What is it with people mapping Pixar movies onto Christopher Nolan directed efforts? First it was The Dark Knight mapped onto Toy Story back in March, and now we have this:
Any day now, we’re going to get a mash-up of The Prestige and Presto…
Ball and Chain, the comic series written by Scott Lobdell, drawn by Ale Garza, and published by Homage Comics/Wildstorm in 1999, has found its way onto this season’s development slate at the SyFy Channel.
The plot? After months of emotional tumult, Edgar and Mallory call their
relationship quits. As they say their final goodbyes, the ex-lovers are
nearly hit by a meteorite that, it turns out, imbues them with
extraordinary powers, turning her into Chain Lightning and him into Thunderball. Unfortunately, the powers only work when they are
in close proximity to each other. Though the last thing they want to do is stay together, they’ll need to try if they hope to overcome the
newly arrived other-worldly forces that threaten to destroy them and anyone else who gets in the way.
The series is a Universal Cable Productions/Fremantle Media co-production, and Scott Lobdell will be serving as an executive producer. And no, I don’t think this counts as one of those DC properties that the new regime was promising would be developed by Hollywood.
Historical tidbit: there was also a different pilot made back in 2001, starring Dan Cortese, Mindy Crist, Sasha Alexander, Eric Dane, and Kayla Blake. Executive Producer Howard Gordon later went on to do 24.
Just when you thought everybody who wanted to was already publishing comic books, here comes The Tea Party!
The first three issues of Tea Party Comix have hit the Internets, and if you enjoy subtle humor, well, you’ll be disappointed. However, if you’re looking for blatantly racist comics with a dash of anti-Jewish sentiment, this is the place for you.
Three 40-page collections of parodies of classic American comic book covers
have been published – with the original trademarks intact, such as, you know,
Superboy, Batman, and Thor.
Guys, you might wanna take on Obama and the commies, but
if you’re actually going to take on the lawyers at Disney and Warner Bros, then I actually feel sorry for you.
Each issue depicts a vision of President Obama that make minstrel show advertising look like handbills for the Black Panther Party. He’s doing all those things that keeps the paranoid right up at night: death panels, illegal immigrants taking over the nation, even Obama choking the life out of the “poor little neo-con,” Richie Rich.
That last one’s my favorite.
Political satire is hard to define and even harder to produce, and it has to maintain the ambiance of reality to work. Not only is this crap lacking in perspective, it’s also lacking a sense of humor. Normally
I’d give you the links so you can see for yourself, but for this one, forget
it. Go Google.
Some tea baggers have disavowed these books, and at least a few have declared them plants from the left-wing commies.
Now that’s funny.
Well, that went by quickly.
Peter David was the first to stump me, your now-humbled expert. Its been so long since I watched Superman the Movie I missed his question: In what city and state did Miss Teschmacher’s mother live (prompting her to get Superman’s promise to save her?)
I guessed Newark but it was Hackensack. Peter will receive the character hat as his reward.
Mason asked, In the DC/Vertigo Sandman series, which supporting character began life in the Dreaming as Dream’s first raven? I answered Matthew Cable, forgetting that in Sandman #68, it was revealed that Lucien the Librarian was actually the first raven. That serves me right for not rereading the series as the gorgeous Absolute Sandman
volumes were released.
Elie got me with one I should know: The Order of St. Dumas was responsible for a number of scientific
innovations in the last thousand years. However, there was one field of
“science” that they went to a great trouble to disprove and keep the
secret to themselves. Which field of science was this? When he has a chance, he should post the answer, because I even checked online to find this information — which did not make it into my The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. His reward is the free digital download of the just-released Batman: Under the Red Hood.
Thanks for playing, everyone!
Okay, it’s not quite a cartoon, but it’s the spirit of the thing.
For those who think the cartoons in the pages of Playboy or Hustler are racy, or the cartoon cavalcade of Seth MacFarlane pushes the boundaries of taste… sit down, and get something cold to drink. Last week, the world lost John Callahan, taboo cartoonist extraordinaire. Callahan, a quadriplegic since a car accident at 21, turned to cartooning to share his worldview. By clasping a pen between his two hands (akin to a “praying” pose, if you will) John spent his years sharing his darkly funny worldview with the public at large.
Callahan was an original voice in his oddly-drawn world. His cartoons were dark, and funny. For those who are familiar with the webcomic The Parking Lot Is Full, or finds Family Guy’s “Prom Night Dumpster Baby” song to be hilarious… know now that this godfather to that raunch has passed.
While his cartoons were shown in local Portland papers, where John was considered an often seen man-about-town, he was a varied artist at heart. He wrote his own “quasi-memoir”, Will the Real John Callahan Please Stand Up? His songwriting skills led him to record an album in 2006, Purple Winos In the Rain. In addition to this, Callahan’s cartoons became the basis for a pair of animated series, Nickelodeon’s Pelswic, and the Canadian-Australian Quads. Quads retains Callahan’s more darkly twinged humor.
