Hah, now THIS was funny...
So. The ending of Battlestar Galactica has upset some people, and I'm trying to figure out why. I think the reason why is because these people never actually watched the original series, or they watched it and don't remember how incredibly religious the characters were. They were, after all, following the prophecies handed down by their gods, y'know?
I think a lot of people I know are irked that it would actually turn out that the show actually contained apparitions that must be labeled "angels" and such. Let's face it, many of my acquaintences are either atheist or at the very least agnostic, and being forced to face up with the fact that one of their favorite shows was thinly veiled religious dogma is a bit upsetting. But I think they're not really thinking things through, and are just taking things at face value a little too seriously.
First, the first BSG was way more religious than this one. And they even went so far as to give us a character who actually seemed to be the Biblical devil... Count Iblis, in the two part War of the Gods episodes. When shot with a blaster, he transforms briefly into a demon of sorts.
Lots of people are upset that Kara died and came back to life as some kind of angel given flesh. The same thing happened to Apollo in the original series... he sacrificed himself to save a fellow crew member who had fallen under Count Iblis' influence. Then suddenly his body disappears!
Sound familiar?
Now don't get me wrong. I really don't think this is what they were shooting for when they originally put the series on the table. In fact, I don't think they had anything lined up except that Galactica would make it to Earth in primitive times and populate it, mating with the primitive man living there, eventually leading to our present day society. See, the whole BSG mythos has always been based on Erich Von Daniken's Ancient Astronaut theories. His, and Zechariah Sitchin's ideas. Do any of them hold water? Not really, if you do your research. Granted, reading their books, Chariots of the Gods from Daniken and Sitchin's whole saga about the planet Nebiru... those books are all very gripping, but when you research them, they just don't hold that much water.
Arthur C. Clarke said that any technology, sufficiently advanced of a society, would appear to be magickal in nature. Now, magic, at least to me, is synonymous with religion. Miracles? Magic. Immortality? Magic. Religion? All about magic. The unexplainable. Nobody can explain magic, that's its nature. Nobody can explain religion to a scientific mind, either.
So where do these "Angels" appear in the original BSG time frame? In The Ship of Lights. The Seraphs, as they were referred to in the script but not actually on the series, were these white-clad mysterious beings who told the Colonials "We were once what you are, we are what you may be." Or something like that. Well, anyway, they resurrected Apollo after this devil-being struck him down. They made his body disappear.
My point is: nothing happened that hasn't happened before in BSG. Well, okay, lots of things did, but what's causing so much commotion among fans has happened before.
My ideas:
The "Angels" were part of a sufficiently-advanced society that tried to accelerate man's evolution more than once. The first trial led to the creation of Cylons, which led to war and the depopulation of both species. The Angels (Seraphs... seraphim?) saw the damage they had done by interfering, felt appropriately guilty, and resolved to help both races to break the cycle they saw them performing. They weren't really Angels... they were an alien race sufficiently advanced to seem magickal. Is that so hard a stretch?
Oh there were things I didn't like. Starbuck being an agent of Death. I don't mind President Roslin not dying before finding the real Earth, because she rejected prophecy... she saw that prophecy was not infallible. Our paths are our own. But the Angels? Angel Six and Angel Baltar? Those were master strokes. I mean, how else were you going to explain them? What, Caprica Six stuffing Baltar's face in her junk during a nuke imprints her programming on his subconscious as she returns to the Resurrection Hub while he survives? That seemed to be the popular reasoning until Head Baltar started showing up with Caprica Six's subconscious.
No, they're not really Angels. That's how the Colonials perceive them, because the Seraphs, the aliens, are so far advanced that's all we can do to resolve them into our reality.
So there were disappointments with the ending, but not enough for me to really be upset. I think a lot of people aren't really thinking things through, or they just don't know the history of the show. Sorry, guys, but all this has happened before, and it will happen again... you should have done a little research when you heard that the first time.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Supaidaaman
Let's talk Shogun Warriors.
The Shogun Warriors were a really cool toy when I was a kid. I actually saved up my lawn mowing money and bought Raideen myself, the first major toy I did that for. I had no access to the fledgling anime market making the rounds, syndicated on independent channels, so only the commercials I'd see on Saturday morning TV fed my imagination for these Jumbo Machinders, these giant robots who would eventually be the progenitors of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and more importantly, Dynaman.
Occasionally you can catch people putting their Dynaman clips up on Youtube. The only ones I can find nowadays are the clips from the episode The Lizard of Oz. Originally, see, when Saban Entertainment brought the whole sentai culture to the US, he was trying to market it as a comedy, with lines redubbed with insanely funny dialogue that had little to do with the original plot. In fact, a couple of the Kids in the Hall were responsible for the original episodes, which contrary to what you might read on the internet, didn't premiere on Night Flight... they were syndicated.
I'm thinking they take down the Dynaman clips on Youtube because they'd really like to release the Dynaman eps on DVD but can't while they're not protecting their copyright. But then again, why don't they go ahead and release the eps? Probably music rights. The original Dynaman parodies were so well put together that they had an epic 80s soundtrack to them. "Hip To Be Square," by Huey Lewis. "Kids Wanna Rock," by Bryan Adams. It was so In The Moment with 80s pop culture, I have no idea why it didn't originally succeed. Later, Night Flight would employ its lesser talented staff to make new eps. The Power Rangers followed a few years after, and were a hit.
But as far as I can tell, this all started way back when with the Japanese Spider-man series. Toei Studios (who I believe were responsible for many of the super sentai series) bought the rights to Spider-Man in Japan at the same time that the US show starring Nicholas Hammond was making the rounds. As fondly as I remember that show, I really wish Supaidaman was the one I'd been weaned on. Because it is screwed up.
One of the things I used to like to do, before the Power Rangers ruined it, is make my friends watch the original (well... American-dubbed original) Dynaman and watch them freak out when suddenly there's a giant freakin' robot in the middle of everything. That kind of originated with Supaidaman... yes, Spider-Man had a giant robot. Leopardon, who knows where he got that name from.
My point in all of this is that if you have patience for subtitles, you can enjoy the Japanese take on Spider-Man right now on Marvel's website. They are streaming eps every week, with the subtitles, although somehow it's more enjoyable not knowing what's going on. Currently my brothers and I are trying to find a way to Dynaman the Japanese Spider-Man... I have one of the most talented female voice-talents willing to do voices for me, plus I'm not a stiff myself. Hopefully we can get something going, if we can figure out enough jokes and a storyline. And a soundtrack.
In the meantime, freak yourself out to the first episode!
And here's the third ep!
The Shogun Warriors were a really cool toy when I was a kid. I actually saved up my lawn mowing money and bought Raideen myself, the first major toy I did that for. I had no access to the fledgling anime market making the rounds, syndicated on independent channels, so only the commercials I'd see on Saturday morning TV fed my imagination for these Jumbo Machinders, these giant robots who would eventually be the progenitors of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and more importantly, Dynaman.
Occasionally you can catch people putting their Dynaman clips up on Youtube. The only ones I can find nowadays are the clips from the episode The Lizard of Oz. Originally, see, when Saban Entertainment brought the whole sentai culture to the US, he was trying to market it as a comedy, with lines redubbed with insanely funny dialogue that had little to do with the original plot. In fact, a couple of the Kids in the Hall were responsible for the original episodes, which contrary to what you might read on the internet, didn't premiere on Night Flight... they were syndicated.
I'm thinking they take down the Dynaman clips on Youtube because they'd really like to release the Dynaman eps on DVD but can't while they're not protecting their copyright. But then again, why don't they go ahead and release the eps? Probably music rights. The original Dynaman parodies were so well put together that they had an epic 80s soundtrack to them. "Hip To Be Square," by Huey Lewis. "Kids Wanna Rock," by Bryan Adams. It was so In The Moment with 80s pop culture, I have no idea why it didn't originally succeed. Later, Night Flight would employ its lesser talented staff to make new eps. The Power Rangers followed a few years after, and were a hit.
But as far as I can tell, this all started way back when with the Japanese Spider-man series. Toei Studios (who I believe were responsible for many of the super sentai series) bought the rights to Spider-Man in Japan at the same time that the US show starring Nicholas Hammond was making the rounds. As fondly as I remember that show, I really wish Supaidaman was the one I'd been weaned on. Because it is screwed up.
One of the things I used to like to do, before the Power Rangers ruined it, is make my friends watch the original (well... American-dubbed original) Dynaman and watch them freak out when suddenly there's a giant freakin' robot in the middle of everything. That kind of originated with Supaidaman... yes, Spider-Man had a giant robot. Leopardon, who knows where he got that name from.
My point in all of this is that if you have patience for subtitles, you can enjoy the Japanese take on Spider-Man right now on Marvel's website. They are streaming eps every week, with the subtitles, although somehow it's more enjoyable not knowing what's going on. Currently my brothers and I are trying to find a way to Dynaman the Japanese Spider-Man... I have one of the most talented female voice-talents willing to do voices for me, plus I'm not a stiff myself. Hopefully we can get something going, if we can figure out enough jokes and a storyline. And a soundtrack.
In the meantime, freak yourself out to the first episode!
And here's the third ep!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Other awesome Star Trek Mashups
While I quite like my own mashup of Shatner's Common People, I found this one to be freakikng hilarious.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The return of Beanworld
I'm not sure exactly how to describe Beanworld. I don't think you can. The creator of Beanworld, Larry Marder, has many different catchphrases for it (by the way, did you know "catchphrase" is the only English word with six consonants in a row? useful for Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy). Perhaps a video would help out....
The Chow Raid from fashionbuddha on Vimeo.
Okay that didn't help out. What happened was the Beans went on a "Chow Raid" after their spiritual leader, GranMa'Pa (the tree) gave them a Sprout Butt... after beating up on a Hoi-Polloi ring that contained delicious Chow (which the Hoi-Polloi use to gamble, but the Beans need for food) they left the sweetened Sprout Butt for the Hoi-Polloi to sing sweet songs to it and inspire it to sacrifice itself and dissolve into Chow to replace what they'd lost. Then the Beans went back to Beanworld, put the stolen Chow in the Chowdown Pool and had dinner, soaking up nutrients and vitamins in a community bath.
