Archive for the ‘Comics’ Category

My husband and I just finished the second episode of the anime version of High School of the Dead, a series about the zombie apocalypse starting in downtown Tokyo.

It was originally a manga that my husband adores and is still reading as new chapters come out.

So far the adaptation from manga to anime is spot on.

I watched my first anime before I read my first manga, Weiss Kreuz, an older series about assassins posing as flower shop workers during the day. It is not a great anime, but it has a special place in my heart, and like many of its fellows it also has an accompanying manga.

The manga for Weiss Kreuz is not typical, but tells the story of how the main characters ended up working together, a prequel to better understand the events in the anime.

Manga and Anime relations for a single series can develop in a number of different ways. Most people assume that the norm is to have a manga that existed first that they then translated into an anime to see the stationary pictures come alive with movement and voice actors.

Sometimes it is that clean cut, but not always.
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“Heroes” is at long last dead, having finished its ultimately short reign this past season. NBC is stepping forward to pick up that superhero slack by introducing a new caped crusader as part of its upcoming Fall line-up, “The Cape”.

“From the visionary team of Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun comes an imaginative adventure about a dad who would do anything to protect his family.

Officer Vince Faraday was a good cop trying to clean up a corrupt city. Framed for murder and left for dead, he suddenly found himself separated from his wife and son and forced into hiding. Now, inspired by his son’s favorite comic book hero, he’s taking the law into his own hands, and playing a deadly game of chess with the powerful kingpin who framed him. With the hope of one day reuniting with his family, The Cape is sending a loud message to all criminals… run.” -NBC.com

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I realize I have been starting a trend lately with not doing the blog I promised to do the week I said I would, but I will get to “Why Today’s Cartoons Suck” next week. Today I need to rant.

I recently posted the blog “Comic Book Movie Adaptations FTW” in preparation for Kick-Ass, The Losers, and Scott Pilgrim vs the World. I admitted not having read Kick-Ass or The Losers at the time, but before seeing Kick-Ass in theatres I finally got the chance to read its comic.

And I hated it.

Don’t misunderstand, I adored the movie. It was everything I wanted it to be. But the comic almost had me backing out of seeing the film at all.

I would like to avoid spoilers for those of you who have not read the comic or seen the film yet, so I will try to generalize as I explain why the comic upset me so much.
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I have discussed comic book movies a few times on here, including a few from last summer, some good, some bad, and some of the more terrible examples in the history of adaptations, like Batman & Robin.

When we think of comic book movies we usually think of classic examples like that— Batman, Iron Man, X-men—but there are also comic book movie adaptations from lesser known comics.

Those are the examples I would like to discuss today, because there are three such movies coming out in the near future that look pretty damn good: Kick-Ass, The Losers, and Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
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Latest in Captain America news:

Chris Evans, also known as the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films, may have been offered the role. We’ll see how that pans out.

For six years friends and I attended the Anime Detour anime convention in Bloomington, MN (St. Paul this past year), starting from its conception in 2004. At last we are breaking free and will be attending Anime Central in Chicago.

We were getting so sick of the same old thing every year, without any new people, new management (I could not HATE the girl that runs the cosplay masquerade more) or new panels/guests/anything.

One aspect of our con-going that we are not changing, however, is that we will be cosplaying and entering into competition.

I have two awards under my belt from those 6 years at Detour. In 2006 my friend Alexandria and I won Best Novice Performance for our Tifa vs Tifa skit. She was classic Tifa and I was the Advent Children version.
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Yes, I realize that this is not the promised blog about role playing handbooks, but the deluge of Captain America rumors has overtaken my mind recently. Every day my husband and I check for updates on whom the lucky man might be.

We were promised that we would be told the identity of the Captain America actor by the end of February. Obviously, that has not happened.

While I do have my own two cents that I will add later about the actor I think should be chosen, the real fascination here is in how public this whole process has been.

Now, to be fair, Marvel has stated that we should ignore all the rumors, because none of them have been official statements. We simply know that certain actors have read for the part, and some of them have announced/tweeted that they are no longer in the running. That hardly confirms anything on who might actually be chosen.

Plans for a new Captain America movie have been in the works for some time. After the huge success of Iron Man, and the slightly better numbers for Edward Norton’s The Incredible Hulk compared to Eric Bana’s Hulk, plans for an eventual Avengers movie has been the ultimate goal.

Thor is confirmed and cast. They won’t scrap Ant Man rumors no matter how much we groan. And now…Captain America.
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I think most people underestimate just how many films in existence have been based off of comics. The list is rather extensive, even just for the English language ones.

I am not talking about the good ones either. This blog is for the ones that sucked. The ones that were either all around bad or just didn’t capture their parent source correctly.

This is for the ones that FAILED.

If I tried to discuss all of them, or went into TV movies, God forbid, we’d be here all day (and I really don’t want to review the Hoff as Nick Fury). So here is my short list.
 
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I am torn on this one. With the other versus blogs I had a clear favorite even when most of the time I greatly respected the opposing side, but with this particular debate it is harder to choose. I would say Marvel simply because Spider-Man, Deadpool, and the X-men are some of my favorite characters of all time, but then DC has Batman, and it really is hard to compete against Batman.

There is a lot more to cover with these franchises than with any of the others I have compared thus far, so bear with me. Onto a brief history of each of these incredible comic publishers.
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The first question, of course, is what is WoW? With over 11 million players worldwide, most people already know that answer, at least enough to say that it is an online video game also known as World of Warcraft.

More specifically, WoW is an MMORPG, or massively multiplayer online role playing game. This means that not only are you playing online as your own character, but you are playing with everyone else’s character too, almost like an interactive chat room with depictions of yourself that can go off and kill things after you’ve had that meaningful conversation.

Created by Blizzard Entertainment, WoW was not a new idea in scope or setting, following the Warcraft series of games that first began in 1994 with Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

Going the MMO route, however, was new as the previous Warcraft games were all RTS format or real time strategy.
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No, Joss Whedon isn’t dead, I just felt like ‘remembering’ him because he has been swept up in successes lately, and I don’t want to forget why I first fell in love with his work.

You see, I am a Whedonite. If Joss Whedon’s name is attached to it, chances are I am going to do everything in my power to at least give that something a chance. For those who may not know Joss well, most will best remember him for having created the movie and subsequent television show, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.

I love Buffy, so I am fine with that being one of Joss’ main claims to fame, but he has done so much more than that. Allow me to take you through my remembrance of a great man’s current body of work.

Joss Whedon created, wrote, directed, or was in some way part of the screenplay processes for a lot more movies and television shows than many people realize, most notably:
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