Archive for August, 2007
My favorite comedy show, The State, is coming out on DVD. Tied up because of music clearances and the general inanity of MTV, I’ve been reduced to watching a best of tape (that really isn’t the best of) that was the only official video release and a very rough bootleg tape I bought on eBay a few years ago that is like watching the Zapruder film. I could not be more excited by this news.
The State
Add to My Profile | More Videos
By the way, I saw The Ten when I was in New York City earlier this month. If you liked the State and can stand some really silly humor, go check it out. Hilarious stuff.
Anybody catch this? I’m surprised FLOG hasn’t exposed this little gem yet…
I religiously followed VH1′s Flavor of Love through its first 2 seasons. And I happened to be watching the preview show for season 3 today, and what do I see…
I love you, Dame Darcy. But I don’t think Flavor Flav would love and appreciate Meat Cake as much as I do 
From our camping trip to Kiser Lake State Park last month: a shot of our boy Duncan (on the right) and his buddy Buster (left) enjoying a run.
Dream 13 – Casting Call
We’d like to announce auditions for Dream Thirteen, a feature film told in a series of twelve sequential short horror films.
Open auditions will be held on:-
Saturday, 9/1, from 9:30am – 4:30pm at the Upper Arlington Public Library;
Saturday, 9/8, from 9:30am – 4:30pm at the Grandview Heights Public Library.
We’ll be casting for seven (7) roles: –
Four (4) male roles, ages 25-45 –
Two (2) female roles, ages 25-45 –
One (1) child role, age 6-13
Regarding the audition process: – Please bring two photos (headshots okay, 3/4 shots preferred) – Please bring two prepared monologues (60-90 seconds per) – A cold scene read will be provided at the audition
The production window for these short films will be from October 2007 to March 2008, based on cast & crew availability. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR ONE OF THESE ROLES, ACTORS WILL NEED TO BE ABLE TO COMMIT TO THIS SCHEDULE.
If you’d like to be considered for one of these roles, but you absolutely cannot make either open audition date, you’re welcome to submit a demo reel to:
Tempered Zealot Productions
2324 Glencroft Drive
Hilliard, Ohio 43026
Reels must be received by 9/8 to be considered for this project. If your demo reel is online, please send a link to jerod@temperedzealot.com.
Our goal is to make our selections by 9/15. Please note that these roles are deferred pay, non-union.
Ok, you know the rules: if you have this comic, you should disqualify yourself from guessing. If you don’t have the book, then I’m warning you, this is going to be a tough one…
(click image to Al Salamesize)
(previous weeks: 9/12/2005, 9/19/2005, 9/26/2005, 10/3/2005, 10/10/2005, 10/17/2005, 10/24/2005, 10/31/2005, 11/1/2005, 11/2/2005, 11/3/2005, 11/4/2005, 11/5/2005, 11/6/2005, 11/7/2005, 11/14/2005, 11/21/2005, 11/28/2005, 12/5/2005, 12/12/2005, 12/19/2005, 12/26/2005, 1/2/2006, 1/9/2006, 1/16/2006, 1/23/2006, 1/30/2006, 2/06/2006, 2/13/2006, 2/20/2006, 2/27/2006, 3/6/2006, 3/13/2006, 3/20/2006, 3/27/2006, 4/3/2006, 4/4/2006, 4/5/2006, 4/6/2006, 4/7/2006, 4/8/2006, 4/9/2006, 4/10/2006, 4/17/2006, 4/23/2006, 5/1/2006, 5/8/2006, 5/15/2006, 5/22/2006, 5/29/2006, 6/5/2006, 6/12/2006, 6/19/2006, 6/26/2006, 7/3/2006, 7/10/2006, 7/17/2006, 7/24/2006, 7/31/2006, 8/7/2006, 8/13/2006, 8/21/2006, 8/28/2006, 9/4/2006, 9/11/2006, 9/18/2006, 9/25/2006, 10/2/2006, 10/9/2006, 10/16/2006, 10/23/2006, 10/30/2006, 11/6/2006, 11/13/2006, 11/20/2006, 11/27/2006, 12/4/2006, 12/11/2006, 12/18/2006, 12/25/2006, 1/1/2007, 1/8/2007, 1/15/2007, 1/22/2007, 1/29/2007, 2/5/2007, 2/12/2007, 2/19/2007, 2/26/2007, 3/5/2007, 3/12/2007, 3/19/2007, 3/26/2007, 4/2/2007, 4/5/2007, 4/9/2007, 4/16/2007, 4/23/2007, 4/30/2007, 5/7/2007, 5/14/2007, 5/21/2007, 5/28/2007, 6/4/2007, 6/11/2007, 6/18/2007, 6/25/2007, 7/2/2007, 7/9/2007, 7/16/2007, 7/23/2007, 7/30/2007, 8/6/2007, 8/13/2007)
Mid Ohio Con has rolled out their guest & exhibitor list for this November. Bummed but not suprized that Top Shelf is missing from the roster. A guy can hope. Moonstone will be there. I’d love to see Cartoon Books have a booth there this year. The list is still an early one. Maybe it’ll be a better show for everyone involved. Last year’s was plagued by unusually nice weather and a new location. It made one nostalgic for the Easton location.
