Sunday, December 10, 2006

The Dead Tree




Upcoming page from Death, The Kansas Killer, And The Man Who Won't Die. We'll just call it The Dead Tree. Drawn by se7enhedd, colored by JM Ringuet.

Saturday, December 09, 2006



Here's a look at a very nice page from the upcoming Planet Of The Dinosaurs. Art by the wonderful Christopher Steininger. More to come!

Monday, December 04, 2006

George Clooney's Pig Has Died.

X-MEN 3 VS SUPERMAN RETURNS! Which isn't as bad?

The debate has raged, been beaten into the ground, but yesterday, my own internal dilemma with it had to be settled when I was put on the spot. Sick, home from work, my wife was going to the store and asked if I wanted anything. What better than a DVD, and since I had every DVD that I pretty much HAD to own, I realized that Superman Returns or X-men 3 were good choices for a sick day. I had to choose.

So, which movie did I like better? And, priding myself in my tastes, did I indeed like the better movie?

Money to be spent, hours of my time to be occupied, I was honest with myself and said X-men 3. There it was: I like X-men 3 better.

My name is James Patrick and I liked X-men 3 better than Superman Returns.

Why the shame? Because there is no way I should like a Ratner flick over a Singer flick.

So what gives X-men 3 the edge? It doesn't meander. It doesn't lose itself. Even though it has too many ideas, there aren't too many scenes for those ideas. It says what it has to say, has some really good scenes, and it's done. The opening scene with little Jean Grey, Magneto attacking the convoy, Magneto at the Golden Gate Bridge, Kitty and Juggernaut in the final attack are all very enjoyable sequences paced throughout the movie and the rest of the scenes aren't terrible. And, well, Ian McKellen (sp?) just absolutely makes the movie for me.

On the other hand, Superman Returns just completely loses itself after the first 30 minutes. Those opening 30 or so minutes are damn near perfect, feel right, are tense, but then doesn't know where to go from there. Everyone who doesn't like the film seems to say it's because he doesn't hit anyone after that, that he's battle land masses, but that's not it at all. The movie had great sets, decent characters, solid scenes, but a terrible structure after that. Nothing holds its parts togeter and they don't add up to anything. At some point it goes back and forth with Superman saving and being saved all while the audience knows none of the characters are really in danger. And it's all done in a visually uninteristing place. It's just . . . boring. God, it just becomes so boring to me. I wanted to love it. If the rest of the film had even come close to its opening, it'd have been a triumph.

In the end, X-men 3 doesn't aspire to be much, but does exactly what it intends to do. Not drop the ball. Superman wants to be a classic but is way too thin.

I'm so ashamed.