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Another month, another round of Graveyard Examiners to quench your thirst for supernatural knowledge! This issue we continue to deliver original reviews on some of the most recent releases in the horror, science-fiction and fantasy worlds. Inside these beast-filled pages you will also find the latest information on the blu-ray release of HBO’s GAME OF THRONES, a brush-up on Oren Peli’s THE RIVER, and part three of Famous Monsters’ exclusive interview with the great Steve Niles. In an effort to use the Graveyard’s newfangled design to better serve you, the reader, we now include links to purchase at the end of our reviews and in the “New Releases” section in the back. Barrett Schwalenberg Editor-in-Chief FamousMonsters.com
Publisher PHILIP KIM (KONG)
Design Assistant JENNIFER W. GERRITSEN
Associate Publisher DOMINIE LEE
Senior Writer HOLLY INTERLANDI
Executive Editor (Famous Monsters Magazine) ED BLAIR
Business Development SEAN FERNALD
Editor-in-Chief (FamousMonsters.com/The Graveyard Examiner) BARRETT SCHWALENBERG
Kong-tributing Writers: ANDY GREENE ELVIS KUNESH BRANDON MOORE INSPIRATION: FORREST J ACKERMAN
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THE M.I.B. RETURN! by Elvis Kunesh The MEN IN BLACK are back. In time. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones return as Agents J and K, for the third film in the franchise. The story involves a disappearing K and Agent J jumping back in time to solve the mysteries of the universe with a young Agent K. The newest trailer for the film gives us a wider look into the premise. It looks like most of the film will take place in the 1960s as J teams up with younger K, played with an unflappable ponim by Josh Brolin. Though it looks like Jones will be relegated to the sidelines, the mix-up provides a fresh dynamic between the two. Despite the changes though, Smith is back with his trademark quips and the film looks like it’ll fit right in with the former entries.
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In fact, the visual FX look about the same in terms of quality. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and works to the cheesier style that allows MIB to not take itself so seriously. However these may not be the full effects, as evidenced by a seeming green-screened aquarium early on the in trailer. Beyond that my attention is brought to the WAR OR THE WORLDS tripodlike UFOs, Bill Hader’s Andy Warhol and the circle motorcycle get-up… that rings eerily familiar to Mr. Garrison’s “IT” transportation device a la SOUTH PARK. Personally speaking, I enjoyed the first movie and I don’t really remember the second (maybe I was neuralyzed?) But in spite of the dangers of a belabored development (the premise was first discussed in 2002) and starting production without a full script, the movie looks like it will be a good time.
FROM THE GREAT BEYOND by Elvis Kunesh Hasbro’s OUIJA movie is back from the dead. We saw the apparent demise of the project back in August, when Universal let go of the board game adaptation due to severe budgetary constraints. Among many considerations, the budget was rumored around $100 million to cover the cost of huge special effects, nameactors and CHARLIE’S ANGELS director McG. However spirits were lifted when The Hollywood Reporter announced Universal and Hasbro were back in the thick of it, and the OUIJA movie was being re-worked for a 2013 release date. Among the significant changes to the project were the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY approach—low budget, high profits. Case in
point, sources speculate the film may now have a lean $5 million budget. This new direction marks the second collaboration for Blumhouse Productions and Platinum Dunes, which first teamed up for scifi thriller VIGILANDIA, which is currently in production. OUIJA is not suspected to be another in a long line of ‘found footage’ styled horror films, but that doesn’t entirely rule out a documentary approach. Considering the subject matter, it would seem appropriate to follow the detailed, narrow-focus style of a BLAIR WITCH or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Currently the project has no director or writer attached. If my suspicions are true, official confirmation might take some time as Universal translates the script letter by letter as dictated by Edgar Allan Poe.
