Logorama

This movie is up for a Best Animated Short Oscar for good reason. It takes place in a world made up entirely of trademarks and logos, which is cool enough, but there's also a police drama as a couple of Michelin Men cops pursue a red-headed, floppy-shoed criminal named Ronald McDonald. The language is pretty police-drama-y, so be advised about that.

Movie News: Small (and Hairy) in Japan

Gilligan's Island Movie



It was only a matter of time.

Fin Fang Foom in Iron Man 2



Sort of, but it's still pretty cool. [Illustration ganked from Bleeding Cool. Hellboy, unfortunately, will not be in Iron Man 2 at all.]

Resident Evil 4 trailer



Wow, this movie's a lot farther along than I realized. I totally have that same fan behind Milla, by the way.

War of the Gods


I wish it was a movie about Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, and Superman's fighting the gods of all the major world pantheons. But no, it's just an attempt to cash in on the Clash of the Titans remake. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm all for more, new Greek Mythology movies and maybe it'll be really good.

Superman Plot



David Goyer's apparently been hired to write the script for the next Superman movie, which - according to Latino Review - is being called Man of Steel and will feature Luthor and Braniac as the villains. LR also says that the script won't go over the origin story again (thank you), but will also not be a sequel to Superman Returns.

If any of this is true, it's pretty cool. I mean, I'm tired of Lex Luthor, but teaming him up with someone like Brainiac could be fun. I especially dig the parts where Mark Millar was always full of crap and The Daily Planet is struggling to stay afloat in the Internet Age.

Wolverine 2



The sequel is set to go into production early next year and it sounds like it has a decent chance of being a lot better than the first one. As expected, it'll be set in Japan and have a heavy romantic element to it. If they can sell the romance and make the danger all about threatening that relationship - while avoiding the silliness and nonsense of the first movie - I can imagine its being really good.

Movie News: I Hate Tentacles

Meet Blackbeard



This man is in talks to play Blackbeard in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. I didn't think those movies could get any better, but I guess I was wrong. (I know it's cool to hate the last two, but I can't help liking them.) Penelope Cruz is going to be in it too, which could ease my grieving over Keira's absence.

Sharktopus vs Dinoshark



The world's not awesome enough for a movie with both Sharktopus and Dinoshark in it, but Undead Backbrain has the complete skinny on their separate films.

Moby Dick with Dragons



And Danny Glover as a fantasy-world Ahab. I'm skeptically curious.

Doc Savage movie



I don't know enough about Doc Savage to be truly excited about this, but any pulp adventure movie set in the '30s is going to get my money.

Dean Koontz's Frankenstein on screen... again



It was meant to be a TV series (I reviewed the TV-movie/pilot a few years ago), but Koontz didn't like how it was going and pulled his name off it, choosing instead to co-author a series of novels. Now those novels are becoming at least one film. I never did get around to reading them, but I'm curious now to see how the new film version compares to the old one.

Monster in Paris



Unfortunately, they're not making a movie out of my and Jason Copland's Paris-set giant monster comic just yet, but there is an animated film in the works about "a shy movie projectionist and an inventor who team up with a cabaret star, an eccentric scientist and his monkey to save the city from a monster."

I miss John Hughes



I pulled out The Smiths' Louder than Bombs to listen to recently. That album always makes me think of John Hughes because he's the one who introduced me to it. After the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, I made a habit of getting the soundtracks to all his films, knowing that I'd find some amazing stuff on them. "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" was on Pretty in Pink and Kirsty Macoll's cover of "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby" is on She's Having a Baby, but I also have Hughes to thank for Echo and the Bunnymen, Love and Rockets, Gene Loves Jezebel, Kate Bush, Flesh for Lulu, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and of course Simple Minds. He's even responsible for my digging into Bowie's career any earlier than Let's Dance thanks to that quote at the beginning of The Breakfast Club.

