Angry Puppy

If you haven’t seen it yet, head over to Dark Horse Presents on MySpace to read “Captain Hammer: Be Like Me”, a mini-comic preview for Joss Whedon’s Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along-Blog, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day.

Now the trailer we saw a couple of weeks ago is starting to make more sense!

[Via Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Blog and Mary (Thanks, Mary!)]

We didn’t mean to do it, but Joss Whedon turns up a lot in this week’s episode:

• Headlines: Sarah Michelle Gellar’s favorite male roles, Doctor Horrible gets a trailer
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8, Volume 2: “No Future for You” and “Anywhere but Here”
• The Astonishing X-Men: Volume 4; Also Whedon.
• Pride High; No Whedon.
• Doctor Who: “Silence in the Library”
• Solar Flare; Yeah we also found a Whedon reference there somehow.
• Wonder Showzen
• Frameline: The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman
• The 9 Greatest Bi and Gay Female Characters in the Sci-Fi/Geek World

All this and Marc’s tour of San Francisco comics shops.

In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the trailer for Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog that we mention in the episode:

With the occasional exception (e.g. Superman: Red Son, Justice League: The New Frontier) I’m not generally a Batman-fan or Batfan, if you will. It looks like I’ll be adding Batman: Gotham Knight to that exception list, though.

This six-story anthology takes place between the events of 2005’s Batman Begins and this summer’s The Dark Knight. Each story has its own art style and writer, including Brian Azzarello (who coincidentally wrote many of my favorite Hellblazers) and Josh Olson. As it happens, Olson is also writing the script for Todd McFarlane’s revisionist version of L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories. Judging by McFarlane’s Twisted Land of Oz collection from 2003, this is going to be considerably darker than the original concept or other revisions like Gregory Maguire’s Wicked. Here’s McFarlane’s Dorothy with some cute little Munchkins:

On Gotham Knight, Olson says:

Just because it’s a cartoon, and because of the nature of the story, I wanted to do the one thing you’d never see in a Batman segment: a decapitation. I was so happy they let me keep it. I thought, “I’ve gotta get it in there.” The director did such a beautiful job. Batman never kills anyone. I wanted to have him do something really grotesquely inappropriate, and yet get the point across that Batman never kills. That was fun … very dark fun.

This sounds like my kind of Batman. Look for it on DVD, Blu-ray and online on July 8. Until then, here are some images, courtesy of our friends at Warner Bros.

“Batman Gotham Knight” (c) Warner Bros. Ent Inc.
“Batman” and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and
(c) DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Prism Comics has just released Prism Comics: Your LGBT Guide to Comics 2008, with editor Jonathan Riggs and cover art by Jackademus.

This year’s Prism Guide features a “Prism High” yearbook theme, recounting everything LGBT in this year’s comics. Highlights include a report card on LGBT portrayals in everything from JSA to the X-Men books and beyond; interviews with famous alumni such as Chuck Kim, writer for TV’s Heroes, and Darren Davis, the founder of Bluewater Productions; an erotic comics roundtable discussion; a celebration of the Transgender Day of Remembrance by Jenn Dolari; an exploration of the role of religion in LGBT comics; a tribute to the 25th birthday of Jeff Krell’s Jayson; and an intro by Erica Friedman to Yuri Manga (lesbian manga). Original comics include work from LGBT comics giants such as Paige Braddock (Jane’s World), Leanne Franson (liliane bi-dyke), Tim Fish (Cavalcade of Boys), Allan Neuwirth and Glen Hanson (Chelsea Boys), Patrick Fillion (Deimos), Justin Hall (Prism grant winner for Glamazonia), Tommy Roddy (Prism grant winner for Pride High), Chris Companik (HIV + Me), and many more.

I don’t think you can get it online yet, though last year’s is available in Prism’s store.

Though we didn’t see Prism Comics at NY Comic-Con this year, they will have a booth at the MoCCA Art Festival:

The Prism booth (#S36) at the MoCCA Art Festival will host creator signings with Allan Neuwirth (Chelsea Boys), Jennifer Camper (Juicy Mother 1 & 2, Dangerous Women), Abby Denson (Tough Love: High School Confidential), Ivan Velez, Jr. (Ghost Rider, Dead High, Tales of the Closet), Erica Friedman (Yuricon), and JD Glass (American Goth, Punk Like Me). Also, a full range of LGBT comics will be on sale from such favorites as Paige Braddock (Jane’s World), Joe Phillips (Boys Will Be Boys), Brian Andersen (So Super Duper), Tommy Roddy (Pride High), and many more.

You can also see Allan Neuwirth, Jennifer Camper, Ivan Velez and Jose Villarrubia (Mirror of Love, New Avengers, Manhunter) at a Queer Pride signing on Friday at 7:30pm at Jim Hanley’s Universe here in Manhattan.

Constantine came on FX the other night, and I re-watched it, pretending that it had nothing to do with Hellblazer. Viewed through that lens, it’s not so bad, but it still falls in my dead zone: neither good enough to sit through nor bad enough to laugh through. And in the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I failed to disassociate it from the comic series. I mean, come on! It’s John Constantine, innit!

I’d love to hear from people who think otherwise (it’s so subjective), but I found this Constantine more tiresome than compelling. A suicide-induced Flatliners moment damned him, and now, like some two-bit exorcist, he goes door to door sending errant demons back to Hell to curry God’s favor (yawn) so he can get into heaven. Hey! Isn’t that almost the plot of Reaper? Where’s the nuance from the comics?

Fortunately for you, me and everyone we know, Tilda Swinton has a habit of making otherwise meh movies worth watching. Here she is as the wonderfully androgynous archangel Gabriel:

John Constantine, Tilda Swinton in hooker pants kicking Keanu Reeves’ ass, and, hey, it’s even got boy-of-the-moment Shia LeBeouf as Chas… How could it have gone so wrong?

We’ve made it clear that we think Keanu Reeves as Constantine is some of the worst casting ever. Re-watch the clip above and imagine the same lines acted as if they were based on any version of John Constantine from the comics. Not so bad, right? But that faux-intense effect that Mr. Reeves uses kills any affection and respect I had for the character.

I’m not savvy enough to discern if that’s a fault of the acting or the directing, but here’s director Francis Lawrence’s IMDB entry. It’s impressive in its own right, but there’s not much in the way of turning other successful dark comic series into films.

As we said in the vlog, don’t enter the Hellblazer universe though this movie. As an alternative, I’ve put some of my favorite TPBs in this handy Amazon widget.

I’d love to hear your recommendations. And I especially want to hear from those who liked Constantine the film. John Constantine is too close to my heart for me to be truly objective, and I’m open to hearing what good things I might have missed in the movie.