Michael May’s Adventureblog

The Twelve Songs of Christmas: It Feels Like Christmas

Filed Under christmas, harry potter, muppets, music

“It Feels Like Christmas” by The Muppets (and Hogwarts)

Five days till Christmas!

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Adventureblog Theater: Action Girl Trailers

Filed Under harry potter, hermione granger, lost, underworld

None of these are brand new, but here’s some Action Girl stuff that I’m looking forward to.

Lost: Season 5

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

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Awesome List: Harry Potter, Good Neighbors, and Conan

Filed Under conan, faeries, harry potter, ted naifeh

Half Blood Prince stills

/Film has nine photos from the next Harry Potter movie. Nothing spoilery; just enough to get you excited about seeing the characters again.

The Good Neighbors

I’m down with whatever Ted Naifeh wants to draw. I haven’t read her books yet, but Holly Black seems to have a good head on her shoulders too.

Conan

They don’t have an actor yet, but they sure have a cool poster.

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Awesome List: Talking owls, the return of Vin Diesel, why Star Trek sucked, Peter David’s Peter Pan, and more

Filed Under apocalyptic, bond, comics, harry potter, iron man, peter pan, predator, star trek, talking animals, three musketeers, vin diesel

The Monday post date on this one is a lie. I actually started it late last week and didn’t wrap it up until Tuesday night. Unfortunately, the extra time I spent on it does not mean a corresponding increase in quality. It just means that I’m getting ready for Chicago and am falling behind.

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The Awesome List: Indy and Buck Rogers comics, Galactica on Letterman, Deathly Hallows movies, X-Files 2, Eurospies, giant lobsters, and more

Filed Under battlestar galactica, black canary, buck rogers, giant monsters, harry potter, indiana jones, manhunter, salt water taffy, sea adventures, spies, wonder woman, x-files

Indiana Jones Adventures

This is kind of old news, but Dark Horse Comics is gearing up in May for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with lots of Indiana Jones comics, some of them reprints; some of them new. One of the new ones is the first volume of Indiana Jones Adventures, a cartoony kid-friendly digest-sized comic. And if there’s anything that Marvel Adventures has taught me, it’s that I’m enjoying the kid-friendly comics a lot more than the adult ones lately. I expect this to be twice the fun and excitement that any of the other Indy comics are.

Also coming from Dark Horse in May is a new anthology of prose Hellboy stories: Oddest Jobs.

New Buck Rogers comics

Crap. Dynamite Entertainment has been getting me closer and closer to buying some of their stuff as monthly singles instead of waiting for the trade paperback collections. I think they’ve finally figured out how to push me over the edge.

Battlestar Galactica cast on Letterman

Phone the neighbors and wake the kids. Or at least set the TiVo. Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackhoff, Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Hogan, Aaron Douglas and Lucy Lawless will all be on Letterman to do the Top 10 List this Wednesday night, March 19.

Harry Potter 7 (and 8)

In case you’ve been in outer space since last Thursday and haven’t heard, Warner Brothers is splitting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into two movies.

X-Files 2 has wrapped

I cannot freaking wait.

Agent 077

That’s not a typo. It’s an actual spy series from the ’60s that Christopher Mills has the info (and the trailers) on. Looks schnazzy.

Salt Water Taffy

Oni’s got a new comic coming about an “unusual hamlet called Chowder Bay–a small town full of big mysteries, giant adventures, and gargantuan lobsters.” There’s even an old sea dog fighting a giant lobster right on the cover. I’ll be in line right behind Heidi MacDonald for my copy.

DC’s Manhunter returns

I was pretty late coming to the Manhunter party. It took a big Wonder Woman story to get me to even take a look and that was after the series already had gone into hiatus. But I read it, loved it, and now I’m as excited as anyone else that it’s finally coming back. Anyone interested in strong, three-dimensional, female characters should really give this series a look.

Not Awesome: Cliff Chiang leaving Black Canary

In all fairness, I’ve enjoyed Judd Winick’s writing on Green Arrow and Black Canary about 3000 times more than I expected to. So I’ll still be reading the series, even though it makes me very sad that Cliff Chiang will no longer be illustrating it. He’ll still be doing covers, which is nice, but his next series will be something for Vertigo.

Mike Norton is replacing Chiang and from what I’ve seen on his blog, he should do just fine. Still, sad to see Chiang go.

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Scarecrows, Echo, and fanfic REVEALED!

Filed Under harry potter, scarecrows

If he only had a brain.

