In the world of
black and white,
there is . . .
Columns
Hairy
Gravy
What's The Use Of Getting Sober?
Reviews
Original Material
-by
Erich Schoeneweiss
Been a busy
month or so, between personal adventures (went skiing for the first
time, still sporting bruises from that one), work, socializing, writing
for GHM, and defending the honor of GHM staffers.
So, with all this time passed between updates you’re probably
figuring I‘ve got something utterly original for you to read
here…thing is, I really don’t.
Hell, you could link away to something else right now and
probably not miss much, but for those of you who are going to stick this
out with me here we go…
If you are
not reading Black Panther you’re missing one of the most unique books
the House of Ideas is publishing. I
jumped on board with issue #26 (the first of the 4 part Sturm und Drang
story line) and was pleasantly surprised.
The book had been shoved in my face with a “You should read
this” and I took it but paid no heed.
I was looking for ANYTHING to read on the can one day and grabbed
it, I was hooked after that. Priest
is writing a witty, suspenseful, social, and political super hero comic.
I never thought much of T’Challa
other than he was some sort of token African American hero Marvel could
use to be PC. Under
Priest’s great storytelling he’s a very complex character.
I loved the interaction and use of Namor, Doctor Doom, and
Magneto in the story line and Klaw made for a great villain. The addition of the Tom Clancyesque political and military
angle made the story that much more exciting.
Give the book a shot; it’s certainly different from the usual
super hero fare.
I praise
Marvel, now I must throw darts at them for the weak hell death of
Colossus in The Uncanny X-Men #390.
Basically, he injects himself with the cure for the Legacy Virus
than activates his mutant powers, killing himself and releasing the cure
thus saving the world. Fine,
it was a noble death; HOWEVER, considering it was Stryfe who initially
released the virus with his death it should have been Cable who released
the cure with his death. Marvel
didn’t have the balls to kill off such a weak ass character they still
don’t know what to do with. It
was so much easier to kill off one of the most noble and beloved X-Men.
Sure he doesn’t have his own book or a hoard of T-shirts, but
the great Colossus stories told over the years have filled many more
pages than anything with Cable in it. Marvel’s position is if fans
want to read Colossus stories they can still pick up Ultimate
X-Men…that’s a crock of shit and we all know it.
I can think of so many other X-Men more worthy of death (HOW IS
GAMBIT SO POPULAR?! HE
THROWS PLAYING CARDS FOR GOD’S SAKE!!).
OK, off of
comics and on to film for a minute.
Read an interesting article in Premiere Magazine last week about
the use of digital effects to enhance actors’ performances and clean
up scenes. While we’re
all aware of the traditional use of effects, the digital age is allowing
artists to do such things as:
-Add enough
hair to a female stripper to cover what was an exposed nipple, thus
giving a film a PG or PG-13 rating instead of an R.
-Removing an
actor from a scene they should not have been in.
-Adding a
tear to an actress who couldn’t conjure them up on her own.
The prospect
of some of this I find scary. Sure
covering a breast here or there is one thing, but manipulating an actor
or actresses performance digitally is wrong.
If an actor is expected to cry in a scene, I expect them to be
talented enough to do just that. That
is why there are awards for acting after all.
I’m just going to be watching movies (which are $10 in NYC now)
with a whole new perspective now.
Finally, I
became an uncle for the first time this weekend.
After 7 months of basically willing the child to be a boy I
received just that. My
nephew is incredible. His first night home I sat and watched the
Simpsons with him and read him an issue of JLA (his dad threw a Spidey
comic at me and told me to read the good stuff to him).
I look forward to the many adventures Gizmo (he makes cooing
sounds like a Mogwai) and I will have over the years.
If you have the means, I highly recommend you get one.
So that’s
it…back to work.
Copyright©2001 Erich Schoeneweiss