Posts Tagged ‘ blogging ’

Turns out that my contact email address here hasn’t forwarded all of the emails it gets to my regular email address and I haven’t logged on in a while which means that I apparently missed a few review copies of things.

So, sorry if I haven’t got back to you on things – I’ll try and wade through them in the next few days.

In the meantime jump on over to formspring and ask me something – or you can use the form in the column on the right!

Over on Formspring,Twitterpal and blogger PhillyRadioGeek posed an interesting question:

What does the UK do better than America? What does America do better than the UK?

That’s a question that seemed simple so I was going to go with the obvious.

The UK does these better -

Tea
Cake
Chocolate
Doctor Who
Sarcasm
Having the hardest special forces this side of the Mossad
Healthcare
A certain type of comedy

- while the US does these better -

Coffee
Muffins
Pizza
Most science fiction series that aren’t Doctor Who
Thinking they have the hardest special forces this side of the Mossad
Talking about healthcare
A different, broader type of comedy

- while everything else is pretty much split evenly depending on personal opinion.

This was, of course, a blithe answer designed to dodge the actual question – but I started to wonder what I felt the real answer was. Obviously there are differences, but those differences are embedded deep in the cultures of each country and they’re not so easy to break down.

I appear to be short a blog post this morning, unfortunately.

This is a shame as there’s a lot I want to blog about…

Lost, and how much I’m enjoying this season, where I think it’s going and what’s bugging me about the Man In Black. Oh, and that I’m maybe thinking about doing something kind of big and kind of cool when it’s all over.

Fringe, and (again) how much I’m enjoying this season, and what’s bugging me about all this alternate world stuff.

Supernatural, how much I love it and why I only watch it on DVD so I’m years behind.

Doctor Who, why I wasn’t sold on it when it relaunched, how I’ve come round to it slowly, and what I think of the new Doctor and the first episode of the new season.

Torchwood, now that I’ve watched it all.

And that’s just on the TV side, not even counting comics…

How the characters that returned in Blackest Night weren’t worth the characters that died.

Why I’ve bought the Fantastic Four through every crappy creative team in the past twenty-plus years, and yet the pretty-much universally acclaimed Jonathan Hickman’s run has it on the chopping block.

Which other ‘Forever‘ branded books I want in light of New Mutants Forever being announced.

What else I’m on the verge of cutting, but what trades I’ve got on preorder.

Why I loved Criminal, yet was disappointed in Incognito.

Then there’s books that I want to recommend, movies I want to recommend – and things that I really, deeply want to not recommend but warn people away from.

So there’s a lot around that I want to blog about, I just need to get around to it.

I also need to get around to answering some Formspring questions – just as soon as I get a few more…

Friday seems to be a little bit of a dead day for me when it comes to blogging, short of a favorite character being killed, maimed, mutilated or wedgied – and as I haven’t picked up this week’s books (or even finished all of last week’s books) I can’t speak to that.

Plus I have a couple of things I need to do today. You know, as well as work.

So what to write?

Well, this. A post about nothing.

This week I’ve seen buses in New York with ads for Doctor Who on the side – ‘Follow Me’ – and apparently I’m not the only one, but at least Tom Brevoort was smart enough to take a picture:

I also saw an ad in Wired this week – BBC America really seem to be doing a good bit of promotion for the new Doctor and season and even though I’m a season and several specials behind in the Tennant years I’ll probably be watching when it airs.

So bravo, it seems I’ve finally been converted back to Doctor Who. Dammit.

In other news, I’ve signed up for that Formspring thing on the basis that I can use some answers for future blog posts.

You can ask me questions here or by tapping them into that form on the right in the sidebar of this very page!

It’s funny; neither of my parents are the slightest bit nerdy at all, but both my eldest sister and myself come pretty close. Honestly, I’m not sure that I really qualify as a nerd. I’ve never been entirely sure of the definition, or of the difference between a nerd and a geek – although somehow, I think that geek involves technology in some way.

My father comes closest to either definition, I suspect, but only because as an engineer he’s always been interested in computers and various gadgetry – something I have inherited in a far less hands-on way.

So where do all my interests come from? I think it’s because I was encouraged when I was little to pursue what I enjoyed. Just look at this picture of me aged 8, circa 1982.

