Carnival of souls

* Because I wasn’t super-crazy about the film version of The Ruins I haven’t paid much attention to its impending DVD release, but apparently the director’s cut includes an alternate ending. I didn’t have beef with the ending per se, it was more an issue of its pacing, so I’m curious to see if or how that changed.

* In an appropriately dizzying post, Kip Manley connects the dots in the Grant Morrison DCU, from Final Crisis to Seven Soldiers to All Star Superman to Batman to (via Hypertime, or something) The Invisibles and beyond. (Via Douglas Wolk.)

* Rick Marshall (and a fan at an autograph signing) talk to Brian Michael Bendis about, among other things, the current status of the Powers and Alias TV series.

* The RZA’s making a martial arts movie called The Man with the Iron Fist. Marvel Studios, call your lawyers (although now that I think about it, they’re probably already pretty familiar with Shaolin’s Finest). (Via AICN.)

* I try to treat most people who worry that Frank Miller won’t “respect” Will Eisner’s creation The Spirit in his film adaptation thereof with the laughing disinterest they mostly deserve, but ADDTF blogfather Bill Sherman is a guy I take seriously, so I found his post about how Miller’s blog has and hasn’t assuaged his concerns on that score a worthwhile read.

* Speaking of Frank the Tank, I gave my response to Tom Spurgeon’s patriotism-themed 4th of July Five for Friday feature a decidedly Millerian spin. (Honorable mention: The Flash giving Don Rumsfeld rabbit ears during a press conference in The Dark Knight Strikes Again.)

* Chris Mautner assembled quite the critics’ roundtable on the topic of reviewing and ethics, specifically how people handle talking about projects by people they know and are friendly with. It’s funny, even though I’ve been burned once or twice in the past by repeated praise of a book that turned out to be by a buddy of the praiser’s, I find I do this myself in reviewing books by the likes of Shawn Cheng or Jeff Brown. In part that’s because I think I can still be fair, and in part it’s because in the case of pretty much all of my friends in comics, I became friends with them because I liked their comics, not the other way around. For me personally, a stickier area might be how to handle talking about stuff by people who publish or pay me–look over there under the heading “The Sean Collins Media Empire” and you’ll see a list of those who are a going concern at the moment. Due to my stated aim of blogging only about stuff I’m interested in and trying to avoid heaping snark and scorn on the target du jour, this hasn’t been a huge problem to date. Overall I like to think I’ve still been pretty honest and fair addressing what works and doesn’t work in projects relevant to those outlets, and a simple “if you don’t have anything nice to say etc” policy helps any time I’m tempted to really curbstomp something, but as I just said, that’s true of everything I write about. Bottom line: I have never and will never pretend to like something I dislike, or pretend to love something I like, on this blog. After all, I’m not here to make friends.

8 Responses to Carnival of souls

  1. CRwM says:

    Hey now! I resemble that remark!

    If we have to listen to fanboy wankery about how Thor must absolutely and positively hit a minimum level of Led Zep-ness, then why can’t Spirit fans like myself publicly wonder just who Miller had to give a handjob to in order to score a gig he’s so clearly unqualified for?

  2. Kiel Phegley says:

    That Hodler quote that kicked off that thing was the one I told you about earlier. But you already knew that, I’m bettng.

  3. Hey CRwM–

    Well, the difference is that a) I don’t actually give a shit about Thor b) Frank Miller is the creator of some of the most influential superhero comics of the past thirty years, was responsible for the look of two of the most influential genre films of the decade, and was Eisner’s close friend and protege. Qualified!

  4. Ben Morse says:

    I don’t think there can be argument that Miller isn’t “qualified” to direct a Spirit movie based on credentials alone, and I also think he’ll unquestionably respect the material as, like Sean noted, he was an Eisner disciple. I think the disconnect may just come from his interpretation of “respect” being vastly different from many others’.

  5. What Ben said. I think too many people conflate “respectful” with “openly nostalgic and innocent,” which is not a tone Eisner went for and therefore wouldn’t actually be all that respectful.

  6. CRwM says:

    I take back the qualification crack. I was tyring to be funny but I failed it.

    I guess my issue is more one of tone and approach. I think we’ve already seen Frank Miller’s The Spirit and it was Sin City. Miller’s got this Death Wish-grade approach to crime and punishment where Eisner seemed to genuinely love all his characters. Eisner was ultimately a hopeful and humanistic guy, Miller’s ultimately a misanthrope and a nihilist.

    I think too many people equate a sort of simplistic hyper-violent grimness with “seriousness” or “maturity.” Eisner’s humanism was the product of experience. The Spirit is innocent, in a William Blake sense of the term. Miller won’t get it.

    Case in point, at a recent con, when asked how he was keeping true to the spirit of The Spirit, Miller mentioned how, in the trailer, when leaping Dark Knight-like from rooftop to rooftop, the Spirit trips a little once. It shows he’s human, said Miller. Good show, Mr. Miller. That should cover it.

  7. Carnival of souls

    * On some alternate Earth that is home to a Sean T. Collins with more money, more shelf space, and an even more absurdly patient wife, that Sean T. Collins has quite a few action figures for grown-ups, like the…

  8. Rickey Purdin says:

    I just don’t care to see The Spirit in the Sin City universe.

    Just like I didn’t care to see Willy Wonka in the Tim Burton universe.

    So hopefully that Spirit teaser trailer isn’t overly indicative of what we’ll get when the movie comes out.

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