#not 100% sure on this but i think ben might get jamie a bit more tbh. at least initially

[the--highlanders]

tbh I think it would take a while for polly to actually realise how traumatised jamie is? she knows he's come from a war but blatantly doesn't know much about the context, and jamie's not exactly the sort of person to be super open about it. so I think she'd initially see him just as this sweet younger brother figure who's a little bit lost in all the futuristic stuff around him. and it would take some pretty heavy circumstances for her to realise what's going on beneath the surface

so their early s4 dynamic just ends up being

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol. 1 Annual 1977

Tues Aug 27 2019 [12:59 AM] Wack'd: We open with Johnny testing an experimental racecar [12:59 AM] maxwellelvis: As he does [01:00 AM] Wack'd: Truly life is a hurricane here in...*checks notes*...Nassau County [01:00 AM] Wack'd: So Crystal and Lockjaw materialize in the backseat of the car and snatch Johnny away on some urgent business [01:01 AM] Wack'd: Poor Ted, who is the guy who designed this racecar! I feel bad for him despite the fact that he doesn't even rate a mention on Marvel Wiki [01:01 AM] KarkatTheDalek: That's another reason to feel bad for him, I think [01:02 AM] KarkatTheDalek: What must it be like to be a near complete non-entity... [01:02 AM] Wack'd: Marv Wolfman has apparently decided that Lockjaw's bark sounds like "wurf" and therefore his teleportation is called "wurfing". I agree with both these decisions [01:02 AM] KarkatTheDalek: That's amazing [01:03 AM] KarkatTheDalek: Who needs *BAMF* when you have wurf [01:03 AM] Bocaj: Amaze [01:03 AM] Wack'd: So the Great Refuge has been conquered! Again! Every goddamn week, with these people [01:03 AM] Wack'd: Sure

[01:04 AM] maxwellelvis: Is that one of the yetis? [01:04 AM] Wack'd: I...don't think so? I hope not [01:05 AM] Wack'd: He's a one-off villain from the Inhumans book [01:05 AM] Wack'd: He never appears again after this [01:05 AM] Wack'd: Johnny blows up his gun but he has a force field, which is very good [01:06 AM] Wack'd: Also apparently Crystal can now call down lightning from the sky like she's Storm or something [01:06 AM] Wack'd: Also tornadoes! She has definitely been confused for Storm [01:06 AM] Bocaj: tornadoes is just air [01:06 AM] Wack'd: Not that this does any good. It's a really good force field you guys [01:07 AM] Wack'd: Honestly, like. He would have to just sit in there forever, I think? Not really conducive to ruling a city. [01:07 AM] Wack'd: Maybe he can move the force field around, I dunno [01:08 AM] maxwellelvis: Somebody get some club soda! [01:08 AM] Wack'd: Meanwhile in Hollywood a Fantastic Four movie is being made. It is going poorly [01:09 AM] Wack'd: Sue is irritated that the actress playing her looks nothing like her and is wearing a low-cut bathing suit. Ben is irritated he's been replaced by a giant robot [01:09 AM] Wack'd: Reed is irritated Johnny's been written out because the effects are too expensive [01:10 AM] maxwellelvis: Somewhere, Jessica Alba and Carl Ciarfalio feel insulted. So does HERBIE. And none are sure why. [01:10 AM] Wack'd: And in case you're wondering the Fantastic Four cartoon series that couldn't get the rights to Johnny because they were tangled up in a movie deal had entered production at roughly this time [01:10 AM] maxwellelvis: Spooky [01:10 AM] Wack'd: Or, you know [01:10 AM] Wack'd: People at Marvel knew what was up [01:11 AM] Wack'd: Seems more likely than precognition [01:11 AM] Wack'd: Why do I feel like this guy is a parody of someone specific?

[01:12 AM] maxwellelvis: Dino. [01:12 AM] maxwellelvis: That's who. [01:13 AM] Wack'd: ...from The Flintstones? [01:13 AM] maxwellelvis: The robot, the accent, the emphasis on gimmicks [01:13 AM] maxwellelvis: DeLaurentiis. [01:14 AM] Wack'd: Oooooh [01:14 AM] Wack'd: Brainfart [01:14 AM] maxwellelvis: and of course, the glasses [01:14 AM] Wack'd: I know of him by vague reputation but was unaware of his...peculiarities [01:15 AM] maxwellelvis: The onion smell, I thought was a reference to SenSurround, but I don't know if he had anything to do with *Earthquake!* [01:16 AM] maxwellelvis: But he was an odd man. [01:16 AM] Wack'd: Anyway the giant Thing robot goes berserk. Who could've seen this coming [01:17 AM] Wack'd: Oh hey at least one person can be proven to have liked The Gong Show 😛

[01:18 AM] maxwellelvis: The emphasis on spectacle that the robot provides sounds just like him. As does cutting Johnny from the movie entirely to save on expenses. This is the guy who had a big argument with Sam Raimi over how many explosions should be in the climatic battle in Army of Darkness, after all. [01:18 AM] maxwellelvis: That caricature of Jamie Farr is kinder to him than real life ever was. [01:19 AM] Wack'd: He was kind of transphobic so I'm okay with this [01:20 AM] Wack'd: Ben throws a gong through the robot's neck, decapitating it [01:20 AM] Wack'd: I did not see The Gong Show being plot-relevant but here we are [01:21 AM] maxwellelvis: The Gong Show was probably taped, but I'm pretty sure that's gonna make the final cut anyways. [01:22 AM] maxwellelvis: If anyone has the connections to get the Four to sign off on that, it's Chuck Barris. [01:22 AM] Wack'd: They do keep it in the show [01:22 AM] Wack'd: It gets a 6 [01:22 AM] maxwellelvis: Heh [01:22 AM] maxwellelvis: That's good. [01:24 AM] Wack'd: So Johnny, Crystal, and Lockjaw come back and wurf Ben back to the Great Refuge [01:24 AM] Wack'd: And also stopped to pick up Reed and Sue off-panel [01:25 AM] maxwellelvis: Probably because Ben would have the funniest reaction. I'm getting the feeling this Annual is focusing on humor. [01:25 AM] Wack'd: Well, that bit was [01:25 AM] Wack'd: Ben mostly just grumbles that they ruined his chances of a regular gig [01:26 AM] maxwellelvis: I could see Ben as the new Unknown Comic, honestly. [01:26 AM] Wack'd: So uh apparently a buncha stuff happened in the Inhumans book [01:26 AM] Wack'd: The Great Refuge was destroyed and the Royal Family retreated to space [01:26 AM] Wack'd: Thraxon tried to organize a rebuilding effort but Pietro accused him of trying to usurp Black Bolt and got real mad [01:26 AM] maxwellelvis: Did they finally build Attilan yet? [01:27 AM] Wack'd: It's just what the Great Refuge is called apparently [01:27 AM] maxwellelvis: Huh. [01:27 AM] Wack'd: So anyway Thraxon points out that Pietro is not Inhuman and this gets all the other Inhumans sans Crystal to turn on him [01:28 AM] Wack'd: The Inhuman Royal Family returned and Thraxon kicked all their asses [01:29 AM] Wack'd: We're spending a lot of page time on what's frankly kinda a foregone conclusion, honestly. I'm skipping over a lot of fight scenes that impact literally nothing [01:31 AM] Wack'd: The seldom-seen little sibling of "Sue tries to do something awesome and gets her ass kicked", "Sue does something awesome and literally falls unconscious from the strain"

[01:31 AM] Wack'd: Apparently Thraxon expanded his force field over the whole city. So that's his game [01:32 AM] Wack'd: But not anymore [01:32 AM] Wack'd: Another part of Thraxon's plan is to literally strap the Royal Family and Pietro to a rocket and shoot them into space [01:33 AM] Wack'd: You know, the place they just came back from [01:33 AM] Wack'd: Sure [01:33 AM] maxwellelvis: At least this time she was just faint for a moment and not out for the rest of the fight. [01:34 AM] Wack'd: So fortunately Thraxton loses his powers because the person who gave them to him, "the Dreaded One", has deserted him [01:34 AM] Wack'd: For some reason [01:35 AM] Wack'd: The Four take their own rocket and follow the Inhuman rocket and-- [01:35 AM] Wack'd: C'mon I just made a Mystery Science Theater 3000 joke

[01:36 AM] Wack'd: It's weird realizing only this year do the Four suddenly exist in a world containing Star Wars

[01:38 AM] Wack'd: fuck ooooooooff

[01:41 AM] Wack'd: I'll save you the trouble--a Nova villain who menaced the Four and the Inhumans enough to make it into two issues of the Fantastic Four: Foes miniseries. Also fought the New Warriors and Night Thrasher. Last seen in a Howling Commandos arc from 2016

[01:42 AM] maxwellelvis: He's terribly mysterious [01:43 AM] Wack'd: Character shilling! Also apparently Aaron's staff did eat the staffs of Egyptians what were also turned into snakes. Did not learn this in Hebrew school

[01:44 AM] maxwellelvis: What were you taught? [01:45 AM] Wack'd: Moses turns his staff into a snake to prove God is real but Pharaoh writes it off as a stupid trick [01:46 AM] Wack'd: Presumably because we as kids would be a bit baffled by the idea that all other Gods are fake but also Egyptians had real magic on hand [01:46 AM] Wack'd: It is indeed a bit of a puzzlement [01:46 AM] maxwellelvis: Yeah, the version I'm aware of had the Pharaoh bring in his best magicians to show he's not impressed, but Moses is the one who shows that the other is doing a cheap trick, because his snake is bigger and kills the other two. [01:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Prince of Egypt makes it into a big smoke-and-mirrors routine. [01:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Literally. [01:47 AM] Wack'd: There's no, uh. Rationale in the Bible? [01:47 AM] Wack'd: It's literally just "some other Egyptians turned up and turned their staffs into snakes also, and then Aaron's snake ate them" [01:48 AM] Wack'd: No big reveal or anything [01:51 AM] Wack'd: So anyway this nameless extra from Exodus is exiled for his failure and finds a magic amulet that gives him superpowers and the ability to live forever [01:52 AM] Wack'd: And now he wants to harness Black Bolt's power to hypnotize all of Earth. Somehow. [01:53 AM] maxwellelvis: That's not how his power works. His voice isn't hypnotic, it blows stuff to smitheroons. [01:53 AM] Wack'd: He basically wants to use Black Bolt as a battery to power his hypnosis [01:53 AM] maxwellelvis: Ahh [01:55 AM] Wack'd: Anyway they scuffle for a while before Sphinx gets nervous he might actually get his ass kicked and throws them all out the airlock [01:55 AM] Wack'd: Lockjaw has meanwhile freed the Inhumans. He could've done this at any time probably but okay [01:57 AM] Wack'd: Look dude, sure you manage to miraculously crawl your way to the 21st century, but you still don't even have 100 appearances. Godly power only means something if you have popularity power to back it up

[01:58 AM] Wack'd: ...is this a thing Black Bolt can do? I feel like the answer is "no"

[01:59 AM] Wack'd: Anyway the day is saved by...Black Bolt [01:59 AM] Wack'd: Not much of an Fantastic Four annual [02:00 AM] Wack'd: Sphinx is blasted into space and then everyone goes home [02:00 AM] Wack'd: The end [02:00 AM] maxwellelvis: SPHINX!

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Feb. 7, 2020 – BIRDS OF PREY: ETC. ETC.

Thank heavens that there’s only one new wide release this weekend, and just as thankfully, it’s a movie that could help revive an ailing box office that’s been all about Sony’s Bad Boys for Life, Universal’s 1917 and Dolittle for the past few weeks. I never got around to seeing last week’s Gretel and Hansel, and I might still if I have time, but The Rhythm Section wasn’t that bad, and it certainly shouldn’t have bombed as badly as it did, making less than $3 million in 3,000 theaters. Yup, last weekend wasn’t great, and it was only partially due to the Super Bowl.

Clearly, it’s time to move on to this week with the first “superhero” movie of the year, the follow-up to one of DC Entertainment’s biggest outings but also meant to be its own thing, which is BIRDS OF PREY: AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF HARLEY QUINN (Warner Bros.). It stars recent Oscar nominee Margot Robbie reprising her role as Harley Quinn, the Joker’s girlfriend/therapist, who is branching out on her own with her own supergirl group, which includes Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winsted), Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Renée Montoya (Rosie Perez) and Cassandra Cain (at one point, called Batgirl), played by Ella Jay Basco.  Robbie first played the role in 2016’s Suicide Squad, which earned over $300 million domestic, which some might point to the popularity of Harley as a comic character, but you could also point to things like the fact it starred bonafide box office star Will Smith (whose most recent movie Bad Boys 2 is currently the biggest movie of the year. Birds of Prey also stars Ewan McGregor and Chris Messina, as two well-known Bat-villains, Black Mask and Victor Zsasz, making their big screen live action debuts.

Unlike Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey is Rated R as DC and Warner Bros. have seen the huge success of the recent Joker movie, as well as the two Deadpool movies as proof that R-rated comic book movies can still do well even without the teen and tween audiences that usually go to see them. Presumably, Birds of Prey will attract more women due to the characters, although I’m sure there will be some men who who are just as interested due to the connections to the DC Universe. I’m just not sure this will be as big a draw to men as some of those other movies. I’ll have my own review on the blog a little later today.

While I don’t think Birds of Prey will open as big as Joker– let’s face it, the characters therein just aren’t nearly as well known, even Harley – I do think it will do quite well, making somewhere in the $60 million range, maybe more if the reviews are as positive as the early raves that were posted last week. (Having seen the movie and with my review on the way, I don’t think it will fare that well among real critics. You can read my own REVIEW here.)

Either way, Birds of Prey will the weekend with relative ease, although we’ll have to see how Sunday’s Oscar celebration affects all the movies’ business towards the end of the weekend.

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. Birds of Prey, Etc. Etc (Warner Bros.) - $64.5 million N/A (up $1.9 million)*

2. Bad Boys for Life (Sony) - $9.7 million –45%

3. 1917 (Universal) - $6.3 million -35%

4. Dolittle  (Universal) - $4.7 million -40%

5. Jumanji: The Next Level  (Sony) - $3.7 million -38%

6. The Gentlemen (STXfilms) - $2.9 million -48%

7. Gretel and Hansel  (U.A. Releasing) - $2.8 million -55%

8. Little Women (Sony) - $2 million -35%

9. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Lucasfilm/Disney) - $1.7 million -46%

10. The Turning  (Universal) - $1.3 million -55%

* UPDATE: I lowered my prediction a bit after seeing the movie but seeing that reviews have mainly been positive, I think it will help the movie bring in more business before Sunday.

LIMITED RELEASES

Two genre films that have been playing on the genre festival for the last year or so will open in select cities, the first being COME TO DADDY (Saban Films), the directorial debut by horror producer Ant Timpson, who was responsible for horror anthologies, The ABCs of Death and The Field Guide to Evil, as well as popular genre flicks Turbo Kid and The Greasy Strangler. In the movie, Elijah Wood plays Norval Grenwood, a young man called to the remote cabin of his estranged father (Stephen McHattie) who he hasn’t seen in 30 years, since his father walked out on his mother when he was just five years old. Once he gets there, he learns that his father is an abusive alcoholic, and yet, nothing is really what it seems. I saw this at the Tribeca Film Festival and mostly enjoyed it, and I really like Timpsons’s sensibilities as a filmmaker but it really starts to go off the rails as it goes along. Some will definitely enjoy that.

Severin Fialla and Veronika Fanz, the Belgian filmmakers behind Goodnight Mommy, return with THE LODGE (NEON), a creepy thriller in which a couple kids (Lia McHugh, Jaeden Martell) go to a remote cabin near a lake for the Christmas holidays with their new stepmother (Riley Keough) after learning a lot more about her dark past before meeting their widowed father (Richard Armitage). There’s so much more to this movie than what you can see in the suitably eerie trailer, and I certainly will not spoiler any of the experience, although personally, I found this to be more of a downer than Hereditary, a movie that I absolutely loved. This one might take another viewing for me to really get behind it, but other than the performances, the overall look and eerie feel and the twists, it’s pretty dark and depressing, so I’m not 100% sure I’d really want to see it again or can recommend it wholeheartedly.  Either way, both of these movies are opening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn as well as other select cities.

Ben Cookson’s Waiting for Anya (Vertical), adapted from the novel by the same name from the author of War Horse, stars Noah Schnapp as Jo Lalande, a 13-yearold sheperd boy who joins with a reclusive widow (the amazing Anjelica Huston) to help smuggle Jewish children into Spain during World War II.

From Yash Raj Films comes this week’s Bollywood selection Mohit Suri’s Malang, starring Aditya Roy Kapoor as the introverted Advit, who visits Goa where he meets a free-spirited girl from London named Sara (Disha Patani), who has come to India to live like a vagabond or “Malang.” Something happens that changes as five years later, we meet a vigilante killer cop (Anil Kapoor) and a righteous cop (Kunal Kemmu)… And suddenly, I feel like I need to see this movie. It will probably open in 100 theaters or more.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Let’s start out with the Netflix offerings, beginning with the recent Sundance premiere, HORSE GIRL, the new film from Jeff Baena (The Little Hours, Life after Beth), co-written and starring Alison Brie as a socially awkward woman into horses and supernatural crime whose lucid dreams start infiltrating into her waking life. I haven’t seen it yet but I’m definitely interested in the premise, and I generally like Brie’s work.

I never really got into Joe Hill’s books/comics, but I’ll probably give the series LOCKE AND KEY a look when it debuts its first season on Friday. It involves three kids who move with their Mom to an ancestral estate where a series of keys unlock secrets and powers.

On Wednesday debuts the Netflix docuseries They’ve Gotta Have Us from Simon Frederick and Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY will premiere, looking at some of the important and iconic voices in Black Cinema.

If you haven’t had a chance to see DGA winner Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy, starring Shia LaBeouf, Lucas Hedges and Noah Jupe, based on Shia’s semi-autobiographical screenplay, then it will premiere on Amazon Prime this Friday.

Premiering on Hulu this Friday is Into the Dark: My Valentine, the latest horror feature from Blumhouse as part of this ongoing horror series, this one written and directed by Maggie Levin, who has directed a bunch of shorts. It involves a pop singer whose songs and identity are stolen by her manager ex-boyfriend and pasted on his new girlfriend, which comes to a head when they’re locked up in a small concert venue and things get violence.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

If you went out to see Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering with You and enjoyed it but haven’t seen his previous movie Your Name (which is just as excellent) then you’re in luck cause the Metrograph is showing it a number of times starting Friday. Thursday might be your last chance to see the new 35mm print of Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film New York, New York unless it’s extended, but the Hal Hartley serieshas been extended through the weekend with reruns of Trust (1990), Simple Men (1992) and Amateur (1994), all good, but Trust is my favorite of those three. This week’s Welcome To Metrograph: Redux is a good one, Lars von  Trier’s 1996 film Breaking the Waves, which will screen Saturday and Sunday nights.This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai (1947), while the Playtime: Family Matinee sselection is Amy Heckerling’s classic Clueless (1995).

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Wednesday might you can maybe get tickets for the “Weird Wednesday,” the Lone Wolf and Cub movie Shogun Assassin (1980) – I’ll be there for the 7pm screening. Thursday night is a screening of the 1932 Dorothy Arzner film Merrily We Go to Hell. On Monday, Video Vortex presents a J-Horror Bloodbath double feature of Demon Within and Biotherapy, both from 1985. ($5 admittance!) Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is 1980’s Terror Train, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and then next week’s “Weird Wednesday” is 1990’s White Palace, starring Susan Sarandon and James Spader, picked by Alamo programmer Christina Cacioppo, so you know it’s gotta be very weird! J

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The Weds matinee is the musical The King and I (1956), starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. Weds. and Thurs. night are double features of the Safdies’ Uncut Gems with The Object of Beauty (1991), starring John Malkovich and Andie McDowell with the Safdies doing a QnA on Thursday. Friday’s matinee is the 1982 Paul Schrader Cat People remake, while that Friday’s midnight is True Romance, while Saturday’s midnight movie is 1975’s Aloha, Bobby and Rose. This weekend’s Kiddee Matinee is 2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, continuing that series, as well as there being a Cartoon Club on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Monday’s matinee is Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo ’66while the Monday night double feature is Fear is the Key (1972) and Villain(1971). Tuesday’s Grindhouse double is Hot Potato (1976) and Golden Needles  (1974)..

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Mostly taking a break this week to air the Oscar-nominated shorts but Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1950 classic All About Eve will screen in 35mm as part of the “Sunday Print Edition.”

AERO  (LA):

Elliot Gould will be on hand Friday to discuss M*A*S*H* airing as part of the “Antiwar Cinema,” then Friday, there will be a double feature of Grand Illusion(1937) and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence  (1983). On Friday, Aero will screen Masaki Kobayashi’s “The Human Condition” trilogy, three movies from 1959 through 1961, airing as a triple feature.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC): This Friday, the Quad begins screening Albert E. Lewin’s 1951 film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, starring Ava Gardner and James Mason, restored from Martin Scorsese’s own 35mm print. Also starting Friday, the Quad will also be screening a series of Man Ray shorts from 1926 to 1929.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The “Black Women” series continues this week with The Omega Man and Strange Days on Wednesday, Set It Off, Bright Road and Poetic Justice on Thursday and more over the weekend. It continues through Thursday, February 13. This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is the recent movie-musicalDreamgirls.

MOMA  (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Jack Lemmon continues this week on Weds with 1951’s Kotch, Thursday with Robert Altman’s 1993classic Short Cuts, and then on Friday, another screening of the 1960 Oscar winner The Apartment co-starring Shirley MacLaine.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

On Friday, FilmLinc starts a new one-week series called “Dreamed Paths: The Films of Angela Shanelec,” and I honestly have no idea who that is. It’s a pretty comprehensive retrospective of the German filmmaker’s work, so I’m shocked that I’ve never seen a single one of her movies. Besides her work, the filmmaker will also be showing a few hand-selected films like Manoel de Oliveira’s I’m Going Home (2001), the Korean film The Day After and Maurice Pialat’s 1972 film We Won’t Grow Old (1972).

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (NYC):

The Anthology’s “The Devil Probably: A Century of Satanic Panic” continues this weekend with Edgar J. Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934) on Wednesday, Sidney Hayers’ Burn Witch Burn (1962), Terence Fisher’s The Devil Rides Out (1968), Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and more screening over the next week.

NITEHAWK CINEMA  (NYC):

Not to be outdown by the Roxy, Brooklyn’s Nitehawk is getting on the Nicolas Cage love-a-thon with the Williamsburg doing an “Uncaged” series starting with Cage’s latest Color Out of Spaceat midnight on Friday, and then Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) on Tuesday. (The latter is sold out.) Williamsburg is also screening Tony Scott’s True Romance (1993) on Saturday afternoon.Prospect Park is showing Barry Jenkins’ Schmoonlight Saturday to kick off its Valentine’s Day series.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: Luis Buñuel is taking another weekend off for no obvious reason – it’ll be back next week -- but Waverly Midnights: Hindsight is 2020s will screen the 1973 sci-fi classic Soylent Green and Late Night Favorites: Winter 2020 is going with the 4k restoration of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

Starting Friday at BAM is Horace Jenkins 1982 film Cane River, starring Richard Romain and Tommye Myrick (both doing QnAs over the weekend), and the actors and relatives of Jenkins will be appearing at a number of screenings this weekend.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

2001: A Space Odyssey will once again screen as a Saturday matinee in conjunction with MOMI’s exhibit.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

The Nicolas Cage love continues with two of his movies from 2003: Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation (2003) on Wednesday and Disney’s National Treasure on Thursday.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

Not to be outdown by the IFC Center, the Nuart’s Friday midnight movie is Dario Argento’s Suspiriafrom 1977.

Next week is Presidents Day weekend, another four-day holiday weekend, but it’s also Valentine’s Day Friday, so we’ll get kiddie movies like Sonic the Hedgehog (Paramount), romantic movies like The Photograph (Universal) and horror movies like Fantasy Island (Sony).

[savemestucky]

Gairaigo: Happy Birthday Steve Rogers (1942)

Here’s a bitty chapter of Gairaigo for Steve Roger’s birthday~ Depending on my workload this week, I’m hoping to have another birthday chapter written from Steve’s POV. NOTE: The sections in italics are in English but represent them speaking Japanese.

Gairaigo [formerly Poppies Growing In Cartoons, the link leads to an almost full chapter]: James Bukawa doesn’t know that he and Steve Rogers went to the same elementary school or grammar school- until he’s 14 years old and he’s carrying 60 pounds of laundry to the tenement past the gas station. Steve/Bucky/Jim AU, Japanese-American Bucky Barnes

Shout out to @literaryartisan for their wild enthusiasm for this AU and for asking me real good questions that push me to keep writing!! and to @seasirpent who loves my writing even if they’re not into Marvel <3  

Bucky’s staring at the ceiling of the barrack when Yamaguchi John starts padding around and rifling through his footlocker.

“You gotta light?” John speaks with an even weirder accent than his Kyushu-Ben, John’s from Osaka and Bucky still isn’t 100% sure where he fits in with the universal rivalry against Tokyo. When Bucky doesn’t answer right away, he knocks on the wall and Nakamura Ben comes through the door flap and sleepily passes a book of matches over. Bucky’s busy wondering about whether or not Mrs. Watanabe had time to fix Steve a cake with the money he wired and decides he’ll finally roll out of his cot when he smells John and Ben brewing coffee [from the god damn can of coffee he got at the general store].

“Rise and shine, Jamie, they’re not gunna take beauty rest as a good reason to skip out on work” John gives him a crooked grin as he blows smoke out the cracked window.

“And- God Bless America!” he can’t tell whether or not Ben’s being sarcastic as he raises his tin mug of coffee in a toast, Ben’s only 19 [really too young to be housed with the other bachelors] and all kinds of snarky, but Bucky would put down money on him joining the service if they’d let in Japs.

“Yeah, happy fourth Jamie,” John says way too cheerily.

Bucky rubs his eyes and mindlessly accepts the coffee they pass him, “unnn, fuck off John, at least I get beauty sleep- you look like you could do with some for that mug.”

John snorts into his coffee and Ben gives him a little grimace- Bucky ought to be nicer to him, Ben’s parents didn’t want him to learn Japanese growing up so he barely speaks Tokyo-ben [never mind trying to figure out what the heck John and Bucky say]. They bicker a little bit about the heat: John says this is nothing to August in Osaka and Ben says you could fry an egg on the pavement in San Fransisco, Bucky silently figures the internment camp is the hottest place they’ll ever be because the water comes out of the ground warm and there’s no protection from the dust storms or the god damn lizards. He thinks about going to the mess hall and starts pulling on his trousers and realizes John’s been holding out his suspenders and saying “Jamie” for a hot second.

“Thanks man,” he mumbles as he takes them and buttons them on to the top of his pants, fiddling a bit with the clasps so they sit nicely (just like Mrs. Watanabe always told him to. he just wishes his pants were nicely pressed and misses the dry cleaners and steve so badly right then). After a long second, he realizes he ought to apologize for not answering sooner, “Sorry, got a head in the clouds today.”

“S’no problem,” John says across the room as he shaves in the little mirror they have pinned up, “you’ve always been slow with Jamie anyway.”

“I’ll never call you James,” Ben shouts through the wall, “Bukawa, maybe- you’re not that respectable.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, combing a dab of pomade into his hair, “No one calls me Jamie back home.”

“Okay, what are you then?” John quips back and Bucky thinks that for all John acts like a fast-car-bachelor and sees more than he should to get a good dig at ya’, he’s considerate in the ways that count. 

Bucky dies in his throat, only Steve calls him that really. The dry cleaning gang call him that when they speak English, but Steve gave him that name and the idea of sharing any part of Steve with them seems especially hard on his birthday when all Bucky has of him right now is a single censored letter and a little water color of the back alley. He frowns at his comb for a second, “My ma’ calls me Jeimu.”

“I can do that,” Ben strolls through the doorway, all high-school cocky with his hair sticking up and a cotton plaid shirt on. It’s easy to forget that they’ve only been living together since May: he’s already used to the sounds of the other bachelors in their barrack moving around, it’s not that different from Shizumbe’s complex morning rituals or the Watanabe’s intense hanafuda nights. He’s not sure he’d finish a fist fight for John or Ben (maybe Ben) but he’d drag them home after and help with the iodine: so far, most of what they’ve shared were long nights playing koi-koi with the creased deck of hanafuda cards that Mr. Watanabe gave him and griping about the camp.

It’s-

it’s not that Bucky doesn’t understand people here. He gets the people that say they need to keep their heads down, they need to be good American citizens- and if locking them up ‘till the war is over is the only way to win it then- then. Then gaman. Persevere. Enduring. Maybe that’s where he stands; he’d walk by and clench his fist when the neighborhood starting having “No Japs” signs- but Steve-

Steve got banned from the local barber too when he cussed them out for refusing Bucky a haircut. The letter he got from Steve was short (censored) and merely told him that all was well at the dry cleaners and that he was doing his best to stop the vandalism at the shop (which, sounds like, isn’t nearly so bad for Japs in Brooklyn. John’s office building was almost burned down in Anaheim) and Bucky- I’m with you till the end of the line. He’s almost positive that Steve would be joining in the meetings down the gangway where the Yoshida brothers were trying to organize people, to demand better wages, to join the service, to protest and get the fuck out of the California badlands. But he’s not positive: Steve so strongly believes in duty to his country, a country that has turned its back on Bucky. He wishes he could just call Steve now and ask him directly: wants to know if Steve would be ashamed he wasn’t doing more to get out of here or if Steve wants him to keep his head down and survive and come home safe.

Ben looks a little like Steve slouched in the doorway; his complexion is a little lighter than theirs (he’s still finishing high school and doesn’t have a job yet, he had to stop going when the neighbors started throwing rocks at his parent’s shop) and he’s still a little lanky and his grin is painfully (young) daring and rebellious (afraid). “Jay-mu” he tries out, and Bucky realizes he couldn’t stand it if Ben called him Bucky.

“Jeimu,” John absently corrects as Bucky tosses him a clean handkerchief to put in his pocket, “ready?”

Bucky checks his watch, “we don’t get to stand in the mess hall for another 5-”

Ben clucks his tongue, “I doubt those soldiers are gunna stop us from lining up early to get grub.”

John gives him a sharp look, “they beat old men for less.”

“Oh yeah?” Ben huffed, and Bucky uneasily looked out the window to see if there were any other neighbors listening in, “bet you know all about the cold world, huh?”

John stepped forward and grabbed Ben’s arm, “Yeah, Nakamura, I know a thing or two about how this shit works. My pa’ wants me to go back to Osaka because when he came to visit- two days in the U.S. an’ he got fucking beaten by the neighbors for not minding the butcher’s wife on the street. So yeah, I know how white people can be. We’re stuck here ‘til they decide yellow people are worth a cent- you’ll fucking keep your head down ‘til they point the guns elsewhere or you won’t have one at all.” John shook him firmly for a second, “you understand me? You parents aren’t here-” his voice softened, “eh? someone needs to look out for you a little so you can go home safe.”

Ben looked at his shoes mulishly, “I don’t need anyone to take care of me... ‘n ‘sides, it’s easy for you to say, you had a fancy life before this. You got something to go back to.”

“-Is that what you’re getting out of this, Ben? We had lives? We all lost those-” Bucky breathed, sagging against the wall, Bucky felt the air getting punched out of him; in his mind, Ben and Steve snapped apart forever. Bucky didn’t need to ask anyone to take care of Steve- he knew the moment he left that Mrs. Watanabe would keep him in line as she always did, and he knew that Steve would keep doing his best to earn his keep. Steve might not know when to get out of a fight- but at least he knew what family meant. “Jesus fucking Christ- Ben-”

“- you little spoiled, Shit,” John hissed, “do you think I can go back to that? They had me in Tule Lake Ben, they took me right after Pearl Harbor- y’know why? Because I was born over there, I went to school there, because I write my mom every damn week. And now? Now I can’t hold a damn camera straight anymore, I can’t keep my hands steady enough. I can’t even go back to Osaka to suffer with my family. Yeah,” John’s voice turned snide, strangely cruel for the man who had taken Ben under his wing for the last months, Bucky suspected this outburst was a long time in coming, “your parents might be in another camp, but they’re not in Tule Lake. And they’ve made sure people are minding you, do you think it’s coincidence those Honda-s keep dropping by once a week?” He finally let go of Ben’s arm, his voice was hoarse “we can’t make sure you’re safe if you don’t help us. They want an excuse to make an example of a Jap.”

Ben looked guiltily at Bucky, John had started aimlessly (angrily) rifling through his ruck sack and they were both at a loss after that outburst. Bucky looked at his watch, “the line started a few minutes ago.”

They wordlessly left the barrack and walked over to the mess hall, ignoring the flags their neighbors had put out over their doorways. Ben lamely waved at the people who came by to chat with him (now he knew that Mrs. Ito and Doy were checking in on him). Ben and Bucky poked at their beans and rice, John scarfed it down, pulled out a book, and pointedly looked away.

“I’m sorry Jeimu,” Ben said quietly, pushing the last bit of food around his plate.

Bucky gave him a sidelong look, “I don’t think I’m the one you’re supposed to apologize to. But thanks anyway. ‘s mighty decent of you.”

“I- I know that,” Ben seemed much younger then, unsure of himself and a little afraid, he turned more towards John who kept his eyes trained on his book, “but my parents raised me better. I’m not doing anyone favors- I’ll do my best to clean up my act. I’m sorry, John. I- we don’t have many friends here. You ‘n me ‘n John, we gotta stick together, right?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said through a pull of water, “yeah, that’s right.”

“You got anyone waiting for you back home?” Ben asked timidly, Bucky saw John tilt his ear a bit.

He licked his lips, “Not a dame.” He started shoveling in the rest of his food, trying to dodge the questions about his real life- about Steve (he wanted to keep Steve to himself, try to tuck him away in an envelope to look at before he went to bed so he wouldn’t worry about his asthma in the summer humidity).

“But?” John looked up and leveled his eyes at Bucky, “what’s in Brooklyn? You got a lotta family?”

“You could say that,” Bucky hedged, “ma kicked me out in high school, but the dry cleaners took me in.”

“The Watanabes?” John prompted him, Bucky fought the urge to give him a dirty look- trust John to remember the one time he really mentioned working for them.

“Yeah, they took in the stray kids like me and my buddy Steve.”

“Steve?” Ben looked at the clock and John started putting away his book while they all tidied up their trays to take up to get washed. “Don’t know many Japs named Steve.”

“That’s ‘cause he ain’t Japanese, he’s a whitie.” Bucky stood up, piled his dishes in the bin, and left the mess hall. Back at the table, Ben tried to follow him and pester Bucky with a million questions- but John kept him back.

Bucky spent the day loading up the storage room for the kitchen: mostly bringing in sacks of rice with a few other guys as the ladies bustled around prepping vegetables for lunch and then dinner. A few women chatted with him about the night’s dance in the gym and around 3pm. his aunt dropped by to check in on him. He ducked out for a minute to check the mail and got a letter from Mrs. Watanabe (he didn’t get a chance to read it, but the envelope had a scrawled message about a fruitcake for Steve’s birthday). He ended up helping the kitchen move around pots of stew as they portioned it out and got a generous second helping in exchange. He got back to the barrack after dark: the way lit by some too-widely-spaced street lights and sparklers lighting up in the guard towers, the curfew had been lengthened for the night and he passed more than a few couples covertly making out. John was smoking a cigarette on the front step.

Bucky briefly considered trying to slip past him, but John lit up a cigarette for him and Bucky ended up sitting down next to him.

“There’s more to that Steve, isn’t there?” John said casually, stretching out his legs.

“He’s my best pal,” Bucky took a long drag of his cigarette, peering out into the other barracks and idly looking at the folks dressed up to dance, “he’s a little thing, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’s gunna go places.”

“No,” John said bluntly, “there’s more than that- he's something special to you.” Bucky almost choked and John gave him a compassionate look out of the corner of his eyes, there was a long pause and then “y’know, it’d be harder for me to hide it back in Osaka. In front of my parents? They kept showing me off to nice girls, I picked up photography so I could get away. Maybe this place isn’t the best for me, but there’s others like us in Anaheim.“ He pushed his shoulder against Bucky, “tell me about this Steve.”

Bucky stubbed out his cigarette, “It’s his birthday.”

“No shit?” they shared a crooked grin.

“Nah,” Bucky snorted, “he’s a tough son of a bitch, maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, but- he’d got a good heart and won’t let other people start shit. Last year on his birthday I took him out to Coney Island and we were almost banned after he busted a guy’s lip,” he thought for a sec, “he wasn’t too riled up when the fella was just teasing a little pussy-cat, but then that shit called me Jap and he lost it. Started hollering about America bein’ a place for everyone.”

John barked out a harsh laugh.

“I know, I know-” Bucky let out a long breath, “but my best guy, since we were in grammar school. He even learned Japanese, he’s working at the dry cleaners now.” He looked at his watch, “well, with any luck, now he’s having a slice of cake and a cuppa coffee.”

John gave him a fond look as he ashed his cigarette, they both stood up, “I was thinking of just bailin’ on this dance, I get the feeling it’s teenagers and married folk, how about you and I have a drink?” he snagged a flask from inside his jacket.

Bucky took a long pull and the two went in for a long night of cards.

[torentialtribute]

I want to see six England tries and a perfect scrum! England must set own targets against Italy

England will win on Saturday, that is clear. Italy has lost 20 Six Nations matches in a row, which should not be comfortable with those who lead the tournament.

The hardest games to prepare are

England has to set goals – and ideally make them public. Eddie Jones and his players have to get something tangible out of the game. I would like to have the back page of the Saturday on the newspaper to tell everyone what I expected. My players, the team from Italy, media and fans all know what England wants to achieve.

Call it arrogant if you want, but you have to create pressure where there is none. Without it, you can be burned.

Brute honesty, man for man in Italian would come close to making this team from England.

There were pictures of confused players in white shirts with Twickenham and the captain of England who asked about the laws.

While reading his tenders this week, you can see that it's still a bit crazy, so Saturday is affordable

It's hard to get home motivated for Italy, because the result is undoubtedly, so with that in mind here is what I want from England to help move Cardiff

Aa an absolute minimum I want England to make six attempts on Saturday.

Conor O & # 39; Shea and the Italians, and that is exactly what I would like to do. ?

They have to play fast and if they do, they have to be able to put Italy away. The attack of England staggered in Cardiff – in the second half, where they scored only three points, I would give their attack a mark of 10 – so it's time to get back on track.

If I say I would like to say that I would like to say that I would like to say that I would like to say that I would like to say "the press." That would produce headlines that the Twickenham crowd I would expect six attempts – and my players would not be surprised to read those headlines as we would have talked about them all week.

[ELK ENGELAND SCRUM] England has to win every scrum on their move. And in the ball of Italy, England must try to disrupt 25 percent. Attack their scrums and make yours perfect.

Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler are fiery types at gag, they will take up the challenge, Jamie George is a strong hooker and George Kruis and Joe Launchbury are experienced operators in the second row. ] If England wants to be the best in the world, they must have the best scrum. Strive for perfection.

If England wants to be the best in the world, then they must have the best scrum in the world

DOMINATE THE LINEOUT

] Line-outs are harder to nail, so I will be more demanding here. Winning 85 percent of our throws and disrupting 25 percent of them is more feasible.

Cross will lead this and working together with Launchbury, Brad Shields and Tom Curry, England would have to rule the heavens without any problem

Can England get its basics right? They know that they have a better scrum and line-out than Italy, so expect to dominate.

No hanging around at line-outs that discuss the calls. With scrums, I want a fast, clean and efficient ball with no mistakes.

Fast teams are devastating in the international sport and brilliant to see.

England does not score six attempts due to the naming of the big midfield because Italy will tackle Ben Te & # 39; o and Manu Tuilagi. These are not schoolboys stuff. They have to think and do much more creatively and faster in the midfield.

Therefore I would have played Henry Slade.

If I were to play against this midfield of England, I would not worry about their physicality, but they would be afraid that they would be able to shake me their speed. Jonny Wilkinson, Mike Tindall, Will Greenwood and Jason Robinson had no problem with bigger boys.

We were aimed at players like Jonah Lomu.

If I were Italy I would attack what England thinks its strength – the rulers.

But for England the target must be six attempts, 100 percent scrums, 85 percent line-outs.

It will surely have distracted them and if Saturday does not go well for Wales, there will only be one thing that gets blamed.

The Murrayfield game will come close – if Wales is not quite there, Scotland can certainly win – but I support Wales.

It was hard for Wales and Warren Gatland with all politics wandering

France still worry me. They will be such a dangerous team for England during the World Cup, and if they win in Ireland, their whole outlook will change. Everyone will be happy again, with everything that looks like the right track.

Meanwhile, if Ireland would lose Sunday, their World Cup year could unravel because it would recover quickly. Still, I expect that home advantage counts for Joe Schmidt and the Irish.

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[aion-rsa]

The Triumphant Return of Vertigo

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The most influential comics imprint of all time is back in full force, as DC kicks off a new era for Vertigo.

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Interview Marc Buxton

DC Entertainment

Sep 4, 2018

Vertigo

Sandman. Fables. Preacher. Lucifer. iZombie. Y, the Last Man, Transmetropolitan, 100 Bullets. The Books of Magic. These are just some of the titles that have forged the legend of Vertigo.

Since the late 1980s, Vertigo has been DC’s imprint for cutting edge, mature comics that defy limitations and genre. Some of the greatest voices in comics, including Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison, Brian K. Vaughan, Brian Azzarello, Ed Brubaker, Peter Milligan, Jamie Delano, G. Willow Wilson, and so many more have walked the razor’s edge of Vertigo and through daring and constant experimentation, have broken the barriers of traditional comics and crafted the future. But for the past few years, the Vertigo output has been sparse. Yes, there have been cool projects here and there, but even the most ardent Vertigo supporter would have to admit that the flame of Vertigo has been burning low.

That’s all about to change with the roll out of seven new Vertigo titles that will reignite the brand and remind people why Vertigo is the go to place for new ideas and innovative talent. We checked in with Vertigo Executive Editor Mark Doyle for a breakdown of all the dizzying new ideas that will soon be infecting the unsuspecting comic book market.

Just so you know, I’m a big Vertigo head from years back. I spent my formative years wearing eye shadow and black nail polish because of Neil Gaiman.

You too?

That being said, why is now the time in this busy marketplace for a DC Vertigo relaunch and rebrand?

It’s the 25th anniversary. Once something has been around for a while, it’s time to look at it and say, “What’s working, what’s not? What do we like about this? What don’t we like about this?” That’s kind of the catalyst to all this. And, it also felt like it was the right time to look at the kind of stories we were doing and reevaluate things.

The last few years, the Vertigo output has been small. Quality but small. I just finished Death Bed, I enjoyed Motherlands, and Of course you’ve had Astro City rocking because that book is just the best. How did you go from those few titles into a complete Vertigo relaunch?

I came back to Vertigo in spring 2017. We restructured the editorial team. There were a few editors who were already here and we brought in two other editors and me. In restructuring, we sat down and said, “What are we doing? What do we like? What aren’t we doing? Where do we want to relaunch?”

If you remember, July of last year is when we teased the idea of “8-8-18.” Because we knew at that point we were relaunching the entire line and Sandman Universe. We knew that’s where we would do it. That was us planting a flag and saying, “Hey, we might be sort of dormant for the next year, but we’re going to be putting some things out but keep your eyes out on this date because big things are coming.”

That gave us the time, and, honestly, I’m grateful for the company for saying, “Take a minute, take a breath, figure out what you want to do and then go from there.” The next step after planting that flag was: let’s sit down and talk about what we want to do, what type of stories do we want to tell? What do we want to publish? What are we excited to publish? What are we a little bit scared to publish? From there, let’s find the talent to meet that criteria.

To you, what makes a Vertigo creator in 2018?

It just has to be someone with a voice with something to say.

I don’t think you’ll argue with me when I say what’s going on in comics right now is because of the influence of Vertigo, because of Preacher and Sandman and Transmetropolitan and Y and 100 Bullets and everything. That kind of made the book market. That led the way. Do you feel a sense of  responsibility to plant the flags now so people in 2045 will look back and be like, “Yup, we’re here because of Vertigo.”

One hundred percent. And responsibility is the right word. That’s what I feel when I walk into work every day. I, like you, love Vertigo. I found Vertigo at a time that mattered the most to me. I take it very seriously that it’s my job to carry that torch and tell stories for a new generation of readers. That’s the goal.

Why the rebranding of DC Vertigo? Why add the DC to the already established brand?

It’s part of an overall publishing plan. I think the company is making some great moves to go from DC Comics to DC Publishing with different books aimed at readers of different age groups, styles and tastes. It makes sense to be a part of that.

Obviously Vertigo’s bread and butter has always been the book market, are there any plans to try to keep increase the single issues’ presence in the direct market? How are you going to get those Wednesday warriors to support the single issues?

That’s a good question, and it’s an ongoing conversation. It’s a lot of stuff we’re doing that I can’t talk about yet.

One of the things we’re doing is that, rather than look at them as two markets we’re trying to look at it as creating a cohesive campaign with a message. The books are so diverse; you can’t just sell the books to the same person. It’s more about, how do you sell each of these books individually? How do we reach a potential audience that each one of these books have, and make sure that the message is clear from the periodical and direct market and trade market and book market. Make sure we have all the teams in the room together creating one cohesive campaign.

further reading: Sandman - The Essential Horror Comic of the 1990s.

The other half of it is, really, we have a lot of really smart plans from the digital side and house ad side. We want to engage the creator’s fan base. We have creators bringing in eyeballs from other media and other aspects of this business and reaching out to them.

How does Warners look at the Vertigo label knowing that you gave them iZombie, you gave them Lucifer, you gave them Preacher? I think every fan knows Sandman is the next Lord of the Rings waiting to happen, you just have to get the right visionary. 100 Bullets is one day going to take the world by storm. Does Warners look at Vertigo as an IP machine away from the superhero genre? 

Yes, I think so. I am part of those conversations, but, look, at the end of my day, that’s not my job; my job is to make great comic books. That’s what I love to do. Look, I’m a total cinephile…I read comics because I want to read comics. I make comics because I want to make comics.

Right, I don’t think anyone wants to read a comic that is obviously a failed TV pitch. The Walking Dead was a great comic. No one had any idea that this could happen, and that’s why this happened.

Exactly, and I’m not looking at anything we are publishing now or developing now as anything that’s like, “Well, this would be a really expensive TV show so maybe we shouldn’t use aliens or spaceships.” I can’t do that. Anything that limits the creator, I’m not interested in. At the end of the day, that’s someone else’s job. I could make a great book. And  look at the things that have been developed. The comics are an inspiration.

Right, I don’t think when anyone was reading Mike Carey’s Lucifer they said, “You know, this is going to be a really good police procedural one day!”

Exactly.

Talk about genres, other than Hex Wives from Ben Blacker and Mirka Andolfo and American Carnage by Bryan Hill and Leandro Fernandez, these new titles seem to be exploring genres outside Vertigo’s sweat spots of dark fantasy and crime. Is this a redefining of what DC Vertigo could be or can we expect more classic Vertigo books after the initial roll out?

I love all genres and I’m happy to explore them all. I’ve never thought of us as being about this genre or that genre, to me it’s always been about telling great stories and creating new characters. To do that, you have to be open. My hope is that we continue to grow and people see that we can do anything and everything. Historical fiction, romance, non-fiction…whatever. If it’s a great story it belongs here.

Let’s talk about each one of the new Vertigo books...

Border Town by Eric M. Esquivel and Ramon Villalobos

When a crack in the border between worlds releases an army of monsters from Mexican folklore into the small town of Devil’s Fork, Arizona, the residents blame the ensuing weirdness — the shared nightmares, the otherworldly radio transmissions, the mysterious goat mutilations — on “God-dang illegals.” With racial tensions supernaturally charged, it’s up to new kid in town Frank Dominguez and a motley crew of high school misfits to discover what’s REALLY going on. (September)

This seems like the most ripped-from-the-headlines type of new Vertigo book. Talk about the genesis of this project.

This sounds like I might be dodging the question, but honestly, when the pitch came in it was one of those pitches, I was like, “Yes, one hundred percent, yes!” It was a one page pitch at the beginning, and it just clicked.

But here’s exactly how this book got put together. It started when editor Jamie Rich was talking with Eric Esquivel. Eric had pitched a few things over the years. Jamie is editing the Batman books now, but he was here at Vertigo when I started, and we developed a lot of stuff together…Eric pitched a lot of stuff and nothing was clicking. Then Jamie went to Eric and did what good editors do which is say, “Pitch me the thing that only you can write. Pitch me the thing you can’t do anywhere else.” Eric regrouped and he came back with Border Town.

And here’s an interesting genesis, in between Jamie getting the pitch from Eric, Jamie moved over and did the Batman books full time, the book moved over to editor Andy Khouri. Andy loved the pitch, and immediately came back with Ramon as the artist. It was just sort of this combination one editor talking to a guy and being passed along and evolving. Watching them work together is incredible. There was this great moment where Jamie read it and thanked us because it was amazing.

There were some early disturbing, angry responses to this book including some disturbing stuff around San Diego Comic-Con, how do you deal with the risks surrounding such polarizing issues as you enter this new Vertigo line?

I mean, look, I don’t take any of this lightly, but, I look at it as, if someone is talking about this in a good way or a bad way, we’re doing our job right. We should be making books that elicit a response one way or another.

Right, you’re not doing Richie Rich.

Right. No. It goes back to your earlier question: What’s a Vertigo creator today? A Vertigo creator today is someone with a voice. And, Erica and Ramon have something to say. It’s my job to help them tell their story. If someone has a problem with that then don’t read the book, because frankly, I don’t want you anyway.

Hex Wives by Ben Blacker and Mirka Andolfo

“The women are too powerful. They must be tamed.” A malevolent conspiracy of men brainwashes a coven of witches to be subservient, suburban housewives. But it’s only a matter of time before the women remember their power... (October)

This seems like the most classic Vertigo style book of all the new titles. Was there a conscious choice of including a classic supernatural style Vertigo book?

Yes and no. We sort of started with the big picture top down question of what genres we want to do. But it wasn’t buckets we had to fill. It wasn’t like I kept hitting the pavement until I got a witch book. It wasn’t like that. But when it came in from Ben, you felt it scratching some itches. Not only did it feel like a classic Vertigo book, it felt very present. It felt like, “Oh yeah, with this set up we can absolutely explore some interesting things that we can explore right now.” Ben is just so genuinely interested in the process of everything… it really comes through in the work.

American Carnage by Bryan Hill and Leandro Fernandez

In this thrilling crime saga, disgraced FBI agent Richard Wright, who is biracial but can pass for white, goes undercover in a white supremacist group believed to be responsible for the death of a fellow agent. (November)

Bryan Hill has been killing it on Detective Comics. This book seems like it’s in the same zeitgeist as Spike Lee’s new film and the Vertigo classic Incognegro. What drew you to this book?

I think what I liked about this book is that it was a crime story. There was a high concept pitch to it. You’ll see when you start digging into it; it’s just an incredible, complex crime story where you have a hero that’s walking into a world thinking, “I get this. I can do this. I can subvert this.” Everything seems black and white and then everything changes once they get wrapped up in it.

Goddess Mode by Zoë Quinn and Robbi Rodriguez

In a near future where all of humanity’s needs are administered by a godlike A.I., it’s one young woman’s horrible job to do tech support on it. But when Cassandra finds herself violently drawn into a hidden and deadly digital world beneath our own, she discovers a group of super-powered women and horrific monsters locked in a secret war for the cheat codes to reality. (December)

This seems the most experimental of the new line. What makes this a perfect part of the Vertigo launch?

I think experimental is a good word. I think some people might turn their nose up at experimental, but I think good things come out of experimental. Again, it was the guiding light on all these books. Is the talent someone who has something to say? When Andy Khouri brought me Zoë, I said, “Yes, that’s a great idea.” That’s one of the things we said from the very beginning, “Let’s bring in people who aren’t doing comics but could make great comics.”

One of the amazing things about all these people we reached out to, you start with a pitch of, “Hi, I’m an editor and Vertigo,” and we don’t have to do the full pitch because talent is like, “Yes, stop right there. I’m in.” All of these creators knew DC and Vertigo and was like, “Yes!” That was a really cool response. This was something that came out of conversations with Neil Gaiman and working on Sandman Universe.

One of the observations he had was that it was amazing working with the creators he was working with, the writers and artists both, all these people who grew up reading and adoring his work. I worked on the Batman books, and when you called people to work on Batman, they’d lose their minds. A similar thing happens with Sandman and the Sandman world… that’s a very cool thing to see. You have a whole generation of people who’d rather do a Sandman book and a Vertigo book.

Talk about working with the co-creator of Spider-Gwen Robbi Rodriguez. He seems to know what the readers want before the readers know it.

That’s a great way to frame Robbi. I’ve known Robbi for a long time. I first met him in San Diego about five hundred years ago, and he had a self-published book. This was like 2010. He was looking to do some stuff. I worked with on a Vertigo book I did called F.B.P. We did that book, we hit it off.

As I was developing the new Vertigo books, he reached out to me and said, “Hey, I’m going to be wrapping things up on Spider-Gwen, I’m looking for something else. I feel like a challenge, I want to come home to Vertigo. What have you got?” At the same time this pitch was being developed with Zoë and it seemed like a natural fit. He did a book called Frankie Get Your Gun. It’s funny you say Robbi is ahead of the curve, because this book was Mad Max: Fury Road before Fury Road. He knows what people wants before they want it.

High Level by Rob Sheridan and Barnaby Bagenda

Hundreds of years after the world ended and human society was rebuilt from scratch, a self-interested smuggler with a price on her head is forced to traverse a new continent of danger and mystery to deliver a child messiah to High Level, a mythical city at the top of the world from which no one has ever returned. (2019)

Forgive my ignorance. I’m not familiar with this creative team. 

It doesn’t surprise me that you’re not familiar because Rob comes from a different world. Rob comes from the music world. He was the artistic designer with Nine Inch Nails for years. He did concept designs and album designs. Web design was all Rob. He has this interesting aesthetic, but he always loved comics and is an interesting storyteller in his own right. When we reached out to him, he was like, “Yes, I’d love to do a Vertigo book.” Again, that was Andy Khouri coming to me and saying he thought of a person outside what we do but he likes what we do.

Barnaby worked with Andy on a book he first edited when he came to DC called Omega Men with Tom King. If you go back and look at that book, you’ll see what a terrific world Barnaby does with terrific characterization.

Safe Sex by Tina Horn and Mike Dowling

A dystopian sci-fi thriller about a ragtag team of sex workers fighting for the freedom to love in a world where sexual pleasure is monitored, regulated and policed by the government. (2019)

Safe Sex seems like it could be the sleeper hit of the line. Why should this book be on the readers’ radar? And please, tell us about how this book came about.

This book should be on readers’ radars because Tina is a great writer. She is another person that came outside of comics. She has this incredible podcast called Why Are People Into That?

In this case it was editor Amedeo Turturro who came to me and said, “Here’s an interesting person who never did comics.” I said, “Yes, we should reach out to her.” She immediately got it; she immediately got Vertigo and she had this really great, very relevant, very present pitch, but at the end of the day, it’s a story about love. It’s about people who want to love each other despite the world that’s around them. You frame all that in a dystopian heist narrative and I’m like, “Yes, great, I’m in.” But when you work with someone who’s never written anything before, you say let’s try a sample script to see if they do it. And she really nailed it. Early on, you can tell if someone is missing it, but she totally got it in terms of pacing a page and an issue, she got it.

further reading: Brian Michael Bendis and the Future of Jinxworld at DC

I agree with you, it could be a sleeper hit. It looks great, too. With comics like this, it comes down to what does it look like. But here, there’s a definite tone to the world. It feels like a superhero book even though it’s not a superhero book.

Second Coming by Mark Russell and Richard Pace

God sends Jesus to Earth in hopes that he will learn the family trade from Sun-Man, an all-powerful superhero, who is like the varsity quarterback son God never had. But, upon his return to Earth, Christ is appalled to discover what has become of his Gospel and vows to set the record right. (2019)

From The Flintstones to Prez to Snagglepuss, Mark Russell is a writer that creates hits in the most unexpected places. Talk about working with Mark and what drew you to Second Coming.

It was a great pitch. A good pitch is when someone pitches you the first line and you can see what the next ten issues will be. Going back to what Vertigo means and what we want to be publish...one of my favorite Vertigo books before I got to Vertigo was Preacher. I always though Vertigo was a place that was not afraid to attack institutions and satirize things. I think that the world needs that. I think you need to hold things up and say, “Look at this people. Should we be doing this?”

The top line of Mark’s pitch was funny, but once you dig into the story and characters, you see he’s incredibly real and honest and just wants to explore what it means to be a good person. He pitched two characters that represent two extremes of the spectrum and that’s where great drama comes from.

Any plans to incorporate classic DCU characters into the new Vertigo like the imprint has done in the past like Joe Lansdale did with Jonah Hex, and others did with Creeper, Haunted Tank, Deadman, hell, even Sandman.

The short answer to that is, that’s when I take off my Vertigo hat and put on my DC Black Label hat. That’s when people come to me and say, “Listen, I have this take on this character in a darker format,” that’s when we talk about Black Label.

from Books https://ift.tt/2wHyZaP

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Barzal, Panarin Each Hit 80 Points

Barzal, Panarin Each Hit 80 Points

Mathew Barzal scored two goals and added an assist, giving him 60 assists and 82 points on the season. Let’s step back and admire what a rookie season it has been for Barzal, who is the first rookie since Evgeni Malkin in 2006-07 to reach 80 points. The Calder Trophy is pretty much his at this point, as he is nearly 20 points clear of the next highest-scoring rookie (Clayton Keller). One burning question I have: Will he be the Islanders’ first line center next season? That question applies whether or not John Tavares is back on Long Island.

Barzal’s linemate Anthony Beauvillier scored a goal and added two assists on seven shots on goal, giving him 20 goals on the season. Beauvillier is riding a four-game goal streak, so he should be rolling in your fantasy lineup as the Islanders play out the string.

Nolan Patrick scored two goals and added an assist in the same game, which places him one point shy of 30 in his rookie season. These splits seem to foreshadow progression next season. Don’t forget to add the 2017 second overall pick to your sleeper list.

Oct-Jan: 41 GP, 11 PTS (0.27 PTS/GP)

Feb-Apr: 30 GP, 18 PTS (0.6 PTS/GP)

Over a full season, Patrick’s production over the past two months would amount to a 50-point pace.

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Did anyone have Taylor Hall booked for 90 points playing on the Devils? With two goals and two assists on Tuesday, Hall has now reached 93 points and is just one goal shy of 40. Hall is also third with 37 power-play points and ninth with 274 shots. Hall was barely drafted in the top 100 (ADP: 92.5 in Yahoo leagues), yet he won’t come nearly as cheap next season.

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Those hoping that Erik Karlsson would cash in because of the Sens’ four-game week will be disappointed that he will miss the final three games of the season. Understandable, though, given what he has been through. Have we seen the last of him in a Senators’ uniform? The offseason should certainly be interesting.

If you’re a Karlsson owner playing for a championship, Thomas Chabot is worth an add. He scored two goals and an assist on Monday and also has three games over the last four days of the fantasy season. Expect big minutes and power-play opportunity with Karlsson out. Chabot’s fantasy value will be helped big time if Karlsson is shipped out without an adequate return on defense.

Speaking of the Sens, Mark Stone is expected to be a game-time decision on Wednesday. Get ready to activate him in case he plays.

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With a goal and two assists on Tuesday, Artemi Panarin has four consecutive multipoint games with 11 points over that span. Projected by many to regress in Columbus, Panarin has actually improved with his first 80-point season. Panarin has been ripping it up during the fantasy playoffs with 28 points in just 17 games since the beginning of March. We can officially abandon the narrative that Panarin’s point totals were high because of Patrick Kane. He’s an exceptional player on his own.

With his goal on Tuesday, Pierre-Luc Dubois now has five goals over his last three games and seven points over his last four games. On Panarin’s line, Dubois has been a point-per-game player over that same hot stretch since early March.

The other player on that line is Cam Atkinson, who with two goals on Tuesday now has 10 goals and 15 points over his last 10 games. He was also a point-per-game player since early March after a disappointing first half. Between this red-hot top line and the solid goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky, does anyone like the Blue Jackets as a potential Cinderella team out of the East? Something I’m starting to think about.

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You might think that Kyle Connor has at least partially been a product of his linemates. So it’s worth mentioning that he scored his 30th  goal of the season to go with two assists. His linemates for Tuesday? Try Jack Roslovic and Andrew Copp. The Jets rested Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler, among others, for this game. Somebody tell these coaches that we have fantasy titles to win and we need our big guns in the lineup!

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In stopping all 33 shots he faced against Atlantic rival Boston, Andrei Vasilevskiy won for the first time in four games and earned his first shutout in over two months. Surprisingly, he still leads the league in both categories. Vasilevskiy posted a goals-against average north of 4.00 in March (ouch!) so maybe it’s gotten to the point where you have benched him. It’s been that kind of rollercoaster ride for too many goalies this season.

Vasilevskiy and the Bolts earned the win in spite of being without Steven Stamkos, who is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

Charlie McAvoy returned to the Bruins’ lineup after missing 15 games. He was held without a point and was a minus-2.

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Hat trick for Jamie Benn, who has now cracked the 30-goal mark. His goal and point totals over the past couple seasons suggest that he is a very good fantasy option, but not an elite one as it stands now.

Kari Lehtonen left Tuesday’s game against San Jose with an upper-body injury. With Ben Bishop also sidelined, Mike McKenna came on in relief and stopped all 17 shots he faced to earn a come-from-behind win for the Stars.

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With his 42-save win against Calgary, Antti Raanta has now won six consecutive starts and nine of his last ten. Since January 1 Raanta has a 1.83 GAA and .942 SV%. I understand the Coyotes’ and Raanta’s rough starts, but how could he still only be owned in slightly less than half of Yahoo leagues? This guy could be winning you a championship as your third goalie!

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Here’s the Predators’ buzzer beater that was disallowed due to “goaltender interference.” Don’t ask me for my opinion because I don’t know what goaltender interference is anymore. It seems that Viktor Arvidsson pushing his stick on Roberto Luongo was enough for the refs to make the call.

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Even Carrie Underwood is weighing in now…  

I am seriously livid. @NHL , fix this.

— Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood) April 4, 2018

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Some Anaheim injury news: Cam Fowler is expected to be sidelined for the next 2-6 weeks (I know, doesn’t really narrow it down) with a shoulder injury, while John Gibson is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

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Remember Brandon Pirri? That Vegas magic dust rubbed off on him in his first game for the Vegas Golden Knights, as he scored two goals in a late game against the Canucks. Pirri was in the lineup because Erik Haula and Jonathan Marchessault were given the night off, a concept that seems to be growing in popularity in the NHL.

William Karlsson scored goal number 43 and added two more assists, giving him six 3-point games on the season. Much is made of the goal total, which no one predicted. But did you know that Wild Bill leads the NHL with a plus-46? I still say the goal total regresses next season with a likely shooting percentage decline (23 percent), but chemistry is chemistry and confidence is confidence. He’s found both in Vegas.

When Jussi Jokinen was sent to Vancouver in the Thomas Vanek trade, I assumed that he was just a throw-in that would mostly be healthy scratched over the remainder of the season. But injuries hit the forward ranks, and Jokinen has not only played, but thrived. With an assist on Tuesday, Jokinen now has seven points over his last five games. The way Jim Benning loves his veteran mentors, I now wouldn’t be surprised if Jokinen is brought back by the Canucks next season after playing for four teams this season. Especially with the Sedins retiring. Maybe Jokinens is even a late-season add if you’re in a deeper format.

Nikolay Goldobin posted the first two-goal game of his career on Tuesday, which gives him goals in back-to-back games and four points over his last three games. He shows flashes of brilliance, such as a goal I was in attendance for where he absolutely undressed Drew Doughty. Yet he disappears for long stretches, which should make him hard to trust in keeper leagues.

I’m sure you’ve heard or will hear about plenty of Sedin stories as they now play their final week. Here are two that stand out to me, both originating from their draft day in 1999:

The three trades that Brian Burke made to acquire both first-round picks needed (the Canucks already owned one pick). You may believe that Burke is an overrated GM/executive, but this was outstanding work and perhaps his finest moment as a GM. These trades ensured that the Sedins could spend their entire careers together. It’s fair to assume that they wouldn’t have had the individual success they had without each other.  

The 1999 draft class itself. Aside from the Sedins, this might be the weakest draft class ever. Ryan Miller and Henrik Zetterberg were superb later-round picks, but many of the names in the first round are unrecognizable today. This might serve as a cautionary tale of overvaluing draft picks relative to actual NHL players, although I am led to believe that scouting tools have improved in the information age.

Daniel recorded an assist, while Henrik was held without a point in their first game since they announced they would retire at the end of the season. I’ve got the Sunday Ramblings, so be prepared for at least a little bit of Sedin coverage as they play their final game on Saturday.

Classy move by the Golden Knights in sticking around to shake hands with the Sedins after the game.  

Congratulations on an incredible career! @canucks #ThankYouSedins pic.twitter.com/s4nu14fppP

— y – Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) April 4, 2018

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For more fantasy hockey information, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.

  from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-barzal-panarin-each-hit-80-points/

[marineclarity]

River Isle – Open – 4th February 2018

In last weeks post, I shared some great feedback I’d received, I wasn’t ‘angling’ (if you’ll excuse the pun!) for nice comments but it would seem that the blogs readers are a lovely lot and I just had to share a selection of the awesome things you had to say, thank you all so much, it means a lot to know you like what I do,

Ronald said ‘Jamie, look forward to reading the reports…top notch. Great small fish match fishing.�� Ben added ‘I live my fishing through your blog these days. Feel like I know the venues you fish and the characters you fish with so well. Great blogging mate.’ And this from Don ‘Great blog and great fishing glad you got a result, nice one’ On to this weeks report and it got colder in the week but we had some rain on Saturday which would hopefully add a bit of colour to the river. I walked miles of the river the day before as I was hoping to put some new sections in but at South Bradon the only fishable peg was 66 which looked amazing but there was nothing else to put with it, the Stone Bridge, Council House and Hell Hole all either had no depth or nowhere to sit and peg 74 which used to be full of chub has had all the trees recently removed and didn’t look very nice at all. I must admit I walked away from that section feeling disheartened. Things were better at North Bradon with the pool below the bridge looking really nice although it would possibly be quite awkward to fish, peg 96 below that looked awesome with loads of overhanging tree cover and I put a piece of paper down as a marker, there was also a nice looking swim below the wires which I put as 97 but as it was an unknown quantity, it would be a reserve peg, the next bend below looked good with far bank cover and a raft of rubbish, so that would be 98, I also looked at what used to be peg 100, which looked good but a really long walk. The forecast was for strong winds the following day, so I was going to put Lower Coxes in as Redbridge would be very exposed but when I stopped to have a look the access has been blocked with a big rock to try and stop the fly tippers. On a much more positive note, we had 16 anglers booked in with several new faces joining us including Steve Maynard who was coming all the way up from Cornwall to fish and Martin Pallett, Linda Pallett and Dave Taylor coming down from Newbury after reading about the river on the blog. Steve said he reads the blog and wanted to have a go on the Isle, he’d been asking about depths, tactics etc and I’ve tried to give him as much info as possible, he also came up and fished the Tone recently where he had a cracking day and framed. I was really hoping they’d all enjoy themselves and catch a few fish.

I got to the bowling club and they were already there along with a few regulars, I ordered breakfast before introducing myself. I finished eating and started taking the money, we always run an optional £5 superpool for the open and nearly everyone entered it. With everybody paid up, I explained about the sections and parking etc before announcing the draw, Adie went in early per usual but decided to let someone else have a go on 126 and 128 today as he pulled out 108 at Redbridge, a good peg but would be very exposed today. Hurf drew 125 and was happy with that, as was Terry ‘The Toast’ with 128 and Justin on 124, Baz wasn’t as impressed when he drew the same peg as last week, 123. Fieldy was on 126 and I was wracking my brains as to what pegs were left, Big Frank stuck his hand in the bucket and pulled out H4 which has been a very consistent peg, that left just one ball and I asked Frank to draw it for me, it was 96 which I was fairly pleased with but it was a bit of an unknown as it hasn’t been pegged for ages.

The newbies had a mixed bag of pegs, Steve and Martin had both drawn really well with pegs 120 and H1 respectively, Linda was on 129 which is a half decent draw and Dave was down with me on 98 at North Bradon. I’d decided to put the start time back by half an hour to give people plenty of time to find their pegs and set up and it was a good job I did as by the time I’d driven to Isle Brewers so Martin could follow me and then back to North Bradon where I showed Dave where his peg was, it was a bit of a rush to set up.

I have to say my peg looked really good and probably one of the most chubby looking swims on the river, I set up a 1 gram bodied float to fish across to the far bank at the top of the swim and also down in the flow under the overhanging branches, my other rig was a 1.5 gram DH13 for the deep hole in front of me. I was just about ready in time and started inching the lighter rig down in the flow, I was feeding casters and hemp in front of me and also across to the far bank at the top of the swim but wanted to leave that for at least an hour before trying it.

Hopefully a chub or three about!

I didn’t want to have to go too far down the swim if I could help it as the overhanging branches would make it hard work getting fish out. After half an hour with no indications, I decided to have a go at the top of the swim where the flow was going back on itself, the wind was hampering presentation and it was bloody cold as well! A further thirty minutes passed without any sign and it was starting to look like I might have to venture down into the lions den. I went back to inching the float down the middle of the peg and was holding the rig back by the second overhanging branch you can see in the photo when the float dipped under but there wasn’t the solid resistance I’d hoped for on the strike and a little gudgeon was the result!

At least I hadn’t blanked!

With no more indications, I’ve gone further down into the chubs lair but still no indications and I was starting to get the feeling it wasn’t going to happen. I did have one little knock but when I had a look at the bait, just the end had been nipped off the caster which I suspect was probably the work of a minnow. The wind was still playing havoc with presentation so I rested the pole on one of the branches while I had a cup of coffee, after a few minutes, I had a couple of knocks as something had a go at the bait although it didn’t really develop but at least I was starting to get a bit of interest. I still felt there was a good chance I’d get a couple of chub, which might seem like an odd thing to say with half the match gone and less than an ounce in the net, but I know there are chub in the swim and surely they would have a go at some point!

With about two hours to go, Justin phoned from peg 124 to see how I was doing, I told him and he said he was struggling too with just minnows to show for his efforts, apparently it was a similar story with Baz on 123 and even Hurf on 125 wasn’t bagging but he was putting a few fish together. So it sounded like the river was fishing really hard and a couple of chub might be enough to frame today and I was hoping they might show in the ‘golden’ last hour.

I was going through the motions a bit, running the float through, when out of the blue the float sailed away, a reflex strike saw a fair bit of elastic come out, I shipped back as fast as I could to keep the fish away from the snags but also avoiding the overhanging branches and slipped the net under a chub of around a pound and a quarter, it wasn’t one of the big boys that I know inhabit the swim but it was a start and with an hour and a half to go I fancied I might get a couple more.

Finally got one!

Despite my renewed enthusiasm, I never had another bite, I tried upping the feed but it just didn’t happen and with five minutes to go, Dave appeared behind me, the only fish he’d caught was a 2lb trout. I packed up and he weighed me in with my two fish pulling the needle around to 1lb 6oz. To be honest I don’t think the conditions have done us or the pegs any favours today and I still feel they’re good swims that on another day, could frame but it’s difficult when swims don’t produce, to justify using them again.

I got back to the bowling club and the first person I saw was Andy Welch who’d been at Redbridge and I asked how they’d gone on down there expecting him to say they’d struggled, he said both him and Adie had only caught minnows and the wind had been a nightmare but young Stuart Aplin had caught seven chub for a fantastic 15lb 15oz from peg 106 and Steve Maynard had a cracking bag of roach and dace weighing 13lb 8oz from peg 120. Thanks to Adie Bishop for the photos*

Stuart had some lovely chub for 15lb 15oz*

Steve enjoyed his first match on the Isle, catching 13lb 8oz of quality roach and dace*

As the others started filtering back, the river had fished hard in places with Martin having the best weight at Hambridge with 9lb 2oz followed by Frank with 6lb 14oz and Fieldy was top at Isle Brewers with 6lb 15oz, closely followed by Hurf with 6lb 14oz. Intrestingly, Linda on 129 has lost a couple of big fish with one surging off and snapping her number four section, was it that carp again or maybe a big pike. With Stu and Steve both framing in my section, I was the next best weight, just pipping Justin who had 1lb 3oz, to the £20 section money. Thanks to Hurf for the photos**

Fieldy won the bottom section with loads of small fish for 6lb 15oz** 

Hurf had 6lb 14oz from 125**

Terry had 2lb 14oz from peg 128**

Linda had 1lb 15oz from peg 129**

Justin wasn’t overly keen to be photographed with his 1lb 3oz!**

It’s amazing the difference a week makes, last weeks winning peg did 6lb 14oz, 124 only did 1lb 3oz and 128 did 2lb 14oz, all pegs people would have run to this morning and none of them picked up a bean! I bet there weren’t many who would have fancied Stu’s peg this morning, I must admit I thought Isle Brewers could be hard this morning but I thought Hambridge was going to be the place to draw so it just goes to show you never can tell. I reckon the bend just above 106 would hold fish and there’s another swim just above that, also the bend below 120 holds a load of fish so they have got to be worth a try in the future.

1 – Stuart Aplin (Ilminster) – 15lb 15oz 2 – Steve Maynard (Cornwall) – 13lb 8oz 3 – Martin Pallett (Newbury) – 9lb 2oz

Sections A – Jamie Rich (Against Men and Fish) – 1lb 6oz B – Graham Field (Taunton) – 6lb 15oz

I was really pleased for Stuart as it was his first Ilminster match win and it was also nice to see a couple of the new faces do well with Steve and Martin both framing and all four said they’d enjoyed themselves and want to come again.

I’ve updated the list of framing pegs so far in the thirteen matches we’ve had on the river,

120 – 8 times (won 2) 126 – 5 times (won 2) 128 – 5 times (won 1) 110 – 4 times (won 2) 125 – 4 times (won 2) 124a – 3 times 123 – 2 times (won 1) H1 – 3 times (won 1) 128a – 2 times H4 – 1 time (won 1) 106 – 1 time (won 1) 125a – 1 time 124 – 1 time

We’ve had ten different winners so far with Frank Woodard, Adie Bishop and me the only anglers to win more than one match.

Next up – River Isle

Coming soon – My next great review

Check Out – My last match (below)

[luxus4me]

GolfWRX http://j.mp/2vGeyNS

Distance is an extremely important aspect of becoming a better golfer. Perhaps you’ve seen this graphic put out by the folks at Trackman.

Notice that as golf handicaps go up, the average driver club head speed (and thus distance) goes down. Thus, one can deduce that more distance is a must in order to become a better player.

On the PGA Tour, players that keep their cards generally run in the +4 to +6 handicap range. The PGA Tour average club head speed is about 113 mph with the low man usually being around 105 mph.

“You can’t come out here [on the PGA Tour] with a 90-mile per hour swing speed and expect to compete.” – Lee Janzen

So, if you were to extend the graphic from above out a little further, this fits right in with the PGA Tour, too. Further, I looked at the scoring averages of the top-20 players and the bottom-20 players on the PGA Tour. And if you compile the low rounds of the day shot during each tournament round, that averages out to be approximately a 63.3 scoring average with a 302.8 yards/drive driving distance.

Scoring Average Driving Distance Top 20 Players on Tour 69.757 298.3 yards/drive Bottom 20 Players on Tour 72.556 287.5 yards/drive

As you can see, even within the confines of PGA Tour-level golf, distance matters to scoring. Knowing the importance of distance, I’d like to share with you a three-part series on some of the ways you might get more distance in its application to you playing better golf. The series will take cues from the longest hitters on the planet, competitors in the World Long Drive Championships.

“Distance is far more of an indicator [of success] than accuracy.” — Sean Foley

We’ll also draw my own personal experience of competing in 2003, 2006, and 2007 with a competitive long drive of 421-yards and peak club head speed in the low 140s, my experience being the go-to-guy for swing speed training as well as a Top 100 Most Popular Instructor, and the many conversations, interviews, etc., I’ve had with the top long drivers in the world via Swing Man Golf.

Specifically, the three areas we’ll look at are technique, equipment, and golf fitness.

Let’s get started with Part 1: Technique.

Long Drive Techniques

From a swing technique standpoint, these are some of aspects of the golf swing that you may wish to consider employing in your golf swing. Although you can integrate some of these swing aspects on your own in to your swing, I should caution you in doing so. Generally, I’d recommend working with a qualified professional, whether they are a PGA Professional or not, and/or someone who has the specific knowledge and experience with helping you achieve whatever is your specific goal.

For example, one of our Swing Man Golf experts is Adam Young, whose GolfWRX articles you can read here. Adam knows more than any other instructor I’ve ever come across regarding practice and learning within the application to and confines of playing golf. He’s a smart guy.

Or if you’re in the UK, you might work with someone like Lee Cox, who coaches numerous long drivers, including two-time World Long Drive Champion Joe Miller.

First, let’s look at setup.

Open Your Lead Foot

I’ve written about this previously in more detail in this GolfWRX article, but basically, I advocate that most golfers should open up their lead foot up a bit toward the target.

Most people are a little more flexible turning their feet outward than inward. So, if you set up in this manner, you’ll probably still be able to make a sufficient length back swing, but you may then be able to fire through the ball a bit better while keeping balance and minimizing the risk of injury to your lead knee, lead hip, etc.

On a side note, this is a good place to briefly mention stance-width. Many long drive guys stand so wide that it similarly compromises their balance (and thus ball-striking). It also exposes them to potential injury.

If you open your rear foot as I did in the picture above, that’s a pretty good width. John Daly, Mike Austin, and Sam Snead are also good examples of not going so wide that they lose balance.

A Strong-Looking Grip

If you want to hit it farther, it’s often best to employ a “strong-looking” grip. I say “strong-looking” because it’s possible that you could turn your lead arm in your shoulder socket such that from a face-on viewpoint the grip looks strong, but the wrist position is still neutral. It would only look strong in 2D because of how your arm is oriented in your shoulder socket and not because you turned your hand.

In any case, a strong or stronger grip can help you get the club head get back to square at impact when swinging fast. It can also can simplify the back swing and downswing by eliminating a level of pronation and supination (wrist rolling) needed to get the club face in a good impact position. You can learn more about actions of the wrists and forearms in one of my previous GolfWRX articles here.

With a strong-looking grip, you can simply make a simple chopping motion (ulnar and radial deviation) with your lead hand back and down to impact… and either a chopping motion or throwing motion with your trail hand depending on whether that trail hand grip has a strong or neutral-looking grip, respectively.

Often, if you hear announcers and instructors saying that someone’s club face is “closed” or “shut” at the top of the back swing (I’m not really a fan of these terms, but that’s for another article) from a down-the-line viewpoint. It may be an indication that the golfer set up with a strong looking grip.

On the PGA Tour, think of guys like Ryan Palmer or Boo Weekley as examples of this.

A Long Backswing

If you look at average backswing length, long drivers will have a longer backswings than tour players, who will be longer than amateurs. Check out this picture of professional long drivers Ben Tuaone, Patrick Hopper, and Jim Waldron of Tour Striker from left to right. Those are some long swings!

Jim not only gets the club past parallel relative to the ground from this viewpoint, but he is past perpendicular! Amazing! Being able to swing this long doesn’t necessarily mean you will hit the ball all over the planet. I recall that in one previous study that I did, about one-third of PGA Tour players take the club past parallel. You can be an excellent ball striker and still have a long backswing.

The most popular example is probably John Daly, who has had a great golf career employing a very long back swing. Recently, I had the opportunity to caddy for Andre Bossert in the Senior PGA Championship, and we played the final round with John. His speed isn’t quite what it used to be, but the length of his backswing still helps him be as long as anyone in his peer age group.

Being able to swing longer with control fits more in the category of golf fitness, so we’ll cover that in the Part 3.

Let the Trail Leg Straighten and Lead Foot Come Off the Ground

That being said, if you want to lengthen your backswing without going through the golf fitness work, one way is to allow your trail leg to straighten in the backswing and let your lead heel come off the ground with an everted lead ankle. You’ll see this in older swing styles, most notably with Sam Snead.

Swing this way basically lets your hips turn farther back, which lets your upper body turn farther back. That lets the backswing lengthen, which can lead to longer drives.

High Hands

As TPI has also noticed, long hitters tend to have very high hands at the top of the back swing. Personally, I’ve always tended to have more of a lower-handed, flat backswing, but I can tell you I can swing faster from a higher-hand position at the top of the backswing.

I didn’t fully realize this until one day I was messing around on Kenn Hundley’s Long Ball Trainer (formerly the Golf Swing Emulator), which is basically a gym machine you can use to make weighted swings. I made my normal flat swing and was able to pull a certain amount of weight around my body in the downswing down to impact. After Kenn adjusted the tilt of the machine so my hands had to be higher at the top of the back swing, I could pull much more weight “down” in the downswing versus “around” with my normal flatter swing, which makes sense because you get a gravity assist. Sure enough, I tried the same higher-hands motion with my driver and my speed went up.

Parametric Acceleration

Parametric acceleration in the golf swing basically means that in the downswing, prior to and through impact, you provide an upward pulling force to the club, and this can then give the club a bit extra whip through impact.

You can do this in several ways. For example, you might pull with your lead arm so that it’s bent at impact. It generates sort of a chicken wing look like you see with two-time World Long Drive Champion Jamie Sadlowski. Another way is the two-foot “jump” through impact that is professed by some, and you’ll see that a bit in long drive when golfers are literally off the ground with both feet. On force plates, the pressure measurements go dark because the guys are airborne.

I don’t really like either of these movements, though, because I think they are hard to control and they mess with the low point of your swing, which makes good, consistent ball-striking more challenging. If a person is already functional doing either of those, fine, but I wouldn’t advise intentionally trying to incorporate either one.

My preferred way is a one-foot “jump” with a simultaneous tuck, or side-bending, of the trail side. In the downswing, as you get shifted over to your lead side, you push the lead shoulder up using your lead leg (but without jumping off the ground). At the same time, you crunching your trail side and bring the trail shoulder downward. 

From a face-on view in 2D, it might look like the taboo Reverse-C position that we are supposed to stay away from, but in 3D it’s side bend. Once you get through the ball, you can stand up. There’s no need to have any dramatic back bend.

Plus, this combo move helps preserve the relationship of your C7 vertebrae to the ground, which dictates where your low point is located while still allowing you to use your legs to leverage power to the golf ball through your spine and take advantage of parametric acceleration.

Lots of Hand Hit

The last thing I’ll mention in Part 1 is the amount of hand “hit” you see with golfers who drive the ball long relative to their size (think of the small golfer who hits it far). This is also true of golfers who are long hitters but don’t look like they’re swinging fast like Fred Couples or Mike Austin.

Note in the photo above of Mike Austin that his arms move only about 180 degrees in this photo, yet the club moves over 360 degrees in the same amount of time. There’s no trying to hold off the release in order to maximize compression. Rather, this is some serious hand slap!

I remember when Mike was in his 90s before he passed away, he would do this thing where he had me hold out my hand and he’d move his left arm through the range shown above and slap my outstretched hand. The first time would be “holding off the release,” and it felt like someone was giving me a soft, low five. The second time would be with some wrist flick and, man, that would sting my hand! That’s the kind of hurt that can be put on the ball.

As Mike used to say, “Don’t impede the pendulum.”

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Should the Browns trade for Jimmy Garoppolo? We debate it from all sides

It seems like a good bet Jimmy Garoppolo will be traded somewhere this offseason.

The New England Patriots are working on an extension with Tom Brady, and he looks like he might make good on his promise to play into his mid-40s (he turns 40 before next season). Garoppolo’s contract runs out after next season. The Patriots can’t really pay $20 million or so to franchise tag Brady’s backup, they can’t give Garoppolo a starting-quarterback-level contract with Brady still in place, and one would have to imagine Garoppolo would want to go somewhere else and start. Either the Patriots trade him now, or they’ll likely lose him for nothing a little more than a year from now.

The Cleveland Browns are emerging as the most logical trade partner. They need a quarterback and that 12th overall pick looks just about right for a trade.

But is it wise? Our Shutdown Corner writers Shalise Manza Young, Eric Edholm and Frank Schwab did a little role playing, speaking from the perspective of Garoppolo, and both sides the Browns front office will have to consider before making the trade:

Jimmy Garoppolo (played by Shalise Manza Young): There was such a big deal made when the New England Patriots drafted me in the second round of the draft in 2014. Bill Belichick had never drafted a quarterback so high in his 15 years with New England – hell, I was taken 137 spots before Tom Brady – and I was immediately seen as Brady’s eventual successor.

Even Coach Belichick stoked that fire: on my draft night, he told reporters, “We all know what Tom’s age and contract situation is.” Brady was 36 years old at the time and turned 37 during our first training camp together. All he’s done since then is bring us to three AFC Championship games and two Super Bowl wins. Not exactly a sign that Father Time is knocking at his door.

Look, it’s been great learning from Tommy and Josh McDaniels and Coach Belichick these last three years. But I’m already 25, Tommy’s contract is for two more years, and there was a report this week that the Patriots and Tommy have interest in extending him even longer! How long am I supposed to wait?!?

Aaron Rodgers sat behind Brett Favre for three years, then became the Packers’ starter at 25. I’m already that old now. The Patriots drafted Jacoby Brissett last year and he’s off to a good start, so he could be Brady’s successor in a few years. Or maybe Tommy will play until he’s like 48 and his successor is still in high school. Who knows.

The beginning of this season wasn’t exactly a dream scenario for us, with Tommy getting the shaft from Roger Goodell, but I got a chance to start. It was supposed to be a four-game stint, but it didn’t quite work out that way: I was picking apart the Miami Dolphins in Week 2 when Kiko Alonso drove me to the turf and I wasn’t able to start the last two games of Tommy’s suspension.

I was good in my starts. Heck, I’ll even say darn good. I brought us back in Week 1, on the road against the Arizona Cardinals, and then had us up big on Miami before I got hurt. Not to brag but in those two games, I completed 42-of-59 passes (that’s over 71 percent) with four touchdowns and no picks.

Sure, there’s not a lot of game action to judge me on. But look at what I said: I’ve spent three years watching every move Tommy Freaking Brady has made. I’ve been put through the ringer in Coach Belichick’s practices. I’ve learned one of the most complex offenses in the NFL.

Who wouldn’t want me over Mitch Trubisky? (No offense, Mitch.)

I can’t thank the Patriots enough for drafting me in 2014, but I’ve watched other teams play, and there are some bad quarterbacks out there. Cleveland isn’t exactly my dream city, but it’s pretty close to home, so that’s not so bad. I hear Hue Jackson is great with quarterbacks, and if we can get the Browns to the playoffs, we would be kings. And if not Hue and Cleveland, I see the Chicago Bears and San Francisco 49ers might also be looking for a new quarterback.

I can win in this league; I know I can. Give the Patriots a first-round pick instead of wasting it on some project QB who might never work out, and let’s get to work.

Oh, and you might have to pay me a little bit. But success isn’t cheap, right?

The aggressive Browns GM (played by Eric Edholm): Look, we’ve done what you’ve said is smart. We’ve squirreled away a lot of draft picks, most of them up high. That’s good, right? Our problem is using them on college players. Our success rate has been sub-optimal, you see.

That’s why we have to send the 12th pick — and, if we must, a little sweetener down the road — to the Patriots for Jimmy Garoppolo. And we’re more than happy to do it. A few reasons why …

Our new regime, one roundly mocked by the rest of the league, turned in a mixed bag of a 14-man draft class a year ago. We also lost all but one game and remain in our perpetual hamster wheel of a quarterback search.

The Browns have used the first pick (Tim Couch) on a QB. Lord knows we’ve used the 22nd pick on one (Brady Quinn, Brandon Weeden and Johnny Manziel). We’ve tried to be clever and use third-round picks (Colt McCoy and Cody Kessler) with third-round results or worse.

Heck, we’ve tried to land local guys (Quinn and Charlie Frye), and there’s one in this draft with strong ties to Ohio (Mitch Trubisky). We passed on one local prospect (Ben Roethlisberger) and well, you know how that worked out.

We’ve signed free agents at the position, too, and none of them have panned out. Heck, we own three of the first 33 spots in the draft, and we couldn’t even get Deshaun Watson to come to Mobile for the Senior Bowl. All he needed to do was try on a uniform, eat a few oysters with our coaches and we probably would have drafted the kid.

But we’re taking a new course now. Sure, it will be more expensive, but as it’s noted in every story about us, we lead the NFL in salary-cap space and draft-pick ammo. Lock and load, baby.

That’s why we’re willing to trade for Garoppolo, even though he has 101 fewer NFL passes than Kessler. Heck, even RG3 threw more passes in the final three weeks of last season than Jimmy has in three years, but we’re willing to roll the dice here. We think you can understand we’ve seen enough of those two, thankful as we are for their service, to know it’s not working out.

We now have a chance that we’ve never had before: the rare opportunity to trade for a 25-year-old potential star QB. Even if he’s 2007 Matt Schaub, we’d be fine with that, believe us. The Houston Texans sent two second-round picks and slid down from 8 to 10 in the first round that year for Schaub — he of the two NFL starts prior, just like Jimmy — and it worked out well. Our analytics tell us Schaub had three 4,000-yard seasons in a four-year span. The last time we had a quarterback throw for 4,000 yards three times in a four-season stretch was … well, never. We’ve had one 4,000-yard passing season, period. That was Brian Sipe. In 1980.

We own five of the first 65 picks in the draft, including No. 1 overall. Sorry, Pats. That one is earmarked for Myles Garrett. Short of chloroforming us at the combine, we’re not sending you that pick. But 12? We’re game. Sure, the 12th pick can be pretty fertile draft turf. You can land an Odell Beckham, a Marshawn Lynch or a Fletcher Cox. Or you can miss with Christian Ponder, D.J. Hayden or Knowshon Moreno. Our history suggests the latter is more likely.

And one more thing is clear: finding a QB in that range is nearly impossible. Over the past 20 drafts, the quarterbacks taken between the 12th and 17th picks have been Ponder, EJ Manuel, Josh Freeman and Cade McNown. Even by Browns standards that list tastes like a Cuyahoga River cocktail.

Need us to throw in a 2018 pick? Well, we’ve got extras — all of our picks, plus extra second- and fourth-rounders, thanks to the Eagles and Panthers. Look, we need a quarterback. If not, we all get fired maybe. So yeah, we can talk 2018 too.

The kid is good. He’s not just some Bill Belichick creation, or aberration. We watched him play well against the Cardinals and Dolphins before getting hurt.

We love making deals with the Patriots. We got something for Barkevious Mingo, which shocked even us, and heck, we’re bold enough to say we won the Jamie Collins trade! Yeah, seriously, now that we’ve re-signed the guy we honestly feel like we pulled one over on old Bill. Of course, he does have that Lombardi Trophy thing down pat.

Give us Garrett, Garoppolo and let us pick two more Day 2 players, and we are downright giddy about our haul. And heck, if the kid turns out to be the next Brock Osweiler, it’s not like we’d be crushed financially — remember, we have more than $100 million in cap space. Booyah.

So that’s our sales pitch. A little more well-thought-out than our owner taking draft advice from a homeless dude or our Hollywood GM playing musical chairs with our picks, right? That’s what we thought. That’s why we’re Team Jimmy (Garoppolo, not Haslam).

The prudent, patient Browns GM (played by Frank Schwab): Three years ago, every NFL team (including us) passed on Jimmy Garoppolo in the draft, and most teams passed twice. The old regime here picked Justin Gilbert and Johnny Manziel in the first round instead, but let’s not talk about that now. What has really changed with Garoppolo since then?

He learned from Brady? That was supposed to be the magic potion for Matt Cassel, Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer, too. Learning from Peyton Manning was supposed to be a positive for Brock Osweiler. You don’t become great by osmosis, and a lot of teams have blown a lot of assets assuming Brady’s backups will be Brady clones.

Here’s what we’d have to give up for Garoppolo: likely the 12th pick and maybe more, and an Osweiler-type long-term deal. It’s not like we can trade a first for Garoppolo and then gamble we can re-sign him after 2017, so the contract extension has to be considered part of the deal. What has changed so much since 2014, when we thought Manziel was a better option (sorry, just threw up a little in my mouth), and 61 picks came and went without Garoppolo being picked? Are we really ready to treat Garoppolo like a franchise quarterback after 94 career passes? This seems very much like what happened with noted debacles Scott Mitchell and Osweiler – and Mitchell had 241 passes when the Detroit Lions signed him, and Osweiler had 305 before Houston signed him. Investing so heavily in Garoppolo after 94 passes is a blind leap of faith. He looked good, but again, it’s 94 NFL passes.

There’s also an opportunity cost involved, which nobody ever talks about. Let’s be honest – we’re going to be bad for a while. This was a total rebuild, and there should be no rush to add a few wins and go for 4-12 next season. We’ll be in position to draft high next season, when top quarterback prospects Sam Darnold of USC and Josh Rosen of UCLA, among others, should presumably be in the draft. We can’t draft either if we’ve already invested in Garoppolo. Once you make that move, Garoppolo is the guy for at least three or four years. Sink or swim with Jimmy. Or, you could use the 12th pick on a quality player – Alabama tight end O.J. Howard, to throw out a name – and then get your quarterback next season. What’s the harm in that?

If we trade for Garoppolo, we have to be absolutely sure he can be a franchise quarterback, or very close. If not, we’re setting the rebuild back to square one. It’s hard to bet all of that on a guy with less than 100 career passes.

Jimmy Garoppolo could be traded this offseason. (AP)

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab