Coming soon and we can’t wait: The Spirit/Rocketeer #1 by Paul Smith from IDW
The Mix : What are people talking about today?
Check the Kickstarter for Ed Dunphy’s “Mongrel: S.O.B.” Graphic Novel
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1941044501/mongrel-sob-graphic-novel
A werewolf stalks the mean streets of Chicago, seeking vengeance in this full-color horror graphic novel.
Souvenir Book
http://www.comic-con.org/cci/souvenir-book
Information on Comic-Con International’s 2013 Souvenir Book, including our anniversary celebrations and how to submit art and articles to the book. The deadline for submissions is April 19, 2013.
Michael Davis: A Bioshock To The System
Over ten years ago I was in business with Irrational Games and its creative guru Ken Levine. I liked Ken and I liked his company. We were trying to bring a comic book project to life. It didn’t work out but such is life. Years passed and I did my thing and Ken and Irrational Games did theirs.
Then Irrational Games launched Bioshock.
Fuck. That game was a game changer.
I sent Ken a note congratulating him on the success of the game. I never heard back from him. That’s fine; those things just don’t bother me. I don’t dwell on why people do what they do or don’t do. He could have just ignored me because he’s such a big shot now or he may never have seen the email or another 50 thousand reasons why he did not respond.
Bioshock is still one of my favorite video games and that’s true rather I heard back from Ken or not. When the second Bioshock game out I loved that game as well. It seemed to be to be a bit harder than the first one and truth be told I’m still not done with it.
In fact I’ve been stuck on the same level for… let’s see…about two years.
No. I have not been playing the game constantly for two years. I pull it out every few months to try and beat that level, fail, then put it away for another few months.
More than a year or so ago I hear about a new Bioshock. Bioshock Infinite.
Some time after that I see some of the screen shots from the game and start to hear some of the hype surrounding the game.
I’m all in. Man, I’m all the fuck in.
I can’t remember the last time I was so jazzed over anything. Oh wait, I can remember. I was dating this Asian girl and…wait, now that I think of it, Irrational Games treated me just like that Asian girl.
They both promised something great yet that greatness kept being delayed. Over and over again. Bioshock Infinite was delayed then delayed again and frankly I got a little pissed waiting for it.
Then I thought that might be a great way to reconnect with Ken. I’d send him a funny email making light of the delays. After a little thought I decided not to do that. I realized I didn’t think the delay was funny so the odds of the guy who was sure to be taking some flack over it thinking it was funny was slim to none.
So I just waited.
Then the wait was over. For only the 3rd time in my life I went to a midnight release of a video game. When I arrived back home I started to play and at first I was not happy. The game starts with some puzzles, which I just hate.
I hate puzzles in fucking video games. I’m not buying a shooter so I can figure out how to unlock a door so I can start shooting.
Fuck that, I just want to shoot mofo’s. I don’t mind a level where I face a challenge as long as that challenge is how to survive not how to figure how many turns it will take to unlock a door and the only way you can do that is by finding a piece of paper that has the correct number of turns on it but first you have to decode that fucking paper.
Fuck that.
This is not 1993 when video games had to be clever, no it’s 2013 and I want my video games simple. George Bush simple, that means no puzzles! If George Bush had to deal with puzzles we would have had World War III…twice.
As is my policy I at least try and figure puzzles out so that’s what I did. I gave it a try and-son of a gun-I did it! What, you ask, would have been my alterative to trying to solve the puzzle? Looking up the solution on the net would have been my next move.
Duh.
No, whenever I’m stuck in a video game I don’t run to the net. If that was the case I would not still be on the same level on quite a few games as I am now, Bioshock 2 being just one of them.
I’m done with the puzzles but I’m still not shooting anyone. Now. I’m starting to get really pissed. And then, as if an answer to my prayers, a gun appears in my happy little hands.
Now I’m happy!
No, I’m really happy! This game is turning out to be worth the wait and living up to all the hype.
Then I see something that makes me want to get on a plane, fly to Boston and put my foot up the ass of Ken Levine.
Irrational Games is playing the race card.
There is an element to this game that deals with racism. In case you have not played the game I won’t say anymore than that. I’m not a dick so regardless of how I felt when first seeing that backstory I won’t go into detail.
I’ll just say I saw an image that made my blood boil. Fortunately for me I realized that more than once I’ve assumed the wrong thing regarding race so with that in mind I decided to continue shooting people until more of the backstory was revealed to me.
I’m glad I did.
I no longer want to put my foot up Ken’s ass which would most likely be a mistake as Ken does not strike me as anyone’s Bitch. That said – I love this game. Irrational Games pull off something remarkable and I’m not just talking about gameplay. That is not to say that some people of color won’t have a problem with the game (they will) but I’m not them and I love this game.
