WTF!? PLATINUM STUDIOS IS $20 MILLION BUCKS IN THE HOLE! 

MAY 3rd 2009 - A BLOG BY MIKE STRANG



I haven't blogged in a while but this bit of news lured me out of my laziness. My least favorite people in the world Platinum Studios have apparently rang up a 20 million dollar debt in their quest to become media moguls. From an earlier article I wrote on this site I told you all about how I created a comic book called Weird Adventures In Unemployment and how Platinum Studios fucked it all up and then fired me, then fucked it all up even worse, so I take great pride in this news.

You can read the report about their money woes here. It can tell you all the facts and stuff, I want to rant and laugh at them for the next couple of paragraphs.

Apparently from that report they're being sued from printers, ex-employees, and owe a mountain of back rent on huge offices to make them look like they're not a bunch of wannabe Hollywood Douchebags.

For a group of so-called entertainment industry businessmen that kind of money could have made 20 low budget films, or one mid priced film by yourself and made some money! Look at The Asylum! For christsakes Platinum touts holding the rights to over 5000 characters could have actually paid some name talent and put out a comic book on shop shelves worth reading. 5000 is a big number, they all couldn't be as bad as Hero By Night! If they did that they might have gotten a fan following around one of those properties and could have spun that cashcow off into other media and merchandise like they so covet. From my dealing with them they had no interest in putting together anything of quality because they don't want to be bothered to find out what it is.  They in no way tried to put together a product that was on the level of Marvel which is their business model they seem to try and be aping.

Instead they wasted tons of cash developing webcomics and other things forms of media nobody cares about hoping they will be the next IRON MAN. The thing is, Iron Man, Spider-man, Batman and all the other comic book movies are based on characters people previously had an awareness of and were excited to see on the big screen. 5000 nobodys isn't that big of an asset (stick a tree falling in the woods joke in there somewhere).  No offense to webcomics but the general movie going public doesn't care about them. Its too small a niche. They're not quite the property to base a zillion dollar film budget on and expect to pack theatres in the summertime.

Platinums hopes and dreams now hang on their stupid Dylan Dog movie they've been yapping about forever about a character nobody ever heard of starring Brandon Routh. Sounds like Direct To Video to me. They way they've talked about it for years reminds me of the hype Marvel  used to spit back in the early 90's for the Captain America and Punisher movies back in the day. Remember how they turned out.

If I sound biased and rooting for their death or at least be incarcerated and raped in prison, is because I am. This is my website and I can say what I want.  Fuck You Platinum!




SCARECROW, S.I.C.K. (Serial Insane Clown Killer) and The Transmorphers! Reviews of some crappy direct to video movies I rented.

SEPTEMBER 11th, 2008

I finally got around to updating this website with a new article. I saw a couple of movies that were SOOO BAD that they deserved an article on my small corner of the world wide web.  

While I patiently wait everyday of my life until to win the lottery I like to waste some of that time searching the shelves at my local Blockbuster Video for a movie to watch to waste those day in between now and my eventual disappointed death. I almost always pick up a new release because if a movie has hit cable and escaped me up to that point I never cared about in the first place.

Life has been pretty boring lately allowing me to rent everything at the store already so I was going for some desperation picks. You know, movies for the the sake of watching a movie. Luckily there is a whole market of films just for this kind of consumer in the world of movie rentals. Direct To Video sci-fi and horror movies!

For all those people who already saw the Simpsons, Spider-man 3, Resident Evil part 39 and the folks who could give a shit about No Country for Old Men, there's videos with interesting titles and sweet cover art that peek your curiosity even though you know they'll probably suck if you rent them. They peek your curiosity just enough to give them a shot hoping you'll see something ridiculous and mildly entertaining because no matter how many awards Michael Clayton was nominated for, you know that will be boring too.   

I picked up three of these "films" recently.  

S.I.C.K.

  It had a cool cover with a demented killer clown. S.I.C.K. is short 
  for Serial Insane Clown Killer. There has to be something 
  redeeming about it? Wrong. It was super low budget and looks
  like it was filmed with a camcorder but strangley enough the
  credits at the end had what had to be close to a hundred names.
  That many people put together something his cheap and awful?
  The only talented person connected to this project like many direct
  to video movies turns out to be the DVD package's art director for
  designing cool covers. I guess they needed something to put in the DVD case so they slapped this shit together to sell it. 

The movie is about some yuppies going to a country house for a weekend and while there are stalked by an obese demented psycho in a clown mask. You never saw the killer clown until the end which had a retarded twist.  It had some hot chicks in it, always good for a horror movie but ultimatley was a waste of time I mainly fast forwarded through.

My only true thought to share on this DVD is that I bet if I got a camorder and cheap video editing equipment I could make a flick this bad and get it released too. These a-holes did and its on the shelves of nearly every Blockbuster and Hollywood Video, not to mention Netflix. It would honestly be hard to make a worse movie and I wouldn't even need a hundred people in my crew to make it.

Screw this website, maybe I found my new calling in life.

Anyway, as for the rentals, so far strike one!

TRANSMORPHERS

   An obvious knockoff of the Transformers made by a company 
   called The Asylum. I later found out The Asylum makes knockoffs
  of other big movies, like War of the Worlds, 30,000 Leagues
  Under the Sea,  Pirates of Treasure Island (a Pirates of the
  Carribean ripoff) and Snakes on a Train.  

   So how did it do ripping off my beloved Transformers? Badly! .  
   The CGI robots, in this case called Z-Bots looked lousy but at least they didn't use a camcorder to make this one. I was expecting bad s/fx and didn't mind but I didn't get to see enough of them. Instead the whole movie is about a bunch of underground freedom fighters in the future (ripping of the the Matrix) after the Decepticon like Z-Bots from outer space have taken over earth. The first 45 minutes of this movie is filled with monotonous dialouge to fill the 90 minutes to qualify this as a movie, talking about going into battle against the invaders.

None of the characters are interesting despite have some fairly attractive chicks. From all the mistakes already made and the constraints of a low budget show off what you do got, HOT CHICKS! With little action going on the pervert in me was trying salvage something from this wreck sneaking peeks of some of these girls boobs and butts but got very little. PAN that camera down!

I also don't think I've ever watched a movie before and said "wow the sound the sound editing on this movie is terrible" but that's how bad Transmorphers was. I commented on its place in the lamest Oscar category. Really, who pays any attention to that, and why do they even give awards for it? Half the time the voices weren't synced with the characters lips as they were talking.

Strike Two!

SCARECROW! 
 

 Probably the coolest cover of the lot. An evil Scarecrow. I liked  
 this one even though it was stupid, it had a neat little story. A picked 
 on teenage nerd who lives in a trailer park gets killed by his mom's
 abusive boyfriend and his spirit transfers to a Scarecrow on the farm
 his dead body layed where he comes back to life taking revenge on
 everyone in town including some chick he felt dissed him with some 
 nice boobs.

Scarecrow kills a whole bunch of jocks, hot chicks, and his mom's boyfriend making puns like a third rate Freddy Kruger.

This one also had no budget, looked like it was filmed with a camcorder, the acting was terrible, the directing sucked and was a bit dull at times but it was entertaining despite itself. I imagine the screenwriter of this movie probably had loftier ambitions when he wrote it because it comes off like a good movie almost completely ruined by retards. I felt bad for the geek before he was killed and took glee in his cornfield vengence.    

Since watching this I saw its two sequels Scarecrow Slayer, and Scarecrow Gone Wild where Scarecrow hacks up some coeds at a beach party. Niether captured the magic of the first piece of crap in the trilogy. If I ever win the Lottery I'm going to remake Scarecrow as a big budget movie. It could have been a legitimatly good film if it had a budget and anybody with any talent attached to it.

I bought this movie to add to my collection as a testimate to that dream!

