Misc. Thoughts

[thehefner]

1.) I really, really, really, really should have known better than to read the message board responses to an interview with Christopher Hitchens in the A.V. Club. That might well be the single most masochistic thing I've ever done without actually dating someone. (Not what you think; or if you know me, it's exactly what you think.)

2.) QUOTE OF THE DAY: theblackotter described this moment at a gay bar: Also they played "Enter Sandman". Watching gay men react to Metallica is like watching cockroaches react to a kitchen light. It's AWESOME.

3.) Image Comics has a contest to create a superheroine. It's a really tempting prospect, if only as a creative challenge. To create a compelling, fleshed-out well-rounded female superhero, just personally speaking, would really push me to write in decidedly different areas, especially with the incentive of getting paid and published if it wins. This bears consideration.

4.) JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NEW FRONTIER trailer is posted, which I'm not directly posting here, because the trailer looks like ass. Who the hell put that shit together? There's more text and narration than actual footage, nor any voice work! Nonetheless, NEW FRONTIER is exactly the JUSTICE LEAGUE movie that they should be making, and one of my most anticipated films of next years.

5.) If you don't hear from me ever again, it's likely because I will be been walloped into oblivion by bloo_mountain for my rampant abuse of italics in my Harvey Dent novel. Just putting that out there.

6.) For loathers of musicals* (and why do some people blanket-hate all musicals? Never understood that) or the unfamilar who are intrigued by SWEENEY TODD, please check out the A.V. Club's Primer to Stephen Sondheim. Neato list, and it even gives me some direction.

(SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE is "intermediate"? I suppose it is; maybe I should ease people into it before subjecting them to "The Test." It's kind of a rite of passage to be a close friend of John Hefner, I'm starting to realize.)



*I originally wrote "musical haters," but then realized that could be construed differently. But really, if more bitter assholic misanthropes sang their sneers and danced their intolerance with awesome choreography, the world would be a better place. "Yeah, Christopher Hitchens is often a contrarian asshole**, but damn if he's not a dazzling tap-dancer!"

**Who, to be fair, makes some good points. But let's not go into all that here, shall we? (See how I tied it all back to topic # 1 there?)

Comments

[madmoisellestar.livejournal.com]

Hi! Let's be friends.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

No.

... Oh, wait, I mean yes. Okay! Hi!

[madmoisellestar.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, not like real friends or anything. Let's just read each other's LJs.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Oh thank god! Because really, I can't communicate with anyone less they're on a glowing screen these days. It just doesn't feel right otherwise, and besides, I might have to inhale their cooties. Human contact, shunnnnnnn-nah!

[cisic.livejournal.com]

I'm actually surprised at how accurate that AV Primer is, in terms of how they "rated" them - Passion, Pacific Overtures, and Assassins as "advanced." Although Assassins I would argue is not advanced in terms of the story, in the way that Passion and PO is, but maybe it is there because of people's reactions to it.
Sunday is definitely "intermediate." As I recall my reaction after my first viewing was one of slight bafflement. I mean, I knew nothing about it, so when the characters in act one disappeared completely, I wasn't sure what to make of it. Of course, Sunday is now one of my favs, and I think his best score.
Also their 5 "essentials" would be mine also, only in a different order.

PS. My Sweeney film review is on my lj
PPS. I have my ticket to see Sunday in April. YAAAAY!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Conversely, while I fell deeply in love with SUNDAY the first time I saw it, I tried to watch PASSION and couldn't get more than twenty minutes into it. I'm very willing to revisit it, but it seems, only after I've gone through the primer here a bit more.

I don't know if I'm ready to commit to a ticket for SUNDAY that far in advance, but it's tempting.

[cisic.livejournal.com]

How old were you when you first saw Sunday? I think I was about 14 or 15. I didn't watch it again until a year or two later. That time I completely fell in love.

Yeah, I've only watched Passion once. Nothing really stayed with me. I'm sure I'll revisit it at some point also.

It's always a risk buying in tickets in advance. But it's a weekend I was already planning to be in New York. I'm hoping nothing will come up. It does happen sometimes. Like I have a ticket for Mandy Patinkin at the Strathmore in March that I can no longer use. I'm hoping to find someone to sell it to so I don't have to eat the cost. But I would still be sad because I've always wanted to see him in concert.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I was a senior in college, actually. We had a class in musical theatre, taught by our one flamingly gay drama professor. He showed it to us in its entirety, and utterly refused to let me borrow it when I asked later, determined to show it to others. Most of the class really liked it too, I recall, which in retrospect is a nice surprise; many people today just can't quite wrap their heads around it.

I adore Mandy Patinkin, but some of his later singing stuff has become... well, a tad more Patinkian than it used to be, if that makes any sense. He's always had a unique style, one which I understand turns some people off, but his uniqueness has gotten... uniquer over time. His "sings Sondheim" album comes to mind, from what I've heard. It's odd, and I'm not sure I care for it as much as his 80's-early 90's singing.

[mirthical.livejournal.com]

That might well be the single most masochistic thing I've ever done without actually dating someone. (Not what you think; or if you know me, it's exactly what you think.)

and

If you don't hear from me ever again, it's likely because I will be been walloped into oblivion by bloo_mountain for my rampant abuse of italics in my Harvey Dent novel. Just putting that out there.

hahaha, together we cover all the masochistic bases!!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Good thing I've got those crumple zones. ;)

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

3. Drawn like this, mind.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Oh geez...

Much as I dislike T&A comics by and large (I think Amanda Conner gives her booby characters some wonderful humanity, as often does Adam Hughes), this could perhaps work with the right material. It still bears consideration.

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but somehow I doubt my Bat-Tina-Fey idea is that material. Dang.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Well, from what I understand (and even some of my feminist fangirl friends agree with this, so it MUST be true!) BOMB QUEEN manages to be a decidedly different and subversive (or maybe just ironic?) take on the whole T&A superheroine comic. So with an artist like that, I suppose one has to play with the conventions, risky a dance as that is, and perhaps somehow turn them back around on themselves.

I don't know, just thinking aloud, trying to wonder how this could work. It's an intriguing challenge. Lord knows I wouldn't want to create yet another boobily-girl comics, although I imagine that's what's going to ultimately win.

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

See, my problem is that he'd be the one co-designing the characters, and (if I were to somehow win, which, y'know) we would want to see very different things. I'd want to see normal-looking people dressed in vaguely plausible outfits, and he'd want to draw chicks with big boobs and shiny shiny heels. There's no real way to reconcile the two--either I'd win out or he would, and the market being the way it is I doubt it'd be me.

It doesn't make for good comics, anyhow.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Well, if I lose, I can always take that truth as consolation.

And if I win... hey, it's just three issues, and it can show other publishers that I can write a comic. Big If, so I'm not sweating it too much.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

Dude, that ain't the problem.

This is the problem. AIE AIE AIE OW NOT FUNNY OW OW. Don't draw those if you can't think logically about them, yeesh! (And Adam Hughes already did that joke without the pointy object factor, so phooey.)

P.S. Best of luck, Hef. We shall wish you luck with reining him in if/when you win.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA OW is right!

I shall do my damndest, should it happen. I need an idea first, of course.

[swimpenguin.livejournal.com]

Ha! Gay men writhing like insects over Metallica, brilliant. Do I know blackotter? If not, he sounds like he rocks. And thank you much for posting the Hellboy 2 trailer, looks great.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

No, you do not. He's an old pal from the Rude Mechanicals, that other social circle I had, once upon a time. He's also a sometimes-worker at the Vienna branch of my comic store! He is indeed rockin' and good people.

[suburbfabulous.livejournal.com]

Saw SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE.
On Broadway.
Was nine.
Same year I saw CHORUS LINE.
Dog with head split open.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

... Thing #467 I'd do if I could clone/Madrox myself: have one start up "Rorschach's Broadway Blog."