Andrew.frampton

Tank Girl returned to shelves on Wednesday in the form of Solid State Tank Girl #1 from Titan Comics. Perhaps coincidentally, but probably not, the artists at Ashcan Allstars have been celebrating Tank Girl week.

There’s some good work there — Tank Girl is a hard character to get right, tonally. Alan Martin’s signature character may have inspired a generation of Suicide Girls, but it’s hard to find an instance in her comics where her sexiness is ever being used in an exploitative fashion. Sure, there’s loads of gratuitous female and male nudity in the back catalog, but it’s almost certainly there for comedic reasons rather than titillation. So any artist attempting to draw the character as a straight-up cheesecake pin-up is completely missing the point. By and large, the Allstars have mainly got it right, but I’ll let you be your own judge of who’s been successful and who hasn’t — there’s a gallery of examples after the break.

You guys, the NFL is really worried about you staying home to watch games on television. And why shouldn’t they be? Sure they’re making $20 billion off of TV revenue, but at what cost? The cost of $12 beers and $40 parking, I guess. How big a problem is this for NFL executives? Concussion big.

Stephen Jones says there will be another pressing issue on the agenda: the increasing problem of getting NFL fans off the couch, away from their high-definition TVs and back into stadium seats.

“Everybody always says we have to watch concussions and all of that, and that’s at the forefront. But I’d say 1-A is this,” the Dallas Cowboys’ executive vice president and chief operating officer told USA TODAY Sports on Monday.

Oh, Stephen Jones. We really feel for you after you guys built that 80,000 seat albatross in the midst of the RedZone Era. Of course the availability of the NFL’s own RedZone Channel (in high-definition!) isn’t the only thing keeping fans at home. I was a regular at Redskins games throughout my childhood and adolescence, but I stopped accompanying my dad to FedEx Field years ago. And here is why.

1. Drunken redneck asshole fans. I love my team, but man, the gameday experience is for shit. Also, these people.
2. I get on the beltway to drive to Landover every day for work. Why would I want to do that on the weekend? The traffic and parking are fucking miserable, no matter what improvements they’ve made.
3. A $9 six pack of Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold will always win out over $12 of piss beer.
4. A coffee table filled with snacks from Trader Joe’s will always win out over some crab pretzel abomination.
5. Television replays, plus DVR functions allow me to watch players get concussed over and over again.
6. Multiple televisions/computers. I always watch the Redskins. I also enjoy watching everyone else. At once. Because I can.
7. There is nobody passed out in a pool of their own puke in my bathroom unless Drew comes over for the Vikings game.
8. I don’t have to miss Premier League soccer matches to make it to the stadium for 1 pm kickoffs.
9. I don’t have to miss most of the 4 pm games while sitting in traffic on the way home from the 1 pm game.
10. I’m obviously a huge yuppie pussy (see 1, 3, 4, 7 and 8).

The post The NFL Wants Your Ass Off Of Your Couch And In Their Hard Plastic Seats appeared first on Kissing Suzy Kolber.

On last night's episode of Bravo's Newlyweds: The First Year, we got to watch engaged couple Jeff and Blair experience Whitney Houston's death together. Or more precisely, we got to watch their dramatic retelling of how they learned about her death the night before via text message when Blair screamed and Jeff thought something happened to one of their family members. Tragedy has never been more entertaining.

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The latest Fed report on student loan debt includes some neat-o maps showing how all of America's student debt is distributed geographically. Washington DC sure is smart, and broke!

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Twenty years ago, after moving to LA to "be discovered," a then-25-year-old Zach Galifianakis met and befriended an elderly laundromat volunteer named Elizabeth "Mimi" Haist.

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Sometimes, artists who make the jump from comics to galleries have been out of the drawing-funny-books business for so long, it’s hard to tell what their current feelings are toward the medium that gave them their first push forward.

