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X MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE

I’ll be the first to admit I was not going to attend this movie in fears that Hollywood had begun to sink into that cycle of shlock that several times over the past 30 years has plagued the comic book industry and that’s going for the easy, cheap sale. 

I was wrong.  Glad I took the Sunday off and went to the Vista Theatre here in Hollywood and saw Wolverine get his thing on!

I’ve been working in comics now for over 20 years.  I was lucky enough to illustrate a couple of books that the creator of Wolverine, Len Wein had written.  Got to meet him and joke with him too.  Although I grew up not a major fan of the X Men comics, the majority of my friends knew those books inside and out.  I was fortunate however to get a copy of the first appearance of Wolverine in a “The Incredible Hulk” comic book.  That story was awesome!  Wolverine had been sent out to kill the Hulk.  Nobody kills the Hulk but that one issue had such a good story it remains memorable to this day.

So here I am watching this new incarnation of the X Men movie franchise and loving it!  I couldn’t believe how much fun I and the audience had watching this flick!  We were laughing and shouting and cheering!  Just the reason why we go to the movies to share the entertainment experience with others.

Sure this movie isn’t “Casablanca” but as far as superhero action movies, action movies, go this one takes a big prize.  It didn’t lack in anything especially “crazy movie logic” like in the latest “Star Trek” movie where theres a huge evil looking starship that you just know no one in their right mind would get near.  X Men Origins: Wolverine is opening the door even wider for the domination of Hollywood by the Marvel Universe.  We Marvel fans all knew this for half a century but Hollywood’s special effects couldn’t get anywhere near the astounding, amazing, incredible action the classic Marvel Comics artwork from greats like Jack Kirby, Herb Trimpe, Steve Ditko, and John Buscema presented.  This is the closest thing to ever get there and it raises the bar for future superhero fare.

The story was interesting, combined from years of Wolverine and X Men stories, the acting was much better than I expected, and the director should be congratulated for taking so many characters and putting them in an easy to follow narrative.  I’ve heard that some didn’t find the direction so great but I have to hand it to him because each scene was easy to follow.  The battle at Three Mile Island raises the bar even higher.  That was freakin’ awesome no end!

The actors just so surprised me that I can’t wait to see them again. 

You get the full spectrum of what made those Marvel Comics stories so great, love and romance amongst unspeakable evil and either power gained by mad scientists or nature.  I’ve always thought of Stan Lee the mastermind behind classic Marvel Comics as a romance writer using superheroes as a means to tell a story.  Every one of those Marvel characters had worse love relationships than we readers.  Before Marvel came along superheroes didn’t have divorces and affairs and other such interrelationship problems.  In Marvel stories you would have a superhero in a battle against some horrific supervillain and in the middle of the fight one of their lawyers would show up with superpowers trying to get one or both of them to pay their alimony or child support payments.

This movie carries all that and more as we get introduced to new mutant menaces, military industrial magnates, and a glimpse of our favorite mutants from their early years. 

There are so many high points in this movie that if I listed them I’d be dang near writing the script of the movie right here!

Each scene stands on it’s own merits and fits into the narrative without trying to be anything more than a superhero movie wrapped around romance and intrigue and the virtues of rising above one’s hate and anger against all odds.

I can tell you one thing, these superhero movies are going to be the new “westerns” where stories are being told of human endeavors in this format.  We know this because that’s what happened in comics way back in the 1960s.  Western stories had be told to within an inch of their lives and a new venue needed.  Along comes Marvel Comics and the witty writing and unprecedented artwork that gave creative people a new way of telling stories.  I remember as a kid not wanting to read Marvel Comics because they always had “mush” in them.  That’s an old term for romance.  No self respecting eight year old wanted to see his favorite superhero smooching it up with some yucky girl but when you had girls in the comics drawn by John Buscema you hit puberty a lot faster and realized why these super guys were beating the snot out of each other.  In those days a Marvel superhero wouldn’t think twice about beating the crap out of a supervillain with a ’58 Chevy or a ’64 Chrysler over some girl they were both in love with. 

So once again the superhero genre’ ramps up to new heights.  Last year it was the outstanding performances of Heath Ledger and Robert Downey Jr. that showed what I’ve been saying for years that the big awards are going to start going to the actors who take these superhero roles and own them.  If you’re an actor and you’re not snagging up one of these Marvel roles you’re gonna find yourself missing out big time.  Believe you me, Marvel’s got thousands of characters that are well defined enough for any actor worth their salt to take on and rule.

Comic books are now ruling Hollywood.  It’s not going away.  Just wait until Wolverine’s story progresses and the crossover movies start up.  Something like “Wolverine vs Spider-Man” might make it and then you’ll have to have armed guards at ever movie theatre.

