When I walked out of work Saturday morning, I so wished that I had my camera with me. What I saw all around me was the definition of a winter wonderland. Every single tree that I could see was coated with fresh white snow. That simple covering transformed the landscape into something magical in appearance and reminded me why I like winter as much as I do. Yes, the temperature is cold here for months at a time, but the sight I saw is something that people in Florida may never see in their lifetime. I however get to see it every year.
Since I cannot travel myself at this time of year, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Michael Palin make his way from the North Pole to the South Pole. In the first three episodes he crossed Norway, Finland, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Egypt. I recognized Helsinki in the program, but everything else was new to me.
At long last I have gotten back into a regular exercise regimen again. Ever since August, any consistent effort at exercising has been a struggle. Now that seems to be behind me. Even with all of the recent holiday activity, I've been able to spend time on both the stationary bike and the elliptical machine. My next goal is to start reading books more frequently. I have plenty of choices at hand, I just need to set aside some time each day like I do for exercise.
Everything is still quiet at this time of day. Meeting with family is not until later this afternoon. I am looking forward to a fun day of food and stories that will become memories. This is why I love the holidays.
The geek in me received an early morning surprise. Mile High Comics offered ten dollars worth of free comic books from their back issue inventory. If this offer was combined with a fifty percent off sale that is also running at this time, one could get twenty dollars worth of free back issues. Naturally I could not resist and ordered some Stuart Immonen Adventures of Superman issues.
As of three this morning, rain continues to fall outside melting the snow that would have been pretty to see on Christmas morning. Perhaps that will change in five hours when I leave to go home.
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Korean director Ki-Duk Kim continues to impress me. Before I left for work last night, I watched and enjoyed his twelfth film Bow. For me there were a few familiar motifs that I have seen in other films that he has made in the past. For example, the story took place on an isolated boat surrounded by water with no land in sight. People would come and go to this solitary location, but we the viewers were not shown anything besides the boat. The boat was the center of the world if not the word itself in the movie. This use of isolation is quite common in his work. A second previously seen motif is a conflict between an older generation and a younger one. Finally, there is an element of the supernatural in the film that is either lost on a Western audience or draws them in even more than the rest of the story.
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In my comic book database, I reached six thousand records. I suspect that this number might frighten some and maybe draw snorts of amusement from others, but I thought that it was worth noting. There was no way that I could have possibly known that twenty six years ago, I would amass that many books. At one time I had a small stack that I could hold in my hands and read over and over. Now it would take me weeks to read my entire collection.
I truly love reading issues of Superman from the Bronze Age. Yes, some of the stories from thirty plus years ago might be more fanciful if not far less believable than today’s more sophisticated stories, but I love the idea of a Superman seeing his wife Lois die only to travel to a parallel world where he proposes to the Lois of this other world. Not surprisingly he finds out that the Superman of this other world has no intention of marrying Lois so the two of them exchange worlds so that both versions of Superman can be happy. I doubt that I am alone in this appreciation, because by looking at the circulation report of that issue published in 1969, the book had over ten times the number of issues printed of the same title today. Other factors have contributed to this decrease in readership, but the contrast still amazes me. To go from a circulation of over half a million issues to slightly under fifty thousand a month is worth noting.
I have to work tonight and tomorrow night, but once those nights go by, I can truly begin to enjoy the holiday season. As far as I can tell, everything that needs to be done by me has been done. My Christmas tree has been up for a couple of weeks and outdoor lights have been hung. Wrapped gifts sit temptingly under the tree. Yes, I like this time of year and I am looking forward to food, family and some good stories. Now my only concern is whether the snow on the ground will melt before the holiday gets here.
Mike Carey brought the villain known as the Red Ghost into the pages of a recent issue of the title Ultimate Fantastic Four and I liked what he did. As with other characters who have undergone the transition from the Earth 616 universe into the Ultimate universe, the character is not quite the same. The basic and or core elements of the character are reimagined into something new. A reader need not know the previous incarnation to appreciate the new version, but if one does the insider knowledge does enhance the introduction. One can immediately do a mental compare and contrast between the old and new. Yes, this prejudice may not be fair to the new attempt, but it does exist.
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As far as I know Michael Allred has been writing and drawing his own personal comic book character known as Madman for years, but I had not read a complete issue of his work until today. Now that I have taken that step, I wish that I would not have waited as long as I did, because Frank Einstein is an interesting character and I would be more than happy to read more of his adventures.
Generally speaking the book, Madman, is not straightforward superhero fare, but what I consider to be the more positive elements of that genre still exist within its pages. We have a man who undergoes extraordinary adventures yet is not overwhelmed by them. Not only is the characterization strong, but I appreciate the clean line work of Allred's drawing style. What more could I want from a comic book?
Today my real estate broker informed me that this Friday there is going to be a second showing of my old condo. Dare I hope? This is the first time that someone has requested a second showing so they must be interested. Is an offer far behind? If an offer is given that would be the best Christmas gift this year.
Last night before I left for work, I sampled what for me is a new anime series called Martian Successor Nadesico.
The contrast between it and Witch Hunter Robin series that I just finished is amazing. First of all, the overall tone of
Nadesico is much lighter than the grim almost noir element of Robin and from what I have read the Nadesico series is
a parody of almost every anime cliché possible. I have yet to decide if this is a positive thing or a negative thing for
me, but I can see that what they say is very true. One character seems to shout every single time that he speaks and
makes me adjust the volumeaccordingly. Perhaps in an effort to bring some form of art back into my life, I have been watching these art history documentaries from Netflix. Now I suppose to the average person the low production value pieces would come across as utterly boring, but I love hearing people talk about fine art in terms of history and process. As with any art history discussion, the series moves in a chronological fashion highlighting different movements as they move along. So far I have traversed time from the Renaissance to the period after Rococo that is know as the Revolution in this series. Unlike earlier segments, this latest one did not hold any artists that are favorites of mine. I may know the works of Thomas Gainsborough, William Hogarth and Jean-Antoine Watteau, but I cannot say that I would ever want to own any of their paintings. Nor do I actively seek their work out when I visit a new museum.
Sadly I have to say that the movie version of The Golden Compass did disappoint me slightly. I hadn’t read any reviews prior to going to the theater, but I had read the book before I saw the movie so that did color my expectations. Oh, visually speaking it was quite impressive and I was also very pleased with the casting. The ever-lovely Nicole Kidman was a great choice for icy and remote Mrs. Coulter and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel also made me happy. Sam Eliot as Lee Scoresby and Ian McKellan providing the voice of Iorek Byrnison further strengthened the film. What bothered me was the rapid acceleration of the overall story. In my opinion, plot points from the end of the book were introduced far too early in the movie. Part of that is understandable, because compressing a four hundred page novel into a two-hour movie is not an easy task, but it did dumb down the story and made me appreciate the novel even more than I already did. Instead of a complex tale with careful internal thinking, we have characters spouting exposition to keep everything moving at a brisk pace and I found that to be very annoying. Entire passages of the book and a few key characters were dropped from the movie. To be fair, their absence did not negatively affect the overall story that much, but they were still missed by me.
