iPad comics by iVerse preview [video]
Good preview of what iVerse Comics will look like on the new iPad. Previously purchased comics in-app on the iPhone will also be available for download on the iPad. What do you think?
3-D films still of interest to fans
In this Jan. 7, 2009 file photo, members of the media wear 3D glasses as they watch movie clips at the Panasonic 3D full HD plasma theater at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, USA. (AP)
A recent Movietickets.com poll asked respondents how many 3-D films they plan to see in theaters this year.
Based on the results, consumer demand continues to support the 3D film trend. More than 44% of moviegoers surveyed plan to see more than four 3D films in theaters this year. Of those surveyed, 30 percent plan to see at least one 3D film. The final results are below.
2010 offers moviegoers a growing number of theatrical releases in 3D. How many 3D films do you plan to see?
- 4 or more (44%)
- 0 (26%)
- 2 (11%)
- 3 (10%)
- 1 (9%)
Total votes on MovieTickets.com 13,258
- Matt Price
Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow poster at WonderCon
Superhero Hype shares this “Iron Man 2″ mini-poster, which you can pick up at this weekend’s WonderCon in San Francisco at the convention’s Booth #242. I think this is the first look at the Black Widow belt buckle on Scarlett Johansson’s costume. Probably that’s what everybody else is looking at, too.
- Matt Price
Nemesis #1 gets second printing
Marvel Comics has announced a second printing for Nemesis #1, a creator-owned title in Marvel’s “Icon” line. “Nemesis” is written by Mark Millar and drawn by Steve McNiven, the team behind “Civil War.” The second printing will be on final order cutoff on April 1, for an on-sale date of April 28.
- Matt Price
Milla Jovovich coming to Wondercon
Milla Jovovich
WonderCon has announced that Milla Jovovich, star of “Resident Evil: Afterlife,” will appear at San Francisco’s WonderCon this weekend. She’ll appear with Paul W.S. Anderson and Ali Larter to show the film and answer questions.
Here’s the description from Wondercon: In a world ravaged by a virus infection, turning its victims into the Undead, Alice (Milla Jovovich), continues on her journey to find survivors and lead them to safety. Her deadly battle with the Umbrella Corporation reaches new heights, but Alice gets some unexpected help from an old friend. A new lead that promises a safe haven from the Undead takes them to Los Angeles, but when they arrive the city is overrun by thousands of Undead—and Alice and her comrades are about to step into a deadly trap. The fourth installment of the hugely successful Resident Evil franchise, Resident Evil: Afterlife is again based on the wildly popular video game series, and will this time be presented in 3-D.
Jovovich is also set to co-star in “Dirty Girl,” with Tim McGraw and Dwight Yoakam. The film is set in 1987 Oklahoma as a high school girl seeks her unknown father.
- Matt Price
Lost: The Package episode recap
Scene from "Lost" episode "The Package."
The sideways jumps are back in a non-essential but decent episode that feature strong scenes for the star-crossed lovers Sun and Jin. SPOILERS AHEAD, as we jump into a recap of “Lost: The Package.”
In the sideways timeline, Jin and Sun come to Los Angeles, but lose $25,000 given to them by Sun’s father in customs.
Back in the regular timeline, Smokey-as-Locke is searching for Sun, attempting to reunite her with Jin. When he leaves his camp, it’s attacked by Charles Widmore’s mercenaries, who grab Jin for their own purposes.
Ben thinks Richard isn’t coming back, which means he’ll of course show up momentarily. Sun is ticked off by Alaina’s calls to wait, and wanders off to her old garden. There, she tells Jack to shut up about destiny and get lost.
In the sideways timeline, Jin visits Sun’s hotel room to discuss the lost money, and she all but puts the Barry White on the record player. Apparently while they aren’ t married in this timeline, they are still involved, and doing their best to keep it from Sun’s father.
Back in the garden, Sun is visited by fake Locke, saying he can reunite her with Jin. She doesn’t buy it, and takes off running, Fake Locke in pursuit. She runs into a tree and knocks herself out.
Back in the sideways line, Jin and Sun wake up in bed together, but there’s shortly a knock at the door. It’s Martin Keamy, and he wants his two dollars. Or $25,000 as the case may be.
