“Deep in water-filled underground caves beneath Australia’s Nullarbor Plain, cave divers have discovered unusual ‘curtains’ of biological material – known as Nullarbor cave slimes.
It is thought that the periodic inundations of the Nullarbor caves by the sea occurred a number of times in the geological past and so researchers suggest that the Weebubbie Thaumarchaeota may have a marine origin.
“It just goes to show that life in the dark recesses of the planet comes in many strange forms, many of which are still unknown,” says Professor Paulsen.”
That last quote feels a little… just a little, Lovecraftian if you ask me.
“It flies over Waziristan, then to New York City and finally to the UK, asking itself philosophical questions and gradually gaining more self-awareness. However, the Freestone Drone is fated to die by getting tangled up in a washing line — the same washing line that American drone commanders use as a sign of activity inside the homes of suspects. Along the way he also gatecrashes a wedding in Paris, and even travels through time, as part of the piece’s exploration of the changing nature of warfare.”
“Were you conflicted about writing about your friend Harris’s death, about using that as a subject?
No. I see no reason not to write whatever comes to me. There was no way I was not going to write about Harris’s death. It’s like when you’re at a cocktail party and you meet someone you know you’re going to sleep with. You might as well get it over with and sleep with them. I’m talking about my former, younger life now. But. There is no point in pretending. I no longer try to avoid the inevitability of what comes to me, writing-wise.That said, there are a lot of factoids that I opted not to include in the book. This is not a book about everything I know about Harris. There are a lot of things about myself I chose not to include. I have written two memoirs but that doesn’t mean that I want to share everything. It’s hard to make it sound as if that argument holds any water at all. I don’t have a personal Facebook page. I don’t want to divulge what I don’t want to divulge.”
Let’s start with the big one then, eh? The one everyone — including the publisher — thought would be a good idea to spoil for themselves and everyone else going in (:sigh:)…
- BATMAN INCORPORATED #8.
This issue picks up right where the last one left off: with Damien Wayne suited up as Robin, Grayson and Gordon facing a mob of indoctrinated Leviathan, and Bruce trapped in a safe at the bottom of a pool atop Wayne Tower. If this scenario sounds familiar, it is… and Morrison played with the idea of Batman being trapped in a safe one too many times before last issue. See, Talia knows he’ll get out. Eventually. It’s just what he does. Her plan is to have him take enough to get out that he can’t stop what’s to transpire underneath him, in the corridors of his corporate headquarters. What does transpire is insane. I can’t believe — after all the time he’s spent molding him into such a likeable, cunning, loyal person — Morrison would have the gall to do this. The big moment is handled well, especially the art. This is some of the best art we’ve seen from Burnham on the title yet, at least those couple pages. It is brutal. It is colorful. It is shocking. But I have a sneaking suspicion Morrison is not done yet with that particular character. On top of the big moment, we’re getting imagery from all over M’s run from the past 7-ish years: the girl Ellie who Batman gave a job at Wayne Ent., the ouroboro symbol, the Dick/Damien double punch, Ninja Man-Bats, there’s even a bit of Black Glove. If you’re just interested in seeing the big moment though, and have not been following the run, please… just stick to Scott Snyder.
- AVENGERS #4-6
It’s a little hard to review these as a whole. In a way, each of these issues of Jonathan Hickman’s iteration of The Avengers are actually stand-alone tales; introductory type one-offs that detail the rise of some of his more obscure team members (with overarching threads weaving throughout). The first issue tells the wonderful, other-worldly story of Hyperion… a rather obscure character from Marvel’s back-catalog. This is apparently another version from another alternate Universe. Hickman has been quoted as saying this character is very important to the long, three-year plan he has for his run on the title. The second (#5) takes us back to Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men (ironically enough), which I actually just reread last month. Another big-scope, outer-space tale of an Iowa farm girl discovering sentient technology, putting it on, and becoming the first human member of an Imperial guard of an alien race. Another relative unknown from Marvel’s back issues that Hickman would apparently like to use in his run. Then we come to Tamera Devoux of number 6, a brand new character for Hickman’s story. We learn that Tamera was in a car crash and suffered amnesia, and lost her baby girl. The Universe herself has possessed her. When asked why, the Universe replies, “Because she is broken. Because she is dying. Just as I am.” The art on all three is handled by Adam Kubert, who I’m familiar with cause he opened Morrison’s Batman run back in 2006. He does wonderful work. But these covers are making me crave some Dustin Weaver Avengers stuff. Handled intelligently, as always from Hickman. And the end of 6 sees the “White Event” at hand. So things should pick back up here in 7.
