About Heroes @ Comic Con 2010: The Walking Dead panel

Fans of Kirkmans book...get ready to be VERY happy.

Before we got to seeing some footage, we were first introduced to the creative team to the show.

Director/Writer Frank Darabont, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Producer Gale Anne Hurd, Make up efx master Greg Nicotero, and head of AMC SVP of original programing Joel Stillerman.

A quick roundup on some of the information we got:

-Gale (having a hand in a few comic-to-movie properties) got involved after hearing the popularity of the series and then reading the book.

-Darabont, a huge horror fan, discovered the series at his local comic shop. Upon reading it he realized that the story that series was telling was the apporach he wanted to do for a zombie movie, a genre he's been trying to figure out.

-Stillerman loved the idea of the series, BUT he loved the talent that was already involved (i.e. when your script says it's written by Frank Darabont and when you find out that the producer is Gale Anne Hurd, you might want to make that show happen.)

-They also annouced that the score of the show would be done by Bear McCreary, the composer for Battlestar Galactica.

Soon, they finally showed the reel.

The first scene we get is the first scene from the comics. Sheriff Deputy Rick Grimes and his partner Shane have a blockade in the middle of the road, as a run away car comes straight towards them.

The police blow out the tires and soon the car is tumbling over to the side of the road.

A shoot out with the crimals erupts, ending with Rick getting shot and knocking out.

Suddenly, Rick wakes up alone in a hospital (yeah, yeah, we know, we know “Just like 28 Days Later...”)

We soon see the nightmare that Rick as woken up from.

The reel shows scenes with Morgan(played by Lennie James) a survior that finds Rick, a few quick scenes with Lori, Carl(!), and Amy in the survivor camp, Rick walking around dead bodies stacked on top of each other, Rick riding a horse in the middle of Atlanta...oh, and ZOMBIES. Tons, and TONS of zombies.

Great stuff, and the look as this classic cinematic feel to it.

After the footage was shown, some of the cast came to the panel and joined the stage...

Andrew Lincoln (who plays Rick Grimes), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori Grimes), Jon Bernthal (Shane), Laurie Holden (Andrea), and Emma Bell (Amy). Micheal Rooker was hanging in the audience as he will be playing Merle Dixon (a new character made for the show I believe).

Heres a quick breakdown on the Q and A:

-Andrew Lincoln( whos brittish) got wind of the project after his agent gave him the sides. He went to his local comic shop in England and found out that the comic is the stores biggest seller.

-Lincoln auditioned his scenes with Jon Bernthal(who had his dog with him) in Frank Darabonts garage! Lincoln credits Bernthal dog for getting him the part.

-Sarah Wayne Callies blames Greg Nicotero for ruining her life! She points out that up until recently she had no scenes with the zombies yet. After finally sharing screen time with the undead, she's had nightmares since. Funny moment during the panel was that a few Zombies (or Roamers) were walking near the stage, Callies was freaking just a little.

-Frank hopes that some legendary horror directors (::coughGeorgeRamerocough:::) could work on the show in it's second season.

-Fan favorites Micchone won't show up in the show till the second season. (Though Darabont is DYING to bring that character to life)

-The show is shot on Super 16mm, giving it that classic grainy look.

-The chacter of Tyrese will show up in second season too. Darabont , while auditioning actors for Morgan apparently saw plenty of guys he would be great for the part (Kirkman jokes that the show would have 3 Tyrese's)

-The show will follow the series pretty closely, but “vering off the path” to introduce new ideas, Darabont says they will make sure that they will go back to the path that Kirkman left.

-The DVD could have the option (at least for the pilot episode) to watch in black and white!

A great panel for sure.

The Walking Dead comes out in October on AMC.

Joss Whedon to direct The Avengers movie

Variety has reported it "":http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118017689.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&ref=bd_film

For as long as the Avengers movie was announced, I racked my brain on who would be a good choice.

Jon Favreau made sense to me since he started this big wave of Marvel movies thanks to Iron Man, but he stated he has no interest in making The Avengers movie(instead he will be a producer on it).

Maybe Zack Snyder? His visuals are amazing and the action is guaranteed to be well shot and big in scope. Granted his character work is fine(at best) but it’s not his forte and for the Avengers film you need someone who can make this ensemble work and be fun to watch.

Maybe J.J. Abrams? He’s work on Star Trek was great, and the ensemble in that film was stupendous. He was able to balance both the action and the character while still making it exciting.

BUT both Snyder and Abrams are busy as fuck guys with no room to make an epic movie like The Avengers.

SO, enter Joss Whedon.
.

Lets look at his stats.

Dude’s an accomplished writer/director. His writing is what he’s known best for, but his directing is energetic and nicely stylized.

For at least FOUR different shows he’s handled large ensembles and gives each character personality, humor and enjoyable traits to make them distinct.

He knows his comics,and has written 25 issues of Astonishing X-Men (plus his run on The Runaways comic). His X-Men run was critically acclamed and a huge hit.

And most importantly…he’s HUNGRY.

Not in the sense that he’s poor assholes, no, he’s hungry to prove himself.

He has a huge following, but it’s a cult following and it’s not enough for someone who needs make more projects.

Right now, Hollywood thinks Whedon only works for a niche audience, much like Kevin Smith.

Whedon has been trying to get into the big leagues, to be someone in the industry that can make a blockbuster hit off a project.

He’s had a few movie projects get away from him or be stuck in development. The stuck in development hell Goners, an original script at Universal, and the Wonder Woman film that didn’t work out

His recent show,_ Dollhouse_, also got cancelled, making him a very available man.

He’s been kicked around by some bad luck in the last few years, and he needs to make a movie to make a big stamp.

