* Happy 10th Blogiversary to NeilAlien, Skyfather of the Comics Blogosphere. (Via Tom Spurgeon.) Spurge’s list of 21 cool things about Doctor Strange is a pretty great birthday present.
* Today at Robot 6 I talked a bit about Geoff Johns’ post-promotion charm offensive.
* Plenty of fun Lost links today (and don’t worry, I’m gonna be keeping the Carnival spoiler-free unless otherwise noted). First up, Todd VanDerWerff’s weekly follow-up post, which includes more interesting discussion of Jack–who’s one of my favorite characters on the show, let me just come right out and say it–and in which VanDerWerff shares my enthusiasm regarding a potential identity for a potential someone.
* Next, Noel Murray’s review/recap for the Onion AV Club struck me as particularly sharp and observant this week, regarding everything from a weakness of some of the dialogue in this episode to the throwback elements it included to a way in which the final seasons will increase our investment in the first to parallels between this episode and the corresponding installment of Season One to making fun of Doc Jensen.
* Keep comin’ back to the comment thread on my Lost post for the week if you please–insights and compelling debates abound.
* Finally, good golly, look at this “visual timeline” Olivier Lacan is building for Lost! Right now it’s very much a work in progress–there are more gaps than there is timeline at this point. And it’s not very well written. But it’s a great idea, executed with gorgeous screencaps, and it’s as good a reminder of the show’s sweep, scope, and mystery as anything I’ve seen. Soak it in. (Via Whitney Matheson.
* Super Mario Galaxy 2!!!!!
As I watched that trailer I literally became frightened of how much time I will be spending playing this game. As Rob Bricken at Topless Robot points out, it’s very very similar to the first game, but man, if it ain’t broke.
* Gene Simmons is one of the worst people in the entire history of recorded music, without exaggeration. Just a loathsome creep in almost every conceivable way. Turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as his son Nick Simmons flagrantly plagiarized Tite Kubo’s Bleach for his comic Incarnate–a plan that would seem to require no one reading his comic for it to succeed–and then issued denials that manage to be simultaneously insulting to manga, threatening to his detractors, and transparently bullshit to all. My favorite report on all this today is Rob Bricken’s at Topless Robot, which does not hold back.
* Want. Tom Neely, ladies and germs.
* More Destructor art from the LAW! King Suckerman, Rickey Purdin, and this killer piece by Zach Oat.
* Oh hey, Fuck Yeah, T-Shirts is back.
Probably his noted homophobia, as well as being kind of a cock all over, no matter how good he was in RUNAWAY.
I loves me some Tom Neely, though.
Dammit, I posted some links but the comment went into my nonexistent “moderation queue,” aka the Cornfield. Anyway, yes, he’s a homophobe (cf. a recent kerfuffle with Adam Lambert), a sleaze (cf. a fight with Opie & Anthony), and a misogynist (cf. his interview with Terry Gross). Seriously, behaving badly toward O&A AND Terry Gross? That’s quite an achievement.
I also googled high and low to find a great story about how he sexually harassed Miss Julie Brown during the filming of an episode of Just Say Julie, so Brown retaliated by killing him off in post-production, but I couldn’t find it.
Simmons also didn’t want “Beth” on Destroyer, which if he had succeeded who knows if I would have kissed Michelle from Lenape Cabin.
Thanks, Sean!