30 days of night

Seriously one of the coolest comics ever. And also a pretty B.A. movie. Well, it probably isn't all that great by most standards, but I'm into horror movies and I tend to like all of them, no matter how bad or campy they are. But 30 Days of Night was pretty sweet.





The first image is from the movie and the second is the cover of the first trade of the 30 days of night series. I really like the artwork too and I think that the people who did the make up and the special effects for the movie really did a pretty good job of trying to bring Templesmith's creatures to life.



The art is so dark, it really fits the mood of the comic. It's been a while since I last read it but I'm thinking I might have to pull out the first trade and read it again. I have the second volume too, somewhere, and the rest I can get from work. Now if I can just justify reading 30 Days of Night instead of working on my Heritage City project.

she draws the costume correct in thick, black and red eyeliner.

I just finished writing my manifesto. Admittedly, it was more or less done last week when I had the draft done but I went back and expanded on everything and then wrote a semi-conclusion. Rock on. I probably would have gotten it done a lot sooner if I hadn't spent so much time listening to Mindless Self Indulgence and Strata, which really aren't good for this type of writing. I finally had to switch over to something a little calmer so that I could finish it. Since it's printing right now I'm listening to Strata again and obsessing just a little bit over finally having something new to listen to (even if Strata isn't all that new). But anyway, I was talking to my friend who was sending all of the music to me and we were talking about the song that I happen to like the best by them, which is called: Cocaine (We're All Going to Hell). It's my favorite Strata song (and I think it's hers too, though she didn't really specify other than telling me she also really liked it) and she told me that when the song first came out it caused the band to have their music player suspended off of their myspace account because the song is about drug use. I thought that was fairly interesting given the whole free speech thing. Eventually they got their music player back on there and that song is still there, but it took months for an appeal to go through. Craziness. So then I was fishing around on myspace and I was on Eric Victorino's myspace (lead singer of Strata), and he has the world's longest about me section, in which he refers to himself as a domestic terrorist for 'excercising his right to free speech'. Reading all of that and hearing my friend talk about it kind of just made me think a little bit about V for Vendetta and the whole issue of control over the media and information that is being broadcast. Who gets to decide who hears what and blah blah blah.

Anyway, let me just sort of sum up this whole block of text for you:
-Fawna rules for hooking me on Strata
-Strata rules for being Strata
-Eric Victorino rules for being unafraid to have a voice
-Myspace sucks for trying to block Strata's freedom of speech
-Mindless Self Indulgence is not conducive for paper writing

And for your listening pleasure, the song that got them suspended off of myspace:

v for vendetta

Despite the complaints against the film adaptation of V for Vendetta, I just have to say that I think that Hugo Weaving is a total B.A. The movie made loyal Alan Moore fans want to cry, but I'm wondering about all the people in the class. What did you think of the flick? Was anyone else able to break the connection between the movie and the book and just enjoy the movie for what it was?

I'm going to post a blog with thoughts on the actual test when I'm not stressing about my manifesto, which I shouldn't be stressing about but I am.

manifestos and heritage

So this week is a little bit of the suck. It just seems like I've got so much to do and not enough time to do it, though it is still early enough in the week that I'm still procrastinating and just making it a lot worse. I haven't picked a topic for my manifesto yet, though I've been kicking around a few ideas in my head. It's just an issue of the fact that I missed the manifesto explanation day in class and I'm not entirely sure what guidelines there are aside from the links that were posted on delicious. You can be sure that I will be bothering someone in class tomorrow for notes from last Wednesday (I think it was Wednesday) so that I can figure out exactly what I'm doing. That way I can try to get it done before the weekend.

On top of my manifesto I also have my heritage city project due for my Heritage Management class. I'm not thinking that is going to be too difficult it is just going to be spreading all the information out over ten minutes. My heritage city is Baghdad, which has a boatload of heritage management issues going on right now. And in my Museums and Communities class our project on Chief Illiniwek is due next week and though a majority of it is already done it's just kind of going to be an anxious week until we can present it and get it over with. I need a few more people to fill out surveys for the project but don't worry, some of you are going to get asked in class tomorrow. Hooray.

After next week I'm definitely just going to take a day and sit down and finish reading White Night. Usually when a Butcher book comes out I drop everything and read it all in one sitting. This time I bought it in hardcover ages ago and I've been so swamped with stuff that it has been sitting on my dresser collecting dust. The paperback just came out so I bought another copy of the book just because paperbacks are far easier to tote around. It's going to be awesome. I just have to make it to next week.

who watches the watchmen?

this might be tl;dr for some of you but i found it on the interweb and felt like sharing.

Fox sues over 'Watchmen'
By Leslie Simmons

Feb 12, 2008
20th Century Fox has initiated a legal battle against Warner Bros. over the rights to develop, produce and distribute a film based on the graphic novel "Watchmen."

On Friday, the studio sued Warners, claiming it holds the exclusive copyrights and contract rights to "Watchmen."

Warners plans to release next year a big-screen version of the popular comic book written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. The cast includes Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino and Malin Akerman. It is the studio's policy to not comment on pending litigation.

But Fox seeks to enjoin Warners from going forward with the project, saying in the lawsuit that it seeks to "restrain (Warner Bros. Pictures) from taking actions that violate Fox's copyrights and which stand to forever impair Fox's rights to control the distribution and development of this unique work."

Fox claims that between 1986 and 1990, it acquired all movie rights to the 12-issue DC Comics series and screenplays by Charles McKeown and Sam Hamm. In 1991, Fox assigned some rights via a quitclaim to Largo International with the understanding that the studio held exclusive rights to distribute the first motion picture based on "Watchmen," according to the lawsuit.

When Largo dismantled, the rights were transferred to producer Lawrence Gordon. Under a "turnaround agreement" between Fox and Gordon, the producer agreed to pay a buy-out price to Fox if he entered into any agreement with another studio or third party to develop or produce "Watchmen," among other things.

The project apparently bounced around to Universal and Paramount before returning to Warners. Now, Fox claims that neither Gordon nor Warners has paid the buy-out price or advised the studio of any other conditions required under the agreement, including procedures necessary to acquire the rights to "Watchmen" from Fox.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

source.
ontd post with comments.

I'll brb with a real blog post later.

oh hey pbwiki pt 2

That was simultaneously entertaining and painful. Mostly because the information was interesting and all stuff that I already knew a lot about, which made the project fun but painful because I working with sources on the web is difficult. Especially when it comes to citing. Ugh. But it's done. Or at least might part is. Though I have a feeling I will be logging in before I go to class tomorrow just to make sure that everything looks as neat as I think it does right now.

If you actually look at our wiki and read the portion about Joss Whedon, some of you Buffy fans might be interested in his comic book Fray. I've got a copy laying around somewhere (I think it's in Bloomington) and I could probably let you borrow it (if I can find it).

Also, there has been a discussion about who is better.

Hayley Williams, the lead singer of Paramore:


or Sherri Dupree, the lead singer of Eisley:


Not that anyone ever reads this, but if you have an opinion in the matter you should definitely comment.

oh hey pbwiki

haha.

bored

I thought McCloud was okay at first but it's really starting to bore me. It could be a lot worse but it could be better, too.

ozymandias

Originally I intended to text in my post from my cell phone just to try something different and to see if I actually had the patience to do it. Admittedly, I have a sidekick so it wouldn't be as difficult as texting it in off of a cell phone without a full keyboard, but it still counts, I think. However, that thought changed when I got to reading Watchmen and got to the part of about Ozymandias. Then all I could think about was posting the poem by Shelley that we were forced to read my junior year of high school in the second semester of my English Lit class. I hated that class, mostly because the teacher I had was kind of nuts. She actually told me once that she couldn't believe she was approving my outline because it was such a piece of shit... no joke. It was a piece of shit, but I was seriously sick that week and I didn't need to hear from here that I sucked at writing. But I digress...

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1818

I just thought it was kind of interesting to come back and read that poem again after reading the first four chapters of the Watchmen (I had a lazy weekend and I didn't finish the whole book, so no spoilers, please). I mean, it's kind of surreal to think about. Ozymandias, King of Kings, is reduced to stumps of legs left in the sand with nothing of his former glory surrounding him. Is that what it is going to be like for us one day? Just the fading memory of a broken statue crumbling away in the sand? Kind of depressing. Even more depressing? Being Jon Osterman and getting to just chill and watch while all of this happens.

I vaguely remember there being a painting that went along with the poem in the English lit textbook but I can't find it. I googled it and couldn't find anything and since it's 3:30 in the morning I'm going to call it quits on that. I didn't want to post the image that badly anyway.

Also, if you click here it will take you to the IMDB listing for the Watchmen movie that is due out in 2009. Don't go there if you don't want to be spoiled. I think that some things are given away just in the cast listing. You can also catch the occasional Watchmen update post on oh no they didn't, but that's only if you feel like weeding through pages upon pages of pointless celebrity drama to find something.

When I went to oh no they didn't to get the link for my blog I saw this and had to post it:

it made me laugh

Okay, going to bed before I find anything else to post.