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1 April 2009
[lists] The 10 Biggest Intellectual Fights Of All Time … On Galileo vs. The Church: ‘…in 1632 he published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems and quickly found himself summoned to appear before the Inquisition on charges of heresy. Galileo was forced to recant his support for the Copernican model and spent the rest of his life under house arrest, though with rather lenient travel and visitation allowances. His works were finally dropped from the Index of prohibited books in 1835. In 1992 Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the “Galileo Affair” was handled, officially conceding on the part of the church that the earth is not stationary and that the planets orbit the sun.’
2 April 2009
[thisisgood] What the Hell is Grant Morrison Smoking? … from Bob Mitchell in the 21st Century … ‘I got six chambers of semi-jacketed realism aimed right at your Sea of Tranquilility. Drop the rock.’
3 April 2009
[comics] Bear Alley … a fantastic comics blog covering all aspects of old and new British comics from Steve Holland … On The Perishers: ‘I was particularly taken with the “eyeballs-in-the-sky” sequence which was reprinted that year. The original strips dated from 1979 and, for those who never followed the story, each summer the Perishers-Wellington, Masie, Marlon and Baby Grumpling-would visit the beach at St. Moribund’s. Boot, Wellington’s huge, hairy, hungry dog, would visit a rock pool each year to the amazement of the crabs inhabiting the pool; it has become a religious experience for many of the crabs whilst other crabs, more dedicated to science, try to debunk the God-like status of the eyeballs-in-the-sky…’
4 April 2009
[history] The Torture Colony … the disturbing story of how the the Pinochet Regime outsourced some of it’s murder and torture to a cult of religious Germans living in Chile … ‘…Colonia Dignidad was founded on fear, and it is fear that still binds it together. Investigations by Amnesty International and the governments of Chile, Germany, and France, as well as the testimony of former colonos who, over the years, managed to escape the colony, have revealed evidence of terrible crimes: child molestation, forced labor, weapons trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, torture, and murder. Orchestrated by Paul Schaefer and his inner circle of trusted lieutenants, much of the abuse was initially directed inward as a means of conditioning the colonos to obey Schaefer’s commands. Later, after General Augusto Pinochet’s military junta seized power in Chile, the violence spilled onto the national stage…’ [thanks Phil]
6 April 2009
[comics] All The Joy I See Through These Architect’s Eyes … comic artist D’Israeli looks at Mega-City One through the art of various artists who have visualised it over the years … On Carlos Ezquerra: ‘Though his Judge Dredd pilot strip was never published, the last page (a full-page view across the city) was used as a back-cover of Prog 3. I remember seeing this aged about eleven and it absolutely blew my mind. The sense of scale, the strangeness of the designs, the feeling of the future as a gritty, exotic place formed by unguessable processes, all of this generated an excitement I’ve rarely felt from comics or any other medium. Along with Italian Massimo Bellardinelli, Ezquerra dragged 2000AD away from the comfortable visual tropes of the 1950’s and, importantly, gave it a signature visual style that distinguished it from the blocky, industrial designs of the recently-released Star Wars. That one page set a visual and imaginative standard for later creators to aspire to; ironically, as a leftover page from a rejected strip, it may be the most important piece of work Ezquerra ever did, and in its influence it may make him one of the most important artists in British comics in the last 30 years.’
7 April 2009
[quotes] 10 Best Geeky Last Words … H. G. Wells: ‘Go away. I’m all right.’
8 April 2009
[comics] Kyle Baker’s Batman at the Diner … ‘So, really, what’s with the costume?’
[quote] ‘Everybody Lives By Selling Something.’ — Robert Louis Stevenson
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10 April 2009
[press] Richard Littlejohn Audit 2008: Year Of The Nazi … ‘I have concluded that 2008 for Richard was very much the year of the ‘Nazi’. Littlejohn gave us the: ‘elf ‘n’ safety nazi’, ‘road safety nazi’, ‘anti-smoking nazi’, ‘eco-nazis’, ‘dustbin nazis’, ‘recycling nazis’, ‘diversity nazis’, ‘tinpot nazis’, ‘condiment nazis’, ‘nail-varnish nazis’, ‘noise abatement nazis’ and ‘City of London Corporation safety nazis.’ [via More(ish)]
14 April 2009
[blogs] Nick Denton Quote On Blogging from 2002: ‘People like Doc Searls and Meg Hourihan are to the weblog as Oppenheimer and von Neumann were to the A-bomb. Gentle souls whose creation will be used by others more ruthless.’ Nick was certainly right about that wasn’t he?
