I was catching up on a softer world recently, and came across this comic, which I think is one of their best.

I mentioned Erfworld last year, and I thought I’d plug it again now that it’s moved to its own website and the first book is finished. I remain extremely impressed with it, and am eagerly waiting for Book One to come out in print form. It starts here, and is definitely worth the read.
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I don’t remember seeing this xkcd before. I like it.

(In my current mental state, however, I’m unable to not note that the message of the comic is a hell of a lot easier to act on when your status or privilege is above a certain level, and that horrifically, there are still lots of people on this planet for whom the first panel’s advice actually makes a great deal of sense if you replace “when a future employer” with “who”. For the majority of people who are likely to read this, though, the overall message likely holds.)

I don’t have much of a problem with film violence generally, and appreciate good fight scenes, but found myself disturbed by the Watchmen movie’s treatment of them.
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I am going to go see it. I’m kind of annoyed by this, right now. Because I feel like I have to go see it. They’ve made the trailers look appealing enough that I have to go see it just in case it’s actually good, even though I’m still extremely skeptical.

Wil Wheaton likes it. I don’t know if that means anything to you. I don’t know if that means anything to me, actually. But he does swear by the beard of Zeus that the movie feels like the book. On the other hand, he does wonder why ultra-purists (hi!) would bother to see it at all.

I don’t know. There are already some things I don’t like from the trailers (like Rorschach’s voice and some of the costume changes), but in order to find out whether or not they’re minor details or signs that Snyder’s vision of it is too alien to me, I have to go see it.

(The irony of analyzing a web comic mocking pedants is not lost upon me.)

This Wondermark strip strikes me as funny in theory: set up the provocation of the language nerd, show the language nerd’s newfound determined tolerance, and then show him being overwhelmed by the deliberate transgression that’s just too much. I did find it funny, but this was offset somewhat by the fact that the final “transgression” isn’t one that gets me at all (whereas all of the prior provocations would). I’m not sure I really count as a “language nerd”, but I definitely wince at some of what they provoke him with (notably “irregardless” (sic)). So why did the final offense in this strip not bother me at all—and while I’m at it, why do the others bother me in the first place?
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I haven’t seen The Dark Knight yet. I intend to see it, although my feeling about Batman Begins was that the first half was excellent and the second half execrable. I hope the second movie doesn’t continue the downward trend. I also have my doubts about the presence of Harvey Dent—I’ve never found that character compelling or believable, even in The Dark Knight Returns.

“I don’t believe in Harvey Dent” is a pretty good critique/rant about the recent superhero movies, including The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man. John Pistelli also covers The Dark Knight, and Hellboy II (which I also intend to see).
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The trailer for the film adaptation of Watchmen is out. I’ve always been sceptical of what Hollywood would do to it, figuring they’d manage to mangle the masterpiece that is the graphic novel.
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High Geekery, this. Webcomics, one about a band of D&D characters rendered as stick figures, the other about a wargaming geek sucked into another dimension… I discovered both of them quite recently, despite friends who are into The Order of the Stick and the fact that Erfworld appears to have garnered critical acclaim.
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I’ve been re-reading Hellboy, one of my favorite comics. I got into it a few years ago and it took me a little while to figure out why I liked it.
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I’ve been reading Powers again, because trade paperback #11 finally came out (I picked it up at Isotope, which seems like quite a cool store) and the damn thing is just as addictive as ever. 11 books in, and it still leaves me demanding more as soon as it’s done.
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I noticed the link to A Softer World on xkcd (which I’ve been reading for a while) today. And got hooked quite quickly. I love the humor, and I love the gut punches it delivers as well. This post is to tell you to read it (and xkcd, if you don’t already).
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I’m still waiting for Powers 10 to come out—it may be out, but the local comic store I go to (Comix Experience on Divisadero) hasn’t gotten it in yet. So I got some other things instead.
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I re-read Powers today (and it’s still simply fantastic), and then read the interview that Oeming and Bendis did for the fiftieth issue. In it, Bendis mentions that he loves interrogation scenes, that they’re a lot of fun because you get to lock two characters in a room and see what happens.
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I’ve read a ton of comics in the last week or so, and some of them have been amazing.
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