"What's Up, Doc?"

Not like I'll be able to make it out to the James A. Michener Art Museum to see this - a full exhibit with with a bunch of drawings, cels, paintings and other items from the golden era of Warner Bros. animation - but I figured I'd mention it for anyone who may be in the area and would be able to take advantage of it.


"I tawt I taw a putty tat."

Another interesting Looney Tunes item can be found here, at Basic Hip Digital Oddio in their Kiddie Records Weekly section.

Bugs Bunny in Storyland is a 1949 audio storybook which, for Warner Bros. fans, is also a bit of a treat. The story (although unremarkable by WB stanbards) was written by Looney Tunes scribe, Ted Pierce, with artwork by director Bob McKimson and voiced by the inimitable Mel Blanc and June Foray (doing the female voices, of course).

Like I said before, the story is kind of cheesy, but it's kind of a treat to see this story come to life courtesy of the folks who actually worked on the Looney Tunes cartoons.

mike

How Does it Rate?

I've been trying to think of a ratings system for a while now. I don't want to do a simple thumbs up or down, nor do I want to have a star system or anything like that, but trying to find something Meanwhile... related or themed to use has been...problematic, at best.

I considered using the ellipsis as my grading system - one dot for absolute shite, 2 dots for 'meh' and three for the full on Meanwhile... honours - but I figured that nobody would get it. Hell, I'm betting that there are a number of you that don't even know what an ellipsis is. I know I didn't until I started using the name Meanwhile... 7-odd years ago.

So, for lack of any better ideas, I ask you, the reader, to make a suggestion. What do you think might be apropos as a ratings system for this Blog, but remain underivative of everyone else's sites?

Hmmm...maybe I should think up a prize or something.

mike

Read That Funky Story, White Boy

Just got back from the comic store with some 'new' comics to read. I grabbed myself a copy of Army of Darkness: Shop Til You Drop #2, Flaming Carrot Comics #2, the Red Sonja preview book and the first issue of Michael Moorcock's Elric mini-series. I'm really looking forward to that last one, I'll tell you.

I've also had a stack of GN's that I picked up at the library that I've been tearing through, among them The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen V.1, Star Trek: The Next Generation - Enemy Unseen, Groo: Death and Taxes, The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde V.1 and Sundiata: A Legend of Africa. That last one is by Will Eisner, if you aren't familiar with it. It's one of his books that were released by NBM. Looks interesting.

I'll probably post some thoughts when I get through with them.

mike

Begin the Podcast now, Hal

Looks like the audio commentary by podcast phenomenon has been a catchy one. The SciFi was the first network, as far as I know, to use a podcast to deliver a comentary, and now Paramount (who are usually pretty slow to pick up on current trends) has followed suit with an Enterprise commentary for the episode 'In a Mirror, Darkly' by writer Mike Sussman.

I listened to it as an MP3 file and found the audio quality somewhat lacking, but the commentary itself with Sussman is interesting and informative.

Here's hoping that this podcast thing catches on with more networks and more shows.

mike

Play That Funky Music White Boy

I must be going through some kind of creative mid-life crisis or something. It started with the sketching (as I mentioned a few posts ago), then I went and set in motion events which could lead to me having to do another short film, and now I've gone and gotten my hands on a guitar. Not only that, but I seem to be operating under the pretense that I can actually learn to play the thing. I dunno what I'm thinking.

Maybe I've officially been cooped up too long. I need to get out and rake leaves or something. Clear the cobwebs.

I mean, guitar?

What's next, Decoupage?

Start placing your wagers on how long this will last. My money's on a week, no less, no more.

mike

Saturday Means Cartoons

Awww...nobody wants to play with the little guy...

This could have gone in my 'Linktastic Saturday' post, but I figured it should get its very own mention because it's just so very cool.

The wonderfully talented Vera Brosgol (just click through if you don't believe me) recently posted an entry on her sketchblog which provides a link to a torrent that she seeded thereby allowing us, the unwashed masses, to access her short animated film, Snow-bo which she put together with her animation partner in crime, Jenn Kluska.

It's really great stuff and well worth the few minutes it takes to download and watch the thing.

Do the right thing.

mike

Omnium Finis Imminet - For Me, Anyways

The New York Times calls it "Well made, spooky, and suspenseful..." I call it poorly written, droll and heavy handed. Who you gonna believe?

If you haven't figured it out yet, I've managed to catch Hour 1 (of 6) of the new NBC mini-series, Revelations. I wasn't even going to watch it, to be perfectly honest, but my wife had told me that she read some reviews comparing it to The Exorcist and calling it 'great entertainment so we decided to give it a try.

Well, from the get go the show seemed problematic. The series opens with John Rhys-Davies chatting up a class on the Big Bang theory of how the universe came into being, to which one of the students says something like, "Is there no place for God in science?" Oy, if words were cudgels. Still, it's a pilot episode, other shows I've loved have sounded more contrived in their opening minutes, so we continued on.

The story jumps around for a while, introducing characters and setting the stage for the next 5 hours in the show, and doing so with the gentle touch of a bull in a china shop. No cliché is left unturned here as series creator and writer, David Seltzer introduces a satanic cult leader who knows too much for everyone else's own good, an astrophysicist who doesn't believe in God (only science can explain everything), a nun who investigates prophecies (including, at the outset of the show, a Fatima like phenomenon featuring a giant shadow of Christ's crucifixion on a mountainside which shimmy's and moves around at will), a little girl who speaks the word of God (she speaks latin and never took a single class), and a grand prophecy of the coming of the end times that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger proud.

Anyway, Seltzer is not known for his subtlety. He is the writer of films like the original Omen and the Melanie Griffith WWII spy vehicle, Shining Through, so I shouldn't be at all surprised by this. According to SciFi Wire, he was apparently offered a gig writing for Miracles, but found it too formulaic and not the deep challenging analysis of faith that he sought. I guess Revelations was his response to that.

Watching this show was, to me, like watching CSI: The Apocalypse, or something. No opportunity to spoon feed the audience was ignored and no genre cliché was left unexploited. Oh yeah, and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit plays one of the bad guys.

I may give it one more episode to prove me wrong, but I'm not holding out any hope for it.

mike

Linktastic Saturday

In lieu of watching Saturday morning cartoons, I figured I'd do a post of links that I found interesting this week.

First off, Peter Sanderson over at IGN did some nice coverage of the memorial to Will Eisner in his Comics in Context column.

Next up is an interview with Dean Haglund from the Creature Corner website. Since my own interview with Dean is trapped in the limbo that is e-mail tag, I figured anyone who was looking for one could check this one out.

I don't know what I was doing when I stumbled across this site, but it's basically a Jaws fansite/community. I get a kick out of checking in from time to time and browsing through their site.

With all the Superman buzz online, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Blue Tights site with their exclusive Bryan Singer video journals from the set of the new film. They're pretty cool and I highly recommend checking them out if you haven't already.

Nor would I be doing anybody any favours if I didn't link to this USA Today story on the new Superman film complete with comments from Singer and a pic of Brandon Routh in full costume (not a fan of the belt buckle, but the rest I can live with).

I bookmarked this site some time ago, but have yet to listen to the Jeff Smith audio interview, courtesy of Minnesota Public Radio's site.

I caught a link to this article over at Tom Spurgeon's Comics Reporter. It's from The Boston Phoenix and is, on the surface, a review of a Birds of Prey storyline, but underneath it is alook at the industry through an outsider's eyes.

That's all for now.

mike

Good Response to Buffy Week 5

Just checked my Web/FTP stats for Meanwhile... after the recent update and I have to say things look good. I thought it was getting off to a slow start but there were really good numbers today thanks to a mention on Whedonesque.

