The View From Oblivion

New Blog!

2006-09-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

I've begun a new blog to take advantage of Google's updated Blogger Beta system: roadkillbuddha.

I'll be leaving the View From Oblivion up as an archive.

Thanks for stopping by!

And So It Begins...

2006-09-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

Everybody's Watching YouTube

2006-07-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

New York Times: Thanks to YouTube Fans, 'Nobody's Watching' May Return from the Dead

USA Today: Video Stream Turns Into Deluge

Happy Fourth of July...

2006-07-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

...courtesy of Alex Ross.

Dear She-Hulk...

2006-07-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

...I'm pretty sure we're on our third chance by now, at the very least. (Click to enlarge the covers above and you'll actually be able to read the word balloons).

Crack? Seriously?

2006-07-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

So the space shuttle launch was scrubbed this weekend because astronauts were trying to smuggle crack into outer space? That seems to raise more questions than it answers, honestly.

Mysterio Man

2006-06-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Rumor has it that Bruce Campbell's recurring character in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man flicks will finally get a name in the third movie: Quentin Beck, better known to Spidey fans as Mysterio.

Sounds good to me. When Bruce signed my copy of If Chins Could Kill at the Houston premiere of Man With The Screaming Brain, I told him that I thought Raimi should make him the villain of the final Spider-Man film (last I read, Raimi was planning on doing 6 or so), giving him the longest origin story in movie history. Bruce didn't care for the idea, saying that the supervillains have to spend too much time in elaborate make-up. I pointed out that he wore a ton of make-up as the aging Elvis Presley in Bubba Ho-Tep, to which he simply replied that everyone wants to play the King, baby. During the Q&A that followed, someone else asked Bruce why Raimi didn't give him a larger role in the Spider-Man movies, to which Bruce replied that (a) if not for him, the multi-million-dollar franchise would be known as The Human Spider, and (b) he's the only person in the movies who consistently defeats Spider-Man.

A "movie version" of Quentin Beck/Mysterio appears in the videogame based on Spider-Man 2. When Spidey isn't worrying about Dr. Octavius' physics experiment or trying to stop his villainous rampage as Doctor Octopus, he has to contend with Beck, a Hollywood stuntman, special effects artist, and supervillain wannabe. Beck publicly accuses Spider-Man of being a fraud and challenges him to an arena competition. After his humiliating defeat, Beck returns as Mysterio and uses his illusions to stage a ridiculously unconvincing alien invasion. Amusingly, not only does Bruce Campbell narrate the Spider-Man 2 game, but when Mysterio is trying to impersonate an alien, he says "Klaatu Barada Nikto," the famous phrase from The Day the Earth Stood Still that also serves as the magic incantantion that Bruce (as Ash) screws up in Raimi's Army of Darkness.

The trailer for Spider-Man 3 looks awesome, and the only thing that would make the movie better is if we get to see Bruce Campbell purchasing a giant fishbowl to use as a helmet for his costume. In the meantime, I'm going to see about transplanting Ash's head onto Mysterio's body...

Why Nobody's Watching

2006-06-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

A year ago, when the Global Frequency pilot escaped onto the internet, I wrote a blog post suggesting that Internet Voting could greatly improve the quality of television programming. Instead of leaving it up to network executives to decide what America wants to watch, TV pilots could be posted on the internet, allowing audiences to select the new lineup for each season.

After all, Family Guy and Futurama were both "uncancelled" after people voted with their wallets by purchasing copious amounts of DVDs.

The networks look like they might be getting their feet wet with a few online contests. FX solicited comedy shorts to promote the return of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," offering the winner the chance to turn their idea into a pilot with a $50,000 budget. Comedy Central is running a similar Test Pilots contest to procure more content for Motherload. And fans of "The Office" can enter their homemade promos for the show in NBC's contest.

YouTube has proven that my Internet Voting model is viable, and the networks seem to be paying attention. "Nobody's Watching," a pilot that the WB inexplicably passed on, has become extremely popular on the video-sharing website, and may find a home on television after all. Check out part 1, part 2, and part 3. (Battlestar Galactica fans will recognize "Billy," a.k.a. Paul Campbell, as one of the leads). And NBC will be using YouTube to promote its fall lineup this year.

It's time to send the focus groups home. Every broadcast network and cable station should just cut to the chase and start uploading all of their pilots directly onto YouTube. Let viewers vote for what they want to watch next season. Seriously, why isn't this a no-brainer?

Stephen Colbert, the Superfriends, and the Legion of Doom

2006-06-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this Daily Show clip of Stephen Colbert covering the 2000 election on YouTube this afternoon. I was looking for a clip from this week's Colbert Report about Superman's supposed homosexuality, but this is even funnier.

Anyway, Bryan Singer apparently isn't satisfied with the "Is Superman Gay?" controversy, and is trying to stir things up even more by saying that the end of Superman Returns changes Superman forever. Sci Fi Wire has the story.

Rebooting Trek

2006-06-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

By now all serious and casual Star Trek fans ("Trekkers" and "Trekkies," respectively) are aware that the eleventh Star Trek movie will be produced and directed by J.J. Abrams, of Lost, Alias, and m:i:iii fame. This is, for the most part, great news. Abrams' proven creativity, success, and industry clout might actually make it possible to get the Trek franchise back on track, a feat that has seemed nigh impossible for many years now. It's enough to fill even some of the most cynical among us with a glimmer of hope that Trek XI might actually be a good movie.

But as I look forward to what could be, I also find myself looking back to what might have been. The last time the rumor mill had a "name" attached to a future Trek project, it was J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, the revolutionary science fiction series that many fans described as "Star Trek done right." It seemed natural that if anyone could revive the Trek franchise it would be him, even though it was hard to imagine what anyone could do to breathe life back into the Star Trek universe.

Now that the Abrams announcement has been made, however, we no longer have to imagine. Bryce Zabel has posted the treatment he and Straczynski pitched to Paramount on his blog, For What It's Worth. You can read for yourself what their take on a new Trek series would have been.

The proposal calls for a complete reboot of Star Trek, essentially giving the Original Series from the '60s the same treatment that Ron Moore later gave Battlestar Galactica. Citing Marvel Comics' Ultimate line as an example of what they were striving for, Straczynski and Zabel wanted to take the best elements from Classic Trek (such as the relationship between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy) and give everything a modern update.

This is an idea I endorse whole-heartedly. Star Trek continuity has become so glutted after decades of piling it on that it cries out for a fresh start. However, when I described the pitch to my filmmaking partner Victor on the phone today, he stated unequivocally that Straczynski's idea never stood a chance of being implemented.

"Do you remember the outcry from Battlestar Galactica fans when the new mini-series came out?" he asked. And he had a point. Compared to Star Trek's, BSG's fanbase was practically non-existent (just a frak-tion of the size, as Vic would say), yet they managed to raise quite a stink about the changes that Moore made to their beloved series. Now consider what the reaction from the obsessively -- the disturbingly -- passionate Trek fans would be. There might be riots. Seriously. Because if there's anything that Trekkers are afraid of, it's change.

But it sounds like they've got nothing to fear from Abrams' crew. If anything, it sounds like Trek XI might be the exact opposite of Straczynski's vision.

According to a recent article at Movies Online, everyone involved in the project, including Damon Lindelof, Bryan Burk, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (all of whom have worked with Abrams on Lost, Alias, and/or Mission Impossible 3) is not only a long-time fan of Gene Roddenberry's venerable creation, they're also steeped in Star Trek continuity and minutiae. Their knowledge of Trek lore spans not only the decades of movies and television series, but the decades of novels as well.

Someone on Abrams' Trek XI crew is quoted as saying:

"We're very mindful of being totally true to the mythology... and this is not a case of trying to come in and be so clever that you're going to reinvent everything. It's a case of coming in and using the stuff you know is great and you know really works and not violating anything that's come before it." (italics mine)

While some in the Straczynski or Moore camps might criticize this as a slavish devotion to continuity, you've got to admit that creating a new Star Trek movie that doesn't contradict any aspect of Trek's 40 years of (internally inconsistent) continuity is a hell of an undertaking. I admire their dedication, but I don't envy their burden of keeping the obsessive-compulsive legions of Star Trek fans satisfied. That's an impossible mission.

World War Z

2006-06-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

Hoo-boy, I loves me some zombies. Max Brooks, author of the The Zombie Survival Guide, has a new book coming out in September, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War...

It began with rumours from China about another pandemic. The reports were fragmentary and confused. A world still reeling from bird flu and limited nuclear exchanges had had enough of apocalypse. Most people just wanted to rebuild their lives. Then the cases started to multiply and what had looked like the stirrings of a criminal underclass, even the beginnings of a revolution, soon revealed itself to be much, much worse. Faced with a future of mindless, man-eating horror, humanity was forced to accept the logic of world government and face events that tested our sanity and our sense of reality. Maybe, Brooks argues, the zombies brought us back to life. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and key players in the ten-year fight-back against the horde, World War Z brings the very finest traditions of American journalism to bear on what is surely the most incredible story in the history of civilisation.

According to SCI FI Wire, it's already been optioned by Hollywood:

Paramount Pictures acquired screen rights to Max Brooks' upcoming satirical novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, to be produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B, which outbid Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way for the rights; the book deals with the aftermath of a war against a legion of flesh-eating zombies and is due in the fall, Variety reported.

Meanwhile, according to the book's publisher:

Max Brooks is the author of 2003’s prescient Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead. He has since received hundreds of awards and honorary degrees from around the world. Last year he received the joint Papal and UN citation, Pro Humanitate.

Seems only right, considering how much the man has contributed to the world's anti-zombie efforts.

Self Storage Tips

2006-06-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

For more Self Storage Tips, check out the Irony Coast channel.

Self Storage Tips #2: Lost

2006-06-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

Self Storage Tips #1: Smell

2006-06-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

The "Self Storage" Pilot!

2006-06-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

Above: The 5-minute contest-length version of the"Self Storage" pilot/trailer. There will be an extended cut later, as well as promos featuring gags that didn't fit because of the time limit. (If you want to rate "Self Storage" on You Tube, here is the link).

The Story So Far: I leave the TV at Paper Heroes on FX in the evenings to have "King of the Hill" and "That '70s Show" on for background noise/entertainment, and if you've watched FX for more than 5 minutes in the past 2 weeks, you've noticed (as I did) that they're running a contest to promote the season premiere of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia." (If not, you can check out the commercial here). To enter the contest, you send in a 3-5 minute comedy short presenting the premise for a sitcom, and the winner gets a $50,000 budget to produce an actual pilot.

We at Irony Coast Productions decided that entering the FX Comedy Competition would be a good way to follow up our success with the 48 Hour Film Project 20 06. Actually, Victor and I decided that. Everyone else went on vacation (except for Marc -- he stuck with us). So, after recruiting an almost-all-new cast & crew (plus an army of extras, chosen from the ranks of our friends, family, and complete strangers), we were ready to create our first comedy short.

We went through a number of concepts for a weekly sitcom, some of which will be future Irony Coast projects. The one we finally settled on, "Self Storage," was loosely based on a joke I'd made (here and here) about Troy & Jason, a few former Paper Heroes employees who now work at a storage facility.

We shot at that storage facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana for 16 hours on Sunday, June 4. It was the most excruciating fun we'd had in years. Afterwards, we all felt like this:

You can see the rest of the behind-the-scenes production photos on Flickr.

Marc Isaacs, who appeared as Davey Delisio in our Eternal short, returns as Mitch. Co-starring as Mitch's brother Guru is Nate Hall, a welcome addition to the Irony Coast ranks. Cameos include actual storage facility employee Troy Duplantis as Millennium Falcon Guy, Paper Heroes owner Kevin Cinquemano as Lost Guy, and a lot of our kids as juvenile delinquents.

Special thanks to: Jason Hardesty, who shot some of the footage and created the "Self Storage" logo above; Nate's brother Matt Hall, who was a big help behind the scenes and who we look forward to casting in future productions; voice talent Cecelia Ottenweller, who (literally) phoned in her performance as Mitch's mother in his voicemail message; and Victor's brother Sean DiGiovanni, for helping out both in front of and behind the camera, and for supplying half our extras.

That's all the info I've got for now. Check back for updates!

Just Imagine Stan Lee's Batwoman

2006-06-01T11:14:00.000-07:00

As Gay Pride Month kicks off, the big news for comics geeks is that Batwoman will be returning to the DC Universe... as a lesbian. What caught my attention in all of the articles about it is DC's description of the character: "Lesbian socialite by night and a crime fighter by later in the night." Clever. Now, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. The tagline for Stan Lee's animated series, Stripperella (top right): "Stipper by night. Superhero by even later in the night." Oh well, if you're going to steal, steal from The Man.

Anyway, Kathy Kane (Batwoman's secret identity) is set to return in the weekly DC comic 52 as the lesbian lover of former Gotham City police detective Renee Montaya (pictured top left, from the cover of 52 Week 4). Now see, that's what's cool about lesbian superheroines. While male comic geeks can never hope to understand heterosexual females, they at least feel closer to the homosexual ones because they share the same taste in women. For example, Batwoman clearly likes getting her girlfriend to dress up as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and what geek can't identify with that?

And on to the next project...

2006-05-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

So now we're writing a script for a pilot we're going to shoot in a few days because, you know, we didn't have any other plans for this weekend. Feel like making your own pilot? Details here.

The "48 Hour Film Project" Experience

2006-05-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

Nothing forces you to overcome the inertia of procrastination like a bona fide deadline, and for this reason I recommend entering contests, whether you really want to find out what you're made of, or simply need to get your creative juices flowing.

It was in this spirit that my friends and I put together Irony Coast Productions and entered the 48 Hour Film Project in Houston, Texas, where we were competing against 13 other teams. Between 8 pm on Friday, May 19 and 8 pm on Sunday, May 21, we had 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit a short film, 4-7 minutes in length.

Not just any short film, mind you. First, we had to pick our genre out of a hat. From this list of possibilities, our Team Leader drew "Romance" (Yuck! We were tempted to throw it out and go for the Wild Card genre, but were relieved that we hadn't when the Wild Card for Houston turned out to be "Foreign Film"). Then we were given a list of 3 elements that every film (regardless of genre) had to include (in the form of a prop, a character, and a line of dialogue):

The prop: a pair of pliers
The character: a cheerleader named Davey or Diane Delisio
The line of dialogue: "Just keep going, you'll know when to stop."

(Things were off to a bumpy start when the person reading off the list of elements pronounced the first one "pillars" and explained that they were the things that held bridges up. But thankfully she spelled out each element, and everyone quickly realized that p-l-i-e-r-s had nothing to do with vertical supports).

Thanks to the tools and the talents of our fearless Team Leader and Director Victor DiGiovanni (of Victory DiGital in Houston) and our Director of Photography Chris Lognion (of MediaPost in Lake Charles, Louisiana) -- both of whom have extensive professional experience in video production -- we knew that our short would look good, so our real concern was coming up with a decent concept and story.

With that in mind, we left the Kickoff site (a bar called Dean's Credit Clothing) and headed to our base of operations, the home of Charles & Cecelia Ottenweller, affectionately known as Hotel Ottenweller, or Hot Ott for short. Officially, Charles is credited as a Production Assistant and Cecelia a Screenwriter, but those title don't truly cover the scope of their contributions, because it was their support and hospitality both at home base and on location that kept us going throughout the weekend. Thanks again, guys!

Assembling in C & Ce's living room, we broke out the white board and started brainstorming story ideas. Altogether there were 10 of us that night, including most of our actors (Shelley Farrell, Kimberly Ensey, and Marc Isaacs), production assistants (Charles, Eric Renard and Tim Hershbach), and screenwriters (Victor, Cecelia, Blayne Gorum, and myself). When that became too unwieldy, we broke up into 3 groups for an hour or so and then returned to pitch our ideas to the team (and our Team Leader) as a whole. The challenge was to incorporate all 3 required elements into a Romance screenplay that could be shot with our 4 actors at available locations... and, of course, to be happy with the results.

From the three story ideas, the group naturally picked the one that proved to be the most abstract, complicated, and impenetrable. After another hour or more of struggling to nail it down (and getting a tad frustrated with all of my questions being answered with "It's a metaphor") I desperately tried countering with my straightforward "Zombie Cheerleader" pitch, but to no avail. And so, as head screenwriter (read: the guy who brought a laptop with Final Draft installed on it), I offered to do the only thing I could think of in this situation: type the script out as they dictated it to me.

But that proved to be unnecessary. After everyone else left to get a decent night's sleep, the screenwriters rallied and, after extracting the imagery we liked from the winning pitch, wrote an entirely new story to go with it... somewhere between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. A refreshing one hour's sleep later and we were ready to begin filming.

Our male lead (Steven Arthur) and our other 2 production assistants (Christian Ryder and John T. Powell) joined us on Saturday. Compared to Friday night, the rest of the weekend went pretty smoothly. Saturday morning, oh, 6-ish, the Team began scouting the locations we needed: Hermann Park and Olivewood Cemetary, where we shot until 7 or 8 p.m., with our dauntless actors memorizing their lines on the fly. We had an awesome and talented cast, who never complained, even when we did cruel and sadistic things like make Shelley run barefoot through the woods over and over again. (She said that dodging the broken beer bottles was the worst part. At least we let her wear sneakers for the long shots). As a writer, my function on Saturday was basically to act as a Grip and to occassionally operate the Boom Mike. For the tech geeks in the audience, our DP was shooting with a JVC HD100 with a Firestore hard drive on it; we were amazed that even our test footage looked like scenes from a movie.

I think most everyone got a decent night's sleep before the all-day editing marathon began on Sunday morning. Again we took over the Ottenweller's living room, where many of us spent a lovely day backseat-driving while Chris and Victor assembled our film on a computer hooked up to C & Ce's flatscreen television. It was a similar experience to the Friday night writing session, with a roomful of opinionated people trying to shout their creative vision over everyone else's, but at least this time we were facing 90 minutes of raw footage instead of a blank page. Trust me, that's a far less desperate situation to find yourself in.

We made the deadline, just barely (is there any other way?), delivering our entry, "Eternal," on a MiniDV cassette to Dean's Credit Clothing with about 20 minutes to spare. As a backup, we had a second team rush a DVD to the dropoff point as soon as one finished burning, and that was turned in literally at the last second after a harrowing drive through the streets of Houston at speeds that my stomach considered to be highly unsafe.

Now we had 3 days to kill until the premiere and the judges' decisions, so we of course spent them showing our film to friends and family and fretting over every nugget of negative feedback they offered.

The Houston 48 Hour Film Project 2006 premiered with 2 showings on Wednesday, May 24, at the River Oaks Theater. This venue was particularly cool for those of us who had last been there to attend a Bruce Campbell book signing and a screening of "Man With The Screaming Brain." And the fact that our DP picked us up in what came to be known as the Irony Coast Party Bus didn't hurt either.

While we didn't get the award for "Best Film," overall we were satisfied with the results. As I type this, they haven't posted the winners of the judges' awards on the official website yet, nor have they even announced the audience awards, and the battery in our video camera died just as the coordinator began reading the list of winners to the audience at the end of the screening, but as far as I can remember, these are the 6 awards we won or tied for: Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Sound Design, Best Use of Line of Dialogue, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing.

More important than the awards, of course, was finding out what we could do under serious time (and content) constraints, and now that we've got the filmmaking bug, we're anxious to see what's possible with complete creative freedom and actual prep time. We plan to assemble Irony Coast Productions again very soon.

If anyone reading this is planning on entering the 48 Hour Film Project (there are still plenty of cities left on the tour) -- and I highly recommend the experience -- here is my advice:

While many of us describe the Friday night writing process as a nightmare, it was also a learning experience. We definitely had too many cooks in the screenwriting kitchen, but I wouldn't recommend cutting anyone out of the brainstorming process. You never know who might contribute a brilliant idea, and if everyone has had a hand in guiding the direction of the film on Friday night, they'll feel that it is partly "theirs" and have a much stronger connection to it for the rest of the weekend. Considering that everyone is a volunteer, that latter part is invaluable. Also, Friday night is a great opportunity to bond with your actors and get a feel for their strengths. When you're making a film in 48 hours, it's a lot better to have the cast involved in the creation of their characters from the outset than to simply toss them a script on Saturday morning and have them catch up as best they can.

So while I think that everyone on your team should be involved in the initial brainstorming of story ideas, there needs to be a definite cut-off point where the people who are responsible for actually writing the script are left alone to do their job. Otherwise, everything descends into chaos and despair, and you're really lucky if that's a downward-spiral you can pull out of.

You can watch the "theatrical cut" of "Eternal" on YouTube. Chris and Victor both began work on "director's cuts" almost immediately after the contest ended, so we'll eventually get to see what we could've created with more than 48 hours at our disposal. You can check out the rest of our pictures from the premiere, as well as behind-the-scenes production photos, here.

Finally, a personal thank-you from me to everyone on the Irony Coast team for making that weekend such an enjoyable experience. It was great to meet, work, and hang out with all of you, and I hope we do it again soon!

Defending Animism!

2006-05-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

As I was passing a pile of action figures on a table at the Dallas Comic Con, the name on these packages jumped out at me, and after I stopped laughing, I took this picture. Animism Defender? Defenders of Animism? Wow. This is what Answers.com has to say about animism:

animism (an-uh-miz-uhm)

The belief, common among so-called primitive people, that objects and natural phenomena, such as rivers, rocks, and wind, are alive and have feelings and intentions. Animistic beliefs form the basis of many cults. (See also fetish and totemism.)
The belief that natural objects such as rivers and rocks possess a soul or spirit. Anima is the Latin word for “soul” or “spirit.” (See voodoo.)

I guess animism, as a religious belief, would be more prevalent today if the original Animists had had giant robotic transforming dinosaurs to defend their faith. Who wouldn't want one of these cyborg monsters running interference between them and a bunch of Crusaders or Jihadis? Heck, it would be handy to have one of these around the house just to sic on any Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses that knocked on your door.

As a lover of all variations of Engrish (wikipedia) and Manglish, I assumed that "Animism Defender" had been badly translated from Chinese, and a little internet research revealed that these toys are knock-offs of the Beast Wars/Transformers line. But that still doesn't explain why Kmart was selling them on their website.

I wonder if there's a market for an Animism Defender cartoon? Adult Swim, maybe? I would so love to write the scripts for that! The Religious Right wouldn't stand a chance against this Transformable horde.

Justice League Heroes

2006-05-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

The voice talent for the upcoming Justice League Heroes videogame has been announced, and it includes Ron "Hellboy" Perlman as Batman, and Michael Jai "crappy live-action Spawn movie" White as Green Lantern. More details here.

Although she's not included on the box art above, Zatanna -- according to the newest press release -- is still one of the Justice League members that players will be able to control. And as I mentioned back in August, each hero in the game "possesses an array of character-specific superpowers."

That sounds really cool, but I'm having a hard time imagining why it will be necessary to mindwipe Batman during the course of gameplay. Still, I can't wait for this game to come out. The story was crafted by the JLU's Dwayne McDuffie, so you know that aspect of the game will be stellar. It's nice to know that, even though the animated series has been cancelled, I'll still be able to visit the Justice League Unlimited universe one more time...

Comic Con Pictures

2006-05-03T00:36:00.000-07:00

Photos from the Dallas Comic Con have been posted to my Flickr account. Anecdotes to follow... if I feel like it.

Above: My photo op with Barry Allen, post-Infinite Crisis.

Marvel Movie Directors & Screenwriters

2006-04-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

More details on the upcoming slate of Marvel Movies:

IRON MAN
Director: Jon Favreau (Zathura)
Writers: Arthur Marcum and Matt Hollaway (Shadow of Fear)

HULK 2
Writer: Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand)
Supervillain: The Abomination

CAPTAIN AMERICA
Writer: David Self (Road To Perdition)

ANT-MAN
Director: Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead)
Writers: Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish

NICK FURY
Writer: Andrew Marlowe (Air Force One, Hollow Man)

THOR
Writer: Mark Protosevich (Poseidon, The Cell)

Source: Sci Fi Wire

Dallas Comic Con

2006-04-27T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm planning on attending the Dallas Comic Con this weekend (April 29-30) in Plano, Texas. Should be a good father-son bonding experience for me and my 11-year-old, who's never been to a comic book convention before.

He's been bugging me to go to one ever since we watched the "Mayored to the Mob" episode of The Simpsons (on the Bart Wars DVD), in which Homer saves Mark Hamill from nerds at the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con.

Anyone else planning on being there?

Marvel Movies

2006-04-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

CNNMoney.com published a long, in-depth article yesterday on Marvel's plans to begin making its own movies instead of licensing its characters out to other studios (and then getting a small percentage of box office and DVD profits).

According to the article, Marvel borrowed $525 million from Merrill Lynch to finance 10 films with budgets ranging from $45-165 million each. (That really doesn't work out mathematically, but hey, I'm no financial analyst... I can only assume some of the money is coming from other assets).

The first 5 Marvel Studios movies will include Nick Fury, Hulk 2, Captain America, Iron Man, and The Essential Ant-Man. (Okay, I made up the "Essential" part, but in my mind it always makes the Ant-Man title that much funnier).

Apparently the big risk with this deal is that if the movies bomb and cost Marvel a lot of money, they could end up losing the movie rights to those characters to Merrill Lynch, who could then sell them to other studios.

This is yet another motion picture industry experiment that will be interesting to observe.

Previous Marvel Movie posts:

Battlestar Galactica News

2006-04-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

Maybe now this guy will be able to get work.

I started to post this story yesterday, but I was waiting to hear it from the horse's mouth, Sci Fi Wire, which just mentioned it today:

SCI FI Announces Caprica

SCI FI Channel announced the development of Caprica, a spinoff prequel of its hit Battlestar Galactica, in presentations to advertisers in New York on April 26. Caprica would come from Galactica executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, writer Remi Aubuchon (24) and NBC Universal Television Studio.

Caprica would take place more than half a century before the events that play out in Battlestar Galactica. The people of the Twelve Colonies are at peace and living in a society not unlike our own, but where high-technology has changed the lives of virtually everyone for the better.

But a startling breakthrough in robotics is about to occur, one that will bring to life the age-old dream of marrying artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot: a Cylon. Following the lives of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas (the family of William Adama, who will one day become the commander of the Battlestar Galactica), Caprica will weave together corporate intrigue, techno-action and sexual politics into television's first science fiction family saga, the channel announced.

While we're on the topic of Battlestar Galactica -- arguably the best show on television -- I wanted to mention something that should be of particular interest to screenwriters. The podcasts on the official website, which are usually DVD-style commentary on episodes from producer Ron Moore, now include a 3-part series of recordings from the Battlestar Galactica writers meetings. This is your chance to be a fly on the wall in a Universal Studios conference room and listen in as the entire writing staff does story development for the second half of season 2. Frakkin' awesome.

The Beatles Were Bigger Than Jesus...

2006-04-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

Astonishing X-Men

...and now Joss Whedon is bigger than The X-Men.

Seriously, what font size is that?

Captain America: Terrorist Sympathizer

2006-04-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine sent me this link today: The Betrayal of Captain America, described on the "Foundation for Defense of Democracies" website as a "Whitepaper." I was unfamiliar with this term, so I consulted Wikipedia, which describes a whitepaper as "an authoritative report on a major issue, as by a team of experts."

The "team of experts" on this whitepaper was comprised of Michael Medved, a conservative movie critic, and Michael Lackner, a lawyer who is apparently trying to make a career of attacking the politics of comic book superheroes (a year after proudly co-authoring the whitepaper on Captain America, he attacked the Punisher in FrontPage magazine).

The "major issue" at hand is the Captain America comic. The Michaels wrote about Marvel's betrayal of Cap way back in 2003, but somehow I only heard about it today. These experts were apparently incensed that, after September 11, 2001, Marvel Comics failed to do its patriotic duty and use the Captain America series for the purpose it was created: indoctrinating America's youth with jingoistic propaganda.

Indeed, why couldn't Marvel follow the fine example set forth by Fox News, instead of having the audacity to publish stories in which the U.S. government isn't infallible, and Captain America thinks for himself instead of simply being a good soldier? Why must the comics industry hate America?

You know, if Marvel's version of post-9/11 Captain America had Medved and Lackner up in arms, I wonder how they would have reacted to my Ultimate Nick Fury, Agent of SHAFT webcomics, in which the "Sentinel of Liberty" decides that to live up to his name he must become an anarchist and lead the resistance against the tyranny of the Bush Administration.

Actually, I scarely need to wonder, since I'm sure the reaction would have been similar to Medved's review of the film adaptation of Alan Moore's V For Vendetta, which Medved described as "V for vile, vicious, vacuous, venal, verminous and vomitaceous." Damn, with coverage like that, you know the movie just has to be good.

Extreme Sports Spidey

2006-04-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why this picture from the filming of Spider-Man 3 reminds me of Dan Slott's Spider-Man/Human Torch mini-series, but it does.

Grant Morrison Still Ahead of the Curve

2006-04-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

From Yahoo News:

TV seance claims to have reached John Lennon

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A controversial television seance airing on Monday will claim it has reached the spirit of John Lennon, but viewers will have to pay $9.95 to find out what the peace-loving Beatle has to say.

The program features what is described as an Electronic Voice Phenomenon, or EVP, that a psychic on the show claims is the disembodied voice of Lennon speaking at a seance in one of his favorite New York restaurants, La Fortuna.
(Read the full story)

Pictured above: Pages 18 and 19 of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles #1 from September 1994. Art by Steve Yeowell. (Click picture to enlarge)

What I Did On My Easter Vacation

2006-04-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

Between my new job, the continuous construction (and destruction) going on inside my house, and my son being out of school for Spring Break, my routine (and by extension my productivity) has been completely demolished over the last couple of weeks, bringing the progress on my screenplay to a screeching halt.

But on the plus side, I did beat Tomb Raider: Legend (a game you might have heard of if you bought any DC comics recently, or turned on your television).

In related news, it looks like Angelina Jolie will be back in Tomb Raider 3.

Justice League of America Pilot

2006-04-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

If you want to see a textbook example of an ill-conceived adaptation, check out this 1997 pilot for a Justice League of America television series (that the network mercifully passed on) currently available on YouTube. I'd like to thank Jeff for emailing me the link to this video, assuring me of a productivity-free morning. Until today I'd only seen still photos of this fiasco.

Trust me, watching this will actually make you nostalgic for the superior Flash TV series from the '90s. For one thing, the Flash is probably the character most egregiously defamed here. Barry Allen is depicted as an aimless loser who can neither get a life nor keep a job. Yet they acknowledge that his superpowers come from a lab accident. I guess the chemical explosion in the crime lab where Barry Allen worked as a police scientist gave him brain damage in addition to super speed.

Particularly lacking in logic is the format of the pilot. The members of the Justice League appear in their civilian identies in documentary-style video clips that break up the main story. As if they're being videotaped for a VH1 "Behind the Music" episode, they casually discuss a variety of topics such as how they acquired super powers and how their responsibilities as superheroes complicate their everyday lives. Yet a primary theme of the pilot is how crucial it is for them to maintain their secret identities in order to protect their friends and families. So who exactly is this documentary being produced for? I almost expected one of them to say, "Boy, I hope the Legion of Doom never sees this."

Not that anyone who is the slightest bit observant would need help recognizing these individuals in their costumes and masks. Seriously, some of these characters' "disguises" (Fire's in particular) make Superman's Clark-Kent-eyeglasses look plausible.

The plot is dependent upon Ice accidentally discovering the villain's weather-control device, accidentally short-circuiting it (thereby getting endowed with ice powers), and then putting it back where she found it and mentioning it to no one for days so that it can be used to threaten the city again in the climax.

I have no idea who the Green Lantern was supposed to be based on. He had Guy Gardner's name, Hal Jordan's origin, and, for all I know, Kyle Rayner's personality. In order to fly he had to make a helicopter propeller with his ring. And his girlfriend is more gullible than Lois Lane.

The Atom shrinks down so that he can rescue a cat under hiding under an old lady's porch. Ice "saves" a guy from drowning by freezing the lake he's in solid (don't worry, he suffered no ill effects). And the one character that you would expect to be the most preposterous, the Martian Manhunter as played by M*A*S*H veteran David Ogden Stiers, was one of the only aspects of this debacle I thought almost worked. (Stiers, by the way, went on to voice Solivar on the Justice League Unlimited cartoon).

There were a couple of things in it I found entertaining, beyond the train-wreck quality of the entire enterprise. One was obviously intentional, the other definitely not...

The first was the computer password that Ray Palmer hacked in order to gain access to the supervillain's database: RED SKY, clearly a reference to the red skies phenomenon from the original Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series. This is the only thing in the pilot that made me think the writers might actually have read a comic book starring the JLA.

The second was a bit of dialogue between the Atom and Ice. You'll notice in the screencap above, Ice is the only one in civilian clothes. That's because she gains her ice powers during the course of the pilot and only joins the League at the end. After she accepts her invitation, Ice asks the Atom, "What would you have done if I'd said no? I mean, I know who you all are." His response? "Don't ask."

I couldn't help laughing at this ominous foreshadowing of Identity Crisis. Since she doesn't appear in the pilot, I suppose we can just assume that Zatanna is a reserve member of the League, and that she is called upon whenever her services are required.

Perfect Easter Basket Stuffers

2006-04-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

David Blaine Strikes Back!

2006-04-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

I couldn't help noticing that South Park Supervillain (and the messiah of the Cult of Blaintology) David Blaine was at the top of Yahoo's "Buzz Index" today, after having just mentioned him in yesterday's post (as the arch-nemesis of the Super Best Friends). Curious about the timing, I did a quick search and turned up this news item on the Chicago Sun-Times website: "Blaine To Spend Week in Aquarium." The article explains that David Blaine plans to live underwater for seven days in front of New York's Lincoln Center next month.

This brought on a couple of revelations:

When Blaine squared off against the Super Best Friends in Washington, DC, he brought the statue of Abraham Lincoln to life to battle them. Coincidence? I think not.
Living underwater is obviously the best way for Blaine to protect himself from Mohammed's powers of pyrokinesis, if he is indeed preparing for a rematch.

Now, you might think that using an aquarium as his staging area would make Blaine particularly susceptible to Joseph Smith's ice powers, but you have to remember that Blaine demonstrated his immunity to freezing back in 2000 when he was encased in ice in Times Square for almost 62 hours.

The only question that remains is whether ABC will allow the David Blaine: Drowned Alive special to air unedited, or if they will censor Blaine's battle with Mohammed in order to capitulate to terrorist threats.

Comedy Central Lets The Terrorists Win

2006-04-14T07:37:00.000-07:00

On the left, a pre-9/11 image from "South Park" on Comedy Central. On the right, a post-9/11 one. When I saw the image on the right Wednesday night, I thought it was a joke, but apparently it wasn't, according to today's news stories at WorldNetDaily and E!Online.

For the non-South-Park-fans in the audience, the picture on the left depicts some of the members of the Super Best Friends, a Justice League of religious icons assembled by Jesus to defeat stage magician David Blaine. Pictured here (left to right) are Joseph Smith, Buddha, Jesus, and... HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT'S A PICTURE OF MUHAMMAD ON MY BLOG! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!

Oh, the irony of Comedy Central censoring an image of Muhammad in a South Park episode about Fox Network executives having the courage to air an image of Muhammad on Family Guy. And the fictionalized Fox execs were facing direct threats from Al-Qaeda, no less, while the real-world Comedy Central ones were merely reacting in fear to the months-old Danish cartoon riots.

Comedy Central's display of cowardice in the face of abstract concerns about terrorism really makes the conclusion of this week's episode -- Jesus taking a crap on the American flag -- rather redundant.

Buckaroo Banzai #3

2006-04-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

From Comics Continuum comes more information on the comics sequel to the greatest movie of all time:

BUCKAROO BANZAI #3 (MOONSTONE BOOKS)
Story by Mac Rauch and WD Richter, adaptation/new material by Joe Gentile, art by Stephen Thompson, inks by Ken Wolak, covers by Dave Aikens and Michael Stribling.
"Return of the Screw," part 3 of 3. The rollicking saga concludes as Banzai, along with his Hong Kong Cavaliers, think outside the box to make sure our world can safely go to sleep at night!
Hearts are broken, a birth of something strange, a photo with a sad memory, a road trip with Uzis, the Man in the Moon, an assault on a Lectroid stronghold, Tommy as Tarzan, unerring marksmanship, the taste of a good rope, and all that wrapped inside a riddle about an elephant! But when will they have the time to book the studio to record their next smash album?
This "Mr. Toad's Wild-Ride" adventure screams (and then jumps with the world holding hands) to a conclusion that could only happen to our one-of-a-kind scientist/hero/rock star...Buckaroo Banzai!
32 pages, $3.50

From Billy Madison to Billy Batson?

2006-04-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

Yahoo News and Sci Fi Wire reported today that Peter Segal, director of such Adam Sandler movies as "The Longest Yard," "50 First Dates" and "Anger Management," has been chosen to helm the "Shazam!" movie. Although Sandler himself has no connection to this movie (yet), I can easily see him as a grown-up version of Billy Batson.

I'm not saying it's pretty, I'm just saying I can see it. It's not that hard, watch: "Adam Sandler wearing a red t-shirt with a yellow collar." See? Instant mental image. But I'll make it even easier for you with a little cheesy photoshopping below.

Of course, that makes me wonder who would play Captain Marvel after Sandler yelled "Shazam!"...

I'm thinking Brandon Molale, who appeared with Sandler in "The Longest Yard" and "Mr. Deeds." You might also remember him from "Dodgeball."

If you've got a better suggestion for the role of the Big Red Cheese (a.k.a. Captain Whitebread), I'd like to hear it.

(By the way, I bet you never expected to see a photo of Captain Marvel attending the premiere of Deuce Bigalow, did you?)

All Aquamen Are Not Created Equal

2006-04-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, pop quiz: What's the difference between these 2 Aquaman action figures?

(I mean besides the fact that the one on the right, based on designs by Ed McGuinness, looks like it could launch a congressional hearing on steroid abuse among Justice League members. Seriously, just take a look at his teammates).

Here's a hint. Check out the close-ups:

That's right. The figure on the left is intended "for ages 8 and up," while the one on the right is intended "for ages 14 and up." Both action figures depict Aquaman. Both are part of a JLA series. Both were made by DC Direct. But between them there is a 6-year maturity gap of some sort.

Try to imagine that your son (or daughter -- I'm not sexist) is a huge fan of Cartoon Network's soon-to-be-defunct Justice League Unlimited cartoon, and on his 8th birthday you take him to the local comic shop to spend the birthday money he received from relatives. And for some reason that you can't quite fathom (get it? fathom?), he decides he wants an Aquaman action figure. (He's only 8... there's no accounting for taste. But what's the WB's excuse? Seriously, Mercy Reef? Is it really necessary to prove you can sink lower than Smallville?) You tell him he can have the one on the left, but for the one on the right, he'll have to wait another six years. Now there's something that will make him look forward to his 14th birthday.

And that's despite the fact that the figure intended for younger children comes with a dangerously pointy trident accessory that your son could poke out his eye with (or stick down his throat, or shove up his nose into his brain). How does that make any sense?

Worse still, he then comes to his senses and realizes that there are far cooler action figures on display than Aquaman... but then discovers that the vast majority of them are beyond his appropriate age range. All the cool series are: Kingdom Come, Batman: The Long Halloween, Hush, Justice, Batman/Superman, (not to mention anything made by McFarlane Toys)... all out of reach for six more years.

What exactly makes these DC heroes unfit for kids 13 and under? Are they unwholesome somehow? Compared to what? Certainly not the Marvel Legends figures...

What we have here is a flaming, leatherclad demon named Vengeance who rides a flaming, skeletal motorcycle. This toy is covered in so many spikes and exposed ribs that I'd no sooner hand it to a small child than I would a rabid porcupine. Yet, it's somehow suitable for kids 5 and older:

Seriously, if that hypothetical 5-year-old has a hypothetical younger sibling, this action figure is effectively a lethal weapon in his hands.

If someone can explain to me the logic behind DC Direct's labeling system, I would be much obliged. I think the Choking Hazard warning, explaining that the toys aren't for kids under 3, should be quite sufficient. Beyond that, I have a hard time imagining any superhero action figure that could be considered inappropriate for someone between the ages of 8 and 14.

And yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I spend my workday thinking about.

The Return of Comic Book Guy

2006-04-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
--Al Pacino, The Godfather III

Comic Book Guy is back! No, not Jeff Albertson... me, Corey Bond!

If you'd asked me last month how long it had been since I'd logged any hours behind the cash register of a comic shop, I would've told you 11 years. Today I would tell you it's been about an hour and a half. That makes the 00's the third consecutive decade I've done time as a comics retailer.

In the 8os, working at Paper Heroes was a part-time college job for me. In the 90s, it was my first management job. Now it's an opportunity to avoid getting a "real" (read: "soul-destroying") day job while I work on my screenplay (more on that later). Not to mention that it puts me back in my element, surrounded by my people. (You know... geeks).

Speaking of being surrounded by geeks, you should check out my Paper Heroes photo set at Flickr. I'm compiling pictures (taken over the last 20 years by my friends and me) of comic creators, store signings, comic conventions, original art, etc. (Also, collectors might be interested in the Collectibles set).

