Carnival of souls: Hobbit casting, Ben Jones on Adult Swim, Alfrey & Brinkman, more

* Here are some ways to kill time until Bruce Baugh blogs about Cataclysm.

* Radagast, Balin, and Beorn have been cast and Cate Blanchett has been re-signed as Galadriel in The Hobbit. Yes, ex-Doctor Who Sylvester McCoy is Radagast.

* Holy moley: Problem Solverz, the upcoming Adult Swim cartoon from Ben Jones, is almost literally unbelievably gorgeous. Do yourself a favor and watch this fullscreen at 720p. The colors are astonishing. It’s also really funny! Well done. (Via Sammy Harkham.)

* Here’s a very informative interview from the Innsmouth Free Press with artist and blogger Aeron Alfrey of Monster Brains fame. It includes the breaking news that Alfrey and Mat Brinkman are making a board game together.

* Today on Robot 6: Early and rare Bill Watterson art.

* Check out these effusive BCGF reports from AdHouse’s Chris Pitzer and pood‘s Adam McGovern.

* Speaking of AdHouse, AdDistro has added Revival House Press, publishers of the entertaining Trigger and Shitbeams on the Loose.

* AMC will be re-running Breaking Bad in its entirety, two episodes every Wednesday night starting tomorrow through March 2011. Sold.

* I don’t think all that much of the films of Christopher Nolan, and this post by Topless Robot’s Rob Bricken struck me as a pretty efficient film-by-film explanation of why.

* Today the New York Times’ RSS feed for Paul Krugman’s blog uploaded a post with the headline “Ice And Fire Update” and the synposis “The saga is getting better.” Man oh man was I disappointed when I clicked through to see it was a post about Iceland’s economy and not, you know, Nobel Prize Winner Paul Krugman blogging his thoughts on the chapters he recently read from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.

* Real Life Horror: This Telegraph piece on potential UFO/extraterrestrial-related documents in the WikiLeaks diplomatic document dump is a Real Life Horror candidate for two reasons. One, hey, awesome, confidential government cables about aliens! Two, the litany of astonishingly bloodthirsty statements by various American conservative politicians and pundits calling for the state murder of Julian Assange and anyone who helps him. It’s almost as if the movement had been waiting with bated breath for a political enemy whose death they it could call for without reproach.

* America is Number One!

* Good eye, Ben.

* The inclusion of Bryan Ferry’s Olympia on Pitchfork’s Worst Album Covers of 2010 list is just bizarre. Like they’re asking, “Can you believe Bryan Ferry put a recumbent model on his latest album cover?!?” Um…yes?

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4 Responses to Carnival of souls: Hobbit casting, Ben Jones on Adult Swim, Alfrey & Brinkman, more

  1. David says:

    Pumped on Problem Solverz. Thanks for the link!

  2. I’d be interested to hear what you think of Breaking Bad. I thought that, once you get past the shopworn plot device that forms the heart of the series, it had one of the best pilot episodes I’ve ever seen. The series has its share of slow burns but when it turns up the heat? Man.

  3. Brian Nicholson says:

    Pretty sure Problem Solverz is for the kids’ portion of Cartoon Network, a retooled version of Neon Knome.

  4. Ha! I have no problem with Pitchfork citing Olympia as one of the worst album covers of the year, though it’s more dull than offensive. The problem is not the recumbent model but who she is, Kate Moss, whose allure and mystery is mostly gone and who for many people epitomizes debased, coked up supermodels, as well as a very detached, unavailable persona, the opposite of the wanton, often moist Jerry Hall and other Roxy/Ferry cover models. It’s a very backward-looking shot, but not backward to evoke a particular era, as the shot is too generic and boring. If the idea was that Kate, like Ferry, is older now but still going strong, mellowing like fine wine, whatever, that’s a fine idea, but executed poorly here.

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