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Weekend Reading: Breyfogle, Batman, Whedon & Wild Cards
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Interviews, Reviews, Television, Independent,
Welcome to the back to school edition of Weekend Reading. Here are a few things better than homework, unless your homework includes classes at MoCCA.
Everything’s Archie: Norm Breyfogle is interviewed by Matthew Price over at NewsOK. The subject? Archie and the gang at Riverdale.
George R.R. Martin: You know what’s coming up in November, back in print after a decade? Wild Cards 1, expanded with new stuff.
Witchblade: Author Paul Bishop has a favorite Forgotten Book. It’s the Witchblade tie-in novels based on the short-lived TV series with Yancy Butler that was based on the Top Cow comic book without Yancy Butler.
Batman Under the Red Hood: SF Signal has a review of the just-released DVD.
Donald E. Westlake: Whether writing under his own name or his many pseudonyms, Westlake is one of my favorite crime-and-caper writers.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Breyfogle, Batman, Whedon & Wild Cards
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Vampire PA: J. C. Vaughn, Brendon & Brian Fraim
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Reviews, Independent,
“I finally had the guts to ask Dee-Dee out, but only after she saw me drive a stake through the heart of a vampire.”
That’s Dean Marklin, vampire hunter in suburban Pittsburgh, the star of Vampire, PA, the new 3-issue mini-series from Moonstone. The series is created and written by J. C. Vaughn and illustrated by Brendon and Brian Fraim. Dean’s found himself in the middle of two warring factions of vampires, and one of the vampires, Jocelyn, may be trying to play him for a sucker. Dean’s already killed her once and he may have to do it again.
This “Fistful of Dollars with vampires” set-up delivers the goods, in large part because of the characters. Dean treats his nighttime vampire hunting as a job – a thing that has to be done to clean up his hometown. He goes about it with precision and good-natured humor, and drags along his friend Scuba Dave and girlfriend Dee-Dee. And, except for the wooden stakes and Super-Soakers filled with holy water, he’s got a normal life – he’d like to get married and re-open the town’s aging movie theater. He’s not some super-human guy either – he’s simply doing the best he can to rid his town of these creatures and is still learning as he goes.
Click to continue reading Vampire PA: J. C. Vaughn, Brendon & Brian Fraim
Weekend Reading: App TV, Scott Pilgrim, Scooby-Doo and Brian Keene
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Movies, Reviews, Television, Independent,
If you want to know where the future of TV and games is headed, check out this piece at Gaming Business Review by my old buddy Chris Ulm. A co-creator of Rune, co-founder of the Ultraverse (it was his idea), and now the CEO of Appy Entertainment, he thinks a lot about those kinds of things.
This’ll get you started: “The living room right now is a no-man’s land of standards and cables, universally poor and inconsistent user interfaces, huge numbers of channels, multiple boxes of hardware, hated cable companies, and multiple video game systems, each with its own proprietary hardware and expensive software.”
Scott Pilgrim: John Scalzi explains the failure of Edgar Wright’s movie in terms we can all understand: the value of nerd-love.
The Cleveland Show: Tom Spurgeon’s brother interviews voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson, the voice of Cleveland Jr. and countless other characters.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: App TV, Scott Pilgrim, Scooby-Doo and Brian Keene
Magic Trackpad review
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Apple, Features, PC / Laptop, Product Reviews,
Apple’s Magic Trackpad is an interesting, although not unexpected, move for the company. For a company that seems to have invested in multitouch as the core foundation of its future, it only makes sense that they’d want to bring it over to the desktop rather than relegating it to their iOS devices and notebooks only. In its simplest description, the Magic Trackpad is a laptop trackpad that you use with your desktop Mac. The question is, is it any good? Is it more awkward to use than the natural trackpad on a Mac notebook? Even more importantly, can it (and should it) replace your mouse? We’ve been using the Magic Trackpad for a couple of weeks, and we’ve got some answers for you. Read on for our full review!
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Comic Con International 2010: I Was There
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Image Comics, Independent,
So it’s over and it’s been over for a while and everyone and his overweight uncle with the tattered, too-small X-Men t-shirt has written about it to death.
And now it’s my turn.
Loved it. Had a great time. Saw a lot of old friends. Made a few new ones. Found a place that makes great nachos.
Yes, the emphasis on back issues has diminished and there’s a decreased emphasis on the newer stuff and Bud Plant’s booth is smaller, but none of that diminished my overall positive experience.
I picked up a couple of hard numbers while shopping. I finally snagged a softcover copy of the first The Walking Dead collection at the Image booth and it turned out to be the last one in stock for the con. I asked the guy at the booth about it and he said that they’d sold over 300 hardcovers of the first collection and sold out of all 700 copies of the softcover version since Preview Night. This was by Friday afternoon, with 2 1/2 more days to go. That’s what happens when good comic meets impending TV show.
