If his writing wasn't so brilliant, you'd think Alan Moore was a loon. While most men's midlife crises equate to wanting a hot young dame and a sportscar... Alan Moore quit comics for a few years to explore and practice Magick by means of worshiping a snake sock puppet.

These days, he's shunned Hollywood pursuits at adapting his comics to film... so much so that he gives all the money he makes on them to his artistic collaborator. Now he's claiming that the current legal disputes over the Watchmen film may be the result over the Curse he place on the film.

You gotta love the man!

Check out the wonderful article from LA Times HERE.

Wow. Dragonball Trailer Screen Captures have been revealled and boy, that movie looks UGLY. Akira Toriyama may be happy with his Hollywood money... but I don't think he's happy with what they did to his wonderful Piccolo character design.

If it's bad, let's just hope it's b-movie cheeseball like that first Mortal Kombat film!

More screen captures can be found HERE.

Man, this Spirit Movie is one helluva a train wreck. And I still can't decide if I hate it or love it. Acting's about Showtime Porn quality. Visuals don't know if they should be hyper-real or b-movie cheese. Characters look super dull and monochromatic.

But I keep going back to watching bits of it. And the leaked fight scene from SDCC is so ridiculous that I like it.

Jerry accurately mentioned that comic book movies try to over compensate the silliness of the medium of inspiration by doing this pseudo-sophisticated look. Spirit feels like it's trying to embrace the comic-book wacky that other films fear... but is still holding onto some weird pretentious sense of sophistication.

Check out the youtube video soon, 'cause I'm sure they'll take it down in the next 24 hours.

You can also see a quicktime version of the new trailer HERE.

Mista Hippo informed me that the World Premiere of "Dirty Hands: The Art & Crimes of David Choe" will take place in Los Angeles on Thursday, June 26th at the Mann Festival Theatre. I doubt I'll be able to make it to the premiere, but I'm going to do my best to see one of the following showings during the subsequent weekend.

David Choe is amazing. His life is as interesting as his work. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the 1997 Wondercon (shortly after the release of his mind-fucking Xeric-grant "Slow Jams" comic). He was a super cool dude.

If you ever find a copy of "Slow Jams", read it. Best masturbation sequence ever captured on paper (any dude will appreciate Choe's authenticity!).

Since the release of "Slow Jams", Choe found plenty of well deserved attention and success. You can find many of his beautiful illustrations in older issues of Giant Robot magazine. His art has been circulating the fine art world for many, many years. You'll occasionaly find his mural work in various places around the world (his amazing redesign of The Kitchen on Sunset and Fountain is a walking distance from Jerry's house!).

I recall his crazy debacle with Marvel Comics when he had done preliminary work on NYX with Brian Wood. I was blown away to find out that Choe was arrested in Japan for stealing days before an art show and was stuck in a Japanese prison for months only to find God while doing art on napkins with his food and bodily fluids. It was a pleasure to find Choe backed away from his spiritual awakening to find the same thrills he found in stealing by gambling in Vegas and screwing The Man by winning hundreds of thousands in Black Jack. You'd think his life was a big fairy tale if it weren't for the pictures.

Oh yeah, and his art? Raw, honest, dirty, and fuckin' beautiful.

Here's the trailer for the film:

My college buddy Greg was visiting from Shanghai. At his request we ended up watching the latest Indiana Jones film. I'm surprised to say that I really dug it!

This is the first "Summer" film I've seen this year (nope, haven't seen "Iron Man"). I knew little to nothing about that film which was probably the best thing I did. I'm notorious for spoiling films by reading too much about them prior to their release. Lately, I'm spending less and less time following films and it's indirectly resulted in fully enjoying the films I choose to watch.

The film isn't perfect (what film is?) but its positives far outweigh the negatives. Some of the more CGI-focused visuals were unnecessarily over-the-top but it was all counter balanced with some good old-fashioned physical stunts.

I forgot how much of Indiana Jones is driven by action. At times it felt like a silent film whose story was completely told by the action and reactions of the characters. The fact that all aspects of the action on screen were conveyed clearly and dynamically attests to Spielberg's superior sense of Direction.

I also came to realize the importance of Indiana Jones on our pop-culture psyche. The English have James Bond. We have Indiana Jones. On so many levels Indy embodies the American Spirit. He's got the cowboy hat. He's constantly exploring new ideas (which fittingly come from naive interpretations of foreign cultures). He acts before he thinks and miraculously escapes the most dangerous of situations. I love the purity and timelessness of it all. And when you carry through the symbol of Indy, his discovery in this film is a very fitting one (even if they reveal far more than I would have hoped).

Love the Lone Wolf & Cub comics... but I also have a soft spot in my heart for the live action films.

A total of 6 films came out from 1972-74. My favorites are definitely the first 3. While the comics tone is fairly straight, the movies are super exploitative and cheesy. And it works!

I love how good Samurai films play up the calm stillness before the chaotic bloodshed. At times, the Lone Wolf series did it as good as the best of them.