30 November 2009: Thanksgiving and animation

Friends, I hope that you had a Happy Thanksgiving. Janice and I enjoyed the holiday, despite the long drive from Massachusetts to her grandmother in Pennsylvania and my parents in Virginia, worries about sick nieces, and news of marital strife among our circles of acquaintances. We ate well, caught up on sleep and reading, and managed to avoid the worst traffic. The weather was also pleasant.

Janice and I also screened The Fantastic Mr. Fox, a stop-motion animated fantasy loosely based on the Roald Dahl book. Director Wes Anderson uses many familiar actors for the voice cast, including Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Bill Murray, and Michael Gambon.

Clooney plays the titular character, a snazzily dressed vulpine who retires from stealing chickens before the birth of his son but is tempted back into a life of misadventure by three farms owned by grotesque humans. I thought The Fantastic Mr. Fox‘s script and dialogue were clever, and the two-dimensional flow of the action wasn’t as annoying as some trailers and reviews suggested.

The self-aware hero, use of an Anglo-American cast, and allusions to folklore and caper films were all well-done. The offbeat humor, adult themes, and cheerful soundtrack reminded me of the recent live-action adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are.

As with Coraline and Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death, the stop-motion world again demonstrated that there are good alternatives to the current glut of computer-animated 3-D flicks. I’d give The Fantastic Mr. Fox three stars, an 8/10, or a B+. It’s rated PG for cartoony violence. The next animated movie I’ll probably catch in theaters is Disney’s The Princess and the Frog.

Speaking of cartoons, I have to note that recent television episodes of Star Wars: Clone Wars have been particularly strong, showing the grit and chaos of battle, as well as the moral erosion of an extended conflict that’s timely as the U.S. reconsiders its
military involvement in the Middle East.

Spectacular Spider-Man has also upped the ante, as Peter Parker’s personal life and numerous foes collided. Unfortunately, the Silver Age-style superhero show may be a casualty of the Marvel/Disney merger. Iron Man: Armored Avengers has been entertaining, despite stiff computer animation and making Tony Stark and
company into teenagers. Marvel’s Super Hero Squad skipped a week for the holiday.

Wolverine and the X-Men also concluded its current season, combining the “Days of Future Past,” “Phoenix Saga,” and “Rise of Apocalypse” storylines from the comics with
mixed results in terms of pacing and character development. The charmingly campy Batman and the Brave and the Bold has been on hiatus. DC/Warner Brothers’ release
of boxed sets of DVDs for Batman: the Animated Series, Superman: the Animated Series, and Justice League Unlimited are reminders of the best superhero cartoons of the past decade.

Coming soon: Live-action superheroes and remake reviews!

Monday, 31 August 2009: Work, food, and Ponyo

On Tuesday, 18 August 2009, I received a minor promotion from assistant site editor to associate site editor at TT. In addition to my existing duties at the technology journalism company, I’m helping to coordinate coverage of this week’s VMworld conference in San Francisco and taking on more Web page management responsibilities.

On the bright side, I’ve already been treated out to sushi lunches at Fuji in Needham,
Massachusetts, twice by current and future managers! I’m flattered that they’ve had such confidence in my organizational abilities after only three months, and I hope to earn their trust.

On Monday, Aug. 24, Janice and I met with former CW co-workers Michele D. and Bob R. for a pleasant dinner at the Watch City Brewery on Moody Street in Waltham, Mass. I still hope to get together with other former colleagues, including Monica S., Donna S., and Brian F.

On Saturday, Aug. 29, I met Ken G. for lunch at Rawbert’s Vegan Café before going to an exhibit on comic book history at the Wenham Museum. The big news in the world of superheroes is that Disney is buying Marvel. I don’t expect any immediate changes in the comics or movies, but the move puts more pressure on DC Comics and Warner Brothers to try to catch up.

On Sunday, Janice and I had brunch at the ’50s Diner in Dedham, Mass., and went to the Dedham Community Theater to screen Ponyo. A few months ago, I saw and liked the subtitled version of the latest Miyazaki anime, and I found the English-dubbed
version to be better paced. I’d still give this PG-rated variation on The Little Mermaid an 8 out of 10, or a B+.

Although I’ve had to cancel this coming week’s games, I did catch the first-season finale of BBC America’s supernatural melodrama Being Human, which may not have the popularity of True Bloodor Twilight, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. The regular autumn genre television season begins in the next few weeks, but first, I’ve got lots of work to do!

