Tagged: comics

REVIEW: Immortals

immortals-dvd-7420285Considering director Tarsem Singh and screenwriters Vlas and Charley Parlapanides come from cultures steeped in mythology, you would think Immortals might have a touch of fidelity to the ancient source material. Instead, this incredibly generic looking film barely pays attention to even the most basic elements of the gods, goddesses, and creatures that interacted with man once upon a time. The film, out on home video now from 20th Century Home Entertainment, pays some lip-service to the stories once told to enthrall the masses and focuses on the handsome, well-oiled Theseus, our mortal hero. Played by the Man of Steel, Henry Cavill, he’s used to larger-than-life figures and gamely works his way through a bland script that pales in comparison with the best of Harryhausen and even the various myth-based films of the last few years.

The story in short involves the bad king Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), who wants to bring about the gods’ downfall by releasing their forbearers, the Titans, who languish in captivity within Mount Tartarus. His scheme begins by kidnapping the virgin oracle Phaedra (Frieda Pinto), so her powers can tell him how to bring his scheme to fruition. Along the way, Hyperion pillages a village, killing Theseus’ mother and dragging the peasant into the fray, setting him up to be the hero. While the gods come courtesy of Clash of the Titans, the film’s look owes royalties to 300 (which makes sense since it comes from the same producers without the vision of Zack Snyder) and Gladiator. (more…)

REVIEW: JLA: DOOM

justice-league-doom1-300x4021-2474974When Mark Waid joined the creative team on JLA, he told a pretty terrific story about Batman’s secret protocols for neutralizing the Justice League of America falling into Ra’s al Ghul’s hands. In the “Tower of Babel” story, he used it to take out the League in order to execute a plan for world domination.  It made for a fine story arc that allowed Batman to leave the team for time and resonated with fans given the weighty thematic material. It has endured in memory and prompted Warner Premiere to approve JLA: Doom, an adaptation as a part of their ongoing series of direct-to-DVD animated features

The resulting production, on sale tomorrow, is bittersweet because it marks the final script from the talented Dwayne MacDuffie. And it needed series editing which clearly was not done, making it a deeply flawed adaptation of the source material. The dramatic core is here, but given short shrift in two brief scenes while the remainder of the story is a series of chaotic and badly choreographed fights strung together. Any semblance of characterization for the heroes or villains is seemingly accidental as the story allowed the JLA to trade blows with a variety of familiar villains. (more…)

$2 million comic collection up for auction today

  • News
  • February 22, 2012

Because we can never have too many copies of Action Comics #1… the real one, no offense to Grant Morrison.

Michael Rorrer said his great aunt once mentioned having comic books she would one day give him and his brother, but it was a passing remark made when they were boys and still into superheroes.

Ruby Wright gave no indication at the time — and she died last February, leaving it unclear — that her late husband’s comic collection contained some of the most prized issues ever published. The 345 comics were slated to sell at auction in New York on Wednesday, and were expected to fetch more than $2 million.

Rorrer, 31, of Oxnard, Calif., discovered his great uncle Billy Wright’s comics neatly stacked in a basement closet while helping clear out his great aunt’s Martinsville, Va., home a few months after her death. He said he thought they were cool but didn’t realize until months later how valuable they were.

Rorrer, who works as an operator at a plant where oil is separated from water, said he was telling a co-worker about Captain America No. 2, a 1941 issue in which the hero bursts in on Adolf Hitler, when the co-worker mused that it would be something if he had Action Comics No. 1, in which Superman makes his first appearance.

“I went home and was looking through some of them and there it was,” said Rorrer, who then began researching the collection’s value in earnest.

He found out that his great uncle had managed as a boy to buy a staggering array of what became the most valuable comic books ever published.

“This is just one of those collections that all the guys in the business think don’t exist anymore,” said Lon Allen, the managing director of comics for Heritage Auctions, the Dallas-based auction house overseeing the sale.

