Carnival of souls

* Kevin Melrose offers a succinct summary of where the Supreme Court justices seem to stand on the video game-related First Amendment case currently before them. Keep an eye on this one. Scalia may be a crazy bastard, but he’s on the side of the angels now and then.

* While we continue to discuss Frank Darabont’s The Walking Dead in the comments below, do check out Sean P. Belcher’s take on the pilot episode. Not only does it use that music cue–you know the one–as a synecdoche for the entire episode, it also points out something I’d missed, which is that the episode title clears up a spelling mistake from Kirkman’s original comic that has bothered me for literally years.

* Sopranos/Boardwalk Empire director-producer Tim Van Patten is directing the first two episodes of Game of Thrones. That augurs well. Interestingly, the four directors involved in the first season are all directing contiguous runs of episodes, rather than being interspersed throughout. Also, the piece notes that the director of the original pilot, Tom McCarthy, appears to have been excised from the show entirely. It’s hard to know what to make of that, especially given that HBO’s executives were by all accounts (including their own) over the moon for that pilot. It has been extensively reshot, but the thinking was that this was due to casting changes for several key roles. Seems like there was more to it.

* Here’s a great little interview with Grant Morrison on his upcoming Batman Incorporated project by Wired’s Scott Thill, examining such touchstones as capitalism, the Arkham Asylum video game, the Brave and the Bold cartoon, and that “I wanna be a billionaire so friggin’ bad” song (not really). Great photo, too. (Via Kevin Melrose.)

* Speaking of Morrison, something big happened in today’s issue of Batman and Robin. It certainly surprised me! Let it surprise you by not clicking that link until you’ve read the issue, if that’s something you care to do.

* Interestingly, DC allowed newly minted Editor in Chief Bob Harras to emerge from his Republican Senatorial candidate-style media blackout to address the big Batman thing, and the big Batman thing only, it seems. I’m really looking forward to hearing what else he’ll do in that chair.

* I’m always fascinated to watch superhero fans react to a plot point as though it emerges from a vacuum wherein the skill of the writer and artist involved doesn’t even merit mentioning.

* Jeet Heer on racism, young Jack Kirby, and other things the Greg Sadowski-edited Golden Age comics anthology Supermen! can teach us about.

* Thanks to Brett Warnock for reminding me I forgot to link to Tom Spurgeon’s “name five favorite Top Shelf releases” Five for Friday feature. So many paths to take!

* Weezer’s Pinkerton gets a 10 out of 10 from Pitchfork’s Ian Cohen. I don’t know about all that, but it’s a great record, and there is absolutely a qualitative difference between the first two Weezer albums and everything else they’ve done since–it’s not simply a question of a born pop-rock star emerging during a weird alt-friendly era, disappearing, and then finding his voice as a musical mercenary.

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4 Responses to Carnival of souls

  1. Tom Spurgeon says:

    Salami FTW!

  2. i have no idea what that means!

  3. I really think that opening Walking Dead scene is getting a bad rap. Poorly written? Sure. Misogynistic? That’s a bit much, don’t you think? Plenty of guys sit around and talk shit about their wives, and make crude small talk while even trying to sound like some tough hard-ass that wears the pants in the family. Privately, that’s almost never the case. As the episode goes on, we see the lengths to which guys like Rick and Morgan (I had to look that one up…the guy and his kid) care about their families when the shit hits the fan. And we see that Rick’s partner…actually, he’s an asshole, kind of for various spoilery reasons. What made that scene a shocker to me (having not read the comic yet), is stacking it next to his partner’s opening monologue, and then when you finally see him with [SPOIILLERERRRRRRRR]

    …Rick’s wife, it’s even more of a “Oh no. Oh shit. FUCK! Really? Oh shit.”

  4. I had more of a problem with the Wang Chung song, too, for the record. And the more I think about it….why can’t WIMIN TURN OFF THE GALDDAMNED LIGHT SWITCH, ANYWAY???????

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