Category: Cartoons

What I Did This Weekend

2012-07-15, 9:39 pm
Categories: Books, Cartoons, Comics, Movies, Stream of Consciousness, TV

  • Drove to Tucson
  • Saw Brave
  • Went to Bookman's. Bought a used copy of Perdido Street Station and the first Cerebus trade.
  • Watched MST3K (Night of the Blood Beast). Slept through the middle.
  • Had some barbecue -- David grilled up some turkey burgers and chicken dogs
  • Watched Godzilla: Final Wars
  • Caught Vertigo at an independent theater
  • Hit up an Irish pub. (Tip: 20%, plus an extra dollar for live music, plus one more dollar for not charging me for my pint of Guinness. Considered one more dollar for overflowing the urinal; decided that wasn't really my fault, and hey, I let the waiter know.)
  • Walked out into a monsoon; got good and wet.
  • Dealt with the joy of Arizona drivers in heavy rain.
  • Came home.

Good times.

And my good friend Jim is off to New Mexico for grad school. Good on ya, Jim.

The Cheap Theater

2012-07-03, 9:57 pm
Categories: Books, Cartoons, Comics, Movies, Stream of Consciousness, Tech

I don't go to as many movies as I used to.

Mostly it's because I used to go to a lot of movies with my dad, and he's in Maui now.

But price plays into it too. Ticket prices have fucking skyrocketed, outpaced pretty much only by comic books.

This week, I went to Tempe Cinemas a couple times. It used to be what we called the dollar theater, but now it's $3, or $2 on Tuesdays.

But on the plus side, the place has improved. They've fixed up the bathrooms, the theaters are in better shape, and they appear to have switched to digital projectors, because the picture is fucking clean. Digital projection gets rid of one of the major drawbacks to seeing a movie at the cheap theater: you no longer find yourself looking at a print that's been viewed a few hundred times and is covered in scratches.

Anyhow, I caught two very different movies this week: The Pirates: Band of Misfits and Cabin in the Woods.

Pirates is Aardman. And I love me some Aardman, and have since I first saw The Wrong Trousers close on 20 years ago.

It's got a great cast (and #2 even looks like Martin Freeman), a ton of sight gags and one-liners that fly by fast, and a swordfight with Queen Victoria. It is recommended viewing for all ages!

Cabin in the Woods is not recommended viewing for all ages, but it is recommended viewing! I went into it cold, knowing nothing about it beyond "cabin-in-the-woods horror movie co-written and produced by Joss Whedon", and I think that is the optimal way to see it, so I will say nothing about it except that I love that there is actually a plot explanation for all the clichés, all the archetypes, and why the teenagers keep doing stupid shit.

Now, there was something a little odd about it: I'm pretty confident it was another digital copy, because the print was crystal clear for the most part, but there were a couple of spots, lines, and pops over the course of the movie. I'm curious: were these artificial and intentional? Like, did anybody else see it and notice a big black spot on the print right after the girl takes off her top? Because I'm tempted to believe this was some kind of Grindhouse-style deliberate fuckery, but I can't say for sure.

(Failing that, is there any other possible explanation for a few analog artifacts on an otherwise pristine, seemingly digital print? Like, is there a digital-file-to-analog-projector thing going on and the projector occasionally hiccups, or what? Or did I just see a film print that was in really, really good shape despite being at the cheap theater?)

Now, despite my gushing about the picture quality, which is better than I've ever seen it at Tempe Cinemas previously, the projection left something to be desired. Pirates had a couple of edges cut off, and about the right 1/8 of the picture in Cabin was out of focus.

Still and all, the seats were nice, the picture and sound were great, the audiences were well-behaved -- I had a better experience at the cheap theater than I usually do at the regular theater, and I suspect I will be making this a more frequent habit. There are plenty of movies coming out that I'd like to see in the theater but not pay full price for.

And they had a promo going: a new restaurant called Pizza 'n Greens opened a few doors down from the theater, and they're offering a $1 pizza slice if you bring a ticket stub in (or 10% off your whole bill). We went in after Pirates, and each ordered a slice. Instead of a slice, they made us fresh little miniature pizzas, and the service was great. We decided to come back and spend more -- which we did, after seeing Cabin. This time I tried a calzone and my lady tried a fatoush (Mediterranean salad) -- because as it turns out the menu is a sort of interesting mix of pizza and middle-eastern food. (I was tempted to have a chicken shawerma but decided I was in the mood for a good calzone at the last minute.) Anyway, once again, good food, great service, look forward to going again, recommend them, and oh by the way they deliver until 5 AM so if you need delivery at all hours of the night they're a good option for that.

And then we went to Changing Hands and I found a used copy of The Art of Ditko for $15, so I had to pick that up. And I also found that Stross's Rule 34 is out in paperback, so I grabbed me one of those too.

All in all, good times. And man, there are a lot of links in this post! My post probably looks like I ran Intellitext over it, except the links actually useful and pertinent and (hopefully) not just fucking obnoxious.

Not a Luddite, But...

2012-06-28, 8:34 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Stream of Consciousness, Tech

Until recently, I used to tell people that, for a computer scientist, I'm something of a Luddite. I don't use Facebook or Twitter, I don't have a smartphone -- I don't even text.

More recently, it's occurred to me that it's not that I'm a Luddite, I'm just a guy with a different set of priorities. And actually my tech savvy is probably responsible for some of that.

I don't have a Facebook account because I want control of my privacy settings. It's not like I'm anonymous or anything; if you're reading this, then profoundly embarrassing things with my real name attached to them are just a couple of clicks away. A couple of clicks max.

But that's my call. That's not "third-party site suddenly changes its privacy policy without warning" territory. And whatever I may put on this site, it certainly doesn't constitute permission for advertisers to sell it to each other.

I understand the appeal of Facebook. I did the MySpace thing, back when that was a thing people were doing. It was cool to get back in touch with people I hadn't seen since high school. But ultmately it was a new place for them to send me all those damn chain E-Mails and personality tests I had asked them all to stop sending me; it was a time sink of the sort I'm not much interested in anymore, and if they really want to get in touch with me they can Google my name. I'm not hard to find.

As for Twitter -- well shit, if you read this blog you already know that even my off-the-cuff single-sentence posts won't fit in 140 characters. I am not at my best in short bursts; I am at my best telling long, rambling stories that set up an atmosphere. (Kazz once compared me to Garrison Keillor. I'm pretty sure that was after he kicked that beer can into the back of my head.)

On texting, well, my initial opinion of it is pretty much what Samuel L Jackson had to say about it on Boondocks (NSFW):

But that's because I have a simple, 12-button flip phone. I understand that texting's a lot quicker if you've got a touchscreen or a keyboard, and I understand its value for quick, asynchronous, precise communication. It's not a replacement for a phone call, it's a replacement for voicemail. And voicemail sucks.

As for why I don't have a smartphone: Well, to start with, I've always been a horsepower guy. I sit at a computer all day at work and then I go sit at another one at home. As such I've never really felt much need for a laptop (I got my first one for free maybe a year and a half ago and barely use it), let alone a smartphone.

On the other hand, I do like toys. And I can really see the appeal of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that fits in my pocket. Not to mention, you know, I am a computer scientist, and this is the future of computing.

So yeah, I've kinda hit a point where I want a smartphone.

But then you hit the predatory pricing.

I'm with Sprint. They've been good to me. But I will be goddamned if I'm going to enter into a two-year, $60-a-month-minimum contract with them.

I'm a temp. I don't know if I'll be employed come December. If I get hired, I'll probably buy a smartphone (just in time for all the Christmas sales!). But I'll also probably jump ship to Virgin or Cricket or one of the pay-as-you-go carriers.

Meantime, I've got this little Samsung flip phone I've had for some 5 years, that is serviceable as a phone and alarm clock and little else. For example, I discovered the other day that it doesn't even have a way to transfer the photos you take with it to a computer. Which I guess is okay, because I never use that camera anyway and it's scratched to fuck as it is.

(I discovered this after getting my picture with Phil LaMarr at Phoenix Comicon last month. That's not a very long story but it is a story for another day, I think.)

Great Opening Titles: Mad Men

2012-06-25, 8:44 pm
Categories: Cartoons, TV

All right, another one of these. Like the last one, it's recent, it's obvious, it's Emmy-winning, and Simpsons did it.

Mad Men -- the falling, the skyscrapers, the sexy ads. In thirty seconds we've got a picture of the glamor and the horror, the loss of control and even identity -- but, at the same time, the slickness, the class.

The black-and-white figure is presumably Draper, but it could be anybody -- he's literally faceless. Draper may have the most obvious and literal identity problems, but the entire cast grapples with them. The figures in the ads on the walls -- they're otherworldly, they're a little creepy; they're not more real than the falling figure, but they're certainly more defined.

And here it is on Simpsons.

And here it is on Daily Show three weeks ago.

And once again, Art of the Title has more.

Not My Batman

2012-06-23, 8:39 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Comics, Games

I've been talking about fanboys and entitlement. It's kind of amazing the extent to which fans can be territorial and proprietary about characters they don't actually own or control.

To wit: you've probably heard the phrase "That's not my Batman."

The wonderful thing about Batman is that he is, quite possibly, the most versatile superhero in all of comics. (The most versatile supervillain, on the other hand, is Dr. Doom, and Chris Sims did a great job of laying out the reasons why in a recent column.) He's been around for close on 75 years and has, in that time, appeared in virtually every kind of story. You've probably got a "your Batman", the one you consider definitive and canonical -- and it's probably the one from when you were a kid. I'm no exception -- more on that in a moment.

I saw an Amazon review of the Arkham Asylum game that gave us this great bit of That's Not My Batman:

No, this is not the BAM, WHAM, KA-POW batman you saw David West in and it's not the weird new batman from Batman the Brave and the Bold cartoon and that is such a relief !!
This is the TRUE Batman, the one Bob Kane had in his mind even in the late 30's[.]

Yes, who could forget the famous Batman TV series starring David West? It was a huge departure from the TRUE Batman who Bob Kane had in his mind in the late 1930's -- you know, the one who wore a red costume, wings, and a domino mask, and was called Bird-Man, because that was Bob Kane's pitch until Bill Finger suggested some changes. (There's more on the origins of Batman at Dial B for Blog, and I strongly recommend the book Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones.)

Of course, the funny thing is that the guy who wrote the script to Batman: Arkham Asylum, Paul Dini, also gave us the following exchange (on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the one with "that weird new Batman" -- specifically, in the episode Legends of the Dark Mite):

I always felt Batman was best-suited in the role of gritty urban crime detective, but now you guys have him up against SANTAS? And EASTER BUNNIES? I'm sorry -- but that's not my Batman!
Batman's rich history allows him to be interpreted in a multitude of ways. To be sure, this is a lighter incarnation, but it's certainly no less valid and true to the character's roots as the tortured avenger crying out for Mommy and Daddy.

(You can see the clip on YouTube, too, but the uploader prevents embedding.)

Because Dini doesn't just understand that there's more than one "valid" interpretation of Batman, he excels at jumping between them. He's a true chameleon like few Batman scribes in the character's history -- Grant Morrison springs to mind, as does Bill Finger himself, who wrote everything from Batman's earliest appearances and origin story to a two-part episode of that "BAM, WHAM, KA-POW" TV series with Adam "My Name is Not Even Remotely Similar to David" West.

And the funny thing is, playing Arkham Asylum, I've realized something: this isn't my Batman.

He sounds exactly like my Batman. And the Joker sounds exactly like my Joker. And the writing sure sounds a lot like my Batman too.

But it's meaner. It's more violent. An asylum littered with the bodies of murdered security guards. Batman himself sticks to the "no killing" rule in this version (unlike, say, the Burton movies), but he's brutal. The game features fetishistic slow-motion beatdowns that look like something out of the Watchmen movie; Batman may not kill, but he snaps bones and smothers perps until they lose consciousness.

Don't get me wrong -- I like the game. It plays fantastically; it's expertly designed, fun as hell, and it fits Batman -- at least, a version of Batman.

I guess that's what this comes down to: I can recognize a Batman as Not My Batman and still enjoy and appreciate it.

I Just Don't Get Fanboys.

2012-06-19, 4:42 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Comics, Stream of Consciousness, TV

Last week I wrote a post on fanboy entitlement, as exemplified by people who are positively enraged that the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon is for kids instead of thirtysomethings.

It included this bit:

Of course, muddying the waters a bit is last week's announcement that Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has been cancelled in favor of a new Avengers cartoon series. And this does look like a case where a cartoon got low ratings due to complete mismanagement (there were no episodes airing when Thor and Captain America came out last year, and the decision to pull the plug was clearly made before Marvel/Disney had the opportunity to gauge any ratings boost caused by the Avengers movie or the USM synergy) and replaced with something that looks like a potential Jeph Loeb Pet Project. So, you know, that is an actual example of the fanboys probably being right -- except, you know, the part where they declare the new series to totally suck based on one (admittedly sucky) promo image and absolutely nothing else.

Well, funny story about that: Bleeding Cool ran a piece today about that announcement.

And there is one internet user called Nabil Elmjati who seems to have started a one man covert war against [Ultimate Spider-Man] and Marvel Animation.

[...]

Nabil appears to have created the site Marvel TV News which runs stories about [Marvel] animation and games, but mostly about how awful the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon is, and how everyone hates it. It is registered to a "Nabil Mjati" in Morocco. So, you know. That's him.

And then he posted the news that the Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes would be cancelled and [replaced] with the cartoon Avengers Assemble. He also [quoted] from a press release, purported to be "print only", saying "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes won't be renewed for the 3rd Season. Marvel Animation will present their newly developed series Marvel's Avengers Assemble in 2013."

[...]

Only problem was that the quote was made up. There was no official press release. It was a lie that few chose to question.

There is certainly the rumour that Earth's Mightiest Heroes has been cancelled. It may well be replaced by the new Avengers Assemble. But no official word. Marvel TV News made up an official quote and all the websites followed suit without checking.

Mea culpa. Dude "quoted" a "print-only" press release and I didn't question it. I've updated my earlier post in light of the BC piece.

In my defense, by the time I wrote that post the linked TV Guide interview had been posted, with Loeb confirming work on the Avengers Assemble TV series. That supports the claim that Earth's Mightiest Heroes is cancelled but does not actually confirm it, and is certainly not the same thing as a print-only press release. And before we go any farther, it bears noting that Bleeding Cool is the British tabloid of comic book news sites, and itself best taken with a grain of salt.

But, still and all: there was no press release, and Marvel TV News is a bullshit site by some guy who just really, really hates Ultimate Spider-Man.

Which is just, you know, fucking weird.

I get into it a bit with a guy in the comments section of that Bleeding Cool post -- one of those guys who just does not understand why Marvel wants to target its cartoons at the kids, and who just doesn't care anymore and wants to make very sure that everybody knows just how much he doesn't care. Okay. So that's run-of-the-mill fanboy entitlement. A basic lack of perspective. I don't really get it, but it's a common, somewhat mild condition.

It stops somewhere short of this Elmjati gentleman's apparent obsession -- per the BC article, he hasn't merely set up a phony news site to "quote" completely made-up press releases, he's also repeatedly harangued Joe Quesada on Twitter and actually set up a phony Jeph Loeb Facebook profile and then encouraged people to deluge it with angry comments.

And...I mean, just god damn, what is wrong with that guy?

Christ knows I've wasted a lot of time arguing with people on the Internet about superheroes, but running a full-time campaign of astroturfing, sock-puppetry, and downright fabrication has seriously never crossed my mind.

Sometimes, Cartoons are for Kids.

2012-06-12, 7:22 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Comics, TV

We've been spoiled.

My generation, I mean.

We grew up on Batman: The Animated Series. A cartoon that was made for kids but which attracted a huge following among adults, won two Emmys, and still holds up twenty years later not only as an intelligent and sophisticated show, but as one of the high water marks in animation, period.

And if you think that spoiled us, well, consider this: by the time I was in college, Dini, Timm, Burnett, et al were still playing in that sandbox, still expanding that universe, with Justice League.

And there were more to follow. Teen Titans, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold -- they all had their detractors, but ultimately they were well-received by adults.

And then there's the Marvel side. Sure, the 1990's X-Men and Spider-Man may have been pretty bad in hindsight, but Spectacular Spider-Man was quite probably the best cartoon Marvel's ever put together, and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes may very well rank at #2.

So that's a murderer's row of fantastic cartoons, enjoyable by adults -- so I suppose it's easy to see where some fanboys got to feeling so entitled that they're offended by the very idea of superhero cartoons for kids.

There's an article over at ComicsAlliance about Ultimate Spider-Man being picked up for a second season. For some reason this has made people in the comments section very angry.

It's not just that they don't like the show -- I mean, that's fine. I like it (it's got Agent Phil Coulson as the high school principal, it had a Frog Thor episode, and even a cameo by Doop!), but seriously, it's okay if some people don't!

That's different from being offended at the very idea that the show is written for children and not for you. I mean, dude -- get over yourself; of course it is.

The Beat had an article to that effect recently too: Area man surprised to find Spider-Man cartoon aimed at children. It featured this quote by a gentleman named Jim Mroczkowski, which I think strikes to the heart of the matter:

No, of course Ultimate Spider-Man doesn’t float your boat. You aren’t eleven years old.

In other words: no, I’m not enjoying this program about my favorite character by my favorite creative team, but what if this particular children’s show about a colorful superhero was a cartoon on the Disney Channel intended for little kids, as opposed to an epic meant for 37-year-old homeowners?

Now, back during the era of Superfriends, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and assorted other superhero shows which apparently were mandated by law to include the word "friends" in their titles, this observation would have fallen straight under the heading of "Well no shit." But again -- the Batman: The Animated Series generation is so spoiled it's lost track of that obvious point.

There is another aspect to this: the notion that this has displaced something we loved.

Spectacular Spider-Man was cancelled, and now we have Ultimate Spider-Man. Ergo, as far as fanboys are concerned, Ultimate Spider-Man is to blame for the cancellation of Spectacular Spider-Man.

Now, that's not actually true. But this is the Internet. Bring up Seiken Densetsu 3 and within five minutes someone will be along to rant about how it was cancelled for the vastly inferior Secret of Evermore. This is not actually true, and has long since been thoroughly discredited, but entitled fanboys don't like letting facts get in the way of simple explanations.

Spectacular Spider-Man was cancelled because the rights to animated Spider-Man reverted from Sony back to Marvel. That's the major reason. The bankruptcy of 4Kids Entertainment, the station that aired it, and Disney's purchase of Marvel, likely did not help, but it was first and foremost a rights conflict. Ultimate Spider-Man was made because Spectacular Spider-Man was cancelled, not the other way around.

Of course, muddying the waters a bit is last week's announcement that Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has been cancelled in favor of a new Avengers cartoon series*. And this does look like a case where a cartoon got low ratings due to complete mismanagement (there were no episodes airing when Thor and Captain America came out last year, and the decision to pull the plug was clearly made before Marvel/Disney had the opportunity to gauge any ratings boost caused by the Avengers movie or the USM synergy) and replaced with something that looks like a potential Jeph Loeb Pet Project. So, you know, that is an actual example of the fanboys probably being right -- except, you know, the part where they declare the new series to totally suck based on one (admittedly sucky) promo image and absolutely nothing else.

And this has been the pattern. Teenage Batman in the future? The fanboys cried that that was a terrible idea. Teen Titans? When it was new the fanboys proclaimed that it was far too juvenile; now that there's a followup coming, those same fanboys are declaring that's too juvenile, and why can't it be mature and sophisticated like the old series?

Fanboys hated The Batman -- and admittedly, it took a couple seasons to find its sea legs, but it got pretty good after awhile.

Fanboys hated Batman: The Brave and the Bold, but it turned out to be an absolutely ingenious series, smart, funny, and firmly rooted in the works of Dick Sprang and Jack Kirby.

There's a phrase for this, in Transformers fandom, for people automatically hating a new series entirely because it's different and not because it's actually bad: "TRUKK NOT MUNKY!"

I guess I've drifted somewhat off-point.

My point is twofold:

  1. Don't declare that you hate a show until you have actually seen it;
  2. If you do hate it once you see it, that's okay, but maybe you can stop short of actually being offended that a cartoon featuring your favorite superhero is designed for children.

That's all.

(Now if, on the other hand, an eight-year-old happens to be offended that there are five different monthly Batman comics and every single one of them is written for people over thirty, then yeah, I think that qualifies as a legitimate complaint.)

* Update 2012-06-19: According to Bleeding Cool -- a site itself best taken with a grain of salt --, Marvel has made no such announcement and the site reporting it is run by some guy who just really, really hates Ultimate Spider-Man. That said, Jeph Loeb did indicate, in a TV Guide interview, that there is a new Avengers cartoon coming, which grants some credence to the claim.

Beasts

2012-06-09, 11:13 pm
Categories: Cartoons, Music

For tonight's Moment of Zappa, I have found a surreal Hungarian cartoon titled Beasts, set to G-Spot Tornado and Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus.

It's probably NSFW -- not just because there are some nude figures who look more like the work of Picasso than actual human beings, but because both the video and audio are precisely the kind of weirdness that will attract unwanted attention if someone notices you watching it. (But there aren't actually any words, so no nasty Zappa lyrics to worry about, anyway.)

The copyright date is 1993, so Frank presumably got to see the completed work before he passed. Which is great, because this is exactly the kind of crazy shit he really enjoyed. He was involved in some offbeat American animation too, of course -- fans will remember his cameo on Ren & Stimpy as the Pope, and that he wrote the theme song for Duckman (hmm -- you know, I think one of these days I'll have to post that as a "Great Opening Titles" and "Moment of Zappa").

I love Cletus; it's one of my favorite Zappa pieces. It's precisely what he was talking about when he famously (and rhetorically) asked, "Does humor belong in music?" Because he didn't just mean funny lyrics -- he meant funny sounds. Everything from the tempo to the instrumentation is expert comedy; it's a funny, funny song -- and it doesn't have a single word.

I found the Beasts video looking to see if there were any good videos of Zappa Plays Zappa performing Cletus live (I saw it in concert a few years ago; Dweezil introduced it by noting that to the best of his knowledge Frank never performed it live). I didn't find any, but I found something totally unexpected instead -- somehow I doubt this is the last time that will happen on one of my searches for Zappa material.

Access

2012-06-09, 9:50 pm
Categories: Cartoons, TV

In the previous post, I mentioned two shows: Mad Men and the new Thundercats.

Mad Men is one of the most successful and critically acclaimed shows on TV, by a network that has at least two more of them and has become synonymous with drama on cable TV.

It's also availble on Netflix Streaming. Despite some missteps in the past year, I believe that Netflix represents the future of TV distribution. Eight bucks a month for access to a huge library of movies and TV shows new, old, and, in the case of the upcoming season of Arrested Development, original.

Thundercats is available online too. You can go to cartoonnetwork.com, click on Full Episodes, and get this charming little notification:

FULL EPISODES... AWESOME!

Watch the newest episodes of all your favorite shows. Get your parents to fill in their cable info and you're good to go.

That's right: you can watch Thundercats online...if you already have a cable subscription!

And there are three whole episodes available: today's, the one from three weeks ago, and the one from four weeks ago!

So all you have to do is pay seventy dollars a month, and you, too, can get access to a seemingly completely fucking random selection of episodes from all your favorite shows online! Plus you get to pay for Fox News and the Christian Broadcasting Network, whether you want them or not! AWESOME!

Cable TV as we know it will not exist in 20 years. Good fucking riddance.

Flubs

2012-06-09, 8:08 pm
Categories: Announcements, Cartoons, TV

It's interesting, the kind of small but glaring errors that take you out of something.

Mad Men has an absolutely fantastic crop of writers, editors, directors, and actors -- so it's jarring when not one of them notices that, say, "1960, I am so over you" is a phrase that no human being has ever uttered. It's one thing to use a 1963 Bob Dylan song as background music in an episode set in 1960; it's another to actually have a character use slang that would be out-of-place in a show set in 1990.

A less severe but still amusing flub: in last week's Thundercats, a character said he had worked his math out to "the thousandth decimal point". I think I can see the error in his calculation: he used more than one decimal point.

Also: I changed the name of the "toons" category to "cartoons", because this is not Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The only reason I used the shortened form of the word in the first damn place was for a set of link banners I made back in 2000 that only one guy ever actually used.