John42

February 2, 2012 10:17 pm y'know, for some reason i've always associated Ron with the singer from the get up kids. I think because at one time they had the same hair.

December 21, 2011 2:57 pm i would also say the chaplins, but that's a kind of love-him-or-you-don't thing that's highly dependent on personal taste. actually i'd suspect Josh you'd be more of a keaton guy. anyway, if you wanna do the chaplins i'd do it in this order: dictator, times, lights (which was orson welles' favorite movie) and you're gonna have multiple opportunities to dvr wonderful life on sunday. it's also as good as its rep. and it features the first of jimmy stewart's PTSD-fueled performances. for everyone watching it this christmas, jimmy couldn't work for a while after the war. he had a lot of trouble with the fact that, as an accomplished pilot, he blew up a lot of people. he had to go to therapy, which was extremely taboo in 1944. His trademark character was the ultimate aw-shucks innocent, and then he killed people. That changed him, and he started to show that on screen culminating in Vertigo (btw, nicely done on the intro Conor). Also he and director anthony mann made a string of some of the best westerns ever (winchester 73 and the naked spur are the best), a director/actor pairing that should be put up there with scorcese/de niro, fellini/mastroioni , truffaut/leaud, and kurosawa/mifune.

December 21, 2011 1:26 pm @Josh- watch casablanca as soon as humanly possible. it's as good as its reputation. especially since you're a writer and it has one of the best screenplays ever. after that i'd do bicycle thieves.

September 25, 2011 10:46 pm planetary/batman is one of the my favorite batman stories, and the climactic line of dialogue from batman is the best explanation of why he does what he does I've ever read.

June 14, 2011 11:55 am how about that other Alan Moore lantern that lived in sector with no sun, so there was no concept of vision or light. S/He lived in a world of sound, and came up with a whole sonic version of the lantern oath. Pretty cool.

Also, the Ch'p panel came from Green Lantern: Mosaic, which I think is one of the most under-appreciated series out there. It came from writer Gerard Jones, best known now for his non-fiction prose including Men of Tomorrow- the comic creator biobook, and Killing Monsters, which is the best post-Columbine book I'ver read. Great rational antidote to the Fredrick Wertham style media hysteria that followed Columbine. Great companion piece to Gus Van Sant's Elephant.

Gerarard Jones' 'Green Lanter: Mosaic' series was AWESOME.It  pitted Joshn Stewart's super-well-developed character against a surreal landscape that would make Dali and Jodorowsky jealous.  According to his John Siuntres' Word Balloon interview with Jones the series was cancelled because it was too Vertigo-ish.

I advise everyone: seek out Green Lantern: Mosiac in whatever form you can get it. It's a series that deserves reading, and if any DC execs are reading: TRADE IT!  People havre already done the scans for you!  I would pay for a book of those scans.

June 9, 2011 5:38 pm Great, interesting show- ignited many trains of thought:

1. Superspeed is the best superpower and I will fight any contrarians (verbally/textually *whimper*)
2. @Conor(and I'd love to hear what Ryan Haupt has to say about this): Think of the modern explanation of superpowers not as a fun-killer but as an open door to new avenues of fun. Think of the scientific explanation of powers not as a defensive obligation to belay naysayers but rather os an opportunity to excite science fans. I think Warren Ellis' superhero work adds a lot to this discussion. I remember his Justice League story where he pointed out that each of the Flash's steps would be hundreds of miles long. That blew my mind, and expanded my conception of the Flash. It didn't kill my fun. It didn't burn the Infantino pages of a hundred steps a panel.
3.@Josh- You defy us to explain Black Cat/Longshot powers? Well let's get meta-metaphysical! 'Animal Man' answers all that. *OBLIQUE-QUASI-SPOILER ALERT*!!! Animal Man searches to learn the nature of the universe, in his case the DCU, and he finds it. Whatever the nature of our universe, the DCU is a world controlled by gods, or 'Creators'. Even if it doesn't apply to our universe, creation theory does apply to fictional universes. Characters obey the laws of physics less than than they obey the laws of melodrama, because that is, literally, the nature of their universe. So the most rational explanation for superpowers for a denzien of the marvel or DCU would be the whims of the Creators.

April 28, 2011 7:56 pm Thanks Roland! One of my favorite things about Morrison is his infinite re-readability.

March 15, 2011 5:31 pm I wonder what the literal translation of this is. is there an way to transliterate X?

August 18, 2010 11:56 pm I say awesome. I think she's totally the second best actor on mad men. She, like hamm, can change the atmosphere of the room by walking into it.

March 31, 2010 11:51 pm great, great review. really made me appreciate the accomplishment of this series. i feel like geoff johns is now the god-protagonist of the DCU. he's been granted omnipotence for his mission to make it awesome.