Squirrel Girl/Watchmen Cosplay Crossover.

Best real-life Doreen Green I have ever seen, but with Watchmen? Talk about contrasting styles. Cah-razy.

Thursday Thirteen: An Art Teacher’s Manifesto.

(Watchmen in the classroom, by biigurutwin.)

I like to reflect. When I sat down to write a Thursday Thirteen this week, I decided to list the things I strive to instill in my students. This is my revolution.

1. Creative Success. Each student will feel the specific joy that only comes from inventive accomplishment.

2. Expansive Ideas. Each student will think about the world in new ways.

3. Wide-eyed Wonder. Each student will be exposed to a view of life as an unfolding gift of infinite potential.

4. Unknown Connections. Each student will see everyday things from extraordinary angles.

5. Controlled Freedom. Each student will have fun with their art and their friends while maintaining appropriate personal discipline.

6. Underlying Principles. Each student will understand why I enjoy each project enough to teach it to them.

7. Unwavering Positivity. Each student will have at least one teacher who is always in a good mood.

8. Modern Myth. Each student will relate some part of the lesson to comic book superheroes.

9. Relative History. Each student will be able to understand the origins of the things they know and love.

10. Convex Consumerism. Each student will flip the script from consumer to creator – from audience to artist.

11. Trading-card Tickle. Each student will get one of my extra Vs. System cards at random as a reward for good behavior and trade them joyously with classmates.

12. Punctual Responsibility. Each student will have an art teacher who is  a model of consistency and is always exactly on time.

13. Unconditional Love. Each student will be valued and loved equally as a creative human being.

New Watchmen Art.

Those are some keen pop variations on the Watchmen characters by Dave Mott. It seems he got inspired upon stumbling across the kids we posted a few weeks ago and went hog wild.

Good times.

Cephalopod Classics.

That’s the full page of the Watchmen squid, for the uninitiated. Aside from Shuma-Gorath in the Capcom video games, wiggly sucker-filled arms never looked better.

Today’s inaugural edition of Cephalopod Classics will unveil the six nominees for Top Mythological Tentacles. Vote in the poll, and squirm with us in the comments, if you dare.

Bring Your Own Squid.

Life is flavored by perception. An infinite array of information bombards the human instrument at every moment. We carry the parenthesis around in our head, and the filters can be adjusted.

Moral of the story? The tentacles are always there if you choose to see them.

Watchmen Easter Egg!

(Easter-colored Watchmen squid by Timberwolf0316.)

A couple days ago, we spoiled the squid-version original comic book ending of Watchmen. Today we reveal it’s subliminal presence in the movie.

You don’t have to take my word for it, shamilton777 dropped it in the comments:

Walter wrote – “When they are scanning the files in the movie, the name of the plan is apparently S.Q.U.I.D.”

The SQUID Acronym also appears in the scene when Dr. Manhattan is videoconferencing with Veidt and transports the Bomb device to Antarctica. (This is the end of the weird multiple hand scene.)

Look at the TV behind Veidt and you’ll see it for a split second. It stands for (something like) Sub Quantum Unifying Intrinsic Device…

And when I caught it during my second viewing of the movie I laughed out loud.

So there you have it.  The giant alien squid who unifies the world has been given a wink and a nod in the film.

Good times.

Weekly Wonder Word: Mask.

(Watchmen cards by katiecookie.)

The mask symbolizes all sorts of deep human meaning and mystery. We don’t know who we really are, so we confuse the matter further and squeeze out just a bit more joy from our existential wounds.

Rorschach’s inkblot mask in Watchmen stretches the twist to exquisite lengths. It morphs and bleeds and portrays the imperfect portrait with precision. There may be no better mask ever made.

That, of course, does not mean we stop the masquerade. Here is a flashback gallery of the face covers from my classroom this year. Happy masking!

More Watchmen Trading Cards.

Again, these cards are a figment of lastchance’s imagination. They exist in virtual reality, just like the Watchmen movie that no one ever thought could be filmed. Oh yeah, that is now real. From the sound of the response after the first weekend, the film is very successful. Reviews are mixed, as always, and the $55 million first weekend box office seems to be right on the borderline of blockbuster and bust. We shall see if the movie is deemed a big winner in the long run, in the meantime you can groove on some spectacular imaginary cardboard, including the missing squid! Enjoy.

Watchmen Squid: The Real Ending.

If you liked the Watchmen movie, you will love the comic book. Especially the psychedelic squid; the original world-uniting custom-designed disaster that saves humanity. Take my word for it, the ending is much better on paper.

Watchmen Review: With Trading Cards!

Those Watchmen cards don’t actually “exist”. They are virtual fantasy creations that can be found in lastchance’s photobucket. The movie, however, is very real.

It was like a dream. We attended the Thursday midnight show at the quaint little theater twelve blocks from home. There were only three people in the audience, including the two of us. We had a nearly private screening.

I don’t know what the public will think of this film. It is deeply faithful to the comic book, taking the myth straight to the heart of the brain. It challenges everything you are as a human being.  Then it challenges your right to exist.

It is long, and its images linger. It seems like three different movies, all of them perfectly executed. The music was spot on. The dialogue was tight. The acting was acceptable, unless it was Walter Kovacs. He was magnificent.

We loved it. Watchmen is a thinking man’s dream come true, and the film adaptation is really here now. Open a space in your head.

A Little Bit of Watchmen while you wait.

Those are some keen Watchmen teaserkids from chrisGcomics.com for your antsy pleasure. Yes, we are less than two weeks away from the big screen debut of Walter Kovacks. It’s good, it’s really good, but that’s all you are getting out of me until March 6th.

Stay hungry, but don’t expect the squid.

The Watchmen Lost Their Squid.

A man with the actual name “Orlando Parfitt” is reporting a bit of a spoiler for the Watchmen movie, although anyone who would not want to know has surely heard by now.

The Huge, Annoying Tentacles that unite the world at the end of the Watchmen graphic novel? Toast.

Personally, I am bummed. Mostly because of my affinity for drippy trippy squippy things. A comment on the Newsarama announcement of this development contained a sentiment that sums up my remorse.

Spaz_Monkey wrote:

To be fair, the Squid Monster has a definite “Georgia O’Keefe” feel to it, if you know what I mean. I dunno how well that would be translated in the movie.

Spaz Monkey may be correct about the difficulty of filming such a thing, and it would have been tough to get past an “R” rating if they did it right, but I sure would have enjoyed it. Alas, no O’Keefe squidstuff for us. Back to Orlando Parfitt’s interview, shall we?

The big question: What have you got against the squid?!

Zack Snyder: I had a bad calamari experience as a child! Look I’ve got nothing against the squid. When I sat down with the studio and talked about the film, we had to make a decision about what stuff we included and what stuff we wouldn’t. For me Watchmen is all about the characters, whereas if we included the squid, I would have to illustrate it in the story and cut out some of the character. So I wanted more character and less story.

So we came up with something else – no-one knows yet what we’ve done but we hope it’s similar in philosophy to the ending of the graphic novel. I mean the end is all about taking a superhero all the way – you know it’s the bad guy who is the one who wants world peace. It’s a moral dilemma for all the characters involved.

Dave Gibbons: The tone of the graphic novel – the message, the moral ambiguity – has still been left intact. Also it’s not a squid; it’s a fifth dimensional phalymapod!

Fifth dimensional phalymapod, world uniting squid, whatever you want to call it, it is out. Oh well, at least we still have the squishy stuff in Hellboy.

Finally, for anyone who is seriously bummed out about this inglorious removal of tentacles, just wait until you see how much they need to change when they adapt Alan Moore’s Promethea.

Somehow, we adjust.