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#SDCC: The Scribe Awards for Media Tie-in Writers

#SDCC: The Scribe Awards for Media Tie-in Writers

  • News
  • July 25, 2009

The third annual presentation of the International Association of Media-Tie-in Writers (IAMTW) “Scribe” awards just went down at San Diego Comic-Con, honoring the best and the brightest in the world of property tie-ins. Awards are voted on by members of the organization.

“These writers, highly prized by fans, receive few reviews and
little acclaim, and the Scribe Awards are designed as a step toward
properly honoring them,” said Max Allan Collins, president of IAMTW, in a press release.

 I know this is what you’re waiting for, so here’s the list of winners:

Best General Fiction
Original – CSI: Headhunter
by Greg Cox 

Best General Fiction
Adapted – Indiana Jones and
the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Rollins 

Best Speculative Fiction
Original – Star Trek Terok Nor:
Day of the Vipers by James Swallow 

Best Speculative Fiction
Adapted – Hellboy II: The Golden
Army by Robert Greenberger 

Best Young Adult Original – Primeval: Shadow of
the Jaguar by Steven Savile 

Best Young Adult Adapted – Journey to the Center
of the Earth 3D by Tracey West 

The Grandmaster Award – Keith R.A. DeCandido

DeCandido, the recipient of the Grandmaster Award, is the writer of several Star Trek, CSI, and Supernatural books, just to name a few.

“Things like this make all the difference, there are plenty of days when I don’t feel up to my job and my belief in my own words is shaky at best, but now, when I’m down there, I will just have to look at the shelf and see this incredible gift from the guys in the trenches, and I’ll be able to shut up the doubting devils and get back to work,” said Steven Savile in an e-mail to the IAMTW mailing list after finding out about his win.

“This means a lot to me, coming as does from my fellow laborers in the tie-in trenches,” wrote Greg Cox to that same list. “But, boy, now I really wish I could have swung a trip to San Diego somehow…”

Congratulations to all the winners– and to ComicMix contributor Robert Greenberger, happy birthday!

#SDCC: ‘The Prisoner’: Do You Want … Information?

#SDCC: ‘The Prisoner’: Do You Want … Information?

  • News
  • July 25, 2009

Jim Cavalziel (The Passion of the Christ) suffers a whole
new kind of persecution when he stars as Number Six in the six-episode remake
of Patrick McGoohan’s classic 1960s show The Prisoner, which is set to air on
AMC in November.

Today’s SDCC panel on The Prisoner reboot featured Jim
Cavalziel as well as Prisoner co-star Lennie James (Jericho), AMC VP Vlad
Wolynetz, and miniseries writer Bill Gallagher. Alas, Sir Ian McKellan, who
takes on the role of Six’s nemesis, Number Two, was not present.

Gallagher characterized the remake as a “response,” and not
a duplication of McGoohan’s concept. (We don’t have to worry about Cavalziel
being overly influenced by McGoohan’s take on the role of Number Six; according
to a Wired interview, he’s never even seen the show. Maybe that’s worrying in a
whole different way.)

The panel premiered nine minutes of footage from the new
Prisoner, embedded below for your viewing pleasure, and of course, your judging. According
to official AMC tweeter, ThePrisoner_AMC, “The crowd … [went] wild after rover is
revealed in #ThePrisoner panel at Comic-Con.” Presumably, that was out of appreciative
nostalgia, not fear, because the Village’s security device is still a decidedly
unintimidating, giant white balloon. Watching the footage, it’s clear that the
premise has shifted quite a bit, although several scenes and bits of dialogue have
carried over and sound a bit odd voiced in American accents. The setting has
also moved thousands of miles from the cool, green precincts of Wales to a
considerably hotter, more arid enclave in Namibia.

Marvel Comics and AMC have also
collaborated on a Prisoner comic, which is being given away at San Diego.

Download a PDF of the comic from the AMC website.