I’m too distracted by Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man right now to analyze why, but I’ve always been a big fan of scarecrows. It probably started with Dark Night of the Scarecrow, but I’m still hooked. I’m even tempted to see Jeepers Creepers 2, for crying out loud.

Anyway, Caleb over at Everyday is Like Wednesday totally wrote his blog just for me in the days leading up to Halloween with his Scarecrow Week.

“I am a little worried that people will be angry when they find out it’s not Rowling.”

Here’s more skinny on that James Potter site that I mentioned last week. It’s fanfiction. (Thanks to my pal Charles again for the link.)

“That’s not rain, or hail.”

I never was able to get into Strangers in Paradise, but Terry Moore’s become such a legendary figure because of it that I’m really looking forward to getting in on the ground floor of his next big project, Echo.

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Allison Cameron and the Harry Potter Whatsit

Filed Under harry potter, house, star trek

Okay, JJ, you’ve got my attention again.

Even though I’m too much of a nerd to completely ignore JJ Abrams’ Star Trek movie, I lost a lot of interest in it once I realized that it would not, in fact, star Young William Shatner as James T. Kirk. Putting Dr. Cameron from House in it though — regardless of whatever her role turns out to be — has me excited to see it again.

Okay. Actually the Karl Urban news a while back did that already, but now I’m really excited.

Hm. Speaking of Urban and Dr. McCoy, Abrams has said that Jennifer Morrison won’t be playing Yeomand Rand, but has Nurse Chapel been cast yet?

And if she is playing Nurse Chapel, is that a demotion?

James Potter and the Hall of Elders’ Crossing?

Does anyone have any real information (as opposed to speculation) about what this is? It just screams, “Hoax,” (or maybe, “Fan fiction,” at best) but it’s a really well-designed one if it is.

Update: “Hoax” it is. (Thanks to my buddy Charles for the info.)

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Links du Jour: Gay Dumbledore, Azrael, and Neil Gaiman’s Superdog

Filed Under azrael, harry potter, neil gaiman, writing is hard

The Return of Azrael

I don’t talk much about Azrael, but there was a time when he was one of my favorite comics characters. He eventually turned into a directionless mess, but when he started out he had a cool name, an interesting origin with tons of potential, a great supporting cast, and the coolest costume in the history of superheroes.

I hate that his ongoing series was allowed to continue far past the point where Denny O’Neil knew what to do with the character. He should’ve been retired when Denny ran out of ideas, but even though DC rode the Azrael horse until it died, I’ve always believed that the right creators could revive the character and do something really great with him. There’s just too much potential there.

Marc Andreyko started hinting at a possible return in Manhunter and I’m eager to see where that goes when Manhunter finally returns from hiatus. In the meantime though, Comic by Comic notices an Azrael appearance on the cover of an upcoming issue (#8, if my figuring is correct) of Frank Tieri and J. Calafiore’s Gotham Underground. Of course, Spoiler — another dead Batman ally — is on the same cover, so maybe that issue focuses on fallen friends or something. It’s nice to see Az’s face on a comic again anyway.

Realism and Superhero Comics

I’m not a Garth Ennis fan, so I’ve never been tempted by Hitman, but this review (you have to scroll down a ways) made me want to read JLA/Hitman. Mainly the part where Ennis explains why realism and superhero comics don’t mix: “because there are real situations where men have to kill to succeed, and Superman and Batman don’t really have the ‘moral courage’ to get their hands dirty.” It’s an interesting opinion that I don’t disagree with. The Never Kill manifesto is something that needs serious exploration and possible change if superhero comics are to embrace “realism” as part of what they are.

I Love My Dead, Gay Dumbledore

I wish I’d thought of that line from Heathers myself, but I totally stole it from my fellow Newsarama blogger Tom Bondurant who said it when the Newsarama group was discussing this story amongst themselves. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve heard the story by now about J.K. Rowling’s recently outing Dumbledore at Carnegie Hall during her Open Book Tour.

I agree with some of Ian Randal Strock’s thoughts on it in that if fans want to ignore that bit of information, they certainly can since Rowling never made it part of the stories. But I disagree with Strock’s assertion that it just doesn’t matter since it’s not part of “canon.” Fans who want to ignore Dumbledore’s sexuality — as revealed by his creator — will have to make a conscious effort to do so. Whether it’s in the books themselves or not, the fact is now in the public consciousness and Dumbledore is irrefutably gay. Ignoring that fact isn’t so much a valid choice as it is simple denial.

