Saturday, April 16, 2011

Bluewater Productions Announces Superhero Line

THE NEXT WAVE OF HEROES TO STRIKE BLUEWATER UNDER NEW BANNER

This Fall Bluewater Productions brings you a brand new world of superheroes. Art Director Gregg Paulson (Judo Girl, Paparazzi) and Line Editor AE Stueve (The Legend of Isis, The ABCs of Dinkology), along with a slew of artists and writers, are launching The Wave #0, Bluewater Productions' take on a shared universe. The line starts with The Wave #0 and leads into four four-issue mini-series revolving around mythological heroes and gods in modern times.

Bluewater intends to grab the serious attention of superhero fans. Though you've heard the names before, this is a brand new take, brand new concept, and brand new world. The upcoming titles include Artemis, Orion, Hercules, and Trident: The Power of Poseidon. Are you ready for The Wave?

"These comics will show the world that Bluewater Productions is not just about biography and property comics, but it can produce well written, beautifully drawn superhero stories as well. I think what the coolest thing though is that we are using the 'shared universe' formula familiar to fans of Marvel and DC, but right now we don't have a convoluted back-story of characters who, in some cases, have been around for nearly 100 years. That's not to say that it wouldn't be cool to create characters that are so awesome that in nearly 100 years the universe they share will be a convoluted mess. Because that would be cool. But hey, why not mention in our PR announcement one of the best advantages we've got over several other superhero comics these days?" --AE Stueve, line editor/writer Orion

Bluewater was founded on creating updated versions of different types of mythological characters such as 10th Muse (which launched at the 6th highest selling comic book) and Legend of Isis and Atlas ten years ago. “This is just another branch of books we are doing,” said Bluewater President Darren G. Davis. “As a kid I was fond of mythology, so I am excited to see what they are going to do with it.”


About Bluewater Productions
Bluewater Productions Inc. is one of the top independent production studios of comic books, young adult books and graphic novels. Its extensive catalog of titles includes the bestsellers 10th Muse and The Legend of Isis Bluewater publishes comic books in partnership with entertainment icon William Shatner (TekWar Chronicles), legendary filmmaker Ray Harryhausen (Wrath of the Titans, Sinbad: Rogue of Mars, Jason and the Argonauts, et al) and celebrated actor Vincent Price (Vincent Price Presents), Additionally, Bluewater publishes a highly successful line of biographical comics under the titles Female Force and Political Power.

Bluewater aims to unite cutting-edge art and engaging stories produced by its stable of the publishing industry's top artists and writers.

For more information, visit http://www.bluewaterprod.com/.

Friday, April 15, 2011

VIZ Kids Adds Five New Titles

VIZ MEDIA EXPANDS VIZ KIDS IMPRINTWITH A FULL SLATE OF NEW ACQUISITIONS

New Titles Include Global Blockbuster Franchises MR. MEN AND LITTLE MISS, POKÉMON And VOLTRON FORCE, And Rising Stars MAMESHIBA and HERO 108

San Francisco, CA, April 11, 2011 – VIZ Media, the largest distributor of anime and manga in the United States, announced a full slate of acquisitions for its kids imprint, VIZ Kids. The acquisitions include DVD, Download-To-Own, and graphic novel licenses for a wide range of well-established global franchises.

“VIZ Media is excited to expand our kids imprint to include a variety of fun new properties,” said Elizabeth Kawasaki, Senior Editorial Director of VIZ Media. “These new titles use strong storytelling, eye-popping graphics and empowering themes to engage a younger generation of fans.”

• HERO 108 – VIZ Kids will be distributing DVDs of this popular series which airs on Cartoon Network. HERO 108 chronicles the battle for peace in the Hidden Kingdom. In addition, VIZ Kids will make the episodes available for download through iTunes. DVDs will be available in May 2011 while downloadable episodes will launch in June 2011.

• MAMESHIBA – The irresistibly cute and irrepressibly curious Mameshiba are not quite beans, not quite dogs--they’re a hybrid of both! VIZ Kids will release a graphic novel, MAMESHIBA: ON THE LOOSE!, and a character guide, MEET MAMESHIBA, in July 2011.