RECENT HEADLINES FIRST LOOK AT “HALO 4” WATCH THE FIRST 10 MINUTES OF “JOHN CARTER” DEPP GETS HANDS ON IN “DARK SHADOWS” PIC LIVE ACTION “MASS EFFECT 3” TRAILER FIRST IMAGE FROM THE SET OF “FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY”
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STEVE NILES - PART 3 -
In the final installment of our chat with comic book horror kid Steve Niles, the man discusses his lesser known punk rock history, and how it has shaped his attitude towards storytelling and the comic book business to this very day. FM. Another thing I wanted to ask you player… I mean, who wants to go watch about, or at least touch on—your rock a bass player, you know? and roll history. Has that shown up in FM. I was a bass player, too, for a couple your writing at all? of years. SN. Oh, yeah! SN. You need those other guys! FM. In what ways? How do you think FM. Unless you’re like, Victor Wooten. it’s shaped what you’re doing now? SN. Music has made me understand SN. Nobody wants to hear ME play bass the power of collaboration. As a bass solo. And I never sat there, when I played
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with my band, telling my guitarist what he should play. And past the script, I don’t really tell the artist what to do. I’m not a micro-manager. I very much believe that I do fifty percent and they do fifty percent. It makes books a lot more experimental, and sometimes I’ve fallen flat on my face. There have been absolute failures. But when it works, it works! And I just love it. Mine and Templesmith’s books were just so much fun, because he just went totally nuts. I just sent him a script, he did art, I would do a lettering script, and that was it. I have never asked an artist to redo a panel. Oh, well, I have once, because it was just wrong. Like, I said it needed to be a police car, and they put in a mail truck. Something that obvious.
we were. All these bands… we’d play shows, and the labels would come around to sign people, and everybody said NO! I loved that. It was more important that we were able to do things our way. I mean, I got a royalty check from Dischord just this week, and that was a 30 year handshake deal. FM. Wow.
SN. Can you imagine that in comics? Nobody’ll budge without a contract, because nobody trusts anybody. But I always split the rights with whoever I’m working with. I’ve gotten screwed for it a couple times, but there’s nothing I can do. I’d still rather do that, because being screwed over twice compared to FM. Right. [laughs] the 30 times I wasn’t still makes it SN. So yeah, the music thing… I think worthwhile. I still think it’s the right really, especially because of the particular thing to do. [phone rings] Oh, let’s music scene I grew up in, which was in see who… oh, no, no, no. the 80s… I grew up in Washington D.C. I was a little kid going to Minor Threat FM. [laughs] shows. I learned about these people who put out their own records, put on their SN. You just got a live recording shows, refused to play in stadiums… just of me ignoring an editor. absolutely rejected the whole corporate [laughs] world of music. And basically, Dischord FM. This actually reminds me of an records built an empire selling records for interview I did with Ben Templesmith. five dollars at a time, and doing shows for five dollars, and proved you don’t have SN. I like Ben. We look at the world in to rip people off to survive. I think a lot similar ways, I think… and by the way, I of that comes from panic and people who AM going to be working with Menton3. want to get rich quick. So I learned very early on that I wanted to do things fairly, FM. Didn’t he do that amazing variant and I wanted to be able to look at myself cover for 30 DAYS OF NIGHT #5? in the mirror every day, too. I don’t have that cutthroat business mentality. And I SN. Yes. Nobody else has seen it yet, think I completely learned that growing but yes. We’re also doing a book called up in the punk music scene. That’s how TRANSFUSION.
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FM. I’m also reading [menton3’s] MONOCYTE, which—as convulted as the language is—I sort of have to read every panel twice—is so beautiful. To see something like that exist, and be put out by IDW, who have their share of franchises… like, WE PUT OUT TRANSFORMERS AND G.I. JOE! And they’re still willing to put out MONOCYTE, which is almost an aberration on their record because it’s so overwhelmingly artistic. It’s gorgeous. SN. I love it. I cannot say enough about IDW. There are going to be a lot of announcements coming out of there soon. I’m doing the FRANKENSTEIN thing there [with Bernie Wrightson].
80s punk—have you read HENRY & GLENN FOREVER? SN. Oh yeah! Tom Neely did that! And he did WOLF, that new book. FM. I know, right? How gorgeous is that? SN. That HENRY & GLENN is so funny. It’s really funny stuff. I mean, I knew Henry once, a million years ago. I haven’t talked to him in decades.
