* When my wife told me this morning that Harvey Pekar died I gasped out loud. I think the reason Pekar was so beloved by comics people–aside from the fact that many of his comics were very good–is that he worked a dayjob all his life, didn’t hit homeruns all the time in life or in art, but kept doing it, mostly by himself, year after year after year. So far my favorite eulogies come from Tom Devlin, Roy Edroso, Tom Spurgeon’s twitter account, and, especially, a heartbreaking post by my friend Chris Ward.
* Ed Norton’s out of the Avengers movie, which sucks because he’s a great actor. Marvel was pretty nasty about it, too. Norton’s response is Class City.
* Paul Cornell & Yanick Paquette on a six-issue Knight and Squire miniseries? Sure, I’ll eat it. I think this is the first project to spin out of Grant Morrison’s recent work that I have confidence in.
* Today on Robot 6:
* Marvel pulls its “send us ripped-off covers of unsold event tie-ins in exchange for a variant” stunt again, but this time with their own unsold event tie-ins;
* John Porcellino’s future publishing plans;
* Jordan Crane’s gorgeous zombie print;
* and Gary Groth is a killing machine.
* It’s linked in the Groth post above, but if you haven’t seen it you really wanna check out Gary Groth vs. Noah Berlatsky.
* Is it just me, or are the Harvey Award nominees marginally less ridiculous than the Eisners this year?
* Tommy Carcetti IS Littlefinger!
* Chris Mautner tackles two of the three big recent altcomix releases beginning with ‘W,’ Wilson and Weathercraft. I would again take issue that the failure of the book to enable us to “connect” or “emotionally engage” with Wilson is in fact a failure.
* These N.C. Wyeth King Arthur illustrations are just magic. (Via Tom Spurgeon.)
* Cool stuff from Lane Milburn–no surprise, of course.
* Not Coming to a Theater Near You is kicking off a series of posts on David Lynch’s work from the 1990s. I will probably be avoiding most of it until I finally fucking watch Mulholland Drive. In my defense, I could probably recite Lost Highway to you from memory.
* Zak Smith explains the difference between DC and Marvel, generally speaking. I appreciate his point about how there’s nothing mature about trying to mature-up something that’s immature.
* For example! Here’s a fun list of 10 Crazy Creatures from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe by my pal TJ Dietsch for Topless Robot, which receives bonus points for a comment thread in which at least a half dozen nerds decry the series for its utter failure to be SERIOUS BUSINESS.
* Jason Adams makes it sound like I don’t need to see Predators in the theater after all. I can’t even begin to describe how badly Clash of the Titans soured me on paying whatever it now costs to go see a movie in the city to see the occasional amusing bit in a tired, unimaginative genre special-effects movie.
* I really enjoyed this interview with Sleigh Bells by Ryan Dombal for Pitchfork. It’s hard not to get behind a band consisting of people who were a waiter and a teacher this time last year.
* Rich Juzwiak is shocked, shocked to discover that the fans of a pop star who preaches individuality and self-expression react in large part by trying to act and sound just like her. I’m really disappointed by this review because he’s normally so astute. I mean, busting Lady Gaga’s chops because hyping up your audience constitutes barking orders? That’s really weak tea.
* The new Bryan Ferry album will include contributions from Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay, Jonny Greenwood, Nile Rodgers, David Gilmour, and the Scissor Sisters. This is a real story and not something I dreamed, I swear.
* This piece on how crappy and unrealistic the writing for “World War II” was is really as entertaining as you might have heard. (Via Matthew Yglesias.)
* I wrote this Shadowland parody for Marvel’s What The–?! video series, pretty much, based on an idea by Ben Morse, who has the full story. It’s surprisingly easy to write urban-vigilante interior monologues.
I had a dream this afternoon that Matthew Fox was hired to play Bruce Banner.
That dream gets the Sean T. Collins Seal of Approval.
Predators is indeed a rental movie (if that). It’s just not very good. There’s no real story, very few inventive sequences, and a lot of things that don’t make too much sense if you think about them even lightly.
Plus, Adrian Brody does this whispery tough-guy voice, a la Christian Bale’s Batman voice in The Dark Knight, which is kind of silly.
My favorite part was the Little Rochard song over the end credits.
Do not believe ANYONE who tells you that Predators is not completely 100% SUPER AWESOME. They are not your friend. I literally cannot remember the last time I enjoyed a movie in the theater so much.
Yeah, I’m confused by people saying PREDATORS isn’t good. It’s totally a sequel in the spirit of the first one, not just in name. Lots of great character acting and action, despite some minor flaws (I can’t not think of eric from that 70’s show when I see Topher Grace, the Hemmingway moment, and the little richard song at the end)