Random Crap April 2009

Did You Watch the Watchmen? (Caution Spoiler Ahoy)

We're in the fourth month of 2009 and so far the Watchmen movie has been a mild success. I have read and heard a lot of reviews about the movie and they seem to be a 50/50 split of good reviews versus bad reviews. I have not seen the movie and the one time I tried to read the graphic novel was when I was about sixteen years old and I was not savvy about everything that Alan Moore was trying to say. When the movie was announced I thought that maybe I should read the Graphic Novel, just to see what all they hype was about, but as always real life sets in and you don't have the time to read the comics you get weekly let alone sit and process what Moore was trying to say. Was all the hype for the movie justified? I don't think so. The book itself is almost twenty-five years old, and was written in the height of the Reagan era cold war where the United States and Russia were just waiting for the other to blink. Nuclear annihilation of a major city was a distinct possibility and I think when I read the book it was way after the fall of Russia and it did not seem so timely anymore. I don't know if Alan Moore is being a cranky old man, but everywhere I go on the internet; there is some mention that his name is left off the movie. I know the director of V for Vendetta left his (Moore's) name off the movie because Moore asked him to, but I guess Moore did not want his name on this adaptation either. Does the mega success of both The Dark Knight and Watchmen indicate that moviegoers are going to prefer darker and gloomier versions of comic book movies? I don't know. Maybe it is just me, but when I go to the movies, I want to see a good story, but not get bogged down in the emotional downer at the end of the story. I was just watching Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and when it goes to the end with the John Williams musical score playing and we see Luke and Han get the medals for destroying the Death Star and it made everything that they went through worth it. The movie ended on a positive note. In Watchmen the movie ends with at least three cities being annihilated off the face of the planet all so some super powered jackass can prove a point. This to me is a real downer.

 

The Star Wars/Watchmen Connection

This link (http://www.starwars.com/vault/books/news20090309.html) at the Star Wars web site shows that both Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons were involved with some part of the Star Wars mythos. Alan Moore wrote some stories for the British version of the Star Wars comics in the 1980's. They have been reprinted by Dark Horse Comics in their Classic Star Wars: Devilworlds issues #1 and 2. Dave Gibbons did the art for one of the cards for the second Star Wars Galaxy set, the interior art and covers for the four issue Vader's Quest limited series by Dark Horse. The latest thing he did was the interior art for one of the stories in the four issue Chewbacca anthology published by Dark Horse. I found the excerpts that they had at the link for Mr. Moore's work interesting, but sometimes a little bit dark. Dave Gibbons' work showed the range he has had over the past years. The art on the Jawa's on the card almost conjures up feelings that you are there. The art he did for the Chewbacca anthology was probably one of the best looking Chewbacca's I've seen drawn over the past few years. This link (http://www.newsarama.com/comics/030912-Co-Features.html) has the latest information on the new gimmick DC Comics is doing to spice up some of their books. They say that starting in June they are adding ten page co-features to some of their books. The first two books have Ravager getting a co-feature in the Teen Titans comic and Blue Beetle is getting a co-feature in Booster Gold. There will also be a Metal Men co-feature in Doom Patrol (which is due out later than the June date for the first two) and a Question co-feature in Detective. The only drawback to these added stories is that they will raise the price of the books they are in by $1 American, but I think for that price I'm going to enjoy reading about the Blue Beetle in Booster Gold. It won't be the same without Ted Kord mind you, but I'll take any port in the storm. This link (http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/03/11/mattel-reveals-dcuclassics-wave-9/) is to a blog entry about the latest revelation in Mattel Toys' DC Universe Classics line. Wave nine will have the likes of Green Arrow, Black Canary, Wildcat (if you look really closely at the pictures posted you can see his toes), Guardian, Deadshot, Black Adam and Mantis (both Human and Super Powers-esque robot forms). The build a figure for this series is Chemo. This is an odd number wave so my brother will have a hard time getting it even though he works for Toys R Us. If I had to pick one out of the set to put my money on being a peg warmer, it'll be the human version of Mantis. The one that will fly off the shelf is probably going to be either Green Arrow or Black Canary. The Canary will more than likely be short packed in some places because of the way Mattel in China packs their cases. It took us forever to get a silver Captain Atom from set six or seven because all we could find was the "chase" gold Captain Adam.

