Blustering comics article du jour (I leave it to you to decide if that applies to the referenced piece, mine, or both.)
Over at Oni Press Jamie S. Rich is indulging (as is his right) in a rant about how the latest mainstream word is a rolling backwards , and how this is a bad thing.
My counter is that he's not stepping back far enough. It's a very broad industry in terms of themes and product, though I certainly agree that it's by and large a shrinking pool of readership.
When one gets to the heart of his complaints it appears to be that Marvel isn't doing and/or pushing manga, or whatever else might be considered "progressive", and that they aren't hell bent on permanently (as if there's ever any permanence in comics) pushing (in someone's idea of "ahead") into ever-new territory.
Beyond that, he seems to be battling with the very essence of comics as a business, venting his irritation that the fans aren...
Posts
Another piece on the end of Cerebus
Nothing to inform the already initiated, but I know that some of the people who stop by here are either not into comics at all, or are into other aspects of the medium. It's with them in mind that I'd like to point out an interview by the Onion's AV Club of Dave Sim , marking the completion of his 300 issue, 1977 to 2004, 15 volume epic: Cerebus .
Regardless of what one thinks of the man's perspectives on women, society and/or politics, - and this interview should give the uninitiated some idea of all that (though I don't recall him hitherto sounding quite so much as if he was making a pitch for a position with FOX News...) - the man's body of work is a testament to his vision, drive, tenacity and talent, and should be evaluated on and appreciated for its own merits.
Addition: I do want to stress that I'm running just over three volumes shy of the end (in terms of reading, having long ago let the se...
What year is it again? (Now fortified with a tangential updates!)
Reported via the AP, Russia is claiming they have devised an inexpensive wrinkle in nuclear weapons delivery that would render (already unreliable) missile defense systems being developed useless.
On the one hand, while it's superficially amusing to find yet another reason why concentrating on Cold War era technology wasn't a good choice for the Bush regime to be spending our money on, this does have me a little concerned. Oh, it's not that I'm getting The Day After flashbacks. (If I were leaning that way, I'd most likely be recalling the superior British piece done on the same theme at essentially the same time, though I can't recall its title.) No, I'm concerned that this will only give the Bushies another reason to dump even more money into this.
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, they'll realize Russia's blowing smoke - they'd be much quieter a...
A shifting of gears
I've been so pressed by deadlines and extra demands on the work front, on top of dealing with all the things that come with family life, that I've had nearly no time to do anything on this site in the past few weeks. When I've had the time - in ragged patches - I've lacked anything resembling focus.
When I started doing this back at the start of February it was purely on impulse, and entirely lacking in any mission statement. I've taken the route of topicality - which isn't a bad thing to do with a website - but along the way I've seen how easy it can be to just make it a string of attempts at blog-level scoops, or trying to give proper nods where due to those whose posts or emails may have tipped me off to something, or had something interesting to say about a topic. Again, none of those are bad things to do on a website.
With so much of my recent time and energy tied up in... detailed details and overlong...
Post Post
Another week where I'm buried by work, but I wanted to notice this service . (The link is to an article on the service, which in turn has a link to the business itself.) I haven't the time to go that far with it now, so I have no idea how reliable they are, nor what they charge, etc., but the first thing that came to mind was the list of people it might be fun to think of receiving an email under these circumstances that says "You're next" or "See you soon."
All this stress is bringing out my cruel side.
(Saturday's topics: Trekfall?, 11 clicks of Screw You, Who?!, and Scenes from a Maul)
Unprofitable Enterprise?
Nothing's set as yet, but it seems that the fate of Star Trek: Enterprise continues to be uncertain. The Trek Today site has passed along that May 20th UPN will be announcing the decisions for next season, so fans may have to wait until then to find out if it'll be back in the fall on Wednesdays, moved to Fridays, or if the current season (the show's third) will be the last.
I really haven't been rooting for a Trek series since Deep Space Nine , and had conceptual problems with Enterprise from, well, before day one. For those not familiar with it, the series is set substantially earlier than the original series . This means that once they ran through most of the first contact material with various races known to viewers of the other series, they were going to run into plot troubles. Still, it seems to be working for some, and I've se...
Beware, the Vendor of the Eater of Worlds!
A couple months back WizKids launched a minor furor among fans of their Heroclix line when they announced that the Marvel universe's Galactus, the Eater of Worlds would be produced as a convention exclusive for a select list of seven of this year's (mostly comics) conventions. Many who had little to no hope - usually due to a mix of geography and finances - of making it to one of these conventions and likely laying out $75 or so to get one were immediately and openly upset. They knew that they would be at the mercy of the secondary market, with anticipated prices of at least $200, or simply doing without. The company lackeys and kneejerk apologists rushed in to calm down some of them, often pronouncing those who wouldn't be mollified to be crybabies.
