Oh, hells bells, this is pretty damn awesome. Christopher Lee, the second-best Dracula of all time, is making a metal album, a tribute to Charlemagne. No, seriously, check this out
Christopher Lee, famed star of Hammer horror movies, Lord Of The Rings, and much, much more will be coming soon to some earphones near you. Videogum and The Guardian have the news that the 87-year-old actor plans to release a “symphonic metal” album about the life and career of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor and a direct ancestor of Lee himself. “To my surprise and indeed great pleasure, I have suddenly found that there is another string to my bow,” Lee announced.
This is, quite simply, one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever heard, purely on concept. If it’s half as face-meltingly awesome as it should be, we’re all going to be in for a good time.
This’d be one of those things Bill Hicks would call a good drug story. In Baseball, for a pitcher, one of the most impressive feats is to throw a straight no-hitter, practically winning a game single-handedly for your team. On June 12th, 1970, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates did just that, against the San Diego Padres, while tripping balls on acid. This adorable little video illustrates his experience while he narrates in the background. Some good stuff, maaaan.
Sometimes in your life, you sit back and look at what you have wrought, and you feel good inside. I can only imagine how fucking awesome the person who made this felt afterwards. So pretty you’d almost want to not eat it.
Simply awesome! This video clip from a German TV shows shows a pair of T-Rexes, mother and child, facing down a triceratops. Totally real construction, no CGI, and simply amazing. You can really get a feel for the scale of these gorgeous monsters. So damn cool.
This looks terribly dangerous, yet pretty damn awesome. I’m kinda amazed at the co-ordination that went into this. Plus, the balls it’d take to skateboard down hills in fucking San Francisco…
This is a lovely way to start the week! Footage of a giant robot spider in the warehouse district of Yokohama, wandering around, spitting steam and water. The thing is apparently 40 feet tall, and as you can see, there’s at least three people riding on it’s back. I think I’m in love. Who wants to help give the inventor some more funds so we can bring one of these to Burning Man?
This is an interesting little article. A collection of excerpts from various interviews where different comic book artists talk about real-life encounters with their characters. I’ve seen a few of these before, but they’re well worth reading again. One of my favourites comes from Alan Moore:
One day, I was in Westminster in London — this was after we had introduced the character — and I was sitting in a sandwich bar. All of a sudden, up the stairs came John Constantine. He was wearing the trenchcoat, a short cut — he looked — no, he didn’t even look exactly like Sting. He looked exactly like John Constantine. He looked at me, stared me straight in the eyes, smiled, nodded almost conspiratorially and then just walked off around the corner to the other part of the snack bar.
I sat there and thought, should I go around that corner and see if he is really there, or should I just eat my sandwich and leave? I opted for the latter; I thought it was the safest. I’m not making any claims to anything. I’m just saying that it happened.
Go through the whole thing, you’ll find it well worth the read.
This is probably the coolest thing I’ve seen, or heard, more properly, all month. ArcAttack, a self-proclaimed “high tech musical collaborative”, perform the theme to Doctor Who using a pair of Tesla coils. This performance is from Chattacon 2009, which apparently is a southern sci-fi convention held in January. There’s some random trivia in with your awesome, eh? I’m just astounded I didn’t have a tesla category previous to this…
In an act of literary genius, author Seth Grahame-Smith has taken Jane Austen’s classic novel and done to it what all modern media needs: added more zombies! Just read this description from the listing on amazon.com:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton–and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers–and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen’s classic novel to new legions of fans.
I highly approve of this concept, and encourage others to take a similar approach to updated other “classic” works of literature. Just think about it! David Copperfield and Zombies, Wuthering Heights is Filled with Zombies, Moby Dick Fights a Zombie, Great Zombie Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities Under Siege by Zombies… The ideas just spill out! Really, we all need more tales of zombies in our lives, if only to keep us on our toes for the inevitable Zombie Holocaust.
Nothing quite as pretty as a sign done up in a half-dozen colours of neon. The little “flames” at the top of the sign dance back and forth in a pleasantly irregular pattern. Never tried the restaurant, mind you, but I’d be willing to bet it’s pretty good, considering how wonderful their sign is.
The city of Vancouver has been shrouded in fog for weeks now. I’m expecting horrendous monsters to emerge at any minute. Click for a large version, as per usual.
Mexican wrestling, true crime, cryptozoology, exploitation cinema, weird news, overuse of the word "awesome", real-world steampunk, outsider music, low-brow culture, surrealist comedy, pulp fiction, and other ephemera. Welcome to the circus.
