Video: Adam West and Burt Ward ( 1966 Batman TV Show Actors ) 1987 TV Interview

Interviewed for Entertainment Tonight in 1987, Adam and Burt reminisce about their 60's Batman days and the neccesity of wearing "restraining devices." There is also a "hint" about a new Batman movie coming out which we all now know was BATMAN, directed by Tim Burton in 1989. It's the "1st Batman movie" with Michael Keaton & Jack Nicholson. I have always wished that they would have given Adam & Burt a cameo appearance in that movie. But, they did give a tiny film role to Bob Kane, one of the creators of Batman, so that's cool. He played a newspaper reporter.

Video: THE DARK KNIGHT Chuck The Movie Guy Interviews The Cast of the New Batman Movie.

Chuck "The Movie Guy" talks with Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, & Maggie Gyllenhaal about their characters in THE DARK KNIGHT Batman movie.
Christian Bale - Batman, Bruce Wayne



Aaron Eckhart - Harvey Dent, Two-Face



Gary Oldman - Jim Gordon



Maggie Gyllenhaal - Rachel Dawes

THE DARK KNIGHT Actor's Interviews Talk Show Media Blitz!

OK, since THE DARK KNIGHT Batman Movie is about to hit Warner Bros is kicking the media talk show circuit up a bit! Scheduled for Tuesday, July 15th:
In the morning, Morgan Freeman ( Lucius Fox ) will be on The TODAY SHOW. Then, Morgan Freeman will join Michael Caine ( Butler Alfred Pennyworth ) on THE VIEW. Then, later tonight, Aaron Eckhart ( DA Harvey Dent / Two-Face ) will be on the LATE SHOW with David Letterman. Be sure to check your local TV Guide for air time information.

*NEW* Batman -The Dark Knight - TV Interview in HONG KONG

This Cable TV interview took place in Hong Kong, one of the cities which the movie was filmed at. The interview of Christian Bale and Maggie Gyllenhaal appeared on July 13, 2008. It's pretty interesting to see "foreign press" & I'm also wondering why "Rachel Dawes" was there. I don't think she had any scenes in Hong Kong so that's kinda weird. But, it's always nice to see her, enjoy.

The BastardCast vs. ‘Moth City’ Creator/Writer/Artist, Tim Gibson

This time on The BastardCast, Jeremy and Jason welcome Moth City comic book creator Tim Gibson to discuss his innovative and fun neo-noir digital comic, being a part of Thrillbent.com, whether he prefers digital or print, and whether interacting with the audience is a necessity for an indie comic creator.

More? Mr. Gibson gives us his take on the whole DRM Free issue, what drove him to base his story within the Chinese civil war, and we ask the WETA veteran and computer animator, whether we are all too obsessed with box office.

Unfamiliar with Moth City? Shame on you, but as a treat, we've got the latest issue of the book embedded below for you to thumb through while listening to the podcast.

Isn't that rad? We know! We are the raddest dudes!

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Interview: Michael Troy on His Indiegogo Project ‘The Stonewall Riots’

44 years ago last month, the gay liberation movement began in earnest with the Stonewall riots, when patrons of Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn refused to stand down to police during one of their frequent raids on gay bars. The riots had a galvanizing effect on the fledgling gay rights movement in the U.S. In his inaugural address earlier this year, President Obama listed it as a significant moment in the history of civil rights.

To share the story with today's audience, writer Michael Troy has launched an Indiegogo campaign to finance the comic book The Stonewall Riots for Bluewater Productions. We had the opportunity to ask Troy about Stonewall's impact, Indiegogo, and how the comics industry can be more inclusive to readers of all sexual orientations.

For those who might not know about the Stonewall riots, why do they hold an important place in the history of gay rights?

Michael Troy: The Stonewall riots are what people largely credit as the beginning of the modern gay rights movement, although there were certainly others before it. But as Stonewall is the most well-known, it seemed like the place to start in order to get people's attention. It certainly had a lot of fascinating aspects.

Over the decades, the riots have been featured in numerous films and TV documentaries. What advantage is there to telling the story through comics?

Troy: The advantage to comics is always an "unlimited budget." There's a chance to educate a young LGBTQ audience that may not know "where they came from." Comics are a great wealth of entertainment, as apparently Hollywood has discovered.

There are certainly exceptions, but American comics largely tend to portray white heteronormative experiences. Do you think there's anything the industry can do to be more inclusive?

Troy: I think that's hard to answer. You would like to say Hollywood is story-driven, gay or not - but sadly, recent years have proved them to be even more money-driven. Brokeback Mountain was a good story that happened to be about two gay cowboys; now, the major studios wouldn't touch Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra as it was deemed "too gay." I suppose they could be more inclusive by not using that phrase, for starters.

With the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act, the public's acceptance of the gay community seems to be at a record high. Did that play a role in your decision to crowdfound the project via Indiegogo?

Troy: I wish we were calculated enough to use the death of DOMA as a huge P.R. advantage, but our campaign was already in place when the ruling was announced. I don't think it could hurt.

What has the reaction to the Indiegogo campaign been like?

Troy: I think it's been mostly positive. People seem to not know that much about Stonewall, which makes it seem more important [that] we're doing it. Stonewall strikes a nerve with people and it should.

I think I'd enjoy the project more if people who don't really need it weren't jumping on the bandwagon-like known celebrities-and watering down the concept and edging out the smaller guys like us. HELP! We still really need it!

What do you want readers to take away from the book?

Troy: I want people to know being gay isn't just "my two moms." It's been an American struggle. Not just an LGBTQ one. I want it to be part of American history because it is.

The Indiegogo campaign for The Stonewall Riots runs through August 2. You can check it out here.

The Joker & Deadpool Invade Ohayocon – Day Two

Our Day Two coverage of Ohayocon 2013, I let The Joker and guest star Deadpool venture around the con and interview cosplayers.

I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.

Joker cosplayer is Brady Hall. Deadpool is Kyle Akers.

Nerds on the Red Carpet: The ‘Silent Hill: Revelation 3-D’ Premiere

On Wednesday evening we got a chance to attend the Silent Hill: Revelation 3D premiere at the ArcLight in Hollywood, CA. The film is written/directed by Michael J. Bassett (Cinemax’s Strike Back), produced by Samuel Hadida (Resident Evil: Afterlife), and stars Kit Harington (Game of Thrones), Adelaide Clemons (The Great Gatsby), Sean Bean (Missing), and Carrie-Anne Moss (Vegas). The film is the sequel to Silent Hill, and is based on the groundbreaking video game franchise of the same name. The film synopsis states:

Heather Mason (Clemons) and her father (Bean) have been on the run, always one step ahead of dangerous forces that she doesn’t fully understand. On the eve of her 18th birthday, plagued by horrific nightmares and the disappearance of her father, Heather discovers she’s not who she thinks she is. The revelation leads her deeper into a demonic world that threatens to trap her forever.

At the red carpet event before the cast and crew screened the film, I got the opportunity to speak with Harington, Clemons, Hadida, and Bassett about the film. First up, I spoke to Kit Harington about what it was like to be in his first film following the success of the hit HBO series, Game of Thrones, which is also adapted from a previous work. Unlike Thrones, which is based on a best-selling book series by George R. R. Martin, I was curious what the experience was like to film a horror movie based off of a video game. Harington replied:

“I enjoyed them both, you know? I’m not used to working in this sort of industry, so to do anything is very exciting. I’ve always wanted to do a horror movie, so I really enjoyed doing this.”

After Harington finished talking to the press, he went over to the fans who had been waiting for hours just to see him. He then proceeded to take photos, and sign autographs. After I spoke with him, I got the opportunity to talk to the producer Samuel Hadida. Hadida was understandably very excited about the film, and had a lot to say about what fans could expect.

“Silent Hill is very influenced by Jacob’s Ladder.” Adding “We wanted to give you a more detailed version of Silent Hill. We wanted everybody who saw the first movie to be very excited to see their character back in the city of Silent Hill, and to fulfill their recollection of what happened six years later.”

After Hadida, I was lucky to get the chance to hear Adelaide Clemons thoughts on filming Silent Hill. When asked if she had previously done a horror movie, Clemons responded, “I have done several, but not one anyone would have ever seen.” She also thinks fans will find the plot of this film to be very interesting. One of the burning questions was whether or not she ever got scared filming the movie. Clemons said:

“Oh, yes, absolutely! As you will see, the monsters are really graphic, so you can’t help it.”

The last person I was able to talk to was the film’s writer/director Michael J. Bassett. Like Hadida, Bassett is a fan of the horror genre. When asked why he chose to direct the Silent Hill sequel, Bassett replied:

“I just like the horror movies. They’re the ones that I grew up with, you know? No matter what I do in any genre, I don’t know, maybe I’m just a creature kind of guy. If you’re going to make a movie, then make a movie you love.”

Bassett also talked about his upcoming project with David S. Goyer (Man of Steel) titled, Da Vinci’s Demons. It’s a television series that tells the “untold” story of Leonardo Da Vinci that is in the vein of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. He has also just wrapped the Cinemax series, Strike Back.

I wan’t able to screen the film, but from the trailer the special effects look really great. Also, Hadida revealed that there will be more monsters, and action in this film than the first. Also more of Sean Bean! Silent Hill: Revelation 3D opened nationwide today (October 26th).

Max Allan Collins On ‘Seduction Of The Innocent’ And The Darker Side Of Comics History

Max Allan Collins is a name comics and mystery fans will recognize instantly, for his work on Dick Tracy, the Road To Perdition, and his collaboration with Terry Beatty, the dark noir Mrs. Tree.

His latest, Seduction Of The Innocent, arrives tomorrow and it’s a return to the Jack & Maggie Starr series, which sets mysteries among the early history of comics. And this time, Collins is taking on none other that Dr. Frederick Wertham.

Mr. Collins took some time to explain what fascinated him about this era of comics, what makes this series of novels unique, and just why he read the original Seduction of The Innocent so much as a kid. We also have an excerpt, courtesy of Hard Case Crime, and you’ll find it all under the jump.

Gamma Squad: How did the idea to set a novel during the ’50s comics “witch trials” first come to you?

Max Allan Collins: I originally conceived the Jack and Maggie Starr mysteries as two things: a trilogy, and a tribute to Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin novels. I’ve been writing the more overtly hardboiled, and rigorously-faithful-to-history Nathan Heller series since the ’80s, and I had three historical subjects relating to comics that didn’t quite suit that series. I wanted to deal with the creation of Superman by two teenagers from Cleveland, the feud between superstar cartoonists Al Capp (Li’l Abner) and Ham Fisher (Joe Palooka), and the attack on comics in the early ’50s, particularly on the EC Comics that I loved so much.

None of these real subjects involved a murder, though Fisher did commit suicide under unusual circumstances, so Heller was out. So doing a more roman a clef approach, with a Golden Age of Mysteries format, seemed perfect.

Gamma Squad: It’s great to see you and Terry Beatty, who offers illustrations throughout the book, working together again. Any chance we might finally see some reprints of “Mrs. Tree”?

Collins: Ms. Tree reprints are coming. If I can find time, so will a new graphic novel. Terry is very busy, though, as the Sunday page artist on the syndicated Phantom strip. Very proud of him.

Gamma Squad: You’ve written quite a few unique characters: Nolan, Quarry, Nathan Heller, Mallory. How is Jack Starr different?

Collins: Nolan is a thief, and Quarry is a hitman — those are early creations, and grew out of the anti-hero movies and books of the ’60s and early ’70s. Crook books, we used to call them. Nolan is highly influenced by Richard Stark’s Parker. Quarry is a more original creation, the stories told in first-person, and he has had real longevity. I just finished the tenth Quarry novel, THE WRONG QUARRY — he was created in 1972 at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop.

Mallory is another first-person character, a small-town mystery writer, very much in the private eye vein, very Chandler-influenced. I did five of those very early on in my career, and will probably not return to the character — he’s of my youth, and was actually a kind of hippie private eye, except he wasn’t licensed. Heller is probably my most significant creation, a private detective in the Sam Spade/Phillip Marlowe/Mike Hammer mold who operates out of Chicago in the ’30s through the early ’60s, and is involved in real crimes. The books are very tough, very violent, though Heller himself is an obvious descendent of Mallory, in that he has a sense of humor and is generally good company.

Jack Starr is kind of Nate Heller Lite, and very much reflects my love of how Archie Goodwin narrates the Nero Wolfe novels.

Gamma Squad: How much research did you have to do into comics in 1954?

Collins: Quite a bit, although I grew up in that era. I was very aware that comic books were under fire, even at age six or seven — that Parent’s Magazine was publishing lists of comic books parents shouldn’t buy, and that Dr. Wertham was on the warpath. I vividly remember the Comics Code Authority coming in, and how that stamp-like insignia was a guarantee that the contents would be watered-down pap.

My usual research associate on my historical novels, George Hagenauer, is a very knowledgeable comics historian, and he worked with me hand-in-hand on this one. We looked at not only books like David Hadju’s Ten-Cent Plague, but articles and newspaper accounts of the period. George had a huge stack of that stuff that we both plowed through.

Gamma Squad: Will we see any historical figures from the industry pop up?

Collins: The characters are suggested by the real people — Dr. Frederick is Dr. Wertham, obviously, Bob Price is Bill Gaines, both fictionalized but recognizable. Will Allison is a composite of Al Williamson, Wally Wood and Frank Frazetta. The Crime Does Not Pay crew gets a similar fictionalization.

Gamma Squad: Did you manage to track down a copy of Seduction of the Innocent for research? I’ve discovered myself it’s surprisingly hard to find.

Collins: I think I have a copy somewhere. I’ve read it many times. The Muscatine, Iowa, library had a copy that I checked out again and again as a kid and teenager. Here’s how we used that book: to know what comics to look for.

Gamma Squad: How much of Frederick Wertham do you feel wound up in Dr. Frederick?

Collins: There’s considerable historical research backing up Dr. Frederick — how he runs a clinic in Harlem, for example, and is not entirely a bad guy, just a misguided one. But I’m doing a fairly broad kind of work here — sort of like an episode of the old Ellery Queen TV show with Jim Hutton. Dr. Frederick is a caricature, but like all good caricatures, built on reality.

