To briefly continue my pre-stated Ebert crush, the fella put into words on his blog what I've been noticing all of this year: since the loss of his voice, that man's writing (which didn't suck to begin with, by the way) has fucking skyrocketed in quality. It's sort of amazing, sort of beautiful, sort of sad. I guess it's just the way things go, but it makes me think a lot about what I'm doing, and what I'm writing, and what happens upon the redirection of rivers.

Not merely to draw attention to how cool I am - though I am cool - but I am now reading Bat-Manga!, which was a gift from Matty Price, and is magnificent. It has all the tropes of the 60s Batman TV series and the assorted Godzilla variations, i.e. there's still Clay-Face but now Clay-Face turns into a giant pterodactyl to fight Batman. At long last, we have discovered the road Chris Nolan should take in forging Batman Begins Some'Third. Batman in Japan! Japan-Batman! Bat-Japan-Man! They already crossed the Joker with Ichi the Killer, now imagine if they crossed the Riddler with the fuckin' Bugmaster? Well, had him played by Tadanobu Asano anyway. I'd watch that guy do anything. Domo. Domo arigato.

The thing I've been writing of late, a piddling 6-page 2-hander called Guy in the Sky, actually got taken to what I'd call a nearly successful half-assed draft yesterday, which means that I should write it at least twice more, but that if I do so, it might not suck. So that's something.