Whelp, I'm back from vacation and all in one piece. I'm a bit shell shocked, but all in all it was a good time.
I'm not one of those people who really gos on vacation. I more survive them. My home life is driven from project to project so when I hit a vacation that I can't spend in front of the computer I'm kind of at a loss.
However, my dearly beloved explained to me that my mother in-law put a lot of work into setting up this vacation, so my other option was to be in kind of a wheelchair, so vacate I did.
The big problem was, we vacated to a dead zone. No phones, no lights no motorcars, and no Internet. That means no real way to do any writing.
I hate writing with a pen. My hand writing is a scrawl and it's sooo slow! And once I'm back amongst the living, I have to transcribe it back into the computer.
With writing on mashed up trees as a failure, I tried using a small laptop. That kind of dominates the landscape and emphasized how much I'm ignoring my family. Not smart for this wheelchair phobic. I needed something sneaker.
How about my phone? It's got a 2 gig chip, supports text messaging and can hide in my hand. Could I use that?
Nope! My phone does allow memos, but they have to be less than 100 characters. Let me repeat that. My crappy phone, with 2 gig available, won't even let you save a memo as long as a Twitter "tweet"! Thrilling.
I know! I could use it as a voice recorder! Yea, I could do that. When I write I tend to talk out what I'm writing anyway. I'll just talk into my phone and record everything!
Unfortunately, with my current phone I have to shout to be heard. Every time inspiration hit, my in-laws would hear me shouting to my invisible friend who hides in my hand.
Now my in-laws think I'm nuts.
I can live with that, but I also got to play with writer's block. Such fun.
Actually, it a weird sort of way I don't mind writer's block. At least I don't mind having it once I've overcome it. It's kind of like the old saw about smacking yourself with a hammer because it feels so good once you stop. I sorta go through that.
As you may or may not know, I used to write for a comic strip called "Paranoia High" (Check it out.) It was a lot of fun and Dave (the artist) is a friend of mine.
After a while Dave took over the writing and I went on to fame as a geek blogger on them Internet tubes.
To make a long story short, we fade the mics and queue the organ and it's a year or so later and I'm back to writing the strip. Huzzah! The only problem is, can I still write the strip? Not May I, Can I?
Ya see, when Dave consolidated the strip, I gave him a list of the ideas I had at the time. No big deal, I have the list around somewhere and Dave has it too. But old ideas aren't enough. Can I come up with new ones?
I could feel the tightening grip of initial dread. What if my last creative idea was really my LAST CREATIVE IDEA!?!? You civilians don't savvy the pain we creative types go through when we birth forth art and stuff.
How can I explain it? It's like Paris Hilton waking up and finding out her butt has run off and joined the Peace Corps. No tush? No job! Writing is like that, except Paris's butt is our ideas.
Hopefully that image will help you develop an appreciation for the written word.
That analogy would have worked much better if it were a breast joke, but I couldn't think of any famous current women who are know for their big racks. Maybe Micheal Jackson, but he's dead.
Ms Proust is know for her rack, but she's a character in "Paranoia High". You really should check it out. (Note the reoccurring motif, that's the art baby!)
So I started running through ideas. Film strips? I think that's from the old list. Standardized tests? Nope, the old list. How about exploding frogs? Damn! School Principal Mike Ducacus? Whoa! Wrong decade!
It was looking pretty bleak for new strips, but I stayed with it. Football? Feral students? Sentient lunch meat? Damn! Damn! Damn! How about Hall Monitors?
Hall Monitors? Not on the old list. Hmm. Uniforms, Tazers, RoboCop, Juntas? Yea. Add "Hall Monitor" to the new list.
After that things started to roll. Walmart vs the school store? New! Texting NORAD? Brand spanking new! "Shakespeare: The Musical!" Oh yea baby. We're back in action!
Why are the in-laws looking at me?
Oh yea, I'm shouting at my fist.
They really think I'm nuts.
I gotta get a new phone.
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The Watchmen are ... Old.
I went and saw "The Watchmen" movie last night. It was an interesting experience.
First, to get my propers in.
I'm a middle age guy who's been reading comic books most of his life. I love the medium, I love adventure stories and I think people who can't deal with pictures in their story books are idiots. I'm a nerd, but I'm a literate nerd.
When "The Watchmen" came out, it was a series of 12 comic books that told one well written story. It had a beginning, built really well and had an OK ending. A serialized novel in the best tradition. Not bad.
But what made it ground breaking was the time it was printed. This was the mid 80s. Comic books had become banal. Before "The Watchmen" Batman fought "Cavity Creeps". After, "My Pretty Pony" had abortions. Actually, everyone had abortions and scabies and the heartbreak of psoriasis. Watchmen was first, but everyone followed.
That was 20 years ago. A lot has passed since then. The new cynicism of the 80s was replaced by the cartoon cynicism of Dennis Leary was replace by the parody of Steven Colbert. We're not really buying it anymore.
The "Dark Hero" is pretty much the norm in movies now a days. Even though they drew it from "The Watchmen" the clones made it to the silver screen first. As a move, "The Watchmen" is a copy of itself.
Overview
Some books can be translated almost directly into a move. "The Maltese Falcon" is an example. Take the book, have the actors read from it and you pretty much have a movie. Other books, like say, "The Bible" are going to require a bit of editing if you're going to pull in the popcorn crowd. Unfortunately for the director, "The Watchmen" falls into the second category.
While not particularly long by book standards, the novel spends a lot of time getting into the heads of half a dozen characters and taking the reader for a ride. That was one of the things the made the novel so good. People who enjoyed it don't talk about the plot, they talk about who they liked and disliked.
To invoke the same feeling, a director would need to film the graphic novel, giving plenty of time for each characters and make a 14 hour movie. Not many people will sit there eating Ju-Ju-Bes for 14 hours.
The second option is to forget the depth of the novel and concentrate on making a movie. Either make it more plot driven and trim back the character's emo, or trim back the number of characters. It's counter-intuitive, but to get closer to the feel of the novel they needed to deviate farther from it.
Unfortunately the director tried to have it both ways and it only sorta worked. They spent a lot of money for "sorta".
Details, From Good to Bad.
Patrick Wilson was perfect as Nite Owl. I was really impressed by his acting and how solid his whole performance was. Unfortunately, solid performances like that are often overlooked when they share a stage with a big blue CGI penis.
The rest of the cast was good. I though Jackie Earle Haley was very good as Walter Kovacs, and OK as Rorschach.
As for layout, a lot of the shots came right out of the comic book. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it don't. Either way it makes the fanbois (myself included) happy.
The special effects were lots of CGI. Wowie Zowie and all that rot.
Ozymandias was inane. I don't blame Matthew Goode, he had nothing to work with. Ozymandias was an embarrassingly bad character in the novel and the movie made him worse.
The most clueless decision made by the director was to give the caped vigilantes real super powers. They could do things like punch holes in bricks and jump so high that It looked like they could fly. Huh? The whole point of this was that people didn't have powers. They were just regular people. Regular people can't walk the streets dealing out justice. That's called assault.
There were a lot of little tweaks to the dialog that didn't seem to add anything. If you haven't read the novel you won't notice it, but that kind of stuff drives me crazy.
Egress
The Watchman movie isn't a bad movie. It's not a great movie either. It is out of it' time. What made the Watchmen special is long over, which is probably a good thing.
As an experiment, I've decided that I'm going to the comic shop and pick up a bound reprint of the comic books that I read 20 years ago. I want to see how much of what I remember was never in the novel, how much has been beaten to death by 2 decades of imitation, and how much doesn't work when read by a 48 year old man.
It's going to be interesting.
First, to get my propers in.
I'm a middle age guy who's been reading comic books most of his life. I love the medium, I love adventure stories and I think people who can't deal with pictures in their story books are idiots. I'm a nerd, but I'm a literate nerd.
When "The Watchmen" came out, it was a series of 12 comic books that told one well written story. It had a beginning, built really well and had an OK ending. A serialized novel in the best tradition. Not bad.
But what made it ground breaking was the time it was printed. This was the mid 80s. Comic books had become banal. Before "The Watchmen" Batman fought "Cavity Creeps". After, "My Pretty Pony" had abortions. Actually, everyone had abortions and scabies and the heartbreak of psoriasis. Watchmen was first, but everyone followed.
That was 20 years ago. A lot has passed since then. The new cynicism of the 80s was replaced by the cartoon cynicism of Dennis Leary was replace by the parody of Steven Colbert. We're not really buying it anymore.
The "Dark Hero" is pretty much the norm in movies now a days. Even though they drew it from "The Watchmen" the clones made it to the silver screen first. As a move, "The Watchmen" is a copy of itself.
Overview
Some books can be translated almost directly into a move. "The Maltese Falcon" is an example. Take the book, have the actors read from it and you pretty much have a movie. Other books, like say, "The Bible" are going to require a bit of editing if you're going to pull in the popcorn crowd. Unfortunately for the director, "The Watchmen" falls into the second category.
While not particularly long by book standards, the novel spends a lot of time getting into the heads of half a dozen characters and taking the reader for a ride. That was one of the things the made the novel so good. People who enjoyed it don't talk about the plot, they talk about who they liked and disliked.
To invoke the same feeling, a director would need to film the graphic novel, giving plenty of time for each characters and make a 14 hour movie. Not many people will sit there eating Ju-Ju-Bes for 14 hours.
The second option is to forget the depth of the novel and concentrate on making a movie. Either make it more plot driven and trim back the character's emo, or trim back the number of characters. It's counter-intuitive, but to get closer to the feel of the novel they needed to deviate farther from it.
Unfortunately the director tried to have it both ways and it only sorta worked. They spent a lot of money for "sorta".
Details, From Good to Bad.
Patrick Wilson was perfect as Nite Owl. I was really impressed by his acting and how solid his whole performance was. Unfortunately, solid performances like that are often overlooked when they share a stage with a big blue CGI penis.
The rest of the cast was good. I though Jackie Earle Haley was very good as Walter Kovacs, and OK as Rorschach.
As for layout, a lot of the shots came right out of the comic book. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it don't. Either way it makes the fanbois (myself included) happy.
The special effects were lots of CGI. Wowie Zowie and all that rot.
Ozymandias was inane. I don't blame Matthew Goode, he had nothing to work with. Ozymandias was an embarrassingly bad character in the novel and the movie made him worse.
The most clueless decision made by the director was to give the caped vigilantes real super powers. They could do things like punch holes in bricks and jump so high that It looked like they could fly. Huh? The whole point of this was that people didn't have powers. They were just regular people. Regular people can't walk the streets dealing out justice. That's called assault.
There were a lot of little tweaks to the dialog that didn't seem to add anything. If you haven't read the novel you won't notice it, but that kind of stuff drives me crazy.
Egress
The Watchman movie isn't a bad movie. It's not a great movie either. It is out of it' time. What made the Watchmen special is long over, which is probably a good thing.
As an experiment, I've decided that I'm going to the comic shop and pick up a bound reprint of the comic books that I read 20 years ago. I want to see how much of what I remember was never in the novel, how much has been beaten to death by 2 decades of imitation, and how much doesn't work when read by a 48 year old man.
It's going to be interesting.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Getting real with "The Joker".
It may come as a shock to you all, but I'm kind of into comics. A computer nerd AND a comic nerd? What are the odds!
For those who don't follow comics, about 20 years ago a 12 issue miniseries called "The Watchmen" came out. It was gritty, it was profitable, it was copied. Whoo boy was it copied!
Unfortunately it was copied badly. In the Watchmen reality the heroes get shot and villains get sent to jail. The heroes stayed dead and the villains wait for parole. Close enough for Jazz.
In Watchmen copy world, heroes get shot, kicked, spit on and get their cars stolen. Villains get laid.
Not quite the same thing is it?
Let me give you an example: Reality Batman Vs Reality Joker.
In the DC world, Batman was recently killed. Bruce Wayne ate some raw oysters in a month with an "r" in it or some such nonsense and now he's tits up in the morgue.
This is the highlight of his life as of late.
He's also been accused of being a child molester, had a pile of Robins killed, got his spine snapped, his stately manor burned to the ground and ended up playing second fiddle to the villain in all of his movies. No wonder he's such a grouch!
We all know that he's going to come back in a year or so. It always follows the same script.
Once the novelty wears off things will get back to normal. We know it. We wait for it. We expect it.
But this dog pile of sadness only happens to the heroes. They never take a major dump on an A-list villain. I'm not talking dropping some unremembered fad based villain like "The Rubic's Cuban" (the commie puzzler!) I'm talking about a five star Alpha-Male villain.
I elect "The Joker!"
For the last few decades Batman has been little more that the Jokers butt monkey. All the biggest Batman movies have really been Joker movies. The best Batman graphic novels have be Joker based. Best Batman cartoon voice? Mark Hamill's Joker from "Batman: The Animated Series".
The writers wizz on Batman constantly. Batman has Robin. The Joker gets Harley. Robin is cute, but Harley puts out! No wonder the Joker is always smiling.
Batman spent his entire life studying to be Batman. He know Bat-fu and is rich and has tons of cool Bat crap. I get that.
Superman is strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Ok.
The Joker... is a dick. That's it. He's a dick. He shows up one day, stops at the Good Will for a lavender jacket, acts like a dick and he's running with the big boys.
Let's get real on his ass.
Before we can smack down the Joker, we need a hero in his league.
Joke vs Superman? It would be one punch and then a large stain. Joker can't hang with the S-man.
Joker vs Batman? Who's going to give Batman a banana when he's a good butt monkey? Nah. Batman has "issues" with Joker. And by "issues" I mean he's a butt monkey.
Wendy and Marvin from the Super Friends? Maybe. They all have the same fashion sense. Up no. They had Wonderdog. Wonderdog was retarded, but he was a big dog and a big dog is more than a match for the Joker's bad fashion sense. Hell, Gleek could probably kick the Joker's ass.
Hmmm.
I make up, and nominate "Melvin Palmowitz", better known as "The Completely Normal Guy."
Here's the origin: Melvin works at a toll booth up on the Gotham interstate. One day someone gives him a quarter with a Joker face on it. Melvin says "Hey, this isn't president Obama, what's the deal?"
It turns out to be a "Joker Quarter". (You know you have a good police force when escaped criminals have time to mint coins.) The Joker says that he sells them on late night infomercials and now Melvin has to be his new butt monkey because Batman keeps dieing and getting crippled.
Everywhere Melvin goes, he sees the Joker grinning and looking threateningly at his children and making sawing signs on his throat when ever Melvin goes to stroke his pet alpaca (The Lockport Alpaca, come for the wool, stay for the mullet!)
The police are, of course, oblivious to all this. It's not like it's the 800th time the Jokers escaped. It's not like he's wearing a lavender jacket. It nothing like he's got a pancake white face and is the most recognizable villain in the entire world. Nope. No Jokers here. Carry on!
So Melvin is forced to go along with the Joker's next zany plot to kill millions of Americans, most of which have guns and would shoot the Joker the first time they saw him, yet oddly, they don't.
Melvin is called to the warehouse where the Joker gets his evil shipments. FedEx can find the Joker, the cops can't.
The Joker is explaining his plans and dancing around and calling Melvin a butt monkey. Melvin is wishing that the Gotham police had higher entrance requirements.
Melvin sees a big pair of scissors sitting by the shipping receivable receipts. He picks up the scissors, sneaks up behind the Joker and stabs him in the neck. No big speeches. No fancy Vulcan neck stab. Just a plain old American puncture, the way god wants a neck stabbed!
The Joker, being a dick in a lavender jacket, is not known for his stab proof neck. He gets a "Did you? Are those scissors in my neck?" look on his face, and falls over dead.
Melvin, realizing he is no longer a butt monkey, wipes off his finger prints from the scissors, drives home and pets his wife and alpaca. We never hear from Melvin again! The Joker says dead!
There's no way Melvin would get caught. The cops show up and see Joker dead. They're happy! They're hanging around the crime scene singing and dancing and putting funny hats on the Joker's corpse. The Joker has killed something like 1000 cops at one time or the other. They're not going to lift a finger to find his killer.
What would Batman do? Cry? Would he swoop in and threaten stoolies until he was too pooped to swoop? That wouldn't get him anywhere. What do stoolies know about toll takers?
He could use his alleged amazing deductive powers. Deduct a way! Warehouses have millions of people tracking through them, and the cops won't stop doing a conga line around the stiff, so Batman's screwed.
Besides, doesn't Batman have other, bigger criminals to fail to catch. Maybe the Joker was killed by that probabilistic villain "The Rock/Paper and/or Scissor" (He'll kick your ass 1 out of 3 times.) Nope, it's just Melvin and a found pair of scissors.
Like it? I think if they're trying to make comics more "realistic" then this story works. The Joker is just a dick. Sometimes dicks get stabbed.
Really.
For those who don't follow comics, about 20 years ago a 12 issue miniseries called "The Watchmen" came out. It was gritty, it was profitable, it was copied. Whoo boy was it copied!
Unfortunately it was copied badly. In the Watchmen reality the heroes get shot and villains get sent to jail. The heroes stayed dead and the villains wait for parole. Close enough for Jazz.
In Watchmen copy world, heroes get shot, kicked, spit on and get their cars stolen. Villains get laid.
Not quite the same thing is it?
Let me give you an example: Reality Batman Vs Reality Joker.
In the DC world, Batman was recently killed. Bruce Wayne ate some raw oysters in a month with an "r" in it or some such nonsense and now he's tits up in the morgue.
This is the highlight of his life as of late.
He's also been accused of being a child molester, had a pile of Robins killed, got his spine snapped, his stately manor burned to the ground and ended up playing second fiddle to the villain in all of his movies. No wonder he's such a grouch!
We all know that he's going to come back in a year or so. It always follows the same script.
- First all the heroes will get to emo. All villains will have a drunken orgy.
- Then the heroes call each other names and fight over who gets to be the new Batman. The villains will make a YouTube video of zombie Batman having sex with zombie Robin.
- A few heroes will run around in a Bat suit and fight crime. A few of the villains will hire strippers to dress like Batman and slide up and down their Batpoles.
- None of the heroes will hit on Catwoman. All of the villains have already hit on Catwoman.
Once the novelty wears off things will get back to normal. We know it. We wait for it. We expect it.
But this dog pile of sadness only happens to the heroes. They never take a major dump on an A-list villain. I'm not talking dropping some unremembered fad based villain like "The Rubic's Cuban" (the commie puzzler!) I'm talking about a five star Alpha-Male villain.
I elect "The Joker!"
For the last few decades Batman has been little more that the Jokers butt monkey. All the biggest Batman movies have really been Joker movies. The best Batman graphic novels have be Joker based. Best Batman cartoon voice? Mark Hamill's Joker from "Batman: The Animated Series".
The writers wizz on Batman constantly. Batman has Robin. The Joker gets Harley. Robin is cute, but Harley puts out! No wonder the Joker is always smiling.
Batman spent his entire life studying to be Batman. He know Bat-fu and is rich and has tons of cool Bat crap. I get that.
Superman is strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Ok.
The Joker... is a dick. That's it. He's a dick. He shows up one day, stops at the Good Will for a lavender jacket, acts like a dick and he's running with the big boys.
Let's get real on his ass.
Before we can smack down the Joker, we need a hero in his league.
Joke vs Superman? It would be one punch and then a large stain. Joker can't hang with the S-man.
Joker vs Batman? Who's going to give Batman a banana when he's a good butt monkey? Nah. Batman has "issues" with Joker. And by "issues" I mean he's a butt monkey.
Wendy and Marvin from the Super Friends? Maybe. They all have the same fashion sense. Up no. They had Wonderdog. Wonderdog was retarded, but he was a big dog and a big dog is more than a match for the Joker's bad fashion sense. Hell, Gleek could probably kick the Joker's ass.
Hmmm.
I make up, and nominate "Melvin Palmowitz", better known as "The Completely Normal Guy."
Here's the origin: Melvin works at a toll booth up on the Gotham interstate. One day someone gives him a quarter with a Joker face on it. Melvin says "Hey, this isn't president Obama, what's the deal?"
It turns out to be a "Joker Quarter". (You know you have a good police force when escaped criminals have time to mint coins.) The Joker says that he sells them on late night infomercials and now Melvin has to be his new butt monkey because Batman keeps dieing and getting crippled.
Everywhere Melvin goes, he sees the Joker grinning and looking threateningly at his children and making sawing signs on his throat when ever Melvin goes to stroke his pet alpaca (The Lockport Alpaca, come for the wool, stay for the mullet!)
The police are, of course, oblivious to all this. It's not like it's the 800th time the Jokers escaped. It's not like he's wearing a lavender jacket. It nothing like he's got a pancake white face and is the most recognizable villain in the entire world. Nope. No Jokers here. Carry on!
So Melvin is forced to go along with the Joker's next zany plot to kill millions of Americans, most of which have guns and would shoot the Joker the first time they saw him, yet oddly, they don't.
Melvin is called to the warehouse where the Joker gets his evil shipments. FedEx can find the Joker, the cops can't.
The Joker is explaining his plans and dancing around and calling Melvin a butt monkey. Melvin is wishing that the Gotham police had higher entrance requirements.
Melvin sees a big pair of scissors sitting by the shipping receivable receipts. He picks up the scissors, sneaks up behind the Joker and stabs him in the neck. No big speeches. No fancy Vulcan neck stab. Just a plain old American puncture, the way god wants a neck stabbed!
The Joker, being a dick in a lavender jacket, is not known for his stab proof neck. He gets a "Did you? Are those scissors in my neck?" look on his face, and falls over dead.
Melvin, realizing he is no longer a butt monkey, wipes off his finger prints from the scissors, drives home and pets his wife and alpaca. We never hear from Melvin again! The Joker says dead!
There's no way Melvin would get caught. The cops show up and see Joker dead. They're happy! They're hanging around the crime scene singing and dancing and putting funny hats on the Joker's corpse. The Joker has killed something like 1000 cops at one time or the other. They're not going to lift a finger to find his killer.
What would Batman do? Cry? Would he swoop in and threaten stoolies until he was too pooped to swoop? That wouldn't get him anywhere. What do stoolies know about toll takers?
He could use his alleged amazing deductive powers. Deduct a way! Warehouses have millions of people tracking through them, and the cops won't stop doing a conga line around the stiff, so Batman's screwed.
Besides, doesn't Batman have other, bigger criminals to fail to catch. Maybe the Joker was killed by that probabilistic villain "The Rock/Paper and/or Scissor" (He'll kick your ass 1 out of 3 times.) Nope, it's just Melvin and a found pair of scissors.
Like it? I think if they're trying to make comics more "realistic" then this story works. The Joker is just a dick. Sometimes dicks get stabbed.
Really.
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