Ricky Sprague's Blog, page 2

Twin Peaks: Don't let Stupor Cooper win!

Cool poster.



The original Twin Peaks was an exciting, unique program that, even in its lesser moments (there were quite a few!) still felt special—even important. This despite the fact that it was a network TV show, and the network suits were messing with it, especially in the second season, when they forced Lynch, Frost, and et. al. to explicitly reveal Laura Palmer’s killer. Those couple

Who knew Kathy Griffin could be so funny?

Kathy Griffin is, let’s say, an acquired taste. I have neither the self-loathing nor the masochism required to acquire that taste (I prefer Doug Stanhope, Paula Poundstone, Norm MacDonald, and Kevin Hart myself) but, hey, some people find her entertaining, I suppose. I never did—until her recent performance I mean press conference.



It’s the funniest thing she’s ever done.



Her opening act

Author: The JT LeRoy Story: Why are leftists so gullible?

The documentary Author: The JT LeRoy story has a promising premise, and it starts out strong, with a seemingly dazed Winona Ryder bragging to a crowd of appreciative sycophants about her deep and meaningful friendship with the author JT LeRoy. We’re primed to see a story of gullible celebs being beclowned by a hoax—and, hopefully, of finding out just what it was about JT LeRoy’s ridiculous story

Hulu's "Batman & Bill" documentary-- more #BigFinger propaganda

Bob Kane lived the high life after "creating" Batman. Bill Finger died alone in diminished circumstances. It's an exceptionally sad and unfair story. 



Hulu’s “Batman & Bill” documentary opens with the author Marc Tyler Nobleman speaking to a group of children, spreading propaganda. Allegedly telling the whole story and correcting history, but in fact re-writing it to for his own

Bill Finger-- the plagiarist who "created" Batman

For a lesson on the history of Batman, pick up this Shadow book.

On May 6, Hulu will be debuting a documentary called “Batman and Bill,” created to document writer Bill Finger’s contributions to the Intellectual Property currently known as “Batman.” Someone at a site called Fansided offers this description:

Bob Kane has always been given sole credit, but Finger also had a major hand in

Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine by Ron Goulart

A few years ago, the great writer and deconstructor Alan Moore said this about modern culture:


“…I found something worrying about the fact that the superhero film audience was now almost entirely composed of adults, men and women in their thirties, forties and fifties who were eagerly lining up to watch characters and situations that had been expressly created to entertain the twelve year-old

The Case of the Loaded Garter Holster by Ennis Willie

In the Ennis Willie entry in Brian Ritt’s indispensable Paperback Confidential it says that “Willie cranked out twenty-one books between 1961 and 1965, then burned out and stopped writing…” The Case of the Loaded Garter Holster was originally published in 1964, along with six other books (!), with one single book being published in 1965. Meaning that by the time he’d written Loaded Garter

Some notes on the Jack Reacher books--men's adventure for women, and on Jock Scratcher

Women buy anywhere from 58%-64% of all books. For some genres that number is even higher—as much as 90% for romance novels, for instance, and around that number for erotica. So if you’re going to have a bestseller, it helps to appeal to women.That is a big part of the genius of Lee Child. In the Jack Reacher books, he’s written men’s adventure novels for women. (Check out the Goodreads reviews of

New parody novel Melee Child: A Jock Scratcher Thriller coming soon!

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Brett Ratner v RottenTomatoBot: Dawn of Consensus

I always feel a little better about myself when I learn that a rich and powerful bigshot (especially a Hollywood bigshot) shares my opinion on an important topic. So I’m delighted to see that Brett Ratner loathes the pestilential Rotten Tomatoes film criticism aggregation site, perhaps even more than I do. In a speech at a film festival, Ratner said that Rotten Tomatoes was “the worst thing we