Movie Trailer Madness: The Dark Knight

Now, it should be no surprise that I'm excited about the next Batman movie. While this time around Nolan doesn't have a comic to pull from (Begins was basically Year One: the backstory heavy edition), he is making some parallels to other films (he's referenced Heat as an inspiration in interviews). The fact that he said that brings up what I feel is an interesting point. Is it that different to make a superhero movie compared to any other kind? Now of course, with Batman, you can address the logical problems of superheroism by explaining his gadgets, but what about someone with powers, specifically ones that would not work in the real world? Could you base a Flash movie on some other film with no fantastic qualities? I'm not sure. Then again, I suppose it depends on the skill of the director and the quality of the script, not the conventions of the genre. What people expect is less important than delivering them a quality story.
Alright; I promised a trailer, so here it is. It's actually a brand new one, from some viral marketing event. The quality is iffy (I suspect camera phone), but the stuff's all there, and it's good.

The Best Part

So. Con again. Want to know the best part? I got to meet two writers who are among my all-time favorites; personal heroes of mine for the last few years and probably a good few more. Hell, I even liked them on a social level. I'll tell the stories in chronological order.
I met Darwyn Cooke on Saturday, early afternoon. I had tried in the morning, but the line to meet and get a signature was constantly changing direction, and I have a fervent distaste for strangers touching me, so I left, dejected. When I returned, he was coming back from a lunch break, and I made sure that the newly-forming line was going my way. I jumped through hoops for the right to meet the author/artist of New Frontier, damn it, and I was going to tell him how much I enjoyed his work. When I got to him, some random person (who hadn't been in any line) jumped in ahead of me and began accosting Mr. Cooke about something some other artist had said about commissions. When I (and by the look on his face, Mr. Cooke) had had enough, I politely elbowed the man out of my way, and got one of the things I had literally gone to New York to get.
Meeting Grant Morrison was less annoying, but took longer. I'd attended his Spotlight panel, and waited in various lines for almost two hours, but I got to him. The guy who helped change my perception of comics. He can write a story that explores Hell from the perspective of a Golden Age character gone wrong, or he can do Batman in a self-reflective style that uses things that had been retconned out. He made a joke about Britney Spears. I got a picture of him with me and my girlfriend. And his signature is across my copy of Kid Eternity's cover. And for that, all of the hassles were worth it. Everything else at con was just a bonus.

Con's Great Lesson

So. Comic Con; three days of madness, fanboyism, capitalism, and one really nasty car trip. A ride so bad that by then end people who actually liked one another were so sick of the other's presence... I'm focusing on the wrong part of the story here. The point was the bits in the middle, not the shuttling across four or five states.
Point of fact, I learned very little about upcoming comics events that I didn't already know. I attended part of the Final Crisis panel, but since I'll be buying that only when it finally comes out in trade, I can't say I much care. I was hoping for a panel on the upcoming storylines in Green Lantern, but apparently they wouldn't let Geoff Johns have a room to himself for an hour or so.
Want to know what I did learn quite a bit about? Merchandise. I now know every toy, t-shirt, and video game that Marvel, DC, or Dark Horse will be putting out related to thier comics (Marvel), movies (DC), or both (Dark Horse). I'm not looking down on these companies for this, hell, it's good business (and I can't wait for some of this stuff to come out), but it's not really promoting anything other than the merch, and you can't buy any of it, even if they have a final product packaged and priced right there under glass. It's like they're reminding the fans that the companies have us by the sensitive bits when they feel like it.

Aaah! Get Out of my Head Charles!

Okay, so here's how I balance out my massive wall of text from the last post. It's a song. This song has taken up residence in my brain, maybe forever. It's a J-Rock song that I think is the theme song to some anime or another, performed by a supergroup with six lead singers who all appear to be LARPing their D&D characters on stage. It's actually pretty good, and has an oddly epic feel to it, which is why I suppose it makes good theme music. At least it's not J-Pop; I'd have gone nuts by now if some of that were in my head.

Funny Animal Comics 2: Mouse Guard Fall 1152

Just as the last post in the "Funny Animal" series, I use the term in a somewhat sarcastic manner, as neither book has anything to do with the funny animal archetype other than anthropomorphism. However, nearly everything else about the two books is different. Whereas Fox Bunny Funny is some sort of ham-fisted statement about human nature, Mouse Guard is a low fantasy action epic. Starring mice, mind you.
Yes, Mouse Guard depicts a world of sapient mice, living in fortress cities. Since nearly any other animal has the physical edge over a mouse, the mice have developed a guardian force to allow for travel between cities and other elements essential for a true culture. This is the titular guard, and their trials are the focus of the series, which has a planned run of five mini-series. This one, Fall 1152, named for the season it depicts, focuses on a plot to undermine the guard and their capital city from within.
The art is an interesting balance of representational and interpretive, as most animals are show with a reasonably normal appearance, yet the cloak-wearing, sword-wielding guardsmice look perfectly natural. The landscapes and scenery are properly emotive, and there are enough visual clues to prevent character confusion, even if you only remember them as "mouse with green cloak" and "mouse with blue cloak and a stick."
The story reads like some of the better fantasy novels I've read in my lifetime, with dialogue that feels natural for the characters and their setting, and expressing the personality of individuals at the proper times. There was a decent level of worldbuilding involved in the writing, and it's never dropped on the reader in a fit of "as you know, Bob..." and there's an index at the end for details that didn't make it into the story.
In short; it's pretty, the writing is solid, and the world is never ridiculous, even though the heroes are fieldmice. There's even a few overly manly action-hero moments for nearly every main character. This is the kind of book that makes use of every vernacular use of the word "epic."

Non-Class Review: Immortal Iron Fist

It's worth mentioning that I'm biased. Being a white guy who knows martial arts myself, Iron Fist has been one of my favorite characters since I was little, when he showed up a grand total of once or twice a year if I was lucky. The writer of Immortal, Ed Brubaker, sums the appeal of the character up best in this three word idiom: Kung. Fu. Billionaire. He's a semi-powered Batman who actually knows how to enjoy himself, and has an automatic connection to both the world of big-time heroing, while maintaining his own mystical myth base.
It's this balance that keeps Immortal so interesting; the big stuff in post "Civil War" Marvel is there, but Iron Fist has his own issues to deal with that feel just as important. You get to see his old buddy Luke Cage and old nemesis Davos, but they feel more alive than those old 70's comics. Brubaker writes everyone as very real, interesting people living in a ridiculous superhero world. On top of that, David Aja provides art that has a tangible, visceral feel while not going too far into the recent "photo-realistic" trend. I would recommend this book to anyone who can keep an open mind about their superheroes.

NOTE: As with every book I review under "Non-Class," I can make this available to anyone willing to treat them like newborn infants. Also, if I don't have it in my room, you may have to wait a few weeks for me to get it from my home in NH.