Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
This December, Tito Faraci (writer) and Dan Brereton’s (artist) The Last Battle is finally coming to the US! Already published in many countries around the world, The Last Battle is an 80-page full-color graphic novel set to retail for $7.99 from Image Comics. For more details check out CBR.com’s coverage.
Batman: Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is a masterpiece. It is (one of my favorites and) without a doubt one of the best received graphic novels ever.
When it was first announced that Batman: Year One was being developed into a feature length animated movie, the idea was to stay true to the story and the art. Animation Magazine caught up with co-directors Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery who discussed some of the difficulties of adapting the classic tale of Batman’s first year. If that’s not reason enough to click over, they also preview some of the animation art from the film.
Although they’re still in early stages of pre-production, I am getting more and more stoked about the next Riddick movie. Vin Diesel recently posted on his Facebook page the glimpse of some storyboard art and the news that the sequel will indeed be filmed with an “R” rating in mind.
Can I buy a ticket now?
I met Billy Fowler at Heroes Con 2010. I hadn’t seen Billy’s art prior to the show, but I really liked the sketches that he was doing. Luckily, I was just able to get on Billy’s sketch list and got a really great take on Sly as Jack Carter.
Billy was at Heroes Con again this year. and this time I scored this very cool Sly as Rocky sketch.
You can see more of Billy’s art at his blog.
Two of my favorite things are 1] the tv series Breaking Bad and 2] art. Combine the two and you could come up with Breaking Bad art for paper dolls. Illustrator, Kyle Hilton created. They’re pretty cool. And this is coming from a guy who normally would not say that about paper dolls.
Today Jack “The King” Kirby would have been 94 years old. It’s our loss that he’s no longer with us. Yet, he created so many characters universes that we will always have plenty of his art/stories to enjoy.
When I was a kid, I loved Jack Kirby’s work on Captain America, Rawhide Kid and especially Mister Miracle. Then when I got a bit older, I stopped enjoying Mr. Kirby’s output. I had moved on to more mature comics… or at least that’s how I looked at it then. Now I see I was missing out on the work of a legend.
Mark Evanier posted a nice remembrance and video. Bleeding Cool put up a cool Kirby art gallery. It’s nice that Jack Kirby continues to inspire so many.
The amazing Kelsey Shannon makes his return to the SZ Gallery. Kelsey has worked in comics, animation, and film. He can pencil, ink and color. Kelsey plays a mean game of hacki-sack and he’s one of the nicest and most talented people that you could ever meet. Kelsey surprised me with his take on Sly as Captain America. How cool.
I got my first piece from Kelsey, back in 2002. He also surprised me with it! Then I actually got to meet Kelsey at Heroes Con in 2004. At that show he did me, this cool take on Sly as Jack Carter. It’s still one of my favorites riffs on Sly as Carter. I think we’re going to have to get Kelsey back to MegaCon or Heroes and bribe him for more sketches. If I bring big blocks of cheese it might work.
Robbi Rodroguez did a Rocky sketch for me at last year’s Heroes Convention. When I saw that Robbi was going to be at Heroes again this year and was taking commissions early, I asked for an iconic black and white piece of Sly as Jack Carter. Robbi knew exactly what I was looking for and came through like a champ with this piece. I was totally blown away.
So I requested another Stallone piece, this time totally of Robbi’s choosing. He decided to go with Sly as Machine Gun Joe Viterbo from Death Race 2000. It was a unique choice that I quickly got behind. Robbi not only drew Machine Gun Joe standing in his race car with a smoking machine gun, but threw in Joe’s co-pilot as well. I can’t say enough great things about Robbi’s commissions except that I want another!
You can see more of Robbi’s art here and here… and definitely again here at the SZ in the future.
Here’s a teaser poster to Frank Miller’s long-awaited graphic novel Holy Terror BATMAN. I’m a huge Miller fan, but I’m still not sold on this one.
My buddy, Mike Torrance aka The Krayola Kidd is back. This time Mike brought a couple of friends with him. That’s Gabriel Cash on the left and Ray Tango on the right. Mike created the cards for me as reward for winning one of his free monthly sketch card contests. Love the movie, dig the art.
You can see more of Mike’s art at The Daily Sketch with The Krayola Kidd and his Deviant Art site. Mike is available for commissions and his prices are very reasonable. And don’t forget that once a month Mike has a contest for someone to win a free sketchcard!
Jeremy Treece has created art for comic books, trading cards, animation and independent films. Today we have Treece’s take on Jack Carter from one of my favorite Stallone films, “Get Carter”.
You can see more of Jeremy’s art here… and hopefully again here at the SZ in the future.
One of my all-time favorite comic series was 100 Bullets. Written by Brian Azzarello with art by Eduardo Risso and covers by Dave Johnson, it was simply, a comics team that always hit on all cylinders. Guess what? The same team is coming back this year with a new series called Spaceman. That’s a prelim character sketch above and the first cover art below.
Count me in.
In honor of Harrison Ford’s 40th big screen role in Cowboys & Aliens, Steve Murray at the National Post created a headshot of Ford in each of his roles.
That’s JK Woodward’s amazing take on Sly as Jack Carter. My buddy, Little John312 told me that JK was taking on some commissions. I’d never met or seen JK’s art, but once I did, I hopped on board. Now his site is a regular stop on my internet runs and I hope to get another Stallone commission in the future.
At ComicCon this past weekend, Robert Rodriguez announced that “Frank [Miller] has written a script for Sin City 2…It could shoot as early as later this year.“
The Sin City sequel will follow the same format as the original movie with three interconnected tales. “A Dame to Kill For” will be the main title and is based on the Frank Miller story of the same name. The Long Bad Night is the second yarn with no mention of the third’s title at this point.
