Comical Release the geek inside of you, and discover the world of comic books. David Rafferty talks about his collection and where it began. Twins Daniel and Darren Murphy give an insight into Comic Con 2014 and 2015. Batman and Robin: Movie Review by the Angry Midget Comic to Screen and Back Again.
Contents Page 4: From Boy to Man: One Man, Four Decades Page 6: The New Generation Page 8: Comic to Screen and Back Again
Page 9: Merchandise Page 10: Batman and Robin: A review by the Angry Midget Page 13: History of Comic Books
David Rafferty, 48, with hiis serenity comic books.
From Boy to Man: One Man, Four Decades Growing up with comic books, one little boy used them to escape the real world, away from the scheme of Cranhill in Glasgow, and away from the bad influences around him. David Rafferty, now 48 years old, started his collection when he was in single digits. So after 40 or so years you would expect it to be large, and large it was. With 12 cardboard boxes full of comics, ranging from Batman to Alien, and from Marvel to Dark Horse comics. “I went through tons of different comics. Just kept getting them, kept getting different ones, then they kept merging. Probably started off with, before even 2000 AD came out, Action Comics. They had a couple, they had Hookjaw. It was a play on Jaws. It was like a great white, and they had all this different stuff. 1976 is probably the earliest I remember. Then about 1977 IT arrived. 2000 AD came out and it was just phenomenal. That’s when Dredd came along, and you got a free gift with them. Don’t get them now though.” But nowadays he doesn’t collect them that much anymore, due to rising comic book prices and the birth of his first child.
“At one point you were getting comics for the sake of getting comics. The guys at AKA, you had a monthly order, so you would just go in once a month and buy them. But what they would do is, they knew what you’d like so they would add stuff in and it ended up we were getting like 50 comics a month. And the prices started to go up and up. I cannae afford £100 a month now, imagine paying £100 a month then. And then Jennifer came along and the money just dried up from the comics. “Most of the comics came when I had overtime and I had money and that was really it. And whatever took your fancy you just bought them. But DC were bringing out comics left, right and centre. Batman was reinvented, Superman reinvented, Green Arrow. Then you had all the wee testers, all the wee four packs like Cinder and Ashe, just as wee testers just to dip their feet in the water instead of commissioning big series. I never really went back to it because you missed some. I toyed with the idea of going back to it and getting extras and that sort of stuff. But I didn’t have a car and the football started. Football wins.”
So after years of collecting and filling more and more boxes with comics, it slowly dwindled to one every few months. But years from now, maybe when he hits retirement age he will start collecting again and maybe the collection will grow and become worth something. And with the rise of DC and Marvel films, the comics that started everything will be valuable to some dedicated fans. And that money David spent on them will finally come back to him. Then it will be money well spent.
The New Generation Darren: “Favourite hero is Twins Daniel and Darren Murphy, aged 18 from obviously Superman, because he is super.” Glasgow, regularly go to Comic Con, having gone the Daniel: “I love Batman because he worked for his past two years in a row. shit. I’m not going to lie, Darren: “We went this year the billionaire thing did and last year. We go to see help, like having all the our favourite comics, what gadgets and stuff but take new games are coming out, the mask off of Batman and he can still beat the crap new films. You get a lot of cosplay and its fun and you out you.” get to dress up, you go as Both are looking forward your favourite characters. Everyone is really nice and to the upcoming Batman it’s a good experience.” vs Superman movie where Daniel: “Everybody is gen- it will be finally revealed which is the better superheerally really friendly when you go. Obviously some of ro. One will leave victorious the costumes are like pure while the other downhearted by defeat, and one of outstanding. There was a guy this year went as Foxy the heroes will win too. from Five Nights at Freddy’s and he was wearing a black The twins were introduced suit and had poles coming to comic books by their cousin, Scott. out in front of him controlling the big animatronic. It was creepy.” Daniel: “He had comics in While the twins look the his house for years. We same they both different used to go up to our cousfavourite heroes. ins every so often and he used to have them lying
about his room. He said, “You should read this” or “watch that”. And the games got us into comics too.” The twins hope to pass on their love of comics to their children in the future, whether it sticks or not is up to the kids though. But with more and more versions of the same hero coming out every decade and with new actors playing the same character comics are bound to last for ages and evolve with the today’s generation and generations to come as the world evolves. Darren: “I’ll introduce them to the world of comics then they can take it on if they want. It’s their choice.”
Comic Con 2014/2015. Courtesy of twins
Twins Darren and Daniel Murphy.
From Comic to Screen, And Back Again Many of today’s action movies, like Batman or Avengers, have come from comics so old they could be your grandparent if they were real people. I mean, DC comics is almost 75 years old, with Marvel comics being its junior by 20 years. But both couldn’t be so different, with DC having darker anti-heroes like Batman, and Marvel having its clean cut heroes, like Captain America. However both have the capacity to go on for years to come in the movie and TV industry. Especially with Disney buying out Marvel.
Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion (pilot Hoban Washburne and Captain Malcolm Reynolds of Serenity in Firefly) made a TV show called Con Man about a TV show that gets cancelled after the first season but the two former actors reunite to continue the series, along with the rest of the cast. The Firefly comics depict what happens to the crew after the events of the movie Serenity, which most fans have questioned about, which are slowly getting answered by the comics.
villains and new situations for Superman, and other heroes, to overcome. Some comics even merge together for a series and fight crime together or fight each other. For instance DC have multiple Justice League comics which brings all the heroes in the DC franchise into a team, and then they fight crime together against anyone willing to challenge them.
Movies will evolve as long as the comics evolve and by the way they are going presently, comic books will keep evolving to keep Comics get reinvented every audiences interested. And movtime a new artist joins DC, ies will always find new ways to Some comics even came after Marvel, or Dark Horse, and adapt said comics to screen to a movie/TV series, like Firefly every time they are reinventappease their audiences. And comics by Dark Horse. When ed they are given something with the amount of upcoming Firefly was cancelled after the first season, and then the movie completely new. There isn’t the movies both Marvel and DC came out, many fans were left same two comics in the entire have coming out, I say, they are disappointed about the prosfranchise and that keeps the not struggling to find new ideas pects of the franchise. Even the fans coming back for more each to keep fans coming back for cast felt the same and wanted time. If Superman got into the more. to do more. And ask and you same fights with Lex Luthor, it would get boring for the fans shall receive. but artists come up with new
Merchandise from Comic Books Left: Batman Pop! Vinyl Figurine (£10.99 from Forbidden Planet) Right: Avengers Bear in movie costumes (£19.99 from Build-A-Bear workshop, costumes sold seperately)
Left: Boy’s Superman t-shirt (£6 from Tesco)
Right: Avengers Poster (prices vary from different shops)
Left: Batman Men’s Tie (£14.00 from Etsy) and Batman Coin Jar (£16.95 from Amazon)
Right: Large Avengers Mug (£9.99 from Disney Store)
Batman and Robin: A Mid (though he still produced it, so he’s not entirely getting away Scott free), and getting rid of Michael Keaton, who played Batman. Brilliant move, and it shows as the third movie was bad, so when they made the fourth movie, they decided to get yet another Batman, namely George Clooney. This is easily the worst movie he’s ever been in. On top of that rather than trying to capture the dark themes and To be frank, this movie seriousness of the earlier sucks, I’m afraid to even movies (Or Batman in genput the disc in my Blu-ray eral, seriously did they even player because I don’t want read the comics?) they deto demoralize it. First off, cided to make an over the a bit of history, (this is the top, watered down version educational part), when Tim of Batman from the good Burton directed the first old Adam West days in the Batman Movie, ‘Batman’ 60s. (what a name, I don’t know, it was the 80s, things were I can’t really describe how simpler back then) it was shit this movie is. The best an instant classic, and in I can say is that it’s VERY my opinion the best batman shit, but I’m going to have movie there’s ever been. a go. Let’s start with the Then there was a sequel characters, Batman is awwhich was also really good, ful, there’s no other way to and then they decided to put, not once in the movie make a third one. Only does he act like Batman. problem was they decided George Clooney might be to get a different director, a big actor but this wasn’t getting rid of Tim Burton his role. There’s one scene
in particular where he’s knocked to the ground and it takes him a full five seconds to stand up, if you aren’t physically capable of standing up in less than five seconds you’re not Batman material - his performance makes me look like Batman. He makes for a good Bruce Wayne, or at least he would if the script didn’t suck, or if his standard of acting in this movie wasn’t to the same level of a wrestler making his movie debut. Robin is just a disappointment, which you think would be expected, but the Robin in this movie is Dick Grayson, the only Robin I actually like (he does become Nightwing in the comics, and he’s pretty awesome). In this movie he spends the entire time trying to prove he can do things himself, only for Batman to stop him and for Robin getting really, really over dramatic about, even exclaiming a ‘NOOOO!’ That’s worse than Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith, and that’s pretty bad.
A review by the Angry dget Alfred’s only character trait is that he’s old, so old in fact that he’s close to kicking the bucket. He is also the only character who is played by the same actor in all four movies, if it wasn’t for him then it would be debatable if this movie actually is a sequel to the Tim Burton batman films.
painful, cringe worthy, and wrong. She doesn’t even try to act normal, or disguise herself, she acts exactly the same in every scene, and it takes Batman half the movie before he realizes she’s a villain. World’s greatest detective everybody, the meth-head on my street could have worked that out faster, though I think Batgirl is done completely the people who made this wrong, she’s supposed to be movie were smoking someBarbara Gordon, daughter thing as well. Bane is actuof Commissioner Gordon, ally not done too badly, he instead she’s Alfred’s grand- looks and acts exactly how daughter (who apparently he should, and it’s a pretty never felt the need to visit accurate incarnation of his Alfred until now. Seriouscomic book counterpart. ly, Batman never knew she The only problem is that he even existed). The only doesn’t add very much to attempt at trying to justify the story, all he serves as why she can suddenly beis to be a strong but braincome Batgirl without any less goon to have a couple training is one scene that fights with. To be fair Bane shows she’s actually some isn’t the kind of character badass biker girl (who has you could have any sub plot to get her life saved, from with, except for the exRobin of all people). What tremely famous and obviwere they thinking? I’ll be ous Batman story where honest, this movie really he gets his back broken by didn’t need Batgirl, or deBane and never recovers serve her. which leaves Robin to step up and become the next Now for the villains, Poison Batman. Considering they Ivy is so exaggerated it’s had the whole Robin-trying-
to-prove-himself sub plot it would actually have made sense for Batman to get his back broken and would give this movie a sense of purpose (I think I know why they didn’t do this though, you see, if they had played this story through then the movie might have actually been kind of good, and apparently that’s not what they were going for). The real star of the show is Mr Freeze, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who amazingly is the first name on the opening credits, and not George Clooney. They knew he was the only redeeming thing in this fil). Mr Freeze has a certain charm about him, don’t get me wrong, his character is incredibly cliché and is all round terrible, but when you’re watching a movie this bad, anything that’s not quite as unbearable as the rest of it seems amazing and gives you some time to relax and can actually bring a smile to your face. Everything Mr Freeze says is a cold based pun, and every one of them is great. Terrible, but great.
The setting and tone of the movie is completely off. The mood is constantly changing between ridiculously cartoony humour and ‘Oh no, Alfred’s dying cause he’s older than DC comics’. Gotham is supposed to be the most crime ridden and depressing city in the world, and yet everywhere in Gotham is quite bright and colourful, unlike my mood, and there seems to be an extreme lack of crime in the city. In fact, apart from Mr Freeze and his crew, there’s virtually no other criminals in the whole movie. Gotham must have went to rehab. There’s also some extremely god awful additions to the film such as
having nipples on all the bat suits, (what the hell were they thinking?) and Batman’s bat credit card. Presumably for when he leaves his bat-cash in his other suit and he feels peckish for bat-snacks. There are plenty of movies out there that are that special kind of bad, you know? The kind of movie that you laugh at from acting more wooden than oak and terrible special effects, but this movie isn’t one of those. It’s just bad, trying to sit yourself down to watch this movie is very difficult, it’s hard on the body and the mind. It would actually be easier to walk outside in a thunder storm and try to dodge
rain, it would be easier to pour salt and flour into one big pile and try to separate them again, while wearing boxing gloves. George Clooney publicly apologizes for this movie every time he’s on the red carpet (as he bloody well should). I’d rather do a marathon of all the twilight movies followed swiftly by the star wars prequels than watch Batman and Robin. I’d rather watch a silent version of the original Batman movie in black and white sepia tone that has to be interrupted by a screen of text every time someone speaks. That’s why my final rating for this movie is a bucket full of tears/10.
The Angry Midget, aka William Brooks, is an 18 year old boy from Tollcross, Glasgow. His hobbies involve sarcasm, acting bigger than he is (he is 5 foot 3 by the way) and watching films. William has been interested in comic books and their movie counterparts since he was in nappies and it has only grown as he, well hasn’t. This is his first formal review of a movie, but informally he reviews films and TV shows with his friends and family. Let’s hope he continues his reviews.
William Brooks, 18. Courtesy of William.
History of Comic Books Late 1934, early 1935 – DC Comics founded
1939 – Marvel Comics founded
1986 – Dark Horse Comics founded
DC Comics is one of the largest American companies in comic books and related media publishing. A subsidiary of Time Warner, DC is responsible for such famous characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman and their teammates in the Justice League. For decades, DC Comics has been one of the two largest American comic book companies, along with Marvel Comics. The initials “DC” were originally an abbreviation for Detective Comics, and later the official name.
Marvel Comics began life as “Timely Publications” in 1939, with comic books featuring Captain America, Namor the Sub-Marinerand an early version of the Human Torch. Legendary comic book writer Stan Lee was hired as an office assistant in 1939. Within two years, the 19-year-old Lee was promoted to editor of the Marvel Comics line, a post that he would keep until 1972. Marvel Comics and DC Comics have collaborated on several crossover projects together.
Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book and manga publisher. It was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Dark Horse publishes many licensed comics, including comics based on Star Wars, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, and Predator. Dark Horse also publishes creator owned comics such as Frank Miller’s Sin City and 300 and Mike Mignola’s Hellboy.
SERENITY: A Joss Whedon Film
They aim to misbehave