FORREST J. ACKERMAN: 1916-2008

Farewell, Dr. Acula
Last month, I spoke about my heroes, and one in particular that was in poor health and fading fast, Famous Monsters of Filmland creator, Forrest J. Ackerman.
Sadly, Uncle Forry passed away on December 4th at the age of 92. Mr. Ackerman was apparently inundated with letters and calls following an announcement of his deteriorating health on the popular fan website, Ain’t It Cool News… mine but one of many letters of well wishes, remembrances, and words of love and appreciation heaped upon this icon of sci-fi fandom. It was sad news indeed.
In a farewell letter of sorts left with AICN’s head honcho Harry Knowles, several years ago (to be released upon Forry’s death), Ackerman gave a sober and eloquent statement about his eventual demise, stating in so many words that no hereafter awaited him, and that he would cease to exist upon his passing. While that may be true (only Forry, and those who have gone on before us, can truly be certain), I like to think that people we love and admire most do live on for eternity in our hearts and imaginations… as he will in mine. Gone, but never forgotten.

Your Pal @ PREVIEWS,

Marty

Shopping for the holidays can be difficult. Finding the right gift can sometimes be a chore. There are the lines at the mall, the clogged parking lots, and even when you do buy something, you wonder if it’s the right thing.

What do you buy for the comics fan in your life?

Fortunately, that’s where PREVIEWS can help.

To make your holiday shopping easier, the staff of PREVIEWS has put together a list of forty holiday gift-giving ideas. There’s something on this list for everyone — from Archie and Mickey Mouse Christmas specials to toys for the Marvel fan, from sword-and-sorcery fantasy like Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar to modern fantasies like Joss Whedon’s new Buffy, the Vampire Slayer or Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, from musicians like Tori Amos’ Comic Book Tattoo to the artistic mastery of Brush with Passion: The Art & Life of Dave Stevens. No matter the interest, PREVIEWS has something to make this holiday special.

Every item has a write-up, giving you insight into not just what the comic, book, toy, or model is, but why you want it for the loved ones in your life. Plus, we give you the PREVIEWS order code to help you place an order with your local comic shop.

The holiday is right around the corner. Take a look at PREVIEWSworld.com’s Staff Holiday Gift Picks, find the right gift, and let PREVIEWS help you make this holiday fantastic!

Typically I like to draw a Holiday-themed picture for my December Editor’s Note, which is fun and all, but instead this year I’d like to talk about Heroes. No, not the TV show. I don’t have enough room to talk about that here… No, I’m talking about our personal heroes, people we may not know at all, but still admire nonetheless.

Early on, one of my greatest heroes was the late Jack Kirby. I’ve spoken about the King many times before, and count myself lucky and blessed for having spent an afternoon with him at the comics shop I worked at back in Sacramento, California. It was a great day, and the man did not disappoint. He was a sweet, soft-spoken gentleman who treated everyone there that day with respect and with an eagerness to connect with them. It was, in a word, “awesome.”

Another early hero for me was Forrest J. Ackerman, editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. The legendary father of “Sci-Fi” (word has it he coined the term), he attended the first World Science Fiction Convention in 1939 — in costume — and sparked fan costuming. Known by many names — Mr. Monster, Dr. Acula, 4SJA, The Ackermonster, etc. — he’s best known as the editor of Famous Monsters (published from 1958-1983), the magazine devoted to the world of science fiction, horror, and monster movies. From his “Ackermansion” in Hollyweird, Karloffornia, he brought the world of fright and horror to an eager audience of fresh young minds, and mixed in a healthy dose of cornball humor.

I met Forry at a convention here in Baltimore a few years ago, and was thankful that I was able to meet the guy who inspired me to follow my dreams and not forget my sense of wonder and love of the fantastic. I was doubly happy that I was also able to thank him for his example of editorship… Sure, I’m no Forry, but I try, I try.

It was recently announced through a friend and caretaker that the 92-year-old Mr. Ackerman was in ill-health, and slipping away. Reportedly he is in good spirits and in no serious pain, although he does tire easily and rests quite a bit. But he has lost none of his good humor. I shot a letter off to him last week, and I hope he gets to read it, or at least gets to know that myself, and thousands more like me around the world, consider him a treasure and a hero, and wish him all the best.

So, here’s to my heroes: to my Mom and Dad, King Jack, Uncle Forry, and the many more I have admired over the years. May we all be so lucky enough to meet our heroes, and to let them know what they truly mean to us.

And to all of my heroes out there reading PREVIEWS each month, have a Happy Holidays from all of us to you!

Your Pal @ PREVIEWS,
Marty

Executive Producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof were our hosts for the LOST panel, which is becoming a regular occurrence here at Comic Con each year.

This year, the Dharma Initiative has been on the convention floor, “testing” prospective inductees into the new Dharma Initiative mission. A “Professor Von Eegon” came out and addressed the crowd, reporting their test results as embarrassing, and then showing a short video of the test questions, and various subjects’ (including Cuse and Lindelof!) answers to the very Blade Runneresque questions asked of them (including the classic ‘turtle on its back’ question). Following the video, the Dharma professor introduced six people from the audience who’s test results made them perfect candidates for the new Initiative. They were then lead off stage to take part in the next part of the Dharma indoctrination.

A very goofy Q&A session followed, with questioners receiving gifts brought by Cuse and Lindelof. These included DVDs, T-Shirts, Toy Polar Bears, Apollo Candy Bars, a Life Preserver signed by the writers, a dry erase eraser signed by Cuse & Lindelof, a six-pack of Dharma Beer, and funniest of all, a jumbo vat of Dharma Ranch Dressing that went to a guy who was doing his best to capture his inner Hugo! This big-boned fan had the hair, the muttonchops, and size of our heroic castaway, and was delighted to receive the jar of dressing that, according to Lindelof, “Never goes bad!”

Towards the end of the Q&A session, a member of the Dharma recruits burst onto stage brandishing a camcorder and exclaiming that he had “the answers”, and that the audience deserved to know the truth. As the energetic actor was lead off stage, the tape was played for the audience, showing the kid being lead back to the Dharma booth, and watching a new Dr. Marvin Candle video, apparently his final message… he reveals his real name to be Dr. Cheng from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and that the video we are seeing is 30 years old, and that he and the rest of the Dharma Initiative are all dead, killed in the Purge. He begs to whomever the video was meant for to reinstate the Dharma Initiative to further explore and research the island’s unique properties. It ends with the cameraman telling him that know one will ever see it, and that they’re wasting their time. It was all pretty much useless information, but the one thing that I did find interesting was at the beginning of the video, a baby can be heard crying, disrupting the Doctor’s narrative, and forcing him to order the child be taken outside. So, if babies can’t be born on the island, who was the baby?! And was it born there or brought to the island? We may never get the answer to that question… but previous Candle/Halliwax videos have proven to be related in some way to events in the series. I guess we’ll see.

Matthew Fox, LOST’s Dr. Jack Shepard showed up during the Q&A session to applause from the audience, but really had nothing to add.

So, in all, not much was learned about the events of the past season, or those of the next season… which doesn’t start until February of 2009! But at least we’ll get 17 uninterrupted episodes in a row. Oh LOST, how I love you and hate you all at once…

The hell that is Hall “H” really lived up to its reputation Saturday morning when Creator Tim Kring brought the entire cast of NBC’s Heroes to Comic Con. Leading off with the final installment of the Heroes web series, “Going Postal,” Producer Jeph Loeb brought out creator Tim Kring and cast members Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Jack Coleman (Noah “HRG” Bennet), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder Suresh), Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura), James Kyson Lee (Ando Masahashi), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli), Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman), Ali Larter (Niki Sanders), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli), Cristine Rose (Angela Petrelli), Dania Ramirez (Maya Herrera), and Zachary Quinto (Sylar), and then announced that as a thank you for the Heroes fans’ undying support, we would be treated to the first episode of Heroes Season 3 “Villains”!

I’ll leave the spoilers to other sites, but I will say that more happens in the 45 odd minutes of this first episode than 2 or 3 Season 2 episodes… it is FAT-packed with action, suspense, and some very cool moments… everyone has something to do, and we even get to see George Takei and Malcolm McDowell again… but in what capacity I’m not saying! Loeb and Kring both urged Heroes fans to spread the word once again, and that Season Three would truly be something spectacular. It all starts on September 22nd!

Friday morning, Hall “H” (the “H” is for Hell, by the way, as in “That’s one hell of a line”) was filled to capacity with anxious fans anticipating a first look at the adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen.

Director Zack Snyder was accompanied by most of the cast, including Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre II), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Comedian), Carla Gugino (Sally Jupiter / Silk Spectre), Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach), Billy Crudup (Dr. Manhattan), Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl II), and Matthew Goode (Ozymandias). A new set of scenes was shown (featuring new and expanded scenes from the trailer) to great applause from the capacity audience. Also in attendance was Watchmen’s co-creator Dave Gibbons, who was equally pleased about the collection of scenes, and also commented about how being on the set during the film’s production made him feel like “a kid in a candy shop,” seeing his creations come to life around him. There’s not much else to say about Watchmen than that March 2009 cannot come soon enough!

The Good. The Bad. The Ugly. The downright Weird… all of these and more could be found on the Convention floor and surrounding areas. From cartoon characters to original creations, Cosplay is always a major part of Comic Con. Follow the COSPLAY link on the navigation bar to enjoy all of these home-made wonders!

Super-Producer Joel Silver presided over this panel, introducing the various aspects of the revitalized Dark Castle Entertainment Group.

The panel began with Silver’s presentation of the first of ten proposed direct-to-video horror thrillers, The Hills Run Red. After showing a relentlessly violent trailer depicting the film, in which a group of young people go in search of a legendary lost horror film, that apparently disappeared in the middle of a backlot forest. The cast, including blonde bombshell Sophie Monk and Tad Hilgenbrink, were present to take any questions from the crowd… but there seemed to be no interested parties. Perhaps if veteran character actor William Sadler (who played the Grim Reaper in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey), had been present…

Next up was a short presentation of the first mini-series, Ferryman, from Dark Castle Comics and DC’s Wildstorm imprint. It looks pretty cool, and with Marc Andreyko (Torso) writing this supernatural mob thriller, it should deliver.

Next up, Silver introduced Ninja Assassin, the first starring vehicle for Korean pop sensation, Rain. Directed by veteran master of action cinema, James McTeigue, and featuring 28 Days Later star Naomie Harris, Ninja’s preview reel was crazy violent, and should make Rain the next major Asian star here in America. The ladies in the audience certainly were giving him the popstar treatment during the Q&A segment.

Finally, the moment many of us in attendance had been waiting arrived with the cast and director of Rocknrolla. Director Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch) was joined on stage with stars Gerard Butler (300), Ludacris, Jeremy Piven (Entourage) and Idris Elba for a panel filled with many laughs, and some funny anecdotes from the making of the film. Funniest was Gerard Butler’s story of getting a B12 shot in the “arse” from Ritchie’s wife Madonna, when he became ill during the shooting (the shot didn’t help, by the way). Another classic moment was when an audience member asked Ritchie if there was any pressure from the studio to go back to his more successful earlier film in light of his more recent films’ less than sparkling critical notes. Ritchie answered with an emphatic “YES.” and left it at that amidst bursts of laughter from panel and convention-goers alike. A great panel with some great participation by the actors.

After all the excitement of the Fox panel, the excitement continued with the next panel, hosted by Summit Pictures, who were there to preview three of their upcoming projects: Push, Know1ng, and Twilight. Now, I didn’t actually realize what I was in store for when this panel began… but I did begin to notice that there was an unusually large amount of young ladies in the audience, which these days isn’t that strange at Comic Con, but all in one room…?

Anyway, the panel started with the sci-fi actioner, Push, starring Djimon Hounsou, Fantastic Four’s Chris Evans, and the quite fetching miss Camilla Belle, last seen in 10,000 B.C. (the movie, not the year). Directed by Paul McGuigan, its the story of people with exceptional powers (telekinesis, telepathy, and the like) pursued by a shadowy government agency. Set in modern-day Hong Kong, this looks really good, and should appeal to fans of TV’s Heroes.

