Behind My Byline

I’m really enjoying Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” and some people will probably say that would be a given since I am such a huge Buffy fan, but that isn’t necessarily true. I didn’t watch “Firefly” and even though I watched and liked “Angel” I thought it was inferior to Buffy in many ways.

Thus, it wasn’t guaranteed that I would like this show, but I do and I didn’t even like the pilot that much. However, the writing is good and they finally came around to giving us a major plot twist for the rest of the season in episode 5. In fact, both “Gray Hour” and “True Believer” have been really fun to watch, showing Eliza’s range at playing different personalities and moods. Topher is a little annoying and somewhat reminiscent of other characters and Eliza’s cat burglar persona in “Gray Hour” was somewhat derivative of Jessica Alba’s character in “Dark Angel” right down to the sleek leather black outfit. However, I am interested in seeing what comes next, from reveals about the mysterious active code named “Alpha” to the further characterization of the other actives.

The last episode moved the federal agent played by Paul Ballard closer to figuring out the whereabouts of Echo and the Dollhouse, or at least until the climax. I really hope that he isn’t reduced to a “Mr McGee” role, chasing down the elusive actives. Also, why is an active getting a physical reaction out of Sierra? Are there going to be any residual effects from Echo’s surgery?

Either way, you know the producers and writers are moving towards more complications. The best thing is, thanks to the internet, and modern technology, you can watch the episodes online any time you want.

After a couple of unusually off books, the Buffy train is back on track with issue #23 which includes an Andrew-Buffy story and has Buffy going up against a rogue Slayer.

Don’t want to say more than that and give away the plot, but it is comforting to know that we finally get a good script from a former Buffy writer (Drew Greenberg who also penned some Smallville, The O.C. and Dexter eps) in season 8. It’s not an outstanding installment, but definitely an improvement over the previous two.

Andrew steals the show this time around and his geek bonding with Buffy is the highlight of the entire comic. Whether he’s pontificating on Jedi knights fighting Superman or expressing his surprise at liking Daniel Craig as the new James Bond, what works about this marvelous exchange is that not only does it come across as natural unforced dialogue, which was always one of the strengths of the show, it is also totally in keeping with Andrew’s nerdy characterization.

That’s not to say the character hasn’t progressed, you don’t get to become a watcher and get bestowed with tremendous responsibilities and not experience some character growth and maturity.

Andrew is always good for comic relief. If there is one flaw with this comic, it’s a minor one and that is that it isn’t new reader friendly, and come to think of it, it isn’t even easy for long time readers of season eight because unless you remember Simone was mentioned back in issue #11, you might be hard pressed to recall who the character even was.

Artwise, this is a good looking comic book, Georges Jeanty continues to prove he’s the best artist this side of Cliff Richards to handle the cast as he expertly renders everyone’s likeness. Add to that another beautiful Jo Chen cover and you have a can’t miss comic book. Faith returns next issue! Can’t wait!

While the opening of Watchmen this weekend taking the top post in the box office at $55.7 million wasn’t a big surprise, it does continue the  recent dominant trend of Hollywood scouring graphic novels and comic book material, once considered too lowbrow to mention in the same breath as Academy Award worthy fare, for commercial entertainment. So now that Watchmen has landed and Heath Ledger has won a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of the Joker, what’s the next property or less known graphic novel Hollywood will try to cull and turn into box office gold?

It is surprising how much comic material from the modern era of comics has already been used by studios and production companies, from mainstream properties like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Sin City to less well know material like The Maxx.

So I present five graphic novels or lesser known comics (at least by the layman) which may make excellent films. So don’t be surprised to see these in the local cineplex.

Lucifer

DC Comics (Vertigo)

Fans of Neil Gainman’s Sandman comics will be familiar with this one as it is the spin-off concerning the adventures of the fallen angel Lucifer Morningstar on Earth. Touching on themes of redemption, free will, and predestination, the story at its core focuses on human foibles and emconpasses a collection of eleven tomes with a stand alone graphic novel named Lucifer Nirvana. The main character of course is the centerpiece of the entire narrative which can translate into a fascinating film similar to another DC Vertigo series, 2005’s Constantine. However, this could be a more nuanced flick with the right combination of actors and a visionary director handling the material.

The Goon

Dark Horse Comics has already given the Hollywood execs a paranormal entity in the form of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, so it’s not too much of a stretch to envision a movie or two starring another Dark Horse property: Eric Powell’s The Goon.

With its cartoonish excesses and its distinct paranornal slant, the Goon and his sidekick Franky are primed for silver screen super-stardom, given the story often focuses on the typical comic book fare of zombies, monsters and mad scientists which can either be recrated through the magic of CGI in the same fashion Hellboy’s world was recreated, or spliced together in a combination of live action and animation a la Sin City. Better yet, characters in the B.P.R.D. including Hellboy himself are free to make cameos. The Goon at its core, is powered by the fertile imagination and genious of Eric Powell, but I can already see its protagonist making a jump into the big screen as effortlessly as his Dark Horse predecessor has done.

The Doom Patrol

(DC Comics)

The Doom Patrol would be a harder adaptation to execute given not many super-hero team flicks have been realized with the exeption of the X-Men franchise and to a certain extent, Watchmen. Hollywood is certainly behind when it comes to team books with big screen versions of JLA and The Avengers rumored but yet to hit the box office landscape. The Doom Patrol are a squad that is less known than X-Men but no less important to comic book lore. In fact, the similarities to Marvel’s team are evident even though the Doom Patrol predate professor X’s chargers by several months (they both debuted in 1963.) I have always found Robotman to be a fascinating character and this team book is one of DC’s best from the early days of comics. With a screenplay which honors the integrity of the series, this is one which has box office smash written all over it and an audience already in place, people who loved X-Men and Watchmen would certainly dig a movie based on this team comic book.

Miracle Man

(Eclipse Comics) Eclipse’s Miracle Man is the perfect solo compliment to the more mainstream comic book movies with an eye towards re-creating the dark, post-modern deconstruction tone created by Alan Moore and later continued by Neil Gaiman. The only problem in translating this little known gem of a comic into the big screen is that the legal battles attached to the creative rights over the years may present a major stumbling block. A prolonged legal battle between Image’s Todd McFarlane and Gaiman has been well publicized and could stymie a feature film. This would be a pity because  Miracle Man’s adventures are the stuff comic book movies should be made of.

The New Gods

(DC Comics)

Is it just me or does anyone else think that a New Gods movie incorporating Jack “King” Kirby’s masterpiece would make an excellent movie? It’s a no-brainer that a book which introduced the world to such amazing and iconic characters like Darkseid, Orion, Mister Miracle, Granny Goodness, Highfather and countless others would also translate into a kick-ass comic book movie. I’m a little leery of suggesting this one because I am afraid of  Hollywood getting a hold of the concept and completely ruining it but I think any writer worth his salt could adapt the Fourth World into a compelling, dramatic and visually arresting motion picture. So there you have it, five suggestions for the next Hollywood blockbuster. Bring on the popcorn!

Ok so technically, this isn’t a retro-review, but I do intend to bring back my blog feature in which I reflect on seminal works on the comics industry. Is it too soon to look back at Mark Millar’s “Civil War?” I don’t thinks so. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 2 years since I was blogging about it, but while i was checking my archives on my old blog Back to Sunnydale I realized how far reaching and important this series was and it’s fun to look back.

First off, it’s worth noting that the comic featured some of Steve McNiven’s finest artwork of his Marvel career. Though big panel shots with multiple characters are hard to render and not everyone has the artistics chops of a George Perez to pull it off, McNiven did a fine job throughout this series conveying a lot of the conflict and rendering some fine action sequences.  It’s also interesting to note that some of the far reaching events on the mainstream Marvel universe came about as a result of CW and some that I thought would come about turned out to be either temporary or not as far reaching as once anticipated. For example, Tony Stark as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was fun while it lasted but it had the detrimental effect of portraying Tony as an authoritarian and as a total a-hole. I don’t think  there was anyone I spoke to in 2007 that didn’t think this was a gross mischaracterization which could have proved costly had the Iron Man movie not been the huge success that it was. Another consequence was the formation of multiple Avengers teams. This mess is still something that Bendis has not fixed and now we have  yet another Avengers team running around with the Dark Avengers. Most people were stunned to see that Captain America died shortly after this series, but most expected Steve Rogers to be resurrected.No way Jose, writer Ed Brubaker has proven that a character can be just as interesting in the grave if a fine story is crafted around the circumstances leading up to and following his death. Brubaker’s run on Captain America has been nothing short of brilliant and we have CW to inderectly thank for this.

One of the most satisfying results was the 50 state initiative and that led to the best Avengers title, for my money the Initiative has been more than worth it since the conclusion of CW. Lastly, Spidey’s return to his black threads, really did anyone think it would last? Not as long as Venom was still around. Still, CW was a great mini series and its repercussions are still being felt two years later, only time will tell if it can stand the test of time along with other great series like Crisis on Infiinite Earths and others of its ilk.

My friend George Leon has been working hard on a new comic and it’s finally done. It’s called “Luchadores in Space” and it’s about luchadores who are down on their luck and working on a lunch truck to make ends meet.

When one has the idea to speed up their deliveries and garner more costumers by modifying their vehicle, all kinds of adventures ensue.

Those of you who know George remember he was always drawing and he tells me that his first comic was “a labor of love” in more ways that one. You see, his mom passed away from breast cancer a few years back and all the proceeds from the small print run of the first issue are going to charity for an organization that researches breast cancer.

Everyone is real proud of George for completing his comic, like many nascent artists, he wrote, penciled, colored and inked it himself. Little did I know years ago when we were going out to buy comics together at the Golden Apple in Melrose and variuos other locales around town that one day George would realize his dream of becoming a working comic book artist himself.

“Luchadores in Space” will be exhibited at the Stumptown Comics fest in Portland coming up in April where George will have a booth along with the other artists and vendors. Though not as big as say Wizard World or San Diego Con, Stumptown has been attracting big names over the years and is certainly a colorful stop for the industry with WonderCon just around the corner.  If you happen to be in the Portland area in April, come out and support local artists and say hello to George and get your copy of LIS from Palooka Press.

There are some comics which you pay above the standard $2.99 cover price and you feel ripped off, but that never happens to me with Hack/Slash. I don’t mind paying $3.50 for a quality read. As a matter of fact, this weird, quirky little horror title from Devil’s Due has been truly excellent of late and writer Tim Seeley ups the ante with this issue as some of the sub plots which have been floating around for quite some time are finally addressed. For example, even though the psychic Mrs. Jaworski makes a brief appearance, she’s been around for a while now and her influence is a having a catastrophic effect on our protagonists.

Of particular interest is the strain Cassie’s relationship with Margaret is having on her partnership with Vlad. One can’t help but feel bad for the big monster as he thinks that he is being replaced by Cassie’s decision to stop going after the slashers and to attempt a semblance of a normal life. Cassie is oblivious to what Vlad has been experiencing and it’s touching to see Cassie reach out to him when she is in trouble, as usual.

The nature of Cassie’s troubles with the authorities has been established in previous issues. She’s wanted as a suspect in a multiple homicide case as a direct result of the carnage which went down in her previous adventures and Mrs. Jaworski supplying the police with leads about her.

Seeley blends all the plot points of the book seamlessly and manages to spotlight Vlad’s frustrations while crafting a story rich in intrigue and characterization.

Things get sufficiently weird (which for this title is the status quo) when Cassie is taken from police custody by the society of the black lamp, a cultish group of Slashers who drug her up and tie her up for their own freakish mechanizations. I haven’t even mentioned the otherworldly invaders from the Nerf dimension which have been running around since last issue. “Pooch” is always good for comic relief and it is a relief that he survived last issue’s attack.

Seeley is so in tune with his main character that he makes her strengths stand out during the abduction. Despite being incapacitated by drugs, Cassie is a survivor and she tries to think and fight her way out of every situation. She’s familiar with the nuanced idiosyncrasies of slashers. The comic ends in a fantastic cliffhanger which has me already salivating for the next installment.

Stylistically, this book always has a distinct look to it and artist Kevin Mellon seems to fit in with previous Hack/Slash artists such as Emily Stone, delivering not only on big panel action sequences but also on the facial expressions of the protagonists: Cassie’s look when she says she had other things on her mind while talking to the inmates in the jail cell is beautifully rendered, her troubles on display for the reader to absorb. Likewise, he makes you really feel for Vlad, as the big lug is feeling confused over Cassie’s relationship with Margaret.

Mellon also rendered the lesbian love scene last issue between Margaret and Cassie with the tenderness, respect and love both characters truly feel for each other, without it looking like a salacious, exploitative gimmick to hook in the predominant male readership. Having laid the groundwork, he continues by drawing some powerful scenes between Margaret and Vlad and then transitions into the comic’s big climax.

 Final word: This may not be a new reader friendly book in terms of where the pooch from the Nerf dimension and some of the other monsters and slashers running around fit in the current story arc, but as usual, readers can pick up the trades to catch up because I have a feeling that Seeley and company are just getting started and this comic is always highly entertaining.

Over the weekend, I managed to catch the pilot to Joss Whedon’s new television opus Dollhouse starring Buffy alumna Eliza Dushku. By now, most fans know the premise of the new show: it focuses on a secret organization that employs “actives” a group of operatives who have their memories and personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with new ones, allowing them to take on various missions for hire.

So does it work? Does it pique my interest? The pilot was certainly trumpeted by the Fox hype machine but only 13 episodes have been commissioned, so the future of the series seems questionable. So what else is new right? Well, Whedon has a tendency to deliver well crafted story arcs so at the very least, we might get some entertaining stories out of this before the nextwork pulls the plug for low ratings.  FYI, the latest numbers from Geeking Out show that it did better than the lead in show, Terminator The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Will the marketing of both sci fi themed programs do anything to deliver a hit show? Only time will tell. I can’t help but to be reminded of another Fox show starring a hot, engaging female lead character with a sci-fi theme. That one was superior in my mind and lasted 2 short but memorable seasons. One thing I know, it was nice to see the little monster GRRRARGGGHING accross my screen at the end of the pilot episode. Check out the trailer if you haven’t seen it:

Late last year I saw an ad for the LA Times Blog: Hero Complex which borrowed a lot of imagery from the comic book world. I thought I’d give it a shot and was supremely disappointed. Although I only scanned a few posts, most of them are not about comics but rather comics related movies in Hollywood, upcoming projects, graphic novels everyone’s heard of but not John Doe (You know like Watchmen, Y The Last Man, etc) and other pop culture stuff with The Dark Knight info ad nauseum.
They should rename this blog to Movie Hero Complex or something along those lines. This week’s edition for example, features info on Lon Chaney (WTF? OK maybe it should be called Monster Complex)

Now, I have nothing against Lon Chaney, I love classic horror movies just as much as the next guy, but horror has been a staple in comics since the 40s and 50s or even earlier, might be nice to read about some of the books inspired by Chaney and others of his ilk. There’s other stuff about the new Trek movie, Battle Star Galactica and Star Wars, all geek properties to be sure, but I thought this was Hero Complex, not Geek Complex or Nerd Complex.

