Hey everyone. Sorry for the absence. Over the last 7 months I have been helping my wife take care of her parents who have suffered a variety of illnesses. The sad ending to all this, both have passed on; father in-law on Christmas day and mother in-law just last Thursday. They were both in their early sixties, way too young, but they are in a much better place, free of the pain that they were suffering.

Now that things are getting back to “normal” (if there ever will be such a thing) I am getting back into the update game. There has not been a lot happening, though seems our girl Bai Ling got into a little trouble at an airport recently when she fancied something other than the “pretty lights” and failed to pay. You guys of course saw the update on Statham talking a possible Crow remake (please oh please say it isn’t so!!).

I will be reposting reviews of previous Crow works with a current spin on them. I think it is high time we take a look back and see what all has transpired in the Crow world. I am still working on that mega Crow article I promised that speaks to where it all started and where things ended up.

Take care & God bless

There has been a couple minor updates to CrowFans.com however most of it was behind the scenes stuff that makes this website tick.

* New links have been added for Bai Ling, Rochelle Davis, Tony Todd, and Thomas Jane have been added to the links section.
* A news widget has been added to our MySpace page, which you can also add Crow news to your website by copying and pasting the code found in this text file.
* ShareThis has been added for you to share these news posts on your website, myspace, facebook or any other social networking site.

As always we’re looking to add new features to our website so if you have any suggestions feel to contact us or discuss this on The Tides of Sin Discussion Board, you must be registered in order to post.

Normally I try to keep politics off CrowFans.com and this post in no way reflects the political views of any staff member of CrowFans.com.  This post is being done as courtesy to Bryce Zabel, the executive producer of The Crow: Stairway To Heaven and Cherish Alexander of The Painkillers since they have been very helpful and supportive of this site. 

Bryce Zabel, Jackie Zabel, Cherish Alexander, and Damian Valentine have put together a song called “Ready To Believe” in support of Barack Obama, which you can view more information about it and download it free at Bryce Zabel’s blog For What It’s Worth.  Regardless of your politcal views please go exercise your right to vote!

There has been a couple new sections added to CrowFans.com. The Crow: Stairway To Heaven DVD section has been added to help promote DVD Box Set that is coming out July 24, 2007, there is even a couple downloads available for your IPod/PSP device. The Events section has been added to keep you up to date on birthdays, appearances, online chats, and much more. There has also been some additions to the CrowFans.com store, we now have a section available for our visitors from Canada, there are also sections available to purchase Brandon Lee and Mark Dacascos merchandise. Below is a complete list of updates.

* New sections added to the site The Crow: Stairway To Heaven DVD Section and the Events section
* Brandon Lee, Mark Dacascos, and Canada Merchandise has been added to the CrowFans.com Store
* 40 new images from The Crow: Stairway To Heaven have been added to the Devil’s Night Greeting Cards section
* Seattle Crow Sites has been added to The Pit
* New links have been added for Yuji Okumoto, David Goyer, and Katie Stuart have been added to the links section.
* A new wallpaper by Shai has been added to Arcade Games

If you have a myspace page, a blog, livejournal, or your own personal website, please help spread the word about CrowFans.com by heading to the Link To Us section. You can also use our banner in the Link To Us section as your signature on message boards you visit.

Stay tuned to CrowFans.com for more updates on The Crow: Stairway To Heaven DVD!

The Crow’s Loft has been given its first major update in nearly 3 years. The Crow’s Loft originally retired on July 21, 2004, but is now officially out of retirement. The picture gallery has been totally redone and now has 440 images. The Crow: Stairway To Heaven section was given a huge overhaul and now has IPod/PSP compatible downloads, and over 180 new images were added from the TV series. Some downloads will be updated in the future, with more modern formats that weren’t available when these downloads were originally created. So please check out the new updates at The Crow’s Loft.

Now the next set of updates will be for CrowFans.com. Some of the updates include.

* We’ll be adding more images to the Devil’s Night Greeting Cards section
* There will be a section dedicated to The Crow: Stairway To Heaven DVD Set that is coming out July 24th 2007 for Region 1.
* Some new links will be added
* A new section has been completed and will be launched these updates go live.
* There will be another page added to The Pit
* There will also be some minor updates made around the site.

These updates will probably go live on May 31, which was the original launch date of CrowFans.com back in 2000. For those of you who use your cell phone to check out websites, there is a mobile version of the news section available at http://news.crowfans.com.

With the resurrection of CrowFans and ABaHB, our good friend Corvus has opened up the halls of his Crow site The Crow: A Dead Man Visits You. This is an excited time folks. I look forward to what 2007 has in store for the online community.

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…..

Fellow Crow fan Buddy Kelly invites all Brandon Lee fan’s to his blog to hear a tribute song he wrote for Brandon several years ago called “Sayeth The Crow”.

His hope is to get a big name band to take it on someday and to have it featured on a Crow movie soundtrack. His ultimate dream would be for it to be part of an adaptation of the Crow comic “Flesh & Blood”.

I listened to the song, not bad at all. Has a very southern/folk rock sound to it.

Take care

Just a reminder, I scour the net and get information from my resources. But one of the greatest resources we have had over the years is regular visitors keying us to information. If you see anything Crow related, send it on. Full credit will be given to the source. send it to aboyandhisbird@gmail.com .

Anyone check out the latest from Zombie’s prequel to Halloween? Seems they are keeping with the same original movie mask design. Thank goodness! The crap they came up with for the 4th-7th films left much to be desired. Though a subpar film, Resurrection at least came the closest to giving us a suitable mask. IMHO of course.

What are your thoughts of the Crow franchise going the same route? Prequel that is. Going back to the original film sort of, but taking it in a different angle?

Shoot me your thoughts.

Take care…..

As you can see from the updates below, we are back in action here in a major way. Unless I’m sick or away from a computer, there should be an update every day on something going on. As noted, some of this stuff will be a bit dated, but not everyone is aware of everything going on so I will be catching folks up on some of the major items that went on in 2006.

I rang in the New Year with 20 of my youth. Was up all night supervising movies, Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke Revolution, Guitar Hero (1 and 2) and Halo. We always have a good time with food, games and movies with some serious reflection time thrown in at the middle when midnight hits.

At any rate, it is good to be back in action. I hope you had a safe ringing in of the New Year. And here is a toast for a prosperous New Year.

Take care…..