When I left Paper Heroes in the 90s to get married and start a family, it was during DC's continuity-altering "Zero Hour" mini-series. Now that I'm happily divorced, my old friend (and fellow comics retailer) Earl points out that I'm returning to the comics biz (and once again pursuing a writing career) during DC's "Infinite Crisis." Life imitates art? Comics geek times all of his major life changes to coincide with those of the DC Superheroes? I guess we'll find out One Year Later.

Paul "the Gorilla" Marcinkus Dies

2006-02-22T00:15:00.000-08:00

Scandal-hit Vatican banker dies: Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was involved in one of the biggest financial scandals to hit the Vatican, has died, church officials say.

MARCINKUS: SILENT WITNESS IN CALVI MYSTERY: The Mafia, the Vatican heavyweight, the 'suicide' of God's Banker 25 years ago... the secrets that will be taken to the grave.

From Everything is Under Control by Robert Anton Wilson:

Paul "the Gorilla" Marcinkus

Paul "the Gorilla" Marcinkus, a political priest so named because of his King Kong musculature, served as bodyguard to two Popes and eventually became Archbishop and was appointed president of the Vatican Bank (IOR). He almost immediately plunged the Vatican into its first major financial scandal of the 1970s, when it was revealed that the Mafia had $1 billion in counterfeit stock, at least some of which got deposited in the Vatican Bank; according to many investigators, all of it was intended for deposit there, but what happened to most of it still remains unknown.

New York D.A. Frank Hogan, who prosecuted several local Mafiosi for this caper, attempted to extradite and prosecute Marcinkus also, but was blocked by White House intervention. (Michele "the Shark" Sindona, one of Marcinkus' colleagues in the P2 conspiracy, had contributed lavishly to Nixon's campaign, and P2 probably had high-level protection as part of the CIA's Gladio operation to control Italian politics).

Later, still under Marcinkus, the Vatican Bank became intimately involved with some of the "ghost banks" (virtual banks) and drug laundromats in the Sindona-Roberto Calvi loop. Marcinkus was listed as co-owner with Calvi of the Cisalpine Bank, a center of drug traffic according to Italian investigating magistrates. When Banco Ambrosiano crashed and the whole P2 scandal made headlines day after day for more than 2 years, the Vatican stonewalled, but later they quietly removed Paul "the Gorilla" from their bank and made him mayor of Vatican City. Later still, they sent him away entirely, and he was last reported in semi-retirement in Cicero, Illinois.

The Calvi Affair

The Calvi Affair by Larry Gurwin of the Institutional Investor (London) attempts to make sense of the P2 Conspiracy that shook up Italian finance, and European finance generally, for several years in the 1970s-1980s. Gurwin concentrates chiefly on Roberto Calvi, president of Banco Ambrosiano, whose strange death -- he was found hanging from a bridge in London, after disappearing abruptly from Italy -- had especially shocked English investors.

Calvi had joined the P2 brotherhood, a secret society within the Grand Orient Lodge of Egyptian Freemasonry, because he believed that P2 held the keys to economic and political power in Italy. Through his P2 connections, his close links with Archbishop Paul "The Gorilla" Marcinkus of the Vatican Bank, and his fertile imagination -- he created totally fictitious banks all over the world and used them to carry on illegal and clandestine activities -- Calvi became indeed very rich, but also attracted unwelcome attention from bank examiners.

Through Liccio Gelli, founder of the P2 group, Calvi became involved with the Mafia, the CIA, the KGB and an assortment of criminal and terrorist organizations-- but because of his ties to the Vatican, he was called "God's banker" and seemed immune to the hazards of his profession. Then the house of cards fell apart, Calvi found himself indicted for embezzlement, and under suspicion for numerous other crimes, and fled Italy. The day he hanged himself or was hanged in London, his secretary threw herself or was thrown from a window of Banco Ambrosiano in Milan.

Aquatic Action

2006-02-20T22:58:00.000-08:00

(click to enlarge)

Above: An interesting theme emerged in the winter of 1991. Pictured: ALF #48 (Oct. '91), Heavy Metal (Jan. '92), and Elementals Sex Special #1 (Dec. '91). Once noted, these were displayed side-by-side at Paper Heroes back in the day, and now reside in Cap'n John's Big Box o' Nostalgia. (And yes, ALF is doing exactly what you think he is to the poor seal).

Merchandise Placement

2006-02-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

The "Bad Twin" manuscript finally showed up on LOST last night, making for a single uncomfortable moment in what was otherwise one of the best episodes of the season. Hurley was seen reading it by the campfire, and even tried to describe it to Sayid before he cut him off.

Word on the street (i.e. "The Fuselage") is that the author of "Bad Twin," one Gary Troup (an anagram for "Purgatory") was not only one of the passengers on the lost Flight 815, but that he was the crash survivor unlucky enough to get sucked into the jet engine in the series' pilot. What we know for sure is that the novel Bad Twin will be available in May as an official Lost merchandizing tie-in. We know this because it's already listed on Amazon.com.

The scene was disconcerting because it pulled me out of the story, however briefly, as I realized that I was witnessing an example of product placement. Or "merchandise placement," as I prefer to call it, since it's an example of Lost advertising one of its own products instead of some other brand's.

It immediately reminded me of the IDIC pin story from the days of Classic Trek. IDIC stands for "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations," and refers to a pendant that Spock wears in the original Star Trek episode, "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" The ornamental pin was designed by Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, and a discussion of it was inserted into the script in order to advertise it to fans, much to the annoyance of the cast.

Of course the fact that Bad Twin is a book that was supposed to have been written by a fictional character on a TV series is more reminiscent of Twin Peak's The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer and FBI Agent Dale Cooper's autobiography. And you know, I read those, and I'm sure I'll read this too, so obviously it's an effective form of advertising.

But it just feels a little cheap, like the first time an Ewok pops up in Return of the Jedi, a turning point in the Star Wars Saga after which every character, alien, spaceship, and weapon was conceived as a toy first and a story element second.

Because while the tie-in is sort of "neat," I don't envision the discovery of the manuscript on the island moving the story forward, or providing any insight into the main characters. Unlike Laura Palmer's diary or Agent Cooper's tapes, it doesn't seem to be organic to the plot, and therefore appears to be "tacked on" sheerly for marketing purposes.

But hey, if it adds to the fun of the Lost experience, more power to them. I would just hate to see the show suffer from sloppy writing or clumsy merchandising.

Scarlett Johansson Nude

2006-02-08T10:48:00.000-08:00

Nude scene no hassle for two Hollywood girls

SCARLETT Johansson and Keira Knightley, better known for their work with their clothes on, have bared all for Vanity Fair.

Fashion designer Tom Ford, who is the guest artistic director for the Hollywood portfolio, says the pair had few qualms about the shoot.
"We didn't have to convince them. And you know, in today's world everything is vetted through a publicist, so they all knew right before they got to the set," he says.
Rachel McAdams, who was also supposed to be part of the shoot, however found herself with cold feet. "She did want to do it, and then when she was on set, I think she felt uncomfortable, and I didn't want to make anybody feel uncomfortable," Tom says.

Behind-the-scenes pictures from the shoot: Teddy & Moo's Celebrity Gossip.

Thanks to the Dark Piranha for the heads-up on this breaking news story about the View From Oblivion's unofficial mascot.

Buckaroo Banzai #2

2006-02-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

Coming in June from Moonstone Books:

Buckaroo Banzai #2
Written by Mac Rauch, pencils by Stephen Thompson, inks by Keith Williams, colors by Dennis Calero, covers by Thompson and Dave Ulanski.
"Return of the Screw," part 2 of 3. Part two continues as Banzai, along with his Hong Kong Cavaliers, protects our way of life as we know it! Meanwhile they must contend with: remembering where they parked the Jet Car, a huge elector-magnetic pulse, the Widow's buttocks, Lectroids, a misplaced syringe, and the World Crime League! Gah! Who has time for a "sound check" at this rate! The rollicking adventure picks up steam as the crap really hits the fan in this one!
32 pages, $3.50 (Limited edition Dave Dorman cover, $4.50).

Forget The Titans

2006-02-02T19:47:00.000-08:00

Synopsis for the upcoming Smallville episode "Cyborg":

A sympathetic doctor releases a half-human/half-machine subject named Victor who was being held captive and experimented on by LuthorCorp. While making his escape, Victor is struck by Lana's (Kristin Kreuk) car. After watching him walk away without a scratch, Lana calls Clark (Tom Welling) to investigate. Clark befriends Victor and promises to help him find his girlfriend, but Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) traps Victor and takes him back to LuthorCorp.

My question: Is getting hit by a car while walking through Smallville the default method of demonstrating that you have superpowers on this show? Seriously.

Bigger question: Why do comics fans settle for this embarrassing series?

Buckaroo Banzai Returns

2006-02-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

Most people who know me are aware that my favorite movie of all time is The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. At the end of the closing credits, we are promised that our hero will return in "Buckaroo Banzai vs. The World Crime League," but alas that sequel never materialized. Many years later the Banzai Institute announced that a television series was in the works. Preliminary special effects sequences can even be found as an Easter Egg on the Special Edition DVD. Sadly, the TV show never came to fruition either.

Now, finally, Buckaroo Banzai is back. This week, the 50-cent black & white preview of the new comic book miniseries from Moonstone Books hit comic shops. It includes 8 b&w preview pages, dossiers of Team Banzai members, and an in-depth account of the events leading from the release of the original movie, through the failed attempts at a TV series, to the publishing of the new comic.

The full-color first issue of Buckaroo Banzai: Return of the Screw is solicited in this month's Previews and is scheduled to ship in April. The covers are posted below. For shots of the interior art, click here.

Return of the Screw is adapted from "Supersize those Fries," the script for the TV pilot that was never produced. Earl Mac Rauch, who wrote the original Buckaroo Banzai screenplay and novelization, is credited with the Story, while W.D. Richter, the movie's director, is credited as Consulting editor.

See also: Buckaroo Banzai FAQ, Newsarama coverage, buckaroo banzai technorati tag, original cover art by Matt Haley on Flickr.

Samuel L. Jackson immortalized in cement

2006-01-31T17:52:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES, CA, United States (UPI) -- 'Star Wars' and 'Pulp Fiction' star Samuel L. Jackson has been immortalized in cement outside Hollywood`s famed Mann Grauman`s Chinese Theater.

The actor whose movies have grossed more than any other thespian in film history stuck his hands and feet in cement during a ceremony outside the landmark theater Monday, KABC-TV, Los Angeles, reported.

The prolific Jackson has been in more than 90 films during his 30-year career.

His latest film, 'Freedomland,' is due to hit U.S. theaters in February.

In other news:

Samuel L. Jackson-Narrated Documentary to Air on History Channel

By: Alyssa Rashbaum

The Samuel L. Jackson-narrated documentary on the only seven African-American World War II veterans to receive the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, will air in February.

The History Channel documentary, titled Honor Deferred, is narrated by Jackson, hosted by Bernie Mac and produced by Al Roker, and will air on Saturday, February 11 at 8 p.m. The film centers on the only seven men - out of one million African-American WWII soldiers - to be awarded for their service after an internal investigation uncovered a conspiracy within the U.S. government to hide the contributions of African-American soldiers and keep them from public record.

Among the actors portraying the legendary soldiers is independent film star Kevin Byrd, who plays Lieutenant John R. Fox who was honored posthumously by President Clinton in 1997. During the war, Fox found himself surrounded by German forces and valiantly called for the U.S. artillery to be fired directly on his position. While he died in that attack, he took 100 German soldiers with him.

"It's truly an honor to portray Lt. Fox and bring life and recognition to this true American hero," Byrd said of his character. "People need to know about these men and the contributions of African-Americans to our military and our way of life."

Scarlett Johansson's Golden Globes

2006-01-18T15:58:00.000-08:00

For Kevin: Scarlett Johansson in the red dress she wore to the Golden Globe Awards, as requested. Click to "enlarge."

But wait, there's more...

From "It" Girl Hell:

In case you missed it, Scarlett Johansson had her boobs squeezed by a gay fashion designer/Channel E! Interviewer at this year's Golden Globe Awards. The groper, Isaac Mizrahi, told Scarlett "I wanna know about the underwear you've got on," in which Scarlett then replied, "Not much." Then Isaac went in for the kill...

Shocked, Scarlett asked him what was going on. He said he was just taking notes. So she said "take all the notes you want." Geez, I guess it's ok to fondle women's boobs if you're gay. If that's what it takes then I'm coming outta the closet right now...

What, No Spider-Shark Repellant?

2006-01-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

I saw these in Wal-Mart this afternoon: "Shark Trap Spider-Man" and "Howling Manwolf" action figures. My first instinct was to purchase them so that I could share their godawfulness with friends, but then I decided that I didn't want to encourage toy companies to manufacture more of this crap by voting for it with my wallet. So instead, I decided to find pics of them on the internet and post them on the blog.

A friend of mine called while I was in the store examining them, and asked whether or not Manwolf looked good. That's a difficult question to answer... what would a "good" Manwolf action figure look like? So I simply replied that he is terrifyingly authentic, right down to the bright yellow and green costume. Also, if you press a button on his backpack, his jaw opens, he howls, and the moonstone (the source of his powers) on his neck lights up. (By the way, Manwolf made an appearance in the SHAFT NewsWire in May 2005).

My main concern with the Shark Trap Spidey, besides the fact that it reminds me of the infinite (and infinitely preposterous) variations of Batman action figures that have been cranked out over the years, is the unmistakable resemblance the little black shark accessory bears to Venom. Same white eyes, rows of teeth, and long red tongue. I didn't really need a mental image of Venom impregnating a shark to create some illegitimate shark offspring. Just when I thought it was safe to go back down the toy aisle...

Wedding Invitation

2006-01-13T13:04:00.000-08:00

From Comics Continuum:

Marvel Comics on Thursday released a "wedding invitation" to the summer event for Black Panther and Storm.

The release promotes Black Panther #14, by Reginald Hudlin and Scott Eaton, due in stores on March 22; and Storm #1, by Eric Jerome Dickey and David Yardin, due in stores on Feb. 22.

There will also be a Marvel Milestones for the event, collecting stories from Marvel Team-Up #100 and Black Panther (Vol. 2) #26.

Ultimate Avengers: The Movie

2006-01-03T09:15:00.000-08:00

Official Website: http://www.ultimateavengers.com/

"George Lucas Classics"

2005-12-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

SHAFT NewsWire - George Lucas, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at 3 billion dollars, recently launched a new project to spend his fortune on: purchasing the rights to classic motion pictures, digitally remastering them, then releasing updated Special Editions in cineplexes for a whole new generation of moviegoers to enjoy. The project is called "George Lucas Classics," and the first film to get the magic treatment is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Hoping to make the movie more appealing to a larger and younger demographic, Lucas has digitally added a lovable droid named Clank to the cast. Not everyone in Hollywood is enamored of Jack Nicholson's new robotic sidekick, however. The idea of a 1970s-era mental institution with a droid on staff seems preposterous to many, and some movie critics have condemned "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: The Special Edition" before it even hits theaters, calling it "an abomination" and "an affront to classic cinema."

Lucas remains unswayed by the negative press that the first "George Lucas Classic" has received so far, and issued this public statement to his naysayers:

"I defy you to name a single movie that couldn't be improved with the addition of dozens, if not hundreds, of CGI droids, alien creatures, and/or spaceships swarming around in the background."

Steve Gerber Still Doing "Hard Time"

2005-12-11T15:31:00.000-08:00

The first issue of Hard Time Season Two came out last Wednesday, which was all the impetus I needed to finally get around to reading the first series. As a huge fan of Howard the Duck creator Steve Gerber, I had tracked down the original 12 issues of his Hard Time series in comic shops and on eBay, even though I hadn't so much as thumbed through an issue. Then the complete run languished in a comic box in my closet for a few months, waiting for me to find an opportune time to read it all the way through.

When the time came, I was not disappointed.

Why hadn't I picked up the series from the beginning? Two reasons. First, I hadn't realized from what little promotion DC Comics gave the book that it was created and written by Mr. Gerber (with his longtime collaborator Mary Skrenes). Second, I'm not particularly into prison dramas. Sure, The Shawshank Redemption is one of the greatest movies of all time, but I've never bothered to watch an episode of Oz or Prison Break.

Hard Time has been described as Oz meets My So-Called Life. I've never seen either of those series, but if this combo means something to you, well, there you go.

I sat down to read the series with slightly mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was thrilled to be reading a Steve Gerber comic, but on the other, I was sorta wishing it was a new Howard the Duck series. Not that I'm one to pigeonhole creators; when I really trust a favorite writer, I'll follow along wherever their muse leads them. Although Gerber's writing enthralls from page 1 of issue 1 of Hard Time -- perfectly complemented by the moody artwork of Brian Hurtt and colorist Brian Haberlin -- there was a brief moment where the "I wish he was still writing Howard" voice popped into my head: A scene composed of soundbites from the popular media, represented by analogues of Oprah, Dr. Phil, and the shouting heads of Crossfire, is vintage Gerber, and made me nostalgic for the dead-on social and political satire of his acerbic waterfowl. But that voice was quickly silenced as I was drawn deeper and deeper into Gerber's newest creation.

So what's it about? Hard Time follows Ethan Harrow, a 15-year-old protagonist who is tried as an adult after inadvertently participating in a Columbine-style school shooting, given a sentence of 50 years to life, and sent to prison, where he slowly discovers that he possesses some sort of superpower. Gerber deftly blends the drama of prison life with forays into the supernatural, and demonstrates that he hasn't lost his touch when it comes to creating memorable characters. After only a few issues I was hooked on the series' unfolding mystery and the intricate lives of Ethan and his supporting cast.

The first six issues are collected in the Hard Time: 50 To Life trade paperback. Hopefully DC will see fit to publish a TPB reprinting the second half of "Season 1"soon. Until then, Season 2 #1 is an excellent jumping-on point. New and old readers alike will appreciate the reexamination of the traumatic events that kicked off Season 1. For some it will serve as an introduction to the series' premise, while for others it provides tantalizing new details that add even more depth to the story of how, and why, Ethan Harrow's life was changed forever.

You've probably noticed a link to Steve Gerber's blog in the sidebar already... check out Brian Hurtt's Hurtt Locker for great behind-the-scenes Hard Time artwork.

There's Nothing Like the Christmas Spirit

2005-12-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

One December, back in the era when I was managing a comic shop, I was at a comics convention and got Dave Sim to sign and personalize a Cerebus t-shirt for a friend of mine who couldn't be there that day because, well, someone had to run the comic shop. If I remember correctly, Dave drew the aardvark in a Santa hat, and had him saying something along the lines of, "The cash register came up short. You're fired. Ho, ho, ho." What always stuck with me, though, was what Dave said when he handed the shirt back to me: "There's nothing like the Christmas spirit -- and this is nothing like the Christmas spirit."

I'm not exactly renowned for my holiday cheer, either. So in the true spirit of the season, I'd like to share with you Sarah Silverman's "Give the Jew Girl Toys."

If you like Sarah, I also recommend these IFILM clips from her "Jesus Is Magic" show. My favorite is "My Boyfriend Is Catholic."

Also funny is this clip of her taking over "Chappelle's Show" for the AWOL Dave Chappelle.

And finally, here are some recent articles about her in The New Yorker and Slate. If you're wondering about the photo above, it's of Sarah Silverman as Rain Robinson on "Star Trek: Voyager."

Above: A Cerebus Christmas card, signed by Dave Sim and Gerhard, from cerebusfangirl.com.

The Prestigious Scarlett Johansson

2005-12-09T10:36:00.000-08:00

Although I was kidding when I reported earlier that Scarlett Johannson would appear in the next Batman movie, she will be the female lead in The Prestige with Batman (Christian Bale) and his butler Alfred (Michael Caine), not to mention Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and the Goblin King (David Bowie). The movie will also be directed by Christopher "Batman Begins" Nolan.

The movie is an adaptation of the science fiction novel by Christopher Priest (no, not that Christopher Priest) about rival stage magicians in the 19th century. Side note: According to Cinematical, Bowie will be playing Nikola Tesla!

Johansson will also be starring in Napoleon and Betsy. Assuming she plays Betsy, I really think they should cast Jon Heder as Napoleon.

The Death of John Lennon

2005-12-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

Today is the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death at the hands of Mark David Chapman.

As the Associated Press describes it:

"Twenty-five years ago, on Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by an apparently deranged fan."

To commemorate this sad occassion, and to annoy my buddy Victor, I'm taking another poll:

Bill Willingham Goes Back to the Drawing Board!

2005-12-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

Bill Willingham has a lot of long-time fans in the comics community, many of whom have followed his work since the '80s when he was writing and drawing the groundbreaking Elementals series. My friends and I aren't just comics fans, however. In our younger years we were gamers, and we first took note of Mr. Willingham's art when he was doing illustrations for Dungeons & Dragons and writing and drawing Villains & Vigilantes adventure modules.

Check out "Death Duel With the Destroyers" and "The Island of Doctor Apocalypse" at the V&V Cover Gallery. When Bill was doing a signing at Paper Heroes in Killeen, Texas, these are the items I brought to get signed. His look of distaste when he saw them was priceless. "Whoever drew these should have his fingers broken" was his only comment. I still think they're classics.

Bill's brief Wikipedia entry has a decent overview of his career (though any mention of V&V is conspicuously absent), hitting the highlights as it skips over the details. I've followed most of the comics listed there, and even own some original art from the Ironwood series.

There's a scene in "Cursed" (the Wes Craven werewolf movie starring Christina Ricci) in which one of the characters is desperately researching lycanthropy. He has a pile of comics on his bedroom floor, and the one on top is an issue of Bill's Coventry. I recognized it immediately. You can see the cover at the top of the page at the virtual Bill Willingham COMICON "booth."

Bill lived in Las Vegas for awhile, the setting of his Proposition Player miniseries, which will always have a place in my heart, as it was partially inspired by one of my best friends. Today I discovered this Las Vegas Weekly interview with Bill and a handful of other comic creators who lived there, including another of my all-time favorites, Howard the Duck creator Steve Gerber.

Although Elementals and Coventry are probably my favorite Willingham works, the comic that really put Bill on the comics industry map was the Vertigo series Fables. (Watch and/or listen to Bill discuss Fables at the 2005 ComicCon). And while Fables is indeed an excellent book, my favorites have something that it lacks: Bill Willingham artwork. For years, Bill has been exclusively writing comics, leaving the drawing and inking chores to other artists.

Which is why I was amazed when my friend (the aforementioned inspiration for Proposition Player) called to tell me that Bill was going to be writing and drawing a new series for DC Comics. The new series is Shadowpact, a spinoff of his Day of Vengeance "Infinite Crisis" miniseries. He discusses it at length at Newsarama. One of the characters is a talking alcoholic chimpanzee detective. I cannot wait. Bill's writing is good on its own, but the combination of his writing and art is always something special.

"X-Men 3" Pictures and Teaser Trailer Released

2005-12-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

Frasier Crane is the Beast! *

Watch the X3 trailer at apple.com. Check out the frame by frame analysis of it at The Xverse.com. Get updates on the movie's progress at xmenfilms.net and Comics2Film. And if you love navigating through Flash content, there's always the official site.

(*Disclaimer: Not an End Times revelation).

Rumsfeld's Imperial Decree

2005-12-01T17:31:00.000-08:00

My buddy Jameson sent me the following email in response to the New Rumsfeld Rule. It's one of those things I really wish I would have thought of first. Check it out:

I found it remotely hilarious yesterday that Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, has made it an order that the Iraqi Insurgents no longer be referred to as "insurgents" because he feels that gives them too much legitimacy. However, no single word seems to be able to define the insurgents distinctly enough to stick. Rumsfeld himself suggest they be referred to as "enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government." Quite a mouthful to say the least.

However, fortunately I do have a good suggestion for renaming the Iraqi resistance. I say we just call them "Rebel Scum" and be done with it. I mean if we're going to let Emperor Bush run around invading any sovereign nation he decides to, just because he doesn't like them...why don't we just go ahead and go "full-starwars" here.

Think about it... we could call Rumsfeld "Lord Rumsfeld" or "Darth Rumsfeld" ...right?

We could consider Condoleeza Rice as a sort of Boba Fett character... seen a lot at various functions... but never really saying alot. But in the end we discover she's the true force behind the entire Empire's military.

Vice Emperor Cheney could be Jabba the Hutt, right? Oh sure he's not that fat, but he does hang out in an underground bunker a lot I hear... and he's always being nasty and snide and laughing a lot... and he did have that "scooter" guy hanging around and laughing whenever prompted... and that dude DOES kinda look like Jabba's rat bitch.

This could be cool... we could have them play the "Imperial March" every time our commandos go raid another suspected "rebel scum" hideout.

Of course this does have a down side... as that would make someone in the Iraqi resistance the "young Skywalker"...oh well ...long as they don't start popping up with fucking lightsabers, we'll be good to go. The AK's and RPG's are bad enough.

Can't you just picture Bush as the Emperor? [See attached image below]

Well, I figured I'd try to make a ha-ha out of this insane shit. Where the hell does Rumsfeld come off renaming shit anyway? Who died and named him Webster?? Geez. I'm embarassed to be American at times.

Hope you get a grin... I did the photoshop myself...

Happy Birthday Jon Stewart!

2005-11-27T22:17:00.000-08:00

Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and the newest member of the Justice League, turns 43 today. Let's celebrate with cake and some more links to Jon Stewart goodness:

"Stop Hurting America." IFILM has a Viral Video of Jon Stewart's appearance on CNN's now-defunct "Crossfire." (About.com has the transcript).

Here's a transcript of Bill Moyers' interview with Jon Stewart on NOW.

An insightful commencement address Stewart delivered at the College of William & Mary.

Reinventing Television, the WIRED interview with Jon Stewart.

Such a Tease, an October 2005 article at Guardian Unlimited.

Fox News' transcript of Stewart's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor.

And finally, the Jon Stewart Intelligence Agency, which would have to be more compentent than the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

Many Happy Returns!

Pirate Frequency

2005-11-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

Bootleg copies of the unaired Global Frequency pilot are available on DVD in Toronto, based on this photographic evidence found on Flickr.

Global Frequency previously discussed here and here.

Also, You're on the Global Incontinence is an interesting analysis of the GF pilot and its source material.

Liberality For All?

2005-11-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

America

’s future has become an Orwellian nightmare of ultra-liberalism. Beginning with the Gore Presidency, the government has become increasingly dominated by liberal extremists.

On one dark day, in 2006, many conservative voices were forever silenced by terrorist assassins. Those which survived joined forces and formed a powerful covert conservative organization called “The Freedom of Information League”, aka F.O.I.L.

The New York City faction of F.O.I.L. is lead by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, each uniquely endowed with special abilities devised by a bio mechanical engineer affectionately nicknamed “Oscar”. F.O.I.L. is soon to be joined by a young man named Reagan McGee.

Wow.

You can read the complete article at Newsarama, or click the cover image above for a larger version of G. Gordon Liddy on a motorcycle.

Scarlett Johansson Turns 21

2005-11-21T22:32:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to Scarlett Johansson, who was born on November 22, 1984.

"The Island" will be released on DVD on December 13, 2005. I'll finally be able to see the movie for myself and get pissed off all over again that they refused to let Ms. Johansson have a nude scene.

For those of you who are new to The View From Oblivion, I kicked this blog off with a news story about Michael Bay forcing her to put on underwear, and eventually she became the blog's unofficial mascot. I haven't posted about Scarlett in months -- makes me wonder what she's been up to.

