I’d wager that most of you visiting don’t remember the first live-action Spider-Man
on screen.
Clearly, based on the image above, I don’t mean Tobey Maguire. Or Nicholas Hammond, who starred as Peter Parker over 12 episodes of The Amazing Spider-Man on CBS starting in 1978, spun out of a TV movie the year before — or even the stuntman inside the costume for most of that show, Fred Waugh. Or, for that matter, Shinji Tōdō; he led Toei's スパイダーマン [Supaidāman], a very loose adaptation of the Marvel character, which aired in Japan during roughly the same span as its American counterpart.
No, I’m talking about Danny Seagren.
DC and Warner Bros. announced the Fall 2015 launch of DC Super-Hero Girls yesterday — a line of media content and merchandising in partnership with Mattel targeted at girls aged 6 to 12.
Why am I so conflicted about this?
Who has a pair of thumbs that look like they're made out of big pink sausages, like
eagle talons mixed with squid, and finally saw The Lego Movie? This guy!
Promo image from The Lego Movie © 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Although not in the best head space, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to watch it with my nephew. Given how great the overall messages were, I am kinda disappointed that it doesn't pass the Bechdel test (unless there’s a stray line I forget between Wyldstyle and Unikitty; even then, Unikitty’s… a Unikitty) or just plain have more girl power, and especially considering how much the film’s portrayal of Batman has blown up it’s quite sad that Wonder Woman’s appearance here is her first in a theatrically released motion picture.
Still, I totally get why everyone raved. The all-ages factor is very high and I agree that it's far cleverer than, not to mention in some ways 180° from, what you'd expect a branded Lego Movie to be.
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I’m glad but a little surprised that Frozen is doing so well.
Image © 2013 Disney Enterprises.
Which probably says more about my critical eye and very specific tastes — a mite too critical and crazily specific, I’ve been told — than with the quality of the film or the general public’s own appetites.
Frozen’s other pleasant surprises:
Even with far more time and attention than I have right now it wouldn’t be possible
to do justice to Maurice Sendak with this post.
Sendak passed yesterday, at the age of 83, following a stroke. His career spanned
65 years and nearly 100 books as well as notable work in other media. You can find a timeline of his life and creations at the website of The Rosenbach Museum & Library, whose director also offers a nice remembrance of that Philadelphia institution’s relationship with the Brooklyn-born Sendak. (I recommend a visit to the place if you’re ever in town — its holdings include a large repository of Lewis Carroll memorabilia, James Joyce’s handwritten manuscript to Ulysses, and “over 10,000 Sendak objects, including original drawings, preliminary sketches, manuscripts, photographs, proofs, and rare prints of Sendak books.”)
[Note: The specific links no longer lead to where they once did, unfortunately, nor does the Rosenbach still house Sendak’s papers, although it maintains his rare-book collection.]
Whether you’re fortunate enough to still be in touch with your sense of wonder or
have lost it and thought it never to be regained, I beseech you: See Hugo.
Directed by Martin Scorsese from John Logan’s screenplay, based on Brian Selznick’s acclaimed book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Hugo runs 126 minutes. About 120 of those minutes are pure cinematic nirvana. I’m almost mad, yet also strangely relieved, that no matter how many films I see as this stacked season progresses — and no matter that it’s difficult to compare movies of wildly different styles, aims, and approaches — I’ve clearly seen the most fascinating, most captivating movie of the year... unless, almost ironically given their subject matter, The Artist ends up matching it.
I’m not entirely sure why, but not only didn’t I expect to like Disney’s Tangled
— I almost didn’t want to like it.
Much to my surprise, however, it was one of my favorite movies of the year.
News came on Friday that comics giants DC and Archie will release their very first actual crossover in October when the Little Archie gang meets the cast of Tiny Titans.
I don’t usually blog about press releases or topical stuff, but this announcement is
way cool. The 3-issue project is the work of Tiny Titans regulars Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, whose consistently delightful efforts have won the title an Eisner Award in the category Best Publication for Kids.
The latest batch of cool stuff offered by Graphitti Designs includes, at long last, some Wonder Twins wear. Adult S through XL will cost you $17.95 each (plus shipping) for either Zan or Jayna. I wish children’s sizes were available, but my nieces have already worn a couple of my old T-shirts to bed; their mom says they should be okay in these — as long as they don’t fight too hard over who gets to wear which one when.
Related: Girls, Power • Envisioned • Spider-Man,
Spider-Man / Use His Face in a Frying Pan
Here’s a strange trend: Mark Waid + adjectival noun = excellent comics.
I guess it’s not all that strange, given that Waid’s body of work in general is enough
of a recommendation, but he’s currently writing three darned good projects for Boom! Studios that share a peculiar part of speech — namely, The Incredibles, The Unknown, and Irredeemable. (You could argue that last one’s a plain old adjective.)
One among several things I admire about Roger Ebert’s writing is its economy. No
doubt it helps that he spent years on strict word counts at The Chicago Sun-Times; also that his readership has become familiar with certain phrases of his which, though perfunctory, don’t sound as judgmental as they might elsewhere. He will often refer to a film as being “adapted from the novel, unread by me”. You have to marvel at such concise, neutral disclosure. The following books, graphic novels in the sense that the phrase has come to encompass just about any work of comics with a square binding, are so far unread by me — but likely not for long, and I have cause to recommend each.
A few years ago I was thrilled to find a DVD compilation of childhood favorite The Electric Company. You can read a bit about it — and in particular its crossovers with predecessor Sesame Street — on the Muppet Wiki, as well as in greater depth on Wikipedia.
I have fond memories of the show, from Rita Moreno’s familiar opening shout to the animated Adventures of Letterman shorts to Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader to Skip Hinnant in Fargo North, Decoder, to — of course — Danny Seagren as the strangely silent Spider-Man. What surprised me when I popped in the DVD was how much was unfamiliar, including the delightfully absurd soap-opera parody Love of Chair. The first episode of the serial is up on YouTube, albeit bootlegged; one minute long, just when you think it’s started running on fumes it finishes with a couple of laugh-out-loud moments. [Warning: Very brief smash cut to Bill Cosby.]
Some interesting but spoilery trivia follows in the comments section below.
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What’s even better than hearing that my niece can’t come to the phone because she’s engrossed in reading Magic Trixie?
I was recently made aware that E and her sister M — that’s for privacy purposes, not because my family names its children after club drugs and Fritz Lang movies — lent their book to a friend and were eagerly awaiting the sequel, Magic Trixie Sleeps Over. Sharing is great! And they need wait no longer. I’d already bought it, and I mailed it out after hearing this rather than hold onto it for the girls’ upcoming visit. HarperCollins was smart to advertise the next installment in each book, price them low ($7.99 each), and of course snap up this series from the brilliant Jill Thompson to begin with.
If you have young Batman fans in your family, or are one yourself at heart, the Viking/Penguin Young Readers Group release Batman: The Story of the Dark Knight is a perfect gift.
At $15.99 it’s rather a slight read for the price — the length of a single issue at the cost
of a graphic novel in comics terms — but that’s par for the course in the wider market of children’s books. I think you’ll find it worth the splurge whether you want to display it as a handsome collectible or read it over and over to your kids.
Dr. Seuss’s children’s books aren’t exactly comics, no, but they’re kissing cousins.
And like many comics readers — many readers, period — I started out with such classics as One Fish, Two Fish and The Cat in the Hat. While it’s not widely known, however, those books were preceded in the Seuss oeuvre by a short-lived 1935 newspaper strip called Hejji.
Yesterday would have been Theodore Seuss Geisel’s 105th birthday. In honor of the event, Google changed the logo on its homepage to spell out its name in Seuss characters.
Friday the 13th — a fitting day to talk about Coraline.
The movie, directed and written for the screen by Henry Selick, is an infectious romp with some truly spectacular set pieces. Depending on how audiences react to the darker aspects, it’s sure to become either a cult or mass favorite. But very early on came that familiar twinge of kinda wishing I hadn’t read the book.
Written by Neil Gaiman, and the winner of a Hugo among other awards given to science-fiction, horror, or fantasy works, Coraline the book was good. The problem is that, as prose fiction will do, it calls heavily upon the reader’s imagination to illustrate Coraline’s worlds, aided by Dave McKean’s cover and occasional black-&-white interior art. Gaiman and McKean broke into the American comics market together over 20 years ago with Black Orchid for DC, and McKean produced covers for Gaiman’s landmark series The Sandman.
