Noir Watch: The First issue of Brubaker's "Criminal: Last of the Innocent" is great comics

Confession time:  As weird as it might seem, somehow I didn't get past the second issue of Brubaker's creator-owned series, Criminal.  I don't even remember what happened, because I don't recall having ill-feelings toward the series.  I suspect that I always planned to pick it up in TPB, and then just... didn't.  Likely because its being published by Marvel, and I don't really scour the Marvel solicits too hard these days (oddly, my Marvel purchases are limited to only a few things, including Brubaker's Captain America, so its not like I've had an embargo on his work).

Brubaker's series, as I understand it, tells a new story with new characters for each storyline.  Gien the nature of crime movies and stories, it seems really how it should be.  Different tales from the mind of a guy who knows his territory. 

Yes, if you're going to evoke pulp-noir nostalgia, start with the cover

DC Comics and magical thinking

Well, no Superman #1 news today.

Instead we got a listing of new DC titles with a supernatural bent.

-Swamp Thing is Swamp Thing.  Written by Scott Snyder, this may be the reboot Swampy has needed since the conclusion of the series back when I was still in college.
-Justice League Dark.  Truthfully, I don't know if I like this idea a whole lot and I don't like the name at all (we've discussed the use of the tag-on of "Dark" plenty around here).
John Constantine, Deadman, Shade the Changing Man and Madame Xanadu.  No Zatanna?  No Klarion?  No Dr. Occult? No Detective Chimp or Rex the Wonder Dog?

Flat out, I don't buy that Constantine would join a "team", let alone a "Justice League" or, especially, a "Justice League Dark".  But I do want to see what they're thinking.

Pictured: the turmoil JLD faces when they try to find a place everyone can agree on for dinner

and then there was the time Austin made a theater for people who are deadly @#$%ing serious about movies (and some people got upset)

Anyone who reads this blog knows I love The Alamo Drafthouse chain of theaters.  I pay a LOT of money to see movies there, I scour their calendar for events and films to look forward to, and I treat going to The Alamo like a privilege.

Yes, I love being able to go see Big Trouble in Little China on the big screen with a newly struck 35mm print. That's going to mean something to some of you as something to cherish and value, and to some of you, I'm sure you were cool with VHS tapes and pan & scan.  Fine.  Whatever, I'm a snob about things that you don't care about.  I'm not judging, except that you're enjoying an inferior experience and missing the original vision of the filmmakers, but, you know...  that's cool.

Austin isn't the only city with a population of like-minded folk large enough to support a 9 hour Planet of the Apes marathon, but we are the city that got it.  We got the ARCHIVAL prints, straight from the studio (Fox, right?).  We're lucky enough to be one of the few cities where projectionists actually do reset digital projectors to the correct settings, to the point where I didn't even know this was an issue until I read Roger Ebert's column on the topic and Tim League's discussion of how The Alamo does it.  Because somehow this is a town that takes this shit seriously.

Some brief Batman chat

Let's get back to talking about something I'm not sure people care about more or less than business practices of Big Pharma and the challenges of rolling technology and good pedagogy into the classroom.

Today DC Comics rolled out all kinds of news about what the Batman titles will look like after the DC reshuffling (I'm not calling it a reboot anymore) happens in September.

Some highlights:
-the only "Batman" will be Bruce Wayne.  I endorse this plan given the business needs pushing the reboot.
-Dick Grayson will be back in his Nightwing togs, but now in red instead of blue.
-Batman Inc. is on hiatus for a bit, but is coming back
-Sigh.  Jason Todd survived the reboot.  And he's getting his own title.  X-Treme Heroes or some such.
-Catwoman will have a comic.
-Birds of Prey will exist without Oracle, Huntress, Zinda and likely me as a reader.
-No sign yet of fan-favorite Tim Drake, who has been the burger-shop-friendly "Red Robin" for the past year.
-It appears the role of Robin will be filled by Damian Wayne
-A fellow who appeared in Batman, Inc., Batwing, will get his own title.  I think I drew something similar in one of my sketchbooks in college when I was pondering Batman. Only mine looked more like a bunch of squiggles and had grappling cannons on his arm and likely was very, very angry.

Uh...  we do this Batman thing at NIGHT, sir

Higher Ed, Moving Technology and Trying not to pick fights with Lauren

Before we begin, two things:

1)  Go read Lauren's post. 
2)  I agree with a very large chunk of what Lauren says and/ or brings up from the article she's citing.

I worded something funny in my response to Lauren's post via Twitter, and I am afraid she took it as me saying "this will never happen" or "you're wrong", neither of which was my intention.  I love what Lauren has to say, and unlike what you do see occasionally (ie: "how do we turn all these college classes into video games?", which has been asked to me before) the ideas make sense. Its mixing the technological with the sociological in a way that understands the dynamics of a bad situation and proposing plausible solutions.

Now, what started the great Twitter debate of 2011 was that I made a comment about cost and culture as barriers. What was I on about?

Some background:  Of my 13 years since graduating, I've spent more than ten working in higher education (and a year in the employ of higher ed prior to graduation).  In that time, I have always been employed in offices which have been responsible for rolling out new technology to universities, faculty, researchers and students (going back to when pages were written in this stuff called HTML), several years getting courses online in all shapes and forms, and now working in Digital Libraries (or, as I wish to re-configure it:  Research Networks).  So let me share a few things.

Nuvigil Radio Ad: Pitching a world in which nobody ever heard of coffee

I am not one to say that a medication can't help you out.  Heck, the meds I'm on keep me from going on a merciless rampage through the city on a daily basis.

The other day, driving home from work, I heard an ad for a pill called "Nuvigil" which pitched itself as a solution for "Work Shift Disorder".   I don't often call shenanigans on other people's medical woes, but Nuvigil sounds like, dare I say?, a bunch of malarkey.  Or at least what its supposedly treating.

Now, even according to Nuvigil's own site, "Work Shift Disorder" seems to be an issue striking people who work the graveyard shift, which is in conflict with the normal pattern of sleeping at night and being up during the day.  While its not hard to agree that for those whose clocks don't adjust well, feeling logy on the job can't be much fun, but last I checked, we've had a solution for this problem for a few hundred years.  Its called "coffee" and "adjusting your schedule". 

A Quick Catch-Up

Oh, all the things I could be posting on.  But:

1)  I've been fighting allergies the past few days, and haven't the energy to ponder much more about comics.
2)  Work has been particularly busy as next week I am assisting with the Open Repositories 2011 conference here in sunny Austin, Texas.  And if you've never helped with a conference - you should keep right on not doing that.  Its really hectic (but can be fun).

I mention the conference because either I will have a ton of downtime next week and you'll hear from me too much, or NO downtime, and you'll hear from me very little. 

You can't live in Austin and not talk about allergies.  Everybody who lives here develops them, and I finally developed mine in 1999 or so, forgot about them while I was in Arizona, and came back to learn that I don't get along great with oak (it makes me itch) and whatever is going on right now, which give me super-fun drainage and makes me feel kind of lowly.

So I had also forgotten that my body chemistry thinks Claritin-D is some sort of hallucinogen or something because yesterday at work was sort of a loss.  I mean, yeah, I was there, but mostly in body.  I am kind of curious what emails I sent and what I may have verbally agreed to.  I'll take a few Benadryl before I go to bed so I can sleep, but mostly I just hope that the allergy stuff lessens by Monday when I have to be at work by 7:00 AM.

I did make it to Austin Books and Comics yesterday, and the shop was a bit sedate.  Wishing to stir up trouble, I asked the cashier if it had been crazy with the DC news, and she said people had talked about it, but that people seem mostly just interested in hearing the details.  That's probably good news.  Yes, I think we all had a bit of a "the sky is falling" moment at first, but when you look at the chance to jump on a new book, well, that's genuinely fun.

The trick is for DC to make sure the comics are actually worth reading after that September spike.

Considering DC's multiple formats, I haven't decided yet how I'll consume the new DC Comics.  I'll continue buying floppies of all Superman-related titles, certainly.  And I may pick up a few series like Firestorm just because, hey, Firestorm is NEAT.  The rest I'll have to choose between in-store, online (bear in mind I have no iPad), trades and not at all.  I'll have out the old calculator and make some decisions here in a few weeks.

Word on the street is that the new X-Men movie may be okay.  I won't be able to see it this weekend, but I will take time to make it out and see X-Men: The Promise of January Jones in a White Queen Costume as soon as possible.

Anyhow, all this allergies and work have made me a tired boy, so I'm off to bed.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Full Trailer

I can't promise I won't just keep talking about the DC Comics Reboot

A few things I want to ponder out loud about the DCU reboot.

1.  So, things are looking bad for the Superman lawsuit, and one can imagine DC is working to shore up their version of Superman for when the Siegels run off with Action Comics #1.  Its possible the Siegels could include items such as Superman's red trunks and boots as part of what they own, and that explains Superman's visual overhaul.  They will not own Lex, the Daily Planet, Jimmy Olsen or pretty much anything but a Superman who jumps over buildings and who came from outerspace and who gets emasculated by Lois Lane when he's Clark Kent.  I think.  And I suspect DC is getting ready for a "this is their Superman, and this is our Superman" scenario, knowing that new readers will likely go with slick new Superman, not one that will be more or less a sort of curiosity of a vintage era of comic-making.

Its going to be very complicated, but I wonder what the WB lawyers are telling DC to do with their version of Superman so they can project to January 1, 2013 if negotiations fail.

And, yes, I totally believe the Siegels are getting bad advice from their attorney.  But I'll probably give their Superman a shot, too.

Noir Watch: "Touch of Evil" at Paramount w/ @PlacesLost was a good/ horrible time

Man, Touch of Evil is a complicated movie.  Charlton Heston is supposedly a Mexican narco agent, Orson Welles acts and directs and looks like he's about to keel over in every shot, Marlene Dietrich shows up as a tired fortune teller/ good-time girl and looks pretty damn good, Janet Leigh gets menaced, and for some reason Zsa Zsa Gabor is in the movie for about twenty seconds.

In this film Heston plays what he does best:  Charlton Heston.  But with a mustache.

I watched Touch of Evil for the first time around 1998 or 1999, likely on VHS from "I Love Video" on Airport, and what I really recall is that I found the scene in which Janet Leigh is menaced alone in her motel room so upsetting, I turned the movie off and went and did other things for a bit and came back to finish the movie later.  I suppose as I'd seen the movie before, I knew what was coming and it was a bit easier to manage as a viewer, but its still some fairly powerful stuff.