Monthly archives: March, 2009

So you’ve seen the Watchmen movie, and maybe you liked it, and maybe you’ve read the graphic novel, and you surely liked that. But where do we go from here? DC is certainly on the ball with their “After Watchmen” recommendations, offering up a plethora of choices to suit your fancy. Whether you liked the superheroes, the mature take on the genre, the doomsday scenario, or the political atmosphere, there are a lot of books out there to keep up the pace.

This week I’m going to recommend DMZ, by Brian Wood and Ricardo Burchielli, which is already part of DC’s master plan, anyway. DMZ is a mature comic with intelligent commentary, clever writing, and a rock solid world. That last part is the keystone that holds everything else together.

World-building is important in stories, and one could argue that both Marvel’s and DC’s success in the 1960s hinged on the fact that their characters lived in the same world; that the characters live in a reality that feels as real as the one you’re living in now, but it was different and intruiging. (At the very least, both companies have assuredly taken advantage of the intertwining story potential in the last few years.)

All of my favorite movies and books have built up engrossing worlds around the characters and stories. (more…)

Doominator: So, Doom, we recently perfectly legally watched the direct to DVD Wonder Woman movie.

I find myself with a few words swimming in my head.

Doom DeLuise: Felony?

Doominator: None of them are “Oscar.”

Felony works, but this wasn’t quite a crime against humanity. It didn’t try hard enough. It didn’t try at all in any respect.

Doom DeLuise: I think this is the third direct to DVD PG-13 movie from DC, following Superman: Doomsday and Justice League: New Frontier. Have you seen either of those?

Doominator: No, but I skimmed the Doomkopf reviews.

Doom DeLuise: Ah, yes. Well, the problems that beset those movies haven’t been addressed at all in this thing. It’s still just overly violent with some stupid “mature” jokes thrown in to the mix to justify its PG-13 rating. There’s nothing mature about the way the movie is handled aside from decapitations, kicks to the nuts, and references to the size of Wonder Woman’s “rack.”

Doominator: Or Mary Marvel-esque near nudity. How many nut shots were there anyway? At least three.
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There’s been a lot of content going up in the last 24 hours (don’t miss the quickly bumped Watchmen review) and there’s still more coming (Book of Doom preview), so I’m going to keep this brief.

• Daredevil #116, Return of the King part 1 – great introduction to the new arc. I wish I would’ve realized this was coming out this week — I would’ve picked it for the Book of Doom. I’m pumped about this. 9 dots.

• Superman: World of New Krypton #1 – I still don’t like the idea that Superman will defeat dishonesty and manipulation through dishonesty and manipulation, but it’s an interesting scenario and I imagine it’ll be a good read. 7 dots.

• War of Kings #1 – It was our Book of Doom. Much like New Krypton, I feel like this story has had several first chapters, but no matter how many of them are called chapter 1, I still like how it’s progressing. And I love Paul Pelletier’s art. 8 dots.

• Madman Atomic Comics #14 – I finally got around to reading Madman #13 (on a Sunday), which was the conclusion to a thirteen-part super-story. Michael Allred announced in the letters column that the series would begin focusing on more single-issue self-contained stories starting with #14. As for the lead story, it was cute. I enjoyed it. It had enough of the quirkiness Madman fans expect that I wasn’t disappointed. The backup story by J. Bone and Darwyn Cooke was awful though. Just a ridiculous mess. 5 dots.

One year for Christmas, I got my niece the book “Coraline” by Neil Gaiman, in an attempt to turn her into a total dork. It paid off, and quickly, she was enamored with Neil Gaiman, so I gave her a Sandman volume and my copy of Neverwhere. Not sure if she ever read those, but “A Game of You” isn’t the lightest of reading when you’re in high school.

It was only fair that I read the book too, and I ended up loving it as well. Compared to the pages-and-pages of Boxcar Children books I mis-spent my childhood on, the world of Coraline was alive with rich detail, creating an imaginative modern day fairytale … sort of like most of Gaiman’s other work.

So when the movie was announced, we joked that I’d fly home to the land of the other Doomkopfers just to see it. Instead, I dragged a friend along with me so I wasn’t a creepy, bearded 25-year-old spending a Sunday afternoon alone in a children’s movie.

So, a few weeks after the release, my review:
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JIM DOOM: So did you see Watchmen yet?

DOOM DeLUISE: Yes I did.

JIM DOOM: I read Sunday morning that it had a three-day opening of $55.7 million. How do they know that on Sunday morning? Isn’t Sunday part of the three-day total?

DOOM DeLUISE: Sunday’s an estimate. Actual figures don’t come out until Monday.

JIM DOOM: Is there just some kind of formula where they can say “Well, if Friday this well and Saturday did this well, historically Sunday is x percentage of what we saw on Friday and y percent of Saturday, so if we average those two, we can reasonably assume Sunday’s total” or something like that?

DOOM DeLUISE: Yeah, that’s it exactly. According to the actuals, Watchmen only grossed $55.2 million. Still, 55 million dollars for a rated R movie with a two and a half hour plus runtime is pretty damned impressive.

JIM DOOM: So I already wrote about what I thought Tuesday night. Want to give me a similar overview of what you thought and we can jump into specifics after that?

DOOM DeLUISE: Sure. (more…)