animation, comics, exhibits, events, etc!

Mr. C has decided to grace us with 30 festive frames per second of animated (and puppetized) Christmas cheer.

One of the prime franchises in Christmas specialdom is the animation outfit heralded by Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass. Produced in Japan, these animations have lasted through year after year, airing in broadcast, then licensed to cable networks, and are now on DVD and appearing online.

This will be a quick-and-dirty naive analysis of the political leanings of many of Rankin-Bass Christmas specials from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Read more

Mr. C has decided to grace us with 30 festive frames per second of animated (and puppetized) Christmas cheer.

You better watch out

You better not cry

You better not pout

I'm telling you why

Santa Claus is coming to town 

Sometimes children are naughty; sometimes they are nice.

Sometimes Santa is naughty, too. In the far future, Santa has been replaced (secretly defeated??!) by a HIDEOUS ROBOT OF DOOM, RAINING DEATH ON ALL IN ITS PATH!!!

Read more

Justin “Mr. M.” Maudslien is in Europe unearthing more arcane facts for his Alphabet…  Allan “Doc” Dorison is studying the mystic and surgical arts with Stephen Strange on the astral plane…  Luckily, Matt. Murray has emerged from a month’s long pharmaceutical coma to report from the front (of his television set).

As of my next birthday, I will be 33 years old. Being a hobbit, that places me somewhere in my early teens developmentally, but as I recently spent an inordinate amount of time stationed in front of my 25-inch GE tube, I’ve come to realize that in television years, I’m as ancient as my recently diagnosed sciatica makes me feel.

However, there is one certainty as far as age-appropriateness goes, and that is that I am still too young to be a fat man with a cane – so my immediate future definitely holds twice-a-week trips to the local Y until some weight drops or my back realigns itself… and then of course there will have to be some maintenance involved, at least until my hair falls out, then it will be time to bust out the walking stick, the white suit, the ascot and live out the rest of my days on the cosplay circuit as Wilson Fisk.

Read more