Existential, Non-Euclidian Horror, or: Locke & Key In Movie Development

Yeah, we fixed it (sort of; give us some more time)… and just in time. Because after a week of writer Joe Hill hinting coyly about it on his Twitter feed, it has just become official: Universal Pictures has optioned Hill’s and artist Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key comic for development as a movie.

The comic was developed as a television pilot a year or so ago for Fox, who decided not to pick up a series order (although if I recall correctly, the pilot, starring Nick Stahl from Carnivale and Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines was screened to good reaction at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con… which I missed, due to a prior commitment to an alcoholic blackout). It is now under development by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who wrote the 2009 Star Trek reboot (Yay!), as well as the first Michael Bay Transformers movie (Boo!), with an eye toward turning it into a possible trilogy.

One Small Step for Man; One Giant Leap for Women – Womanthology: SPACE Review

Yes, Wednesday evening, the end of Rob and Amanda’s broadcast day. However, as I was dying from a head cold over the weekend (and have since miraculously recovered), I’m turning in my homework a bit tardy.

I first heard about the Womanthology project shortly after their Kickstarter.com fundraiser wrapped up in 2011. If you’re unfamiliar with Womanthology, it all began with a tweet from artist Renae De Liz asking if her fellow female creators would be interested in creating and publishing an anthology to benefit charity. By the end of that day, over 100 contributors had taken up the call, and shortly thereafter, IDW came on board as publisher. The project quickly coalesced into the 300 page anthology, Heroic, with over 150 female contributors whose experience levels ran the gamut from professional to beginner.

I finally picked up Heroic this summer and have been all “what the hell took me so long” ever since. I have been slowly working my way through the volume, and although I’ve only reached the halfway point, as soon as I saw the announcement for the Womanthology: SPACE series, you’d better believe I was on the phone with my local shop to pre-order it.

Tales From The Crypt Door: Locke & Key: Grindhouse One-Shot Review

I’m gonna have to start out this review by admitting that I haven never read Joe Hill’s and Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key series, which is a point of shame for a serious comics fan… particularly one who’s read and enjoyed Hill’s novels Horns and Heart Shaped Box… and before you start: yes, I can read books without pictures, smartass. I simply generally choose not to, which means that Hill’s novels must be pretty fucking good for me to break that habit. Either that, or I didn’t feel comfortable waiting for job interviews with a big Howard Chaykin trade paperback. But I’m getting off point here.

The point is that I knew nothing about Locke & Key other than its good reputation when I picked up the Locke & Key: Grindhouse one shot. I imagined that there were probably locks and keys involved, but whether they were of the door or the canal transit and-Florida-homosexual-mecca varieties, I had no fucking idea. And for all I know, the original story arcs are about either, both or all of those things. But this story is a period piece about criminals on the lam with nothing to lose, which is an effective and engaging throwback to EC Comics horror and crime stories from the 50s. And it’s really pretty damn cool.

Stunt Flying: Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom #1 Review

I had mixed feelings about Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom going into it, because as much as I love the character, it really belonged almost totally to creator Dave Stevens. Sure, I’ve been enjoying the Rocketeer Adventures books over the past few months, but many of those stories took place around the Rocketeer universe, featuring other characters and how the presence of The Rocketeer affected them. These short stories felt like tributes to Stevens’s character and work, allowing the original to stand on its own without new creators jumping right into that sandbox.

Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom, however, is a full-length miniseries focused firmly on The Rocketeer and his friends themselves. This puts the creative team of writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee right onto Stevens’s turf, and when it comes to Dave Stevens, we’re talking about a guy who was such a perfectionist that he only came out with two long form Rocketeer stories between 1982 and 1995. So for a long-time Rocketeer fan, who owns the original movie poster and who still carries his keys on a Rocketeer keyring, a poorly-done Rocketeer story would be a catastrophe; a rotten cash grab on the level of the worst of Before Watchmen, only with an added distasteful element of necrophilia thrown in to boot.

Thankfully, Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom is a generally worthy addition to the Rocketeer canon, that continues Stevens’s own addition of period-appropriate pulp canon to the original aviation-based story, with a healthy dose of flying action, a respect toward the vocation of pilot in the early days of flying, and the most dysfunctional relationship since Judd Winick said, “okay” to Catwoman. Of course, being a period pulp adventure story written after 1982, it also borrows some elements heavily from Raiders of The Lost Ark, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The Crow Said Don’t Look: The Crow #1 and #2 Review

Having read the first two issues in the latest in a 20-plus year long line of comic books with the title The Crow, I find it ironic that the original book was about a soul that could not rest until he found justice… or at least revenge.

The original Crow miniseries by James O’Barr is a personal favorite, and the 1992 Tundra Publishing reprints of the original Caliber Press printings are prized possessions in my collection. It is a personal favorite because it is simple, and it is self-contained: a dude in the wrong place at the wrong time gets killed along with his girlfriend for no reason at all, and he somehow returns from the grave to kill the gang who killed them. That’s it. Who is the guy? Doesn’t matter, to the point where O’Barr doesn’t even tell us his last name (“Draven” only came about in the 1994 movie, that felt it needed to shoehorn in unnecessary backstory for the straights in the theaters). Why is he killed? Just some random violence from some random junkies; could’ve been anyone, anywhere. Why does he come back? His love for his girl is just that strong, brother. It was simple, and it was emotional, it was powerful… and then it was done.

It was everything that this new comic version of The Crow is not.

This Is Not The Greatest Song In The World: Rocketeer Adventures Vol. 2 #1 Review

When I was a working comedian, some inconsiderate dickface sent some True Believers (and if Stan Lee hasn’t sued the Christ out of that dickface’s estate for trademark infringement, then comics’ lawyers are spending too much Goddamned time keeping me from reading new Miracleman stories) onto flying machines to do something unspeakable. And in the face of this tragedy, we working professionals needed to figure out how to be effective in addressing the scenario in a way that didn’t feel disrespectful to the people affected it. What we did was to write material about the fringes of the tragedy. We didn’t write about the guts of it, we wrote about what people were doing in the face of it. We wrote about how people were reacting to it, and how it affected our understanding of American myths and legends.

Dave Stevens, the creator of The Rocketeer, died of leukemia in 2008 after having written and drawn only a very few stories about a character so compelling it spawned a movie – sure, a movie that John Cartered, but what the hell; it’s still more than Wonder Woman got. IDW Comics is now publishing a Rocketeer Adventures series, and they’re doing what we comedians did right after 9/11: they’re telling stories about The Rocketeer by telling stories around The Rocketeer. And those stories are generally pretty Goddamned cool.

But Will We See Deanna Troi And Amy Pond Mud Wrestle? – Rumor Of Doctor Who-Star Trek Crossover

Bleeding Cool is reporting that IDW will be attending the Gallifrey One convention next week (February 17-19) with the purpose of announcing a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover comic book series.

Did IDW just get tired of watching Amy Pond and Deanna Troi get it on while Riker watched in other people’s fan fic?

Details Speculation after the jump!

Double-O-D’s: Danger Girl: Revolver #1 Review

I’d never read Danger Girl before I picked up the first issue of the latest miniseries, Danger Girl: Revolver, because frankly, I’m not a spy story guy by nature. Keep in mind that when I was growing up, James Bond was Roger Moore; the only less effective casting choice for turning kids into spy fans would have been Jerry Lewis. Granted, my tastes have changed as I’ve grown up, but to this day if I want a good spy comic? That’s why God and Greg Rucka invented Queen & Country.

On the great continuum of spy stories, Danger Girl falls closer to Octopussy than Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. However, as an adult now, I can recognize and appreciate it for what it is: big, kitschy, goofy fun. It’s not necessarily my style of fun, but you’ll dig it if you’re looking for unlikely chases, big tits, guns, planes, stunts, big tits, explosions, big tits, and last but not least: big tits.

Jiu-Jitsu Hot Dogs: TMNT: Raphael #1 Review

When I was five years old, I ate a bad hot dog on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas Day hurling like an inveterate alcoholic on an Antabuse drip instead of playing with my shiny new Maskatron. The experience was so bad that I literally couldn’t even look at a hot dog for about ten years afterwards; the thought of them made me sick, even though I knew that I might like them if I could put the bad memories behind me and try them again.

It was in this spirit that I bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Raphael #1.

Intellectually, I know that TMNT started as a pretty hard-edged satire of Frank Miller’s Daredevil and Ronin, and that any humor in the book came from the inherent absurdity of turtles being involved in a ninja story played completely straight. And that I actually liked those early stories. And that there was a reason that those books were so sought-after in the middle, late 80s. I know this.

But then there was that fucking cartoon.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 3: The Fistula Of Justice

The Sudafed finally mixed with the Jack Daniels and made a mellow, Earth-friendly body-meth, which gave us enough energy to complete Episode 3 of the Crisis on Infinite Midlive’s Podcast: The Fistula of Justice!

Thrill to two drunk sick people as they talk about the impact of the New 52, DC Comics’ new Neilsen Survey (Which sadly didn’t include the obvious question: Orange nip slip: horrifying moment or the most horrifying moment?), the overriding post-Catwoman question: are superhero comics sexist (“What’s wrong with being sexist?” “Not sexy, sex… Jesus, you really are a monster, aren’t you?”), and our sleeper favorite books of the week!

And to answer some questions from the show that are enigmas, wrapped in riddles, covered in mucous:

• The Crow said Don’t Look (Seriously: don’t look at this. It’s not safe for work. Or your appetite)!
• Turns out 53 is a prime number!
• Tell DC what you really think without having to spoon Dan DiDio (EDITOR’S NOTE: Rob just tried to take the survey and was told he wasn’t qualified. Probably because of his area code. Or because he said his penis had an area code of its own)!
• Newsarama asks if comic fans want to Smell The Glove!
• Hot, sweet, [male] child on [male] child roundeye action!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:37 — 34.4MB)

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Enjoy the show, sucker! And if you don’t, just hit that “Don’t Look” link up there!