X3: Retold

Hey Kids,

So the Wolverine movie opens tomorrow and its release has generated a lot of talk about the previous X-Men movies… mostly unfond memories of X-Men: The Last Stand, the third and final “film”.

Now I was never really a fan of the previous X-Men films — They were OK. They weren’t horrible, they just didn’t really do anything for me — but I absolutely HATED The Last Stand. I hated it so much I had to go home and write a treatment for how the movie should have been.

I mentioned this to my friend Judah Thor and he was pretty interested in seeing how I would have worked the story. Instead of emailing it to him, I thought I’d post it here for all to see. So, if you’ve already read this three years ago when I originally wrote it or actually liked the film — or, at least, hated my treatment — blame Judah.

Hope this would have turned out better that the actual movie.
Frank Cvetkovic

If I wrote the X3 script…

So, I saw the latest X-Men movie a week or two ago and, like a lot of people, I did some bitching afterwards. I’m not a huge X-Men fan, but I know the characters and I know how they should be written. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I decided to stop complaining about it and write a few words on what should have happened and where Kinberg and Penn went wrong with their screenplay. I don’t have a lot of time here, so forgive me if I am brief.

First of all, I liked the beginning of the film. They at least they got that right. I like Xavier and Magneto going to visit the Grey Family and the talk they had with Jean. After that, they pretty much fucked almost everything else up.

Cyclops should NOT have died OFF SCREEN in the first ten minutes of the movie. This should have been his movie, but if Marsden didn’t want to have too much involvement with the film (because he wanted to take on a role in the upcoming Superman film, from what I heard), they could easily have given him a smaller part for most of the movie instead of just senselessly killing him off. Let’s say, he can’t handle Jean’s death (at the end of X2) so he fuck’s off for most of the movie to go bowling or something. I don’t care. He just has to live.

The movie goes on as normal from there. There is the threat of the mutant “cure”. Jean is resurrected. Magneto springs Mystique from her holding cell, but does not go camping out in the woods. He’s the Master of frggin’ Magnetism, for Christ’s sake! Why would he hide out where there is NO METAL? He should be hiding out in fucking Detroit, for fuck’s sake!

If Kinberg and Penn where on the ball while writing their little screenplay, they would have had Magneto take over a little country called Genosha, where he would have hidden out until his moment to strike the facility holding the mutant “cure”. The X-Men would have followed him there. Battle ensues. Genosha is destroyed, furthering the hate and fear of mutants in the public eye.

In short, the Master of Magnetism does NOT go camping.

MAGNETO: Soon, we shall strike! We shall show these homosapiens that we are homosuperior and we are not to be fucked with!
*looks down*

MAGNETO: Aw, my weenie fell in the fire again! It’s all ashy now…

Anyway.

So, finally, the X-Men must stop Magneto. They have their big battle, like at the end of the flick, expect for a few minor details. It comes down to the main players: Magneto, Phoenix, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Xavier (who did not die a pussy death).

Wolverine and Cyclops take on Phoenix, but they are getting nowhere. Xavier and Magneto shout battle instructions to their teams, until Magneto is taken out by the “cure” (they got that right, at least). Xavier telepathically tells Wolverine that there is no humane way to stop Jean and the he has to kill her. Wolverine stabs Jean and she dies. Cyclops flips out. Xavier explains himself, but Cyclops is still angered. He attacks Wolverine for killing the love of his life.

They exchange blows in a short fist fight before Wolverine pops his claws. This gives Cyclops an excuse to take off his glasses and blast Wolverine into the pavement relentlessly. After a few moments of fighting, Cyclops stops and exits distraught. Wolverine gets back up, growing back whichever parts of himself that need to be grown back. He says to Xavier “I could have taken him, Chuck. You know I could have. But the kid just lost the love of his life. He needed to get rid of some aggression. Better he take it out on me instead of someone who couldn’t grow back.”

Wolverine tells Xavier that this was his last mission. He loved Jean and he couldn’t stay on the team after having killed her. He quits and goes off on his own, which easily sets up the premise for the Wolverine movie that is already being planned.

My two cents,

-Boom Boom Storm Cloud

This Is How I Piss People Off Through Advertising

Hey Kids,

I was tooling around Twitter and found a link to this YouTube video. While the video itself is somewhat humorous, what I found hilarious was the advertisement running along the bottom of the video.

Let’s look a little closer, shall we?

