A little more than 10 years into his comics career, writer-artist Matt Kindt has developed into one of the most exciting and original talents in the business, and has suddenly become in-demand to boot, releasing his work through multiple publishers. Kindt’s Dark Horse series “Mind MGMT” is a fan-favorite that’s also won the praise of Kindt’s peers, who’ve raved about the book’s fast-paced, twisty story of covert government psychics. For DC, Kindt has worked on the offbeat superhero titles “My Greatest Adventure” and “Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.”; and he’s collaborated with his friend Jeff Lemire on Lemire’s recently completed Vertigo series “Sweet Tooth.” Now Kindt has a standalone graphic novel for First Second called “Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes,” about an obsessive, Dick Tracy-like detective who tries to find the pattern in a series of thefts of […]

“Independence Day’s” co-writers — director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin – are ready to make at least one sequel to the 1996 alien invasion blockbuster, and maybe more. But at an appearance at the fourth annual Hero Complex Film Festival, the longtime collaborators, along with the film’s star Jeff Goldblum and the movie’s visual effects wizard Volker Engel, talked not only about the future of the franchise, but also took time to reflect on their favorite memories of making the original film. Emmerich chuckled while recalling the meeting he had with an irate Robert Loggia, who played the film’s Gen. William Grey. The actor had become furious over the fact that he was appearing in a spoof and no one had told him; he wasn’t, of course. A simple miscommunication was responsible for the confusion. Devlin remembered the first […]

I slide three shiny red jelly beans together. Trumpet blast. I put three lemon drops in a line. A xylophone sounds a jingle of approval. Then I get five purple jujubes in a row, and they snap into a single, multicolored, disco-ball-looking nonpareil equipped with deadly lasers. An authoritative baritone tells me that I’m “tasty,” or better yet, “divine,” and the squares of clear jelly I’ve been tasked with removing disappear with a satisfying pop — satisfying, that is, until, tantalizingly close to my goal, I run out of moves and lose the game, causing a little puppet girl with paper-fastener arms to cry. This game is stupid, I think. There’s no skill, no challenge. Then, like a lab rat pawing a pellet lever, I hit “Retry” again. And again. Soon, I’ve lost another 45 irretrievable minutes of my life […]

John Carpenter, the legendary director of films including “Halloween,” “Escape From New York,” “The Thing,” “Starman,” “Big Trouble in Little China” and many more, isn’t one to hold back in conversation. Ask him about “They Live,” his subversive sci-fi flick that starred professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper as the film’s blue-collar hero Nada, who discovers an alien conspiracy to mind-control the people of Earth using invisible messages, and he’ll admit that it’s his most political movie — his response to consumerism and class disparity in the 1980s. “By the end of the ’70s there was a backlash against everything in the ’60s, and that’s what the ’80s were, and Ronald Reagan became president, and Reaganomics came in,” Carpenter said at the fourth annual Hero Complex Film Festival, where he appeared for an onstage Q&A between sold-out screenings of “They Live” […]

Here’s something that might make you wish you had X-ray vision. A Minnesota man found a rare copy of “Action Comics” No. 1 in the walls of an abandoned home. Turns out, the Superman comic is worth more than $100,000. David Gonzalez, 34, paid $10,100 for the dilapidated house with a torn-up roof in Elbow Lake, Minn., aiming to put his decade of construction and remodeling experience to use. While he was gutting the house for renovation, he found a comic book amid old newspapers that had been used to insulate the walls. The comic was from June 1938, and the cover featured Superman lifting a car over his head. It was “Action Comics” No. 1, which marked Superman’s first comic book appearance 75 years ago. “I knew it was worth money,” the father of four told the Minneapolis Star […]

Superman fans eager to see the Last Son of Krypton take flight on the big screen in “Man of Steel” can get a taste of the action in “Metropolis Mayhem,” an online video game from Warner Bros. “Metropolis Mayhem” launches Friday at metropolismayhem.manofsteel.com. The 2-D game allows players to fly Superman through Metropolis, using their keyboard to maneuver the Man of Steel around obstacles and destroy objects with heat-vision. Players must collect Superman logos to increase their score while dodging floating laser beams, plasma weapons from dropships and guided rockets shot from helicopters. Get hit five times, and Supes is a goner. Though “Metropolis Mayhem” may not feature the explosive special effects sure to shake theaters when “Man of Steel” opens June 14, it does feature a snippet of the film’s moving score, composed by Hans Zimmer. PHOTOS: 75 images […]

Bungie, the creator of the bestselling “Halo” video game franchise, has released a trailer for its upcoming game “Destiny.” The 60-second “Destiny” trailer, titled “Law of the Jungle,” was directed by Jon Favreau (“Iron Man”) and features “Breaking Bad” actor Giancarlo Esposito. “Pay attention, son,” Esposito says in his soft, commanding voice. “This is the part of the story that’s really important.” Esposito, apparently reading to his child in a futuristic bedroom, goes on to read an excerpt from Rudyard Kipling’s 1895 sequel “The Second Jungle Book.” “Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky. The Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die,” Esposito reads. “As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back — for the strength […]

The White House rejected a petition to build a Death Star, but a different piece of “Star Wars” machinery has been brought to life — with Lego. On Thursday in New York City’s Times Square, Lego unveiled its largest model ever: A life-size X-wing Starfighter, constructed out of Lego bricks — 5,335,200 of them, to be exact. The “Star Wars” X-wing replica, which weighs nearly 46,000 pounds and contains a full-scale R2-D2 in the cockpit, was created to promote “The Yoda Chronicles,” a new Lego Star Wars three-part animated series premiering next week on Cartoon Network. The model will remain in Times Square through Saturday. Afterward it will land at Legoland California Resort, where it will be on display through the remainder of 2013. The X-wing Starfighter is, of course, the ship that Luke Skywalker and other members of the […]

Director J.J. Abrams, in an appearance last night on the TBS talk show “Conan,” shared a very brief deleted scene from his sci-fi blockbuster “Star Trek Into Darkness,” showing actor Benedict Cumberbatch showering. Abrams played the clip after the conversation with host Conan O’Brien turned to the charges of sexism that have erupted over a scene that did make the final cut of the film — in which Chris Pine’s Kirk ogles Alice Eve’s Dr. Carol Marcus in her underwear. (“Some people felt like it was exploiting her. While she is lovely, I can see their point,” Abrams conceded.) Though the shower footage has the Internet all aflutter, it’s not necessarily the best example of the dynamic performance Cumberbatch delivers in the film as the villain (can we finally name him now?) whose identity was kept secret for so long. […]

“Call of Duty: Ghosts,” the latest iteration of the first-person-shooter franchise, is due out in the winter but was shown at Tuesday’s Xbox One launch event. Surprisingly, it wasn’t new weapons and exotic, war-torn locales that dominated the grand unveiling of the sure-to-be blockbuster game. It was a dog. Mark Rubin, executive producer for Infinity Ward (the developer of “Call of Duty: Ghosts”), says the dog will key into how players strategize throughout the game. A promo video shown Tuesday noted that the dog is “someone you care about, a squad member, who does everything from sniffing out explosives to protecting the team.”  ”Ghosts” is due Nov. 5 for the Xbox 360, PC and PS3. No release date has been set for the Xbox One and other next-gen consoles. The dog is just one of many advances in “Ghosts,” the first […]