Pseudobulbar Paraphroneogenesis: Uncontrollable Laughing at the Insanity of Existence.

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST Special Extended Preview

(Wed 06/20/2007 08:55pm)

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST  (PROLOGUE) – SPECIAL EXTENDED PREVIEW

The opening chapter of the Annihilation: Conquest is ‘ere...and we've had our clown-boys purloin the official Marvel Preview.

MichaelMaelstrom in conjunction with TazerMyTesticlesI’mGoodForIt  Joker-Ink in mumblemumble-(sounds like “unofficial un” – Ed) association with Marvel Comics is proud to present the extended preview of Annihilation: Conquest Prologue, exclusively through MySpace.Com

oh dear, well, key word “exclusively through” not “exclusively at” MySpace.com

This Preview was put on the infobahn BY Marvel ergo it is not a bootleg, it is not pirated, it does not contain porn (though it does contain some alleged double X chromo kissing, so essentially if you’re hyper-religious and don’t want you or your child to see 2 femmes kissing, well then frankly we highly suspect you’re gay but FYI anyway)

where was I, right, it is not an UNofficial fan-person scan.,  this is in fact an 100% Marvel created and sanctioned SPECIAL PREVIEW, therefore for all intents and purposes, unfortunately, it is not illegal.  Pity that, I find that seriously dampens my street gang clown posse cred.

Anyway, Strap in and Prepare for cosmic adventure!

(unless you're on dialup in which case, I'd sugg making a coffee or one of those fruity drinks with an umbrella, as this page may take a few minutes to fully load *pause* sort of like a certain part of Ed's anatomy *pause* so I once overheard a circus midget mention anyway)

(yes, and like my private parts, even if it does take time to load, it's worth the wait - Ed)

Best Optometrically Viewed at 800x600 Rez.

Here Endeth The Preview.

And Here Begineth The Opine (mine)

Ahhhhh yes, to the newbie let me say that this excerpt may not quite capture the full bodied flavour of the Annihilation series, yet rest assured that if you are from the SCIENCE FICTION school of comic fandom, I will wager that this is the series that you will be pleased to extrapolate your iguana to., all summer long.

(we still have no idea what that means - Ed)

But you needn't take my (frequently insane - Ed) word for it, for a newbie look at the original Annihilation series and its SF centering, transport your virtual molecules over to Marvel's Digital Comics ( http://www.marvel.com/digitalcomics/ ) where you can read the complete original issue of Annihilation #1 for the astoundingly reasonable price of FREE.

Finally, in honour of The Annihilation: Conquest prologue issue launching today (Wednesday June 20th, 2007 - Ed) for those interested in extrapolating their SF iguana this summer, I thought you might like this:

The Annihilation: Conquest Checklist

The full list of books in this summer's Annihilation Conquest event

JUNE
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST PROLOGUE

JULY
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - QUASAR #1
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - STAR-LORD #
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - WRAITH #1
NOVA #4

AUGUST
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - QUASAR #2
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - STAR-LORD #2
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - WRAITH #2
NOVA #5

SEPTEMBER
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - QUASAR #3
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - STAR-LORD #3
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - WRAITH #3
NOVA #6

OCTOBER
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - QUASAR #4
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - STAR-LORD #4
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - WRAITH #4
NOVA #7

NOVEMBER
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST #1

DECEMBER
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST #2

JANUARY
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST #3

FEBRUARY
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST #4

MARCH
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST #5

APRIL
ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST #6

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST PROLOGUE (June)
Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Penciler & Inker: Mike Perkins
Colorist: Guru eFX
Cover Artist: Aleksi Briclot

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - QUASAR #1 - #4 (July – Oct.)
Writers: Christos N. Gage
Penciler: Mike Lilly
Cover Artist: Matt Wilson

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - STAR-LORD #1 - #4 (July – Oct.)
Writers: Keith Giffen
Penciler: Timothy Green II
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colorist: Nathan Fairbairn
Cover Artist: Nic Klein

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST - WRAITH #1 - #4 (July – Oct.)
Writers: Javier Grillo-Marxuach
Penciler & Inker: Kyle Hotz
Colorist: Gina Going-Raney
Cover Artist: Clint Langley

NOVA #4-#7 (July - Oct.)
Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Penciler: Sean Chen
Inker: Scott Hanna
Colorist: Guru EFX
Cover Artist: Adi Granov

ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST #1 - #6 (Nov. '07 – April '08)
Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Penciler: Tom Raney
Inker: Scott Hanna
Colorist: Frank D'Armata
Cover Artist: Aleksi Briclot

 
Pen-Finally (aw you're just making words up now Maelstrom - as your EDitor I forbid it! - Ed) Yes, I'll give that all the attention it deserves Ed, oh look at the time, *punch Ed in the nose* must dash.

and Finally, for those interested in more information on the new Annihilation: Conquest series ye can visit Marvel.Com's Annihilation Mini-Site here.

Auf Vide Bye

Michael X. Maelstrom.

Batman TDK news & photos

(Fri 06/15/2007 04:46pm)

The New Bat Suit.



Heath Ledger as The (masked) Joker during the 1st Chicago shoot



Gotham PD insignia crest



Gotham Department of Corrections Jumpsuit



Bruce Wayne's Penthouse? (not confirmed, but there were reportedly greenscreens over the windows here implying that a Gotham night skyline might be fx'ed in)







The Bat Signal

June 10th Chicago Shoot Report
Posted by: Jett
Monday, June 11, 2007, 6:25 AM CENTRAL TIME: From "Arkham Guard":

re: The New Batsuit's cloak secret?

if his cape elongates, I'm going to uh ..elongate.

(those who have seen the FanFilm Batman: Dead End already have some idea how impressive this can look onscreen, one can only imagine what Nolan could do with a budget several magnitudes of scale larger)

if you haven't as yet, you can watch BDE here: http://www.mania.com/michaelxaviermaelstrom/video/670.html

mXm

The Calm Before The ShitStorm - Is Paris or Responsible Journalism Burning?

(Sun 06/10/2007 07:39pm)


The Calm Before The Shit-Storm.

Extremes beget Extremes.  Apparently. 

A few fellow Maniacs will recognize the first few paragraphs of this below, as I posted it in DJ's Celebrity Justice 101 column.  It's continued below and further fleshed for your consideration and/or dismissal, as you see fit.

Hunh-Hunh-Hem

*tug down on purple shirt*

Nominally I find Digg and Mania amongst the best locales for collective "balanced" and "reasoned" opine on the net, yet (surprisingly) Digg stunningly smartbombed itself into the Paleolithic age yesterday - it was not spared the rolling mob wave of vile pedantic UGLY hate on display, unleashed on Hilton by the world's rampaging Cro Magnons.

Surprising for Digg (normally a local where balance is achieved by the end of any given issue debated owing to the higher _collective_ consciousness level brought about by a large cross-sectored userbase and a respect-for-intelligence dynamic imo) YET the collective Digg response was no different than the same vile one on display at TMZ and The Superficial's respective comments sections.

with People calling for Hilton rape, lesbian elbow deep fistings, and death and shouting down and threatening anyone that didn't agree with their torch wielding Hilton-is-a-Satanic-Whore-Kill-Kill-Kill-Die-Die-Die opine.

And that was not the minority, that was the majority.

Hickville Lynch-Mob-Rule is quite apparently alive and well in the world and it was rampantly on display on the infobahn yesterday.

Props to DJ for keeping it reasoned [here at Mania - Ed] and particular props to Shadow Prime for 'aving the heaping titanium balls to speak up about that UGLY rolling wave.

[..Continued..]

My view re: the ugly mob reaction

The real test of character imo is not whether one engaged in the mob behavior in the first place but whether or not one feels bad about it afterwards. 

And I am not referring to those that love to hate Hilton, which is after-all a national if not global past-time, I am referring to those that displayed such venomous vitriol that you'd think Hilton was Hitler, calling for her rape in jail, bodily harm and/or death.

I'd personally like to send that sort off to another planet.  Preferably via a giant red clown-shoe catapult.

my view re: Hilton and "Justice".

AISI there are only 2 issues here, the rest (such as whether one personally likes her or not) are irrelevant or extraneous.

1. What is the "normal" legal judgment for a person that commits the offense she did.

2. What is a fair judgment.

MINDBOGGLINGLY we cannot get a straight answer to "1" - the public `believes' that "normal" people would do more time as do the "television prosecutors" (such as CNN's Nancy Grace and her handpicked commentators) 

/BEGIN anti-Hilton-Release EXAMPLE/

"City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo denounced [Sheriff - Ed] Baca's decision [to release Hilton 3 days into her sentence - Ed] saying his office was not properly advised and would have opposed it on legal grounds. Delgadillo asserted that only the judge -- who had specifically said Hilton could not do her time at home and disagreed with the early release -- retained jurisdiction over her case"

/END example/

yet Sheriff Lee Baca in charge of the very jail she was sent to and the "television defense lawyers" (such as CNN's Mark Geragos) have stated that it's "normal" for low-level offenders in L.A charged with the same crime Hilton was (two probation violations for an alcohol related driving offense - Ed) to either be sent home WITHOUT doing ANY time at all or at most to do 10% of their sentence.

/BEGIN pro-Hilton-Release EXAMPLE/

"She would have gotten out early if she was plain Jane," said Leonard Levine, who has handled numerous probation violation cases. He noted that overcrowding in the Los Angeles County jail system has led to thousands of nonviolent offenders serving only 10 percent of their sentences. "She did as much time as a normal person would have done."

/END example/

I find it curious that we're virtually a week into this fiasco yet aside from prosecutor/defender lawyers cherry-picking their examples to support their vocational position slash biased hear-say and the various "I know someone who knows someone who did 6 months for the same crime" and the "I know someone who went into the jail and was released the same day for the same crime" we have yet to see the 1 thing that we absolutely REQUIRE to judge whether she was treated fairly or not, and that's

HARD L.A JAIL-TERM & RELEASE FACTS & STATISTICS.

I've been to The New York Times, The Economist, CNN, The Washington Post; I've googled til I went blind (ok, I gave up after page 5, I have a crime syndicate to run you know) I found the vast majority are not-surprisingly condemning Hilton, and I even found an online pub nomened RIGHT WING NEWS (John Hawkins article at) who thought re-sentencing Hilton was "not right" which blew my tree, unexpected that was (to quote Yoda - Ed) but I cannot find any professional journalists citing any L.A justice system statistics. 

It's ALL opinion and hear-say, everywhere we look. 

^Raise-Eyebrow.

How can people be so adamantly outraged and enraged at Paris Hilton's preferential treatment in the U.S justice system when there's no published FACT or Statistical evidence to support that she is receiving abnormal treatment, in the first place?

Norman Co-Ordinate.

And more importantly, why WEREN'T there any facts and statistics on L.A jail-terms and typical release numbers -published- in the major media to begin with? why was it all hear-say and legal opinion?

Seems to me to be a large oversight as an informed educated opinion is IMPOSSIBLE without L.A jail facts.

or do we now simply decide which commentator's opinion to adopt instead of looking at the facts and making up our own minds?

Isn't it a real News organizations bloody JOB to provide unbiased integral FACTUAL information? Then why the fuck is it so difficult to come by?

Personally I think in addition to the Hilton case transmogrifying into

1. the increasing outrage at the increasing perception of a two-tiered justice system - one for the filthy rich and one the filthy poor.

2. a debate on the dynamics of mob-mentality run-amuck (even acknowledging she brought some it on herself with her pampered-debutard public-persona, someone-else's persona will never justify another-someone-else's behavior, AISI that's a classic rationalization for excusing one's _own_ behavior, though I hear it worked well at stonings in the past - the bitch was clearly evil what with the big soup cauldron and pointy hat, so they raped and killed her - Yay Justice!)

I submit,

3. it ought also be about journalistic standards declining as (once) serious NEWS outlets have become less about the facts and more about "entertainment".

..where the NEWS organizations ALL seem to increasingly ignore gathering and publishing FACTS instead favouring bringing on the "commentator" for the dissemination of OPINION.

Followed by the viewer phone-in, and the dissemination of even MORE opinion.

perhaps I'm just pissing into the wind 'ere, but perhaps the news corps have increasingly adopted this approach because facts can do ratings-dampening things like END a debate.

where-as continual opining increases entertainment value and RATINGS., as everyone from the bloke with the tin foil helmet to your hairy mustachio'd aunt has an (informed, uninformed, insane or otherwise - Ed) "opinion".

In my view OPINIONS-WITHOUT-FACTS-TO-SUPPORT-THEM are like village idiots, politicians and town perpetual drunks, they're occasionally entertaining, but mostly they smell of urine and no one should be proud of them.

WITHOUT hard statistics on LA jail release "norms" at our disposal, we wind up here:

There are only 2 issues.

..the rest

(such as whether one personally likes her or not, whether one believes she should be made a `special' example of because as we all know the best way to spread justice is by creating a special-case injustice because 'natch since O.J got off, Paris Hilton should pay; such as whether one believes she is the anti-Madonna-Christ and/or whether one believes her snatch ought be quarantined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency)

(I sent the application forms in to FEMA for precisely that - Ed)

Go Away Ed.

..et cetera, AISI those are all misdirecting, misleading, irrelevant and/or extraneous off-issue elements.

the issue is:

1. What is the "normal" legal judgment for a person that commits the offense she did.

since we cannot get a straight answer to "1" as we're waiting on that information while the major NEWS organizations `professional journalists' are apparently off on a Zen one-hand-clapping masturbating retreat, I say we take the opportunity to look at point 2.

2. What is a fair judgment?

I tend to believe the Sheriff concerning his own jurisdiction's incarceration norm, but without statistical evidence/facts to support his claim, I return to: we cannot accept anti-Hilton-case hear-say anymore than we can accept pro-Hilton-case hear-say.

We NEED hard statistics

In the mean-time, let's look at Hilton's situation.

Hilton's Crime: After being pulled over for suspected DUI and ultimately receiving probation, alcohol/substance abuse counseling and a 4 month suspended license, otherwise known as 'a slap on the wrist'

Her response was to blow off the alcohol awareness program and to drive on her suspended license not once but TWICE.

Hilton obviously didn't learn a thing from the slap on the wrist she received for her alcohol-related reckless-driving offense, apparently didn't learn when she was caught driving on a suspended license following that and quite apparently didn't learn the second time she was pulled over for driving-with-a-suspended-license AGAIN.

All said, The 3rd time was the state-sponsored butch-lesbian-jail-guard body-cavity-search incarceration charm for Hilton.

The Judge sentenced her to 45 days in jail for violation of her probation/thumbing her allegedly expensive nose at the legal system; with L.A's 1-day-off-for-every-day-sentenced "good behavior release program", that works out to Paris serving 23 days in jail.

That seems "fair".

I think she ought be responsible and serve the rest of her sentence out EVEN if she doesn't have to.

But that's my OPINION, it's not my or anyone else's prerogative to force Paris Hilton to do something responsible for the greater good, as it were, when that something-responsible-for-the- greater-good is beyond what the law calls for. I bow to the law.

ie. IF statistics are EVER released and it's proven that its "normal" for people in L.A to go home after serving 10% of their sentence then she ought serve 4.5 days (10% of the 45 days) and be sent home.  Just like anyone else. Period. End of story.

or

IF it's revealed it's "normal" to serve out the full sentence, then that is what she should do.  Just like anyone else. Period. End of story.

Penultimately, the point being it is not de facto justice or injustice UNTIL we know what the statistical norm is.  And we DON'T as yet because the news media organizations apparently don't seem to feel that it's important for us to know the FACTS right now.

yet without that crucial bit of information, we're all just pissing in the wind with pointless opining.

Good for ratings though isn't it.

Ultimately, I think that serious professional news organizations ought piss off with their ratings-grab influenced `reporting' (or lack there-of) and get back to doing their jobs.

When you're purportedly a _serious_ news outlet with serious journalists (I'm talking to you too CNN, not only FOX, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, et cetera) we expect and demand FACTS first and foremost.

AISI until the news media culture changes -back- to that gold standard, we're all in serious trouble.

The "calm before the shit-storm" I speak of is not simply because they may file an appeal and a case for unlawful-incarceration (The Sheriff had jurisdiction, the Sheriff released her, the Judge ordered her back in against the Sheriff's ruling, they may argue the judge overstepped his legal and jurisdictional bounds and the Judge will no doubt counter with the vice-versa claiming he specifically stated that she wasn't to be released to her home, where-upon the Sheriff's lawyers will argue the judge had no jurisdiction over the Sheriff's territory and had no legal right to make that stipulation to begin with)

and

*wait for it*

Paris could conceivably get out on Monday on bail, as the appeal would go forward, where-upon no doubt, all hell would break loose amongst the proletariat. Again.

(if I were her lawyer I'd advise calming down and doing the time left because the public has NOT been properly informed by the news as yet as to what a "normal" sentence in L.A is for her probation violation and they might lynch her)

But the "calm before the shit-storm" I speak of, is rather about responsible-journalism and the necessity in maintaining SERIOUS NEWS STANDARDS.  Opinions and commentary are fine as a _supplement_ to the news, but when it reaches a point where it REPLACES the need or desire to disseminate FACTS?

..then things are royally fragged up.

Are we to believe that as this shit-storm grew not one single major news media journalist thought to call the L.A jail to gather release-statistics and publish them?

Because THAT is what they would have us believe, as the story unfolded with NO facts revealed on the very subject the public was "debating" and becoming increasingly enraged about.

While the RATINGS at the major news corps might have grown as the lack of published statistics and facts led to television and news punditry and mass-opining, IGNORANCE likewise grew at an alarming rate, and not surprisingly where ignorance was rampant, the cro-magnons came out in full observable force.

The Government (and not only this one - Ed) has iUSED the news media's increasingly-excrement/sloppy reporting-standards to effectively broadcast propaganda across the U.S and the world.

In Russia it was *point gun to (State-Owned Media -Ed) head and hand article over to journalist* "Publish this [propaganda] in Pravda and don't worry about the facts or you die".

Here in the west, we appear to be sliding towards *hand article over to journalist* "Publish this [propaganda] and don't worry about the facts because it'll increase your ratings".

It may be less violent and fascist, but I'm not sure it's much better or different an outcome.

(ahoy there, we're heading up excrement creek without an oar - Ed)

Entertainment is fine, Mass Opining is fine, I have no problem with either and this issue may not even seem worth applying responsible journalistic-standards to, but I don't see it as isolated, I see it as reflective of an observably growing dynamic and problem: when the Serious News Media publishes based more on ratings than on research; when it prefers disseminating opinion OVER distributing fact, when facts not only become _non-essential_ to a Story but LACK-of-facts demonstrably leads to increased public opining and increased ratings, And when those _higher ratings_ become the primary concern of _serious_ NEWS outlets in place of _higher knowledge_ ?

(because not including facts increases public discussion, thereby increasing ratings as with this story; or because including facts gets in your ratings-way; or because facts are too difficult to research as with Government-supplied intelligence-information so let's just take their word for it, or because it's just easier to do minimal research and copy and paste whatever you're handed)

..whatever the reason when facts are not part of the story, ANY story published by serious News organizations, then imo we ought beware the calm before the coming shit-storm of ignorance that that approach will breed.

And That's My View.

*curtsy*

Michael X. Maelstrom.