by Nicole Powers
It was very possible to lose one’s mind…playing Catherine,” says Mena Suvari, referring to her role in the film Hemingway’s Garden of Eden, which opens in select US theaters this month. Indeed the character at the heart of the Ernest Hemingway book, upon which the movie is based, is considered to be one of the writer’s most complex.
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by Brandon Perkins
In the last installment of our futuristic fiction series, Please Use Rear Exit, Mikhail, who’d just X’ed his GF Katya, had ridden the #720 Brown BTWN bus route to the Low bar, where the saga of their breakup continued via text. As Katya finds oblivion in the bottom of a bottle at home, Mikhail contemplates the relationship that is no more…
***Please Use Rear Exit: Chapter 4 – Peyton Manning’s FuckFace
The first time Mikhail broke up with Katya was only a few weeks after they had begun to see each other, barely enough time to be considered an official couple in the first place. It was before he’d go back to her for a much longer and intense session, a second time around. Before he was backed into any sort of corner, when things still felt free or, at the very least, without dire consequences. It was before she began demanding changes in his life. Before he realized how deep in it he actually was. At that early stage of their first dance-less dosey-doh, Katya seemed good for him.
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by A.J. Focht
Today’s media is overrun with rehashed tales of old myths. It is nearly impossible to come across a fantasy story that doesn’t re-use mythical beings. Vampires, werewolves, and zombies all come from traditional myths and plague our airwaves and book stores; every author is looking for a way to put their own spin on this time tested material.
Some authors are very good at taking traditional myths and adapting them, whereas others should be hanged, drawn, and quartered for their crimes against them. Most myths have grey areas that can be adapted, but they all have their canon – lists of facts and pieces of the myth that cannot be changed without altering that which is intrinsic to it. When an author starts altering these facts they upset the status quo. They weaken not only the fabric of the mythological being – but our ability to suspend our disbelief. This leaves their final product looking like a cheap bastardization of the original.
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by Tamara Palmer
“From the heart and honest.”
– Vera Ramone King
Vera Ramone King’s book Poisoned Heart: I Married Dee Dee Ramone documents her 17-year marriage to the bassist and lead songwriter of seminal punk rockers The Ramones. In vivid and loving detail, she recounts the rise and demise of her lover and best friend, who succumbed to a heroin overdose in 2002. She offers the untold story of how she continually kept him alive even amidst bouts of terrifying abuse from her husband, illuminating a vital link in the band’s masterful and enduring legacy.
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by Damon Martin
In a real world context, Benjamin Franklin may have very well been right, but those rules don’t apply when talking about the comic book universe. Like a bad soap opera where the lead character is bound to find out that his wife – whom has just made a full recovery from a terminal illness – is also his long lost sister, comic books are notorious for never letting any character stay dead for too long.
That leads us to the February 2011 Marvel Previews in which they tease us with the “Death of Spider-Man.” Sure, the sticky guy has flatlined a time or two in his day, but this will be the first major run where the character is billed as meeting his ultimate demise. While Marvel is apparently being very hush-hush about the events surrounding the eventual “death” of Spider-Man, the big goal of course is to raise sales for the Spider-Man titles before they rub him out.
Comic book deaths however are a cautionary tale because the concept is rarely very final in the land of the superhero. The genre has exploited this device for years, and many fans tire of the ubiquitous “dead hero/miraculous resurrection” storylines. With Peter Parker apparently the next hero on the chopping block, let’s look at some famous comic book deaths and how the heroes came back to life:
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by Brad Warner
I just read a horrendous news story about the Petit family in Connecticut who were murdered by a group of assholes.
According to CNN, “On July 23, 2007, men wearing ski masks attacked the family as they slept in their suburban Cheshire home. The father, a physician, was beaten with a bat and tied to a pole in his basement. His wife was raped and strangled. The girls were tortured for nearly seven hours, one sexually assaulted, then killed when the attackers set the house on fire.”
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by Brandon Perkins
In the last installment of our futuristic fiction series, Please Use Rear Exit, Mikhail, who’d just X’ed is GF Katya, had ridden the #720 to the Low bar. Having been absent from his “regular” libation center, and therefore a stranger to his “friends” Jayson and Chevy, when he’s confronted by the later (who’s a rapper, who rhymes, all the tymes) he considers his next move carefully. Of the four approaches that run through Mikhail’s mind, option D – awkwardly asking Chevy “What’s up” – could prove optimal.
***Please Use Rear Exit: Chapter 3 – A Fleeting Glimpse of CGI
D). Mikhail absent-mindedly chose (d).
But he told himself that such stumbling wasn’t all his fault. Katya called him the second that Chevy started to trail off. Mikhail instinctually paused to silence a phone that no one could hear vibrating, simultaneously losing his beat in the conversation and train of thought. Fortunately, all awkwardness was forgotten and forgiven en route to finding Jayson – who had posted up at one of the last empty standing tables – and simple small talk was okay enough.
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