Søren Pedersen, den ene stifter af tegneserie-, SF- og spilbutikken Fantask gennem noget nær en halv menneskealder, siger nu farvel og tak og trækker sig tilbage. Det er med en blanding af vemod og varme, at undertegnede således må tage afsked med den animerende kraft i butikken, Søren altid har været. Det bliver ikke det…
Today, highly-esteemed friend of the Metabunker, Andreas “Chewie” Gregersen defended his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Copenhagen. Entitled Core Cognition and Embodied Agency in Gaming: Towards a Framework for Analysing Structure and Function of Computer Games, the subject is video and computer games, and the approach employs cognitive theory as well as behavioral and…
I was in Bassano del Grappa today. A beautiful small Medieval/Renaissance town scenically situated in the foothills of the Dolemites, it’s well worth a visit. Palladio’s famous pontoon bridge is elegant, almost timeless in its grace, and the collection at the city museum of pictures by the town’s greatest artist son Jacopo del Ponte, aka.…
Just finished this article that Tom linked to (thanks, Tom!). It’s by Andrew Sullivan, a former editor of The New Republic, and it’s on blogging as a way of writing and creating a community. It’s rather utopian, but in that good, inspirational way, and it’s made me return to these thoughts I’ve been having about…
A true legend of Jamaican music passed away last week. Alton Ellis, Mr. Soul of Jamaica, the King of Rocksteady, is gone after an extended bout with cancer that had been in remission for a while, allowing him to return to the stage as late as last year. I never got the opportunity to hear…
Happy New Year from yours truly, here in Paris for just a few hours more…
Goodbye to a class act. Here’s the climactic scene from The Hustler (1961) in which Newman had his first great role. A fine mix of self-confidence and vulnerability. And then there’s the slightly surreal egg-eating scene from Cool Hand Luke (1967), in which he interestingly, and quite hilariously, subverts his own macho image.
This isn’t exactly breaking news, but since I’ve been away and all, I haven’t had the time to process this. It’s a rather major development in the British Museum world that could end up either to the great benefit or even greater detriment to the museum-going public. Basically, the Duke of Sutherland, who owns what…
Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
Classic EC Comics artist Jack Kamen has just passed away at the age of 88. Although always understandably regarded as the weakest of the EC Artists, he was the most subversive in some ways. His wholesome illustrative style, and perennially healthy looking, mannequin-like characters doing nasty things to each other, in themselves act out a…
Yesterday, I wrote: “The most depressing thing about the silly kerfuffle over this week’s funny, if not particularly great New Yorker cover by Bary Blitt is the Obama campaign’s stuffy and thoroughly humourless reaction to it.” Since I don’t live in America and am thus blissfully unaware of the day-to-day stupidity of the media there,…
Golden Age comic book artist and long-time illustrator Creig Flessel — probably best known for his work on the original (and coolest!) version of the character Sandman — has just passed away at the age of 96. From what little I’ve seen of his work, I much prefer his rough, simple early comics work. There’s…
All right, back from Roskilde, about which more soon. In the meantime, Chris Mautner has convened a new critics’ roundtable over at Blog@Newsarama, this time dealing with the problems of conflicts of interest arising from friendships and acquaintances between critics and artists in the comics subculture. Inspired by this post by Tim Hodler, Mautner asked…