J'y apprends qu'elle est anti-avortement, liée à la NRA et probablement aux sociétés pétrolières (Alaska oblige), qu'elle a concourru pour l'élection de Miss Alaska. Mais sur son early life, je vois que les plaisantins sont déjà passés par là...

S'il y avanit une majuscule après likes, on aurait éventuellement pu penser qu'elle aimait Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (quoi de plus normal, il est actuellement à la place qu'elle brigue), le détective Dick Tracy, l'excellent Philip K. Dick, voire même Dick Rivers (on a connu plus étrange), mais ça ne semble pas être le sens profond du message.

Dick Tracy was published in The Atlanta Constitution. This issue October, 17, 1937.

Bigfoot (1990, Acclaim)
Pretty tough game at times, but I still loved it so much, though it was pretty much impossible to win on the button-mashing competition stages (such as the tractor pull). I would rent this pretty much every week from the video store. I never beat this game, but I tell you-- I got as far as any boy ever has. You collected money (to upgrade your truck for competitions), points and power-ups as you went through the game and the overhead racing was my favorite part, which would always be followed by those tricky competition stages.

Micro Machines (1991, Camerica)
Another oft-rented game and it was best enjoyed with friends. My friends and I spent many sleepovers racing our little hearts out. I always hated racing the boats though, I never had great control over those. But the stages were ingenius: Bubble baths, breakfast table, office desktop...

Rampage (1988, Data East)
RAAAAAAAAAAAMPAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!!!! Just a classic game no matter what you're playing it on. Arcade, NES, N64, GameCube, PlayStation... I had a friend who owned this game and it was always on the playlist when I went over to his house. My monster of choice was Lizzie, though I was none too happy about the fact that the lizard was female. A little bit of my manhood died each time I played as her. It's probably why I don't like sports. Eating people, punching lighted signs to shock yourself, smashing helicopters, and demolishing tanks. What's not to love?

The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle (Kemco, 1989)
A puzzle game where Bugs is walking around levels being chased by Loony Tunes' nastiest characters all so he can grab enough carrots to get to the next level so he may rescue his one true love: Honey Bunny. VA-VA-VOOM! What a looker she was!

This was not a popular game, not a well-reviewed game and even I admit it- I thought it sucked as first myself. But then I got good at it because I was a kid with nothing but time to play video games and I had wanted it so bad (I was a huge Bugs Bunny fan back in the day) that I ended up getting it for my birthday and I would've felt guilty if I just let it sit there undefeated without a real effort. I refuse to let ANY birthday present go wasted and not gain some sort of satisfaction or accomplishment in my life from it!

Truth be told, despite having a million levels, I actually ended up having a lot of fun with this game. The only annoying part was that Bugs couldn't jump. Bugs Bunny. BUNNY. He's a freakin' bunny and he couldn't even hop over enemies! You're stuck walking around, going up and down ladders and staircases. Your only hope against Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester Cat and Wile E. Coyote (who are all on every level in various colored forms) is to find power-ups, such as a boxing glove to shoot them with or an invincibility potion, or the really fun option: to kick (actually, you really just walk into) flower pots, crates, safes and weights on top of or into them as they are charging you. CARTOON CHAOS! The boxing glove was my personal fave and I always saved it as a last resort when an enemy came between me and a staircase, but it was always great to wait for an enemy to walk onto the platform below and drop a safe on their head too. The enemies are annoyingly smart here though as they could sense traps and would simply stay on one side of the level and meander about over there, forcing you to take a more active role in their downfall.

Strange but true: this game is actually based off a Roger Rabbit game from Japan, they just swapped bunnies, enemies and items.

Dick Tracy (1990, Bandai)
I don't care what anyone says, this game rocked. It was based on the awesome movie (anyone else remember that huge push McDonald's gave it?). Is this game GOAT material (that's Greatest Of All-Time for you unhip kids)? No, but it was still fun. I admit, the overhead driving was a bit wonky, sometimes it was hard to turn the car around, but it was also fun chasing after the gangsters and givin' them whatfor with the ol' tommy gun. Interrogations were also a cool feature, but if you pressed your luck and peed in someone's Cheerios one too many times without enough evidence, you got canned by the D.A. and it was game over. You also had to make sure you weren't shooting unarmed villains during the side-scrolling portions, which were the best part of the game. You investigated Club Ritz, the Docks, Flophouses and engaged in fist-fights and shoot-outs with tons of mob henchmen... Just like the real Dick Tracy! There was a great power up called Super Punch. One punch and you sent your enemies spinning away (as opposed to having to exchange blows to take them out)! With shame, I must admit I eventually did use the Game Genie to win this game, because I kept getting THAT close, but losing. Hey, those side-scrolling scenes got pretty crazy and tough!

Be sure to check out MobyGames.com, which I snatched most of these images from.

Allison's position was that they're basically useless and I probably would have shared that sentiment a year ago. TODAY, however, I definitely see their value for a variety of reasons.

1) Prior to the 1960s, the ALBUM as a fully-formed, cohesive body of work was NOT the norm. Most albums prior to the 1960s were simply greatest hits albums with some filler added in, especially in genres like rock 'n' roll and its close relative country. So if you're listening to music that's 50 years old or older, you're pretty going to HAVE to rely on compilations.

This isn't even really an issue of time, either. Most hip-hop and electronic recording artists of the 1970s and early 1980s ONLY recorded singles. Hip-hop pioneers the Cold Crush Brothers never released a proper album but they're historically significant and their compilation-only status shouldn't be held against them. Similarly, almost all of the GOOD early Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five recordings were singles-only.

2) Not all artists make great albums but some of them make a whole lot of great individual songs. Perhaps the strongest example of this, ACCORDING TO MY TASTES, is David Bowie. Between Greg Guts and Ben Baierz I've heard several David Bowie albums in their entirety and I have yet to hear one that I really embrace as a whole. In spite of that, there are always a few songs on each album that I really like. Bowie has been a very prolific recording artist in his career and songs that I like by him have really piled up. Given that, I would be glad to listen to a Greatest Hits album by him, even if I don't typically want to listen to complete albums by him.

3) My final point is that gReatest hitZ albums provide a snapshot of a band or even an era. This is especially valid for those that consider themselves serious musicians or perhaps musical historians of sorts. For example, old country or jazz recordings. For an individual that is slightly interested in 1940s honky tonk recordings but not wild about them, a nice, tidy little Hank Williams (Sr.) compilation provides a snapshot of the era provided by one of the best performers of the style.

What actually got me thinking about this topic (again) wasn't even music but actually some comics I came across as I was moving out of my apartment this week. Since I was 10, I've had some interest in Dick Tracy comics by Chester Gould. A few years ago I decided to buy some book collections of his strips but they were all basically 'greatest hits' collections so I bought them reluctantly. A couple of years ago, IDW started printing ALL of the Tracy strips in sequence and I couldn't realy hold interest. The Tracy greatest hits books reminded me that I might as well concentrate on the best stuff an artist creates rather than discount him or her or them because some of the lesser work is not as interesting. The End.

These are some writings on the same topic from DK Presents blog:

dkpresents.wordpress.com

I don't necessarily agree with his lists but they're well-reasoned.

kicknz

Let's start out with this fellow from Las Vegas calling himself desertout on eBay who makes it his business to auction off miniature gold mining kits featuring zip-lock baggies of Real Placer GOLD gravel (no need to waste your time searching for the stuff yourself!), a pan, suction tweezers (which look like huh?), a 1/2 oz. vial to contain your newfound fortune, and instructions—all for a mere starting bid of $9.95, or $10.95 if you But It Now. Sneaky! And cool, but not as cool as our shop.

Then there are the too little, too late pack of 100 gold Mike Gravel '08 refrigerator magnets, which could still be yours for a measly $149.99 + shipping and handling from JQdesigns. Of course, buying them would probably do very little to help out Mike, less to help rectify the blight of 'ems in that there product description, and may prove a distraction from purchasing something actually rad from our shop.

