Monday Mix-Up: Luke Cage, Whitewashed
Sweet Christmas. Sweet White Christmas.
One is inevitably reminded of the story Harlan Ellison tells of the movie executive who wanted to remake the movie The Wiz, but recast with all white actors.
Category: News
Samurai! Zombies! The Supernatural! And Zorro! Oh my!
Sydney Australia’s Silver Fox Comics reimagines Zorro.
*Edited 9/22/11
PRESS RELEASE:
Silver Fox Comics redefines Zorro in an all-new, all-original comic book series produced from Sydney Australia!
“This may be the boldest and most daring Zorro comic ever created! Could this be the basis of the next Zorro movie?”
John Gertz President Zorro Productions
Silver Fox Comics: Australia’s most action packed independent comic book publisher debuts with a new series for the legendary Zorro! This is the first Zorro story written by an Aussie and features newly commissioned art, which will build into the most action packed Zorro comic ever produced. As Issue 1 proclaimed “SAMURAIS TO THE LEFT, ZOMBIES TO THE RIGHT. WILL ZORRO SURVIVE?”
ISSUE 2 OUT NOW!
Our 2nd issue of Zorro is now on sale at newsagents nationwide and select comic stores! Issue I on sale on this website and at all good comic stores. This comic is sold exclusively in Australia only.
WRITER SORAB DEL RIO DISCUSSES ZORRO
“This Zorro takes on many modern day themes, such as drugs, persecution of indigenous races, and the supernatural, whilst still retaining the classic iconography and swashbuckling action. This isn’t a safe licensed-to-Walt Disney mainstream Zorro, and it isn’t aimed at kids. This is Zorro, as it should be done. It’s pulp fiction style, rough, gritty and dangerous. It’s East meets West, with the supernatural, all-out fights, drugs, samurai warriors, beautiful women, zombies, guns and blades. This has opened a new path for the Zorro legacy which is the start of an epic, darker, action- packed Zorro, the likes of which have never been conceived before.
New characters emerge, such as Mirella, a gypsy fortune teller who becomes Zorro’s gateway into the supernatural world, the villainous General Cypher is introduced, who sets out to destroy the native Indians, The Beast – merciless tax collector, Yoshiko, the Empress of Opium, Ashikaga her samurai guard, and Carmelita – a dream of a woman you would kill for.
The first issue we released features two stories: The first story, The Defeat of Destiny, sees Zorro uncover a plot, by the new Spanish regency Cypher, to begin importing and farming opium in California. The land of the natives is taken by force in order to clear land for opium. The Japanese arrive, an Indian princess is kidnapped, and will be killed unless Zorro reveals his true identity. I wanted to bring historical themes and parallels into the piece, such as with the opium wars in China, and the exploitation and destruction of indigenous races.
The first issue we released features two stories: The first story, The Defeat of Destiny, sees Zorro uncover a plot, by the new Spanish regency Cypher, to begin importing and farming opium in California. The land of the natives is taken by force in order to clear land for opium. The Japanese arrive, an Indian princess is kidnapped, and will be killed unless Zorro reveals his true identity. I wanted to bring historical themes and parallels into the piece, such as with the opium wars in China, and the exploitation and destruction of indigenous races.
The second story, Love Never Ends, sees an ex-lover resurrected from the dead. When he learns his ex-wife is to be wed again, he seeks revenge. Unlike most zombie films, the zombie cannot simply be killed by a gunshot; it will take a lot more! I’ve also introduced new characters, such as the gypsy fortuneteller Mirella, and a new love interest, Carmelita. I also want to create more of an insight into Zorro over the series. Here, we learn of his penchant for seeing into the future.”
CONTACT DETAILS
Email: sorabdelrio@silverfoxcomics.com.au
For more information about Silver Fox Comics, please visit them on-line at http://www.silverfoxcomics.com.au/ and www.facebook.com/silverfoxcomics.
Zorro®, Zorro is © 2011 Zorro Productions Inc. All rights reserved. All names, characters, events and locales in this publication are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely fictional, events or places, is coincidental. No portion of this book may be reproduced by any means (digital or print) without the express permission of Silver Fox Comics except for review purposes.
*Edited by request of Publisher and Zorro Productions, Inc.
MOONSTONE AND AUDIOCOMICS-TAKING NEW PULP FURTHER!!
Moonstone Entertainment and THE AudioComics COMPANY Announce CollaboratiON
The AudioComics Company to produce adaptations of Moonstone titles beginning with Honey West and The Battle for Los Angeles
For immediate release:
The AudioComics Company is pleased to announce that it will act as the official audio theatre production arm for Moonstone Entertainment, Inc., producing full-cast adaptations of its licensed and original comic books and graphic novels, as well as selections from their line of short story anthologies. These pieces will be available on compact disc and pay-per-Mp3 digital download through a variety of outlets, including Moonstone’s online store, at comic book conventions, the iTunes store, and community audio drama showcases.
