Whoa! Even though no one demanded it, The New Kids on the Block are returning for a reunion tour (much older, and kinda still hot)! Is anyone excited about this? Me being a lover all things pop culture, teen bubble-gum pop is a personal fave, I find myself very disinterested. Does this mean I am losing my inner teen girl to a more mature, age appropriate adult (I hope not), or is this attempt just too little too late from the boys from Boston? Couldn’t they have come back, I dunno, 15 years ago? Will this tour be a success? I have my doubts since these boys are no Spice Girls (hardy-har-har)!

Hey, kids; our own Brian Andersen shared this exciting news . . .

Vote for So Super Duper for Best Queer Indie Comic Book!

Haha!
Somehow I managed to snag a nomination for the 2008 Queeries! Put on by the wonderfully droll Comic Book Queers, www.comicbookqueers.com, podcast, I am one among many other terrific professional and indie comic book creators. Yay!

If you feel so inclinded, please vote for me here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=qi1MY7LEnvd_2fEqMHRKHGzg_3d_3d

Yay! This is so fun! I can’t believe I am on the list! Hah!
Brian

So hey, let’s get out and vote for our boy, shall we?

One of my fave comic writers Brian Michael Bendis is featured in a nice interview on Entertainment Weekly’s website, which just so happens to also be my most fave magazine ever. Along with the interveiw there is also a 10 page preview of the upcoming mega-event, Secret Invasion, on the EW site.

So, I have to wonder, will this mini-series gain more mainstream press as it streams along? Is it “death of Captain

America” level interesting and newsworthy? I am not sure. But having EW in its corner certainly doesn’t hurt -this comic is well on it’s way to gaining some much needed street cred amongst non-comic readers.

Will Secrect Invasion be able to defeat DC’s upcoming Final Crisisi the battle for non-comic supported PR? That remains to be seen. Either way, the coming months are going to be very exciting, so let the games begin! Check out the interview here:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20186361,00.html

Check out the preview pages here:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20185202,00.html

The year was 1987 and “The Lost Boys” was one of my most favorite movies ever! The flick had high-flying action, scares galore, giggles-a-plenty, sexiness to spare, and not one, but two Corey’s! As a young impressionable teen it was nearly impossible not to love this horror film (remember how cool the main girl was? Her name was Star people! Now that is the very essence of awesome!).

Flash forward to today (21 years later - I am so old!) and a sequel to “The Lost Boys” is just now hitting the streets? And not only a new vamp-filled movie but a comic book too? What took so damn long? It’s not like this movie has aged to become a cultural milestone like Indiana Jones - who arguably is an American Icon and whose new movie is also finally coming out 20 years later. Many of ”The Lost Boys” past radicalness (hair via glam rock band anyone?) is now the very definition of cheesiness.  I fear - more so after seeing the new film’s trailer (see it below) - this blood-thirsty boat has sailed!

The sequel’s biggest offensive (from what I can gather from the trailer); Vampire skateboarders. Yes, please let that sink in a bit…ok, really, Vampire freakin’ Skateboarders? Oh man, gag me with a spoon! How in the world can this even be considered cool today? Sure skateboards are still uber pops and all, but terrifying creatures of the night on a wooden board with four wheels soaring through the air? Not so much. (Plus, isn’t it an occupational hazard for these bad boys to be riding on wooden boards seeing as how the wood of their boards can be used as weapons against them? Not too smart these 2008 vamps.) Quite possibly, in 1987, these X-Game outsiders could have been the ultimate in cool, but today; dorky and goofy is more like it.  

Oh, hell, why am I even raging against this toothy machine? I know I’m just gonna see it opening night, vampy Tony Hawk and all. Hopefully with my expectations set as low as possible I might just find a smidge of enjoyment. Hopefully.

Click here to scope out the happs on the new flick:

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1583178&vid=215372

Looks pretty badass if you ask me! Color me excited!

ABC’s new quirk-fest sitcom Miss Guided (get it, “Miss” because it’s about a female ex-nerd and “guide” because she’s a guidance counselor at her old High School, wow, what a zinger of a title!) is a show with loads and loads of potential, it practically screams “this show is funny, so laugh,” but the execution of all that potential left me feeling a mixture of “haha, this is kinda cute” and “eh, not that impressed”.

