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).

Jungle Girls

Jess Hickman and I are working on another story together. It's for an anthology that I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about yet, so I'll just tease the story and let you know more about the anthology when I know it's okay.

Since I haven't found what I'm looking for in jungle adventure comics lately (though I haven't read the first issue of the new Shanna mini-series yet), I decided to write one of my own. And honestly? Getting Jess Hickman to draw it is a stroke of genius that I wish I could take complete credit for. But at least some the credit goes to the anthology's editor who knows that I love working with Jess and wondered if she might be interested in this. So I told Jess my idea and asked if she was interested.

She says I had her at "jungle girl."

You're welcome.

The Last Legion

Thursday night has been my night to hang out with the guys for I guess the last 16 years or so. Pretty much since I moved to Minnesota. For most of that time we've been a roleplaying group, but now that we've shrunk to just three people, we've been going to movies most weeks. This week we had a harder time than usual picking the movie.

Top of my list right now is The Bourne Ultimatum, but my pals have already seen it. And I wasn't that interested in the top couple of picks on their list. But even though it wasn't high on any of our lists, we were all intrigued by The Last Legion.

Not knowing anything about it except that -- like King Arthur, which I really enjoyed -- it apparently bridges Roman history with Arthurian legend, I checked out the trailer and decided that it was an action/fantasy flick rather than an historical epic. Good to know what box to put it in.

Wanting to know more, I read the IMDB Buzz on it where I learned that it was originally scheduled for release last January, but was delayed until now. According to IMDB, "the month of August is also known as the other month [January being the first one] during which studios may dump their supposed flops." They seem to think though that it is supposed to be an historical epic and compare it (unfavorably) to Kingdom of Heaven and Tristan + Isolde. Okay, so it's not supposed to be very good.

On to Rotten Tomatoes, where it's got an 18% fresh rating. Yikes! Out of curiosity, I read blurbs from the positive reviews and saw things like "Put yourself in the proper boy's-adventure mindset and The Last Legion's corny moments will just add to the charm" and "The many faults of The Last Legion give way to guilt-free popcorn thrills." Not high praise.

So, I figured, it's a bad movie, but enjoyable if that's the kind of thing you're expecting and looking forward to. And... my figuring was exactly right.

The Last Legion is horrible on so many levels. It sports a first rate cast what with Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, and someone who I thought the whole time was the kid from Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but actually turned out to be the kid from Love Actually. Which makes perfect sense since Colin Firth was also in Love Actually and we kept joking about how we were going to have to watch for cameos by Hugh Grant and Renée Zellweger. Alas, Hugh and Renée didn't show, but we got the kid and we got Aishwarya Rai from Bride and Prejudice, so the romantic comedy contingent was well represented. Oh, and it also has Dr. Bashir from Deep Space Nine (who's apparently back to calling himself Alexander Siddig instead of Siddig El Fadil, which he'd switched to for a while). Correction: Mel Lowery from Siddig's Official Fan Site comments below that he originally went by Siddig El Fadil and then changed it to Alexander. She would know and I bow to her expertise. I guess I remembered incorrectly, which is entirely likely.

Anyway, unlikely cast or not, I couldn't have had more fun at this thing. Yes, a hearty band of heroes appear to walk from Italy to Britain in about a week without having so much as a parcel of elvish waybread to sustain them. Yes, the acting is mostly wooden, except for Kingsley who makes up for everyone else by overacting, especially in an hilarious scene in which he hugs, kisses, and all but makes love to British soil upon his return to that country. Yes, there's a scene in which a young girl reveals a crucial plot element by pointing dramatically at the camera and announcing, "It was... it was... HIM!" (That one had my brother-in-law and I rolling and laughing almost to the point of embarrassment, but really, the only people in that theater who should've been embarrassed were on the screen.) And, yes, as my other buddy said when a fuzzily CGIed villain fell from a cliff onto the rocks below, "The special effects really aren't that special." And, yes, Rome fell to the Goths because there were apparently only about twelve guys defending it at the time. And, yes, oh my God let's not even talk about the villain who gets points for choosing to cover his face with a mask, but zero for choosing one that looks like a frickin' faun.

