THE ROCKETEER

I've written about how much I like The Rocketeer before, and it'll only get more apparent in the future. That's why I loved this video so much. A team of French animators put it together to celebrate the memory of creator Dave Stevens and the 20th Anniversary of the Disney movie of the same name.

I hope Disney takes a cue and John Lasseter tells Pixar to get to work. But since that will probably never happen, this will have to do.


The Rocketeer 20th anniversary from John Banana on Vimeo.

THE TRUEST SENSE OF THE WORD

Fuck Ryan Dunn.

Let's just get that out of the way right off the bat.

Ever since the JACKASS star died in a car wreck Sunday night, the Internet has gone into a "Oh, what happened to Ryan Dunn was such a shame. He was SUCH a good guy" frenzy.

And you know what? He probably was a good guy. I'm not going to lie, I've been a fan of his since the CKY skate video days. My friends and I would watch it almost nightly, wherever we were. My friend Clark was in the hospital with a broken back about 10 years ago (from his own CKY stunt of trying to slide down the bubble over the U of U practice field) and while we were waiting for him to get out of surgery, we popped that video in the waiting room VCR and forced everyone to watch it.

I saw all three JACKASS movies in the theater and made sure to catch each episode of the show when it aired on MTV. I loved those dudes. They seemed like cool guys, guys that we'd want to hang out with. And that was their appeal. You wanted to hang out with these dudes, wanted to be friends with them, wanted to be in on their crazy stunts. And they made a fortune from that. They made more money than I'll ever see and probably had more fun than I'll ever have. I can't knock them for that.

But I can knock Dunn for getting drunk (.196 Blood Alcohol Level which is well above the legal limit of .08) leaving the bar and deciding it was a great idea to drive his Porsche 130 MPH with someone in the passenger seat. Because that's just a shitty thing to do.

Maybe I have a biased opinion, though.

A friend of mine was killed when a drunk driver entered the exit ramp of the freeway and hit her head on, killing her instantly. All my high school friends spiraled straight down to shit with alcohol, heroin, cocaine and whatever else they could get their hands on. Not even one of my closest friends dying of a drug overdose stopped them. They all ditched the funeral as soon as possible to try and get higher than they already were.

Those are the things that made me who I am today and why I'm still straight edge.

To be honest, I don't care if you drink, smoke weed, drop ecstasy or shoot heroin. It's your life. Do what you want.

But I'm also not going to feel bad for you when it bites you in the ass. It's all in the game and those are the risks you take.

And that's especially true when it comes to driving drunk. I have absolutely no tolerance for it and you deserve every bad thing that happens to you if you do it. You won't get any sympathy from me.

Which brings us back to Ryan Dunn. I know people are sad because it feels like a guy we all knew just died and that hurts.

But the bottom line is that he did it to himself. He did it selfishly and recklessly and behaved like a Jackass in the truest sense of the word.

END OF DAYS

This blog is about to get a lot nerdier.

Since the summer of 2004 I've been freelancing for City Weekly. I've done a few things for them like album reviews, band profiles, comedy writing and event previews but what I mostly did was write about comic books. For a long time it was a steady rotation of once a month, just like clockwork. At first it was strictly reviews and usually went like this - one 450 word piece and two 100 word capsules. Mostly I tried to review comics that I really liked and thought more people should be reading. I never liked reviewing shitty comics because to me, the point was to get as many people reading comics as I could. So that meant highlighting all the good stuff that was out there and I thought I did a pretty good job of that.

One of my favorite stories about this was, one week after I had written a review of the awesome NORTHLANDERS by Brian Wood (which just got cancelled and inspired another post to come) my friend Josh was at the comic shop talking to the owner. The door opened and this guy that looked like he didn't read comics came walking in holding something in his hand. He held it up and it was a copy of my review, ripped out of the City Weekly and just said "I want this book."

Hearing things like that made me happy. There's been a few other times I've gone in to the comic shop and the owner would tell me that something I wrote was selling a lot of books and it would make me feel good.

Once the rotation of my column started getting more and more irregular, I started branching out a bit more and writing pieces that were more essays than reviews. I'd pick something that was going on in the industry and write about it for a bit. It was fun, but since I never had a clear idea of when I was going to get to write, I decided to steer clear of posting comic related stuff on trevorhale.com just in case.

But last week I got an e-mail from the A&E editor, the guy who's essentially been my boss for the past 7 years telling me they'd signed a deal with Big Shiny Robot to take over the Geek Culture aspect of the paper which included comics.

I was a little bit bummed, but not shocked. Bryan Young, one of the founding editors of the site has been working hard for a long time building that site in to what it is today and he's done an awesome job of it. I can't say I'm the biggest fan of some of the writing on the site, but I do respect the guys, what they do and how hard they've worked at it.

I'll still be freelancing from time to time for City Weekly, but that also means that this site is going to have a lot more comic related stuff on it now.

Just a fair warning.

BREAKING BAD

Been home all day burning through Season 3 of BREAKING BAD. If you like awesome television with fantastic storytelling and actors that kill every moment they're on screen, you need to be watching this show.

And when you're all caught up, if you're a story nerd like I am, read this interview with the show's creator Vince Gilligan. Lots of showrunners come off as pretentious dicks, but this guy is so humble that it makes the show that much better.

But don't read it if you're not all caught up, because they talk about some pretty major aspects of Season 3.

Now I've just got to bide my time until Season 4 starts next month.

RELAXING

The airport runway on the island of St. Maartens is remarkably short, ending just feet away from Maho Beach. Since the runway is just barely long enough for jets to land, pilots have to fly extremely low, nearly clipping the fence as they descend. Tourists ‘relaxing’ on the beach often have planes pass a mere 30 feet over their heads.

FINALLY

The NBA Finals start tonight. This is the first year that I've managed to watch most of the games in the playoffs (which have, for the most part, been fantastic) since I got back into basketball in a big way four or five years ago. And it kind of pains me to say it, because this is the first year the Jazz haven't been in the playoffs in a while, too.

But even without a clear team to root for this year, I've loved all the games. I skipped out on a wedding party to watch Memphis and San Antonio's overtime game, woke up from a nap just in time to see Brandon Roy come back from the dead and kill the Mavericks in the fourth quarter, watched as Scott Brooks let his young team pretty much do whatever they wanted only to watch them get repeatedly knocked down by a veteran group that knows better.

I changed my tune on the Celtics while watching the Basketball Jesus drain momentum-killing threes coming off a high screen, then watched as their season ended when KG suddenly showed his age and the miles he's put on his body since coming in to the NBA at age 18 caught up with him. I watched as Amare struggled with watching Carmelo become the new top dog in NYC, and watched the Magic fall apart in the first round. I reveled in watching the Lakers get swept by a team that everyone predicted would be gone in the first round. I watched Derrick Rose play magnificently at first only to get shut down when it mattered most.

It's been an awesome eight weeks of basketball and I'm sad to see it go—especially since it looks like the NBA is on the same path as the NFL and there won't be anymore basketball for a long, long time.

But the Finals start tonight with the Dallas Mavericks facing the Miami Heat.

And no matter who wins this series, we all lose.

We all lose for one, big, six foot eight, 250 pound reason—LeBron James.

We all remember what he did last summer when he took his talents to South Beach, putting a target on his back and essentially making him the new villain of the NBA. I wrote a little bit about it then, but haven't much cared to since. Because everywhere else you go, that's what was dominating the news, whether it was Yahoo!, ESPN, Fox Sports or one of the millions of basketball blogs.

But here we are on May 31, with game one tonight in Miami and there are two ways this plays out. The first is that the Heat lose. If this happens, Dirk and Kidd get their rings and Nowitzki comes off "the list" he's on with Barkley, Malone and Marino as the greatest players to never win a championship. But that all goes away after about three days and we spend the entire summer listening to the talking heads on TV and radio and reading the sure to be dozens of columns all saying the same thing—even with Dwayne Wade, LeBron still couldn't get it done. How he'll never live up to his title of 'King James.' They'll tear him apart all summer long and well in to next season, too. It'll be the top story for months.

The second, is that the Heat win. If this happens, those same people will spend the next six months tearing LeBron James apart, saying that he couldn't do it alone and how he'll never rightfully earn the nickname 'King James.'

Either way, get ready for another summer of LeBron.

And I know last year, when I sort of predicted a Laker-Heat final, I said I'd root for Los Angeles, just to watch the Heat lose, but I changed my mind. There's one person in the NBA I've hated for well over a decade, and I'll be pulling for Miami for one small reason.

It'll be way more fun to see Mark Cuban lose than LeBron.

THE FUZZY PACK

This movie will be fantastic.

ISOLATION

I posted these a few months ago, but they kept getting taken down and I kind of gave up trying to keep up with all the new links and how to find them. But they started popping up again, so I'm posting them until they get taken down—which will probably be sooner than later.

"Gimme Shelter" is one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs (how could it not be, though?) and I think these isolated tracks are just truly fascinating. They're just totally stripped down and raw and you can hear every little nuance and every little mistake they make. The lead guitar track is the best example of this, but it's not up anymore. I'll post it as soon as I can find it.

Vocals Only


I'm not the biggest fan of The Beatles "Helter Skelter" when it's played by the full band, but the vocal track alone is one of my favorite things to listen to. You can just hear how much fun Paul is having singing and it definitely translates.

Vocals Only

FRIDAY THE 13TH @ CATHEDRAL TATTOO

11:30 PM and still a full house

Last week it was Friday the 13th. While the day is normally associated with bad luck and awesomely terrible horrible horror movies, a lot of tattoo artists have turned the tables.

Cathedral Tattoo (249 E. 400 S. in Salt Lake City) decided that they were going to do small, flash walk-ins all day long and spread good luck instead of bad. They had tons of custom designs for people to choose from starting as low as $13 and ranging up to $80. Seemed like a great idea and on top of that, some of the proceeds for the day would be going to Cause For Paws, an organization to help find homes for shelter animals about to be put down. They advertised it on the Internet, cleared their books and hoped for the best.

They had no idea what they were in for.

Dan C in the coveted #1 spot

When the 5 employees (4 artists and a shop manager) showed up an hour before the doors opened, there were already around 40 people waiting outside. They set up shop, devised the ticketing system, opened the doors and bedlam ensued right away. Okay, maybe not that bad. Everyone was patient and understanding while Jake, CJ, Tyler and James got to work.

I showed up around 3PM and there was still a line around the workspace that stretched out the front door. I grabbed a ticket for Jake (number 30) and decided to head home for a bit, rather than wait at the shop all day. Before I left, I asked Mike what number Jake was on, he consulted the sheet, looked at me and said, "seven."

I laughed and headed out. Ran a few errands, cleaned my apartment a bit, took a nap, showered, grabbed some dinner and went back down to the shop around 9PM. Jake was on #19. Not having much else to do, I decided to stick around and hang out.

The shop stayed full the entire night and by the time it got close to my turn, it was 1:30 in the morning. By that time, everyone was worn out, but pressing on. Knowing I had to be awake and at work in a few hours and that there were still a few people after me, I gave up my spot so they could get tattooed instead.

As much as I wanted at Friday the 13th tattoo, I decided I'd rather just get a bigger better tattoo another time—a time when I didn't have to wake up three hours later. So I made an appointment, bid everyone at the shop adieu and headed home with no new zaps anywhere.

While I don't have anything to do with Cathedral Tattoo professionally, those dudes are some of my closest friends and I was genuinely thrilled to see how many people wanted to spend their Friday waiting around to get tattooed. Everyone that I talked to that night was gracious, respectful and understanding of the wait and I never saw anyone pitch a fit and storm out. While there were a few people that never came back when their number was called, even more stuck around and gutted it out.

By the end of the day Jake, CJ, James and Tyler had tattooed for nearly 14 hours straight and collectively done close to (if not a bit more than) 150 tattoos.

Everyone had fun and good luck had been shared with tons of grateful people. Here's hoping they do it again on the next Friday the 13th.

And if they do, I'm camping out the night before.

CASTING COMICS

City Weekly -- Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. After two movies—plus a third one in the works and The Avengers due even sooner—the entire world recognizes that. But that’s not the case in the monthly series Invincible Iron Man. The Tony Stark of that world bears a striking resemblance to Josh Holloway—better known as Sawyer from Lost—and has since Salvador Larroca started drawing writer’s Matt Fraction’s run on the book over three years ago.

And it’s not a coincidence.

Comic-book “casting” has been going on for decades. Artists, after all, have probably the hardest job in comics. They often need something (or someone) to model the characters after in order to get dimensions, body language and facial expressions correct. When C.C. Beck and Bill Parker set out to create an alternative to Superman in the late 1930s, they came up with the character Captain Marvel. Beck stated that the character had been modeled after actor Fred MacMurray, but had been done so carefully. He used the actor’s cleft chin, wavy hair and slanted forehead, but as time went on, Beck rounded out the face to make the comparison less obvious.

Dozens of other characters have been based on popular actors throughout the years, too. John Byrne and Chris Claremont used Orson Welles, Donald Sutherland, Robert Shaw and Diana Rigg as basis for the characters of the Hellfire Club, and Steve Ditko modeled Dr. Strange after horror legend Vincent Price. However, as was the case with Captain Marvel, features were always tweaked during the process.

But while comic-book characters’ resemblance to celebrities has always been part of the process, lately it’s become far less subtle—and much more distracting. Over the past decade, artists have been moving away from using actors as a simple basis to simply using them. Sometimes artists do that for the benefit of consistency, and sometimes it’s purely for publicity. When Mark Millar and J.G. Jones launched Wanted in 2003, the main character, Wesley, looked exactly like Eminem, and The Fox was definitely Halle Berry—there were even a couple of panels in the book that looked just like screenshots from 8 Mile. Millar said the resemblance was because the actors were interested in playing the roles in the upcoming movie adaptation. Of course, the rights to the film hadn’t been sold yet, but it was a clever move by Millar to get the industry talking. It was also a bit of a distraction, because Wanted seemed like it had been created with the sole purpose of being an elaborate film pitch, as opposed to letting it stand on its own as a piece of comic art.

Alex Maleev, currently the artist of the Icon title Scarlet, usually works in the style of photorealistic art and has never been shy about letting the world know that. He hires a model to pose to make his job easier and to give the character a more real feel. With Scarlet, that model even gets recognition on the credit page. The difference is that she’s an unknown. The reader isn’t immediately taken out of the story when they see her because they never have before. That’s much different than when Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato took over Thunderbolts and Norman Osborne suddenly looked exactly like Tommy Lee Jones.

To some that doesn’t matter, and to others it’s so distracting that it ruins a potentially great story. At times, it also seems like the artist is taking the easy way out of the situation by using a specific actor. Sure, it’s hard keeping up with the pressures of meeting a monthly schedule, but that’s part of the game. It just feels like the shelf life of a trade (or hardcover) would be longer if the first thought that came to mind when flipping through was, “Oh, this was a great Iron Man story,” as opposed to “Wait, why does Tony Stark all of the sudden look like the guy from Lost?”

SLCFF PODCAST #1

 SLCFF Podcast #1 by SLCFF

I have all the necessary equipment to record a little DIY podcast—mainly because I took most of it from Casey.

We had a podcast that we did probably once a month for my other blog Grudge City Activities, but like everything else on that site, we kind of just quit doing it.

Well now that we're getting closer to the Salt Lake City Film Festival, Justin, Miah and I decided that we should revive the idea and use it to talk about events that the Film Festival has going on. It's going to be a little irregular at first while we figure out how everything works, but hopefully we'll find a nice balance somewhere down the road and it'll turn in to something that people really enjoy.

The first episode was recorded last night, and we talk about this month's HEFFE'FILM'IN, in which we're showing KISS KISS, BANG BANG at Brewvies on Thursday and the FILM REELS AND FLYING SAUCERS art show this Friday. It's short and sweet for a podcast (about 15 minutes), but I think it turned out pretty enjoyable. You can listen to it embedded above or you can download it at the SLCFF Soundcloud page (or just clicking the little arrow pointing down on the right side of the player). Eventually we'll try to get iTunes involved, but for now, like everything else we've done for the festival, we're starting off DIY.

Enjoy it.

ONE OF THE GREATS

Jim Henson.

I ACTUALLY THINK YOU'RE KIND OF AN ASSHOLE

TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS

Right after Kurt Cobain died, Dave Grohl didn't quite know what he was going to do next. There were undoubtedly many people interested in adding him to the mix and rightfully so, since he was one of the best drummers around (still is, probably). One of the first offers that came in was to become the permanent drummer for one of his favorite bands, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Ultimately, he turned it down in favor of finishing the demo he'd been working on, playing every track on his own because he really wanted to be the frontman. That demo later became the first Foo Fighters album and the rest is history.

But, he did play a few shows with Tom Petty first, just to try it out. I ran across a video of them playing together on Saturday Night Live and, while it sounds good, it also sounds very wrong. Petty's tunes are too laid back and Grohl sounds stifled, like he's trying to hold back. It's fun to watch though.

THE D+K WEDDING

I made a little photo set of the pictures we took at Dan and Kristin's wedding last week. Now you can view the best ones in one easy place in case you're not friends with any of us on FB or just feel weird lurking random Facebook profiles to see pictures.

But let's be honest here, no one feels weird about lurking FB pictures of people you barely know. That's what it's for. But if you want to pretend you're weird about that, go to my Flickr and check them out.

That would be this link.

And I'm using this as the default because it's my favorite of the bunch that I'm in.

I'm self-absorbed like that.