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online comics, and other stuff
Online comics seem to be currently suffering:
Sluggy Freelance has gone to random-filler mode, after a long period of what its creator himself admitted to be an uninspired writer's-block period where humour was largely humourless, and one of the comic's best elements, the comedic timing, was horribly off.
Clan of the Cats is in a brief hiatus, following creator's medical problems.
Graphic Smash and all its connected comics ("Fans!", "Rip & Terri", etc) suffered a meltdown which they're still trying to fix.
CRFH has stopped being interesting to me for some years now.
Gah.
Atleast the Shortpacked joke concerning the pope was funny. :-) Hope it offends none of my Catholic friends.
----
"The Incredibles" (saw this last week) is the most fun superhero film I ever remember seeing -- better than the Spiderman flicks by far. And kinda sweet and cute without ever becoming saccharine. It's also one of the few animated films I remember seeing where the chief villain *doesn't* die by falling from a great height. Saw it on DVD last week and utterly loved it.
"The Cube" on the other hand was one of the most depressingly claustrophobic movies I remember. Gah. Mathematical cruelty, nasty randomness, bureaucratic evil and human savagery. Saw this one yesterday, and I need to go and watch something comparatively happy and fluffy now. "CSI" episodes or something. Those ones may be still filled with depictions of human evil, but technology and science and logic atleast serve the good guys and humanity is never absent. And quirkiness exists to relieve the tension, not to burn off your face with acid when you're not expecting it.
"Constantine", which I saw in the cinema, was slightly less Constantine-like than I'd have liked -- but still a decent enough approximation of the character I think (i.e. from what I can judge, far closer to the original character than Peter Jackson's LOTR character were to Tolkien).
These are just nitpicks I can make, though I'm not really qualified enough to make them -- I've not followed the Constantine comic "religiously" (hah! pun intended), but I've read several issues of it when I've had the chance and this has been my impression of it: In the comics, Constantine is more of an asshole and uncaring of most lives he affects unless they're among the rare exception that touch him close -- in the movie on the other hand he's more of a jerk and simply unmindful of manners and behaviour. The movie is all-around less cynical in many ways. One example (am spoiling the comic here, but *not* the movie): in a storyline of the comic Constantine is dying from lung cancer. The way that he escapes his death (and damnation) in the comicbook is that he essentially sells off his soul to three different demon lords. His is such a highly priced soul, that these demon lords would have gone to war to claim it (not that they would have a choice, since the contract stipulated that they *must* claim it upon his death, no options about it). Such a war would have ripped hell apart, so essentially the demons decide to give Constantine an extension of life, curing him of his cancer, until they can figure out how to solve the dilemma.
So Constantine is (in the comic) saved from death and hell by *literally* being thrice-damned. In the movie, on the other hand, the solution is much less cynical.
Other nitpicks: I didn't so much like that they presented him as an "extraordinarily-powered kid of ordinary parents" something like what the kid in Sixth Sense was. The "Constantine heritage" in the comics is something much more elaborate. His and his family line, stretching back to King Constantine (not the more famous one of Byzantium, but the less famous one of Britain) -- with the "true Constantines" being always one in a pair of twins whose sibling died in the womb, who (tricksters and crooks and petty magicians) manipulate others in the path and play with the powers of heaven and hell causing the deaths of all their friends one by one, until friendless they perish themselves in the end...
... there's something grand in such a century-spanning mythos, and something which the movie utterly failed to exploit. Can movie-producers still have failed to understand what it is that made Highlander such a cult hit?
Sluggy Freelance has gone to random-filler mode, after a long period of what its creator himself admitted to be an uninspired writer's-block period where humour was largely humourless, and one of the comic's best elements, the comedic timing, was horribly off.
Clan of the Cats is in a brief hiatus, following creator's medical problems.
Graphic Smash and all its connected comics ("Fans!", "Rip & Terri", etc) suffered a meltdown which they're still trying to fix.
CRFH has stopped being interesting to me for some years now.
Gah.
Atleast the Shortpacked joke concerning the pope was funny. :-) Hope it offends none of my Catholic friends.
----
"The Incredibles" (saw this last week) is the most fun superhero film I ever remember seeing -- better than the Spiderman flicks by far. And kinda sweet and cute without ever becoming saccharine. It's also one of the few animated films I remember seeing where the chief villain *doesn't* die by falling from a great height. Saw it on DVD last week and utterly loved it.
"The Cube" on the other hand was one of the most depressingly claustrophobic movies I remember. Gah. Mathematical cruelty, nasty randomness, bureaucratic evil and human savagery. Saw this one yesterday, and I need to go and watch something comparatively happy and fluffy now. "CSI" episodes or something. Those ones may be still filled with depictions of human evil, but technology and science and logic atleast serve the good guys and humanity is never absent. And quirkiness exists to relieve the tension, not to burn off your face with acid when you're not expecting it.
"Constantine", which I saw in the cinema, was slightly less Constantine-like than I'd have liked -- but still a decent enough approximation of the character I think (i.e. from what I can judge, far closer to the original character than Peter Jackson's LOTR character were to Tolkien).
These are just nitpicks I can make, though I'm not really qualified enough to make them -- I've not followed the Constantine comic "religiously" (hah! pun intended), but I've read several issues of it when I've had the chance and this has been my impression of it: In the comics, Constantine is more of an asshole and uncaring of most lives he affects unless they're among the rare exception that touch him close -- in the movie on the other hand he's more of a jerk and simply unmindful of manners and behaviour. The movie is all-around less cynical in many ways. One example (am spoiling the comic here, but *not* the movie): in a storyline of the comic Constantine is dying from lung cancer. The way that he escapes his death (and damnation) in the comicbook is that he essentially sells off his soul to three different demon lords. His is such a highly priced soul, that these demon lords would have gone to war to claim it (not that they would have a choice, since the contract stipulated that they *must* claim it upon his death, no options about it). Such a war would have ripped hell apart, so essentially the demons decide to give Constantine an extension of life, curing him of his cancer, until they can figure out how to solve the dilemma.
So Constantine is (in the comic) saved from death and hell by *literally* being thrice-damned. In the movie, on the other hand, the solution is much less cynical.
Other nitpicks: I didn't so much like that they presented him as an "extraordinarily-powered kid of ordinary parents" something like what the kid in Sixth Sense was. The "Constantine heritage" in the comics is something much more elaborate. His and his family line, stretching back to King Constantine (not the more famous one of Byzantium, but the less famous one of Britain) -- with the "true Constantines" being always one in a pair of twins whose sibling died in the womb, who (tricksters and crooks and petty magicians) manipulate others in the path and play with the powers of heaven and hell causing the deaths of all their friends one by one, until friendless they perish themselves in the end...
... there's something grand in such a century-spanning mythos, and something which the movie utterly failed to exploit. Can movie-producers still have failed to understand what it is that made Highlander such a cult hit?
no subject
Ctrl-Alt-Del, gamer's comic that is generally utterly insane; Kill Harry, a pretty cool HP adaptation of Kill Bill; Chisuji, a mutant sort of comic although that doesn't do it justice by a long shot; Machall, college madness; and there is always Sexylosers, although I cannot put enough warnings on it. But it's funny.
(No, I have no life.)
no subject
Eh, gaming and college comics have tended to go too formulaic for me, but I'll check them out also when I have the time. Chisuji definitely looks interesting though -- thank you for the recommendation!
no subject
Mm I honestly doubt Ctrl-Alt-Del could be anything but formulaic, but that's cool. And you're welcome. :)
no subject
I still think James Marsters would have been perfect as Constantine.
I loved The Incredibles--about the same as Spider-man 2 in fact. I also saw Sin City recently, which is a real experience. The analogy I've heard is that it's film noir on steroids. Works for me. And I can't believe how faithful the adaptation is!
Robots was something of a misfire. Can someone explain to me why filmmakers feel the need to put scatological humor in kid's movies? It completely alienates the adults!
I've fallen a bit behind on Sluggy. Around when the Bun-bun pirate episode started.
no subject
To tell the truth I don't know why anyone feels the need to put scatological humor in anything at all-- kid or adult, I've never liked it. "Ice Age" was one of the few recent animated movies I've intensely disliked, so I don't plan to see "Robots" (by the same creators I think) at all.