Their first collaboration will be Honey West, adapted by Elaine (Starstruck) Lee from her mini-series “Murder on Mars.” Hollywood’s toughest and sexiest private eye has gone undercover as an extra on a low-budget science fiction flick to find the murderer of sex symbol Zu Zu Varga, only to find that (shock and surprise) everyone’s got a motive. And then there’s that killer robot… Also slated for production is the team-up special The Battle for Los Angeles, which is a part of Moonstone’s “Return of the Originals” line. Starring The Black Bat, Domino Lady, G-8, Secret Agent X, and The Phantom Detective, these avengers pit their wits (and guns) against a menace from another world in 1945 Los Angeles in a story actually inspired by true events.
Moonstone EIC Joe Gentile: “Moonstone is super excited to hear our stories done in this dramatic fashion! AudioComics brings a very professional quality sound, as well as great voice actors to the table, and the final result is the best we have heard! It’s not a plain ol’ audio book, it’s an audio play, like a private performance in your living room!” AudioComics co-founder Lance Roger Axt echoes Joe’s sentiments: “Audio theatre is simply one of the most exciting and accessible forms of entertainment available. This is not lost on Joe and the good folks at Moonstone Entertainment, and we’re very excited to be working with them and their roster of properties. Actually, ‘very excited’ may be an understatement! I mean have you seen their roster of properties lately?”
Honey West records this fall for a winter, 2012 release, directed by William Dufris. This first production will also mark the beginning of an ongoing series of HW projects with Moonstone. The Battle for Los Angeles will record in winter of 2012, adapted by CJ Henderson and Lance Roger Axt (from Henderson’s script), and directed by Mr. Axt, with a planned spring of 2012 release.
Moonstone Entertainment Inc. publishes comics and illustrated fiction designed to “awaken your sense of adventure”, featuring classic and new heroes including Kolchak the Night Stalker, Buckaroo Banzai, The Green Hornet, The Avenger, Captain Midnight, The Domino Lady, Zorro, Honey West, and Airboy in thrilling tales of adventure, mystery, and horror. For more than a decade, Moonstone Entertainment Inc. has created fine and distinct comic books, graphic novels and prose…books that are meant to be read. Awaken your sense of adventure at www.moonstonebooks.com
The AudioComics Company, under the guidance of producers Lance Roger Axt, William Dufris, and Elaine Lee, provides superior audio entertainment with its professional full-cast audio theatre productions of both licensed properties and original works from the world of comic books, graphic novels, and related media, accessible in today’s market with today’s sound. Their debut production of the original play script of Elaine Lee and Michael Kaluta’s Starstruck has received critical acclaim from comics and audio professionals alike; forthcoming productions include Titanium Rain and The Batsons. www.audiocomicscompany.com
Contact: Joe Gentile, EIC (contact_us@moonstonebooks.com)
Lance Roger Axt, Co-Producer/Director (info@audiocomicscompany.com)
FORTIER TERRIFIES ALL WITH NEW COMIC!
From Redbud Studios-
Five tales of suspense, the weird and the macabre brought to you in a variety of styles reminiscent of the “House of Mystery” type comics from the golden and silver age of comics. Join Ron and his cohorts in the danse macabre full of fun and creepy fun…
TALES OF THE MACABRE offers an opportunity for long-time comics writer Ron Fortier to showcase his skill and love of crafting solid short stories of the offbeat, strange and downright weird while allowing himself the chance to work with a number of up and coming independent artists.
Ron Fortier’s Tales of the Macabre #1 TM and © by each respective artist. Stories, logo and title of the book © & ™Ron Fortier. All rights reserved.
Now available from Indy Planet at http://www.indyplanet.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5926
Moonstone’s Domino Lady joins the iPulp Fiction Library
 |
| Cover Art: Uwe Jarling |
Moonstone’s Domino Lady joins the iPulp Fiction Library at http://www.ipulpfiction.com/.
Decades before Wonder Woman and Charlie’s Angels, pulp fiction’s sultry Domino Lady intrigued and enchanted and then disabled and destroyed evildoers in her vengeful quest for justice as she dismantled political machines and exposed corruption in the courts and in the Capitol.
The Domino Lady stories available for $0.75 digital release include:
The Domino Lady and the Crimson Dragon by K. G. McAbee
Blondes in Chains by C. J. Henderson
Target: Domino Lady by Bobby Nash
 |
| Cover Art: Jeff Butler |
Stealing Joe Crick by Chuck Dixon
The Claws of the Cat by Ron Fortier
The Strange Case of The Domino Lady and Mr. Holmes by Nancy Holder
The Devil, You Know by James Chambers
Plus, read the Forward by Joan Hansen for free
Moonstone’s Domino Lady tales are now available at iPulp Fiction for only $0.75. Learn more at http://www.ipulpfiction.com/.
