So we at BOOM! are doing a book with Stephen Baldwin (and seriously, whatever you can say about Baldwin that book is going to be fucking gorgeous). Devil's Due is working with Kevin Spacey on creating new projects. Both were at Comic-Con
The trend is clear, friends. The cast of The Usual Suspects are slowly but surely integrating themselves into comics. What's next? Will DC's next weekly series be based on Gabriel Byrne's HBO series In Treatment? Can we expect Benicio Del Toro to take a break from the movies and make true his lifelong wish of inking Captain America? Will Kevin Pollak team up with IDW to create a new Star Trek book based solely around his Captain Kirk impression? These questions and more will never, ever be answered! Permanent Link: 12:21 PM |
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Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Bad fan, good fan
Coming up to Comic-Con where I once again witness people with great enthusiasm for...stuff.
Here I am a real life comics professional. I like to think I'm good as a creative type (See my upcoming story in Zombie Tales #5 to decide for yourself!) but as fan I'm fairly sub-par.
I realize why it is, too. I'm not a cynical, jaded type. I may not like things like Star Wars or Buffy but I don't sneer at anyone who does. I'm just too lazy to really be a huge fan of something.
Here's the maximum amount of effort I'll put into something I like: I'll pay money for it and view/read my latest purchase. I enjoy paying $2.99 each month for Captain America or renting the latest Futurama DVD. But write fan fiction? Get up in a costume? Follow voice actor Billy West's every movement? Fuck that noise, I've got a job and propensity for naps.
Maybe something will come along that will force me to be a drooling fanboy but I don't consider such a possibility likely. I hate the feeling of knowing that all of the information of some piece of ephemera has been squeezed out. Bloody Hell, I felt like I had already seen a chunk of The Dark Knight before I stepped into the theatre and that's just because I visit Newsarama, Comic Book Resources and io9 everyday. It's my own damn fault but I know I would have enjoyed the film more without seeing leaked pictures and early reviews.
An important part of appreciating a cultural artifact is knowing when to leave it alone. I have a rule that I will only watch Citizen Kane twice a year at most. Even a film as great as that one will wear out for me. I am a fan of Orson Welles but I don't want to feel that sense of "ownership" that comes with obsessing every last frame of his films.
God bless the ones who put in the effort to become a part of whatever their pop cultural love. For me boundaries and restraint have to be respected. The last thing I want to be is Lenny with the rabbits, squashing them to death because of my affection for them. Especially if those rabbits are dressed as Stormtroopers. Permanent Link: 1:23 PM |
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Slam Diego
Well, like most in this industry I'm off to Comic-Con. If you're down there stop by booth #2543, home of BOOM! Studios. That's where I'll be spending most of my time.
You can get made up as a zombie by the son of Bernie Wrightson (really!). You can get a shot glass with a little Cthulhu guy on it. Of course, we have plenty of awesome books for you to buy. Check it out! Permanent Link: 7:34 AM |
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Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Adventures of Joker and Harvey
That should really be the name of the film I just saw (from the business its been doing you probably just saw the film, too).
Batman Begins gave The Caped Crusader the operatic origin he deserves. Now that Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale got all that out of the way Batman is pretty much a force that other characters have to react to. The character with the most dramatic struggle and the one who goes through the most drastic change is Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent. In fact, Bruce Wayne seems to be a minor mirror to what Dent is in this film. The most charismatic performance (in the film and probably for the year) is by far Heath Ledger's Joker. Batman is really third banana here.
I'm fine with that. Bale is still good and there's a lot of cool Batmayhem on screen (including a masterful sequence that informs us why The Joker should never join a trucker's union). It's the heart of this film and the themes it explores that separates it from something like Iron Man. I liked that film a lot but it walked the path expected of superhero films, albeit with more style and grace than most. The Dark Knight uses pulp fiction tinged view of urban politics and corruption to meditate on the battle between chaos and order. Which is really at home in the hearts of men? Are so-called civilized people really hiding animalistic behavior under society's mores? Can people really aspire to a greater good? That's what this film is really interested in. The story of Harvey Dent and The Joker give you no easy answers. It's truly cynical at times but that's just befitting the dark streets of Gotham.
I'd love to see Nolan explore more of the Batman mythos. This realization of Batman exists entirely on its own. I have trouble relating it to other versions I know, although that's not a criticsm. I love the animated series by Bruce Timm and now whenever I read Batman's dialouge in the comics I hear Kevin Conroy's voice. The two aspects from different media just work together. But Nolan's Gotham is a world upon itself. Most people crafting Batman stories view the superhero as the real person and Bruce Wayne as just a facade. Bale's performance has it the other way around. We have a confident Wayne working with Alfred in the Batcave while Batman speaks with a voice that's clearly put upon to scare criminals (which I think actually sounds a bit awkward at times). The Joker here is clearly a guy in make-up, not someone with bleached skin due to some chemical accident. This is really ground-level superhero storytelling. I can't imagine the more sci-fi Batman villains like Mr. Freeze or Clayface showing up. This is a singular vision, nothing gets in or out. I would love to see what they would do with The Black Mask or Penguin. What I would love the most for the third film is for Catwoman to be introduced. I hope the character isn't radioactive after her solo celluloid outing. This franchise needs a strong female presence after the damsel-in-distress Rachel Dawes.
