by A.J. Focht

A benefit in aid of the Aurora shooting victims is being put together by All C’s Collectibles, a local comic shop which is not far from the theater where the tragic event took place. There has been a tremendous outpour of support to help get the event off the ground. It will be held over two days on August 25th and 26th, and will include a silent auction and in store appearances by several fantastic comic creators. Many amazing supporters have stepped up and made donations towards the silent auction, including most of the major comic companies.

DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics, POW Entertainment, Top Cow Comics and many more have all made contributions. There have been some fantastic donations so far including a signed Amazing Spider-Man movie poster from Stan Lee, and a poster and guitar donated and signed by Scott Ian from Anthrax. Several comic artists have also given original artworks for the auction. These incredible items and more will be auctioned off on Saturday, August 25 at 6:30 PM. The silent auction will be located at a donated space in the Embassy Suites. All the proceeds from the auction will go to the Alex Sullivan Fund and the Aurora Victims Relief Fund.

Many prominent comic writers and artists have agreed to come out for an in-store signing on Sunday, August 26. Comic icon Steve Niles, author of 30 Days of Night, Dark Days, Criminal Macabre, and many more, will be in attendance. Dark Horse Comics legend and creator of Hellboy, Mike Mignola has been confirmed. Writer of the current The Invincible Iron Man run, Matt Fraction will also be joining, as well as All-Star Western artist Mortitat. More writers and artists have been in contact with the benefit and there are more appearances to be announced over the coming weeks.

Aurora Rise has begun to spread far beyond the city limits of Aurora, Colorado. There has been an overwhelming interest across the comic community to extend the event to future conventions and throughout other cities. So far, there is talk of branches at Dragon Con in Chicago, and even in the UK. There will also likely be a second event held in Aurora at a later date, probably mid-September, to accommodate more artists and writers who could not make it out for the first benefit signing. Volunteers associated with Denver Comic Con have set up Aurora Rise on Facebook, Twitter, and with its own website. They are currently working on setting up the infrastructure to expand the charity program through the Community First Foundation.

Related Posts:
Back Row Perspective Part 1: An Aurora Theater Survivor’s Message To The Media
Back Row Perspective Part 2: An Aurora Theater Survivor’s Message To The Politicians
Back Row Perspective Part 3: An Aurora Theater Survivor’s Message To The Online Community

by A.J. Focht

San Diego Comic Con 2012 was packed with so much news that we couldn’t fit it all in one place. Yesterday, I covered the news about the major movies coming from Marvel and DC. In this column, we’ll take a look at some other movies and the rest of the news from the nerd fest.

It was a few years ago at 2006 Comic Con when Edgar Wright first talked about doing an Ant-Man movie. While there still isn’t a date scheduled for it, Wright did come out during the Marvel movie news panel to show off a short teaser trailer. All of the copies of the teaser that made it online were promptly taken down, but the fans that saw it at Comic Con have been raving about it.

If they don’t get their skates on and hit a looming contractual deadline, Fox face losing the rights to Daredevil, a prospect that’s becoming all the more real now that David Slade is out of the picture and the project is director-less. However the studio is moving forward with a new Fantastic Four project before they lose control of those rights too. Josh Trank, director of Chronicle, is confirmed as the director for the upcoming Fantastic Four flick. Fox still has the Wolverine and First Class sequels to push out before they move on the Fantastic Four project however. We’re told there will be an entirely new cast, but it is unclear if the forthcoming Fantastic Four film will be a reboot or in the same continuity. It is confirmed that Jeremy Slater will be writing the next movie though.

Kick-Ass 2 has signed most of the cast from the original film. Christopher Mintz-Plasse confirmed that filming for Kick-Ass 2 will commence in September. There is no scheduled date for the film’s release as of now.

