hulk smashed
Fantagraphics Books ad sales maven Matt Silvie is asking the important questions of our time.Not since the days of Fiore vs. Pekar re: Maus has a debate taxed the resources and time of our staff at The Comics Journal and Fantagraphics offices than now with the imminent release of That New X-Men Movie and Hulk Movie.and supporting his thesis with detailed arguments:Some of our staff members feel that, frankly, Hulk Movie will be of greater value, despite the fact that the pixellated looking Hulk character (the star of Hulk Movie) looks worse than Jar Jar (of Star Wars), in terms of not looking like a digital photoshop tiff file. I'm thinking at the end a pixellated looking Donkey Kong will show up and throw a barrell at Hulk which will explode and a non-computer animated Pac-Man (the Hannah-Barbara looking animation) will jump out and say "Psyche!"
For my money, That New X-Men Movie will be the greater of the two in terms of: artistic merit, lasting impression, drama, haunting realism and more cute girls.
Have you people from the "Pro-Hulk Movie" camp seen the finished preview trailer? There is a scene where the Hulk character picks up a photoshop tif file of a tank, grabs it by the gun turret-barrel thing and spins around with it and lets it go flying off in to the sky. It is the lamest thing I've ever seen in my life.I really hope that if I ever have to watch Hulk Movie the digital projection wont have those broken jpeg icons during the fight scenes. That would suck and I'd be all, "Aw man click refresh/reload!" That's me yelling at that projectionist.
stil kinda lascivious, if you like this sort of thing
Rock Bottoms, a lavishly (if not lasciviously) illustrated guide to bodacious bass babes. Features Weymouth, Valentine, Gordon, Roessler, Napolitano, Deal, Hatfield, Finch, Greenwood, der Maur, Yseult and many many more. I'd include pictures if it wasn't on Geocities...Gene Ha writes
Gene Ha writes:I just talked with Alan Moore on the phone today. He's had the flu lately, so send out those good vibes and prayers and such. He said it wasn't so bad, but he couldn't string words together on his word processor for a while.Keep in mind, he has a word processor, not a home computer. Like many brilliant writers a bit older than me, he doesn't like computers. Wildstorm has offered to buy him a fancy computer and pay for his ISP connection, but Alan isn't interested. I like that, frankly. Except that Alan can't email me his scripts as .doc or .txt files. I really hate fax technology.
Anyhoo, he assured me that he'll finish his run on all the ABC books before he takes his break from lycra S/M fetish comics (my name for the violent superhero genre). I expected as much from him, but it's nice to hear him say it.
And he confirmed he's going to destroy the ABC Universe. I thought he might have meant something metaphorical when I first heard of this plan. And so he did. But he also plans to destroy the world. He noted that most comics universes aren't really destroyed; they just run out of financing. Alan wants to be the first writer to purposefully destroy a line's whole world.
Alan's been writing at a madman's pace for almost seven years now. An artist who follows Alan's work closely says that Alan runs low on cash, then does some very commercial work. When he has enough cash and he gets bored with that, he does his experimental and edgy work. His experimental stuff can turn out to be commercially successful too (From Hell), of course.
We fans of "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" will be pleased to know that he still wants to keep writing LoEG projects after he stops writing ABC work. In truth, LoEG isn't really a part of the ABC stuff. I think it's the best action comic out today, so that makes me pretty damn happy. When I told him he'd chosen an ideal time period for LoEG, he said he feels free to set LoEG stories in any era. He could have just as much fun setting the stories in fictional futures instead of fictional pasts.
Also, Alan would be happy to let other writers or artists keep on writing ABC projects. While the ABC Universe will be well and truly killed off, stories set before the end are still possible. I'd love to see what Zander would do with a Top 10 story, and I'd love to draw it.
cooley blogs
The movie "Big" has been running over and over again on our cable channels these past couple months. I like that movie. Watching it now, though...I really woulda liked to have seen what happens to Josh when he goes back to being a kid again. He's probably the smartest 13 year old in the world, experience-wise. Does he go and charm the shit out of that hottie he has a crush on? Does he want to fuck her since he's not a virgin anymore? Is it harder for him to hang out with other kids his age because he's now more mature mentally? And how does he explain to the police where he's been for the previous months? I dunno.and
Some girl wrote this on some comics message board:posted at 13:54, 5/05/2003 | Comments (0)"Still-- fictional characters are fictional. I currently have a big crush on the Jason X-12 character in James Kochalka's diary strip and I'm sure I wouldn't like the real-life Jason at all."
