corpsicle

in

Fantastic read via Polygon on how Issa López and crew made the show’s already-legendary ice-rink thawing corpsicle. Found this bit, on the influences behind it, of particular interest:

Among the influences they ultimately pulled in: 

  • “A shrunken head where the skin has started to pull back and reveal this mouth that’s been dislocated or disjointed” (a work by Phil Hale, a López suggestion)
  • Berlinde De Bruyckere, a Belgian artist who sculpts “really violent sections that you have cutaways through, and you can see this kind of skin draped and stretched, and you’re not quite sure whether it’s part of a body you’re looking at” 
  • Ringu — specifically “a reveal where they open a cupboard” (if you know, you know) 
  • The eternal anguish of Francis Bacon (the painter, not the lord chancellor of Britain)
  • A photograph of a baroque underwater dance to lend the whole thing a “sense of movement,” as if this pile of bodies was merely paused in panic."
in

Eyelash-freezer of a run this morning (morning run for the weekends: makes things a little easier married-schedule-wise (and gives my upper half a couple of days off; might do the same mid-week, will see) but makes things a little harder "oh shit it's cold"-wise) in untrammeled cemetery snow powder: pleasant to look at and conceptually pleasant, but reality is, as ever, possessed of other ideas. Four miles.

Similarly struggling with even the newsletter this morning: words aren't coming and I'm beginning to think that my attempts at a third workblock have, no matter how much I've enjoyed adding it in the afternoon – and being able to add it in the afternoon – left me with only fumes to work with the next day. Won't deny that the breakthrough the other afternoon was nice – haven't felt it, the creative equivalent of an orgasm, in longer than I care to admit – but it's useless unless I'm able to think clearly enough to expand and build on it the next day. Better, I think, to find something else to fill those postprandial/post-run hours and let the pieces and fragments stew in the afternoon miasma of IDK.

Also struggling with newsletter formatting and rendering: seriously, WTF Buttondown? Something's amiss…

ECHO (2024)

in

Favorite Marvel series since WANDAVISION: fantastic performances all around, especially from Alaqua Cox and D'Onofrio whose father/daughter dynamic proved particularly affecting. Wears its TV-MA proudly, especially in the first few episodes (the DD fight was solid), but waters things down (Skateland being its last great action moment) by the end of its brisk five-episode run. Ending elicited a solid cheer, but given its earlier penchant for gritty, weighty action, I'd hoped for something to rival the DD/Fisk throwdown at the end of Netflix's first (and still best series of Marvel TV) season of DAREDEVIL: there was room for it – emotionally (even more so than DD, TBH) and run-time wise (36 minutes for the final episode seemed a bit too brisk), certainly. Wouldn't have diluted the power of the denouement. That being said, hope we get more: Alaqua Cox's Maya is, by far, my favorite addition to the Marvel pantheon in the D+ era.

echo still: maya kicks ass

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, No. 1 (Hickman / Chechetto; Marvel, 2024)

in

At last, not only a Spidey book on the pull list, but a Hickman book. With the exception of his debut, THE NIGHTLY NEWS, I've mostly tuned out of the Hickman renaissance – including the entirety of his X-MEN run (in my defense, I wasn't really reading comics at that point); G.O.D.S. which failed, in every respect, to grab me; and ULTIMATE UNIVERSE, which followed suit (Note: probably would have been better had I read ULTIMATE INVASION; will add those issues to my list). Here, though, I get it: this is the perfect collision of writer and artist and mythology (FWIW: I couldn't care less if Peter is married or not: my objection to him not being married in the mainstream continuity is how it was accomplished, for lack of a better word) and willingness to push into new and daring and exciting areas: it's the first time the Ultimate Universe hasn't read like proto-MCU since its inception. Early mid-life crisis Spidey is something new, something intriguing. This is a special book that lives up to the hype and then some: I'm in it for the long haul – and will most definitely be giving the other upcoming Ultimate books (BLACK PANTHER / X-MEN) a try.