Closing time!

While all good things must come to an end, all lame things must end as well, so it is with a heavy heart that I am closing the doors on Dave’s Long Box.

As many of you know, I’m busy with my full-time job blogging for my corporate masters at Live From L.A. on ABC.com. The demands of my regular job, family, and my career as a nude model for macramé classes has really cut into my ability to update Dave’s Long Box as much as I’d like. Heck, even before I got the ABC gig things were starting to get slack around here. So instead of keeping this blog on life support and pain medication, I’ve decided to end things now before things get more pathetic than they already are. I have plans for another blog that I will unveil at the end of this post after making you read through all the people I want to thank.

It’s been a hell of a lot of fun and I have a lot of people to thank – so let’s get to it.

I first started blogging because of the example set forth by three guys: Graeme MacMillan of the dearly departed Fanboy Rampage, Mike Sterling of Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin, and the enigmatic Neilalien of, well… Neilalien. Their blogs couldn’t have been more different, but they were always well-written and thought provoking and offered up an example of how blogs could be a uniquely personal reflection of one’s passions. I want to thank you guys for inspiring Dave’s Long Box and for being so flat-out awesome. At the risk of sounding corny, your work has really made a positive impact on my life and I salute you, Ric Flair-style. Woo!

I also want to thank Kevin Church of Beaucoupkevin.com – where is that Norm Breyfoggle original art that you promised me, Church? Much thanks to “Bitter” Andrew of Armagideon Time, Dorian from Postmodernbarney, Bully the little stuffed bull, and the Legomancer himself Dave Lartigue – all masters of their craft. I also want to thank Ragnell from The Written World, Dr. Scott from Polite Dissent, Ken Lowery from Ringwood and kenlowery.com, and Metrokitty for being their rad selves. As far as group blogs go, big love for The Savage Critics, When Fangirls Attack, Blogzarro, Superfrankenstein, and the late Listen to Us, We’re Right, who usually were. Thanks and praise go to Scipio over at The Absorbascon and Big Monkey Comics for being such a swell guy and for keeping the Vibe love alive. Treacher, Jim: madman. I also want to thank Brian Cronin and Augie De Blieck – Jesus, this is like signing somebody’s high school yearbook, isn’t it? Also thanks go to Harvey B.R. Jerkwater and his lovely wife. I have lots of respect for Gorjus and the Prof over at Pretty Fakes, Greg Burgas at Delenda Est Carthago, the maniacs at The Indian Chief Blowers, creators of Laser Force, The League of Melbotis, Bahlactus for hosting Friday Night Fights, Yet Another Comics Blog, Marc Singer, Tom Foss over at The Fortress of Soliloquy, Dial B for Blog, Seven Hells! and Howling Curmudgeons. I would be remiss if I didn’t publicly declare my admiration for the work of Alan David Doane, Johnny Bacardi, Tom Spurgeon, David Fiore, Jog, Tim O’Neil, Tom the Dog, Shane Bailey, and Ian Brill. Big shout outs to Ed Cunard, Mark Hale over at Chaosmonkey, Jim McGrath, Dr. K, Benjamin Birdie of The Rack fame, and any other Dead Gopher that I have neglected to mention. Crap, can I even mention the Dead Gophers? I think I just broke a bylaw. Shit, I almost forgot! Thanks to the people who used to run the Comics Weblog Update-a-tron thing, whoever you are.

I’m kicking myself because I’ve probably forgotten some blogger that I really really like, and they’re going to be pissed at me forever. Let’s see, am I missing anybody…? Oh. Right.

Him.

One of the most enjoyable parts of running Dave's Long Box, aside from all the chicks, was my rivalry with Chris Sims of The Invincible Super-Blog. I hand over my sword and concede the field to Chris, who is a tremendous talent and a funny guy, but is a total cockhead. Kidding! Ha ha! Look for mighty things from Chris Sims in the future - he is going to be a fucking TITAN! Mark my words well.

Aside from blogging folk, I want to thank Dusty Abell and Robert Kirkman for the Invincible Handbook gig, which was fun. Thanks also to Gene Ha, who does a hilarious Alan Moore impression, Larry Young of AiT/Planetlar, who is a mensch, Jay Pinkerton, and Jeff Parker, who totally likes me better than Chris Sims so eat it Sims. Many thanks to Ernie Cline, the man who created Airwolf: the adjective. I also want to thank Josh Elder for the advice and the GCPD badge and Kevin Church for making me a hot reporter in Cover Girl. Many thanks to Craig Brasfield, Dave Guttierez, the fine folks at Cracked.com, Ted “Thunderbolt” Bramble, Mad Michael Moran over at the Times Online, and Kent Goodrich, my boss who let me present the SHIELD Career Power Seminar at work.

Finally I want to thank everybody who has ever read my humble blog and a double-thanks to anyone who has ever commented. A double-thanks with handshake to anyone who has commented 2-7 times, a hug for anyone who has commented 8-13 times, a 10-second French kiss to anyone who has commented 14-20 times… OK, you see where I’m going with this. FYI, at 40 comments you get maced in the face and at 50 you get a restraining order.

Anyway, thanks also to friends of Dave’s Long Box, including but not limited to my mom, Dan Coyle, Olav the Hairy, Chris Arndt, James Remar, Mike Hasselhoff, Summer & Virgil, Bill, Woody!,Drake Hogestyn, Konstantinos Stamoulis, Edward Liu, Gayest Neil, Dara, Kelvin Green, P-Tor, Mike Loughlin, Winterteeth, Cove West, Tom Bondurant, Roel Torres, MGK, Anonymous, McGone, Ric Flair, Rachelle, Koala Mentalla, Sallyp, Todd Fucking Kaneko, Chad Sexington, Oldsmoblogger, Ghostman, Martin Wisse, Haole, Beta Ray Steve, John the IG, Nimbus, Peter, Patrick, Bill Reed, Spencer Carnage, Benari, Woody, The Real Rick Jones, Jeff Easton, Dougbot, Sleestak, your mom, Sallyp, Greg, Brad Curran, Ted Nugent, Nshumate, Ted, Ian, RTO Trainer, Matt Murray, Gbob, and Mister Sinister.

Manly thanks also to Ken Christiansen of Bad Flip Productions and Rocket Bob Lindenmayer who helped me fight off a bear attack. I also want to thank Chava and Mimsy and my wife, who is Big Barda and Mary Jane all rolled into one package.

I'll be launching a new site shortly - I'll post the address as soon as it's up and running. My new site will be a little more expansive in terms of scope... meaning it will be an unfocused rambling mess. But we'll talk about that later. I hope you swing by and say hi once I'm open for business.

So, to wrap it up, thank you. Thanks for stopping by and digging through the ol' long box with me for the past few years. It's been a hell of a lot of fun.

--Dave Campbell

Stuff you should buy

Occasionally I like to plug current comic book offerings, particularly when it might mean a royalty check for yours truly, so here is some stuff you should totally buy this week.

BATMAN STRIKES #44 by my homeboy Josh Elder. This is a good ol' fashioned all-ages team-up between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel as they hunt a maniac who is carving up trans-gender hookers on the streets of Metropolis.

KIDDING!!! I kid. There isn't even one dead hooker in the comic, I swear. Buy two copies and give one to your nephew, it's good old fashioned comic book fun in the mighty DC manner, with solid art by Chris Jones. You might remember Josh Elder from his hilarious Mail Order Ninja comic - he's the Real Deal and is one of those writers who hasn't lost sight of the whole "comics can be fun" thing. Go check it out.

THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE INVINCIBLE UNIVERSE has now been collected in a slick trade paperback and is available for sale at Amazon. I highly recommend this as well because I wrote a lot of the entries and I think it's a neat homage to the old Mark Gruenwald era Marvel Handbooks. Plus, haven't you always wanted to know about Shrinking Ray's backstory? Sure you have.

If you didn't pick it up in the stores when it originally came out, you owe it to your country to buy the trade paperback today! Yes, regardless of what country you live in - unless it's I Hate Comics Land. If that's the case, %&*@ you, pal!

Next up: a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT that you won't like.

Super Skrull Place Holder!

I didn't want anybody thinking I had really dedicated this site to James Remar, so I had to put up some comic related post. Since I'm totally lazy, err, I mean, totally busy, I'm opting for a picture of a Super Skrull statuette thingy.

What do you call these things anyway? Statues? Maquettes? 3-D Imaginings? Girl Repellant? I never know. All I know is that it's Super Skrull and I loves me the Super Skrull. Plus with Marvel's Secret Invasion upon us, many folks have Skrulls on their mind, so it seemed appropriate.

Hey, here's a little insider tip for ya: Super Skrull is really a Skrull. No shit.

Welcome to Dave's Shrine of Remar

James Remar - Warriors, come out and plaaayyy...

Certain films are so potent andcaptivating that they fuck up an entire generation of kids.

The Warriors is one of those movies for me. During the early years of cable TV my friends would stay up late and watch violent movies like The Warriors and then, full of adrenaline and unreleased agression, we'd sneak out and vandalize a golf course or something. Along with movies like Enter the Dragon, Escape from New York, Excalibur, Mad Max, and Death Race 2000, The Warriors is one of those movies that launched my lifelong love of genre entertainment.

It is also directly responsible for Young Dave and his friends getting their asses kicked by mean older kids - but that's a story for another day.

One of the things that made The Warriors so damn cool was Ajax, the brash gang member played by a young James Remar. Ajax is all bravado and bad attitude - he's sort of the Han Solo of the group, and Remar plays him with a perpetual scowl. Ajax would suck if he was just a blowhard, but as he repeatedly demonstrates, his mouth writes the checks and his fists cash 'em. Ajax is a total bad ass.

He gets to prove how awesome he is when The Warriors (fourof them anyway) get attacked by the Baseball Furies, a gang of creepy silent guys in baseball uniforms and KISS makeup. They're outnumbered, so The Warriors queue up the John Carpenter synth soundtrack and make a run for it. Ultimately it comes time to stop running and start kicking the living bejeesus out of the Baseball Furies, which Ajax does with verve and elan.

Hey kids! Dave's favorite James Remar line is at the 3:32 mark!

Truly The Warriors represents a bigone age of cinema, when you could build a movie around a slightly subversive central idea and a couple of decent analog fight scenes. I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for The Warriors and its ilk, even if it was a bad influence and got me beat up. I don't blame James Remar, though. If anything, my relationship to The Warriors showed me that everyone takes a hit now and then. Sometimes you're the guy with the baseball bat, and sometimes you're the popsicle.

Thank you for that wisdom, Warriors. And thank you, James Remar.

My favorite James Remar quote

It's a tough call, but I'm going to have to go with the obvious choice for Best James Remar Line Ever. It's from the 1979 film The Warriors, where James plays a gang member named Ajax who utters this witty bon mot to a baseball bat wielding foe:

"I'll shove that bat up your ass and turn you into a popsicle."

I'm not certain, but that may be my favorite line from any movie ever. The only problem with it is that it's very context-specific; it's not a line that you can quote in public with a reasonable chance of a) it being appropriate, and b) anyone knowing that you are indeed quoting James Remar in the first place. It's not like saying "Say hello to my little friend!" when you pick up a chicken skewer at a buffet table or "May the force be with you" before somebody does karaoke. These are movie quotes that people might actually know and that could be situationally appropriate.

But unless you're at a Little League game, there are very few scenarios in which you could say "I'll shove that bat up your ass and turn you into a popsicle" and have it make sense. Come to think of it, while it might make sense to say that at a Little League baseball game, it should probably be avoided.

Anyway, it's still the greatest James Remar line of all time, even if it's not that handy.

James Remar - Guest Star

So the other day I was watching Eli Stone, a fine ABC television program that I enjoy viewing for my job, and lo and behold, there's James Remar. He played a ruthless real estate developer that was trying to evict a bunch of low-income people from their historic neighborhood. Did he succeed? Fuck yes he did! He's James Remar! Those poor people were thrown out on their asses. Nobody can go head-to-head with The Remar.

A quick look at James Remar's vast body of work will reveal the extent of TV work the man has done. The breadth and range of his work is impressive - you'd think that he would just be cast as cops or psychos, but no. Let's take a look at some highlights from James Remar's career.

Remar's most notable recent TV appearance was a recurring role as Harry Morgan on the Showtime series Dexter. His character recently died (ooops, SPOILER) but I'll bet you can still feel the lingering smell of awesome clinging to the Dexter soundstage.

Tough guy Remar has appeared on 7th Heaven, Walker Texas Ranger, and was a recurring guest star on Sex in the City, where he did not shoot or punch anybody even once.


For fans of genre TV shows, James Remar is representin'. He had a recurring role on the late, lamented Jericho, and he played opposite Richard Hatch on several episodes of Battlestar Galactica (the new series). Remar was also in the X-Files episode "Daemonicus."


So you see, James Remar has a little bit to offer everyone in the family. Watch a James Remar TV show today! Or so help me, he will totally shove that bat up your ass and turn you into a popsicle.

James Remar - Expository Cop

Sometimes you need a cop in your movie who will deliver big chunks of expository dialog to the main character in order to keep the plot going. Folks often think of James Remar when it comes to casting that cop. Occasionally he might play a military guy, but the purpose of the role is always the same: human info dump.

Here's James Remar mocking Blade with another officer in Blade: Trinity. And you thought Ryan Reynolds was the best part of that movie? THINK AGAIN.


And here's James Remar as Uptight Agent giving a briefing in the fine film 2 Fast 2 Furious. "Use extreme caution, this man has been known to use rats and blow torches to torture people. Yes, rats and blow torches at the same time."


Here's James Remar playing Expository Cop on CSI: Miami. Sometimes your episode gets so fucked up that you have to bring in somebody to help explain the plot to the main characters. James Remar is that somebody.

James Remar - His greatest role?

Among James Remar fans like myself a never-ending debate rages: what is James Remar's greatest role?

It usually boils down to two choices:

Albert Ganz, the maniacal escaped convict from 48 Hours...?


Or Rayden, the unnaturally pink martial arts wise man from Mortal Kombat: Annhilation...?


You make the call. What is James Remar's ultimate performance, his greatest role?

James Remar - Gesundheit!

Hey, even James Remar has to sneeze now and then. Or have a stroke - it's hard to tell from this picture.

James Remar - voiceover master

Like a lot of actors, James Remar picks up the occasional voice acting gig for animated projects. Remar enjoys the variety and change of pace that voice acting offers, but has been somewhat dismissive of animated programs in the past.

"They're basically for kids and stoners," Remar told Wizard magazine. "I mean, who watches cartoons? Little fuckin' kids and dopers, that's who. What magazine did you say you were from again?"*

James Remar has played Black Mask in the animated series The Batman.

James Remar also did the voice of Larousse in the Pixar film Ratatouille. Yeah, I don't remember which guy he was, either. I'll have to watch that movie again with a new Remarcentric mindset.

James Remar also did the voice of Carter Hall/Hawkman on the Justice League animated series. Suddenly Hawkman's looking a little bit cooler, isn't he? It's the Remar Touch - it's like Coolness Pixie Dust, Remar just sprinkles it around wherever he goes, making the world a little cooler.

*Oh, and I'm totally lying about that Wizard quote. James Remar loves cartoons. Really.