Closet Rage

By John Voulieris

This week we got a parody, a cancellation, a new webcomic, a direct to DVD animated movie, a sexually confused cowboy, and Drew Melbourne. Only on ATR folks…

We Kid Because We Love

CapvsBats is known here on ATR (and all over the internet) for his comic book parodies, and he just sent us a brand new one centered around Civil War #4:




















This Has A “Was I The Only One Who Liked Cloned Thor?” Factor Of Ten Out Of Ten

Stake Through the Heart

Geoff Johns (among other sources) has confirmed that the SPIKE TV Blade series will not be getting a second season.

Maybe strong DVD sales and a grassroots campaign can change that? Any Blade fans out there want to get pro-active?

This Has An “It Worked For Family Guy” Factor Of Nine Out Of Ten

InTrawub Rulez

Famed comic book colorist (Chronicles of Conan), Ian Sokoliwski has a new webcomic called BATTLEWITCH coming out every Friday over at http://www.imwan.com/icg.html.



Ian describes the series as “a story about robots battling monsters. Well, really, there is a lot more about religious fanaticism, gender roles, and abuse of authority, but it all starts with robots battling monsters.”

This Has A “My Second Favorite Website” Factor Of Ten Out Of Ten

Connecting the Dots

Warren Ellis recently sent out the following on his Bad Signal mailing list:
    It appears that I'm going to be writing a direct-to-DVD animated film next month. Right now, I think I'm still under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), although the design artist leaked it some months back. He does a lot of covers for Vertigo. More than that I will not say until I get the nod. Interestingly, there's also the possibility I'll be brought in to do the voice direction, too.
Over on Millarworld, Nicholas Taggert started connecting the dots and seems to have figured out what the mystery project is by referring to a previous posting on http://www.warrenellis.com by Warren himself:
    I had nothing to do with the linking of my name with CASTLEVANIA, have never played the game and have never clapped eyes on James Jean, whom I believe is a popular illustrator with the young people of today. I have no further comment to make at this time.

    Obviously, I am to be trusted in all things.
He then cemented the theory by digging this up on James Jean’s (Fables covert artist for Vertigo) website:
    Concept illustration for an animated series based on the classic Konami video game, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, to be written by RRawen Llies
    Art Director: James Jean
    Client: Project 51 Productions, LTD.
Seems like my fellow Millarworlder has cracked the case!

This Has A “Direct To DVD Just Got A Whole Lot More Interesting” Factor Of Nine Out Of Ten

To Slap Leather no More?

Some homosexual advocacy groups are getting up in arms about some recent going ons at Marvel Comics, specifically involving the Rawhide Kid. If you remember, Rawhide Kid was portrayed as being gay in a Marvel Comics limited series from a few years ago). Basically the problems stem from a recent issue of Marvel Universe, the entry for the Rawhide Kid reads as follows:
    "In 1877, Rawhide fell in love with an Apache woman named Bright Fawn; Rawhide was adopted into her tribe and planned to marry her, but she and her fellow Apaches, wrongly blamed for crimes, were slaughtered by vengeful townspeople, leaving Rawhide to avenge himself against the true criminals and return to wandering...

    For a time he adopted an eccentric persona apparently intended to confuse others, even concocting false details of his childhood to cement the deception, but this failed to alienate him from youngsters enthralled by his legend, which was only enhanced after his defeat of the Cisco Pike Gang in Wells Junction."
The Group that brought this to my attention had the following comments:
    Wells Junction is the town in the mini, so that is the story they are talking about here. It's good to know that the best way the Kid could think of alienate himself was to act gay… specifically by trying to have sex the kids' fathers. Great plan! I wasn't offended by the mini, but this kind of bothers me.

    To me, it is suggestive that these two stories, the Apache marriage story and the Wells Junction story, were mentioned together when they weren't in the same story arcs. They were in mini-series that were produced a year apart. The "Apache Skies" story would have taken place years after the Slap Leather story. In "Apache Skies," the Kid is older, more like middle aged, rather than the young buck in "Slap Leather." Also the creative team that did "Apache Skies" did another series with the Kid in it, "Blaze of Glory," which was close in theme, style, and character to "Apache Skies." So why weren't those two books in the same paragraph instead of "Apache Skies" and "Slap Leather" unless they were trying to make a point about the Kid's sexuality?

    OK, this entry doesn't say the Kid is straight. Certainly, he wouldn't be the first gay guy to try to marry a woman (only to have her killed by angry towns folk.) And sure, he could be gay all the time but not usually so ... ummm ... festive as he was in Slap Leather, so I can't say for sure that they have straightened the Kid, but it sure smells that way
It seems like the Rawhide Kid’s homosexuality has been retconned out of existence as some sort of a con; Marvel got a lot of flack for this particular interpretation of the character. Mind you outing/making him gay was a retcon itself, so who is to say Marvel is wrong when it comes to this?

Ok that’s enough because even I’m getting confused now (continuity – not sexuality – always gives me a headache).

This Has A “What Does John Ostrander Think About This?” Factor Of Nine Out Of Ten

Three’s Company

Drew Melbourne popped in to give us some scoops on his recent projects:

ATR: Tell our readers about ARCHENEMIES – what is it all about?

DM: Star Fighter and the Underlord are archenemies who don't realize that they're roommates in their secret identities. As hero and villain they hate each other, but as mismatched roommates Ethan Baxter and Vincent Darko they hate each other EVEN MORE.

ARCHENEMIES is a quirky superhero action comedy drama series. I'm the writer and creator. Yvel (JLA) Guichet and Joe (UNCANNY X-MEN) Rubinstein provide the art. Dark Horse put out the first four issues earlier this year, and the trade paperback's been advance solicited for January.

(So reserve your copy today!)

ATR: There were some loose ends at the end of the last series. Can readers expect a follow up and some answers? What will future installments center on?

DM: There's definitely more ARCHENEMIES on the way. My editor may kill me for telling you this, but I'm actually working on ARCHENEMIES #0 right now.

That's the issue that finally reveals how Ethan and Vincent became roommates in the first place.

After that comes the next ARCHENEMIES mini, tentatively subtitled "Three Monkeys." As in "See no secret identity. Hear no secret identity. Speak no secret identity." I can't give anything away, obviously, except to say that somebody breaks those rules, and somebody pays a price for it. Plus: Jokes!

ATR: What are the central themes of the series? What differentiates it from other superhero books?

DM: The big question behind ARCHENEMIES is "What can we learn from the people we hate?" There's a fair amount of goofiness in ARCHENEMIES, but at its heart this is the story of two young, flawed guys trying to figure out how to live their lives.

In most comics, you're rooting for the hero to beat the bad guy or maybe for the bad guy to sock it to the hero. With ARCHENEMIES, I'm really hoping that the readers will root for Ethan and Vincent to work through their issues and become friends and become better people.

ATR: I hear rumors of a movie deal… what can you tell us about that?

DM: It's more than a rumor, as it turns out! We've just finalized a deal with Sam Raimi to produce the movie at Paramount. I'm incredibly excited about this, because no one in Hollywood gets superheroes like Sam Raimi and no one in Hollywood understands how to blend action and comedy and drama like Sam Raimi. It's always a long, uncertain road from deal to film, but the property is definitely in good hands.

ATR: What other projects are you working on? Any non-comic work?

DM: Let's see. We already covered the next volume of ARCHENEMIES…

Beyond that, I'm talking to Dark Horse about doing a few more books: another superhero book, a sci-fi book, a horror book. Hopefully we can get one or two of them out in '07.

Over at Top Cow, I've got HEROES OF TOMORROW, which should be out in time for San Diego next year. All I can tell you about HOT is that, as the British say, "It does exactly what it says on the tin."

Also, I'm so desperate to work with Oni (SCOTT PILGRIM being the greatest comic book ever) that I threw a pitch onto their slush pile at San Diego this year. If anyone from Oni is reading this: "Please, please publish my comic." If you do, I promise to buy your company three to four large chocolate chip cookies and one tall glass of 2% milk.

And since you asked about non-comics work: I'm currently building a website celebrating the work of famed Hungarian color woodcut artist Joseph Domjan. So if anyone else needs a famed color woodcut artist-themed website, I'm your guy.

ATR: Thanks for taking the time and congrats on the success of Archenemies Drew – you deserve it!

This Has A “Do A Spinoff About The Kooky Landlord” Factor Of Ten Out Of Ten

I’ll be taking next weekend off so that I can move into my new condo – ATR will be back with guest columnist John Hays. Go easy on the kid, it’s his first rumour column. I’ll be seeing everyone in two weeks.