Big Blue Arndt: July 2005 Archives

Film director and comic shop owner Kevin Smith has finally finished the comic book series he was contracted to write three years late.

Naturally few people likely will care.

Naturally the man is a disingenuous yet totally human crook who takes contracts with comic book companies and ignores his obligations in order to make more money by creating films.

Newsarama announced it here. The View Askew Forum discusses it here. I haven't been to either site because I don't care. I discovered all this here at the Comic Treadmill (and Mag doesn't care either).

Jack Kirby would puke.

The creator of over 3 decades of Batman pencils, and who to me was the definitive Batman artist, is gone.

That's another one of my big-time high-up-there comic creator guys who have passed before I ever got a chance to meet or thank them.

Smallville has been syndicated for the fall.

It'll be on a weekly sort of second-run broadcasts.

I'd link to an honest-to-gosh news site or comic book themed weblog or something about this, but I didn't get it from comics2film, although they know as well.

I learned from a commercial on the Grand Rapids Fox station. Also syndicated for weekend broadcast is 24 and I think included was Sex in the City.

While I am here South Park is syndicated in the fall for week nights (I have no idea how much would have to be edited to be run at 6:30 PM, but perhaps standards are simply dropping). I'm not thrilled with adult-level shows on all-ages sorts of hours but since I don't watch much TV I don't have much influence in the market either way.

I was surprised that Smallville has, already, enough episodes to be syndicated yet pleased that the originals are coming back. The first season has plenty of episodes of superior quality to that of the current season and the laast season.

That and Sam Jones III has been sorely wasted and now he has come back to us, in syndication.

I'm doing a rundown and shout out to a few comic book themed weblogs that I think really should mentioned. I go to them nearly every day.

I enjoy reading the Comic Treadmill, get mentioned every so often, help contribute pure data every so often and have developed a personal bias based on all this. I enjoy the recognition and respect. Most importantly their indexing of their collections, bit by bit, is quite respectable and allows a certain perspective on comics history series by series, even if the limitation is that of the writers' respective collections. H and Mag know their stuff and make it interesting.

Dave's Long Box entertains and performs a service quite similar to that of H and Mag with the difference is that his reviews and the issues reviewed are absolutely random in the choice, and the reviews are single issue by single issue. It's quite hilarious, often insightful, and full of swears so it is not a family blog, despite that Dave Campbell's own mother reads it.

Suspension of Disbelief actually fact checks old and new comic books and stories and makes sure that the details are accurate and going by the actual real-world rules, assuming that those particular rules should apply. As their introductory mission statement explains, the weblog "provide(s) educated insight into how accurately comic creators present real-world facts and issues are within the pages of some of our favorite funnybooks." It's true that making "the real-world backdrop that they're set against truly realistic makes those impossibilities easier to handle." It primarily covers legal issues, other minutia, and there's some interesting stuff about archery in comic books. It's quite varied.

Polite Dissent is one of the inspirations for the Suspension weblog. It's focus in regards to fact-checking is simply and specifically in the medical field, and the writer is a doctor. With PD's focus on medicine in comics SoD is free and driven to cover other issues and topics to correct and keep accurate. Scott also has posts on other things he's interested in but the most relevent obsessions are his medical reviews (and dramatic reviews) of the television show House (produced by Bryan Singer) and his issue-by-issue review of the various appearance of Hawk and Dove.

I'm not sure what to say about The Absorbascon. The blog has a neat name; there's a series regarding DC's fictional cities; there's some general humor and awareness of comic book history; he supports Thanagar in their war against the pacifistic near-useless Rannians.

Here are the rest of the Comic Book Weblogs; the list is updated almost in real time.

There used to be a list, on the sidebar of the old Monitor Duty template, of most of the sites and weblogs counted as parts the "Monitor Duty Family", most of these being products of the actual contributors and staff writers of Monitor Duty. It's temporarily missing. Here are the memberships and other apropriate places, as to the best of my memory:

- Apologies Demanded My official topic blog is not only a good link dump and nearly a fine resource for right-wing politics, it has little to none of my personal life in its content.

- Shooting Star Comics The official webpage for one of comics' newest companies and brightest stars as well as the company publishing Metro Med.

- Burnhamania The Official website of Erik Burnham

- MeadowsArts is the weblog of Phillip Meadows

- Aym Geronimo and the PostModern Pioneers is an official site for John Morgan "Bat" Neal and Todd Fox and especially presents their 21st century pulp heroine.

Yes, I am Chris Arndt and no I have little to gain by promoting this stuff.

Ask and ye'll recieve.

I know for a fact that Alan Kistler saw the Fantastic Four movie over a week ago.

That means he saw a sneak preview.... he saw the FF movie days before many of the comic book geeks on the internet.... he could have given us at Monitor Duty a chance to scoop most of the Comics Blogosphere!

So because I love or have other emotional problems regarding all of you and him I'm going to quote all the stuff...