Black Lagoon Comix

Well, I think it’s one of the lads brothers, but sure what the hell… Some of these comics are quite good!

wanted trailer

The trailer for the Mark Millar comic ‘Wanted’ is online here on yahoo … It’s a pity that Yahoo’s video player is so crap - I still haven’t been able to watch the damn thing properly.. Anyway,the trailer itself looks pretty good, even if its a bit Angelina heavy. Also, I’m not so sure about the change to the story that seems to make them ‘a pack of assassins controling the world system’ rather than them just being supervillians - mainly becuase you can already see how there will be a ‘good guy wins’ ending from the trailer. But maybe (hopefully) I’m wrong. And it does look like it’ll be a pretty entertaining movie.

I know I haven’t been posting much lately…

And at the moment I wish I could apply ratbert’s mantra;

no matter how many different versions of ‘the War of the Worlds’ there are they nearly always manage to be good

But some are better than others - case in point here by Ian Edginton and D’isreali. It seems to serve as a prequel to their ‘Scarlet Traces’ book from a few years back as well as being a proper adaptation in its own right. The two creators are very very good though so I’d suggest to you all to read it - enjoy!

The Iron Man trailer

Looks pretty cool (except for the bit at the end with the planes which could look better),though I would have preferred if they had made the story more like the Warren Ellis story ‘Extremis’ but oh well.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns animated

Surprisingly good adaptation of some of the scenes from the seminal Miller comic series..

Luther Arkwright: the big finish audio version

Just finished listening to this 3 disk set from Big Finish. I picked up their excellent (though somewhat unsuccessful I’d guess) series of 2000ad audio adaptions a year or two ago and have been quite interested in picking up this since. Seeing as I’m going to lack money for the rest of the year I decided I’d pick up a few bits and pieces like this before it became unavailable (as has happened to the Judge Dredd ones now according to their website).

Was it worth it? Yes with a ‘but’. The cd is nicely packaged and is well-produced with the sound effects being used sparingly. The casting is perfectly fine with a few minor exceptions - the main one actually being the placing of David Tennant (of Doctor Who fame) as Luther. Its not that there is anything wrong with his performance - its just that when you are playing a world-hopping superbeing with psychic powers and your best known for, well, playing a world-hopping superbeing with psychic powers the overlap (in my mind at least) between the two robbed the drama of its impact. I kept expecting to hear ‘exterminate!’ at any minute and the similarity between the two charachters meant that I was never able to get over that. Other than that my complaints were minor - mainly being that I didn’t ‘hear’ some charachters that way in my head. The inevitable problem with any transfer from page to audio/screen I guess.

As an adaption it works surpisingly well keeping the vast bulk of the comics plot (in fact the only thing that I remember being lost is the plot involving the American journalist which is hardly a major point) and oddly enough, though in line with my other complaints - I actually felt the kept too much of the original story. By this, I’m refering to the fact that in some cases they incorporated the dialogue as it was from the book. The same happens with the transferring of most of the storys scenes to the audio version. The end result of this I found was a sense of ’seen this before’ which in some ways I had. If you compare the ‘Luther Arkwright’ adaptation to say, any of the ‘Judge Dredd’ ones - where they created whole new plots with familiar charachters, the feeling is that they stuck too closely to the original material. Granted, this is a bit of ‘armchair directing’ on my part - unlike Judge Dredd where there is a vast number of plot types to choose from (as an example one features Dredd on trial, other is a comedy ‘this is your life’ style episode) Luther Arkwright has only had two major appearences in his own series. I suppose in the end what I can say about the disks is that they work more like a ‘transcription’ from one medium to another rather than an adaptation - somewhat like the Johnny Depp version of ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ - so much like the original that you wonder why you bothered watching (or in this case listening to) it.

Still though, if your a Luther Arkwright fan you will probably find a fair bit to enjoy in this and if your looking for something a bit different to listen to the comics on audio that Big Finish offer are not a bad place to start.

The Ten-Seconders..

A not too shabby (if a bit ‘done before’) comic strip that was in 2000ad not too long ago. For some reason its after appearing here on clickwheel. I’m not sure if the whole story is going to be reprinted there but theres some of the episodes available for download there. Worth a look. But don’t by any means think that that strip is an indication of the best 2000ad has to offer. Its not that good…

Looking For Group: The Movie

While the webcomic is quite good this trailer for the proposed movie looks really funny… Always good to see cartoon violence!

Batman:The Animated Series - On Leather Wings

I just watched a DVD holding the first five episodes of this classic cartoon series.. I’d maintain after watching them that my personal favorite would have to be the ‘On leather wings’ episode.. If for no other reason than for that transformation scene - I mean how often do you see something that creepy on ‘kids’ tv?