Example: Best Buy has seasons 1-10 of The Simpsons on sale for $10.99 – $12.99, but I have all those. Instead I just ordered season 12 from Amazon for $14.99.

Seasons of House for $12.99. Dr. Who for $41.99, half the regular price. Black Adder Remastered: The Ultimate Edition for just $41.99, half off the price and worth every penny.

Plus movie DVDs like Coraline for $8.99 and Star Trek (Single-Disc Edition) for 9 bucks.

If you were interested in getting them anyway (as I was), now's the time to nab 'em.

Remember Neil Cameron's "A-Z of Awesomeness" project, where every day he would draw a representative picture of a letter of the alphabet based on his readers' increasingly bizarre suggestions? He sold out of his limited edition prints of the final result, and mine arrived. Buyers could request a sketch for the top. I asked for "What, No Naked Neil Nattering Naughty Nonsense?" Sadly, I didn't get a naked Neil Gaiman to match the print's naked Joss Whedon (and everywhere, fanficcers just spasmed over their keyboards) but I did get a cool sketch of Neil Gaiman and a wonderful print to utterly befuddle anyone walking down my hall.

Although come to think of it, Neil could just be wearing the black jacket. That would be fitting, in a really odd way.

See all the artwork at his A-Z blog.

Life Lessons, by C. A. Bridges

My columns, should you choose to accept them, would be a variety of subjects with the common thread being the real life lessons I take away. Example:

Review: “The Graveyard Book,” by Neil Gaiman

Ordinarily one might think I have no reason to read a children’s book, as I am no longer a child and frankly wasn’t much of one to begin with. But there are lessons to be learned from all books great and small, and I loathe missing the chance for enrichment in any form.

This particular form is currently garnering all the praise it can get. Hordes of critics, writers’ organizations and librarians, working in shifts, have been feverishly devising new awards to quickly bestow upon this lively (ha!) tale of a small, recently orphaned boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard. Morbid as the subject may be, the lessons the boy garners are valuable ones indeed. Lessons of bravery, common sense and deduction, stories of responsibility and valor. Lessons valuable enough, in fact, that even after only a few short chapters I judged them worthy enough to be passed to all children.

I started small, with a nephew.

Jimbo, as he was unfortunately known, was a particularly sticky and noisome boy, with an equally annoying family (sorry, sis). My intended program of involuntary personal growth could only benefit him. But I decided, upon reflection, that it would be unnecessarily cruel to actually murder his parents, as well as being too much work. Instead I offered to feed and water him for a weekend so that his newly emancipated mother and father might enjoy the bliss of a quiet house, and then, once he was in my clutches, I merely informed him that he was now an orphan.

I had been concerned that the lack of physical violence in his presence might fail to suitably traumatize him for my purposes but as it turned out, detailed, step-by-step description of his parents’ fictional, horrendous demise was quite enough, especially when I added the appropriate gestures and sound effects. This was an excellent sign! A traumatized child is a child ready to learn. It was off to the graveyard!

Of the cemeteries in our area, only one fit my needs, i.e. had the right combination of gothic decoration and lax security. I led him to the center, tied his leash to an especially ornate headstone (with a rather well-done bust of a winged angel), gave him a short speech about how I envied him his new life, and legged it away to watch from a distance.

To Jimbo’s credit, he stopped crying after barely a day had passed. But I have to express my profound disappointment in the local apparitions. Where were the spectral caregivers, ready to step up and take a hand in the little tyke’s development? Where was the wise old dead Victorian admiral, or the kindly dead couple who never had a child in life, or the cunning dead con man with a moral to impart?  How was Jimbo ever going to get himself raised if everyone in the graveyard was just going to keep on deliberately decomposing?

I tried sneaking around the place and provoking the lazy, good for nothing haunts, digging down to the coffins in several cases and screaming into the dirt, but all I accomplished was a ruined pair of trousers and an even more traumatized Jimbo, who foolishly continued to jump at the slightest of blood-curdling noises. Even dragging out the desiccated remains of a likely-looking father figure and leaving them where he could stumble across them did nothing to jump-start the mentoring process.

