Sure, the secret’s out that the Daleks will be making a return to Doctor Who at the end of the current season of the hit science-fiction series, but what have they been doing for the last dozen episodes or so?
According to this video, they’ve been on the Shakespeare circuit:
Punisher: War Zone director Lexi Alexander recently weighed in on the trailer for the film that was released last week, and she was surprisingly frank about her assessment of the final cut.
She wrote on her website:
I’m not sure what kind of impression I would get from this trailer if I didn’t actually know the film. I am utterly impressed, though, they managed to find that much PG rated action footage at all. It had to be a challenge to cut a trailer from our action stuff without showing any gore and blood.
I’ve been told that you can’t even show heads blowing up in red-band trailers. I hope that’s not true because that would suck. It’s weird to see Castle shoot all those bullets and not see the thugs who are catching them. That’s the best fucking part about it!!!
Alexander also admitted that she was as surprised as anyone else to see the trailer, and addressed some of the Punisher faithful’s cricisims of the peek they received into the film.
Real crime stories and comic books are two different worlds for me. It was my first priority to please The Punisher comic book fans and with all the respect to two wonderful actors, I wasn’t trying to become a member of the Dolph Lundgren or Thomas Jane fan club.
Read the rest of her thoughts on the trailer and fans’ response to it over on her website. Punisher: War Zone is scheduled for a December 5 release.
(via Cinematical)
Born in San Francisco in 1953, Alan “Al” Gordon is actually the second comic book artist by that name—the first, who is no relation, was active in the 1950s and worked for Atlas Comics, Lev Gleason Publications, Toby Comics, and Trojan Comics.
The second Alan Gordon started out in the mid-1970s, working as a penciler and inker for independent publisher Star Reach. He began inking for Marvel in 1978, first freelancing on Captain America and then becoming the regular inker on Spider-Woman. In 1982 Gordon left Marvel for DC and began working on Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.
He worked for Eclipse Comics next before going back to Marvel and inking Fantastic Four and other books. In 1987 Gordon began working on Justice League of America with Kevin Maguire and Keith Giffen.
A few years later he followed Giffen to Legion of Super Heroes, and even wrote four issues of the series. In 1992 Gordon created WildStar for Image Comics—Jerry Ordway penciled it and Gordon wrote, inked, edited, and produced it.
More recently he worked with Alan Moore at America’s Best Comics. In 2000 Gordon won two Eisner Awards, one for Tom Strong #1 and one for Tom Strong #4-7.
Previously, I told you about the first episode of The Middleman that was available as a free download on iTunes. For those who didn’t take advantage of the offer, you’re missing out — the series premiere lived up to my lofty expectations, and now I can hardly wait until Monday for the second episode.
As part of the marketing push for the series, "Middleman" Matt Keeslar recently participated in a conference call with various news outlets about the series. While the interview provides a great behind-the-scenes look at the series and its move from comics to screen, the best part just might be the final response from Keeslar.
"In one of the episodes we battle trout craving zombies, people who have been bitten by Peruvian flying pike and have turned into zombies who crave the flesh of trout. Natalie and I were covered in fish gore and then tracked down by these trout zombies, so that was an odd thing.
"I had a scene where I had to fight 100 Mexican wrestlers in a sandy Aztec pyramid set, which was a lot of fun, kind of hard work, but also pretty silly. The fighting styles ranged everywhere from WWF to Kung Fu. In general, The Middleman’s naiveté also beats him to make a lot of unintentional double entendre about sex, sexuality, and his own lifestyle choices, and those have been probably some of my sillier utterances throughout the show."
Not only does this response confirm fans’ hopes that a certain scene from the comic involving Mexican wrestlers will indeed be included in the TV series, but it just sounds, well… excellent.
Head over to The Deadbolt for other highlights from the conference call, and be sure to check out the Middleman Monday on ABC Family.
Born in 1957, Gary Carlson first appeared on the comic book scene with his self-published superhero anthology Megaton back in the early 1980s.
He created the character of Vanguard with Erik Larsen, whose Savage Dragon also began in the anthology. Carlson later wrote Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Berzerker, and Supreme.
He and Larsen also co-wrote Aquaman for DC and Nova for Marvel. Carlson created Big Bang Comics, initially for Calber Press—he later moved Big Bang to Image and now self-publishes it, functioning as writer, editor, and publisher.
