NewsOK Comics vodcast: Blood Bowl: Killer Contract 1, Wolverine 66, Trinity 3
Believe it or not, he has a comic book company
The “Greatest American Hero” is bringing his superheroic expertise to comics.
William Katt, TV’s “Greatest American Hero,” has launched a new independent comic book company called “Catastrophic Comics.”
The first title from the company, “Sparks,” was released this week. “Sparks” is a six-issue mini-series, 32 pages in full color and sells for a suggested retail price of $2.99. The artist is JM Ringuet, the artist of “Transhuman.”
Sparks was co-created by William Katt and Christopher Folino, the writer/director of the cult comedy film “Gamers.”
“Sparks” is set in 1948, as masked vigilante Ian Sparks finding himself in a noir story of self-discovery and redemption.
“My goal for Catastrophic Comics is to tell original stories, with amazing art work, that don’t suck. And I can’t imagine a better book to launch our company with than Sparks. JM and Chris have done a superb job with this gritty book,” said Katt in a release.
For more information about Catastrophic Comics, visit www.catastrophiccomics.com.
– Matt Price
Check out the “Dark Knight” site
Find out more about Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” one of the summer’s most-anticipated sequels on the new Batman-themed site at NewsOK.com. At www.NewsOK.com/batman, you can find articles from The Oklahoman dealing with Batmans past and present, including interviews about the films, television series and comic books.
Also included is George Lang’s interview with Heath Ledger, one of Ledger’s final interview sessions before he died earlier this year. Ledger played the Joker to Christian Bale’s Batman in “The Dark Knight.”
NewsOK.com/batman also includes a message board, blog and videos. For podcasts about “The Dark Knight,” click here for my podcast with Brandy McDonnell about summer movies, and here for my podcast with Kyle Roberts about Bat-events in comics, DVD, and film.
The site will be updated through release of “The Dark Knight” on July 18 and beyond.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
DVD review – Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes, the complete first season
“Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes” mixes the characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby with modern animation and anime-influenced design.
The Fantastic Four is a super-team. The team’s adventures are based on the Marvel Comic book.
Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) is the genius leader who can stretch his body like elastic. Sue Storm (Invisible Woman) can turn invisible and project force fields. Ben Grimm (The Thing) is an orange, rocky monster, and Johnny Storm (Human Torch) can turn himself into a flame and fly.
The melding of 2-D and 3-D animation could be jarring for some, and the designs aren’t directly lifted from the comic book. French animation house Moonscoop tried to modernize the look, with the “4” logo seemingly spray-painted on The Thing’s rocky hide and the Torch sporting a Japanese anime-style haircut.
Several guest-stars from Marvel Comics appear, including Hulk and Iron Man.
The featurette “From Origin to Animation” is a treat for fans, as Lee talks about the Fantastic Four’s creation. The “Rise of the Rogues” featurette showcases the Fantastic Four’s villains, including Doctor Doom. Also included is a partial reprint of the “Ultimate Fantastic Four” No. 1 comic book.
— Matthew Price
Review: “Kung Fu Panda” video game
From Friday’s The Oklahoman:
By Matthew Price
THE NEXT LEVEL
A panda becoming a kung-fu master is unlikely. A game based on a kids’ movie being fun and engaging is also unlikely. But “Kung Fu Panda: The Game” from Activision, manages both. Movie-based games often run into problems trying to coordinate their release with their big-screen brethren, but “Kung-Fu Panda” succeeds in making a game that will be enjoyed by the film’s target audience.
Gamers take the role of Po the Panda in 13 levels of “Kung-Fu Panda: The Game.” Gamers will also occasionally play as his teacher, Shifu, and the other Kung Fu masters. Most of the levels are adapted from scenes in the film. Po’s fighting style is explored through button combos, which can be upgraded by finding coins on each level.
The gameplay is easy to learn, but requires some practice to master, at least for the younger set. The boss battles at the end of each level are similar to the recent “Ultimate Alliance” game from Marvel and Activision.
On the Xbox 360, the game looks graphically solid, and while there are some camera issues, “Kung-Fu Panda” is a nice adaptation of the look of the film. The soundalikes for the movie’s stars do a competent job of recreating the “Kung-Fu Panda” sound.
It’s relatively short, but the puzzle, platforming and other elements mixed in with the fighting should make “Kung-Fu Panda” fun for young gamers.
The game is rated E10+, for gamers over 10 years old. The game is available for Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS.
“V” creator looks at U.S. under occupation
From Friday’s The Oklahoman:
By Matthew Price
WORD BALLOONS
The alien takeover of earth in the hit 1983 TV miniseries “V” spurred comic books, video games and other ancillary spinoffs. Creator Kenneth Johnson returned to the world of “V” this year with his sequel novel “V: The Second Generation.”
“The Second Generation” is being developed as a possible TV movie or miniseries.
The original miniseries, a story of America under occupation seen by 80 million people, was inspired by Sinclair Lewis’ book, “It Can’t Happen Here.”
“With ‘V,’ it was very interesting, because my initial concept for ‘V’ had nothing to do whatsoever with aliens,” Johnson said. “I had been going through the works of Sinclair Lewis, who wrote ‘Elmer Gantry’ and ‘Main Street’ and a bunch of great novels. A lesser known novel of his is called ‘It Can’t Happen Here.’”
“It Can’t Happen Here” details an America overrun by fascism.
“What an interesting idea, to turn America into a state that was run by a tyranny and operated by fascists,” Johnson said, who was inspired to write a screenplay about a grassroots fascistic movement taking hold in the United States.
Brandon Tartikoff, then the head of NBC, read it, and wasn’t sure Americans would get fascism. He proposed that America would instead be under occupation by the Russians, or Chinese. Johnson said he wasn’t sure it was believable that the Chinese or Russians could sustain an occupation. Then, Johnson said, someone suggested aliens.
“Here I go again,” Johnson said. As the creator of “The Bionic Woman” and the developer of “The Incredible Hulk” for television, he was wary of being pigeonholed in science fiction. However, after considering the idea further, he changed his mind.
“The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a great opportunity, because not only could I tell the story that I wanted to tell, about how ordinary people are changed or corrupted or become heroic because of extraordinary circumstances, but I could do it in a way where I had all this wonderful visual eye candy that would attract everyone’s attention,” he said.
This allowed Johnson to tell his story, which was “not about aliens or reptilian races or spacecraft, but a story in which the theme was power,” he said. “People who had power and abused it … and ultimately the heroes, who say, ‘This power is being abused and I have to fight against it.’”
Power returns as a theme in “Second Generation,” as does another theme, which Johnson said wasn’t originally intended, but sort of “bubbled up” as he was writing it.
“Virtually all of the principal characters in the Second Generation have at one point or another a crisis of conscience about loyalty,” Johnson said. “And loyalty is a theme that ruminates entirely through the ‘Second Generation.’”
Will you see “The Dark Knight”?
If you’re planning on seeing “The Dark Knight” — or, if for some strange reason, you aren’t planning on seeing “The Dark Knight” — head over to NewsOK’s Dark Knight message board and share your thoughts!
– Matt Price
Review: Wolverine 66
Wolverine #66 reunites the “Civil War” creative team of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven for a comic that’s technically solid, but leaves a lot of questions.
In the first of an eight-part series, Millar seems to be writing a riff on “Unforgiven.” Wolverine, now calling himself simply Logan, is retired from fighting. Fifty years in the future, all the superheroes have been defeated, and supervillains have divvied the United States up among themselves.
Logan lives in California, now called Hulkland, under the protection of the Hulk’s not-so-nice hillbilly grandchildren.
Logan’s late on the rent, so the Hulks come to beat him up. He fantasizes about retaliating, but can’t.
He gets the chance to make some money and get his family out of debt, so he takes it — leading us into the probable cross-country trek that will likely fuel the “Old Man Logan” storyline.
McNiven’s art is great. He captures the Western-like feel of the landscape and the variety of the characters populating it. It’s a departure from his slick “Civil War” style, but completely appropriate for the material.
Maybe Millar will explain the reasons that have made Wolverine so downtrodden and out-of-character as “Old Man Logan” starts. As it is, “Wolverine” 66 is an interesting what-if with outstanding art that perhaps wears its influences too strongly.
Millar has said in interviews that his “Wolverine” will tie in with his “1985″ (which I liked a lot) and his “Fantastic Four” (which I have liked parts of), so it’ll be interesting to see how all that comes together.
– Matt Price
Check out “Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes” online
If you’d like to sample the animated series “Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes” before committing to the recently released box set, hop over to Marvel Kids, where two episodes: “Impossible” and “Puppet Master” are available online.
Need more info? I’ll have a review of the DVD set on Friday.
– Matt Price
New “Dark Knight” trailer via Den of Geek
Den of Geek points out a new alternate cut of the “Dark Knight” trailer making the rounds. Seems like there’s a few as-yet unseen items lurking within.
