big wimmen.

I n the way of the internet I was googling for an image for something (I have now completely forgotten what i was looking for) when I got distracted by the Amazon. She was painted by Franz von Stuck, the German symbolist painter, 1905.


gallery of his work.
It was only when I got to his wikipedia entry I remembered we'd used him in From Hell:
"The central figure in a 1889 painting by von Stuck titled Die wilde Jagd (trans: "The Wild Chase") is often said to bear a strong physical resemblance to Adolf Hitler. This myth has grown because the painting was completed in the year of Hitler’s birth (1889) and also by the fact that Von Stuck was acknowledged as one of Hitler’s favourite artists."

Anyway, the Wounded Amazon. I know we come by these particular attractions through the complex course of experience, but for me the big lass is hearbreakingly beautiful. If they reshoot 300 using her and her like, and get that other big lass, the wife of my bosom, a part too, that'll be me at the head of the queue. Actually, scratch that. I'll send the wee'uns to the movies, and then I'll talk Annie into dressing up like that in the bedroom and walloping me on the head a few times with the shield. Then we can do a wilde jagd around the bed for half an hour. Who needs hollywood when you can make your own entertainment!?

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There's a bloke from the newspaper phoning to interview me about the graphic novel in an hour, so I better figure out what one is.
A quick news search:
Bend Weekly, Oregon.-Aug 03- The big battle - It's edge versus respectability as graphic novels go mainstream

"Look, on the horizon! Is that a bird ... a plane ... or perhaps the final comics crisis? Is this Armageddon for artists, Gotterdammerung for graphic novelists? In the 20th century, comic books endured congressional hearings and parental condemnation. The industry, like Plastic Man, always bounced back. The 21st century, though, has ushered in a relentless new foe: Respectability. High culture's battlements had been breached. The New Yorker signaled this defeat by printing a cartoon of a man asking, "Now I have to pretend to like graphic novels, too?"

LA Times-Aug 05- When graphic novelists turn to prose, the result is something wicked
"One might not have expected Comic-Con International, the extravaganza held in San Diego every July, to become a major promotional vehicle for mystery writers. But in recent years, increasing numbers of crime novelists have flocked to the graphic format and made it their own. Greg Rucka is better known for his "Whiteout" and "Queen & Country" comics than for the Atticus Kodiak thrillers that originally launched his writing career; Denise Mina, the author of gritty Glasgow-based novels, penned an entire run of "Hellblazer"; David Morrell (of "Rambo" fame) signed on for a stint scripting "Captain America"; and internationally bestselling novelist Karin Slaughter recently teamed up with Oni Press to launch a new line of graphic novels."
of the bunch reviewed, this one caught my eye: "A Killing in Comics" by max Allan Collins. The book is a loving tribute to the post-World War II heyday of comic strips, constructed primarily in prose but accompanied by illustrations that open each chapter.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis)- aug 06 Novelist happy to see "Stardust" on big screen
"Writing a novel is a voyage of discovery," said Neil Gaiman, who has written piles of them (including "American Gods," "Anansi Boys," and "Neverwhere") and sold millions.
But turning a novel into a film is like "running a very sharp-edged maze leading through a minefield, with people shooting at you, in a freezing downpour, having no sense of where the exit might be, pursued by hounds, while blindfolded."
and
"The people in those offices are not inventive and creative minds. They didn't get their jobs by being original. Their role is to suggest ways in which something novel can be made more like something we've seen before," Gaiman said with a sigh. "New ideas frighten them."
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in other news:
Croc falls out of Russian apartment block
Residents in the Russian nuclear research town of Sarov got a jaw-dropping surprise when a crocodile fell from the 12th-storey apartment of its owner. The one-metre caiman landed on a pavement after leaning too far out of the window of the apartment where it had lived for the last 15 years...
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wait, there's the phone....