FM. And that comic book is the stuff of cult legend, because Tom Neely and three other guys, calling themselves Igloo Tornado… they put that together in this sort of DIY way. I think it was originally published by Tom’s I FM. Excellent. I love IDW. Cause I sort of WILL DESTROY YOU imprint. And it ends skipped over the whole comic book thing for up selling something like 30,000 copies or years… almost a decade. I read comics when something ridiculous. That is the indie comic I was ten or eleven—my dad used to bring that could. It became this huge phenomenon. I them to me when I was sick and go, here, read actually went to the Henry & Glenn art show at some Thor! But then I was an English major, La Luz de Jesus. and I got all emo and I was reading Poe and SN. I met Glenn, way back when. He knew me T.S. Eliot and trying to emulate them, so I sort when I used to do stuff with Rob Zombie. of got off the whole comic book thing. But I really credit IDW with getting me back in. FM. I love your musical background. It explains so much to me. SN. You know something funny? You know that word emo you just used? That originated SN. Yeah, and now I’m doing it again, and in the music scene I was a part of, and it was a enjoying it again! Cause see, I moved to D.C. JOKE. I can tell you exactly how it happened! when I was 17, and finished high school and Embrace was playing… it was Embrace, became involved in the music scene, and one Gray Matter—the band I was in—and Rites of the things I used to do after high school was of Spring. And Brian Baker, who used to be go by this one store where a really cute girl the guitarist in Minor Threat, stood outside, named Monica [Richards] worked. She always and because the music was so emotional, and had a boyfriend, so we were just friends, but people were destroying their instruments… she would come over and watch horror movies it was just this amazing explosion of music with me. She was singing in all these bands, and energy that just happened over this one and I was playing in bands, and we sort of lost summer. And he said, “We’re not even playing track of each other for 26 years. And now we’re hardcore anymore. Why don’t we start calling engaged and doing music together! We just put it emo-core?” Ten years later, I’m reading SPIN out our first single, which you heard. magazine, and I’m reading an article about the origins of ‘emo’. There’s the danger in making FM. Yeah, I thought it was great. Very jokes, dammit! You get a label for life! reminiscent of the whole Sisters of Mercy, 80s goth… FM. [laughs] Jokes last for decades, it’s true. Oh, and I ask this of anyone who grew up with SN. I mean, the whole album doesn’t sound like
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that, cause I came in halfway through and started writing songs with her, but… we’re putting out with a big, thick, fully illustrated book with everybody from James O’Barr to Menton3!
Dark Horse comic that Tom Morello is writing called ORCHID… I FM. Illustrating the lyrics in the album? have mixed feelings about the actual comic, SN. Yes! but I’ve always loved the FM. That is the coolest thing I’ve ever juxtaposition of music with heard. literary accompaniment, and SN. The whole idea is to figure out how I’ve always thought it was underused as a multimedia to prevent piracy, too. tool. FM. Well, that’s the way to do it. To make something that cannot be SN. I wish there were more replicated digitally. passion like that in comics! SN. So the CD will be packaged inside That’s the problem—too many that book. It’s got Bernie Wrightson, people motivated by greed. Kelley Jones… my usual gang of It’s a weird time right now. people. [laughs] We’re probably going Everybody’s strapped, to wind up touring in Europe! And I’m and people who aren’t going to plan it so that it’s both a comic book AND a music tour. I’m not going strapped are huddling in to play bass, though, I’m going to play the corner like Golem with the One Ring with guitar. their little “precious”. FM. Oh really! That’s a new I think we’re going to development. see huge explosions SN. Hey, I’m an old man. It’s easier for of independent and me. [laughs] And I’m a punk rock bass creator-owned comics. player, so I beat the crap out of the thing It’s a very tense time, and exhaust myself one song in. and I’m just trying to FM. I expect to hear about it when be patient. you play Los Angeles! That sounds awesome.
