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It’s a new year, and you know what that means…

  • News
  • January 1, 2009

…now we can start really compiling the best of the year lists. Dammit, you just don’t do that until you have a full year done. It’s like buying gifts for Jewish kids that haven’t been born yet.

We’ll be posting lists in the next few days, and soliciting your opinions for even more lists, but I’ll kick it off with some of my favorite posts from ComicMix in the past year…

What about you? What were your favorite pieces of ours?

 

All-New ‘Black Panther Saga’ For Free on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited

  • News
  • January 1, 2009

Following the events of Secret Invasion, darkness has fallen upon the Marvel Universe, and the great Nation of Wakanda will never be the same again.  When his Majesty, the King of Wakanda, T’Challa, the Black Panther, falls in the line of duty, a new Black Panther must rise—but who is she?

Before Black Panther #1 hits stores this February, learn the character’s history in Black Panther Saga, a free feature available at Marvel’s digital comics website.
 

Review: ‘Watching the Watchmen’

  • Uncategorized
  • January 1, 2009

Watching the Watchmen
Dave Gibbons
Titan Books, $39.95In January 1985, DC Comics sent me to England to begin meeting with the talent working across the pond, reminding them of our needs and working environment.  Dick Giordano and Joe Orlando had been out a few years prior so this was like a booster shot, a tangible sign we loved them and wanted to keep working with them. Titan Books’ Nick Landau helped me organize two group dinners with the rising stars working for [[[2000 AD]]] and [[[Warrior]]] and it was first introduction to them all.

Apart from that, though, was an afternoon session with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  Alan’s work with [[[Swamp Thing]]] had already proven captivating and I was an instant fan.  Dave’s work was newer to me but I immediately liked his style.  Interestingly, Dave’s first issue as penciller of [[[Green Lantern]]] and Alan’s first issue as writer of [[[Saga of the Swamp Thing]]] were both cover dated January 1984, just months before I joined DC in the actual January 1984 so I had a year to know their work before meeting.

Both were brimming with enthusiasm for [[[The Watchmen]]], the project they were just getting started on and I had heard about in the hallways. We spent the afternoon sipping tea at the Tower Hotel as Dave pulled out pages of drawings and sketches while Alan talked through the themes of the series. If Dave’s chronology in [[[Watching the Watchmen]]] is correct, our meeting was weeks before the first script was delivered. By then, though, they already had the tag line “Who Watches the Watchmen?” and the bloody smiley face design.

This was going to be a sophisticated story, the like of which was just beginning to find a place amidst the more traditional good versus evil stories that filled the racks. That translated to cover design and even the gents’ notions of how to market the book.  Dave showed off designs for cocktail napkins and coasters that they’d imagine DC printing up to entice college kids and adults to be made aware there was something new to read.

Sadly, those marketing designs seem to have vanished but most of Dave’s other designs, sketches, notes, annotated scripts and paraphernalia was retained.  The result is this handsomely designed book that enhances your enjoyment of the graphic novel and keeps you enticed until the feature film finally arrives in March.

Gibbons writes honestly about the creative process, nicely explaining how things were done back then compared with today.  His recollections are vivid and explain much of what went into the process of conceiving something entirely new rather than rehashing the Charlton heroes (truth be told: I was the one to commission Dave to draw the characters for the aborted [[[Comics Cavalcade Weekly]]] for that very reason). Some of his personal thoughts about favorite characters, scenes, and moments would have been icing on a rich, delicious cake.

Chip Kidd’s design lets the work breathe and makes certain you can see the detail in the thumbnails or color guides.  He takes Dave’s traditional comic book approach to storytelling and enhances it with size and scope. My only quibble is that he lets thumbnails run in the gutters and spoils some of the clarity.  Also, it’d be nice to have seen more of Alan’s scripts and Dave’s notes to better understand the process.

Overall, the big is a huge visual treat and one of the few in-depth looks into the creative process behind any single title.  It’s really the first Making Of book for a comic book that I can recall and there’s no better series than The Watchmen to get the in-depth examination.

Year-end window closing wrap up, part 1

  • News
  • January 1, 2009

This is my first step towards fulfilling my new-year resolution: to post items of interest in a timely fashion. (There are two assumptions there: that I can post anything in a timely fashion, and that this is interesting, but bear with me.) If I close these windows, my browser will run faster and new posts will go up faster. That’s the theory, if that doesn’t work, I’m getting a new computer and declaring email bankruptcy.

* In the strictest sense, this probably counts as a comic strip. And now the song will be stuck in your head.

* If you’ve recently become unemployed, here’s what you’ve been missing– part Dilbert, part Kafka, part symbolic self-immolation.

* How comics can save us from scientific ignorance.

* Will Elder, remembered by the New York TImes Magazine.

* "I usually dream up a dozen or so profoundly stupid ‘high concepts’ for stories every day." — Brian K. Vaughan, interviewed in Esquire. Explains why J.J. Abrams hired him for Lost, I suppose. (Via io9.)

* Star Wars: A Musical Journey. Run, Luke, run.

* Baby, if you’ve ever wondered… wondered if there ever really was a WKRP in Cincinatti… there is now, but it’s a TV station.

* We hate to burst bubbles, but there’s no way the Lone Ranger melted silver over a campfire to make bullets. (And we mean silver the element, not the horse. That’s just disgusting.) This also means that any medieval werewolf stories are in trouble too…

 

Comiccraft $20.09 font sale

  • Uncategorized
  • January 1, 2009

It’s New Year’s Day, and that means the fine folks at Comicraft are running their annual New Year’s Day sale– where all of their fonts sell for $20.09. So stock up now and get one of the secret tools that will make you a master at comic book production.

Me, I’m still writing $20.08 from last year’s sale.

Platinum Dunes Talks Remakes

  • News
  • January 1, 2009

Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, the head o f Platinum Dunes, spoke with Collider to update information about their many projects.  Platinum Dunes is the genre division of Michael Bay’s  production outfit and are making a big splash in 2009 with the February 13 release of Friday the 13th. While they have scads of other unnecessary remakes in the works, they also yearn to produce original fare. Their next project happens to be an original, David S. Goyer’s The Unborn, which opens in January.

Fuller said Friday tested well in Long Beach. “I would say that for us, the two of us, our greatest test screening…our first test screening for Texas Chainsaw Massacre was kind of a magical thing.  We kind of had no idea what we had and then we’ve been jaded by all the other ones we had and then this Friday the 13th test screening came and it took us right back to where we were with Texas Chainsaw.  It was crazy.”

It was recently confirmed that Warner had given a green light to their planned remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.  Fuller kiddingly suggested, “Well, we want to put Freddy in a hockey mask and we don’t know how people feel about that but we’re excited about it. I think that every iconic horror character you have to take on their own and kind of figure out what is appealing about that character and for Jason Voorhees, it’s one thing because for the most part in all the movies….

“It’s something that we are treading very lightly on and I can tell you for sure that we don’t’ have the answer yet.  That is something that we’re going to work very hard to figure out just how much of the Freddy that you might know from the later movies as opposed to the Freddy from the earlier movies.  I mean it’s a balance and we don’t have that answer yet. “

As to their other remakes, Form said, “We are not doing Rosemary’s Baby.

Fuller explained, “Rosemary’s Baby was announced and it’s like a little bit like we’re taking about with Freddy.  We went down that road and we even talked to the best writers in town and it feels like it might not be do-able.  We couldn’t’ come up with something where it felt like it was relevant and we could add something to it other than what it was so we’re now not going to be doing that film.”

Martin Campbell, though, continues to prep his new version of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic, The Birds.   “We’re expecting a script in the next 2-3 weeks,” Fuller said, :but that’s another one where it’s not like Drew, Michael and I think that we’re just going to crap all over Alfred Hitchcock’s movie.  I mean, Alfred Hitchcock in a company wide opinion is probably the greatest director of what we do and other things too.  And as someone, that at least Michael and I studied in college and there’s a reverence for him.  So that’s not a movie that we’re just going to step up and just go have birds attacking people and trying to throw that into the box office.  If we can’t make that movie unique or add something to it, I don’t think we’re going to make it.”

invisibleman-2-4021424

National Film Registry Recognizes SF, Fantasy

  • Uncategorized
  • January 1, 2009

invisibleman-2-4021424Every year, the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry names 25 films for historic preservation.  This year’s list was announced yesterday and we applaud the inclusion of several genre offerings including The Invisible Man and the first Terminator film.  The Perils of Pauline, the first movie serial, makes the list and is seminal for the way it influenced moviemakers and storytellers, notably comic book writers, ever since.

Here’s a look at this year’s list:

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
John Huston’s brilliant crime drama contains the recipe for a meticulously planned robbery, but the cast of criminal characters features one too many bad apples. Sam Jaffe, as the twisted mastermind, uses cash from corrupt attorney Emmerich (Louis Calhern) to assemble a group of skilled thugs to pull off a jewel heist. All goes as planned — until an alert night watchman and a corrupt cop enter the picture. Marilyn Monroe has a memorable bit part as Emmerich’s "niece."

Deliverance (1972)
Four Atlanta professionals (Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronnie Cox and Jon Voight) head for a weekend canoe trip — and instead meet up with two of the more memorable villains in film history (Billy McKinney and Herbert Coward) in this gripping Appalachian "Heart of Darkness." With dazzling visual flair, director John Boorman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond infuse James Dickey’s novel with scenes of genuine terror and frantic struggles for survival battling river rapids — and in the process create a work rich with fascinating ambiguities about "civilized" values, urban-versus-backwoods culture, nature, and man’s supposed taming of the environment.

(more…)

Funimation Entertainment Grabs ‘Ikki Tousen’ Rights

  • News
  • January 1, 2009

Funimation Entertainment announced this week that it has acquired broadcast, digital, and home entertainment rights to the 13-episode Ikki Tousen anime series, which was produced by J.C. Staff and broadcast in Japan in 2003.  The Ikki Tousen anime was previously released in the domestically by Geneon, but Funimation’s announcement clearly stated it had licensed the series directly from Enoki Films.

Tokyopop is publishing Yuji Shiozaki’s original Ikki Tousen manga series under the English title Battle Vixens.  The 14th and final volume in the series is due for release here on February 10.  Shiozaki’s seinen manga followed the martial arts adventures of a number of well-endowed high school girls who are possessed by the spirits of warriors from the bloody Three Kingdoms period in China (roughly184 AD-280 AD). 

A second anime series, Ikki Tousen: Dragon Destiny, aired in Japan in early 2007.  In 2007 Media Blasters announced that it has acquired the rights to the 12-episode Dragon Destiny, but has not released any DVDs from the series.  A third Ikki Tousen series aired in Japan from June to August last summer according to ICv2.

Funimation also announced the test launch of its new streaming video service (funimation.com/video), which will offer hundreds of high quality, full length episodes, including many full series.  Episodes of Aquarion, Black Blood Brothers, Darker Than Black, Guyver, Gunslinger Girl II, Negima 2, Ouran High School Host Club, Romeo x Juliet, Sigurui: Death Frenzy, and STRAIN: Strategic Armored Infantry are currently available and new episodes will be rolled out each week including examples of series currently airing in Japan.  The videos can be streamed for free or downloaded for a fee.

The new site features a higher-quality video player, both subtitled and English-dubbed episodes, Flash video streaming, same-screen video playback (without a pop-up window), an expandable video player, and a lower lights feature.

Pascal Laugier Talks Horror and ‘Hellraiser’

  • News
  • December 31, 2008

Director Pascal Laugier spoke with Ain’t it Cool News with regard to his planned remake of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. In the thoughtful conversation, the director of Martyr, was dismissive of the remake culture and lamented that his foreign film was already in the Hollywood pipeline for Americanization.

He noted, “I haven’t been challenged by a horror film for a long time, you know? It doesn’t mean that there aren’t good films, I see a lot of good films, but I’m talking more about the very, very low budget you know? And I’m talking more about the direct to DVD community. Because these films are shot more and more on DV for a very very low budget so the guy who does the film is totally free because he deals with such a low amount of money he could do what he wants and nine films out of ten are pale copies of the classics. Another fun, you know – supposedly funny – horror zombie horror trick, another Texas Chainsaw Massacre, another slasher with a masked killer, and nobody believes in it anymore you know? It’s like a ghetto, it’s like belonging to a community that is absolutely unable to surprise itself, you know what I mean?

“So we pay to watch films that we already know in advance what it’s gonna be and we are not challenged anymore and I think the very reason for the horror film genre’s existence is to break some rules — to be free, to be wild, you know like the 70s. In the 70s you paid for a ticket and you sat in a theater and you didn’t have any kind of idea of the film you were going to see. It was really energetic and really experimental. Can you imagine the guys in ’75 who first saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre? In the markets, at midnight? Or The Exorcist? It’s impossible to realize now what these people must have felt before the films turned into classics, you know? So… and that’s the kind of feeling I very rarely feel by watching horror films. And it’s very sad, in a certain way actually, a lot of actual horror films are absolutely as safe as any family film produced by Hollywood. You know? There is no chance, no breakings.”

For the director, remaking Hellraiser for modern audiences was “a child’s dream coming true. I saw the first when I was 13, I remember precisely the shock it had on me because it was so new, so fresh, so it’s very hard to resist the temptation to do Hellraiser, you know? So of course. When you come from my culture it’s like amazing you’re even proposed to do Hellraiser.”

He told apprehensive fans, “let me write the first draft, let me tell you what all the American producers have reacted to the reading of the first draft and I will tell you if I’m in good hands or if I’m gonna leave a hellish experience but in any case, I won’t betray Clive Barker’s work. I want to do a fresh film filled with a lot of unexpected and surprising things. At the same time, I want it to be connected to the real, original material.”
 

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