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…
A Warning to the faint of heart
And eight year olds
When I was in grade two, my school thought it’d be a great Halloween activity to have a movie screening of old horror films. They showed us the 1931 adaptations of Dracula and Frankenstein, the original 1932 The Mummy, and the 1954 3-D classic, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. At age eight I had [...]
Tim Gunn vs. The Green Lantern Corps!
Crazy Sexy Geeks team-up once again with Tim Gunn to critique superhero fashion. This time it’s Green Lanterns Alan Scott, Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner.
From Arthur To Orin
LBFA Presents: The History of Aquaman Explained!
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Science Fiction Again
It’s been years since I’ve read any straight-up science-fiction. You know, the classic stuff by authors like Arthur C. Clarke or Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov. But I got back into it recently through A.E. Van Vogt, having picked-up a used copy of Empire of the Atom.
Giant Golem vs. Nazi Robot Dinosaur
Giant Golem vs. Giant Nazi Robot Dinosaur. There are scans…
Even More Project: Rooftop Projects
Just as Project Runway has Models of the Runway, so too Project: Rooftop has spin-offs. Now there’s features like: “All Ages All-Stars,” redesigning superheroes for all ages (for example, Martian Manhunter); “How It’s Done,” spotlighting official superhero redesigns (like the Iron Man briefcase armor); and “Retrofix,” giving Golden and Silver age comic characters a new [...]
The Biography of Ebony White
“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.” –Malcolm X / Malik El-Shabazz, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (As Told To Alex Haley)
Super Wizard Stardust and Fantomah, On the Air!
Just can’t get enough of disturbing Golden Age comics auteur Fletcher Hanks? Stardust the Super Wizard and Fantomah go on the air on WFMU. Or at least Paul Karasik discusses Hanks, which is a much better situation.
Many Golden Age Comics In One Place
Golden Age Comics Downloads might overwhelm your hard drive, but it’s probably worth it.
Edd Cartier, RIP
The Shadow wouldn’t have been The Shadow and pulp wouldn’t have been pulp without Edd Cartier, who died at 94 on Christmas Day. People at Penciljack have posted art and links to his art.
Killer Panda!
Worse than killer bees or killer jellyfish are pandas! Deadly, bitey pandas that must by shot by white men on safari! Behold and shudder: scans of “Facing Death in a Panda’s Mouth!”
Yellow Peril
I’ve learned something reading Terry and the Pirates: There’s no way around the yellow peril in the Golden Age. Good comics sometimes have racist renderings in them.
The Vizigraph
It’s a reprinted letters page from the Golden Age magazine, Planet Comics.(And more Futura scans).
Aliens need earth ladies–earth ladies fight back!
Sleestak has an overview of Planet Comics, which published some Fletcher Hanks stories. Even better, he has scans of Futura, an Alex Raymond-influenced space opera about a secretary kidnapped because aliens need earth ladies! “Over the course of her story Futura quickly becomes less of a victim and her journey from frightened breeding stock to [...]
Saga of the Swamp Things
Alan Moore’s Saga of the Swamp Thing was my favorite comic in my younger, more gloomsome days. I probably liked it more than my other favorite comics at the time, Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. But Swamp Thing wasn’t the only swamp monster in comics.
10 Comics I Liked in 2007
The “best of” list is a tricky seasonal form and I’m no master. I might not know what’s best, but I do know what I like. So here’s ten good comics I read in 2007.
Stardust Returns
“Almost like a crazy person is holding the pencil.” My God, Mike Allred has created a comic featuring Fletcher Hanks’ disturbing and punitive hero Stardust. (Thanks to Again With The Comics)
Superheros on a Slant
I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! brings back fond memories of the passionate works of maniacal genius I’ve occasionally scored at book fairs and zine shows—tracts with titles like “Thousands of Degrees Hot!” and minicomics like “Linda Saves Detroit” or “The Brain Parasites.” Fletcher Hanks’ comics are crazier, more inspired and more disturbing than [...]
Hopped Up on Speedrunning
Shortly after 2 pm on the afternoon of May 18th, 2005, Brandon Erickson stepped back from the Star Wars arcade cabinet he’d been playing continuously, with no deaths, extra credits, or nap breaks, for the past 54 hours, having failed to break the Twin Galaxies record of three hundred million points in 49 hours established [...]
Tired of Saving You
There’s a panel in Secret Agent X-9 that fascinates me. In it, X-9 tells a woman and her father, “I’m tired of saving your lives.” The panel appears in the second half of Dashiell Hammett’s first Secret Agent X-9 storyline, “You’re the Top!” That’s right—Dashiell Hammett scripted a daily comic. Alex Raymond, whose Flash Gordon [...]
Of Note Elsewhere
Support Manos The Hands of Felt–The Master will be pleased.
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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