The late crime novelist Donald E. Westlake was notably protective of his most prominent fictional creation, the hard-as-nails master thief Parker, who starred in more than two dozen books written under Westlake’s major pseudonym, Richard Stark. Though the Parker books were adapted into films seven times, including the acclaimed Point Blank, Westlake insisted that the filmmakers …
Originally published on msnbc.com July 11, 2008, in advance of the movie Hellboy II: The Golden Army. It’s no longer online there, so I’ve reposted it in full here. Hellboy is perhaps the most unlikely superhero of all: A gruff, cigar-chomping muscle-bound dude who protects the world from toothy monsters isn’t uncommon in the world …
The nearly forgotten early comic-book artist Fletcher Hanks is rescued from obscurity with I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets (Fantagraphics), which collects 15 of the stories he wrote and illustrated during a brief career in the lower echelons of comics publishing from 1939 to 1941. Hanks’ work reads as if David Lynch, Daniel Johnston, and Ed …
Originally published on msnbc.com June 15, 2005, in advance of Batman Begins appearing in theaters. It’s no longer online there, so I’ve reposted it in full here. Director Christopher Nolan is taking the Batman film franchise back to its roots with the new Batman Begins, which (probably wisely) ignores the four previous films about the …