I’m in a total state of shock: It seems like just yesterday that I was watching every episode of Bleach — so I was blown away to just read the it’s almost the 10th anniversary of the franchise. Of course that marks the 10th anniversary of the manga which was first published in August of 2001 and is now up to 48 volumes and over 300 episodes of the anime series which went on the air in 2004. Shown here are a set of coasters which have been created for the occasion in Japan which feature illustrations by Noriaki “Tite” Kubo: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 30, 2010 in Comic Books
I’m really excited about The Li’l Depressed Boy #1 for two reasons: First it’s just nice to see a book that looks different and secondly this comic is yet another example of how a web comic can become “discovered” and make its way to print. Featuring a story by S. Steven Struble and art by Sina Grace this book will be coming out in February 9th, 2011. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 29, 2010 in Comic Books, Tech
Pity us poor anime and manga fans who have to settle for mere Facebook for in Japan the social media service Mixi will be rolling out a series of premium manga themed new year’s cards for 2011. Included in the series is Nodame Cantabile (shown above) and Moyashimon (shown below). By the way sadly for us Gaijin signing up Mixi requires a Japanese cell phone.
Though it’s no great surprise to people who’ve been following the development of the past two Batman films, Christian Bale recently admitted that unless Chris Nolan tells him otherwise, the upcoming Dark Knight Rises will be his last Batman film. The statement does make sense — Bale is only contractually obligated to star in three Batman movies, and he’s said several times that he’d only star if Nolan was at the helm. He does leave some wiggle room, though; Nolan could very well decide to do another Batman film, and Bale could likely be convinced if that was the case. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Nov 26, 2010 in Comic Books
Fabian Glez created these 77 rectangles, each of them representing a superhero with a bare minimum of detail. How many of them can you identify? If you can’t figure them all out, Fabian has a cheat sheet on his Flickr page. Prints of the work are available if you’d like to make your wall minimally super. Read more…
Walker is a boy, who is suddenly thrown into the middle of returning a cursed skull to an already cursed pair of Merwitch Sister Monsters. Everyone still wants the skull though, so Walker has to escape or out trick them. Read more…
The upcoming Judge Dredd remake, spartanly titled Dredd, has just started filming, but a set photo of Karl Urban as the titular ass-kicker has already leaked, giving us a sneak peek at his costume. Thankfully, it looks like very few liberties have been taken with Dredd’s getup, and it looks slightly more gritty than the version used in Stallone’s terrible take on the character. Urban has done pretty well in the other genre pieces he’s been in, sometimes in spite of the subject matter, so it’ll be interesting to see how we judge this Dredd. Read more…
Casting has officially begun for the upcoming Superman reboot (yes, another one), and Warner Bros. is ready to make a star, whether they like it or not. Not only are they looking for relatively unknown actors, they’re also saying that it may be impossible to hire a famous name anyway due to budget constraints. If you think they’re trying to get this film out the door quickly and cheaply, you’re probably right — if the Warners don’t start production by the middle of 2011, they risk losing the Superman license. But hey, whoever ends up being the new Supes will either deal with being Superman forever (Christopher Reeve), remaining in relative obscurity (Brandon Routh), or dating a Playmate (Dean Cain). I guess some of those aren’t too bad. Read more…
Reportedly, the script for Christopher Nolan’s next (and likely final) Batman movie is almost complete, and rumors are pouring in as to its contents. The latest rumblings indicate that, contrary to previous speculation, there’s not a more supernatural villain like Killer Croc or Clayface — instead, so they say, the story arc is based on Doug Moench’s Prey storyline. For those who haven’t read it, it involves Hugo Strange hypnotizing a man into becoming a vigilante and pursuing Batman. Catwoman even makes an appearance, which would make sense given other casting rumors. Of course, we won’t know anything for certain until we get some details from Nolan himself, and that might be a while. The film doesn’t start shooting until next year. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Nov 19, 2010 in Comic Books
French photographer Sacha Goldberger’s 91-year-old grandmother was feeling depressed, so he suggested they have a photo shoot to cheer her up. But not just any photo shoot: he turned her into the superhero Mamika and lined up a ton of amazing shots. Grandma Goldberger looks like she’s having a great time throughout. In fact, says Goldberger, his grandmother hasn’t shown a trace of her old depression since, because the experience has let her share her amazing life story — living through World War II, surviving Nazism and Communism — with thousands of people worldwide. In my book, that makes her extraordinary enough. Read more…
Posted by Guest Author on Nov 15, 2010 in Comic Books
Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz
Similar to The Fart Party Volumes 1 and 2, Julia Wertz shares an autobiographical account of her life in comics. This volume is about her settling into life at New York City, over a year’s period, separated with season’s markers. As a New York native myself, I found myself nodding my head to some bits that she points out, such as points about the food, neighborhoods, bums, and weather. Though I have no personal experience of her experiences in San Francisco, I find myself quite curious, since San Francisco is a city I have never visited, but heard things about. Read more…
Posted by Guest Author on Nov 15, 2010 in Comic Books
Sparky: The Life and Art of Charles Schulz by Beverly Gherman
Most Americans should have heard of the Charlie Brown character or even if they don’t know the comic, should know of Snoopy. He is quite a well known beagle, merchandised and branded in many other countries. The story of Charlie Brown inspired a musical, cartoon, and tons of merchandises. Still this entry is not about the merchandises or products that are available. I still bet a lot of people would be interested in reading about the creator behind the famous Peanuts comic strip. His name is Charlie Schulz, or as friends and family referred to him as Sparky. Read more…
Surprising no one, Todd McFarlane’s upcoming Spawn animated series on MTV will continue to be “adults-only programming.” The original Spawn series, which won two Emmy awards, functioned pretty much the same way — lots of violence, gore, language, and sex — so it’s a relief that MTV has essentially given McFarlane free reign to, in his words, “keep doing what I’m doing.” There’s no ETA on the new series, but even with that in mind, it’s a small miracle it’s happening at all, with legal troubles having put new Spawn properties on hold for the past decade. Hopefully this’ll be comeback worth going through hell for. Read more…
Ryan Reynolds’ upcoming superhero flick (well, one of several, anyway), Green Lantern, just had its first preview footage hit the net, courtesy of Entertainment Tonight. In terms of “feel,” it resembles Iron Man, with lighthearted humor on top of action scenes. The footage is a little rough and pixelated (you’ll recall that the first Iron Man clip looked pretty much the same way, and that film turned out okay), but you can still get a good look Hal’s suit with its odd musculature. And devoted fans will immediately recognize Kilowog, Hal’s Green Lantern Corps trainer.
ET has even more footage from the film ready to go for Tuesday’s episode, so keep an eye out after the weekend!
Posted by Michael Sacco on Nov 12, 2010 in Comic Books
I see superhero t-shirts in stores all the time, but they’re usually lacking that certain something, you know? In this case, that “certain something” is “Dr. Doom riding a unicorn,” and thankfully Mighty Fine has me covered in that regard. On top of the truly excellent Dr. Doom shirt shown above, they also have several other gems — Thor in a classic Frazetta Conan pose, Galactus eating Pegasus, and … a whole lot of Squirrel Girl shirts for the ladies. Yeah, I have no idea either, but somehow I can’t look away. Read more…
It’s a shame that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World flopped at the box office. It wasn’t a terrible movie, and the entertainment industry as a whole would have benefited from it success. While I can’t build a time machine and take back to the opening weekend, you can do the next best thing and buy a copy of the DVD or Blu-ray that hit stores this week. I’m not sure if they’re planning on throwing this clip in the extras or not, but for whatever reason, director Edgar Wright decided to have the actors film the opening scene with British accents. I thought it was pretty funny even if Michael Cera couldn’t quite pull it off. If you’re curious as to why the video quality isn’t quite up to par, it’s because this test footage was apparently shot with a Lumix. Read more…
Casting for the Spiderman reboot has legs (eight of them, specifically)! Hot on the heels of other casting announcements, like Gwen Stacy and the film’s unknown villain, we now know that Martin Sheen is in final negotiations to play Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. Additionally, Sally Field is said to be in talks to play Aunt May. Honestly, I’m just not sure you can beat Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris, who played Ben and May in the previous three Spidey films, but I’m sure that Sheen and Field will do fine in the roles, all things being equal. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Nov 8, 2010 in Comic Books
Talk about seeing superheroes from a different angle! Or several of them, really. Mike and Matt of Wonder Bros. created these Cubist paintings of several superheroes, and they’re available as prints from their Etsy shop. Personally, I love these kinds of reinterpretations, though other people get so used to seeing superheroes presented in the same ways over and over that they tend to freak out when they’re not rendered “accurately,” and it’s hard to get more inaccurate than Cubism. Read more…
Any comic book fan worth their salt knows the name “Stan Lee” — the man behind Marvel Comics since its birth, the creator of Spiderman, the old dude with the mustache and the glasses. And now fans of the man himself can check out his new biography film, “With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story,” this Sunday at the American Cinematheque in Santa Monica. The 80-minute film by Terry Dougas, Nikki Frakes, and Will Hess will be accompanied by a Stan Lee signing session. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 1, 2010 in Comic Books
Sadly he’s not better known in the west but Shigeru Sugiura (杉浦茂) was an amazing manga artist who lived in Japan from 1908 until 2000. He became famous after World War II with a series of manga aimed at kids but is best known for his more comedic work. Shown above is the beautiful print designed by otooto22 for a hoodie which will be released in mid-November: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 1, 2010 in Comic Books
How can you tell that Disney expect the upcoming Tron film to be huge? Because Marvel plans to cash in with a poorly done comic book based on the original film (Tron: Original Movie Adaptation #1) which will be released this week. Clearly the thinking is that fanboys will be nostalgic for the original and will buy almost anything with a Tron logo on it. Sadly a more creative team might have had fun with a creative interpretation of the original and done an amazing graphic novel — instead this preview reveals a bad tracing and coloring job: Read more…
Do you like Popeye comic strips? No? You don’t? Well, I suppose that’s probably because you’ve never read one, because why on earth would you have occasion to? But I bet you like Indiana Jones, in which case this most excellent adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark done in the style (and speech patterns) of classic Popeye comics. Now all we need is Last Crusade done Tintin-style and we’ll be all set. What’s that? There’s an Indiana Jones movie between Raiders and Crusade? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Read more…
We’ve been pretty pumped about Christopher Nolan’s next (and possibly last) Batman film, and some recent casting news has helped that feeling. Now we have some big news — the film’s title! Nolan spoke with Hero Complex and divulged that the movie will be titled “The Dark Knight Rises.” But that’s not all: we also know who the film’s villain won’t be. Nolan confirmed that the Riddler is out of the running as antagonist. There’ve been rumors swirling around that recently-cast Thomas Hardy will be playing Bane or even Killer Croc, but at this point it could be anybody — except for Mr. Freeze, who Nolan also recently deconfirmed. Read more…
Entertainment Weekly’s cover story this week has Chris Evans as Captain America in his full costume, including the iconic shield. But that’s not all! EW was kind enough to release several other photos, including shots of Cap in his USO uniform, Hugo Weaving as Red Skull, HYDRA goons, and more! The suit looks pretty great in the photos — Cap’s cartoony “flag pajamas” are nowhere to be found here, just some nice period-friendly superhero digs. Chris Evans also looks right at home in this particular film universe. Color me red, white, and excited. Read more…
