DC Comics 75th Anniversary Poster Book

As you know, we at GeekTown are huge comic book fans, so when DC’s publicity people offered to send me an early release of their DC Comics 75th Anniversary Poster Book for review I jumped at it!

The book is around A3 in size, and contains 100 ‘ready to frame’ posters of DC Comic covers throughout the years – From the front cover of ‘New Fun’ in 1935, through to one Alex Ross’s stunning cover’s for 2008′s ‘Batman R.I.P.’ run.

Each cover comes with a commentary on the artwork by Robert Schnakenberg , explaining the background of how it came about, and why it’s included in the book as an important DC issue. Every page edge is perforated, so (if your so inclined) you can easily remove the pages and hang them on your wall. Personally, i rather like them in book form though.

If your a fan of DC Comics, the DC Comics 75th Anniversary Poster Book really is a ‘must have’ addition to your collection.

DC Comics 75th Anniversary Poster Book is due on sale in the UK in October 2010, for £24.99 RRP.

Gallery of artwork samples from the DC Comics 75th Anniversary Poster Book

I like it when people advertising a game go that extra step in their promo material, and the powerful short documentary “How far would you go?” is an interesting way Quantic Dream have come up with to help launch their new PlayStation 3 title Heavy Rain.

Directed by the acclaimed filmmaker Neil LaBute, the seven minute short was filmed in London, LA & Paris and asks leading luminaries, ‘How far would you go to save someone you love?’. Examining the role of emotional decision-making in storytelling, the documentary explores the central theme of Heavy Rain, giving the documentary its title. Respondents to the question include: Nic Roeg, Hanif Kureishi, Nicholas Hoult, Samuel L Jackson, Stephen Frears, Peter Bogdanovich, Jean Marc Barr, Chris Weitz & Ben Chaplin.

I was a massive fan of Quantic Dream’s previous game, Fahrenheit (also known as Indigo Prophecy), as it’s one of the first games to really live up to the fabled ‘interactive film’ moniker. Like Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain takes many of its cues from film-noir thrillers, and decisions taken within the title are emotionally charged with added importance. The smallest of actions can have drastic and unforeseen consequences. The gameplay focuses on story, emotional involvement, and the player’s decisions and interactions, rather than high-scores, combat and competition.

Heavy Rain‘s writer & director David Cage states ‘In Heavy Rain you don’t watch the story, you play it with unprecedented responsibility over the fate of the game’s characters the whole DNA of the game has been created to provide an emotional experience unlike any other. It dares you to tackle subject matter and themes rarely touched upon in video games’.

Neil LaBute commented on the experience of creating the documentary, “It was fascinating to sit and listen to the intimate thoughts of so many people that I’ve admired-both professionally and personally-for years. Constantly surprising, each of ‘the witnesses’ were refreshingly candid as they discussed creative elements from their work and how deep the emotion of love runs through their own lives. I thought a simple approach– shot in a stark ‘interrogation’ style–would mimic both the style of the game Heavy Rain and would also be a very successful way of capturing a series of snapshots from the lives of these fascinating working artists from around the world.”

You can find more on Heavy Rain and “How far would you go?” at www.heavyrain.com.

Apologies for the lack of postage over the last few days. Blog issues + mountains of work + man flu = not much posting! However, I have been sent this nice little time-lapse video of world famous street painter Edgar Muller achieving a new Guinness World Record, by creating the world’s biggest 3D pavement art outside Westfield London yesterday. He beat his own world record by covering an area of 330 square metres with a jaw-dropping wintry scene inspired by the family film Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, celebrating its launch on Blu-ray and DVD today.

The pavement art took six days to create and included the beloved Ice Age 3 characters Manny, Buck, Sid, Diego, Scrat and Scratte positioned over an icy crevasse. If you want to catch a look at the artwork it’ll remain at Westfield London for a further week.

