Author: Graeme McMillan

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Remember the Dortmunder Gang – those five hapless but loveable hoodlums who bungled their way through The Hot Rock, Bank Shot and Jimmy the Kid? Well, they’re off again in pursuit of the big score – and this caper is their zaniest fiasco yet.

Dustjacket copy from the 1977 copy of Nobody’s Perfect by Donald Westlake that I’m currently reading.

Said dustjacket copy also includes the phrase “Simple? Not on your Westlake.” More dustjacket copy should be this snappy. Just imagine this kind of thing on Greg Rucka’s Bravo, for example. “Sound like a bad day? You Rucka believe it.”

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Obviously, artists do respond to new technology, but it takes time. Real art comes from within. It has soul. There is a time lag for technology to be absorbed and experienced to the degree that soulful art can be made with it.

Video art is the obvious example. Television became universal in many places in the 1950s, but it took until the 1970s for artists to start making worthwhile experimental art with it. And it was not until the 1990s that such experiments entered the mainstream.

I reckon we will start to see the really intelligent, serious art of the digital age in about five to 10 years. On the other hand, the technology may have already changed so much by then that art cannot catch up.

From here.

Apropos of the above, I still remember seeing Bill Viola’s work for the first time in… 1998? 1999? Something like that. It was the first time I’d seen “video art” that truly worked for me, and it was amazing, and inspirational.

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Scott Snyder on ‘American Vampire’s’ Second Cycle (Exclusive Art)

Scott Snyder on ‘American Vampire’s’ Second Cycle (Exclusive Art)

This Wednesday sees the launch of American Vampire: Second Cycle, the long-awaited return of DC Entertainment/ Vertigo’s critically-acclaimed horror series from Batman and The Wake writer Scott Snyder and artist Rafael Albuquerque. In terms of story, the new series picks up a decade after the end of the first American Vampire series, which ended its 34-issue run last year, with Skinner and Pearl both coming to terms with life in the mid-1960s.

One final link/shilling of my own stuff, again from last week: Me talking to Scott Snyder about the return of American Vampire, which I link here mostly for the chance to say how fun it was to chat to Snyder again after such a long time – I originally talked to him when he was launching the series the first time around, so this was a welcome return.

I have no idea why I’m suddenly linking work from the last week; I suspect it’s a decompression tool after a burst of productivity today, when I wrote 3,500+ words for Time, THR and Wired. It’s been a little brain-fry-y, as I’m sure you can imagine.

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It’s Time to Face The Music: The Muppet Shows You Don’t Remember

It’s Time to Face The Music: The Muppet Shows You Don’t Remember

Everyone remembers the 1970s Muppet Show with Kermit, Fozzie and Miss Piggy—but what about the 1980s, 1990s and 2010s revivals? Here’s what you missed.

From last week, back when people were interested in the new Muppet movie – how innocent we were! – I wrote about the three attempts to revive The Muppet Show that people don’t remember.

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Can ‘Days of Future Past’ Save Fox’s ‘X-Men’ Series? (Analysis)

Can ‘Days of Future Past’ Save Fox’s ‘X-Men’ Series? (Analysis)

As the latest trailer makes clear, there’s a lot at stake for X-Men: Days of Future Past. “We now find ourselves on the edge of extinction,” one character tells the audience. “We’ve been given a second chance,” says another. As suitably melodramatic as that sounds as the core of a time-travel movie, there’s a meta-commentary to such dialogue, pointing to the future of the X-Men movie franchise itself and the possibility to re-imagine its future in the wake of this summer’s installment.

From yesterday, from me at THR: Can X-Men: Days of Future Past help Fox remake the X-Men movie franchise to lose the dead weight of those first three films?

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What Is Actually Revealed In ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ Set Photos? (Analysis)

What Is Actually Revealed In ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ Set Photos? (Analysis)

New pictures from the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron have given us the first chance to see Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen in costume as Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, respectively, as well as a glimpse at a proto Ultron himself — or, at least, a stand-in for the final version. But what do these pictures actually reveal about the second Avengers movie? Here are four potential takeaways.

In which I complain about Quicksilver’s hair, speculate on the lack of any Avengers outside of Hawkeye on set and pre-emptively bitch about Ultron looking like a robot man.

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Wait, What? Ep. 147: Where Walks…The Podcast!?

Wait, What? Ep. 147: Where Walks…The Podcast!?

Hello, friend!  Do you like comics? Do you like podcasts?  Do you ever find yourself wishing you could listen to men, grown men, grown middle-aged men, talking about comics and pop culture for more than three hours, with more than ninety minutes devoted to comic books that are more than fifty years old?

Jeff and I talk about comics for a very very long time. More rambly than usual, but a lot of fun to record, even if I feel bad for Jeff having to edit it all together afterwards.

(We talk about the Veronica Mars movie in the last… 30 minutes or so, too, for people who aren’t into comics but want something to listen to anyway.)

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Internet Idea Number 23

There are times when I am tempted to start a False Equivalency tumblr. Each post would just run two entirely disconnected things together to create something new to complain about. “Facebook can spend $2 billion on a virtual reality company but we didn’t get a second season for Bunheads? THIS IS BULLSHIT.”

It is far, far too tempting.