Thousands protest Global Warming.

so... this week's comics.

Knowing absolutely nothing about the dudes who worked on this, I picked this up on a whim, and boy was I surprised. Twisting, turning, rife with pop culture references and deftly illustrated, this one of the more original series I have had the pleasure of discovering. It begins with an oceanographer lost in what appears to be not the north Indian sea looking for poisonous fish of some sort. From there, we get conspiracy, dismemberment of faces, dick millionaires, great monochromatic art, wit-sharp dialogue and of course, cowboy, ninja, and viking.

It's a ride unlike any other. And like any great ride, it doesn't always seem to make sense, but by the end of it, everything clicks into place with a glorious cliffhanger that brings the issue full circle. My only gripe with it was that they misspelled "Kuala Lumpur" for some reason, and that took me out of the story, being Malaysian and all.

Still, boatloads of fun.


I like Joss Whedon. I like this. Not that the two are tangentially related. I like Fabio Moon more than I like Joss. At least here I do. Which is still pretty awesome. Banter. Hyper. Off course. Left field.Vikings(not really). Mystical intergalactic bodyguards. Battle of the bands. You know this thing is crammed with ideas. Imagination. For a measly 26 pages it's got loads. Plus you get sketches, backup material. DVD extras. The only thing is. This thing WAS free. I think it still is. hmmm. Well. If you haven't ever read this. The opportunity's perfect. Snatch this up. Light on character, but full of wacky. Refreshing breather from everything else. Let loose and go. It's a fun time.



Ugh.

Anything remotely related to Ben Reily gives me the shivers. In a bad way. Just let this end. Die, inconsequential arc! Let us never speak of the Clone saga ever again unless we're in the ultimate universe.

MOUSEHUNT

you evil evil facebook app.

Because I binge write.

Though the word binge here is used very lightly. I find that when it comes to blogging, I can go weeks without writing. I donot know why, but once I get the urge to write, I feel like I should be making for lost time, so I write two, three posts a day for a day or two. Then it's back to silence. Why is this weird phenomenon manifesting itself? It's not like the silence helps inspiration for topics or whatever. But then again, when have I ever been topical? Some people have gaming blogs, others have music blogs, some blogs are funny and interesting, others are dull as fuck. Hell, there's even a blog for cats who look like Hitler.(really) I don't binge drink, or chocolate, or anything else, at least not in recent memory I haven't. But when it comes to blogging, it's not even intentional. Just a pattern I've been noticing lately. Who knows when the next post will be. You all can look forward to it. (all two of you)

Justice for all; Mesrine

I just finished replaying the second Phoenix Wright game. All the while I was trying to figure out why I like the series so much. Because as i play through, I realize it has a lot of elements I've grown to dislike lately. The declarative nature of the dialogue, for one, the fact that you are almost always never on the same page as Phoenix, or all the macguffins invented especially for the sake of plot. Foreign teddy-bear-shaped puzzles or handmade unique silk hats for instance. These things, in my head at least, seem like easy solutions to complex narrative problems. Somehow, even with all the flaws, the charm never wears off. The plot twists keep piling up, and the characters are constantly endearing. It succeeds not only despite, but because of these flaws I feel. The imagination never lets up, and curveballs are constantly thrown your way. The Ace attorney series has forged itself a place in my heart that no form of entertainment comes close to replicate. I await the next game with bated breath.

I also watched the first part of the Mesrine flick last week. I found it popcorny enjoyable despite the historical subject matter. It's a character study and an action flick balanced very very nicely. Vincent Cassell is genius and infinitely watchable in it. They say it's possible to see two different characters in him while he's on screen. And you know what? That shit is bang on. I will be watching part 2 soon, and cannot wait to be charmed again by France's most famous bank robber.

Today, 2 videos from TED.com: Kindness and Mafia.

Johnathan Zittrain talks about the inherent kindness and trust on which so much of the web is built on.

The fall of the Berlin wall and subsequent collapse of communism is often seen as a great blessing to those who were in the Eastern European Bloc. Mischa Glenny shows us the underside and more shadowy aftereffects of the fall. Specifically, how capitalism's dominance affected of organized crime, which has grown leaps and bounds in the last 20 years.

If your reading this from facebook, you can't see the vids. Below this paragraph, click the link that says link to original post or whatever.

Intelliegtualizing cinema?

Don't intellectualize films too much is what my friend said to me today. Sometimes a film doesn't speak to you. It's alright. Happens all the time. There's no need to overthink it. Sometimes what it is is what it is. Sure, you can analyze every single detail and come up with allegories or metaphors to almost everything. Anything can be a symbol. What's stopping you from enjoying the film as it is? This need for everything to make sense drive me nuts sometimes.

We saw Nagisa Oshima's 太陽の墓場. (the Sun Burial, Tomb of the sun) I didn't really get it. Admittedly, I did fall asleep halfway through for about 5 mins. But I still pretty much got the plot, but I didn't get what it's REALLY about. Which is a problem for me. It's not that I can't turn my brain off to enjoy something. It's a problem of expectations and context. This film was made about 40 years ago, so immediately the context you might need to fully appreciate the film is gone if you're not well versed in the histories and cultural significances of the era. 2ndly, my first Oshima film was Realm of the senses. Which made a huge impact on me, and not just because of the final scene either. I saw it as a meditation on the destructive nature of pleasure. Cautionary really. Hugely successful in my opinion. So when I saw this through to the end(mostly) I was rather really quite disappointed with myself for not "getting it". It's a frustrating experience. Knowing that YES! He does have something to say but why the fuck am I not getting it? And because it's been selected for preservation in Japan I only have to assume a whole bunch of other people got it as well.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't love the film, but it's not really that bad, some really striking images and a great setting kept me captivated.

I'm just rather distressed. Whenever I find something I don't understand, I look it up on wikipedia. Like most people. But conveniently enough this film does not have a wiki page.

So what? Is it really meaningful in ways I can't understand or is it just a bunch of pretty crap. Well, I'm not pompous enough to say the latter, so that will have to do for now.

love film print campaign

Among other things.

District 9: awesome. go see it.
Thames festival: awesome, great evening.
Script: 22ish pages done. Let's go.
Book: 2nd campaign revision in the progress. Yes.
Blog: really really not daily anymore.
Notebooks: 2 almost filled up. Giving me the illusion of progress.
Lovefilm: you suck why can't your dvds play on my laptop.
Laptop: You're awesome but why your dvd drive suck so hard.
Apple: Thanks for not announcing a new ipod touch. Sally's heart breaks easily.
Weather: Oh fuck off.

Comic.

yonks ago, I was working on this short story that was supposed to be a comic. It was supposed to be about this girl called Mina who got possessed by an extra-dimensional pawn. Suspected for murders she didn't commit, she resolved to find out about the nature of these incidents that were following her around and in the course of her investigations uncover the truth that lies behind our world. I planned it to be about 120 pages at the time. I finished about 22 pages, the first chapter basically before shelving it indefinitely.

Now the story has returned but now it's 60 pages and barely resembles what I've written before except that the main character is a girl. We'll see how this one goes. First 10 pages are due tonight, and then everything else will follow. the idea is to finish the script by this weekend. And that's that.