The audience has spoken!  Make mine Marvel!

Posted under Comic Book Artist, COMIC BOOKS, Conventions, Movie scores, Movies, Sci-Fi

  Oh God!  False eyelashes, mega mascara, mini skirts, and Go Go Boots in space!

  Leave it up to the Star Trek franchise to ” Boldly go where nothing makes sense anymore “.

  I know the millions of Trekkies ( yeah, we’re called “Trekkers” now but I’m an old skool fan and still go by “Trekkie” ) will disagree with me because they live for anything Star Trek but I’ve got to stand my ground.
 
  This movie attempts to reintroduce the Star Trek universe and franchise by reincarnating the original characters in new “Beverly Hills 90210″ fashion and the old star ship Enterprise hits several bumps on it’s road to our devotion.

  Overall I’d say the movie is extremely entertaining via the one thing that made the original series so successful and that’s the ability of the actors to bring that charm and interest that overshadows the special effects.  The Star Trek franchise doesn’t just run on sci-if technical wizardry although it’s always had the best and I might add the most admirable and beloved special effects.  It runs on the ability of the actors to carry these wildly imaginative stories and make us believe.  The weirder the story the more it calls for the performers to sell that story and Star Trek has had some of the best performers to do this.  Same goes for this incarnation as the cast is charming enough to get our interest and keep us flowing along through the narrative even though it tussles more than two Klingons over the last serving of Heart of Targ.

  I’m a bit unsettled because the tv series “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, and my favorite “Star Trek: Voyager” left us in a cliffhanger in the 24th Century after the big Borg and Dominion battles as those series ended and now we’re back to square one with this new Star Trek version that invalidates our pals in those series.  That sucks worse than a Denebian Slime Devil.

—-SPOILERS—-

  First of all, everyone knows that when you’re in outer space you never take your starship anywhere near the dark, ominous starship with spikey things protruding from it.  A ship that scary looking should have “Beware, Evil Starship” plastered all over it.  I guess there’s this off the beaten path garage that specializes in evil looking starships run by some guy named Moe and his protege’ whose nickname has the word skull or snake in it.  You can tell it’s evil from a light year away, but does our intrepid Star Fleet captain and crew figure this out when the seven-year-olds in the audience are screaming out ” Hey Daddy, look at that evil star ship! “?  No they don’t, they just sit there and get whomped on.

  This introduction leads us into our story that reintroduces our favorite starship crew and focuses on the early years and motivations of Kirk and Spock which I must admit had some of the high points of the movie and quite memorable!  Spock’s encounter with his Vulcan classmates was just awesome.  It was something mentioned and alluded to for decades but we Trekkies hadn’t seen on the screen.  Matter of fact, actor Zach Quinto who portrays the new Mr. Spock did a fine job and added levels to Spock’s character without being overbearing that really surprised me.  Knowing that outside of Superman, Mr. Spock is the world’s most favorite space alien, Quinto has some mighty big shoes to fill and considering the grand master Leonard Nimoy is featured in the film makes Quinto’s job a triple threat performance that he does carry off well. 

  The rest of the cast including Romulan villain Eric Bana all add an extra special something even though they’re surrounded by things that just don’t make sense.  Why are they building a giant multi billion ton starship on the ground?  Anyone who’s ever tried to put together one of those star ship Enterprise models from the 1970′s knows the things are so awkward you need two original GI Joes and a 1971 Banana Splits Buggy chassis to hold the thing up and those nacelles ( those wing like things on the starship Enterprise ) whilst the glue holds.  How do they do it on the ground?  Another problem, why the Romulans again?  Didn’t we just go through their nonsense in the last miserable Star Trek: Nemesis?  The Romulans always get their butts kicked by the Federation so why do they keep on trying?  Star Trek: Nemesis was so miserable that the next time I wanted to see a Romulan would be serving fries at the nearest “Tasty Tribble” somewhere near the Klingon Neutral Zone.

  The way the story progresses, no pro-messes, involves the most inexplicable, incoherent, series of lazy plotting that made the movie drop to a level below video game mod by students from a college that has a marsupial as a mascot.  Not even in our most drunken states of consciousness do we mere mortals come across such a series of events, and suspension of disbelief went out the shuttlecraft window faster than stale bowl of Klingon G’agh with hot sauce. 

  The action scenes however were lots of fun.  The high point was the skirmish on the drilling device platform and Mr. Sulu ( John Cho ) breaks out that retractable samurai sword.  That was coolness to the second power and I got so excited I was fixin’ to jump out of my seat to help him out.  Sulu was always the “Angel of Death” on the Enterprise.  He fired the weapons when danger was afoot and it was good to see him in true form with something extra.  The way he dispatches his Romulan foe was so funny it brought about the only cheer from the audience.

