Daniel85

Well, I'm off tomorrow. Thought I'd make one last blog post, cos I will only have the most basic of internet access for almost the next two weeks.

Just to prove that there's nothing too trivial for this blogger, I've taken a photo of my provisions for the trip.

Juicy Fruit gum to combat the ear-popping. Butter Menthols cos I have developed a killer sore throat in the past two days. (I dunno what your mysterious illness was, Sam, but I know you gave me your sicky germs over MSN Messenger.)

For reading material, a book I probably already should have read, Bonfire of the Vanities. In the comics department: Bendis's Goldfish. I must admit to never having read any of Bendis's pre-Marvel work, so I'm rectifying that now. And seeing as Scott McCloud has another of his manifestos coming out soon, and I thoroughly enjoyed Understanding Comics, I decided to give Reinventing Comics a read.

Lastly, my trusty Bic 2-pen and a Spirax notebook for all those deep thoughts. I will probably just be drawing immature phallic doodles of the Big Banana, though.

Catch y'all (yeah, all two of ya) in a couple of weeks.

Well, having sat my cinema exam yesterday, I'm another semester closer to my totally useless BA.

The exam was at 9 AM, so I had to get up at like 6 to ensure I would get the bathroom and kitchen before my housemates. Then I overcompensated for the weekday morning public transport slowness, ending up at uni at about 8:15. So I sat in the student union building (that's Union House, for anyone in the know) nursing my bottle o' water and arsenal of blue ink pens. It was the only time I've ever seen Union House not looking like a shopping mall full of trendy rich kids. My only company was an Asian couple over the other side of the food court, and the people setting Donut King up for a day of do-business. Dough-business. You get it? Good.

The exam itself was the most haphazard thing ever. It was departmental, so no Exam Cops- just the subject coordinator and one of the tutors. The coordinator actually said 'please don't cheat', and 'don't talk, or we'll have to move you… and then kick you out. But we probably won't'. I swear, Cinema Studies is such a half-assed department. I love it.

Anyway, I'm off on a 12-day trip to my grandparents' place in northern New South Wales on Saturday. I will be visiting the Big Banana, of course, and doing a write-up on it for the blog. Should be a good trip. Northern NSW is like the Florida of Australia. Lots of lawn bowls and shuffleboard.

Oh, and I have a new article up at Retro Junk, about Boba Fett's first appearance in the Star Wars newspaper comic strip. Check out Boba Fett On Ice!

So I mentioned a few days ago that I was watching the early seasons of The Simpsons, and seeing as how I'm on my laptop in Melbourne at the moment without a DVD drive or a digital camera, I'm just gonna do a barebones post about my favourite Simpsons episode.

7421 - Three Men and a Comic Book

I absolutely love this episode. It is a masterpiece.

The image of Homer peering out the window to see the boys illuminated by lightning for a split second is seared into my brain, and remains my most vivid memory of The Simpsons. If you say Simpsons, I see that image.

I like the atmospheric feel to the animation. To me it seems that in those early episodes, it was always either overcast or raining. I used to think my love of cold weather came from The Empire Strikes Back, but I've been musing about The Simpsons a lot lately, and perhaps discovered the true origin of my winter fetish.

'Three Men and a Comic Book' is such a tight production. It's the perfect example of the three-act formula in Simpsons storytelling. To be honest, I don't know if the three-act dictum is still in effect, because I haven't really watched the last few seasons, and when I do catch an episode it's so goddamn convoluted and packed with junk that I probably couldn't discern the three acts if I tried.

Before The Simpsons became The Homer Simpson, You So Crazy Half-Hour, my favourite aspect of it was the feel-good representation of a generic Western childhood. 'Bart the General' is the best example of this. It's also in 'Three Men and a Comic Book', the yo-yo episode, and so many more in those early seasons. There was a time when I went off Bart and became obsessed with fringe characters like Professor Frink, Comic Book Guy, "hello-Human-fly-here", and more, but I've come back to the little guy in a big way. I know I'm not original in this analogy, but Bart is truly the Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn/Dennis the Menace of our generation. A caricature (but so much more than that) of pure boyhood.

The other story template I like is the flashback to the 60s and 70s of Marge and Homer's childhood and adolescence.

I listened to the audio commentary on 'Three Men and a Comic Book', and it was great to hear Jeff Martin talking about what he was going for in writing this episode. A celebration of his boyhood love of comics, with a healthy dose of Hitchcock, Lord of the Flies, and Humphrey Bogart.

Let's talk about this guy for a minute:

(Thank-you Google Images!)

I have a love-hate relationship with Comic Book Guy, as I'm sure most comic/sci-fi/whatever geeks do. I love getting the little in-jokes and nods to obscure pop culture, but I also hate the stereotypical portrayal of 'my people'.

I say 'my people', but actually I despise my fellow Star Wars and comics fans. I just want to be left alone to enjoy this stuff, not argue about it incessantly. It's worst with Star Wars fans, because I have a great resentment of Star Wars. It ruined my life.

But it's uncomfortable to talk about that, so back to CBG.

Watching an episode of The Simpsons with Comic Book Guy in it can be an awkward experience if you're watching it with friends or family, because you just know he's going to do or say something that will cause your brother or dad or someone to cast an accusing glance in your direction.

It's kind of like watching a movie with your parents that turns out to have unexpectedly explicit sex scenes. Not that the sexual content of this movie was unexpected, but I remember watching American Pie with my mum when I was about 15 or 16. I had the feeling she was glaring at me for the entire feature, but I couldn't be certain as I was too terrified to move my neck even a millimetre.

I have to go now, but I'll leave you guys with a Simpsons writing staff joke (the best kind!):

-Do you know why the Simpsons movie is taking so long?
-No, why?
-They're waiting for a few more Harvard classes to graduate!

(If you don't get that joke, picture this: a typical graduation ceremony, complete with Brahms's Academic Festival Overture. Students walk up to receive their sheepskins, and as they descend the steps we see a pointy arrow sign that reads 'This way to Simpsons writing room'.) 

I have to get this article done before my sister drinks all the Nesquik, so here we go.

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What up.

Just so no-one calls the Missing Persons Hotline or anything: I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth; I'm just feeling to lazy to write at the moment.

I've been watching the first few seasons of The Simpsons this Queen's Birthday Long Weekend, and thoroughly enjoying them. I bought the DVDs on sale at K-Mart a few months ago, but never got around to watching them.

Watching some of those early episodes reminded me of a phenomenon that I think we've all experienced, what I'd like to call "Simpsonesia": the feeling, when watching the beginning of a repeat episode of The Simpsons, that you've not seen that episode before. Of course, by the three or four minute mark you'll realise that it's Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk or something. Happens to me at least once a week.

I get the feeling that I'll still be watching Simpsons repeats in the 6:00 time slot on Network Ten when I'm 70 years old.

Just started getting search term info through WordPress's backpages, and I'm gonna have to take a leaf out of Sammy D's blog and post some of them. 

This one obviously came through on the pyjama post I did last week:  

children naked photoalbums

There's also like ten variants of "nestle fifa cereal", so it's good to know that I've been able to provide the people with the promotional cereal information they crave.

Now here's a man who knows what he wants: 

cool soccer ball pictures

This blog will return to normal programming soon, as I've turned in all my final essays and got my big French exam outta the way, with just my Cinema Studies exam on June 21st to go. I turned up a couple of minutes after the French exam had started, scant seconds before they closed the doors. Lucky. 

Coming up this week: a new Limited Edition NesQuik flavour, as well as a review of a crazy Spider-Man toy from the whackos at Toy Biz.

Edited 10th June: The image sizes in this entry are pushing my sidebar out of sight, so if you want to read it you'll have to click below. (more…)

Sorry about the lack of any real posting lately. End-of-semester deadlines, man. Today I was rushing to finish an essay on Ginsberg's Howl. Due tomorrow, started writing it this morning, and just finished it at 11:00 PM. That's procrastastic.

Anyway, just to keep things going, here's another bit of sexual innuendo from Spider-Man, this one from Amazing Spider-Man #136, back in the classic Gerry Conway and Ross Andru run from the mid-70s. Gerry Conway may be responsible for both The Punisher (my most hated comics character), and the origin point for the whole Clone Saga fiasco in the 90s, but all is forgiven due to this little gem: