People tend to believe that there is a specific kind of readers usually buying and reading comic books, the same kind of readers that have to go through a pretty hard time of acne in high school, listen to music genres that would make their parents’ ears bleed and play video games all night long. Well, there are of course exceptions but let’s face it, people tend to be right. That is precisely why most widely known comics’ publishers choose stories and series with subjects that would be familiar to their potential reader, like mini series about famous serial killers from horror movies (God only knows how many Jason, Freddie and Chucky comics we had), cliché stories about your usual misunderstood teenager whose skills are revealed in 10-75 issues (depending on the sales) and, why not, adaptations of video games. How long did you think it would take them to make an ongoing series about the most played game in the world?
There have been a few tries to adapt the versatile and unique universe of World of Warcraft in many different ways but most of them lead to disappointing, at least, results. There was the Sunwell Trilogy, a manga about a dragon and those trying to kill or help him, I read it about a year ago but wasn’t impressed at all, black and white, not much of a story and female characters with big boobs (I really have no idea if they published the other two parts of the trilogy). There are also some soft cover books with stories based on the WoW mythology but still, none of the really big names in the comic industry had shown actual interest in the potential of a huge world with an immense storyline that keeps about 8 million people occupied in the biggest massive multiplayer role playing game ever made. That’s not the case anymore.
Starting this November Wildstorm will try to fit WoW in a monthly ongoing series and although available information are extremely limited it seems like pretty serious work. The first story arc will be about a human (warrior by the looks of the cover) found on the shores of Kalimdor with no memory of his past whatsoever. He is soon captured and enslaved by an Orc Shaman and finds himself fighting both Horde and Alliance characters with the aid of his new companion, most of who are not even of the same race.
For those of you that are familiar with WoW it seems like a pretty standard rpg story, a man starting from nothing, creating a party with different characters and fighting everything in his way. Will the main character change after the first 6-issue story? Will it cover the known WoW mythology or expand and create new stories and heroes (that might also appear in the new upcoming expansion for the game)? Will it be good for Warcraft fans and other comic book readers or just another rip-off of a successful series of video games? We’ll know pretty soon!
(I have to admit I was desperately trying not to quote Illidan “You are not prepared”, darn I knew I wouldn’t make it to the end…)
Today’s comic suggestion will be a somehow alternative one, not in a groundbreaking or exclusive sense but just because it presents a decent story in a mayhem of mediocrity. I never really liked all those Elsewords comics DC occasionally publishes (or the Marvel What If? for what it’s worth), indifferent stories that apart from the profound shock of reading a medieval scenario with Count Superman fighting Rasputin and vicious aliens had nothing else to offer. Batman – Nosferatu written by Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier and illustrated by Ted McKeever was something really different, not a masterpiece but still an issue I’m happy to hold on my bookshelf.
The story is set in an alternative future Metropolis, a combination of gothic and industrial elements, which prospers under the rule of Superman and Lois Lane. However many oppose them, such as the director of Arkham Asylum, Dr. Arkham, who often presents a depraved show of death and magic starring the Laughing Man, a nightmarish version of Joker. When bizarre murders begin to take place Bruce Wayne-son and Dick Gray-son will use their powers and influence to discover the vicious murderer and those guiding him. Through the pages other well knows DC characters appear in their changed forms for this world like the Penguin, Poison Ivy, James Gordon, Jimmy Olsen, Luthor, Bane, Man-Bat and the Killer Croc, all of them pulled out of the Kafka nightmare that exists in every work of Ted McKeever.
McKeever was the main reason I found myself interested in this, his work in Metropol was astounding, but the story was also pretty well written and I soon found myself lost in this innovative Nosferatu story from the beginning to the really good finale. You might want to check the other parts of the trilogy this was the second part of, Superman’s Metropolis and Wonder Woman – The Blue Amazon, there was supposed to be a fourth part as an epilogue about the but it was cancelled under unspecified circumstances. Enjoy!
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Try it yourselves, get the first story arc of Steve Niles’ and Ben Templesmith’s 30 Days of Night and if you don’t imagine it as a film at least every a couple of pages, well I’ll be proven wrong. Every panel, every setting I was thinking what a great vampire movie it could become, all dark and claustrophobic in a way that has nothing to do with space but atmosphere. The night comes, the sun will be away for a month, a horde of hungry vampires has come for them and yes, it will soon be on the big screen. Damn I’m expecting this!
Barrow is a small Alaskan town where once every year darkness falls and stays for a whole month. 30 days with no sunlight, the vampire heaven! A group of bloodthirsty undead finds out about this tourist resort and the rest is one of the greatest horror comics ever created, still continuing through various spin-offs and sequels. The movie is directed by David Slade (he used to make videoclips and he also directed Hard Candy) with Josh Hartnett (Lucky Number Slevin, The Black Dahlia, Sin City) and Melissa George (Dark City, Mullholand Drive, Alias) in the leading roles, great actors and a much promising young creator who have the unique opportunity of putting their signatures on a thrilling horror story.
