Filed Under frankenstein, ghosts, mummy, vampires, werewolves
Lego Frank
By Matt Armstrong.
General Mills Monsters vs. Darkstalkers
By J. Ho.
Monster Maker
By me. With lots of help from the San Antonio Express-News’ Monster Maker.
Filed Under vampirella, vampires
I like Vampirella. I think she’s a cool character with a lot of history and there have been some fantastic writers producing her adventures over the years. People like Archie Goodwin, Kurt Busiek, James Robinson, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Ben Raab, Brian Wood, and Josh Fialkov.
Unfortunately, a lot of people dismiss her as nothing more than a T&A character and you can’t always blame them. I mean, you can because those writers aren’t known for making vapid T&A books, but there’s still that costume. It’s difficult to get past that Vampirella isn’t a comic that I can unreservedly show to just anyone. Regardless of how well-crafted the story, people look at the costume and eyebrows are raised. Smirks are given.
So, I think it’s really cool that Harris Comics is joining forces with Project: Rooftop on a contest to redesign Vampirella’s look. As far as I can tell, Harris isn’t looking to use the winning design as an official new look for the character, but it means something to me that they’re using this approach as a way to promote their book. On some level it’s an acknowledgment that there’s room for an update to the character’s design. It’s a small step, but it’s a step.
Filed Under aliens, burn notice, conventions, john carter of mars, lost boys, sea adventures, sherlock holmes, skulduggery pleasant, vampires, zatanna
Mermaid Island
There aren’t enough mermaid movies featuring giant sea monsters, if you ask me. Too bad the Catwoman director has to be the one making it.
Zatanna ongoing?
Captain Carrot and the Final Ark was definitely an entertaining little series. Any plans to pick up on it’s mysterious ending? Didio hopes so, “Did we ever announce the Zatanna book?” The panel became confused. Did they just slip up? It was said something with Paul Dini and Zatanna was a possibility during the NY Comic Con panel but no, nothing had actually been announced. Didio needed to go hypothetical again, “If Zatanna had her own book, you might see something along those lines somewhere down the road. Just saying if.”
“You could be happy here. I could take care of you. I wouldn’t let anybody hurt… AAAH! NO, ET! NO!” *SPLURCH!*
Pixar’s John Carter of Mars movie confirmed
According to The Pixar Blog:
The disclosure came at the end of the short, but extremely enjoyable, discussion (excerpts of which will be published here soon), when a writer from Suite101.com asked about [writer/director Andrew Stanton's (Finding Nemo, WALL-E)'s] next project, to which Stanton mentioned (not too loudly) ‘John Carter of Mars‘.Doubting what I’m hearing, I interject, “What is that?” “John Carter of Mars“, Stanton replies. “You’re confirming John Carter? Are you serious?” At this point, I turn my tape recorder back on, “…say that on tape!”, I tell him. Stanton: “I am writing John Carter of Mars right now.” “Oh man, you just doubled my page views!“, I say. Everybody laughs.
Cannot wait.
Skulduggery Pleasant
There’s always room on my bookshelf for a skull-faced detective.
The future’s getting closer all the time
I’ve been wanting an excuse to finally visit Disneyland and Vegas. A 300 mph levitating train ought to do the trick nicely.
Burn Notice novels
I’m a big freaking Burn Notice geek, so I’m way tempted by the idea of continuing Michael Westen’s adventures via novels. These things are rarely as satisfying as watching the show, but I suspect that my curiosity may make me find out for myself this time. (Thanks to Double O Section for the heads up.)
Wizard World Chicago
I’ll be heading to WWChicago in another week. If my vacationing luck holds up like it has so far this year, I expect aliens to take over the convention center and hold us all hostage. But at least I’ll have Warren Ellis to keep me company. He’s making a rare convention appearance there this year.
Via his email newsletter:
I’m at the Chicago con next week, and I’ll be doing one of my marathon Q&A talks on the Friday night. Details:The talk is actually at the convention center. We don’t have a room number — they’re actually going to be removing walls from adjoining rooms to make a monster hall that’ll seat 1500.
The room will open at 9PM. There will be a bar in this room, so people can get good and drunk before I go on.
I go on at 9.30PM. And we will just bullshit until they throw us out.
This is NOT a ticketed event. No-one is on the door, I’m told. First come, first seated.
Lord help me; I sorta want to see Lost Boys 2 now
I don’t really know why and I can’t defend it, but seeing pictures of the older Frog Bros. and their new vampire enemies has me kind of curious.
Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes
Guy Ritchie will be directing a Holmes movie for Warner Bros. who’re comparing it to Batman Begins in tone. They say it’ll focus more on Holmes’ adventurous, swashbuckling side. I think that’s a valid approach, so now the question is, who to play Holmes?
As soon as I heard Ritchie’s name, my mind went to Jason Statham, whom I love, but think would be pretty awful for the role. Hugh Laurie would be a great – if obvious – choice though. What do you think?
Filed Under dinosaurs, hulk, indiana jones, land of the lost, mummy, vampires
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
I have such low hopes for this movie that it can’t possibly do anything but exceed my expectations. Which of course raises my expectations just enough that I’m bound to be disappointed. What a vicious cycle.
Coming so soon after Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, it’s either going to suck even more by comparison or I’ll cut it some extra slack because I’ll really be missing Indy by then.
Anyway, there a website for it now.
New Hulk trailer
I’m sure everyone’s seen this by now, but I’m still catching up on old news and just in case you’ve been in Haiti or someplace…
And did you notice that they worked the TV theme into the music at the end?
I’m so excited to see this, especially after Iron Man. I’m planning on sticking around after the credits too to see if what happened at the end of Iron Man also happens here. I’m betting it does.
Only two things disappoint me about the Hulk trailers so far. One is that William Hurt is so wrong for General Ross. Maybe we’re not seeing the best parts in the trailers, but he just looks so sleepy.
The other thing I don’t like is the design of the Hulk. He’s not bad, but if you’re doing an all-CGI character anyway, why not make him look really cool like this version?
You almost had me, new Land of the Lost movie!
I mean, those Sleetstaks look really frickin cool. But then I remembered it was a Will Farrell romantic comedy. Whew!
Lucas and Spielberg talk Indy
Entertainment Weekly did a very nice interview. There are some potential spoilers, so be careful, but there’s also some cool info about the series in general. Like how Last Crusade was originally going to be Monkey King and feature a haunted castle.
May is Vampire Month
At least for First Second Books it is. And for Newsarama too. I’ve got a couple of vampire related posts coming over there this month in celebration.
Indiana Jones makes everything better, part four
Expedia’s got Indiana-inspired travel packages for the summer. You can visit places like Egypt, India, Jordan, and Peru.
“Fetch wasn’t as much fun before dogs.”
Click through to see why.
Indiana Jones makes everything better, part five
Indy Kubrick with Golden Idol Be@rbrick. I really don’t get those Be@rbrick’s, but that Golden Idol one is pretty cool.
Indiana Jones makes everything better, part six
I totally want to eat with something called an Adventure Spoon. And Kellogg’s especially rules for actually putting it in the box instead of making you send off for it (unlike the Search Light). Gotta go get me some Frosted Mini-Wheats.
Well, I used to like Catcher in the Rye
That is until I learned that J.D. Salinger said that Raiders of the Lost Ark “might be excused for its unwitty, unfunny awful socko-ness if it had been put together by Harvard Lampoon seniors.” Oh, J.D…
Filed Under perils on planet x, pirates, princess bride, scifi, swashbuckling, vampires, westerns
Vampire girl
By Robert McGinnis. (There’s naked people in that link.)
Stagecoach shootout
Also by Robert McGinnis. (Everybody’s got clothes on in this one. And this one. And this one.)
The Princess Bride
By Doug Sirois.
Perils on Planet X
By Eduardo Barreto.
Filed Under black canary, gorillas, island adventure, jungle, mary marvel, scifi, vampires
Okay, seriously. My name is Michael May and I’m a Gonzalesaholic. Thing is, I don’t wanna get better.
I mean really. He draws Black Canary, Mary Marvel, lots of hot tiki island girls, jungle girls, space women; even Josie and the Pussycats. And flying freaking vampire apes.
I am… in awe.
Filed Under ghosts, gothic lit, vampires
My review of Gothic Classics is up at the Newsarama blog.
Filed Under 30 days of night, horror, steve niles, vampires
I’m proud to call Art a pal.
From his blog: 30 Days of Night.
And a personal piece he did for the moderators of Steve Niles’ message board:
I may have shared that last one before, but it’s worth looking at again. Can you pick me out in the crowd? Huh? Can you?
I can’t trust Lucy Liu anymore. I gave her a pass on Ecks vs. Sever because that also starred Antonio Banderas who’s another of my favorites, so I figured that sometimes good people can make bad movies and I decided to forget about it and move on. But now…
I’m sorry, Lucy. I love you, but I don’t trust your judgment in films. If it’s any consolation, I feel the same way about Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh.
This isn’t really a review because I didn’t even finish Rise: Blood Hunter. Lucy’s good in it, but the movie started to lose me about the time that she’s kidnapped and raped by a couple of vampires (James D’Arcy and Carla Gugino). I forced myself to sit through it (it’s not especially graphic, even in the unrated version, but it’s not pleasant or even necessary either), but I gave up once Lucy picks up a hitchiker and kills him for his blood.
What I saw along the way was a lot of T&A and even more blood. I don’t mind nudity, but this wasn’t even attractive nudity. It was skanky nudity and that gets old fast. I don’t mind movie gore either, but an excess of it is usually an indication that the movie-makers are trying to distract us from the lack of something else, and that’s definitely the case here.
As far as I could tell after about half-an-hour, the plot’s a pretty simple revenge deal with Michael Chiklis thrown in as a good-hearted cop who’s investigating a series of bloody deaths. I think I might have gotten to like Chiklis had I kept with it, but I was so disappointed in Lucy’s murdering the innocent hitchiker that I didn’t care. And it’s not like she just suddenly went blood-crazy and attacked him because she wasn’t in control. She stopped and picked him up, questioned him to make sure he didn’t have any dependents, then drove him into an empty park and sliced his throat open with a cross-shaped weapon specially designed for the job.
So, I gave it thirty minutes and all I could see was a movie about a bunch of unlikable people killing each other. Who cares?
One out of five dead hookers.
Filed Under comics, fantasy, frankenstein, hellboy, horror, korgi, vampires
Top Shelf is sharing the covers from the next couple of volumes of Korgi. My five-year-old and I loved the first volume, so I’m very excited about getting these.
Don’t know how I missed the first Igor book (especially since it was from SLG whom I keep a close eye on), but there’s another one coming and I’m going to have to check them both out now.
Crap. By the time I heard about these cool, knitted Hellboy dolls, they were sold out. Maybe they’ll make some more.
Hm. Not comics, but I’ll mention it here anyway. A while back I wrote about wanting to read Ray Garton’s Live Girls. I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but Garton stopped by in the comments yesterday to mention that he’s just sold the film rights to Live Girls. So congratulations M. Garton!
