bento
Explorer
After having been disappointed with the first-time DVD releases of Marvel movies, I've taken a "wait and see" approach. Waiting 9 to 12 months for the "extended" version now gets you actor/director commentary, more scenes and a second disc of goodies.
I picked up the FF-Extended Edition yesterday and sat dow to watch the bonus disc last night.
I went straight to the Jack Kirby documentary, a 60 minute + history of the man and what he's meant to the industry. After seeing Stan Lee bouncing around the last eight or nine years in various movies, documentaries and TV shows, I'm glad this documentary is now available to provide a much-needed counterpoint to how the Age of Marvel Comics came to be. If you don't know comic history, Jack was the idea man for many of Marvel's heroes and villians. In the creative process, Stan would pitch the plotline to Jack, who's job it was to actually execute the story, and then Stan finished by adding words to the pictures. Ideas like the Silver Surfer and Black Panther came directly from Jack. In addition to his professional work, the documentary shows much about his family life. Jack and his wife Roz were incredibly generous and patient people, as they often played host to fans that would drop by. This documentary is filled with some great current and historical greats like Barry Windsor-Smith, John Romita Sr., Alex Ross and .
Next I watched the "Worlds Greatest Comic Magazine" documentary, the history of the Fantastic Four. This ran about 30 minutes long and had more great interviews with comic artists and writers. A couple of glaring omissions on this - the John Byrne era, the second greatest run after SL+JK, gets short attention because Byrne didn't provide an interview. I know Byrne has a reputation of being prickly, but the man needs to get over himself. Being included in a feature like this will certainly help expose new people to his work. The other slight is the Tom DeFalco era (1993 - 1996) which I thought was a great for the comic. Instead the feature went from Walt Simonson's turn to Jim Lee's revamp, just saying that the comic had been suffering for a while and needed a major overhaul. If any period was a trainwreck it was Steve Englehart's late 1980s, but he get's five minutes of camera time.
I didn't watch the movie yet, and probably won't do so until this weekend. But based on the features, I'd recommend this DVD edition if you're a Fantastic Four comic book fan!
I picked up the FF-Extended Edition yesterday and sat dow to watch the bonus disc last night.
I went straight to the Jack Kirby documentary, a 60 minute + history of the man and what he's meant to the industry. After seeing Stan Lee bouncing around the last eight or nine years in various movies, documentaries and TV shows, I'm glad this documentary is now available to provide a much-needed counterpoint to how the Age of Marvel Comics came to be. If you don't know comic history, Jack was the idea man for many of Marvel's heroes and villians. In the creative process, Stan would pitch the plotline to Jack, who's job it was to actually execute the story, and then Stan finished by adding words to the pictures. Ideas like the Silver Surfer and Black Panther came directly from Jack. In addition to his professional work, the documentary shows much about his family life. Jack and his wife Roz were incredibly generous and patient people, as they often played host to fans that would drop by. This documentary is filled with some great current and historical greats like Barry Windsor-Smith, John Romita Sr., Alex Ross and .
Next I watched the "Worlds Greatest Comic Magazine" documentary, the history of the Fantastic Four. This ran about 30 minutes long and had more great interviews with comic artists and writers. A couple of glaring omissions on this - the John Byrne era, the second greatest run after SL+JK, gets short attention because Byrne didn't provide an interview. I know Byrne has a reputation of being prickly, but the man needs to get over himself. Being included in a feature like this will certainly help expose new people to his work. The other slight is the Tom DeFalco era (1993 - 1996) which I thought was a great for the comic. Instead the feature went from Walt Simonson's turn to Jim Lee's revamp, just saying that the comic had been suffering for a while and needed a major overhaul. If any period was a trainwreck it was Steve Englehart's late 1980s, but he get's five minutes of camera time.
I didn't watch the movie yet, and probably won't do so until this weekend. But based on the features, I'd recommend this DVD edition if you're a Fantastic Four comic book fan!
