Bruce Timm is responsible directly for some of the best animated series I’ve ever seen. Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League are constantly called by any fan of comics the most faithful and respectful translations of the characters from the page to the screen.

Bruce is still animating DC Comics characters, but this time for direct-to-DVD movies. Newsarama has a 2 part interview up, the first goes over his history, but the second gets to the new stuff, specifically some lingering questions about the animated adaptation of the Death and Return of Superman comic. The film will only run 75 minutes, cutting out all the fat of the 30+ issues of the original story and just sticking to the basics.

No League. No Supergirl. Not even any blood, since they’re aiming for a PG 13 rating. Still, he seems pretty confident they can deliver a good version of the comic original.

Beyond Doomsday, he’s directing an adaptation of New Frontier and Teen Titans: Judas Contract.

We’re finally back to where we were 20 years ago when Transformers is turned into all sorts of wacky other stuff. Joe Moore from TFW2005 was just sent an image of Transformers Lite Brite Patterns With 50 Pegs.

The patterns included are of Sideswipe from Generation 1 and the Decepticon logo. There’s probably more in the box, but thats all we can see for now.

Man, if Boston was scared of the Mooninites, imagine they’ll poop their pants when they see Decepticons are coming…
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A new box set was recently released for this movie which is based on the ever popular Final Fantasy VII PlayStation video game and it even includes the rare Final Fantasy VII Advent Rising anime special. Is it worth getting? Check out what Cloud has to say in this review to find out if this set’s right for you.

Buy the DVD set from Amazon

Check out some scans of the box art and exclusive postcards after the jump. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Nope, not Marvel’s Captain Marvel. They haven’t even figured out when his book’s going to come out. Instead, we’re talking DC’s Captain Marvel, whose mini-series from Jeff Smith is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the new push for the character. With the script underway for the movie (which has not cast Jake Gyllenhaal in the role, despite what rumors may be telling you), it looks like they’ve got big plan for the character… In fact, a movie pretty much is the big plan for the character.

The upcoming SHAZAM! animated series is all part of the push, according to the latest Lying In The Gutters, and they’ve got the promo image to prove it (image mirrored on the left). Looks like the new standard animation style from The Batman and Legion of Super-Heroes holds through for Billy Batson too. Those shoulders look lumpy.

Update- Look like this is a fake, as Micheal G in our comments section pointed out: Its a an orginal work, and some fankid photoshopped out Jim Zubkavich’s signature. LITG has corrected their article.

It was annouced today on Nausicaa.net and Ghibliworld.com, that world famous animation genius Hayao Miyazaki has announced his newest creation, “Gake no ue no Ponyo” (Ponyo On A Cliff)”. After what seems like a long stint of making wonderful classics such as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky, Miyazaki tried to retire, but finds it “unbearable”.

In this newest piece, Miyazaki has written a story which revolves around a 5 year old boy Sosuke and the Princess goldfish Ponyo who wants to become human. He’s also choosen to model the character of Sosuke after his own grandson, Goro. The film will be done in a freehand pastel-like drawing scheme, and will feature the majority of the film with a sea background, which will prove to be an interesting task for the director to animate. The film itself is scheduled for release in 2008.

The third (and final?) Hellboy Animated movie hasn’t been officially greenlit yet, but big man Tad Stones (what a manly name! – Er, I mean, the supervising director and co-writer on the previous two movies) decided to start talking about it on the Hellboy Animated blog. The blog post is largely about the process of deciding on and planning the story when it comes to creating these movies. Over the course of the discussion he gives us this delightful quote: “If Sword of Storms was the folklore side of Hellboy, Blood and Iron the vampire/Hammer Films side then The Phantom Claw is the mad scientist/weird technology aspect of Hellboy stories.”

He also shares the name The Phantom Claw, and he discusses Mike Mignola’s suggestion to use Lobster Johnson (see image to the left) in the movie. I’m guessing “The Phantom Claw” refers to him. (Please note: Lobster Johnson is not an actual lobster, nor does he have actual claws.)

EDIT: Its also worth noting that the second Hellboy installment, Blood and Iron, will air on Cartoon Network this Saturday at 7 PM EST.

15 years ago today, on March 7th 1992, the first episode of Sailor Moon, “Crybaby Usagi’s Magnificent Transformation”, aired for the first time in Japan. The series spanned 200 episodes until it’s finale on February 8th 1997. It also spawned 3 theatrical movies, 2 specials, musicals, videos games and an immense assortment of merchandise.

Sailor Moon was based on a Manga series by the same name which began appearing in Nakayoshi in December 1991, 4 months before the premiere of the show, and ran for 52 acts over a span of 5 years.

At its prime Sailor Moon saw great success worldwide as it was broadcast and published in nearly every country in the world. In the mid 90s you’d be hard pressed to go very far without seing some sort of Sailor Moon merchandise. It was likely the most internationally widespread franchise of it’s time. Sailor Moon herself is one of the most popular fictional characters ever, up there with such greats as Santa Claus, Superman and Jesus.

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Yesterday we reported on a new Gargoyles Spin-off Comic, “The Bad Guys”, which was announced at Wondercon. More news on the subject has been clarified in this message from Greg Weisman.

The series will be black and white and have a 6 issue run. Following a bi-monthly schedule it is planned to start in October of this year.

Frequent readers of the Gargoyles creator’s Ask Greg may be familiar with this concept already.

Back when the Gargoyles TV series was still on the air Greg had ideas for a number of Gargoyles spin-off shows including “The Bad Guys”, which was the series which came closest to realisation. It only stands to reason that this comic will closely resemble the story planned out for this spin-off series.

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