The zombie Internet

/ Alex Good / 13 Comments

Over at Alex on Film I recently had two comments that appeared on my review of Escape Room that I suspected were not written by an actual human being:

Spot-on analysis. The room designs looked interesting on the surface, but the puzzle solutions felt far-fetched and the alternate/cliffhanger endings were definitely disappointing. It’s a shame it didn’t push the boundaries of the genre further.

Great analysis. I completely agree that Escape Room relies heavily on familiar ‘Game of Death’ tropes seen in films like Cube and Saw. While the premise is intriguing, the contrived character conflicts and weak, open-ended conclusion definitely hold it back from standing out in the genre.

The tip-off, of course, is that both these comments were posted together at the same time. Plus the fact that the email attached was just a random collection of letters at a gmail address. Also, the website they linked to was a professional football betting site.

Still, the reason I bring this up is that either one of these comments I would have allowed through and probably even responded to on its own. They are well expressed and do respond directly to the points I was making in my review, even using some of my own language (like calling this the “Game of Death” genre). Gone are the days of trash spam like “Best free pharmaceuticals!” and “Free pr0n!” This is good stuff.  I assume it’s being produced by AI. AI that has actually “read” my reviews!

Still, it is spam. And as spam gets better, both in how its written and how its targeted, I feel like it’s going to get harder and harder to identify. This will lead to a “death of the Internet” situation where nobody will even know that the zombie apocalypse has happened until it’s already run its course.

Absolute Batman Vol. 1: The Zoo

/ Alex Good / 8 Comments

Absolute Batman Vol. 1: The Zoo

Another reboot, another universe? Well, yes. But credit Scott Snyder for coming up with something that’s very new and really good, at least for the most part.

So in this version of the Batman story, part of DC’s Absolute Universe (launched in 2024), Bruce Wayne isn’t a rich orphan but comes from a middle-class background (father a teacher, mom a social worker). His dad is killed when he was a kid but his mom’s still alive. He trains himself to be a one-man crime-fighting unit, and I mean unit because he’s a really big dude, and so strong he can knock the stuffing out of a heavy bag with a single punch. He’s also a mechanical engineer and so has designed an impressive suite of toys to go with his suit. In fact, the suit itself is a machine, capable of firing spikes and with a cape that has claws he can grab things with or even walk on.

Then there are the other familiar names and faces, not transformed. Alfred Pennyworth is a hard-nosed MI6 agent who basically adopts Bruce. He’s also the narrator of the story. Jim Gordon is now Gotham’s mayor. The Joker is some billionaire psycho, called Joker because he never laughs. And Bruce’s poker buddies are Waylon Jones (Killer Croc), Eddie Nigma (the Riddler), Oswald Cobblepot (the Penguin), Harvey Dent (Two-Face), and Selina Kyle (Catwoman). You see, they were all friends together back when they were kids and they haven’t turned into their alter egos yet.

The plot in this first volume of the series (collecting issues #1-6) has it that a new gang called the Party Animals is taking over Gotham. They wear these cool masks that make them look like the evil bunny from Donnie Darko. Their leader is Roman Sionis (Black Mask) and he has the usual mission of creating chaos and burning the town down Purge-style. When Batman stands in his way he at first tries to buy him off, but (and this is one thing that is consistent with previous versions of the character), Batman’s not the kind of guy who can be bought.

There was a lot to like, from the great design elements to Nick Dragotta’s clear art. The action is quite violent and the guiding concept refreshingly bold. I loved the new Alfred. You really feel like you’re getting something completely different here, not just a slight divergence in the timeline but a rebuilt Batman from the ground up.

On the downside, I really didn’t like the flashbacks to the pack of superfriends. Even though it’s an entirely new backstory I didn’t find it interesting and the new parts to it, like the way all the supervillains grew up together and are still buddies, seemed silly. Then, in the present day, I was disappointed to find that the Party Animals were just more of the usual chaos agents who want to see the world burn, as that cliché has it.

But the Party Animals are only bottom feeders anyway, a force to get the ball rolling. They’re also the lowest rung on the Joker’s criminal organization and as things leave off here he takes their loss with a shrug and tells his assistant that it’s time to call in Bane. I’m down for that!

Graphicalex

Alien: Paradiso

/ Alex Good / 14 Comments

Alien: Paradiso

The Alien titles have become one of my go-to comics for a good time. There are basic recurring elements in each of them, but somehow the stories manage to keep things fresh. A lot fresher and more interesting than the horrible film franchise anyway! And it’s been that way now for forty years.

