* What a terrific idea for an October horror blogathon: The folks at Not Coming to a Theater Near Youwill be reviewing movies culled sight-unseen from a collection of obscure-ish horror flicks retrieved from the libraries of defunct mom-and-pop video stores–all on VHS, no less!
* So They’re saying that Kenneth Branagh is “in talks” to direct the Thor movie. From this I guess they’re looking for this to be some sort of Lord of the Rings-y fantasy-adventure movie. Sure, Branagh may have no track record in that department, but hey, he’s English and he’s been in movies where they talk funny like that! Then again, Peter Jackson’s resume included Meet the Feebles. I find Branagh entertaining as a phenomenon. I wonder if he listens to Slayer.
* Here’s the new trailer for Frank Miller’s The Spirit. (Via Topless Robot.) You know, I actually think I like this one less than the earlier trailers that everyone else hated. This has more of an action-movie feel that does not flatter Miller’s distinctly non-action-movie approach to action. It’s kind of a weird neither-here-nor-there thing. Well, see for yourself.
I continue to hope that this film really hurts the feelings, on a personal level, of people who want a good ol’ nostalgic Spirit movie, a group that seems to include more people than have actually read the old Spirit comics.
* I don’t know anything about this seemingly German virus-horror movie Able other than it has a nice-looking poster, and that is so rare in horror these days that it deserves to be mentioned.
* I don’t want to do the standard “highlight what you have, underline what you don’t want” meme response to Tom Spurgeon’s 50 Things That Every Great Comics Collection Needs to Have, because Tom’s idea of a great comics collection is very different than mine. This is the kind of pretentious howler that used to make you the prince of the comics blogosphere for a day back in 2003, but for real: I think of myself as a comics reader and not a comics collector. This is not to say that I don’t have a shit-ton of comics, because I do, but for me this is done as a means to the end of reading them and, if I like them, having them available to re-read. Nine-tenths of my purchased comics are in bookshelf-friendly hardcover or softcover formats because those formats, in my experience, lend themselves to reading and re-reading–and shelving with an eye to those purposes–better than other formats. The remaining tenth of my current comics purchasing is basically high-end comic-book-format comics from Fantagraphics and so on or minicomics. These I tend to buy at conventions when gripped by Comix Fever and because they will either take forever to reach a book format or won’t ever do so. I like getting things like that because it’s immediate, but if they were in book format I’d like that too, and probably better; I don’t really have much of an attachment to their current formats per se. Point being, if you load a list of 50 Must-Haves with quarter-bin finds and Mad magazines and old issues of Arcade, your list isn’t targeted to me as a buyer. And that’s fine. To each his own! But Tom’s list was still of great interest to me as a reader, because it’s as fine a showcase you could ask for of one of the great writers on comics in the world as he holds forth with authority on an astonishingly diverse array of comics, providing a window into what he values in the medium. So it’s a must-read even if you’re not gonna print it out and hand it to your loved ones as a Christmas list.
* Finally, Chinese Fucking Democracy.
I hope people liked that feature because it broke the fuck out of my site.
I continue to hope that this film really hurts the feelings, on a personal level, of people who want a good ol’ nostalgic Spirit movie, a group that seems to include more people than have actually read the old Spirit comics.
Harsh.
“Anonymous” was me. Or I. Or whatever.
Fantagraphics had a set of Arcade issues–not a full set, mind you–in their catalogue about 10 years ago. It really is one of the great anthologies in comics history, and it’s a lot of fun to flip through it because there’s a lot of stuff in them that’s never going to be reprinted anywhere else. But then again, the best stuff in it (the early stories in the Crumb renaissance) has been reprinted over and over again.
I mean, if you’re up for digging through back issues, they’re worth seeking out. If you’re not, then various collections (both current and future) will do just fine. I think we’re of the same mind when it comes to what we value in a reading experience. There are other points of disagreement I have with Tom’s list, but overall it’s a great resource for someone looking to build up a collection (I wish I’d had access to it c. 1997), and yet another great conversation-starter.
I can only hope Miller’s work on The Spirit lives up to the high standards he set with his previous adaptations of properties he didn’t create. Though, honestly, that’s probably a little foolish of me. What are the odds that he can match the dramatic vision of Robocop 2 and Robocop 3? It’s hard to believe lightning could strike three times. Still, hope springs eternal!
On Chinese Democracy: yeah, right. I’ll believe it when I see it. Axl is such a tease.