I got an early peek at “The Amazing Spider-Man” today, thanks to a preview event organized by the studio. Along with showing off the trailer that debuts tonight (I got to see it in 3D, and it actually looked pretty good), the studio also brought out a sizzle reel of some still-in-progress footage from the film.

Oh, and Peter Parker himself (Andrew Garfield) dropped by for a little while. So yeah, that happened…

I covered the event for IFC this time around, and here’s an excerpt from my report:

As for the trailer itself, we get to see some great scenes of Peter Parker (both as Spider-Man and out of costume) swinging around New York City and interacting with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), as well as some shots of Peter in a makeshift laboratory of sorts, working on his web shooters. This was one of the major reveals of the trailer, with very clear confirmation that Spider-Man will be using mechanical web-shooters of his own design. The shooters feature a glowing, red, circular symbol in their center, and appear to “charge up” as he delivers webbing.

During the trailer, we see Peter working on the web-shooters in his lab, and there are a number of shots in which the red glow of the shooters is visible during action scenes. Near the end of the trailer, there’s a close-up shot of the shooters being “charged” before Spider-Man swings into view.

You can read the rest of the report at IFC.com…

Oh, and keep an eye out for more coverage, as I have a few cool lists rolling out soon that break down more of the highlights of the event.

It’s basically a film in which Max explains DC Comics’ entire death and resurrection of Superman story arc while drinking heavily, and having a long list of celebrities provide cameos as key characters from the story (including Elijah Wood as Cyborg Superman). It’s sort of amazing — not as much for the story it tells and how it’s told (which is funny, don’t get wrong), but for the amount of people he had access to for the film.

I love that final cameo.

I was contacted by one of the writers at CNN’s “Geek Out” blog this week to offer some thoughts on all of the Before Watchmen news. The article features some comments and analysis from me and J. Michael Straczynski (who’s writing some of the books), as well as other readers, shop owners, creators, and fans.

Here’s an excerpt from the article that includes some of the comments I gave them:

“Watchmen,” with its story of superheroes long past their prime, dealing with a world on the brink, didn’t just show the uninitiated that comics could be “literature.” It revealed to longtime comic book readers what the medium was capable of doing.

“[Writer] Alan Moore and [artist] Dave Gibbons tested a lot of new storytelling formats in ‘Watchmen’ that we take for granted now, especially with the book’s multiple layers of stories within stories,” said freelance writer and “professional geek” Rick Marshall.

“The fact that you can remove various narratives in the book – like the ‘Black Freighter’ story, for example – and read them perfectly well on their own or in the greater context of the book is fairly unique. And there are lots of other subtle elements of the story that set it apart, and only reveal themselves after you’ve read it a few times. It approached its subject matter in a way that few others had ever done, with equal parts cynical analysis and nostalgic celebration.”

You can read the full article over at CNN.com…

And just in case you missed it, I wrote at length (as in, sort of ranty) about the Watchmen prequels here on MindPollution.org when the news first broke.

“Chronicle” arrives in theaters this weekend, and though I’m still working on my review (which will be posted here), I did have time to write up this list for IFC. The idea for the list came from the countless times I’ve had to tell people that certain movies were not in fact based on comic books.

Here’s an excerpt from the article, in which I discuss one of my favorite superhero movies that wasn’t adapted from a comic:

“Unbreakable” (2006)

Director M. Night Shyamalan’s criminally under-appreciated 2000 film was years ahead of the “dark superhero movie” trend, and told the story of a man named David Dunn (played by Bruce Willis) who discovers that he is, well… unbreakable. A modern-day superhero who doesn’t quite know what to do with his power, he sets out to do good, but finds that doing so is more difficult than the comics make it seem. Assisted by his comics-loving son and shop owner Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), David begins the path toward superhero status — but as anyone who knows comics will tell you, every hero has an arch enemy.

You can read the full article at IFC.com…

For this week’s “Adapt This” column at IFC, I recommend the Image Comics series Olympus, about a pair of brothers — Castor and Pollux — who serve as bounty hunters for the gods. They run around the world tracking down fugitives from Olympus and sending them back to Hades with their bad-ass hook and chain. (One end gets attached to their target, the other goes into the ground, and then the lord of the underworld pulls ‘em down — it’s pretty epic.)

I don’t think there’s been any more books published in this series beyond the initial collection, but it’s one I’d love to see more of. I really enjoyed it, and could easily see it making the leap from page to screen.

Here’s an excerpt from the column:

At a basic level, Olympus shares a lot of elements with the television series “Supernatural,” which has developed a loyal following over the course of its long run for finding the right mix of similar elements. Both series follow a pair of brothers with very different personalities as they “solve” something that threatens the balance between our world and everything that lies outside it. Their relationship is the centerpiece of the series, and much of the drama and narrative glue comes from the brothers’ interaction with each other and the strange world in which they operate.

Still, an “Olympus” television series would offer quite a different take on the conventions of the “buddies saving the world from supernatural stuff” theme, as Castor and Pollux receive their assignments directly from Zeus himself, and are relatively immortal in their own right. The difficulty in their tasks often stems from being overmatched by the subjects they pursue, who can still give them a good beating when necessary. (They are gods, after all.) In order to accomplish their missions, the brothers rely heavily on cooperative tactics to bring down their targets, and often make use of their own arsenal of supernatural weapons — including a magical hook and chain used to send their subject back to Hades.

You can read the rest of the column at IFC.com…

Honestly, I’m not really bothered by the news, as it’s been many years since I came to the harsh realization that publishing comics is a business, and the decisions made by publishers are made for business reasons. If a company decides to publish something, it’s because the numbers were crunched and the data indicated that there was profit to be made, and not because it’s a unique idea or a great story that readers will enjoy. If a good story is told, that means that a particular writer, artist, or idea was expected to increase the revenue of a project enough to offset the cost of hiring that particular creator.

Such is the case with Before Watchmen. It’s a project that will sell piles and piles of issue #1 (and for some of the series contained within it, piles of subsequent issues, too). Whether it’s actually any good will have absolutely nothing to do with sales of the first few issues — it will sell simply because it exists.

I don’t put Watchmen on the same pedestal as a lot of people, though, so my negative reaction to the news of Before Watchmen doesn’t really stem from any loyalty to the book. I think it would be better if Alan Moore supported the project or was involved in some capacity, but that’s never going to happen due to more factors than I could ever possibly list here.

What bothers me about the news is that the decision to publish more Watchmen stories comes from a place I’ve worked from in the past and was never entirely comfortable with — the notion that something should be published simply because people will read it.

Whether it’s a feature comparing the asses of female comic characters or the eighth story about Taylor Lautner’s abs in a 24-hour span (two pieces of content I’ve been privy to seeing assigned and published at past employers), these are examples of content published simply because people will read it. The primary force driving production wasn’t to offer any new information or insight — it was simply a response to demand.

That’s not to say that the Before Watchmen stories are going to be bad or neglect to offer anything original. Given the creators involved, some of the stories are probably going to be very, very good. However, it’s the basic reason behind DC’s decision that makes me a little uncomfortable.

Here’s the reason the company gave for the decision to publish more Watchmen stories:

“It’s our responsibility as publishers to find new ways to keep all of our characters relevant.”

There’s no mention in there of having fresh stories to tell or great ideas for the universe Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created — there’s simply the need to “keep all of our characters relevant.”

Given the high sales of Watchmen that continue 25 years after it was first published, the book’s characters don’t seem to be in any danger of losing their relevance, so it seems reasonable to think that what DC meant to say was this:

“It’s our responsibility as publishers to find new ways to keep all of our characters profitable.”

And I don’t fault them for that, because the decision to publish more Watchmen stories is a business decision — and business decisions are based on profit. There is a demand for Watchmen and they want to feed that demand. Nevertheless, it makes the whole project feel sort of, well… soulless.

Sure, I know DC’s reasons make perfect sense, but it still makes me feel a little uneasy.

No matter what fans think about it, this project will be profitable for DC. The numbers say it, and common sense agrees — this will sell a lot of comics. What we don’t know, however, is whether the new Watchmen books will actually add something to the world created by the original material or simply exist on a bookshelf next to it.

I hope it’s the former, because I’ve seen far too much of the latter.

Here’s an excerpt from the relatively lengthy rant this subject prompted:

First, to say that studios usually frown upon letting their characters appear in competing studios’ films just might qualify as the understatement of the decade. These sort of crossovers are more rare than DC vs. Marvel brawls, because in Hollywood, if a character appears in your movie that usually means you own it.

Want to know why studios tend to cram in a bunch of new characters in the second or third films in a franchise? That’s because the studio wants to establish ownership of that character, just in case they want to bring it back for a sequel or spin-off movie. Combining characters from different studios in the same film muddies the legal waters, and if there’s anything that a studio doesn’t want, it’s a legitimate legal challenge to one of their big revenue generators.

The aforementioned scenario is the reason a Wolverine cameo in “X-Men: First Class” was possible (Fox owns the rights to the X-Men and Wolverine), and why we’re more likely to see a cameo from Ghost Rider in “The Amazing Spider-Man” (Sony owns the movie rights to both characters) than a cameo from Spider-Man in “The Avengers.”

You can read the rest of the column at IFC.com…

Every now and then I encounter a book that’s not only a great read, but also encourages me to spend a few hours looking into the story behind the book. That was the case for The Suicide Forest, a horror comic by El Torres and Gabriel Hernandez that draws from the real-world history of forest Aokigahara.

The forest is located at the base of Mt. Fuji, and lies just outside Tokyo. It gets its name from the fact that it’s a popular destination for people who want to end their own lives — so much so that Japanese officials feel the need to post signs throughout the forest urging people to rethink their decision to kill themselves. Anywhere from 50-100 people (and occasionally more) commit suicide in Aokigahara each year, prompting an annual “body hunt” by local volunteers who trek through the woods looking for that year’s victims.

The Suicide Forest comic takes all of these facts, along with local legends that say the spirits of people who die in Aokigahara are cursed, and offers a truly terrifying story about a vengeful ghost who terrorizes her former lover.

Here’s an excerpt from my column:

Given the success of horror franchises like “The Ring” and “The Grudge,” which were based on Japanese legends and were later imported and remade here in the U.S., it’s actually a bit surprising that the legend of Aokigahara Forest hasn’t been tapped yet. The national landmark’s history is steeped in both morbid facts and eerie phenomena, which is something Torres masterfully mines for The Suicide Forest.

While many of the Japanese horror franchises that were brought to the U.S. in recent years had their settings and other elements changed for American audiences, a movie based on The Suicide Forest would obviously need to stay in Japan. Fortunately, the source material already offers a great entrance point that softens the culture shock. The primary narrative follows an American living abroad who has a difficult time adjusting to Japanese society, and we see many of the terrifying events that occur throughout The Suicide Forest through his perspective.

You can read the rest of the column at IFC.com.

If you want to learn more about Aokigahara forest, there’s actually a lot of information out there — though some of it is significantly more morbid than the rest.

While I was looking up more information about Aokigahara, I came across this two-part video tour of the forest, which does a great job of showing why it’s such a fascinating — and frightening — place. Be warned, though: the tour guide encounters some of the grim realities of the forest late in the second video.

As I mentioned in my column for IFC, I’m pretty amazed that Hollywood hasn’t jumped on The Suicide Forest yet, as it seems like the sort of story that could scare a lot of tickets out of movie audiences. Heck, I’m creeped-out just reading about it online.

My latest “Adapt This” column for IFC recommends Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber’s five-issue miniseries Underground, which is a terrifying chase story set deep within a cave. As I mention in the column, it’s like “The Descent” without the monsters.

Here’s an excerpt from the column:

Originally published in 2010, Underground is a tense, frightening story about subterranean survival that also captures all the best aspects of a classic chase film, with its main characters on the run from thugs who outnumber, outgun, and outmuscle them — but can’t outwit them.

Both “The Descent” and “Buried” received heaps of praise for tapping into the scare factor of dark, confined spaces, and Underground succeeds in not only making that environment the centerpiece of the story, but also making the cave a character of sorts. Throughout the story, each twist and turn presents both the rangers and their pursuers with a new challenge, whether it’s submerged lakes, narrow passageways, deep caverns, or darkness-dwelling animals of one sort or another.

You can read the rest of the column at IFC.com…

Personally, I identify most with Jeff Rowland’s take on the new year over at Overcompensating:

Yeah, it’s going to take me a while to put 2011 in my rearview mirror, too.

Still, Jon Rosenberg makes me feel a little more optimistic, as he’s dropped two straight comics at Scenes From A Multiverse that have been really, really great. I haven’t played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim yet, but I know enough about it — and most role-playing games — to get a laugh out of yesterday’s strip, and as a big fan of BBC’s “Sherlock” television series, today’s comic cracked me up.

It took a while for me to get a feel for this series after Rosenberg concluded Goats, but now it’s become a regular part of my daily reading.

Finally, over at Shortpacked!, David Willis gives me hope for the future in a strip that I imagine to be playing out with many parents (and soon-to-be-parents) I know — especially the parents who are regular readers of the stuff I write here and elsewhere around the ‘net.

Like I’ve mentioned once or twice before, my mother used to sing me to sleep with the theme from “The Muppet Movie” and “The Hobbit” and I grew up to be, well… what I am now. So I think there’s something to be said for early exposure to those worlds.

Oh, and one final note: if you haven’t read Holly Post’s thoughts on how webcomic comic creators could shift their perspectives in 2012 (“What If?”), do yourself a favor and check it out. She raises a lot of points (and questions) I’ve pondered over the last few years, and no matter which side of the fence you fall on, it’s worth thinking about.

Here’s an excerpt:

What if we stopped saying, “webcomics” and “webcartoonist” and just said “comics” and “cartoonist”? Would you say, “black actor” or “female athelete” or “male nurse”? What if we take the personal responsibility to put ourselves in the same professional category as the people who are using “webcomic” as a derogatory term? What if we show them that you are as “legitimate” as they are without talking about money? What if we show our work, and let that speak for itself?

While it might seem trivial to some people, I felt like it was a major turning point when I stopped categorizing comics published online as “webcomics” at both MTV News and on my own blog here. I didn’t make any announcement about it or anything, but the decision to begin grouping webcomics in with the rest of the “comics” category seemed like one small step for organization and one giant leap for my perspective on the industry.

I still accidentally use the “webcomics” category now and then (out of habit), but I think Holly’s “What If?” piece really did a great job of summarizing the crossroads the comics industry is at these days — and how each creator’s perspective on it contributes to where it’s headed.