Rob & Big Net Surly Spidey

UPDATE TO THE NOW_DELETED VIDEO

Hi,

Recently I've noticed a lot of people landing on this page searching for the great Rob & Big clip where they net a d*bag in a Spider-Man costume on Hollywood Blvd.

Unfortunately, although many other Rob & Big clips are available, this particular clip appears to have been scrubbed from the net. I don't know if MTV or Marvel are the uptight ones but you can find the opening scene of the clip HERE (this Spidey must be Ditko era based on that wimpy physique)

I have yet to locate full clip including the scene where Rob & Big actually get their revenge.



You can play this pleasant little Rob Dyrdek video game for free online here

The animated Charles Burns

I really like this Charles Burns' animation.

Ladies and gentlemen: MOEBIUS

Jean Giraud works a little one-minute magic on Lt. Blueberry. With Depeche Mode's "Dream On" as the soundtrack.

Fresh Meathaus

MEATHAUS PREVIEW
pages

The anthology returns again with now famous alumni--James Jean, Farel Dalrymple, Tomer & Asaf Hanuka intact--plus rising talents like Dash Shaw, Tom Herpich, & Dave Kiersh among many. Plus Ralph Bakshi!??

As usual the lineup is impressive but will the heavy hitters really have time to contribute great work, or are they just cleaning out their desks?

Thumbs Up David Choe

THUMBS UP
SEASON 2


Dave Choe's obnoxiously rich and prolific reign of awesomeness expands to yet another medium.

Thumbs Up is my favorite travel show (even better than No Reservations, and more humane).
I'm posting this almost as much to remind myself to watch all the Season 2 eps. as I am for whosoever is reading this. I'm still watching the last few eps of Season 1. I can't believe that Choe's traveling companion and biographer Harry Kim actually takes the crust off his Wonder Bread even though he happily eats a sandwich consisting of peanut butter and sardines. How could you even taste the crust (the best part of bread by the way) through that foul combination of flavor?

Nice I-Racks: Marjane, Lindsay, and Harry. S

Marjane Satrapi from the Feb. 25 ish of New York magazine (the one with a nude layout of lindsay lohan…that’s right search engine spiders I said NUDE PICS OF LINDSAY LOHAN…come to me babies).

Anyway, Satrapi endorses Obama. The tart-tongued Iranian ex-pat said at an NYC screening of Persepolis: “President Truman wanted to help Iran go into democracy. Eisenhower came and he fucked up democracy in the whole region. So after that I think democrats are definitely better.”
On Obama she says (in a none too subtle dig at Hillary): “He’s the only one intelligent enough not to give a quick answer to very complicated questions. He doesn’t talk bullshit. Plus he was against the war from the beginning.”

I love Obama but I don’t exactly trust Satrapi’s logic here. Obama doesn’t give quick, pat answers to very complicated questions like Hillary because he hasn’t been in the game long enough to figure out the answers to those questions. Otherwise he’d play that game the same way as any politician except for Gee Dubya who basically admits he’s a stupid fuck and doesn’t care about answers, questions or all this “governin’” BS, just give him and his cronies more money baby.

So in conclusion: Obama good. Hillary good. Satrapi good (when she‘s not being oh so bad). Truman sorta good. Nude Lindsay Lohan better than expected. And any chance to take another jab at the scumbag Dubya presidency, very very good indeed.

Angouleme video

So lets take a quick look at Angouleme shall we.

Japanese town OBAMA backs a winner

I thought Obama sounded Japanese and indeed there is a small town of 30,000 in Japan named Obama. And the townspeople, recognizing a tourism opportunity when they see one is all for our man Barack becoming the next President. To wit:

From The Montreal Gazette:

The city mayor sent Obama a letter, lacquered chopsticks and the city's tourism brochures a year ago, but Obama had yet to reply, he said.

"So far we have been unilaterally giving him 'love calls' as we have a close affinity with him, although we have not met him," said Hideki Ikegami, a city official in charge of promoting tourism. "Perhaps Mr Obama has yet to know and feel the real festive mood prevailing here."

But Obama knows about the small city that bears his name and has even encountered a former resident.

He once said that during a visit to Japan, the immigration officer took a look at his passport and said to him: "I'm from Obama."

In a related story the German burg of Mitt could not have cared less that Romney asshole dropped out of the race.

300 Less Popular In Iran than actual Americans

I was reading a very fine article in the Travel section of the Sunday New York Times on visiting Iran (the entire is online as well). The author James Vlahos is in fact American, but as a frequent correspondent for National Geographic, one not wholly unfamiliar with inhospitable locales. As it turns out he was welcomed by almost everyone he encountered and said that all he had to do to make a new friend or get invited to tea was stand still for about 30-seconds. I mention this partly because the author stated that the subject that most aggrieved Iranians was less Bush/Cheney's endless saber-rattling which they were basically used to; but rather how the Persians were portrayed in film adaptation of Frank Miller's 300.