Story of my fucking life.
jon writes from the new offices
"I am in ultimo. it's really weird, everything is shiny. i have been temporarily placed at a desk in cataloguing because someone abruptly took a redundancy yesterday. all her stuff is still here. it's only temporary accomodation but there aren't enough desks in research. it's like being in a cafeteria, loud echoey clattering and chattering from all around and a strange light from high-up windows."and
"um...hello?! what's going on over there? i need the comfort of the familiar! i am having a panic attack! plus I have that song "Rosanna" by Toto stuck in my head. it's not that bad a song I guess.
"Coming here was weird today. Being on the train with all those other people dressed all fancy, coughing SARS germs everywhere. Walking along the tunnel from the station to here I closed my eyes and listened to the clop clop clop of women's heels on the floor, it sounded like some slow motion pony stampede. there are stores that sell things. i could have bought women's sportswear on the way here. or a sausage roll. there are people on the street playing music.
"sound carries too much in this new office. i can hear voices from afar as though they were right next to me."
schoolbus crash
The rock band James Kochalka Superstar like to play illegal rooftop gigs, getting their get back on. Here's a video of guitarist Jason X-12 falling over while posing for the camera, and still managing to finish delivering the rawk while lauging at himself.
because the CD finished while I was driving
Just heard on the way back from Villawood: Throbbing Gristle (Hot On The Heels Of Love), Dntel, and Tricky Disco. Hooray for the radio! Go on and give it some money."Bush's blitzkrieg bop"
Grauniad:...But London-based Jonny L claims there was no political message behind the tune. He says he sampled Bush because he found his voice so amusing: "The guy sounds like he's running a little school or something, not making decisions that affect all of us."He added: "He speaks at the perfect speed for drum'n'bass - about 181 beats per minute. In the past I've had nightmares getting various singers to fit with the beats, but everything he [Bush] said was on the beat."
Lawgiverz agree that the president's voice is tailor-made for sampling. "He speaks so slowly and with that Texas drawl," Nick Noize, one half of the duo, says. "It really lends itself to being cut up. We hardly had to do anything to get it sounding good."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bush Jr is once again following in dad's footsteps. Back in 1992 the KLF blended Bush Sr's Gulf war rhetoric with the theme from Star Wars on America No More, the b side to their last record America (What Time Is Love?)...
jon continues to write
"Chester come to school and said,"Durn, I growed another head."
Teacher said, "It's time you knowed:
The word is 'grew' instead of 'growed.'"
"is a poem i liked when i was a kid. it had next to it a picture of a kid
(presumably chester) with a head growing out of his head.
"for lunch i was in a hurry. i wandered out onto the street and for the first
time in a long time had a feeling reminiscent of being on a street in Manhattan.
Harris Street. I turned right onto Ultimo Road and went around near Paddy's
Markets, where i wandered into a noodle shop. A nice guy came up and said "you
want menu?" I said I just want a quick lunch. He said "Okay, very quick! What do
you want?" I said "What's good?" He said "Beef noodle." I said fine. So shortly
thereafter I took my beef noodle soup back to here and to the Dot Strong terrace
and consumed it and it was indeed quite good. otherwise my job mostly seems to
consist of having urgent problems thrown at me and trying to resolve them. there
are many problems with the feed. for one thing, the only one-inch tape machines
left in the *** are in the dub shop. But the dub shop cannot do feeds. it is
therefore impossible to send anything via feed that is on a one-inch tape. Jake
says this is classic *** management logic: half our collection is on one-inch
tape so let's get rid of almost all our one-inch tape machines.
"there have been all kinds of other crazy things. i keep having to go to the News Relay Exchange (which I don't really understand what happens there) where I talk to a sleepy British chick who's really quite foxy and stands close to you and is always tired, she says she has too much fun and doesn't sleep enough. then a voice on a loudspeaker says "PROFILE 24." Her eyes widen and she looks completely bewildered. then she presses a button and says "24?" and the voice says "just letting you know, I'm starting the Focus supers now." the sleepy british chick looks at me, shaking her head, like she has no idea what is going on, then pushes a couple of buttons on the console. i am supposed to rely on her to get feeds sent and received. so far i have not had any luck.
