San Francisco's Laptop Indie Rock pioneers PantsPantsPants succeeded in re-shooting, scene for scene, and in excruciating detail, the entire opening sequences of season 1 and season 5 of the popular television show "Full House." (Link found via Scotto, who I never give enough props to. 'Sup, Scottobear?)
Because of the excellence of this clip and the music attached, I went to their site and picked up the full-length CD Pop Songs To Make Us Famous. You can also buy it over iTunes if you want to do that, but I'm still a bit old fashioned and want the physical artifact. Scotto's also kind enough to link to the video of Hasselhoff's cover of "Hooked On A Feeling", which is glorious. There's some NSFW ads on the site, so be aware of that if your boss is still lurking around.
Just read Keith Giffen and Andy Kuhn's 10 and while it's obvious that Giff's translating of Battle Royale is a starting point for this, he creates his own nasty, amoral tone poem from the simple yet effective concept of "people being forced to kill each other by an outside force." While I won't say I enjoyed it, exactly, I think that it performed its goal quite admirably.
Dwayne McDuffie's Fantastic Four Special (not the most imaginative name - the interior state it's called My Dinner With Doom, which I like a great deal more) is a well-done little thing about Reed having dinner with Doom (duh) on the day of the Latverian Rapprochement Festival, where they get to hash out a few things. There's a lot of great character moments in this and it's one of the rare post-Simonson stories (the only other one that I can think of is FF: 1 2 3 4) that nails the strange combination of respect, hatred, and pity that Doom and Richards have for one another. (Before anyone starts: yes, I've read the Waid stuff and it just...didn't quite get to the mark for me - no, that's not a pun. There's something missing for me in the whole enterprise, even while it seems to do everything right. It's all visual and no subtext, I guess.)
Daredevil #80 reminded me a bit too much of that Secret War story in The Pulse that featured people shouting and visiting hospitals, but there's some truly well-done stuff in here: Urich having to make a tough decision (why he stays a reporter is beyond me), the return of the Night Nurse, getting to see Black Widow and Elektra engage in a nuclear-level bitch-off, and ninjas, ninjas, ninjas!
Rocketo's fourth issue sees Rocketo Garrison placed in a series of unpleasant situations and managing to make the best of them. A chunky bit of comic, this reminded more than ever of Mielville's The Scar, but I doubt it's intential: giant sea monsters are a long-standing portion of the whole "fantasy" genre. Espinosa's art is a beautiful thing that I can get lost in for days if I'm not careful. I hope the trade that's coming out has sketches and stuff, as the development process behind a lot of them is probably just as interesting as the final product.
Doug Fraser's Mort Grim is a "graphic novella" from AdHouse Books and while it's very pretty and has a nice hook: "Ghost Rider meets The Seventh Seal," I was left pretty cold by the whole effort. Maybe it'll grow on me, but $5 for a 3 minute reading experience (and that was me being slow to admire the art) is a pretty poor entertainment value and I walked away with nothing to cling to, which was sort of depressing, because this is a book that should be up my alley like a nuclear-powered robot Hitler controlled by six squirrel monkeys.
Hey, that Revolution On The Planet Of The Apes wasn't half bad. It slides right into the film continuity quite well, with the main story setting up the eventual Ape Riots that seize the planet like a kitten in Koko's grasp. (Except without the love.) Ty Templeton's plotting is well done and Joe O'Brien's script manages to make the whole thing seem menacing while maintaining the tone of the original material nicely. Oddly enough, the supplemental material may well surpass it in my book: Caesar's Journal has Ty The Guy and Bernie Mireault showing us what's going on in the Lead Monkey Insurgent's mind and For Animal Rights (again with Ty, this time with "Attila,") giving us a snapshot of the political climate that leads to the eventual usurping of homo sapiens.
War drums beat quite heavily in BPRD: The Black Flame with decisions, confrontations, and lovely, lovely Guy Davis art. I can't wait to see how it all ends. I hope it involves giant dead evil worms.
I've got some other things to look at: the new Fables trade, along with that Englehart Captain America And The Falcon collection, and Squarecat Comics along with that mysterious Star Trek trade that does not pick up where the last one left off, instead choosing to start with Volume 2 of the series, which was set after Star Trek V: Shatner's Giant Ego Meets A Tiny Budget.
Because of the excellence of this clip and the music attached, I went to their site and picked up the full-length CD Pop Songs To Make Us Famous. You can also buy it over iTunes if you want to do that, but I'm still a bit old fashioned and want the physical artifact. Scotto's also kind enough to link to the video of Hasselhoff's cover of "Hooked On A Feeling", which is glorious. There's some NSFW ads on the site, so be aware of that if your boss is still lurking around.
Just read Keith Giffen and Andy Kuhn's 10 and while it's obvious that Giff's translating of Battle Royale is a starting point for this, he creates his own nasty, amoral tone poem from the simple yet effective concept of "people being forced to kill each other by an outside force." While I won't say I enjoyed it, exactly, I think that it performed its goal quite admirably.
Dwayne McDuffie's Fantastic Four Special (not the most imaginative name - the interior state it's called My Dinner With Doom, which I like a great deal more) is a well-done little thing about Reed having dinner with Doom (duh) on the day of the Latverian Rapprochement Festival, where they get to hash out a few things. There's a lot of great character moments in this and it's one of the rare post-Simonson stories (the only other one that I can think of is FF: 1 2 3 4) that nails the strange combination of respect, hatred, and pity that Doom and Richards have for one another. (Before anyone starts: yes, I've read the Waid stuff and it just...didn't quite get to the mark for me - no, that's not a pun. There's something missing for me in the whole enterprise, even while it seems to do everything right. It's all visual and no subtext, I guess.)
Daredevil #80 reminded me a bit too much of that Secret War story in The Pulse that featured people shouting and visiting hospitals, but there's some truly well-done stuff in here: Urich having to make a tough decision (why he stays a reporter is beyond me), the return of the Night Nurse, getting to see Black Widow and Elektra engage in a nuclear-level bitch-off, and ninjas, ninjas, ninjas!Rocketo's fourth issue sees Rocketo Garrison placed in a series of unpleasant situations and managing to make the best of them. A chunky bit of comic, this reminded more than ever of Mielville's The Scar, but I doubt it's intential: giant sea monsters are a long-standing portion of the whole "fantasy" genre. Espinosa's art is a beautiful thing that I can get lost in for days if I'm not careful. I hope the trade that's coming out has sketches and stuff, as the development process behind a lot of them is probably just as interesting as the final product.
Doug Fraser's Mort Grim is a "graphic novella" from AdHouse Books and while it's very pretty and has a nice hook: "Ghost Rider meets The Seventh Seal," I was left pretty cold by the whole effort. Maybe it'll grow on me, but $5 for a 3 minute reading experience (and that was me being slow to admire the art) is a pretty poor entertainment value and I walked away with nothing to cling to, which was sort of depressing, because this is a book that should be up my alley like a nuclear-powered robot Hitler controlled by six squirrel monkeys.
Hey, that Revolution On The Planet Of The Apes wasn't half bad. It slides right into the film continuity quite well, with the main story setting up the eventual Ape Riots that seize the planet like a kitten in Koko's grasp. (Except without the love.) Ty Templeton's plotting is well done and Joe O'Brien's script manages to make the whole thing seem menacing while maintaining the tone of the original material nicely. Oddly enough, the supplemental material may well surpass it in my book: Caesar's Journal has Ty The Guy and Bernie Mireault showing us what's going on in the Lead Monkey Insurgent's mind and For Animal Rights (again with Ty, this time with "Attila,") giving us a snapshot of the political climate that leads to the eventual usurping of homo sapiens.War drums beat quite heavily in BPRD: The Black Flame with decisions, confrontations, and lovely, lovely Guy Davis art. I can't wait to see how it all ends. I hope it involves giant dead evil worms.
I've got some other things to look at: the new Fables trade, along with that Englehart Captain America And The Falcon collection, and Squarecat Comics along with that mysterious Star Trek trade that does not pick up where the last one left off, instead choosing to start with Volume 2 of the series, which was set after Star Trek V: Shatner's Giant Ego Meets A Tiny Budget.