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SN. Well, we’ve got to practice… There’s going to be more! And there was supposed to be a CD in each of the Bloody Pulp Books… this thing with Adam Jones and Buzz from the Melvins. Monica and I are also going to work on music for CRIMINAL MACABRE, music for 30 DAYS OF NIGHT… FM. It reminds me of—there’s a new
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THE RIVER
Airing: 9pm Tuesdays, ABC by Andy Greene
“There’s magic out there.” That’s what ABC hopes THE RIVER will provide to the third place network, and what Dr. Emmet Cole (Bruce Greenwood), a Crocodile Hunter-like Discovery Channel front man, believes he will find in the Boiuna, a mysterious and uncharted area in the Amazon. For over twenty years, Dr. Emmet Cole and his family traveled the world on his TV show “The Undiscovered Country,” and on his last foray into the wild, he went missing and after a few months with no sign of his whereabouts, was presumed dead, another Chris McCandless. But, in comes longtime producer Clark Quietly (Paul Blackthorne) with his network’s money and cameras to film one last ditch rescue mission, as long as his jilted family comes along for the ride in another in a long line of shows trying to replace LOST. His wife Tess (Leslie Hope) feels guilty and responsible for Emmet’s death/disappearance, and drags along their estranged son Lincoln (Joe Anderson). Lincoln is like the former child star turned disillusioned adult, except that he’s about to graduate med school
and aside from a crappy haircut, seems pretty well put together. But oh wait, his daddy issues are showing, and there’s nothing like a father-son redemptive story, and it doesn’t hurt that childhood friend Lena Landry (the pair of them grew up on the set of the show and as an adult she’s played by the radiant Eloise Mumford), the daughter of missing camera man Russ Landry (Lee Tergesen) is coming along. Throw in the loyal Hispanic mechanic fatherdaughter team Emilio and Jahel Valenzuela (Daniel Zacapa and Paulina Gaitan) to add diversity and a crutch—I mean link to the myths and tales of the jungle, Aussie cameraman A.J. (Shaun Parkes), a brooding and mysterious head of security Kurt (Liam Neeson-lite, Thomas Kretschmann) and you got the ingredients of a respectable ensemble. And thus, they head down to the Amazon to follow the clues left by Cole, and to discover the magic and horrors of the labrynthian river. The result is a lot like a lesser LOST meets a lesser PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, which isn’t surprising considering its creators are Oren Peli (writer-director of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY) and Michael R. Perry (writer PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2). With a little help by little known producer Steven Spielberg (getting in the TV game this year with this and SMASH) and this horror-found footage-adventuremystery mash up show does have potential despite a few pitfalls. Too bad it’s a midseason replacement and may only get three more episodes due to struggling ratings...
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THE WALKING DEAD
Air Date: Feb. 26th, 2012
“18 Miles Out” Review by Andy Greene
The action begins with Shane, Rick and Randall (newcomer Michael Zegen), bloodied and weaponless in a school parking lot, running from zombies. Uh oh. Let’s rewind a bit. Rick and Shane drive (a Hyundai SUV, presumably with great fuel economy) eighteen miles beyond the farm with Randall tied up, blindfolded, ears held hostage by a blaring iPod, and stuffed in the trunk. In last week’s episode, Rick had saved Randall with the intent on letting his leg heal (it was impaled on a gatepost) and sending him right back out there. You can’t blame Shane for questioning that one. As Randall asks later in the episode in a far more dramatic moment, why save his life just to abandon (read: kill him) weeks later? Shane and Rick continue their couples counseling by actually hashing things out. They discuss Otis (Shane shot him to escape and rescue Carl) and Lori. Rick tells Shane that he should accept his leadership or leave and that he will do anything to keep Lori and Carl safe. Anything. Back at the farm, Lori and Maggie talk about Glenn, “men” and their roles as women in this new world they’re
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stuck in. Apparently Lori believes their job is to cook and clean dishes and let men handle it on their own. WHAT?! No wonder Lori is probably the most divisive character on the show, including Shane. This scene, and a later one with Andrea where Lori reiterates this sentiment, is fairly offensive and unbelievable. Apparently the appearance of zombies erases all progress. Somewhere, Rosie the Riveter is rolling in her grave (or scrabbling through dirt to dig her way out to eat Lori’s flesh). Beth, who had been nonresponsive in bed for the past few weeks, has woken up to tell Maggie the pleasant news that she wants to kill herself, that life now is “hopeless,” and wants her sister to join her in a suicide pact. Maggie, as can be expected, is dumbfounded and pissed that she’d give up. Andrea, having been suicidal after her sister Amy’s death, can relate, and sympathizes with Beth and suggests to Lori that maybe they should let her go through with it; it is, after all, her choice. Quickly, Lori and Andrea blow up at each other and I’m pretty sure everyone will be on Andrea’s side in this one, especially after Lori’s ridiculous dialogue. Plus, Andrea argues convincingly how Lori knows nothing of tragedy in Zombieland™ (Rick and Carl have both come back from near death). Andrea’s transformation (spearheaded by the excellent Laurie Holden) from suicidal victim to miniShane (with a bit more of the tact that Shane sorely lacks, as she pointed out last week) is one of the best takeaways from this season thus far. This all comes to a head when Maggie leaves Beth’s precarious life in Andrea’s hands...
SPARTACUS
Air Date: March 2nd, 2012
“Chosen Path”
Review by Andy Greene Any lingering doubts about the quality of this new season and incarnation of SPARTACUS were erased after last week’s stellar “Libertus,” an episode that was easily the best of the season. It featured the return of the prequel series’ champion of Capua, Gannicus (Dustin Clare, a Colin Farrell look alike), the rescue of Crixus and the destruction of the arena in which most of SPARTACUS has taken place to this point. This symbolic scene represented a catastrophic shift in setting and pace and “Chosen Path” sorts through the rubble. Following their successful rescue, Spartacus and company return to Lucius’ temple with Crixus, Gannicus and an ailing Oenomaus (he’s really gotten it tough this season). Only Chadara (Bonnie Sveen) seems to care that Rhaskos (Ioane King) didn’t make it back, and her now tenuous position amidst the rebels makes her desperate.
he once loved. The rape, torture and the ugliness of her time away from Crixus haunt her and mar their first night in the bedroom. When Agron is about to apologize for lying about Naevia’s whereabouts because he now knows what love feels like (with Nasir), Crixus lashes out, renewing their rivalry with intense vigor, opening the door for him to depart from camp with Gannicus. Speaking of which, Gannicus lurks in their midst, scoffing at Spartacus’ ideals and plans for freedom against the Romans. He merely stays to repay his debt to Oenomaus and to talk to him one final time. Gannicus has a history with Crixus, as the Gaol became champion after Gannicus gained his own freedom, but he’s never dealt with Spartacus, and the pair predictably does not get along. Back in Capua, Ilithyia is a wreck following the death of her father Albinius. Albinius had agreed to sever Ilithyia’s marital ties with Glaber to pair his daughter with Varinius (Brett Tucker), but after his untimely murder (Glaber murdered him within the rubble on the sly), Varinius quickly abandons Ilithyia. Glaber, until recently, had been depicted as a mostly incompetent ass (he’s no match for Varinius’ wealth and influence or looks, he can’t catch Spartacus, etc.), has now succumbed to the dark side, and is a much better villain and more interesting character for it. He tells Ilithyia she is only alive for the child she carries, a chilling moment, and reaches out to Seppius (Tom Hobbs) to try and combine forces against Spartacus (incest be damned). After Ashur boasts that a gladiator is worth three Roman soldiers, Glaber challenges him to back it up in a pretty sweet battle for one involving the lowest of gladiators...
Crixus is finally reunited with his love Naevia, although he (unsurprisingly) finds that she is not the same woman
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RABIES
Image Entertainment 94 Minutes Grade: 5/10 Review by Brandon Moore Buyers or renters selecting RABIES based solely off the contents of its DVD cover be warned: despite its title and accompanying bloody images, the film is not a case of CUJO meets WRONG TURN. There is no threat of rabies to speak of; the title instead relates to the infection of stress and violence that spreads from person to person as several unrelated groups of friends, lovers, and siblings (and in one case, all three) venture off the mountain road and surrounding woods where a killer is hunting. RABIES is being marketed as a horror slasher, while in fact it is neither of those things. Murders do occur, many of them brutal, but the identities and motives of the included killers and victims will likely surprise you. RABIES belongs in the genre of thriller, though an undercurrent of humor constantly surfaces from scene to scene.
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Unfortunately, the film is unable to define a solid or comfortable tone throughout its running time. It veers from thriller to black comedy to melodrama from scene to scene. The plot could remain nearly identical and work as a comedy of errors (and would likely be more effective than its thriller counterpart): a presumed murderer is interrupted before he can dispatch a victim captured in a hunting trap, leading to an array of fatal misunderstandings between other characters with the bad luck to become involved. Horror comedies such as TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL embrace the humor within the preexisting horror movie stereotype, but RABIES can’t decide whether it wants to treat itself as a thriller with characters to sympathize with or a comedy in which we wish for their violence demise. The plot is strong enough to either be played seriously or with a sense of meta humor, but instead of going either direction, it takes a detour into campy melodrama. Distracting from the sense of danger or urgency are several extended and repeated scenes revealing marital issues, incest, misogyny, rape, strained parental relations, homosexuality, and animal abuse. Writer/directors Navot Papushado and Aharon Keshales don’t attempt to take a stance on any of these matters, nor do they factor into the plot. The issues’ sudden and unexpected introductions play like story arcs on soap opera on sweeps week, and as a result it becomes impossible to take the characters discussing them seriously...
ME OF THRONES: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
GAME OF THRONES takes place in the fantasy kingdom of Westeros, a land on the brink of winter... and war! Robert Barratheon, the portly king of Westeros travels north to Winterfell to enlist Ned Stark (Sean Bean) to serve as the Hand of the King. Left with no choice but to agree, Ned travels South toward his future and, quite possibly, his doom. Meanwhile, across the sea, Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen work to form an alliance with the great and powerful Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) - a sort of fantasy-novel version of Genghis Khan. Viserys plans to use Drogo’s vast armies to invade Westeros, which he considers to be his birthright. As if that weren’t trouble enough, an ancient evil is awakening in the far north, with nothing but a meager force of Night’s Watchmen standing between it and the havoc it wishes to unleash upon the world. HBO has supercharged their Blu-ray release with literally hours of amazing behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, character profiles, and even a fantastic featurette on creating the show’s outstanding opening credits sequence.
As we gear up for the rapidly approaching second season premiere, HBO has released The Complete First season of their smash hit series GAME OF THRONES on DVD and Blu-ray.
If you haven’t hear of this show, well... you must be living under a rock, but if you have heard of it, then you know that this is definitely a blu-ray set that you need to add to your collection.
Based on George RR Martin’s A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE novels, the show’s first season deservedly nabbed 13 Emmy nominations (and 2 wins!).
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INFESTATION 2 TEAM-UP
So, an alien and Bat Boy walk into a bar. The bartender happens to be Rod Serling who, in traditional TWILIGHT ZONE black and white, serves the alien (whose name is Archibald) and Bat Boy some PBR. There’s also an octopus-tentacled cloudmonster outside attacking people. You are not on drugs. You are reading IDW’s INFESTATION 2 TEAM-UP. Which is not really a team-up in the traditional sense. Nor does it tackle anything explicitly Lovecraftian (the supposed object of INFESTATION 2 from the get-go). However, despite the false advertising, this is book is a fabulously entertaining excuse for IDW to use two of its more obscure properties (GROOM LAKE and WEEKLY WORLD NEWS) to poke fun at the rest of the comic book universe. Writer Chris Ryall makes fun of himself, Marvel, DC, IDW, and just about every comic property on the planet (when Archibald first lands in New York, there are superheroes attempting to battle the cloudoctopus who look suspiciously like mashups of Captain America/Superman, Green Lantern/Iron Man, and Storm/Wonder Woman). Even better, the ‘team up’ basically consists of Archibald the alien and Bat Boy sitting in a Twilight Zone-themed bar drinking beer and talking about how “events” are boring: “Yawnable events all the time, it seems,” drones Archibald, as artist Alan Robinson draws mock-ups of the alien in place of iconic superhero moments. (My favorite is his version of the now-classic Rob Liefeld Captain America profile, bulging pecs and all. Bwaaahaha.) Hell, not even IDW itself is safe from the satire, as the final panel features a newspaper advertising INFESTATION 3. Oh lord.
IDW Story: Chris Ryall Art: Alan Robinson Review by Holly Interlandi
Of course, Archibald ends up saving the city and all that. But who cares? This entire issue is one big “hee hee” comic book inside joke, and for those of us who get it, it’s great fun. Plus, there are tentacles, and Rod Serling. I approve.
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DEVELOPMENT HELL: THE GREATEST MOVIES NEVER MADE? - the latest book to come off the presses over at Titan Books. He then goes on to give countless examples - from the longgestating PLANET OF THE APES reboot, to James Cameron’s attempts to remake FANTASTIC VOYAGE. Using examples such as these, a clear voice, and what I imagine to be countless hours of research, David Hughes paints us a picture of Hollywood’s inner workings, and just how hard it is to get even the best movie actually made in this town.
TALES FROM DEVELOPMENT HELL: The Greatest Movies Never Made? by David Hughes Titan Books
Here’s how it all starts. A screenwriter writes a script amd sells it to a studio. From there you would expect the script to probably be touched up a bit - you know, until it’s really perfected - then actors, producers and directors would sign on, and the cameras would start rolling. Well, as you could probably guess from the book’s title, this isn’t the case. Sometimes a film takes years to get off the ground, only to crash back into creative purgatory a decade later...
“Trying to make a movie in Hollywood is like trying to grill a steak by having a succession of people coming into the room and breathing on it.” ~ Douglas Adams And boy, is that the truth! This amusing quote is how David Hughes kicks off TALES FROM THE GRAVEYARD EXAMINER
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MASS EFFECT 3 BioWare / Electronic Arts
Not everyone will survive. An ancient alien race, known only as “Reapers,� has launched an all-out invasion leaving nothing but a trail of destruction in their wake. Earth has been taken, the galaxy is on the verge of total annihilation, and you are the only one who can stop them. The price of failure is extinction. You are Commander Shepard, a character that you can forge in your own image. You determine how events will play out, which planets to explore, and whom to form alliances with as you rally a force to eliminate the Reaper threat once and for all. How you wage this war is completely up to you: go into combat with guns blazing or use cover to plan a more tactical assault. Utilize your squad to full effect or take a lone wolf approach. Rain death from a distance or go toe-to-toe with enemies using devastating melee attacks. Mass Effect 3 will react to each decision you make as you play through a truly unique experience of your own creation.
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MEZCO’S SUPER If you are a fan of either toys or superheroes, then you will thoroughly enjoy Mez-Itz. If you are a fan of both toys and superheroes, then JACKPOT! Standing 6 inches tall - although there is a collection of 2 inch tall mini-Mez-Itz as well - these cartoony figurines sport large heads and rounded arms, a simple design which has provided Mezco’s artists with the perfect canvas for your favorite super-
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characters to be depicted
While the arms and legs and hips, the head has it a little more of a rang website boasts: 5 point points of fun!!
Good guys, bad guys, v
RHERO MEZ-ITZ
d.
s swivel at the shoulders a ball joint, which gives ge of motion. As Mezco’s ts of articulation, 1,000
From Superman and Darkseid to an old-school Batmobile, you’ll find what you’re looking for. And if what you’re looking for are character’s based off of the new Dark Knight movies, then you’re going to go absolutely bonkers for what Mezco has coming out in April. Don’t believe me?
vehicles, they’re all here.
Check ‘em out!
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Home Video
The Mummy Trilogy Blu-ray
The Deadly Spawn
Devil Dolls
Five Element Ninjas
Bag of Bones
My Pure Joy
The Three Musketeers
Xena: Warrior Princess Season Three
The Adventures of Tin Tin
Virgin Witch
Books
Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful
Dragon Strike
Cthulhu By Gaslight
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Comics
True Blood French Quarter #6
Lady Death #15
Godzilla Legends
I Zombie #23
Vampirella vs. Dracula #3
Grimm Fairy Tales #68
Wulf #5
Stitched #3
Hellraiser Masterpieces #9
Vampirella vs. Dracula #2
Collectibles
V for Vendetta Vinyl Figure 30
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Mars Attacks Vinyl Figure
Star Wars Wacky Wobblers
Arkham Asylum Joker Action Figure
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