Fanboy News Network

The DC New 52 one year later

2012-09-02T09:10:00.002-07:00

http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/the-dc-new-52-one-year-later/

The Dark Knight Rises: A comic fan’s perspective

2012-07-25T14:39:00.002-07:00

http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/the-dark-knight-rises-a-comic-fans-perspective/

How this blog will live on

2012-07-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

Hello,

As I have migrated to http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com I have not been making any updates here. I have decided I will start posting links to the new updates here to help promote the new site. So here are the links to the posts I have made that were not posted here. Warning. The latest is a doozy.

http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/137/

http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/dc-new-52-things-begin-to-unravel/

http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/thoughts-on-san-diego-comic-con/

http://www.fanboynewsnetwork.com/misogyny-in-geek-culture/

We've moved

2012-06-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Starting today all updates can be found at www.fanboynewsnetwork.com

Please join us as we continue are online exploration of geek culture there.

The Justice League Movie: Potential treat, or impending train wreak.

2012-06-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

This week DC entertainment announced that they have hired Will Beall to write a script for a Justice League movie. There are also rumblings of trying to get a new Wonder Woman movie going again, as well as Lobo and Suicide Squad movies. This really isn’t surprising. I imagine that with the Avengers currently sitting as the third highest grossing movie of all time that there is a lot of pressure to get the DC properties steaming along.

I can only imagine what DC entertainment president Diane Nelson has to deal with right now. The success of not just the Avengers, but the entire Marvel Cinema Universe highlights how much the DC properties not about Batman have struggled. The DC characters are very powerful and prominent intellectual properties, yet they have not be able to gain any traction.

I think the problem isn’t a hard one to figure out. It’s DC entertainment’s parent company, Warner Brothers.

Last August I looked at the Green Lantern movie in comparison to Captain America. Captain America was a movie that reveled in its comic book roots and yet remembered that it had to be an enthralling action movie for the general audience. Rather than dumb down the character for mass consumption Marvel made sure to build up Steve Rogers so that the movie going public would love him as much as the longtime fans.

Green Lantern by comparison was a stock summer block buster that had a generic action movie plot and Ryan Reynolds playing a character much like he has in most movies he has been in. In other words Warner Brothers was playing it safe. I have a feeling that the production of the movie was very influenced by focus groups.

The end result was a hit of Marvel and an underperformer for DC.

The point I am getting at is that Warner Brothers isn’t playing to the strengths of the DC properties. Marvel has made six movies that know full well they are action hero fantasies and instead of trying to bring their heroes into the real world they are trying to create a believable version of their superhero universe. Disney bought Marvel part way through this and made the wise decision to leave them alone as the plan is working.

Warner Brothers on the other hand does not seem to trust that the audience will embrace a theatric version of the DC universe. The words that keep getting thrown around are “Dark”, “Gritty”, and “Mature”. That works great for Batman as Christopher Nolan has shown, but not so much for Superman, or Wonder Woman.

If you don’t believe me on that point I suggest track down a copy of the recent Wonder Woman pilot. Instead of the strong but compassionate hero she was created to be, Wonder Woman was portrayed as a grim badass who would torture a bed ridden mook for information and straight up kill a security guard who got in her way. Basically she was unsympathetic and the show was terrible.

Not to say that this approach won’t work for all heroes, for example Green Arrow. There is a new Green Arrow series coming this fall that looks pretty good. It is going the darker route, but Green Arrow being a non-powered hero like Batman can make that work. But even this one seems to be victim to focus group shenanigans. The show and the hero in it are just being called Arrow. Apparently due to the failure of Green Lantern the word green is now taboo in a superhero name.

I have an idea that I would like to suggest to Warner Brothers. Bring on Bruce Timm for your film efforts. Timm was the driving force behind the DC animated universe that gave us Batman the animated series, Superman the animated series and Justice League unlimited. These were great and comic and non-comic fans alike loved them. Let Bruce write up some script treatments and whatever you do WB, do not let a focus group anywhere near them.

Seattle: The Birth of the Geek Capital of the World

2012-05-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

My claim that Seattle is the Geek Capital of the World grows stronger all the time.

We currently have the King Tut Exhibit at the Science Center.

Our Science Fiction Museum is about to open an Icons of Science Fiction Exhibit.

And we have a growing battle between a Real Life Superhero and a Real Life Supervillian.

And I will be writing about all of those in the future.

But today rather than the future, I would like to talk about the past. Because if you want to know why Seattle is so prone to generate geek culture you have only to look to its History.

It is a history of conflict, con-artistry, sex, booze, political intrigue, violence, legal maneuvering, and a suspicious fire. I am at a lost as to why so far I can only find two cases where Hollywood has used that history in screenplays.

There is no way I am going to cover all of Seattle’s great history in this post. But I will highly recommend three books if you are so inclined. The first is Sons of the Profits by Bill Speidel. If you want to really understand Seattle’s history for just how entertaining it is, this is the book for you. Its tone is light, and points out how the fate of the region turned on a dime….or a nickel, or however much they could make.

Speidel also wrote Doc Maynard: the man who invented Seattle which covers the history of one of the key city founders. Finally Skid Row by Murray Morgan, and yes, that term was coined in Seattle.

So what are the points of interest that make Seattle history great?

You have the feud between Arthur Denny and his party, and David “Doc” Maynard. Denny and party were Republican Methodist and teetotaler. Maynard was a Democrat and he was definitely not a teetotaler. Each settled in different parts of the area, but close enough that it was clear that Seattle would be made up of both their land.

And how did this play out. Well look at a map of downtown Seattle today.

See how parts of it seem to come together haphazardly. This is the legacy of two men building up their territory with no regard to the other, and some more than healthy stubbornness.

Maynard was not well liked by the other members of the Seattle establishment for things like being a Democrat, His friendship with Chief Sealth (also known as Chief Seattle whom the city was named for) and the fact that he made several business deals designed to boost the city rather than line his pocket. Seriously there is a movie in there.

Denny and friends also objected to a theory of Maynard’s about what was needed to help a frontier town grow. Maynard had a hand in the development of Cleveland OH. One of the lessons he learned there was one way to help an area grow was to promote prostitution. To this end he encouraged one John Pinnell to set up shop. He also worked with Mary Ann Conklin AKA Mother Damnable in setting up her brothel. Just to be clear neither Pinnell nor Conklin set up the infamous Seattle Seamstresses union. That was Madam Lou Graham who was after Maynard’s time. Graham however did use her profits from the “Seamstresses” to help finance much of Seattle’s turn of the Century development.

A counter point to all this fun and games was Asa Mercer. Mercer understood the basics of Maynard’s theory, that in a frontier town the men get lonely and female companionship helps them and in turn helps the area. Mercer had a different idea how to go about it. Between 1864 and 1866 Mercer made two trips to the east coast to recruit women to come back to Seattle to find husbands. He managed to bring 46 women to the area. If your family has roots in the Pacific Northwest going back several generations, you have over 70% odds of being descended from the Mercer girls. A 60’s TV Show Here comes the Brides was based on this story.

Oh and there was that fire.

On June 6^th 1889 a fire broke out that would claim 32 city blocks. Despite the damage only one death was reported, a boy James Goin, and there is some dispute if he actually died in the fire.

No one is sure what caused the fire, the story of it starting in a paint shop were just rumors at the time. But what is sure is that it was the best thing that happened to downtown Seattle.

You see downtown Seattle was basically built at sea level. This was great for the lumber mill, but not so great for the businesses, as every high tide the toilets would flood, amongst other problems. When the city was rebuilt after the fire it was built up higher avoiding the flooding. There was also a economic boost from the jobs the reconstruction created. While there is no evidence that the fire was set deliberately, that fact that it was more blessing than curse does lead to some speculation

This also led to a Seattle having an interesting tourist attraction. The series of Underground passages and basements have come to be known as the Seattle Underground. Just think about an area like this, and then consider what must have gone on during prohibition. And do not ask my sister and I what we may or may not have done during our misspent youth. If you visit the area you can take a tour of the safer parts of this. The Seattle Underground was used as a major plot point in the TV movie The Night Strangler staring Darrin McGavin, which was a sequel to the Night Stalker.

And all this is just the tip of the iceberg. Look at this and tell me that there is not a movie or HBO series just begging to be made.

For me this weird clash of uptight moralism, hedonism, profiteer and roguish behavior set the stage for the geek friendly city that I call home.

The Avengers: The movie I have waited for my whole life

2012-05-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when writing an article things just don’t come out the way you want.

I’ve tried three times to write about the Avengers movie. In the end what stymied me was that with it’s phenomenal success. Everyone has written about it, about the effect it will have on future Marvel movies, future comic book based movies and the careers of the creative people involved.

If you are reading this blog I am going to assume you have seen the Avengers, are going to see the Avengers, or ended up here by mistake.

So this is not going to be a review of the Avengers.

This is going to be a personal examination of how I felt watching the Avengers.

As I am sure I have stated before I grew up reading comics. As far back as I can remember my dad would read me comic books at bed time. He used comics to teach me to read. So I have been literally reading comic books all my life.

And I never thought I would get to see a movie like the Avengers.

As I was growing up, any translation of comic book heroes to live action were lack luster at best. The 70’s and 80’s had several Marvel heroes on TV, Spider-man, Hulk, Captain America and Doctor Strange. Of all of them Spider-man was the closest to making the character I grew up with.

Really the first two Superman movies were the gold standard for years.

And getting multiple heroes together in one movie, forget it.

There was one attempt in the in 1979. It was Legends of the Superheroes. It started Adam West as Batman. I think right there you can guess how bad it was.

In 1997 there was an attempt to make a Justice League TV show. It was an adaptation of the Giffen and DeMatteis run, which was already humorous. They cast David Ogden Stiers as the Martian Manhunter. Here is the result.

So I pretty much gave up on a cool team up happening.

Then Marvel decided to start making movies.

The moment Nick Fury showed up post credits in Iron Man a sense of excitement started. Could they really pull it off?

And as we have seen, the answer is yes.

As Nash Bozard of Radio Dead Air (an online show you should be watching) put it, it was the best possible Avengers movie that could be made.

Watching it I realized that I had been waiting my whole life for this movie. It was true to the characters, it had action, it had story, and it had heart.

The bar has been raised and I for one cannot wait to see where we go from here.

Oh, and this is for you Nash

Review: Ninja the Mission Force

2012-05-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

Let me introduce you to Ed Glaser. He is the owner and executive producer of Dark Maze Studios, an independent producer of films and web series which prides itself on the micro budgets of its production.

The latest offering from Dark Maze Studios is the 10 part web series Ninja the Mission Force. To explain this series I first have to provide some background.

In the 1980s there was a film maker named Godfrey Ho. Ho would obtain the rights to distribute various unreleased Asian action movies. To improve the U.S. appeal for these films he would shoot footage of caucasian actors dressed as ninjas and edited them into the films and then overdub everything to attempt to make them mesh as one story. What resulted was series of movies with a high WTF factor.

Glaser took this concept and ran with it.

The main plot of NTMF is a battle between Gordon (a ninja working for Interpol) and Bruce (leader of the Evil Ninja Empire) to gain control of the seven avian ninja warrior statues (seven rubber ducks in ninja costumes) that will grant the possessor of all seven ultimate ninja power.

Gordon (played by Glaser) is also dealing with the mysterious disappearance of his wife (played by Sarah Lewis) years ago. This is mitigated somewhat by a virtual avatar of her he interacts with through her self-videotaping project she completed before she vanished.

Bruce (Played by Brad Jones, better known as internet reviewer The Cinema Snob) has anger management issues. Every time one of his minions disappoints him (fails to defeat Gordon, loses the formula to create a zombie horde, gets his lunch order wrong, etc.) he feeds them to his just off screen tiger.

Both have agents that are out in the world searching for the avian ninja warrior statues. These agents are represented through scenes form public domain movies that are edited into each episode. Taking it a step further than Ho, the movies used are often as far from a ninja movie as you can get, including Orson Wells’ The Stranger, John Travolta’s Boy in the Plastic Bubble, and the original Night of the Living Dead. The new dubbed dialog takes these in new directions. The scenes from Boy in the Plastic Bubble are the set up for the Zombie horde and Night of the Living Dead features dogs whose brains have been put into human bodies and set after Gordon’s agents. In keeping with the spirit of the Ho movies, every episode has the word “ninja” in the title.

The overall tone of the show is absurd camp. The ninja fights are staged to highlight the fact that none of the actors have any martial arts training, and yet are presented as master fighters. The first episode features Gordon fighting a cheese ninja and overcoming him using his knowledge of bacon fu.

Each episode is 10 to 15 minutes long. This allows them to move the story along, tell their jokes, and not wear out their welcome.

The biggest strength of the show is also its greatest weakness. The over the top campiness will endear it to some and turn off others.

Overall I find Ninja the Mission force to be an excellent example of a web series. It combines it low budget and campy nature, with some cleaver writing and total commitment by the cast to create a unique program.

Final grade for Ninja the mission for is B+

You can find Ninja the Mission Force online at http://darkmaze.com/ninjathemissionforce/

You can also find in on http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/ and http://thecinemasnob.com/

Site update

2012-05-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry I missed last Saturday's posting. A combination of illness and the article I was working on not coming out the way I hoped led to that happening. I am working on a post for tomorrow.

I'm still working on the move to the www.fanboynewsnetwork.com domain. I am waiting on one last element to be finished before I make the move. Once the move is completed I will get to work on setting up the Podcast.

Starting with tomorrow's post I will be adding a rating system to any reviews. I will be using an A through F grading system with A+ being an all time classic, C being enjoyable, but flawed, and F being please do not waste your time with the tripe.

Finally I will not be getting a chance to see Avengers until tomorrow night. I will review it, but it will be a special mid-week post.

Dinner at the movies

2012-04-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

I think we can all agree on one simple fact, the vast majority of geeks love films. That almost all of the top ten grossing films of all time are geek focused, or at least geek friendly attest to that.

And going to see films in the theater is still a big deal. My friends and I are already making our plans to go see the Avengers.

Unfortunately there is a sad truth we have to face. Movie theaters are an at risk industry. First off you have the competition for entertainment dollars with Streaming movies, rental, and gaming. Add to that that theaters don’t see much profit on sales. The truth is that in most cases the theater only gets 10% on the ticket sales. It’s considered a general truth that movie theaters are in danger and you see more and more closing due to this. Theater owners are left trying to find ways to keep in business.

One model that is seeing some success is combining movie theaters with full service restaurants.

If you are not familiar with this concept it works something like this. You come to the theater, buy your ticket and go sit down as normal. There is often a cabaret style table in front of your seat and a menu. After you are seated a server will come and take your meal order. Food will be delivered directly to your seat. Many also have a way to order during the movie using slips that does not interfere with the viewing experience. About a half hour before the movie is over they will bring you the bill.

No, really.

There are two national chains that I know of that are doing this right now. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Cinebarre. There is a theater called Gold Class Cinema which is a subset of Village Cinema that does this, with a twist. More on that later.

Right now Alamo Drafthouse has theaters in Texas and Virginia; it is looking to expand shortly to New York, California, and Colorado. Cinebarre has locations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington.

Before going forward I want to point out that I have been a regular at the Puget Sound Cinebarre for the last two years, but I have never been to an Alamo Drafthouse. Cinebarre was formed by a former Alamo Drafthouse co-owner so I imagine that the experiences are similar, which my research backs up..

So will this model help keep theaters alive. Right now the potential is certainly there. The big thing here is the revenue source. Having a full restaurant and a bar that can serve beer and wine provides a good profit margin. The other thing a theater like this can provide is customer loyalty.

Both chains are very proactive about in theater etiquette. Alamo Drafthouse has made national news about the ways they have dealt customers who will not stop talking or texting. I have personally witnessed Cinebarre ejecting a rowdy group that would not shut up. I don’t know about you, but right there you have my vote.

Another advantage is there is no need to sell commercial space. Nether chain has commercials on screen other than previews and the occasional promo for things like local film festivals. Instead you get shorts, often themed to match the movie.

And let’s be honest here, we have all had that experience were you go out and get dinner before the movie and due to slow service you start worrying you will miss show time. Obviously not an issue if dinner is served at the theater.

Speaking of dinner, let’s talk about the food. Again, I have not been to Alamo Drafthouse so I have no personal experience, but my understanding is that it is very similar to what I have had at Cinebarre. The food I have had is good quality diner food. It is burgers, pizza, sandwiches, and chicken strips. I have always stated that it is the exact quality I expect for what I pay. I took a friend there once and he was expecting to just tolerate his burger. The quote when he took his first bite was “holy crap, this is a good burger.”

Also this model can take advantage of another sad trend. Multiplexes are closing down. Well that leaves open buildings perfect for a remake. The Cinebarre near me use to be a Lowes multiplex. They just took out one theater and made it the kitchen, and remodeled the rest to include the tables and space for the servers to walk. Every time I hear about a theater closing I think here is a chance for a new theater/restaurant.

I mentioned earlier about Gold Class Cinema and that there was a twist to how they do it. In their case they are prompting themselves as a luxury movie experience, with recliners in place of theater seats, state of the art technology and high end food. But this comes with a price. At Cinebarre I pay the same for a ticket as I do at most other theaters in the area. At Gold Class I would need to pay $30.00 to get in.

I feel I have been spoiled by the Cinebarre in my area and in the two years since I discovered it I have seen all of three movies elsewhere and two of those were IMAX. And in the third case I found myself becoming annoyed by the commercials and the crowd.

So in the end I am going to admit I like this trend. It is a way to keep the theater going experience alive and thriving. I fully expect that in about five years we will see this trend expanded and much more common. I have yet to take someone that has not loved the experience and now have several friends where it is our default theater.

Of course I really want to get a chance to go to an Alamo Drafthouse at some point to compare the two.

Food of the Geeks

2012-04-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

One dream everyone of any sub culture has is the dream of a hangout, a place where you can just be yourself and be surrounded by people who share your interests. A lot of sub cultures have these kinds of places. My sister, the queen of all Goths (no really, I have evidence) has introduced me to many clubs that cater to her scene. There are also country/western bars, sports bars, punk bars, and new age coffee houses.

What all of these places have in common is a source of revenue that is not directly tied to the sub culture they are catering to. The reason you need to have that revenue source is simple. You need to pay the bills to keep the space open so that we can have our great hang out.

Well, what about geek culture? Where do we get to hang out?

Conventions don’t count. There are events that happen at specific times and then are over.

For a lot of us the hang out of choice has been the local comic book shop. It has the prerequisite source of income and some of them even have places to sit. But it is missing something that all my other examples had; a product that can be consumed by someone that has dragged there by a friend.

I’m not a Goth, but thanks to my sister I have found myself in more than one Goth club. Even though I am not Goth, I can still get a drink.

If I drag someone not into geek culture to a comic book shop what are they going to do? Hang out and listen to me argue the merits of the DC new 52 with the other guys there?

It’s not like there are geek themed bars and restaurants out there.

Or are there?

Remember in my Power of the Geek post, where I said that the geek vote is a powerful thing and gaining its good will can bring great success. Well of late some enterprising nerds have realized this, and have created themed establishments meant to cater to the geek crowd.

In New York you have The Way Station, a bar where you have steam punk weapons over the bar and the door to the restrooms is a replica of the TARDIS.

Here in the shadow of Seattle, the geek capital of the world (apparently there is now a study backing me up on that) we have the AFKtavern. It is a geek friendly restaurant and bar. It is heavily gaming themed, but they have a broad appeal to the geek spectrum. It is well lit, has good food, and you can order games from a menu that they will bring to your table.

I’ve never been to the Way Station so I cannot speak from experience, but they have good reviews so I will say give them a glance if you are in the area.

The AFK I can say does hit the nail on the head as far as being a geek hangout. As I said earlier, they have a source of revenue separate from the geek culture, that being their food, which is pretty good.

But you also have to play to your culture. As I stated earlier in addition to food and drink they have games on the menu. Everything from Apples to Apples to Munchkin, to D&D. They have a vending machine that has dice and Magic: the Gathering cards. A couple of the tables are big enough for food and gaming books and maps. They also have banks of console games. Lately when I have gone in there is usually someone playing Skyrim. Then menu itself is a lot of fun as they give a geek spin to everything on the menu. Garlic Cheese bread is called Dwarven Battle Bread and the chili cheese fries are fries +2. One of the popular drinks is called the Arrow to the Knee.

Theme nights are big there too. Cosplay is also encouraged. I have yet to go in there and not see at least a few people in costume. I think it was brave on one soul to come in dressed as a ninja on pirate night. The week of Norwescon when half the staff was at the convention it was meat on a stick night.

The one drawback I see is the curse of a successful idea. It is often packed on the weekends and unless you call ahead you can wait well over an hour for a table. I know that doesn’t sound like a problem but if walk-ins can’t get in they will just leave and then warn their friends away. It’s a fine line that a business like this has to walk and while it is going well so far I do hope they are looking at ways to deal with this for the future.

Overall my hope is that this trend will continue and we will see geek themed clubs and restaurants becoming more common.

There is another offshoot of this that needs to be looked at. The movie theaters with full service restaurants, but that will have to wait until next week.

Upcoming Fanboy changes

2012-04-10T13:52:00.001-07:00

This last weekend I attended Norwescon for the first time in 12 years. I think this is what a high school reunion must feel like. Catching up with people I have not seen in years. It was a blast.

While at the convention I attended every new media panel they had. It was highly informative. I was looking for ideas to use in the upcoming video series. Instead what I got was a whole new battle plan.

So here is what you can expect in the near future for Fanboy News Network.

I will continue the blog as is with updates on Saturday. However I will soon be migrating the blog to www.fanboynewsnetwork.com using Wordpress. The blog posts will continue to be the editorial format, but will no longer cover recent news or recent movies.

This leads us to the big change. Once the blog is moved to the new site I am going to start doing a weekly podcast that will cover geek news from the previous weeks and reviews of recent movies. Eventually I hope to do interviews as well.

I will also do video updates but they are going to be less frequent at first as they are more labor intensive. Videos will be for things where there is a need for visuals, such as reviews of older movies and events such as taking a trip through EMP to cover their Science Fiction and Horror exhibits, or a tour of Seattle to prove we are the geek capital of the world.

My hope is that this more multimedia approach will allow me to not only create more content for the site but to help build Fanboy News Network as a brand. If nothing else it will give me additional creative outlets.

Now I just need to work on getting a logo and a theme song.

Emerald City Comicon the final 2012 update

2012-04-05T21:43:00.000-07:00

After a few days rest and the prep for another convention I am ready to look back on Emerald City Comicon.

For any convention after it is over there are two central questions to you need to ask to gauge it’s success: Did I enjoy myself and will I be back next year. For me the answer to both is a clear yes. I had a good time and I look forward to attending again.

With that covered there are a few things I would like to go over.

First is the size of the crowd. As I covered in the day two update attendance was so high on Saturday that the fire marshal shut down registration. One rumor I heard was that Saturday’s numbers were greater than all of last year’s. I can’t say for sure as I have not seen any officially numbers yet. ECCC has been a steadily growing convention, and has slowly been using more and more of the Washington State Convention center. Based on this year’s event they will probably need to use even more of the facility next year.

Due to some of the behavior’s I witnessed at the show, after I finish with Norwescon this upcoming weekend I will need to write more on con attending etiquette. Someone suggested I need to write a book on the subject, but let’s start with a couple more articles and see where we go.

