Steven Moffat’s Sherlock Holmes: England Wins

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Television,

Like many people, I tuned into the BBC's first series of new Sherlock Holmes adventures - Sherlock - out of curiosity.

Steven Moffat (Doctor Who; Coupling) and Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen; Poirot; Doctor Who) were involved and anything they do is on my “Check This Out” list.

I don’t have a great love for the classic Sherlock Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle - I grew up watching Basil Rathbone’s Holmes fight Nazis so everything’s fair game with me.

So I watched all three episodes of Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and loved them all. Brilliantly told, well-acted, modernized, and yet in keeping the parts of Holmes that I enjoy, and dropping in knowing nods to the Doyle stories.

Click to continue reading Steven Moffat’s Sherlock Holmes: England Wins

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Weekend Reading: Sherlock, Gardner Fox, Atlas Comics and Watchmen

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials, Interviews, Reviews, Television, DC Comics,

It’s all over the internets that the acclaimed business site iCV2 has invoked the “suck” word to describe direct market comic book orders for Q3 2010.

Offering your captive audience books they don’t want and prices they can’t afford no longer seems to be a viable strategy. What lessons will anyone take away from this? Cue another Metamorpho relaunch in 3...2...1...

Let’s see what else is out on the internets...

Gardner Fox: The prolific writer is said to have written more that 4000 comic book stories. He co-created The Sandman, created the concept of Earth-2, wrote Batman, Hawkman, The Flash, Justice Society of America and many, many more. He also had a career as a writer of many so-called “sleaze” paperbacks. Paul Bishop has a nice look at a bunch of them. So many of them in fact, that you might think of the author more as “Gardner Foxy.”

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: Sherlock, Gardner Fox, Atlas Comics and Watchmen

Weekend Reading: NYCC, Donald Duck and The Incredible Hulk

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Conventions, Editorials, Reviews, Television,

I’ve been thinking over the last couple of years that with blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, podcasts, video and live internet feeds that you can probably have a decent out-of-town convention “experience” without leaving your house.

For example, the New York Comic Con is over and Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has the best con report: news reports, links, observations and opinions. He didn’t attend, but it’s hard to argue with his analysis.

Incredible: In case you haven’t heard, Marvel is developing a new TV series based on The Incredible Hulk. No doubt a “Get Lou Ferrigno A Role On The Show” Facebook page will be up by the end of the day.

Duck: Jaime Weinman poses a few questions in a post he calls “Disney And The Copyright Police.”

Click to continue reading Weekend Reading: NYCC, Donald Duck and The Incredible Hulk