Falling Rock Book 3 order form UP

Beginning now, you can purchase your own piece of Falling Rock National Park.

Click here to go directly to the book order form, or use the handy icon to your right (it's the image with all the books in it).

Falling Rock Book 3 contains 32 pages, 67 (give or take) high-quality jokes, printed right here in Portland, Oregon on recycled paper and utilizing the latest in soy-based ink technology. (WARNING: This is not the same thing as a book made of tofu. Do not try to make a stir-fry with this book.)

If you're going to be in the Portland area on April 18th or 19th, make your way to the Stumptown Comics Fest, where I'll be hawking my wares with the rest of the Portland comics community.

Order up!

BOOK THREE HAS ARRIVED

Get your reading eyes adjusted, because the third collection of Welcome to Falling Rock National Park has arrived!
I went to the good people at Pinball Publishing to pick them up Thursday. Book 3 contains 32 pages of pure comic genius printed with soy based ink on recycled paper. Plus it has a very nifty chipboard cover that doubles nicely as a beer coaster. You get all the joy of reading Falling Rock on newsprint or your computer screen, plus a beer coaster. It's a win-win. All for $4.

And I was so happy with the result I had to take a bunch of pictures.

Soon you'll be able to order your very own copy of Welcome to Falling Rock National Park. I'll be setting up a Paypal order form on my website. For those of you in the Pacific Northwest, I'll also be tabling at Stumptown Comics Fest on April 18-19. If you can't stand the wait, just email me and I'll ship one out post-haste.

Hurray for comics in print!

Friday Robots

The first robot of the day was definitely Portland-inspired. The second is chair-inspired. Does anybody want a robot chair?

Oh, and for those of you who missed it the first time around, here is an encore of Friday Robots: A Friday Robot is Born.

Falling Rock National Park: Book 3

The wait is almost over.

Welcome to Falling Rock National Park: Book 3 is almost back from the printer! This should prove to be an exciting chapter in the history of Falling Rock National Park. Ernesto tries to hide an elephant, Old Man Winter visits Melissa, Carver saves the park from a ticking bomb, Pam considers running for President, and Dee tries to teach a school group what the desert is all about.

As you can see, the front cover is only the beginning. You get 32 pages of Falling Rock comics, each one handcrafted right here in the USA.

When you finish reading the book, you can close it and start all over again. But before you do that, make sure to glance at the back cover.

Why are there Easter Island heads at Falling Rock? You'll have to read the book to find out.
Keep checking this here blog to find out when the third collection of Falling Rock comics arrives.

Exciting!

Planet X is Coming

Astronomers continue to search for Planet X, that hypothetical planet hidden in the darkness of space somewhere beyond the orbit of Neptune and Pluto. There is no doubt in my mind that Planet X exists; astronomers just haven't seen it yet. There are just too many places for a massive planet to hide.

What remains a mystery, and continues to fire the imagination of our greatest thinkers, is what kind of a planet Planet X really is. Could it be a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn? Storms raging endlessly in the twilight world? Or is it made of rock and ice like Pluto and Mars?

In either case, Planet X is surely a giant. Readings from Pioneer 10 and 11 as they raced out of our solar system indicate that they passed by an object large enough to disturb their trajectories. Planet X's gravity could have that effect on the satellites as they cruised by. Early readings of Neptune indicated small discrepancies in its orbit, perhaps caused by a massive object nearby.

In my mind, there is only one logical conclusion: Planet X is neither made of rock or of gas. Planet X is, in fact, an intelligent creature. Biding his time in the furthest reaches of the solar system, Planet X, known by his own kind as Morduulon the Repulsive, orbits the sun waiting for the right moment to reveal himself.

Morduulon the Repulsive is part of a race known as the Planet Devourers. They find a solar system, lurk in the shadows and slowly eat each and every planet, saving the delicious sun for last. Morduulon has been eating planets in our system for hundreds of millions of years. There used to be an impressive 23 planets in our system until Morduulon snacked his way through 14 of them.

Pluto is on his menu right now: before being the dwarf planet, Pluto was a huge chunk of rock roughly the size of 200 Earths. With two swift bites, Morduulon diminished Pluto to its current size. All that remains is a crumb for Morduulon to toss into his gaping maw before he moves on to Neptune.

Among Planet Devourers, Morduulon the Repulsive is one of the worst. He came by his nickname honestly. Instead of eating a planet in one bite, as is the custom, he'll draw his meal out over centuries. Should that planet be inhabited, Morduulon will watch with blood red eyes as the miniature occupants scurry and scamper over each other in fear. He will sit back and laugh at the devastation he has wrought. And his laugh...none have heard such horrors as the laugh of Morduulon the Repulsive. One thousand deaths at sea compare favorably to one guffaw of Morduulon's.

We must begin planning now if we're to beat Morduulon. Sure, some people will say Morduulon is Neptune's problem, so let Neptune deal with him. Not so! Once Neptune is a bit of indigestion in Morduulon's stomach, Uranus is not long for this universe. Then Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars are the only barriers between us and the cavity-infested mouth of Morduulon. Let me tell you, those planets are no match for Morduulon.

Before we know it, our lovely moon will suddenly disappear. Then we'll smell the rancid breath that will permeate Earth until we are nothing but half-chewed morsels in the foulest intestinal tract the universe has ever known.

Morduulon the Repulsive may respond to nuclear weapons. He may respond by laughing or by acting as if they are tickling him. He will not respond in terror and run away like a wee baby Comet Devourer. No, if we are to beat Morduulon we must find a hero to fly a spacecraft directly into his digestive system. From there, our hero must find Morduulon's one weakness - and trust me, he only has one - and destroy the Planet Devourer.



It will not be an easy task. Our hero will not return alive. Our hero must make peace with the fact that, when he destroys Morduulon, he too will be blown into a million tiny pieces that will float in the outer reaches of our solar system for all eternity. Our hero must do this selfless act for the rest of us, with no hope of seeing the parades we'll hold in his honor and the ballparks we'll name after him. Our hero must be truly heroic.

Heed my words, dear readers. One among us must face this unspeakable evil for the good of all humanity. Our very survival is at stake. Planet X is coming.

Friday Robots Still Going Strong

Friday Robots have bled into Sunday this week. A lone robot is still roaming Falling Rock, requesting food items from Carver.


This can only result in tears.

Friday Robots for Sale

You can celebrate Friday everyday with special Friday Robot Gear!
That's right, for an unlimited time only, you can buy Friday Robots-emblazoned shirts, caps, buttons, and magnets.
There are new designs up now:

Friday Robots

Full disclosure, folks: the second robot for today is my riff on the inside of the Fleet Foxes' CD cover. The first robot is all me, as far as I know. Sometimes my subconscious ambushes me.

beatles reissues

Why is it we don't have decent sounding CDs of the greatest band of all time? The Beatles, whose music is unarguably better than Wolfgang Mozart's on his best day, have been heard for the last 30 years on tinny, crappy CDs rushed to market in the late 1980's.

I'll spare you the whole story, which has been recounted at length on other parts of the internet. Suffice to say The Beatles CDs sound way worse than those of their contemporaries. It galls me that The Monkees, began as a cheap cash-in on The Beatles' early style, have remixed, remastered CDs that sound as good as the day a boatload of studio musicians piled into some recording booth in the 1960's.

There are a few recent releases that offer fans a taste of what The Beatles actually sounded like: the Yellow Submarine Songtrack, comprised of songs from the film Yellow Submarine (itself no longer in print), the horribly titled Let it Be...Naked, and Love, the soundtrack to a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show. These three releases sound really good: full, loud. Listening to Love made me realize how much "Revolution" rocks. On "I Am the Walrus," I heard the band playing together, something that gets lost on the murky-sounding Magical Mystery Tour CD. I would never trade the Love album in for any reason, but at the same time I'm angry that I had to wait for Cirque du Soleil to put on a show to hear The Beatles remastered.

