* Perhaps the best way to describe Dana Goodyear’s instant-classic New Yorker profile of James Cameron–and describing it doesn’t do it justice at all; you simply must read it–is to say that after reading it, you’d find suggestions that the rig in which Cameron sits in the picture below is either a movie prop, his directing rig, his personal mode of transportation, or a throne upon which he insists on sitting during meetings with studio executives all equally plausible.
* Not as long, and more intro-level, but almost as interesting, is Brian Rafferty’s Wired profile of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! I’ve talked about maybe writing something lengthy about Tim & Eric around here in the past, but I’m frankly daunted. I don’t think they’re done having whatever effect it is they’re having on how I look at art yet; I get the hunch it could be eventually be measured on the same scale as my discovery of Velvet Goldmine and David Bowie in late 2000. The Missus and I compare them to Monty Python and mean it.
* Tom Spurgeon’s right: It is fun to yell “Con War.” I like to do it in the voice of Jack White doing his “Conquest” cover. Anyway, Spurge interviews NYCC’s Lance Fensterman, as does Kiel Phegley, about the now open hostilities between Reed Exhibitions and Gareb Shamus Entertainment. Fensterman points out something I’d missed, which is that Shamus’s Toronto show isn’t just a rival to Fan Expo, but to the Reed co-sponsored Penny Arcade Expo East, directly against which Shamus scheduled the Tornoto show; he says they saw this particular move coming in that light. And to Spurge’s credit, he explicitly asks Fensterman about alleged Shamus/Wizard misconduct, reports/rumors of which have been circulating off the record for several months now. Fensterman doesn’t take things much further than that, though he asserts that Wizard inflates its attendance numbers in his interivew with Kiel. I wonder who will be the first to talk on the record about some of the other allegations making the rounds.
* Meanwhile, Heidi MacDonald’s photo parade proves that sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words:
* Over at Robot 6 I put in my two cents on Sandy Bilus’s 100 Best Comics of 2008 meta-list, an excellent mathematically derived list that rose phoenix-like from the ashes of the late great Dick Hyacinth. Sandy chimes in in the comment thread with some interesting info about the list’s Number One, so do check it out.
* Dude. Dude. Dan Nadel writes about Happy Hooligan. Look at it, dude. They face the audience. They face the audience! What a motherfucking eureka moment this is for me, I really can’t even begin to tell you. They face the goddamn audience!!!
* At first it seems like David Allison’s piece on Inglourious Basterds and Hitler riffing is out to hoist me by my own petard, but that’s mostly a headfake to illustrate how what Quentin Tarantino is up to in his movie is quite different from revisionist trivializing.
* Is this the perfect Monster Brains post? MB’s Aeron Alfrey digs up a Fangoria reader-participation “design the alien for John Carpenter’s upcoming remake of The Thing art contest from 1981. Pure delight.
I’m no expert on comic conventions, only attending one show outside of Canada, but I’m not really convinced that the scheduling of the new Toronto Comicon can be considered a part of these ‘Con Wars’. From what I’ve read PAX East is not only a completely different experience, it’s also over 8 hours away. Also, Toronto has had two dueling comic convention outfits for at least six years, so it’s not like the new Comicon is a surprise rival for Fan Expo.
In my reports on Robot 6 I’ve pointed out that the Toronto con is really part of an entirely different “con war” with Fan Expo, so I’ve gotcha covered, Steven. Still, I can see how Reed would detect a pattern after a certain point.