Watchmen and The Lord of the Rings Are Strikingly Similar Landmarks

Watchmen and The Lord of the Rings Are Strikingly Similar Landmarks

Posted inBooks & Authors, Comics & Graphic Novels, Geek Stuff
Watching The Rings Moore’s Watchmen and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Are Strikingly Similar Landmarks   When one talks of vital contributions to the art of comics, one cannot ignore Alan Moore. With a body of work as consistently terrific as his – he has more certifiable classics under his belt than any comic writer of the last 30 years – targeting any given tale as his “best” is an impossible task. But of Alan Moore’s contributions to comicdom, one truly stands as not just an undeniable landmark, but the undeniable landmark, putting its stamp on comic history forever: Watchmen, the powerful 12-issue collaboration with Dave…
Go to hell, “R” key. Go to hell and die.

Go to hell, “R” key. Go to hell and die.

Posted inRandom Musings, Rants
It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools. That's how the saying goes, at least, but you know what? "It" being the conspicuous lack of a goddamn "R" in every other goddamn word I type from my goddamn laptop. I may or may not have mentioned it before, but I don't write on my desktop. Too many distractions. I have to get away from my desk and get someplace with as few bright and shinys as possible. That means grabbing the laptop and doing all my writing at the kitchen table or out on the back deck. I'm too prone…
Mad Men’s Jon Hamm may finally get his due

Mad Men’s Jon Hamm may finally get his due

Posted inTelevision
Since 2007, Jon Hamm had been putting on an acting clinic with his subdued, measured performance as Don Draper, the dashing ad man with a past he can't run away from. The Mad Men actor drew raves and a slew of award nominations, including eight straight nominations for the Best Actor in a Drama Series Emmy (including this year's nod). Unfortunately for Hamm, he ran into a wall called Bryan Cranston. See, while Hamm was busy being awesome, Cranston was out there being just as awesome. Cranston won Best Actor four out of the first seven years Hamm was nominated,…
The 5 Most Powerful Geeks of All Time

The 5 Most Powerful Geeks of All Time

Posted inGeek Stuff, Random Musings
Let's jump back a few years. Shortly after the release of Geek Wisdom, a book I was honored to contribute to, I was contacted by Men's Health magazine to write a piece about the most powerful geeks of all time. It sounded like a fun assignment. I wrote the piece. It was supposedly filled with "awesome stuff" and "everyone at the office [loved]" it, according to the editor who contacted me. But they never used it, and I never heard from that editor again. Rather than let it languish on a memory stick, I figured I'd yank it from the…
Sandra Bullock has a cool (but flawed) approach to closing Hollywood’s gender gap

Sandra Bullock has a cool (but flawed) approach to closing Hollywood’s gender gap

Posted inFilms, Random Musings
It's no great secret that aside from a small handful of silver screen legends, Hollywood is not a place where older women thrive. There have been a slew of complaints about a lack of roles for older actresses -- and in Hollywood, "older" often means "not in your 20s," even for actresses like Anne Hathaway -- a battle cry that has been growing in recent years. While some (like Russell Crowe) say the fault is with the actresses, not the scripts, studies show that in Hollywood, men talk and women show skin. Vulture also took a look at some films and…