Gordon McAlpin's Blog: Updates from Multiplex: Deleted Scenes, page 22

"Salesman Pete" by Marc Bouyer, Max Loubaresse and Anthony Vivien

The story seems to be little more than an excuse to string together weird and/or fun things together, but the animation and character designs are fantastic. There's an almost seamless blend of 2D and 3D animation at play here, and I can't help wondering what this team could do with a budget. Definitely check this out when you have seven minutes to spare.

Also check out "Meet Buck" by the same trio.

Trailer Watch: Another Muppets teaser trailer!

Hot on the heels of last week's Green with Envy trailer comes another teaser for The Muppets, the upcoming return of Jim Henson's second greatest creations (after The Dark Crystal) — once again, courtesy Yahoo! Movies and masquerading as a trailer for another movie. This teaser is clearly a riff on The Hangover Part II's teaser, called The Fuzzy Pack.

Check it out:

Once again, The Muppets hits theaters on November 23. It was directed by James Bobin from a script by Jason Segel and Nick Stoller, and it stars Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, and a host of others.

"Wolverine vs. The Hand" by Gary Shore

With Darren Aronofsky out of The Wolverine (as the next Wolverine movie is currently called), Twentieth Century Fox is busy trying to find a new director. Recently, a short list of directors under consideration was leaked, with familiar names like Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), Mark Romanek (Never Let Me Go), Justin Lin (Fast Five), Gavin O'Connor (Miracle), and James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma) — but one name on the list left a lot of people, including myself, scratching our heads: Gary Shore…?

A clue to Mr. Shore's inclusion was found on his Vimeo page — a little clip called Wolverine vs. The Hand." Not quite a short film; it's sort of a motion comic of a fight scene — and while there's some silly stuff in it, but it does look very, very cool. If this aesthetic can be translated to a proper motion picture, Shore might have something here. (There are some very cool images in some of his commercials, as well, like this Adidas spot — so check them out.)

(via Coming Soon)

Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show is a Staff Pick in the June PREVIEWS!

Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show (Book 1) has been available since September, but this June, Diamond (the largest comics distributor in the world) will finally be listing the book in their PREVIEWS catalog (Order Code JUN110987), which coincidentally has a "Movie Comics" theme. In fact, Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show is a Staff Pick! If you live overseas, where the shipping can end up costing more than the book itself if you order it through me directly, this is your best bet.

If you want to convince your local comics retailer to pick up the book, point him at page 258 of the June PREVIEWS, or simply download this sell sheet (PDF, 308kb) and give it to them; it has all the information they need to order the book!

Multiplex: Enjoy Your Show (Book 1) collects strips #1–102 from the Multiplex archives, plus over 40 pages of bonus comics including an all-new, exclusive 12-page Prequel story set on opening night of Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, plus character bios, guest strips and more! The book 224-page, oversized volume retails for $19.95.

June's PREVIEWS should be in comics shops WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1. Orders through Diamond will hit shelves in August.

"Alma" by Rodrigo Blaas

"Alma," by former Pixar employee Rodrigo Blaas, is a wonderfully creepy short from a couple of years back. Gorgeously animated and impeccably told, it wasn't very surprising to learn that Guillermo del Toro and Dreamworks have optioned "Alma" to develop into a full-length feature, to be co-directed by Blaas and del Toro. While the resulting feature — if it should ever see the light of the silver screen — will almost undoubtedly have a more upbeat ending, I think it could work rather well, provided they keep the creepiness intact in the rest of the tale.

(Thanks to Mathew Hamilton Watts for reminding me about "Alma"!)

Trailer Watch: Green with Envy (just watch it, okay?)

Green with Envy stars Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, and… some other characters you will recognize. And it opens November 23.

"Doodlebug" by Christopher Nolan (yes, THAT one)

With the next Batman film in production now, and people already getting whipped into viral frenzies over it, I thought I'd point you guys towards a Christopher Nolan film that you probably haven't seen — "Doodlebug" is a creepy short film made by Nolan while a student at university. I'm not sure you can call it a student film if the filmmaker wasn't a film student, but whatever you call it, it's very well done for such a small film. "Doodlebug" stars Jeremy Theobald, who also starred in Nolan's debut feature, Following (which is worth seeing, if you're a fan of Nolan's).

(Thanks for the heads up, James Mclaughlin!)

Trailer Watch: Green Lantern

Courtesy of Yahoo! Movies comes a new trailer for Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Geoffrey Rush and Michael Clarke Duncan — this time featuring some narration by Rush (as Green Lantern Tomar Re).

The costumes and the CG still don't feel quite right to me, but it feels suitably… well… epic. It looks good, anyway, and I'll definitely be there on June 17th. What do you think?

"I Met the Walrus" by Josh Raskin

This Oscar-nominated animated short from Josh Raskin takes a half-hour 1969 interview with John Lennon conducted by the 14 year old Jerry Levitan, distills it to 5 minutes, and crazies the heck out of it. The animation illustrators and even expands on Lennon's words delightfully, making it an absolute joy to watch.

The pen illustrations were by James Braithwaite and the computer illustration by Alex Kurina.

Rhyme Bandits T-shirt now available for PRE-ORDER

Although you couldn't see it in the current strip (#590), I showed an image of Dub's T-shirt over on Facebook: it's a royal blue shirt sporting a "Rhyme Bandits" logo, parodying the Time Bandits logo, of course. People seemed to like it, and although readers always lie and say they would totally buy stuff and don't once it's actually available, I figure *I* would love to have one of these, so why not?

And so, the Rhyme Bandits T-shirt is now available for pre-order from the Multiplex Store. It is $18.99 for standard sizes, and (as always), I have to say, if you are a woman and like wearing Ladies' style shirts, or you wear especially large (2XL+) or small sizes of even Men's shirts, you should definitely consider pre-ordering if you like this design. At conventions, I sell basically two sizes: Mediums and Larges. I can't afford to keep extras of every size, unfortunately.

I'll keep orders open for three weeks (through June 10th), and if I've made 15 orders, I'll print them up. If not, I won't, and everyone will get their money refunded and be sad.