Catzilla vs. Godzilla

And here’s a very cute video on the same subject:

Nothing like doggie cosplay to bring a smile to your face…

Found via lolcats.com.

Emily the Strange: The Motion Picture

If they make this into live action they’ll mess this up, unless they’re very careful with the art direction:

Emily the Strange heads to big screen

“Counterculture icon Emily the Strange is on the road to the big screen, with Dark Horse Entertainment president Mike Richardson coming on board to produce a feature film that would tell the origin of the gothic figure and her four mysterious cats.

Skateboarder Rob Reger created the character among a multitude of designs he was printing up for stickers, T-shirts and skateboards in Santa Cruz in the early 1990s. The Emily design took off, with Reger’s company, Cosmic Debris, going on to become a multimillion dollar business with toeholds in fashion, books and comics, toys, school supplies, and accessories. The character, often seen with four cats, has also become a figure for female empowerment and anti-conformity. Reger has remained the creative director behind the character and is one of several artists who work on “Emily.”

“Emily’s” connection with Richardson comes from the comic book line Dark Horse publishes. The company began publishing the title in 2005, with “Emily the Strange #1: Chairman of the Bored,” which was followed by several other popular miniseries. ”

The Genius of Alexander Courage

The music of Alexander Courage set the mood for every Star Trek TV series and movie to come — the tone is clearly that of a swashbuckling naval adventure set in the stars. This is amazing when you think about the fact that that approach was so out of style by the 60s, and yet Courage manages to reinvent it. And if I do say so, the music holds up rather well — it doesn’t feel dated, it’s a real classic is every sense of the word (it’s also important to note that he did this before Kubrick used classical music in 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968). Alexander, thank you for being a special part of the soundtrack of my childhood:

‘Star Trek’ theme composer dies at 88

“His most famous work is undoubtedly the “Star Trek” theme, which he composed, arranged and conducted in a week in 1965. “I have to confess to the world that I am not a science fiction fan,” Courage said in an interview for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation’s Archive of American Television in 2000. “Never have been. I think it’s just marvelous malarkey. … So you write some, you hope, marvelous malarkey music that goes with it.”

Courage said the tune, with its ringing fanfare, eerie soprano part and swooping orchestration, was inspired by an arrangement of the song “Beyond the Blue Horizon” he heard as a youngster. “Little did I know when I wrote that first A-flat for the flute that it was going to go down in history, somehow,” Courage said. “It’s a very strange feeling.”

Courage said he also mouthed the “whooshing” sound heard as the starship Enterprise zooms through the opening credits of the TV show.”

Yummy! The Nintendo Cereal System

It’s berry good news! In 1988 Ralston Cereals (yes the pet food folks!) produced the Nintendo Cereal System. The box featured fruity-flavoured Marios on one side and Zelda berry-flavored boomerangs, keys, and shields. Each box also featured a sticker of a Nintendo character and a set of trading cards. You have wonder why with all of those goodies they bothered to even have cereal in the box?

Kiss Bearbricks

I’m sorry but I grew up hating Kiss! They always seemed just a little too manufactured to me, as opposed to say Led Zeppelin which was a “real band”. Although decades later I’ve learned to accepted the campyness of the 70s into my heart, even including * cough * disco. And so it was with this in mind that the Kiss edition of the Bearbricks designer toys caught my eye. It manages to turn the Kiss stage personas of The Demon, Starchild, Space Ace, and The Catman into something iconic and collectable.

Found via toysrevil.blogspot.com.

Cthulhu Crunch by Jorge Lacera

Jorge Lacera is an H.P. Lovecraft fan who works at 2K Boston (a game development shop). This illustration was part of a larger series called Cereal Killers which was sponsored by Kreepsville Industries.

Star Wars Adventures In ABC

Star Wars Adventures In ABC was published in 1984 by Buena Vista Records and included a audio tape with a 4 page read along book. Another book and cassette tape set in this same series was Star Wars: Adventures in Colors and Shapes which featured C-3PO and R2-D2 try to help Han Solo and Chewbacca repair the Millennium Falcon. The ABC book featured a different item from the Star Wars universe to illustrate each letter of the alphabet — starting with “A is for AT-AT”:

Read more…

Soviet Sci Fi: The Grand Space Voyage

The Grand Space Voyage (Bolshoe kosmicheskoe puteshestvie) was shot in 1974 in the Soviet Union by director Valentin Selivanov. The plot of the film follows two boys and a girl who are sent into space for a heroic adventure and a light dash of romance. The look of this film reminds me a great deal of Gerry & Sylvia Anderson’s UFO TV series. By the way the little girl in the film is Mila Berlinskaya, who went on to become a world-famous classical pianist who now lives in France (she sings that song too).

Found via darkroastedblend.com.

Jules Feiffer’s The Explainers

Jules Feiffer has done it all: He wrote for Will Eisner’s Outer Space Spirit, illustrated the classic children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth and an extract from his book The Great Comic Book Heroes was used by Quentin Tarantino in the film Kill Bill. However he’s best know to me and a few generations of comic book fans for his Pulitzer Prize winning work in the the Village Voice here in New York.

So I was very pleased to find out that Fantagraphics will be publishing a collection of Feifffer’s early work for the Voice, the book will be titled Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips (1956-1966). Here’s a description from the publisher:

“In 1956, a relatively unknown cartoonist by the name of Jules Feiffer started contributing a strip to the only alternative weekly published in the US, a small radical newspaper called The Village Voice. His strip tackled just about every issue, private and public, that affected the sentient American: relationships, sexuality, love, family, parents, children, psychoanalysis, neuroses, presidents, politicians, media, race, class, labor, religiion, foreign policy, war, and one or two other existential questions. It was the first time that the American public had been subjected to a weekly dose of comics that so uncompromisingly and wittily confronted individuals’ private fears and society’s public transgressions.”

Here are some samples from the book (click on to view at full size):

And here is Mr. Feiffer at his drafting table in 1958:

Found via comicsreporter.com.

Sydney Pollack on Acting and Directing

This Sydney Pollack interview is from 1992 and was shot while he was working on Tootsie. I love his advice to upcoming film directors (i.e. “just do it”) and the difference between film and video. Here’s the scene that he acted in (and also directed) from Tootsie:

Interview via Ira Gallen.

Space Station Bathroom Broken

It looks like the International Space Station is having some issues with its only toilet which is seven years old at this point, NASA is trying to send up parts for a replacement on the next shuttle launch but Discovery is currently overloaded with another payload:

Space Station Toilet Broken: It’s The Only One

“The international space station’s lone toilet is broken, leaving the crew with almost nowhere to go. So NASA may order an in-orbit plumbing service call when space shuttle Discovery visits next week. Until then, the three-man crew will have to make do with a jury-rigged system when they need to urinate.

While one of the crew was using the Russian-made toilet last week, the toilet motor fan stopped working, according to NASA. Since then, the liquid waste gathering part of the toilet has been working on-and-off. Fortunately, the solid waste collecting part is functioning normally. Russian officials don’t know the cause of the problem and the crew has been unable to fix it.”

…if you’re curious about how to go to the bathroom in space check out this page.

The Muppets vs. Manhattan

I love this fan edited video of the Muppets with the dialogue from the 1979 Woody Allen film Manhattan.

Found via Gawker.