Doomed By Cartoons

It’s really cool when you totally forget someone’s sending you something good.  I showed up to work to find a package in my chair and I figured it was another cartoon collection I’m supposed to be receiving, but no…it’s a book by John Adler.  Months ago John asked me if I would read the book and help promote it (this blog’s getting big time…people sending me stuff) and I said…yep.  I haven’t read the book yet because I just got it, but I wanted to say something about it so maybe you can check it out if you find this kind of stuff interesting.  The book is titled "Doomed By Cartoons" and it’s a look at how Thomas Nast brought down Boss Tweed.  This is such a historic thing even people who aren’t cartoonists are kinda familiar with Thomas Nast.

Thomas Nast is the godfather of American political cartooning.  This was back in the day when a cartoonist could actually influence an election (yes, I’m still bitter Drunken Tree Sloth lost).  The book, created with help by Draper Hill, was a huge undertaking for John so he deserves a little exposure for it.  I plan to read it this weekend (or the next weekend) and totally give it a review worth at least $19.95.  I’m sure there’s a website for it but the one I was informed of isn’t working.  I’ll let you know when I know.

History buffs (this is a history town) are going to love this book.  The book deserves a way better plug than the little one I just wrote.  No, you can’t borrow my copy.

Dark Knight

I went to the movies the other night (which is rare) by myself (which is rarer) and saw the Dark Knight.  I expected it to be good but I approached it with some skepticism because of the hype and rave reviews Heath Ledger was receiving before anyone technically saw the movie.  It’s not hype and his performance totally blew me away.  After seeing this I feel like a comic book geek again.  I’m going to see it again tonight (because it’s good and someone’s mad I saw it without her).

I’m not going to give too much away but here’s a few impressions.  Heath Ledger gave the kind of performance I can compare with Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow.  At the end of the movie (well, the first Pirates…then they started to suck) you wanted to see Depp play this character again.  This is not the Joker you’ve seen before.  He doesn’t steal the movie by having a few witty Jack Nicholsonish type of lines.  He steals the movie with his acting and creating a villian that’s a lot of fun to watch…even if he’s doing extremly horrible stuff.  Another impression:  don’t take the little kids to see this.  It’s a little too dark (no gore…but you know what happens).  They took Batman from a big screen comic book and made it a big screen graphic novel.

Oh yeah, there’s other actors in this movie too and they were probably good…but it’s really Heath Ledger’s show.

Get a small coke because this movie is two and a half hours long.  That’s an entire hour longer than most movies…and the monster sized drink I had didn’t help.  They really could have cut off 10 to 20 minutes of this movie and it still would have worked.  There were scenes without the Joker…they could have cut out one of those.

I will be there again tonight because, as I said, someone’s upset I went without her.  I was even smacked around a little.  Wanna go?