Signal Watch Watches: Night of the Hunter

This isn't exactly a review, but:  for quite a while I've meant to watch the Charles Laughton directed Night of the Hunter.  

The movie simply looks different from a lot of other movies of the day, with shots framed with a still-photographer's eye, unusual use of angles, overly stylized dialogue, and a general feeling of a stage play to the proceedings.  None of that is a criticism.  Quite the opposite.

don't mind me, I'm just here for a small bit a crazy

Robert Mitchum (Mitchum!) plays a psycho who isn't so much posing as a man-of-the-cloth as he is a deranged lunatic using his own made-up deal with God to cut a path across the Mid-West preaching by day and marrying widows (and murdering them) by night, then moving on to the next town.

Signal Watch Reads: Superman 712

Superman 712
Writer: Kurt Busiek
Penciller: Rick Leonardi
Inker: Jonathan Sibal
Colorist: Brad Anderson
Lettering: Comicraft
Associate Editor: Nachie Castro
Editor: Matt Idleson

Comics Legend and Great Gene Colan Merges with the Infinite

Artist Gene Colan did so much exceptional work over so many years, its hard to believe it was one guy.  He was also always much beloved within the industry.

I won't spend too much time eulogizing, but I will point you to this post pulling together thoughts from those working in comics, and this one from the AV Club which discusses Gene's career.

When I think of Gene, I think Marvel, which is funny because I know he did stuff all over the place.  But he's in there with Buscema, Romita, etc..  one of the people who created modern comics. 

We'll miss you, Mr. Colan. 

Here's a link to Mr. Colan's official site.

JimD goes to Philly and delivers a huge addition to the Superman collection

Holy smokes, ya'll...

Can you read my mind?

Yup, JimD went to Wizard World Philly, stood in line on my behalf and got me a signed pic by none other than Ms. Margot Kidder.  Where I'm from, this is better than currency. That there is Lois Lane, people.

Thanks to JimD, I now have autographs from two of the women who played Lois, both Ms. Kidder and Ms. Noel Neill.

Really, Signal Corps, the rest of you are falling way, way behind.

So I try to be clever, what with the whole Superman/Kitty thing going on

So I had a doctor appointment today and was driving home (I'm fine, thanks for asking), and I suddenly remembered a comic I bought a few years ago "Superman: For the Animals".  And I thought I'd try some PhotoShop, but it turns out that if you don't use Photoshop on a regular basis, you totally forget how it works.  Whoops.

Anyway, here is my editorial.  Shut up.  I worked with what I had.

yes, I did this in mother@#$%ing MS Paint.  Shut up.

If I had to guess, this comic is no longer canon at DC Comics.

you're welcome, internet.  have fun playing with this image for the next few days.

Teh Kittehs will haz their revenge!!! (love this from @daveexmachina)

in response to yesterday's anti-kitty news:

From Dave Lartigue courtesy a retweet by @allisontype

I assume this would be Jeff the Cat approved. He was unavailable for comment.

Fun fact: Jeff the Cat is a big Ostrander Suicide Squad fan, btw.

If you'd told me in 1993 that people would be fighting over people wanting to be called "geek", I would have burned you for a witch

Apparently at some beauty pageant this week, the winner stood on stage and declared herself "a geek".  Specifically, she called out a few shows she liked including Game of Thrones (which is amaaaaaazing, but we'll discuss that later), and declared herself a "history geek".  And with that, it seemed, the meaning of the term "geek" that I knew and as I had once understood it, died a last and wheezing death before a televised audience's eyes.

I didn't see this, of course.  I didn't watch TV last night, and I don't watch beauty pageants when I do watch TV.  But I have the internets, and the internets were abuzz.

I want to refer you to an article I wrote in 2004 about the death of the phrase "bling", which was a not-dissimilar experience.  When white-bread moms are dolling up their upper-middle-class daughters, they may now use the phrase "bling", but the word has lost any weight or meaning. 

And, so, too, has the term "geek".

It sort of reminds me of when a very dear friend of mine from high school who's tastes ran toward Top 40 radio, top-rated sitcoms and whatever fashionable people were wearing, etc... (I love this person, and I genuinely am not trying to be critical, but I'm being honest here) jumped in the car with me during a winter break home from college, put in Counting Crows on the CD player, turned to me smiling and unironically announced "see, Ryan, now I'm alternative."  It was so adorable, I just wanted to give her a hug.

Today there's this whole weird argument raging on the internet, and it seems mostly to be happening in the Girl Geek quarters, especially amongst younger women (in their 20's, it seems) who are debating what constitutes a geek, and many are PROUD (like, fierce, angry proud) of overcoming their self-stated reject status and fighting for the right to have a community they may not have felt like they've had before.

So, when Miss America describes herself as a "geek", its causing a kerfuffle. It's the co-option of a hard-won name for a lot of folks out there, and the insinuation of oneself into a community that seems to feel that their rejection at the hands of the beautiful people in high school and then the self-identification of someone who looks exactly like those people who made their lives hell...?  It can be seen as an affront to everything they believe they've discovered, nurtured and built an identity around.

Yes, it sucks when you see the people you can't stand like your favorite band or are, say, using the Superman logo on the mudflaps on the same truck upon which they've dangled Truck Nutz.

On that pulled Superman issue: My Mind is Officially BLOWN (teh kitties iz to blame)

I guess this is true.  I...  wow.  I don't even know what to do but report the story at Bleeding Cool.

Apparently Superman 712 wasn't dismissed because of Sharif the Muslim character.  It was shelfed because Superman starts the issue by saving a cat from a tree.

And this caused considerable problems with certain DC executives. They thought it was too sweet, too innocent, too anodyne, and not the kind of Superman stories they wanted to tell. The kitten up a tree image symbolised for them what was wrong with the Superman books. It became totemic in the office, standing for far more than it could possibly symbolise. It had to go.

Holy @#$%.  Well, this is Dan "Countdown" Didio and Jim "Wildstorm" Lee publishing and Bob "Clone Saga" Harras as Editor in Chief. 

At first I found this hilarious, then puzzling, and now I'm weirdly concerned for DC Comics.  What the @#$%, ya'll?

As Bleeding Cool also notes:

And a story that started with a kitten has been replaced by a story starring a dog. I’m wondering if that was Superman editorial trying to make a point.

Looking forward to new Superman comics where kitties are left to fend for their @#$%ing selves.

Switch on Superman 712 surprising, disappointing, possibly cowardly, but it gives us a full issue about Krypto!

Jill Pantozzi reports that the solicited story for Superman #712 will be replaced with a Kurt Busiek-penned story we'd all heard about a few years ago, but which never saw print as something got upturned in the middle of his run.

The story was very Krypto-centric, and I was eager to read it back then.  I'm just as eager today,  I find.  I loves me some Krypto The Super Dog.

Well, the story that is being pulled from Superman #712 was supposedly about Superman meeting up with a young superhero named "Sharif" (I am guessing an all-purpose Muslim fellow) who was born outside the US but uses his powers to defend Truth, Justice and the American Way.

You can read Pantozzi's article here.

Truthfully, this sounds much more like something vsetigial from the JMS outline and not the direction Roberson took the story once it was his. JMS was writing a story about Superman confronting the ills of America on the ground, Roberson is telling a story about Superman reconnecting with who he is, step by step.

If the chapter could be pulled out and it was distracting from the storyline that Roberson was telling, I'm cool with this. I don't find the idea of Superman working with a young Muslim controversial, but lord knows that there are plenty who will likely go completely xenophobic crazy over the idea (cough.... Fox News) now that Superman supposedly also renounced his citizenship.

As DC cruises to the new #1's, I am disappointed at what I suspect are the reasons here for the change (cowardice), but not all that surprised.  They do not want to rock the boat with so much at stake with the relaunch. 

I'm speculating a bit here, and I don't really know.  But I am absolutely positive it was not because Roberson didn't hand in an aces script. 

No, I haven't really thought much about the fact that Ultimate Spider-Man died/ is going to die/ whatever

I used to read Ultimate Spider-Man with great fervor, but before issue 100, I quit reading.  I have many, many volumes of Ultimate Spidey.  At one point, I looked forward to each new volume, and then one day I just sort of realized I wasn't into it anymore.  This was all before the big world-shattering event a couple years back, the name of which I don't remember.

The "Ultimate" comics were the intentional second-universe of Marvel books intended to, initially, kick-start the Marvel U for a new generation.  That didn't really happen (although one could argue the creative directions in the books significantly helped guide the mainstream Marvel U), and it mostly meant Marvel now has an "Earth 2" that they can muck with and use to kill characters when it seems "neat".  These books sell decently, but their star has certainly fallen in sales and "who gives a @#$% anymore?" in the comics geek-o-sphere.

A while back Marvel brass said they planned to start routinely killing characters because of what it did for sales.  They were maybe joking, but it sure didn't sound like it.  Plus, they do, in fact, keep killing characters because of what it does for sales.  It was when they made the announcement that I felt the last vestiges of my Marvel fandom slip away.  I'm now a fan of creators who go to work at Marvel, and I'm a fan of certain characters (see:  Rocket Raccoon), but I just don't care anymore about the company.

Anyhow, RHPT asked if I knew about the death of Ultimate Spider-Man/ Peter Parker occurring in the pages of Ultimate Spidey this week.

I knew it was coming thanks to the fact that Marvel called their months' long storyline "The Death of Ultimate Spider-Man", but I didn't know when it was going down as I don't buy Ultimate Spidey anymore and haven't since about 2007 or so. 

From the article:

Fans of Spider-Man need not worry much, though, because the Ultimates imprint is separate from Marvel's bigger universe. Whatever fate may befall Ultimate Spider-Man won't count in the pages of the other series, including Amazing Spider-Man.

So, there's another reason I don't take much notice.

I am sure the death is story driven, etc...  but I'm just not involved as a reader or fan.  So, aside from basically knowing Ultimate Spidey is dead as a point of trivia, its not anything that I'm worked up about.