Monthly Archive: November 2007

I Know Paprika Killed Me, by Ric Meyers

I Know Paprika Killed Me, by Ric Meyers

Prurient: “Having or intended to arouse an unwholesome interest in sexual matters.”

– Encarta World English Dictionary

That’s pretty much the only word anyone needs to explain I Know Who Killed Me starring Lindsay Lohan. The words “great,” “well-made,” “engrossing,” or even “entertaining” wouldn’t suffice. “Fascinating,” however, might fit, given this car wreck of a film perfectly represented the star’s car wreck of a life at the time of its production.

The term “car wreck” is carefully and purposely chosen, however, since watching Lohan’s human accident is much like slowing down for highway rubbernecking – thanks to the “celebrity” obsessed media (who’s far more interested in such things than the public they maintain they serve seems to be).

Much in the way you can chart any actor’s state of mind by the projects they choose, this unfocussed, confused, schizo, meandering, self-absorbed-slash-self-loathing-slash-self-aggrandizing-slash-self-mutilating effort can reveal anything you ever wanted to know about Lohan’s self-sabotaging lifestyle. Her stumbles are all the more sad since, of the troika of self-immolating “celebs” the media is micro-analyzing (Britney and Paris make up the rest of the 3 Stooges), Lohan is clearly the most promising and/or talented.

That talent is only vaguely on display in this slasher psycho-drama, leaving only the body the actress and media seem to have a love/hate relationship with. Within the pretentious, muddled, fairly dull film, she plays a college student, who, after barely surviving an abduction, torture, and mutilation by a serial killer, wakes up to maintain that she’s a self-destructive stripper. This allows the film to lurch hither and yon between both girls’ lives as somebody searches for the sicko, and director Chris Sivertson tries to out DePalma Brian DePalma when it comes to pointless “are they or aren’t they?” fantasies, dream sequences, and flashbacks.

The film not only represents Lohan’s life, but it also reflects the quality of the DVD’s “special” features. The “Alternate Opening” and “Blooper Reel,” especially, are as misleading as the film. The former is simply an extended sequence with several more shots of lights reflected in water, which doesn’t change the opening’s meaning in any way (alternate means “different from,” not “slightly longer”). The latter are just a few joyless instances of actors inadvertently confusing a character’s name or not knowing their lines (blooper means that said mistake be “humorous” or even “mildly embarrassing”).

So that leaves the “Alternate Ending” and what any real fan came for: the “Extended Strip Dance Scene.” The former is less than a minute, but long enough to give the connotation that all that preceded it was a fiction from within the mind of the college student. The latter is exactly what it says: a longer version of Lohan’s PG-13 stripper act (complete with R-rated support strippers around her). No question: she’s an attractive young woman who can languidly sashay around on high heels, act pouty/dirty, and even (in the sequence’s “climax”) open her legs. Whoop-dee-do.

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And Now for Something Completely Honky-Tonk, by Michael H. Price

And Now for Something Completely Honky-Tonk, by Michael H. Price

Some recent installments of this so-called Forgotten Horrors feature – the title suggests a resurrection of obscurities more so than it proclaims any particular shivers – have established the music-making imperative as essential to the standing of Robert Crumb as a Great American Cartoonist. Other such pieces have touched upon the kinship that I have perceived over the long haul amongst comics, movies, and music. This inclusive bias was cinched as early as the moment I noticed, as a grammar-school kid during the 1950s, that a honky-tonking musician neighbor named “Honest Jess” Williams was (unlike most other grown-ups in my orbit) a comic-book enthusiast.

The connection was reinforced around this same time, when I met Fats Domino backstage on a Texas engagement and learned that the great New Orleans pianist included in his traveling gear plenty of issues of Little Lulu, Archie, and Tales from the Crypt. Later on, as a junior high-schooler, I discovered that a stack of newsstand-fresh funnybooks always seemed to exert their thrall more effectively with a hefty stack of 45-r.p.m. phonograph records on the changer. (“Flash of Two Worlds” plus Charlie Blackwell’s Warners-label recording of “None of ’Em Glow like You,” augmented with a wad of Bazooka-brand bubblegum, add up to undiluted pleasure – well, the combination worked for me, anyhow.)

This latest unearthed obscurity has more to do with music – and a peculiar strain of indigenous Texas music, at that – than with any other influence. But the parallel tracks of American roots music, comics, and motion pictures tend to cross spontaneously. There is only one Show Business, and if not for the early revelation that such a fine Western swing guitarist as Jess Williams followed the comic books avidly (his favorites were Tomahawk and Blackhawk, the comics’ great “hawks” after Will Eisner’s Hawk of the Seas), I doubt that conclusion would have struck home with me.

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That BoingBoing Bounce

That BoingBoing Bounce

It’s common knowledge that once a comics-related site appears on BoingBoing, its hits rise exponentially. So congratulations to both Ward Sutton, whose recent New York Times slideshow analyzing political posters and campaign logos (see example at right) got a mention this morning, and the very amusing Comic Book Periodic Table, saluted last week.  BoingBoing notes that the latter site, a projeect from two chemistry profs at the University of Kentucky, "provides a cross-reference to mentions of various elements in a wide variety of funnybooks."  Naturally there are a lot of Metal Men pages involved, but also Spidey comics, Richie Rich refs, even Tintin!  And if anybody out there knows of a comic book page that mentions cerium or cesium, do contact them!

Shopping Bag People, by Martha Thomases

Shopping Bag People, by Martha Thomases

As you read this, the shopping malls are jammed. Many opened in the dark, with special sales to attract the first shoppers. The news programs will have stories about how many people got trampled trying to buy an item marked down a lot, and perhaps a heartwarming piece about a child who buys something for a poor family.

It’s the holidays.

Most of the world’s religions, major and minor, celebrate the passing of the Winter Solstice when the days stop getting darker and the light begins to return. It is a hopeful time. Whatever your traditions, you probably enjoy gathering with family and/or friends, eating and drinking, celebrating the return of the sun.

In the United States for most of the last century, the holidays are also the time to balance the books. Stores that might lose money all year count on the fourth quarter – October through December – to turn a profit. The day after Thanksgiving is dubbed, “Black Friday,” because that’s the day the red ink should stop.

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Happy 44th birthday, Doctor Who!

Happy 44th birthday, Doctor Who!

On this day in 1963 on BBC television at 5:15 pm, viewers saw a notice about the assasination of John F. Kennedy, and then saw something not unlike this:

…and with that, Doctor Who began its 44 year hold on England’s psyche, racking up the title of longest running science fiction television series, and after a brief respite it shows no signs of slowing down. No longer a victim of creative low budget special effects, the show’s addictive formula, excellent casting  and impressive cameos have made it a household favorite across the pond, and a closet favorite at home.

Happy birthday, old man.

Advice from the pros

Advice from the pros

Congratulations to Dave Roman on approaching his 10th year editing at Nickelodeon Magazine!  To celebrate, as many others in the comics blogosphere have noted, Dave has put together a comprehensive review of "advice for building a career as a freelance artist and/or paid cartoonist" based on a number of SVA panels and portfolio reviews he’s done through the years.  Lots of nice practical points in there, check it out!

And earlier this month, our friend Alan Davis gave an art class to a group of French children at the Lille Comic Art Festival, captured on video by the good folks at Comic Box.  Here’s part one:

And part two:

Also confirmed at Lille, the first issue of Alan’s long-anticipated ClanDestine revival will debut in February of 2008.

Your Black Friday geek viewing

Your Black Friday geek viewing

A heads-up, folks, that tonight at 10 PM Eastern, the TV series NUM3ERs will present its "Graphic episode," much of which takes place at a fictional comics convention featuring lots of work by very real creators, like Colleen Doran, Dan Brereton and Tony Fleecs, among many others.  Wil Wheaton, who guest stars on this episode as fictional comics superstar Miles Sklar, has a Flickr stream of photos from the set, and promises a post on the experience at TV Squad sometime this afternoon.

Am I the only one who looks at the show’s title and mentally pronounces it "num-three-ers"?  Just checking.

Manga Friday: Boy oh Boy

Manga Friday: Boy oh Boy

Since last week was steeped in girlyness, I thought it was only right to go entirely the other way this week. So, in honor of the weekend American men spend eating and watching football on TV, here are three manga about racing cars, slaughter, mayhem, flying blood, secret fighting techniques, and other topics of interest primarily to the male gender.

Now, I’ve never seen The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but if anyone who has seen that movie wants to claim that it’s nothing but a rip-off of Initial D, I’d be ready to believe it. It’s set in a small provincial town, where about the only exciting thing for teen boys to do is to race cars down the local mountain. And so they do – and, even more so, they talk about racing, and cars, and the mountain, and racing techniques, and whose car is faster than whose, in interminable detail. There definitely is an audience for this, but I’m not it.

Our hero is one Tak Fujiwara, the typical semi-oblivious protagonist of a million contemporary manga. He’s developed excellent driving techniques without even realizing it – hey, this story seem to say, shamelessly, to its readers, maybe you have also learned some really cool skill and you don’t even know it! (And all the readers over the age of sixteen harrumph.)

On top of that, I found the art unpleasant – the cars and backgrounds are lovingly detailed, as you would expect, but the people stand stiffly and are drawn clumsily. Their mouths in particular draw attention for all of the wrong reasons. If you are absolutely nuts about cars, you might well enjoy Initial D. For the rest of us, though, it’s a bit too much of a muchness.

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Thank you. Thank you very much… by Michael Davis

Thank you. Thank you very much… by Michael Davis

Every Thanksgiving the media does reports on what makes people thankful. It’s always the same things. Husbands are thankful for their wives and kids. Wives are thankful for their husband and kids. Older people are thankful for good health. Kids are thankful for their Mom & Dad. Blah, blah, blah…

blahblahblahblahblahblah!

Give me a break. I mean come on; everybody loves his or her family. Well almost everybody. I forgot about the Menendez Brothers.

I love my family, as I’m sure you do but besides them, I wonder what people are really thankful for?

I think I may know…

Men are thankful for women and power tools. Women are thankful for shoes and power tools (…give it a moment). Skinny people are thankful for fat people. Fat people are thankful for meat. Black people are thankful for Lincoln and videotape, especially in Los Angeles. White people are thankful for golf and vacations. Super models are thankful for books on tape. Liberals are thankful for rent control and gun legislation. Conservatives are thankful for gated communities and guns.

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