Another month, another column

This is my third month for the Zeitgeist column/page in Harrisburg Magazine. While I've been fighting off a creative slump in the last couple weeks since the last issue went to press, I did manage to put some things together and make something of it. This time around I got to illustrate Batman when talking about how the IMAX sales of this summer's Dark Knight Rises are already sold out in certain markets. Looking at that in the middle of January when the film's due out in July is nuts to me. This summer is going to be very nuts with Dark Knight Rises and Avengers hitting. Geek heaven!

The Zeitgeist That Could Have Been...

As I've posted in previous blog posts, I've been asked by the publisher of the magazine I work for to do a page each issue about random pop culture news and factoids I might find. So far I have two published columns under my belt, but a third one was created yet never printed. Unfortunately for that third column it had to be canned due to space, so I thought I'd post it here just so my work can see the light of day as intended. Maybe next issue of Lehigh Valley Magazine it will work out and my column can debut as intended...

Also included in this post is the first column I got to work on, from the December 2011 issue of 717 Magazine, just in case anyone out there might have missed it. Now it's off to figure out what sort of stuff to write about for my February page!

January Harrisburg and Lehigh Valley Magazines

Well my Zeitgeist column has managed to survive one month so far. Not only that but it's managed to spill into Harrisburg's sister publication, Lehigh Valley Magazine. Since Lehigh is bi-monthly I get to cover two months worth of goodies instead of one, but still in only a page of space. So instead of reinventing the wheel I decided to post two months worth of movie releases with an illustration. For Lehigh and February I worked up a Darth Maul illustration since Star Wars Ep. 1 is being rereleased in 3D. For Harrisburg I worked up the Beast from Beauty and the Beast which is also being rereleased in 3D for January. On top of that I also was asked to illustrate the cover of Harrisburg for the second year in a row. Instead of a superhero this time I had to focus on the shrinking middle class and how the American dream is less of a reality these days. That's a lot to put into one cover image, but after some rough ideas my boss and I came up with this image. It shows off the American dream but how it's really a dream to most middle class folks these days and how the reality is more stressful and sad than happy these days. There's a lot going on and it's probably the biggest challenge I've had in a long time. Rendering 2 sets of 3 people is time consuming when you're used to only drawing one subject but even with all of the extra hours I put in on it, I like that I had a challenge to go up against. In my mind, I met the idea about half way because it didn't turn out quite the way I hoped, but it also didn't turn out to be too bad either. Still, it always makes me want to go big on the cover and really put forth the effort. Pick it up on stands in January!

A Monthly Column

It feels like it's been forever and a day since I wrote on my blog. The funny thing is, I've been updating the magazine's website as much as possible with my own opinions on the various things I'm interested in that it doesn't really factor into my thinking to write on my own blog anymore.

For those who don't already know, I was asked to write reviews on movies for Harrisburg Magazine on their website and have been doing so since the summer. It's mostly a fun little gig that I use as my own personal pulpit for anything that interests me a lot. There's definitely more than a handful of reviews on the site now and I've branched out from movies into my other love, comic books. I posted a lot of reviews (which feel like I haven't even scratched the surface) for the DC New 52, the one comic even that grabbed my attention so much that some people feel like I'm it's own personal champion in central PA. And, no, I'm not trying to say all of it is the best thing that ever came down the pike making sliced bread jealous, but the fact that it is trying to stir up the pot and open new doors to opportunities is more than enough to warrant me talking about it.

Close to a month ago, after getting back to work from a nice, much needed vacation in October, my boss put a few pages she ripped from a magazine on my desk asking me to see her. So I did. She told me she'd like to start putting a "pop culture" column in the magazine and hoped I'd want to pick it up and run with it. Not really knowing what to do about it at first, I kicked the idea around and now I have a column that, hopefully, will be in the magazine every month from now on. The column is called Zeitgeist, the spirit of the time or age and the first one will run in the December 2011 issue of 717 Magazine. Pick up a copy and check it out!