I certainly can’t blame the charming and enjoyable Judy Greer, who is always fantastic in any second-banana role she’s ever played in all her numerous second-banana roles (best-friend to hot-girl-movie-star mostly). Greer is very likable, adorable and strives to add every ounce of goofy facial expressions in her acting arsenal to enliven her performance.

For me the problem with the show was in the humor; it was all too much, too fast, too soon. It was as though the creator and writer tossed everything she could into every second of the show to prove that this sitcom was going to be really, really funny - so stick around and watch, don’t leave, it’s still hilarious!

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How excited am I to see Gail Simone on the cover credits to Birds of Prey #116!?

Super Duper of course! She’s back, yay, how awsome, that book sure needs her!

Oh, wait, oh, crud, nevermind, it’s still Sean McKeever.

Bummer! Thanks a lot DC!

Rip! Off!

WhatEVER!

Great art though.

What, huh? A remark is being made of the old-timey horror movie “The Wolfman?” Yup, ‘fraid so, and this new version stars non-other than Oscar winning actor Benicio Del Toro.

Whoa! So do we really need this remark? As talented an actor as Del Toro is, and as awesome as this shot looks of him all scary and wolfed-out, I am rather surprised that this is even being made in the first place. Couldn’t we just get some fresh, ultra new, totally hip werewolf movie,? Maybe a spin on the typical werewolf flick? I guess not. This is just what we movie-watchers need I suppose, another retread of an old classic. When will Hollywood ever learn?

 Whoa! Now this is a lady who brings the goods when she sings!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT18LZItBLA&eurl=http://perezhilton.com/page/3/

I love the English translation too! “Ken Leeeeee!” Rock it sister!

According to USA Today, check out the link below, both Iron Man and Wolverine (with a few X-Peeps) are set to blow up the network early next year!  In my humble fan boy opinion this is way cool for many exciting reasons, and I shall list them briefly here:

1) Now that Kids WB is no longer (yup it’s true) where else are we gonna get our Superhero cartoons from? It’s nice to know there is another network out there willing to step up to the plate (come back to us Cartoon Network!).

2) Having Superheroes on Nicktoons is a rather big change from the Sponge Bobs and Doras normally on the network! If these shows do well we just might be seeing a whole new set of comic inspired awesomeness on some other toony networks (come back Cartoon Network! We need you! Look alive Fox Kids, time to bring in the heroes!)

3) Although I am rather nervous about a teen Iron Man (yes, you read me right, it’s a teenage Iron Man, ugh), and the continuous over-saturation of Wolverine (can’t we just call the show the X-Men?) this can only bode well for the future of the comic book medium. Superhero cartoon shows = more kids growing into comic fans.

4) I just can’t wait to see the White Queen on the Wolverine and the X-Men show, hubba hubba! Let’s see how they get her past the little ones and their impressionable minds.

Check out the full story here: http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2008-03-17-marvel-nicktoons_N.htm

Last week a good friend of mine, who occasionally moonlights as a writer, smugly told me to “get it together, sister” and learn to better edit the things I write. She basically implied, more or less, that if I were ever going to become a successful writer I would need to be free of spelling, typo, and grammatical errors. She then taunted me even more by stating that since I had my BA in English that I should, therefore, be a perfect self-editor and that any good writer – one who’s taken seriously and who makes an actual living as a writer - would be able to catch all their mistakes. So in essence she told me my frequently typo-ridden writing, regardless of form or content, was lacking and, basically, just so much crap under her superior shoe (or at least that’s how I took it in a moment of extreme sensitivity).

My first initial insane-o reaction was to pull all her hair out, tell her to F**K Off, and then leap out of the moving car and find comfort in a pint of ice cream. Instead I maturely (and boringly) told her that just because I majored in English it didn’t mean I knew everything there was to know about the degree and that editing my own mistakes has always been my biggest weakness (we have since smoothed things over and I can now appreciate her effort, if not her execution, in trying to help me be a better writer). Go figure! I accept it (despite the fact that I struggle each and every time I write something to make sure it is mistake free, but re-reading and re-re-reading and re-re-re-reading rarely leaves my writing error-free) and I have learned to embrace my shortcoming – even though I curse myself after something has been posted or printed with a glaring typo in it.

