--Brian Viveros, Bull Fight Her

I unleashed my hounds tonight.

Now, we'll have to wait and see if I really have any hounds.

I've Got You Under My Skin: The Constancy of Cloning and of Gamer Identity in Hardcore Henry

Apparently, no one cares about a half naked Jimmy.

But I do.

I've Got You Under My Skin: The Constancy of Cloning and of Gamer Identity in Hardcore Henry

Only one thing to say about the champion rework of Taric from League of Legends

He's so beautiful.

Hardcore Henry Tells Gamers Sorry, There Is No Princess

Some changes were made to this essay along the way to publication. Some were useful and added some clarity in spots. There were a few things that I would have preferred to stay in it that ended up on the cutting room floor, but the core argument remains the same about the way that the film deconstructs the standard "save the princess" narrative.

Also, as might be evident by now based on some of my more recent posts here, I am really in love with the Hardcore Henry soundtrack. The selections are interesting, and the way that they are used in the film (which includes, of all things, a rather brilliant little musical number) to match certain sequences' tones is really pretty brilliant.

I might end up writing a bit more about the film at some point, as there are other interesting things it does with video game tropes, like paralleling cloning with the concept of "extra lives," that seem like fruitful ground for discussion. We'll see, though. There's this business about presence and digital objects that is also kicking around in my brain as a result of a discussion I had on Friday that I may feel the need to get into instead, which has little to do with this film.

Hardcore Henry Tells Gamers Sorry, There Is No Princess

People can and do die.

Dogs shouldn't.

For the kill

Writing up something about Hardcore Henry. Might go live Wednesday, but maybe later if I decide to turn what I have into a column.

fatale

This is the work of Glen Orbik, who died last year. His style is extremely reminiscent of Robert McGinnis, poster artist for a number of the Connery era Bond films.

I'm so fond of the image of the femme fatale, any number of eras, but especially from the noir tradition. Like any topic concerning sexuality, the femme fatale can easily be reduced in discussion to something entirely simplistic, much like reducing images of sex in advertising as simply being examples of the old adage "sex sells" without asking any additional questions about how and to whom and in what way. However, as is the case with sexual imagery in advertising, the femme fatale really should be approached, I believe, with more nuance.

I realize that the image above might seem fairly straightforward, but the level of brutality in the image is significantly greater than in most images of the femme fatale, which seems important to the image to me. It reminds me (in a way) of a Darwin Cooke alternate cover for Ed Brubaker's Fatale, which is completely different in style from that book's usual art style (an image from which I posted fairly recently, one drawn by that comic's regular artist Sean Phillips).

I realize that the image below, which is called The Long Way Home, by Orbik is not really a femme fatale (or at least not in so obvious a way), but notice how its composition is quite different from the earlier image and speaks to a very different idea altogether about hard boiled men and their relationship to women. Additionally, the juxtaposition in the one below between the real and the ideal, poverty and comfort, and masculinity and femininity is created in this really interesting way by matching but then inverting the body of the man and the body of the woman in their poses and then in how they occupy space.

It's smart, I think. Compelling to me.

I really need to write something on the history of the femme fatale in art at some point, maybe tied to video games, maybe something else entirely, but something. I'd want to go back to earlier stuff than just this more twentieth century approach, some classical, some nineteenth century, etc., but I feel like just pushing a bit at the simplicity of analysis often brought to this material.

Decor

Scars add interest to the body.

The Panama Papers

What's the big deal? All these billionaires, politicians, and world leaders are just saving up for something really expensive. I'm sure that's the case. That's what savings accounts are for, right?

--Dima Rebus, This is unbelievable! Do you even watch the time?

--Camille Rose Garcia, The Ghost of G Sharp Seven