I Made a Movie AND NOW YOU CAN BUY IT!

I'm sure you noticed the significant drop off in posts around here circa 2012.  I assure you it wasn't due to a lack of love for comics, lack of desire to write, or a passing interest in blogging, but rather because my time was being taken up by something else.  That something else was a movie.  And now you can buy it on DVD and/or VOD.

Crazypants, right?

The movie is LOVE IN THE TIME OF MONSTERS, and I'm super proud of it.  The epitome of a passion project, it's something that my cohorts and I have been working on for a LONG time.  It's a tribute to not only to the power of hard work, but also the grueling realities of independent filmmaking.

"So, yeah yeah, hard work and all that.  What's this thing about?" I can hear you asking (BTW, you really should stop talking to yourself)

LOVE IN THE TIME OF MONSTERS is a horror comedy in the grand tradition of Evil Dead 2 and Slither, full of gags, gore, and girls.  It's fun for everyone!  Assuming everyone is over at least 16.

The movie follows sisters Carla and Marla as they travel to a kitchy roadside lodge to surprise Carla's fiance who works as a costumed bigfoot performer.  But wouldn't you know it, as the girls arrive the fiancé and his coworkers fall into a lake of toxic waste only to emerge as murderous monsters (underneath their bigfoot suits, 'natch).  Now the sisters, trapped at the lodge with other colorful employees, have to fight the monsters while saving the one they love.

As Best Horror Movies put it: "It is the very definition of a highly entertaining film.”  

And Fanboy planet continued:  "Once you think it’s gonna stop, it doesn’t. It literally doesn’t stop until the credits roll."

Excited yet?

What if I told you, in addition to this killer concept, the cast included Kane Hodder (Jason from Friday the 13th 7-X and Victor Crowley from Hatchet), Doug Jones (Abe Sapien from Hellboy, Fauna from Pan's Labyrinth, and just about everything), Mike McShane (Friar Tuck from Prince of Thieves and as himself in the British Who's Line Is It Anyway?), and Heather Rae Young (Playboy's Miss February 2010)?  Not to mention the slew of fantastic up-and-coming actors I'm sure you'll be hearing from more like Gena Shaw, Marissa Skell, Paula Rhodes, Ben Palacios, Hugo Armstrong, Alex Sanborn, and more!  I dare you to find a bad performance in the bunch.  Hint, you won't be able to, that's how great everyone is.

Don't take my word for it though, just check out what Doug had to say about Gena in particular when he was talking to Dread Central:  "She is a total movie star,”Jones said. “She is a screen presence that we’re going to be dealing with for years to come. She reminds me of a young Jamie Gertz, who I recently worked with on ‘The Neighbors.'"

Can you feel the excitement bubbling up inside?

How about our big official trailer.  Courtesy of our distributor, Indican Pictures:

Pretty cool, right?

"Okay, okay. Where can I see this thing?" I hear you asking (seriously though, you need to stop talking to your computer).

Well, if you're one of those modern kids who don't need a DVD, you can buy/rent a copy via most of the big sites like iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, and more.  We're also available on some cable providers, so make sure to give them a look if that's all you got.

Alternately, if you're like me and like to own DVDs, we're listed on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Best Buy.  I don't know if we'll make it into the stores (blame the weird economics of selling DVDs for that) but I'll let you know if/when we find out.

You can go for either one, but I suggest going for the DVD if only because it comes with the added benefits of a Blooper Reel, Deleted Scenes, BTS videos, and a commentary by me, the producer, and the writer.  We tried to make it full of as much material we had because we, like you, hate bare bones DVDs.

Now you know why I'm excited.

If you're curious, but not quite hooked or totally hooked and want to know more, then I'd like to turn you towards the official LOVE IN THE TIME OF MONSTERS web presence.  You can read about everything from our start to now at the official site, LoveInTheTimeOfMonsters.com.  You can keep up on the day to day at our Facebook page.  Or you can get little snippets of stuff via our Twitter, @UncleSlavko.

If you've read all that AND you love everything then I urge you to spread the word.  Tell your friends, your twitter feed, your Facebook, your barber, whatever.  We're doing what we can to get the word out, but any way you can add to the noise not only helps but is greatly appreciated.

I hope you end up enjoying it as much as I enjoyed making it.  Now, back to griping about comics... 