The CW’s The Arrow is turning out to be a much darker show than any superhero TV series before it. Calling The Arrow a superhero show might be a stretch as what we’re seeing in the previews makes him out to be quiet the anti-hero. This is the Green Arrow like you’ve never seen before. In the newest clip released by the CW, Green Arrow kills several of his captors to protect his identity.

Suck it, Wolverine! That’s the tagline of the new Deadpool video game being designed by High Moon Studios. The merc’ with a mouth is getting his own game where he’s going to kick a bunch of ass, make a ton of inappropriate jokes, and constantly break the fourth wall. The trailer for the game captures Deadpool’s unique sense of humor and has fans ready well ahead of the 2013 release.

DreamWorks animation is in talks with Classic Media to acquire several classic cartoon properties. Among the titles included in the $150 million dollar package are: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Voltron, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Waldo from ‘Where’s Waldo’, and Lone Ranger. If DreamWorks can make this deal happen, we will likely be seeing CGI remakes of all these titles in the coming years.

The Walking Dead returns to AMC on October 14. Several of the cast were in attendance at SDCC for The Walking Dead panel, which featured clips from the upcoming season three as well as fan questions and answers. The full trailer, which was debuted at the panel, was released online, and there are some special surprises, including an appearance by the Governor.

To wrap things up, Karl Urban promised fans a sneak peak of Star Trek 2 during SDCC. He lived up to his promise, releasing a four minute video of him surfing while music plays. Only in the last ten seconds of the video is there some footage of a wrap from the Star Trek 2 set.

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Ur W33K 1N G33K: SD Comic Con 2012 Edition Part 1

by A.J. Focht

Last weekend was San Diego Comic Con, the premier nerd convention of the year. Both major comic companies were present as well as several movie studios, prominent actors, and nerd icons of all kinds. Everyone was eager to show off their newest projects.

New clips for The Dark Knight Rises were previewed at Comic Con. The first was a teaser of Morgan Freeman showing off a new vehicle, The Bat. The second clip establishes the movie takes place eight years after The Dark Knight in a conversation between Officer Blake and Commissioner Gordon. The Dark Knight Rises premiers in theaters July 20.

Batman is one of the most popular heroes in the world with one of the most iconic cars ever. This year at SDCC, each of the classic Batmobiles were on display. The Batmobiles were all lined up and a new documentary about the cars was previewed at the con. The Batmobile is a documentary that features Batmobiles throughout time and the Batmen that drove them.

A few weeks ago, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was rumored to be in talks for a DC movie. The Rock has now confirmed via Twitter that he is indeed in talks for a Lobo movie. While he is in talks, the Lobo movie might not be planned for a while.

The Man of Steel had a panel at Comic Con, helping shed some light on the rumors surrounding the project. A short clip was shown to the audience and it was met with positive reviews. There’s a new teaser poster on their Facebook page as well.

Iron Man 3 had a major presence at Comic Con. During the Iron Man 3 panel, Kevin Feage, Shane Black, Robert Downey Jr., and Don Cheadle were present to talk about the upcoming movie. They discussed both rumors and the movie story, without giving much of anything away. All of the Iron Man armor from the past movies, as well as the armor from the upcoming movie was on display as well. Men might not be the only ones putting on armor in Iron Man 3 however, the new rumor is Gwyneth Paltrow may be dawning the rescue armor this go around.

Marvel revealed the titles to their upcoming sequels at Comic Con, and it looks like Bucky is coming back since the title of the Captain America sequel is Captain America: Winter Soldier. Bucky was the original Winter Soldier so it seems likely he’s returning as a villain. While Bucky isn’t confirmed beyond the title, Falcon will make an appearance in the film. Anthony Mackie will be playing the part. Winter Soldier is scheduled to release April 14, 2014.

The Thor sequel is entitled, Thor: The Dark World. A few things are known about Thor at the moment. The movie will explore Thor and Jane’s relationship. Loki will not be the main villain in the film, and the current rumor mill points all signs to the Enchantress. With a new director on board, it’s set for theatres sometime in 2013.

