Category: Blog

Devil In The Details: Ghost Rider vs. Marvel

I finally caught the 2007 version of Ghost Rider over the weekend, and gave it two searing-hot thumbs up. It had the proper balance of pulpy horror fun that made the original comics such a joy. But an episode back in the real world has overshadowed the release of the sequel, out on Friday–and this is one battle that Johnny Blaze, and the man that brought him to life, are set to lose.

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Logopolis

A new year and a new logo. I can’t help myself, I’m afraid. Farting around with the look and feel of X&HT is one of my pleasures. The place is like a shed, and every so often I get the need to shift things around and clear out the cupboards. Inevitably, I’ll find a dead mouse somewhere in a dark corner, but that is the nature of spring cleaning.

I thought it might be nice to wander through the different logos I’ve designed for X&HT over the years, and something about why I made the choices that ended up on the site.

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A Tale Of Two Girls: X&HT watched The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

It’s typical behavior in Hollywood to take an outstanding foreign language film and hack out a mediocre rehash for the American market. David Fincher’s take on the Steig Larssen novel does nothing to buck the trend. More worryingly, it takes one of the strongest female characters to come out in years and does everything it can to dilute her power.

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Habibi: Tales Within Tales

Stories are the framework that we build our lives upon. Our beliefs, our fears, our relationship with the world, with birth, with death, with fate, all come out of the tales we whisper to each other, huddled round campfires in the dark. We have taught ourselves to respond to myth and legend, fable and saga. Fantasy used as a way to understand and codify the callous, bewildering universe around us.

In Habibi, Craig Thompson takes the idea of the story as key to survival and runs with it. Riffing on Islamic and Christian mythology, the Thousand and One Nights and the ways in which language can both divide and unite us, the book is an astonishing, bravura example of how the graphic novel can do things with a story that no other medium can touch.

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Jodorowsky Week: The Holy Mountain

After the success of El Topo, Jodorowsky was given a million dollars by John Lennon and Beatles manager Allen Klein to make a new film. That film would lead to a controversy that would see both movies vanish from screens for over thirty years. That controversy would give the film an extraordinary, almost mythical status.

That film is…

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Graf Your Grub

A little something to bear in mind next time TLC and I have a bite to eat with that damned elusive docoBanksy. German food co-op The Deli Garage has come up with an edible food spray that could add an extra blingy touch to the Christmas dinner. Currently available in gold, silver, red and blue, the manufacturers claim that the colour is both odour-free and tasteless. Which is a bit of a shame. I kinda like the idea of spray-on barbeque flavour in a hot-rod red.

Flavoured spray could also add a whole new dimension to the graffiti shenanigans at Leake Street. Your line and fill might be a bit suspect, but boy does your piece taste good. Why cover up a rival’s graf when you can just lick it off? King Robbo: tastes like chicken. I know you can get spray cheeses and oils already. It wouldn’t take much to make my little dream come true.

It would certainly put a whole different spin on the idea of pepper spray…