On February 14, 2010, Fox aired an episode of Family Guy titled Extra-Large Medium.  Part of the episode revolved around Chris, the slower son in the family, developing a crush on a girl from school — a mentally “handicapped” girl from school.  At some point in the show the girl tells Chris that her mother is the former governor of Alaska, an obvious dig at ex-Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin.  Mrs. Palin has been the butt of many, many jokes and parodies, but this one stung a bit too close to home for our future Playboy posing politician the would-be Vice-Presidential failure.

On her Facebook, Palin wrote the following note:

People are asking me to comment on yesterday’s Fox show that felt like another kick in the gut. Bristol was one who asked what I thought of the show that mocked her baby brother, Trig (and/or others with special needs), in an episode yesterday. Instead of answering, I asked her what she thought. Here is her conscientious reply, which is a much more restrained and gracious statement than I want to make about an issue that begs the question, “when is enough, enough?”:

“When you’re the son or daughter of a public figure, you have to develop thick skin. My siblings and I all have that, but insults directed at our youngest brother hurt too much for us to remain silent. People with special needs face challenges that many of us will never confront, and yet they are some of the kindest and most loving people you’ll ever meet. Their lives are difficult enough as it is, so why would anyone want to make their lives more difficult by mocking them? As a culture, shouldn’t we be more compassionate to innocent people – especially those who are less fortunate? Shouldn’t we be willing to say that some things just are not funny? Are there any limits to what some people will do or say in regards to my little brother or others in the special needs community? If the writers of a particularly pathetic cartoon show thought they were being clever in mocking my brother and my family yesterday, they failed. All they proved is that they’re heartless jerks. — Bristol Palin”

- Sarah Palin

This comes on the heels of another retarded silly political slip of the tongue where Rahm Emanuel called liberal activists “fucking retarded.”  That oopsie-moment led Palin to call for Rahm’s resignation — all she got was an apology.

I did not watch the Family Guy episode, but upon first hearing about all the hubbub, I though that maybe, just maybe Palin finally had a right to be perturbed.  Then I watched the episode.  Did you know that in the episode, the mentally disabled character is portrayed as not only completely self-sufficient, modern and capable, but that a parallel is made poising her to be more “normal” than Chris, the character without Down Syndrome?  Sure Family Guy took a dig at Palin, but not her son, not really…  You see the dig in question was a mere association — the character had a mental handicap and was compared to Sarah’s son, but at no point did Family Guy rip on the Down Syndrome community (?), in fact they made an argument to the contrary.  Mentally handicapped people may be retarded, but their not helpless.  It’s that association, the one linking mental handicaps to utter uselessness, that are truly offensive.

I want to answer Bristol directly.  I don’t know how the association of your brother with a strong-minded character who has the same condition but manages to be perfectly capable is making his life “more difficult,” could you explain that?  As a culture you feel as though we should be more “compassionate,” that’s admirable.  Compassion is defined as “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering” — how better to alleviate the suffering then to show that it is not as debilitating as most people think through comedy and laughter?  You’re also right when you say that some things aren’t funny, like Rosie O’Donnel and Carrot Top, but Family Guy is fucking hilarious.  There should be limits to what people say about those with special needs (including your brother), and even your mother, but this instance of “mockery” has not yet approached those limits.  And when you say “particularly pathetic show” what do you mean exactly?  Family Guy has been on for a very long time and while I don’t agree with everything on the show, I do respect it’s longevity and success and can’t seem to understand what makes it “pathetic.”

In 2005 Johnny Knoxville made a fairly terrible movie called The Ringer, where he portrayed a a character who fixes the Special Olympics.  Much to my chagrin, I actually enjoyed moments (“when the fuck did we get ice cream?!”), but what I found truly admirable about the film was that most of the actors were actually mentally handicapped individuals.  They saw the humor and loved being a part of the film.  Most of the complaints regarding the film were from “normal” folks “defending” the rights of handicapped people everywhere.  Yeah, right.  I have a feeling that most of the mentally disabled kids and adults in The Ringer had the time of their lives.  The truth is that groups of people who cry foul every time the word “retard” gets used are actually reinforcing stereotypes, not helping them.

Should we be sensitive?  Sure.  But let’s not get crazy here folks.  Palin isn’t defending her son, she’s using the light her son’s condition has made and throwing her soapbox right in the center of it all.  Her son wasn’t attacked.  Not even Palin was attacked.  Family Guy made a reference.  They had a character with down-syndrome and compared that character to another figure in the public eye who has the same condition.  That’s it.  Have you seen Family Guy before?  Their humor is based almost completely on associations, some times they’re good, other times they’re bad, but either way it’s only an association.

I’m not defending the right of Hollywood to be insensitive — their are lines.  If Family guy aired an entire episode centered around Trig (Palin’s son) and did nothing but mock him, then I would have an issue here.  They didn’t.  They aired a show that made light of a very unfortunate condition that is often misunderstood and a veritable soft spot in American society and drew a distinct parallel between the character with said condition and the failed idiot-politician that is Palin.  Here’s the thing: Since they didn’t actually talk any shit at all about Trig, why do you think they did it?  Do you think they knew it would draw all this attention and boost ratings/viral videos of their show?  You bet your ass.

