SUPER DELICIOUS INGREDIENT FORCE

Need more proof that superheroes are taking America by storm -- and not just at the box office? Now, they'll be protecting all of us at the drive thru, too.  Taco Bell, our favorite purveyor of la comida rapida has launched their latest ad campaign - and the nation's newest band of superheroes:  Super Delicious Ingredient Force.   

In true team-up fashion, the 'Bell joined forces with advertising giant DraftFCB Chicago and legendary comics artist Neal Adams to develop a Taco team of Super Friends-esque heroes that would have their own online cartoon and appear on Taco Bell menus and signage - very similar to the use of the Hamburgler and Ronald for McDonalds.  The result: Super Delicious Ingredient Force (or SDIF), a nine-member team that includes heroes like the blatantly gay Fantastic Rice and Flex Tortilla - a definite in-joke and spoof on Grant Morrison's own inside spoof-ish creation, Flex Mentallo - and a buzz-worthy video that succeeds at hitching Taco Bell to the superhero choo-choo.

The first of a planned trio of videos hit the internet this month; in over three minutes, the short's more mini-cartoon than commercial, and surprisingly as subversive as it is funny - or ridiculous, depending on your point of view.  With a mission to rid the world of "minuscule meals of mediocrity," an El Camino that stands-in for the Batmobile, and a scene with a pickle that pushes into Family Guy territory, the humor and super hero shout-outs actually over-power the actual product.  But that's likely the intention anyway: establish the brand - especially if the likes of Chicken Woman and Crunch Boy will soon be filling Taco lobbies as super standees.

Super Delicious Ingredient Force -  pure awesome, for one reason or another.  But after the enchirito was invented, who really needed another reason to love Taco Bell anyway?

COMICS INSIGHT: Finishing JACK KIRBY's HAWKMAN

New York-based comics illustrator and designer Brendan Tobin provides some quick insight into the creative process of comic book creation here by completing a rough sketch of DC Comics' Hawkman by legendary artist, the late Jack Kirby.  Kirby originally penciled  the work as a presentation piece for an unrealized Hawkman cartoon, presumably dating his initial sketch back to the late 60's or early 1970's. 

[Interestingly, Kirby left New York and the comics industry behind in the late 1970's, disillusioned with both Marvel and DC Comics for not giving him fair payment or enough credit for his creations. He went to California and began a new career in animation, working briefly for Hanna-Barbera before winding up at Ruby-Spears in 1980.  There, he designed characters and backgrounds for the Saturday morning action series Thundarr the Barbarian as well as created presentation boards for potential new projects. Although none of Kirby's concepts were produced before he died in 1994, the Ruby-Spears company (in tandem with Sid and Marty Krofft) announced in April they plan to revisit his ideas for production. ]

Working from the original pencils, Tobin completes what Kirby began, first by inking the Hawkman, then finally coloring and lettering. What he ends up with is an amazing piece of comics art and history. Tobin also posts this process on his own blog, which you can find [here].

Hawkman  - Jack Kirby's original pencilsTobin inks Kirby's line work, then adds the lettering

 Hawkman completed, Kirby -style - by Brendan Tobin

MORE TO SEE

The New York Times recently compiled an online slide-show of Jack Kirby's yet-to-be-produced cartoon characters and concepts, found [here].

DC Comics 75th Anniversary: Our JONAH HEX Mini-Primer

Abbracadabbling begins our comicsblog look at DC Comics 75th Anniversary with JONAH HEX, the anti-heroic bounty hunter of the Wild West whose adventures sometimes border on the supernatural but always end in blood.  Rumored to having killed 336 people in his lifetime, Hex's trademark is the result of a traumatic disfigurement he suffered during an Apache punishment ritual -- his right eye is enlarged with a cataract, and a scar runs down the right side of his face and across his mouth. 

The character itself was created by writer John Albano and illustrator Tony Dezuniga, and debuted in the pages of All-Star Western comics, Issue #10 in March, 1972.  Since then, Hex has remained the most popular - and most ubiquitous - of DC's Old West stable, and has starred in several of his own series while making appearances in even more. Yes, despite having lived 100 years before a rocket ship would ever deliver Krypton's Last Son to a cornfield in Smallville, Kansas, Hex's  adventures have been told even within the main DC Comics Universe. How? Well,  thanks to the benefits of time-travel - and quite likely the approval of the Justice League of America, whom Hex first met in the 199th issue of that team's book. 

 While not all comics fans - or folks in general - will be familiar with Jonah Hex, DC's done a good job of making the squarely B-list character  more accessible.  Tamed-for-TV versions of Hex have co-starred in episodes of the popular Cartoon Network series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited and, much more recently, on the hit animated show Batman Brave and The Bold (see right). 
  
Tomorrow, the spaghetti-Western stylings of Jonah Hex gallop into theaters nationwide; it's the end of a journey that was often perilous and at risk far more than it ever was of being a success.  That's typical for Hex, but not for a superhero screen adaptation. How the film stacks up we'll know before high noon on Friday; however, the movie has already accomplished a feat, at least within the halls of superhero cinema. Hex will be the first Old West comic book character to see itself on the Silver Screen.  Old timers, don't buy  a ticket and expect The Lone Ranger, because Hex is nothing if not different;  from the Ranger's pulp and radio roots to the core of the character, The Lone Ranger is who Jonah Hex has for breakfast.  Yee-haw!

The Artwork of BECOMING MERLIN

[via]

STAR TREK Slash-Up: Bill Shatner's COMMON / PEOPLE

When we checked in with Bill Shatner one week ago this very Hump Day, a contingent of his Northern fan base was hard at work beaming the original Kirk into Canada's Governor General's office.  Today, a well-timed yet decidedly less-conservative Shatner fan succeeded at doing what few have ever done before: giving us all $@%-eating grins hours before we'd ever consider mixing our first martini. 

That fan in question is You Tuber kirkslashspock,  who skillfully edited episodes of the mid-70's Star Trek animated series to the beats of Shatner's spoken-rock cover of Pulp's Common People - and the result is pure mash-up awesome. Bill's rendition, featuring vocals by Joe Jackson,  topped the popular cuts from his 2004 album Has Been, produced by Ben Folds.  

Kirkslashspock, like his (her?) name implies, took the tune  and video edits somewhere even Shatner's mind's never ventured: into the realm of slash.  If you're not hip to slash, or "Kirk/Spock", here's Wikipedia on the subject: Almost from the beginning, fans noticed the loving nature of the relationship. A few fan writers started speculating about the possibility of a sexual relationship between Kirk and Spock. The Kirk/Spock phenomenon eventually took on a life of its own, and became one of the driving forces in Star Trek fanzines during their heyday.

Yeah, we don't get it, either. But the video - or should we say, slash-up - is  a hoot, and despite the way it sounds, no worries of work safety need enter your head. Just kick back and groove to Shatner sound, crappy Seventies animation, and a great - if not slightly twisted - imagination.

Need more slash? Visit kirkslashspock on You Tube [here].

Coming Attractions: Oscar, The State of The Animated Film, and Pixar's TOY STORY 3

We want to give a loud round of applause  to San Francisco's amazing little animation studio that could, Pixar Studios, for bringing Oscar home yet again last night.  Up scored big-time at Sunday's Academy Awards, winning the best animated film award while beating out its parent company Disney's The Princess And The Frog as well as comic book writer and fantasy author Neil Gaiman's  Coraline.  Interestingly, Pixar's Up was made using computer-generated imagery; unlike in previous years,  Up was sole CGI nominee for this year's award. Disney's Princess was created through hand-drawn animation, while Coraline was an exercise in the pain-staking art of stop-motion. 

Understandably,  comics fans and the talented illustrators and artists who create the books they read might, like us, feel somewhat inclined to favor more traditional styles of animation. But Up's win last night doesn't signal the end of classical animation.  If anything, last night's ceremony was an indicator good news -- nominees like Princess and Coraline are welcome signs that the field of motion picture animation is rekindling its romance with the art of animation.  Up's win isn't a suggestion of CGI's superiority, either. Not that Up's CGI wasn't stellar, because it was. But so was Up's story -- and that's why another little gold man now stands on mantle in Emeryville. 

