March 26, 2009
Our two-part talk with crime novelist Ian Rankin, writer of the upcoming graphic novel Dark Entries for the Vertigo Crime Line, concludes today. In this installment, the best-selling writer discusses just why so many crime novelists have headed to comics and more. Read on…
March 25, 2009
Our two-part conversation with former Heroes co-executive producer Jesse Alexander, writer of Marvel’s upcoming Howling Commandos: Shotgun Opera concludes today. When we spoke with Alexander, he was in the middle of filming some shots for Day One, a new science fiction pilot he’s created for NBC. While we had him on the phone, we took the opportunity to talk about the upcoming series, and Alexander’s other TV work.
March 25, 2009
An exlusive talk with the internationally-renowned crime novelist on his all-new graphic novel for Vertigo.
March 24, 2009
This May, Marvel takes you back to WWII for an untold tale of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. Howling Commandos: Shotgun Opera is a 40-page one-shot by TV writer Jesse Alexander and veteran artist John Paul Leon (most recently seen on Ex Machina Special) that serves as a companion to Captain America: White by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.
Alexander is a new name to comics, though he’s been associated with some of the most popular genre shows of the last decade. A former co-executive producer on Alias, Lost and most recently Heroes, which he left along with Jeph Loeb late last year. Alexander’s currently filming a new pilot for NBC called Day One, a new apocalyptic drama starring David Lyons (ER), Julie Gonzalo (Veronica Mars and Eli Stone) and Thekla Reuten (In Bruges) among many others.
We called up Alexander during a break from shooting the two-hour pilot to find out what’s going down with the Howlers on this mission. In part one of this two-part convo, one thing becomes apparent: Jesse Alexander loves the Howling Commandos.
March 24, 2009
Reprinted from The Independent Weekly
There are two types of musical theater lovers: Those who love Miss Saigon and those who don’t. For some, Miss Saigon is an enchanting, tragic romance; for others, it’s overblown, overproduced and reduces both Madame Butterfly and the Vietnam War to a couple of set pieces and a rhyming dictionary.
I enjoy musical theater but I’m not a connoisseur; as a result, my perspective falls somewhere in the middle. In N.C. Theatre’s production at Memorial Auditorium, there were a few genuinely thrilling parts and a few others where I found myself wincing in annoyance—only to hear the person next to me sniffling and wiping their eyes with a tissue.
On a technical level, this is perhaps one of the most impressive productions ever seen at Memorial; as a work of storytelling, its ultra-earnestness and sometimes-painful lyrics are tailor-made for a wide audience, but leave others cold. The tale of Miss Saigon, by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr., is by now well-known; set against the backdrop of the fall of Saigon, a 17-year-old prostitute named Kim (Jennifer Paz from the show’s first national tour) finds love with the earnest G.I. Chris (Eric Kunze, reprising his role from Broadway and the first national tour, and who was last seen locally in N.C. Theatre’s Jesus Christ Superstar). Circumstances separate the lovers, who reunite years later in a world that has changed. There’s also a helicopter and a pink Cadillac on stage.
The standout here is Broadway veteran Kevin Gray as the wily pimp The Engineer, who gives a comic-yet-desperate spin to his role; at times, I cared more about whether he’d escape Vietnam than Kim. His performance of the satirical ditty “The American Dream” is the evening’s highlight. This ode to the on-stage Cadillac is an old-school Broadway number with excellent choreography and fancy footwork. The rest of the cast does well, though Jennifer Shrader occasionally seems a bit stiff in the underwritten part of Ellen, Chris’s girl back home. Technical credits by director Richard Stafford and choreographer Marc Oka are excellent.
This is a huge hit for N.C. Theatre; the packed house at the performance I attended delivered a standing ovation and shed plenty of tears. Perhaps you will cry, too. Or maybe you’ll be one of those who wonders how many words could possibly rhyme with “Saigon” or “Engineer.” It all depends on what kind of musical theater lover you are.
March 20, 2009
Don’t let the title fool you – it’s not just a focus on where Batman hangs his cowl, but a thorough exploration of an often-ignored era of Bat-history, packed to the gills with interviews, rare artwork and more, all under a brand-new painted cover by Neal Adams and an introduction by Dennis O’Neil.
Several years in the making, The Batcave Companion finally hits stores this April. It’s a labor of love for Michael Eury and Michael Kronenberg, who revealed to us why they dared venture into the Batcave…and what readers can expect to find.
March 12, 2009
If you’ve ever found yourself sitting around moping about that graphic novel you’ll never get around to doing, maybe you should take a lesson from Kevin Cannon. Despite a busy career as an illustrator for such works as T-Minus, Cannon accepted a dare to try and produce an entire graphic novel under very unusual circumstances. The resulting book, Far Arden, proved to be a hit webcomic (you can read it at www.kevincannon.org/288hour ) and was subsequently picked up by Top Shelf Productions for a 400-page graphic novel premiering this May. We got up with Cannon about the graphic novel, and just how it came to be.
March 12, 2009
This May, a new anthology arrives from Down Under that’s guaranteed to make you Flinch. Published by Gestalt Comics, Flinch is a collection of original stories from a variety of creators that explores the different definitions of “flinch.”
March 9, 2009
This Sunday, the reign of Kings will begin.
Created by former Heroes writer-producer Michael Green, who’s also the co-writer of Superman/Batman and the Green Lantern screenplay and directed by Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend, Constantine) the ambitious new series takes viewers inside a modern-day monarchy that combines the backstabbing tales of the past with the politics of today.
March 5, 2009
Memorial clears space to face down DPAC
Theater vs. theater
2009
The early success of the Durham Performing Arts Center’s 2,800-seat theater has created pressure at the older performing arts venue down the interstate in Raleigh.
Recently, the Progress Energy Center, a four-venue facility topped by the 2,300-seat Memorial Auditorium, instituted changes that would open the main stage to more big-ticket touring acts.
Among the key changes was for the Carolina Ballet to relocate most of its non-Nutcracker performances from Memorial Auditorium to Fletcher Opera Theater. This relocation in turn creates space and scheduling problems for several of the smaller resident companies that use the facility.
