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

TINTIN: The Secret of the Unicorn

Posted by Tom Mason Categories: Editorials,

He’s the ageless boy reporter who lives in a world of disguises, breathless escapes, and miraculous coincidences who’s forever getting bonked on the head by villains who are notoriously bad shots. Also, his best friend is a little white dog. He’s Tintin, created by the Belgian artist Herge (really, Georges Remi, 1907-1983) way back in 1929 and first published as a book (i.e. graphic album) in 1930. A total of 24 books were published over the years, taking Tintin everywhere from Egypt to America and to the Moon.

After years of yes/no/maybe, Tintin’s finally been greenlit by a movie team-up of Paramount and Sony and an army of producers including Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. Principal photography on the motion-capture 3-D Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (based on the graphic album originally published in 1943) has begun with Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) as Tintin and Daniel Craig (Mr. James Bond to most of us) as the infamous pirate Red Rackham. It’s due to arrive in 2011 and the cast also includes Andy Serkis (Hey! Look! Gollum!) and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead). The screenplay is by Steven Moffat (Dr. Who; Coupling), Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz; Shaun of the Dead) and Joe Cornish (The Adam and Joe Show). No word yet on who will play Milou (aka Snowy for American readers). My money’s on Frank Welker.

If you’re not familiar with the adventures of Tintin, you don’t have to learn a foreign language to bring yourself up to speed. You can get a lot of info about him at the Tintinlogist and you can score some books over at Amazon’s Herge Store.