Dwayne Johnson, the wrestler/actor formerly and yet forever known as The Rock, has signed on as Black Adam in the upcoming Shazam! movie. Not only does he look the part, he’ll fill out the costume just fine.

Directed by Peter Segal (Get Smart, also co-starring the Rock) andwritten by John August (Corpse Bride), William Goldman (All The President’s Men) and Bryan Goluboff (The Basketball Diaries) and co-produced by Michael Uslan (the Batman movies, Frank Miller’s Will Eisner’s The Spirit), shooting is expected to begin in about a year. Assuming the writers’ strike is resolved by then.

Today in 1605, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, found Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the English Parliament building, involved in a plot to blow up Parliament itself. The day was later known as "Guy Fawkes Day" and served as an inspiration for Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel, V for Vendetta.

Yes, today the folks across the pond remember, remember the fifth of November in honor of a sense of independence and a shaking of fists at British authority. While we reserve fireworks for summery July 4th, today is their excuse to blow things up and set things on fire. Really, every country should follow some such tradition of blowing things up in good spirits, but in light of recent world politics, let’s not go there. 

Or if we do, let’s wear an awesome mask while we’re at it.

Neil Gaiman, an ex-pat Brit, held an annual Guy Fawkes party at his home for many years. John M. Ford, Neil’s favorite writer and good friend, once decided to write directions to that party, with great wit and style. (more…)

Continued from last week:

Robert Crumb and I began early in 1985 to develop a musical accompaniment for the first stage production of R. Crumb Comix at Fort Worth, Texas’ Hip Pocket Theatre. We consulted by telephone between my digs in Fort Worth and his home near Winters, California, and Robert prepared numerous reference dubs from his collection of 78-R.P.M. phonograph records. These, I augmented with musical sources from my own library, plus scattered original compositions. I recruited an orchestra from within guitarist Slim Richey’s and my jazz trio, Diddy Wah Diddy, and from our affiliated string band, the Salt Lick Foundation, with which I had recently completed a string of record albums for Slim’s Ridge Runner/Tex Grass labels.

Band rehearsals commenced in May of 1985, with all concerned forewarned to buck up for a three-hour show scored with what Crumb wanted to be “constant music – just like in those ol’ Hal Roach comedy films.” Yes, and never mind that the Roach pictures (including the Depression years’ Laurel & Hardy and Our Gang series) ran to just 20 or 30 minutes apiece in length. Well, at least there would be an intermission.

So Robert reached Texas on schedule, got settled in, and found the progress agreeable. He warmed especially to the women (consistent with Crumb’s vision) whom director Johnny Simons had cast. Robert took issue with some of the music as sounding “too modernistic – that ’forties swing stuff” (no accounting for taste) but found the score workable overall, enjoying the sound well enough to commandeer a plectrum banjo from Salt Lick’s Lee Thomas and perform as a member of the orchestra on the opening weekend that June. Crumb’s banjo-playing fit right in, evoking memories of Eddie Peabody and the Light Crust Doughboys’ Marvin “Smokey” Montgomery. I had composed one of the show’s tunes, “Save Me a Slice of That,” as a Doughboys pastiche. (more…)

He’s done it all – sword & sorcery, capes & masks and even….erotic comics. Howard Chaykin isn’t shy about his work and he joins ComicMix Radio to talk – and not talk – about what he has coming up in 2008.

Plus we cover:

• The first Steve Ditko critical retrospective is coming

• American Comics gets Doctor Who, old and new

and we enjoy a trip back to when the song mega-comics fan Gene Simmons hated the most was Kiss’ biggest hit.

Yes: she is asking you to Press The Button!