Over the summer I’ve read books 1 thru 9 of Y:The Last Man. I had never touched the series since it started. The book reads like a really good HBO series. The first book was a rough patch but by book two things started to rock along. All the elements of Vaughn’s writing have toned down and refined themselves from Runaways. The constant pop culture reference speak doesn’t start to irritate me till book 8. Which is an achievement. I do enjoy the transitionals between flashbacks and the present. By the end of book 9, I’m hoping for it to wrap up in the next collection. 9 books of ‘yeah men suck’ is a bit much and the balance of that theme flops around. There is an optimism that things will change. Book 9 reads like an ending. If Yorrick spent a chapter/issue finally finding Beth in 9 it would be perfect. Like the HBO shows, the successful ones do flounder towards the end. Six Feet Under went on for one season too many. I think the same could be said for Y. When I finished reading 9, son of a bitch, the Beth thread wasn’t resolved. Which feels a bit stretched out for no good reason except to hit the number 60. By the end of book 9 we’re only at issue 53. There’s seven more issues of this friggin’ thing.
I have an ending in my mind. Whether this book hits it or not is up in the air. It’s obvious that Yorrick’s engagement is falling apart at the seams. It would feel right if he finally ran into her and then walked away. That would be the rock star ending. Roll credits. It’s the supposed heart of the book though I find the supporting characters more interesting. Hell I would have been happy if Yorrick died at the end of book 9. Dr. Mann or 355 would find Beth or Beth would see the picture of Yorick. Track him down then find Dr. Mann (or 355) trying to find her. Whatever.
Some new Marvel Zombies crap.. or not. I think this was one of those 6 pack deals (hence the lack of UPC on the front maybe). I just like the Sal Buscema cover. The mask treatment on this panel is pretty cool without being too much like Venom or Carnage. Did I mention how much I hate Venom and Carnage?
Former Marverl editor and frequent writer C.B. Cebulski is heading up some sort of global talent search to find 12 new artists for Marvel. I haven’t read all the details, but apparently you can’t have been published by Marvel in the past, and the deadline to send in your submission is January 1, 2008.
“We’re looking for people who are able to take a script and illustrate it. If you ink yourself, great. If you color yourself, fine. We are open to all forms of artistic interpretation, as long as you’re creating the artwork from scratch…we will be looking for a few cover artists as well. So illustrators, game designers, painters and people just looking for just cover work also can submit, but please state that clearly when you send in your work.”
ChesterQuest
Planetarium Station
P.O. Box 732
New York, NY 10024
All the details can be found at the ChesterQuest blog.
Tom, send in some cover painting! You too, Fischer.
One tough thing about selecting books from the late 80’s/early 90’s for this series of posts: Several of my favorites from that time were graced by Jackson Guice, so I had to narrow down which of those to bring out. I first saw his work during his brief but excellent tenure on Flash, before he hopped over to Marvel to work on Nick Fury and Doctor Strange. Since Mike Baron’s writing on the speedster was a bit choppy (though still enjoyable) and I’ve already done the Steranko book, we’ll go with the sorcerer supreme instead:
Dr. Strange # 16
“The Vampiric Verses” part 3 of 5; entering his fourth decade as a comic book writer, Roy Thomas drew on his bottomless well of knowledge of comic lore to give us a story steeped in the supernatural side of Marvel history. Newcomers needn’t fear, since each issue had a “Book of the Vishanti” back-up feature that provided all the backstory one needed to get on board.
It seems several years before, a story was written in which Strange mystically wiped out every vampire on Earth—or so he thought. Turns out he missed one of his own creation. Thomas does a retcon to give Strange a dead brother whom he had tried to mystically revive early in his career. The neophyte sorcerer succeeded only in unwittingly turning his brother into the undead and protecting his sibling from the later spell.
Voodoo sorceress Marie Laveau had spent centuries enjoying immortality gained by drinking the blood of vampires; Strange’s crusade ended a sweet deal for her, until she discovered his brother and busted him out of the cryogenic freezer he was being kept in. She fashions him into a modern day Baron Blood and skips to Haiti, hiding out in Christphe’s Citadel, a fort built centuries before by an ex-slave trying to forge a black republic to stand against a Napoleonic invasion that never came. She plans to build a new vampire army there at the final resting place of many of that army’s soldiers.
Strange and company follow, having picked up Michael Morbius earlier in the story, and enlist the aid of 1970’s relic Brother Voodoo to assist in the invasion of the fort. Things get hairy when Laveau unleashes the vampires on everybody, until Brother Voodoo plays his trump card: raising Christophe’s army from their graves for a ginormous zombies-vs.-vampires showdown that delivers six comics’ worth of goodness.
The zombie (if only Thomas had used the term zuvembie) army gives the good guys the edge to stomp the vampires, though Laveau escapes with Baron Blood since the story arc still has two issues to go. At the age of 20, I certainly didn’t mind the extended storyline if it meant Jackson Guice having two more issues to draw a villain who looked like this:
Jackson or Butch or whatever he calls himself has always been good at that. Like I said when I covered Buscema’s Conan, if the artists producing the soft porn called today’s comics were actually inclined to draw natural looking humans instead of fetishistic freaks, I could give them some credit.Things are moving along with my webcomic, Lifelike. A new storyline starts this week, titled “Crush”. Here’s page 1:
Also, Lifelike was recently reviewed positively by a couple of webcomic sites:
- “Grade A storytelling.” – Jack’s Webcomic Reviews
- “There is no central theme beyond life, and it’s presented here with a varied richness that I greatly enjoy. Fans of realistic fiction won’t be disappointed.” – Wednesday Webcomic Weview
The production work on the graphic novel is coming along nicely, and I’ve got alt-cartoonist Derf writing a foreword to the book.
And for those of you without access to a comic book store (or wanting to save some money) you can pre-order your copy now via Amazon.com and save 32% off the cover price.