Forbidden Plant International leads us to another glowing review of Bryan Talbot’s amazing Alice in Sunderland by Steve Flanagan. The catch is that Flanagan’s review is illustrative, done in the style of the book it’s discussing.
Flanagan’s 7-part comic strip review discusses Talbot’s presumed influences for this book, his stylistic choices, perceived structural weakness and subject matter. Pretty heady stuff, and Flanagan’s not afraid to puncture his own pomposity.
It works better, of course, if you read the book first. By that time maybe the traffic will have died down from Flanagan being BoingBoing’ed.
Marvel editor Tom Brevoort mentioned he had a problem with the way certain parties referred to the Marvel Universe as "Earth 616" — a designation he mistakenly credited to Alan Moore. He promptly followed up by passing along the actual origin of the appellation, courtesy of Alan Davis, who notes, "Although credited to Alan Moore, like much of the other Captain Britain folklore it was in place before he joined the book."
Interesting background reading for people who like behind-the-scenes stuff, and far easier for me to follow than Alan D’s analysis of who owns Miracleman…
Via Wil Wheaton, it took a team of 10 engineering students at UCSC five hours and 6400 sticky pieces of paper to re-create the first level of the arcade game Donkey Kong. Here’s a silent time-lapse video of the assembly:
And here’s what it looks like in the daytime:
I hope they got extra credit for this! The work is visible at the E2 building at the university until the beginning of May.
I realize the whole concept of a public apology has become somewhat tainted, but I hope Mr. Shatner and Mr. O’Neil each accept mine in the spirit in which they are intended.
When the first episode of Star Trek was aired, I thought the show was rather lame. I had just turned 16 and I wasn’t all that much of a teevee viewer. That summer I took up an interest in a young woman who was a dedicated Trekker, long before the term was invented. Ergo, my interest in the show waxed. As we headed towards the awesome events of 1968 my interest in television in general waned as, sadly, so did my relationship with the aforementioned young lady.
As Star Trek’s popularity picked up in syndication, I managed to catch all the episodes, but with growing popularity grew derision towards its star. I found the jokes made about Mr. Shatner’s stylized performance to be hilarious, and I even did my own on radio. At the time I knew better: I remembered his fine performances in The Twilight Zone (perhaps the most famous episode of that praiseworthy series), on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (where he co-starred with both Leonard Nimoy and Werner Klemperer), and most significantly, in the lead on The Andersonville Trial, an astonishingly brilliant teevee movie directed by George C. Scott and co-starring Cameron Mitchell, Richard Basehart, Jack Cassidy, Martin Sheen, Buddy Ebsen, Albert Salmi. That’s one of the best casts ever assembled for a broadcast, and Shatner – its star – was more than up to the task.
Mr. Shatner proceeded to healthy runs on numerous series, but the jokes went on and on. My own attitude began to lighten up when I realized he had a strong sense of self-awareness about Captain Kirk. His own parody of the character in the movie Airplane: The Very Stupid Sequel (I think I’ve got the title right, but iMDB doesn’t list it as such) was brilliantly self-effacing. I figured somebody else wrote that part. But his performance as William Shatner at a Star Trek convention on Saturday Night Live – the famous “get a life” moment – well, even if somebody else wrote it, Shatner wasn’t playing a character. He was playing himself with a truth and honesty essential to successful comedy.
Damn. That was good.
Since then, Shatner showed his comedic prowess in a variety of television commercials, most notably those for Priceline.com. But the world moved and changed when David E. Kelley hired him to play the part of Denny Crane for a run on The Practice, knowing the show was to spin-off into Boston Legal, unless ABC changed its mind (ask our friends – off the record – at DC Comics about Lois and Clark).
Step-sibling Cinematical (say that three times fast) is reporting that: "Bruce Banner and his massive green alter ego will be played by Oscar nominee Edward Norton! Best known for his superlative work in movies like Primal Fear, Rounders, American History X and Fight Club (oh, and Death to Smoochy), Norton steps into a role vacated by Bana — and I for one think it’s a really excellent choice on the part of [Louis] Leterrier and his Universal overlords."
The Scotsman is reporting that Ian Rankin, writer of the extremely popular Inspector Rebus crime fiction series, will be doing a six-issue run on DC’s Hellblazer.
Rankin approaches the venture with appropriate trepidation: "Let’s wait and see if I can do it; maybe it will turn out that I can’t. It is much more like a screenwriter’s skill than a novelist’s skill. You have to use very few words, and a lot of the writing is just instructions to the artist."
A good observation for other famous "mainstream" authors with comic book aspirations to bear in mind!
You know you’re a geek when you go away-from-keyboard to spend the day with your cousins at a nifty local mall and your first thought upon seeing a Lego keychain display is, "Ooh, Batman and Robin and the Joker, this would make a cute photo for ComicMix!"
And so it goes (apologies, etc. etc.). Now for your weekly all-in-one post of our regular columns from this past week:
With the Doctor Who episode, "Gridlock", airing last night in the UK, the show has retaken the lead from Star Trek with 727 produced episodes over a 44 year history, exceeding all of the Star Trek series combined. Well done, lads and ladies.
Joe Rice disgraces himself and Comic Book Resources with one of the worst cases of paralogia and argumentum ad hominemI’ve seen since the Peter David/Todd MacFarlane Great Debate. His argument can be reductiod to the following absurdum:
I like Fantagraphics products.
Harlan Ellison is suing Fantagraphics for reasons I don’t even pretend to address or understand.
Therefore, Harlan Ellison is a "petty old sci-fi writer" and "a tired old hack" and he’s suing because "in truth, because his widdle feewings were hurt at how they descwibed him".
Yes, Joe, comics should be good– and so should your arguments. I didn’t think there could be a Rice who could make worse arguments than Condoleezza…
Fifty-two (there’s that number again) years ago today, the first McDonald’s franchise opened up in Des Plaines, IL, just north of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
It’s still there, but now it’s a museum – complete with 1955 cars in the parking lot.
On behalf of what you’ve done for the bodies of millions of comic book fans across America, we’d just like to say: Thanks heaps.
Forbidden Plant International leads us to another glowing review of Bryan Talbot’s amazing Alice in Sunderland by Steve Flanagan. The catch is that Flanagan’s review is illustrative, done in the style of the book it’s discussing.
I realize the whole concept of a public apology has become somewhat tainted, but I hope Mr. Shatner and Mr. O’Neil each accept mine in the spirit in which they are intended.
Step-sibling 
The Scotsman is 
Fifty-two (there’s that number again) years ago today, the first McDonald’s franchise opened up in Des Plaines, IL, just north of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
