NBC and Lion Forge Comics to Bring Classic Shows Back to Life

Be honest, you’ve always wanted to read a comic about Saved by the Bell. No? Well, you’re getting the chance to anyway. Teaming up with Lion Forge Comics, NBCUniversal is bringing back quite of a few of their fan favorites from yesteryear in comic book form.

Not only just Saved By the Bell though. Nope, you’ll soon be able to catch up on the hijinks of Kit, the talking car, in Knight Rider, and all our old friends in Airwolf, Punky Brewster, and Miami Vice. I for one can not wait to see Don Johnson’s comic book counterpart, complete with rolled up sleeves.

Lion Forge Comics
Oh yeah, this will do.

While I imagine these books will likely deal with the characters in the same time period as the original shows, I would love to see them do it as more of a “where are they now” kind of thing. Is Stringfellow Hawke back in his mountain cabin? Is he still playing his cello for all the forest wildlife? What about Zach and Kelly from Saved By The Bell? Did those two crazy kids ever make it work? Surely Zach has found him some middle management soul sucking desk job that forces him to spend countless hours a day wishing he was back in high school to relive his good ol’ days.

Instead it’ll probably just be stories from when the shows aired, which frankly isn’t nearly as entertaining a prospect as my idea.

Amazingly enough, they are actually putting people with actual comic experience on this project with people like Joelle Sellner (Teen Titans) and Jonathon London (Geekscape), Geoffrey Thorne, and David Gordon. Artists Jason Johnson, Carl Reed, and Lorenzo Lizana are also on board.

The people at Lions Forge will be at Comic-Con and participating in a panel on July 20th so hopefully we’ll get a look at these books sooner rather than later.

“Plastic Movies Rewound” Creator and Director, Mike Malloy, Interview

The VHS format has come back in a big way in the last few years with an almost phoenix-style resurrection coming in no small part from the fans of the medium who wanted to keep it alive. Now with documentaries like Adjust Your Tracking (you can find an interview with creator Dan Kinem here) and Rewind This covering what it means to be a collector, it appears that the video cassette format has pretty much been covered. Not quite. Though these new documentaries cover more the love of collecting, the fans and the VHS medium, we have yet to see a documentary that covers the history of the video cassette, its distribution and the many avenues of history it covered in its 20 years as the number one home viewing format. Director Mike Malloy plans to change all that with his Kickstarter project Plastic Movies Rewound. It plans to cover the birth of the home video market, the trials and tribulations distributors went through, the many video formats that came out and lots more. Below is a video of some of the footage Mike has shot so far for his project and it is certainly impressive.

Continue reading “Plastic Movies Rewound” Creator and Director, Mike Malloy, Interview

Sunday Night TV: This Week’s Top 5 Moments – Ray Donovan, Jessica Hamby, and the Return of Dexter Morgan

There is real plethora of excellent television currently airing on Sunday nights as everyone rushes in to fill the time-slots that last month were held by Game of Thrones and Mad Men. What follows were my top 5 TV moments from Sunday night…

5. Copper (2.02) – Burn Baby Burn

Continue reading Sunday Night TV: This Week’s Top 5 Moments – Ray Donovan, Jessica Hamby, and the Return of Dexter Morgan

New ‘The Wolverine’ Featurette, ‘A Ronin Story’

We’ve seen trailers and posters for The Wolverine but now it’s time to get a better look at Hugh Jackman’s character in this newest film in the X-Men series. Released today was a new featurette titled ‘A Ronin Story’.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

So Wolverine saves Yashida from the atomic bomb? Sounds good to me. However, doesn’t it look like Yashida is now in the hands of Abstergo Industries and their Animus from Assassin’s Creed?

A Ronin Story The Wolverine

Not only that but surely I’m not the only World of Warcraft player who saw Wolverine walking through the forest next to a bear and thought ‘if I slowly angle away, maybe I won’t pull aggro on that plague bear.” right?

A Ronin Story
Just slowly move away… maybe he didn’t see me.

The Wolverine opens on July 26th.

