Highway 62

Here's where my age isn't feeling like a disadvantage. See, I was nine when STAR WARS came out. And I was a full-metal geek at the time, so not only do I remember the world before STAR WARS, but I remember geekery before STAR WARS. No, seriously. I spent an entire summer reading and dissecting THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION FILM by Jeff Rovin (tried to verify the title, but couldn't as of the time of this writing), after having watched a good percentage of the films referenced on countless Saturdays (sandwiched between reruns of Irwin Allen television programming). I can clearly remember a time when there were NO Star Wars based toys, even after the movie had come out. Hell, it took Kenner until the following Christmas to get *FOUR* figures to market, and you had to buy them all at the same time in a gift pack.

No blister packs.

No Han Solo.

No obscure character that appeared in the background once and is the only figure you could find two weeks after the new line was released (General Riekkan, I'm looking at you here.)

Continue reading "A World Without Star Wars" »

Posted by Matt M. at 07:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

THE BEAT-Disney Dos and Dont's

Ever wonder if we're living in a novel written by Dilillo or Pynchon? Wonder no longer! A Hamas-sponsored Mickey Mouse clone exhorts kids to grow up strong and spearhead the revolution. I can't make this stuff up, but I wish I could.

(Nicked from Heidi, because some folks reading this don't read The Beat on a regular basis.)

Posted by Matt M. at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The above essay was posted a little bit late, somewhat my fault. It's fallen off of the front page of Dark, but Shining, and I felt that giving it a little link-love here wouldn't be untoward. Anyways, if you like seeing "non-horror" movies addressing horror, you'd do worse than giving my babblings wrt CHINATOWN a once-over.

Posted by Matt M. at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And in continuance of the Grant Morrison video love fest (potentially not legal depending on community standards where you hail from) comes footage of GMo (oh, don't tell me you didn't see that coming) at DisInfoCon2000. Courtesy LinkMachineGo!.

Posted by Matt M. at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's something you don't see every day. Color gun-camera footage taken from WWII, recently declassified. The link I came to this from said it was from P-40s, but I didn't think that the Warhawk got a lot of use outside of the Pacific Theatre. Anyways, take a look at antique air combat.

Posted by Matt M. at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I give you: The Best UFO Pictures Ever Taken. I used to be quite the UFO buff when I was a kid (it was all over the place in the '70s before STAR WARS mania swept the nation. Most of these, I recognize instantly, many as fakes, some as lenticular clouds, others as reflected light. Mostly they make me feel nostalgic for UFOlogy before it got mainstreamed by X-FILES and the like.

Posted by Matt M. at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My schedule didn't allow for me to post a special double-sized 100th anniversary post on the Solstice, and it's unlikely I'll be able to get a real post up before Christmas, since I'll be on the road tomorrow, and really should be packing and wrapping presents right now. I'm a bad blogger, but then I'd rather be remembered for my comics writing than for my writing about comics, dig?

I'd like to wish a merry Christmas to everyone out there. Don't see a big deal in it. Christmas has been a secularized holiday for a long time, and wasn't anything more than a shot at pulling pagans into the fold by putting The Big Day right next to the old Saturnalia celebrations. I don't have time to list them all here, but maybe if I time this right. Deep breath.

Merry Christmas to Graeme, Heidi, Jeff, Ed, Marc, Joseph, Steve, Luis and Estudio Haus, Layman, Mr. Beaucoup, Dave Longbox, Josh, Guy, I Love Comics, Hannibal (who'll probably punch me for doing so), Mikester, Dorian, John Grotesqueanatomy, Dan Slott and Grant Morrison who are the only writers who understand why I still read superhero comics, All the lovely folks who've reviewed and said nice things about Strangeways, Fábio and Gabriel, Uncle Lar, James and the Isotope crew, Joe Keatinge, Johanna, Shawn, everyone else I've forgotten, and you, the anonymous reader who never leaves a comment, but your IP address is mine all mine...

Maybe next year I'll be able to do individual cards, but that ain't happening this year.

May the new year find you all well and successful in your fields of choice, whether that's being outraged by what's going on in comics or making up stuff to outrage those people. And who knows, maybe I'll even have a book out by this time next year.

Take care, all.

Posted by Matt M. at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Courtesy , comes the story of the development hell suffered by Superman V, which the next Superman flick will be, technically.

Read and be amazed. http://www.agonybooth.com/forum/topic2730.htm. Just mind boggling.

Posted by Matt M. at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some work that I put together for the new site. Much as I'd like to run it full size, I'll have to shrink it down.

Yes, I like duotone effects. Yes, I'm predictable.

Posted by Matt M. at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The 1953 version of War of the Worlds re-enacted by bunnies. The original was one of my favorite end-of-the-world movies when I was a kid and I cackled in glee more than once at this fractured retelling.

Posted by Matt M. at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The 1953 version of War of the Worlds re-enacted by bunnies. The original was one of my favorite end-of-the-world movies when I was a kid and I cackled in glee more than once at this fractured retelling.

Posted by Matt M. at 07:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Got back from watching The Incredibles a couple of hours ago. If you've seen the movie, then you might guess where this is going. If you haven't, then you better stop reading, because there's spoilers aplenty. No, really. Turn back now.

Superhero comics fans who felt safe and secure in the knowledge that the subgenre was safe in the loving hands of the comics medium probably watched previous attempts to bring superheroes to the screen with a bit of smugness. Sure, Superman the movie was limited by bluescreens and wires and model shots that didn't look all that great. And as time passed, these fans could retain that security. Movies simply didn't have the imaginative power to threaten the comic book as the delivery vehicle of choice for superhero fiction. Even in the last few years, with the onslaught of superhero titles, the comics fan could probably take solace in the fact that cutting from real actors to digital effects (no matter how good they were) still broke some of the verismilitude (bet that's spelled wrong). And animated superhero offerings roundly sucked. Let's be honest. The Saturday morning programs were produced on less than a shoestring and looked worse than most of the comics they drew inspiration from.

But the gloves are off now. The Incredibles outdoes not only the live-action superhero films, but a good chunk of the superhero comics out there in terms of story, design, action, and inventiveness. It really is a wonderful film, with a solid and involving story at its base. Which is the first part that it get right, but far from the last. It's nearly pitch-perfect in its delivery (though I found some of the cape-catastrophes to be a little out of step with the overall tone, including the one that does in The Syndrome [like he's really dead]). And yes, the people talking about how much it took from Watchmen aren't making that part up (not to mention Superfolks, which I haven't read to judge). Even with such grim undertones, The Incredibles is still a family-oriented comedy that delivers character and action with its own visual style.

One thing that movies can do far better than books or comics or nearly any other form is the portrayal of motion and action. Yes, painting has made attempts, but those are almost always poetic and abstract. Delivering literal and concrete action requires the ability to deliver motion. That's what film does. And now the barrier between imagination and getting that imagination on the screen has been removed (okay, except for that niggling little thing about hundreds of thousands of man hours, equipment and millions of dollars, but before today it was flat IMPOSSIBLE). You thought the comparisons between Spider-Man and X-Men and the titular comics was bad? That's nothing. Once audiences get a taste of what's possible, that will become the standard.

Movies have finally levelled the wall between themselves and the one genre as a whole that comics could claim (for good or for ill) for themselves. Now comics have to worry about doing what they do best, and can't simply try to get along as storyboards for movies that haven't been shot yet. You think that by getting a hotshot artist to draw stuff that's too expensive to shoot will set you apart? I don't think so. Comics, and especially superhero comics will need to concentrate on the strengths of the medium: the ability to bestow importance to instants, the ability to shift back and forth along narrative lines, juxtaposition and ability to deliver a unique (collaborative) vision. And it needs to worry about telling compelling stories, not limping along on character recognition/cults with occasional crossover events to boost interest. Comics need to worry about being their own medium and not merely trying to bogart the surface flash of another (and one that does a better job of it.)

And whoever's working on the Fantastic Four movie sure has their work cut out for themselves now. The bar has been raised immeasurably, in terms of conceptualizing the powers of the various characters. Particularly Elasti-Girl/Mr. Fantastic. The Incredibles shows how that set of powers can be used visually and dynamically in ways that simply haven't happened on the comics page in some time. It'll be interesting to see how many members of the public regard the Fantastic Four film as a mere rip-off of The Incredibles. I bet it'll be more than a few.

Posted by Matt M. at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)