I hid behind the monument to Major Gen. Argus Defestrum (1879-1947) and read the rest of the book in the hopes that I had merely missed an important step. No such luck. An excellent story, to be sure, but it was obviously predicated on more civic-minded corpses than the ones I had to hand.

However, in the additional background material helpfully supplied by the publisher I found an interview where Gaiman explained that he intended “The Graveyard Book” to be an homage to Rudyard Kipling’s classic work “The Jungle Book.” That brought up nasty memories of my previous, equally disastrous attempt at raising a child with surrogate wolf parents (a niece, Mindy, who recovered from my impromptu social engineering with aplomb and a recurring tendency to howl). Perhaps similar drawbacks awaited my efforts?

No! I couldn’t stop now, not when the increasingly filthy Jimbo had such a glittering, death-filled life ahead of him! He would be raised by ghosts if I had to do it myself.

His tether only allowed him so much freedom – I had assumed that his new step-wraiths would unhook him – so it was a simple matter to secret myself behind a tomb and moan lessons at him. “OoooOOoooh, Jimbooooo,” I intoned, quite well if I do say so myself. “Weeeee’re gOOOOoooooing toooo beeeeegin with bAAAAAsic aaaaarIIIthmatic!”

Unfortunately I had forgotten to keep track of the time, or Jimbo’s parents, and my attempts at spectral child-rearing were abruptly ended with those familiar, hated words: “There he is, officer.”

I have since been unable to see Jimbo to determine if I had any effect on his intellectual development, but I like to believe I helped him for the better. By the time he was placed in the ambulance he had very nearly stopped twitching.

“The Graveyard Book,” by Neil Gaiman. Highly recommended, if completely unworkable.

Marvel bought the rights to "Miracleman."

Yadd.. wait, what?

Fans of the original "Marvelman" series by Alan Moore and its continuation by Neil Gaiman (known as "Miracleman" on this side of the pond) were stonkered by the announcement made at the San Diego Comic-Con's "Cup o' Joe" panel. This series,  a seminal work that takes the existence of superheroes to its extremes long before it became vogue (and frankly still stands head and shoulders above most subsequent attempts; it still has the most chilling images yet of what happens when someone with Superman-level powers goes on a rampage) has been in legal dispute for decades and fans assumed it would stay there. Apparently not:

(Marvel publisher Dan) Buckley stated that Marvel was talking with several creators who did Marvelman stories in the ’80s and ’90s. Both Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are among those creators, but nothing has been announced beyond the acquisition.

So, no idea if the existing comics will be reprinted or remastered, or if previous characters will show up again, or if this means a movie deal is coming that Alan Moore will have to quickly distance himself from. But I'm excited to see what happens.

Neil has generously given KNTR an autographed copy of the original motion picture soundtrack of the big screen adaptation of his popular book, Coraline!  As if that weren’t enough, he also donated an autographed Coraline t-shirt (adult size extra large)!  Neil wrote a little note on the shirt that says, “Sweet Dreams”, along with his signature.

As always, proceeds go towards getting books on library shelves. Kids need to read!

Also, here's Neil and Amanda Palmer in a bathtub:

Neil Gaiman ("Sandman," American Gods," "Coraline") has dipped into Rudyard Kipling's well and created The Graveyard Book, a timeless story of an abandoned young boy raised by someone other than his parents. In this case, a graveyard full of ghosts. It's not a bad life, really.

Bod, as a toddler, escaped from the murders of his family to find safety and guardianship surrounded by haunts and crumbling headstones. They teach him well (although some of the lessons are a few hundred years out of date) and through Gaiman's seemingly effortless prose we watch him face wonders and dangers: a magical Danse Macrabre, the ancient Indigo Man under the hill, a new living friend, the carnivorous ghouls, and, most dangerous of all, the man Jack who killed his family and still seeks to finish the job.

The Graveyard Book is a fast read, which is good because before you read it to your child you'll want to devour it yourself. It takes a graveyard to raise a child.