[polictics] Slugger O’Toole on Smeargate: ‘… if you pick a fight with someone who has nothing to lose (and you do), you’re the one most likely to end up on the floor. To quote blog sceptic Geert Lovint, ‘blogging is a bleed-to-death strategy’. Mr Draper is a PR professional floundering in a world he barely understands, allowed himself to be entranced by the (what Lovint terms) ‘banal nihilism’ of one particular type of blogging, and now finds himself being bled to death through his own actions.’
15 April 2009
[funny] Uncomfortable Plot Summaries … from postmodernbarney.com … ‘DAREDEVIL: Blind man pisses off crime boss, gets all his girl-friends killed.’
16 April 2009
[books] Unspeakable Horrors – H. P. Lovecraft was a Racist … ‘Race prejudice is a gift of nature, intended to preserve in purity the various divisions of mankind which the ages have evolved.’ [via Robot Wisdom]
19 April 2009
[tv] Disturbing Strokes … the opening to Different Strokes set to music from a horror film … ‘This has turned out far more creepy than I thought it would.’
20 April 2009
[comics] Typeface Inspired by Comic Books Has Become a Font of Ill Will … profile of the designer of Comic Sans … ‘Mr. Connare says he pulled out the two comic books he had in his office, “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Watchmen,” and got to work, inspired by the lettering and using his mouse to draw on a computer screen. Within a week, he had designed his legacy.’ [via More(ish)]
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21 April 2009
[comics] Brendan McCarthy Art Show at Orbital Comics: ‘Featuring a lost image from the graphic novel SKIN, some drawings from a new comic project, DREAMTREES, a number of published ARTOONS from the CRISIS period of the early 90’s and more pictures from Brendan’s archive of unpublished art. Brendan is currently working on a new Spider-Man/Dr Strange mini series for Marvel Comics, out later this year.’
[comics] Neil Gaiman Writes a Final ‘Love Letter to Batman’ … Wired on Gaiman and Andy Kubert’s Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? … ‘Well, the great thing about Batman and Superman, in truth, is that they are literally transcendent. They are better than most of the stories they are in. That’s jut Sturgeon’s Law: “90 percent of everything is crap.” Can you imagine how many thousands, or millions, of words have been written on Batman? Try to read them and you’re looking at 100,000 pages, perhaps a million, and you can assume that 90 percent of it is crap. Yet the 10 percent, and even better the 1 percent of that 10 perfect, is absolutely glorious. That pays for everything.’
24 April 2009
[what-if] Nixon’s Undelivered Moon Disaster Speech … What would Richard Nixon have said if disaster had trapped the Apollo 11 Astronauts on the moon? … ‘In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.’
[funny] God is on Twitter … ‘I could post 141 characters if I wanted to.’ [via @BeaucoupKevin]
25 April 2009
[film] Go Watch: Carousel … I watched this and wondered… Where’s Batman? … ‘Tribal DDB, Amsterdam commissioned us to create a piece of filmed content that could hold its own with Hollywood’s best. Director Adam Berg responded with an idea for an epic ‘frozen moment’ cops and robbers shootout sequence that included clowns, explosions, a decimated hospital, and plenty of broken glass and bullet casings.’
26 April 2009
[space] Cassini’s continued mission … The Big Picture on Cassini’s six year voyage around Saturn … ‘The spacecraft continues to operate in good health, returning amazing images of Saturn, its ring system and moons, and providing new information and science on a regular basis.’
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27 April 2009
[funny] Ask Mefi: I would like a comprehensive list of each offense Ferris and his friends commit during the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” … ‘There are many cases of fraud in the movie. For example, when one kid is asked, “Do you know Ferris Bueller,” he responds, “Yeah, he’s getting me out of summer school.” [..]
Oh, and in theory, Cameron’s father could go after both Ferris and Cameron for grand theft auto of the Ferrari.’
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28 April 2009
[comics] The Ten All-Time Best Long-Running Comics Series … great list from Tom Spurgeon … On Dave Sim: ‘I don’t know yet what I think of it as an artistic achievement, but I greatly enjoyed huge swaths of it. The further away from its published conclusion I get the more I’m convinced that it’s something special in terms of comics history, and the further along I get in my own artistic journey the more I’m certain that even if he doesn’t realize it, Dave won.’
29 April 2009
[comics] Alan Moore’s Glory Notes … a proposal from Moore on how to revamp one of Rob Liefeld’s Awesome characters … ‘I suppose this as good a time as any to discuss my ideas about how the sexuality in Glory should be handled. As with my notes on Youngblood, my central idea is to prime the story with plenty of open spaces for the readers’ filthy, disgusting thirteen year old minds to inhabit… which is only natural… without doing anything that is anything other than entirely innocent and in keeping with classic comic tradition. I think the word for our best approach is “disingenuous”.’
30 April 2009
[blogs] Texts from Last Night Blog … ‘my mouth tastes like poor choices’
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