* Sean T. Collins in the news! I’m one of the creators mentioned in Publishers Weekly’s piece on Top Shelf’s new webcomics initiative, Top Shelf 2.0. Look for some new comics written by me and drawn by Matt Wiegle and Matt Rota in the near future.
* Sean T. Collins in the news again! Well, kinda: Tom Spurgeon has posted my response to his recent essay bemoaning the high cost of pamphlet-format comic books. I didn’t find a lot to disagree with, let’s say.
* Sean T. Collins in the news but he forgot! Because I am a terrible self-promoter I neglected to mention that I’ve had several pieces in Maxim over the past couple of months. In the issue currently on stands (with Elisha Cuthbert on the cover) I co-wrote the features on 300 Movies to See Before You Die and Superhero B-Listers. And in the previous issue (with Mischa Barton on the cover) I wrote pieces on the deluxe edition of Alan Moore & Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke and the new season of Battlestar Galactica featuring a mini-interview with Katee Sackhoff. I hope you enjoy(ed) them.
* Spurred on in part by the great Matthew Zoller Seitz’s retirement from film criticism and the latest round of firings and buyouts among newspaper and magazine critics, film scholar David Bordwell has put together a feast of a post on the enterprise of film criticism–what criticism is, different components of it and approaches to it, the difference between taste and judgment, the difference between criticism and reviews (it’s mostly that the latter’s a subset of the former, but I’ll let him explain), the criteria we use when we write criticism, and a call for a different type of criticism on the web. If you write criticism or read a lot of it, it’s a must-read.
* The big news of the week for the refined superhero nerd is the launch of Douglas Wolk’s Final Crisis Annotations blog, an attempt to do for the upcoming DC mega-event and its direct tie-ins what Wolk previously did, entertainingly, for the weekly series 52 with his 52 Pickup blog. I wish he’d include Final Crisis writer Grant Morrison’s indirect FC tie-in “Batman: R.I.P.,” but you can’t always get what you want, as the fella says.
* Speaking of Final Crisis, here’s design god and comics nerd Chip Kidd on his designs for series’ covers, which I’m really quite fond of so far. (Via Tom Spurgeon.)
* In less stellar design news, Dave at Rue Morgue gives the business to some stupid art choices for The Mist‘s Korean-theatrical and American DVD releases.
* It would be difficult to overstate the impact that the classic man vs. nature adventure/horror/seige story “Leiningen versus the Ants” had on my young imagination, so it would also therefore be difficult to overstate how awesome I found this story on rampaging ants overwhelming Houston and potentally destroying its electronic infrastructure to be. (Via Drudge.)
* My Topless Robot compadre Jackson Alpern sticks it to the Top 10 Brutally Annoying Comic Relief Characters. As he himself points out, since Jar-Jar Binks isn’t number one, you know you wanna read it. Jackson also gets huge points for likening Snarf from Thundercats to a Jewish mother and his use of the phrase “fucking suckitude,” points only slightly mitigated by his inexplicable enthusiasm for The Fifth Element. (It’s a silly movie with a terrible plot (“Love is the fifth element!”) and terrible acting and pretty visuals, and since everyone involved is condescending to the genre rather than embracing it, they think that’s good enough. It isn’t!)
* I found this Matthew Perpetua post on the perils of scenesterism and “community” quite sharp. As I think I used to talk about on here years ago, I’ve come to view my relatively isolated existence in the suburbs of Long Island as a real saving grace given how easy it is to lapse into mindless boosterism when surrounded by likeminded artsy-fartsy types. Then again, maybe I’d have gotten more work done if I were surrounded by people telling me how great I am.
* Finally, your video for the day is “But Not Tonight” by Depeche Mode. What I like about it is not just its glimpse of Dave Gahan during his transitional period from gawky, enthusiastic teenage New Waver to brooding synth-goth hunk, but its incorporation of snatches of the forgotten ’80s urban-romance-drama (I assume) Modern Girls, the soundtrack for which included this song. I don’t know anything about the movie beyond recognizing the cast and inference from the snippets, but it all goes toward what I now find so compelling about ’80s synth-pop, or at least what I get out of it: an utterly unironic sense of importance about how your heart feels right now. The pristine production roots every note in the moment and the earnestly Romantic lyrics convey a life in which the thought of tomorrow is impossible.
Bronski Beat, now Depeche Mode. Do you have something to tell us? I just want you to know that I support you no matter what.
Hurrah for more STC comix!
The Depeche Mode – and the whole New Romantic vibe in general – reminds me of something I often say in response to folks complaining about horror and fantasy being unrealistic. In terms of objective facts, sure. But in terms of what it feels like to be a particular person living through the collapse of normal barriers and plunging into a realm where the unbounded desires and fears of the heart find their match in a newly un-bordered surrounding world, no. The human experience isn’t very realistic, either, and if “what’s it like” is a question you’re serious about, unrealistic avenues will get you to important places faster.
By the way, the article on criticism is a gem. Much thanks.
Jim T.: Oh, you.
Jim D.: Thanks!
Bruce: EXACTLY. And you’re welcome–there’s actually another part of it I wanted to call out specifically, which I’ll do today.