Sirkumvention

Pretty typical weekend so far. Trevor had his first teeball game (for this league; he did it through the YMCA last year) and it was very cute. There's one or two kids who actually have an idea what to do with the ball beyond throwing it to first (tagging the runner, toeing second, etc.), and he's not one of them yet, but I think those are six-year-olds. I'm not a high pressure stage dad, anyway, but we did practice catching last weekend and he's definitely improving.

Over the last month or so, we've been watching the Lord of the Rings, and though my ex disapproves and thinks Trevor's too young, I haven't seen any ill effects. No nightmares or anything. Gollum is actually the only one who has scared him a little at times, and we just talk about it. With kids, "spoilers" are sometimes necessary--you have to tell them things are going to be okay and they wouldn't have these long movies just for Gollum to take the ring back, right? I guess he looks at these horrific Orcs as less frightening, probably because they're never allowed to have distinct personalities--they're just a mass of bad guys. And yes, two-and-a-half-year-old Ainsley has watched a little bit of them, too, mainly some of Two Towers. She knows Treebeard and Gandalf by name, but she never saw the gruesome stuff. Anyway, we were going to watch the finale, disc two of Return of the King (extended), only to find I had two disc ones in the set! Uggh! I'm sure I can return them, but it's annoying. We watched some Looney Tunes cartoons instead. The Incredibles and Bambi have just shipped from Amazon, along with Kramer's Ergot 5.

ADD lets me know that the Criterion Collection will be offering Orson Welles' F for Fake, his documentary on famous fakers and scam artists, in late April, I believe. It's odd that Criterion's site is cagey about the special features for their releases, but Amazon reveals the dvd also includes the excellent documentary on Welles, One Man Band, which showed that he really did work hard all his life to get movies made and wasn't just shilling Paul Masson.

I'm halfway through Adhouse's PROJECT: SUPERIOR. So far, it's a better-than-average anthology. One standout I read this afternoon was from Ronnie Del Carmen, who uses a letter to Stan Lee in the 70s as a way to apparently reveal some family troubles during his childhood. Clever and pretty touching.

Read the first two Speakeasy Comics releases, THE GRIMOIRE #1 and ATOMIKA #1, on Wednesday. Somewhat uneasy commenting too much, as I'm still (as far as I know) writing SUPERUNKNOWN for them. So, admittedly, any positive press here is self-serving, but I wouldn't say anything if I hated the books. GRIMOIRE is an appealing fantasy that could easily appeal to teen girls, but that doesn't mean it's not action-packed enough to appeal to the average comic reading twenty/thirtysomething guy, too. Open, clear art and good character designs, and nice pacing. ATOMIKA starts off more slowly and enigmatically. It's essentially a full issue devoted to the character's origin, and this is related through portentous narration and somewhat abstract art (at times). It will inevitably draw comparisons to THE RED STAR, because it also blends science fiction with Russian mythology, but it's a very different approach, and so far an intriguing one. My only complaint about either book is not a big one, and nothing to do with the content itself, but I think first issues from a new publisher really need some sort of editorial, to get people excited about the books and on your side. That's a big reason for Marvel's success in the 60s and beyond--Stan Lee's personality coming through in every letter column, credit and editor's note--and while it's a mistake to emulate him, I do think readers appreciate having some sort of personality or voice or name to latch onto with a fledgling publisher.