 

Dear Dan DiDio

10) At conventions this year, you advised people to re-read Final Crisis in one sitting, yet you constantly emphasize that the biggest part of your job is telling episodic stories, and getting people back into comic shops either monthly or weekly for their next hit. How do you resolve those two things? DD: It's very simple - the statement came back about people being "confused" about Final Crisis, I think the book reads very well as individual issues, but for those people that had some difficulty following the story in the format is was presented, and they felt the story was lacking for that, my suggestion is to then sit down and read it again as a complete story, from beginning to end, because all of the questions or things that they think are missing are all there, and can be caught in reading it in one sitting. There were so many things that were established early in the books that paid off later on, which is one of the reasons why we've re-structured the collected edition of Final Crisis to include other works so that it makes for one complete reading. The statement that sitting and reading Final Crisis in one reading was pretty much an answer to the question that was being asked of me, in regards to being unclear to the overall story. I think reading it all together will answer the questions people may have. The above was the question and response in Newsarama's 20 Answers and 1 Question bi-weekly article they do. I just have one response to Mr. DiDio: BULL! Taking DC Comics' Editor-In-Chief's advice, I tried to read the whole series in one sitting but the only thing I received was a massive migraine headache from trying to keep continuity straight in my head. Trust me, when I get any type of headache I don't become pleasant to be around. I soldiered on, headache and all, and did not understand it any more than when I sat down and read it month-to-month. I'm not bitter, of course. I kept most of my pull list at my local comic store DC centered with a few other titles, but no Marvel comics. If you are really curious about why I dropped Marvel comics; write me an e-mail and I'll explain.

 

Wednesday Comics?

This link (http://www.newsarama.com/comics/030919-Wednesday-Comics.html) has some of the details on DC Comic's new weekly offering that is going to go on after Trinity is done in May. It looks like that this will be a large sheet of newsprint that will have various comics printed like they are in your local newspaper, if you have one. There's no price listed in the article for the new comics, but I know the local comic book store owner is going to have kittens keeping track of it because of the shelf space that it'll take up. I'm kind of interested in this, but until I know a price point I'm not going to put it on my pull list.

 

Short Clip from Disney/Pixar's UP

This link (http://www.newsarama.com/common/media/video/player.php?aid=26742) has a short clip from Disney/Pixar's latest offering Up. I watched it and laughed. I then clicked on the Up trailer they also have on the Newsarama web site and laughed my head off. I will never look at my dogs the same way again after I saw that trailer. I will also never hear the word 'squirrel' the same way again. I also read a little bit of the back story that someone posted on a message board and it moved me to tears. Up will make kids and kids at heart laugh and stir something inside the adults in the theaters.

 

Wizard Cancels Another One

According to this link (http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090327-anime-insider.html) on the Newsarama web site it has been confirmed that Wizard Press has cancelled their Anime Insider magazine as of issue 67. Well, I guess I should have seen this coming. Since the electronics chain Best Buy decided to cut back and later clearance their Anime section, I think anime in the United States is going to go back to being an underground thing. Granted, one of the longest running Anime conventions is here in Dallas I don't think it will be completely eradicated from the United States altogether. Pretty soon, all Wizard Press is going to be down to magazine wise is just Wizard and I think it will be the last to go, and may just keep the company afloat through this rough patch financially that the entire world is going through.

 

Comics from the end of the month.

The end of March had the standout books The Muppet Show and The Incredibles come out from Boom! Studios. I could not even get the first page read of the Muppet book fully read without stopping and putting the book down. Not because the writing or art is so bad, but because the book is so damn funny. The first page with the newscaster is worth the three bucks it costs to pick up the book if you can find it. I purchased the last issue my local comic shop had along with one of the three remaining first issues of The Incredibles comic too. All they had left was the Frozone/Jack-Jack cover which I thought would have been the first to go. The Incredibles book takes the same tone as the movie and is very entertaining. If you are worried about missing them the first time around, don't. Boom! Press is going back to make a second printing of both books because they sold out so fast, but don't look for them to be like the Obama issue of Amazing Spider-Man where they come out two weeks apart from the original printing. I read that Boom is planning to have them out some time this month, but I would wager more towards the end of April is when they are out. Next month I'm doing my part for the round robin story we're having on site so be back for that and always, I'll be here with more Random Crap.

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