Well then. The bright, fresh coconut-laden island in this sea of copycat disaster has been the discovery of Gravel Gertie, an excellent lady character in the old Dick Tracy comics. Not just a character, she's also a farmer widow! Cop fleer! Silver fox! Treasure map scalp tattoo haver! It's all just too much good for me to paraphrase the Wikipedia paraphrase. I'll serve it up for you whole:

Gravel Gertie - former criminal and now wife of B.O. Plenty. Introduced in The Brow episode. She is a widow for thirty years after her first husband sold her farm rights for a gravel pit and then died when his car backed into gravel pit. Tried to hide the Brow from the police after she found him in wrecked car; arrested when her hair from her clothes brush matched gray hair found near burning car. In a comic relief the Brow flees in terror when he catches his first glimpse of his guardian angel. In his struggle to escape an old fashioned lamp is knocked over; her shack burns down and her long hair is burned off. Later married B.O. Plenty and became mother of Sparkle Plenty. In a later continuity, it was established that Gertie had spent part of her childhood in an orphanage; while she was there, criminals shaved her head and tattooed onto her bald pate a treasure map showing the location of their buried loot, then allowed her hair to regrow to conceal the map ... which was belatedly rediscovered well into Gertie's adulthood.

Hero, right! Am I right! Amazing Aunite Gertie, come on over any time. Don't be shy, we ain't mad at you. We've got a stripey shirt with your name on it.

Ahora es el turno de que veamos algunas de las figuras que en el año solo les mostramos como prototipos (el caso de Metalocalypse) y que revisemos algunas otras que ya habíamos revelado.

Veamos las fotelis:

Manténganse Informados!!

Spectr0

Toby Radloff - the genuine nerd

Você usa óculos, tem espinhas e gasta tempo demais pensando em seres imaginários que usam capa, lutam contra o crime e vivem vidas muito mais interessantes do que escrever num blog?!

Parabéns, você é igual a mim!

Agora, se você tivesse a oportunidade de reclamar sobre super-heróis e quadrinhos para todo mundo na TV, você provavelmente faria isso, não é?! Eu também! Pois aí vai!

E lembrem-se sempre: Conan odeia, odeia camelos.

UPDATE: Mil perdões, só reparei na falta do link hoje.... Aparentemente foi uma besteira do youtube, que o vídeo tinha acabado de ir ao ar... Ou seja, desculpas. Esfarrapadas. Envergonhantes.

Nada será igual en las comunicaciones, antes y después del lanzamiento mundial del Iphone 3G y las sucesivas actualizaciones y copias de otras empresas, nace una nueva manera de comunicarnos y por ende "globalizarnos", hablar por teléfono, mandar mails y sms, navegar por internet, escuchar música y sacar fotos, consultar el tiempo, ubicarnos en cualquier lugar con el GPS, calculadora, la bolsa del mundo, tomar notas, armar la agenda personal y laboral..."Eh...Mendieta...no será mucho"...como diría El Quijote..."Sancho, cosas vederes que non crederes"

Estar comunicados, tener información al instante, planificar y organizar...todo sostenido por una mano y operado por la otra, es fascinante, por que modifica nuestra cotidianeidad y nos acerca a nuestro mundo infantil de hace 50 años cuando en en la historieta Dick Tracy, el protagonista se comunicaba con su reloj pulsera y eso nos parecía algo mágico e inalcanzable, bueno ya no lo es, las cosas cambian por el ingenio humano aplicado a la tecnología.

La política como actividad humana no puede quedar ajena a estas realidades que modifican la vida de relación, de hecho en las recientes elecciones primariasen Estados Unidos, la tecnología vía internet, videos, mails...se convirtió en una herramienta que en la campaña de Barack Obama, fue la estrella del accionar proselitista del morocho.

En la Argentina, todavía hay una cierta reticencia a la utilización de las nuevas tecnologías, en la política...el conflicto que vivimos entre el gobierno y el campo, marco una bisagra con la masividad de los mails utilizados por el sector agropecuario para sus convocatorias y proselitismos y esta tendencia irá en aumento y en las elecciones legislativas del 2009, será imprescindible su utilización como herramienta de comunicación.

Lo mediático y lo virtual, son realidades que ayudan a la formación de opiniones e identidades en el seno del conjunto social, el Iphone 3G, viene a incidir en esta dirección..."aunque usted, no lo crea", remedando a Ripley...

Por estas horas y de cara a la batalla del Senado, las comunicaciones, están al rojo vivo, para consolidar intenciones de votos o para cambiar decisiones ya tomadas...mails, sms, llamadas...son la artillería que el gobierno utiliza para lograr los dos votos que le están faltando para ser mayoría y del lado de la oposición, lo mismo vale, para los siete que le están faltando para frenar al oficialismo...

Vienen nuevos y excitantes tiempos en la comunicación y en la política...nace la Comunicación Política de la revolución Iphone 3G.

Posdata: Linda semanita se nos viene !!!

Now that's more like it, Dick Tracy. Just when I thought this strip's villains were becoming generic, I open the newspaper to see a pair of hell hounds and a chrome-domed baddie with a bulging eyeball. Even the foreground villain looks menacing, thanks to the dark lines above his eyes. It's a fine return to form for a strip that's traditionally relied on the grotesque.

“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” Jim Rohn

Sometimes it takes telling a single truth to end the maddness.

In the pursuit for Utopian world as promised by the Web 2.0 ....Are we on the Right Track ? Are we missing something really crucial for the next big thing in Web 2.0 ?

How did it start ? Ever since I was awestruck by the career changing knowledge sharing session by "long haired" Krish Ashok who happens to be my current boss, I have been thinking,thinking and thinking over many sleepless nights to be part of Web 2.0 which is changing the world and is promising of the elusive "Utopian society".And me being a person who dreams of a perfect world for humanity and the universe , how can I be away from this revolution.So there started my six month struggle to get release from the project and join forces with the Web 2.0 troops that are marching towards building a "just society" under the hood of boosting profits to hungry DOT COM capitalists.

Independence from the Left'st brain I really do not know if I love my Creative and Artistic Right Hemisphere of my brain , because I never wanted to become an artist.My Left brain always dominated the "very Active" Right brain throughout my life.Now was the time for independence.

Coming to the Real point I am trying to make If you have survived the boredom reading till this point you are definitely eligible to read the rest of the blog.

COMICS 2.0

After digging through the internet for a week my 'Right' brain has painted a picture about origin , evolution and future of Comics in the human history.Below is a part of the image in my "Right" brain.I am sure people don't read but JUST SCAN my lengthy blogs , but do READ THE PICTURE in detail even though they are meant to be just seen.Here is the history of comics in brief

What is so special about the Comics Format

Very Obviously , it is an amazing combination of picture and text , both complimenting each other very well.Picture can only suggest whereas Text has the disadvantage of explaining even the surroundings.In Comics format Picture takes care of the environment and the character descriptions and text can concentrate only of conversations.It becomes easy for the story-teller to balance the load equally on Text and Picture.

A good analogy would be of a Catmaran boat , which easily shares the enormous loads on both the hulls unlike the normal conventional ships which have only one Hull.In case of Comics , huge amount of information can be transferred within few pages with the load of description being equally balanced on TEXT and VISUALS.

MORE PERSISTENT THAN THE FILM and ANIMATION

According to this HumbleComics.com "Film and Animation,

Film and Animation , in contrast to comics , are visual but “time-bound.”Language and Action in film and animation are “fleeting”.The medium rather than the audience,dictates how quickly the viewing progresses.The same is true of a traditional face-to-face lecture;the speaker has primary control over the speed of the lecture.The text medium, on the other hand,shares comics’ “Permanent” component but not it’s “Visual permanence”,then is unique to comics.

Due to Comic's unique persistent nature , it can be used as a tool for motivating the dull students.Studies have shown that introducing comic books have tremendously increased the understanding of the subject among the students.

Popular

HumbleComics.com goes on to support comics as a good tool for motivating the students and actually connecting with a child's world.