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MasterChef Review: Gordon Ramsay Displays a Softer Side
Posted by K.C. Morgan Categories: Food & Home, Prime Time, Reality, FOX, Gossip,
FOX premiered its third show featuring Gordon Ramsay, MasterChef, Tuesday night. The series had a strong lead-in: Ramsay’s first FOX show, Hell’s Kitchen. He’s the chef known for his tough exterior and passionate, some might say vulgar, insults. Ramsay routinely screams in the faces of the chefs under his tutelage on Hell’s Kitchen - so fans were no doubt expecting to see a tough, fiery chef during the MasterChef premiere.
What they got was a gentler, kinder Gordon Ramsay. He slipped into the role of motivator for MasterChef, sitting at the head of a panel of three judges (the other two are tough-as-nails restaurateur Joe Bastianich and four-star chef Graham Elliot). Talented home cooks came before the panel to present their dishes. Some dishes were met with disdain, but Ramsay didn’t scream “donkey” at a single contestant. He dispensed hugs, smiles and encouragement with ease - far removed from the furious chef mien he wears for Hell’s Kitchen, which aired the same night.
Click to continue reading MasterChef Review: Gordon Ramsay Displays a Softer Side
Weekend Reading: Comic Con International, Gene Colan and The Inferior Five
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Movies, Television, DC Comics,
Apparently, there’s some kind of comic book thing going on in San Diego. I hope enough people show up and it catches on. I never get tired of hearing jokes like that!
The talk of the convention – or I should say one of the talks of the convention – is that DC is getting ready to make the move to the West Coast where its big daddy Warner Bros. is located. It makes a lot of sense, from a dollars-and-cents pov. You can get a lot done faster if your comic book resources are right next door to your movie resources and you don’t have to fly everyone out for meetings or Skype 10 times a day. More importantly, if DC’s on the Warner lot or in a building that Warner is already paying for, they could eliminate the overhead on their NY offices (which could be a huge annual chunk of bucks). And since corporations routinely operate this way, it’d be a sneaky way to have mass layoffs of the people who can’t or won’t go and get rid of any entrenched deadwood that’d be too hard to dismiss without cause.
Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Comic Con International, Gene Colan and The Inferior Five
Jonah Hex And The Lost Weekend
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Movies, Reviews, DC Comics, Marvel Comics,
Well, I reckon it was bound t’happen, pardners. Jonah Hex has opened to just a $5 million weekend, meaning that it’s officially been labeled a bomb. Too bad. Jonah was – and is – an iconic comic book property, the creation of John Albano and Tony DeZuniga. Maybe the filmmakers should’ve gone with a more traditional western approach like The Outlaw Josey Wales or 3:10 From Yuma instead of the steampunkian world of The Wild Wild West movie? Who’s to say what would’ve worked, but the new one sure doesn’t.
The problem now is that because Jonah Hex is based on a comic book (not a graphic novel as some lazy reporters simply retype) – but one that none of the general public has heard of before – it’ll get tagged as a comic book movie, and worse, a failed comic book movie. And finger wagging along the lines of “is the comic book movie fad finally over” will start appearing as breathless know-it-all headlines in newspapers no one reads anymore.
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Review: Hot in Cleveland a Little Lukewarm
Posted by K.C. Morgan Categories: Comedy, Prime Time, Cable, Gossip, Video,
TV Land’s highly-promoted comedy, Hot in Cleveland, premiered Wednesday night. The series has Betty White‘s huge popularity, three more very respectable female comedy stars, and a gigantic marketing budget behind it. But did it deliver true TV heat?
The opening scene of the pilot introduced viewers to three great-looking, stylish women: Wendie Malick’s Victoria Chase, a former daytime TV star; Jane Leeves as Joy Scroggs, the “eyebrow queen of Beverly Hills” and Valerie Bertinelli’s Melanie Moretti, book author.
The sequence began with a series of predictable, female-oriented jokes - age and looks, mainly - but Wendie Malick’s delivery made the scene more believable. The setup: three best friends going to Paris together for a couple of weeks of fun. They traded quips until Melanie (Bertinelli) had an unfortunate run-in on the airplane with her ex-husband, on his way to Paris with his new fiancée. More melodrama ensued when the plane ride became increasingly turbulent. As they began careening toward certain death, Victoria vowed to stop being vain, Melanie to stop being afraid and Joy to stop complaining. The plane landed safely in Cleveland, and that’s when the show really began.
Click to continue reading Review: Hot in Cleveland a Little Lukewarm
Ultraverse: Checking In With The Founders
Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Reviews, DC Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics,
To create the Ultraverse, Chris Ulm convinced seven comic book creators to meet him and Malibu’s editorial staff in Scottsdale, Arizona back in September 1992. Malibu Comics’ Ultraverse flew into print in June 1993, led by those seven: Mike W. Barr, Steve Englehart, Steve Gerber, James Hudnall, Gerard Jones, James Robinson and Len Strazewski.
Click to continue reading Ultraverse: Checking In With The Founders
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