I wasn't thrilled with the decision, but I could see some of the business sense behind it - especially as this could be viewed as a special effort to produce a fig...
From Monsters Across Space to Monsters of Makeup
I'd known about a general series resurrection being planned for Dr. Who , but today someone (thanks, Abby!) passed along an update concerning their securing the rights to include the Daleks .
Never a big Dr. Who fan, tending to see it more for the comic elements in the cheap stagecraft, it does have its charm, and I know one or two die-hard fans.
Months ago I'd come across several of the rumors of who was up for the lead ( Eddie Izzard would be priceless, especially if they let him wear his "executive transvestite" makeup. I love his 90 minute stand-up piece HBO runs from time to time ), but until today I hadn't heard that Anthony Head was being considered. He played Rupert Giles, the reserved Englishman who was assigned as a sort of mentor to the titular Buffy in television's Buffy, The Vampire Slayer , and also is one of the quartet of middle-aged would-be swingers on the BBC's Man...
The Day After the Dawn of the Dead Redux
A big fan of the original version, I and one of my sons saw the new version of Dawn of the Dead on Friday. I'll try not to include anything here that’s a spoiler, so this should be safe if you're aiming to go see it unless you want to know absolutely nothing about it until you see it.
We both enjoyed it. Not groundbreaking cinema, but it was fast-moving and reasonably well handled. Much as with the late 70's film it's a horror adventure film, though it reigned in the humor that was such a part of the earlier film. Each film had musical comedic touches, though in the original it was often over the top into goofiness, while in the new version it was more convincingly creepy and funny, as when they're working their way through the mall early on and a muzac version of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" is playing over the mall's sound system.
Keeping it at an hour and 40 minutes while giving us over t...
Pause for thought
Another incredibly busy week here in Nortonville. Consequently, I've had to let a great deal pass without comment, but I needed to take a minute to note something.
I am revolted by all of the "appeasement" spin being applied to the recent elections in Spain . It's ludicrous. The voters were already looking to throw out the Popular Party, the party currently in power, which supported the US invasion of Iraq. I applaud their conviction in sticking to their guns, rather than being cowed into running against their principles in some mock display of someone's ignorant notion of patriotism.
The notion that it's Bush's Way or the path of The Enemy is not only moronic, it's dangerous. The people of Spain know that international terrorism is an enormous problem, common to all nations, and that something has to be done about it. That doesn't mean they see armed invasions and the unseating of governments as the solution. It...
(Today: Mostly minor matters)
Sex doesn't necessarily sell in Hollywood
In this week's Lying In the Gutters (a comics rumor piece by Rich Johnston), there's word that a scene (or two?) Geoff Johns had in an issue of The Avengers , which at the time was defended by Marvel's editors, has been cut from the trade edition. Johnston refers to it as an "aradication", implying that Marvel's Hollywood connection, Avi Arad applied the pressure to remove the possibly objectionable material.
The scenes in question were from Avengers #71. Some strongly-implied bedroom play is implied between two of the heroes (Hank "Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Yellowjacket" Pym and his ex-wife, Janet "Wasp" VanDyne), and then elsewhere in the issue an old villain (Whirlwind) pays a prostitute to dress up like a particular super-heroine (the Wasp) and he kills her. Whether it's just one or both scenes that will be affected isn't clear as yet.
...
Avengers Dissolve?
Wizarduniverse reports that the current run of Marvel's Avengers will be wrapped up and the line ended. The new creative team will be Brian Michael Bendis writing, and his Ultimate X-Men collaborator David Finch will provide the artwork on a 4-issue arc to shut the series down in a catastrophic fashion, providing some new direction for... a relaunched series Bendis will also be writing.
::sigh::
A formal relaunch is utterly unnecessary, though I presume the boys in marketing would say otherwise. I suppose that the combination of new numbering and Bendis as writer are meant to combine to try to achieve sales on the main title such as most of Marvel's Ultimate line has been getting.
I love Bendis' work, so I'll be happy to see him on this title if he feels sufficiently grounded in the characters to carry it off, but another wave of renumbering is... insulting. All the moreso as we had reasonable expectations that as of #500...
Lowering the astronomical bar bet?
I'm all for anything to push an interest in space science, but I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that the discovery of another large object , gravitationally a part of the Solar system, might spark another heated round of "what's a planet?" On the other hand, maybe it'll be more of a mock debate intended to lure the layman into thinking about such matters.
Journey into the Unknown
An interesting comics promotional gimmick’s being tried at Virtual Unknowns .
Interesting enough that this might be my only blog post for the day, and interesting enough that I intend to revisit the topic a few times as the situation develops.
Starting April 1st visitors to the site will be able to vote on artists , some of whom have done small press work, others have not – to determine who will get the assignment to draw the Virtual Unknowns comic. As of today there are 20 artists in the competition. (That’s one more than there was last night.)
Starting in May (why this isn’t being done simultaneously I cannot say) the voting will begin on the composition of the team of heroes … a sometimes amusing, but largely derivative group of characters, the likes of which every third or fourth comics fan has at some time or another created in a notebook and/or for a game of Champions or some other roleplaying game. I don’t mean this dismissively, as a goo...
Agenda Over Truth
Courtesy of Salon , here's an excellent piece on how the foreign intelligence service was remade to press agendas and essentially create whatever "intelligence" suited the whims of the Bush administration.
"War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons, but the reasons given to the Congress and to the American people for this one were inaccurate and so misleading as to be false. Moreover, they were false by design." -- Karen Kwiatkowski (from the piece)
While I'm sure it's waiting for me in another email or two from various spots, giving credit where due I first saw the above noted on Tony Collett's blog.
Doing The Lazarus Hop
An unrelenting workload kept me pinned down last week and begin to wear me down in a set-up for phase 2: a virus the plague rats (ie my sons) brought home from school last week. While wife and kids got to take a not-so-happy holiday for much of the week, I thought I'd steered clear of it... but by Friday morning I was going through sudden sweats and teeth-chattering waves of cold. Shortly before 8am my stomach, esophagus and mouth were turned into a bizarre cannon for semi-processed food.
Not only couldn't I take any time off from work on Friday, but I even had to put in an extra hour as I wobbled my way towards the weekend... and I was back in to pick up on the testing late Sunday afternoon. Still, all things considered I'd rather be me than Spaulding Gray.
Hence, no blogging activity since that blip of distraction I provided myself on Friday.
As of today I'm tired, but feeling better with each task I've knocked off my...
(Today: Unusual excursions)
An interview with something scarier than a vampire...
There's an excellent interview with comics legend Alan Moore over on Alan David Sloane's ADD . It starts off as a "5 Question" interview focused on Moore's Voice of the Fire , and balloons into a marvelous, sweeping look over much of his creative legacy. A superb job by the two Alans and well worth the time.
Thanks to Shane's Near Mint Heroes for tipping me off to this interview, btw.
If you're interested in a little more one-on-one time with Mr. Moore, here's an interview conducted for The Onion's AV Club from back in 2001.
Martian Vistas
Despite being a black and white image, the panoramic shot from the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity bowled me over. That first link takes you to a smaller version of the shot with some explanatory text, so once there you'll want to click on the photo, or if you just want to get to it then just go here immediately to see it full size . (The full-size may take a while to load on a dial-up connection.)
All of this from tens of millions of kilometers away. Looking at it it becomes so much easier to envision a manned base there.
(Today: A rejection and a revision for two comics movies, and a look ahead at the guns of the campaign trail)
Moore says to hell with Hellblazer movie
( Pre-emptive Update: Neil Gaiman has debunked the motivation stated in the story below. In short, Alan Moore has signed his share over to his co-creators, but this was done for other reasons of principle, not in any specific reaction to this project, as he's not looked at any of the movie material. *** The overlooked citation turns out to have been something from ain't it cool . *** I want to point out that Shane himself updated me on all this, as one can see in the comments below the piece. *** I'm trying to establish a policy of not simply expunging or rewriting posted material, so I've left the following intact. Besides, it includes links of interest to those curious about the film.)
Although he didn't cite his sources, Shane's posted on his blog today that Alan Moore , upon reviewing the scr...
Before getting onto new info, I want to note that I updated yesterday's piece on next year's Batman movie. Aside from correcting an actor's link, I added another story link that discusses the plot of the film.
Before the storm
This is written on-the-fly (as most blog entries are), but I wanted to say something at this point in time concerning the imminent, eight month long presidential race, now that John Kerry is the defacto Democratic nominee .
Most likely before the end of the day Thursday the Bush campaign will begin to run its political spots , and with over $150 million in his campaign war chest the ads will be running every step of the way, undoubtedly retooled along the way.
A look at a Bush/Cheney site reinforces what we’re going to see pitched in favor of the incumbents and against the Kerry/? campaign. I’d heard a week or so back that Bush’s slogan (one of them at least) will be “Steady leadership in changing times.” Essentially, Bush will be ...
(Today: Batman: misdirection game, Disney's Narnia?, Mars update, Place of Honor?, Second separation)
I liked the sucker title better...
This is from last Thursday at Cinescape (confirmed on Friday over at Variety), but it was new to me.
The new Batman movie had been touted in all pre-production references as Batman: Intimidation Game and, later shortened to Batman: Intimidation . As it turns out these titles were a smoke screen to throw the rumor-hunters off. The official title of the film is Batman Begins .
Set for release sometime in 2005, Batman Begins will be directed by Christopher ( Memento ) Nolan, from a screenplay by Nolan and comics & movie scribe David Goyer . Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Ken Watanabe as Ra's al Ghul, Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane, and Liam Neeson as Henri Ducard, one of Bruce Wayne's mentors.
The only glaring visual mis-cas...
Disney's Narnia ?
So, Disney has signed a deal with Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz' Walden Media for rights to produce films based on C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia . So far all we really know is it has a budget in excess of $100 million, Andrew Adamson (director of Shrek ) will be directing the film, and it's slated for a Christmas 2005 release. The contract will give Disney the right to produce more films based on the series of books.
Doing a little digging, I found that Walden Media signed the deal to produce just such a film back in 2001 , so here we are over two years later, and now Disney's involved.
Some more digging confirms that Adamson was apparently already attached to the project since sometime in 2002.
Now, can anyone confirm if this is going to be live action or animated? The 2001 press items stress live action - which is what I'd expect - but they appear to have neglected mentioning it in today's announcement, unle...
I've updated yesterday's "Ares Aqua" post to include today's press conference information.
Well, sure. Who worries about bets placed on wrestling?
As rare as hen's teeth in anything I write, here's something more or less from the world of sport.
The New York Times has reported that baseball's both great and infamous Pete Rose will be inducted into the World Wrestling Entertainment's hall of fame on March 13th. Apparently Rose participated in three Wrestlemania events between 1998-2000.
I smell Made-for-TV Movie
Here's a story that's a rollercoaster ride for those involved. Given what Correa's put the child's natural mother through, not to mention the trauma the poor 6 year-old will now have to deal with.., I'm not sure what an appropriate penalty would be. (I'm presuming the daughter she stole was being raised happily, of course.)
Generally I don't make a point of pieces like this, but it's enough of a tangle of considerations to pose an interesting moral problem (from the legal penalty angle), not to mention being one of those situations that were one to encounter it in a novel it might seem contrived and forced.
If you're wondering where the confusion comes in for me, it's in dealing with the situation in a fashion that doesn't traumatize the child any worse than necessary. Again, I'm presuming the kidnapper has raised the child lovingly, as her own, so this is the only mother the girl's e...
(Today: Distant Damp? and Clicker Shock)
Ares' Aqua?
Tuesday at 2pm Eastern NASA will be holding a press conference to announce "significant findings" concerning water on Mars . As they're making a show of it - including holding this press conference at NASA 's HQ in Washington, D.C., when all other press updates have been held at JPL in Pasadena - and this has apparently been building since last week, it seems to be a safe presumption that they've found water in martian soil. To what degree, and whether or not they've been able to better determine if the layering they've seen in some of the soil profiles was caused by sedimentation - that there was at one time enough free water to result in martian lakes and rivers - is also possibly part of the news.
Interesting times.
(Next may be to figure out if it's more or less pure than Dasani .)
Update 3/2/04: Weeeeeellll... the announcement was the confirmation that all si...
Clix plus fourteen percent and change
I've been too busy to jump in on various, easily weightier issues over the past few days (and obligations will probably sink me again for the next day or two), but the official announcement for the new Ultimates set has been made, and while most are focusing on the figures, speculations on the four, new team abilities and the confirmation that some or all of the powers about to be introduced in Unleashed will be included, some of us couldn't help but stop to appreciate the over 14.2% price increase. Retail list price for boosters of Unleashed are $6.99. They'll be out at the end of this month. List price for the June-debuting Ultimates? $7.99. So, each little piece of plastic will go from a pre-tax price of about $1.75 to $2.00.
In my time of buying comics I've seen them go from 12 cents to about $3, and felt each painful step along the way. It's fair to assess that I'll simply adjust. Still, there's no c...