New Software Lets Fans Make Digital "Speed Racer" Comic Books
Speed Racer fans will be able to create their own Speed Racer comics using software bundled with PD Particles, developer Planetwide Media announced today.
Speed Racer Comic Book Creator 2 will come with officially licensed Speed Racer art, backgrounds, icons, screen shots, video clips and audio that can be dragged and dropped into personalized digital comic books. The PD Particles software also gives users the ability to create original artwork.
Mattel's Dark Knight and Speed Racer and Panda Toys!
ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! spent the day Sunday at Toy Fair '08 taking pictures of whatever movie-related toys they could find, and though they already were scheduled to stop by the Mattel showroom on Tuesday, they were able to grab some early pics of Mattel's toys relating to this summer's biggest movies.
One of the most anticipated movies of the summer is clearly Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and with the license to produce toys based on the movie, Mattel will be going whole hog with dozens of toys that start rolling out around May 1. There are maybe a dozen different variations of Batman in different outfits, including a "battle cape," "stealth wing" and "Firefly Batman" (possibly inspired by the comic book villain). Noticeably absent from the display were any figures for his new arch-nemesis the Joker, probably out of respect for the family and friends of Heath Ledger, though they did get to see a few pictures. Mattel was even more secretive and careful about having any pictures of their figure for Two-Face on display, but one was listed in the materials as part of the first wave of action figures, as well as there being a new Scarecrow figure, confirming his appearance in the sequel. Instead of any of these, they had a "Gotham City Thug," one of the Joker's clown-faced henchmen, on display. Even more interesting were some of the vehicles on display including a look at the Batcopter and the Batpod, which is the new Batcycle, and something called the "Treadator, Ultimate Pursuit ATV" (that's "all-terrain vehicle"), which we may have to wait and see if it's actually a vehicle from the movie. The new "Dark Knight" toys also include a Zipline Gun and a Disc Shooting Jet, fairly typical toys customized for the movie, but the most interesting new toy might be the "Interactive Bat" which hopefully, they'll be able to see in action on Tuesday. You can check out pictures of most of the new "Dark Knight" toys here.
Just as exciting are all the vehicles from the Wachowski Brothers' upcoming live action Speed Racer that are being reproduced by Mattel in various sizes and designs, including Hot Wheels versions of the Mach 5 and Racer X's car. They only scratched the surface with their pictures of the dozens of cars, vehicles and playsets Mattel would be producing, many of which will be available on March 23. While many of the toys are clearly for kids, it's obvious that older Speed Racer fans will geek-out to the highly-detailed "race and flip" versions of the Mach 5, Mach 6, Racer X's car and the very cool GRX driven by a new character, Jack "Cannonball" Taylor. There are also radio-controlled versions of the cars and ones that include racing sounds from the movie and an actual Speed Racer helmet, all of which you can see here. (They'll definitely have more pictures of all of these later this week!)
DreamWorks' upcoming animated comedy Kung Fu Panda was getting a huge push at this year's Toy Fair with a lot of licensed toys and games based around the characters in the movie and Mattel leading the way on all fronts. From what they've seen, it looks to continue DreamWorks' tradition of creating family-friendly animated comedies with lots of fun and lovable characters. This one's no exception with lots of talking (and fighting) animals that the kids should embrace—some of them reminiscent of classic Disney characters from movies like The Jungle Book and The Lion King, particularly the lead character Po and the bad guy Tai Lung. Of course, Mattel has a lot of plush toys of Po and other characters, but more surprisingly, were the amount of full-size weapons on display for kids to fight each other with, including the Commander Crossbow (that kid on the box is out for blood!), "Po's Power Paws," Master Monkey's staff and the very cool "Sword of Heroes," both which split into multiple weapons--I have a feeling that some dads will be getting into this action--and there's even a "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Game" featuring the film's two main characters. You can see pictures of all of these in the gallery here.
They'll be visiting Mattel's showroom on Tuesday, and they'll have more pictures then, including hopefully a few pics of the Joker and Two-Face figures.
Where Is That Clip From WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE?!
Here at aintitcool.com... but check it quick, or it'll be gone soon.