The panels still tend to be centered on the comic book industry. Yes you have the media guests and they do get the biggest room, but the majority of the other rooms are used for panels based on the comic book industry. This has certainly given the show a good reputation in the industry and I hope they stay the course on this.

Cosplay was in fine form during the show. The one down side was that the area set aside for cosplay photo ops was right outside the main dealer floor. When the crowding happened on Saturday you could barely move.

And for those who were following my cosplay tally, here are the final numbers for the show.

· Doctor who: 29

· Captain America: 18

· Joker: 14

· Batman: 14

· Superman: 14

· Harley Quinn: 13

· Poison Ivy: 11

· Batgirl: 11

· Robin: 11

· Wonder Woman: 9

· The TARDIS:9

· Supergirl: 7

· Spider-man: 7

· Green Lantern: 7

· Catwoman: 7

· Riddler: 7

· Zatanna: 6

· Black Canary: 4

· Phoenix: 4

· Iron Man: 3

· Nightwing: 3

· Rogue: 3

· Death (from Sandman): 3

· Doctor Octopus: 2

· Powergirl: 2

· Hulk: 2

· Batwoman: 2

· Green Hornet: 2

· Dalek: 2

· Red Ranger: 2

· Doctor Horrible: 2

· Captain Hammer: 2

An Honorable mention goes to Hawkman. Only one person went as him, but his wings moved.

That wraps up this show. I will have a new post mid next week after I recover from Norwescon detailing how that show goes.

Emerald City Comicon Day Three

2012-04-01T21:03:00.000-07:00

The final day of a convention can be a bitter sweet affair. You have had a great team, you will miss all the experiences, and you are exhausted and just want to get home and soak your poor abused feet.

I only attended two panels, the Summer Glau and Adam Baldwin panels. The Browncoat in me required it. They were fun panels. Summer is obviously a sweet girl and was adorable on stage. Adam is an old veteran who knows how to connect to the crowd.

I spent the rest of the day checking out booths I had not gotten to previously and catching up with old WotC colleagues I had not seen in a while. Towards the end of the day I ended up helping out at the booth my wife was vending at. This led to my awesome moment of the day.

One of the items my wife makes is a bracelet with a heat sensitive stone like an old mood ring at the center. A little girl about 4 or 5 years old was with her parents at the table and I encouraged her to touch the stone. As the stone turned color I could see the gears in her head start working. She was trying to figure out how I was making the color change. She keep looking at her had expecting ink. And she was not going to take this nonsense I was telling her about science and body heat. Somehow I was making the green stone turn blue and she was going to work it out.

And before I give you the tally of today’s cosplay I want to share a revelation I had. My identifying and recording the various costumes I saw was basically the fannish equivalent of trainspotting.

And with that thought firmly in place here are the results for Sunday.

· Superman: 7 finally knocking Doctor Who out of the top spot.

· Doctor Who: 6

· Captain America: 4

· The TARDIS: 3

· Supergirl: 3

· Spider-man: 3

· Riddler: 3

· Power Girl: 2

· Green Lantern: 2

· Robin: 2

· Harley Quinn: 2

· Joker: 2

· Poison Ivy: 2

· Wonder Woman: 2

Tomorrow I will do the final review of the convention, after I get a good night's sleep.

Emerald City Comicon Day Two

2012-03-31T22:41:00.002-07:00

Second day of the convention.

The big news was the show hitting capacity. Someone told me it was 10,000 people. It seemed like more. It was bad enough that the fire marshal had registration shut down and was not letting people who stepped outside to come back in until the crowd thinned. This crowding was most evident in the area outside of the dealer floor. It has been where cosplayers have gone for photo ops. It was so crowded that you could barely move. I think some expansion of space may need to happen next year. An upside of this is that everyone I know that is running a booth had very good sales.

Panels I attended.

Will Wheaton’s 90 minute awesome hour. It’s pretty much what it says on the tin. I have never seen anyone able to work a crowd as well as Will Wheaton. He knows his audience and knows how to play to them to perfection.

Marvel: pint of O’ C.B., which is basically Marvels big news panel. It was a good show case for what Marvel is up to. There were two highlights for me. One was a very honest answer to the question of the lack of female creators. They are aware of it and looking for ways to address it, but right now it is a continuing issue that plagues the whole industry and will probably take years to turn around. The other highlight was when Matt Fraction was asked about his writing of Dr. Strange as very creepy. Fraction countered that Strange is creepy and used that fact that he entered into a romantic relationship with his student Clea. Fraction felt that crossing that line informed a lot about the character.

DC Comics: The New 52. This was a lot better than the DC panel from the previous day. Tough questions were not ignored. A big one was how DC addresses old readers leaving in wake of the New 52 does. Gail Simone led the way in answering that stating that change can be hard but the writers are dedicated to doing their best by the characters. This led the rest of the panel to give their opinions as well. Overall a much more satisfying experience than the day before.

Next were back to back panels featuring Christopher Judge of Stargate SG-1 and George Takei. I will save fuller write-ups on these for the post con report. But let’s just say both were great speakers.

Most awesome moment of the day came early on when I met up with an old friend of mine, Ryan K. Johnson. Ryan is a film maker and it the late eighties and early nineties I worked with him on several fannish films, including Star Trek the Pepsi generation. While talking he told me that he really likes the blog. As a creative person I really respect his praise meant a lot to me.

As for my little cosplay contest, here are the scores for Saturday. Please note that these are new people in the costumes. If it was someone from the day before wearing the same costume I did not count them.

· Doctor Who: 15 our winner the second day in a row.

· Joker: 10

· Batman:9

· Captain America: 8

· Batgirl: 7

· Wonder Woman: 6

· Robin: 6

· Harley Quinn: 6

· Poison Ivy: 5

· Superman: 4

· Thor: 4

· Catwoman: 4

· Zatanna: 4

· Green Lantern: 3

· Deadpool: 3

· Phoenix: 3

· Rogue: 3

· Batwoman: 2

· Hulk 2

· Doctor Octopus: 2

· Nightwing: 2

· Iron Man: 2

· Supergirl: 2

· Spider-man:2

· TARDIS: 2

· Riddler: 2

See everyone tomorrow for the last day of the Con.

Emerald City Comicon Day One

2012-03-30T21:33:00.001-07:00

Quick overview of Day one of Emerald City Comicon.

First up, the panels.

I attended the Women of Webseries panel. It was definitely what the title suggested, local women working on producing, writing, directing, and staring in webseries. I got some good ideas for the projects I want to work on and a lot of inspiration.

DC All Access panel was next. You would think that a panel at a comic convention that is the news panel for one of the big two it would be kick ass. No such luck. The pros on the panel did some quick shilling of their upcoming projects. When it got to question and answer time that was a lot of deflection. One question asked about the status of Wally West and Donna Troy in the new 52 DCU, the answer was to make a joke and then ask the audience if they would like to win a prize for answering a trivia question.

The next panel was about the history of Wonder Woman for an academic and psychological perspective. The speaker was a tenured professor at Oregon State University for teaches minors program on comic book studies. He was awesome. And as much as I have researched at lot of the same history he covered I still learned some new stuff.

I wanted to get into a panel featuring noted voice actors but it was too full a room.

Next is the dealer floor.

This year has a good mix of comic shops, convention dealers, comic companies, artists and everything else you would expect. Due to the show still growing, this year the gaming based dealers were moved to a new area. It’s a bit of a walk to get there, but it is nice to see the growth.

My wife is a vendor this year and that fact lead to my most awesome moment of the day. She makes gaming dice shaped soap. I took a set to Randy Milholland, the creator of Something Positive. When I gave them to him his face lit up, and he had to show his booth mate Danielle Corsetto, creator of Girls with Slingshots. Mission accomplished and he gave me a sketch and print in return.

Cosplay

So I have decided to keep score of the characters people cosplay as this year. Basically if I see at least two people as a character I start keeping track. I will declare a daily winner and an overall convention winner. Here are today’s scores.

· Doctor Who: 8 Today’s winner

· Captain America: 6

· Harley Quinn: 5

· Batman: 4

· Poison Ivy: 4

· The TARDIS: 4

· Robin: 3

· Black Canary: 3

· Superman: 3

· Batgirl: 3

· Green Lantern: 2

· Catwoman: 2

· Supergirl: 2

· Spider Man:2

· Doctor Horrible:2

· Captain Hammer: 2

· Death from Sandman: 2

· Dalek: 2

· Red Power Ranger: 2

· Riddler: 2

· Green Hornet: 2

See you tomorrow for the next update.

The Fanboy Convention Survival Guide

2012-03-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Ah, conventions. That time when those of us that make up geek culture can come together and celebrate. In the next two weeks there will be three fan conventions in my area. Easter weekend is huge for conventions here in the Geek Capital of the World.

As such it seems fitting to devote some time to this center piece of geek culture.

If you have never been to one it can be a bit daunting the first time. It’s not like a trade convention where people come to see the new products and get tips on how to sell next year’s new vacuum. I am talking about fan conventions.

The first thing to clarify is that not all fan conventions are alike. The three upcoming are considered different genres. So when I say a convention is a fan convention it could be any of the following either as a single focus or some thematic mix:

· Science Fiction

· Anime

· Comic Book

· Horror

· Filk (think folk songs with a geek twist)

· Steampunk

· Tabletop Gaming

· Computer Gaming

· Costuming

· Specific Fandom (Star Trek, Firefly, Buffy, etc…)

· Specific mythology (often fairy based, but others can happen)

With all this diversity these events all have one thing in common. People have a chance to come together and mingle with others who share a specific interest.

So if you are going to go forth and attend a convention here are some tips.

First is what has come to be known as the 5/2/1 rule. It is a straight forward rule to ensure your health and well-being as well as making sure others will still want to be around you. The rule is simply this; every day of the event you need to have a minimum of 5 hours sleep, 2 full meals, and 1 shower. Really just basic maintenance but during an event when you want to cram in as much as possible it becomes surprisingly easy to miss these.

Also keep in mind that you are going to be in a limited area when a lot of people. It is not uncommon for illness to spread in these conditions. We often call this “con crud.” I recommend that during the event pay attention to health details like washing your hands. Also taking a multi vitamin during this time is not a bad idea.

Besides health issues, the other thing to keep in mind is the social aspect. Yes, you are in a place where you are surrounded by people with a shared interest. This does not free you from normally accepted social behavior. Trust me when I say that being polite and remembering personal boundaries is still important.

The flip side is to remember that other people are there to have fun too. If someone is indulging in a part of fandom you do not participate in, such as cosplay or gaming, remember it is important to them and be respectful.

To sum this up, as one person once taught me, at all times keep your brain with you.

On a personal front, I will be attending Emerald City Comicon this weekend March 30 through April 1. I will be taking notes during the show a will try to have short updates here every day. I will also be tweeting from the show, my tweeter is @caliban1227.

The following weekend I will be at Norwescon, I will probably still tweet, but I probably will just do a single write up following the con.

Quick update

2012-03-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry for missing this last Saturdays post. Between things getting busy at work and two conventions coming up I ran out of time. I will try to get the post finished and up in the next day or two.

American Horror Story

2012-03-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up one of the shows I liked to watch was Dark Shadows. I was too young to really understand it much beyond “oh neat, monsters,” but I would sit riveted. Years later it was syndicated and I was able to watch it again.

One of Dark Shadows’ intriguing qualities was how it handled casting new characters. Between time travel, parallel worlds and simply a character dying and a new one showing up later, many actors on the show played 4 or 5 different characters. The show often dealt with this by just ignoring it. It became the accepted norm.

And now the new show American Horror Story has decided to follow in its footsteps.

If you have not watched this show you really should.

The premise is that the Harmon family of Boston, Ben, Vivian, and their Daughter Violet, move to Las Angeles for a fresh start after Vivian has a stillbirth and Ben has an affair with a student of his. They move into a restored mansion that was an amazing bargain. Only it turns out that the house is cursed, anyone who dies on its property is trapped there as a ghost.

I am not going to spoil the rest. It is a well-crafted story, and discovering details as it moves along is one of its strengths.

While I was watching the early part of its first season I was wondering how they could sustain the story over multiple seasons. The pacing was great and they gave a lot of revelations but there was no way to avoid the problem Heroes had, a great first season and then a downhill slide.

And then they proved me wrong.

The season finale was in fact the end of the story. As it become clear near the end that they were going to wrap up the producers explained the plan. Each season would be a complete story with new characters. To provide continuity several cast members would stay with the show, but as different characters then before.

I personally think this is brilliant. It allows for a well-paced story with a climax, which is much more satisfying then stretching the story beyond the breaking point that shows like Smallville have.

It also allows for the freedom to sign up some really good actors as they are do not have to commit to anything beyond the one 13 episode season. I’m sure that’s how they got Dylan McDermott for the first season.

It was announced that Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson, and Lily Rabe are returning next season and that they will move from the west coast to the east. If they can keep up the quality from the first season I am there.

Review: John Carter

2012-03-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

John Carter is a movie that has one of the oddest handicaps to overcome, the legacy of its source material. Edgar Rice Burroughs first Barsoom story was published in February 1912 so we are talking about a story that is literally 100 years old. And it is more importantly one of the most influential science fiction series ever. Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Carl Sagan were all inspired by the novels in their work. You can see the influence in Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers, Superman, and Star Wars.

This legacy has led many reviewers to label the story derivative. That’s sort of like someone slamming the Lord of the Rings films as a Dungeons and Dragons rip off. I would prefer they get the order of their chickens and eggs correct.

Ignoring all of that, there is one question that needs to be answered, was it a good movie?

Let’s find out.

The movie uses the same framing device that the first novel used, Edgar Rice Burroughs reading a journal left by his uncle John Carter that details his adventures on Mars.

The movie takes a while to get going setting up the basic Martian conflict, the Burroughs framing device, and where Carter’s life is, before eventually getting him to Mars. It does get points for making the means of transportation make more sense and even a plot point.

Once Carter is on Mars or Barsoom as the inhabitants call it the movie kicks into gear. As is my habit, I will not get into a scene by scene breakdown. But there is a lot to call out.

The script on this movie is pretty strong. There is an actual story happening, not just excuses for action scenes. The characters have motivations that make sense and can but people into conflict without forcing it. It’s not an overly complex story, but it is there.

As John Carter Taylor Kitsch has to basically carry the whole film and overall he does a good job with it. While he is not going to be lauded as the next great action star from his performance he does well and if there is a major flaw it is that there is not a lot of humor in Carter and all his lines are delivered with a great deal of earnestness.

Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris steals just about every scene she is in. True to the books Dejah is a strong courageous woman who can hold her own. The Damsel in Distress aspect from the books is toned down for the movie, but is still evident. Collins plays her as an intelligent woman who is not content to wait for someone to come rescue her, but is not above relying on Carter do help win the day.

Williem Defoe has a harder performance to put across as Tar Tarkas, Carter’s Thark ally. All the Tharks are CGI so Defoe has to use his voice. Reports are that he and the other Thark principals were on set as is the current practice for CGI characters, so he is credited with the full performance, not just voice.

The movie also is a mini reunion for the HBO series Rome. Ciaran Hinds who played Julius Caesar plays Tardos Mors King of Helium and Dejah’s father (at least I think he is. In the books he was her grandfather) James Purefoy, who was Mark Antony plays Mors’ right hand man Kantos Kan, and Polly Walker who was Atia plays the Thark Sarkoja.

Mark Strong as Matai Shang, the antagonist that is motivating most of the action. I like that he opted to play his character as sincere without cruelty. It works better than being a mustache twirler.

