In Plain Sight Is In My Sights

Tonight’s episode of In Plain Sight, titled “Who Shot Jay Arnstein”, posed a big problem for continuity buffs. First, let me begin with an aside - Richard Belzer played John Munch on the 90s show, Homicide: Life on the Street. He has also played that role on The Beat, The Wire, The X-Files, all the Law & Order shows and Arrested Development, plus his lesser known appearance on Sesame Street. This means that all these shows, from an übernerd’s perspective, share the same reality - a universe you can call the “Munchverse.”

All subsequent shows that crossover with one of these shows all share the same reality. My main point is that Mary McCormack, who plays U.S. Marshall Mary Shannon, has shown up on Law & Order: CI in the episode “Contract”. This means In Plain Sight, X-Files, Law & Order, Arrested Development, etc all exist in the same world. This also means these shows aren’t shows in the “Munchverse”.

On tonight’s episode of In Plain Sight, a suspect tells Mary she’s been watching too much Law & Order, which of course is absurd because from Mary’s perspective Law & Order isn’t a show, it’s part of real life. Big continuity boo-boo!

But of course, I should realize it’s just a show and a minor slip up like this is no big deal…

images courtesy USA Network

Beginning on Thursday and concluding today, this convention was hosted in Rosemont, up in Chicago. Compared to earlier this year’s New York Comic Con, WizardWorld was a more laid back experience, where speakers and company reps spoke more candidly and seemed less stressed. This was a far better fan experience than New York, and while writers and such qualified every secret with “We’ll be revealing in San Diego”, there was less showmanship - sensationalism geared at new projects - and more reflection on the medium, at least in the sessions.

I saw the hilarious Robert Kirkman and a retrospective on Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s Daredevil. I also got to see the Marvel and DC panels, as well as the first ever Marvel & DC panel, where Bendis, Brian Reed, and C.B. Cebulski sat with Gail Simone and Geoff Johns to talk about what they liked about the other company. I would have seen more, but I could only attend Friday, as some of my friends were so inconsiderate that they just had to get married this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

It took a while, but Joss Whedon’s run on Runaways has finally concluded. This was a story set in the early 1900s, where our time’s Runaways escaped the Punisher and Kingpin by going to the past - a New York filled with superhumans known as Wonders.

This was the strongest story arc so far, and I say this because Runaways so far has really lacked a direction. The characters, while original and unique, were thrust into a few situations and really, from that, haven’t grown or matured (Marvel needs to keep them “pure” to use them for another decade or so).

These guys are an example of manufactured emotion - without having years to develop characters and their relationships, the reader is told how the characters feel. For a series that passes itself off as a teen series, based in relationship drama, Runaways fell apart time after time because you could never really see why someone liked the other.

Runaways is more about gimmick than execution. The concepts of characters are original, and their gimmick carries the series. It wasn’t until this new arc, and hopefully this will continue in Tony Moore’s future story arc, that the characters stopped being shells of Dawson’s Creek and finally became comic characters with actual interpersonal mileage.

© Fox

As far as Futurama goes, this “film” was decent. The plot and commercial divisions that exist for the transition to TV did draw you out of the action somewhat, but the big concern I had with this latest installment of Futurama was the slow pace of the comedy.

The old shows still survive due to the fast pacing of jokes - they are unrelenting, several popping up every minute. But Beast With A Billion Backs relies too much on what the plot is rather than how the plot is told.

There are constant lulls in the show where there are no comedic bits, but sci-fi plot devices to further the story. While this would be acceptable in another movie, for Futurama you expect fast-paced humor with a sci-fi twist. Many times in the movie humor took a back seat to explanation and events.

Of course, there was enough hilarious jokes to maintain this prolonged episode, but it goes to show that with more time to fill, writers will do things to fill that time, and in Futurama’s case that’s not a good thing. Had this been three individual episodes that didn’t need to pretend itself a DVD movie, the end product would have been much better.

However, fans won’t be disappointed with the inclusion of various characters and easter eggs, well-known and obscure, from the Futurama mythos. There is a lot you will miss if you haven’t seen the show.

That being said, I do look forward to later 2008’s release of Bender’s Game, a spoof of the fantasy genre.

Hole In One

A few months ago, U of I scholars and employees Damian Duffy and John Jennings released an original graphic novel, The Hole: Consumer Culture, through their CU-based comic publisher Eye Trauma Comix. This local dynamic duo plans on releasing more books in the future, and working with Krannert Art Museum, organizes comic themed exhibits to increase awareness of this medium.

Damian Duffy took time to speak with me about The Hole and his love of comics.

Matt Knicl: What inspired you to get into comics?

Damian Duffy: When I was six, my dad bought me a reprint of the two part Spider-Man story where Gwen Stacy dies. A bit later that year, I got a hold of some old Amazing Spider-Man issues when John Romita Sr. was drawing them. Once I tore through that stash, I started making my own comics. Maybe I was too young to realize you can just buy more comics, I don’t know. In a more mature time, like 14-15, I really started to get a sense of how much untapped potential there was in the medium for personal expression. Understanding Comics helped that epiphany along.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pretty damn good. Many fans already knew the end of Brian K. Vaughan’s epic series of a world where all but one man have died, but for those of us who wait for the trade paperback volumes, this week’s release of the last collection of Y: The Last Man was the end of one of comics best series to date.

Many people demand closure from a series’ conclusion. Others prefer ambiguity so they can imagine what happens. Vaughan does both, and that might not seem possible on paper, once you read the comics you’ll know what I mean. We know what has happened to our characters, where they are going and where they end up, but at the same time there is the promise of something more, - a promise this series has always made.

If you don’t read this series, go do it, and if you already do and haven’t read Vol. 10 - why are you reading this? Go pick it up!

Image courtesy DC

Head on over to Apple.com for the new Hellboy 2 trailer.

This new trailer shows off that fancy Pan’s Labyrinth money. Many new monsters (hopefully not all of them) are shown that haven’t been previously revealed, like the monster bazaar, an unusual old lady and the former king of the monsters. Every time I see this trailer, I get chills, and I know that many people are looking forward to this film - people unfamiliar with the comics and even the first film.

People looking to prepare themselves for this new film need not worry - the film’s premise is a new, unique story never seen before. But, seeing the first film couldn’t hurt, and Dark Horse has reissued the older Hellboy volumes as well as the spin-off B.P.R.D. series. New Hellboy books focusing on Hellboy, B.P.R.D., Abe Sapien, Professor Bruttenholm, and the pulp spy hero Lobster Johnson are also available in trade paperback forms, or will be soon, just in time for the movie, or as Dark Horse editor Scott Allie called it, the “big-budget commercial.”

If you read today’s Buzz, you saw but a small portion of my exclusive interview with Anita Blake scribe Laurell K. Hamilton. This is the interview in its entirety.

Matt Knicl: Who do you feel is your target audience?

Laurell K Hamilton: I don’t really target an audience. I write and if I’m enjoying it and having fun then I hope that the reader will enjoy it and have fun. In all honesty, when the sexual content was lower the demographics were 11 to 60 plus, women as well as men. I think the comic book has brought a lot of men in, but we’re seeing more men in line.

Matt: Some fans feel you put parts of your personal life into your books. Do you feel this is true or not?

Laurell: No. I put very little of my personal life on the page.

Matt: How much of the negative and positive fan feedback do you allow to influence your writing?

Laurell: I’m going to quote Thornton Wilder at you. He said criticism, negative or positive, should never end up on the written page. The people who love you can’t take too seriously because then you think you’re wonderful, and nobody’s that wonderful. And the people that hate you – that’s not true either because they hate you. They don’t know you. They hate you because of words on paper. I actually don’t read any critique or criticism; I don’t read any of it. If it’s negative, you sit there and feel bad and if it’s positive you don’t feel like you can live up to it. So either way it messes with your head. As a working writer, you just can’t afford to get caught up in it.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the wake of two Annihilation crossover events, where Marvel’s space characters fought with tooth, nail, and paw to survive, a new proactive super team has been formed to face galactic threats before they surface.

Adam Warlock, Starlord, Drax, Mantis, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, the living tree Groot, and a talking dog, Cosmo work together restore the universe to working order after Annihilation left the foundations of space busting at the seams. The elder baddies that exist beyond time and space are seeping into our reality, and the Guardians of the Galaxy are here to stop them. Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesdays are new DVD days, and every once in awhile there is a DVD worth going to get the day it’s released. I’m talking about the awesome show Burn Notice, which debuted on USA last summer.

Focusing on the character Michael Westen, an international spy, the show follows Michael as he tries to discover why he was “burned” - blacklisted with the U.S. government and taken off the active spy roster. Dumped in his hometown of Miami, Michael has to deal with his former fling and IRA spy Fiona, his buddy Sam (Bruce Campbell) who is spying on Michael for the FBI, and his mother… all while trying to uncover why he’s been frozen out of the intelligence game.

But the show doesn’t stop there. Read the rest of this entry »