Tag Archives: comics

Resident Alien

Over the last few weeks, I’ve watched (on Netflix) two seasons of Resident Alien, a SyFy television adaptation of the same-named comic series. A third season finished airing on the SyFy channel earlier this month but isn’t yet available on Netflix.

Both the comic and its adaptation are stories about an alien stranded on Earth, but the adaptation is a severe departure from its source text. Worse from my point of view, the television show is an Idiot Clown comedy, and I’ve never cared for those. In its favor, though, it stars the inimitable Alan Tudyk.

The pity is that the comic story is much better — and much smarter — than the adaptation but has been almost entirely discarded.

Continue reading


The Sandman (poster)

One of the main posters for the Netflix adaptation of the Neil Gaiman graphic novel The Sandman seems to encapsulate and illustrate an approach by Hollywood that many, myself included, find problematic. This post continues a series of posts pondering the issue of actor swapping in film and TV roles.

I spent two posts (one and two) on The Sandman adaptation because of its examples of actor swapping in key roles. These stand out because they apply to especially well-defined characters. Similar, say, to the characters on Futurama.

I hadn’t intended a third post, but the poster caught my eye. It’s the one in the lede of the two posts (and this one). Its layout out intrigues me.

Continue reading


The Sandman (notes)

The last post expressed some key disappointments (and a few things I liked) about the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman (1989-1996), a widely respected, much loved, graphic novel series from writer Neil Gaiman (and numerous artists). Once I started writing that post, 2000 words came easy, but I never got to most of the notes I had.

I have three pages of said notes, so I figured I needed a follow-up post. I’m not bothering with any plot synopsis, so if you aren’t already familiar with the story and the adaptation, neither of these posts — especially this one — will make much sense.

Suffice to say, the show has its fans, but I’m not among them.

Continue reading


The Sandman

This past week I watched the eleven episodes of the first (and possibly only) season of the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman (2022), which is based on the famous Neil Gaiman comic series, The Sandman (1989-1996), considered by many to be one of the greatest graphic novels ever.

I think live-action adaptations of comics and animated shows are very hard to get right. And Netflix seems to have a bad history when it comes to adaptations, even of live shows (they’ve had a number of notable fails along those lines). On the other hand, Gaiman was attached to, and involved in, the production, which seemed hopeful.

But to say I was disappointed by the series is putting it mildly.

Continue reading


Rick O’Shay

Back in the day, there was a comic strip that I really loved. It took place in the American old west in the small town of Conniption. The town was so small, it had only a deputy sheriff, Rick O’Shay. His best friend was a (reformed) gunslinger, Hipshot Percussion. The dance hall owner was Gaye Abandon, and the town doctor was Dr. Basil Metabolism. (Ya gotta love those names!)

The strip was called Rick O’Shay, and it was drawn by Stan Lynde.

Of course, we all love cowboys and the old west, but what made the comic a key part of my past was the spirituality of my favorite character, the gunslinger Hipshot.

Continue reading


Movies: Green Lantern

Finally saw Green Lantern; thumbs definitely up. I’m no Green Lantern expert, but I’ve read enough to recognize a lot honor done to that comic. The Guardians and Oa seemed pretty on the money to me; so were Abin Sur, Tomar-Re, Kilowog and Sinestro. And I had no problem with Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan; no more so than Christian Bale as Batman or Toby Maguire as Spiderman. Or with Robert Downey Jr as Ironman, for that matter. (And I like them fine, in case you mistake me as being sarcastic.)

I also appreciated the way Hal used the ring: unusual, and yet appropriate, inventions to solve the problem at hand. That seemed very Green Lantern-ish. I’ve always considered slightly odd-ball combat and rescue tools as kind of a signature of the comic. For one example, lofting the oil tanker with a pair of bigass rams and then blowing it up with AA guns.

That was pure GL.

Continue reading