End of the 20th Century Boys?

I finished reading Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, Vol. 5

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin. This volume depicts the much-anticipated doomsday plot... in an oblique way, but the story is not over.

Real Rolls to Sixth Volume

I finished reading Real, Vol. 6 (Real (Viz))

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin. This series about wheelchair basketball and the wheelchair bound just keeps getting better.

VIZ Media Preps New Rumiko Takahashi

Press release from VIZ Media:

VIZ MEDIA PUBLISHES RIN-NE THE NEWEST MANGA SERIES FROM CELEBRATED MANGA CREATOR – RUMIKO TAKAHASHI

Volume One Of This New Series To Hit Store Shelves In the Same Month As The Japanese Release.

VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry's most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, will launch RIN-NE, the brand new manga (graphic novel) series from famed creator Rumiko Takahashi with the publication of the debut volume under VIZ Media’s Shonen Sunday imprint on October 20th. RIN-NE is rated ‘T+’ for older teens and will carry an MSRP of $9.99 U.S. / $12.99 CAN.

RIN-NE is the first manga series that will be available in stores at the same time as the Japanese release of the same volume. Through an unprecedented collaboration, RIN-NE is also the first manga series to appear simultaneously in Shogakukan’s popular WEEKLY SHONEN SUNDAY manga magazine in Japan and online on www.TheRumicWorld.com for North American fans. A new chapter is released each week for domestic fans to enjoy at the same time as their Japanese peers.

As a child Sakura Mamiya mysteriously disappeared in the woods behind her grandma’s home. She returned whole and healthy, but since then she has had the power to see ghosts. Now a teenager, she just wishes the ghosts would leave her alone! At school, the desk next to Sakura’s has been empty since the start of the school year. One day her always-absent classmate shows up, and he’s far more than what he seems!

RIN-NE is the first new manga from Takahashi since her epic INUYASHA (published domestically by VIZ Media) ended in 2008 in Japan. Shogakukan’s popular WEEKLY SHONEN SUNDAY manga magazine has featured Takahashi’s work since the early 1980’s. With over 170 million copies sold in Japan alone, Takahashi’s substantial catalog of work continues to be loved by legions of devoted readers.

The spotlight on Rumiko Takahashi's career began in 1978 when she won an honorable mention in Shogakukan’s annual New Comic Artist Contest for Those Selfish Aliens. Later that same year, her boy-meets-alien comedy series, Urusei Yatsura, was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday. This phenomenally successful manga series was adapted into anime format and spawned a TV series and half a dozen theatrical-release movies, all incredibly popular in their own right.

Takahashi followed up the success of her debut series with one blockbuster hit after another—Maison Ikkoku ran from 1980 to 1987, Ranma 1/2 from 1987 to 1996, and Inuyasha from 1996 to 2008. Other notable works include Mermaid Saga, Rumic Theater, and One-Pound Gospel. Takahashi won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award twice in her career, once for Urusei Yatsura in 1981 and the second time for Inuyasha in 2002. A majority of the Takahashi canon has been adapted into other media such as anime, live-action TV series, and film. Takahashi’s manga, as well as the other formats her work has been adapted into, have continued to delight generations of fans around the world. Distinguished by her wonderfully endearing characters, Takahashi’s work adeptly incorporates a wide variety of elements such as comedy, romance, fantasy, and martial arts. While her series are difficult to pin down into one simple genre, the signature style she has created has come to be known as the “Rumic World.” Rumiko Takahashi is an artist who truly represents the very best from the world of manga.

“Rumiko Takahashi is one of the most successful and celebrated manga creators of all time having produced multiple series that are massively popular and widely considered to be classics,” says Elizabeth Kawasaki, Sr. Editorial Director for VIZ Media. “RIN-NE again shows Takahashi’s talent for blending endearing characters with an imaginative plot that can be equally funny, dramatic and exciting. Takahashi’s skill as both an artist and storyteller has won over millions of fans around the world. With the promise of new plot twists and characters still yet to emerge, we look forward to RIN-NE becoming a new fan favorite.”

RIN-NE is also featured online on www.TheRumicWorld.com, the official North American web site for all Rumiko Takahashi-related news and information. Through an unprecedented collaboration with Shogakukan’s popular WEEKLY SHONEN SUNDAY manga magazine, which publishes RIN-NE in Japan, a new chapter is released each week for domestic fans to enjoy at the same time as their Japanese peers.

For more information on RIN-NE and other titles by Rumiko Takahashi please visit www.TheRumicWorld.com.

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz Unite for "Knight & Day"

From Business Wire:

Tom Cruise & Cameron Diaz in KNIGHT & DAY

Action-Comedy Now in Production from Director James Mangold

Its Working Title Was “Untitled Wichita Project”

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are now before the cameras on the action comedy KNIGHT & DAY. The Twentieth Century Fox / New Regency co-production began principal photography under the working title “Untitled Wichita Project.”

James Mangold (“3:10 to Yuma,” “Walk the Line”) directs KNIGHT & DAY from a screenplay he co-wrote with Scott Frank (“Minority Report,” “Out of Sight”). (The writing credit is not final.) The film is produced by Cathy Konrad (“3:10 to Yuma,” “Walk the Line”), Steve Pink (“Grosse Point Blank”) and Todd Garner (“Paul Blart: Mall Cop”). Executive producers are Joe Roth (“The Great Debaters”), E. Bennett Walsh (“Kill Bill”) and Arnon Milchan (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”).

In KNIGHT & DAY, Cruise and Diaz have a glamorous and sometimes deadly adventure, where nothing and no one – even the now fugitive couple – are what they seem. Amid shifting alliances and unexpected betrayals, they race across the globe, with their survival ultimately hinging on the battle of truth vs. trust. KNIGHT & DAY is now shooting in Massachusetts, and will also film on other locations around the world, including Spain, Austria and the tropics.

Also starring are Peter Sarsgaard (“An Education”) as a federal agent relentlessly pursuing the couple; Viola Davis (“Doubt”) as a CIA director trying to decipher the true purpose of their high-wire activities; Paul Dano (“There Will Be Blood”) as an eccentric genius behind a revolutionary technology; and Olivier Martinez (“Unfaithful”) as a ruthless arms manufacturer. Co-starring are Maggie Grace (“Taken”) and Marc Blucas (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”).
Twentieth Century Fox will release KNIGHT & DAY on Fourth of July weekend (July 2nd), 2010

Bryan Singer Wants to Direct Another X-Men Movie

In South Korea this past weekend, Bryan Singer, the director of X-Men and X2: X-Men United, talked about returning to the X-Men. He told a panel at the Pusan International Film Festival that he has talked to 20th Century Fox about directing another X-Men movie, according to the Associated Press via the San Francisco Chronicle's website. Singer jettisoned Fox and the X-Men film franchise to direct the mildly disappointing Superman Returns, which often came across as a hollow, unwanted and unneeded Richard Donner homage.

Johnny Ryan in Los Angeles to Promote New Graphic Novel

Press release from Fantagraphic Books:

Johnny Ryan's PRISON PIT takes over L.A. Oct. 21

Fantagraphics Books invites you to join them for a book release party for the release of Johnny Ryan's mind-blowing new graphic novel, PRISON PIT!

WHAT: Book Release Party/Signing

WHO: JOHNNY RYAN & MARC BELL

WHEN: Wednesday, Oct. 21 at 8PM

WHERE: FAMILY, 436 Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036

323.782.9221

http://www.familylosangeles.com/blog/

Prison Pit is an original graphic novel from the pen of Johnny Ryan, best known for his humor comic, Angry Youth Comix. Prison Pit represents a marked departure from AYC or his Blecky Yuckerella weekly comic strip, combining his love for WWE wrestling, Gary Panter’s “Jimbo” comics, and Kentaro Miura’s “Berserk” Manga into a brutal showcase of violence, survival and revenge. Imagine a blend of old-fashioned role playing fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons crossed with contemporary adult video games like Grand Theft Auto, filtered through Ryan’s sense of humor.

The book begins with C.F. (his full-name would be too horrifying to reveal here) being thrown into the Prison Pit, a barren negative-zone populated by intergalactic, violent monster criminals. In this first volume, C.F. gets into a bloody slorge war (a slorge is a giant slug that excretes a steroid-like drug called “fecid” that all the monster men are addicted to) with ultraprisoner Rottweiler Herpes and his henchmen Rabies Bloodbath and Assrat. The ensuing bloodbath is an over-the-top, hyperviolent yet hilarious farce worthy of Ryan’s inspiration, Kentaro Miura.

READ A PREVIEW OF PRISON PIT HERE:
http://www.fantagraphics.com/images/stories/previews/ppit01-preview.pdf

"Oh yes, it's finally here — Johnny Ryan's bloody sexual fight comic [Prison Pit Book 1], ...a two-fisted smash-up of international comics influence and the universal joy of tight-wound one-on-one combat, so tight that everything that comes out of a body becomes a weapon, and doesn't that have a way of mixing pleasure and pain? ... I liked this a hell of a lot." – Joe McCulloch, Jog - The Blog

"Perhaps the best and also craziest comic Johnny Ryan has made yet. Definitely adults only. There's no hidden meaning, deep metaphor, life lessons, etc. just crazy, funny action adventure. I hope he does 1,000 pages of this and it comes out as a huge weird omnibus." – Jeffrey Brown

"With nowhere near as much potty-mouth dialogue as in Ryan’s ridiculously scabrous Angry Youth Comix and Blecky Yuckerella, this combat-fantasy jape is a verbal pussycat in comparison, but that is offset by the nauseating blood, guts, and excretions splattered all over its ludicrously crude action. For splatter-movie fans and anyone trying to grok the splatter-movie ethos, not to be missed." – Ray Olson, Booklist [END]

New Rumiko Takahashi Set to Debut

I finished reading RIN-NE, Volume 1

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin. I like this supernatural, high concept situation comedy, but I'd like to read more before I start dropping a solid judgment.