SDCC08: News I Can Use, Days 0 & 1
Jul 25Like many a male, I get angst in my pants…and like many a comics fan, I have my RSS reader and Twitter follows loaded to hell with just about every source I can think of to get all the latest news out of San Diego Comic-Con.
Here’s the stuff I found interesting and exciting so far.
* Entertainment Weekly set up an amazing panel featuring Jim Lee, John Cassaday, Matt Fraction, Mike Mignola, Robert Kirkman, Colleen Doran and Grant Morrison. What a line up. My favorite quote of many fantastic quotes, from Matt Fraction:
As long as there’s print, there’ll be comics. We’re a cheap, easy, nasty, swarthy medium.
AMEN.
* A few awesome items dropped on Wednesday night, including Darwyn Cooke adaptations of Parker crime novels from IDW. Talk about a perfect marriage of creator and story.
* Wolverine crashed Fox’s movie panel with footage from next summer’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Shitty title, but the movie sounds cool. And I can’t help myself–I enjoy seeing Hollywood megastars pander to nerds. Is that wrong? Ten years ago, the best pandering we could hope for was a pitying smile from the alternateen behind the counter at the comic book shop, and now celebrities are gladhanding Len Wein. I’m down with that.
* The Disney/BOOM! deal. Mark Waid writes The Incredibles! Mark Waid also writes the Muppets! Have I died and gone to comic book heaven?!
* More Wednesday news: Ed Brubaker will write a web series for Sony, Angel of Death, starring Zoe Bell.
The concept (“a remorseless assassin…becomes so haunted by her victims that she decides to kill the people who ordered the hits, one by one”) sounds a little faux-Tarantino, but I love that Brubaker is getting the chance to play in such a new distribution format. Hopefully it will mean a very pure Brubaker script, as opposed to something that’s been processed a few times through the Hollywood shit machine.
* Agents of Atlas ongoing, by Jeff Parker. YES. I want a whole story arc devoted to Ken Hale exploring the spaceman toilet on Bob’s flying saucer.
* As he did last year, your pal Bully has probably the best daily con roundups you’ll find, especially if you’re just looking for what’s fun and strange at the con.
London After Midnight…found?!
Jul 24When the discovery of the missing Metropolis footage was announced a few weeks ago, my mind turned to one subject only: London After Midnight.
Like many a geek, at some point I saw an image of Lon Chaney Sr. in that freakish, chilling makeup and was instantly mesmerized. The fact that the film itself was lost, and only such images remained, only increased the mystique. I was never a huge horror movie buff, but I like movies period a whole hell of a lot, and the scope of that blank spot in film history has always loomed large in my mind.
Now, apparently, allegedly, it has been found. Click the link; read the story; see if you believe it. I’m equal parts shocked and skeptical.
On one hand, it is odd that the man who allegedly found the print twenty years ago in a vast warehouse never bothered to act on his knowledge in a public way till this point. That shows a remarkable and stupid level of confidence in large entertainment corporations to do the right thing on behalf of film history and film buffs.
On the other hand, there are a lot of remarkable and stupid people in Hollywood, and this guy may just be one of them.
He’s got a truckload of contact info at the end of his story; I’m going to send a few e-mails right now, try to do my part. Do the same, if you’re so inclined. If this is some massive hoax to clog the inboxes of UCLA film historians and entertainment executives, I’m willing to take that risk.
SDCC08: Best News of Con…ALREADY?!
Jul 23Via ComicList:
July 23rd, 2008 – Los Angeles, CA – BOOM! Studios and Disney Publishing Worldwide announced today that they will bring brand new stories from beloved Pixar properties to the comic book medium. Comics will feature characters from the groundbreaking TOY STORY franchise and blockbuster FINDING NEMO film, as well as this summer’s box office success WALL*E.
BOOM! Studios is also proud to announce Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid will be writing THE INCREDIBLES comic book, featuring cover art by DC: THE NEW FRONTIER writer and artist Darwyn Cooke!
“Today, American comic books are aimed primarily at an older readership. Comics produced for an upcoming generation of readers are scarce – and BOOM! Studios aims to do something about that,” said Waid. “There will be comics for kids again!”
Mark Waid writing Pixar’s version of the Fantastic Four?! Darwyn Cooke drawing it?!
UNBELIEVABLE AWESOMENESS MY HEAD HURTS FROM IT HUZZAH!
Comics Linky-Dinky-Doo…
Jul 22…I love you.
Dustin Nguyen has been knocking it out of the PARK over in Detective Comics lately; when Dini’s run started, it was his compact, clever little done-in-one stories that made the book. Now Dini’s stories have gotten more conventional and a little bloated, but Nguyen’s pencils kick ass, as do Derek Fridolf’s inks. Anyway, Dustin can also do the cutest Bat-family you ever did see. I smell a cartoon series.
I’ve read way too much pre-San Diego blabbery across teh interwebs this week, some of it good, some of it gasbaggy. This write-up/reflection by Gerard Jones is easily the best of it. And yes, Mr. Jones, I actually DID grow up on your comics–working to finish my incomplete Green Lantern: Mosaic run now.
This super-long Alan Moore interview has been tabbed in my Firefox browser going on two days now. I want to read it, but I fear the time sink.
Via Mike Sterling, I found this amazing short story on where the Peanuts characters end up when they grow up.
Two Thoughts on "Batman R.I.P."
Jul 19I’ve been snarfing down all the great content posted across the internet about Grant Morrison’s current Bat-epic, “Batman R.I.P.” There’s some terrific work being done out there by minds far more expansive than my own.
But here’s two thoughts that struck me as I re-read Batman 678. On this, the second day of my 32nd year on God’s green earth, I share them with you.
