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An Alan Moore Approved Prequel To Watchmen?

2012-02-03T08:31:03Z

[watchmen] Revisiting Alan Moore’s Official “Watchmen” Prequel … fascinating look at a role playing prequel to Watchmen from 1987 which had advice and input from Moore & Dave Gibbons …

“Shortly after I picked up the Watchmen assignment I called Alan in Northampton,” says Winninger. “He was unbelievably nice and excited about the project. During that first call he spent almost two hours telling me exactly what was about to happen in the next nine issues of the comic, down to the level of individual panels and page layouts.” Winninger adds, “I still remember him saying ‘Right, issue 12. We open with six pages of corpses.’ I spoke with him several times thereafter to bounce my ideas for the adventure off of him, to clarify details to get his approval on the manuscripts and such.” And, as Winninger points out, Dave Gibbons provided original cover art for the Mayfair “Watchmen” books and added new interior art as well.

Dave Sim On Oscar Wilde

2012-02-01T22:34:38Z

[comics] Dave Sim On Oscar Wilde: ‘Why be prolific when one could be charming? Why produce when there’s so much to consume? I have to credit all the research that I did on Oscar Wilde for convincing me that I don’t want to be like that. If I can end my life with a large body of completed works and a reputation as a cantankerous old hermit I’ll consider my time well spent.’

DC Comics Plans Prequels to Watchmen

2012-02-01T12:16:50Z

[comics] The New York Times: DC Comics Plans Prequels to Watchmen Series …

Mr. Moore, who has disassociated himself from DC Comics and the industry at large, called the new venture “completely shameless.”

How Far Can You Walk From Trafalgar Square Without Crossing A Road?

2012-02-01T09:11:28Z

[london] How Far Can You Walk From Trafalgar Square Without Crossing A Road? … Vic Keegan does some extreme walking … ‘A couple of years ago, as a test of the walkability of London, I set out from Trafalgar Square — the official centre of the town — one Sunday morning to see how far I could get without crossing a road or going over the same place twice. It was almost 17 miles before I ended up going round in a circle. I know of no other capital city where it is possible to do this…’

Can You Tell A Movie From It’s Original Book Cover?

2012-01-31T06:33:54Z

[books] Flick Books – Can you tell the movie from the book Cover? … a fun little quiz … ‘A movie adaptation is rarely the first time someone gets to give a visual representation of a book. It is usually the cover illustrator who gets the job to draw how he thinks the story should look. However, as soon as a book is turned into a movie, the illustrator’s work is usually thrown in the bin only to be quickly replaced by a “you’ve seen the movie… now read the book” approximation of the movie poster as a cover.’

Were People Ever Swallowed By Whales and What Would Actually Happen To Them?

2012-01-30T17:05:19Z

[religion] Swallowed by a whale — a true tale? … a writer for Salon investigates if people were ever swallowed by whales and what would happen to them if they were …

‘I went to the Illness drawer and scanned the divider labels: Asthma, Bowels. Cold virus, Colic, Consumption, Convulsions / Fits, Distemper, Dropsy, Faintings, Food Poisoning, Homesickness, Depressed, Kidney, Lips, Measles, Pleurisy, Pox, Prickly Heat, Scurvy, Seasick, Smallpox, Typhoid, Venereal.

Venereal was the thickest category. Eighty-seven notecards referencing 87 mentions in close to 87 logbooks – that’s one-third more than the Scurvy category and a magnitude thicker than the Homesickness category. I thumbed through Venereal and found, slid between endless Syphilis cards, an archaic Lady’s Fever, the whimsical Blue boar in groin, and the enigmatic doby itch. Of all the Illnesses, it appeared the stops on shore hit the whalemen the most, the damage done in the arms of a woman. One 19th-century writer calculated that during whaling season in the port of Lahaini, Hawaii, there were ”upwards of 400 instances of intercourse daily.”

Crammed between Depressed and Kidney, at only 10 notecards thick, was the file I was looking for: Injury by Whale.’

Blogs And Sandwiches

2012-01-24T21:40:12Z

[blogs] Let’s Make A Sandwich … On Blogs as sandwiches … ‘Think about blogging — the way I do it — like I think about sandwiches. There’s a basic form, and a nearly inifinite number of expressions of that form. This particular blog is a mishmash of things that are interesting to me — and because it’s my sandwich, I avoid ingredients that I’m not fond of. Like pickles. There are no pickles on this blog.’

Five Wacky Theories About The Shining

2012-01-27T08:38:38Z

[shining] The Top 5 Wacky Theories About ‘The Shining’ in New Frontiers Doc ‘Room 237′ … some perfectly reasonable theories about The Shining from a new documentary about Kubrick’s movie … ‘One of the more spectacular theories in the movie: That Kubrick was hired by the American government to fake the Apollo moon landing, and “The Shining” is his way of explaining himself. An interviewee says that owning “The Shining” on Blu-ray allows one to see enough detail to reach this conclusion. Jack Torrance’s constant bickering with his wife about his job responsibilities voice Kubrick’s own justification for why he had to comply with government orders.’

The Wirecutter – Lists Of Great Gadgets

2012-01-26T12:25:32Z

[tech] The Wirecutter | A List of the Best Gadgets .. if you’re thinking of buying some technology this would be a great place to visit before making the decision.

Howard Chaykin’s The Shadow: Blood & Judgment Reprinted

2012-01-24T21:41:05Z

[comics] Chaykin’s Shadow is back… ‘The Howard Chaykin issues were great, the Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker issues were magnificent. And to be honest, I’d rather given up hope of ever seeing them again.But maybe not – because after securing the rights to The Shadow in 2011, Dynamite Entertainment has finally announced they’ll be reprinting the Howard Chaykin 4 issue Shadow: Blood & Judgment series from 1986…’

What If Herge And H.P. Lovecraft Had Collaborated?

2012-01-23T19:43:45Z

[comics] What If Herge And H.P. Lovecraft Had Collaborated? …

‘In Which I Fix My Girlfriend’s Grandparents’ WiFi…’

2012-01-23T08:40:26Z

[funny] In Which I Fix My Girlfriend’s Grandparents’ WiFi and Am Hailed as a Conquering Hero … ‘The people did beseech the warrior to aid them. They were a simple people, capable only of rewarding him with gratitude and a larger-than-normal serving of Jell-O salad. The warrior considered the possible battles before him. While others may have shirked the duties, forcing the good people of Ferndale Street to prostrate themselves before the tyrants of Comcast, Linksys, and Geek Squad, the warrior could not chill his heart to these depths. He accepted the quest and strode bravely across the beige shag carpet of the living room…’

LUV & HAT On Tumblr

2012-01-20T08:45:41Z

[blogs] LUV & HAT On Tumblr: ‘…it’s a blogging platform. But it’s not like BORING blogging platforms like WordPress (for squares) or Blogger (all right GRANDDAD). Tumblr gets us. It knows we’re social – that’s why it lets us follow people. And it knows we’re busy. We have eyeliner to apply. We have fingernails to paint individual colours. We have motherfucking badges to pin to our hoodies and skate shoes to painstakingly scuff and unlace. We don’t have time to sit down, log in, then use words to describe how alienated we feel or how niche we are. I mean seriously. Words. What is this, Vietnam?’

A Rationalist Ghost Story From Alan Moore

2012-01-19T18:24:16Z

[moore] Cold Reading – A rationalist ghost story from Alan Moore …

I mean, do I believe all of the things that I tell people? In my heart, I can’t say that I do. But then, what about priests? You can’t tell me that all of them believe every last word of what they preach, but do they get called ‘ghouls in cardigans’ or ‘Vincent Price, but camp’? No. No, they don’t. That’s because people recognise all of the reassurance and the comfort that religion brings to people, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not. Or doctors, it’s like doctors when they say that a placebo, that’s like, what, a sugar pill? That a placebo can work wonders without any side effects, but that they can’t prescribe them ’cause of all the medical red tape and ethics, health and safety, all that business. That’s me. I’m a spiritual sugar pill, but I do people good. I’m sorry, but I touch their lives.

On Stopping Reading Books

2012-01-18T11:08:51Z

[books] In the Land of the Non-Reader … On stopping reading books …‘Books can steady a chair and a soul. The former use is not recommended for Kindle.’