A far more civilized, beautiful life now lies within the grasp of your trembling fingertips.

Gentle reader: do you tire of the meager offerings set forth by our humdrum age? Do you seek to cultivate blooms of refinement and joy in your life’s garden? Lord Whimsy, as befitting his office as “Affected Provincial”, humbly offers himself as a guide to those who wish to transcend the banalities of modern existence. A diverse and hilarious collection of treatises, insightful essays, philosophical diagrams, saucy poetry and other amusing trifles, The Affected Provincial's Companion will inspire you to transform yourself into a living work of art, thus setting you upon a course towards that misty, faraway shore known to the ancients as Enchantment.

The perils of sportswear, self-defense for sissies, the proper grooming of facial hair, and how to become a bon vivant - all this and much more may be found between the shimmering covers of this sleek and utterly beguiling volume.

A timeless adventure in a land full of magic and wonder. Garry Kilworth's Attica reveals a twilight world of forgotten treasures and extraordinary adventures; all happening just above our heads.

Join Jordy, Alex and Chloe as they cross the portal from our world to a strange and wonderful other place, accessible for just a moment in time through the trap-door of the attic in their family house. From hat-stand forests, to towering hills of old musical instruments, deserts of old books and a great water-tank lake, the vast continent they stumble upon is one of limitless surprises - and that's before they meet the inhabitants: strange clans of small and lumpen people who live in homes constructed from all manner of found things and drive vehicles powered by old sewing-machine parts.

It is against this remarkable backdrop that the three children will embark on a spellbinding adventure to recover a prized possession, save a life, and - somehow - find a way back home.

Attila Ambrus was a gentleman thief, a sort of Cary Grant — if only Grant came from Transylvania, was a terrible professional hockey goalkeeper, and preferred women in leopard-skin hot pants. During the 1990s, while playing for the biggest hockey team in Budapest, Ambrus took up bank robbery to make ends meet. His opponents: a police chief who learned how to be a detective via dubbed episodes of Columbo; a deputy so dense he was known only by his Hungarian nickname, Mound of Asshead; and a forensics expert-cum-ballet teacher who wore a top hat and tails on the job.

Part Pink Panther, part The Unbearable Lightness of Being, part Slap Shot, this uproariously funny, award-winning book tells the remarkable story of a crime spree that galvanized a forlorn nation and made a nobody into a somebody — a tale so outrageous that it could only be true.

No one knows more about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program than Mahdi Obeidi, the man who headed its successful uranium enrichment effort. In the immediate, chaotic aftermath of the 2003 war in Iraq, Obeidi contacted the arms inspectors he had been forced to lie to for so many years, and voluntarily turned over the key plans and parts to U.S. intelligence. Among the revelations reported by the international media at the time: In the early 1990s, under orders to hide the core of the program from UN weapons inspectors, Obeidi had buried in his backyard garden the critical elements necessary to build uranium-enriching gas centrifuges. What he turned over to U.S. intelligence in the summer of 2003 proved to be the entire remains of a program put on hold since the last Gulf War. Now, at last, Obeidi tells all, taking us inside Saddam’s regime and revealing the truth about its quest for nuclear weapons. He captures in nail-biting detail what life was like directly under Saddam’s watchful eye–the intimidation, the paranoia, the impossible deadlines.

In The Bomb in My Garden, Dr. Obeidi reveals how he circumvented the international safeguards specifically intended to bar developing nations from obtaining the knowledge and materials needed to build nuclear weapons. He recounts his many "shopping trips" abroad, during which he inveigled, bribed, and cajoled scientists and engineers at companies throughout the United States and Europe into assisting him. And he details the complex system of front companies and financial institutions he used to pull it all off.

Dr. Obeidi also provides an intimate portrait of unrealized promise and a nation’s decline into madness. In relating his transformation from an idealistic young engineer into a tyrant’s reluctant cat’s-paw, Dr. Obeidi offers a rare glimpse into the workings of Saddam’s inner circle. In chilling detail, he describes the fever dream of intimidation, paranoia, and absurd demands that characterized his years under the thumb of Saddam’s sociopathic son-in-law Hussein Kamel. And he describes the bittersweet sense of triumph he and his team experienced on achieving in a matter of months what, by all objective standards, was a technical near-impossibility.

Written with the pace and drama of a spy thriller, this eye-opening account will serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. At the same time, it provides a powerful reminder of how what is best in a nation and its citizens can become hopelessly perverted when the reins of power are left too long in the hands of self-serving and unscrupulous leaders.

