village voice > books > Geoff Johns’S Infinite Crisis by Matt Singer
Awesome read on the story. Superboy Prime is from our world, so he represents the reader, angry that the writers keep messing with the characters.
29 June 2006
Yahoo! Photos
I check Yahoo!’s “Most Emailed Photos” page once a day. What I love about it is the great combination of things you’ll get. Usually there’s:
- Something from the news, maybe a photo of some soldiers or a senator
- A celebrity shot of some kind, maybe Brat Pitt
- A woman in some stay of undress, either a bikini shot, or a lingerie show, or a model
- Something grotesque, either a very, very fat person, a one-eyed kitten, or anything else that people might call a “freak”
- An animal, often something exceedingly adoreable, but sometimes something rare like a new species that’s just been discovered
All on the same page, you have the erotic next to the grotesque, the poignant next to the irrelevant. It’s a great slice of what people are concerned about at any one time.
28 June 2006
Dave's Long Box: Off-topic: The Official Dave's Longbox Review of Superman Returns - Like You Care
Dave’s Long Box: Off-topic: The Official Dave’s Longbox Review of Superman Returns - Like You Care
Just read the 2nd paragraph. Great movie review writing, that.
No Soup For You
Ken Jennings (of Jeopardy fame) on a court decision from a few years ago about trivia books.
Wizard Entertainment's Review of Spider-Man 3 Trailer
Wizard Entertainment’s Review of Spider-Man 3 Trailer
Damn am I excited for next summer.
Slate's New Look - Introducing our redesign
Slate’s New Look - Introducing our redesign
I like reading Slate, and the new design is a nice change, but I haven’t once yet been to the site and not had their obnoxious fly-out menu get in the way of me trying to read something.
Neil Gaiman's Journal: Lost Girls redux
Neil Gaiman’s Journal: Lost Girls redux
Neil Gaiman’s review of Lost Girls. Entirely safe for work.
exclusive: Alan Moore's erotic Lost Girls
exclusive: Alan Moore’s erotic Lost Girls
Preview of Alan Moore’s new work of erotica. Contains very much not safe for work illustrations.
Study: In the long run, we regret virtue more than vice
Study: In the long run, we regret virtue more than vice
I don’t suggest we abandon moral living as a result, but it’s interesting to see how our consciences weigh in.
.7
Apple released Mac OS 10.4.7 yesterday. Why do I write about a software update? One magical little fix: adding trackpad right-clicking1 to MacBook Pros and recent PowerBooks.
The whole “one-button mouse” thing is one of the topics that people like to trash Apple for. Really you don’t think much of it once you’re used to using a Mac (or, like most, you just get a two-button mouse). Most of the time, when you need to click something, it’s a normal click. The oft-repeated reason that Apple’s never caved and just started including two-buttons on all their Macs is that it forces software designers to think about how they design their programs. It’s easy to bury things in contextual menus, but maybe by making them think about it, they might come up with a better way. I buy that explanation, but being that I’m not a programmer. I’ll leave it at that.
So back to this software update. Mac laptops have one big mouse button below their trackpads. This is a good thing. Most people use their right hand to use their mouse. (I, a lefty, use my right for real mouses, and use either for trackpads.) Given the premise that most clicks are left clicks, that means that on a two-button laptop you’re always crossing your hand over the un-used right button to click the left one. This isn’t the worst ergonimc situation in history, but having an entire button that you’re free to click anywhere does make a difference. You don’t have to contort your hand to fit the design of the machine. But with only one button on a Mac laptop, how does one right-click? In the past, you held down the CMD key while clicking. This wasn’t a big deal. Usually you just keep your left hand on the keyboard, anyway, while moving your right hand off the keyboard to use the trackpad, so you just hit CMD with your thumb. Not too bad.
All Mac laptops released in the last year or so include a nice feature. If you drag two fingers across the trackpad, it will scroll whatever window has focus. (See it in the right column of Apple’s page about the MacBook Pro.) This is great when reading webpages. No using the mouse to drag down the window’s scroll bar, no having to press a tiny ↓ key. You just drag the page with two fingers and it scrolls. It might be one of those things you have to use to appreciate, but it really is great and you get used to it in minutes.
