Buys
Based on the quality of volume 1, I went ahead and got volumes 2 and 3 of The Escapist, reprinting issues 3 to 6 of this beautiful anthology series. The same order brought me Making Comics, the second sequel to Scott McCloud's excellent Understanding Comics. Thanks to Bass for tipping me off about its existence. We're both reading it right now.
DVDs that have come my way include The Batman Complete First Season (had to after I got the Complete Second), Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero, which I got for 5 bucks, and Time Tunnel vol. 2. Aside from completing sets, I also bit the bullet and ordered A Streetcar Named Desire and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Two movie classics that I've procrastinated on buying because Amazon was gonna think I'm gay. Well, I don't care what they think anymore. Why gay, you say? Well, on the one hand, you've got a bare-chested young Marlon Brando. On the other, you've got one of the 8 pillars of homosexuality:
Check out Maurice Vellekoop's strip in The Best of Drawn & Quarterly for the rest. The guy knows his stuff. Or at least he seems to know exactly what the 40-50-year-old gay men I used to work with at the university art gallery obsess about."Accomplishments"
Not a lot of time for making cards for my Unauthorized Doctor Who CCG this week, but I managed 7 from the Tom Baker era. I've mystified players with the lore on this one, so help 'em out, Google users!
On the DVD front, I've flipped the tape on Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero which continues Freeze's story from the Animated Series. A cheap direct-to-video 1 hour film that didn't take long to watch or to flip. They should have put Dini on it, but what are ya gonna do?Also watched the Shakespeare musical Love's Labour's Lost, which is an interesting take, but mostly falls flat in all the musical and screwball comedy bits. The Shakespeare stuff works however, and there's a good final number. And then I flipped New Zealand's OTHER blockbuster, The Quiet Earth. As good as I remember, which is to say much better than average. There's a well-rounded commentary by the writer/producer as its only extra.
Went to see an actual movie: The Pursuit of Happyness (sic) with Will Smith, based on the true success story of Chris Gardner. We gave it a 6.5 or 7 out of 10. If you've seen the tearjerker of a preview, you've pretty much seen all the important beats. Acting's excellent (even Will Smith's kid, perhaps not that surprisingly) and the dialogue and plot are good enough, but I question some directorial decisions. Especially the use of voice-over. If you're gonna use voice-over, make sure it's interesting stuff. It rarely was here. "This part of my life is called: Running" and then you see him run... totally redundant and uninteresting. On the Theater-Purchase-Rental-TV-TBS-Miss scale, I give it a Rental.
Trying the get through a chunk of my sizeable collection of as-yet-unheard Doctor Who audio plays from Big Finish Productions, I got through Minuet in Hell (8th Doctor in the satanic 51st state, it's actually pretty fun and co-stars the Brigadier), Excelis Rising (6th Doctor squares off against Giles from Buffy, fun stuff), and The Maltese Penguin (a fun parody of film noir narration starring Frobisher the shape-changing Penguin and the 6th Doctor for a little bit, probably under-rated).
Oh and I managed to see all of Torchwood, the Doctor Who spin-off, from internet sources (since it's only airing in the UK right now). Kind of an X-Files meets Doctor Who meets Angel meets Queer as Folk. Generally liked it, especially towards the end. For fans of the card game, does that mean some Torchwood cards? Why yes, it does, on a very limited basis, in special sets next year probably. I'm not just a geek, I'm a long-term geek.
Website finds
My own personnal favorite webcomic, and I don't read many, is Irregular Webcomic by David Morgan-Mar, a real nice guy from down-under who was largely responsible for the material I used in one of our favorite Dream Park game (note to my players: the one where I ripped off Lrrrr from Futurama). Anyway, whether he's using D&D miniatures or LEGO characters, his stuff always makes me smile. Start reading before he hits #1500.
Crazy cat sites. If you don't know about them, well, maybe you're better off. Still, in an effort to corrupt you further I offer:
Stuff on my cat.com
Cats in sinks.com
And that the Kitler site, dedicated to cats with Hitler moustaches. And they say I'm strange.
Sort of gives you a hint of where I'll be coming from in the future, pop culture-wise.
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