Frank Miller, Pimplord!

You've come the wrong way, Baby.

Oh, right. Because DC Comics cares about its female characters and readers.

Fangasmic?!

Oh, that's right. Because they want to get more kids reading these comics...


That'll look great on the lunchboxes.


Um, no, it really didn't. (from Detective Comics #1, September 2011)

Holy Derivative, Batman, er, Batwing!

Ben Oliver [artist]: You're SURE this is what you want me to draw?

DC Comics Excutive: Hey, if Marvel can get Samuel L. Jackson to star in their movies, why can't we?

Ben Oliver: Um...


(Batwing #1, September 2011)

"I'm the Doctor...

So, basically... rip me off for the DC Comics universe reboot."


(Doctor Who, April 2010)


(Stormwatch 1, September 2011)

New, Blue, DCU?

Oh, that's right. Because they want to get more kids and women reading these comics...


(Stormwatch 1, September 2011)

Wolverine 2

Darren Aronofsky is reportedly directing Wolverine 2 (source). At least it's not a prequel or a reboot.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was unbelievably awful. But then again, 90% of the comics featuring Wolverine have been unbelievably awful. Marvel Comics has so often nearly killed the goose that laid the adamantium eggs with overexposure, contradictory origin stories, convoluted time-lines, and knock-off characters (because more of the same is what the audience demands, isn't it?). Hell, there's even dispute about Wolverine's designation. Is he Weapon X (the letter), or Weapon 10 (Roman numeral X), as suggested in the now-nearly-wiped-out-of-canon Grant Morrison New X-Men stories? At this point, who cares? And of course, the movies versions of the X-Men are different again.

I haven't seen Black Swan yet, but Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler have all been excellent films. No reason why Aronofsky won't succeed with a genre piece. I'll go see it, but to see what he's doing, not Wolverine.

Fringe - another "homage"

Challengers of the Unknown No. 1 (April-May, 1958), DC Comics:

This is how the thieves get in... beamed through the walls...

Fringe, season 1, episode 10: Thieves steal scientific equipment. They enter and leave undetected. How? Beamed through the walls, of course!

I'm digging all these swipes. More as I find them.

Two Alan Moore items

1. A TV project.

Yay! and

2. A comics store in Florida refuses to sell Neonomicon.

Boo! I mean, it's a free country, sell what you like, but why the need to label Moore's sexual philophies as "bizarre"? Neonomicon is fiction; perhaps the sexual philosophies being espoused belong to the characters, not the author?

More troubling is the blog posting's title, "Secret Headquarters Censors Alan Moore And Jacen Burrows’ Neonomicon". Someone might want to look up the meaning of the "censor".

Fringe-tastic Four?

You can't tell me that someone working on Fringe isn't a long-time fan of Marvel's Fantastic Four comics. Earlier, I wrote about the similarities between The Observers and The Watcher, both in their appearance and their motives.

Here's another, from the latest episode, season 3, episode 3, "The Plateau", set mostly in the alternate universe. In this episode a character named Milo seems to know when a single, small event will create accidents resulting in specific deaths.

LUCAS: Someone is causing these accidents or purpose.

ASTRID: You're asking me if it is possible for a person to use a ballpoint pen to set off a chain of events that culminates in someone getting killed by a bus, twice? There's no way.

LUCAS: What if someone calculated the variables?

ASTRID: Thirty-seven people in the intersection, twenty-two cars, four trucks, two buses, going speeds of five to ten miles per hour... and that's just to start. In total, we are talking about a hundred and twenty variables in a dynamic system of differential equations. I can't solve that kind of problem, much less manipulate the outcome to my advantage.

But, of course, Milo can.

In Fantastic Four #15 we are introduced to a character called The Mad Thinker, who describes his abilities thus:

Aside from The Mad Thinker's enhancing his own thinking with a Kirby Super-Computer, quite similar to Milo, no? So how are these similar characters defeated? Well, similarly.

