The Dumb Are Mostly Intrigued By The Drum

Yup, number 7 so pay no attention to the fact that I refer to this as our 8th podcast in the actually podcast. Yeah, I can't add. So this week, Adrian Rodriguez from Late Update returns as he brought with him a new special, special guest: John Rios! Rios is the creator/artist/writer of Dead Days, the awesome web comic. Joins us as we talk all types of NERD. Be warned! This episode contains more nerdiness than usual. Please be advised! So much in fact that Adrian's presence was almost not felt (it didn't help that the poor guy had the stomach pain of a million warheads). So what did we talk about?

• The Dark Knight, of course. Swear, this will be the last time we beat this dead horse...this week. • The Watchmen and it's newly released trailer. • San Diego Comic Con 2008 overview. • A Rodriguez/Rios soundboard prank call. • We talk about our entry for the upcoming Fresno Swede Festival. • E3 2008 overview: The best of the Microsoft, Nintendo & Sony announcements. • Some graphic design flubbs. • Old school video game nostalgia.

And there's more! Download it, check it out and let us know what you think. As usual, NSFW as we tend to cuss a little bit. Feel free to email us comments or if you have any questions or want to be a guest on our humble podcast, drop us a line at thedumbdrum@gmail.com. Thanks to Late Update for hosting the podcast for us!

CLICK HERE FOR THE DUMB #7

E-Dub got some information out of the man himself about The Spirit and Sin City 2. Interesting tidbits are that he's writing Sin City 2 with his eye on completing a trilogy. Rumors of Johnny Depp's involvement have been officially quashed, while Angelina Jolie remains an open door as someone Miller would "love to work with."

As far as The Spirit goes, Miller says it'll be a clash of old and new, with 50's Caddys and cellys. There is also a little nugget about his next comic, something already 122 pages deep and a "love letter to New York." Check out the full interview here!

Wanted is going to be coming out soon. While the skepticism remains, it has original comic author Mark Millar's blessing, so hey, I'll give it a shot. That isn't going to stop a bit of unhappiness on my part at the changes being pushed onto the film from who-knows-what direction that divert it dramatically from the graphic novel to the silver screen, most noticably the "Super-Villians" being swapped out in favor of "Assasins".

Lets preface this just a scooch: I'm not against changes that are better for the literature-to-film transition. I understood why Peter Parker was given organic web shooters. I don't care how bright the 17 year old is, I'm not going to buy him forging metal, wiring electronics and triggers, and creating a web-juice formula that NASA would probably stab jaws to get a hold of. So the web shooters being a part of him make sense. In Daredevil, they cast an African-American as Kingpin, but hey, Michael Clark Duncan is a big fella. That's cool.

But Wanted isn't a story about assassins. Wanted is about Super-villains. Not only that, it's about Super-villains who won. Even deeper then that, it's not just about Super-villains, but a guy growing up, coming of age and enjoying the dark pleasures that such unlimited power brings. It's about a battle between the inherent greed of people who not only want ultimate power, but want everyone to know they have it. The ones who want to shepherd with a shotgun, not a crook. Assassins? Just a wee bit shy of Super-villains. So why change it?

Here's my theory why: they don't want people to know this is a comic-book film. They are betting on the loyalty of fan-boys to drag them into the theater to watch a film that bears a passing resemblance to a property they love, while herding in millions of people who they're worried would scoff at the comic roots of the film should they find out. Would they? Maybe. Spider-man, Superman, you're not gonna hide their roots. Spider-man ain't gonna cut it as a story about a justice-loving gymnast. Superman wouldn't work trying to pass itself off as a hang-gliding strongman. Maybe there are people that shunned these films because of where they came from.

And lets not just pick on Wanted, because this isn't the first time, is it? Stardust, V for Vendetta, even League of Extraordinary Gentlemen dodged the bullet of a frightening label: kids stuff. It's sort of a Catch-22, isn't it? These stories may not get any respect if they're put forwards as a film based on a comic book, but at the same time, these stories may have put a little respectability into comic-based films, if only people knew they were...well...comic-based films. It's a frightening proposition, it's a gamble, and a gamble that will have to occur before change happens, but at the same time one that will not occur because it's a gamble. Vicious cycle.

So there's no answer. Not from me. Essays are supposed to propose an answer, but I don't have it. People are surprised when I tell them V for Vendetta was a comic first. Would they have seen it before? Would they have respected the film if they had? Their interpretations would be different. How nice, if we heard a trailer that started "Based on the Best-selling graphic novel by Neil Gaiman..." It would take more change than the movie industry itself could provide, but a revolution in perceptions of an art form.

But we can hope. Tell people you know about comics as films. Let them know that there's something out there other then underpants-on-the-outside man. If you care, at least. Who knows what could happen. Maybe there's a glimmer of hope for a solution after all. Tell people who seen Wanted where it came from if they liked it. Hell, tell them if they don't. Change starts somewhere.

It's over. Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's brilliant run on Marvel Comics' The Ultimates has finally come to and end and I'm a bit saddened. With this book, these guys reinvented comics and injected the often misunderstood world of comics with a dose of gritty storytelling, artwork and reality based credibility and will forever live , in my book, as one of the greatest series I've ever read. Always viewed as kiddie material, comics these days are far beyond that. Quite frankly, I'm not sure if I would of been able to understand today's comics back in the days and it's almost as if the industry has grown up right along with me. I started reading comics back in the early 90's when I was at a Madera Johnny Quik on my way home from a visit to the hospital (I can't quite remember for what, though). On the rack there I saw it and it jumped out at me. I remember thinking, this has to be the stupidest thing I had ever seen up to that point in my life: NFL Superpro #1. Yup, that was my first comic book, or "funny book" as my dad used to call them. I bought it and I laughed my ass off for all the wrong reasons. That shit was absolutely horrible. But, it was that book that lead my to start reading comics and the more I read them, the more I was pulled in by the Marvel Universe and it's many inhabitants. As the audience and creators got older and became bored with this universe, they began to create comics aimed at an older audience. A revolution was started and the mid-90's brought us the Image Universe, a creator owned imprint that would let artists work on characters spawned from their own imaginations and not have to worry about decades of back story and continuity issues. As good as it sounded, the end result wasn't what everyone thought it was going to be. The creative freedom didn't do much but create second rate characters with female sidekicks adorned with giant boobs and wraped around with shiny chromium hologram covers. Anything to sell books to my adolescent demographic and sometimes it worked, but I quickly lost faith. As did most people, it seemed. In turn, the industry was almost killed. Marvel was in shambles. DC was worse. And besides the brand name artists, Image was sucking big time. I went back and read my Superpro and thought "Geez, we haven't progress that much further than this, have we?" I flat out stopped reading comics.