Pen to Paper

So I got to thinking yesterday: at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke just blows up the Death Star’s power core, right?  Which led to the space station’s instantaneous atomization-by-explosion (or instantaneous atomization-by-goofy-looking-explosion in the Special Edition from the 90s).

But if all he’s destroying is the power core, shouldn’t the immediate result just have been all the lights in the Death Star turning off?  Followed by the slow, torturous suffocation of all crew members over the next few hours.  And, presuming the core was based on some sort of nuclear power, all the air and metal surfaces on the ship becoming radioactive over the next few days/weeks.

Man, Luke was a dick.

Trope of the Day: This Index Has Balls – completely safe for work. This page… well, it’s funny in the reversed expectation way.

Not award-winning, but actually pretty fun.

….I want to watch Jersey Girl again.

I’ve come across a few articles recently that reminded me of a book I read last year – Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.  Last winter it was part of the GeekNights book club, and I’d just moved to a state where I didn’t know anyone so I had plenty of time on my hands.

The title characters – Joe and Sam – start as kids and grow into major figures during the birth of the comics industry.  If I remember right, they’re cousins – but don’t hold me to that.  So far as I know, the characters are imagined.  The settings, however, are exceptionally real.

I’m trying to think what a list of keywords would include, and it’s pretty eclectic – comics, Jewish Americans, World War II, escape artist, golem, homosexuality (and, incidentally, this book is a better treatment on “homosexuality in an intolerant culture” than the movie Brokeback Mountain).

I enjoyed reading Kavalier & Clay, and the fact that it keeps coming back to me speaks well for it.  If you’re interested in the creative process or comics, or just good literature, you might want to check it out.

Trope of the Day: Iron Woobie – you know the guy you feel sorry for because life keeps dumping on them, but they nobly press on?  This is that guy.

I was thinking the other day.

Shocking, I know. Fortunately, nothing much came of it.

But I realized that in high school, when I read comics in the newspaper that were selected by an editor (probably a middle-aged dude trying desperately not to lose his audience of Midwestern retirees – how’s that working out for you, old media?), I read maybe a half-dozen strips every morning.  The rest just weren’t funny or interesting.  Some of the ones I read weren’t funny or interesting most of the time, but once every two or three weeks they came through.

Now, using Google reader and a handful of bookmarks and acting as my own gatekeeper, I read a few dozen strips every day.  Well, not on weekends, but so it goes.  And these strips are great – the ratio of funny/interesting to not has been reversed since the days when I was captive to the newspaper.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is, I love the Internet.

Trope of the Day: Badass Bookworm – you’ve got to love a trope that includes both Giles from Buffy and Dexter Morgan.