comics

Monday various

  • It’s just a normal Monday here in New York, but it’s apparently Picnic Day in parts of Australia!

    Picnic Day is a public holiday in the Northern Territory of Australia which takes place every year on the first Monday of August. It was originally declared a public holiday to enable Darwin’s railway workers to go to Adelaide River for a picnic.

    I kind of love the specificity of that, the idea that an entire holiday sprung up just because that’s the day these workers had off from work. And come on, how can you not like a holiday called Picnic Day?

  • Justin Bieber has written a memoir. This is just ridiculous on so many levels.
  • Wait. Now Frank Miller worries about looking silly?
  • If Titanic II was intended as a cheap direct-to-video sequel to the James Cameron movie, that would be weird and maybe worth talking about. But since it’s just about a ship called Titanic II — and is really just your run-of-the-mill crappy direct-to-video disaster movie — it’s really not.
  • And finally…

    For the past 20 years, scientists at the Farallones have been documenting more than just puffin nests and shark breeding around the windswept archipelago 27 miles west of the Golden Gate. They’ve been keeping a daily log of their dreams, which tend to be eerily similar.

    Apparently, it’s called “day residue.” [via]

Wednesday various

Batman and Harvey Pekar
  • If you’re out of work, it’s not because the economy’s bad, it’s because you’re a bad person. Or at least so says Ben Stein. Remember when he seemed like kind of a nice guy? [via]
  • “There’s a human tendency to resent anyone who disagrees with our pleasures. The less mature interpret that as a personal attack on themselves. They’re looking for support and vindication.” – Roger Ebert
  • It gets a little repetitive after awhile without the rest of the track, but there’s something fascinating about this isolated audio of Keith Moon playing drums on “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
  • I love these re-imagined Batman covers [via]
  • And finally, every Doctor Who villain since 1963.

Thursday various

  • Following up on yesterday’s revelation that Michael Palin didn’t like A Fish Called Wanda when he first read the script, here’s a letter sent by a “comedy script editor” to the BBC, calling Fawlty Towers — incidentally named the all-time top British television program by the BFI in 2000 — “[a] collection of cliches and stock characters which I can’t see being anything but a disaster.”
  • Following up on the Wonder Woman post on Monday, here’s two more dissenting views.
  • This I Write Like meme is getting torn apart all over the place, notably here [via] and here [via]

    I’d post my own results, but they change with every different piece of text I have “analyzed,” and none seem remotely accurate — a weird mix of ego-stroking and insult.

  • And that’s one way to ensure fewer comments… [via]
  • And finally, Zombies: The Kid Vector:

    Here’s somethin they don’t tell you, but you better listen good if you want to survive out there: It’s the kids you gotta watch out for. They stay in the shadows, in the dark. When you see ’em, they don’t run right at you like the big ones, they stay back, let you come in closer. You think you’re rescuin a kid, you get in close and BAM! The dead brat goes for your throat or face, workin for a quick kill.

Monday various

  • RIP, Harvey Pekar.
  • So you’ve heard about this new Wonder Woman costume, right?

    It’s as if the people designing her new look didn’t want to make a decision about who she is as a hero. And this is the basic problem – a superhero costume projects an idea, and no one knows what the idea of Wonder Woman is. She was conceived to be the original, iconic female superhero, but seventy years into her history, no one quite knows what a genuinely powerful superheroine should look like or what her story is. It’s sad, but because there have been a hell of a lot of interesting women, and women characters, to think about since 1941.

    I’m not too impressed by it either. [via]

  • Worst comic book origin story ever?
  • Noel Murray revisits Warren Ellis’ Planetary and Kurt Busiek’s Astro City:

    I like Planetary a lot. I think it’s some of Warren Ellis’ and John Cassaday’s best work, and when I read it, I definitely feel their affection for the characters and concepts they’re subjecting to deeper scrutiny. But Planetary feels more like a memorial—a eulogy. Planetary exhumes old bones, while Astro City leads its readers through a living, thriving community, populated by improved versions of what came before. Planetary makes me sad for what might’ve been; Astro City makes me appreciate what is.

  • And fianally, Darth Vader may have had psychological issues. Noooo! [via]

Tuesday various