Among other things I missed at San Diego was these guys:

Comics are under attack and the future of comics is at great risk. Every month the Hollywood studios get us excited with a new comic release and every month they disappoint us by taking the stories we love, paying no respect to the original creation, and making unnecessary and arbitrary alterations to dumb them down. Why do they do this? Because they believe that dumbing down equates to box office. As true comic fans, how much longer can we just stand aside and watch our beloved stories be exploited? Who is going to stand up and defend our stories against these injustices?

Compatriots of the comic book community, there is a time for change and that time is now. We need to show the studios how much better these movies would be if they would just follow the original comic stories. We are going pick up where Spider-Man 2 leaves off and make a version of Spider-Man 3 that is completely loyal to the original Spider-Man series before Sony Pictures goes into production next summer. We are then going to take this 20 minute film to Marvel and show them how compelling even a limited budget film can be when that film stays true to the original story. Once they see that they can fulfill their duty to protect the sanctity of comics and make money at the same time, they will force Sony to also stay true to the comic and save the franchise before its too late. If Spider-Man changes its ways, so will the rest.

We know this is no easy task, but with your help we can do it!

(Via [I think] Progressive Ruin).

I haven't blogged anything about the Democratic Convention this week, mainly, I think, because I've been watching most of it slack-jawed in amazement: The message, it seems, is that the grown-ups are finally back in charge of the party, and I couldn't be happier. As much as I disliked the prospect of George W. Bush's election -- I managed to vote against him twice in 2000, in Virginia's open Republican primary and then in the general election -- and the circumstances under which he took office, the antics of Bush's critics for the past three and a half years have, on the whole, been downright embarassing. It seemed for all that time that liberals had ratcheted up their outrage to 11 before Bush was even nominated and proceeded to scream like Steve Carell's character in Anchorman that anything Bush did was The Worst Thing Ever Done By The Worst Person Who Ever Lived: Bush's selection of Cheney was unconstitutional because Cheney switched his residency from Texas to Wyoming! Bush is arguing over the debate schedule because he can't read! The recount made it even worse: his brother is governor of Florida and his cousin works at Fox! His father appointed the Supreme Court! (Which is true, if by "Supreme Court" one means "two Justices, one of whom voted with the majority in favor of Bush and one of whom did not.")

That fever pitch of hysteria had the unfortunate effect of making most criticism of Bush, even the more serious brand of if, seem less serious and worth bothering with. Legitimate criticisms of policy got drowned out by insanity like the assertion that Bush wears an earpiece through which he's given his "instructions."

Thankfully, little of that was on display in Boston this week; instead of Moorian lunacy, we got measured, serious, sober criticisms of Bush's record, strong declarations of the need to win the war on terror, and a willingness to reach out to undecided, everyday Americans instead of party activists and elites.

And, dear God, how ling until Barak Obama can run? That was beautiful, especially his demolition of the "red state, blue state" nonsense we've been subjected to since 2000.

I realize this is all painfully vague and rambling. William Saletan at Slate has more in the way of details and a beautiful meditation on last night's presentation of Kerry himself and his war record. Bottom line: I'm no longer embarassed to be a Democrat, and I hope I can continue to say that as this campaign continues.

Remember the new Robin's parents from The Dark Knight Returns? How they never did anything but sit around, smoke a lot of drugs, and whine about how everything was all, like, fascist and stuff, man? You can read about six pages of Alan Moore and some interviewer from Salon doing the exact same thing.

God bless Grant Morrison:

My DCU is a day-glo, non-stop funhouse, where the world is threatened every five minutes and godlike beings clash in the skies like fireworks.

The threat is multi-fold in “Island of the Mighty,” using the supercompressed Western manga style I’m trying to develop - mad flesh-eating Gorilla Grodd has hijacked Superbia, the floating city of the Ultramarine corps and plans on using the captured heroes as unstoppable terror weapons in a war against civilization. To do this he enlists the aid of a cosmic monster - a killer of superheroes named Neh-Buh-Loh the Hunter, who ties directly into the upcoming Seven Soldiers stuff...and finally there's Black Hand, the old Green Lantern villain, who's invaded an experimental micro universe very much like our own, where superheroes don't exist and he's the only supervillain. It all happens very fast and very hard and leaves lots of damage.

There are robots, liquid men and jet apes and we get to see the Batman's “science fiction closet.” I wanted this book to taste like rocket fuel and make the reader feel like a beam of coherent light fired from the barrel of a laser gun. Don’t expect slow-paced character build-up in this one...

BATMAN'S SCIENCE FICTION CLOSET, people! That's good comics. Somewhere, Bob Haney is smiling.

Ye gods, comics journalism sucks.

Unbelievers can learn the origin of Kryptonian headbands here. This story depicts both men and women wearing headbands, but I'm still pretty sure that by the time just before Krypton exploded, headbands had become a traditionally male item of clothing.

I called it. Or at least half of it:

Jorja Fox, the "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" star who was fired for skipping work in a salary dispute, is returning to the hit CBS drama.

Fox reached an agreement with the network and will be back on the set next week, a source close to the production said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Co-star George Eads also lost his job when he also failed to report last week for the start of production on the fifth season.

Eads' situation remained unchanged Thursday. But a public apology -- in which the actor said he merely overslept and wasn't angling for more money -- may have opened the door to talks, the source said.

Is it wrong that I love Supergirl's 80s headband costume? I ask you: Is it so wrong?

CSI Files has more on the Eads (no relation) and Fox situation:

Fans lamenting the firing of Jorja Fox (Sara Sidle) and George Eads may have reason to hope, as reports leak out that Fox is in talks with CBS to return to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

According to Variety (via Yahoo! News), representitives for Fox are claiming she did indeed sign CBS's letter promising to come to work during salary negotiations, but because the letter was mailed and not faxed CBS may have assumed the actress never signed the letter.

Eads has also said that he'd like to return and hopes it can all work out. Am I the only one thinking that this is more than likely going to wind up being much ado about very little?

US News took advantage of the long summer news drought to devote pretty much all of last week's issue to a long, in-depth, and fascinating account of the Democratic primary campaign, particularly the fall of Howard Dean and the unlikely rise of John Kerry.  It's too damn long to excerpt with any justice; just read the whole thing.

So of course, it's the year I don't got to San Diego that Mattel unveils an incredible line of animated Justice League figures.  Go here for pictures.  This is amazing -- Aquaman isn't that odd of a choice, but I can't quite believe we're getting figures of Elongated Man, Green Arrow, the Levitz/Ditko Starman (I suspect Ditko will get more of a royalty from this one figure than he has for all of the ToyBiz Spider-Man toys over the years), Amazo, Red Tornado, Doctor Fate, the Atom -- looks like I'll have a lot fewer characters to customize for this line after all.

I'm really glad this didn't happen to a show I'd want to buy:

shows are subject to that's called "time compression"? Anyone? Anyone? Okay, for those of you with your hands down, here's what it is: When a television show is in first-run broadcast, it runs a particular length of time and fits in just so many commercials. When the show is syndicated into re-runs, they are usually edited down a bit, in order to shave off a few minutes of running time and squeeze in an extra commercial or two.
A different, more modern way of making room for extra commercials in syndication is "time compression". Simply put, the footage is sped up a bit, played at a slight faster speed, to achieve the same end result. It's like speeding up a vinyl record (you remember those, right?) from 33 1/3 RPM speed to, say, around 35 or 36 RPM (or thereabouts...I'm being metaphorical, not scientific). Not enough to notice, except for the very most discriminating ears (who claim that the actor voices sound more high-pitched and whiny, but it would take a sensitive person indeed to discern that).
Combat! on DVD seems to have been subject to that process, and die-hard fans talking on the internet are upset that distributor Image Entertainment didn't go back to the original film elements on this project.

As well they should be.  Most TV series, I imagine, will only get one shot at being released on DVD; it's not like there will be umpteen releases in the future the way there are with movies like Terminator 2, for instance.  If it's screwed up the first time, you're pretty much going to be stuck with it...

This is pretty darn cool:

"While legislators in Washington work to outlaw peer-to-peer networks, one website is turning the peer-to-peer technology back on Washington to expose its inner, secretive workings." According to Wired, the site "has aggregated more than 600 government and court documents to make them available for download through the Kazaa, LimeWire and Soulseek P2P networks."
Although all of the documents are available elsewhere, "they are buried deep in government and court sites or scattered among the sites of various government watchdog groups and media outlets."

De thinks I like my humor "slightly wicked."  Slightly?  I think I'm hurt.  At any rate, follow the link to read his friend Wes' hilarious convention write-up.  Kate and I are sitting out the convention circuit this year, alas, but on the other hand, last year at San Diego I shared special moments with Quentin Tarantino and Seth Myers and Pia Guerra drew me a monkey.  Could it GET better than that?  I think not.

Houseguests and blogging do not mix.  Fortunately, the houseguests were my parents, on their first trip here since we bought the house, and a terrific time was had by all.  Unlike previous visits (both to D.C. and to here), the fact that we have an actual house to hang out in meant that we could relax and visit and chat with one another, instead of trying to think of ways to keep us all occupied and out of whatever apartment we were living in at the time (last year, for instance, it was so hot in our un-air-conditioned apartment that we went to see American Wedding together just to get out of the house.  You haven't seen awkward until you're watching an American Pie sequel with your mom.)

She Who Must Be Obeyed sends along a report of the bizarre firings of George (no relation) Eads and Jorja Fox from CSI:

Danica Smith, publicist for both Fox and Eads, told The Associated Press that Fox was fired Wednesday but did not have details. Smith could not confirm whether Eads was fired.
A CBS spokesman said the network had no comment.
Eads didn't show up for work Thursday, the first day of production for the next season, according to the news station and Variety, which posted a story on its Web site Thursday.
The actors were in the fifth of their seven-year contracts.
Though a search was under way for their replacements, it's unclear whether show creators will recast the characters or develop new ones, the reports said.

CSI Files has more news:

fellow supporting actors Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown) and Paul Guilfoyle (Jim Brass) were "all offered minor raises in exchange for more airtime in a take-it-or-leave-it scenario". The actors were reportedly earning approximately $100,000 per episode but were negotiating for larger salaries.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, CBS asked all cast members to write a letter confirming that they would report to the set on Thursday, the scheduled first day of filming for the season premiere, "Viva Las Vegas". In the past the network has had problems with actors calling in sick in order to give themselves leverage in pay disputes, as several Everybody Loves Raymond cast members did last year.
Fox, despite earlier reports claiming she turned up to the set on Thursday (story), was sacked on Wednesday night after reportedly failing to send in her letter. Eads, who is also said not to have turned in his letter, reportedly turned up to work late on Thursday only to be fired. However, according to Variety sources, Fox did return her letter and "was surprised and mystified when she was fired". Sources close to Eads told the Hollywood Reporter that he too had sent his letter into CBS.
Marg Helgenberger (Catherine Willows) and William Petersen (Gil Grissom) are also looking for bigger paychecks, according to Variety. Both actors failed to report to the CSI set yesterday, "but for health reasons industry insiders said were legit", the trade paper said.

Is it just me, or is firing 2/5 of the main cast of what is, for all intents and purposes, an ensemble drama something of a drastic step?  I can't help but wonder how fired Eads and Fox actually are.

Dick Grayson is running for Congress.

The Smallville folks have cast their Lois Lane: She'll be played by Erica Durance, a young actress whose photo appears to not be anywhere on the Internet. This quote from a producer made me snort:

When the producers saw a tape of Durance, they were "blown away by her presence and charisma," Gough said. "She has a completely different energy than Kristin, which is what we were looking for. She felt like she can really hold her own with our cast and give the show the spark it needs going into its fourth season."

Isn't possessing ANY energy at all enough to have "a completely different energy than Kristin?" Lana is the weakest half of a TV romance since that guy Maddie married on the train from Chicago to LA in the death throes of Moonlighting.

UPDATED: Comics Continuum has posted a picture of Ms. Durance, who looks the part.

DC Direct's line of Alex Ross Justice League figures could be promising, but, boy, is his Flash beefier than he should be (both the sense of a Platonic ideal of the Flash and Ross' own previous depictions of him). Still, I'll probably buy it, since DC will probably never re-release its Silver Age Flash figure...

Judd Apatow reports that Undeclared may be on DVD soon. Which is great news, since I missed some episodes when it first aired (no surprise given how Fox yanked it around the schedule) and I think there were some episodes completed but never aired.

Speaking of Apatow, at least two Freaks and Geeks alumni were in Anchorman: Seth Rogen played Christina Applegate's camreaman, and Dave (Gruber) Allen, aka Mr. Rosso, aka Jeff, was in the background of a restaurant scene. I'm just sayin', is all.

Marc Singer elegantly addresses the annoying phenomnenon of the fanboy awards-entitlement disorder:

It happens like clockwork: every time an even halfway decent science fiction/fantasy/superhero movie comes out, the movie's fans (most frequently, fans of whatever preexisting property the movie animates) start claiming Oscars for it. Worse yet, the historic number of awards accorded to the bombastic Lord of the Rings: Just Get Up the Goddamn Volcano Already means we fanboys now expect to snag a couple as a matter of course.
[...]
When I read a good book I don't immediately demand that it receive a Pulitzer; when I watch a good TV show I don't instantly clamor for an Emmy. That we automatically associate any halfway good movie or performance with Oscar's approval is probably more indicative of the Academy's successful marketing of itself than it is of any honor that still clings, like some obstinate but degraded radioactive isotope, to the golden statuette. Who cares how many awards Spider-Man 2 gets? I wouldn't want it to join any club that'd have American Beauty as a member anyway.

And don't forget, Roman Polanski and Michael Moore belong to that club now, too.

What I find mystifying about this is that I can think of few years where a better movie didn't lose to a lesser one for Best Picture: This year, Lost in Translation and Master and Commander were far, far better than LOTR (I never did get around to seeing it, but unless it was radically different from the first two, by which I mean they fired everyone but Sean Astin and Ian McKellen and didn't think dramatic pauses equalled drama, I can't imagine that this wasn't the case; anyway, having suffered through the first two oleaginous LOTR films I feel quite safe in my belief that the third was more of the same); LA Confidential was better than Titanic, Pulp Fiction was better than Forrest Gump, Goodfellas was better than Dances with Wolves, and on and on. So I don't put much stock in the pronouncements of the Academy. And yet, that damnable Oscar still has a totemic power of validation, even over the likes of me; I cursed when I saw, after the ceremony I didn't watch, that Bill Murray had lost for Best Actor to Sean Penn...

The Tour de France and the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain are both happening as we speak. Why not combine the two? I'd watch THAT.

One of the books I picked up at Free Comic Book Day was IDW's sampler featuring excerpts from their adaptations of CSI, The Shield, and 24, as well as a fourth feature I don't remember. I've never gotten around to watching The Shield, and adapting CSI seems a straightforward enough task, but the treatment of 24 is what intrigued me. The adaptation, which I understand is being released as a one-shot "graphic novella," tries to replicate the series' real-time aspect by making 2 pages equal to one hour of elapsed time.

And, well, it doesn't work very well. The creators of this adaptation picked the wrong aspect of the series -- its real-time gimmick -- to replicate; that gimmick (a term I use lovingly, mind you) simply cannot be done in comics. Instead, they should have focused on the gimmick comics CAN do: Serialization. I often describe 24 as TV heroin, because it's not very good for you and after your first hit it's really hard to wait for your next one. Instead of compressing the day into 48 pages, why not expand it out to, say, 12 double-sized weekly issues, with each issue representing two hours and ending on a "Dear God, I MUST know what happens next!" cliffhanger? Sure, there would be issues of doing the art consistently across 12 weekly issues, but wouldn't that be worth it to capturing more of the spirit of the show? I, and I suspect many other 24 fans, am willing to forgive implausibilities of time and distance if they occur in the service of a great ride, and it's the ride, more than any particular plot, that appeals to me when it comes to 24.

This line from the increasingly strange Monitor Duty's review of Spider-Man 2 would have made me chuckle even if I hadn't just been to New York:

Forget that amazing loft that he shared with rich kid Harry Osborne; he now lives alone in the typical hellish NYC overpriced closet.

I get the feeling the author has some conception of New York as a Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson that's still stuck in the mid-70s, and you can't step outside without walking into a gang war and stepping over bodies and drug addicts. And thus misses the point that Peter's crapshack apartment shows what a fragile existence he's living because he can't bring any of the parts of his life into balance. Hell, I just spend almost a week sleeping on the futon in the living room of friends, one of whom is in a dues-paying job in the arts and the other is are a public school math teacher. And yet they have their own bathroom, the apartment is clean, well-lit, and freshly painted, and it's basically a heck of a place. The point of Peter's apartment is that it's atypical...

Who says history doesn't repeat itself? Cinescape's asticle on an animated feature called Big Bug Man mentions that

BIG BUG MAN will also feature the voice of Marlon Brando, the legendary screen actor that recently passed away. Brando recorded a supporting part for the film before his death last week.

Those of us who are From The 80s will, of course, recall that Orson Welles' final film role was as the voice of Unicron in Transformers: The Movie.

Like many Democrats, I was thrilled by Kerry's selection of John Edwards to be his running mate. William Saletan explains why:

Edwards was the best salesman, but Kerry was the best product. If you had to choose one or the other, I thought it was more important to pick the salesman, since the consequences of losing the election were far more serious than the consequences of electing the less qualified Democrat. The logic made sense, but the premise was mistaken. Democrats didn't have to choose. They could get the best product along with the best salesman, if Kerry had the wisdom to pick Edwards.

By wisdom, I don't mean short-term calculation or even long-term prudence. While Edwards offered the most obvious electoral boost, Kerry's associates made clear that the nominee was looking beyond the election for the running mate who would be most ready to step in as president. That train of thought led to Dick Gephardt, not to Edwards. Personal chemistry pointed in the same direction: By all accounts, Kerry feels far more comfortable with Gephardt than with Edwards. I think Kerry is uneasy around Edwards because Edwards reminds him of the young Kerry, and the old Kerry knows that the young Kerry was a showboating upstart. Gephardt was the guy Kerry wanted.

That's where wisdom had to intervene. Kerry had to recognize that the decision wasn't strictly his to make. Look again at those exit polls. Most Democrats who voted for Kerry weren't in love with him. They saw him as a vehicle to get rid of Bush. Some initially preferred the candidate who vowed to stand up to Bush, or the candidate who preached optimism, or the candidate who accused Republicans of a war against working people, or the candidate who promised to take back our government from the special interests. Kerry absorbed all the votes by absorbing all the messages. He became the optimistic guy who would stand up against Bush's war on work and fight the special interests. More clearly than any Democratic presidential nominee in 20 years, Kerry was chosen not to represent himself but to represent his party. And what Democrats wanted, as polls and crowds made clear, was Edwards—because they like him, and because they want to win.

That's the most important thing Kerry revealed today: He understands that the election is about more than what he wants. Sometimes the biggest thing you can do is to accept what's bigger than you.