This movie is his answer.

Personally (as if you couldn’t tell) I think he’s perfect for the job.

I'm a big fan of his stuff and I have been waiting for someone to give him a big budget superhero film, I just didn’t think it would be this big budgeted superhero film.

This will be the most ambitous project he has ever worked on, but I think he’s ready.

Good luck Joss, because it’s your job to make sure the Avengers assemble!

Forever New!

I've been MIA from this site for a while now. Yes, mainly it's because I had a daughter. As time consuming as being a first time dad is, I want to take some time to devote to the site again. So in the meantime this was a project I did for my Brother's birthday. His all time favorite book was New Mutants and I wanted to draw every single New Mutant from the 100 original issues. I think the most time I spent was deciding where to put each character and what outfit they would wear. Let me tell you; this was the 80s and early 90s sooo some of these outfits were a bit outrageous. I even kept some of the Rob Liefeld outfits and the classic Liefeld guns that he gave Cable. Anyway.....here is my project step by step:

1) Pencils

To be honest, the first step was the actual sketch that I didn't want to bore you with. So I drew these rough pencils and then scanned them to my PC.

2) Inks

Using different kinds of sizes of inks I went over my Pencils using Photoshop. I created a different layer for this process which made it easier to work with.

3) Colors

This step was just coloring the drawing only using one tone per figure. This again is another layer.

4) Background and Secondary Colors

The background I did on a separate paper and using another layer I created a secondary colors and third colors for shading effects.

5) Final Inks

After all the colors are intact, I inked over the outlines again and added details. For a final piece that I call Forever New

**I made five copies of this picture in 8X16 poster size. Three are gone, so if you are interested it in one just email me at omar@aboutheroes.com and I'll be happy to send you one. **

Disney / Marvel Shenanigans

Yeah yeah, we know, the whole thing went down yesterday and we didn't make a peep, shaddap about it! The West Coast Crew is gonna do a whole podcast on it soon. For now, enjoy:

P.S. We've had the latest Podcast locked and loaded since early last week, we've just had technical problems uploading it. Expect to see it floating through your itunes soon (God Willing!).

WCAH Episode 10: None of us are impressed...

In this episode, we discuss the return of Captain America, The Extensive Bat-Family, How to get girlfriends to read comics, Man-Baskets, Blackest Night, and various other random things. Enjoy!

Also, We have a twitter account! For more frequent comic-oriented updates, we decided to get our tweet on to update you when new podcasts are up and to toss out blurbs of comic oriented mirth. Follow us: CLICK.!!

West
Coast About Heroes - Episode 10

What the hell happened?

So as you may or may not have noticed the site was down for about a day or two.

Simply put, our web hosting company was having issues. We're back up today but, as you see we've traveled back in time to APRIL. Slowly but surely I am gonna try recreating the posts between then and now so bare with me.

A simple question for you folks...

Us simple folks at West Coast About Heroes are looking for new and exciting ways to bring you podcasts, and while the tried and true format of us babbling our heads off about comics without rhyme or reason will never be abandoned, we feel it might suit us all to try something a bit out of the box.

Essentially, we're bouncing around the idea of totally ripping off the rifftrax fellas (click here to go check 'em out. They're worth every penny.) by releasing audio tracks that line up with movies. Of course, instead of the incredibly witty and hilarious jokes and observations of that crew, we'll just be doing what we always do, babbling incoherently, making jokes, observations, discussing what's going on, or wandering into the conversational realm of Gossip Girl, as we seem to keep doing (also, still for free). Generally doing what we do, but to a movie. Which movie? Glad you asked. That's essentially what this post is for.

We thought we'd run this by you first. Since we do the work for you, we figured we'd let you have a say in it. First off, does this sound like something you'd enjoy? If so, what movie would you like us to start with? Please don't pick a random movie nobody's ever heard of or is likely not to have in their DVD collection. We have at least 3 people reading / subscribing to this podcast, so pick something at least 2 out of 3 people would listen to, alright? Oh, and try to stay in the realm of 'geek'. If you ask us to do Garden State or Laurence of Arabia, we'll endlessly mock you behind your back and then pretend we still like you when we meet on the street.

Ok kiddies! Any feedback would be awesome, so let it rip! What do you think of this idea?

About Episode 122

Just wanted to let you guys know that it was recorded, but due to some unforseen computer error we lost the complete track. So we will be recording another one sometime really soon. Should be out early next week.

We are still alive!!!!

That's all I wanted to say. It's been a long time since we posted something, but we are coming back to do the podcasts week by week, reviews should start popping up by next week, and our new pictures should be up soon.

Basically life just hit us all at once: Melanie and I are expecting a little girl sometime in June, Dan is hitting the books hard in law school, Chris and Josh are living it up in California, Nick has been busy with work, Ray is still working in California catching some rays, and Spider-Ben has lost his mind and is now wearing his Spidey pajamas all the time. I would also like to take this time to send my thoughts and prayers to Jeff (Doctor Who Fan) who lost his father a couple of weeks ago.

We are coming back and better than ever. Nothing will ever be the same and it's really a can't miss event! We are still $0.00 and we promise never to increase our prices even if we have to sell sperm and plasma to keep this site going.

Picture of the Week! Introducing Tommy Pfeiffer!

My brother is one talented motherfucker. He has been drawing for all his life and really has done nothing to promote his stuff out there. He's done some manga reviews here and has helped me color some pictures here and there. So, part of AH 2.0 will have some of Tommy's art on a weekly basis and he is going to help me with the artwork for the website. This is just some a small glimpse of some of the wonderful stuff he has created over the years.