Comic Book Site

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) –
Before “Sherlock Holmes” was a movie opening on Christmas Day, it was a comic.

Sort of.

Lionel Wigram, one of the film’s producers, wanted to do a modern retelling of the classic detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “I wanted to present Sherlock Holmes not as fuddy duddy, ‘Masterpiece Theatre‘ guy,” said the British native.

Wigram came up with a story treatment but “realized that wasn’t going to be enough.” He decided to give his story some comic book pizazz to convey the atmosphere and the attitude. It’s one thing to write that the new Holmes has a Bohemian or rock-and-roll attitude, as Wigram was going for, but it’s another to show a piece of art that embodies it.

Wigram called DC Comics executive Gregory Noveck and asked him for assistance in finding an artist, and Noveck pointed him to John Watkiss, another Brit. Watkiss is a comic artist who’s drawn for “Sandman,” “Deadman” and “Savage Sword of Conan.” He also worked on Disney’s “Tarzan” and “Treasure Planet” movies.

Wigram used his own money, $5,000 of it, to have Watkiss draw up scenes. Wigram then bound them in a comic-book form and published a small number to pitch his take.

The final product is not exactly a comic book. There are no sequential panels or word balloons but rather beautiful, moody splash pages with occasional story notes along the borders.

Wigram showed the book to Warners exec Dan Lin (who later became a producer on the movie) and then to Warners’ president Jeff Robinov, who ultimately gave the movie the go-ahead.

“What he drew was what I imagined, but better,” said Wigram, who is surprised that more Hollywood types don’t prepare these style of pamphlets when pitching ideas. “And if you compare Guy Ritchie’s screen version to the images, there’s a direct connection. Watkiss deserves a lot of credit and recognition for this.”

There was talk of DC making a “Holmes” comic, maybe using the images, maybe not, but the movie project found itself fast-tracked and swept away once Ritchie and then Robert Downey Jr. came on board, and Wigram never had a chance to revisit the idea.

By Borys Kit

LOS ANGELES – Before “Sherlock Holmes” was a movie opening on Christmas Day, it was a comic.

Sort of.

Lionel Wigram, one of the film’s producers, wanted to do a modern retelling of the classic detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “I wanted to present Sherlock Holmes not as fuddy duddy, ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ guy,” said the British native.

Wigram came up with a story treatment but “realized that wasn’t going to be enough.” He decided to give his story some comic book pizazz to convey the atmosphere and the attitude. It’s one thing to write that the new Holmes has a Bohemian or rock-and-roll attitude, as Wigram was going for, but it’s another to show a piece of art that embodies it.

Wigram called DC Comics executive Gregory Noveck and asked him for assistance in finding an artist, and Noveck pointed him to John Watkiss, another Brit. Watkiss is a comic artist who’s drawn for “Sandman,” “Deadman” and “Savage Sword of Conan.” He also worked on Disney’s “Tarzan” and “Treasure Planet” movies.

Wigram used his own money, $5,000 of it, to have Watkiss draw up scenes. Wigram then bound them in a comic-book form and published a small number to pitch his take.

The final product is not exactly a comic book. There are no sequential panels or word balloons but rather beautiful, moody splash pages with occasional story notes along the borders.

Wigram showed the book to Warners exec Dan Lin and then to Warners’ president Jeff Robinov, who ultimately gave the movie the go-ahead.

“What he drew was what I imagined, but better,” said Wigram, who is surprised that more Hollywood types don’t prepare these style of pamphlets when pitching ideas. “And if you compare Guy Ritchie’s screen version to the images, there’s a direct connection. Watkiss deserves a lot of credit and recognition for this.”

There was talk of DC making a “Holmes” comic, maybe using the images, maybe not, but the movie project found itself fast-tracked and swept away once Ritchie and then Robert Downey Jr. came on board, and Wigram never had a chance to revisit the idea.

December 21, 2009

Eminem’s Comic-Book Collection Is ‘Otherworldly,’ Sh

By Steven Roberts (MTV.com)

It’s no secret that many rappers are huge comic-book fans: For example, Ghost Rider and Iron Man are aliases of comic-book characters Johnny Blaze and Tony Stark respectively, but they’re also aliases of Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man and Ghostface as well. Meth adopted Johnny Blaze out of his love for the badass with a flaming skull, mystical chain and penchant for vengeance, and Ghostface actually named his first album Ironman, and appeared in the first “Iron Man” movie.

That’s why Shady Records exec Riggs Morales jumped at the idea to become an associate producer for the “Marvelous Color” exhibit in New York, which runs through February 26 of next year. The exhibit, which is curated by Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, highlights the six major black characters in the Marvel Comics Universe: Storm, Black Panther, Blade, the Falcon and War Machine. Morales said he’s been looking for a way to bring the two worlds together, and felt this exhibit was perfect.

“If you asked Method Man, Just Blaze, DMC, Chuck D, their music was inspired by the comic book world, and specifically the Marvel characters,” he said.

“I’ve gotten a small glimpse of Eminem’s collection, and Eminem’s collection is otherworldly,” he continued. “[He has items that] aren’t even on display at the stores.”

Morales said that the rarest comic he’s seen was Mr. Mathers’ “Amazing Fantasy” #15, marking Peter Parker and Spider-Man’s first appearance.

“As a collector, you grew up and it’s a myth! You can’t afford it. The only way that you can try to touch that comic is if it’s right in front of you, or you’re purchasing it. To see it in your face – it’s in ‘Pulp Fiction’ when John Travolta opened up the briefcase [with awe, regarding a never-revealed object]. It’s like that.”

He said there’s no limit to what a good collection. Some people are interested in Chris Claremont’s run on the X-Men which included the “Phoenix Saga” and “God Loves, Man Kills” story arcs, which were the basis of the second X-Men movie, X2: X-Men United. Others may only want to collect comics from Image Comics’ run in the ’90s, including “WildC.A.T.S,” “Gen 13″ and “Youngblood.”

ABIDJAN (AFP) –
Marguerite Abouet’s hugely popular series of books, centred on the life of a young woman in a cheerful Ivory Coast suburb, show an Africa far from stereotypes of war and disease.

The characters in “Aya of Yopougon” grapple with everyday issues like love, family, growing up, pregnancy, marriage — set mostly in a Abidjan suburb that is colourfully illustrated by Abouet’s partner, Frenchman Clement Oubrerie.

“We call it ‘Yop City’, like in an American film,” says young Aya in one of the five comic-book novels.

“With ‘Aya’ the aim is that after four pages you no longer think you’re in Africa but in a story which could be anywhere in the world,” says 38-year-old Abouet, who lives in Paris but often returns to the Ivory Coast.

With more than 300,000 copies sold, translations into 12 languages including English, an array of prizes and a film on the way, the adventures of young Aya and her friends and family have been a hit.

Elegant and talkative, Abouet was born in Abidjan’s Yopougon neighbourhood, where she has set the books that feature brightly dressed characters, dusty roads and community living.

When she was 12, she was sent to live in France with an uncle who was worried she would end up “hanging out in the street barefoot and playing football,” she says.

The colder climes of Paris were a wrench for a young girl from her part of sunny Africa.

“At 12 years old, you’re already grown up, you know plenty of things. I just needed to close my eyes and I’d be back in Yopougon,” she says.

In Europe she discovered, through television, an Africa different to the one of peaceful 1970s childhood.

“It’s always the same subjects — AIDS, immigration, war,” she says.

“If there’s a reason why ‘Aya’ is popular, it’s probably because her story is universal, dealing with everyday life in modern Africa, that’s all.”

She does not idealise the continent, though. “In parts of Africa things are all right and in others, they’re not,” she says.

War came to Ivory Coast with a coup in 1999, an armed rebellion splitting the country in two in 2002, and a deadly civil war.

But Abouet has based her stories, which she began writing when she was 17, on a time before the fighting.

Born from these adolescent memories, Aya and her friends Bintou, Adjoua and Moussa tell stories of Ivorian families and culture.

While the heroine aims to become a doctor, Bintou and Adjoua want to be hairdressers, seamstresses or “husband hunters” and daddy’s boy Moussa only want to have fun.

“The bit that’s real is Yopougon, the joie de vivre that is everywhere,” the writer says. “Me, I’m Akissi, Aya’s little sister.”

The first book was published in 2005 to acclaim. The following year it took the prize for best first book at the International Comics Festival in Angouleme in western France.

“My life has changed, I stopped my job as a legal assistant. I’m lucky enough to be chased after by publishers,” Abouet says.

She admits that in her country most children could not afford to buy the novels she has set in their midst.

This led her to create a “Books for All” foundation tasked with opening libraries in Africa and encouraging reading: the first has opened in Adjame, a poor district of Abidjan, and she hopes to open one in her native Yopougon.

“A house, a bar and a church, that’s how things are right now. So adding a library to the mix will make the kids realise there’s more to life than the church or the bar,” Abouet says.