The only info remotely connected to comics is nestled somewhere in the column with information about Rob Leifeld’s Youngblood being possibly made into another Hollywood train wreck. Great, it isn’t enough that they might actually ruin Watchmen by changing the ending of the graphic novel or that “Wanted” and “League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen” were butchered or that the entire premise of  “I am Legend” was changed,  now Hollywood is making adaptations of less known 90’s Image properties. What’s next? Savage Dragon meets the Hulk?? Actually that might make a good flick…

If you want to read a good comic book blog, check out Rokk’s comic book revolution and skip Hero Complex altogether. That is unless you want to watch the latest Watchmen trailer or read about how Dark Knight got snubbed for Oscar best picture considerations. Yawn!

While vacuous teens were going crazy over the vampire movie and the “Twilight” book, the name means something altogether different to Buffy fans, as we know that it is the name of the latest big bad to menace the Buffy universe.
SPOILER ALERT: Issue #22 follows up on the Harmony story by revealing that in the wake of Harmony’s bid for fame with her reality TV show, public support of the Slayers may be turning thanks to media influence. I’m not sure how I feel about this development, while it was certainly funny to see Harmony return last issue and to read a spoof about the entertainment industry’s obsession with pseudo celebrities, the clandestine nature of the Slayers is no more, but people can’t tell who the good guys are and who the black hats are.
This would necessitate the overall public being aware of the existence of vampires, but if that is the case then wouldn’t there be a greater mobilization against the threat along the lines of the Initiative? Or would the converse be true with evil people trying to exploit the vampire powers?
Well, at any rate, issue #22 also seemed to be making a strong case that Buffy isn’t gay, perhaps to allay the fears of long time fans who worried about the repercussions of her dalliance with Satsu. I thought Kennedy’s long winded speech to Satsu was a bit of overkill, we get it, Buffy isn’t a lesbian and Satsu needs to move on because there is no future in a relationship with a straight girl, we don’t need Steven De Knight beating us over the head with this.
The strangest most off putting thing about “Swell” was of course, the Swell and the Vampy cats. I thought the Santorio Corporation was a hilarious send off on Sanrio which manufactures the Hello Kitty merchandise which girls have been fascinated with for years. As an adversary, the vampy cat seemed recycled, reminiscent of Gremlins or even the toys which once made an appearance in the Buffy Slayer annual from 1999. Anyone remember that story? However, I read in some blogs that their subsequent transformation into the monstrous Swell may be a nod to Japanese manga adversaries, and I don’t read mangas to be able to verify this. Satsu’s traditional Japanese garb early on in the comic would seem to corroborate this. However, this does nothing to change the fact that this was mostly a weak story and not what we have come to expect from this title. Perhaps Joss’ absence from the writing chores has something to do with it.
Soon enough there’s the appearance of a submarine in defense of the Swell’s intended invasion of the Slayers’ castle in Scotland. You gotta love a comic book in which a submarine is involved and it makes perfect sense in the context of the story. This wasn’t the best issue of issue eight but I like the new trend of having former writers of the show like DeKnight and Jane Espenson pen installments of issue #8, I just wish they were giving us stronger stories.

Posts have been few and far between on this blog. I was dealing with some stuff which prevented my usual blogging habits. Emotional attachments are the worst. Since the holidays I have been moping and down about someone whom I had a crush on and didn’t work out. I feel so empty, when you like someone and they don’t feel the same way, it can really wear you out. I was talking about this last night with a friend whom I had not really talked to in several years but we reconnected because of the internet. Damn facebook! Anyhow, she could empathize with what I said because she was apparently going through the same thing.

The weird thing is that I know I am going to remain friends with the person, but it’s going to take some time to get over the attraction and that is the part I never deal with too well.

I am ready to start the healing process and ready to move on but I have to retrain my heart and my soul to start to do so. Some of my friends who have heard me complain about this are probably sick to death of hearing me talk about this but all I can offer is that if I have seemed distant or weird to anyone, well know you know the reason. I keep listening to this song by the Bodeans over and over again, because I find it so true: Everybody wants to live how they want to live, Everybody wants to love how they want to love (even if sometimes it may not be the best idea) Everybody wants to be closer to free…

and so do I…so badly….