Monday, 3 August 2009: Comic-Con and graphical entertainment

It’s too bad that in all the news media coverage of last week’s San Diego Comic-Con and costumed fans, the source material for television shows, movies, and games was often overlooked. My hat goes off to the writers, pencillers, inkers, letterers, colorists, and editors who work on comic books. The Eisner Awards, named after the creator of The Spirit,
recognizes each year’s outstanding achievements in graphical entertainment.

As I’ve mentioned before, I mostly read monthly superhero comic books, but I appreciate other genres, independent publishers besides DC and Marvel, and longer graphic novels. As the average reader gets older, we’ve been increasingly targeted by titles around licensed
properties and nostalgia, but as long as new readers are brought in, the hobby should stay healthy.

I’ve been a fan of the colorful, iconic superheroes of the DC Comics universe since college in the late 1980s. The “event“-driven crossovers of the past few years have been dark in tone, and Green Lantern: Blackest Night is no exception. However, it does look like it will address
the revolving door of death necessitated by the need to keep characters forever young while also respecting long continuities. Speaking of Green Lantern, Janice and I enjoyed the direct-to-DVD Green Lantern: First Flight this past weekend. It covers some of the same territory as the recent Justice League: New Frontier but is more of a police procedural in space.

I’ve blogged before about the often-confusing or lackluster storylines in DC’s team books, but I hope that the latest roster updates of the Justice League, Justice Society, and Teen Titans will get them back to being the world’s finest superheroes. Over at Marvel, I’ve
stopped following the three Avengers teams and numerous X-Men, but Spider-Man 600 did a good job of merging Silver Age nostalgia with an update on what’s going on in Peter Parker’s life now. Captain America is still my favorite Marvel title right now, as Steve Rogers returns to wear the red, white, and blue.

The Batman family of titles has been among my favorites lately, with strong art and
writing on Detective Comics, even without Bruce Wayne as the Dark Knight. I haven’t been following Superman as closely, but I’m glad to see epic storylines and art inspired by the late Christopher Reeve. I’ve also been watching the Kirk Alyn serials from the late 1940s on DVD. DC’s Wednesday Comics have continued to impress me, even though, as with any anthology, some features (Teen Titans, Wonder Woman) are weaker than others (Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Kamandi). On balance, I’ve been enjoying the experiment.

Speaking of avant-garde storytelling, I look forward to Volume 3 of Umbrella Academy, Gerard Way‘s postmodern fever dream that turns the conventions of costumed vigilantes on
their heads. A dysfunctional family of foundlings, raised by an alien and a
robot, fights itself and reality. The latest ongoing Doctor Who title got off to a decent start.

Manga (originally Japanese comics, in a more compact format) seems to have peaked in
popularity, with bookstores across the U.S. tightening their shelf space offering it. However, that’s still a wider distribution network than the direct market of specialty comic book shops, and manga did draw many younger, female readers. I hope that, like the upcoming live-action adaptation, the Avatar: the Last Airbender manga does justice
to Nickelodeon’s fantasy television series.

Coming soon: Games and travel!

Comics Wednesday, July 2009

Friends, please note that my blog is no longer available at Yahoo 360. You can find it at MySpace.com or under my “edemaitre” Yahoo Profile. As promised, here are some of my thoughts on recent comic books.

As I mentioned in my previous posting, the San Diego Comic-Con is this week. While I
haven’t yet made the hajj to the largest annual genre/popular culture event in the U.S., I have closely followed coverage of it for the past few years. Movies, comic books and graphic novels, action figures, television shows, games, and more are announced or previewed at this convention. I hope to get to smaller shows here in the Boston area, such as November’s Super MegaFest.

In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying DC’s Wednesday Comics, a 12-issue experiment in weekly comics on tabloid newsprint. The quality of the writing varies, but the art is
impressive, and it reminds me of lying on the floor reading Prince Valiant in the Sunday funnies.

DC‘s big summer storyline crossing over several titles is Green Lantern: Blackest Night, which addresses the temporary nature of death among costumed superheroes (and villains). Although I don’t plan to spend even more on comics than I do now, it has gotten good reviews so far.

I have continued picking up the Batman family of titles, as Bruce Wayne is presumed dead and former Robin/Nightwing Dick Grayson has taken up the mantle. I wasn’t a big fan of Grant Morrison’s trippy run, but he, Paul Dini, and company have upped their game with the creative freedom granted by the temporary change in lead characters.

