IIRC Neil Gaiman said he stole the joke from Douglas Adams, who had someone refer to “Dentarthurdent” in one of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, but I always think of a Charlie’s Angels episode in which someone greeted “Bosleyjohnbosley.”

The thing is, I barely remember Charlie’s Angels, so the way I remember it is actually as “Bosleytombosley” … and in my memory, she’s saying it to Tom Bosley!

“…ah yes, I thought. That’s the sequel, all right. CORALINE APOCALYPSE”

I used to run into this with TIFF images when building websites. (No big surprise, given that there are a million variations on the TIFF format.) I think it was around 2000 or so that I was working on a website for a law firm, and they sent me their logo. The logo, as I received it, was yellow on light blue, so I built a site with black text on a white background for the main areas, and yellow on light blue (matching their logo) for the title, navigation, and borders.

I sent them a link to the test site. They looked at it, and said it was very nice, but could I try to match the color scheme on their logo instead?

It turned out that red and blue had gotten switched around (and possibly more, because I can’t remember how the yellow ended up in there), but anyway it was supposed to be white on light brown. I switched the channels, redid all the graphics and styles for the site, and they stuck with it for several years.

Back on the subject of Coraline, Gaiman adds in his post that the film has become “the second highest grossing stop-motion film ever” after Chicken Run. So why does it seem to be forgotten already? Just two months ago, commentators were falling all over themselves to say Coraline was the turning point for 3-D animation being part of the storytelling and not just a gimmick. Now everyone’s talking about how Monsters vs. Aliens is the turning point for 3-D animation being part of the storytelling and not just a gimmick.

It’s kind of hard to read, between the pixel size and the printing, but the funniest bit is the blue sidebar on “Finding the Tastiest Beetles:”

Beetles are delicious creatures that live close to home. If you use beetles from your backyard or basement, check them for shiny and fully developed thoraxes (beetles still in larval stage will be chewy and bland). The most mouth-watering kind, with translucent shells and large veins, can be found in the forests of Zanzibar.

It’s so perfectly Martha Stewart for the Macabre.

Movies: Coraline

YouTube also has the trailer in HD.

I discovered Sandman late, borrowing the trades from one of my (younger) brother’s friends around 1998 or so, then immediately tracking down my own copies. I lucked out and got a complete set on eBay for something like $70. Since then I’ve devoured most of Neil Gaiman’s work, be it in comics, prose, or movie form. The original novel of Coraline was very good, and it’s been adapted by the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is among my favorite movies…and what I’ve seen of the film suggests that they get it. It’s hard to believe it’s only two weeks away!

Other movies: Oddly enough, I’m only mildly interested in Terminator: Salvation, Transformers 2: Can’t Remember the Subtitle, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the films have been steadily deteriorating after peaking with #3, IMHO), Star Trek, and Watchmen. I’ll probably see all of them, but none of them have me nearly as excited.

Comics, books, music, etc. after the cut:

Comics: Scott Pilgrim, Ignition City, and Fallen Angel

First up is the fifth volume of the Scott Pilgrim series, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, coming in just a few weeks. This series is just plain fun: mindless action with a video-game sensibility, something of a coming-of-age story, and a huge dose of absurdism.

I’ve only read a fraction of Warren Ellis’ work, but I’ve subscribed to his “Bad Signal” email list for years, and he’s been talking about the ideas that became Ignition City for a long time. Basically, take all the old space hero archetypes (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, etc.) and look at what happens when the future passes them by. I think someone described it as Flash Gordon meets Deadwood. I tend to like Ellis best when he’s doing science fiction, so this is a must read. Coming in April.

And finally: the relaunch of Peter David and J.K. Woodward’s Fallen Angel in July, with a crossover with Angel‘s Illyria.

There’s also Flash: Rebirth, which I’m looking forward to with a mix of excitement and dread. On one hand: Geoff Johns returns to the Flash and writes all of them, with Ethan Van Sciver on art. On the other: the more I learn about it, the more I get the feeling that the subtitle should be “Barry Allen is teh gratest Flash EVAR.” If that’s it, then no, thanks, I’m not interested. *sigh*

So, yeah, DC seems to be doing its best to push me away from anything they publish that doesn’t have “Vertigo” on the cover. I’m hearing rumors of a Welcome to Tranquility miniseries, but then that’s Wildstorm, so still not much DC-branded appeal. And the one Marvel series I read, The Twelve, is on hiatus (and it’s a mini anyway). Not going to be much coming out from the Big Two.