And so, to Strock’s question, “So what?” I say that this is kind of important because there are Harry Potter fans who didn’t think they knew any gay people before this announcement. And now, for the first time in their lives, they realize that someone they really cared about (fictional though he may be) was gay. And it’s going to force them to take a hard, inward look and decide how they’re going to respond to that news.

Neil Gaiman’s Dog Looks Like Krypto

During hunting season anyway.

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Vader is SO evil!

Filed Under harry potter, star wars

He’s hurrying to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows just so he can spoil it for you!

Found via the Star Wars blog.

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Jericho: Season Two, Simpsons donuts, and how to tell when you’re too into your fantasy series.

Filed Under alpha flight, captain nemo, dinosaurs, giant monsters, giant robots, green hornet, harry potter, jericho, jesse james, perry mason, wonder woman, writing is hard

Kill All Monsters!-Related

Steve Bissette continues his look at giant monsters.

He also talks about DC’s GIs-versus-dinosaurs comics that are collected in Showcase Presents: The War that Time Forgot. I started reading them myself, but was disappointed that instead of a continuing storyline about soldiers stranded on an island of dinosaurs, most of the stories are self-contained (except for an occasional one that takes two or three issues to complete) and feature new characters in every tale. It’s still a cool idea, but I was hoping to get to know the soldiers better than the format allows.

Chris Sims convinces me to read Marvel MegaMorphs, about Marvel superheroes who pilot giant-robot versions of themselves.

Forget Transformers. How’sabout a life-sized Gundam giant robot figure?

Blogarama has a preview of Josh Cotter’s giant-robot-featuring contribution to the Indie Spinner Rack anthology. Cotter’s very cool Skyscrapers of the Midwest series frequently features giant robots, so this is no surprise. That doesn’t make it any less welcome though.

Dust to Dust-Related

Looks like I missed TiVoing Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda in Jesse James on Fox Movie Channel this morning, but they’re rerunning it on August 24th. Now if I can just remember…

Pulp

This is only a rumor as far as I can tell, but everyone else is talking about it so I might as well mention that Knocked Up star Seth Rogen may be writing and starring in a Green Hornet movie.

Mystery

You’ll have to click on the link to get the full skinny, but the Sci Fi Channel’s got some details about the second season of Jericho. Like how they’re going to squeeze 22 planned episodes into the 7 that CBS ordered and how the plot will be intentionally reminiscent of events in Iraq.

In the comments to my post on Erle Stanley Gardner’s birthday, Rupert from The Book Garden mentions that he’s building a Squidoo list of Perry Mason novels. Quite an undertaking and very useful information considering the huge number of them that Gardner wrote.

Fantasy

Starting tonight, I’m not reading anything online that has either “Harry Potter” or “HP” in the text. Hewlett Packard news will just have to wait until I’m caught up. But before I go dark on the Harry news, I’ve got to share this press release that a friend forwarded to me. It’s from a grief counselor offering “to speak with parents and children, as well as the media, on how to cope with feelings of grief and loss” once the series concludes. “This could have a serious impact on children, millions of whom have grown up reading, watching and profoundly enjoying the characters and storylines of the Harry Potter series.” Maybe I’m a heartless bastard, but really?

Science Fiction

This is even more rumor than the Green Hornet story, but the Disney Blog is reporting conversations about Disney’s remaking 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, possibly with “a certain captain from the Pirates franchise” as Nemo. That last bit sounds like wishful thinking more than informed speculation to me, but I don’t have the contacts that the Disney Blog does, so don’t listen to me.

Wonder Woman

That’s Fit has links to some cool Wonder Woman gear for women. It’s all under item number four in their “five ways to emblazon yourself with a message of strength.”

Alpha Flight

Ramon Perez (Butternutsquash) has a fantastic post where he’s drawn all the characters from the classic Alpha Flight team. Made me homesick it did.

Writing is Hard

One of the Three Golden Rules of Writing is “show, don’t tell,” but Writer Unboxed read a review of Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo that made them wonder how strictly the rule should be followed. After all, “does the description of ‘a little man with no compassion or concern for others’ really hurt him? It helps the reader develop an instantaneous feeling about the character so the story can move forward, after all. Is that always bad? Did (Leven Thumps author Obert) Skye need to develop a sequence showing the character acting like an a-hole?” Good question. I’d be interested in hearing opinions on this one.

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

This post on the Simpsons Movie promotional donuts made me very hungry. I gotta find a 7-11.

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