On the next page, you’ll find an excerpt of Seduction of The Innocent; it’s on sale tomorrow.

Screw Hollywood.

In the spring of 1954, New York is the entertainment capital of America.

Sure, Hollywood has its movies, but lately it's been stealing its scripts from TV-dramatic stuff like Marty and 12 Angry Men, comedies like Visit to a Small Planet and No Time For Sergeants…all originally produced on live TV right here in Manhattan.

You know what they shoot out in Hollywood, for TV? Kiddie crap like The Lone Ranger and Cisco Kid. Sure, there's the rarity like Dragnet or I Love Lucy, but for real quality TV, it's Studio One, The Philco-Goodyear Playhouse, and The Hallmark Hall of Fame. And for laughs, you got Uncle Miltie, Sid Caesar, and Jackie Gleason, then on Sunday night, so stiff he's hilarious, Ed Sullivan. Live television out of New York.

Your morning starts with The Today Show with Dave Garroway and your day ends with The Tonight Show with Steve Allen (local now, but heading for network this fall). In between you have game shows like Beat the Clock and I've Got a Secret, soap operas like Love of Life and Guiding Light, not to mention the news with Douglas Edwards (CBS), John Cameron Swayze (NBC), and John Charles Daly (ABC) …dawn till dusk, dusk to midnight, live broadcasts from New York rule the airwaves.

Meanwhile, on the radio? Bob and Ray. Top that, California.

And where do the Hollywood producers look to find their next box-office bonanza? Broadway, where right now Can- Can, Picnic, and Tea and Sympathy are playing at the Shubert, Music Box and 48th Street Theatre respectively. And over at the Brill Building, any popular song that doesn't come from a Broadway musical is getting pounded out on a piano by one tunesmith or another.

When Broadway isn't providing grist for the Hollywood mill, the book publishing industry is. Do any of these ring a bell-The Robe, Battle Cry, From Here to Eternity? All major publishing resides in Manhattan, from class acts like Knopf and Random House to paperback outfits like Pocket Books (reprints) and Fawcett (originals). All the rags about Hollywood movie stars are published out of Manhattan, too, and so are the big-time news mags, Time, Life, Look.

Then there's that powerhouse publishing industry that nobody talks about, or anyway when they talk about it, it's either in hushed tones or outraged yells. No, I don't mean the skin magazines, though a lot of the guys in the biz I'm talking about started out there (and some still work sleaze as a sideline).
I am talking about funny books, kids.

The most popular entertainment medium of all, here in 1954. My city boasts twenty comics publishers putting out 600-some titles every month, selling eighty to one hundred million copies a week, reaching an audience larger than movies, TV, radio and magazines combined (they figure a comic book gets passed around or traded to six or more readers).

It's an industry employing a thousand-plus writers, artists, editors, letterers and assorted spear carriers, men and women, white and Negro and what-have-you. It's a form of story- telling that arrays newsstands with superhero fantasy and talking ducks, though those are outnumbered of late by monsters both supernatural and human, as well as cowboys and Indians, romance and war, and science fiction…even adaptations of classic literature ("Turn to page 345 in Great Expectations, class-Timmy, that's page 16 in your Classic Comics"). The chief audience is kids but grown-ups indulge, too, especially veterans who learned to read portable funny books, bought at the PX, in the Second World War and more recently Korea.

Me, I work in that industry, albeit on the fringes. My name is Jack Starr, and I'm the vice president of the Starr Syndicate, where that more respectable brand of comics is sold to news- papers nationwide-the comic strip. As it happens, Starr is, of the various syndicates, the one most closely aligned with the comic book industry. I'll tell you more about that in the pages to come, and about myself and my interesting boss, Maggie Starr, who happens to be my stepmother as well as the World's Second Most Famous Striptease Artist (after Gypsy Rose Lee) (retired).

What's important for you to keep in mind is how big, how popular the comic book industry is right now.
And how everybody and your Uncle Charlie wants to kill it. What the hell…every murder mystery needs a victim….

The post Max Allan Collins On ‘Seduction Of The Innocent’ And The Darker Side Of Comics History appeared first on UPROXX.

Interview: R.I.P.D. Writer Jeremy Barlow on ‘City of the Damned’, ‘Star Wars’, and More

Jeremy Barlow has written Star Wars comics, Mass Effect comics, Deathlok, and more, but this time he’s taking us out west with R.I.P.D.: City of the Damned, a prequel to the R.I.P.D. movie that will star Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds when it debuts this summer.

I spoke to Barlow about picking up where Peter Lenkov left off with R.I.P.D., what he thinks about the future of Star Wars, the possibility of more Deathlok, going freelance, and what it takes to write a comic book.

For those who aren’t familiar with Peter Lenkov’s original R.I.P.D. story, how does this pivot off of that and how does the film pivot off of City of the Damned?

Jeremy Barlow: Peter Lenkov's first story introduced the Rest in Peace Department through protagonist Nick Cruz' (now Nick Walker) eyes. He was a troubled Boston PD officer killed in the line of duty and recruited into the R.I.P.D. to patrol the afterlife. Nick's senior partner is Roy Pulsipher, a gunfighter from the old west and now 100-year veteran of the force. It's a great story, equally full of horror and heart, and it's the basis for the upcoming film.

City of the Damned takes us back and tells the story of how Roy joined the R.I.P.D., and how the disturbing events of his first case shaped his personality. Through this we expand the R.I.P.D. universe and dig deeper into its mythology, while still keeping the terrifying/sentimental tone that Peter established.

You’ve written for pre-established voices like Star Wars before, but here you sort of get to be out front with it. How involved were the filmmakers and Lenkov in the plotting stage and did you feel like you had to speak with Ryan Reynolds or Jeff Bridges’ voice at times?

Barlow: The movie's production was well underway when we started City of the Damned, but I was given autonomy to build the world. I pitched a prequel to give us some space, and once we had the green light, artist Tony Parker and I just went for it and didn't hold anything back. Peter Lenkov has been involved at every step too, making sure everything lines up. He digs what we're doing.

As for writing the characters, it was less a case of "having" to write to Bridges' and Reynolds' voice than "getting" to. One of the challenges of writing is creating vivid characters that speak to you, whose voices you hear in your head, and whose reactions to any situation you'd know by heart. Having those voices already in place is golden.

That said, Nick Walker (the Ryan Reynolds character appears only in a modern-day bookend sequence in the first and final issues. Otherwise, Roy is teamed up with his own senior partner, an intense Puritan named Crispin Mather, who's a new character. For Roy's voice, I've been leaning toward a younger and more brash, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot era Bridges. Throwing him together with a stoic Solomon Kane type has been fun.

Staying with a “voice” question, we go back 100 years to the old west in City of the Damned, you’ve visited that time in your writing before with They’ll Bury You Where You Stand, what is it about that time that appeals to you as a writer?

Barlow: Hey, thanks for mentioning "TBYWYS!" (my original short story with artist Dustin Weaver, which ran in Image Comics Outlaw Territory vol. 2 anthology). I'm glad someone read it!

I'm not at all interested in traditional westerns, actually. In fact, I grew up hating them — the cheap sets, the overly simplistic morality, the bombastic musical scores — just not for me. The western is a purely American mythology, but by its nature it can't escape the concepts of Manifest Destiny and the John Wayne/good guys wear white fantasy. Which just kills it dead for me.

However, I love, LOVE, European westerns from the 60s and 70s. Respect to Sergio Leone and all, but those Man with No Name" movies don't even scratch the surface of that genre's greatness. The original Django's opening credit sequence opened a trapdoor in my brain the first time I saw it, and I fell right in. Through the European filter, that American mythology becomes something else entirely. Something more honest and true, more brutal and surreal, and the visual language knocks you on your ass.

The short answer to your question is, I use this 'wrong' western genre for the same reasons I like writing science fiction-the freedom to go anywhere and do anything. I love creating wholly unique worlds, going places that couldn't exist otherwise, and using familiar symbols in unfamiliar contexts.

Complete 180, more Dethklok comics or other Metalocalypse projects? Ever?

Barlow: Oh, man — I wish. I really hope so. I haven't heard anything from Dark Horse on that front, but I get the sense that the books didn't do as well as we hoped, so I don't know. That was easily the best and most fun job I've ever had, and I could write 100 more issues of Dethklok, easily. Cut off your fingers and cross them.

You were with Dark Horse for a while and then you went freelance and you aligned with Periscope studios. What kind of advantage does joining with a collective give you in terms of booking work and what are the benefits of working freelance as opposed to having one set home?

Barlow: The networking advantages are indirect, at least for me, and I'm not sure that being a studio member has led to getting hired for something. The true benefit of joining Periscope, though, is simply spending time with like-minded and insanely talented artists and writers. It's having a place to go and having people to interact with when the isolation of working from home is too much. It's been a lifesaver, and Periscope is like a second family.

Writing at the studio can be challenging, depending on what I'm working on, but that's only because the room is full of creative, really wonderful people having a great time, and who'd want to block that out?

In terms of your process, how long does it take you from first letter to last to write a script and how do you avoid distractions?

Barlow: Too long. I used to beat myself up for being a slow writer, but I've accepted that it's not so much that I'm slow as I am extremely thorough. I can write a 22-page script in about ten days, but only after I've already spent at least as much time working out the ideas, breaking down the dramatic beats, and solving all of the logic and consistency problems. I go on long walks daily to work things out in my head (and to convince myself that I'm not terrible at what I do).

I script using a program called Movie Magic Screenwriter, with a personally customized template. While scripting, I also have a Word doc open, which I use for general outlining and problem solving. If I get stuck, I talk it out in the Word doc until the solution presents itself, then I jump back over to the script.

My first drafts are loose and crappy. The pages are paced out with one-sentence panel descriptions and placeholder dialogue. Once that's down I'll expand that draft into a full script, along with reference web links for the artist, and everything. Then I'll print that out, proof it, and use it as a reference to rewrite a third draft from scratch. Which is crazy, I know, but it gets the best results. You can stare at a thing for so long that you lose sight of it, and retyping it finds the blind spots and tightens everything up. This is time consuming, especially when I'm juggling multiple projects, but maintaining quality is worth it. The upside is that because I'm so thorough, I'm very rarely asked to do rewrites. So maybe I save a little time on the backend.

For productivity, I use a variation on the Pomodoro Technique. Which is that I have a pair of timer widgets on my Macbook's dashboard — one set for twenty-five minutes and the other for six. While the longer one runs, I work. I focus on the task and ignore the stress and the urge to web surf. When it goes off, I take a six-minute break-no matter what. I walk around the house, drink some water, do some pushups, anything to refresh the brain. When those six minutes are up, I'm back at the desk for another twenty-five.

Before working like this, I'd lose days to anxiety. Days! I'm easily overwhelmed, and my workload this year has been crazy — if I think about everything ahead of me, I lock up and can't get anything done. It's a bad cycle. Breaking it down into small, timed chunks instead has worked wonders.

Advice for aspiring comic writers on how to get published?

Barlow: Get an Internet connection. Okay, that's the smartass answer — but what I mean is that digital is as viable an option for getting your work out there as is trying to get a publisher to pay attention to you. Get online, meet some artists, and just get your stuff out there. Digital is the future — I don't buy monthly comics anymore, I read everything on my iPad — and there's no barrier to sharing your work with the world. If you're good, people will pay attention. If you're not good, keep at it and eventually you will be.

If the question you're really asking, though, is how does an aspiring writer get to do this for a living? Again, it goes back to becoming really good at what you do — so good that someone will want to pay you to do it — and getting there takes a lot of time working and a lot patience sweating through your amateur phase. I've been at this for ten years, and I feel like I'm only just getting my sea legs under me.

What existing character would you like to get your hands on and what would you do with them?

Barlow: Mad Max. In a heartbeat. That character and his whole world are rich and so much fun, you could go in all kinds of directions with them. I'd put him on a ship and send him around the world, starting with Asia and the Middle East, and dig into how the rest of the world is living in the post-apocalypse. How great would that be? Wow. Okay, I have to do this, if even just for myself.

How do you feel about the upcoming Star Wars film?

Barlow: It’s exciting. I’ve written a handful of all-ages Star Wars graphic novels, and my approach was always ‘what would Pixar do?’ Meaning, how best to find the stories’ meaning and heart, and to make them ‘all-ages’ in the truest sense of the word — enjoyable to everyone, regardless of how old the reader was.

I have no inside information, but the rumors are pointing toward Disney and Lucasfilm actually kicking it over to some of the Pixar guys, and that’s fantastic. As a fan, I’m stoked, and I’m looking forward to Star Wars again in a way I haven’t been in a long, long time.

Is there a Star Wars story or character you worked on that you think would be fantastic on the big screen? Would you sell your soul to work on that movie? Keep in mind I am not the devil or an agent of, so any affirmation does not constitute a binding agreement.

Barlow: As a professional, I’m not interested in working on the movie, to be honest. I’ve said what I had to say about Star Wars, and I haven’t written anything for them in quite a while. I’m looking forward to just being a fan again, no longer seeing behind the curtain, and doing my best to stay on media blackout until the movie hits, because I like to be surprised.

That said, if I could have one of my characters built into their future plans, it’d have to be BoShek — the pilot with the sideburns who refers Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi to Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina. He gets three seconds of screen time, but I wrote a story setting him up as the Star Wars version of The Transporter, which was a blast. So either him, or Shon-Ju — a failed Jedi padawan turned martial artist who creates his own system of hand-to-hand Force-powered combat, and who has an enormous chip on his shoulder toward his former teachers. He has a lot of depth and potential. I say humbly.

Otherwise, yeah. I’m right in line with you guys on opening night 2015!

R.I.P.D.: City of the Damned from Barlow, Peter Lenkov, and Tony Parker debuts tomorrow (11/28). You can pick up a copy online or at your local comic book shop. For more information on Jeremy Barlow, check out his website.

Interview: Thomas Jane on ‘Dark Country’ and ‘The Punisher’

Thomas Jane has played the Frank Castle, Mickey Mantle, a member of the Vegan Police, Jonah Hex, a soldier, a gigolo and more, but the thing that is most impressive about the every-man actor is his mind for comics.

More than a fan of the medium, I spoke at length with Jane about pre-code comics, Bruce Jones, and adapting the cult horror film (which and short story Dark Country (which Jane directed) to a wordless graphic novel by Thomas Ott. After that, we spoke about the future of comic book inspired films and I asked him if he’s done with The Punisher. I'm a big fan of twist endings, specifically horror; The Mist has a great surprise ending both on paper and on screen. Dark Country pulls it off as well, and like The Mist, it doesn't feel like a clich , it fits, but it's also kind of shocking. Do you think audiences are getting harder to surprise?

Thomas Jane: Well, yeah. I think audiences are always getting more and more sophisticated and yes. Yes, that's true, but we have to try. We have to keep trying. Every now and then we'll slip one in.

The Dark Country graphic novel has a look that's sort of reminiscent of the old pulp comics like Creepy and Eerie from Warren and others like that, what other inspirations did you guys pull from?

Jane: Well definitely from the EC comic book vein, the books that were drawn by Graham Ingels, Jack Davis and Johnny Craig, all of those greats. And certainly Bernie Wrightson was a big influence; he also did our character design for Bloody Face so his designs are included in the graphic novel as well as about 40 pages of production art and storyboards and stuff.

Yeah, I mean, what you said: all the Creepy and the Warren stuff and especially the work of Bruce Jones who had a great line of comics called Twisted Tales back in the eighties, that's had a big influence on me, but Thomas Ott himself was a big influence on the film, the look of the film. I borrowed a lot of his shots and a lot of his moves for the film Dark Country and so when it came time to do the graphic novel I thought he was the perfect guy to ask to do it. The story was right up his alley. I sent him the story and he loved it.

You see a lot of actors kind of gravitate towards comics now, but obviously you know your shit. What is it about using comics and graphic novels as a story telling device that appeals to you? Is it the sense of freedom and does that always make up for the reduced exposure and does it depend on the story?

Jane: Well, we're certainly not doing it for the money. I think graphic novels are a distinctly American art form. It's an art form that I fell in love with when I was eight years old and its something that I continue to enjoy. I think people are always doing interesting stuff with the medium and my contribution to graphic novels has always been sort of a way of staying connected with the material that's inspired me to do what I do.

I think that a lot of film makers are inspired by graphic novels and have been inspired by graphic novels in the past and it's just a medium that I really enjoy. I enjoy the storytelling that you can do with a graphic novel. I enjoy the freedom; it's kind of like a visual medium, but also a literary medium so it combines the two.

Thomas Ott’s signature style is to tell the story with only pictures, which I think is very clever and not easy to do, its kind of like a silent film and then the film both combines the words and pictures. It's an interesting way of getting a story out there.

What are some of your favorite [graphic] novels?

Jane: I'm a big fan of Black Hole by Charles Burns; I'm a big fan of Daniel Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. I like the work of Kim Deitch, who’s an underground artist.

I really enjoy underground and alternative comics; I really like David Mack's Kabuki, you know, it's endless. I enjoy Mark Millar and I enjoy some of the mainstream stuff too; but really I like the old fifties pre-code horror and crime comics, those are some of my personal favorites and I have a pretty good collection of pre-code horror comic books.

I like Robert Crumb a lot, I like the Weirdo Magazine that he put out for a while, I mean there's a lot out there.

Moving from comics to comic book movies, do you think that the expectations that are put on comic book movies (the need to sell action figures and make $300 million at the box office) because of the success of some — do you think that limits the amount of stories that are able to make the transition to the screen? Do you think it makes it harder to push out more adult stories?

Jane: That's just the way the business is turning these days, these movies have to be more and more expensive and they have to hit a broader and broader audience, but like Road to Perdition, which came out probably ten years ago, that was a great comic book film, its probably my favorite comic book film and I was hoping to see more movies based on you know, sort of more literate comic books or stuff that wasn't super heroes. But, [with] movies in general they're making less of the of the sort of lower budget films and it seems to be more of the bigger budget movies across the board. And I would love to see more comic book films that were adaptations to film that were not super hero oriented.

You took the bull by the horns a little while ago with, well it's sort of a superhero; an anti-hero obviously with Frank Castle and Dirty Laundry. Any Punisher short films in the future and also do you have any other plans to direct another feature?

Jane: Well as far as The Punisher goes I kinda said what I wanted to say with the short film and it was the version of Frank Castle that tI always wanted to see and it was very gratifying to finally put it out there. Phil Joanou — a great director — and Chad St.John — a fantastic writer — and we just kind of got a dream team of guys to put that together and I would love to see the three of us do a Punisher film, but I don't know if that would ever happen. I don't know, again it's like the studio seems sorta bent on making a two hundred million dollar version of a comic book movie. So yeah, I think the fans are kind of missing out.

The other part of your question is yeah, I'm going to be directing another movie next year. It's a western and it's called A Magnificent Death From a Shattered Hand and we're talking to Nick Nolte and Jeremy Irons (Jane would also play a role) it's an ensemble cast and we're putting it together now and we'll be shooting it in the spring of next year. So we're getting to start pre-production on it and I'm very excited about it.

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As we we were winding down, Jane also mentioned that he was “planning on doing something on LA Noire” that he was honored that Frank Darabont (his director on The Mist who he almost re-teamed with on The Walking Dead) had asked him too, and that he was hoping that scheduling for that and A Magnificent Death from a Shattered Hand worked out.

The Dark Country graphic novel is out now. According to Jane, the book comes with the short story, Ott’s graphic novel, an empty DVD sleeve for your Dark Country DVD, and tons of art. He calls it unique and I call it a worthy addition to your collection.

NYCC 2012 Interview: One and a Half Questions with Neal Adams

One constant, at every con I have ever been too, has been Neal Adams catering too a full gaggle of fans as he smiled, autographed, and sketched for them. Adams is a legend, one of the golden Gods of the comic industry who is as famous for his work on Batman, X-Men, and the Green Lantern as he is respected for his role as a key advocate for creator rights and struggling comic professionals.

Tonight at the New York Comic Con, on Preview Night, I again spied that same sight: Adams holding court. This time though, there was a rare break in the crowd and a moment where I — somewhat selfishly — went over to shake the man’s hand, tell him how much I admired his work and then — in a real height of greediness – I asked if I could ask him a question or two for you folks, and he was nice enough to agree. Here is my question (and a half*) micro-interview with Neal Adams.

The New 52, and all the reboots: do you think that they kind of short change the work that you and your contemporaries have done?Neal Adams: I don’t see how, I mean what does it do to short change?Maybe it wipes away the history, takes away the incentive for people to go look at back issues?Adams: I can’t even imagine such a thing, they’ll [the reader] go look at back issues. And we don’t know what their plans are, do we? It may totally re-present the whole thing. I mean, the only thing that I think about is it seems like they’re trying to start anew by redesigning costumes with really bad designs. It’s like Superman, will we ever see Superman again? Are they doing it because of the lawsuit? I don’t know what the answer is, it just seems like it’s all cloaked in mystery.

And I keep on seeing these guys with these armored suits with lines all over them and wondering whether or not this is a serious attempt at refurbishing characters or just an attempt to draw lines over the suits. I mean, it’s sort of up to the film companies to clutter up the suits isn’t it? Not up to the comic book companies. Artists don’t even like to draw all these lines. So is this a permanent plan or is this a shot in the dark or just screwing around?

I have no idea and I don’t think anybody does.

Do you think the current creators are doing enough for Golden or Silver age creators who are struggling right now?”

Adams: Absolutely. As far as I know, I don’t know any who are struggling, but any problem that comes up we solve it…

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Alright, here is where the half a question thing comes into play, and this is one of those “only at a Con” things that I witnessed. Mid-answer, Mr. Adams was greeted at his booth by visionary director and writer Guillermo del Toro who I then happily shook hands with before standing quiet while Adams and he exchanged pleasantries and Mr. Adams said that they should work together. Afterward, I blessed that possible future union, begged Mr. Adams to let me be the first to have witnessed a neat bit of comic book history — the birth of an Adams/del Toro collaboration — and then thanked him and let him get back to his sketching. As I said, only at a con.

Be sure to check out Mr. Adams’ website and keep an eye on Nerdbastards.com for all of your NYCC needs and for more exclusive — though less guerrilla type – interviews for you during the rest of New York Comic Con.

New BATMAN DOCUMENTARY FAN-FILM By Yur Media Productions

This post is all about a friend of the Bat-Blog named Yuri Ozeryan. He runs a small Documentary Movie Production Company called YUR MEDIA PRODUCTIONS ( The Staff includes him and his Girlfriend, Natalie ) and they are currently working on a documentary about the real-life "Batman", Lenny B Robinson.

You may have heard about Lenny when he was pulled over by the Police driving a Lamborghini in Maryland, while dressed in a Bat-Suit! At the time He was on his way to a Children's Hospital and he is truly a real-life hero. He's a successful Business Man who does various Charity Events all over the country to help make sick kids feel better. His house is covered in Batman Memorabilia, he probably has over 10 Custom-Made Batman Suits, and he even has a Custom Batmobile. Yes, his life is literally the life of Bruce Wayne!

Anyway, we want to let Readers know they can follow all of the behind the scene events as they unfold on the Official YUR MEDIA PRODUCTIONS Facebook Page ( just click on their name ). Then, if you would like to learn more about Lenny and his wonderful Charity Events for Children, please be sure to visit SUPERHEROESFORKIDS.ORG