Category: News

Interview: Jamie Bamber on the End of “Battlestar Galactica” and “Pulse 2”

  • News
  • August 5, 2008

Actor Jamie Bamber has had a diverse and successful career, gaining noteriety playing Lt. Archie Kennedy in the Hornblower series of TV movies, working in HBO’s Band of Brothers and guest appearances on the series Cold Case and Ghost Whisperer. However, Bamber’s career rocketed into the spotlight when he took the role of Lee "Apollo" Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series — which is soon to broadcast its final season on the Sci-Fi Channel.

During the recent San Diego Comic-Con, I had a chance to speak to Bamber about his upcoming direct-to-DVD feature film Pulse 2: Afterlife and Battlestar Galactica. We discussed what made him interested in Pulse 2, how he feels about the end of Battlestar Galactica and what moments from the show were his favorites.

COMICMIX: Jamie, what can you tell us about Pulse 2: Afterlife?

JAMIE BAMBER: It’s like Kramer vs. Kramer in an armageddon backdrop, featuring a dad who is trying to put his life back together. He’s working on his relationships and putting them back together in the aftermath of an Internet-fueled apocolypse zombie scenario.

CMix: What made you take on this film?

JB: I had time. I liked the character and I could relate to what he’s going through. I can understand and empathize with a dad and his fear for his child in a dangerous world.

CMix: Having been on such a strong ensemble show like BSG, playing the lead in a film must have been appealing…

JB: I liked the idea of fronting a movie on the quiet, which as an actor is quite a useful thing to do without it being everywhere. This is also a straight-to-DVD project, which also appealed to me.

CMix: You’ve finished shooting on Battlestar now, right? (more…)

Disney Adapts ‘Monster Attack Network’

  • News
  • August 5, 2008

monsterattack-6235096When a graphic novel is billed as a cross between Men in Black and Jurassic Park, it’s no surprise to see a studio come running, dollar signs in their eyes.

Such is Disney with Monster Attack Network, according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter.

The book is published by AIT/Planet Lar and originally came out in 2007.

The adventure tale, written by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman with art by Nima Sorat, is set on the picture-perfect Pacific island of Lapuatu, which is populated by giant monsters. There, a team of adventurers deal with rampages and related crises and clean up messes afterwards. The team faces its biggest challenge when a shady industrialist shows up.

Dabel Bros. to Publish “Dark-Hunter” Manga

  • News
  • August 5, 2008

Dabel Bros. Publishing recently announced plans to adapt bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter novels as manga-style comics, targeting a 2009 release for the adaptations of the first two books in the series, Night Pleasures and Night Embrace.

Joshua Hale Fialkov (Elk’s Run, Cyblade) will script the adaptations, with Claudia Campos providing the art.

From the Sherrilyn Kenyon’s official website:

In the world of the Dark-Hunters nothing is ever as it seems. Life and death both take on a whole knew meaning as this immortal cadre of warriors fight to protect mankind from those creatures and demons who would prey on us.

(via ICv2)

A Billion Dollars Worth Of Respect, by Dennis O’Neil

  • News
  • August 5, 2008

You saw the story, posted here on our own beloved website a couple of days ago: comic book movies have earned over a billion United States dollars this summer, despite an iffy economy that may or may not have something to do with those loveable funsters who frolick near the Potomac.

(I’m writing this Sunday evening. A hundred and sixty nine days. Tickticktick… And please excuse the digression.)

So the aspirations of those folk we mentioned last week – to be respectable and accepted and part of the mainstream – has been realized, though only a few of them are still around to enjoy whatever perks this brings.

Check it out. A billion-with-a-B-dollars! Oh sure, we comics guys have not had to hide our shame for quite a while now. There are the postage stamps and gigs at places like the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian and classes taught at major universities and whole sections of bookstores devoted to comics material and if you donate the graphic novels you won’t read again to your local library, they’ll probably be accepted, maybe even with a smile. But in our world, and in most others that I know about, material goods are the emblems of what the citizenry considers success. And that bil will buy a lot of material goods.

Someone – I have no idea who – observed that one of the ways to discern a society’s values is to look at its architecture: in the middle ages, in Europe, the cathedral was the biggest building in the burg. Now? Well, about a mile from where I’m sitting is the biggest, and some would say ugliest, structure in Rockland County and it ain’t a church, amigos, it’s a shopping mall.

(more…)

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at San Diego Comic-Con 2008

  • News
  • August 4, 2008

One of the most popular bootleg videos at comic book conventions before the YouTube era was of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog making fun of geeks waiting in line for Star Wars.

Our favorite foul mouthed puppet set his sites on nerds once again when The Late Show with Conan O’Brien sent him to this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. And this time you don’t have to buy burned copies from a weird guy at a booth with Micronaut figures. I kid. I kid. (Oh, and consider this your official "Not Safe For Work" warning.)
 

 

 

[EDITOR’S NOTE: That’s PvP webcomic creator Scott Kurtz getting the Triumph treatment around three minutes into the video. Owch! -RM]

Brett Ratner Makes “Harbinger” Adaptation a Priority

  • News
  • August 4, 2008

In a Variety article discussing director Brett Ratner’s recent move to Paramount Pictures, the man who helmed X-Men: The Last Stand name-checked an adaptation of Valiant comics’ Harbinger series as one of his first priorities with the new studio. We previously reported on the series being optioned by Paramount back in March.

As producers, Ratner and Stern are teamed with producer Alexandra Milchan on "Harbinger," an adaptation of the Jim Shooter-created comic series published by Valiant Comics.

Ratner said after directing "X-Men: The Last Stand," he was eager to build a superhero franchise from the ground up. The studio will set a writer shortly.

Ratner described Harbinger and his planned Beverly Hills Cop 4 project as "mainstream tentpoles" for the studio.

“The Stand” Trailer Premieres on Marvel.com

Marvel.com recently posted a new video "trailer" for their upcoming five-issue series based on Stephen King’s The Stand. While I’m not sure how I feel about the whole movie-style "trailer" as a promotional tool for comics, the video does show some previously unseen art from the series. I was really impressed with the way the two previous King stories were handled by the Marvel crew (Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born and Dark Tower: The Long Road Home), so I have high hopes for this project.

The Stand: Captain Trips #1, written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa with art by Mike Perkins, goes on sale September 10.

You can also read an interview with Aguirre-Sacasa about the project on Marvel, as well as a video interview with Perkins. Both are fairly standard promotional material, but worth the time for anyone interested in the publisher’s latest collaboration with Stephen King.

Hammer of the Gods 2: Tea Time

  • News
  • August 4, 2008

In today’s brand-new episode of Hammer of the Gods: Back from the Dead, by Michael Oeming and Mark Wheatley, Modi and his crew seek Odin in the mountains of China.  They can feel the power of a god in the very air, but which god is it?  And can anyone understand the words that are coming out of their mouths?

 

Credits: Mike Oeming (Artist), Mike Oeming (Writer), Mark Wheatley (Colorist), Mark Wheatley (Letterer), Mark Wheatley (Writer), John Staton (Colorist)

 

 

Alison Bechdel on ‘State by State’

  • News
  • August 4, 2008

Alison Bechdel, who’s probably best known for her memoir Fun Home, has an essay and art in the upcoming State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America.

She has a note about the project on her blog, and then there’s a new review of it in Publishers Weekly.

From the (pretty brief) review:

Alison Bechdel’s illustrated story about her life after moving to Vermont brilliantly combines personal history with historical fact, as does Charles Bock’s essay on growing up and working in his parent’s Las Vegas pawnshop.

Last Week’s Best: Batman, Wil Wheaton, Earthquakes and Marijuana

  • News
  • August 4, 2008

batman-00-2535110There are a lot of features coming at ComicMix readers these days, so in the interest of making sure you don’t miss the articles everyone’s talking about, here’s a quick rundown of some of last week’s most popular articles posted on the site:

Who Will Be The Next Batman Villain? — This blog post by Van Jensen generated quite a bit of reader response last week, as the comment section filled with people pondering clues that might indicate the identity of the next Batman bad guy in the film franchise.

Interview: Wil Wheaton on Storytelling, Technology and the Internet — Last week’s finale to Chris Ullrich‘s three-part interview with writer/actor/publisher Wil Wheaton was the week’s most-read original feature, providing a testament to the comics cred of the Just a Geek author. The Wheaton interview narrowly edged out Jami Philbrick‘s interview with Geoff Johns about his work on this month’s Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds.

Our Own Private Gotham — According to last week’s traffic, the success of The Dark Knight in theaters is a popular topic here on ComicMix, as readers were all over John Ostrander‘s Batman-focused column. In the column, the veteran comics scribe theorizes that there’s a lot to glean about the popularity of the grim-and-gritty hero given today’s political and cultural climates. On a side note, readers also had a high opinion (pun intended) of the most recent column by veteran comics scribe Dennis O’Neil, in which he opined on marijuana legalization and the greater availability of information about this and other controversial topics for current and future generations.

The Day the Earth Moved — While John Ostrander and Dennis O’Neil’s columns received a heaping helping of readers, it was Michael Davis’ latest column that had the comment crowd chatting. As it so often does, the media mogul’s column received the most comments of any article here on ComicMix that week!

Hammer of the Gods: Back From the Dead #3, by Mike Oeming and Mark Wheatley, was the most popular issue of any ComicMix comic released on the site this week, narrowly edging out Erin Holroyd and Dick Giordano’s White Viper #8.

Review: ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ Deluxe Edition — Batman mania continued to be a driving force in the week’s traffic, with Van Jensen’s review (originally posted back in March) of the hardcover edition of Batman: The Killing Joke popping up as the most-read review of the week. Everything old is new again, apparently!

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