For example, it’s been a while since I heard an interview with David Choe, but when I did, they all focused on what his Facebook stock options were worth, rather than if he had any plans to bring Slow Jams back into print. We’ll give Choe the benefit of the doubt, though: He may have chanced of becoming the fourth- or fifth-richest living artist (depending on whose estimate you believe), but he still seems to be living the same productive bohemian life he’s always led. Just this week, two new projects of his have reached the internet: some street art he collaborated on in LA, and the release of a screen-print based on a mural painted on the former home of Pablo Escobar in Medellín. The print is called “Stockholm Syndrome,” presumably a comment on the madness that overtook Columbia during Escobar’s reign.

My personal favorite of the comicker-to-fine artist brigade remains Glenn Barr. His low-brow approach and subject matter just appeals to my inner SF-lovin’ rock’n'roller. His latest show, “Rooms,” began this week at the new Inner State Gallery in Detroit; there’s a sizable selection previewed at its website. Alongside longstanding Barr themes and motifs, there’s some pieces in this collection that remind me of a hipster Edward Hopper (a hipster Hopper? there’s a terrible pun in there somewhere, wanting to get out); but clearly there will always be a place in Barr’s heart for exotic females flying extremely un-aerodynamic looking machines.

The precocious and progressive young students of Swarthmore College are currently urging their school to completely rid itself of any investments in fossil fuels. The school pointed out that this move could potentially raise each student's tuition costs by $13,000 per year. Is there any way to make divestment work?

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– Daniel Radcliffe discussing — once again — all the gay sex he was privy to while portraying Allen Ginsberg in the film Kill Your Darlings with Graham Norton (via PinkNews). Funny, we’ve received similar advice — also from John Krokidas.

The Chesapeake blue crab is a symbol of Maryland, so in 1984, Baltimore artist Jackie Leatherbury Douglass made this enormous sculpture of that creature. A Baltimore Sun article from 2000 describes it:

The county, wanting an eye-catching tourism display, commissioned the crab's creation more than 15 years ago, from Shadyside artist Jackie Leatherbury Douglass and her husband, John.

Originally, Jackie Douglass recalls, "they wanted a 30-foot crab, which was just impossible." The three-dimensional, 10-by-7-by-5 1/2 - foot blue crab they settled on took the Douglasses more than 5,500 hours to assemble, with John welding the steel frame and Jackie performing the stained-glass work.

The result was more than just a fitting icon for Anne Arundel County, with 550 miles of heavily crabbed waterfront, and a capital city known as Crabtowne, and a newspaper nicknamed the Crab- wrapper.

Link -via Twisted Sifter

(Photos: Elvert Barnes)

The very impressive art of Michael Peck

If you could arrange a race between famous science fiction spaceships, who would win? Would it be the Milliennium Falcon, the Jupiter 2, Serenity, the Enterprise, or some other ship? Find out in an online race to destinations light years away at Slate. They also explain the results, according to the canon of each science fiction universe as we know it. Link -via mental_floss

Her column today is simply unhinged from the first sentence:

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate.

Can she actually believe this? Has this president broken the law, lied under oath, or authorized war crimes? Has he traded arms for hostages with Iran? Has he knowingly sent his cabinet out to tell lies about his sex life? Has he sat by idly as an American city was destroyed by a hurricane? Has he started a war with no planning for an occupation? Has he started a war based on a lie, and destroyed the US’ credibility and moral standing while he was at it, leaving nothing but a smoldering and now rekindled civil sectarian war?

So far as I can tell, this president has done nothing illegal, unethical or even wrong.

You have to bend yourself into several pretzels to even understand what the Benghazi thing is about. All the emails released show what amounts to a classic inter-agency conflict, resolved dispassionately by Ben Rhodes, in a period of considerable confusion. For the half-baked talking points, someone has been already fired. On the DOJ’s aggressive pursuit of a leaker who might have endangered national security, I thought Republicans like Noonan approved of that. But not when it’s Obama, when it suddenly becomes an “assault”.

