thedeadlyhook | Still Testing... Random

Still Testing... Random

I've been trying my damndest all week to get back into the habit of posting - something, anything - but it's just not coming. My

lynnevitational fic isn't coming, either - it's settled miserably into that zone of stories that've been written in my head for what feels like ever, but refuse to make the journey from head to fingers when needed. Some stopper is holding it, keeping it locked.

Which, on most occasions, I consider to be something of a good thing. I usually look at blocks as a warning sign, that something's missing or wrong in a story. In this case... damned if I can figure yet what it is, and still. Still. Nothing.

I keep hoping the fog will clear. I'm a week late as it is, and I've been afraid to read everyone else's stories for fear it'll make me feel even worse - ficathon-wise, this is the heavyweight round, and I'm not even making the weigh-in. Gah.

On to other news.

Olympiad 2008
The closing ceremonies of the Olympics is on tonight, so I'm watching with half an eye before we get new Venture Bros and Metalocalypse. (Yes, with the news that SciFi Channel is cancelling Stargate: Atlantis, cartoons are really about all Toys and I will be watching anymore, sad to say. Well... other than Fear Itself, which is by the same peeps who did Showtime's Masters of Horror, but that's about it.) I have to say, the athletes hamming it up for the camera are pretty darn adorable.

I've been enjoying the games in general, albeit in fits and starts (honestly, all due respect to Michael Phelps, how much swimming can one really watch?). The overtly Yay!America biased coverage and hideously heavy commercial load have been annoying enough to make our household skip whole days worth (although Grandma M, god rest her, would've sniffed that the Olympics are "Hitler's games" anyway), but in the meantime, I was compelled to check out some of my older Olympic memories on YouTube, which were interestingly educational. Go look for yourself at the '72 or '76 games - the old static TV cameras of the '70s gave event coverage a sort of breathless, unblinking quality that you just don't see anymore. Nowadays, with every media outlet obsessing over their nation's own individual athletes with Handicams, Paris Hilton-like, you don't get the old live-TV-esque whoever-happens-to-be-on-the-balance-beam -that-the-fixed-camera-is-pointed-at coverage. And I miss those days. It's a whole different quality of You Are There.

Wait - oh, Christ, what's with the embarrassing cliche-London-stereotype stage show? Eehk. And people complained about China putting on a Broadway act.

And now the bus has turned into, what, a piece of topiary? Good grief. And oi, that dress on the pop star, and the gryating dancers...

Oh, Jeezus, a white-haired Jimmy Page in some kind of boxing ring. And I love that song, but...

Moving on.

The Reading List
I've been trying to jump-start the old creative impulses by re-reading Modesty Blaise (novels and comics; I love 'em both) and gobbling up old '80s and early '90s comics I find in the comic-store bargain bins. I got a healthy stack of Namor and Strange Tales (yay, Doctor Strange!) at San Diego Con; that's been a fun read. Doctor Strange: The Oath was a recent graphic novel acquisition that was also great fun, but in terms of comics that are coming out now there's very little I've been keeping up on. My man

toysdream already covered how I felt about the most recent issues of Secret Invasion here, but otherwise, here's my short takes on what I'm reading:

Incredible Herc
Fun, fun, and fun. Brian Michael Bendis may have convinced me that the best feedback I could give him about Secret Invasion is a hard kick in the crotch with a high-heeled shoe, but Greg Pak continues to charm me with Hercules, the flawed hero who fights for humanity at the head of a team of other flawed demi-gods. Nicely done. Humorous. Action-packed. Great read. Also, points for actual thoughts about alien gods!

Patsy Walker: Hellcat
Man, this comic is cute. Looks cute, reads cute. It's like the early days of the Buffy show, when it was all about being spunky and a heroine and a spunky heroine. Mission accomplished. Plus, arctic monsters. Thumbs up.

Angel: After the Fall, Issue 11
Hellaciously uneven art aside, nice to see the plot returning after a few issues of filler (entertaining enough, but no still filler). Good explanation for Gunn's vamping and his motives thus far, and I like how it puts even Angel himself into question. That probably won't last, but it's nice for now. It's entirely possible I just have a weakness for characters who are man-with-a-plan-that's-so-crazy-it-sounds-sane, like half-Wraithed Ford on Stargate: Atlantis, who Gunn somewhat resembles here.