‘New Girl’ heads to Netflix

It is hard to believe that not even two years ago, Netflix looked like it was heading towards a certain death. The Qwikster debacle and subsequent hemorrhage of subscribers was predicted to be the end of Netflix, and yet here they are today with multiple successful original series, a deal to revive the cult classic Arrested Development, a widely expanded library through various partnerships with big studios – including Disney – and now a deal to bring Fox’s New Girl to the streaming service.

Continue reading ‘New Girl’ heads to Netflix

Jason Mewes Could Be the Star of the ‘Vigilante Diaries’ with Your Help

With KickStarter really coming into its own in the last few years, it seems any creative talent now has the chance to show the fans what they want to see. But with so many projects out there it can be tricky to actually pick one to worth fund, hell you cannot funding. So what makes this new hopefully ongoing series called The Vigilante Diaries different from any other project out there? Well it has Jason Mewes in it for a start! The lovable, cartoon faced simpleton we love from the View Askewniverse is back, and this time he is running the show playing Mike Hanover, a film maker who ends up meeting and videotaping the vigilante of the title while he does what he does best. This mostly consists of killing lots of bad guys. Below is the synopsis from the official funding page.

[box_light]“Welcome—Just being here, you are a part of something new, something never before done on the internet (as far as we can tell.) We had a vision to create a series that breaks rules and pushes the limits of where an online series can go. Vigilante Diaries was born out of our combined frustration with the model of compromising creative due to the restrictions of third parties—advertisers and networks—instead of what matters, the audience.

This is a chance to prove that an audience can actually sustain a series without worrying about whether it was brand-safe or appealed to a specific advertising demographic. It’s about taking control of what entertainment you want to see made, not just accepting what studios think you want.

Vigilante Diaries is a high energy, fast-paced ride into the dark world of vigilante justice, following a pair of vigilantes who take justice into their own hands. Mike Hanover (Jason Mewes) is our storyteller bringing us right into the action through his documentary cameras mounted right in the middle of the carnage that ensues. It’s in many ways like a live-action first-person shooter game but with a gripping story that is just beginning to unfold.” [/box_light]

 vigilante diaries 1

Now plans are one thing, but does this series actually deliver in the goods department? I am happy to inform you that it does. The first episode has been kindly uploaded onto YouTube (which you can watch below) thanks to Jason and the entire team behind the project. At 10 minutes long we really only get a taste of what this show could offer, and it’s certainly not dull. The story line itself plays out like a modern-day A-Team in a way. The end credits list the team as ‘current whereabouts unknown’ and the story jumps from one drug bust to another at a fast pace. The Vigilante himself, and his partner are great fun. Anti heroes from the Clint Eastwood school of acting, only speaking when they have to, instead letting their actions do the talking.

As far as influences, to say there is a hint of ‘The Punisher’ in all of this would not be untrue. Jason Mewes ‘Mike’ plays a more hyperactive version of Frank Castle’s ex associate Microchip (only with more swearing and comedic gestures). It seems that if The Vigilante ever met Castle they would probably get along, you know, as much as Frank can get along with anyone.

While the font seems to have been inspired by Sin City, this is nothing like that movie. Style-wise it reminded me of the Gerald Butler movie Gamer as the episode is mixed between first person POV, over the shoulder shaky cam shots and static camera shots. It gives the episode a very kinetic and fast paced feel, but be warned – anyone that suffers from motion sickness may need to watch this in small bursts as it is not kind on your senses! The main driving force behind this is Jason himself who manages to juggle his unique brand of humor, and progresses the plot lines at the same time. He is a lot of fun to watch with his hyper active nature only calming down slightly when he thinks he is going to die. The idea of the Vigilante really not liking Mike either makes for fun viewing, and if this ever does get off the ground as a series, that relationship will be fun to watch.

http://youtu.be/o63Tv1RbJEw

So this is where you folks at home come in. If you watched the first episode and liked what you saw then hop over to Chill.com and help sponsor this series so they can get more episodes produced. If you donate you get the first 2 episodes as downloadable content, so that’s 20 minutes of Jason Mewes in action. Here is hoping that we get to see more of this gruesome threesome and their extended family very soon.