The Apple website shows us how companies still don't get the internet. The 40th anniversary of the White Album came and went with no remaster, but we can buy a $500 White Album pen. Imagine that! A white pen! People should be getting fired over this. I imagine the Apple corporate headquarters is a rundown farm, with a sickly horse wheezing in the stable, two cows too old to give milk, chickens wandering listlessly in the driveway, and a constantly quarreling farmer and his wife.

In whose interest is it to not release commodities for sale? When you eliminate the logical reasons, all you're left with is laziness, incompetence, or insanity. All three must be at work in Apple.

I can't imagine either Paul or Ringo cares very much at this point. They're pretty well set financially, and if they ever want to hear the recordings they can just pop into Abbey Road studio to hear the original tapes. But it is in their interests to push for better sounding CDs - this is, after all, their legacy. As long as we are stuck with facsimiles of facsimiles, thin carbon copies of the real recording, the world's impression of The Beatles is less awe and more "eh."

the nicest thing my parents ever did for me

Over the years, my parents have done a few nice things for my brother and me. They raised me, they put me through school, they taught me not to snarl like a wolf at the dinner table, they support my dream of being the first cartoonist in space.

But nothing they've done has earned my never-dying respect and admiration as the time they let us keep Ghostbusters: The Game out one extra night.

We weren't allowed to rent games for our Nintendo every Friday. Usually it had to be a special occasion, like the time my brother almost drowned in a river. In order to make us forget the bad times, my parents would take us to the local video monger and let us choose one game.

The rental policy was two nights. If we really liked a particular game, we'd ask to keep it longer, but this tactic rarely worked. The fees for keeping a game out must have been exorbitant; I imagine $4000 per extra night. My parents did not want us to live in the poorhouse (a distinct possibility every day), so they made sure we returned all our rentals on time.

Before you go out searching for Ghostbusters: The Game, know this: it is not a fun game. It is kind of like a doctor's waiting room. You drive around a city block until a ghost appears, then you get out of the Ghostmobile and capture it. This repeats endlessly. I never figured out how to progress in the game.

Somehow this endless loop was addictive. Maybe it was the sugar comas my brother and I were in after eating too much junk food. Maybe it was the comfort of knowing exactly what was going to happen next and knowing how to deal with it. Maybe it was a combination of psychological and biological cues the makers of Ghostbusters: The Game exploited to sell their product.

I can't say why, but when it came time to return the game we were still playing it. My parents, instead of ripping the plug from the wall and the game from the console, asked us nicely if we wanted to keep playing it an extra night. Barely raising our eyes from the flickering screen, we murmered "yes." Gloriously, mysteriously, my parents let us keep Ghostbusters: The Game for one more night.

I never asked my parents where that particular fit of generosity came from. I probably never will. Their action's power is partly due to its surprise. What I can say for sure is I never figured out that game. When we returned it, my brother and I never wanted to rent it again, let alone buy it. Its mysteries will remain locked forever in the game's plastic case. But my parents' largess will live on forever in my heart.

NOTE: This does not excuse my parents from the time they hired that babysitter who knifed me. But that's the subject of another post.

Friday Robots

You find a map buried in the yellowed pages of a long-dead mariner's logbook. What treasure could the X mark?

You set out.
After the months long journey, you reach the shore of a no longer inhabited island.
Though the people have long vanished, you find strange remnants of their culture.
Finally, you reach the spot marked by the X. At first you see nothing, but soon three apparitions come into focus.
They tell you the secrets of the land. They entrust you with the accumulated knowledge of their vanished culture. You walk back to your ship exhausted, wary, but confident. You will be the bearer of their wisdom from now on.

Take heed! Do not take your responsibility lightly. You are the keeper of the Friday Robots.

Tycho Brahe: Master of the Universe

In these hard economic times, the first to take a hit are often the most in need. Dreamers, thinkers; these highly-skilled but undervalued members of society never get the money they deserve to pull off those feats of magic we routinely expect from them. I'm talking of course about astronomers.

It wasn't always this way.

Back when the world was flat and God was King, a Danish astronomer worked in his underground laboratory. Tycho Brahe flaunted his noseless face and died of a urinary infection; he was an astronomer among astronomers, a man among men. He looked through a lens in the mid to late 1500’s to see what few other men saw. He made his own conclusions, he advanced scientific knowledge, he fought and he swore. Let us sing the praises of Tycho Brahe, astronomer extraordinaire.

Tycho Brahe was a metal-nosed star gazer. He lost a piece of his nose in a rapier fight. Instead of the more traditional wax nose, Brahe brazenly drew attention to it by installing an alloy of gold and silver (and probably copper). This gave him an air of superiority whenever he had to look down his nose at lesser astronomers.

Not to let his nose outshine his other eccentricities, Brahe owned a pet moose while he worked as Danish Royal Astronomer. Sadly the moose’s life was cut short when it ingested too much beer, fell down a staircase, and broke a leg. A metal leg for the poor beast was unfortunately not an option, and it died.

The Danish King gave Brahe an island where he could study the stars in peace. Now, history has shown that no good comes when men are given islands. Dr. Moreau, John Hammond, Rupert Murdoch: men make bigger mistakes when they rule a lonely island. Brahe took his island and had a castle built upon it and named it Uraniborg, after his mother, Borg.

Brahe loved the stars, but he loved women and fighting even more. When his good eye was not glued to the end of a telescope, it was leering at the prettiest Dane, Kirsten Jörgensdatter. Kirsten could not deny the metal-nosed rebel astronomer for long, and she became his child bride. She was 80 years younger than Brahe when they married. Fortunately she aged faster than Brahe and by the time of his death they were only twelve seconds apart.

Brahe’s goal was to purify astronomy and raise it to perfection. Astronomers of his day were often synonymous with soothsayers and moose doctors. The public perception of a man who spent his nights peeking into the cosmos was wary at best. Brahe insured his name would be inscribed in the history books by taking copious data which would later be used by his protege, Johannes Kepler, to figure out the three laws of planetary motion. Kepler’s laws have since been broadened not only for our solar system, but for all heavenly bodies that orbit other bodies.

Brahe also discovered that comets did not exist in our atmosphere but in space. This angered the Comet God, who pelted Brahe with tiny comets for the rest of his days. Many a visitor to Uraniborg noted that it appeared to be hailing all the time, even indoors.

After his run-in with the Comet God, Brahe trod lightly upon matters of the Church. When he discovered stellar parallax, a phenomenon that proved the universe was larger than a dome containing the sun and a few planets, Brahe kept his mouth shut. It was one of the few times he did so.

His twenty-year tenure as Royal Astronomer ended when he was fired by the King of Denmark. His temper was the culprit, and although Brahe fought hard against losing his temper ever again, that fight was a losing battle. He and Kirsten moved to Prague, where they could keep drinking and swearing without fear of job loss.

In 1600 Brahe employed Johannes Kepler. They became fast friends. Kepler was the Robin to Brahe’s Two-Face. In fact, Kepler was by Brahe’s bed when he died, even recording his last words: "May I not seemed to have lived in vain."

It is commonly thought that Brahe died of a bladder infection, but new evidence indicates he was poisoned by mercury. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Brahe sat too long at a royal dinner when really he should have used the bathroom. Not to be seen as improper, the metal-nosed rebel astronomer sat in agony through an eight course meal as his bladder screamed in protest. The nobleman whose house Brahe was visiting insisted on recounting his “waterfall and white water rapids” story, complete with gushing, rushing sound effects. Brahe could have keeled over right at the table, but years of propriety forced him to sit still. If a bladder infection was not the culprit of Brahe’s premature death, then certainly manners were a leading cause.

