Marvelholic

My name is Rick and I'm a Marvelholic...

47 years old and I still read comic books (enjoy fart jokes too). But I would like to come to the defense of comic books. There are some pretty amazing writers and artists around these days and some of the old heroes like Captain America and Thor and Daredevil are getting a postmodern face lift at the hands of authors like Ed Brubaker, Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar.

A few favorite series.

This last year or so of Cap under the helm of Ed Brubaker has reintroduced the red, white and blue eyed hero as a stranger in a world he doesn't understand, where all of his old compatriots are either dead or have betrayed him. The first arc of Brubaker's Captain America run are available in trades. Winter Soldier, volumes 1 & 2.



Bendis is probably the biggest name in Comics today. He has even been immortalized in a Simpsons episode, in which Comic Book Guys says, "Big Ethel kills Moose to get Jughead's attention? Oh, Brian Michael Bendis, you've done it again!" His work on The Avengers and New Avengers has been superlative. In Avengers Disassembled he tore apart Jack Kirby's most famous team.



Perhaps the most interesting series around today is Mark Millar's The Ultimates, which take a twist on the Avengers team in which Cap is a bit of a self righteous prig, Thor is a new age hippie whose divinity is brought into question and Giant Man is an abusive husband.




Along with these journeyman, a perusal of the shelves at your local comic book store, if you can get over the stigma and enter your local comic book store, you'll find series by Buffy's Joss Whedon (Astonishing X-Men), scifi author Orson Scott Card (Ultimate Iron Man) and Neil Gaiman (Sandman, American Gods) has returned to monthly comics having resurrected Kirby's The Eternals with artist John Romita Jr.

Space Vampires and Metaphysicians

Michael Blowhard offers this short post on the English author Colin Wilson. Michael links to this Guardian piece on the 50th anniversary of Wilson's debut.

I have been a fan of Wilson for many years. He is an odd duck to say the least. His early career was probably best defined as a sort of poor man's Sartre and author of the treatise The Outsider. Later, he probably became best known for writing books on true crimes and the occult.

However, it is his fiction that always hooked me. A weird combination of occult, sci fi, sex and murder, interspersed with bits and pieces of philosophy. A prime example of fiction of this sort would be the provacatively titled Sex Diary of a Metaphysician, which is, as many of his books are, sadly out of print. Perhaps his most famous novel, if one could call it that, is The Space Vampires, which became the source of the Tobe Hooper movie, Lifeforce. A fun sci fi film that features copious nudity by actress Mathilda May (IMDB lists her character as Space Girl). The movie also features Steve Railsback, Peter Firth and Patrick Stewart.

All that is New is Old again

New look, new feel,new purpose. Yes futurballa blog has returned to a standard blog form. Look for more written postings along with the usual photos. And in proper blogger tradition, we'll start off with a couple of Elsewhere links.

Via Kevin Drum we discovered WoldCat.org, an archive of the world's libraries. Plug in an author or title and it will point you to where it can be found. Even things like college film projects. George Wallace directs.

The above mentioned Mr. Wallace, aka Friend Fool, laments or celebrates (you decide) major changes in direction at Bonny Doon vineyards.

This is already pretty viral, but I had to share.
Chad Vader - Day Shift Manager (episode 1)



And finally, here is a reflective image from the Grand Tetons.

A leaf of all colors plays a golden-string fiddle

I'm considering going back to actual blogging. Of course we would still include pictures, but maybe actually write something (hopefully) of interest from time to time. What think you, gentle readers, who I have culled to a lonely few?

synesthesia

Patterns and Colors. I smell purple.

Thermal features from Yellowstone National Park.

We're going to Jackson

Near Jackson Hole, Wyoming this is one of the views that photographers flock to. The old barns along Mormon Row with the view of the Grand Tetons behind them. One of the most interesting was the one on the end of the row that was in the process of collapsing, but by the time I got to Jackson Hole, the collapse was complete. Alas.

You Say Buffalo, I Say Bison

The future's so bright I've got to wear sunglasses

Our trip to Yellowstone took us through the state of Idaho, and a side trip to Craters of the Moon National Monuent . On the way to the park you pass through the town of Arco, Idaho. Arco is a town where time has stopped. An artifact from the Atomic Cafe, in which it is and always will be somewhere around 1958. Its claim to fame, the first city to be lit by atomic power.

I Think it Says it in the Hat

In search of the elusive Moose, we went our entire 12 days in Yellowstone and Montana without coming across a moose, but on our last day in the Grand Tetons, we tracked down a cow moose and her young near the Jackson Lake junction. I'm no wildlife photographer, but I managed to get a couple of clear shots of mama moose and kind.

Here you go, George.

Mother and Child Reunion

I have returned from an extended hiatus and a long vacation in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks. It was a most amazing vacation, and while it did not result in a lot of photographs that I would consider classic, I did shoot a massive number of images and a number are certainly "blogable". The main problem was the difficulty in getting morning light. Our lodge was in Big Sky, Montana, about 45 miles from the west entrance to Yellowstone. After entering the park, it took a fair bit of driving to reach any location that you wanted to shoot. Even getting up at 4 am and heading out the door unwashed (sorry for the graphic nature of that image), was often not early enough to get the best light.

Nonetheless, we managed to see a lot of wildlife. Mostly Bison and Elk, but we also saw Bear, Antelope, Eagle, Egrets, Marmots, and Moose. Some amazing thermal features and astounding landscapes. On route we made stops at Craters of the Moon in Idaho and the town of Arco, Idaho. Arco is the first town to be powered by Nuclear power in America and has maintained a kind of 50s vibe that is both funny and scary. Pictures of all of this to follow in the next days and weeks, but to start us off, here is an image of a black bear and her cub that we came across while driving along the north end of the park.

Heading Out

This is from my last trip to Zion National Park.

I will be returning to this space soon with plenty of new grist for the photographic mill.

Come in...

Work responsibilities will require a short hiatus for this blog.

I shall return!

Update: Galleries at Futurballa Photography are changed.

Road to Nowhere

Snapping LA

This last weekend I made a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles for a bit of a cultural jaunt with friend George. Activities included, but were not limited to, visiting the Masters of American Comics exhibits, which close on the 12th of March, at the Hammer Museum (Winsor McCay to Charles Schulz) and at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art (Will Eisner to R. Crumb).



The evening was spent at the theater. Glendale's A Noise Within theater company's production of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi. Which was actually Ubu, The Musical. Or as I summed it up on the evening, "Max Bialystock and Elaine Stritch star in Fellini's Ubu Roi with songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim, choreography by Bob Fosse." If you couldn't guess from that, it was a bit of a pastiche, but energetic and mostly quite entertaining.


LA City Hall. Fans of old Dragnet episodes will recognize this.


Frank Gehry's Disney Concert Hall as seen from MOCA, where the Masters of American Comics exhibit was showing.


Apple add above Canter's deli, where Sunday breakfast was consumed (mmmmmm, blintzes). PalmPod?

Where have you gone, Lance Armstrong?

I was able to get a few shots of the finish of stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California in San Jose. Basically you see them pass by really quickly and snap away, hoping for the best.

The History of Valentine's

The History Channel tells all.

Tentacles

Cleaned up the ole blogroll a bit. Removed some sites that I don't frequent much any more. Will add some new sites that are better in the spirit of the blog in it's current form.

Soon come.

Gates and Lock

Something new for my kind commenteers. I aim to please.

Detail from Mission Carmel

There's been an update to futurballa.com, have a look.

Dawn at Limantour

Along the trail to Limantour beach at Pt. Reyes national seashore.

Another Water Study

Send me dead flowers

Morning Glow

We give the gift of linking.

A happy L^th to George.

A tremendous amount of wheat!

Van Gogh in California.

No artistic comparison intended, but this image reminded me of some of the Fields of Wheat paintings.





And the entire script to the source material for this posting's title (and the funniest Woody Allen movie ever) can be found here.

One From One Leaves Two*

Happy Thanksgiving

* _{Thanks to Ogden Nash for the title, even though it's apropos of nothing.}

Walk Me Out in the Morning Dew

Early morning in a meadow near the Point Reyes Hostel.

Watching the Water

I managed to avoid running into Charles and Camilla, but other than that the weekend workshop in Point Reyes was a great success. We had perfect weather on Saturday, and Sunday's overcast and drizzly weather leant the perfect atmospheric conditions to go down to the creek bed in Samuel P. Taylor Park to do shots like this one.

Lone Cypress

A shot everyone takes along the 17 Mile Drive, but there is a reason for that.

I will be heading to Point Reyes this weekend for a photo workshop sponsered by UCSC Extension. Stay tuned.

Pebble Beach

Taken at Pebble Beach on an overcast Saturday. Good one for a caption contest.

Golf like an Egyptian.

She Sells Sea Shells by the Seashore

At Sea

I spent yesterday on a sailboat in Monterey Bay. Not a lot of things better than that.