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Bryan Talbot announces Grandville: L’Intégrale
Bryan Talbot is one of my absolute comics heroes. His work on Luther Arkwright, Nemesis the Warlock, The Tale of One Bad Rat and so much else has made him one of the giants of British Comics. His most recent work has been the Grandville novels, telling the Steampunky adventures of Detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard. LeBrock is an anthropomorphic badger who investigates crimes in an art nouveau world populated by anthropomorphic animals and a human underclass.
There are currently five Grandville graphic novels, and I can tell you that they're increasingly hard to get. So I was delighted to learn that Grandville: L'Integrale will be available in June next year, collecting the whole Grandville series.
So, if you missed the original versions when they came out, fear not. You'll soon be able to immerse yourself in the strange, beautiful world of Grandville and marvel at the cases of the greatest detective the world has ever seen!
KEANU TO RETURN AS JOHN CONSTANTINE?
OK. The fashionable response to this headline would be "Oh, I hope not". And I'm not gonna lie - I hated the first movie and have little to no interest in seeing a second.
Objectively Constantine is in fact a halfway decent action/horror flick. It's far from being Reeves' worst performance and it has some decent set pieces. What it doesn't have is any trace of the John Constantine I know and love from the comics.
Of course, I am in no way objective. I regard John Constantine - the Machiavellian scouse magician - almost as a friend. I've been reading about him for nearly thirty years. I know who he is. And he was nowhere to be seen in the Keanu Reeves movie, which is a problem for me. I mean, if you're going to just change pretty much everything about the character and just keep the name, why not avoid all the rights hassles and create a truly original character?
But of course, Hollywood pays scant heed to what I reckon, and according to Peter Stormare, who played Lucifer in the original movie old Con-Job is back in the frame and a second movie is under active development. This doesn't chime with the fact that J.J. Abrahams was reportedly working on a reboot - but given the mess that he made of Star Wars (and don't argue with me on this - whatever you think of The Last Jedi, and however enjoyable Rise of Skywalker was, there's no argument to be made that Rise was anything other then a cowardly and incoherent mess) would a sequel to the 2005 movie be any worse?
Keanu Reeves and director Francis Lawrence are both reportedly keen to do another instalment - and given the way both of their careers have grown since 2005 (Reeves with the John Wick series and Lawrence directing the Hunger Games series, so both have blockbuster cred at the studios) you really do have to take Stormare's claims seriously.
STALLONE TO STAR IN SUICIDE SQUAD
Speaking of terrible movies that don't need a second instalment, The Suicide Squad band wagon rolls inexorably onwards, with Sylvester Stallone announcing that he'll be on board James Gunn's soft reboot.
If you had the misfortune to sit through the original you'll know that there were some high spots - mostly involving Margot Robbie - so there may be something salvageable there, and the other new faces being brought in, including Idris Elba as Bloodsport, Nathan Fillion as T.D.K. and John Cena as Peacemaker also look promising.
And that's the news for this week. Keep an eye out for our Geeks at the Gates Thought Bubble Specials!