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I'm re-reading 'Journey to the West' (which is more commonly called 'Monkey'), this time a more thorough translation, with nothing omitted.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Journey-West-Chengen-Wu/dp/7119016636

Haven't read the book, but I'm fascinated by the impact it's had across Asia. Years go I went to the Vegetarian Festival in Trang, Thailand, which involved designated locals dressing in the costumes, going into trances, and invoking the spirits of Sun Wukong and co. I don't know how genuine the trances were, but there was something unearthly about seeing the Monkey King running around at the head of a parade, twirling his staff and chattering at the spectators.

I've also read that prostitutes in Singapore pray to Pigsy as their patron deity. Even if that's just a urban legend, it's shows how deep the characters have sunk into local culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPbh6Ru7VVM

I love this one. Galcos Soda Pop Store in Los Angeles. The owner is really living the dream, makes me happy everytime I watch it

That's a great little video.... even if looking at those shelves does make my teeth ache

Holy mother of Grud, BK - that very last link was mental! The description of the video and then the posted comments were quite scary. 

Aiaiai, the idiot poetry of the illiterate (from those comments):

As this; The winner will always be seen as the good guys, and the loser as the bad. But the bad guys could for all we know, be America who won, and Hitler was a man of the world. But I don't know, and I never will. Will I now? But one have to look at a case in all the possible ways

I wouldnt say burning wickermen were a 'tired cliche'- what's the current total... Two movies in the past forty years, a slaine story thirty years ago and a yearly hippy festival. Oh, and one repellent, rip-off young adult novel a few years ago. Any more you can think of?

SBT

It cliché in the context of Ancient Britain, like a feathered war-bonnet would be in an Amerindian context. Appropriate in its proper place, but borders on the trite if used just for its cool-factor. Need some funky headgear? Go for a war-bonnet! Need a mass-execution? Throw some Romans in the Wickerman!

Not that cliché is always a bad thing. Let's just hope they don't break out any gladiators.

"Saturday Night Fever" part 1, the Dredd story in prog 417, was one of the first Dredds I ever read. The final frame - where the Rodentine Sewer Gas starts to corrode the faces of the rioters - introduced me to the kind of ghastly thrills 2000ad could provide.

Well, Editing is certainly out of the question when it comes to the Dredd movie. Censorship in a time like this is always a short term fix which ultimately solves very little.

Yeah, but then I haven't seen any mention of editing actual films: just trailers for films.

Gangster Squad is an interesting case since, as I mentioned, there actually is a scene with dudes (hard to tell if they're baddies or goodies) firing tommy-guns at the audience in a cinema. The trailers been pulled because of that, but presumably the scene is staying in the film.

I remember that after 9/11 scenes with Spidey leaping around the Twin Towers were edited out of the soon-to-be-released Spiderman movie. There was even talk of digitally removing the towers from every old movie, so as not to traumatise people  . But I don't think that went any further than talk, and I don't think the event had any long-term effect on movies.

That is sad. Kennedy's art is synonymous with classic 2000ad for me, and I'm sure for many others. Hope he's enjoying his retirement, eyesight problems notwithstanding.

The situation with guns in America is a big and complicated topic, and not one I'm going to pretend to comprehend fully,- because I don't live there: what I'm wondering out loud about is 'This tragedy is bound to send shockwaves,- will it have an effect on the sort of things that cinema audiences subsequently want to see?': will there be a cultural 'swing' away from gritty gore-fest and more in the direction of light/fantasy without any of the (scarily prescient-seeming) baggage of a story like Dredd?

I don't think so. The people who were already complaining about violent movies/games/whatever will complain extra loudly for a while, but I very much doubt there will be any long-term effect on audiences.

The movie industry will make some minor cosmetic changes. They've already said they'll edit out the gun-fire from their Dark Knight Rises trailers, and they're pulling/editing the Gangster Squad trailer that actually features a gun-fight in a cinema. But the fact is, if violent traumatic incidents had that much of an impact on the media, we'd have all switched to rom-coms and inspirational flicks for a long time now.

Question for any cinema buffs: did 9-11 cause disaster movies to drop in popularity? (not a rhetorical question, I really don't know)

Does anyone else find it eerie/spooky that Jessica Ghawi survived a shooting rampage in Toronto, only to later die in this rampage? I am not trying to make light in any way of her tragic death, but this really has a "Final Destination" vibe to it. Poor girl.

Chilling more than spooky for me. I don't believe - or even half-believe - in fate, but her death's an unpleasant reminder that having a near-escape doesn't grant any kind of special immunity.

Reading her tweets on that night is also heartbreaking. She had to "convince" her friend that they should go to the screening. So sad that you never know what chain of events is going to put you in harm's way.

BTW: sorry for not putting spoilers around the Olson thing in Dredd, meant to do it but forgot and now it's too late (sob).

[Dredd]

Dredd: A- (83%)
Good solid story with sympathetic 'bad-guys,' exactly the right way to play it. Post-Chaos is the perfect time for Dredd to walk that tightrope between hero and villian. One quibble with the art: panel on page 4 showing Olson getting shot was confusing at first, the bullet-impacts look more like muzzle flashes.

The strengths of this story, however, make the last two weeks look worse in comparison. Couldn't Tharg have scheduled this instead of Ewing's episodes? They would have worked a lot better a few months down the line, once the Chaos dust has settled. Major Thargfail.

Red Seas: B+. (75%)
Promising start, though the 'magical repository' thing is fast becoming a cliche, especially when stocked with pop-cultural artifacts. Yes, the last few centuries of imaginative fiction have resulted in vast lodes of iconic characters and objects, but there comes a point when mining those lodes is narcissistic. There's also the problem of AMDIB: Alan Moore Does It Better. Liked the Goodies reference though.

Aquila: B-. (66%)
I enjoyed the 'pilot' episode back at the start of the year, but this episode: not so much. Have a sinking feeling that this is going to degenerate into a lot of shouting, a lot of fighting, a lot of disposable beasties, and a lot of wooden dialogue delivered by cardboard characters. I hope I'm wrong.

There's a moment, early in a strip, when you find out just where it positions itself on the "tired cliche" spectrum. Multiple blazing wickermen and Boudiccan under-cleavage puts this pretty far over on the "tired" side, edging up on "post-apocalypic punk bikers" and "plain librarians who look hot with their hair down."

Ichabod: A. (89%)
Still really enjoying this. Art is fantastic: I love the stylised cookie-cutter muzzle flashes on page 2. The letterer also deserves mention: the typewriter-style font used for the narration is beautiful, perfectly complements the feel of the story. And that story itself continues to be weird and unsettlingly, losing nothing of its weirdness even as things become clearer.

Lenny Zero: A-. (84%)
Strong start. Basic heist theme's as old as the hills, but it's what you do with it, innit? Cigar-smoking polar bear and disgruntled ATM do it for me.


So, based on my new, entirely subjective INTFOH grading system ("I Need To Find Other Hobbies"), the prog gets an overall grade of B+ (79%). Good job!


 

Natalie Ganey (dressed as Poison Ivy in pic 7) tweeted a few hours ago to say it was a different cinema that got attacked.

My first thought was this was some kind of poorly-considered viral marketing gag.  I could at least wrap my head around that.
My thoughts go out to the families of those lost.

A lot of people in the cinema seemed to assume it was some kind of stunt at first. I know I probably would have. People are slow to process a sudden event like this at the best of times, and having it happen at this time and place would have exacerbated that brain freeze. 

The youngest injury - a 3 month old - was released from hospital. Not shot, so I'm guessing they were treated for tear-gas inhalation. Or maybe just given a check up.

Only named fatality so far is a young woman named Jessica Ghawi: http://twitchy.com/2012/07/20/aurora-victim-jessica-ghawi-was-tweeting-just-before-her-death/

Photographs taken before the movies started here: http://photos.denverpost.com/mediacenter/2012/07/photos-batman-returns-again/39864/

Pretty depressing.

A few new outlets are now saying the youngest injured is 3 months old. Horrible.