dewline | Entries tagged with metropolis

Perception was kind enough to upload a case study of their work on Batman v Superman this week. That case study includes a map of the Metropolis-Gotham region as envisioned for the movies DC and WB have been making.

That map clearly does not hew to the maps of the two cities as published in the comics over the last couple of decades. Granted, the production team had the right to plant the two super-cities ten miles and a harbour apart from each other. Speaking for myself alone, I'd hoped that Byrne's Six Boroughs as originally drawn up for Metropolis in 1986, as well as the islands of Eliot Brown's 2000 map of Gotham could've made the cut.

Oh well...this is its own thing to begin with.

Current Mood: nerdy

There was this on Wired.

Not the first time it's been done. The newspaper comics of the 1970's did it. So we know where Zack Snyder's getting some of his inspiration.

I just wish they'd stick with Eliot Brown's map in toto for Gotham, like they decided to stick with John Byrne's Six Boroughs for Metropolis in Man of Steel. As it is, we've seen from photos taken at location shoot sites that they cribbed the location names from that map, and are using a modified map of Detroit for Gotham to plant those names on.

Some interesting mapping linkages re: Detroit and Gotham for the purpose of this movie:

http://whatculture.com/film/batman-v...fan-see.php/19

https://twitter.com/tribluis/status/532676691752386560

What do you see in those visuals?

Current Mood: nerdy

I see DC Comics-based movies are continuing that tradition.

Evidence herein, from location shooting for Man of Steel:

http://www.supermanhomepage.com/images/man-of-steel-movie2/110914-taxi1.html

At least the motto fits.

Looking back at this entry on Pete Woods' mapping out of Metropolis for the purposes of Geoff Johns, James Robinson and company a couple of years back...particularly in the context of this YouTube video Pete uploaded for other artists to work from.

The whole thing still seems a bit inconsistent with what was previously established, but I must give kudos to the effort that Pete put into this project. This took a lot of work to nail down as much as he did.

Current Mood: impressed

These search terms have come up empty for me:

Matt Hatton
Beth Garswood
graphic design
Superman Returns

I know those two names are connected with that discipline and that movie through The Art of Superman Returns by Daniel Wallace. They are credited with the post-New Krypton map of Earth "if Lex Luthor gets his way" in that book. I'd like to find out if they were responsible for other maps commissioned for use on-screen in that same film.

Are they still working in the field?

Current Mood: Admittedly nosy in a geeky way

Okay. Refresh your memory here:

http://dewline.livejournal.com/333415.html

I need to do the same.

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Current Mood: busy

78 million sentients.

That's the population of Metropolis during the Legion's first year, according to Brainiac 5. "78 million sentient inhabitants in the urban zone before you reach the greenbelt" being the exact phrasing as recorded in Adventure # 515.

It's been three or four months since that issue saw print, but that figure has started to nag at me a little. So, I did a little digging. I'll do it again here, just to make sure that the "show your work" crowd is working from the same playbook.

Here's a map of 30th Century Metropolis as sanctioned by Legion writer past and present Paul Levitz, and modified for re-use back in Who's Who in the LSH # 6, circa 1988:

Using 2009 estimates from the US census people as provided by Wikipedia...

Connecticut: 3,518,288
Rhode Island: 1,053,209
Massachussetts: 6,593,587

New York and New Jersey get a little tricky here, seeing as not all of each of those two states gets incorporated into the boundaries of Legion Era Metropolis...so we're going to put that off to "Step Two", which may involve a little Google Earth, a little Photoshop...

Current Mood: busy

Just so we're clear about what we've been reading in the Super-books for the last couple of decades...

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Current Mood: Nerdy again for a second

Some of you may have already seen the new Metropolis map that showed up a week or two ago in the pages of Superman Secret Files 2009. I was looking forward to seeing how whomever was contracted to do the artwork - I thought probably Eliot Brown would be hired for the job at the time, as he'd done a couple of works on the subject for previous Secret Files installments - would embellish the existing "Six Boroughs" map established by John Byrne and company back in 1986, and revealed to the public at large in 1988 via Mayfair Games' second edition starter kit for the DC Heroes Role-Playing Game.

Turns out that I was a little off on my expectations.
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Current Mood: contemplative

With apologies in advance to DC Comics and Mayfair Games.

This is the map I was telling

fajrdrako about a few days ago on her LJ. (Since amended as we've both moved from LJ to Dreamwidth.)
A scan of the map of Metropolis from DC Heroes Role-Playing Game

A scan of the map of Metropolis from DC Heroes Role-Playing Game

I've specifically highlighted the neighbourhood I spoke of in that earlier posting, Lafayette, which according to the authors of the original DC Heroes Gamemaster's Manual of 1985, was home to an Acadien-originated settlement. In fact, it was described as having a largely Francophone community to that date.

Granted, the city's since been through some changes beginning with the renovations of Byrne, Wolfman and Helfer begun over phone calls and business correspondence probably that very year and put into action the following year with Man of Steel. Kurt Busiek put some of the neighbourhoods from that earlier Mayfair-designed map back into the modern Six Boroughs during his tenure on Action and Superman, though...so why not Lafayette as well?

And yes, there is a certain resemblance to Montréal in that older map, isn't there?

Current Mood: Trivially obsessed

The latest version of Legion of Super-Heroes mentioned something interesting in passing in a recent issue written by Mark Waid: their version of 31st Century Metropolis runs across nearly the entire North American Atlantic seaboard.

Question: how chilling(or not) do you find the implications of a single city running all the way from Cape Breton to Key West?

Yours, whilst still wishing I'd gotten that Daily Planet Guide to the Legion Worlds project with West End Games past the outline stage,

Dwight