Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Yeah, There's No Way This Is Not Going To Suck


I love me some Joss Whedon.  You know, the genius behind such cult television classics as Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse? As well as Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog and the feature film Serenity? The guy who's currently directing what promises to be the biggest comic-book movie of all time, The Avengers? Yeah, him.

Well, turns out Warner Bros. is gearing up to bring Buffy back, and this time it'll be on the big screen! Awesome, right? Wrong. Turns out the upcoming film won't be a continuation of the TV series, but a *shudder* reboot. Worse still, the project is going forward without any involvement from Joss whatsoever.

You may recall that Buffy got it's start as an amusing but forgettable 1992 film starring Kristy Swanson. That film was based on an original screenplay by Joss, who created the core concept. But when he sold the script, he sold the rights to the intellectual property. These things happen when you're a relatively unknown screenwriter. Unfortunately, that allows the producers of the original film to attempt to reboot the franchise without Whedon in a naked attempt to cash in on the Twilight-fueled vampire craze. Ugh. I want no part of it. Without Joss it isn't Buffy. Period. Just my opinion, of course, but I'm not alone.

Anyway, the above piece was inspired by a recent blog post by the great Brian Lynch. For I, too, am with JoJo.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

For All The Nerd Girls...

One of my daily online destinations is the awesome Topless Robot, and that's where I first heard about Katie Goldman, a little girl who was teased for bringing a Star Wars water bottle to school. Her mom, a blogger for Chicago Now tells the whole story here, but basically Katie was reduced to tears because some boys told her that she couldn't love Star Wars because it wasn't for girls. Seriously.

Now, I don't have kids, and normally this type of story would have me shaking my head in disbelief and then moving on with my day. But something about Katie's story touched me. Maybe it's because I'm a lifelong Star Wars nerd and I see her as one of the tribe. Maybe it's because my girlfriend (whose name is Katie) is a sweet, beautiful geek girl whom I love to pieces. I don't know, but I wanted to do some small thing to show my nerd solidarity.

So this is for Katie Goldman, and for every other nerd girl who ever got teased or bullied for loving something that other people didn't understand. Let your geek flags fly.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

If It Were Animated: The Opie & Anthony Show


From L-R: Gregg "Opie" Hughes, Anthony Cumia and Lil' Jimmy ("Yimmy") Norton.
 I’m a big fan of Opie and Anthony, and especially Jimmy Norton. I was listening to the show the other day and this just popped into my head. There’s a lot of great O&A animation on YouTube, but since I lack the know-how to create animation of my own I’ll just settle for using my animated-style characters as a banner for the show. If I WAS going to do an O&A animation, this is what it would look like. Enjoy.

This is fanart and is not for profit.

Pulp-Style Buffy The Vampire Slayer #2: The Harvest

Part 2 of the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" premiere-"The Harvest"-gets the pulp novel treatment.

This is fanart and is not for profit.

Pulp-Style Buffy The Vampire Slayer #1: Welcome To The Hellmouth

The premiere episode of Joss Whedon's brilliant series "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" gets the pulp novel treatment with "Welcome To The Hellmouth".

This is fanart and is not for profit.