American children are steeped in popular culture. While some educators simply ignore this reality, many others struggle to address it adequately. Timothy Morrison, Gregory Bryan, and George Chilcoat (2002) suggest that, by incorporating popular culture into the curriculum, teachers can bridge the separation many students feel between their lives in and out of school. Hutchinson (1949) agrees, stating that "there should be harmony between the child's on-going life activities and his experiences in the school - new learning always is a continuation or expansion of learning already possessed by the learner" (p. 236). In addition, the inclusion of popular media promotes media literacy. It encourages students to "become critical consumers of media messages, having developed the ability through exposure to accurately appraise media content or quality and accuracy" (Morrison, Bryan, & Chilcoat, 2002, p. 758).

Teachers have found that comics motivate students in active participation than discussions about classic novels.Even classic novels can be made to read by the small kids by partially including the Visual Elements into books like Illustrated classics of Moby books.I remember myself addicted to books at the age of ten when I started reading Black Beauty.Since then I devoured many of the Moby's Illustrated classics.

My All time favourite Time Machine by H.G.Wells(Left) , An example of One sided illustrations (Right)

Even at the age of 15 , after devouring so many illustrated classics , when I started reading "Invisible Man" by H.G.Wells ( Without any pictures) , I never reached the last page of the book. My mind liked pictures and pictures helped me read the text.

Learning made too Easy

For some reasons human history has been very cruel to this form of communication and has never given a place in the Literature.Comics are still viewed as a sleazy books filled with violence and deep cleavaged blondes.Hardly educationist realise that comics can make learning TOO EASY.

One example from my nostalgic childhood days include the Tinkle Comics.Unlike the Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruva comics which were cheap remakes of the American Super-Hero comics, Tinkle had it's soul within Indian culture and folklore.It had amazing characters in funny short stories that had both moral and fun.The characters include Suppandi,Shikari Shambu,Kalia the Crow,Tantri the Mantri,Kapish and many others.Apart from funny stories it also had science demonstrations and documentaries in the form of continued images.Some of them include:

• Tinkle Tells you why
• Anu Club
• Meet the ***  (Documentaries that showed Indian , World , Nature history in amazingly lucid format)

I even remember keeping a scrapbook in which I used to cut and paste these science documentaries.This picture shows the remains of the scrapbook.

Problems Challenges in Keeping this amazing form of communication alive

With the advent of computer games Comics have definitely faced a near extinction until WebComics came as a ray of Hope.Some of the WebComic sites in the Web 2.0 era are :

• http://www.drunkduck.com/
• http://www.webcomicsnation.com/
• http://www.moderntales.com/

But WebComics also have a set of problems.

All the Webcomic sites whichever is available now are using the same JPEG, GIF or any other valid image formats.Some sites like comiqs.com use Flash formats,due to which I am not able to view the site from my office network.

What is required is a generic format to represent Comic Strips , so that it is easier for the various sites and browsers to consider Comics Strips as DATA rather than BULKY IMAGES.

The recent development on WebComics is going in developing a COMIC BOOK MARK-UP LANGUAGE ( An XML based Comic Strip) . Also read this amazing article on CBML.If you are on INDIA domain also visit this link.

CBML will be the key for a new era in the Comic Art , and gain it's rightful place in Literature.

Above blog was my interpretation about the History of Comics till now and the next phase of Comics in the History of Mankind.If you feel it to be eccentric enough or agree with my point please drop your valuable comments.Remember each comment counts in the process of changing the world for better.

Today's Dick Tracy is full of unexpected treasures, from Tracy's stoic condolences in panel five to the introduction of a tissue-obsessed villain. But what I love most are the surreal proportions featured in the penultimate panel. It appears as if Lieutenant Shirl Locke Holmes is nothing but an enormous, floating head with a train of thought bubbles emanating from her ear. It's an image that tickled me no end.

First up is the man who has always been at the top of my list. I think the greatest appeal any of these heroes has with me is that they are ordinary guys. None of them has a super power that separates them from me by a super-margin like the one between me and Superman. The only thing that keeps me from actually being any of these heroes is money, and in some cases technology that hasn't yet been developed.

Again, first up is one I have had at the top of the list since as long as I can remember. Batman. Rich, secretive, loves technology and gadgets, and is a smart crime-solving detective. That's me in a nutshell... Well, if I had it my way, that is. Sure, a lot of the toys and gadgets he uses are a little out of reach (for now), but it's nice to dream.

I'm especially in love with the Tumbler, his Batmobile in Batman Begins and The Dark Night. Sometimes, when I'm driving around in my car, I imagine that I'm in the Tumbler.

Even better than having to drive in the first place would be flying, and my next two super heroes can do just that (without mystical powers).

Next, then, is Iron Man. Batman's resourcefulness comes from his gadgetry first, then from his costume. Iron Man is the costume. No gadgets here (which does make me a little sad, since I love gadgets), just pure awesomeness in the form of an exoskeleton suit and some pretty impressive computer programming, both of which I love.

I've always been into robotics, and exoskeleton research is a big spin off/byproduct/sister project of robotics. With the recent release of the Iron Man movie, many people have been talking about the technology behind such a suit.

Oh, if you haven't seen the movies I'm talking about, you really should. They're all excellent films.

Since I saw the Iron Man movie, I've been wondering what it would be like if you combined the two heroes, Batman and Iron Man, into one really cool hero. I've decided that, while it might be overkill, it would be pretty cool.

For the final of my comic-book-based heroes, I give you an older one: The Rocketeer. This one goes way back to my childhood. In fact, I'd venture to say that I wanted to be the Rocketeer before I wanted to be Batman (but I'm not sure because it's a close call).

Though not as technologically advanced, the Rocketeer does have something we're still working on - a jet pack. Even without an exoskeleton or a bunch of gadgets, having a jet pack would be awesome.

I think the Rocketeer must have made a great comic too, because he really is just an ordinary guy with one thing that sets him apart from the rest of us, that cool rocket pack. Other than that, he's not a super genius, he's doesn't have a ton of money to buy whatever technology or gadgets he wants, and more of us can identify with him for it.

The movie is still one of my favorites, and it never gets old (right up there with Short Circuit , but we'll talk about robots another time).

As you may have noticed, we're working our way down from most gadgets to the least, but we've covered varied amounts of technological integration. My final hero is just a man with a bunch of gadgets, but he's got so many other qualities I love that I had to add him to my list.

I suppose he's really not considered a "superhero" by most, but James Bond has always been a favorite of mine. I especially loved the portrayal of him in the recent film Casino Royale.

Though I wouldn't ever want to be the womanizer that he is, I admire just about everything else in the character. I especially love his resourcefulness, intelligence and wit. Plus, he always dresses pretty sharp, which is great.

You know what's funny? As I've written this, my list of heroes has been growing. So far, I've realized that a list of my favorite heroes in fiction would never be complete without Sherlock Holmes. It was his work (well, the writings of Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle) that helped me realize how much I love using my mind to solve problems and analyze the people and world around me. When it comes to awesomeness, you would be pressed to find a better man than Jason Bourne from the Bourne series of books and movies. Though I don't actually know much about him, there is one more comic book character that I was a big fan of when I was young. Dick Tracy. I think the main reason I loved him was for his video phone watch. Anyhow, that just illustrates my deep love for gadgets.

No matter how many fictional heroes I may want to be like, there is one real guy (well, two) who I've actually met and I model my life after him (them) every day. I say two because the first, obviously, is my father. I don't just say that because it's what everyone says. My dad is a true hero and someone that more than just his children can look up to for a great example of how to live. The second is someone I served with for just over a year and a half, but in that short time he helped me more than any one person aside from my parents. He was my mission president in Mexico, President Alonso.

I love and look up to both of them, but I really want to be like the fictional characters here because it would be fun.

Rescatando a los heroes perdidos, los integrantes de la serie 2 son:

Fotos: Cool Toy Review

Dick Tracy, Zombie King (Deadworld), Jack Staff, Ignacia (Wildguard) y The Tick

En esta entrega tambien habria una figura "Mail Away" (que se solicita via correo, en la serie 1 fue "Mr. Gone"), esta vez sera "Arthur"(presumiblemente :S) de la serie "The Tick".

Si estas interesado en estas figuras, o en las de la serie 1 (ShadowHawk, Scud the disposable assassin, Katchoo of ‘Strangers in Paradise’, Kabuki y The Maxx), mejor empieza a pedirlas ya!!!.

Mantenganse Informados!!

Spectr0

On rare occasions, I'll choose a comic to post because it's completely inscrutable and I get a kick out of its sheer and utter denseness. That's the case with today's Dick Tracy, which features a bad guy with a crossbow and a suit that changes colors depending on which way he twists. The jump cuts remind me of a Jean-Luc Godard film, although I don't think the famous French auteur ever had a character say, "Ulq!"

At the top end of the market, Hyundai have introduced this rather sleek looking watch phone. Dubbed the W-100, it has a 1.3 mega pixel camera and bluetooth connectivity. Compared to a few of these watches this model looks quite light and streamlined.

Although it's a relatively new concept and the mass popularity of the wrist watch phone is yet to be realized many makers are releasing models with an ever increasing range of features. As one of the best known of all watch makers Tag Heuer have developed what appears to be the 'State of the Art' when it comes to combining the timepiece with mobile communications. One of the draw backs with watch phones is their tendancy to be rather more bulky and conspicuous than conventional wrist watches, however, Tag Heuer states that it has achieved the combination of devices whilst maintaining  traditional dimensions expected with wrist timepieces.

 If a Tag Heuer is a tad out of your price range you may want to look at some of the huge range of cell phone watches coming out of China these days. This one features a still and video camera,MP4 &MP3 function and a whole other range of features including touch screen and bluetooth operation. We here at Gadget Freaks are so hoping to get our hands on some of these for a bit of testing. Just wondering how long till these things get GPS and can be worn underwater! See more.......

Pruneface. Broadway Bates. Breathless Mahoney.

Gone.

The Brow, the Nazi spy who gave him a run for his money, impaled on an American eagle atop a flagpole after falling from a window. September 24, 1944

Littleface Finney, lost both ears trying to escape the detective. Died in prison. Cancer of the esophagus. 1952.

The counterfeiter Alec Penn

Gang underboss Ribs Morocco

Mumbles, drowned in a lake on July 27, 1945

Texy Garcia

Trigger Doom

Gone

Trusty Hubbub

Jesus ...

... clawed to death by his own leopard in 1961

Tracy spooned more oatmeal into his mouth and sipped from the mug of bitter black coffee.

Irma committed suicide on March 3, 1946

The Claw, with that hook to replace his missing hand, electrocuted after getting caught in high voltage wires while fleeing from Tracy. When was that? 1947?

That crooked lawyer George Spaldoni. Tracy shot and killed him in 1934

Gone

Shakey, dimwitted bodyguard for street hoods. Accidentally shot himself while surrounded by coppers. February 1948.

Gone

Tess Truehart

Gone, baby, gone

Now all he has is the costume of doomed hope worn by impending Death, and the fading yellowed comic strips clipped out of newspapers to remind him of who he used to be.

Pruneface.

Pruneface.

MMM Prunes.

2.        American Splendor**†           2003

3.        The Dark Knight¨               2008
4.        Superman¨                      1978

5.        Batman¨                       1989

6.        A History of Violence‡◊        2005
7.        Batman Begins¨                2005

8.        300†                           2007

9.        Dick Tracy*                    1990

10.       V for Vendetta◊                2005

11.       Batman Returns¨               1992

12.       Road to Perdition‡             2002

13.       X-Men©                        2000

14.       Iron Man©                     2008

15.       Spider-Man 2©                 2004

16.       Spider-Man©                   2002

17.       Men in Black§                 1997

18.       Hellboy†                       2004

19.       Sin City†                      2005

20.       Constantine◊                   2005

21.       X2: X-Men United©             2003

22.       From Hellª                    2001

23.       Mystery Men†                   1999

24.       Timecop†                       1994

25.       Over the Hedge‡‡               2006

26.       Superman Returns¨             2006
27.       The Incredible Hulk©          2008

28.       Daredevil©                    2003
29.       Wanted††                       2008

30.       X-Men: The Last Stand©        2006

31.       Hulk©                         2003

32.	 The Mask†                      1994

33.       Fantastic Four©               2005
34.       Hellboy II: The Golden Army†   2008

35.       Blade©                        1998

36.       Batman Forever¨               1995

37.       Men in Black II§              2002

38.       Blade: Trinity©               2004

39.       Howard the Duck©              1986

40.       Elektra©                      2005

*  Chicago Tribune Syndicate
** Self-Published

†  Dark Horse
‡  Paradox Press (DC)
◊  Vertigo (DC)
¨  DC Comics

©  Marvel Comics 

§  Aircel/Malibu/Marvel

ª  Top Shelf Productions

†† Top Cow

‡‡ United Media Comics

Last revised and updated: July 19, 2008

From Chuck Jones' unauthorized remake of Lang's DIE NIBELUNGEN, and indeed the whole Ring Cycle, condensed into seven minutes for easy consumption, WHAT'S OPERA, DOC? "The only epic we ever made."

Once more I turn the dog-eared pages of Patrick McGilligan's Fritz Lang, The Nature of the Beast. In the early '70s, an elderly Fritz goes out to dinner with his young friend (or "friend"?) Howard Vernon ~

'The headwaiter scurried over, whispering to Howard Vernon, "Mr. Lang...Mr. Lang...isn't he connected with the cartoons?" Vernon whispered back, "No, that is Walter Lantz. This is Fritz Lang, the director." "Because," said the headwaiter, "I really wanted to tell him how much I love the Woody Woodpeckers." "Oh," said Vernon, "don't tell him that."'

But damnit, Lang WAS involved with the cartoons!

Here is a frame from DIE NIBELUNGEN, which features an animated dream sequence by another Walter, Walter Ruttman.

This is only the most obvious bit of Langian cartoonery. Later in the saga, Kriemhild commands her troupe of Huns to "throw fire" upon the Nibelungen.

But the firebrands must have been insufficiently fiery to satisfy the perfectionist Lang, for in this shot they appear to have been enhanced by the artist's hand. Certainly the flames have an altogether more "artistic" quality than those seen in most of the later shots.

I wouldn't be so sure of this if there wasn't abundant evidence of Lang's 'toon tendencies elsewhere in his oeuvre.

The traffic gliding along the elevated roadways of METROPOLIS is animated frame by frame. Filmed in Dynamation!

In WOMAN IN THE MOON, considerable use is made of animated charts plotting our Teutonic astronauts' course moonwards.

Now here's an explosion from THE TESTAMENT OF DOCTOR MABUSE:

It's a thrilling, bizarre, surprising moment -- a rolling metal drum full of petrol ignites and flies into the air, scratching the celluloid with slashing action lines that swirl about and bear the canister upwards out of frame.

America, America. Lang acclimatized himself to the American way of talking, and of viewing the world, by reading the funnies -- like Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, a model of film noir style and content, with some of the same intrigue and rapid plotting as Lang's earlier thrillers.

Flash-forward to Lang's seventh American film, HANGMEN ALSO DIE, written by "Bert" Brecht. Taxi driver and Czech underground freedom fighter, played by the glorious Lionel Stander, is taken to be tortured by the Nazis. He flings himself through a window, gaining a quick death and robbing his captors of the chance to find out what he knows.

Lang startled Stander by demanding he throw himself through a REAL window. ("Listen, all directors want to kill actors," ~ Wallace Beery) 

Stander, a man who very much knew his own mind, resisted defenestration.

Lang, just as stubborn, insisted that fake sugar glass Would Not Do. He compromised, surreally, on NO GLASS, forcing the special effects department to add little flying shards of cartoon window-pane in post-production:

...Connected with the cartoons...

...Connected with the cartoons...

Perhaps Lang, like Hitchcock, envied Walt Disney for his ability to "tear up his actors."