A Roundup from Planet Rusty: Cons and Comics

Hey friends! Pull up a chair, cause I’m gonna talk about Planet Comicon here in Kansas City, some comic book review, news, and opinion, and a little bit of movie news!

Hopefully you had fun at Planet Comicon this past weekend in the new Bartle Hall location! Yeah, that Saturday crowd was thick as thick can be, but the celebs, writers, artists, vendors, and numerous cosplayers more than made up for it. In a brief chat with comic writer supreme Scott Snyder, he mentioned to me he’s going to be doing another appearance on the Kevin Smith Smodcast “Fat Man on Batman”! The chat that Smith did with Snyder has been one of my favorites thus far, and I know I’m looking forward to a second round, so keep the ears open for that one!

I also managed to hit the voice acting panel done with voice actors Tom Kane and Adrienne Wilkinson. They did tell the crowd that the world of voice acting is a very tough one to break into, and that just doing voice acting on cartoons alone won’t pay the bills and you better be ready to pack up and move to Hollywood if you aspire to that. The highlight of the panel for me was Kane talking about how he based the voice of the Professor on Power Puff Girls on voice legend Gary Owens, and his conversations with Owens about the inspiration.

Moving over to some comic books news, Dark Horse announced that the original rough draft that George Lucas did for The Star Wars is going to be adapted as a comic by J.W. Rinzler and Mike Mayhew! We finally get to see the original vision with names like Annikin Stakiller, and Han Solo as a giant lizard as Lucas had it in his mind as a youngling screenplay idea.

The big question to me is how well is this going to go over? We’re going to see a world that will be familiar in some respects, but of course taking down a different road than what have been on all these years. We’ll see what the final result is in September when it hits shelves. I will go out on a limb and make one prediction that we’re gonna see some folks out there who really enjoy the book and will say that maybe this should have been the story that Lucas should have went with.

Time for a comic review!!! Let’s take a look at Godzilla The Half-Century War #5 from the folks at IDW, the last issue in the mini series. OK, you’re probably asking me why I’m talking about the last issue of a mini. Did Rusty miss the train on this? Well no smart guy (or gal), seeing as how this is the last issue, I thought I’d show it some attention seeing as how a TPB will be right around the corner and I want this fresh in your brain! See, I’m doing you a favor!

The premise of the mini is a simple but compelling one. In the original Godzilla attack on Japan, Lt. Murakami risks his life to save others in a one-on-one battle with Godzilla and his busted tank. His heroics lead to him and his sidekick Kentaro joining up with the Anti Megalosaurs Force, starting a 50 year career/obsession with tracking and fighting the big guy. Along the way Muakami has to contend not only with the other big monsters that surface but with people who have agendas that make the giant monsters seem tame by comparison.

So the big reason that I enjoyed the run of this book? Art-wise James Stokoe is spot on, especially with his rendering of the Big G and the other monsters, only person that I can think who has drawn him better is Art Adams. But art aside, this is a story that I’ve wanted to see ever since I got hooked on Godzilla when the local CBS affiliate used to show the movies on summer afternoons (wow, that just dated me!). Over the years we always see the character pop up in Godzilla movies how has the back story of tracking/researching/attempting to kill Godzilla for years, and get a monologue about why the character does what he does. This time, we’re seeing it progress through the decades with the world and technology changing and Murakami getting older, faces and conflicts changing, but in the end it all comes down to the eventual mano a giant lizard mano with Murakami that the mini has been leading up to. And the last issue? it gives us that.

Now on to that bit of movie news that I mentioned. Word came down the pipe last week that Jon Spaihts (Prometheus and Darkest Hour) is set to write the remake of the Disney film The Black Hole! I don’t know how you folks feel, but personally this one is big news to me, as The Black Hole was the very first movie that I ever saw in a theater. That movie set me down the sci-fi path I’m on to this day, and I still give it a watch every few months. And I know I have a hard core bias here, but I always felt that it was an underrated film despite some of the effects not being the best and the most bizarre ending for a Disney movie ever, and I always felt that the premise and the characters had enough traction there for some kind of continuation or revival. If this remake does well, this geek may just get his wish.

I think I’ve blown enough hot air at you fine folks for one round. Time to retire back to the couch to the stack of movies and comic books that are calling to me!