The walking dead

Just in today at ImpAwards: the first official posters for the Peter Jackson/ Steven Spielberg production of The Adventures of Tintin: The secret of the Unicorn. Its their first in a series of digitally animated Tintin movies, beginning with Hergés eleventh comic book, Le Secret de la Licorne (which in my opinion is the strongest story), originally published from June 1, 1942 to June 14, 1943 in the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.


The script for the movie is actually based on three Tintin comics: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and its sequel Red Rackhams Treasure (see above). British scribe Anthony Horowitz has confirmed hell be drafting a script for the sequel, based on Prisoners of the sun, Hergé s 14th comic book.

The movie is slated for a December 23th release in the USA, so just in time to snuggle up with some corn at your local cinema during the Christmas holidays. The European release is set to take place in October / November, so much earlier! Tintin is played by Jamie Bell, known from Jacksons previous movie King Kong (2005). Cast to play Captain Haddock is Andy Serkis, also known from Jacksons previous movies. He played Gollum in the three Lord of the Rings movies.
Daniel Craig plays Red Rackham, the pirate that battles sir Francis Haddock, Captain Haddocks ancestor. Shooting happened in 32 days, in January - March 2009, with six weeks additional motion capturing in July. The rest of the time Jackson used to create all the digital animations with his company Weta Digital.

Zac Bertschy and Justin Sevakis of the ANNCast crew (Animation News Network) just uploaded their latest podcast interviewing Adam Sheehan and Lance Heiskell, marketing manager and Director of Corporate Strategy at FUNimation, one of the biggest importers of Anime in the US.

In the hour and half long interview, Adam and Lance talk about Toei Animations bestselling Dragon Ball Z, the long wait for the second season of Tensai Okamuras Darker than Black and the the much anticipated HD releases of Hellsing Ultimate and Ryutaro Nakamuras newly restored Serial Experiments Lain. If you want to know everything FUNimation is up to and stay on track with their plans for the new year, make sure to check that stuff out.
Funimation Entertainment was founded in 1994 by Gen Fukunaga whos uncle, being one of the producers of Dragon Ball, was looking for a way to distribute the anime series in the US.

While the official release date for the upcoming volume in the popular Belgium comic series ‘Suske & Wiske’ (called ‘De Kwakende Queen’, no. 313) has been set for June 22 by publisher Standaard, the authors, Studio Vandersteen,  have already leaked some of the artwork for their next album, ‘Het Lijdende Leiden’ (314), which is currently published in Belgium newspaper ‘De Standaard’ (starting May 13).


‘Het Lijdende Leiden’ has the main characters transported through time to the city of Leiden in 1574. While they’ve lost all recollection of who they are, they assume new identities and get caught in a war between the Spanish conquistadors and the Dutch resistance, torn between aiding the city’s defends and supporting the attacking Spanish legion, just like it happened back then for real. The story concentrates on the history of Magdalena Moons (1541-1613), daughter of prominent figure judge Pieter Moons, who was part of the Dutch resistance, and commander of the Spanish army Francisco Valdez. While the town was starving and Valdez attacked the city, Moons offered to marry Valdez if he would stop, buying time for reinforcements to arrive and break the siege. Left below: Magdalena and Alvarez as depicted by Dutch painter Simon Opzoomer (1819-1878), National Museum Amsterdam (click to enlarge).

It’s amazing to see that after hundreds of great stories, the creative team at Studio Vandersteen still seems to find inspiration for new adventure, finding inspiration in local history only makes for a more interesting read, and promises some nice jokes (and they deserve it! The Spanish not only invaded our country back then, they also stole the World Championship football last year right from under our feet in the final match, Grr!)

Willy Vandersteen (photo below), creator of the popular Belgian comic, created his first Suske & Wiske comic in 1945.It is published in the US as Willy and Wanda and was known in England as Bob and Bobette, (same as in France). Today, its no known in the UK as Spike and Suzy. Paul Geerts joined the studio in 1968 and continued his work under his supervision.

When Vandersteen passed away in 1990, he left the comic to his employees. After Geerts, his assistant Marc Verhaegen continued the work in april 2002. He had worked with the studio since 1988 and created 32 comic books until February 2005, when the studio thought his stories became too dark (Verhaegen had written a story about Auschwitz) and he was let go immediately. Today, the main artwork is created by Luc Morjeau with scripts by Peter van Gucht and help from other talented artists like Dirk Stallaert (also artwork), Isabelle van Laerhoven and Sabine de Meyer (coloring), Peter Quirijnen (backgrounds) and Eric de Rop (inks).

Het Lijdende Leiden will be for sale in September this year, a special collectors edition will be available in cooperation with the October 3rd organization, a special organization founded in 1886 celebrating the end of the Siege of Leiden which happened on October 3, 1574. (during the Eighty Years War 1568-1648). The organization currently has 14.000 members and celebrates its 125th anniversary this year.

Several gags by Paul Murry, who worked as an inbetweener and animator for Disney on Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo. While at Disney, he also created newspaper comic strips featuring Mickey Mouse and characters from Saludos Amigos (Joe Carioca and Panchito) and did strips for Uncle Remus featuring Brer Rabbit. From 1946 to 1984 he worked for Western Publishing, creating hundreds of comics, mainly Mickey Mouse stories.

But Murry also created gags for several other magazines, among them he worked for Humorama, a division of Martin Goodmans publishing firm (Goodman founded Timely Comics, which turned into Marvel Comics in 1961). Humoramas magazines published pin up cartoons and a whole lot of naughty photos of Betty Page and many other strippers/actresses in the 1950s and 1960s!

Okay, so you walk into a book store, and you get all these comics for free... who wouldnt want that? Organised since August 2001, the Comic book industry in the US have held this one day each year, where kids (and fans) can go crazy and get selected titles from all the mayor publishers for free at their favorite local comic book store. Its an amazing feat and theyre celebrating their tenth anniversary this year on may 7th, as Free Comic Book Day is being held every first saturday of May.


Comic book Day 2011 has ten gold Titles and 27 Silver titles in store for free, its great collection for everybody and has some very interesting content for everybody. Some publishers use their Free Comic Book Day title to introduce new series and/or characters.

DC Comics title was still very hush-hush until recently, naming it their Top Secret Project, but the secrets out now, their Free title is a Green Lantern /Flashpoint Special Edition, to get you ready for Warners upcoming movie starring Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, directed by Martin Cambell (US Release date: June 17). DCs FCBK title reprints Green Lantern # 30 and features an exclusive preview of Flashpoint, the DC Blockbuster event of this year by Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert !




Marvel Comics gives away a single issue of their succesfull Amazing Spider-man series with art by Humberto Ramos, while Image publishes Robert Kirkmans Super Dinosaur Origin Special, with art by Jason Howard.

Darkhorse has two titles in a flipbook, one being Star Wars: The Clone Wars, featuring Savage Opress in Breakout Squad by Grosset & Dunlap and Avatar: The Last Air bender, which will have its own spin-off TV mini series later this year on Nickelodeon (Avatar: Legend of Korra).

Boom! Studios has an issue featuring reprints of the first stories of their ongoing series Darkwing Duck and Chipn Dale: Rescue Rangers

In the Silver comics line up, Marvel has another title, Captain America & Thor by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee, while DC has a Super sampler featuring two new stories from their DC Kids line, Young Justice and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, also known from the popular animated series on Cartoon Network.

From publisher Drawn & Quarterly comes a nice collection of John Stanleys stories from the John Stanley Library: Melvin the Monster, Nancy, Dunc and Loo and The Little King.
The Silver line up also holds a great issue of Fantagraphicss classic Mickey Mouse stories by Floyd Gottfredson, so dont miss out on those perfect classics!


Aspen Comics  has a great issue with some previews from their new Soulfire and Fathom storylines while showing us a little glimpse of their new titles Charismagicand Lady Mechanika. Bongo Comics has a crazy collection of Futurama and The Simpsons in an epic issue showing a cool variant on the old Scrooge jokes by the great Carl Barks!


For more information on all titles, head over to the Free Comic Book day website and check for their latest updates! Check your calendar kids, May 7th is Free Comic Book Day !