NBC’s new hostage centered drama, CRISIS, might seem a bit familiar when you compare it to other shows on the air right now. However, series stars RACHEL TAYLOR and LANCE GROSS quickly point out just why their show is not what you are expecting. Plus ABC drops the axe on ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND and it’s going to be a great year for ELFQUEST fans.
The new NBC thriller CRISIS is filled with twists and turns. So how does the cast keep up? We asked series regulars RACHEL TAYLOR and LANCE GROSS to fill us in, plus 24 gets a comic prequel and who is talking TV on Twitter?
UPDATE 3/28 Midnight: We swear, we don’t know how it happened. But we screwed up the totals from Round 3 on a few of the contests, and reported the wrong winners in some contests.
First, our apologies to Grrl Power and Awkward Zombie for misreporting their results, and our apologies to Order Of The Stick and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal for getting their hopes up. Sorry, folks.
Now, how we’re going to solve the problem: we’re going to replace the strips in the contests, and ComicMix is buying votes to match the current votes for Widdershins (72) and Monsterkind (143), effectively setting the contests at dead even. This allows us to start a new poll right now, which makes the contest even again.
[socialpoll id=”2194504″]
Because of the late start, we’ll extend the voting time for this contest to Sunday at midnight.
Again, our apologies to all concerned.
Round 3 is over, and we’ve raised another $153 for the Hero Initiative. Now we’re down to the webcomics Sweet 16! Round 4 of the Mix March Madness 2014 Webcomics Tournament starts now!
People are now beginning to buy the winning votes, making the difference for Dick Ruby and Widdershins— so get your votes in early and get your friends in too.
In deference to the folks at Emerald City Comic Con voting lasts until Midnight Pacific Time on Saturday, March 29! Here are the latest standings…
Get ready to party like it’s 2099, bitheads! Because YOU demanded it – Spider-Man 2099 is back and he’s here to stay in SPIDER-MAN 2099 #1! From the splintered fringes of time comes an all-new ongoing series from legendary Spider-Man 2099 creator Peter David (All-New X-Factor, Amazing Spider-Man) and fan-favorite artist Will Sliney (Fearless Defenders, Superior Spider-Man Team-Up)!
Stranded in the present day after the events of the New York Times best-selling Superior Spider-Man series, Miguel O’Hara must come to terms with living in the year 2014. Undercover in the employ of mega-corporation Alchemax, he’ll attempt to change the course of his future and prevent the rise of one of his greatest villains!
“Miguel becomes determined to try and transform his grandfather, Tiberius Stone into a decent guy in the hopes that it will wind up informing the raising of Tyler Stone, and perhaps make him a better person,” says writer Peter David in an interview with Marvel.com. “In short, he’s hoping that he can influence the development of both the present and future of Alchemax.”
“He’s going to find that’s not as easy as he’d hoped,” David continued.
“It’s going to be a huge year for all things Spider!” added series editor Ellie Pyle “This is your chance to get to know Spider-Man 2099 before the Spider-Man universe gets more crowded, and Peter and Will have prepared quite the introduction!”
Can one man change the future? When the dust settles – will there still be a future worth fighting for? The battle for tomorrow begins this July in SPIDER-MAN 2099 #1!
SPIDER-MAN 2099
Written by PETER DAVID
Art by WILL SLINEY
Cover by SIMONE BIANCHI
On-Sale This July!
It’s amazing how money changes things. Norm McDonald once did a bit about buying a friend a lottery ticket for a Christmas gift – “You don’t actually want it to win…”
Oculus Rift, the latest uber-cool project amongst video game mavens, just hit the jackpot, and a lot of people are annoyed about it. The VR-goggle system, designed primarily for videogame use, but bursting with potential other uses, got its initial funding via crowdfunding site Kickstarter, much to everyone’s joy. But this week, the company made news when it was sold for a staggering two billion dollars.
Sounds like good news, right? A rags to riches, Local Boy Makes Good story, yeah?
Neil Gaiman. Brandon Sanderson. Tracy Hickman. Peter David. These are just some of the authors included in StoryBundle’s Truly Epic Fantasy Bundle. All these books can be yours for a price you name, all DRM-free, with the option to donate a portion of your purchase to The Challenger Center.
Brian Henson and the company formed by his late father, Jim, are taking their talents to a new reality based competition show on SyFy. Brian talks about why he’s doing the CREATURE SHOP CHALLENGE and what his toughest creations have been on the big and small screens. Plus DOCTOR WHO comic fans get some freebies and Fox stakes some claims in the box office.
Thinking about my favorite of the Doctor’s adventures, one that immediately comes to mind is his journey to Tudor England. Crossing paths with an aging Henry VIII on the verge of a final marriage, the Doctor stumbles on a Dalek plot to kill him while companion Brianna is killed by the King’s Guard. Resurrected by the Pope, Brianna saves the day by brokering peace between Henry and the Catholic church, and using her love for the Doctor to melt the Dalek in disguise. If you’re a fan of Doctor Who but don’t remember this episode, that’s probably because this adventure was presented for the first and only time in Los Angeles for a single night in September of 2013. Also, it technically wasn’t an episode of Doctor Who. It was an installment of Doctor Who Live!, an improvised version of Doctor Who that I perform in twice a month.
