Posted 9/2/08 4:23 pm EST by Jennifer Vineyard in News
You don't usually think of Superman needing saving. But a campaign has just been launched for a rescue mission of sorts -- to save the house where Superman was born.
"When I saw that the house where Superman was created was in disrepair, it just seemed wrong," Brad Meltzer said. "The house where Google was created is saved. The farm where Hewlett Packard was founded is preserved. The Superman house deserves the same respect." (See exclusive art from the auction after the jump!) Read More...
Posted 9/2/08 2:52 pm EST by Jennifer Vineyard in News, Radical
John Woo might have returned to his roots -- shooting “1949” and the “Red Cliff” films in China -- but when he’s done, he wants to go back to America’s roots, in the Wild West. But when the first film project he hoped would take him there fell through, he found another in the re-imagining of King Arthur in frontier times in “Caliber.”
“I knew John wanted to develop a western about the Chinese and the railroads, how they helped build the American West,” Radical president and publisher Barry Levine said, referring to “The Divide.” “But that never happened.”
So Levine, sensing an opportunity, took a presentation to Woo with “Caliber” writer Sam Sarkar, first in Singapore, and then in Beijing, to show him how gunfighters had replaced the Knights of the Round Table, and how a particular, fated pistol only meant for one man with justice on his side could shoot lightning instead of bullets. All the familiar names – Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Morgan Le Fay – were re-imagined (Guinevere becomes Gwen, for instance). “We went on set and watched him work, and we talked about how the characters could be in a film,” Levine said. “And he got it. He had a vision for it and it coincided with our vision.” Read More...
Posted 8/29/08 1:27 pm EST by Jennifer Vineyard in Uncategorized
Dr. Horrible hasn't given up on his plans of world domination -- and neither have his creators. The promised soundtrack so you can actually sing along to “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" will be downloadable on iTunes as of September 2, and the next comic is already being written by Zack Whedon.
"The soundtrack is rapidly approaching," Whedon said. "And all those cut-offs, where the songs would just end," such as on "Freeze Ray," when Neil Patrick Harris sings, "I will stop…" just as he's interrupted and forced to stop singing, "they will be on there as they are on the show. They're just in a much higher quality, and no sound effects. I sing along to everything and it'll be weeks before I can stop. It's driven me mad. Luckily, I can still hold down a job." Read More...
Posted 8/29/08 10:29 am EST by Jennifer Vineyard in News, Webcomics
Rosario Dawson does it. Amber Benson does it. And Jasika Nicole from the new J.J. Abrams television show "Fringe" does it -- online. (They're all actresses who write comics.)
"I like to write and I'm an illustrator and I have a blog," Nicole said, "and I thought, 'Maybe this is the link to put it all together.'"
Nicole's autobiographical comic "High Yella Magic" can be found here, for now, until she re-does her website. She almost signed with a publisher once, but decided to stay independent after the publisher wanted to change "a lot of things," she said, "and I wasn't ready for that."
"They were like, 'You shouldn't talk about this,' or, 'This should be your angle,'" she said. "It's not about an angle. It's about my experience." Read More...
Posted 8/28/08 2:32 pm EST by Jennifer Vineyard in News
You’d heard of trailers for books . Songs, even whole bands inspired by books . But perfumes?
If you were so inclined, you could smell like your favorite characters, places, or even concepts from several works by Neil Gaiman, courtesy of Black Phoenix Alchemy . “American Gods,” “Anansi Boys,” “Good Omens,” and “Stardust” all have scents with names like Spider, Fairy Wine, and War. (If you really get into the whole “Stardust”-scent thing, you might want to also try the Stardust bath bomb).
There are also limited edition scents for the short stories “Orange” -- with a touch of orange and a touch of chocolate, “so you will be followed by people with sweet teeth,” as Neil puts it -- and “Snow, Glass, Apples," which should appeal to Twilighters as well because "it smells like vampire apples: vaguely vampiric, very sexy, and amazingly crisp and apple-y,” Neil says. Read More...
Posted 8/26/08 1:10 pm EST by Jennifer Vineyard in News
Before we got "30 Days of Night" about vampires in Barrow, Alaska, we had "Blood Trails" in New Orleans. And while we wait on a sequel to the film which would take place in Los Angeles, the vampires are still on Bourbon Street, thanks to FEARnet .
"There's the comic universe," said "30 Days" creator Steve Niles, "and then there's the movie universe, and then there's the webisodes, and they're all related."
"It's like a serial novel," said Shawnee Smith, who played Amanda in the "Saw" films and is now a detective in the new six-parter "Dust to Dust." "It's like radio shows the way they used to do, and it makes complete sense to me. This form gives us a lot of freedom." Read More...
Posted 8/25/08 11:20 am EST by Jennifer Vineyard in Devils Due, Hot Stuff, Images, Preview
Anyone who’s ever felt overworked can be tempted by the premise of “Rest” – a new limited-edition comic series published by Devil’s Due and produced by Divide Pictures, “Heroes” star Milo Venitmiglia’s company (the main character also shares Milo’s likeness).
“Everyone wants more time,” Ventimiglia said. “As an actor, I work 12-15 hours a day, and at the end of the day when I’m not acting, I read 90-100 emails about business for the production company, so yes, I can identify with a guy who takes a drug so he doesn’t need to sleep. I don’t sleep much as it is!”
John Barrett, a New York-based office professional type, is approached by an old college buddy to take part in a pharmaceutical experiment – take a pill which allows you to function without sleep. What he does with his extra time – and why the government is sponsoring the experiment – becomes the focus of the four-to-five issue run, which starts in October. (It’ll later be collected as a trade paperback next year). Read More...
Posted 8/22/08 11:23 am EST by Jennifer Vineyard in IDW Publishing, News, WETA
First it was vampires , now it’s Frankenstein. The next Steve Niles comic to hit the big screen will be “Wake the Dead,” and this time, he’s helping out as a producer, not a writer, with a little help from WETA.
“Right now, we’re scouting locations,” Niles said. “[Director] Jay [Russell] wants the movie to be ready for the next San Diego [Comic-Con]. WETA is doing the designs, and it looks amazing. And whatever they need me on, I help. Jay runs the treatment by me and I put the story together, so it begins and ends with me, but I don’t have to write it.”
“Wake the Dead” is a modern Frankenstein story, where a college student named Victor is trying to reverse death. Niles researched the comic by watching heart surgery at Cedars-Sinai, to get a look at how modern medicine might affect the telling of the tale. “I’m a horror guy, but I don’t like syringes, needles, or scalpels,” he said. “I was expecting blood and limbs everywhere, so I thought I might last ten seconds.” Read More...
Posted 8/21/08 5:16 pm EST by Jennifer Vineyard in Music
So you’ve seen the trailer . You’ve heard what Brad Meltzer had to say about it . And now, you’ll be able to hear the soundtrack to “The Book of Lies.”
With a combo of popular and classical music, the companion CD to the “Book of Lies” is due out August 26 (available on iTunes and Amazon), a few days in advance of the book itself, which is due out September 2.
“Sony Music had someone score the key chapters of the book – they sent me the songs – and I rejected most of them,” Meltzer told Splash Page. “Then we fought and pulled each other’s hair and finally settled on songs that truly evoked the mood of the novel. You can go to a certain chapter, hit play, and read along with music that I believe perfectly represents that chapter. And that’s cool to me.” Read More...
Batman And Superman Need to Evolve, Says Deepak Chopra
Posted 8/22/08 11:44 am EST by Jennifer Vineyard in Commentary, DC Comics, Virgin Comics
Without getting too literary-theory on us, Chopra breaks it down: “Batman represents our redemption, Superman our dormant potential that lies within all of us.”
Batman, he explained, is our collective shadow, and the villains he faces are but another side of himself, of ourselves. “You see what happens to Harvey Dent,” he said. “It goes beyond being dualistic. The Joker is us. Batman is us. And when we embrace them both as aspects of ourselves, we’re ready to be forgiven and ready to forgive.” Read More...
Tags batman, deepak chopra, superman