Steve Niles originally wrote 30 Days of Night as a screenplay and now, especially after his direct connection to the film, we will at last see what his vision was like. I have to admit I’m a sucker for vampire films but this will be something absolutely special, Hartnett with his cool attitude being a detective against an army of monsters, blocked in a ruined city that needs to survive what looks like an eternity, hell, how could they make a boring movie out of it?
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The latest Marvel Knights title is here and it’s about out favorite silver bald guy, his own “end” mini series, Silver Surfer: Requiem! With his debut on the big screen coming in a few months with the new Fantastic 4 film and his latest appearances in the Ultimate Universe it was inevitable that there would be an event of his own, and this is it, the fall of the Silver Surfer in a 4-issue mini series.
For centuries he was the herald of Galaktus, the world devourer, he surfed through space to find worlds capable of sustaining his master a little more while they would be extinguished by his hunger. But everything changes when he discovers Earth and its heroes, a planet that actually has a hope, there he makes his stand with new friends and allies and faces his master, earning his freedom and salvation. Now, years later, the Silver Surfer feels that his death is imminent and decides to return to the place he sacrificed to save, the one part of the universe he kept himself away from for all those centuries, his home world, Zenn-La. But to do that he must travel great lengths, meet old allies and villains and even if he succeeds there’s no way he could know what he’ll meet there.
Coming from May till August from Marvel this is a potential ending to the Silver Surfer saga. It’s a pretty popular subject, like a What If mini series with a more realistic subject, but will it be really good or just another mini series to fill up the monthly catalog? Only time will tell.
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There was a time when comic movies where nothing but shameful events for us, comic fans, or best case just a good laugh, but fortunately that time has passed. Most of the movies based on comic books nowadays are carefully produced by the biggest studios and top actors, directors line up to have a chance of offering their own aspect of those modern myths. After Spider-Man, the X-Men, Hellblazer and other famous titles, the new film coming in May 2008 will be about one of the greatest heroes in the Marvel Universe, Iron Man!
Not much are known about the story but it seems like the first Iron Movie will be about the health problems of Tony Stark and the creation of the Iron Man suit after several different levels of development (the following picture that goes around in the web might look a little medieval but no worries, check the teaser poster and you’ll see the familiar red and yellow outfit). The bad guy is rumored to be the Mandarin which is both good and bad, he’s one of the oldest Iron Man villains but still not really well known and it might have something to do with a disturbingly politically correct storyline, West against East etc. Robert Downey Jr will play the role of Tony Stark / Iron Man in a casting that might prove the best pick in similar cases.
The next days we will try to offer you as many information as possible about this upcoming event, the cast, the plot rumors, the production steps, everything that you’d want to know a year before Iron Man’s arrival, until then patience!
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This column mentioned one of the previous days the forthcoming comic book “God Save the Queen” by Mike Carey and was actually thrilled to present a new work by him. This is the second time in a short period that we enjoy that privilege, Carey’s new mini series will be released this July by Vertigo and is titled Faker, it also seems capable of rocking your world (I know, I can’t control my enthusiasm).
Jessie is reaching the end of his freshman year in University in a tough Minnesota winter and to celebrate it he and his friends plan a great, wild party. After the party though everything seems to go terribly wrong for everyone, Jessie is hunted by memories she avoided for years, her best friend seems to have lost his identity and nobody outside their circle remembers or recognizes him with every official record of his existence deleted. What begins as a joke soon becomes a horror story where someone is something else than what he showed to his friends.
Faker is written by the great Mike Carey (Lucifer, Crossing Midnight, God Save the Queen) and illustrated by also well known Jock (he made The Losers, a great action story about a missing black-ops military team betrayed by their own bosses which is also planned to become a movie). It’s a story taking place the first year of its heroes’ independent lives when they choose what they want to be and what they want to pretend they are. All that through the prism of Carey’s story telling charisma and Jock’s beautiful drawing, this is something you can’t miss!
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There are several different opinions on who’s the most popular character in Vertigo’s acclaimed series Fables but the creators decided to create a spin-off series about Jack, the trickster, thieving, attractive guy that got banished after the discovery of his actions back in the main series. Jack is an anti-hero, he’s cynical, street smart, basically good but only when it fits him right. So what’s special about his own series?
Actually not much. I started reading this out of hope that it might approach the success of Fables but the first issues were kind of disappointing, Jack roaming the streets on his own gets kidnapped by a mad collector of Fable characters and manages to escape after a series of quite predictable events. The interesting part is that as the story continues it seems to obtain a style of its own, interestingly humorous with grasping story telling. In this issue Jack being recently widowed seems unable to do anything right, his fortune is lost, lady Luck hunts him and Mister Revise with his librarians finally track him down.
