The Two-Hundred-Twenty-Seventh Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

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A face-shooting and a fatal neck biting! Crooks used to be awesome!

Adventures in Fake Journalism: Magic Man

The film Magic Man concerns a woman's half-hearted investigation into the mysterious death of her mother some twenty years earlier. At one point we get a look at an article concerning that crime - and here it is!

Now, for the text!

Game of Thrones and the Hollywood Atheist Conspiracy

For those who aren't theAvod viewers, the "Hollywood Atheist Conspiracy" is a blanket term I use to describe the frequent habit of entertainment industry types to massively underepresent the religiosity and superstitiousness of real people when creating characters for their products. This leads to the odd sight of horror movies in which the majority of characters don't believe in ghosts, except for a lone kook. This compares rather starkly to real demographic surveys, which suggests that a belief in ghosts is a commonplace opinion, with the skeptics being a small minority.

This tendency shows itself in other ways as well. Prominent atheist characters, sparseness of any religious characters unless the plot requires them, and a general lack of consideration to issues of belief and superstition. It even leads filmmakers and producers to shoehorn atheist messages into places where they have no logical or sensible reason for being. Which brings me, naturally to Game of Thrones.

Production Can Be a Struggle, Folks

So I'm watching Scream Park, and we get to the part where one of the killbillies has to chop his way into a gift shop. Then this happens.

If you're wondering why that looks so strange, not unlike an FMV game from the mid-90s, it's because that's some truly iffy bluescreen you're looking at. Its seems that a condition placed on the filmmakers was that they not damage the amusement park's property at all, so this scene proved something of a challenge.

Also, here's a free tip - if you're framing straight at a set of glass doors like this, if you'd just open the door you want out of the way 90 degrees it would be effectively invisible. By pushing it as far as it would go, you've made it abundantly clear that there's an open door right there on the left of frame, right next to the fake one you've added in post.

The Next Day: Scream Park Edition

The film Scream Park concerns an attempt by the owner of a theme park to arrange the murder of his staff in the hopes that the publicity surrounding the massacre will turn the park into a major tourist attraction. Setting aside whether or not this would work (the film seems to think it would), it's one of the most inept examples in recent memory of a film struggling to obtain a 'the killer wins' ending that I've ever seen.

These are the film's two survivors. Woman and her Boss. After a terrible struggle against some killbillies, Woman manages to save the day, while Boss hides in a closet the whole night. Then, right at the end of the movie, it's revealed that Boss was in on it all along, and murdered Woman's would-be boyfriend because he was romantically fixated on her.

The Two-Hundred-Twenty-Sixth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

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I think it's time to just take a moment and appreciate the art of the Spirit. Where else are you going to see art like this? Man, what I wouldn't pay for the original black and white art from this page. Like so much Will Eisner art, it's almost like the primitive 40s colouring techniques are defiling the work.

The Two-Hundred-Twenty-Sixth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Dead like lightning? Is lightning an especially 'living' thing? In any event, I like that German guy's style. We need monocles again, America!

The Two-Hundred-Twenty-Fifth Greatest Panel in the History of Comics

Some things are best experienced without context.