#SDCC: Marvel’s Cup o’ Joe — Red She-Hulk, Deathlok, and Miracleman

#SDCC: Marvel’s Cup o’ Joe — Red She-Hulk, Deathlok, and Miracleman

  • News
  • July 24, 2009

Judging by the exhausted tweets and blog posts coming out of SDCC, it sounds like everyone there could use a Cup O’ Joe–which is good, because that’s what they’re getting as Joe Quesada, Jim McCann, Dan Buckley, Jeph Loeb, CB Cebulski and Steve Wacker revealed some of the biggest news of the convention. Special guests and announcements galore, all from the Marvel liveblog:

  • Bob Gale is writing some Marvel.com Amazing Spider-Man stories in continuity — once every 2 weeks. You need to be a Marvel Digital Comics subscriber to read them
  • Red She-Hulk will be appearing in Hulk, and is on the cover of #16.
  • After Incredible Hulk #600, there are two Hulks, neither of them Banner, leading into World War Hulks.
  • To kick off that event, John Romita, Jr. is doing a one-shot called World War Hulks Gamma, which kicks off with the death of “a major character.” It comes out in December.
  • “We want to have digital plans, but not INSTEAD of, ” says Joe Quesada about a push towards digital comics.
  • Within the next 6 weeks there will be news about the future of Marvel’s cosmic line of books.
  • Thor is the next character to get a major push into the spotlight with the movie on the way.
  • Dan Buckley said that there would be four or five Ultimate books a month, on average, beginning in January.
  • Ultimatum #5 “should answer 90% of the questions that you may have regarding what we have been doing.” – Loeb
  • Deadpool/Red Hulk with McGuiness on pencils, coming in August. Deadpool will be showing up in Hulk this fall.
  • Joe Quesada revealed that the Dark Reign will last until December, but was otherwise mum.
  • Charlie Huston and David Medina are doing 7 issues of a Marvel Knights Deathlok series.
  • Quesada’s big announcement: Marvel has officially won the rights to Marvelman/Miracleman, and will be starting to publish stories featuring the character next year. It will be the CONTINUING adventures of the character, not a reboot. Mark Buckingham came on stage for the announcement. This is huge news, folks. Watch ComicMix for more.

For the blow-by-blow, and even more news, check out the Marvel liveblog. For more about the Marvelman announcement, don’t touch that dial, we’ll be following the story right here on ComicMix.com.

#SDCC: VIZ Media: Shonen Jump, with Toriko, Bakuman, and… Stan Lee?

#SDCC: VIZ Media: Shonen Jump, with Toriko, Bakuman, and… Stan Lee?

  • News
  • July 24, 2009

The room was packed for Viz Media’s Shonen Jump panel, which
took place at 10:30 am in Room 10. The company announced two new series: Mitsutoshi
Shimabukuro’s Toriko, about a “gourmet hunter” of the same name who apparently
tracks down the most dangerous and tasty beasts, which he sells to exclusive
restaurants; meanwhile, the metafictional Bakuman from Death Note creators Tsugumi Ohba
and Takeshi Obata promises to shed light on that most mysterious of arts,
producing manga. Both began running in the Japanese magazine Shonen Jump Weekly
in 2008 and are still ongoing.

However, the star attractions of the panel were Hiroyuki
Takei (Shaman King) and Stan Lee– yes, THAT Stan Lee, not some Japanese guy with the same name– co-creators of Shonen Jump’s new manga,
Ultimo, which is making its English debut in the July issue. The story concerns
two robot boys, one who champions ultimate good (Ultimo) and one representing
ultimate evil (Vice) battle it out in contemporary Tokyo to determine which
force is supreme.

According to Takei, he’s already “vaguely” decided which
robot will win. He based the character design of the robot boys’ creator,
Dunstan, on Stan Lee himself. Apparently, he was quite nervous about showing
sketches of Dunstan to Lee, but Lee claims that he didn’t even see the
resemblance at first.

Lee noted that he’s really having fun working on a project that’s
such a departure from American comics, while Takei spoke about the challenge of
creating a manga that pleases both Japanese and American audiences. The
difference in approach is perhaps exemplified by the two creators’ answers
about what readers should “take away” from the manga. Takei said that Ultimo was
about “good and evil,” while Lee said that it was “all about selling a lot of
copies.”

#SDCC: Marvel: X-Men

#SDCC: Marvel: X-Men

  • News
  • July 24, 2009

San Diego Comic-Con 2009The streets have erupted in violence and the safe haven that mutants thought they’d found is in turmoil. The Dark Avengers have put Daken in Wolverine’s place, and there’s an all-out war tearing through space and time with a certain red-haired green-eyed girl at the center of it. In other words, it’s another Wednesday in the life of the X-Men.

 X-Men group editor Axel Alonso was joined by panelists include Matt Fraction (Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia), Craig Kyle and Chris Yost (X-Force), Marjorie Liu (Dark Wolverine), Daniel Way (Deadpool), Jason Aaron (Wolverine: Weapon X), and several special guests to share the news about what the future holds for Marvel’s band of merry mutants. Marvel’s got their own liveblog going, and here are the highlights:

  • Daniel Acuna joins X-Men: Legacy as the ongoing artist.
  • Magneto is back in the upcoming Nation X storyline, presumably in Uncanny X-Men.
  • Necrosha is an upcoming crossover between X-Force, New Mutants, and X-Men: Legacy featuring the evil priestess Selene, led into by a one-shot. Starts in October. 16 million mutants promised to return, but it’s not an M-Day fix or reversal. “Suck it, Blackest Night,” quoth UXM scribe Matt Fraction. CBR has more about the crossover here.
  • On a note very near and dear to my heart — the cover to New Mutants #6 features Magik hugging someone who looks very much like the long-dead Doug Ramsey. Of course, he looks like a zombie, but we take what is given.
  • Daken’s sexuality is brought up, only to be met with a resounding “shrug” from the panelists. “When you see him involved with women and men, it isn’t about sexuality, it is about power and manipulation,” said Marjorie Liu.
  • X-Statix mascot Doop will be returning, though no word on how, when, or in what title.

Point your X-browser over here, X-fans, for more X-bloggage.

#SDCC: ‘Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ with… Dr. Horrible?

#SDCC: ‘Batman: The Brave and the Bold’ with… Dr. Horrible?

  • News
  • July 24, 2009

This is the worst part about covering SDCC while not actually being there: you can get a pretty good sense of what a panel was like from a liveblog, but there’s just no replacement for seeing a singing, dancing Dark Knight, especially when Neil Patrick Harris is involved.

Diedrich Bader, the voice of Batman, returned to Comic-Con alongside John DiMaggio (Futurama), the voice of Aquaman, and executive producer Sam Register (Teen Titans), producer James Tucker (Justice League Unlimited), producer and story editor Michael Jelenic (The Batman) and voice director Andrea Romano (everything DC has animated in the last twenty years), to screen the upcoming “Mayhem of the Music Meister” episode‚ featuring the voice of Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) as the Music Meister, and take questions afterwards. ComicVine gets props for managing to stop watching the spectacle long enough to liveblog. Some highlights from the panel:

  • Bat-Mite Masks were distributed to attendees before the panel started.
  • G.I. Robot, Detective Chimp, Vixen, Captain Marvel (plus the Marvel Family), Firestorm, the Metal Men, the Doom Patrol, and Starro are all making appearances in upcoming episodes.
  • “Outrageous!” came about as Aquaman’s catchphrase accidentally–John DiMaggio just channels his inner outrageousness.
  • “Black Manta, Clock King and Gorilla Grodd appear.  There’s Aquaman! 
    Along with Green Arrow and Black Canary.  Why is Black Manta suddenly
    singing?  Now Aquaman is.  They can’t help themselves!  Gorilla Grodd
    singing and dancing?  You HAVE to see this!” – from the liveblog
  • Twitter user @the_real_winson says that when NPH’s character first appears, the crowd couldn’t stop cheering.
  • The episode got a standing ovation!
  • During the Q&A afterwards, the child who asked about the Batmobile at last year’s SDCC asked today what Batman’s favorite gadget was–and got an answer in Batman’s voice. It’s the Batarang, by the way. 
  • Crisis on Infinite Earths, BatB-style? “Only if we get to do it as a musical,” DiMaggio said.

More reactions (and possible spoilers) at ComicVine.

