Movies - Superman 2 needs new writers, and it's not Mark Millar.

So earlier this week it was announced by Warner Bros. that the writers of "Superman Returns" would not be back for the sequel. As you can image fandom as a whole was pretty broken up about it. Oh wait...I'm lying, I think the general consensus is that these 2 douches could go pound on each other and noone would by tickets. I mean really did anyone like "Superman Returns"?

Needless to say, WB is looking for a new writer. Enter comics writer Mark Millar. Mark is one of the better comic book writers to emerge over the last few years. With the exception of Civil War, most of the stuff is great, His titles include, The Authority, The Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men, Wanted, etc... Well on Tuesday, he wrote on his blog that he'd try to throw his hat in the ring to write the Superman sequel... for free. Then a mere 24 hrs later WB put the kibosh on the whole deal. On Wednesday Millar announced that he'll not be writing the next movie. You can read his account HERE.

The reason that WB won't even consider him is that, he's currently an exclusive writer for Marvel, and as WB owns DC, he basically writes for their direct competition. Although Millar was very nice about it on his blog, you can tell this is a big load of BS. First of all the studios hire all sorts of writers, who have written films for other studios, who are also their "competition". Secondly Millar's Marvel contract runs out in 1 year, so by the time this movie would have been released (at least 2 years from now) DC could snag him up and he could be writing books for them.

This is just a spin on WB's part cause I'm sure they have other folks lined up and they want to make a big PR deal out of it. Which is too bad cause I'm sure Millar would have hit one out of the park. Now if WB could just get rid of Byran Singer and re-launch the franchisee everyone would be happy.

Comics - Online comics..to download or not?

As many of you know I download my comic books. If I read the book and like It, I pick up the trade. This way my money supports worth-while material. Most of my friends are on the fence about downloads, as it's waaay illegal. My feeling is why should I pay for something if it's gonna suck. Especially if someone else like advertisers are paying for it already. It's not like comics don't have ads, they do. And not just for other comics, that I would be okay with, but you have to dig though ad-upon-ad for movies, games and deodorant. At least with other things I do pay for blindly, like movies, I only have to sit though a few trailers, of other movies, before I can see if I've wasted my money. Also with movies I get a "trailer" to see if I'm gonna like the movie. Not that a good trailer means a good movie, but do you get that with comics? No, you do not. All you know is if the cover looks good and who's writing and drawing the book. Plus 60% of the time the cover artist is not the artist of the book itself....anyway I could go on and on, but I digress.

The point of all this is that I come across a website today that you can download comics (among other print material, like books) legally. This site is called Wowio.com. CBR did a review of it in their Pipeline column called "MORE COMICS ON-LINE". Basically you sign up, which it kind of a pain cause they ask you a bunch of questions, but after that you're on your way. They don't have any main-stream books as of yet, but they have lots of indies you can check out. They limit you to 3 downloads and day and each downloadable pdf is bookend with an advertisement. Not bad as you're getting it for FREE. You can also set up a que like Net-filcks, so you know what you can download everyday.

I see this as the future of comics, as my friend Chuck says, " the comic companies are going to wake up one day and their lunch is going to be gone". It's really only a matter of time.

I give this site a 3 out of 4 Ass Monkey