Ever had one of those days when...

Oops, there was a video here, unfortunately it seems it was published without permission
The Killing Joke
Alan Moore was one of those comic-strip writers working in the eighties, who brought the broader mainstream narrative technique to the fore in the comic industry. the Killing Joke is a slight departure, in that the narrative is more comic-strip orientated. An example of this is the scene where Barbara Gordon encounters The Joker and its traumatic consequence. They just don't do things that way in other media, that's especially true of dramatic mediums like film and television. So, it was a bit of a surprise to learn they've actually made an animated feature out of it, then I watched this video teaser for the production and what did I learn? They've filled out Barbara Gordon's role of course, giving her a broader foundation in the drama. That's a bit of a shame really,  because although I wrote, they just don't do that way..., it's not quite true, there are occasional examples, things like McGoohan's The Prisoner.

There's also that controversy over the ending, that's garnered some attention in recent years. I do recall, when I first read the book, a friend stated categorically that the joker dies, I don't see it myself and I've looked really hard for the clues in those panels. It'll be interesting to see how they interpret the ending in this feature.

Shaken not stirred

There's a rumour going round that Henry Cavill has been signed up for the new Bond but it is April the first. Then again, one or two blog posts detailing the news have been taken down, so your guess, concerning the veracity of this rumour, is as good as mine.

Twitter

Birds, they evolved from dinosaurs didn't they but that's a point subject to subject to controversy? No on both those counts, yes the evolution of birds is somewhat controversial but neither of the prominent theories state that birds evolved from dinosaurs. What one of those theories postulates is, is that birds are dinosaurs, the other competing theory is that birds evolved from a creature a bit like a pterodactyl. Not an actual pterodactyl because they'd have to grow their fingers back, but a critter somewhat similar that still had all the necessary digits.

But but but, pterodactyls are dinosaurs, I hear you say, and you know to me they are but that's not what the palaeontologists say and they're the ones who get to define such terms. Oh no, dinosaurs are a specific group of extinct or mostly extinct, depending on which theory you endorse, creatures. The thing is though, there are two major classifications for dinosaurs, ornithischian and saurischian, those are just fancy terms for bird-hipped and lizard-hipped respectively. Most dinosaurs fall into the second category, lizard hipped. Now here's where things start to get ironic, guess which group that, according to one of the theories, birds fall in. That would be, lizard-hipped, it's particularly ironic because the categories allude to the similarity in the structure of pelvic bones. So birds are dinosaurs excluded from a category, that was named after a similarity to birds, right that makes sense!

Now at one time, these categories, ornithischian and saurischian where somewhat deprecated within palaeontological circles but it's interesting to note that recently, so recently it's happened within the last couple of years, that these categories have made a bit of a comeback. Why that should be, I wouldn't know, i only take a passing interest in such matters and as for which theory I endorse, my bet goes on the birds are dinosaurs theory.