Monthly Archives: June 2012

The Great Newspaper Comics Challenge Part 17

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Here’s our regular look at what’s funny in today’s newspaper comics pages. Because nobody wants to hear Charlie Brown scream “AAUGH!” again.

“Classic Peanuts” has one for anyone old enough to remember the kind of skates you strapped onto the bottom of your street shoes. Sally Brown straps them on and then watches as Linus, Snoopy and others whiz by on skateboards. “I feel old-fashioned!” Sally says. I think mild chagrin music would be appropriate here.

Wait, it’s Father’s Day! “Zits” starts things off with the teen son emphasizing that he bought a present for his dad with his own money. “It’s not the gift, it’s the context that counts,” he says.

Ants Go Marching One By One in “Garfield,” and they’re all carrying birthday candles. Garfield thinks he’s hallucinating. Good stuff.

From the “tell me about it” department: In “The Wizard of Id,” a serf kid tells his teacher that his dad helped with his homework. The kid goes home and tells Dad that the teacher said he should be in a remedial class.

Funny “Curtis.” Curtis brings his dad a pizza for Father’s Day and slowly works his way up to asking, “Dad, is mom the only woman you’ve ever loved?” “Think I’ll finish my slice in my bedroom,” Dad says from outside the final panel. It’s the slow build that makes this work.

In “Blondie,” the family gives Dagwood a black velvet painting of Giada DeLaurentiis, Emeril Lagasse and other chefs playing poker. Brought to you by Food Network.

“Beetle Bailey’s” life flashes before his eyes, and this time it’s not because Sarge is beating him to a bloody pulp. I always appreciate the “Beetle” strips that show Beetle in that cool cat college hat he used to wear.

Okay, “Dennis the Menace” made me laugh. Dad tells Dennis that the best Father’s Day present he can give is for Dennis to obey his mother, keep his room clean, mind his manners and stay out of Mr. Wilson’s hair. “Sorry Dad, you’re too late,” Dennis says. “I already got you a tie.”

You just know we couldn’t wrap up Father’s Day without a visit to “The Family Circus.” The kids and pets give Dad ties and other traditional gifts and ask which he liked best. Dad pictures hugging all the kids. But what about the pets, Barfy and Sam and Kittycat? WHAT ABOUT THEM?

 

Watch and worry: World War Z, Robopocalypse and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

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There’s a special feeling of dread among some of us when our favorite books get adapted into movies.

How many times have we been disappointed when books we loved were turned into mediocre movies? Sure the books are still there, untouched — with the exception of maybe a new cover for marketing purposes — and ready to read again and again. But a stinker of a movie adaptation puts a cloud over the original book, at least in my mind. Can’t help it.

So it’s with varying mixtures of excitement and dread — I’m looking at  you, Brad Pitt — that I’m anticipating these three movie adaptations of some recent favorite books.

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” comes out Friday (June 22) and I don’t have any real reason to worry that the movie, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Seth Grahame-Smith, the author of the novel, will be anything but good.

But I’m a little worried about the public and critical reaction to the movie.

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is a terrific book, a serious-minded fantasy that postulates the 16th president as a vampire-slaying action hero from an early age. The book details how Lincoln, spurred on by the death of his mother at the hands of a vampire, dedicates his life to slaying them. He has help on his quest from a mysterious mentor and soon discovers that vampires are closely allied to Confederate forces and slavery is feeding the vampire plague (literally).

But like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “AL:VH” has a facetious-sounding title that is as likely to inspire snickers as interest. I’m hoping for the best that the movie plays it as straight as the book.

Further into the future comes the movie adaptation of “Robopocalypse,” Daniel H. Wilson’s 2011 science fiction novel about the rise of artificial intelligence and the threat it poses to humanity.

Wilson’s book takes readers from the early days of AI self-awareness to the final battle, on the tundra of the frozen north, that saves humanity. It’s a fantastic story – in every sense of the word — but Wilson makes it all seem perfectly believable.

Director Steven Spielberg is supposedly in line to film “Robopocalypse” for release some time in the next couple of years.

“Robopocalypse” has the kind of plot and reader-friendly narrator that Max Brooks’ novel “World War Z” does not.