Reading Paradiso I had to ask (again!) why they don’t just film these storylines instead of the ones they do. What we have here would make, if not a solid feature, at least a very good episode in an Alien cable series.

Smuggler Ricky Valentine, the dude with the golden arm, has arranged a meet-up with another bad guy at the super-ritzy Paradiso resort, which looks like a cross between Dubai and Las Vegas (if those two places aren’t the same thing). A couple of space marshals have Ricky under surveillance. They’re about to make a big bust when this other smuggler Ricky had arranged to meet turns out to have killed the deal with Ricky in order to take on some other cargo. Specifically, a bunch of giant, leathery eggs . . .

And so hell comes to paradise, with Xenomorphs running rampage through the casino and the sauna and the dining halls, slaughtering good guys, bad guys, and guests indiscriminately. The setting is a good example of the kind of refreshing change that makes these comics so much fun. Xenomorphs running amuck on some shithole planet or mining asteroid was getting old. Seeing them at Club Med was great.

Another way these comics keep impressing me is in the reveal of a character who turns out to be a synth. You know going in that somebody is an android, and still every time I’m surprised when I find out who it is. Full credit to the writers (Steve Foxe in this case) for that. Then, for the parts of the story that are unavoidable and that every Alien fan knows and expects, they can just have fun. “It got bigger,” the one space marshal says after a full-size Xenomorph shows up just an hour or so after being hatched. “No shit,” his partner replies. Now as fans we know how fast these things grow, but the people in the comic don’t. “How did it grow so much in just a few hours?” a security guard asks. It doesn’t make sense!

About the only thing I wasn’t totally on board with here was when they switched over to the Xenomorph’s point of view. I guess they were going for a sort of Predator effect, but I thought it was unnecessary and a bit confusing. That said, it’s another example of how they keep trying to throw something new into the mix, and it did change things up visually (the POV parts have a different artist) and I can’t say I minded it that much.

So another great Alien comic! Really, at this point I’ll grab any new one that comes out. They started these back in the ‘80s and I think I’ve read almost all of them without being let down yet.

Graphicalex

Bookmarked! #156: Get Ready for John Galt Day!

/ Alex Good / 14 Comments

Cool your jets, Ayn Rand fans! I’m not talking about that John Galt.

This John Galt was a Scottish novelist who spent some time in Canada doing various administrative duties before being recalled for incompetence. The city of Galt (now part of Cambridge) is named after him, and he’s credited with the ceremonious “founding” of the city of Guelph in 1827. He tells the story in his autobiography, and it involved chopping down a tree and then having a drink. Since 2007 Guelph has celebrated the first Monday in August as John Galt Day. And before you ask if it’s a holiday, it was already a civic holiday anyway. Canadians love their days off!

Book: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Canadian History by Ann Douglas

Bookmarked Bookmarks

Marple: The Open Mind

/ Alex Good / 7 Comments

This was a bit of a disappointment. I had my hopes up as the curtain rose on a dinner at an Oxford college that Miss Marple was attending as a guest. We’re introduced to the usual bunch of eccentric academics, who naturally all hate each other. That’s what faculty are like. Then one of them, the master no less, does a face plant in his roast venison in the middle of delivering a speech, apparently having overdosed on some of his own date-rape drugs.

The year is given as 1970, which struck me as well past Miss Marple’s expiry date. I mean, she’d been an old lady in The Murder at the Vicarage, which had been published in 1930. But then in At Bertram’s Hotel (1965) she was only in her mid-70s or so. I guess she’s just one of those fictional characters who goes on forever at the same age, no matter how much the world changes around her.

And the world has changed. This story, by Naomi Alderman, is on the surface a proto-#MeToo tale, as the murdered master is a lech whose passing upsets no one. My disappointment with it though has to do with the fact that I was pretty sure whodunit from the first page (a clue is presented in a pretty obvious way), but Alderman didn’t play fair on letting us follow Miss M’s thinking in coming to her conclusions. Not that Christie always did this either, and the gimmick here of Miss Marple remembering some village incident from years ago that we know nothing of is as frustrating as usual. But here it’s quite a stretch, compounded by how frankly ridiculous the killer’s motives were. Christie certainly came up with some ridiculously theatrical and contrived plots, but on the question of motive she was usually pretty clear and simple.

Then again, these are university people. And they’re not the best . . . or the brightest.

Marple index

Double trouble

/ Alex Good / 11 Comments

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll know how much I like taking pictures of local skunks (see here, here, and here). But like a lot of wildlife they’re hard to get a good picture of because they tend to keep a distance, and for obvious reasons you don’t want to get too close. But this mother skunk and one of her nearly full-grown kids were out snuffling around and were so preoccupied with looking for stuff to eat that they let me get right up to them and take a family portrait. Actually, they didn’t even notice me. They did after I took their picture though, and I backed away quickly.

Asterix the Gladiator

/ Alex Good / 17 Comments

Asterix the Gladiator

The Romans kidnap Cacofonix the bard so that he can be fed to the lions as a present to Caesar. Much as everyone in the village is relieved that they don’t have to listen to Cacofonix’s singing, this can’t be let stand so Asterix and Obelix head off to Rome to get Cacofonix back.

The standard template for an Asterix story was already set, with Asterix and Obelix (the latter still without Dogmatix) leaving the village for some foreign adventures and then returning home for a banquet. I think the only recurring note that’s introduced here for the first time are the pirates. Otherwise there isn’t much about this that stands out, though I did remember the gladiators playing the word game. It’s funny what stays with you after all these years.

The art is brilliant as always, and the story strong and easy to follow. Though I did wince a little at the stereotype caricature of the Nubian gladiator, and I raised an eyebrow again at Obelix saying “Cool!” a couple of times (something I flagged previously in my notes on Asterix and the Golden Sickle). I can understand wanting to translate the language into contemporary American English for a new audience, but there should be limits.

Graphicalex

My backyard

/ Alex Good / 17 Comments

Well, not really my backyard. My backyard is basically this deck. But if you extended this picture out to the right you’d see the side of my house. This is the backyard of the house adjacent to mine. As you can tell, it’s seen better days. It’s been abandoned for the last ten years, after the previous owner, a lady who lived there alone until the age of 93, moved on. The guy (or group) who bought it seem to have no idea what to do with it. So it just falls apart.

I’m sure it will be torn down eventually, which is a shame because back in the day this was a really funky, stylish house. That backyard was such a peaceful little oasis in the city. On the left of the picture is the indoor swimming pool. And glass walls were everywhere, because the family who built the place were the owners of a local window company. Now most of the windows have been smashed by kids and boarded up.

Oh well, at least it’s quiet. And makes for a nice, moody picture. (You can click on the pic to make it bigger.)

Holmes: The Adventure of the Dancing Men

/ Alex Good / 14 Comments

I wonder how much stock we should put in the famous list Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made of his favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. The reason I wonder is that he ranked “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” third on that list and I doubt I’d put it in the top 10. Meanwhile, “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder” didn’t make the cut (the original list was of 12 titles) and I liked it a lot more. But Doyle did give his reasons (he ranked “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” so highly “on account . . . of the originality of the plot”) and I guess there’s no arguing over taste. It’s just that I don’t think an author’s opinion, even of their own work, is necessarily worth any more than the average reader’s. Though readers seemed to really like “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” too.

To me the original plot just seems like the usual hook of the lover returning for revenge that Doyle had been going back to since A Study in Scarlet. Here it’s garnished with a childishly simple cipher device of the kind that I remember solving when they used to run in newspapers. It’s hard to imagine Holmes even being that interested in it, and his dawdling leads to the death of the man who had sought his help, which only happens in one other story in the canon (“The Five Orange Pips”). The man’s wife, however, may recover from her attempted suicide as “the bullet had passed through the front of her brain.” Lucky her! I didn’t know that was considered just a flesh wound in Victorian days.

The point in the story that interested me the most though has to do with Doyle’s narrative economy. I pointed this out earlier in my notes on “A Scandal in Bohemia” and another example of the same device used there occurs in this story. As Holmes is investigating the room with the corpse of the man in it this is what he says to the local inspector:

“It is now necessary that we should try to throw some light upon this third bullet, which has clearly, from the splintering of the wood, been fired from inside the room. I should like to see Mrs. King, the cook, again. You said, Mrs. King, that you were awakened by a loud explosion . . .”

The elision is so fast you don’t even notice. In the same bit of dialogue, without any indication of time passing, Holmes goes from saying he would like to see the cook again to addressing her directly. As I’ve said before, I don’t know how many other authors were experimenting this boldly with the collapsing of time. I’m not sure how many have even done it since. Doyle was precociously modern in this regard.

Holmes index