Original Sin: The Best Marvel Event In A While

Original Sin might be Marvel's best event crossover since Civil War.  But instead of trading on controversial character actions, Original Sin seems to be more interested in high adventure and boundless imagination (and maybe one controversial character action).

The setup was simple enough:  Someone murdered The Watcher and now someone has weaponized the secrets he accumulated over the years.  Now I'll admit, I was a little worried about this whole setup coming in.  Most of the time when someone uses the "Everything you knew was wrong" trope, everything's a little worse for wear.  Fortunately, the only big big reveal that came out of this whole thing was about Nick Fury, which I'll get to in a minute.

Anyway, with the mystery of the Watcher's murder hanging thick in the air, a ragtag group of heroes - including Moon Knight, Dr Strange, The Winter Soldier, among others - are assembled to follow the clues to find who really did it.  And I'll tell you, it was nice to see some lower tier guys get the spotlight in a big crossover like this.  Not that I don't like seeing Iron Man and Captain America mixing it up, but you know, the universe is bigger than just the Avengers.

And lemme tell you, it's fucking great!  The Punisher and Dr. Strange hanging out in a nether realm talking about the merits of murder, The Orb beating the Avengers with an eye of the Watcher, and Nick Fury being the biggest badass in the galaxy; What's not to like?

And listen, I understand if you're shaking your head at the Nick Fury stuff.

A bit of SPOILERS here, please just skip on down if you don't want this big reveal spoiled for you (more than it already has).  So, as it turns out, Nick Fury has become an old man since he got replaced (stupidly) by his long lost son Marcus 'Nick Fury Jr' Johnson - Seriously though, if you're mom got murdered while trying to protect you, wouldn't you keep her name?  What kind of asshole takes the name of his deadbeat dad instead?  I would rather they have brought over the Ultimate Nick Fury during some shitty crossover than this ridiculousness.  But, that's a deal for another day - Ahem.  Where was I?

Right.  The real Nick Fury.  So apparently the effects of giving up the last of the Infinity Formula to keep Bucky alive post-Fear Itself have finally taken their toll on the old warhorse and have made him age appropriate.  That is, he's turned into Bruce Wayne from Batman Beyond; old, crotchety, and supported by a cane.  But while that was the biggest physical reveal, it wasn't the BIG reveal.  That honor goes to Nick's reveal of his job all these years:  The Frontline Defense for Earth aka The Man on The Wall.

It's actually not a terrible setup, but one that falters a little when you think of the stuff Nick let come through.  Sure he was out there murdering rogue planets and developing inter-dimensional bullets, but he was also letting things like Maximum Security (The Earth is chosen to become an intergalactic prison), Secret Invasion (where the Skrulls nearly took over the planet while Nick was busy starring at photographs), and infinity (where Thanos made a run at Earth, landed, and fucked stuff up) happen when he probably could have stopped those from starting.

Regardless, the idea is neat, even if the last thing the Marvel Universe needs at this point is another secret society (Nick hangs with a bunch of LMDs, that's a society in my book) that's secretly running/protecting the world from stuff.  Do you think they ever got in each other's way?  Like, one group is trying to, I dunno, stop an intergalactic war by doing something that totally undermines whatever the opposite group is attempting.  Maybe that's the real reason Operation: Galactic Storm happened.

Back to the book, the only thing I'm not to hot on is the art.  Mike Deodato does some fantastic stuff with some of the craziest layouts ever, but it's totally not my thing.  I respect what he does, but it's too… muddy for me.  It's like Neal Adams' stuff fell into an inkwell but with more boobs.  

In a way, the series reminds me of The Infinity Gauntlet as something that can is very much of the era and can stand on it's own fairly well.  I mean sure, The Infinity Gauntlet had much more story lead up and had the craziest, highest stakes ever, but in the end you could just read those six issues and get nearly the full story of what was going on.  Meanwhile Original Sin, in a welcome change from other modern event crossovers, tells a full story over the course of 8 issues while giving enough motivation to any spin-off series that wants to exist.

I really hope this is the model of events for Marvel moving forward.  You know, assuming that they insist on doing these with increased frequency (I see that Axis starts next month… sigh) it'd be nice if the actual event was worth reading and not something utterly disappointing like the past dozen or so.  In the meantime, at least I got this one and it was pretty awesome. 

Behold the Mighty GALACTYPUS!

Sometimes I'm convinced that they write comics just for me.

Seriously though, now that this is a thing, can I get a mini-series or something?  I promise I'll be good...

Via issue 5 of Ultimate FF by my new heroes Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andre Araujo.

Um... What?

Well...  Looks like I just found something new for my reading list.  Let's hope I can trust Harlan Ellison on this one.

Cocaine's a Hell of a Drug

Before you know it, it'll have you dressed up like a 20-something Santa Claus looking to spread a new gospel.

Just say no.  You know, unless you're into that kind of thing.

From Steve Englehart and Joe Stanton's New Guardians #2 via Comics Should Be Good

Heroes for Hire: The Movie!

Or at least an approximation of what the movie post could/would look like if it was a 70s style Grindhouse feature. This may come as a surprise, but if I could will one thing into existence it would be this.

Here's hoping the HoH get some love from Marvel Studios Phase 3!

This chunk of dreams comes from KharyRandolph over on the Deviantart.

Armor Bros.

Two of the Earth's greatest heroes bonding over their secret shame.

Shameless stolen like Jim's super suit from Chris Gerringer. See more of his stuff at his website

Hey Hawkguy!

I'm sure he gets that a lot.

My favorite exchange from a book full of great exchanges, via Hawkeye (or Hawkguy) #6 from Fraction and Aja.

The Bill February 9, 2012

We're not going to dwell on the past. Instead we're going to gallop into the future as if this 'weekly' comic review feature has been published without major absences. Sound good? Good.

Let's do this thing!




Going Back to School:

Wolverine and The X-Men # 5
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Nick Bradshaw


I was done with the X-Books after Grant Morrison left. His run was the perfect blend of big, progressive ideas to keep me interested with a solid foothold in past continuity to make me feel like it meant something. To say I was upset with the near instant dismantling of all the cool new things he added to the mythos is putting things mildly. After that fiasco, I was certain that I never needed to read an X-Book ever again. That there would be no new book that would be able to attain that same level of manic creativity. And then Wolverine and The X-Men came out.

Holy. Shit.

This book ought to be a blueprint for how to make a successful X-Book - Nay, a comic book. Each new page is brimming with new ideas, new locations, and big visuals to match; it's a Morrisson book on meth, but 100% more accessible.

This issue picks up with Wolverine dealing with the financial realities of running the premiere mutant school in the Milky Way while the school in question is besieged by tiny Broodspawn. Also, Kitty deals with her magical insta-pregnancy and The Beast teaches a hands on Biology lesson by shrinking his students and hanging out in the body of their janitor. Like I said, the book is full of big ideas. Jason Aaron is totally knocking this book out of the park.

On the art side, Nick Bradshaw is giving the book a big, fresh look to go along with the writing. His stuff is, in the very best of ways, very comic book-y. And sure, at times, I find myself not liking his stuff as much as I want to, but I can't deny that he's delivering some fantastic pages.

I'm excited by this book in ways I haven't been excited in a while. It's a book that inspires as well as entertains, and I hope that it continues on like this for a good long time. I'm in no hurry for them to get back to the same ol' convoluted X-Men stories that got them here, but I am very excited to see them develop a whole new slew of classic stories for people to rip off for years to come.

The Greatest Recap of the Death and Return of Superman EVER

I stumbled upon this and would be remiss in my bloggerly duties if I didn't repost it here. Here's Chronicle screenwriter Max Landis telling it how it is about the Death and Return of Superman. Believe me, it's worth the 16 minutes and is the perfect thing to watch instead of that dreadful Madonna halftime show today. Enjoy!

The Greatest Amusement Park Ever

Hey, lookit that, it's 2012!

Crazy how time flies and all that. How was your holiday? Me, I ended up visiting sunny Orlando Florida and the greatest amusement park I've ever been to: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

No wait. That's not how it looked. Lemme try that again, this time with a non-promotional picture.

Yeah, that's more like it. Because it ain't Harry Potter Land - Yes, that's what I'm going to call it from now on - without at least 10 people per square foot. But before I get into all that, allow me to introduce another 'land' from the same park for some perspective on just how cool Harry Potter Land is: The Marvel Super-Heroes Island of Adventure!

Since it was announced sometime in the late 90s, Marvel Land - at least I'm consistent with my naming conventions - has been a dream destination of mine. Seriously, what could be cooler than an entire section of an amusement park dedicated to my favorite four-color heroes? (don't answer that) Suffice to say, after a decade and a half, I had kind of built the place up in my mind to be the best thing ever. Unfortunately, the reality of the place didn't quite live up.

