Posted on
by

Support The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund: 1-800-99-CBLDFYou might think nothing of going down to the store and picking up a comic book, but there are people out there who want to limit your choices to books aimed at 10-year-olds. (Admittedly, there aren’t enough books aimed at 10-year-olds right now, but that’s another rant). Imagine if all movies were G-rated. Because, after all, everyone knows, movies are just for kids, right?

There was a time when all comics had to be approved by the Comics Code Authority, because in the 1950s, comics were the trendy scapegoat for juvenile delinquency (much as video games are often blamed today). While writers and artists of the day managed to produce classics within those constraints, one can only imagine what the world missed out on that it wouldn’t see until publishers began to risk non-code books in the 1980s. The now-classic Alan Moore run on Swamp Thing, for instance, or Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, could never have been produced under the limits of the Comics Code, even under its current incarnation. (Back to movies briefly: did you know that It’s a Wonderful Life broke the rules of the motion picture code? Mr. Potter may have failed to take over the Savings and Loan, but he was never punished for his misdeeds — a requirement under the film codes of the time!)

Even now, there are people who want to keep everything “safe” and innocuous — for everyone, adults as well as kids. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is dedicated to protecting freedom of expression in comics from this sort of attack. They’ve defended writers, artists, even retailers over the past 15 years.

So if you like books like Fables or Powers, or books like 100 Bullets or Y, The Last Man — check out the CBLDF. Read what they do, and why. Consider joining, or making a donation, or just buying a T-shirt. And if you’re going to San Diego for Comic-Con International this weekend, drop by their booth and see what’s going on.

Posted on
by

Let’s face it, there are a lot of good books that get turned into bad movies. On one hand, you might wonder: does it really matter? After all, the original is still there. The mere existence of the movie doesn’t alter the fact that the book is good, any more than the remake of Psycho diminishes the worth of the original.

The first problem is simple visibility. Books rarely become pop-culture phenomena, and those that do are usually nonfiction (or at least billed that way). But movies generally have massive, nation-wide advertising campaigns, by the end of which everyone knows about them. Pick any bad movie based on a book, and chances are more people will know about the movie. That’s a lot of people who could have experienced the original — or at least a good movie — who won’t go near it. (This is less of an issue with well-known source material. A new version of Hamlet isn’t going to take the original’s place in anyone’s mind, though a good one may, over time, supplant older Hamlet films.)

The second problem is that once one studio adapts a work, it will take years before anyone does another adaptation. (Again, this is less of an issue for established material. Returning to Hamlet, there was plenty of room for both Mel Gibson’s and Kenneth Branagh’s versions.) Part of this is contracts, but it also comes down to a question of perception. A studio is not going to look at something that made a dismal flop and say “We can do it better,” they’ll say “Oh, that flopped, let’s not try it.” They’ll wait until there has been enough turnover in the audience that they figure most people will have forgotten the flop. And an author who has seen his work mangled may not trust the next studio that wants to buy the film rights.

So yes, bad movies do matter — not because they diminish the original but because they distract from it. And they matter because they set back the process of getting a good movie made.

Posted on
by

I don’t usually post in this category, but the latest Nigerian clone to hit my inbox was worth it. It claimed to be from a British barrister, acting on behalf of a recently deceased French national, attempting to relocate funds from Saudi Arabia. The contact information was an email address as “Barrister Lindsay Smith” was currently in Ireland. I think this one’s winning the “Most Countries Invoked in a Single Spam” award so far as my inbox goes.

On a side note, the only information requested was a name, address, and phone/fax number–not a bank account or credit card or anything of the sort. Maybe the spammers are figuring that asking for financial info is rapidly becoming suicide. Or maybe they think it’ll work better if you establish a rapport first?

Posted on
by

I regularly get bogus bounces from clueless virus scanners that don’t realize the sending address is fake 99% of the time, but this takes the cake:

Sometime last night I received three copies of the same notice from some system in Brazil. They had written their virus warning in Microsoft Word, saved it as HTML without cleaning up all the extra junk, and made it the only part of the message… in Base64 encoding!

If you’re going to send any kind of diagnostic notice by email, you want it to be as simple and widely readable as possible. That means plain text (not HTML or Base64, and certainly not both!) It also means if you do want to use HTML, at least clean it up and include a plain-text alternative. For all you know it’s going to be read by some admin logging into a GUIless server through SSH over a modem connection on a hotel phone line!

Posted on
by

1. Obtain a gun.

2. Provide ammunition.

3. Vote to pull the trigger.

BANG.

And the Democratic party drops off the House floor.

At least, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. If I lived in Nuñez’s district, I’d be royally pissed that I voted for him (because I probably would’ve) and would be willing to sign any paper that would kick his ass. Democratic party leaders don’t seem to realize that they’re in danger of dying out without this kind of stunt. If you’re going to assert your belief in balance and diversity, you better damn well show it, because it isn’t just voters who write letters to congresspeople.