Another Voyage to the Gammaverse

Here's a great post about one of my favorite films, Battle of the Worlds. I just wish there was a decent print somewhere in the world of it.

I WANT ONE OF THESE FOR MY BIRTHDAY!

Are you listening, kids?

A New Engineering Computer Scientist is Born

The Kraftmark IT department graduated today. He now has a degree in Computer Science from the College of Engineering at Penn State.
Welcome to the big leagues, Mark.

New Page Element, etc.

I've just added a new link section for the better miniatures blogs I've ran into on the Web. My good friend Bill Thornhill of Musketeer Miniatures has a very nice one. Wish he's post frequently, but oh do I know how hard it is to keep the Blog rolling and have a real life.
It's been quiet on this Blog for the past week because we've been very busy at The Kraftmark Central Control Global Development Research Analytical Administration Center. Team Kraftmark did make it out last week to the local Philly Start-up Leaders meeting. Once again, we were among the computerteers, but we did have a good time socializing. You have to agree, a group has hit the big time in Philly when a councilman shows up to shake hands and kiss cheeks in a district he doesn't represent.
My oldest XY Unit is graduating Penn State tomorrow ("I R Injuneer!") tomorrow, so I may be maintaining radio silence over the next few days.

Go Team Kraftmark!

XY Unit #2 placed third in his high school art show with this piece. I need to go buy him a speed suit with the matching Italian ankle boots.

El Orfanato (The Orphanage)

When a woman and her husband buy an old orphanage for the purpose of starting a home for special needs children, strange things begin to happen. Their adopted son, who is suffering from a deadly illness, begins seeing imaginary friends. An older woman shows up one day and claims to be a social worker with a lot of information on the wife. Finally, their son disappears during a welcoming party for the new children, driving the wife close to the edge of sanity.
Produced by Mexican director Gullermo del Toro, this movie was filmed in Spain and released to the general public last year. No English translation here, you have to be content to read the subtitles (which made for a very amusing warning at my local LackLuster Video Store). The cast is composed of Spanish actors who do a very fine job. Scary to the point where I wouldn't leave the TV, it never less has an ending open to many points of view. Ghosts? Madness? Who knows?
If you enjoyed The Innocents or The Haunting of Hill House, this is the horror movie to watch. I didn't care for the ending, but to say more would give away the plot.

Chicago Terrain Factory

Neat post on the use of ProCreate as a terrain builder. To see it go here.

James Warren Speaks at The Abington Free Library

Sunday, May4, 2008, The Abington Free Library was privileged to have Mr. Jim Warren give a lecture on his years as the publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland. To those who grew up in the era of this magazine's heyday (60's and 70's), this was close to meeting a living legend. The community room at the library was packed with an audience of all ages and sizes. No one left disappointed.
Mr. Warren had a distinguished appearance as he took the podium at 3 PM. He talked about how the magazine was first started, his inspirations, and the famous people he'd had the chance to work with. An assistant stood ready to put a large poster board on one of two easels whenever he needed to illustrate a point. The talk was fascinating and the crowd would easily have sat and listened all day long had it had the opportunity.
His initial inspiration for FM was noticing that kids were staying up late to watch old Universal horror movies on TV. In his youth, kids went and saw monster movies at neighborhood theaters. But with the coming of TV, older theaters were being dismantled, leaving the movie studios with a lot of black and white movies which they sold quickly in package deals to TV stations.
He described the first issue of FM as having been laid-out on a living room table and financed with money loaned by his father. When the first run of 200,000 issues finally hit the stands, he was left with a mere $36.00 in his pocket. This initial run sold out in a manner of days and he realized the initial hunch he had to do it was a good one. The second run sold out just as quickly and the magazine continued to be published for the next 20 plus years.
Warren moved onto the other magazines his company had published over the years. Showing the crowd large reproductions of Creepy and Eerie magazines, he described how he's discovered the illustrators for these publications in an artist colony near Barcelona, Spain. To show their talent, he produced a poster-sized reproduction of a splash page for an illustrated story of "The Cask of Amontillado". He noted the artist had to have spent twenty minutes drawing each brick. Warren considered himself fortunate to have been able to use the talents of Frank Frazetta, one of the greatest fantasy artists of the twentieth century, for his magazine covers.
One periodical cover he produced drew laughter from the audience: Tiny Tim. Apparently the staff at Warren Publications was able to knock out the complete magazine in five hours.
Warren spoke of the legal hassles he encountered while trying to obtain a second class mailing permit for FM. The postal official he met in Washington, DC called the magazine "trash" and tossed him out of the office. Later, he was forced to go way over this person's head to obtain the permit. Another magazine he produced, 1984, prompted a phone call from the literary estate of George Orwell. This was solved by changing the title to 1994.
He talked about Help! magazine, which was a more sophisticated version of Mad. Harvey Kurtzman, one of the founders of Mad, had left the magazine after a fight with the publisher and approached Warren about doing a similar title. Help! would soon feature such talented writers and Terry Gilliam and Gloria Steinem writing for it. Even Woody Allen was involved with Help! at one point. It was the first national magazine to feature the art work of underground cartoonist icon R. Crumb.
He closed by telling everyone how his years as a magazine editor were done more for fun than anything else.