Everyone has noticed by now the flurry of Hollywood remakes and franchise reboots (Indiana Jowned, Last Poop on the Left, X-Men 4, Friday the 430th, ad nauseam….). There’s even talks about rebooting other franchises: Teenage Mutant Ninja Poop, Superpoop, Poop to the Future, etc, etc….

There are no more original ideas.

It goes beyond this. Before movies were franchises. Waaaay back.

Have you ever heard of the expression that all modern stories are basically derived from things like the Odyssey or the Iliad?

It might not be a fair assumption though. The original epics were basically compilations of stories from various people; they began first as oral tradition until people invented writing. The claim that it was written by some dude named Homer is pretty much bullshit.

So let’s cast that idea out. I’d like to broaden it up a little bit and claim that all modern stories are based off of ancient poems (or the more general theory, “anything you’re thinking of, doing, or making, someone has already done it”). I’ll use my favorite story as my example, which I like to call the “redemption hero.” It tends to be a favorite, so it’s not surprising that modern interpretations of it do so well.

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Here’s an interesting article about grammar and aesthetic norms in conveying different types of talking in comic book lettering.

The majority of these points are established tradition, sprinkled with modern trends and a bit of my own opinion having lettered professionally for a few years now.

The article is by Nate Peikos, and hat tip to Barbara Wallraff at the Atlantic.

Hey cool, Google has expanded their reach to Mars:

Wait, what’s that?

ENHANCE!

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Yes, those are the voice actors from Batman: The Animated Series.

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Thai ‘Spider-Man’ to the rescue

Police said teachers had alerted the fire station after the boy began crying and climbed out of a classroom window.

It was reportedly his first day at the special needs school.

Efforts by the teachers to persuade the pupil to come back inside had failed.

But a remark by his mother about his passion for comic superheroes prompted fireman Somchai Yoosabai to rush back to the station, where he kept a Spider-Man costume in his locker.

The sight of Mr Somchai dressed as Spider-Man and holding a glass of juice for him, brought a big smile to the boy’s face, and he promptly threw himself into the arms of his “superhero”, police said.

I was lucky enough to sit in a pre-screening of the Watchmen last night. I’m paying for it now because the movie is 2hr 43min long, and I didn’t get back home until about 1AM.

Anyways, Watchmen is a superhero movie based on a graphic novel of the same name. It was written by Alan Moore, who also wrote other graphic novels which have been adapted by film (”V for Vendetta”, “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”). The movie has been dubbed “unfilmable” because of the heavy amount of development and back-story required. Other studios have tried to make a Watchmen film, but have failed.

Reducing [the story] to a two or two-and-a-half hour film [...] seemed to me to take away the essence of what Watchmen is about
-Terry Gilliam, previous director of an attempted “Watchmen” movie

The reins have now been passed over to Zack Snyder, the director of “300″ and “Dawn of the Dead (2004 remake)”. Was he able to pull it off?

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