News Around the Net
Bill Watterson drew the poster for an international cartoonists’ festival, and it is awesome.
I’ve been really enjoying Kumail Nanjiani’s podcast The X-Files Files. In each episode, Mr. Nanjiani and a guest host analyze two episodes of The X-Files, working their way through the series in order, starting from the very beginning of the show. I’ve only listened to a few episodes, but they’ve all been great. I started with this one, in which Mr. Nanjiani and Devin Faraci from badassdigest.com discuss the two-parter that began season 3, “The Blessing Way” and “Paper Clip.” One of my favorite episodes is the very first podcast, also co-starring Mr. Faraci, in which the two discuss the first two episodes but also share their feelings on the whole series over-all. My favorite part is their hilarious discussion of the dreadful second X-Files movie. (Here are my thoughts after seeing that flick, if you’re interested.) This is a great podcast, I am hooked!
I need to carve out some time to watch this: A recreation of The Empire Strikes Back made by over 500 individual fan-made versions of every shot from the film. Sounds crazy!
This is awesome: what if famous album covers were just a small part of a much larger picture? So funny and so clever.
So last month Marvel Comics killed off Wolverine. Yeah, that’s gonna last. But in the meanwhile, in honor of his “death,” enjoy this hilarious illustrated summary of Wolvie’s convoluted back-story.
Here’s a trailer for Jurassic World:
That’s a pretty solid trailer. I love the use of the classic John Williams theme on piano at the end of the trailer. The visuals are certainly gorgeous, and Chris Pratt is a great choice to anchor the adventure. I don’t love what we glimpse here of the “hybrid dinosaur” angle. One flaw of the original Jurassic Park sequels was the need to keep coming up with new and different dinosaurs. The third film tried to use the Spinosaurus as their bad bad dinosaur and it didn’t work at all. I hope this hybrid idea doesn’t come off as silly.
I like this nostalgia-based trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies:
This is a nice attempt to place this final film within the context of the epic story woven by the previous five. It remains to see if the film delivers on that promise, but there are worse ways to market the new film than showing some of the best moments from the previous ones.
I’m not sure I believe that Blade Runner 2 will ever happen, nor do I think it’s a great idea. Of course I’m tantalized by the prospect of another adventure in that rich sci-fi universe, but it seems far more likely that a sequel so many decades later will only disappoint (especially if it stars zombie Harrison Ford). So I am OK with the announcement that, if this sequel actually happens, Ridley Scott won’t be the director. I’m not sure how many films Mr. Scott still has in him, and I’d rather he not waste several years on a Blade Runner sequel.
I’m also not sure I believe that Pacific Rim 2 will ever happen, despite all the continued talk of a sequel. I liked Pacific Rim but felt it didn’t live up to its potential (click here for my review). So on the one hand I am definitely not clamoring for another installment. On the other hand, I like the idea of Guillermo del Toro taking another whack at this cool robots-versus-monsters premise.
I was never a fan of the original Battlestar Galactica (nothing against it, I just never watched it as a kid) though I adored Ron Moore’s re-imagined Galactica. Still, I got a kick out of Mojo Lebowitz’s pitch reel for a “remastered” blu-ray edition of the original Battlestar Galactica. (Mojo was a visual effects artist involved with Babylon 5, Star Trek: Voyager, Serenity, the modern Battlestar Galactica, and other great projects.) Similar to CBS Digital’s project from a few years ago to replace the original cheesy model effects from the original Star Trek series with new CGI visuals, Mojo has taken a battle sequence from the original Battlestar and dropped in souped up visual effects. But, cleverly, he’s designed the shots to look and feel very much of a piece with the original footage. This is very cool, take a look. I would totally watch this!
Finally, if you want to waste a few hours, or if you’re desperately looking for a great gift to send me, your humble cartoonist/blogger, then check out this year’s edition of Quint’s always-fantastic holiday gift guide over at AICN. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!