Judging a Book by its Cover Pt.2

With all the hullabaloo surrounding the ‘return’ of Captain America, you’d think they’d take a second look at the way they’re packaging our Soldier of Freedom. (If ya’ll remember my previous rant about how another one of Marvel’s captains was being presented- you know where I’m going with this).

New Cap, Classic logo with a touch of the ol’ red, white and blue to give it a lil’ salsa!

The Alex Ross variant…not so much.

Ok, so it’s obvious that editorial wants CA to have a classic feel to it, with the logo pretty much meshing in with the art and other elements of the cover. But why does it feel like it lacks something? Or is that just me?

CWR Alternate Covers - Pt 2

So now that the Dan Slott feature has become reality (it got kinda tight there down the stretch) I can show you the other covers that were under consideration for the latest edition of the CWR e-zine…

This was a favorite of some of the CWR staff as it had an image of Spidey that wasn’t widely circulated (yet) and gave me room to play with copy…

This one, though, was my favorite, as it featured the Phil Jimenez artwork from the upcoming Spiderman: Swing Shift Director’s Cut (if you ask me, a TRUE ‘director’s cut’ for once)…

Heh, although I did have some issues with Spidey’s butt-crack, but hey, I think it still worked!

(Tell me why) I don’t like Mondays

So, it’s Monday morning, the day before the latest CWR issue is supposed to go up and neither Marc nor I have gotten our feature interviews done yet. Marc’s person is somewhere in Europe and my guy needs to run his stuff by his bosses before he can let me run with it so….

I’ve gotta create a cover for the possibility that neither of our features are gonna happen…

This cover with the stunning Frank Cho drawing would draw attention to Marc’s article on fetishism in comics…
whereas…

This cover highlights Marc’s comparison of the Simpsons and Futurama movies. (Did you catch my shout out to Star Wars? What, do I have to paint Moe’s Eisley on the tavern sign for ya’?)

But since my guy got back to me in the nick of time, we’re running with yet another cover. What’s the feature? Who did I interview? If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you’ll know who it is.

Otherwise, check back tomorrow where you’ll not only get the answer but also see even more of the covers we didn’t use.

Things I probably shouldn’t admit - part 2

So, I went to see Cloverfield today, J.J. Abram’s flick about New York under attack by…something. It’s been called a variation on the Blair Witch Project, as it’s filmed completely with a handheld video camera. There have been complaints about viewers getting motion-sickness, very much like they occurred with BWP, and I just dismissed them as people who just can’t handle a little shaky-cam syndrome.

Then I go see it.

And at about the 30-minute mark I’m thinking what one of the characters is saying: ‘I don’t feel so good.’

Yeah, I got nauseous. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it sucked. It was pretty good in fact, with some top-notch sfx and some real ‘holy s**t’ moments, but soon I was like ‘STOP RUNNING WITH THE DAMN CAMERA ON!’

Couldn’t even finish my Whoppers.

So, if you’re planning on seeing it and get sick on the Tilt-a-Whirl, take some Dramamine.

It’s a rotten shame…

That you can’t find the brit sitcom SPACED on video in the USA. It’s the show that gave us Simon Pegg and the team thatgave us Shaun of the Dead as well as Hot Fuzz…

From the Spaced Wikipedia page:

“Tim Bisley (Pegg) and Daisy Steiner (Stevenson) are two London twenty-somethings who meet by chance in a cafe while both are flat-hunting. Despite barely knowing each other, they conspire to pose as a young “professional” couple in order to meet the requisites of an advertisement for a relatively cheap flat in the distinctive building at 23 Meteor Street, which is owned by and also houses the landlady, Marsha Klein (Julia Deakin). Also living in the building is Brian Topp (Mark Heap), an eccentric conceptual artist who lives and works on his various pieces in the ground floor flat. Frequent visitors are Tim’s best friend, Mike Watt (Nick Frost) and Daisy’s best friend, Twist Morgan (Katy Carmichael).”

So it’s Three’s Company meets The X-Files meets Freaks and Geeks…and yet it’s so much more.  It’s full of irreverent wit, pop-culture references and a cast of incredibly endearing characters.

Two things I’ve taken from watching it on a…creatively formatted DVD (you can only get it in Region 2 DVD format out of the UK):

1) Simon Pegg is a friggin’ GENIUS that makes being a geek/graphic artist/video game obsessive socially acceptable…

2) Jessica Stevenson makes slightly chubby, self-conscious, bumbling nerd-gals DAMN SEXY!!!I’d share a flat with her any day…