David the World-Builder

My son David is working on finding his voice - and his medium - but he's a storyteller. As are most kids, I think, but he's always coming up with ideas that he wants to get out into the world. He makes his own comics to sell at our local convention and he's also interested in filmmaking and creating worlds for games.

He and his friends create their own, elaborate Pokémon cities for no other reason than to share them with each other and have another way to talk about the game. But David is also super into tabletop RPGs and is working on developing one himself. That's the map to his world, above, and it's so full of awesome places that I wanted to share it. Can't wait to see where he ends up taking his talent, because I want to play in the worlds he's building.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan's Africa

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Like yesterday's post on the Ape-English Dictionary, there's no way for me to properly relay the information in Griffin's section on "Tarzan's Africa." At least, not a way that I'd feel good about. It's just maps, so I could scan them all and post them, but the point of these posts isn't to steal from Griffin's book.

His double-page spread of Mel Greifinger's map above wouldn't fit on my scanner anyway, but he also includes some smaller scans of nine maps from Burroughs' own notes. I'd dig a whole atlas of enlarged scans of those, but they're interesting even at the smaller size and include areas like Pal-ul-don, Pellucidar, the Lost Empire, etc. I don't want to turn this into a direct ad for Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration, but this is a chapter best experienced directly.

Awesome List: Middleman, Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas, Hulk cartoons, and more

Burn After Reading poster



From the Coen Bros. upcoming spy comedy. Gotta love that Saul Bass-inspired design.

Game of Thrones TV Show

I couldn't make it through the first book, but it looks like progress is being made on getting the story to me in a different form (because it's all about me). Novelist George R.R. Martin has the update.

Middleman



I've been watching ABC Family's new, comics-inspired series Middleman. It's too soon for a full review, so I'm just saying here that it's pretty awesome. The characters are charming and funny, the dialogue is clever, and the plots are insane. The pilot episode featured Chloe from 24 as a scientist whose supercomputer took over a gorilla's brain and turned him into a Tommy gun slinging mobster.

The only complaint I have is the Power Rangers-quality effects. I'm gonna stick with it a while and see if I can get past that though because otherwise I love it.

Oddly Normal

My friend and sometimes collaborator Jess Hickman was recently interviewed about her work on volume 3 of Otis Frampton's Oddly Normal series of fantasy graphic novels.

Essential Giant Monsters



I see enough Top Ten Giant Monsters lists that I don't usually link to them (or many other Top Ten lists at all, for that matter). Robert Hood's list is different. Rather than just assigning personal rankings to the multitude of giant monsters in the world, he's created a comprehensive list of what he believes are the essential movies in the giant monster genre. It's quite a check-list and would provide a good year's worth of viewing material for anyone hoping to see them all.

Here's a Top Eight list I can get behind though

Topless Robot's Top 8 Coolest Sesame Street Toys Ever. Admittedly, it's a nostalgia thing. I had and wore out nos. 1, 4, 6, and 8 as a kid.

The Lies of Locke Lamora



This is the second recommendation from the friend who also told me about Peter David's Tigerheart (which I picked up from David at Wizard World Chicago, by the way). My friend describes The Lies of Locke Lamora as a cross between Ocean's 11 and Robin Hood with some fantasy elements thrown in. Sounds good to me. (Although I much prefer the cover I posted to the garish one on the US mass market paperback.)

Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas

ABC is developing a show about a girl who finds an atlas of a secret world underneath our own. Whether or not the Harry Potter and Pan's Labyrinth comparisons are justified, it sounds tailor-made for me. And it stars the little girl from Silent Hill.

New Hulk cartoons



It was inevitable. And bring 'em on, I say. Even the Gamma Corps one where he's leading She-Hulk and Doc Samson into battle.

John Carter movie "update"

Not really an update; just a reminder that the format of the developing John Carter of Mars movie could be anything. Live action, 2D cartoon, computer animation... nothing's been ruled out. According to writer/presumed director Andrew Stanton, that will all be determined by the eventual script.

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

I've been trying to save Thursdays for Dust to Dust-related news and links, but all that's going on there lately is that The Assassination of Jesse James premiered and apparently there are a lot of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie fans. Who knew?

So, since I kind of have a free day, let's take care of some odds and ends.

I've ordered my Map of Humanity. No idea where I'm going to find wall space to hang it, but I had to have it. I'm a map nerd and it's so beautiful.

The Funniest Blogger in the Universe wrote a play. It's probably best if I let him describe it:

First of all, it's really long. Not so much long for a play, necessarily, but way too long to fit here comfortably; it's about seven pages according to Microsoft Word, and that seems kind of extravagant for a blog.