Well done, Irrational Games. And Ken don’t worry about returning my call, it’s only been a bit more than a decade. Bioshock Infinite took a while and look how good that turned out.
THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil
FRIDAY: Martha Thomases
A New Mandarin Clip from Iron Man 3
In case you missed it, there will be a third Iron Man film next month. The publicity machine has been releasing images and clips to make sure you know.
Marvel’s Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale with Jon Favreau and Ben Kingsley, Marvel’s Iron Man 3 is directed by Shane Black from a screenplay by Drew Pearce & Shane Black and is based on Marvel’s iconic Super Hero Iron Man, who first appeared on the pages of Tales of Suspense #39 in 1963 and had his solo comic book debut with The Invincible Iron Man #1 in May of 1968.
In Marvel’s Iron Man 3, Tony Stark/Iron Man finds his world reduced to rubble by a malevolent enemy and must use his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him as he seeks to destroy the enemy and his cohorts.
Emily S. Whitten: The Little Things
I love tiny things. Love them. Tiny things, filled with tiny details. This is why, somewhere in my closet, I have a box of random tiny dollhouse items that I’ve bought in various places or made myself, despite not ever having owned a dollhouse or the dolls that would accompany it. (My dolls were either baby-sized or tiny. Polly Pocket, anyone?) I have tiny newspapers and books that open; tiny jars of fake Necco Wafers and peppermint sticks; tiny wrapped “Christmas presents;” tiny forks and knives and mugs…I can’t resist them, because they’re just so intricate and cute. And tiny!
It’s also why I own and dote on a tiny Chinese dwarf hamster. Well, okay, so I’ve had bigger pets, too, but anyone who reads Twitter knows Bitty Miss Izzy is like my spirit animal or something, and I am perpetually unable to get over how tiny and cute she and her little paws and little nose and little ears are, which is why I am always photographing and filming her.
It’s also why, in my “spare time,” (haha) I sometimes make tiny models of geektastic things, like a tiny Tenth Doctor (Who) and TARDIS, or a tiny little Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, or a tiny batch of lembas bread or tiny Rorschach accessories. And, of course, a tiny “Scary Trousers” Neil (Gaiman), based on the drawing of the same name, because who doesn’t need one of those? (Though that one now resides with the real Neil Gaiman, unless he’s given it away or something.)
Aside from the general cuteness of tiny things, I think a main reason I like them is because of the astounding amount of detail that they frequently manage to include, despite size; and as a geek, I’m more than a little inclined to obsess over detail, and particularly the (haha) tiniest details. I like intricacy. And let’s be honest here – I’m not alone. Most geeks are a bit detail-obsessed. Whether it’s every detail of a beloved character’s fictional life or a beloved fictional world, or every detail of a replica convention costume or collectible item, or every detail of minutia about the real-life production process of a favorite show, or trilogy, or what-have-you, we geeks are all about the details.
And being a geek, you know what I really find fascinating? When geekness combines with detailed tininess and produces amazing, awesome, and sometimes useful things. Here are some of my favorites this week:
Via the wonder of 3-D printing (how much do I want a 3-D printer and a 3-D printing pen? So much) I give you: tiny Winterfell.
] from the beautiful, amazing Game of Thrones opening credits. Look at it! Look!! It’s made of plastic and preciousness and precision. It’s under 10 square inches! I want one. (I also adore the entirety of the <a href=”
credit of that show, which feature a clockwork map of the story’s locations that is so tiny and intricate and beautiful and clever that it won an Emmy. You can read a cool piece about how the credits are done here.)
But lest you think that 10 square inches is anything special, there’s also this 3-D printed Wing Commander spaceship that is the diameter of a human hair. (Also, did you know there was a Wing Commander movie starring Freddie Prinze, Jr.? I didn’t! Apparently it was terrible.) A human hair! That’s almost too ridiculously tiny to be real, and yet, there it is, in incredible detail, just ready to be accidentally snorted up someone’s nose while they’re eyeing it up close. It’s adorbs, and I want one, even if I’d lose it immediately. I also see great promise for a nano-printer, in that it could conceivably be used to produce tiny bits for a myriad of helpful scientific or medical things, or even to produce an incredibly tiny Iron Man. You know which one I’d use it for first.
Speaking of robotics, how about this little Festo BionicOpter? Granted, it’s not quite as cute or small as a tiny Winterfell or Wing Commander plane, but it does have the benefit of being potentially a bit more useful. It’s an arm-sized quadcopter that “looks and moves like a dragonfly,” and “despite its complexity, the highly integrated system can be operated easily and intuitively via a smartphone.” Wow. I’m kind of in awe. Watch the video; it’s pretty cool. It also makes me wonder how long it’s going to take Festo (or other quadcopter folks) to make even smaller quadcopters. (Or, in a more sinister vein than the dreamy music of the BionicOpter video would have us thinking, how long until we’re going to be seeing things like the heat-sensing, eye-scanning electric shock spider robots of Minority Report? Eep!)
