Friday comics, Saturday Morning Horror

I read The Shazam Archives Vol. 2 last night before bed. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love C.C. Beck's art. I truly think he's the best of the Golden Age artists. This volume is particularly amazing, as half is illustrated by Beck, the other half by an up-and-coming kid named Jack Kirby (working with Captain America partner Joe Simon on the stories). And yes, Beck is better (although by the time the Silver Age rolled around, Kirby was the Master). I'm not a huge fan of many Golden Age artists, but Beck was a genius. The stories are also nifty. One thing that I'd like to see Geoff Johns work with is the idea that Billy Batson was never really comfortable giving up his body, and would switch back to human form whenever possible (although one reason for that is, presumably, to increase the risk). Now, he seems to spend way too much time as The Big Red Cheese.

Today's film was Die, Monster, Die!, which is that rarest of film experiences: an enjoyable Lovecraft adaptation. It takes "The Colour out of Space," moves it to England for no good reason, and still makes for a fun movie. Boris Karloff makes any movie worthwhile, of course. This movie also had a moderate influence on one of the shorts in Creepshow. Good fun stuff, although with the same baggage as almost any older horror flick. Surprisingly, it was on Encore: Mystery, instead of one of the channels that I'd associate with true horror.

I then flipped over to the Sci-Fi Channel, where
The Screaming Skull was playing. This was not nearly as good a movie. In fact, without the MST3K guys, it's pretty much unwatchable. That said, as always, Mike and company can take a bad film, and make it all worthwhile.

Now, I'm off to Dim Sum with anexstacy and thebaronofmspg. mmm, food.

You dim sum, you lose sum.

I spent a delightful afternoon with anexstacy and thebaronofmspg. We hit an amazing Dum Sum place (Royal China), and absolutely stuffed our faces. Steamed pork buns, fried pork buns, dumplings of every sort (shrimp, pork, some sort of chive one, etc), noodle dishes, rice, sesame balls (poor sesames!), and all sorts of other stuff. We were joined by three other people, but I don't honestly know if they have LJ names (and if they're not on LJ, they don't really exist, of course). It was truly the best Dim Sum experience I've had.

Afterwards, he hit a kitchen store (and I found a gift for someone), then went on a quest for a good Chinese bakery. En route, we got distracted by a good looking tea shop. Lo and behold, they had authentic Bubble Tea (the one flaw with the place we went for lunch was that they served the same weak bubble tea that Noodle has). They had about a zillion options. anexstacy and I both had classic tapioca pearls in ours, and thebaronofmspg had one with some sort of coconut pearl. My mint green milk tea was damned yummy!

We then browsed an oriental supermarket for a while, finding lots of tempting items. I resisted most, but did get some crystalized ginger candy and some buns. No Pocky, alas. :-(

We then continued the bakery quest, eventually finding a decent one and getting butter cream rolls.

I'm now at home, in post-food-coma mode. :-)

Man, I ate a lot. And had a lot of fun.

Alas, poor Alias

Alias, the best fucking title Marvel has (bar none), is ending as of issue 28. Bendis claims it's his decision, and that Jessica will now be a part of his more mainstream MU book, The Pulse (focusing on The Daily Bugle newsroom). But it still sucks. He compares it to Stormwatch ending to become The Authority, but it feels more like Black Panther ending for whatever the hell Priest is writing right now.