An animated film based on Aya’s adventures is due for release in 2011 and the writer is working on a book called “Welcome” that will star a Parisian girl. “I can also write stories with white characters,” she smiles.

Forty years later, TV critic David Bianculli’s riveting new book explores the unlikely
ascendancy of Tom and Dick Smothers — prickly political comics with a variety show.

Even President Johnson complained to CBS’ top brass about the show.

“Tom Smothers fought for freedom in prime-time television entertainment and lost,” said
Bianculli, whose book is titled
Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy
Hour.”

“If he’d won, TV might have been completely different from that point on. They had a pulpit and
never got it again. They know what they lost.”

A similar scenario isn’t likely again.

“Part of the reason why the Smotherses got the power that they did and then lost the power,” the
author said, “was because they were in the living rooms of everybody.

“Back then, everyone was watching the same TV. It was part of what made them a hit — having
Kate Smith and Simon & Garfunkel on the same show.

“I don’t think it could exist today.”

T
he Smothers Brothers Comedy Ho
ur attracted an audience of 35 million —
American Idol numbers, said Bianculli, 56.

In January, Tom and Dick Smothers will be inducted into the Television Academy’s Hall of
Fame.

“The times made them, and they made the times,” Bianculli said. “The show just got changed by
everything that was happening around them.”

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour — which ran from 1967 to ‘69 — began as a
last-ditch attempt to unseat NBC’s
Bonanza as the king of Sunday nights.

In his book, Bianculli digs behind the mythology that has grown around the legendary show, which
began as a fairly benign variety show anchored by argumentative, folk-singing brothers.

The Vietnam War, civil rights, the youth movement, drug culture, rock ‘n’ roll and the
assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy rocked the brothers and the
censors.

The brothers managed to bridge the generation gap, with an attitude that revered Jack Benny,
George Burns and Pete Seeger but understood the Beatles and Buffalo Springfield.

“Its old showbiz tradition was one of the things that was most entertaining about the show the
first couple of seasons,” Bianculli said.

“They weren’t afraid of the youth. But when they introduced the Who to an American TV audience,
they were ‘the Man.’ Tom was the authority figure the Who were making fun of during the
introduction.”

The show wouldn’t work today, Bianculli said, because TV audiences have changed.

“The culture was different then. You could stay on one station, either a television station or a
radio station, and be exposed to so much more than you can today. I sort of think we’ve lost
something.”

Bianculli’s book is timed to the Smothers brothers’ 50th anniversary as a comedy duo.

---

• (Touchstone, 400 pages, $24.99) by David Bianculli

Earlier this year we reported that comic book publisher IDW Publishing was teaming up with Electronic Arts to launch a new line of EA Comics. Today IDW has revealed that the first issue of the monthly Dragon Age comic book series will ship to stores in March.

As previously reported the series, based on developer BioWare’s fantasy universe they launched in their recent RPG Dragon Age: Origins, will be written by acclaimed novelist Orson Scott Card. He will work with a co-writer on the project, Aaron Johnston, with interior art by Mark Robinson and covers by Humberto Ramos (which you can see to the right).

OK, 2009 is quickly coming to a close — and as it does, every comic book geek is asking: “What were the best comics of the year?” Here’s my take:

Chew — Definitely my favorite book of the year, this title has a great concept — and it was executed with action, humor, smarts and a serious gross-out factor.

Blackest Night — Blackest Night — not Final Crisis or Secret Invasion — showed folks how a blockbuster “event” comic should really be done.

Beasts of Burden — This was a surprising hit, combining the cuteness of an illustrated children’s book with the horror of a Stephen King novel.

Wednesday Comics — DC hit big with this weekly comic, which mimicked the format of those full-page newspaper strips from back in the day — and proved that some formerly lame characters (like Kamandi) could actually be cool.

Sweet Tooth — Vertigo might have another Preacher on its hands with this post-apocalyptic adventure of a human/animal hybrid boy and his tough-as-nails partner.

Captain Britain and MI13 — Before Marvel canceled this comic, it was the company’s best team book; it was intelligent, intricately plotted, nicely paced and character-centric — which is rare for a superhero comic.

Drunk and The Goon vs. Dethklok — These two titles were just one-shots, but they were stellar nonetheless. Drunk — a graphic novel about bar stories — was just a great idea. And The Goon vs. Dethklok was so funny it had me pissing in my pants.

Reviewed materials provided by Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find: www.heroesonline.com.