Oklahoma fans react to Michael Jackson’s death
Gene Triplett and I talked to some Oklahomans who reacted to the death of King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Jackson died today at age 50 at a Los Angeles hospital.
“It’s completely shocking isn’t it?” said Derek Brown, 27, executive assistant to the CEO at the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma and a member of the local band Crocodile.
Brown’s wife and bandmate, Rachael Brown, 27, said she cried when she heard the news of Jackson’s death.
“Oh, man, I’m so bummed,” she said. “I just absolutely love Michael Jackson. … He influences what I write now … The last time I cried about something like this, I cried when (famous New York nightclub) CBGB’s closed, and when (Thursday news broadcasts) started playing his videos, oh man, it was rough.”
See the full story at NewsOK.
- Matt Price
Oklahoma writer Rob Vollmar brings Twin Cities comic script to Twitter
Graphic-novel author Rob Vollmar, as illustrated by his Bluesman collaborator, Pablo Callejo.
Norman writer Rob Vollmar is involved in what may be a Twitter first – he’s tweeting the script to his planned comic book “The Twin Cities,” 140 or fewer characters at a time.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site on which users share their thoughts in 140-character bursts, called “tweets,” with users who have chosen to follow them on the site. Twitter also can be used via cell phone and a variety of other applications.
Vollmar wrote the Eisner Award-nominated “The Castaways” and “Bluesman,” which has been optioned for film. Vollmar said his Twitter breakthrough came about as he tried to figure out how to use Twitter in a way that would be of interest to readers.
Art from Vollmar's Bluesman, by Pablo Callejo.
“I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with Twitter,” Vollmar said in a phone interview. “I had the account. I kept staring at it. I would occasionally poke it with a stick to see what happened. I was really having trouble getting my brain around the technology to use it in a meaningful way.”
Vollmar decided that a comic script, broken up as it is into discrete units, might make for a better experience on Twitter than a novel or something in longer form.
Vollmar is tweeting a page per day from the “Twin Cities” script at twitter.com/robvollmar. He’s organized the tweets so readers can read each page in order, rather than posting it chronologically from first to last. (However, the overall pages are in reverse order, as he posts a new page each day.)
“I’m creating a picture, if you will, of the script page. I thought this project was uniquely suited for this kind of experiment, because I’m writing it in micro-installments of about five pages. So people, if they pay
Art by MPMann, by Rob Vollmar's Inanna's Tears.
attention for a week, are essentially going to get an entire episode of the series.”
“The Twin Cities” is a speculation on the afterlife, Vollmar said. He described it as “a dark comedy in the spirit of ‘Brazil.’”
“(The afterlife) might be filled with giant bureaucracies, where you’re constantly negotiating different bureaucracies and processes,” Vollmar said.
The lead character of “The Twin Cities” is Michael Thomas, who was shot to death when he wandered into a convenience store robbery. Michael finds, to his chagrin, that he must spend the afterlife in the clothes he was wearing when he died, so he is wearing cargo pants, combat boots and a “post-ironic … old-school Wham! T-shirt that says ‘Choose Life’ in big letters. But he’s dead, so that joke’s going to keep selling itself over and over.”
Readers also will meet Michael’s guardian angel Becky, who died at age 17 in the mid-1980s.
“She’s very enthusiastic, but she’s also got a bit of darkness,” Vollmar said. “She’s got this profound responsibility, but she’s also a 17-year-old Valley Girl.”
“The Twin Cities” eventually may be serialized as a drawn project in print or on the Web, but Vollmar’s main goal is calling attention to the literary value of the comic-book script format.
“I would love to get an artist attached to the project, but that’s not really my motivation in putting the scripts up online,” Vollmar said. “I think of comic scripts as a literature of their own.”
- By Matthew Price
From Friday’s The Oklahoman
Review: Batwoman wows in Detective Comics 854
Greg Rucka and JH Williams III kick off the Batwoman storyline with a bang in “Detective Comics” 854. Williams hasn’t lost a step from “Promethea,” and is one of the most interesting artists working today. If 
you’re on the fence about this, I suggest you just pick up a copy and look at it. Rucka’s story is interesting – continuing the “Crime Bible” saga, it appears, and exploring the personality of Kate Kane, first introduced with much fanfare in “52.” But the obvious selling point of the book is the art. Williams is brilliant in layout and composition, experimental yet completely clear in his storytelling.
The black and red color palate from Dave Stewart as “Detective” opens draws you into Gotham City; Todd Klein, one of comics’ most prestigious letterers, completes the package.
The backup story, by Rucka and Cully Hamner, follows the new Question, Renee Montoya. It’s just 8 pages, but sets up what looks to be an interesting yarn.
- Matt Price
Transformers 2 has 2nd-best midnight opening ever
According to Variety, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen pulled in $16 million in midnight screenings, making it the best-ever Wednesday a.m. opening, and second-best midnight ever behind Dark Knight’s $18.5 million. It passed Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’s $12 million from 2007.