Spike: After the Fall, Issue 2
I've figured out why I liked this comic more than Angel: After the Fall, or, for that matter, the Buffy Season 8 comic (which I'd honestly forgotten even existed until I saw the new issue under discussion on my flist recently). It's two things: I love Lynch's take on Spike as someone who isn't stupid, or even that he makes bad plans, but just that he's not the main character, in that way that Angel and/or Buffy can be, with the special lucky protection of authorial fiat to bail them out. (Case in point: the end of the first arc in Angel: ATF, where Lorne completely contradicts where the character was when we last saw him on TV, and saves Angel's butt. Like that made sense. Not.) Which leads to point 2: this is a horror comic. It goes all the way. The cliffhanger at the end of issue 2 is a beautiful nightmare. Well done, Brian, well done.

Back to the Olympiad
The Chinese interpretive dancers are better at this than the English ones were. It's acrobatic and circuslike and human spectacle in a way that sums up the athletics on show. It feels ancient somehow, despite all the metallic fabric. The Greeks, I think, would've approved.

R.I.P, Grandma M. I can't watch these games anymore without thinking of you.

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I guess, where Incredible Herc is concerned, we should also give some props to co-writer Fred Van Lente. Who, incidentally, is going to be writing Marvel Zombies 3 and promises that it'll feature Man-Thing, Ghost Rider, and Morbius the Living Vampire. Bless you, Fred Van Lente!

I was surprised how much I liked the latest issues of the After the Fall comics. The art's still pretty dodgy, at least on the Angel title, but Lynch seems to be getting to grips with his story at last.

Having come in at the tail end of the Olympics coverage, I'll have to declare myself officially Phelped out. Poor guy, it's not his fault he's a singleminded swimming machine.

And here's to you, Grandma. :-)

For some reason, I always forget that Van Lente is involved - shame on me. And given his track record for Marvel Zombies, probably he's the one I should thank for some of the more extreme continuity hijinks and the absolutely fabulous characterization in this one - say what you will about the rest of that story, but the zombies were terribly well characterized.

I think the first two Marvel Zombies series may have been written by Robert Kirkman (also know for that Walking Dead comic). I don't think we've read anything by Van Lente other than his half of Incredible Herc, but I think he mostly does stuff aimed at younger readers like Marvel Adventures, Power Pack, and Wolverine First Class.

Oh, wait: He wrote MODOK's 11! Yay for Fred Van Lente!

And here's Van Lente's personal site, which has a picture of him and Greg Pak getting totally fanboyish with Bob Layton.

I agree about Spike: AtF. So far, it's streets ahead of the Angel book.

Also, our Olympics commentary here was pretty Brit-biased, so it's not just the US that does that. In fact, I think all countries probably do it. You should have heard the man doing the commentary at the rowing! Cringeworthy.

We did have the benefit of Michael Johnson again, though. He's wonderful, and it's so nice of him to pretend (or even to genuinely) take an interest in our (mostly) mediocre field and track athletes.

I managed to miss the closing ceremony, and am very glad of it.

Edited 2008-08-25 09:15 (UTC)

At least you got to see the rowing. That's what bugs me most about the country-centric programming - it narrows the field of what you get to watch. Personally, I adore being able to see sports I don't normally see, like archery or weightlifting, and here... it was like the all-swimming programme, with side dishes of gymnastics and beach volleyball.

The commentators here were definitely not helping matters. Sort of an endless string of amazed comments about China. Intellectually speaking, it was a bit like watching a history or travel special aimed at children.

Hmm, we didn't get so many of the amazed comments about China, but we also didn't really get to see many of the sports there wasn't Brit involvement in - apart from the athletics. They showed all of that.

D'oh, and then I forgot to mention about the Spike comic.

I'd really wondered for awhile what the magic difference was between the two books that made me like Spike's more than Angel's, and I do think that's it - that he's not portrayed as having some magical aura of leadership. That could well be ruined, I suppose, depending on how future issues treat this warrior-girl gang (it seems a little too winkingly meta to me to play him as having unique power over women; this doesn't actually appear to be true in-universe), but we'll see.

Yes, the so-called Spikettes are the big fly in the ointment for me in Spike's story so far. I can't stand them, unfortunately, for all sorts of reasons.

I didn't keep up with the games much the Yay!Britain coverage was a bit more subdued than American coverage (possibly because they don't win as many medals as other countries), but there is constant pimping of the 2012 games.

I'm now wondering how hard it would be to arrange to be in London for 2012. Not easy, I don't suppose, even if you made arrangements this early.

Are you still in Scotland now? And I don't remember if you've mentioned, but did things go well in Prague, or has the place gone downhill since entering the EU?

I wasn't there before so I don't know if I have a baseline comparison, but I feel like I wound up spending more money in Prague than I should have as the koruna is worth much more now (28 koruna to 1 British pound). And has it always been so touristy?

Got back from Scotland on Monday, sadly! Would have liked to spend more time up there but I had heads to bust and debt to collect. I enjoyed the hell out of the Fringe Festival and would love to check it out again. Also, haggis is crazy delicious.

The UK routine was not as bad as it could have been. I'm just glad that the bus looked like one of the most recent ones on the road and wasn't a Routemaster, that there were some non-white people visible, and that they had a singer aged under thirty and not, as some rumours had it, a full Led Zeppelin-still-alive reunion. Boris Johnson does not appear to have made a good impression on the rest of the world, but the absolute worst thing was the Nathan Barley who gave a gesture at the end of the animation.

I did like the multi-culti makeup of the dancers representing London - it felt realistic to me, when it very easily could've been presented as some kind of Mary Poppins-esque caricature, and they were already making me shudder enough with the street-crossing mime routine.

I think it must honestly be difficult to come up with something that "represents" any given culture without it looking, on some level, like parody.

I sort of, kind of understood the opening ceremonies, but the closing ones not at all. And the bad pop music accompanied by the bad lipsyncing made me turn to another station.

I've kind of lost my LJ posting mojo too. I'm apparently lost without Battlestar Galactica. ;p

I missed the Opening Ceremonies myself. I keep meaning to check them out online, though, because in our neighborhood it was clearly a cultural moment - the boss-lady at the coffeeshop I always go to was all, "did you see the Opening Ceremonies?" They had a big-screen TV going almost throughout the games, and the place was constantly filled with people reading the Chinese newspaper and watching the events.

Galactica doesn't come back till... isn't it January? God, one DOES wonder what they're thinking over at SciFi. What else are they even gonna have left to show soon?

I volunteer to look at what you have so far for your Lynnevitational fic, if you think a second pair of eyes would help. :)

God, thank you for offering. I'm not sure what I have would even make sense to anyone at this point - probably a large part of my problem so far has been my working method on this one, very scattershot - but if I can get something pulled together by this evening, I may take you up on that. I've been making good progress today, finally, so I'm starting to get hopeful.

And thank you for being so patient! I never intend to be so damn tardy, but like the blinking cursor in your icon... yeah.

Yay for hopeful! And yes, if you want some help, please send it along. I'll be out of town for the next couple of days, but I'll be able to have a look before the weekend.

I am not much for the Avengers or Iron Man. My thing was the X-men, and basically Storm or Rogue. But I have given up reading Marvel for a while.

I love to get a hold of the new Batman storyline R.I.P where Bruce goes totally insane. A group of criminals is trying to totally ruin everthing that is Batman, from Bruce and his parents to Robin and Nightwing. Oh it has shocks in that story. Acourse they will probably come out as being totally false. Supposedly Thomas Wayne was a wife beater and drunk. Got his wife Martha addicted to herion. That Martha had an affair with Alfred and Alfred is Bruce's father. And Thomas had Martha killed,then faked his own death.
The topper I think is that Thomas, Martha and Alfred had a orgy.
Ah huh, like that really happened.
But Bruce has gone nuts and is apparently walking around in a orange Batsuit and thinks he is from another planet. Oh and Batmite is around too. Apparently Bat-mite is the sane part of Batman.

Otherwise, I have just stuck manga. I started reading Elfen lied, cute little girls in horns who love to butcher and murder people. Gotta love it.
And acourse Hellsing, Rosario vampire, and I am rereading Angel Sanctuary.

Been out of touch on manga myself for a little bit, aside from catching up to Nana, which is very good. D.C. Comics in general I'm avoiding - I'm in no mood for the grim and gruesome, which is what put my off Secret Invasion, so Batman's pretty much right out.

Man, just for the Olympics, I wish I had a tv...

The TV coverage was sort of so-so - I was hoping for greater things this time around, what with the extra channels and the Internet, but I still couldn't see all the events the way I would've liked. Maybe by 2012, they'll have worked the kinks out, and we can watch the whole thing online.

I'd be happy to help you sort out your fic woes if you wanna email about it, or even talk on the phone.

Thanks, I may indeed email you a version to look at, once I get it to a stage that'll make sense to someone other than me. It's terrible; the ideas are clear in the old noggin, but I've not been able to get the prose to flow the way I want it to at all.

You've done so much for my writing, I hope I can help with yours.

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Still Testing... Random

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