Chip Zdarsky (Hearts) Comics
Mar 04I’m sure you’ve seen this already, but just in case you haven’t, Chip Zdarsky (hearts) comics and is a genius.
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love comics, but that’s mostly due to the fact that I can’t remember anything that happened to me before the age of eleven. There are flashes of events and feelings, of course, like seeing Uncle Alan and Crazy Carl wildly swinging knives at each other on our front lawn, or the sense memory of my mother’s wine & corn dog breath as she would lick my face to wake me for school in the afternoons.
[not for the easily offended, the squeamish, or those with a puritanical boss hovering over their shoulder in the workplace and reading every word that passes over their screen]
Graphic Novels to the Big Screen: What Next?
Mar 02The Onion’s AV Club has posted an article today suggesting 24 graphic novels that, hot on the heels of the super-hot Watchmen, should be turned into movies. And it’s an interesting list, with some good choices, some bad choices, and a missed opportunity.
I’ll start with the bad choice – I don’t think Ronin would make a good movie. I realize Frank Miller is a big thing in H’wood these days (slightly less big, after The Spirit, but a Sin City sequel supposedly in the works could offset the damage), but Ronin is one massive mind firetruck. 3/4 of it is begging to be made into a film, and the final chapter is enough to make any screenwriter toss an award statue through the giant picture window of his home on the Hollywood hills, and jump out after it. But hey – Lord of the Rings and Watchmen weren’t supposed to be filmable either.
The rest are up for debate – which do you like? (I think Concrete would be a great, if hard to pitch, film.) Which do you not agree with? Which do you think are missing?
Manga is conspicuously missing from the list, and that’s a shame – while it’s often assumed that manga can only become anime, I don’t know that this list discounts that possibility, but there is a strong suggestion that this is a Hollywood list – Japan isn’t invited. But the list also doesn’t discount the possibility of manga to live-action. And I’ve got a good possibility;
Written and drawn by Katsushiro Otomo two years before Akira, Domu: A Child’s Dream is a beautifully story self-contained in a Japanese apartment complex. A new child has moved into the the apartment with her family, only to find that strange things are happening. The strange things are being caused by a psychically powerful, and terribly senile old man, who is driving those with weaker minds to do terrible things. And then the little girl stands up to him, as she’s as powerful as he is. And all hell breaks loose on a level that puts The Matrix to shame.
I think a straight adaptation is long overdue, but I also think that a live-action version would do well. Even if the money-men can’t wrap their heads around a movie set in a Japanese apartment complex, there are American parallels to be found in the various apartment projects and inner-city projects. This story would work just as well there, maybe even better.
OK, your turn – what’s right and what’s wrong with their list?
Alert Nerd @ MegaCon 2009
Feb 27
I’ll be spending some quality time on Sunday at MegaCon, the southeast’s finest comic book and pop culture show. It’s my first time, so be gentle.
I’ll be tweeting from the floor frequently, so come and follow me if you want instant updates on what Mark Waid is wearing and Twitpics of bad cosplay. Dustin from For The Love of Comics is also tweeting from the con, and I’ll be meeting him for lunch on Sunday as part of an impromptu “geek tweetup” that I think will consist of Dustin and I swapping back issue hunting stories. Which is fine by me.
We’ll also have a special MegaCon edition of the Alert Nerdian available at the freebie table. Here’s the PDF for your viewing pleasure. It’s just a repackage of my Scott Pilgrim review, because I love myself THAT MUCH.
Four-Color Critiques #7: Alan Moore and Dengar’s Best Man
Feb 24Hearing that Alan Moore once wrote Star Wars stories was like hearing about a long-lost collaboration between Dylan, McCartney, Lennon, Jagger, and Pat Boone. It blew my fragile little mind.
So yes, that’s the shocker, if you didn’t know already–over the course of late 1981 and much of 1982, Moore had a handful of short comics stories published in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Monthly, produced by Marvel UK. I believe one of them represents his first published collaboration with Alan Davis, but I could be wrong on that.
Today, the prospect of Alan Moore dipping his wrinkly toes into the Lucasfilm sandbox would be occasion for much marketing fanfare, tantamount to Spielberg directing a prequel or Georgie boy himself penning a sequel to Watchmen. (I can’t even imagine what such a thing would constitute.)
Back then, Moore was a newbie starting in comics, and Marvel UK had a hungry maw to feed each month with stories from a galaxy far, far away, and so these stories were born.
Rearranging Toys
Feb 23I’ve been possessed by a crazy cleanliness and neatness streak at work, and this morning, with my boss out of the office and a quiet few minutes, it finally spilled over to the arrangement of my various desk toys.
I have a relatively random assortment of toys scattered around my desk; most of them made their way to this office from previous offices, and a few have been more recent additions. Here’s what I finally settled on, basically two staging areas:
Staging Area One is my poor man’s shrine to the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire era of Justice League, consisting mostly of DC MiniMates (Hawkgirl, Hawkman, Power Girl, Dr. Fate, blue/gold Batman, Superman, and the Blue Beetle/Booster Gold team) and a few JLU figures (Elongated Man, Rocket Red, Mr. Miracle).
When this obsession first hit full-scale, I became so fixated that I bought random figs just to create my own custom Maxwell Lord. He’s the guy on the right in the back row, complete with stogie in his hand. Next to him is a crappy “custom” Oberon that needs a lot of work.
Just sorta “hanging out” are my X-Wing, BSG new-era Viper, and 1989 Batmobile; you can see part of my Snoopy typing statue, and next to that but off-camera is my 1966 Batmobile, an Xmas gift from a pal here at work. To the far left, off-camera and just in random spots, are my old Super Powers Batman and a 7” Iron Giant.
This is Staging Area Two, and looking at it now, I’m less satisfied with it; it seems cramped. It’s mostly my collection of Star Wars Bust-Ups, another brief obsession that I actually hope to return to someday, as I think they’re really cool and relatively inexpensive. My favorite is the Obi-Wan animated, even though it’s not from my favorite Star Wars era; I also have one at a different spot on my desk that’s OT Han in his classic “holding blaster, looking badass” pose from that famous promo still of him and Chewie. Standing guard over them is the current JLU Superman and Bats, with a foppish Han holding his medal from A New Hope between them.
Now…I’m thinking about doing some actual work.
