I Read Comics: Show 86

I Read Comics, show number 86.

In case you didn't know it, Stan Lee is on Twitter.

And I think it just goes to show where Twitter has reached to, that Stan Lee should be on Twitter.

And, of course, when I found out that SmilinStanLee, which is his Twitter handle, was on Twitter, I immediately started following him.

And the coolest thing about it is that I think he and Twitter were pretty much made for each other.

Because if you look back at what he used to write for Stan's Soapbox and all his comments,

and even his editorial comments within the scripts of the comic books, those little boxes at the bottom where he would put some comment in, they were like tweets.

So he's been doing this since 1964.

And now he's just doing it to his, you know, gazillion followers.

In fact, let me check to see how many followers he has today as I'm recording this.

Okay, he's got almost 17,000 people following him on Twitter.

And I think he's hilarious.

And plus, he actually signs off.

Some of his tweets with Excelsior, which is just too funny to me.

I mean, it's the same way that Shatner signs off his tweets with My Best Bill, which is now, like, my joke for everything.

But, yeah, Stan Lee actually signs his tweets with Excelsior.

What could be better than that?

So I encourage you to go and follow Stan Lee on Twitter.

And I've become so obsessed with his tweets that I've actually started recording them and posting them as audio boos.

Because the guys on QPAW, on the Quiet Panelologists at Work podcast, had done at least one sketch.

I think they've done several about Stan Lee in their impression of how he talks in this sort of old man voice with this very heavy New York accent.

And he's always spouting off ideas and saying, Excelsior, all the time.

And whenever I read his tweets now, I have the QPAW voice of Stan Lee in my mind.

So I decided to read his tweets.

For my own amusement, basically, but if other people are amused by it, that's good.

And, you know, it's kind of gotten to the point where I don't really care if other people think it's funny.

I think it's funny.

So I do it to crack myself up.

So you can hear me read Stan Lee's wonderful tweets in my fake Stan Lee voice and enjoy them because it's really, really amusing.

And occasionally he does tell stories.

Whether they're true or not is a completely different matter.

But he does tell stories.

And you can...

You can find out what the hell he's doing because I was kind of wondering what he's up to.

Besides his cameo appearances in Marvel movies and writing introductions to other people's books,

he's still writing comics and coming up with new ideas about whatever enters into his crazy old head.

So there you go.

Oh, and he said he was going to record another thing.

Oh, for Kevin Smith.

That was it.

He tweeted this the other day.

You know, last year he read The Raven for Halloween.

And I had put that here on the iRead.com.

Because I thought it was so good.

And he says this year he's going to read, I think, The Night Before Christmas.

So that should be fun.

And if he does, I will certainly post the audio of that for you all to listen to.

Because it was great.

Didn't make it to APE this year.

Too much going on.

My mom was in the hospital.

She's fine.

But it meant a whole month of kind of running around and doing things.

And, of course, it was that weekend that APE was happening.

So what the hell.

I couldn't go.

Damn it.

But I am going to go to WonderCon next year.

For sure.

And what I did end up going to my night off was Wootstock in San Francisco.

Which was a whole lot of fun.

It was hosted by Will Wheaton and Paul and Storm, who are very funny musicians.

And Adam Savage was there and gave a great presentation about his hundred wishes.

Casper Hauser was there.

They did comedy.

There were lots of other people there.

Short films.

It was pretty much a geek fest.

And I enjoyed it very much.

So if they do Wootstock version 2.0, I encourage you to go see it.

A couple other newsy things that I just wanted to get out of the way.

I've been doing 52 songs on Mondays, mostly on Mondays, picking out things from my giant

record collection that I think people might want to hear.

And a couple weeks ago, I put up a full piece of one of the beautiful, beautiful Ginger

Mayerson compositions that you often hear in this show.

In fact, you'll hear one right after I get done with this segment.

Because I love her music.

And she's finally got all of it on a CD.

That you can buy.

Which is beautifully packaged.

It has one of her collages on the front and then inside on the disc.

And all of the art and packaging was done by Brad Rader, who we love.

So if you like her music, if you like the little parts of it that you've heard on this

show, I encourage you to go and buy the CD.

Because the money could not be going to a better cause.

And I think you will like it.

It's really good quality music.

And it makes you think.

I know that sounds weird.

But it really does make you think.

So go listen to that.

And, you know, let me know if you like the 52 songs.

I've been picking out loads of different things.

Some new stuff.

Some old stuff.

There's a lot of stuff I have that I need to convert to digital format.

Because it's only on vinyl.

Or it's only on cassette tape.

So I have to do that.

But I'm having a good time going through music.

And the emails that I've gotten so far have said, yeah, it's good.

Keep doing it.

I was also on another podcast.

The guys who do the Uncanny X-Cast decided to...

To start, maybe, a panel discussion.

Which they're calling Inside the Panel, I think.

And they had me and Ron from iFanboy and Louis Kwok.

And, oh gosh, I'm totally blanking on the whole cast there.

Oh, Brian from the X-Cast.

And it was really fun.

So they told us that they were going to do it with points, right?

And the people on the panel who were participating

had absolutely no fucking idea

how they were scoring these things.

So as we're going along, we're taking breaks

and we're all complaining and saying,

how are you scoring this?

And then I was shocked to find out

that me and Ron actually tied at the end.

Because I was just kind of talking nonsense

and giving opinions where I thought I actually had them.

But mostly talking nonsense, like I do.

So there you go.

But they're supposed to do it again.

And I said I would love to be on it again

because it was pretty much fun.

And so if you haven't listened to it,

go and give a listen.

There was a whole bunch of different topics

that we talked about, including old stuff and new stuff

and whether Peter David is a hypocrite

and bagging and boarding and all sorts of things like that.

But it was really fun.

I put the link for it at my blog,

at the iReadComics blog.

Let's see.

Oh, and one other thing.

You know, I have, through my dear friend, Ginger Magerson,

I've been writing various things

for the different things from the Wapshot Press.

Which I love the name of.

And the newest thing that has just been published

is a collection of smut.

And it's called Erotique.

And I have a story in it.

And it's a het story.

And I think it's a cute story called Oh Margaret.

And it actually should be Oh Margaret,

the way Bugs Bunny used to say it.

So I wrote it quite a while ago.

And it never really found a home.

I submitted it to a couple other places for publishing.

And then I stopped doing that because I got bored with it.

But then when Ginger said,

she had this new thing,

I said, oh, I've got a perfect story for you.

So it's good.

And the other stories are good as well.

And it has a beautiful, beautiful cover

by Carl Christian, who is the Byron guy.

So I would encourage you to buy that

if you like that kind of thing.

It's only $4.50 until December 1st.

And then it goes up to $6.50.

What a bargain for the kind of smutty writing

that you'll get in there.

So on to the reviews.

And let's keep going with the smut

as long as I'm talking about the smut.

Wonderful, wonderful.

Dale Lazaroff sent me a galley,

a PDF galley of his new book, Nightlife,

which is another compilation of wordless,

short, smutty, gay stories.

And it's beautiful.

He sent it to me a while ago.

And I felt like a jerk for not getting around to it.

I mean, of course, I read it as soon as I got it.

And I said, ooh, this is good.

But I just hadn't gotten around to talking about it on the show.

So it's available now.

It's out now through Amazon.

So Nightlife by Dale Lazaroff.

And the artist here is Bastian Johnson.

And it's beautiful color.

It has three separate stories in it.

And like the other collection of his work, Manly,

which was drawn by Amy Colburn,

it's a really nice collection of fun,

really hot, smutty, gay comics.

And as with the other collection,

with the Manly collection, there's no dialogue.

It's all silent.

So every story has to be told just through,

through the scenes and what the characters are doing.

And there are little stories that go along with each one of them.

Of course, most of it is sex.

And the sex is really hot.

But there are nice little stories,

especially in the last story.

So like the other stories in Manly,

the really great things are that

you see a variety of different guys,

different ethnicities, different body types.

Of course, they're all really hot.

And of course, they have big cocks, which is great.

But some of them are older.

Some of them are younger.

Some of them are white.

A lot of them are not white.

They look like they're from different socioeconomic classes,

which is always good.

So it's really nice to see a mix of people like that.

And there's lots of safe sex, which is good.

So lots of condoms to be found.

The very first story that's in here

has some dildo play in it,

which is kind of neat to see.

And as I was reading this,

I was thinking about something I said to Logan the other day.

So I'll give Logan a quick plug for his blog,

loganotron.com.

He blogs a lot because he's younger than me

and he has the energy for it.

But he usually does on Wednesdays

what he calls hump day hotness,

which are pictures that he finds of really hot guys,

usually gay, but not always.

And he likes to put up as many as he can find.

So I love his hump day hotness posts

because they're hot and I like looking at those guys.

But we were both agreeing

that two things that they need more of

in pictures of hot guys,

and in porn in general,

straight porn, gay porn,

is more guys with hairy chests

because we're really both tired of the shaved chest thing

just over it now.

And people smiling and having fun.

Everybody in the hot pictures,

they're always pouting

or they look like they're angry about something

or they look like they have a stick up their butt.

And I don't mean that in a good way.

But why do they look so pissed off all the time?

Is that supposed to be hot?

Is that supposed to turn you on

that somebody looks like

they're in a bad mood?

It doesn't work for me, that's for sure.

And in Dale's nightlife stories,

the guys look like they're really having fun.

