Recently, Frank took a little vacation time and headed up to sunny Seattle. His travels first took him by one Kona Kitchen which is owned by Yuji Okumoto (Pestilence) from THE CROW: WICKED PRAYER. Yuji wasn’t at the restaurant because he was in LA filming a documentary and he was flying out to Japan on Monday.  On the walls of the restaurant he had a lot of autographed pictures including The Rock, as well as fellow WICKED PRAYER cast mates Tito Ortiz (Famine), Danny Trejo (Harold), and Edward Furlong (Jimmy Cuervo) as well as Crow alum Mark Dacascos (Eric Draven from the series THE CROW: STAIRWAY to HEAVEN). The food was excellent and reasonably priced especially for Seattle where prices can be a bit high. Frank had the Aloha burger with seasoned fries. A common problem in the northwest is soggy fries or overcooked fries, not so here, they were cooked just right,

Below you will see his pictures from WICKED PRAYER as well as Mark Dacascos. If you are ever up in the Seattle area, definitely give Kona Kitchen a visit. Click on the image to view the full size.

One of the last stops Frank made was to the grave of Bruce and Brandon Lee. The atmosphere was solemn. There was a piece of a VHS box from THE CROW setting on Brandon’s headstone. Another ironic symbol, a crow was flying around the area cawing. Along with the pictures taken at Kona Kitchen there is one of the gravesite. Please click on the image to view the full size.

Hey, anyone out there? Read my rant from the 16th and let me know what your thoughts are. Does anyone out there give a damn about the franchise? Do you want to see it resurrected and pulsing with life?

The Halloween franchise should have been dead and buried after the abysmal part 5 and 6, but through the fan base, and in no short order the online community, the pulse has been kept going. The 9th film in that franchise is being shot now. It is a re-imagining of the first film. Though, as you will read below, I don’t think we need to do that for THE CROW, but I do agree with going back to the basics, to what got things started.

I think if the CROW franchise were given a literal interpretation of the graphic novel like SIN CITY, we would see this franchise breath again. But we gotta make some noise people. So come on, what the blazes do you think?

Send your thoughts to aboyandhisbird@gmail.com

Frank has fully resurrected CrowFans as of this past Wednesday. This is the first step in the old Crow gang getting things back together. I look forward to what CrowFans, Deadman Visits You, CrowColl, ChambeRoom and ABaHB can do in putting this franchise back on track.

You want to know my wish list for this franchise? I would love for the franchise to take a Sin City turn. I know some fans would like to see a female Crow film. But folks, the time is just not right for that. Catwoman, Elektra, Tomb Raider, Blood Rayne etc, the female genre action movie is dead right now. Now is not the time to put a female led Crow film out in the market. The time IS ripe for us to go back to the beginning.

You ask, what do I mean by going back to the beginning? I don’t mean a prequel or a re imagining of the first film. I am so sick of the attempts at redoing the original story. I mean the original O’Barr graphic novel needs to be put to film in a literal sense. With the success of SIN CITY, it has been shown that a faithful and literal interpretation of graphic novels can be done right and successfully. The film 300, another Frank Miller graphic novel, is coming to life. The time is right for one of the best graphic novels ever, THE CROW, to be brought to life in a b/w literal interpretation.

I say they get a director that knows the medium of comics and digital technology, pull in O’Barr as a consultant and you film the graphic novel in black & white and you tone down nothing about the themes in it. Once that has been done successfully, then they should go directly to the Kitchen Sink Press archives and do film versions of DEAD TIME, FLESH & BLOOD, WILD JUSTICE & WAKING NIGHTMARES.

Why the KSP comics? To be honest, they are, to date, some of the most original stories that I have read in the Crow universe. No slight against all the fan fiction other there, but none of those or the official movies in the franchise, have offered as varying degree of story line and originality as the KSP series did. Each of those only keeps to the crow resurrecting mytho of love, death, revenge. Everything else, from the avatar’s look, demeanor and abilities/weaknesses are totally different. I think that is exactly what the movies need to be; in the same family but each a totally different take on the mythos. Fans wanting the female lead story would get their wish with Flesh & Blood and everyone else would get varying story lines that fall within the same concept of love, death and revenge.

Will this ever happen? I don’t know, but if we make a loud enough noise, “the god’s will notice us again.” We have become a weak and silent bunch. The time is ripe that we make some noise and be heard. The technology has caught up now that literal interpretations can be done of graphic novels. The interest by the public is there. All that is needed is some person to grab this franchise by the balls and do with it what needs to be done with it.

Pressman, Dimension, anyone from those offices, are you listening? The franchise isn’t dead, it is just time to bury the old way of doing things. Let the franchise flourish as it should.

Take care…..