SDCC: American Original Panel discusses creators.
At San Diego Comic Con, Jeff Katz announced creators behind his comedy anthology book “Comedy Death Ray,” and the first film to come out of the comic book and film production house.
Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, B.J. Novak, David Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Scheer and Zach Galifianakis are among some of the first to contribute to the anthology, for which each comedian will create a comicbook.
The goal is to see individual books in the “Comedy Death Ray” series, shepherded by Scott Aukerman, generate spinoffs for TV or film that would be produced by American Original.
“Comedy Death Ray” in its original incarnation was a “night of comedy” headed by Scott Aukerman, which also became a radio show. Its some excellent stuff, and considering the amount of talent contributing to the anthology, I think this may be one of the freshest comics to come out. Especially with Patton Oswalt, a personal favorite of mine.
Also announced, is AO’s partnership with Rantz Hoseley’s digital comics distribution device LongBox, which seems to me to be a iTunes for comics. Also announced is a dramatic feature of the documentary “Bigger, Stronger, Faster”:
The company’s branding arm recently signed TNA Wrestling, a rival to World Wrestling Entertainment, and in addition to trying to build TNA into a bigger biz, one of Katz’s first projects will be to adapt the sports docu “Bigger, Stronger, Faster,” into a scripted feature.
Project, to be penned by the docu’s helmer Chris Bell, with Jason Dolan (”Sydney Hall”), will be a “Traffic”-like exploration of performance-enhancing drugs. Katz will produce with docu producers Alex Buono and Tamsin Rawady serving as exec producers.
This will be exceptionally interesting considering how performance enhancing drugs have long been a mainstay in wrestling, and only recently has it come to light how these drugs affect these athletes. Also, mentioned are the deals with Titmouse Animation, the people behind “Afro Samurai” and“Metalocalypse”, and a sci-fi anthology called the “Galaxy Project” with the creature designers behind “Alien vs Predator.”
Sounds like some neat stuff coming out through the new company.
SDCC: David Tennant “sorry” for the end of “Doctor Who.”
David Tennant
At the San Diego Comic Con, people expected that Russell T. Davies would announce a “Doctor Who” movie starring David Tennant, but we would get nothing of the sort. Instead, what audience members got were trailers for the final three episodes of Tennant’s run as the Time Lord. And apparently, he’s sorry:
I think he feels guilty. I think he’s in a very difficult position. He has to make the hard choices, and he’s riddled with remorse for what happened to his people, and the part he played in that, which we’ll learn a little bit more about before I disappear. [Laughs] Not that much, just a little bit. It’s not the three-part miniseries staring [former 1990s Doctor] Paul McGann. But I think he’s tortured, and he travels time and space trying to make it better… but some of the side effects of that are not as we’d wish them to be.
The first special, that airs tonight on BBC America, titled “The Planet of the Dead” stars “Bionic Woman” Michelle Ryan as a cat-burgler who finds herself stranded on a bus that has been teleported into a desert of the dead. The second special, “The Water of Mars” involves a water monster. The final two-parter “The End of Time” which features Tennant’s Doctor’s death and change into Matt Smith is quite the tear-jerker apparently:
Not surprisingly, Tennant and the production crew all promise some of the series’ strongest moments in the final episodes of 2009, and Euros Lynn said he showed the regeneration scene (where Tennant’s Doctor “dies” and turns into Matt Smith) to composer Murray Gold, who bawled like a baby.
During the filming, says Gardner, “Every day there was a new goodbye of some sort to someone.”
“The End of Time” will also see the return of The Master, John Simm. Which makes me excited because as of this writing I’m watching Jon Simm take over Britain in the season finale to “Doctor Who” season 3.
Final SDCC News Tidbits.
Sorry for this not coming on Sunday, but there was no coffee in the house and I don’t function without coffee in the house. So, spinning out of Comic Con we got quite a number of the the answers we were looking for. So here we go:
- Geoff Johns will be introducing the Justice Society of America to TV show Smallville. That’s pretty great news, though I’m not really sure how they are going to fit into this context, though with a wide range of characters to draw from, I’m sure the episode will be chock full of fun characters. Also, we’ll see Clark in costume for the first time: he’ll be rocking the black and silver costume he wore after dying in the comics. Laura already made the mullet joke, so I’m just going to stop right there.
- In other Johns news, he and former assistant Sterling Gates will both be taking on new “Flash” books. Johns will write “All-Flash” which will include the entire family of speedsters, and Gates will write a solo “Kid Flash” book which makes me happy that Bart is getting his own title again.
- Clips, clips, clips. A bunch of clips landed at Comic Con, including Green Lantern First Flight, and clips from the anime versions of Wolverine and Iron Man, both written by Warren Ellis.
- “Pushing Daisies” creator Bryan Fuller wants to write superhero comics. I say let him, since his show has been canceled with the comic spinning into Wildstorm.
- “Lost” actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje may be playing the Black Panther. I wouldn’t even know how to pronounce that name. I think this is a stellar idea, he’s both jacked and intimidating. Also: he was awesome on “The Wire”.
- Archaia Studios is teaming up with Spock. To produce new comics under Quinto’s production company. Seems like this kind of thing is happening more and more in the comics market place as comics and film become more attached. I realize that’s stating the obvious, and I do not think its a bad thing. I think it can only bring new readers into comics and that, for me, is always a good thing.
- Joss Whedon says there is going to be more “Dr. Horrible” comics coming. Plus the posters for his “Cabin In The Woods” horror flick look great.
Coming up we’ll have a list of all the things that came out of Comic Con that’d we like, David Tennant’s final thoughts on leaving “Doctor Who” and some other announcements.