Back on the island, turns out the bump on the head has given Sun aphasia. She can understand English but not speak it. Ben finds her and brings her back to camp, where Jack tells her it should be temporary. Weirdly, Locke doesn’t grab her or anything while she’s knocked out – maybe he can’t? – and returns to his camp to find everybody tranquilized by Widmore’s team of mercenaries.
Jin is back in the subliminal message room from I believe season 3. Widmore’s scientist woman wants Jin to tell her about some Dharma maps. He wants to talk to Widmore. Good, says the scientist, Widmore wants to talk to you, too.
Claire asks if she’s essential, since her name isn’t on the list. I need you, Smokey tells her. How about Kate?, she asks. Well, Smokey needs her to gather everybody on the plane, but after that… eh, whatever happens, happens, Smokey tells her.
Smoke-Locke and Sayid head over to Hydra island. Locke apparently can’t turn to smoke to head over there; he has to take a boat. Does that mean anything? Probably.
Back in sideways world, Jin and Sun can’t speak English (or at least so they say), so Keamy calls in a buddy who knows Korean – a Russian who we know as Mikhail. With the money gone, Sun offers to get some of her secret stash from a hidden bank account. Keamy takes Jin to the restaurant.
On the island, nice line from Alaina.
Ben: Why don’t you believe me?
Alaina: Because you’re talking?
Richard returns and he has a plan. Go blow up the plane so Smokey can’t leave. Sun says that’s ridiculous. I’m not here for all your nonsense, I’m here to get my husband and get out of here. I’m not blowing up my ticket out of here.
Smokey heads over to Hydra Island and has a chat with Widmore. Smokey’s pretty pissed about the pylons that seem to be keeping him out. He’s also ticked that Widmore claims not to have Jin.
“A wise man once said that war was coming to this island,” Locke/Smokey says. “I think it just got here.”
Sideways Sun finds out her father has closed her secret account and taken her money away. It starts to sink in that her father may not agree with her choice of boyfriends.
Keamy ties up Jin, and says, since Jin can’t understand English, that Keamy was hired to kill Jin for hooking up with Sun. The $25,000 he was to deliver was payment for the hit. “Some people just aren’t meant to be together,” Keamy tells him.
Widmore tells Zoe, the scientist woman, she shouldn’t have grabbed Jin, it wasn’t part of the plan yet. Go get the package from the submarine, he tells her.
Widmore meets with Jin and gives him Sun’s camera. It’s Jin’s first look at his daughter, and he beams with love, pride and admiration as his heart breaks.
Widmore says, I have a daughter too. I know you want to be reunited with your wife and daughter. But it would be short-lived if Smokey ever escaped the island. If that happened, everyone we know and love would simply cease to be.
How? asks Jin. Come with me, it’s time to see the package, Widmore says.
In the sideways world, fortunately for Jin, while he’s locked away in a storage area, Sayid shows up (as we saw in an earlier episode) and takes out Keamy and his men. Jin manages to ask for help. Sayid hands him a box knife and tells him good luck.
Mikhail returns with Sun and sees the aftermath of the shootout. Who did this? he asks. Jin holds a gun to his head and tells him to drop the gun. If you were the one who did this, you’d already have shot me, says Mikhail and goes for Jin’s gun. In the ensuing struggle, Sun is shot, as is Mikhail – right in the eye. Apparently no matter what world you’re in, Mikhail is losing an eye. As Jin picks up Sun to rush her to help, she tells him she’s pregnant. Being shot in the abdomen can’t be good for that.
On the island, Jack tells Sun about a patient he had with aphasia – even though he couldn’t speak, he could write. He hands Sun pen and paper, and he’s right – she can write notes in English.
Jack asks why she didn’t go with Locke. She didn’t trust him. Do you trust me? he asks. She does. Then come with me, Jack says. I’ll get you off the island. Jack is going along with Richard, but not really on board with the plan. Sawyer’s going along with Locke, but not really on board with the plan. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Jack and Sawyer became Jacob and Smokey 2.0. I can just see them on the island far into the future; Jack thinking he’s guarding the island by keeping Sawyer there, and Sawyer being increasingly irritated that Jack won’t let him leave. And they’re both ticked at each other about Kate, most likely, or Juliet, or any other single woman that may show up on the island.
At Locke’s camp, Sawyer tells Kate he thinks things are almost over, Widmore surely killed Locke. But then Locke returns. “Oh, hell,” Sawyer says. Locke says he sent Sayid to find out what the secret package Widmore has is.