  Chekov ( Anton Yelchin ) was a delight, a real delight who brought so much clarity and enthusiasm to the role that it felt like when your kid brother wants to show you a new frog that’s he’s been hiding in your football helmet.  You know it’s odd but he’s so excited and neato that you just accept it and smile.

  Scotty ( Simon Pegg ) is a bit too eccentric from the tough as nails Scotty we all love but when he’s aboard the ship, he slowly comes up to an acceptable level of tolerance.  Me, I like the old tough guy Scotty who would drink Klingon nerve gas mixed with scotch as a chaser and then cuss out half the machines in his path.

  Kirk ( Chris Pine ), what can I say?  There’s no comparison with new Kirk or old Kirk that warrants similarities.  They’re two different men, two different characters.  William Shatner the original Kirk always had that look of far distance.  Like he could see the Sun rising on the horizon no matter how cloudy the day.  Our new Kirk appears as though he can only focus on what’s on the tip of his nose.  It’s not to say he does a bad job of performing, he does a wonderful job.  He has to take the character back to a time we’ve never seen of him, his youth.  He’s got the charm and presence and punches through to get the authority he needs to establish himself and that’s what the script called for and he delivered it with laser like precision. 

  Uhura ( Zoe Saldana ).  She ended up doing so much kissing in this movie I forgot why the heck she was aboard the spaceship in the first place.  She doesn’t do any officer type stuff but she sure can take her clothes off and smooch it up with space aliens.  The original Uhura, Nichelle Nichols was so sexy, her mere presence made guys practically shove their faces through the screens of the tv sets.  When she appeared in a two piece outfit in the classic Trek episode “Mirror Mirror” guys were so close to the color tv sets that the radiation emitted left sunburned foreheads for a week.  Heck, the x rays were so intense that you could could fellas’ ribs from ten feet away.  In that entire series Uhura kissed one person, Capt. Kirk and that was forced by aliens with super mental powers.  That sexy presence but chaste character elevated Uhura to an elegance and command authority that just went out the window in this new Star Trek flick.  The actress has everything and more going for her and her assertiveness didn’t bring the character home but the constant romance and strip down to bra and panties scene was useless.  If Nichelle Nichols had done a bra and panties scene on the original Star Trek show you’ld have had fried foreheads for six months straight. 

  Bones ( Karl Urban ).  I was surprised that they’d found an actor who has a presence of solidity that original Dr. McCoy actor, DeForrest Kelly brought to the series.  He’s charming and with a reserved sense of comedic timing, authorative within reason and generally likeable.  McCoy was the sense of reason on the series.  He’s a character that brought a hometown feeling to the bizarre world of the future as he would laud himself as a simple country doctor from the south.  He set the pattern for the “space doctor” with a heart of gold with that southern chivalry that spiced up the character and made us feel comfortable.  I would often wonder when McCoy would try to serve possum stew to his patients or a dose of “Granny’s Rheumatism Tonic” from the old “Beverly Hillbillies” sitcom.  I expect to enjoy the new doctor’s future performances.

  Finally there’s the grand poobah, the great vulcan, Leonard Nimoy who can do no wrong in my eyes.  He’s one of those rare celebrities who can do everything exceptionally and donates his time and money to worthwhile causes and charities.  He gives out words of wisdom to live by and to me personally has saved my life a hundred times over which I can’t explain here.  Just having him on board with this new franchise is a blessing.  He’s still got a full head of hair, and he’s still cool after all these years.  When he first appeared as Spock on the original Star Trek, the kids in the neighborhood thought he was the coolest thing since Bruce Lee as Kato on the old “Green Hornet” show.  He’s still cool and we are all very much blessed he’s still with us to entertain us and share. 

  Overall, this movie has the Star Trek blood in it and that makes it worthy of watching several times at the theatres.  Never mind the time travel nonsense and the obvious plot holes and devices, just go for the fun that has always made Star Trek great, the actors who bring us characters we admire.

  Notes on funny.  Actor Tyler Perry appears as one of the Star Fleet judicial heads.  It made me laugh that the only black guy in the movie with more than one line is famous for being a crossdresser comedian.  The gizmos in the movie, outside of the warp drive and ship didn’t dazzle me as much because we have lots of them now.  When the original Star Trek showed off it’s gizmos we all worked for years to bring them to reality.  Some would say we might have warp drive or something like it but it’s classified by the military.  Knowing all the friends I’ve grown up with who’ve gone into the weapons and science fields, it wouldn’t surprise me if we’ve got more than we imagine.