Next up was Director Alex Proyas (Dark City) who previewed his latest film, Know1ng, starring Nicolas Cage (who didn’t make it to the show this year). Know1ng (yes, that’s the #1 in the title) revolves around a mysterious set of numbers written down by a creepy little girl 50 years ago and encased in a time capsule along with dozens more “predictions of the future” created by her classmates. When Cage’s son in the film gets to open the envelope with the numbers, Cage soon learns that they may just be an accurate map to all of the world’s major disasters for the past 50 years. Oh yeah, and there are three dates left on the chart… and Cage’s character seems destined to play a role in each of them.

Finally, came Twilight… and the simultaneous eruption of a thousand screaming girls. I imagine this was something like what an early Beatles concert might have sounded like. Director Catherine Hardwicke (Lords of Dogtown) and creator/author Stephenie Meyer (pictured above with the stars) accompanied the ridiculously pretty young cast–Cam Gigandet, Rachelle LaFevre, Edi Gathegi, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, who play the film’s star-crossed lovers Edward and Bella–out onto the stage, where they were greeted not only with the aforementioned screams of adoration, but such exclamations as “I love your hair!” and the winning catch-phrase of the day “You dazzle me!!!”, which a frenzied young lady screamed at Pattinson over and over throughout the panel. So this was Twilight… that book series and movie that I had read about recently in Entertainment Weekly. If this crowd was any indication of the kind of love people have for this series, I could only wonder where these people were when Buffy Summers needed them most… regardless, this one is going to be a huge hit, and sequels will most likely follow.

Pattinson and Stewart, who both seemed to be a bit nervous on stage, had some trouble answering the questions from the audience and sure seemed pretty thirsty as they drained the water pitcher in front of them. I guess they’ll become more in tune with the higher points of promotion with more practice…

“Woah.”

Thursday morning started off with an enormous line of people waiting to enter Hall H, the location where most of the day’s biggest movie panels would take place. The morning was scheduled to start with a look at two upcoming films from 20th Century Fox: the “re-imagining” of Director Robert Wise’s 1951 sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and the adaptation of the cult hit video game, Max Payne.

But before the programming started, an entire row of curtains in the back of the room buckled under the weight of the fabric and scaffolding holding it up, falling like slow-motion dominoes, twisting and bending the metal rods holding them up! Thankfully, no one was hurt, and after a short delay while the convention center crew came in to clean up the wreckage and reinforce the room’s remaining curtains, the show got underway!

Keanu Reaves, star of Speed and the Matrix Trilogy, came on stage and introduced the panel, which included co-star Jennifer Connelly (The Rocketeer) and director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose). The trailer featured Keanu Reeves’ portrayal of the alien visitor, Klaatu, and hinted at some spectacular sci-fi action! The ominous alien robot, “Gort”, was not actually seen, but Director Derrickson promised that even though dozens of designs of Gort were created, they came back to the classic look of the robot as seen in the original film.

Following that, the cast of Max Payne–Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, and Ludacris–came out, and after some spectacular footage from the film, they took questions from the audience. Wahlberg really played to the audience, dropping some random Russian phrases he learned for a previous film, while Kunis (who is fluent in Russian) was very amused by this.

And because YOU demanded it:

As the panel drew to a close, the host announced that a “special guest” had just arrived from Australia, and wanted to address the audience. It turned out to be Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman, fresh off a plane from Oz, ready to share some choice footage from next year’s highly anticipated X-Men prequel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine! Jackman, full of energy despite complaining about jetlag, thanked the crowd for “making his career” and also sought out Wolverine creator Len Wein in the crowd. “I just wanted to shake the hand of the man who gave me my career!” said the Aussie superstar. After bounding back up to the stage, a collection of scenes from the film wowed the audience… and yours truly! This one looks like it is going to seriously kick ass… especially with the addition of fan-favorite mutants Gambit, Deadpool, The Blob, and actor Liev Schriber as Sabertooth. Unfortunately, they didn’t turn up the lights when Jackman was on stage, so none of my photos were usable… which sucks. Sorry kids.