Below are the first three panels of a pretty great strip by Kate Beaton.

You can find the rest of it here.

You can thank me later.

Well by golly, if that last season of ‘Lost’ (which me and K finally poured through over the last couple of weeks) was a humdinger. Really – it pretty much made up for all the blah blah blah going nowhere plots from the 2nd – 4th seasons. And a very strong finish. I was surprised to find that I actually care about this show again. Just in time.

But that brings me to something more important, which is way decent – a fellow by the name of Scott Campbell of Double Fine Comics, who I had the pleasure of meeting just a few months ago, created a couple of pieces for the LOST Underground Art Show that are crazy amazing.

I’ll only share three of the 21 pieces, because you really need to go to his site and discover all the other cool stuff he does outside of Lost interpretations.

Aren’t those great? Anyway, he’s got tons of other junk to look at and even to buy. And the LOST Underground Art Show has a ton of cool pieces, too. Hurley and Locke action figures? Tons of paintings. Go to it.

As reported by just about every site in my blawglines (Pulp 2.0, for instance), Marvel Studios is apparently going to start up a writing program – a one year deal to develop new talent for Marvel movies. But check out the quote about the terms:

“Among other things, the contract gives Marvel ownership over everything the writers create during the one year term of [the] deal, plus a first look and last refusal to any and all projects the writers have previously written or will write for 24 months in the future.”

I’ve heard this complaint coming out of the Marvel factory – about their draconian terms on artists who create and maintain their domination in the comic book world. Maybe getting a real start is worth this kind of deal. I guess if the money they pay for that year allows you to live somewhat comfortably, it could be. On the other hand – you have to come to them with EVERYTHING for the next two years? Couldn’t they control their competition to an extent that way? And thereby arbitrarily wreck you? Would other studios want to deal with you if they knew Marvel had this control over your work? I wonder.

What do you think?

I’ll say the only thing I really missed was that Daniel wasn’t in that great owl snow pod costume, flying around the arctic. Otherwise, it was what it was. Beware for spoilers, now…

1. Which was better, the book or the movie or the animated book/movie?

2. Do you think it would’ve been better if Snyder smoked as much opium as Alan Moore?

3. Did Patrick Wilson make the character of Daniel even better than it was in the book?

4. If you had cut the movie, how long would it be?

5. The ending didn’t really add up, did it?

read more »

If you haven’t already seent it, click here and learn about a little known piece of history. I’m assured this is a factual account.

You don’t get many wake up calls like this, folks, so please… I implore you… WAKE UP! To the delightful comic-strip stylings of Stacie Ponder.

The mad scientist behind Final Girl, Stacie has something new… ish up at the Shadowline site, part of a collection of stories called ‘Nightmare World’. It’s a free read and Stacie’s story ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ (starting on page 82) will make you feel like a million bucks. So it’s sort of a money-making venture. (The rest of the book ain’t too shabby, either).

And if ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ whets your appetite for Mizz Ponder’s dialogue-less stick-o-tasia, then you must do thyself a favor and go check out ‘They Won’t Stay Dead’.

It’s yet another free read and this one will probably make you feel guilty that you didn’t have to pay for it. It’s that good. Luckily you’ll have the million you made earlier to cushion the blow.

Enjoy.

So the mini-shoot is hereby canceled until further notice. A hard decision, especially considering the people that were ready to jump in and get involved. If any of you are reading this right now, I’ll say it again – thank you.

What did it in? Mostly, it was that the written scene had changed and improved a lot while the feature was going nowhere. I’d worked on the scene since March and the feature just laid there, rotting. Add that to the fact that people were pulling out because of prior obligations and slowly I just watched a window of opportunity get smaller and smaller. So there you have it.

The feature is not dead, however. Writing will continue – I’ll start up the screenplay-o-meter again and get crankin’. This downtime will see me working on the TOLP script along with polishing up some others and sending them out. One script, in fact, has already been sent out. Where? Which one? I promise I’ll tell you if anything comes of it. If nothing comes of it, then it will remain my private embarrassment.

Go find your own.

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Also, while you’re waiting to buy Matt Fraction/Gabriel Ba’s Casanova, check out the online issue of Godland, another fantastic book…

I have read the first issue of Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba’s Casanova and I have seen that it is good.

