Brian Conin of Comics Should Be Good put together this excellent, thorough FAQ on the whole Superman Copyright issue.
| Quote: |
| So, who owns the copyright of Superman? As of this moment, as per the ruling by Judge Stephen Larson on March 26, 2008, Superman’s copyright is owned in two equal parts by DC Comics/Time Warner and the heirs of Superman co-creator, Jerry Siegel. Why do the Siegels own half? |
Superman Copyright FAQ was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon
[ 
Mood: Amused ]
The New York Times, of all places, offers this sensational interactive gallery of Al Jaffe‘s surprisingly prescient Mad fold-ins.
(Thanks to Mark Williams for the link.)
Fold-Ins, Past and Present was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon
[ 
Mood: Sleepy ]
[ 
Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
Okay – first off – don’t panic. Husband Unit and I are still together. I have just passed this book so many times in the book store and been intrigued by its title, that I ordered it from the library.
Boy do I wish this book had been around when I was still on the dating scene. It would have saved me a lot of heartache when relationships went south. I am not saying that this is the cure to all your problems, but Greg Behrendt is quite funny and reminds all women that when a relationship ends, it ends for a reason. Women have a bad tendency to think they can fix things.
This one is good for a laugh and good for that female friend who has just had a relationship end, and is going off the deep end.
[ 
Mood: Silly ]
[ Currently: Eating My 22g of carbs snack ]
So I was surfing this morning through the Huffington Post when I cam across this article.
Being a Stephen Colbert fan, I scrolled right to that part.
Here’s the most biting part, where the author, Greg Mitchell, talks about Stephen skewering the Washington Press Corps:
| Quote: |
| Here is the key passage: "Let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know — fiction." |
Ouch!
[ 
Mood: In Love ]
[ 
Currently: Watching CSI:NY ]
So in preparation for the arrival of Geeklet, I decided to make myself some nursing pads.
What are nursing pads, you ask yourself? They are the fabric circles that nursing women slip into their bras to mop up leaks. You can buy these, but they cost money.
You can also get disposible ones. But those cost money and aren’t good for the environment.
So I decided to make my own out of old T-Shirts. Especially since I have wanted to learn how to sew for awhile now. This would be a perfect project.
So I went to the Artisan’s house to make them. She and her mom are expert sewers. She makes quilts. Her mom was trained as a seamstress after WWII.
It took forever to cut-out the circles. Once that was done, I pined them and ended up with four piles.
I then learned how to wind a bobbin and thread the needle. Then I got to drive the machine. It has a peddle like a car. It went vroom! 
I got two made. I go back next week to finish the rest. But I have also used the down time during my videogame night to cut out more circles from the T-Shirts. So I should be able to finish them next week.
After that, who knows? Maybe I will make a Black Canary costume.
I’m as happy as the next geek about the announcements of both a Jonah Hex and Lone Ranger films. What puzzles me is that neither movie plans on involving Joe R. Lansdale with the script.
From ShockTillYouDrop:
| Quote: |
| In just a little over a month, powerhouse writing-directing team Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Game) begin shooting a sequel to their pumped-up, kinetic actioner Crank. Following that, it’s Jonah Hex, the DC comics western steeped in the supernatural.
“I think it’s the best script we’ve written,” Taylor told me during a late-night soiree in Hollywood thrown in anticipation of Pathology, a film he co-penned with Neveldine. Warner Bros. apparently loves the script and understands the tone the pair have brought to this tale of true grit and blood – and if you’ve seen Crank and Pathology, you know all bets are off and you’re in for a unpredictable, f’ed-up ride. |
It may be the best script they’ve written, but no incarnation of Jonah Hex has ever matched Lansdale’s interpretations. In his three DC/Vertigo mini-series, Lansdale (along with his frequent artistic cohort Tim Truman) re-imagined the scarred gunfighter’s adventures with a supernatural bent.
From Lansdale’s intro to Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo:
| Quote: |
| I remembered reading the Hex stories as being somewhat spooky, supernatural. But when I began rereading those written by Hex’s creator, John Albano, I was astonished to discover they were good, tough Western stories, but they weren’t any supernatural elements. Nary a one. […] This surprised me. My memory had play tricks on me.
[…]The old comics were great, but I decided I wanted to bring in the elements of my false memory, tie them to Albano’s creation, and let the good times roll. I wrote my story to reflect the old Hex,[…] but I gave the story an echo of what I thought had been in the early Hex stories, but wasn’t. I decided to keep it subtle however, so that the reader could, to some extent, read it either way– as real supernatural business, or as real-life weird business. |
Course the reason for not including Lansdale may have had to do with the 1996 lawsuit surrounding the second Lansdale-Truman Hex series, Riders of the Worm and Such.
| Quote: |
| The Winter brothers sued DC, as well as writer Joe Lansdale and artists Tim Truman and Sam Glanzman, on the basis of two unsavory characters introduced into the Jonah Hex storyline as the Autumn brothers, which the Winters argued constituted a defamatory representation and a misappropriation of the musicians’ likenesses. Like the Winters, the Autumn brothers were albinos from the South named Johnny and Edgar. The fourth issue of the miniseries was entitled “The Autumns of Our Discontent,” replacing “Autumns” for “Winter” in the famous phrase from the first line of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Though singing cowboys figured in the story, the Autumn brothers were anti-singing. They were also dim-witted,murdering, pig-humping, inbred offspring of raped humans and supernatural worms. |
The case worked its way through the legal system, finally being resolved in 2003, when the California Supreme Court sided with DC.
Thought DC never collected Riders of the Worm and Such, the duo returned to Hex in 1999 with Shadows West (also never collected. Imagine an Absolute Jonah Hex collecting the three Lansdale-Truman series?). Lansdale also scripted the Jonah Hex appearance on The Adventures of Batman and Robin.
Typical Hollywood b.s. probably has more to do with why Lansdale isn’t writing the upcoming movie, but one never knows. Still, I’d be much more eager if he was involved.
And then this announcement from Disney via Hollywood Reporter:
| Quote: |
| Writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio are going from “shiver me timbers!” to “Hi-ho Silver!”
The writing duo, best known for their work on the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, are in final negotiations to write a live-action big-screen adaptation of “The Lone Ranger” for Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. |
Soon after the success of their first Jonah Hex series, Lansdale and Truman tackled the iconic Western characters The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Their controversial take started with Tonto decking the Lone Ranger. This humanized Tonto grew the ire of Rush Limbaugh, who cited it as an example of what is wrong with America, and applauded by Native American groups. This one had some weirdness and supernatural as well, but it was one of the finest portrayals of the Lone Ranger. And yet, Lansdale is not working on this script either.
Lansdale has become a sought after screenwriter over the past several years with a half a dozen productions in their early stages. So having him work on two characters that he clearly understands might make sense, but this is Hollywood, where sense need not apply.
Jonah Hex and Lone Ranger films announced was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon
[ 
Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Watching Very old Survivor episode ]
Last night was Strippers night. The ladies decided that we would take on Lusca, the giant octopus in Independence Port.
The first four tentacles went down pretty fast and easy, with eight people on our team and one extra person. Each time we took out a tentacle, Lusca disapeared for a minute or so, then reappeared.
Then we got to the final four tentacles, and things went down hill. Lusca wiped us out big time, killing our healer, which meant we all dropped pretty fast. So we put a call out to see if we could get a few more heroes rounded up to help with the taking down of the octopus.
Eventually, the beast went down. Clearly we had recruited enough heroes. But I got no Devilfish badge. And I wasn’t the only one. Many of my teammates were missing the badge too.
WHAT!?!?!?!
Two hours of work, three deaths and over 37,000 still left in debt, but no badge. I sent a petition to tech support. And about ten minutes later I got my badge. So did my teammates.
Wanna know what this looks like? Here is a vid of someone else taking on the octopus menace.
[ Mood: Happy ]
[ 
Currently: Listening to CBC Radio ]
Remember Randy Costan?
He’s the guy who posted pictures of himself dressed as Peter Pan on the Internet in 2001. He became a bit of a celebrity, even winning a Webby award. He claimed that one of the reasons why he posted the pictures was to find a girlfriend.
Most of us laughed. The polite among us in our hands. The rest out loud.
Well, a miracle has happened. He has found his Tinkerbell, proving that there is someone for everyone.
Maybe I am a hopless romantic, maybe I am hormonal, but this makes me all warm and fuzzy in my heart area.
[ Mood: Sleepy ]
[ Currently: Watching Daily Show ]
The Dragon Delasangre is the first novel from Alan F. Troop. It is an angsty romance, purportedly in the style of Anne Rice. I wouldn’t know, I have never read Anne Rice.
Personally, I found it a fantasy/harlequin with lots of death. And quite boring. I gave up on it by the middle of the book and went back to A Game of Thrones, which being a thick, meaty, intense fantasy novel, I needed a break from.
Meh.
[ Currently: Listening to Blonde on Blonde– Bob Dylan ]
Today, as I have every six months for the past ten years, I got my teeth cleaned. During that same period except when she is on vacation, the same technician has cleaned my teeth. The visit started normally enough. We discussed the weekend and what we’ve been up to.
“You are a writer? What do you write? Have you written a book?” I know I had mention previously that I’m a writer. Not exactly something you hide.
I had just finished telling her about me and Brandy’s upcoming New York vacation and how my last trip was work related. A research trip for something I was writing.
“I’m a critic. Primarily write about pop culture. I have two pieces in the current [Austin] Chronicle.”
“Yeah, but have you written a book?” Why does that always come up? Am I not a “real” writer with some 300,000 published words over the best decade but no book? Sadly for most, the book, regardless of its quality or who published it, legitimatizes a writer. Thankfully for these occasions, I have produced a book. I tell her about Geek Confidential.
“So what’s next? What were you researching in New York?”
“Have you heard of Irving Klaw? He’s my grandfather.” I wasn’t expect much of a response. The technician, as evident by her family photos and her manners of speech, is clearly a suburbanite and not the type usually knowledgeable about Bettie Page and Irving Klaw.
“As in Bettie Page? No way! I saw that movie [The Notorious Bettie Page] about her on HBO. That was your grandfather and grandmother taking the pics?”
I then explained about how the woman, Paula, was actually my grandfather’s sister and filled her in on a some family history. She enjoyed the movie and was astonished about some of the things I told her about Irving. About how he practically invented the pin up industry in 1940s and his works helped to change the public perceptions about pornography.
It continually amazes me who knows about my grandfather and who wants to learn more. With HBO showing Notorious six times in April, I imagine more interested folks are going to be asking about my grandfather. I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
Dental Revelations was originally published on The Geek Curmudgeon