  Oh, final note, the soundtrack, the score, no.  I like the Beastie Boys as much as anyone else but no.
Without those four legendary notes followed by those legendary eight notes, it ain’t that dinner bell for Star Trek vittles we old timers regard as almost a hymn.

Posted under Movie scores, Movies, Sci-Fi, Soundtracks, Television

This is a YouTube clip from the classic tv show “Gunsmoke” where the character “Festus” gives his rendition of the “Exodus”. It is the funniest thing I’ve seen in years and emphasizes the value of characterization in entertainment. These “Gunsmoke” characters lasted for 20 years. It was more than a tv show, it’s part of our heritage. Also note that actor Ken Curtis here as “Festus” is one of the greatest singers of the 20th Century having been renowned as a member of the legendary “Sons of the Pioneers”. Us western fans and C&W fans all appreciate Mr. Cutis’ fine singing!

We love Ed Kihm! He’s a musical genius and he sure can play himself that gee-tar somethin’ powerful! If you haven’t heard Ed play you can see him in this video and then check out his other videos. He plays that twelve string guitar and he’s just phenomenal. Us fans of classic tv will enjoy his playful look at sitcom songs to the tune of Ghost Riders In The Sky.

Posted under Conventions, Cosplay, Sci-Fi, Television

Many Moons ago I worked pencilling at Jim Shooter’s Defiant Comics. I found a video on YouTube featuring my editor Pauline Weiss discussing the comic book I worked on called “The Good Guys”. That book was tough. It featured 8 real kids who had won a contest to appear as superheroes in a comic book and I had to draw all of them in likeness. It was fun and challenging. Here’s some trivia for you, Pauline Weiss is the wife of legendary comics creator Alan Weiss who worked on the “War Dancer” comic series at Defiant. Alan is the great grand nephew of the famous magician Harry Weiss we all know by his stage name, “Harry Houdini”. The magic follows the family tree!

I can’t emphasize this enough regarding it’s importance. These are books by Scott McCloud one of the biggest talents to come along in comics in decades. He actually wrote and illustrated one of my all time favorite funniest comic book ever “DESTROY!”.

Scott is well known in the comics field not only for his talent but his instructional books regarding the art, technology, history, and philosophy regarding comics. Get the books so you know the basic languages and concepts. Make sure you know them inside and out because if you can’t speak the language no one will be able to communicate with you professionally about the industry.

You can get these highly recommended books here:

I can’t think of another theme song growing up that made more people leap to their feet and do the ‘shin dig’ or ‘the monkey’ and all those weird 60′s dances then the theme for the tv show “Secret Agent” aka “Danger Man”.

The show starred Patrick McGoohan as Drake an agent out to foil evil. It is a brilliant show with great actors, villains, stories.

The theme by Johnny Rivers was a hit and still a party favorite. You can’t play it once but you have to play it three times or a long version because once you get your thing on dancing to this tune you just can’t slow down.

Now don’t laugh but the girls in this were hot back in the day. It was the Go Go years. Johnny Rivers is a musical genius and this was just one of his hit songs. Warning, don’t try those dance moves without a partner around to assist you should you injure yourself.

Posted under Blogroll, FINE ART

This video is the theme song to the classic 60′s sci-fi kids show ( although more adults watched than kids ) Fireball XL-5.

It’s a show that was spawned by the great Gerry Anderson who brought us such classics as Stingray and my favorite Captain Scarlet.

Gerry Anderson did everything right on his productions. Just so much fun and entertaining. He used marionettes as his characters and darned well effective too! One of the major tributes to him is due to his use of great theme songs and scores. His puppet productions were often head and shoulders above the live actor shows! His miniatures are masterpieces to this day.

Yet back to the theme songs. This one is from Fireball X-L5 recorded by Don Spencer and Flee Rekkers. This tune was so popular when I was a kid that we would all dance to it whenever it was on. I still love this tune and don’t mind singing it now and then to myself.

Here’s another cool theme from Gerry Anderson’s Stingray show

It’s got only one lyric, but it is a rousing tune too.

Now here’s my favorite, Captain Scarlet. This was a great show and a must have. Nobody went throught the stuff Captain Scarlet went through. Not only that he had hot babes on his show and a kick butt theme song

Someone ought to make a live action Captain Scarlet movie starring Brendan Fraser or Jason Staham. That would be soooo cool and full of humor. Captain Scarlet was like Indiana Jones meets the X Files vs Doom.

Finally, this show UFO had a kick butt theme too. Very hot show!

All in all, it would do you good to get some Gerry Anderson shows on DVD as they’re lots of fun, quite historic, way ahead of their time.

Posted under Comic Book Artist