Brahe was 54 when he died, in 1601. His name, his fake nose, and his inventive use of foul language will live on. The stars will never be the same now that they have been studied by Tycho Brahe.

I Pretty Much Co-Directed Watchmen

Thanks to the stealthy nature of this blog, I was not captured by Warner Brothers executives for spilling the beans a week early about Watchmen. Even though I saw the movie before almost anyone else in the universe, I still went last weekend to see it again. It's that good a movie. Completed, I would say it's even better.

I noticed a lot of the little details you miss the first time around on a movie like this.
I really dug the Batman posters in the background of one scene that took place in the 1940s.

There were a few scenes that seemed better this time, like the little get-together between the two Nite Owls. Sadly, the second scene with the original Nite Owl was cut for this version of the film. I'm sure it will be back for the DVD. The scenes on Mars, fantastic on first viewing, were even grander with the finished special effects. How did people make comic book adaptations before computer special effects?

There were two suggestions I made after my test audience viewing that Zack Snyder apparently agreed with. The first was about the song, Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen. In the test screening, he used a cover version that didn't sound all that good. I said, why not just use the original? He did.

My second suggestion has to do with a major plot point; a surprise for anyone who hasn't read the book or seen the film yet. I won't give it away, but I will say that there is a flashback of sorts near the beginning of the film. Dr. Manhattan puts his hand to Laurie's forehead and forces her to "see" certain events from her past. In the original cut, you saw something that is meant to be a surprise at the end of the film. It totally ruined the surprise.

I said, why not let that be a surprise? You give away too much, too soon. Zack Snyder totally agreed with me. He said, you're right Josh, how could I have been so stupid? And I said, you're too hard on yourself, Zack. And he said, I'm nothing without you. And then we hugged for a really long time, but not in a gay way.

In short, I should have gotten co-directing credit for Watchmen. My fingerprints are all over that movie. I'm not concerned with the money. My foremost concern is that Watchmen be the best movie it can be, and that my name is first on the credits. Not too tall an order, really.

Thanks, Mr. Snyder, for making a great comic book adaptation. I was glad to put my hard-earned money down to see it a second time. Next time you're making a movie, I hope you remember my essential contributions and give me a ring. You know where to find me. (Right here.)

Friday Robots

This week's Friday Robot comes with a story. My documentarian friend, Andy, filmed the making of this robot.
You can watch the video here, or here:

fake presidents

What does it take to pretend to be President? Performing the duties of the highest office in the land is one that requires self-sacrifice, patience, fortitude, and lots of cash. That's the real office of the Presidency. Playing the President in a movie or TV show requires an entirely different skill set. But what are those skills?

You have to be old but not too old. You have to seem wise. You don't actually have to be wise, you just have to act like you know a lot of stuff. It helps if you have a few character flaws. It makes you seem fallible and introduces the idea that even the President of the United States sometimes has to stand naked.

You have to sit at a desk a lot, so your legs don't have to be all that good-looking. But make sure you know how to wear a suit. Also make sure you know how to look like you're reading papers with a high level of understanding. You don't actually have to understand these papers, just as you don't have to understand the concepts real Presidents have to deal with every day. The papers you'll be looking at just have gibberish printed on them, anyway.

You have to look deep in thought all the time. You have to be able to address people as though you respect their opinions but really they are below you, intellectually.


You should be white. You can be black now, but only if you're trying to make a "statement" about "race." You cannot be Chinese or Russian or North Korean or Jewish. You cannot resemble the leader of a different country. That's just confusing.

You can be a compassionate President or a vengeful President. You can try to mix those two ingredients, but try to favor one.

The future of the fake United States rests on every decision you pretend to make. Do not pretend to make decisions lightly. Fake people's lives are in the balance.

Remember these rules and you will make a fine fake President. Real Presidents are judged harshly by historians, but fake Presidents get a free pass. Unfortunately, fake Presidents don't get Presidential Libraries. If you want to go to a library, you'll have to get a card just like everybody else.

jaguar in tucson

I am greatly saddened by the second loss to the feline community in such a short span of time. It was not my original intention to report on the death of a jaguar, but nature has a way of doing whatever the heck it feels like.

A jaguar was captured near Tucson, Arizona yesterday. The big cat had been previously outfitted with a small, unobtrusive satellite-tracking collar:
Officials became concerned when the jaguar cut way back on his daily wanderings. Concerned, the officials transported jaguar to the Phoenix Zoo, where he was pronounced "alive" by a wildlife veterinarian.

Later yesterday the vet had to euthanize the jaguar. He was suffering from kidney failure, something his years of heavy drinking no doubt had a major factor in. I am positive it had nothing to do with the large metal collar clasped tightly around his neck. No age or living relatives were reported. This jaguar will be missed.

According to the Arizona Daily Star, the only news outlet brave enough to report on this elusive creature, jaguars generally live in South and Central America. They used to travel north, from Arizona and Colorado all the way up to the San Francisco Bay area. Those days ended when the United States government encouraged ranchers to shoot any and all jaguars. More recently it has been unheard of to spot a real, live jaguar in the States. Until now.

For an animal to travel from Mexico to Tucson undetected is quite a feat. Though details are not forthcoming, it is has been speculated that the jaguar was acting as "coyote": running illegal immigrants into the United States. Either that or he was merely roaming his natural territory in search of food and a mate. It will never be known what the jaguar was thinking in the days before his untimely death.

Falling Rock applauds the courageous jaguar. We extend our sympathies to his family and to jaguars everywhere. If heroism is doing exactly what you want, when you want it, then jaguar is a true hero of our time. I hope his journey, from somewhere in Mexico to the Tucson mountains to the Phoenix Zoo, shines as a beacon of hope (or, Hope Beacon) to other jaguars. This land is your land, jaguars. Long may you run.

Feline Farewell

I am greatly saddened by the loss of the National Cat, Socks Clinton. He passed away at home on February 20, 2009.

The age of Socks is under some dispute. One article claimed he was 18 at the time of his passing, but the Wikipedia article on him says he was 19. Either way, he clearly lived a long and happy life, dying in the arms of his owner, former Clinton secretary Betty Currie.

Though Socks will always and forever be remembered as First Pet of the Clinton Administration, during his term in office he came under attack by a large and annoying dog the Clintons adopted in 1997. Buddy, likely a Cuban spy, took the White House by storm and nearly ended Socks' reign three years early. Fortunately, Socks's popularity and military acumen ensured his power would not be usurped by that slobbering canine.

The Clintons, for reasons unknown, decided to keep Buddy and ditch Socks after leaving the White House in 2000. As always, Socks landed on his feet. Mrs. Currie, a woman who should have a highway named after her, took Socks in his fruitful post-White House years. Like a popular former President, Socks continued his good work even after the national spotlight shone elsewhere. Unlike Bill Clinton's checkered record after office, Socks stuck to his ideals. According to Mrs. Currie, Socks "love[d] to be in the sun and love[d] chicken."

Socks, we will miss your catlike reflexes, your engaging Press Briefings, and your beautiful white whiskers. The world has lost one of the great cats of our time.

Watchmen

Back in October, I had the great pleasure of seeing a test screening of Watchmen. It was all very hush-hush; in fact, many people who had received invitations were not allowed in because they hadn’t filled out an online form. Security was tight, my friends. Going in, we didn’t know what movie we would be seeing. All we knew was that it was a “big budget superhero movie.” We might have been the exclusive first audience to the next Punisher movie. Fortunately, it was much better than that.

Since I had to sign a waiver, I’ve been tight-lipped about Watchmen. What I didn’t want was an elite team of Warner Brothers-trained ninjas killing me silently in the dead of night. But now that the release date approaches, I’m sure no one at “The Bros” would mind a lonely blogger speaking about their movie. Especially since it was totally awesome.

I wonder if I was the only cartoonist in the crowd that night. I have read the Watchmen graphic novel; I’m a fan. I have been severely let down by some comic book adaptations, but Hollywood has been getting better at it lately. I don’t know about you, but the original Superman was pretty bad. Sure, Christopher Reeve was undeniably awesome as both Clark Kent and Superman, but on the whole it felt too stately. Spider-Man was probably the first fun superhero movie, and since then you can’t walk into a video store without spotting a half dozen good-to-great adaptations. My expectations for Watchmen, then, were fairly high.



Fortunately, Zack Snyder delivered. The movie follows the comic incredibly closely. There were even shots taken directly from panels in the book. Like most long-form fiction, much of the story was taken out for the movie. That didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother me that the ending was slightly altered. What matters most is, if you like the movie you’re more likely to pick up the book. Who wants to see the exact same story in two formats, anyway? What’s the point of spending 200 million dollars to copy what was done already? This is a good adaptation.

The actors are not superstars, but they were obviously chosen because they fit the look of the characters. And I must say, they all did a magnificent job. I’m glad there were no huge stars - it would have just detracted from the story. It does take most of your concentration to follow the story.

Some elements of the story: before the Watchmen, there was The Minutemen. You’ve got two generations of superheroes to keep track of. (It’s like a comic book One Hundred Years of Solitude.) Then you’ve got an alternate history where we won Vietnam and Richard Nixon is still President in 1985. You also have to be aware that the present in the movie is 1985, otherwise you won’t get why everybody is so freaked out about nuclear war.

Oddly enough, I found the “real people” (Nixon, Buchanan, Kissinger) to be more cartoony than the Watchmen. They had meetings in a Dr. Strangelove war room, they talked like they were in a 1950’s war movie. Comparatively, the Watchmen seemed almost everyday in their actions.

The special effects were unfinished. I could usually tell what they were getting at, though, as there was a rough animation as placeholder. They didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story. I kind of enjoyed seeing the filmmaker’s process. It also made me use my imagination, something I can’t say I do very much at movies nowadays. (I love sounding like I’m 93 in these posts.) Really, I prefer animation over live-action in general. Cartoonist bias.


The soundtrack was unfinished as well but there was a fantastic cue for a scene involving a character called Dr. Manhattan. They used a Phillip Glass piece from the movie Mishima. It worked terrifically well, and I hope they keep it in or use something similar. The song selection was a mixed bag. The opening credits (one of the standout scenes) used Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’. Then they used a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah in a hokey sex scene I hope gets cut. Worse still, it wasn’t Jeff Buckley’s version, or even Rufus Wainwright’s. Was there a rights issue?

On the whole, it seemed too much like a grab bag of well-known radio songs. It isn't that I'm against Sound of Silence, or even Simon & Garfunkel in general. I'm a fan. It's that I already associate that song with another, very famous, movie. Mr. Snyder needs to dig a little deeper than a Greatest Hits collection for his soundtrack. Hopefully that will be remedied. But keep the Dylan in.

There were some beautiful scenes of Dr. Manhattan on Mars. They really seemed to play up his Buddhist nature. How can you detach yourself from the illusory world yet remain connected to all things? There are a few hints of this philosophical conundrum. I also thought the love story was handled well for a movie with lots of explosions. It’s not often you can get the nuanced in with the fist fight.

I give my wholehearted recommendation to Watchmen. Go see it when it opens. It is definitely a Theater Movie, one that has as many ideas, as grand a story, as big a climax as anything you will see on a wall-sized screen.

And if Warner Brothers does send me to a Siberian labor camp for having blogged about Watchmen before it opens, please send me a bootlegged DVD so I can see the finished product.