Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If a week goes by and I have failed to add you to the blog roll TELL ME TO DO IT AGAIN, and KEEP TELLING ME UNTIL IT GETS DONE. I can be lazy about updating the non-post parts of this site. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy (but now might not be). That is often the reason I fail to get back to people, and on a blog, after a few days, the comments thread dies and I just kind of forget about it. Let's use this space to fix that, because it does need to be fixed; I look like a jackass sometimes, leaving people hanging. I will TRY to respond to any questions here.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore. For example, if you thought of a great quote for the great quote commonplace book, but now no one is reading that, you could put it here.You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If you think your free form comment here might be better as its own post, but you do not want it to be public yet, email it to me. My email address is available on my blogger profile page. If I think it will work on this site, your post will be published here with your name in the title of the post. You can propose what you will, I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music and books.

If you think what you have to say -- new topic or comment on an existing topic -- would be better to hear than to read, use the CALL ME button on the toolbar on the right.

10 comments:

Patrick Sanders said...

"I will be adding to this pretty much forever."

And on that note-

Nothing from Astonishing?

Anonymous said...

I just picked up the third issue of Kick-Ass (having missed the second one)... and I think I kinda love it... Millar is reinventing Peter Parker for the 21st century... thoughts on this?

Also, just throwing it out there, Hancock? Do we think it will be any good? Can Will Smith recapture "Big Willie Weekend"

Oh, who's the guy that I talked REM with a while back? I just saw them last night in Raleigh... incredible set list... they played at least one song off of each album... including Chronic Town

James said...

Ugh, I was gonna say that I was (just barely) still on-board with Kick-Ass until #3. The continued coy racism and homophobia aside(!)*, all that bleating about the revolutionary realism of the really real-world setting (it's real), and what do we get? Kid Healing Factor and katana blades like lightsabers. And if I wanted to read Peter Parker being a self-centred tool, I'd read Brand New Day (heyo!).

But I still love John Romita Jr., and that character design.

*I'm counting the issues until the little boy from (the thus far thoroughly charming) 1985 calls Dr. Doom a "faggot" and Iron Man "not bad for a black dude".

Anonymous said...

Politically Correct Kick-Ass is not but, I mean, hasn't Peter Parker always been self-centered? Wasn't that kind of the point? A Superhero who also had the angsty issues of a lonely teenager?

I also just remembered something that I noticed about the first issue: Millar has stripped the hero of the typical trappings of a super-hero (powers, motivation) but he did leave one thing that the great archetypes all have... he's a lonely outsider. Superman's the last of his kind, Batman's an orphan, Spider-man is a nerd etc.

James said...

"hasn't Peter Parker always been self-centered? Wasn't that kind of the point?"

This is the contention of the new "Spidey Brain-Trust", but it's certainly not my memory. Maybe I've not read the right 60s issues, but my key frustration with Peter was always that he hardly EVER put himself first, and thus remained the lonely geek, despite his amazing new powers. Sure, he'd have the occasional bone-headed moment of hubris, like trying to beat up the FF so they'd hire him, but, for example: when he has the boxing match with Flash and accidentally cleans his clock, do we for a second feel bad for the orange-haired ape? Hell no! Jerk had it coming! The whole thing backfires because of ridiculously bad luck (Flash turns his head at the last second, Peter looks mean), not because Peter's being a dick.

Steve Ditko apparently said that Peter should've stayed 16 forever, because that's the oldest age at which you can make terrible decisions and be forgiven for it.* Going by this logic, the new Spidey-office has screwed up twice: they've only de-aged him to his early/mid-twenties, and he's currently way more irresponsible and selfish than he was as a teenager.

*Personally, I don't even agree with this thesis. I couldn't stick with a character that didn't learn from his mistakes, perpetual teen or no. See Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man for an example of how you can have a Peter that evolves whilst retaining the "soap opera" elements the main book is supposed to be shooting for.

Oh, yeah, Kick-Ass. I don't like the dumb parts.

Paul said...

"Oh, who's the guy that I talked REM with a while back? I just saw them last night in Raleigh... incredible set list... they played at least one song off of each album... including Chronic Town"

That was me. Awesome, that's one of my favorite bands that I've never seen live.

Jason said...

I've got a guest review of GeneXt #1 (Claremont's new X-Men series) at Matt Brady's blog, "Warren Peace Sings the Blues"!

http://warren-peace.blogspot.com/2008/06/vacation-guestblogstravaganza-jason.html

Anonymous said...

Paul,

Click the link to my myspace (over in Geoff's about me section to the right) to scope out the setlists. They opened with "Harborcoat" and Don Dixon and Mitch Ester Joined them to play "Sitting STill" and Johnny Marr guested on "Fall On Me" I figured it out and they played at least one song from EVERY album.

In other news, I just got a steroid shot to my eye and, while I'm a little sore, this should clear up the inflamation, this, of course made me think of Wertham and the "Injury to the Eye" motif in horror/crime comics. Speaking of Wertham, did anyone see the guy on Colbert last night? He has a book all about the whole 'comics scare' of the 1950's. The title escapes me right now but it could make for any interesting read.

Jason said...

The Ten-Cent Plague?

Anonymous said...

Jason,

Yup, that's the one!