But I like it! I mean, it's fun. It's weird, I had this conversation with somebody this morning, an interviewer… who was asking me the similar question but upside down 'cause he was asking why I hadn't gone for sort of literary respectability and why I, like you were saying the acclaim and all of that kind of stuff and the awards, if I just stopped messing around in movies and doing comics I could be … I could be taken really seriously like Salman Rushdie or whatever, and I'm thinking, "Why?"…. And the truth is I'm saying "Look, Salman Rushdie is a friend of mine, and I got an email from him [saying] how much he and his son liked the Stardust movie." I like high culture and low culture, I like keeping in touch with the world.

Also: more on the "Coraline" movie, on the "Dr. Strange" movie, and the 20th anniversary of Sandman.

Right off, you'll notice — as so many Beowulf purists have — that the original epic has been changed. This version includes trailers.

The animation is, in many cases, absolutely stunning and I've heard that the 3D IMAX version, which I have not seen, is even better. (The fact that it was intended to be 3D explains why so many axes, arrows, fists, and body parts are flung directly at the screen; I had Three Stooges flashbacks of Moe throwing a pie at me on a sadly visible wire.) During closeups, or when only silent expressions are needed, the faces and bodies are outstanding. Very real, even better than real (especially in the case of Ray Winstone's abs). It's when the characters talk that something seems… off. Not the "dead eyes" seen in "Polar Express" that still haunt but something's missing. Characters also look much better in darkness or subdued lighting. Bright — well, bright-ish — sunlight makes them look washed out. The attention to detail was amazing, though, I found myself counting freckles and moles.

I did think that Queen Wealtheow looked especially wooden, but then I remembered she was mo-capped from Robin Wright Penn who, while a fine actress, has a fairly limited supply of expressions herself. Well done, CG guys.

And they haven't quite gotten the hang of flowing clothing yet, so everyone is wearing tight outfits close to the skin or clothes that look like plastic tubes. Very noticeable in distant shots, when everyone looks like a video game warrior or a Shrek townsperson.

But the landscapes, the wind and water, the inanimate objects, and the monsters are wonderfully done. Also, the animators have apparently been paying particular attention to breasts.

Kudos to the screenwriters and Zemeckis for keeping Heorot and the Danish mead hall suitably grim and desolate and not Hollywooding it up. This was not a fairy princess kind of kingdom.

If they were going to spend all that time and energy remastering Ray Winstone's Beowulf to look like Sean Bean, why not just get Sean Bean?

While I do not advocate violent dismemberment as a general rule, I do sympathize with Grendel regarding the mead hall partying. Many's the time I myself have considered leaping over to my neighbor's house at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night and rending him and his merry-making guests limb from bloody limb just to receive blessed surcease from yet another full-volume rendition of "Crank That."

The monster Grendel is fun to watch and a reason to see the movie all by himself. Where else can you see a hideously disfigured Crispin Glover perform a drawn out death scene while gibbering in Old English?

Wait a minute, that might be a trick question.

Interesting watching Beowulf go all Spider-Man on the monster. But if they wanted to make him naked — the original just had him stripping off his armor, not his skivvies — they should have gone ahead and shown his stuff. The constant need to cover him was way too cutesy and Austin Powerish; I kept waiting for one of the Geat warriors to thrust out a convenient bundle of flowers.

I love the constant boasting. "I AM BEOWULF!" This tale clearly demonstrates that grandstanding for the paparazzi is not the new invention of drunken starlets and pants-forgetting pop stars.

Hmm. Maybe the pants-forgetting part is required, I'll have to ask a historian. I wonder if Britney was on her way to slay a demon that night?

I think we should bring back public boasting. And the long names. They bring an air of dignity and majesty to life, something that is sorely missed. "This radiator, accursed by the gods though it is, will be given new life by the morrow's first light, else I die! I, Rodney, son of Mick the Merciless, son of Nathan Beerkiller, tireless slayer of engine knock and mighty rebuilder of carbuerators, have sworn it, by Odin's beard!"

