The Return of Opus

I rarely get the Sunday edition of The Boston Globe, I'm not much for clipping coupons and really the whole thing is just a bitch to throw away for the small amount of info it provides. But I happened upon one the other week and much to my suprise, right on the front page is a new comic strip by Mr. Berkeley Breathed, this time simply titled Opus. Over the years there was only two daily newspaper comic strips that I enjoyed. Most of them are barely tolerable. These were Calvin & Hobbes and the Pulitzer-Prize winning Bloom County. Oh, and The Far Side was pretty good too. Anyway, I was pretty happy to see it and so I checked out www.berkeleybreathed.com and it seems that Opus came back a little while before the election.

Click to enlarge


Anyway, I thought that was worth pointing out. Also there's a movie in the works, allegedly to be completely cgi. This is a dicey propostition but I always felt the A Wish For Wings The Work TV special could have become a holiday staple much like A Christmas Story and the rest of those cartoons.

Here's one more dealing with the ol' anxiety closet... WHAT'S IN GW's ANXIETY CLOSET

Dump Tanks and Skull Island

I know, this is old news, but I've just recently gotten back into checking up on Kongisking.net -- the place to go to for info on Peter Jackson's King Kong remake. It's been up for a few months now posting these sometimes interesting, sometimes funny (Jack Black), "production diary" videos. I never watched any of these videos I guess Mr. Jackson also made during Lord of the Rings (I have much more anticipation for this king kong than I did for the hobbits) but these little videos are a pretty great if you have any interest in movie making. Or any interest in on-set antics of Jack Black. And I have a fondness for both so... Anyway, there are about 30 of these things on there now so it's a good way to waste an hour or so if you want to. You get a very deep insight into how a production of this ginormous size is run, from a look at some of the smaller aspects like the creation and placement of fake animal poo, to the creation of a fake ocean storm. But the tantalizing thing of it all is you get a good idea of the aformentioned ginormity of this movie and how cool it all could be. And yes, Jack Black is always "on" when a camera is in front of him. Click on the big ape.



p.s. -- new Sin City trailer here

Fan of the Farrell

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is coming out on DVD on December 28th. That's great and all, but what I'm looking forward to is this:



When the cast and director were having their rounds at the press junkets when Anchorman was coming out they'd mentioned that they'd filmed a whole other plot line that didn't even make it into the movie--basically that they had enough extra footage that could be edited to make a whole seperate movie, and that they'd probably put in on the DVD release. And so here we are with Wake Up Ron Burgundy, to be released as a seperate DVD on the same day as Anchorman. Very classy.

Watchmen & Friends

Yeah, so I suppose Watchmen deserves its own post. I don't know why it took me so long to pick up this book. It's status amoung comic book geeks is something equivilant to On the Road or the Bible. And I'd known how good Alan Moore's stories can be--I still have my copy of The Killing Joke sitting on my bookshelf after foolishly selling many other of the comics I had as a kid long ago. But like a good number of any of the other books I've read over the years, I decided to finally pick this one up after reading so much about the struggles of getting the movie version up and running.



You can type "Watchmen" into Google and you'll see people have set up sites all over the world disecting every panel of this comic book--er, graphic novel. As the blurb from The Villiage Voice puts it, a brilliant piece of fiction. And that really is what it is. The act of reading a comic book still seems to put some people off for whatever reason. But I have read very few books that have left me as eerily touched or have spoken as profound and timless a message as has Watchmen.

Simply calling it a commentary or decunstruction of the superhero mythology is just grazing the iceberg of this book. (Click the pic for the plot description.) But what really stuck me was how timely this book is. It came out and takes place around 1986, but I'll be damned if it doesn't resonate like it came out last month. I suppose it could be simply from the fact that the Russia vs Afganistan conflict and the general political climate during that time is a very interesting reflection of our problems now. And that may be the reason the movie is finally getting in motion. But whatever happens I can only hope they do it half the justice it deserves. I agree with the Devin over at CHUD (they even have a message board set up for this) who has repeatedly requested that it be made as a miniseries on HBO--Band Of Brothers style, giving each chapter it's own hour. That would be ideal--but I've read that the script is actually pretty good and I think Paul Greengrass is an interesting choice. As long as they're fans of the material I feel this could turn out well. Let's hope.

In other comic news, I want to recommend 4 titles that have giddy every time the next issue pops up.

Astonishing X-Men -- This is getting a lot of hype so if you're barely into comics you've probably heard about it. Or, if you're a Buffy fan you may have obsessed over every issue already like me. Yes, Buffy meastro Joss Whedon has launched a new X-Men book (I believe he's down as sole writter for the first 12 issues) and it is a thing of gloriousness. These are great characters and he's made them even more enjoyable and relatable then I remembered them being. This title got me back to hovering over the stands like I used to years ago. Pure joy -- even if you're not that famialiar with these guys (huh?) this series picks up at a great place to jump into.

WE3 -- What happens when the military takes 3 household pets and straps them with some heavy-duty machinery to be used as combat weapons? Well, when the project gets cancelled and the animals are released by the empathetic project director, don't try to stop these 3 from getting home to their masters. But of course that's just what happens and the amount of carnage that ensues it quite intense. A well written and most timely series of three books (the third's about to drop this week or next) by Grant Morrison (Arkham Asylum anyone?). And the brilliant brutal art work is unflinching and makes me cringe with glee. (Click link for Adobe peek)

Ocean -- Ah, Warren Ellis. A great great writter, genius of the medium really, who's also working on revamping Iron Man from the ground up. Both titles are worth checking out, but Ocean is a head scratcher that I still can't tell exactly where it's headed and am loving the mystery of it all. Mr. Ellis is great at creating his own unique worlds and his vision of the future universe of space travel and politics is cool as hell -- he's got kind of a Alien meets Solaris thing going on. I also like his diverse casting for the futuristic story. Making our protagonist a black dude (get Don Cheadle for the movie) and having the team he meets be largely made up of women is an interesting way to go.

Well, check those out. I don't think you could be disappointed.