I received an email from erstwhile Comic Book Resources rumourmonger Rich Johnston, inviting me to check out "his" new blogsite, Bleeding Cool, and share my thoughts. For the record, I've met Rich once before, like him and his work, and wish him nothing but the best. That said, I was underwhelmed with the site, but it's not past fixing.

Now, putting aside the fact that none of the stories mentioned in the email were easily found on the site, due to constant updating with other little newsbits and rumours, the design of the site itself is fairly pedestrian. It's not ugly (like CBR), but it's also no different than one might have seen at the start of this decade. I'm not terribly concerned about site design, but when you call something Bleeding Cool, you're asking for a touch more scrutiny on that front.

So the "bleeding cool" part must be the content? Well, while Rich is as good as it gets as far as coming up with the skinny on comics industry happenings, I think the strength of his column, Lying in the Gutters, had something to do with being a lot of short pieces all together, with a bit of structure and rhythm to it. What he's doing here is putting up a new item every time it's written, which I understand is meant to convey that something is always changing on the site, but unfortunately it also serves to put more pressure on each piece. And they're okay, but so far lacking some of the detail and quotes of some of his better pieces. It's tough, starting a site, because one feels a real urge to try to fill every corner with Content! Content! Content! all the time, and that sometimes overtakes the quality. Also, Rich has broken out regular Gutters features like Swipe File into their own separate thing, alongside "Manchild," which seems to be about adult men buying toys, speculating on comics, etc., and Celebrity Comix Pullbox, a misleading feature which imagines what comics might appeal to people like David Bowie or recent Britain's Got Talent sensation Susan Boyle.

The regular columns are written by comics (and other media) writers Warren Ellis and Adi Tantimedh. Ellis' first Do Anything column didn't get up to much besides some Thompsonesque grumbling and colorful imagery, but it's good fun. Tantimedh starts his column out as a kind of mission statement, where over the rest of the columns he'll apparently be looking at how comics properties are turned into movies, promising looks at a couple recent ones next time. And that's cool, I'm there. But I have to say, I always think it's risky to start out small, with the first column being "here's what I'm going to do...next time." For a lot of readers, unfortunately, they may not give you a next time. You have to give them a little more at the start. Tantimedh's a good writer, and I remember his work back to some short stories recommended in old Steven Grant columns, but I would probably have made the intro a little shorter and then dove into one of the movies, maybe getting through half or a third of it and then doing the rest in the next column, giving people enough here but also a reason to come back.

Earlier, I put scare quotes around "his," and what I meant is that it turns out Avatar Publishing (one of Ellis' publishing homes), owns the site. And that's fine; there aren't too many comics sites and blogs that don't have some sort of publisher advertising, and the journalistic line is easy to blur in those cases. Which is why you get non-critic Rich giving a sort of review of Ellis' Avatar book, Anna Mercury, in such a way that it's hard to tell if he really liked it or was just compelled to be as nice as possible. And the book may be great; I'm just saying it's a tough position to be in, and I would think Rich knows that some people will take his reviews and any other comments on Avatar with a grain of salt now, given that he's now being compensated by them.

So what do I think of the site? Well, it's okay. I imagine people who like what Rich does will easily follow him over here. He's the lead writer but his strength is in coming up with items, not necessarily having a strong voice to build a site around. Ellis has that voice but he's so far not writing anything he wasn't doing ten years ago, and anyway he's busy writing fiction and/or has other forums to really let loose or take over. Tantimedh's column is the only thing a little different on the comics blog landscape, in that he's got experience in both comics and film, but isn't that well-known in either and can probably afford to be a little more candid. We'll see. The Bleeding Cool part is still a bit of an irritant, in that for all their strengths these guys aren't bleeding cool/cutting edge anything. These are all guys somewhere around 40, right? There's nothing radical or edgy going on here, so maybe it's best to just sort of ignore the name and just hope that things progress and gel as the weeks go by, columns hit a rhythm, maybe more features are attempted and others dropped, maybe a new voice or two is added. Hell, I wrote for a MoviePoopShoot.com years ago, so maybe I shouldn't be so hung up on Bleeding Cool. Good luck to them.

Heading into another busy time at work, and guess what? I've been writing as well, so not as much time for blogging. Also sort of dating someone, and fucking generally beats blogging. So just some quick thoughts.

Star Trek - One nice thing about dating is I'm going to the movies more. I used to watch old Star Trek reruns with my mom, and occasionally her (late) best friend Diane if she was visiting. We also had a regular thing with old Nigel Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. Anyway, I was never too obsessive about 'Trek, but I remember Christopher Pike and tribbles and that lasagna monster thing. The new movie looked cool and J.J. Abrams has a pretty good track record with me, so what the hell. And it was really good. I was actually kind of moved by the senior Kirk's sacrifice, and Chris Pine's Kirk is just the right combo of swagger and actual competence and bravery. Zachary Quinto's Spock takes on the human vs. alien personality conflict better than that character probably ever has before, and with a bit of romance, too. While as characters there's not much to Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Bones and Chekhov--especially since having Spock and Kirk as co-male leads is tricky and enough of a time-eater as it is--at least the supporting cast are all written so as to be intrinsic to either the Kirk or Spock stories. They all get to be an important part of their first great adventure. Kind of liked that it was a Romulan rather than Klingon menace for the first one as well. And how great was it that Leonard Nimoy got so much more than just a cameo--he gets to do some of his best acting of his career.

Dwayne McDuffie - I guess I shouldn't be surprised when comics fans are outraged at absolutely normal, everyday business decisions. I remember a month or so reading one of McDuffie's comments about how he didn't enjoy writing JLA and that he was forced to rewrite some dialogue at the last minute due to editorial fiat and he wasn't happy about it. And at the time, I thought, Well, he'll be off the book soon, because a) his comments make DC editorial look dumb in public and b) clearly he wants to be off the book, anyway. That he apparently made many more such comments over the past few months makes DC look dumb in a different way--why put up with this public complaining for so long? Nothing against McDuffie, and it's not like I want him to lose work. But to me, he was really asking to be put out of his misery and I have no doubt this was no surprise to him at all. By all means, say what you want, but when you makes those comments in public about your employer, there can be consequences, and certainly a guy like McDuffie, who's worked for many comics companies and WB Animation and other corporations knows the score.

Up! - Does this movie have an exclamation point or not? This is the new Pixar film, and while they've got an incredibly high batting average for quality films, I confess the previews for this one didn't absolutely grab me. The old guy with the floating house and the Boy Scout stowaway--okay, that's funny, but then what? What's with the big, rainbow-colored bird? The evil, Kirk Douglas-looking guy in the airship? Well, I can now say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or more importantly, the stuff that can't be shown in a short preview is what really makes the movie special. For while it's typically well-animated and funny and sweet, what really got me was how well the characters fit together. As in, they all need each other. The old guy, Carl, lost his wife, a childhood sweetheart seen in a lovely opening scene and then through a gorgeous montage of their life together. You really feel for the guy, especially as he's voiced by Ed Asner, an actor I've liked pretty much my whole life. The fact he's cast in this, when obviously Ed Asner's dance card isn't exactly full these days, is a clue that the filmmakers here have a story to tell about how we treat our elderly. And bless them for not making it gross or cutesy--there's a real moment of horror when Carl takes his curmudgeonliness a step too far and actually hurts someone, and you realize how quickly things can turn for a person, especially when there's no one to stand up and defend them.

But that's not all the movie is about. It's about father figures, and keeping promises, and knowing that sometimes it's better and more important to help someone else than keep an old promise. In some ways, the filmmaker's have it easy here. With animation, it's pretty easy to make a cute dog suddenly pathetic, and especially when he can talk. That's a can't miss. And what's not to like about a pudgy, never say die Scout with an absentee father? Or a mother bird missing her babies? When one writes it out like that, it seems almost cynically put together, and yet it really is warm and winning.

Batman: Gotham County Line TPB
Written By Steve Niles
Art by Scott Hampton
Published By DC Comics. $17.99 USD

Writer Niles starts with a basically good, "why didn't anyone think of this first?" premise: have Batman work on a case outside the city limits of Gotham. From there it's a little bit Hot Fuzz, a little bit Shaun of the Dead. Small town, they do things differently, resent the intrusion of know-it-all Batman, etc. But it's a gruesome murder and the police are out of their depth. Once we find out one of the detectives is behind the murders, and continues to bedevil Batman even after a successful suicide by hanging, is when it plays to the strengths of both Niles and Hampton, both more comfortable with the macabre than typical superhero stuff.

And it's reasonably diverting, but the gimmick that Batman is trapped in a world of the killer's devising, where the dead are very active threats, doesn't quite come together. It seems like Niles just uses it whichever way works best for the moment, and luckily Deadman, and later, Phanton Stranger, are around to help coach Batman through it. Both guest stars definitely serve a purpose in the story, but not a very organic one. It never feels like Niles really had an itch to write either character or had anything to say with them, it's just that he needed some mystical types to help Batman, and the reader, make sense of what was happening, and so he choose them from among several other DC characters who would have sufficed.

Niles writes a very standard, confident, terse Batman, which is fine. When he deviates from the model it's only with actions, such as having Batman use a jetpack frequently to move around the small town. Kind of odd, but no harm done. Less defensible was his use of dead Jason Todd and Bruce Wayne's parents. Their appearances are kind of cheap and unearned, and what reason would there be by now to continue to draw the Waynes in '20s clothes?

While there's never any real suspense, or point, it's creepy enough to look at and fairly entertaining. Not a highlight in anyone's careers but neither should anyone regret their efforts here, either.

Cold Heat #5 & 6 Bumper Edition
By Ben Jones and Frank Santoro
Published by PictureBox Inc.. $20.00

Not having read any of the others, I ordered this kinda pricey comic based on recommendations of friends and peers. Also, I don't remember the last time I had a color comic in a limited edition of 100, so that's sorta cool. What's this one about? You got me. There's government conspiracy and revenge and music and destiny and feces and some sort of Ditkoesque owl thing. I don't know what's going on or what happened before, but I can honestly say it doesn't really matter. Like CF's Powr Mastrs, it's work that flirts with sci-fi/adventure/superhero tropes and is delivered by cerebral artists in a way that suggests they've found a way to bypass the cerebral in favor of an instinctive rush of wild imagery and a fair amount of low comedy. The figure work is amateurish, but in an appealing, enthusiastic way. Once it's combined with the inspired combinations of pink, violet and blue tones, the effect is about as closes as comics get to narcotic. Sure, $20 is on the surface sort of expensive for a 48 page comic, but it turns out to be worth multiple readings. Not because there are deeper layers here--I'm not sure there are--but because one can read it, thoroughly enjoy it, forget it, and then repeat the experience a week or two later. It's a highwire act, to be sure. I wouldn't recommend others following their lead because nine times out of ten, the result will be garbage. But Jones and Santoro clearly have a handle on this thing.

Swallow Me Whole
By Nate Powell
Published by Top Shelf Productions. $19.95 USD

I had quite a different experience reading this graphic novel than about any other I can recall. Now, the fact that it took a few sittings to read it isn't that different. After all, it's a pretty long read. The pages aren't numbered but must exceed 100, and even though there's a good deal of silent panels and pages, they still require a bit of study, you know?

No, the difference here is that even after my first, brief reading of ten pages or so, I could tell that this was a book I could only deal with in a certain frame of mind and with enough energy and concentration. I mean, it was clear you had to approach the book with respect.

This is a brooding, delicate, surreal look at a pretty, charming young woman unraveling from schizophrenia. That's what it's about, so if you're looking for the quirky charm suggested by the front and back covers, with their pretty autumnal colors, then be forewarned. I don't say, look elsewhere, because I do think this is a very charming book, but more importantly, it's a book that really deserves to be read by a wide audience. Let's face it: North American comics are still in their infancy as far as taking on adult subject matter, so the mere fact that a cartoonist takes on a teenager's mental illness in a story is already noteworthy and possibly award-worthy if he or she delivers something halfway competent. Powell is way better than that. Although this is the first work of his that I felt was entirely successful, I also don't feel like readers have to worry that he's achieved his masterpiece already. This is someone to keep reading.

Now, I do take some exception to the back cover describing this as a "love story"--I didn't get that at all, unless the love story is somehow the love between the protagonist, Ruthy, and her brother Perry. And while their relationship is probably the most vividly drawn, mainly because Perry is the only one Ruthy spends much time talking to, the fact is that Ruthy slips away from Perry, or vice-versa. Perry has some fascinating scenes early on where we see his own mental illness manifest in a tiny wizard ordering him to draw pictures for him before he'll go away. Like Ruthy's collection of insects and other compulsive behavior, it's a way for Perry to bring order to his world. But unlike Ruthy, he's able to mostly cast the hallucinations aside, or shunt them, as he grows into adolescence and gets a girlfriend.

Powell has a great many gifts on display here, from his confidence in using tiny, mumbled handwriting in word balloons to convey the fog in Ruthy's head to the many surreal, haunting images, from the tiny, cartoonish floating soul of Ruthy's "Memaw" to the huge African bullfrog and the swarm of bugs. He's great at body language as well. It's easy to tell when Ruthy is floating down the street that it's not a pleasant, freeing experience from the way her back is hunched over, like she's being pulled along from an invisible line around her midsection rather than her own accord. It also works well that Powell plays most of the events in a lower register. There aren't a lot of big epiphanies, and several scenes don't seem particularly important in and of themselves, but cumulatively add up to a fleshed-out portrait of a young life's many trials and occasional triumphs. There isn't a pervasive sense for almost the entire book that Ruthy might really fail--that's just not how these things go very often, and when they do, one usually knows from almost the start. Which makes the ending more devastating, almost like Powell bet on the wrong horse in Ruthy over Perry. It actually stings, that ending.

These are good times for comics, creatively, but although I expect I'll read graphic novels this year that will be more entertaining, or clever, or better drawn, I doubt many will hit me emotionally as much as this one. I'll be feeling this one for a while.

Day off today to take care of some biz. Renewed my drivers license after a three hour DMV wait. Luckily I brought an Esquire and read the whole thing. It was the Clive Owen issue and his interview made him sound super cool, but then, that's what Esquire does with every subject. The written test was actually pretty hard. I didn't notice the rule book until I'd already completed the test. I missed two--acceptable for renewing drivers is no more than three. It's six for new drivers, but it seems like that should be reveresed.

Got my taxes done at H & R Block. Getting some money back but all of it goes towards property taxes, and I probably should get my property reassessed again and maybe refinance again as well, as I want to be on an impound account.

Had a couple New York-style slices at a chain around here called Flippin' Pizza, got a few groceries for my Aunt's visit this weekend, and kids and I watched Hell's Kitchen and played some Killzone 2--neither exactly appropriate for kids, though Hell's is bleeped and I had the sound off for Killzone. On the last level but can't quite beat it. Will try a few more times and then give up, as life's too short to let a videogame frustrate you that much.

Up early tomorrow, as son is in a 1 mile fun run. Not sure where he gets it but he's fast.

Started reading the Humbug set. Beautifully drawn and amusing, but so far not all that funny.

Was thinking a bit about the Saga of the Swamp Thing hardcover. Dropping the last line of a story is a big gaffe and I'm curious about how that was missed. As far as not using Moore's intro to the original softcover, my own speculation is that it was less of an eff you to Moore as it was sort of a small token of respect. That is, clearly DC owns the rights to reprint his Swamp Thing comics, but Moore may consider himself the owner of his Introduction, and for all I know the original softcover may have shown a copyright for him at the time. Anyone know about the error and/or the editorial decision, let me know.

OK, so one day a week I get catty and give my American Idol recap to a couple female work friends via email, but I figured, why not just do it here as well? So, if you saw tonight's episode, you know the theme was really wide open--pick songs that are popular downloads. In other words, big hits from today to as far back as you want to go (provided the show has cleared them, of course). So with such room to maneuver, there was really no excuse for a poor choice of song, and yet in several cases that's what we got.

Anoop Desai - some song by Usher, I think it's called "Caught Up." I didn't know the song but kind of liked it as Anoop sang it, but I have to agree with the judges that he seems like kind of a wannabe R&B singer, pretty nervous and without good moves. He sang it pretty well but it wasn't a song that really got people going. He could be in trouble.

Megan Joy Corkrey - absolutely awful take on Bob Marley's "Turn Your Lights Down Low." Easily the worst of the night, since no one else was flat-out bad. Bad, deeply uncool, un-reggae arrangement by the band and Megan's stiffest, most labored phrasing ever. I have to admit, I liked Megan fairly well at first, and her looks helped, but they just can't save her. She's way out of her element here and should be in the bottom three.

Danny Gokey - I want to hate Danny, I really do. I'm a miserable, cynical agnostic like that, and don't like his Jesus bling and his everchanging eyeglass frames and feel deeply that, church music director or not, once he starts his career he will be a total animal. But damn, dude can really sing. I thought his version of the Rascal Flatts song was emotional and showed great control, and it seemed to be a really well-written song, too, without the typical modern country bombast or corn.

Allison Iraheta - although it makes me feel old for saying it, singing No Doubt's "Don't Speak" is not really a good choice to show you can be a relevant, contemporary young artist at this point. That said, I thought she sang it well and with her own spin, though a little overdone near the end. The judges made perhaps too big a deal of her outfit, which was sort of cool but admittedly distracting. Also, the lighting on her was really bad at the beginning and made her look like a mole. I think Allison has one of the best, most real personalities on the show and she's extremely talented, but she probably won't last much longer. Paula was dopey to say she will skate through to the finish line, especially since she's been in the bottom three before. She may be there again.

Scott McIntyre - what happened to telling it like it is? Even Simon seems too scared to say that Scott's version of Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are" is no better than 1,000 lounge singers, and had some crazy, off-putting runs. Ryan's teaser made me think Scott would be doing "Piano Man" and I thought, hmm, at least for Scott (and only Scott) that's sort of an edgy choice. But of course he picked Joel's sappiest song. And yeah, I do like the original, even with its dated '70s synth, but Scott didn't find anything fresh by stripping it back down. I found the performance laughable and I really think the judges are just going to try to say nice things until the votes dry up for Scott, then they'll choose not to save him but make it look close. Feh.

Lil Rounds - huge voice and you got a little of her appeal as the song went on and she tried to inject just a little soul into it, but come on--Celine Dion? Ugh. Another bad hairdo for Lil, too, but a nice dress. She really needs to do something with more honest emotion and soul. She has the pipes to get through but the public can only take so many different looks and disconnected songs.

Matt Giraud - this guy is my favorite, not so much for his talent but just that I can relate to him more than the others. He's trying so damn hard to please and he has immense talent, but somehow he's just not reaching the judges on a regular basis. I thought his version of The Fray's song was good and sounded very radio-friendly, but not knowing the original I'll have to concede to the judges that maybe it's too soundalike. The audience seemed to dig him, so hopefully he gets through, but I'm worried the bad reviews from all four judges may send him to the bottom three again.

Adam Lambert - probably the one to beat at this point. I mean, Danny and Kris are really strong competition, but even though I can't say I care for Adam's screechy parts, the guy really makes every song an event. As Randy said, he's in the star zone now, and I admit I look forward to what he's going to come up with. He's found fresh takes on the Stones, Smokey and now he had the balls and wit to refresh a total '70s track like Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music," which has some very dated lyrics to overcome. Great arrangement that kept changing things up and then getting back to the familiar, un-messed-with hook. Really good job.

Kris Allen - despite being sort of my namesake, I wasn't digging this guy early on, but he's really stepped up his game week after week, and he's got a great voice that works really well in quieter arrangements. Here, he does a terrific "Ain't No Sunshine," a song I always liked, in a smart new arrangement. He might be just a little too boring (and married) to win, but I can really see him having a career. We'll see.

Final notes: Ryan touched Danny too many times. Simon's compulsion to disparage Paula's comments or act like they don't make sense is really old. His comment to Matt about how he should be happy this week since the judges didn't like him (the context is that Matt had said in his interview that the judges liked him last week and yet he ended up in the bottom three) was nearly as uncomfortable as a racial slur. Kara is taking her "artistry" fixation and trying to make it work to her favor, and she failed. I do like her, though. Finally, Ryan's shtick with Lil Round's daughters was awkward, stupid, invasive and exploitative. Leave the kids out of it. Oh, really finally--the current David Spade is about as far removed from the David Spade people first got to know and like, as roided out Joe Piscopo was from the skinny, funny SNL Piscopo. Did Spade trade comedy for a big cock or what?

Batman: Private Casebook HC
Written by Paul Dini
Penciled by Dustin Nguyen. Inked by Derek Fridolfs
Published by DC Comics. $19.99 USD

Paul Dini has been something of an anomaly in comics for well over a decade now. His superlative Batman and Justice League cartoons (with Bruce Timm) gave him instant cred with comics fans once he tried his hand writing them, but, quite possibly due to having the lucrative and demanding television gigs, he really hasn't used his success to crowd the market with a lot of product. When Dini writes something, it's usually a bit of an event and feels like he did it because he wanted to do it.

Things have changed a little bit with a regular gig writing Detective Comics, as Dini has previously focused on one-off stories set in their own universe. This time he has to stay in accord with Grant Morrison's concurrent Batman series, as well as editorial decisions, and keep the scripts cranking every month. This led to the rather disjointed "Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul" storyline that crossed into the various Bat-related series. Picking up at the end of that story, Dini gets the last word, with Batman's cruel and not very clever method to, if not drive Ra's out of Gotham, at least render him harmless. This isn't the last time Batman expresses some guilt over tampering with or intruding on private information--a point explored brilliantly in the Dark Knight film, but Dini does nothing with these feelings, at least not in this volume. The complicated father-son material from the last storyline will confuses readers finding it touched on here for the first time, and so it's not a great beginning for the collection.

Next up is a seemingly halfhearted new crime spree from the Mad Hatter, but it turns out he's really under the mind control technology he created, now wielded by ambitious henchmen Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Dini seemed to read some Carroll for inspiration for his Hatter story, but came up a bit empty. Peter Milligan fills in with a story about the armor/costume Ra's gave him, which seems to inspire him to be more violent than usual. Considering that in the previous story he shocked one thug and then set off a small explosive with another--both in the face--his behavior here wouldn't be that noticeable if Batman himself hadn't been alarmed by it. Batman's search for the "terrible secret" behind the suit leads him to a small religious order in the French Alps, and the secret ends up being terrible if not very interesting. As a fill-in issue, it's fine, but points out a common weakness in those who write Detective--not being able to write very good mysteries. Batman analyzes some things but the answers lead him exactly where he needs to go, and further answers will require a bit of punching or wild coincidence.

Dini returns with a two-parter featuring Scarface and his new Ventriloquist, a smart but unlucky young woman with just the right mental illness to be able to take over Scarface when the old Ventriloquist is killed. With a couple issues to work, Dini finally gets cooking with some fun scenes with supervillain-turned-nightclub-owner Penguin, plus Batman teaming up with Zatanna. Dini obviously likes the character as he's written a one-shot before (he's also married to a magician), so it's not surprising he toys with the idea of bringing her up from second-tier character status by teasing the possibility of a romance with Batman. As Dini and Timm tried to pair Batman with Wonder Woman before, clearly Dini is not that interested in the 50 year old idea of Bats with Catwoman.

But just when one is thinking of the possibilities, Catwoman shows up in the next issue to act jealous and bounce away (hard to figure how she could possibly have known about Zatanna making a play for Batman as no one saw them), leaving Batman to investigate a gruesome case while trying to beat Riddler, who has reformed and become a TV sleuth. The idea of Batman in a detectives chatroom with an unknowing Riddler is amusing enough, but add obscure DC character Detective Chimp (with an online handle referencing old Today Show chimp J. Fred Muggs) and it's clear Dini is in his comfort zone. As with the Milligan-written issue, the actual detective work is tremendously coincidental, but one supposes it's difficult to wrap up a case in one issue without some short cuts. The final story is very short and tells of a bit of Halloween revenge exacted by Zatanna. It's a weak effort but features some nice art by Nguyen coloring himself. His art for the other stories shows he's developed a distinctive style, synthesize influences from Mignola and many others in a fresh way. Not altogether my cup of tea, but consistency and confidence go a long way. As for Dini, while his lows are not as low as a couple Morrison's hiccups on Batman, neither are his highs as high. Three of six issues here are good, the others okay. Depending on how much one likes Batman this is either a pleasant chapter or a forgettable one, but it's hard to imagine many readers ranking it very high for eiter a Batman or Dini project. Also, the washed-out palette on the cover is ghastly and the design is boring.

Labels: Catwoman, Dini, Mad Hatter, Nguyen, Ra's al Ghul

Anhedonia
Written by Alan David Doane. e-book

Before we go any further, it should be said that if it is true that we all have one book in us, then Alan David Doane's Strange Whine, from 2007, is his book. There are a few reviews, including at least one controversial one (the others just good, insightful, blah blah blah), an interview with probably the greatest comics writer in the medium's history, Alan Moore, several autobiographical pieces covering young Alan's history with comic books, his health, and departed friends, and several essays about what he demands from, hopes for, and despairs he is losing, from comics. It's a heavy, uncompromising, wise-yet-reckless, passionate mother of a book.

So what's left?

Well, when you're a writer with as distinct and commanding a voice as Alan's, there needn't be that much more. That is, what one finds in his latest collection of reviews and essays, Anhedonia, is Doane without the sturm und drang, for the most part. As he puts it in his Introduction, he thought that enough time had passed that it "might be fun to put together a second collection." And why not? Creative people change in various ways as they continue to work at their art or craft, but a common trajectory is to do more with less. Artists find they can achieve the same, perhaps better effect, with fewer strokes of the brush, while musicians may find the notes left out are as important as those played. In this somewhat slimmer collection, Doane plays variations on familiar themes that matter to him. And again, why not? As brilliant as he is, cartoonist Chris Ware essentially has one story to tell. As it's a good story, he can keep finding variations on it for the next fifty years if he so desires.

The first essay is indicative of a somewhat calmer, measured tone, as Doane writes drolly of his futile attempts to winnow his graphic novel collection down to "just the essentials." Any avid book reader will know the feeling: how does one fully represent the heights of one's tastes and passions within a limited room space? How does one keep only the most brilliant works within reach when there are always brand new classics or luxe new collections of old classics vying for that space, or maybe one just has a sudden yearning to read something that didn't make the cut and was packed away, or (horrors!) sold off or given away?

There follows a perfectly good review of the recent JLA Vol 1 by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter, one of a handful of near-genius works battling their way through editorial hurdles towards sublime, influential territory.

After this, Doane covers more recent Morrison writing in Batman: The Black Glove, a collection of serial comics stories, with the ones drawn by J.H. Williams III wondrous and the ones drawn by Tony G. Daniels mediocre, Morrison either rising to the occasion with Williams or saving an admitted dud for Daniels. Doane makes the ludicrous assertion that the book would be a better value with just the Williams-drawn issues. At worst, the Daniels issues are like the dvd bonus features for a great film: one watches them once and never again, with no real harm done to the movie itself.

Next are excellent reviews of Alison Bechdel's Essential Dykes To Watch Out For, Pascal Girard's Nicolas and Inio Asano's Solanin, the third significant in that Doane only rarely reviews manga, but Doane shows a knack for finding the small, human moments in each book.

After his fiery, profane sermon on the Mount for Daniel Clowes' Eightball #23, as featured in Strange Whine, Doane returns to Clowes with a review of the 2008 Special Edition of his first great work, Ghost World. This time, he has nothing but love for Clowes, his characters Rebecca and Enid, and the good memories the work evokes. Nostalgia isn't all bad.

Doane goes on to find a peak oil perspective in his review of Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars I couldn't see myself, but he really nails Christopher Nolan's film, The Dark Knight, in a review rivaling any of those well-paid newspaper or magazine critics. One has to feel Nolan dodged a bullet by presenting a brilliant but slightly flawed film--if Doane thought it was perfect, Nolan was in for trouble whenever he delivered the inevitably disappointing follow-up.

On the other hand, maybe Doane has mellowed somewhat, because he seems to have come to a less extreme opinion on writer Warren Ellis' work. Once he was brilliant, then a sellout spewing forth half-baked and reheated concepts, and now in Doane's review of New Thunderbolts Vol. 1 he can find pleasures in the solid craft and mean-spirited fun of this second tier Ellis corporate comics effort.

Doane finds parallel aims between a story in Yoshihiro Tatsumi's Good-Bye and Will Eisner's A Contract with God I wish I'd recognized, dammit. The guy's good. Also good is his essay on Charles Schulz' immensely popular '60s Pop Art book, Happiness Is A Warm Puppy, but better yet is his take on Blake Bell's Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko. It's a thankfully rare feeling--that sort of guilt that the art one loves so much caused great pain to its creator. Most of us don't think much about it, or choose not to, but that bittersweet twinge one might feel upon reading classic but personally devastating work like Amazing Spider-Man is a small price to pay for having it.

Lewis Black's Me of Little Faith sounds like it was created especially for Doane, but although I'm not really a fan, the review made me interested in checking it out. The next essay, "I Admit It: I Still Love Star Trek," is another Doane love letter, though perhaps the most commercial one. I've never cared much for Star Trek beyond the first series, but at least Doane has given me a reliable cosmic map if I ever want to more boldly go and all that.

"Bending the Comics" is another terrific tale of Young Alan's and his comics purchasing experiences, while "Forgotten Foods" was so fun, and revelatory, I believe I had to take part with my own list when this was first posted online. It's both nostalgic and curmudgeonly at the same time. Actually, reading it again raises all kinds of questions. The Doanes dined on filet mignon on a weekly basis, yet also resorted to budget-conscious meals like chipped beef on toast, Spam. Interesting to see that the vast majority of these forgotten foods are meat.

If I was a brighter guy, I'd have noticed how much more reflective this book is than the first. Aside from a few shots at the oil crisis and G.W. Bush, as one can see in the previous essays, Doane is often looking back here at favorite comics creators and their works, and this is continued in his review of Mark Evanier's Kirby: King of Comics as well as his memoriam for the late writer Steve Gerber. What I liked about that one is that, unlike so many critics and commentators, Doane doesn't just trot out the man's resume and toss out insincere hosannas for his work. He admits he didn't really "get" Gerber but wishes he had. To this writer, honesty is always the best policy, and critics are human and fallible. Sometimes we just don't get what everyone else thinks is great. Sometimes a respected artist dies and the opportunity to write an obituary is almost like a pop quiz for which we didn't study. Better to just admit your failings and engage the subject in whatever honest way one can.

"Two Beautiful Women and My Birthday" is a terrific autobiographical piece about a great evening out for Doane. As so many of his days seem filled with "disappointment and conflict," it's a pleasure to see the rare good one recounted, but even with no knowledge of Doane it's a fun piece. That description doesn't apply to "Like Every Other Night," which details a typical night for a Type 2 diabetic like Doane. Very well-written, although perhaps it should have preceded "Two Beautiful Women" so that the good vibes from that might last a little longer and carry on through the charming "Me and Tom Snyder," which is about exactly that.

After a charming "10 Things I Love About Comics," a kind of restorative treatment Doane undergoes every now and then, like Ra's al Ghul, he finds his old thunder in an indictment of this current era he dubs "The Fan Fiction Age of Superhero Comics." Although I had enough of the phrase, "narrative ass-rape," after the very first time he used it, it's hard to argue that many of the plotting decisions of several popular superhero writers reek of sordid, juvenile games kids play with action figures, or the kinds of fantasies they create around wholesome comics characters when they get a bit of the real world on their shoes and want to soil innocent entertainments with it. Or to put it yet another way, only mature people can really write mature comics, and they're in short supply.

"Remembering Bernard Krigstein" is a good enough piece for a day's blogging, but Doane has written more eloquently on Krigstein before. As the capper to a book it falls short enough that it should have come before the "Fan Fiction" piece--a rousing closer and reminder that no matter how much Doane may be looking back, he's still got one eye on what's good and bad in comics today.

Read more of Alan David Doane's writings on comics, movies, politics and life at his blog. One hopes the e-book collections continue every year or two.

Labels: Alan David Doane

Color of Rage
Story by Kazuo Koike.
Art by Seisaku Kano
Published by Dark Horse Comics. $14.95 USD

Color of Rage is a relatively obscure, brief effort from the author of LONE WOLF & CUB, SAMURAI EXECUTIONER and CRYING FREEMAN. It's not clear when this was created--it's copyright 2004 but reads more like the late '70s. Here's why:

For reasons unexplained, a Japanese man named George and a black American named King escape from a slave ship and wind up in Edo-era Japan. They travel from adventure to adventure, with King bandaging his face as the sight of a black man is so unusual it freaks everyone out. That's one of the plot points that seemed to offend some critics, but it seems plausible enough for the setting. Another bit that others found offensive was King seeing a couple having sex and getting excited enough to almost give away their hiding place. This does play with the stereotype of the hypersexed black man, intentionally or not, but it's a very small part of the story. In fact, Koike seeks to educate the reader on Edo culture, with the peasants and prostitutes almost as much slaves as King was. King and George evolve from fugitives to champions and seekers of a utopia at the end of the road where they can live in peace as brothers. Yes, it's as corny as that sounds, at times, but Koike never lets a speech go by without following it with a good sword fight or lurid scene or sex or torture. It's a pulp book with a conscience, and actually probably a little more sympathetic than the much-lauded and superior LONE WOLF in its portrayal of women. Well, it does have one horrible bitch get her comeuppance, but I liked that after lusting for a woman for days, once George compares the prostitutes to slaves, King's heart isn't in it and he takes a mental cold shower rather than be one more exploiter. As the book goes further, King inspires George to change his mind accordingly, and King ultimately makes a great sacrifice for his friend.

The book concludes with "Crybaby Ishimatsu," which has nothing to do with our heroes at all. It's a violent tale of revenge or standing up against bullies for a woman's honor, or how you should do it before that honor is gone, or...something. It's not very good. Kano's art is better in the main stories; he's got a more Western style in how he draws the main characters, while many of the others are more cartoonish. Action scenes are fine but stiff, nowhere near the grace of Koike's LONE WOLF artist, Goseki Kojima. Apparently this series didn't take off, as there's only the one volume, but while this is definitely not recommended as one's first introduction to Koike's work, it's still quite entertaining and has something to say. I think it's received a bit of a bad rap.

Labels: Kazuo Koike, Seisaku Kano

Sure, I'm going along good this week, but lest you think I'm going to be consistent with blogging again, keep these facts in mind:

1) I just changed my dry-erase refrigerator and desk blotter calendars to March this week.

2) My office at work has a framed Jordan Crane print and a hammer on the floor, just waiting for a laser level and nails to hang it up. The picture has been in my office on the floor for about a year, the hammer at least six months.

3) My freezer has contained my daughter's dead mouse for two months, waiting to be buried.

Omega The Unknown HC
Written by Jonathan Lethem and Karl Rusnak
Art by Farel Dalrymple with Paul Hornschemeier and Gary Panter. Colors by Paul Hornschemeier.
Published by Marvel Comics. $29.99 USD

I can't really blame Marvel. Here this talented novelist, Lethem, writes a terrific novel called FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, wherein the teenaged main character loves a well-intentioned, corporately crippled '70s Marvel comic called OMEGA THE UNKNOWN by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes, and the kid even develops his own superpowers. It was as good a superhero novel as Chabon's AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY, plus it had great stuff on '70s Manhattan, graffiti, music, drugs and avant-garde filmmaking. So it totally made sense that they would invite Lethem to try his hand at redoing or reinterpreting OMEGA and getting it right, without compromises or interference. At least, I'm guessing a version of that conversation took place--maybe Lethem made the first overture.

And Marvel was apparently so pleased at the impending media attention the book would get that they accepted Lethem bringing in another writer on the project, Rusnak, even if it meant they would have to keep his contribution vague so as not to confuse anyone. Dude doesn't even get a bio on the jacket.

Still, I like Lethem and while I wasn't so excited about the project I couldn't wait for the collection, when that came out I was only too happy to shell out for it. As expected, there's a little bit of bonus material like sketches and a back-and-forth between Lethem and Rusnak about the original series and where they wanted to jump off from that.

As for the series itself...hmm. To call it interesting sounds like mockery, because that's such an anti-critical word, but it really is pretty interesting. I don't think Lethem could have totally dropped the ball on this one, but it's difficult to judge the success of this one. Is it gripping and suspenseful? Not really. Good characterization? Sure, pretty good, though no one who will haunt you later. Funny? Frequently. Deep? Well...

The story is about a young man who learns in a car accident that his parents were robots built to protect him. He goes to school in the city and meets a girl who helps him adjust to his new environment and try to break out of his home-schooled, asocial personality. Although a genius, his lack of socialization at least means he isn't egotistical. Over the course of ten issues of comics, he develops powers, learns of his bond with an alien hero sent to save him from a nanotech invasion, and fights off a media darling, government approved jerk of a superhero called The Mink. What it all amounts to is a lighter variation on the coming of age story Lethem already nailed in FORTRESS, played a little more for laughs and with some ideas and images that are offbeat (a park statue as occasional narrator) but not as ominous or disturbing as some in the novel (using salt to kill the nanites was a sure sign Lethem wasn't after melodramatic superhero thrills). It's not an impersonal story but it does feel somewhat detached, and the personal bits are either deeply coded or amusing notes--I have no doubt the ubiquitous burger chain is called Butterdogs because the authors just liked saying it. It's hard to imagine a real burger establishment wanting either "butter" or "dog" in its name.

Farel Dalrymple's art is fairly good but problematic. Although a fan of his early indie efforts like Pop Gun War, here with fine-lined inking his figures are flat and awkward, and it's not easy for the eyes to immerse themselves in the art, despite decent storytelling and perspective and numerous attempts to set the action in real NYC locales. Often, he draws dot eyes or shadowy brows, so that it's harder to identify with the characters, and although there are few action scenes, it would have been nice if they carried at least a little jolt of excitement or broke from the traditional grid layouts a bit. Paul Horschemeier expends tremendous energy trying to warm up the art with a palette of rusts, browns and violets, and the art would be much less interesting without his involvement. Gary Panter's three pages of art that is supposed to have been drawn by the alien Omega himself is terrific, and one wishes Lethem and Rusnak had given Dalrymple some places to cut loose like this. It was the right idea not to pick a regular superhero comic artist but the book needed something more dramatic than Dalyrmple's style. When a giant hand with legs is neither horrifying nor bizarrely fascinating and just makes you think of the Hamburger Helper character, there's a problem. Not a failure of a book but a very minor success at best.

Labels: Farel Dalrymple, Jonathan Lethem, Omega the Unknown, Paul Hornschemeier, Steve Gerber

You know, the mere fact that I've found the time and energy to write about comics again makes me a little worried, like it signals the onset of some sort of mania and I'm going to really lose my shit soon. I almost want to prescribe just one or two posts a week because otherwise I might just go silent for another few months. Anyway, it was great that Tom Spurgeon actually noticed the little Captain America article I did, so thanks, Tom, and also thanks to pal Alan David Doane for also linking to it.

But back to Tom, who posted his usual thoughtful and hard-to-debate list of his Best Comics for 2008. I don't feel it useful to debate someone else's opinion on what's good, or maybe I should say that that's just not what I want to do right now and would probably enjoy it another time. Instead, a few thoughts on the piece.