“Are you fat, lazy, and have troubles getting in/out of a car? Check this – http://handybar.com/“

There’s got to be a better way to market your product than calling your clients — who, on the site, they show to be mostly elderly — fat and lazy. Might as well call you stupid, too.

Jeez, four posts in one day and at least one of them is about something stupid I found on the interweb. You’d think you were reading Shady’s Blarg.

Punch-Up Ashcan Covers!

Hey Kids,

A few days ago, the Amazing David Brame and I showed you the process of making the cover for the Punch-Up ashcans. Today, I’m here to show you the final version!

Most of you — or at least those of you who read Monday’s post — have already see the front cover. Since then, I’ve cleaned it up a bit and added creator credits.

I created the back cover on Tuesday. I’ve always loved wraparound covers so I extended the background colors from the front. Then, Amazing David drew up some Punch-Up Chibis, which I resized and grouped together for the back cover, also adding in a “COMING SOON” warning.

Put it all together and you get this:

Hope you all enjoyed this little look into the building of a cover. I’ll have some updates next week on what exactly we’re going to be doing with these.

Hasta La Bye-Bye.
Frank Cvetkovic

Punch-Up Chibis!

Hey Kids,

On Tuesday, I found out that my good friend and Punch-Up co-conspirator, Amazing David Brame, was going to draw up some Chibis for the back of the Punch-Up ashcan books!

Then, after a quick Google search, I found out what exactly a Chibi was!

Anyway, the first up is Patrick, the main character of the story. Patrick, as you can see, takes quite a few hits to the face throughout the book.

Next, there’s Andy, Patrick’s roommate and best friend. Andy, his looks based off of Amazing David himself — minus the dreads, of course — is apparently a big fan of the booze… like Amazing David himself!

And then there’s Kendra. Mmm… Kendra. For those who came to see us at S.P.A.C.E. or have read through the 25-page Punch-Up preview, you guys have no idea who the hell Kendra is. She doesn’t actually pop up until around page 40 of the book. But once her character is introduced, she radically changes the story and makes Patrick’s life a lot more interesting. I love writing Kendra. She’s probably my favorite character to write. She’s complete id. Any fucked up thing that I would love to say but can’t, due to society’s restrictions and rules, ends up coming out of Kendra’s mouth. I heart Kendra.

That’s all the Chibi goodness I have for you today. I’ll also be posting the cover to the Punch-Up ashcans in a bit, so stick around.

Cheers!
-Frank Cvetkovic

Punch-Up Cover Mockups!

Hey kids!

Over the weekend, my artist extraordinaire — Amazing David Brame – sent me a color cover mockup for our book, Punch-Up!

The image looks awesome! The colors are amazing! The only thing I was disappointed in was the face that this was only going to be a mockup for the proposal and not the final piece! (The scan of the image wasn’t the greatest so we’re going to have to rescan and recolor for the final copy.)

I did have one slight problem with the background colors. It seemed too bright and cheery for such a dark book. Dave suggested a bluish-purplish background instead. I screwed around with the colors for a bit and came up with this:

We both decided that this didn’t quite work, either, so we went a little grayer, a little murkier.

Dave and I really liked this version so we slapped our logo – designed by Sir Michael Harris – on there. We went with orange at first, to make it pop.

But the orange didn’t look that great printed, so we tried a light gray.

So this image will adorn both our Punch-Up proposal and ashcans we’re going to be giving away at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival and Heroes Con! (I’ll tell you more about that later.)

I think it works. What do you think?

Con Artists (And Writers)

Hey kids,

COMICS!

I just wanted to drop a line and let you guys know that, this Saturday and Sunday, I’ll be sharing a table with Mr Michael Harris at SPACE — the Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo – at the Aladdin Shrine Temple.

I’ll be selling copies of my short story collections. You can pick up my latest hot-off-the-press collection – A Letter To Myself (And Other Stories) – for three dollars. I’ll also have copies of last year’s collection – The Number Sixteen (And Other Stories That Aren’t As Good) – as well as copies of last year’s Comictron 2.0 for two dollars each. OR you can get the bundle pack: all three books for ONLY FIVE DOLLARS!

I’ll also have a preview of my original graphic novel, Punch-Up – drawn by Amazing David Brame – which we hope to get picked up by a publisher sometime this summer.

Michael will be selling his various mini-comics, including the BRAND NEW Guerilla The Chinchilla!

We’ll also be doing sketches for those into that kind of thing.

While you’re at SPACE – after you stop by our table, of course – stop by Michael Watson’s table. He, along with writer Victor Dandridge, are going to be selling copies of the first issue of their comic, Hotshot, and previewing the second issue.

Then, stop by Danny Cooper’s table and pick up some Mutant Cactus AWESOME buttons!

And, as always, go visit my good friend Max Ink and pick up a copy of the latest Blink! antics.

Finally, I’m not one to beg people to buy my comics and short stories and whatnot – awesome as they may be – but it would REALLY help me out if you picked up a couple of books. Y’see, one of my favorite artists, Nate Powell, is going to be at SPACE this year and, well, I’m probably going to stalk him all weekend until he agrees to collaborate with me and I could almost assuredly use the bail money.

Hope to see ya there!

Frankie!

Brand Frank

Hey kids,

Just a quick update about some changes going on here at the blog due to the whole Brand Frank campaign.

First of all, the blog URL has changed. You will no longer find the blog at boomboomstormcloud.blogspot.com. So don’t even try looking there. I think the internet will explode or something if you do. You can now find Frank here at Go-Frank-Go.blogspot.com!

Also, the name of the blog itself has changed. As much as I liked The Storm Report, the name had to be changed along with the rest of it. The blog is now called Frankly Speaking. Get it? No? Well, I don’t have the time to explain it to you now.

You can also now find me on Twitter by my new screen name, GoFrankGo.

I’m also working on a new logo design, which I should – hopefully – have up here pretty soon.

And, lastly, feel free to email me at FrankCvetkovic@gmail.com.

Be sure to check back here in a few days for another important update!

-f

Hotshot Is That Hot Shit

Hey Kids,

You’ve probably noticed lately that I’ve been advertising other people’s work more than my own. (Although, I’m sure some of you are more than OK with me shutting up about Punch-Up for a while.) Don’t worry; I’ll have some exciting Punch-Up news for in a few days and, hopefully, somereally exciting news for you in a few weeks.

Today, I want to tell you about my friend – and former roommate of some three years – Michael Watson.

Michael Watson is a huge nerd. No, seriously. A huge nerd. He has seen every Lord of the Rings, Matrix, and Star Wars movie. 482 times. Each. He owns over 600 action figures, which he proudly poses into vast fight scenes all around his house. Of those figures, he has at least 30 Spider-Men, which he has arranged into an almost stop-motion web-slinging sequence throughout his room. He had to have a stage built for his Lord of the Rings playset. He owns several superhero costumes and plastic lightsabers. He owns more comic books than your average comic book store. Michael Watson is a huge nerd.

(And, yet, somehow he still has a girlfriend. I don’t get it.)

But it’s because of his nerdiness, because of his kid-at-heart-ness, because of his open and unapologetic devotion to the things that he is truly and utterly passionate about that Michael Watson is such an amazing comic book artist.

For as long as I’ve known him, which is bordering on ten years now, Mike has been carefully constructing his comic book opus: Hotshot.


Now Hotshot isn’t just another comic, no. Hotshot is more like Mike’s autobiography. You see, Mike is Hotshot. Shh, don’t tell anyone. Perhaps it was his childhood – and adolescent… and adulthood – dream to be a superhero or the fact that Mike’s just a complete narcissist that made him turn himself into the title character. I don’t know. Personally, I vote narcissist. What I do know is that it makes for some mighty fine reading. Because you’re not just following the exploits of another Superman or Spider-Man, you’re getting a peek into the life of Michael Watson. The book travels from his high school days through his college years and his life as an art school resident advisor, documenting real-life friendships and relationships, triumphs and heartbreaks. But, you know, with superpowers and villains and flying and shit.

Peter Parker eat your fucking heart out.

But the road to Hotshot hasn’t been an easy one. Paved with several false starts and more than his fair share of obstacles in his path, it’s taken years for Mike to get to where he is. But that’s OK. All of the anger and frustration of delays and rejection that would make the average person question why they haven’t given up already has only fueled Mike to make his book that much better.

That said, it gives me great pleasure to tell you that Hotshot #1: The Remix is being released today. Mike – along with Hotshot writer, Victor Dandridge, and colorist, Ren McKinzie – will be over at Dave’s Clubhouse, in Reynoldsburg, from noon until eight o’clock tonight selling their book and doing commissions and sketches. There will also be food and drinks. it’s gonna be kind of a thing. Can’t make it out there today? You can also order your copy through his website. Or stop by their table at the Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo, at the Aladdin Shrine Temple, April 18th and 19th.

I’ll be picking up my copy today. Make sure you get yours.