Something I missed, that I wouldn’t have been able to attend even if I’d known about it, was a screening of the documentary Good Ol’ Charles Schulz, with director David Van Taylor in attendance, at a place I’ve mentioned before, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Here is the part of the film I liked, and I was pleased to later learn that Monte Schulz felt the same.
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Here’s a scene from last weekend’s comic book show in Albany. D.F. Rogers is with legendary artist extraordinaire Joe Sinnott, Joe’s son Mark, Mark’s wife Belinda, and their son Trevor. It’s a lot of fun being able to hang out with the Sinnotts. Dennis is showing a story to Joe that Joe drew 35 years ago, but had never before had a chance to see in print. Dennis, Mark and I got a laugh from realizing that we can recognize Joe’s work from as little as four small dabs of ink.
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Greetings from Albania — I mean Albany! The WiFi service here at the Holiday Inn is pretty good, and I’m glad I brought the new Acer netbook.
Dennis and I are in New York’s capitol for a comic book show. It’s a nerd male bonding weekend! I wouldn’t be here except I had to stop training for the Boston Marathon because of my Achilles tendon problem.
On the way here Dennis had a neat surprise. A recording of us on the college radio station way back in 1976. You can count on me blogging that in the future.
If you scamper over to the AAUGH! Blog, you’ll see where the ever-vigilant D.F. Rogers has caught and corrected Nat Gertler in an error about Charlie Brown’s All Stars.
Dennis has further defected from DogRat to make an appearance on the web site of Fred Hembeck, cartoonist of comic book topics. Den caught up with Hembeck at The National (aka: Big Apple Con) last November when I wasn’t looking, and he promised Fred he’d pull up some old fanzine drawings going back nearly 40 years. Click this link, and look for the section called “Yesterday and Today” (Fred has got to get himself some permalinks).
Today Eric and I saw “Watchmen,” and being a fan of the comic book series I have to say that although I have my quibbles with it, the movie is as faithful an adaptation as I think can be done. So I have no complaints. It may not have any performances of Heath Ledger caliber, but so what? The movie’s weaknesses are only those that are built into the source material. The sequence for the opening credits is superb.
There’s an adjunct DVD that’s out for “Watchmen,” called “Tales of the Black Freighter,” with material that (wisely) wasn’t included in the movie. Here’s a preview.
The Black Freighter is a reference to something in Kurt Weill’s “Threepenny Opera” (thanks to my friend Morris for that tip). The author of “Watchmen”, Alan Moore, used to do work under the pen name Curt Vile.
This is John Hamm, from the AMC series Mad Men. The idea behind the gag is good, but the skull cap could be better.
