PopFUZE #53

Saw Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans last night. This was a strong movie, with some great political undertones. A lot went into developing a believable love story between Lucian and Sonja. But, really, the film was pretty slow until Viktor discovers the affair. There wasn't anywhere near enough battles/ clashes for my liking, although what there was was reasonably brutal. Like the previous movies, the whole story basically takes place at night/ in the dark, which worked well in the first two as you had gunfire to illuminate the scenes; obviously, that doesn't happen in this movie.

The film looked very murky to me and there were some scenes where I couldn't really see what was happening, I think they might have used that to fudge some of the CGI, although the Lycan transformation scenes were done well.

When there was action, it was brutal, but this movie had far more character work than the first two combined; it made for an interesting exploration of the motivations of Viktor/ Sonja/ Lucian, but for a large part of the movie you essentially forgot this was supposed to be a story of warring vampires and werewolves...

One of my favourite parts of the movie was seeing Raze, the Lycan enforcer, have his more of his story revealed.

Overall, I loved the emotional arc of the movie; for Viktor, for Sonja, for Lucian. The prequel had the most powerful and tight narrative of all the movies. Loved the tie in to Selene and the first movie as well.

Have you seen this? What did you think?

PopFUZE #52

Patrick Tatopoulos makes his directorial debut with Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and you can read his recent interview at Newsarama if you click the title of this post. I am heading to the movies tomorrow night to catch this...

I'm on the side of the vamps!

PopFUZE #51

Click the title of this post to head over to Newsarama and read an interview with Kevin Grevioux. In the interview, he talks about his comics work and also about his new movie Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans. I am heading to the movies to catch this next week; I can't wait!

DragonFUZE #33

I am a very happy geek/ creator/ writer tonight. Andrew Law, the amazing artist who is lending his awesome skills to illustrating my Tikki's Giant story has sent my night into geek heaven by shooting through some preliminary character designs; looking at them is a great way to distract myself as I wait to hear back from my editorial team on the script.

These pics were taken with the camera on Andrew's iPhone, so the quality isn't that great, but you can get the sense of Andrew's high fantasy style designs and smooth lines coming through!

First up, my favourite design so far, the mysterious and mischievous Enshae Phayrie known as Malinki:



I love this design; it symbolizes the character's close link to the natural world and her seductive beauty, which actually is a mask which hides awesome powers. I really love the design of her wings, it echoes Tinkerbell...

The other preview I will show you is a head shot of famed warrior and leader of the noble Knights of Lothos, Citadel:



I love the dignity and strength in his face, and the scars are even more awesome than I ever imagined. You will have to read the story or stories to come to learn about how those came to be.

This is one of the most important posts I have ever made on this blog. DragonFUZE Comics is finally coming into being and I have to thank Andrew for his work in making this happen!

More updates soon...

DragonFUZE #32

The script for Tikki's Giant #1 is in the bag and has been shipped off to my editors. I sent the script off last night, comfortably meeting my self-imposed deadline of completing the script by the end of January. This week, time permitting, I will be straight into the script for #2 and I am confident I will have the whole series scripted by the end of February (which was my goal in the first instance). Feels so good to type that!

Now, I know that a completed script is a long way from a completed comic... So, on to step 2. The artist on the book is Andrew Law. Andrew is working on some concept sketches, which I hope to see by the end of this month or early February and then hopefully we can get into the pencils by the middle of that month. I have a letterer on board, but no inker or colorist so I will tackle that challenge once I get to it.

I want Tikki's Giant to run online and I will also do a short print run of the book, so I really want this series to appear in color. Given that I have virtually zero budget for this little enterprise I may have to forgo that and go with grey tones; we'll see what happens. Another option is for color online and grey tones in print.

The main thing is that, after years of talking, finally the wheels are moving on DragonFUZE Comics! Once Tikki's Giant is in the bag I am not sure where I want to go next. I need to give some time to my work on my novel Enshae: Phayrie Seekers which you can read all about at the DragonFUZE Creative blog, but I am also seriously tempted to write some superhero comics of my own. I have quite a few good ideas that have been percolating in my head for years and I do want to get them out.

Better that I don't take steps that are ahead of the game right now. The focus is still on getting both issues of Tikki's Giant out this year, and then working on the final Tikki stand-alone book. Well, the second part of that is negotiable; I can't decide whether to focus all of my energies on Tikki and Malinki this year, or whether I should broaden my work into the superhero genre.

Lots of thinking to be done... and writing too!

PopFUZE #50

The news straight from Rob Liefeld's keyboard:

I'm plotting/writing, drawing these pages as well as the new arc. You will love it.

It's a classic return to form for all involved, characters and creator. Issue #9 solicits and will ship in early May.

As of issue #9 Rampagin' Rob Liefeld is back on the mighty Youngblood! He is definitely drawing the book and it appears he could be writing it too. We get a preview glimpse with issue #8 (see the pic above) when Rob draws a back up story.

Rob's return has been heralded by a long running fan campaign and my voice has been one of many calling for the REAL Youngblood to return. I was as thrilled as the other fans when news broke that Rob was bringing the 'blood back to Image, but the news was tempered by the fact that Rob was only providing alternate covers for the book.

In my opinion, Youngblood has only ever really ROCKED when Rob has been involved in the book. Youngblood launched Image, it defined the excesses of 90s super hero team books, it cemented Liefeld's brash and bold style even more so than X-Force. If Rob coming back to Image was the biggest news story of 2007 and the re-launch of Youngblood at Image was the biggest news story of 2008, Rob's return to the book is the biggest news story of 2009!

Click the title of this post to read the story at Comic Book Resources.

DragonFUZE #31

I'm well past half way through the script for Tikki's Giant #1 so, hopefully, I am on track to have this in the bag by the end of the month. This is a really fun comic to write and I am having a chance to get some of my other characters, besides Tikki and Malinki, to shine. In particular the story will focus on two characters, a mage and a knight, that I created way back... I think it was in 2003.

The story starts with a giant rampage and now I have gotten past the necessary talking heads and set up, added a bit of phayrie action and gotten to the point where Tikki and Malinki are headed off to hunt giants! When I say 'giant' I mean 'GIANT'! These beasts are HUGE so it will be a lot of fun to see Andrew draw them and to see the action unfold as these horrible creatures go head to head with a few knights and some unexpected adversaries.

How I deal with violence in the script, and how it appears on the finished art page, is of concern to me as I want this book to be all ages in the same vein as the original story, Tiki's Phayrie, so that is creating some interesting challenges. But, things can be scary and characters can be tested without blood being spilled. After all, I want our son to be able to read these sooner rather than later and at the moment he is 15 months old.

I have had this story in my head for close to a year now, so it is nice to see it finally finding some form on the page. More updates, and hopefully some art/ character designs, soon.

DragonFUZE #30

Happy New Year. I just got back from a short vacation today. Over the last few days, I have had some time to get back to writing and have knocked out 6 pages of script for Tikki's Giant, which is the most comic scripting I have gotten done in about 7 months. I feel great typing that line; I hope I can keep it up. So far the story has been mostly set up, but there has been a bit of a giant rampage already, so you got to love that! My current goal is to have the script for #1 in the bag by the end of this month; wish me luck, I'm going to need it. Then it's straight on in to #2.

No definite goals here, but I would love to have the whole thing scripted by the end of February. That gives me five months to have the first book out by mid year. As I said, wish me luck.