The collection includes 44 of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide’s list of top 100 issues from comics’ golden age.

via Inherited comic collection expected to fetch $2M – Yahoo! News.

Look! Over in Indianapolis! It’s a patriot… it’s a giant… it’s Super Bowl!

  • News
  • February 5, 2012

Yes, it’s Super Bowl, strange visitor from another… oh, you know the drill.

If you’re like us, you’re watching the game for the trailers for all the comic book movies that are coming out in the next year… which ones do you think worked? Which ones got you excited? Consider this an open thread to discuss.

 

REVIEW: “Bloom County: The Complete Library, Volume One: 1980-1982” by Berkley Breathed

bloom-county-vol-1-300x231-5139803The erstwhile “Berke” Breathed, who at some point in the last two decades learned what a “berk” was in British slang and decided to extend his professional name, presents one of the most interesting and stark success stories in the history of modern American strip comics: he lept to fame with Bloom County, almost from the moment it launched in 1980. [1] And then he ended that strip in mid-1989 (cementing its role as the quintessentially ’80s strip, for anyone with an axe to grind about that decade), partly for creative reasons and partly for overwork issues, to work on a spin-off, Outland, that never had the wide appeal or impact of its parent, even as it got more Bloom County-ish as it went along.

Every other major strip cartoonist before Breathed had a different reaction to success, creative unrest, and pressures of work: they all corporatized, bringing on gagmen and inkers and ghost pencilers to one degree or another, from the light end of G.B. Trudeau’s Doonesbury (inked by Don Carlton) to the high end of Jim Davis’s Paws, Inc. Garfield empire. But Breathed wanted to do it all all himself, and, if he couldn’t, he didn’t want anyone else to do do anything. So Bloom County remains entirely a product of the ’80s and of Breathed’s youth: exuberant, frenzied, full of more ideas and gags than it quite knows what to do with. (more…)

Martheus Wade on Ninjas, Fate and Free Will

  • News
  • January 17, 2012
I fell in love with Martheus Wade’s work when I visited his website.  The series Jetta:  Tales of the Toshigawa at first glance just looks like superhot ninja babes battling, which while in itself is a fun guilty pleasure, the book is deep
Shianndrea Toshigawa, codenamed Jetta is the chosen one.  She is the one that has to beat Terminus and his demonic horde.  To make matters interesting, Terminus is her father but perhaps the clincher for me is that the last thing Jetta and she doesn’t want to be that person. 
Questions of free will and fate, the natural conflicts of wanting to be your own person over being a person you’re supposed to be is just an intriguing story to tell.  There is a depth and sophistication to the graphic novel that engages in ways few stories dare to tread. 
Martheus Wade has written a tale nearly as engaging as he is.  We discuss Jetta, and his other series Turra – Gun Angel as well as some of life’s great questions.
All Pulp:   How did you get into comics? Who were your influences?
Martheus Wade:  I got into comics when I was really young. Comics were my gateway into reading when I was a kid. It was also my gateway into art itself.   George Perez, Masamune Shirow, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Adam Hughes and Adam Warren were all huge influences on me. But also early on, animation really guided my artistic eye. Anime was a heavy influence on me. Speed Racer, Voltron, Robotech. Tranzor Z. It all made me stop and take real notice.