Despite the possible sinister applications of making technological things smaller (and that sort of thing has been around for years in the spy world, where we have things like the key ring spy camera and the DocuPen scanner, I think the current possibilities of the technology that allows things like the above to be made tiny and real is pretty amazing, and am curious to see what the miniaturization geniuses will come up with next.
Also, I think it’s amusing that we live in an age where miniaturization can also be used for practical jokes. I’m ordering my Micro Spy Remote as we speak. So don’t be too distressed if your TV mysteriously starts changing channels on its own next time I come to visit; and until next week, Servo Lectio!
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis
THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil
NEW DIGEST SERIES DEBUTS FROM PRO SE PRODUCTIONS-DRAMATIS PERSONAE! TRUTH IS FICTION!
Pro Se Productions, a Publisher known for Innovative Genre Fiction and New Pulp, announces one of its most interesting, unique projects to date! Author Joseph Lamere brings a wild concept to Pro Se in the first volume of his digest series, DRAMATIS PERSONAE!
The Truth isn’t stranger than Fiction. Truth is Fiction! Find out in Joseph Lamere’s DRAMATIS PERSONAE: PUBLIC DOMAIN!
For your whole life secrets have been kept from you. Science and history books have gotten it wrong. They only tell part of the story. Maybe someday these books will be rewritten, but only if Diogenes Ra’s secret gets out.
If you only knew what Diogenes Ra knew.
He knows something the rest of us don’t. Fiction is real. All your favorite characters exists, their stories overlapping in one grand, timeless narrative. Diogenes Ra can access that narrative. For the right price he will even bring your favorite fictional characters here to our world. But they can’t be gone long. They have to get back to their stories in time for you to read them or watch them on TV.
Diogenes Ra believes he alone possesses the ability to pass unchecked between this world and the one we mistakenly call fiction. He’s about to find out he’s wrong.
“One of the awesome things about being a Publisher of Genre Fiction,” Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor-in-Chief of Pro Se states, “is that it’s a fertile field for new and different takes on old standards. With DRAMATIS PERSONAE, Joseph has brought something to the table that’s part mystery/part mash up/ part family drama and most definitely all Fun. The characters jump off the page, literally within the story, but also Diogenes and crew are truly unforgettable on their own. This is a series that Pro Se will be glad to share with the world for a long time coming.”
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: PUBLIC DOMAIN by Joseph Lamere! With Cover Art by Terry Pavlet, Format and Design by Sean Ali, and Ebook Design by Russ Anderson! The first of a fantastically imaginative new series from Pro Se Productions!
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: PUBLIC DOMAIN is available for $8.00 in print from Pro Se’s own store at https://www.createspace.com/4234535, from Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/d8kjfnl and available in digital format for $2.99 for your Nook at http://tinyurl.com/crtlvjc, on your Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/c5tu4ta, and for other formats via Smashwords at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/303433!
Interested in interviews and review copies of this title? Email Morgan Minor, Pro Se’s Director of Corporate Operations at TommyHancockPulp@yahoo.com!
The Point Radio: Gearing Up For DEFIANCE
The buzz on the massive third-person shooter video game and TV show, DEFIANCE, has been generating for almost a year. Now with the premiere days away (Monday 4/15 on SyFy), we get more details from the set, by way of actress Julie Benz (“Amanda”) . Also 42 THE TRUE STORY OF AN AMERICAN LEGEND opens in theaters this week, and breakout star, Chadwick Boseman along with Harrison Ford, talk about how they helped bring Jackie Robinson back to life. Oh yeah, and another good month in the comic stores – thanks to Marvel!
Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
Gorgo – Steve Ditko’s Truly Fantastic Giant
Ditko Monsters – Gorgo!, stories drawn by Steve Ditko, written by Joe Gill, designed and edited by Craig Yoe. YoeBooks!/IDW Publishing. 224 pages, $34.99 retail hardcover.
I realize I’m jeopardizing my Geekcred here, but when I was a kid I never was much of a monster movie fan. After I got past James Whale and Ishirô Honda, it was pretty much “if you’ve seen one slimy green tail, you’ve seen them all.” Of course, this was prior to the proliferation of porno.
My pathetically mature attitude kept me away from Marvel’s monster comics prior to Fantastic Four #1 (the first one). That changed with Fin Fang Foom and Strange Tales Annual #1, and it changed with Steve Ditko’s Amazing Adult Fantasy. (Memo to self: define “adult.”) It became impossible to pass up any Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko effort, be it superhero or monster. Hell, I even bought Ditko’s Hogan’s Heroes adaptations.