As Sayid stealthily comes out of the water, he sees Widmore’s people unloading “the package” from the boat – it’s a heavily drugged Desmond, who sees Sayid but isn’t in any condition to respond. They drag him away, as Sayid watches, as the show ends.
Overall, nice moments with Jin and Sun – and great scene with Jin and the camera – but holy cow, is this final season moving slowly. This is a perfectly OK episode, and it answers a few questions, but with just six episodes left, it feels like more should have been revealed.
- Matt Price
Digital comics future, Scott Pilgrim trailer, and reviews of Superman 698, Nemesis 1 and Uncanny X-Men 522 [video]
Kyle Roberts and Matt Price discuss the future of digital comics, as discussed at the recent ComicsPRO meeting.
The Planet 46 Comics podcast also looks at Chris Evans as Captain America and the new Scott Pilgrim trailer.
Reviewed this week are Superman 698, Nemesis 1 and Uncanny X-Men 522.
Alternative cartoonist John Porcellino coming to Oklahoma
Oklahoma comic-book store Atomik Pop! is hosting an event featuring alternative comics artist John Porcellino starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 6.
Porcellino is touring the United States in support of his recent collection, “Map of My Heart.” The event will be filmed as part of a documentary on Porcellino’s life and work and is open to the public.
John Porcellino was born in Chicago, in 1968, and has been writing, drawing, and publishing minicomics, comics, and graphic novels for more than 25 years.
Atomik Pop! is located at 918 West Main Street in Norman. For more information, call (405) 329-9695.
Action Comics 1 sells for $1.5 million
The highest-graded known copy of “Action Comics” No. 1 has sold, for a record-smashing $1.5 million dollars.
The book was sold via ComicConnect.com.
“This new record will be hard to break,” said ComicConnect.com co-owner and COO, Vincent Zurzolo in a news release. “Because this particular Action Comics #1 is literally the single most valuable comic book on the planet.”
This “Action Comics” No. 1, the first appearance of Superman, from 1938, is graded 8.5 on a 10-point scale. The high grade is possible in part because this issue was tucked away inside a movie magazine for decades, keeping it away from the elements. The 8.5 rating is the highest for any known copy of the book, and .5 higher than the $1 million Action Comics 1 that sold earlier this year. That was briefly the record for the price of any comic book, before being bested later that week by a high-grade “Detective Comics” No. 27, the first appearance of Batman.
The issue that sold Monday was bought from a private collector and then sold by Stephen Fishler and Vincent Zurzolo, the co-owners of ComicConnect.com.
Fishler declined to name the buyer but told the Associated Press that he was “a hardcore comic book fan.”
- Matt Price
Contributing: AP
Top 5 Marc Silvestri comic-book runs
Happy birthday to Top Cow’s Marc Silvestri! Silvestri has proven his management skills with his quality team at Top Cow. But before that, he was a celebrated penciler for Marvel and DC. As one of the Image Comics founders, he created Cyberforce and co-created Witchblade and the Darkness. To celebrate, Silvestri’s birthday. I’m counting down my favorite 5 of his comic-book runs.
1. Wolverine 31-50, 52-53, 55-57
My favorite of his work is his 1990s run on “Wolverine” with Larry Hama. Silvestri, as shown here, can get a lot of characters on a cover and still clearly delineate what’s happening. His Wolverine was bestial yet honorable, and I enjoyed the storytelling throughout.
2. The Darkness 0-7
With Garth Ennis (“Preacher”), Silvestri creates Top Cow’s most-famous anti-hero, and, with Witchblade, the core of their supernatural comics. Silvestri was a great artist to create mob hitman Jackie Estacado’s dark world.
3. New X-Men 151-154
“Here Comes Tomorrow,” drawn by Silvestri, wrapped up Grant Morrison’s fantastic run on the X-Men.
4. Hunter-Killer 0-6
Developed with Mark Waid, this superpowered espionage title was a page-turner.
5. Uncanny X-Men #218, 220-222, 224-227, 229, 230, 232-234, 236, 238-244, 246, 247, 249-251, 253-255, 259-261
All with Chris Claremont, this longest of Silvestri’s runs may get overlooked somewhat for preceding Jim Lee.
- Matt Price
