Reading: Bozo and Bozann by Foxo Reardon
Music: Down From the Mountain
TV/Movie: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Link o' the Day: Tintin book and movie site

I was watching the Coen Bros. movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? very recently, and was reminded how much I love this movie. It's a timeless story (at least dating back to Homer in some respects) with some good acting, great directing, enchanting photography, and probably the #1 on my list of best movie soundtracks ever.

A lot of noise has been bandied about the Coen Bros following their recent wins at the Oscars, and with their other masterpiece The Big Lebowski coming up to an anniversary, but I think of all their films--O Brother is by and far their best. I'd have a hard time rating the others in comparison. Hell, the first draft of this post was just me listing their movies and saying how great they were. Instead, I'll condense it by attempting a list of their top five films, in no particular order, although they might be in order of preference. Like the Coen Bros, I'm being purposefully murky.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Big Lebowski
No Country For Old Men
Raising Arizona
Fargo

And already I regret this list as it leaves out Barton Fink and Miller's Crossing. Yeesh. Oh well. Maybe it's a top seven list... but only if you see it as such.

So there.

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I'm currently working on a a couple of illustration-heavy books. One is a collector's guide to Zorro merchandise from the 50s and 60s. That's kind of interesting--particularly when thinking that there are enough collectibles and collectors out there to justify their own book. I had laid out a biography of Guy Williams a while back and learned a lot about Zorro and his masked legacy, so I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

The other book is a retrospective collection on the comic strips of Foxo Reardon. Most of his strips ran mostly in the 40s and 50s, and featured a pantomime character named Bozo. While he may not be a big name today, going through hundreds of old strips, I can see where some of the artistic stylings show up in comic strips of the 60s and 70s like Beetle Bailey and They'll Do It Every Time.



I love reading these old strips. It's sort of like watching old movies. You get a real Time Machine feel going on--not only in seeing how people dressed and how they talked, but also in what they found funny.

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And speaking of classic comics, how about taking a look at what Tintin's been up to these days? Yes, Tintin, the intrepid Belgian boy reporter and adventurer with a knack for getting enmeshed in international intrigue and getting his butt saved over and over by overly judicious use of deus ex machina. While the latter annoys me on occasion, the rest of Tintin's legacy is pure fun. Many of his stories have been collected into nice hardcover volumes available at many bookstores. If you've not heard of Tintin, I suggest you check him out.

What could it hurt?



Cheers!

--John