The IRS story is a different matter and an entirely legitimate scandal at a lower level. I want those responsible to be fired or prosecuted.  But there is no proof whatever of any connection to the president, his campaign or anyone near the administration itself.  Sarah Hall Ingram, who was in charge of the office scrutinizing 501 (c) 4s has no business still working in the IRS, let alone on healthcare reform. She should be fired as well as her then-deputy, who is out the door June 3.

But how exactly is all this a crippling scandal for the president? He is not involved in any of these issues directly. In fact, it would be highly inappropriate for the president to be micro-managing the IRS or, for that matter, the DOJ. If he were, Noonan would be calling him Carter. At some very distant level, he is formally responsible – but not in the way that Reagan was directly responsible for Iran-Contra, or Clinton for lying under oath about his sex life, or Bush for making brutal torture his central strategy in the war on terror. That’s what makes a scandal a real scandal: the political involvement of a president or a key member of his administration in a cover-up or criminal offense or lie. That simply isn’t here – with the caveat that something may emerge later.

So what on earth is she banging on about? She cannot connect the president directly to this scandal – the first in his four and a half years in office (which must be a record). So she simply assigns blame to him because he is the president. Or this higher bullshit:

A president sets a mood, a tone. He establishes an atmosphere. If he is arrogant, arrogance spreads. If he is to too partisan, too disrespecting of political adversaries, that spreads too. Presidents always undo themselves and then blame it on the third guy in the last row in the sleepy agency across town.

I would say, especially after the catastrophic consequences of the last president, and the continuous siege of the Clinton White House, Obama’s record is extraordinarily clean and remains so. And this president is not partisan, as many Democrats will tell you. He’d love to do a deal with the GOP – if only they were capable of compromise.

I guess what I’m saying is that my own confidence in this president’s integrity and abilities is completely unfazed by these unconnected stories. I have seen no evidence of his involvement in any of them. Noonan hasn’t either. She just invents a conspiracy to audit conservatives with two anecdotes. She writes that “it is not even remotely possible that only one IRS office was involved,” even though we have no evidence that any other one was. The Washington response, moreover, was to tell Cincinnati to cut it out. She then writes:

And why — in the matters of the Associated Press and Benghazi too — does no one in this administration ever take responsibility?

How about this on the DOJ’s leak investigation from today from the president:

“I make no apologies and I don’t think the American people would expect me as commander-in-chief not to be concerned about information that might compromise their missions or might get them killed.”

Yes this is no ordinary scandal, Peggy. Because, as far as the president is concerned, there is as yet no scandal at all.

(Photo: Obama today by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.)

[Reddit, via Bob's Blitz]

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Somehow I hadn't even seen these truly hilarious photos of young "traditional marriage" supporters standing around the National Org. For Marriage's "March For Marriage" holding signs rife with misspellings of basic words. But I'm glad Mr. Takei did see them and did respond:

MORE: George Takei Responds To "Traditional" Marriage Fans [Buzzfeed]

Because sometimes anti-gay attack lines make you sic. But sometimes? Just [sic].

The new Star Trek movie isn't a terrible film. Star Trek Into Darkness has some bravura action scenes, and some brilliant comic bits. But it's also aggressively, tragically stupid. It's not even a great popcorn film, because it fails to deliver on its own promises. And it's not half as good as J.J. Abrams' first Star Trek.

Note: This review contains no major spoilers, but does have some broad generalizations, from which one could draw vague but pointed inferences.

Four years ago, J.J. Abrams showed that Star Trek could be thrilling again. His first film starts off with a really powerful opening sequence, where George Kirk sacrifices himself for his crew and his newborn son. And it ends with a pretty rousing finale, where Jim Kirk saves Earth from meeting the same fate as Vulcan, and Spock discovers that his father really did love his mother. Also, Abrams' first movie takes chances with the Trek mythos, blowing up Vulcan and turning Spock and Uhura into a long-term couple.

