Yearly Archive: 2008

A while back, I spoke with You’ll Have That webcomic creator Wes Molebash about YHT, Zuda Comics and various other subjects, and it looks like the talented writer/artist has been keeping busy since that interview. This set of new character designs recently popped up in his Flickr gallery, and I can’t help but direct some attention to them.

The set is titled "The Legend of Eddie King," and Molebash provides the following description:

For my Interdisciplinary Arts class I had to create a modern adaptation of Sophocles’ stage play "Oedipus the King". Here are the character designs I created for the adaptation.

For my adaptation I wanted to use the vintage/rockabilly/biker scene as the backdrop for the story. Instead of becoming king of Thebes, Eddie becomes the sole proprietor and leader of a biker gang/bar called The White Knuckle Society. The Society was formerly lead by his father, Louis, who has been mysteriously murdered . . .

Here’s hoping we get to see the final product — and that it earns Molebash an "A" on the assignment, of course.

A general release has been too long in coming for Stuck, Stuart Gordon’s mordant and mournful film about a traffic accident and its criminal aftermath. I began picking up on the raves shortly after a film-critic comrade, Joe Leydon, caught the picture at 2007’s Toronto Film Festival and published a favorable review in the show-biz tradepaper Variety. Joe suggested a “carefully calibrated theatrical rollout” but added: “… difficult to tell whether [the] sardonically edgy pic will reach many mainstream auds before fast-forwarding to homevid.”

Now comes word of a Dallas opening, June 6, for Stuck – three months after a well-received showing at the American Film Institute/Dallas Festival. ThinkFilm, the distributor, keeps hedging about an opening in nearby Fort Worth. I have pressed for a film-fest slot or a commercial engagement in Fort Worth because that is where my newspaper’s core readership dwells. And because Stuck owes its dire inspiration to a real-world ordeal that took place in Fort Worth.

“Why, we couldn’t show a movie like that in Fort Worth’s very own film festival,” one leading light of the FW-based Lone Star Film Society told me last fall after I had recommended Stuck as a centerpiece for a November 2007 event. “We’re here ‘To Preserve and Present the Art of the Moving Image’ – just as our Mission Statement declares – not to dredge up any horrible memories.”

“Yeah, well,” I answered – once that “yeah, well” injunction kicks in, any such exchange is doomed to deteriorate – “an occasional reminder might do us all some sobering good. And besides, the film uses the local case only as a springboard. Changes the locale and fictionalizes a lot. More an inspiration than an explicit reflection.”

“I’d be careful how I used that term, ‘inspiration,’ if I were you,” came the reply. “Anyone who would find inspiration in such a ghastly occurrence has no business being allowed to make movies.” (Guardians of the Culture, take note.)

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Campaign season always brings me down. Rather than choosing the lesser of evils, just once I’d like to be presented with a candidate I can really support. Just once I’d like a candidate who embodies the ideals of… Snoopy?

Over at Fanboy.com, Michael Pinto directs readers’ attention to the old Peanuts premiums issued decades ago as incentives to purchase certain brands of bread and other products. Several of the premiums feature Snoopy in full campaign mode, trumpeting the famous beagle’s  candidacy and providing illustrated proof that he is "loyal," "fearless" and "prepared."

Now if only we could get a real candidate who has all those qualities, right?

For the full gallery of premiums, check out Dan Goodsell’s blog, sampler of things.