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Author: Sue Granquist

Goth Chick News: Hanging with Head Smash Creator Vlad Yudin

Goth Chick News: Hanging with Head Smash Creator Vlad Yudin

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image008At this year’s Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (“C2E2”), you couldn’t spit a piece of gum without hitting a promotional plug for Head Smash.

To be honest, you couldn’t spit a piece of gum without hitting a lot of unusual things at the May event, but Black Gate photog Chris Z and I couldn’t help but notice that the sheer quantity of Head Smash promotion was on par with the visual assault launched by Marvel for its own upcoming releases.

We had to admit, the curiosity factor was being driven off the scale for a graphic novel that hadn’t yet been released — not to mention an indy film adaptation barely into pre-production.

I had read that Yudin was creating Head Smash (penned by Erik Hendrix and illustrated by Dwayne Harris) for Arcana Comics, as well as writing the film adaptation of the story.  He is also producing and adapting the film’s screenplay with The Twilight Saga producers Mark Morgan and Michael Beckor.

So thanks partially to our nosiness–  but mostly to the tenacity of the PR company handling Head Smash and its creator — Chris and I got an early morning exclusive chat with the Russian-born-US-raised writer, director and producer Vlad Yudin.

And yes, I admit it, there’s no way I’m not going to talk to a guy named “Vlad…”

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Goth Chick News: Blade Slays Again…

Goth Chick News: Blade Slays Again…

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tomb of dracula 10 1976I might be one of the few fans of the Marvel comic Blade to actually admit to liking the screen adaptations staring Wesley Snipes.

New Line Cinema released the trilogy of Blade movies between 1998 and 2004. They were based on the half-breed vampire slayer character created for Marvel Comics by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan debuting in 1973’s The Tomb of Dracula #10.

Granted, not all three movies were created equal, but I thought the first one was solid and though by the third installment, Blade Trinity, fans of the comic might not have recognized much, the snappy dialog written for Ryan Reynolds and the overall eye-candy made it at least entertaining, if not wildly successful.

In fact, at this year’s C2E2 I overheard an interesting bit of Blade Trinity trivia which maybe helps explain why.

Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt — who played weapons expert Hedges in the third Blade movie — was signing autographs.  He told a fan that all those Ryan Reynolds’ sophomoric one-liners followed by Wesley Snipes’ dead pan stares were largely the result of Snipes not speaking to screenwriter / director David Goyer.

Apparently Snipes would only communicate to Goyer via post-it notes and generally refused to cooperate during the production, causing the rest of the cast to take up the uncomfortable slack in an attempt to save the film. Oswalt explained:

We would all just think of things for him (Reynolds) to say and then cut to Wesley’s face not doing anything because that’s all we could get from him (Snipes).  That was an example of a very troubled shoot that we made fun. You have to find a way to make it fun.

Interesting.

Even more so when you consider that the entire franchise might be getting a chance at a Snipes-free redemption.

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Goth Chick News: Dracula Meets Downton Abbey and The Tudors

Goth Chick News: Dracula Meets Downton Abbey and The Tudors

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image001Yes, originally I said the exact same thing.

Give me one good reason why the world needs another retelling of Dracula.

I mean, haven’t we suffered enough? As it is, the mythology has been altered so many times to try and make something new out of it, that If Bram Stoker ever found out about Edward Cullen, he’s be spinning in his grave like a rotisserie ham.

On the other hand, it was probably only a matter of time before network television realized that there is a viewer appetite for old fashioned violence and sexy blood drinking, and why the heck should HBO have all the fun with True Blood anyway?

Which brings me to two good reasons why we may want to listen to the Dracula tale being retold one more time…

Downton Abbey and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

NBC is launching a Dracula mini-series this fall which will actually take place in 1890s London (as opposed to trying to modernize the story). In this telling, Dracula has assumed the identity of an American entrepreneur with aspirations of bringing modern science and technology to Victorian society.

This is all a ruse of course, as Dracula’s true endeavor is the pursuit of revenge against humankind after it nearly destroyed him centuries earlier. The only thing that may spoil his plans for vengeance is the comely young lass he’s recently fallen in love with – who may also be the reincarnation of his dead wife.

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Goth Chick News Meets The Resurrectionist

Goth Chick News Meets The Resurrectionist

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“If they knew what horrible things were available to them they would take comfort in their own suffering.”
                                                                        -Dr. Spencer Black

I have been sitting here for long moments and I am still not sure where to start telling you about this.

It is art and science and masterful storytelling packaged and tied with a blood splattered ribbon. It is at once indescribably beautiful and nightmarishly horrifying. It is my latest obsession and my signed copy caused me to remove everything else from my coffee table to ensure no other object would detract from it.

It is The Resurrectionist, by EB Hudspeth.

Hudspeth is one of the people I couldn’t wait to introduce you to, whom I met at this year’s C2E2 event in Chicago.  When Nicole at Quirk Books got in touch, she described EB (he said we could all call him Eric) as “author, artist and creator of ‘Frankenstein meets Gray’s Anatomy.'”

Couple this with Quirk’s charter of publishing only 25 strikingly unconventional books every year, and this amounted to an opportunity there was no way I was going to miss.

Eric Hudspeth came in out of the rain (literally) to sit down and talk about The Resurrectionist during his visit to Chicago – the 1893 version of which figures prominently in his tale.

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Goth Chick News: The 2013 Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo

Goth Chick News: The 2013 Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo

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image004Last week the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2 for you cool kids) rolled into town with its usual juggernaut of the innovative, the unusual and the spandex’d.

Though this is my fourth year covering the show for Black Gate, I must say it is by far the worst place to send someone like me who has a problem with staring; especially when doing so is likely to seriously annoy a very big person in a very small costume.

But never let it be said that I shirked my obligation to a long-suffering readership. Therefore I bribed Black Gate photographer Chris Z to once again wade into a precarious situation with me, this time with the promise he could meet all the crew of the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean who were listed as special guests.

Plus, Chris would be a good deterrent if I did indeed seriously annoy someone; like Batman or Chewbacca.

Almost immediately I realized Chris Z was probably in as much trouble as I was.

The first indication was a sign instructing us to text a number if we saw anything “suspicious.” At which point Chris and I looked at each other and said in unison, “Define suspicious.”

When everywhere you look are adults dressed as super heroes, Star Wars characters and video game icons, determining exactly what constitutes “suspicious” is darn near impossible. Which makes you wonder what would cause someone to text the number as instructed.

Still, Chris and I did our very best to put on the mental blinders and run through a full-day lineup of interviews, meet-and-greets and 100 aisles of merchandise.

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Goth Chick News: Walpurgisnacht, or Those Germans Know How to Party

Goth Chick News: Walpurgisnacht, or Those Germans Know How to Party

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redrum2As you may (or may not) have noticed, there was no Goth Chick News last week. This was due to my need to spend a little quality time outside of the office with my blender and a bottle of Red Rum.

No I’m not making that up – Red Rum is for real and it’s my fav and so much for those of you who thought this was all an act and I really spend my vacations in Branson, Missouri drinking ginger ale.

Beyond just sitting around soaking up sun and exploring the many different uses for a quality bottle of spirits, I was also deeply engaged in researching an interesting phenomenon that I only just discovered. The impetus was a Black Gate chat with a charming German fellow, who shared it with me just before sliding out of his lounge chair and out onto the deck… where he was promptly collected and hustled away before completing his tale, prompting me to order up another Red Rum and research this intriguing bit of info.

Apparently, the Germans celebrate their version of Halloween on April 30th and unlike the American version, the German take is decidedly “adult” and the “candy” involved is largely a euphemism.

The Walpurgisnacht festival takes its name from Walpurga of Devon, England, an abbess from the 700’s who was canonized as the patron saint of rabies – yes rabies.

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Goth Chick News: Sookie Soon to be Dead Ever After

Goth Chick News: Sookie Soon to be Dead Ever After

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Dead Ever AfterIt was 2003 when the publicist for an emerging author contacted the Black Gate office to ask if someone wanted to interview her client, Charlaine Harris. Ms. Harris was on tour for book number three of her vampire/mystery/romance series starring a telepathic cocktail waitress named Sookie Stackhouse.

I agreed to do it, having read the first two books and liking them well enough, but not loving them… yet.

At least the vampires in this series were dangerous, murderous blood suckers and not sparkly, angsty, tree-huggers.

Ms. Harris and I met for lunch at an Italian restaurant, prior to her proceeding to the local Borders book store where she was doing a reading. She was the quintessential Southern lady with impeccable table manners and an incredible imagination.

I found myself hanging on her every word.

At the time, no one could have predicted that only a few months later Alan Ball, stuck at an airport while on a business trip for his current HBO project Six Feet Under, would pick up Ms. Harris’s first two books to pass the time. Ball would fall hard for Sookie and subsequently begin pursuing both her and her creator in earnest as source material for a new HBO series he would eventually call True Blood (now in its sixth year and the first without Ball at the helm).

So here we are, one decade and eight books later, and about to bid Sookie goodbye for good; Charlaine Harris’s twelfth and final tale in the series, Dead Ever After, is ready to hit the shelves next month.

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Goth Chick News: Conjuring a Good Old-Fashioned Scare

Goth Chick News: Conjuring a Good Old-Fashioned Scare

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image001Admittedly, I’m a complete sucker for ghost hunting shows.

Yes, they can be painfully cheesy; from Grant Wilson’s (Ghost Hunters – SciFi Channel) earnest takes to the camera while expounding on how blessed he is to be able to help tormented souls, to Zak Bagans’s (Ghost Adventures – Travel Channel) shameless dramatics, I love every one of them.

But here’s a question for those who’ve tuned in: did you ever wonder what would happen if just once something truly horrifying actually reached out and touched one of them?

It’s an amusing thought – there’s Zak asking the “ghost” if it would give a sign it can hear him and suddenly a full bodied apparition shows up, pokes him in the nose, and says, “Yeah, I’m standing right here you tool.”

And the next thing you know, Zak and the whole GA crew are “retired.”

Well apparently I’m not the only one who imagined something similar – only they’ve taken it several steps (miles?) further.

Director James Wan already has some pretty substantial horror “street-cred” as the mind behind Saw, Dead Silence and Insidious.  And as these films represent a more in-your-face kind of scare than generally appeals to me, I am really anticipating his latest outing.

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Goth Chick News: More Fun Than A Pile of Zombies

Goth Chick News: More Fun Than A Pile of Zombies

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image004This week, Paramount Pictures released the first theatrical posters for Marc Forster’s World War Z, the zombie apocalypse movie based on the book by the same name, coming to a theater near you on June 21.

Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox, and David Morse, both sheets display a mile-high pile of rotting, decaying zombies attacking a helicopter.

Now that’s what I call entertainment.

World War Z has been gaining notoriety ever since action stills of Pitt on set started hitting the Internet. The adaptation of author Max Brooks’s ‘oral history of the zombie war’ has had fans buzzing from the get-go, since the format of the book involved a U.N. employee interviewing survivors of the zompocalypse about their experiences – and the stills appear to show something entirely different.

Having just finished the book myself, I can understand the debate.

The WWZ novel is outstanding for its unusual approach to the first-person narrative, representing a possibly problematic format to translate to film.

Forster could have created the story in the style of a faux documentary, and initial chatter on the underground grapevine indicated that the WWZ film would indeed go this route, with U.N. worker Gerry Lane’s (Pitt) survivor interviews being the basis for flashback footage of grisly, zombie-war action.

It now appears WWZ the movie will be a significant departure from Brooks’s novel in both structure and story.

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Goth Chick News: Hansel & Gretel: WTF…?

Goth Chick News: Hansel & Gretel: WTF…?

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Hansel and Gretel PosterGet ready to put this little morsel under the heading, “You’re Kidding, Right??”

Partially because it is my sworn journalistic commitment to bring you all things scary and partially because of Jeremy Renner, I actually paid full price to sit through Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters in its bombastic entirety.  Little did I know when I entered the theater that I really wasn’t getting a private screening due to my Black Gate creds, but was just far more optimistic than the rest of the viewing public by showing up to see it.

I occupied my favorite location in the dead center rows of seats that Saturday night, very much alone as I watched a Pepsi commercial with extremely high production values, yet filled with hope that what I was about to witness would be a reimaging of a well-known tale in the vein of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Eighty-eight excruciating minutes later I realized I should have bailed after the Pepsi commercial.

Dialog: lame, special effects: marginal, acting: vapid (yes even my beloved Mr. Renner), and plot: so thin you could read War and Peace through it, which would likely be a far better use of your time.

And, by the way, how is that even possible when a good chunk of the story has been in existence since 1812?

It wasn’t until weeks later that I learned Hansel & Gretel cost $50M to make and grossed only $54M in the US, which should have labeled it an unqualified bomb and immediately relegated it to a local RedBox.

But that’s before considering the audiences in what must truly be the global movie wastelands of Brazil, Russia and Mexico.  Because, lo and behold, Hansel and Gretel grossed a whopping $150M more internationally, thanks primarily to those countries.

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