The Blog of Tom

Scott McCloud’s latest webcomic The Right Number is available for free (or, at least, the first two parts). Well worth checking out, as is My Obsession with Chess.

While I think the trailer looks fairly good, I remain fairly sceptical about any two hour film’s ability to include all the nuances of the original material. I know that Kevin Smith has seen the film and has gone bananas over it, but his opinion is pretty much irrelevant after Jersey Girl.

And in a last piece of Watchmen related nonsense, it’s worth mentioning that Ben “Yahtzee” Crowshaw once did something halfway funny, namely placing Rorschach in a Hostess Pies ad. Well, it’s better than Zero Punctuation, anyway, which aside from its misogyny, homophobia and general incompetence, always strikes me as a second-rate Charlie Brooker knock-off.

Christopher Hitchens’ article in Vanity Fair tells the true experience of being waterboarded. Not pleasant reading, but necessary.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808?printable=true&currentPage=all

Wired has an interesting look back at War Games, the proto-geek move that deluded a generation that messing around with an Amstrad would somehow change the world.

WarGames: A Look Back at the Film That Turned Geeks and Phreaks Into Stars

Just a quick note to mention that www.giveawayoftheday.com is offering Liquid Story Binder for free today.  It’s a piece of software designed make it easier to produce books, plays and so on.  Haven’t looked at it yet and am slightly dubious as to its worth (I think less is more when it comes to stuff like this and prefer to have fewer bells and whistles between me and the page), but at the price of precisely nothing, it’s surely worth a gander.

(Offer expires at approximately 7AM GMT on 19th July 2008)

With the news today that the US is preparing to place embassy staff in Iran for the first time in nearly 30 years, it’s worth taking a look at this article in Wired (together with the accompanying gallery) which details just how the diplomats were evacuated in the first place.  It’s a strange old story that involves the CIA faking a Hollywood movie in order to smuggle the US civil servants out of revolutionary Iran.  Definitely worth a look and needless to say, it would probably make a great film.

Wired.com: How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran

Warren Ellis on writing a G.I. Joe adaptation

HASBRO: No, Warren, you cannot wipe Beijing from the face of the earth.

ME: Shit. (pause) What about Moscow?

HASBRO: Wiping Moscow from the face of the earth would be fine.

Just realised that I haven’t plugged the latest DJ Rubbish album, which is available now from Amazon.co.uk. It’s his best yet - somehow managing to be simultaneously more coherent and more insane. No mean feat.

My review of The Escapist for Film Exposed