Monthly Archives: February 2016

I’ve been itching to a crossover for awhile—the conceit of VFPX means that me plopping down in someone else’s world and talking to them is a matter of course—and it was only natural that I show up on the door step of Reverend Mord and Pastor Drom. The Hidden Almanac is a show where an eccentric radio host goes through the fantastic by way of the mundane. Really, the only differences are that The Hidden Almanac comes out three times a week, and I use more sound effects.

I cannot thank Ursula and Kevin enough to allowing me to play around in their world. The whole process, from when I first sat down to write the script to when we all gathered together the day after Christmas to record, was like a dream. I’ve never had an episode come together so smoothly before. When I sent Ursula the script, I was worried that she might not like it, and would request serious changes. She did have one change, which was the addition of a gardener’s joke.

And she was right to put that in. Wouldn’t be The Hidden Almanac without gardening jokes.

You can, of course, purchase a print or card of Ursula Vernon’s amazing work of Reverend Mord glaring over a microphone, just as you can for all the other episode artwork. Because who doesn’t want a adorable demon on their wall?

That’s just classy, that’s what that is.

I’ve seen the DEADPOOL film, as I assume most people on the planet have. It is, without a doubt, not only the best film based on the X-Men franchise, but also the one that is the truest to its source material. While you and I would think that this would lead to a shift in the way these funnybook adaptations are made, where more attention is paid to properly delivering to the big screen the characters and concepts that made these corporate trademarks worth filming in the first place, it looks like the only real change is going to be more “R” rated superhero films.

Conventional wisdom dictated that anything over a “PG-13” meant a huge chunk of the potential audience for a cape flick wouldn’t be able to buy tickets, but if the litany of babies in the theater when I saw the film is any indication, that’s not really a problem.

(They all hated the strip-club scene, by the by)

I don’t have a problem with “R” rated superhero movies. Wolverine would certainly benefit from being able to use his knife-hands on screen as opposed to just out of frame, and Lexi Alexander’s PUNISHER WAR ZONE is a hoot and a half. And if you were curious as to what an “R” rated Batman film would look like, look no further than ICHI THE KILLER. ICHI THE KILLER is directed by Takashi Miike, and it’s exactly as wonderfully horrible and horribly wonderful as you might expect an “R”-rated Batman film to be.

But part of the reason I like ICHI THE KILLER is that it isn’t a Batman film. Some characters have too much symbolic weight as figures in children’s literature to truly be enjoyed engaging in the sex and violence that Deadpool wallowed it. And you don’t need either thing to tell an adult story.

DEADPOOL for all its flashbacks and swearing, is still a pretty simple and direct tale. Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT film is one of the few truly sophisticated superhero stories—and it’s rated PG-13.

I’ve got a new day job, as the lead editor at Drexel University’s Communication Department, which both awesome and and incredibly busy. I’m confident I can keep up the usual every-two-weeks schedule on the podcast, It’s also been a long time since I had a regular job, so I couldn’t tell exactly how I plan to make that happen.

I’ll think of something.