As a Whovian for several years and an improviser for even longer, I was really excited when I was invited to join a group that would allow me to bring together two of my favorite things. I thought doing a show that would let me transform the things I wish the Doctor would do from idle thoughts into reality (albeit reality limited to 45 minute non-canon installments) would be a blast. After all, every fan has opinions on how the object of their fandom could be improved or expanded upon, but how often does any fan get the chance to actually play out those opinions by dictating what their favorite fictional characters will see, say, or do? Almost never, at best. I was pumped. So, so pumped.
And then, the pressure hit me. Because the more I thought about how cool it was going to be to make up and play out an episode of Doctor Who, the more I realized how difficult that would really be. Walking on stage with nothing more than the TV show’s conventions as a bare foundation on which to build comedy with twelve other people means there’s as much of a chance for failure as there is for success. I’m strictly a 2005 and on fan, so there are decades worth of episodes that I know nothing about yet, our audience may expect to see references from. Thankfully, a lot of the cast knows classic Who, so I can count on them to catch me up quickly in the wings if the audience’s suggested title for our episode contains something I don’t know much about, like the Sea Devils (and man, does our audience love to bring up the Sea Devils).
But my worries about representing Doctor Who faithfully went beyond just nailing the right references. Knowing how strong my feelings about the TV show are, it seemed fair to me that our Doctor Who Live! audience could hold us to the same standard they have for the real thing. We promise an improvised episode of the TV show and the TV show is phenomenal, so we’ve set an incredibly high bar for ourselves and have to figure out how to clear it. Before my first performance with the group, I was a bundle of nerves thinking about falling short of that bar. I wanted the show to be perfect because I didn’t want to disappoint myself or the audience. And with all this worrying going on, I was overlooking a very crucial fact: in that theater, we’re all fans.
After all, while it takes an awful lot of fandom to put on an improvised episode of a TV show, it takes even more to watch an improvised episode of a TV show. And Doctor Who Live! isn’t just lucky enough that there are big enough fans of Doctor Who to make doing our own version of it viable, but luckier still to have fans of our own. We have wonderful audience members who come regularly, encourage our silliest bits, and even let us be part of their birthdays by celebrating at our show. If we didn’t all love Doctor Who, none of that would be possible. I have to admit that despite regularly performing in front of audiences in various forms of improv for the last five years, it always feels weird to me to be recognized for a show I’ve done since improv is, by nature, so fleeting. But I’m starting to enjoy getting recognized for Doctor Who Live!, because being remembered as part of that group is, by nature, being recognized as a fan of Doctor Who, and usually leads to conversations about the real show. Now what kind of Whovian would I be if I didn’t like that?
Congratulations to everyone who made it through Round 2, and we’ve raised another $50 for the Hero Initiative. But now it gets even tougher, as we’re down to only 32 webcomics… and this is after the tightest round in Mix March Madness history, with three contests decided by two votes or less, and our first ever tie that required a run-off election! So we now know that every vote counts, from you and all your friends, so make sure to share and tweet about it, because Round 3 of the Mix March Madness 2014 Webcomics Tournament starts now! Voting lasts until Midnight EDT on Wednesday, March 26! Here are the latest standings…
This November, prepare for every Spider-Man…ever! Marvel is proud to announce Spider-Verse, the biggest Spider-Man story of the year from New York Times Best-Selling Spider-Scribe Dan Slott and blockbuster artist Olivier Coipel!
Kicking off this November in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (with a special lead-in story on Free Comic Book Day), Slott and Coipel assemble an legion of Spider-Men from every corner of every universe. Peter Parker, Miguel O’Hara, Miles Morales and many, many more must unite to stop a seemingly insurmountable super-powered foe. Morlun, an incredibly powerful villain has returned with a singular and terrifying goal – exterminate every Spider-Man in every universe! It will take thousands of spider-powered heroes to battle back the greatest threat to this universe or any other!
“The scope of this event is so big, the word ‘epic’ just doesn’t do it justice,” says editor Nick Lowe. “The story is just huge and heartbreaking and has necessitated spreadsheets to organize all the Spider-Men. Luckily we have a writer who has proven time and time again he can thread impossible story-needles [Slott] and the most versatile character artist in the business [Coipel].”
Fans can see the first hints of this event in April’s Amazing Spider-Man #1 but will get their first real taste of Spider-Verse in Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day Guardians of the Galaxy issue this with a special 5-page lead-in story available for free at all participating comic shops on May 3rd. This fall, Spider-Verse unites every Spider-Man in history to drive back the forces of darkness. But will an army of Spiders be enough?
Don’t miss the blockbuster Spider-Man event that will have the Marvel Universe on the edge of its seat when Spider-Verse hits comic shops this November! Plus, don’t miss the start of the next big chapter in Spider-Man history in Amazing Spider-Man #1 on-sale this April!
