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Category: Comics
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What’s in a name
How life might have been different if he’d been born Victor Von Awesome.
– From Empire Online’s list of “top 50 comic book characters“, via [LMG]. The above quote is about #25 on the list.
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Lost in Tel-Aviv now online
Did you catch it last night? If not, you can watch the whole thing online at the Yes/Walla site (The site uses an embedded Windows Media Player thing, so on Linux you probably need some hack to get it: this one worked for me).
Here’s an interview with my brother about the film published yesterday, and a review of the film. If you can stand (or ignore) the talkbacking scum.
I love this movie and have to fight the urge to stop everything and watch it again right now, but I really should shut up. It’s Guy and Netta’s show.
Hope you like it.
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Fritterlog
- Wishing to fritter away a pleasant evening seeing a stirring action film that evokes innocent boyish enthusiasms rather than brooding over the ongoing frittering of the curdled youth of adulthood? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not the right movie for this, being all about middle age – which, for intrepid adventuring archeologists, happens sometime in their sixties. OK, it’s not all about that, it is also about the third big loopy archeological mcguffin, after previous movies tackled the Ark and the Grail. It’s obviously more self-indulgent than the earlier movies, and not just because special effects are much easier now than they were at the time of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And it’s sort of odd seeing Harrison Ford constantly alternating between being Indiana Jones and just an old guy dressed like him.
- Steve Jackson reports that Robert Lynn Asprin has died. Asprin was responsible for Myth Adventures (a humorous fantasy that I read in Phil Foglio’s wonderful comic adaptation) and Thieves’ World, the first shared-world anthology series – both of these were/are of great interest to roleplayers, I think.
- A Michael Swanwick anecdote about Yeats:
When Marianne and I were in Yeats Country in the West of Ireland, we visited Yeats’s grave and Thoor Ballylee, the renovated medieval tower in which he lived. Afterwards, talking with our landlady (who was a respectable, middle-aged lady), I said something like, “Yeats was deep into mysticism, crucifying cats in the graveyard at midnight and things like that.” And, very bitterly, she replied, “Aye, well, he was one of the fortunate ones. He had money. Some of us had to work for a living!”
- Via Rob MacDougall and the Wikipedia-blog Meine Kleine Fabrik, a Wikipedia article on Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic, apropos Laughter – first the Joker, then his signature weapon!
However, Wikipedia also provides us with caped crusaders to fight the clown prince of crime. If Spring Heeled Jack was a bit too sinister, his Czech analog Pérák, the Spring Man of Prague apparently fought the Nazis! - Dark chocolate can be dipped in Peanut Butter, I have just discovered. I am going to hell for this.
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Rise of the Geeks, Episode 3d6
Some filmmakers get their start making shaky home movies, others catch the bug in a high school drama class or maybe through an art institute where they put paint to canvas. Favreau has more of an eight-sided education.
“It was Dungeons & Dragons, but I wouldn’t have owned up so quickly a few years ago,” Favreau said sheepishly.
“It’s rough. It’s one of the few groups that even comic-book fans look down on. But it gave me a really strong background in imagination, storytelling, understanding how to create tone and a sense of balance. You’re creating this modular, mythic environment where people can play in it.”
Maybe there should be a new Hollywood respect for eight- and 10-sided dice and a talent for troll tales: Robin Williams, Mike Myers, Stephen Colbert and Vin Diesel have all professed their passion (past or present) for the role-playing game.
Jon Favreau is the action figure behind ‘Iron Man’ – Los Angeles Times, via [ Steve Jackson ]