markbernstein

Favorite webcomic characters

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:15:21 GMT

Question for the day: Who are your five favorite individual characters from the webcomics you read?

My current five:

Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius.

Flaco, Sheldon.

Dee, Little Dee.

Davan Macintire, Something Positive.

Hannelore Ellicott-Chatham, Questionable Content.

A mad scientist, a lizard, a mute child, a sarcastic depressive, and a naive obsessive-compulsive. Yep, that's what makes for great characters.

Things that catch my attention

Thu, 15 May 2008 21:08:24 GMT

Over at Ain't It Cool News, they've reprinted a very long new press release announcing all the new series in development as original programming on TNT and TBS. Several shows looked interesting to me, but this is the one that I really want to see:

UNTITLED LATE-NIGHT HENSON SKETCH SHOW features the signature puppetry style of The Jim Henson Company and is executive-produced by Brian Henson and Lisa Henson.

You may now speculate.

Battle Cry meme

Sun, 11 May 2008 17:00:29 GMT

Thanks to wordslinger for the link.

Go

Sun, 11 May 2008 16:55:38 GMT

I saw Speed Racer last night. I set my expectation level by thinking of it not as a movie, but as a theme park ride.

And you know what? I had a blast. Granted, I saw it in the best possible circumstances, on a huge IMAX screen in a full theater, but still.

It's actually not a bad movie. Simplistic, shallow, and full of cliches, yes, but not incompetent by any means. Nothing in the script made me groan or roll my eyes, perhaps because everything went by so fast. The characters are sympathetic, mostly due to the always-good John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, and Christina Ricci, decent work by lead Emile Hirsch, and a standout performance by Matthew Fox. Yes, little brother Spritle is more annoying than amusing, but even he gets a couple of laughs, and he and the chimp aren't used too much.

And it's one king hell of a theme park ride. This is a cartoon world, where the laws of physics that we know just don't apply. If you've seen the trailers, you have a pretty good idea of the color-soaked visual style. I liked it, you may not. It's clearly aimed at the family audience, and despite lots of crashes, there's little sense of peril. (They make it clear early on that the cars are equipped with safety devices to keep the drives alive no matter what.) The pacing is intense, and kept me involved straight through. (OK, there's a climactic set of flashbacks that go on too long.)

One thing I didn't expect is that it made me laugh a lot, sometimes through the sheer audacity of what they were doing, and sometimes through intentional humor that worked. In particular, the two big hand-to-hand fight scenes are hilariously over the top.

I'd point to the use of theme music as a telling clue to the Wachowski's approach to the material. In Iron Man, I noticed the old cartoon theme in twice, once in a jazzy arrangement near the beginning, and once as a cell phone ring. By contrast, in Speed's moments of triumph, the "Go, Speed Racer" theme blares out from the speakers in full orchestral glory. This is a movie that knows it's a cartoon, and revels in being a cartoon. I like that.

Yes, I'm still around

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:34:02 GMT

I didn't realize how long it's been since I posted anything. But life's been busy, with lots of business travel. The week of April 28th, I was in Milwaukee. This past week, I flew to Denver on Monday, spent two days at the company office in Lafayette (outside of Boulder) working on a project and attending the quarterly company meeting, then flew from Denver to San Francisco, where I'm staying (in Belmont) through next Wednesday to finish up with the customer here. I get home on May 14th. The evening of May 18th, I fly to Wichita to start a new project. I come home on May 22nd, and the next day drive to Marcon, where I'm on three panels and working at the art show as part of the Dorsai crew.

Last Sunday, my mother and I attended a concert by the Ford Chorus, in which Sharon performs. Afterwards, I took both of them out to dinner, since I knew I'd be out of town Mother's Day weekend.

Overall, life is good. Here's five reasons why:

1) The work is going pretty well. We made some programming breakthroughs yesterday that leave me optimistic about my ability to get everything done by Wednesday. We're working today, but fewer hours, and taking tomorrow off.

2) I talked to Sharon last night, and she's fine, if busy.

3) I had an amazing dinner last night, at a restaurant called CreoLa. Crab, shrimp, and fennel bisque, wild rice jambalaya, alligator picatta, and fresh, hot beignets, served with fresh fruit and banana whipped cream. Yum!

4) I saw Iron Man Thursday night, and loved it. I have minor quibbles (and one semi-major one, in that I thought the climactic fight scene had one ending too many), but it's a very cool flick. I may go to another movie tomorrow, either Speed Racer or, if it's playing locally, Fall.

5) The weather here is, as you might expect, great. My hotel is half a mile from the office, so I've been walking to and from work each day.

How's your life?

Let's dance!

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:20:47 GMT

Just for fun this morning, a cockatoo who dances to the Backstreet Boys.

Hear my wallet groan

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:04:02 GMT

Yesterday, being Wednesday, was new comics day. A light week - I only took home three new comics. But it also included the new Previews, listing what's coming out in July. And there are way too many good books. If I got everything I wanted, it would be over two hundred dollars. The biggest hits:

Image is finally publishing the long-promised hardcover of "American Flagg!". Reprints the first 14 issues, plus a new story written and drawn by Chaykin. Fifty bucks.

Fantagraphics is putting out a hardcover of the complete "Humbug". What's Humbug? It's the humor magazine that Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, and Arnold Roth self-published after Kurtzman left Mad. Eleven issues, 400 pages, never before reprinted, now in a two volume, slipcased set. Also fifty bucks.

There's a new (fifth) volume of the wonderful anthology "Flight". These are comics done by animators, and the most consistently enjoyable anthology on the market. But they're big volumes, and cost $25 each.

IDW is publishing the first phonebook-sized volume of William Messner-Loebs' "Journey". Thirteen issues, 400 pages, twenty dollars.

The wonderful surprise of the month is from Harper Collins, a graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "Coraline", illustrated by P. Craig Russell. $19.

Hell of a month.

CD recommendation - "Thirteen"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:43:16 GMT

At FilKONtario, I bought a copy of "Thirteen", the new CD by Vixy and Tony. I'll make this short - it's wonderful. Great songs, great vocals, great musicianship. It's sitting in my car CD player, and I'm on my fourth listen. (As a fan of Greek myth, my favorites are the pairing of "Persephone" and "Siren Song".)

And now, it's available from CDBaby, in either as a shippable CD or as MP3 downloads.

Why are you still here?

Here's the thing, Harry . . .

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:32:18 GMT

So over at Ain't It Cool News, Harry Knowles has posted the teaser trailer for Frank Miller's upcoming movie version of Will Eisner's "The Spirit". In doing so, he also declares himself "completely flummoxed" that some regard this as a less than ideal pairing of writer/director and property.

Well, I've watched that trailer, and it only deepened my unease. So, Harry, let me lay it out for you. Frank Miller does what he does very, very well. And the Eisner influence on his work, his visuals in particular, is unmistakable. But there are three ways in which Eisner and Miller are drastically different.

1) Will Eisner was a grand master of characterization. His people have depth, subtlety, and pathos. You root for them because you care about them. Frank Miller writes button-pushing, testosterone-driven (yes, the women too - see below) caricatures. They strut, and posture, and suffer dramatically, and elicit cheers by being more badass than anyone else. The two approaches are incompatible, period.

2) Silk Satin. Sand Saref. P'Gell-oh-my-dear-god-P'Gell. Eisner's women have wit, and class, and genuine passion. Miller's women, the ones who aren't victims, are sex-and-death machines, built of steel and cardboard. Eisner's women are sensual. Miller's are porn.

3) Will Eisner had a great sense of humor, and knew how and when to be funny. Even better, he knew how to be witty, and how to base humor in character, a rare skill. Frank Miller has absolutely no sense of humor that I've ever been able to discern. (I admit, I don't read the train wreck that is "All Star Batman and Robin", which one can hope was meant to be funny.)

I'm eagerly anticipating "Iron Man". I have genuine hopes for both "The Incredible Hulk" and "The Dark Knight". "Hellboy II" looks like fun. I'm even, based on the trailers, looking forward to "Speed Racer", and I never even read the manga or watched the cartoon. But I'm dreading "The Spirit".

Writer's Block: Back in Time

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:04:24 GMT

If you could travel in time, which era would you visit and why?

View other answers

I'd travel forward about fifty years, to see what happens next. (You didn't specify back in time.)

Be heard

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:36:23 GMT

Quick summary for those who haven't been following the news:

Last Thursday, it was revealed that in 2002 and 2003, top Bush administration officials, including the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the National Security Adviser, the Attorney General, and the head of the CIA, met and explicitly discussed and approved a series of "interrogation tactics", many of which I, and many others, would classify as torture.

On Friday, George W. Bush, in an interview on ABC, openly admitted that he knew of and approved those meetings.

The ACLU is now calling for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate, and asking for help. They've set up a web page where you can fill in your name and address, modify the text of their standard letter, and send it to your Representative and Senators with an easy click.

It's easy to be cynical, and dismiss this as something that will never happen. But is that really an excuse to not even try?

Add your voice. Be heard.

Thanks to Digby for the link.

Grammar lesson, version 2.0

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:24:04 GMT

Howard Scrimgeour wrote and reminded me that the issue with apostrophes in possessives isn't related to gender, it's the fact that pronouns are a special case. So I've made a few changes. Lines 7 and 8 have been reworked completely, and line 12 uses "neuter" instead of "neutral". I also decided to rewrite line 5 to eliminate the dangling participle - this is about grammar, after all - and made a small tweak to line 1.

While apostrophes are useful when you're forming a possessive
The ability of English to confuse things is impressive
(You'll have noticed, if you're neither unobservant nor myopic
That they also form contractions, but that's quite another topic)
If you're writing about objects that belong to Bill and Sue
Then "Bill's" would be a proper form, and "Sue's" is valid too
But that form's not universal, and you're sure to come a cropper
If you use it when the noun is pro, and not common or proper
For the lesson is that less is more, and more is surely less
When you place a stray apostrophe between "i t" and "s"
And though trying to remember this odd rule may give you fits
When the neuter pronoun owns a thing, it isn't "it's", it's "its"

Fun with grammar

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:02:56 GMT

cadhla just posted a neat new song here, that woke my inner grammarian. Who got inspired. Here's the result:

While apostrophes are useful things when forming a possessive
The tendency of English to confuse things is impressive
(You'll have noticed, if you're neither unobservant nor myopic
That they also form contractions, but that's quite another topic)
If the objects that you're speaking of belong to Bill and Sue
Then "Bill's" would be a proper form, and "Sue's" is valid too
The rule in play is different, though, if your need is to render
A sentence where the owner of the object has no gender
For the lesson is that less is more, and more is surely less
When you place a stray apostrophe between "i t" and "s"
And though trying to remember this odd rule may give you fits
When the neutral pronoun owns a thing, it isn't "it's", it's "its"

Belated birthday wishes . . .

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:29:04 GMT

To James Garner, who turned 80 yesterday.

He's long been one of my favorites mostly for his comedic work in films like "Support Your Local Sheriff" and "Victor/Victoria". But yesterday, Avedon at The Sideshow pointed to this amazing scene from "The Americanization of Emily". I'm gonna have to find and watch this movie.

Comics this week

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:35:01 GMT

Looks like a good week for me. I'll be picking up these:

Terry Moores Echo #2
Goon #23
Serenity Better Days #2 (Of 3)
Castle Waiting Vol II #11
Criminal 2 #2
Wonder Woman #19

Terry Moore, Eric Powell, Joss Whedon, and Linda Medley all in one week, plus Ed Brubaker's best book, and Gail Simone's solid new take on Wonder Woman. Nice.

(This is a pretty typical mix for me. I haven't abandoned superheroes completely, but they're definitely a minority percentage of my purchases these days.)

FKO, somewhat briefly

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:42:05 GMT

Left Michigan Friday at 2 with friends paltergo and Shalla (who were also delightful roommates). Got stuck in the line at Canada Customs that had an agent who insisted on Doing His Job by spending a couple of minutes questioning the occupants of each car. Some time later, encountered a lane-shut-down-by-an-accident on the 401, causing us to take an hour to cover three miles. As a result, pulled into the hotel parking lot at 7:15. Left everything in the car and rushed in to watch the last half of Tom and Sue's wedding. It was beautiful.

Otherwise, I had a very laid-back weekend. Friday night, after saying some hellos and buying vixyish and tfabris's new CD, I crashed at 11:30. This led to getting up early enough on Saturday to have breakfast, do half an hour on a treadmill, and soak in the hot tub (sadly, the jets weren't working) all before the con opened.

Everything I heard of the Saturday concerts was good, and Tony and Vixy's set was wonderful. The highlight was a sequence involving visual aids (held by Erin, Jodi, Allison, and Debbie). First, Vixy's song about Edward Gorey's "The Gashleycrumb Tinies" to a tune I'd never heard before, "Pepper" by the Butthole Surfers". Then, Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains" in French. Then a surprise group rendition of "Happy Birthday" to Tony.

The Interfilk auction was fun, as always, and in the non-voice part, I bought a book. Neat.

I spent a chunk of Saturday evening in a great open circle in the alternate room. Didn't do any solos, just harmonizing, and had a wonderful time. Crashed at 1.

And the highlight of Sunday? Winning this year's Penguin Instafilk Contest. The list of words (handed out Friday) that had to appear in this year's song were emerald, rainbow, shingles, meniscus, and, of course, penguin. (I admit, I had to look up meniscus.)

The result:

View From A Balcony
Lyrics: Mark Bernstein
Tune: "Cabaret" by John Kander and Fred Ebb

I used to have a life I knew was boring
Just list’ning to my roommate’s gripes and snoring
But then we heard someone was renovating
A theatre to hold a show that we’d love hating

The host was this green felt and ping pong vision
Who sang of rainbows – perfect for derision
He also sang of being emerald green
He was the sappiest host we’d ever seen

We knew that we could have some fun that day
I remember hearing my friend turn and say . . .

What good is sitting cooped up in our room?
Come where the bad jokes flow
Life is a Muppet Show, my friend
Come to The Muppet Show

Hear the roof shingles fly off with a boom
When Harry makes his bombs blow
Life is a Muppet Show, my friend
Come to The Muppet Show

Come boo the bear, come jeer the pig
Come mock the penguins in the chorus
It’s like it was made just for us

Let your meniscus pain deepen your gloom
It sharpens the darts we throw
Life is a Muppet Show, my friend
Come to The Muppet Show

And as for me, and as for me
I’m sitting here with my friend Statler
Old as dirt and mean as rattlers

‘Til these performers are all in their tombs
This balcony holds their foe
Life is a Muppet Show, my friend
Only a Muppet Show, my friend
And we hate The Muppet Show

Plugging a friend

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:40:10 GMT

This one, I promise you, is not an April Fool's joke.

Jane Irwin, artist/writer of the Vogelein graphic novels (and artist for the cover of my tape/CD, which means artist of my LJ icon), is starting a new webcomic.

It's called Clockwork Game, and tells the true story of a chess-playing automaton from the 18th and 19th centuries. As someone who got to read the whole script in advance, I can tell you that it's very good indeed.

Get in on the ground floor, and enjoy!

A Great Timewaster

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:14:24 GMT

This is an amazing idea. I loved it, even though it's not my area at all (i.e., I sucked at it, getting eleven out of fifty). Here's And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The, a lyric quiz that takes all the words in a classic rock songs, and arranges them in alphabetical order.

Thanks to The Sideshow for the link.

Five years later

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:56:26 GMT

[W]hat I failed to grasp is that war is also a monster, and that unless one weighs all the possibly evil consequences of an abstractly moral act, one hasn't really engaged in anything much but self-righteousness.

Conservative writer Andrew Sullivan looks back at what he got wrong about Iraq. Fascinating reading.

Hugo followup - getting the novels

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:11:34 GMT

FYI:

Of the five Hugo-nominated novels this year, only one, Robert Sawyer's Rollback, is already available in paperback. A trade paperback of The Yiddish Policeman's Union is due out on April 29th. The Tor web site lists a July 29th paperback release of The Last Colony. No word that I could find on the other two. (There's an Amazon entry for a paperback of Brasyl, but I think it's a mistake. It has the same release date as last year's hardcover.)

If, however, you're a member of the Science Fiction Book Club, they have book club editions of four out of five - everything except Brasyl. And right now, they're running a "buy two, get one free" sale. So I just ordered Rollback, The Last Colony, and Halting State from them.

Hugo nominations

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:51:27 GMT

The 2008 Hugo nominations have been posted.

I see a few things I like. In Best Novel, I've read one of the nominees, Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policeman's Union", and think it belongs on the list. It's alternate history, in which Israel fails early, so a Jewish settlement area is established in Alaska in the late 40s. The main character is a police detective living there a few decades later. I've become a big fan of Chabon, having read this, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" (won the Pulitzer, and deserved to), and "Gentlemen of the Road" (If you like Leiber's Lankhmar stories, you'll like it), and I'm in the middle of "The Final Solution" (89-year-old Sherlock Holmes in 1944).

Also in Novel, I've seen excellent reviews for Ian McDonald's "Brasyl", and had a couple of people tell me that John Scalzi ("The Last Colony") has gotten even better since "Old Man's War", so I'm looking forward to reading those. (Can those of you who follow Scalzi tell me if I need to read "The Ghost Brigades" before reading "The Last Colony"?)

In Long Form Dramatic, three of the nominees, "Enchanted", "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", and "Stardust" were on my nomination list, and I might have included "Heroes" if I'd thought of it. "The Golden Compass" is the only clunker on the list. My biggest disappointment of any category is that "Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth" didn't get enough exposure to get into the top five.

I haven't seen any of the Short Form Dramatic nominees, but I'm intrigued by a bit of history - "Star Trek New Voyages" is, I'm pretty sure, the first drama made specifically for web distribution to be nominated.

And I'm very pleased the Phil Foglio is nominated for Best Professional Artist.

What caught your eye? What do you think was overlooked?

Free books!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:06:32 GMT

Tor Books, one of the best SF publishers currently going, is starting a new web site. If you go there and sign up, they'll send you a link to download a free book each week. I just got my first book, Farthing by Jo Walton. It was available in three formats, PDF, HTML, and Mobi. They're also posting free wallpaper images by top SF cover artists.

And yes, they want people to spread the word.

Wow

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:17:00 GMT

There's a new, final trailer for Wall*E, the new Pixar movie, over on Apple's web site. It looks amazing. This one just jumped from "hope it's good" to "gotta see it".

Thanks to Ain't It Cool for the link.

Food Court: The Musical

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 19:54:02 GMT

Improv Everywhere strikes again. This is wonderful.

Yet another quiz

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:05:39 GMT

Thanks to supergee for the link.

Which Beatles song are you? Your Result: All You Need is Love You're an idealist, but you never let it endanger your grasp on life or humanity. Emotion, experience, and objectivity are essential to your lifestyle. You live peacefully and compassionately, and you do not place unnecessary importance on trivial details.
The Space Between
Here Comes the Sun
Hey Jude
Eleanor Rigby
Twist and Shout
Yellow Submarine
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Which Beatles song are you? Quizzes for MySpace