The Awesome List: Kong vs Sir Jean Luc of Picard

Kongprints in the Sand



Coolest publicity stunt ever!

Queen Elizabeth Made It So



If it wasn't official already, it is now. Nerds win.

Art Show: Kingship of the Apes

Posting ten images a week hasn't been helping me make headway against my backlog. In fact, I'm getting further and further behind. So to help me catch up, this week's a whopper.

Cabin Boy



By Pierre Joubert. [Illustrateurs]

Belit



By Mike Hawthorne. [ComicTwart]

Kitty Pryde, Pirate



By Adam Withers. [Swing with Shad, a cool sea-themed blogger who's started his own set of Art Show posts.]

After the break: Way too much to list. Seriously. It's a butt-load of art.

Elsewhere on the Internets: Foamy!

Here's what else I've been up to online lately: 

Friend of Aquaman



Rob from the Aquaman Shrine was kind enough to link to my most recent Grading Aquaman post, but he also did me one better than that. He made me a member of FOAM (Friends of Aquaman). Thanks, Rob!

Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs: The Killer



In which I favorably compare Matz and Luc Jacamon's assassin comic to James Bond.

Old Sinner: Merry Christmas, Uncle (1970)



Looking at Albert Finney's Scrooge and how his nephew's kind of a jerk.

What Are You Reading?: The Anchor



A quick review of Phil Hester's Viking demon-slayer comic.

Undeserved Rejoicing



I shouldn't be pointing this out because it's almost assuredly a glitch, but for the last few days Robot 6 has been the top-ranked comics blog on Technorati. Not that Robot 6 doesn't deserve to be near the top (and I say that as someone who does exactly none of the heavy lifting over there), but it's telling that some blogs that should be near the top of the list (like MTV's Splash Page, for example) aren't. Still, it's been fun to look at.

VI Warshawski in Indemnity Only

Sometimes, the 100-Page Rule lets me down. Just goes to show that hard and fast rules are never a good idea. Except when they are.

Anyway, I got to page 150 of Indemnity Only before I gave up. The first book in Sara Paretsky’s popular and award-winning VI Warshawski series begins interestingly enough with Warshawski’s being hired by a man who claims to be an prominent Chicago businessman. He says he wants her to locate his missing son, but she soon figures out that her client isn’t who he said he was at all. And then she finds the boy’s murdered body. Nice hook.

The problem is with Warshawski herself. I don’t like her. I can see how she’s revolutionary and important as a strong, female detective when that wasn’t cool (Indemnity Only was originally published in the early ‘80s), but Paretsky tries hard to imitate the sarcastic, wise-cracking attitude of Philip Marlowe and unfortunately, she’s no Raymond Chandler. Or at least she wasn’t when she wrote this book. I imagine that she’s improved, but I doubt I'll keep reading to find out.

Take for instance this exchange between a police officer and Warshawski about the apartment where Warshawski found the dead boy:

“It looks like he was sharing a room with a girl, but the whole setup is so unisex you can’t tell who was with who.”

“Whom,” I said absently. McGonnigal looked blank. “You can’t tell who was with whom, Seargant,” I explained.

That’s not witty. That’s annoying. And the rest of Warshawski’s dialogue isn’t much better. Add to that a lot of useless details about driving routes through Chicago and how the Cubs are doing on the radio and the mystery quickly becomes cluttered with “color.”

Still, I picked this up because I was curious about Paretsky’s character. I cut Ian Rankin some slack with his first Inspector Rebus novel, so I wanted to do the same here. But while I'll be reading the second Rebus book, I can't make myself go on with Warshawski.

The difference is that – while flawed – Rankin’s first book was never boring. Paretsky’s frequently is. And peeking ahead at the plots to future volumes, I don’t see a lot of reward for sticking with the series. According to detnovel.com, Paretsky’s known for “adapting her detective as a vehicle of social and political comment.” I’ve already had a taste of her preaching about grammar; I don’t know if I can handle her preaching about the homeless and free clinics too. Like proper grammar, I suspect that I’d agree with her on these issues, which is exactly why I don’t think I need or care to hear the sermon. Not when I’m just looking for an engaging mystery.

Comics News: Defenders of the Earth and Space Dock 7

Together Again: The Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Mandrake the Magician



I got an email from Dynamite Entertainment last week about their now having King Features' top three characters. According to the press release, this is the first time that Phantom, Flash Gordon, and Mandrake have been under the same publisher in 43 years. Which makes for some cool crossover possibilities.

I'm mostly curious to see how they handle Flash. I know nothing about Mandrake, so they can do whatever they want with him, but I'm not at all excited about their version of the Phantom. I've heard good things about their Buck Rogers though, so maybe Flash will be okay. I hope so, 'cause I'd really like to read some new, good Flash Gordon stories.

It sounds like they'll be starting with a faithful re-telling of the origin story:

Dynamite's comic book story begins as Earth is bombarded by fiery meteors. Dr. Zarkov believes the meteors are from outer space and invents a rocket ship to locate their place of origin. Half mad, he kidnaps Flash and Dale, whose plane has crashed in the area, and the three travel to the planet Mongo, where they discover the meteors are weapons devised by Ming the Merciless, evil ruler of Mongo.

Space Dock 7



The webcomics portal that was teased back in February is live and full of awesome scifi comics including some I've mentioned here before and some I'm brand new to.

Pass the Comics: "Your Space Rovers feature looks a lot like our Flash Gordon feature"

The Vikings



John Buscema adapts the 1958 Kirk Douglas film. [Hairy Green Eyeball 2]

Pirate Prince



Three different Pirate Prince stories, the first of which is by Plastic Man's creator Jack Cole. [Cole's Comics]

Pirates



Four pirate comics by the awesome Kate Beaton.

After the break: jungle aliens, dinosaur fighting, the death of Betman, Jack and Jill 2: Fetch Harder, not-quite-Flash-and-Dale fight a robot, and Space Quint.

Apropos of Nothing: That's the Pie I'm Here to Buy!

David and I somehow got to talking about Cookie Monster today and it reminded me of my favorite Cookie skit ever. Thought I'd share the joy.

Movie News: Iron Man vs Sub-Mariner

Namor references in Iron Man 2?



Comic Book Movie makes a pretty good case.

Sherlock Holmes 2



On the way. [/Film]

Runaways director and screenwriter



Still excited to see this moving forward. The director's the guy who did Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. [/Film]

After the break: a Resident Evil 4 poster, a Logan's Run remake, troubles with The Hobbit, and Harrison Ford won't say "fluffy."

My Favorite Food: Diane's Taco Salad

Asking me what my favorite food is really isn't a fair question. I love food - all kinds of food - and my tastes change from meal to meal. I especially like seafood, Caribbean food, Central and South American food (and all its relatives like Tex-Mex and Southwestern US), Mediterranean food (in which I include Greek, Italian, and Middle Eastern), and Asian food (especially Thai and VietNamese). I'm fortunate to live in the Twin Cities with its rich diversity of ethnic communities and all the variety in restaurants and grocery stores that entails.

And oh yeah, I also dig the typical US stuff like pizza, steaks, and bratwurst. And don't get me started on desserts. (Stupid French with their awesome pastries. That's how I ruined myself.)

But if I have to pick a favorite meal, it's got to be my wife's taco salad. It's not hard to make - so she tells me - but it's awesome. The ingredients are similar to what you see at the top of this post. I ganked that photo from For the Mommas though, so it's not exactly what Diane uses. She's all about the kidney beans instead of pinto beans (yes, there's a difference), for instance, and she doesn't cook them with the meat. They just get added cold to the salad by themselves. The Doritos and Catalina dressing are crucial ingredients though. It's fantastic.

Quotes of the Week: Buried Again

In 897, Pope Stephen VI dug up the decomposing body of his predecessor and put it on trial for violating church law. Formosus, who had been dead for nine months, was found guilty and buried again.
--Brother Calvin, pointing out that there's no crazy like Old School Crazy.

...for some reason, strong aliens don't creep me out. Strong aliens are just monsters, and it's regular aliens I find creepy -- E.T., the critters from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc. A strong alien will punch you until you die, which sucks, but is quick and normal. A regular alien is assumably smart, and will capture [you] for god-knows-what for god-knows-how-long -- that's what kept me up at night worrying about alien abduction as a kid.
--Rob Bricken, nailing it.

The Awesome List: A Central Archive Devoted to Sea Monsters

Britain and Sea Monsters



The British Royal Navy says that while sailors are welcome to record sea monster sightings in their log books, they aren't "required to do so and none of the information is assembled in a central archive devoted to sea monsters." Not by the Navy, anyway. They forward that information to the UK Hydrographic Office, the division of the Ministry of Defense responsible for producing nautical charts. What happens once it gets there is anybody's guess, but I certainly hope that someone is keeping track of all this. [The Daily Telegraph]

Pterodactyl Hunters



Coolest comic design ever.

After the break: Giant cardboard robots and a space girl doesn't quite fight a space octopus.