Eleven random line items:

1. God, Race to Witch Mountain looks terrible. And not just in the sense that I'm not the target audience for it, it looks just...shabby. I've never been a big fan of the Rock, or Dwayne Johnson, or whatever, but his smarmy, smug act promoting it isn't helping either. (The ads for the Kids' Choice Awards are particularly painful, and my boys watch a lot of Nick.)

2. OK, I'm looking forward to Watchmen. One of the main complaints I've seen about the movie is that by focusing on the whodunit or the action-adventure aspects of the graphic novel is to completely miss the symbolism, and possibly the point, of what Alan Moore was going for. That remains to be seen, but if Watchmen was supposed to work on all those levels, can't it work on just a couple? Nobody's forcing you to get the symbolism...the weird part is, I had that same problem with Identity Crisis: I thought it was supposed to be a murder mystery, and in the last issue it becomes apparent that the murder is only the hook, and who did it is only an afterthought. So, maybe an Identity Crisis movie would be a goddamn improvement...

3. I've bought Watchmen twice over the years, but have lost it both times. I had a copy of issue #8 (I think) but haven't seen that around lately either.

4. Even though I want to like them, it's so easy to hate the Sci-Fi Channel. I only got to start watching Battlestar Galactica again when the end was in sight, and while it's great and I'm looking forward to the end; I have a hard time imagining what Sci-Fi's gonna have to replace it. I am never, ever going to watch any version of Ghost Hunters, and that video game psuedo-reality show looks like the worst kind of crap: where are the fat kids? And it's great to feature girl gamers, but there's no crying in videogames!

And the made for the channel movies get on my nerves, too. Step 1: Film it in the cheapest location you can find, i.e. Canada, regardless of where your movie's allegedly set. Step 2: Get an old copy of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual, flip it open to a random page, and voila! There's half your movie right there! Manticore, Basilisk, and Wyvern have all been used lately. I'm waiting for Gelatinous Cube, the movie. Step 3: Cast a bunch of unknowns and maybe one C-lister that needs to make a boat payment or is late on their taxes or something. Step 4: Use the same computer-generated effects that the rest of these movies do, including a blood effect that manages to look far less real than throwing a bucket of dyed Karo syrup. But it's expensive, so it must be good! I think I'm just pissed that this is the first time in years I've had Sci-Fi, and apparently running this cheapo little homemade films is more cost effective and better ratings then rerunning old, cancelled shows. (I liked Splinter, though, and I make no apologies for liking some crap and hating other crap.)

5. Apparently, the demographics for the Sci-Fi channel also suggest that if you're watching the channel, you need Lectric Shave (maybe!) and you're alone and unloved. If I never had to see an ad for Match.com again..."I'm just a goof, looking for my ball." What does that even mean!? Is that code for something?

6. I don't listen to a lot of music lately, but the one song I've heard recently that I couldn't get enough of? "Murder Train a'Comin'" by Dethklok. I stumbled into Metalocalypse pretty late, and while I'm not a huge death metal fan, it reminds me of friends who were. I need to download it, but that would involve some horrible process involving ITunes, for one song. (It was a bonus track on the deluxe version of their album.)

7. Oh, let's have a scan of this one:

Yeah, I've lost Watchmen twice, but still have this? That seems fair. But it's interesting as a historical artifact, this issue of Comics Scene from 1990, back when anime was still Japanimation, and comics coverage was still broad enough to include Grant Morrison and Bill Sienkiewicz, the live action Captain America, and Betty Boop. Also, there's two pages of listings in the back, of comic characters and properties being adapted to other media, like movies or TV. Well, allegedly adapted. Many of these would never happen, like the Sally Forth sitcom, or a Spider-Man movie scheduled for Christmas 1990. Let's just run that list, and you can check off the ones that you wanted made (or unmade!) yourself, and you can count your blessings a lot of these didn't happen in the 90's.



There were a couple there I'm not sure were even close: did Howard Chaykin have anything to do with the Judge Dredd movie? And Joel Schumaker didn't direct The Phantom, did he? Actually, neither of those may have hurt, in the long run...

8. For good measure, here's a photo from that issue, of Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, promoting the never-completed Big Numbers. I still have that floating around here somewhere.

Interestingly, I'd often wondered why Sienkiewicz still does inking work, and he answered that in this interview: "Inking is simply a motor function...(I)nking was like watching grandmother sit and crochet on a moving train. I really wanted to do something that required no thought, go on auto-pilot, to recharge my batteries." And now I know!

9. Caught the recent Dr. Strange cartoon on Cartoon Network the other day. Not bad, certainly better than the Iron Man one. Even though I would just as soon they not run things like Ace Ventura, Jr., Cartoon Network has been keeping me up on a lot of those direct-to-DVD movies: Justice League: New Frontier and Batman: Gotham Knight were both on almost immediately after I bought them...

10. This may sound like hyperbole, but I would rather you cut me, than watch, hear about, or see mentioned again, Celebrity Apprentice. Cutting me would be more memorable for everyone involved.

11. Twice daily posts here, at least until Friday this week! See you then.