Super Sad True Love Story
2010 National Book Awards nominees
The 2010 National Book Award nominees were announced today. Science Fiction author Samuel R. Delany was among the fiction judges, but no science fiction, fantasy or mystery novels were among the finalists in the Fiction category. Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker
Note: The National Book Awards website is slow/dead today. When I was finally able to get in, all the images, etc were not able to be loaded.
Great Books that never happened: Sweeney Todd
In the late 1980s, after getting burned out on mainstream comics*, Steven Bissette created his own publishing imprint called Spiderbaby Graphix. Among other projects he created a horror anthology called Taboo. Taboo featured short stories and continuing stories that were mostly horror by some of the industries top names. Alan Moore created two ongoing stories, From Hell
*Stephen Bissette has a great 12 part series on his blog that deals with this time period. It’s required reading for anyone who’s interested in that era of comics.
In the last self-published issue of Taboo, there was the start of another ongoing story. But with the change in publishers and the issues being published a lot less frequently, that story just died with no other episodes in the story. Neil Gaman and Michael Zulli had started a Sweeney Todd book. All we have left of it is the 26 pages in Taboo #7. This chapter is more of a prologue. It features Neil Gaiman driving with a friend to go to Temple Bar (a large gateway that was on Fleet Street) to get pictures for Michael Zulli to use a reference. Neil and his friend Mike find it and then stop off for food, only to find out from the waitress that they were at the wrong place. Then they go and find the real Temple Bar and Neil starts dreaming of Fleet Street and Sweeney Todd and the story ends.
It’s a wonderful tease for what looked to be a great story and one that, most likely, we’ll never see.
Alan Moore writing a movie and TV series???
According to Bleeding Cool, Alan Moore wrote a movie script for a friend (as documented in Dodgem Logic #2). When that news came out apparently a British film company, Warp Films, became interested in the project.
As soon as word got out that Moore was writing something for film, people quickly got interested. Jenkins and Moore were approached by Warp Films (producers of Shane Meadows’ This is England and Chris Morris’ Four Lions), who offered to fund a feature version of the film.
These discussions grew to accommodate the idea of spinning off a TV series from the film, in the manner of This is England ’86. Moore said that initially he’d been dubious about how the story could be extended in this way but had now figured out a longer ongoing narrative.
Laconically, he described the premise. The story concerns a Northampton writer and occultist who is trying to take over the dreamtime of everyone in the Boroughs, before extending his influence over the country and then the world. Amidst chuckles from the crowd, Moore insisted that the series would expose his megalomaniacal tendencies once and for all!
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this project is the intention to create a really immersive fictional world. Apparently there’s a young animator producing work that will feature on TVs in the background of scenes, and there’ll be a soap opera that the characters follow called (rather wonderfully) Wittgenstein Avenue. Also, Moore’s story involves an online game which British software developers may wish to develop!
Daredevil: Love and War by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz
Daredevil: Love and War
Reaper
Reaper
NOTE: If you haven’t seen Reaper, then beware. There be spoilers below.
Ridley Scott does Philip K. Dick again
Ridley Scott, who directed a previous Philip K Dick film
The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey
The Chicago Way
Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke
Childhood’s End
Caprica returns
Caprica
Hopefully the remainder of the season will see more robot action and seeds of the war that preceded Battlestar Galactica