The word “retard” stems from the medical term “mental retardation.”  It is only derogatory, like all words, when used with the purpose of offense.  I know that some people believe that the use of the word should be void everywhere, but that’s just silly.  Things can be underdeveloped and immature, thereby retarded.  Personally, I’d be more offended if people started saying things like, “That’s so Down Syndrome.”

Lighten up folks.  The world isn’t as mean as you think.  Retards aren’t as dumb as you think.  And before you start bitching, watch the whole episode — otherwise you’re talking out of your ass and speaking without full understanding, this makes your argument incompletely informed, half-cocked and underdeveloped.  In other words, fucking retarded.

**UPDATE:  Andrea Fay Friedman, the actor who portrayed Ellen, the mentally handicapped girl, on the Family Guy Episode in question, is, in fact, mentally handicapped.  She has this to say in an email, distributed by her father:

My name is Andrea Fay Friedman. I was born with Down syndrome. I played the role of Ellen on the “Extra Large Medium” episode of Family Guy that was broadcast on Valentine’s day. Although they gave me red hair on the show, I am really a blonde. I also wore a red wig for my role in ” Smudge” but I was a blonde in “Life Goes On”. I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line “I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska” was very funny. I think the word is “sarcasm”.

In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.

Until next time,

Mr. Wolff

Back to Semantink

Hey, kids! It’s Wednesday, so your old pal Akatzen is back with another Book Report.

Today I want to talk about two books that, taken together, could immeasurably improve all of our lives. No, I’m not talking about The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, by Max Brooks (but don’t worry, there will be plenty of zombie discussions in future Reports). The two books I’m thinking of are The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

The reason why I want to talk about these books is because while our ability to grow and ship food around the world has improved immeasurably over the past century, people (especially Americans) don’t seem to be getting any healthier. In fact, people who live on a Westernized diet (which contrary to popular belief is not a diet consisting solely of Western Bacon Cheeseburgers) tend to have greater risk of heart disease and an increased tendency towards obesity and obesity related problems, such as Type 2 diabetes and certain kinds of cancer. Pollan’s books take a very interesting look at these problems, and presents to the reader some incredibly interesting solutions.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan begins with a simple question: Where does our food come from? Human beings, more than any other omnivore, stand at an incredibly interesting position on the food chain. There are an amazing amount of diverse foods that humans can eat, gather nutrients from, and survive as a species off of. We are incredibly adaptable, able to process foods that perhaps only a century or two ago we had trouble with.
But with all these options and adaptations, somehow there is still some psychological distress when we ask ourselves the question: “What do I want to eat?” (perhaps even because of all these options)
So Pollan goes on a journey, attempting to ease this Omnivore’s Dilemma, to trace food back to its source. What he finds is that he actually needs to go on four journeys: a journey through the industrial food chain, the organic food chain, the green (!) organic food chain, and the hunter-gatherer food chain.
Each journey offers not only incredible insight on how food goes from ground or forest or pasture to our tables, but also discusses the pros and cons of each type of food chain.

For instance, in the industrial chain, nearly all of your food comes from one source: the corn farms of Iowa. Corn offers amazingly high crop yields, cattle and chicken are fed corn to fatten them quickly and cheaply, high fructose corn syrup sweetens our food and beverages, and other corn derivatives find their way into foods, plastics, and many other consumables. The trouble is that corn doesn’t offer much nutritional value. As ruminants, cows can’t even digest corn with out a lot of medical help (in the form of steroids, hormones, and antibiotics). On the other hand, because it is cheap and plentiful, corn helps get a lot of food on a lot of tables for not a lot of money. In fact, most research shows that trying to feed the growing populations of the world without industrial farming is impossible. Organic farming just doesn’t have high enough of a yield.

But as Pollan explores the other food chains, it becomes increasingly clear that industrial farming obliterates the symbiotic nature of the food chain, how waste feeds the soil which feeds the plants which feed the plant-eaters which provide sustenance to the creatures that eat meat. Industrial farming arrogantly claims this symbiotic nature is unnecessary, and interrupting it couldn’t possibly cause dietary health problems.

In Defense of Food takes the next step. After following all these food chains back to their sources, Pollan wonders rightly if the industrialized, heavily processed items that line most of our grocery shelves deserve to even be called “food.”
Pollan takes an in-depth look at the history of nutritionism, and the simplification of food-processing, where nutrients are sucked out of the food products as they are made, and then nutrients get added back in chemically before they hit the shelves. But even with vitamin-fortified, low-fat, sugar-free etc. pumped back into our foods, the obesity rates of people on the Western Diet continue to sky-rocket. This suggests the importance of eating “whole” foods, and indeed, this is what Pollan means when he asks what “food” is. His conclusion (which he gives away in the introduction, so I’m not spoiling anything here) is to “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
Those seven words become a compelling argument for a better way to eat, that not only will make us healthier, but also help us enjoy our time eating in a way our fast-food enriched tongues have a hard time understanding.

