by Mike Shea on 18 March 2005
Sin City the movie comes out on April 1st. Robert Rodregez, director of Desperado, directs it. Benicio Del Toro, Mickie Rourke, Bruce Willis, and Elijah Wood all star in it. Frank Miller, the writer of the original comic book, was highly involved in its production. Aparently, it follows the comics scene for scene.
None of that tells us very much. If Once Upon a Time in Mexico and The Village tells us anything, it tells us to trust nothing. No matter who directs in it, who wrote it, or who acts in it, any movie can suck at any time.
For a sure thing, go pick up the original Sin City comic books at Amazon. These are some of the best comic books I ever read. There's a whole bunch of them. The art alone makes these graphic novels worth while but the story is hard edged and the dialog is sharp as a straight razor. All of the artwork is strict black and white - there are no shades of gray in Sin City.
I can't say how good the movie will be but I guarentee a wild ride with the original comic books. Sometimes I think it isn't worth the risk to remake books into movies. Sure, we get Lord of the Rings and The Godfather, but we also get Sphere and Dreamcatcher. If anything, the movie brings more readers to the original books. I just saw "A Dame to Kill For" my personal favorite Sin City story, on the front rack at Barnes and Nobles next to all the bullshit self-help and Hollywood Kiss and Tell books.
Speaking of Pulp Noir stories, Stephen King wrote a book due for release in October called "The Colorado Kid" for Hard Case Crime, a book publisher who embraces the 1950s style pulp crime novel genre. Check out the awesome 1950s cover. Here's a great quote from the press release:
"'This is an exciting line of books,' Stephen King commented, 'and I'm delighted to be a part of it. Hard Case Crime presents good, clean, bare-knuckled storytelling, and even though The Colorado Kid is probably more bleu than outright noir, I think it has some of those old-fashioned kick-ass story-telling virtues. It ought to; this is where I started out, and I'm pleased to be back.'"
Unfortunately, while the cheap trashy $5 paperback format fits the style, I always prefer hardback books with clean thick acid free paper. The presentation of a book is a big factor in my enjoyment of the book. I enjoy big tomes like George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones a lot more in hardback with its wider margins, bigger type, wider spacing, and thicker pages. Also, hardbacks could last hundreds, maybe even a thousand years. Due to paper acidity, paperbacks would be lucky to last fifty.
I sent this to Boing Boing and they posted an entry about it. I've been Boing Boinged!
I know I'm the last guy on earth to discover it, but Flickr is pretty cool. The Moleskine junkies have their own area as do the ego stroking writers. I wonder what happens to all of those pictures if the site runs out of money. If there were an easy way to download all of your images and back them up locally, I'd be all over it.
I uploaded and labeled an image of Crap I Carry in my Pockets. I bet psych folk could tell a lot about people from the shit they carry around with them. Here's a bunch of pictures of Crap Other People Carry Around from the Whats In Your Bag flickr project.
I recently performed a test of various inks with surprising results. Pilot G2 ink will not withstand the tortures that a Sakura Gelly Roll and Noodler's Ink can withstand including hairspray and bleach. View the flickr ink test set to see the results of the test. From now on, Sakura Gelly Rolls are my choice $1 pen. Pilot G2's cannot stand up to the severe tests other inks survived.
