24 September 2009

WEDNESDAY CONNECTION: A Notable Twit...er, Tweet

WEDNESDAY CONNECTION
... is it that time again?
Hey, everybody. I'm sitting here with my next door neighbor Raley. She's a ball to hang with, plus she's got good taste in comics, which doesn't hurt at all when it comes to friends. And just because some people out there in this crazy world like to make minor celebrities out of notable bloggers like Perez Hilton or your the 'Dabbler here, allow me to squash the rumor mill right now, folks. Raley's is just a friend who happens to be a girl. Who happens to be sprawled out on my bed as we speak in a pair of my boxers and her boyfriend's T-shirt. Notice the keyword in that last sentence is boyfriend - not sprawled, not bed, and not boxers. Got it?
You're good people. So while Raley gets back to my copy of last week's new Batgirl, we'll get back to your favorite connection and mine -- the Wednesday Connection.
THE SURROGATES ARRIVE FRIDAY
Another comic book-inspired flick hits theaters tomorrow, The Surrogates! It's true, too many of us got burned by Whiteout earlier this month. Now there's a movie that should live up to its name and go erase itself, am I right?
The Surrogates will restore your faith in comic book adaptation movies of the non-superhero fare, trust me. I mean, how can it go wrong? It's got (1) Bruce Willis as FBI Agent Harvey Greer, and you know Bruce always kicks ass (2) robots everywhere - the "surrogates" -- that look just like all the real people in the movie except they're even sexier (3) futuristic special effects plus the whole "conspiracy thing" going on -- one of my favorite plot devices btw (4) scores of underlying messages -- but they're mostly about sex, looking sexy, people's obsession with being sexy with just a little bit of the technological tipping point Malcolm Gladwell stuff thrown in for the more cerebral viewer AND (5) even Greg Rucka's doing promo for the flick tomorrow on Live! With Regis and Kelley!
I really expect Director Jonathan Mostow to do a bang-up job with his adaptation of Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele's critically-acclaimed Surrogates action-thriller comic series, and so I'll definitely be in the front seats tomorrow night. Need more convincing? Mania.com just put a brand-new preview clip from the movie up on their site, and as of this morning, you can read the entire first chapter of The Surrogates graphic novel for free over at Newsarama.com.
MISHKA'S MASTERS
There used to be a time when I didn't leave the house without a baseball cap on my head. I had a look, dig? I don't so much anymore, but I still like to think I haven't lost my eye for fashion.
That's why I noted this trio of new "street-wise" baseball caps from Mishka NYC. All three have been inspired by characters from the classic 1980's toys, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. They definitely make some kind of statement, and are available only through Miska's online shop. Take a peek.
ALL-STAR TWEET POWER
My mobile phone can barely squawk out a text never mind tweet. Yet as much as I'm convinced that Twitter's a passing fad and not one of life's basic necessities, the social networking site's colored me two shades of impressed this week.
WildStorm Comics boss and superstar artist Jim Lee tweeted welcome news last week: fans of Lee's and writer Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder should be reading a new issue of that series before the year is over. And to prove he's not just tweetin' Dixie, his new pencils are up on his Twitter page.
Twitter's amazing. I could fart right now, tweet it, and Comic Book Resources or some such would have the news posted before I made it across the room. I love the people at CBR and the work they do is impressive. I'm just saying Twitter does some %#@*! - up stuff in a very intriguing way.
According to TweeSpeed, over 20,079 tweets will be posted in the next minute. Because that's how many actual tweets posted live-time one minute ago. Frak me.
The take-home "tweet" there is to Tweet good content - and for Pete's sake, don't mis-tweet, especially on purpose. Lord help the mis-tweeter, man.
(Raley's laughing. I guess she thinks this is funny. Raley, I'm deadly serious when it comes to tweeting, okay?)
My Case In Point:
Tim Pocock. I've never heard of Tim Pocock before. With a name like that, right? Anyway, Pocock's a young actor, the same guy who played a gradeschool-aged Cyclops in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the DVD of which hit stores last week, including PM Comics on Amazon - where we make getting a little Pocock, easy.) In my book, he's also a Mean MisTweeter.
Pocock posted a tweet last week that catapulted fans of Marvel Entertainment's X-Men film franchise into a happy frenzy. From major movie news-sites to top comics industry mecca-sites like Newsarama to Pocock's own webpage (which is web-mastered by his "official fan club" aka Pocock's mom, no doubt), word spread like Emma Frost's legs across the web, confirming as truth what before was only X-speculation.
Pocock's post:
currently shooting Australian TV series till February 2010…then X-men first class
[If you haven't been to the comic shop recently, Marvel Comics' X-Men: First Class tells the adventures of Cyclops, Iceman, Beast, Angel, and Jean Grey as wild 'n crazy mutant teenagers attending Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Bryan Singer's name has been bandied about as being possibly attached - or attached soon - to direct the project, and a spec script has apparently even been written by the guy who created The O.C. television show.]
Short story long, the tweet was an utter sham. (Of course, so was my bit about Greg Rucka being on Regis and Kelley!) It took maybe two days, but Popcock was back on Twitter Friday, tweeting to a very different tune as he requested that any sites posting his mis-tweeted news retract the fateful tweet. He wrote:
victim of cruel prank.last tweet=NOT me.AM filming Aussie show till2010. no official word on XM:FC but am interested.please post retraction.
Retract they did, too. Lauren Shuler Donner, the woman responsible for producing every X-movie to date, humorously called the whole embarrassing incident 'Pocockgate.' She debunked the tweet, stating there was no truth to it whatsoever, and that the movie, still more concept than reality, has not a single young actor attached to it.
And in case you missed it: someone's out there, it seems, cruelly pranking poor Pocock. This unknown nemesis is even hacking into his Twitter account to make him look bad before all of comics fandom AND Lauren Shuler Donner. Please, my young Cyclops. The X-Men is no place for a MisTweeter.
I think Pocock's days as a mutant are behind him, don't you?

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