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‘True Blood’ Concludes First Season Tonight

  • News
  • November 23, 2008

trueblood-2-1903424HBO’s adaptation of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse novels, True Blood, reaches its first season finale tonight.  A second season has already been green-lit and in production for fall 2009.

With vampires all the rage, as witnessed by this weekend’s explosive box office for Twilight and other vamp tales getting optioned, the timing seemed serendipitous for the premium channel, which needed a hit.

The series, starring Anna Paquin, has seen its viewership rise by 66 percent since its debut in September, now averaging 6.8 million viewers.

"After Six Feet Under, where as an artist and a person I got to explore my whole relationship with grief for about five years, I just felt, OK, I don’t really need to spend any more time staring into the abyss," series creator Alan Ball told the Associated Press.

His pitch was readily accepted by HBO and the series quietly went into production. A viral marketing campaign, centering on Tru Blood, the synthetic blood substitute that allows vampires to come out of the closet, so to speak, launched over the summer and got mild buzz.

The series aired to good reviews but smaller than anticipated audiences. Yet, the numbers have been slowly but steadily growing with execs noting that despite airing throughout the week, the peak numbers have skewed towards the Sunday at 9 p.m. debut. This is the first series to generate that sort of attention in the timeslot since Sex and the City and The Sopranos.

Since then, the network has failed to create a show with similar cache.

"You start worrying," Michael Lombardo, HBO’s chief of West Coast operations said. "You see other networks putting on important programs on Sunday nights and you worry, `can you bring them back?’ What has been fantastic is to see the subscribers have been waiting for a Sunday night show they can make appointment viewing again."

Fortunately, the first season largely adapted the first novel with six more in print and another on the way. All feature Sookie, a southern girl who possesses ESP, making her unique in a world with vampires trying to integrate into society. The world also features shape-shifters and humans sipping on vampire blood get a better high than from any pharmaceutical. The core of the series revolves around the romance between Sookie and Bill Compton, a vampire returning to his homestead and played by Stephen Moyer.

Adult Swim Titles to DVD in December

  • Uncategorized
  • November 23, 2008

3d-sku-athf-s6-2-1085712metal-3dskewweb-2-6293875On December 2, Metalocalypse: Season Two will be released by Warner Home Video. Along with featuring all the latest escapades of destruction, murder and mayhem from Dethklok — the world’s most brutal and incompetent heavy metal band — this long-awaited release features a plethora of bonus features that fans will have to find. That’s right. Anything worthwhile demands some work after all! This perfect stocking stuffer arrives after Dethklok’s debut CD — Dethklok: The Dethalbum — became the fastest selling death metal album of all time, debuting at #21 on the Billboard Top 100 list.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume 6 follows on December 16. For the first time, creators Dave Willis (Squidbillies) and Matt Maiellero (12 Oz. Mouse) will debut four never-before-seen episodes on the DVD, along with nine others from the series’ sixth season. The DVD is also loaded with bonus materials including "I’m Pissed" — Carl Sports Blogs, the "Radical Axis Presents Radical Axis Presents" behind-the-scenes featurette, commentary and more! In this latest installment, Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad once again join forces with their lewd neighbor Carl and do their best impersonation of crime fighters who never actually come close to fighting crime.
 

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Economy Forces Sparx to Reduce Size

  • Uncategorized
  • November 23, 2008

igor-onesheet-2-1012859Sparx, the animation studio that produced this fall’s disappointing Igor, is closing its Paris office according to Variety. The bulk of its work will remain in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam while retaining a Los Angeles office.

“We’ve been hit by the shockwaves of the U.S. financial crisis,” said Thomas Schober, Sparx’s head of production. “Since our industry relies heavily on private financing, the crisis has made it extremely difficult for us to get work on features.”

Igor, released in September by The Weinstein Company, has managed to earn only $25,532,257 worldwide according to Box Office Mojo. They have since dropped out of working on Exodus Films’ Bunyan and Babe.

“Eventually we’ll be back working on big, sophisticated animated features from our Vietnam facility,” said Sparx CEO Renaud Biscarratr. “But for now, we’re going to focus on what we used to do before: commercials, TV series and videogames.”

Sparx has made their name by producing CGI effects for European features, trailers and commercials.

Review: ‘Sunset Boulevard’

  • Uncategorized
  • November 22, 2008

The cult of celebrity has been with us for millennia but it really entered a new phase when everyone could see and react to the same experience, such as the era of Silent Films. From coast to coast, people could see the same story performed the same way and it helped bring people together as many performers suddenly became household names and were the first people haunted by the paparazzi.