"at **** **** it always was a pain how far i had to go to do stuff. running up and down the halls and up to "videotape" and down again. here it's twice as far! and the elevators take FOREVER to come. there are those stairs in the big middle part but for some reason no stairs to go from 3rd floor to 1st floor. well there are some, but in a weird place.
"it's lonely eating lunch alone. "
Monday Conference - Frank Zappa, 30/06/1973
"If, er, there is such a thing as an electric underground, a counter-culture of decibels, our guest tonight amplifies all that is /most/ about it." Zappa uses his enormous brain to terrify his 'middle-class audience of one' and a horde of dirty hippies.
the advance of technology is now complete
Download and install the Mark E Smith font for your comput-ah!"The KLF - were they justified?"
Long career summary and analysis here (for the moment - the permalink doesn't work, so I couldn't use it).
from this week's Popbitch
When Leonardo Di Caprio was in London earlier this year, he took a shine to a lapdancer in a club he was visiting.andThey ended up having sex, but the girl was rather surprised when Leo stopped to put on a pair of headphones. And then proceeded to fuck her, while listening to a CD of whale song.
When Tom Jones was recording his Reload album, he very generously took all the band out to dinner to celebrate finishing one of the duets.subscribe at PopbitchWhen the meal was over, Tom announced to his companions, "After dinner I always like to have the four Cs". Asked what he meant, Tom explained: "Champagne, cigars, cognac and cunt".
jon asked the difference
a barney is almost always a physical fight, though it can be as small as a scuffle. a blue ranges form a minor verbal disagreement up to someone being taken away by the ambos.What on earth happened to Arn Saba?
from the San Francisco Examiner:When narcotics cops raided a Russian Hill apartment Tuesday night, they did more than confiscate the largest stash of magic mushrooms this city has seen in 20 years.full story here
They answered a question some underground comics buffs have been asking for years: What on earth happened to Arn Saba?
As it turned out, Saba -- who earned his place in underground comics history with the book series Neil The Horse -- had been quite busy.
He had moved from Toronto to San Francisco. He had had a sex-change operation, becoming Katherine Collins. And she had become a businesswoman, a highly organized purveyor of psychedelic drugs who distributed business cards and whose services were available each day from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., according to police.
At 7:30 on Tuesday night, police broke down the door at 1525 Larkin Street, a cluttered one-bedroom apartment just off of Sacramento Street. There they found six half-filled trash bags of magic mushrooms -- a stash that weighed 6 1/2 pounds and had a street value of $20,000. Also netted in the operation was about four pounds of marijuana, worth between $12,000 and $15,000, according to police.
Although cops say huge bags of weed and shrooms lay in plain sight on the kitchen table, Collins was rather surprised to see them break down her front door.
"She said, 'What you guys want?' When we explained we had a warrant, she was immediately very cooperative and didn't freak out at all," said an undercover narcotics inspector who worked on the three-month investigation.
On Wednesday afternoon, having made bail, Collins, 55, was very friendly when a reporter knocked on the door. A former magazine journalist who wrote on cartoons and pop culture for the Toronto Star, she said she would love to tell her story but only after talking to her attorneys.
"I need to get some advice first," said Collins, who was wearing a flowing skirt and blue sweater. "This is definitely going to be something I'll want to talk about. I'm not going to keep this under wraps."
Evan Dorkin reads superhero comics
so you don't have to:Nursing a hangover this morning, I read another old Daredevil isue. He travels to a small European country where an old classmate rules with an iron hand and an army of robots. His plan - trick brilliant scientists and lawyers (?) to his country and kep them there, let loose a robot army on the world (said robots designed to look like knights --?) and then let loose atomic bombs and stuff. Holy huh? Not compelling. Next up - DD vs Birdman, Apeman, Frogman and Catman. Lock up your daughters! Anyway,I still would rather read this nonsense than the straightfaced, serious-as-cancer gobbledygook modern post-Miller goodballs unleash on an undemanding small public. Pages of talking heads, bad mamet, weak-ass Goodfellas...gimmee Frogman any old day. And speaking of good, clean stupiditiy, I leave you with a breathless passage from Tales to Astonish #40, featuring the underwhelming Antman:PAGE 4, PANEL 3
CAPTION: But NO Machine is perfect! Even a carefully designed electronic catapult!
ANT MAN: I'm OVERSHOOTING the target! Instead of landing on the ants, I'll crash into the building!PANEL 4
CAPTION: However, the tiny insects are swift as they are loyal...
ANTMAN: Saved by the ants -- as always!Two things to point out here. One, notice how there's no need to desrcibe the action, as the dopey captions echo everything you're seeing on the page. Two, if Antman's trajectory is liable to crush him if he hit a wall, then wouldn't he crush the life out of all the loyal ants bracing his fall? Anyway, you have to adore any comic that has the line, "Saved by the ants --as always"! I think I'll say that from time to time just to let myself know I'm truly alive.
Joe Matt really, really needs a place to stay
Okay, so the cock isn't his own. (You know what I mean.)
from the once-again weekly Rocking Vicar
"YES, YOU, ELVIS! PACK IT IN!"put your name on the parish register at Rocking Vicar
Parishioner Jon Peake: "Have you ever told a rock superstar to shut it? My friend Dianne, at college in Champaign, Illinois, in the mid-Eighties,was out for the evening doing her bar job which didn't finish until the early hours. On her return home she knew she must get down to some serious study as finals were approaching fast. But what was that terrible racket outside? She looked out the back door and saw a guy sitting on her dustbin at the end of the garden singing and playing the guitar, with a group of admirers at his feet."Would you shut the fuck up!" she bellowed. "I'm trying to work here!" "Sorry," came the sheepish reply from the singer. He and his pals shuffled off to the open space behind, where Dianne fleetingly noticed, there to seemed to be an awful lot of people. Recounting her run-in the next day, she was informed by her housemate that the person she'd told to shut it was Bob Dylan, in town for Farm Aid, taking place in the field at the bottom of their garden. How could she not have known. The shame!"A PINT OF COOKING FOR ME AND A BABYCHAM FOR MY SMALL, MOUSTACHIOED FRIEND"
Parishioner Alan Robinson: "Do stop me if I've mentioned this before, but, apparently, when Daryl Hall lived in London for a spell in the late 80s, he got deeply into Fuller's London Pride beer. So much so that, when it came time for him to return to the Home Of The Brave, he wrote to Fuller's, asking them how he could make his own. They only wrote back and give him the method. So, Daryl Hall makes his own beer. True. "POST OF THE WEEK
Sister Roberta Chapman: "Living in Northampton in the mid eighties (someone had to) a mate phoned to say he was coming round and was it alright if he brought someone along. This "someone" he explained had been guitarist in the original line up of Unit 4+2. This in itself was a touching tale.Said guitarist (whose name, sadly, I've long since forgotten) had bottled it at the prospect of appearing live on TV on Sunday Night At The London Palladium and had settled for a life of odd jobs, session work and latterly guitar-making. A pleasant half hour was spent anoraking away until mr guitarman asked if he could use the loo. "It's alright," he said as he got up, "I think I can remember where it is." This last comment caused some bewilderment and while he was out of the room me, my mate and my sister exchanged glances and hushed comments of the "has he been here before?" variety. When he returned the inevitable question was asked. "What did you mean? I think I know where it is." "Oh" he said, "I built this house."
Two footnotes to this, one of course is the wonderful prescience of having had your house built by someone who played on Concrete and Clay. Secondly the houses were jerry-built council stock, early eighties vintage, with walls so paper thin that when the lesbians next door took a bath together you could hear their bums squeaking throughout our house. They ran a rad-fem puppet workshop called Judy and Judy in case you're interested. And I know you are."
DAYYYYYYUM
In the midst of a thread on the Comics Journal's messboard debating the merits of cuteness and kitsch art, Coop is given cause to exclaim "Fret not, just like McDonald's Combo meals, COOP Girls are available in Small, Medium, and Super Size!" He makes a compelling case.Zombie Ghost Train CD Launch
STOP PRESS: Late addition of The Optionals to the bill replacing Bubble Vicious. Special release price Zombie Ghost Train EP on the nite $10 with free badge. See you there.
ghost wank?
Joe Matt attempts to cash in on those fat Ghost World box-office profits now that he's living in Los Angeles:
