Quick Shots

Pin-Up Queen Bettie Page dead at 85
This made me sad, if for no other reason than that she served as the inspiration for so much beautiful artwork by so many talented artists. One of those talented artists was the late and much-lamented Dave Stevens, whose comic, The Rocketeer, featured a character based on Ms. Page. There's a brief mention of The Rocketeer in the Reuters obituary linked above, but no mention of the fact that Dave Stevens was, in her later life, after her re-emergence from anonymity, her friend and sometime caretaker, and did what he could to help her get her fair share of the money others had made off of her image. Mark Evanier's blog, which is really the place to go for obituaries - among many other things; I realize it seems like a back-handed compliment, but the obits generally are more informative, and often much more personal - has a few interesting anecdotes about Stevens' relationship with the legendary pin-up.
The movie based on her life - The Notorious Bettie Page - was fun and entertaining, and it featured an often-nude Gretchen Mol, in the title role, which is never a bad thing. I remain eternally grateful that the producers passed on Liv Tyler, who was at one time reported to be up for the role.

Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats H0000....ly Shit! WTF????
One of the features of the site Topless Robot is Fan Fiction Friday (FFF), in which TR culls the Web for some of the weirdest and most twisted fan-written fiction that can be found. And trust me, there has been some really weird stuff featured, but I think the latest featured bit of fan work is by far the strangest I've seen, and that's including the Harry Potter/Dragonball Z mpreg slash fiction. I can't even begin to explain it, so I recommend that you see for yourself.
People tell me that there actually is decent, well-written, and non-bug fuck insane fan fiction to be found on the Web, and I'm sure that's true, but even if I were interested in finding it, I don't think my soul could take wading through the rest of it to do so. Just the snippets I read in FFF is doing enough damage to it, thanks.

New Watchmen International Trailer
This seems vaguely spoilery to me, but I'm not sure that it actually is unless you're familiar with the comic, in which case you already know what's going to happen, so...
In any case, it certainly is nice to look at, and, however reluctantly, I find myself getting more and more excited about the movie.



Bonus: Footage shown at the San Diego Comic-Con: