Friday, February 23, 2007

See 'El Muerto' in San Diego March 17!!

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El Muerto will be screening at the San Diego Latino Film Festival on March 17. Show time is 8 pm, and introducing the film are stars Angie Cepeda and Tony Plana (ABC TV's 'UGLY BETTY'). And ...me. (Hey, I got a cameo in the film!) The film will be shown at the UltraStar Mission Valley Cinemas at Hazard Center @ 7510 Hazard Center Road (off Highway 163 and Friars Road).

Tickets can be purchased online, and there are only 100 available to purchase, so act now!. Here's the listing for the film, with ticket info.

So if you're in the San Diego area March 17 and want to see El Muerto, c'mon down!

Arte Latino exhibit currently showing in San Diego

In conjuction with the upcoming San Diego Latino Film Festival, there is a group show featuring the works of a number of artists from animation, comics and illustration, including the late Ernesto "El Chango' Garcia Cabral (1890-1968), considered one of Mexico's greatest political cartoonists. Also featured in the show are comic artists Rafael Navarro, Richard Dominguez, Billy Martinez, David Alvarez and your truly. Also included in the exhibit are Jorge Gutierrez & Sandra Equihua, creators of the Nickelodean show El TIGRE.

The exhibit opened on Feb. 15 and will run through the conclusion of the Latino Film Festival, on March 18, and is displayed at the House of Charm in Balboa Park in the San Diego Art Institute: Museum of the Living Artist (Boy, I'm glad to be exhibiting at a place called 'The Living Artist'!). There will be an artist reception on March 13, from 7:30pm-9pm, where I and several of the other artists will be in attendance.

Here's a couple of pics of the display courtesy of Patric Stillman, the Director of Operations for the Media Arts Center, San Diego. I'll take my own pics at the reception and post them here. If you're in the area, please check out the exhibit and the film festival.

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Sunday, February 18, 2007

Ghost Rider

The superhero movie season has begun and the number one film for the weekend, and in fact the highest grossing movie of the new year:
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With an estimated opening of about $45 million, the film proves that critics don't know anything about anything! Like FANTASTIC FOUR, this film has proved to be a huge hit with audiences (the people who actually pay to go see movies!).

When I was a kid, Ghost Rider was one of the books that I really dug. A demon biker with a flaming skull head?! Bring it on, baby! Ghost Rider was one of that second wave of superheroes that came about in the 1970s, what Stan Lee called "The Marvel Age of Comics, Phase 2!". Created by Roy Thomas, Gary Freidrich and artist Mike Ploog, ol fire-skull was one of the haunted Marvel heroes who was part monster/part tragic hero. Appearing in the same era as Man-Thing, Morbius the Living Vampire and Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider was definitely a product of his era: satanism and bikers.

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I enjoyed the film so much on Saturday evening, that this morning after my daily walk I stopped by a local theatre and checked out a matinee screening! Yeesh! The film was written/directed by Mark Steven Johnson, who I thought succeeded with his previous adaptation, DAREDEVIL. His script for this film really did a good job of tying in several incarnations of Ghost Rider. I won't detail the story too much in case you haven't seen it yet, but the character's orgin from his original 1972 appearance appears pretty much intact. I haven't really read much Ghost Rider in the last 20 years or so (Jeez!!!) but I felt the film delivered the Ghost Rider I remember. And what a classic design! Ghost Rider's look and attitude probably sold a ton of tickets alone!

While occasionally the film forced some of the actors to mouth some cliched lines (mainly the villians), I rationalize the fact that the source material the film draws on was corny back when they were created. However, I didn't complain back then as a 10 yr. old, so for me I look at these type of films without too critical an eye. Of course, at the very least, the story has to be solid, but otherwise, let's let the superheroes and supervillians act accordingly. I seem to enjoy my Marvel superheroes way more from filmmakers nowadays than in the actual monthly titles (which I pretty much dropped out of by 1990, with occasional exceptions). To think back in the 70s if we were told there would one day be a big Hollywood Ghost Rider movie....

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Watching the film, with it's supernatural storyline, Good vs. Evil spiritual warfare, a black-clad cursed hero, and a graveyard caretaker, I couldn't help but think of the Muerto movie. Contrasting our independant film based on my independent comic, Ghost Rider was a full-blown studio film, with over $100 million in budget, but interestingly began filming the day we shot our last day of El Muerto principal photography: Feb. 14, 2005 (according to the Wikipedia entry) Pretty crazy coincidence. A quick note on El Muerto: I'm currently awaiting word from my producer about the distribution plan for our film. Of course I'll be posting the news here when it breaks!

After last night's screening of Ghost Rider, me and my lady Bernyce stopped by a Denny's for a late-night Banana Split. Over the delicious dessert, I pulled out my sketchbook and asked her for a Ghost Rider drawing. And yeah, she drew the original Johnny Blaze version! Nice!
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I doodled up a quickie version of the movie Ghost Rider.
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I gotta tell all the guys out there: ain't nothing sexier than a woman who can draw a classic superhero! Well, let's wait for the Ghost Rider sequel and the long-awaited release of EL MUERTO!





Sunday, February 04, 2007

100 Spider-Man custom covers for charity


The Hero Initiative, a charitable foundation created to provide financial assitance to veteran comic book creators in need, has created a wonderful idea for a fundraiser. Teaming with Marvel Comics, they've commissioned 100 custom covers for Ultimate Spider-Man #100. Almost 100 artists (some created more than one cover) contributed, many of them top artists working in comics today (even director Guillermo Del Toro contributed a sketch!) But also included in the collection are some of Marvel's past creators, like classic 1960s legend John Romita!

Saturday evening, Secret Headquarters, an LA-area comic book shop, held a viewing of all 100 covers. Apparently the only time and place all 100 are going to be shown at once, before they move to auctioning them off at comic conventions and online. Here are some of my personal favorites, but do yourself a favor and check out this link, because you really have to see all 100 of these. Some really terrific looking pieces, and it's great that a good some of money will be raised for The Hero Initiative.

Frank Springer broke into comics with DC back in 1962. Then he went on to work for Marvel in the 60s and 70s on such titles as Nick Fury, Spider-Woman and the Dazzler, as well as one of our favorites here at Javzilla, The Human Fly!! Very cool to see Springer contribure a Spidey!
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Another classic Marvel artist who drew one of the covers is Marie Severin, the long-time Marvel artist with stints on Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange and a very fondly remembered run on The Hulk. Marie is a colorist as well as artist, and in fact one of the very few female pencillers of superhero comics back in the day. I would love to own this piece!
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Mike Vosburg has worked for many comics over his career, as well as storyboarding for film and music video (he worked on Eminem's STAN THE FAN!!). I remember his run on She-Hulk back in the early 80s. Go Voz. Check out his Ditko-esque Spidey!
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Among modern artists in the collection is Mike Allred, creator of Madman and one of the nicest creators I've met in the comcis world. His Spidey is clean and pitch perfect.
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This piece by Al Milgrom really struck me as another standout, and made me realize how much I loved his great SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN covers back in the 80s. Really juicy, bold inking on those!
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Sal Buscema. The first comic I bought of the rack was a Marvel Team-Up, with Spidey and the Man-Wolf. The artist was Sal. That was back in the mid 70s, and ever since then Sal has left a huge impact on Marvel Comics by drawing tons and tons of superheroes. Captain America, the Hulk, to name to memorable runs and even ROM, SpaceKnight! But it's his work on Marvel Team-Up and two tours on Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man that makes me acknowledge him as on of the premiere Spider-Man artists of all time! (Steve Ditko, John Romita and Ross Andru the other three...). So, here it is, some 30+ years since I first discovered his Spidey!
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These Ultimate Spider-Man covers were blank on the back, so some of the artists would draw on the back, also. My favorite 'back' drawing is done by Herb Trimpe, another one of the classic Marvel Bullpenners. Mr. Trimpe has a well-regarded long time run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as G.I. Joe, Godzilla and Transformers. I fondly remember his 1980 Marvel Treasury, SPIDER-MAN AND THE HULK AT THE WINTER OLYMPICS! In the 1990s, when Marvel was imploding editorially and financially, after corporate raider Ron Pearlman came in and nearly ruined the company. Herb Trimpe was fired via a FedEx letter.
He wrote a very sobering article for the New York Times
about his final years at Marvel. But Herb moved on and became a teacher. Later, after 9/11 hit, he served as a Red Cross chaplain at Ground Zero. A real hero. So, here's his back cover Spidey image.Pretty dang funny, all things considered!
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A great collection of art, and for a great charity. Me? I had a real fun time that evening, both enjoying some fine Spider-Man art (such as this great John Romita piece) and my own real-life Mary Jane, Bernyce!
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Thursday, February 01, 2007

El Muerto: 10 Years of raising The Dead!!


Holy smokes! I was figuring out how many years I've been attending the APE (upcoming this April in San Francisco) and realized that I debuted El Muerto at the 1998 Alternative Press Expo, back when it was held in San Jose. That means that this will be the 10th APE I've attended..in a row! So next February it will have been 10 years since El Muerto first appeared!

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Wow.... That seems like a quick 10 years. El Muerto was created last millenium! Well, I guess today marks the official countdown to the El Muerto 10th Anniversary! To say the least, this has been a very rewarding time for me in terms of creating my own comic character, publishing my own comics, meeting tons of interesting people. Any artist, no matter what their chosen field, hopes to have their work appreciated by others. I certainly do. I only launched the website back in 2005, but that has been an important part of the whole experience. And of course I can't mention all these great experiences without talking about the movie. To have had the chance to turn El Muerto into a film was a one-in-a-million shot. It's unbelievable, when I consider the odds against a self-published comic book , one that's been active in promoting itself, but still a relatively unknown property at the time of the initial contact by film director Brian Cox. That would have been back in 2001, three years after the book debuted.

So this year we will be counting down to 10 years of El Muerto. Great time for it too:

- Upcoming is the 2 part mini-series El Muerto: Dead & Confused!
-There will be a special trade-paperback collection out later this year!
-We're going to relaunch El Muerto.com with an all new updated Version 2!
-And there will an announcement coming soon regarding the El Muerto movie!

And I plan to unleash some other exciting projects this year as well. Lots more details to come, of course! Stick around then, because this is going to be a great year!