BUT!

If you're in the mood for a bad '80s fantasy flick in the style of Conan the Destroyer or Red Sonja (it didn't surprise me in the least to discover in the end credits that Last Legion was produced by Dino De Laurentiis; in fact, the world suddenly made a lot more sense), this is your movie. It's not Dungeons and Dragons bad. There are redeeming qualities to it. The fights aren't inspiring, but they're cool enough. And Aishwarya Rai sure is pretty. And... okay, that's about it. But damn did we ever have fun watching it.

Even if we have banned Ben Kingsley flicks now from Thursday Night Movies.

Jesse James trailer, Jekyll DVD, and Depp as Sweeney Todd

Dust to Dust-Related

The trailer for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has been released. I wondered before if they were going for a Legends of the Fall vibe with it and that (or Unforgiven maybe) seems to have been accurate.

David Woodbury is looking into books about Jesse's life and reports his preliminary research into which might be the best ones. I'll look forward to his eventual reviews of them.

Horror

Oh, mama!

I know at least one person reading this will be glad to know that the BBC mini-series Jekyll will be available on DVD next month. The rest of you should too though.

Science Fiction

If I'd ever known that George Lucas had once approached David Lynch about directing Return of the Jedi, I'd forgotten it. Man, what if Lynch had said, "Yes?" I'm trying to decide if that would've increased my chances of still liking the movie today.

Comics

Browsing Stupid Comics is a great way to kill a couple of hours. (Found via Tom Spurgeon.)

Artist du Jour

Pascal Campion. Further proof that Charles Raymond (from whom I've discovered three great artists in about as many days) and I have really similar tastes in art.

Agatha Christie comics, reading recommendations, and cool art

Kill All Monsters!-Related

I wished I lived in Independence, Kentucky.

Mystery

Ooh! Agatha Christie comics! (Found via Kevin Melrose.)

Horror

Maybe I'm just in the mood for naked women, sunken treasure, wealthy villains, and undersea horror... What am I saying? I'm always in the mood for that. Sounds like Dark Gold is just the thing.

Science Fiction

Here's a very cool Planet of the Apes resource site.

Brass Goggles has an intriguing review of Starcross, the second book in the Larklight series. I'm Wish Listing the first one right now.

Art

Rather than try to categorize new artists I've learned about by some sort of arbitrary art genre, I figured I'd just start a new category. To kick it off, the whimsical drawings of Dave Perillo.

Hey, Oscar Wilde, It's Clobberin' Time is an awesome site full of various artists interpreting their favourite literary figure/author/characters. I may have linked to it a long time ago in one of its other incarnations, but it's certainly worth revisiting. It's searchable by artist and subject now which makes it an engrossing place.

Cool flickr gallery of Gil Elvgren pin-up art.

Flash! Na-ahh! (and Bulldog Drummond too)

I gave it a shot. Really I did.

In spite of pre-show publicity about wormholes instead of spaceships and how Ming was going to be all charming and stuff, I wanted to like SciFi's new Flash Gordon show. But I just don't.

I get that they're trying to reach a "modern audience" and want to make the relationships and the tech "believable." But did that have to make it so boring in the process? In the '30s serials, the premise is set up quickly: an alien invasion is coming and someone needs to stop it. Zarkov has the plan and Flash and Dale get swept up in it by happenstance. Then the rest of the series is the three of them trying to save their planet from the merciless Ming and running into all sorts of monsters and aliens in the process. It's adventure after adventure after adventure. It's the stuff that inspired freaking Star Wars.

The SciFi series adds the element that Flash's dad discovered Mongo years ago in some sort of top secret project (supposedly for NASA, but the real sponsors are a mystery). Dad's former assistant, Zarkov (at least I think he's Zarkov; two episodes in and I swear I haven't heard him called by name), teams up with Flash and Dale (Flash's ex-girlfriend who's just moved back to town as a local news reporter) to uncover the mystery and figure out what the heck's going on with all the alien sightings lately. Seems people from Mongo are starting to come to Earth to retrieve a device that belonged to Flash's dad.

