Welcome back to another super-sized edition of ATR.
Sit back, we’re gonna jump right in…
You’ll Believe A Man Can Fly
Superman II has long been viewed as a missed opportunity by fans of Richard Donner’s original Superman: The Movie. The first two Superman movies were initially shot simultaneously under Donner’s direction, until a dispute with the producers led to his replacement on the second film by Richard Lester. Subsequently, most of Superman II was reshot, with the majority of Donner’s footage left unused. However, a number of Donner’s scenes were reinserted into the first televised broadcasts of the film. Some of the new scenes included the final fate of the Kryptonian villains and the destruction of the Fortress of Solitude. Later airings of the film reverted to the theatrical cut, leaving the new footage largely unseen…
Until now.
Almost four years ago, a group of dedicated Superman fans around the world sent out the call for video recordings of the first televised broadcasts. Thousands of dollars and countless hours were spent restoring the footage and reintegrating it into the film. And finally, the results of their hard work are ready to be seen. The project leaders have announced that the Superman II: Restored International Cut two disk DVD set has been completed. According to the announcement, the set contains:
The complete two hour, twenty-six minute version of the film.
On-screen commentary track, detailing what footage Donner shot, and other Restored International Cut trivia.
Long out of print documentary "The Making of Superman II."
Long out of print "Superman II Soundtrack."
"Lost Scene Gallery" featuring pictures of Donner's unreleased work on Superman II.
"Restoration Demonstration" showing before and after footage examples.
Complete RIC artwork folder. All the artwork, from the cover to the disc art, it's all included in TIFF file format.
Also included is the following message to Donner, which explains the motivations behind this project:
An Open Letter to Richard Donner
Your work is not forgotten. This restoration project, the Restored International Cut exists as a tribute to your vision and efforts.
It's been more than twenty years, and your fans are still patiently waiting for the real Superman II. Many of us have gone to great lengths just to get a glimpse of the film we've long been wanting to see. While we wait for an official release, the bootlegging community has shown no qualms in charging fans extravagant prices for low quality reproductions of footage known to exist. It is our hope that this project will offer fans a more reasonable way of obtaining those scenes.
This Restored International Cut of Superman II has two main purposes. First, to give fans the opportunity to see those scenes in the best possible manner, without having to pay inflated bootleg prices. This whole endeavor has been done as a labor of love, and is strictly non-profit. Secondly, to let you, Warner Brothers, and anyone else with influence know that the fans are still eager to see the rest of your lost work on Superman II.
Thank you and everyone else who collaborated with you, for all your hard work on the Superman films. I hope someday, all the fans of this film will have the opportunity to see the rest of your vision.
As stated above, the Superman II Restored International Cut was a non-profit project and thus, it is not available for sale. However, the creators behind this project want to ensure that Superman fans everywhere get a chance to see this DVD. Towards that end, free copies are being made and distributed. And fans are being encouraged to make more copies to share with others. There is a forum, to request copies of the RIC, which can be found here. Due to a large number of initial responses, the request list is currently closed, but it should be reopened soon.
A trailer for the Superman II Restored International Cut is already online and can be seen here. It not only demonstrates the restoration of the footage, it also includes a preview of an even more ambitious project: the Superman II Green Cut. The Green Cut will be a fan edit of the film with spruced up special effects and reedited, to remove some of Lester's changes, in order to create a film more in keeping with Donner’s original vision of Superman II.
This Has A “Last Son of Krypton” Factor of Ten Out of Ten
Lady In Scarlet
Word going around this week is that Harris Comics will be relaunching Vampirella as a full color comic book series this Fall. The new series is said to be a revamp, “with more of a Buffy feel”, in terms of darker, character driven stories. The creators attached to the new series are rumored to be Christopher Priest and Eric Battle.
One of the more interesting things I heard about the relaunch, was the notion that Vampirella is not actually a vampire, instead she’s a demon from Hell (Drakulon) sent to destroy all vampires. As I understand it, that’s not a new addition to her origin, but it will be played up in the upcoming series.
This Has An “Ascending Evil” Factor of Seven Out of Ten
William The Bloody
Earlier this week, Peter David posted a preview of his upcoming Spike one-shot over at his official website. According to David, the story chronicles the first meeting between Spike and the Vengeance Demon, Halfrek/Cecily. The artist for the one-shot is Fernando Goni, whose pages can be seen below:
This Has A “Fool For Love” Factor of Eight Out of Ten
Avast Ye Mateys
And going three for three with vampire stories…
Rick Remender and Kieron Dwyer’s Sea of Red # 1 hit the stands this past Wednesday. And leave it to James Sime, the proprietor of the Isotope to come up with another innovative promotion to get the book into the hands of the readers. For free copies of Sea of Red, fans were encouraged to call the Isotope on Wednesday night, ask for Remender and Dwyer, then “threaten, annoy, curse, or make ridiculous piratey demands.” So… I did, even though I already had a copy. But who can pass up a chance to swear like a pirate?