Now, with 10.4.7, any Mac that allows two-finger scrolling also allows two-finger right-clicking. Place two fingers on the trackpad and click, and you get a right-click. No more having to click CMD witih your left hand. Yes, I know, I just wrote five paragraphs describing how great a silly new software feature is that took Apple 30 years to come up with just to replace one button on a mouse, but man, once you use it for a few minutes, it really is an elegant, civilized solution.
- Enabled via the trackpad pane of the Keyboard and Mouse settings in System Prefences, off by default. ↩
27 June 2006
Apple - Trailers - Spider-Man 3
Apple - Trailers - Spider-Man 3
First teaser, should run with Superman Returns.
26 June 2006
Delicious Gamblers' Sale
They’re lowering the price of Library (a fun app) every week by $5 until they sell a certain number of copies. The longer you wait, the cheaper it’ll be, unless they’ve “sold out” and the price goes back up to normal.
24 June 2006
23 June 2006
TWENTY FOUR: Cannes Print Grand Prix '06
TWENTY FOUR: Cannes Print Grand Prix ‘06
I love the bottom four posters here, with the shadows.
Brand genericide (kottke.org)
I don’t even know a good way to describe a Hi-Liter without using its brand name.
Petra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Petra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Article on the city that was filmed in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which I’ve never heard of having not read the Left Behind series.
22 June 2006
Promotional scene from Superman Returns
Promotional scene from Superman Returns
Link opens iTunes. Looks pretty fun to me.
Net Neutrality: This is serious
Net Neutrality: This is serious
Any post that can honestly begin with the words, “When I invented the Web” deserves proper attention.
21 June 2006
Toward A Future of Movie Downloads
I keep seeing stories about how Apple is getting ready to offer movie downloads through iTunes. The story’s been the same for months: Steve Jobs wants you to be able to buy movies, wants them all the cost the same price. The studios want you to only be able to rent them, and want to be able to charge more for certain movies. Maybe Apple’s making headway?
I’ve been thinking about the terms of buying stuff from iTunes. For music, there are a few restrictions involving how many copies you can make and how many computers can play the songs, but there’s a big, intentional loophole that lets you burn the songs to a CD. It’s quite possible that I’m going to want to listen to music I’m buying now in many, many years. (What better way to embarass my kids?) The iTunes Music Store may be around in thirty years to authenticate my songs, but if not, I can back them up now and convert them to other digital formats down the road.
What about movies? As with music, I’m probably going to want to watch movies I buy in twenty or thirty years. Presently I own lots of movies on DVD. It’s improbable that DVD will still be the prevailing movie format in 2020, so I’ll either be stuck having to hold onto my old DVD player or I’ll have to buy new copies of the movies in the new format, right? Well, actually it’s conceivable that someone will come up with a good storage format for movies and I’ll be able to rip them to my computer just like I do for music now. Five years ago I had a computer with a hard disk that couldn’t fit my whole music collection, and now I have an iPod with twice as much space as I have songs. Storage isn’t going to be an issue, though someone will have to work out how to make a DVD ripping program that is 1. fast and, 2. doesn’t get them sued by the MPAA before they can come up with a name for it. (Note: I’m quite aware that DVD ripping programs already do exist, but they’re still fairly fringe.) Also, I need to be able to rip my DVDs at full quality but be able to quickly downsample them for iPod play (or we need iPods with screen resolutions to match our DVDs).
If I had to guess, I’d say that in five or ten more years we won’t be buying any media on discs. We’ll be downloading it all. With that is going to come an enormous need for good backups, or an online storage solution that hasn’t been smoothly implemented yet. The problem is, are the studios going to let us make good backups of our movies? I’m certain we’ll be able to copy the files around, but they’re going to depend on Apple (or whoever’s) servers to decrypt, right? A record that my mom bought forty years ago still plays. If she gives it to me and I record it to my computer, I’ll be able to play it my entire life, and pass it on to my grandchildren when I’m gone. Are the movies I buy from Apple’s store going to give me that kind of lifetime? Maybe that sounds crazy, but it’s my property, right?