Instead of giant, sexy, space opera adventure, the show is going for a cross between The X-Files and Stargate SG-1 by keeping our heroes mostly earthbound and trying to uncover conspiracies. It might not make for a bad show if it weren't Flash Gordon. And if we hadn't seen the same type of story done better already in other shows. I mean, it's Flash Freaking Gordon! I want to see him teaming up with the Lion Men to fight the Shark Men! I want him to kill giant monsters, escape deadly traps, and battle in alien gladitorial arenas! What's with this lame ass skulking around at night trying to open a wormhole to Mongo while keeping the aliens' presence on earth quiet?

I've given it two episodes; I'm not giving it any more. Someone let me know if it gets better and I need to check out the DVDs someday.

And speaking of series I'm getting tired of, I'm about done with John Howard's Bulldog Drummond movies. They're pretty harmless and disposable at only an hour in length each, but having every movie be about Drummond's wedding getting interrupted by a sudden, unavoidable adventure has snapped my suspension of disbelief right in two.

I also don't understand why Scotland Yard keeps trying to actively keep Drummond away from cases when he's always right about them, nor why the Colonel so objects to being called "Inspector." I much prefer the ones I watched first where the Colonel and Drummond are on good terms, with the Colonel going so far as to call Drummond in as a sort of consultant on cases that the Yard was having a problem with.

Happy Birthday, Christopher Robin

Today would've been Christopher Robin Milne's 87th birthday. He passed away in 1996.

Like Blue Sky Disney, I like to imagine that candles are being blown out and presents are being given today at a party outside a hollow tree in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Fiona

I had a huge crush on Gabrielle Anwar after seeing her in The Three Musketeers and For Love or Money in the early '90s, but I lost track of her after that. When she popped up on Burn Notice, I recognized her name, but barely the actress. In the '90s she was all fresh-faced and girl-next-door. Obviously she's matured in the last fifteen years, but on Burn Notice -- although she's still hot -- she looks worn and haggard. Like she's had a rough life.

Which, of course, she has. Or her character has, I mean.

I didn't like Fiona for a while. Like most of the other characters on the show, she seemed placed there merely to give Michael a hard time. She felt like a generic ex-girlfriend who could still fit in with the show because she also had a similarly shady past. But as the show's gone on, I'm loving her more and more.

Lately she's been pressuring Michael to talk about their relationship. That could get annoying fast, but it hasn't been thanks to the writing and Gabrielle's acting. Oh, she's nagging him, but underneath that is the knowledge that she's a fiesty, former IRA-member who could not only kill Michael thirty-five different ways, she'd do it while eating an ice-cream cone and listening to her iPod. Fi's got a streak in her that may not be sadistic, but it's close to sociopathic. Gabrielle plays her very calmly and dispassionately, but with a sad loneliness that's beautifully painful to watch.

It's like Fi knows that she's in a dark place and she's pretty much okay with that, except that she likes the way Michael makes her feel. I don't get the feeling that she wants Michael to "redeem" her or anything. He seems unequipped to do that even if she did. It's just that she loves the guy, so she flirts and teases and nags and tests, because Michael can't get past how bad their relationship was last time. But because she's so nearly unhinged, her nagging and testing carry a huge sense of danger with them. In last week's episode, she put Michael in harm's way a couple of times just to see if he'd support her.

Since he's Michael though, he can handle himself in those situations, so you never get angry with her. That's why they're such a hot couple. They'd totally kill anyone else they'd ever try a relationship with, which is why they're both so lonely. But they can survive each other. They're the only people in the world who they can survive. If only Michael would realize it.

Their relationship will always be rocky though. Michael's right to be nervous about her. Fi is to Burn Notice what Wolverine is to X-Men. She's unpredictable and deadly. Michael can take care of himself, but Fi is a monster in the way she deals with opponents. Michael's badass, but Fi's fifty times more. As capable as he is, Fi's the one he calls in when he needs super-muscle. It's a really good thing that she's so fiercely loyal to him. I'd be worried about his eventually pissing her off and making an enemy of her, but that's not the way things are going. Michael obviously cares about her and is loyal to her too; he's just not sure he can go where she wants him to romantically.

The result is a fascinating relationship between two characters I absolutely love. I started watching the show for Bruce Campbell (and he's great, don't get me wrong), but Fi's my new favorite. Not just on Burn Notice, but in genre fiction in general.

Cthulhu Day and Wonder Woman links

Today is H.P. Lovecraft's birthday, so Happy Cthulhu day. He would've been 117. In today's Writers Almanac, Garrison Keillor notes that it's also the 30th anniversary of a day that Lovecraft would have shuddered at the thought of: when Voyager 2 was launched by NASA to explore the planets of our solar system.

Other than that, I gots lots of Wonder Woman links for you today as I continue catching up on comics news:

At San Diego Comic-Con, Smallville producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar reiterated that they still can't use Batman on the show, though they ask if they can use Wonder Woman every year.

"Ladies, if you are sporting a Wonder Woman Cuff Bracelet, you will be more attractive to nerds. It’s as simple as that."

Rumor has it that DC's planning a Wonder Woman animated movie.

Speaking of rumors, it sounded for a while there like Katie Holmes may have been bucking to play the Amazon on the big screen, but we seem to have dodged deflected that bullet.

Roberto Campus has a cool, how-to-draw Wonder Woman tutorial.

Gail Simone's highly anticipated run on the Wonder Woman comic has been delayed a month in order to give artist Terry Dodson a running start at it.

And let's finish with some video of both Lynda Carter and Debra Winger doing the Wonder Woman spin.

"I find your lack of pants disturbing."

Stolen from I've totally forgotten where. Probably the Star Wars blog.

Jonny Quest movie, Shang Chi versus a shark, and how to write comics the Hitchcock way

Adventure

There's a live-action Jonny Quest movie in the works and it's producers have high -- very high -- hopes for it. They're calling it "our Pirates. Our Transformers." They're also saying, "We always knew we wanted to do an origin movie about how Race and Hadji came to join the Quest family ... As for tone, this isn't going to be some kiddie movie. Our model is Raiders..."

Swashbuckling

Moonstone's adding to their prose anthology library with a Zorro volume.

Pulp

My friend Joe sent me this link to Pulp Fiction Central, an excellent pulp resource site.

Horror

Ooh! More Frazetta comics are coming and they sound really good!

Also, more Necromancer coming! Yay, Josh Ortega!

Fantasy

I wouldn't call him a Fantasy Artist per se, but I've just discovered Dean Yeagle's humorously sexy work and this is the closest category I can think of to put him in.

Super-Heroes

DC is redoing its line of kids' comic and, man, it's looks cool.

Shang Chi versus a shark. (One of these days I'm going to have to get in on this whole Friday Night Fights action.)

Writing is Hard

Here's a really excellent article on building suspense the Hitchcock way. It's written for screenwriters, naturally, but applies equally well to comics writers and possibly even writers of prose.

About a year ago I wrote this post on branding that was inspired by a conversation I'd had with Caleb Monroe, another writer. Caleb's added some thoughts on the subject in his own blog. I'm especially interested in his idea about wearing the same hat to every convention and how that got him recognized. My pal Joe (same one from above) made the same suggestion in the comments of my post, so this got me thinking. Where that thinking eventually led though was to the idea that with my size, my long hair, and my white-red beard, I'm a fairly recognizable figure without any headgear. My appearance is my logo. Now I just have to make sure not to taint the brand with bad stories or boneheaded behavior.

Also in Caleb's post is a link to an article on branding by Warren Ellis in which Ellis doesn't give Neil Gaiman nearly enough credit, but does note that if you're good enough at what you do, your name is logo enough.