Feel free to take a look at Callahan’s website, which includes both raving good reviews, as well as hate mail, and the subsequent store, where you can purchase some his wickedly funny cartoons. And as a treat, enjoy John’s uke and harmonica twinged tune…Touch Me Someplace I Can Feel.
DC Comics was born in the fall of 1935 and they are celebrating their diamond anniversary in many ways including a digital iTunes experience with movies such as The Dark Knight or animated features such as Superman: Doomsday available for download complete with extras. You can even experience the previous nine seasons of the WB/CW’s Smallville in HD. See for yourself in this cool clip:
The kind folk over at Warner Home Video have offered us three prizes:
DC Character HatTo win one of these, you will have to stump the expert – me.
As writer of DC’s forthcoming new edition of Who’s Who, I will be answering DC Comics-related trivia questions posted in the comments section. The first three to genuinely stump me will be declared the winners. Our definition of trivia is the kind of semi-obscure questions that make you nod in agreement when you see the answer and think: ‘D’oh! I knew that.’ We don’t want obscure, picky questions such as what brand of ketchup was used on page 4, panel 3 of Donut Man #75. That’s not trivia, that’s the sign of having too much time on your hands.
Check out the iTunes offerings and good luck with the challenge.
Back in business from ComicCon, we have a TON to share! First, Tim Matheson takes us behind the scenes at the hit USA Network shows that he is directing including COVERT AFFAIRS, PSYCH, WHITE COLLAR & BURN NOTICE. Then we give you a glimpse of our ComicCon experiences as we share comments from Grace Park, Erica Durance, Chris Helmsworth (THOR), Joel McHale (COMMUNITY), Robert Carlisle (STARGATE UNIVERSE), Ryan Reynolds (GREEN LANTERN) and even some comic book guy named JIM LEE.
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We started hearing about director Zack Snyder working on adapting Kathryn Lasky’s Guardians of Ga’Hoole as his first foray into animation as his work on The Watchmen was concluding. Legend of the Guardians is finally opening on September 24 and Warner Bros. just released the first one-sheet for the feature.
Here are the other vital stats:
Cast: Emily Barclay, Abbie Cornish, Ryan Kwanten, Anthony LaPaglia,
Miriam Margolyes, Helen Mirren, Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess,
Hugo Weaving, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham
Writers: John Orloff and Emil Stern
Producer: Zareh Nalbandian
Executive Producers: Donald De Line, Deborah Snyder, Lionel Wigram, Chris DeFaria, Kathryn Lasky, Bruce Berman
Fantasy Adventure. Acclaimed filmmaker Zack Snyder makes his animation debut with the fantasy family adventure. The film follows Soren, a young owl enthralled by his father’s epic stories of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, a mythic band of winged warriors who had fought a great battle to save all of owlkind from the evil Pure Ones. While Soren dreams of someday joining his heroes, his older brother, Kludd, scoffs at the notion, and yearns to hunt, fly and steal his father’s favor from his younger sibling. But Kludd’s jealousy has terrible consequences—causing both owlets to fall from their treetop home and right into the talons of the Pure Ones. Now it is up to Soren to make a daring escape with the help of other brave young owls. Together they soar across the sea and through the mist to find the Great Tree, home of the legendary Guardians of Ga’Hoole—Soren’s only hope of defeating the Pure Ones and saving the owl kingdoms.
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out who’s made his second fantastic comeback in seven months.
Last Christmas Robert Downey Jr.’s [[[Sherlock Holmes]]] was great fun, featuring a contemporary approach
that actually had a lot more to do with the original stories than the subsequent movies and teevee shows. I’m looking forward to the sequel.
Last week, the BBC debuted its new series of [[[Sherlock]]] teevee movies, created and produced by [[[Doctor Who]]] showrunner Stephen Moffat, who also wrote the pilot. He took the great detective and set him in contemporary times.
Yeah, I know.
As Rocket J. Squirrel famously stated, “But that trick never works.”
There’s nothing new about this: Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock battled Nazi spies during World War II. We watched Moffat’s Sherlock strictly because of my overwhelming enthusiasm for Moffat as a writer, and we weren’t disappointed. It was a non-stop thrill ride with a perfectly obsessed
Holmes deploying cell phones and nicotine patches in his exhibitions of genius.
As Sherlock, actor Benedict Cumberbatch was right on the
money: intense, possessed, and brilliant. He’s a bit like Moffat’s Doctor Who,
Matt Smith, although he’s actually older and less restrained. Evidently, he
turned down an offer to play Doctor Eleven because he didn’t want his face on lunch boxes. Still, it doesn’t take a fanboy to wish for a crossover.
His comrade-in-sleuthing Dr. Watson was admirably portrayed by Martin Freeman, of [[[The Office]]] fame (that’s the original one, not NBC’s Americanized version). His performance reminds me a bit of John Simm’s work on [[[Life On Mars]]]; that’s high praise in my book.
The updating went well. Everybody is acting as though it
is really 2010 and the cast is expanded to reflect current reality. It’s been a
long time since I had so much fun watching a teevee pilot, and I highly
recommend it. It will show up stateside on PBS’s [[[Masterpiece]]] whenever they feel like running it.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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