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Thursday Runaround – I'd Buy Those For A Dollar

Published Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:40:01 -0600

Last updated Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:40:38 -0600

ImageWatch: Image are putting out $1 First issues of popular comics in their line in time for FCBD, including The Walking Dead, Spawn, Chew, Invincible, Age Of Bronze, Youngblood, Savage Dragon, Witchblade, Girls and Proof, in a manner similar to DC's recent $1 reprint line.

FilmWatch: As Top Shelf get an 33% investment for John S. Johnson, and Anthony Bregman's film production company, Likely Story including a first-look deal for all new Top Shelf publications for possible film and TV development, a few people asked me about Alan Moore. He has a number of upcoming titles with Top Shelf, and his attitude to film companies has been clear. Top Shelf Chris Staros told me

The first look deal would still require the creator's approval (and our approval) if an option/proposal were to be made (as that's how all our deals are set up), so only if Alan wanted something to be made of it. We've never wanted to be in a position where we would license things without the creator's approval. So, that's the way it's set up.

Good to hear. So no chance of Brad Pitt playing John Dee in Bumper Book Of Magic…

TVWatch: Christopher Chance confirms that the Fox version of Human Target is dumbed down from the comic.

ReviewWatch: PunisherMAX? It's just filthy…

it's not that writer Jason Aaron offended my sensibilities by having an eighty-year-old woman spout vulgarities while gleefully describing perverted sexual acts, or that artist Steve Dillon repulsed me by choosing to portray said woman naked – you'd have to write and draw some pretty horrible things to make me turn away in disgust. My problem with this comic, and the reason I find it borderline offensive, is that Dillon and Aaron seem to be ratcheting up the vulgarity for no other reason than this is the MAX imprint and they can get away with it.

ChinaWatch: 75 year old Wang Bingdong has spent the last three years re-translating 22 volumes of Tintin into Mandarin for the Chinese market. Previous translations were from the English versions rather than the original French. So detectives Dupond and Dupont became "Dubang" and "Dupang," not Thompson and Thomson. And Captain Haddock's exclamations "Ten thousand thundering typhoons!" become "May the Heavens punish you and thunder strike you down!" In Tintin and The Blue Lotus Herge took the side of the Chinese over their Japanese occupiers in 1930s Shanghai. But I do wonder how the new Tintin In Tibet will go over? An earlier version of the book was recalled by Herge representatives as it was titled Tintin In China's Tibet.

KiddieWatch: The Fair Lawn Recreational Department in New Jersey is running comics lessons for kids from January 23rd to April 10th. 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., comics for kids aged 8 to 10. Cost $100 plus $5 registration and $20 materials fee. And from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Advanced comics lessons for ages 11 and up. Cost $120 plus $5 registration and $20 materials fee. Manga artist Teresa DeFabrizio of BAss Art Studio is the instructor, xall 201-960-5320 for more details.

LicenseWatch: No sooner has the film trailer leakes, than IDW has set up a bunch of A-Team comics, with action comics writer Chuck Dixon writing War Stories and the movie director Joe Carnahan putting a few ideas down on paper which actual writer Tom Waltz then makes into a comic script. At least it's unlikely that Dixon will call Carnahan "repugnant"…

FilmWatch: Daniel Craig is up to take over Robert Downey Jr.'s role in Cowboys And Aliens. Wow. It's actually going to get made, isn;t it?

UltimateWatch: You could have spend all last night at Newsarama and IGN watching the cover of Ultimate X build up. Or you could have gone to bed and woken up to this: