Monday, January 31, 2011

Eric Powell Has A Few Important Things To Say

A few scant words by Christian Nicholson

Eric Powell has produced a video well worth watching.  Comics have a problem, and he's here to tell you what it is.


Eric Powell happens to be one of the very few creators' work Dark Horse is publishing nowadays.  For new creator owned work you have to go to Image comics.  Also, major book publishers are getting into the game with lit-comics, but we still have a ways to go before we  really see the potential of comic books realized.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

There is a Superman and he is British

















Photo of Henry Cavill lifted off of the internet somewhere willy nilly.

By Christian Nicholson

I really like Henry Cavill.  I think his character in The Tudors was interesting and nuanced.  Charles Brandon was a character who was at first lustful, irresponsible, and dashing, but over time grew into a King's man.  He later became haunted by what he'd done.  Cavill managed to play the character true, despite many changes, and managed to convey a man much older and (hopefully) more remorseful than himself.  For Superman, however, his capability might be wasted.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Bad Buzz On the Green Lantern?

By Christian Nicholson



The buzz is that the Green Lantern movie is pretty bad.  Rumors abound that the production was troubled, blah blah blah, tepid reaction from the the fans as regards the trailer, and so on.  I'd really rather not judge a whole movie based upon the trailer, or upon rumors of how the production went, or even on the movie studio and its history, but in this case all of those things really do concern me.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Johnny Storm Dead!

Art by Michael Turner, totally used without permission.

By Christian Nicholson

I'll say straight away that I haven't read the comic, and I don't really plan to.  I've never really been a big fan of the Fantastic Four.  There are a few really good stories out there, and with Jonathan Hickman at the helm doing the writing duties, its likely this is one of them.  I'll probably wait for the trade.

JoCo At the Great American Music Hall

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/

By Christian Nicholson
live pic by Elizabeth Faris

It seemed to me, Thursday  (1-20-2011) at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, Jonathan Colton took a few tunes to warm into his set.  Or maybe it took me a few tunes to get over his song "I Hate California."  Once we got past the hurdle, it was a fantastic show.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Wonder Woman Pilot Greenlit!

http://www.deadline.com/2011/01/nbc-picks-up-david-e-kelleys-wonder-woman-michael-patrick-kings-drama/

by Christian Nicholson

According to Deadline Hollywood, NBC is picking up the David E Kelley pilot.  If you aren't familiar with his work, take a peek at his IMDB.  He's known for writing on LA Law and creating Doogie Howser MD, Ally Mc Beal, Boston Public, The Practice, and Boston Legal.  I think he may be able to do this thing right.  But like all things geeky, right is relative.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy in Batman Rises!

By Corey Schroeder

Several news sources are reporting that not only will Anne Hathaway (you might remember her from “The Princess Diaries,” “Brokeback Mountain,” or her magnificent bosoms from “Havoc”) play Selina Kyle, or Catwoman for the uninitiated, in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” but Tom Hardy (“Bronson” and recently of “Inception”) will play the brainy brawler Bane.

Bane, some of you will sadly remember, was a near-mute, grunting bruiser from the atrocious “Batman & Robin.” As far as the rest of the movie, this was actually a fairly minor thing to get wrong, but if you’re familiar with the character, the thing that makes him such an effective villain is that he’s a brilliant tactician as well as fairly intelligent in his own right.

Watch Out For the Watchmen

By Corey Schroeder
Watchmen is a book you’ve probably heard of if you’ve asked the average comic book reader about their top five books. It was one of the first books to truly define a “graphic novel,” (a book, either stand-alone or collecting a series of single issues, that tells a single, bookended story) but more than that, it was one of the first graphic novels to tell an adult, psychologically realistic story that somehow also involved grown men dressing in strange costumes to fight crime. It still holds up today as one of the best ever written.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Spidey Musical

http://spidermanonbroadway.marvel.com/

by Christian Nicholson

So yeah, I saw it.  Or at least the preview version of it.  Its kind of poor form to review a Broadway show before it gets out of previews, so I won't do that.  I will say that you shouldn't believe a word of the negative publicity.

DC To Stop With The Comics Code Authority

http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/01/20/from-the-co-publishers/

by Christian Nicholson

DC says it will discontinue use of the comics code stamp and will employ a rating system similar to their other media.

I'm not sure what to say about this other than "Hurrah!" and "What took you so damn long?"  I think the comics code was pretty much the most damaging thing done to the sequential art medium, and it was put into place in the freakishly socially conservative 50's (yes that means its about 55 years old).  Publishers got together to censor themselves and basically put super selling EC out of business.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Spidey Suit Revealed


CDN

So, yeah.  I like it.  The still very much reminds me of Ultimate Spidey as far as the characterization is concerned.  I can see this Pete coming home after a hard night of fighting bad guys.  This is a high school kid with issues.  He perhaps has just realized that even though being Spider-Man is awesome, and many steps up from being Puny Parker things still aren't going to necessarily go well for him.

New Game Of Thrones Teaser

CDN

I love everything about this upcoming HBO series.

Except for HBO's wildly outdated content delivery model.

Captain America Suited Up

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/01/13/captain-america-first-look-exclusive/

So... it seems a lot of folks are going to be surprised about Winghead's new look.  Those of us who have been reading the UItimates books (http://www.twocatscomicbookstore.com/shop/Graphic-Novels/1582-ultimates-ultimate-collection-trade-paperback.html) have been pretty much expecting this all along.

Original Flavor Star Wars Review

By Christian Nicholson

Once upon a time there was a movie called Star Wars, and everyone loved it.  Maybe, not everyone, that’s a bit of a hyperbolic statement.  A lot of people loved it and it made a lot of money.  It changed a lot about how the movie industry views science fiction movies, much the same way that Avatar changed the way the industry looks at 3d movies.  John Dykstra’s visual effects were stunning and with the direction of a young up and comer named George Lucas added a surprising realism to a science fantasy fairy tale.  At the time, Lucas wasn’t hailed as a creative genius. 
 

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

X-Men First Class Pic

So, if you scour the interwebs, you can pretty much see who's who in the cast.  It looks to me like the story is going to be the story before the story.