I’m not going to advocate a boycott of the iTMS for Movies if Apple doesn’t give me rights to copy and preserve my movies, but I think of the hundred or so movies that I currently own on DVD. Someone who’s 15 now might start building a similar collection using entirely downloaded movies, and that thousand dollar movie library is going to depend on there being a server somewhere that’s going to verify that person’s identity. It’ll be an interesting long haul.
20 June 2006
A CFL in every Home = 1 Nuclear Power Plant
A CFL in every Home = 1 Nuclear Power Plant
Really, you should be using fluorescent light bulbs. Okay?
Frank Miller's All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and the Grotesque
Frank Miller’s All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and the Grotesque
I agree that there has to be more to this book. Once it’s all out maybe we’ll know what it is, but I still think Miller might just be a hack now.
Millions
Watched Millions last night, which I’d been wanting to see since it came out but had just never gotten around to it. Danny Boyle is a director who maybe doesn’t get enough auteur credit, even though he’s never made a movie I didn’t love (well, I haven’t seen The Beach, so I can’t say that for sure). Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary, 28 Days Later, and Millions are all excellent films.
What’s funny, too, is the jump from 28 Days Later, a tense zombie flick with lots to say, to Millions, a light kids movie. (Though the record for stark filmographic contrast has to go to Robert Rodriguez for going from Sin City to The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D.) For an extra dose of craziness, compare the magical realism of heroin to the splendor of being a kid. Boyle uses basically the same tricks in the same ways, but the difference in the settings and characters are (obviously) vast.
19 June 2006
The Legends of Zelda
Article featuring the complete timeline of all the Zelda games that goes through when each game occurs in the series and explains how many Links there have been.
The Evolution Of The Teen Drama Series
The Evolution Of The Teen Drama Series
Dawson’s probably should have gotten a mention in there as the torch-bearer between 90210 and The OC I guess.
15 June 2006
52 Covers
I’ve really started to get into DC’s 52. Actually, I’m very relieved that the concept is working as well as it is. Putting out a book every single week can’t be easy, and getting all the different artists’ work to fit together and still make the story work is impressive. Also, you have to admire DC’s guts on this one, putting out a weekly book whose very premise is that it doesn’t feature their three most famous characters.
I’m not one, you might say, who judges books by their covers. Flashy covers are there to get kids to read books and draw in the occasional news stand buyer, but I already know what I’m going to pick up before setting foot in the store, so the covers just aren’t all that important to me. However, I want to point out how absolutely outstanding the covers for 52 look. For me, it’s the masthead that really puts it over the top. That big, recessed “52” just pulls the books together so well. It looks so iconic.
Comicon’s The Pulse has two nice interviews with cover artist J. G. Jones, and Wizard runs a weekly feature that’s worth checking out:
From the 2nd one:
THE PULSE: How did you decide how to lend your own unique art style on these heroes and hat to tweak or what to leave as people might be more familiar with?
JONES: Well, my style sort of is what it is. I am definitely taking a lot of different approaches on the 52 covers to keep things from getting dull. I mean, there’s 52 of them, right? I’ll do one cover that’s sort of based on the style of WPA posters from the ’30s, are another one based on looking at film noir posters from the late ’40s. Sometimes I’ll go with a straight forward action scene from the issue. Other times I’ll take a collage approach with a lot of overlapping art elements. It just depends on how well I feel it will serve the storyline.
I figure that the way I draw, my style or whatever will be the unifying element over all 52 covers.
Looking at each book, this is what I love. The Lex cover for issue three looks like it might be a magazine é or something. It’s totally different than the other issues, but it works with them all.
Update: Here’s a cover gallery for all 52 issues.
Civil War Room #2
Not to be confused with Wizard’s feature of the same name, this one is a monthly interview with the editor of the book.
Wizard's Civil War Room
Weekly recap of the Marvel Civil War tie-in issues. Useful if you’re only reading the main title.
14 June 2006
Spoiler of the Week Award
This week’s spoiler award is a tie, going to assholes The New York Post and Howard Sterne, for yesterday spoiling the ending of Marvel’s Civil War 2 on the day it came out. Special mention goes to the Post for actually publishing the last page of the book in their story. Having read the issue now (and having been warned of the spoilers in time), I can say that the ending is a big change for the character(s) involved, and though it isn’t actually that much of a surprise given the build-up from other recent stories, it’s really bad form to publish a story about the ending of something on the day it comes out.