They're making out with each other

and they're smiling and they're laughing

and they're cuddling

and they just really look like

they're having a good time.

You know, I'm as much a fan of angsty sex

as anybody else,

but it is really refreshing

to see good looking guys

looking like they're having a good time

having sex.

So that is probably the best thing

about this collection.

Yay for having fun having sex.

They look playful.

They look like sex is a good thing

and not angsty.

Enough, enough angst.

So, yes, these little stories

are all really good.

Like I said, lots of safe sex,

lots of fun stuff that happens in them.

Interesting background in a lot of them.

You see different people.

The other thing, too, about these stories,

and I find the same thing is true

mostly of the same people,

the Steve McIsaac stories, too,

is that, again, not angsty.

The gay guys are happy being gay.

They're not hiding it.

In fact, guys in these stories

make out on the street.

They're making out on the subway.

You know, it's just like,

hey, we're gay and that's it.

And it doesn't matter.

And it's not like a secret

and it's not like something to be ashamed of.

And boy, that's nice to see also.

So, to get to the last story,

because I thought that one

had a really nice story arc to it.

And it made me laugh a little bit

because, and this story is called,

let me tell you,

Closing Time.

Okay, they do have titles.

It starts off in a nightclub

that's a church.

And it clearly is supposed to be

the limelight in New York.

Here it's called Salvation.

But it made me laugh because, you know,

when I lived on the East Coast,

I went there and we always called it

the slime light.

And I don't know why people

really like going there.

It was really loud and cold

and the acoustics weren't good.

So anyway, it takes place at this club

and the two main characters

are the bouncer, who's an older guy,

and then a younger punky guy

who's really big and built

and he has a mohawk.

And you don't find out until about

a third of the way into a story

that he's actually wearing

a leather jacket

and then hot pants and fishnet

tights and army boots.

And it looks, it's funny.

It's a hot, but it's still,

it was very incongruous to me.

I was like, oh, he's wearing

fishnet stockings.

So he obviously got a thing

for dressing up.

And he leaves this club

with another guy

and then they get hassled

by some assholes

and the bouncer comes to the rescue

with a baseball bat.

So that's good.

And then the two of them

end up together

and end up going to

punk guy's apartment,

which is a shithole.

And they,

they do a little bit of dress up

and then they have really,

really hot sex.

And the older dude

is not a daddy in that way.

He's not a total top.

They both take turns

in different positions

and fucking each other

in different ways.

And at the end of it,

there's lots and lots of cuddling.

And then the very last panel

on that one is the two of them

in the kitchen in the morning.

And it's not clear

whose kitchen it is.

It's, it's one of theirs

and they're just sitting there

reading the paper,

drinking coffee.

Looks like maybe

they're living together

at that point.

And it's really nice.

All these three stories

have happy endings.

And it's so nice

to see happy endings.

I don't know if you can tell,

but I'm really smiling

as I'm talking about this.

And I love the fact that

this kind of porn

can make me smile

and feel so happy about it

and not be all angsty.

So as with all of

Dale Lazaro's work,

highly, highly recommend this.

And the art is beautiful too.

I was not familiar

with this particular artist,

Bastion Johnson.

Let me flip to the end

and see what it says about him.

And then I can tell you

what the hell he's done.

I'll make it even

a little bit bigger.

It's kind of nice looking at it

on a PDF like this.

He's a self-taught comic artist,

illustrator and graphic designer

and lifelong comics addict.

Well, aren't we all?

He lives and works

in a very small town

nestled in the endless

moose infested forests

of rural,

Sweden on the border

with Norway

with his sweet,

long-suffering

veterinary boyfriend,

one extremely spoiled

German shepherd

and far, far too many horses.

It's his first

full-length book.

His art also appears

in Stripped, Uncensored.

A sporadically updated

illustrated blog

can be found at

boytoygraphics.com.

So there you go.

So, yay, nightlife.

Woo!

Okay, I am going to

take a break

in a moment.

But first,

I want to ask a question.

And tell you,

well, I'll tell you

about this book

that I got.

I went to the library

and I was looking

at the new stuff

and I see this book

by Brian Cronin

called

Was Superman a Spy?

and other comic legends

revealed.

So I look in the front

and it says

he's the writer

and producer

of Comics Should Be Good.

Oh, I know

Comics Should Be Good.

It's that blog

where he talks about

comic urban legends.

So what he did

was he took all of that stuff

and he made a book out of it.

It's pretty good.

I had read

a lot of this stuff

before on his blog.

But I think he found

a nice way

to kind of stitch it up

into a book

and not make it seem

too choppy.

It's basically divided

into Marvel and DC.

And he goes through

a lot of urban legends

but also kind of

a history of the comics.

