Month: June 2009

That’s one way of putting it

Joss Whedon on working on Wonder Woman:

They didn’t tell me to leave, but they showed me the door and how pretty it was. Would I like to touch the knob and maybe make it swing?

I also like how he calls his upcoming movie, Cabin in the Woods, “old school horror with grad school sensibilities.”

Via Whedonesque. It’s not a new interview with Whedon by any means, but there’s still some interesting stuff in there, mostly about comics and Dollhouse.

Wednesday various

  • I am shocked — shocked! — to learn that Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus actually might not be very good.
  • Mark Sheppard — who you may remember from guest spots on Firefly or Battlestar Galactica — proves his serious geek cred. [via]
  • Meanwhile, John Stamos — who at this point I think would be happy if you remembered him from anything — was, I’m sure, either kidding or misquoted, if the whole story isn’t just a lie. One thing the world does not need is a remake of Full House. (Nor any of the several dozen other remakes Hollywood has in the pipeline, most likely.)
  • What it does need, however, are new Futurama episodes. I say that, of course, having never seen the last few seasons of its original run, or even the string of direct-to-DVD movies. (I own a copy of The Beast with a Billion Backs, but I hear very bad things about almost all of them.) Maybe this will give me an excuse to finally get caught up.
  • And finally, you had me at Monkey Island. [via]

Tuesday various

  • Glen on the myth of perpetual copyright:

    Copyright hawks and lawsuit-happy professional organizations like the MPAA and RIAA have created a mythology of perpetual copyright, and it is destroying our ability to build on our cultural foundations

  • Warren Ellis on digital magazines:

    A digital magazine is something I can read on a netbook or, especially, a phone. A digital magazine is something that gracefully shifts down to embrace the equipment I’m trying to view it on. If you’re setting the technological bar at an immovable altitude that demands I go to a well-equipped laptop or desktop to view it, then it’s not a digital magazine at all — it’s a digital installation.

    And that’s fine, But, you know, don’t bullshit me.

  • Patrick Neilsen Hayden on writing and editing:

    The point is that editors aren’t in the business of adjudicating what’s good; we’re in the business of acquiring and publishing material through particular channels and organizations, mustering the opportunities that actually exist. Of course, every so often in every editor’s career you get something that seems unsuitable for the magazine, or web site, or anthology, or publishing house that you’re editing for, but it’s so outrageously good that you wind up running around with your hair on fire demanding that reality change so that this thing can get published. Sometimes this even works.

    I also Stanley Schmidt’s argument that “The story I most want to buy is one that I didn’t even suspect I was interested in until I saw it, and then it won’t let me go.”

  • China Miéville on crime novels:

    Detective fiction is a fiction of dreams. Not only is this no bad thing, it is precisely what makes it so indispensable.

  • Joe Hill on the Twilight series:

    The only thing more boring than reading about vampires having sex with other vampires is reading about vampires NOT having sex with other vampires.

    I also like when he says, “My alternative to being a successful writer was being an unsuccessful writer.”