"Are you sure this wasn't something else before it was Marvel Land," I continuously asked the Florida-native FutureWife to her constant denials.

To be honest, there was nothing really bad about Marvel Land, there just wasn't anything special. Sure, there were cool little easter eggs here and there (a random Nelson and Murdock sign, Daily Bugle Newspaper dispensers, among other things), but on a whole the place looked like Tomorrowland with Marvel Heroes cut and pasted onto the buildings. Simply put, everything was very surface.

If Universal lost the rights to Marvel amusement parks tomorrow (which could happen now that they have Disney behind them), that land could be easily and quickly altered to something new. Tear down those giant cutouts of Dr. Doom and Magneto and you're left with just another futuristic looking city street ready to be anything from... uh... well, something futuristic. You get my point, it's generic looking.

Where Marvel Land was everything you expect from a typical amusement park, Harry Potter Land was the complete opposite. Where Marvel was all surface with random shoutouts here and there as an afterthought, Harry Potter was a fully immersive environment with everything in a very specific place to evoke a very specific feel. It was amazing.

Walking through the gates, you're immediately transported to the cobblestone streets of Hogsmead with it's quaint, and decidedly British, feel. All of the major shops from the books are represented, becoming more rides than shopping experiences with their attention to detail, movie-accurate merchandise - aside from the ubiquitous T-shirts and such that are readily available at almost every shop, of course - and completely in character staff throughout. However, while all this immersion is totally awesome, it only acerbates the worst part of amusement parks: Lines.

As cool as it is that every store, bathroom, and eatery in Harry Potter Land is it's own unique experience, it kind of hard to enjoy it when you're packed in like sardines. I honestly don't think I was able to take a full step forward the entire time I was at the park. Everything thing from Olivander's to the streets of Hogsmead were was full of shuffling and shoulder bumping as we attempted to get from one awesome sight to the next, but never enjoying the stroll down those cobblestone streets. And then there's the huge lines outside each and every store, requiring a solid 20 minute wait to do anything from entering Honey Dukes to buying Butterbeer (which is amazing BTW). While the whole land was amazing, it was certainly a test of my patience after an hour or so.

Seeing Harry Potter Land opened up my thinking to how awesome amusement parks can be. Hopefully the lessons that are learned from this money machine isn't that the kids want more literary lands - The FutureWife seems convinced that they'll use this success as a reason to make a Twilight amusement park. I hope against hope she's wrong - and instead are more interested in totally immersive parks. Imagine a Star Wars park decked out like Tatooine, A Lord of the Rings park made out to be part Minas Tirith and part Mt. Doom...

Or a Marvel Park decked out to look like a New York Street destroyed in a superhuman fight with very specific easter eggs and a real reason for the 'face' characters to run around. Now that's the park I wanted to see when I was 11. Here's hoping that's not too far off, now that Harry Potter has shown that it's possible.

Just When Community Couldn't Get Anymore Awesome...

Someone goes and does this:

This is probably the best thing ever and not just because it further solidifies my 'Abed and Annie are destined to be together' theory.

Go check out more of Kinjamin's awesomeness (including the Batman Heroes version of the same picture) over at his Deviant Art page. And after that, go check out some episodes on NBC so they know not to cancel it this season.

Mondays are for M.O.D.O.R.D.

That's Mental Organism Designed Only for Roller Derby, of course. The greatest creation to ever come out of a drunken A.I.M. technology jam session. Well, second greatest, if you count this guy.

Those A.I.M. guys really know how to have fun. It's only a matter of time until they splinter off to form A.I.F.T. (Advanced Ideas in Fun Times!)...


From the disturbed, but awesome minds of Jed MacKay and Sheldon Vella in X-Men: To Serve and Protect #4, the greatest issue of an X-Men anthology that you've never heard of.

Venom is a Slut Part January

Apparently Venom is going to grace the covers of all of Marvel's books this coming January ala those 'I am Captain America' variants earlier this year and the 'Deadpool' variants a few years back. As a result, I think I just found the fodder to keep this feature going well into the next decade.

Thanks for making things easy for me, Marvel! It's much appreciated!

The Bill October 13, 2011

I think I know what I want for Christmas.

It might be a little unorthodox, not to mention way out of season, but I don't care; it's what I need for my comic life to be complete. So what has me all riled up and excited about comics? Well if I told you here, you wouldn't want to keep reading then would you? Come on and join me as I elucidate about my favorite comic of the week....