We'll admit that our position - that strength of story won the night for Up and not its SFX -- is arguable, although we'd only need to step outside the Academy's animation category to find support.  In case you hadn't heard, the highest-grossing movie in recent history -James Cameron's Avatar - lost its Best Picture bid to a film that cost just $11M to make, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. To be fair, the Academy's decision to award Oscar to Locker and not Avatar - or any of the other nominees - was likely based on many factors, from the oft-waved argument of 'film as art' versus 'film as SFX spectacle', to politics, to the PR campaigns waged by both the studios and representatives of both films and how well or poorly those campaigns were managed.  We'll avoid details on both sides. Suffice it to say that neither Avatar or Locker were in a very good position relative to the other; there was no sure-fire, hands down, easy choice of one film over the other and as such, no single , official answer can be given. 

Unofficially, we'll claim that there is -- and it's story, pure and simple. Avatar was expected to perform really well last night -  yet the film only managed three Oscars  - in technical categories: best cinematography, best visual effects, and best art direction.  Awards from the 'bigger' categories went Hurt Locker’s way.   

For Cameron, Fox, and probably many viewers and industry executives, Avatar's loss is likely seen as  some kind of upset -- an upset, moreover, that films classified as 'science fiction' or 'fantasy' have endured before.  At the 1977 Academy Awards, Star Wars  - as much of a break-through movie in many regards as Avatar -  lost top honors to Annie Hall; thirty years later, Star Wars' loss is nearly unfathomable.  Then, five years later, at the 1982 Academy Awards, upset came again to the genre, as  Gandhi 'peaced-out' E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. In retrospect, the films that lost outweigh in cultural significance the films that won by a hundredfold. 

Whether or not there's some truth to an Academy bias against SciFi movie makers, Avatar's performance at last night's Oscars was based solely on the film's own merits.  As far as 'Best Picture' goes, all we had to do was ask ourselves this question:  Is Avatar the Star Wars or E.T -  two of Science Fiction's very best films - of 2009?

Our conclusion would be 'nope.'  Now, we're not going to say that science fiction movies - much like science fiction stories of any type, be they movies, comics, novels, etc - don't have their work cut-out for them when seeking or deserving critical acclaim in any realm. Clearly, as fervent fans of the four-color industry and the much under-appreciated comic book, we're well aware of the biases against our kind of fun. Nevertheless,  Avatar wasn't a victim of bias, but of ego.

Somewhere between Avatar and Up's performances at the Academy Awards lies the true State of Animation today.  But that's not the only place to find the truth, either.  GeekTyrant posted the picture at the top of today's blog back in late February.  Created using CGI by Brazilian graphic designer Raoni Nery of Seagulls Fly Studio,  Nery  wanted to portray what a 'real' Buzz Lightyear would look like.  Buzz, of course, is one of the two heroes from Pixar's classic Toy Story and Toy Story 2 animated films. 

It's great work, because Nery nailed Buzz to a 'T.' But which Buzz would you rather see? The one above, or the one below:

The State of Animation today clearly tells us that our animated capabilities can produce both to the point of believability, but we wouldn't want to see Nery's realistic Buzz take the place of Pixar's in Toy Story 3. If he did, no matter how well, we' d be sacrificing story for effect, substance for style - just like James Cameron.

 

Buzz is coming back - and soon. Featuring the voices of actors Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, Michael Keaton,  Bonnie Hunt, Timothy Dalton, and Joan Cusack, the third chapter in their toy story - Toy Story 3 - opens June 18th.  Buzz, his pal Woody, and the rest of the now college-bound Andy's trust toy collection, are thrust into an uncertain future amongst a gaggle of all-new toys. Pixar will be introducing 14 new toy characters in their third movie, including Ken Doll (voiced by Michael Keaton), a magenta-hued Care Bear, a Masters of the Universe insectoid action figure knock-off, the adorably plush Peas-in-a-Pod, and a keyboard playing triceratops.  'No Toy Gets Left Behind' is the motto moving forward - and we're sure that even our old Dabbler will find himself moving toward the theater once this movie opens.  It looks good, and although it wears a 'Disney label,', we'll throw Pixar's next flick the financial support it deserves.  

Dabblers, get down to our Back Issues and tell us if Toy Story 3 will be part of your summer viewing! And while you're there, chime in on your reactions to last night's Oscar party. Was Avatar robbed? Or did Cameron's epic movie get the Hurt it deserved?  And was Up your favorite animated feature in 2009...or was it Coraline? We want to know! Just like some of you want to know where to find a great preview for Toy Story 3 -- ask and you shall receive, HERE.

