Month: April 2014
Cully Hamner’s HeroesCon 30th Anniversary Art
I’ve been a Cully Hamner fan for years. [In fact Cully was the first artist I approached to do a Stallone sketch when I started collecting them.] Check out the cool art Cully created for the HeroesCon 30th Anniversary.
Z-View: “Brick Mansions”
The Pitch: ”Hey, let’s do an Americanized remake of the cult classic action film District B13!”
“Let’s do it!”
The Tagline: “Their Streets. Their Rules.“
The Overview: *** Beware – spoilers are found below ***
The year is 2018. Because of out of control crime [think The Purge on a daily basis], a part of Detroit called Brick Mansions has been walled off from the rest of the city with military police guarding the few exits in or out [think Escape from New York with two Snake Plisskens].
Paul Walker [the first Snake Plissken] is an undercover cop whose dad was killed in Brick Mansions. David Belle is an ex-con [and the second Snake Plissken] who lives in Brick Mansions and works against the crime lord [played by Rza].
Walker and Belle find themselves as unlikely partners when a stolen neutron bomb is hijacked, armed and aimed at a US city.
The Good
- Brick Mansions begins with a great extended action-scene with Belle doing his parkour!
- The cast: Paul Walker [in his final completed role], David Belle [should be making more American movies], RZA, Ayisha Issa, Carlo [24] Rota, Andreas [Riddick] Apergis, and Robert [300, Sherlock Holmes] Maillet.
- Every scene with Belle doing parkour is fun.
- Ayisha Carlo and Robert Mailet were especially well cast.
The Bad:
- The aim of almost everyone with a weapon.
- Ayisha Carlo and Robert Mailet .
- Characterization and rationale thought are left with the coming attractions.
- Making RZA a “good guy” at the end. Rza played an interesting bad guy, but let’s not lose sight that he was a really bad guy, a drug king pin who killed people without a second thought. Yeah, he make a great mayor!
- Cartoon violence.
The Ugly:
- How Belle deals with crooked cops. How Walker deals with giants.
Rating: 3 out of 5
How Clark Kent Made Those Impossible Deadlines
Perry White always wondered how Clark Kent made those impossible deadlines.
New “Expendables 3” Cast Photo
Here’s the latest cast photo from Expendables 3. Would you like to see a much bigger version?
“The Last Ship” – Great Concept & Cool Poster!
The Last Ship concept sounds great.
The crew of a naval destroyer is forced to confront the reality of a new existence when a pandemic kills off most of the earth’s population.
Dig the poster. Bring on the series.
Steranko’s Awesome Cover for Detective #33
Isn’t that Steranko Batman piece sweet? Steranko did this cover for Detective Comics #33, the 75th Anniversary of Batman.
You can see more of Steranko’s art at his Facebook page.
“As Above So Below” Poster & Trailer
I like the poster for As Above So Below. The trailer is creepy. I’m still thinking Netflix though.
Scott Quick Takes Us to Cop Land
Scott Quick does the web strip Camden Bottoms. I met Scott at MegaCon this year. I took a look at Scott’s sketchbook and decided to see if he’d be interested in doing a Stallone sketch. He was. I ended up getting two. This is the first. I posted the second last week [confusing, huh?].
If you’re so inclined you can check out Scott’s Camden Bottoms!
30 Things You Might Not Know About Cheers
Most folks consider Cheers a classic comedy. If you’re one of them, then you’ll want to check out Mental Floss’ 30 Things You Might Not Know About Cheers.
Jones, Beatty, Renzi, Batman and Joker
That’s a print by Kelly Jones [penciller], John Beatty [inker] and Rico Renzi [colorist] that my buddy, Big Beatty will have for sale at Free Comic Book Day [at “Coliseum of Comics” in the Seminole Towne Center, Sanford Florida, on May 3, 2014!] and HeroesCon.
Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane and More
That’s a candid of Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins. If you’re a fan of either you’ll want to check out Crimespree’s recent interview with Max Allan Collins.
New “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” Trailer
Here’s a look at the new trailer for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde
Today marks the 80th anniversary of the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde…
… [the] Depression era Romeo and Juliet. Brandishing high-powered machine guns and driving the newly invented Ford V-8s, Bonnie and Clyde are mythologized as Robin Hoods for the poor and destitute who had been failed by the American political and financial institutions…
If you’d like to know more about Bonnie and Clyde here are a couple of excellent sources:
- AtlasObscura: 80 Years Later Retracing The Real Life of Bonnie & Clyde
10 All Time Most Baffling Unsolved Mysteries
Distractify recently posted 10 of the Most Baffling Unsolved Mysteries of All Time. Here’s are the four that I would love to see solved …
The Disappearance of Amy Lynn Bradley: Amy (in the red striped shirt) disappeared on March 24, 1998 at the age of 23 from Royal Caribbean International cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas. She was last seen with a member of the ship’s band, Blue Orchid, known by the alias “Yellow…”
Craig: No family should face the uncertainty of a missing child. You would think this would be the most solvable of the mysteries listed.
The Roanoke Colony: One of the first settlements in America completely vanished. All evidence of 150 colonists vanished at some point during the Anglo-Spanish war while their mayor was detoured in England retrieving supplies To this day there has been no conclusive evidence as to what happened to the colonists…
Craig: I remember hearing about this colony in elementary school and wondering what happened. I still wonder.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident: They set out to go on a ski hike, but days later the mysteriously orange-tanned, half-naked bodies of 9 hikers were found near their demolished tent and a note that read: “From now on we know there are snowmen.” Many of the poor souls also had crushing wounds, and it’s been reported that the bodies were slightly radioactive. And, strangely, one woman was missing her tongue…
Craig: The note “From now on we know there are snowmen” is creepy enough, add in the “crushing wounds” and slightly radioactive corpses and we have a real mystery. I want to know what happened!
The WOW Signal: On August 15, 1977 Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977 quite possibly detected a sign of intelligent life in the universe. The signal came from deep space almost 120 light years away. It lasted for the full 72-second window that Big Ear was able to observe it, but has never been detected again. Scientists say that if the signal came from extraterrestrials, they are likely to be an very advanced civilization because their transmitter would have to be much stronger than any we currently have on earth.
Craig: Discovering intelligent life on another planet [I’ve given up looking on this one] would be THE story of the century. CNN would probably even stop their round-the-clock coverage of the missing flight to cover it.