I know. That didn't help out either. But for me, the late 80s and early 90s were made much brighter with the addition of Tales of the Beanworld. I'm glad to say that Beanworld has returned! I hold in my hands the first collection of those comics, in HARDBACK even, and it's still as creative and imaginative as it used to be. It's not for everybody... certainly not for the super-hero crowd... but if you are into things like the Monomyth (the path of the hero), Native American mythology, independent comics, or Marcel Duchamp, you should spend the twenty bucks and buy the new hardback. It's definitely worth it. And keep up with Larry at his blog... http://larrymarder.blogspot.com.
The Chow Raid from fashionbuddha on Vimeo.
Okay that didn't help out. What happened was the Beans went on a "Chow Raid" after their spiritual leader, GranMa'Pa (the tree) gave them a Sprout Butt... after beating up on a Hoi-Polloi ring that contained delicious Chow (which the Hoi-Polloi use to gamble, but the Beans need for food) they left the sweetened Sprout Butt for the Hoi-Polloi to sing sweet songs to it and inspire it to sacrifice itself and dissolve into Chow to replace what they'd lost. Then the Beans went back to Beanworld, put the stolen Chow in the Chowdown Pool and had dinner, soaking up nutrients and vitamins in a community bath.
I know. That didn't help out either. But for me, the late 80s and early 90s were made much brighter with the addition of Tales of the Beanworld. I'm glad to say that Beanworld has returned! I hold in my hands the first collection of those comics, in HARDBACK even, and it's still as creative and imaginative as it used to be. It's not for everybody... certainly not for the super-hero crowd... but if you are into things like the Monomyth (the path of the hero), Native American mythology, independent comics, or Marcel Duchamp, you should spend the twenty bucks and buy the new hardback. It's definitely worth it. And keep up with Larry at his blog... http://larrymarder.blogspot.com.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
In the not too distant future...
I'm watching Eagle Eye right now, and basically it's a rip-off of Warren Ellis' Global Frequency, with what seems to be a crazy HAL-ish computer in charge of stuff and normal people who aren't really Agents as Agents. So now seems a perfect time to talk about MST3k.
So my interest in horror show hosts stemmed originally from reading about them in Famous Monsters. That led to interest in Elvira, mainly because she wasn't syndicated to our market, and of course the stuff you can't have is the stuff that must be good. (It wasn't until this year that I actually saw an episode of Movie Macabre, thanks to Amazon's video on demand service, and to say I was unimpressed and disappointed is a bit of an understatement. Despite what I've read in various magazines, I've only seen a monologue-driven horror movie commentary punctuated by a... random sound effect (weird) given by an emo Valleygirl prototype with big hooters. Not interesting to me.) After that was Monsterpiece Theatre, if you read my soppy, teen-angst ridden previous post. But of course after that was MST3k.
Anybody reading this doesn't need to know the background on MST3k, or a history lesson. They may need to know about its descendants. One is Rifftrax, by Michael Nelson, Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo Mk.2) and Bill Corbett (Crow Mk.2). I'm not as hot on that one, because it involves a lot of fiddle-faddlery starting DVDs and then starting commentary...a bit like watching The Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon playing. I enjoy their shorts, which you can download with the riffing, but I'm not going through all the trouble of all those shenanigans.
Cinematic Titanic, however, is another story. Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu (Crow Mk.1, Dr. Clayton Forrester), J. Elvis Weinstein (Tom Servo Mk.1, Dr. Ernhardt), Frank Conniff (formerly TV's Frank, now DVD's Frank), and Mary Jo Pehl (Dr. Forrester Mk.2, all henceforth collectively known as the Titans) got together and are again doing silhouetted movie riffing, and it's pretty damn good.
So far, there've been six DVDs released. Plus, a tour. I went to the tour both nights (different movies riffed) that they performed in Boston at the Somerville Theatre. I had originally planned to walk to the shows, as it wasn't really that far... but the inclement (cold and effing windy) weather convinced me to just Find Parking. Which I did, easily somehow, both nights.
The first night was a hoot. Except for being stood up by my friend, something which I'm not going to write about except for that one bit there. Anyway, the show was awesome; Blood of the Vampires, which was supposed to take place in 1920's Mexico but was filmed in the Phillippines, and has many actors in blackface. BLACKFACE. After the show, I did not stay to meet the Titans, as I was back into a sour mood after being entertained for two hours.
The second night I met up with a work-mate to see the show. Unfortunately, I knew this meant I was not getting Pictures With The Titans, because I knew he'd probably take off for beers after the show, which he did. But we both had a really good time; sitting in the mezzanine seats was pretty uncomfortable, but It seemed to give a better view than my seats from the previous night. The Dynamite Brothers was a cross between Kung-fu and Blaxsploitation movies. And it was glorious.
And then there was the after-show. Well, of course I managed to make a stammering mess of myself tonight at the second show when I met the Titans.
When I got to Trace he gave me A Look. I'm used to getting Looks, because I'm 6'2" and 360... I'm a very large, imposing and to some people scary looking guy. Like, this could be your typical MST3k/CT/comicbook/scifi/comedy nerd, or he could also be a dangerous stalker. I think he correctly saw that I was really nervous and was trying to lighten me up, which he did. He also commented that he liked the Superman t-shirt I was wearing.
Honestly, I've never been this nervous meeitng famous people. I actually get to meet a lot of famous people in my job. I work for the "we play everything" radio station in town, like the one Josh did a bit about; so far this past year I've met Rainn Wilson from The Office, Paul Stanley, Phil Donahue, Phil Collen from Def Leppard, Simon Pegg... none of them made me nervous at all. But I've been a fan of MST3K since season 2... this was like meeting my comedy gods.
I moved on to Josh, got a signature, complimented him on the songs. More about Josh in a moment. Mary Jo was very sweet to me and I think she could tell I was quite nervous because at this point I think I may have just been talking in vowels. I had taken one of the DVD covers out of the 20th anniversery MST3k box set to get signed, only I was using the inside of the cover, which is perfect for getting autographs, but she hadn't seen it before and when she realized what it was she said "Oh cool, I haven't seen this yet... " which kind of made me squee a little.
Frank was cordial, but I just wanted to get through so I just asked for an autograph.
Joel was also very nice. Actually I did want to get a photo with him, but my friend had to bail so I had nobody to take the photo for me, and besides that, like I told Joel, photos of me with famous people usually wind up looking like "Joel Hodgson was accosted by a homeless person for money in Davis Square today... he said he wasn't going to spend it on liquor, but he did."
So far what's really been the most pleasant surprise of CT, especially the live shows, is how great Josh is. I think the role of voicing Tom Servo probably kept his performance limited, and I never really got enough of a sense of his personality. He really shines through on stage, and was very nice to me despite me being a stuttering fanboy. It makes me glad that they're actually not doing characters like on MST3k, so they're not limited in how they can riff. Still, some kind of host segment that's not silhouetted is something I'd love to see in the future, if the budget ever allowed for it.
All in all it was a pleasant show. Probably the biggest laugh for me was their reaction to the "n-bomb" that got dropped near the opening of the movie. Well co-ordinated. I wonder how that'll translate to DVD...
So my interest in horror show hosts stemmed originally from reading about them in Famous Monsters. That led to interest in Elvira, mainly because she wasn't syndicated to our market, and of course the stuff you can't have is the stuff that must be good. (It wasn't until this year that I actually saw an episode of Movie Macabre, thanks to Amazon's video on demand service, and to say I was unimpressed and disappointed is a bit of an understatement. Despite what I've read in various magazines, I've only seen a monologue-driven horror movie commentary punctuated by a... random sound effect (weird) given by an emo Valleygirl prototype with big hooters. Not interesting to me.) After that was Monsterpiece Theatre, if you read my soppy, teen-angst ridden previous post. But of course after that was MST3k.
Anybody reading this doesn't need to know the background on MST3k, or a history lesson. They may need to know about its descendants. One is Rifftrax, by Michael Nelson, Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo Mk.2) and Bill Corbett (Crow Mk.2). I'm not as hot on that one, because it involves a lot of fiddle-faddlery starting DVDs and then starting commentary...a bit like watching The Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon playing. I enjoy their shorts, which you can download with the riffing, but I'm not going through all the trouble of all those shenanigans.
Cinematic Titanic, however, is another story. Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu (Crow Mk.1, Dr. Clayton Forrester), J. Elvis Weinstein (Tom Servo Mk.1, Dr. Ernhardt), Frank Conniff (formerly TV's Frank, now DVD's Frank), and Mary Jo Pehl (Dr. Forrester Mk.2, all henceforth collectively known as the Titans) got together and are again doing silhouetted movie riffing, and it's pretty damn good.
So far, there've been six DVDs released. Plus, a tour. I went to the tour both nights (different movies riffed) that they performed in Boston at the Somerville Theatre. I had originally planned to walk to the shows, as it wasn't really that far... but the inclement (cold and effing windy) weather convinced me to just Find Parking. Which I did, easily somehow, both nights.
The first night was a hoot. Except for being stood up by my friend, something which I'm not going to write about except for that one bit there. Anyway, the show was awesome; Blood of the Vampires, which was supposed to take place in 1920's Mexico but was filmed in the Phillippines, and has many actors in blackface. BLACKFACE. After the show, I did not stay to meet the Titans, as I was back into a sour mood after being entertained for two hours.
The second night I met up with a work-mate to see the show. Unfortunately, I knew this meant I was not getting Pictures With The Titans, because I knew he'd probably take off for beers after the show, which he did. But we both had a really good time; sitting in the mezzanine seats was pretty uncomfortable, but It seemed to give a better view than my seats from the previous night. The Dynamite Brothers was a cross between Kung-fu and Blaxsploitation movies. And it was glorious.
And then there was the after-show. Well, of course I managed to make a stammering mess of myself tonight at the second show when I met the Titans.
