I've not seen any of the new 24, how does it compare?
Everything I've heard is "all the flaws of the original show, but lacking a lot of the positives"
Nail on the head.
Racism? Still there. Murdering peripheral characters with callous abandon? Yup. Torture? Ohoho.
What they DID take out of it is the sense of urgency, Kiefer Sutherland's screen presence, and any kind of compelling mystery. They sort out the mole plot like an hour after it's introduced (but Miranda Otto is probably the real mole anyway we'll see). The first six episodes showed the terrorists that are actually planning the attack mostly concerned with bumbling antics and killing witnesses to their stupid antics.
Minor points for showing a positively portrayed gay couple but they're quickly put on opposite sides of the conflict due to those good ol' 24 circumstances that make the protagonists have to play behind the good guys' backs. Also their whole relationship so far is just subtext in conversations so if you don't notice it you don't get upset that your manly man show has some gay dudes in it.
You'd think the fact that the protagonist is black would be a positive for representation but his wife is immediately put into a dumb Kim Bauer plot involving, drumroll, his drug dealer brotherrrrr. Also Eric is super flat and can absolutely not carry the show the way Kiefer did.
And I never thought I'd say this but I miss the presidential B-stories. The only thing we have for this is Senator Jimmy Smits but the fact that he's married to Miranda Otto means that his story quickly got pulled into the main plot and he's at CTU with everyone now.
Grant Morrison lost a lot of favor amongst the comic scene about some fucky things about creator's rights in his Supergods book.
What he say
Paraphrasing here, but there is a lot of downplaying Siegel and Schuster being really fucked over in favor of "well Superman is more important than them" kind of approach. Also the press tour around it had a lot of bragging on his own income in comparison to previous comic creators, and taking aim at Alan Moore for the shit that he does as well.
Also if I recall correctly there was an undercurrent of indie comic creators as highfalutin anti-working class folks.
Which is to say I still like a lot of his work, but I think a lot of his weird arty rockstar thing is very performative and completely at odds with a lot of his actual statements.
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GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
Granted I might be overplaying it here, as it's a touchy subject for me.
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scherbchenAsgard (it is dead)Registered Userregular
oh boy whatever happened off camera on Billions?
I really enjoyed the first season. It had a tight and contained plot with interesting characters and interpersonal dynamics and I got my brother into it and was looking forward to a second season.
Now that show is all over the place. there is no apparent plot, people are acting out of character at every corner in order to just deliver quirky one-liners and completely out of place summations of their acquired wisdom as if it was quoted straight from Sun Tzu. On top of that we get to enjoy the acting chops of Mark friggin Cuban and a portrayal of a wanna-be Elon Musk and quite possibly the worst represantation of poker in any tv show ever and that is a high bar to clear.
Grant Morrison is mental but at least he is trying to do some shit with his writing. Like there's a point and a message. People laugh at him because he wrote the Invisibles as a Chaos Magic symbolic spell of life improvement but that's really just a metaphor for "writing that made me feel good about myself" filtered through wanting to make things more interesting/drugs, and hey, it's fantastic in a deranged way, and the dude has self awareness. He's not a lunatic and he can laugh at himself.
Moore is a grumpy old fart but also a genius who wrote some of the most important comics of all time so whatever. He also gives hampers of food to homeless people every winter so he's a decent bloke I'd say.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
yeah in the grand scheme of things even being a little loopy still doesn't put you in the worst bunch*, even restricted only to comics
*a group consisting pretty much entirely of Bob Kane
GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
I mean I absolutely love a lot of Morrison's writing. But I don't find any of the persona appealing or sincere. But that's a personal call mind you. He's a brilliant writer if a bit of an ass about his place in comics..
I pretty unequivocally love Moore. Though I tend to like his interviews more than his comics these days.
Marvels is a very good comic but "ordinary people dealing with extraordinary bullshit" is essentially pitched directly at me. I don't really know why I brought it up, considering that it's barely relevant to the conversation at hand (Mark Waid had nothing to do with it!) but I wanted to talk about Marvels.
DJ Eebs on
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GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
I like Marvels in theory. But I'm weird about Alex Ross on interiors. It just doesn't work for me all that well. I mean technically speaking it's gorgeous, but it doesn't flow for me.
I like Marvels in theory. But I'm weird about Alex Ross on interiors. It just doesn't work for me all that well. I mean technically speaking it's gorgeous, but it doesn't flow for me.
I think it's probably the only place where his interior work came close to working with the story, but yeah, his work barely works for me on covers, even if it is technically impressive.
Kingdom Come was already kind of a giant mess of a story (and I don't really get why so many comics writers are so keen to hook up Superman and Wonder Woman), so the art didn't really help matters.
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GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
Yeah. I think Alex Ross is a marvelous painter. But I think it's the issue of that it's too steeped in nostalgia for an era I never really read.
Yeah. I think Alex Ross is a marvelous painter. But I think it's the issue of that it's too steeped in nostalgia for an era I never really read.
I think what makes Marvels work is that it's absolutely looking back on specific eras of comics, but it's taking a more human look at it without also falling all over itself to go for easy cynicism.
Kingdom Come's whole concept is ostensibly about how the youth are fucking things up and Superman has to come back and show everyone how things are really done, and it's clumsy and makes a ton of missteps, and the concept isn't one that especially appeals to me. I think Waid has written some terrific stuff, but he often adds details and complications that are unnecessary and unwieldy, and sometimes they overwhelm what he's trying to do. It's part of what makes Tower of Babel fall super flat for me. The concept of it, that Batman has files on how to defeat his fellow superheroes, is fine, and so is having a supervillain getting his hands on it and using those plans, and it's an effective way to add conflict to an ongoing book, but the story becomes focused on how clever and smart and prepared and amazing Batman is, and you can't show how smart he is unless his plans are obscure and weird and needlessly complex in places, and the punchline of the story isn't "the JLA is mad at Batman," it's "Batman is so smart he figured out the JLA was mad at them"
and also it's a huge part of what made it kind of impossible to talk about batman online for a solid decade
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GustavFriend of GoatsSomewhere in the OzarksRegistered Userregular
edited March 2017
The combined duo of Chris Sims and Mark Waid are probably half of why I am utterly done with Batman comics to be honest.
But yeah I at the very least appreciate Marvels. Kingdom Come though rubs me the wrong way on a lot of levels. It feels very much like a "get off my lawn" screed turned graphic novel in a lot of ways. Even if I tacitly agree with many of its sentiments.
Gustav on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I guess Jake Johnson has been talking like New Girl might not be coming back after this season
That would be good. It's run its course.
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
So I just got around to watching the first episode of Legion.
How even is this shit happening? People are finally coming around to the idea that the X-Men work best in a retro-futuristic 60s setting, and now they decide to take it a step further and create Wes Anderson's the Uncanny X-Men.
It's like a bunch of TV execs got together and were like "Jedoc had a pretty rough 2016, let's put together something that is exactly his jam. Is the time machine working? We've got a leading role written for Sam Rockwell fifteen years ago. No? Well, find someone just like that, but with better hair."
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Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
For some reason Netflix was recommending Frasier because I've watched The X-Files. I started up the pilot.
I originally watched the entire series with my family when it aired. I do not remember it having a laugh track nor being a half hour. Brains are weird.
Posts
Tower of Babel is dog shit
And here I thought you had taste.
Also, Warren Ellis. I mean he's probably written some dumb shit since the 90's, but he still hits home runs.
Nail on the head.
Racism? Still there. Murdering peripheral characters with callous abandon? Yup. Torture? Ohoho.
What they DID take out of it is the sense of urgency, Kiefer Sutherland's screen presence, and any kind of compelling mystery. They sort out the mole plot like an hour after it's introduced (but Miranda Otto is probably the real mole anyway we'll see). The first six episodes showed the terrorists that are actually planning the attack mostly concerned with bumbling antics and killing witnesses to their stupid antics.
Minor points for showing a positively portrayed gay couple but they're quickly put on opposite sides of the conflict due to those good ol' 24 circumstances that make the protagonists have to play behind the good guys' backs. Also their whole relationship so far is just subtext in conversations so if you don't notice it you don't get upset that your manly man show has some gay dudes in it.
You'd think the fact that the protagonist is black would be a positive for representation but his wife is immediately put into a dumb Kim Bauer plot involving, drumroll, his drug dealer brotherrrrr. Also Eric is super flat and can absolutely not carry the show the way Kiefer did.
And I never thought I'd say this but I miss the presidential B-stories. The only thing we have for this is Senator Jimmy Smits but the fact that he's married to Miranda Otto means that his story quickly got pulled into the main plot and he's at CTU with everyone now.
I also don't like Kingdom Come very much
What he say
ellis is consistently good
not everything is brilliant but I've never read anything of his and thought "well that was a waste of time"
e: also Crooked Little Vein and Gun Machine are far better than they have any right to be
Paraphrasing here, but there is a lot of downplaying Siegel and Schuster being really fucked over in favor of "well Superman is more important than them" kind of approach. Also the press tour around it had a lot of bragging on his own income in comparison to previous comic creators, and taking aim at Alan Moore for the shit that he does as well.
Also if I recall correctly there was an undercurrent of indie comic creators as highfalutin anti-working class folks.
Which is to say I still like a lot of his work, but I think a lot of his weird arty rockstar thing is very performative and completely at odds with a lot of his actual statements.
I really enjoyed the first season. It had a tight and contained plot with interesting characters and interpersonal dynamics and I got my brother into it and was looking forward to a second season.
Now that show is all over the place. there is no apparent plot, people are acting out of character at every corner in order to just deliver quirky one-liners and completely out of place summations of their acquired wisdom as if it was quoted straight from Sun Tzu. On top of that we get to enjoy the acting chops of Mark friggin Cuban and a portrayal of a wanna-be Elon Musk and quite possibly the worst represantation of poker in any tv show ever and that is a high bar to clear.
Such a shame.
Moore is a grumpy old fart but also a genius who wrote some of the most important comics of all time so whatever. He also gives hampers of food to homeless people every winter so he's a decent bloke I'd say.
*a group consisting pretty much entirely of Bob Kane
For the Americans, I'd say the big ones were Miller, Byrne, Claremont, Stern, Nocenti, and Walt and Louise Simonson.
I pretty unequivocally love Moore. Though I tend to like his interviews more than his comics these days.
And Stan Lee for that matter.
I think it's probably the only place where his interior work came close to working with the story, but yeah, his work barely works for me on covers, even if it is technically impressive.
Kingdom Come was already kind of a giant mess of a story (and I don't really get why so many comics writers are so keen to hook up Superman and Wonder Woman), so the art didn't really help matters.
I have nowhere else to put this but it's coming on tv in about 30 minutes so maybe here?
I think what makes Marvels work is that it's absolutely looking back on specific eras of comics, but it's taking a more human look at it without also falling all over itself to go for easy cynicism.
Kingdom Come's whole concept is ostensibly about how the youth are fucking things up and Superman has to come back and show everyone how things are really done, and it's clumsy and makes a ton of missteps, and the concept isn't one that especially appeals to me. I think Waid has written some terrific stuff, but he often adds details and complications that are unnecessary and unwieldy, and sometimes they overwhelm what he's trying to do. It's part of what makes Tower of Babel fall super flat for me. The concept of it, that Batman has files on how to defeat his fellow superheroes, is fine, and so is having a supervillain getting his hands on it and using those plans, and it's an effective way to add conflict to an ongoing book, but the story becomes focused on how clever and smart and prepared and amazing Batman is, and you can't show how smart he is unless his plans are obscure and weird and needlessly complex in places, and the punchline of the story isn't "the JLA is mad at Batman," it's "Batman is so smart he figured out the JLA was mad at them"
and also it's a huge part of what made it kind of impossible to talk about batman online for a solid decade
But yeah I at the very least appreciate Marvels. Kingdom Come though rubs me the wrong way on a lot of levels. It feels very much like a "get off my lawn" screed turned graphic novel in a lot of ways. Even if I tacitly agree with many of its sentiments.
"Why did he spend five million dollars on hand cream?"
Guess who thought he was clever but was in fact totally insufferable?
I like his line art and colored pencil work much more than his paint
But he also painted the greatest cover ever so
You'll get no argument out of me on that cover.
Where is my main man Denny O'Neil???
As someone who just found his old journals when he was unpacking the other day, I'm gonna guess it's me, pal
I suppose I think of him more as a 70s writer, despite his stellar work in the 80s and 90s.
That would be good. It's run its course.
How even is this shit happening? People are finally coming around to the idea that the X-Men work best in a retro-futuristic 60s setting, and now they decide to take it a step further and create Wes Anderson's the Uncanny X-Men.
It's like a bunch of TV execs got together and were like "Jedoc had a pretty rough 2016, let's put together something that is exactly his jam. Is the time machine working? We've got a leading role written for Sam Rockwell fifteen years ago. No? Well, find someone just like that, but with better hair."
I originally watched the entire series with my family when it aired. I do not remember it having a laugh track nor being a half hour. Brains are weird.
Every episode of it is good.
It makes excellent, I need noise in the background that won't annoy me, sounds.