AP: Tell me a little about Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa. What’s it all about?
MW:  Jetta: Tales of the Toshighawa is my creator owned graphic novel series that centers on Shianndrea Toshigawa. Code named “Jetta”, she is the chosen one of the Toshigawa ninja clan who is meant to defend the world from the demonic army known as the Knave. The leader of the Knave is the godlike Terminus, Emperor of Japan and the father of Jetta. In order to defeat this demon army, Jetta has been forced to leave her family and friends in order to train for the day she will be forced to face her father in combat. However, she only wants to lead a normal life away from the clan and far from any prophesied destiny.
But, she is always forced back into a fight that she does not want; fight where friends die and her hope for happiness continues to slip away.
The story is full of martial arts action. Jetta is a super powered  ninja that learns to use new and exciting powers almost every volume. She also has to deal with her on-again off-again relationship with her fellow ninja, Kim Shibata. The two of them have polar opposite ideas of what they should hold important in their lives. Kim is very much into his duty and believes in fate while Jetta believes in free will.
Even though they love each other deeply, their butting heads has dire consequences. The story also revolves around Turra Shibata, Jetta’s best friend and Kim’s sister.
Turra has rejected the ways of the Toshigawa and has gone off on her own. As the “Black sheep” of the clan, Turra is happy living her own life away from her duty. However, things take a turn when she is
forced back into action. The theme of fate verse free will runs throughout the series.
AP: To date, what is your favorite scene in Jetta?
MW: There are a couple of scenes. One scene is in Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa – Revelations when Jetta confronts her father, Terminus for the first time in the bullet train station. This is the first time that Terminus is seen as the all powerful character that he is. Another of my favorites is a slower scene from Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa – Defiance where Jetta is on a date with her new boyfriend, Dan, and the two are talking about their outlook on life and what they want out of it. Still another scene in Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa – Rain is when Turra sees her father for the first time in over a year just before he dies. There are so many great moments in this series. It’s really hard to try to pick only a few.
AP:  What is it about fate and free will that fascinate you?

MW: That battle between fate verses free will has always been a very real conflict in my own head. As a creative person, there have been moments in my career (as well as personal life) where I found myself working upstream. When I let go and went with the flow, things seemed to work out with less of a struggle. However, doing so meant that I had to let go of preconceived notions of where I should be or what I should be doing. My life and career took turns that I hadn’t thought of before and I ended up a completely different person than I thought I would be.
Is that “fate”? I would think so. I don’t have all of the answers to that. However, in realizing that it could be fate, I also realized that the life I wanted to lead when I was younger was not the life I was supposed to lead. That’s a hard pill to swallow and (whether it’s right or wrong) I still struggle with that concept on many different things. I want to believe in free will. I want the ability to say that, “If I walk out this door and put my best foot forward, I will get to where I’m intending to go”. But, as we know, that’s not always the case.

This is the basic idea of Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa. Through all of the attractive women, the martial arts action and scifi, the story is about Fate verses Free will.

AP:  Would you have been happy with the life you wanted?  They that the grass is always greener on the other side…
MW: That’s a good question. I don’t know. There would have been so many things that would be vastly different. Not better, just different. There are a lot of things that would change like my family that I could not envision living without now. Knowing me, if things did go exactly as I planned, I would still feel like something was missing.

 AP: Is it too early to ask you about Turra: Gun Angel?

MW: Absolutely not. Turra: Gun Angel – Bombs and Betrayal is a spin-off graphic novel that takes place in the Toshigawa universe. The lead character is Turra Shibata. She is the sword sister to Jetta and fellow Toshigawa ninja.
In Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa – Rain (The second book in the Toshigawa series), Turra gets her own assignment and is ordered to return to Japan in order to help organize the splintered ninja clan. But when she gets home, she quickly finds that she on the most wanted lists of, not only the Knave, but the police, the Yakuza and a rival ninja clan. All of this and she still has to deal with her boyfriend, Cyan, and his wandering eyes.

Bombs and Betrayal is a bit lighter than the main Jetta series. Turra, as a character, is a lot more relaxed than her sword sister. She is a lot more comfortable with being an attractive ninja bad ass. In the
main Toshigawa story, she was a bit of a wildcard and this story has more tongue in cheek comedy because of the interaction of the characters involved. Cat (one of the main characters of the series and
this spin-off story) is an African American kickboxer who finds himself faced with culture shock when he makes it to Japan. Cyan is a charismatic pyrotechnic who flirts with other women just to get under
Turra’s skin. And Nica, is a young Toshigawa ninja who is just learning the ropes and idolizes the “legend” that Turra has become.

However, the story is still a serious one and Turra finds herself faced with the difficult task of being called upon by duty to lead this ragtag group in hopes of saving the Toshigawa clan from certain death. It’s a fun read and ties perfectly into the main graphic novels.

AP: Anything else forthcoming we can look forward to?
MW: There is a HUGE announcement and a sort of partnership that will be revealed coming up really soon that I wish I could spill the beans on. That will be hitting in the next month or so. I am also working with Sean Taylor (writer for IDW) on the further adventures of Turra Shibata. The first issue of the miniseries will be out later in 2012. The next Jetta GN will be out at the end of 2012 and marks the end of this story arc. It also closes this chapter on Jetta’s life so I’m excited (and a little saddened) to see what readers think of the close of our story.
AP:  You get the final say here.  Plug your books.  Where can I find them.
MW: All of our books are found at www.toshigawa.com. That is where we have every book on sale as well as art prints and specialty items. Right now, we have two new books that are available, Turra: Bombs and Betrayal and Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa -Full Circle. These books intertwine these two beautiful ninja into two halfs of the same coin! Seamlessly follow Turra’s adventures and see where and how they effect the greater Toshigawa Universe in Full Circle. We are offering these two books together in one pack. For a limited time only ( as an added added bonus ) if you grab Jetta: Tales of the Toshigawa – Full Circle and Turra: Bombs and Betrayal together in this Ultimate Combo pack, I provide a free sketch of one of the characters in the series. That’s over 150 pages of action packed content plus a free sketch. I invite everyone to try these books and I can assure you that you will not be disappointed.
Also you can follow us on facebook under MAW Productions. Join our page and every friday at 9:00 pm, we have a live chat where the other creators and myself get together and talk about the Toshigawa Universe of characters, the comic book industry, and entertainment in general. It’s a lot of fun and I hope you join us!

Alex Cox promoted to Deputy Director of CBLDF

  • News
  • December 4, 2011
cbldf_cmyk_black_solid_final-7604911The Comic Book Legal Defense Fundis pleased to announce that Alex Cox has been named to the position of Deputy Director. In this new capacity, his responsibilities will expand to include full oversight of the CBLDF home office and fundraising program. Cox joined the CBLDF in the fall of 2010 as Development Manager.Since joining the CBLDF last year Cox has improved the organization’s membership program and convention presences. Under Cox’s watch, membership in both the retailer and individual capacities has shown dramatic increases. Cox has also overseen the creation of a more robust volunteer program in the New York home office. Prior to CBLDF, Cox was a 15-year veteran of comics retail, including owning and managing the nationally recognized comic book store Rocketship.Speaking about the promotion, Cox said, “I’m extremely grateful to be in a position to help the comics community fight back against anyone that would threaten free expression in this art form that we all love. As a comic fan and student of the art form for close to 30 years, I never thought that I would see anything like the panic caused by Seduction of the Innocent in my lifetime. But with the current case in Canada, the creeping specter of censorship and persecution is rearing its head again, making the CBLDF even more important. I’m proud to be a part of it and I look forward to working with our members, retailers, and the creative community in the years to come.”

“Alex has been a great addition to the CBLDF, and we’re excited to be able to develop a space for him to grow even further within the organization,” says Charles Brownstein, CBLDF’s Executive Director. “Alex has made great strides in developing our fundraising program in a very difficult time, and his leadership in the office has helped us bring in even more talented volunteers to help us fulfill our work. He’s an extremely valuable member of our team, and we’re glad to see him take on this new role.”

Britain’s Commando Comics Celebrates 50 Years!

  • Uncategorized
  • December 2, 2011

Britain’s favourite war comic, Commando, reached a major milestone in June 2011 when it celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first publication on 27th June 1961. Part of the Dundee-based DC Thomson & Co. Ltd stable of comics and magazines, Commando publishes 4 stories every fortnight — 2 new and 2 re-issued classic stories — and maintains its place as the home of comic action and adventure.Although it retains the classic illustrated cover and the iconic black and white comic artwork which has made it so beloved of the UK public, Commando has moved with the times over its 50 years and the stories contained within its pages now span a range of conflicts, right up to the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. Commando’s current editor, Calum Laird, who took over in 2007 said, “As someone who read Commando in the 60s and 70s, worked on the title as a junior member of staff in the 80s and 90s, and became editor in the 2000s, sitting in the hot seat for the 50th birthday is a great honour. Not everyone can have my career path but if Commando can entertain others as well as it did me, I’ll be very happy indeed!”

Visitors to the website (www.commandocomics.com) can also get their hands on some famous Commando cover posters (in A1 size format), exclusively, for the introductory price of £19.99. This September will also see a brand new collaboration for Commando, with the launch of the “Draw Your Weapons” exhibition – celebrating the iconic artwork from 50 years of the comic – at the National Army Museum in London. The exhibition will open on 1st September and Calum commented, “Everyone is delighted that this major exhibition of Commando artwork is to be hosted by the National Army Museum, as one of the key activities of our 50th anniversary celebrations. We’re sure that fans of Commando old and new, will revel in this display of comic art at its best, exhibited so dynamically by the National Army Museum.

Commando No 4447 Colours Of Courage

The proudest possessions of any regiment are its colours — the flags which it carries into battle. Its history is recorded on these colours, the victories it has won.
A regiment guards its colours fiercely. To have them captured by the enemy is a terrible thing. But when a man hands over the colours to save his own skin it is a disgrace that brave soldiers can hardly bear think about.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

If there are two things difficult to get right in a Commando they are French Resistance stories and ghosts. Resistance stories could easily be 63 pages of skulking about avoiding searching German soldiers and ghosts could easily look like normal characters drawn without enough ink.
Thanks to ace story-teller Cyril Walker, Colours Of Courage cracks along with plenty of action to break up the tension. And Arthur Fleming — an art teacher from Glasgow — manages to skilfully depict a glowing figure despite only having black ink and white paper to work with.
Wrapped in one of Ian Kennedy’s superbly drawn and laid-out covers it’s got all it needs for a cracking Commando.

Colours Of Courage, originally Commando No 1182 (December 1977), re-issued as No 2412 (October 1990)

Story: Cyril Walker
Art: Arthur Fleming
Cover Art: Ian Kennedy

Commando No 4448
The Four Scars

Corporal Bill Kirk felt the tiny life-raft rock lazily as the Jap struggled aboard. Both turned to look at the sinking Jap prison-ship they’d been on — Bill a prisoner, the Jap a guard. Then they turned back, to look at each other; and what that Jap read in Bill Kirk’s eyes made him start back in fear.
But there was no escape for him. With only the vast empty ocean and the sharks circling the raft for witnesses, they grappled in a fight to the finish.

Introduction by Calum Laird, Commando Editor

I’ve mentioned before that I my childhood Commando issues at the back of the garage a few years ago. Some I had to look at again to refresh my memory, but not this one. I don’t know how many times I read and re-read this in the 60s but it must have been a lot because I had almost total recall.
Ken Barr’s cover with its ethereal hand hovering over the action, Victor de la Fuente’s action-packed, high-energy inside art and Eric Hebden’s crackerjack of a story with its startling twist were just what the doctor ordered in 1965…and are equally so today. I think so anyway and I hope you’ll agree.
As an aside, Ken Barr used a sheet of transparent plastic sheet with the outline of the hand painted on it to get that ghostly effect. I certainly didn’t know that in 1965.

