Links and Things: April 23rd 2012

(Photo: Steve Niles, care of William Forsche)

The above is one of many, many incredible photos that writer Steve Niles was lucky enough to obtain. Turns out he’s had a correspondence with special effects guru William Forsche who sent him a disc containing an obscene amount of truly amazing (and super RARE) behind the scenes shots from a bunch of old movies, including an ass load of horror movies. Niles, who is a life-long horror fan (ONE OF US, ONE OF US) got permission to share them via his Tumblr blog, and there are a LOT of them. If you care at all about classic horror or practical effects makeup, you should really go peruse for a while.

You should also go to his store and support creator owned comics, while you’re at it. Some great stuff available, and he signs everything.

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If you’re anything like me, you love books. You love to hold them in your hands, you love walking into large rooms filled with them (libraries and book shops are considered sacred ground to me and mine), and you also love the smell of them. But have you ever wondered what that “old book smell” really is? Wonder no more:

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Is it sad that I want my own inflatable Stonehenge in my back yard?

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Anyone able to provide me with a solid (or digital) copy of this would be my best friend for life.

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Need another reason to love ravens? Here:

When you go outside, do the birds sound happy or angry when they see you? New research has found that at least one group of birds, ravens, remembers prior interactions with people and varies calls based on those earlier experiences.

Some find that creepy, but I love it. Birds are much smarter than people give them credit for.

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Actor Tom Hiddleston, who will be reprising his role as the villainous Loki in Marvel Studios’ superhero-filled, nerdgasm-inducing tentpole blockbuster, The Avengers (opening May 4th), wrote an article for UK news site, The Guardian, in defense of superhero movies as a sub-genre. It’s a brief piece, but a fun read. It’s really more of a love letter to superhero films in general:

I grew up watching Superman. As a child, when I first learned to dive into a swimming pool, I wasn’t diving, I was flying, like Superman. I used to dream of rescuing a girl I had a crush on (my Lois Lane) from a playground bully (General Zod). Reeve, to my mind, was the first real superhero.

Read the rest here.

Here’s the trailer for The Avengers, just for good measure:

And in case you haven’t heard, it seems we’ll be getting a brand spanking new trailer for Warner Bros. The Dark Knight Rises (you know, the OTHER superhero movie coming out this year everyone is looking forward to) along with it. Brilliant strategy, really. The folks at WB realize that most of the people looking forward to seeing The Avengers, including those who will be there on opening day, will also be willing to throw their hard earned money at the final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s Bat-Saga. Well played, Warner Bros. Well played.

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That’s all I’ve got. Not as interesting a post as I was hoping, but it’s a post nonetheless. Maybe something better next time.

Edit: Oh wait, I completely forgot to post a bit of self promotion! How the hell did THAT happen?

I’ve written a new –and short– bit of fiction that I’ve posted here. It’s called Coincidences, and I hope you enjoy it.

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Links And Things: April 13th 2012

Very brief one this time around, I’m afraid.

Do you have a Tumblr blog? If so, you should be following TextFromDog. Even if you don’t have a Tumblr, you should still head over and check it out. It’s a very simple concept –guy gets text messages from his dog– but it’s some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen in a long, long time. I highly recommend it.

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The latest “Walkthrough” to be featured over at AVClub.Com, is all about one of my favorite short-lived television series: Freaks & Geeks. They sit down with the hilarious Paul Feig, who talks about every single episode of the show. It’s a long read, but well worth it if you’re a fan of the show. It’s separated into five parts:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

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This is amazing:

“The Global Pursuit of Happiness, or: The Army of Luck” is an art installation of 520 Japanese Maneki Neko cat figurines (the waving cats found at many Asian businesses). Their waving arms are equipped with servomotors and wired together, creating a 40 by 13 cat matrix display that can show patterns or even scrolling text (video). The installation was created by German artist Boris Petrovsky and debuted last month at the Art Karlsruhe festival in Germany.

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The great Alan Moore in an gave a sit down interview to BBC’s Hard Talk.

Part One:

Part Two:

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Much more interesting post next time. I hope.

Five Dollar Comedy

So, a while back Louis C.K. thought “What if I filmed a comedy special on my own dime, then instead of submitting it to a group of producers who will edit it to shit and get a bunch of money from it, I cut out that middleman and post it online for five bucks, thus making it affordable enough for a wide audience to buy it and thus giving me a bigger share of what is rightfully my own god damn money?”

At least I assume that’s what he thought.

Anyway, the result was Louis C.K.: Live at the Beacon Theater. You can go to that site and download it RIGHT NOW for only five bucks. It’s worth it, trust me. What the hell else are you going to spend that five dollars on? A sandwich? FUCK THE SANDWICH, SUSTAIN YOURSELF ON LAUGHTER.

By the way, did you know that Louis has made over a million dollars on that special? Check it out:

 hi. So it’s been about 12 days since the thing started and yesterday we hit the crazy number. One million dollars. That’s a lot of money. Really too much money. I’ve never had a million dollars all of a sudden. and since we’re all sharing this experience and since it’s really your money, I wanted to let you know what I’m doing with it. People are paying attention to what’s going on with this thing. So I guess I want to set an example of what you can do if you all of a sudden have a million dollars that people just gave to you directly because you told jokes.

So I’m breaking the million into four pieces.

the first 250k is going to pay back what the special cost to produce and the website to build.

The second 250k is going back to my staff and the people who work for me on the special and on my show. I’m giving them a big fat bonus.

The third 280k is going to a few different charities. They are listed below in case you’d like to donate to them also. Some of these i learned about through friends, some were reccomended through twitter.

The Fistula Foundation
The Pablove Foundation
charity: water
Kiva
Green Chimneys

That leaves me with 220k for myself. Some of that will pay my rent and will care for my childen. The rest I will do terrible, horrible things with and none of that is any of your business. In any case, to me, 220k is enough out of a million.

I never viewed money as being “my money” I always saw it as “The money” It’s a resource. if it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.

The thing is still on sale. I hope folks keep buying it. If I make another million, I’ll give more of it away. I’ll let you know when that happens because I like you getting to know what happened to your 5 dollars and bringing awareness to the bla bla bla.

Okay I really gotta go now. Thank you again. I will now stop bugging you. I really hate being in the news this much so I’m gonna just disappear for a while.

Happy hollidays.
Louis C.K.

Good guy, right? If you read that and would still rather spend that five bucks on a sandwich, then you are a horrible human being. Or maybe you’re just really hungry, I don’t know.

Anyway, now other comedians are looking at that business model and going “OH! That makes so much more sense then doing it the other, less profitable, less fun way!” and now they’re doing it too. 

Aziz Ansari  Dangerously Delicious

Jim Gaffigan – Mr. Universe

Also only five bucks a piece. So you spend fifteen dollars and get roughly three hours of great comedy, plus your money goes toward ensuring that not only will THESE comedians keep working in this business model, but other comedians will take notice and do the same. Everyone wins with this, guys. We get hour-long chunks of solid comedy at a reasonable price, the comedians get to have complete creative control over their own comedy for a change, plus they make a tidy profit, which allows them to KEEP making comedy for a long, long time.