Thursday Link Party: Alan Moore Goes Gorillaz

Alan Moore ain't happy; he's feeling glad. He's got sunshine in a bag. And a gig to write the libretto for an opera by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. That sounds satisfyingly weird.

The other big Moore story this week was the crazy lady in Kentucky who kidnapped her library's copy of Black Dossier because she felt the content was unsuitable for children. Reading about it makes me sad for our country and sad for that lady, who should be locked up someplace dark and prayerful where she can't hurt others. On the other hand, there's something satisfying about Moore still being able to create work so provocative to some that it requires this treatment:

The proof is in her knapsack, in a bright yellow flexible file folder, hidden from prying eyes. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume IV: The Black Dossier. It has pink and yellow highlighter tags sticking out, marking the pages that contain explicit sexual content.

Shudder. Anyway. Onward and hopefully upward from the pits of censorship hell. While I'm feeling ranty...

I try hard not to be all pre-judgey when it comes to movies, comics and the like, but the "Sgt. Rock to the Future" movie sounds absolutely idiotic. Inglourious Basterds did pretty well...wouldn't another kick-ass WWII flick with a slightly recognizable property be a safe bet? Why buy the rights to Sgt. Rock and then take away anything that makes the character and stories what they are? Who's serving the Crazy Juice in Hollyweird these days? That crank in Kentucky needs a couple swigs.

I was pleased to find not one but two custom Batmobile links this week. Via Dave Campbell, here's a look at the BatSmart, an ecofriendly Batmobile designed by George Barris, who built the Batmobile for the 1960s Batman TV show. At the ever-reliable Bat-Blog, a more bad-ass white trash take on the Batman's conveyance with this customized 1970s Corvette. Also, Batman-related currency.

NOT QUITE COMICS: My friend Steve Hockensmith announced he's the writer on the upcoming Jane Austen/zombie mashup prequel book, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, which sounds like buckets of fun. Congrats to him; his Holmes on the Range novels (the first one's on sale in paperback at Amazon! Five bucks! Great stocking stuffer!) are absolutely worth a read for any fan of cowboys and Sherlock Holmes, two great tastes that taste great together. Like Kentucky and a nude Allan Quartermain. Mmmmm.