http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1941044501/mongrel-sob-graphic-novel
A werewolf stalks the mean streets of Chicago, seeking vengeance in this full-color horror graphic novel.
Or at least, that’s what I’ve decided this week will be, here in my column. And it’s my column, so as Loki would say (and I am fond of quoting), “I do what I want!” Mwahaha!
Seriously, though – I have a lot of fantastically talented friends, and it just so happens that two of them are currently involved in fun Kickstarters that I think are deserving of attention. So without further ado, here they are:
1) Stage Production of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters:
Anybody who knows me probably knows that I’m a huge fan of Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series. What you might not know (even if you’re a Discworld fan) is that over nineteen of Terry’s books have been adapted to the stage since 1991 by the Audie Award-winning voice actor and Discworld collaborator Stephen Briggs, who has also voiced a large number of the Discworld audiobooks. Stephen regularly stages Discworld plays with the Studio Theatre Club [http://www.studiotheatreclub.com/LastProduction.html ] in Oxford, UK to popular acclaim; and his adaptations have been used around the world to stage Pratchett’s works.
Despite this, there seems to be a sad lack of Discworld in theater in the United States, at least in my observation. But worry not! My friend Kevin O’Shea of the excellent geeky Made of Fail podcast and productions is seeking to remedy that with a group of other dedicated Discworld and theater folks. They are striving to produce the stage adaptation of Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters from Thursday to Sunday during the last two weeks of July this year, at the Side Project Theatre in Chicago (just off the CTA Red Line; the Jarvis station between Loyola and Northwestern Universities).
Aside from knowing first-hand about Kevin’s passion for Discworld, dedication to geek projects, and overall reliability, I’ve looked at the project’s Kickstarter page, and it seems like a fun and solidly constructed project to me, with some cool donation rewards (I want a hand-knitted model of Discworld!). I think it’s worth backing, for any Discworld fans who want to see more Discworld theater in the U.S., and particularly for those who might be able to actually make it to the play if (when!) it hits Chicago in July. As of this writing, the project has received approximately 72% of the $5,000 they will need in pledges to reach their goal and stage the production. That’s pretty darned good, but they only have until April 10 to raise the other 28%. So if there are any Discworld fans out there who haven’t given yet but want to support this great project, now’s the time!
The Turtle Moves!
2) CineManiac: Horror Edition:
Ben Fisher is a funny guy. I’ve already positively reviewed some of his humorous writing in comics, and since then, we’ve become friends, and I’ve learned first-hand just how zany and occasionally…twisted his humor can be. (And, full disclosure, we are currently working on an un-related-to-this-topic project, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere). I’ve also learned that he’s a huge gaming geek, as well as a horror fan and aficionado of storytelling tropes; so when he told me he’d designed an interactive, humorous card game you play while watching horror films, I wasn’t surprised. I was excited, though, particularly after seeing that the talented Mike Henderson was going to be doing the art for the cards. Mike’s got a great style for the dramatic, the ominous, and the terrifying. (He’s also got a slightly twisted sense of humor.) Who better to do the art for a funny game about horror movies and horror movie tropes?
The basic game itself looks simple enough to play without distracting unduly from the enjoyment of watching the movie (and like it will add to that enjoyment for anyone with a sense of humor who knows horror movies); and the addition of “curse cards” to the basic mechanic of gameplay makes it sound like a whole lot of fun. As the Kickstarter says:
“But at the center of its little black heart, CineManiac is a party game. And what’s a party game without the ability to humiliate your competition? Curse cards force your opponents to reenact scenes, impersonate horror icons, and otherwise do your dastardly bidding!”
… Yeah, I’d play that game.
The Kickstarter has some great donation rewards for those of us who have a weakness for collecting original art or exclusives, like the signed original art from the card of your choice, or exclusive limited edition bonus cards. And, as it turns out, the project is also doing a giveaway contest through April 8th at the Tabletop Gaming News site, so you can also head on over there and enter if you want to, for the chance to win inclusion of your likeness in the art for one of the cards, or, for runners-up, an autographed print of art from the game.
This Kickstarter still has 28 days to go, but it needs a lot of love to reach its goal, so if you think it sounds awesome, as I do, go check it out (and watch the fun trailer!) and consider pledging here.
I’d love to see both of these projects make it to their final goals. If you would too…go pledge!
And until next time: Servo Lectio!
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis
WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold
Summit Entertainment, a Lionsgate company, confirmed today that Kate Winslet will star as Jeanine Matthews in the studio’s futuristic action adventure Divergent. Starring Shailene Woodley and Theo James, the other confirmed cast members including Jai Courtney, Zoë Kravitz, Ansel Elgort and Maggie Q.
The futuristic action adventure, based on author Veronica Roth’s New York Times best seller, will be directed by Neil Burger from a script by Vanessa Taylor and commences principal photography this April in Chicago. The original draft of the script was written by Evan Daugherty. Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher are producing the project via their Red Wagon Entertainment banner along with Pouya Shahbazian. Red Wagon’s Rachel Shane is executive producing. Summit will release the film theatrically in North America in The Hunger Games slot on Friday, March 21, 2014.
Divergent is described as a thrilling adventure set in a future world where people are divided into distinct factions based on their personalities, Tris Prior (Woodley) is warned she is Divergent and will never fit into any one group. When she discovers a conspiracy to destroy all Divergents, she must find out what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it’s too late.
The extremely popular young adult novel Divergent was written by Roth, a first time author, and has topped the New York Times Best Sellers list ever since being published in May of 2011 by Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins Publishers. The book was written by Roth while she was earning her undergraduate degree at Northwestern University. She followed her first novel with the book Insurgent, which has also made its way to the #1 position on specific New York Times Best Sellers lists. To date, book sales are now over 2.6 million copies for both novels combined, and both titles are HarperCollins most successful e-books ever in regards to sales. The studio acquired the film rights to the novel in early 2011 several months before the book Divergent was published.
Universal City, California – From Academy Award®-winning director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Contagion) comes this suspenseful tale of intrigue starring Channing Tatum (Magic Mike, 21 Jump Street), Academy Award® nominees Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network) and Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Anna Karenina), and Academy Award® winner Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago, Ocean’s Twelve).Side Effects will be available on Digital Download on May 7, 2013 as well as Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD and On Demand on May 21, 2013 from Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
After her husband (Tatum) is released from prison for insider trading, Emily (Mara) begins suffering from terrifying anxiety and turns to psychiatrist Dr. Banks (Law) for help. But when Banks prescribes an experimental drug for her, the side effects have chilling and deadly consequences. Full of unexpected twists, Side Effects is the sexy psychological thriller that critics are calling “wildly unpredictable!” (Marlow Stern, Newsweek).
The Blu-ray™ Combo Pack allows fans to watch Side Effects anytime, anywhere on the device of their choice. It includes a Blu-ray™ disc, a DVD, a Digital Copy and UltraViolet™ for the ultimate, complete viewing experience.
• Blu-ray™ disc unleashes the power of your HDTV and is the best way to watch movies at home, featuring perfect hi-def picture and perfect hi-def sound.
• DVD offers the flexibility and convenience of playing the movie in more places, both at home and while away.
• Digital Copy provides fans with a choice of digital options to watch on devices such as iPhone®, iPad®, Android™, computers and more.
• UltraViolet™ is a revolutionary new way for fans to collect their moves and TV shows in the cloud. UltraViolet™ lets consumers instantly stream and download to tablets, smartphones, computers and TVs. Now available in both the United States and Canada.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/Bxy4ThBd1PM[/youtube]
BONUS FEATURES (BLU-RAY™ and DVD):
• ALIZA WEBSITE EXPERIENCE
• BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF SIDE EFFECTS
• ABLIXA COMMERCIAL – the fictional drug portrayed in the film
• INTENIN COMMERCIAL
CAST AND FILMMAKERS:
Cast: Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Channing Tatum, Vinessa Shaw and Ann Dowd
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Scott Z. Burns
Casting by: Carmen Cuba, c.s.a.
Executive Producers: James D. Stern, Michael Polaire and Douglas E. Hansen
Producers: Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Gregory Jacobs and Scott Z. Burns
Co-Producers: A. Sasha Bardey and Elena de Leonardis
Director of Photography: Peter Andrews
Production Designer: Howard Cummings
Editor: Mary Ann Bernard
Costume Designer: Susan Lyall
Music by: Thomas Newman
TECHNICAL INFORMATION – BLU-RAY™ COMBO PACK:
Street Date: May 21, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Selection Number: 61123859
Running time: 1 Hour, 47 Minutes
Layers: BD-50
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen
Rating: Rated R for sexuality, nudity, violence and language
Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Sound: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
TECHNICAL INFORMATION – DVD:
Street Date: May 21, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Selection Number: 61123858
Running time: 1 Hour, 47 Minutes
Layers: Dual Layer
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Rating: Rated R for sexuality, nudity, violence and language
Languages/Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
There’s a new sun rising up angry in the sky
And there’s a new voice saying we’re not afraid to die
Let the old world make believe it’s blind and deaf and dumb
But nothing can change the shape of things to come
We all know how our mass media portrays nerds: people who are brainy, obsessive, with a penchant for wearing merchandising-related merchandise. We come in two sizes: gangly or Christie-clone. We couldn’t get laid at an orgy on the dark side of the moon. We have a life-long lust for our popular culture and cannot distinguish between low-brow and high-brow.
Actually, I’m rather proud of that last bit. Cultural elitism really pisses me off. But this is America, where the bottom line justifies everything. The day nerds became bankable was the day we became legitimate.
We helped. Picking up a lesson from my fellow hippie freaks of 1967, we have redefined the term “nerd” simply by accepting it as a reference to ourselves. My fellow ComicMix columnist Emily S. Whitten embraces this wonderfully, in nearly everything she writes for this site.
The Simpsons helped quite a bit. Comic Book Guy exposed a previously hidden reality: a goodly percentage of those who hang our at the comic book shop are members of Mensa, and more would be if we had even the most rudimentary social skills. Mind you, I’d only been to a handful of Mensa meetings and I found them pathetically tedious, but they were at the University of Chicago so I was probably asking to be bored.
The fact is, comic book reading among those older than nine used to be associated with stupidity, arrested development, and the complete lack of a social life. Now many understand that it’s the upper end of the brain rack that finds this stuff appealing.
Nerds might not be cool, but then again, why is it that nerds invent all the cool stuff? We might have very short attention spans and we’re easily attracted to that which is bright and shiny, but we’ve taken over the popular culture and we’ve taken over technological innovation and, quite literally, our toys have become the tools of revolution all across the world.
Remember Doctor Doom’s little flying teevee cameras that would allow him to view his mayhem all over the world? He borrowed them from Ming the Merciless… but that’s not my point. Today, for good or for bad or for both, we’ve got our flying cameras. They’re called drones. Some of them are capable of bombing people back to the Flintstones. We’ve got GPS in our pockets, transponders in our cars, cameras at most of the traffic lights and highways and stores and office buildings and not only do “we” know where you are, but we know where you have been.
Hey, I didn’t say nerddom was a force for good. It’s a human force. And it’s mainstream.
And we’ve got these massively overpopulated conventions all over the world. We can organize.
We can take over.
Maybe… we already have.
THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil
“There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain.”
– The Beatles, In My Life
As I grow older, I find some underlying conservative strains in me coming out –much as that will surprise many who know me as a flaming leftie. While not totally adverse, I find I’m resistant to change the older I get. I like things as they were. When I periodically go back to my hometown of Chicago, I find some things have changed and some things are just gone. My first reaction generally is “Who told them they could do that?” Even if I haven’t been back to a place in some time, I mildly resent it not being there. I see what is now there overlaid with my memory of what was there. A cognitive double vision, if you will.
I think part of the reason that young people may not have that same reaction is they don’t have the same amount of experience with that spot. They’re living in it now and maybe know it only from now. Current chronology doesn’t get mixed with past chronology as it does for those of us who are older.
All of which brings us to the news this week of the Comics Buyer’s Guide ending its long run in about two months. For those of you who don’t know, CBG was long one of the top comics related newspapers/magazines with news and reviews and opinion columns relating to the comics medium.
There are other places that have covered the history of the Comic Buyers Guide, including an excellent summation by Bob Greenberger here on ComicMix. What I want to talk about instead is my own personal connections and history with it.
Before I was a writer of comics, I was a fan and with the dawning of the direct sale shops came the discovery of periodicals such as The Comics Reader and CBG. For the first time, I got a peek into the backstage of the comics industry. I got an idea of what was coming out and when, who were the artists or writers on what books, I read reviews, letters from fans and pros, opinions and columns (notably Peter David) and, as a fan and someone who had aspirations for the field, I wanted not only to read CBG, I wanted to be in it, to be one of those who were talked about.
Eventually, I was. I had arrived. I was part of it. I got reviewed by Don Thompson (he and his wife, the ever charming Maggie, ran the paper). While he didn’t like everything I did, I felt he was fair and reasonable and he gave one of my favorite reviews of my character GrimJack. In one issue, Gordon the bartender tells a customer the “secret origin of John Gaunt.” It came down to “Mama Gaunt, Papa Gaunt, a bottle of hootch, wucka wucka, wucka – nine months later, Baby Gaunt.” Don said it was his second favorite origin in all of comics, eclipsed only by Superman. I loved that and still do. Thanks, Don.
