Your Geekness

This week saw the release of the first issue of a new Kevin Smith Green Hornet comic with a difference. This one is based on the script Smith wrote for the Green Hornet movie he was going to make once upon a time. Now, of course, there’s a Green Hornet movie on the way starring (and co-written by) Seth Rogen, which is nothing to do with the Kevin Smith version. Smith decided that as a filmmaker he was unable to adequately make a superhero movie the way the studios would want one, and thus the script languished in obscurity for a while.

That is, until Dynamite Comics came up with the idea of turning that lost script into a comic book series. The first issue is in stores now, and it is well worth a read. The dialogue is very much in the style of Kevin Smith, which is great to read coming out of the Green Hornet’s mouth.

Of course, there’s no bad language, but the quick-fire, witty dialogue is 100% Smith. Jonathan Lau’s art is highly kinetic and suits the tone of the yarn perfectly. There’s a bunch of covers available (I got the J. Scott Campbell one as I’m a sucker for his art), but the main thing is to get in on this cool curio as soon as you can. It’s a ton of fun.

Holy payday, Batman! The comic book containing the first appearance of Batman, namely Detective Comics 27, has made history once again. A copy of the legendary comic has sold at auction for over ONE MILLION DOLLARS (Go on, put your Dr. Evil voice on and say it out loud).

The auction of the Batman comic book took place in Dallas, where the 1939 released comic was sold to an anonymous bidder. This follows on from a recent sale of an early Superman issue for a million dollars, but the Batman sale out-priced it!

The seller bought the issue of Detective Comics during the sixties at a price of $100, and had kept it in excellent condition ever since. This is an amazing amount for a comic book to sell for, and these two high profile sales are a boon to the interest in comics right now.

Collectors will hopefully see prices rise a little for collectible issues, and with a number of big movies and games around featuring comic heroes right now, this does bode well for the continued success of the industry.

Batman Comics, Graphic Novels and Collectibles on Amazon

The San Diego Comic Con is here, and movie, TV, comics and collectibles fans the world over are fuming with jealousy that they’re not there with those lucky ****s who managed to go this year. This year’s event is the 40th annual SDCC, and has attracted another sell-out crowd, along with the absolute cream, of the film, TV, video games, toys and comic industries, peddling their wares and previewing the delights that are to come.

There have been some massive panels at this year’s event, with James Cameron previewing Avatar, Robert Pattinson and ‘those other ones’ from Twilight previewing New Moon, Robert Downey Jr and co previewing Iron Man 2, a million and one comics industry announcements, the stars of the collectibles scene (check out the new items from Sideshow Collectibles at SDCC this year!).

Plus there have been the usual million workshops, panels, dealers, and mini events at the event that the major press doesn’t seem to cover, all of which we’d love to be able to go to.

Man, one year, ONE YEAR we’ll be there and soak it all up. Above all, aside from all of the big names that are there being all big named, the event is about fans and geeking out over the fantastic. What’s not to love?

One year it’ll be us there, filling YouTube and Flickr with goodies and making you all jealous. Until then, we must go and polish our Stormtrooper outfits and dream of Olivia Munn.

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It is a strange thing that happens to geeks every few years. You can love something to death at one point of your life and then find it incredibly passe the next. Take comics, for example. I was a child that loved comics more than anything. Teenagedom found me collecting and enjoying countless titles from right across the industry, and my twenties found me becoming a more discerning reader who was edging more towards humour titles and the odd superhero title. Now, at thirty I’m rediscovering what was special about comic books and graphic novels in the first place.

There are some awesome works of fiction being released right now, and the greats of the industry are getting the recognition they deserve. Preacher, Y The Last Man, Sin City, Watchmen et al are now seen as genuine works of intelligent, gripping fiction instead of just men in tights making POW noises. This is a good thing, and it does kinda make you proud to be one of the chosen few who have loved these things for years.

I guess the period I missed out on comics went hand in hand with a period where the comics industry seemed to be floundering and not quite sure of what it wanted to do with itself. That was a weird period, which was only alleviated when the comics movies started coming out and doing good business. That first X-Men film, for all its faults, helped kick-start the heart of the comics scene and get it back to basics.

Granted, there are still franchises that are trying to claw their way back to the realms of understandable storylines (the X-men titles, for example), but the comics industry is definitely back where it should be. Yeah, the stigma is still there, but less so than before. It’s cool to like comics now, and people are having graphic novels in their houses as coffee table books. Quite right too.

There is the worry that all of this is a passing phase, that people will tire of wearing comics t-shirts and underwear, get bored of their printed fixes and turn their backs on the industry again, but for now things are better than they have been in years. Remember the days of die-cut foil covers and so on? Yeesh. Nasty. Here’s hoping the trend becomes something tangible and long lasting. There’s a hell of a lot of good material out there to enjoy from publishers large and small. Check it out.

So then, Cyclops is in it, along with Deadpool, Emma Frost, Gambit and a bunch of other X-Men universe porn. The thing is, X-Men origins: Wolverine is supposed to be a prequel, and the inclusion of many of these characters is something that is making many fans’ heads spin right now. While I too am troubled by the comics universe that I love being turned on its head by such flagrant continuity destruction, I can’t help but still look at the new Wolverine movie as a big chunk of fun.

If you’re a fan of the X-Men movies and Hugh Jackman, while never having read any of the comics, then you’ll love this film in all of its sweaty-Jackman-shouting-in-a-vest glory, but if you’re a comics diehard, it’s gonna make your head spin. As a movie experience it will leave you questioning Marvel’s intentions- do they really want to alienate so many of their diehard audience? It certainly looks like it, but then your voice of reason will kick in and remind you this is the movies, not the comics.

While elements of Wolverine’s comics canon origin are certainly there, they have been reworked for the film audience, and I can’t really begrudge Fox for doing that. The thing is, the diehard core of X-men fans is dying off in the comics industry. With the X-titles moving ever further away from their glory days, I can fully understand Marvel and Fox wanting to cater more for fans of the blockbuster movies. Yeah, I even count X3 in that (hey, at least it LOOKED pretty, even though the script was trash). So if you’re an old-school fan of He Who makes The Snikt Noise, try not to get all ‘Scanners’ when you see the flick. It is, after all, just a movie.

You see, everything would have been okay if they’d put Jubilee in there as his companion and just had them caught up in a life-or-death battle instead of shoehorning all the leftover Marvel characters into it, but that’s just my opinion.
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