Hey Can We Also Get 9 More Episodes of “Carnivale”?!!

Hey anything is possible these days in the way of TV and movies now that we have fans demanding what they want to see via social media, blogs ect. It’s been proven that us fans aren’t as dense as Hollywood would like to believe we are, we enjoy intelligent well crafted television show and movies dammit-we really do! The announcement of David Lynch’s new upcoming season of Twin Peaks is proof of fans interest in shows that may have, at one point, been too bizarre for television at the time. So recently I’ve decided to watch “Carnivale” again, which is one of my favorite HBO shows of all time! Unfortunately this show only got two seasons despite being nominated and winning five Emmy awards, the show was deemed too inaccessible for the average viewer.

This is one of the reasons the show was so great, it clearly didn’t fit the mold of the average television show. I believe if the show was broadcast today (it originally aired in 2003) it would have much stronger audience. The show’s complex story and rich history never was given enough of a chance to unfold onscreen, the cast had barely a traditional pretty Hollywood face anywhere in sight. The show was dark, epic, gritty, extremely creepy, exploring the darker sides of religion good and evil. It’s sets and styling were perfect period, every episode was eye candy. It at the time had quite a high cost of 2 million per episode and a large ensemble cast. The show ended far too soon and for years fans have attempted to get petitions going to get it back on air with no luck.

However as I watch these two seasons again in 2014 they actually feel like they were made now and not over ten years ago. I’m not sure how the show might pick up this many years later, but I’d certainly love to catch what might be the case with Ben Hawkins, Samson and the crew. It’d be a great reason for Nick Stahl to clean up his act. This a show that has many questions left, and it’s plot, symbolism and themes to this day still have people debating. So let’s continue the journey with this traveling Carnivale, I guarantee it’s a far more compelling trip than American Horror Story “Freak Show” could ever be!!!

The 1989 “Trial of The Hulk” Daredevil Returns in Marvel’s Netflix Series?! WTF?!

Ummm…this is a bit of an odd surprise here, we just got the official look at the new Marvel Daredevil from the upcoming Netflix series today and well it seems they’ve decided upon the 1989 “Trial of The Incredible Hulk” TV series version of the characters costume!!? I’m not kidding this is exactly the same costume design from that movie that Rex Smith wore! Which, um….wasn’t really the best interpretation of the character I’ve seen, heck I might even take the Affleck Daredevil’s maroon leather look over this one! Don’t believe me? Check out this newly released pic:

 

And now let’s look at the 1989 Trial of The Incredible Hulk Tv version:

Ummm…kinda Baffling huh? I guess we’ll see how this all plays out, my guess is the newly released Marvel pic above could be Daredevil’s starter costume? Like maybe it’s the first one that he puts together? If not boy that sucks!!! I wonder if John Rhys-Davies will be returning as the Kingpin?!!!

 

Don’t Put Shatner in The Next Star Trek!

Can you believe it-I’m asking for William Shatner to NOT be in the next Star Trek flick?! It’s something I thought I’d never say, but after hearing recent news that the original Captain Kirk might now be appearing in the next installment of the big screen Trek adventures I came to the conclusion that sometimes you have to just leave nostalgia alone. After an excellent reboot of the Star Trek universe that didn’t diminish or erase the original series/the movies, but rather connected them together perfectly and adding Spock Nimoy Prime to the equation successfully, somehow we still got the god awful sequel  “Into Darkness”. This was a movie that somehow dumbed down the Trek mythos into a cheap action flick while totally ruining the legacy of the series number one villain Khan. Pondering what would come next in the series as a Trek fan for the first time wasn’t something that I was particularly excited about.

So now we have a Abrams-less Star Trek film and now they’re planning on putting William Shatner back into the equation. Sure this sounds like a possibly entertaining trip down memory lane, something that true fans might totally dig. I say it sounds a bit like a bit of a mess. They got lucky once adding Nimoy and for the most part pulling it off quite well. However I’d much rather just have an intriguing compelling science fiction adventure without all the corny business. Stop with the Khan, Shatner, Nimoy nostalgia while you’re ahead and just give us a solid trek through the unknown regions of the galaxy with the crew that you so carefully set in place. We don’t need William Shatner in these movies or any other original series actors. Let’s for this next movie forget about the past.

 

I’d love to see  some new threats to the crew, hell I don’t even want to see a damn Klingon yet in this series! The reason why Star trek was “reset” was so that we could boldly go where no one has gone before. Adding Shat to the mix would be a cheesy move at this point, we already did the whole time travel thing once. Twice might not be quite as charming. They mentioned that Shatner could appear as the old version of Chris Pine’s Kirk-but really Pine’s Kirk is quite different than Shatner’s. To jam him in the movie would be just so that Shatner could be in it because they can.

There’s really no other other reason and it’s a shame for them it’s not as graceful as putting Mark Hamill in episode 7. Shatner is the real Kirk and always will be but I don’t think he needs to be on the Enterprise this time around-what do you think?

Cool Indie Comic Book Alert: Help Push “The Plowshare”!!

There’s nothing I love more than seeing friends with great ideas and talent get out there and make their dreams a reality! So I was downright intrigued when I saw this cool comic book project pop up on Kickstarter, from people back in my hometown of Neenah, Wisconsin, a place where I spent much of my youth!  It’s always been a dream of mine to write and or illustrate a comic book of my own. I spend a fair amount of time drawing these  days, mainly for our weekly D&D games where I illustrate the games villains and player characters (which I will be posting here shortly), but I have never attempted a real legit comic book. So after taking a closer look at “The Plowshare” I couldn’t help but feel incredibly inspired!

This comic written by Doug Flaherty and beautifully illustrated by Dan Wheeler tells a rather chilling tale: “Eager to escape the big city, if only for a day, our unnamed male character follows railroad tracks deep into the country where he, by pure chance, finds himself in a field where numerous men are engaged in a ritual which leads to the death of the revered leader. Our man from the city faces the horror that he might be snatched and held as a future sacrifice.”

The Plowshare Comic

It’s clear that Wheeler is on top of his game here, his art is stunning and it’s a bit baffling that he’s not a big name in today’s comic scene. I have a feeling that if this project meets it’s goals that may soon change. Doug Flaherty sites Neil Gaiman as a major influence, and to me that’s quite a good first sign as to this little project’s promise. It’s refreshing doing a post here for something like this that isn’t connected to a giant corporation, spitting out mind numbing stories by the boatload. I love a great original idea being pushed by an underdog and proving that you don’t need to rely on a company with big bucks to get your ideas out there to the public, thanks to modern technology. It’s power to the people and the time is now to do it. So Take a second to check out this dark tale right here at The Plowshare’s official Kickstarter page!! They need the funding to get this printed and into people’s hands and every little bit helps!

The Signal: Totally Tense Cerebral Sci-Fi!

If anyone out there likes their sci-fi with a side of brains and heart like I do then look no further! “The Signal” delivers and then some! Not to be mistaken for the zombie type “The Signal” flick from 2007, which was actually pretty decent. This is a completely different movie that only recently came out on dvd, Itunes ect. I’ve seen quite a bit of dumb ass sci-fi making it’s way to the masses over the years, so it’s great to see movies that actually challenge the brain like “Moon”, “Looper” or “The Europa Report” to name a few. The Signal, starring Brenton Thwaites and Laurence Fishburne is quite an adventure that will have you scratching your head in confusion and wonder all the way to the films incredibly tense climax.

 

The films premise starts out simple enough,On a road trip, Nic and two friends are drawn to an isolated area by a computer hacker, who’s been toying with them online all school year. Upon investigating an old seemingly abandoned house where the traced the hacker’s signal, one of them disappears. When everything suddenly goes dark, Nic regains consciousness – only to find himself alone & confused, in an odd medical facility. To give away anything would be a crime, but this one is indeed filled with some great twists and turns that will have you guessing all the way.

 

The Signal has top notch acting, incredible special effects and a ton of thrills that will have you on the edge of your seat. I’m excited to check out what else the film’s director William Eubank has done and what he’s got planned next. He’s certainly a director to watch in the future. I’m hoping that we can get more serious sci-fi elements into the next installments of something like Star Trek on the big screen, as even with the old episodes from the 1960’s they often had some really great plots that really made you think. An element that is often missing from modern sci-fi, instead we often end up with sci-fi for people with A.D.D.! So I say waste no time and check this one out right away if you want something truly unique, original and totally exciting!!

The Walking Dead #132: The Zombies Stay Stupid!

Late last night I finished reading Walking Dead #132, and just as this book was finally starting to grab my interest again it kind shifted back into the same gears it has been for far too long. So stop reading now if you fear any SPOILERS! I’ve said it here for quite some time now, that this title needs a major injection of something different to add some new excitement to it’s ongoing apocalyptic story. Well most recently we had a stir of exactly that, when a group from Rick’s settlement stumbled upon supposed zombies that could speak! The idea of this alone was exciting and intriguing to me, perhaps a little nod to “Day of the Dead” and full of possibilities for future story lines.

Could you imagine a new threat in the form of an intelligent horde of flesh eaters! Now that’s frightening! I imagined  villains far more ruthless than Negan or The Governor, an undead villain and the threats that they could pose to the existence of the human race. Well along comes issue #132, and it once again hits upon this new threat now being confirmed by Dante and his crew, the dead indeed are speaking! I felt that surge of excitement I haven’t felt in quite sometime in this title-but then I turned the page and yet something entirely different was revealed, something I had been hoping would not be the case here…The undead are still mindless-we have a new group of evil, evil humans once again…uggh….only this time they are dressing up as zombies. I had figured this might be the case when the idea was first crossed in the book a couple issues back.

My balloon is officially deflated. It seems that Kirkman wishes to keep this title on the same rails it always has been, Zombies=bad, Humans=more bad!!  We have read this story countless times here in this title, it was great for the first 100 issues if that. Now though a great opportunity has been missed, the chance to do something different here. Perhaps people are totally digging this comic book still and I’m totally off base here and runnin’ my mouth like a mo-fo?!

Still I can’t help but wonder how this title could be if Kirkman wasn’t so afraid to break the mold he’s made for this series. What about the rest of the world? No one in Rick’s company cares to know if perhaps there are areas that are safe or unaffected? They just wanna build this little settlement and live? No one cares about a cure? What if there’s more to this whole story, one that’s larger than Rick? Are we at this point just supposed to accept that Rick is starting civilization again and that the rest of the world is a total wasteland? I’d love to see these questions answered and I’d love to see this threat evolve into something more interesting, if zombies can be a reality what else might be out there? Unfortunately that’s a subject Kirkman doesn’t feel confident enough to explore, I love a good drama but come on, this book could be SO much more today…please tell me what all of you think?! Am I just a Walking Dead hater?!!

Comic Book Cover of the Week: Vintage Snake Eyes!

Here’s a great blast from the past, GI Joe #53, by none other than Mike Zeck! Duh! You know I am starting to think that he might be the best cover artist of the 1980’s as I’ve seen a trend of consistently posting covers by him during that era. He did a ton of super awesome GI Joe Covers back in the day. You know all of us kids back then were obsessed with Snake Eyes! This was a simple, basic but totally bad ass cover that showcased how cool the character was-proving you just can’t ever go wrong with a god damn ninja!!

What’s even more bad ass is the full picture Zeck originally drew-Check it!!

Automata: Antonio Banderas Shows The Fresh Prince How to do The Robot!!!

Been really digging what I have seen lately on the the upcoming “Automata” trailer starring Antonio Banderas! Can you believe it? I have a bit of a soft spot now for Antonio after seeing him in the latest Expendables movie, where he totally stole the show. Now we all can officially forget about the terrible pile of robotic bull shit that was I, Robot from 2004, you know the one with The Fresh Prince prancin’ around like a wise ass dipshit?! Here we have something that really looks quite a bit closer to Isaac Asimov’s vision, at least by the trailer, which is quite impressive.

It for starters blends some amazing special fx both digital and practical the way that it should have been done in the first place. Second it looks like it’s got a bit more heart and mind to it as well and even reminds me a bit of Blade Runner in the best ways possible. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet for this check it out, this looks like Sci-Fi done just the way I like it…

Fastner & Larsen’s Classic 1980’s Comic Book Paintings!!

As a kid I loved the Fastner & Larsen superhero paintings they did back in the 1980’s which were often sold as portfolios! These two started out drawing fantasy & scantily clad sci fi pin up girls and muscle bound dudes, I’d imagine that Frank Cho must have had mega inspiration from these two. Eventually they were approached by Marvel to do some work and boy did they ever! As a kid I had these portfolios and they still today remain some of my favorite pics of some of my favorite superheroes. Today these guys still do amazing art check out their website, and check out some of these classic comic book paintings from yesteryear! Stuff like this is why I love comic books today sooo much!

Comic Book Cover of The Week: Mazzucchelli Batman and Daredevil!

I think this awesome cover to Batman #405 (better known as “Year One, Part 2”) deserves to showcased here. First of all it’s proves that sometimes simplicity works best for an effective comic book cover! Second it’s drawn by one of my favorite comic book artists, David Mazzucchelli! In my opinion his version of Batman is perfect, forget the battle armor kevlar BS, this is the perfect Dark Knight stripped down and dirty. This was a great series too written by classic writer Frank Miller (now a total D-Bag) it’s considered now one of the best Batman Stories of all time.

Mazzucchelli also drew some of the best Daredevil comics of all time (also teaming up with Frank Miller), in a similar tone he proves that Daredevil is Marvel’s Batman. This has inspired me to get the full scoop on what David Mazzucchelli is up to now, so expect a post on that soon!

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