Craig Glenday, Editor in Chief of Guinness World Records was on hand to verify the new world record, and commented: “Guinness World Records has been monitoring the fantastic work of Edgar Mueller for some time now, and we’re thrilled to be so closely involved with his latest record-breaking creation. Children – and adults – around the world are blown away by Edgar’s eye-popping landscapes, and he truly deserves a place in the record books taking the art of pavement of drawing to stratospheric new levels.”

Star Wars: A New Hope is getting a remake! And before you all let out a Darth Vadian ‘NooOOOooooo!’, it’s not another ploy by Mr. Lucas to get us to buy the original trilogy again (…and again). He’s saving that for the 3D versions.

This is a remake by fans, who are basically sweding the whole of A New Hope. What’s interesting is how they’re doing it. Rather than just a couple of guys in stormtrooper masks, the coordinators of the Star Wars Uncut project have split the movie into 15 second chunks, and are allocating them to fans and aspiring film makers via their website. They are then taking all the 15 second chunks, and stitching them together into the final movie.

I really love this idea. It’s wonderfully geeky, creative, and involves Star Wars, what’s not to like! I’m just hoping they don’t attract the wrath of the LucasArts legal dept. If your interested in being a part of it, head over to starwarsuncut.com and claim a section for yourself! Trailer below.

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

Sharpwire's 'Johnnys Midnight Goggles'

Here in the ‘Stafford shires’, the city of Lichfield is currently in the middle of it’s annual celebration of music, dance, drama and comedy, the Lichfield Festival. This year, a show called  ‘Johnny’s Midnight Goggles‘ caught my eye, performed by a talented singer/actor/cellist Matthew Sharp and written by Peter M Wyer (SharpWire).

The programme described it as ‘Tim Burton meets John Adams, Arnold Schwarzenegger meets Edith Piaf, Philip Pullman meets Paganini. Witty, nail-biting and entrancing music theatre with goggles on!’ Well that’s gotta be worth a look!

I think due to the fact the show was on a Friday night at 9.45pm – not exactly the friendliest time to put on a show (the fault of the Lichfield Festival committee not the performer) – there was only a small audience of people in the Lichfield Garrick studio. However, it did make for a nice intimate atmosphere, and Matthew Sharp even came out and played some Bach on the cello while we were wait for people to arrive, telling us to ‘just relax and keep chatting – think of me as background music at a wedding’. Even though it was meant as a piece of light background music, it was difficult not to be impressed at his superb musicianship.

Matthew Sharp

Once the show proper started, Sharp starts to tell the wonderfully surreal story of his friend Johnny, a black camel, some magical goggles, and alternate universes. All done with aid of his booming bass-baritone voice, amazing cellist skill, a few lighting effects, and a nice lady with a Macbook Pro. I’ve been trying to think of a way explain the performance anymore than that… A one man opera with surrealism, comedy, and cello? A crazy adventure told through song & strings, and superb storytelling? Both statements are true, but really ‘Johnny’s Midnight Goggles‘ is something you need to experience for yourself to fully appreciate it’s genius and quality.

I enjoyed ‘Johnny’s Midnight Goggles‘ so much that last night i went to see ‘Finkelstein’s Castle’ a sequel of sorts, also performed Matthew Sharp and written by Peter M Wyer which was equally brilliant. If either show comes near to your town, they’re well worth going to see for an evening of wonderfully surreal adventure.

I very rarely pimp other bits of our own site, but few new tshirts in for the run up to Christmas at the GeekTown Shop so i thought i’d highlight them.

To celebrate the launch of Wraith of the Lich King, we’ve added a few “My guild went to Northrend and all i got was this lousy tshirt‘ tshirt.

And there’s also a new typeface variant of the ever popular “I’m What Willis Was Talkin’ ‘Bout” tshirt.

If there’s any other geek related tees you’d like to see in the shop, leave a comment below, or drop us an email, and we’ll see what we can do!

There’s a whole bunch of other WoW and geek related tee’s so why not pop in and have a look at the GeekTown Shop.