The Office Is Closed

For those of you living under a rock, the Writer's Guild of America is striking in order to force the studios and networks to negotiate residual payments for digital media. Sounds complicated or maybe boring, but it's not. And every TV show and movie currently in production in the U.S. is affected. And tragically, that includes The Office. Listen to what the show's actors and writers have to say about it:

Find out more at United Hollywood. Support the Strike!

31 Days of Seven Soldiers

In early 2005, undisputed comics genius Grant Morrison debuted an enormous undertaking: a series of seven four-issue miniseries and two bookend issues that intertwined to tell one giant meta-story. Each mini starred a different C- or D-List character in their own revitalized and stylistically unique adventures. Collectively they were The Seven Soldiers of Victory, but while their storylines intersected along the way and culminated in one climactic battle, none of the seven characters ever meet one another. And it was some of the most challenging and head-spinning writing in comics since...well, since the last thing Morrison wrote.

Reading the mega-series end-to-end and understanding just some of the multiple layers of meaning contained therein is a difficult enough task, but the prospect of doing an exhaustive analysis of each issue – that's like trying to explain the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So in honor of the imminent release of the fourth and final volume collecting this magnum opus, I present to you: 31 Days of Seven Soldiers.

My hat is off to you, Greg Burgas! I hope someone somewhere gives you a degree in Morrisonism.

BKV in NYT

Nice little feature in the New York Times today on Brian K. Vaughan, writer/creator of Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways and many more.

The piece focuses on the imminent release of Pride of Baghdad, his new original graphic novel beautifully illustrated by Niko Henrichon. In addition to Pride, it turns out he's just finished the screenplay adaptation of Y, and is about to begin working on the same for Ex Machina.

I suspect it's an interesting time to be BKV.

Sunshine on the horizon

Danny Boyle (director of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Shallow Grave and more) has a new sci-fi psychological thriller in post-production called Sunshine.

As a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris (yes, Soderbergh's version) and other intellectually charged “space” movies, I'm pretty well convinced that I am gonna have to see this one. From checking out the story, the visual approach, the cast, and the teaser at the movie's impressive website, it looks like it's going to be much more than the sum of it's parts....

Oh yeah, did I mention that the soundtrack for the film is going to be handled by UNDERWORLD? Yeah baby! Hearing the stuff they've been working on in the RiverRun series, I'm completely stoked!

What's going on here?

Welcome to Telephasic Workshop, lovingly christened after the Boards of Canada track of the same name (Brian Eno's “St. Elmo's Fire” had already been claimed by another enterprising blogger).

I've had a personal blog at LiveJournal for many years now, but about middle of last year I just stopped posting. The original idea was to use it as a means to stay in touch with friends and family, but over time I found that I wasn't so much interested in sharing the latest update on the wife, the cat or the job as I was about the latest CD, comic or movie I'd discovered. After a year of not blogging at all, I've got the craving to share my opinion again and it's gonna be all pop culture all the time, without the life stuff getting in the way.

What you can expect to see here are reviews and bits of news regarding music, comics, books, television, movies, the web, whatever. If it's interesting to me, I'm happy to share my opinion...because like, you know, mine's the best. Having said that, we're all going to have a lot more fun here if you chime in too. And if you find out about something that you like, I wouldn't mind if you bought it through one of my links so I get a tiny little kickback.

So anyway, that's that. On with the show!