The articles ends charmingly enough with the author in a cafe that goes entirely quiet when he reveals to the man beside him that he is American. All eyes turn to him and then the man beside him pats him on the shoulder and says happily "Our governments are bad, but the people are good." Truer words were never spoken.

Of course there's another comics tie in the frequent references to the pre-Islamic ruins of Persepolis for which Marjane Satrapi named her acclaimed graphic novel about growing up in Iran.

Kirby & Steranko on Nick Fury

Crispin Glover Presents (need I say more!?)

Also from The Oregonian--

Man if I wasn't 3000 miles away I would so be there. Is there any American actor today any more mysterious, odd-mannered (ok, just weird) and iconoclastic than Glover? (and no not even Walken tops this guy).

Crispin Hellion Glover is familiar among indie-film fans for his creepy characters in "River's Edge," "Bartleby" and "Willard" (the one about the guy with the rats). Glover is also arguably the most infamous guest in the history of David Letterman's talk show. In the past few years Glover has also made films -- make-you-squirm-in-your-seat-type films. It's a bit difficult to accurately describe these movies -- 2005's "What Is It?" and the new "It Is Fine, Everything Is Fine!" -- but what's great about having Glover in person to present them is that in the Q&A afterward you can ask him, "Hey, what was that?" Chances are he will do his best to give a serious, thoughtful answer.

7 p.m. Friday-Monday at Clinton Street Theater; "It Is Fine, Everything Is Fine!" screens Friday and Sunday; "What Is It?" screens Saturday and Monday; $18 advance tickets available at theater.

JOE SACCO Retrospective

The Oregonian reviews a new JOE SACCO Retrospective
They link to a prior profile of the Sacco and describe him rather well as a cross between R. Crumb and superb CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, and summarize the show thusly:

Whether you call it journalism, comics or both, it is this holistic sense of broad history and personal narrative that elevates Sacco's comics. It's why these stories of Palestinians and Bosnians may endure far longer than the conventional reporting Sacco once aspired to.

If you're in Oregon the show runs at Pacific Northwest College of Art until Feb. 24.

Conquest

Another great song and a typically clever and funny video from Jack & Meg. And it's about time someone thoroughly ridiculed the ghoulish spectacle of bullfighting! Spain and Mexico clinging to this cherished "tradition" is little different than claiming slavery or public executions are "traditions." Viva el toro!

Dash Shaw must be afflicted with the comics strain of the Ebola virus as fresh new comics of an insane variety seem to be spewing forth from this boy with startling regularity. That includes his new online comics, his many illustrating gigs, his own for shits&giggles designs of board games and pirate maps, and an ever-expanding line of graphic novels. He's just posted a few different fetching covers for his forthcoming book The Bottomless Belly Button which looks like yet another departure from its predecessors.

Reading list

Just finished reading...

The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain

Sort of odds and ends diary of Bourdain's trips courtesy of his Travel Channel show No Reservations. The book sort of takes up where Bourdain's legendary Kitchen Confidential left off with more insights into culinary culture and the hard-nosed personalities raving the kitchen for your dining pleasure. I love Bourdain's prose and can relate to so many of his stories, but that's not to say that I agree with all of his philosophies, be it disdain for vegetarians or a sort of shoulder-shrugging grinning acceptance of various countries (particularly those in Asia) rampant unchecked thirst for wild and exotic animals. And then there's his ruthless attacks on Woody Harrelson just because the actor follows a raw food diet, and his deplorable rants against people he terms "food terrorists." That said I thoroughly enjoyed the book even if parts of it pissed me off.

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk
I've had the book quite awhile now and while I've read most of it I was sort of saving the last few chapters for rainy days (currently when my life feels like one long "rainy day" you'd think I'd have read. I tend to drag out reading books I really like the way I drag out eating food I want to enjoy. Wolk's book is a fun and terribly insightful read, but not without a few niggling lapses here and there. But any book of such critical scope is expected to create discussion or it's likely failed. I'll probably discuss or review the book at greater length here of in print eventually.

Perla La Loca by Jaime Hernandez
Collecting early Locas stories in an attractive and affordable (only $16.95 for 280+ pages) phonebook format Fantagraphics continues to milk Love & Rockets for reprint gold; and the stories are typically irresistible. I read most of these in the original pamphlet form years ago but having missed a few issues it's fantastic to revisit them in one flowing, intoxicating dosage of pure Jaime genius. The man is a storytelling machine. Although I'm loathe to suggest ayone further filling the coffers of Fantagraphics, I have no such qualms about Los Bros (Jaime, Gilbert and Mario) getting every cent of their due.



Standard Deviations Karl Taro Greenfield
From the author of the sometimes fascinating Speed Tribes. This book started hot but after a few chapters the explicit-but-jaded tales of sexual conquests and drug abuse, and Greenfield's toxic combination of arrogance and vapidity become grating; even when you anticipate that he's setting you up for self-revelation (ie. he knows as well as anyone how he's coming off and he's matured). Anyway, despite being an easy read, I had to return this library book only partially read, but I will probably check it out again soon.

Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man by Jessica Bruder
Actually a very entertaining history of the annual mecca of ravers, wasters, wannabe Che Guevaras and tuned-in-turned-on-drop outs.. Lots of photos of some genuinely brilliant sculptures and the requisite nude mud-people; and truly funny tales of the road to Burning Man. No matter how played out or hippy-infested you might think it is, if you read this book you'll want to go there at least once.

Marvel Strikes A Deal with WGA

From Yahoo News:

Marvel Entertainment reaches an agreement with striking writers.
"Comic-book-hero movie company Marvel Studios, a unit of Marvel Entertainment Inc., and the guild also said they had reached an agreement."

Couldn't Marvel just get the comic book writers (you know the guys who create all those ideas that they make movies with) that they already have under contract to write screenplays? Sure they could.

Back again...shit

Hey, I'm back and more in love with comics than ever (even if I only read a select few). So why has the blog been so inexcusably quiet for so long, leading most people to assume I died or at least quit everything? Basically, my life was destroyed a year ago, so it would have been derailed anyway, but when Google bought Blogger for some reason it totally fucked up my account and I couldn't log in and I couldn't change my password and I wasn't that determined to get it fixed anyway. So I just opened another account and blogged a couple of times, but my meager archives were still over here...etc etc.

Anyway, was just reading an article on blogging in Giant Robot #51 and it reminded me to blog and suddenly I was able to post without the google /gmail merry-go-round. Whether I post much or not, I dunno. Nobody ever reads this; nobody ever writes. I don't care like the sound of my own voice in a vacuum. But I guess you have to build something by really being devoted to it and posting daily and often; and I haven't shown that sort of commitments likely because I haven't seen any results or gotten feedback here. But I'll try.

So yeah...comics...and music...and lotsa new projects

Pope on a rope

Okay so PAUL POPE's work appears in two prominent magazines just out on stands this week. First up is a nice full page illo leading off a segment in WIRED about the sure-to-be-wretched Transformers movie. More interesting is a two-page Pope comics commissioned by GQ in which in their own words the magazine asked some of America's best graphic novelists to give us a personal look at their favorite places on earth. Unsurprisingly perhaps, Japanophile Pope takes us on a quick tour of Tokyo.

It's a pleasant if too short piece. One thing that's amusing is that Pope opens with a shot he at this point almost seems fetishistic about--a closeup of a pair of hands poring over a map. It seems Pope uses some very close variation of this shot in almost every comic he draws (or at least his THB comics). As for the Tokyo travelogue Pope recommends cheap overnighters in "love hotels", says that the "public restrooms in Japan are genuinely spartan, featuring holes in the tiled floors and BYOTP (ugh, good reason to stuff those fast food napkins they always give you too many of in your pockets). Pope also decries the lack of good vintage clothing stores in Japan, admits a fascination with the rituals of Sumo, says to avoid the white noise of the pachinko parlors, and instead partake of Kobe beef.

Lazarus Awake

Well Google's takeover of Blogger somehow fucked up my log-in many months ago and part of the reason I've posted nothing since january was an inability to log-in (I tried every method of fix, albeit half-heartedly and when it wasn't rejecting my password it was saying my blog no longer existed. The blog existed and people could read it, I just couldn't EDIT it).

So I'm finally relenting and starting a new one...shit. Don't know why exactly...my life is still in ruins (things have never been worse financially and socially and professionally...and emotionally). But given the reading I've been doing and the interesting tidbits that I still glean about comics (despite having ignored all internet message boards for the past 9-months) I still get the urge to share, as I did in the library today.

So welcome back all (none) of you. I'm just whistling in the desert.

Original TCI blog some good stuff here

ORIGINAL BLOG (archives I guess)

When blogspot sold to Google I lost the ability to edit the blog or log in properly. Maybe I'm dumb (ok well that's a given) and certainly I haven't been motivated, but I can't figure out how to edit it now. So I'm giving in to Goole and opening a new blog under my Gmail account.