Marvel officially confirmed they are filming Galactic Guardians after Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: Winter Soldier. They also revealed the cast of the Galactic Guardians team will include: Drax the Destoryer, Gamora, Groot, Star-Lord, and everyone’s favorite, Rocket Raccoon. Galactic Guardians is slated to start in theaters on August 1, 2014.

That’s the first half of Ur W33K 1N G33K’s Comic Con coverage. Check back in for the rest of the news from the convention.

by A.J. Focht

What is Warner Bros. and DC Comics next big movie? New reports suggest Barry Sonnenfeld is working on DC Comics’ title The Metal Men, which was first introduced in 1962 and has been played with sporadically by DC since then. The Mental Men group consists of six artificially intelligent robots created by Dr. William Magus. Each was made out of a specific metal with powers to match. Gold, the leader can stretch; Iron possesses super strength; Lead can make shields; Mercury could melt to pass through small spaces; and Platinum, who believed she was human and would flirt with her creator, could stretch and flatten. There was also the insecure Tin whose powers are unknown. They popped up throughout Infinite Crisis and had a twelve issue run in Wednesday Comics in 2009. The Metal Men have also made appearances in Batman Brave and the Bold and Justice League: New Frontier. The Metal Men wasn’t on anyone’s radar for DC’s next movie, but it could have potential.

Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel will involve a lot more than Superman just saving Metropolis. New information has leaked onto the internet, and it looks like a good portion of the movie will take place during the war on Krypton. This help makes sense of the elaborate costumes we saw last month that included suits for Jor-El and other Kryptonians. Not much else is known about the film, but the producers will have a presence at San Diego Comic Con where they’ll be debuting footage.

Kick-Ass 2 has signed Chloe Mortez back as Hit-Girl. The film hasn’t begun production but we now have confirmation that three of the core cast members are returning: Aaron Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Plasse being the others. Kick-Ass 2 will involve the heroes’ identities being learned. Hit-Girl will be identified, causing her a whole new set of problems.

Disney and Marvel has already announced the animated Avengers Assemble series hoping to play off The Avengers success. The animated projects don’t stop there. Marvel is also developing an Iron Man animated series. A Hulk series is in talks as well. All of the animated series will appear as part of the Marvel Universe on Disney XD.

Graphic novel and comic guru Alan Moore is best known for his work on titles such as: V for Vendetta, Batman: The Killing Joke, and Watchmen. Now it looks like Moore is moving onto film as he announced he is working on a short film series currently titled Show Pieces. The project started as a single ten-minute movie, but has since evolved into a ‘multi-layered, multi-episode narrative,’ though little more is known about it.

Seth Grahame-Smith has been tasked with scribing the sequel to Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice 2 wants to just make a sequel for money; they want to make sure it is done right. To do this, Grahame-Smith says he plans on using the character Beetlejuice sparingly, and not overdue him, pointing out Beetlejuice was only in about half an hour of the first movie. The one other thing he noted is it is a real sequel. The amount of time that has passed since the first movie is how much has passed in the story.

A new Mortal Kombat movie is in the making. Little is known about the project except for a short synopsis:

“The live-action reboot will follow a lowly unlucky supermarket employee who discovers that he has out of this world powers and must decide between good and evil, even though the evil side has helped him discover his true potential and who he really is.” – via Nerdbastards

Kevin Tancharoen is signed on to direct the film written by Oren Uziel. The story sounds a bit vague, but this reboot can’t be any worse than the first two movies.

by Blogbot

This year for Comic Con we’re cooking up an extra-special cosplay wardrobe, with a little help from clothing manufacturer and retailer American Apparel, pop-culture designers and event planners Bubble Punch, and our fave Sunset Strip geek emporium, Meltdown Comics.

Comic chic chicks Chubby Bunny and Yume Ninja of Bubble Punch have designed three different sexy cosplay themed outfits for our ladies to wear while they man our Comic-Con booth. Each of the outfits was made using basics available at your local American Apparel store. The ladies at bubble punch have shot a series of “How To” videos with Milloux and Ackley Suicide, the first of which, showcasing our Stormtrooper outfits can be seen above.

Watch this space for two more videos in our “How To” Comic Con cosplay series.

The costumes will be debuted live at a special pre-Comic Con party to be held at Meltdown Comics on July 7th (starting at 7 PM).

To RSVP for SuicideGirls Pre-Comic Con Party visit our Facebook event page.

You can also catch our ladies in their cosplay outfits at booth #1730 of Comic Con San Diego 2012. If you’re planning on attending the convention on more than one day, be sure to come back and visit us again, since our team of sexy booth girls will be cosplaying new outfits each day!

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by Bob Suicide

If you haven’t finished the game stop reading now…unless you’re like me and you don’t mind a spoiler here and there. Although, with the amount of news surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending, I can’t imagine the size of the rock you’d have to live under to avoid spoiling it. But, if you haven’t seen the new DLC, don’t worry I’m not going to give anything away. It’s a free download. So, I recommend taking a peek if you’ve finished ME3. Even if you hate it, you can just delete it from your hard drive. A word of warning though, just like the original ending, you can’t delete it from your brain.

In case you missed it, here is my review of the original ending to ME 3*:

Unfortunately, the new download doesn’t change the ending in any major way, it merely adds more dialogue to it in the hopes that it will “explain” it more. Herein lies the problem: sure the ending sucked and the cut scene was pretty lame, but the real issue isn’t the “unanswered questions” – it’s the game play and the overall storyline.

As a stand-alone vignette, the ending cut scene was “fine.” I don’t care that Shepard died. I don’t care that I didn’t get to see what happened to Joker and EDI. I don’t even worry about what the universe is going to do now that the mass relays are destroyed. They’ll figure it out. There are TONS of franchises out there than have open-ended endings that allow the viewer to imagine the real conclusion to the story. And, not all of them are as bad as the ending to The Sopranos. Remember how Milo and Otis just walked off into the wild blue yonder. Well half of you imagined them making it back to the farm and the other half imagined aliens beaming down and a mutant bear attacking…both are fine endings. And, therein lies the joy of a properly structured open-ended ending.

The problem lies in the whole structure of the final mission. It’s a complete departure from the complex character interaction and unique choice model found throughout the rest of the series.

For some reason, I really thought the download would include a change in the final mission’s gameplay. I’m not sure if I read that somewhere, it’s more likely that I just imagined that all my prayers would be answered. ‘Cause, honestly, that’s the only way it would fix it for me. That’s where they dropped the ball.

But, the lack of a change in gameplay highlights just what we’ve come to expect from what was recently voted the worst company in the US by Consumerist readers. I wholeheartedly support placing the blame on the shoulders of game publishers EA. Honestly, you can blame them for anything bad that happens this year. It makes life SO much easier.

This is EA’s fix. It’s like putting a Band Aid on a gangrenous wound.

You still lost the leg.

You’ll never get those hours of game play back. You’re still left with the feeling that the choices you made didn’t matter and all of the wonderful gaming experience built up by 1 and 2 was dashed in a second by some star child’s really shitty logic. Logic, which includes pears of exposition like, “You wouldn’t know them.” Thanks.

But, at the end of the day, the download is better than the original ending. Something is better than nothing. And, Canadian developers BioWare should be lauded for their ability to listen and respond to the fans in a way that no other company has dared to do. Dragon Age 2 aside, they’ve been at the forefront of game development; churning out some of top games and revolutionizing the gaming experience. Combining that with the unique desire to please their fanbase – a desire typically only found on Kickstarter these days – makes this a company I want to love and support.

They’ve provided a compromise and they did it for free. BioWare has opened a door and hopefully, other developers will dare to walk through it. For the amount of testing and surveying that goes on before launch, hopefully BioWare has set a precedent for continued feedback after launch.

So, in the hopes for this new future, I’ll take what I can get. I’ll love this new download for what it is and what I hope it’ll be: a game-changing (pun-intended) step toward a new dynamic between developer and gamer. I’ll appreciate that complaints were heard and an unprecedented attempt to change was made. I’ll love my fellow gamers for speaking up and taking a passionate stand about the level of quality we expect and deserve!

After all, if we can combine all organic and synthetic life, we can certainly find a way to get along.

*If you don’t want to take my word re the ME3 ending, take Hitlers:

[..]

by Bob Suicide

E3 came and went with none of the real excitement that we’re used to. No new consoles, most of the major franchises were absent, nothing to really look forward to. Don’t get me wrong, there were several games that looked promising. But, with many of these announcements, looks can be deceiving…

I know I sound cynical and, to be honest, I really AM cynical. But it’s not my fault. I blame the marketing departments of every game I’ve ever been excited about but ultimately let down by when it fails to meet the advertised expectations. Now, I know that’s a pretty long list of people to shake my fist at, but stick with me, I promise this will make sense.

I’m tired of the bait-and-switch that occurs between the premiere teaser trailer announcement and the actual delivery of the game. I’m tried of getting excited about a game that looks awesome but which turns out to be a mindless button masher with terrible graphics or something that’s been rushed through to retail that has terrible development bugs.

For example, let’s look at Dead Island, which was developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver. It’s not to say it wasn’t a good game, but it retains little of what’s depicted in the teaser video short beyond the fact that there is an island and the people on it happen to be dead — and zombies. What Techland created was a great game open-world, action-rpg that answered gamers’ first-person prayers when Dead Rising couldn’t. But, Deep Silver’s Dead Island announcement trailer was moving, gritty, and harrowing; a vignette into the human drama of a no-win situation.

And, while Deep Silver said the trailer was supposed to capture the game’s “solemn tone and setting,” I definitely didn’t get any sense of the gravity of the situation that was evident in the trailer while playing the game. But, I’m sure everyone was feeling that deep solemnity when they found porno-zombie Nenja Samejon.

With Dead Island I basically got excited over a game that doesn’t exist. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the game they made, but I’m still waiting for a game I’ll never get.

While the Deep Silver trailer was a major marketing success – inspiring people to deconstruct, reconstruct, post and repost it, resulting in a large amount of media buzz –– it ultimately did just as much to alienate a core base of gamers like me who felt cheated. Some even went so far as to call it “false advertising.” And, at this point, I’m not inclined to disagree.

So, when I see an announcement like Beyond: Two Souls, I’m tentatively excited. I loved Quantic Dream’s earlier Heavy Rain. It was a wonderful new and innovative gaming experience. I yelled and raged for a sequel until my voice was hoarse. And, from the looks of the trailer, Beyond: Two Souls appears to be the kind of quality gaming experience that I’ve come to know, obsess about, and expect from the Parisian developers.

But, rather disappointingly, the announcement trailer didn’t show any real action on the part of the main character. It didn’t show any emotionally moving moments that were so important in Heavy Rain and in Deep Silver’s Dead Island trailer, and it didn’t show any important dialogue to properly showcase the actor’s abilities (unless you count the eff word).

Does this mean the more emotionally-charged aspects of the game are not worth displaying because they’re not on-par? ‘Cause it’s evident from the Deep Silver trailer that emotionally agonizing is marketing gold. Why wouldn’t Quantic Dream founder and Beyond: Two Souls creator David Cage use any of that in the E3 preview? He said the game was “about death…separation…[and] mourning.” Set it to melancholy music and you’ve got the Dead Island announcement trailer –– but with the gamplay to back it up!

So, is this another bait-and-switch? I don’t want to get my hopes up – I’ve been burned before.

[..]