Gi-ant movie

Fred Olen Ray is apparently working on a giant ant movie. Ray has made some truly awful B-movies over the years, but they are usually goofy fun. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to this movie, but I'll certainly check it out.

More on comic books

Scribbling woman says much the same that I did about comics and art but, you know, better and more interestingly.
Also, there is an excellent response at Rasputin's I Am Uninformed to this whole thing.

The Mumpsimus does interviews

As if The Mumpsimus wasn't a great enough blog already, Matthew Cheney has started interviewing people. He talks with K.J. Bishop about her novel The Etched City, her story "Maldoror Abroad" in Album Zutique and her writing process.

I don't think I have an impulse to tell stories so much as an impulse to spend time with characters. I always used to imagine things about my favourite characters from movies and books, and over time those characters would change in my mind, turning into people who were similar to the originals but different enough for me to think of them as separate. When I started writing, I discovered that the process of writing allowed me to get to know them much better than I could by just daydreaming. I also discovered that I liked writing in and of itself -- the pleasure of making things out of words, of finding the way to express something, to define some notion or feeling of mine that previously had been vague.

Also, while I'm talking about interviews, Maud Newton's latest "Fiction Writers on Writing" (previously "Making Book") is with Stephen Elliott.

Can comic books be art?

This review of the comics issue of McSweeney's has been upsetting some people around the world of blogging. In it, Martin Rowson takes aim at the urge to believe that comic books can be great art. He gets truly heated up by the end:

This [the McSweeney's issue] is yet another sally in that old, old struggle to get comics to be taken seriously and recognised by the adult world in general as "respectable".
Except that comics aren't and shouldn't be respectable. The closest they should come to the adult world is as a kind of foul-mouthed, filthy-minded and grubby adolescence, with adolescents of all ages duly sequestered in that teenage bedroom and, between bouts of what teenagers do, thumbing through thin, flimsy funnies instead of damaging their wrists trying to hold this latest over-weighty, overproduced whinge. Ware, after all, is rich and famous, and thanks to this book will doubtless be mobbed by the thousands and thousands of ageing retards for whom comics still float their boat. Which is fine, but I wish he and the rest of them would accept that, in the ecology of culture, comics flourish where they are for a reason, and so he should stop pushing against an open door into an empty room.

Linking to this, the Literary Saloon says:

but it's nice to see someone argue that all this talk that comics should be taken seriously has gone too far

The Return of the Reluctant comments further on this idea:

There have been too many insalubrious suggestions from the "comics as literature" crowd without justification or solid arguments. It's one thing to state it, but it comes across as a callow undergraduate announcing for the umpteenth time that God is dead. It's another thing to have someone like James Wood or Christopher Hitchens weighing in on the matter and offering a proper historical or critical perspective. Ergo, it's nice to see someone rock the boat (with admittedly too much gusto), if only to get the pro-comics crowd reconsidering their arguments.

Bookslut dismisses the whole thing out of hand:

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Someone is trying really hard to be controversial, aren't they? I got the link from The Literary Saloon, who seems to agree. A certain someone also insists I should have arguments to back up my claim that comics are literature. But this article doesn't make me want to defend my claim. It makes me roll my eyes and get along with my day, just as any other boneheaded statement meant to get people angry would. I can't be bothered to care. More 100 Bullets for me.

So a tempest in a teapot, but those are my favorite kind. I, for one, agree with Bookslut's dismissal of the article. Rowson is so nasty at the end there. My biggest problem with Rowson's article is the statement "Except that comics aren't and shouldn't be respectable." Is he trying to set himself up as some guardian of art? Is there any reason why comics shouldn't be accepted as having the potential to be art?
As for the more reasonable request that we comic fans should tell the world what the classics, the "Ulysses" or "Canterbury Tales" of the comic book world, are, I can name a few.
Here's a few comic books I believe are masterpieces (with links to Amazon so you can buy them and decide for yourself):
From Hell, Watchmen, Maus, Jim Woodring's Frank series, Sandman, Harvey Pekar comics, Through the Habitrails, Love & Rockets, Mr. Punch, A Contract With God, Jar of Fools.
Some of those are the books everybody mentions, some are personal to me, but I think they are all important in some way. And I haven't included some single issues of comics by people like Bernard Krigstein, Dan Clowes and David Mazzuchelli that are also beautiful, important art. For that matter, I haven't included any foreign works that also deserve notice.
Maybe people are going crazy for comics now because they are hot. And maybe some comic books are being overrated because of this. But I don't see how that makes any difference to whether comic books can be art.
I would like to see somebody make a cogent argument as to why comic books can't be art that isn't based on the fans ("foul-mouthed, filthy-minded and grubby adolescence") or particular bad examples (if you take a bad comic off a comic book store shelf at random, I can also walk into a book store and easily find a trashy novel just as bad.) Do people believe there is something inherently wrong with comics that keeps them from being art?
I just don't get it.
Anyway, I'm not the best person to make the argument, but I felt somebody should be sticking up for them.
Now that I've written all this, I notice that Rowson is an editorial cartoonist. (Maybe many of you know this?) Could this put a whole different spin on things? Here's an interview with him on politics, which inludes this paragraph:

But Rowson is not one of those who bangs on about the 'power of the cartoon' and its potential impact on political life. 'The fact that I do horrible drawings of politicians doesn't disempower them in any way at all - and what I can do is nothing compared to what they can do, because they have power over my destiny.'

