Jonah Hex returns to animation!

Jonah Hex is building quite a collection of animated appearances. Its no surprise, he's a great character that deserves more exposure then he's gotten in the past.

At the end of July DC Premier is releasing their new animated movie Batman: Under The Red Hood, and as a bonus feature there will be a short film starring none other than Hex himself; for obvious reasons I'm very excited.

Well imagine my surprise when I went to the Newsarama comic site and found that 3 new images have been released from the short! While I'm not surprised by the decidedly dark tone of the images, I was still...a little surprised....and certainly delighted.

Here's what Newsarama has to say about the short:

Scripted by renowned author Joe Lansdale and starring the voices of Thomas Jane (Hung), Linda Hamilton (The Terminator), Michelle Trachtenberg (Mercy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Michael Rooker (Days of Thunder), the DC Showcase short is based on the award winning comic series. The short is rated PG-13.

In the DC Showcase story, the tough-as-nails bounty hunter Jonah Hex always gets his man - until someone else gets to him first - in this case a murderous madam who wants to steal more than just her bounty from Jonah Hex.

Sounds like a great cast! My only wish is that it were feature length. Maybe next time. You can find the images HERE and Batman: Under The Red Hood will be released on July 27, 2010.

The Haunted Old West of Lee Winters

Written by Lon Williams, Lee Winters was a Weird Western pulp character who's stories were published in Real Western Stories pulp magazine between 1951 and 1959. Lee was basically a cowardly deputy marshal, from the town of Forlorn Gap, who was thrown into all sorts of supernatural situations ranging from Ghosts to demons, and Greek gods to the Three Fates. From what I can gather, Lee's only regular co-star int he series was Doc Bogannan, the Saloon Keeper from Forlorn Gap who tries to warn Lee away from making the stupid decisions that get him into trouble in the first place.

He sounds like an interesting character, personally I'd love to see Joe R. Lansdale take a crack at him. But like a lot of pulp characters from the past, his stories tend to be a bit...formulaic? Pulpfan from Live Journal has done a nice article about the formulaic nature of Lee Winter's stories. There are also links to some of the stories.

There isn't a lot about Lee online, he seems to be a pretty obscure character mostly forgotten by everyone except for those who seek him out. But I was able to dig around and find a page of his stories HERE which, paired with the links from Pulpfan's site, should give you quite a bit a Lee Winters Weird West goodness to read this weekend.

More New Jonah Hex character posters and Trailer!

Ive been trying to keep up on the Jonah news of late and one of the things Ive noticed is that, despite the movie not looking all that great they are putting a LOT of work behind the promotional material.

Last week, 4 new character posters were released and they look top notch

And just this morning a newer, better film trailer was released. Im starting to warm up to the idea of this Jonah Hex not being the character from the comics and trying to let the movie speak for itself. Of course that isnt going to excuse a bad script....but we'll see about that.

Until then check out the new trailer, I think its a bit better....What do you think?

Jonah Hex at IGN.com

That cool Cowboys and Aliens pic, Actor revealed!

So I gotta say, I like this picture a lot. Like all good cowboy pictures should, it has great silhouette. The picture was released last week by Jon Favreau on his Twitter. Its a picture of one of the actors in the movie and at the time, Favreau was very hush hush as to the actors identity (not wanting to reveal such big news on Twitter). Personally I thought it was Sam Rockwell, since it looks a little thin and not beefy (ie Manly) enough to be Harrison Ford. Well it turns out that its Daniel Craig! It looks great....I just hope his costume design gets more interesting as they progress.

Also, speaking of Harrison Ford, I still can't believe how cool it is that hes in this. From an official synopsis that released last week, it sounds like he is going to be, if not a villain, at least an antagonist. An antagonist who has to team up with Daniel Craig and Co to fight a common enemy.....as long as he has a substantial part and doesn't die in the first five minutes I'm on board!

Who am I fooling, I'm on-board anyway...I cant wait to see what they do, its starting to look better all the time!

Heres the Official Synopsis that was released last week:

1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger (Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear.

But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents—townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors—all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

Yowza it sounds like fun! :Fingers crossed: