Nerd News: Goblins, Dark Crystals, and Spiders, Outrageous! (Truly)

Nerd News for Friday, October 10th

OK! It's Friday and the weekend is upon us. With so much interesting news coming this weekend from NYCC, I thought it might be good to do a little roundup of today's Nerd-related news.

[caption id="attachment_497" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The Goblin King meme created by psbox362[/caption]

First up, news about a sequel to Labyrinth was snuck under the radar in a recent article from Variety.com. The item is literally in the very last paragraph of the article and provides no other details.  The original exclusive article was a feature with Billy Crystal about joining the cast of Which Witch. (Mmm Which Wich... now I just want a sandwich). Anyway, the article reads:

It’s also working on a quartet of legacy titles in the Henson library — a “Fraggle Rock” movie that’s been in development at New Regency; a sequel to 1982’s “The Dark Crystal”; a sequel to 1986’s “Labyrinth”; and a movie based on the Emmet Otter character.

Let's not just gloss over The Dark Crystal either. How have we not heard more about these? Oh my little fantasy loving nerd heart be still. Can we hope for a return of David Bowie as the Goblin King? I don't see HOW they could do the sequel without him.



Moving forward with more 80's nostalgia loveliness, IDW announced a new Jem ongoing comic. With a Jem movie in production for release in 2016, this development is not super surprising. I can't say I'm excited about the movie with what news I've heard, but let's hope the comic will bring more of that truly, truly, truly outrageous Jem that we all know and love. There aren't any details as far as who will be behind the book, but we know it's slated to début in April.

[caption id="attachment_496" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Spider-Gwen Fan Art by Knigge[/caption]

Luckily by February 2015, we'll have another awesome heroine to focus on, Gwen Stacy. That's right, Marvel announced today that Spider-Gwen will be getting her own ongoing series. I think that is a great idea. My love for Spider-Gwen is no secret to regular readers at NerdBinge. I have hoped that Marvel was seriously considering this property. There were lots rumors flying that all the buzz for Edge of Spider-Verse #2 had the studio considering the option. With the news that it's real, I'm a little bit giddy.  The same creative team of writer Jason Latour and artist Robbi Rodriguez will return to create the book.

Spider Gwen... I Heart You!!!

So, How Would A Guy Go About Getting An Upside Down Kiss From Spider Gwen?

Edge of Spider-Verse continues, and so far it's only getting better. Personally, I don't think I was looking forward to any character more than Gwen Stacy: Spider-Woman or as the Internet has taken to calling her, Spider Gwen.



Spider Gwen feels like the freshest breath of air for the Spider-man concept in a long time. I have so many things to love about this comic that I'll just do my best to keep the gushing to a minimum. One thing I'd like to touch on that I have a unique perspective on as a letterer was the bubble styling on this book. It's not the first time I've seen this style, but it is only the second. I thought it was simply a fluke or a gimmick when I first saw this particular bubbling style in Marvel's 100th Anniversary Spider-Man issue, but now I've caught on to VC's Clayton Cowles. As a letterer, it seems to be a style that he has been using for some time, but I can't say I've seen it often before now. I think as a style it could catch on as a trend, so I'll be keeping an eye out for Clayton. (Although I'm sure some of you might be able to point me to a few things I should have seen already. Please leave any suggestions in the comments!) I also thoroughly enjoyed Clayton's style with the action words having a hand brushed look and gradient overlays. It has a very visceral feel that I think really goes well with feel of the characters.

Staying on the art tip for this issue, I also fully enjoyed the simplicity of the colorist Rico Renzi, keeping with the color immersion trend, and the detail of Robbi Rodriguez on digital illustration. Everything about the style of this book feels young. I think that's quite an accomplishment in the Marvel realm as a lot of the teams based around younger characters have just been garbage (IMHO). As some of you may have read in my previous articles, the All-New Ultimates has been a major disappointment. I loved the initial volume of Young Avengers, but the current books have just fallen flat and I lost interest in that run pretty quickly. The art of this book is crisp and fresh and feels hip. It makes me want to care about younger characters. Whereas a lot of youth oriented books either make me feel old, (like, "Is this actually GOOD to young people, and that's why I don't like it?") or just guilty for reading the books and then hating them.

I could continue to gush about the art, but I think that the writing must be appreciated here as well. I think that for a one-off this is a very bold story arc. I only say this because of the final twist at the end of the issue, which you should just go and read for yourself. The major guts of the story are not that unique in all honesty. We see a super fast set-up of the premise for this book. Then enter bad guy, bad guys loses, enter Captain Stacy. Enough about that though. More specifically, I love the dialogue in this book. The writing is believable and funny. It's so easy get the voice of young characters wrong. I feel that often times the dialogue is just trying too hard to come off as believable, but once again, this book just plain works. Spider Gwen is probably one of my favorite new concepts in Marvel comics and I hope that they consider creating an on-going series out of this concept once Spider-verse is done.

I've see lots of buzz on the Internet for Spider Gwen and even some rumors to take with a grain of salt that all this interest has really been noticed at the creative offices of Marvel. With all that being said, I'll encourage you to go check it out for yourself. And as is abundantly clear here, I HEART SPIDER GWEN!