Maybe he just hates himself (or thinks comic books are beneath editorial cartoons.) Whatever.

Richard Hell on Robert Quine

More on Robert Quine, this time Richard Hell talks about the guitarist and his final days.

Fox-deer thing and the credibility of photos

This guy took a photo of a mysterious creature in back yard. The creature looks like a cross between a fox and a deer, with a cat's tail. It's very strange.
It's funny how the digital age has completely taken away the credibility of photographs. As soon as I saw the picture, I said to myself "that's a photoshop!" I have no idea if it is, but how can anyone tell? I suppose if he has original negatives on film, rather than digital. Still. Cool looking photo anyway.
(Link found at Professor Hex.)

Acid, absinthe and upset tummies

I was searching Fortean Times today, hoping their H.P. Lovecraft article had made the Internet (it hasn't), but I find they have an interesting collection of articles on how acid, absinthe and upset stomachs inspired several writers: Thomas De Quincey, August Strindberg, Aldous Huxley and Lewis Carroll. Tied to that there is an article on the Grateful Dead if you are interested in that sort of thing.
The Lovecraft article, published in their latest issue, is very good. It's sure to point out that Lovecraft was a stout nonbeliever in the occult, but it still explores its influence on him and how others have brought his work into the occult. It's a good read. I'll try to remember to link to it when it's up on the Web site.

Giant monster designs

So the rest of the monster artwork for "Godzilla: Final Wars" has been released. Most of the monsters show little change from their '60s look. Gigan, with it's metal body and detailed hooks, and Manda, now green instead of red and with a sleeker head, seem the most changed. Hedorah looks like they've added a few gross details and Rodan looks sleeker. Otherwise, it's all very traditional. Have I mentioned how much I can't wait for this movie?
While I'm on about giant monsters, Retromedia released Return of the Giant Monsters backed with Magic Serpent. I don't have either movie and while Retromedia doesn't use the best prints, I like just having a copy of the films.

Read what I tell you! Buy Vandermeer's books!

You know, I keep trying to push authors I think are great to you readers, but I don't know how much you care. I fear that half of you have no interest and the other half are way ahead of me. No one has asked for that copy of "The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque" yet. Do I really have no readers interested in reading Jeff Ford?
Well, regardless if I'm putting you to sleep or making you skip a couple of entries a week, I'm going to continue promoting authors I enjoy.
One of my favorites is Jeff Vandermeer. Apparently, he has just completed work on his new book, "Shriek: An Afterword," which will be the latest book set in his city of Ambergris. If you're interested (and you should be!) check out his blog at vanderworld.blogspot.com and you'll be able to read excerpts from the book. His collection of short stories, "Secret Life", is available now. When I have some money available, that's going to be the next book I pick up.

Robert Quine 1942-2004

Guitarist Robert Quine, 61, has died, possibly of a heroin overdose. What a loss. The guy was an amazing guitar player. He made a name for himself with Richard Hell & the Voidoids and went on to revive Lou Reed's career with The Blue Mask. He played punk music, but he was a guitar god. His sound was distinctive and aggressive and he played like few before him (or after him for that matter). I was always excited to hear him on an album. This really is a tragedy. He had already done great work, but nothing would have stopped him from doing more if he had lived.
There are comments on his death here, here and people are talking about it on the I Love Music board. I'll add more as I find it.
Here's a bit on Quine from Victor Bockris' book "Transformer":

The purest of musicians with the highest of standards, Quine let his music speak for him. As soon as he played a single, inimitable note on his guitar, there was no question that Mr. Quine was in control. If an artist's work can be judged by how quickly it is recognized, then Bob Quine was on eof the all-time greats. By 1977, his playing was so inspired he had developed a cult following.

Bockris' book makes it clear that Quine not only aided Lou Reed on his album, but basically revived Reed's confidence in himself and set him back on the road to greatness.
Bockris also quotes New York Times music critic Robert Palmer:

Robert Quine's solos were like explosions of shredding metal and were over in thirty seconds or so.

And here is Lester Bangs on Quine:

Someday Quine will be recognized for the pivotal figure that he is on his instrument -- he is the first guitarist to take the breakthroughs of early Lou Reed and James Williamson and work through them to a new, individual vocabulary, driven into odd places by obsessive attention to "On the Corner"-era Miles Davis. Of course, I'm prejudiced, because he played on my record as well, but he is one of the few guitarists I know who can handle the supertechnology that is threatening to swallow players and instruments whole -- "You gotta hear this new box I got," is how he'll usually preface his latest discovery, "it creates the most offensive noise ..." -- without losing contact with his musical emotions in the process. Onstage he projects the cool remote stance learned from his jazz mentors -- shades, beard, expressionless face, bald head, old sportcoat -- but his solos always burn, the more so because there is always something constricted in them, pent up, waiting to be released.

UPDATE: Here's the New York Times obituary. Now they're saying it might have been suicide. Quine had been despondent over the loss of his wife in August. Also, Lou Reed has made a statement about Quine's death:

"Robert Quine was a magnificent guitar player -- an original and innovative tyro of the vintage beast," Reed said in a statement released to Billboard.com. "He was an extraordinary mixture of taste, intelligence and rock'n'roll abilities coupled with major technique and a scholar's memory for every decent guitar lick ever played under the musical son. He made tapes for me for which I am eternally grateful -- tapes of the juiciest parts of solos from players long gone. Quine was smarter than them all. And the proof is in the recordings, some of which happily are mine. If you can find more interesting sounds and musical clusters than Quine on 'Waves of Fear' (from Reed's 1982 album "The Blue Mask"), well, it's probably something else by Robert."

There's some comments and a few more details at Richard Hell's site.
And finally, here's an interview with Quine from 1997 that goes over his whole career and from the same site, here's a list of Quine's favorite music.

Lost cities and peoples

Professor Hex put together a good batch of links recently. Especially interesting was his post about the possible discovery of Atlantis and his supposition that maybe it's Tartessos instead. The Tartessos link is fascinating. Unlike Atlantis, there's a wealth of historical mentions of Tartessos and it seems to coincide with Biblical references to Tarshish.
In the Altantis article, meanwhile, there's a reference to the Sea People:

Dr Kuehne noticed that the war between Atlantis and the eastern Mediterranean described in Plato's writings closely resembled attacks on Egypt, Cyprus and the Levant during the 12th Century BC by mysterious raiders known as the Sea People.
As a result, he proposes that the Atlanteans and the Sea People were in fact one and the same.

Here's some information on the Sea People.

Epic fantasy

At s1ngularity::front, Gabe Chouinard looks at epic fantasy and questions why he and so many book buyers love it when so much of it is mediocre.

What is missing from epic fantasy is PERSONALITY. Too much of it is homogenized, steralized, devoid of life. Without personality, epic fantasy is just a string of redundant novels telling a single story over and over again. We all know the tropes, we all know the Hero's Journey, we all know the way things will work out in the end. So it becomes a matter of style and idiosyncracy... and such traits are sorely ignored in most epic fantasy, which is why writers like Gene Wolfe and Stephen R. Donaldson stand out so prominently in the field. When the tale is familiar, it's the telling that matters.

Save the giant squid

Britain is fighting to stop deep sea trawling, which it believes is killing many underwater species, including the giant squid.

How I think

So I took the What Kind of Thinker Are You quiz at the BBC Web site. According to my results I am a:
logical-mathematical thinker
intrapersonal thinker
existentitial thinker.
It gives a little description of what each type of thinking means, people who were similar thinkers and jobs that best suit your thinking style. For instance, among the people who thought like me were: Graham Greene, Isaac Newton and Gandhi (actually, Gandhi fits into two of my categories.) Of course, all the jobs were different under each category.
It's an interesting quiz. See what you get.

How giant squid aid you

Scientist says the eyes of the giant squid may hold the key to solving visual impairment. The story includes a rather awful picture of a detached giant squid eye.

Couch potato world record

So this British guy spent 47 consecutive hours watching TV and broke a world record. As world records go, this doesn't seem all that impressive to me, I've practically done it myself. The only hard part is staying awake. Got to be careful what you watch, one episode of "Full House" and you're done.
(Link found at Return of the Reluctant.)

Amazon's new thing

So Amazon has started a new thing, called a Plog. Well, really it's not a new thing at all, just new for them. A Plog is a "personalized Web log," and as far as I can tell, it lists your recent purchases and Amazon recommendations. It looks like Amazon is the plogger, although it's attached to your account. It's kind of an interesting idea, I hope they do something with it.

Writers and their multiple personalities

This link looks at the work of August Highland, a man on the Internet who has created 80 different personas who have numerous literary Web zines and publish each other's fiction. These 80 different persona have also created numerous literary movements. You can start on his stuff here. Of course, most of his stuff seems to be words strung together in either a "Finnegan's Wake" or William Burroughs cut-up novel style.
The whole thing reminds me of Fernando Pessoa. Pessoa was a Portuguese poet who created four "heteronyms." Each of these created personality wrote poems in their own style. They would write articles about each others work and would be inspired or outraged by each other.
(Original link found at Bookslut.)

Godzilla and religion

The Revealer looks at Godzilla, exploring the religious ideas behind the Japanese cut of Godzilla and what it means. I don't like their contention that Serizawa was a suicide bomber. He's reluctant to use his weapon at all, unlike suicide bombers who are hoping to strike a blow against their enemies. He kills himself to keep the weapon secret. And I'm also not sure Godzilla is a metaphor for America. Nevertheless, it's a good article, check it out.

Giant mushroom in the Congo

An 18 inch high, 3 foot wide giant mushroom has appeared in the Congo and it's baffling scientists. All I know is you'd better not eat it.