More info on Marvel Civl War.
Edit: additional spoilsports: Yahoo! via an AFP wire story. The rest of the media is starting to pick up the story, which is fine now that it’s after the issue’s opening day. (I should note that these links do, obviously, contain spoilers.)
Edit 2: See Where were you when Civil War #2 was spoiled for you? for a screenshot of Yahoo! doing some spoiling.
13 June 2006
Koz Codes : Feed Your Reader
Handy Firefox extension that hacks the little oranga feed icon to work with any RSS reader, whether it’s web-based or a standalone client.
Computer-made cartoons might be nearing a creative crash
Computer-made cartoons might be nearing a creative crash
The question is, when they start flopping, will the studios think it’s because they’re computer animated, or because they’re bad movies?
12 June 2006
DS Lite (un)branding
Something that strikes me after playing with the DS Lite for a few days is the lack of branding anywhere on the thing. The top has the little double square logo, but even that is understated, molded in white plastic the same color as the rest of the enclosure. With the machine open in front of you, as you look at it when you’re playing, there’s no “Nintendo” stamped or written anywhere, except on the splash screen when you boot up. Only on the bottom of the unit do you find branding information along with the requisite electronics specifications. I guess this is true of the iPod as well, but I think it’s interesting and bold of Nintendo to leave this stuff off where they could have easily stuck their logo on somewhere.
Equating Prius hybrids and Fluorescent light bulbs
Equating Prius hybrids and Fluorescent light bulbs
Replacing 15 bulbs with fluorescents roughly equals buying a hybrid, environmental impact-wise.
LiveScience.com - Why Goalies Hate the New World Cup Soccer Ball
LiveScience.com - Why Goalies Hate the New World Cup Soccer Ball
This is the most (nay, only) interesting thing I’ve ever read about soccer.
Brian Bendis Presents...
Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis interviews people. This week it’s Joss Whedon. Also check out last week’s Stan Lee interview.
Jeff Russell's STARSHIP DIMENSIONS
Jeff Russell’s STARSHIP DIMENSIONS
Make sure you click on each link at the top (10x, 100x, etc.) Gives the relative sizes of tons of sci-fi ships, including the Enterprise, Star Destroyers, Unicron, etc.
11 June 2006
Nintendo DS Lite
After quite a while of debating the matter, we picked up a DS Lite on Sunday. Acquiring it was a bit of a journey. After bagels we walked over to the mall to check out the EB Games, which of course wasn’t open at 11:00, so after killing an hour I went back at noon only to find out that they only had enough in stock for people who had pre-ordered them, which I strongly suspect was simply a lie designed to protect their ability to get people to pre-order. I’m sure that Nintendo won’t be able to meet the initial demand of the Lites, but I doubt that supply was so limited that major retail chains weren’t able to get more than a one-day supply of the devices, which would have to be the case if they only had enough to fill their pre-orders. I slapped the games I had picked out back on their counter and walked off, called Katherine, got disconnected (thanks Sprint), walked home, took the elevator upstairs, and suggested (in person) that we go to Best Buy or Target. A few minutes later, plus a few more minutes to find a sales rep to open the locked case, I had a DS Lite in hand along with a copy of New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age.
I’ll keep the review short here, but do go read what 1Up and Ars Technica have to say and definitely watch Cabel Sasser’s three videos: first, second, third.
The Lite is a joy. It’s sleek and the screen is beautiful. I kind of don’t like how blatently Apple-inspired the design is, but it works so well that I’m not sure that’s a complaint. In a few years someone will come along with some new idea for what electronics should look like but, until then, shiny white is still very nice. New Super Mario Bros. is lots of old school fun. Super Mario World has always been one of my favorites and, while this one has no Yoshi, it captures the spirit of the original games and the nice cartoon look of the later era Marios. (See how Mario’s look has been updated over the years.) Brain Age is as innovative as I’d heard, and also a suprising amount of fun. Right now my brain’s in its 50s, but I’m sure as I exercise it each day I’ll get it down to a spry young age soon enough.
Springfield Theory: Science News Online, June 10, 2006
Springfield Theory: Science News Online, June 10, 2006
On all the math jokes in the Simpsons, with some Futurama thrown in as well.
09 June 2006
Powers of Ten (kottke.org)
I knew about this movie but had never seen it. The Simpsons did a great take on it a few years ago.
08 June 2006
Cars
Katherine and I saw a sneak preview of Cars last night and, well, it’s no Nemo. The film is beautiful — as visually stunning as you’d expect from any Pixar picture, and there are lots of cute little moments, but overall the story fails to deliver much of anything very compelling.
I didn’t like this film. That’s not to necessarily say that I didn’t enjoy watching it, but it seems like Pixar put a lot of love into making the characters come alive, making the settings look great, and putting together cute little vignettes, but they forgot to write a compelling script. So much so that it seems like they just threw in an off the rack formula for a story that could fit into any movie whatsoever. Main Character is a hothead. He meets other people who teach him that there’s more to life than winning a race. There’s a sad part where you think maybe he didn’t learn the lesson, and he abandons them. Then you realize he did learn the lesson, and at the end maybe he wins the big race or maybe he doesn’t, depending on if the writers want to go Casey at the Bat or not. The story is just so telegraphed it annoyed me. “Oh, that guy’s going to end up being part of his pit crew.” “Oh, that one will end up teaching him a lesson about racing.” Sure, it’s a movie for kids, so I’m not looking for narrative complexity, but Pixar’s always been a great studio because they’re able to just make good old movies that happen to be suitable for kids.
Watching it, I wondered if maybe I just don’t dig cars enough to like it, while if the movie were about say, superheroes, I would have loved every minute. It’s possible that someone with a great love of cars and racing would find more enjoyment in the movie, and it’s not even like the story of The Incredibles was that original, either, but it just seemed like a more complete movie to me. Also, the Larry the Cable Guy character (“Mater”) just didn’t work for me, but that might be a cultural thing as well. To me, he was a generic slow-witted hick, but maybe fans of the White Trash Comedy Tour are getting something I missed.
And then there’s the message. Roger Ebert says:
The message in Cars is simplicity itself: Life was better in the old days, when it revolved around small towns where everybody knew each other, and around small highways like Route 66, where you made new friends, sometimes even between Flagstaff and Winona. This older America has long been much-beloved by Hollywood, and apparently it survives in Radiator Springs as sort of a time capsule.
Watching the movie, my feeling was, “so you let a new highway get built, and didn’t bother to build a connecting road and put up some signs?” I’m sure that there are many real life towns that had lots of trouble when they were bypassed by interstates, but that’s not the same as society passing them by. I’m just tired of the idea that with progress must always come the loss of community. From a business point of view, all the characters really are just sitting in the middle of nowhere, in a town that’s literally not even on the map, hoping someone will stop by and shop in their stores. It makes them seem stupid instead of making them seem like the victims of modern life.
I could go on, but I’ll just watch the Ratatouille trailer and look forward to next summer.
Edit: I should add that the short before the feature, One Man Band, is great, as are all of Pixar’s shorts.
Edit 2: iTunes link to One Man Band.
Mini-dinosaurs emerge from quarry
Mini-dinosaurs emerge from quarry
Europasaurus holgeri appear to exhibit island dwarfism and stood only a few feet tall. WTB one for a pet.
What Netflix Could Teach Hollywood
What Netflix Could Teach Hollywood
Good NY Times article on Netflix. I’m amazed at how effective the long tail works here.
07 June 2006
Veronica Mars: Season One
The wonder of having TiVo is that you don’t ever have to worry about missing anything. The drawback is that with so many good shows being automatically recorded, it’s easy to just not step out of that bubble and discover new shows. Veronica Mars is one of those shows that I should have been watching all along. Fortunately, it’s only been around for two seasons, I didn’t miss much, and there’s a DVD of season one out (with two on the way in August), so it’s not too hard to catch up at this point.
The show fits in very well as a successor to Buffy (it even airs on Tuesday nights), minus all the supernatural stuff. Veronica’s dad is a private investigator, so most episodes involve one or both of them working on a case, and also trying to crack the big mystery of the season. Season one’s “Who killed Lily Kane?” mystery is built up and foreshadowed well, and the final episode ends up being appropriately scary and satisfying. Also, season two stars Steve Guttenberg as the mayor, joining a very strong cast of supporting and recurring characters and playing his part with perfect, knowingly B-list Steve Guttenberg charm.