DK Publishing has announced Marvel Chronicles, a high-end hardcover that takes fans from the ’40s to the present day in Marvel history with a few interesting twists. Comic historian Peter Sanderson, one of the creators of the project, gives us an exclusive look at this "must have" goodie, plus:
— The next Transformers saga is ready, but where are the Autobots?
— Kick Ass out of print – again
— Greatest American Hero in comics
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For those not attending Heroes Con in Charlotte this weekend, and for most of those who are, the big news is the rumors swirling around DC Comics.
There was chatter all day about DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio, and whether he might be out. The only real news, though, was that VP John Nee is resigning.
Sadly, everyone was so caught up in the rumormongering (which, so far, has turned out to be fluff) that they missed out on the panel of the weekend. The man behind the current greatest cartoon in the world, Cul de Sac, came down to talk about his strip and new collection.
That’s Richard Thompson at right, the quiet genius of the comics world. What you can’t see is the massively empty hall in front of him. Fewer than 15 people were there, and that’s just a shame.
That complaint aside, it’s been a fun if relaxed con so far with plenty of interesting tid bits:
The DC presence was pretty tense. DiDio stayed pretty gruff throughout the State of the Industry panel and dodged moderator Tom Spurgeon’s questions about the past week at DC, marred by Chuck Dixon’s acrimonious exit.
Wanted, the film based on Mark Millar and J.G. Jones’ six-issue 2003 miniseries, will hit theaters at the end of this month, and the Universal Pictures marketing machine is chugging along in anticipation of the big day.
Just in case you lost track of this one in all of the Iron Man
Yahoo Movies has collected all of the various trailers and previews for the film on a single page, including the latest: a a wild scene that takes place aboard a train in mid-derailment.
Comics2Film has put together a pretty decent list of interviews with the cast of the film, including star James McAvoy, director Timur Bekmambetov and hip-hop musician Common.
For the audiophiles, you can view samples of music from the Wanted soundtrack over at CineMusic.
Finally, we posted links to a Wanted "Making Of" featurette a while back that’s available online, as well as the Wanted viral marketing website that inducts users into the film’s mysterious "Fraternity." (Note: I submitted my email address to the site when I posted that article and haven’t heard anything thus far.)
One of the things I learned at this year’s MoCCA Arts Festival (aside from the fact that New York firefighters remain the world’s most awesome) is that independent, alternative cartoonists embrace the children’s market. This was evident not only in the major publishing launch of Francoise Mouly’s TOON Books, but also the work of a lot of young people with their self-published titles.
This may seem like a stupidly obvious thing to say from anyone who has watched the market for children’s books, graphic novels, and other kinds of mass media. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to apply to most comic book stores.
When I worked at DC, the typical story about comics had the headline, “Biff! Bam! Pow! Comics Aren’t Just for Kids Anymore!” My boss explained to me, in great detail, why there was no need to make comics that children under 12 would enjoy. The success of Vertigo – Sandman in particular – meant there was a profitable market for comics among college-educated, affluent adults, especially to advertisers.
This was true, as far as it went. Good books can be good marketing. Sandman continues to make a lot of money for DC, even though there haven’t been new stories for several years. I have no doubt that many people for whom Sandman was their first comic went on to read lots of other comics by lots of other writers, artists and publishers. (more…)
When movie site IESB.net posted one of the first images of the Iron Man suit last May, to say that the leaked photo from the set of Iron Man created a bit of a buzz might be the understatement of the year.
It didn’t take long, however, for the studios involved with the film to direct their full legal attention to the movie news site, forcing it to shut down for a period of time and generating an entirely different kind of buzz.
Well, it seems like the legal tussle over the photo will have yet another chapter, as attentive members of the Iron Man audience might have noticed a familiar image on the front page of a newspaper Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is reading in a scene near the end of the film. Photographer Ronnie Adams, who shot the initial "leaked" Iron Man photo that started all of the hub-bub, is now alledging that the movie studios used his infamous photo in a "pivotal scene" during Iron Man, and is asking for unspecified monetary damages.
Adams filed a lawsuit regarding the photo last week against Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment, and also asked that the photo be removed from any future DVDs or videogames related to Iron Man.
Full-size versions of the original, "leaked" image and the offending Iron Man scene (according to Adams’ lawsuit) are posted after the jump for comparison.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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