Ring Nuts & Light Sabers

Our own Chicago-owned L. A. Times offers something called Hero Complex where comic book movies are dissected. We have plenty on our reading list, although that's not the only reason we never bother. However, being pulp-oriented & purchasing the hard-copy fish-wrap version as we do, when we were greeted by this surly bastard, sporting what appear to be quilted pajamas, on the first page of Arts & Books yesterday, we figured we should make some mention of it.

And a mention is all there will be. We'll cynically note that someone must be paying someone else to pimp Ring Festival LA. And we'll quote someone on why they hope this approach may work w/ "geeks."

Russell, whose recent credits include "Hellboy" and "Coraline," penned his own comic-book version of the "Ring," a two-volume series published in 2002 by Dark Horse Comics that he considers the most personal project of his career. An opera fan, he has even spoken to gatherings of so-called Ring Nuts, extreme fans of the "Ring" cycle. "It's almost like going to a comic book convention -- you see the same faces," he said.

Los Angeles Opera is producing the complete "Ring" for the first time beginning in May. Although this avant-garde staging isn't for neophytes, its emphasis on spectacle and visual effects (light sabers play an important role) could make it the ideal "Ring" for superhero geeks.

As we type, we don't care enough to condemn the culture, those who cheese up that culture w/ light sabers, Wagner for being an actual anti-Semite, or some fuck whose "most personal project" was repurposed plagiarism. Hey, to hell w/ them all, & their culture.