Great, in fact. This first issue is the kind of first issue that you always hope for – you don’t see the entire iceberg, but you get a sense of it. And that it could be very very extremely huge.

It’ll be released soon. More details here…

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After years of toiling at many jobs, I finally have a perk that others might be somewhat jealous of. I’m going to be the post-production guy on National Geographic’s podcast and that means that I have to have a video iPod to test things out. Sure, it’s not really my iPod, but the line between owner and borrower is razor thin.

The unfortunate thing about the video iPod is that… well… it’s not that great. Maybe this is because I already own an iPod, so I already know the joy of having lots of music in my pocket.

The big addition here is video and the video is pretty bad. Really compressed and really really small. Anything that requires any sort of detail – let’s say, anything other than a close up of someone’s face – is pretty worthless. Can’t watch it at the gym, difficult to watch it outside on a sunny day or in a bright room. So where does that leave you? Night trips? Or, even worse, um… at home?You can run video off of it to a television and I’m sure people can find a use for that. But really… I’m not sure how often it would happen.

So this is kind of a letdown, kind of a bummer. A neat toy, but really more of a gimmick than a life changing gadget.

That’s right, people. The shoot has been postponed. With only a couple of weeks left, two things started happening: Schedules started to cause major conflicts and things also started improving. In other words, the situation was getting worse and better by the day. So we’ve postponed it in order to fix the things that were getting worse and continue on the track of things getting better.

Luckily, everyone seems to want to continue with this thing, even after this, the second big delay. The team has started getting stronger and with the extra time, I think it will only get better. So right now it’s all about location scouting and auditioning actors and getting the mix just right. Then we’ll set our new date.

So stay tuned. This story isn’t over yet.

—

Very, very soon Matt‘s new books Casanova and Five Fists of Science will be out and, thanks to him, I now have a comic store subscription again.

There’s also a Punisher: War Journal coming with his name on it. Don’t be the first on your block to be the last on your block to have these. Check in with your local purveyor of comics soon.

You familiar with ideaspace? It’s the theory that, when you think of something, that idea floats around out there for anyone to grab and make into something tangible. You let something float around too long, you’ll lose the chance to make it before someone else does.

I’ve lost three ideas to ideaspace recently. They are:

1) An idea like the movie Brick, in which a high school movie is mixed with the hardboiled detective genre. Mine would be played more for laughs, but when I read about Brick, I nearly swallowed my tongue. Sounds like they did it right.

2) ‘Neighborhood Watch’ – that’s my title for a movie I’ve been chipping away at for years; for about a decade now. But guess what? Now it’s been used twice for two different movies. Had I churned the thing out and sent it around in ’99, it would’ve been mine own. But now? Feh.

3) A scene in the Silent Hill trailer looks eerily like something from ‘The Old Lafferty Place’. I’ve never played the Silent Hill game, so I don’t know what might actually play out there, but it looks very similar.

It sucks, but it’s a good reminder that you can’t keep lollygaggin’, ya know?

—

Also, go check out this preview of Five Fists of Science! Oh boy, oh boy! I can’t wait!

Matt is very very at it again. Here’s the write up:

True story: in 1899, Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla decided to end war forever. With Twain’s connections and Tesla’s inventions, they went into business, selling world peace.

It’s coming from Image Comics in May. For those who are comics savvy, the super secret order code is : MAR06 1824.

There is also this:

You can sign up to be a “Casanovanaut” here.

And seeing as I want to try to keep spreading info and inspiration as much as possible while sticking with the theme of this post, go pick up this earlier Fraction comic:

This book includes the scripts for all three issues of Rex Mantooth: Kung Fu Gorilla with the actual drawrings on each facing page and – the best part – Fraction’s commentary. It’s like a special edition DVD in convenient book form. This is some truly funny stuff. Enjoy.

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Today is the day that ‘Last of the Independents’ shows up in your local comic store.

Did you know that Entertainment Weekly gave it an A- (here’s the review)? That’s the same grade it gave Punch Drunk Love. And Liz Phair’s new CD. Did you know that there’s not a single better thing to spend your money on right this second?

Go get it.