DON'T MIND ME, JUST FORGOT TO TURN THE LIGHTS OUT

I am still getting the same average number of hits per day after not posting anything for four months as I was when I was posting semi-regularly. By which I mean people are still google image searching for "super heros naked" and then finding my blog and being disappointed.

Also, recent search terms that brought people here were "blaaaaaaaaargh," "highly detail," "how to deal with scum," and "blinky dingus aka jesse james." I swear I did not make any of those up and/or google them myself. If I were a smarter person I would be able to learn something from this.

THIS CHEERS ME UP A LITTLE

Virgil Goode officially gets to go sit in the corner now, and think about what he's done.

I know almost nothing about his Democratic opponent, Perriello -- he could turn out to be the worst congressman in history, I couldn't tell you. But no matter who replaces him, you can't help but smile when an odious little bigot like Virgil Goode is given his walking papers.

Three cheers for Virginia for continuing to enter not quite the 21st century but at least the late 20th.

BLAAAAAAAAARGH

Rick Warren gets to say the invocation at the inauguration? RICK "gay Marriage is equivalent to incest" WARREN?

Fuck that.

I guess this is officially the first time Obama has seriously pissed me off. I'm sure it won't be the last. I knew he was a politician when I voted for him, and I'm not sorry that I did.

But seriously, Barry, on this one? Fuck you.

I don't have the energy or the class to say anything else about it.

HIGHLY DETAIL ORIENTED

Flipping through Previews last night, I found the following ad on page 219, for a new comic book called Aegis. It deserves to be reproduced in its entirety. Trust me, you have to read the entire thing:



I was paralyzed by this ad. I had to find someone else to look at it, to make sure it was real, at which point I was able to collapse into a sort of half-weeping laughter. This is one of those jaw dropping things that cause you to realize: not only is it amazing that something this dumb exists, but whoever created it PAID MONEY to place that ad. They read this over and thought, "What a good job I did -- I'd better whip out the check book so that as many people as possible see this."

When I read the top line, "ANOTHER GRAPHIC NOVEL MADE FOR FILM?" I thought, for a moment, that they were about to try to temper my now regularly-made assumption that most shitty adventure comics are made with at least one eye, if not both, on a potential Hollywood reaction. But...no. They were simply trying to call attention to the fact that they made their comic hoping for a movie deal. Their weird Italics-into-Bold/Underline choice of graphic design maybe should have tipped me off that I should not be expecting cleverness.

The actual body of the ad is a symphony of weird idiocy, starting with the first line, which makes no sense. What in the hell is a "professional comic book consultant," and why do I care that this consultant has a "self-invested" comic book? "Self-invested," by the way, is not the term they're looking for, as a quick google search shows it to be a term mainly associated with British pension plans that give the recipients control over where their retirement funds are invested. I think what they mean is "self-financed," but I'm not making any assumptions where these people are concerned.

We also learn that the book is under consideration by filmmakers who have worked with such names as D. B. Sweeney -- D. B. Sweeney? How did they get D. B. Sweeney? I can't even get a call through to his secretary's secretary, let alone to the man, they myth, the name D. B. Sweeney -- producing films for the (wait for it) Sci-Fi Channel and "other major networks." With (and this is my favorite part) "productions in the millions."

All of that is vague enough to be completely meaningless. "Filmmakers," for all anybody knows, could mean a key grip that "N. T. Moore," the writer of the comic, went to high school with. And D. B. Sweeney (that huge name) is a steadily working television actor (or so imdb tells me -- I had never heard of him), presumably good enough to be hired a lot, presumably not someone who can get a television show or movie green-lit. The Sci-Fi Channel speaks for itself, but that last phrase: "with productions in the millions." What...what does that mean? Does that mean that these anonymous filmmakers' productions number in the millions? That doesn't seem humanly possible. In fact, some quick math tells us that if you worked for 75 straight years, no days off, and you worked on a new production every day, you would fall short of 30,000 productions. Considering most productions take more than one day of work, I'm going to say that what the ad means is that the filmmakers' productions have cost millions of dollars. To which I say, congratulations, anonymous filmmakers: you have worked on some productions, in television, where a single music video could cost a million dollars. This still tells us nothing.

The second paragraph informs me that "This is probably one of the few, highly-detail oriented, titles you'll come upon." First of all, I know it might be nitpicky, but there shouldn't be a comma after "oriented." Second, and this is clearly the Wagnerian theme of this ad, crashing to the surface again and again: what the hell does that mean? I leave it to better minds to uncover.

The coup de grâce is the quote at the bottom: "We believe in the good old fashion [sic] way of publishing and distribution. We hope to make a good impression on retailers."

Keep on hoping, Aegis. Keep on hoping.

(Fun bonus fact: Aegis got a "Spotlight On" in Diamond. I didn't realize that people just payed for those like any other ad. Oh well, you learn something new every day...)

THE GRIM FACED PUNCHING MACHINES

So, writing this post probably just means that I have given over far too much of my brainpower to Batman and James Bond. But you know what? They're easily the two best Anglo action heroes of the 20th century, so, y'know, I'll give them an idle minute here.

In his review of the new Bond film, Scintilla of Naptime or whatever it's called, A.O. Scott laments slightly that the grim, vengeful Daniel Craig bond has left behind the charm and the wit of previous film incarnations of the character. From the review:

But while the exploration of Bond’s psychology makes him, arguably at least, a deeper, subtler character — and there is certainly impressive depth and subtlety in Mr. Craig’s wounded, whispery menace — it also makes him harder to distinguish from every other grieving, seething avenger at the multiplex.
...
I know grief has always been part of the Dark Knight’s baggage, but the same can hardly be said of James Bond, Her Majesty’s suave, cynical cold war paladin. His wit was part of his — of our — arsenal, and he countered the totalitarian humorlessness of his foes with a wink and a bon mot.

Now, I don't want to come across as defending relentless grim-faced seriousness in action films, because, frankly, I enjoy the bon mots, too. But you can hardly say that a damaged psyche and a vicious, vengeful nature haven't always been a part of Bond. As a literary character, Bond is charming, sure, but he's also cruel and cold. In the films, you see some of the wolf that is Bond come through in Connery, who always had an air of danger behind his eyes. True, Connery's films got increasingly silly, until Roger Moore took over and turned them into full farce, but that was a transformation of the character, not the primary text Scott seems to think it is.

In much the same way, Batman was flensed of the darkness and violence that had been part of the character since his debut in 1937 through the sillification of, first, the 1950s comic books, and then the 1960s television show. Treating the comedic aspects of the later Connery films and the Roger Moore mockeries as the guide for how Bond ought to be is the same as saying that Batman ought to be patterned on the Adam West version in perpetuity.

Now, that said, do the current versions of Bond and the Bat run too far in the opposite direction? Yeah, maybe. I mean, I hated The Dark Knight because it was self-important and boring, not because it was dark and griefy, but I can certainly see the complaint holding water. I can see it even more with Bond, because while Batman quite literally wears a manifestation of his psychoses, Bond's are always buried under a thick scar-tissue layer of cynical charm. Plus, as much as I want the character of Bond to be closer to the books, I'd hate to give up the accoutrements of the films. The books don't have any secret volcano lairs or laser satellites, for example. But I imagine the balance I'd like to strike is not quite as playful as the one Scott is longing for.

I should probably go apply my mind to, well, anything else now, really.