Small World

I don't know why this cracks me up the way it does, but - well. The current editor-in-chief for Marvel comics, Joe Quesada, is, especially after the stunt he pulled with Spider-man and Mary Jane, less than popular with comic readers at large, to put it mildly. DW only fans, if you think RTD is controversial every other time he gives an interview, imagine that cubed to the nth degree.

Now, Paul Cornell, whom as a DW fan you first associate with his (great and currently Hugo-nominated) episodes (and his DW novels written before the relaunch of the show, and Scream of the Shalka, and...) also earns his living as a Marvel writer. (I haven't read his Pete Wisdom comics, but londonkds writes glowing reviews for them, so I assume they're good.) And has a blog. And in a recent entry, he urges people to vote for "the lovely Joe Quesada" in a "Most Inspiring American Latino" contest. Um. Somehow I doubt Joe Q. will win any votes from the comics-reading community right now...

fannish5 and fanfiction recs

fannish5: What are the five best tv opening credits sequences?

1) Six Feet Under. Because it indicates the death/dysfunctional family/quirky humour elements of the show, in a cool and slightly disturbing way. I always like to think that Claire could have come up with this collage and Olivier would have called it pretentious, inwardly seething with jealousy.

2) Carnivale: from slightly to full disturbing, using the Tarot themes and mixing them with 30s America footage and, well, carnivale elements. The music fits perfectly, too.

3) I, Claudius: Rome sort of paid homage to this one, but nothing beats the original snake crawling over the mosaic, and the music going with it. My hearts beats a little faster each time I hear it.

4) Babylon 5, season 5: B5 had a different opening credits sequence - and different music - for each of the five seasons, going with the concept of them as chapters in a novel. I actually like the music for season 3 best, but as a credit sequence in its entirely, the one for s5 is my favourite. It manages to deliver a short summing up of the entire saga without doing the "last time..." thing, sounds suitably epic, and provides endless rewatching fun when trying to match soundclips to episodes and speakers. (Sometimes, it's easy, as with "you have a hole in your mind...", but it took me a while to identify "weapons supplies" (Bester says it in Ship of Tears)

5) Dexter: back to black humour territory, as we see Dexter go through his morning routine in the credits in a way that teases the first time watcher by making him think he's doing something sinister, but no, he's just cleaning teeth, making breakfeast, etc., complete to whimsical music. The whole credits sequence gains a truly vicious bite and slap in the face in the last episode of s2, though, as it is played out for real. To say more would be spoiling.

***

Now, this weekend, the remixredux08 stories will be revealed, and as I've written two of them and am curious about the one I'll get, I'm impatiently looking forward to it. Meanwhile, there was the reveal of a ficathon I didn't participate in, so I could just enjoy the results as a reader; remixthedrabble!

Here are my favourites:

Harry Potter:

Taking Sides: The Brothers Black, Sirius and Regulus. The genius of both original and remix is that you can't tell who is who, and yet the characterisation is perfect.

Doctor Who:

Paleolinguistics: this remixes the fantastic vignette of astrogirl2 with the same name and slays me. I have a soft spot for fanfiction that uses language and what it means for the characters anyway, and Astro's short take on the Doctor last year this way was genius; this remix presents the Master, and in short form captures his relationship with Gallifrey and with the Doctor as well as his nature. I'm awed.

Threads: is a deceptively light-hearted piece about the Doctor and Martha, and manages to ingeniously explain something in the (lovely) original as well. Enjoy!