Weekend Reading: Axa, Star Trek, Alan Moore and Joe Kubert
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials
Happy happy joy joy, another weekend has arrived and the internet is packed with stuff to keep us all occupied and indoors, at least until game time on Sunday. So whether you like the good girl stylings of Enrique Romero, spoilers from the new Star Trek movie (now out on DVD), or need to see a picture of Joe Kubert’s enormous drawing table, it’s like a pirate’s treasure: all down below. Let’s begin…
Enrique Romero: Pete Doree over at The Bronze Age of Blogs has a great post up about Enrique Romero, artist on two classic British newspaper strips: Axa and Modesty Blaise. No offense to Pete’s solid writing cred, but this one’s all about the art. Images might be a little NSFW, depending on where you work.
J.J. Abrams: Lance Mannion has a few spoiler-laden comments on the Star Trek movie now that it’s out on DVD. “Now, obviously I have more invested in Star Trek than is healthy for a reasonable adult. But geek that I am, I am not religious about it.” He doth protest a smidgeth to mucheth, but he writes so well on the subject, you’ll get sucked right in. Bonus: dialogue excerpts from OST.
Adrian Raeside: You don’t think of cartoonists as explorers, but Canadian editorial cartoonist for the Times Colonist in Victoria, BC, is the grandson of Charles “Silas” Wright, a member of Robert Scott’s famous expedition to the South Pole. Adrian retraced his old relatives footsteps and wrote a book about it: Return to Antarctica. His paper runs an excerpt.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Axa, Star Trek, Alan Moore and Joe Kubert
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Legend Of The Seeker 2nd Season: Seek It Out!
Back in the go-go 1990s of television syndication, everybody and his international production company was making hour-long adventure series. My weekend afternoons were filled with two of the best, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. They were fun, action-packed, never took themselves too seriously and both were thoroughly enjoyable. And they had two things in common: Sam Raimi (that’s right, the Evil Dead/Darkman/Spider-Man guy) and Robert Tapert.
But the market shifted and independent programming took a beating for a few years. Then last year, there was a surprise on my widescreen plasma: Legend of the Seeker. And it too had something in common with Hercules and Xena: Raimi and Tapert. They’d returned to New Zealand where their previous shows were filmed, and drew from the Wizard’s First Rule novels of fantasy author Terry Goodkind to craft another terrific action hour with edge-of-the-seat appeal and really nice FX. It fills that gap for me when BBC America isn’t showing Robin Hood.
Now it’s back for season 2, and the first new episode debuts this weekend (either November 7 or November 8, depending on your local listings). For me, it’s KTLA (Channel 5) at Sunday, 3pm. If you’re in NYC (which is where I always dream of being), it’s 4pm Saturday on WPIX. You can find out your own local times and station at the official LOTS website.
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JJ Abrams Wants in on Superman Movie
Posted by Robin Paulson Categories: Interviews, Movies, DC Comics
Hey Warner Bros.—ever consider hiring JJ Abrams? You ought to know that he’s still asking for that Superman gig!
The Star Trek director and Lost co-creator had written a script for the caped crusader way back before his career took off. Despite his vast success with his Star Trek reboot, Abrams is still longing for a shot at revitalizing the Superman franchise. He recently opened up about his relationship with the superhero:
“Writing that script was a long process. It was a very passionate character for me. As a kid growing up it meant a lot to me. It would be wonderful and fun to see that brought back. I don’t know what Warners is thinking or what their plan is. It would be a blast… No one has talked to me about it. Obviously I’m sure Warner Brothers has a plan for what they want to do.”
Did you hear that, higher-ups?
Not only are Abrams fans supporting this collaboration, but apparently so is fellow filmmaker, Kevin Smith—check out the video after the jump.
Click to continue reading JJ Abrams Wants in on Superman Movie
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WEEKEND READING: DONALD WESTLAKE, BOSKO, TINTIN & STAR TREK!
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials
Lots more great fun on the internets this week: Darwyn Cooke’s adaptation of Richard Stark’s (aka Donald Westlake) The Hunter, the craziness of Tintin, a bit of Bosko, The Family Circus (no, really!) and some silly Star Trek stuff with Simon Pegg. Let’s get the linking party started:
DONALD E. WESTLAKE & DARWYN COOKE: The late Donald E. Westlake was one of America’s greatest crime writers. He wrote some great stand-alone novels like Kahawa and The Ax, as well as caper novels featuring John Dortmunder, many of which became movies: The Hot Rock, Bank Shot). Under his Richard Stark pseudonym he wrote some critically-acclaimed hard-boiled crime novels featuring Parker (many of which were made into movies: Payback with Mel Gibson and Point Blank with Lee Marvin). Both Payback and Point Blank are based on the same novel, The Hunter. Tom Spurgeon of the blog Comics Reporter has an interview that’s a must-read for Westlake/Stark/Parker fans. Spurgeon interviews Darwyn Cooke about his upcoming IDW adaptation of The Hunter. Ed Brubaker guest-stars in the interview.
STAR TREK: Simon Pegg of Shaun of the Dead and other fun films, gives an interview to the BBC where he talks about playing Montgomery Scott in J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek, and also playing on of the Thompson Twins in Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Tintin. Here he is talking about having his own licensed action figure: “As a fan of those things as a kid, I had plenty of action figures. To actually be one is a great joy, well, it’s five - two Shaun of the Dead, a Doctor Who one and two Star Trek figures. Yes, I play with myself regularly.”
TINTIN: This is from a couple of years ago, but it’s still hard to figure out who’s nuttier, Herge or his creation Tintin. Fortunately, Spencer Cook has the illustrated details, and it’s hard to argue his point. It’s easy to laugh with him though!
TINTIN II: And while Tintin may or may not be crazy, at least one of his fans is rich enough to part with a cool million to buy some original art. The Scoop at Diamond Galleries has the scoop.
BOSKO: Bosko was an animated series character created by Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising whose cartoon adventures “mirrored” whatever his competitor Mickey Mouse was doing over in his Walt Disney Cartoons. Over at David Gerstein’s Ramapith, he’s posted some fun samples of a Bosko comic strip that’s well worth taking a look at.
THE WORST COMIC BOOK ARTIST?: Steve over at Booksteve’s Library has an interesting historical question. He’s posted what he thinks may be the worst-drawn comic book story in history (or at least the Silver Age) and he needs help identifying the artist. Help a blogger out if you can. And read the whole thing while you’re over there; he’s posted the entire story. It’s a Secret Agent X-9 tale, but it bears no resemblance to the work of Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson.
LELA DOWLING: Here’s a book that fell through the cracks because its target audience isn’t necessarily the comic book fan, it’s beekeepers. Regardless of whether or not you’re a bee lover or bee hater, there’s some great cartooning here. When you get to the cover icon, click it and check out some of the insides to Uncle Buzzy’s Big Fat Book O’ Bee Cartoons.
Click to continue reading WEEKEND READING: DONALD WESTLAKE, BOSKO, TINTIN & STAR TREK!
The Future of Star Trek
Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, Movies
I was recurited to write for Gear Live by an old friend of mine. Gear Live was starting a section on comic books and they needed writers. As I searched for things to write about, I began writing about things such as Star Trek that although were not comic books, they did fit in to the genre of geek stuff that we all know and love. After talking things over with Andru Edwards who runs things here at Gear Live, it was decided that I should post my review of the new Star Trek film over at the movie section of Gear Live which is called Film Crunch. You can read my review here.
My review was pretty general and I didn’t go into any details. I decided to write about those details and give my opinion about them here. I also want to go into the current state of the Star Trek universe and what the future may hold. If you’ve read my review or already seen the film, you know that from here on out things will be different in the world of Star Trek. Lets begin….............
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WEEKEND READING: Star Trek, Howard Chaykin, Buscema, and the Ultraverse!
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials
Lots of great stuff this week on the internets, covering a wide variety of my geeky interests. Here’s a few of them to occupy you ‘til Monday.
STAR TREK CONTINUITY: to celebrate the release of J. J. Abrams new Star Trek movie, let’s revisit some classic Star Trek continuity, courtesy of Steve Ahlquist at Forces of Geek. (Did I mention that’s one of my favorite blogs?) He works his geek-magic on the continuity of the original series, the Gold Key Star Trek comic books, Vulcan poetry from Star Trek fanzines, James Blish’s novelizations and even Star Trek merchandise. Even if you only click the link to see Sky Diving Parachutist Mr. Spock, you have to visit.
HOWARD CHAYKIN: One of Howard Chaykin’s most recent pieces of work didn’t make it in the American edition of Christian Moerk’s debut novel, Darling Jim. At the author’s request – he’s a big fan, especially of Chaykin’s American Flagg! - Howard created an illustration for Moerk’s book. You can see a snippet of the excised art at the link where there’s a link to the much larger full-sized version. Thanks, GalleyCat!
Click to continue reading WEEKEND READING: Star Trek, Howard Chaykin, Buscema, and the Ultraverse!
STAR TREK: J.J. Abrams, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and John Cho Make It So!
It’s finally here. I’m talking about neither killer bees nor swine flu, nor Arlen Specter’s vote on anything pro-Democratic. I’m talking about the new Star Trek movie by J. J. Abrams starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and John Cho (Harold Lee is Sulu? Inspired!)
I’m a fan of Star Trek, but I don’t get the vapors over every new ST movie or series, or any glitch in continuity, nor do I love all things Trek. Any time the Star Trek crew beams down to a planet where the background looks like Ape City from Planet of the Apes and all the inhabitants are wearing burlap tunics as they rebel against an evil alien force who’s using them for either meat, factory work, or target practice, I’m out.
I don’t refer to Star Trek as TOS (The Original Series), I don’t care how the animated series fits into continuity, and I don’t care if anyone calls me a Trekker, a Trekkie or “Romulan Praetor.” I know just enough Star Trek trivia to run a category on “Jeopardy,” (“I’ll take ‘The Jeffries Tube’ for $400, Alex.”) but not enough to debate Klingon military history with a guy dressed as a Klingon speaking Klingon.
But I do have some Star Trek cred – thanks to writer-producer Larry Brody, I’ve actually met and chatted with D.C. Fontana at a writer’s conference in L.A.; I edited the launch issues of Malibu Comics’ Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comic book and toured the set of the DS9 TV series (with artist Gordon Purcell); I had lunch with Alexander Siddig where we talked about our favorite video games; and I was once interviewed (by Mark Altman) for the official Star Trek magazine.
So I feel I have enough of a background in Star Trek to start a flame war by doing what all the other cool kids are doing: listing their five favorite Star Trek movies. Here are mine:
Starlog Logs Off
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials
The magazine Starlog came along when fans of sci-fi movies and TV shows were split into two camps: those still trying to figure out whether or not Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was actually any good, and Star Trek fans still waiting for Paramount to revive what was not yet “the franchise.” Star Wars was just about to hit and bust open the genre’s wallet.
If you’ve been living on Io for the past few days, you might not have heard that the print version of Starlog is no more. Like so many other magazines, it has ceased to be and is moving to the internets, temporarily they say, though permanently is more like it. It’s a tough climate for print, though I hear trees have never been happier.
I have long-standing connections to the Starlog Universe and I’ll miss it mightily. Editor Dave McDonnell and I have been acquainted with one another since college –
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Star Trek: Super Bowl TV Spot
Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, Movies
Yesterday during the Super Bowl we saw a commercial for the upcoming Star Trek movie. Some of the scenes were of things we saw in the previous trailer, but there was also a lot of stuff we’ve never seen. The scene that intrigued me the most was in the beginning which shows the young James T Kirk (Chris Pine) with a bloody nose talking to Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood).
Pike says to Kirk that he (Kirk) always had a “hard time finding a place in this world”. This seems to me that they had a relationship prior to Kirk coming on board the Enterprise. There are then scenes of a bar fight spliced in between the conversation - which is where I guess he gets the bloody nose. Pike then tells him that he can settle for an ordinary life or dare to do better.
I find this interesting that a relationship is being set up between the two. The only time the two characters met on screen was in the two-part classic “Star Trek” episode “The Menagerie”. If I’m not mistaken, there was no existing relationship between the two in “Star Trek” continuity. I blogged a few months ago about the possible minor continuity error of a young Kirk knowing how to drive a car in the upcoming movie, but not being able to drive one in the episode “A Piece of the Action”. I got hit hard by people saying that I should get a life, but this relationship between Kirk and Pike is a much bigger change in continuity than the car thing.
At this point, I guess we fans just have to say whatever. I would like them to stick to continuity, but if this new “Star Trek” film rocks and it does look like it will, it won’t matter. It’ll be a new day in the world of Star Trek and hopefully more movies with the characters of Kirk, Spock, and company.
IDW Review: Star Trek: Countdown #1
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, IDW Publishing
The new Star Trek film will be hitting theaters May 8, 2009. As I’ve stated in previous blogs here on Comix 411, I’m very excited about this and the trailer looks good. IDW Publishing is the current comic book company which owns the rights to publish Star Trek comic books. I’ve never really been one to read Star Trek novels or comics. I primarily stick to the television shows and the movies. However, I decided to take a chance on “Star Trek: Countdown” because it was being presented as prequel to the upcoming film.
This first issue of this mini-series was pretty good. If you are a big time Trekker, I would pick it up, but if you are a big time Trekker, you probably already have. The story revolves around Spock in the “present” world of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) continuity. Spock has been living on Romulus and has been working towards the unification of the Romulan home world and Vulcan. This mission of Spock’s was first introduced in the classic TNG episode “Unification”.
In that episode, the movement towards unification was an underground movement. In this issue, we find out that the movement is now out and in the open and Spock is now a legal resident of the Romulus. Spock addresses the Romulan Senate and informs them of a supernova that that is occurring in a near by star system which could spread and destroy Romulus if they do not act immediately. The Senate does not believe Spock and some believe that this some sort of Vulcan trick.
Click to continue reading IDW Review: Star Trek: Countdown #1
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