#SDCC: ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ movie coming?

#SDCC: ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ movie coming?

  • News
  • July 24, 2009

A reliable source just told me: “Warner Premiere has a great many DC graphic novels in production or pre-production with WB Animation, including The Killing Joke. Scheduling through 2018– including Superman projects.”

A few notes:

  1. Well, it’s not like DC hasn’t made money on Alan Moore projects before.
  2. One wonders if an animated film would satisfy the Siegel lawsuit requiring a Superman film to be in production by 2011.
  3. Are they actually planning Superman films after 2013, after DC loses the copyright to the character?

Very interesting. We’ll try to find out more ASAP.

#SDCC: Metalocalypse’s Murderous Multimedia Mayhem

#SDCC: Metalocalypse’s Murderous Multimedia Mayhem

  • News
  • July 24, 2009

Those of us who would Do Anything for Dethklok will now have
many more opportunities to share the love. (Why, yes, I do have a cartoon crush
on Nathan Explosion. He can “teach me who rock” anytime.) The creators of the
Adult Swim show Metalocalypse are preparing an assault on several platforms.

If you’ve actually bothered to read the Adult Swim bumps
instead of fast-forwarding past them on your DVR, you already know that in
Season 3, episodes of Metalocalypse will double in length to 30 minutes, and
the second Dethklok album is scheduled for this fall.

On Wednesday, Konami announced that they’ll be putting out the downloadable videogame
Metalocalypse: Dethgame, which will be available for Xbox and PlayStation. The soundtrack
will feature tracks from both the old and the new Dethklok albums. Game creators are promising a
thrilling and an exceptionally gory time as the player takes on the role of a
Klokateer, one of the band’s many masked minions. Here’s hoping that they will
be able to fulfill that promise: a very early version of the game is currently
being showcased at San Diego, and one IGN reviewer is already profoundly
unimpressed. Apparently, gameplay now mainly consists of urinating on, brutally beating, and slicing up Dethklok fans. Hey, that may be enough for some people.

Also on Wednesday, the one-shot The Goon vs. Dethklok hit
comic book store shelves. That was quickly followed by Thursday’s
announcement from Dark Horse that a Metalocalypse comic book series is in the
works. The Dark Horse San Diego Comic-Con panel takes place later today, and no doubt more
details will be released at that time.

Review: The Photographer by Guibert, Lefèvre, & Lemercier

Review: The Photographer by Guibert, Lefèvre, & Lemercier

The Photographer
By Didier Lefèvre, Emmanuel
Guibert, and Frederic Lemercier
First Second, May 2009, $29.95

Lefèvre was a French photojournalist – he died, unexpectedly
and too young, in 2007 – and this book is an unusual combination of drawn
comics and [[[fumetti]], telling the true
story of part of his life. In 1986, Lefèvre took the first of several trips
into Afghanistan with the group Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF, aka Doctors
Without Borders), to report on the work of the MSF during the Soviet
occupation, particularly on one particular mission to set up a field hospital
in Zaragandara in the Yaftal valley up in the mountains of the north.

Nearly twenty years later, after hearing stories of that
trip many times, Lefèvre’s friend Emmanuel
Guibert, a well-known cartoonist and graphic novelist, turned that trip into
comics form, using Lefèvre’s words and photos.
As this book credits itself, it’s “A story lived, photographed, and told by
Didier Lefèvre, written and drawn by Emmanuel Guibert, laid out and colored by
Frederic Lemercier, and translated from the French by Alexis Siegel.” (I think
that means that Lemercier did the panel breakdowns from Guibert’s script – for
those who obsess about comics workflow – but that’s not completely clear.)

So every page of [[[The Photographer]]] is a comics page, with captions, panels, borders
and word balloons. But many of those pictures are not Guibert’s drawings, but Lefèvre’s photos – used as panels (wordless; the
captions and balloons never overlie the photography) or in strips of film to
convey time passing or just the atmosphere of a scene. It’s a style that
quickly fades into the background, but it gives The Photographer the power of a documentary – we see these people’s
real faces, and the real landscape they inhabit, as well as Guibert’s versions
of them.

(more…)

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