Right there is pretty much the genesis of every bit of nerdiness I have – except for my deep and abiding love of all things Star Trek. Yes, even Voyager.

In this picture there’s evidence of my early interest in Star Wars, Doctor Who, fantasy, comics, books, Dan Dare, science fiction, figure collecting (in the form of Kermit and Fozzie) and even talking monkeys – allow me to elaborate:

See?

Right here, in this one photo, is the genesis of a nerd. I have to admit, in spite of collecting comics and toys (not to mention movies and TV shows) pretty consistently from the age I was in this picture to, oh, about now, I’ve always kind of hidden my nerdlight under a bushel.

I mean, yes, there was that picture of me in the Eagle wearing a logo jumper that my mum knitted for me (and believe me, if I can find that picture, I’m putting it up here), but aside from that I think I’ve always managed to come across as relatively…well, normal for lack of a better word.

I think the main reason for this was my shyness. I was – and still am – incredibly shy. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself too much when I was younger; to a large extent I still don’t. And I think because of it I’ve held back a bit from doing things that I always wanted to do. I followed the safe career path because that was easier.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s served me pretty well, and more importantly I met my wife through work so I can’t really complain too much – but I still have this itch that needs to be scratched.

As my wife has said in the past, looking wistfully at the bucket loads of money earned by ubernerds such as Joss Whedon, “Yes, you’re nerdy. You’re just not nerdy enough.”

I feel like my perspective has shifted over the past seven-and-a-bit weeks, and for that I wholeheartedly blame my son, Jack,  and Michael Chabon.

I’ve fallen into a routine – as new parents tend to do, apparently – and at about 11.30 every night, I give Jack his last bottle before he goes down for his sleep. I know that this won’t last that long as pretty soon he should be sleeping from 7pm or so – but right now, it’s probably the highlight of my day.

After he’s had his bottle, I burp him, change him, swaddle him, then hold him until he falls asleep – and while I do this, I read. Sometimes I read out loud, sometimes I read silently, depending on how sleepy he is. I’ve been getting through a few books this way, and the latest one is Michael Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs.

As is par for the course for Chabon, his first collection on non-fiction i’s exquisitely written. Some of the stories are aimed at his children. Some, such as the one about his teenage sexual experience with his mother’s friend, you kind of hope aren’t.

But as I read them and look at my dozing son, I realize that I want to make sure I tell him my own stories. I want him to be able to learn from my mistakes and know that it’s okay to make his own. I want to tell him about the time I did this, and that, and maybe even the other.

And I want to tell him story-stories. Not just true stories but stories. I’ve become acutely aware over the past two months that time has passed right on by while I haven’t been paying attention. I’m thirty-five years old and I have exactly one piece of published writing, and I think I’m being generous counting even that piece as ‘published’.

So it’s time to change that. It’s time to gird my loins, refocus, giddy up, pick myself up by the bootstraps, and whatever the hell else I need to do to get myself together.

I need to make sure that the stories I haven’t told yet are told by the time my son needs to hear them.

So last night I did a little fiddling and redirected this address over to www.richlovatt.com and then sent a little tweet out.

Only it didn’t work, so the blog is back here for now at least until I get things sorted.

It’s not that I don’t want to carry on blogging; I do – but I’m not sure that its going to be as comics focused going forward and I was hoping bu switching over to my other domain that I’d be able to branch out a little.

Ah well.

Not that I’ve got that much time to blog at the moment anyway, I suppose. That should change this coming weekend as we (we being the family) get back into a routine once the inlaws have left and I’ve got a bit caught up at work.

The only thing to ask then is – with my pull list reducing by the week, what should I blog about?

Good news – no root canal today!

Bad news – root canal Monday.

Good news – four-and-a-half-day weekend starts this afternoon!

Bad news – four-and-a-half-day weekend ends Sunday night.

Good news – due date for the arrival of first baby is only a week away!

Bad news – it’s going to be a loooong week…maybe.

Good news – following birth of said baby, I’ll be pretty much absent from work for much of the rest of the month.

Bad news – MUCH of the rest of the month.

In the meantime, I’m trying to cram as much as work into the few hours I have here so that I’m in a decent enough position not to be concerned about work if previously mentioned baby decides to put in an early appearance.

Unfortunately this means that blogging time is limited, although I do seem to be making time to post stuff over on Tumblr, if only because it’s quick and usually doesn’t require pithy comments.

So, uh, a cover from a series that I may be the only person to like:

Talk amongst yourselves.

Yes, I’ve reached the grand old age of 35, which I reckon is half the allotted span that’s dealt out to most of us.

That’s a bit depressing.

Not as depressing as it being pointed out to me on the phone by my mum this morning that she was my age when she had me and at that point she also had three daughters aged between 9 and 13.

Yikes.

Anyway, I don’t think I’ve done badly in the past 35 years;

- have a beautiful wife;
- have a baby due in the next few weeks;
- have a great family;
- have an awesome dog;
- have some great friends;
- traveled to Australia, New Zealand and across the US, and various other places;
- wrote a book (unpublished);
- wrote a screenplay(unpublished);
- wrote a comic;
- wrote another comic;
- wrote a whole bunch of other stuff;
- have a job which, although I may hate, allows me to provide for the first four above, and generally I work with some pretty cool people.

So yes, all over I’d say I’m a pretty lucky guy.

Edward Woodward died today, aged 79.

Damn. I used to watch The Equalizer when I was a kid, despite my parents thinking it was too violent for me and that it was ridiculous that a man of that age went round getting into so much trouble.

It wasn’t until years later that I saw the occasional reruns of Callum and, eventually, discovered The Wicker Man – a simply amazing film which is probably one of the best horror movies ever made. Just don’t mention the remake.

The Wicker Man was also more than a passing influence on my lookalike’s movie, Hot Fuzz – which also featured Woodward in a supporting role.

He’s had many more credits of course, but those three roles are the ones that I’ll remember most.

Last Friday night as I was tidying up the dinner plates and making a cup of tea (yes folks, another excitement-filled Friday in New York City!) I was, for no apparent reason, whistling aimlessly.

Only it wasn’t quite as aimless as I thought – because I realised my wife (currently nine months pregnant for those counting) was watching me with a little smile.

“Is your plan coming together?”

I stopped whistling. Oh. Yep, it had been the theme tune to The A-Team.

“You know,” I said, “if the first trailer that gets released for The A-Team movie isn’t a recreation of the credits with the new cast, there’s something seriously wrong with the marketing people.”

She nodded wisely. “In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit.”

“They promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground.” I replied. “Today they survive as soldiers of fortune – if you have a problem, and if you can find -”

“- if no-one else can help,” she corrected.

I thought about it. “You sure?”

She nodded and motioned to the computer. “Yep.”

I pulled up this -

- and lo and behold she was right, although we’d missed a few bits out. I stopped the video after the narrative, just as the title card comes up – so before the rest of the credits.

“Hey,” she laughed, “you think they’ll have Liam Neeson smoking a cigar in a dinosaur suit?”

This is why my wife is awesome.

Other scenes from the credits I want to see recreated:

BA in a blinged-out construction helmet -

Murdock in a wedding dress -

- or perhaps with his sock puppet -

And, of course, Face and a cylon. New variety if possible:

In the UK, it’s Remembrance Day, in the US it’s Veteran’s Day. Elsewhere, it’s Armistice Day, since on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, Germany signed the Armistice and World War I – often simply referred to then as the Great War – ended. In the United States it wasn’t until 1954 that the day was expanded to include veterans of all wars.

It’s worth remembering that the Great War was also known as the War to End All Wars because after suffering losses of 16.6 million people world wide, surely nobody would be stupid enough to have a second World War.

World War Two, with a death toll of 62.4-78.3 million people, pretty much put paid to that.

And, of course, today men and women serve in their countries’ armed forces across the world, protecting and defending not only their own country but also people of other countries – because if they don’t, who will?

So: thank you.

And just because a post isn’t complete without video or a picture of some kind, here’s what is, for me, the best series ending of all time. There’s a longer ending here, with additional Melchie (Stephen Fry) and Hague (Geoffrey Palmer) – but in the meantime…

There’s something vaguely depressing about comic marts.

Not comic cons, you understand, which are more and more dominated by big displays from movie studios and other companies looking to hawk their latest product while the dealers, artists and celebrity attendees get shuffled off into a corner.

No, I’m talking about comic marts. Where there’s less presence from the big guys and more of the dealers, artist and others. Maybe it’s just me and my naturally pessimistic English sensibilities but they always feel like there’s an atmosphere of doom hanging over them.

Comic marts for me and, I suspect, many retailers aren’t about the new issues, they’re about the back issues. I used to love searching for missing issues – and I still do – but more and more this seems to be a dying pastime even more than buying new issues is. In this world of the internet, Essentials, Showcases, Omnibuses and Absolutes, who needs old issues?

I’ll admit that I’m not one to hang out in artist’s alley. It’s funny, but in spite of loving comics I’ve never been one for sketches or even conversation with artists and writers. I think it’s the whole English thing again, but usually the best I can manage is a ‘oh, I love your work on such-a-title’, and I get the feeling that I usually come off as disingenuous. Also, I’m not one for small talk which doesn’t help matters. So it’s not that I don’t love your work, it’s just that I don’t think that the way I tell you is particularly convincing.

But what really adds that feeling of doom is the celebrities. I like to think that there are four types of celebs there – and only two of these types have that doomed air about them.

First up, there’s the Up-and-Comers who are there because they have something going on right now. Something that should appeal to comic fans, or genre fans, like, say, the cast of Warehouse 13. It’s a way of increasing their profile, hawking their project and earning some coin.

Then there’s the Legends. The William Shatners of the world. These guys have been in the business for years and this is just a quick and easy way to earn some change. The thing is, the legends – and I’m talking real Legends – may not really need this money, as they probably have a lot of other revenue streams (such as residuals, websites, endorsements, book deals and such) but they know a good thing when they see it. And there’s always the adulation of the masses.

But then you get the Fading Stars. Maybe they were on a big series a few years ago but don’t get too much screen time these days, or maybe they’re fresh off a genre show recently but aren’t getting steady work right now. These guys have, potentially, been in a role that will define the rest of their careers – and maybe these cons will be their future. There’s something quietly desperate about that; feeling that maybe, just maybe this is as good as it’s going to get.

Finally, there’s the Last Gaspers. The actors and actresses who, twenty or thirty years ago, had a role that did define the rest of their careers. They set up at their little table with photos of them in that role, ready to sign for the occasional passing fan for a nominal fee, ready to smile for a photo or discuss that one role that made them, however briefly, a shining star. It’s like a scene out of The Wrestler.

There’s one actress in particular that I see at these things. A quick search on imdb tells me that she hasn’t had an acting credit in well over ten years and although for a while she was very busy, nabbing starring and recurring roles on various shows, none of them ever came close to eclipsing the one that she’s famous for.

A quick internet search tells me that she’s out of the acting business altogether these days, and has an entirely new career now. One that certainly doesn’t hold the potential to be as lucrative, but is in all probability much more rewarding.

And yet, she does the con/mart circuit. She sits at her table, quietly dignified, as people walk past her, many unaware of who she is although they almost certainly know the role she played. At the end of the weekend, she packs her property into a rolling suitcases and heads home, or to her hotel or travel port, or whatever, rolling that case behind her.

I don’t know why she does it. I don’t know how she does it. I imagine that she makes enough on these shows to make a profit, but it seems a lonely and sadly depressing business.

I admire her, this woman. This isn’t all she does, obviously. This is just a sideline a few weekends a year, away from her real life. Here she gets to meet people who admire her and remember her career.

Huh.

You know, maybe I have this encroaching doom thing all wrong…

From time to time I get a bit burned out on the blogging thing. You can probably see it happening when my posts get less about opinions and more about snark, and less about liking things and more about pictures.

This is one of those times.

The thing is, I started this blog over three and a half years ago so I could talk about comics on my own dime but more and more I wish I hadn’t limited myself to comics through a blog title like Comic By Comic. Sure, I digress into movies and TV from time to time, and very occasionally toys or – heaven forbid – the real world, but even so. Limiting.

On the other hand, it’s not like there’s that much going on with TV that’s worth blogging about right now anyway.
There’s Dollhouse - and while the amazing Epitaph One finally got me invested in the show, these past two episodes have slipped dangerously towards mediocrity, and the ratings unfortunately seem to reflect that.

Fringe has been sadly unspectacular, although I am looking forward to some Nimoy action this week.

Stargate Universe was okay, but I’m not a huge fan of the franchise to start with so this is an uphill battle, even with Robert Carlyle on board.

And FlashForward, while holding a lot of promise, hasn’t hooked me completely yet. I was hoping for the next Lost, but I think it may be the next Heroes.

Ah well, at least there’s Glee.

But back to comics. It’s not as though I’m not enjoying a lot of the big two right now; Dark Reign, while a little overbearing, has been good steady fun and I’ve been impressed by the inter-connection between Thunderbolts, Secret Warriors and the Dark and New Avengers books. I’m also enjoying Blackest Night and most of the attendant crossovers and spin-offs that DC has going on.

Then there’s books like Incredible Hercules, which pretty much blows me away every month. Or sometimes twice a month.

The thing is, I don’t know how much I have to say about these right now.

So…I’m on hiatus for the rest of the week. I’ll probably still be on Tumblr and Posterous and Twitter but aside from that, not so much.

In no particular order…

Get past the first three chapters of Alastair Reynold’s House of Suns so I can start Glen David Gold’s Sunnyside.

Tell everyone that my favorite book is Carter Beats the Devil and you should all read it right now.

Write another column for DVDSnapshot because I’m way late with that.

Read this week’s comics (I’ve only read Dark Reign: The List: X-Men; huh, I was right, whadda ya know?).

Watch last night’s Fringe.

Rewatch last night’s FlashForward.

Don’t forget to DVR Dollhouse tonight.

Send people over to Tiny Broken Films.

Draw a name from a hat for the Captain Britain Giveaway (I promise, I’ll get in touch with the winner Monday at the latest).

Work out how to run the next giveaway, yes?

Finish Starman Omnibus Volume 3.

Remind people that High Moon collected comes out next week and you can get it on Amazon for only a little over $10 for 180 pages of goodness.

Put some comics on ebay.

Turn people on to Adam Pawlus’ excellent Figure of the Day Star Wars figure blog.

Stop buying toys under the pretense that the unborn will play with them in five year’s time.

Email back the awesome artist who emailed me this week and write something for him.

Spend some quality time with the dog.

And the wife, I suppose.

Stop telling said wife that due to the size of my head, the unborn will come out like the Mekon only less green.

Pimp some other folks‘ blogs. Like these. Because I don’t do that enough, and I do read blogs, I just tend not to comment that much.

Comment more on blogs I read.

Block out the beat sheet for the next spec screenplay I’m working on, which has a premise so awesome that it’s a guaranteed hit. Guaranteed, I tell you.

Rewrite the last spec screenplay I finished after leaving it to sit for a few more weeks.

Try and think of some topics to blog about that aren’t just random images.

Or, you know, lists.

Conquer world.

There, that should do it.

You may have noticed that the content on the blog has been a little bit light recently. Not to worry – I’m just chronically busy at work at the moment.

I’m also reassessing the comics I pick up (yet again) due to the impending arrival of the offspring in a couple of months. It’s not like I’m dropping Spider-Man or anything, but lets just say that some of the lower-level books are on the chopping block even though I do like them.

I also finished the first draft of my first full length screenplay over the weekend, and printing that 109 page baby out yesterday made me grin like a schoolgirl. Lots of re-editing to do on this one, but for the next month or two it’s going away while I start work on another – and I’m pretty damn pleased with the idea for this one. SyFy movie of the week, here we come…

Anyway, the point is – not much of a post today. Sure, I may Tumblr something later on, or Posterous something but that’s probably about it.

Remember though, send me a direct message through Twitter with the name of Captain Britain’s first love interest by end of Friday to get in a draw for the three Captain Britain trades reprinting his early UK appearances! (If you’re not following me, I’ll follow back soon as I can to get your DM!)

You know, this has a hell of a lot more impact on me than Michael Jackson.

Just saying.

Just like last week, nothing of note happened yesterday.

Or at least, nothing that will hugely affect the comics you pick up week to week.

How it affects the creation of those comics, and the approval process associated with it, is, I suspect, a different matter…

…so don’t go expecting too much.

But you could go and check out the first installment of my new semi-regular column about movies and such over on DVDSnapshot – by clicking here!

Only, ignore that huge pic at the bottom…Mike, can you shrink it…please…nobody needs to see me that size…