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…
“Django Unchain My Heart (And Set Me Free)”
Jim Emerson ponders what he finds good and bad in Django Unchained and a lot of the good is Christoph Waltz: “Quentin Tarantino has found his actor in Christoph Waltz — someone who can speak Tarantinian fluently and still make it his own.” (via Roger Ebert)
“Tarantino Unchained”
Jelani Cobb considers Django Unchained and history at The New Yorker. “Tarantino’s attempt to craft a hero who stands apart from the other men—black and white—of his time is not a riff on history, it’s a riff on the mythology we’ve mistaken for history. Were the film aware of that distinction, Django would be far [...]
“Tarantino’s Candy (Slavery in the White Male Imagination)”
Tanya Steele watches Lincoln and Django Unchained back to back. “I needed to get a glimpse of what slavery was like in the imagination of white men.” (Thanks, Mike White!)
Black Kirby
Artvoice profiles, Black Kirby, John Jennings and Stacey Robinson’s art team that “imitates and parodies Jack Kirby’s in style and substance, adding an African-American—and notably contemporary—dimension.”
“Me and My People Got History”
David Brothers writes about Luke Cage, comics history and how and why he writes about race. “I really, really care about this stuff. I care about others getting it right and I definitely care about getting it right myself. Otherwise, you get ‘LOL Luke Cage’ instead of treating the guy like his history is as [...]
To Kill A Mockingbird and Horror
“Even if we were to discount the element of Southern small town prejudice and the ugly courtroom trial that occupies the film’s center, this adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Harper Lee is just plain spooky… and it is my feeling that it has bestowed upon us a legacy of horror that we [...]
The Last Minstrel Show
Joe Lansdale writes about the last minstrel show in East Texas. “I never saw any African-American minstrel shows, but I heard about them from those who had. I certainly saw a white minstrel show. I saw it in a time when public places sported ‘white’ and ‘colored’ water fountains and restrooms, and when restaurants that [...]
Cloud Atlas, Racebending and Racism
Racebending and Hyperallergic discuss the racism and lack of critical response to racism in Cloud Atlas‘ use of “colorblind casting.” Mike Le responds to the trailer: Ultimately…my belief is that Cloud Atlas will eventually be viewed through the same lens as films like The Good Earth, Birth of a Nation, or even Dumbo. These are films [...]
“Misconceptions in the Diversity Discussion”
Joking over lunch at the Game Developers Conference leads to Gamasutra‘s Leigh Alexander delineating “a few worrying misconceptions out there when it comes to what people want when we ask for equality.”
“This is how you destroy something beautiful”
N.K. Jemisin is offering a previously published story online for free. Find out why, here. “All my pleasure and pride at having been published in [Weird Tales] is gone. Goes without saying that I won’t be submitting there again, ever, but at this point I’m ashamed to have my name associated with the magazine at [...]
A League of One
A documentary about Milestone Media co-founder, comics creator, screenwriter and director Dwayne McDuffie.
Mike Le asks Joss Whedon a Question
“One of the things I loved about Firefly was the exploration of the fusion of Asian and American cultures. Many Asian Americans go through a similar journey. I was wondering, if you were to explore that again in the future, if you would be willing to include Asian or Asian American performers?” More at Racebending.
Thanks, Laura Hudson!
“Comics are yours, and they belong to you. Don’t let anyone — anyone — tell you differently. I never did, and it worked out pretty ok for me.” Laura Hudson steps down as Editor-in-Chief at Comics Alliance.
Wonder Women! Being the Hero of Your Own Story
Comics Editor Carol did a quick review of Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines for the ActionFest Blog. “[I]t’s not just about letting little girls know that they can be heroes, that they can be anything they want. It’s about knowing that as adults we have great power and great responsibility. We can [...]
“White Until Proven Otherwise”
The New Yorker‘s Anna Holmes reads Hunger Games Tweets and interviews its creator about reading, race and racism. “If the stories we tell ourselves about the future, however disturbing, don’t include black people; if readers of The Hunger Games are so blind as to skip over the author’s specific details and themes of appearance, race, [...]
Roger Corman, Vincent Price and William Shatner Talk Film
Some interviews with Roger Corman on his birthday. Roger Corman and Vincent Price talk about horror films with Elwy Yost on Saturday Night at the Movies. Corman and William Shatner discuss The Intruder. And Corman discusses film history and filmmaking–with some clips from his films.
Nalo Hopkinson Interviewed at The New Yorker
African-Canadian writer and artist Nalo Hopkinson talks about her fabric designs at The New Yorker’s Book Bench: [B]oth my writing and my designs are fuelled by the same passions and obsessions of mine…. I’ve been on a mission for the past few years to find historical depictions of black people and other peoples of colour [...]
Interviews with Dwayne McDuffie
Remembering Dwayne McDuffie on the anniversary of his death with an interview from an unfinished short on Milestone Comic by the makers of the documentary, White Scripts and Black Men: Black Masculinities in American Superhero Comics. And Dwayne McDuffie explains the secret history of Luke Cage’s exclamation, “Sweet Christmas!” (Update: McDuffie discusses the “rule of [...]
The Story of Negro Romance
History Detectives has 13 pages of, “Possessed, ” a story from a comic, Negro Romance. Watch the segment to learn more about the history African-Americans in comics, how the comic represents changes in American society after World War II and the creators of Negro Romance. (There is also a link to the full 55 minute [...]
“Jeez, I can write a better story than that!”
At a panel discussion, Octavia Butler reveals how she became a writer, watching a movie and thinking, “Jeez, I can write a better story than that!” Butler is interviewed by Charlie Rose in 2000. And a clip of her from a television documentary on science fiction.
« go back — keep looking »Of Note Elsewhere
At Sequart, Julian Darius makes the case that Star Trek: Into Darkness damages the Star Trek franchise and that “Starfleet must be destroyed.” (via Mike White)
“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.”
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