Archive for April, 2010
There’s a Wonderland Community Launch event up on facebook. Here’s a snippet:
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Please join us on April 23rd at 6pm at the former Wonder Bread factory (697 N 4th St, Italian Village) for hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. You will get to tour the space, get a sneak peak of the proposed design, see project renderings, and hear all about what the Wonderland team has been working on over the past two months. We will be introducing our board members and letting you know how to be more involved!
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As I’ve said before, we need more of this kind of thing. Couchfire can’t build a scene all by themselves.
This handsome fella, crucified by the Guardians of the Universe, is one of the necromantic regents of the Empire of Tears. This page is from the famous Alan Moore short story Tygers, originally printed in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2 (1986) and reprinted in DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore. I just finished reading the TPB, which I got from the library. While not all of Moore’s early stories are pure gems, reading this collection of his various shorts and one-shots (featuring characters like Vigilante and Green Arrow) you can tell that his mind works on a different plane than most others.
The art above is by the inimitable Kevin O’Neill, who would go on to collaborate with Moore on a little series called The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Kev, as I like to call him, is one of my favorite artists, mainly because his artwork is so grotesque, it’s pretty. My first exposure to his work was on Marshall Law. I even tracked down the Nemesis the Warlock series he did back in the day, is is just chock full of bizarre-ass characters like the above Mr. Qull. I think I’ll feature him in the next 7 Covers post I do…
Tony’s recent JSA-related posts, as well as Matt’s discussion of Rafael Kayanan made me think this would be a good feature for this weekend’s crossover clash: America vs. the Justice Society:
J’accuse!
That Batman sure can be harsh. Hey buddy, how about the benefit of the doubt, huh?
Kent Williams relaunched his site with a plug n play layout from Viewbook. I checked into it and it looks like a viable option for setting up a gallery/art site. I’m not one for attempting to code anything like this. The set up is similar to flickr in concept but looks nicer. Slideshow view plus you can bookmark any piece on a variety of social sites.
Once I get around to it, I’ll integrate this into my homepage. I’ve been looking for something like this. There’s a trial version, if you like it, it’s cheaper to go for the year fee than month to month.
Looks like Minneapolis is having a small press show in August. The Minneapolis Indie Xpo is kicking off it’s first show on August 21st. They’ve got tables at different ranges, going from $20 to $100. New town, different audience. The show’s keeping costs low so anyone has a shot at making table back. Maybe even the whole trip. John Porcellino and Top Shelf have signed on.
Power Man & Iron Fist #79
I’ve previously mentioned my love for the Jo Duffy/Kerry Gammill issues of this series, of which this issue is actually Gammill’s last. I still say the guy could have been as big in his heyday as Byrne or Perez if he was a bit more prolific and worked on some A-list books. Any issue of this run has a lot going for it, but this particular one is a gem, even if regular cover artist Frank Miller couldn’t make it this month. Instead we’re treated to the great Al Milgrom doing his best Miller impression; not exactly a masterpiece, but it still warms my heart to see Affable Al turn up.
Iron Fist’s buddy, fellow kung-fu fighter and aspiring thespian Bob Diamond, has the lead role in a play called “Day of the Dredlox”. It’s a steampunk kind of production about a Victorian scholar named A.J. Gamble who battles bizarre space monsters. Strange things are happening around the theatre, however; people have disappeared, props have been destroyed. Diamond asks his friends to investigate and soon after he also disappears. When the Heroes for Hire arrive at the theatre to investigate, they are ambushed by a small army of evil robots shaped like trash cans, rolling around on wheels with tiny mechanical arms that fire death rays, shrieking “Incinerate! Incinerate!” as they try to kill the pair. The Dredlox have come to life!
Our heroes flee the theatre with the evil aliens in pursuit. Seeking cover, they duck into a tiny book shop across the street– and are flabbergasted to discover the building is vastly bigger on the inside than out. Inside they are greeted by an odd man claiming to be the real Professor A. J. Gamble, who says that he wrote the play himself under the pen name of “Sergius O’Shaughnessy” (him again?) years ago when he needed some money, adapting a chapter from his own diary. Having later discovered his arch foes the Dredlox have broken the time barrier and are using the play as cover while they plan their conquest of Earth, he has returned to set things right.
The situation is further complicated by the Dredlox mistakenly believing that Bob Diamond is actually the real Gamble. Apparently, the Professor has changed his appearance in the past, and the aliens assume the actor is their enemy in a different incarnation. Luke and Danny have to stage a raid on the theatre to allow Gamble to sneak in with a science widget that will send the Dredlox back to their own time for good. When the fight is won Gamble disappears, along with the entire book shop that once sat across the street.
For some reason I have found this incredibly compelling character resonates with me. I’m sure if they made a television show revolving around such a character, he could most certainly clean Dara’s precious smoke monster’s clock.
I recently watched “A Princess of Mars,” a film adaptation of the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series. I just started the series, so I was very curious to see it. It’s by The Asylum, the folks who brought you “Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus,” the Sherlock Holmes knockoff where he fights tyrannosauruses, and “Sex Pot.”
As a film fan, I thought it was pretty low-rent. As an indie filmmaker, I thought it was a stunning cinematic achievement. I had no idea the cost of CGI imaging had come down so far.
The film stays as true to the book as its budget will allow. They included several Burroughs keywords, such as “fighting men of Earth,” and it was clear the filmmakers had at least some affection for the original. I’ll run down the main differences:
In the book, John Carter is a veteran of the Confederate army — the full flowering of Southern chivalry and manhood. In the movie, he’s a present-day Marine sniper. Also, he’s Antonio Sabato Jr. ASII doesn’t pull off the chivalry thing so well, but he has a certain machismo that works OK for the character. He manages to say “I am a Jeddak of the Tharks” — and “I’m from Virginia” — with a straight face.
In the book, John Carter falls into a swoon in a cave, then wakes up to be transported to Mars. In the movie, the U.S. military downloads him onto a thumb drive and beams him to a distant planet — not really Mars, but nicknamed Mars 216 or something like that. I’ll call that one a push.
The movie cuts out Burroughs’ large faux-Indian captivity narrative in favor of a fight with giant bugs. I guess they had giant bug CGI sitting around? It helps with the run time.
- At least they got the nudity right.
Burroughs’ setpieces are radically scaled back. One scene from the book has a horde of Tharks shooting at a fleet of airships from a deserted city. That becomes a handful of Tharks shooting at a single airship from a hillside in California. The Tharks’ amphitheater becomes a hillside in California. You get the picture.
Here’s how Burroughs describes the heroine, Dejah Thoris:
And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life… Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect.
In the movie, it’s Traci Lords.
The book lacks an overarching villain, but the movie provides one. I think that makes sense from a narrative standpoint, but the identity of the villain is a bit of a groaner. I won’t spoil it.
I’d say, all told, I was entertained through most of it until the end, which really shits the bed. If you’re Brent, I’d advise you to turn it off right after ASII leaves the Thark amphitheater. Trust me on this.