The coming of sound altered the cast of characters and many notable stars could not handle the transformation and faded from fame and memory.  That tragic reality became the premise for Billy Wilder’s brilliant Sunset Boulevard which is the lead title in Paramount Home Video’s new Centennial Collection. The first three volumes were released last week and we’ll be looking at them over the next few days.  Each comes in a heavy cardstock box and provide you with two discs – the actual film and all new extras plus an 8-page booklet. Overall, the numbered cases look very nice side by side.

The story of Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, who accidentally enters the warped reality of silent film star Norma Desmond, has long been entrenched as a classic. Gillis’s seduction is slow and careful as Desmond reels him in with charm and money.   The idea that he could turn her mountains of pages into a script and sell it, making his name and erasing his debts, is more tempting than his original notion so he goes along.  What he slowly comes to realize is just how far from grace Desmond has fallen, her ego fed by her former director turned caretaker, Max. 

The performances by William Holden and Gloria Swanson still hold up today, thanks to Wilder’s strong script and visual direction.  On the disc, the remastered print brings out subtle shadows and shades that enhance the creepy atmosphere of the mansion that becomes his home and remains her asylum.

Disc 2 provides a wealth of extra that set the tone for the discs that follow.  There’s [[[Sunset Boulevard: The Beginning]]], which offers up the usual assortment of information on the film came together. Novelist Joseph Waumbagh largely narrates [[[The Noir Side of Sunset Boulevard]]], taking a closer look at a neglected aspect of the film. Other pieces have the surviving actors reminisce in [[[Sunset Boulevard Becomes a Classic]]], [[[Two Sides of Ms. Swanson]]], and [[[Stories of Sunset Boulevard]]]. Archival footage of Swanson herself talking about the film is well used throughout.

Recording Sunset Boulevard looks at Franz Waxman’s Academy-award winning score that is icing atop Wilder’s cake.

There’s also a piece on Holden that largely focuses on his career up to making this film, saving the full retrospective until volume three.
 
As part of the centennial celebration, you get a look at the Paramount Lot from its silent film days through its merger with Desilu in 1967 that shaped the studio as it is today. There’s also a clip-filled look at the studios’ output tin the 1950s which largely informs the first 5-6 offerings in this collection. Original script pages, trailers and other treats await the connoisseur.

‘Firefly’ Universe Mapped

  • News
  • November 22, 2008

Browncoats are Firefly fans and some fans seem to go to extremes to show their appreciation for the Joss Whedon series which lasted a mere season on Fox.

One group of fans has named themselves the Firefly Ship Works and have devoted countless hours to studying the series in minute detail.  They’ve done schematics for the Firefly-class ship that the cast traveled aboard and now they have unveiled their map of the universe, including all the planets visited and mentioned on the series and the film Serenity.

According to their website, “our goal is to create reliable, flexible and affordable transport for you and yours, as you endeavor to reach vistas unseen and wilderness yet to be tamed. As such, we have put together this Cortex Wave Server (CWS) to keep you informed of our efforts to create the ‘Verse’s first and only screen-accurate Firefly Series 3, the Serenity Artisan Replica.”
 

‘City of Ember’ Coming to DVD in January

  • News
  • November 22, 2008

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment announced a January 20 release date for City of Ember on DVD.

To save the human race, an underground city was built to last 200 years… now time is up and they must unlock the secret for their survival. For generations, the people of the City of Ember have thrived in an amazing underground world of flickering lights.  Built as a refuge for humanity and powered by a massive generator, the city’s time is almost up and now Ember is falling into darkness as the generator fails.  In a race against time, it’s up to two brave teenagers to unravel the mystery behind the city’s existence, maneuver around corrupt politicians and save the City of Ember. 

“Imaginative, heartfelt and exciting” (St. Paul Pioneer Press), City of Ember is based on the 2003 best-selling novel, The City of Ember, by Jeanne Duprau.

 The cast includes Tim Robbins (Best Supporting Actor, Mystic River), Golden Globe-winner Bill Murray (Best Actor, Lost in Translation) and Academy Award-nominee Saoirse Ronan (Best Supporting Actress, Atonement). 

Synopsis:

A heart-thumping, edge-of-your-seat adventure comes to light in this exhilarating family film based on the best-selling novel by Jeanne Duprau.  For centuries, the residents of the underground City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights and quiet contentment.  But when the City’s massive power generator begins to fail, the street lamps start to fade — along with the hopes and dreams of the townspeople.  Now it’s up to two courageous teenagers to follow a trail of clues left by the ancient Builders and find a way out of Ember before their world is plunged into darkness forever!

DVD Special Features:

The City of Ember DVD will be presented on a flipper disc in both full screen (1.33:1) and wide screen features (2.35:1 ratio) with English 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish and French Dolby Surround with English, French and Spanish subtitles.

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Photoshop for old school comics artists

  • News
  • November 22, 2008

For a guy who wrote Iron Man, Mike Grell is a self-described Luddite, constantly at odds with technology. He once claimed he had a steam-driven fax machine. He was constantly amazed at the things I did to his art in Photoshop during my coloring stint on Jon Sable Freelance.

With that, I was amused that he sent me this:

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He also sent a note: "SOMEONE WENT THROUGH A LOT OF TROUBLE – PROBABLY SOME POOR BASTARD OLD (!) ARTIST WHO SUDDENLY FOUND HIMSELF HAVING TO LEARN HOW TO USE A COMPUTER…"

Yes, he types all his email in capital letters. I told you.

Interview: Tim Pilcher Talks Erotica, Part 1

  • News
  • November 22, 2008

eroticcomics2uscover-1-5245217Tim Pilcher has made a fine career for himself writing and editing in the pop culture world. His most recent project is the second volume in his heavily-illustrated survey of Erotic Comics, coming to the UK in January and America in March. We decided to find out how one covers the subject without getting arrested or losing interest in sex. Speaking of which, given the subject matter, we advise you that the art does the subject justice.

ComicMix: Hey Tim, nice to speak with you again. A  So tell me, what qualifies you to write about sex?

Tim Pilcher: Well I’m not a virgin! I can prove it, I’ve got kids!

CMix: Seriously, what prompted the two volume critical look at the subject?

TP: It was a series of disparate events over many years. I remember Melinda Gebbie showing me the original artwork for the first few pages of Lost Girls, when I worked in a comic shop (Comic Showcase in London), back around 1990, and being impressed. Then some friends bought me a copy of L’Enfer des Bulles by Jacques Sadoul, which basically highlighted “saucy moments” in regular and erotic comics. I also read Maurice Horn’s Sex in The Comics, which came out in 1985 and it suddenly dawned on me that no one had done a critical, comprehensive, English language, study on the history of erotic comics for over 20 years! I thought that was bizarre, particularly as Eros Comix, and the erotic comic explosion of the late 80s/early 90s happened just after Horn’s book came out, so there was a huge amount of material that hadn’t been explored, such as Howard Chaykin’s Black Kiss. I think the final part of the jigsaw was reading an article by Alan Moore in Arthur magazine about the history of pornography ("Bog Venus Versus Nazi Cock-Ring: Some Thoughts Concerning Pornography", Vol 1, No 25, November 2006) and that got me thinking about how sex had been portrayed in comics. So Alan and Melinda were the real catalyst for the whole project, and that made getting Alan to write the foreword for volume 2 a really significant honor for me.
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New and Old Fiction Served up at the Book View Cafe

  • News
  • November 22, 2008

Book View Cafe is a new online publishing venture by a consortium of writers, many of whom are friends of ours here at ComicMix. According to their website, “Offerings range from novels to flash fiction and include both reprints and new work. Here on the Book View Cafe Blog, the authors talk about their work and offer ideas and opinions on the wider world of fiction.”

Visitors to the site, which went live this week, can sample long out-of-print works from the authors, read their blog posts, and soon buy premium content.

Authors include Sarah Zettel, Ursula K Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, Irene Radford, Brenda Clough, Laura Ann Gilman, Susan Wright, and many others.

The subject matter is widely diverse across all lines of popular fiction. “Ideally,” the site states, “it would also provide you with a wider selection of fiction from some of your favorite authors than you’ve had before, and provide us a more direct link with our readers.  Of course, we also wanted to take advantage of the internet to get the word out about our books.”

As Gilman said on her blog, “The offerings on BookView Cafe will refresh on a regular basis, and range from novels to flash fiction and include both reprints and new work (and, yes, that includes new stories and novel out-takes from the Cosa Nostradamus books!).”
 

BBC Opens up ‘Doctor Who’ Archives

  • News
  • November 22, 2008

Doctor Who is about to turn 45, young for a Time Lord but old for a television character.  To celebrate, the BBC has opened up it s archive which has detailed information on the series from its early development through current production.

Among the fascinating artifacts is a 1962 report discussing whether the BBC should make a sci-fi drama, concept notes written in 1963 forming a summary of ideas for just such a program, and background notes by C E Webber and Sydney Newman in which they outline the format for the new series that had been christened Doctor Who.

The site welcomes fans and says:

“Explore the origins of a TV legend with this collection of documents and images. It’s now the number one family favorite, but Doctor Who had a difficult birth, emerging from the imagination of some of BBC Drama’s top minds.

Here, we tell the story of the creation of Doctor Who from the very beginning, starting with a report on the possibility of making science fiction for television and leading up to the moment a new drama series is announced in the pages of Radio Times.”

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