Link below:
http://tinyurl.com/2dzoyxc

Link below:
http://tinyurl.com/35ltv3u

Link below:
http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/21232

Link below:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/08/horrible-bosses-the-next-rrated-comedy-bonanza.html

http://www.ttkn.com/arts-entertainment/“horrible-bosses”-shooting-in-los-angeles-with-an-all-star-cast-2742.html

Mike also penned the Seth Gordon helmed HORRIBLE BOSSES, set up at New Line and currently in production with an all star cast list that includes Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Kevin Spacey, Jason Bateman, Lindsey Sloane, Charlie Day, Jaime Foxx, Jason Sudiekis and Donald Sutherland. The comedy centers on three best friends who, frustrated by their jobs, come to the conclusion that the only solution is to kill one another’s bosses.

Mike is a fantastic writer and we look forward to helping him develop his career even more! Mike is repped by Brain Kend, Grant Kessman and Barry Kotler at CAA.

Links:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i82a006de3290b1a677a4efe4a0e7f4f3
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004101006

On sale in October is Tracker: First Look, which is a peek at Top Cow’s new mini-series, Tracker which launches in November. This First Look was previously only available at last month’s Comic-Con. At the Cow panel at the Con it was mentioned that Tracker would be a new look at werewolves, with serial killers thrown in. Now with this special issue we get the full story, or at least the beginning of it.

It opens with Agent Jezebel Kendall (cops never have boring names in fiction, do they?) arriving on the scene of a bus crash. She wonders why a Federal Agent like herself has been called to a traffic accident until she looks inside the bus and discovers not only a mass of mutilated bodies, but also a survivor. The survivor is an agent too, and it appears the reason he alone survived the “Blue Line Massacre,” is more than just luck. Alex O’Roark returns to work nursing a cane and tender ribs and is put on the case of the massacre – the work of a serial killer called Herod. O’Roark knows what he’s doing as he’s the tracker of the title.

There’s only 10 story pages in this preview book, but it’s certainly  a meaty start. Writer Jonathan Lincoln introduces us to not only O’Roark, but his girlfriend, boss and fellow cops, all while creating distinctive voices for them all. There’s no big reveal of Herod or the werewolves that are hinted at, but there’ll be plenty of time for such when the series kicks off proper. Francis Tsai’s art works well, and his colouring deserves to be mentioned. From the red glare of the bus massacre to the bright lights of the police precinct and hospital he makes each scene diverse enough to be interesting, and it’s all entwined with a subtle painterly approach.

Rounding out the extra pages are a few words from the 3 guys behind HVE, or Heroes and Villains Entertainment. In the new tradition of Top Cow aligning themselves with outside story developers, HVE appear to be men after my own heart and mention their love of Star Wars, Street Fighter 2 and Halo. Lincoln also mentions his love of werewolves and ends his text page with a powerful summary of Tracker’s premise – “A good man wakes up with blood on his hands.” Nice.

Also included are 3 pages of character summaries and a neato mini-poster of the cover, which reminds me of Ash from the Evil Dead films. Lastly writer of the excellent series Impaler, William Harms gives a one page intro to his new series, also aided by HVE, called Epoch. At the Cow’s Con panel Epoch was described as a “supernatural Fight Club,” with a bunch of diverse mythological creatures laying the smackdown on each other. Sounds good to me.

Only in the Comic-Con exclusive of Tracker: First Look are 7 pages of The Darkness/Pitt x-over by Paul Jenkins and Dale Keown. All I can say is that it looks very appealing, thanks to Jenkins and Keown, and that book hits shelves on August 26. As for Tracker, it’s off to a good start. I’m intrigued by the concept and O’Roark seems to be a great protagonist. Cops chasing serial killers we’ve all seen before, but not like this. With a new twist on the hairy moon howlers, the lone man who knows how to destroy them and the psycho Herod, who’s described as, “Hannibal Lecter with fangs,” this looks like a story worth following.

Nate Sutton – Project Fanboy

Title: Tracker #1 (of 5)
Rating:
Publisher Website: Top Cow Productions/Heroes & Villains Entertainment

Writer: Jonathan Lincoln
Pencils: Francis Tsai
Inks: Francis Tsai
Colors: Francis Tsai
Number of pages: 32 pages
Price: $2.99
Color: Color
Safety Content Label: PARENTAL ADVISORY – 15 years and older. Similiar to T+ but featuring more mature themes and/or more graphic imagery.

Publishers Blurb:
The first property from Top Cow and Heroes & Villains Entertainment is here!

“Alex O’Roark, the FBI’s top tracker, has his perfect life ripped to shreds when a case to capture the world’s most dangerous serial killer leads him straight into the maw of a werewolf. Now, keeping his secret from his gorgeous fiancé and the FBI, he must hunt down the wolf that infected him before the disease turns him into a monster.”

Reviewer Comments:
What happens when a man who is tasked with protecting society from monsters (both figuratively and literally in this case) is becoming one himself? That’s the question Jonathan Lincoln seeks to ask and answer in the new miniseries, Tracker, from Top Cow. It’s sort of a werewolf twist on a hard boiled tale of an FBI agent tracking the man responsible for grizzly acts of public mass murder…or something like that…but you know what? I think its good, pretty darn good.

The script, by Lincoln, moves quickly (in a good way) introducing the reader (in quite a grizzly and gory and also good way) to the life of FBI agent Alex O’Roark. A man on a mission if there ever was one, O’Roark, is likeable and rough around the edges, the way any good public defender is, and I think that’s much of why this comic works, you feel for O’Roark and what’s happening to him. Lincoln’s script successfully draws you into his life, predicament, and the cast of characters that surround him, that includes his rightfully concerned girlfriend, and tough talking partner Jezebel.

The art by Francis Tai is a good match for the story. His characters are well defined and he draws them each with their own definitive personality’s. He does a great job of storytelling, but the art falls a little flat in the color department. He does, however, create some masterfully horrifying scenes, much like the bloody opening bus crime scene, and does a great job of keeping our villain both visualized just enough so that we know who we are looking for, but hidden enough that we are left something to our imaginations.

The comics greatest success is that it shows enough of its cards for the reader to get the DNA of the series, while leaving enough of them unknown to keep the reader interested in what happens next, which is exactly what a first issue should accomplish. I for one am on board to see what happens next.

-Nate

At first glance, Top Cow’s new miniseries Tracker seems to be that company’s answer to Wolverine (not that they, and everyone else in the industry, haven’t used Logan-like characters before, but this pointy-toothed, wacky-haired feral man seems spot on). Getting inside, though, you’re one splash-page away from realizing that this is not the kind of book that ever could have gotten approved by the Comics Code Authority.

I’m a sucker for this style of art, and Francis Tsai handles it well. One of the weaknesses of many comics painters is to make the faces of anyone in the background so general as to be more or less a blur of flesh-colored something. Not so here; while the main characters would have to walk a mile in someone’s watercolored shoes to be as deliberate and detailed as an Alex Ross painting, the world they inhabit is a lot more real than most comics painters bother with, and the humanity in their expressions helps to make them relatable.


What came as a surprise in this issue is that the hero of the book actually starts out unconscious and piled with a bunch of corpses inside a mangled city bus. A little expository narration reveals that whatever it was that killed all those people was apparently after our hero—his name is Alex—because of something special in his blood. The doctor who’s standing at his bedside is a plant by a secret organization, and after a few heavyhanded hints that his senses are heightened (smelling flowers from across the room, stuff like that), he hands the guy a business card and exits our story—for now—to allow for plot movement.


The book is constantly moving, and while its plot and characters are all fairly stock (he’s discovering his “powers,”whatever they may be, and he’s a cop who keeps proposing to his girlfriend who won’t marry him until he gets that desk job), it’s solid. The fact that he’s a cop gives him opportunity to investigate the bus massacre without creating the suspension-of-disbelief problem that often comes up in these kinds of stories (“Look, I don’t care if you can smell really good and suddenly have the strength to accidentally break an aluminum desk chair—that doesn’t make you a detective”), and the fact that he’s shown “hulking out”—losing control and going into “superhero mode”—on some thugs at the end of the issue goes a long way toward explaining what had earlier been my biggest concern over the writing—that the character just suddenly started leaping out of windows and jumping cars in search of the big bad a few pages before. Given the context that he blacks out, does uncharacteristic things, uses his powers, and then comes back, gives the book more of a werewolf vibe, and restores the “berserker rage” part of the Wolverine archetype that’s been largely ignored in the recent past.