Siskoid Awards 2012 - Technical Achievement Ceremony

Just like the Oscars, the Siskoid Awards, we have a Technical Achievement Ceremony that is, frankly, an excuse to have a pretty girl host an awards show for the stuff that didn't fit yesterday's broad categories. At the Oscars, these would be for stuff like, you know, stabilized aerial camera platforms (they exist!). For our purposes, I can't promise the prizes will be any less arcane.

Your hostess this year is fellow Canadian Emily VanCamp whose star is on the rise thanks to playing a character half-Batman, half-Krystle Carrington, on the TV series Revenge. She amiably agreed* to hand out Golden Typewriter Monkeys** for us tonight. Give her a big hand.

Siskoid's best predicted fad of 2012 - Gangnam Style (Psy). That's right, kids. Not only did the video show up on this here blog weeks before it truly went viral, but my Kung Fu Fridays gang had been playing it at its K-Pop & Coconut Rhum events for weeks or months before THAT. Thanks for ruining it, Internet! And yet, I'm no hipster. Sue me, I still like the song even if it's gone mainstream.

Best digital comics of 2012 - TIE: Edison Rex (Chris Robertson and Dennis Culver), and Insufferable (Mark Waid and Peter Krause). For story, I've got to give it to Edison Rex, Chris Roberson's clever and charming take on Lex Luthor (check out Reign of the Supermen next Saturday for more). At 99¢ a pop, it's a must have in your digital library. For its unique use of the medium, I also give it to Mark Waid's Insufferable, a comic that wouldn't be possible in print. Some real fun effects are achieved and it's well worth the ZERO bucks each weekly issue costs you.

Favorite podcast of 2012 - WHO’S WHO: The Definitive Podcast of the DC Universe (Firestorm Fan's Irredeemable Shag and the Aquaman Shrine's Rob!). Two guys looking through each issue of DC's mid-80s encyclopedia series, describing them page by page, shouldn't work, but it does. I guess it helps that the comic is one of my favorite things ever, but since the boys started doing it, they've inspired a lot of material in these here pages. The Monkey's in the mail, guys!**

Best Kung Fu move of 2012 - Silkworm Kung Fu in The Bastard Swordsman. There wasn't a stranger series of moves this year at Kung Fu Fridays than the fantasy stylings of the Silkworm style, which requires the adept to spend some time in a cocoon before turning into the bastard child of Pai Mei and Spider-Man. If not the best, then at least the most referenced by the group.

History in which I most wanted to believe in 2012 - Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. A title formerly held by Inglourious Basterds, it now goes to this VASTLY SUPERIOR TO SPIELBERG'S AND I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK Lincoln movie. 2012 was the year of crazy emancipation, looks like, and if you thought ALVH's premise was too ridiculous for you to see it, I hope you'll reconsider.

Worst/Most owned Movie in my collection - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I won two copies of this terrible film (it's without a doubt one of the worst things I've been subjected to) in last year's Oscar Pool, gave one away and watched the other as part of my deal with the Devil (you think I won the competition twice in a row by talent alone?!). Then started a returning-the-DVD war with the guy who put it in the pile in the first place. It went back and forth a few times, but it's apparently in my home somewhere as I write this. But wait, it gets worse. Same guy gave me a boxed set of movies for Christmas, and in the case... 4 copies of Indiana Jones IV. So there are five - FIVE! - copies of this turkey in my apartment. I threw in the towel and admitted defeat before this could escalate further.

Planet of the Year - Mars. Despite a snub by 2012's version of Total Recall, the Red Planet dethroned Earth this year by finally allowing a probe to drive around its dramatic landscapes. Meanwhile, in fiction, IDW took control of the Mars Attacks license and gave us a fun ongoing comic by Layman and McCrea which I heartily recommend.

Best passing of the torch of 2012 - Star Wars passing to Disney. I am not worried at all that Disney can pull a John Carter on the material (make a solid effects film, I don't mean the botched marketing) and do something good with the franchise. To those who think they'll ruin Star Wars, I would point them in the direction of the prequels which have already ruined the franchise. If the last 20 years have shown anything, it's that Lucas shouldn't be given free reign with ANY movie property. Thanks for the memories, George, but now you can't try to "fix" them anymore!

That's a wrap for 2012! My thanks to Emily VanCamp in all her pre-taped glory for the fine work she's done here and elsewhere, and I'll see YOU next year for more Siskoid Awards!

*In my dreams, at least.
**Not a real thing. Don't try to collect, prize winners!