“This may sound incredible, but in recent years, research on using signals from the brain to operate machines has taken great strides. Scientists have developed brain-machine interfaces that allow paralyzed humans to move a computer cursor or even use a robotic arm to pick up a piece of chocolate or touch a loved one for the first time in years. Nicolelis has set his sights even higher: He wants to get paralyzed people up and walking around. If he succeeds it could be a tremendous advance. Right now he’s still developing this technology in monkeys. There’s a long way to go.
But Nicolelis was brimming with confidence in January when I visited his lab at Duke University to see how his work is progressing. “We’re getting close to making wheelchairs obsolete,” he said.“
- I’m going to be working on music all day today. In fact, I’ll probably hop to it after writing this. I’m staring at three pages from my creativity book — one ripped out — trying to discover the natural succession of songs as they should unfold in relation to what the album is about. What it means to me. This is easily my most personal album I’ve ever done, as it vaguely (it doesn’t beat you over the head or anything) tells the story of the hardest years of my life. So far. But in a meta-way, this time… this experience, is kind of what birthed the idea and the sounds that would become my current musical persona to begin with. It likely wouldn’t exist in this way without this experience. So it’s all a little bizarre. About halfway through I’m remixing the very first track I did officially under the pseudo-name, in an effort to recreate the frustration of what was happening boiling over and me finally going down to the basement and making this droning, Electronic beat. So… I’m excited.
That’s Doldrums new album, “Lesser Evil”, released yesterday on Arbutus Records. Canadian (Toronto) -based Electronic music that isn’t trying to make you dance (though you probably could), but that doesn’t get weird for the sake of it. There’s a hint of that new wave of Canadian electronics in here, the sounds we heard from Purity Ring and Grimes in 2012; those textures are supplemented with the more analog sounds of a group like, say, Black Moth Super Rainbow. The vocals are surprisingly un-effected out (generally speaking), and there are nods of good old-fashioned storytelling inside some of these songs; but it is not afraid to use a voice as a pure and simple instrument in and of itself as well. On top of that you’ve got these rhythmic, hypnotic back-beats that have clearly been recorded live, with a kit, in a large room with padded walls. Definitely worth checking out.
- I really hope Warren Ellis will be getting some amount of dough from Iron Man 3, if the movie is directly lifting his nanotechnology, biological modification, Extremis from his run on the character.
Speaking of Uncle Warren, he’s apparently been inspired by newspaper comic strips, and has been releasing single panel comics on his website of late… as part of a world he calls “Scatterlands”. Here’s the latest:
- So I’m a regular reader of comics. At any given time I’ve got anywhere from 5-10 books on my pull list at the shop. But for some reason I have never read any Avengers stuff (I don’t read too much superhero stuff besides some classics and/or products of great writers). I was simultaneously trepidations and excited to jump into the deep end when I heard Jonathan Hickman (a writer who’s creator-owned work I follow) would be writing not one, but two, Avengers books. And though I firmly stand on the side of the “New Avengers/Illuminati”, I did catch up on the regular “Avengers” title last night. I read a lot of slightly negative things about the 2nd and 3rd issues of the book, which I don’t really understand because the quality is almost exactly the same as the first. But a lot of readers of comics — and your fanboys who don’t read comics — don’t have the best taste. Anyways I’m hoping these “Creators”, these spectacularly complex and borderline sympathetic villains, are revisited later on during Hickman’s run… perhaps reigniting the evolution of Mars and thus far surpassing Earth?
- An article on Wired is garnering quite a bit of views: Inside The Battle of Hoth. It basically takes a satirically serious look at the strategies employed by both the Empire and the Rebellion during the big first set-piece of Empire. But after reading this article, you’ll realize how inept and incoherent a military strategy the Empire employed in their best chance at wiping out 90% of the Rebellion with one stroke.
- I read one legal analyst compare patents to bullets last year, in that they’re cheap and quick to manufacture and they have the potential to do a LOT of damage. The past few years have seen an escalation of patent-based lawsuits, and I don’t just mean the high profile cases like Apple v. Samsung (or the latest Facebook suit). Patent based legal action has skyrocketed in all sorts of industries, but yes… mostly the tech industries. “Everybody in the hi-tech industry is picking up their patenting, but we are also seeing that litigation is slowing people down,” Gwylim Roberts to BBC in THIS ARTICLE… “We didn’t see litigation for a long time and suddenly it began. I personally think it might be peaking at the moment – it’s now starting to get in the way of business objectives.” I believe in the next few decades — as the exponential curve of tech growth continues — we will see a revamping in patent laws across the globe.
“My wife had only recently been unemployed for 4 months and has a good understanding of what it is like. Her warnings and advice have been invaluable. That said, I was not prepared for the full brunt of it. I make a point of applying for at least 2 jobs a day, maybe more. These are not necessarily jobs on my formal career path, but are jobs I am qualified to do based on my career or based on my experience over the last 15 years. Anything and everything. The Kitchen Sink approach. Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.”
“Of course, astronomers have known about Mercury for thousands of years, but since NASA’s MESSENGER probe went into orbit around Mercury in 2011, researchers feel like they’ve been discovering the innermost planet all over again. One finding after another has confirmed the alien character of this speedy little world, which you can see this week with your own eyes. Mercury is emerging from the glare of the sun for a beautiful two-week apparition during the month of February 2013. The show begins about a half hour after sunset. Scan the horizon where the sun’s glow is strongest and, if the sky is clear, Mercury should pop out of the twilight, a bright pink pinprick of light. Mercury itself is not actually pink, but it is often colored so by the rosy hues of the setting sun.”
“It started with an interesting disease, I guess. I started writing it in film school, which means I took eight years to write it, on and off. I was sick with the flu, and I had this fever dream. I was obsessing over the physical nature of my illness, and how I had something in my body that had come from someone else’s body, and how that was a weirdly intimate thing, if you think about it that way.
So afterwards, I was trying to think about a character who might see disease as an intimate thing. I thought a celebrity-obsessed fan might reasonably want Angelina Jolie’s cold as a way of feeling physically connected to her in some way. And then it developed into a metaphor, which I thought was an interesting way of discussing that culture.”
- Seriously, Lars von Trier’s newest film is called “Nymphomaniac“? I swear, that guy just lives to push people’s buttons. Which is awesome. I still haven’t seen “Antichrist”… and to be honest I’m a little frightened by the disturbing imagery within. I mean, I’m sure I wouldn’t be fainting or anything like that (as has been reported); but I’m not so sure about my psychological tolerance for self-mutilation of the worst kind. I did however really, really like “Melancholia”, part two of his “Depression Trilogy” (“Antichrist” being part one). Maybe I’ll give this new one a watch at some point.
- Robin Hanson over at Overcoming Bias posted an excellent little piece about why certain movies do better than others, the relationship between consuming fiction and our lives, and the status of known achievement:
“There’s an apt old curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Which highlights the fact that while we like stories with drama, we don’t actually want drama in our lives. If you ignore the very end, and the fact that the characters are very high status artists, Amour is quite realistic and by far the drama most likely to actually be experienced by many of you. Which is why most folks don’t like it, because they don’t actually want to see realistic ordinary drama.
Amour is about a women who gets sick and then dies. I was stuck by the fact that what most bothered her and her husband were the insults to her pride. They could mostly handle the pain, the drudgery, and the loss of opportunity. But the loss of status, oh that stung.“
Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staple’s space opera/love story has been consistently good since it’s debut last Spring on Image Comics. And it isn’t just me saying this: all over the net and in stores across the country people who have been entrenched in comics their entire lives are saying the same thing. What makes it so good? It delivers on everything only comics can do (unique, high-concept, bizarre), whilst also delivering everything a good novel or film does (beautiful, hopeful, funny, witty, with healthy helpings of heart). In this issue a character who has been mentioned before makes her proper debut appearance and definitely throws another piece into the puzzle, as she is someone with a personal connection to the new family that everyone is after. Upon second reading I’m seeing some parallels between this new, pseudo family in the corridors of The Will’s ship and the title family. And I’m starting to feel like I know Gwendolyn and Will as well as I do the main characters. Both are written and drawn with care, and definitely not painted as “bad guys”. They are real people, each with something that’s driving their hearts and actions. Staples draws brilliant expressions and gestures. She’s one of those artists that is neither highly stylized or highly detailed, just spot on. Whether it’s action or subtle conversation she’ll get the proportions and angles perfect. And Vaughan is of course a wonderful craftsman of character. Everything in this book breathes. Anyone who’s into comics even just a little owes it to themselves to at least give SAGA a try.
- NEW AVENGERS #2
While the lineup of Jonathan Hickman’s other — more popular — Avengers book just continues to expand, New Avengers is taking the opposite path, focusing solely on a very select few of the best minds of the Marvel Universe to tackle massive, mind-bending problems that have no easy solution. What’s happening in the pages of this book (only 2 issues in, mind you) is the reuniting of the think-tank type organization known as ‘The Illuminati‘: Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Namor, Black Bolt, Dr. Strange, a dead Charles Xavier, and Black Panther. The first issue saw a mysterious and other-worldly figure show up in Wakanda (Black Panther’s home country in Africa), to announce the destruction of Earth a result of a collision with another planet looming in the sky. What’s going on here is somewhat explained in the pages of this issue, though not entirely because even this team of geniuses does not understand this fully. Hickman uses his design skills (if he isn’t making money off of side graphics design gigs he should be) to present the high concept through the eyes of Reed. It’s heavy stuff, but the chart (for lack of a better word) Reed uses spells it out plainly. The team makes a decision to — if it comes to this — destroy another planet to save their own, at the behest of some of the more honorable and/or idealistic characters like Cap and Black Panther. It’s an interesting moral dilemma, and I’d like to see more of this type of conversation from this book. So far and for the immediate future it’s drawn by Steve Epting who does amazing work all the time. I still remember the days of Warren Ellis’ Thunderbolts and just being blown away by Epting’s work. I typically don’t read big superhero stuff like this, but I am very excited to see where this goes.
- THE MASSIVE #8
The Massive is easily the most plausible and realistic of these three books I’m writing about today, and I can’t stress enough how smart it is in the context of the World we live in now. When baby-boomers tell me that they haven’t seen such uneasiness and unrest in the world in their lifetimes (including the 60s) that they’re seeing now, I know that there’s something special going on with the human race. It isn’t good or bad, it’s beyond those terms. It’s beyond all previous applications of what we thought we knew. Transitional phase. The Massive takes these gigantic problems we face and cranks them forwards until they’ve snapped, and now the world is on full-on reset mode. Culturally, geographically, morally. And the organization known as “Ninth Wave” — who had in 2004 blockaded a gulf with their sister ships to protest one of the big energy companies, to give you an idea of what they do — is struggling to find their place in the new world that has emerged from the rubble of the old one. The current arc, this is part 2 of 3, sees the crew stumbling upon an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the Indian Ocean, where an ex-terrorist has supposedly found a new purpose and creating a thriving community on the decks of said rig. While they’re anchored a storm hits, and the entire rig gets put on lockdown. In this issue we really get to see new sides of the crew of Ninth Wave, beyond its leader Cal and his right hand (trigger) man Mag. Each of them have their own ideas of what their purpose is in a post-Crash society, and that is highlighted here. It’s looking as if this arc will usher in a change in the organization, for good or bad.
- Alright so the news that JJ Abrams is directing the new Star Wars movie has lit up the Internet. I know it’s redundant, but I’ll be quick about it (I hope). Here’s my take:
JJ Abrams, from a visual standpoint, is a hack. There’s just no two ways around it. He’s the directorial equivalent of a girl (or a guy I suppose) who tries way, way too hard. And any little amount of attractiveness that might exist under all that makeup (lens flares) and spray tan (odd angles w/ no context) and accessories (shaky cam cause shit’s just too intense), ceases to be. I watched his Star Trek once; I couldn’t get through it. It’s honestly that off putting to me what he does with the camera. Which is unfortunate because I’m sure he’s a very capable writer. He has a pretty good knack for high-concepts that end up being as simple or as complex as the viewer wants them to be. But, like that chick at the bar, all that gets buried under these kitschy gimmicks. All that being said, I think he can and probably will make a damn entertaining Star Wars flick. The trick will end up being getting out of his own way. Let things speak for themselves, there’s no need to cover up what’s happening on screen with all that makeup and spray tan. Especially not when it comes to such a legendary property. If the guy can find some way to be a subtle version of himself — I know that’s a bit of an oxymoron — I think Ep. 7 could be really cool. And really, hard not to do better than the prequels.
