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Welcome to the Future

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Imagine this.

You hear the coin drop and you pull the handle watching the reels spin and slow then finally they stop and, you don’t win, but wait, an icon appears in front of you and says ‘click to win a prize’.

So, you do.

You click the icon and suddenly the whole casino disappears in a rainbow of colours and once those colours settle you find you have been transported outside, and once more you have a pair of six guns in your hands.

Clicking the icon transformed you into a cowboy and you are standing in an old Western town.

Then a sign appears telling you to shoot six baddies in a minute and earn a dollar, so you do, you aim and you shoot as many of those dang bandits as you can.

This is your welcome to the virtual casino and could very well be how most people could be experiencing them in ten years’ time or less.

Adding creative game programming will take the online casino into the realms of wearable technology and VR headsets that allow us to explore the gambling experience in a way that we once never thought possible.

In the future we expect to walk through those casino doors and enter the luxurious lobby, listen to the music and see the sights of the casino whilst wearing our VR headsets, then when we have finished our experience we can take them off and end up back in our front rooms tucked up under a comfy blanket.

Just imagine playing on your favourite site like conquercasino.com and experience the games as if you really there, the possibility seems like something out of science fiction but it really is not that far away as its much closer to reality than many might think.

Sites like conquer casino offer a great experience with exceptional graphics, audio and video clips and enjoy massive traffic through their virtual doors. Game choice is varied and loyal players enjoy great bonuses and promotional offers in a safe and secure environment where the emphasis is on fun and entertainment.

Being able to play your favourite games via VR is another giant step forward, and although it might not be for everyone, it’s another option we would be foolish to overlook.

 

 


FOG! Looks At The Graphic Novels of 451 Media Group

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Welcome back to Graphic Breakdown!

These days the comic book market has an overwhelming amount of good material, but some publishers and titles can get lost without strong advocates.  Today, I’m taking the opportunity to look at the current output of 451 Media which is developing stories across various technological platforms.  Founded by Michael Bay, 451 Media currently has nine trades available.

Here’s what I thought of all of them.

Stained  
Written by David Baron
Illustrated by Yusuf Idris

I loved this book.

This actually started off strong and the creative team clicked instantly with each other from page one. They continued the pace throughout the entire book. This is quite an excellent read.

Emma London is a recovery artist and a bounty hunter for hire. She is also part machine.

In the story she seems to be hunting down a priceless painting, but it leads to something much, much darker.

The whole book is wonderfully cohesive and a quick read. Baron keeps the writing fast and furious. The art by Idris is absolutely amazing.

You really need to pick this book up. It’s damn awesome.

RATING: A

 

Humbug
Written by A.J. Gentile
Illustrated by Cosmo White 

This title is completely nuts. I love it.

It focuses on a guy named Ebenezer Scrooge. You know him well. He’s that wacky guy at the center of the story A Christmas Carol. He’s in his very own comic book! What a joy that is.

The premise here is that Scrooge here is the world’s first paranormal Investigator.

This shows what Scrooge does after the events of that fateful Christmas Eve. He gathers a team and becomes a turn of the century ghostbuster. It’s as nuts as it sounds, kids!

The writing is deranged and a lot of laughs. The art isn’t as good as one would hope but it’s not too bad. Pick this up. It’s a fascinating read for sure.

RATING: B

 

Self Storage
Written by Clay McLeod Chapman
Illustrated by Matt Timson

I read a lot of the 451 Media Group books all at once. This was the one that hooked me the least. I wish it had been more enjoyable. At least they tried.

Chris Smith is a loser who hocks junk from self storage units. It’s junk people have left behind. That’s how he spends his days.

Then one day, he finds a woman named Jessica in one of the units. Then things go crazy.

The writing is okay at best. It’s full of cliches and is rather dull. The art isn’t very inspired either. I didn’t even want to finish it.

Ah, well. Onto the next one!

RATING: D+

 

Six
Written by George Pelecanos
Illustrated by Andrew Ewing 

George Pelecanos writes one hell of a comic book. He has written for some of the best television shows of all time and now tries his hand at Comics.

It’s a good fit for sure. Pelecanos has written a riveting and topical graphic narrative.

A wife of a former Marine finds herself in the crosshairs of a vicious Mexican cartel. Her deceased husband’s old squad isn’t having it! They decide to take the fight to the cartel.

They may be outgunned and outmanned but they don’t care!

The comic moves fast and furious. The art is pretty damn good as well. It’s a nice package through and through. Pick this up. It’s quite excellent.

RATING: A

 

Red Dog
Written by Rob Cohen
Adapted by Andi Ewington
Illustrated by Rob Atkins & Alex Cormack

This was certainly an entertaining read. The plot is familiar, but it keeps moving enough to be very enjoyable overall.

Rob Cohen is a film director turning to comics and his book here is pretty good.

The book takes place on a planet that isn’t Earth. Young Kyle has to try to survive the perils of this planet alongside a pack of robotic dogs. Can he make it though? Or will they all perish at the hands of the adults? Find out here.

The art is magnetic on this title. Atkins and Cormack are a team to watch for sure. It’s very vivid and the storytelling is amazing. You’ll be hearing their names again. Pick this up. There’s enough to enjoy to make it worth buying.

RATING: B

 

ExMortis 
Written by Pete & Paul Williams
Adapted by Andi Ewington
Illustrated by Raymund Bermudez & Ty Dazo

This is a book that was crazy right from the first page. I though I was going to hate it, but it won me over fairly quick.

Plus it’s got people fighting Nazis so that’s always fun to read.

Those Nazis I was just taking about seem to have found the diary of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. They use it to reanimate their dead soldiers. That’s unfair!

So what do he Allies do? They form a team out of the Wolfman, Junior Frankenstein, Dracula, the Phantom, and the Gillman. They become the only hope to destroy those dastardly Nazis evil plan.

The writing here is appropriately wacky. The art works well with the writing to make one hell of a book. Pick this up. It’s a blast from start to finish.

RATING: B+

 

NVRLND: V.1
Created & Written by: Stephanie Salyers & Dylan Mulik
Illustrated by: Leila Leiz

A crazy take on the Peter Pan mythos? Sure, why not!

This comic book is more than that however. It’s also very smart. Mulick and Salyers work great as co-writers and the book is very well written.

The book takes place in the underground music scene. Kids are getting addicted to a brand new drug called Pixie Dust. They believe they can fly when they take it. People think it is Peter who has given her this drug. Peter is the owner of a club called Neverland and has a band called The Lost Boys.

Peter however knows it’s is the tattoo artist known only as Hook that is responsible. And so our comic’s story begins.

This book again is well written. The art is also very striking. Pick this up. This is a book you should have in your collection. It’s quite excellent.

RATING: A 

 

Sunflower
Created and Written by: Mark Mallouk
Adapted by: Andi Ewington
Illustrated by: Lee Carter

This is another of the stronger releases from 451 Media Group. This book comes from the mind of Mark Mallouk, the author of the film Black Mass.

This book takes right off out of the gate and doesn’t let up.

Ten years ago CJ’s husband and daughter were murdered. Over the years, the rage builds inside her.

Then, a letter arrives. It indicates that her daughter is alive. CJ then becomes hellbent to get her back!

The writing is sharp and dark and I loved it. The art is pretty damn amazing as well. This is a sharp, strong book. Pick this up. It’s awesome and you need to read it.

RATING: A

 

Bad Moon Rising 
Written by: Scott Rosenberg
Adapted by: Brandon Easton
Illustrated by: Ty Dazo

This is the best book of the 451 Media Group line. It’s also the craziest one they have. Scott Rosenberg has come up with a concept that is generally bonkers and you can’t help but love it.

Sheriff George Wagner is killed. His son Teddy comes home to see that a bunch of murders are happening.

The investigation points to a motorcycle gang that may in fact be werewolves.

Then, a werewolf hunter comes to town.

What the hell is going on? A whole mess of fun! That’s what!

The comic book is crazy. There are scenes that make you jump out of your seat. I love it. The art is appropriately nasty and makes you smile.

Pick this up. This is the best comic book in the line hands down!

RATING: A 

 

Precursor To Dystopia #2: When The Signal Is The Noise

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Welcome to the second Precursor To Dystopia column.

What do old men in adult diapers, rape, and the breaking news cycle have in common? Well, aside from each being gross in their own regards, they’re all in some way manipulated and generated by rogue algorithms for your consumption:

Via Amazon.com

This is a real product. You can really buy it, and over 100,000 others like it, all procedurally generated and posted for sale by a robot. Like this one:

  And this:

But it’s not just crazy iPhone covers. It’s also news, social media, YouTube, and just about every other aspect of your daily life that you ingest through a screen. There’s no doubt: robots have infiltrated, proliferated, and taken over our social media platforms.

So far, text-only bots have managed to add massive amounts of noise to the signal of real news disseminated throughout our social platforms, and the results of just these little text bots has been to see a) the weakening of the information chain, b) the proliferation of fake, completely made up “news” rising within certain subcultures within the far left and far right, and c) the overall decline in usability and increase in frustration in simply using these platforms.

So what happens when the bots — completely capable of generating headlines for thinkpieces on their own to manipulate political elections, news cycles, and others — collude with the sweeping trend of algorhythmic voice and video synthesis?

Pure fucking chaos, is what. We no longer know what is real and what is fake anymore. But worse… Our fatigue is growing to the point that we no longer even care.

Note: there’s “we” as in “We the people,” and then there’s WE. Us, the folks who have been on the internet for years and seen all that it has ever been. WE can tell, with reasonable success, when something is a real headline and when it links to garbage. WE can tell when something is journalism and when it’s just opinions wrapped in loose connections to tiny nuggets of fact. WE know bullshit from shinola. And even WE are unable to find the real in all of this emerging fakeness.

I want to say it’s not WE that I worry about, but I am. It’s not the moms and the dads who joined Facebook to see what the kids are up to that I am most scared for, even though they’re the ones who, despite telling us 20 years ago that you can’t believe anything on the internet, quote FreedomEagleNews.Info on every single thinkpiece its Russian agents assisted by robots generate. They have always fallen for anything, and their taking fake news that feeds into their confirmation biases to the polls with them is nothing new. Never in the history of cognitive bias has real information sways an entrenched viewpoint — they “believe” this fake crap only because they “believe” their viewpoint so deeply. Facts are meaningless, and that will always be the case (See: all religions ever.)

And when you consolidate your sources for information to one or two platforms which can be easily manipulated and/or bought by bad people to mess with you… Well, you have a pretty solid recipe for dystopia.

Politicians, governments, bad actors, and hucksters using this uptick in noise to smother the signals we really need to determine the course of our future. In other words: when a truth comes out that should have a major consequence, there is a risk — if not an inevitability — that that truth will be fuzzed and made either quieter or altogether irrelevant by massive swaths of fake, automated noise that looks REAL ENOUGH for the typical person to just accept as part of the cost of doing business in society.

  • “Everything’s corrupt, so why bother.”
  • “Your side has bad stuff too, see (any number of fake news articles posted and disseminated as “truth” within the verticals of political extremism)”
  • “The media lies to you, I only trust my sources.”

And so on.

When you combine this very normal, very human element with emerging technologies, things get downright scary. This week, NVidia released a video of hundreds of unreal yet totally believable fake celebrity faces, all generated by AI:

NONE OF THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY EXIST. And you have to admit, you can believe each and every one is some celebrity you may or may not have heard of.

You may remember another video that popped up last year of an AI generating a video of of a very real Obama giving a very not-real speech by sampling, cutting, and matching the video of his mouth from sample speeches and pairing it with the linguistic patterns of other speeches he’s given.

What happens when NVidia’s AI face generator, the Obama lip synch tech, and something like lyrebird are all used to create very real looking, very real sounding, but very not real “Democratic Senators” or “Republican Congresspersons” saying completely off the wall shit that no one will verify, fact check, or even challenge because hey, it looks real, and bad shit happens every single minute of every single day, and I’m just too tired to care?

And what does any of this have to do with old men in adult diapers on phone cases, or shirts that promote keeping calm and raping a lot? Everything, if you’re looking at the tech that brought those things to life.

Via Amazon.com

Yep, they made this.

Via Amazon.com

And here’s this one again, and no I’m not sorry

There’s one very important fact you should know about the items pictured above: Neither of the companies who were selling these items were aware of their existences.

The company that churned out over 100,000 iPhone cases with bizarre and often borderline gross images on them, all selected, built, and listed on Amazon by an AI, had no real clue what images they were putting on cases. They just used a script to pull popular search terms from stock photo libraries, create the image, and post it for sale. And the company who made the Keep Calm And Rape Alot shirt had no clue it was for sale in their shop. And what’s really challenging to accept is that these products actually sold in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you sell on Amazon, they competed for your dollar. In order to keep up, you have to compete with the robots.

James Bridle says in his amazing post on Medium titled “There Is Something Wrong With The Internet”:

This is content production in the age of algorithmic discovery — even if you’re a human, you have to end up impersonating the machine.

In order to make it as a content creator, you have to sound like a robot in your title, headline, copy and pitch, because the robots have gotten so good at creating high-ranking, highly-viewed, highly-suggested content. Nowhere is this more evident than on YouTube, where thousands of bots have posted literally millions of automatically generated videos on “Kids YouTube.” Which has been a godsend for the “parenting via digital device” set (which is most parents, near as I can tell). Many 100,000+ view videos are created 100% from the ground up by robots that scrape background music, images, and keyword-heavy trending phrases, mash them into a stream, and entertain toddlers. But they have diluted the platform so deeply that people can create alarmingly disturbing video content that arrives on the platform, unchecked and uncensored. People are sneaking violent, disturbing, and sexual content into videos exclusively marketed and shown to children. And this can only happen because the platform they’re hosted on is so dilute with garbage, it’s impossible for a human team to curate and monitor the content.

Which brings me back to Bridle’s great article. I highly recommend you read the entire piece, but the most important part — to me — is this:

This, I think, is my point: The system is complicit in the abuse. And right now, right here, YouTube and Google are complicit in that system. The architecture they have built to extract the maximum revenue from online video is being hacked by persons unknown to abuse children, perhaps not even deliberately, but at a massive scale. […] This is a deeply dark time, in which the structures we have built to sustain ourselves are being used against us — all of us — in systematic and automated ways.

Now, maybe the emergence of these technologies and their effect on the purely digital stream that flows from your little black rectangle of dopamine generation feels too sci-fi for you (despite being real, right here, right now things). So how about a more immediate and traditional method of controlling what you think? Like, say, a billionaire with very widely known political leanings in a certain direction buying and then shuttering a channel for information? (Thank god for people like Paul Ford, who is doing his part to save all the content that was destroyed in this move, and for Archive.org…)

Or, shutting down a newly important voice in the resistance against the fascist elements cropping up in today’s political and social sphere?

Or offering 15% of your political buys on an American election to foreign buyers?

Or white nationalism controlling entire media platforms to promote one political candidate via lots and lots of money?

What if public, widely-used video delivery platforms host citizen recorded war crimes and bad behavior by police which could be (and is) used as evidence at trial suddenly decided to dump that content, eliminating the evidence?

Or when corporations bar the press from covering things because they simply don’t like them?

Sure, it’s “just business” but these businesses are where we get OUR INFORMATION. This is the stuff we use to make decisions. And when it’s fake, or manipulated, or made unavailable, we aren’t able to make good decisions. Dystopia is not just about technology (although, in the context of this column, it plays a heavy part). It’s about control. And wether or not these decisions were malicious, it’s still controlling the flow of information.

But sometimes it’s not even the corporation’s call. There’s always a case where a rogue employee who does what they think needs doing and shuts down the President’s Twitter account.

And it’s worth noting, at least one government believes so much in hacking the flow of information, they have dedicated massive amounts of money to the program (no need to click, I’ll give it away: it’s Russia. And the program is called Fancy Bear, which is just too awesome a name not to type out myself).

There is no doubt: while we wait for people to establish some sort of formal ethics in AI, we head further and further along the path to dystopia.

More Precursors To Dystopia for the week of November 1-7, 2017:

That’s it. Have any comments or insights you’d like to share? Please comment, I’d like to hear them and discuss. Have a good weekend.

Missed the first Precursor to Dystopia? Check it out!

‘Walt Disney’s Christmas Classics’ (book review)

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Walt Disney’s Christmas Classics
Written by by Frank Reilly, Floyd Norman
Illustrated by Floyd Gottfredson,‎
Manuel Gonzales,‎ John Ushler
Published by IDW Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1684050062
Released 11/24/17 / $39.99

I wish I could say that I grew up eagerly anticipating and enjoying the annual Walt Disney Christmas comic strips in our local newspaper in the 1960s but the truth is that we almost always got the NEA strips (which someone should collect NEXT year!).

Thus what we have in the new book, Walt Disney’s Christmas Classics, is mostly new to me—new and absolutely delightful! Presenting more than 30 stories that were exclusive to the newspapers between 1960 and 1997, this book is like a Who’s Who of classic Disney characters, many of whom had never appeared together before and never would again!

Similarly, the behind the scenes work, so informatively detailed in Alberto Beccatini’s introduction, was also a Who’s Who, with everyone from grand master cartoonist Floyd Gottfredson to the great animator Floyd Norman and even Jack Kirby’s preferred inker, Mike Royer, working on the continuities through the years.

Each story, as I’m sure you’ve probably guessed, takes place during the holiday season, with Santa being the only real running character. Among the surprise combinations, we get Mr. Smee, Captain Hook’s first mate from Peter Pan, hanging with the seven dwarfs from Snow White. We have Princess Aurora, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, once again menaced by Maleficent but this time rescued by, of all people…err…ducks, Professor Ludwig Von Drake! Maleficent also menaces Dumbo the flying elephant in another story, aided by Mad Madam Mim from The Sword in the Stone.

With man landing on the moon in 1969, outer space was big in pop culture so I guess it makes sense that the seven dwarfs returned again to teach the spirit of Christmas to space aliens in that year’s seasonal tale.

Perhaps the strangest combo pops up in 1971 where we see the Beagle Boys, Scrooge McDuck’s longtime nemeses in four color form, going up against the mice from Cinderella!

Also appearing are Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Bambi and friends, the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, Pinocchio with Jiminy Cricket, Merlin and young Arthur, Br’er Bear, Tinker Bell and Peter Pan, some of the 101 Dalmatians, and a whole bunch of fairy godmothers.

The ‘90s revival version that makes up the final portion of this volume offers up short Christmas tales of later Disney icons such as Ariel, Belle, and Quasimodo.

The stories get repetitive at times—something that would not have been an issue reading one per year—but the novelty character team-ups keep things rolling along and enjoyable. Personally, it feels like more effort went into the earlier strips, with the newer ones having a more corporate cash-in feel to them, but even then they have their heart-tugging moments.

Young or old, if you were ever a Disney kid, even if your local newspaper steered clear of these special strips, Walt Disney’s Christmas Classics is something you’ll enjoy and can pass on to your own kids and grandkids.


Ho, ho, ho! Booksteve Recommends!

 

Win ‘Vice Principals: Season 2’ on Digital HD!

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Starring the hilariously talented Danny McBride and Walton Goggins, own the darkest comedy on TV when Vice Principals: Season 2 is available for digital download on December 11th.

Created by McBride and Jody Hill (co-creators of HBO’s Eastbound & Down), this “comedic achievement” (Vulture) tells the story of a southern suburban high school and the two people who conspire to run it, the vice principals. McBride and Goggins star as Neal Gamby and Lee Russell, a pair of ambitious administrators waged in an epic power struggle to become school principal. As the tumultuous school year at North Jackson High continues and new semesters bring big changes, Gamby and Russell learn that the only thing harder than gaining power is holding on to it.

Heralded as “wildly original and deeply funny” (Vox), Vice Principals: Season 2 comes with deleted scenes and an exclusive blooper reel. The hit HBO comedy is executive produced by McBride, Hill, David Gordon Green, Stephanie Laing and Jonathan Watson.

And we’re giving away two digital copies!

To enter, send an email with the subject header “VP2” to geekcontest @ gmail dot com and answer the following question:

What comedy icon appeared in the first episode playing Principal Welles?

Please include your name, and address (U.S. only. You must be 18 years old).

Only one entry per person and a winner will be chosen at random.

Contest ends at 11:59 PM EST on December 17th, 2017.

‘Blade Runner 2049’ Arrives on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, 3D Combo, Blu-ray Combo & DVD on 1/16; Digital HD on 12/26!

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See what critics are calling “the best movie of the year” when “Blade Runner 2049” arrives onto 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack, Blu-ray Combo Pack, DVD and Digital HD. From Oscar-nominated director Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival”) comes Alcon Entertainment’s science fiction thriller “Blade Runner 2049.” Sure as it is to delight ‘Blade Runner’ fans, this stunningly elegant follow-up doesn’t depend on having seen the original.

Three decades after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

The film stars Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling (“La La Land”) as K, and Harrison Ford (the “Star Wars” films, “Witness”), reprising the role of Rick Deckard.  The main international cast also includes Ana de Armas (“War Dogs”), Sylvia Hoeks (“Renegades”), Robin Wright (“Wonder Woman”), Mackenzie Davis (“The Martian”), Carla Juri (“Brimstone”), and Lennie James (“The Walking Dead”), with Dave Bautista (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films) and Oscar winner Jared Leto (“Dallas Buyers Club”).

Blade Runner 2049” was produced by Oscar nominees Andrew A. Kosove & Broderick Johnson (“The Blind Side”) and three time Emmy winner Bud Yorkin & Cynthia Sikes Yorkin.  Multiple Oscar nominee Ridley Scott (“The Martian,” “Gladiator”), who directed the first “Blade Runner,” is an executive producer.  Bill Carraro served as executive producer and unit production manager.

Blade Runner 2049” will be available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack for $44.95, Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack for $44.95, Blu-ray Combo Pack for $35.99 and DVD for $28.98. The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack features an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc with the theatrical version in 4K with HDR and a Blu-ray disc also featuring the theatrical version. The Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack features the theatrical version of the film in 3D hi-definition, hi-definition and standard definition; the Blu-ray Combo Pack features the theatrical version of the film in hi-definition on Blu-ray; and the DVD features the theatrical version in standard definition. The Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack and Blu-ray Combo Pack include a digital version of the movie in Digital HD with UltraViolet.  Fans can also own “Blade Runner 2049” via purchase from digital retailers beginning December 26th.

4K Ultra HD showcases 4K resolution with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and a wider color spectrum, offering consumers brighter, deeper, more lifelike colors for a home entertainment viewing experience like never before.

Additionally, all of the special features, including interviews with filmmakers, featurettes, and deleted scenes, can be experienced in an entirely new, dynamic and immersive manner on tablets and mobile phones using the Warner Bros. Movies All Access App, available for both iOS and Android devices. When a Combo Pack is purchased and the digital movie is redeemed, or the digital movie is purchased from a digital retailer, the Warner Bros. Movies All Access App allows users to watch the movie and simultaneously experience synchronized content related to any scene, simply by rotating their device. Synchronized content is presented on the same screen while the movie is playing, thus enabling users to quickly learn more about any scene, such as actor biographies, scene locations, fun trivia, or image galleries. Also, users can share movie clips with friends on social media and experience other immersive content. The Movies All Access app is available for download on the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store.

The Blu-ray discs of “Blade Runner 2049” will feature a Dolby Atmos® soundtrack remixed specifically for the home theater environment to place and move audio anywhere in the room, including overhead. To experience Dolby Atmos at home, a Dolby Atmos enabled AV receiver and additional speakers are required, or a Dolby Atmos enabled sound bar; however, Dolby Atmos soundtracks are also fully backward compatible with traditional audio configurations and legacy home entertainment equipment.

Blade Runner 2049” will also be available on Movies Anywhere. Using the free Movies Anywhere app and website, consumers can access all their eligible movies by connecting their Movies Anywhere account with their participating digital retailer accounts.

 

BLU-RAY AND DVD ELEMENTS

Blade Runner 2049 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, 3D Blu-ray and Blu-ray Combo Pack contains the following special features:

  • Designing The World of Blade Runner 2049
  • To Be Human: Casting Blade Runner 2049
  • Prologues: 2036: Nexus Dawn
  • Prologues: 2048: Nowhere to Run
  • Prologues: 2022: Black Out
  • Blade Runner 101: Blade Runners
  • Blade Runner 101: The Replicant Evolution
  • Blade Runner 101: The Rise of Wallace Corp
  • Blade Runner 101: Welcome to 2049
  • Blade Runner 101: Joi
  • Blade Runner 101: Within the Skies

Blade Runner 2049Standard Definition DVD contains the following special features:

  • Blade Runner 101: Blade Runners
  • Blade Runner 101: The Replicant Evolution
  • Blade Runner 101: The Rise of Wallace Corp
  • Blade Runner 101: Welcome to 2049
  • Blade Runner 101: Joi
  • Blade Runner 101: Within the Skies

Facebook.com/pg/BladeRunner2049

 

‘Attack of the Killer Donuts’ (review)

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Produced by Nicole Saad, Rafael Diaz-Wagner
Screenplay by Nathan Dalton,
Chris De Christopher, Rafael Diaz-Wagner
Directed by Scott Wheeler
Starring Justin Ray, Kayla Compton, Michael Swan,
Alison England, Clive Burbank, C. Thomas Howell,
Fredrick Burns, Phillip Fallon, Lauren Compton,
Aaron Groben, Kassandra Voyagis

 

In a world where the multi multi-million dollar budgeted films rule the land and where, at this time of year the Academy Award fodder fills the multiplexes and cineramas, it is a comfort to know that schlock and passionate film making are still loving bedfellows.

Attack of the Killer Donuts is just such a film.

Somewhere in Los Angeles a disaster is rising. A mad scientist is doing his best Herbert West and trying to reanimate a dead rat.

His experiment is a success and yet it yields a horrible and hilarious byproduct when his formula is mistakenly dumped into a friolater thus creating the titular title characters!

Johnny is a schlep who’s crappy girlfriend uses him for money that he earns at his dead end job at Dandy Donuts. With his co-worker/childhood friend, Michelle and his friend, Howard, Johnny is tasked with taking down the killer pastries before they take over and eat all of The City of Angels.

This movie is terrible. This movie wonderful. I was a little saddened that most of the killer donut effects are mostly digital and that the fact that their teeth ring the inside of the donut hole makes me wonder how they actually “eat” anything, but there is enough practical killer donut effects to make this not one hundred percent bad.

I squealed with glee watching C. Thomas Howell being pelted with rubber and foam donuts while trying to fend off the monstrous confections. Oh, did I not mention that “Ponyboy” Curtis is in this film as a donut obsessed cop? Well now I did. And yes he is and he is awesome and having a great time trying not to laugh as he is eating and being eaten by… oops, spoilers.

This is not the Citizen Kane of mutated donut movies. This isn’t the Plan Nine From Outer Space of mutated donut movies. It squarely rests comfortably in the middle. It knows it is ridiculous but it isn’t self aware or an ironic take. It is what it wants to be, a good old fashion B-movie. Bad acting, peppered with good acting, scene chewing and hilariously awful effects all mix together into a tasty batter of deep fried goodness, especially the perfectly uncomfortable donut striptease… but I have said too much already.

Visual effects producer turned director, Scott Wheeler has fun and makes a perfectly fun goofy “midnight movie.”

So order a dozen assorted donuts or a box of Munchkins and sit back and laugh and cringe when the donuts attack.

 

Attack of The Killer Donuts is now playing in limited release and On Demand.

 

Precursor to Dystopia #3: “At This Point We Just Have To Save America.”

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Welcome to the third Precursor To Dystopia Column.

Ever hear of the Brunching Shuttlecocks? If you’ve been on the internet since the days of dialup, you have. In fact, you probably remember as clearly as I do waiting an agonizing few minutes just to download one song; their then-legendary ode to Björk. I hadn’t thought of Lore Sjoberg or the Brunching Shuttlecocks in years.

And then, I saw this tweet floating around and recognized the name:

Just brilliant. He’s 100% right, and has been for many, many years. A monolithic corporation swears up and down that they don’t intend to actually do the thing Net Neutrality is designed to prevent, which they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying to have stricken. Why? Why, if you don’t intend to murder someone, would you oppose a law against murder? Why, if you don’t intend to rob someone, would you oppose a law against theft? Why, if you don’t intend to abuse a customer and control an entire medium of communication, would you be against a law that simply says you can’t do that?

Mostly because they’re full of shit. Because they’re not a person with morals, feelings, and everyday problems like you and I — the actual users of the internet — are. They don’t care. Any attempt to convince you they care, beyond how they can profit from you, is a lie. Or marketing, which is the same thing.

Comcast got outright busted faking over 1m user comments on the FCC’s message board, opposing Net Neutrality. They stole customers’ identity (theft) to post fake comments (lying) to try to create the illusion that Net Neutrality wasn’t supported by voters, thus taking away their protections of open internet access (theft, fraud, racketeering). But hey, they promised in a Tweet they wouldn’t, right? Except, in that very tweet, they tipped their hand, showing openings to charging for internet fastlanes.

In dystopian fiction, corporations run everything. They are the government, the police, and the masters of your every move. How do they get this way? Because they buy their way into positions where they can exert influence on your representatives, until those representatives are ultimately useless in controlling their new masters. It’s already happening.

Trusting a corporation to regulate itself is folly. How so? The answer lies in literally every single dollar any corporation has ever spent on any politician’s campaign, lobbying, courting cities for headquarters (over $100m in worker’s state taxes being gifted back to Amazon if it builds it’s new headquarters in Seattle? I mean, if you could, why WOULDN’T you? EXACTLY MY POINT).

It also lies in the history of the Net Neutrality battle. Here’s a summary of what internet providers have already tried, and were stopped by Net Neutrality, compiled by FreePress.net (linked above):

MADISON RIVER: In 2005, North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked the voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) service Vonage. Vonage filed a complaint with the FCC after receiving a slew of customer complaints. The FCC stepped in to sanction Madison River and prevent further blocking, but it lacks the authority to stop this kind of abuse today.

COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.

TELUS: In 2005, Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, Telus, began blocking access to a server that hosted a website supporting a labor strike against the company. Researchers at Harvard and the University of Toronto found that this action resulted in Telus blocking an additional 766 unrelated sites.

AT&T: From 2007–2009, AT&T forced Apple to block Skype and other competing VOIP phone services on the iPhone. The wireless provider wanted to prevent iPhone users from using any application that would allow them to make calls on such “over-the-top” voice services. The Google Voice app received similar treatment from carriers like AT&T when it came on the scene in 2009.

WINDSTREAM: In 2010, Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than 1 million customers at the time, copped to hijacking user-search queries made using the Google toolbar within Firefox. Users who believed they had set the browser to the search engine of their choice were redirected to Windstream’s own search portal and results.

MetroPCS: In 2011, MetroPCS, at the time one of the top-five U.S. wireless carriers, announced plans to block streaming video over its 4G network from all sources except YouTube. MetroPCS then threw its weight behind Verizon’s court challenge against the FCC’s 2010 open internet ruling, hoping that rejection of the agency’s authority would allow the company to continue its anti-consumer practices.

PAXFIRE: In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation found that several small ISPs were redirecting search queries via the vendor Paxfire. The ISPs identified in the initial Electronic Frontier Foundation report included Cavalier, Cogent, Frontier, Fuse, DirecPC, RCN and Wide Open West. Paxfire would intercept a person’s search request at Bing and Yahoo and redirect it to another page. By skipping over the search service’s results, the participating ISPs would collect referral fees for delivering users to select websites.

AT&T, SPRINT and VERIZON: From 2011–2013, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon blocked Google Wallet, a mobile-payment system that competed with a similar service called Isis, which all three companies had a stake in developing.

EUROPE: A 2012 report from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications found that violations of Net Neutrality affected at least one in five users in Europe. The report found that blocked or slowed connections to services like VOIP, peer-to-peer technologies, gaming applications and email were commonplace.

VERIZON: In 2012, the FCC caught Verizon Wireless blocking people from using tethering applications on their phones. Verizon had asked Google to remove 11 free tethering applications from the Android marketplace. These applications allowed users to circumvent Verizon’s $20 tethering fee and turn their smartphones into Wi-Fi hot spots. By blocking those applications, Verizon violated a Net Neutrality pledge it made to the FCC as a condition of the 2008 airwaves auction.

AT&T: In 2012, AT&T announced that it would disable the FaceTime video-calling app on its customers’ iPhones unless they subscribed to a more expensive text-and-voice plan. AT&T had one goal in mind: separating customers from more of their money by blocking alternatives to AT&T’s own products.

VERIZON: During oral arguments in Verizon v. FCC in 2013, judges asked whether the phone giant would favor some preferred services, content or sites over others if the court overruled the agency’s existing open internet rules. Verizon counsel Helgi Walker had this to say: “I’m authorized to state from my client today that but for these rules we would be exploring those types of arrangements.” Walker’s admission might have gone unnoticed had she not repeated it on at least five separate occasions during arguments.

The court struck down the FCC’s rules in January 2014 — and in May FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler opened a public proceeding to consider a new order.

In response millions of people urged the FCC to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers and in February 2015 the agency did just that. Since his appointment in January 2017, FCC Chairman Pai has sought to dismantle the agency’s landmark Net Neutrality rules. He must be stopped.

But that’s all ancient history (by internet standards anyway… Stuff that happened last year might as well have happened last century). So let’s explore how corporations are using every single means at their disposal to abuse you — the customer — using only items from the last, oh, two weeks of news:

  • Twitter blocks the account of Rose McGowan, a sexual assault victim, for telling of the abuse, while allowing literal Nazi’s to receive verified status (and, don’t forget the sexual assaulter who is now President)
  • Dopamine Labs, a company whose entire service is figuring out how to manipulate your mind to get you more addicted to your phone, exists… Despite laws against subliminal manipulation in advertising, because hey, it’s not advertising, it’s apps
  • Toy companies making internet-connected toys are legally allowed to send recordings and activity information of your kids back to their servers for analysis for marketing and research, and that data can be sold according to most Terms of Service
  • Wells Fargo ripped off, tried to hide, and then lied to their customers (seriously, read that). And then tried to get a judge to dismiss the class-action lawsuit by — and I’m not making this up — claiming that the forged signatures by customers who NEVER SIGNED THE AGREEMENTS exempted them from being sued.
  • Thousands of websites — some you use daily — Use tracking software to monitor your every keystroke and capture input in fields, even if you don’t hit “SUBMIT” — ever back out of a purchase after putting in your credit card number, getting cold feet? They probably have it.
  • Don’t use Amazon Key. Just. Don’t

No corporation will ever properly police itself unless it has reason to be policed. By the very definition of a corporation, they are run by a board, answer to investors, and exist solely to make a profit. In my field of usability research and psychology, we discuss motivation for using a system ad nauseum (seriously, you get sick of it after a while). And the motivation for a corporation is to make money. Period.

Facebook will not police itself. Twitter will not police itself. NO major corporation will police itself. So how are we to believe Comcast and ATT and Time Warner when they swear, up one side and down the other, they will police themselves? Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, puts it best:

The tech community, he continued “has to get away from the idea of self-regulation. Every technology—the train, the car—required regulation. The current model [of self-regulation] is collapsing.”

And followed up by Robert McNamee of Elevation Partners:

“I don’t think we can get back to the Silicon Valley that I loved. At this point we just have to save America.”

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Other links for the week of November 22-28, 2017:

Come back Wednesday for an all-new piece as Welcome To Dystopia goes exclusive with Forces of Geek!

 


‘Marvel’s Luke Cage: The Complete First Season’ Arrives on Blu-ray Tomorrow!

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Sweet Christmas! Gritty, groundbreaking and profoundly powerful, Marvel’s Luke Cage: The Complete First Season blazes with action and suspense while redefining what it means–and what it costs­–to be a true hero.

Framed for a crime he didn’t commit, escaped convict Luke Cage is just trying to live under the radar. Mysteriously blessed–­or cursed­–with superhuman strength and unbreakable skin, he hides his abilities and shuns getting involved. But when ruthless crime boss Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes turns his beloved city of Harlem into a bloodbath of chaos and carnage, Luke is forced to come out of the shadows and embrace his ultimate destiny in this riveting fusion of dark drama, hip-hop and classic super hero thrills.

Starring Mike Colter as Luke Cage, Simone Missick as Misty Knight, Theo Rossi as Hernan ‘Shades’ Alvarez, Alfre Woodard as Mariah Dillard, Jaiden Kaine as Zip, and Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple, Luke Cage: The Complete First Season includes an exclusive never-before-seen bonus feature, a cast roundtable, discussing the production of the first season. The collectible package features art bycJoe Quesada.

 

From Amazon to AR, The Trend is Now Online and Offline in Perfect Harmony

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IMAGE SOURCE: @chandankm via Twitter

Oh Tim Berners-Lee, what did you do? When he invented the World Wide Web back in 1989, do you think he had any idea what it would become? The internet is such a divisive topic. For every person who says they love it, you will find there is probably another who will point out its shortcomings. However, regardless of your take, there is no arguing that it now plays a huge role in many people’s lives.

From looking up quick facts on favourite films to double-checking how to boil an egg (we’ve never done that – honest), it is incredibly difficult to remember what a world without the web looked like. It is a vast ocean of content and many of us simply take for granted that we can, in the words of Arcade Fire, access everything now. This information overload has perhaps unsurprisingly led many people to seek a little bit of a timeout now and then, with research by Ofcom showing that around 30 percent of internet users in the UK tend to enjoy an occasional digital detox by heading to places without web access or leaving their devices at home. Whisper it, but it looks like being offline is making a comeback.

Big brands following suit

Interestingly though, it is not just the general public who are spending more time back in the real world, with some pretty major brands also coming to the conclusion that an offline presence still has a lot to offer. In fact, it has really felt like 2017 has been the year when the worlds of online and offline have really started working in harmony.

Take Amazon, for example. Famed for their online retail services, which allow us to buy all kinds of things from video games to graphic novels, their Prime membership also offers access to a host of movies and music to stream. However, being one of the web’s greatest success stories has not stopped the company from recently opening up a growing number of offline shops in the US to sell books, electronics and small gifts. Fortune reports that while their offline outlets are highly unlikely to ever challenge their online business in terms of revenue, the aim is to provide a different experience to consumers. For the first time, people have a chance to talk to a salesperson about what they would be getting from their Kindle or Echo, while they can also try these gadgets out before taking them home.

Taking the step gives Amazon the best of both worlds and it is something that is seen across a range of sectors. This combination of offline and online is simply everywhere – from grocery, with the likes of Walmart offering people the chance to buy online or in-store, to even gambling,with London’s famous Hippodrome Casino close to Leicester Square also boasting an online site where gamers can get their fix of blackjack, slots and other games. Furthermore, while some companies like Casper or BARK have not been able to develop an offline presence and open their own stores, they have still struck deals for products to be showcased in multi-brand outlets such as sites like Target. The likes of Rent the Runway have even pushed this marriage of offline and online further, by asking customers to ‘check-in’ at kiosks at the entrance to their new offline shop so that sales assistants can provide a personalised experience and help them quickly find what they are looking for.

Gaming switches back to reality

IMAGE SOURCE: @Healthline via Twitter

Arguably the biggest success in video gaming in recent years, Pokemon Go, has also been about bringing gamers back towards reality. After years of stereotypes about gaming being a pastime for teenagers who never leave their bedrooms, here was a game based around augmented reality that was all about getting out and about to find virtual creatures – and make friends in the process.

Pokemon Go is huge, with developer Niantic claiming back in February that it had been downloaded 650 million times since its launch in the summer of 2016. It was also estimated at the same time that players – known as trainers – had walked an incredible 5.4 billion miles while playing the game, which amazingly equates as the journey from Earth to Pluto.

Another big gaming launch in recent times has been the Nintendo Switch, which became the fastest-selling console in the gaming giant’s history very quickly despite some concerns about its price tag. While the hybrid system is most famous for allowing gaming both in the home and on the move, it offers so much more than that. So many rival systems are based on heading online to take on friends, but the Switch’s control system and the ability to split its controllers for two-player gaming actively encourages people to play in-person. After all, if you’re going to beat someone at a game, isn’t it sweeter to do it to their face?

The offline phenomenon has even hit TV streaming too, with Netflix introducing the option for viewers to download programmes to devices to watch while they have no connection last year. It’s a neat trick and one which means that the biggest web-TV service in the world even realises we all need some time off the web sometimes, although quite why people are watching shows in public toilets we will never know.

Stronger than ever

When all of these recent developments are considered, it seems that the relationship between the offline and online world is perhaps at its strongest and most harmonious ever. With so many innovations being seen, it is also likely that this will only improve as top brands in pop culture and beyond discover new and innovative ways to combine the two. Whether you are online or offline in the coming months, there is sure to be plenty to look forward too.

 

 

FOG! Chats With Rob Liefeld About Tonight’s ‘Image Comics: Declaration of Independents’!

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The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman’s documentary series Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics concludes on AMC with Image Comics: Declaration of Independents, shedding light on the dawn of Kirkman’s current house of ideas, American comic publisher Image Comics. Founded in 1992, The creator-owned vision of the company founded by industry rock stars Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino and Rob Liefeld changed the way the business of comics works. Affectionately known as “The Image Revolution”, this industry coup skyrocketed Image books to the top of the stack and the Image founders a place at the table with The Big Two.

We’re honored to talk to Image Comics founder Rob Liefeld about what you can expect to see on AMC tonight.

Liefeld’s comic creations are well known but Rob holds the distinction of having the first comic published by the twenty-five year old independent comics publisher, Youngblood #1.

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FOG!: Thanks for joining us, Rob. How are you enjoying the series so far?

Rob Liefeld: It has shown greater detail than people have come to expect from these kinds of shows so it’s so nice, it’s really, really nice.

When we come around to your episode, we get around to the formation of Image Comics. For many of us, that’s when we became comic book fans. What you and Todd and the guys came up with for Image was just spectacular. Those must have been some pretty crazy times back then.

Yeah it was a lot of fun. It’s great looking back and twenty-five years later you get some fresh perspective on it. It’s tremendous fun. That’s the predominant feeling, what a great time it was.

When you were first watching what Stan and Jack were doing could you ever have imagined that you would change the game as much as you did when you created Image?

We definitely broke a lot of ground. Here’s the deal, man. We had the attention of the fans based on my personal experience at that time. I swim in fact. I don’t swim in mythology or wishful thinking. This was what was going on at the time.  I had taken a book that had no superstar and no fan favorites.

I didn’t have Wolverine or Spider-Man at my disposal. That’s not an excuse, that’s a fact.

Everybody wanted to get Wolverine to guest star on their book, or Spider-Man.  For the first seven issues of New Mutants, I had a book that was just falling down flat. The lowest selling run of a really good selling family, but a book that was on the cusp of being cancelled because it literally just didn’t fit in with the success of the time of the titles. My perspective is, I filled the need with a bunch of my characters. My first issue with Cable alone, there are twelve new characters in that comic. Cable is not the only one.  I introduced eleven nemesis that had never existed prior to my arriving. Then by giving me the full reigns as writer and artist there was Deadpool and there was Domino. There is Shatterstar and Feral and suddenly you have X-Force.

Then suddenly you have X-Force. At the X-Force launch, it did 5 Million copies.

It’s the #2 best-selling comic of all time. I had shaped my destiny. With my own characters, with my sketch book, I had created characters that can stand toe to toe with the best of Marvel. I knew I had something. That’s the #1 reason I went off and I did something on my own is because obviously after giving Marvel —and knowing I was doing it, willingly, happily signing those deals, they are really lucrative deals and they have maintained being lucrative deals since the time I signed them. The deals were based on me getting a normal share and Marvel getting more of a share. That’s just common for any kind of deal you are going to sign with a major publisher.

I felt I had such success with all these characters. They were coming out with an X-Force toy line before the first issue hit the stands! I saw the molds, I saw the Deadpool toy, I saw a Cable toy, I saw Shatterstar toys. I was thinking, “Man, If I’m going to keep creating, which I desperately want to do, I have other characters in the drawer, I should do it on my own, I should do it independently”.

And very important, do not put me in the category of angry with Marvel or thought I was wronged somehow by Marvel.

I’ve never gotten that impression, to tell you the truth, Rob!

I know, but some people do, so I’m just saying this. Marvel and I used each other for our own benefit. It was a wonderful relationship. I just didn’t see where the next step was beyond doing ten years on X-Force, as much as I loved the Marvel characters, at that point in time with the heat and trajectory of my career, as much as I loved the Fantastic Four, it wasn’t really an option. So I wanted to test the market based on the result that I already had and the results were, as far as comics was, I was the Pied Piper and the fans were following me wherever I went. So, why not establish content that I controlled completely, 100%?

What I tell people is that is the beauty of Image Comics. What we set up is still working exactly as we set it up in 1992. You create the content, you own the content, you control the content.

Todd and Jim were on existing, best-selling titles. I zoomed up from the rear, shot to the front of the pack, so I had a lot of confidence. I also had zero risk. I did not have a wife, I didn’t have kids, it was the perfect gig. While everyone else mulled it over or decides whether they were going to be part of the movement, out the gate it was myself, Erik Larsen and Jim Valentino we were locked, we were together.

Todd had to think about it, Jim had to think about it the longest, Marc wasn’t aware of it until Todd presented it to him. I was the perfect guinea pig to go out and search the market. I thought I would do well. I did not know I would do phenomenally well.

You brought us Youngblood, Brigade, Bloodstrike and Supreme. The list just keeps going on. A lot of these books are still doing really well. With the characters you created I have to say you shot to the front of the pack and really stayed there.

It’s great to see other Image creators writing and working on your books, which carries on the great tradition from the other companies.  What is it like to see innovative stuff happen in your books? You must love it!

It has to be going on for seven years, now, probably longer than that. When Alan Moore took over Supreme I let him do whatever he wanted. When Brandon Graham took over Prophet I let him do whatever he wanted. With Joe Keatinge on Glory I let them do whatever they wanted.

When Frank Miller came on Daredevil, as a kid, I was ten years old, and I kind of liked what Frank was doing as an artist and then suddenly one day, he was a writer. And that’s where you’ve got Elektra, The Hand, Stick, all this great new mythology. Suddenly,  understood the power of the auteur. The comic book auteur, letting someone just take over and fill something with their vision. Kudos for Marvel for sitting back and letting Frank Miller happen.

Glory by Joe Keatinge and Sophie Campbell

When someone like Brandon Graham or Joe Keatinge, or Chad Bowers and Jim Towe or Michel Fiffe (COPRA), I let these guys go for it, have fun, run with it. None of them will tell you about the time that I went and drastically, or at all told them to take it in a different direction. Not even minimally. I want to see what they do. I definitely let people play in the pool without restrictions. They like to go all the way to the deep end and leave their floaties behind, they are welcome to do that and I think everyone benefits.

What is it that you would say to new creators that want to work with Image and at Image? Should people still pitch to Image? Does Image mean the same to people as it did back then, in 1992?

Let me give you an example. The majority of people are out there and they didn’t pull the trigger but I will give you an example of someone who did and that person is Skottie Young.

Skottie is hottest guy in comics, the guy who is doing the most variant covers for Marvel and everyone is picking them up. He amasses this beautiful portfolio, and then he goes on to do Rocket Raccoon, and BOOM! He blows up, has the #1 book at Marvel and then immediately he turns to Image.

He brings I Hate Fairyland and the adventures of Gert and this crazy fantasy world and there is no template for what he did. He wasn’t following some successful Fairyland model. He had a vision and wanted to enact it, he thought Image is the place to do it and he walked through the door and made it happen and it is a phenomenal success.

Skottie Young saw his window. He saw his window and walked through it. There are a lot of guys at Image, we at Image understood maybe better than anything or anyone that the heat that is following you is not going to exist with you forever. You are going to have to work to keep it going and there is a place where the window absolutely expands as much as it is going to expand. For teams, for sport teams there is a championship window. When they have that receiver, that line, that running back that quarterback, they have 3 or 4 years to capitalize on that.

Skottie Young’s I Hate Fairyland, published by Image Comics

This is the same with the arts. Whether you are a musician or a comic book artist, your window expands to an absolute apex and you have to decide if you are going to take a chance on that or are you going to let that window close?

Skottie Young is a great example of a guy that said, I’m going through that window. I saw him as the quintessential Image Comics creator. He got shot to the top. Got the top book and turned that in to gold. Image still has the best deal and Skottie saw that and benefited from it.

My last question for you is, will we see a The Infinite sequel?

I am very hopeful. I talk to Robert about it all the time, we are 100% positive. It may be a little while because he is very busy. We’re all very busy and it is not something I abandoned, I am saying yes.

Rob will appear on “Image Comics: Declaration of Independents” on
Robert Kirkman’s Secret History of Comics, tonight on AMC 10/9C

 

“Donald and Mickey #1” (comic review)

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Donald and Mickey #1
Written by Kari Korhonen,
Andrea “Casty” Castellan, Frank Jonker

Illustrated by Bas Heymans,
Lorenzo Pastrovicchio, Daniel Branca

Cover by Andrea Freccero
Published by IDW Publishing
DIAMOND CODE: JUN170533
Released 8/23/17 / $5.99

 

As a sixties kid, I grew up on reruns of The Mickey Mouse Club while Donald, Mickey, and Pluto cartoons still played in theaters before the main features.

I loved the classic Walt Disney characters…but not in comics. Like any self-respecting superhero fan, I stayed away from “funny animal” comics. I made an occasional exception for Super Goof, but then, he was a superhero, wasn’t he?

So I unknowingly deprived myself of the genius of Carl Barks and Paul Murry and others who were as much masters of their craft as Jack Kirby was the king of superhero art.

But then came the ‘80s.

In the seemingly ever-expanding comics market of the ‘80s, Disney comics, dormant for years, made a comeback via a new company called Gladstone that not only reprinted the classic stories but also offered up never before published in the US stories and even commissioned all-new stories from the likes of longtime fan artist (and fellow Kentuckian) Don Rosa.

The floodgates opened for me and I started collecting and loving Disney comics, old and new, in any condition. They were all wonderful! Rosa’s stories became all-time favorites but I also found out that Disney comics had been running very traditionally drawn stories throughout Europe for decades, simultaneous to the American runs but often featuring and introducing all-new characters!

Gladstone gave way to Disney Comics, which was replaced by Gemstone, followed by BOOM!, and now IDW has the license and continues to present new to the US stories in the classic tradition, under the watchful eyes of editors Chris Cerasi and, in particular, David Gerstein!

Which brings us to the new Donald and Mickey #1. Gerstein’s informative text page gives us the history of the venerable title while explaining that, as a quarterly, it’s replacing Donald’s and Mickey’s solo titles. The stories offered here include two fun, traditional Duck tales (see what I did there?), one Danish and one Dutch, and the centerpiece of the oversized issue, a 25 page Italian story from 2006 featuring Mickey and Goofy’s latest encounter with their old enemy, the Phantom Blot!

The Blot first appeared in Mickey’s newspaper strip nearly 80 years back now, created by master mouse chronicler, Floyd Gottfredson. Depicted either as a man in a black robe and hood or a living shadow, he is a master criminal and has popped up hundreds of time in Disney stories throughout the world. The character was popular enough that he even got his own comic in the mid-sixties. Running seven issues, it was one of the rare comic books to star a villain as its main character.

Originally published in the long-running Italian Disney mag, Topolino, the story seen here, depicted by Lorenzo Pastrovicchio and written by Andrea “Casty” Castellan, is original, creative, and genuinely funny (thanks also to its translator), as the Blot leads Mickey and the police on a merry chase using a new and unique method for disappearing!

Unlike the classic style seen in this issue’s Donald Duck stories, the art here is a nice homage to old and new. While it’s recognizably Disney, there’s more than a hint of that certain wildness some European Disney art has shown in the past couple of decades.

The new Donald and Mickey #1 offers an abundance of something that’s been popping up more and more in comics in recent years for those who take the time to look—fun! Totally appropriate for all ages, it’s silly adventure and humor for the kids, good art and comics for the adults. If you’ve ever liked Disney comics, you’ll like this one. If you’ve NEVER liked Disney comics, I’ve got a feeling you’ll be like me. Once you try one, you will, and then you’ll be hooked, too.

 

Booksteve Recommends.

 

Blob Movies and Monsters, Part II

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Last installment, we introduced blob monsters, and we listed the three British movies that initiated the blob movie tradition.

This installment we’ll list the first American blob films, plus several from other countries as well (nine films total):

 

UNKNOWN TERROR

(USA, b&w, 1957)

Here’s the first American blob movie.  Actually, the “terror” is really a jungle fungus created (or augmented) by a mad scientist in a cave.

The picture had a minuscule budget, and so the blob (fungus) effect is just a tub of soap suds (!) poured down a cave wall.  It’s hard not to laugh when the Latino actors playing the helpless natives scream and writhe as soap pours down on them from above.

Still, we have to give the independent production some credit, since Unknown Terror precedes the Steve McQueen Blob.  Some of the cave scenes are well lit and well filmed.

Bonus: Calypso singer Sir Lancelot (from I Walked with a Zombie) composes a sweet song about the old cave and sings it from 7:00-9:00 in the film.

 

THE BLOB

(USA, color, 1958)

Here’s the first color blob movie, and the blob is a bloody red color, a perfect choice.

It’s not the best blob movie (most British ones are better), but it created the archetype and had the widest influence.

It’s regular folks rather than military or scientific authorities who are menaced by the creature and must find the One Thing that will beat it.  Steve McQueen and the other “teen” actors (actually in their 20s) make it a lot of fun.

Bonus: Burt Bacharach (“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”) wrote the jazzy theme song.

 

THE H-MAN

(Japan, color, 1958)

Here, the blob seems to be Earth-born, an apparent side effect of a nuclear explosion.  Radiation mutates people into blue-green blob monsters that attack businessmen in Tokyo.  Each victim turns into a new blob monster, and so the menace grows.

The plot is weak and the characters are a bunch of annoying gangsters.  But the effects are excellent, perhaps the best out of all 1950s blob movies.

Solidifying the tradition of making a blob movie into a gore movie, The H-Man offers several excellent “dissolve” effects, including one where it appears an actual frog is dissolved into blue bubbles.

Blob crawling effects – the kind used also in The Blob, The Stuff, and others – are done by rolling the blob substance down a wall but filming it sideways so that, when shown upright, it looks like the blobs are crawling across floors.

At one point, a news headline reads “Liquid Monster Dissolves Human!”

 

SPACE MASTER X-7

(USA, b&w, 1958)

You’d expect this to be an imitator of The Blob since it’s an American film from 1958… but actually it’s a belated imitation of The Quatermass Xperiment.  It even has an X in its title.

As in that British film, a spacecraft returns to Earth, bringing with it a deadly alien blob.  It’s more of a fungus than a blob, but it’s sure a more menacing fungus than the one from Unknown Terror a year earlier.

An early scene in a lab is pretty scary, where a scientist can’t find anything that will slow the fungus down.  After this scene, the blob-fungus is on screen less often than you might wish, but the picture is at least average considering its low budget.

Bonus: Moe Howard plays a comic relief cabbie!

 

THE FLAME BARRIER

(USA, b&w, 1958)

If you thought Space Master X-7 was low budget, wait until you see The Flame Barrier.

Again, a satellite falls to Earth and brings with it an alien blob-fungus.  Again, The Quatermass Xperiment is the obvious precursor.  Again, the monster is on screen less often than it should be, but here its best moments come at the climax, as is fitting.

Like the blobs in The H-Man, this blob has a glowing appearance.  Also like the blobs in The H-Man, this blob apparently possesses rudimentary intelligence, as when it produces an electrical field to defend itself.

In the standout gore scene, a jungle native gets caught in the electrical field and burned to a smoldering skeleton.

The actors, including Arthur Franz from Invaders from Mars as the star, is surprisingly strong.

 

THE ANGRY RED PLANET

(USA, color, 1959) 

This silly but lovable space adventure is like EC’s Weird Science or Weird Fantasy come to life.

It’s got a simplistic script and unrealistic characters, like the sexist womanizing captain who tries to romance the lone female crew member right in the spaceship cockpit.

But we’re watching for the monsters.  Its most famous Martian monster is the enormous “rat-bat-spider” but its second-most-famous is the giant amoeba: a blob.

Unlike all previous cinematic blobs, this one has distinctive organs, including a rotating eye.

Note: the fuzzy red effects in the clip below were the film’s attempt to disguise cardboard sets.  A minute later in the film you can see the green plantlike blob body.

 

CALTIKI THE IMMORTAL MONSTER

(Italy/USA, b&w, 1959)

Co-directed by the famous Mario Bava, the unusual Caltiki features the toughest-looking blob monster of the 50s.  It almost seems to have leather skin.

Archaeologists in Mexico uncover and defeat one of the blobs rather quickly… but you won’t be surprised when a fragment of the defeated monster reanimates and grows.

It combines elements from American predecessors (like the guy who gets some blob gunk on his hand like in The Blob) and British ones (like the eaten-away face from X the Unknown).

Characters could have been more distinctive, but the plot is surprising and the blob effects improve as the movie progresses.

 

MUTINY IN OUTER SPACE

(USA, b&w, 1965)

Technically the monster is a fungus, but it is obviously bloblike.  It kills one person and starts a panic on a space station.  Unfortunately for blob fans, the space station drama becomes the focus of the movie, as the title suggests.

Of note are a brief gory image of a corpse head and an early shot when the stringy fungus drips down in front of the camera, obscuring our view.

It’s also notable, though perhaps disappointing, that the fungus attacks the space station more than the people on it.

It’s a bad movie in any case and certainly the weakest blob movie on our list.

 

ISLAND OF TERROR

(“Island of the Burning Damned,” UK, color, 1966)

This independent British production is directed by one Hammer regular (Terence Fisher) and stars another (Peter Cushing).

It continues the mid-60s trend where blob monsters attack a small group of people trapped in isolation.  It also continues the British trend of intelligent science and developed characters, so it’s about as close as a blob movie has ever been to an “A” movie.  Yet it has plenty of action.

The multiple “silicate” monsters are dog-sized blobs with single tentacles.  They look good in most scenes, and they look excellent in one key scene where they divide by fission.

Weird blob sound effects might be overdone, and the coda is too campy, but these are minor flaws.  It’s one of the best blob movies ever made.

 

‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ (review by Sharon Knolle)

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Produced by Kathleen Kennedy,
Ram Bergman

Written and Directed by Rian Johnson
Based on Characters by George Lucas
Starring Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver,
Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac,
Andy Serkis, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson,
Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie,
Kelly Marie Tran,
Laura Dern, Benicio del Toro,

 

From the opening blast of John Williams’ famous theme until the credit dedicating the film to the late and much-missed Carrie Fisher, The Last Jedi grabs you and never lets you go.

It’s nearly everything you could ever want in a Star Wars movie. If there’s anything to fault, it’s that there’s almost too much happening in the film.

As someone who grew up with the original series, nothing will ever equal those first incredible films.

But Rian Johnson (who wrote and directed) clearly loves this franchise as much as anyone and honors it in a way that should dazzle even the most diehard fan.

Like The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi admirably blends nostalgia for the original characters we love and invests us in the newer characters with the same passion. There are stunning battles and spectacular hero moments that will have you gasping.

After that tease at the end of The Force Awakens, we finally see how Luke (Mark Hamill) reacts to Rey (Daisy Ridley)’s appearance and it isn’t exactly what we expect.

First, it’s good it is to see Hamill (at last!) reinhabit the character we last saw speak in Return of the Jedi. He’s aged from wide-eyed boy to Master Jedi and to watch Hamill play all the notes of Bitter Hermit Luke is worth all the Porg merchandise. (More about the Porgs in a bit.) I wasn’t sold on some of Luke’s more comic moments, but he’s determined to undermine his own status as a legend, and if rattles Rey in the process, so be it.

While Han became a believer in The Force over the years and was eager to fight the good fight, Luke has retreated from the world and the Resistance. He’s also, like Han, become exponentially grumpier. I could have done with a little less of the Rey and Luke scenes, but then again, the Luke and Yoda scenes on Dagobah were never my favorite part of The Empire Strikes Back either.

In addition to the new heroes of the Resistance Poe (Oscar Isaac), and Finn (John Boyega) — and damn it’s great to see them again — we meet plucky Resistance fighter Rose (the immensely likable Kelly Marie Tran) and cool-headed Resistance leader Amilyn Holdo (the always great Laura Dern).

Poe, in particular, butts heads with Vice Admiral Holdo, just as he does with Leia. Besides tearing down legends, the film wants us to know that there’s more than one way to save the day and it isn’t always about flashy heroics.

Meanwhile, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is facing his own crisis: The evil Supreme Leader (voiced by Andy Serkis) doubts his commitment and dismisses him as merely a “boy in a mask.” I was no fan of Kylo, but, fortunately, The Last Jedi adds some welcome new shades to his character. His unpredictability works in this film: You’re not sure what he’s going to do at any given moment. The debate about whether there’s still any good left in him seemed settled in the last film, but The Last Jedi finds interesting ways to keep us guessing.

Domhnall Gleeson was wasted in his brief role as General Hux in The Force Awakens, but here he’s given much more of a chance to be the overly-precise embodiment of corporate military evil that we love to hate.

If you were worried about those adorable Porgs hijacking the movie the way the Ewoks did with Return of the Jedi, don’t be. They’re not in it nearly as much as you might expect from the marketing. Admittedly, they are damn cute. And maybe after 34 years, fans aren’t so steamed about the Ewoks anymore.

There only a few moments when the nods to previous installments feel a bit like a “greatest hits” retread, such as in quick visit to a casino that recalls the famous cantina sequence in A New Hope. But just when you think the film might be coasting on nostalgia, or venturing into scenes that border on outright cheesiness, we’re whisked along confidently to the next thrilling moment.

Knowing that this is Fisher’s last film adds an unintended pathos to her scenes. I’m so grateful we have this final farewell to her. While the film is nowhere near as dark as Rogue One, you’ll likely be wiping away tears at the end.

In a dark age of our own, it feels good to celebrate humanity, heroism, and hope and The Last Jedi accomplishes that in spades.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

 

‘Prominence Poker’ Game review for Xbox One

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Howdy, poker lover! Imagine the scene where you’re sitting in an unsuspecting and seedy room, surrounded by crooked goons whose only intention is to keep you from cashing out. Are you there yet? No, it’s not Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio. This is real, and you can try it out.

Wonder where? Prominence Poker on Xbox is the place you’ve been looking for. The level of excitement going under your skin while playing arguably the best poker game on consoles, in this case the Xbox One, can hardly be found in any other console game. That is, if you’re a fan of poker. And if you’re not, you might easily become one. Playing on consoles is perfect if you’d like to experience online gambling in a whole new dimension.

So, what’s the story with Prominence Poker? Let’s find out!

Choose Your Play Wisely

As one of very few options on Xbox One, Prominent Poker is a poker game that allows players to show, hone and polish their poker skills and see what they’re made of. A superb battle between you and those who look like they come from the other side of the law is what attracts players to Prominence Poker.

It doesn’t have to be a genius to understand what Prominence is about. The game is quite straightforward. It comes down to Texas No Limit Hold’Em. In other words, this is the only variation of poker you may choose to play in the game. The options you do have are to either play solo against or go online and try to outperform other players.

Before diving deep into the ocean of adrenaline, let’s go through some technicalities first. The game has a selection wheel that is used whenever you want to select the betting amount. Its additional purpose is to show the other players when you are looking at your cards, which adds a pinch of reality into the whole scenario.

Furthermore, if you’re considering switching between betting, folding or checking, you should arm yourself with patience since your avatar will have to go through a full animation. In addition, when you do decide to make a change with the pot, simultaneously you will see how the scale on the wheel changes.

You’ll learn as you go along but what’s definitely blow you out of your shoes are emotes that can be used during a hand. Whether you’d like to do a throat slice to an opponent or wave to a girl that just showed up, you’ll admit the option is pretty cool.

Playing Against Other Players or Entering a Tournament

Guys from 505 Games have really outdone themselves this time, for wandering through the underground while playing solo is an awesome thing. You can play solo or go for a multiplayer option. The solo version means that you and you alone are supposed to take down the bad boys. Eventually you’ll reach the boss in one-on-one final round.

You’ll encounter four crews and get an opportunity to have some serious fun. The game is free to play and therefore why not relax and be creative with the bets. Challenge AI and see what happens!

On the other hand, if you’re up for checking how good you are against other players, then going online is your only destination. Once you’re there, you’ll fight for ranks, whereby you may see how tough you are at competitive tournaments with tables of six. Try to rank in one of top three positions, since they pay out.

You can also improve your rankings by playing head to head with other players. As mobsters would say – if you want to earn respect, win tournaments. The cool thing is that at the end of each season top players get rewards and special surprises. So, become one, and grab some. But that’s not all, Mr Poker Lover, because unranked plays are an additional treat. You can buy into ring games but watch out for seasoned online poker players who may turn right out of nowhere and clean up these tables.

The Last Card

Authentic playing experience provided through an amazing set of 3D effects is what attracts players to Prominence Poker like flies are attracted to honey. Even though the controls could be a bit more precise, competing in ranked tournaments is what makes this game a winner. Check out your calmness and your poker skills and find out how Matt Damon felt in Rounders! Good luck!


‘The Bill Murray Experience’ (review)

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Produced By Sadie Katz, Jim Griffiths,
Jim Towns & Dallas King
Directed By Sadie Katz
Starring Sadie Katz, Joel Murray,
P.J. Soles, Bill Murray

 

A few years back a friend dragged me to the theater to see the documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, about an all-but-forgotten 80s hair metal band attempting to make a “comeback”. I had little interest in seeing the film, but I ended up enjoying it…far more than my friend, it turns out.

With the end credits rolling, I turned to my friend to tell him I dug the film. Before I could do so, he uttered bitterly, “That had no business playing in a movie theater.”

While it was certainly a niche doc a few years before niche docs would become commonplace, Anvil! felt right at home in the theater to me.

Which leads me to Sadie Katz’s The Bill Murray Experience. This “niche” doc feels like nothing so much as glorified (but equally dull) home movies, and frankly, has no business playing on my laptop.

Katz is an incredibly neurotic, annoying, borderline-certifiable actress/writer who, upon her engagement breaking up (not to be too cruel, but go figure), has a bit of a meltdown but finds solace in internet posts and videos of various so-called “Bill Murray Experiences”.

These entail Murray genially crashing weddings and offering marriage advice, popping up at ice cream trucks to share some yummy delights with the hoi polloi, etc. So, she embarks on a quest to stage her own “Bill Murray Experience”.

Okay. Right away, unappealing premise. You can’t FORCE something like this (fair enough that Sadie finally – FINALLY!!!! – realizes this by film’s end, but way too little too late).

Also, um….stalker…?

This whole creepy affair has a running time of 81 minutes but it feels longer than Berlin Alexanderplatz, for God’s sake. Endless confessional shots of Katz whining and vamping for the camera are flat-out intolerable from the start.

This is a vanity project from an unknown! Who on Earth would want to watch this?

The only saving graces are appearances by Bill’s brother, Joel, and his Stripes co-star, P.J. Soles. Joel comes across as a well-adjusted guy used to being one step removed from the spotlight, while Soles is charming as ever discussing the “Aunt Jemima Treatment” scene from Stripes and drops a shocker by disclosing that studio execs wanted her and Murray to reteam for Splash. God knows that seminal 80s comedy/fantasy/romance works like gangbusters with Hanks and Hannah, but the mind reels at the thought of what the Stripes duo would have brought to that story.

So, five or so minutes of entertainment, and an hour and change of torture. Your call.

 

The Bill Murray Experience is available On Demand on December 19th.

The Best Apps To Enjoy The World Cup

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The World Cup in Russia is edging ever closer, with the groups now being confirmed for the first round of proceedings. It’s a tournament that captures the imagination of many millions of people around the globe, with some of the best players on the planet set to be on show. People love nothing more than staying up to date with the latest goings on, and apps could be crucial when it comes to enjoying football’s biggest show stopper to its maximum. So, which apps should you be downloading for Russia 2018?

 

FIFA Official App

The official FIFA app is certainly going to be integral for an avid football fan come the summer or in fact at any time really. It’s a must have app as it keeps people up to date with not only the latest news and scores, but there’s also exclusive videos on there too. These are likely to include interviews with players, staff and pundits involved at the World Cup; and people won’t be able to find these anywhere else. Their coverage of Russia 2018 will be unrivalled.

 

Onefootball

Onefootball is like the official FIFA app in what it provides, but it is arguably the best football app around. What it does really well is provide users with the opportunity to personalise content to suit them, which other apps fail to do. There’s the latest news and views, live scores and push notifications; so that people are kept constantly up to date with the latest goings on. With plenty of video footage and the chance to predict results, it’s an app that World Cup fans will certainly enjoy using.

 

Unibet

One way to add a bit more excitement to the World Cup is by placing bets on it. People rush to back who they believe will be the eventual winner or the top scorer prior to the tournament starting. Once it’s underway, millions of bets are placed on every game and Unibet is certainly the bookmaker to have all the betting markets one will every need. The operator is renowned for its great prices, special offers and in-play betting, which makes this app the perfect choice, if you fancy a flutter on the World Cup in Russia 2018. Furthermore, the Unibet app does include online casino, poker, lotto and bingo games to keep everyone completely satisfied.

 

WatchESPN

People literally won’t want to miss even one minute of World Cup action this summer, but with work commitments and the like; it’s certainly unlikely that people will be able to get in front of the TV for every game. The ESPN app is perfect for those who can’t catch all the games, as they provide a very good subscription service. Not only that, but ESPN are well renowned for providing great analysis; and it will be no different when the World Cup comes along either. Not only will the games be thoroughly analysed, the competition will be on the whole too. It’s the perfect app for football lovers.

 

 

Win a ‘Darkest Hour’ Prize Pack!

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During the early days of World War II, with the fall of France imminent, Britain faces its darkest hour as the threat of invasion looms. As the seemingly unstoppable Nazi forces advance, and with the Allied army cornered on the beaches of Dunkirk, the fate of Western Europe hangs on the leadership of the newly-appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Academy Award nominee Gary Oldman). While maneuvering his political rivals, he must confront the ultimate choice: negotiate with Hitler and save the British people at a terrible cost or rally the nation and fight on against incredible odds. Directed by Joe Wright, Darkest Hour is the dramatic and inspiring story of four weeks in 1940 during which Churchill’s courage to lead changed the course of world history.

And we’re giving away two prize packs! Included in each are a set of 4 coasters and the book, Darkest Hour: How Churchill Brought England Back from the Brink by Anthony McCarten.

To enter, send an email with the subject header “DARKEST HOUR” to geekcontest @ gmail dot com and answer the following question:

Lily James, who plays Elizabeth Layton in Darkest Hour,
previously played Lady Rose MacClare in this beloved television series?

Please include your name, and address (U.S. only. You must be 18 years old).

Only one entry per person and a winner will be chosen at random.

Contest ends at 11:59 PM EST on December 24th, 2017.

 

Atomic-Age Comedy ‘Matinee’ Makes its Blu-ray Debut Jan. 16th from Shout! Select

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A loving homage to the kitchy creature-features of the atomic age, the delightful comedy Matinee is a smart and sharp period comedy that captures of joy of growing up on cheesy b-movies. Making its Blu-ray debut January 16th, 2018 from Shout Select, Matinee comes loaded with bonus features, including a new interviews with director Joe Dante, actress Cathy Moriarty, actress Lisa Jakub, production designer Steven Legler, editor Marshall Harvey and director of photography John Hora, as well as the new featurette MANTastic! The Making of a Mant. Fans can pre-order their copies now at ShoutFactory.com

John Goodman is at his uproarious best as the William Castle-inspired movie promoter Lawrence Woolsey, who brings his unique brand of flashy showmanship to the unsuspecting residents of Key West, Florida.

It’s 1962, and fifteen-year-old fan Gene Loomis (Simone Fenton) can’t wait for the arrival of Woolsey, who is in town to promote his latest offering of atomic power gone berserk, Mant! But the absurd vision of Woolsey’s tale takes on a sudden urgency as the Cuban Missile Crises places the real threat of atomic horror just 90 miles off the coast. With the help of Woolsey’s leading lady, Ruth (Cathy Moriarty), the master showman gives Key West a premiere they’ll never forget. Anything can happen in the movies, and everything does in this hilarious tribute to a more innocent (and outrageous) time in American cinema.

Matinee Bonus Features

  • NEW Master Of The Matinee – An interview with director Joe Dante
  • NEW The Leading Lady – An interview with Cathy Moriarty
  • NEW MANTastic! The Making Of A Mant
  • NEW Out Of The Bunker – An interview with actress Lisa Jakub
  • NEW Making A Monster Theatre – An interview with production designer Steven Legler
  • NEW The Monster Mix – An interview with editor Marshall Harvey
  • NEW Lights! Camera! Reunion! – An interview with director of photography John Hora
  • Paranoia In Ant Vision – Joe Dante discusses the making of the film
  • MANT! – The full length version of the film with introduction by Joe Dante
  • Vintage making-of Matinee featurette
  • Behind-the-scenes footage courtesy of Joe Dante
  • Deleted and extended scenes sourced from Joe Dante’s workprint
  • Still galleries
  • Theatrical trailer

Graphic Breakdown: Kirby’s Legacy Continues With Top Marks For ‘Bug!’ and ‘Mister Miracle’

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Welcome back to Graphic Breakdown!

We are less than two weeks to Christmas. But who cares!

We have some comic books to talk about!! Let’s get started!

 

Mister Miracle #5
Written by Tom King
Illustrated by Mitch Gerads

One of the best series to debut this year is this title. It started off strong and just kept rocking and rolling. Tom King has really come into his own, and this is one of the best titles of his writing career thus far.

This story is beautiful. It shows what happens when Mister Miracle spends his last night on Earth. You see, Mister Miracle has been sentenced to death by the new Highfather of New Genesis.

What a jerk, right? So, before he goes, he takes Big Barda out for a date. The results are extraordinary.

The art is just spectacular on this. Gerads is at the top of his game too and that’s saying something. His art works so well with the storytelling, it’s uncanny.

Pick this up. It’s truly some of the best work in the comics field I have ever read.

RATING: A

 

The Flash #36
Written by Joshua Williamson
Illustrated by Howard Porter

The Flash has had another great year of stories.

Josh Williamson really has put our hero through his paces. Barry Allen is a real human here and it’s to Williamson’s credit that the book is so cool.

This is the start of a new storyline called “A Cold Day in Hell.” One of The Flash’s rogues has been murdered inside Iron Heights prison.

It’s up to The Flash to figure out the mystery of it all. But is he emotionally up to the task? Find out here!

Williamson’s writing feels like it may be coming to an end soon. That means that his run feels like it may be wrapping up this year.

It doesn’t make it any less good, it just feels we may be in the final act. So pick it up now. Get into this title if you are not reading it. It’s well done indeed.

RATING: B+

 

Detective Comics #970
Written by James Tynion IV
Illustrated by Joe Bennett

In thirty issues, this title will hit the landmark 1000th issue. I’m excited about that. I really hope before that we get a strong lead up to that issue.

Right now it’s a decent read, but I’m not too sure where it might be going.

This is part two of the storyline “The Fall Of The Batman.”

In it, the Victim Syndicate are trying to eliminate all of the Batmen and Batwomen out there. There is a lot of action but a lot less focus.

What is it all leading to? Some place good I hope.

The art by Martinez is good. It’s clear and concise but it’s not too flashy. I hope this book regains it’s focus. Right now, it’s a little bit lost for me.

RATING: B-

 

Bug! The Adventures of the Forager #6
Written by Lee Allred
Illustrated by Michael Allred

This wonderful comic book has come to a close.

The Forager is one of those forgotten characters that the Allred’s have turned into something wonderful. I am sad it’s over but it’s been a hell of a ride.

The villain known as Chagra told everyone that he wouldn’t alter reality until Bug! returned to New Genesis.

The problem is he may balk on his promise.

Who are we kidding?

Of course he’s going to balk. It leads to a dynamic ending for this series that will leave a smile on your face.

The story is a bunch of fun. The art is some of Allred’s best. The two brothers obviously have passion for the project and it shows.

This is a book that you have to read. Pick it up. It’s awesome.

RATING: A

 

Red Hood and the Outlaws #17
Written by Scott Lobdell
Illustrated by Dexter Soy

Scott Lobdell has written one hell of a Bizarro story. He has taken the character and made him fresh.

Lobdell has been a talent for many years in this industry and he really is a seasoned pro. This book has been an underrated gem from the very start.

Red Hood and a few of the Outlaws (including Bizarro) have to travel to the Arctic for a mission with the Suicide Squad.

This group of people have quite a mission. They may kill each other first however!

Dexter Soy does a hell of a job drawing this title. He’s underrated as well and has been for years. His storytelling and graphics are just plain fantastic.

Pick this up. You’re missing out if you don’t.

RATING: B+

 

Gotham City Garage #6
Written by  Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing
Illustrated by Carmen Carnero

This has been a nice look at an alternative DC Universe. The writing is strong and you can’t look away. If you haven’t given this a shot yet, you totally should.

It’s been nothing but a blast.

This issue focuses on the Barbara Gordon of this alternate universe. She is tasked with figuring out villainous act. It may have started off looking simple on the surface but she slowly discovers it’s anything but.

This book moved fast and furious. The art is good and it holds the reader’s attention.

Pick this up. It’s been a lot of fun thus far and promises a lot more to come!

I’m looking forward to it.

RATING: B

 

Suicide Squad #31
Written by Rob Williams
Illustrated by Barnaby Bagenda

This is another chapter of the storyline “The Secret History of Task Force X!”

Rob Williams writes yet another nutty tale but at this point I’m just sitting back and seeing where the hell it leads me. It’s trying sometimes but for the most part it’s been enjoyable.

The Suicide Squad is fighting a war on two fronts! Harley Quinn is fighting a hell of an internal battle! It’s a war!

Meanwhile, Deadshot and company finally figure out who may be responsible for the war. And let me tell you: It’s not good news.

The art is fairly decent here. I think it may be time for a new writer at this point however. It’s wild for sure but lacks a sense of direction it seems. Still, it’s a boatload of crazy.

Not bad overall, but it could be better.

RATING: B-

 

New Super-Man #18
Written by Gene Luen Yang
Illustrated by Richard Friend, Joseph L Lalich

This issue finishes up the “Equilibrium” storyline. It’s a fine issue for sure. Yang has a good feel for the character. He also has a good feel for the Justice League he created here as well.

All-Yang is looking to take over the world! Can Kenan Kong and the Justice League stop this dastardly threat?

And if they do, what is next for Kenan?

It’s all very well done and compelling.

The art is strong here as well.

Honestly, it’s a great comic book that I initially had no hopes on. It continues to show me month after month just how viable this character is.

Pick it up. It’s a strong read.

RATING: B+

 

The Wildstorm: Michael Cray #3
Written by Brian Hill
Illustrated by N. Steven Harris

This book picked up after a debut issue that didn’t do to much for me.

The story is going along now and I’m enjoying it. Hill has a story in mind and it wasn’t apparent what that was at first. Now, I re-read everything up to this point and it’s something I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

So, Barry Allen has come into the crosshairs of Mr. Cray. Barry seems to have powers and a suit. Cray wants to now take care of this fool. But can he?

Or will this version of The Flash take out Cray?

Find out here!

The story moved at a quick pace. The art is fairly good as well. This is the issue where the team gels perfectly and it’s exciting to see. Pick it up. It’s a good issue in a decent series.

RATING: B

 

Titans #18
Written by Dan Abnett
Illustrated by Norm Rapmund, Brett Booth

I have a confession: I love this iteration of the Titans team very much.

It’s been a solid book right from the start and I truly think Abnett has a nice feel for it all.

This is a hell of a story. The Titans are defeated. Wally West is dead!

The worst part is Donna Troy needs to go up against a twisted version of herself called Troia. Can Donna defeat her?

The results are incredible.

The story is thrilling and has some good twists. The art is pretty good too. This is a well done and entertaining Titans run. Give it a shot. It’s well worth reading.

RATING: B+

 

Ragman #3
Written by Ray Fawkes
Illustrated by Inaki Miranda

Ray Fawkes may in fact be the best choice to write this comic book. He has an independent sensibility that translates well to this series.

Ragman has never been a big favorite of mine but I’m liking how this is turning out.

Our protagonist Rory is learning how to use the Suit of Souls. He hits the streets of Gotham City, finding and interrogating demons he comes along. Ragman starts to make a name for himself. It is then he comes across the demon known as Etrigan!

The story keeps your interest from start to finish.

The art is pretty good as well. It’s a good comic book limited series and I for one can’t wait to see how it ends.

RATING: B+

 

 

 

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