A lot of focus

on the big characters

at each one.

So there's

chapter on Superman,

chapter on Batman,

and then chapter

on Spider-Man,

chapter on Fantastic Four.

So it's really good.

And I think

it's a good book

for people maybe

who aren't that

into comics.

To give them

a lot of background.

If you're interested

in that sort of thing.

I kind of think

that if you are

a real comics

nerd,

fanatic,

geek,

you might know

a lot of it.

But there might be

a couple of gems in there.

So,

good book.

And it's a nice

paperback-y size.

And it's got

cute illustrations too.

But here's the thing.

So I was reading

through the Marvel chapters

and here's a section

on Mark Grunewald.

He was a beloved

editor and writer

at Marvel Comics

for many years.

He wrote for

Captain America.

But the work

that he was most proud

of at Marvel

was Squadron Supreme.

Note,

I never heard

of Squadron Supreme.

Created by

Roy Thomas

as a joke

between Thomas,

then writer

of The Avengers,

and Denny O'Neill,

then writer

of DC's Justice League,

the Squadron was made up

of analogs

to DC's Justice League.

Hyperion was Superman,

Nighthawk was Batman,

Power Princess

was Wonder Woman,

etc.

The Squadron Supreme

lived on an alternate Earth.

In 1985,

Grunewald did

a 12-issue series

detailing

what happened

when the Squadron Supreme

decided to use

their powers

to fix our Earth

by taking it

over themselves.

It was a brilliant look

at the realistic

demonstration

of what superheroes

could do

in the real world

and whether it was

something that would

be at all beneficial

for society.

A benevolent tyranny

is still tyranny.

This series

is well remembered

as one of the first

serious comics

and Alan Moore's

classic series

Watchmen,

which began the next year,

is similar in scope.

So,

never heard of

Squadron Supreme

and I went,

oh,

you know,

I'd like to read that

and then I was going

through a box of books

and,

fuck,

here's the Squadron Supreme

trade paperback,

which I think

David Arroyo

sent to me.

So, David,

I'm really sorry

that I never thanked you

for Squadron Supreme before,

but now I'm going to say

thank you

because I really

wanted to read it

and it, like,

appeared by magic

in my hands

and it's got an

Alex Ross cover,

which is really good.

So, my question

to you guys,

I haven't read it yet,

is,

is it good?

Is it what

Brian Cronin thinks it is?

Is it really,

like,

Watchmen before Watchmen

or what?

I can't tell

by looking at it

except that the art

is really kind of pretty

and the trade paperback

format seems kind of neat.

I'm a little disturbed

because there's a

pregnant woman

on the front

who has really,

really,

really big hair

and then there's

another woman

who I guess is

Power Princess

who is weirdly

disproportionate.

Like,

her top half

is really big

and her bottom half

is really big.

Her bottom half

is really strong

and, you know,

Alex Ross is usually

better than that.

So, I couldn't quite tell

what's going on.

But anyway,

I'm excited to read

Squadron Supreme

so if people have

opinions about

Squadron Supreme,

I would really like

to hear it

before I get into it

and believe me,

I will take your

opinion seriously

and if I disagree

with you,

you know,

then let's talk

because I'd like to know.

Okay,

quick break

and then I want to

talk about this

stupid Jason book

and tell you why

I don't think

it's any good.

So, let's get started.

Okay,

let me tell you

a happy thing

before we do

the Jason book.

Chris Wisnia,

my good friend

Chris Wisnia,

who is now

with Slave Labor Graphics,

yay,

has an illustration

in the new issue

of Skeptic Magazine.

He did the cover

for Junior Skeptic

and it's awesome.

It's very much

in the Doris Danger vein

and there's a lake monster

coming up out of the lake

and terrorizing a guy

and it's beautiful

and I'm so happy

that he did it

and in my vein

and egotistical way,

I'd like to think

that my introduction

of Chris

to the Point of Inquiry folks

and the skeptical community

got him that job

and probably that's not true

but I'm going to tell myself

that it's true

because, you know,

I'd like to make myself

feel good.

Okay.

So, you know,

I've reviewed a book

by Jason once before

and fuck me

if I can remember

what it was

but I thought it had

some good things in it.

This is his new book

and I saw it advertised

on the Fantagraphics site

because it's published

by Fantagraphics

and I thought,

well, that could be interesting

and they had it at the library

so I got it

and I guess my comment is

I don't get it

and I can't tell

if I don't get it

because,

it's not meant for me to get

and I understand

that some things

are not meant for me to get

like,

I don't know,

the Jonas Brothers.

I don't get the Jonas Brothers

but I don't think

they're aimed at me

so that's okay.

Like, there are some commercials

on TV

that I don't get

and they're not aimed at me

so that's okay.

I don't get Jason

and I think it's because

it appeals to some other demographic

than me.

And it took me

about, I don't know,

20 minutes to read

this whole book.

It's a beautiful book.

It's hardcover.

It's beautifully colored.

Each page has four panels in it

and the reproduction

is really nice

and crisp and clean

and it's printed

on heavy stock

and it's the kind of book

where you pick it up

and you want to like it

because it's so nice.

It's just a beautiful object.

But I don't get it.

It's not funny.

And I went all the way

through it before

I kind of realized

that it was supposed

to be funny.

Okay, there's one funny thing in it

but that's about it.

So there's four stories,

oh sorry,

five stories in here.

The first one's called

Emily Says Hello.

Then there's the one

that's called Low Moon.

Then there's one

that's just Ampersand.

Another one that's

Proto Film Noir

and the other is

You Are Here.

And Jason,

if you don't know who he is,

if you saw his art

you'd know it immediately.

He uses

anthropomorphic animals

that look like animals.

They look a lot like

the barn animals

that used to be

in really, really old

Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons.

They're sort of

unidentifiable

as exactly what kind of animal

they're supposed to be.

Like are they cows

or goats

or something?

And it's just the heads.

Like the bodies

look like

people bodies

and then they all have

bare feet

even though they wear clothes.

So they have

blank eyes also.

They just,

they just have circles for eyes.

There's no actual eyes

for any of them

and they don't talk very much.

And, you know,

he's Norwegian

and maybe that's another thing

that I don't get

that there's some kind of humor there

that's just so dry

or dark

that it's beyond black

that it's into some color spectrum

that I am not familiar with

or maybe it exists

on a parallel world.

I just don't know.

So let me just tell you

about one of the stories.

The first story is called

Emily Says Hello

and it starts off

with a guy

knocks on the door

goes to this woman's apartment.

They're talking a little bit

and we find out

through the dialogue

that the guy

went to the house

of a man

and killed him.

And right before he killed him

he said

Emily says hello

and he took a picture

of the dead guy

and made a recording

of the moment

when he was dead.

And he said to the guy

Emily says hello

and kills him.

So in exchange for this

and we figure

it's the woman

who asked him to do it

she lets him feel her up.

And then he leaves

and she takes the picture

and puts it on the wall.

And then the same thing happens

and the second time

she gives him a pair

of her underwear

and the third time

she gives him a hand job

and then the fourth time

she blows him

and so he's killing these people

and eventually

by the fifth time

he says the cops

are following him

but he killed the guy anyway

and he's you know

cops are following him

up to this woman's apartment

and they're knocking

at the door

and finally he says

who is she?

Who is Emily?

And the woman looks at him

and then she jumps out the window

and she's closing her eyes

and she's kind of

falling in blackness

and in the very last panel

she opens her eyes again.

That's the end of the story.

I don't get it.

There's so many things

that it could be

and okay

I guess maybe

I get the point

that you're supposed to

think of what happened to her

or why she wanted

these guys killed

and was she Emily

or okay.

A little existential.

So then we get to the second one

which is called Low Moon

and it's like a western

except people have cell phones

and there's a bar

and they don't serve liquor there

they only have

it's like a coffee bar

even though it looks like

a real old western bar

and it revolves around

oh it's just like

every western story

where there's a sheriff

and the guy who had to leave town

because something happened

between him and the sheriff

and then he comes back

and they have a showdown

except the showdown in this case

is not with guns

it's playing chess

and then at the end

they're like

the sheriff beats him

and he ends up marrying

the girl that he loves

and the guy that he beat

the outlaw

does he leave town?

I can't even fucking remember

I have to look

no he doesn't leave town

nobody knows what happens to him

but

I can't even follow

the thread of this story

that's the end

that's what happens

nothing else actually happens

in it

except there are some women

who have no roles at all

except to be

either the possessions of the men

or the objects of their desire

and one of them of course

is a prostitute

and has to leave town at the end

presumably for a better life

somewhere else

and then there's another one

that's got like

some parallel story

of guys who can't make themselves happy

and then this other one

oh god

this is the thing

that annoyed me most of all

it's this weird story

about a guy

and you think

it takes place in

you know

prehistoric times

because he's dressed like a caveman

but then he comes to a house

and he has sex with this woman

and then he decides

that he has to kill her husband

and then the whole plot of the story is

every morning

as the two of them are sitting there

the husband comes back

and the guy has to kill him again

and he does this every day

and it goes on

and on

and I can't tell you

how many different times

he kills the guy

in all these different ways

and then he goes to a house

and he has sex with this woman

but it's like

could you beat that joke

into the ground

any further

I mean

it just goes on

and it doesn't get any funnier for me

the more it goes on

it's not like

it builds to hilarity

and the ways that he kills them

don't get funnier

or more imaginative

or crazier

or Bugs Bunny-ish

or anything like that

I mean

he drowns him in a bathtub

he pushes him off a cliff

I don't know

and then the final time

when the husband doesn't show up

the woman clunks him over the head

with a rolling pin

and then the final joke

is that

he gets put in

a cell by the police

with

I can't really tell

it's the husband

or guys who played the husband

or ghosts of the husband

there's a bunch of them

and he says

I knew something like this

was going to happen

okay

was that supposed to be funny?

it wasn't funny

so here's the review

from Publishers Weekly

at Amazon

Low Moon is actually a collection

of five marvelously deadpan

short stories

the expressionless

anthropomorphic animals

who populate his comics

milk understatement

for all the laughs it's worth

they manage to look bored

and detached

even when their brandishing

sores are not

the core of Jason's

breed of humor

is his protracted silences

the uproariously

uncomfortable moments

when his characters

are standing around

waiting for disaster

to strike

they're not uproarious

if you want to talk about

uproariously uncomfortable moments

you know

go watch The Office

the British one

those are uproariously

uncomfortable

these aren't

these are just

jokes with too much

space in between them

they're just

if this stuff was performed live

people would be falling asleep

or walking out

and yeah

the characters do look

bored and detached

and you know what

that made me feel

bored and detached

it's really really hard for me

to connect with characters

in a story

when none of the characters

seems to care about

what's happening

nobody's shocked

nobody's scared

nobody's happy

nobody's joyous

nobody in these stories

is anything

they have desires

and you can't tell

why they act on them

in one of the other stories

a character commits suicide

and nobody cares

and I just find it

really really hard

to care about characters

who don't care about anything

and maybe that's

my main complaint

they're not funny

because

nothing about it

is funny

there's nothing funny

about people

who don't care

funny is when people

care really passionately

about something

and look very silly

when they're doing it

you know

that's comedy

so if somebody

has another theory

as to why Jason

should be funny

and why I'm not getting it

I would really like

to know it

because

I kind of feel stupid

when I don't get something

but

you know

maybe I should just

let it go

just let it go

and say you know

this comic isn't for me

I don't need to get it

I didn't buy it

so I can just

take it back to the library

and let it go

now I'm going to do

something in real time

I'm going to

stop recording this podcast

I'm going to go

watch a movie

and then come back

and talk about it

I still haven't watched

Watchmen

I have the disc

I've had it since I

got it from Amazon

when I pre-ordered it

but I think I'm actually

going to go downstairs

and pop it in

on my beautiful TV

and watch Watchmen

and let you know

what I think

so have a little bit more

wonderful Ginger Mayerson music

and I'll be back in a minute

for a break

you

will hear

I'll be back

come back

you

will hear

I'll be back

you

o

I'll be back

holy god that was a long movie it's now 11 30 apology if i'm a little incoherent but

that was like watching a lord of the rings movie i was watching my dvd with the director's cut

which was three hours long and it felt like three hours whoa it actually felt like reading

watchmen from cover to cover which takes you longer than three hours i'm sure but man oh

i'm so tired um i'm not gonna review it scene by scene because so many people have done that

already i will just give the highlights and a few lowlights it was really good i thought they

did an amazing job zach snyder did an amazing job of taking the enormity the ginormity of

watchmen the the whole thing and bringing it to the screen and as with other adaptations

and referencing lord of the rings again i can see why he changed certain things and i think he was

right to change certain things especially the ending because the squid thing would never have

worked just no uh so i like the way he wrapped that up um it seemed to make sense and it was very

gripping and got them a chance to show off some more really cool special effects which i'm sure

they're gonna steal for that stupid movie 2012 that's coming out um in a couple of weeks so i

like that and i liked some of the other things that he did and i think it's a really good movie

changes that happened along the way and i've been reading um about the differences in the

versions and what the director's cut has that the other ones didn't although i can't kind of

bring it to mind but it felt like just about everything that was in the book was crammed in

there and i mean crammed in there there was a lot of stuff put in there so it was it was really good

um the one you know rorschach there he is on the screen

this time uh and that was an amazing performance by jackie haley but um you know he was more

emotional than i had always seen him in my mind in the book and part of that is the way

his word balloons are drawn in the book that when he's wearing the mask he's to me he always seems

to be speaking in a monotone he never uses any exclamation points i think i pointed this

out once before but his speech is always very even and he often doesn't use um pronouns when

he talks and they carried a lot of that through into the movie but there was definitely more

emotion coming through and maybe they just tried it the other way with him being completely

monotone and pretty much devoid of emotion and found that that didn't work and that

the audience couldn't connect to him at all that way i mean he's a pretty hard character to connect

to anyway

but that probably made him even even less somebody that you could identify with and you have to

identify with him to make any sense of the story because when by the time you get to the end

you have to be with rorschach and saying people need to know the truth you can't be on the other

side with adrian and dr manhattan saying no it's all right for people to live a lie you have to

believe rorschach's point of view and that makes his death all the more tragic

um so i i thought that that was good and um some of the violence was shall i say

cartoony comic booky um especially the scene in prison now i know that i spent a lot of

time complaining about the scene in prison where the fat guy whatever his name is lawrence i guess

is sacrificed so that they can break into rorschach cell to kill him and the way they do it in the

book is that the other um inmate is says oh i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm

who's the in the thrall of big picture just cuts his throat and then they cut into the cell and of

course in the movie here comes the spoiler they cut his arms off to get him out of the way which

was so gross and you know I'm just thinking that they saw that scene in the book and said you know

this doesn't really make any fucking sense and they decided to change it and they went for the

grossest thing possible so that was pretty horrible and you know the amount of violence in it was

pretty high I would say not that it was gratuitous I don't think a lot of it was

gratuitous I think some of it was gratuitous and it for me it a little bit dulled the edge

of the real violence that's supposed to shock you you know when that guy gets his arms cut off

in the prison you have to laugh you go I mean I literally was sitting on my couch going oh no

but I was laughing at the same time because it was just funny and

that makes you react with a lot less horror to actual horrible horrible violence that occurs

throughout the movie also the scene where Adrian is attacked and presumably someone's trying to

assassinate him in the book of course his secretary is shot and in the movie she gets

well in the book she's shot dead and in the movie she gets shot and it's really graphic you know the

bullet goes through her leg and then a couple of her fingers get blown

off oh that was really painful to watch and I felt like that was gratuitous and not only was

it gratuitous but she was very much just there to serve the purpose of being made an example of

let's see what kind of cool effects we can do with violent gory stuff on the screen and in the book

that character serves pretty much no purpose at all except to get shot instead of Adrian and he

deserves her but this was just for me a little over the top you know watching I guess it was

Lee Iacocca who actually got drilled made me laugh also and you know just juxtaposing those two

things I guess I don't know that probably says something about me as a viewer that I would laugh

that Lee Iacocca would get shot right between the eyes and then shot some more but that I feel

really horrible when a woman gets two fingers of her hand blown off in graphic detail blood

spurting and flying everywhere that was pretty awful um the other i thought the other actors

were really good uh everybody in the cast i thought did a fine fine job of making that transition

i will say that um the costumes were terrific but the wigs were awful um you could really see

and i don't know if this is true in the movies because i didn't see the movies but on the dvd

certainly you could really see that they were wearing wigs they didn't look like real hair at

all they looked like really bad wigs as bad as one of william shatner's bad toupees was how the wigs

looked and uh that was distracting to me stuff like that really takes me out of the movie and

makes me go wow couldn't they have done a better job with adrian's hair that's the fakiest looking

blonde wig on a guy i've ever seen in my life so i think they should have paid more attention to

that um and the old age makeup

on janie slater and on sally jupiter was also really bad um they didn't look the age that they

were supposed to look at all at one point sally says i'm 67 she doesn't look anywhere near 67

um they did some old age makeup stuff on her throat and around her mouth but her brow her eyes

are completely smooth like botox even and i don't think that was the effect that they were going for

and the thing with janie when she comes into the movie uh sorry tv studio where dr manhattan's being

interviewed by presumably ted koppel um i know she's wearing a wig but even when she takes the

wig off she certainly doesn't look like a woman who's old enough to have been a physicist at the

time when she was supposed to um you know she doesn't look like she's 60 she looks like a 35

year old actress wearing a little bit of old age makeup

that just broke the realism of it i mean realism in a science fiction movie yeah i need to believe

that whereas the people who were genuinely old like the actor who played hollis looked like an

old dude and matt frewer who was fantastic i love matt frewer it just took me a minute to recognize

him as mullock and i was like oh i love him he's so good i mean he looked like an old dude um and

all the other people who were genuinely old looked like they were old so especially on the women i

think they were really old and i think they were really old and i think they were really old and

they should have found a better way to do it or or worked harder on the old age makeup because

that definitely broke my suspension of disbelief there

the piece tacked on at the end uh so the thing happens in antarctica and john leaves and then

we have a little scene with janie and her mom making up oh that's really nice i liked it better

in the book and then she and dan kind of figuring out that they're going to go crime fighting again

i guess

um it was hilarious to me that he says dan says i think we'll be all right in the end and and uh

laurie says john would say it never ends and i thought yeah he did say that actually in the book

and it would have been a lot more effective if john had said it instead of laurie because it

doesn't really have the same kind of effect coming out of her mouth i didn't like that i thought that

was just too

like we can't leave it in this really really depressing way

um and i also thought that it was a lot less ambiguous in the final scene than it was in the

book so in the book when the seymour at the new frontiersman finds rorschach's journal it's really

unclear whether he recognizes it for what it is and is actually going to do something about it or

is just literally going to throw it into the trash in the movie that's going to be the end of the

that character seymour seems a lot more with it and i think you're supposed to understand that he is

going to read it and believe it and publish it and everybody is going to know the truth so

um i don't know i i guess for a movie you need to take that ambiguity away for that particular thing

um but i don't know i i guess i liked in the book the fact that you really don't know what's

going to happen um i i

i'm kind of wishing i'd seen the movie version and i guess i don't even know if it's on my set

maybe it's on the other disc the actual release version or maybe i can rent it or something just

to see how it's different from the director's version and i haven't gone through any of the

special features that are on there uh i saw that there's going to be another edition of it that's

coming out i guess for christmas and i don't know what the hell that's going to have in it but you

know i've got this and i'm not enough of a freak to have to go and buy yet another version of the

i already did that with all the lord of the rings movies i don't need to do it again

so um yeah definitely two thumbs up for watchmen oh you know i thought it was interesting that in

the movie they actually refer to their group of crime fighters as watchmen which i don't think

ever actually happens in the book the original group of crime fighters is called minute men

but they never have a name after that um they try when they're getting together

to call themselves things i can't remember what they are but they never actually say watchmen

but they actually said watchmen a couple times which i thought was interesting i guess they

really needed to hammer that home to the movie audience that when the title of a movie is watch

men you actually need to have a group of people called the watchmen or else you might not understand

that whole stuff about who watches the watchers so let's talk about um the let's talk about high

heels

let's talk about laurie's high heels i was disappointed that her heels were as high as

they were because they were very very high even in the scenes where she's just walking around when

she's having lunch or dinner with dan they show her walking across the street she's wearing

impossibly high heels in fact they're so high that the actress can barely walk in them and this is

not so in the book she doesn't wear like cripplingly high heels all the time and when she's being the

silk specter she's wearing high heels and she's wearing high heels and she's wearing high heels

too she also has ridiculously high heels like way way higher than you can really walk in

comfortably most of the time but you know i guess they figured she had to look sexy as if it wasn't

enough that she was wearing you know this skintight outfit with a lot of legs showing they had to put

the highest heels they could now astute viewers of star trek the old series will know that when

had to run around and do fight scenes, especially in the Gorn episode, Arena.

He didn't wear his regular boots all the time.

It's very clear that he's wearing little flat wrestling boots with no heels on them

because all of the boots that they wore on the show had Cuban heels on them

that were at least an inch, maybe even a little higher in Shatner's case.

But they couldn't risk him twisting his ankle and getting hurt,

so you'll see in that and in Shore Leave and a couple other episodes

where he's outside running around, he's wearing flat-soled wrestler's boots.

In the movie, in the fight scene in the prison, she's not wearing high heels.

She's wearing flat-soled, what I guess are wrestler's boots.

So the costume was so impractical that even the stunt person who was fighting

couldn't wear them to do the scene.

Stunts, she had to wear flat-soled wrestler's boots.

What is wrong with this picture?

If a stunt person can't function in heels like that,

why would an actual human who's supposedly a crime fighter be able to do in them?

I'm really tired of the high heel thing.

You know, really and truly, if you listen to us talking on the Uncanny X cast,

there was a question about high heels, and I answered it very flippantly.

It just pisses me off, and I don't care what anybody says about how some women

are able to walk in them or run around in them.

Maybe they are, and I'm sure it took them years to learn how to do that,

and it's still uncomfortable, and it's still impractical,

and if you fall and twist your ankle while you're wearing a pair of high heels,

it's going to hurt like hell, and you're probably going to break your ankle

instead of maybe just twisting it if you were wearing sneakers or something more practical.

So, please don't tell me that it's possible, because I don't care.

No actual woman who was trying to fight crime would ever wear high heels like that.

It just doesn't make any sense.

Trust me on this.

So, anyway, I was extremely, it made me really, really happy, and I was watching.

I was probably the only person who watched that whole fight sequence with my eyes trained on her feet

to see what she was wearing, and I was gratified.

I was gratified to see that she was not wearing high heels.

So, there.

Fuck you, high heels, and fuck you, Zack Snyder.

Well, I think that's going to bring us to the end of the show.

It's really late, and I need to get to bed after three hours of Watchmen.

I don't know what the hell my dreams are going to be like tonight,

but I'm actually a little scared.

Maybe I should go have a drink or something before I fall asleep.

So, until next time, go and subscribe to Smiling Stanley on Twitter.

Believe me, you won't regret it.

¶¶

guitar solo