Tekkonkinkreet Wins Japan's Academy Award for Animation
Anime News Network notes that Michael Arias and Studio 4°C's Tekkonkinkreet with the Animation of the Year award in the 31st Japan Academy Prizes on Friday. The film was competing with Hideaki Anno and Khara's Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone, Keiichi Hara and Shinei Animation's Summer Days with Coo, Masayuki Kojima and Madhouse's The Piano Forest, and Taiichiro Yamamoto and Shogakukan/TMS Entertainment's Detective Conan: Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure. This is only the second year that an award in the Animation of the Year category has been presented. Mamoru Hosoda and Madhouse's The Girl Who Leapt through Time won the first award in the previous year.
Anime DVDs Down 20%
According to the ICv2 Guide #51: Anime/Manga, sales of anime DVDs in North America tumbled by more than 20% during 2007. The number of anime releases in the North American market also continued to fall, dropping another 21% after a 19% decline in 2006. ICv2 estimates the size of the North American anime market at $275-300 million (in retail dollars). The difficulty of ascertaining the scope of mass market anime sales (especially through Wal-Mart, which does not report its DVD sales) makes a precise calculation of the market size difficult.
1. Dragon Ball Z 2. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children 3. Pokemon 4. Naruto 5. Afro Samurai 6. Howl's Moving Castle 7. Bleach 8. Robotech Shadow Chronicles 9. My Neighbor Totoro 10. Karas the Revelation
ImaginAsian and Fujisankei Content Deal
ImaginAsian Entertainment, Inc. (IA) announced that it has entered into an investment and content deal with Fujisankei Communications International (FCI), a subsidiary of Japan-based Fuji Television Network, Inc.Fujisankei joining the ownership ranks of ImaginAsian Entertainment marks the second such investment from an Asian media or entertainment partner for IA. Seeking to continue the strategic expansion that was initiated with Korea’s Sidus Corp. last year, the financial and content elements resulting from this deal are expected to further enhance IA’s overall programming quality. Through this agreement, Fujisankei will be making a financial investment in IA while also providing multiple hours of programming in the form of news and entertainment content, including popular Japanese dramas and variety shows for iaTV in the US.
At the :40 second point in the U.S. version of the trailer, which was released last week, Indy (Harrison Ford) and his sidekick, played by Ray Winstone, are surrounded by uniformed men, some with guns.
Fans of director Steven Spielberg recall that he removed guns from some shots in a digitally remastered version of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial a few years back. But AICN speculates the tweaks to the U.S. Indy trailer may have come at the behest of the Motion Picture Association of America to make the trailer more suitable for families.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens May 22.
Broadcaster Ups Funding for Russian Toons
Russia's Channel One is planning to increase its investment in animation,Variety reports. The broadcaster has already backed new films from Alexander Petrov, the trade journal notes, and it aims to nurture Russia's animation industry by supporting Petrov and the makers of similar art house fare.
Battle Pope Enters Spike’s Comedy Chapel
Robert Kirkman, a popular comic book writer, has built his Battle Pope property into an animated web series. It’s actually a comic that was created by both Kirkman and Tony Moore, an artist who is known for his horror and science fiction work. Spike TV teamed up with Kirkman and Moore to produce the animated series, which can now been seen at spike.com. This Flash-animated series was produced by World Leaders Entertainment, and animated by Justin Offner, Art Siriamonthep, Yuri Fain andJoe Cappabianca. There’s a pair of “celebrity” voices on the series - Ze Frank plays Battle Pope and Christian Finnegan (VH1’s Best Week Ever) plays Jesus. Here’s an episode titled Paying Dues.
Ben studied animation under former Disney animator Milt Neil at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. He has been in the animation industry since 1984. He started doing animation for small commercials, then years later moved on to J.J. Sedelmaier Productions working on the "Cluckin' Chicken" parody for Saturday Night Live, which led to MTV, where he worked on "Beavis and Butt-Head", doing storyboard revisions, character and prop design, layout. animation on the hallucination sequence on the feature "Beavis and Butt-head Do "America" and also MTV's "The Maxx", doing character layout. As a freelancer, he's worked for various companies including Disney TV, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, HBO Family, Miramax, Warner Bros., Saatchi and Saatchi, General Mills and Comedy Central. Currently, he's still doing the freelancing thing, while developing some personal projects for pitching.
Ain't It Cool News has pointed out tweaks to the U.S. version of the teaser trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to remove guns from one scene.
No comments:
Post a Comment