Katherine and I ripped through season one as fast as Netflix would deliver the discs to us, and we’re eager to catch up with the season two episodes we missed over the summer.
Six Apart - Everything TypePad - Connect your TypePad feed to FeedBurner
Six Apart - Everything TypePad - Connect your TypePad feed to FeedBurner
Great addition. I’m happy to see them still working on TypePad.
Photographing Architecture is Still Not a Crime, Police Harrasment at 45 Fremont Street
Photographing Architecture is Still Not a Crime, Police Harrasment at 45 Fremont Street
One of many stories about securities guards harrassing people for taking pictures of buildings (which is not illegal).
06 June 2006
Games Versus Politics
1up feature on censorship through the ages and the current hubbub over video games.
Vox's Question of the Day (kottke.org)
Vox’s Question of the Day (kottke.org)
Short interview with Mena Trott about Vox’s Question of the Day feature.
Abusing Amazon images
I’m pretty sure I linked to this before, but this is a good resource for pulling artwork from Amazon.com.
Google Spreadsheets - Sneak Peek
Google Spreadsheets - Sneak Peek
The problem with Google is that they start lots of neat projects and then stop working on them after 6 months or so.
05 June 2006
Lying in the Gutters's Writes about Lost Girls
Lying in the Gutters’s Writes about Lost Girls
This concludes our linkfest of comic book pornography.
Alan Moore on Lost Girls, Part One
Alan Moore on Lost Girls, Part One
Little bit of a link bonanza on Lost Girls coming your way here. I have little intention to buy this book, but I think it’s interesting.
Setting the stage for another flop?
Setting the stage for another flop?
Sony has repeatedly tried and failed to force new media formats on customers, yet they keep trying it.
SingleStat.us
Funny. For $3.95 this site will email you when someone becomes single, according to their MySpace page. Always nice to see tools that help automate stalking.
04 June 2006
Sam Loeb and Superman/Batman 26
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of reading Superman/Batman 26, written by Sam Loeb. The story itself is great, but to really understand it you have to know the story behind the story, which, sadly, isn’t very clearly explained within its pages. I had to learn about it through comics news sites, which I don’t think are frequented by even that many of the readers of the book.
Sam Loeb was the son of Jeph Loeb, a comics writer who wrote the first 25 issues of Superman/Batman. Sam died of cancer last year at 17 after a three-year battle with the disease. His dad worked on Smallville, so Sam got a chance to meet a lot of TV people as well as comics people, including Joss Whedon, who invited him to write a backup story for Tales of the Vampire 5.
Superman/Batman 26 is an issue that Sam plotted but wasn’t able to finish before he died. It had originally been intended to be a stand-alone issue written by Sam and drawn by Pat Lee. When Sam died, the comics industry decided to finish the book for him, with 26 creators working to finish the script and draw all the artwork. In addition, they set up a scholarship fund, and on August 5 at the WizardWorld Chicago convention will be auctioning off all the original artwork to benefit the cause. The art for each page can be seen on The Sam Loeb College Scholarship Fund page.
Whedon, one of the 26 creators who worked to finish the story, writes about Sam:
In case I haven’t brayed this often enough: I gave Sam Loeb his start in comics. Yeah, I know talent when I see it. Sam had the same wit, the same disarming swagger, and after a few rounds of chemo, the same amount of hair as his father. I said to myself, “I’ve got these vampire tales - if Drew Goddard can write one, a shaved monkey could!” After several less-than-successful attempts to shave monkeys, I thought of Sam. Of course! “Here’s someone you can use and then spit out in the gutter like so many writers before him.” Leave it to Sam to bail before I could get to the spitting part. But he gave me a fine vampire tale, and he gave us Superman/Batman #26. Because make no mistake, Sam had this story wired. When Jeph told me what I was to write, my comment was, So I’m basically adding a ‘the’. Where do you want it? The story resonated so well and was all structured up - and I can’t be the first person to point out that it could be a story about Sam and the 26. Or the 25 + me, as I like to think of it. ‘Cause my “the” placement is impeccable. It’ll be the “the” heard round the world. I like to think that Sam would approve.
