They Call Me The Seeker

From the men who brought you Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess comes Legend of the Seeker, a new live-action fantasy series based on Terry Goodkind’s The Sword of Truth series. Like Hercules and Xena, this is a straight to syndication show, so it’s on random networks at various times in the week.

I saw this on hulu.com and decided to give it a try, seeing as Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert were involved. After the first few episodes, I was not at all impressed. This is a generic fantasy - think watered down Lord of the Rings or D & D with a monster manual that is 10 pages long. Everything about this show is predictable, cliché and safe.

I won’t go into a large amount of details, listing grievance after grievance of how the show fails to be any thing other than Hercules without comedy. The show takes itself way too seriously, which you can’t really do in a show like this, where exposition runs rampant and slow mo battle scenes are the norm.

Sorry Mr. Goodkind, I hope they paid you a lot for the rights.

According to recent news, Bill Willingham’s comic epic, Fables, will be given the chance to wow the top ABC brass to see if the show could make it to air. Fables is about a world where fairy tales are real and live in our world. Forced from their otherworldly fairy tale dimensions, the Fables try to keep themselves hidden from us and the foe they have fled.

The series is one of the best comic books out there today, mixing spy thriller, comedy, romance, epic fantasy and political genres into one massive story that deals with the lives of several popular, less popular or never heard of fairy tale legends. While the story focuses primarily on the Big Bad Wolf, reformed of course, and Snow White, later we see characters like Little Boy Blue, King Cole, Beauty, Beast, The Frog Prince, and dozens of others take center stage.

Fables would make a great TV show in the current market due to this chemistry. Shows today focus on several characters (think Lost or Heroes, even Grey’s Anatomy has several players). More people means more drama and more story-driven conflict due to various interactions. This would be on top of the epic fantasy and political drama the external storylines Willigham crafted to guide the characters.

But of course, a pilot is just a first episode, meant to see if the show would be worth it in the long run. Fables the comic had a lot of mileage, but if we try to slow down the conflict to have a lot of star-studded drama scenes, would the show be a legitimate translation? Probably not, but then again, for this series, I’m willing to wait and see what we get.

On tonight’s LA Ink, and its subsequent reruns, Hannah heads out to the BOOM! Studios offices for super hero inspiration with Mark Waid, EiC of BOOM! and writer of several DC and Marvel comics.

courtesy BOOM!

Sadly, I missed the episode, but my DVR didn’t! I think its cool when the mainstream, like TV, gives credibility to comics. The movies help, but they deal with comics only so much as the family acknowledges the adopted child at a reunion. Yeah, comics are cool, media says, but only cool when we’ve changed it and made it our own bastardization.

What is also cool about this “crossover” is the combination of two misunderstood and ignored art forms - tattoo artists are just as talented as comic artists, dealing with beauty and transposing a persons’ desire onto page and skin. What’s sad is these under appreciated art forms may not realize how popular culture pats them on the head and sends them away with a lollipop. Comics are starting to get there, I don’t know about tattoos, but as long as comics always have to be talked about in special episodes or segments, they probably aren’t there yet.

That’s right, True Beleivers! Never since the team up of Spider-man and the cast of SNL has a blatant marketing scheme been brilliant comic genius. Stephen Colbert of the popular Colbert Report will be swinging with Spidey in Amazing Spider-man #573.

For awhile Marvel has stated Colbert was a candidate for the presidency in the Marvel Universe, but besides some background Easter eggs this was not anything major. Hopefully now we’ll see Colbert in a more prominent role in Marvel.

Mark Waid, one of the issue’s writers and comics legend, spoke to me about the project:

“It was a blast to write–the best note I ever got on a script was from the Colbert camp, who said simply “We’re having a nerd-gasm!” and asked for zero changes! So, apparently, if you love Colbert as much as I do, we nailed it!”

Pick up this title if you love America!

When “Jokers” Go Wild In A Full House

There’s a point when a comedian stops being funny and starts being crude. In last night’s Roast of Bob Saget, the traditional group of roasters - like Jeff Ross - crossed the line, as they usually do in these shows. Bob Saget has reportedly taken offense to how the Olsen twins were ridiculed by these acquaintances, and I’m inclined to agree with him. Read the rest of this entry »

I made a promise I couldn’t keep. Covering Comic-Con by oneself is impossible. The convention center took days to explore, and each panel had a line so long, you would have had to be there an hour before hand to ensure attendance. I thought I’d have free time, but at night when I thought I’d post, I was occupied by parties.

As far as the Con went, I have mixed feelings. As a comic fan, everyone and everything you’d want to see would be there, and lines in teh comic book area wouldn’t be too horrible. But, the movie and TV and video game and toy stuff really stole comics’ limelight, and filled the con with tourists and kids who admittedly didn’t read. Harold & Kumar were there, for example, and their booth put Marvel’s to shame. But once I stayed out of the entertainment section and kept to the comics area, I had a good time meeting with publishers and creators.

The parties were by far the best part of the Con because I could meet and talk to people one on one. You’d turn around and Joss Whedon or Bruce Campbell would be chilling. I met Mark Waid, Stephen Baldwin, Bill Willingham, the heads of DC and Marvel, Keith Giffen, and Grant Morrison at these parties, and as a professional and a fan boy I had a great time just talking to people.

News: Read the rest of this entry »

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

© 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.

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 »