While “World War Z” is one of my favorite recent science fiction/horror novels, it only takes one reading to understand that it might be hard to film. It is an episodic story that rarely repeats characters and flashes from place to place on the globe, telling the story of how the planet is overrun by zombies and how humans fight back.

“World War Z” is a clever and exciting read and, considering the popularity of zombie fiction right now (especially “The Walking Dead”), is probably a natural for a big-screen adaptation.

But early on in the making of the movie, directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt, warning signs started going off.

First of all, the episodic nature of the book left no room for a character like the one Pitt plays. If the book was faithfully adapted, no character would have more than a few minutes on screen, as his or her story unfolded.

Then suggestions of the movie’s plot — a race against time around the world to stop a zombie apocalypse — made it clear that the movie’s story had little to do with the book.

Now the movie has been pushed back from a December 2012 release to summer 2013, writer Damon Lindloff (“Lost”) has been brought in to rewrite portions of the script with an eye toward re-filming portions of the movie, the bulk of which has already been shot.

Of course, this means that the budget is ballooning.

I’m hopeful that the makers of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” will get it right. We’ll know soon, anyway. We won’t know until 2013 how badly “World War Z” is screwed up (because I’m increasingly certain that it will be). And we’ll see how Spielberg does with “Robopocalypse.”

Not a professional photographer: Shapes and angles

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I like taking pictures, with my iPhone and my digital camera, although I don’t have really expensive equipment or much formal training.

I love taking pictures of lonely spots, places only sparsely populated at the time I’m there, and among my favorite pictures in those moments are those that emphasize angles and shapes, either architectural or natural or created by light and shadow.

One of my favorite photo opportunities came during a 2009 tour of the former BorgWarner automotive plant here in Muncie, Indiana. The plant had closed just a few months before and equipment, tools and other bits and pieces of the plant’s history were being sold off.

The photo above is one of my favorites, of the cavernous interior of the million-square-foot plant.

Above is a selection of fans that, for decades, cooled workers in the stifling factory.

Another work-related assignment led me to take pictures in the soon-to-be-renovated Canopic Apartments in downtown Muncie. I was really intrigued by the light well at the center of the apartment building.

Nature-made shapes can be cool. (Heh.)

Then there’s the modern-style stained glass windows at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Louisville.

Lastly, two photos I took today with my iPhone.

They’re of the bell tower at Ball State University here in Muncie.

‘Dallas’ returns in fine form

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JR Ewing is back and he’s sportin’ some damn fine eyebrows.

More importantly, below those tangled white brows is a gleam in Larry Hagman’s eye. In tonight’s premiere of the “Dallas” continuation on TNT, Hagman returned as Texas bidnessman JR Ewing. He began the episode in a nursing home — faking out family members — cast off his walker and ended the two-hour premiere by finding out his son, John Ross, is double-crossing his own efforts to double-cross brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy), in his efforts to seize control of Southfork Ranch, the family stronghold.

The show was really pretty fun. Some quick impressions:

Hagman and Duffy were, as before, the focus of the show.

Linda Gray had some good scenes as Sue Ellen, but unless the character starts hitting the bottle again, she’s gonna need some beefier plot lines.

I didn’t mind the younger generation of Ewings — JR’s son John Ross, Bobby’s son Christopher, Christopher’s new wife Rebecca and Elena, the maid’s daughter who is the object of affection of both cousins — nearly as much as I might have.

John Ross’ wispy little beard-substitute really should go.

We need more Ewing family members. We had cameos from Ray (Steve Kanaly) and Lucy (Charlene Tilton) tonight, but we need bigger roles for them and others, including “Knots Landing” brother Gary and his wife, Val.

Cliff Barnes got name-dropped, but hasn’t shown up. Yet.

Christopher’s new wife, Rebecca, has a brother, Tommy, who just happened to drift into town before the wedding. Of course, Tommy is up to no good. Good soap stuff here.

We really need video/pictures of the cast in the credits. If you’re gonna continue the series and even have a minor variation on them, we need to see the cast in the credits.

The new “Dallas” is fun stuff. I’ll watch again next week.

Merle’s back on ‘The Walking Dead’ — let’s give him a big hand!

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Say, that guy in the truck looks awfully familiar.

A couple of websites, including The Walking Dead News, posted this photo today of actor Michael Rooker as Merle from the set of the third season of “The Walking Dead.”

(Ah, the interwebs. We love you.)

Last time we saw Rooker as Merle he was preparing to chop off his own hand to escape walkers after being left stranded by the good guys on an Atlanta rooftop in the first season of “The Walking Dead.” That’s if you don’t count his appearance in his brother Daryl’s fever dream in the second season.

Fans of the show have been waiting for Merle’s return ever since, so today’s photo is good news for the upcoming third season, which begins in October.

A couple of other notes from the photo:

Merle’s got a new toy. Check out the spot where Merle’s hand used to be. It’s a sword, or a hook, or a machete. Something pointy, anyway. Good for killing zombies. Or whatever.

Is that the Governor’s truck? A couple of websites theorized that Merle is working for the Governor (David Morrisey), the Big Bad for the upcoming season.

Same truck?

We’ll see sooner or later.

iPhoneography: Cammack, Indiana

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The town of Cammack was typical of many Indiana towns of its size. Life once revolved around a bustling rail line and grain elevator that served farmers in the area. A small downtown catered to the needs of farm families.

While the town has changed, time — and redevelopment — have been kinder to Cammack, in Delaware County west of Muncie, than many other towns.

While the grain elevator has fallen into ruin and the only rail line through the town carries freight trains that no longer stop, Cammack’s population hasn’t deserted the community. A good percentage of the relatively small population remains. A handful of businesses still operate and the American Legion post is still busy.

And recent efforts by developers to build new but historically accurate housing in the town have resulted in some beautiful houses.

At the center of town, the former grocery store and gas station has been remodeled into a restaurant and the former hardware store has businesses in its storefronts.

Here are some iPhone photos of Cammack from June 2012.

Above is the grain elevator, the focal point of the town but no longer in use. The wall of one section has collapsed/been knocked down.

The grain elevator’s tower in shadow looks kind of ominous.

Less so when well-lighted.

Rail lines served the grain elevator and conjure up an image of Indiana that’s familiar but endearing.

This rail siding isn’t used anymore, obviously, and is barely visible through weeds and other growth.

Several colorful tractors sit near the town’s center, emphasizing the area’s long agricultural history.

Cammack Station, the town’s relatively new and busy restaurant, is decorated with vintage advertising signs.

‘Mad Men’ ends strong season with low-key ‘The Phantom’

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If the fifth season of “Mad Men” wasn’t its strongest, it was certainly one of the strongest, with Don and Megan hitting more than a few bumps on the road to domestic bliss even while Don coasted at the office, Sally struggling her way into her teenage years, Roger floundering, Peggy finding the strength to move on, Joan literally prostituting herself for the ad business, Lane meeting a tragic but inevitable end and Pete becoming even less likable, if that’s possible.

Yeah, “Mad Men” has had a busy 13 episodes.

That’s what makes Sunday night’s season finale, “The Phantom,” seem even more anti-climactic.

A day after watching the episode, I’m hard-pressed to remember what happened, right up until the end, when Don got Megan a part in a TV commercial then wandered into a bar, where he was propositioned by a young woman. We don’t hear Don’s answer. This was the season when Don choked his philandering tendencies to death in an especially memorable dream. But is he still feeling that conflicted, I wonder?

After the previous episode, in which Lane hanged himself to escape disgrace over his financial improprieties, this week seemed kind of forced and lackluster.

Pete’s little friend Beth got shock therapy.

Roger, maybe still trying to recover the high he felt when he took LSD, got buck naked in front of a hotel window.

Don and Peggy were briefly reunited at a movie theater playing “Casino Royale.” (Was it just me, or did anyone else feel uncomfortable, remembering the last time we saw Peggy in a theater?)

Pete got punched a couple of times — neither time as effectively as the whipping Lane administered earlier this season — but got an okay from his wife to get his apartment in the city.

Megan double-crossed her friend and won the TV commercial.

And the remaining partners, buoyed by the success of the firm, ended the episode looking out the windows of the floor upstairs from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, contemplating future office space and their future.

That’s about it.

I really enjoyed this season’s “Mad Men” and its emphasis on the desperation of its characters played out against a background of the most jarring news of the day. Despite the lackluster season finale, the show remains one of the best and most absorbing on TV.

 

New ‘Dallas’ series: What we want to see

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For the better part of the 1980s, my friends and I would get together on Friday nights for dinner and a movie. It wasn’t unheard of for us to see a movie during the afternoon or evening, sometimes at a local drive-in theater, then see another at a midnight show.

But we always carved an hour out of our Friday nights for “Dallas.”

It might seem strange, a group of 20-something movie, sci-fi and comic book geeks calling a halt to everything else for an hour to tune into CBS to watch a night-time soap.

But “Dallas,” like any good TV show, became a viewing ritual for us. The show began with a limited season in 1978 and lasted until 1991, when, I have to admit, I was no longer regularly watching. But during the prime years, including the third season, which climaxed with the “Who Shot J.R.” cliffhanger, and the eighth season, which was later revealed to be Pam’s dream that Bobby had been killed, you couldn’t budge me from in front of the TV.

A couple of TV-movie sequels and a failed attempt at a big-screen movie — John Travolta as J.R.? No. Just no. — didn’t seem nearly as promising as TNT’s continuation of the series, which debuts Wednesday.

Larry Hagman is back as J.R., along with Patrick Duffy as Bobby Ewing and Linda Gray as Sue Ellen. There are some new characters too, including the grown-up versions of Ewing offspring Christopher and John Ross.

I’ll be watching Wednesday night. And here are five things I’m really hoping to see on the new “Dallas:”

A robust J.R. Larry Hagman is in his 80s, for goodness sake, and his eyebrows look like the tangled back-country brush on Southfork Ranch after an unexpected Texas frost. I’ve seen Hagman in a few clips and interviews and he looks pretty good. But what the new “Dallas” really needs is a vigorous, conniving, gleefully evil J.R. I’m hoping that Hagman is up to it and still has that wonderful malevolent twinkle.

Drinking. Lots of drinking. If you think the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce ad execs drink a lot, you didn’t watch “Dallas.” Every time a Ewing would walk into the family room at Southfork Ranch, he or she would make a stop at the bar cart and pour a scotch. Drinking was such a part of the show that, when I visited friends in Canada in 1984, everybody up there expected me to drink “Bourbon and branch.”

A trip to the Cattlemen’s Club. J.R. and the rest of the Ewings frequently had lunch at this upscale eatery in downtown Dallas. It became a joking reference for my friends and me. We’ve got to have at least one visit to the Cattlemen’s Club this season.

Southfork Ranch. I want to see the new show roam all over the Ewings’ sprawling spread, from the remote oil fields — kept as nostalgia pieces by the family — to the pastures where cattle grazed to the barns and haylofts where Lucy once tussled.

Visits from lots of familiar faces. I’ve heard that Charlene Tilton might return as Lucy Ewing Cooper and Steve Kanaly could show up as Ray Krebbs. I really want to see Indiana’s own Ken Kercheval as J.R.’s antagonist Cliff Barnes. And why not bring back, at least in some form, other favorites like Carter McKay and Jenna Wade?

Lots of nostalgia. I want to hear a lot of references to Miss Ellie and Jock. I want to see that portrait of Jock in the family room. I want somebody, somebody, to make a reference to J.R. getting shot before this first season is out.

Then I’ll know we’re back in “Dallas.”

 

The Great Newspaper Comics Challenge Part 16

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Hey kids! It’s our recurring look at what’s funny (or not) in today’s funny pages. Cause “Tarzan and the Fire Gods” certainly wasn’t the high point of the newspaper comic reading experience, was it?

“Classic Peanuts” looks, at first glance, to be some kind of cruel joke about the visually impaired. Lucy walks around wearing dark, dark sunglasses, bumping into a fence, tree and finally Charlie Brown on the pitcher’s mound. “Take off those stupid glasses!” He yells. “But I just had an eye exam and my pupils are still dilated!” Lucy shoots back. Not really.

“Zits” has another of those odd ones in which the online activities of teen Jeremy are seemingly manifested in real life. The phrase “mind-groping” is used. This one is a PG-13 strip.

In “Baby Blues,” Dad has to take the kids to the pool. “Why can’t we just get clean in the bathtub like other kids?” Zoe asks. The whole thing makes me wonder: Who is misunderstanding the nature of public pools, Zoe or Dad?

Okay, “Pickles” made me laugh. The old guys are standing in the yard, looking at a tree. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to get any apples off this tree again this year.” They talk about how five years have passed without apples and how “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.” The frost might have killed early blossoms. Also: “Plus, we think it might be a plum tree.” Good stuff.

In “The Wizard of Id,” the Wizard’s wife is trimming a tree that’s saying things like “Ouch.” It’s a tree with a face! It talks! Like those trees in “The Wizard of Oz!” Is there a vegetable-rights equivalent of PETA?

“Speed Bump” shows two eight balls talking. “Magic? No, I prefer the term ‘consultant,'” one says.

“Curtis” is excited about the new crop of summer movies and his Dad seems to be too. Then Dad wanders off to bed. “I didn’t catch on to the sarcasm until it was too late,” Curtis says.

And finally, “The Family Circus” settles in to watch TV. But everybody is talking, talking, talking. “Turn up the volume, Daddy — there’s too much talkin’ going on ’round here.” Out of the mouths of couch potatoes!

 

 

Superhero animation gets no respect on TV

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If you’re a fan of “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” on Disney XD … well, let’s hope you didn’t get too invested in the show.

News began leaking out in recent days that Disney/Marvel has canceled the series – only part-way through its second season — and will replace it with a new series, “Marvel’s Avengers Assemble” in 2013.

It’s not surprising, of course, that Disney/Marvel would like to have an animated series on the air that capitalize on the success of the big-screen “Avengers” movie. What’s confusing is that they already have that, with “A:EMH,” yet they’re flushing the show.

If you haven’t seen it — and I haven’t seen any of season two, not having Disney XD on my cable dial, but I’ve seen all the first-season episodes on DVD — “A:EMH” is a densely-plotted and populated take on the classic “Avengers” comics. Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Panther and others take on bad guys ranging from Asgardians to home-grown baddies to invading aliens.

It’s a show that has been quite deliberate in its setting-up of its story arcs, taking several episodes to get all the characters together in NYC. It hasn’t been afraid to take its time with stories, devoting two or more episodes sometimes to a plot.

Which might be part of the problem.

Various websites have noted that Disney/Marvel want more accessible series with more jumping-in points. That might mean more standalone stories.

It definitely means a cast that is pattered after the one in Joss Whedon’s movie. So in the switch to a new series, Black Panther, Ant-Man and Wasp are gone, Black Widow is in and Hawkeye loses his classic purple mask.

This whole thing would be less frustrating to fans if it didn’t seem so familiar: After long runs on Warner Bros.-related TV networks, classic 1990s animated series like “Batman,” “Superman” and “Batman Beyond” were continued in the 2000s in “Justice League” and “Justice League Unlimited” on Cartoon Network.

Yet the WB-owned Cartoon Network repeatedly started and stopped airing the two series. Months would go by without a new episode. “Justice League” ended abruptly, only to be replaced by the better, in my opinion, “Unlimited” series, but that one bounced around the Cartoon Network schedule, disappearing for weeks or months, before finally falling by the wayside.

There are a number of reasons for this, including regime changes at studios and the apparent belief on the part of executives that viewers (many of them young, but many of them older geeks thrilled to see faithful treatment of classic characters like Batman and Captain America as well as animated versions of obscure characters like Blue Beetle) are restless and crave change. That’s why “Justice League” was retooled and it’s probably why “Young Justice,” currently airing on Cartoon Network, looks so different (new cast members and an apparent time shift) in its second season. Heck, the show even has something of a new name, “Young Justice: Invasion.”

I’m convinced there’s an audience out there for a weekly animated series based on classic comic book characters and stories.

I’m equally convinced that once a show has hit its stride, viewers will embrace it rather than push it away.

If given the chance, that is.