Friday, December 11, 2009

And Now the News: Blueprints are Boring

Pirate Batman



So, you've probably heard that Batman supposedly died, but was really holed up in a prehistoric cave somewhere. Amongst a lot of huge announcements from DC this week, the biggest for me was the news that Batman would be fighting his way back through time to rejoin the 21st century. Along the way he'll become a caveman, a witchhunter/Puritan adventurer, a pirate, a cowboy, and a private eye. Ohhh, I think I'll be reading some Batman comics again very soon.

Kill Shakespeare



The young lady above is Juliet. She, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Falstaff, and Puck are the heroes of a new 12-issue mini-series from IDW called Kill Shakespeare. In it, they search for a reclusive wizard named William Shakespeare who may have the ability to assist them in their battle against the evil forces led by Richard III, Lady Macbeth and Iago. This will probably be the greatest story ever written.

Verne vs. Wells



I've made no secret about my dislike for Jules Verne or my fondness for HG Wells. Kate Beaton explains exactly why that is so much better than I ever could.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

To me one author is as valid as the other, understanding that they wrote two different body of works, although, both are regarded as the founders of early SF literature. Beginning the fact that Monsieur Verne was,after all, an author of ADVENTURE stories or properly called by him as "Voyages Extraordinaires", and the plot of his novels involves some kind of unusual journey, and many of these imaginary journeys gave him his reputation of vissionary and inventor of the "scientific romance" wether his characters were traveling around the world in record time, to the bottom of the sea, to the center of the Earth or even to the Moon or trough the Solar system on board on a comet, Herbert George Wells, on the other hand was more an author of SCIENCE FANTASY stories where he used the fantastic background to preach his socio political ideas, nevertheless, i give him the credit to popularize themes like time travel and extra terrestrial invasions, but for me Jules Gabriel Verne is my inspiration not just because he had the ability to forsee modern air,sea and space travel but for his colorful characters; Captain Nemo, Phileas Fogg, Proffessor Lidenbrock... they represent the human adventure, the quest for knowledge and for themselves, and ourselves in thos imaginary journeys...

Anonymous said...

BTW, Michael, there is a new revalorization toward Verne`s works, since they were regarded as just "juvenile" stuff, he would be regarded as the pioneer of the techno-science thriller, the type of popular fiction which we relate modern authors like Clive Cussler or (the late) Michael Crichton, in fact he would considered as "The Michael Crichton of the 19 century".

Michael May said...

Well said. I still prefer Wells, but certainly don't mean to invalidate Verne. He's obviously an important author with a vivid imagination.

Michael May said...

And that's an interesting comparison between Verne and Crichton. I never would've made that connection, but it makes a lot of sense.

Anonymous said...

If you take a look about Crichton`s JURASSIC PARK, TIMELINE and CONGO, they pretty fit into the type of SCIENCE ADVENTURE stories written by Verne, this, and the fact that both authors used to write paragraphs of technical details...

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