I do not want to go outside and you can't make me.

Not going to develop this year's holiday-inspired idea. Because everyone's in a bad enough mood without seeing Santa portrayed as the leader of a cult of elf-slaves who exiles Milton, one of his most devoted followers, and then tells Milt he'll only be allowed back at the North Pole if he hunts down and kills Santa's illegitimate daughter, who's a thief preparing to steal the Real Mona Lisa from an arms dealer art collector.

***

REBOOT TO THE HEAD

The ReBoot webcomic is done. As the writer put it, "Thank the User."

***

FOLEY'S BRIEF REVIEW OF WILL EISNER'S FRANK MILLER'S THE SPIRIT

If I had to use a single word to describe the film, it would be "excessive."

Some of the funny bits were actually reasonably funny.

The dialogue was stunningly awful.

The visuals were exactly what you'd expect, which is unfortunate, as I think many of the recycled Sin City visual tricks could be used to great effect if they were used in something other than a completely random fashion.

Pretty much every place and character name that wasn't established in Eisner's strip was a comic reference, to the point where those of us who know who Iger and Donenfeld refer to in the real world would inevitably be distracted from the film's barely-there story.

Terrible, terrible dialogue.

There were at least two Hot Dames that absolutely did not need to be in the film. Probably more like four, but at least two.

Eva Mendes has a nice butt, but I don't think it contributed as much to the film as Miller did, at least not judging by the screen time it got.

Gabriel Macht did what he could with what he had; Samuel L. Jackson was Samuel L. Jackson on a crack/steroids cocktail; the women all looked good and while none of them were overtly whores (at this point, having women who aren't prostitutes qualifies as restraint on Miller's part), none of them could resist The Spirit's machismo.

Miller's Spirit has the bizarre superpower of glowing-soled hightops.

At one point, completely out of the blue, The Spirit breaks the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience. Why this was deemed necessary when half the film's dialogue (which was god-awful) was in voice-over to begin with, I have no idea.

It was better than I expected, but that's not saying much, as I expected it to be pure, tortuous awfulness from beginning to end. Instead, the pure, tortuous awfulness was interspersed with humour, a lot of it extremely broad physical comedy, that worked in the context of the film. But, as Jay said after the film was over, "It's not Will Eisner's Spirit."

***

THE FUTURE OF COMICS (I)

In addition to being THe Future of Comics (I), Fiona Staples is just an all-around awesome person whose package arrived yesterday. Tiina loves the print.

A