But Abrams' second outing plays it safe, instead of capitalizing on this legacy. Star Trek Into Darkness tries to give fans exactly what they expect, in exactly the right quantities with the right packaging. The result is somewhat insulting to actual Star Trek fans, because nobody enjoys inept pandering. And it falls short of being a good action movie, because it actively lowers the stakes over and over, instead of raising them.

This is a film that's simultaneously trying too hard and aiming too low. In parts, it's ridiculously fun and there are some crackerjack sequences that work astonishingly well. (Along with some sequences that fall terribly flat.) Simon Pegg nearly steals the thing. Benedict Cumberbatch is mostly great. But the film is let down by its nonsensical plot and pulled punches.

I'm trying to avoid major spoilers here, but suffice to say that nothing in Star Trek Into Darkness makes sense. At all. These aren't the sort of plot holes that you notice in the parking lot after you walk out of the movie theater, but rather the sort that jump out at you while you're actually watching the movie. The first half of the movie sets up a genuinely interesting storyline, and lays the groundwork for what could have been a really good film — and then the movie throws all of that potential away on fan-service and villain multiball.

Star Trek Into Darkness, in particular, lacks a big climax, like Nero trying to destroy Earth in the first movie — this time around, the final act of the movie just feels like more middle.

Often, when a film falls apart the way Star Trek Into Darkness does, it's because the film-makers didn't know what story they were trying to tell. This time around, they had a clear story in mind... and it's one that apparently doesn't have room for a good villain, or an interesting story.

The Kirk Problem

All of the marketing for this film has been built around the idea that it has a really strong villain, stronger than the one-note Nero from the first movie. But in fact, that's not the case — there are a couple of villains in Star Trek Into Darkness, and neither of them is particularly strong in the sense of posing a major challenge. Both villains are utterly reactive, flailing around in response to plot developments.

And this movie is not at all driven by either of its villains, whose identity I won't give away. Instead, it's all about Kirk, and his unfitness for command.

The biggest flaw in the first Abrams Trek movie is James Kirk's "failing upwards" trajectory, which leads to him becoming captain an hour after flunking out of Starfleet Academy. Kirk is also working the "immature frat-boy" vibe a little too hard, making it hard to believe anyone would trust him with hundreds of lives.

So Star Trek Into Darkness' main goal is to rehabilitate Kirk and turn him into a fit captain. Plot and storytelling logic are completely subsumed to that goal, and all of the major character development revolves around that — even the Spock/Uhura romance is turned into an extension of Kirk's relationship with Spock. In fact, even the Kirk/Spock friendship is submerged in the story of Kirk becoming a good captain at long last, which means that some key scenes towards the end are lacking the emotional depth they're probably supposed to have.

The good news is, Chris Pine is way better this time around. He actually seems sort of like a starship captain, instead of a kid trying on his dad's clothes. He's gotten some gravitas from somewhere, maybe from hanging out with Benedict Cumberbatch.

And some of the best moments in the middle of the film involve Kirk making a few genuinely wise decisions, which show that he's listening to his subordinates instead of just doing whatever he feels like. There was a bit, about halfway through the film, where I really thought this movie was going someplace cool, because we do see Kirk becoming a better leader and thinking on his feet a bit.

But the movie tosses all of that out the shuttlebay, in favor of a cheap ending that tries to show Kirk learning a really dumb non-lesson. There's something kind of wack about building a whole movie around the notion that your hero is unworthy of the mantle you gave him the first time around — but if that's the arc you're going with, at least do it justice.

And meanwhile, the movie dissolves into mindless fan-service, at the expense of not just logic, but fun or excitement.

Fanwank

The final reel of Star Trek Into Darkness basically makes sense only as fan-service. The movie essentially abdicates trying to tell a new story at some point, and turns into a jumble of stuff from stories you've seen before, slightly rearranged or turned on its head. This is sort of the kiss of death for a movie that's trying to breathe new life into a universe as venerable as Trek.

Abrams' first Star Trek movie took a somewhat more restrained approach to fan-service — the story was more or less new, and the movie took some huge liberties, but then Abrams and friends threw some bones to the fans. Like, we saw Kirk take the Kobayashi Maru test, we saw a Tribble, there were lots of little shout-outs. But the fan-service never took over the film, to the point of derailing the actual story.

And that's really the problem — this time, the fanservice becomes the movie — and meanwhile, as I mentioned, the movie also works hard to reduce the stakes, instead of raising them. (There's one huge shoe in particular that you're told over and over is going to drop, and it never does.)

This movie makes a strong case that Star Trek has nowhere to go that it hasn't already gone, and nothing to say that it hasn't already said, and that's really too bad.

Star Trek was always about exploring new shit. It's even in Kirk's opening monologue: to seek out strange new shit and new civilizations. So it's bad enough that Trek has been stuck in the land of prequels and reboots since Voyager ended — but at least, the justification for doing the fancy reboot of Kirk and Spock was to have a vehicle to tell brand new stories about them. Nostalgia is the poison for any long-running series, but it's especially bad for Star Trek, which is supposed to be all about looking forward.

In defense of fun

Star Trek Into Darkness has almost all the ingredients of a fun movie.

As I mentioned, Simon Pegg steals every scene he's in. J.J. Abrams has a great visual style, and really gives you a sense of what it's like to be aboard a frickin starship in some of the scenes aboard the Enterprise. Almost every member of the cast is charming. Benedict Cumberbatch brings a certain lovely dignity to his performance (although he is forced to declaim large amounts of exposition that make almost no sense.) And there are more fun "going on a crazy away mission" sequences like the "drill attack" sequence in the first movie.

In fact, and probably the best you can say about Star Trek Into Darkness is that it is fun, if you can turn your brain all the way off. To the point of near-brain death, basically.

But this movie never quite gets crazy enough, or commits to the "holy shit" action enough, to be really, truly fun. There's no huge final battle, no "all almighty fuck breaks loose" crescendo, no knock-down-drag-out hero moment. Instead, the movie gets more and more ponderous, even as it bends over backwards to give you maximum fan-service and Kirk validation.

It wouldn't matter nearly as much that nothing in this movie makes a lick of sense, if it was more bonkers and exciting. Instead, this movie doles out action sequences, some of them terrific and some of them underwhelming, as if they were field rations. It's like nobody's told J.J. Abrams that action scenes can just flow, come out of nowhere and hit you on the head.

I came out of this movie wishing that Abrams had sat down and watched the movie he produced a while back, Brad Bird's Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, before filming Trek 2. Lord knows MI4 isn't a smart movie either, but it's fully committed to the action and to keeping you on your toes.

And in addition to the agendas I already mentioned, Into Darkness also has a message about terrorism and 9/11 that really, really wants to be taken seriously and... yeesh. At the end, when the movie spells out its grand message, I slapped my forehead hard enough to leave a palm-mark.

It doesn't help that I saw Star Trek Into Darkness less than a day after watching Iron Man 3, which has a lot of the same themes, ideas and even story beats — but handles them infinitely better. Neither STID nor Iron Man 3 are perfect movies, but Iron Man 3 is a lot wittier, cleverer and more actually fun than STID. It's like watching Fred Astaire and a drunken child do the same dance routine, back to back.

So, like I said at the start, Star Trek Into Darkness isn't a bad movie — and if I'd walked out of the film halfway through, I might even have thought it was a good movie. But it's also a new poster-child for sequel mistakes — focusing too much on honoring what came before, and giving out some "topical" message. And not focusing enough on kicking your ass and giving you a great fucking popcorn movie.

What lies beneath Moscow's most iconic buildings? These clever print ads are commissioned to promote the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow, Russia. Via Web Urbanist