Kelson Reviews Stuff - Page 61

It’s taken a long time (and three publishers) to complete this adaptation of the Wheel of Time prequel, even though it only covered eight standard-sized comic books. I’m sure Tor Publishing was frustrated, since they couldn’t actually release the collection until the individual chapters were complete, and Robert Jordan was extremely frustrated with the situation.

The same studio has also started adapting the main series. The third issue of Eye of the World arrived in stores earlier this week. According to a post at Dragonmount, the original plan was for Eye of the World to cover roughly 36 issues, to be collected in six volumes. Just for book one.

Dynamite has been good at keeping the comics on schedule since they relaunched a few months ago, but at that pace, even if they never miss a month, it’ll take 42 years to adapt the whole series!

The Whole Story

Assembled from posts I originally made on my blog.

August 2005

The first issue of the New Spring comic book was surprisingly good! (Full review on its own page)

June 2006

I’ve been really enjoying the comic-book adaptation of Robert Jordan’s New Spring, the prequel to The Wheel of Time. Unfortunately, the last few issues have been very sporadic, and there’s been no way to get any kind of schedule. New issues would just pop up on the shipping list the week they arrived in stores. It didn’t help that the publisher, Red Eagle Entertainment, is a complete unknown.

So every week, I’ve scoured Diamond’s shipping list, hoping to see “New Spring” on there. Today I figured I’d check the publisher’s site again, even though it’s been useless from the beginning. Still nothing, just a cover and March 2006 date for issue #6, which has yet to appear.

I thought of another source, though: WoT fan site Dragonmount is where I learned about Book 11. So I looked over there, and guess what? Just last week, Red Eagle issued a press release that they’re cancelling New Spring with only 5 out of 8 issues published.

On the plus side, a rep from Dabel Brothers (the studio that actually wrote and drew the comics) commented in the thread at Dragonmount, saying that “the New Spring series is being continued just not through Red Eagle. The remaining issues are all completed…”

Not surprisingly, the publisher and studio blame each other. The dispute is apparently in arbitration. But given the realities of the comics industry, the fact that the publisher appeared out of nowhere and has no other products, and the presence of artwork for issue #7 on the studio’s forums, I’m inclined to believe Dabel Brothers’ claims that Red Eagle stopped actually paying them for the work they were doing.

August 2007

Dabel Brothers Productions has been much in the news this past week, between parting ways with Marvel Comics and landing a deal to adapt Dean Koontz’ work to comics.

New Spring was published through Red Eagle Entertainment, a company which appeared out of nowhere and seemed to have only two properties: comic book rights to New Spring and movie rights to Eye of the World. The comic started strongly, but delays led to the series ultimately getting canceled after only 5 issues of a projected 8. Red Eagle and Dabel Bros. each blamed each other.

There’s been very little information over the past year. Dabel has gone on to produce high-profile series like the Anita Blake comics, and Red Eagle has all but disappeared. (Even their website has removed everything but a logo and an email address.) I’ve just assumed it’s still been in arbitration or something.

Finally, yesterday, Robert Jordan posted some cryptic comments about his frustrations with Red Eagle:

For instance, I hear that word was floating about ComicsCon in San Diego that I am displeased with Red Eagle. Too true. Too very true. In a few more months that last contract they have with anyone on God’s green earth that so much as mentions my name will come to an end and we can see what happens after that. You see, among other things they forgot an old dictum of LBJ back when he was just a Congressman from Texas, when he famously, or infamously, said “Don’t spit in the soup. boys. We all have to eat.” Worse, Red Eagle though they could tell me they spit in the soup, or pee in it, if they wanted to and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop them. You can’t apologize your way out of that with me, not that they tried. There isn’t enough money in the world to buy your way out of it with me. Not that they tried that either. So they get no further help from me. Once they are completely out of the picture, we’ll see what happens.

So in a few months, all of Red Eagle’s WOT contracts are up. That’ll free up the movie rights, and while it may not resolve the contract dispute with DBPro over New Spring, there might not be much left of Red Eagle to block them from finishing the book. On the other hand, Dabel Bros. has plenty of other projects keeping them busy, so it might not be a high priority for them.

I am encouraged by the fact that DBPRo has gone through several site redesigns since the breakdown, and hasn’t dropped the New Spring section from their forum.

July 2008

Dabel Brothers Publishing is going to adapt The Wheel of Time to comics, with the first issue coming out in December. Del Rey will release the collected editions. This is the same studio that did the New Spring adaptation a few years ago, an 8-issue miniseries that broke down 5 issues in due to conflicts with the series’ publisher, Red Eagle Entertainment.

(As near as I can tell, Red Eagle existed for the sole purpose of buying the movie and comic rights to Wheel of Time, and managed to run both of them into the ground. Robert Jordan himself had some rather angry words on the subject of Red Eagle, and was looking forward to their contract expiring so that he’d never have to deal with them again. “Once they are completely out of the picture,” he added, “we’ll see what happens.”)

Since I was very impressed with the issues of New Spring that actually came out, I think this is great news. I’m a little apprehensive given the number of publishers Dabel has gone through in the last few years, especially since properly adapting Wheel of Time at one issue a month will probably take more than a decade (I’m thinking 12 issues per novel).

I hope they’ll finish New Spring first. There’s only 3 issues left, and that would give them material for an actual book early on to start building buzz.