Coming Attractions: (AVATAR) THE LAST AIRBENDER

Coming Attractions can be a mixed bag, can't they? For instance, even though we just had one, Christmas still probably ranks high on a lot of kids' Coming Attractions lists today; Spring mid-terms, not so much. This summer's Avatar: The Last Airbender, a re-telling of Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko's animated Avatar series, borrows from both our examples. On the one hand, Nickelodeon's Avatar cartoon concluded its third and final season last fall, and the popularity of the show already gives the feature film version a sizable fanbase. On the other, many fans -- as well as some folks involved in the production of animated Avatar -- have voiced their strong disapproval of the film's casting decisions.

You see, Avatar's story is decidedly Eastern-focused; its main character - known as 'The Avatar, Master of the Four Elements" -- is the sole peacekeeper between the earth's elemental clans of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. He disappears, of course, and havoc ensues. Havoc's ensued in this world because the film's writer and director, M. Night Shyamalan, placed mostly Caucasian actors into the principle roles, the exception being Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire fame in the part of Zuko. (The rest of the cast includes Noah Ringer as Aang, The Twilight Saga: New Moon's Jackson Rathbone as Sokka, and Nicola Peltz as Katara.)

Shyamalan's not Caucasian, though, but public opinion splits between those who view his decisions as somewhat racist, and those who view anyone saying his decisions are racist as being racist. We see the whole thing as being ridiculous. Fans should worry more that their beloved Airbender is in Shyamalan's hands in the first place. True, old M. Night's a comic book fan, and we loved Unbreakable. But that was ten years ago, and in our opinion, dude's been breaking every other film since.  Does The Happening make anybody wince besides us?

Avatar: The Last Airbender -- which, we'll note, isn't using its first name thanks to James Cameron's little film co-opting the moniker -- also happens to be Shyamalan's first adaptation. Which we think might be a really, really good thing. Maybe M. Night's finally giving up on that elusive Sixth Sense repeat, after all.  Then again, he and producer Frank Marshall have already stated that, like the cartoon, their Avatar's going to be a trilogy as well. Considering the movie's sixth months out, it's not looking like M. Night's seen the light of day just yet. 

 Paramount Pictures' The Last Airbender is set to make waves July 2, 2010

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends @ Toys R Us

The Holiday season is a well-beloved time of year for action figure collectors and we've heard it's rather popular with kids, too. It looks like the folks at Toys R Us.com have figured this out as well, and their online store is carrying some pretty sweet deals that should please both camps.

Toys R Us' Exclusive Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends 3-Pack brings our favorite Marvel / NBC Saturday morning old-skool cartoon from 1981 back to reality. The 3-Pack is part of Hasbro's Marvel Universe line and includes Spider-Man (who also happens to be the star of this week's Macy's Parade) and his two amazing friends Firestar and Iceman. Each figure stands 3.75" tall and comes with their own display base.

Toys R Us is also offering Free Shipping for online purchases of $50 or more. And since they've got all their Marvel Legends 2-Packs back in stock, as well as a variety of Mattel's DC Universe Classics, we're pretty confident that most dabblers can take advantage of the offer. The Exclusive Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends 3-Pack is available for $24.99, and can be found at the link. [Link].

Five Minutes of Disney's "The Princess and the Frog"

With so much Marvel-speak not to mention Magic-speak on the blog thanks to our Comics Pageturner Weekly, it just kinda seems right to throw a little Disney magic into the mix, too.

The House of Mouse's next animated feature, The Princess and The Frog, is on its slow but inevitable march into theaters. Based on E.D. Baker's novel The Frog Princess, the movie marks the studios' return to hand-drawn animation, and its been generating a lot of interest among Disney's countless fans. If for no other reason that this, I'm considering throwing my support at Princess, too. Or maybe at The Frog. I'm not sure.

Except for the Disney-Pixar Studio films, most notably Cars and The Incredibles, I've more or less strayed away from Disney's big screen cartoons. Well, to be fair, I did rent the super hero-themed Bolt, and I'm glad I did -- despite Mylie Cyrus lending her voice to that movie's main human character.

The Princess and The Frog aims to hit a slightly different target audience than mine, and with the many other movies slated for the Silver Screen, I'll probably be taking a pass at Disney's next feature film.

Still, there's plenty of good reason to check the goods out -- especially as the first five minutes of the movie have been leaked to the internet. So whether you are a Disney devotee or not, everybody's welcome to take a look at The Princess and The Frog right here.