~ while we are not having the time of our lives here, we have crossed ‘jim henley’s universe’ on 33rd street from our list of possible ideal comic book retail establishments. they seem unaware that monthly comics are not to be filed with comic strip compendiums and graphic novels.

~ new york also surprises us with the knowledge that we are not the only owners in the country with a copy of paul simon’s ‘rhythm of the saints’.

~ okay! after losing the network at the angry red offices for two days, we seem to have access; past experience has assured us that this condition is temporary. other studio conditions: a jar of roasted garlic salsa has gone missing from my desk; i replaced it with a space heater that someone had abandoned under her masonite site model…

~ along with a disparaging postcard or two, my p.o.box has recently brought me ‘spaghetti dinner and dancing’ number fourteen, whose literary quality rivals that of the angry red publications. find randy spaghetti’s address in the zine contacts…

~ surely, earth x is going to be extended for 13 issues. they can not leave unresolved a cliffhanger in which freaking galactus appears to defend the blue planet against the freaking celestials. of all the late 90’s revisionist/alternate universe/painterly(though sometimes just the covers) miniseries that the big 2 have coerced me into buying, this is the only series that was somewhat intriguing, which i attribute to the treatment of the lost heroes with some dignity, instead of ridiculing them for their ultimate humanity. otherwise, all have been guilty excursions into iconoclasm, most lately evidenced in the ludicrous punisher kills the marvel universe. regardless, the freaking celestials would hand galactus his ass on a freaking platter; i want to see how he pulls this one out of it…

~ ‘…wasn’t bad, so i had one more for dessert…’

~ comics, ink: ‘i see the daredevil annual is out!’
 the angry red planet: ‘it’s a regular issue isn’t it?’
 c,i: ‘i know…i was joking that daredevil only came out three times last year.’

 t.a.r.p.: ‘and two of these were the same story…’
 c,i: ‘uh-huh’
 t.a.r.p.: ‘well, i guess i save this money this way.’

~ …and, we get to smirk at the sight of a quesada cover dated ‘1999’ on the march 2001 issue of daredevil. even the codeless kazys.net gets out more regularly than the man without fear.

~ site update: despite the dwindling of our hopes of completing any work remotely related to a graduate architectural thesis, we managed to find the time to restore the angry red playlist, which has unfortunately been offline since the reinstallation of our hard disks.

~ are we to infer from the last 2 pages of the latest fantastic four that benjamin j. grimm now has the ability to consciously mutate his physical form from ‘human’ to ‘fantastic’ and back again? the thing’s nobility is derived from his ability to overcome the angst and self-loathing that his monstrous form makes him suffer. if he can revert at will to his – equally hideous – human form, he might be able finally to get his sex on with alicia masters, but he will lose his edge in the good fight. now he’ll never be able to take down the hulk.

~ quasi thesis quote: ‘you seem lonely, and alienated, but you also say a lot of things that lead me to believe you don’t want/need people in your life’

~ there is more – and rehashed – spider-man movie news at, gulp, msn and marvel.com.

~
   comics, ink: ‘typeface…now there’s an interesting villian’
   the angry red planet: ‘hmmm…i don’t know what that’s all about’
   c,i: ‘still, i like mackie’s peter parker’

   t.a.r.p.: ‘yeah, but i hope he makes a move on glory or jill, before his roommates steal all his prospects.’
   c,i: ‘hmmm?’
   t.a.r.p.: ‘unless they do something ridiculous like bring his wife back to life.’
   c,i: ‘or something ridiculous like adding another spider-man title…oh, wait, they already did that.’
   t.a.r.p.: ‘what? where?’
   c,i: ‘the ulimate spider-man’

   t.a.r.p.: ‘oh…yeah….’
   c,i: ‘the story was at least told well, but it is one that didn’t need to be retold.’
   t.a.r.p.: ‘i know, i had to explain to my roommate, who doesn’t follow this, when he asked ‘hasn’t that already been established?”
   c,i: ‘oh, yes, countless times over….’

~ when we are not suffering in the sweltering heat of downtown l.a. or chasing the neighborhood kids from the grounds of our wild rabbit refuge, we are working on a postcard and poster for woodbury university.

~ labor day was monday. there is no excuse for comic book delivery to be postponed until thursday for a holiday that was 48 hours ago…

~ it’s as hot as a mug in los angeles today, but the heat could not stop us from posting a few more specimens to the dingbat scene report.

~ what is the deal with spider-man’s current scripters? parker’s wife died six freaking months ago, and the still have him moping around and pretending that she is just being hidden from him. why he has not gotten back out there swinging, so to speak, with the likes of the the black cat, glory grant, or jill stacy is incomprehensible. if we have to read one more panel of his belly-aching over the fact that all those close to him are destroyed…..

~ i was *forced* to wait 1.5 hours to see ‘x-men’ and *had* to sit in the third row from the screen, but the movie was suprisingly worth it. having been an unabashed collector of marvel comics for the past 16 years, i have seen repeatedly the shameful adaptations into live action: ‘captain america’ (video), ‘nick fury – agent of s.h.i.e.l.d.’ (television miniseries), ‘fantastic four’ (to my knowledge only bootleg copies exist), ‘blade’ (starred wesley snipes). even a true-believer should be ready for the worst. however, apart from an initial impatience with the back story that had to be spelled out to the philistines who hadn’t picked up an ‘x-men’ comic in the past 35 years, i was more than pleased with both the personalities and the accurate relationships in the film. the good examples of the love-triangle between cyclops, jean grey, and wolverine or the personal respect/professional animosity between xavier and magneto both outweigh the tender footed portrayal of storm by the vapid halle berry. i happen to know that technology is capable of better effects than we are given, but logan’s claws looked totally righteous, even if it seems that the x-men never existed without him…

~ does this week’s news [npr.org] unfair to anyone else? if you live in florida, and are actually stupid enough to misunderstand (and stupid enough to admit it) the dangers of smoking, you now get a piece of $145 billion; on the other hand, if you were forced into slave labor during the holocaust, you have to make due with only splitting $4.8 billion…

~ are *still* you looking for the photos of the new home for the southern california institute of architecture? in seven weeks, this building (*link removed) will be converted into the most intense, ‘avant garde’ graduate and under-graduate architectural school in downtown l.a., if not the world….

~ another entire weekend has gone to waste. the only moment we were out of the house was foolishly spent on ‘titan a.e.’ we assumed that any animated movie involving spacecraft and the destruction of earth (ie, ‘starblazers’) couldn’t go wrong. this particular film was partially penned by ben edlund, of ‘the tick’ fame, which gave it even more promise. for this kind of embarrassing loss of money and time, we should have saved our time for ‘heavy metal 2000’.