But I also like to think that Sam wouldn’t get frikkin’ cancer, so I’m living in a dreamworld of candy canes and tastefully shaved monkeys. You know what? Fuck cancer. Sam should be finishing this story, as a prelude to hundreds of others. Oh maybe Sam would’ve chosen a different career than his father’s, but no way. Sam was one of us from the start. Always around with the big funny-book wigs, always comfortable, at ease but never entitled, never obnoxious like his fath - like Drew Goddard. I want this book to sell, so we can raise some money and get that much closer to a frikkin’ cure, but also so Sam can have a Top Ten book and lord it over all those “alive” writers who don’t sell as well. Sam, this “the“‘s for you.
The issue is wonderful. It tells a simple team-up adventure of Robin and Superboy, who’ve been sent by their mentors to track down The Toyman. Sam wrote the plot before the Infinite Crisis series finished, in which Superboy dies. The story has been changed to work as a flashback, with Robin telling a story of one of many great memories he has with his late friend. The death of Superboy in the intervening time between Sam’s death and the book’s release is purely coincidental, but the resonance it brings puts us right there with Robin’s grief. Sam didn’t mean to write his own eulogy, but the end is just heartbreaking.
In addition to the main story, written by Sam, the book features a backup story written by his father, Jeph, and illustrated by Tim Sale, set in the time period of their famous Superman for All Seasons book. At the end of this entry you can read the inked version.
The Fourth Rail’s review of Superman/Batman 26 matches my impressions of the book:
This special issue has been promoted a great deal in recent months, and for good reason. Written by the late son of comics and TV writer Jeph Loeb, it celebrates a life taken too soon. But the question is: is the story itself any good? The answer is a definite yes. Loeb’s Superboy/Robin story fits in nicely with the ending of Infinite Crisis, but more importantly, it has a strong sense of fun. Even better is that the very nature of the plot lends itself to illustration by a variety of artists. Furthermore, the participation of multiple scripters isn’t the least bit apparent. The issue closes with a poignant short Superman story from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale that’s in keeping with their Superman For All Seasons work but incorporates a far more personal subject. I honestly don’t know how someone can craft such a touching, personal story so soon after such a loss, and I commend not only Jeph Loeb for doing so but Sam Loeb’s many friends for contributing to this delightfully entertaining, traditional, super-hero romp.
For more information about the book, its inception, and the scholarship fund, see Newsarama’s coverage of the book and its release:
- Jeph Loeb on Sam’s Story
- Superman/Batman #26 Creators Tell Their Sam Story
- Jeph Loeb on Superboy & Sam’s Story
Newsarama has also released the inked pages of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s backup Sam’s Story under a Creative Commons license, which I republish here. Please read it and, if you like it, pick up a copy of the issue to read the main story, and see the backup with colors.
03 June 2006
500 Hour Test of Tomorrow's Windows "Vista"| Tom's Hardware
500 Hour Test of Tomorrow’s Windows “Vista” | Tom’s Hardware
Absurdly detailed writeup of Windows Vista.
It's a Batty World, But I Can Handle It
It’s a Batty World, But I Can Handle It
The complexity of this all shows how, in my opinion, DC screwed up with this move. Crisis was a chance to streamline the storytelling and clear up all this mess.
02 June 2006
Apple - Hot News - Key to "An Inconvenient Truth"
Apple - Hot News - Key to “An Inconvenient Truth”
Piece on how Al Gore’s production team uses Keynote (instead of PowerPoint) for his global warming presentation.
Rogert Ebert's Review of An Inconvenient Truth
Rogert Ebert’s Review of An Inconvenient Truth
“In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.”
01 June 2006
Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Article by Robert Kennedy (and researched by a friend of mine) about fraud in Ohio.
Alex Ross: Giving Batwoman Her Look
Alex Ross: Giving Batwoman Her Look
I’m not a fan of any of the recent costumes DC has designed. This one is fine, but nothing special to me.
Sam Loeb's Superman/Batman #26 on Sale Today
Sam Loeb’s Superman/Batman #26 on Sale Today
Jeph Loeb’s son, who died of cancer, wrote the plot for this issue before he died. There’s a college scholarship fund that’s been set up in his name.
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