For more information on iPulp Fiction, please visit http://www.ipulpfiction.com/
For more information on Domino Lady and Moonstone Books, please visit http://www.moonstonebooks.com/
 |
| The Domino Lady iPulp Bookshelf |
PRIME SUSPECT: Maria Bello’s PRIME New Role
PRIME SUSPECT was one of the most revered BBC series of all time. Now NBC is bringing a new version to their fall season with Maria Bello in the lead role. We talk to her about the good and bad things in taking the part, and what is the deal with that hat?? And a BEETLEJUICE sequel? Yep!
The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebookright here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
MARTHA THOMASES: The Age Of Origins
Superhero comics have been re-booted and re-vamped and up-dated and back-dated for so long that we hardly notice anymore. However, there are some story elements that are fixed in the past, and maybe not in a good way.
For example …
• When Superman was first created, it was entirely believable that the rocket ship that brought him to Earth from Krypton could land in Kansas without anyone seeing it. Even through the 1970s or so, when the rocket should have landed in the 1950s, one could accept that premise. Now, however, the rocket would have crashed in the 1990s, when all sorts of satellites would have been tracking it. Even if it wasn’t identifiably a rocket, but assumed to be a meteor, scientists would have warned about the effects of impact. Cable news networks would have been all over it for the disaster porn.
• Did Peter Parker need a permission slip from Aunt May and Uncle Ben before going on a school trip to a facility with radioactive specimens? Did anyone consider a lawsuit?
• Barbara Gordon has been a librarian and a United States Congressional representative. Additionally, she was disabled by an attack from a criminal who was negligently allowed to escape from prison. She must have a great government pension plan. When she regains her ability to walk (apparently) in the upcoming series, are there Tea Party zealots demonstrating against her?
• Is Tony Stark the Koch Brothers of the Marvel Universe? And if not, why not?
• Both the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe contain countries ruled by people with super-powers. Are diplomatic postings to these countries considered to be good jobs or bad jobs? What are the Senate approval hearings like for those?
• Similarly, when the United Nations has that week when all the world leaders attend sessions, do these super-hero leaders provide their own security?
• Are there web sites like gofugyourself for superhero costumes? And, if so, do they similarly suggest that super-heroines consider pants somewhat more frequently? Or are they more like this?
• Are there reality competition shows for super-heroes, like, say, “X-Factor?”
• Does J. Jonah Jameson know Bill O’Reilly? Because I would totally like to see that.
Dominoed Daredoll Martha Thomases doesn’t really want to think about the current political climate transposed to places where people punch out walls.
DENNIS O’NEIL: Read This Column Or We’ll Shoot– Okay, We’re Lying
Let’s get the anecdotal/name dropping portion of this blather out of the way up front:
Five, maybe six years ago, I was leaving the British Broadcasting Company’s offices in Manhattan, where I’d been brainstorming a kids’ show with a producer and some writers, including Sean Kelly, who was accompanying me to Third Avenue. Sean mentioned that when he was editor of the late, lamented humor magazine, the National Lampoon, and the Lampoon shared a midtown building with my usual employer, DC Comics, he considered asking me to contribute something to his pages, but that someone told him that I wouldn’t be interested.
Now, let me take a deep breath and aver, emphatically, that I would have been delighted to have my work appear in the hippest and funniest magazine on the racks. I don’t know and don’t want to know who Sean spoke with, but it’s fair to say that this mysterious person did me a disservice with an untruth.
So yes, experience allows us to state that falsehoods, whether malicious or innocent, do affect people and events, and we can’t console ourselves by thinking they have no consequences. And they piss us off: some squiggle deep in our brains probably perceives them as threats and we want to react, we want to strike back and avenge and bring low the foe.
Not easily done and maybe not wisely done, either. I retaliate and the foe retaliates to my retaliation and there are arguments and side-choosing and and and and…
The unhealthiest part of the relevant egos, foes’ and mine, fattens on anger and vengeance and, yes, hate, and validates their existence with our sorry conflicts.
Redress by law? Hey, ever been privy to a lawsuit? There’s no guarantee of satisfaction from a process that can drag months in its wake, maybe years, and break the bank and chew up and spit out one’s life…
I’ll stop waxing metaphorical now, take another deep breath and, head bowed, admit that I have recently been on the receiving end of some brickbats that make whatever was said to Sean Kelly, decades past, seem like powder puffs. (I said I was done with metaphors, didn’t I? Sorry.)
A final deep breath and–my friends: I believe the First Amendment to be the best thing in the Constitution and I believe John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty should be required reading for everybody (or at least recommended reading) and I wish there was some way of reprimanding politicians and journalists and pundits when they deviate from the truth but…we pay a price for our most cherished freedoms and allowing the publication of rumors (or worse) is the ugly cost of freedom of speech.
This can be, I admit, a paltry consolation, and at the moment it is indeed feeling pretty paltry ,but it will have to serve.
Recommended Reading:
- [[[On Liberty]]], by John Stuart Mill.
- [[[Saints Preserve us: Everything You Need To Know About Every Saint You’ll Ever Need]]], by Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers
Friday: Martha Thomases
