Ray Harryhausen passed away last week. This has been noted by people more qualified than I to discuss the master of stop-motion magic—Rick Baker, Adam Savage, Todd Masters, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and more. The superhuman talent and perseverance evident in a Harryhausen effects sequence can easily be seen in countless visual effects artists since he first brought his creations to frame-by-frame life on the big screen. That makes sense. So how can I really say anything of worth when I say that I was also profoundly influenced by the artistry of Ray Harryhausen? With modesty, and a story about Clash of the Titans. Continue reading…
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Recent Features
Ray Harryhausen and Me: A Life of High Adventure and Escapism
Things That Change You Forever
I have a ghost story of my own. At least, I have a ghost-cat story.
My final year as an undergraduate was spent in relative splendor. My friends and I lucked into tenancy in the house of a professor on sabbatical. Twelve foot ceilings! Built in bookshelves! Three cats! Real, grown-up furniture! Wait… let’s get back to the cats. The professorial family had three cats and a dog, though the dog was sent to a friend with a farm (later, they told us later that we clinched the lease when they told us that cat care was part of the deal and our response was, “Aw, we don’t get the dog?”).
So. Three housemates, three cats. One morning around the (solid oak!) table, we were chatting about the cats’ sleeping habits. Two of the cats routinely slept in my room, the third with one of the others. Feeling a little left out, the third roommate said, “That’s okay, because Ghost Cat slept on my bed last night.” Continue reading…
Secret Agent, Detective, Genius, Jerk: Modernizing Sherlock Holmes
A man with dark wavy hair wakes up in an iron-framed bed in the middle of a windowless room. He leaps out from under the white sheets and stares intently at a corner of the white ceiling. Suddenly, gracefully, he spins to defeat an invisible opponent in four swift motions, finally falling to his knees in front of an empty chair, hands outstretched.
There’s something about the way Benedict Cumberbatch plays the lead role in the BBC series Sherlock that seems like it could be Holmes’ fantasy version of how a brilliant detective behaves. Continue reading…
My New Weapon of Choice
In April, the Guttersnipes like to mix it up a little. This month, Comics Editor Carol Borden writes about romance.
“You hit him with a frying pan,” he said to her. “How come you didn’t grab a knife?”
“The frying pan was closer.” Her eyes slid away. “It’s not like I had time to pick a weapon. It’s not like the frying pan is my weapon of choice.” –Agnes And The Hitman (27)
Growing up in a town where Elvis was sighted post mortem, I despised and mocked The King. Now, I have held wakes in his honor. I used to only like punk. Then I used to say I liked everything but country. Now I don’t even bother arguing that I’m listening to “Americana,” not country. It is a truth universally acknowledged that something I once despised I will come to appreciate and, often, love. So when both Chris and alex recommended Jennifer Crusie, the author of many romance novels, and in particular her collaboration with Bob Mayer, Agnes And The Hitman, I knew I needed to read it. Continue reading…
The Great Alan Moore Re-Read
Tim Callahan is re-reading and writing about all of Alan Moore’s major comics. From Hell, Moore’s collaboration with Eddie Campbell, is the 26th installment.
Alan Moore Responds to Frank Miller.
Frank Miller disagrees with Occupy Wall Street (i.e. “Wake up, pond scum”). Alan Moore disagrees with Frank Miller about Occupy Wall Street, and probably everything else ever.
Full and Uncut Interview with Alan Moore
comicbookGRRRL‘s Laura Sneddon has posted her full and uncut interview with Alan Moore. An abridged version, “Superheroes are our visions of ourselves,” originally appeared in The Independent. Moore talks superheroes, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Lost Girls and attracting a female readership.
Dreadful Thoughts
As an adult, my strongest impressions of horror have come from comics. My childhood ones are almost exclusively from tv—the trailer for Magic and a misguided viewing of the beginning of Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein. But as an adult, I remember picking up the first issue of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (Vertigo) and being so freaked out [...]
Rohrshach vs. Alan Moore
Rohrshach has discovered a new conspiracy, a plan to ensure that no one watches The Watchmen. (Via Forbidden Planet International)
Rolling Stone Interviews Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison notes some things about superheroes, the comics industry, Mark Millar, sexism and rape in an interview with Rolling Stone: “I suddenly think how many times has somebody been raped in an Alan Moore story? And I couldn’t find a single one where someone wasn’t raped except for Tom Strong, which I believe was [...]
Good-Bye, Oracle–Hello, Batgirl
As part of its massive “reboot,” DC Comics will make Barbara Gordon Batgirl again. This means, though that her 20 year history as Oracle, peerless hacker and information broker with an eidetic memory, leader of The Birds of Prey and one of the few examples of a differently-abled hero in comics, is gone. Some readers [...]
Ditko = Ditko
“For my own part, regret nothing. Have lived life, free from compromise … and step into the shadow now without complaint.” –Rohrshach’s journal (Alan Moore, Watchmen) I read Watchmen as many people do, without knowing the comics history Moore invoked. In a story that begins as a superhero murder mystery and becomes so much more, [...]
Commodification is Inevitable
Joe Steckart has an interesting response to Patton Oswalt’s “Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die“: “Reading Watchmen does not make you cool. Being able to talk about it intelligently does. The counterculture, the ineffable ‘cool,’ will always be manifesting itself in something. Right now it’s manifesting at least partly in geek culture, and that’s wonderful. [...]
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Preview
Bleeding Cool has a preview of Kevin O’Neill’s art for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1969.
“Crisis in the 36th Chamber”
Chris Sims and Rusty Shackles bring you, “Great Comics That Never Were (But Shoulda Been)!”
Jenkins’ List
Henry Jenkins writes up a handy list of some comics he’s enjoyed recently, divvied into stories of everyday life, superheroes, science fiction/fantasy/horror, and some unclassifiable items.
Talking Shit about Grant Morrison and Alan Moore
Savage Critics Jeff Lester and Graeme McMillan talk some shit about Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, smart shit. And if that’s not enough, the talk a lot about other comics. But hearing them talk about Grant Morrison and Alan Moore is enough if that’s all you have time for.
Alan Moore Knows The Score
“It’s nice to hear all the old songs, isn’t it?”–the Devil, The Black Rider I was surprised to hear the old songs in Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 1910 (Top Shelf, 2009). I probably shouldn’t have been. The chapter title, “What Keeps Mankind Alive” distracted me, but I kept [...]
AN ANICONIC ICON
This month we’re mixing it up at the Gutter, with the editors writing about something outside their usual domain. This week Ian Driscoll writes about comics. Well, mostly comics. When the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve editorial cartoons, several of which depicted the prophet Muhammad, well, you probably remember. Outcry. Controversy. Embassies on fire. All [...]
Saturday Morning Watchmen
Get out your favorite milk-dying sugar saturated cereal, it’s “Saturday Morning Watchmen!” Dr.Manhattan turns into a car. That’s tight.
ROUND THE DECAY OF THAT COLOSSAL WRECK
In the run-up to, and wake of, the release of Watchmen, it has become common currency to say that adapting Zach Snyder, et al undertook a massive challenge in adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ complex, sprawling medium- and genre-defining work for the screen. But I’m going to suggest that they actually undertook an even [...]
Wrangling Watchmen
Read everything you wanted to about the Watchmen movie? Let us wrangle you a little more. Marc Hirsch argues for the comic as its own form and Andrew O’Hehir is shocked to be writing that it “way out-darks The Dark Knight and immediately leaps near the top of the list of apocalyptic pop-culture operas.” Meanwhile, [...]
“It’s a new world, Arcane.”
Andrew O’Hehir tricks us all by writing about Alan Moore and Swamp Thing instead of movies at Salon: “[T]wo things are clear: Moore knows what comics readers want and intends to give it to them, and whether or not they want something more complicated, more tragic and more adult (I know it’s a loaded word), [...]
1910 Is Now
Bully! 1910 is Now with preview pages from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen–Century: 1910.
keep looking »Of Note Elsewhere
“It’s easier to tell the same stories everyone else does. There’s no particular shame in it.
It’s just that it’s lazy, which is just about the worst possible thing a spec fic writer can be.
Oh, and it’s not true.”
Kameron Hurley writes about lazy writing, cannibal llamas, female soldiers, and women here. (Thanks, James!)
Patton Oswalt’s multi-franchise super-movie described in his Star Wars filibuster from Parks and Recreation, animated.
Corrigan Vaughan writes an open letter to “Fans of Geek Things“: “I appreciate that you think I have a nice rack and that some of you even find my friends and I to be pretty. That’s very kind. I’m not, however, super in love with the fact that having a rack at all seems to preclude me from being considered a ‘real’ fan.”
The Hollywood Reporter interviews director Takashi Miike about his new film, Shield of Straw: ” In Japan now, films are very safe. When I was young and went to old cinemas, they had a distinctive feel, an adult smell about them. As you got in your seat and the lights went down, there was a feeling of excitement: What if the film is scarier than I thought it’s going to be? You’re taken into that world. Nowadays, you can sit in the theater and know it’s going to be safe. That’s good for business, but not for filmmaking.”
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