Michael Hutchison: July 2006 Archives

I got laid off today.

No warning whatsoever, no gossip, no rumors...just having a great day, with my parents visiting tonight and planning to take Friday off to spend with them...and all of a sudden I get the phone call.

"Can you meet with Renae at 2:40?"
Me: "Okay, sure. What's this concerning?"
"...She'll tell you when you come in."
That's NEVER a good sign.

It's nothing to do with me. IBM simply had a bad quarter and a lot of good people are getting the sack. So now I'm going in tomorrow to clean out my desk and work all 8 hours because it's the last income I'll have for a while.

And what REALLY hurts is that I've fought for a year and a half to get a lock on my office door, just like everyone else in every building at IBM. Mine was the only one without a lock, and because of that security would rifle all my possessions looking for security breaches. A week ago, they announced that included in a massive move expense was the money to finally put a lock on my door. And now I'm out.

I've spent the last few weeks discussing with everyone whether to just splurge and attend Wizard World in Chicago...even though it would mean driving alone, spending $80+ on gas, getting a hotel by myself...or whether I should stay home and have a garage sale to make some money.

Getting laid off has pretty much settled that debate.

So, if any of you are going to be near Rochester, MN, next Friday, e-mail me and I'll give you directions to the garage sale.

I have to work on my resume tonight. Later, I'll post updates as to how this will affect Monitor Duty and what I'll be doing.

I can't help it but think of that quote from 2005's "The Cave" when I watched the trailer for The Descent. This new movie looks interesting, and it's incredible that they've made a film with an all-female cast. And to give them credit where credit is due, that poster is one of the most artistic, imaginative designs I've seen in quite some time.

As for The Cave, it was a decent B-movie shot both in actual caves and on elaborate sets with skilled cave divers, and it had some excellent visuals. (Of course, Piper Perabo counts as one of the visuals.)

As the winner of our Lake House contest never responded to repeated requests for a mailing address, the runner-up was moved up to first place and a new runner-up, Stacie Mattson, has been picked.

"Office Space" re-enacted in 30 seconds by bunnies.

Samuel L. Jackson provides the voice of God in a new audio recording of the Bible.

Hollywood stars meet the real world. It's pay cuts all round.

It's about dang time. Movie stars have been able to demand $20-30 million a picture because their stardom guaranteed a half-billion take at the box office, but now that these monster pictures are doing such pathetic box office that they can't make back their 2/10ths of a billion budget, the wages are falling.

I do have to quibble about this point:

Studios have taken note of the fact that only three of the 10 highest-grossing films last year - War of the Worlds, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Mr and Mrs Smith - were star-driven. The rest of the major hits - such as Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia - had no stellar names, or fat salaries, to speak of.

War of the Worlds wasn't star-driven! It made all its money despite having a star who was doing his best to drive people away. I really wanted to see War of the Worlds because it's based on a classic book, and it's a remake of a classic movie, and it was directed by Spielberg, and it's about aliens attacking Earth which is always good...but it had a brainwashing psycho cradle-robber as its star. And granted, this is self-selecting anecdotal evidence, but everyone in my circle of family and friends was against watching a movie with Tom Cruise in it, even though they'd love a good War of the Worlds adaptation too.

I'd say the movie may qualify as "star-driven" just because that was the studio's intention, but I doubt you could prove that the film succeeded because it was a Tom Cruise picture. "War of the Worlds" is the kind of movie that should make money if the biggest name in it was Brian Dennehy.

Everybody dance now!

Is it fair for me to laugh at this guy when he's actually quite good? Way better than I can dance, that's for sure.

I didn't even realize there was a Blade spin-off TV show. If you didn't either, and you want to check it out, the pilot episode is downloadable for free on iTunes.

My New Line contact just alerted me to this awesome contest they're doing for Snakes on a Plane. Here's the gist of it:

Think you're a King Cobra? Are you the biggest and baddest SNAKES ON A PLANE fan around? Prove it! And if you can .. we'll help you flaunt it!

The most supreme SNAKES ON A PLANE fan on the net will win their own private screening of SNAKES ON A PLANE for 100 friends. We're also gonna toss in over 100 "snake kits" (poster, books, and more), free soda and popcorn to really put some bite in the party. You'll also get 1-year supply of SoBe Adrenaline Rush to unleash your venom. AND, if that's not enough you'll also receive a one-of-a-kind BIGGEST SNAKES ON A PLANE FAN personalized plaque to show the world your snake status. Only one fan can be the #1 fan. Will it be you? Here's how it works: 1) Register as a fan 2) Get your friends to vote for you to make you the #1 fan. Each friend can vote for you a maximum of 1 time per day throughout the duration of the contest. 3) The person with the most votes wins!

Take the bite and visit the official website for more information and entry at: http://www.snakesonaplane.com/fansweeps/index.html

Oh, you want to know who won the Superman Returns contest that ended on July 4th, nine days ago?

Oops.

What can I say. You all know I've been a bit distracted lately. My sincere apologies.

I printed up the names of all entrants, put them in a coffee can and had them drawn by a third party.

The Winner of the Kryptonite Pen and the poster is Tom Russell.
The First Runner-Up is Michael A. Burstein.
Both will be notified via e-mail later tonight so that they can get me their mailing information.

In other contest news, The Lake House contest winner Mary Wingo (the last name is just a guess based on the e-mail address) has yet to respond to my online announcement and several e-mails. If she doesn't respond by Friday, the runner-up will be bumped up to the grand prize winner and a new runner-up will be drawn.

So, to those of you who didn't win the Superman Lives contest, keep your fingers crossed that Tom and Michael don't respond. :-)

FOXNews.com - 'South Park' Scientology-Bashing Episode to Re-Air - Television

"Trapped in the Closet," the controversial "South Park" episode that skewers Scientology and its popular proponent Tom Cruise, is hitting the airwaves again.

Comedy Central plans to air the Emmy-nominated episode on July 19. It was last scheduled to rerun in March but was abruptly pulled by the network.

Previously on Monitor Duty, I asked for the opportunity to name our newly discovered tenth planet Procrustes. (What's the status on that? And do I get money?)

Now, with the new fossil discovery of a vicious fanged kangaroo and a demon duck of doom, I would like to suggest that the fanged kangaroo should be named the "Carnaroo". Officially, it's already named "Ekaltadeta" but that's NOT A NAME.

As for the latter, I don't think there's any better name than demon duck of doom.

I wish Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew were still being published, because Demon Duck of Doom is one cool name for a supervillain.

Who killed Fidel Castro?

Here is the 22-minute pilot for "Supernerds," about Patton Oswalt (the comic book loving comedian mentioned in the previous posting) and Brian Posehn (the tall goof from "Just Shoot Me") as owners of a comic book shop.

Chuck Dixon's recent comments about "tourists" (writers from TV/movies/novels who are invited to become top talents at comic companies) gave me mixed feelings. For those of you who missed it, here is what Chuck wrote on his message board:

Tourists

It bothers me when they don't know anything about the craft of writing comics but they're still going to show us all "how it's done." I can't tell you how many know-nothing novelists have tried to lecture me on how to write comics or explain to me a character I've been writing for a decade.

Hey, do I come out to Hollywood and tell you what Alien #3 should be saying?

I'm also annoyed that my entire career of writing comics can be trumped by some guy who wrote an episode of Reba. Or who APPEARED on an episode of Reba.

When J. Michael Myshowwascancelled does not allow his artists to speak to him directly and refuses to be edited I get a little steamed.

It's a rare example when someone drops in from an outside medium and gets it right. Bob Gale comes to mind.
And if hiring novelists and TV writers and character actors and game show winners to write comics moved the sales needle to an appreciable degree I'd concede to them and go open that laundromat I've always dreamed of and leave this silly business behind. But the truth is that they don't really move that many more comics and there's little impact outside of the already committed comic book fans.

The bottom line is that most people think that writing comics is easy. But writing GOOD comics is hard. You don't see any of these guys being asked to DRAW a comic, do you?

I've got a talent, a weird nearly-useless talent for telling stories in a series of static pictures. I've sold millions of comics doing this. I will never be a Stan Lee or Archie Goodwin or Denny O'Neil. But I take comfort in the fact that Kevin Smith will never be a Chuck Dixon

I certainly object to some of the "awesome power" that gets granted to big names who are handed huge projects before they've really been tested as comic writers. It is unfair to those trying to work their way in. And I can see why Chuck would have such an attitude. When you've had a good book like Green Arrow suddenly canceled because a movie director who has written a couple comics mentions that he might, whenever he gets around to it, be willing to write Green Arrow...well, that would tend to wrankle.

Still, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. We can all name some lousy "tourists" who get way too much leeway in the industry at the moment, but there are some whose work I've enjoyed.

I think my favorite so far is Patton Oswalt's "JLA: Welcome to the Working Week" (don't blame him for the HORRIBLE title that replaced what was originally "JLA: Workweek"). The book was full of geeky trivia (Plastic Man knowing monks, Baytor being the bartender at a party, the fighting villains getting a "Task Force X" style offer from Wonder Woman, etc.) that showed Patton was a big DC fan from way back.

The down side is that it's sort of a typical fanboyish story, the kind I saw all the time when I ran Fanzing.com magazine, about how interesting the personal lives of superheroes must be when they sit around having conversations instead of fighting supervillains. Of course, this is also its selling point, so it's hard to complain about that. If you buy "My Dinner With Batman" and the whole books is Batman eating and talking, you can't claim misrepresentation.

In the end, I wouldn't mind seeing another Oswalt work. I just wouldn't want him to be given control of Superman or holding the reigns on a summer crossover simply on the basis of being a B-list standup comedian and a supporting character on "King of Queens". Of course, he'll probably get the chance to do another DC Comic in 2007 just so they can put a monster blurb: "From the Voice of Pixar's Ratatouille!"

How about you guys? Any "tourists" from other media whose comics you've enjoyed?

Sorry for the goofy subject line, but I saw the news item about the late Aaron Spelling's monster mansion going on the market for $150 million and it just reminded me of the MST3K segment during Angels' Revenge where the Spelling mansion passes by the Satellite of Love and it is even longer than the Spaceball ship.

UPDATE: I was just reminded that the Angels' Revenge episode, despite being an MST3K classic, also contains the bit about Crow doing a blaxploitation flick called "Chocolate Jones and the Temple of Funk." What does it say about me that I'd really, really like to see that movie? And I bet it would be better than most everything in the theater these days?

They aren't taking credits, or even gold-pressed latinum as hundreds (thousands?) of Star Trek items are finally being sold. With "Enterprise" over and no Star Trek shows or movies in production, Paramount has decided to finally offer some of the most-prized items for sale. Models, uniforms, Borg outfits, weapons, tribbles...

Just remember to bring money.

Sorry, everyone, but I couldn't get my comic collection updated despite two hours of trying. Our server host is migrating TheHutch.com to a new server. I forgot and uploaded the thousands of pages to my standard hostname. The pages never appeared online. I then looked up Powweb help, found the "right" hostname, and set my FTP to export all over again while I drove up to Northern Wisconsin. I just got up here, checked the site... no new pages.

Of course, if you still want to shop, the site works just fine, and there are only a few items gone since last time I updated. (I know "Batman/Hellboy/Starman" is gone.) I'm just sorry I won't be able to get this resolved until next week.