The Spacetime Dossier

Asian Superheroes part 3 - Super Young Team

2009-10-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written about Asian Superheroes (when DC, Marvel, Image, Wildstorm et al take an honest crack at writing Asian spandex heroes) as frankly, there's not a lot out there. But when you do come across em, you take notice, scratch your head, and in my case with the Great Ten, happen to stay abreast of whenever they make appearances (such as in Checkmate). This time around, the focus is on Super Young Team - another creation of Grant Morrison (who created China's Great Ten). SYT is from Japan, and as such can best be described as trendy, superfluous, J-pop/idol-based, idiosyncratic tomfoolery. Let me be blunt, I don't know if I hate them or respect the effort put into making them a statement of today's 5-second attention-span, twitter-saturated youth or a mockery of what heroism is supposed to mean. They are not heroes. No, SYT is a bunch of meta-powered teenage idols thrown together by a PR machine with no reason for being. Sadly, they know it themselves. Despite pinch hitting saving the universe in Final Crisis along with the Checkmate Organization, Renee Montoya, the Justice League and Captain Marvel - their true contribution to the side of good is looking glam, endorsing cocktail parties and merchandising.

They were introduced as the current incarnation of Jack Kirby's Forever People, for fuck sakes. I LOVE the Fourth World (Darkseid, Desaad, Kanto and the rest of them) and seeing Kirby's creations turned into things I HATE (having lived in Japan for seven years and working alongside the Tokyo talento industry gave me this perspective) made me shudder at the vapidity and hypocrisy of a bunch of superpowered amateurs with little understanding of morality and sacrifice. This would all be fine, I suppose, but because they resemble the idiocies of a supremely shallow and bereft-of-talent industry, I'm going to see how they develop. To be fair - the writer, Joe Casey, nailed down the Tokyo Pop environment pretty damn well. References to Kiddie Land, Akiba, Shibby-Shibs, etc etc are all in there. Anyhow, here is who they are:

- Most Excellent Superbat: costume based on an amalgamation of Batman and Superman. His talent? Being really fucking rich. Limited martial arts capabilities but when you save Japan by buying it outright, hell even I'm impressed.

- Big Atomic Lantern Boy: sexually-repressed virginal nerd who combines Firestorm and Green Lantern. Hint of being a pervert with some kinky fetishes regarding his team-mate called....

- Shiny Happy Aquazon: similar to Mera, Aquaman's wife, in being able to create hard-water constructs and can live underwater. Wearing S&M PVC gear, she is the team's bimbo, ready for her face to be plastered on ads and keitai's (mobile phones) all over the world. Well, Japan anyways.

- Shy Crazy Lolita Canary: a fist-sized winged schoolgirl alcoholic. Her primary superpower is a sonic scream - only screams "Sumimasen!!!" (excuse me) a la Black Canary. Her secondary superpower is being annoying. Actually, I liked her the most. The alcoholism rung a chord, I guess.

- Well-Spoken Sonic Lightning Flash: you guess it - the team's speedster. He looks plain awful with an eggshell helmet, and can only go 500MPH. Considering that is Jay Garrick's (Silver Age Flash) cruising speed, and Wally West and Bart Allen have both gone Speed of Light, big freaking deal.

Oedipus Redux - Peter Milligan's Greek Street

2009-10-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the late posting - been busy.

Ahem. Anyways, let it never be known that we are not literate here on this blog. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be focusing on the Greek Classics. Or to be more specific, the story of Oedipus. Yes, the lad who shagged and then killed his mother. The forebear of a psychosexual complex that forms the basis of today's psychology and a huge industry of anti-depressants manufacturing.

Greek Street is a bit of a pun, something to be expected from one of DC Vertigo's pioneering writers. It's an actual street found in London, a home of vice, baklava, strippers and gangsters. Actually, no it's not, it's really just a lane filled with a slew of ethnic restaurants in Soho. But then what better home than to put a modernized version of a veritable mish-mosh of Greek stories mixing Oedipus, the Iliad, the Golden Ass and more? At the center of the story is Eddy (which for those quick on the take is a hipper version of Oedipus), a street urchin/junkie/ne're do well in trouble with the local mob, run by the Fury family, nee The Erinyes. The local crime family is itself in some kind of debt to their local House of Lords representative Lord Menon (Agamemnon). He has a clairvoyant daughter named Sandy (Cassandra) and there is a Greek chorus of strippers who bookend each chapter with a summary and a taste of the shit to befall young lord Eddy. This has cannibalism, incest, ultra-violence and drug-taking. Why it's got everything we need in our modern Greek plays!

The writing is crisp but accent-heavy. If you're a fan of Guy Ritchie films or Irvine Welsh novels, this is definitely for you. This is UK gangster to the hilt with enough Greek Classic references to make you hit Wikipedia for a couple of hours. The art by Davide Gianfelice is spectacular, much better than the usual Vertigo norm, with bright colors and sharp line graphics that show the glitz and grit of today's London. I dunno if the rest of you have been there recently, but it captures the seedy dump-quality of the non-touristy areas. Don't get me wrong, London is cool and all that. But Disneyland it ain't.

The Best TV Show Never Made - Gotham Central

2009-10-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

Imagine a television series that took place in Gotham City. Oh wait, that already happened. It was called Birds of Prey and focused on Oracle, Black Canary and Huntress. It came and went quietly. But imagine that it was done RIGHT, by making it in the Chris Nolan age where realism, grit and epic storytelling were the main themes.

Gotham Central started off as an experiment in 2003 by the best crime writers in the comics genre - Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka, two guys who know how to write genuine detective stories as well as police procedurals. Their idea was to do crime stories set in the city of Batman but with the costumed freaks firmly in the background. The main characters were formerly supporting ones themselves - Maggie Sawyer who previously was the head of Metropolis' Major Crimes Unit now transferred to Gotham, Crispus Allen from Detective Comics and the animated DVD Batman: Gotham Knight, Renee Montoya from Bruce Timm's Batman Animated and Marcus Driver, an entirely new character. Their stories focused on solid police procedurals that sometimes involved supervillains, sometimes not - and Batman's presence (if not the man himself) shadowing in the background. Many of the characters, of which there are almost 20 officers, look down upon their supposed need to always contact Batman to solve their cases. And while most refuse to accept his help when they hedge their own abilities to solve crimes, they do understand his necessity in taking down some of the supervillains when their own firepower isn't enough.

So combining top-notch storytelling and clever cameos by Batman and his Rogues Gallery (plus some cameos from the Titans and Flash's Rogues), what do you get? Eisner and Harvey Award attention in the first year for writing, series and inking. You had serious DC character development unmatched in other series, Montoya (who most of us remember as the plucky detective alongside Harvey Bullock and Jim Gordon in the DCAU) becomes a lesbian and starts her path into leaving the GCPD and turning into the next Question, and Crispus Allen is on his way into becoming the next Spectre. And it was a thrill to see how seemingly regular crimes ended up involving characters like The Joker, Mad Hatter, Two Face or Catwoman. Or vice versa, where you would think costume freaks are involved but you are not sure. Maybe not.

But funny enough, the series was a commercial failure. It was like a critically acclaimed art house movie that wins top honors at all the film festivals and yet never finds its audience. It ran for 40 issues before the writers could no longer justify its existence despite continually racking up awards.

And end footnote was that, ironically, TV execs at Warner Bros (owners of DC and producers of the Nolan films) LOVED the comic series. Although they were nonplussed with Birds of Prey's failure, their confidence in the quality of writing and character development (imagine Hill Street Blues or CSI, but with Batman in it!) would make it a reality if not for the fact that there is a moratorium on all Batman TV shows as long as the film saga will keep going. So we got that.

How to Spot a Vampire

2009-10-02T20:41:00.001-07:00

http://www.virginmedia.com/movies/movieextras/top10s/how-to-spot-a-vampire.php

Scenes from the Tokyo Game Show

2009-09-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

Full pictorial article: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/09/gallery-tgs-cosplay/

Negasonic_ultratokyo_popexplosion!! - Supermarket

2009-09-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

One of my all-time faves off the IDW label - Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson's Supermarket. A literal explosion of colour, culture and Generation Y angst mixed with some porn, yakuza and crass consumerism thrown in. An electro-pop fable for everyone of us who have visited Hong Kong or Tokyo (or want to), overdrawn our credit cards, measured the worth of a souped-up Japanese import versus a German piece of automotive engineering, and felt that illegal music downloads off our mobile is as good as life is gonna get.

The protagonist is Pella Suzuki, a hapa (half-Japanese) born of a Japanese dad and a Swedish mum. She goes to school in your typical Catholicized private institution and works in a convenient store, conveniently ripping off her customers by letting them donate credit card charges to her charity of the day, meaning herself. A bit spoiled and with values mirroring her upper middle-class suburban lifestyle created by her enigmatic parents, all of that gets whacked the day she finds her folks assassinated.

She is forced to flee from the suburbs to the Supermarket - the ultra-city: a fantastic mish-mash of Shinjuku, Roppongi and Akasaka districts of Tokyo, and Yau Ma Tei and Central districts of Hong Kong with a little Pudong of Shanghai thrown in. Bearing in mind that this is still supposed to be in California. 70-story hotels, Acuras, sushi, chicken tikka, Paul Smith, Prada, Gucci, public transit, wi-fi networks, and dog massage parlors make up the background for an essentially fast-paced chase story that ends all too quickly. Unfortunately, memorable dialogue that reads hip like a Joss Whedon teleplay is counterbalanced by a glaring problem. Much like a William Gibson or Neal Stephenson novel, it ends too abruptly and the reader is actually left wanting more.

But what makes up for defects in the story is the ART. OMG, talk about art for our new century. It captures the pace, the mood and the groove of our current Internet-savvy, denim and dim sum-fed, virtual fast food nation. I once commissioned Mr. Donaldson for some artwork several years ago trying to get him to re-create the magic of Supermarket. The colours are electric, creating a new style that goes beyond anime or normal comic book form. Each page is to be savoured and soaked up, and try to catch the pop culture references if you can.

Cosplay Model - Marie-Claude Bourbonnais

2009-09-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

Call Name: Marry Bardot

Status: Cosplay Model/Pin-up

Real Name: Marie-Claude Bourbonnais

Profession: Glamour/Adult Model, Pin-up

Does: Mortal Kombat, Gen 13, Fetish, BDSM

Noble Savages - Brian Wood's Northlanders

2009-09-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

I seem to have a thing for relishing topics and themes rather unpopular by current standards. Case in point, Northlanders - a very well-written series by Brian Wood (DMZ, Supermarket) which focuses on that most trendy of subjects - Vikings. Why, you would ask, would anyone be interested in reading about folks who slaughtered each other, wore fancy helmets adorned with horns and wings, and drank themselves silly before battle? Or did I just answer my own question? First off, that horns and wings thing was just a myth, they never wore fancy helmets. Intricate hair braids, yes - but never winged helms. Second off, well unlike other hack and slash tomes, this one gets into the culture and socio-politics of the Viking era. You see, too often has that period of time been glossed over as bad-smelling barbarians leaping off a boat, gutting some hapless monks, and then getting rippingly drunk over their spoils of war. It's been few and far between that Norsemen (classifying those of Jutland, Varangian, Normans, Danes, etc) are given some depth and 3-dimensional characteristics atypical of this age. Oh sure, there are dismemberments, skull-cleaving axes, monks getting torched and all that, but without that they wouldn't be Norsemen.

Take for example the first story-arc - "Sven the Returned" (which would make a great epic film). An outcast from childhood, Sven leaves the Orkney Isles to Constantinople where he makes his fortune as one of the Varangian Guard (mercenaries in service to the Byzantine Empire). Or does he? Nevertheless he returns home to the savage Orkneys of his birth, and is disgusted by the backwards, superstitious, simple people that he had originally left far behind. No longer defining himself as one of them, he is torn between his birthright and heritage and his desire to be out where he truly belongs, being the civilized and educated man he has become. But let no one think that he is a sissy just because he shaves his beard and cuts his hair, oh no. No one gets away with that shit, lemme tell you.

Another classic story-arc that also hits its mark is the short and concise "Lindisfarne", an amazing tale of the old ways of the Norse Gods vis a vis a newfangled, slightly hypocritical and pretty impractical belief system called Christianity. Lindisfarne marks the start of the Viking Age and sets up the conflict between the Norsemen vs. the Celts and Saxons, or the Pagans versus the God-fearing. This religious conflict takes places again in "The Shield Maidens" and "The Cross + The Hammer". But Lindisfarne offers a snapshot of that special age, a Dark Ages childhood, and a unique situation when a boy has the choice between supplicating himself between Our Father The Lord, or The Gods of War and Thunder. Let's just say that he choose the practical over the pious.

In Case of Vampire

2009-09-17T10:07:00.001-07:00

Paul Dini's Fetish

2009-09-16T20:12:00.001-07:00

Paul Dini is probably most famous for being one of the original producers and writers for Batman The Animated Series, and for having helped launched the DC Animated Universe, itself having the nickname of "Diniverse". Today he is still active in the comic world for being the current writer for Gotham City Sirens and Batman: Streets of Gotham. He just penned the script for the game Batman: Arkham Asylum (although the original concept was done over a decade ago by Grant Morrison in the now classic Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth). His writing style can best be described as solid, compelling, and knows when to take light and serious steps in his writing, anchored by strong characterizations in his dramatis personae. IMHO, the only other writer of similar ability is James Robinson.

What he is not as known for is his eternal appreciation for sexy, garter belt-armed magician women. Being himself a bit of an amateur illusionist, no doubt being in the circles of performing magicians led to a relatively healthy fascination with said type of fine women. Starting with an infatuation with DC Comics' homo magi character Zatanna Zatara, he no-doubt coincidentally eventually married a magician by the name of Misty Lee, who then took on some of the trappings of Zatanna (or vice versa, well Zatanna was chronologically around longer). He then wrote his own creator-owned comic series called Madame Mirage on Top Cow Comics, about a vengeance-fueled illusionist superheroine which coincidentally and admittedly was based on his wife.

I include pictures, in order, of: 1) DC's Zatanna, 2) Zatanna as portrayed by the actress/model Serinda Swan in Smallville, 3) Misty Lee, Paul Dini's wife, and 4) Paul Dini's Madame Mirage. See the resemblance?

Masters of Horror - Pt. 3, Junji Ito

2009-09-14T16:15:00.001-07:00

According to Google Analytics, I notice that traffic increases every time that I post scantily-clad women on these blogs, whether they are comic/anime women - such as Bomb Queen, or real-life bodacious women - such as Yaya Han or the ladies from the cosplay photo shoot. So with that knowledge in mind, I thus completely and intentionally ignore sexy women for this outing. In fact, I am going to post the exact opposite and continue on my series of The Masters of Horror. This time around concerns the all-time grand champion Mister Disturbo gross-out king Junji Ito. Most of his works have now been converted into television shows (one starring Miho Kanno) and movies in Japan but in truth, it's his manga that stands apart for just how completely sadistic and balls-out creepy they turn out to be. It would be of no surprise that Ito-san is probably the most normal looking bloke in Japan and favors cheesecake while listening to The Carpenters. Those people have dark dark secrets, let me tell you.

In his collection of short stories - Flesh Coloured Horror, I would guess that he rather dislikes cute girls, especially the cutesy-kawaiiiii! Japanese schoolgirls that are the fetish of many a salariman. When girls kill each other simply because one of them *thinks* killing each other would work to stem off their own deaths by disease, I would guess there is some little neuroses at work. In fact I would guess that he hates society as is, enough to show how it decays from some abstract and nameless horror that only by cannibalizing each other is there some form of escape. Another particular favorite has a girl's long black hair come to life and with a homicidal will of its own, go to extreme prejudice in order to maintain its own survival from say, a much-needed trim at the hair salon.

In his opus, Uzumaki, there is no escape from the doom of the Spiral, as each issue shows how a little village slowly descends into ultra-disgusting horror and madness. One week, people are turning into snail creatures, the next week, people are now eating those snail creatures, cuz... well, they're yummy, I guess. The next week, people who ate those snail creatures are being contorted into the spiraling shapes of those snail shells and on it goes. There is no way out, no redemption, no shelter from some rather barf-inducing concepts.

Bloody Heathens! - Definitely Not for Sunday School

2009-09-13T16:33:00.000-07:00

After recently reading how American distributors are not going to be allowing any showings of the new movie Creation due to its "controversial" topic - that of Charles Darwin and the lead-up to The Origin of Species, it got me into a fairly combative mood. Using reverse psychology: if a Gallup poll shows that 39% of Americans don't believe in evolution then it underscores how the Christian faith is obviously under attack from belief systems not in line with its own. To wit - getting defensive about someone else's POV is a sure sign of insecurity and ham-fisted judgement.

So I might as well feed a bit more tinder into the fire and show how some titles really take the piss out of misinterpreted dogma, particularly that represented by the Big Bad Institutionalized Cross. I'll sidestep Preacher by Garth Ennis, perhaps the grand-daddy of "vs-Christian" (rather than anti-Christian) comics as that deserves its own blog one of these days. Instead I'll touch on:

BLOODY MARY:

By who else? Garth Ennis. Mary Malone is a former special forces soldier who also happens to be a nun. She is literally invulnerable for part of the series, having ingested a creature that makes her immune to.... well, death, as she takes her share of bullets and even tank shells penetrating her torso. Blowing up the Vatican, killing Christian cults, bringing down fascist dictatorships - all in the name of whatever Garth Ennis believes in. The style is irreverant, as to be expected of the writer, but not so much as The Adventures of the Rifle Brigade but actually on par with say, Preacher. Ultra-violence is balanced against *some* degree of empathy for the characters but it doesn't take itself as seriously as Battlefields.

FAITH:

You either love the art by story-teller Ted McKeever or you hate it. But this series concerns itself with a concept of purgatory called Murr where the dead are sent, whether they were saints or devils. Robbed of identity and purpose, they come to realize they have a common enemy - the forces of God himself who is a corrupt landlord out to clear out Murr for unknown reasons. If you have a New Testament/Lifetime Channel concept of angels as harp-playing, blonde cherubs, this may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you are inclined to think of angels as God's mercenaries: eyeless, soulless, and unthinking as per Christopher Walken's Prophecy movies, you might get a kick out of the portrayal of brutally horrific angelic warfare. Takes all kinds. Cameos by an uber-pissed Joan D'Arc and Lucifer in a bad toupee.

BTW - this blog is NOT meant to be a Garth Ennis fan-page, just so you know.

World Class Cosplayer: Yaya Han

2009-09-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

Call Name: Yaya Han

Status: Cosplay superstar

Real Name: Yaya Han

Profession: Costume Designer, Model

Does: Resident Evil, Macross Plus, Clover, Blue Girl, X-Men, Dead or Alive, Final Fantasy, Ranma 1/2, Death Note, Darkstalkers, Urusei Yatsura, Chobits, Parasite Eve, Dirty Pair, Blue Submarine 6 and more

Possible movie plot lines - Alita

2009-09-09T08:38:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, James Cameron took a stab at two CG-heavy sci-fi narratives at the same time - Avatar and Yukito Kishiro' Battle Angel Alita. Avatar won out as the first to come out as the script came along faster. This isn't exactly surprising considering the density of the Alita story. The main problem with scripting a 2 to 3 hour movie about her is that the origin story doesn't take a full 2 hours to plough through, so in other words there will have to be one or two extra story lines to fill it out. While this would be a fairly large departure from the actual manga, it's probably acceptable due to the fact that someone like Cameron actually cares about things like telling a story and that there is a good chance that Yukito Kishiro will have some input as to the actual story.

I would guess that the Motorball derby saga isn't going to be part of it as although it has the most spectacle (and admittedly, I would LOVE to see that on film), the whole saga was a diversion in her life to "get away from it all". I think Makaku the Sewer-Orphan is a likelihood as it leads into the Desty Nova/Tipharean plotline, and Zapan's Revenge is a continuation of it and possibly the climax. All of it takes place in the Scrapyard and contains the same characters from the beginning.

If there is a second movie, I would guess it would combine the Barjack/Den road warrior-ish plotline combined with the Secret of Tiphares. This is a lot to combine into one 3 hour flick, but very possible. The problem with all of this is that it leaves out the Motorball story which *barely* fits into the larger Tiphares plot, but has some of the coolest and exciting visuals ever committed to print. Realistically, it could set a new standard for science fiction hyper action. It would pale the highway chase of Matrix Reloaded, Speed Racer's headache inducing races, and any race car flick like Driven and Days of Thunder by light years. A possibility is that Motorball is a second movie and Barjack/Tiphares is the third to finish off a trilogy .

Masters of Horror - Pt. 2, Mike Mignola

2009-09-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

Well of course you figure that if you're going to have a column on horror that Mike Mignola would figure somewhere in there. Most famous for being the creator of Hellboy/BPRD, and unlike other writers, still plays an active role in the film-making. An interesting item of note: he was the original designer of Mr. Freeze in the Batman Animated series. Although he seems to be a fairly normal type of guy, his knowledge of demonology, old folktales, myths and legends puts him up there in the high levels of nerd-dom with Gary Gygax, but not quite J.R.R. Tolkien-levels of nerd-godhead. To qualify, you must memorize the entire tome of The Lesser Key of Solomon. Something I'm still working on. Anyways, not disparaging the Hellboy stories (which I love) but he's at his best when he gets all Victorian on us, mixing in cults, Lovecraftian Old Gods and Utilitarianism. I guess he figures Jeremy Bentham to be as evil as Cthulu himself.

SIR EDWARD GREY, WITCHFINDER IN THE SERVICE OF THE ANGELS: This is actually set in the same universe as Hellboy and the BPRD, but about one and a half centuries previous, at the height of the Victorian period. There is some character crossover, not least is Sir Edward Grey himself, who is a Thomas Carnacki/Johann Kraus-type of psychic, spirit-seeing crusading demon-hunter. Officially sanctioned by the Queen but still no less feared or despised by God-fearing Christians, he confronts the same type of baddies as Hellboy would do but without the resources of the BPRD, modern technology and in an environment setting MEANT for demons, ghosts and evil doers. The city streets of an industrializing Jack The Ripper London is itself an evil character and since you know everyone dies anyways due to time, you know that any and all characters are potential corpses waiting to happen.

JENNY FINN, DOOM MESSIAH: Yeah now THERE'S a cheerful title, innit? Drawn by Troy Nixey, this is a horror story through and through. Inspired by Lovecraft, London is beset by a disease that is infecting its inhabitants with some truly gross-looking skin conditions. Not eczema or acne of course, but rather tubes, fins, extra eyes, gills and claws type of hideous-ness. There is no heroic character here, just victims and bystanders of a fate for which there is no reason or understanding. This grotesque story is not watered-down by the near caricature black and white artistry and is on par with some of H.P. Lovecraft's most compelling and disturbing stories.

Our photo shoot - the results

2009-09-07T08:16:00.001-07:00

Ain't they sweet?

World Class Cosplayer: Omi Gibson

2009-09-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

Call Name: Omi Gibson

Status: Cosplay superstar

Real Name: Unknown

Profession: OL in Japan

Most seen as: Metal Gear characters

Also does: Black Lagoon, Justice League, Silent Hill, Transporter, Kill Bill, G.I. Joe, Darkstalkers, Mirrors Edge, Candy Fruit, Mezzo Forte, Death Note, Rumble Roses, Snatcher, Resident Evil, Underworld, Blood+, Matrix, Ghost in the Shell, Tekken, and it goes on and on

Masters of Horror - Pt. 1, Strange Embrace

2009-09-03T16:30:00.000-07:00

It's a full two months til Halloween but why not start early? This will be part one of a series of the best of horror manga and comics that have come my way over the years and it's a pleasure to bring some of the most mind-fucking things to ever see print. So far, I can only confirm Junji Ito, H.P. Lovecraft and Mike Mignola, but who knows what else will pop out of the woodwork over the next two months.

I commence with David Hine's Strange Embrace - originally written and drawn in 1993 as a black and white but re-published as a full color compilation in 2007. This is what put Mr. Hine on the map, and prepped him from avant garde writing towards more mainstream titles such as Brave and The Bold and X-Men. I'm sure that if Marvel or DC had asked him to tap into the visceral horror and psychological dementia that he mustered with Strange Embrace into their own titles, I think he held it in check. He has never done anything close since.

Strange Embrace is a tale within a tale. An innocent boy is lured by a sociopathic spirit medium who himself weaves a tale involving obsession, insanity, self-abuse, suicide and manipulation. Focusing on an antiques dealer who succumbs to the worship of heathen African totems, the story pans out to the immediate family around him and shows how far the rabbit hole falls. It seems that with each issue, the macabre is scaled up a notch and all the pieces start to fit into the puzzle of why and how 1) the boy was pulled in, 2) the interest the crazy spirit medium has in the antiques dealer, and 3) the final fate of the antiques dealer and his family. I have to say, I love horror - and it pleases me immensely when a comic series, that medium that would have the most pacing and editing problems inherent in a horror narrative, can leave a sickly feeling upon finishing a story. There is no redemption here, no happy ending, just a very disturbing 3-dimensional tale.

Gantz - a walking tour

2009-08-31T15:55:00.000-07:00

I'm a huge fan of Gantz - quite possible the most nihilist manga out there that is still running. As I mentioned in a previous post, it's now being published in Tankobon format (collected volumes). One of the big reasons I enjoy it so much is not the ultra-violence, the fan service S&M gear everyone is wearing, the borderline pornography or the lack of a socially-redeeming question - no, the reason I like it is that it's very much based in the real world of Tokyo's city streets. I used to live there, fully integrated into that society as a tax-paying, commuting, white-collar working individual. And after a hard night's heavy drinking (which was quite common), it thrilled me to see some of its neighborhoods rife with demons and blown apart with science fiction weaponry. Some of the neighborhoods and districts of Tokyo were explicitly known, others I've had to guess based on the visuals provided:

Ikebukuro - scene of the battle between the Gantz players and the Oni Aliens, where regular humans could finally see the bad guys and the common masses really started to freak out. Ikebukuro is not much more than a shopping district, sort of a lower class Shinjuku. It has its own red light district and similar to Shinjuku, is pretty much its own self-enclosed city.

Shinjuku West Gate - where Shion Izumi gunned down tons of innocent victims in a fucked-up effort to recruit new Gantz members. West Gate is Shinjuku's main shopping arcade, with connections to gay town 3-chome, the "Little Korea" Okubo and the hardcore red light district/Chinatown of Kabuki-cho. Shinjuku's East Gate is skyscraper-ville so its West Gate where all the action is. I tended to not stay there too long or else the place gave me massive headaches.

Gokuku-ji Temple - I'm *not sure* if this was the actual temple where the Gantz team fought the Kappa aliens and his dinosaur demons. The problem is that as far as massive Buddhist temples are concerned, Tokyo doesn't have that many. And from layout and architecture, Senso-ji in Asakusa, Zenpuku-ji in Azabu and Zojo-ji in Daimon don't match up. I am convinced that Oku Hiroya made this one up but used elements of Gokuku-ji to do it.

Minato-ku - this is another guess. But from every time the Gantz members are in the apartment with the big black ball, they look out the window and see Tokyo Tower pretty closeby. From the distance which looks like 2 or 3 km away, there really can only be a couple of places that make sense - Shimbashi, Kamiyacho, Shirogane, and Takanawa. But for sure it's in the harbor borough, which means that Gantz must have a pretty good income in order to pay for the lease.

Dotonbori River - this is in Osaka (and obviously where the Tokyo Gantz team encounters the Osaka team), which for those that don't know is a day's travel from Tokyo by shinkansen (bullet train). The scene where people like to jump off the bridge and into the river whenever the local baseball team wins the pennant (which has not been much) and home to some pretty awesome neon.

Does this sound like a tour-spiel? Yeah maybe, but you know what, check it all out for your Japan pilgrimmage. The place is cool and I miss it tons.

Giant Gundam statue - final day, Odaiba

2009-08-30T12:20:00.001-07:00

Thx to Mike C, from Shiokaze Park, Odaiba. 18m tall, full scale. Today is the last day before it will be taken down and most probably, serve as a member of Japan's parliament.

Our own cosplay photoshoot

2009-08-29T19:05:00.001-07:00

Behind the scenes of our upcoming project.
Location: VanArts Studios, Vancouver

Enough quality - let's post some Garth Ennis crap!

2009-08-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

I have a love-hate with Garth Ennis... well, mostly love. But I have to admit that the stuff that he can write is utterly hateful, wrong-headed garbage. But it's so much damn fun to read - the laugh-out loud type of fun - that well hell, you wouldn't want to watch Masterpiece Theatre all the time, would you?

THE PRO

What would happen if a single-parent prostitute without a shred of normal middle-American values was given superpowers? The answer is The Pro. In this obvious and profane satire of the Justice League, a down and out hooker is given superpowers by The Voyeur (a spoof of Uatu the Watcher) and inducted into a good ole gang of superheroes. Without the fighting ethos of her other spandexed compadres (BTW, she does note the spandex is "lame" especially when her boobs can't stop popping out), she pisses golden showers on her enemies and punches off their jaws. And to leverage her newfound powers into a little money making venture - blows a thousand men in one night at super-speed to grant herself a year's worth of salary. Well, why not? But the best scene is where she gives Boy Scout (the Superman parody, obviously) a quickie and his ejaculate blows off the wing of a passing plane. Come to think of it (pun intended), how does Lois Lane survive these things? There's also a brilliant clumsy lesbo come-on by the Wonder Woman pastiche. It's all drawn by Amanda Conner (who now does Power Girl, but The Pro was following her stint on Archie comics, so look for that distinctive style)

ADVENTURES IN THE RIFLE BRIGADE

I have no idea what Garth Ennis was trying to do here except show his contempt for the British military and its school system, the Scots, the Germans and the Americans. I guess he hates them all by reducing them to one-liner cliches that never rise beyond their stereotypes or given any development. Of course he makes fun of the Nazis, he's got the Prussian horn-dog, the little vanker Gestapo kraut, and his SS torture bitch with huge tits. But he really sticks it to his "heroes" - 1) an overly "Jolly good, ole chap" bullshit brigade commander who admits buggery is part of growing up upper crust English, 2) a public schooled, flower-smelling second-in-command whose dream in life is to be given a handjob by his commander, 3) a mentally-retarded working-class English behemoth who is also a cannibal and has only one line that he repeats incessantly: "Ee-yoop!" 4) a violent Northern English Yorkshire yob who is ace with knives but only has one line that he repeats incessantly: "Yer aht of ordah!" 5) an East Coast American demolitions thug who only has one line that he repeats incessantly: "Gawd dammit!", and 6) a scrawny but totally balls-out insane old Scot who is deadly with his bagpipes made out of someone's face. Those charming Celts. Basically more of a tale of six assholes being played off each other than a true narrative, it's what MAD magazine would come up with if they were adult-oriented.

Fables of Deconstruction Part 2 - League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

2009-08-26T08:49:00.001-07:00

Today was a tough call, do I cover one of the finest series ever penned by the uber-author Alan Moore, or utter crap like Ikki Tousen or Tantric Stripfighter Trina? Admittedly, I do like reading fan service bullshit once in a while (and I *may* write about it another day). But ever since I put down the first Fables of Deconstruction covering Planetary recently, this second entry has been nagging me.

Okay. Now. For all of you five or six people out there who didn't know, LXG was not just a terrible film starring Sean Connery that was widely panned by critics and filmgoers alike. It was not just a terminal flop that was responsible for the career downfall for its director, Stephen Norrington (who has not made a movie since, and he directed the first Blade). No, it was actually based off one of Alan Moore's best pieces of writing (along with Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and The Killing Joke), believe it or not. Moore himself distances himself from any of his works turned to celluloid in the assumption that Hollywood hacks ups the crap factor to his stories, but there was no finer time in history that proved him right.

The printed form of LXG is in reality a monument for people who love literature. The storylines are literally stuffed to the gills with literary references, so much so that I'm only going to touch on some of them here. There are entire websites out there that attempt to source every inclusion they can find. If the lead Victorian Age characters themselves are based on icons from Bram Stoker (Mina Murray), H. Rider Haggard (Allan Quartermain), Robert Louis Stephenson (Dr. Jekyll), H.G. Wells (Hawley Griffin) and Jules Verne (Capt. Nemo) in the first volume - then for sure the villains, settings, and obscure cameos are themselves literary references. In the first omnibus, the main villains are Professor Moriarty of Sherlock Holmes fame and Fu Manchu (of whose name is never given) and an early ally is the fat and slimy Campion Bond, a predecessor of Agent 007.

Volume Two of course goes further by adding the entire plotline of The War of the Worlds. The tripods come to Earth after having had their asses handed to them on a plate by an insurrection on Mars led by John Carter and Gullivar Jones. It's only through the involvement of a deranged hybrid-making geneticist who we all know is Dr. Moreau (and whose menagerie is savage versions of Rupert the Bear, Wind in the Willows and other beloved children's anthropomorphic tales) that Earth has a chance of survival.

Chronologically (albeit not in published time) Volume Three takes place in 1910, with the original team down to Murray and Quartermain. New allies are the eternally young she-male Orlando, the awesome ghost hunter-who-deserves-his-own-movie Thomas Karnacki (rather like today's Johan Krauss from the BPRD), and the smooth criminal E.W. Hornung's A.J. Raffles, an early type of Thomas Crown. Villains include Nemo's daughter, Jenny (the Pirate Jenny from Three Penny Opera), Mack the Knife, and a metaphor of the very real Alesteir Crowley, Oliver Haddo. The three storylines of a mass murderer, the rise of Jenny and the possible birth of the anti-Christ are interwoven here.

The Black Dossier takes the largest leap by being set in 1958. Interestingly (and wonderfully) taking place after the fall of INGSOC (the totalitarian government of George Orwell's 1984). Murray and Quartermain (Quartermain himself is now made younger from bathing in the light of She, from the story of H. Rider Haggard) are on the run from the government. They are pursued by the sniveling and psychopathically inept Jimmy (as in James Bond), Emma Night (to become The Avenger's Emma Peel eventually) and the aging Hugo Drummond. Murray and Quartermain attempt to flee the UK to make it to The Blazing World, where Prospero (from Shakespeare's The Tempest) had fled. Prospero himself was the leader of the very first League in Elizabethan times.

So as you can see - with very volume filled with literary allusions and with previous Leagues that have not received any print (going back to the mid-1600s with characters like Lemuel Gulliver, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Reverend Christopher Syn, etc) plus other countries such as Germany and France having their own versions, the possibilities are endless. There is, however, a final volume coming, taking place in London 2008. The Antichrist foretold in 1910 will come to pass. I wonder what that will look like, and moreso, what characters will show up in that tome.

Giant Mecha Spider in Yokohama

2009-08-24T11:18:00.001-07:00

Kind of like the one from Appleseed. Thanks to Mike C... To see it move, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqolwulVlsc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCIzVYCfWX4&feature=related

Yet more shots from Comiket

2009-08-24T10:58:00.001-07:00

Final batch, and thx to Phil C from Odaiba...

An End to All Things - 20th Century Boys

2009-08-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

Touted as the Japanese equivalent to the original Star Wars trilogy or the Lord of the Rings saga - a closer trilogy metaphor is the Matrix. A series of three movies are filmed in one go with a significant amount of praying done during the first movie's showing to see if the whole series will fly, box office-wise.

It is assumed that most Western audiences have never heard of it, as unless you were a big fan of the original manga by Naoki Urasawa the amount of time duration the live film had was relatively short. Part one was shown in August 2008, the second in January 2009. But as of August 2009 the series draws to a close.

Taking its title from the T-Rex song, story line-wise it's comparable to It by Stephen King. In part one, four young boys form a secret club complete with a mythical apocalyptic prophecy of the planet that they write themselves aside from the usual things like playing games, talking shit and viewing porn. Oh come on - for all those pre-adolescents who played D & D, who hasn't come up with the ultimate nightmare scenarios to pass the time? In part two, they eventually they grow up incredibly banal and meaningless lives as adults, such is the fate of most Japanese citizens. However, as one friend mysteriously commits suicide a doomsday cult starts to arise and events that were written in their silly book of prophecy begin to take shape. A masked demagogue with a very cool and creepy looking head dress named Friend starts to create more influence for himself as he saves (we think) Japan from the increasing amounts of horrors that start to occur, including saving the Pope from assassination. Friend's influence become so great that the naming of the days are in reference to himself (eg., 3rd year of the Friend Era). The remaining group try to figure out who he is and how to stop the prophecies from coming true. The third part firmly takes place in the Friend Era, with an Earth Defense Force in preparation for an alien invasion. The children of the original group now form the resistance to his rule of zealotry.

Asian Superheroes part 2 - The Great Ten

2009-08-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

While I'm very supportive of any attempt for a large publishing house to take a Great Leap Forward (pun intended) in absorbing Asian stories and being a global community - the potential for screwing up The Great Ten as far as cultural and political sensitivities is concerned is pretty jarring. Now I'm not saying that the Chinese Communist Party or even the non-English reading population of the PRC are going to be offended or even aware of this upcoming title (coming Nov 4 this year), but there are enough overseas Chinese who are avid readers of DC Comics to take notice of this one.

Chinese comics are nothing new - themselves inspired by Chinese myth and legends on one side, and stories of criminal honour on the other. Notable titles are Feng Wan (Storm Riders, made into movie in 1998) and Chinese Hero - probably the breakthrough title showing a line-heavy pencil style that set it apart from the more simplistic Japanese style of, say, Lone Wolf & Cub. But this is a subject for another post (ayah, my blogs-to-be list is piling up!)

DC Comics actually preceded Marvel with coming up with a Chinese superhero team by about 2 years. Introduced during 52, the year long crossover event, The Great Ten is China's official team of "superfunctionaries" ("hero" connoting a level above the masses of the people). They have been both fighting on the side of Western heroes as well as against them, for while they protect the people of China - they are public servants and all orders and doctrine must come from the CCP bureaucracy. In their first fight, several of them were unable to take part as they had not filled in the proper paperwork. It is assumed they are named after the literal translations of the character set they were given, and they consist of:

Accomplished Perfect Physician - in the past, an outlaw named Yao Fei, who is their equivalent of Dr. Strange, in being a practitioner of mystical arts. This actually puts him in conflict of the Communist Party as there are cults and religious societies in China like Falun Gong that are not exactly on the good side of the authorities themselves. But then Chinese history itself is replete with horrendously bloody religious rebellions like the White Lotus or Taipings killing millions of people.

August General in Iron - certainly one of the coolest-looking characters in the set. Fang Zhifu has been reshaped by alien DNA into being turned into a living steel statue and functions as their field commander.

Celestial Archer - with clothes resembling Chinese comics, he is their Hawkeye or Green Arrow, coming with the same off-kilter, irresponsible and irascible personality.

Ghost Fox Killer - you have to have your female assassin somewhere and this one is it. She is a Ghost Fox spirit, from Chinese mythology and she kills all evil-doing men plus she has a poisonous touch. In some ways, she has the least potential for any interesting back-story unless she truly isn't human at all.

Immortal Man in Darkness - I LOVE the name of this one. A jet fighter pilot bonded with a black alien fighter-craft that can turn into dark smoke. Not too sure if this was voluntary but considering that his real body is eroding due to the bonding process, they probably failed to mention that fact. Or they can blame it on excessive lead poisoning.

Mother of Champions - this one is particularly clever, as how many times have you ever heard of a living birthing chamber being referred to as a hero? Niang Guan Jun has the ability to give birth to 25 super soldiers every 3 days. Now of course this could lead to a population problem even if China wouldn't have that gender imbalance of 2 men to every 1 woman in about 10 years thanks to female infanticide.

Seven Deadly Brothers - a guy who can split into seven duplicates. Each one a kung fu expert. Sort of like X-Men's Madrox the Multiple Man, except with actual fighting skills. Sort of liked pwned cloning...

Shaolin Robot - although I'm sure it is an expert in the monkey, tiger, mantis, etc etc kung fu forms - it speaks in I Ching hexagrams. This may sound cool, but considering that most Chinese themselves have no idea how to interpret hexagrams I can imagine the difficulty it can have in relying useful information to the team during combat. It's like someone speaking morse code.

Socialist Red Guard - an old radioactive racist fogey who dreams of killing old skool pre-Taiwan Chinese Nationalists/KMT and forcing all urbanites into working on collective farms and reciting from Mao's Little Red Book. I'm sure he is popular during diplomatic meetings even if he wasn't permanently wearing a giant suit of thermal-shielded armor.

Thundermind - a Bodhisattva. Yes, a Buddhist. Yes, Buddhism is the religion of Tibet. What the hell is he doing on a team that serves the Chinese Communist Party? They should also include an Imam to represent all the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang if using that logic.

It is noted that these people are based on a real nationality and culture. The Immortal Weapons are based on mystical cities and frankly speaking, the authors can do whatever they want with them, their homelands never having actually existed. With the Great Ten, some of them have some pretty bad political and cultural issues that need to be explained in order for the worldwide Asian community to take them seriously. No joke.

Asian Superheroes part 1 - Immortal Weapons

2009-08-20T09:37:00.001-07:00

Iron Fist seems to have been getting a renaissance treatment these days. Having recently being written by Ed Brubaker, who is more known for crime stories like Gotham Central, Catwoman or other Batman titles. So taking the Chinese martial arts would seem to be a strange departure. But in some ways it's not to be totally unexpected that a top-notch writer has been hired on to write kung fu. The Asian superheroes subgenre itself is getting some momentum. DC Comics and Grant Morrison came out with the Great Ten in their Justice League titles and Crisis crossover and that got a lot of attention. (I will be covering the Great Ten in part 2)

The Iron Fist series has always been second-rate until now - Danny Rand, Marvel Comics' greatest martial artist, was paired up with an inner city urban warrior named Luke Cage in the 1970s to fight thugs and non-too threatening lowlifes. His mythical origins from the fabled city of K'un-Lun was nothing more than an exotic token to Asian martial arts and a hurried explanation as to why his kung fu was the best. But now he has been given a rich mythology, where his spiritual homeland is now known to be one of seven mythical cities, each one of which has their own champion similar to himself. And they kick ass. Seriously.

They first meet in a tournament to fight against each other to see which of the seven cities has the right to have open access to Earth. But then they discover that it is all a sham to destroy all of them and they team up. Now you would think, a supreme martial artist is usually partnered up with other super-beings in most comic books, but finally he is paired up with a superteam who are ALL supreme martial artists, each with their own set of specialty skills bordering on the supernatural.

Now accompanying Danny Rand is Fat Cobra, a sumo-looking giant who has the expected strength and endurance, but also lightning fast strikes that bely his appearance. Bride of Nine Spiders - a gothic wraithlike teenager whose upper torso launches swarms of spiders that engulf and confuse her opponents while she whirlwind kicks them into oblivion. Dog Brother #1 - an armoured assassin resembling the terra cotta warriors of Qin Shi Huang, who commands packs of wild dogs and is an expert with all swords. Tiger's Beautiful Daughter, a scantily-clad babe with two folding fans that also function as twin giant scythes and aid in limited flight, and has unexpected super strength. And lastly there is Prince of Orphans, the ultimate warrior. His real name is given as John Aman, previously known in Marvel Comics in the 1970s as Amazing Man. No one knows how he went from a lesser-known superhero to a facially-scarred ass-whupping martial artist who Rand considers to be far superior to his own skills. Aman's abilities to turn himself into a green mist storm on top of his considerable martial arts abilities makes his own teammates tremble at his potential.

There is now an Immortal Weapons limited series of 5 comics, each one giving an origin story to each of the Weapons, starting with Fat Cobra.

More shots from Comiket

2009-08-20T09:31:00.001-07:00

Again, thanks to Phil C

The Golden Age of Space

2009-08-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

This is one of those topics that make me smile - the Golden Age of Space. This concept was conceived back when people had little to no understanding of the real rigors of space travel and scientific understanding was poor. Other worlds bred incredible cultures, a rich variety of alien civilizations grew but required human input and empathy, and the flora and fauna ripe for hunting and civilizing influences. Little did humanity actually realize that space was disease and danger wrapped up in darkness and silence.

However, the ideas that came about from space being a fun way to spend an afternoon brought about some wonderful titles from people who imagined that Alpha Centauri was no less difficult to get to than Johannesburg. And although the bulk of these titles fell out of favor, they do tend to come back as retro-appreciation and even in some cases, modernized to catch up to our more cynical times.

