Category: Blog

Blog

My Favorite: Movies: 1982

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The stretch between 1980 and 1982 was kind of epic for my childhood in terms of favorite movies: Empire Strikes Back, Superman II, Raiders of the Lost Ark and now Star Trek II: KAHNNN!!!!, Tron and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.  Let’s start off with my usual excursion over to IMDB to remember what I’ve seen and what I haven’t but probably should get around to watching. HAVE SEEN: Tootsie, 48 Hours, Tron, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Deathtrap, Nightshift, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Firefox, Poltergeist, Blade Runner, The Thing, Annie, One from the Heart, Zapped!, My Favorite Year, The Grey Fox, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gandhi, First Blood, Pink Floyd The …

Blog / Comics

Raina Telgemeier Redux

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Have I mentioned that I mostly took off writing about comics in 2012 (even though I wound up blogging here quite a bit); maybe I should stop mentioning that I still have no firm idea or plan for the not-dead ComixTalk site. Anyhow, I don’t think I ever got around to writing a proper review of Raina Telgemeier’s second graphic novel Drama (that’s not counting the Babysitters Club graphic novel adaptation she did). I did review her first graphic novel (and Eisner winning!) Smile, which not only I loved, but both of my kids did as well.  Actually I found a …

Blog / Video

My Favorite: Movies: 1981

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My last year as not-quite-a-teenage was the year Raiders of the Lost Ark came out.  I saw a pretty random assortment of movies in the theater that year. I remember seeing Raiders, Clash of the Titans, Time Bandits, Taps, Saturday the 14th and Modern Problems pretty clearly. Raiders was easily my favorite movie that year.  It was cool in a way I hadn’t really seen in a movie before and I’m far from alone in thinking it was a great revitalization of the old action movie serials.  I wouldn’t say it was a reinvention of the form but just like …

Blog / Comics

Online Versus Offline Pricing, Part 2

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So I am reading the amazing comic epic Fables in order, which has totally sucked me in (which is great because when I picked up a random issue awhile ago I didn’t get it/like it). I already blogged about my efforts to buy an earlier part of the archives. Next book on my list to read is Fables: Homelands which is the 6th volume in the tradebook collections. The X-family got a mini iPad this Christmas so I thought it might be fun to read some Fables on the iPad. It looks like it is only available on Comixology as …

Blog / Video

My Favorite: Movies: 1980

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I thought about tackling the 2000s after completing my run through the Nineties, but I realized how sharply my movie viewing has trailed off that decade.  Blame having kids and a job and the Internet I guess.  Anyhow I’m going to go backwards to the Eighties instead. 1980 is right in the middle of my childhood wheelhouse.  This is prime nostalgia territory folks, so beware! It is incredibly hard to separate how you experienced the movie from the movie itself.  Not everything from this year, I saw that year; anything R or even harder PG (this was the days before …

Blog / Comics

Comic Stripper’s Ring

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Back in the 20th century before “social media” there were still lots of tools available to cartoonists to promote their work and to help discover new comics.  Not nearly as good as the stuff we have available today but I think most of us were thrilled to have an online audience and experimenting with whatever we could to add a few readers here and there. “Web Rings” were pretty common in the late nineties, maybe even into the early 2000s (not entirely sure when they faded). I didn’t start the Comic Stripper’s Ring (so don’t blame me for the bad …