"Police Beat," based on the column of the same name by The Stranger Associate Editor Charles Mudede, opened in New York today and has received glowing reviews. Rob Nelson of the Village Voice said that while the film's concept -- vignettes of unusual crimes -- may sound "merely quirky on paper, its look is uniquely ravishing, its effect hypnotic." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the movie a "delicately funny tale about everyday surrealism." "Police Beat," which Mudede co-wrote with director Robinson Devor, was also shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005.

Continue ReadingFilm Based on Stranger Column Gets High Marks From NY Critics

Esquire, which published Nasdijj's first feature story in 1999, issues a "correction" and a profile of Tim Barrus, aka Nasdijj, in its May issue. (Available here to Esquire subscribers.) The magazine gives plenty of credit to L.A. Weekly, which broke the story of Nasdijj's true identity in the Jan. 23 article "Navahoax," calling it "an excellent report" that "created a small sensation." Esquire confirms the details of "Navahoax" and fills in some of the blanks, such as ascertaining that Barrus did have a son with developmental problems named Tommy, as he described in that first Esquire essay, but the details of Tommy's relationship with Barrus "are almost the opposite" of what appeared in the magazine in 1999.

Continue ReadingEsquire Explores Real Identity of Author Exposed by L.A. Weekly

An OC Weekly article published Wednesday includes photographs of county Sheriff Mike Carona with a strip-club boss whom "the FBI calls a mob associate," according to the Weekly. Carona also swore in as a reserve deputy at least one other man whom the Weekly alleges has mafia ties. Ralph Martin, who hopes to unseat Carona in this year's election, held a news conference yesterday calling for Carona's resignation in light of the story and photographs, according to the Los Angeles Times. (The L.A. Times story conspicuously avoids the words "mafia" or "mob.") An update posted to the OC Weekly Web site yesterday quotes Martin as saying, "This is unacceptable behavior. We can't allow our law enforcement personnel to be associated with known criminals or criminal associates."

Continue ReadingRival Calls for Sheriff’s Resignation After OC Weekly Story

City Auditor Mark Funkhouser and Mayor Kay Barnes have been at odds over economic policies, according to The Kansas City Star, but the tension reached a new exteme when Barnes formally reprimanded Funkhouser for giving "the appearance of inappropriately assisting a mayoral candidate" in the pages of The Pitch. A photo published by The Pitch showed Funkhouser meeting on March 8 with Stanford Glazer, who subsequently declared his candidacy for mayor. Funkhouser was also quoted as saying he would like a mayor "who can wrestle with the city’s financial problems and be open and honest with the citizens on the choices we face," but he did not name a specific candidate. The reprimand is the first Funkhouser has received in his 30-year career, but he "has come close to being fired at least three times in the past 18 years because he speaks bluntly and rarely has good news about city government's performance," according to the Star.

Continue ReadingKansas City Auditor Reprimanded for Photo and Comments in The Pitch

"Getting an alternative comic feature up and running requires lots of hard work and patience," says Max Cannon, creator of Red Meat, a comic that runs in several AAN papers. Relish, a weekly entertainment tabloid published by The Winston-Salem Journal, interviews Cannon in its April 27 issue, the first in which Red Meat appears. Cannon also tells Relish that he wanted Red Meat "to have a look that was somewhere between clip art and arresting minimalism, so that the text was more important than the art itself," and that his favorite reader response has been when he has "gotten requests from academics to use Red Meat strips in textbooks, journal articles or to use in scholarly presentations."

Continue ReadingMax Cannon: You ‘Have To Be a Little Crazy’ to Draw Alt Comics