November 2009

Issue #6 came out in May, as did the Eye of the World prologue, but #7 didn’t come out until August. It’s November now, with no sign of #8…or of Wheel of Time #2. Meanwhile, Bleeding Cool has been reporting financial problems — like not paying artists — and the Dabel Bros. website has gone offline.

It doesn’t sound promising…but there is some hope. I posted about several stalled comic miniseries at Speed Force, and Dabel Brothers’ Derek Ruiz stopped in to comment:

NS #8 News coming soon. It’s complete and ready for printing. Once I have more to tell you on release date I’ll make my way back here. [emphasis added]

He didn’t mention Eye of the World, and I didn’t follow up. One thing at a time, after all!

As I understand it, Tor has the rights to publish the collected editions — and I suspect that’s where the main audience for this is going to be. If Dabel Brothers can ship the final issue of New Spring soon, Tor can have a hardcover in bookstores next year to tide fans over while they wait for Brandon Sanderson to finish Towers of Midnight.

December 2009

The Beat reports that Dynamite Entertainment is taking over “creative development, production, printing, marketing and sales for all titles handled by Dabel Brothers Publishing.” The earliest books are supposed to ship in April 2010.

There’s no specific word on New Spring or the ongoing Wheel of Time adaptation, but since New Spring #8 is reportedly “complete and ready for printing,” it seems likely to be part of that initial April release.

If the book does come out in April, it will have taken nearly five years to complete the eight-issue miniseries. Dynamite will also be the third company logo to appear on the cover, after five issues with Red Eagle Entertainment and two with Dabel Brothers’ own label.

At this point I don’t care much about the Eye of the World comics, since they only published one issue to start with (two if you count the prologue), but I’d really like to see New Spring finished!

Comic Book Resources has more on the deal.

April 2010

Finally! Dynamite Comics has scheduled the final issue of Robert Jordan’s New Spring for June.

It looks like they’ve changed artists. Also, I don’t recall Moiraine looking quite so much like Raven from The New Teen Titans. 🙂

May 12, 2010

Yes, indeed, New Spring #8 was waiting for me at the comic store today! After nearly five years, the miniseries is complete!

We went out to see Kooza last Thursday (January 21) during a lightning storm, (which was a bit of a story by itself).

The show was impressive. I think this is the sixth Cirque du Soleil show I’ve seen and they’ve all been good. A few acts did look kind of familiar, like the guy balancing on a 20-foot-tall tower of chairs (we’d seen a similar act at the OC Fair last summer), but even those acts maintained the “how the heck do they do that?!” factor. A contortionist act reminded me of someone’s idea back in the early 1990s, never realized as far as I know, to get contortionists to play non-humanoid aliens on science-fiction shows. (These days, you can just use CGI to portray any body structure you want.)

The centerpiece of the show was sort of a giant double human hamster wheel. Two mesh wheels, each with a diameter of perhaps 1½ times the height of the performers, are attached to either end of a scaffolding, which is then suspended from the ceiling so that the entire structure can rotate. Then two performers proceed to run and jump inside the wheels as the whole thing spins around in the air…and then they start running around the outside of the wheels! According to the Cirque website, it’s called the Wheel of Death.

The clowns seemed more prominent in this show than in the others I’ve seen, to the point where they basically had two MC characters: one serious, one comedic.

Oddly enough, the show features a rainstorm. There was enough fake thunder and lightning that we probably didn’t recognize the real thing a few times!

This should have been a great movie. Epic story, all-star cast…but it was intensely boring. 16 years later, I barely remember a thing about it other than being bored out of my skull, but the boredom itself left that much of an impression.

So bad that the group of friends I was with started heckling the movie, and the rest of the audience joined in. Of course, that means we found something fun about it, so it probably doesn’t count. (Similarly, I rather enjoyed Van Helsing as a comedy, even though it doesn’t seem to have been intended as one.)

A response to the LiveJournal “Writer’s Block” prompt:

What is the worst movie you’ve ever seen? Did you sit through it or walk out? What made it so dreadful?

Let’s see…worst movie I’ve ever seen in a theater. Top three candidates:

Dungeons And Dragons (2000)

So bad that the group of friends I was with started heckling the movie, and the rest of the audience joined in. Of course, that means we found something fun about it, so it probably doesn’t count. (Similarly, I rather enjoyed Van Helsing as a comedy, even though it doesn’t seem to have been intended as one.)

The House of the Spirits

This should have been a great movie. Epic story, all-star cast…but it was intensely boring. 16 years later, I barely remember a thing about it other than being bored out of my skull, but the boredom itself left that much of an impression.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

On the plus side, it had giant robots blowing stuff up, and they put more thought into the story than I expected them to. And there were certainly good moments spread throughout the film. On the minus side, the visuals were so complex that they were hard to follow. That’s a problem I had with the Transformers’ designs in the first film, too — they look insanely cool in still shots, but start them moving and you end up with two clouds of shrapnel fighting each other. Plus Michael Bay has a very different sense of humor than I do, which didn’t help. And amazingly enough, the movie was tedious. I don’t know how you can possibly take a movie about giant robots and explosions and make it dull enough that I checked my watch at least five times during the film.

Yeah, that one probably deserves the title.

I don’t recall ever walking out of a movie before it was finished, unless the movie itself stopped due to technical problems (which has happened a couple of times). I’ve been seriously tempted to switch off some movies I’ve watched at home, though.