LONE RANGER #11 - PAUL POPE’S PAGES

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Dynamite Entertainment has provided Newsarama with an exclusive look at four of his pages from the upcoming lone Ranger #11.

The solicitation for the issue reads: (cover at right not final cover)
Covers: John Cassaday
Writer: Brett Matthews
Penciller: Sergio Cariello w/Paul Pope

The legend continues to grow as Dynamite continues the first year of all-new Lone Ranger comics!
In this issue, writer Brett Matthews spins a tale that explores the events of the last 4 issues (issues 7-10) and their consequences for Rafael. As we check in on the accused murderer, Tonto pays him a visit and tells a most unique tale. Featuring the incredible art of Sergio Cariello, and the cover art of John Cassaday!

LONE RANGER #11 - PAUL POPE’S PAGES - NEWSARAMA

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It is about time that DC listened to fans again.  They should bring back the letter column!! 

I am also glad that I am not the only one that wants to pretend that Bruce Jones’ run on Nightwing never happened!!

WONDERCON ‘08: FOR THE LOVE OF COMICS PANEL

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Report by Ian Brill
A strange listing in the WonderCon programming book was a panel on Sunday entitled Sunday Conversations: For the Love of Comics which promised Dan DiDio and friends talking about why the love this medium. Before the panel started DiDio, with DC cohorts Fletcher Chu-Fong, Jann Jones, Mike Carlin and Trinity artist Mark Bagley on the dais behind him, asked the audience to move forward so a conversational tone could be struck. That’s just what happened as a relaxed and free-wheeling discussion about childhood memories and recent favorites arose.
DiDio noted how for a few years DC has had panels announcing their forthcoming books and plot threads. Now they wanted to see if they could do panels without the hype machine but where they can just talk comics, fan to fan. The proceedings opened up with DiDio asking the crowd what their first comic book was and who had been collecting comics the longest. The answers were varied but the crowd soon got in synch with each other, trying to remember if they ever read the comics being mentioned by others. When one audience member remembered reading Superman vs. Muhammad Ali the crowd let out an appreciative “oooooh.”

The loose atmosphere of the panel gave the industry professionals a chance to recount anecdotes they would never share at a more structured presentation.
Bagley told of how he got his start at Marvel through, of all things, the Marvel Try-Out Book from the ‘80s. He was 27, working a construction job, married and with child. He didn’t want to hit 30 and still be running around conventions with a portfolio. When he first saw the Try-Out Book he thought it was just a cash grab from Marvel but his friend Cliff Biggers (retailer and co-publisher of Comic Shop News) convinced him to give it a shot. He came in first place out of 90 entries, although Bagley admitted he was mostly up against 12-year-olds.

Once he got to Marvel, along with Doug Hazelwood who won the inking portion of the contest, he had trouble actually getting any work. He eventually had to confront then Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. Arching his neck to look Shooter in the eye he asked him when he’s going to see some gigs. Shooter remembered who Bagley was and gave him a shot. It was, of all things, on one of the New Universe books all of which were that were in the process of crashing and burning. It wasn’t much but from that start Bagley was able to quit his job at Lockheed Martin and support his family by being a comic book artist.

Later in the panel Bagley noted how great it was to finally being able to talk. The last DC panel he participated in he only said a few words about Trinity and wasn’t able to speak at length like the did Sunday
DiDio turned the discussion to the present asking the crowd why they continue reading comics. The answer was still tinged with nostalgia as many people said they follow characters and titles through thick and thin out of loyalty to the books they grew up reading. Some fans expressed that although over the years they have to suffer through some lesser stories (one audience member who was a major Daredevil fan recalled the stories where Matt Murdock was given sight and did jobs for S.H.I.E.L.D.), but they wait for that moment when things will finally be better in their favorite title.

The panel really proved itself to be a real conversation and not a stealth hype session when DiDio asked the question what was the most ridiculous thing the audience had ever seen in a comic. Blog@Newsarama’s own Carla Hoffman said that the issue of Nightwing where Jason Todd becomes some kind of shape-shifting monster was the strangest thing she had encountered in a book. Neither DiDio nor anyone else at DC tried to convince her otherwise. DiDio instead quipped “that’s the best thing about these comics. We pretend that stuff didn’t happen!”

DiDio and Carlin said that one of the great things about superhero stories is the silliness. DiDio’s reign at DC might be seen as one ushering in an era of darkness into the stories but he said he loved really silly stories like the Bob Haney Super-Sons tales. He has even been trying to get a trade of those comics out.

Another issue facing many comic books readers today discussed at the panel whether to stick with monthly comics or switch to trades. DiDio surveyed the crowd, asking which of the readers buy comic book every Wednesday and which wait for the trades. Most of the crowd seemed to still be buying single issues but many, especially some of the older fans, had switched to trades so they can get the complete story in one sitting.
When the fans buying single issues talked about their experiences the discussion turned to delays and art changes in books. The DC people were candid in telling the crowd that a problem that they run into is that some artists need to schedule their work better. A lot of them will take multiple jobs, from comics to trading cards and beyond, because as freelancers there’s the fear that money might dry up for a period of time and it would be nice to have a lot of paychecks coming in at once.

Bagley expressed concern about artists who work so hard to make all of their penciling work so beautiful that it takes forever and there’s no room left for work from the inker or letterer. For DC this means that fill-in issues have to be run but it was noted by panelists and audience alike that a single issue story can be a refreshing break. Every comic is someone’s first and a simple fill-in story might hook someone.
The conversation felt like it could continue for hours but after only one it was time to quit. The convention itself was ending soon. DC seemed please with their little experiment, Carlin declaring that was his favorite panel in 15 years.

WONDERCON ‘08: FOR THE LOVE OF COMICS PANEL - NEWSARAMA

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WONDERCON ‘08: THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN

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Peter Svensson
The world premiere of The Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series hit Wonder-Con, and afterwards the cast and crew made themselves available for questions.
After some initial problems with the volume level, the pilot episode of The Spectacular Spider-Man, “Survival of the Fittest” was played for a crowded audience at Wonder-Con. The episode is set to air March 8th on Kids WB, as part of an hour-long block along with the second episode. The pilot introduced the sixteen-year-old Peter Parker, having spent his summer vacation being Spider-Man returning to Manhattan Midtown Magnet High School, and dealing with the Vulture as well as facing the Enforcers. As well as creating a large supporting cast, ranging from Aunt May and Gwen Stacy to Eddie Brock and J. Jonah Jameson. A plethora of other Spider-Man characters made appearances in the episode, which aired in an almost complete form. Some touching up between the panel and the airing was still to be done.
After the episode concluded, Michael Vogel, Director of animated programming at Sony Pictures took the dais and introduced the other panelists. Supervising Producer Greg Weisman (Gargyoles, Captain Atom) , Supervising Director Victor Cook, character designer Sean “Cheeks” Galloway, the voice actor for Spider-Man Josh Keaton and Eddie Brock’s voice, Ben Diskin.
When asked what their goal was with this series as opposed to previous animated Spider-Man series, supervising producer Greg Weisman (Gargoyles) explained “Our goal was to start from scratch, look at the old Stan Lee/Ditko/Romita Sr, a young Spider-Man like he was at the beginning. Not skipping ahead to college. To really play out the early days his being of Spider-Man. The theme of the show is ‘the education of Peter Parker.’ He thinks he has the world wired, we’re going to take him to school. The second mandate was to create a Spider-Man who moved fundamentally.” Victor Cook elaborated on the need to make a Spider-Man who while recognizable was still simplified enough for the requirements of television animation, and the short production times given.
Weisman then explained their decision to conflate the various eras of Spider-Man history, taking characters who didn’t normally meet Spider-Man in high school and postulating what they would have been like had they been around at that time, while being true to the core truths of the characters.
“Each episode is a stand alone, but it’s an ongoing story, like the comics. Spanning the thirteen episodes of the first season, the 26 episodes we have in the works.” said Victor Cook.
Sean Galloway explained his method for designing the characters for animation, that he wanted the characters to have a modern urban feel. “I want people to think ‘I’d wear something like that.’ It kept me on track.”
We then learned that the voice of Spider-Man, Josh Keaton, is a large Spider-Man fan. “My car’s license plate is THWIP. I’m getting the Spider-Man graphic put on the hood. I was a big geek in high school. So I relate to him. I was like Peter Parker, only I couldn’t stick to walls.” Keaton then explained what he felt like when working on the series. “It was really daunting, it’s such an iconic character, I didn’t want to let anyone down. [...] That’s Spider-man! I grew up reading the book, but I didn’t read as much as I liked. So when I started I picked up the Essentials, did my homework, learned everything. I hope to have translated that into the show.”
Ben Diskin followed up, explaining “Same thing for me. I grew up on the 90’s series. That’s the big Spider-man series out when I was a kid. Venom was my favorite villain. I’ve wanted to do that role since I was 12.” Leading Greg Weisman to jokingly remark, “Not that we’re saying Brock is Venom!” a running gag that continued when any fan asked about the villain.
Q: Is there a future for the series, with Kids WB being canceled?
Michael Vogel: Yes, absolutely. First 13 episodes will air on Kids WB this year. The next 13 are in production. Marvel and Sony are talking to a bunch of people about places where it will air. The CW has been considered.
Q: In the comic series, Venom becomes an anti-hero at some point. Will he do that in this series?
Michael Vogel: If he were in the series, let’s just say he’d be a big problem for Spider-Man, and to find out after that you’ll have to keep watching!
Q: What is your favorite and least favorite part of the series?
Josh Keaton: There is no worst, from the time I get the script, it’s nothing but fun. Best, is these guys and the cast I get to work with. Talented people in the cast we haven’t seen yet.
Q: How much of an influence is Ultimate Spider-Man in this?
Greg Weisman: I’ve read Ultimate Spider-Man, we saw good ideas, you saw Kenny Kong in the episode with Flash Thompson. I’m not shy about stealing from Bendis. But that was cherry picking, whether from the movies, Ultimate comics, later continuity, but the main influences are Lee, Ditko, Romita Sr. When I started work on this, I went out and bought all the Essential Spider-Man volumes, I took copious notes to find the core truths of each member of Spider-Man’s supporting cast.
Q: Do you have plans to use Man-Thing in the series?
Greg Weisman: No, only because we’re not allowed to use other characters from the Marvel Universe. We had interest in using other characters, but also want Spider-Man to stand on his own four legs. [...] It’s a lawyerly decision.
Q: Why did you change the Vulture’s color scheme?
Sean “Cheeks” Galloway: Originally we did use the green color scheme, but Marvel gave notes to not make everyone green. So we went for a more Marvel Knights approach.

WONDERCON ‘08: THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN - NEWSARAMA

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WONDERCON ‘08: THE LUCASFILM PANEL

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by Peter Svensson
The premiere of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars theatrical trailer was the endcap to Lucasfilm’s first panel of the convention season. Head of Fan Relations for Lucasfilms, Steve Sansweet, introduced the company’s newest plans and upcoming releases. After first reminding fans that they’ve been proven wrong about there not being any new Star Wars films twice before, he affirmed the theatrical release of a Star Wars animated feature, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Set between Episodes II and III, the feature and upcoming weekly TV series will flesh out the period previously explored by the traditionally animated cartoon shorts.
A short video about the history of organized Star Wars fandom at conventions followed. The clip started with San Diego Comic Con in 1977 and continued through the series of Star Wars: Celebration conventions that have become an annual event for fans, ending with the announcement of Star Wars: Celebration Japan. The convention will occur on July 19th through 21st in a convention center outside of Tokyo. More information will be announced on the Star Wars website. http://www.starwars.com
The upcoming video game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was the next topic of conversation, as game producer Brett Rector entered the stage. After the trailer for the game was played, Rector explained the basic plot. The Force Unleashed casts the player as Darth Vader’s apprentice in the time period between Episodes III and IV, charged with exterminating the Jedi and not leaving any witnesses. He also confirmed that the player really does get to use the force to pull a Star Destroyer out of the sky, as portrayed in the trailer. Responding to comments from Sansweet about the extreme depiction of force powers in the game as opposed to the films, he explained that the Clone Wars cartoon by Genndy Tartakovsky was his main inspiration. “It’s not breaking continuity, but a new way of looking at force powers.” said Rector.
George Lucas was involved to some extent with the creation of the videogame, giving guidelines for what they needed to include such as comedy and a love interest. According to Rector, the game is at the Alpha stage, having been completed and free of all major bugs. It’s set for release summer 2008. The game was delayed due to the need to create new technologies for the new generation videogame systems that the game will be released for. The Wii version will use the Wii Remote for the lightsaber, and the Nunchuck accessory for the other Force powers.
Familiar faces from the films and the expanded universe are set to appear. Confirming rumors stated in the recent Vanity Fair article, Rector explained that players will be able to play Darth Vader in the first level of the game. Vader is said to play like people would expect, not running but walking briskly. Gameplay footage from the XBOX 360 version was shown, which had the player kill a large number of stormtroopers, then face a Jedi Master on the planet Raxus Prime.
On April 29th, the fourth and final volume of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles comes out on DVD. A short trailer was played, after which it was announced that there would be ten DVDs with seven full length episodes and thirty hours of bonus documentaries.
Indiana Jones returns to movie theaters on May 22 with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The film’s trailer was shown, followed by a trailer for Lego Indiana Jones: The Video Game.
A short video from Robot Chicken creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich was next, interspersing clips from their recent Star Wars themed special on Adult Swim with their answering questions from fans and apologizing for not attending the con. After explaining that they named the show from a Chinese take-out menu as the reasoning for why they chose Robot Chicken instead of Droid Chicken, and commenting on how George Lucas smells good, they said that they probably will include a new Star Wars parody of some sort in their upcoming fourth season.
Then, a short video about the upcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars animated film and series, set to air on Cartoon Network and TNT as a weekly series after a premiere movie shows in theaters August 15th, aired, featuring supervising director Dave Filoni, who explained that fans have been interested in the Clone Wars since their first mention in Star Wars back in 1977. The series is set to further explore the character of Anakin Skywalker, his relationship with mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, and introduce new character Ashoka Tano, Anakin’s padawan apprentice. The young girl Jedi Knight will be introduced in the animated feature.
Producer of the upcoming Star Wars animated feature film and TV series Catherine Winder with Dave Filoni then took the stage, flanked by stormtroopers. Claiming the union cost was exorbitant, the stormtroopers were then ordered to leave by Sansweet. They discussed the series as being what George Lucas wanted to do now that he wasn’t constricted by the need to complete the six film series. Each thirty minute episode will tell a complete story, that will over time form a larger story arc. While the panelists couldn’t discuss the plot for the film, they did talk about the production’s desire to be faithful the original designs for the 1977 film, as well as the work of every designer who followed. George Lucas, who was originally planning to not be very involved with the production meets with the team every week, approving or disapproving of their work as he sees fit. “George will say, ‘Guys, what are you doing? That’s not Star Wars!’ or ‘That’s Star Wars.” said Filoni.
The panel ended with the trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie.

WONDERCON ‘08: THE LUCASFILM PANEL - NEWSARAMA

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My review copy of The New Frontier was waiting for me in the mail when I got home on Friday, and the Wife and I watched it as soon as we got the dogs fed and settled down for the evening.

