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Friday, February 6th, 2009
| Time |
Event |
| 2:30p |
Movies let comics pave way LOS ANGELES - Having plundered comic books for decades, Hollywood is giving a little back. Studios are increasingly turning their properties over to illustrators and writers before movies are released to generate Internet chatter, early fans and anticipation within the all-important comic-book community.
The latest comic comes from "Push," the sci-fi thriller starring Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning that opens Friday. Wildstorm, a division of DC Comics, has created a six-issue series that fleshes out the movie’s plot about expats with supernatural powers.
And a magazine rack-full of other movies are here or on the way:
The first comic in a four-part prequel, "Star Trek Countdown 1," hit shelves last month in anticipation of May 8’s "Star Trek."
"Terminator Salvation," starring Christian Bale, gets a four-issue prequel before the movie arrives May 22.
"G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" invades screens Aug. 7, but not before a four-issue comic-book series hits stores.
The comic reach extends to television and beyond. Some crime shows such as "CSI "have their own series, as do "Fringe "and Joss Whedon’s defunct show "Angel." Even the video game "World of Warcraft "has a comic book to develop characters - and promote the next game upgrade.
For movie prequels, it’s all part of the $40 million brand-building campaign studios typically launch for every commercial film released. And comics are a financial drop in the bucket; a studio could print hundreds of thousands of comics for less than $1 million.
In some cases, the comic books take on a life of their own. In 2007, IDW Publishing created a "Transformers "series expected to sell 50,000 issues. Instead, it sold more than 1 million copies.
"It’s a great way to flesh out back stories and create references for the movie," says Hank Kanalz, Wildstorm’s general manager. "You can watch the movie without reading the comic book. But you’ll have a better experience if you do."
Comic devotees can be tough to please, though. They snapped up the "Jumper "prequel and helped drive last year’s film to $80 million.
But they rejected both the paper and celluloid versions of 2007’s "Southland Tales," which did just $275,000.
And stars can be a fickle lot.
"I won’t say who the actress was, but one star of "CSI "wanted her breasts slightly enlarged for the comic book," says IDW publisher Chris Ryall. "I was surprised because, you know, women in comics are already usually pretty ample." | | 2:31p |
The Fellowship of the Ring It’s been more than 50 years since “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first book of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, was initially published. While any author would be honored to be remembered so well after a half-century, surely Tolkien never foresaw that his life’s work of imaginative literature would not only endure, but become indelibly etched into the popular culture of the world like the fiery writing on the One Ring itself. The book is still a great read in its own right, an epic adventure about a handful of home-loving hobbits who are swept up into a dangerous world of evil and magic, power and war. From their quite land of The Shire they are forced into a long journey across Middle-Earth in the company of a dwarf, an elf, a wizard and men from far-off kingdoms, first in flight from menacing Black Riders, and later with a perilous mission to destroy a magical ring in an effort to thwart the enemy, Sauron. If it sounds like stock fantasy fare, it is, but that’s because Tolkien unwittingly created the mold from which much of the next half-century of fantasy writing would be cast. From Ursula K. Leguin to Robert Jordan, it’s hard to find a fantasy series that can’t trace at least part of its heritage back to the Ring trilogy. Tolkien didn’t just inspire imitators, he helped spawn an entire section of the bookstore. It’s a solidly-written work, and even if you stripped out the fantasy elements there would still be left a heck of a road novel, full of careful description of the natural world which makes you want to grab your backpack and go. But the real magic in the books is the extraordinary effort that Tolkien put in to constructing the imaginary world in which they dwell. The different races have their own histories and cultures and languages and songs, to the point where passages appear in the Elven language which Tolkien painstakingly constructed. The reader is often given multiple names for a single place, as characters recite the different names that dwarves, elves and men might have for a single mountain or river, a device that elegantly echoes the cultural complexity of our own world and its languages. At the time of publication, the books were sometimes criticized for a lack of depth in the characters, but they may only seem flat compared to the depth of the world around them. Tolkien originally intended the Ring trilogy to be published alongside “The Silmarillion,” a much denser work which was essentially a fictional history book, detailing the creation and ancient history of the races and lands of Middle-Earth. While “The Silmarillion” was not published until 1977, its presence is felt nonetheless, as it comprises the mythology and history that underpins “The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkien’s shadow is longer even than the bookstore, however, and casts across genre. Not only do wildly popular online fantasy games such as “World of Warcraft” (10 million players and counting) trace their cultural lineage back to Tolkien, but the idea of simulation itself owes something to the intellectual exercise that Tolkien indulged in his writing. Simulation and world-building are mainstays of modern video games, whether they are set in a fantasy world or a more realistic setting, and the idea that a convincing narrative must happen in an open world-space with its own rules and not in a linear cause-and-effect narrative tunnel is essential to how they work. In that sense, “The Lord of the Rings” is an unwitting great-great-grandfather to “Grand Theft Auto IV.” Re-reading “The Fellowship of the Ring” today is not only fun, but full of those “Oh, that’s where that comes from!” moments that pepper the pages of truly great classic books. | | 2:32p |
On the mend Home sick again, but now that the sweats and chills have gone I feel downright peppy, despite the warzone inside my respiratory system. I even managed to drag myself to the PC and moved my rep with the Sons of Hodir from neutral to friendly. Then I blew myself up on land mines. Then I took a nap, exhausted from the “excitement” of it all. When I woke up, the healer world was all a-chatter about the changes to mana regeneration for healers. (go read. shoo. back? ok.) I’m really going to miss Divine Plea. It was a handy little way to increase my mana during trash pulls and lulls in Boss fights. And I loved it when soloing PvE. But a 50% reduction in healing for 20 seconds is just too much to risk during a fight. I’m worried that the changes in regeneration are going to affect my ability to heal all but the most uncrushable of tanks through 5-person Heroic Boss fights. And although I like the 10-person raids, the fives are my favorite. As a casual player it took me a while to reconfigure how I played to adjust to the 3.0 changes. I still wish I could drop 30-minute Salvation on some of the crazy AoE aggro-pullers. I think I’ll copy Akro over to the the test realm once 3.1 goes live there and see what the real deal is. I’ve been 1/4-joking (almost serious) with the guild about retiring Akromah because I’m growing weary of healing. Remember, I’ve been healing in these MMORPGs for years and years. Now I may have to give world’s worst mage another shot. Safe travels and stay healthy! | | 2:33p |
SOE issues eviction notices to former Star Wars Galaxies players For most who played the game at launch, like myself, Star Wars Galaxies remains an experience that was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. In fact, it's a galaxy that most who played the game would not even recognize anymore. In 2005, a large portion of the Star Wars Galaxies player base, including myself, boarded up their houses, put their star ships in the garage and moved out of the neighborhood to other MMORPG's such as World of Warcraft, Age of Conan or Warhammer Online.
The problem was the release of the NGE or New Game Experience unleashed by Sony Online Entertainment in November of that year. For many Star Wars fans still clinging on to the chance of a New Hope, it was instead Revenge of Sith as Sith Lord John Smedley and his team forever changed the game and making perhaps the biggest blunder in MMORPG history. I haven't thought much about Star Wars Galaxies in recent years, until I received an eviction notice in the mail earlier this week. In transmission identified as "Important Information From Star Wars Galaxies ", I quickly opened the message, hoping for news that order had been restored in the galaxy and it was safe for residents to return to their homes and cities. Instead, it was an eviction notice signed anonymously by one of the Emperor's minions. Effective March 3, 2009, at 4:00 AM PST your in-game player owned properties including Houses, Guild Halls, Theaters, Hospitals, Cloning Facilities, Merchant Tents and Factories may be Packed-up, removed from the game server(s) and placed in your datapad. Years ago, after the first exodus in 2004, Sony had performed a similar purge of houses from the game world. While this is a necessary function to keep a sense of normalcy for those few who remain playing the game, it is also one more slap in the face for long time fans hoping to one day go back to the game they once loved. The eviction notice itself was merely a black mail message from the evil empire. You will be evicted unless of course, you give us money. The notices continues.. On March 3rd, we may pack up and remove items attached to Star Wars Galaxies accounts that have been inactive (an account that has not been logged into and had an active, paying, and valid subscription) since July 1, 2008. If your service has been inactive since July 1, 2008, and you do not validly re-subscribe prior to February 15, 2009, your houses, structures and associated assets may be packed up into your datapad and removed from the game servers at 4:00 AM PST on March 3, 2009. Should you decide to return to Star Wars Galaxies after that date, you will have to place these items back into the game world. At this point, I am very certain that I do not care about any in game items I may or may not still have in that game as like other Star Wars fans, I am eagerly awaiting the release of BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic. While I know TOR may never be what Star Wars Galaxies ever was, unless Bioware has gone completely nuts, it should be many times better than the current state of Star Wars Galaxies.
It would be interesting to see how effective this eviction notice is in generating subscription renewals for SOE, but I'm pretty sure that a more inviting solicitation would have been more effective. This email serves to demonstrate one more time that SOE, while not completely inept as the masses may claim, had once again dropped the ball on Star Wars Galaxies. Players who are considering returning to the game however will be allowed to log in free of charge until February 15th. I personally will not be accepting the invitation because nothing in the message was even remotely enticing. |
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