The most important memory of CBG for me is that, for a time, they gave my late wife Kimberly Yale a literary home. Kim wrote a column for them and, as she learned she had cancer, she recounted her battle with it until close to her death. Kim was a finer writer than me; I’m a storyteller, not a Fine Writer. Oh, I know my way around structure and theme and character and syntax and so on but my primary focus was and is storytelling. For Kim, it was the shape of the sentence, the right word chosen, the proper use of grammar and syntax. I’ll split infinitives without a care but Kim didn’t like that. She was the better essayist than myself. CBG gave her the chance to make her mark that way.
I’ll freely admit I haven’t read CBG for a while. I’m more online these days. I liked, however, knowing it was there and now it won’t be. Life changes, I know, and some things die but life itself always goes on even if I don’t always approve.
Drat.
MONDAY: Mindy Newell
ALL PULP REVIEWS by Ron Fortier
 |
| Cover Art: Laura Givens |
Airship 27 releases it’s 15th title of the year.
Press Release:
BOLD NEW SPACE OPERA
Airship 27 Productions is thrilled to announce the release of its 15th title of the year, a rousing new space opera; THREE AGAINST THE STARS by Chicago based writer Joe Bonadonna. Best known for his sword and sorcery fantasies, Bonadonna now steps into a whole new arena to deliver a truly fast paced futurist pulp adventure.
On the distant alien planet of Rhajnara a conspiracy created by the facist Khandra Regime is set into motion to overthrow the rightful Rhajni Republic and instigate a policy of ethnic-cleansing. The conspirators are cunning and it seems nothing in the universe can derail their mad apocalyptic scheme.
Nothing that is but three rambunctious Space Marines from the Third Regiment Company E of the United States Space Marines assigned to Rhajnara with the Terran Expeditionary Force. Sergeants Fernado Cortez, Seamus O’Hara and Claudia Akira are the most unlikely trio ever to don jarhead camouflage and become military heroes. To their superiors they are wild, reckless and incessant troublemakers always in the thick of things. Yet their courage, loyalty and devotion to duty prove them to be the toughest Devil Dogs in the Corp.
Now, with the aid of a Medical Corpsman named Makki Doon, a young Felisian native proto-feline humanoid, these three futuristic musketeers are about to become the one factor capable of exposing the traitorous Khandra coup. But to do so they will have to put their lives on the line one more time and risk all to save the day facing off against incredible odds. To save an empire they will truly become…THREE AGAINST THE STARS.
“This is old school space opera,” cheered Airship 27 Productions’ Managing Editor, Ron Fortier. “From Buck Rogers to the Space Patrol, the classic elements in this book make for a fun read from start to finish.” The book features interior illustrations by the popular Pedro Cruz with a dynamic cover by Laura Givens and is designed by Art Director, Rob Davis. “In the end, Joe Bonadonna delivers an action packed space opera fans of Edmond Hamilton and E.E. “Doc” Smith will not soon forget.”
AIRSHIP 27 PRODUCTIONS – Pulp Fiction For A New Generation!
Available now at Create Space – (https://www.createspace.com/4072461)
As a digital PDF download here –
(http://robmdavis.com/Airship27Hangar/index.airshipHangar.html)
In another week at Amazon & Kindle.
In two weeks from (www.IndyPlanet.com)
Fight Card Books has released the cover to the upcoming paperback edition of Irish Dukes by Mike Faricy. Currently available as an ebook, Irish Dukes will have a paperback release in the near future.
ABOUT FIGHT CARD: IRISH DUKES–
Dublin, Ireland, 1951
After winning his latest bout in Berlin, US Army boxing champ Sergeant Kevin Crowley is on military leave in Ireland. Raised in St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys in Chicago, he has finally returned to his place of birth, where he is sure he will find the family he never knew and lay claim to his dream of a royal fortune.
What Crowley actually finds is the fight of his life … A near destitute grandmother, crippling debt left by a father he never knew, a feisty redhead with hatred in her heart, a villainous landlord and his gang who’ll stop at nothing to settle a score going back a generation …
Kevin Crowley has never backed down in the ring or out … The treasures and truth awaiting him in Dublin are not what he first imagined. But with his past, his family, and his future at stake, Crowley will put up his Irish dukes and fight like never before …
Learn more about the Fight Card series at www.fightcardbooks.com.
Listen to Paul Bishop’s Fight Card interview on the Earth Station One podcast here.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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