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Not an original idea, but I’m glad to have finally put it to paper for the sake of the boy’s creativity. The script was easy enough to come up with—I say that looking back, but the truth is the pentameter took some tweaking, the 昇龍拳 gag on one of my nightly runs over the bridges—though drawing hasn’t been in my wheelhouse for almost a lifetime, and a first go at inking compounded the challenge. The 0.5-0.7 gel pens I had left either too thick a stroke or not enough of one at 0.38mm, and didn’t erase at all cleanly as advertised. That and the economy of spacing for lettering, one really gains appreciation for the artistry of professionals even on a silly project like this. Not to bore you with other details, but if this wrap-up is to serve as its director’s commentary, I’d also like to add that among my many distractions (such as the lyrics to my next one) was the amusing notion the story could’ve been animated in a single continuous take.

The chair, a simple four-legged wooden one the kind I sat on for most of my youth, dragged me all the way over the thick carpet in the office to Rosario Dawson’s cluttered cubicle. I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet so I felt a bit embarrassed about just having woke up while she had already been on the job.

The heat and humidity had been suppressing just about any initiative to make good on all the ideas I had been accumulating, and even with my subconscious prodding me to complete the one about the chair we saw while walking to the store, it took the return of a few cooler nights before I finished the page in his journal—not that he’d notice; my hope was that it’d inspire him to make the time in his busier schedule to commemorate moments like these, however regular.

I figure I can’t count on LINE to preserve our contributions indefinitely, so I’ll try to add historical context: Jin linked a fan song based on “The Inner Light” (which was parodied on Teen Titans Go!—furthering my belief that someone I know has been working on that show all this time), prompting my response below from my other favorite S05 episode and attempts lately to learn Joy Division bass lines.

I have waited in my shell
For a reason I can tell
For when it’s time I break free
You must be the one I see

I have studied all my life
To be more than just a wife
I can sense your heart’s desire
Anything you require

An old book to fall asleep
Knowledge surprisingly deep
Or a physicality
Of great durability

I am ready for this bond
And travel to worlds beyond
Take me to where you spoke of
Away to a land of love

Heard that a script for a follow-up to Joker is already complete, which almost certainly isn’t good news. The Joaquin Phoenix tour de force captured the flashpoint of so much unrest and should have left us all alarmed by the true power of the fully-realized demagogue. Similar to its inspiration by Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, my idea for an Owlman film or mini-series would be reminiscent of Oldboy, which always struck me as a superhero origin story, too. I know DC has done all sorts of variations on the Batman mythos, Bruce, Thomas, Thomas Jr., etc., and even made Alfred the killer, but this time the faithful butler could become Owlman, failing to protect the family. At least we wouldn’t need to explain the years of training, with his military background. I’m just uncertain what might spur such a vicious search for vengeance and how to twist it in a fucked-up enough way to leave him the nihilist who’d be welcomed into the ranks by the cameo appearance of Ultraman and Superwoman at the end. One thing for sure, I want his world to be the morally corrupt one in Morrison’s Earth 2 where the default outcome isn’t good. Maybe America in its death throes, ripped from the headlines: Commissioner Gordon won’t risk police injury to prevent the Wayne slaughter. Children like Bruce and brother Tommy sacrificed in the name of gun worship. And the fruit fly’s half-life attention span of the typical NIMBY/fuck-you-I-got-mine Gotham City resident who forgets about it a week later.

Update: I think I got something, at least an idea that hasn’t been done yet in the many Korean revenge movies I’ve seen, and that’s to have Alfred be Bruce’s real father, not by way of a predictable affair with Martha, but as a donor for his good friend Thomas—who was his lover instead? Or a ménage à trois? Hmm, seems like it’d be hard secret to live with for even their short time together, and while the angry vigilantism could very well result as a response (after all, Batman’s did), give me a bit longer to work out how it all gets fucked up for him by the end.

Update update: Bruce secretly survives, but becomes Owlman’s Joker.

Supposedly Gödel spotted a loophole in the Constitution that threatens our democracy, but as the writer notes, we’re long past it meaning anything to those who do. Speaking of whom, I wonder if the G.E.B. in that book 윤대섭 gave me at too early an age was any kind of inspiration for the B.E.R. of “The Night Begins to Shine” or is that too much a stretch even for my whimsies?

Surely the inspiration for my pre-AR AR-idea, though every once in a great while I’m blessed by a real-life reminder, like the other evening when after hundreds of 全力坂 runs the Universe manages a confluence of upper-echelon specimen from the local demographic and timing along that stretch of Clydepark where my last sighting of one in cut-offs and cowboy boots I’ve come to dismiss as a mirage.

A while back when this short season of television from my youth (and the months spent trying to swim like the titular character in the neighborhood pool) were remastered I almost plunked down another credit card charge to regain access to those cobwebbed sectors, but thanks to my peers at large, I can do so without the inevitable buyer’s remorse, or physical glut. I won’t, however, make the same mistake next time—Buck Rogers it is—and not confirm the source of the rips.

There’s talk that a new iteration of Aquaman is looming in the “Dawn of Justice”, and I’m not sure I want to see a Dothraki/Klingon/Spartan Atlantean, even if they think it’ll save his reputation. (I insist he was secretly hooking up with Jayna on the Super Friends.) If anything, it’s an opportunity to explore and expand upon a rich mythology that’s accompanied human civilization and left at least one ten-year-old boy hanging onto the unsolved mystery of Mark Harris’ origin.

Things might change again now that DCUO has gone live, but Netflix certainly filled the gap, with its impressively-grown library of streaming titles. Last weekend was the superb Kurosawa police procedural 天国と地獄, and this past Sunday I sat down (several times, as resources permitted) to this “seminal ninja film” where Raizô Ichikawa makes you wonder how the stereotype in its progeny, such as 비’s recent namesake, became so gloomy and one-dimensional. First he falls for the boss’s wife—working as the company accountant, no less—then slacks off when he’s supposed to be atoning for his dishonor and instead hooks up at the nearest brothel! I especially liked the closing shots of his jubilant return home, obviously at the same breakneck pace, which isn’t done enough anymore.