robert Englund and his most famous character: the knife-fingered Freddy Krueger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame. The films featuring the iconic villan were some of the most successful of all time and spawned several sequels including a cross-over film featuring not only Freddy Krueger, but another well-known and popular character and star of a hugely successful franchise: Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th fame.

More recently, Englund has taken turns both in front of and behind the camera with roles and directing gigs on films such as 2001 Maniacs, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and Zombie Strippers, which also features the acting talents of former adult film actress Jenna Jameson. ComicMix‘s Matt Raub and I caught up with Englund during San Diego Comic-Con and talked with him about, among other things, how hard it was to get to the convention, his latest projects, his involvement in the new V television series. and what he thinks about the future of horror films.

COMICMIX: So have you had a chance to check out the Con?

ROBERT ENGLUND: Not yet. We got messed up with the traffic. So many accidents, closures, people throwing themselves in front of trains, it took us forever to get here.

I think Comic-Con is jinxed. [Laughs]

CMix: So what brings you to the Con this year?

RE: I’m here with the company Anchor Bay which really responds to the kind of horror-comedy kind of stuff that people like Sam Raimi with the Evil Dead films used to do. I don’t know if it’s a response to the number of big-budget horror failures of late or that there’s so much homemade stuff on YouTube now, but fans really seem able to watch something like a Hellboy 2 or a Dark Knight, which I love, but they also have room for movies like the ones I’ve been involved with lately such as Zombie Strippers, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer or Hatchet.

It seems they can tune into a big $200 million blockbuster film one day and then also enjoy a little $2 million film we made mostly for fun. They’re what I like to call "cheap thrills." I think there always has to be room for cheap thrills. I don’t know if its political or if there’s too much CGI or something but maybe that’s what movies like Saw or Hostel are tapping into — people’s need for something more simple and fun. (more…)

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks