This exhibit looks wonderful. I want to own one of everything.
I think my favorites are the little ewoks…or the enormous Chewy…and some of the crochet and felt work is pretty mind-blowing.
From the Flickr Set:
This artwork is part of Bear and Bird Gallery’s “Stitch Wars” exhibition in Lauderhill, Florida. Exhibition runs July 18 – August 29, 2009, for more information visit our website www.bearandbird.com
Discovered on Twitter, via @craftster…
- Jenn
Categories: culture · movies
Tagged: art, crafts, movies, star wars
Chris and I took a BBQ prep detour to the comic shop this weekend and he picked up Batwoman Detective Comics for me. He said it was excellent, and I wholeheartedly agree. I agree so much, I read the thing three times in a row.
Greg Rucka’s dialogue and story is just as engaging and sharp as his Gotham Central work, and J.H. Williams III brings a really beautiful, whimsical (but incredibly clean-lined) art-nouveau feeling to the whole thing. His work on this reminds me of a perfect middle ground between Tony Harris’s super-precise photographic work on Ex Machina and David Mack’s watercolors on Kabuki. And the panel work is INCREDIBLE.
I apologize profusely for my lack of a scanner, but I had to give some sort of example of the awesome:
This comic is like candy for your eyes and brain. Pick it up. Read it. Do it now!
- Jenn
Categories: comics
Tagged: Batman, Batwoman, detective comics, greg rucka
My Watchmen Director’s Cut arrived in the mail yesterday. I watched it. Here are my thoughts…
Liked:
*Dr. Manhattan disappearing all the reporters and cameras, the way he did in the comic, instead of jetting right up to Mars.
*More Rorschach. His character gets more time, and he’s truer to the comic. The psych-evaluation is more detailed, and you get to see more of his weird attitude toward Laurie, and women in general.
*Hollis Mason’s death and Dan’s reaction. This scene was my favorite. Despite the terrible un-scariness of the knot-tops (they look like a bunch of pudgy middle-aged grips and dollies and best boys and whatever other sorts of people work on movie lots), the scene itself was great. When it is switching in and out of Hollis Mason’s perspective and you see that he’s fighting all his old-timey nemeses…it’s quite touching. And very beautifully put together.
*The tiny bit of extra interaction between the Comedian and Laurie in her flashback.
*Sweet holographic cover, dudes!!
*Extra blue wang…j/k guys. I don’t even know if there is more. I have some sort of a blue wang filter on my life goggles that prevents me from noticing it until someone blatantly points it out to me.
*The general feeling that the whole movie makes a lot more sense.
Did not like:
*The extra Laurie. I felt just fine about her performance in the theatrical cut because she was every bit as lame as the Laurie in the comic. The director’s cut adds some long and unnecessary scenes that try to make her out to be some sort of tough no-nonsense badass. It’s in no way true to the original character, only serves to highlight her subpar acting skills and plays like something out of a completely different movie. That said, I DID like that they focused more on her relationship with Jon as a military imperative.
*Not specifically a gripe with the director’s cut, but now that Chris mentioned it, I cannot help but notice the glaring lack of saxophone on the soundtrack.
*Also not a director’s cut gripe, but the old people makeup is still really distracting.
And finally…
Had me going, “WTF??!!”:
*”Mommy, that man in the ship, that man….IS HE JESUS?”
…IS….THAT MAN….JESUS??
I will bet anyone $10 that Zach Snyder LOVED that line. I bet he was like, “YES! YES THIS IS IT!” and everyone else was like, “Man, actually that’s kind of lame. I think we might have to leave that out.” and Zach Snyder was like, “Screw you guys, I’M THE DIRECTOR! It’s goin’ in the director’s cut!”
In closing:
-Jenn
Sometimes, my two favorite things come together and make beautiful babies…
Hellboy (look at his teensy little six-pack!!)
The Most Beautiful Sweater in the World
-Jenn
Categories: TV · comics
Tagged: gaiman, hellboy, Joss Whedon, knitting, teh internets
To celebrate my recently completing Preacher and being excited about The Boys, I bring you…Fun with Fallacies!…inspired by the things that I am sick to death of hearing when I bring Garth Ennis up in polite company.
FALLACY:
“Garth Ennis is a misogynist pig who HATES and OBJECTIFIES WOMEN!”
TRUTH:
Garth Ennis hates people. Garth Ennis hates everything. As Jamie says, he’s an equal-opportunity hater. He even hates inappropriate quotation marks:
Garth Ennis writes complex, three-dimensional characters, some of whom (like Herr Starr, above) happen to be misogynists, either knowingly or unconsciously. The reason you might feel uncomfortable is because he’s really good at making sympathetic characters out of the worst people in the world. Some people like their antagonists all-bad and their protagonists nothing less than fine upstanding individuals. Garth Ennis has a habit of mixing it up.
Ennis writes plenty of realistic, strong, sympathetic female characters, and he also writes characters who are parodies of misogynist female stereotypes. He writes horrible, perverted, violent people who somehow manage to inspire some–extremely uncomfortable–sort of sympathy in the reader. He also writes plenty of sympathetic male characters who have serious, potentially deal-breaking character flaws. Ennis may fill his comics with repugnant individuals, but how are you supposed to recognize the good in characters without some real horribleness to provide contrast? If you want your comics black and white, go read some Golden Age Superman.
FALLACY:
“The Boys is unnecessarily crude and homophobic!”
TRUTH:
The Boys is using extremely crude imagery and storylines to shove your own feelings about homo and heterosexuality in your face. Garth Ennis is trying to make a point about homosexuality and sexual deviancy being two very different things. He’s acknowledging that homophobia has many faces, and sexual deviancy comes in all forms. He’s not dumbing it down for you. He’s also not afraid to make his protagonists huge jerks, and he’s not afraid to use disgusting imagery and behavior to provoke a visceral reaction in his readers…reactions that he often uses to flip some shit over on you when you least expect it. Which brings me to…
FALLACY:
“If you love Cassidy as a character, YOU are a failure as a woman and you are perpetuating fucked up mysogbleah bleah bleah…”
TRUTH:
Cassidy is a wonderful character. He is wonderful because he is seriously flawed and completely lets you down…REPEATEDLY. Anything else would be totally disingenuous. You know that book Twilight? That’s what Cassidy would be if Garth Ennis was a misogynist pig. Unlike Stefanie Meyer and her spank-bank-born sparkly vampire, Garth Ennis is not endorsing or justifying Cassidy’s behavior. He’s simply putting it out there for you to process, just like Jesse Custer is asked to process it.
As the story progresses, you as the reader expend an enormous amount of energy hoping Cassidy will DO THE RIGHT THING and you are repeatedly disappointed. You come out of the story either satisfied or angry, depending on whether you decided you could still see the good in this seriously fucked up dude. When it’s all said and done, you aren’t really sure the characters in Preacher deserve to come out on top. But you can’t help feeling happy that they do.
FALLACY:
“Garth Ennis swears too much!”
TRUTH:
Garth Ennis swears just enough.
Next Week…Fun with Fallacies: Bruce Springsteen…
FALLACY:
“Bruce Springsteen sings about cars and ladies and has nothing worthwhile to say!!. . . . .”
-Jenn
Categories: comics
Tagged: Garth Ennis, Preacher, The Boys
