Tag: Top News

As I've written before, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is probably my favorite superhero movie after the original Christopher Reeve Superman. (I'm not in love with the Nolan Batmans although I get why people like them.) It's one of the very few superhero films with an autuer's imprimatur, and it's just plain goofy as heck, veering between horror pastiche of the directors own work, sappy musical and a sad meditation on middle-aged loneliness. Raimi is old enough to have the original Ditko Spidey as his inspiration, from the upside down kiss to the rogue's gallery of old men in greying wife-beaters—supposedly one of the reasons Raimi and the studio parted ways on Spidey 4 was that Raimi wanted the Vulture as the villain, and the studio wanted a more up to date bad guy. In Marc Webb's Amazing Spider-Man 2, all the references have been updated. This is the ultimate world of Bryan Hitch, Greg Land and Greg Horn, all blazing cgi and mottled, gloomy photoshop. The soundtrack has been similarly updated, with a group known as the Magnificent Six—which includes everyone from Pharrell Williams to Johnny Marr—blasting catchy singles. In what passes for innovation here, a scene where Peter Parker does the obligatory Google search to find out a mystery, instead of the chugging string music of every other superhero movie, we get a Phillip Phillips song.

You will need 3D glasses to completely appreciate thissexually explicit comic by Jason Little it looks mighty fly in any mode.

Over at Thrillbent, the webcomics portal he devised two years ago, Mark Waid has announcedThrillbent 3.0, which includes an iPad app that will allow users to sync their website purchases, see where theyleft off, and other up-to-date functions. In addition to the free comics Thrillbent has always offered, Waid is adding what he calls a “Hulu Plus” level that includes new content for a monthly subscription of $3.99, which is, as Waid points out, is the price of one comic. For this you get:

The NY Times has the first official look (aside from iPad sightings over the years) of Scott McCloud's The Sculptor, his first sustained fiction...

§ Beware the timeslot! It seems that the aborted single season of Beware The Batman will finish but new episodes will be shawn at...

There's a pretty lively discussion of Comixology's Submit program going on in the comments of this post. And while SUbmit seems to be...

If you want to know what Marvel is shipping in July, the answer is GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY!

This story has been majorly edited as I have learned new facts...or new interpretations of facts.

Well it's seems the Salt Lake City con hits its goal with 100,00 attendees, according to a press release. That would make it the third biggest show in the US. Show Runner Dan Farr is very bullish on the show.

While writing the previous item, I played around with the Kickstarter stat page, to see how comics are doing—and they are doing very well! While comics crowdfunding projects have the second lowest number of projects—3,944. one tenth that of the top category, film and video with 34,985—they have the fourth highest success rate! Here's the top four:

This went out last week but I haven't seen it noted too much in comics circles: Kickstarter has added subcategories to the various main categories for projects. 94 subcategories were added, to aid both creators and backers in finding suitable projects.

Here's the DCU and New 52 solicits for July -- and as a BONUS becuase of the lead time needed for the lenticular covers, the September Future's End solicits, with NO CREATIVE TEAMS ATTACHED, probably because ANYTHING could happen between now and then. We'll have Vertigo and trades in the next post. Of note -- the new Grayson, Teen Titans and Suicide SQuad books and HArley Quinn at Comic-Con by Amanda conner -- a good time is guaranteed in that one.