When I got to Trace he gave me A Look. I'm used to getting Looks, because I'm 6'2" and 360... I'm a very large, imposing and to some people scary looking guy. Like, this could be your typical MST3k/CT/comicbook/scifi/comedy nerd, or he could also be a dangerous stalker. I think he correctly saw that I was really nervous and was trying to lighten me up, which he did. He also commented that he liked the Superman t-shirt I was wearing.
Honestly, I've never been this nervous meeitng famous people. I actually get to meet a lot of famous people in my job. I work for the "we play everything" radio station in town, like the one Josh did a bit about; so far this past year I've met Rainn Wilson from The Office, Paul Stanley, Phil Donahue, Phil Collen from Def Leppard, Simon Pegg... none of them made me nervous at all. But I've been a fan of MST3K since season 2... this was like meeting my comedy gods.
I moved on to Josh, got a signature, complimented him on the songs. More about Josh in a moment. Mary Jo was very sweet to me and I think she could tell I was quite nervous because at this point I think I may have just been talking in vowels. I had taken one of the DVD covers out of the 20th anniversery MST3k box set to get signed, only I was using the inside of the cover, which is perfect for getting autographs, but she hadn't seen it before and when she realized what it was she said "Oh cool, I haven't seen this yet... " which kind of made me squee a little.
Frank was cordial, but I just wanted to get through so I just asked for an autograph.
Joel was also very nice. Actually I did want to get a photo with him, but my friend had to bail so I had nobody to take the photo for me, and besides that, like I told Joel, photos of me with famous people usually wind up looking like "Joel Hodgson was accosted by a homeless person for money in Davis Square today... he said he wasn't going to spend it on liquor, but he did."
So far what's really been the most pleasant surprise of CT, especially the live shows, is how great Josh is. I think the role of voicing Tom Servo probably kept his performance limited, and I never really got enough of a sense of his personality. He really shines through on stage, and was very nice to me despite me being a stuttering fanboy. It makes me glad that they're actually not doing characters like on MST3k, so they're not limited in how they can riff. Still, some kind of host segment that's not silhouetted is something I'd love to see in the future, if the budget ever allowed for it.
All in all it was a pleasant show. Probably the biggest laugh for me was their reaction to the "n-bomb" that got dropped near the opening of the movie. Well co-ordinated. I wonder how that'll translate to DVD...
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Who's gonna watch The Watchmen
Is it weird now that it's an American dream to be a blogger? As far as I know, most people who do this for a living aren't making a ton of scratch from it. But just being able to pontificate and feel important because YOU HAVE AN OPINION and then get paid for it... well, that's much better than bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly, I guess. So I know from my statistics that I get some traffic here, and if people do read the blog, I assume they're geeky like me, into sci-fi, comics, and other geek traditions.
I am about to drop in readership significantly.
I don't care about The Watchmen. I'm not excited about it. I didn't like the comic book and I think Fox has every right to try to stop the film from release until Warner Brothers gives them some money.
Sorry, there, I said it.
The honest truth is that, while I appreciate what Alan Moore was trying to do with his epic tale, which seems to be the deconstructing of the super-hero fantasy and placing such ideas in the real world... sure, it's great, and I'm glad he did it, but I think it's been done better since... even by Moore himself.
When I first read The Watchmen, I wasn't that into complex comics... to be honest there weren't a lot of them out there, if you didn't live near a comic book shop. In fact my first real introduction to that kind of epic storyline was Sandman #8... I'd had my father picking up Comic Buyer's Guide for me when he went to the 'big city' of Lexington, KY, and for a few months all anybody could talk about was a new horror comic called Sandman, written by some guy I'd never heard of. Well, once I turned 16 and got my license, I finally began to (occasionally, as I was poor) going to Lexington myself, and one of my first trips to the comic shop saw me purchasing this comic book.
I remember sitting in my car behind the shop after buying it. I'd read so many reviews and seen so many blurbs that I had to see what it was about. After I was done, I went in and bought the other seven issues.
This began my introduction to "indie" comics, like Tales of the Beanworld, Zot!, Nexus, The Elementals and more. Eventually I began tracking down other well-reviewed indie comics, starting with Alan Moore's other epic story, Miracleman.
Wow. Just, wow. The whole idea of taking an antiquated super-hero like that and asking "What if they really existed? What if we took super-hero physics and applied them to our world?
"What would it be like if these gods walked among us?"
The savage Kid Miracleman was unparalleled violence in comics, at the time, and it was also so amazingly good. Yes! This is what they would be like. Superman wouldn't be a Boy Scout, he'd take what he wanted. He'd find all the Kryptonite in the world and hide it on Europa and make sure we were never able to get to it.
So, it was around 1995 that I first read The Watchmen. My general response today would have been "Meh." I really only liked the Dr. Manhattan stuff, because Alan Moore was taking quantum theory (as it was at the time) and twisting it up and that was fun, but all the other stuff just bored me.
I've tried since to get into the series, but it never resonates with me. It feels like a relic. Perhaps it is.
That said, the movie looks pretty decent from what I've seen. Warner Brothers reportedly isn't being completely faithful to the story, but come on, do we really need a giant squid, guys? Eh, some people are bunchin' their panties up about that, I'm not. But all in all, Warner Brothers looks to be doing a smashing job on the movie.
And here comes Fox to fuck it up!
Okay, here's where I differ from the fanboys crying for a boycott of Fox to protest what they're doing. Are Fox being dicks? Absolutely. And they have every rights to be dicks about it because they still own the rights to distribute the movie. Why Warner Brothers would even contemplate putting this into production without first securing the rights is beyond me. Would it be okay for me to film and distribute a sequel to The Dark Knight without securing the rights to the characters? No it wouldn't.
Fox is completely within their rights to get compensation for a movie adaptation that they still own the distribution rights to. Warner Brothers should have locked this down a long time ago, and yes, it would have cost them a pretty penny. But now that penny is going to be much, much prettier.
That said, I'll still go see the movie, if only to oggle Dr. Manhattan's Smurf junk.
I am about to drop in readership significantly.
I don't care about The Watchmen. I'm not excited about it. I didn't like the comic book and I think Fox has every right to try to stop the film from release until Warner Brothers gives them some money.
Sorry, there, I said it.
The honest truth is that, while I appreciate what Alan Moore was trying to do with his epic tale, which seems to be the deconstructing of the super-hero fantasy and placing such ideas in the real world... sure, it's great, and I'm glad he did it, but I think it's been done better since... even by Moore himself.
When I first read The Watchmen, I wasn't that into complex comics... to be honest there weren't a lot of them out there, if you didn't live near a comic book shop. In fact my first real introduction to that kind of epic storyline was Sandman #8... I'd had my father picking up Comic Buyer's Guide for me when he went to the 'big city' of Lexington, KY, and for a few months all anybody could talk about was a new horror comic called Sandman, written by some guy I'd never heard of. Well, once I turned 16 and got my license, I finally began to (occasionally, as I was poor) going to Lexington myself, and one of my first trips to the comic shop saw me purchasing this comic book.
I remember sitting in my car behind the shop after buying it. I'd read so many reviews and seen so many blurbs that I had to see what it was about. After I was done, I went in and bought the other seven issues.
This began my introduction to "indie" comics, like Tales of the Beanworld, Zot!, Nexus, The Elementals and more. Eventually I began tracking down other well-reviewed indie comics, starting with Alan Moore's other epic story, Miracleman.
Wow. Just, wow. The whole idea of taking an antiquated super-hero like that and asking "What if they really existed? What if we took super-hero physics and applied them to our world?
"What would it be like if these gods walked among us?"
The savage Kid Miracleman was unparalleled violence in comics, at the time, and it was also so amazingly good. Yes! This is what they would be like. Superman wouldn't be a Boy Scout, he'd take what he wanted. He'd find all the Kryptonite in the world and hide it on Europa and make sure we were never able to get to it.
So, it was around 1995 that I first read The Watchmen. My general response today would have been "Meh." I really only liked the Dr. Manhattan stuff, because Alan Moore was taking quantum theory (as it was at the time) and twisting it up and that was fun, but all the other stuff just bored me.
I've tried since to get into the series, but it never resonates with me. It feels like a relic. Perhaps it is.
That said, the movie looks pretty decent from what I've seen. Warner Brothers reportedly isn't being completely faithful to the story, but come on, do we really need a giant squid, guys? Eh, some people are bunchin' their panties up about that, I'm not. But all in all, Warner Brothers looks to be doing a smashing job on the movie.
And here comes Fox to fuck it up!
Okay, here's where I differ from the fanboys crying for a boycott of Fox to protest what they're doing. Are Fox being dicks? Absolutely. And they have every rights to be dicks about it because they still own the rights to distribute the movie. Why Warner Brothers would even contemplate putting this into production without first securing the rights is beyond me. Would it be okay for me to film and distribute a sequel to The Dark Knight without securing the rights to the characters? No it wouldn't.
Fox is completely within their rights to get compensation for a movie adaptation that they still own the distribution rights to. Warner Brothers should have locked this down a long time ago, and yes, it would have cost them a pretty penny. But now that penny is going to be much, much prettier.
That said, I'll still go see the movie, if only to oggle Dr. Manhattan's Smurf junk.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Have I mentioned how shocked I am at Batman: The Brave and the Bold?
When Cartoon Network first announced the series, my eyes rolled into the back of my skull so quick you'd have thought I was a slot machine. A new animated Batman series that looks more based on the Adam West-era Batman than the current, angsty version that Paul Dini and company had kept alive and on the air? Who's going to watch that?
Besides, I'd already been disappointed with two other "cutesy" animations of the DC Universe... the Legion of Super-Heroes didn't do anything for me, and while Teen Titans wasn't bad, all I really cared about was Puffy Ami Yumi's super-cool theme song (a song I'd totally do at karaoke). Cutesy just didn't work for me anymore.
Wrong.
The show had me from the first clip I saw online. And frankly, Even just hearing the super-jazzy theme song and opening titles, and I realized that there's nothing wrong with a Batman that's not grimacing all the time and trying to figure out what level of raspy is appropriate for his voice. There's nothing wrong with a Batman that was... well, fun.