Intandem, Radical pitch slate including John Woo's Caliber
Wendy Mitchell in London

18 Jan 2008 

Intandem Films and its graphic novel publishing company partner Radical Publishing will be meeting with investors in the UK starting Jan 21 to present their shared business model and preview future projects.

UK-based financing and sales company Intandem took an equity stake in 2007 in Los Angeles-based Radical, which is aligned with Singapore's production company Imaginary Friends Studio. Intandem has been appointed as Radical's exclusive sales company and executive producer.

Radical Publishing, headed by Barry Levine, has built a library of about 50 intellectual properties, and films are being planned for Hercules (described as "300 meets Braveheart"), Caliber (with John Woo attached to direct and Barry Levine and Johnny Depp producing), Aladdin (compared to a darker Pirates Of the Caribbean), and Khrome (from 30 Days Of Night veteran Steve Niles).

Gary Smith, Intandem Films' chairman, said: "The Radical-Intandem relationship has created one of the hottest media collaborations in the market. Investors can expect to benefit from the income generated from a substantial product line of genre-led films, graphic novels, toys and video games. We are dealing in a multi-billion dollar industry and the success of comic book-backed films such as Sin City, 300 and 30 Days of Night is a clear illustration of consumer demand for this genre of feature films."

After Levine's recent meetings in Singapore, Radical's has started raising funds for its new $10m Anime Project Fund.

More from Karen of  Johnny Depp Reads

CALIBER
Creator: Sam Sarkar
Writer: Sam Sarkar
Cover Art: Imaginary Friends Studios by Garrie Gastonny with Alexander Alexandrov & Svetlin Velinov
Variant Cover Art A: Imaginary Friends Studios by Stanley "ARTGERM" Lau
Variant Cover Art B: Dave Wilkins
Interior Art: Imaginary Friends Studios by Garrie Gastonny
Colors: Imaginary Friends Studios by Alexander Alexandrov & Svetlin Velinov
 

The Arthurian legend as retold in the American Old West, with all of its great symbolism, magic and spirit of adventure. The Knights of the Round Table are all gunslingers bound by a code of honor to protect the weak and defend the innocent until they are undone from within by their own moral corruption. In this tale, Caliber itself is a tattooed six-gun, given to Arthur by the Indians and imbued with supernatural power. The secret of the gun is that it is never loaded with bullets, but when a man with Justice on his side is holding it, it can fire. When it does, it fires Thunder itself and never misses.

Genre: Mythical Western; Fantasy
Comic Book Release: May 2008
Here's the link to the home page for Caliber:
http://www.radicalcomics.com/comics-caliber.htm

Found by emma
Feb 27, 2008
At   ComicbookResources
RADICAL PUBLISHING ANNOUNCES "HERCULES," "CALIBER" TO DEBUT IN MAY
by CBR News Team, Editor
Posted: February 25, 2008 —

Official Press Release

February 25th, 2008, LOS ANGELES – Radical Publishing, publicized at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, has announced the release of Hercules #1 and Caliber #1, for May of 2008.

In a bold move to introduce these premiere titles to the public, Hercules #1 and Caliber #1 will be offered in it’s first printing at the low price of $1 while being printed as a 32-page premium stock softbound prestige format package with cardstock covers.

“We feel that once the comic buyer gets past buying a book from a brand new publisher and sees the high quality of writing, artistic work and production that Radical offers, that they will look to continue with the series and seek out our other titles,” stated Radical Publishing’s Publisher and Co-founder Barry Levine. “We feel that the $1 price tag of Hercules #1 and Caliber #1 will spur people to make that initial leap.”

Issues #2 and the rest of both miniseries will go on sale for $2.99, and both series continue monthly.

Hercules (DCD# MAR083922), which reinvents the popular mythical story of the half man/half god warrior whose only solace lays in bloody battlefields, was visually created for Radical Publishing by the potent combination of Jim Steranko, Imaginary Friends Studios and WETA Workshop (King Kong, Lord of the Rings, and Chronicles of Narnia).

Jim Steranko has created the main cover for Hercules #1, as well as a special sketch incentive cover for issue #2, with an exclusive limited run.

Hercules is written by Steve Moore, famous for his work in Warrior Magazine, 2000AD and his collaborations with Alan Moore (ABC comics and the novelization of the Wachowski brothers V for Vendetta adaptation).

Interior art is being done by the awe-inspiring Imaginary Friends Studios, known for their work for companies such as DC Comics, Electronic Arts, Top Cow, Cartoon Network, WizKids and Upper Deck.

“This isn’t going to be anything like the popular television show of the 1990s. Expect this Hercules to be a dark and conflicted character, more in the epic vein of Frank Miller’s 300; a mixture of myth, legend and historical accuracy,” says Levine.

Hercules will run as a 5 issue miniseries, each issue containing 32 pages.

Caliber (DCD# MAR083921) is the unconventional telling of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table as a Western set in the Pacific Northwest.

With all of its great symbolism, magic and spirit of adventure, this tale is that of an engraved six-gun, given to Arthur by an Indian shaman and imbued with supernatural power to fire only by the one who will use its power for the right reasons.

“This story doesn’t faithfully follow the Arthurian myth and it is such great fun to see how Sam takes twists and turns leading the reader down a meandering path of thwarted expectations and surprises,” says Levine, “The Magnificent Seven was never like this.”

Caliber is created and written by Sam Sarkar, Director of Development at Johnny Depp’s production company, Infinitum Nihil.

Imaginary Friends Studios’ artists Garrie Gastonny and Stanley “Artgerm” Lau have created fully-painted cover art for the miniseries, while Gastonny has continued with breathtaking, fully-painted interiors. Caliber will also run as a 5 issue, 32 page miniseries with issue #1 containing 31 pages of interior story, adding an even greater value for a $1 book.

Hercules #1 and Caliber #1 are featured in the March 2008 Diamond Previews and will ship in May of this year. Hercules #1 has a Diamond code of MAR083922 and Caliber #1 has a Diamond code of MAR083921. 
 

What happens in a creepy mansion with a grade A dysfunctional family when you mix in an ancient ancestor who just happens to be a Vampire searching for his long lost love and a young woman who loves to scream?

It begins with a simple note. Roger Bascombe wishes to inform Celeste Temple that their engagement is forthwith terminated. But, Celeste, for all her lack of worldly experience, is determined to find out why her fiancé should have thrown her over so cruelly. Adopting a disguise, she follows her erstwhile lover to the forbidding Harschmort manor, where she discovers a world - by turns dizzyingly seductive and utterly shocking - she could never have imagined, and a conspiracy so terrifying as to be almost beyond belief.

Seething with danger, terror and romance, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters is a mammoth work of the imagination, a deliriously readable, heartstoppingly suspenseful, and darkly erotic masterpiece of storytelling.

What kind of man buys his grave at the age of eighteen and chooses to spend the rest of his life in a rest home at thirty-five? Meet Antoine, the curious hero of Laurent Graff's Happy Days, an odd young man who somewhat prematurely acquiesces to his terminal destiny.

The ultimate fatalist, Antoine decides to play hooky from life at the Happy Days rest home. Despite the pronounced difference in age, he is accepted by the residents and quickly settles into a routine. He leads a peaceful and uneventful life there until the arrival of a dying woman with whom he forms a unique bond and goes on a very special journey

"The Aviator" scribe John Logan has been tapped to pen the adaptation.

King and Infinitum Nihil's Christi Dembrowski will produce the live-action film, which centers on an orphaned boy who secretly lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station and looks after the clocks. He gets caught up in a mystery adventure when he attempts to repair a mechanical man.

The studio is eyeing a fall start date.

GK Films and Warner Bros. acquired screen rights to "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, in 2007. 

After producing Martin Scorsese's "The Departed," King launched GK Films with partner Tim Headington in 2007. Through the company, King recently completed lensing the Emily Blunt starrer "The Young Victoria" on location in the U.K.

Infinitum Nihil established its production deal with Graham King in 2004 and is developing a number of projects including "Shantaram" and "Dark Shadows."

Hedge has a longstanding relationship with "Ice Age" backers Blue Sky and 20th Century Fox, which is expected to continue. He also directed the animated feature "Robots" for Fox and most recently executive produced "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!"

Logan's credits include "Gladiator" and "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street." He is also writing the script for an untitled animated project for King and Gore Verbinski.

The strange, compelling, and occasionally hysterical story of Hollywood's first celebrity scandal - as told by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, the star at its center.

Abandoned as a boy in Kansas, Fatty Arbuckle found adulation first onstage, and then in the new medium of the cinema. In his day, during the second decade of the 1900s, Fatty was more popular than Chaplin; he became the first screen actor to make a million dollars a year. But in 1921 he was accused of the rape and murder of actress Virginia Rappe, whom he encountered at a party in San Francisco and who died a few days later. Though he was eventually acquitted by a unanimous jury, the virulent speculation by the press ultimately destroyed Arbuckle's career for good. Framed for a crime he didn't commit, and demonized by conservative powers that hyped the case as emblematic of all the evils of show business, Fatty Arbuckle was the O.J. Simpson of early Hollywood, the first modern celebrity whose presumed guilt - and alleged innocence - galvanized a nation.

In I, Fatty, Jerry Stahl, the celebrated author of Permanent Midnight, tells the story from Fatty's own perspective. This is an incisive and sympathetic look into the life of a man whose astonishing rise and fall set the precedent for the scandals that still shake Hollywood today.

Inspired by real-life events, this chilling and atmospheric debut novel marks the arrival of a young writer with tremendous promise. It is the 1920s, and Spiritualism is all the rage. With seances taking place in parlors across the country and Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle arguing metaphysics in the papers, the media embraces the feverish obsession with the paranormal. Twenty-three-year-old Harvard graduate Martin Finch is sent by Scientific American on the investigative opportunity of a lifetime: an examination of the powers of Philadelphia "society psychic" Mina Crawley. But Finch, prepared to debunk a fraud, instead finds himself falling under the spell of the beguiling Mrs. Crawley - and uncovering a truth darker than any he could have imagined.

In his eagerly awaited fourth novel, New York Times-bestselling author Nick Hornby mines the hearts and psyches of four lost souls who connect just when they've reached the end of the line.

Meet Martin, JJ, Jess, and Maureen. Four people who come together on New Year's Eve: a former TV talk show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and a mother. Three are British, one is American. They encounter one another on the roof of Topper's House, a London destination famous as the last stop for those ready to end their lives.

In four distinct and riveting first-person voices, Nick Hornby tells a story of four individuals confronting the limits of choice, circumstance, and their own mortality. This is a tale of connections made and missed, punishing regrets, and the grace of second chances.

Intense, hilarious, provocative, and moving, A Long Way Down is a novel about suicide that is, surprisingly, full of life.

A literary sensation acquired by twenty-one premier publishers around the world and met with a groundswell of praise from writers and critics, The People's Act of Love is a masterpiece of storytelling and a major literary achievement.

In a remote Siberian village, amid a lawless, unforgiving landscape, lives Anna Petrovna, a beautiful, willfully self-reliant widowed mother. A mystical, separatist Christian sect, a stranded regiment of restless Czech soldiers, and an eerie local shaman live nearby, all struggling against the elements and great social upheaval to maintain a fragile coexistence.

Out of the woods trudges Samarin, an escapee from Russia's northernmost prison camp, with a terrifyingly outlandish story to tell about his journey. Immediately apprehended, he is brought before the Czech regiment's megalomaniac, Captain Matula. But the stranger's appearance has caught the attention of others, including Anna Petrovna's.

This stranger, his bizarre story - if it is to be believed - and the apparent murder of the local shaman quickly become a flashpoint for this village: temperatures rise, alliances shift, and betrayals emerge. Written with a commanding historical authority and remarkable grace, The People's Act of Love is an epic of desire and sacrifice that leaves the reader utterly mesmerized until the very final page.

When a medieval scroll disappears from a Paris church, Doctor Julien Saunière investigates, uncovering a series of horrific ritual murders and an ancient secret society. Julien cannot let these shadowy figures retreat into the darkness, lest they take up their killing once again. His investigation turns into a one-man quest into the bizarre secrets of the Catholic Church.

Rex Mundi is a quest for the Holy Grail told as a murder mystery. A tale of sin, murder, and redemption in an alternate-history Paris where magic is real and the Catholic Church never lost its grip on power. Master Physician Julien Sauniere must track down a mysterious cult with a thousand-year-old secret. A secret for which people are being killed...

Doctor Julien Saunière continues his investigation into the theft of a mysterious medieval scroll, only dimly aware of the forces tugging him to the doorstep of the powerful Duke of Lorraine. Lorraine wants to provoke a massive, globe-spanning war that will soak the world in blood - but why? The answer to that question, a deadly confrontation in the ancient catacombs beneath Paris, and a blasphemous revelation about Judas, Christ's betrayer, all await Julien in this volume of the critically acclaimed series Rex Mundi!

Book in the works about the true story of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian spy poisoned to death in 2006.