Friday, June 26, 2009

Happy Birthday to Us!

Well, today this blog officially turns 1 year old! Sorry about the lack of updates lately, but college finals sucked the life out of me for a couple of weeks. We should be back up and running as usual next week though.

One year ago while on vacation in a little B&B on a cliff (long story), I came up with the idea for this blog and began filling it with rants, reviews, and ravings. It's taken a while to find my rhythm with it, but I'm having fun and hopefully you are too.

In the biggest news of this little blog's lifespan...

My oldest son, Khristian, has won the first round of the 2009 Design Scholarship Challenge! He now has a $5K scholarship and we are both being sent to the San Diego Comic-Con so he can present his final-round work to DC Comics judges there! If he wins, he'll be working as an intern for DC Comics on an upcoming project!

I wish I could post the work he did for DC's "Absolute Justice" hardcover ads, but we might be violating copyright so I'm not touching it. Maybe after it's all said and done I can put it up. Suffice it to say, it's cool!

This is one awesome geek moment for me as I've always wanted to go to the SDCC but have never had a reason (or the finances) to get there. This is something we're both excited about, and for the first time ever I'll be able to give live updates from a comic book convention! This all hits next month, so be sure and check back during the SDCC for daily updates and possibly some breaking news from the comic book world!

Ok, the "proud papa" brag is over. Please forgive me.

Here's to another great year of fun heroics and great comics!

Monday, June 8, 2009

The Greatest Fan-Made Movie Trailers

Ok, let's admit that comic book fans can be a little rabid about their favorite heroes from time to time. That being said, we're also an incredibly creative bunch. Thanks to the innovation of cool programs like After Effects, Photoshop, and hey, even Windows Movie Maker, we are able to see trailers for films that would be so awesome it takes the breath away at times. We'll never actually see these films, but at least for two minutes and thirty seconds we are getting our dreams fulfilled. Here's a quick list of some of my favorites:

Thundercats

I know you've heard of this one. It's arguably the first high-quality mash-up to get a lot of media attention. Brad Pitt as Lion-O, Vin Diesel as a bald guy with no discernable personality (a big stretch for him, by the way), and more!



Nightwing Vs. Batman: A Fallen Hero

For some reason, it looks like Nightwing remains one of the favorite cosplay heroes out there. And I know the acting in this one isn't so hot, but it's a fun concept.



The Greatest Fan Film of All Time

This is the preview trailer for it, but it's actually done. It lasts about 45 minutes, and there are some moments of absolute sheer brilliance in it! I don't want to spoil it for you, but any movie that has Stan Lee punching Galactus has got to be good. Seriously though, this isn't for kids. It has some bad language in parts, and the violence goes waaaaaaaaaay over the top in places, but I have to give them points for originality and guts. It starts out funny, but after the Batman/Joker scene in the blimp you see this thing take a serious turn to the dark side. If you have the time and the kids aren't around, check it out and stick with it until it gets serious.



Green Lantern

This one is only the end of a film the guy was putting together rather than a complete trailer, but it deserves mention because it's a CGI work that looks like it could have been pretty cool if he hadn't lost it when his computer crashed.



Grayson


In terms of sheer love for a character and cosplay galore, there is simply no greater film clip than this one. The guy put a long time into filming this and getting some great people to join with him. Kimberly Page plays Catwoman, and I have no idea who the Joker is but the man is scary sick at times. Unfortunately, the guy sold his suit and props on Ebay a while back so he has no plans of actually taking this trailer to full-length production, but you can download the entire screenplay on his website to see what might have been. I've read it, and it has some good moments--particularly the identity of Batman's killer at the end. Unfortunately, he makes Barry Allen's Flash look completely out of character and the ending is so abrupt it makes you think he just got tired of writing and quit.



Day When Superman Die


The grammar here isn't the best, and the sound track is straight from the Superman movie, but you can see where this might have had promise if he'd stuck with it.



Green Lantern

And here it is: my favorite of this little collection. Another Green Lantern post? You betcha! Last year I put together my dream cast of a JLA movie, and my choice for Green Lantern was Nathan Fillion. Well, someone else had a similar idea except they ran with it in a big-time way! The quality on this video is really good, especially for a fan-made film. When you see the shots of the other GL's like Tomar Re and the little squirrel guy it makes you forget this is a fan trailer. It's too bad we'll never actually see this one for real. Nathan's a natural!



Hey, there are so many of these out there I'll have to do this again soon. Got any favorites you think should make the next list?

Monday, June 1, 2009

Quiz Time and Our Contest Winner!


They come, they go, they die, and they come back. It seems impossible to keep any comic book hero down for long. Of course, the big thing is how they get there in the first place.

I love trivia games, so I slapped one together just to see how much you really know about comic book deaths. Try it if you dare, and make sure you post your final score so we can see how well everyone did. Then check out the bottom of the post to find out who won our contest!




Our Contest Winner was:

I took the entries in the order they were received, numbered them, then went to www.randomizer.org and asked for a number from the participants. Our winner was Jim Hall! Jim wins our prize pack of the "Comic Book Confidential" movie, 2 books, a dozen comic books, and a mystery action figure!

Thanks to everyone who participated! I had some great suggestions, and you'll be seeing many of them before the summer ends. This was so much fun we'll have to do it again when we get some more cool prizes to give away!

Congratulations, Jim!