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“Resident Evil” and “Devil May Cry” Comics Coming

  • News
  • July 30, 2008

7beb793509a0a5d3feea1110-_aa280_-l-4151943Having previously announced Bionic Commando and Lost Planet comics coming from Devil’s Due, Capcom is bringing even more of their hit games to comic books. In a joint press release with DC Comics, they announced that the WildStorm imprint will publish comics based on Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. Details, like who’s writing and drawing it, or when it will be announced at a later date.

Devil May Cry follows demon fighter Dante in a gothic anime influenced world with over-the-top weapons. It’s been previously released as best-selling manga from Tokyopop, but this will be the first time content has been created by American comic artists.

Jim Lee must really like playing Resident Evil. Back in the pre-DC Comics era, WildStorm published a pretty successful comic/fan magazine based on the horror survival game. If you’re living a sheltered life, Resident Evil tells the story of pseudo-law enforcement officers battling the amoral Umbrella Corporation and their continual involvement in zombie plagues.

On a side note, have you seen the trailer for the Capcom-produced CGI movie Resident Evil: Degeneration that was shown at San Diego Comic-Con? You’ll never travel through an airport the same way again. (Video posted after the jump.)
 

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Review: ‘Burma Chronicles’ by Guy Delisle

  • Uncategorized
  • July 30, 2008

burma1-3090101With all of the past year’s insanity in Burma — mainly monk uprisings and government oppressions — you’d think Guy Delisle’s nonfiction comic Burma Chronicles would be especially topical. But you’d be wrong.

As is Delisle’s style, he passes up on the chance to take an expansive view of the country where he lived for six months (he’s written previously about stints in Pyongyang and Shenzhen).

Instead, the book is almost self-centered in how it simply recounts Delisle’s experience as the husband to a Doctors Without Borders. He depicts himself as the ultimate average Joe, a dude content to live life as it comes.

Most of the cartoons are of little moments, like Delisle venting about the sporadic electricity (and sporadic air conditioning), or his hunt for ink to finish a book.

That isn’t to say he doesn’t experience Burmese culture or interact with the locals. He does, but the majority of what he includes in the book are little innocuous windows into the country.

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GrimJack: The Manx Cat – Complete and Free!

  • News
  • July 30, 2008

Cynosure is famous as the city at the crossroads of all the dimensions. In this all-new, full-length graphic novel by John Ostrander and Timothy Truman, John Gaunt not only spans universes but the very fabric of time itself. As he is compelled to track down the mysterious Manx Cat, he learns the dirty secrets about his city’s origins and the tragic price to be paid for the stuff that dreams are made of. All this and the secret origin of Bob the watchlizard and his place at the fabled Munden’s Bar!

Read the entire graphic novel GrimJack: The Manx Cat, from the very beginning right here at ComicMix for FREE!

Credits: John Ostrander (Writer), Timothy Truman (Artist), John Workman (Letterer), Lovern Kindzierski (Colorist), Mike Gold (Editor).

San Diego Comic-Con 2008 Report

  • News
  • July 30, 2008

So… how was San Diego Comic-Con?

I’ve been asked that a lot in the last 48 hours, so here’s my best attempt at wrangling the bucking, spitting beast that was this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. It’s a long one, so consider yourself warned.

First off, it’s worth pointing out that I didn’t arrive until late Thursday night after a series of travel problems that included (but were not limited to): canceled flights, one missed connection, a sprained ankle (not mine), an hour spent standing in place during a "security breach" situation in the main Charlotte airport, and a pair of storms that seemed quite capable of ripping the roof off a house or sending various farm animals across the road in an airborne state.

Once I was actually in San Diego, however, there was a slightly more manageable form of chaos to deal with. Here were some of my thoughts on the whole affair, as well as some of the highlights from my chats with publishers, creators and various other groups around the show: (more…)

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.

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Review: ‘The Number’ by Thomas Ott

The sequence of numbers 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 sit at the top of each page of the superlative new horror graphic novel The Number by Swedish artist Thomas Ott..

Those repeated numbers create a cadence to the book, a dark rhythm drummed into readers’ heads that’s further instilled through Ott’s consistent use of four panels per page.

The wordless story follows a prison executioner who discovers a slip of paper marked only with the previously mentioned number. As the man notices bits of the number turning up in his life, he decides to place his fate in the number, taking it for a wild ride of good luck.

But after a night of gambling success, the man wakes to find the dream turned ugly, and the number only leads him farther into darkness.

It’s not terribly difficult to predict where things end up — after all, the book begins with the quotation “Good people are always so sure they’re right,” from a woman who was executed in prison.

The worthiness of the book lies instead in the way in which Ott unspools his protagonist’s demise. The story moves along briskly, and Ott transitions effectively from the sedate beginning into the surreal and terrifying conclusion.

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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."

Time Magazine’s Comic-Con Awards

  • Uncategorized
  • July 30, 2008

jackman-9706620Time magazine is just one of the many major media outlets to drop in on Comic-Con last week, and they’ve just put up some "awards."

Hugh Jackman earns "best actor," for his surprise visit with X-Men Origins: Wolverine footage, of course. Other winners:

Most Popular Costume: The Joker. If Oscar ballots were tallied in San Diego, Heath Ledger’s posthumous Best Actor statuette would be a lock. Guys with red lipstick-smeared smiles and purple dinner jackets were as plentiful at Comic-Con this year as those perennials, the Storm Troopers. A few Jokers said their costumes were an homage to Ledger; one confessed it’s just more breathable than a Batsuit.

Most Enthusiastic Fans: The Twihards, devout readers of Stephenie Meyer’s series of vampire books, Twilight, were the loudest and proudest in Hall H, starting a Twilight chant while they waited, shrieking anytime a cast member, Meyer or director Catherine Hardwicke said anything, and asking lots of questions about vampire hotness. After the panel was over, so many Twihards rushed the movie’s booth that fire marshals briefly closed it down. Fanboys, don’t look back. The fangirls are gaining on you fast.

"Twihards"?

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