“Bill & Ted is an American comedy film series featuring William “Bill” S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore “Ted” Logan (Keanu Reeves) as two metalhead slackers who travel through time. The first Bill & Ted film, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, was released on February 17, 1989, followed by a sequel two years later entitled Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. A third film, Bill & Ted Face the Music, started pre-production in May 2018. In addition to the films, the franchise has seen both an animated television series (with Winter and Reeves reprising their roles) and a live-action television series in 1990 and 1992 respectively, video games, and comic books. Originally produced by Orion Pictures, the franchise ownership fell to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) following the purchase of Orion in 1997.”
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Ted_(franchise)

I was seven years old and one of my relatives took me to the cinema to watch the first one. The second I rented at my neighborhood video store. The late 80’s into 90s feel is immortalized in these films, the colors, the clothes, the lingo the almost Saturday morning cartoon-like depictions of a future living in world peace through rock & roll and air-guitar. By the way – Joan of Arc was really hot and lets’ not forget the medieval princess.

I remember Keanu Reeves during his press interviews for John Wick being asked about a possible B&T3 and how enthusiastic he was to discuss a possible storyline that him, Winters and the original team where throwing around about the film and how they were working on getting off the ground. His excitement became my excitement and let me say this, “I will be at the midnight showing of this on premiere night”. So far i haven’t been too disappointed and very impressed by a lot of retro sequels lately. From the AMAZING Blade Runner 2949 to the recently released first season of Cobra Kai (the first two episode review also on this site) I’m all in… All the way in.

So what do we know so far:

The Hollywood Reporter revealed the news out of Cannes today.

Currently in pre-production, Bill & Ted Face the Music will see the duo long past their days as time-traveling teenagers and now weighed down by middle age and the responsibilities of family. They’ve written thousands of tunes, but they have yet to write a good one, much less the greatest song ever written. With the fabric of time and space tearing around them, a visitor from the future warns our heroes that only their song can save life as we know it. Out of luck and fresh out of inspiration, Bill and Ted set out on a time travel adventure to seek the song that will set their world right and bring harmony in the universe as we know it. Together with the aid of their daughters, a new crop of historical figures, and some sympathetic music legends, they find much, much more than just a song.

Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) will direct the film from a script by original writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. Of course, Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves will reprise their roles almost three decades after the original two films, and Bill and Ted’s daughters will be joining their time-traveling adventures this time around. MGM, which owns the rights to the series, will release the film in the US, while international sales are currently in the works at the Cannes Film Festival.
P.S. I’m too happy about this to edit. 🙂

LET’S DO THIS!!!!!!

Old Man Jack #1 – 4 out of 5

The Big Trouble in Little China comics have quietly been some of the most consistently entertaining comics of the past few years, with 2016/2017’s crossover with Escape From New York being a particularly strong endeavor, as we covered multiple times. This was all on the strength of great series writers who ran with the original film as a starting point, but largely put their own spin on Jack Burton’s misadventures. With Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack, things are a little different. John Carpenter is at the helm with co-writer and largely unknown comic writer Anthony Burch. For two people with little in the way of established comics writing credentials, the result is… actually pretty great. Aided by outstanding art from both Jorge Corona and colorist Gabriel Cassata, Old Man Jack shows that many of the best parts of both the original film and the expanded comic series are going to be on display here. 

The Power of the Dark Crystal #7 – 3 out of 5

There’s a weird disconnect in The Power of the Dark Crystal #7. The story has been strong from the opening issue, as we reviewed, and it still is from a zoomed out perspective. The minutia of the issue’s narrative is where things don’t hold up so strongly. There are clearly huge things happening in the back half of this story, but this issue spends a lot of its time treading water to get to them. I have little doubt that writer Simon Spurrier will make the entire arc worth the wait, but this issue sees a special comic going through the motion. What elevates this comic is ultimately its art, with artists Kelly and Nichole Matthews delivering a strong contender for best comic art of the entire year in terms of both color and individual panel art.

Bill & Ted Save The Universe #4 – 4 out of 5

One of the more consistently enjoyable aspects of Bill & Ted Save the Universe that other comic spin-offs featuring those titular characters is the way that it doesn’t hesitate to show the emotional core of its protagonists. For as goofy as the films get, they aren’t without moments of struggle or emotional joy, which gets largely ignored by many other comic adaptations — opting to focus instead on the zany antics and jokes littering the original scripts. The issue also makes sure to prepare readers for conclusion next month with dramatic tension unexpected for the source material.

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Omnibus – 4 out of 5

Just like Old Man Jack, the return of an original creator to expand on their brainchild through the medium of comics leads to some memorable work in the form. Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Omnibus straddles the line of “great coffee table addition for horror fan” and “compelling read for franchise obsessive”. Hellraiser’s proximity with slasher’s was always a strange and unfair association. The series, and in particular Clive Barker’s original,  is less like slasher thrillers of the 80’s and more like Carpenter’s less well known and more artistic early 90’s films with more Lovecraftian themes. Barker, his various co-writers, and the rotating lineup of strong artists wear their comic influences on their sleeves, as this is undeniably in the same vein as Gaiman’s Sandman opus or early Hellblazer comics. Apart from the art and killer plotlines in this collection of twenty issues and an annual, you also get treated to some of Barker’s original artwork, which is as frightening and unsettling as you’d imagine.

A few weeks ago, after a wild summer of thinning out my Netflix queue, I noticed something strange. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was in the “cult” section of Netflix. Despite the fact that one could wager good money that everybody in the English-speaking world would recognize a young Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter sitting atop a high powered time travelling non-Tardis phonebooth, the film was paired with several films that have been seen by very few, including the underrated but also not-as-good sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. Absurd run-on sentences aside, the film is one of a handful of quintessential 1980’s movies. This led to an eager mixture of surprise and joy when I discovered that they were being given a comic book continuation.

hile I did enjoy the first two issues of BOOM! Studios six-issue run of Bill & Ted’s Most Triumphant Return, written by Brian Lynch previously responsible for a number of Buffy and Angel comics, as well as the Minions screenplay, and drawn by Jerry Gaylord, I was surprised to see just how much it relied upon the lore established in Bogus Journey. The story follows the Wyld Stallyns traveling to their utopian future to meet a younger version of the Chuck De Nomolos than the one we know from the movie to try to prevent him from doing evil stuff that affects his future which affects Bill and Ted’s most righteous present. Don’t worry. We’ll run through everything on a dry erase board before the test.

In case you forgot (which you probably did), Chuck De Nomolos was the Big Bad of Bogus Journey.

The story is comparable to The Midas Flesh, an under-appreciated comic by Ryan North. It has a certain jovial glee with implying some pretty heavy (and heady) time travel themes and elements, but then waving away from them or deferring to a joke. You never get the sense that it does this in an inconsistent-story sort of way, but rather much in the way the original films play with the notions of time travel (in Excellent Adventure) or eternity and the afterlife (in Bogus Journey). The Grim Reaper returns from the latter, but has a relatively insignificant role in the plot; unlike the repeated chant of “station”, a word that can literally mean anything.

And there I go talking about the lore of Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey again. Writing about art is a funny thing.

The best part of the first two issues is easily the side story at the end of the first issue. It’s a standalone and it comes out of nowhere. It deals with Robot Bill and Robot Ted contracting a computer virus, and the notions and solutions that two young men from the late 80’s would bring to a futuristic scenario. Overall, the comic will be loved by fans of the series. The jokes land and the art is vivid. The only downside is that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is unfortunately required viewing material before reading.