July 2011 Archives

A POOR transmission continues to delay our showing Carter's Column.

The reason behind it? Maybe it lies with the female featured here?

Stay tuned to find out!

IT'S TIME for summer loving and strolls down memory lane, it's also time for Farmageddon! Click on the strips below and enjoy!
Below is a preview video for the Farmageddon animation series that is in development:

For more on Farmageddon visit: www.farmadeggon.tv

For more on Gordon Fraser visit: www.freewebs.com/gordonfraser/

STARGAZING DOG is a 128 page black and white paperback to be published in English by NBM for this September

Takashi Murakami's Stargazing Dog has sold over 400,000 copies in Japan and been made into a movie.

The book tells the life of Oto-sant. Life having conspired against him, he sets out in his car to get away from it all. Abandoned by everyone else in his life, it becomes clear that the one creature he can count on utterly and completely is a recently adopted dog who follows him blindly, faithfully and completely, to the end, lightening up his new adventure into the unknown.

For more information on Stargazing Dog visit: www.nbmpub.com

BEWARE OF purchasing any original art by Brent Anderson that comes onto the market as it may have been stolen!

While attending the San Diego comic convention in America, Anderson took his family to the zoo, and while there his car was broken into and his artwork stolen.

The original art in question is 50 pages from Astro City Volumes 1 and 2 plus Local Heroes; AC: Dark Age Books 1 (issues 1-4), 2 (issues 1-4) & 3 (issues 1-4) (50 pages). Green Lantern and Rising Stars artwork was also stolen.

You are invited to forward this information on to as many people as possible, and should you become aware of any of Brent Anderson's missing art being offered for sale to email: kneedeep@sonic.net

GUMBY COMICS has published a special bumper-packed digest edition of classic Gumby stories.

The book collects two full length stories digitally remastered in full colour.

Gumby's Summer Fun Special was the recipient of the 1988 Eisner Award for a Single Issue, and written by Bob Burden (Flaming Carrot) and illustrated by Art Adams (The Uncanny X-Men).

While the companion piece, Gumby's Winter Fun Special, is again illustrated by Adams, with this story being written by Steve Purcell (The Adventures of Sam & Max comic and animation series).

Both stories are 48 pages long, and the book also contains bonus material, plus a brief back cover feature by Paul H Birch, and are available from all good comic shops now.

MISS MASQUE came into existence in June of 1947, one of Standard/Nedor/Better's last attempts at a costumed character.

After 12 appearances spread over Nedor's Exciting, Fighting Yank and America's Best Comics, the character disappeared into comic book limbo, until revived in 1990 as part of AC Comics' Femforce Vault Heroes storyline that lead into the Shroud Wars Femforce story arc. Spinning off from that revival (which included dozens of other previously-forgotten Golden Age champions), Miss Masque went on to become one of the Femforce's most popular supporting characters/guest-stars, appearing in the main group book and other.

AC's new Miss Masqu volume highlights the full career of the hat-wearing heroine in red, from her earliest Golden Age appearances until today - including three previously never seen adventures, all set in her heyday of the late 1940s.

The Funny Face of Death is written by television and screenwriter David Watkins, and illustrated by Scott Larson and Jeff Austin, The Head of Hitler is a spooky Post-War tale written and drawn by Rock Baker, with inks by Mark Heike, and The Killing Trail is written by Watkins, with art by Eric Coile and Bill Black

The collection also features three of the best of Miss Masque's actual Nedor Golden Age adventures; Cleopatra's Comb by Lin Streeter and Bob Oksner, Beware Gangdom by Lin Streeter, and Devil To Pay by Al Camerata and Ralph Mayo, plus a trio of the character's top AC-era appearances, featuring work by Bill Black, Dick Ayers, Mark Heike, Chris Irving, Ollie Drac, Rock Baker and Jeff Austin).

There is also a special three-page preview of Will Meugniot's great new N.E.D.O.R. Agents "series, set to debut in Femforce #157, that co-stars Miss Masque.

Why does Hollywood love comic books? G.M. Jordan reveals all...

The movie business has always had a hungry eye for comic book franchises. From superheroes to pulp fiction, if publishers can make a line of books work then film producers will be keen to snap up the film rights.

Some of the greatest characters have made the transition to the silver screen, some have done it effortlessly whilst other have left us cringing and praying that they give up and leave us alone. Movies and comic books share relatively the same audiences, not least a desire to push the envelope of what they can do in terms of entertaining.

But movies are tied to the limits of technology, comic creators are only really limited to their imagination, which means that no matter how well a story is told it would be hard to make that transition from the written page to multiplex, although that hasn't stopped film makers from trying.

SWAMP THING (Wes Craven, 1982)

Some of the storylines in DC Comics Swamp Thing story arcs have been thought provoking and very insightful, unfortunately the film failed to capture the audiences' imaginations and the film sank at the box office.

Wes Craven's film did get relatively good reviews and gained cult status, that wasn't enough to warrant a return to the screen for comic creators Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson's swamp dwelling demi-god.

WATCHMEN (Zack Snyder, 2009)

For many years people thought that Watchmen couldn't be adapted, and some fans still think Snyder shouldn't have bothered. Fresh from his success with bringing Frank Miller's 300 to life, Zach Snyder seemed the perfect fit to attempt an assent on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's classic tale.