Overall, I liked the movie. It left me with a big smile on my face. My Wife liked it too (a self proclaimed hater of cartoons, even though she usually likes watching superhero stuff me when I watch it ) and even said it was “pretty good”. We had a lot of fun figuring out who was doing the voice on all the characters.

From a “big fan of the book” perspective, I was a little disappointed. I knew that they had to leave a lot of stuff out, but I think they took some of the best stuff from the beginning of the book out and the movie kind of suffered. If there was any movie that DC was going to do where they went longer than 75 minutes, this is the one. Just like the review on Blog@Newsarama said:

The New Frontier, book and movie, answers in the resounding affirmative. If you liked the book, and won’t miss the non-super folk, this movie is a no-brainer. If you’ve never read the book, the DVD is a great introduction.

Ultimately, JL:NF is at least worth a look. It’s not the Peter Jackson version, but it was never going to be.

If you have never read the book, I highly recommend you do. For me, it replaced Kingdom Come as my favorite story. I love this story so much; I have all of the original series, both of the trades, AND the Absolute Edition.

I also really liked the JLA documentary. I have never been a big historian of the “behind the scenes” stuff on how comics were made over the years, so this was a lot of fun to watch. I even watched the audio commentary with Cooke this morning, which I usually never do, and enjoyed that as well.

Even though I got the one-disc edition for free, I think I am still going to buy the two-disc edition just for the extra stuff on the second DVD. I really enjoy those documentaries on comics. The one on Superman: Doomsday was even better than the movie in my opinion.

In a nutshell, if you are, or used to be a big fan of comic books, this DVD is worth a look.

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WONDERCON ‘08: IRON MAN MOVIE PANEL

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Report by Blake Morse
Saturday evening at WonderCon a panel for Paramount Pictures’ upcoming Iron Man movie was held with special Q&A guest, Jon Favreau (Elf) director of the film.
First off was a query into the use of the song “Iron Man” as recorded by Black Sabbath. A fan was curious as to how much interaction Favreau had with Ozzy Osbourne. He replied that they, “Had talked to Sharon Osbourne (Ozzy’s wife)…She’s very involved in his(Ozzy’s) music.

He was then asked how much he enjoyed making an action film for a change. He responded the he, “loved it, especially working with Robert (Downey Jr.)…” and hopes to do it again.
Next a fan wanted to know if they had really made Robert fly using hoverboots. While Favreau did not directly answer this question, he did use it as a clever segue into a few short clips from the film that showed Downey as Tony Stark developing the rocket shoes as well as an Iron Man prototype suit. Favreau said that he picked these clips to show because he thought you could get a better feel for the character that has not been shown thoroughly in previous trailers.

He then went on to talk about the Iron Man suit itself saying they tried to keep it close to the original comic book look but wanted to give it something unique that set it apart as well. A panelist then asked if Iron Man’s vault of armors would make an appearance. Favreau said that since toy tie-ins were a huge amount of revenue for films (sighting his son’s obsession with Spider-Man toys from the past three Spider-Man films), that he and Marvel had gone through tons of back issues looking for interesting or useful suits that they could possibly use.

A young filmmaker in the audience then asked what Favreau thought of the current state of independent films, since indie film had been Favreau’s roots. Favreau said that it was an exciting time to be independent since you did not need a lot of money for good equipment due to advances in technology or distribution thanks to the popularity of YouTube and other websites. ”If you put it out there and it’s good, it will get attention…you no longer have to go through the system.” He cited Peter Jackson’s rise in mainstream film as an example.

Favreau was next asked what made him decide to do the Iron Man film. He jokingly replied, ”The box office returns on Zathura”. He said that the Internet was a tool he had used to get opinions from the people who see his films, ”It’s like a giant water cooler” and that the audience “would be surprised what a difference they make”. He wants to make sure he’s making the films that fans want to see and the World Wide Web was