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I remember being blown away when I first read the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Well, the turtles are back in a big way this summer with a new re-boot flick coming out in August 2014. To hold you over until the movie comes out, check out the new TMNT x Kidrobot line!
While in the midst of pre-production of The Hateful Eight film, a possible influential spin-off from The Magnificent Seven, Quentin Tarantino is also working to release a Comic book about Django and Zorro! Tarantino is co-writing the comic with Matt Wagner and edited by Reginald Hudlin.
Find out more at : comicvine/Djangomeetszorro
Just what does it take to become a Comic Artist? Tomas Overbai explains everything to Ramen and Half‘s host, Eddie Ballar, what got him into comic art and eventually comic story telling with his upcoming Book One of ICHIDO – a post apocalyptic science fiction fantasy comic where a threatened Empire goes to war utilizing the traditions of kung-fu fighting and futuristic advanced robot warfare. The comic is like the battles of a Shogun Empire meets Robotech! 
LINK: http://www.fallensunasylum.org/ facebook/TomasOverbai twitter/TomasOverbai
At FanimeCon’s Artist Alley we find artist Ben Costa with 2 published comics already. His Xeric Award Winning Web Comic follows Pang, a Shaolin Monk in 17th Century China.
I look at my cousins now who grew up in the 2000s, I know that technology has spoiled them from the sleek smartphones, the sexy iPads, the 4G speed, and the big-screen LCDs. I grew up without the internet and like many kids went out to the playground or played baseball with my brother. But the most enjoyable memories was waiting to get our hands on the Sunday newspaper with my siblings. Of course, we would dig through all the cool Toys R Us ads, the Sports Section, but also the Sunday comics section. One section was just dedicated to cartoon strips like Peanuts, Garfield, Doonesbury, Hagar, Beetle Bailey, and others. Out of all the comic strips we liked was Calvin & Hobbes. I used to cut out the strip from the newspaper and collect it into a photo album, until they published trade paperbacks of Calvin & Hobbes. Every time my family was at the mall, I would directly head to the bookstore like Barnes & Noble and make my mom buy me a Calvin & Hobbes trade paperback.
In revamping the successful Tomb Raider franchise – we got a re-boot! Just when we thought Lara Croft would move forward from her ninth adventure to another artifact finding mystery, we get to find out about her – the origins of Lara Croft. We’ve all read her back story, but where was the episodic adventures that led to the skilled, acrobatic, and duel pistol-drawing heroine – Tomb Raider?
Meet the Power Girl from Vegas – Vegas PG! We swung by her booth and asked if she could give our Ramen and a Half crew a shout out – Mary Jane Watson style! She happily replied, “Well of course I can”.
If Vegas PG is not enjoying the comic convention strip, you can find her being as spokesperson for events and entertaining the world commercially or artfully as an actress.
Dragons, like vampires, werewolves and zombies are all the rage in movies, TV shows, books, comics and video games these days. Besides the dragons in HBO’s Games of Thrones, Dreamworks animated How to Train Your Dragon (2010) is also very popular. I was pleasantly surprised how good the first one was and now I’m just excited for the sequel – How to Train Your Dragon 2 being released on June 13, 2014. Titan Comics will be releasing graphic novels of all-new adventures based on the How to Train Your Dragon franchise.
I know I was just the camera operator at the scene, but after Ramen and a Half’s host Eddie Ballar interviewed Mike Mignola, I started to pick up on some very correlating personality traits between Hellboy and it’s Creator, Mike Mignola. Here, we find out what’s in store for Hellboy after it’s 20th year anniversary and if there will be another upcoming film on the comic superhero?
Los LINKS: Art of Mike Mignola facebook/MikeMignola twitter/MikeMignola
Since the release of the 2 Guardians of the Galaxy movie trailers, I’ve been actually quite excited for the upcoming movie. You could say I’m a big Marvel fangirl, every month I have a stack of Marvel trades and comics sitting on my desk, but I wasn’t a fan of Guardians, until maybe now. And with LEGO putting out their Marvel Super Heroes product line, now they are releasing LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy toys.
For our first Cosplay-Cut, Valerie Perez portrays DC Comics Zatanna at Big Wow! Comicfest. She’s one of our favorite continuous Cosplay models who does a perfect Wonder Woman by the way. In this video she impersonates the Penguin, using her Zatanna wardrobe as a duo-character outfit for a photo shoot!
Valerie Perez: facebook/ValeriePerez
When I started out with comics all I cared about was the artist drawing the issue like the Jim Lee’s and Marc Silvestri’s of the world, and I could care less about the writers, inkers or colorists. But as I developed my comic book knowledge, I began to learn about writers, inkers and colorists I liked too. Our Ramen host Ramon Angel got back into comics not just because the art, but the inking by Matt Banning aka BATT on his Green Lantern runs.
“Who hasn’t grown up with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers – and what parent hasn’t dealt with their kids mimicking an acrobatic Power Ranger?”
At Big Wow! Comicfest – “The Eddie” interviews two of the most down to earth Power Rangers, Alison MacInnis – Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue and Steven Skyler – Power Rangers Samurai. We wanted to know what they loved best about being a Power Ranger… and of course, if they knew anything about Lionsgate‘s upcoming production of the reboot Power Rangers movie?
Over the years reading comics, you begin to find writers you like to read from, and one of them for me is Greg Rucka. I really enjoyed his Oni Press comics Whiteout and Queen & Country and Greg’s various Batman runs over at DC Comics. Our Ramen host Eddie Ballar interviews Greg Rucka at Big Wow! ComicFest.
The first time we spotted this amazing kid artist Ethan Castillo was at last year’s Big Wow! ComicFest, now he’s back for the second year in a row. Our Ramen host Eddie Ballar picks up the interview and learns what’s Ethan been up to this past year.
We get the 411 for Young Avengers artist Jim Cheung at Big Wow! ComicFest 2014. Jim talks about his upcoming Marvel projects and of course his Young Avengers work.
We interview comic book artist Nick Bradshaw this past weekend at Big Wow! ComicFest. Nick talks about working on the Guardians of the Galaxy, the new team line-up and of course the upcoming live-action Guardians flick.
This past weekend at the San Jose Convention Center, Big Wow! ComicFest took place for comic book fans and cosplayers. The Ramen & a Half team of Eddie and Ramon recall their highlights of this 2-day comic book festival.
I’m still recovering from this past weekend’s Big Wow! ComicFest convention at the San Jose Convention Center. The Ramen and a Half guys went hunting for autographs, but also grab interviews with artists, cosplayers and fans.
Grant Gustin all suited up but not too flattering they say? I honestly love the suit. It’s retro, real and I’m sure the show has nothing to worry about. If you ask me, the suit makes for a gritty look. The only thing I would worry about for a new television superhero series is how well they will tell the storyline about the Flash and his episodic adventures. Oh, and how well the special effects will be when they come into play.
Click HERE for the rest of the review on Screencrush.com
This upcoming weekend here in the SF/Bay Area is one cool geek-fest – the Big Wow! ComicFest. The two-day convention kicks-off May 17-18, 2014 weekend at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA. Unlike other comic-book conventions I won’t name that have gone super Hollywood, Big Wow! remains the same as the headliner is all about comic books, the artists and writers in the industry. Many notable artists will be there like Frank Cho, Neal Adams, Mike Mignola, Greg Rucka, just to name a few.
It’s safe to say Retrenders will be at Big Wow! ComicFest! Our Ramen & A Half team Eddie Ballar and Ramon Angel will grab interviews and highlights from the event. Look for our videos on the Retrenders YouTube channel.
Here our some of our videos we did last year from Big Wow! ComicFest 2013:
Are you fan of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy? If you are, Hellboy celebrates 20 years with this awesome art event in SoCal. The 20th Anniversary Art Show kicks off tonight – May 2, 2014, from 7pm-10pm @ Hero Complex Gallery (HCG) in Los Angeles, CA.
I was never a big fan of mobile games so naturally I’ve never heard of Marvel Puzzle Quest. Even though this game had been out since October 2013, it wasn’t until a week ago when I was persuaded to try the game for the first time. Here’s a fun fact about myself: I’m not a fan of Marvel Comics – I’m more of a a DC man myself. At first I didn’t want anything to do with this game; my friends then compared it to Bejeweled which didn’t help their case either, but in the end, I gave in and ended up downloading it on my phone. And lo and behold, in just a matter of minutes, I got hooked on the game. I guess the features of leveling up your characters and having hit points for each really got to the RPG fan in me. Since each of your characters have HP, and it takes seconds to restore just one hit point, this is not a game that you are going to be stuck on for hours and hours. If your character(s) get beat down at the end of the match, it may take them hours to regenerate back to full health, causing you to take a break from playing if you have no health kits to cure them – so at least you’re not going to be spending your whole day playing this game non-stop.
DC Entertainment celebrates Batman’s 75th anniversary this year and has kick the party off with various animated shorts. This Batman Beyond animated short is by artist/writer Darwyn Cooke.
Marvel today released more detail images from their Marvel Legends: Guardians of the Galaxy movie line-up. These detailed and well-articulated 6″ action figures features 6 figures: Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Rocket, Nomad and Iron Man. Collect all 6 figures to build the Groot action figure.
Edward Ballar
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