GI JOE (Marvel 1988)
August 17, 2008

Recently I was feeling a little depressed so like always whenever I’m feeling down I drowned myselfin the world of comic books to cheer me up. It was going to take a special comic to warm my soul. I already read this weeks new releases and I couldn’t just read some mediocre time wasters like the new Flash series, or Green Arrow. They’re fine if nothing is on TV, but I was feeling pressure from “the man” keeping me down. I needed utter comic book joy. I had to break out the reserves in the long box.

For years I used to buy more comics than I could read because they used to be cheap. That was a long time ago, but I still have a stock pile of reads not yet read. I found some real beauties in the box though that chased by blues away (and probably chicks too).

GI JOE #72-76. Old school GI Joes baby. The cover date under the issue number said May - back in the day! 1980’s nostalgia from my childhood is like crack for me, and GI Joe comics are a primo fix. Each issue reads like an ad for the toys making you crave them, illustrating all the battles you should be having with them in your backyard. In fact I had to get my figures out and line them on my desk as I read these. Okay, they were already on my desk, I was playing with them last week.

I fished this complete arc about a Cobra civil war out of my long box of forgotten gems. To summarize it, Cobra Commander is feuding with Serpentor so they bust out into a war against each other on Cobra Island. GI Joe shows up and has to side with Serpentor on orders from their superiors to take down CC at all costs. Most of my favorite characters are in the battle and just about every vehicle. The best part of the story is when Serpentor uses the sexy Baroness as a human shield against her lover the Cobra Commander, tied to his tank. It ends with Serpentor getting killed, shot in the face with an arrow by Zartan.

Gnarly!

I haven’t read the new run of GI Joe by Devil’s Due, but it couldn’t be better than this. It was five straight issues of fighting. No comic book out there today matches the action in any single old Joe issue. Not to say the series was mindless either. I love the war tactics and the politics of the four feuding sides of this great battle. Four? Besides CC’s guys, Serpentors guys, and the Joes, I forgot to mention Destro shows up with his droogs to get him some too, namely his object o desire, the Baroness!

A TRIBUTE TO HAWKMAN
July 27, 2008
  
 Some superheroes just don’t get the recognition they deserve. One I feel in particular is HAWKMAN. I don’t know much about him, and who really does? He’s either a reincarnated Egyptian or from another planet. I read is history on Wikipedia and I can’t  figure it out. It doesn’t matter. 

 Hawkman is a muscle bound shirtless bad ass with wings who carries a mace  and hangs out with a hot chick who shares his unique fashion sense. When I lie  in my bed before I go to sleep at night wish I was that cool. I think for such an awesome  character, Hawkman is being horribly squandered.
 
 I’ve known of Hawkman my whole life, starting back with the Challenge of the Superfriends show. I even had his Super Powers action figure, but paid little attention to him like most people. I was first aware of his coolness in issue #2 of the new JSA series though. He shows up at a family picnic besieged by Nazi super villains and starts kicking their asses. Sweet! I thought to myself, WOW, Hawkman is pretty much the guy you want  to show up in a situation like that. It really had my mind going from there.

It would have been great if when I was getting beat up on the school bus back in elementary school, Hawkman would have swooped down out of the sky, ripped open the safety hatch and wacked that little latch-key kid bastard who was slapping me around in the skull with his mace. If it were Spider-man, I imagine he would just break it up andmake wisecracks, or Superman would give a stupid lecture.


I think Hawkman would dispatch punishment on them bullies with extreme prejudice. To me, Hawkman is Chuck Norris with wings. Screw all that Thanagar, hanging out with Adam Strange on Rann garbage. DC’s outer space stories are never all that entertaining. 

 DC could make a superstar out of him if they put this dude into a Vertigo series taking on the evil in the gritty real world. He’s a lawman right? I want to see Hawkman join the NYPD. He could be the new transfer and teamed up with a slacker Jim Belushi in Red Heat type partner. How about Hawkman busting up a white slavery ring, laying the smack down on those perverts with his spiked ball 
 and chain? Or how about the Winged Wonder smashing a board room full of stuffed shirt war profiteers in Haliburton. Compton California wouldn’t be overrun by the Crips and the Bloods if a swarm of Thanagarian Hawkman were there. Hawkman could contribute to the community on his days off teaching
underprivileged inner city youths how to fly on his days off and then go home to make sweet sweet love to his Hawkgirl. Now we’re talking!


 
                                                                 "Hawkman don't like drugs on his city streets sucka!"


Hawkman has battled sci-fi aliens and super villains with Hawkgirl and the JSA for long enough. That approach has left him a third stringer for over sixty years. A new approach might invigorate the character and actually gain him a following. I don’t want to break my arm patting myself on the back but I think if DC let me have him, I could write the best Hawkman stories ever told. You listening DC Comics? Drop me a line.

- MIKE

WEIRD WAR TALES (DC COMICS 1970’s-80’s)
July 16, 2008



They don’t make them like this anymore. If you aren’t in the know Weird War Tales is a war/horror cross genre anthology book with a touch of EC Comics’ style from back in the day when the Sweathogs graced the nation’s television screens every week. If you thought Saving Private Ryan would have been a better movie if Tom Hanks was searching Europe for a Sasquatch instead of Matt Damon, then this comic is for you.

Every time I buy back issues off the internet I try and get at least one WWT in the order. Who can resist stories about ghosts, zombies, robots, and vampires on the battlefield? Sure it totally makes light of the nightmares Grandpa probably still has about fighting in WWII but you can’t please everyone.

Check out the covers of these things on the net. Although they were usually better than the actual stories inside, every issue I read it still fun. 

 

A platoon of Nazi Gorrilas!?! SWEET!!!

I wrote my own comic inspired by Weird War Tales, a comic that successfully ran for over 120 issues throughout the 70’s and into the early 80‘s. I submitted a proposal for a mini series about soldiers fighting supernatural forces in the modern day Middle East to a couple of publishers.

I heard nothing back from any of them except for one with a critique in an email telling me how they hated it and how tasteless they thought it was. Too soon I guess. It would have been awesome though.

Oh well.


 - MIKE


AYA: PRINCESS OF DARKNESS #1 and JALILA: PROTECTOR OF THE CITY OF ALL FAITHS #1 (AK COMICS - 2006)

July 12, 2008



You know I got these out of the clearance bin.... I love to sift through it in hopes to find some overlooked misunderstood gem. Most of the time I only find bad indie comics created by dudes with soul patches about teddy bears or little misfit girls that look like they were drawn with a crayon made out of poop and just about everything Top Cow seems to put out.

The bargin bin hardly ever has anything of any entertainment value I could enjoy even on an ironic level (like Top Cow). That was until I found Jalila: Protector of all Faiths, and Aya : Princess of Darkness. These two mags are from an Egyptian comics company AK Comics featuring middle eastern super heroes in a positive light. JACKPOT! Just the cheese I was looking for.

I fell hook line and sinker for this exercise in cultural tolerance. They had a whole collection of the company’s titles in the clearance section because apparently I was the only one who wanted them. I payed my whopping 1.50 and was all set to learn about the Muslim culture inside because the hero’s of the two books I picked up were hot chicks. Looking at the covers I learned something a foreign culture already. People all around the world dig hot superhero chicks.


Borat says "Niice!"

The stories seemed dated like an 80’s comic, which is fine to me because that’s my golden age. Over on that side of the world I think they’re only just getting into the Backstreet Boys so I wasn’t surprised either. In all I liked these comics. They were fun in an old school way. They lacked originality and talent and that was their strong points. I wasn’t looking for anything profound, I wanted to read some superhero stuff.



I doubt I‘ll find many more issues of these. Aya: Princess of Darkness was totally better than any shitty issue of New Avengers though.
 
- Mike