There was a time you could count on two things in October, AMC's Month Long Monsterfest and CBS showing It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. There's still three days left in October, so there's time for CBS to show the annual Peanuts Ode to All Hallows Eve, but AMC has disappointed me immensely.
One month a year, that's all horror fans ask. One month a year to turn on the TV and find something on the tube to give us our horror fix. Sure Mr. and Mrs. America might be dying for another showing of A Few Good Men, but come on, it's October. We should be seeing Legosi, Chaney, Karloff, Englund and the rest of our favorite horror stars.
This year AMC went from their 31 days of horror to 13. OK, still not bad but when you look at the replay schedule it get's really bad. I swear I've seen the original Halloween (my least favorite slasher flick ever) on TV five times since they've started this abbreviated Monsterfest. That's not even counting their promised Halloween marathon on Wednsday. I'm sure they have more horror films in their library, why not show them?
Maybe I've been spoiled by the availability of horror movies on DVD. Maybe the world has changed to a point where real horror involving war, terrorism and crime have taken the place of Dracula, The Wolfman and Freddy. Still, I can't help but feel that this year is missing something.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
One More Delay, Messiah Complex and Justice Like Thunder!
What was supposed to be a short, one month series that drastically changed the life of Spider-Man has turned into what is now a three to four month arc for unkown reasons.
The series, written by J. Michael Stracynski with art by Marvel Comics EIC Joe Quesada, has been hyped for months including adding the One More Day logo to the corner of every Marvel Comic that was released in August. Following Back In Black, One More Day was to change Spidey's life forever, making many of the internet community to feel that the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane-Watson that occurred 20 years ago in Amazing Spider-Man Annual 21 and that has been called one of the "genies in the bottle I wish I could put back in" by Quesada would be retconned by Marvel as to have never happened. Whether this is true or not, the series has been pushed back by at least two months now leading some to think it's either because of a rewrite on the book (Marvel.com has pages of protests about the retcon on their message boards) or simply because of the lateness of Quesada's artwork.
If it is a rewrite (very unlikely as it is), that would be a good thing, showing that they actually do listen to the readers. My money, however, is on Joe Q's art. He has never been known for his speed at drawing even back during his days of doing his own book ASH. Add to that his duties as Marvel EIC and you could smell the delays coming a mile off. I understand the fact that he wants to do the last story from one of the most controversial Spider-Man writers of all time (See The Other and Sins Past for reasons why) in JMS, but he should have known that the workload would be too much for him. If this was a mini series or throwaway story it would be different, but this is affecting nt only the core group of books sor a character, it is affecting the publishing plans of the company, which after this story were to stop publishing Spectacular Spider-man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and replace them by publishing Amazing Spider-Man three times a month.
On another note, the next X-Men storyline Messiah Complex is doing what it is supposed to be doing. Namely, getting me excited about X-Men, something that hasn't happened since the early ninties. I actually picked up this weeks issue of X-Men (204) just to get aqquainted with the characters since I haven't read an issue since before the turn of the century. I added all the X-titles to my pull list and hope that the series comes out as good as it seems to be able to be.
Finally, the best three bucks a month you can spend at the comic shop would be Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts. Since Civil War, this series has been the most consistently enjoyable read other than Brubakers Captain America.
The series, written by J. Michael Stracynski with art by Marvel Comics EIC Joe Quesada, has been hyped for months including adding the One More Day logo to the corner of every Marvel Comic that was released in August. Following Back In Black, One More Day was to change Spidey's life forever, making many of the internet community to feel that the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane-Watson that occurred 20 years ago in Amazing Spider-Man Annual 21 and that has been called one of the "genies in the bottle I wish I could put back in" by Quesada would be retconned by Marvel as to have never happened. Whether this is true or not, the series has been pushed back by at least two months now leading some to think it's either because of a rewrite on the book (Marvel.com has pages of protests about the retcon on their message boards) or simply because of the lateness of Quesada's artwork.
If it is a rewrite (very unlikely as it is), that would be a good thing, showing that they actually do listen to the readers. My money, however, is on Joe Q's art. He has never been known for his speed at drawing even back during his days of doing his own book ASH. Add to that his duties as Marvel EIC and you could smell the delays coming a mile off. I understand the fact that he wants to do the last story from one of the most controversial Spider-Man writers of all time (See The Other and Sins Past for reasons why) in JMS, but he should have known that the workload would be too much for him. If this was a mini series or throwaway story it would be different, but this is affecting nt only the core group of books sor a character, it is affecting the publishing plans of the company, which after this story were to stop publishing Spectacular Spider-man and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and replace them by publishing Amazing Spider-Man three times a month.
On another note, the next X-Men storyline Messiah Complex is doing what it is supposed to be doing. Namely, getting me excited about X-Men, something that hasn't happened since the early ninties. I actually picked up this weeks issue of X-Men (204) just to get aqquainted with the characters since I haven't read an issue since before the turn of the century. I added all the X-titles to my pull list and hope that the series comes out as good as it seems to be able to be.
Finally, the best three bucks a month you can spend at the comic shop would be Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts. Since Civil War, this series has been the most consistently enjoyable read other than Brubakers Captain America.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Civil War
I'm back...(not that anyone reads this)
Since my hiatus from the Pit, I've been rediscovering my love of illustrated sequential novels, better known as Comic Books. It's been three years since I bought an issue of Spider-Man or the Avengers and I had no idea what to expect. I had heard about Marvel's Civil War series of books, which is their allegory to the way America has handled the War on Terror and the subsequent Patriot Act. While it was well done in some aspects, other parts of it seemed to be thrown together (sort of like the Patriot Act and War on Terror).
However, the big shock of the series was the killing off of Captain America after his arrest at the end of Civil War. I can understand that you want to do something shocking to get the readers attention, but in today's environment do you really want to kill off the symbol of what the country stands for? Just a thought.
Since my hiatus from the Pit, I've been rediscovering my love of illustrated sequential novels, better known as Comic Books. It's been three years since I bought an issue of Spider-Man or the Avengers and I had no idea what to expect. I had heard about Marvel's Civil War series of books, which is their allegory to the way America has handled the War on Terror and the subsequent Patriot Act. While it was well done in some aspects, other parts of it seemed to be thrown together (sort of like the Patriot Act and War on Terror).
However, the big shock of the series was the killing off of Captain America after his arrest at the end of Civil War. I can understand that you want to do something shocking to get the readers attention, but in today's environment do you really want to kill off the symbol of what the country stands for? Just a thought.
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