I'm actually pretty excited about having a column because it's focusing on things that interest me and might be interesting to others. It's also fun to think that wearing my passions on my sleeve has actually helped to start me in this direction. But, the thing that I'm enjoying a lot is I get to combine talking about pop culture while putting my other talents to good use. In this case, I want to put a side bar in each month for the upcoming releases for that month that might be noteworthy. This month's noteworthies included Sherlock Holmes and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Over the last few nights I set out to work on them and here's the final products that I came up with. While they'll only be a small portion of the overall piece, I liked both of these pieces enough to want to share them in a bigger version than what will run in the issue. So without further ado, here's Sherlock and Lisbeth...

Green Lantern review

"In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might beware my power, Green Lantern's light."

If you Google search or visit rottentomatoes.com, you're sure to find that more than not critics are destroying this movie. From top to bottom, I've read it all in only two days and their criticisms are sometimes valid but some are so downright harsh that it makes me wonder how much these reviewers are projecting their own frustration with having to sit through comic adaptation after comic adaptation during the summer months for the last 11 years or so (since comic book movies became the norm at least).

I, for one, am not one of them. I'm a geek. I'm a fanboy. I'm also someone who loves escapism and being entertained when I go to the movies. I want to see the moments that get to me, like when the hero is born and starts out on their journey. I love to see the moments when a hero is down for the count and somehow still manages to get back up to stand tall even when the odds are so stacked against them you don't know how they'll manage to get through. And don't even let me rant about the moments when the hero and their love interest have a moment when the love interest backs the hero up to the hilt and then some, confirming that they believe in our hero even if the hero doesn't understand why at that moment. It's the typical stuff you expect from the standard summer movie comic book adaptation, almost screenwriting 101 for comic book movies.

Those are just some of the reasons why Green Lantern works for me. It's not a perfect movie, but neither are half the movies I enjoy. But it's a damn fun movie that has managed to stick with me most of the night after seeing it. That's a feat that another summer offering, Thor, wasn't capable of doing after I left the theater.

Just the basis of Green Lantern as a comic and character is daunting, even to comic fans if they aren't fans of the character. I'll admit I stuck my toe in the water with the title only a few years ago and while I collected story arcs in trade, I'm not an afficianado by any stretch. I don't have years of love for the character like I do with ones like Superman or Spider-Man. I always thought the idea of a guy using a ring to get his powers was a little odd. The whole weakness to yellow bugged me for years since I didn't understand how something green could have a weakness against yellow when yellow and blue MAKE green. Plus the idea of it being in space with thousands of other Lanterns, the whole deal with the Guardians who created the Green Lantern Corps to serve as a space police force, the making constructs using your willpower and creativity... I won't fault anyone who might consider it crazy or unaccessable.

Still, what got me to fall in love with the idea of Green Lantern was two fold: Geoff Johns' take on the character, especially with his build up to the Sinestro Corps War and Secret Identity and The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke who proved why Hal Jordan is a vital player in the DC pantheon. That's when I realized that the basic premise of Green Lantern is some of the romance and daring from the golden and silver age of movies mixed with some of the sci fi movies of the 50s. Throw in a little Star Wars possibly and you have Green Lantern.

Since technology in movies has finally managed to catch up with the imagination of comic book artists, we finally have a Green Lantern movie in theaters. Even though I'm a late bloomer to the character (I've always known about him though) I did have a certain expectation to what I wanted to see in a movie adaptation. Did I get everything I wanted? No, not quite everything but a lot more than expected. Is the movie as horrible as everyone says? Hardly. Either I'm very easy on it or I'm a sucker. Or maybe it's just a fun movie if you give it a freakin' chance. (Not every comic movie should be Dark Knight, which, by the way, is not THE perfect movie that people seem to believe it is. There's definitely flaws and plot holes to be found there too.)

Sorry for all the build up but I am long winded, folks. Green Lantern tells the story of Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) who is the first human ever to be chosen to become a member of the interstellar police force that bears the title's monicker. Hal is a screw up. He's a test pilot that manages to always get in trouble, both personally, professionally and romantically. He's managed to walk away from anything that involved any sort of commitment. Still, when dying alien, Abin Sur's ring chooses him as the new recruit into the Green Lantern corps, it sees something in him that Hal doesn't: the ability to overcome great fear.

Ryan Reynolds was a wildcard for me when he was cast in the role of Hal Jordan. Admittedly I was in the corner of having Nathan Fillion or even Josh Duhammel from Transformers play Hal over Reynolds. Reason being is Reynolds (with some exceptions like Definitely Maybe, The Proposal and Buried) tends to fall back on being a bit hammy in some performances. Luckily in Green Lantern, Reynolds doesn't rely on that and instead does a pretty faithful representation of Hal. He does have a few one liners, one of which was in the early previews for the movie that involved him taking off his pants and flying some planes. But these don't stick out like sore thumbs. Instead Reynolds really seems to invest himself as Hal Jordan, a screw up straight arrow without fear. When he gets the ring from Abin Sur, the way he played the scene was exactly how I hoped to see the moment playing out. Even in the trailers, the moment he told Abin Sur his name, I felt it was the moment Reynolds BECAME Jordan. There's a humility he brings to the role once the ring is on his finger. It humbles him that the ring saw something in him that he doesn't quite see about himself. Even though a friend of mine felt that he seemed whiney about that, I felt it worked well to have Reynolds more in awe of this power and the fact that he was chosen. After all, if an alien came from the sky, gave you an awesome power source that allowed you to become a super hero because of something that you might not see in yourself but the power source does, wouldn't you have a few moments of self doubt. Considering what the Corps is up against, I know I would.

As for the supporting cast, I thought they all did a good job of showing the audience who they were and why they were a part of Hal's life, either as Hal Jordan or Green Lantern. Blake Lively's Carol Ferris has been raked over the coals in the reviews I've read and I feel that is ridiculously wrong. I didn't notice much about her acting that seemed to fall flat. The moments she's reminiscing with Hal at a local bar or when she discovers Hal's Green Lantern is when there's a certain something special in her performance. If anything, the issue with Carol Ferris is she's underwritten. Though I will admit that Ms. Lively is definitely easy on the eyes throughout the movie as a brunette.

Mark Strong as Sinestro was perfect casting as far as I was concerned and this proved to be right. Again, either through editing or writing Sinestro doesn't come across the way he should from the comics. While in the comics he is strict in keeping order of his own sector of the galaxy to the point of becoming a dictator to his home planet, in the movie he isn't given the chance to show that side of the character. Instead, Sinestro is played as someone mourning the loss of one of his best friends and feels that Hal Jordan's joining of the Corps is disrespectful to Abin Sur's memory. He does test Hal, which is something that happens in the comics, but they don't become partners in what could have been a galactic version of Training Day. Although, what's cool about that is if you want to catch that version of the Hal Jordan origin story, just check out Green Lantern First Flight, the animated direct to DVD movie. Still, Mark Strong both in looks and personality is exactly how I hoped Sinestro could be in a live action movie.

Peter Sarsgaard's Hector Hammond is a worthwhile character to see evolve throughout the movie. In some says I imagined Hammond as a grown up version of Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker portrail, if Peter had never gotten bit by a radioactive spider and never got the chance to stick up for himself. A quiet guy who keeps to himself, playing chess on his computer (I'm guessing it was against the computer and not some online deal that would require him to play with an actual person), Hammond seems like the guy who got picked on to the point where he withdrew into himself. When he teaches class you can tell the only person interested in what he has to say is himself because he doesn't know how to relate to others that don't have a common interest to his own. His autopsy of Abin Sur after the government recovers the body leads to Hammond being infected by Parallax which mutates Hammond into an elephant man looking creature who uses telekineses to inflict pain on others. Sarsgaard brought more than you'd expect to such a character, managing to make him somewhat sympathetic yet very creepy at the same time.

Another major player is the CGI, both through depicting characters like Tomar Re, Kilowog, The Guardians, the Green Lantern Corps, and Parallax and the alien landscapes of Oa, the home world from the Green Lanterns. I enjoyed seeing the various nods to all of the different aliens who make up the Corps. Watching the movie on DVD will help pick out all the various characters they managed to fit into the Oa scenes. But I definitely felt that the way the CGI, while trying to make the characters feel real, added to the comic book feel of the movie. That in no way is a slam, it's more of a compliment that the overall look of the characters felt like they were lifted from the comic page and brought to life, yet another reason I couldn't help but smile.

The idea of the Green Lantern suit being CGI is an interesting and bold move. I understand why the filmmakers would go in that direction, since the idea is the ring helps create the suit for the Lanterns. As someone who is used to seeing an actual suit on super heroes since watching Superman as a child, there is a part of me that thinks the CGI is awesome and at the same time it's a little sad to think there isn't a Green Lantern outfit in a wardrobe somewhere in Hollywood. Still, once the effects were added (the crackling energy glow around the suit is a great detail to catch, depending on the scene) the suit did look awesome. As someone who always loved the Prince Adam transformation to He-Man, I got a kick out of watching Hal turn into Green Lantern each time. If I can come close to being able to pull off that transformation by being a Lantern, sign me up.

There's been so much negative talk about this movie that I've gotten to a point where I've taken offense on a personal level. It's like critics only expect Oscar worthy movies to come out. Movies must be serious and brooding, especially comic book movies, otherwise they aren't worth the time of day. Even though The Dark Knight made people sit up and take notice based on it being a crime drama that had a guy dressed up like a bat as the main character, critics and fans point to it as the pinnacle of what a comic movie should be. I'm sorry, as much as I appreciate The Dark Knight as a movie, I don't want every single comic book movie to BE that. The trend of being dark, adult and brooding doesn't need to be applied to every comic book adaptation. Sometimes you just need to have a good time and enjoy the ride, which is what Green Lantern offers. In the vein of movies like The Rocketeer, The Last Starfighter, Spider-Man and even Star Wars, Green Lantern embraces it's roots as a sci fi comic book adventure and I love it for doing so.

DO OVER!!!

Sorry, true believers, for taking so long to update my blog. There's been many, many new developments in my life since my last post (some extremely good and some not good at all) but the one that I wanted to touch upon tonight is something that's been in the media for a few weeks now: DC Comics reinvisioning themselves.

As I write this post I realized I'm wearing a Flash t-shirt that a friend got me when I was a groomsman in his wedding. I've been a fan of Superman since I was old enough to know who the character was and what he was about. Heck, it's ingrained in my DNA that when the John Williams score for Superman kicks in I want to stand up and salute like it's my own version of the National Anthem. If you look around my studio room you'd see a collection of action figures, some of which are Superman, Batman, Flash and even Aquaman. I also own a Batman shirt (which a train conductor recently told me I needed to leave with him because he thought it was awesome... and it is which is why I bought it), a Blue Lantern Flash shirt (which was my pride and joy find from last year's Baltimore Comic Con), a Superboy shirt (I didn't realize at the time it was a Superboy one, I just thought the S shield on a black shirt was badass... it was before I picked up Teen Titans after Geoff Johns took it over... sue me!), and a "distressed" version of the Superman shield. I also have more than a few of the good DC comic movies in my collection of DVDs as well as seasons of Smallville and Justice League Unlimited (which was a brilliant, brilliant show).

Am I the biggest DC fan of all time? I doubt it. Not by a long shot. I know someone who could rattle on and on about DC continuity since the Golden Age of comics. I'm sure there's many fans out there who could trump my comic collection and my overall knowledge of DC and it's universe or if you want to go one step further into geekdom, it's multiverse. Nope, I am humble enough to know when to say when. But that doesn't mean I don't care or have some opinion about the upcoming September event of DC Comics overhauling everything and starting from the ground up.

For those who might not know, at the moment DC is publishing a title called Flashpoint which finds the Flash in an alternate reality from the standard DC continuity. In this reality, for instance, Bruce Wayne never became Batman. He was killed, along with his mother, when the Waynes were mugged in Crime Alley. Thomas Wayne, Bruce's dad, was the lone survivor and became Batman. An interesting twist for sure. Apparently the wrap up for Flashpoint will lead into the DC universe being overhauled with all of their characters skewing younger, updates for their costumes and possibly origins, and 52 different titles starting off with a #1 issue.

That's bold to say the least.

The changes are out there for all to see online, most of which I've been following on bleedingcool.com since the news broke. If DC wanted to get people talking and at least curious over their big changes, I'd say they got their wish as many, many, many fanboys and girls have thrown their two cents into the ring. I'm not looking to be the jerky guy online badmouthing or singing the gospel of what DC is doing. I just want to call it like I see it.

My initial reaction, beyond "cool, let's see what they'll do" is it reminds me a lot of how I met my friend Mark. Don't worry, I'm not going to get sad here. It just reminds me of when we first met while I was working part-time at the local comic store. He was kicking around ideas on how he'd do an Ultimate Superman title, since Marvel was rolling out their Ultimate line for people who wanted to have less continuity to bog down their reading and more streamlined (at times) storytelling (as well as the ability to do whatever they wanted compared to being owned to continuity in the normal, non-ultimate titles). His idea for Superman was an analog to diabetes, something Mark knew about all too well. Superman would absorb the sun's rays, just like in the normal books, but if he didn't use those powers his body would find a way to expel them. Other than his face and hands, Superman would be covered as much as possible to limit his consumption of solar radiation, while Ultimate Clark Kent would be the sort of kid that would look weird because he'd be wearing long sleeves and jeans on even the hottest of days. Some of the backstory for Superman was reworked by both of us as we took on the idea and worked together to spitball ideas, sometimes til 4 in the morning at the parking lot of Applebees on Wednesday nights. We had the idea that Krypton would be like the Roman empire, conquering planets, taking what's useful from them and then moving on, sometimes enslaving entire races. Some of those races start a revolt which leads to a kamikaze run to destroy Krypton's sun, which does manage to destroy Krypton but it also gives birth to the abomination known to fans of Superman as Doomsday.

Mark and I were very proud of the way we turned some of the mythology on it's ear. It became such an epic undertaking that we couldn't explain to anyone on the outside even HALF of the ideas we cooked up. Just off the cuff, we had Martha Kent passing away, leaving Clark to help take care of his elderly father while also trying to hold down a job AND be Superman. We had Lois Lane very skeptical of who Superman was and actually being somewhat smitten with normal old Clark Kent for once. We also threw everyone for a loop to reimagine Lex Luthor as a woman and start her introduction to the reader in a very intimate scene with Bruce Wayne where the majority of the dialogue was "Ooooh, Bruce!" followed by an "Ohhhh, Lex!" a few panels later. As a fan of the normal continuity, I would have turned that page faster than the Flash to see what the heck was going on in that moment.

We also worked up the story to a point where one of the giant tent pole events was called Doomsday, and event where for 24 hours in Ultimate DC time the entire universe got to feel the pain and agony that Doomsday would inflict. We had Bruce Wayne Batman getting killed trying to hold the line against Doomsday at the "Welcome to Gotham City" sign. We had the fastest man alive, Flash, trying to distract Doomsday from hurting innocents (in Ultimate DC we had the Flash as a loving nod to the hope that Christopher Reeve could someday walk again, so we had the Flash as a paralized athlete who got a second chance on life when Superman willingly let scientists research his DNA, helping cure the Flash of his paralysis), until Doomsday finally catches him and drags him from Keystone City all the way to Metropolis where he calls out Superman. We also decided we'd let Superman fall, that was it, case closed. And then once we spitballed more ideas we discovered that we figured out a way to bring him back that actually made sense. And we ran with it again, standing outside until 4 am just kicking around these ideas.

There's so much history to those ideas. There's so many epic moments that just the thought of them made me get chills. We had so many concepts to kick around, making the familiar new and different enough that Mark and I wanted to visit those worlds. We loved seeing characters like Green Arrow getting on a super human show that was a nod to Survivor and try to become the hero of Star City. We loved turning Batman into "Darth Vader but in Gotham" as I pitched to him shortly after his Ultimate Superman idea. I still loved the idea of Tim Drake stepping into the shoes of Batman after being trained by Dick Grayson in the wake of Bruce's death. The poor guy is in over his head, using his detective skills from when he was part of the GCPD to try and solve crimes, but taking too long and letting other crimes happen while he researched. Finally at his breaking point, when he's on the trail of a super villain serial killer known as Azrael and they meet for the first time, Azrael greets him with a "Thank you for helping me do the good Lord's work in Gotham" and Tim's only reply, finally embracing the rage that helped fuel Bruce to become the Batman, "God doesn't live in Gotham" as their showdown begins.

After the idea of Ultimate DC was huge enough in it's mythology to crush an elephant, Mark and I looked at each other and realized how far we came verses how much work we had really managed to accomplish. Plus, the simple fact was we'd never be invited to play with the toys we wanted to play with in the way that we were enjoying unless it was in simple fan fiction. When we came to that realization, we both agreeably walked away from our Ultimate DC world. We would definitely return from time to time, kicking around ideas to build more and more mythology, more and more ways of reworking characters, and each time we'd smile and laugh and sigh realizing that the light of day would never be brought to our passion project. But the thing about DC's new relaunch for me is I get to revisit that playground with Mark one more time. So even if this new idea for DC doesn't work out in the long run, thank you DC Comics for allowing me to revisit the idea for the universe that Mark and I both had a hand in creating, not out of wanting to one up you or think we could do better. We just liked seeing if different could still feel the same, but in such a way to keep people wondering what would happen next.

Even though I just threw so many ideas at you, poor readers, there's still so much under the surface that it would take most of the night for me to try and relate it to you. The point is, for better, worse, indifferent or even excited, DC is willing to go where Mark and I began to tread back in 2005 and 2006. I'm sure their versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and all of the rest of DC's pantheon of heroes and villains won't be what I had envisioned 5 years ago with my best friend. But I am more than willing to give it a shot and see what happens next. Honestly, when the news hit that the first of the 52 comics they're releasing as #1 issues is a new Justice League with Geoff Johns AND Jim Lee working on it, they already sealed the deal of having my money for that issue. There's still much to say about this topic, and I do plan to write more on my thoughts. For the moment, just stay tuned and don't stop believin'.

The inside joke that turned into a poster...

This has been the year when my friend Mark was a presence here at my blog. It's hard for him not to be since there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about him or have something remind me of him. It's been almost a year since he passed away (or as I like to think more and more, since he became one with The Force), which is still amazing to realize.

I'd end up talking to people about some of the things he used to say or do. One of the stories that wouldn't go away was when Mark brought the idea of Muppet Watchmen to the table. It was around the time the Watchmen movie was coming out and I guess somewhere in his incredibly creative and funny mind he started seeing the previews with the Muppets cast as the various characters. The idea became our personal inside joke for a long time and it's something that still comes up when all of his friends get together.

How ironic that I ended up being asked to create a print of what the Muppets might look like if they were really cast in Watchmen as a Christmas present. I jumped at the chance to work on it just so I could creatively turn back time to when Mark would sit with all of the guys at Applebees and kick around ideas on how the Muppets would sound reciting the lines from the graphic novel. Back in those days I never felt I was good enough with my talent to capture anything the way that might give justice to his ideas. This time around, I pushed passed that notion.

It took me a few months to work this print up into what it became. Between trying to make a composition that could capture some of the main characters to hoping my Wacom tablet and my talent were up to the challenge, it was a bit of an uphill battle some days. Still, I'm actually quite proud of the result. One of my favorites in the piece is actually Fozziemandias. He was one of the hardest to create. I'm not at all displeased with how Silk Sow manages to look, either.

Because I know how most of my friends have been feeling this year since Mark's passing, I decided to give anyone who knew him this print as a Christmas/Holiday present of sorts. Though I do hope to work on something that shows how talented Mark was with creating story ideas like he did with his co-writer Randy or even the ones he helped me mold, too, at a time of the year when you look around and remember who's important to you in your life, there's something fitting about seeing the Watchmuppets print and remembering just how much laughter that one person could bring into another's life.

My only regret is that I couldn't hear the laughter he would have had if I gave him a print, too.