In the case of Milo, Olivia does something that Milo cannot predict, ignoring a warning to use oxygen. as Peter-as-imagined-by-Oliva says, "Because you didn't know the protocol... you did something that he couldn't factor in."

In the case of the the Mad Thinker...

I'm not pointing fingers at the writers of Fringe, accusing them of ripping off Lee/Kirby. On the contrary, I'm rather enjoying finding all these parallels. To paraphrase Walter, "I believe [takes a bite of red licorice] that these coincidences are not coincidences at all."

Fringe theories...

In Fringe season 1, episode 20, when Robert Jones threatens to open a portal between this and another dimension, the Observer, who claims he cannot interfere in the affairs of man, leads Walter Bishop to a device which is used to close the dimensional rift.

In Fantastic Four #48, when Galactus threatens to consume Earth, the Watcher, who claims he cannot intervene in the affairs of man, leads Johnny Storm to a device, the Ultimate Nullifier, which is used to banish Galactus from our world.

Coincidence? Homage?

Hellblazer-like programme on BBC Radio 4 UPDATED

Are you a fan of Hellblazer?

Rich Johnson, from BleedingCool.com writes, "Pilgrim is a modern day magical fantasy horror series by Sebastian Baczkiewicz, broadcast by BBC Radio 4. And it gloriously and unashamedly rips off John Constantine, by way of Fables." A fair summation, though the show does have a bit of original charm, too, despite the fact that it's a wee bit over-written in the amusing style of radio drama ("It's the phone!" says someone after the sound effect of a phone).

Series 2 consists of four episodes, running once a week on Tuesdays at 12.15 p.m. (London time), starting August 31. It can be heard live on bbc.co.uk/radio4 and will then be available for another week worldwide on the BBC Radio iPlayer.

Series one can be found as a bittorrent file at RadioArchive.cc. I imagine someone will post Series 2 once it has completed its run.

More on the series and other Constantine-like characters here.

Random?

What if The Avengers Movie was made in 1952?

Sure it's just old serial footage repurposed, but it's done well, and is keeping in the style of the period being swiped from. Say what you will about the silly stories or the cheap effects of the serials, at least they're fun.



More, including an annontated vid that reveals all the Marvel characters featured.

Art vs draftsmanship

Interesting discussion here.

Apparently, Doctor Manhattan Can't Keep it Up

As per Variety, Watchmen's drop from its opening weekend is looking to be 67%. This doesn't surprise me. Watchmen seems to be a film only a fan of the graphic novel could love (or, in my case, admire for its ambition if not its execution). Everyone else, it seems, could care less.

Hopefully, the studios will back off on their rush to make every superhero movie "dark". I've been reading how, in the wake of The Dark Knight's success, the studios want to make Superman (Superman!) and the Fantastic Four darker. This only works when the character can naturally bear that interpretation, such as Batman. That said, I wasn't overly impressed with The Dark Knight. I'm not saying there shouldn't be grim superhero films, or that superhero films need to be childish; but are any properties less dark than Superman or The Fantastic Four?! You want to make a dark superhero movie about an indestructible, flying man with x-ray and heat vision? Fine. Just don't call it Superman. The Thing shouts "It's Clobberin' Time!" not "It's dismemberin' time!" or "It's knifin' time!"

Each superhero film should be its own thing, with its own sensibilities. If you homogenize these things and apply current trends, it's going to be the law of diminishing returns. We've seen that countless times in Hollywood. Every time something hits, we get a dozen knock-offs until the trends sputters out. (Shark movies, anyone? Breakdancing movies, anyone? Matrix-style fighting movies, anyone?) For my money the best superhero films are Iron Man, Spider-Man 2 (except the ridiculous bit where he takes of his mask and a subway car full of citizens agrees to keep his identity secret), Superman 2 (dated effects, corny as hell, but still fun) and The Invincibles (why no sequel?!)

Fingers crossed that the relatively poor performance of Watchmen will put at least a couple of nails into the coffin of the dark superhero film.

More thoughts on fictional continuity

You know how you think about or write about something, and the very next day you read something related? That's what happened today, that weird synchronicity. Yesterday I blogged about continuity, and today, I came across these.

http://oneofthejonesboys.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/capturing-continuity/

http://oneofthejonesboys.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/capturing-continuity-ii-this-time-its-personal/

A wonderful set of postings, with more to come. Check 'em out.

Incognito #2

It's always nice to see something that succesfully reworks tired cliches into something new and exciting. Such is the case with Incognito, the ICON/Marvel comic series from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. It successfully grafts film noir and pulp sensibilities onto a modern superhero comic, and never once does it feel forced, or that the creative team is trying too hard. Reading this gave me the same buzz I got when I was 12 and reading the Bantam Doc Savage paperbacks for the first time, no small feat. Comic-wise, I haven't enjoyed comics this much since my first encounter with Moore and O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

If you like superheroes, pulp fiction, film noir; or if you're just a fan of excellent storytelling, pick this one up. You won't be disappointed. Oh, and don't wait for the trade paperback! Like Criminal, Incognito has text articles that will only be in the monthlies. Brubaker has tapped Jess Nevins to write about pulp heroes of the past. Issue #1 had a text piece on The Shadow. I had no idea that the written character and the radio incarnation were two very different characters. Fascinating. Issue #2 has an bit on Doc Savage, with Philips doing a fantastic James Bama-inspired watercolour portrait of the Man of Bronze.

What are you waiting for? Stop reading this and get yourself Icognito ASAP.

[Geek mode off]

Listen. Read.

The first issue of Incognito, the newest comic series by writer Ed Brubaker and the inimitable artist Sean Philips is out now. Here's how Ed describes it:

Incognito is a noir pulp story about a super villain hiding who he really is in a witness protection program, but he tires of trying to live a suppressed ‘ordinary life’... It's like when the film Goodfellas ended. I wanted to see what happens next, when the bad guy can't take his forced normal life anymore.

I've read issue #1. It is on par with anything from the Brubaker-Philips team, and that's high praise indeed, with Sleeper and the ongoing Criminal both being excellent series. How the hell Philips draws so fast and keeps the quality this high is beyond me. (If you're chained to a desk against your will, hooked into a coffee and cocaine IV drip, Sean, I'm sorry, but I'll have to side with the publishers and keep you there cranking the stuff out...)

Hear Ed talk about Incognito and his other projects on the Wordballoon podcast here:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/wordballoon/WBbruincognito.mp3

Grant's Advice

R.I.P. Patrick McGoohan

I was saddened to read that Patrick McGoohan has left this life.

The Prisoner had a lot of impact on me when I came to it in my late 20s. It changed how I view story-telling and shook me out of the idea that continuity is king. That the 17 episodes of The Prisoner can be watched a number of different ways without affecting the story and themes running through the series greatly appealed to me then, and still does. I was surprised to learn that there is no “official” order for the series, other than the generally agreed-upon first and final episodes (“The Arrival” and “Fall Out”). Even the order originally aired may not have been the order intended by McGoohan who only wanted to make seven episodes. For six possible permutations, go here:

http://stason.org/TULARC/tv/the-prisoner/4-In-what-order-should-I-watch-the-episodes-The-Prisoner.html

As well, I like the fact that the meaning of “Fall Out” is still up for debate. I think too many people want their favourite TV series to wrap everything up in a tight bow when they end. Remember the Sturm und Drang over The Sopranos’ finale? The Prisoner proved that television didn't have to be a one-way medium, that it could spark debate and allow the viewer some room to think. Who ran The Village? Someone with a political bent far from your own? Or, more chillingly, someone with political leanings very close to yours? Was the implication that the viewer was "Number One"?

For those of you who may not know this, DC Comics published an authorized sequel to The Prisoner. It's out of print, I think, but well worth digging up if you’re interested in the series. The Toronto Public Library has a couple of circulating copies. Like the series, writer Mark Askwith and artist Dean Motter wisely leave it up to the reader to interpret what “happens” to The Village and Number Six.

You’re a free man now, Mr. McGoohan. R.I.P.