Walt Parrish’s “3 by 3” Original Art Collection

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Walt Parrish has a cool sketch collection theme.  Walt collects original art created on three inch by three inch bristol board.

The art ranges from full color paintings to quickie pencil pieces by artists such as Ken Meyer, Jr. [the Breaking Bad piece above], Tim Sale [the sketch below], Michael Golden, Matt Wagner, Neal Adams, Wilfredo Torres, Gabriel Hardman, Franchesco Francavilla, Bruce Timm, Howard Chaykin, Patric Reynolds and others.

Walt has the art on display at his three by three site and it is more than worth a look.

Z-View: Chambers by Locher & Rossi

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Chambers is a graphic novel published by Arcana

Writer/Creator: Wes Locher

Artist: Kristian Rossi

Narcotics Officer Denis Chambers comes from a family of law enforcers. Now, someone is picking them off one by one, and she’ll have to figure out who’s taking an axe to her family tree before it’s too late.

Denis Chambers is a cop marked for execution by the same powerful men who killed her father [who was also a cop].  Normally killing a cop brings the entire police force into play to find the killer(s)… but what happens when the killers are cops?

Denis Chambers finds herself in a race against time to discover who is trying to kill her and her brother.  Who can she trust?  How deep does the corruption run?  Is her partner in danger or part of the conspiracy to kill her?

 Wes Locher hits all the right marks as he moves us through Denis Chambers’ story.  She’s tough, and despite being outmanned and outgunned she keeps plowing forward.  This is classic noir with a great ending.

Kristian Rossi’s art does a serviceable job of telling the story.  I’d have liked to have seen Rossi’s art without the color.  At times Rossi’s art has a glimmer of an Eduardo Risso [and we all know what a Risso fan I am], influence.

Chambers  is a comic for mature audiences and not kids.  If you’re a fan of crime comics, pulp fiction, and noir, then Chambers  is worth a look.

Rating: 3 out of 5

20 Surprising Things About National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

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If you read 20 Surprising Things You Might Know About National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation…

… You’ll learn, among other things…

  • The connection between the Griswald’s, Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, Kurt Russell in Overboard and the Bewitched tv series.
  • Why Cousin Eddie clicks his tongue when he eats.
  • Who is on the cover of the People magazine that Chevy Chase reads in bed.
  • Where you can score Christmas Vacation swag.
  • Cousin Eddie’s ties to Rocky Balboa.

Source: Uproxx.

Comparing Marvel’s Remastered ‘Miracleman’ to Eclipse Original

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There’s a little bit of a controversy brewing over Marvel’s reprinting of the Miracleman series originally published by Eclipse.

The hubhub is because of the remastered coloring on the latest version.  It’s not going to look like the original colors when reprinted.

Most will argue it will look better.  Traditionalists will argue that it shouldn’t change.

Marvel’s way of thinking is making the colors look better will increase sales.  Those who are fans of the original series will probably buy it either way [enhanced coloring or not], but new readers may be put off by the original colors and pass.  So the thought process becomes do what will increase sales.

I probably first became aware of this mindset when Ted Turner started colorizing old films that held the rights to.  Turner did this to increase ratings when he aired the colorized movies and to increase video sales.

George Lucas made changes to his Star Wars films enhancing special effects and making it clear that Han didn’t shoot first.

Enhancing effects on the original Star Trek tv series was also done to help the show remain popular in syndication.

I’ve always figured as long as the originals are still available in their original form, then what’s the harm of an “enhanced” version?

“Farewell, My Lovely” – Pulp Writer, Jim Thompson’s Only Acting Role

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I’m sure you’re aware that this version of Raymond Chandler’s classic  Farewell, My Lovely  has an all-star cast that includes Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Anthony Zerbe, Harry Dean Stanton. Jack O’Halloran, Joe Spinell, and Sylvester Stallone. Did you know that it also features pulp writer Jim Thompson in his first and last acting role!

“The Saviors” by James Robinson & J. Bone

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I am really looking forward to The Saviors by James Robinson and J. Bone.  

James Robinson describes The Saviors as…

…an alien conspiracy horror comic where an innocent, naive slacker discovers, completely by chance, an alien infiltration of the human race. In the course of eluding the aliens and finding other people aware of the infiltration, he becomes more of a hero and less a helpless young guy with no clue.

Robinson sites his influences for The Saviors…

…combine the spooky, creepy aspects of pulps stories, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie and the short-lived The InvadersTV show from the 1960s. I try to combine that with, at the same time, the idea of these somewhat human looking aliens can when the situation requires transform into really monstrous creatures like in John Carpenter’s The Thing. Real big monster horror, which thinking about it is the other end of the spectrum from Invasion of the Body Snatchers in terms of 1950s alien horror films.

Couple Robinson’s story with J. Bone’s art and how can we not have a winner?  I pre-ordered as soon as I heard about the series and can’t wait to get the first issue in my mitts.

If you want to know more about The Saviors [and see additional J. Bone art for the series] you can thanks to Newsarama.