JOHN CARTER - by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and brought back to life by Alan Moore in the second volume of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He's a good ole Southerner who has been transported to Barsoom (the name Martians give their own planet). Because of the lighter gravity of Mars, he is much stronger and tougher than its native inhabitants - whether they are the hulking many-armed savage green Martians or the naked and voluptuous randy red Martians with whom Carter tends to mate, go figure. What is cool about the John Carter stories is not only were they written by Burroughs to begin with, but the fact that he took the time to expand upon the Barsoom universe - developing many races, cultures, and habitats that flesh out the Martian experience despite being as fantastical and grounded in science as a H.P. Lovecraft story. There is always talks of a John Carter movie and it could be fair to say that Avatar by James Cameron is inspired by it. John McTiernan and Jon Favreau have made attempts, but it looks like Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo and Wall-E) is the current option holder. If that's the case, then John Carter will be a CG flick.

GULLIVAR JONES - I would never have heard of him if it weren't for the fact that he too was included in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a fighting compatriot for Carter on the battlefields of Mars. Sort of like Carter's much less successful kid brother, Jones didn't always get the girl or defeat his enemies. In this sense, he could have been developed as a much more complex character if anyone felt the need to take his stories and develop them further. Roy Thomas and Marvel Comics gave it a stab (they probably could not get the rights for John Carter) in the 1970s but that didn't last long. It was only Alan Moore who brought him back and only as a bit player.

FLASH GORDON - I think most people remember blonde football player god Sam Jones wearing that red tanktop fighting Max Von Sydow, who himself was majorly slumming it as Ming the Merciless to a soundtrack by Queen. Actually, I think everything was red in that movie. First published in 1934, there was a TV show broadcast in 2008 on the Sci Fi channel which thankfully didn't last long. The porn movie, Flesh Gordon, probably nailed (no pun intended) the idea of Flash Gordon the best - garish, cheap-ish, kind of racist, but overall something that you absolutely could not take seriously. However, there is a current Flash Gordon title written by Brendan Deneen which understands the overall Flash Gordon sensibility probably should only exist on the pages of comics.

BUCK ROGERS - most of us probably remember this as the Gil Gerard TV show where everyone wore skin tight white flightsuits and that stupid robot Twikki walking around with no purpose whatsoever - the show itself was a rip-off of Flash Gordon. He was originally created in 1929 by John Flint Dille and was named after Dille's dog. Conveniently falling into a coma, former air corps veteran Rogers wakes up in the 25th century to fight for advanced civilization humanity with some 20th century gusto against the "Mongol" hordes, which again makes for some pretty nasty racist metaphors - particularly as Buck Rogers grew in popularity during the Cold War versus the Red Menace. Dynamite Comics brought him back in 2009 with a completely new and unique visual style as part of the current theme of bringing space retro-back.

ADAM STRANGE - created by Gardner Fox in 1958, Adam Strange was DC Comics' version of John Carter, with similar origins but instead of Barsoom, the planet in question was Rann. He had his peak in the Cold War with simplistic stories but was brought back in a big way in 2005 during the Rann - Thanagar War, a precursor to the even larger Infinite Crisis crossover event. He was updated, given a real personality, and made a staple character in the DC scheme of things - eventually teaming up with Animal Man and Starfire of the Teen Titans against elements of Jack Kirby's New Gods.

AETHERIC MECHANICS, MINISTRY OF SPACE and IGNITION CITY - it seems a little wierd that Warren Ellis jumped on this genre but he did indeed with these three titles, starting with 1) Aetheric Mechanics, a steam punk space-age Victorian adventure starring Sherlocke Holmes and James Watson, 2) Ministry of Space, which ran in the mid-2000s and 3) Ignition City, which is still ongoing. I include a panel page of Aetheric Mechanics rather than a cover shot as its the inside artwork that is more impressive.

I'll focus on Ministry of Space and Ignition City as they were less a presentation of ideas like Aetheric Mechanics and more actual narratives - Ignition City focuses on pastiches of characters of Dan Dare, 2001, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and many more source materials. Basically, Earth has closed off space travel and its many astronauts and space explorers are now vagrants drinking their lives away in the last remaining space park, trying to figure out why it all happened and cut off from the truth. In contrast, Ministry of Space shows the high age of space exploration from the UK's point of view - as it races to the reaches of astral colonization and imperialism against other superpowers.

Garth Ennis does earnest for a change - Battlefields

2009-08-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

Putting Garth Ennis and earnestness in the same sentence is a strange combination. Most known for his hardcore politically incorrectness and his usage of profane satire, Ennis would not have been most people's first choice for writing a war comic that is basically a moving tribute to the lesser known heroes of the war. Most of the situations covered were based on real combat units or battles, and apparently accuracy of technical detail was kept as a priority. But to hire a guy more known for The Pro or Preacher or the sublimely violent Punisher mini-series "Welcome Back, Frank" is a bit of stunt casting or a brilliant tactical move.

It's BECAUSE Ennis is so stingingly sarcastic and biting that perhaps makes him an ideal war writer. The genre, which has not seen a sincere war comic since The Nam, is not exactly popular and anything WWII-related as a topic tends to be a special event. The usual gamut of WWII-comics tends to be jingoistic or fantasticical fare like Sgt. Rock, Haunted Tank, The Losers (original series) or the Blackhawks (of which I have particular fondness for). But combat comics of this genre are an acquired taste, as most people would rather read science fiction combat in the likes of Warhammer 40K or Halo, or sword and sorcery titles such as Conan and Secret History. Writing about the little guy in an impossible situation but of which you kind of know the outcome is not an easy sell. I suppose the fact that few other people or labels do it makes this an easy title to pick-up and review.

Battlefields has only written three mini-series, focusing on 1) The Night Witches, a squadron of Soviet bomber women in fragile biplanes, 2) The Tankies, a group of inexperienced tankers fighting in Normandy, and 3) Dear Billy, about POWs in Southeast Asia. His strongest is The Tankies, his latest, and where he adds his most innermost knowledge due to being able to relate most closely to the characters. Ennis treats his subjects lovingly, with his boys in The Tankies probably being reminders of people he grew up with. His knowledge of British accents and regional characteristics reminds you of an Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) novel. Apparently there are more series coming according to Ennis. I can't wait.

Just snapped at Comiket

2009-08-17T09:57:00.000-07:00

thanks to Phil C.

Recession Biting Japanese Anime Industry Hard

2009-08-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

"Unlike some big screen animated features from the United States that rely almost completely on computer animation, in Japan, almost all features are drawn by hand -- a labor-intensive craft practiced by thousands of young artists each year."

"For the last six years, Nobuki Mitani, has been working as an "in-between" animator -- filling in the cells between "key" animations. It is one of the lowest paid positions in the animation hierarchy."

"Many of these entry-level jobs have been outsourced to the Philippines and South Korea in recent years.

Mitani, 27, said the hours are long, and the pay is low -- about $800 a month."

Full story: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/07/30/japan.animation.recession/index.html

Vancouver Zombie Walk

2009-08-15T18:48:00.001-07:00

Apparently it started in Sacramento. In Vancouver, a goth-friendly population mixed with a lot of make-up artists supporting the local entertainment industry led to an annual event where brains get eaten.

Evil Portrayed - the Finance Industry

2009-08-15T08:31:00.001-07:00

The global finance industry is not exactly seen in a good light right now - what with millions of people unemployed and retirement plans up in smoke. Yet Wall Street plutocrat fatcats are raking in the bonuses once again while the masses can't even afford enough food to eat. But it's curious to see how the comic industry treats them. While its no doubt that they are treated as big as bastards as criminal lawyers, there are two treatments that stick out for their ingeniousness.

ARKHAM ASYLUM: LIVING HELL

Arkham Asylum is well-known as the home for the criminally insane in Gotham City, where Batman tends to send his murderous Rogues Gallery after he's spoiled their nefarious plans. In one case, a man named Warren White (a metaphor for Alan Stanford or Bernie Madoff but preceding them by several years) thinks he's successfully manipulated the legal system but getting himself declared mentally incompetent for running the worst fraud in financial history. At first the judge is outraged at the result then he smiles. For in Gotham, a madman gets sent to Arkham, which is far far worse than any conventional prison. White was better off in a maximum security pen when compared to sharing quarters with Two-Face, Poison Ivy, the Joker and the Scarecrow. He goes from a normal guy who you almost feel sorry for (almost, until Madoff and Stanford became news) who is regarded as "the worst man I've ever met" - even by the outraged Joker! (For you can kill people. but you can't fuck with their retirement plans.) White goes through every degradation, torture, psychological horror and abuse by his fellow prisoners until his mind snaps after he suffers piecemeal crippling physical debilitations. Over a period of six issues in this limited series, we see him slowly and painfully transform into Great White Shark, a new freakish entry into Batman's Rogues Gallery. Awesome.

G.I. JOE: ORIGIN

A clever retcon story written by Larry Hama, the writer of the original Marvel series, that shows how the original team of Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, Heavy Duty, Breaker, Rock and Roll and Stalker were pulled together by Hawk on a small mission in Las Vegas. Written in the post-Jason Bourne era so it's smart, technical and leaves few plot holes - as today's military comics now have readers who are as informed as most real tacticians. Breaker and Scarlett actually act and speak like real communications and intelligence operatives, Stalker speaks pure special forces lingo and professionalism is the name of the game. This particular pre-Cobra mission has them pursue a terrorist with links in the government but whose doctrine and methods are unified with the nut-case right wing militias of Montana and Idaho. So basically G.I. Joe (although technically, that codename has yet to be formulated so they are known as "The Unit") is up against red-neck yokels with machine guns but led by paramilitary hardcases. I'm going to do a big spoiler here but the end challenge for Duke and his team is a choice left by the terrorists - they have only enough time to shut off one weapon of mass destruction, either a) mass toxins that will be released into the atmosphere, killing millions of people, or b) an email that will be sent to every major bank and financial institution in the world that contains the Gaussian copula function, the mathematical formula used to model huge complex risks and widely blamed for the financial subprime crisis. (The terrorists' profit motive being based on crashing the worldwide financial markets and shorting it). The Joes understand both of the risks but as history has shown, they obviously opt to stop the toxins instead to halt an instant kill rather than a slow one. It's quite funny and interesting to see how the financial world was actually being manipulated by a terrorist action, full well knowing the end result while the fatcats themselves are just pawns for evil.

A New Standard of Irresponsibility - Kick-Ass

2009-08-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

I don't think I have laughed out loud reading a comic book as much as I've done while reading Mark Millar and John Romita's Kick-Ass, soon to be a live movie by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Stardust). An exercise to show you why people don't become superheroes in real life, Millar lets it rip with off-color humor, extreme violence and sensibilities unbecoming of a Joss Wheedon production.

High school loser Dave Lizewski has a wierd fetish. He feels compelled to dress up in skin tight spandex and fight crime as a costumed do-gooder despite having no training or rational reason for doing so. Putting it bluntly, he's just a stupid insecure kid who has to pretend he's a non-threatening gay best friend in order to get any attention from the school babe. His first fight ends up with him getting stabbed and hit by a car, ending up with a fractured spine, skull, punctured lung and two broken legs. But he somehow manages to get his spandex costume off before the ambulance comes so as the doctors and police won't figure him to be a pervert.

