Owner: Pop Snark Hooligan! URL:http://dan-traeger.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 19:31:14 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: Pop Snark Hooligan is a catch-all site that compiles all my essays on comics, politics, books, music and movies all in one place. It's kinda one stop shopping for pop culture geeks. Come on in, enjoy the ambience. Mmmmmm.... ambience, nummy, nummy. Site statistics:Click here
Television, A Good Sugar Buzz, And Some Milk 1970-01-01 00:59:59 A Review of Where's It At Sugar
Kat? The Thin of the Landby Ian Carney and Woodrow PhoenixSlave Labor Graphics$12.95The cashier at the video store gave me a funny look. She stared at me, sizing me up. She cocked an eyebrow, looked down at the DVD I'd just slapped on the counter and asked, "Underdog?"I nodded, "It's a cartoon series."She stared at me, blinking slowly like cows often do when events happening around them are overriding their thought processes. "Uh huh," she responded, sizing me up again skeptically.I smiled tightly at her, trying not to think about the Guernseys standing out in the field next to our apartment complex staring with rapt attention at the nearby roadway. "Yes." I said quietly. "It was one of my favorites when I was a kid."A light of understanding crossed her face. "Oh, I get it. It's a nostalgia thing.""Right." I replied. I gathered my receipt and bag, and quickly left.I rail about the current nostalgia boom all the time. I hate that the toy market is cur Read more:Television
Unleashing Your Inner Funwrecker! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Being a review of Dennis Culver's excellent mini-comic, Funwrecker.The incomparable Dennis Culver has created an all-inclusive term that defines what it means to go through life with a penchant for social guerilla warfare. The term is funwrecker, and it's an important state of mind for anyone who takes it upon themselves to go out into the world to spread the message that comics are cool. As a raw concept, the funwrecker is firmly rooted in the absolute truth once stated by the late poet William Carlos Williams, "There's a lot of bastards out there."Here's a simple and frightening truism for you all. There are people in this world who despise comics and will by association despise you too. Obviously this isn't news to anyone still reading comics past the age of say... 13. The funwreckers of the world will always stick up for themselves, calling out ignorance when they see it. They will slap down the people who decide to drop a slop bucket of stupidity on their day, and force feed
My Ticket to Happiness 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I know it's part of the whole online writing gig, that invariably my work is gonna show up on other sites or get linked to from others pages. But it still thrills me to no end when it happens. The idea that someone out there read my stuff and liked it enough to link to it is just the coolest thing on the planet. Check out this Wikki. Where's It At Sugar Kat! Wikki PageI've been a fan of Ian and Woodrow's work for a long time. It's nice to see someone took the time to put this page together for them. Read more:Ticket
PS3 vs. Wii 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I absolutely love parody commercials, and parodies of parodies are even better, so here's mMy very first YouTube post. Special thanks to Laura for the find. Read more:Wii
10 of the Coolest people on the planet! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 In order to balance out my Karma a bit for that last post, I thought I'd put up a list of my favorite female role models. They are an eclectic mix to be sure.Gail Simone - Arguably the best writer working in the field of comics today, Gail maintains a consistently excellent body of work. She uses humor to fuel solid action scripts that are packed full of modern pop culture references and snappy, intelligent dialogue. Unlike many of her peers, Gail takes great pains to maintain an active voice on the internet with her blog and by frequently contributing to relevant discussion boards. I also have it on good authority that in her free time she enjoys feeding live kittens and uppity internet journalists to her pet Sasquatch. Currently she is writing The All New Atom and Birds of Prey for DC.Camille Paglia - A teacher, author and social critic, Camille is the advocate for rational feminism, and one hell of a lunch date. Since her breakout novel, Sexual Personae in 1990, Camille has written Read more:people
, planet
Fantastic Four 2 trailer 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I don't care what anybody says, even if the rest of the movie isn't a tenth this cool, it still rates a must see. Read more:Fantastic
, Fantastic Four
Bad, Blonde and the Best Bond Ever 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I'll admit I was skeptical. I'd been burned by this whole Casino Royale thing before. The first Ian Fleming novel, and the worst Bond film ever made, (starring the painffully mis-cast David Niven) the original Casino Royale held the dubious honor of being the only utter failure of the entire James Bond franchise. (Though, that horrid re-make of Thunderball they called Never Say Never Again came awfully close.) Still and all, I'd read Casino Royale, and though it's one of Fleming's weakest novels, it's still brief enough and actiony enough to hold a film together. Hell, with the right scriptwriter Judith Krantz's Dazzle could be a decent movie. (No, not really. Pick your jaws up off the floor.)This new Bond flick had me from the opening credits. It starts with a brief introductory piece just as they all do, except this time we get to see our man James qualifying for his 00 status, and it's an edge of your seat roller-coaster ride from there. Casino Royale boasts the best on foot Read more:Blonde
The Re-emergence of Paul T. Riddell and Why the Art of Writing is Not The Same As a Bad Crack Habit 2007-03-03 11:01:00 Many many years ago in those halcyon days of early 2002, I happened across this great web site called, The Healing Power of Obnoxiousness, or HPOO for short. It was an online archive for the critical essays of Paul T. Riddell, who's work I knew well from his days as a freelancer for Sci-Fi Universe and Film Threat magazines. Unfortunately, a few months after I found it, the web site went away. The archives were closed, and I wasn't even left with a signpost saying, "Move along. Nothing to see here." I felt like that little kid at the end of Shane, watching what was left of his hero ride off into the sunset. "Come back Paul, come back!" I never even got the chance to subscribe to his newsletter, the oh-so-marvelously named Hell's Half-acre Herald.With the scuttling of his web site, Paul T. Riddell was gone, leaving a gaping wound in the field of genre criticism. The man who introduced me to the works of John Shirley, and the absolute genius who coined the term Cat Piss Man, had disa Read more:emergence
, Habit
The not so secret reason why Cap #25 means nothing to your average comics fan. 2007-03-17 23:58:00 Captain America is strictly bush league!This is also the reason that when John Byrne left The Uncanny X-Men so did I. Okay except for the stellar run by Paul Smith, but I can assure you I didn't read them, just looked at the pretty pictures. Okay...okay, I did pick up the Grant Morrison issues too, and I did enjoy the Jim Lee stuff as well. Sigh! I need help. Read more:means nothing
Five Finger Exercises For The Damned 2007-03-18 00:46:00 When you do enough online reviewing (assuming you have something nice to say) you'll eventually start seeing snippets of your reviews crop up on various printed works. While it's a good feeling to know that the subject of one of your essays liked what you wrote enough to use it, it's a kind of dubious honor at best. After all, we all know that a critic doesn't really create anything right?There's a certain kind of poetry in a well crafted essay, and the best critical essayists from Michele de Montaigne to Hunter S. Thompson, to Lester Bangs, to Harlan Ellison can make what is basically just an essay that says, "I liked it." or "I didn't like it and here's why." nearly as entertaining as the work that was reviewed.One of the fun things I do when I'm writing a critical essay is to include the literary equivalent of a DVD easter egg. These are sentences that I've specifically written, that I think would make great cover copy. The trick is to work these in well enough so that they Read more:Exercises
101 Things I Love About My Wife 2007-04-01 10:11:00 So the other day my wife Courtney and I were driving in the car before work, coming back from getting an early dinner, breakfast for me because I work night shift. I was carping like I always do about what I was going to write about that night on my down time. Jokingly, she said something to the effect of "Write about how awesome your wife is." A few days later, here's what I wrote over two nights. All in all, it was one of the easier things I've ever written. I could have done 1000.1. I love the way she smiles.2. I love her sardonic, dry wit.3. I love her black sense of humor.4. I love the little noise she makes when she's exasperated with me. I can't really describe it but our bird mimics it perfectly.5. I love the fact that I can't take her to the animal shelter without an hour long discussion about why we can't have just one more.6. I love the fact that she loves animals.7. I love the fact that she wants to go to college.8. I love the fact that she has no idea what she wants
Because he hasn't updated in a while! 2007-04-11 08:25:00 Okay, I'm totally using this without his permission, but he hasn't updated his blog in a while, so I'm hoping he'll notice this and throw his ravenous fans (like me!) a bone, and update his damned blog. This is the one comics project for 2007 that I am most looking forward to. Check it out!
Spartans Versus Persians and Once Again, Gerard Butler's Nekkid' Ass! 2007-04-11 06:29:00 If you haven't seen 300 yet, you should drop what you're doing, call Mr. Moviephone, go get tickets, or whatever it is you do, and go see it. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. This movie kicks ass on so many levels, it's hard to decide where to begin. First, a bit of back story I think.In a nutshell, in 480 BC, Persia invaded Greece with what was at the time, the largest army ever assembled. What we know of the invasion, we get from several sources, but the most detailed account, and the one with the most interesting bits, is by the Greek Historian Herodotus. The great Persian God-King Xerxes made a play to conquer Greece by threat and bribery, and when the two great city-states of Athens and Sparta told him to get bent, he invaded. While Athens navy held off the bulk of the invading ships, Sparta, which was hamstrung by an outdated set of laws that required the King to get approval from their oracle before declaring war, did nothing.In a desperate ploy, the Spartan King Leonidas Read more:Again
, Gerard
, Butler
, Nekkid
, Once Again
, Gerard Butler
Back from the dead, and ready to party! 2007-08-28 23:38:00 So okay, I haven't really updated this thing in eons, but I haven't exactly been idle either. Case in point is the new review of the excellent new graphic novel from Big Head Press, The Architect. Written by the great Mike Baron and drawn by artist without peer, Andie Tong, it's a stellar read and I highly recommend picking up a copy at your earliest convenience. The review is located here and I think it turned out well. I really like the new magazine style layout of Blogcritics. The site is much easier to navigate than it was.As a special note to anyone who cares about things like this, yes... I know that's a picture of The Probability Broach that accompanies the article. I'm pretty sure what happened is that the dingbat BC editor who put the final touches on my review temporarily got all lost and confused when he couldn't find a product picture of The Architect on Amazon.com, and instead of use an outside source for a picture or maybe... oh, I dunno... NO PICTURE AT ALL!!! He i Read more:ready
The Art of Juli Adams 2007-08-31 17:32:00 Every year our local arts museum The Hockaday Museum of the Arts sponsors an arts festival in Depot Park. Depot is a small park on Main Street in Kalispell, but they cram it full of potters and statue makers, and crafts makers of all kinds, musicians, and artists... lots of artists. I usually don't go because the artists, while good, mostly concentrate on the local landscape and the local flora and fauna. I grew up here. I got local flora and fauna coming out my wazoo. If I want to see the local landscape all I have to do is look out the window. The wife, however, thinks differently. Being the smashingly brilliant lady that she is and coming here from Illinois, she has a whole different level of appreciation for the local artists (not to mention art in general) than I do. So this year she dragged me to the thing, and imagine my surprise when I ran across this brilliant young lady from the Seattle Washington area.Her name is Juli Adams
and she's a brilliant painter. She also needs to
Recommend Site To A Friend
