Imagine my surprise Sunday night, to be surfing through the guide and find the premiere of an animated show made up of two of my lost loves - Arrested Development and Pushing Daisies.  When those shows were cancelled, I pretty much lost faith in humanity (silly to do over TV, I know, but they were AWFULLY good). 

Now, Arrested’s creator Mitchell Hurwitz’s come up with (which is to say he’s made an animated version of an Australian TV show from a couple of years ago with) an equally poorly named comedy about a group of jaded and broken school teachers.  Sit Down, Shut Up (really not a good name) is a way to re-unite the Awesome McAwesome Teen Wolf 2 (Jason Bateman), Devon Banks (Will Arnett), and Arthur Fonzarelli (Henry Winkler) with my much-loved Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth).  The critics flat out hated it, but what the hell.  They loved Arrested Development and it didn’t save it from the axe.

So, I’m left feeling pessimistically hopeful.  I love those guys and would watch them do most anything, but the critic’s hate it.  It seemed to have some potential, but it’s being handled by FOX (I read about it seconds before it aired for cryin’ out loud).  It’s got the fast paced wit that I love, but it’s filled with some obviously crude and low brow stuff too (which might help it survive in today’s world of cow-tippers and UFC fans). I’m only really watching Lost and 30 Rock right now, but that bounces back and forth as to whether it’s a good or bad thing. I guess deep down, I want it to be good and I want it to be something that lasts, but I can’t even pretend to understand what elements come together to make that happen.

I met Holly Laing and Drew Dailey during last year’s Winnipeg ComicCon and I’ve been keeping an eye on their upcoming Terra Webcomic.  It’s interesting stuff with some heavy Fireflyesque influences.  If you’re a Browncoat, or a sci-fi fan, or like looking at comics during work hours, or… I dunno… breathing, then check it out.

I’m especially jealous of Holly’s crisp and sure pencils.

3″ of snow in one hour!?  With a foot more to come!?

Okay, I hear you.  No more whining.

Here’s a few more crew backgrounds.

You know what I hate?   Winter.

Just a couple of weeks ago it was still as cold as -40 around here (celsius or fahrenheit, take yer pick). This has been the harshest winter I can remember, and it’s certainly had an effect. We basically forced ourselves to go tobogganing a couple of times, but didn’t venture out skating or fort building or anything else the whole bloody winter. I’ve permanently scarred my 4 year old son ’cause it’s been so ass-bitingly cold. 

Just as important is the effect it’s had emotionally. You hear about SAD or other seasonal influences, but you never expect them to hit you. This year it not only hit me, but proceeded to kick me in the junk while I was down. Just regular day to day stuff ends up being a chore, let alone movie or webcomic goodies. Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be the sob story it’s become. The point is, for those of you that winter has pushed around, I get it.  It sucks.

Get with it, Spring. I’ve got stuff to do.

Well, only one of my Top Evil League of Evil Applications made it on the DVD (and let’s face it, there just was no way in hell they could ignore Tur-mohel).  I have to admit a fair bit of confusion there. I really thought Vagabond had the stuff. I feel kinda bad for expressing that confidence to everyone involved. I think I’ll blame my conceit on Governo (way to play to my weaknesses, man!).

On the up side, I was in serious need of reminding that there are no free rides. Don’t get me wrong, the publishing and film industry is built on free rides and big breaks, but the hard and repeatedly forgotten lesson I’ve learned is that this won’t be the path for me.

There’s a ton of free rides out there, and I’ve come dangerously close to getting them.  The National Screen Institute in Manitoba provides a bunch of opportunities for filmmakers of all levels.  When I was first getting into all this, I entered their National Exposure Amateure film contest.  Seeing my short on the big screen was beyond compare, but sadly it was an audience voting thing and the big money went to a member of the UofM student council who’d stacked the deck.  I still got an award and $100 that paid for the gas and supper to get there.  However, we were also supposed to get a free movie rental a month for a year with snacks (I rented ALOT of movies those days).  When I e-mailed them asking what had happened to that six months later, they replied that it was in the mail. A couple days later I got a parcel with one nearly expired free movie coupon from Rogers, a singe pack of microwave popcorn, and a handful of individual Menthos mints. I kept that Rogers coupon on my Aquaman shrine as a reminder of my petty bitterness and how maybe the easy path wasn’t for me. I eventually got over it and threw the coupon out, but have considered replacing it with a Dr. Horrible DVD.

So, it’s a time consuming setback.  There’s certainly been others. Still, it’s up to me to find a way to make it all worthwhile, and I think I have the solution…

Why is anger such a powerful motivator? It can’t be healthy, but, man, does it ever get s#!t done.

With the wind chill, it’s -41° C here, which is pretty much the same thing in Fahrenheit.

What’s worse is that it’s supposed to be colder tomorrow.  That kind of cold leads to hate. And hate leads to… well, you know the rest.

Mosquito’s gonna be pretty sporadic around these parts over the holidays.  I’ve got lots of family stuff on the go, and a mighty serious desire to get the first episode of Magellan out before the New Year. I’m hoping my unfortunate and exceedingly time consuming habit of Whedonesque distractions will allow that to happen. 

Every time I get a favourite show on TV that my week starts to form itself around (first Firefly, then Arrested Development), the World At Large reminds me that it would far rather fill the networks with the fine quality and fulfilling entertainment found in any of literally dozens of reality game shows. I hate that about the world. I really do.

So, I’m not sure why it was such a painful surprise when I read about the cancellation of Pushing Daisies on io9.com today. I KNOW it was a total rip off of Amélie , but I loved it anyway. It was a bright and funny and cute place to visit every week, and the world will be a dark and far more dreary place without it.

I know Fuller said he’d wrap it up in comic form, but, even being the comic nut I am, I think that’ll end up falling too far from the mark.

A follow up "Boo-urns" to you too, TV watching audiences. "Boo-urns."

I tried to watch the Colbert Report and the Daily Show last night for the first time in a long while. I used to be a big fan of both shows and their respective subversive and not so subversive humour, but, after years and years, it started to bring me down. While the jesters were funny and the Court was laughing, no one was doing a damn thing about it and the status quo remained King.

Well, I gave it another shot last night. Sadly, (while I still love Stewart and the whole crew) the Daily Show felt flat without an idiot ruling the free world or the power behind the throne shooting people in the face. Colbert just irritated me, and I think I know why. A while ago, at the Publick Nuisance blog of my much loved Venture Brothers, I read this:

Mr. Stephen Colbert has decided not to reprise his role as Professor Impossible this season, for reasons which probably have something to do with him being all super-famous, super-busy, and no longer in need of a few hundred bucks here and there. We figured this would happen eventually, considering his monumental success in the years since our first season, but we held out hope that the WGA strike would leave him with enough bored free time on his hands that he’d have a go at it. But after getting shuffled around from his assistant to his assistant’s assistant to his agent to his manager, one of them finally shot us an email saying: “Stephen has neither the time nor the interest in participating in your project.”

Was the “nor the interest” really necessary? I would have bought the “time” part without question, but man…you gotta kick a guy when he’s down like that? Well maybe I’m not interested in your ice cream, mister! Or your book. Unless someone buys it for me for Christmas.

I gotta say, that kind of… I dunno… stardom(?) really bugs me. I can’t imagine ever being in the mind frame that I would treat ANYONE I’d ever worked with that little respect. Even if, for whatever reason, I wasn’t interested in working with them again, I’d make sure they got an upfront, personal, and professional explanation. To so completely dismiss people you’ve worked with during your rise to stardom is pretty gosh darn uncool. It’s a long time after the fact, but I’m afraid you’re getting a “Boo-urns” on this one, Mr. Colbert.

I love Alpha Flight, and it’s caused me nothing but grief.

(I snagged these images from www.alphaflight.net rather than climb under my stairs and scan them)

Way back when, during Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s legendary run on the X-men comic (back when there was only one title instead of 17), they (which is to say mostly Byrne) came up with a Canadian super team that could go toe to toe with the X-men and play a big part in Wolverine’s background (before the onslaught of contradictory nonsense that it’s become). Despite the fact that Byrne wasn’t overly fond of the characters, when the time came for their own series, he took the helm. He did a pretty good job for a couple dozen issues before completely losing interest. The sad part is that that was over 25 years ago, but when you say “Alpha Flight” to any comic fan, that’s the series that comes to mind.

I fell in love with the characters during their first X-men appearances, and was crazy about the series. However, as time went on and Byrne left, it became a spiralling disaster that I followed for years like Homer and Bart chasing a BBQ pig yelling “It’s still good! It’s still good!” I always dreamed of the greatness the title could achieve and began to imagine what those stories might be. By the turn of the century, I’d learned to dread my trips to the comic shop to find out what further atrocities had been committed to the title, and how my dreams would have to change to accommodate the existing continuity. Marvel got a lot of my money they truly didn’t deserve over the last couple decades.

Finally, in 2004, I got sick of just dreaming, and sat down and wrote the first three issues of what I thought Alpha Flight should be. Bendis was restarting the Avengers and it was a pretty cool time at Marvel. So, I typed the issues up in a questionable format, for myself and my friend Alex Braun who had an affinity with the Heather Hudson character. I really love how they turned out, but short months after I wrote them, Bendis wiped the team out and paved the way for another mediocre and short-lived version of the series. They also killed off Northstar and even Captain America. All in all, there were a lot of nails hammered into that particular coffin.

Anyway, despite the fact that it was a dream that died, I found the old issues I wrote today, and still love them. I’ll post issue #1 here, and if you want to read more, lemme know.

Click here to read Alpha Flight: Issue One

Hokay, we’re not really a Christmas card sending family, but after last night I might reconsider.

Now, I’ve wanted a Joker outfit since before Jack made it cool (which was nearly twenty years before Ledger knocked it out of the park), so cut me some slack on the whole “in questionable taste” aspect of Joker costumes this year.

Number one - I wouldn’t even want to try and be a Ledger Joker. I’m more of a Mark Hamill man, myself. No face scars, thank you.

Number Two - In defense of the face scar crowd, it’s a tribute to the character, performance, and memory of a great actor. Maybe the over-sensitive “no body bag” stuff should take a back seat to basically any of the truly horrible things going on right now.

Number Three - Sandra bought the Harley costume first. What the heck was I SUPPOSED to do?