Fanboy speculation aside I wouldn't mind in Nolan stopped telling Batman stories now. I don't really know how he could top this. We can ponder new villains but really, what actor wants to be the one who is going to top Ledger's performance here? Can it even be done? Permanent Link: 9:48 PM |
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Act I: Oh geez, this just going to skate by on Joss Wheadon's jokey writing, where characters trailing off mid-sentence is considered funny. Maybe I won't watch all of this. Although this love triangle is kind of interesting.
Act II: Hey, that opening number was pretty good! I didn't like much of the songs in the first act but I dug that one. This could be better than I thought. Neil Patrick Harris has the charm to keep it afloat.
Act III: I like Nathan Fillion but I'd wish he just played his usual charismatic leading man, not a parody of charismatic leading man. The dark turn the show takes works really well. The Wheadon clan really committed to what the story of an obsessive villain is supposed to be. That final shot is great!
Overall: Not a bad way to spend less than an hour of time. It felt like a live action version of The Venture Bros. but with songs, half of which are good. I hope they try another project like this but not a sequel to this story. It ended perfectly, no need for anymore. Permanent Link: 3:40 PM |
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10:45-11:45 Reinventing the Page: Stan Lee and Grant Morrison Talk Virgin Comics—Two of the most important creators in the history of comic books team up to discuss the bold new frontiers being explored in the art of storytelling. Legendary creator Stan Lee (Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, X-Men) shares his insights on the world of comics and presents never-before-revealed hints of his new superhero universe with Virgin Comics. Joining Stan is prolific creator Grant Morrison (New X-Men, All Star Superman, Final Crisis), contemporary comics’ most active mind, who will discuss his new Virgin Comics animated online series MBX while offering his own insights on comics and engaging with Stan in a once-in-a-lifetime conversation about the long history and boundless future of their beloved medium. Ballroom 20
I like how Virgin Comics seems to be setting Grant Morrison on annual "blind dates." First it was Deepak Chopra, now Stan The Man. I'll probably be manning the BOOM! Booth during that hour but hopefully video will show up on-line.
I think Virgin is paving the way for a Grant Morrison talk show. Richard Branson can sponsor a weekly late night gig where Morrison comes out in a sharp suit, says a monologue and that hosts one to three guests. Who wouldn't want to see Morrison asks the stars of the latest blockbuster hits about metaphysics and the history of Batman! 99% of the world probably wouldn't care but 1% of the world would love it. Permanent Link: 5:30 AM |
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Monday, July 07, 2008
Still here
I've been having problems with my FTP server so my able to post here has been stillborn. It seems to be working now but who knows what it will be like tomorrow, or even an hour from now?
Anyway, I'm gearing up for Comic-Con like everybody else. I've been bust you know what, I awas able to write a neat post about Batman on my Livejournal. I'll reprint here to give you people some decent content:
Because I'm so pumped up for The Dark Knight I watched Batman Begins on DVD. I liked it the second time around much more than the first and I dug it quite a bit the first time I saw it.
I also decided to seek out some clips of the 1989 Batman film. As you probably know the film was huuuuuge when it came out. I was six in 1989 and remember how ubiquitous it was. I didn't even see it in theatres, having to wait until I saw it at a friend's house on VHS. But I remember T-shirts and action figures being everywhere.
Looking back it seems like Tim Burton and Sam Hamm really told the world how to make a superhero movie. I suppose Sam Raimi's Spider-Man is responsible for the current superhero movie trend. But think about the structure and approach most of these films take and you can trace a lot of it back to Hamm's screenplay.
Burton's role is a bit more controversial. It seems at first that the goal of the '89 film is to get away from the campiness of the 1966 TV show. But look at this clip. It's clear that both Lorenzo Semple Jr. and Burton were thinking "pop art" when it came to The Caped Crusader and The Clown Prince of Crime:
The weird thing about Burton's film is that it's one part Dick Sprang Batman comic and one part Frank Miller Batman comic. In the comics of the '50s and '60s Batman, Robin and their enemies were petty out in the open. None of this "urban legend" nonsense. You could see The Joker actually heading a parade and talking to a crowd of Gothamites in those stories. But for Burton and Hamm things don't stop there. The Joker's frivolity is followed up by mass murder. It's reminiscent of the scene in Dark Knight Returns where Joker gases the crowd at the David Letterman show (although typing that sentence out made me realize the camp factor in Miller's work). Jack Nicholson's performance as The Joker dominates the film. Indeed that tonal feeling of having such frivolity rubbing up against such horror seems right in line with The Joker's sense of humor.
It comes down to a little thing I like to call The Batman Paradox. It works like this: having a millionaire jumping around beating people up dressed as a bat is, at the same time, completely ridiculous and completely awesome. You can try to get away from camp and strangeness when coming up with a Batman story. Still, you have to grapple with the fact that you're chronicling the life of a man who drives a car that is basically in the same shape as his head. Again, complete ridiculous and completely awesome.
In a good Batman story you can have murder, corrupt city officials and urban gloom. It's perfect for any noir-tinged tale. You can also have a guy covered in question marks or another guy who has to buy two suits, split them both in half and then hire a tailor to knit those halves into one suit. How does a little campiness not creep in there? That doesn't mean the Batman mythos isn't being taken seriously, as is so often the charge. It just means this important and undeniable side of the character is being embraced.
What I like most about Grant Morrison's "Batman R.I.P." storyline is that Bruce Wayne himself has to figure out what to do with a history that goes from grimy reality to outsized surrealism. It's a microcosm for what all those who create Batman tales have to do.
