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AMC expands the cinematic universe of late author Anne Rice, officially called the Immortal Universe, with an episodic adaptation of the 1990s novel trilogy Lives of the Mayfair Witches. Written and created by Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford, both known for Showtime’s Masters of Sex, the supernatural drama follows the titular Mayfair family’s 300-year legacy of powerful, oft-doomed women. The eight-episode first season primarily focuses on The Witching Hour, the first novel in the trilogy, which is over 1,000 pages or 50+ hours on audiobook.
“The Witching Hour,” the aptly named first episode, introduces us to Dr. Rowan Fielding (Alexandra Daddario), a successful neurosurgeon working in San Francisco. She’s good at what she does and deeply cares about her patients. However, the doctor in charge still questions her abilities. When people start collapsing and/or dying around her, Rowan thinks there’s something seriously wrong with her.
After the tragic passing of her adoptive mother Ellie (Erica Gimpel), Rowan looks into her biological family, whom Ellie kept a secret. With all the weird and terrifying things she’s experienced and seemingly caused, she goes to her birthplace of Louisiana to search for her mother, discovering that she’s inherited the wealth of being a Mayfair, which comes with supernatural abilities.
She’s also in the early days of realizing a man is penetrating her mind. Lasher (Jack Huston) is a seductive shape-shifting demon who dresses well and has a penchant for tempting Mayfair women. In the first five episodes available to screen, we don’t learn much about his character other than his dark influence and devil-on-your-shoulder behavior.
Meanwhile, the secret society of paranormal researchers, as seen in Queen of the Damned and the rest of Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles series, the Talamasca has kept tabs on the unexplained events surrounding Rowan. Ciprien Grieve (Tongayi Chirisa) enters Rowan’s life as her newly appointed Talamascan protector, stalking her until they have an intense confrontation in San Fran.
Ciprien, an original character created for the series as a composite of the novel’s Michael Curry and Aaron Lightner, is an interesting character with a generous amount of screen time. I’d watch a series just following him investigating the dark history of the Mayfair clan.
As Rowan’s protector/observer, he’s empathetic and determined to keep her safe — and it doesn’t hurt that he’s attractive and has the most soothing voice. Although their first meeting is chaotic, when she gets to NOLA, they form more of a bond despite her guarded personality. Naturally, he becomes her love interest, and things get messy.
Rowan is a hard character to pin down at first but grows with each episode, which is largely due to the captivating Daddario. But while Rowan struggles to understand who she is, the audience is just as uncertain. Though she’s confident in her knowledge and abilities as a doctor, she’s also noticeably anxious, fidgety, and frazzled. She’s fiercely independent, a bit hardened at times, and emotionally unavailable to anything more than a casual hookup.
There’s a big shift between bluish and clinical San Francisco and the warm, golden-hued New Orleans. Ironically, the city that celebrates death as a joyous gathering and not a bleak day of somber mourning has much more life to it. In one episode, we see a New Orleans ritual funeral procession, essentially a parade of music, dancing, and high spirits. The makeup, costumes, and details are all fascinating. Easily my favorite scene in all five episodes.
Even Rowan opens up more when she’s in the city, though her mind alternates between confused, disoriented, uneasy, or in shock. To be fair, she has a lot going on and her family is a lot. She meets her manipulative great aunt Carlotta Mayfair (Beth Grant), who kept Rowan’s mother, Deirdre Mayfair (Annabeth Gish), in a drug-induced daze for years. Rowan doesn’t take a liking to her great uncle Cortland Mayfair (Harry Hamlin) either. However, the family patriarch with a taste for luxury and influence is much more pleasant than Carlotta, though hiding something.
The series also briefly takes us back to the 17th century when women work as healers and midwives in the town of Donnelaith, Scotland, who I presume are Mayfair ancestors. However, the series has yet to establish the relation between the two timelines more than halfway into the season, though it does deepen the series’ overarching theme: female oppression in a male-dominated world afraid of powerful women, particularly healers and doctors.
Like its main character, the tone of Mayfair Witches seems uncertain of itself. It gets off to a slow start but becomes a more intriguing story with each episode. With its impressive cast, lively (and spooky) New Orleans setting, and intriguing story, I’d say it’s a worthy addition to the “Immortal Universe.”
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches premieres on January 8, 2022, on AMC and AMC+. The companion documentary All of Them Witches premiered on December 21 (“Winter Solstice”) on AMC, and began streaming on January 2.
AMC expands the cinematic universe of late author Anne Rice, officially called the Immortal Universe, with an episodic adaptation of the 1990s novel trilogy Lives of the Mayfair Witches. Written and created by Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford, both known for Showtime’s Masters of Sex, the supernatural drama follows the titular Mayfair family’s 300-year legacy of powerful, oft-doomed women. The eight-episode first season primarily focuses on The Witching Hour, the first novel in the trilogy, which is over 1,000 pages or 50+ hours on audiobook.
“The Witching Hour,” the aptly named first episode, introduces us to Dr. Rowan Fielding (Alexandra Daddario), a successful neurosurgeon working in San Francisco. She’s good at what she does and deeply cares about her patients. However, the doctor in charge still questions her abilities. When people start collapsing and/or dying around her, Rowan thinks there’s something seriously wrong with her.
After the tragic passing of her adoptive mother Ellie (Erica Gimpel), Rowan looks into her biological family, whom Ellie kept a secret. With all the weird and terrifying things she’s experienced and seemingly caused, she goes to her birthplace of Louisiana to search for her mother, discovering that she’s inherited the wealth of being a Mayfair, which comes with supernatural abilities.
She’s also in the early days of realizing a man is penetrating her mind. Lasher (Jack Huston) is a seductive shape-shifting demon who dresses well and has a penchant for tempting Mayfair women. In the first five episodes available to screen, we don’t learn much about his character other than his dark influence and devil-on-your-shoulder behavior.
Meanwhile, the secret society of paranormal researchers, as seen in Queen of the Damned and the rest of Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles series, the Talamasca has kept tabs on the unexplained events surrounding Rowan. Ciprien Grieve (Tongayi Chirisa) enters Rowan’s life as her newly appointed Talamascan protector, stalking her until they have an intense confrontation in San Fran.
Ciprien, an original character created for the series as a composite of the novel’s Michael Curry and Aaron Lightner, is an interesting character with a generous amount of screen time. I’d watch a series just following him investigating the dark history of the Mayfair clan.
As Rowan’s protector/observer, he’s empathetic and determined to keep her safe — and it doesn’t hurt that he’s attractive and has the most soothing voice. Although their first meeting is chaotic, when she gets to NOLA, they form more of a bond despite her guarded personality. Naturally, he becomes her love interest, and things get messy.
Rowan is a hard character to pin down at first but grows with each episode, which is largely due to the captivating Daddario. But while Rowan struggles to understand who she is, the audience is just as uncertain. Though she’s confident in her knowledge and abilities as a doctor, she’s also noticeably anxious, fidgety, and frazzled. She’s fiercely independent, a bit hardened at times, and emotionally unavailable to anything more than a casual hookup.
There’s a big shift between bluish and clinical San Francisco and the warm, golden-hued New Orleans. Ironically, the city that celebrates death as a joyous gathering and not a bleak day of somber mourning has much more life to it. In one episode, we see a New Orleans ritual funeral procession, essentially a parade of music, dancing, and high spirits. The makeup, costumes, and details are all fascinating. Easily my favorite scene in all five episodes.
Even Rowan opens up more when she’s in the city, though her mind alternates between confused, disoriented, uneasy, or in shock. To be fair, she has a lot going on and her family is a lot. She meets her manipulative great aunt Carlotta Mayfair (Beth Grant), who kept Rowan’s mother, Deirdre Mayfair (Annabeth Gish), in a drug-induced daze for years. Rowan doesn’t take a liking to her great uncle Cortland Mayfair (Harry Hamlin) either. However, the family patriarch with a taste for luxury and influence is much more pleasant than Carlotta, though hiding something.
The series also briefly takes us back to the 17th century when women work as healers and midwives in the town of Donnelaith, Scotland, who I presume are Mayfair ancestors. However, the series has yet to establish the relation between the two timelines more than halfway into the season, though it does deepen the series’ overarching theme: female oppression in a male-dominated world afraid of powerful women, particularly healers and doctors.
Like its main character, the tone of Mayfair Witches seems uncertain of itself. It gets off to a slow start but becomes a more intriguing story with each episode. With its impressive cast, lively (and spooky) New Orleans setting, and intriguing story, I’d say it’s a worthy addition to the “Immortal Universe.”
Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches premieres on January 8, 2022, on AMC and AMC+. The companion documentary All of Them Witches premiered on December 21 (“Winter Solstice”) on AMC, and began streaming on January 2.
Back in October 2022, we had the fortune of getting to provide an exclusive announcement about the latest series from Boom! Studios by Rob Guillory and Sam Lofti: Mosely. Our titular character is an elderly janitor armed with an indestructible hammer and a fire in his belly ready to take down all of the 2075 Tech Gods. And now, we have had the fortunate to sit down and get some more insight into the series and creative process.
Talking with Rob Guillory, writer of Mosely
BlackNerdProblems: I personally have been a big fan of yours ever since I picked up the Smorgasbord Edition of Chew. What has the transition been like going from being a comic artist on Chew, to being the writer/artist on Farmhand, and now being just the writer for Mosley?
Rob Guillory: It’s been educational, that’s for sure. Even back when I was on Chew, I was noodling with scripts with the intention of making the jump to writing down the road. Farmhand was the natural next step for me, taking on both ends of the creative process. And I probably learned more from that experience than anything else I’ve done. Obviously, doing everything myself gives me maximum freedom creatively, but there’s something special about sharing the load with a collaborator. So that’s where Mosely came in. It’s the one thing I hadn’t done, writing for another artist, and it’s been far more enjoyable than I imagined. So, in short, I love all three creative methods, and I’ll definitely do all three again down the road.
BNP: What was impetus for penning a story about an anti-technological janitor rebelling against the technological gods?
Rob: Having kids, probably. Navigating the many pitfalls of tech just wasn’t something I’d ever considered until our first child started reaching for our phones. Now our oldest is 11 and teaching him to responsibly use these devices is still a hard slog. So Mosely came out of my frustration with the state of things, that I have to constantly contend with this damn black mirror that’s always trying to drop things into my kids’ minds I’d rather protect them from. Mosely is what I’d like to do with my kids’ tech on certain days, what I’d like to do to all tech after a bad scroll on the Internet.
BNP: Your stories have a semi-satirical/cartoony bent to them while still managing to have a hard edge when it comes to commentating on society. How do you manage to transition between these modalities while still being tonally consistent?
Rob: It’s just how I think. It’s not something I deliberately set out to do. My influences have always been somewhere between Looney Toons, Mad TV, and the Twilight Zone, so my work tends to come out that way. I love the expressiveness of cartoons, and more often than not I think life is pretty cartoonish on its own. My work just turns it up to 11, I think. I always set out to make the kind of work that I’d enjoy reading.
Talking with Sam Lotfi, artist of Mosely
BNP: Your credits include a wide variety of genres ranging from horror, fantasy, noir, and science fiction with Mosely. How do you manage navigating these genres that have very different conventions and visual cues?
Sam Lotfi: I enjoy all the genres you mentioned, and the art should not only tell the story visually, but make the reader feel something about the story. I like the creative challenge of making subtle changes to my art to best suit whatever genre I’m working in. I look for those different conventions and do my best to bring my own take to them; hopefully, it feels genuine and pulls the reader into the story.
BNP: Related to the above, what genre has proven the most time-consuming?
Sam: It would have to be science fiction because in order to make it feel like a believable world you need to invest time into designing all the important elements of that world before diving in. I also like to make sure I leave room for spontaneous creativity on the page, so I don’t design everything in advance, just the key elements and I let that inform whatever I do spontaneously on the page.
BNP: Your website has some fantastic pencils/inks illustrations. Do you prefer working with physical medium or utilize it alongside digital art tools?
Sam: For comics, I like to do layouts digitally since that’s where the most changes take place, but once that’s done, I prefer to scale them up to 11×17 and print them out in light blue so that I can pencil and ink traditionally. Digital tools are amazing these days and I use both depending on the project, but I still love the tactile feel of paper and ink and all the happy or not so happy accidents that happen on the page while creating something.
Double Trouble with The Duo
BNP: Favorite Panel from the first issue?
Rob: There’s an “Alas, Poor Yorick” moment early on in the issue that Sam handles beautifully, where Mosely is silently regarding this broken robot in a janitor’s closet. It’s a very small touch amid a ton of great moments in issue one, but that one sings for me. It’s perfect. No dialogue at all, but it says so much.
Sam: Page 7 panel 7 – We get a glimpse into Mosely’s current life and a sense of how he wants to change things. Mosely is literally stepping out of his office/janitor’s closet and leaving all that mess behind, but symbolically it speaks volumes; especially when we see where the story takes him later on. I love injecting subtle symbolic character or story cues whenever I can and even if it goes unnoticed, it doesn’t really matter, because hopefully it still gives the reader a feeling or sense of something when they see it.
BNP: What is the most challenging part of writing Mosely? What is the most enjoyable?
Rob: The challenge was distilling this huge futuristic world into just five issues. I think we settled on just the right amount of backstory, leaving just the right amount of mystery. And the most enjoyable part was writing Mosely himself, obviously. He’s such a lovable jerk.
Sam: I’m more of a fantasy/horror guy, so I’d say the technical design of the world and robots is probably the most challenging part for me. The most enjoyable however, is whenever I get to draw Mosely smashing stuff with that big hammer or when he gets pummeled by enemies, both are fun to draw.
BNP: What do you hope your readers will feel after reading the first issue of Mosely?
Rob: Satisfied, but hungry for more. I want every issue to feel fulfilling to the reader. No fluff, just good story.
Sam: I hope they’re drawn into the world and feel they can relate to Mosely and hopefully want to see more!
BNP: What would your chosen implement be for dismantling a future technocracy?
Rob: Solar flare, if I can arrange it.
Sam: I’ll be honest, I’m not the most tech savvy person, so I tend to get a little impatient when tech doesn’t work as it’s supposed to. There’s a reason I designed a giant fist into the already huge hammer, so yeah, definitely Mosely’s hammer!
Thanks again to Rob and Sam for taking time to talk.
Grab your copy of the first issue of Mosely at your local comic shop, Boom! Studios website, or Amazon when it comes out January 4th.
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The post How to Dismantle a Technocracy: Talking with Rob Guillory and Sam Lotfi about ‘Mosely’ appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
For those of you hoping that Sarah Michelle Gellar might pick up the vampire killing stake of Buffy Summers once more, we’re sorry to dash those hopes for you. While doing a recent interview with SFX Magazine (via Syfy) promoting the series Wolf Pack, Gellar told the magazine that fans shouldn’t hold their breath that she would ever return for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer potential reboot series. When asked if she’d be down for a return, she was fairly blunt with her answer. Here’s what she had to say:
I’m not. I am very proud of the show that we created, and it doesn’t need to be done. We wrapped that up. I am all for them continuing the story, because there’s the story of female empowerment. I love the way the show was left: ‘Every girl who has the power can have the power.’ It’s set up perfectly for someone else to have the power. But like I said, the metaphors of Buffy were the horrors of adolescence. I think I look young, but I am not an adolescent.
This has more or less been Sarah Michelle Gellar’s stance for two decades. The original Buffy ended 20 years ago in 2003. Since then, fans have asked about some kind of comeback. The world of Buffy (and its spinoff series Angel) continued in comic book form for years. In 2018, we heard that Alias and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. veteran Monica Owusu-Breen was going to spearhead a Buffy revival or possible reboot of some kind—one with an African-American lead. She even made a statement saying this new continuation would honor what came before, suggesting it was some sort of legacy sequel.
With the original series finale’s main storyline activating thousands of girls around the world as new Slayers, maybe a new teenage Slayer, maybe named after the “Prime” Slayer Buffy Summers, could be the focus of the potential show? That way it’s still “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” just not the same one we knew. There is potential for something like this to work and not just be a nostalgia grab. But there’s been no movement on the series since that announcement.
This lack of movement on any new Buffy very likely has to do with the recent allegations of on set abuse and unprofessional behavior from Buffy’s creator and showrunner, Joss Whedon. Almost the entire original cast has had something to say regarding their unpleasant time working on the series. Even if there was no direct Whedon involvement, as the franchise creator, he would no doubt receive some kind of financial reward for any kind of continuation, which is something a lot of folks might not be comfortable supporting. In the end, it might be best to leave Buffy alone. It represented such a specific time in pop culture. At the very least though, how about a proper HD remaster for the classic series for Disney+? That’s something everyone can get behind.
The post Sarah Michelle Gellar Puts a Stake in Any BUFFY Reboot Hopes appeared first on Nerdist.
Since Sony acquired the film rights to Spider-Man, the company has tried to create a fictional universe surrounding the character. It started with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy with Tobey Maguire as the protagonist. But following the commercial and critical flop that was The Amazing Spider-Man 2, starring Andrew Garfield, Sony’s dream of a shared cinematic universe collapsed.
However, it was rekindled with the company’s collaboration with the MCU. That brought us the fantastic Homecoming trilogy, which concluded with all three Spider-Men fighting a common enemy.
Meanwhile, Sony separately redeveloped Venom, starring Tom Hardy. They then followed that up with Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which crossed over with the MCU’s version of Spider-Man. This placed the two characters in the same fictional universe. Thus, Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU) was born.
Besides Spider-Man, Venom, and Morbius — which already launched — Sony is developing several other releases based on Marvel characters, including Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web. Now reports suggest that Donald Glover, an American entertainer, is developing a Spider-Man movie.
However, it’s not a live adaptation of Miles Morales. Instead, Glover is attached to star and produce in a featured film set in the SSU (Sony Spider-Man Universe) centered around the Hypno-Hustler.
Donald Glover already has a history with Spider-Man. He was the inspiration for the character of Miles Morales, voiced Miles in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated show, and portrayed Prowler in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Now, he’s attached to play Hypno-Hustler, in an upcoming film.
Admittedly, Hypno-Hustler isn’t a major villain in the Spider-Man comic book universe, nor the most-loved. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The character is frequently listed among the worst villains in entertainment media. The D-List supervillain from the Marvel Universe debuted in 1978 in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #24. Named Antoine Desloin, the leader of a band called the Mercy Killers, Hypno-Hustler uses hypnotic technology within his music to hypnotize his audience to rob them.
In his debut story, he tried to rob a nightclub in which the Mercy Killers performed — but the job was complicated by Peter Parker, who was present at the venue with his friends. Peter’s spider-sense picked up on the Hustler’s tricks and warned Peter, so he covered his ears in time. Of course, the audience fell into a trance and delivered their valuables to the Mercy Killers while Peter changed into his Spider-Man costume. He confronted the Hustler, who unleashed all of his tricks on Spider-Man, including the gas and the retractable blades from his boots.
Since then, Hypno-Hustler has become an obscure gag character in Spider-Man stories—something that the Spider-Man rogue’s gallery doesn’t lack. But the good thing is that he wasn’t neglected by the writers. In fact, despite his branding as quite possibly the worst Spider-Man villain of all time, the Hypno-Hustler regularly made minor appearances in some pretty major plots, as well as cameos in various Spider-Man animated series and video games. So, he’s not so obscure that he’s completely unrecognizable by the fandom; he’s just a less-loved villain. But how does Glover fit into all this?
Well, as stated before, Donald Glover has been a fan-favorite when it comes to the Spider-Man cinematic universe. Though the actor didn’t play Peter Parker, he got to voice Miles Morales. He also appeared in a brief role in Spider-Man: Homecoming, in a now-deleted scene portraying Miles Morales’ uncle. But now he’s portraying a villain and not a favorite one at that. It would seem that Glover is interested in the musical and comedic side of the character, which could work for him, considering his experience in the worlds of comedy and music.
But Glover isn’t the only entertainer attached to this project. Miles Murphy, the son of actor and comedian Eddie Murphy, is on board as the project’s writer. If Sony decides to give them free rein to make the campiest nonsense possible, the upcoming Hypno-Hustler film could avoid the fate that befell Morbius—the one where the resulting film is an incredible bore. Additionally, the character of the Hypno-Hustler doesn’t have canon baggage in terms of actually defined backstory and history, so he could be, just like Venom, reinvented as an antihero rather than a goofy villain.
In fact, it could sit well with the cinematic tone of Venom, who is another fan-favorite antihero set to cross paths with Spider-Man. Especially now, when many wild and comedic narratives have used Spider-Man’s strange but grounded world for comedy, particularly when said narratives highlight the surprisingly nuanced nature of characters who don silly costumes to oppose superheroes like Spider-Man. Deadpool is a really good example of this; the new cinematic interpretations have humanized the over-the-top “merc with a mouth” and made him into one of the most beloved antiheroes.
By adopting this approach, Donald Glover can take an otherwise disliked and overshadowed villain and add a comedic twist. He could reinterpret him as an antihero whose narrative could nudge the Spider-Man universe towards a more lighthearted, comedic tone—something that would align perfectly with both Homecoming-type movies and the goofy gimmicks of some of Spider-Man’s lesser-known enemies.