The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Elton John cancels European tour with appendicitis Posted: 09 Jul 2013 08:14 PM PDT Singer-songwriter Elton John has cancelled the rest of his European tour as he is down with appendicitis, his spokesman said yesterday. The flamboyant 66-year-old was due to headline at the British Summer Time festival on Friday night, but his doctors have advised him to cancel all shows in his current tour, which includes dates in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. "Elton is currently undergoing a course of intensive antibiotics and is expected to undergo surgery in the UK in the coming weeks, once doctors can be confident they have sufficiently reduced toxins within the inflamed appendicitis site," said a statement on his website. The "Candle in the Wind" singer was diagnosed with an "appendix abscess surrounding retrocaecal appendicitis" after a series of scans and blood tests, the statement added. He had told the crowds at France's Festival de Poupet last Wednesday that he was feeling ill, but added in French that he would "do his best". A spokesman said John was "incredibly disappointed" to cancel the tour and hoped to reschedule the dates from early September onwards. It is the latest health scare for the singer, who cancelled several concerts last year when he was struck down with a respiratory infection and then food poisoning while touring the United States. He had a pacemaker fitted in 1999 after doctors found he had an irregular heartbeat. Best known for hits including "Your Song" and "Rocket Man", as well as the songs he penned for the Disney film "The Lion King", Elton John has sold more than 250 million records worldwide. He and his partner David Furnish, a film producer, became parents for the second time in January via a surrogate mother in the United States. The couple have been together for almost 20 years and have been in a civil partnership since 2005. - AFP/Relaxnews, July 10, 2013. |
| Comic book writer bows out from Batman after killing off Robin Posted: 09 Jul 2013 07:49 PM PDT  Grant Morrison - wikimedia commons pic.After killing off Batman's Robin and re-inventing the X-Men, Scottish comic book writer Grant Morrison is looking for other superhuman legends to transform with his pen. Morrison - who has also taken on Spiderman and Superman in a 25-year career - has decided to leave the caped crusader in the hands of other writers after the final issue of his "BATMAN, INCORPORATED" DC Comics series comes out this month. "The seven years has exhausted everything I ever had to say about the character," Morrison told Reuters in a telephone interview. Morrison, 53, said his final iteration of Batman had used ideas from the character's entire journey from the crimefighter created by writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane in 1939 through his slapstick portrayal in the 1960s US TV series to director Christopher Nolan's brooding 2008 "Dark Knight" film. "Batman seems to be endlessly pliable and malleable in that he can assume all kinds of guises from the comedy pop-up Batman of the 60s to the very militaristic, realistic, trending Batman of Christopher Nolan," Morrison said. In his latest guise, the writer created a Robin character who was the son of Batman by the daughter of a master criminal. Raised by a criminal gang to rule the world, Robin discovered his true father was Batman, decided to become a superhero but died saving the planet at the tender age of 10. "The story was always going to be about this little kid's journey from being trained by assassins and raised by an evil cabal of people finding out that he is the son of Batman and trying to live up to that legacy," he said. "The story for that character was always that he would die in the end." Morrison likened his efforts to reinvent the pantheon of superheroes to the evolution of the King Arthur and Robin Hood legends passed down through oral tradition. "I think it's important to basically find what was the core of the character and then to see how that applies to the way we think in the real world and see if it can be updated and matched to interests and ideas that people have in a contemporary setting," he said. His next projects include a re-working of Wonder Woman and a series called "MULTIVERSITY", where superheroes exist in parallel universes. In one alternative scenario, Hitler won the war and Superman is a Nazi. In another, superheroes have vanquished evil and their gifted children have nothing to do. Morrison, whose popularity is so vast he had his own comic book convention last year in Las Vegas, said his interest in American comics came out of a childhood spent near a naval base, which once had a huge American presence. "We were getting comics and records and a very strong American influence for a long time, for the entire postwar period right into the 80s," he said. "Once you consider that, it's not much of a surprise that I grew up with American culture and American superheroes looming very large in my life." His favourite childhood character was The Flash. "The whole notion of super speed and that beautiful red costume that he wore really appealed. But the character that gave me the most joy to write has been Superman and the character that has given me the most intellectual pleasure to write has been Batman." So why are comic books so dark these days? Morrison says it is partly older readers looking for more mature story lines, partly the darker movies in cinemas and partly the profusion of apocalyptic videogames. "I wouldn't say it's only comics," he said. "To be honest our whole entertainment system seems to be obsessed with the end of the world." - Reuters, July 10, 2013. |
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