To be perfectly honest, I used to be the Features Editor for Silver Bullet Comicbooks and some of the interviews I did for that site got some pretty low traffic, especially for a site that gets a good number of hits a day. Unless I was interviewing Jim Lee or some rock star creator, I'd get 400 or 500 hits, total. It's kind of nice to have that be the number of hits I get in a day when I have a new interview up with this Post Mortem thing. Also rewarding that it's on my own site that's so low key as to have a web non-presence

And, in case I'm sounding whiny, I don't need bandwidth crippling traffic, but it's nice to know you're being read (and judging by the responses the stuff been's getting on Whedonesque, it's being enjoyed, too).

Anyways, I just wanted to post a thought or two about that.

mike

Finished Legion, Though the Pages Were Many

As the title suggests, I've just finished reading William Peter Blatty's sequel to his bestseller, The Exorcist. Some of you may have seen the film (known as Exorcist III: Legion to cinemagoers), but like its predecessor, the meat and potatoes of the book lie not in the spinning heads and pea soup, but in the analysis of good and evil, God, faith and the greater unknown.

Also like its predecessor, Legion is, at its core, a murder mystery. Lieutenant Kinderman, a holdover from the first novel and film, is brought in to investigate a grisly murder and mutliation one Sunday morning in 1983, 12 years after the events of The Exorcist. Over the course of the next week, Kinderman's faith, powers of deduction and even his sanity are put to the test as he investigates a number of seemingly random killings and is forced to come face to face with two ghosts from his past.

Legion is less of a page-turner than The Exorcist but I appreciated Blatty taking the opportunity to examine some of the themes he's come to be known for at more than face value. He started this in Exorcist, continued it in Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane (a thematic sequel), and follows up on it nicely here (the literal sequel). I will concede the point that it doesn't always come across smoothly in the narrative of the story, and it does get deathly boring at times, but Blatty manages to rein everything in before you become too distracted by, or lost in, all the cosmic mulling about.

The Exorcist actually managed to send chills up my spine from time to time, but I don't think 'fright beats' were number one on the agenda when Blatty set out to write this novel. It's a little more of a thinker than the first book and a lot lighter in tone, considering. Still a worthwhile read, though, and great preperation for the Schrader prequel which hits theatres (in limited release) on May 20th.

mike

"Who can trust a cop who don't take money? "

Stayed up very, very late last night to watch Al Pacino and Sidney Lumet's classic 1973 'biopic' of honest New York cop, Frank Serpico.

I can't say my expectations were too terribly high for this film seeing as I'm not a big Pacino fan, but after years of hearing that this one of the man's greats, I was hoping that it was better than just good. For the most part, those expectations were satisfied. I mean, I was entertained by the film (I stayed up 'til 4 a.m. to finish it so I had to like it on some level) and enjoyed seeing a young Pacino, post-Godfather, strut his stuff a little.

The story was compelling enough and the characters, though underdeveloped, had enough going on that you could make some sort of intellectual or emotional connection to them. You do care about what happens to most of these characters, so it can be said the filmmakers did their jobs.

It would have been nice to see a little more tension as the story builds to its climax, but I did appreciate the consistent tone of the film. It gave an element of realism to the story. Like, no one day with Serpico was any less joyous, tragic, dangerous or banal than all the rest. Whether or not it was a device being used, or a stylistic choice, it worked for me.

The only real distraction was the score by Mikis Theodorakis. Most times it was just unnecessary in many places where it was used, and even when it fit the scene, it was kind of overdone. Not a big fan of the music, but, to be honest, it doesn't play too big a role in the film anyways.

Now that I think about it, I would like to see this movie in widescreen sometime and see if that changes my view of Lumet's direction or gives the movie a little more scope. Could be an interesting experiment.

Overall, Serpico is a pretty good film. It sort of gives me a hankering to watch Dog Day Afternoon, now.

mike

Best of the Bins 4

The Amazing Spider-Man #240 & 241
Written by Roger Stern
Illustrated by John Romita, Jr., Bob Layton and Frank Giacoia
(Marvel Comics)

I actually won my copy of ASM #240 at a Fun Night that my school was putting on. It was one of those mystery fishing games, or possibly a bean bag toss prize, I'm not really sure anymore. But I can say that this issue, and the issue following it, are pretty much responsible for getting me involved in the collecting and reading of comic books.

About a month after getting #240, I was in my local 7-11 to get some candy, or a Slurpee or something when I saw #241 sitting in the spinner rack. It was at this crucial moment where it dawned on me that this was part two of the great Vulture story that I read in that other comic. I knew that I had to have it, and after much begging and pleading to the parents, I did. The rest, as they say, is history.

As for the story itself, the first issue (titled 'Wings of Vengeance') was a perfect jumping on point for new readers - or any reader for that matter. We meet Adrian Toomes, aka The Vulture, who is now living on the west coast, far away from Spider-Man and happy to not have to be dealing with him or his ilk on a daily basis. He stumbles upon a news article in The Daily Bugle stirring up bitter memories from his past that set him on a path back to New York and revenge.

Naturally a scheme is set into motion that will undoubtedly pit Toomes against your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

This was, and still is, some of my favourite Roger Stern stuff. I know people would argue me on this point, but I think Stern was pretty much at the top of his game during this period. Sure, the story does feel a bit dated (the indicia puts it at 1983), but it doesn't feel at all tired or cheesy to me.

It was also during this time John Romita, Jr. was just starting to show what he could really do on a comic book page - and just look at those covers. Great stuff. The layouts were pretty standard - roughly 6 panels a page - but the body language of the characters and the pacing of the stories were just classic Spidey. The only thing that really differentiated these tales from the Spidey stories of the '60s was the more 'sophisticated' soap opera elements of Peter Parker's life. A little corny by today's standards, sure, but less-so than the Conway stories of the '70s and the overdramatized stuff we see on the shelves today.

This was just good old solid storytelling without a lot of flotsam and jetsam to bog it down.

And 22 years later, I still love reading these issues.

mike

Meanwhile... Updated

I posted an update over at Meanwhile... proper if anyone's interested in checking it out.

The Buffy Post Mortem interview is with fellow blogger and Interman creator, Jeff Parker. Jeff did the art on a Jane Espenson penned story in one of the Tales of the Vampires issues. It was called 'Dust Bowl' and it was one of the stand-outs of the mini-series.

I've also finally gotten around to reposting my Eisner Tribute from 2000. I've been meaning to do it since January, but kind of stalled on it for various reasons until now. I think the latest issue of The Comics Journal gave me the kick in the ass I needed to get it out there again, but I'm a little disappointed that I've lost the audio files that originally accompanied it. If anyone out there, by chance, has a copy of the Eisner Audio Interview, I would love to put it up.

Lastly, for the archive, I've added an interview that I conducted with Stefan Petrucha in the summer of 1998 where we discuss The X-Files and his self-published novel, Making God.

Feel free to comment here since the Forums at Meanwhile... got hacked, yet again, and shut down for the time bieng.

mike

Checking In

I started putting the finishing touches on what will be the next Meanwhile... update and, despite its incredible lateness, I'm kind of excited to finally get it posted. I've been working on Meanwhile... related stuff for a while now, and with surprising frequency, but not in any way you could see. Mostly I've been going back and putting my older interviews into the newer template for archiving purposes, but none of them have been posted as of yet.

With this next update (due in the next day or so, I'm sure) I'll be posting my next installment in the Buffy Post Mortem (featuring fellow Blogger, Jeff Parker) as well as my Eisner tribute from a few years back and an older, but satisfying, interview with Stefan Petrucha (who's been getting some buzz off of his newest Nancy Drew GN).

I'll try and chime in again before the weekend is up.

mike

Sketch-a-Doodle

Inspired by my recent wanderings through the Nina thread at Drawingboard.org I've suddenly put pen to paper and started flexing sketching muscles I've let atrophy for...oooo...a loooong time.

Many moons ago I decided that I was a better writer than I was an artist and shifted my attentions appropriately. Still, I've never quite lost that feeling of regret that if I'd only just doodled more on the side, or more seriously, that I would have that ability now. Doing a decent looking mini-comic or storyboard would be a pencil and pad away, you know?

So, yeah, looking at the amazing work of Ronnie del Carmen and everybody who contributed a Nina sketch made me grab the nearest utensil (a Sharpie, of all things) and some printer paper and I went to town for an hour or two. I dusted off some old 'How to Draw' principles, worked out some kinks, and maybe picked up a new habit or two (if I'm lucky, that is).

There's a couple of sketches that I liked, and had I a scanner to scan with (believe it or not, I have one, but have no idea where it is), I would post them here for you to offer any comments, criticism, or just to chuckle at rudely. I suppose if they got a decent review here I might post them on the Nina thread.

Maybe I should go find that scanner. It's got to be around here somewhere.

mike

I'm Just a Hooker with a Heart of Gold

If you've been reading my Blog (all four of you), you've probably noticed the Amazon links that have started appearing all over my page. The simple explanation is, "why not?" The less simple but equally non-confusive (I just made that word up) explanation is that it occured to me that you see these links and search tools all over the web and they are all part of these 'Associate Programs' that are supposed to net you jillions of dollars in commission, all for the price of some face time on your web page. Sounds harmless but do they actually work? I dunno, that's why I signed up and stuck the things all over my page. To be perfectly honest, I'll probably suffer cardiac arrest if anyone actually clicks through from my page and buys one of the featured items, but the risk to my well being is vastly overshadowed by my rabid curiosity on the matter.

I still feel a bit guilty in a sell-out sort of way whenever I hit the page, but whatever.

In retrospect, I'm thinking that signing on through the Canadian Amazon might have been a potential misstep, but I guess I'm more patriotic than I care to admit (granted, if Dark Horse ever called me up and offered me a job I'd be south of the border faster than you can say Work Visa).

Oh yeah, I should also mention that the title is a reference to something Will Pfeiffer said in a recent post about Sin City which I thought was funny. Considering the subject of this post, I thought it was appropos.

mike

Exorcise Your Way to Happiness

SciFi Wire confirms an actual theatrical release date for Paul Schrader's Exorcist prequel:

May 20, 2005.

That's soon.

I don't know how much you folks know about the film industry, but this move by Warner Bros. is unprecedented and ballsy. Sure, money is the driving force behind the decision, but it's an amazing thing to see happen nonetheless. With a domestic gross of just over $75 million the 'official' released version of Exorcist: The Beginning didn't perform well enough to pay for itself, never mind it's sister movie helmed by Schrader, so everybody would like to make a little bit of green on this enterprise, but to have a major studio, and a control freak like James Robinson of Morgan Creek, admit that the first one wasn't good enough and that they were wrong for shitcanning Schrader's original vision for being too cerebral, is astounding.

And releasing two versions of the same movie within 12 months of each other?

I'm sure part of why Warner Bros. made this decision involves the eventual DVD bonanza of Collector's Editions and Special Editions and Special Collector's Editions of the various versions of the film they could move on the lucrative DVD market (my mind is a montage of dollar signs, delivery trucks and ledger entries as I write this paragraph).

What matters, though, is that people are finally going to see it, and if it does well, it'll be the cerebral movie, not the lowest common denominator version that gets the kudos and the box-office. It will also be cool for anyone really interested in film since they're going to be able to see two director's visions of what is, essentially, the same story. It's a film students dream.

Now, hopefully, Schrader's version is as good as everyone says it is otherwise we're all back to square one.

mike

Stars Live and in Review

As promised (and since so many of you are reading and caring), a review for the Stars show that occured in town on April 9th, 2005 at the Amigo's cantina, and also a bonus link that I stumbled across today for an in-studio appearance at KCRW to promote their new album being released in the States.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the show was probably one of the best I've ever seen. I would definitely put it in my top five...no, top three shows of all time - no contest. Their stage presence was so much stronger than I had anticipated considering so many of their songs are low key 'get-lightheaded and swoony' kinda of tracks. I was expecting a bunch of people standing politely in front of the stage bobbing their heads, gazing at their navels and soaking up the sounds.

I should have realised that the stronger sounding album would require a different kind of set-up, and likely lead to a brassier performance from the band. As Torq (the lead singer) said at the KCRW session, the punchier sound of 'Set Yourself on Fire' allowed them to perform on stage in a more traditional "four on the floor" kind of way (or five or six as is the case with Stars) and the audience really responded to it. About a half-dozen songs into their set, Torq thanked the audience for "making them feel like they were in a fucking punker band." The setting was pretty intimate so the band was really feeding off of the energy the crowd was giving out, and the crowd, in turn, fed off of them. It was one of those experiences that are just great to see and be a part of.

They played mostly songs from their previous album, 'Heart', and the newst offering, 'Set Yourself on Fire', but a song or two from their debut CD, 'Nightsongs', managed to squeeze themselves in there. Actually, the show made me dust off my copy of 'Nightsongs' and I've sort of come to rediscover it. It's still not their best album, but it's right in there.

It was also great to see members of the other two bands, Montag and Apostle of Hustle, come out and join Stars as the show prgressed. By the end of the concert, there was probably a dozen people on and off the stage playing some sort of instrument or percussion piece - it was a real ensemble effort.

As all great live shows should, it has totally enhanced the studio experience for me. Their CD's will never sound the same to me again, they'll sound even better. It was the first time I'd had a chance to see Stars live, but after last week, I'm never missing another one of their shows.

Now, here's a link to their in-studio appearance at KCRW. It's not their greatest performance, but you'll get an idea for what kind of stuff they do and how they sound live. If the video is too much for you, here's an audio link of the show. Both are Real media.

I highly recommend checking these guys out. I've made it something of a mission to get everyone I know to at least listen to these guys, so if you're in that category you owe it to yourself.

mike

My Daughter in XTC

So, I'm in the bathroom and from the other room, my daughter Kate's room, I can hear her singing, "One, two, three, four, five...senses working overtime..." Of course it's 'Senses Working Overtime' by XTC, but I can't for the life of me figure out where she heard it. Granted, I do have their 2-disc singles collection out from the library right now, so I concluded that maybe that was how it got into her head. Hell, she still sings "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane to anyone who'll listen.

Anyway, turns out that the Mandy Moore CD she got for christmas includes a cover of the song . So she's familiar with it through her own channels and is singing along which brings us to the part of the story that you and I essentially joined in.

Sometimes kids can surprise you, and Kate's no exception (she likes to surprise you once every few hours or so, just to keep you on your toes). And, really, regardless of who's singing it (it's not as god-awful horrible as you may think), the truth of the matter is my 6 year old kid is running around and singing XTC songs at the top of her lungs. I can't help but feel I've raised her right.

mike

Picking Up the Garbage

I'm really learning to enjoy my AMG New Release Newsletter. Case in point, I may not have known for some time about the new Garbage CD, 'Bleed Like Me', had it not been for that simple e-mail that I received on Monday, and this, their fourth studio album, has long been anticipated in the Jozic household.

Having given it a cursory listen to, I can say that it sounds pretty good so far. Like the three albums before it, they monkey with their sound a little bit (going for something more reminiscient of their eponymous first effort) but don't change it enough that it jars the listener too much - although the track "Why Do You Love Me" takes a crack at it about 3 minutes in. Other songs that caught my attention are the title track, "Bleed Like Me", which is essentially the requisite 'stop and take a breather after the first three tracks' song, but Shirley Manson gives a really nice, low key, vocal performance which you don't get to hear too often and bears mentioning. "Sex Is Not the Enemy" has a bit of a Breeders vibe to it and "Why Don't You Come Over", came out of some creative wellspring where Queens of the Stone Age and The Go-Go's formed a hybrid band.

Overall, I have to say that I'm really enjoying this album so far. I kinda figured I would, but after the disaster that was 'How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb' last year, I don't take any chances.

mike