TV: Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Flash Forward

Of the TV shows returning for the spring season, I’d say Battlestar Galactica is the one that has me most intrigued. They’ve managed to throw new wrinkles into the Human/Cylon conflict and make viewers question basic assumptions about the show in the lead-up to the series conclusion. Next up is Lost, which has successfully moved past the Gilligan’s Island/Voyager problem of getting them off the island.

I’m also watching Heroes and Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, though neither of them has me champing at the bit for new episodes just yet. (Actually, I’m more interested in SCC than the new Terminator movie, which is kind of odd to realize.) What I’d really like to see is the last few episodes of Pushing Daisies. I’m still torn between bitterness at the show’s cancellation and knowing that at least it got to go out while it was still good, rather than after deteriorating.

As for future shows, the one that I’m most interested in seeing is Flash Forward, based on the novel by Robert J. Sawyer, in development for next fall. I’m also curious about Dollhouse, which starts in February, mostly because of Joss Whedon’s involvement. And I’ll certainly check out the BSG spinoff, Caprica.

Books

Not a whole lot, actually. There’s Robert J. Sawyer’s new book, “Wake,” (part 1 of a trilogy) coming in April, but I haven’t decided whether to buy his stuff in hardcover or stick with paperback. And the final book of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time epic, A Memory of Light (being finished by Brandon Sanderson) may be coming out by the end of the year, or it may not.

Other than that…I haven’t heard anything about Greg Keyes’ plans now that Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone is done. I don’t think Neil Gaiman’s got any new novels planned for this year, though I’ve only caught about half of his blog posts over the past few months. Naomi Novik might have a new Temeraire book by the end of the year, maybe.

Music

Tori Amos, Vertical Horizon, and Butterfly Boucher all have albums coming out, though I haven’t heard anything beyond “spring/summer 2009″ on any of them. Tori Amos has basically never slowed down, except for a break between record companies, and it’s only been a year and a half since her last album, American Doll Posse (which was very good). Vertical Horizon has been out of the picture for a few years, though their stuff still gets played. (I heard “When You Cry” at the mall yesterday when I went to lunch.)

You’ve probably never heard of Butterfly Boucher, but Katie and I caught one of her songs on Indie 103.1 when it first launched. Then she opened for two different concert tours that we saw over the next year (IIRC, Barenaked Ladies and…Sarah McLachlan?), and we picked up her debut album, Flutterby. She’s been playing a lot of music, but this will be her second album. (A few weeks ago she posted a note about how she was finally free of her record contract, which meant she could finally release the album she finished two years ago.)

Cross-posted at Speed Force

The script books have mostly been interesting for the commentary and supplemental material. Though I was disappointed that they couldn’t get Neil Gaiman to write an intro for his Day of the Dead script in the latest volume. It just reprinted the contents of the solo script book you can get from the CBLDF, which has a brief intro by JMS and a handful of footnotes by Neil Gaiman.

So, here’s what we’ve got so far (including what’s been announced):

• 15 volumes of Babylon 5 scripts by J. Michael Straczynski.
• 3 volumes of “Other Voices,” the B5 scripts by other writers.
• 1 volume of the B5 TV movie scripts (announced).
• 1 volume of chronology (with a Q&A and presumably commentary).

In theory, that covers everything except Crusade, which is what I’m really looking forward to. Probably two or three volumes, and I’d hope they’d include the unproduced scripts. IIRC there are two by JMS and one by Fiona Avery, and the Chronology list mentions one that was assigned but not written. The two JMS scripts used to be available online through some PITA Java-based reader that theoretically prevented people from copying the text (though that can’t stop screenshots or manual transcription), but also made it really difficult to do things like scroll. The site folded years ago, probably in the dot-com crunch, and they haven’t seen the light of day since. I remember one of them contained the first indication of a link between Techno-Mages and the Shadows.

Back to the chronology: on one hand, it feels like they’re starting to milk the audience for all it’s worth now that they’ve seen the success of the script book series.  On the other hand, it’s only one additional volume.  And it looks really cool…

Yeah, it’s sort of a “first hit is free” take on reading. But considering how finishing the first books of two different Julie Czerneda series had me running around the county to find the rest of each trilogy, there may be something to it.

(via Neil Gaiman, with a follow-up on the nature of free)

Robert J. Sawyer — read the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy a year or two ago, and more recently Calculating God. Currently reading Mindscan. His work tends to be social science-fiction: if X technological advance occurs, or Y scientific principle is discovered, what impact will that have on society? To read: 9 more stand-alone novels and a trilogy. Could take a while.

Robert Charles Wilson — read Chronoliths, Darwinia and Bios within the space of a few months of each other, maybe around 5 years ago. To read: 10 novels.

Strangely enough, looking them up I’ve discovered that all 3 of them are Canadian.

Also: Two authors I’d really like to see more from:

Greg Keyes — I was introduced to his work through his Babylon 5 novels (back when he was writing as J. Gregory Keyes), then went on to track down his own work. The Age of Unreason cycle is also quite good, and I’ve previously reviewed The Waterborn and Blackgod. At this point, I’ve read every novel he’s published. The Born Queen comes out in March, finishing the 4-book Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone cycle, which means I need to start re-reading the first three books next month.

Neil Gaiman — dark fantasy, mythic fantasy, whatever you want to call it. Discovered through Sandman (yeah, big surprise). My favorite of his novels is probably either American Gods or Neverwhere. Need to track down more of his short stories, though.

I’ve previously mentioned that Gaiman and Keyes are the only authors whose work I’ll immediately pick up in hardcover, no questions asked.

The concept: Three groups of people pursue a fallen star (in this world, a woman). Tristran wants to bring the star back to impress a girl. The cruel princes of Stormhold are seeking the necklace she wears; the one who claims the gem claims the throne. The witch Lamia wants to cut out her heart to restore her own youth for another 400 years. Tristran gets there first, but has to bring her back without the more malicious seekers reaching her.

There’s swordplay, magic, betrayal, comedy, and romance. Michelle Pfeiffer throws herself gleefully into her role as the witch Lamia. Prince Septimus oozes slime as a cross between Prince Humperdink and Professor Snape. And Robert De Niro’s Captain Shakespeare is… indescribable. Charlie Cox as Tristran and Claire Danes as Yvaine (the star) manage to hold their own with the impressive cast of villains and supporting characters.

I was the only one of the four who had read the original novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, but for the most part I didn’t mind the changes. I did think the climactic battle got a bit overblown after a while, and I really missed one aspect of Una’s character which is revealed near the end of the book.

On a related note, it seems that in the last 3 weeks, the movie “adaptation” (and I use the term loosely) of The Dark Is Rising has been retitled as The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, probably reflecting how far it seems to have strayed from the source material.

Stardust does it right: change the details, or even the structure if you have to, to make it work in a different medium. But stay true to the heart and spirit of the book.

I’m a little more apprehensive about The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper), mainly because the IMDB page says they plan to start early this year, but the Los Angeles Times has it down for a September release. For the record, I do think this is the one to start with, not Over Sea, Under Stone, because as I recall it has a much greater sense of tension, which will translate better to screen. Plus it provides more of an introduction to the world and the conflict, since Will is dropped right in the middle of it, while I remember the other book being set more solidly in the “real” world. The Drews don’t get involved as deeply until later.

On a related note, I don’t think I’m in the target audience for The Number 23. We saw the trailer for it on Friday when we saw Pan’s Labyrinth (which is quite good, BTW), and I could not stop laughing. Not because of Jim Carrey, but because of the premise. Perhaps it comes from reading the Illuminatus! trilogy. There’s a great sequence in the book where one of the characters is starting to look for certain numbers, including 23, in everything. Of course, since he’s human, he finds them, using ever more convoluted arithmetic to prove that they’re significant. While reading Illuminatus!, I looked up stuff on synchronicity and found the tech term for this tendency to see connections where none exist: apophenia. And here I’m watching this preview, and there’s a sequence in which the lead character starts finding the number 23 in everything, using ever more convoluted arithmetic…. I don’t think I could take the premise seriously enough to get into the movie.