My brother-in-law, Lucas, did two tours in Iraq and now one of my very good friends is in the process of being deployed. He's keeping friends and family up to date at http://brian-in-iraq.blogspot.com/. (As I'm writing this, I typed in http://brianiniraq.blogspot.com/ to see if I remembered his url correctly. I was wrong, but it's a real site, too. That's kind of depressing.) Brian is an awesome guy. Regardless of how he feels about politics and the war, he's honoring his commitment and serving bravely. We're going to miss him while he's over there. Following the election this year won't be the same if I can't trade links with him and chat about strategies, issues and life in general.

I think the world of Brian, Lucas and all the others like them who serve our country. But I wish they didn't have to go. I wish the war was over and our troops could come home and stay home.

Be safe, Brian.

The idea of a movie musical filled with Beatles songs appealed to me, although I had my doubts when I saw a review on tv complaining about the reality of how one is listening to Beatles covers for two full hours. I waited for the cheap theatre, and honestly, I'm glad I did.

Across the Universe tells the story of Jude and Lucy (oh yes, everyone in the movie is named after a Beatles song), who meet through Lucy's brother Max. They aren't interested in each other at first, but then, suddenly, sparks appear. Mind you, there's no real catalyst for those sparks. They just appear, and the audience is expected to understand why these two are so appealing to each other, and why we should root for their relationship when it's based on nothing in particular. Anyway, we follow them from suburbia to New York, where they pal up with a few friends and Lucy gets involved in Vietnam war protests. Lives change, people fall apart, and I suppose we're supposed to feel gratified by the end because we just listened to a bunch of Beatles songs.

The movie comes across as a story created around songs, rather than a good story on its own. That's its main fault. I distinctly had the feeling that its creators had a specific list of songs that had to be played, and that I wouldn't be let out of the theater until all of them were performed. Perhaps that's why it felt so incredibly long. And, if the song didn't quite fit the story, that's okay. They found ways to insert song lyrics into the dialogue, which, instead of sounding clever, sounded forced and awkward (the worst was when Prudence joins the rest of the ensemble by coming in through the bathroom window, even though her character would have no real reason for just entering some stranger's apartment like that).

A lot of people have praised the visual style of Across the Universe. I admit that it has a lot of detail and creativity, but somehow it felt to me like it could have been more extreme. I felt like it held back and felt generic.

The songs themselves were performed well enough, but I agree with the sentiment that listening to Beatles covers for two hours simply makes a Beatles fan want to listen to the real thing instead. I would say that my favorite part of the movie was Jude himself, played by Jim Sturgess, who has a very nice singing voice and shows promise for a good career. Sadly, I think I figured out by the two hour mark that I don't think Evan Rachel Wood is a very good actress.

I don't want to sound like the movie was terrible, but it was a disappointment to me. I appreciated its scope and inspiration, but wasn't very impressed with any of it. Like I said, I'm glad I only paid a buck-fifty for it.

When I wrote about Winsor McCay last week the images I found of his comics were nowhere near big enough to even read, much less demonstrate the quality of his work. I decided I needed something better, so I did my own scan.

My scanner is too small for the book I have, which already prints the comics at a smaller size than their original publication (the comic strip once filled an entire newspaper page). I was able to scan a page in two images and Photoshop them together. So here you go: a scan of a Little Nemo comic that is big enough to read online (click on the image to see the full size version):

This is one of the earliest Little Nemo comics, from the first year of publication. It improved a lot over time (especially when McCay got rid of the lines of narration running under the panels) but there are some things I really like about this one.

I think the reason I like old books, comics, and movies, is that it gives me a feeling of connection with the past--a feeling that is heightened by Nemo's little journey forward through time here. It's strange to think McCay's distant future of 1999 is our very recent past. And how remarkable that he refrained from dressing Little Nemo in outlandish futuristic costume--the 99-year-old Nemo actually looks like he fits in our era!

I also think this page shows McCay had very strong page layouts from the start. I like the way the panels increase in size, descend down the page, and then decrease again in such a way that the two bedroom panels are the same size. It's a technique McCay employed throughout the series that causes the world of Slumberland to seem expansive compared to the "real" world.

I'm pretty sure that the first run of the Little Nemo strips is in the public domain, and it's a shame more of them aren't online. I've thought of starting a blog that reprints them all exactly 100 years after their original publication date but I'm not sure I have the time (and the huge files would start to take up a lot of bandwidth over time). Perhaps I'll just post occasional ones here until I lose interest.

In another case of suing the very thing that made you relevant again (I'm looking at you, Chuck Norris), Hasbro and Mattel are trying to put a stop to Scrabulous. Boo! If they were smart they would buy it or partner with them. I think it could be beneficial for both parties. There's a Facebook group trying to save it, so that's a good start.