Of course, that’s not to say I went away empty handed. Not at all. In fact, here’s an early look at the first eight pages for Sea of Red # 2, layouts by Dwyer with pencils, inks and colors by Salgood Sam.
This Has A “Scurvy Bilge Rats” Factor of Nine Out of Ten
Stuck In The Middle
Javier Grillo-Marxuach has had an extensive career as screenwriter, having written for several television series, including The Dead Zone, Boomtown, Jake 2.0, The Pretender, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Currently serving as a writer/supervising producer for the ABC series, Lost, Grillo-Marxuach is also set to make his comic book debut this summer with The Middleman, from Viper Comics. Recently, Grillo-Marxuach took the time to answer a few questions about his upcoming comic:
Blair Marnell: Tell us about The Middleman. What’s it about?
Javier Grillo-Marxuach: The Middleman is the story of a girl in her early twenties who has found herself in a cycle of meaningless jobs to pay her student loans. She’s someone who is stuck in that post college rut that I think a lot of people can identify with. She’s become jaded about life, in terms of being a fallen romantic. Her great expectations have been laid into the ground by the mundaneness of everyday life. And in the course of doing one of her meaningless temp jobs, she gets drawn into this incredible circumstance that puts her in direct contact with a guy called The Middleman. The Middleman is an operative for an organization so secretive that even he doesn’t know what it is. His job is to take care of comic book type menaces that threaten the real world. There are monsters and super-villains… things like that and he’s the guy that deals with them. Because there are no superheroes, there’s just him.
Beyond the high concept, what it really is about is the clash of these two characters, one of whom is this total square-jaw straight arrow kind of guy and this girl who has a sassy attitude towards life. That’s actually the reason she’s recruited for the job. She’s so jaded, that the sight of monsters and aliens doesn’t really faze her. Her generation’s sense of isolation makes her the perfect candidate for dealing with things beyond the realm of imagination.
BM: I knew my generation was good for something.
JG-M: [laughs] Yeah… too much Playstation and sugar have actually made her the perfect monster hunter. [laughs] But you know, the book is also about her dealing with this man who is someone she would never meet in her regular life. He’s a former Navy Seal, spit and polish. He doesn’t use profanities, doesn’t drink… and yet at the same time he has a healthy disregard for authority and always does the right thing. The thing is, he infuriates her more than she infuriates him. He’s an immensely patient guy, who has taken her under his wing and can put up with all of her foibles. It’s a reversal of the “authority being annoyed by the anti-authoritarian” paradigm. The book is really about the core relationship between these two characters, as much as it is about the monsters and all that stuff. We also go into her life, her friends and how her new employment affects that part of her life.
BM: How does The Middleman compare to something like Men in Black?
JG-M: I’m trying to have fun with a lot of the conventions of the genre and things like that. Even though Men in Black is a comedy, it’s rooted in conspiracy theories, UFO lore, etc… and I’m making fun of the entire idea of the super-secret government organization, almost by doing away with it entirely instead of making a statement about it directly. It’s a convention of comic books that everyone works for a super-secret organization. So, I’ve created an organization that’s so secret, that even the people who work for it don’t know what it is or understand it. And it goes from there. Everything that happens in the book is making fun of some convention from science fiction. One of the things that happened in the Men in Black movies, which I didn’t really enjoy, was that they relied so much on the concept that when the big danger shows up you aren’t as invested in how they resolve themselves. I’m trying to take the focus away from the concept and back onto the characters, so I can put my characters in dangerous situations, but because you’ve come to know them and like them, you’ll worry about whether they’ll actually survive something. To me, Men in Black became so wrapped involved in its own mythology that it became an entity in of itself. The contrast between the real world and the world they dealt with vanished. Especially in the second movie and it became really abstract. Middleman is really Wendy’s story. She’s still trying to live her life, to be a painter and a twenty-something girl while being involved in the Middleman organization. She doesn’t have to give up her life to be a part of it, but it certainly messes with her life. By keeping that part of it alive, the danger and the absurdity of it are more tangible threats to her existence. I don’t think it compares to Men in Black. It’s a different take on the material. The Middleman organization is a way to get characters I like to write into situations that are really bizarre, which can be both frightening and funny at the same time.
BM: How did you hook up with your artist, Les McClaine?
JG-M: I had seen Highway 13 when Slave Labor was putting it out. That was Les’ first book. Basically, the whole idea behind making Middleman a comic book came from Paul Dini, who I was very inspired by. I’ve been working with him on Lost and followed his endeavors in comic books. I had a script that I really liked and wanted to make it into a comic book, because it’s really the only venue that can bring it to life in the best possible way. So I just started thinking about what the art would look like and if I had to approach artists that I liked, who would I pick? Les was the first one to come to mind. I got in touch with him, he liked the script and went to work on it. Immediately, after I got the first batch of sketches from him, I thought, “This guy is great. I love what he’s doing. This is my guy.” I understand that I’m actually very lucky that way. Apparently it’s very difficult to find someone who shares your vision that way. By complete miraculous serendipity, I found someone whose art I really liked and who had a vision that was just tremendously synergistic and complimentary with what I had to say.
He’s not a hired gun on the project; he’s an owner and co-creator of The Middleman.
BM: What drew you to Viper Comics?
JG-M: I really liked Dead@17 and I wanted this to be published by an indie company. The Middleman is a book that has a really quirky point of view and mentality. I sent it to a couple of publishers on that scale and I really responded to Jessie's energy and enthusiasm - he wanted the project and was willing to do what he had to do to get it out by the San Diego Comic Con, which is when I wanted it to premiere. He just seemed to me, to be a can do guy whose word means something. When he says he’s going to do something, he does it. I just really like their attitude and I like their books. I had read Daisy Kutter and Dead@17 before that and both are really cool books. That’s who you want to be in business with, people whose books are in your stash week after week. That’s who you want to work with.
BM: When is The Middleman coming out, and how many issues will it be?
JG-M: We’re going to premiere The Middleman at the San Diego Comic Con. For me, one of the highlights of Comic Con will be the unveiling of the “Completely Inaccurate Variant Cover” which Les is drawing especially for that show. Our book has a certain style and look to it, and sure, it’s got the babes and the handsome guy and all that. But we thought we really needed to create a variant cover that completely overstated the wrong virtues of the book. So, we’re just going to throw a lot of sex and violence into the cover and hopefully create a cover which is so out of the realm what we’re doing that it may actually fall back into the realm of what we’re doing! I think it’s a tradition when doing a variant cover that you don’t really tell the truth about what the book is. Rather than do that unintentionally, we’re going to embrace it and really just misrepresent what the book is about. So you can expect a lot of cleavage. We’ve chosen to embrace the tradition of the inaccurate variant cover and will honor it in the best way that we can.
To answer the rest of your question, The Middleman is a four issue miniseries, coming out monthly starting in July. Hopefully followed by a trade. And if the audience responds to the story we’re telling then the next four issues will be ready to go after that. If the book takes off, we’ll do four issues, then a trade, then another four issues and just keep putting them out. I envision the book as a series with a broad story and I think every four issues I can tell a story that has a beginning, middle and an end with a satisfying climax. That would be great if we could do it that way, instead of just churning it out as a monthly. One good story, four issues long and then move onto the next one.
…
This is a first for ATR, but due to length, we’re going to have run this interview in two parts. So, check back next week, as Grillo-Marxuach tells us what’s coming up on Lost as the first season winds down and also talks about another comic project on the horizon…
This Has A “Rescrambled DNA” Factor of Ten Out of Ten
Denny Colt’s Christmas Carol
While the comic world is abuzz about the news that Jeph Loeb will be writing the script for a feature film version of Will Eisner’s The Spirit, Loeb’s involvement with the character may not end there. According to a recent interview with Tim Sale, Loeb and Sale are in discussions to reunite on a Spirit graphic novel entitled The Christmas Spirit, “inspired by Eisner's own stories of the Spirit at Christmastime.” The Christmas Spirit would be a 48 page one-shot, with Mark Chiarello onboard for colors.
In other news, during the interview, Sale talks about another project he’s looking to do: an oversized coffee-table book of short stories featuring DC heroes like Batman and Superman. With a proposed page count of 220 pages, the book would be aimed at the casual comic fans as well those who regularly follow the characters.
This Has A “Man For All Seasons” Factor of Nine Out of Ten
Bushido Blend
Fiona Avery (Araña) is set to launch her own comic company later this year. Rather than partner with a larger publisher, Avery has opted to self-publish her creator owned titles, the first of which will debut at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. Recently, I caught up with Avery for more on her new endeavor and the story behind her company’s name, Lucky Bamboo Productions:
Lucky Bamboo is a plant from (at least if not more places than) Japan. It is a small, potted plant and is not actually related to Bamboo but looks just like it. It is kept indoors. The name is just a marketing tool, and the plant is unrelated to bamboo. It is a form of dracaena, to be specific. Lucky Bamboo is a plant often used by Feng Shui Masters. Feng Shui philosophy believes that the positioning and physical characteristics of a home affect the fortunes and happiness of its inhabitants. The Taoist take on this practice, involves the pursuit of harmonious and balanced juxtaposition of objects, furniture, buildings and surroundings. Lucky bamboo is considered an effective way to attract positive "chi" energy, thus bringing good fortune and prosperity to those in its environment.
I'm the president and just about every other administrative title at Lucky Bamboo, because my company is not a subsidiary of any other imprint. I employ a host of invisible gremlins who usually do all the daily, administrative work of the company but how I get them is a state secret. I consider Lucky Bamboo Productions the equivalent of a private label winery. Only a few precious bottles of homemade wine are made a year. Same of Lucky Bamboo Productions: some favorites from my vault of untold stories are released in a year.
Adding to my host of invisible gremlins are real gremlins in the form of pencillers, inkers, artists, graphic designers and the Webmastah. You can read about them on the "staff" portion of the Lucky Bamboo Productions website, but I'll give you a glimpse of who we have lined up on art: Billy Tan is pencilling The Way of the Sword, Romano Molenaar is on Hellfire, and a newcomer is working on Sam Falcon. For colors we have the ever-popular Peter Steigerwald and Beth Sotelo, and Marco Galli did the inks for Hellfire. I'm working with Amanda Conner on cover art right now.
It's a creator-owned company, which means I'm the sole writer at Lucky Bamboo. In case you were wondering the stories are told out of Los Angeles, California. There's no central office to visit, just a desk and a cat perch. Like I said, it's a small operation.
I plan to release the first issue, a Limited Edition Preview Issue, at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2005. Come find our booth at the San Diego Comic-Con this year, pick up a comic book and get to know us. The 24-page preview issue contains three short stories from each mini-series to be released the following year from Lucky Bamboo Productions. Hellfire, a story about a modern-day, black-magic sorceress with a heart of gold. The Way of the Sword, a story about a Portuguese missionary's daughter trapped inside Feudal Japan who learns to become a Samurai. And Sam Falcon, a private detective for ... unicorns, fairies and trolls. Features of these three titles are up at the site: http://www.luckybambooproductions.com.
I'll tell you a little bit about our publishing schedule in the company. After the comic-con, Lucky Bamboo releases one comic monthly through Diamond Distributors. The anticipated launch date is January of 2006. We'll then release three mini-series a year, each in four part installments. The first mini-series would release from January through April, the second mini-series from May through August, and the third mini-series from September through December. Some additional mini-series may be one-shots and some may evolve into ongoing series.
This Has A “Warrior’s Code” Factor of Eight Out of Ten
Catwoman Begins
It will take a long time to erase the memory of Halle Berry’s disastrous Catwoman movie from the collective consciousness of fandom. But it looks like we might have some entertaining fan films in the interim. Over at fanflicks.com there’s a preview for Catwoman: Copycat (http://www.catwoman-copycat.com/), which if nothing else, keeps the costume and appearance of Catwoman faithful to the comics.
Amber Moelter, the actress portraying Catwoman has an official website which can be found here. According to a post by Moelter, the short film will be finished sometime this month or next. For more on Catwoman: Copycat, go here.
This Has A “Cat Scratch Fever” Factor of Seven Out of Ten
Hail To The King, Baby
Currently traveling the web at faster than light speeds, this is the side by side picture of Spain’s King Juan Carlos and Magneto from the upcoming House of M: The Pulse.
I believe the comparison shot originated at this blog, which several of our European ATR readers pointed us towards.
There’s also some debate as to whether the pic was simply used as reference or whether it was light-boxed from the original photograph.
This Has A “Magneto Rex” Factor of Eight Out of Ten
The Liberality Bell
Regular ATR readers should hopefully remember Liberality For All, which was described here two weeks ago. Late last week, I received an e-mail from Mike Mackey, the creator of Liberality For All.
Loved your review! (...ya bleedin heart lib! )
Here is a picture of the two alternate covers of the first issue of "Liberality For All" (one by Donny Lin, the other by Fantasy Master, Larry Elmore), so you can add to the review.
I look forward to conducting an interview with you when sales on my book breaks some records.
You know, I should be offended by the entire concept. But instead I find it hilarious. Yeah… I can just tell this is going to be my Civilian Justice.
Looking at the covers, I think I can spot a grim and gritty, G. Gordon Liddy, and from Mackey’s description, I’m assuming that the others are Oliver North, Sean Hannity and his main character, Reagan McGee.
I just have one question… is that dog wearing a monocle?!
This Has An “One Eyed, One Armed Republican” Factor of Three Out of Ten
And that’s all from Rage Central. See you next week.
Later, Blair
PS If anyone has any rumors, stories or news to share, please email me at blairm@silverbulletcomicbooks.com. Thanks to everyone who has been sending stuff in. It’s greatly appreciated.
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