“People kept saying that the knife fight of the 2016 campaign in America was “unprecedented” but it really wasn’t. They said Rand Paul would never get a second term, but George W Bush did. People called me cynical for saying that Paul would take the second election regardless of the six women who were shot dead while trying to cross to Canada for abortions – before Canada put their own limits on abortion provision. Canada’s the only country Rand Paul ever travels to! He took all the drones out of Southeast Asia and floated every one of them along the US-Mexico border! (Going against his own “policy” of 2012 – what a bloody shock.)
How were people surprised? The only thing Rand Paul ever did that surprised me was using a thermobaric bomb on Islamabad instead of a tactical nuclear device. In some ways, the Paul Doctrine worked: a reunited India, the Afghan Spring, all that. President Paul claimed to have “solved foreign policy by ending foreign policy”.”
- I’m super digging the idea of Brian Wood writing an all female X-Men team. I haven’t been dedicated (“cared” is probably what I really mean) to an on-going X-Men book since Joss Whedon’s Astonishing, so perhaps Brian and amazing artist Olivier Coipel can bring mutants back into my life. And let’s be real… the females of the X-Verse are in a lot of ways more interesting and rounded than the men. At least when they’re written well and not drawn as pieces of meat for drooling, way too old fanboys.
- Local (to me) rap group Atmosphere recently announced a new “Welcome to MN” tour. But that’s not what I wanna share. What I wanna share is the song they’ve created with each of the opening acts on the tour, it’s called “It Ain’t The Prettiest”:
It should come as absolutely no surprise by now, but Grant Morrison once again introduces a concept — a revelation — in his years spanning Batman run that ties back to the very beginning. As in… 2006. It turns out the first thing he wrote was all part of the current villain’s (“Leviaithan”) master plan to finally destroy the city. In a very strange way. Those who wished back in 2006 that the Batman of #666, Damien Wayne’s unethical, brutal Batman of the future, would return get their way here. The dystopian scenario, of utter annihilation, is actually a vision of Bruce’s. A nightmare ala the dreams he was having back in the “Three Ghosts of Batman” storyline. It will be very interesting to see how the whole thing ends from here on out. Morrison is one clever writer, arguably one of the best… but Chris Burnham destroys this issue. He crushes it. His work is just paranoid and chaotic enough to capture the madness inside these pages: loose, fluid, dynamic. The colors are spot on as well, compliments of Nathan Fairbairn. If you can’t tell I really, really liked this issue. Love the direction while at the same time the throw back to Morrison’s previous installments. And super-mega bonus points for bringing back “the hole in things”… Dr. Hurt in such a unique way.
- SAGA #7
After a month off, one of the best new books of 2012 came soaring back last week with one of the biggest challenges Marko, Allana, and their child have faced thus far: grandparents. And if that sounds a little strange but oddly familiar it should, that is basically the tag line for this Image book from excellent and becoming legendary writer Brian K. Vaughan and not so upcoming artist Fiona Staples. The last page of the first arc (now available in trade paperback form) introduced Marko’s parents into the fold, that is expanded upon here by delving into the families past, as narrated brilliantly by the baby herself. Saga continues to show massive amounts of heart for being so otherworldly and just plain bizarre (see: Page 16… eww). I’m loving the world the creators have introduced, and continue to show us more bits and pieces and the series moves forward. I really hope Marko and his mom can track down the disembodied ghost teenager babysitter Izabel, I like her. If that sounds a little too weird for you then I’d steer clear.
- FURYmax #7
I get the feeling that I’m one of very few people actually reading this book. Which is really too bad, cause it’s Garth Ennis. And Garth Ennis really knows how to write historical fiction and characters like Fury and Castle, this is very much so his book. He’s been destined to do return to this character ever since Hollywood refused to adapt a Nick Fury movie to theaters on account of how he was writing the character at the time: a piece of shit, degenerate alcoholic who is but isn’t haunted by the people he’s killed and the shit he’s seen, and is essentially waiting to die. What’s even more fitting is how this book is structured (aging Fury in a hotel room somewhere, recording tapes seemingly for a memoir of some kind, drinking whiskey and recounting his militaristic career with little to no nostalgia) in relation to the new, movie and Ultimate verse, Sam Jackson inspired Nick Fury. The eyepatch wearing, old, white, bastard Nick Fury is aging out. He’s a dinosaur. A relic of America’s 20th Century military industrial complex that doesn’t recognize the world today, not that his was any better. This issue sees Fury going back to Vietnam, this time paired up with Frank Castle to track down a Northern General who’s “increasing performance by 30%”. Morally ambiguous, historical, simple… this is something everyone should be reading.
