Walt Disney is releasing I am Number Four on Blu-ray & DVD this coming May 24th. The adaptation of the acclaimed young adult novel kind of came and went in February so you may have missed it. In anticipation of the home video release, we have been provided with a slideshow for your entertainment.
Behind-the-Scenes Slideshow
Pro Se Productions, the company sponsoring PULP ARK, the first annual Pulp Convention/Creators Conference being held May 13-15 in Batesville, Ark., announced today that major publisher Simon and Schuster is one of the many publishers taking part in the activities.
According to Tommy Hancock, Pulp Ark Coordinator, Simon and Schuster is participating in Pulp Ark in order to promote the upcoming release of a major novel by Paul Malmont. Malmont, best known for his best selling works ‘The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril’ and ‘Jack London in Paradise’ has completed ‘The Astounding, The Amazing, and the Unknown’. This novel, a sequel to ‘Death Cloud Peril’ follows pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard on adventures into the 1950s that will rival the fantastic pulp tales the future cultural icon wrote. The first book in this two-book series was a fictional romp involving Hubbard, H.P. Lovecraft, and pulp authors Lester Dent and Walter Gibson and others that carried them across the map and through two fisted, pulse pounding adventures.
“Malmont,” Hancock stated, “takes real life historical personages and weaves them into these realistic, yet wildly entertaining, fast paced tales. Pulp Ark is pleased to be able to say that various items, like postcards and such, will be handed out Saturday, May 14, to commemorate the July release of the new novel. Also, a galley copy of the new novel will be on display and given away at 4:30 Saturday afternoon. To register for the giveaway, all you have to do is come to Pulp Ark at 151 West Main, Batesville, Ark starting at noon Friday, May 13 and put your name in the box! The winner will be drawn on Saturday!”
For further information on the giveaway and Pulp Ark, Hancock can be reached at 870-834-4022 or proseproductions@earthlink.net.
The international trailers for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Twilight have hit the internet.
First up is Potter, which can be found over at Trailer Addict or watched below. The new trailer offers some interesting glimpses into the film, including Dumbledore’s curse-ridden hand and Potter chasing after Snape while shouting, "Fight me, you coward!" You also get to see the cave where Harry and Dumbledore have their last great team-up together. All in all, looks like a fitting adaptation of the series’ penultimate chapter.
Click below to watch!
Next is Twlight, an adaptation of the young adult vampire/romance novel by Stephenie Meyer. The book has spawned three sequels: New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. It follows the romantic relationship between a human named Bella and an animal-feeding vampire named Edward. The film stars Kristin Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Cam Gigandet, Peter Facinelli and Nikki Reed.
Head here to see the trailer.
On October 22, DC will be releasing the hardcover graphic novel Joker
[[[Joker]]] is a story of roughly the same note, though not narrated by the villain as Lex Luthor: Man of Steel was. In this hardcover graphic novel, the story is narrated by Jonny Frost, a two-bit hood. In an interview with Newsarama, Azzarello said that the reason for this was because the Joker’s narration couldn’t be trusted, given that he was insane, and so it was important to see it from the point of view of someone close to him.
As the tale begins, the Joker has been in Arkham for some time now and has only just now been released, legally and by the book (though how is never explained). This book plays the Joker as a gangster rather than a mass murdering psycho constantly trying to prove there is no point to life. As such, one of the major plot elements is that the Joker had several criminal operations going on when he went in and now he’s found that they have been taken over by others. To regain his criminal power and his money, the Joker begins hunting down the Gotham mobsters who have dared to dip into his operations, telling them, “I want what’s mine back.”
To help him on this quest, he grabs Killer Croc and Harley Quinn (who seems to be a mute in this story), as well as new assistant Jonny Frost, our narrator, a small-timer who admires the Joker and wants to be just like him. As the story goes on, the Joker directly challenges Two-Face, who has taken control of Gotham’s underworld while the Clown Prince of Killers has been away. And with each passing day, Jonny Frost realizes that the Joker is not a person to admire at all.
Not a bad idea. How was the execution?
In 1987, television was evolving. Thanks to [[[Hill Street Blues]]], the way dramatic stories were presented became more complex, the storytelling more diverse and the stories more compressed. The subject matter was also starting to broaden, moving beyond cops, lawyers and doctors. It was just before the SF wave kicked off with [[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]] but that didn’t stop CBS from trying something a little different.
On a Friday night, September 25, 1987, audiences were treated to a different look at the classic [[[Beauty and the Beast]]] tale. The series starred Ron Perlman as Vincent, the beast, a mutant of some sort, who comes to the rescue of Linda Hamilton’s Catherine, a rich girl turned assistant district attorney. Their connection became the stuff of fairy tale and from that pilot episode, their fates became inextricable.
It had all the lush romance of a Harlequin book and the action to keep spouses by their side. The series had its ups and downs, making a star out of Hamilton who left the series after just two seasons, derailing the eternal romance. Jo Anderson was brought in for the third season but that, coupled with CBS’s insistence on increased action for the males, hurt and the series came to an end in January 1990 (although the final two were run that summer). Its 56 episodes remain a testament to the creative vision of creator Ron Koslow and fantasist George R.R. Martin who wound up penning 13 of the episodes.
Paramount Home Video has released a 16-disc box set of the complete series and it shows its age. Beauty and the Beast has the look and feel of the 1980s without fully embracing the changing storytelling in television. The storytelling is slow, almost plodding at times, and each week they seemed to focus on some new social ill without really offering long-term solutions. The threats were fairly standard stuff for the most part, intertwined with the poetry between the characters. Complete with lush music, long, lingering gazes into character’s eyes, it was truly a romance novel brought to the screen.
A few years back, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón came up with the novel idea of retelling the 9/11 Commission Report
Now they’re back with something of a sequel, After 9/11: America’s War on Terror
I really only have one criticism. The book is labeled “graphic journalism,” which is a bit of a misnomer. The creators did no original reporting, as far as I can tell, instead researching media reports for their information.
It’s really an illustrated work of history, an encompassing paper-bound documentary of the past seven years in American foreign policy. Which is to say it’s a pretty depressing read.
The creators organize their collection of news reports and government documents in chronological form, as the U.S. launches its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter through no small part of deception.
Slow Storm
By Danica Novgorodoff
First Second, September 2008, $19.95
This is Novgorodoff’s first full-length graphic novel; she was an Eisner nominee last year for the one-shot [[[A Late Freeze]]]. She’s got an assured, pseudo-outsider art style, with big blocks of color and slablike faces, but her writing isn’t quite up to the same level yet. [[[Slow Storm]]] will be in stores in September, but comics stores and online retailers are, as always, already taking pre-orders.
Ursa Crain is a firefighter in Kentucky’s rural Oldham County who has a very confrontational, unpleasant relationship with her brother and coworker, the very thuddingly named Grim. (What kind of family names their two kids Ursa and Grim, anyway? Did they know their kids would be characters in a story with heavy symbolism?) These two siblings clearly don’t get along, but we don’t know why – and their sniping and digs don’t give us much of a clue. Grim also complains that his sister “looks like a moose,” as if he wants her to increase her sexual attractiveness – which doesn’t sound like any brother-sister relationship I know. (Particularly since the other firefighters – the ones not related to her – are already sexually harassing Ursa in their mild, Southern, good-ol-boy way.)
Rafael Jose Herrera Sifuentes (Rafi) is a stableboy from Mexico, living in Kentucky illegally upstairs in the stable where he works. He comes from horse country himself, but he could only live hand-to-mouth there, and so he got himself smuggled into the US to be able to send money back to his family. He had the usual bad experiences on the way – robbed by the coyotes taking him over the border, shot at by a racist rancher – and somehow settled into this Kentucky stable.
Prince of Persia: The Graphic Novel
By Jordan Mechner, A.B. Sina, LeUyen Pham, and Alex Puvilland
First Second, September 2008, $18.95
The first [[[Prince of Persia]]] game was a 2-D platformer almost twenty years ago, and the next big thing with the name Prince of Persia on it will be a major Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie next summer. In between have been a number of games, with a number of different protagonists and plotlines. (And I’ve played exactly none of them, as far as I can remember – just to make that clear.) This year, in between the games and the movie, First Second is publishing a graphic novel loosely based on the series – or at least the title. It’ll be in stores in September.
This graphic novel is credited as “created” by Mechner (seemingly because he invented the original game, and maybe still owns a piece of it), written by Sina, and with art by Pham and Puvilland. And, as far as I can tell, the story here has nothing specific to do with any of the previous incarnations of Prince of Persia. (If I’m wrong, please correct me in comments.)
In this graphic novel, you actually get two stories for the price of one – they’re told intermingled, though, which can make it difficult to remember which story a particular panel belongs to, or which characters belong to which stories. (Evil, nasty overlords being depressingly common in stories like this, for example.) I did read Prince of Persia in bound galley form, though – without color – so it’s quite possible that the palette of the two stories are different enough to make that distinction clear in the final book.
Superpowers: A Novel
By David J. Schwartz
Crown, June 2008, $14.95
There are two kinds of superhero novels, with very different rules. The more common – but less respected – kind of superhero novel takes characters and situations we already know from an existing comics universe and tells a story using that furniture. Those books can be amazing, like Elliott S. Maggin’s two Superman novels, Last Son of Krypton
The other kind of superhero novel tends to come from people outside the comics field, and usually reinvents the wheel in its vision of superheroics. (Like everything else, sometimes doing it elegantly and sometimes producing an oval object that doesn’t even work as a wheel.) Some of the better examples of that type of superhero novel are Michael Bishop’s Count Geiger’s Blues
[[[Superpowers]]] is one of the latter kind of novels, down to the title. The British cover (see the continuation) even has line drawings of the characters in costume (by Norm Breyfogle, a name we who read comics will nod knowingly at), much in the style of last year’s [[[Soon I Will Be Invincible]]]. And the set-up is quite typical of an outsider superhero novel: five undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) develop individual superpowers after an evening of drinking homemade beer. (One of the endearing things about Superpowers is that Schwartz doesn’t even try to explain their origin – something unexpected happened, and they now have powers. Period.)
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