Dominic West as Sab Than probably suffers the worst of the entire main cast. As Matai’s pawn he has the weakest motivation of any characters. Frankly he is a bit of a mustache twirler.

Overall I feel this was a good movie and worth seeing. The major flaw I see isn’t with the movie itself, but how Disney has marketed it. It was presented as a standard action flick. A better campaign would have celebrated the history of Barsoom and the legacy of the story. The fact that the title is just John Carter, not John Carter of Mars, shows that they had no idea what to do with it.

I recommend this movie and hope that we see more of Barsoom in the future.

Review: Chronicle

2012-03-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

I finally saw Chronicle last week. I know, I call myself a fanboy and yet it took me two weeks to get around to seeing a movie documenting a geek fantasy come to life. All I can offer in my defense was that I had to go with my sister to see Woman in Black, and then I got really sick.

But enough about me, I have a request to review this movie, and damn it, that is what I am going to do.

Basic set up: Three high school students come across a mysterious object in the woods. After this encounter, they slowly develop telekinetic powers.

The hook: it is a found-footage movie.

When ads came out about this movie I had a mixed reaction. On one hand, I am a leery of the whole found-footage genre. I think it is getting overused and you always have the sense that all the characters you are watching are doomed. On the other hand the trailers looked like it was going to be a good movie.

So which hand won?

First, I think we need to look at what kind of movie we are looking at. Strip away the found footage aspect, and this is at its heart a superhero origin film. But even that is over-simplified, as it does not follow the normal conventions of an origin film either.

I don’t want to give too much away, but basically this is a superhero origin film that does not focus on the person destined to be the hero. In pure geek terms this is like a Spider-man movie that focuses on Harry Osborn.

They also give a good reason why it is a found-footage film. In most films of this subset, it does not make sense why the characters would keep filming as the events progress. Here, Andrew, the main focus of the three leads, is heavily abused and bullied. He starts filming things as a coping mechanism, and as the film progresses it becomes clear that his filming has become obsessive. Also since he is telekinetic he can be filming and still be in the shot. It is a good hand wave and makes this movie much more interesting than a lot of others have been when this technique is used.

The heart of the movie is the main characters and their relationship. Andrew, played by Dane DeHaan , as our camera man is also our main character. As I said above, he is dealing with his father who is an abusive drunk, a mother who is dying, and he is a target of bullies in his neighborhood and school. His retreat behind his camera makes perfect sense. His only friend is his cousin Matt, played by Alex Russell, who is more popular, and has been growing away from him. Rounding out our trio is Steve, played by Michael B. Jordan; a friend of Matt’s who is running for class president.

The first act of the movie is about the three boys bonding after they start gaining their powers. It plays true because I honestly believe that any group of teenage boys in the same circumstance would act the same way.

The second act starts to turn dark as the first signs of strain from Andrew start showing. An abused kid starts getting power; the tragedy is almost a forgone conclusion.

In the third act, when things fall apart you still feel for them, because so much time was spent showing who they are and how they ended up there.

The films weakness comes from the supporting characters. They are just not well-developed. Andrew’s father is just a stereotype, a drunken abuser with no redeeming qualities. There were a couple of chances to give his character some depth, but they were not taken; instead just driving home what a horrible person he is. Andrew’s mother has no character beyond being sick and dying.

I wish a little more depth was given to Matt’s romantic interest, Casey. She is a video blogger, which gives Matt a chance at scenes that do not involve Andrew. It is implied she is into social causes, but really she is there to give Matt someone to relate to beyond his buddies.

As a movie about superpowers it works great. They set the rules the powers obey, and stay consistent to them. They do fall prey to psychic nosebleed trope (please read the rebuttal to this trope here). As previously stated I think the depiction of what the boys do with their powers is very realistic. They do not start out as very powerful, and so they test what they can do, and largely use it to screw around in novel ways. The special effects are fairly effective, especially in conjunction with the home video style. The way they handle the characters flying is especially effective.

Final verdict: This is a very good movie that every self-respecting geek needs to add to their collection once it has its DVD release.

Universal Horror: Frankenstein

2012-02-25T09:59:00.001-08:00

Frankenstein!

Say it and an image immediately pops into people’s heads. The flat head, the electrodes in the neck (that everyone mistakenly calls bolts), the green skin, the heavily lidded eyes, and the lumbering movement.

And not one bit of that description appears anywhere in Mary Shelly’s original novel.

No, you can thank the 1931 motion picture for the popular image of the Frankenstein monster, and for cementing him as an icon of our culture.

To be fair the movie is also largely based on a stage play version, written by Peggy Webling.

One of the challenges in attempting to review this film is to separate it from the very pop culture it spawned.

The movie has an interesting opening. A well-dressed man steps out from behind a curtain. Speaking directly to the audience he warns them that what they are about to see may shock and horrify them.

Then we go to credits. I’ll be honest; I’m not sure what is up with the credits. Behind the title of the movie is the top half of someone’s head and beams are shooting from the eyes. The next part where the cast and crew credits are shown have a swirling kaleidoscope of eyes.

There are two interesting notes in the credits. First is that the monster gets fourth billing and is billed as being played by “?”. These credits are given again at the end and “?” is replace by Boris Karloff.

The other odd credit is “Based on the Novel by Mrs. Percy B. Shelly”. I have not found any reason that Mary Shelly was referred to this way. I have to assume it was just the casual sexism of the 1930s.

I’m not going to do a scene-by-scene break down, so here is the summary:

The first part of the film details Dr. Henry Frankenstein’s efforts to create life by building a body from recent corpses and animating it by way of a new wave length of energy he has discovered. Once he succeeds, the film details the struggle of the Doctor with this new life he has created, and his creation’s attempt to understand the world he has been born too. This spirals out of control as the creature becomes violent due to abuse at the hands of Frankenstein’s assistant Fritz. Tragedy ensues leading to the monster’s demise and the Doctor nearly dying himself.

So let’s start with what works. And the first thing I want to point out is the performance of Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein. I think this role gets glossed over often, due to everyone focusing on Karloff’s performance as the monster. But the movie is as much about Henry as it is the creature. He is a man obsessed, but the foundation of what he is doing is sound. Clive has a great speech shortly after the creature is brought to life about scientific exploration and how its boundaries need to be pushed if anything is to be achieved. However, he has moments that show he is not as well hinged as he wants others to believe. He has moments of mania and despair. A more modern film would probably come right out and say was suffering from bipolar disorder. While a little over the top for modern tastes, for the era it was a really good performance. His lines “It’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive” and “Now I know what it feels like to be God” are classics, and often quoted. This performance set the precedent for all film mad scientists that would come after.

Another stand out is Dwight Frye as Fritz, Frankenstein’s hunchbacked assistant. If Clive set the mold of the Mad Scientist then Frye set the mold for deranged lab assistant. While the level of Henry’s obsession is a slow burn at first, that something is not right with Fritz is clear from the beginning and has nothing to do with his physical deformity. Frye portrays Fritz’s madness well, and walks a fine line in playing big yet never going over the top. Every Igor that followed owes Fritz a debt.

And of course you have Karloff as the monster. There is a reason that this role became an icon. Aided by the amazing make up work of Jack Pierce, Karloff portrayed the creature to perfection. The creature is both innocent and menacing. Karloff wanted to make sure that there was more going on than just a lumbering beast and he succeeded. There is a reason the creature is often portrayed as the good guy in many of the stories and adaptations that followed, and it all goes back to Karloff.

You also have a fine performance from Edward Van Sloan as Henry’s mentor Dr. Walden (he also played the well-dressed man at the opening warning to the audience), who is horrified at what Henry has done, and yet can’t resist the fascination of the science, and a decent performance from Marilyn Harris as the little girl who befriends the monster only to be killed because the creature doesn’t know how strong it really is.

A lot of credit for the success of the movie has to go to director James Whale. His pacing keeps the audience’s attention even 80 years later.

But not everything holds up.

Mae Clarke as Frankenstein’s fiancée Elizabeth is a throw-away part. Her whole purpose in the movie seems to be to worry about Henry and in turn to have him worry about her. While the subplot of their wedding helps drive some of the action, she is not a compelling character.

But even worse is Frederick Kerr as Henry’s father Baron Frankenstein. He is basically a blustering old fool. He adds little to the plot, and at best seems to be comic relief.

The Baron also brings up another point that does work now.

The sets are another issue. Specifically several outdoor scenes are clearly filmed in-studio and you can see streaks on the back drop.

There was also the tacked-on happy ending. It is pretty clear that originally Frankenstein was going to die at the hands of his creation. The studio was not happy with that and had a final scene added that showed Henry convalescing with his father doddering about. In fairness, this scene left the door open for the sequel which many feel is a superior film.

The legacy of this film more than makes up for the short comings I have presented. As I said before, the image of the monster from this movie has become iconic. Every Frankenstein’s monster that has come after is compared to Karloff’s. Also many of the trappings we associate with the story were started here. Nowhere in the Shelly novel is the means of the monster’s creation detailed. But the use of electricity has become common due to the films influence. The same is true of the lab assistant. In the novel, Frankenstein worked alone.

I would also argue that the misunderstood monster came from here. Early scenes with the creature show that it was not inherently aggressive, and that it even wanted a connection with its creator. It was abuse from Fritz and the revulsion of Dr. Walden that made it lash out. Even the death of the little girl was not intentional and clearly upset the creature greatly when he realized she was dead.

And again, Dwight Frye’s Fritz set the tone for the horror film henchman. You see this from Ygor in Son of Frankenstein to Willy Lomas in Dark Shadows and even Riff Raff in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The same is true of Colin Clive’s Dr. Frankenstein. It’s not even worth listing them all. Look at a crazed or obsessed scientist in any move since and you will see echoes of Clive’s performance.

Another influence is in the torch-wielding mob. This has become as much a staple as the gothic castle. And speaking of gothic castles, while this movie did not originate that, it was the first use of the castle thunder effect, and that trope it did start.

I think it also needs credit for kicking off the career of Boris Karloff. His contribution to film and television is significant, and had James Whale not seen him in the Universal commissary, we would have never had him as the narrator of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Finally, this movie is what truly kicked off Universal Horror. Even though Dracula came first, it was Frankenstein’s success that proved to the studio that there was an ongoing audience for horror.

Speaking of Dracula, next time we delve into the Universal Horror vault, we will take a look at the 1931 film with Bela Lugosi.

I can't believe it's not Superman

2012-02-18T12:37:00.001-08:00

With the release of the movie Chronicle I am pleased that a cliché was avoided. Not that the movie is free from them, let’s face it, it is a found footage movie, but there is one I am glad it avoided. (At least I think they did, I haven’t had a chance to go see it yet. I know “Bad Fanboy”)

It’s a movie riffing on superpowers and superheroes where the characters powers are not based on Superman.

Think about it for a minute, name a superhero movie not based on a pre-existing superhero property where the hero’s powers were not basically Superman’s. Seriously the only one that I can name off the top of my head is the Toxic Avenger and I’m not sure he counts.

When I say Superman based I am talking about the following specific powers:

Super strength

Flight

Invulnerability

Other powers will often be present as well, but those three seem to be universal.

I’ll admit that there are a lot of superheroes in comics have these powers and are not considered rip offs of Superman. Rogue of the X-men, the Martian Manhunter, and Thor spring immediately to mind.

But most of the characters I am talking about are clearly taking their cues from Superman.

Now to be fair Superman is a cultural icon and the first image to enter people’s minds when the term superhero is used. But all that tells me is that a lot of screenwriters are lazy. (Let’s all pretend to be shocked). So I guess form most people not immersed in geek culture Superman is synonymous with superhero.

And in most cases these portrayals are exploring ideas that you couldn’t with Superman himself. Superman is the paragon of superheroes. He is confident, noble, and humble. Often these pastiches are exploring ideas that would not fit with those qualities.

Most often you find the story to be about an ordinary person leading an ordinary life suddenly finding themselves with superpowers.

In the sixties you had to competing TV comedies, Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice, which had heroes who gained temporary powers based on a secret formula. While similar ideas both had different execution. Mr. Terrific worked for the government who supplied the super pills that only seemed to work on him. Most episodes had his powers run out at the worst possible time. Captain Nice was a police scientist (no one said forensics back then) who invented a formula that gave him powers. Most episodes were about him needing to get to his formula in order to save the day. The other big difference in these shows was that Mr. Terrific was awkward with his powers, where Captain Nice could handle them, but was stuck with a ridiculous costume his mother made.

Moving on to the eighties and you had the Greatest American Hero, about a school teacher given a superhero costume by aliens that gave him superpowers. Like Mr. Terrific he had poor control over his abilities. The appeal of this show was the buddy cop aspect provided by his FBI friend/partner.

All these shows while having some fun with the everyman superhero idea suffered from the same problem, a problem that all TV shows featuring a super powered hero, be they from a previous license of not, suffered from. Almost none of the antagonists had superpowers. So really none of them ever really had a comic book feel to them, but more of a superhero in the real world vibe.

Movies didn’t always fare much better. You had parodies, like The Return of Captain Invincible. This was a movie where a hero from the 50’s is disgraced and becomes an alcoholic bum. He is found and has to clean up his act in order to save the world from his arch enemy. It was low budget fluff, even if it had Christopher Lee as the bad guy.

There was a terrible Italian movie called Puma Man. Yes, Puma man. His powers were Puma based yet somehow they still made him a Superman Pastiche. His powers were even of extraterrestrial origin. If you heard of this one at all it was because Mystery Science Theater 3000 got their hands on it.

In 1993 there was Meteor Man, which sadly really wasn’t more than Greatest American Hero with an all-black cast.

More recently there was Hancock with Will Smith. To the writer’s credit instead of having a movie about an everyman with powers, it went with “What if Superman was a drunken asshole.” What was nice was they did dig a bit into the characters psychology to given him a reason for being that way and made it a redemption tale.

And there are certainly exceptions. The Incredibles for example was more of a riff on the Fantastic Four.

Sometimes Warner Brothers, who owns DC comics, thinks that these shows get a little too close to their copyright for comfort. For example WB sued over the Greatest American Hero. Ultimately lost as the court felt the character wasn’t close enough to Superman to warrant a violation, even with nearly the same powers.

Of course there are the non-powered heroes, but that could be a whole article on Batman pastiches. (And probably will be)

Will we see more Superman pastiches in the future? I don’t see why not. Until then I think I will get out there and see Chronicle.

The Smallville Smackdown

2012-02-11T12:41:00.000-08:00

This week it was announced that DC entertainment will release a weekly digital comic called Smallville Season 11.

I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence.

Be thankful I haven’t launched the Fanboy News Network video series yet, I would have been yelling.

So why would I be yelling about a continuation of Smallville? Well let’s go over the reasons.

First, while I assume that if you read this blog you know what Smallville is, just in case you don’t here is the quick recap. The show is about the Life of Clark Kent between his freshman year in high school and his assuming the identity of Superman. It lasted 10 seasons. The mantra of the show was “No Flight, No Tights.”

Ok on to the ranting.

Frist thing that springs to mind: Smallville already lasted five seasons too long. Seriously the idea was to show the events that lead Clark on the road to becoming the greatest hero of all time. The four seasons were ok. It was never stellar Television. It was Superman as seen through the lens of Dawson’s Creek. It had two things going for it, a sense of destiny as we know how the two main characters would turn out, and the performance of Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor.

Of course those early seasons had their issues too. Chief amongst them was the miscasting of Kristen Kreuk as Lana Lang. She had no chemistry with series lead Tom Welling. This would not have been so bad except that they cast Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan, a character that had an unrequited crush on Clark. Mack had tons of chemistry with Welling, making Kreuk’s lack of it jarring.

The point here is that at the beginning you had an ok show that did surprisingly well in the ratings. And that may have been its curse. By season five the show had really run its course, but for CW it was doing great ratings so it was renewed. And they kept renewing it.

Maybe if the story had advanced it would not have been awful, but merely bad. But “No Flight, No Tights” meant they had to keep Clark as not quite Superman. What ended up happening was an amazing hack job of the Superman myth that made most fanboys rage. What was worst is that every now and then they actually had something good, like Geoff Johns love letter to the Golden Age with his JSA episodes. But mostly it was crap that went on five years past its expiration date.

The final season was particularly bad in that it started out like most Smallville seasons, but part way through someone in the writers’ room must have woken up.

“Oh crap, this is the last season, we should take the Clark Kent character we have developed and shoehorn him into personality from the comic books.”

I’m not kidding. It was the 9th episode of the 10^th season that Clark Kent started wearing glasses. And was the 13^th before he started with the mild mannered nerd persona. Like people who know him before would not figure out that the Clark Kent they knew for years was Superman. I think it would ended up like being the Saturday Night Live Sketch with the Rock as Clark Kent where everyone know he was Superman and just humored him.

A lot of this could have been forgiven, if they had nailed the series finale. If they gave us that rousing moment when Clark Kent became the Man of Steel and defeated the villain becoming the champion he was meant to be.

That would have been nice.

But Smallville had a history of unsatisfying season finales and I guess they saw no reason to make the series finally any different.

It was a two hour finale, and when Clark finally confronted the bad guy there were 14 minutes left in the episode. In that time the following happened:

· He learned to fly

· He defeated Darkseid, one of the most powerful entities in the DC Universe, by flying through him

· He went to the Fortress of Solitude and got the Superman Costume.

· He saved the airplane Lois Lane was on.

· He flew in the sky and pushed a planet away from Earth.

· Then there was an epilog.

And in none of that was there ever a clear shot of Tom Welling actually wearing the Superman costume. The rumor I keep hearing is that Welling, who was also a producer on the show, refused to wear it. I guess he felt that he should never fully been seen as Superman. What it did was leave the audience feeling cheated.

10 year build up with no pay off.

So now, I assume due to the success of the Buffy Season 8 and 9 comics DC feels they can give us this pay off.

I have an idea. If you want to see Clark Kent at the beginning of his career as Superman read the current run of Action Comics. At least they are going about it honestly.

For me the big mystery is why I watch that damn show for all ten seasons.

The only answer I can come up with is that I am such a comic fanboy that since It was something related to Superman thus I was obligated.

Or maybe some part of me knew that one day I would write a geek culture blog and I would need to know the shows history to really tear into it.

I’m going with that last one. If makes me feel better.

The Ultimate Crossover: The Wold Newton Family.

2012-02-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

As long as there has been fiction one of the favorite tropes has been the crossover, characters from one set of stories meeting characters from another. Sherlock Holmes matching wits with Count Dracula, Allen Quartermain and Captain Nemo teaming up to repel and invasion from Mars, Rick and A.J. Simon teaming up with Thomas Magnum to take down a con artist. There is a desire to see interaction between these characters. And it is not just the realm of fan fiction that these happen. The examples I used above were from various published or produced works.

But there is one person who took the crossover idea to a new level, Philip Jose Farmer. In 1972 Farmer wrote Tarzan Alive. This novel was a biography written as if Tarzan had been a real person. This alone made it an interesting book as Farmer attempted to reconcile several of the inconsistencies in the Tarzan novels, such as claiming the apes that raised him were not actually apes but something closer to an African species of Sasquatch. Towards the end of the book and in his follow up the next year Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life farmer formed the basis of what would come to be known as the Wold Newton Family. This concept would be an attempt to tie Victorian and Pulp era heroes together in one great shared universe.

The concept takes its name from a real world event. On December 13^th 1795 a meteorite fall just a few miles away from the small Hamlet of Wold Newton in Yorkshire, England. It was the first intact meteorite to be found in England and of great scientific interest.

What Farmer did was to take this event and use it as a jumping off point. According to Farmer when the meteorite struck two coaches were nearby carrying a group going on holiday at a county estate. Due to some unknown effect of the meteorites landing the people in the coaches had their DNA altered leading to their descendants being extraordinary individuals.

Amongst the passengers were the following:

John Clayton, the third Duke of Greystoke, and his wife, Alicia
Sir Percy Blakeney, (the Scarlet Pimpernel), and his second wife, Alice Clarke Raffles
Dr. Siger Holmes and his wife, Violet Clarke Raffles
Fitzwilliam Darcy and his wife, Elizabeth Bennett
Sir Hugh Drummond, and his wife, Georgia Dewhurst
George Edward Rutherford, and his wife, Elizabeth Cavendish
Honore Delagardie and his wife, Philippa
Sebastion Noel, a medical student of Dr. Holmes
The coachmen were Louis Lupin, Albert Lecoq, Arthur Blake and Simon MacNichols

You may have notice some familiar sounding names in there. The idea from here is that the descendants of these individuals would be great heroes and villains.

An example is the family of John Clayton. Clearly he is the grandfather of Tarzan, but as it turns out Doc Savage, James Bond and even Fu Manchu can claim him as an ancestor.

Sebastion Noel’s family line includes Professor James Moriarty (who for a time went by the alias Captain Nemo), Dr. No, and Lex Luthor.

Sir Percy’s family includes the Shadow. Sir Hugh’s family has Bulldog Drummond, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Captain America.

I could go on but why don’t you go here and here to look at the vast family trees involved.

Here is a good time to point out that Farmer may have started this, but others have picked it up. It has become a literary game. People will go in and try to find connections to bring new characters into the Wold Newton family. Originally it was just Victorian and Pulp era characters but it has expanded to include modern characters from novels, TV, movies, video games and comics.

Example: Indiana Jones is a Holmes as is his nephew, Daniel Jackson of Stargate SG-1. In what should surprise no one Lara Croft was one of his students.

Additions have been made that incorporate Star Trek, Lovecraft’s Mythos and Doctor Who.

And the monsters, oh the monsters.

The amount of detail some people have gone to in order to include the Universal Monsters is truly amazing.

There are a chronicles for the families of Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr. Jekyll.

Conceits are created to explain different versions of the characters. For Dracula the idea is introduced that he could turn a person and then imprint his mind on theirs (a process he called soul cloning). Since the process was not exact it could explain differences in how the character acts in difference versions.

For Frankenstein you have the idea of the family having an obsession that carries from generation to generation.

And then there are the attempts to tie things together. Let’s look at the story of the creature created by Frankenstein’s Great-Grandson Peter Frederick Frankenstein, which you will all know from the movie Young Frankenstein. According to Wold Newton Elizabeth, the fiancé of Frederick who fell in love with creature was in reality named Lilith and was the daughter of one of Dracula’s soul clones. When Van Helsing’s organization the League of Anti-Diabolists learned of their attempt to lead a peaceful life they stepped in to help, hoping to see if monsters could be rehabilitated. They were moved to America along with Lilith’s father and given guardian ship of a young orphan named Edmond who was infected with lycanthropy. A league member Marilyn Krough was placed with them to observe their attempts at domestication. The creature adopted the name Herman. Thus they became the Munsters.

Try to tell me that is not a cool concept.

One more I really like.

Henry Jekyll’s formula did not work with way he thought it did. All it did was trigger his latent Therianthropy. This is a trait he would pass down to his offspring, many fathered as Mr Hyde. His decedents would include Bruce Banner and Ben Grimm.

I’m sure many of you have noticed similarities to both Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series. Both Authors have stated that the Wold Newton Families were an influence.

And all this just scratches the surface. You can spend hours going over all the details people have added to this particular academic exercise. Go here for the best web site resource I know of. Also check out the book Myths of the Modern Age which is a collection of articles edited by Win Scott Eckert.

Now all we need to do is figure out which family tree Gibbs from NCIS belongs in.