Interview with Bill Watterson

February 3, 2010

This is really rare – C&H creator Bill Watterson has given an interview for the first time in over 20 years. In it, he firmly puts Calvin and Hobbes in his past – and intriguingly doesn’t see any role for himself in how the strip has affected people.
What are your thoughts about the legacy of [...]

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Caprica’s mirror

February 1, 2010

I caught the two-hour series pilot of Caprica on On-Demand a few weeks ago and I have been meaning to comment on it. It’s definitely not a replacement for Galactica, but it clearly wasn’t intended to be. Galactica took an ancient science fiction idea, the question of what makes us human, folded it into religious [...]

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Fledge retires… enter Otakun

February 1, 2010

I have a little announcement of sorts, which is entirely meta and has no real significance whatsoever other than the purely semantic. I’ve decided to retire my “Fledgling Otaku” nickname and adopt a new pseudonymous persona, “Otaku Kun”. If you’re so inclined, you can abbreviate that as otakun instead of fledge – and my email [...]

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Will the Apple tablet be a Kindle killer?

January 27, 2010

Apple’s announcement today of it’s new iPad tablet system (alas, not named Newton 2), running iPhone OS and featuring a 10″ multi-touch screen – doesn’t strike me as the Kindle killer that everyone is making it out to be. Yes, it will definitely be an ebook reader and will have licensing agreements with textbook publishers [...]

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Does the Ring turn Sauron invisible?

January 18, 2010

On Facebook, one of my friends posed an innocent question:
How come the ring doesn’t make Sauron invisible?
Indeed! Out of the mists of Facebook, a truly awesome discussion ensued. I found this reply the most intriguing and erudite:
The Ring doesn’t actually make someone invisible in the sense we understand the term. It shifts its bearer into [...]

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Spider Man 4 dies so that Warcraft may live

January 17, 2010

I don’t really care about the news that the Spider Man franchise under Sam Raimi’s hand is over, except for the much more important fact that it frees Raimi to work on the Warcraft movie instead. As Harry says at AICN,
I feel confident in saying that the next film we’ll see from Raimi is going [...]

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Cowboy Bebop

January 15, 2010

Just started Cowboy Bebop via Netflix. It’s amazing. It’s clear how Firefly was inspired by this in so many ways. Theres not much to say at this point but it’s just spectacular on every axis – animation, story, characters. It’s really rare to see a science fiction treatment based in the Solar System and the [...]

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Does Pixar have a gender problem?

January 14, 2010

This argument by blogger Caitlin says yes. But I find it unconvincing, because frankly if you zoom out to animated storytelling as a whole, you realize that there’s acually a shortage of normal male characters, not female. Disney is the perfect counterexample – apart from Aladdin, there isn’t a single boy character that is worthy [...]

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Netflix coming to Wii

January 14, 2010

This was expected, and welcome news indeed: Netflix streaming is coming to the Wii in March.
Screw the Roku or popbox, man, between my DVD player and Wii I’ve got 95% of my bases covered now. And the Wii’s lack of HD support isn’t a big deal – for streaming, standard-def is actually better anyway, and [...]

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a solution to the Leno vs Conan problem

January 14, 2010

as regards to the arcane conflict over at NBC about where to stick Leno and how to stiff Conan, ably summarized by the latter in his own words here (hey Conan, apology accepted, btw), I offer a humble solution in all earnestness that should preserve egos, reputations, and ratings alike. May it be so.
(disclosure – [...]

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