Universes Within Universes

2005-11-20T18:49:00.000-08:00

So it started with an email sent to me at the Agents of SHAFT website:

Although you contraindicated taking LSD with Dr. Banner's Super-Soldier Serum, I should like to point out to you that, according to Ted White's biography of Captain America, LSD was an integral part of his creation. One of the original super-soldier serums (and the most successful) was actually designed to work with LSD. Of course, you may not want Bush's Legion of Terror to know this information (fortunately it was written down rather than recorded on audio tape or film in government records of the project thus making it completely inaccessible to Bush and his cronies) but, in case you didn't know, I thought that this might be of use to your organization.

Congratulations on a wonderful web-site! This is a wonderful blending of Marvel, DC, various pop movie references, the Wold-Newton universe, and, of course, reality!

Geoffrey Tolle

First of all, Mr. Tolle, great find! I'd never heard of Captain America: The Great Gold Steal (1968), and so was unaware of the connection between LSD and the original Super Soldier Serum. Of course, the reason you wouldn't want to mix LSD with Banner's "new" SSS formula is simple: the mind-expanding drug would likely counteract the Serum's brainwashing effects.

Secondly, I must admit to having been unfamiliar with the Wold Newton Universe, even though it is quite similar in many ways to the amalgamated SHAFT Universe, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. Briefly, the Wold Newton Universe was created by famed science fiction writer Philip Jose' Farmer for his biographies of such pulp heroes as Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, Philip Marlowe, and James Bond, all of whom he connected to one another in an elaborate family tree.

While researching the subject, I ran across this entry on the Kung Fu Monkey blog, which describes the Wold Newton Universe as "the Geek Ph.D." In the Comments section, Kevin Church kindly linked to Dwayne McDuffie's Six Degrees of St. Elsewhere column, which proves that, according to the laws of comic book continuity, most of your favorite TV shows only existed in the mind of the autistic kid from the "St. Elsewhere" series finale.

Dwayne McDuffie has made numerous contributions to the worlds of comics and television, but what I'm most grateful to him for at the moment is his work on the animated series Justice League Unlimited. Appropriately, his St. Elsewhere column concludes with his opinion that "while guest-shots and crossovers can be fun, obsessive, cross-series continuity is silly. It’s silly in comics too. Relax and enjoy the show."

"Justice League Unlimited" represents for me the iconic and definitive versions of the DC Comics superheroes and their collective universe, and "enjoying the show" is exactly what I do. I would much rather watch an episode of JLU than read an Infinite Crisis tie-in any day of the week. DC's current flavor-of-the-month is so humorless and encumbered by continuity that I find the entire enterprise to be ridiculous and unenjoyable.

And that's coming from the person who brought you two issues of Ultimate Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.A.F.T.

Multimedia from a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

2005-11-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

The abridged script for Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith: Hey kids, read along while you listen.

Here's the actual Apprentice commercial in which Donald Trump fires Chewbacca discussed here previously. You'll have to imagine your own happy ending.

Brando Speaks from Beyond the Grave

2005-11-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

The Superman Returns Teaser Trailer, complete with the John Williams score and the Marlon "Jor-El" Brando voiceover.

Nick Fury: Back In Black?

2005-11-07T15:42:00.000-08:00

Back in July I posted Nick Fury: A Portrait in Black and White, about how the character's appearance varies widely from one Marvel Comics project to the next. For example, the character designs above are both for animated versions of Nick Fury. The one on the left is from "X-Men: Evolution," the one on the right, from the upcoming "Ultimate Avengers" DVD.

Of course, comics fans have no trouble telling these two apart. The original Nick Fury, who debuted back in 1963, has (unlike The Punisher) always been white, while "Ultimate Nick Fury," from the Ultimate Marvel Universe, has always been black (no matter how much I've worked to blur the line between the two on the SHAFT website). That's fine as far as it goes. It doesn't really get interesting until Fury starts appearing in other licensed products and Marvel demonstrates that it is not the least bit concerned about "brand consistency." Fury seems to switch back and forth between Caucasian and African-American every time a new video game, cartoon, or movie is released.

In 2005 alone, Fury made cameo appearances in 3 different video games: The Punisher, Fantastic Four, and Ultimate Spider-Man. He's white in the Punisher one, which is set in the "normal" or "616" (don't ask) Marvel Universe, and black in the Spider-Man one, set in the Ultimate Universe. But why does the black Ultimate Nick Fury character appear in the Fantastic Four game, which was based on this summer's movie, which was clearly not based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four? His ethnicity seems to flip-flop at random.

Which brings me to the movies (and the point of today's post). David Hasselfhoff was cast as Nick Fury back in the '90s. Samuel L. Jackson was in talks to play him in 2003, then this summer it was announced that Marvel wanted Bruce Willis to star. And now, according to Comic Book Movie, Will Smith is up for the role.

If Captain America is the living symbol of freedom, his pal Nick Fury must be the living symbol of racial diversity.

Guy Fawkes Day

2005-11-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

Remember, remember... the fact that we would be watching "V For Vendetta" in theaters this weekend if it hadn't been pushed back to 2006. Which would have been especially cool, considering that today is the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Ah well, if we can't go to the movies, we can at least celebrate Bonfire Night.

Treehouse of Horror XVI

2005-11-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

Not unlike Christmas in July, tomorrow night is Halloween in November, which has become something of a tradition on "The Simpsons"...

Season 17's annual trio of Halloween stories, featuring guests Dennis Rodman and Terry Bradshaw as themselves.

The fright-fest begins in “B.I.: Bartificial Intelligence” when the Simpsons adopt David, a newly developed artificial robot son, to replace Bart after he falls into a coma.

In “Survival of the Fattest,” Mr. Burns invites Homer and his friends to his gigantic estate for a hunting tournament, but Homer and the gang learn they are the ones being the hunted on “The World Series Of Manhunter” hosted by Bradshaw.

In the final Halloween scare, “I’ve Grown a Costume on Your Face,” a costume contest goes awry when a real witch turns all the Springfieldians into real-life versions of their costumes, leaving Maggie dressed like a witch with the only real power to reverse the spell.

Wasn't that last one an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"?

Star Wars & The Apprentice

2005-11-04T14:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, I despise so-called "Reality" TV, but I couldn't help noticing the commercial for the sweeps week episode of "The Apprentice" starring Darth Vader, Chewbacca, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers. Check it out, Trump is facing off against Vader at the boardroom table... isn't that clever? And awww, The Donald just fired Chewbacca... isn't that cute?

Here's my question: How much would you pay to watch Chewie rip Donald Trump's arms out of their sockets? Could you really put a price tag on that? That is what Wookiees are notorious for doing to their opponents when they lose.

Here's my advice, Mr. Trump: Let the Wookiee win. After all, he's got better hair.

And while I'm discussing commercials, has anyone noticed the one that claims the new Lexus will engage all five of your senses? Okay, I'll bite: What's a Lexus taste like?

SuperSimpsons.com

2005-09-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I haven't posted anything here in awhile is that I've been using a lot of my free time to work on my new website, SuperSimpsons.com, which is devoted to Simpsons-related comic books and superheroes. (It's just as well, really, because I'm sure any new post here in the last couple of weeks would've ended up being a rant about the whole Katrina debacle). I've also started a blog for the new site, Crisis on Infinite Springfields. If you're a fan of "The Simpsons" in general, or of Radioactive Man, Bartman, Pieman, or the Ingestible Bulk in particular, I hope you'll check it out. I've always liked the Marvel Directory, based on the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and thought there should be a version for the superheroes from the Simpsons Universe. The website also does what it can to document the spotty 50-year history of the Radioactive Man character's incarnations in comics, television, and motion pictures.

"Snakes on a Plane!"

2005-08-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to screenwriter Josh Friedman for this new expression of disgust. (For the explanation, click here).

Try it, you'll like it: "Snakes on a plane, I haven't posted anything on my blog for 6 days."

Or, to get on to today's topic:

"Snakes on a plane, V for Vendetta has been delayed until March 2006!"

You can read the details at Sci Fi Wire. The anonymous Warner Brothers spokesperson claims the delay is for the sake of postproduction, and is not a response to current events. I'd like to believe that, but...

At last month's Comic Con, V for Vendetta artist David Lloyd said, "Society has actually become a lot more like the one we claim here. I think it's important that we try to understand terrorists. It's gonna be healthy to understand what leads someone to terrorism."

Understanding? Sorry, but that's not the American way. If something is troubling, it is hidden away, out of sight, out of mind, so as not to risk disturbing anyone's delicate sensibilities. In other words, pushing the V for Vendetta movie back from its original premiere date of November 4 (which coincided nicely with Guy Fawkes Day, November 5) reminds me of the campaign to wipe out any evidence the World Trade Center ever existed after September 11, 2001 -- digitally removing it from movies and TV shows where necessary.

For details, you can check out Wikipedia's List of audiovisual entertainment affected by the September 11, 2001 attacks, which includes not only movies and television shows, but theme parks, music, and video games! I notice the list is incomplete, however, as it doesn't include the Playstation game "Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro," which originally included a battle atop the WTC, and was scheduled to be released September 18, 2001. Activision delayed it, and changed the look of the twin towers by connecting them with a rooftop bridge which, I must say, made the game a lot easier to beat, since Spider-Man could run from building to building, instead of having to swing or jump.

Speaking of Spider-Man and the WTC, I recently downloaded the original Spider-Man movie teaser trailer via BitTorrent so that my son could see it. It disappeared into oblivion (and every image of the WTC was removed from the movie itself) after 9/11. You'd think it would have turned up on the DVD as an easter egg, but no.

Describing V for Vendetta, producer Joel Silver said, "It's that horrible word: intellectual. I mean, you have to think about the movie." Obviously not an easy movie to market to the American public, which much prefers simplistic "solutions" to actual thought.

I can wait until March, as long as "postproduction" in this instance doesn't mean dumbing it down for the masses, or trying to make it fluffy and inoffensive.

World's Finest

2005-08-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

The SHAFT NewsWire for August 2005 has been posted. Get the latest news on Batman, Superman, and their respective rogues galleries!

Ultimate Avengers DVD

2005-08-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

The Ultimates, the Marvel Comics series by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch that inspired the "Ultimate Nick Fury, Agent of SHAFT" website, is going to be a straight-to-DVD animated film titled Ultimate Avengers.

Based on this interview at Comics Continuum, it sounds like it's going to be pretty sweet.

At left is the DVD cover art. As always, you can click on it for a larger image.

"The Most Important News Show... Ever"

2005-08-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

Last year, Nielsen Media Research pointed out that viewers of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" are better educated than those of "The O'Reilly Factor," not that that's saying much. (Check out sweetjesusihatebilloreilly.com for an archive of the article).

Some people describe Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" as the only television news source they can trust. I'll take it a step further and admit that it is the only television news source that I can stomach, because frankly it only takes a few minutes of CNN or Fox News to make me nauseated. Besides being funny and entertaining, Jon Stewart often seems like the only person on TV willing to discuss real issues who isn't completely full of shit.

Unfortunately "The Daily Show" only has a half hour a night, four nights a week, to edify the masses, which means the 24-hour news networks are able to provide marginally more news coverage in the course of a year. (I say "marginally" because these news channels waste an inordinate amount of time on topics like Michael Jackson, Terry Schiavo, baseball players who use steroids, and some white girl missing in Aruba, instead of cluing Americans in on what's actually going on in the world).

So if you're looking for more in-depth coverage than "The Daily Show" has time to provide, you must of course turn to the internet, and a good place to start is Footnote TV. As its name implies, this website provides footnotes for episodes of "The Daily Show" (and some other programs), a handy reference if you want to do some research on any of the topics mentioned by Jon Stewart, his co-stars, or guests.

TV Squad is useful for recaps of "The Daily Show," while America (The Book) is like having "The Daily Show" in hardcover.

See also: SHAFT NewsWire coverage of Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly.

Monkeying Around

2005-08-06T18:17:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, nothing was cooler than giant gorillas (yes, including Gargantua and Grape Ape), so it was with great joy that I received the news that "The Lord of the Rings" director/producer Peter Jackson was helming a remake of King Kong.

The deal got even sweeter this week when it was announced that Jackson is also working on the bonus material for the original 1933 version.

Wait, it gets better. The 2-disk special edition of King Kong will also be released as part of a 4-disk collectors set along with The Son of Kong and Mighty Joe Young.

More details on the DVD extras at Sci Fi Wire.

Above: Mighty Joe Young rescues children from a burning orphanage. (Taken from this page of MJY stills).

All right, I just spent 12 hours hanging vinyl siding and kitchen cabinets, that's enough blogging for today.

No One Expects the Legion of Terror!

2005-08-04T12:22:00.000-07:00

Hey, guess what? I received my first Cease & Desist notice yesterday! I know, I know, it sounds really cool, but sadly, it's just über lame. Anyway, you can check it out here.

From GTA to JLA

2005-08-04T01:45:00.000-07:00

This summer Warner Bros. announced that a Justice League of America videogame is in production for the Playstation 2 and the Xbox, and is scheduled to be released in 2006. (You can read the WB Interactive Entertainment press release at IGN).

Described as a "super hero action role-playing game," it will offer players the chance to battle the forces of evil as Superman, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Zatanna. That's right, Zatanna, the second-generation wizard whose super hero costume is a top hat, tuxedo jacket, and fishnets.

Now, I'm not complaining. Zatanna is one of my favorite comics characters, and I think it's cool that she's included in the game along with the movers and shakers of the DC Universe, despite her obscurity. I'm just confused by this statement in the game description:

"Each super hero will possess unique super powers that are character-specific, creating a variety of fighting styles for players to utilize."

Okay, let's see, Zatanna's character-specific super power is the ability to cast magical spells by saying the desired result backwards. For example, if she were ever to encounter Bill O'Reilly, she'd probably tell him to "pu kcuf eht tuhs."

So my confusion arises from the fact that Justice League of America will be a videogame instead of a computer game. How exactly am I going to play Zatanna without a keyboard?

Poll: Which Is Creepier?

2005-08-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

Today's poll involves the disturbing photos to the left. As always, you can click to enlarge.

Also, you can still vote in the previous poll, "Worst abuse of CGI in movie history?"

Scarlett Johansson Is Desperate

2005-08-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

Johansson desperate to direct a movie
'Lost in Translation' star Scarlett Johansson is so desperate to direct a film that she's prepared to make a commercial if it would help her achieve her dream.

Johansson Wants To Work With Burton
Screen siren Scarlett Johansson is desperate to work with maverick director Tim Burton after hearing Ewan Mcgregor enthuse about the movie-maker on the set of The Island.

In less desperate news:

Scarlett Johansson And Her Mammoth Breasts
Up and coming actress Scarlett Johansson, the star of Lost in Translation, unsuspectingly found herself appearing on a colossal billboard promoting her new film The Island as she was driving on the freeways of Los Angeles.

Scarlett Johansson blasts the paparazzi
Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson says that paparazzi who hound celebrities should be arrested and prosecuted as stalkers. Johansson spends plenty of time running from the bad guys in her new science-fiction film The Island, but the 20-year-old actress is tired of running away from the paparazzi in real life.

Joss Whedon Explains It All

2005-08-01T11:07:00.001-07:00

Joss Whedon on Firefly, Serenity, Toy Story, Alien: Resurrection, Speed, Wonder Woman, X-Men, Batman, Iron Man, Global Frequency, Buffy & Angel:

IN FOCUS

Also: New Serenity trailer; Serenity Action Figures.

"SIDEKICK!"

2005-07-31T06:51:00.000-07:00

Saw Sky High on opening day. Bruce Campbell and superheroes... what more could one ask from a film?

I'm glad to see it's getting positive reviews; the supervillain's demented plot to take over the world is ingenious, and Campbell really nails the obnoxious high school gym coach role.

From the trailer you can see that Sky High has a bit of a Hogwarts vibe to it, and that it is Coach Boomer (Campbell) who decides whether the new students will be Superheroes or Sidekicks... which means that Bruce is essentially playing the Sorting Hat in this movie. Just wish I'd thought to tell him that when he was in Houston a few weeks ago.

It was fun to see Kurt Russell return to his roots and play a Disney hero again; seems like he was in half the movies I saw as a child. I also want to point out that Lynda Carter, TV's Wonder Woman from almost 30 years ago, still looks incredible as Sky High's Principal Powers. Whoever Joss Whedon casts in his upcoming Wonder Woman movie will have quite a costume to fill.

I'll write more on Bruce Campbell later. For now, a couple of links: Visit Sky High; Bruce Campbell Online.

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November..."

2005-07-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

"...The gunpowder treason and plot.
I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot."

Comics 101 on the V For Vendetta graphic novel.

The V For Vendetta movie trailer.

V For Vendetta writer Alan Moore on anarchy.

V For Vendetta artist David Lloyd discusses the film adaptation.

Read about Guy Fawkes and the facemask worn by V.

"I can't relate to 99% of humanity." *

2005-07-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to seeing Ghost World last night. Based on the comic book by Daniel Clowes, it's a fine example of what the comics industry has to offer Hollywood beyond spandex and leather-clad superheroes. Sure, superheroes dominate the box office chart for comic book adaptations, but movies like From Hell and Road to Perdition make respectable showings, and can bring in a completely different audience, oblivious to the movies' comic book origins. (And how many movies can match Ghost World's 92% Fresh rating on the Tomatometer?)

*Steve Buscemi as Seymour.

Telling Dead Man's Tales

2005-07-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

Left: a sketch of Davy Jones (or as my friend Vic refers to him, Cthulhubeard), the villain of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, who will be played by Bill Nighy*.

Terry Rossio (screenwriter on all 3 Pirates of the Caribbean movies, along with Ted Elliot) is blogging from the set of the sequels, which are being shot back-to-back.

Rossio & Elliot also wrote Shrek, The Mask of Zorro, and Aladdin, among other screenplays. And their names are attached to Godzilla (they wrote the story for the movie that Devlin and Emmerich should have made, as I pointed out in an earlier post) and The Puppet Masters (for Rossio's take on that experience, read his essay Q: When is a Spaceship Not a Spaceship? A: When It's a Brain Coral).

*Favorite Bill Nighy roles: aging rocker Billy Mack in Love Actually, Viktor the vampire overlord in Underworld, Shaun's stepfather Philip in Shaun of the Dead, and fjord designer Slartibartfast in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

World's First Super-Intelligent Politician

2005-07-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

The other day I posted a message about ducks running for president, so in the interest of fair time for nonhuman species, I should point out that Gorilla Grodd once ran for governor of whatever state Central City is in. And while no one really takes storylines from the Silver Age seriously, I suppose that Grodd is no more unlikely a candidate for office than Schwarzenegger.

Also, the Joker recently ran for governor of whatever state Gotham City is in, and is no doubt dreading the next Legion of Doom conference, where he'll have to endure Grodd's "Been there, done that" cracks. The Joker really shouldn't be ashamed of his political career, however. Honestly, has Grodd ever been Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations?

Fuck 'Em If They Can't Take a Joke

2005-07-27T16:01:00.000-07:00

AMC Theatres Backs Out of Obligation to Show "The Aristocrats"

I can't wait to see this movie. I loved the original version when I was a kid.

AMC chain vetoes 'dirtiest joke ever'

Penn Blasts Cinema Bosses over Film Ban

Penn & Teller News

The Aristocrats, Reviewed at Sundance 2005; One of the funniest films ever made

Grodd vs. Scopes: Call Me Ishmael

2005-07-26T00:29:00.000-07:00

"However, the longer I listened the clearer it became that creationism is not about science. It's about morality. Specifically, creationists worry that biological evolution undermines people's moral beliefs, leading to lawlessness, family breakdown, homosexuality, pornography, and abortion. The real heart of creationism is existential dread."

--Ronald Bailey, Reason Magazine: Creation Summer Camp: Live from the 2005 Creation Mega-Conference

Hey kids, take a virtual tour of the The Creation Museum!

Stan Lee Cameos We'd Like To See

2005-07-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

I think that Fantastic Four should mark a turning point in Stan Lee's cameo career. In the new movie, Stan appears as Willie Lumpkin, the FF's mailman, an actual character from the comic books -- a big step up from the "man on the street" roles he's had in previous Marvel films, where he's been credited as Man Dodging Debris, Old Man at Crossing, Hot Dog Vendor, etc.

This got me to wondering about Stan's potential cameos in the laundry list of upcoming Marvel adaptations that Avi Arad recently recited. Surely all of these superheroes have someone in their supporting cast that would make a perfect cameo role for The Man. Here are the suggestions from a couple of my comic geek friends:

Jeff writes: Actually the most obvious is Dr. Erskine, the creator of the Super Soldier formula. It would be an extended cameo in the Captain America movie, but if you look at the first Cap comic, the doctor looks a lot like Stan’s current look.

James Carter Holt of the Millennial Planet sent in this list:

Spider-Man 3 - The Man could play the part of the Terrible Tinkerer.

Iron Man - Stan could play the part of the old Vietnamese guy who helped Stark design his original suit of armor. "Death to Wong Chu, Death to the evil tyrant!..." etc. The dialogue would be right up Stan's alley. [That would be "the famed physicist Yin Sen"]

Captain America - Bucky survives, putting the lie to a whole raft of out-of-date Marvel continuity. Without the benefit of suspended animation to preserve his youth, Stan could portray Bucky, who is now Steve Rogers' elder and wants to give him a lot of unwanted advice.

Namor - Stan has the perfect build to portray the Whizzer, Namor's old partner in the All-Winners Squad. [I don't know, I think Stan looks more like the Squadron Supreme's Whizzer, who's even a former postman, like Willie Lumpkin]

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD - He's maybe a little too old now, but otherwise, Stan could portray the indominable Jasper Sitwell.

The Hulk 2 - Stan = George Herbert Walker Bush, former director of CIA.

Ant-Man - Stan = Janet Van Dyne's father. [Vernon Van Dyne was a colleague of Hank Pym before being murdered by an extraterrestrial]

Black Panther - Stan = T'Challa's houseboy.

My suggestion would be the crime boss Silvermane in the Cloak & Dagger movie. Not really a cameo, I realize, but who wouldn't pay to see a cyborg version of Stan Lee?

Post your suggestions for future Stan Lee cameos in Comments.

Comic Books: The Anti-Drug

2005-07-24T01:44:00.000-07:00

Teen gets four years in prison for comic book theft

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. A teen gets a stiff prison term from a Flagstaff judge for stealing a collection of rare comic books.

Eighteen-year-old Devin Fredericks pleaded guilty to breaking into a home and swiping the 140-thousand-dollar collection in February. He allegedly stole the books to buy drugs and alcohol.

The comic books, which had been sold to a used book retailer, were returned to their owner.

Fredericks received a four-year prison term for trafficking in stolen property and burglary. He won't be eligible for parole until he serves at least 85 percent of his sentence.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. KPHO Phoenix

Ironically, I've considered selling drugs in order to pay for my comic books.

Above: The cover to Steve Gerber's Hard Time: 50 To Life.

If It Walks, Talks, and Campaigns Like a Duck...

2005-07-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

I was working for a bookstore chain when the children's book Duck for President was published and then displayed with much fanfare in large cardboard dumps as part of some corporate promotional deal. The attention lavished upon this unoriginal winner of the NYT Best Illustrated Book award annoyed me somewhat, and whenever things got slow I would retrieve a copy of the Essential Howard the Duck trade paperback from the Graphic Novels section to show my coworkers that Steve Gerber had originated this concept way back in 1976 in what is easily one of the greatest comic book series of all time.

I was reminded of this today when I discovered that Nickelodeon is making a Duck for President movie. My bemusement at the existence of 2 separate presidential waterfowls was compounded by a quick Google search that turned up a "Daffy Duck for President" campaign, book and short by Chuck Jones. And apparently Donald Duck for President has become some weird internet meme that I don't get.

I'm not sure what it is about ducks that makes them such appealing candidates for the presidency. Gerber has always been known as a trailblazer, so perhaps Howard is still setting trends 2 decades after his bid for the White House. Regardless, after suffering through 2 terms with Dubya, I for one will glady welcome our new feathered overlords.

Wonder Woman and Her Wacky WAC

2005-07-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the DVDs and the upcoming Joss Whedon film, Wonder Woman is back on the geek radar, and it reminded me of a question I once posted on my message board:

Okay, who remembers the old Wonder Woman TV show? Wonder Woman's secret identity was Diana Prince. But this wasn't her real name, it was just an assumed name that she used when she decided to stay in America. So "Diana Prince" isn't an American citizen. She's not even a legal citizen of any recognized country on Earth, considering that she's from Paradise Island. Yet, she has no trouble getting a job at the War Department! No driver's license. No birth certificate. No passport. And America's in the middle of a World War. So my 2-part question is: (a) "Who did she have to sleep with to get a security clearance?" and (b) "How lucky was THAT bastard?" I mean, think about it. We're not talking about some macho soldier or pilot here. He had to be some file clerk somewhere. And one day this Amazon Princess who looks like Lynda Carter in her prime shows up and needs a favor. He's probably still telling his grandkids about it. Doesn't it sound like one of Grampa Simpson's war stories? "I slept with Wonder Woman once!" Just a thought.

My buddy Jeff posted this response:

Being the espionage history buff that I am, I can tell you that Corey is right on the money with the exception of one thing. During WWII, G-2 admin was primarily staffed with women since the men were all tasked out for operations. The personnel function including vetting of operatives were all done by the fair sex. So, right concept, wrong gender. I prefer that version anyway.

I didn't give Jeff's version a lot of thought at the time, but reading it again, I was reminded of Diana's "best friend," the supposedly unlucky-in-love Private Etta Candy of the Women's Army Corp. She and Diana spent an awful lot of time together, and I'm pretty sure that, as General Blankenship's secretary, Etta could have pulled any strings that Wonder Woman needed for the creation and protection of her secret identity. Plus, who wouldn't want a girlfriend named Private Candy?

Brave & Bold

2005-07-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

R.I.P. Jim Aparo, 1932-2005

The news of legendary Batman artist Jim Aparo's death has been traveling around the internet for a few days. I decided to post something about his passing myself when a friend sent me this, the obituary at The Comic Book Bin, which includes information from, and the wishes of, the Aparo family, along with contact information.

The art above is the cover of a book scheduled to be released in October, The Brave and Bold Art of Jim Aparo. The book description:

For a generation of comic-book readers, Jim Aparo is considered the greatest Batman artist of them all. Aparo - with his strong, dynamic style, well-grounded in realism - together with Batman made a team worthy of the title, The Brave and the Bold. Now, Scott Beatty (writer of Batman and The DC Comics Encyclopedia) along with Eric Nolen-Weathington (editor/designer of the Modern Masters book series) turn the Bat Signal onto the life and work of one of comics' finest: Jim Aparo. From his time in the world of advertising art, through the heyday of the '70s, and beyond the death of Robin, Aparo's career is finally given the attention it so richly deserves.

The following quote about Jim Aparo's historical impact on DC Comics comes from a good article by Ray Tate at Silver Bullet Comics, The Importance Of Being Brave And Bold:

The real important era of Brave and Bold arrived when Jim Aparo began an almost twenty year uninterrupted run as the Batman artist. I mean no disrespect to the authors. The writers however came and went. Mr. Aparo remained, and what made his run, so important is that he was doing archetypal DCU. This is the DCU all but the history-cheated new comic book readers remember.

Also, here is an interview with Jim Aparo from the August 2000 issue of Comic Book Artist.

I won't try to expound on Jim Aparo's career or his contribution to the comics industry -- the major details are available at the links above. On a personal note, however, I will add this: For many of us, when we think of the classic image of Batman, it is Jim Aparo's art that pops into our heads. His art is as iconic as the character himself.

Scarlett Spider Slayer

2005-07-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed Devlin and Emmerich's Eight Legged Freaks (why isn't "eight-legged" hyphenated?). It contains all of the essential monster movie fun that was sadly lacking from their Godzilla movie. (This is the version they should have produced). You can watch an interview with Scarlett Johansson about the filming of Eight Legged Freaks here (I wonder if her nose ring helped the interviewer focus on her face instead of her... oh, just watch the clip).

Scarlett Spider Slayer, whose secret identity is of course Scarlett Johansson, is now the official superhero of this blog.

Really, I'm one of the last people you'd ever catch extoling the virtues of a celebrity, but Ms. Johansson is a real American heroine. This would be a better country if more people emulated her example:

1. Scarlett Johansson, the Anti-Diva. Injured on the set of The Island, she soldiered on rather than make a fuss.

2. Doesn't freak out or allow the threat of terrorist attacks to change the way she lives her life, despite the media's fearmongering. (For the best contrast of the American and British responses to terror, check out this clip of the The Daily Show's coverage of the London bombings).

3. Possesses the fortitude necessary to resist religious indoctrination with dignity and grace.

4. Even after winning awards, realizes there are more meaningful and worthwhile things she could be doing besides acting.

5. Does not suffer from Gymnophobia, the pathological fear of nudity. (See previous posts: Another Reason to Hate Michael Bay, One Track Mind, and Scarlett Johansson in Next Bat-Sequel)

Resilient, levelheaded, and resistant to multiple forms of brainwashing... America could use a lot more spider slayers and far fewer sheep.

Bringing Democracy to America & Television

2005-07-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

Two systems that are broken in America: U.S. Elections and Network Television. They have 2 different reasons – The Electoral College and Stupid Network Executives – but they share the same solution: Internet Voting.

A major problem with elections is that people have wised up to the fact that their votes don’t count. With television, people are beginning to realize they’re being force-fed crap by clueless morons.

The Electoral College system of representative democracy is archaic in this day and age, and should be eliminated in favor of a popular vote via online ballots. The technology exists for a democracy upgrade, why not implement it?

It's time for television networks to enter the 21st century as well. Thanks to advances in technology, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the people know what they want, and studio execs don't.

Some examples: Global Frequency, now known as the hottest TV show never aired (click the picture above to read the article), was passed over by WB executives. But thanks to Internet file-sharing, people have realized that the Global Frequency pilot is better than anything else WB (or the other networks) is likely to offer us. Family Guy: The first TV show in history to be uncancelled. Firefly: Cancelled after 13 episodes, only to be turned into a motion picture due out in September. Futurama: Abused and then cancelled by Fox, will be returning soon in straight-to-DVD movies.

These are the first times that fans' opinions have mattered since the classic Star Trek series was renewed for a third season back in the 1960s. And while it's a good trend, I have to ask, why wait and fix mistakes after TV execs make them, when the technology exists for a proactive approach? Why not just let viewers pick the pilots that they want to become series in the first place?

A savvy network could even turn the process into a reality TV series. Imagine a TV show that would let America decide a network's entire fall schedule by voting on pilots, sort of like a cross between American Idol and Project Greenlight. Popular TV critics could provide commentary, interview Nielsen Families, ridicule clips from the worst pilots, etc. How could this not generate more successful results than the system that networks use now?

R.I.P. James Doohan

2005-07-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

I grew up watching Star Trek, so James Doohan is one of those people I feel as though I've known my entire life without ever having met him.

March 3, 1920 - July 20, 2005

Celebrating the Life and Career of James Doohan

Convention Report: Doohan's Farewell

Associated Press Obituary

I'm On the Global Frequency, and You're Not

2005-07-19T21:29:00.000-07:00

I remember the day that Global Frequency #1 came out because I sped to the local comic shop on my lunch hour to get my weekly comics fix, and then immediately drove back to work where I sat and read the issue in my car. Warren Ellis' new science fiction series was one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking things I'd read in a long time, which naturally made it more important than food.

I picked up all of the subsequent issues as they were released, but even if you weren't quite so fortunate, fear not, the series is available in a couple of trade paperbacks (Planet Ablaze and Detonation Radio) which you can pick up at any bookstore.

If you want to see the pilot of the Global Frequency TV series, however, it's a little more complicated (read: less legal). But if you happen to have BitTorrent installed on your computer, try searching at isoHunt. You won't be disappointed. Like its source material, Global Frequency boasts intelligent and compelling storytelling, and stars a number of talented actresses, perfectly cast in strong female roles (I'm talking to you, wydah), who bring the comics' main characters to life in expert fashion. (And they're hot).

If you aren't already on the Global Frequency, you should be. In the world Ellis created, the GF is a worldwide independent intelligence network that uses the combined resources of its members to save the planet from secret horrors. Similarly, in our world the GF is a worldwide independent intelligence network trying to rescue an awesome television series from the not-so-secret horrors of Warner Brothers Entertainment, who decided not to add Global Frequency to the WB's fall schedule. Find out what you can do at the FrequencySite. Also, Wired News has an article on the P2P distribution of the GF pilot and Warner's reaction.

Other good sources of behind-the-scenes Global Frequency info include the Assistant/Atlas blog, the Kung Fu Monkey blog of series writer and producer John Rogers, and All the Rage has an excellent collection of screen shots from the pilot. Oh, and of course there's the obligatory global frequency Technorati tags.

Did I mention that Global Frequency stars Michelle Forbes, who I've had a crush on ever since she first appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, where she played Ensign Ro, arguably the only realistic crewmember on the entire Starship Enterprise? She plays Miranda Zero, the enigmatic and ultracool founder of the GF. Aimee Garcia is also excellent as Aleph, the multilingual GF communications officer. As mission coordinator, she's the one who calls people to tell them "You're on the Global Frequency" whenever their particular skills are required for saving the world.

If we're lucky, the WB will realize what a good thing they have with this unprecedented buzz for an unaired pilot, and change their minds, at which point Global Frequency would be added to the very short list of "television shows worth watching."

Nick Fury: A Portrait in Black & White

2005-07-19T03:20:00.000-07:00

From Moviehole:

Arad confirms Willis in Nick Fury talks

Posted on Tue, 19-Jul-2005

Avi Arad, head-honcho of Marvel and anything filmatic the comic crew have done, confirmed to CHUD today that the rumours of Bruce Willis donning the eye-patch of one "Nick Fury" are on the money.

"I think he is interested. We are talking", says Arad.

Arad says he sees the "Nick Fury" series as a Yankie take on 007. "Nick Fury to me always was, there’s no American James Bond. James Bond is an incredible franchise based on what a British 007 would be, but you don’t have a franchise based on what an American guy would be with the same job, belief, everything. That’s Nick Fury. So if you do him right, no one will care what it is based on if it’s good."

Set-up at Paramount, the movie tells of Marvel comic character, Nick Fury, the director of an international espionage organization called S.H.I.E.L.D, who are constantly going up against rogues like the wicked Hydra.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Fury first appeared in the comic "Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos" in May 1963. The eye-patched adorned, cigar-chompin hero was later transformed into a James Bond type.

'Fury' first hit the screen in 1998, as a lacklustre David Hasselhoff vehicle. The rework is due for release in 2007, at the earliest.

OK, I can definitely see Bruce Willis as Nick Fury. But oddly enough, I can also see Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Why is that? Well, Marvel's depiction of the Agent of SHIELD -- in comic books, movies, video games, and collectibles -- has fluctuated quite a bit in the last few years.

Check out the slide show above to see what I mean.

Irresponsible Use of Modern Technology

2005-07-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

Ah, CGI, the bane of my moviegoing existence.

Don't get me wrong, when used correctly, computer-generated special effects can be awesome. But more often than not, CGI shots are overused and take me out of the movie by screaming "look at me!" and destroying any suspension of disbelief.

And sometimes, the use of CGI is just wrong.

I mean, seriously, there's overuse, and then there's abuse...

Will That Be Spandex or Leather?

2005-07-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

I may have been a bit premature in predicting DC's continued dominance over Marvel in the movie department.

Compiling the list of upcoming adaptations, I realized that both companies have some major blockbusters in the pipeline. And even if the DC movies prove to be of higher quality (and there are no guarantees), it would appear that Marvel definitely has the advantage when it comes to quantity.

These are the upcoming DC & Marvel movies that have release dates:

2005

DC: V for Vendetta

2006

DC: Superman Returns, The Flash
Marvel: X-Men 3, Ghost Rider, Deathlok, Punisher 2, Luke Cage, Blade tv series

2007

DC: Wonder Woman
Marvel: Spider-Man 3, Iron Man, Captain America, Namor, Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD

2008

DC: Batman Begins sequel

Other Marvel projects in production:

The Hulk 2, Wolverine and Magneto spin-offs from the X-Men franchise, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Silver Surfer, Thor, and a Brother Voodoo TV series.

Of course there are always dozens if not hundreds of comic book movies "in production," but these items have been confirmed by supposedly reputable sources.

Handy websites for keeping up with this sort of thing: Comic Book Movie, Comics2Film, and Superhero Hype!

With Prep Time, Batman Defeats Fantastic Four

2005-07-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

DC Dominates Marvel Again in Decades-Long Cinematic Battle

A popular theory among comic book fanboys on the internet is that, with sufficient prep time, Batman could defeat any opponent in combat, no matter how cosmic their powers and abilities. Such is the nature of his strategic and tactical genius. It's not hard to imagine how this theory developed, once you begin to consider the number of comic book stories in which Batman has handed Superman his ass, or the fact that Bats had contingency plans for eliminating every member of the Justice League in case they ever went rogue.

The Dark Knight's current box office battle with The Fantastic Four certainly bears out this theory. Batman Begins will go down as one of the greatest comic book movies in history, while Fantastic Four is one of Marvel's mediocre efforts (although "ambivalent" might be a better description... more on that later). And one of the FF's primary problems in crossing the Negative Zone between the comic book and movie universes was apparently insufficient prep time, since Fox rushed them to meet a July release date.

Batman Begins is a masterpiece, while Fantastic Four averages out as merely... well, average... once its pros and cons are compared and contrasted. The changes made to Dr. Doom's origin demonstrate that those responsible completely failed to grasp any of the aspects that make the supervillain compelling, and effectively reduced the Darth Vader of the Marvel Universe to a superpowered thug. What makes this all the more disappointing is the fact that they managed to nail almost everything else perfectly. Dr. Doom aside, the movie does an amazing job of capturing the characters, personalities, relationships, and tone of the comic with fantastic casting, performances, direction, and special effects. Really, my only complaints are that the characters' origins could have been more faithful to the source material (Dr. Doom suffering the worst, of course, to the point of character assassination), and that there is no real plot, as the movie is essentially a 106-minute origin story. Problems aside, this movie is still a must-see for FF fans -- Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans truly bring The Thing and the Human Torch to life on the big screen, and Jessica Alba does the same for unstable molecules -- and it has the potential for a kick-ass sequel.

Of course, the best assessment of the movie comes from Dr. Doom himself.

Box Office Mojo provides these current stats for the combatants:

Batman Begins:
Production Budget: $150 million
Worldwide Box Office: $315,026,000

Fantastic Four:
Production Budget: $100 million
Worldwide Box Office: $118,465,213

Over the past few decades, the pendulum of superior quality has swung back and forth between Marvel and DC's live-action offerings, and this summer marks the point where it swings back to Detective Comics. Combine the release of Nolan and Goyer's Batman Begins with the upcoming Superman Returns by X-franchise-abandoning Bryan Singer and a Wonder Woman movie by Joss Whedon, and all signs point to Marvel being Doomed. (Although I must admit I'm eagerly anticipating seeing Nicholas Cage as Ghost Rider, and of course Marvel wisely still has Sam Raimi helming the Human Spider franchise).

For fun, lets look back over the decades and compare Marvel and DC's live-action offerings. Decide for yourself who the champion is for any given year. Titles in blue indicate anything that never hit the big screen: TV shows, made-for-television movies, straight-to-video movies, or things that were never actually released.

2005

DC: Batman Begins, Constantine
Marvel: Fantastic Four, Elektra, Man-Thing

2004

DC: Catwoman
Marvel: Spider-Man 2, The Punisher, Blade: Trinity

2003

Marvel: X2: X-Men United, Daredevil, Hulk

2002

DC: Birds of Prey
Marvel: Spider-Man, Blade 2

2001

DC: Smallville (2001-present)

2000

Marvel: X-Men

1998

Marvel: Blade, Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD

1997

DC: Batman & Robin, Steel, Justice League of America (unaired pilot)

Marvel: Generation X

1995

DC: Batman Forever

1994

Marvel: The Fantastic Four (Roger Corman version)

1993

DC: Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997)

1992

DC: Batman Returns

1991

Marvel: Captain America (Matt Salinger)

1990

DC: The Flash, Swamp Thing (1990-1993)
Marvel: The Death of the Incredible Hulk

1989

DC: Batman, Return of Swamp Thing
Marvel: The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (with Daredevil!)

1988

DC: Superboy (1988-1992)
Marvel: The Incredible Hulk Returns (with Thor!), The Punisher (Dolph Lundgren)

1987

DC: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

1986

Marvel: Howard the Duck

1984

DC: Supergirl

1983

DC: Superman III

1982

DC: Swamp Thing

1980

DC: Superman II

1979

DC: Legends of the Superheroes (WTF?)
Marvel: Captain America, Captain America: Death Too Soon (Reb Brown)

1978

DC: Superman: The Movie
Marvel: Dr. Strange, The Incredible Hulk (1978-82)

1977

Marvel: Amazing Spider-Man (Nicholas Hammond)

1976

DC: Wonder Woman (1976-1979)

1974

DC: Wonder Woman (TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby)
Marvel: The Electric Company (starring Spidey from 1974-77)

1967

DC: Batgirl (short) , Wonder Woman: Who's Afraid of Diana Prince? (I am, that's who)

1966

DC: Batman, Batman (1966-1968)

You can compare the box office success of the big screen movies here. (Spoiler: Spider-Man is #1, Steel is #63).

In upcoming posts I'll do another DC/Marvel list comparing the movies they're promising us for the future, and then point out some of the best comic book adaptations that came from different publishers altogether. For now, let me know if I missed anything, and let the debates begin!

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