The Death Quiz
So I’m pretty good at figuring out who’s more likely to die. Is that a good thing? Can you beat my score? Click here to give it a shot.
Emily Is Not Real
Emily is not real, but she’s a better actress than some I’ve seen. All kidding aside, that is some pretty amazing animation.We’re getting close to the point that I wrote about nearly two years ago when discussing that lifelike animation…
“will also usher in the next generation of all-star movie casts! Think about how cool it would be to see Sly Stallone, young Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart and Lee Marvin acting alongside each other. The possibilities are endless.So, what would your dream cast be?”
Transporter Poster Disappoints
Remember the other day when I said, “Quite often foreign posters are cooler than their American counterparts” and then gave a rare example of an American movie poster looking better than the Russian version? Well, I’m willing to bet that I like the American poster for “Transporter 3” better than this French one. My photoshop skills are weak, but I think I could come up with something more interesting.
The Shield Goes Out in Style
FX has announced that the season/series finale for The Shield will air on November 25th. The good news is that the network is planning events to make the send-off special. There will be a retrospective with a roundtable discussion with the cast and crew. The official The Shield website has already posted exclusive new clips, photos and more. You can see them Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse
The Pitch: “Mad Max“ meets your real life.
The Overview: Through a series of events [natural disasters, flu epidemic, wall street collapse, nuclear bombs blasts, etc.] the world as we know it is gone. Mortimer Tate, (formerly) an insurance salesman, has spent the last nine years alone in a cave. Tate saw the end coming and was prepared for it. Now after nine years, Tate is ready to venture out and see what, if anything, is left of civilization. Through his journey he will meet heroes, villains, survivalists, business men, cannibals, mad men and more. [Doesn’t sound like much has changed does it?]
The Good: Gischler provides just the right mix of horror, gore, and humor. // The pace is quick. // There are plenty of twists and just the right number of outrageous characters. // How the trains are powered. // “Jack Daniels: The Tradition Survives.” // “The man sitting in the throne stood to face Mortimer. He wasn’t ten feet tall, not even eight. But he was seven feet if he was an inch, and when he smiled, Mortimer saw the man’s teeth had been filed to points. He wore a leather vest, no shirt, muscles rippling like Conan. He had a square Frankenstein face, greasy hair. He carried a wooden club like a caveman’s. He wore a necklace of human ears and noses. Mortimer gulped. “Who dares come to see the Red Czar?” His voice was thunder.” – The next two paragraphs are worth the price of the book alone!
The Bad: What happens to trespassers. What happens to those caught by cannibals. And perhaps worst of all what happens after Ruth steps aside!
The Ugly: Mother Lola… oh, the horror, the horror.
The Summary: Victor Gischler is a very good writer. I’ve read Gun Monkeys and The Pistol Poets and would recommend them to those who enjoy crime novels. His latest, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse is even better. If the title alone doesn’t get you to run out and pick up a copy, then I’m curious as to why you’ve read this deep into my review. And if you’ve read this far, you know you gonna love the book!
Sketch Society
My buddy, John Beatty asked me to become a moderator on his Sketch Society blog. I’ll still do reminders and updates about Sketch Society meetings here at the ZONE, but now the major reports and photo dumps will occur at the Sketch Society blog. The next sketching get-together is coming soon. You can read more about it here.
Sleeper No More
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips work together. I discovered them by way of their award-winning Criminal series. That led me to their first team up, Sleeper. I couldn’t believe how good it was. [Can these two hit nothing but homeruns?]Sean announced on his blog today the following: Sleeper, a new crime series with Ed Brubaker.
Wow! Great news for Sean and Ed and their fans everywhere. Let’s hope that a team comes together to make the movie with the same care and ability that went into “Iron Man,” “The Dark Knight” and “Watchmen”. In the mean time, if you haven’t already, you should check out the four volumes that make up the Sleeper series: Out in the Cold; All False Moves; A Crooked Line; and The Long Way Home.