When he finally miraculously has a successful combat experience, he's caught on Youtube and christened "Kick-Ass" to be made a media-hero. But soon he has copycats that show him up and encounters the 10-year old Hit Girl and her pop, Big Daddy, two truly skilled spandexed enforcers that would make the Punisher proud. These two are professional killers rubbing out the mob while spouting neo-Con pro-Republican propaganda - and so of course they invite Kick-Ass to sit down with them at the Table of Justice.

Blue Submarine No.6 Live Version still underwater

2009-08-14T09:41:00.001-07:00

Blue Submarine No.6 was one of my favourite anime from the the late 1990s solely because of the combination of high animation quality and pioneering underwater effects. It literally blew me away with its depiction of an ambient soundtrack, water echo, time delay and aqua-sound usage. The animation itself was one of the first hybrids of CG mixed with traditional cel productions. So-called live movies such as The Hunt for Red October and even the current G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra's conceptualizations of underwater warfare are still a joke in comparison.

As per typical serial OVA, Blue Submarine is a complex narrative with multiple story arcs going in different directions - but at its basis is a war between the naval forces of humanity against marine hybrid offshoot creations of the scientist Zorndyke. In some ways similar to Space Battleship Yamato (or Star Blazers to North Americans), the tale centers around the crew of a submarine (as per the series title) and its battle against Zorndyke's forces. At once a study in underwater/naval warfare but also an ecological study and a philosophical query as to the nature of humanity (is conflict necessary for the advancement of the species?), Blue Submarine No. 6 is one of the standout combat-related anime out there.

So with anything this high concept and high quality, it comes as no surprise that a live version is the in works. However, this one is going to be made in Japan, meaning its penetration overseas will be limited to anime festivals, foreign film festivals, and cult appreciation. The budget will be US$84 million and will be directed by Masahiko Ohkura.

Fables of Deconstruction Part 1 - Planetary

2009-08-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

I may revisit this posting in the future, Planetary is one of those titles that like Watchmen, is so multi-layered and referential that it makes it extremely difficult to nail down all the nuances in one sitting. But in the meantime, for those who don't know - Planetary is one of Warren Ellis' two magnum opii (along with Transmetropolitan) that put him on the map. It's a metaphorical sci fi opera with enough comic Golden and Silver Age references that the only comparison is Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (of which I will be covering soon enough). The fact that it's so well-written and hooks you into the mystery of comic history is a testament to the writing skills of Mr. Ellis and it makes up for some of his more lacklustre efforts.

On the surface, Planetary is a shadowy organization that dubs itself as "Archeologists of the Impossible", finding the secret history of humanity - whether it includes giant monsters, superhumans, alien visits, magical phenomena, bizarre cults, extra-dimensional crossovers, etc etc - ie., everything that takes place in modern sci fi and fantasy. If it existed, it's the job of Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner and the Drummer to find it, log it, and if unable to use for the betterment of humanity, keep it hidden from those who would use it for evil gain.

But that's the surface, and it's what is happening underneath that truly creates all the complexities that make this a difficult entry. For below the cover story is the tale of the superhumans that have always existed. Those gifted individuals whose powers were the wellspring of most of the great works of fiction: pastiches of Fu Manchu, Tarzan, Doc Savage, the Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, John Carter, and others famous in history or even contemporary, like Vertigo's John Constantine and Chow Yun Fat's Hard Boiled cop Tequila. Ellis touched on these icons of fiction in another title, The Authority, with the character of Jenny Sparks who shares this bloodline - but here we see that these people were the beginning of the secret history and a great conflict continues between those who are their descendants, and those who covet the title.

Like I said, I can't even begin to cover the narrative and the themes that play themselves out. But take my word for it, it's a long series that continues to this day but worth the time spent.

Bomb Queen - A Bad Role Model

2009-08-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

When you are in the mood for political incorrectness, debauchery and everything that goes against truth, justice and the American Way - you can usually turn to something written by Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Pro, the Punisher series "Welcome Back, Frank") or Mark Millar (The Authority, Wanted, Kick-Ass). But a lesser known example of social deviance with absolutely no morally-redeeming value is Bomb Queen - written and drawn by Jim Robinson.

Best described as a super-villain who won her little secret war, she's the unabashed dictator of her own city, New Port City, where she has outlawed all superheroes and every single hypocritical law that prevents her citizens from doing whatever the hell they want - criminal or otherwise but pretty much criminal. Her town is a magnet for the villainous scum that the rest of the country would be glad to get rid of, therefore the American government lets her political entity exist. Thus having full run of her little larcenous kingdom, she basically does whatever she wants, kills whoever she pleases, and fucks whoever catches her eye. Someone pisses her off, she blows them up. Someone REALLY annoys her, she submits them to sexual degradation.

However, the irony with having a population that is as prone to sickening violence as her, she has to remain popular in the public mindset to prevent resistance - and there are many within mainstream American who would love to see a bullet put into her brain. Written with a sly sense of humor that truly pushes your sense of morality to the limit, this hard R series isn't meant for those with delicate stomachs. In fact, I would insist that if you don't come armed with a healthy tolerance for horror movies, HK shoot em ups, pornography and Quentin Tarantino movies, then give this a pass. But if you shrug at the above, enjoy the read.

Japan Wins @ World Cosplay Championships

2009-08-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

In the "news that surprises no one" category, Japan takes first place the World Cosplay Summit. First there are several things one must consider - namely that Japan is the birthplace of cosplay, the event itself was held in Nagoya, and lastly, this is the first time that Japan actually WON. Yes, that's right, they have never won that event since the event has been held in 2003. Cartoonist Go Nagai was the judge.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/photospecials/graph/cosplay/

Let's Get Ethnic - Vimanarama!

2009-08-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

There are a LOT of stories out there that take Japanese culture and history as influence. But as far as Asian cultures are concerned, Desi tends to get thrown on the wayside despite having a longer storytelling tradition and just-as-rich context to fall upon.

Bollywood has long been regarded as not-quite mainstream enough to hit Hollywood or comic-dom shores in a big way. Slumdog Millionaire, it can be fair to say, was for many people their first encounter with Bollywood as an entertainment vehicle, despite it not being authentically Bollywood. True Bollywood remains a acquired taste what with its overacting, semi-ridiculous plot points and habit of breaking into song and dance that renders something as serious as Othello turned into Hairspray at the drop of a hat.

Grant Morrison and Philip Bond have done something special - they focus on the Indian community of England, itself the home of a rich and unique culture, (it's also the birthplace of an awfully cool musical subgenre called ethno, blending techno, breakbeat and tabla/sitar music) and tales of the delicate balance of modernity vs tradition, brown vs white, Islam vs Hinduism, etc come to the fore. Writers like Hanif Kureishi, musicians like Talvin Singh, and movies like Bend It Like Beckham all come from this not-too-little community.

Blending this modern UK culture with a Jack Kirby-esque story involving cross-dimensional meta-humans, demonic aliens and reincarnation (we think, we're never too sure) and a heavy dosage of humor is Vimanarama. The storyline is simple, a self-absorbed not-too-bright dreamer/loser named Ali is set into a modern battle in the middle of Camden, London between the ancient cosmic demigod protectors of earth and their demonic rivals who want nothing more than wipe humanity's asses from the face of the planet. But in reality, despite all this - all Ali really wants is for his arranged wife to not be too ugly upon seeing her for the first time. And who knew that she's also the reincarnation of the Lord Demigod Protector's Holy Wife? Dammit! Some guys just have no luck.

Simon Bisley does The Bible

2009-08-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

Okaaaayyy, so you have the book that is the fundamental cornerstone of two major religions, of which thus speaketh the Word of God to the throngs of man and brings understanding of God's kingdom to the masses - and who better to illustrate it than an iron-pumping heavy metal listening tattooed monster like Simon Bisley?

Mr. Bisley is probably better known for crafting beautiful yet arcane (and admittedly pagan) paintings for the adult-oriented Heavy Metal and Judge Dread/Batman crossover special Judgement Over Gotham. On par with Alex Ross and Dave McKean for translating comic images via acrylic rather than by pencil, Bisley is actually the perfect choice for such a project. I mean, who else knows Christian and demonic images better than a death-metal freak?

Ghost in the Shell live version

2009-08-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

I was a big fan of Ghost in the Shell for several years and having lived in Tokyo during the Stand Alone Complex years it was a thrill to be on the cutting edge of all the promotional marketing being rammed through my eyes while walking through the backstreets of Shibuya. I felt like that simply because I was a casual fan of the storyline, I was being forced to watch the series to see how it developed.

Being a bigger fan of the manga than I was of the movie (and its sequel, Innocence) I was still taken aback and impressed by its transplantation of the setting to Kowloon, Hong Kong instead of.... well frankly the manga made it looked like a cross between Sapporo's Susukino district and the Minatomirai area of Yokohama with bits of Shinjuku thrown in.

So I wonder what the live version will look like, with Steven Spielberg having optioned the rights to it in 2008. It's obviously not on his next-to-be-made list, what with Tintin slated to arrive soon. But I can only guess what elements of the manga or anime he will take for the film. Will the characters remain Japanese? Will it take place in Japan? Or will the whole thing take place in America? With the global market now bigger than the American market, there may be a chance that it will still be a Japanese story. I remember that there was talk of making a live version of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira but having it take place in NYC instead of Neo-Tokyo, which would have been complete bullshit.

But nonetheless, if they keep to the ultra-cyber mysticism of the original storylines, they should maintain a compelling story - Minority Report being a good example.

Crossover Works of Warren Ellis

2009-08-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

Despite being more known for Planetary and Transmetropolitan (and to a certain degree, G.I. Joe Resolute), it's actually Warren Ellis' smaller works that got optioned for movies and television. No doubt because the story arcs are more self-contained or in one series case, the whole thing was written as television scripts in mind.

RED:

Paul Moses is a retired CIA agent who specialized in "foreign acquisitions", which is spook shorthand for "assassination" who is quietly and happily retired and living a secluded life where the most exciting thing he opts to do is speak to his Agency handler about family and other banal things. However, his record of service is still on file at the CIA and the new incoming Director is given a summary of actions. Typically as per any political nominee without real experience, he freaks out and immediately demands Moses be killed to prevent any political fallout. A team of assassins visits who he promptly dispatches. Once he recognizes them and clocks on what is happening, he goes berserk and sets off for vengeance with extreme prejudice against his former employers. A solid revenge shoot-em-up tale that shows just how dark the human soul can get. Although the writing is sparse, the artwork by Cully Hamner is stunning as it is concise.

The movie will apparently be starring Bruce Willis as Paul Moses, and directed by Robert Schwentke.