The Book That Goes Bump in the Night:

Legion of Monsters # 1
Writer: Dennis Hopeless
Artist: Juan Doe



It's books like this that remind me why I love reading comics. Bursting with big ideas, bigger action, and great one liners, Legion of Monsters ought to be a model for how to properly execute a comic book.

I'll admit that I have a little bias here as this book involves not only some of my favorite supporting characters from the sadly missing FrankenCastle series AND one of my favorites from the greatest book of all time, NEXTWAVE! It's a match made in heaven, my kind of heaven.

The story here is pretty simple, Elsa Bloodstone is hunting a killer monster and finds herself thrust into a team up with the self-styled police force calling themselves the Legion of Monsters. If you need more than that to get you excited, you best check your pulse because you might be dead.

Handling the art chores is Juan Doe who brings nothing but energy to his work. While at times a little deformed, his characters are always vibrant, full of motion, and a joy to look at.

And if all of that didn't get you excited, guess what's coming up next issue... Motorcycles. MONSTERS ON MOTORCYCLES!! DAMMIT! I LOVE IT!

I want this to be an ongoing series. Please. I've been a good boy this year....

And now, Nazis Riding Dinosaurs

That is all.

Guy faces off against my nightmare teamup in Guy Gardner Warrior #23 via dreammakers Beau Smith and Mitch Byrd.

I'm Just Going to Leave This Here...

I'd be remiss in my bloggerly duties if I didn't post the new Avengers trailer (not to be confused with the New Avengers trailer, that I'm sure is more than a few years off), regardless of how prevalent it is on the interwebs.

Now, if you'll excuse me I need to go pick up the bits of my brain that are scattered around the living room.

My New Favorite Animal Mascot.

Doc Clamson.
Just kidding. Nothing will ever replace my love of Throg, not even an insane looking, mohawked clam. Not until Doc Clamson gets his own series, that is....

The good doctor flouts his only published appearance EVER in the pages of Peter Porker Spider-Ham # 16.

And Now, Bears with Lasers

That is all.

Stolen from an unknown issue of the Buck Rogers series by Scott Beatty and Carlos Rafael. I think I'll go buy the series first thing tomorrow.

Talking Comics with The FutureWife: Beta Ray Bill

After reading comics for a few decades, I forget sometimes what those wondrous and inventive four-color worlds are like to comic outsiders. Lucky for me, I have a geek-leaning FutureWife who likes to ask questions and, in effect, to remind me how awesome comics are. What follows is a true (enough) conversation we've had when she's asked me an innocent question about one of my books.
________________________________________

"Who's that horse looking guy," The FutureWife said, looking over my shoulder while I was reading Volume One of the Walt Simonson Visionaries. She of course, was referring to this guy:



"That's Beta Ray Bill," I replied in confidence, "the Horse Thor."

"Horse Thor?"

"Well, Space Horse Thor. Technically."

"Your comics are weird," she responded about to turn back to a rerun of Stargate Atlantis.

"Actually," I said, unsatisfied with my own answer and unable to let Beta Ray go uncelebrated, "He's an alien placed in the body of a genetically-engineered, cybernetic warrior-beast from his home planet, tasked with finding a new planet for his displaced brethren."

The FutureWife had no words. She paused Stargate and turned to me.

"He found Earth on accident," I continued, "got in a huge fight with Thor and, because he had a noble goal, was able to LIFT THOR'S HAMMER!"



Nothing. You'd expect at least a gasp here.

"Which is amazing because no one else has ever been able to lift Thor's Hammer aside from the man himself. Anyway, it resulted in a big fight between Thor and Beta Ray to see who was truly worthy to wield the hammer and hold the title 'The God of Thunder'. It was awesome!"

"You're adorable," she laughed and turned back to Stargate Atlantis.

"He ended up getting his own, more badass looking hammer, STORMBREAKER," I paused for dramatic effect, "with (basically) which he fought Galactus to a standstill!"



"That's pretty amazing," the FutureWife was nonplussed.

"He's fought everywhere from deepest space to the wilds of Canada, doling out epic proportions of power, wrapped in a awesome package of violence! The guy is awesomeness embodied," I concluded, maybe getting a little riled up.

"Sounds kinda cool, dear."

"Never underestimate the power of Beta Ray Bill!"

"The Horse Thor," her attention for Stargate unbroken.

"Damn Straight!"