Month: October 2014

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Horror movie Annabelle has been withdrawn from several French cinemas after the spooky prequel about a demonic doll saw teenage filmgoers rioting in auditoriums.

Managers in Marseille, Strasbourg and Montpellier have cancelled screenings until further notice for security reasons after under-16s began fighting, throwing popcorn and even ripping up theatre seats.

…It’s not the first time a horror film has sparked teenage riots in France. According to Le Parisien, a similar phenomenon took place during screenings of Paranormal Activity and Sinister, with the latter film pulled from more than 40 screens in 2012.

Okay, that’s unexpected. From here.
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Hoary Hosts

So, it appears that the shortlist of current potential Doctor Stranges has leaked from Marvel, and it’s the following actors:

  • Jared Leto
  • Oscar Isaac
  • Matthew McConaughey
  • Jake Gyllenhaal
  • Ethan Hawke
  • Ewan McGregor

If this is true, I feel that Marvel’s just days away from placing a Help Wanted ad that reads “Wanted: Sorcerer Supreme. Must be: White, male, bearded, vaguely familiar but not famous famous. Wiggly fingers a plus.”

One more time, Marvel: It’s okay if you want to finally try a lead character that’s not a white male. Seriously. We’re all okay with that. We’re ready.

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Before the panel began, fans were warned to put away all electronics. If any phones were out and appeared to be recording, devices would be taken and attendees would be escorted out of the theater.

Simple enough. That’s typical protocol for movie screenings.

Marvel went one step further.

The studio brought a team dressed in suits who Marvel TV president Jeph Loeb playfully referred to as a few of their “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D,” a reference to ABC’s Marvel series. Marvel’s “agents” were stationed both on the floor and in the balcony areas of the Main Stage room of Javits’ Convention Center with night vision goggles to make sure no one was capturing footage during the panel.

From here.
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You Can’t Go Back to Battleworld Again: Graeme Revisits The First Secret Wars | Wait, What?

You Can’t Go Back to Battleworld Again: Graeme Revisits The First Secret Wars | Wait, What?

waitwhatpod:

I can still remember how excited I was to read Marvel Super-Heroes: Secret Wars for the first time, when I was a kid.

Literally just posted! Proof that nostalgia will only break your heart!

Looking for images for this post, I found a whole host of covers to the British reprint series. Guess what I’m going to be sharing on the Wait What Tumblr for awhile.

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Is there a universally beloved comic book creator, or a specific series or run that’s similarly legendary, which you’re just totally not into at all? Just to show you I’m not out to get you in trouble, here’s mine: Gil Kane. I respect that he’s a giant in the field, and that Green Lantern costume is gorgeous, but I’ve always found his faces and perspectives unappealing.

bigredrobot:

My long-standing, one-sided feud with Neail Gaiman and his twee-goth masterpiece Sandman, are well-documented, so I won’t go into it here, but Sandman is, basically, the Radiohead of comics.

Also, anything Geoff Johns has ever done. I just don’t relate to it in any fashion whatsoever. It might have something to do with having not read a non-Frank Miller-written DC comic until I was well into my 20s, or it might be just that I’m too big of a snob, but I do not get the guy’s appeal in the least. Same with the other “Weird Jeff,” Jeph Loeb. I mean, people swear by Long Halloween and (ugh) Hush, but you literally could not pay me to read either of those.

I think Garth Ennis is overrated. I mean, bless you if you like his stuff, but I tried and … nope. It’s not for me. Hitman is okay, I guess, but I read the first two trades and didn’t feel any sort of burning desire to see the thing through to the end.

I’m also not really on the “white cartoonist bemoans his life” train, ie. indie sacred cows Chris Ware and Dan Clowes. Their styles are fantastic, but it’s in service of some dull bullshit that doesn’t interest me in the least. Same with Seth, though Wimbledon Green is some A++ stuff. (I haven’t read the sequel, The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists, but it’s on my Wish List.)

Come to think of it, Kevin Huizenga’s really the only cartoonist doing that sort of thing that is at all interesting. And he’s not really doing autobio stuff so much as magical realist, quasi-autobio stories. Anders Nielsen’s in the same boat, I guess, but some of his stuff is a little too up its own ass.

This just in: Dylan hates everything. I approve.

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Finally, the promise of a truly commercial-free social network is probably never going to happen. (To be fair, this isn’t what Ello is promising; they’ve simply published a “manifesto” saying they will never show you advertising or promoted posts.) There’s two reasons for this.

One, barring extremely vigilant moderation, every social network will see users twisting it towards commercial ends. (MetaFilter and, to a lesser degree, Reddit have been successful at keeping this type of activity to a minimum, but even they offer up advertising and have users clandestinely working behind the scenes to help brands sell.)

Two, social networks eventually have to pay for themselves. So far, no major social networking site has found a way to make people pay for the privilege of talking to their friends. Which, inevitably, leaves advertising. Ello may want to be pure as the driven snow, but engineers and servers don’t come cheap, and social networks can’t simply putter along with a few thousand (or even a few hundred thousand) users and be useful. If Ello is successful and grows, the site’s initial promise—that it will not be a place to sell but a “a place to connect, create and celebrate life"—will give way to economic reality. After that, it’s either endless rounds of VC funding, a quiet shuttering, or advertising and promoted posts.

From here.

Related.

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What’s good, Graeme? What’re you happy with/about or excited for lately?

2014’s been a weird year, so part of me is just happy with being on an even keel at this point, to be honest. (That sounds really depressing, but it’s not meant to be.) But it’s the fall, which I love – I’m very happy when the days get colder and the trees turn new colors before they fall apart. Fall also means I start baking more, and the experimentation with sugars and chocolate and oats to make the ideal cookies is exciting in a truly nerdy way (75% dark brown sugar, 25% pure cane sugar, leave the dough in the fridge overnight – makes the cookies chewier).

What else? Looking for Moondog albums on vinyl. WGN’s Manhattan, which isn’t exactly “happy,” but is very good. The prospect that a new issue of Ganges might be on the horizon. Falling back in love with the Mirah album from earlier this year. Stuffs like that, I guess – and spending more time with Kate, the dogs, and friends.

Oh! Something that’s made me excited and happy recently, that’s been odd but wonderful: there was a week recently where I found myself looking after a few dogs in the neighborhood during the day because their owners were otherwise engaged. It wasn’t a big deal, but meant that every day at lunch, I’d go and visit these three dogs who’d be so ridiculously happy to see me, and we’d hang out. That was pretty great.

(Seriously, baking, listening to good music and hanging out with dogs while it’s autumnal and dark outside: That’s pretty much my definition of an ideal day. Just add in some good reading and I’m all set.)

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With all of their recent announcements like the Hickman/Ribic Secret Wars, Wolverines, the cinematic Civil War and Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies has Marvel: a)jumped the shark, b)lost their collective minds, c)somehow just trolling us all or d)some combination of the above?

I’m kind of impressed by the way that the interesting – to me, at least – announcements from Marvel at NYCC (Kathryn Immonen and Rich Ellis doing a Peggy Carter series! Getting Nicole Perlman to do comics!) have been overshadowed if not entirely drowned out by the “bigger” announcements, which seem almost comically regressive and conservative. The latter things are what’s going to make them all their money, of course, but I do wish that they’d announced less at the show to give some of the other announcements some room to breathe.

Which is to say, it’s probably a combination of a) and c), but we both know that so many people are going to buy Secret Wars and all its related projects that Marvel definitely hasn’t lost its mind.

Wolverines is still an absolutely nutzo idea, though.