The Four Scars, originally Commando No 185 (October 1965), re-issued as No 831 (April 1974)

Story: Eric Hebden
Art: Victor de la Fuente
Cover Art: Ken Barr

Commando 4449
Days Of Danger

Simon Katz was a young German and a fervent anti-Nazi. A brilliant mathematician, he escaped Germany by the skin of his teeth and went to work as a code-breaker for the British.
Not long after, Sergeant Barney Taft also made an escape – from the bullet-strafed beaches of Dunkirk.
Though they were on the same side, when circumstances threw the pair together, they clashed bitterly. But could they manage to work together against a ruthless enemy? They would have to if they were to survive.

Story: Stephen Walsh
Art: Vila
Cover Art: Nicholas Forder

Commando No 4450
The Nightmare War

Private Franz Bauer, a German Army engineer wounded during the invasion of France, was haunted by the deaths of his comrades in the same battle — wiped out by a mine. When he recovered he threw himself into his new job developing the remote-controlled Borgward IV demolition vehicle, hoping it might save other German lives.
His chance to save thousands of lives would come, but he would be working alongside an unlikely ally — someone who had nightmares every bit as bad as Franz’s.

Story: Mac MacDonald
Art: Keith Page
Cover Art: Keith Page

Read Ardden Entertainment’s Flash Gordon #1 And #2 For Free

  • News
  • December 2, 2011

PRESS RELEASE:

Ardden Entertainment LLC is excited to offer the critically-acclaimed and sold-out FLASH GORDON: THE MERCY WARS #0 and #1 for free! See where Ardden’s Flash Gordon series got started!

Find out why Publishers Weekly, Ain’t It Cool News, Newsarama and others have given it such raves, saying such things as: “With each new issue in (Ardden’s) series we are witnessing the definitive modern take on the Flash Gordon mythos” (Geek Goggle Reviews).

To read FG: TMW #0 and #1, simply click on the following link:

Additionally, any comic book retailer who sends Ardden Entertainment a copy of Dynamite’s FLASH GORDON: ZEITGEIST #1 will receive a FREE copy of FLASH GORDON: THE SECRET HISTORY OF MONGO, the 80 page trade paperback original that features stories by J.M. DeMatteis, Denny O’Neill, Joe Casey, Jim Krueger, Len Wein, Tom DeFalco, and more!

This 80 page book retails for $7.95! For more information, please email us at Ardden.Entertainment@GoogleMail.com or visit us at http://www.ardden-entertainment.com/

Ardden Entertainment LLC was formed in 2008 and is the proud publisher of FLASH GORDON: THE MERCY WARS, FLASH GORDON: INVASION OF THE RED SWORD, and many more quality comics. They are also the publisher of the upcoming Flash Gordon arcs: THE VENGENACE OF MING, in which Ming invades Earth, and KING OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, promising a Flash Gordon unlike any ever seen before!

http://issuu.com/richemms/docs/www.ardden-entertainment.com

Dwayne McDuffie and Earl Kress to Receive WGAW Animation Writing Awards

  • News
  • November 18, 2011

Dwayne McDuffie by Glen Muramaki & Andrew PepoyI guess the write-in campaign worked. Applause to the Writers Guild for honoring these guys.

Dwayne McDuffie and Earl Kress are set to receive the Writers Guild of America, West Animation Writers Caucus’ 14th annual Animation Writing Award posthumously. The honor recognizes their animation writing work and their efforts to organize animation for the guild.

“This year, animation lost two talented, hard-working people who have given much of themselves and their talent to our field,” said AWC chair Craig Miller. “Dwayne McDuffie was a talented writer and creator of comics and animation who worked hard for others, particularly for minority writers. Earl Kress was a writer whose career included both feature and TV animation and hard work on behalf of all animation writers as a member of the WGA Animation Writers Caucus and the Animation Guild Board of Directors. Both were people I was glad to call friend and colleague, and whose efforts, it can truthfully be said, made all of us the better for them.”

via Dwayne McDuffie and Earl Kress to Receive WGAW Animation Writing Award – Hollywood Reporter.

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