Friday, January 26, 2007

Free Form Comments

Self-promote, make anonymous personal attacks, ask questions, make suggestions, post off topic thoughts, whatever. Now that I have written about the first five Morrison New X-Men issues, feel free to let me know if another 35 posts like that might be too much, or if you want to keep going.

In the announcement department I will be turning my posts on Frank Miller's Batman and the Grotesque into an essay in a collection on Batman for BenBella Books and the proofs for Imaginary Biographies have arrived from Continuum. On top of that I have a new class to teach that starts Monday and my supervisor's notes on my Oxford thesis arrived this morning. I am going to try and make sure that this new work does not interfere with the blog, but in case it does, you know why.

27 comments:

  1. Self-promotion: On my blog, I recently did some reviews of the Marvel Adventures line for younger readers. I covered three issues of Fantastic Four and the infamous all-MODOK issue of Avengers. Jeff Parker (the author of these and also Agents of Atlas) gave me a recommendation! You can check out the reviews here:

    http://warren-peace.blogspot.com/2007/01/parkerpalooza.html

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  2. Oh, and Geoff, I vote in favor of 35 more New X-Men posts.

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  3. Haha. I guess you're right about the "Just coming up with a reason" thing about the Civil War. I think you agree that a lot of it is pretty well written, but Captain America's ideaology in it doesn't make sense. It's like him saying, "You think Superheroes should undergo training and licensing, to insure that they are suitable protectors? NEVER!".

    A more more logical step would be them trying to outlaw superheoics, ala watchmen and the Incredibles. The only problem with that would be they couldn't get good guys to fight good guys.

    Actually come to think of it I could see the negative of Superheroes being employed strictly to the government. They couldn't bluntly do what was morally right. Thay'd have to do what the government told them what was right. Much like if a pilot is told to bomb a weapons factory that is in the middle of a city with innocence surrounding it. In a way it'd be similar to the concept of the Ultimates or The Authority. They'd be soldiers with superheroes, instead of Superheroes.

    Would you say that's pretty accurate reasoning?

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  4. Ditto. 35 more, please. I'm really enjoying them.

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  5. 35, 35, 35.

    Random question Geoff-- Have you ever made any attempt to contact Morrison? I'd just be interested to see what he thinks about the way you think he thinks.

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  6. matt: that is cool. Thanks.

    Pat: I do NOT agree that CW is well written -- for my review of issue 6 see the comments section of Comics Out 4 January 2007. And yes -- part of the fun of traditional superhero comics is seeing the good guys do what is right, even if what is right is illegal.

    Mitch: I have not contacted Morrison. I am not sure I would know what to say to him. I am a person sees judging stuff like comics to be a central thing; a personal contact with a creator makes it hard to be honest, hard to do what I think I do best.

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  7. Geoff, count me in for another 35. This weekend, I'm reading the first tpb again.

    My review of "Big Fat Little Lit", a compilation of comics by a wide variety of artists - aimed at younger audiences is up at:

    http://www.sequart.com/reviews/?review=1740

    Best of luck with all your new endeavors.

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  8. Check out the new itsallinyourhands promo - I'm experimenting with a new compresser so let me know if anyone has problems getting it to load:

    http://www.itsallinyourhands.com/movies/iaiyhpromo.mov

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  9. 35 fo sho... it gives me a cutoff date to sort my comics (will need the issues once we get past the 1st HC)

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  10. Geooff: Well let me rephrase that. CW is well done. Good Animation, Good Dialogue and such. Course, to work for DC/Marvel everything done must be well done.

    I think Spidey's side of things is good, but the story itself is stupid. Like I said. I could see it workin' if it had better build up, and a better premise, but really they approached Cap with the concept, he objected with lil' reason(though the one I gave is the most reasonable though he never states it). Iron Man agrees to it and starts mercilessly hunting down his best friends with-in days.

    Cou

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  11. Hey, are you going to write about last week's Studio 60? I'm interested to hear your take on it.

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  12. Well, Morrison would probably react very well to someone writing academically about his work. I know in an interview he cited Steven Shaviro's Doom Patrols with pride.

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  13. Darius: Aaron Sorkin had a chance to figure out what went wrong during the break and fix it and it did not happen. The Danny-Jordan thing is just like the Danny-Rebeca thing in Sports Night, but shown from the woman's perspective Danny comes off like a stalker, calling over and over, interrupting her life, changing his phone number to get through, calling from empty dark places alone (his house on New Years, the studio). This cannot possibly be what Sorkin in after, and yet it is hard to see how it is unintentional. Either way, it is not fun to watch. Jack was waiting reading a Chinese dictionary getting ready to speak and is very relieved that the guys wife speaks English -- was he really going to make a multi-billion dollar argument in broken dictionary Chinese if she didn't? And are we back to the cute Chinese girl and Jeeter? Again? Really? Sorkin has gone off the rails.

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  14. Has anyone here ever taken the Myers-Briggs personality test?

    I took the test and was declared an ENFP. Robin Williamsesque personality type. Reading the description, easily the most useless as far as feasible practicality.

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  15. I hate those damn Anonymousites. We should never have let them out of their ghettos. I hate their stupid buggy eyes and the way they always smell faintly like cabbage. Plus, whats up with them being so lazy! Or their obsession with tennis. Tennis sucks you freaks! Plus they take all the jobs. They should all be shipped back to Anonymousonia. Lousy Potatoheads...

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  16. Some(stupid)Questions

    1)Did you like the Superman Movies? Everyone seems to think they're good, but I thought they sucked. Mainly, because Luthor was portrayed as a evil real estate tycoon, with a complete dumbass plan. A fact they even made fun of in Singer's movie.

    2)Would you have a problem with Frank Castle if he was real, or if there a real life Punisher style vigilante? In a sense, that would you have anything against him slaughtering criminals. I personally think of it as he does when he's being honest. It doesn't make the world a better place, but it doesn't hurt it either.

    3) I believe statistically 25% of (grown) males have committed rape in some form. You think that assumition is accurate?

    4)Do you ever read any Phillip K. Dick?

    5) If there was a test that could accurately tell if someone was a sociopath do you think it'd be morally wrong to imprison and/or kill those her are found out to be sociopaths. Since they don't care about anyone, are total bastards, are dangerous, and uncurable.

    6) Do you swing both way?

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  17. I absolutely adore Morrisons New X-men run and I've loved reading your take on each book. I look forward to another 35.

    Also, I don't remember seeing your post anything on the Fountain (sorry to bring it up again if you did); it was just released here in Britain and I thought it was superb, I was curious how you felt about it.

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  18. I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the opening cinematic to World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, which you can download here. Blizzard has been making some staggeringly beautiful CG animation since Warcraft III, check it out even if you're not a gamer.

    Some studio or another has picked up the Warcraft license, but the only movie I'd be interested in seeing is one animated by these guys. Sadly, that would take a budget far bigger than anyone's gonna stump up for a video game adaptation. So at best we'll probably end up with a luke-warm Lord of the Rings imitation in live-action.

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  19. Jonathan: I have not taken it. Is it fun, or interesting.

    Pat: 1) honestly, I don't think about them much. 2) I don't want a guy with a gun killing "criminals" because I don't necessarily trust his definition of criminal. 3) I have no idea. 4) I have read a book or two. 5) I have a lot of stuff to do today and am going to avoid a hypothetical debate.

    Coligo: Didn't see it. Sorry. I know I should have.

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  20. Despite my totally platonic man-crush on Adrien Brody, I assure you I swing only one way-usually into a brick wall.

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  21. I saw The Fountain and loved it. I placed it in the #4 position on my top ten list for 2006 (you can read that list on my blog, if anyone is interested).

    As for Studio 60, I pretty much agree with you, Geoff. I saw the promos for that episode and thought it might be the point in which I quit watching the show. The romance aspects were terrible, but I am still interested in the other stuff. I wish Sorkin would stick with just showing the workings of the show (and the network, although I think he's focusing on the Amanda Peet and Stephen Weber characters too much), because I still find that stuff interesting. I'm planning on watching the next episode, but it's on probation; if it bugs me too much, I'm done with the show.

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  22. Oh, and I wanted to point this out to as many people as possible: I just found out that humorousmaximus.com is reprinting Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon comic strip from the 40's. Here's the site:
    http://www.humorousmaximus.com/cartoons/steve_canyon.php

    The first strip is on 1/22/07. It's really cool!

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  23. Damn you didn't answer that last one. Just to be clear, I'm guessing you might be gay, or bi, but I see nothing wrong with that. You seem like a good guy.

    So...You're a New Yorker Have you ever been to Fire Island? haha..eh..

    Also, I'm almost done reading Jeff Smith's Bone comic book series(55 single issues/12 graphic novels). Definately one of the best non-superhero comics ever made. Have you read any of it, if so what are your thought? Also what would you say your favorite non-superhero comics are?

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  24. I'm pimping myself like crazy here, but I just put up a project related to 100 Bullets on my blog, and I would love to hear some feedback or comments from any other fans of the series:

    http://warren-peace.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-think-ill-call-this-100-arrows.html

    Thanks!

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  25. Remember to watch the 6th installment of Satacracy 88 at itsallinyourhands.com this Wednesday!!!

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  26. Pat: I have not read much Bone. What I read was nice, but I was not in a hurry to read a phone book sized edition.

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