The producers put together a near perfect cast and crew, the finished film was probably as close as you can get to a perfect adaptation of the original story so what went wrong, why did Watchmen bomb at the box office?

There are a number of reasons people think it failed to impact, one of the reasons could be that the story is very complex. American audiences are made up of people who generally have a short attention span, throw in a couple of plot twists and you pretty much have lost them.

It's a Marmite test of a movie: fans either love it or hate it. I liked it because I am not a purist; I don't care that Snyder changed one little bit at the end, but if I voice my opinion at comic conventions I can hear the gallows being erected outside the hotel as others get ready to lynch me for being a heretic!

300 (Zack Snyder, 2006)

We have looked at some movies that have failed to catch the publics' attention so let's flip that over and see some that you might have gone to see.

300 is Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's telling of the Battle of Thermopylae made a fantastic transition to film thanks to Zack Snyder's groundbreaking use of green screen technology and his cast's dedication (he sent them to boot camp to get fit and the result was more muscle than a Mr Universe competition and more testosterone than the Russian women's shot-putting team).

Varley's rich colour palette made it into the movie and managed to keep the audiences' attention, the film also had copiously large amounts of half naked men oiled up and one or two pretty women (in reality Sparta had the same philosophy when it comes to physical imperfection as Hollywood, only in ancient Greece it was perfectly acceptable to hurl those with any form of imperfection into a big pit, in Hollywood they call that pit The Jerry Springer Show).

SIN CITY (Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller, 2005)

I would dearly loved to have been in the meeting where Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller pitched their ideas for Sin City to studio executives.

Dark Horse has done very well out of Miller's stylish noir short stories but just how would they adapt it for a film audience? There was a very good chance that the risk was going to be too great but like 300 a well used green scene and a fantastic ensemble cast that included Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro, Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba pulled it all together nicely. Quentin Tarantino tagged along as a guest director, add a sprinkling of ultra violence and liberal doses of sexual references and the fanboys must have thought they had died and gone to heaven.

Yes, Sin City isn't for everybody, but it was very cleverly shot in black and white, with the only colour coming from occasional splashes of red and yellow, and used to great effect.

A word of warning, if you like Sin City & 300 do not be fooled into renting/buying Frank Miller's directorial debut on The Spirit, another comic book character adapted for the big screen. It is total rubbish and even Samuel L. Jackson can't save this turkey.

IRON MAN (Jon Favreau, 2008)

Hollywood doesn't just plunder the dark material from the comic book world, they have also taken a stab at family friendly entertainment. Whilst the Fantastic Four films were aimed at the younger audience, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were perfect for all ages and are good films in their own right. You don't have to be a fan of the comic but if you are then you can chuckle at the in-jokes that litter the scripts.

You are not going to be taxed like you are with Watchmen or Sin City, but you are assured a couple of hours of good entertainment.

So there are several good and bad reasons why Hollywood loves to work on comic book adaptations. The new series of Marvel Comics releases have been well received but it doesn't take much to slip from Captain America - The First Avenger (2011) to Captain America - a straight to video shocker (1990).

Thor was a pleasant surprise; the two Hulk films a disappointment; Batman is good as long as the respective directors retain the darkness and personal torment of the comic character, but move towards Adam West or George Clooney versions and its game over, switch off the lights and return your seats to the upright position.

GM Jordan is a writer and co-founder of the Comic Book Alliance. His latest books Tales from a Warped Mind and Swansong are available from amazon.com

The CBA anthology Spirit of Hope can be purchased from all good comic speciality shops or direct from the official CBA website: (comicbookalliance.co.uk

THERE CONTINUES to be a delay in Carter's Column reaching your screens.... And the emergency services have been sent out!

WAKEY-WAKEY IT'S Saturday and time for Farmageddon! Click on the strips below and find out why.Below is a preview video for the Farmageddon animation series that is in development:

For more on Farmageddon visit: www.farmadeggon.tv

For more on Gordon Fraser visit: www.freewebs.com/gordonfraser/

Crusade Book 3 - The Master of Machines

Cinebook

The artistic influence of France's Phillipe Druillet shifted across many a scene in the previous volume, whereas in this book I'm reminded more of early Barry Smith, his 70s British contemporary then living in America, perhaps it's because the story itself evokes Smith's latter period on Conan.

Suffice to say, the heat burning down on sand and brick fortress, the exotic fragrances and salts of harbour seas, are additional senses that the reader may feel they experience during their visual one in reading this latest volume.

Despite its title, the book does not truly focus on the Master of Machines, but begins to pull together the various plot strands and weave new relationships between those characters that have appeared in this series.

Gauthier of Flanders battle against the crypt hidden shadow monster known as the Aa plays across the length of the book, slow realisations of past events beginning to bear down upon the present, as a conclusion is reached there and a new pact appears to be forged.

This volume is pretty much one of deals and alliances made or forced, by individuals or groups, despite which the action quota remains high. An invigorating read, but you may need to start carrying a score card as new characters keep getting introduced and demanding their share of space on centre stage.

For more information on Crusade visit: www.cinebook.com