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It seems noted temperamental “star” Edward Norton (when was he last seen in a popular movie or, I dunno, just a movie in general?) is not-so-quietly battling with Marvel over the upcoming final cut of The Incredible Hulk movie. I say “not-so-quietly” only because someone must have leaked this beef between Norton and Marvel, unless of course it’s just some marketing ploy to get the movie on the pop culture radar, which really wouldn’t surprise me in today’s controversy loving media. I tend to believe in the veracity of this rumor over marketing ploy, or mere smear-campaign, simply because I live on the web and eat up all and every aspect of pop culture goodness and I find when a story like this makes it onto more than one news/gossip site, well, there’s some truth in “them thar’ hills.”

Apparently Norton wanting a bigger say in the final cut of the film and Marvel is not exactly agreeing with Norton’s input, (or vice a versa depending on your source) and both sides are “working” to come to an understanding. With the June 13^th premier date looming over the horizon Marvel really needs to nail down a final cut, with or without Norton’s stamp of approval. If Marvel does go forth with their vision for the film, which kinda makes sense seeing as how this is their property, their character, and when the chips are down and everything is totaled up, if the movie does badly it will be Marvel that will suffer for it. It’s Marvel that stands to be the most effected if the movie tanks: they stand to loose in theatrical revenue, toy line sales, future sequels profits and further Hulk opportunities (cartoon anyone), whereas Norton will most likely remain unscathed by the movie crashing and burning and will just happily move along to his next project (like Eric Bana did in the first Hulk movie!).

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So it looks like fallen pop star Britney Spears is still too busy trying to get her shiz-nit together (thank goodness!) that she couldn’t make time to film her new music video.  What’s an enterprising - and probably desperate - record label to do when its “star” is unable to gyrate and shake for the cameras?  

Simple, just whip up an Anime version of Britney on your MAC and boom, you’re done! “Break the Ice” features a very Manga-y Britney battling lots of bad dudes a la her live action “Toxic” video – but with really odd, weirdy, slow motion-y movements for all the fighting and action featured in the clip.

I for one think this is a great idea, despite the fact that I don’t totally love the end result. Having something kinda-sorta creative being attempted to salvage the poor girl’s career can only be good, right? I don’t think this will take Ms. Spears anywhere near the tippy top-top of her former glory and fame, but at least this Sue Storm-like cartoon version of Britney Spears reminds people that she was once a pop star, and not just a horrendous celebrity-train-wreck.

Catch the video here to see the slow-mo, Manga inspired, spy-ish clip for yourself:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfmfuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=30156320 

 

It’s the return of the CGI Hulk, only this time he’s incredible and he’s Edward Norton! (Plus, no gamma poodles! So it’s already off to a great start!)   

Check out the trailer here:  

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1583143&vid=215625 

Gee, Ben Stiller’s new comedy “Tropic Thunder” sure seems hilars, right? Haven’t heard of it yet, well no worries my friends ’cause you sure as heck will. And in a big, big way too! Why? Well, maybe because it features a well known white actor playing blackface! Yup!

Talented actor Robert Downey Jr. brings that “adorable” time old racist tradition of white actors wearing make-up to play a black character back to the mainstream. Yay? Even played for broad humor (Downey Jr. is a white actor playing black in the film as well) I wonder, are we Americans ready?

Uh, “Soul Man” anyone?

Does the sting of blackface still exist as strongly today when it isn’t being used to belittle and subjugate an entire population? I would like to think that we Americans can poke fun at politically-incorrect ideals, but I fear that in today’s hyper amplified media with their shark-like thirst for controversy that any humor and social commentary might be totally and utterly lost.

Still I hold out hope that Stiller and Downey Jr. are able to bring levity to such a potentially offensive idea while also standing for something good, like maybe taking an awful reality from the past and perhaps making it into a positive statement for the future? Alas, knowing Hollywood we will probably just have a stupid “funny” movie with a blackfaced Downey Jr. and lots and lots of fart jokes.