MediaGeek Entertainment
September 2007
September 07, 2007
MEDIA GEEK - IN COLOR!
I'd like to make one thing clear: I've had a love affair with Star Trek through most of my life. I was six years old when the original series debuted, and I attended the first convention in New York, where I had the less than auspicious first encounter with fandom when I saw a long line of people waiting for an autograph. I asked who they were waiting for and I was told Gene Roddenberry. I innocently asked, "Who's Gene Roddenberry?" and was told in response, "You're on the wrong line, kid."
My love for Star Trek grew throughout the '70s and I certainly grew to know who Gene Roddenberry was. in fact, I spent a great deal of time conducting interviews with various writers, directors and producers from the original Star Trek, from the original series through the animated show, aborted attempts at feature films, all of the movies and, of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation and beyond.
I think this strip came from a combination of my curiosity about the J.J. Abrams version of Star Trek as well as my frustration over the fact that the franchise had kind of dwindled away through the Voyager and Enterprise years to the point where JJ's film seems like a make-it-or-break-it type for Star Trek. I was also taking a good natured jab at JJ's script for an unfilmed version of Superman that postulated Krypton's survival and Lex Luthor's revelation that he's actually a Kryptonian. I have to admit that I hadn't read the script at that point, but subsequently I did and have to say, the Krypton surviving angle worked much better than I thought it could, though i still disliked the Luthor aspect -- and told JJ so.
This particular strip also saw the introduction of the work of artist Fernando Sosa.
MEDIA GEEK - THE BARBARIAN!
Wish there was a great story for this one. Truth is that artist Juan Carneiro (who unfortunately mysteriously seemed to vanish off the face of the earth shortly after completing this) was "auditioning" for the strip and he came up with this interaction between Media Geek and Ahnuld. One we agreed to go forward, I attempted to come up with a script that would go along with his images. I think while writing it I came to realize that the humor of this strip was going to be pretty silly. But, hey, I'm a guy who grew up with a bunch of silly but hysterical movies that have stuck with me throughout my life, most notably Blazing Saddles, The Groove Tube, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Kentucky Fried Movie and Airplane. I'm quite serious, and don't call me Shirley.
MEDIA GEEK: WHEN HARRY MET DIE HARD
The idea for this one came from my love for both the Die Hard and Harry Potter films. Pretty early on in my journalism career I had the opportunity to attend the press screening and junket for the original Die Hard. Seeing that film in 70mm and six-track Dolby Stereo was pretty mind-blowing, and I don't think I'd ever walked out of a movie as exhausted as I did from that one. Talk about a movie that defined the phrase "roller coaster ride"...
The other part of that junket was actually meeting cast and filmmakers. Fortunately, I ended up sitting just to the left of Bruce Willis, who had become a star thanks to Moonlighting, which was still on the air at the time. While that show's David Addison had turned him into a star, John McClane launched him into the stratosphere. Whatever people may want to say about Willis and his supposed-ego, he certainly came across as the quintessential every man during that session.
Shifting back to the comic strip, the fact that Alan Rickman had plays Hans Gruber in Die Hard and was also playing Snape in the Harry Potter films, made the blending of these two franchises seem pretty natural to me (though one can only imagine J.K. Rowling's reaction).