GLOBAL FREQUENCY:

Are you on the Global Frequency? One of the more high concept ideas of comics, Global Frequency was written in episodic format, perfect for a television show. The idea is that a private covert intelligence operation solves the world's hidden problems. With 1,001 operatives at its disposal, the lead characters of Miranda Zero and central operator Aleph can call upon any one of them to take on an assignment. Each operative is a master of his or her field, be it a special tactic, personal skill, science or feat of engineering. They run from ex-soldiers, scientists, thieves, professors, athletes, police, spies, or those who defy description. Each assignment is equally hard to describe - a village in Norway that has succumbed to the arrival of an angel, an alien virus hits New York city and spreads like an idea, old Cold War weapons that have degraded and posed a threat. One case involves a Russian ex-Spetznaz man who has the ability to generate worm holes and because he took part in quantum experiments long ago, is connected to a nuclear device in Siberia that when detonated there, ground zero is wherever he is standing. In this case his retirement choice of San Francisco. All assignments and operatives are non-governmental despite being G8 funded - for if a government officially acknowledges any of it, they are also automatically responsible for most of the problems. The final story where a global population reduction device from the 1960s in orbit goes awry is particularly heinous. A combination of the X-Files, the old 1980s TV show Masquerade, and Mission: Impossible.

Each story was done by a different artist, but the covers were spectacular - each one a composite by Brian Wood (creator DMZ and Supermarket). They capture the sophistication of the writing and the grass-roots flair of each story. While not every story works, as some merely degrade in depictions of ultra-violence (one story even only focuses on an exceptionally brutal hand to hand fight), the ones involving high concept ideas are truly worth reading.

There WAS a television pilot made, with Michelle Forbes (Ensign Ro Laren of Star Trek: TNG) as Miranda Zero and Aimee Garcia as Aleph. However, WB didn't pick it up for whatever reason they had at the time. I can imagine that the special effects and location shooting were probably pretty cost-prohibitive. Global Frequency works best as an episode-based TV show, maybe even as a mini-series as although there is no central narrative, there are far too many ideas and abilities to create a movie out of it.

Tiphares

2009-08-10T00:03:00.000-07:00

It's pretty well known by now that James Cameron is going to be making his own film version of the manga Battle Angel Alita, and God knows what his cybertronic gladiators and bounty hunters are going to look like. I'll save that for another day, but interestingly enough - I came across this blog regarding the setting:

http://urbanfloop.blogspot.com/2009/06/of-ships-dreams-tiphares.html

... which had this to say about Tiphares when comparing the floating city to the giant landfills and scrap yards of India and Bangladesh...

"these terrains survive on the waste dumped by the floating world that upholds its morals of sustainability and equality by outsourcing the opposites to far off horizons away from its cone of vision."

Gantz, available in English in Tankobon format

2009-08-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

Tight black leather + J-Idols = debauched senseless nihilist violence

Gantz is a wonderfully brutal adults-only type of manga (also made into OVA) that revels in its gore and antisocial behavior. Basic story: people who have just died, children and some pets included, are inducted into a sickening game whereas they must defeat demons in public space. No one can see them fight as they are armed with weapons they barely understand for purposes that make no sense. If they kill the demon, they score points towards their release. If they get killed, then they are permanently erased. And with each stage, the odds get worse. I love it.

Cosplaying Appleseed

2009-08-09T14:46:00.001-07:00

First off: Lose weight. Pump Iron. Train. Train. Train. (not like these guys)

Second: Get the right hardware. Seburo Industrial is a good starting point.

Third: Kick some ass. The bad guys won't know what him them.

Analyzing the DC Universe Original Animated Movies

2009-08-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

Since most, if not all, of these were direct to DVD (and hence an automatic stigma gets attached to that), a lot of these didn't receive a lot of publicity when they came out. Which is a shame, as critical response has been amazing - in fact a lot better than most of the animated movies which actually make it to the theatre. I would guess DC does it for cost reasons, DVD sales can be pretty brisk as is, and the marketing budgets needed to launch a movie are cost-prohibitive. But at any case, let's take a closer look at the DC Originals.

1. Justice League: The New Frontier. Based on Darwyn Cooke's graphic novel, this is a storyline that takes place in the McCarthy era. The JSA has been broken up and heroes are not well-received by the government and the people. It's about the rise of the JLA as told through mainly Green Lantern (Hal Jordan version) and the Martian Manhunter. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are secondary characters. The Flash (Barry Allen version), Will Magnus, Kyle Morgan (Challengers of the Unknown), Rick Flagg, The Atom, Green Arrow, King Faraday, and Adam Strange also make appearances. There are plenty of villainous cameos and the main villain is The Center, otherwise known as Dinosaur Island. Some great writing here, and even if you're not a big fan of the Silver Age of comics, this is still impressive. Rating PG-13.

Comparison: animated series such as The Superfriends, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited.

How does it stack up? It's on par with the latter two series although the era that its set in adds a definite Cold War feel on par with the Watchmen. With no live movie to compare to (not including that 1970s crap with Ed McMahon), this is now the standard. The artwork is wonderfully done in a Max Fleischer-style, and feels right for a Justice Society-timeframe look. Voice-wise, I just didn't buy into Jeremy Sisto as Bruce Wayne.

Best parts: David Boreanaz as Hal Jordan and Neil Patrick Harris as Barry Allen. The speech by John F Kennedy at the end to a montage of everything coming in the JLA history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_League:_The_New_Frontier

2. Superman: Doomsday. Based on the Death of Superman series that was a ploy to rise profits on the Superman title when things weren't going so well for DC, with the character of Doomsday being a pure plot device rather than a real foil with any justifications for wiping out the Man of Steel. This movie adaptation streamlined that narrative and eliminates many of the new characters like Cyborg Superman (Hank Henshaw), John Henry Irons, Eradicator and Connor Kent. Instead they are all replaced by Bizarro, which kind of makes sense when you think about it.

How does it stack up? In truth, the only animated comparison is the Justice League episode Hereafter, which itself took elements of the Funeral for a Friend storyline from the comics. I suppose the only thing that can be compared to it is the Superman Returns live movie by Brian Singer. And if we're going to do it that way, then the animated movie actually wins. Superman Returns had far too many flaws to bring it to bear.

Best parts: James Marsters as Lex Luthor, and Adam Baldwin as Superman. I would think that Tim Daly and Clancy Brown would have been better, but Marsters and Baldwin were serviceable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman:_Doomsday

3. Batman: Gotham Knight. This was a companion DVD in preparation to the theatrical release of Nolan's Dark Knight. It was six different films done by six different Japanese animation companies, much in the same way as the Animatrix. In fact, the same companies that worked on the Animatrix were the contributors to Gotham Knight. These stories are set between Batman Begins and Dark Knight or during the training period before Bruce Wayne discovers the League of Shadows in Bhutan. Some deal with pain, others with his tenuous relationship with the Gotham City Police Force, others how the public perceive him. There are appearances by the Scarecrow, Crispus Allen, Killer Croc and Deadshot.

How does it stack up? In reality, the closest two things to compare this to is the Animatrix, and Gotham Knight is easily more compelling. The other, unfortunately, is the Batman Animated Series by Bruce Timm, which had already set the standard for all DC animated efforts for now going almost 15 years. True that Gotham Knight is better animation, but the Timm-verse series has the history, the writing, and the pedigree behind it. Lastly, we have to compare this to the Dark Knight movie itself - and unfortunately it will be a very long time before any cartoon is going to knock that movie off its top pedestal. Not even close.

Best parts: the animation is stunning, pure and simple. However, the voice acting is so-so, with some overuse by Corey Burton for Jonathan Crane. But thankfully, Kevin Conroy of Timm-verse Batman lends his voice as Bruce Wayne and putting it bluntly, he IS the voice of Batman, easily making Christian Bale's voice sound like a geriatric's ulcer come alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:_Gotham_Knight

4. Wonder Woman. Directed by Lauren Montgomery, this shows the introduction of Diana, princess of Themyscira to the modern world in the background of a war between the Greek gods. Her delving into our world is merely a subploy by the god of war, Ares, to regain his powers and change the balance of power in Olympus. Now that's all well and good, but really, this is actually the first successful portrayal of Wonder Woman in a feature film ever. Excellent writing, tons of humor, mythical bloodshed, decapitations, rendered limbs and awesome voice acting. This is actually the best of the DCAU Original Movies bunch.

How does it stack up? Compared to what? The TV show with Linda Carter? Her role as a supporting character in the Justice League Timm-verse series? There is nothing to compare this to. This is the new standard for Wonder Woman!

Best parts: the voice acting. All of it. From Keri Russell as Diana, to Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor, to Virginia Madsen as Hippolyta, to Alfred Molina as Ares and Rosario Dawson as Artemis. They knock this one out of the ballpark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Woman_(film)

5. Green Lantern: First Flight. This shows the introduction of Hal Jordan to the Green Lantern Corps. How he got his ring is shown in the first five minutes (and frankly, Justice League: The New Frontier did a better job of it) so they scoot through that to show the Guardians of Oa, the GLC and Sinestro. Basically, it is Hal Jordan versus Sinestro with some politicking up front and in your face. We all know Hal Jordan will win this, its actually a question of how he is going to do it. There are appearances by Kilowog, Arisia, Ganthet, Boodikka, Carol Ferris, Tomar Re, Kanjar Ro and the Weaponers of Qward.

How does it stack up? Again, similar to Wonder Woman, there is nothing to compare this to... except, perversely, Justice League: The New Frontier in terms of the portrayal of Hal Jordan. And in reality, David Boreanaz did a better job than Christopher Meloni. But as is, with no other Green Lantern films, series, etc to compare to... it is the new standard. I heard that there is a movie in the works with the over-exposed Ryan Reynolds in the running as Jordan (although he would be better as Kyle Rayner) we have to wait and see.

Best parts: in terms of sequences - the running battle between the GLC and Kanjar Ro's gang. Brutal and sequentially brilliant. And the meeting between Sinestro and the Weaponers of Qward, casual, terse and pretty funny. Victor Garber's voice as Sinestro was spot on. Much much better than Ted Levine in the Timm-verse series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Lantern:_First_Flight

Upcoming this year, Batman/Superman: Public Enemies. Based on the DC Comics opening narrative for World' Finest.

Best cinematic vampire get-ups, Pt 4

2009-08-09T09:35:00.001-07:00

And there you go.

Best cinematic vampire get-ups, Pt 3

2009-08-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

Part 3 of the most snappy dressers of the undead

Best cinematic vampire get-ups, Pt 2

2009-08-09T09:29:00.001-07:00

Best cinematic vampire get-ups, Pt 1

2009-08-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

I have a wierd fetish for the leather-clad ultra-urbane vampire who oozes polish, style, overcoats, and a love of senseless brutal violence, much like the majority of the Russian population. The main issue is that the films that they tend to come from are cult-ish in nature or just didn't do very well at all. But then so is the nature of B-movie concepts with R ratings. Go figure that the formula for bloodsuckers ends up being a monumental moneymaker when its targeted at teenage girls in a movie - natch with low bodycounts, gore and a seeming absence of black leather.

So I include pics here of the best-dressed undead, vamps and a couple of vampire killers who may or may not be vampires themselves.

And We Await the Shrike...

2009-08-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

Following up on my last post regarding Milton's Paradise Lost, the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons have been optioned as a movie. Sorry, to be more specific - optioned as an UNfilm-able movie much in the same way as Paradise Lost and other stories that probably never should have been committed to celluloid. These would be other notable titles like Watchmen and Dune. The jury is still out on how successful Watchmen was, and Dune only worked as a miniseries that could have used a hell of a lot more budget.

The Hyperion Cantos is especially challenging, especially as the first book of four is written as a space opera in the format of the Canterbury Tales. The book is essentially a novella broken up into different tales of a traveller on their way to a pilgrimage. The second book picks up where the first book left off but more as a traditional forward moving narrative. But therein lies yet another problem, one of the main sub-stories of the Hyperion Cantos actually travels backwards.... plus with about ten main characters whose storylines all split off after book one, it gets even more complicated.

Anyways, arguably one of the major characters is The Shrike. I say "arguably" as he is more of a plot device than anything else. He's a god, the messenger of pain, and (spoiler alert), the counterbalance to the spirit of empathy. He is the herald of the future with origins in humanity's past. He is silent, vicious, perhaps non-sentient, and pretty much invincible. He teleports, time travels, and control the local quantum stream to a degree, ie., he can utilise different potential selves simultaneously to accomplish his goals. He is his own superposition, to use a phrase from quantum physics. He is the ultimate bad-ass, a chrome four-armed demon covered in spikes and shards of razor-sharp metal. You gotta respect that.

I bring you several artists' renditions of what he should look like. At the moment, he is only limited to our imaginations. And I dare someone to dress up like him at Comic Con..

Like we can't see this one coming

2009-08-08T20:49:00.000-07:00

Soon to be at the conventions ね？

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/

Cheap, easy and creepy Japanese Halloween designs

2009-08-08T17:40:00.001-07:00

Kakurenbo - or Hide and Seek to Western audiences, is a mainstay on Halloween for the Cartoon Network and rightly so - it's one of the very few authentic horror anime productions ever made. It's about a group of kids in neko (cat masks, usually found in traditional Noh theatre), trussed up in post-modern Road Warrior yukata (summer robe) playing hide and seek (sort of) against wooden, mechanical demons. To lose means to sacrifice your soul to the game (surprise, surprise).

More on it: http://www.animefringe.com/magazine/2005/10/feature/01.php

To throw these costumes together would most likely have to require visiting a Japanese curio shop, most major cities having one. Picking up a yukata would usually be easy. They are usually long but the hemline can be cut. The mask may be tougher, as usually such masks are pre-painted. You may consider doing it the ole paper-mache style if you have the time and inclination. The wigs can be crafted fairly easily enough from regular black straight-hair wigs with enough hair spray or sugar-water does the trick. A dreadlocked wig could also work. The twin brothers' red eyes can be accomplished with some theatrical contact lenses.

Neon Genesis Evangelion live movie by Weta Digital

2009-08-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

Yeah you read that right. Peter Jackson's CG, special effects and design studio had actually optioned to make the live version of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Obviously, not much has come of this recently or we would be hearing about it. If they had proceeded with it, Peter Jackson and not James Cameron would be the first out of the door with a A-tier movie based on Japanese OVA. But....since it's not happening the first out was Dragon Ball Z which nobody in their right mind would go see, the second will be Avatar the Last Airbender by the DIRECTOR WITH NO SKILL, M. Night Schmalyan, or however you spell that as I don't care, and the eagerly-awaited Cameron's Battle Angel Alita in about two years. However, the concept drawings are still out there and they do indeed look cool.

The full list of artworks is here: http://features.cgsociety.org/story.php?story_id=1901

The real story is that several years ago, there were other works that had been optioned but none of them ever saw the light of day which was probably for the better - these included Akira and Space Battleship Yamato. Yamato, maybe - Akira, not a chance. I couldn't bear to see Kaneda and Tetsuo Caucasian-ized.

Paradise Lost

2009-08-08T17:11:00.001-07:00

Quite possibly the most ambitious undertaking that the cinema world will yet (or not) see is the adaptation of John Milton's Paradise Lost. Yep, that's right - someone actually has the cojones to actually try to make a film about the fall of Satan from the Kingdom of Heaven and the exile from the Garden of Adam and Eve. Good luck. For current details, check out:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0484138/

Personally, I would LOVE to see the attempt, kind of like the same attitude I had when I knew someone was seriously attempting The Watchmen. Unfilm-able but kinda glad someone was gonna give it a go. I've never heard of the director, Scott Derrickson, and see that his pedigree lay in B-movie horrors and science fiction, which is where Peter Jackson started. But I also note that he has also opted to create the Hyperion Cantos (of which I will eventually cover) and is equally unfilm-able.

In the meantime, the only visuals we have are the works of John Martin, the lithograph printer of the 19th century was commissioned to do the original illustrations. His frankly speaking frightening visions of Old Testament dogma would be an awesome starting point for anyone.

http://www.wojm.org.uk/

Maybe next big thing? Green Lantern Pt 3

2009-08-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

We're big into contact lens ideas here, so maybe we'll see these upcoming lens ideas based on the Blackest Night series - eyes that represent what spectrum faction you belong to - green, black, yellow, etc.

Obviously, they'd work best if you had the nifty costume with it, otherwise the context would get lost in translation, but if you're going to splash out for the costume you might as well complete the picture and obscure your humanity completely.

Gotham City

2009-08-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

Gotham City is a beast, the dark sister city of bright and beautiful Metropolis, which is probably why people just love the dark deco monstrosity that it is. Did you know that in the Tim Burton movie, Vancouver BC's map was used as the geographic layout of the city? Throughout history, everyone has had a take on what the city should look like. It's an architect's dream and a civic planner's nightmare. Here's some takes by Anton Furst, Chris Nolan, DC Comics and DCAU

Maybe next big thing? Green Lantern Pt 2

2009-08-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

So what am I talking about in terms of the Blackest Night as per the previous post? The current big crossover series has the Green Lantern Corps at war (yet again) but the backdrop is a galaxy-spanning conflict with all the color spectrum of ROYGBIV involved. Bear with me, but this is how it goes:

Green (Green Lantern Corps): willpower

Yellow (Sinestro Corps): fear

Red (Red Lantern Corps): rage

Blue (Blue Lantern Corps): hope

Violet (Star Sapphires): love

Orange (Agent Orange): greed

Indigo (Indigo Tribe): compassion.

It looks like Green will ally itself with Blue, Violet and Indigo. Orange will not ally itself with anyone due to self-absorption. Red will attack just about everyone and Yellow, well, we will have to see. The main issue for all of this unnecessary bloodletting is the rise of a new color off the spectrum - Black, the color of death. For this new Black Lantern Corps means to bring life to all the dead characters of the DC Universe as zombies. And we all know what they want - to eat your BRAINS!

I look forward to seeing all of these colors at the next Con.

Maybe next big thing? Green Lantern Pt 1

2009-08-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

Personally I LOVE the Green Lantern Corps. The idea of a galactic police force is as old as Lensman (an old inspiration) and the current Blackest Night is going to hit its apex right around winter of this year. As its part three of a long trilogy (Re-birth and The Sinestro Corps War) that actually destroyed the Comic Con in San Diego, I would guess that the GLC and Comic Con are going to see some real-life crossover.

But then:

http://www.leagueoflanterns.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=660881

It was a real pleasure to see that there are other GLC fans out there and they have their own outfits.... I can see iterations of Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner (complete with baby stroller), Kyle Rayner, Arisia, Soranik Natu, Parallax, Alan Scott and Star Sapphire. I'm going to sound her out on that one and say that she doesn't look a lot like Carol Ferris to me. But the Soranik Natu rocks.

So far as I can see in regards to the humanoid GLC members: no Iolande, Sodam Yat/Ion, Brikk, Katma Tui. But most shocking - no Sinestro!

I love the alien GLC members - there's a Salakk and either its Tomar Re or his son, Tomar Tu. Kilowog would be a feat unto itself as the guy is as big as the Hulk. Isamot Kol, Stel, Green Man, Boodikka and Kraken are not yet present either. I doubt the planetary GL Mogo could ever be done.

Upcoming Movie - The Losers

2009-08-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

One of the best new things I've heard recently has been the announcement that they will be making a movie out of the DC Vertigo series, The Losers. Based on a WWII strip, the updated series by Brits Andy Diggle and Jock won a slew of awards, notably the Eisner that year for its writing and artistic style. Storyline-wise, its similar to the A-Team, except given a Hard R rating and with modern sensibilities, dealing with the war in the Persian Gulf, the Mujahadeen and your classic James Bond-style villain. A black ops team ends up getting screwed by their CIA handler and after surviving their intended assassinations declare war on the mysterious faceless entity who called in their deaths. Tagging along for the ride is a deathbitch killing machine from the mountains of Afghanistan named Aisha. Cool thing about the characters is that each person is a Jason Bourne, and given very strong personalities. I found it compelling, much moreso than many other titles and considering the amount I've read, to find myself literally sitting at the edge of my seat over a comic book is saying something. The movie apparently has Jeffrey Dean Morgan as sardonic commander Clay, Chris Evans as the motormouth special forces hacker Jensen and Zoe Saldana as the castrating, ear-cutting, machine-gunning zealot Aisha. I believe this flick is gonna come out at approx the same time as the actual movie rendition of the A-Team but if they stick to the original Andy Diggle script, they may actually win.

Try walking through Castro in one of these

2009-08-07T23:37:00.000-07:00

Personally, I like the Adam West version the best. I actually saw someone wear it at a Halloween party and couldn't stop laughing. It may have been that I was completely drunk at the time but he had the required paunch to pull it off.

You have your Tim Burton version, your Justice League Unlimited version, your Christian Bale version but nothing screams authenticity like the Adam West version. I mean, at least it shows off your real muscles, or lack thereof.

The many incarnations of Batman via Warren Ellis' Planetary

2009-08-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

This is the first post of the Spacetime Dossier, and what better way to herald the birth of a fairly ambitious blog than to focus on the history of Batman from his different visual incarnations! You may ask why I find this interesting - in truth, I love comic book/sci fi/fantasy history and can talk shit with comic book shop staff for hours on topics as arcane as...well, arcane as comic book topics can get. So the goal of this blog is to visually chart the incarnations of a fantasy icon,cultural figure or just outright oddity as it jumps through the myriad of incarnations through history or media.

One of the best visual representatives is how Batman has looked throughout the ages - and a special edition of Planetary by Warren Ellis has the intrepid "Archeologists of the Impossible" tracking the secret history of their world (kind of like mixing the X-Files with the Fantastic Four) going to their Gotham City to track down a wanted fugitive with quantum shaping powers. Now in their world, there is no Batman. But thanks to the out-of-control abilities of their quarry, they find themselves facing different versions of Bruce Wayne as how different writers and artists have interpreted him over the last 50 years or so. You can't help but smile at the current version of Batman that you would see written by 1) Grant Morrison or Jeph Loeb, grim, intolerant and paranoid, 2) fascist and monstrously brutal a la Frank Miller's The Dark Night Returns, 3) the patient and lawful Batman of Neal Adams of the 1970s, the one comic book geeks probably remember the most fondly, 4) the gun-welding original version by the creator of Batman, Bob Kane, and even 5) Adam West, complete with pudge and Anti-Female Villain Spray. Lastly, I think the artist (John Cassaday) decided to throw in his own version of Batman, as is his right.

I'll do a follow-up of how people interpret Batman in real life in terms of what Batman costumes there are out there another day. But in the meantime, if you want to read this story, it's a real catch, the writing is top-notch (come on, it's written by Warren Ellis!) and it's full title is Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth