Marc Tyler Nobleman's Blog, page 90

The first live-action Bill Finger

Several Bill Finger milestones are coming your way in 2014.

It is the 100th anniversary of his birth (and the 75th of Batman's).

It is the 40th anniversary of his death (40 years ago today, in fact).

And it marks the first-ever live-action Bill Finger, played by 22-year-old Ezekiel Jackson in a New York play entitled Fathers of the Dark Knight .


Tell me a bit about yourself, including where you're from, your age, your theater background, and what else you're doing these days?

I was born in Brooklyn in 1991 and raised in the Bronx. I was adopted as a baby and I was lucky to have been adopted or I would have never gotten into the arts. My mom was a Broadway performer and she is still a singer to this day. I spent my middle school and high school years at the Theatre Arts Production Company where I studied Shakespeare, improve, and contemporary acting. I furthered my education and love of acting when I went to AMDA, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, in NY and LA. There I studied the art of acting in many forms. I graduated in June 2012 in LA. Right after I graduated, I was in a show for the Santa Clarita Shakespeare Festival where we did the play Macbeth. Then I worked on a few fight choreography jobs for short films and several web series. I have also done acting for short films and student films. Those experiences were amazing. Now that I am back on the east coast, I am a part of Fathers of the Dark Knight and I am auditioning and looking for the next exciting project.

How did you hear of the auditions for Fathers of the Dark Knight?

I heard about the play a year before I actually joined the cast. The director, Roberto Williams, approached me about joining the cast but at the time I was in California finishing college. Fast forward to a year later; on Facebook I stumbled across a link to the Fathers of the Dark Knight website, and I quickly wrote him telling him how cool everything looks and I discovered that he had not yet hired a fight choreographer for the production. So I saw that as a sign and took my golden opportunity and soon became the official fight choreographer for FOTDK. Then I expressed interest in being a part of the production in any other capacity and he offered me the role of Bill Finger and I was excited and said yes.

Are you a Batman fan?

I am a diehard Batman fan; been since I was a young boy. I first read Batman comic books and then, since I was a ‘90s baby, BATMAN: The Animated Series was on TV, and there had been the live-action movies, so the ‘90s was Batman mania to me. I love almost anything Batman-related—the world of Batman has been a big part of my life.

Had you heard of Bill Finger (or, for that matter, Bob Kane) before?

I knew of Bob Kane before I worked on FOTDK. I knew he created Batman because I used that as a reference for a paper I was writing back in middle school on how certain forms of entertainment are educational and or inspirational. I had heard of Bill Finger during my research but didn't really know how much he contributed to the creation of Batman.

How do you plan on playing Bill?

How I plan on playing Bill Finger is a tough question to answer because there isn't much information to study on him in preparation for the role. Bill Finger, from what I have researched, was a "to himself" type of guy. He didn't like confrontation, he didn't like a whole lot of attention on himself. He was a man who loved his son very much and loved to receive input from him. He was a very smart man who loved life and sadly wasn't recognized till after his death. My director and I have been discovering more about him through the rehearsal process and it’s been great to start bringing this character to life. I will be using the character Ed Norton from The Honeymooners and the character Ted Chaough from Mad Men for inspiration for Bill. With inspirations of those kind and great direction from Roberto Williams, we will bring Bill Finger to life.

How do you feel being the first person to portray the unsung co-creator of the world's most popular superhero?

I feel honored and a bit scared to be the first to play Bill Finger. I am honored to play him because I want to give Bill Finger the respect and recognition he deserves. I am scared because I want to make sure to portray Bill Finger in such a way that the audience feels like they know him and want to know more.

Wonder Twins movie hoax revelation: media response

Yesterday I debunked a mystery that was never fully bunked to begin with.

In November, several comic shops nationwide received a poster allegedly announcing a Warner Bros. movie about the Wonder Twins.

Many people did not believe it. 

But they did not know what it did mean.

I interviewed the guy who does.

And here is how the media responded:

  Hollywood Reporter
Newsarama
Huffington Post
IGN
  Comic Book Resources (Robot 6)
Comics Alliance
Bleeding Cool 
Also /Film (SlashFilm), ScreenCrush, ComicBook.com, Comic Book Movie, MStars News (where I am referred to by a title I did not know I had, “hoax exposer”).
Thank you to Pat Evans for giving us something fun to speculate about and thank you to the outlets above for activating the coverage.

Wonder Twins movie hoax media

Yesterday I debunked a mystery that was never fully bunked to begin with.

In November, several comic shops nationwide received a poster allegedly announcing a Warner Bros. movie about the Wonder Twins.

Many people did not believe it. 

But they did not know what it did mean.

I interviewed the guy who does.

And here is how the media responded:

  Hollywood Reporter
Newsarama
Huffington Post
IGN
  Comic Book Resources (Robot 6)
Comics Alliance
Also /Film (SlashFilm), ScreenCrush, ComicBook.com, Comic Book Movie, MStars News (where I am referred to by a title I did not know I had, “hoax exposer”).
Thank you to Pat Evans for giving us something fun to speculate about and thank you to the outlets above for activating the coverage.

Wonder Twins poster mystery: shape of an explanation!

One of the entertainment highlights of my youth was watching Super Friends.

One of the entertainment highlights of my career was interviewing Super Friends—in other words, the voice actors I grew up with.

One of the highlights of that project was finding and being the first to reunite the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, portrayed by Michael Bell and Louise Rodricks.

One of the highlights of a recent Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman interview I gave to BatPodcast was discovering that the podcast host, Pat Evans, had a connection to a mysterious superhero-related movie poster that had made the rounds in the real world and online in November 2013.


Pat kindly agreed to reveal the story behind the mystery poster here, so the interviewee became the interviewer.

What inspired the idea to design a poster for a Wonder Twins movie—and send it anonymously to comic shops including Midtown Comics in New York?

I honestly don’t remember the exact moment of conception. I was standing on my toilet trying to hang a clock, the porcelain was wet, the next thing I know: blammo!

Seriously, though…with the spate of superhero movies being released, I think it was just me thinking it would be fun to do a spoof version of one. I thought, “What would be the most preposterous superhero movie you could make?” Naturally, the Wonder Twins sprang to mind.

They were perfect, because it was just unbelievable enough a concept that it could be true, if that makes sense. “So crazy it might work” kind of logic. And Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher were kind of the clincher because they are in the media a lot now as a real-life couple. So it added that extra layer of “huh?”

When did you get this idea and when did you send it out? Was there a reason you sent it out when you did?

About ten months ago. I’m pretty busy, so sometimes my side projects take a while to complete. I had actually wanted to have them ready for Comic-Con but wasn’t able to. The next big local event was Comikaze, so I thought I’d take some there to leave on the poster table and them stand back and surreptitiously watch people’s reactions.

Unfortunately, this year they didn’t have a poster table so I had to sort of leave them lying in conspicuous places and wait for people to notice them. So it was a little anti-climactic although I did get to see a few interesting reactions. But my friends and fellow geeks I showed loved them. Many were not sure if they were real or not.

Also unfortunately, I didn’t think to change the release date from when I originally conceived the idea. I should have changed it to 2015— maybe that would have made it more believable as an actual film. Of course, with IMDB and everything now, it takes people about five seconds to figure out the truth anyway.

But what was weird is because people assumed that it was officially from Warner Brothers, it must be part of some sort of marketing gimmick for the Entourage movie because of their fake Aquaman movie and since it is due out in 2014. One person put forth that assumption online, and a lot of people ran with it. Repeat it enough times and it’s true!

So to finish answering your last question: I sent it to Midtown and the other more well-known comic shops in New York, L.A., and Chicago because I wasn’t able to pull off any great reactions at Comikaze and I had about half of the posters still left. So I said what the hell, I’ll send it to some comic shops and see what happens. I wanted to do something with them after all the trouble of having them made.

When I made the mailing labels, I figured I should put the WB logo on them—make them look like they actually came from Warner Bros. Otherwise the gag is blown. Same with the logos on the poster. They had to be there or people instantly dismiss it.

[Still,] I figured they’d pretty quickly know it was fake but maybe think it was funny and put it in their windows as a joke. I forgot about the magic of Twitter.

What was your goal with this experiment?

Basically to make people think—if only for a few moments—that a Wonder Twins movie might actually be made. Sort of the equivalent of making someone believe in Santa Claus. A dangerous, drooling, and demented Santa Claus to be sure—but miraculous and magical nonetheless.

What reaction did you expect?

“What the ****?” And that’s pretty much what I got. So, mission accomplished, I guess.

What was your reaction to the comics media picking up the story?

I was pretty blindsided. Very surprising. It was pretty big: Cinema Blend, Huffington Post, Superhero Hype, Slashfilm, etc., plus it was the subject of several YouTube videos like AMC Movie Talk—where John Schnepp actually busts it as a fake. I gave him a poster at Comikaze. You were supposed to keep it a secret, damn you, John! Of course people already knew it was fake, they just didn’t know what to make of it.

And actually, the Wonder Twins is not my first viral fake movie poster.

A few years ago Cracked.com did a Photoshop contest for “The Most Ill-Conceived Movie Monsters.” I submitted two—one for Coultergeist (self explanatory) and one with Javier Bardem as Count Chocula. Coultergeist won the top spot and Count Chocula took 3rd place, if I recall. But Count Chocula was the one that everyone really seemed to like and it went fairly viral. Defamer did an article, a few other people put it on their blogs, and the poster appeared in the print edition of the Washington Post.

Defamer put forth the notion that there should be a trilogy of Monster Cereal movies and suggested Philip Seymour Hoffman as Frankenberry, Jake Gyllenhaal as BooBerry. So I obliged them and sent them versions of those posters as well, which also appeared on their site.

You can see them as well as my series of fake Steven Seagal movie posters on my website. And that’s actually where I got my website name, Rogue Photoshop. The author of the Defamer article identified me as a “Rogue Photoshopper.” Sounded good to me!

What has been your favorite response/comment?

I watched someone angrily crumple one up at Comikaze. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but I’m quite sure it wasn’t complimentary.

I’m pretty pleased that my artwork stood up to the scrutiny—people thought it was official in some capacity. No one really said it looked like a fake. That is very rewarding.

And the fact that you wanted to interview me about it is pretty great.

Are you a Wonder Twins fan? If not, what made you choose the Wonder Twins for this experiment?

Who doesn’t love the Wonder Twins? Seriously. Just ask my kids, Zan and Jayna. [MTN: I had to clarify: yes, this is a joke.]

What do you do for a living?

Well, my mail-order sandwich business just went belly up, so I’m currently “pursuing other opportunities” (isn’t that what people say when they royally screw up their lives?). I’m joking, of course—my mail-order sandwich business is quite lucrative.

Other than that, I produce my wife Jamie’s music. We just released her second CD and it is amazing. It’s going to be big; she’s an incredible singer. She’s already had a lot of songs in movies and TV shows; she did the theme song for Heather Langenkamp’s documentary about playing “Nancy” in the Nightmare on Elm Street films (“I Am Nancy”). This new CD is her best stuff yet.

And from time to time I do graphic design projects—mainly for my own amusement like the fake posters—but I have done a few CD covers for people including my wife’s new CD and comedian Sean Kent who is a buddy of mine from back when I worked in the showroom at the Hollywood Improv.

I also am a huge lifelong Batman fan and have just started my new podcast, The BatPodcast.


I interview all sorts of awesome folks from the Batman Universe—actors, writers, artists, stuntmen, vehicle designers—trying to uncover interesting tidbits and stories you may not have heard before. I’ve got some fantastic interviews already; I’m very excited.

It’s the first step in my goal to make my life revolve completely around Batman…as much as it can anyway. My ultimate goal is to open a Batman Museum on Hollywood Boulevard.

How many posters did you produce?

Just 50. It was always meant to be a small-scale prank.

I’ve seen comments from fans who want one; Warner Bros., I say you commission Pat for both poster design and social media marketing!

I won’t disagree with you there. In fact, I’ll take it a step further: President of Warner Brothers. Then you’ll have nothing but Wonder Twins movies. It will be the next big tentpole franchise…I stake my life on it!

But seriously, since there’s already been a buzz about this being part of the Entourage movie, I think they should just weave it into the film. Get Kevin Smith to play himself as the director of a Wonder Twins movie but it’s running into all sorts of production problems. There could be a situation where the studio wants to replace Ashton Kutcher with Vince. Maybe there ends up being a love triangle between them and Mila.

Or hey, why not just go ahead and make an actual Wonder Twins movie? The great thing about it is you could do it however you wanted…because who really cares? No one would be expecting anything from it so you could afford to do something creative. Just because they were cheesy on the Super Friends doesn’t mean you couldn’t come up with a really interesting version of them.

You might as well. You’ve already got the poster!

The day in Bill Finger Google doodle news

The campaign to get Bill Finger the Google doodle for his 100th birthday (2/8/14) continues to expand/blow me away.

On 1/13/14, it was covered by the following:

  Comic Book Resources (Robot 6); love the ending of this one
Spectator Tribune (Manitoba, Canada); love the format of this one; I was told that it was the 
most read article on the entire site that day


And I was interviewed by the Washington Post; that story should post this week.

Thank you again to the world at large for supporting this effort. Join the movement simply by emailing proposals@google.com ASAP (that birthday is hurtling toward us).

Bill Finger Goodle doodle: the movement grows

First
Comics Alliance

Note: Most people seeing this headline are asking “Who now?”—
and not in reference to Finger.
Bleeding Cool
ComicBook.com
And of the hundreds of tweets I have skimmed, here is one I especially like:


This tweeter also interviewed me for a Canadian newspaper.

Some people who emailed Google copied me. Here are two choice excerpts:

#1

I’m with Marc Nobleman. It’s time for Bill Finger to get some recognition for his long-standing contributions to pop culture. And it’s not the doodle that so important, but the link.

Millions of users will go to Google to search the Internet, they’ll see a Batman-themed doodle and click it, and it will link to Finger’s story. Normally your doodles highlight someone who is recognized for his achievements, but a doodle for Bill Finger would actually help give him the recognition he’s never had. I hope you’ll consider it.

Thanks and I’m looking forward to the doodle.

#2

Please consider a Google doodle for this poor man who made millions of people happy and died penniless without the fame deserved of him.

To join the movement yourself, email proposals@google.com. We can do this! Maybe we already have...

A third confirmation on what became of Bill Finger in death

After I was interviewed on All Things Considered on NPR, I heard from Dean Badolato, a friend of Bill’s first wife, Portia. 

So, of course, I interviewed him.

Dean was kind to attend my 5/15/13 talk at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, during which I showed the page from Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman that reveals what happened to Bill after he died. I’d learned this not from a published source but rather from two unconnected people who knew Bill’s son Fred.

Dean is now the third person (after Fred’s cousin and his good friend) to confirm this poignant incident, which we almost lost to time. I’m so fortunate that my orbit crossed the orbits of the few people who knew what Fred did with Bill’s ashes.

Here is what Dean recounted:

…at one of my many “Dinners with Portia,” Bill had probably just died and she informed me. I must have inquired where he would be buried and she said Freddie (she called him Freddie most of the time) had made the trip out to the west coast with Bill’s ashes and that he had formed the shape of the Batman logo with his ashes and then watched the waves slowly wash them into the ocean.

Portia had a sly—or snide, perhaps—chuckle when she found something humorous or perhaps in this case, ironic…or symbolic even…who knows. I remember her chuckling over this. Also she almost always had a Virginia Slims cigarette in her hand and often in hot weather a ladies’ hand fan in the other. She had a gorgeous collection of fancy fans.

If she shed even a single tear over Bill’s passing, it would have been in private because she sure did not think highly of him.
 
Again, I know she would have approved of your work, Marc, because she believed highly in justice. And if Fred and Portia and Bill could be aware of your influencing Athena to gain the royalty privileges, I know they would be extremely grateful to you.

Kidlit authors reading bad reviews...in the UK

Four days after I posted a series of short videos in which 53 kidlit/YA authors/illustrators read aloud cruel or absurd reviews of their own books, I saw on Twitter that a version with UK authors is in the works. 


Australia, you're next.

Big names campaign for Bill Finger Google doodle

Some big Batman fans who also happen to be big names are spreading the word about my effort to get Bill Finger a Google doodle for what would have been his 100th birthday, February 8, 2014. 

Thank you Kevin Smith, Brad Meltzer, and IGN (and all who have emailed proposals@google.com as a result):

Kidlit authors reading bad reviews in "Horn Book"

What happens when more than 50 authors of books for young readers conduct a bad review slam? This.

Thank you for the plug, Roger! Love the spin you put on it.