Another interesting fact about issue 10 of Jack of Fables is that the creators mistakenly deleted a dialogue box in page 10, it’s not such a big deal but it might add collective value to it. The official announcement of the creative team:
Dear Readers–
We goofed.
During the production and printing phase of Jack of Fables #10, the dialog on page ten was accidentally omitted. We present here, in Sneak Peek form, the corrected page with the dialog in place. If you are very enterprising, feel free to download the Sneak Peek, print it out, and paste this into your copy of Jack #10. Or you can wait for the trade paperback, wherein the mistake will be corrected.
We apologize for the error.
-The Jack of Fables Team
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Your favorite Vertigo series is back and the synopsis of the July issue is released! Marching towards the last 15 issues 100 Bullets becomes more thrilling than ever, the plot is finally being revealed step by step and the dark characters of Azarello’s and Risso’s noir vision approach the grand finale. What really happened in Atlantic City? What’s agent Graves’ secret agenda? What will be Dizzy Cordova’s fate and what about the rest of the Minutemen? Well, in a little more than a year there will be no secrets left so enjoy it while it lasts!
After the events of #81-83 in Rome the story shifts to two other heroes, the Minutemen Victor Ray and Remi Rome, the description in the official site of Vertigo is the following:
“Minutemen Victor Ray and Remi Rome are in need of a vacation, so they head to scenic Lake Tahoe for some R and R with the beautiful people. But you know what they say — “All play and no work make The Minutemen dull boys…””
So is this going to be a revealing issue about the facts of the past through a seemingly indifferent event or a break between two big story turns? There have been quite a few of both in the past 83 issues so any bet is not safe, but really who cares? This is one of the best written comics ever made, a masterpiece of narrative coming to a peak, are you really going to ignore it?
It is often hard for a comic that draws its material from real events to succeed in an industry that favors super heroes, grown men in tights and mythical battles, but fortunately it is also far from impossible. Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, combining ingeniously the dramatic life story of a young girl in Iran with political remarks, smart humor and an astonishing innocence that comes out of any page, never ceases to amaze the reader and make him wish there was more.
Marjane was born in Tehran, Iran and witnessed the huge changes that altered her country in her lifetime, such as the fall of the Shah, the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini and the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war. She lives in a progressive family while around her fanatics ruled, fundamentalists roamed and every day was harder than the previous, and everything she saw she judged with her unique way as a child. The first book of Persepolis describes those years and her experiences in Iran while the second one continues from her 14th year when she left to Vienna, Austria. Later she moved back to Iran to attend college where she met her first husband, she divorced and moved out again, this time in Strasbourg, France. She currently lives in Paris where she writes and draws children books, and of course Persepolis which is her most esteemed work until now.
Persepolis is charming in a profound way, it may speak of things ugly, evil and traumatic but it does it in an innocent way that leaves the reader with a bitter smile of not understanding but at least empathy. Marjane learns how her world works (make no mistake, your world has little in common with hers), speaks with political refugees, reads, speaks with God, wonders if the veil is right or wrong, dreams, falls in love, hates, makes mistakes and mostly acts like any other person would in her position. Astonishingly beautiful from the first page to the last Persepolis is a comic that might change your perspective in some matters.
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When you search a little the mini series casually released by different publishers you will notice that they include different styles, innovative ideas, revolutionary creations, everything we usually miss by the ongoing ones. A perfect example of the previous statement is the 8-issue series currently published by Image, The Pirates of Coney Island, written by Rick Spears and illustrated by Vasilis Lolos.
Vasilis Lolos, a greek comic creator who published most of his previous work in Athens, moved to America ready not to translate his previous work (which is more than notable) but to begin a whole new chapter in his professional history, and it’s obvious that he made it in a very short period. He made the Pirates of Coney Island, which is overflowed by his unique, personal style, he made a Spider-Man story for Marvel in Spider-Man: Family #02, his Last Call is coming this summer by Oni Press, not bad for a European artist in the mayhem of the United States! Rick Spears, the writer of Teenagers from Mars, Dead West and Filler is also the publisher of the Gigantic Graphic Novels, currently publishing two comics, Rotting in Dirtville and Hellcity.
The Pirates is a love story, or maybe it’s a crime story, well I have no idea how to categorize it and frankly, I don’t care to. Two gangs of rebellious teens, the Pirates and the Cherries, fight for domination in Coney Island, they fight violently, they bleed together, they fall in love with each other and at the same time live outside the law, stealing cars and selling them for their parts. It’s as unconventional as it gets, the only way to get it is to read it by yourselves and not leave any synopsis make you judge it as rude (well, that it might be), sick (mmm, that’s ain’t always bad) or too violent (too violent? Is there such a thing?). Europe and America are united in this goth-post modern-romantic-whatever else story, don’t miss it!
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