Fay Just Teased Us… So Far
The diagram above shows the projected path that tropical storm Fay is expected to follow for the next few days. How accurate it is, is hard to say. Fay was supposed to come through the Daytona Beach area starting tonight and hit hardest around 2am. Before that ever happened she shifted and headed out towards sea. As you can see now, Fay is projected to double back and land further up the coast. We’ll find out tonight if schools will be in session tomorrow. We’re still supposed to have high winds and rain through Wednesday.Oh, if you’re wondering how the day at the shelter went, it was pretty uneventful. We opened on time at 10am. Usually, when we open a shelter, there are bunches of people waiting to get in. Not today. The first person didn’t arrive until almost eleven. At 12:30, only six people had come in. At 2:30pm we were closed down and people who still wanted shelter were sent to a new location. So the end result was no injuries, no property damage and only one story. [One of the people who came to the shelter ended up getting arrested. When the man signed in, a Deputy ran his name and it turned out he was wanted on an outstanding warrant.] My guess, is the man won’t be worried about shelter for a while.
Sons of Anarchy
Hey! I thought maybe it was time for another reminder about the new show, Sons of Anarchy which will premiere soon. Seems like the folks at FX felt the same way since they’ve just put out this cool Sons of Anarchy poster.
A Better Babylon
Quite often foreign posters are cooler than their American counterparts. That’s not the case with the new American Babylon A.D. poster. I like it much better than the Russian version.Fay is Gonna Smack Us
Four years ago three hurricanes struck the Daytona Beach area in just over a month’s time. Try calculating the odds of that. For each of the hurricanes I spent time working at a special needs shelter. The stories I can tell. On a personal level, although we were left without power during each storm [and once for a five day stretch] no one in the family was hurt and property damage was minor.
Tomorrow morning I’ll go in to work at another special needs shelter. You see we’re directly in the path of Tropical Storm Fay. I’m planning to be there for at least two days [hopefully the shelter won’t be needed longer]. If we’re lucky, no one will be injured, property damage will be nil and I’ll come out with a good story or two.
The Shield’s Final Season
Isn’t that a cool poster?
I am so ready for the final season of The Shield. It’s not because I’m looking forward to the series to end. I’m not. In fact as the final season draws to it’s ultimate conclusion, you just know that I’ll be wishing that there was more to come.
I’ve been with The Shield since the first episode of the premiere season. I’ve never missed a single show. It’s been a great ride. I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.
3 Real Life Heroes
Comic book legends Neal Adams, Jack Kubert and Stan Lee have teamed in an effort to do what their creations are known for… to right a wrong. The only difference is this is not fiction.
Dina Gottliebova Babbitt is an 85 year old woman who survived Auschwitz due to her artistic talents. Sent to the camp at the age of 19, Ms. Gottliebova [she was not yet married] came to the attention of the infamous Nazi, Josef Mengele, after she painted a mural of Snow White in an effort to raise the spirits of young children being held there. When she was taken to meet Mengele, Ms. Gottliebova believed that he was about to order her execution. Instead he told her he wanted her to paint portraits of the gypsies he used in his experiments. She would also paint portraits of Nazi officers and their families and even Mengele himself. Ms. Gottliebova summoned up her courage and said that if her mother would be spared the gas chamber, she would agree to his demands. Her mother was spared and Ms. Gottliebova created the artwork. Ms. Gottliebova and her mother both survived until the camp was liberated.
After the war, Ms. Gottliebova met Arthur Babbitt, an American, who made his living as a cartoon animator. Coincidentally, he worked on the classic “Snow White!” Ms. Gottliebova became Mrs. Babbitt and moved to the United States where she became employed as a cartoon animator for Warner Bros., MGM and Jay Ward Productions. In 1973, Ms. Babbitt was contacted by officials at the Auschwitz State Museum. They had several of her portraits on display and wanted her to verify that she had created them. At her own expense she traveled to Poland and confirmed that they were hers. Ms. Babbitt believed the museum would give her the originals and keep prints for display… but that wasn’t to be.
To this day the museum continues to refuse to return her paintings to her. Over the years she has been given a number of excuses: the education value of the paintings outweighs her rights to them [despite the fact the high quality prints are usually on display instead of the originals], that returning her paintings might encourage other survivors to take back their objects on display [somehow this logic gives trump to the museum’s rights over the true owners], and even that the paintings were the legal property of Josef Mengele [despite receiving letters from over four dozen lawyers calling the claim “preposterous and offensive” and pointing out “a war criminal does not deserve to enjoy the fruits of his crime.”
The paintings still have not been returned to Ms. Babbitt. So Neal Adams, Joe Kubert and Stan Lee teamed up to create a six page summary of her story that was printed in the New York Times. They are attempting to get the word out to the world. You can view all six pages of the strip by following this link to the Times article. The “Multimedia” box in the left hand column of the Times page will take you to the story. After you’ve read it, if you’re so inclined you can send an email to the Museum director personally expressing your feelings.
Mr. Piotr Cywinski, Director
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oswiecim, Poland
muzeum@auschwitz.org.pl
It’s nice to know that Neal Adams, Joe Kubert and Stan Lee don’t just create heroes — they are heroes.
Greatest Comic Characters
EmpireOnLine.com posted their choices for The 50 Greatest Comic Characters of All Time. Using just their picks, here are my top ten:I only really read Iron Man way back when David Micheline and Bob Layton were charting his adventures. That coupled with the fact that I really liked the movie is enough to put Iron Man in the number 10 spot.
Superman was Empire’s #1 character. I can see why: Superman is one of the most popular characters ever created. He’s been the star of comics, radio, tv and movies. For my tastes though, he’s just too dang powerful. Superman has super speed, super strength, super hearing, x-ray vision, he can fly, he’s impervious to pain and he’s really, really nice. Unless he’s up against a chunk of Kryptonite [and isn’t THAT stuff easy to find], where’s the drama? Still, I did love me some Superman when I was about 5 and that’s good enough to get him the number 9 slot.
At number 8 we have Captain America. I’ve enjoyed the good Captain in bursts over the years. When I was a wee lad, I loved Jack Kirby’s Cap. You’d open to the splash and there was Cap having just been thrown out of a plane without a parachute or maybe he was already in battle against Batroc the Leaper! Years later Steranko did a couple of issues and they were beautiful. I still go back and read them from time to time. When I was in college, my buddies Mike Zeck and John Beatty had a nice run on Cap. I went along for the ride and had a blast.
Up until high school my favorite comic character was Spider-Man. It didn’t matter who was drawing him; although John Romita Jr., Gil Kane, and John Byrne were favorites. Spider-Man aka Peter Parker always seemed to be in just a bit over his head. Despite that, he always tried to do the right thing. And that’s why he comes in a number 7.
The Punisher never looked better than when he was being drawn by Zeck and Beatty. Throw Steven Grant into the mix as the writer and you have a winning team. They did the first Punisher mini-series and took him from a second rate villain to one of the most popular characters ever. And that’s where the troubles started. Suddenly the Punisher had his own monthly comic. He was teamed with a partner [Microchip?] and ended up doing things like being a substitute teacher. Ugh! Still there were more bright spots from time to time. Grant, Zeck and Beatty re-teamed for a couple more Punisher graphic novels and John Romita Jr. had a nice little run with the character. The high spots are enough to take the character to the sixth spot on our list.
Mike Mignola’s Hellboy is number 5. I’ve been riding the Hellboy express since his first appearance in Dark Horse Presents scripted by John Byrne. It’s been a fun trip, although I wish Mignola did more of the driving. Guest artists are fun, but Mike’s writing coupled with his art really makes Hellboy soar. And hey, the movies ain’t bad either!
Wolverine’s journey is very similar to the Punisher’s. Once he got his own series things went south. At first Wolverine was the mysterious, violent character in the X-Men. Then when he got his own series he was living on an island and wearing an eyepatch with the name Patch. Huh? Give me the Wolverine from the Claremont, Byrne and Austin run on the X-Men. Give me the Miller and Rubstein Wolverine from their mini-series. Give me the Barry Windsor Smith Weapon X Wolverine. Just keep the eyepatch for yourself. Wolverine comes in fourth.
Third place belongs to Frank Miller’s Marv from Sin City. How can you not dig the big lug? I wish Miller would give us more.
The # 2 spot goes to Daredevil on the strength of Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s run back in the early 80’s. That was comics are their best.
Batman gets my number one slot. It doesn’t really matter who writes or draws the character. Think about it. Batman has been done as comedy, as camp, with the focus on Bruce Wayne, with the focus on Batman, as a vigilante, as a confidant to the police, as a wanted criminal, with a kid partner, as an old man, as a young man finding his way. Batman just works and that’s why he’s my number 1 choice.
Vertigo Crime Comics [2008]
Want to know more about the upcoming Vertigo Crime Comics line? Then click HERE.