That's another thing we've lost: creative cursing. No one puts any thought into their cursing anymore. Next time your ex-boyfriend shows up to borrow money, again, curse that thieving wastrel to the lowest circle of pitiless hell where famed Heimdall himself, he who never sleeps and can see a leaf falling on the other end of the world, couldn't find him with a map and two guesses. Then slam the door on him.

Loved John Malkovich's Unferth. Pure, distilled sarcasm in human form. You just know if this was a Disney movie his crippled and much-kicked manservant ultimately would find the inner strength and courage to rise up and become his own man, earning Unferth's grudging respect by the end of the movie, possibly with his own catchy song. This is not a Disney movie.

Ah, Angelina Jolie, the star of this picture no matter what the credits say. Golden and nude and more evil-looking than usual. I assume other things were on the screen when she was but someone will have to fill me in, I was busy watching gold drip. You just know the CG guys spent a lot of time getting this sequence j-u-u-u-u-u-st right. They don't get out much, these CG guys.

While I was watching her stalk and seduce Beowulf with promises of glorious sex and eternal fame, I had one overriding thought: Is this what happened with Brad Pitt?

And what is it with her wanting more babies all the time?

You know, she looked more like a Barbie than an actual nekkid woman. Maybe all the creative hiding was to conceal the fact Beowulf was built like a Ken doll. It would explain the violence, and the need for overcompensation. "I AM BEOWULF!"

Yes, the plot was changed. Fortunately only the people who read the original all the way to the end will notice, and that's, what, 20? 30 people, tops? Get over it, people. It happens in movies. I had to adjust to the Joker killing Michael Keaton's parents and Quasimodo getting a happy ending, you can deal with this.

I wonder how many high school Beowulf essays will forever after focus on how Grendel's mom was a babe.

Dragon fight. Got to have a dragon fight. The lack of a dragon fight is why "Lions for Lambs" tanked.

One possible problem with the movie: you don't leave in a good mood. The ending is dramatic, and tragic, and will leave you wondering what happened next. Not the sort of thing to make you want to go right back in. My sons and I found ourselves screaming "I AM BEOWULF!" a lot, though, which startled a few people in the parking lot at Steak N Shake. It was oddly satisfying.

Although I will need to see it again, just to catch the parts I missed when Angelina Jolie was onscreen.

"I AM BEOWULF!"

Making fun of the shows on The Discovery Channel may not be as much fun anymore if they're asking for it, but I'm willing to give it a try. I'm thinking Stephen Colbert lightsabering Mike Rowe, just to kill two birds…

More after the jump.

The song by Chris Cornell for the new Bond movie has leaked online. I'm glad to see the fine old tradition of uninspiring Bond songs is continuing, but I may be judging it too harshly. It needs to be experienced in context, with colorful naked women
outlines jumping around.

In anticipation of Neil Gaiman's new collection "Fragile Things," www.wheresneil.com has been launched. There's a grid of 2500 squares there, and you can claim one as your very own, a deal in today's real estate market. If you click on all of them — and I know some of you will — you might find Neil himself and enter a contest to win… well, it's vague on that point, but you can download a "Fragile Things" preview, so that's all right. Sadly I immediately lost track of the space I claimed, leaving my playing Concentration in the more-or-less right quadrant. If you find me, let me know, OK?

And NBC is anguishing over how to best edit Madonna's "Live to Tell" special about her controversial "Confessions" tour. Besides the "Madonna on a mirrored cross" bit, the concert also includes dancer whipping and pole dancing and the rest of her usual family-friendly fare. NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly said, "We've come to a healthy place that represents her show but is appropriate for television," and if that's true we need to send this man to the UN.

Crowley's Resolution #3: Try to come up with something as good as cell phone ringtones, following one last stab at convincing Downstairs that cell phone ringtones are right up there in the whole Human Misery stakes. And iPods. Has anybody Down There even said thank you for iPods? Or "Googling yourself?" Frankly, I deserve some kind of award for "Googling yourself."