By sheer coincidence, Vanity Fair ran a series of articles on Hughes about the same time I was listening to The Smiths. /Film has conveniently collected them, but my favorite part was learning that he never lost that love for new music. According to /Film's summary, "His iTunes library filled several hard drives, and he planned the playlists for his sons’ weddings as carefully as he had the soundtracks for his movies. In recent years, he took to dispensing pre-loaded iPods to people he liked, much as he’d assiduously compiled mix tapes for Ringwald and Broderick in the old days." There's a great story about the one he gave John Candy's son and how it was eventually used, but you should go read that one for yourself.

French Star Wars Disco

Four words that were made for each other.

The Best Commercial in the World

Watching Big Bang Theory tonight I saw my current favorite commercial again. Thought I'd share.

The Nerdification of David: Dungeons & Dragons

Yesterday David noticed the back cover of a comic I'm reviewing (Jane Yolen and Mike Cavallaro's Foiled) and had some questions. There was a picture of a couple of people sitting at a table with some paper, dice, and small figurines. David wanted to know what they were doing, so I told him. "It looks like they're playing Dungeons & Dragons."

"Dragons?" He was already hooked. He's a sucker for giant reptiles of any persuasion.

I explained the concept of the game and that interested him more. He likes board games and let's-pretend games ("What kind of dinosaur are you right now?" is a frequently recurring question in our house), so my description of D&D as a combination of the two was a selling point. I told him that when I picked him up from school on Wednesday we'd go to the Source and spend some time in their role-playing section to see what he thought.

He naturally wondered if there were any RPGs about dinosaurs.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm not looking forward to spending the amount of cash it takes to invest in a decent role-playing game these days (my own D&D manuals are way out-dated). On the other hand, I can't think of much that would be more fun than shepherding him through his first dungeon. I'm not emotionally invested in his choice either way, but I'm very curious to see what happens when we're at the store tomorrow.

And if any of you know a good RPG about dinosaurs, I'd love to hear about it.

Haitian Art

I've mentioned before that my family has strong ties to Haiti. My dad in particular is always looking for ways to help people there and he's starting a grass-roots effort to encourage entrepreneurship by hand-importing figurines made by a Haitian craftsman. My dad's making no money from this; every dime he makes after paying to ship to the buyer goes back to the artist.

If you're interested, you can get more information on my dad's blog. He's got a limited supply of figurines right now, so he's working it as an email auction.

Quote of the Week: More Important than Awesomeness

Mike Sterling makes his monthly list of things that are more important to the Direct Market than James Turner comics.
--Tom Spurgeon, depressing the hell out of me and every other Warlord of Io fan.

The Awesome List: These plants are protecting the city

A potpourri of fantastic stuff I've found around the web...

I'll need some extra butter, please



"The Japanese Spider Crab has a body the size of a basketball and its legs can straddle a car."

Let me repeat that. Its legs... can straddle a car.

Bioshock 2 Trailer



Is awesome.

If you need another reason to be environmentally conscious...



[Giant Monsters Attack!]

Munsters and Addams



Golden Age Comic Book Stories has a cool collection of images from both.

Not enough city officials take vampire prevention seriously

Art Show: Crom!

The Little Mermaid



Artist Unknown [Never Sea Land]

First Wave



By Lee Bermejo. [DC Universe: The Source]

Conan



By Sam Hiti.

Johnny Recon Hates (Space) Cephalopods



By Andy Kuhn. [Comic Twart]

Art Show: Neptune Rex

The Kelpie



By John Duncan. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

The Indigestible Triton



Artist Unknown [Pulp of the Day]

Megachompadon



I'm not sure who the artist is, but this is a design from the Mosterpocalypse collectible miniatures game. 

Lamp on the Beach



By Pierre Alary.

The New Guinea Contract



By Anthony Carpenter.

Jungle



Another background from Disney's Tarzan. [Animation Backgrounds]

Giant Wasp



Another design for Monsterpocalypse.

Hulk Angry!



By Christian Cornia. [Art Jumble]

Black Canary and Huntress



By Andie Tong. [Romeo's Tumblring]

Mary Marvel



By Bruce Timm.