• POKÉMON BLACK AND WHITE: VIZ Kids will release manga, a travel activity kit, and other select merchandise based on the most recent incarnation of the juggernaut POKÉMON™ video game franchise, Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version. Meet all-new Pokémon from the fastest-selling Pokémon video games in history. The travel activity kit will be available in May 2011; Volumes 1 and 2 of the manga will be available in July 2011.

• MR. MEN AND LITTLE MISS – Mr. Happy, Little Miss Sunshine and all their Dillydale friends are about to take the graphic novel world by storm! Under the VIZ Kids imprint, VIZ Media will create and distribute original graphic novels starring the lovable MR. MEN and LITTLE MISSES. Little Miss Sunshine, Mr. Bump, Mr. Strong and Little Miss Daredevil books will be available in Spring 2012.

• VOLTRON FORCE – Voltron®, the ultimate space adventure from the 1980s, is ready to take the world by storm again! VIZ Kids will produce and distribute original graphic novels based on the all-new animated series VOLTRON FORCEÔ, set to debut on Nicktoons this summer. VOLTRON FORCE reignites the story of five brave space explorers who pilot mighty robot lions that combine to form Voltron, Defender of the Universe. Joining the team are three new cadets, who have the opportunity of a lifetime to fight alongside their heroes and unlock incredible new powers. Let’s Voltron! The books will be available in Spring 2012.

HERO 108, MAMESHIBA, MR. MEN, and VOLTRON FORCE are unique acquisitions because they are properties not owned by any of VIZ Media’s parent companies, Shueisha, Shogakukan and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions. These acquisitions join an already robust manga and anime VIZ Kids library, which includes THE LEGEND OF ZELDA, PANDA MAN, TARO, BEYBLADE and DINOSAUR KING.

For more information on VIZ Kids, visit http://www.vizkids.com/.

House of Five Leaves Indebted

I read House of Five Leaves, Vol. 3

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin (which has FREE smart phone apps).


Thursday, April 14, 2011

"Black Dynamite" the Movie Screens to Promote Black Dynamite Comic Book

The Crest: Black Dynamite Screening

ASR Innertainment to host film screening of Black Dynamite to promote Black Dynamite Comic Book from Ape Entertainment

April 13, 2011: Released in 2009, Black Dynamite quickly became a cult smash and received a comic book treatment from Ars Nova and Ape Entertainment. Black Dynamite: Slave Island, everyone’s favorite Blaxploitation sensation will appear in a one-shot, bringing his Kung-Fu fighting skills in this sequential page as he shuts down the mysterious island where Black slavery still exists.

“Fans of the film will feel right at home with the comic,” states Ape Entertainment founder and co-publisher Brent E. Erwin. “It has all of the elements that made the movie a cultural phenomenon, and Black Dynamite himself is still as much of a bad dude on the page as he is on the screen.”

Black Dynamite was directed by Scott Sanders and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. The film stars Michael Jai White as Black Dynamite, a Kung-Fu fighting, gun blasting ladies’ man willing to fight from the ghetto streets all the way to the White House in his efforts to take down “The Man”.

“Although written for film, Black Dynamite was always meant to move beyond the camera,” continues Sanders. “As a medium, comic books seemed like such a logical step in Black Dynamite’s development as a character, and what better way to start then having him bring down the infamous Slave Island.”

Black Dynamite: Slave Island is based on a story by Michael Jai White, Myron Minns and Scott Sanders. Written by Brian Ash with pencils by Jun Lofamia, the 48-page on shot hit stores in February 2011.

As part of ASR Innertainment’s The Crest: Movie Series, the company will be holding two screenings of Black Dynamite. The first screening will be at the Crossroads Theater 2590 Washington Street Denver, CO. on Friday, April 15, 2011, from 6:00pm to 11:00pm, film starting at 7:45pm sharp. A reception will precede the first screening with food and beverages, with sounds provided by DJ Cavem (http://www.djcavem.com/).

The second screening with be next door at Coffee at The Point 710 East 26th Avenue, from 10:00pm to 2:00am for a midnight screening of Black Dynamite. Sounds will be provided by The Girl Grabbers (www.facebook.com/girlgrabbers) from 10:30pm to 11:30pm. A closing reception will follow the second screening with food, beverages and promotional materials, including limited copies of the limited edition comic book, Black Dynamite: Slave Island, as well as Black Dynamite merchandise for purchase at booth screenings.

For More Information on ASR Innertainment, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/ASR-Innertainment/132894606761823?sk=wall

For More Information on Black Dynamite, visit http://www.blackdynamite.com/.

For More Information on Ape Entertainment, visit http://www.ape-entertainment/

For More Information on Ars Nova, visit http://www.arsnovaent.com/

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

John Cory on the L Word - Liberal

Love Me, I'm a Liberal
By John Cory, Reader Supported News
11 April 11
Reader Supported News
Perspective

"If God did not want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep." - Calvero from The Magnificent Seven

So, Mr. Obama saved us from a government shutdown. That's good, right?

I don't think so, but then, I'm not part of the hoi polloi that runs this joint.

Listen to the spin coming from the Democrats and Mr. Obama using their upside down language of "... reducing spending while still investing in the future is just common sense ..."

We are not investing in America by these spending cuts, but rather breaking the great Republic into more pieces for sale to the lowest corporate bidder. This is the privatization of America and the turning of citizens into sharecroppers.

Gore Vidal said it best:

"America has only one political party - the property party. It's the party of big corporations, the party of money. And it has two right wings, one is Democrat and the other is Republican."

Let's be honest here - Obama and Democrats may have dodged a shutdown but they joined the shakedown. And it is going to keep coming: the debt ceiling vote, 2012 budget vote, the GOP Medicare fraud of Paul Ryan and the selling off of our educational system to privateers who will and are turning colleges and public schools into corporate vocational-training centers. Training tomorrow's corporate citizens in conformity and consumerism. Digby posted this scene from Network a while back and it is worth watching again. Satire turned into reality.

Glenn Beck warned that we had elected Malcolm X, but it turns out we elected Malcolm-In-The-Middle. Wherever the "middle" is. And while Mr. Obama and the Democrats pat themselves on the back for "historic cuts" and keeping the corporation government open for business and tell us how compromise is necessary and how both sides came out a winner - I'd like to take this moment to say: Bullshit! This ain't T-Ball where everyone gets a trophy just for playing, Mr. President!

And the Democratic Party is flooding my inbox with pleas for money and support to fight the craven GOP and re-elect Mr. Obama for the sake of the country. Oh Please!

In the intro to his song, Love Me, I'm a Liberal, Phil Ochs said: "In every American community you have varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals ... Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."

The last verse of Love Me, I'm a Liberal is particularly apropos:

"Once I was young and impulsive,
I wore every conceivable pin,
Even went to the socialist meetings,
Learned all the old union hymns.
But now I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in,
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal."

I miss Phil Ochs, and voices like his. We don't need more liberals in this country - we need more radicals.

The millionaires in Congress do not represent We, The People and the government is nothing more than a subsidiary of the corporate state. That is a fact we need to recognize and acknowledge and fight.

We voted for Obama to stop the wars, close Guantanamo, re-instate civil liberties, hold the wealthy accountable for their destructive greed, and to protect the everyday workers and the poor. The Democrats shouted how bad it would be if the Republicans and their Tea Party gained more power. Remember? How's that working out for you, America?

The Wall Street Wizards of Oz are making more money than ever while Democrats join Republicans in preaching sermons of restraint and sacrifice to those who are losing everything. Banks (Wachovia/Wells Fargo) profit from laundering Mexican drug money, foreclosing on homes, and charging fees to access your own money and still, they promote the gospel of greed and gluttony. The corporate personhood is indeed special because when they commit crimes, they simply use their ill-gotten gains to lobby for deregulation so that their crimes become un-crimes, more like "free market" faux pas. Pay the fine without admitting guilt and let's move on. I wonder if that would work for me if I robbed a bank?

And don't look to our modern media for elucidation or honesty. Those are commodities with no built-in profit margin. Sensationalism, snark and circus acts bring viewership to the business of covering politics. That's where the money is. There is only time for ads, egos and entertainment, not ethics or education.

In his 1958 speech on media and news in Chicago, Edward R. Murrow warned of the future:

"I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us ... This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box ..."

We stand on the edge of a cliff and Mr. Obama and the Democrats keep telling us to step right up, and we say, but it's a cliff, and they say, but it's the only way forward. They call it: Winning the future. I call it: Bullshit. Suicidal bullshit.

I'm a radical - a poor radical - but if I had fifty bucks you can bet the Democrats wouldn't get a nickel. I'd donate ten bucks to Planned Parenthood so someone's sister or daughter could have health services, ten bucks to the neighborhood free health clinic so the poor and unemployed could get treatment for their family's illnesses, ten bucks for independent media like Link TV and NPR, ten bucks to self-help veteran organizations because the corporate government that profits so handsomely from war fails to care for soldiers and veterans, and finally, ten bucks for whatever organization distributes the works of Howard Zinn, Emma Goldman, Dr. King, and Molly Ivins and Naomi Klein and Thom Hartmann and Jim Hightower and Andrew Bacevich and Bill Moyers and scores of others.

Sound radical? It is. But that is exactly what the neo-conservative right wing has been doing for over twenty years. Where have the liberal Democrats been?

I read that Mr. Obama and the Democrats will raise $1 Billion Dollars for the 2012 re-election campaign. Wow. Just wow. In a struggling economy I wonder where they will find all that money?

Oh well, sing along with me everyone: "Love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal!"

-PEACE­-

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Original article is here.

Case Closed and the Shadow of the Wolves

I read Case Closed, Vol. 38 (Case Closed (Graphic Novels))

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin (which has FREE smart phone apps).



DC Comics from Diamond Distributors for April 13 2011

DC COMICS

FEB110167 ADVENTURE COMICS #525 $2.99

FEB110236 ALL NEW BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #6 $2.99

JUL100281 AME COMI DUELA DENT AS THE JOKER VINYL FIGURE $70.00

JUL100280 AME COMI JESSE QUICK AS THE FLASH VINYL FIGURE $70.00

JAN110424 AREA 10 TP (MR) $12.99

FEB110159 BATGIRL #20 $2.99

FEB110153 BATMAN AND ROBIN #22 $2.99

FEB110160 BIRDS OF PREY #11 $2.99

FEB110170 BOOSTER GOLD #43 $2.99

JAN110325 BOOSTER GOLD PAST IMPERFECT TP $17.99

FEB110254 CINDERELLA FABLES ARE FOREVER #3 (OF 6) (MR) $2.99

FEB110190 DC COMICS PRESENTS BATMAN ARKHAM #1 $7.99

FEB110171 DOC SAVAGE #13 $2.99

DEC100280 EX MACHINA DELUXE EDITION HC VOL 05 (MR) $29.99

NOV100194 FLASH #10 (FLASHPOINT) $2.99

JAN110323 GOTHAM CITY SIRENS TP VOL 01 UNION $17.99

FEB110246 INFAMOUS #3 (OF 6) $2.99

FEB110124 JUSTICE LEAGUE GENERATION LOST #23 (BRIGHTEST DAY) $2.99

DEC100249 JUSTICE LEAGUE GENERATION LOST HC VOL 01 $39.99

JUN100305 KILLZONE SER 1 HELGHAST ASSAULT INFANTRY AF PI

JUN100304 KILLZONE SER 1 HELGHAST SNIPER AF PI

FEB110264 NORTHLANDERS #39 (MR) $2.99

JAN110278 OUTSIDERS #38 $2.99

FEB110182 REBELS #27 $2.99

FEB110149 RED ROBIN #22 $2.99

DEC100252 SPIRIT ANGEL SMERTI TP $17.99

FEB110140 SUPERBOY #6 (DOOMSDAY) $2.99

FEB110161 SUPERMAN #710 $2.99

JAN110332 SUPERMAN CODENAME PATRIOT TP $14.99

FEB110184 THUNDER AGENTS #6 $2.99

FEB110186 TITANS #34 $2.99

FEB110271 UNWRITTEN #24 (MR) $2.99