Hey-

I'm going to be selling a good part of my collection in the next few weeks or so to (a) make room and (b) pay for law school. I'd rather not deal with eBay, so if anyone here is interested in a big or small chunk of lots of 80s and 90s books, let me know in the comments. If there's anything particular you're looking for, let me know; otherwise, I'll be putting together a full list of what I have around the beginning of July. Also, things will be pretty cheap.

Shia LaBeouf doesn't want the lead role in the film adaptation of the thought-provoking, intelligent, and exciting comic book "Y the Last Man" because he thinks the part (the only male survivor of a mysterious disease that instantly killed every other man on earth, leaving women to create a new society) it too much like his role in the punching-robots movie "Transformers!"

Please mock him by commenting over at The SeeBelow* Blog.

Please tell me: What's wrong with Spider-man's head?

after more than 25 years of an almost-weekly comic-buying ritual, does one go nearly cold turkey? 3 years of law school on the horizon mean little time and littler money...I mean, I'll still be picking up Madman Atomic Comics, Echo and Batman & Robin when that starts, but that's 3 books down from close to 20 a month. Hrrrmmmm.

Over on Big Hollywood, Steve Ditko's Toyland gets some fresh air by way of a public exposure. In a writing style which spurts like a farmhouse water pump, Ditko manages to use Joe Quesada's editorial incoherence as proof of the Progressive movement's evil plan to abolish property rights. For a start. Objectivism is one great philosophy as long as you're arguing it with yourself in an empty house and there's no one to point out that you've clearly lost your mind. Enjoy.

Also, for my part, I never saw Rorschach as being "morally uncompromising." In fact, I found him to be possibly the most facile minded of Mister Kotter's Sweathogs. Oh, and how Rorschach used to make me laugh when he'd raise his hand and shout "Ooh ooh, Mis-ter Kott-AIR-mandias!" Fine television, that...

(Ps - It was a vent)

...really?

From Blog@Newsarama, and worth reposting in case any of you are redecorating.

And if any of you are in DC, you should check out the small but very interesting exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian called Comic Art Indigene.

We haven't done one of these in a while. Let's be topical - recast Watchmen!

Director: David Mamet
Writer: David Mamet, Dave Gibbons (graphic novel illustrator), Alan Moore (graphic novel author - uncredited)

Rebecca Pidgeon.........Laurie Jupiter / Silk Spectre II
Kevin Spacey............Dr. Manhattan / Jon Osterman
Val Kilmer..............Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias
William H. Macy.........Walter Kovacs / Rorschach
Joe Mantegna............Edward Blake / The Comedian
Philip Seymour Hoffman..Dan Dreiberg / Nite Owl II
Patti LuPone............Sally Jupiter / Silk Spectre
Ricky Jay...............Edgar Jacobi / Moloch the Mystic
Gene Hackman............Hollis Mason / Nite Owl

Hey Champs,

Not to get out of the "talking shit about crap comics" mode, but I wanted to point out this pretty excellent exploration of digital story-telling constructions. Enjoy, process junkies and craft nerds!

The Secret Life of Comic Book Store Employees! Featuring people who work at all the shitty comic book stores here in NYC that I refuse to shop at! And the least nerdy thing about a lot of them is that they have girlfriends or are "suprisingly smooth with the ladies."

In better internet news, here's a pretty nifty new comics blog.

As more and more reviews of Watchmen come in, I think my favorite to date comes courtesy of Debbie Schlussel who calls it a film fit only for a moron and a vapid, indecent human being. Her site is a parental watchdog site which rates movies in terms of Karl Marxes, promotes books about the Islamic menace, and ends the review with a plea that "G-d help this country (minus Hollywood)." A glorious example of the oeuvre.

She ends her review with an anecdote about a woman she berates and loathes because the woman (a single mother, gasp!) presumes that her own ten-year old son "knows it's (movies) not real and he knows the difference between right and wrong." Debbie's estimation of this boy's future? "Her son is going to grow up to be messed up."

While I'm on the subject of batshit Watchmen-related material, screenwriter David Hayter recently wrote an open letter to ... well, the haters, I suppose ... wherein he suggests that fans of the film are much like rape victims. Rape victims who fall in love with their rapists. And he means it as a compliment.

Anyway, just to end on a high-note: Rorschach Desk Blotter. Can I also get a split-open dog head pencil holder?

The Watchmen have brains and balls, literally. Also, the gays are hilarious!

http://michaelbarrier.com/Home%20Page/WhatsNewArchivesMar09.htm#watchers

I don't think Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons _approve_ of what their characters are doing.  Barrier and the critics miss the point of _Watchmen_ as much as grim-grit comics creators did.

Jon Hamm as Lex Luthor ... asking for a bailout.

Hamm's got good comedic chops, I love him on Mad Men but I almost prefer him doing gags. Also, as a Superman nerd who's recently been really studying the influence of external media on the Superman myths, it's interesting to me that the mythology that this clip draws from are the original Superman movies (one through three, anyway), Superman Returns and either the Animated Series or The Man of Steel. Note that when I said "it's interesting to me," I was stressing the "to me" part.