Tagged: LA

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO THE BEST NEW PULP NOVEL EVER!

News
December 6, 2011

Tippin’ Hancock’s Hat-Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

FUN & GAMES
by Duane Swierczynski
Mulholland Books
287 Pages
Published June 2011

The debate is settled. The argument is over. The conundrum has been solved.

There can be New Pulp that satisfies all sides of the ‘Classic Feel versus Modern Relevance’ discussion that some of us have been involved with for a tentful of Sundays. Yes, the perfect expression of New Pulp does exist in between two covers, Virginia.

Duane Swierczynski, noted author and comic scribe, released “the first of three explosive Pulp thrillers” this past June under the title FUN & GAMES. And I’ll tell you, it’s definitely both. Swierczynski hits all the points that Pulp has to hit to be Pulp. Even with that, though, he presents us not with a perfect hero, but one replete with flaws, weaknesses, and scars. Charlie Hardie’s inherent goodness, however, is the perfect part of him, the piece that even when he himself doubts it, does not crumble and break away. This gives him the steel and nerve he needs to be the perfect Pulp hero.

Hardie, as he’s introduced, is a Housesitter on his way to sit the house of a major player in the movie business. A few years prior, he’d been a ‘consultant’ of sorts for the Philadelphia Police Department and used various skills to help his best friend end some of the crime and corruption in the city. Tragically, Charlie’s best friend and family are killed when Charlie is basically set up to birddog them for the bad guys. Nearly killed himself (he earns the nickname Unkillable Chuck because it seems like he’s almost impossible to kill. He earns that nickname time and again in this book), Charlie makes sure his own wife and child are protected and dives headfirst into a bottle and the life of a housesitting gypsy, which is how he ends up in LA in FUN & GAMES.

The book opens with a B movie actress with quite a history of wild times and drug use racing in her car around the twisted back roads of LA, another car in hot pursuit. She’s sure they are trying to kill her, but it simply might be coincidence. Until she’s rear ended and someone approaches her and sticks a syringe in her arm. She stumbles off the road and out of sight.

Hardie gets to his current assignment, has issues getting in as the key left for him is gone, and is stabbed almost immediately in the chest by a mike stand being projected at him from a somewhat high, beaten up, dirty but beautiful lady hiding in the house. As she rambles about a group of people trying to kill her and make it look like an accident and how she barely escaped after they rear ended her and drugged her with something, Hardie has to decide rather quickly how to handle all of this. Why? Because the people who are trying to kill the actress are already outside the house and determined to get in.

Much of FUN & GAMES takes place IN the house. It feels very much like a compact version of Die Hard as Hardie and his new charge fight with each other, then the baddies just to stay alive. Once the action moves beyond the domicile, it amps up even more. The pacing of this book is frenetic, but well focused and controlled. Swierczynski knows each and every character inside and out and this allows him to inject them into this breakneck, high octane ride that he’s concocted around one of the coolest concepts I’ve seen in fiction lately.

That concept? The bad guys. Good Pulp needs Great Villains and Swierczynski gives Hardie the best. An organization nicknamed ‘the Accident People’ by the actress they’re pursuing is actually a well peopled, extremely connected group that essentially deals with people, especially celebrities, when they become a problem for someone with enough funds to pay the Accident People. Overdoses, suicides, car accidents, all the tragic things that befall people in the limelight are basically due to the manipulations and machinations of the Accident People. Filled with mostly directors, actors, and others from the film industry, this group approaches each job like a movie, insuring the narrative goes the destructive way they want it to. At every turn, Hardie finds victory only to get handed more defeat by the director of the narrative he fell into, a lady by the name of Mann. The Accident People are clearly a great template for what Pulp Villains should be.

Equally, Hardie is a perfect example of a New Pulp Hero. An angel by no means, Hardie wars with himself as much as he does the villains after him. He’s definitely in a pit of despair and destruction and doesn’t really climb out of it before the book ends. But he is clearly heroic. He will not admit he’s an expert in anything, but he does have what he refers to as his ‘lizard brain’, something that he relies on when he simply cannot easily get out of a situation. This innate primal instinct turns Charlie into a juggernaut of terror against any who stand in his way.

FUN & GAMES simply is the best example of New Pulp at its best I have ever read. The beginning of the book will jar you, the ending will blow you away…and force you to go out and get the second one.

FIVE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-Oh yeah.

DC keeps moving to LA, but will there be any comics when they get there?

News
December 9, 2010

Two business stories making for an interesting juxtaposition.

First, ComicsBeat reports:

More and more ch-ch-changes at DC, as various folks in the online department have announced they are heading to the West Coast office as the DC Online department moves to Burbank next summer. Ron Perazza will become VP of Online for DC Entertainment, Dave McCullough will become Director of Online for DC Entertainment, and Kwanza Johnson is Digital Editor. Heading up the department, you may recall, is Hank Kanalz, Senior Vice President, Digital of DC Entertainment These are the first announced westward personnel changes, although at least two DCU editors are also moving west to work more closely with CCO Geoff Johns.

Of course, by the time they get there, Diamond will have shut down their west coast warehouse.

Diamond Comics Distribution has informed comic stores that the warehouse will be closed from next March.

It’s been a good long while since Diamond closed any such warehouse.
In 2008 they consolidated a few into the new massive Olive Branch
centre, but at one point they used to have 24 warehouses. Now they’ll
have 4. The impact of this move will mean there will be no storage
facility for comics and their like on the West Coast.

Affected retailers will notice a change immediately in the new year,
with January the fifth delivering the last shipment from Diamond Los
Angeles. The next week, all deliversies will come from their new,
expanded Olive Branch center in Mississippi. Customers who pick up from
the Los Angeles warehouse can continue to do so until March, and then
will move over to a new LA-based pick up point.

Merry Christmas to everybody who’s losing a job right before the holidays.

One additional problem, not discussed or considered: there are a lot of books that are coming from Asia– not just manga and manwha, but a lot of books from DC, Marvel, and IDW that are printed overseas. One has to wonder what this will do to shipping times and costs for trades, etc.

James Marsters Discusses Villany

News
April 18, 2010

James Marsters has been added to the cast of the pilot remake of Hawaii Five-0 for CBS, portraying a villain. He told Australia’s Herald Sun, “They saw me in a fight sequence and something about it made them think ‘Let’s keep him around for a little bit’. I’m like a poor man’s Jackie Chan. But I have to say of all of the pilots that I knew about this year, this one stands the best chance of actually making it to the light of day. So I’m pretty hopeful.”

Pop culture reinventors Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci wrote the pilot for showrunner Peter Lenkov. The series picks up from the original by focusing on Chris McGarrett, son of Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord). Casting includes Alex O’Loughlin as Chris, Lost veteran Daniel Dae Kim as Chin Ho Kelly and Battlestar Galactica’s Grace Park as Kono Kalakaua. The remake is likely to make the 2010-2011 prime time schedule, although formal announcements are not expected until mid-May.

Marsters, who appeared with Kim in Angel, reflected on constantly being cast as the heavy. “I think frankly it’s because I got known for a villain early on,” he told the paper. “When I first came to LA, the only job on TV I’d had was as a very nerdish priest on Northern Exposure. I really lucked into that role. I was actually playing a killer on stage at the time for John Pielmeier who wrote Agnes of God, but I just happened to score this priest role on Northern Exposure.

“So when I came down to LA the only thing I had on my reel was this nerd character, so I got put up for a bunch of nerds. I scored a couple of guest spots as people who were uncomfortable in their own skin. Then Buffy was looking for somebody at the last minute, and I don’t know why but they thought I could do accents, so they called me in. And I lucked into that role, and ever since everyone thinks of me as a villain. So, I’ll take it man. The villain is a good role.

“Cos when you’re a villain, you’re standing in the shadows, not having to do much, then when the hero walks by you pop him a couple of times, big music sounds, and you go home. Whereas if you’re the hero, you have to have long scenes with guilt, and you have to be running around all night sweating, and then at the very end of the night you get popped in the face by the villain, who looks cool and gets all the credit.”

(more…)

Happy anniversary, ‘Monster Commute’ and ‘Alien Loves Predator’!

News
September 16, 2009

A quick tip of the hat to two Webcomics You Should Be Reading:

Monster Commute just celebrated a year and 267 strips online on September 15th, 2009. “While it’s not 10,000 pages or anything that grand, it is cool to have gone a year and and not missed any updates. It’s little, but it’s OUR little milestone” claimed artist/writer Daniel M. Davis. “I also invented the savory porcupine,” he said.

To mark this occasion, the LA band Puke and Spit has written and recorded the “Monster Commute theme song” which is being offered for free on www.monstercommute.com.

And speaking of monsters, Bernie Hou’s Alien Loves Predator has just hit a somewhat obvious milestone of its own.

Congratulations, gentlemen.

Blame the Juice for this ‘War’ crime

News
July 21, 2009

This LJ post from urbaniak sums it all up:

I’ve enjoyed many a Jamba Juice so I was disappointed to learn that their current marketing campaign features a blatant ripoff of David Rees’s detournement classic Get Your War On.
Rees, of course, is appropriating free stock images but the Jamba Juice
campaign is not doing the same thing. They are appropriating what Rees does with those images,
right down to the way he renders his word balloons. I have no idea how
the case would hold up in intellectual property court and Rees says on his website he’s not interested in legal action (only a boycott). But it’s plain as day: Jamba Juice ripped him off.

Through the miracle of modern googling I learned that the marketing agency behind the Jamba Juice “Summer Bliss is Back” campaign is an LA shop called Neighbor. Their unintentionally hilarious website
positions themselves as paragons of crunchy, earthy, green, do-gooder,
one-world decency. According to their manifesto: “You get conscious,
inspired, ethical, engaged, genuine, positive and purpose-driven work
that grows your business and your people all the while making the world
a better place.” Ad man, heal thyself.

The worst part of it is that people are going to think that David Rees endorses this stuff.

The Buzz on Brian K. Vaughan’s ‘Roundtable’ Script

News
June 19, 2008

Over at AICN, Moriarty has posted a very long analysis of Y: The Last Man creator Brian K. Vaughan’s script for a feature film currently titled Roundtable, which Dreamworks recently won after a long bidding war.

Apparently, the man behind Runaways and Ex Machina (and now a writer for the comic-posing-as-a-television-series Lost) has turned in a script that’s being celebrated as one of the best to hit Hollywood in quite some time, earning comparisons to classic science-fiction comedies such as Ghostbusters and Back to the Future by even the most jaded readers.

According to AICN:

So when my friend sent over ROUNDTABLE and suggested I read it, I was surprised by his enthusiasm. That’s not the way it normally goes. Keep in mind, there’s a sport in LA that’s very popular. Writers get hold of a script that just sold for a ton of money. And then they read it so that they can reassure theselves that it’s terrible and if that piece of shit sold for a lot of money, then that masterpiece they’re tinkering with in the off-hours is going to be set a new record for how much money someone can make on a script. It’s only fair. It’s a bitter, angry game, but it’s been going on since at least when I moved here in the early ‘90s, and it hasn’t changed in that entire time. Almost any script can be torn apart by the determined and the bitter if they try, but I’m guessing that they’ll find themselves tied in knots as soon as they all get hold of this script, because it is indeed a tightly-constructed and hilarious commercial script that is most probably going to make DreamWorks a small fortune when they finally release the film.

Moriarty goes on to describe some of the casting Vaughan seems to have had in mind for characters, as well as a basic synopsis of the story.

(via PopCandy)

ComicMix Radio: Next On Deck – The Incredible Hulk!

Podcasts
May 31, 2008

Direct from Book Expo 2008 in LA, one of the biggest questions on the floor actually involves The Incredible Hulk movie set to open in just under two weeks. Will Marvel Studios hit another homer or end up batting .500 at the end of the summer? We begin our coverage with a frank talk with the movie’s producer, Gale Anne Hurd, plus:

– More on Devil’s Due Publishing and a preview of their newest series

– Disney gets back into comics

– Clear the bookshelves for some amazing works from Joe Simon

And we manage to do a Hulk story without a reference to Lou Ferrigno – honest? Press the button and you’ll see!

And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via or RSS!

‘North Wind’ is Latest BOOM! Book Optioned

News
April 9, 2008

After a successful run of comics sales, fueled in part by a special release on MySpace, the series North Wind has been picked up by Hollywood. The book follows the few people living in California after global warming brings on a new ice age and covers sunny LA in snow and ice.

According to a press release from BOOM!, the rights were picked up by Davis Entertainment, which previously ushered I, Robot, Eragon and Alien vs. Predator to movie screens. The screenplay will be written by series writer David DiGilio, who previously created Eight Below and the ABC show Traveler.

BOOM! has a few other properties in development, including the series Tag, Talent and The Foundation and the graphic novel 10.

North Wind caused a stir among retailers when BOOM! did a simultaneous release, putting issues up on MySpace Comics (you can read them right here). But spokesman Chip Mosher told me the series ended up exceeding sales expectations.

First Look: ‘Y:The Last Man’ Wrap Party Footage

News
February 22, 2008

It’s probably not much of a secret that I’m a huge fan of Brian K.Vaughan’s comic book series Y: The Last Man. If I wasn’t, why else would I be posting about it so much? So, in my continuing effort not to disappoint those of you who are also fans of the series, here now is yet another bit of news about it.

This time, the news comes to us in the form of exclusive video from the Y:The Last Man wrap party courtesy of Variety’s Bags and Boads site. The party, which took place a couple of weeks ago at Meltdown Comics here in LA, was held to celebrate the final issue of Y: The Last Man and as a benefit for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund — a worthy cause indeed.

The video showcases some of the many guests in attendance, including Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerrra, Geoff Johns, Mark Waid and my personal hero, Joss Whedon.

Check it out at the Bags and Boards site. Or, if, as the post says, you have trouble watching it there, it’s also available at Myspace Comics. Enjoy.

WGA Strike Cost to Los Angeles: $2.5 Billion

News
February 20, 2008

Today, the Hollywood Reporter has a story highlighting the economic effects the recently settled WGA strike has had on the local Los Angeles economy. Citing an Economic Forcast Report set to be released today by Jack Kyser, noted LA Economist and head of the LA Economic Development Corp, the article paints a somewhat grim picture of the post-strike LA economic situation.

Among the points made by Keyser in the 71-page report is that the strike, which started November 5 and was settled earlier this month, has already cost LA an estimated $2.5 billion in lost revenue. That figure includes lost wages from TV shows that were canceled and films that were put on hold as well as losses by a vast array of support services from, according to the article, "limo drivers to florists."

Kyser also suggested in the report that the cancellation of the Golden Globes alone resulted in a $60 million loss to the LA economy. In addition, other factors will contribute to the economic situation in LA including, according to the article, that leaders of the Screen Actors Guild are "talking tough," so there is growing concern they will go on strike after the union’s labor contract with the studios expires on June 30.