The best thing about the show is what promise it holds for fans of the DC universe... you're practically guaranteed every week team-ups with others from the DC Universe, both heroes AND villains, similar to the also-excellent Justice League: Unlimited. So far we've seen the current Blue Beetle, Firestorm, the Green Lantern Corps, and R. Lee Emrey voicing Wildcat. WILDCAT.
I mean, he teamed up with B'wana Beast in the episode I just watched. B'wana Beast.
It's an incredibly fun show with an incredibly fun, retro score to it that I really hope gets released as some sort of soundtrack, similar to the very excellent Batman Beyond. I could listen to that all day, never mind what I'd do with it at my job.
Fridays on Cartoon Network at 8 PM EST. Put it on Tivo, just once, why doncha?
Monday, January 5, 2009
Doctor Who???
I'm not sure how to react to Matt Smith being named the next Doctor Who.
Of course the cutesy approach is also appropriate... "Doctor WHO?" Meaning, who the fuck is this guy. I have to say, as much as I want to chime in with all of the complaints... he's too young, he's too emo, look at that hair... I really don't feel it in my bones. After all, I thought Tennant looked perfectly silly when he first showed up. And I would not have thought the other guy was appropriate either, until I saw him in the role.
I guess it all boils down to how they'll write the character. Will he still be aloof, mysterious, with just a streak of viciousness now and again? Will he be too goofy? Will he be too serious?
But to be honest, the real thing that matters, to me at least, isn't going to be who's playing The Doctor... it's going to be a.) first and foremost, the stories, and b.) nearly as important, the companion. Yes, I'm one of those weird ones that frets more over the companion than I do The Doctor.
Rose was a wonderful companion, but she left at the right time. A big part of me didn't want to see her come back (particularly when she did come back and seemed to have one hell of an overbite or something). And Martha... well, Martha was shocking to me, because I began to realize that deep down inside of me somewhere, I was a little bit racist.
It's true. Sure, it wasn't a "join the Klan let's burn a cross" racism, but a part of me couldn't believe that they could pull off a black companion with The Doctor. In this day and age, I felt that. Now, a black Doctor? I don't think I'd have a problem with that. If I can accept a black Ford Prefect, a black Doctor isn't a problem. But somehow the companion... it just wouldn't fit for some reason.
After the second episode I'm glad to say my doubts were gone, and I couldn't believe that there was a time that I felt otherwise. Still, it was disconcerting to find even a sliver of racism in me.
On to Donna Noble. I know it's fashionable to say "I warmed up to her" or "Well she irritated me at first" or "It's about time somebody stood up to The Doctor," but holy hell did I hate that screeching harpy. To me... to me it felt like she was getting a free ride because of her comedy element. She was distracting in her first episode and distracting when she returned. Shrill, obnoxious, not likeable at all.
So for me, this young pretty boy dilemma is really a non-issue. Sure, he looks like he just stepped out of a screening of Twilight. Tell me who the companion will be, and I'll tell you whether I need to worry.
Of course the cutesy approach is also appropriate... "Doctor WHO?" Meaning, who the fuck is this guy. I have to say, as much as I want to chime in with all of the complaints... he's too young, he's too emo, look at that hair... I really don't feel it in my bones. After all, I thought Tennant looked perfectly silly when he first showed up. And I would not have thought the other guy was appropriate either, until I saw him in the role.
I guess it all boils down to how they'll write the character. Will he still be aloof, mysterious, with just a streak of viciousness now and again? Will he be too goofy? Will he be too serious?
But to be honest, the real thing that matters, to me at least, isn't going to be who's playing The Doctor... it's going to be a.) first and foremost, the stories, and b.) nearly as important, the companion. Yes, I'm one of those weird ones that frets more over the companion than I do The Doctor.
Rose was a wonderful companion, but she left at the right time. A big part of me didn't want to see her come back (particularly when she did come back and seemed to have one hell of an overbite or something). And Martha... well, Martha was shocking to me, because I began to realize that deep down inside of me somewhere, I was a little bit racist.
It's true. Sure, it wasn't a "join the Klan let's burn a cross" racism, but a part of me couldn't believe that they could pull off a black companion with The Doctor. In this day and age, I felt that. Now, a black Doctor? I don't think I'd have a problem with that. If I can accept a black Ford Prefect, a black Doctor isn't a problem. But somehow the companion... it just wouldn't fit for some reason.
After the second episode I'm glad to say my doubts were gone, and I couldn't believe that there was a time that I felt otherwise. Still, it was disconcerting to find even a sliver of racism in me.
On to Donna Noble. I know it's fashionable to say "I warmed up to her" or "Well she irritated me at first" or "It's about time somebody stood up to The Doctor," but holy hell did I hate that screeching harpy. To me... to me it felt like she was getting a free ride because of her comedy element. She was distracting in her first episode and distracting when she returned. Shrill, obnoxious, not likeable at all.
So for me, this young pretty boy dilemma is really a non-issue. Sure, he looks like he just stepped out of a screening of Twilight. Tell me who the companion will be, and I'll tell you whether I need to worry.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
BluRay dieting & Doctor WHO?
I tell myself that I will not allow a collection of BluRay Discs to form and amass and get out of control like my DVDs did. After getting a first generation DVD player from my workplace (and breaking several laws doing it, I might add), my collection once neared 750. Mind you, a lot of them were garbage, but I like watching garbage.
So when I got my PS3 (part of a bundle for my HDTV) I made the promise that only timeless classics (to me anyway) would be bought. At first, the purchase of three discs were enough:
Alice Cooper, Live at Montreux 2005: an actual Alice Cooper concert shot in HD at the Montreux festival. It was from the Dirty Diamonds tour, an album I didn't hate but didn't particularly find appealing, as opposed to the previous AC album, The Eyes of Alice Cooper, which was phenomenal. Timeless Alice Cooper concert classics like Steven, Ballad of Dwight Frye and Welcome to my Nightmare mixed with newer classics like What Do You Want From Me... and even a gem from the album From The Inside appears... a rarity.
The Omega Man: to me, the best part of the Charlton Heston sci-fi trilogy of the late 60s/early 70s (the other two being Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green). Nothing says I'm a Product of the 70s like this movie. kind of like Return of the Living Dead epitomized the 80s for me, or The Crow for the 90s. Albino vampires and the immortal, lovely Rosalind Cash with my favorite movie quote ever: "Don't screw up. I know how to roll, but it's hard on the elbows. And if you just have to play James Bond, I'll bust your ass." Plus an incredible score that I was fortunate enough to snag a copy of when it was released on a limited edition CD recently.
Dark City: Alex Proyas' masterpiece as it was meant to be, and probably the disc I've watched the most. I love the fact that Roger Ebert did a new commentary for the new release, just as he did for the original DVD release. And it's just as interesting to listen to.
Well, after these first three purchases, I was content to skip buying new discs until The Dark Knight came out, and I admit I'm not against making more purchases... but unlike DVD, they'll need to be very very limited to my Most Favourite Things. So, some Star Trek movies? Perhaps. Shock Treatment, Rocky Horror and Little Shop of Horrors, yes, if they're ever issued. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? would be a favorite. But probably no Godzilla movies; no Britcoms, no TV shows (except Spaced and Wonderfalls) and no really bad movies.
However, I'm content to put them on my Wish List and let my family buy them for me. Yesterday my brother's Christmas gift finally arrived:
Young Frankenstein: the funniest Mel Brooks movie ever, and his most perfect. Now don't get me wrong, I know that this is pretty much tied with Blazing Saddles among Brooks fans, and I can't deny how important a movie like Blazing Saddles was and is; there's no way you could make a Western Comedy nowadays where an old lady tells the black sherriff, "Up yours, nigger!" But Young Frankenstein is simply perfect. It is a perfect love song written to the James Whales movies, which you don't even have to have seen to appreciate. It's also genuinely funny, no matter how many times you've seen it; who can't crack up at PUDDDDINONDARIZZZZZZZZ?
2001: Stanley Kubrick's super-boring movie is also one of the best science fiction stories ever, both in movie form and in Arthur C. Clarke's novel (and even going further back, to the original short story, The Sentinel), and it looks especially good on BluRay. The new documentaries that come with it are snazzy too; that's always been my favourite bit of DVDs, the docs you get with older films.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day: Who doesn't love this movie? I don't think they actually did any special HD recoding or anything for this edition, but damn, does it look pretty in HD. It's making me want to get another 5.1 setup though, because neither the Dolby or DTS mixes properly transmit the soundtrack on my HDTV.
OH! I didn't mention the best thing about the Young Frankenstein disc... besides the new docs, it has an isolated score! So now I gotta dig through all my old shit and find my MiniDisc recorder and make a copy.
I was going to talk about the new Doctor Who also, but this post has gone on long enough, I'll post about it next time.
So when I got my PS3 (part of a bundle for my HDTV) I made the promise that only timeless classics (to me anyway) would be bought. At first, the purchase of three discs were enough:
Alice Cooper, Live at Montreux 2005: an actual Alice Cooper concert shot in HD at the Montreux festival. It was from the Dirty Diamonds tour, an album I didn't hate but didn't particularly find appealing, as opposed to the previous AC album, The Eyes of Alice Cooper, which was phenomenal. Timeless Alice Cooper concert classics like Steven, Ballad of Dwight Frye and Welcome to my Nightmare mixed with newer classics like What Do You Want From Me... and even a gem from the album From The Inside appears... a rarity.
The Omega Man: to me, the best part of the Charlton Heston sci-fi trilogy of the late 60s/early 70s (the other two being Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green). Nothing says I'm a Product of the 70s like this movie. kind of like Return of the Living Dead epitomized the 80s for me, or The Crow for the 90s. Albino vampires and the immortal, lovely Rosalind Cash with my favorite movie quote ever: "Don't screw up. I know how to roll, but it's hard on the elbows. And if you just have to play James Bond, I'll bust your ass." Plus an incredible score that I was fortunate enough to snag a copy of when it was released on a limited edition CD recently.
Dark City: Alex Proyas' masterpiece as it was meant to be, and probably the disc I've watched the most. I love the fact that Roger Ebert did a new commentary for the new release, just as he did for the original DVD release. And it's just as interesting to listen to.
Well, after these first three purchases, I was content to skip buying new discs until The Dark Knight came out, and I admit I'm not against making more purchases... but unlike DVD, they'll need to be very very limited to my Most Favourite Things. So, some Star Trek movies? Perhaps. Shock Treatment, Rocky Horror and Little Shop of Horrors, yes, if they're ever issued. Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? would be a favorite. But probably no Godzilla movies; no Britcoms, no TV shows (except Spaced and Wonderfalls) and no really bad movies.
However, I'm content to put them on my Wish List and let my family buy them for me. Yesterday my brother's Christmas gift finally arrived:
Young Frankenstein: the funniest Mel Brooks movie ever, and his most perfect. Now don't get me wrong, I know that this is pretty much tied with Blazing Saddles among Brooks fans, and I can't deny how important a movie like Blazing Saddles was and is; there's no way you could make a Western Comedy nowadays where an old lady tells the black sherriff, "Up yours, nigger!" But Young Frankenstein is simply perfect. It is a perfect love song written to the James Whales movies, which you don't even have to have seen to appreciate. It's also genuinely funny, no matter how many times you've seen it; who can't crack up at PUDDDDINONDARIZZZZZZZZ?
2001: Stanley Kubrick's super-boring movie is also one of the best science fiction stories ever, both in movie form and in Arthur C. Clarke's novel (and even going further back, to the original short story, The Sentinel), and it looks especially good on BluRay. The new documentaries that come with it are snazzy too; that's always been my favourite bit of DVDs, the docs you get with older films.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day: Who doesn't love this movie? I don't think they actually did any special HD recoding or anything for this edition, but damn, does it look pretty in HD. It's making me want to get another 5.1 setup though, because neither the Dolby or DTS mixes properly transmit the soundtrack on my HDTV.
OH! I didn't mention the best thing about the Young Frankenstein disc... besides the new docs, it has an isolated score! So now I gotta dig through all my old shit and find my MiniDisc recorder and make a copy.
I was going to talk about the new Doctor Who also, but this post has gone on long enough, I'll post about it next time.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Mystique is pregnant
I'm really loving how the internet is allowing upstarts like Funny or Die to let actual stars do actually funny comedy on their own terms.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Comics waning
As the year closes out I am faced with the possibility that I will soon stop reading comics.
Not altogether, of course. With Beanworld returning, I couldn't do that. But since Beanworld will now mostly come out in graphic novel form (after the previous series have been reprinted), I might find myself wandering into the comic shops with less frequency.
The truth is, visiting what has become the Bendis Sandbox has become tiresome. He breaks everybody's toys, for one. And while I pooh-poohed the idea that Joss Whedon was a misogynist, I have to actually wonder about Bendis. Let's see:
Okay, well that's only three. But they're big characters, and Marvel doesn't really have that many iconic female heroes. You're not going to convince me She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, or Spider-Woman are "big heroes." Plus, the whole inane concept of Secret Invasion, now that it's over, is mind-bogglingly thin. After an incredible kickoff, plot threads were left to dangle until they just fell off with no consequences. What was the point of the ship full of Skrull heroes? I mean, it was just a distraction right? Not a distraction for our real heroes, but a distraction for us, the reader, so we wouldn't notice the lack of story.
For what, four issues, pretty much nothing happened. Just heroes looking at Skrulls saying "Oh yeah? Well.... come over HERE and say that!" Which of course they never did. Because God loves his Skrulls.
Oh and just let me talk about that scene with Spider-Woman Skrull. Who, I might remind you, is a shape-shifter. Remember that, they can take other forms. But apparently an arrow through the jaw is enough to knock her off her snickerdoodle so that she couldn't even push her jaw back into place.
A shapeshifter.
And Bendis, please, can you please stop trying to make us care about characters nobody gives a shit about? There's a reason The Hood's series got canceled. Nobody cared. And if you simply MUST revive people nobody cares about and you do try to make them interesting, please stick with your plot point... you can't do a reveal that The Hood's hood is possessed by Dormammu and put "to be continued" at the bottom of the page and then not continue it.
DC has had, if you can imagine, an even worse couple of misfires. While able to put out quality books like All-Star Superman and Ex Machina, they've stunk up their continuity with drudge like Final Crisis and that pointless series that led up to it. I don't even want to talk about Batman RIP. What a way to fake out your readers once again... who will take up the cowl with Batman gone? Until he comes back?
I should point out that I think the idea behind Batman RIP was an interesting one: Batman, sometime in the past, creates a backup personality in case he is ever driven insane by one of his enemies. Or something like that. Anyway, it's the kind of fucked up shit that Grant Morrison is known for. If you've never seen an interview with GM, I call your attention to Disinfo TV. It's a DVD available from the folks at disinformation.com, a site of lots of fringe ideas that at times are very interesting and other times are total whackjobs. Morrison appears talking at a seminar on the special features of the DVD set, and guess which one he comes off sounding like: interesting or whackjob.
Take a cookie if you chose the latter. Seriously, it sounded like Deepak Chopra witnessing for The Secret during a showing of What the Bleep Do We Know, Anyway? But usually, even being nuttier than squirrel shit, Morrison can weave a story that interests me. With Batman RIP, every issue just seemed like a waste of my money.
Luckily, DC has Blackest Night looming on the horizon, and if you ask me this should have been the Final Crisis story, not this Let's-Kill-Kirby's-New-Gods story, which I still fail to see having anything to do with DC's Crisis events. Green Lantern has been stellar of late, which is good because I fear the movie they have in production will turn out to be a tad silly, and may kill off the character for a while. But the whole Sinestro Corps War more than made up for the Final Crisis misfire, especially with the revelation of the whole Spectrum of power rings.
Speaking of horses of a different color: I'm over the Red Hulk. And no, I will not call him by his nickname. This has drawn out far too long, and it is no longer a mystery and is merely annoying, no matter how much Arthur Adams art we get out of it. I mean, are people forgetting that The Hulk just tried to destroy New York? Shouldn't Banner be in chains sedated into a coma or something? I admit the first few issues were interesting, but the interest has reached it's peak, and if the main point of the next year's stories are going to be new batch of heroes fight Red Hulk, who is he, oooh we don't know, it's so mysteious... I'm sorry. Bruce Jones did that Hulk-as-an-X-Files-mystery joint a few years back, and let the bait dangle too long on the hook. I'm not going for it a second time.
But my point is, I hope TPTB don't look at the new Spectrum War thingy happening in Green Lantern and think that if three different colored Hulks were cool, what if we do the whole box of Crayolas? Can you imagine how stupid that would be?
Anyway. So my comic book days may be waning. There are still a few I'm interested in, and I'm sure I'll check out a few more as time goes on, but I notice already that I skip two, three weeks between going to the store now. It's not long until I've moved on, I guess.
Not altogether, of course. With Beanworld returning, I couldn't do that. But since Beanworld will now mostly come out in graphic novel form (after the previous series have been reprinted), I might find myself wandering into the comic shops with less frequency.
The truth is, visiting what has become the Bendis Sandbox has become tiresome. He breaks everybody's toys, for one. And while I pooh-poohed the idea that Joss Whedon was a misogynist, I have to actually wonder about Bendis. Let's see:
- He made the Scarlet Witch go crazy and de-power most mutants (not that you can really tell from the proliferation of titles still out there) and then sent her off to Genosha or Salami or some other weird place nobody cares about.
- Killed The Wasp by using her as a weapon of mass destruction.
- Killed The Ultimate Wasp by having The Blob eat her entrails. ("Tastes like chicken?" Really, Bendis? That's the wittiest you can come up with? What about "Where's the beef" or "Pardon me, do you happen to have any Grey Poupon?")
Okay, well that's only three. But they're big characters, and Marvel doesn't really have that many iconic female heroes. You're not going to convince me She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, or Spider-Woman are "big heroes." Plus, the whole inane concept of Secret Invasion, now that it's over, is mind-bogglingly thin. After an incredible kickoff, plot threads were left to dangle until they just fell off with no consequences. What was the point of the ship full of Skrull heroes? I mean, it was just a distraction right? Not a distraction for our real heroes, but a distraction for us, the reader, so we wouldn't notice the lack of story.
For what, four issues, pretty much nothing happened. Just heroes looking at Skrulls saying "Oh yeah? Well.... come over HERE and say that!" Which of course they never did. Because God loves his Skrulls.
Oh and just let me talk about that scene with Spider-Woman Skrull. Who, I might remind you, is a shape-shifter. Remember that, they can take other forms. But apparently an arrow through the jaw is enough to knock her off her snickerdoodle so that she couldn't even push her jaw back into place.
A shapeshifter.
And Bendis, please, can you please stop trying to make us care about characters nobody gives a shit about? There's a reason The Hood's series got canceled. Nobody cared. And if you simply MUST revive people nobody cares about and you do try to make them interesting, please stick with your plot point... you can't do a reveal that The Hood's hood is possessed by Dormammu and put "to be continued" at the bottom of the page and then not continue it.
DC has had, if you can imagine, an even worse couple of misfires. While able to put out quality books like All-Star Superman and Ex Machina, they've stunk up their continuity with drudge like Final Crisis and that pointless series that led up to it. I don't even want to talk about Batman RIP. What a way to fake out your readers once again... who will take up the cowl with Batman gone? Until he comes back?
I should point out that I think the idea behind Batman RIP was an interesting one: Batman, sometime in the past, creates a backup personality in case he is ever driven insane by one of his enemies. Or something like that. Anyway, it's the kind of fucked up shit that Grant Morrison is known for. If you've never seen an interview with GM, I call your attention to Disinfo TV. It's a DVD available from the folks at disinformation.com, a site of lots of fringe ideas that at times are very interesting and other times are total whackjobs. Morrison appears talking at a seminar on the special features of the DVD set, and guess which one he comes off sounding like: interesting or whackjob.
Take a cookie if you chose the latter. Seriously, it sounded like Deepak Chopra witnessing for The Secret during a showing of What the Bleep Do We Know, Anyway? But usually, even being nuttier than squirrel shit, Morrison can weave a story that interests me. With Batman RIP, every issue just seemed like a waste of my money.
Luckily, DC has Blackest Night looming on the horizon, and if you ask me this should have been the Final Crisis story, not this Let's-Kill-Kirby's-New-Gods story, which I still fail to see having anything to do with DC's Crisis events. Green Lantern has been stellar of late, which is good because I fear the movie they have in production will turn out to be a tad silly, and may kill off the character for a while. But the whole Sinestro Corps War more than made up for the Final Crisis misfire, especially with the revelation of the whole Spectrum of power rings.
Speaking of horses of a different color: I'm over the Red Hulk. And no, I will not call him by his nickname. This has drawn out far too long, and it is no longer a mystery and is merely annoying, no matter how much Arthur Adams art we get out of it. I mean, are people forgetting that The Hulk just tried to destroy New York? Shouldn't Banner be in chains sedated into a coma or something? I admit the first few issues were interesting, but the interest has reached it's peak, and if the main point of the next year's stories are going to be new batch of heroes fight Red Hulk, who is he, oooh we don't know, it's so mysteious... I'm sorry. Bruce Jones did that Hulk-as-an-X-Files-mystery joint a few years back, and let the bait dangle too long on the hook. I'm not going for it a second time.
But my point is, I hope TPTB don't look at the new Spectrum War thingy happening in Green Lantern and think that if three different colored Hulks were cool, what if we do the whole box of Crayolas? Can you imagine how stupid that would be?
Anyway. So my comic book days may be waning. There are still a few I'm interested in, and I'm sure I'll check out a few more as time goes on, but I notice already that I skip two, three weeks between going to the store now. It's not long until I've moved on, I guess.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
A letter to Forry:
Dear Mr. Ackerman,
I will not preface this with condolences about your condition, as I'm sure others have done that far more eloquently than I could. Find the one that touched you, perhaps, second most, and pretend that I signed in in good honor as well, because I'm sure I feel the same way. But I do feel that I should express what you meant to me growing up. And it meant much, much more than I ever thought it might have.
I first encountered Famous Monsters at my cousins' place. They frequently stayed with my aunt/their grandmother, partly because of the messy divorce their parents had to go through and also because they liked visiting with my brothers and I. We all had the same interests; comics, science fiction, monsters, horror movies, and the like. We'd often have sleepovers if the UHF station WXIX in Cincinnati (Channel 19... get it?) was showing 50s monster movies on Friday nights. Granted, 19's reception was sketchy because we lived two hours away and didn't have that great an antenna, but once in a while, especially during thunderstorms for some reason, it would slowly lose it's snowy picture and we'd be able to watch 20 minutes of a great old movie before the snow returned.
(I should mention that I know now that this shouldn't have happened, now that I work in the telecommunications business; UHF signals aren't supposed to be affected by the weather are they? And yet, it seemed the best Friday nights to sleep over were during thunderstorms.)
I think the first FM issue my cousin Jeff showed me was the red one with the Zombi story on the cover. Late bloomer, yes, but I was intrigued. He let me borrow it, and he never saw it again. To be honest, I didn't care about zombies at the time, but there were monsters; there was Star Wars; there was the catalog in the back, where I'd pretend I'd order from one day to get all these cool monster-based things.
I was so intrigued by this magazine that I ignored Jeff feeding his python a lab rat while playing Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare on his LP. I took it home and read it until it literally fell apart one day. Jeff let me know that he'd bought that issue recently, at the Convenient store near the airport.
(Note: "Convenient" was the actual name of the chain at the time, but it was a convenience store. The airport shouldn't be noted as impressive except for the fact that we had one; it was a small affair only for small planes. Our city only had 5000 residents. I should consider myself lucky they even stocked FM at that store.)
I began begging my father to take me there on days when FM was being released. I took the release dates in the back of the book as religious days at first, but learned quickly that nobody else in my town was interested in the magazine, so if I had to wait a week or so to pick up my magazine, I could. Dad indulged my behavior, for a while.
One day Mom's leg blew up, and everything changed after that.
Long story short: blod clot. They did surgery, put her on painkillers she was allergic to. Took her off those medications, and put her on ones that she was more allergic to. She had a nervous breakdown, and for a few years we were left without a mother. Oh, and since Dad didn't have any health insurance, we also lost our store, and went from lower-middle class to below poverty level.
It was not fun times.
One of the things that kept me going through it was FM. Oh sure, now I had to gather pop bottles, cans, take them to be recycled, mow lawns around the neighborhood, but I was always able to afford my FM magazine. Of course, Dad refused to drive me to the Convenient store anymore, which was the only place that sold FM at the time. Which was fifteen miles away. However, I was glad to walk there and back myself. FM was my escape; I couldn't afford to go see One Dark Night at the drive-in, or Sleepaway Camp, or any of those movies. I lived through FM's reporting. I would never see Heartbeeps; I would never see Dragonslayer; I would never see Empire Strikes Back, at least, not until I got older. FM was the only thing that kept me up to date on these things in that pre-internet era.
I remember my disappointment when FM stopped coming out. I had no way to find out what happened until many years later. But by then I was entering puberty in full blast, and other things were grabbing my attention. But still, all these years, I missed FM, and your writing.
I was nearly knocked over with shock when I saw FM reappear in Walgreen's many years later. But I'll not talk about that; it wasn't the same, and the story behind it doesn't need to be recounted. I bought one issue; that was all I needed.
All I want to do is tell you how much your magazine meant to me growing up. I remember seeing that special Toho Monsters issue in the back issue orders for such an unattainable price. For years I dreamed of owning it, as I was a kaiju freak. Last year I found it on an auction on eBay, and snagged it for just twenty bucks. It's been read and is framed now, in my living room, in a place of honor.
Thank you so much for keeping the wonder of monsters and aliens and science fiction and horror alive through my youth, and allowing me to springboard it into my life as I grew into an adult. I wish I'd been able to come visit your house and your collection before now. I wish you as well as can be, and thank you for keeping the kid alive in me all these years.
I will not preface this with condolences about your condition, as I'm sure others have done that far more eloquently than I could. Find the one that touched you, perhaps, second most, and pretend that I signed in in good honor as well, because I'm sure I feel the same way. But I do feel that I should express what you meant to me growing up. And it meant much, much more than I ever thought it might have.
I first encountered Famous Monsters at my cousins' place. They frequently stayed with my aunt/their grandmother, partly because of the messy divorce their parents had to go through and also because they liked visiting with my brothers and I. We all had the same interests; comics, science fiction, monsters, horror movies, and the like. We'd often have sleepovers if the UHF station WXIX in Cincinnati (Channel 19... get it?) was showing 50s monster movies on Friday nights. Granted, 19's reception was sketchy because we lived two hours away and didn't have that great an antenna, but once in a while, especially during thunderstorms for some reason, it would slowly lose it's snowy picture and we'd be able to watch 20 minutes of a great old movie before the snow returned.
(I should mention that I know now that this shouldn't have happened, now that I work in the telecommunications business; UHF signals aren't supposed to be affected by the weather are they? And yet, it seemed the best Friday nights to sleep over were during thunderstorms.)
I think the first FM issue my cousin Jeff showed me was the red one with the Zombi story on the cover. Late bloomer, yes, but I was intrigued. He let me borrow it, and he never saw it again. To be honest, I didn't care about zombies at the time, but there were monsters; there was Star Wars; there was the catalog in the back, where I'd pretend I'd order from one day to get all these cool monster-based things.
I was so intrigued by this magazine that I ignored Jeff feeding his python a lab rat while playing Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare on his LP. I took it home and read it until it literally fell apart one day. Jeff let me know that he'd bought that issue recently, at the Convenient store near the airport.
(Note: "Convenient" was the actual name of the chain at the time, but it was a convenience store. The airport shouldn't be noted as impressive except for the fact that we had one; it was a small affair only for small planes. Our city only had 5000 residents. I should consider myself lucky they even stocked FM at that store.)
I began begging my father to take me there on days when FM was being released. I took the release dates in the back of the book as religious days at first, but learned quickly that nobody else in my town was interested in the magazine, so if I had to wait a week or so to pick up my magazine, I could. Dad indulged my behavior, for a while.
One day Mom's leg blew up, and everything changed after that.
Long story short: blod clot. They did surgery, put her on painkillers she was allergic to. Took her off those medications, and put her on ones that she was more allergic to. She had a nervous breakdown, and for a few years we were left without a mother. Oh, and since Dad didn't have any health insurance, we also lost our store, and went from lower-middle class to below poverty level.
It was not fun times.
One of the things that kept me going through it was FM. Oh sure, now I had to gather pop bottles, cans, take them to be recycled, mow lawns around the neighborhood, but I was always able to afford my FM magazine. Of course, Dad refused to drive me to the Convenient store anymore, which was the only place that sold FM at the time. Which was fifteen miles away. However, I was glad to walk there and back myself. FM was my escape; I couldn't afford to go see One Dark Night at the drive-in, or Sleepaway Camp, or any of those movies. I lived through FM's reporting. I would never see Heartbeeps; I would never see Dragonslayer; I would never see Empire Strikes Back, at least, not until I got older. FM was the only thing that kept me up to date on these things in that pre-internet era.
I remember my disappointment when FM stopped coming out. I had no way to find out what happened until many years later. But by then I was entering puberty in full blast, and other things were grabbing my attention. But still, all these years, I missed FM, and your writing.
I was nearly knocked over with shock when I saw FM reappear in Walgreen's many years later. But I'll not talk about that; it wasn't the same, and the story behind it doesn't need to be recounted. I bought one issue; that was all I needed.
All I want to do is tell you how much your magazine meant to me growing up. I remember seeing that special Toho Monsters issue in the back issue orders for such an unattainable price. For years I dreamed of owning it, as I was a kaiju freak. Last year I found it on an auction on eBay, and snagged it for just twenty bucks. It's been read and is framed now, in my living room, in a place of honor.
Thank you so much for keeping the wonder of monsters and aliens and science fiction and horror alive through my youth, and allowing me to springboard it into my life as I grew into an adult. I wish I'd been able to come visit your house and your collection before now. I wish you as well as can be, and thank you for keeping the kid alive in me all these years.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Secret Invasion #8
So first I'm watching William Shatner's Raw Nerve on the Bio Channel right now. He's grilling Valerie Bertinelli like she's a well-seasoned T-bone steak. So, the idea of William Shatner using his sometimes abrasive and often obnoxious personality to interview celebrities is, of course, a hypnotic idea. But it's Valerie Bertinelli!
That's kind of what's making it so interesting to watch. I kind of say at points, "Um, Bill, see you next Tuesday..." if you get my meaning. And other times I think he's getting answers from Valerie that only his abrupt, interrupting style could draw out. It's interesting. I'm setting it up for a Season Pass.
There's a fly buzzing around in my house right now. It's December, aren't they supposed to be dead?
Tomorrow Secret Invasion #8 comes out. I think, and I hesitate to say this, but I think it's going to decide exactly how much I'm going to care about comic books in my life from now on. Brian Michael Bendis has pissed me off a lot over the years... abandoning ALIAS, one of the best-written comics ever, for the lame idea of The Pulse... House of M... Avengers series that didn't star the Avengers (the current roster, I'm talking about... not any classic line-up)... and then Secret Invasion comes along, and at first it's great. The first issue punched me in the gut and made me scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO like a newly-born Darth Vader with sand in his vagina-respirator. And a few more issues that did the same...
...and then there were issues where I'd close the final page and go, "Um... did I just read a comic? Why didn't anything happen?" It's like the heroes and the villains took two steps forward and one back, puffing out their chests like the Power Pack boys in that one issue I'm referencing that nobody else will get but if they do they'll laugh.
And then there was the House of M, again. Oh God. Please strike me dead if I have to go through that whole debacle again. And Civil War? Well, I guess it was good, but I hate that one of the lynch-pins of that story was Peter Parker unveiling himself as Spider-Man, which was completely overturned when he made a deal with the fucking devil. Yeah, with great power responsibility blah blah and all that. Sure Satan, let's make a deal! I'll take door number two.
So basiclaly Marvel has been fucking up their shit for a while, and I'm losing interest in pretty much every Marvel series I'm reading, and it's really coming down to whether or not Secret Invasion #8 can pull off a big Holy Shit moment that actually does, yes, change everything about the universe we're reading about.
I can't read it until like five tomorrow. I'm interested.
*****************
Meanwhile, DC still has me hooked, despite the moronic Grant Morrison whipping out his flaccid dick to piss all over Batman (Batman: RIP) and the New Gods (Final Crisis). Seriously, FC is about the most inane and uninteresting story I've ever read. Makes more sense than Batman: RIP but then again it'd really have to work at it not to.
But DC has Blackest Night waiting in the wings, which is basically DC Zombies, and I'm hyped for that. So perhaps I'll just lose interest in Marvel for a while, then they'll do something to catch my eye again later. I guess it all depends on how tomorrow goes. I'll make sure to make a report, here.
That's kind of what's making it so interesting to watch. I kind of say at points, "Um, Bill, see you next Tuesday..." if you get my meaning. And other times I think he's getting answers from Valerie that only his abrupt, interrupting style could draw out. It's interesting. I'm setting it up for a Season Pass.
There's a fly buzzing around in my house right now. It's December, aren't they supposed to be dead?
Tomorrow Secret Invasion #8 comes out. I think, and I hesitate to say this, but I think it's going to decide exactly how much I'm going to care about comic books in my life from now on. Brian Michael Bendis has pissed me off a lot over the years... abandoning ALIAS, one of the best-written comics ever, for the lame idea of The Pulse... House of M... Avengers series that didn't star the Avengers (the current roster, I'm talking about... not any classic line-up)... and then Secret Invasion comes along, and at first it's great. The first issue punched me in the gut and made me scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO like a newly-born Darth Vader with sand in his vagina-respirator. And a few more issues that did the same...
...and then there were issues where I'd close the final page and go, "Um... did I just read a comic? Why didn't anything happen?" It's like the heroes and the villains took two steps forward and one back, puffing out their chests like the Power Pack boys in that one issue I'm referencing that nobody else will get but if they do they'll laugh.
And then there was the House of M, again. Oh God. Please strike me dead if I have to go through that whole debacle again. And Civil War? Well, I guess it was good, but I hate that one of the lynch-pins of that story was Peter Parker unveiling himself as Spider-Man, which was completely overturned when he made a deal with the fucking devil. Yeah, with great power responsibility blah blah and all that. Sure Satan, let's make a deal! I'll take door number two.
So basiclaly Marvel has been fucking up their shit for a while, and I'm losing interest in pretty much every Marvel series I'm reading, and it's really coming down to whether or not Secret Invasion #8 can pull off a big Holy Shit moment that actually does, yes, change everything about the universe we're reading about.
I can't read it until like five tomorrow. I'm interested.
*****************
Meanwhile, DC still has me hooked, despite the moronic Grant Morrison whipping out his flaccid dick to piss all over Batman (Batman: RIP) and the New Gods (Final Crisis). Seriously, FC is about the most inane and uninteresting story I've ever read. Makes more sense than Batman: RIP but then again it'd really have to work at it not to.
But DC has Blackest Night waiting in the wings, which is basically DC Zombies, and I'm hyped for that. So perhaps I'll just lose interest in Marvel for a while, then they'll do something to catch my eye again later. I guess it all depends on how tomorrow goes. I'll make sure to make a report, here.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Star Wars Mythos
Growing up, seeing Star Wars and their sequels at the drive-in, I thought I was seeing the greatest science fiction movies of all time. This is the silly idea of what a child thinks SF is. Star Wars, at least the three 'real' films, are no more science fiction than The Matrix is. In fact, you'd have to tip the hat to The Matrix as far as science fiction goes, but not by much. The Matrix simply has more science fiction trappings to drape over its shoulders. They're both Fantasy, and they're both just simple retellings of the Monomyth, or the Hero's Journey.
Now, I love both trilogies, although the second Matrix movie isn't one I tend to watch when it's on cable. But there have always been things about Star Wars that have always bugged me, and that's what I'm going to write on today. What I hate about them is Droids have no rights.
This is where the Star Trek universe and Star Wars differ. How many episodes have there been where ST writers have tried to establish that technology-created personalities deserve to be recognized as citizens? At least two, one in Next Generation and one in Voyager. The poor Droids in Star Wars have no such recognition.
In fact, if you watch the movies, they're literally treated as little more than smart toasters that can walk/roll. When 3PO has all his fucking limbs shot off, as well as his head, the reaction isn't one of horror but of irritation. "Oh 3PO! You're a mess!" Like somebody just upended his crumb drawer and well fuck now we're gonna have to clean it up.
Or the multiple times R2 is shot up. While 3PO nells it up that his butch top just got a laser labotomy, everybody else is just kind of shrugging their shoulders and going "Oh, well we'll just get him some new circuits or something." I don't know about you, but if I considered somebody a sentient being whose life I valued, seeing their brains shot out would be a horror. Heck, if I came home and my HDTV had a pixel out, I'd probably find religion over it.
It makes me wonder why as a kid I identified with the Droids so much. Of course, I didn't notice how they were being treated at the time, but yeah, that's how people treated me as a kid. I wasn't a real person... oh just ignore him til he stops his crying. Kind of pissed me off, a lot.
I also had a sub-topic dealing with Dark City and how Roger Ebert, in BOTH his commentaries, never mentions the very important line that Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien) utters on the rooftops: "We use your dead as vessels." Considering we know the true form of the aliens are inside these bodies, it makes the movie a little more horrifying; so they're experimenting on us AND when we die they scoop out our brains and crawl inside to animate us? GROSS. However, it's almost midnight and I need to get up early, so bed time for me.
Also I'm proud to say I've never seen any of the SAW movies.
Now, I love both trilogies, although the second Matrix movie isn't one I tend to watch when it's on cable. But there have always been things about Star Wars that have always bugged me, and that's what I'm going to write on today. What I hate about them is Droids have no rights.
This is where the Star Trek universe and Star Wars differ. How many episodes have there been where ST writers have tried to establish that technology-created personalities deserve to be recognized as citizens? At least two, one in Next Generation and one in Voyager. The poor Droids in Star Wars have no such recognition.
In fact, if you watch the movies, they're literally treated as little more than smart toasters that can walk/roll. When 3PO has all his fucking limbs shot off, as well as his head, the reaction isn't one of horror but of irritation. "Oh 3PO! You're a mess!" Like somebody just upended his crumb drawer and well fuck now we're gonna have to clean it up.
Or the multiple times R2 is shot up. While 3PO nells it up that his butch top just got a laser labotomy, everybody else is just kind of shrugging their shoulders and going "Oh, well we'll just get him some new circuits or something." I don't know about you, but if I considered somebody a sentient being whose life I valued, seeing their brains shot out would be a horror. Heck, if I came home and my HDTV had a pixel out, I'd probably find religion over it.
It makes me wonder why as a kid I identified with the Droids so much. Of course, I didn't notice how they were being treated at the time, but yeah, that's how people treated me as a kid. I wasn't a real person... oh just ignore him til he stops his crying. Kind of pissed me off, a lot.
I also had a sub-topic dealing with Dark City and how Roger Ebert, in BOTH his commentaries, never mentions the very important line that Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien) utters on the rooftops: "We use your dead as vessels." Considering we know the true form of the aliens are inside these bodies, it makes the movie a little more horrifying; so they're experimenting on us AND when we die they scoop out our brains and crawl inside to animate us? GROSS. However, it's almost midnight and I need to get up early, so bed time for me.
Also I'm proud to say I've never seen any of the SAW movies.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Bendis
I'm taking the day off from work because I'm sick. I really shouldn't be sitting here typing this. I should be in bed. I should amend that, I really shouldn't be sitting here in bed typing this, I should be resting. Or, if I insist on sitting up, I should just be mindlessly watching TV and not getting out of bed for anything but peeing and juice refills.
But I have more than just that bug. I have a bug up my ass. That's why I'm sitting up typing this. And this bug's name is Brian Michael Bendis.
I remember when I was first introduced to Bendis; my friend gave me a birthday gift of, among other things, the first Powers trade collection. I'm always wary of this friend, because he tends to do that "well I like this so surely my friend will like it too" kind of gift giving that really is not the safest way to give gifts if you're wanting everybody to be happy in the end. In this particular case he hit a home run.
Bendis had a fresh new voice for comics, and was part of an emerging crew of writers that were really changing the face of modern funnybooks. Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar among others. Yes, yes, Alan Moore and what'shisBatmanface originally changed the landscape of comics back in the 80s, but come on... things just snapped back after that. Does nobody remember Maximum Clonage?
So Bendis comes along and damn, if he's not awesome. Powers? Awesome. Alias? Beyond awesome. Daredevil? The best it's been since Frank Miller (better, I think). Along with the others, it seemed like we'd entered a new golden era of comics.
And then. House of M. Avengers Disassembled. Civil War. One misstep after another, it seemed. It seems the top dogs at Marvel just gave Bendis and Millar keys to the kingdom and said, "Go play! There are no rules." It's like the kid in the sandbox who was the only one who brought toys, and he wants to play with all of them at once. Everybody thinks he's a dickhead.
So now Secret Invasion comes along, and damn if I don't love it. The first book was great. They were all great books. Up until the last one, when nothing happened. Seriously, it's like, did I just read a comic book or not? Because nothing happened. We're at the same place we were in the story before we began. That's the first sign of cracks in the armor.
The second one was it looks like we're going to have to go back and relive fucking House of M again. Yeah, the book is the New Avengers, they're in it about half the time, we have to see House of M through the eyes of the Skrull invaders. Why? Continuity, because some asshole fanboy might question when the Skrulls first invaded and if they'd been replacing our heroes then were they replaced and good God do I hate this.
Is continuity as important as a good story? I was enjoying Secret Invasion just fine. I didn't need to go back a couple of years in New Avengers and see that Luke Cage had figured it out all along! Well isn't he the smartest! He knew they were being manipulated! SEE IT ALL FITS.
I don't care if it all fits. Really, at all. Not anymore. Just tell the story and stop telling the main story in other books. And more than anything, please, please, stop telling the same story from somebody else's POV over and over. I don't care.
Anyway, back to being sick.
But I have more than just that bug. I have a bug up my ass. That's why I'm sitting up typing this. And this bug's name is Brian Michael Bendis.
I remember when I was first introduced to Bendis; my friend gave me a birthday gift of, among other things, the first Powers trade collection. I'm always wary of this friend, because he tends to do that "well I like this so surely my friend will like it too" kind of gift giving that really is not the safest way to give gifts if you're wanting everybody to be happy in the end. In this particular case he hit a home run.
Bendis had a fresh new voice for comics, and was part of an emerging crew of writers that were really changing the face of modern funnybooks. Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar among others. Yes, yes, Alan Moore and what'shisBatmanface originally changed the landscape of comics back in the 80s, but come on... things just snapped back after that. Does nobody remember Maximum Clonage?
So Bendis comes along and damn, if he's not awesome. Powers? Awesome. Alias? Beyond awesome. Daredevil? The best it's been since Frank Miller (better, I think). Along with the others, it seemed like we'd entered a new golden era of comics.
And then. House of M. Avengers Disassembled. Civil War. One misstep after another, it seemed. It seems the top dogs at Marvel just gave Bendis and Millar keys to the kingdom and said, "Go play! There are no rules." It's like the kid in the sandbox who was the only one who brought toys, and he wants to play with all of them at once. Everybody thinks he's a dickhead.
So now Secret Invasion comes along, and damn if I don't love it. The first book was great. They were all great books. Up until the last one, when nothing happened. Seriously, it's like, did I just read a comic book or not? Because nothing happened. We're at the same place we were in the story before we began. That's the first sign of cracks in the armor.
The second one was it looks like we're going to have to go back and relive fucking House of M again. Yeah, the book is the New Avengers, they're in it about half the time, we have to see House of M through the eyes of the Skrull invaders. Why? Continuity, because some asshole fanboy might question when the Skrulls first invaded and if they'd been replacing our heroes then were they replaced and good God do I hate this.
Is continuity as important as a good story? I was enjoying Secret Invasion just fine. I didn't need to go back a couple of years in New Avengers and see that Luke Cage had figured it out all along! Well isn't he the smartest! He knew they were being manipulated! SEE IT ALL FITS.
I don't care if it all fits. Really, at all. Not anymore. Just tell the story and stop telling the main story in other books. And more than anything, please, please, stop telling the same story from somebody else's POV over and over. I don't care.
Anyway, back to being sick.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Dallas
When I lived in Dallas there came a time in my life when it seemed all the most important people to me were moving out of the city for one reason or another. Now, this included people I needed to stop associating with for health reasons, people who I know I would have a bond with no matter where either of us lived, and people I just wanted to fuck. Still, those are three very important qualifications, and it was distressing to see them all go. So when the time came, I took an offer and left.
Now it seems that I can't get away from people wanting to move to Dallas. No less than five people I've been associating with and/or talking to are moving to the city. This makes me feel weird, like I've got some Dallas germ that I've passed along to yankees.
What I'm surprised by is how it doesn't make me feel bad at all, or give me some desire to return to the place. No, don't get me wrong. I loved almost all of Dallas. The two things I didn't like were the High Five and the sun. Thunderstorms were rare, and they were nowhere near as fun as in Kentucky, but they were there, occasionally.
Up here, well, I have to say the weather is much more to my suiting. It's the first day of fall and the skies are horribly overcast. Not a drop of the sun is making it through. I quite like it. It's better of course when it's storming, but this year was a mild season for that, although last night we did have a surprise cloudburst which led to a harrowing drive home from my birthday supper with friends.
I just find it interesting that so many people I've been peripherally associating with are heading to my old stomping grounds. I wonder who they'll meet that I knew from back then, because they inevitably will meet some of them. I wonder if those people will talk about me at all.
I wouldn't say I miss Dallas. Nostalgia isn't the same thing.
Now it seems that I can't get away from people wanting to move to Dallas. No less than five people I've been associating with and/or talking to are moving to the city. This makes me feel weird, like I've got some Dallas germ that I've passed along to yankees.
What I'm surprised by is how it doesn't make me feel bad at all, or give me some desire to return to the place. No, don't get me wrong. I loved almost all of Dallas. The two things I didn't like were the High Five and the sun. Thunderstorms were rare, and they were nowhere near as fun as in Kentucky, but they were there, occasionally.
Up here, well, I have to say the weather is much more to my suiting. It's the first day of fall and the skies are horribly overcast. Not a drop of the sun is making it through. I quite like it. It's better of course when it's storming, but this year was a mild season for that, although last night we did have a surprise cloudburst which led to a harrowing drive home from my birthday supper with friends.
I just find it interesting that so many people I've been peripherally associating with are heading to my old stomping grounds. I wonder who they'll meet that I knew from back then, because they inevitably will meet some of them. I wonder if those people will talk about me at all.
I wouldn't say I miss Dallas. Nostalgia isn't the same thing.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Disney
Let me set the record straight: I don't hate Disney.
I visited my brother in California a long time ago and he took me to Disneyland. I was pretty excited about going. It's such an iconic destination, how could you not be? And everybody who I know who went to Disneyland all share some kind of special bond, it seems. This would be life-changing.
About an hour into the trip, I looked at my brother and his friend, and they were having a grand old time, and that's when it hit me: I didn't like anything about what we were doing. Literally, I didn't like it. I wasn't having a bad time, I just wasn't interested in any of it. I wasn't interested in getting a mouse ear hat, or some giant swirly lolly pop with Donald Duck on it, I didn't care for Cinderella's castle or the Pirates of the Carribean ride. None of it was interesting to me.
Then I realized I've never cared for Disney. Ever! It was quite a shock. I'd just assumed... well, actually, I hadn't assumed anything. Disney was just this thing. I never thought about it and wasn't interested in it at all.
Then Goofy came up to us and I wanted to punch him in his nuts.
I feel kind of bad about this. I have a friend who is a Disney nut who posts all the time now about his trips and obsession, and I feel kind of bad when I realize he's written another post I'm just going to skip over. I mean, you could be the best writer in the world and I don't think you'd be able to make me interested in anything about Disney, ever. But, I guess my friend understands this.
Still, I don't want anybody to think I'm just a miserly old geezer and not really a kid at heart, because I am. I just... Disney. It's not for me.
I visited my brother in California a long time ago and he took me to Disneyland. I was pretty excited about going. It's such an iconic destination, how could you not be? And everybody who I know who went to Disneyland all share some kind of special bond, it seems. This would be life-changing.
About an hour into the trip, I looked at my brother and his friend, and they were having a grand old time, and that's when it hit me: I didn't like anything about what we were doing. Literally, I didn't like it. I wasn't having a bad time, I just wasn't interested in any of it. I wasn't interested in getting a mouse ear hat, or some giant swirly lolly pop with Donald Duck on it, I didn't care for Cinderella's castle or the Pirates of the Carribean ride. None of it was interesting to me.
Then I realized I've never cared for Disney. Ever! It was quite a shock. I'd just assumed... well, actually, I hadn't assumed anything. Disney was just this thing. I never thought about it and wasn't interested in it at all.
Then Goofy came up to us and I wanted to punch him in his nuts.
I feel kind of bad about this. I have a friend who is a Disney nut who posts all the time now about his trips and obsession, and I feel kind of bad when I realize he's written another post I'm just going to skip over. I mean, you could be the best writer in the world and I don't think you'd be able to make me interested in anything about Disney, ever. But, I guess my friend understands this.
Still, I don't want anybody to think I'm just a miserly old geezer and not really a kid at heart, because I am. I just... Disney. It's not for me.
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