Gavin Black hates cephalopods

Submitted by an Adventureblog reader who wishes to remain anonymous. By all means, you guys, please send me cool submissions when you find them. I'll be happy to give you credit or respect your privacy, whichever you prefer. I've got about six months worth of these queued up at the moment, so it may take a while, but I will get to yours.

The Drawings of Steranko

It's no secret that we love Jim Steranko around here, so I really appreciated getting an email from John Gandour who designed the Drawings of Steranko website. John pointed out several cool features on the site including a screensaver/wallpaper gallery, sections on Red Tide, and a gallery of other artists' Steranko homages. It's a cool, beautiful site to kick around on, so go visit.

Awesome List: Runaways movie, Moon Nazis, Sea Freak, Steranko, Fleming movie, and the coolest Hulk toy ever

Runaways: The Movie



I quit reading Runaways when Brian K. Vaughan quit writing it. News of a Runaways movie makes me realize how much I miss those characters. Especially Molly (pictured above).

Night at the Museum 2

I'm not quite as thrilled about a possible sequel to Night at the Museum as I am a Runaways movie, but the first one didn't suck and I'm all for any movie with the potential for more dinosaurs chasing security guards down hallowed halls.

Iron Sky



"In 1945 the Nazis fled to the moon. In 2018 they are coming back." I want this on DVD right now.

Manhunter interview

Like all lovers of excellent superhero comics, I'm way looking forward to the return from hiatus of DC's Manhunter. Comic Book Resources has a talk with series writer Marc Andreyko that's got me even more pumped up.

Andreyko said he has the next six to eight arcs for "Manhunter" in various stages of planning but his goal is to hit the century mark with the title. "My dream is to get to #100," he said. "So please, buy this book."

Sea Freak



If that panel doesn't make you want to check out Sea Freak, nothing will. (Thanks, JK!)

Steranko's Radical covers

Comic Book Resources has another great conversation up, this time with the Awesome Jim Steranko on his cover (and possible, future interior) work for Radical Comics.

...we felt the traditional action approach would be a cliche. The Radical version is different from all other comics' versions and I felt my cover should underscore that quality. So, instead of casting it in spine-cracking action, I did the opposite: I visualized a silently inert, fearsomely intense Hercules, a Hercules just before the storm, a moment crackling with tension!

Hulk (and friends) Mighty Muggs



These Marvel Mighty Muggs are all great, but look at that Hulk one. Mike Want!

Scrubs creator dishes on NBC

I just watched the NBC Scrubs "finale" the other night. As fun as it was, what a crappy way to end an even crappier relationship between the show and the network that's screwed it over for the last seven years. Here's to an excellent final season on ABC.

...when we first did the show, it was a drama with elements of comedy and lots of stupid sound effects. But some of the strongest episodes in the second and third year had character comedy. You can still do things like kill Brendan Fraser and have the lady that loved musical theater die and then sing a song at the end. This became a very Simpsons-esque show with incredibly broad, unrealistic moments and fantasies that were both in reality and not in reality. When you've been writing this show for seven years, it's so easy to get into these patterns of writing the same jokes over and over: J.D. loves Turk, J.D. wants Dr. Cox's approval, Elliot's whiny and neurotic. But this year the stuff is really f--king good. I think our old stand-by fans are really going to dig these shows.

Fleming: The Movie



Leonardo DiCaprio's bought the rights to make a fictionalized biopic (à la Shakespeare in Love or Finding Neverland) about Ian Fleming, presumably with lots of extra spy stuff thrown in.

Elemental

Rufus Sewell's new show has a new name. Cannot wait for this one.

Links du Jour: The real message of Watchmen, Wonder Woman revealed, and Peter Parker: Wife Beater?

Horror

• Ben Templesmith, the original 30 Days of Night artist, has really proven his storytelling ability on books like Singularity 7 and Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse. So I haven't the slightest amount of fear that his solo take on 30 Days (called 30 Days of Night: Red Snow) will be anything short of spectacular.

Science Fiction

• I don't know if it's going to be any good or not, but I like the idea behind Zenoscope's upcoming Dyno Force comic. Basically, it's about alien dinosaurs trying to take over the world. Unfortunately, the introductory issue that was supposed to be ready for Free Comic Book Day has been delayed by what Zenoscope is calling "undisclosed legal reasons," but I'm reading as "we couldn't get our act together." The fact that Zenoscope's website makes no mention of Dyno Force doesn't bode well either.
• Somebody made a Darth Vader hot air balloon, which is cool on a couple of different levels.

Superheroes

• It's been years and years since I've read Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen, but my memory of it is that -- like most of the rest of comics fans -- I missed the point. I figured that it was some sort of maturation milestone that superhero comics had finally met. Something we could all point to and say, "See? Now you have to take superheroes seriously." When, as Dirk Deppey so insightfully points out, "Watchmen is a critique of the ludicrous end results awaiting attempts to import 'realism' to superhero funnybooks." Dirk's also right when he says that not only did comics fans miss the point, but Marvel and DC did too, which is why we have events like Civil War and World War III that try to import that realism and in doing so, "(render) it less enjoyable a reading experience in the process." Not that I think the realistic themes aren't worth exploring, but all the darkness and despair and punching through ribcages is making me tired and I don't think that's the intended result.
• As much as I may like Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, the Hulk himself disagrees.
• I'm not enough of an Avengers fan to have read the original story, but I've never heard anyone challenge the general opinion that Hank Pym was at one point a wife-beating jerk. I thought it was something that everyone just accepted. So, I'm a little curious about whether or not this is true: did Peter Parker really hit Mary Jane? Why does he get a free pass and not Hank Pym?
• I'm gaining a greater and greater appreciation for Jim Steranko, so I think it's very cool that buried in this Captain America retrospective, he hints that he's in talks with Marvel about "the possibility of generating a new Captain America series." Just so long as there's room for him and Ed Brubaker's current, excellent run, that's great news.

Other Comics

• I've been unable to become a manga fan. I like some manga series, but I haven't fallen in love with it as a whole. Sort of like I don't like all American comics either. That's why lists like this that make connections between manga and stuff I already know and like are helpful to me.
• Michael Chabon will be at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul on May 22nd. He'll be discussing his latest book The Yiddish Policeman's Union as part of Minnesota Public Radio and The Loft Literary Center's Talking Volumes book discussion series. Tickets are $15, but there are discounts available.

Writing is Hard

• Looks like Dust to Dust isn't going to be the only aging-cowboy-meets-young-gangster story in town.
• I've expressed before my frustration over not being able to get a handle on Wonder Woman. Ragnell explains her perfectly, even while lamenting that the current writer doesn't get it (something I haven't talked about, but agree with). It makes sense to me that it's Wonder Woman's confidence that I find attractive (beyond the obvious physical reasons) and in light of Ragnell's observation about how women are generally portrayed in fiction ("Every woman's story in fiction seems to be a coming into herself ... Wonder Woman is not supposed to be like that. Wonder Woman is supposed to already be the woman other women in fiction learn to be. She's at the point where you are done working on your inside and ready to work on the outside world."), I can see why she's an attractive character for women too. Makes me want to write a character like that. Makes me want to read some well-done Wonder Woman too.