New She Has No Head! column up at CSBG. All about Wonder Woman and my long standing attempts to fall in love with her. Did it work? Click to find out.
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So I started writing this post back in August of 2009 when it was announced that AMC was going to be the home of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, but there’s been a lot going on (despite the lack of gainful employment) and it took me a while to circle back and get to this. I was reminded that this post was sitting here waiting to be finished by the announcement last week that Frank Darabont’s pilot script had been greenlit by AMC …so here we are.
Plenty of other people, websites, and blogs have already taken a swing at casting The Walking Dead, but I’ve tried to avoid those posts so that I don’t corrupt my own instincts (and cheat off of those people). So take a look at what I’ve come up with – and get your own recommendations on the board in the comments section.
A couple of guidelines I used:
1. I tried to keep the casting fairly realistic, picking actors that I thought would be willing to be a part of an ensemble cast of the next (hopefully) highly acclaimed AMC television drama (i.e. you won’t see Angelina Jolie or Will Smith in here anywhere).
2. I tried to pick actors and actresses that fit the roles visually AND that had acting skills I admired. If I had to pick between skills and visuals, I usually went with skills.
RICK:
This one is honestly the easiest pick of the bunch, because I think Nathan Fillion is a just an obvious and yet inspired choice to play our hero Rick. Fillion has a great fan following already (and one that overlaps nicely with comics thanks to his Firefly/Serenity, and Buffy roles) and he’s a proven actor that can hold his own on the film screen, but isn’t opposed to doing television. Also, though his show Castle is very much “his” show, I feel like Fillion would recognize the great opportunity in The Walking Dead, like the opportunity of Mad Men, despite it being an ensemble cast. The fact that Castle is still on is a bit of a problem, but I see the ratings aren’t great…I don’t want it to fail, as I like Fillion and wish him the best…but man I’d like to see him playing Rick.
As an interesting side note, my mother used to watch One Life To Live (and General Hospital) when I was younger, and I got addicted to both shows, and never more so with One Life To Live than when Nathan Fillion was playing a GORGEOUS version of the character Joey Buchanan. I was so sad when he left the show (and I left watching it not long after) but MAN did the boy do well for himself. It’s one of the only things that makes me proud about having watched soaps at one point in my life. I’m all “I saw him and loved him first!”…and I’m almost never that far ahead of the crowd.
Thanks to Jeremy Whitley at The Weekly Crisis for putting me on his list of 6 Things Not To Hate This Year. I feel in good company with the other women on that list.
Check out Jeremy’s post, and if you’ve been dragging your feet on catching up with that I’m doing over on Comics Should Be Good, now is the time to pick up and dive in.
New post up on my She Has No Head! Column. Check it out.
I really liked S.W.O.R.D. – it was certainly the most original book I’ve seen come out of Marvel in a long while. A nice breath of fresh air. I thought of doing a giant post about why it’s a shame that this book couldn’t make it, of course adding my layman opinion on why things like this prove that the comic book industry is pretty doomed independent of the digital age…but Greg at CSBG did it first (and way better), so I’m just going to link to him instead.
And this was the advance cover released for issue #5 (the final issue) – the cover is completely awesome – which makes everything feel like an even bigger damn shame I say.
New She Has No Head! column up on Comics Should Be Good. Check it out.
I learned from Wesley Smith’s examiner column today that the comic book Birds of Prey will be coming back as part of DC’s Brightest Day arc. And I feel mixed about it. Birds of Prey was one of my absolute favorite books when Gail Simone was doing it, and so the fact that Gail Simone will be doing it again is great news, however, all due respect to Ed Benes, I have never been a huge fan of his art, particularly in the way he portrays women, which in my opinion is hit and miss.
So this feels like yet another example of one step forward, half a step back. I want to be excited, and I am, but I also have reservations, much like I do about the Black Widow ongoing series that was announced the other day.
Of note is that it sounds like BoP is part of DC’s Brightest Day run, which as I understand it, will run for a year (26 issues) – it’s unclear if the book is supposed to continue after that. CBR’s Robot 6 makes it sound like it is an ongoing, and Simone’s interview on Comic Alliance also makes it sound like an ongoing, so perhaps it is just a book that will participate in Brightest Day…and continue beyond that? I suppose if the series does well, that DC will find a way to continue it on regardless of the original plan (whatever that was). Though a specific release date has not been announced it looks like the new series will premiere in April or May.
There’s a great interview with Simone on Comic Alliance that is the kind of interview that makes it impossible not to get excited about the book. It’s not unlike Simone saying that Black Canary is one of the most hopeful characters in the DCU and that it’s hard not to get swept up in her hopefulness. I feel the same about Simone, it’s easy for me to get swept up in her enthusiasm for these characters that I already love, especially when I know she is a powerhouse of a writer and that she can back that enthusiasm up. But the art, I still have to see about the art.
I know DC doesn’t care about my tiny little insignificant opinion, but the reality for me is that this book, with Simone writing it and with a different artist (oooh – how about Tonci Zonjic?!) is a must read for me. It automatically (and immediately) goes on my pull list and I buy every single issue until they stop printing them and I probably rave about it both on this blog and on my CSBG column. With Benes drawing it, it becomes like Gotham City Sirens, something I don’t put on my monthly pull list because I can’t fully get on board with and something that I pick up to try out, week to week, to see if I can get past the art. Which is a shame.
I’ve been able to get past art in the past on other series (including the old Birds of Prey series when Simone and Benes were teamed up there), but I feel my tolerance for that kind 0f thing lessens with every year…so, we’ll see. I obviously can’t say one way or another until the actual book comes out, but I’m going to try to hope for the best. Mark me down as “tentatively elated”. Yeah, that sounds about right…
New column up for She Has No Head! on CBR’s Comics Should Be Good. Check it out.
Why when a new ongoing is released for a strong female lead, and with a strong female writer on board (Marjorie Liu) – why does it HAVE to come with objectifying imagery? Do they not know what they’re doing? Or do they just not care? These are the kind of releases that lead me to giant columns asking whether Marvel is just stupid or cloaked in misogyny.
Because I have to tell you…it’s upsetting. It upsets me greatly to realize that in the year 2010 (2010!!!!), Marvel does not think they can market a book with a strong female lead and a strong female writer without using sexist imagery that horribly objectifies their lead.
And that they’re willing to make a character like Black Widow look like she doesn’t know how to dress herself. Does she not know how to use a zipper? Does she not know how to purchase clothing for herself that can contain her massive breasts? Does she have so little confidence in her ability as a fighter and hero that she thinks she has to try to distract people with her zipper unzipped to somewhere below her tits? Does she have such low self esteem that she thinks people will only like her if she runs around with her top unzipped? Why do I have to keep talking about this? I am so sick of this crap. One of the worst things about this image is that if the zipper was simply zipped up to a more reasonable level…this cover would be awesome. What a waste.
Is this what I have to look forward to in Marvel’s ‘year of women’? Cause if so, I’ll fucking pass. Thanks Marvel.
My She Has No Head! column from Monday got picked up by my beloved Jezebel. Thanks Jezebel!