Second, it's not really all that great, taken out of context. I was assigned the first and last lines I was to use ("I didn't mean to hurt you... really. But it felt so goddamned good" and "I figured it should be less than 3,000 pages... All the best books have less than 3,000 pages," respectively) and had roughly five hours to write the whole thing (not counting the time I spent fighting with my computer, or getting sidetracked by KIDS director Larry Clark's endearingly clumsy 2005 film Wassup Rockers, which despite the absence of Lou Barlow or Daniel Johnston songs was pretty interesting). So the best you can say about it is "for something produced under considerable constraints, it succeeds on its own terms!"

Third, it's called "Jolly Jolly Jinglebeans." Probably because I hate theatre.

You should definitely read it.

Artist du Jour: Lilo & Stitch director Chris Sanders. Yowza.

It's no secret that I love pirates, so you might think that I'd be into International Talk Like a Pirate Day (which was yesterday). But you'd be wrong.

I'm all for a day when folks stop to contemplate the glory that is pirates, but the idea of a bunch of pirate nerds talking like pirates all day long irritates me. Not nearly as much as it irritates Mighty Godking, but mostly for the same reasons.

Jesse James poster, Dean Koontz Frankenstein comic, and JLA without Bale

Kill All Monsters!-Related

The Giant Monsters Attack! blog has a profile of a new comic called Sleeping Giant. The creator describes it as "Princess Mononoke, Godzilla and Donnie Darko all mixed into one with a comedic twist." Sounds good to me.

A lovely, giant, mechanical octopus shooting lasers from some of its eyes graces the cover of the next issue of Clarkesworld Magazine.

Dust to Dust-Related

The Assassination of Jesse James has an official, new poster that you can see illustrating this post.

War

It was only a matter of time before someone decided to do a live action G.I. Joe movie. I've got slightly more interest in that as I did in a Transformers flick, if only because I think it could be done well as a relatively straightforward combat movie or political thriller. But Stephen Sommers is directing it, so that's probably not what we'll get. (Also interesting in that link is news that G.I. Joe's owner Hasbro is also interested in "possible movies based on such properties as the board games Monopoly and Battleship." I can't imagine a world in which a Monopoly movie would be good, but I may be jonesing hard enough for a big-budget combat movie that I'd go see one about Battleship.)

Horror

There's going to be a comic series based on Dean Koontz's Frankenstein. That makes me very happy in theory. As long as it's executed well.

The X-Files movie script is done and David Duchovny has read it. But he ain't talkin'.

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers has announced the winners of the first annual Scribe Awards. Particularly cool to me is that Jeff Mariotte & Steve Niles have won the "Best Novel - Original" category for 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead.

Fantasy

This isn't completely fantasy, but I've just discovered the existance of a cool blog called Strange Maps that is exactly what its title suggests. Some of the maps are of real places (only made out of, say, clothing on a bed), but most of them are of fantastic places or places that might-have-been. You could easily waste a day exploring the archives.

Science Fiction

Two artist pals of mine, Katie Cook and Grant Gould have created some Star Wars book covers for all your back-to-school, book-covering needs. I'm not even going back to school, but I'm still trying to figure out what books I can cover in these. My son starts Kindergarten this year though. Hmm.

Wonder Woman

I haven't talked much about the JLA movie here because most of what's out there about it is just rumor. Like that it's being fast-tracked and that it might be all CGI/motion-capture like Polar Express and Beowulf instead of live-action. But here's word straight from the bat's mouth that puts to rest popular speculation over whether it'll star the likes of Christian Bale and Brandon Routh as its main heroes. According to Bale, it won't.

Comic Book Resources readers are offering suggestions of things they'd like to see in Gail Simone's upcoming Wonder Woman run. Top suggestions are the return of Ferdinand the Minotaur, the return of Steve Trevor, and the inclusion of more romance in the book (with Martian Manhunter and any sort of lesbian relationship being specific suggestions).

Hulk

I'd write a detailed post exploring my fondness for the Hulk the same way I did with Wonder Woman, Black Canary, and Rogue, but really my Hulk-love can be explained in two words: Hulk smash. It doesn't go much deeper than that, although I do also love the quiet, simple moments when Hulk tries to fit in with other superheroes. This one in particular made me chuckle loudly in my cube (the lengthy set up to the moment-in-question is informative, but you don't need to read it to appreciate the gag at the bottom of the post).