Happy Sunday folks!

With the end of the year (and the decade!) right around the corner, I thought it best to start giving out awards. Since all the greatest awards have cute little names (Oscars, Tonys, etc., etc.) I thought it only fair that our awards at Semantink have a name too. So, with that in mind, I am giving out the first annual INKY awards. Huzzah!

Best Series (ongoing):WALKING DEAD (Image)- No other series continues to bring shock and surprise as well as the WALKING DEAD. Robert Kirkman can and will kill off any one at any time, so the reader is constantly on their toes. Charlie Adlard provides gruesomely perfect art as well. This book is a must read every month.

Best Mini-Series: WAR OF KINGS (Marvel)- Marvel has done a great job with their space operas the last few years, and this year continues that trend. WAR OF KINGS pitted the Kree against the Shi’ar in a battle royale and did it beautifully. Paul Pelletier does a great job of showing interplanetary ass-kickery, and nobody does a better job at interstellar warfare stories than Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.

Most fun I’ve had reading this year: Old Man Logan (Marvel)- There were plenty of great reads this year, but nothing was more fun than Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s tale of Wolverine in the future. A great concept, executed to perfection.

Best Writer: Grant Morrison- This was a tough one. Brian K. Vaughn has done a great job this year, making politics cool in EX MACHINA.  Geoff Johns made SUPERMAN readable again. Grant Morrison, however, has had a banner year. FINAL CRISIS, Morrison’s version of the semi-annual DC crisis finished up at the start of the year. Morrison followed up with another great installment of SEAGUY, and an awesome run on BATMAN AND ROBIN.

Best Penciller: Steve McNiven- Just look at the pretty pictures.

Best Inker: Oclair Albert: Oclair is the inker for GREEN LANTERN and BLACKEST NIGHT. Ivan Reis is a great penciller, but Albert’s inks make the pencils sing. He has a slick style that is perfect for s a space book.

Best Colorist– Dave Stewart- Stewart is the man behind the beautiful colors of the HELLBOY and BPRD books.

Best Cover Artist: J.H. Williams III- Williams has been doing beautiful work for years, but his covers for DETECTIVE have been some of the best of his career, as well as some of the best covers of the year.

Best Editor: Tom Brevoort (Marvel)- The man handles an insane load of titles for Marvel, from Spider-man, to the Avengers, to the Fantastic Four, and does a fine job with all of them.

Best Event: Blackest Night (DC comics)- Blackest night has been kicking butt and taking names since the first issue, and shows no signs of stopping. Anytime you have scads of undead rollin’ around and offing people, you are on the right track to awesome.

Best Big Publisher: Marvel Comics- Marvel wins based on it’s advancements in digital comics. The publisher signed a deal with several online comic book reader sites like Panelfly and Iverse to produce content for them. They also did a great job in 2009 with motion comics like SPIDER-WOMAN and ASTONISHING X-MEN.

Best Small Publisher: Top Shelf– These guys had a banner year. THE SURROGATES became a major motion picture and they landed Alan Moore and all his new projects (like the latest LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN project). It’s tough for anyone to top that.

Best Comic Book Movie: Watchmen- Given the choices this year, this one was easy. Wolverine was a hot mess and Whiteout was boring. Watchmen, while not perfect, was a beautiful translation of the source material. Jackie Earle Haley was chilling as Rorschach, and Zack Snyder obviously put a lot of heart into making Watchmen the best movie it could be,

Best Original Graphic Novel: ASTERIOS POLYP- Dave Mazzucchelli spent years on this book and it shows. The story is nothing earth-shattering, but the way Mazz uses color and shape to dispaly tone and emotion is.

Best Publication Design: Absolute Editions (DC)- The Absolute edition books that DC puts out are always the cream of the crop for story reproduction. The — format allows the art to shine and only the best stories make it to Absolute format.

Book I’ve been waiting forever for: Planetary #27- Thank you Warren Ellis and John Cassaday for making it worth the wait.

Technological breakthrough that will shape the next decade: Digital comic book readers- Over the next 10 years, comics aren’t going away, but they are going to evolve into the digital realm. This year was a huge step forward in the evolution of comics with apps for smart-phone comic book reading and companies like Longbox digital gearing up to put comics online.

Best comic viewing app: Iverse- There are several great apps for comics, but none are as clean and easy to use as iverse. Iverse also has the largest catalog of books, which is a big deal.

Publisher to look out for in 2010: Semantink–We are hot!

Congratulations to all Inky award winners! Your statuettes are in the mail. To all of our readers out there, thanks for tuning in, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

It’s almost that time of year, folks. No, I’m not talking Wintertime Coney Island Polar Bears.  That kind of business is for the ultra-weak looking for a quick fix.

I’m talking about the period in your viewing habits when big Hollywood studios launch overloaded, sentimental “Oscar bait” across America multiplexes with no respect for the independent roots out of which they grew. Or do they?

Recent years, we’ve seen underdogs such as Slumdog Millionaire, Little Miss Sunshine, and Juno jump ahead of the pack, to fame, fortune, glory, and golden statues. It is time that we start to think, “If I could see one movie worth seeing, what would it be?” See, prices have been jacked up, even in arthouse theatres, so you must be choosy about where you’ll see a film, what that film will be, and what kind of snack should you munch on when you’re watching said film. (Also, shut up when you’re in a movie theater. I don’t pay twelve dollars to hear your of your latest sexual encounter with your professor.)

As such, let’s take a quick glance at the list of “Award worthy films” that are about to be shoved down your throats in the coming months, starting with the very recent, very early this morning, Golden Globe Nominees:

UP IN THE AIR (nominated for six globes, the highest number this year)– George Clooney stars and performs the subtle loneliness that plagues middle-aged men who are voted sexiest man alive. Directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking and Juno), who is now batting 3-for-3 when it comes to quality movies, award-winning movies, fun movies. Also, Vera Farmiga’s rump is pristine.

NINE — (nominated for 5 Globes) — “Chicago” director Rob Marshall’s latest musical on celluloid presents Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, and Marion Cotillard as the women who make up an Italian Director’s inspiration. Daniel Day-Lewis plays the Italian stallion, based loosely on Federico Fellini. Intriguing, sure, but most likely overblown bubblegum from a director who can’t grasp subtlety.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS — (nominated for 4 globes) — Okay, this mother came out earlier this year, and in fact the DVD is out today, which is a perfectly timed marketing tool for any Oscar promoter (considering the Weinsteins produced this one, you must understand that they know what they’re doing). Christoph Waltz is the only sure bet for any awards ceremony this year, though despite Tarantino’s grammar skills, the script itself is already being named best of the year in certain critics circles.

AVATAR — (4 globe nominations) — For those out there living under a rock yet still managing to piggyback on your treehouse neighbor’s WiFi, Avatar is the latest “film that will change cinema” from director James Cameron (Terminator, Terminator 2, Titanic, Do-you-really-not-know-this-guy?). Some cartoonish violence and expected cheesy dialogue aside, the 3D technology involved appears first-rate, a true game-changer hindered only by rising costs. Awards? Maybe. The Globes are known for sending out invitations just to get famous people to stand in front of their logo, but regardless, the award season has started here.

THE HURT LOCKER — (3 Globe Nominations) — Only three for this masterpiece? Director Kathryn Bigelow brought us a handheld war picture that didn’t feel like we were watching through a lens, but a good soldier’s eyes, observant, in the action, never hesitating in the line of duty. Film revolves around an American bomb diffusion team embedded in Iraq, and the adrenaline junkies who make up our team — headed by the awesome Jeremy Rennar. Clearly the best movie of the year, and here’s hoping that Bigelow becomes only the FOURTH FEMALE DIRECTOR EVER to be nominated for the Academy Awards’ Best DIrector category (others: Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola).

Honorable mentions from the Golden Globe nominees this year: Matt Damon, for The Informant! (hilarious). That’s all you need, Matt Damon, fat, with mustache. Being directed by Steven Soderbergh.

On a quick side note for all you inexperienced privates: when it comes to awards season, don’t always think of it in terms of already made movies, or just actors and directors. Movies, like the perfect meatball, or a tall skyscraper, spawn from that first step, the recipe, or blueprint, or, in this case, the screenplay. Around Hollywood, it’s a known habit for assistants, and even agents and managers, to exchange clients’ or studio scripts between each other. One fella, Franklin Leonard, an Executive at Universal, in 2004, decided to take a survey of studio heads, producers, and agents around Tinseltown on their favorite scripts — not the screenplays which are the best movies, or even pieces that are being produced. Just, the favorites.

This list of scripts became known as the Black List. http://www.blcklst.com/.

The Black List has started some careers (Allen Loeb — Things We Lost in the Fire, Wall Street 2), and propelled others. In 2006, the top script received 30 mentions, and was titled “The Brigands of Rattleborge.” Take it from Sgt. Angle that this is one of the finest Westerns on the screenwriter’s page.

Last year, the top script (which received 67 mentions) was “The Beaver”, about a depressed man who wears a beaver puppet on his hand, and finds friendship in that beaver. The movie is going to star Mel Gibson and is directed by Jodie Foster.

This year’s winner is “The Muppet Man,” about the life of Jim Henson. Number 2 on this year’s list is Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook movie, “The Social Network.”

For summaries and reviews of these scripts, and sometimes links to the scripts themselves, go visit Scriptshadow.

Go out and see some Basterds this awards season, and don’t forget: Be subtle when theatre hopping.

Out.

Sgt. Angle