Cheese it!

Comedy gold.

Hallo'een

Those who love Halloween, enjoy it. It's just never really been my thing. I can never think of a costume, and when I finally do, I throw it together at the last minute and wind up cursing myself for all the stuff I could have done to make it better.

I dodged that bullet this year by not doing anything Halloween related. Almost none of my friends had any sort of party, and I don't really plan on doing anything tonight.

Just not my scene, I guess.

Man, I did NOTHING this weekend. Nada. Barely left the house. It kind of sucked. But some work was done on the website, so there's that. I'm actually supposed to upload the comics this week, so we'll see how that goes. If the site blows up, then Leslie did it.

I mean, seriously

The Brave Little Toaster was on the other day. I love that movie. But that's not important right now. What seeing that movie made me think about was one of its sequels, The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars.

THAT MOVIE WAS INSANE. Do you want to know what the plot was? The Brave Little Toaster and his friends have to thwart a plot hatched by rogue appliances that live on Mars for reasons I don't remember. What is the master plan of these rogue appliances? THEY ARE GOING TO BLOW UP THE EARTH WITH A GIANT DEATH RAY. The appliances figured out the concept of "planned obsolecence" and are going to annihilate all life on earth in revenge, while living contentedly on Mars until they inevitably break down. The Brave Little Toaster gets involved because the rogue appliances kidnap the Toaster's owner's baby for reason I again can't remember.

But guys. Seriously. For those in the cheap seats. The plot of this children's movie is that ROGUE, MARS-DWELLING APPLIANCES ARE GOING TO BLOW UP THE EARTH WITH A GIANT DEATH RAY IN REVENGE FOR PLANNED OBSOLESENCE. That's just the greatest. Go rent it immediately.

Undeclared

Just finished this series the other night.

Well, it's no Freaks and Geeks, but then few shows are. I think the half-hour format was a bad call. Geeks had the time to take familiar story ideas and make them its own, but Undeclared's weakest episodes regularly gives in to normal "Well, it's the 20-minute make, so everything's fine now" conventions. As a result, several of the characters come off as pretty thin.

But the series is worth seeing, and there are some episodes that just knock it clean out of the park. The "Truth or Dare" episode alone makes up for all the sub-par episodes combined. And the series has a couple of aces up its sleeve. The first one is Perry, whose deadpan delivery cuts wide swaths through most of the main characters' dithering ("This might cheer you up: YOU'RE HOTTER THAN MOST CHICKS!"). The second is Eric, played by Jason Segal from Freaks and Geeks, who manages to take a conceivably one-dimensional character and not only make him sympathetic, but the funniest character on the show. Plus, his sidekicks are David Krumholtz and Kyle Gass, so that's just gold (watch for their reunion in the Tenacious D movie). Eric's speech about starting his own internet? One of the classics. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know you knew so much about the INTERNET!" Oh, man. That's the good stuff.

One more TV thing

Let me just say that Threshold had its best episode yet last Friday. A genuinely gripping and dramatic episode, which actually seemed to hinge on character rather than plot. Hopefully they can keep it up.

And oh man, oh man. That mutant cat? Let's not talk about it. Because, oh man, that thing... I'm not gonna sleep right for weeks.

Trox, Trox, Trox

New Atrox Comix up at the Atrox. This new one is my favorite one I've done so far.

I'll stop plugging it when you start reading it!

Bi-polar television

Man oh man, does Veronica Mars kick ass this season or what? Last night's may have been the best this season so far. C'mon, who hasn't been waiting for Wallace to tell off Veronica like that? It ruled. Daggs was great this episode. This show is plotted like a freakin' Swiss watch. This season is so far, episode for episode, better than season 1. It can still fall apart, of course, but right now it's a barn-burner. Not that often that a show can follow a great first season with a superior second season, but Mars seems to be pulling it off.

At the other end of the spectrum, hold on a second whilst I turn into a 12-year-old girl...

Oh my God I can't believe they eliminated Kyle on Top Model! She was one of my favorites! Her pictures did suck last night, though. Ah, well. At least Kim and Nicole are still around, and they both seem solid. But then, so did Kyle last week. At least Nicole moved up in my esteem by being hysterical this episode. You had to see it, but the way she said "This is NUTS!" made me laugh and laugh. Not to mention her midwestern pronunciation of the word "poop." She's adorable. Hopefully she or Kim will take it.

"Time holds no meaning for RAMA, Steve!"

Rendezvous with Roommate, a short we made a million years ago and the first installment in the planned "Roommate Trilogy," is up at the 'Trox. Check it out.

Must read

Seriously, check out this selection of one-star Amazon reviews about novels that made Time's Top 100 list. For my favorite, I'm torn between The Sun Also Rises and The Sound and the Fury.

Via Qwantz, of all things.

Atrox hearts you

New Atrox strip over at the site today. I like Leslie's new coloring style.

Adventures in Weekend-ing

This weekend was an endless calvacade of delights.

On Friday a group of us (Team Friday!) went to see the premiere of Frank's show, Lucid Sound. It was great, and Frank was great. Afterwards we swung by Ye Olde King's Heade Pub and chatted with Brooke, Nell, and Whitney. Then we went to Rick's birthday party to witness his amusing and alarmingly accurate impression of me. Afterwards I had Paul and Aimee drop me off at my bus stop in Hollywood, where I figured I'd have to wait forty minutes or so for a bus to come. But then one came in like two minutes. Perfecto!

Saturday morning Emory, Leslie, and I started watching my new copy of season 1 of Veronica Mars. Emory's totally into the Mars now. This fills me with joy. In the afternoon we went to Paul and I's "birthday movie", Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It's a damn fine time, with some of the funnier lines you'll hear this year. Kilmer and Downey are great together. Their charm really smooths over the movie's weaknesses. Afterwards I went back to Paul's where we killed time with videogames before we went to our friend Chandler's birthday party. Turns out Chandler has the same birthday as me. Good times. At about 11 Paul and I headed to Swingers in Santa Monica to meet up with Frank and our old high school friend Ben, who was visiting and had gone to see Frank's play. We went out to a bar with him for a bit, then Frank and I headed back to Frank's place where Matt was holding a birthday part for his and Frank's friend, Dan. (Was everyone on earth born this week? Yes.) I knew pretty much no one, but then Nell, Chandler, and Lindsey came over from Chandler's place because Chandler's party had broked up earlier, and then Paul came by around two. Then we stayed up until five in the morning. Now that? Was a Saturday.

I crashed at Frank's place (obviously), and when we woke up we had lunch and then met Paul at the Laemmle Music Hall to see our friend Jamie's movie, Living 'til the End. It starred Jamie and Sean Maher (from Serenity), and he was actually really funny and charming. Now I feel bad that I said those not-so-nice things about his acting on Firefly. Oh, well. After that we watched Paul eat at Kate Mantellini (I had never actually been there). The many pictures of Andie McDowell are truly creepy. Then we headed back up to Glendale, had hot wings, and did some stuff for the website. Then I fell asleep watching Adult Swim. I'm not sure that Squidbillies is any good, but it sort of has to be seen to be believed.

Hey! New updates on the website every day this week! Except maybe Friday! But it's coming along! Rock!

Steve? Is that you?

Listen, when this guy springs mysteriously back to life and starts wearing red, white, and blue while tossing a shield around, you can say you read it here first.

And I read it at The Comics Reporter.

Sweet visual relief

I finally got a new nose pad for my glasses yesterday, to replace the one that mysteriously vanished at Sam's birthday party several weeks ago. Now my glasses are no longer askew!

I also got the frames adjusted a bit, to make up for the time I accidentally hit myself in the face with my knee, knocking the frames out of joint. How long ago was this, you may ask? I did it on the trampoline in the back of the Manor. That long ago.

Man, I like putting things off!

Old

26 doesn't feel any different.

On the QT

Listen, I'm contractually obligated not to talk about it, but Mike, Emory, Leslie and I might have been in the first audience to see a certain film about a certain Greatest Band on Earth whose members might be Jack Black and Kyle Gass. And the movie might have been great. And director Liam Lynch might have been there and every time I heard him speak I might have had to stifle the giggles because whenever he talks I think of sock puppets and am delighted.

Anyway, keep it on the DL.

A quick poll

Are there any ladies in their twenties out there who DON'T like the BBC Pride and Prejudice series starring Colin Firth? I think that is the universal adapter for the twenty-something female.

Now I've got it

I think I've figured out why I just can't get that into Lost.

I don't like these people.

Seriously, I don't like most of the characters. They bug me. I am Emory's exact opposite in this. He can't get enough of these people. But I swear, every time Jack or Locke opens their mouth I want to smack them. They're just both so self-righteous. Locke's a more interesting character, but really, "You have to push this button"? What a dick.

Kate's a pretty blank slate on the island (her job mostly seems to be flirting). If they ever get around to actually EXPLAINING her backstory, then we'll see. She could go either way. In a related story, she's hot as hell.

Charlie's annoying. Claire and Shannon are really underdeveloped.

Poor Michael was fine last season, but has been reduced this season to just yelling "Where's my son?" over and over. Sawyer has gone from mildly annoying to downright intolerable this season. That guy can't act, I'm sorry.

Who gets a pass? Hurley, Sayid, Sun, Jin. Am I missing anyone?

Maybe I just can't get into shows where the main characters just bicker all the time. That must be why I enjoyed this last episode so much. Everyone got to be nice to each other!

Whew

Man, I'm tired. Maybe I'll skip chorale rehearsal tonight.

You guys know about The Atrox, right? Now with Boat City! I know the site has navigation problems, but the fact that it exists it all is endlessly amazing to me. I know, I'm a rube.

This weekend was spent doing a lot of work for the website and watching season 1 Veronica Mars on DVD. Frank's sister Sarah was in town and Frank had given her VM as a birthday present, so a good portion of the time I spent with them was spent neck-deep in the misadventures of television's favorite teen detective.

Sarah just turned 19. That makes me feel OLD. Also, I'll be 26 this week. OLD.

We also saw Wallac and Gromit this weekend. It was delightful.

Atrox!

Well, the comics portion of the Lair of the Dreaded Atrox is up and running. For those who wanted to see "Boat City," that'll be up as soon as possible, we swear. Meanwhile, enjoy D.A.R.C., Kitty-Face Kitty, and Atrox Comix.

And hey, website! There it is!

My office is very cold

Trips to the bathroom are nice because I get to run my hands under scalding-hot sink water so that I can restore a slim amount of sensation to my fingers.

Something for the non-comics folks

Um....

*does a little jig*

How's that?


I guess you can't see it, but it's a hell of a jig.

Nail in the coffin

The nail.

The coffin, of course, holding all of Grant Morrison's interesting ideas about the X-Men, as well as any hope I had of being further interested in the concept.

I suppose their thinking is to play up the "mutants as minority" angle. Except, instead of Morrison's hopeful "maybe we can all learn to get along and this will all be for the best" angle, it's back to "a world that hates and fears them," only times a million because they're now so uncommon.

The societal and personal shifts Morrison chronicled were intesresting. The public outing of the X-Men (and the subsequent adjustment to being both role models and celebrities), making Xavier's an actual school again, opening the school up to humans and mutants alike, the X-Corporations that Xavier founded, these were all interesting, relevant, new ideas. The inevitable "on the run from the Sentinels" pap this event will no doubt lead to is just the same damn rut the X-Men have been in for 35 years. The immediate reversals in Morrison's storylines were distressing, but the underlying shifts he made remained (Whedon's X-Men were just as concerned with public relations and their role as teachers as they were with zapping bad guys). This change, of course, throws the whole thing out the window.

The really depresing thing about X-Men is that they can never succeed. If they actually achieved their dream of peace between man and mutant, then the book would be over, and naturally Marvel can't have that. Apparently now they can't even let stand even the tiniest baby steps towards that goal.

Whedon will have to perform a miracle to get me psyched about post-"House of M" Astonishing. Right now my interest is purely academic, seeing who they'll keep around (I'm guessing Wolverine will make it) and which mutants will be bumped off or depowered.

Infinite Crisis has been described by some at DC as the darkness before the dawn. House of M has seemingly thrown Marvel continuity down a bottomless well, with no light in sight.

I guess this means it's real

If you go to the Current website, and skip ahead on the schedule to 1:37 PM, you'll see that "Nerds in Paradise," Quin and Mandy's epic tale of Comic Con, is airing. There's a lovely shot of Asa and Jesse rifiling through comic bins as a beaming, green-skin woman looks on.

I guess some part of me was always like "Sure, they SAY it will be on TV. But that's just silly." But there it is.

Weird.

Filler

For lack of anything else, a Dinosaur Comic. When you read these, you roll your mouse over the comic so the little text box appears, right? Right? You should. Those text boxes make a fine supplement to the comics themselves.

Also, don't you want to know what I think about Top Model? Of course you do.

True love!

You know those online personals ads that come up and it's just some half-naked woman and the ad says something like "Find true love now!" or whatever? I wish they just said "Find a scantily-clad slut now!" But then it'd be even less truth in advertising. But it would be funny.

That's, uh, that's all I've got today. I have a couple of other post ideas, but they are long and I am busy. Any question/comments?

UPDATE: Okay, so I said something kind of similar before. So sue me. Do it. Take legal action. I dare you.

Comics post that few will enjoy

Re: DC's announced trades for Jan/Feb:

On the one hand, that Alan Moore trade looks great ("Killing Joke," "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" plus every other DC superhero story Alan Moore wrote), and it's only 20 bucks.

On the other hand, Seven Soldiers of Victory Vol. 1? The first eight Seven Soldiers issues which cost me around $25 dollars are collected for just $15? And they seem to actually be printing them in the order they were released, rather than just collecting the minis individually? Dammit, DC! Why'd you have to wise up about trades as soon as I had totally given up on you ever doing so?

Comics post everyone can enjoy

This one's for the LADIES!

This article over at Comic Book Resources is pretty embarassing for any number of obvious reasons, but I certainly don't take umbrage in trying to get your girfriend to read Sandman, or Bone, or Moore's Swamp Thing, since those are all fine reads.

I'm just saying that back in college, most of my friends were girls, and the comic they all read voraciously, without a single exclamation of "Ew! A comic book!" was Preacher.

Yeah, Preacher. The swearing-est, violent-est, naked-est, more-than-a-little chauvanist book to come down the pike in I don't know how long. They could not get enough of it. The trades were still coming out at the time, and whenever I got a new one, it would make the rounds of my friends-that-were-girls. My senior year my girlfriend was a semester ahead of me (she was a transfer student), so she technically "graduated" in December. It just so happened that her last classes coincided with the week they released "Alamo," the last Preacher trade, so I got it for her as a graduation present. She was elated.

I guess what I'm saying is that you should find comics you thing your girlfriend might enjoy because of who she is as a person, rather than just by her gender.

Blurb-Master General

I'll be doing the "Channel Surfing" daily blurbs on the main SMRT-TV page all this week, if that's the sort of thing you're interested in reading.

Oh, and there's a new SMRT issue, and I review Firefly, and there's the 2nd part of an Adam Baldwin interview and everyone who reads this already knew about this already, right? Note how I am trying to downplay my failure to promote my own work, as well as the work of my friends.

Anyway, blurbs this week! Enjoy!

Popularity contest

The two big people-friend-community-places that I have accounts with have each implemented a new unique, diabolical feature.

MySpace has invented the "Top 8." Basically you can choose your top 8 people on your friends list, and these people's pictures will show up on your profile. I suppose you could use this to up the profile on some friend of yours who's buried in your massive friend list, but let's face it: this is a popularity contest. This is "Here are my favorite 8 people on my friend list. The rest can suck eggs." That sort of thing. It's only been an hour, and I've already seriously considered using this option to fuck with people. If I had a higher profile on MySpace, I probably would. Anyway, this option can only be used for evil.

Friendster has now implemented a system that tells you who has been looking at your profile. I know! No more gazing at cute, unattainable-but-I-wouldn't-try-to-attain-them-anyway-because-they-are-20-years-old girls without seeming like a creepy voyeur. In other news, it's a nice ego boost to find that someone you thought didn't think about you anymore suddenly shows up on that list. At least she's still interested in my favorite books and/or TV shows! Or possibly my upcoming birthday! Of course, Friendster gives you the option of turning this feature off, so any hand-wringing is pretty much moot. But it rounds out the post nicely!

Molasses

I was off work sick on Tuesday, and this week is STILL dragging. What the hell? Hurry up, Friday! I want to get to 5 PM STAT!

Nerdity

Liz also reminded me of something else to post here.

Should you have DirectTV (that's like, all of you, right?) then there's a short documentary on Current channel created by my pals Quin and Mandy, and featuring yours truly, as well as fellow bloggers Asa, Laurel, and Liz. And Jesse, but he doesn't blog. And some other people I know, but they are peripheral characters.

Basically the focus is on how none of us got laid at Comicon. (I guess the "modern geek" could be a theme, but let's face it. The arc of the story is that none of us have sex.) You'd think that would come off as condescending or insulting, but it doesn't. Although I'd like to hear what someone who wasn't actually there thinks. It'd be interesting to see how it plays with someone who doesn't have the full backstory.

Also, according to most everyone, I am a total hambone in this movie. They used all my most ham-tastic takes. What can I say? I'm a cheeseball. Hopefully in a Nathan Fillion-esque charming way, rather than in a Robin Williams-esque "want to beat him to death" way. Go get DirectTV and you can be the judge.

A slew of sci-fi/horror programming

This was a comment I put up over on Liz's blog, but I liked it enough to put it up here, as well.

Hey, do you think next week's Lost will open once again with the Jack/Desmond standoff? Just because? I think that would rule.

Anyway, here's the comment:

This season of Lost already seems to have more drive than the last one, but then 3 episodes into last season was "Walkabout", which the series as a whole still has yet to top, so fortunes can certainly change. I still feel like Lost is less a drama to be emotionally engaged in and more a puzzle to be solved. Not to mention the constant browbeaing about its supposed themes. Hey, has anyone noticed any SCIENCE VS. FAITH themes in the first few episodes this season? I think they're subtlely buried in there. But if they can keep up the quality of Wednesday's episode, I might actually stop complaining about it.

In light of Lost's chain-yanking, I find Threshold's straight-forward simplicity refreshing. The aliens are trying to turn humans into them, so they can invade in safety. Sweet. It's less a mystery show and more a "Let's fight whoever got possessed by the alien signal this week" show. Plus Dinklage. Sold.

While Threshold's stable of performers I like makes it my favorite new sci-fi offering, Surface gets 2nd place simply by showing a giant alien water monster devouring a boat whole. It was AWESOME. The show itself has its moments, but it's hardly compelling.

Invasion made the fatal error of having a totally boring pilot. I haven't watched it since.

Emory tried to get me to watch Night Stalker, but I just couldn't summon the energy. Stuart Townsend is not a draw.

The 'Trox

He's comin'.

Best be ready.

National pastime, my ass

Stupid baseball prempted last night's episode of Veronica Mars, so now I have to wait until Saturday before I can see it. Damn you, baseball! Damn your boring ass!

I am KILROY!

Let's all take a moment and really ponder how utterly bizarre Styx's album "Kilroy Was Here" truly is...


...


Okay, you're done. Go home.

This week in politics

Is it just me, or is Bush just flaunting it now? Like a "You're stuck with me for three more years no matter what, so I'm just gonna run roughshod!" kind of attitude. Is anyone from either side of the fence really psyched about that Miers nomination?

D.A.R.C.

Should you be inclined to see a picture of an Eisner award-winner holding something I helped write* in his hot little hand, such a thing can be found here.

All you need to do is scroll down and know what Erika and Derek Kirk Kim look like.

Thanks of course to Leslie, who went out to Stumptown to raise the Atrox banner, and to Erika, for letting Leslie tag along, and drawing the comic, and generally being very cool.

Our site will, God willing, be able to officially go live on the 15th. There should be a pretty good mix of things for you to check out.



* "Helped write" is really an exaggeration. Leslie was the main writer, with Paul and Frank helping (I think? I was asleep.), and then I gave it a final polish before we handed it over to Erika.

Serenity

I suppose I should talk about Serenity, although I have ad nauseum on various message boards, so I'm kind of burned out.

I'll just say a few things. One, it's the first movie in what seems like forever that I have actually been actively interested in seeing again in the theater. Two, the complaints I've heard about the movie tend to stem from the idea that it should be more like the TV show, to which I say movies are not TV. The first half, which did feel just like an episode of the show, was the least interesting section. And third, if they were going to kill characters, those were the ones to kill.