So I give a high recommendation for these books, especially for people who feel stuck in fad diets, or wonder about the value of organic foods, or the healthiest way to “lose weight”. These books are an invaluable resource, helping us gain a better understanding and deeper appreciation for the things we decide to put in our mouths (try to keep your mind out of the gutter, please).

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

PS. For young readers, Pollan wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids: The Secrets Behind What You Eat.

Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!

Tighten up your uniforms and strap into your Humvees, soldiers. We’re gonna get ourselves into the makeup chair today and have our faces remodeled while our minds are blown by the work of Special Makeup Effects mastermind Rick Baker.

You’ve seen him on the big screen before, much the same way you’ve seen John Williams or James Cameron. Rick Baker has given us creatures to be scared of, and faces to be scared for. From Men in Black to Harry and the Hendersons, from The Wolfman to An American Werewolf in London, Rick Baker has created the most memorable, realistic, and innovative cinematic sequences and looks of the last thirty years. He stands on the shoulders of Jack Pierce (The Wolfman, the original) and Dick Smith (The Godfather, The Exorcist) , and continues the tradition of great movie makeup.

In high school, Baker changed his life goal from wanting to be a doctor to wanting to do makeup for movies. His parents were luckily supportive, and Halloween became the “Rick Baker Holiday” in the neighborhood. But for Rick, Halloween lasted all year long. Naturally, any makeup guy is going to have a “blood and guts” period as a teenager, but this quickly came to an end for Baker when he painted his friend with third-degree burns, and the kid’s father became hysterical at the sight.

Later, Baker located Dick Smith in New York City. He wrote Smith a letter and included photos of his work. Smith took the young Baker under his wing, just as he was finishing up his latest picture, Little Big Man, with Dustin Hoffman. Throughout the 70s, Baker refined his craft on B-movies and even a couple of A-listers, including some uncredited work on The Exorcist, and second unit effects on Star Wars.

In 1981, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally decided to add a Best Makeup Award for the Oscars. The first winner in this category was Rick Baker, for his incredible human to wolf transition design in An American Werewolf in London — clearly the new bar set for human-creature effects work of the last thirty years in filmmaking.

Baker worked several times with Michael Jackson, most notably on the greatest music video of all time (sorry, Kanye), Thriller (also directed by American Werewolf’s Jon Landis). Later came Harry and the Hendersons, featuring a family friendly Ron Perlman Bigfoot design, and bringing Baker his second Oscar for Best Makeup.

With the 1990s came three more Oscars for Baker — for classic monster makeup and aging prosthetics to make Martin Landau the unforgettable Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood, for redefining a classic film, for redefining Eddie Murphy’s career in The Nutty Professor, and for alien-to-human transitions in Men in Black.

But along with these finer achievements came some minor work, yet no less considerable on any makeup artist’s resume: Gorillas in the Mist, The Rocketeer, Coming to America, Wolf, and even Batman Forever. He won his sixth and record-holding Makeup Effects Oscar for green-ifying Jim Carrey in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and was able to bring the Oscars to a new low by getting nominated for his makeup work on Norbit. He visualized the imagination of Guillermo del Toro in Hellboy, scared countless Americans out of their chairs with The Ring and The Ring Two, and made Robert Downey, Jr. into a funny Eddie Murphy black man in Tropic Thunder.

Most recently, Rick Baker was able to pay homage and put his own stamp to the original makeup work of Jack Pierce’s classic design of The Wolfman. Luckily, Benicio del Toro is a very hairy man, which no doubt made Rick Baker’s job that much easier. Asked why he would revisit werewolves despite having jumpstarted the genre in American Werewolf in London, Baker said: “It’s The Wolfman. It’s one of the films that made me the strange man I am today. I could do nothing but horror movies and be happy. I hate what’s become of them, with all these slasher films, and any chance I can get to do an old-fashioned gothic horror movie, I’m going to take it.”

Del Toro, 2010; Chaney, 1941

In the same interview, Baker says his favorite monster-movie as a kid was actually Frankenstein. Unversal execs take note, because you have your monster-makeup-man right here. Steal him away before he is obligated to take on Norbit II. Seriously. Even Benicio del Toro threatened him…

At ease.

Sgt. Angle

Happy V-Day boys and girls!

I’m here today to issue a warning. With love in the air, it’s not abnormal to have thoughts stray towards marriage. Marriage leads to children, and children lead to trouble. Here in the real world, children are troublesome enough, running around, spreading germs, eating things what aught not be ate. In the land of comics though, children are far more terrifying. Let me explain:

In comic books, children always are extremely problematic. I’m not talking about “Billy got in a fight” or “Sally skinned her knee”, I mean really problematic. For example, let’s take a look at the Power Pack. This group of four precocious children found a spaceship one day housing a walking my little pony who granted them all the superpower of getting into deep S%!t.

These Hellions need a spanking

In real life, if your child comes home boasting of a play date with a dangerous alien, you give them a good spanking and a rabies shot, but sadly, this is not the way of things in comics. The Power Pack lasted for almost a decade with those children running around, fighting crime, and giving their poor parents heart attacks every night.

There is also the problem of genetic defects within your child. Once upon a time, Spartans would smash defective infants on the rocks. While this is might seem inhumane, you never heard about mutants going around starting trouble back then. A perfect example of this would be Cable. This baby was a mutant who got thrust into the future, infected with an incurable virus, and was supposed to be host body for an ageless dictator. That never happened to the Greeks!

All of this could have been avoided

There are endless examples of the terror that comic book children cause, but I’m not going to bore you with them. I just want you to remember this Valentine’s day that before you get too amorous, think about the Power Pack. Consider yourself warned and have a great Valentine’s day folks! See you tomorrow.

Hello again peoples and welcome to another Geek of the week. If you are here for the Gimp Line Art Tutorial well that will be here next week.

Heroes in History is what were talking about today. I thought it has been a while since I found a cool artist to talk about and just as I thought about it I find this guy. I know the internets are magic!

This guy were talking about is named Agan Harahap. Whats so cool about his recent art is that he has taken superheros and put them into old historic photos. I could not find much info about this guy so I cannot give you any back story about him or the pictures. He does however have Deviant art page and a Flickr stream. So until more info is found on this guy we can at least enjoy his art. Click the one you want. Deviant art Profile or Flickr Stream

I think these photos are pretty cool. I hope you liked them as much as I did. I kind of want to do one of my own now. Well that’s it for this weeks Geek. I’m Street Fece and I’m OUT!!!

The image is too big for you scanner? Thats what she said. Now what? Well don’t worry. Gimp can help you. We can scan your drawing in multiple pieces and then stitch them together to make them whole again.

Photoshop has an automated feature that will do this for you automatically. We don’t have Photoshop so we must do it manually. Oh well it jus give you more practice.

Greetings folks!

Over the past few weeks, the internet has been lousy with teaser images for new books spinning out of the latest event comics. The thing is, all of these new books are actually old books that are simply getting revamped. The Avengers line (all four books) are getting a face-lift after SIEGE. Aquaman will be returning (for the umpteenth time) at the conclusion of BLACKEST NIGHT. There is nothing wrong with a revamp, sometimes these things have to happen. As a matter of fact, I’m all in favor of revamping, so long as it’s good. Without revamps we never would have gotten Grant Morrison’s JLA, Bendis’ Daredevil, of Charlie Huston’s Moon Knight, so I love to hear about it when a tired comic is getting revamped.

However, there is a right way and a wrong way to revamp a book. If you are revamping a character that just couldn’t sell books, you need to bring in names. No one will care about a brand new, exciting direction for Rocket Racer is Steve from H.R. is writing it, but if Alan Moore is relaunching Rocket Racer, the book will be an instant sell out. If a book is feeling stale, you need to get new blood in there. Don’t bring back Chris Claremont to the X-men for a fresh voice, bring in someone new.

Our list today is a list of books and/or characters that I think could/should use a revamp, and who I would use to revamp them. I’m fairly certain none of these revamps will ever occur, but I would be greatly excited if they did. Enjoy!

AQUAMAN: The king of the relaunches, Aquaman has been revamped more than any other character in comics. Why? Because Aquaman, at his core, is a crappy character. There really isn’t a good angle to take on this poor man’s Namor, so that is why he gets a new series started (and canceled) every few years. For AM to succeed, you need top tier talent to go crazy on the Atlantean, so I say get Alan Moore to write and examine life under the sea from a whole new perspective. As an artist, you would need someone equally stunning, so I say bring in Jim Lee. Lee could make phone book reading look cool, so drawing dynamic underwater environments shouldn’t be too hard for him. If Jim Lee and Alan Moore can’t get Aquaman to be viable, then no one can.

DR. STRANGE: The Problem with Dr. Strange is that it’s hard to keep the stories grounded enough to have audiences care about the characters, and still fantastical enough to make us think magic is cool. It’s a fine line to walk, and one of the main reasons that the good doctor has had such a hard time keeping himself in a monthly book. If anyone could traverse different plains of reality while keeping characters interesting it’s Grant Morrison. From the artistic side, you would need someone with the chops to keep up with Morrison’s psychedelic scripts, and  J.H. Williams (who worked with Morrison previously on 7 SOLDIERS) would fit the bill nicely.

THE DARKNESS: When THE DARKNESS was first released, it was a great blend of horror, dark comedy, and that Top Cow style of art. In the years since it’s release the book has had it’s ups and downs, already relaunching twice, and never really going back to what made the book so great when it began. If you want to get the book back to it’s roots, you need a writer who can master dark comedy and horror, someone like, say, Stephen King? And to fit that Top Cow art style, how about David Finch, who grew up in the Top Cow stable?

JLA:  Like any team book, JLA needs a good spring cleaning every few years. Creative teams, characters, and attitudes all need to change to keep up with the times. The funny thing about JLA is that unlike other team books,  which will tweak rosters or change creators, the JLA will go from great to suck in about 10 issues and then  get a complete reboot about a year later. If DC wants to keep the book around for a while, they need a writer who a)understands the dynamics of a team and b) wont jump ship for something else after a year. Joe Casey would be my choice. Steve McNiven as the artist would keep fans coming back on a month to month basis, just to see the pretty pictures.

THE SENTRY: When Marvel first put out THE SENTRY mini-series, I was amazed. Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee created this Superman-like character who was so messed up he was Earth’s greatest hero, and it’s worst villain. In the decade since THE SENTRY was first released, nothing new or exciting has been  done with the character. The Sentry has stood on the edge of cool, but no one to date has made him a character I care about. I say let Neil Gaiman take a crack at exploring what makes The Sentry tick, and have Frank Quitely illustrate the bad boy. If those two were doing SENTRY book, the golden avenger would definitely be a character I’d pay attention to.

ALIENS: ALIEN comics have been around for a long time, but I can never bring myself to buy one. As a friend of mine said, all things alien have been action based ever since James Cameron’s ALIENS movie. I say take the book in a different direction, and make the aliens scary again. It shouldn’t be hard, I mean you have these acid-blooded killing machines running around hiding in the dark and killing people in space. Robert Kirkman has proven with THE WALKING DEAD that he can write a mean horror story and  no one uses heavy blacks like Jae Lee. I’m quivering already!

MORBIUS: Vampires continue to be a hot seller in pop culture, so it’s only fair that Marvel’s vampire, Morbius, gets a second chance at being cool. Steve Niles has been writing spectacular vampire fiction for years with the 30 DAYS OF NIGHT franchise so he gets the writing nod. On art, Mike Mignolia would be able to lend his Gothic sensibilities and show the world that a living vampire (yup that’s really Morbius’ tag line) could be cool.

SUICIDE SQUAD: When Josh Ostrander wrote the suicide squad, it was about the coolest book around. Second tier bad guys sent out by the government to wreck house, and if they died, well, they were second tier. The book was action packed and you never knew who would make it to the next issue. Since then no one has been  able to capture the greatness of the original series, with art that was too cartoony  or stories that just fell flat. Warren Ellis basically wrote the Marvel version of the squad when he was writing THUNDERBOLTS a few years ago, and his dark sense of humor would fit the book well.  John Cassaday draws everything well, and his work on ASTONISHING X-MEN and PLANETARY showed he can handle a team book.

THE BLACK WIDOW: With an upcoming appearance in IRON MAN 2 this summer, it’s time to make the Black Widow cool again. Brian K. Vaughn wrote bad-ass women for years on Y: THE LAST MAN and  Tim Sale would be a sure thing drawing the adventures of Marvel’s Russian femme fatale.

WILDCATS: Every few years, the Wildcats are cool. They were cool when Jim Lee Drew them, they were cool when Alan Moore wrote them, and recently they were supposed to be cool when Grant Morrison and Lee were supposed to team up on the book. Sadly that never happened, so the Cats have been floundering the past few years. THE WILDCATS is at its best when it is pushing the envelope and Mark Waid is a master of envelope pushing. Jim Cheung draws great action and great team books, both a must if WILDCATS is going to get back to it’s former glory.

THE HAND: Marvel’s favorite assassins, The Hand, used to be martial arts bad-asses. Then everyone and their mom started using them as punching bags for the Marvel U. These The Hand are basically a group of red-pajama-d masochists. With Daredevil taking over the ninja clan, this would be the time to make them cool again. The team of  Matt Fraction and David Aja was able to work wonders with Iron Fist a few years ago, so I would task them with making ninjas awesome again.

BATMAN’S ROGUES: There is nothing wrong with Batman’s rogues gallery. They have been, and always will be the greatest assortment of psychopaths in comics. The problem lately has been Batman. With Bruce Wayne dying and Dick Grayson taking up the mantle, all the focus has been on Bats, with his great villains getting no love. We need to show some respect and give the rogues a title of their own. I propose a comic set up like the show OZ, showing all of Batman’s baddies interacting within the asylum. Garth Ennis could make sure that the the comic never gets dull,  and Alex Maleev could lend his gritty art style to really set the stage for bad-assery.

NOVA: NOVA is actually a great book right now and is not in need of a revamp or relaunch. DnA are doing a great job with this book, so why is it on this list? Potential Greatness. Marvel has a chance to make The Nova Corps as great as DC’s Green Lanterns but it has to be done right. Just like DC has a GL solo book and a GL Corps book, Marvel must do the same with Nova. Put  Joss Whedon in charge of writing a diverse bunch of characters in the craziness of space and the book will sell. Add in Brian Hitch doing his wide-screen action thing, and you have a must read which sets the franchise up for long lasting success.

Well, that’s it for today folks. thanks for stopping in, and have a great weekend!

[Almost all of the following is a lie.]

As you probably know, I hate the objectification of women.  I believe that women are equals to men in every way and have proven themselves to be formidable opponents of men in every capacity imaginable.  Don’t believe me?  How about the WNBA?  Booyah!  Chalk one up for equality, bitches!

Every year around this time of gloom, when movies are typically less than bad, Hollywood/The Music Industry gives themselves “The Stranger” with a numb right hand called award shows, and, thanks to the weather, snow balls describes testicles across the nation, a little magazine publication called Sports Illustrated likes to show the diverse nature of their mission by releasing something called the Swimsuit Edition — just when you think things can’t worse…  The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition makes vomit.  The classless objectification of women as sex symbols is both insulting and depraved.  It is a classless and highbrow attempt to guise America’s perverted obsession with sex as an “artistic expression” of scantily clad, or sometimes completely swimsuitless, beauties in order to fill Sports Illustrated’s pockets while encouraging men (and some women) everywhere to lust just that much more.

Disgusting.

Just to elaborate upon the extent of my vile loathing for this practice, I’d like to show you just a few of some of the 31 “models” so you can understand just what is at stake.  This, America, is what you deserve, you filthy bitch.

Topography has never piqued my “curiosity” like this before…

This is cover model Brooklyn Decker.  More like Brooklyn Some-one-must-have–decked-her–too-may-time-in-the-face-because-she’s-so-ugly.  Am I right?!?

Where do the freckles stop?

This soulless ginger is Cintia Dicker. Yes.  Dicker.  You sick bastards…

I want to be a fish — any fish, at this beach.

Next up on the lust-list is Jessica White.  White, like the intense fires of  hell, which is where you adulterous heathens are all headed!

So this guy walks into a bar…

Bar Rafaeli is not only named after a den of sin, but, in this picture, wears the golden skin of the serpent.  So now Sports illustrated is offending women and PETA — the bastards.

I hope I’ve made my point.

Whatever you do, do NOT go to Sports Illustrated where you would be forced to see a lot more of these “beautiful” models in very little clothing at no cost to you.  And if for some ungodly reason you do go to the site, don’t look at the site alone, like I am or you may be tempted to think impure thoughts and take of your pants. In the dark.  Like me.  Right now…

I have to go.

Mr. Wolff

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Hey kids! It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s time for another Book Report from Uncle Akatzen.
Okay. I’m not really your uncle. I get that. Sorry. I won’t ever say that again.

So imagine, if you will, a world where books are more popular than television. Stop laughing, I’m serious. What would such a world look like? How would what is possible and impossible be different? Could we bring back, through genetic cloning, the dodo bird? Instead of going to midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, people might go to, say, midnight productions of Richard III.
Jasper Fforde (no, the two ‘f’s are not a typing error) envisioned such a world with his Thursday Next detective novels, beginning with The Eyre Affair, published in 2001. In this world, Thursday isn’t just a day of the week, it is also the name of the main character.

Thursday is a Literatec (literature detective), assigned to point out forgeries of Milton, debunk claims that Shakespeare’s lost play Cardenio has been found, and generally make sure that people are able to enjoy their books.
Her life takes an abrupt turn towards adventure when someone steals the original manuscript of Charles Dickens’ The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, and then a minor character disappears from its pages!
The resulting romp is what the New York Times reviewed as “A combination of fantasy, comedy, science fiction, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Lewis Carroll, Monty Python and even ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.

One thing I especially like about the book is that it works as a highbrow and lowbrow comedy at the same time. Literature fanatics will love the references and cameos that sneak in and out of these pages, and casual readers will enjoy the quirky, James Bond-like, alternative England of 1985. They may even be inspired to pick up one of the books referred to in the series to give it a read.
Satirical, yet also reverent towards its source material, The Eyre Affair is a book designed to deepen the pleasures of reading. It is also sponsored by Toast!

After reading The Eyre Affair, be sure to check out the other Thursday Next novels: Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, and First Among Sequels.
Any readers curious about Fforde’s other work will want to check out his Nursery Crime stories, beginning with Big Over Easy, a Dirk Gently-like detective novel about finding out who killed Humpty Dumpty.
Fforde also just released a new novel, Shades of Grey, about a society that where people can only see one color, and the caste system determined by which color you can see.

Well, that’s it for me this week. Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_

Sgt. Angle reporting for duty!

Last week, we got a taste of the worst of the worst, namely that the lamest movie to come around in a while is Legion, as declared by Mr. Wolff. This assertion was quickly followed up by Ben and his “Wasting Ink” blog about horrid comic book characters of the past.

Here, then, are wasted bits of celluloid. Keep in mind, when I say “wasted” in this context, I’m not saying that these movies should be lined up against a brick wall and that I order for each to be hit with a flamethrower. I’m simply saying that there are betters ways to expose film when on these film sets than the resulting footage. Also, I’m avoiding the trap of choosing entire films and shoving them into this column, essentially creating a crappy movies list. Instead, I’m aiming for different elements of different films — an actor that was just entirely wrong for the part, and over-written script for an otherwise decent director, or an entirely over-the-top editing style that would drive an epileptic sane.

The poster for childhood nightmares across America.

Jack — director, Francis Ford Coppola. What was he thinking? Here we have one of the most legendary directors of all time, king of the 70s Golden Age of American Cinema (Spielberg and Lucas hold the trophy for biggest blockbusters, and ushered in a new era, but the art of the decade came from Coppola), fell into a trap of Hollywood greed by directing this Robin Williams starring flop about a ten year old boy who ages four times as fast as regular people, and thus is cursed to resemble Robin Williams. The movie is sappy, ridiculous, and a childish waste of talent (Diane Lane…oh no), veering into typical childish slapstick humor with no other point than to offer kids a casual chuckle, rather than explore the deeper question of when we learn to grow up as people. One wonders if Coppola took an Ambien and slept throughout production and simply woke up to the resulting footage amidst a pile of Williams’ chest hair. Indeed, Jack seemed to be a detour somehow necessary for Coppola to bankroll his next film, The Rainmaker, starring Matt Damon.

Reshoots: Get Robin Williams out of it, and bring in a more serious actor who might be able to practice comedic chops, not the other way around. Also, should’ve brought in a writer with a bit of grace in handling deeper thematic issues — John Sayles, for instance.

The Lawnmower Man — Unreasonable adaptation. There are certain adaptations of stories, books, and plays which are utterly unacceptable and not necessary. In this case, it happened to Stephen King’s short story “The Lawnmower Man,” the creepy short story about a dude who hires a mysterious lawnmowing company, and discovers a terrifying truth about the company’s owner — who turns out to be a satyr working for Pan, and who devours cut grass while nude and kills his client before the truth can get out. The movie, starring ‘James Bond’ Pierce Brosnan, is about a dude who uses a mentally retarded lawnmower for virtual reality experiments, only to watch the poor guy’s evil increase with his intelligence. The ridiculous adaptation was so bad that Stephen King sued to get his name off the final film. Take your rifles and blast a hole in this celluloid monster.

Reshoots: None. Change your damn title and be done with it. Keep Jeff Fahey, though.…

The heat is so on.

Beverly Hills Cop III - Director John Landis and Eddie Murphy. Again, the sound of silver suitcases opening with wads of cash attracts the talent who created “Thriller,” and one of the best comedians of the 1980s, to the end of the better parts of their careers. The film has pieces of comic gems — Judge Reinhold’s hilarious reign as the head of the JDOJSIOC (“The JGjo-josee”), the random George Lucas cameo — but as far as films that represent turning points for anyone in showbiz, BHCIII is that point for Eddie Murphy, when nearly every film that followed carried a lighter, fluffier style (other than, of course, Vampire in Brooklyn), and his raw combination of violence, humor, and relevance just exited stage left.

Reshoots: Fine, keep your Wonderworld amusement park. Now add some blood and violence, and get a director who is able to handle something other than campy, classical horror. I’m sorry, Landis. I love American Werewolf in London, but this sort of thing ain’t your bag. At least, not in the tradition of Axel Foley’s finest work.

Oh, snap! What decade are we in?!

The Good German — Good idea, poor execution. Steven Soderbergh ventured into Post-WWII Vienna with his black and white homage to films like Casablanca a few years ago, and the results of his amalgam of talent and dedication to the craft took a turn for the worse around the moment when Tobey Maguire smacks Cate Blanchett in the face. The elements were all there: Using cameras and film from the era, hiring a great cinematographer who knows how to shoot black and white (Steven Soderbergh), good editing (Steven Soderbergh…again), a classic score (Thomas Newman), a smart script (Paul Attanasio). The problem is the dense story mishandled by great actors who, other than George Clooney, could not understand the basis of the filmmaker’s intentions. That, and the fact that Tobey Maguire was horribly miscast to play an enraged soldier who beats his girlfriend and screams bloody murder at any other soldier who chose today to breathe. Too small, and too soon for TM to try on the shoes of the villain. Pick something smaller, more unique (certainly not this past year’s generic Brothers).

Reshoots: How about recasting? How about re-writing so the plot is not as dense, and how about casting someone other than Tobey Maguire and Cate Blanchett? Cate lacks chemistry with any of her male counterparts in this one.

Dracula: Dead and Loving It - Mel Brooks. If you’re a good soldier,  you grant Mel Brooks your undivided attention from his early days as a performer on “The New Steve Allen Show” as the 2000 year old man, up through and including Robin Hood: Men in Tights. That being said, Spaceballs represented the last great Brooks film, and also the beginning of the Brooks Decline in comedy. RH:MIT is saved not only by Cary Elwes’s English accent, but also bites with humor from Dave Chappelle and a clear comedic target, that being the overuse of classic characters and the resulting effect on the genre itself. With Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Brooks had the chance to exploit the melodramatic forces at play in the vampire genre, and to create a spoof of the soul-sucking nature of monster movies — just as Spaceballs mocked the science fiction blockbuster, and Blazing Saddles taught us that even the most classic of movie storytelling genres was fodder for more jokes than beans in a burrito. Leslie Nielsen couldn’t even save the Dracula spoof’s nightmare of a humorless script. In fact, the one laugh-out-loud moment is featured in the trailer: “She’s Nosferatu.” “She’s Italian?”

Reshoots: More Steven Weber, less Leslie Nielsen.

Stand at attention!

Date Movie - The death of Hollywood dignity. Perhaps a deeply troubled step-child, or third cousin, to Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Date Movie is the representative of the last 12 years of Hollywood spoofs, second generation knock-offs courtesy of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Films such as Scary Movie 3 & 4, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie. These “films” are loaded with slight references and brief moments of familiar, recent movies, trying to cram every ounce of pop culture in between the most bare-bones of familiar plots. Take a lesson from Young Frankenstein: Build your characters, and keep your references subtle. Or from Airplane: Load us up with SMART jokes in the subtle way, and hit us over the head with slapstick humor of the irrelevant kind. Don’t just rely on the casting of Alyson Hannigan in your lead to attract our confidence in your otherwise colorless, odorless product.

Reshoots: I think we could — nah, nevermind. Burn it. Eliminate the last six years of horrible, pop-culture spoofs, and maybe my platoon will learn to laugh again.

You are dismissed!

Sgt. Angle

Happy Sunday Semantinkists!

I was up late into the night with the Semantink design team, working hard on the trade dress for our first MYTHOI graphic novel. Now, before you get too excited, the first GN is still several months away, but it is going to look awesome. The reason I bring all this up is because I wanted to talk about all the hard work that goes into designing the beautiful books you flip through when you are killing time at the local book store.

The biggest step in the design process is the overall layout of the book. Where will all the elements go? Will the cover have one large piece of artwork, or several smaller ones? Will the art wrap around to the back or end on the front? There is an ungodly amount of design decisions that could mean success or failure on the stands. Let’s look at the front cover first.

The standard for front covers on graphic novels, especially superhero books, is to have one large image adorning the front cover with the book title scrawled across the top of book. Having this large image is a great attention grabber, but lacking in originality. Here are a few examples of the straight forward cover layout:

While the single large image is a great way to get attention, some books strive originality in their design, hoping to grab attention with design instead of pictures. Y: THE LAST MAN and HELLBOY are great examples of emphasizing design over artwork.

Whatever the layout, the cover has to be exciting enough to draw readers in. Just as I wont talk to an ugly girl, no matter how wonderful her personality, if a cover doesn’t grab me, I’m not going to open the book.

Another design element that is a key to sales success is the book spine. When graphic novels are all lined up in the book store with only the spines showing, how does one grab a new reader?

The run of the mill spine will contain the books title, volume (if necessary), publisher, and creators. This is all usually set with a single color and an attention grabbing typeface. Books like SANDMAN will use bands of color to make the book stick out on the shelf. For books that are part of a large series, it’s important to have to have continuity between volumes. THE WALKING DEAD has the same typeface and text placement on each spine, but a different color for each volume.

Finally, there is the back cover. The back cover contains odds and ends that just don’t fit anywhere else. Some of the things commonly found on the back cover are quotes from other professionals, a story synopsis, and the bar code. Sometimes art will grace the back cover, but from a design standpoint, its the red headed step child of the book.

If the layout of a graphic novel is it’s skeleton, then the art used on the book is the muscle and skin. No matter how good the layout is, a bad piece of cover art can kill it. By the same token, even if a GN layout isn’t great, a spectacular piece of art can save it. The key to the best covers is to make an image that will pop off the shelves at readers and tell a story at the same time. As an example, let’s take a look at one of the most well respected graphic novels of all time, WATCHMEN:

WATCHMEN’s cover doesn’t just ask to be read, it smacks you in the face and says ” Take me home or I’ll break a bottle on your head.” The art isn’t even very complex, but the bright color and the rather disturbing blood stain draws the reader in. As an example of a graphic novel that doesn’t work as well, let’s take a look at THE TEEN TITANS: JUDAS CONTRACT

To be fair, this was made in the 1980’s, but looking at this cover doesn’t make you want to buy it, it makes you want to throw up a little bit. The image is overly busy and the color is (for lack of a better word) yucky. Also, the more iconic your image is, the better. Just about any comic book fan can spot that WATCHMEN cover and know that it’s the Watchmen, but without the title, many would have no idea what the TEEN TITANS is.

One final element to consider when putting together a trade paperback is the typeface that will be used. Will you use a standard font, or create your own? THE WALKING DEAD has a unique font that sticks out and fits the book well, while BATMAN: YEAR ONE has a standard font, that doesn’t pop as much, but still fits the book.

The most important thing about selecting typeface is making sure that it fits the book. A heavy Gothic font doesn’t fit with a futuristic cop story. While it’s important to have your title pop out at people it still has to fit the book.

Creating a good looking trade dress is a lot of work, but the results can be spectacular. When I look at books like WATCHMEN  and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (another iconic trade) I think about how good a TPB can look, and I get excited for our own Semantink trades. That’s it for today folks, thanks for stopping in. If you haven’t gotten a chance yet, check out our latest issue of MYTHOI, MYTHOI Births: YUKI. And if you haven’t checked out the other MYTHOI Birth issues (also free!) do so now!