Disney Schedules ‘The Surrogates’ For September
The Surrogates, the movie based on the Top Shelf miniseries, starring Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames and Radha Mitchell has been given a September 25, 2009 release date by Disney.
The movie is based on the miniseries by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele which was released in 2005 and is a “science fiction thriller set in a future society in which robot doppelganger’s can live out the lives of the humans in whose likenesses they were fashioned, so that the humans can experience life safely (though vicariously)” according to ICv2.
The film is being directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3) from a script by Michael Ferris and John Brancato.
A sequel, The Surrogates 2.0: Flesh and Bone, is scheduled for release in 2009.
With final third of his "Essex County" trilogy of graphic novels set to hit shelves later this year, creator Jeff Lemire has already had a pretty good 2008. The first two projects in the trilogy, Tales From the Farm and Ghost Stories, have been celebrated by critics and nominated for multiple awards (and won quite a few of ’em, too). On Friday, Lemire added another award to his list of accolades, taking home the 
Confession time: I’ve been remiss in my attention to the webcomics scene lately, as evidenced by my failure to note a few news items from the world of digital comics. In no meaningful order, you should be aware of the following:
We’ve all occasionally wanted to go back in time — to fix something we screwed up the first time, to relive some particular time in our lives, or just to do something differently. But would we be able to do better the second time around? Alex Robinson’s new graphic novel — coming up in July from Top Shelf — asks exactly those questions.
The writer and artist behind my favorite graphic novel of last year, Top Shelf’s Super Spy, just announced the two projects he’ll be working on this year.
First was a cute little book (about the size of those “impulse purchase” books you sometimes see in Hallmark stores by the cash register) called Micrographica by Renee French. According to the front flap, this originally appeared online, and each of the drawings (one to a page) was originally drawn at about one centimeter square, which French did to keep the drawing loose by not allowing any redrawing. The story follows three small rodents of some kind (maybe guinea pigs?) who discover a “crapball” and then have odder adventures. It reads a bit like a black and white, colloquial version of a Jim Woodring story – weird things happen in an entertaining way, but the voices of the rodents is very modern-American, unlike Woodring. The story also features a much larger rodent-thing, unexplained facial swelling, a giant mountain of crap, an abandoned sandwich, and more. Hey, it’s only ten bucks – how can you go wrong?
Jeremy Tinder’s Black Ghost Apple Factory is more like a normal comics pamphlet (despite being only about four inches by six); it’s stapled, 48 pages, and contains a number of different stories. The seven stories here are all pretty clearly “indy” – they feature odd characters doing twisted versions of real-world activities, and usually have something to do with interpersonal relationships. (Also, in time-honored indy-comics fashion, those relationships are sad, depressing and unfulfilling.) Only two of the stories are overtly autobiographical — and one of those features Tinder befriending a bear, so you know it’s metaphorical at best — which is a nice change. Some of these stories are funny and some are touching; all work well and strike true. And that’s darn good a for a five-buck comics pamphlet.