Similarly, Marvel Comics is winding down its run of Bucky Barnes as Captain America with the imminent return of Steve Rogers. Unlike the regular shakeups for Superman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men, Rogers has been gone for a few years now of continuity (fictional history), and the espionage/thriller tone of his title remains engaging. I’ve been avoiding most team-based Marvel and DC books lately because of overly convoluted continuities and gimmicky crossovers designed to sell more issues.

Speaking of alternate histories, I’m still catching up on collected editions. I’ve recently read Dark Horse’s convenient omnibuses of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and I look forward to getting to the next installment of the steampunk The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (not the weak movie adaptation), the metahuman procedural Powers, and the political Ex Machina. Dynamite, which I’ve praised previously for its handling of licensed properties such as Buck Rogers, will also be handling the next batch of Stargate comics.

Typically, fiction is adapted from print to television or movie, but in the case of Nickelodeon’s excellent Avatar: the Last Airbender, a fantasy cartoon is being adapted to a live-action film series directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Last Airbender shouldn’t be confused with James Cameron’s upcoming science fiction movie Avatar.

The first previews and still photos of the young cast have appeared online. I sympathize with those who feel that Last Airbender should have had more actors of Asian descent in its cast, I’m cautiously optimistic. We’ll have to wait and see whether planned movie reboots such as Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, Astro Boy, and Green Hornet are closer to Watchmen or to Dragonball in quality.

Entry for March 31, 2009: Wonder Woman!

On Saturday, 21 March 2009, Janice and I picked up my subscription at New England Comics in Norwood, Massachusetts. In addition, we watched the new direct-to-DVD release of Wonder Woman. As with the retro Justice League: New Frontier and anime-style Batman: Gotham Knight, Wonder Woman is intended for an older audience than recent television cartoons based on DC Comics, such as the charmingly campy Batman and the Brave and the Bold.

As one of the oldest and best-known costumed superheroes, Wonder Woman is considered one of the DC Universe‘s “big three,” along with Superman and Batman, but hasn’t been adapted into other media as often. I do remember her role in the Super Friends cartoon and the Lynda Carter television series back in the late 1970s, but even George Perez’s reboot after Crisis on Infinite Earths didn’t help Wonder Woman much in terms of popularity.

Fortunately, the recent Timm/Dini Justice League (now in reruns on Boomerang) helped revive interest in DC’s characters beyond print. While related big-budget movies have stalled — again, with the notable exceptions of Batman and Superman — at least the new video does justice to Princess Diana of Themyscira. On a side note, the actor who might have played Batman in George Miller’s Justice League had a cameo in this week’s episode of supernatural slacker comedy Reaper.

Wonder Woman retells the first superheroine’s mythic origin, from her creation from clay by Queen Hippolyta to her Amazon training to her departure for “man’s world” with U.S. pilot Steve Trevor. Her main opponents are petty Greek gods and the all-to-human vices of dishonesty, sexism, and war. The animation is solid, and the fight scenes earn the PG-13 rating for violence.

The voice talent, picked by DC animation veteran Andrea Romano, is very good: Kerri Russell of Felicity and Waitress is the young princess, Virginia Madsen of Sideways is stern Hippolyta, and Firefly/Serenity and Castle‘s Nathan Fillion is a man in need of rescuing as Steve Trevor. Fans of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Spider-Man 2 will recognize Alfred Molina as the evil Ares, and Sin City‘s Rosario Dawson is the tough Artemis.

The writers, Michael Jelenic and Gail Simone, not only respect William Moulton Marston’s creation but also incorporate elements from more recent comic book storylines, having major battle scenes erupt in modern-day Washington D.C. I’d give Wonder Woman a 9 out of 10, or an A-.

The DVD’s extras include some insights into the production of the movie, episodes from Justice League Unlimited, documentaries about the history of Wonder Woman, and a preview of a promising direct-to-video Green Lantern. The documentaries were a bit repetitive, and I would have liked to see more about the television show’s effect on popular culture and comic book storylines since the Perez run. I do hope that the ambassador of Paradise Island will return to prominence in both print and live-action.

In other animation, I enjoyed the first season finale of Star Wars: the Clone Wars on the Cartoon Network. Speaking of DC heroines, Zatanna, the mistress of magic, made a guest appearance on Smallville last week. Janice and I also started watching our DVDs of the Kirk Alyn Superman serials from the late 1940s/early ’50s. This past weekend, we screened Monsters vs. Aliens, which I’ll review in my next blog post.