Silly Site o' the Day

Completely spaced on attending the Bloghercon chat yesterday afternoon - hope I'm not kicked off the Advisory Board for this! - but I'm sure the convention was a great success. I don't feel much more rested than I did yesterday, but the drive down to south Jersey in about an hour doesn't look to be that strenuous. Not like the trials faced by those brave astronauts of yesteryear in the Old Negro Space Program (via Will Shetterly).

Don't Tell Norquist

He'll only want to name it after Reagan... (Article via Bambi, who likes it that way.)

Silly Site o' the Day

Hoping for a brief bit of bloggy catch-up before doing my finances (also a catch-up, from the past two weeks), saying hi to the folks at Bloghercon via the Flash chat they've set up, and probably sleeping off the tension of the last week in preparation to visit my parents tomorrow, as I won't get a lot of rest otherwise and Monday's back to work - my boss won't be in but it's the first of the month so I'll have the usual billing to do, then he's back for the rest of the week. So much I wanted to write - the still-turning-about-in-my head post about entitlements, the post about geek chic, lots of cool links to reference, even the actual start of Megillat Vashti - and so little mental energy! This is why I need a job that doesn't suck out my soul (I start the search again in mid-August)... Meanwhile, via Desi, dig that crazy penguin! No, not that one...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Good lord, is it Friday again already? Right then, here you go:

Amy "boondled" in Rob's shirt, between the two brass robins on his dresser.

And a close-up of the bruiser, with Datsa staring into space as usual.

Silly Site o' the Day

As Arthur reminds us, it's time once again for the results of the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest! The sad thing is, I wish I could write fiction that well...

Milestone Note

A very happy birthday to Phil Proctor of The Firesign Theatre, as well as tons of voice work and other acting gigs. Unknown whether Phil will be joining us at chat this evening...

Silly Site o' the Day

Perhaps a break in the heat wave, but probaby not in my workload, so light blogging continues. Wish I had time to do things like create my own flip-book (via Eszter).

Silly Site o' the Day

What do you get when you cross a popular videogame with a silent movie and a little bit of the Godfather saga thrown in? Lauren finds this Super Mario story an "opera of sorts." I love the "camera" angles, and the storyline is epic enough, but I wish someone had proofread the dialogue a bit better... "bretherin"???

Silly Site o' the Day

Yeah, more light blogging ahead. Got the DC comp box on Saturday and my last three weeks' worth of non-DC stuff delivered yesterday, so the evenings are taken up with comics catch-up; and my boss is in during the days so I can hardly schedule bathroom breaks let alone blogging breaks. Speaking of which, floral urinals? Via Arthur.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via email, Thomas in Frankfurt is awfully proud of his site, the Colin Powell Used Car Certificate. I sure don't think I'd buy a used country from the guy!

Silly Site o' the Day

As a follow-up to this old post of mine about public art projects, we learned via EuroNews yesterday that the Cow Parade has now reached Geneva. I love their name for it - Genevache. Here are some pictures of their cows. The part that really infuriated us when watching the news report was that they seemed to claim this was native to Geneva, when the public art project actually started in the US. Apparently there's also a horse parade going on in Belgium this summer.

Let The Eagle Soar

Someone really ought to tell the proprieters of this chicken wing place which just opened next to our local fruit and veggie market (which now carries Ilchester cheeses for $5/pound, hoorah!) that this looks way more like an eagle than a chicken...

Silly Site o' the Day

I agree with Hanan that this Can't Wait For 2008 animation is JibJab-like. Besides the style, it seems to be equal-opportunity mockery. And I couldn't really see Michael Moore stumping for Hillary, until I remembered that he has had kind things to say in the past about the Clintons...

Gainfully Employed

Everyone go over and congratulate Susie on her new job!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Well, I said I would take my cat pictures later, but I didn't say they'd be of my cat. A coworker and I were invited to my boss' mansion today for a lunch and birthday party, and I snapped a picture of his son's cat:

Here's one of the sweet face a little closer up:

Not a bad way to spend a Friday lunchtime.

Update: Okay, one more. Only because they greeted me so cutely when I came in the door after work today.

Amy on the left, Datsa on the right, scary kitty-eyes all over...

Silly Site o' the Day

In honor of Friday Cat Blogging (haven't taken my kitty picture yet so my contribution will be later), Joel Veitch has two new songs for July: Looking for My Leopard (alert via Desi) and Ninja. The latter features some cute self-referential stuff during the sax solo...

Blogger Participation

Two dates of note for active bloggers:

Clicking on the first button will take you to all the information about Blogathon 2005, which will take place on Saturday, August 6, and in which I will not be participating for many reasons, among which include my memory of being really exhausted from doing Blogathon 2003, no vacation time this summer and, you know, that getting-old thing. Clicking on the second button will take you to info about Nir Ofir's Blog Day suggestion for August 31, wherein he recommends"every blogger from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs (in the same time). In this day all Blog web surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown blogs and celebration the discovery of new people new bloggers." That one I'll probably do. I will probably put smaller versions of these buttons on my sidebar when I get home, if I feel like tweaking the template...

London Bomb Redux?

Three incidents in the Underground and one on a bus, say initial reports.

Silly Site o' the Day

Back on October 25 of last year, I chose Leave it to Bush, featuring Gary Busey as my Silly Site. There's now a sequel featuring Bill Cosby. Animator Ken McIntyre takes real sentences and sentence fragments spoken by Bush and Cosby and places them in a bizarre storyline context which I won't spoil by revealing. In keeping with yesterday's celebrations, this takes place on the moon. Via Cyndy at Mousemusings.

Maintenance Notes

Now that I'm home I can adjust my template (without fear of it being lost to my work computer's fickle nature) to remove South Knox Bubba, as Randy has decided the blogging thrill is gone for the moment - I'm really going to miss his photoblogging and sense of Southern hospitality! - and to add John Amato of Crooks & Liars, which is becoming the place to find must-see videos (my current favorite: the Daily Show clip of Samantha Bee's "Did She Really Get Pinned" Roverdose segment), as well as Angie of Ang's Weird Ideas just, y'know, 'cause. Oh, and I moved AmericaBlog to the Group Blogs section; sometimes it takes me awhile to suss out which blogs are by one person and which feature two or more writers...

Roverdose



Hooray for Princess Sparkle Pony, the African explorer! I love this graphic! And I think we should all use RJ Eskow's Rove-bot from now on... As for us at Pen-Elayne, we're still Rove-free, although not meta-Rove-posts-free...

Bereft

RIP, Jim Aparo and James Doohan. I am going straight to hell for even considering the header "They're Dead, Jims" for one microsecond. I'm glad both men lived full lives, gave much joy, and are no longer suffering from cancer (Aparo) and Alzheimer's (Doohan).

The Google Moon Bandwagon

If I'd been awake enough, I would have used this as a Silly Site:

Click on the logo, then go in for an extreme close-up on the map page. At least a half dozen other folks on my blogroll have already done this, and it's mentioned in lots of news sources too on this, the 36th anniversary of the moon landing. And doubtless you've also heard that NASA has gotten a wee bit defensive against the conspiracy theorists...

Funny Papers

I don't want to post too much during the day, as my work computer's a bit buggy again when it comes to Blogger's editing functions (and it's driving me nuts, I have a bit of template adjusting to do and I don't trust it to save correctly), but I did want to do a mini-link dump to mention that The Poor Man has been having way too many giggles skewering the Prince of Darkness and his rightie-blogger minions under the aegis of "Keyboard Kommando Komics," using picture collages and historic tale construction programs, and hey, who couldn't use an amusing comic or two during this sweltering day? And speaking of comics, check out Rose of Peiratikos' essay on women comic book bloggers (thanks for this link, Laura!) and Jessa Crispin's nice primer on how to review comics.

Silly Site o' the Day

Brain hurts, can't seem to wake up. Least I'm not the only one. Via Desi, someone seems to be too stupid to be President... which reminds me, it's time to clean out the spam in my in-box...

Ms. Litella Speaks

What's all this I hear about our President making a speech this evening to nominate Edith Bunker for the Supreme Court? Why, I think that's just a splendid idea! I may have had my differences with the way he does things, goodness knows, but Edith, why, who wouldn't love that woman? She's so patient with Archie and Meathead and that adorable little Gloria, what a saint! And such a lovely smile! I should think anyone with a case before the Court would only have to look at that smile and they'd melt like little chocolate bon-bons, yes they would! And furthermore, I-- what? Clement? Hollan Jones? Ohhhh, that's very different... Never mind! Update: Ms. Litella is skeptical about the actual choice of nominee.

Mark Read

Well, my Bloglines feeds are back, but apparently all unread posts were wiped so I'm starting from scratch again. Which really is just as well, as I was so far behind in blog-reading that I looked unlikely to ever catch up. So if you have or know of a good blog post from the last week or so that you'd like to recommend I read, please suggest the link in the comments section. Please observe our rule that we are, for the most part, a Rove-free and Harry Potter-free blog for the moment as, really, what's left to say that a thousand blogs haven't already echoed?

Silly Site o' the Day

Exhausting workday and evening yesterday, so I'll be a bit bleary-eyed for awhile I fear. At least my boss is away on a business trip for the rest of the week, so I may be able to catch up on things put aside. I don't even want to talk about how behind I am in blog-skimming. (The fact that Bloglines is currently not showing me any of my feeds doesn't help...) At least I've read enough to have come across the Planarity Flash Game mentioned in at least three blogs so far, but the first was from Eszter so she gets the credit... Oh, and I couldn't get past the first round, so there you are, my life as a Flash game metaphor...

Silly Site o' the Day

I've often said that one of the best things about my present job is the commute. While I feel guilty about driving a car and probably always will (I spent almost 25 years getting by perfectly well 99% of the time using NYC public transit), the present Westchester County location of our offices means a half-hour drive door-to-door on roads not heavily travelled by most commuters, as opposed to an hour and a half to two hours by bus and/or train. I did the bus/train thing this morning, though, as I'll be meeting Robin in Manhattan after work and I Do Not Drive Into Manhattan. While the afternoon sojourn will be fine as it's only 25 minutes into Grand Central, the morning's a bit trickier as it involves a 10-minute walk to the local bus, then a half hour on said bus to the Fordham Metro-North station, then waiting time for the train which timing I always screw up, and today was no different. I got a much earlier bus than I needed and wound up waiting on the train platform in the mugginess for almost half an hour. No, I do not for one minute take my nice air-conditioned automobile for granted! Maybe if I had my FedEx clock with me (via Hanan Levin) things would have been differ-- nah, who'm I kidding?...

Left On!

Via Augie, it seems that left-handedness is becoming more and more prevalent. Aside from the reasons the article cites, I daresay some of it may be because most lefties are no longer being punished for their handedness (the way my dad was in '30s Romania) and forced to become righties. Fortunately I underwent no such indoctrination.

Silly Site o' the Day

No, I won't be reading the new Harry Potter book. Not until it comes out in paperback in the UK, at any rate, because those are the editions I collect and I have trouble holding hardcovers and anyway I'd rather read the text in the original British than the version bastardized with dumbed-down American phrases. So, looks like Pen-Elayne will probably be as much of a Potter-free zone as it is a Rove-free zone ('cause really, what's there to say about the Prince of Darkness that every other blog in existence isn't already saying, making it doubly hard to slog through the reading list?), except to note that I have been rewatching all three movies on DVD in celebration, the first two last evening and the third one slated for today. If I can get through this horrid, painful, hours-long heartburn that's plagued me since waking. And my blog reading, of course. Isn't there some utility I can use to search by word and automatically "mark read" any post with "Rove" in it? Ah well, at least I can still smile, particularly when I come across brilliant ad parodies such as this one for the iFlea. Via Eszter at Crooked Timber.

Silly Sites o' the Day

So Elise at After School Snack mentioned that Blogwise, of which I'm a member (see sidebar button), can pinpoint the locations of various blogs if you put a geocode meta-tag in your header. Thing is, although this page tells you how to add it, and I found out my GeoURL here and my longitude and latitude via this way-cool geocoding service (and thus, those are my Sites o' the Day), I'm still not sure where in my template to stick the meta-tag:

[meta name="ICBM" content="40.911778, -73.901023" /]
[meta name="DC.title" content="Pen-Elayne on the Web" /]

(Obviously the tags should have carats instead of brackets.) I'm not even sure I'm allowed to do that with Blogger templates. I can't add a browser icon, so maybe I can't do this either. If anyone braver than me (Laura?) is interested in tackling it, feel free.

Oh, and for Mom and Dad - the car thing? It was probably seltzer bottles shifting and rolling about in the trunk every time I depressed the accelerator. I'm taking it for a spin today to the local supermarket just to double check. I'll make sure not to buy any soda.

Technology, She is a Scary Thing

Both when it works and when it doesn't. Any editors and others not in San Diego (or even those of you who are) who are trying to reach Robin, please note that T-Mobile is apparently working on the signal tower closest to our home and you're best off contacting him via our landline rather than his cell phone number. Which frustrates me as, with our plan we can call each other's cell phones as much as we want and nothing counts toward our minutes, but for the last two weeks or so I've had to call cell-to-landline and that eats up the li'l suckers. Not that I ever come close to capacity but, you know, it's the principle of the thing.

On the other hand, Robin's more than halfway through posting his pages for sale on the spiffy ComicArtFans website. From what I understand all the pages are scanned and uploaded, he just needs to affix labels to a number of them and make them visible. What a helpful program this site owner has set up! I'd highly recommend it to any comic artist wanting to sell pages or even to a comic art fan wanting to show off a gallery. When Robin's finished posting I'll run another reminder about the pages, and I might even put his PayPal button on the sidebar.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

So I called Amy over last night so I could snap her picture, and heaven forfend Datsa not get into the act.

The sad part is, I didn't even realize he was there until I went to look at the photo.

Here's a little bonus animal blogging:

I snapped these swans whilst driving past a park in New Rochelle on my morning commute earlier this week (don't worry, I'm a safe motorist, I was stopped at a traffic light at the time).

Silly Site o' the Day

Weird day yesterday. My car had been making strange clunking noises every time I depressed the accelerator, so I made an appointment to take it into the nearest Hyundai dealer, which couldn't see me until next Thursday so I made plans to take public transit to and from work for the next week (which would triple or quadruple my current commuting time) and prayed all day that I'd make it home okay without the problem worsening. However, on the commute home the noises stopped as suddenly as they'd started. So I'm still keeping the appointment but I'll be driving in again today, which is just as well because I'm struggling to wake up and I'd never have made a train or bus. And my boss promises to be in early, and he was in a heck of a mood yesterday so today will likely be beastly. Speaking of which, here's a Beast Blender via cookie jill at skippy - still short of a million hits but, you know, I'd be happy to reach 192,000 today. :)

Silly Site o' the Day

Light posting (and blog-reading) continues while my boss throws goodness-knows-what my way today. Since tonight is Firesign chat (starting at 9PM Eastern), I thought it appropriate to plug the latest game on their site. Sayeth the announcement email:

With Congress again masterfully debating the merits of passing a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration, Mayor P'nisnose knows how to sniff out the 'pretend' patriots - a flag-burning game! Play it online here, or download the Flash game to your hard disk and email it to your friends ... and enemies list!

It's divided into three parts, and the third (Executive) was by far my laugh-out-loud favorite.

Silly Site o' the Day

Yesterday was madness at the office, as a coworker and I scrambled to assemble a presentation in three hours which would normally have taken a few days, so I'm fairly exhausted. With my boss out of town making said presentation today, I hope to catch up on blog reading or, more accurately, skimming - chances are I'm going to click on "mark read" for an awful lot of folks. Nonetheless, I'll try do my best to do y'all justice if my brain doesn't turn to mush first. Maybe I'll circumvent that possibility by eating all of your brains first, mwahahaha. If I'm really lucky and get through my blog-skimming by this evening, I'll be back to check on the tasty morsels. Via my neighbor Keith R.A. DeCandido, now probably on his way to San Diego along with most of our other friends with disposable cash and/or a boss who allows them vacation time when he's in the country.

Silly Site o' the Day

Those comic book reviews seemed to take it out of me; I haven't been fully awake for going on two days now, so I suspect blogging will continue to be light. Everything seems just a little out of my grasp, both literally (I'm in "dropping things" mode) and figuratively, like the language barrier leading to unintended hilarity at Engrish.com (via Karen at Dark Bilious Vapors)...

Silly Site o' the Day

Watch out, Tom Cruise got Oprah and he may be gunning for you! Via Amanda Marcotte and tons of others...

'At About Sums it Up

Julia found this.

And this from Ann Telnaes is via Avedon.

Not To Be Skipped

Happy third blogiversary to skippy & co.!

Finding A Unicorn

As comic writer Steve Gerber recently observed, "I’ve been wondering why I don’t blog more about comics." Yeah, me too. Has it really been two years since I've done a comic book review? Wow, sorry about that. This blog entry's title is from a quote Entertainment Weekly reproed that was heard on the TV show The OC, wherein a character observes of meeting a woman who likes comic books, "It's like finding a unicorn." Of course there are tons of women who not only like and read comics, but also create them, but I digress. So without further ado, let's reopen the Pen-Elayne For Your Thoughts review format and take a look at the new crop of fantasy comics that have been debuting this spring and summer:

Pen-Elayne For Your Thoughts
Fantasy and Fairy Tale Comics

Introduction: In the past I've often observed how superhero comics are, to me, just another aspect of fantasy (with a lot of soap opera elements thrown in), and as a lifelong fantasy and fairy tale reader I found it fairly easy to get into reading them as an adult. But superhero stuff (and even much of the magic-related stuff put out by the mainstream imprints, like Marvel's current Spellbinders series) tends to focus more on fight scenes and big explosions (what's often thought of as the male appeal) than on how the hero can use his or her powers to help others and, in the process, grow into his or her own by gaining a stronger sense of self (i.e., the more universal appeal). And it's the latter aspect of fantasy, together with a hefty dose of fun, that I look for in my reading. Oddly (and disappointingly for me), every single one of these books is written and/or drawn by men. While I still long for more fantasy comic series done by women, I'm certainly not going to hold their gender against these guys in reviewing their work.


DOROTHY GALE: JOURNEY TO OZ
Book 1: The Journal

Writer/Artist: Shane Kirshenblatt
Lettering and Effects: Jennifer Halpern
Published by Jake Lake Productions Inc. and Freefall Entertainment

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

I tend to be leery of Oz-based comics, as so many of them seem to feel the need to "improve" upon Baum's vision and universe by remaking or changing the point of it, rather than expanding upon and celebrating the children-of-all-ages joy of the original books. Unfortunately, this book is of the former variety. In this incarnation, the narration informs us that "Glinda's curse (on the Winged Monkeys) had poisoned Oz, and the inhabitants grew to hate her." Not an auspicious beginning insofar as one of the main good-guy Oz characters is concerned! Dorothy is still a farmgirl (although 17 years old, well past the age of the book's character) but rather than being a dog, Toto is the nickname of her sticky-fingered male best friend, which aids in dialogue but feels forced anyway. (I also didn't like her snarling expletives directed at Toto; right away that'll turn a lot of folks off of giving this to kids.) And there's no cyclone to return her to Oz (yes, "return" – there are strong hints that she's originally from there and was found by Aunt Em as a baby, a la the Superman mythos); instead, she and Toto and a local peddler named Ed tumble through a storm cellar to arrive at their dark destination. Kirshenblatt's art is colored pencil drawings, very crude in places, with no panel borders to make it easier for neophyte comic readers to follow. Upon second review the book is not that much of a mess, it'll certainly work as an adventure and seasoned comic book readers can follow the meandering art fairly well, but the tone just isn't upbeat enough for me to want to come back for more.

So, what did y'all think?


OZ: THE MANGA #1 and 2

Adapter/Artist: David Hutchison
Editors: Doug Dlin and Paul Kilpatrick
Published by Antarctic Press

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

Now this is more like it. It's faithful to the source material while adding its own angle – in this case, as Hutchinson says, "I don't think there has been a manga version of The Wizard of Oz, at least not to my knowledge," and his goal is to bring this version to readers unfamiliar with the original. His drawing skills are solid, the pacing and effects are top-notch, and the style falls very much within manga readers' comfort zone, all without sacrificing any of Baum's essentials. As of this review we're through issue #2 where Dorothy, the Scarecrow and Tin Woodsman are about to encounter the Cowardly Lion. The necessary constraints of comic book storytelling mean you're not going to get the rich detail found in Baum's book, but all the important stuff is here and it's a breezy and fun read. Recommended.

So, what did y'all think?


Next up, five comics published under the Image label, but retaining the individual copyrights of their creators, which I'll refer to as imprints below:

LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS

Writer: Mike Bullock
Artist: Jack Lawrence
Letterer: Dave Lanphear
Editor: Ron Marz
Imprint: Alias Enterprises, LLC

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

Given the title, I thought this was a good segue from the Oz books. It's a charming tale of a boy whose grandma gives him a set of "Night Pride" stuffed animals to guard his bed when he and his mother move away to a new neighborhood, and how those animals come to life at night and lead him on an adventure that involves saving a kingdom, rescuing a damsel in distress and all that good stuff. I loved this original and fanciful story, with its good plot turns, its strong female characters (two out of the four Night Pride animals are female but they're not drawn to any caricature of same, and the Grandma and Courtney, the kid from the new neighborhood, are both well realized), its charming, accessible art and its bright colors. Highly recommended. All four issues are out now, and will probably be collected into a trade paperback if you want to wait for that.

So, what did y'all think?


LULLABY: WISDOM SEEKER #1 through 3

Writers: Mike S. Miller and Ben Avery
Artist/Creator: Hector Sevilla
Colorists: Simon Bork, David Curiel and Ulises Arreaola
Letterer: Bill Tortolini
Editor: Mike S. Miller
Imprint: Alias Enterprises, LLC

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

The story, featuring another version of Wonderland's-Alice-grown-up, undoubtedly means well, but I think it's a case of too many cooks, particularly concerning the confusing art (manga-esque style without really having any manga storytelling flow; this is one you could not follow by just looking at the art alone) and oversaturated color (it took three guys to make it look that muddy?). It plays on a lot of fairy tale conventions and tries to tie together different fictional universes, but never gets to the point where you really care about the characters, and there are too many things going on at once and too much reliance on fight scenes (particularly concerning a pirate character and Pinocchio). As the characters all seem to be converging toward Oz, I'm interested enough in what happens next to keep buying it for myself, but I don't know that I'd recommend it to others.

So, what did y'all think?


THE IMAGINARIES: LOST AND FOUND PART 1

Writers: Mike S. Miller and Ben Avery
Pencillers: Mike S. Miller and Greg Titus
Colorist: Greg Titus
Letterer: Bill Tortolini
Editor: Mike S. Miller
Imprint: Alias Enterprises, LLC

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

The third entry from Alias, and another spin from the same writers as the abovementioned book, with much more accessible (though unpolished) art and colors that don't hurt the eyes nearly as much. This conceit is that there's a realm, called the Imagined Nation, into which all discarded playthings are thrust, from dolls to drawings to imaginary friends, and where they must learn to make new lives for themselves without the belief and help of their companion children. Both the real-world and imaginary world segments are paced nicely, and I look forward to seeing how the rest of the series plays out. I'd recommend at least giving it a flip-through at your local comic book store.

So, what did y'all think?


THE STARDUST KID
Book 1: The Two Boys

Writer: J.M. DeMatteis
Artist: Mike Ploog
Colorist: Nick Bell
Letterer: Dave Lanphear
Special thanks to Ian Feller
Imprint: Desperado Publishing

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

Speaking of unreal friends, this is a fresh look at one who proves not so much imaginary as alien – a shape-shifting imp who befriends young Cody DiMarco, much to the consternation of his family and former best friend Alana and to the apparent delight of the somewhat intrusive omniscient narrator who can't seem to tell a straight story. Marc DeMatteis' writing seems to try too hard to be clever, but the whimsy factor of Mike Ploog's art overcomes that for the moment. The two experiment with a few too many disparate storytelling styles for the book to have any coherence, but it certainly doesn't lack charm and magic. A professional if crowded effort, and I'll be curious to see whether the creators can get themselves together and go a bit more linear next time. Recommended with the aforementioned reservations.

So, what did y'all think?


BEYOND AVALON
Wanderlust, Parts 1 and 2

Writer: Joe Pruett
Artist: Goran Sudzuka
Letterer: Nate Pride
Colorist: Len O'Grady
Imprint: Desperado Publishing

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

This is a fairly standard heroic quest story, featuring as its protagonist the princess of Avalon, who leaves her home with a magic sword in search of her wandering father and the magical world to which he has returned, picking up what Neil Gaiman describes as "plot coupons" along the way. I want it to be a little better than it is (as with Desperado's other title reviewed above, part of the problem may be the lack of an editorial hand), but the pacing is fine so far, and Sudzuka's art is quite lovely (except for Megan's "spaghetti hair"), so I'll stick around to see how it all turns out.

So, what did y'all think?


THE GRIMOIRE #1

Writer: Sebastian Caisse
Penciller: Djief
Colorist(s): Kness
Lettering House: Hawke Studios
Published by Speakeasy Comics

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

Only very good stories can afford to start in media res, and this doesn't quite make it. It's interesting enough, and we do find out a bit about the protagonist about a third of the way into it, but we have to wade through a lot of confusion first. And the teeny tiny lettering and utter lack of line definition. I suspect this may be one of those "we don' need no stinkin' inkers, the coloring house can go over the pencils and it'll be just as good" titles, which of course are never just as good unless the penciller's among the best – but yes, you caught me out, I'm biased. Coincidentally, it also features a girl searching for her father, who's been imprisoned, with various companions and plot coupons along the way, only instead of a magical sword Amandine carries the titular book. In any case, it's pretty bog-standard but fairly unreadable to these old eyes, which is a shame because I want to like it, but the one-word creator names and by-committee feel and lack of editorial control just keep pushing me away. If I'm going to all the trouble to squint and read the thing, don't give me typos too, y'know? Guys, if you need an editor for this, I'm available; until then, I'm passing on future issues.

So, what did y'all think?


DREAM POLICE

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Artist: Mike Deodato
Colorist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Associate Editor: Warren Simons
Editor: Axel Alonso
Published by Marvel Comics

Here's what I thought…

Warning: May Be Spoilers Ahead

I don't know if Straczynski was inspired to do this Dragnet parody by Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' "Chronocops," but I wouldn't be surprised. Where the Joe Saturday of that story and his slowly-driven-mad partner Ed concerned themselves with time paradoxes, the Joe Thursday and his partner Frank in this tale help keep the peace in the dreamscape. Both stories are laugh-out-loud funny, with just enough gentle Webb mockery to get the point across before plunging ahead with the preposterous plots. (There's even a "continuity loop" gag that seems to be a Moore/Gibbons nod.) But while the pacing of "Chronocops" was rather frenetic (but hey, they only had five pages), DREAM POLICE takes a bit more time to flesh out its concepts and build up to the punchlines. Which means that even if you see them coming (loved the warm water bit!) you snicker at the setups. The only reason I'm putting this in with fantasy comics is because the dreamscape world itself is never explained (how could dreamers call the dream-cops to complain about their situations if they're not dreaming lucidly?) but must be taken as a given, but it's more a sitcom sketch than anything else, and a darn good one at that – which it should be, coming from such a seasoned TV scribe. I thought that Deodato & co. could have been sharper on the art, and the printing seems a bit dark, but the humor triumphs over most things… all except for the fact that I'll be a long time forgiving these people for getting that Cheap Trick earworm stuck in my head. Highly entertaining, and highly recommended.

So, what did y'all think?

Silly Site o' the Day

Maybe I'll finally get around to doing those comic book reviews today. We'll see. Meantime, via Xeni at BoingBoing, have a go at the Hobo Porn Film Name Generator.

Silly Site o' the Day

Okay, I'll admit it, the Flash animation from Planned Parenthood on how pregnancy happens is very amusing. (Via both PZ Myers and Amanda Marcotte.) But the host-type characters Vulva and Peter are, um, a bit not-work-safe. Besides which, it depressed me a bit, hearing a catalog of all the ways one can get preggers and never having been able to accomplish same...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Yeah, here's Datsa on my chair again.

He's shedding, too. I've petted him half the evening and I feel like I'm breathing in cat hair now.

He's extraordinarily affectionate when he wants to be rid of his extra hair.

But I don't mind. My workday wound up much better than I ever could have imagined; my boss was in a great mood and all my immediate "pending" stuff for him got done, so I can go into the weekend without anything bugging me.

Oh, I almost forgot, a bonus this week: via Atrios, it's Sadly, No!'s Catpocalypse Now...

Relief for London

Mayor Ken Livingstone announces the establishment, with the British Red Cross, of the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund.

Silly Site o' the Day

He's baaaack. I have utterly failed in my quest to be hired for another executive assistant position during my boss' European vacation, and therefore must now endure his mood swings, occasional abuse, and assumption that my secretarial job includes doing personal assistant work for him and his family as well as property management (all at no additional pay) for another seven weeks until he takes off again. Let's hope I have better luck with the job hunt in September. On the bright side, the commute is still wonderful, and I'd rather not be in a subway for awhile anyhow. And all my British friends and family are okay, which is the most important thing of all. So I think I have permission to smile again, and of course I needed to link to a UK silly site today, so here's a little ditty about a proposed national ID card sung to a Gilbert & Sullivan tune. Via Elaine at Kalilily Time.

Official Statements on London Bombings


G8 statement

Tony Blair's first speech

London mayor Ken Livingstone, plus his remarks on London's official website

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

MP George Galloway

Global leaders react

Rudy Guiliani, who was right near Liverpool Street Station at the time of the blast

From religious leaders:

Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury

Pope Benedict XVI's telegram sent by the Vatican

Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, president of the World Council of Churches

The Muslim Council of Britain

The Council on American-Islamic Relations

The Islamic Council of North America

Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth (scroll down, the statement isn't yet on his website)

London Calling

No Silly Site today. Rob woke up around 4 AM, not knowing why. Now we know. Our thoughts are with relatives and friends in the UK. Although he seemed visibly upset and perhaps in shock, Blair's little speech was no help at all, I thought. "We're going to reach the conclusions we were going to reach" (paraphrasing him discussing G8)? Oh, you mean the foregone ones? "Values" and "way of life" bullshit? Terrorist don't give a crap about values and way of life, that's straight out of Falling-Off-Bike Boy's limited vocabulary and worldview. And you can't "defeat terrorism" (that's why it's, you know, terrorism), you can only work to prevent its continued occurrence. And part of that is reassuring your people, not scoring political points.

Silly Site o' the Day

Because nothing is an easier target than a celebrity who believes in a made-up religion (yeah, I know, they're all made up, but most of them don't have their founder on record as saying the best way to get rich was to start a religion), it's TomCruiseIsNuts.com (via Steve Gilliard).

Hey, You Got Comet Pieces in My Horoscope!

Will NASA's 4th of July fireworks restart the Cold War? Um, I'm thinking, no. Via Ang's Weird Ideas.

Silly Sites o' the Day

They make a very cute if creepy couple - the woman falling through the bubbles (via Augie DeBlieck) and the liquid man (via BoingBoing)...

Silly Site o' the Day

Happy Independence Day! Remember, loving your country and its ideals is not the same as supporting its current leaders, particularly if those leaders are doing things you consider anti-American and anti-freedom. Also remember to pay attention to what they do, not what they say; often people will scream "patriotism" the loudest (and seek to create scapegoats by casting others as the unpatriotic ones) when they need to cast a smokescreen over their own highly unpatriotic activities. Let us together cherish our diversity and freedom, and not let others force upon us their ideas of God and country, that we may continue to survive and function as a land with room for everyone's beliefs and hopes and aspirations. Oddly, I don't have a suitable Silly Site, but when I typed in "funny independence" on Google it gave me UFO Phil's site, so there you are... Update: Oh good, Desi found an appropriate cartoon for the day.

Podcasting from Iraq

You can access Christopher Albritton's initial Back to Iraq podcast either here at his blog or here via RSS. And stay tuned for Stuart Hughes podcasting from Beyond Northern Iraq.

Why Movie-Watching and Blog-Reading Sometimes Don't Mix Well

I've had an evening of Oz thanks to TMC TCM (yeah yeah, I own the stuff they showed except for the 1910 movielet, as well as the 14 Baum books, and the 19 Plumly Thompson books and about half the books Shanower has illustrated but, you know, it could be worse) and then I go to read some blogs and see this header from Atrios and I start singing to myself the first line of a MadKane-type song parody, "Frog-March Down Yellowcake Lane..."

Silly Site o' the Day

No, no Bear Mountain today after all - it's not that humid outside but it's still too hot for me to want to be out there. Besides, it's 1 PM already and I've yet to accomplish anything beyond cooking breakfast and lunch, and I had wicked insomnia last night so I'm still kind of groggy. Fortunately, Robin's around to make it all better, and speaking of which, can you tell who in these pictures is having sex and who isn't? I found it quite difficult, since pornography (which is pretty much the only time one sees others having sex) tends not to focus on people's faces all that much. Via blogAmy.

Our Generation's Benedict Arnold

Greg Saunders on the unsurprising revelation that "Karl Rove is the man who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent who specialized in weapons of mass destruction ." I'm sorry, what exactly are they defending in Rove's "slime and defend" agenda? It certainly isn't America. And now I guess we know why O'Connor timed her retirement announcement the way she did, and why this news was released on a Saturday of a holiday weekend.

Maintenance Note

For those of you who still click to visit this blog rather than reading it via Bloglines or another RSS aggregator, the page should load a lot more easily now. I've gotten rid of a couple graphics on the sidebar which weren't loading because, among other things, the pages to which they linked no longer exist. Also, the WebRing thingie at the bottom of the text is gone because that picture no longer loaded either. I liked it there because it was so large that it often helped helped even out the content with the bottom of my sidebar design when I didn't have a lot of text, but I think I'll just rely on more photoblogging to do that now. :)

Silly Site o' the Day

No plans for what's supposed to be lovely holiday weekend weather; I'd love to do something outdoors tomorrow that doesn't involve spending disposable income we don't have, going into Manhattan, dealing with fireworks or anything remotely faux-patriotic. Maybe we'll take in Bear Mountain State Park, that's not too far a drive and it's got a lot of cool Revolutionary War tie-ins. Today of course is the airing of the Live-8 concerts (for Rob) and Monday is the annual viewing of the 1776 DVD (for me). Or, you know, there's always sitting around and watching Thor get high. You know, he smokes enough of that and he'll think he's a god or something. Via Len Cleavelin.

Hey, Just Like in the Comics!

Mr. Not-So-Fantastic, I guess. Imperceptible male genitalia is about as much of a comic book art cliché as impossibly large fat glands in the mammary area and nowhere else. Via Judi Smith at Dave Barry's blog.

Ms. Litella Speaks

What's all this I hear about the Supreme Court ruling against Kato Kaelin? Why, I never! That adorable little freeloader has slept on his last guest couch as far as I'm concerned, and what's so wrong about that? It's not like he doesn't have any money coming in from being a D-lister on countless reality shows where he has, naturally, been a guest. Including a proposed show where spending weekends at other people's houses is all he does! Young man, sooner or later you need to learn that looks can't get you everything in life, you need to grow up, you must take respon-- what? What?... Kelo? Not Kato? Eminent domain? Ohhh, that's very different. Never mind!

Update: Goodbye to Sandra Day...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

First time trying Blogger's new image hosting! Guest kitties today. Cocteau and Seurat are Doc Technical and Lili's new kittens.

I couldn't decide which I liked best of the dozen pictures DocTech sent, so I'm posting two. Here's the second.

As we're wont to say in the Riggs Residence, "cutenessim!" (And I like Blogger's image hosting, the uploading is wicked fast! Even though, as I just discovered, the pictures don't always show up on Bloglines...)

Silly Site o' the Day

White Rabbits! Here's one now, in what Cory at BoingBoing calls an eco-hipster bunny game sponsored by Honda.