Geek Culture & Nostalgia
Happy Halloween to all my favorite geeks. You guys make the holidays so much more fun. I dug up this old photo of me sporting my generic emblem-less Batman costume, and thought I’d open this up and make it the official post-your-old-Halloween-costume-photos-here thread. Did you have a killer Ewok costume as a kid? A homemade Ninja Turtle outfit? Post your photos in the comments!
When a film shoots on location, it’s normal for the production to use people from the surrounding community as extras or maybe even as minor players. But when 27 year old filmmaker Steven Spielberg brought three mechanical sharks to Martha’s Vineyard to shoot an adaptation of the best-selling novel Jaws, the island was so remote that he had no choice but to use locals for many spots in the cast and crew. Because of this necessity, Jaws isn’t just a film about a killer shark, but is a snapshot of this small vacation destination in the 1970s. Similarly, Titan Books’ new release, Jaws: Memories from Martha’s Vineyard by Matt Taylor, is not only an extensive look behind the scenes of this seminal summer blockbuster, but also reveals for us the experience of the locals who gave the film such a colorful pallet of personalities.
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I don’t know about you, but on a Monday after a long week I could sit and stare at this awesome retro Jack Kirby comic panel brought to life pretty much all day. Kerry Callen’s blog is something I always forget I’m subscribed too, but whenever something new pops up in my RSS reader it’s usually equally as awesome as this.
Go ahead and browse through all of Kerry’s GIFs. You can thank me later.
Although most of my writing today is in the non-fiction vein, there was a time when I fancied myself a writer of more fantastical works. I wrote many short stories, started a handful of novels, and outlined a couple of screenplays, but, like so many wanna-be Stephen King’s, never really got anywhere with it. However, over the last few months, I’ve come back to fiction, because a friend and I are working on a YouTube series together.
When writing the screenplays for this series, one thing I’ve really been focused on is to making sure that each character is unique and interesting; that they don’t get lost in the crowd. There are a few tried and true ways to accomplish this task, many of which are explored in two new art collections from Titan Books: Silhouettes from Popular Culture by Olly Moss and The Great Showdowns by Scott Campbell.
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I wanted to post this days ago but didn’t have access to a laptop or a non-boonies quality internet connection. I’ve been stuck out of town for most of the week seeing to a family member in the hospital, and it’s delayed a few things around here.
First off, I’ll try to post the winners of the TMNT Photo Contest on Monday. We had a lot of awesome entries and it’s going to be pretty hard for Chris and I to pick three winners.
Rob also has some new book reviews coming really soon, and along with some new podcasts, editorials and toy reviews, the site should be back in business next week.
In the meantime, if you’re in the Halloween spirit, check out some of the past Halloween posts on the site:
Wow, there’s a surprising lack of Halloween content around here. I need to fix that.
