A confession: I’m not very good at blogging. If you’ve kept track of how often this site is updated, you’ll note I post something about every two weeks. Whether the lack of posts is due to sheer laziness or lack of anything novel to say is impossible to determine. But I’m determined to take drastic action to shake me out of my blogging funk.
In addition to the usual news items and developments in the world of The Dead Kid Detective Agency and Quarter-Life Crisis, I’m instituting two new categories of blog posts, as follows:
The glory of Hawk the Slayer
1) DVD Golden Corral (Tuesdays)
I watch a lot of movies – fun fact: I actually have a film minor – and I have an incredible affinity for those movies that most other people with taste would consider bad. Much of this affinity I can attribute to the phenomenal Toronto-based film programmer and enthusiast Colin Geddes (who programs for the Toronto International Film Festival, and its Midnight Madness program, in particular). I feel truly bad movies are often so much more heartfelt and ambitious and earnest than the good ones. So I shall devote one blog post each week to reviews of some of the finest worst moves I’ve recently experienced. But many may not even be bad – just obscure genre films that only die-hards remember.
If you need more specifics of the kind of movies I refer to, I should catalogue some recent films that would probably fit this description: Thrashin’, Dreamcatcher, Shocker, They Might Be Giants, Hawk the Slayer.
Texas Twister, a possible candidate for future post
2) Comic Characters That Time Forgot (Sundays)
This weekly post will be devoted to some of my favourite comic characters that have seemed to have been lost to history. I’ll imagine these characters will largely be sourced from comics from the 1980s and 1990s from Marvel and DC (considering those comic books formed much of my taste), but forgotten (yet amazing) comic characters can come from throughout time and space and comic company.
In each post, I’ll attempt to summarize the character’s origins and powers, as well as some selected highlights from his/her/its career in superheroing/villainy-doing/cast-supporting.
We’ll see how long this plan lasts … in the meantime, please enjoy this recording of a brief panel discussion on teen literature I participated in that aired as part of CBC Radio’s ‘Fresh Air,’ hosted by Mary Ito. My fellow panelists, author Vikki VanSickle (Words That Start with B) and Toronto Public Library Youth Services Specialist Cameron Ray, were far more knowledegable on the subject, but my voice was way more nasal. So, everybody wins:
Fresh Air - CBC Radio - July 2, 2011