However, the bright light of day hasn’t helped the critical response any, as the film sits now at 21 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes. Will Transformers 2 continue to break records? Or will word-of-mouth stall the film’s momentum? We’ll see in the coming days.
- Matt Price
Shipping highlights, 6-24-2009
The first full issue of Milo Ventimiglia’s Berserker from Top Cow hits stores today, and if you’re a fan of Wanted or some of Top Cow’s other more mature, violent books, this one is probably worth a look.
In other probably violent news, Predator comes back to comics in a new first issue from Dark Horse.
Meanwhile, Marvel has all kinds of high-octane releases, including “Utopia” No. 1 and the first “dark” Wolverine, in issue 75.
DC launches Gotham City Sirens, written by Paul Dini. Fans of Tulsa-born writer Sterling Gates can get your weekly Gates quota in “Green Lantern: Tales of the Sinestro Corps” trade paperback, which contains his work from the Sinestro Corps Superman Prime Special and the Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files.
“Tales of Sinestro Corps” collects Green Lantern Sinestro Corps Special #1, Tales of the Sinestro Corps: 
Ion #1, Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax #1, Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Cyborg Superman #1, Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime #1, Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps Secret Files #1 and backup stories from Green Lantern #18-20.
Other than “Tales,” not as many trades that I’m as excited about this week, though I imagine the “All-Star Batman and Robin” trade will sell well. The deluxe editions of the Grant Morrison JLA are also quality comics if you don’t already own that material, or if you want it in a higher-end package.
Given my Superman fandom, I’ll at least take a look at the “Tales from the Phantom Zone” collection.
What looks good to you?
- Matt Price
Transformers 2 roundup: BAM reviews, Twinprov raps, tickets sell
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters today, and while tickets continue to be hot items, reviews aren’t quite as positive.
NewsOK’s own BAM shares her opinion on the film:
Unfortunately, the slogan “more than meets the eye” does not apply to the slam-bang action sequel “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”
Instead, director Michael Bay staunchly adheres to the credo “more is better,” making the follow-up to his 2007 blockbuster bigger, dumber and louder.
See the full review here. BAM also brought in local comedy duo Twinprov to provide another summer blockbuster rap, this time, the Transformers rap. Check it out below:
However, tickets continue to sell heavily for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, even as critical response is at best mixed. Fandango reported selling 8 Transformers tickets per second during peak periods. More than 2,000 midnight and late night/early morning showings sold out, also according to Fandango. As of 6 a.m., Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen represented 94 percent of ticket sales on Fandango.
Movietickets.com reported similar information, with more than 94 percent of ticket sales at the site tracking to “Transformers 2.”
The film passed “Pirates of the Caribbean 2,” “Quantum of Solace,” “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” on MovieTickets.com’s all-time pre-sellers last night.
- Matt Price
Marvel releases The End promo
Received from Marvel with no other information is this promotional image titled “The End.” Could this relate to the end of Mark Millar’s “Old Man Logan” run, or is there another “End” in sight?
The first thing this reminded me of was Terminator, in fact, probably because of my love for this NOW Comics cover. (The comics weren’t as good as this cover, unfortunately.)
Watch The Maxx online
MTV brings one of the greatest things it ever aired online to MTV.com. The Maxx, based on the excellent comic-book series by Sam Kieth, features the Maxx, who lives in two worlds: as the protector of the Outback, and as a homeless man in a large city. But which is reality and which is the dream?
If you haven’t seen this series, it’s worth checking out, as it’s not available on DVD. Also worth getting are the comics, now available in trade paperback format from WildStorm.
- Matt Price
Sellouts continue as Transformers 2 release nears
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has moved to No. 20 on MovieTickets.com‘s list of Top 25 pre-sellers of all time, passing “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” among others.
MovieTickets.com reports more than 1,000 sellouts as of 6 p.m. Eastern, including 600 midnight screenings. The movie currently accounts for 93 percent of tickets sold at MovieTickets.com.
On the other hand, a few reviews have started coming in, including from Roger Ebert, who, to put it mildly, didn’t like the movie. The film is tracking at 28 percent at Rotten Tomatoes. Most print reviews are embargoed until tomorrow, so that will affect the number. The question is, in what direction? Check out NewsOK.com and The Oklahoman tomorrow for our own review of the film.
- Matt Price
Fandango reports more than 500 Transformers 2 sellouts
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the biggest pre-sales title of the year, according to Fandango.com. The film represents 93 percent of Fandango.com’s daily ticket sales as of noon Pacific time today.
More than 500 shows have sold out from coast to coast, according to the site. In addition, Transformers 2 is selling twice as many tickets as Iron Man sold on Fandango at the same point in that film’s sales cycle.
Look for NewsOK.com’s review of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” tomorrow.
- Matt Price
