Well, nationwide-ish. Mostly in the South. Twenty states.
Bleeding Cool has been following the progress of Hastings, a multimedia entertainment superstore retailer, moving into comic book store territory. Increasing massively the stock and knowledge base of 138 stores, and creating the largest direct market comic book chain, and the largest single buyer of comic books in the USA.
They’ve sold exclusive variant covers, participated in retailer promotions and now they’re providing the common comic book store service of a pullbox. Comic books pre-ordered and set aside for regular customers, to avoid the Wednesday morning rush.
This will launch on Free Comic Book Day this Saturday. Attendees who pick up free comics from their local Hastings will get a coupon for 25% off their first pullbox order, if they pre-order three or more comics.
See on www.bleedingcool.com
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DC Comics have commissioned a new TV advertising campaign, which will focus on the first hardcover and paperback collections of the DCU New 52, that have now started to be published, and will roll out over the summer.
And they are willing to pay 75% of the airtime costs for any store who runs the ads on local stations, with their details on the end.
Here’s the thirty second and two minute cuts, respectively. Next up… the Before Watchmen TV ads. CLICK THRU TO WATCH THE VIDEOS on www.bleedingcool.com
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, comes under the auspices of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, and houses the National Ignition Facility, or more colloquially, “the world’s largest laser.”
And, for a little while at least, the lab will also play host to JJ Abrams and his Star Trek sequel crew.
Now, they really can’t be filming in there with the laser operational – it creates conditions “similar to those in the stars and the cores of giant planets or in nuclear weapons,” so we should probably assume they just liked the look of the place.
A huge, hi-tech, super-elaborate lab in a room the size of three American football fields, all ready-made and camera-friendly: I’d like it too.
Blastr found talk of the film shoot in The Mercury News, and also ran this image of the Ignition Facility.
Deep in the belly of the Enterprise, maybe?
I’d hazard a wishy-washy guess that the crew of the Enterprise will be looking for some kind of a huge power source. That would tie in with the images of Spock lowering into a volcano we’ve already seen.
Or… maybe not. As I said. Wishy-washy.My final question: the Trek crew are apparently using the alias “the HH project.” Anybody got any idea what that means?
See on www.bleedingcool.com
He’s not a very nice man, this Eric Packer. And he’s got a rather oblique way of expressing himself.
David Cronenberg‘s film of Cosmopolis will take its (deliberately?) pretentious dialogue and (deliberately?) stilted performances to Cannes later this month. There’s a tone to this clip, and to the trailers, that suggests a pretty intense experience. I look forward to seeing it all play out in full.
Thanks to AICN for the embed.
CLICK THRU FOR VIDEO on www.bleedingcool.com
A while ago, when faced with a retailer telling me that Marvel were actively trying to recruit print customers to become digital customers. I joked that if Marvel were actually trying to do that, they’d be giving away tablets.
At Baltimore Comic Con in September, 215 Ink will be selling an branded Android 4.0 tablet, fully loaded with the company’s library of comics, for $99, all in.
With 63 titles currently in the library, with more on the way, that might work out at under $1.50 each.
With a free tablet.
However you look at it, this might be a way for all sorts of people to decide to try out digital comics…
See on www.bleedingcool.com
There was Watchmen. There was Dark Knight. And there was Faust.
Created by David Quinn and Tim Vigil, this disturbingly violent superhero thriller fit the times well. Published by Rebel Studios in 1987, it was published sporadically since in thirteen chapters, while inspiring a film adaptation in 2001.
Well, in October and November, the final fourteenth and fifteenth books will see publication, finishing the story, for the 25th anniversary of the book. Before then, the previous comics will be collected in four books entitled The Communion, putting the whole series back in print.
See on www.bleedingcool.com
It probably didn’t take too much to guess which story would form the basis of the next episode of Sherlock. The last chapter saw Holmes fake his death, and the next one will see him return, and that all points to an adaptation of The Adventure of the Empty House, the story wherein Conan Doyle gave his explanation of what went down.
And Mark Gatiss has now confirmed that this tale will indeed be the basis of the next TV show – but not without some changes. Speaking to the AP, he says:
There’s certain things about The Adventure Of The Empty House which feel set in stone because that’s how Sherlock comes back, but at the same time we feel free to invent and to introduce new stuff to it. I always found it a little unlikely that Dr. Watson’s only reaction was to faint for instance – as supposed to possibly a stream of terrible swear words.
Ah, there’s nothing like a good bit of swearing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Moffat or Gatiss could cook up something to compete with Malcolm Tucker, Don Logan or Loki.
Beyond the big return, however, Gatiss had only this to say about which bits of Doyle might make up the next series:
Steven and I have our all-time favourites, but it’s really a question of what will fit into the structure. We’re sort of guided by our idea for the overall feel of the next three stories.
And so it should be.
Sherlock season 3 is expected to start filming… wow, months from now. And it’s likely twelve to eighteen months before we’ll see it on TV.
See on www.bleedingcool.com
If this is true, Green Arrow has succeeded where Wonder Woman failed and gone from pilot to a series commission.
It’s just a rumour, but CW are said to have given the show the thumbs up for a premiere in this year’s fall TV season. According to The Daily Blam, multiple sources have given them word of the commission.
So while there’s been no official word on this, it sounds pretty likely that we can expect to see Arrow on the CW’s roster when they unveil it later this month.
See on www.bleedingcool.com
Remember that part at the end of Batman Begins, where Commissioner Gordon talks to Batman about escalation, and warns him that simply by existing as a super-hero, he’s opening the door to an equal response from the world of villainy? Well, it turns out those same rules apply here in the real world. This week, real-life super-hero Phoenix Jones has gained an arch-nemesis in the form of a Real-Life Super-Villain operating under the name “Rex Velvet.” And seriously? He is quite possibly my new favorite person.
Velvet, a villain so evil that he has a scar, an eyepatch, a moustache and an affected Mid-Atlantic accent, issued a challenge to Phoenix Jones and “his gang of misfit Power Rangers” through a YouTube video with criminally high production values that’s likely to be the best thing you see all day. Check it out after the cut!
It’s hard to pin down one thing great thing about this video — even his name is fantastic — but I’ll say this: Velvet appears to be following the rules laid out in Matt Wilson’s Supervillain Handbook pretty religiously. He’s got the art of villainous theatricality down to a science.
Seriously, this video was made in what appears to be an honest to God lair in an abandoned warehouse. There are literally skulls hanging on the walls and a portrait of his arch-enemy that he throws things at!
As for Rex’s motivation, he seems to be taking a page from the Joker in The Dark Knight: He wants Phoenix Jones to unmask and retire from crime-fighting. Now, far be it from me to get in the way of good old-fashioned villainy, and believe me when I say that I hate to be the one to break this to him, but he’s a little late on at least half of that.
To be fair, though, his video didn’t involve stabbing a dude in hockey pads, so hopefully, Rex Velvet will stick to making videos and avoid getting into, you know, actual crime. If I was in Seattle, though, I’d probably still avoid taking the ferry for a while. With a mastermind like this on the loose, you never know when you’re going to be faced with a moral quandary that can only be solved by Tiny Lister.
CLICK THRU TO WATCH VIDEO on www.comicsalliance.com
Marvel’s Chairman Emeritus Stan Lee has been making the promotional rounds in support of the company’s latest motion picture, The Avengers, based on the classic superheroes he created with Jack Kirby. By this point in his life, the 89-year-old publishing icon has seen a lot of Marvel movies come and go (and has appeared in at least 15 of them), and with that experience comes a lot of great stories. Among them, that time that noted comic book fan Michael Jackson was so keen to play Spider-Man that he attempted to buy Marvel just to make it happen.
Lee was asked about the Michael Jackson experience in an interview with Eric Larnick for our sister site Moviefone:
Moviefone: The most interesting bit of almost-casting that I’ve ever heard came from a Producers Guild conference last summer: the “X-Men” producers revealed that Michael Jackson seriously lobbied for the part of Professor X.
Stan Lee: I wasn’t aware that Michael Jackson wanted to be Professor X. I knew Michael Jackson. And with the things he discussed with me, I felt he wanted to be Spider-Man. That was the character that interested him. He never discussed the X-Men with me.
MF: How do you think he would have fared as Spider-Man?
SL: I think he’d have been good. I think he’d have been very good. But I must say that Tobey Maguire was wonderful.
MF: I’m fascinated by the fact that Jackson worked with Stan Lee Media and attempted to buy Marvel, in the 90s.
SL: Yes, he wanted to. He felt that would be the only way that he could play Spider-Man. [Laughs]
MF: What do you think the company would have looked like now if that partnership came to fruition?
SL: I can’t imagine it would have been totally different of course, but maybe not as successful. Michael was not a great businessman.
For more on Stan Lee, including his favorite Marvel film cameos, click over to Moviefone for the full interview. For a little more on the Michael Jackson anecdote, check out this 2009 video from the Associated Press on www.comicsalliance.com