'What a blast this'll be! Ringo Starr is one of the most colorful, creative guys I know. Between the two of us, we've cooked up enough wild ideas for music, humor, action and superhero surprises in our new animated project, featuring the rollicking, ringed and bearded Ringo, to keep the fans happy and excited for years to come,'

I know it's considered fashionable to bash Stan (and yes, I too wish he'd more publicly give the artists co-creator status when he speaks in public), but gosh, read that above and you gotta love the guy. He still sounds just like he did in the Stan's Soapbox features of the 1970s. Just like then, a lot of his projects never get off the ground ('member when he kept talking about a Silver Surfer movie in the 70s and a Captain American Broadway show in the 80s?) but if there was more cheery optimism and self-effacing humor in the comics fields today we'd be all having a lot more fun with the hobby. All today's comics CEOs seem to have captured is the self-promotion, and without the other Stannish elements it just feels like any other business.
Bully | Email | Homepage | 12.28.06 - 1:18 am | #

That little stuffed bull is right! Stan always looks like he's having fun, and that's infectious. And I imagine he could just be in comfortable retirement right now, but he's still at it trying new things. No, they're not all as good or as fresh as they were in 1963, but they're often a lot of fun.
David C | Email | 12.28.06 - 5:45 am | #

And for some reason, the fact that the movie's title is the word "Dragon" with an "E" instead of a "D" really irritates me, but that may just be free-floating hostility toward this film.

I pretty much have this same reaction. Even if I thought the movie was going to be good, the sheer creative laziness of 'Eragon' might be enough to keep me away from this flick.
Jeff Rients | Email | Homepage | 12.28.06 - 6:17 am | #

Eh - the author of the book was 15 years old when he wrote it - creative laziness isn't a surprise. And despite that, I'll bet that the book is better than the movie, just given the glimpses of the movie that I've seen floating around. (Poor Jeremy Irons - what happened to him? Did the Dungeons and Dragons movie destroy his soul, or did something happen before that?)

And the thought of a giant Stan Lee in a Galactus helmet and a leisure suit stomping through Manhattan almost made me snort coffee onto my monitor this morning - so that's alot Mike.
Jer | Email | 12.28.06 - 6:39 am | #

I watched Eragon with my wife & in-laws over the holidays, and yeah, adjectives like predictable, by-the-book are definitely accurate.

However, I (and I supsect most people reading this blog) am not the target audience of this film. This thing is clearly going for the pre-teen market...

It's not a great excuse for sucking, I know, but, hey, the 12-year-old kid in me thought the "boss" villain's giant bat creature was wicked awesome.
g23 | Homepage | 12.28.06 - 8:01 am | #

"Heeeey there, True Believers. Now, ah, don't ya go minding me, I'm just hea to eat yer planet, awright?"

Fantastic.
RedLetterDay | 12.28.06 - 9:43 am | #

If the big G is CGI, it'd be cool if he bore a resemblance to Jack Kirby.
Jon H | Email | 12.28.06 - 10:08 am | #

...the movie's title is the word "Dragon" with an "E" instead of a "D"

And sounds a bit like "Aragorn," from Lord of the Rings.

//Oo/\
Matthew Craig | Email | Homepage | 12.28.06 - 3:47 pm | #

What's the reasoning behind the "Who Wants to be Superhero?" coming out so many months after the show came and went? It seems like it'd have been fairly easy to have the comic in the can and ready to be released just after the show's finale. I enjoyed the show and would have been happy to spend a couple of bucks just to how it turned out, but now it's just gonna blend in with all the other dozens of lousy comics I ignore.
Eric L | 12.28.06 - 4:00 pm | #

Hey, did you see this week's JLA #5? Check out page 3 panel 5. I think you'll be a Brad Meltzer fan.
Michael Grabois | Email | Homepage | 12.28.06 - 9:15 pm | #

g23 - That's my feeling on it as well...someone young, who hasn't already seen every beat of the story done better elsewhere, will probably get more out of it.

Eric L. - The delay is probably due to the lead time required to actually write and draw the comic, once the winner of the show was determined...even so, it seemed to take much longer than it really should have.

Michael - Alas, JLA was one of the MIA titles for us this week. I'll look forward to it next week!
Mikester | Homepage | 12.29.06 - 12:56 am | #

It doesn't help that the font used on the Eragon film posters over here makes it read as if it is actually Dragon rather than Eragon.
Martin Wisse | Email | Homepage | 12.29.06 - 4:58 am | #

P.S. you really, really should close the italics tag on your first quote as it makes the rest of the site italic now in IE.
Martin Wisse | Email | Homepage | 12.29.06 - 5:00 am | #

Martin - Thanks...I never open up IE, so I don't see these errors (Firefox seems to autocorrect them, somehow). Though the italics seemed to stop with just that one post, on my computer.
Mikester | Homepage | 12.29.06 - 9:01 am | #

Eric L. - The delay is probably due to the lead time required to actually write and draw the comic, once the winner of the show was determined...even so, it seemed to take much longer than it really should have.

Yeah, but I would think they could start work on it before the finale actually aired. Have the artist and writer sign a confidentiality clause or something. Seems like it'd be worth the trouble to have it come out before people have forgotten all about the show.
Eric L | 12.29.06 - 9:27 am | #

Are we really operating under the impression that the winner of Who Wants to Be a Superhero? wasn't determined long before the first episode ever aired (or was even filmed)? I sort of liked the episodes I watched -- Lee's enthusiasm is infectious -- but the show was very obviously fake and staged. (All but a few of the "contestants" were professional actors.) I don't think the show was scripted, per se, but I do think they knew exactly who was going to "win" from the start.

The comic's not coming out until now may have been an attempt at hiding that fact.

Wasn't the winner also supposed to get a made-for-TV Sci-Fi Channel movie about their character? And is there really going to be another season?
Fred | Email | Homepage | 12.29.06 - 9:28 pm | #