So, like many Baby Boomer Doctor Strange fans, I first encountered Gorgo in the 1966 Charlton reprint Fantastic Giants. The giant lizard shared the cover with a big ol’ ape named Konga, a bizarre caricature of the artist, and the legend “A Steve Ditko Special! 64 pages!”
I’ve waited almost fifty years for Fantastic Giants #2, and thanks to my pal Craig Yoe, it finally arrived in the form of a 224 hardcover, Ditko Monsters – Gorgo! He reprints a ton of Ditko Gorgo stories shot from the source material but painstakingly restored and fronted by a wonderful and highly informative introduction by the editor.
These stories are fantastic fun, which is exactly what they should be. Mystery Science Theater 3000 could riff the Gorgo movies, and they did, but these comics stories co-star such notables as John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro and Nikita Khrushchev. Communism be damned; evidently, Castro and Khrushchev had licensing agents.
If I have one complaint, and it’s a minor one, the book could have used a table of contents and an index. Bitch, bitch, bitch.
So, you might ask, what happened to Konga? Where’s Ditko Monsters – Konga!? That would be next month. One good turn deserves another.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier Shooting Underway
BURBANK, Calif. (April 8, 2013) – Following in the footsteps of the record-breaking Marvel Studios’ release, Marvel’s The Avengers, production on the highly anticipated release, Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier has commenced in Los Angeles, Calif., with production also including locations in Cleveland, Ohio, and Washington D.C. Directing the film is the team of Anthony and Joe Russo (Welcome to Collinwood) from a screenplay written by Christopher Markus (Captain America: The First Avenger) & Stephen McFeely (Captain America: The First Avenger). Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier returns Chris Evans (Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel’s The Avengers) as the iconic Super Hero character Steve Rogers/Captain America, along with Scarlett Johansson (Marvel’s The Avengers, Iron Man 2) as Black Widow and Samuel L. Jackson (Marvel’s The Avengers, Iron Man 2) as Nick Fury. In addition, film icon Robert Redford has joined the all-star cast as Agent Alexander Pierce, a senior leader within the S.H.I.E.L.D. organization. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is set for release in the U.S. on April 4, 2014.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier will pick-up where Marvel’s The Avengers left off, as Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world and teams up with Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, to battle a powerful yet shadowy enemy in present-day Washington, D.C.
Based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series, first published in 1941, Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier features an outstanding supporting cast that includes Sebastian Stan (Captain America: The First Avenger, Black Swan) as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker, Million Dollar Baby) as Sam Wilson/Falcon, Cobie Smulders (Marvel’s The Avengers, How I Met Your Mother) as Agent Maria Hill, Frank Grillo (Zero Dark Thirty) as Brock Rumlow and Georges St-Pierre (“Death Warrior”) as Georges Batroc. Rounding out the talented cast are Hayley Atwell (Captain America: The First Avenger) as Peggy Carter, Toby Jones (Captain America: The First Avenger, The Hunger Games) as Arnim Zola, Emily VanCamp (The Ring 2, Revenge) as Agent 13 and Maximiliano Hernández (Marvel’s The Avengers, Thor) as Agent Jasper Sitwell.
Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feige is producing the film. Executive producers on the project include Alan Fine, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo and Stan Lee. The creative production team on the film includes director of photography Trent Opaloch (Elysium, District 9), production designer Peter Wenham (21 Jump Street, Fast Five), editors Jeffrey Ford, A.C.E. and Mary Jo Markey, A.C.E. (Star Wars: Episode 7, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) and three time Oscar-nominated costume designer Judianna Makovsky (The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone).
Marvel Studios’ upcoming release schedule includes Iron Man 3 on May 3, 2013, and Thor: The Dark World on November 8, 2013. The studio most recently produced the critically acclaimed Marvel’s The Avengers, which set the all-time, domestic 3-day weekend box office record at $207.4 million. The film, which shattered both domestic and international box office records, is Disney’s highest-grossing global and domestic release of all time and marks the studio’s fifth film to gross more than $1 billion worldwide.
In the summer of 2011, Marvel successfully launched two new franchises with Thor, starring Chris Hemsworth, and Captain America: The First Avenger, starring Chris Evans. Both films opened #1 at the box office and have grossed over $800 million worldwide combined. In 2010 Iron Man 2, starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury took the #1 spot in its first weekend with a domestic box office gross of $128.1 million.
In the summer of 2008, Marvel produced the summer blockbuster movies Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Iron Man, in which Robert Downey Jr. originally dons the Super Hero’s powerful armor and stars alongside co-stars Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub and Gwyneth Paltrow, was released May 2, 2008, and was an immediate box office success. Garnering the number one position for two weeks in a row, the film brought in over $100 million in its opening weekend. On June 13, 2008, Marvel released The Incredible Hulk, marking its second number one opener of that summer.
