Browsed by
Category: Comics

Check Out the Teaser Trailer for Marvel’s Doctor Strange

Check Out the Teaser Trailer for Marvel’s Doctor Strange

Comments 13 comments

I’m very excited by Marvel’s upcoming Doctor Strange movie, even more than I usually am by big-budget comic adaptations. And the brand new teaser trailer — featuring our first look at Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the sinister Baron Mordo — isn’t helping me stay calm at all.

I view Doctor Strange at the last major untapped Marvel property. The 1960s comic, by Stan Lee and the brilliant Steve Ditko, the team that created Spider-Man, created in Doctor Strange a truly unique comic character, a sorcerer-hero who learned to navigate the strange paths between our reality and the next, and in the process discovered an endless chain of bizarrely-connected — and frequently very dangerous — parallel dimensions. I had real fears the movie would gloss over that aspect of his origin story, or ignore it entirely, but this trailer has put those to rest. It’s going to be epic.

Doctor Strange is scheduled for release November 4. It also stars Rachel McAdams and Mads Mikkelsen, and is directed by Scott Derrickson (The Messengers, Sinister). See our previous coverage here and here. Derek Kunsken took a detailed look at Lee and Ditko’s original comic here and here.

Screw ISIS! Here Are Five Great Reasons to Visit Brussels

Screw ISIS! Here Are Five Great Reasons to Visit Brussels

Comments 0 Comment

Belgian_Flag_(5089051595)

These colors don’t run! Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Well, the pseudo-Muslims are at it again, killing innocent people and trying to turn one of the world’s great faiths into a whacked-out death cult. It’s been 24 hours since the Brussels attacks and now people are mourning, the politicians are posturing, and the police are hunting down suspects. A few extra bombing runs against Islamic State are probably being planned too.

It is, sadly, all too predictable. We’ve seen this before and we will see it again. So I’d like to buck the vibe and take a look at what Brussels has to offer visitors. It’s a beautiful European capital that’s all too often overlooked by people headed to more popular destinations such as London and Paris. That’s a shame, because I’ve visited Belgium several times and have always enjoyed my visits to the city. It’s a fun place with great food, awesome beer, and plenty to see. The fundamentalists haven’t changed that and never will. Here are five things you won’t want to miss.

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks

Future Treasures: The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks

Comments 1 comment
The Nameless City-small The Nameless City-back--small

Faith Erin Hicks has had a pretty enviable career in comics, as a writer for Lumberjanes, Buffy: The High School Years and The Last of Us: American Dreams, and as an artist for Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, and Brain Camp. On her own she’s created Friends with Boys, Zombies Calling!, and the Eisner-Award winning The Adventures of Superhero Girl.

Her latest, The Nameless City, has the look and feel of epic fantasy. Built on an ancient mountain pass, cut through sheer rock by some long-lost technology, the Nameless City has been conquered so many times that its long-suffering inhabitants — a melting pot of an unknown number of previous civilizations — can’t even agree on what to call it. Thirteen year-old Kaidu, the privileged son of a tribal leader, comes to the city to meet his father, a general with the ruling Dao army, for the first time. General Andren is a kind man, but too busy to spend more than a few minutes a day with a son he’s never known.

Disappointed and lonely, Kaidu sneaks out of the protective enclave of the Palace each day to wander the city. There he meets Rat, a starving street urchin who steals his most precious possession: the ancient knife his father gave to him when they first met. Lost and humiliated, Kaidu chases Rat through the streets and across the rooftops of the city until he tackles Rat, retrieving his precious knife.

…

Read More Read More

Superhero TV: Arrow

Superhero TV: Arrow

Comments 3 comments
ga0
The Arrow. I’ve been told by the ladies that he is easy on the eyes.

Over the last several weeks, a Canadian cadre of Black Gate‘s bloggers have formed an Alpha Flight of super-bloggers to right the wrongs of the world, especially where such wrongs take the form of you not knowing about every superhero TV show we can talk about.

This is going to be my last post in this huge comic event, and to cap off my contribution, I wanted to dig into the CW’s Arrow which has been running since 2012 and is into its fourth season. It has the same producers as The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (also running on CW) and CBS’ Supergirl, and they occupy the same universe (multiverse in the case of Supergirl).

Green Arrow is not a new DC property, dating back to 1941. Green Arrow was a Robin Hood-themed character cast in the same mold as Batman, so much so that he also started as a millionaire, had a kid sidekick, and an Arrow Car and an Arrow-Plane.

In fact, there wasn’t much to separate him from Batman for much of his early years, which begs the question of, if you’re looking for Batman, why not just buy a Batman comic?

…

Read More Read More

Knights of the Dinner Table 227 Now on Sale

Knights of the Dinner Table 227 Now on Sale

Comments 2 comments

Knights of the Dinner Table 227-smallKnights of the Dinner Table follows the misadventures of a group of misfit gamers from Muncie, Indiana. It is written and drawn by my friend Jolly R. Blackburn, with editorial assistance by his talented wife Barbara. Black Gate readers may remember the KoDT spin-off The Java Joint, which appeared in the back of every issue of BG (and was eventually collected in a single volume in 2012).

KoDT started off in the back of the gaming magazine Shadis, and in short order it became one of the most popular comics in the industry, appearing as a regular feature in Dragon, Kevin Siembieda’s Rifter magazine, and other places. Since 1996 it has appeared as a standalone magazine; it has been published by Kenzer & Company since the fourth issue.

KoDT magazine is published monthly. The core of the publication is the comic strip, but the issues are huge — 64 pages — and rounded out with news, reviews, features, and a variety of entertaining gaming columns. It is, hands down, the best way to stay informed on the adventure gaming hobby each month.

The cover of KoDT 227 is a special treat for old-school video game players. Here’s Jolly:

We’re very excited about this month’s cover — not only is it a parody of the classic 80’s arcade game, Q*bert but it was drawn by Jeff Lee — one of the original co-designers of the game and the man who did the original Q*bert game graphics

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

…

Read More Read More

Superhero TV, Part V: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

Superhero TV, Part V: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

Comments 2 comments

dc legendsheaderIn the finest tradition of superhero cross-overs, Black Gate is doing a blog cross-over (collect them all, including the foil cover variants!). In Part I, I talked about Supergirl.

In Part II, Marie Bilodeau waxed eloquent about The Flash. Our cross-over continued with Part III by John O’Neill talking about Gotham, which led to an exciting cliffhanger in Part IV when Violette Malan covered Agent Carter and then made a daring escape by flying off to Spain!

Some of these blog posts are sure to become collector’s items, so check them out now!

Welcome to Part V of this Black Gate blog cross-over, where I take a weird look at DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.  I say weird because I have two strong feelings about this show, and I’ll use those feelings to structure this post.

The first feeling is, I wouldn’t watch this show on my own. The second feeling is that my 11-year old son and I never miss an episode.

…

Read More Read More

SF Signal on the Top 15 Science Fiction Comics of 2015

SF Signal on the Top 15 Science Fiction Comics of 2015

Comments 4 comments

Copperhead Volume One-smallI don’t have as much time to keep up as I like, but even I noticed at 2015 was a great year for science fiction and fantasy comics. Titles like Saga, Monstress, Bitch Planet, Gotham by Midnight, ODY-C, Rat Queens, Pretty Deadly, Rumble, COWL, and many others did not escape my notice.

The editors of SF Signal have also been paying attention, and last week they produced a handy list of the Top 15 Science Fiction Comics of 2015. Frankly, it’s a dynamite list, and there’s something on it for everyone. If you’re curious about all the recent excited talk about comics, this is the place to start. Here’s #6 on the list, Image Comics’ Copperhead, by Jay Faerber and Scott Godlewski.

I’ll admit right up front, that as a long time Firefly fan boy, I have a strong bias in favor of space westerns, but I feel more than justified in including Copperhead in the top half of this list. Even Saga writer Brian K. Vaughan dubbed the comic the best debut of the year.

Copperhead is a fascinating series that blend the best conventions of Westerns and sci-fi without kitsch and without imitating its other successes of the genre. It’s hard to imagine a setup riper for sci-fi flavored action sequences, but where Faerber really shines is in his character development. Unlike Firefly, which follows outlaws, Copperhead focuses on breathing new life into the “arrival of a new Sheriff in town” trope with a protagonist who also happens to be a single mom. She’s a fierce female lead of the kind all too rare in comics with a big heart and an over-protective streak where her son in concerned. Rarely have I seen a science fiction title lavish such care on character development. Each and every one of Faerber’s character, no matter how small, feels fully fleshed out. Finally, let me add that there are “alien hillbillies.”

Read the complete article here.

Superhero TV: That’s Agent Carter To You

Superhero TV: That’s Agent Carter To You

Comments 8 comments

Carter 1I don’t know how I forgot “superhero” when I wrote about characters and their jobs a couple of weeks ago, but I was powerfully reminded of my lapse – and inspired – by two excellent posts from my friends and fellow BG bloggers, Derek Kunsken (Supergirl) and Marie Bilodeau (The Flash). Today I’d like to put in a word for the Marvel TV universe, where there’s at least one heroine that’s neither an alien, nor a human with superpowers: Peggy Carter of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR) is 100% human.

A number of factors make this show stand out for me. For one, the creators have managed to pull off a series that is a little bit prequel, a tad bit sequel, as well as a sort of spinoff, that doesn’t rely on deep knowledge of either Captain Americ or Agents of Shield – or anything else in the Marvel universe for that matter. Plus, it avoids the drawback of most prequels: you know who isn’t going to die.

…

Read More Read More

Superhero TV: Exploring the Dark Mysteries of Gotham

Superhero TV: Exploring the Dark Mysteries of Gotham

Comments 4 comments

Gotham TV show-small

We seem to be in a new Golden Age of superhero television. It’s been so long that I can’t even remember the last one…. the early 80s, maybe, when Bill Bixby and William Katt (as The Incredible Hulk and The Greatest American Hero, respectively) dominated airwaves? Could be, but record-keeping was scattered in that long-ago time, and no one alive today remembers that far back.

But there’s ample evidence we’re in a new Golden Age. It’s a pretty simple yardstick, really. If you can count the number of really great superhero TV shows on more than two fingers, it’s probably a Golden Age (again, no one is exactly certain, because we’re not sure it’s ever happened before). These days, it’s hard to shake a stick at all the big-budget, highly acclaimed superhero drama on the small screen. There’s the brilliant Daredevil and Jessica Jones, both on Netflix, which have elevated adult action shows to high art. There’s Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow and Joss Whedon’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which started slow but became must-watch-television by the second season.

Derek Kunsken and Marie Bilodeau kicked off Black Gate‘s survey of our favorite Superhero TV shows last week; Derek opened with a look at ABC’s Supergirl, and Marie followed with The CW’s The Flash. But for my money, the most successful superhero TV show on the airwaves at the moment doesn’t even have any superheroes in it: Fox’s marvelous exploration of the greatest city in comics, Gotham.

…

Read More Read More

Superhero TV: Remembering Fun

Superhero TV: Remembering Fun

Comments 3 comments

oie_19161911CmqN6r4gThis series on superheroes was started by Derek Künsken when he chatted Supergirl! Check it out!

There are times in each of our lives when we don’t feel like embracing that darkness on TV. When we’re tired of murder and drama and stoic heroes with perfect cleft chins (scratch that last one, actually. I couldn’t get tired of that).

Sometimes, life is dark enough (loss of loved one, running out of ice cream, losing a toe, etc.) that we want to just watch something fun. We want to watch stories that both fulfill the need for heroic action while letting us have some bloody fun. We want to escape in our TV sets. (Not à la Poltergeist, mind you.)

I love heroes. I’ve loved them since I was a non-speaking English kid and thought He-Man and She-Ra were married (theirs would have been very sturdy children). I also have a soft spot for superheroes. I’ve binge watched way too many superhero episodes on Netflix so far.

My latest binge was The Flash. I hadn’t checked out The Flash yet because of Arrow. If there was to be one more flashback scene and stern, misunderstood look, I thought I’d rip my right ear off and toss it at Stephen Amell’s screen projected hotness.

…

Read More Read More