1) As much as I agree that one could read nothing but archival editions and have a "strongly satisfying relationship with the art form," it also seems like dangerous thinking for a critic. Not a criticism of Spurgeon, who clearly is still very engaged with what's going on currently, just an observation. Another danger is to reward archival work too highly based on its presentation, or even just the fact it finally exists in a nice format. I wonder, is there something in the Noel Sickles' book I'm not already getting in Caniff's Terry and the Pirates? When you sign on for some of these archival series it's like sponsoring a child or something. I had to let Dennis the Menace go when I realized he was sending me the same letter over and over.

2) Spain's Che bio and should it have received more reviews/discussion. It actually seems that the fewer reviews on this one, the better, at least if Spain pays any attention to such things. I think all critics have their pet artists, bands, directors, what have you, and due to this or having a certain part of our brains locked into a certain era, we think that these creative folks are always going to be relevant or that they will perpetually merit at least some sort of notice. In my life, Spain has never meant anything. That's neither his fault nor mine; we just never connected on the couple of somewhat recent works of his I've read and I don't even know what is supposed to be his best or most accessible work. I just have come to the conclusion, and it ties in somewhat to the first point, that there's too much good stuff out there to even worry that much about what you've missed, nor should you be concerned with whether something should have gotten more attention. I mean, for better or worse, John Byrne was my go-to guy growing up. I can't pretend he's relevant now or that this or that current project should automatically get attention, no matter what pleasure he's brought readers in the past. I also realize that I will probably never turn anyone onto The Fall in any lasting, meaningful way, and that's okay. For me, the reason I didn't get the book is not only that I don't care for Spain's work, I don't care for Che Guevara, at least from what I know of him. Now, I am curious about the Soderbergh movie coming, especially since he's admitted he doesn't necessarily agree with Che's politics. It's easy to parse from the Spain reviews that while he may show some of Che's flaws, like a weakness for cigars and women, it's overall a pro-Che book. I'm more curious about Soderbergh's take, especially in that he has a lot more room for nuance in a three hour film than a short comic bio can achieve. As for whether John Porcellino's Thoreau book should have received more attention, I was more interested in that one but ultimately decided that I'd much rather see more new Porcellino comics and that boring, virginal Thoreau might drag him down. Also, while I mildly enjoyed the previous two Center for Cartoon Studies comics bios (Houdini and Satchel Paige), it felt a little like school, but school from which you'd long ago graduated. I'm pretty leery of the comics bio. It seems like a pretty restrictive genre, especially when geared towards young adults like these are. Only Tezuka's lengthy and highly dramatized Buddha has really worked for me, and maybe that Nick Bertozzi Salon thing about young Picasso.

3) Spurgeon's comment on Cul de Sac and his dismay over the collapse of the newspaper comic strip is the heart of the piece. He's unfailingly honest but rarely this emotional (although the phrase "more than I'd care to admit" never really made sense to me, because that's the admission right there. Still, that's one of the keys to why he's so good. If you're really engaged with comics, then not only are you considering the work but you have to live and die a little with the people making it.

Labels: Che Guevara, John Porcellino, Nick Bertozzi, Noel Sickles, Scorchy Smith, Spain Rodriguez, Tom Spurgeon

Diana Prince: Wonder Woman Vol. One TPB
Written by Denny O'Neil and Mike Sekowsky
Pencilled by Mike Sekowsky. Inked by Dick Giordano
Published by DC Comics. $19.99 USD

The reading of this book actually brought about something of a change in my comics-buying habits. Let's come back to that in a moment.

This volume collects the first seven sort of infamous issues of Wonder Woman, where she decided to hang up both her star spangled costume and her drab military uniform, and become something of a happening hippy chick. Dick Giordano had left Charlton to become an editor at DC and brought Denny O'Neil along, and it was apparently O'Neil's idea to try to make her more hip and to also make her changing fashions a new gimmick to help sell the book. It starts out decently enough, with her boyfriend Steve Trevor on trial for murder and Diana getting the new clothes in order to blend into the scene and try to prove his innocence. Sekowsky has some enjoyably kitschy layouts but grounds them in solid draftsmanship. I also wasn't quite prepared for some of the Gil Kane angles and near-3D effects, which are pretty impressive. Not so impressive is the turn the story takes with the arrival of diminutive martial arts master I Ching, but aside from the horrendous name he's relatively inoffensive. O'Neil's story (he writes just the first four issues) is a kind of spy story, with Diana, Ching and crude detective Tim Trench pursue evil genius Dr. Cyber. Mike Sekowsky wraps up the fifth and final issue of that storyline, though after some fun with a second new love interest for Diana betraying her, as well as a femme fatale and some Bondian action sequences, it sort of peters out to allow Cyber to escape to pester Diana again another day. Sekowsky continues as writer for the next two issues, a weakly linked two-parter involving Ares, God of War and then some Valkyries, but even though she's still in hip attire, getting her back on Paradise Island seems to be a momentum-killing step backwards for the book.

So why did I pick this thing up? Well, I've always been one who wants to be in the know, at least as far as comics history. I remember reading somewhere that there was a big change in direction for Wonder Woman in the '60s where she ditched her costume, and wanted to see what that was all about, just like one wants to read, say, the horrible Brother Power, the Geek or that bad comic where Dracula was a superhero. Just '60s kitsch/trash. And after reading this, which wasn't trash but also far from essential, I realized that life is getting far too short to waste a lot of time on stuff like this. I mean, I've never really even liked Wonder Woman all that much, so what was I expecting? That Mike Sekowsky drawing her like Marlo Thomas in That Girl would make it all click?

Labels: Dennis O'Neil, Mike Sekowsky, Wonder Woman

The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard
Story by Eddie Campbell and Dan Best. Art by Eddie Campbell
First Second Books. $16.95 USD
It took me quite a while to get through this book. Not because it's long or taxing but because it's seeming slightness and episodic nature make it really easy to put down. In fact, I only just now finished because I felt like getting it over with--knocking out what was shaping up to be something of a ho-hum review of an otherwise rather acclaimed book. Hey, I'm just being honest.

The funny thing is, in its latter stages it actually came together for me, and that was because I realized I was looking for it to be something it's not. Or at least, it's not for me. A lighthearted adventure book, that is. Nor is it a comedy, unless one extends the definition to a comedy of suffering. Initially, I thought Campbell was sort of blowing it. It was kind of whimsical but there was no snap. The hand-lettering seemed to undercut the jaunty bounce I thought was intended...episodes meandered or struck minor chords with little relation to each other. But by the end, it became clear that that was the point. Although there were plenty of legitimately amazing, remarkable events and characters in Leotard's life, there were as many failures, qualified or exaggerated successes, mistakes and missed connections as any of us, and like many of us, he dies alone. It's not a depressing book, though, and that seems to be due to Campbell's talents. There are enough light touches, sly gags and just plain beautiful scenes (the Titanic is wonderful) to keep it from being dreary. In fact, it's hard to imagine many other cartoonists even attempting a marriage of whimsy and melancholy, much less succeeding at it.

Labels: Eddie Campbell, Monsieur Leotard

No overarching theme (well, this happens to be all about Captain America, but no promises on next time) or concept here beyond that nagging bug to occasionally "review" stuff I've been into lately, like:

Captain America Omnibus Vol. 1 - I know, it's not like this is new material--looks like Ed Brubaker and Co have almost enough issues under their beltsl now for a second Omnibus. Having read about a third of this not long after it came out, I was itching to get back into the story, and it didn't disappoint. The second reading of the beginnings of this huge story involving maybe the best Red Skull scheme ever, plus the honest-to-goodness return of Cap's WWII sidekick Bucky Barnes, as well as rekindled romance with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter and Marvel's Civil War fallout, this book represents what may very well be the best Cap run of all time. In fact, with the WWII flashbacks, gritty art from Steve Epting and Mike Perkins, and the more mature characterization and plotting suitable to the solider who's seen it all, aside from the old school fun of the Kirby runs and the attempts at relevance from Steve Englehart, there's not much other Cap you need. This volume includes Captain America #1-25 plus the 65th Anniversary Special and the Winter Soldier: Winter Kills one-shot, the former a decent WWII story with some Kirbyesque art and the latter a terrific showcase for the legacy and current relevance of Buck Barnes. There's also some good Marvel Spotlight interview material with Brubaker, an Epting interview, and the Issue #25 "Director's Cut" Brubaker script and commentary. There's very little Brubaker work I haven't enjoyed, but whereas on paper one might have questioned whether he could invest himself as fully to the Red, White and Blue Avenger as he has to his creator-owned work, he shows from the first issue that he has a grand plan, and deep affection, for the characters, which nonetheless doesn't deter him from bringing them into this century. I don't have a tremendous amount of free time but was compelled to read this big book in a couple days. $74.99 USD. Marvel Comics.

Captain America and The Falcon: Nomad TPB - Despite what I wrote above, I spied this paperback in a stack of unread books in my office and started reading it in breaks between day-job stuff today. I still haven't read the heart of Steve Englehart's run on the book, but this trade, collecting ten issues starting just after Captain America hung up his shield, held some curiosity as it covers his brief time as costumed adventurer Nomad, a choice he makes after first alienating his then-partner Falcon and others. Steve Rogers actually takes to a normal life for a while, dating Sharon Carter with regularity, before a disguised Hawkeye (as fake villain The Golden Archer) convinces him he really can't give up the superhero life and that the antidote is to just start up a new identity. Thus, Nomad is born, in a '70s open chested outfit that borders on ridiculous, while at the same time being pretty pedestrian. Hey, it's hard to beat the Captain America attire, or by 1975, to even come close. Englehart's strength, or at least what set him apart in this era, was in a somewhat more realistic approach to the characters and the world around them. Cap gives up being Cap due to an evil conspiracy stemming from The President down, a simplistic metaphor for the malaise the people were in during the Watergate scandal. More realistically, Cap, like the Englehart-written Batman of the late '70s, actually seems to get laid, for all the '40s values with which other writers would saddle him. Englehart's plotting is nothing special, and indeed there are some really questionable coincidences, such as The Falcon being in the perfect place to find Lucifer busting Aries out of prison, seeing Gabe Jones squiring Peggy Carter around town, etc. More questionable are his choices to have Cap try to track down the missing Falcon by looking for Luke Cage, just because Cage is also black, and to have Falcon's girlfriend rip into Cap and then call Falcon an Uncle Tom. I give him credit for introducing Gabe and Peggy as one of the first interracial couples in the Marvel Universe, and suspect it was editorial fiat to not quote show them kiss on the lips. Whether having Falcon fail in his solo outings and gladly fall back into his role as Cap's partner, or to have Falcon--one of the few black superheroes--be revealed as a pawn of the Red Skull, are lamentable choices are up for debate. For that matter, the portrayals of both Peggy and Sharon Carter are perhaps too emotional and it's all too easy to forget these are secret agents who have seen lots of death and should know how to compartmentalize those emotions. All in all, I guess we give Englehart props for at least introducing some issues in these comics, if not quite having the skill and subtlety to deal with them properly. The collection editor, Mark D. Beazley, wisely chooses a couple choice Gil Kane covers for the front and back covers, and with the digital recoloring they add a moodiness and gravity the interior art can't hope to convey. Sal Buscema is never less than competent, but rarely more, Herb Trimpe even more generic, and Frank Robbins anything but, but also a very mixed bag--always dynamic but stylistically off-putting. A mildly diverting, ultimately rather dated series of adventures. In spite of (or perhaps because of), their lack of any attempt at depth or relevance, the collections of Jack Kirby issues (Madbomb, Bicentennial Battles, The Swine) following the Englehart run are much more fun.

Finally, a few words on the new Marvel Universe line of 3.75" action figures from Hasbro. I'm a fan of action figures but as much as I like to look at them, I rarely buy any of the bigger lines. I just can't justify $15 or more on the things, unless it's a special one for my son. The only line I've got a lot of are the 3.75" Justice League Unlimited figures, and even with those I've resisted the big bucks on the hard-to-find ones. But at Target the other day, my kids and I spotted this new Marvel Universe line and I had to get some. Only $7.99 and good designs, along with a little S.H.I.E.L.D. file that contains a facsimile memo about the superpowered character in question and a code to enter online for more information (although much of these files don't appear to be ready to be "declassified" by Nick Fury yet). I think there are seventeen, with Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, Stealth Ops Iron Man (blue armor), Hulk, Gray Hulk (almost the same except for different hands, I think), Daredevil, Iron Fist (somewhat unusual choice for a first wave, but looks cool), Black Panther, Punisher, Ronin, Human Torch, Human Torch (Johnny Storm with just his hand aflame), Silver Surfer, Bullseye, Green Goblin and Wolverine (in a gray/black suit, with both a samurai sword and machine gun, for some reason). They're going pretty quickly. The plus side is they all look good for their size and other than a couple quirks like the Wolverine costume and choice of weapons/attachments, there's nothing that will make you say, "that's not how the character looks at all!" The choice for two versions of Iron Man, Hulk and Torch, and the use of more obscure characters like Ronin or Iron Fist instead of seeming front-runners like The Thing, Doctor Doom or Thor suggests Hasbro has big plans for the line, and given the economy, it probably makes sense to go big on the lower-priced figures. My complaint would be that range of movement is pretty limited, moreso than on same-sized lines like Star Wars or G.I. Joe. For instance, Silver Surfer can stand on his board, but he can't squat or sit or do much else. Also, most characters have ineffectual hands; that is, already closed into fists or open enough between thumb and forefinger that they couldn't hold anything if they wanted to. Uh, if YOU wanted them to, I mean. But characters with weapons seem to be okay. The other complaint would be the lack of villain characters so far, but that's a pretty common complaint for a new superhero line. Again, on the plus side, the design is good enough that in looking at the thumbnails online you might mistake some, like the Surfer or Cap, for their larger counterparts. Cap also has a nice shield that not only snaps to his forearm but has elastic straps so it can be worn on his back.

Labels: action figures, Captain America, Ed Brubaker, Falcon, Frank Robbins, Herb Trimpe, Marvel, Marvel Universe, Mike Perkins, Nomad, Red Skull, Sal Buscema, Steve Englehart, Steve Epting

So here's the thing. I have always been a guy to sort of throw myself into something without thinking it through. What happened in the last couple days is I received an email from a student teacher who liked a Watchmen review I did once at Comic Book Galaxy and wants to teach the book to his tenth grade students utilizing some of my observations, which is really flattering and cool. Not sure how else to help him yet but I'm thinking about it. But this request led me back to looking at the very nicely designed old Breakdowns columns I used to do at CBG (also a year's worth or so at MoviePoopShoot though probably long gone from their archives). I actually kind of like reading that old stuff, though it's a little depressing realizing that I don't have that kind of design aesthetic here, nor have I really put that kind of effort into my review stuff here, for the most part. I mean, the reviews probably aren't all that different; I just don't have the snarky comics commentary anymore, which is probably just as well because it's embarrassing to look back at silly things like battling with Larry Young over this or that.

Anyway, having not only refreshed myself with some old columns (you can read more by substituting the number _401.html in the address above and going from there up to _429.html), I had a day off today and found I'd received a big box of graphic novels and comics, so add to that the pile of stuff I've read in the past couple months needing to be reviewed, and it seems like maybe a good time to do a sort of column again, at least on a semiregular basis. I can't promise there will be a lot of commentary because I don't pay as much attention to the industry as I used to and just don't have as much venom. But I do still like reviewing comics. So here goes:

I Am Going To Be Small by Jeffery Brown. Top Shelf Productions. $14.00 USD.
Picked this up in a recent Top Shelf online clearance sale; I think it's the only Brown book I didn't have. And, aside from that cute one for cat owners, this is maybe his worst. There are several amusing gags here, but then, there are hundreds of gags, so the hit ratio should be a lot higher. Unfortunately, Brown seems to know this is very lightweight material, many of the jokes being commonplace, so he throws everything in here with the only evidence of editing being to occasionally place similarly-themed strips side by side. To his credit, Brown does try a number of different approaches, sometimes hitting on some absurdist gags and some consumerist satire, but he's generally more successful in strips in which a version of him appears. In these strips, Brown sends himself up as a callow womanizer mining his relationships for his work. These strips are pretty funny, and also a lot more original and unique than the blackout gags involving vomit, dismemberment and anthropomorphic animals. Although not without its charms, this book is only for the hardcore fan.

Boy's Club by Matt Furie. Fantagraphics Books. $4.95 USD
After some creepy mini-comics in a more densely textured style, Furie goes in more of a surreal Gahan Wilson direction with these slight strips about four roommates, including a frog and an eyeless furry thing named Landwolf, who eat pizza, play videogames and smoke lots of pot. Love the art, but just making these characters animals doesn't actually give this work any more substance, so it's not really a bargain. If he can develop it a little more he might have something.

Justice Society of America Annual #1 Written by Geoff Johns/Penciled by Jerry Ordway/Inked by Bob Wiacek. Published by DC Comics. $3.99 USD.
When you've been reading superhero comics for at least a decade (three decades for me), you find that you will sometimes be faced with purchasing comics you're not all that interested in just because you like the artist, or the writer. Like, there's a good chance I'll buy almost anything with Bill Sienkiewicz, or Paul Smith, or Kevin Nowlan doing the art. Steve Rude hasn't had a really great book since Nexus--some good ones, nothing I would call great. Add to that list Jerry Ordway, who was never quite in the level of those guys, partly because he spent a longer period as a monthly penciler on crappy newsprint. But make no mistake, Ordway's always been an excellent superhero artist, and this annual is a wonderful showcase for his work, giving him the opportunity to draw the Earth-1 JSA/Infinity, Inc. crew. Delightful old school feathering in the inks, clear storytelling and nothing tawdry or gratuitous in the story. The story is piffle, and worse than that, a not-really-self-contained story that really just leads the reader back to the monthly JSA book, but Ordway makes if fun while it lasts.

The Alcoholic Written by Jonathan Ames/Art by Dean Haspiel. Published by Vertigo Comics. $19.99 USD.
This graphic novel finds Haspiel, fairly fresh off Harvey Pekar's The Quitter, back in the role of depicting a writer's early days. In this case, Ames has added a thin layer of fiction--his Jonathan A character ends up writing a series of detective novels and presumably some incidents and characters are invented or exaggerated. But you wouldn't really know it, because Ames displays such an assured tone and some of the details are so peculiar they almost had to come from real life, like when Jonathan buries himself in sand under the boardwalk to hide from police, or when he wakes him naked in a trashcan. Haspiel is a good choice here because he's a clean storyteller who gives plenty of room for Ames' narration, but also knows how to really sell each scene with big facial expressions and body language. He gets the comedy across without being too goofy about it, essentially.

It is a story only partially about the hard-drinking life of a writer. To be more accurate, it's the hard life of a writer, with lots of drinking involved and making it harder. But Ames is very aware his difficulties are mostly self-created; he comes from a loving family of some means. The core of his drinking is his insecurity and pain over the end of his friendship with Sal back in high school. Though there are some very funny misadventures for Jonathan throughout the novel, it's this sincere, tender, mostly platonic love Jonathan has for Sal that makes the book so poignant. Not surprisingly, Vertigo has made little of this central theme of the book in favor of selling it as the wild times of a drunk author. One thing they've done well, however, is to package this like a real novel, with non-comics art and photography on the jacket and blurbs from respected writers and performers. This one has some real crossover potential.

Justice League International Vol. 1. Written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. Penciled by Kevin Maguire. Inked by Al Gordon and Terry Austin. DC Comics. $24.99 USD.
The late '80s are often spoken of as the era of "grim 'n gritty" comics, with writers like Alan Moore and Frank Miller exploring the violent and sexual pathology of costumed heroes and villains in influential works such as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. But for every movement, there is an opposite movement, and into this darkening era stepped Keith Giffen, no stranger to darkness such as his work in Legion of Superheroes, and J.M. DeMatteis, known for grim and psychologically-themed work such as the "Kraven's Last Hunt" storyline in the Spider-Man books and the vampire tale, Blood. So while one might have expected a little more of the same, or at least something serious-minded when dealing with DC's big team franchise book, the writers instead went in a humorous direction, playing up the undeserved arrogance of Green Lantern Guy Gardner, and, well...that's most of what they get to in this collection of the first seven issues, at least as far as characterization.

That was the funny thing about reading this: I had remembered it quite differently after not reading these stories for the past twenty years. Sure, one remembers that Guy is a jerk and the rest of the League doesn't like him, and that Batman quite memorably puts him in his place with one punch. And Morgan Edge is a slimeball multimillionaire who seeks to control the League for his own aggrandizement, conning the heroes into accepting new members such as Doctor Light and Booster Gold. But a lot of it I'd remembered based on later issues. Here, Blue Beetle's insecurity and humor haven't developed yet, nor has the silliness behind the stoic Martian Manhunter been exploited yet. To be fair, the writers were not given their choice of team members and are just trying to find their feet and do the best they can to get a handle on the characters, but still, that doesn't completely excuse how little is done with Doctor Fate, Doctor Light, Mister Miracle or Black Canary, and how the charming naivete of Captain Marvel is mined for only an issue or two until he gets fed up and quits the team. That makes for a good story, but at the same time feels like an opportunity lost.

Mainly, Giffen and DeMatteis squeeze in lots of team member bickering and hammy villain shtick between some fairly standard but entertaining superhero plots. One story about a terrorist, where Batman shames the guy into committing suicide off-panel, rings a dark, out-of-place note for this series, and while there would be more deaths not long after, and tales such as the "Grey Man" story present a melancholic change of pace, the sense that the book's comedic aspects would take over is pretty evident early on.

Kevin Maguire was an unknown when given the reins of this flagship title. Seems amazing now, but one has to realize that at the time, the Justice League was coming out of a dismal period, and this relaunch was approached seemingly with the attitude that any dramatic change was good, or at least that it couldn't be any worse than what had just gone before. Maguire became a fan favorite virtually overnight on this book, doing action scenes well enough but his real weapon being his facility with facial expressions, most of them exaggerated but realistic, and just plain funny. It was a novelty then, just seeing a superhero chew on his lip or look as scared as a little boy, but the work holds up very well, especially in a time when many popular artists can only draw characters grimacing in rage and pain.

Although this volume does show a book going through growing pains and trying to find its tone and character dynamics, it still presents a number of solid superhero stories created with wit and flair and a feeling that all involved are really having fun sparking ideas with each other.

Labels: alcoholic, giffen, haspiel, Jeffery brown, jonathan ames, justice league, justice society, maguire, ordway

Captain America: Operation Rebirth TPB
Written by Mark Waid
Penciled by Ron Garney and Pino Rinaldi
Inked by Scott Koblish
Published by Marvel Comics. $29.99 USD

Although there was previously a trade paperback with the same name, please note this new printing contains not just the "Operation Rebirth" storyline, but also "Man Without a Country," the second and final arc in the first Waid/Garney run on the series, from 1996. "Operation Rebirth" starts with Captain America disappeared and presumed dead after entering a hospital due to the super soldier serum given to him in WWII finally breaking down in his body and poisoning him. One of Waid's strengths, especially with superheroes of some gravitas like Cap, is to give them a big entrance. In this case, Cap doesn't even show up in the first chapter, a group of not-so-tight Avengers having to take inspiration from him to take down some terrorists without getting the President killed. A solid start, as long as one excuses some of the ridiculous mid-'90s hairstyles and costumes. Who thought Greek god Hercules would look better with stubble and a tank top?

Once the real story gets under way, we find not only a Captain America forced to fight alongside archenemy the Red Skull against a common foe--a still alive Hitler stuck in the Cosmic Cube, an object familiar to longtime Cap readers--but with presumed-dead old girlfriend and former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Sharon Carter completing the trio. I suppose I've just dropped the big surprises in this story, but hey, it's twelve years old. Although Sharon is now so harsh and cynical she's pretty unappealing, the story is suspenseful and entertaining. Cap is such a straight arrow that Waid doesn't know quite how to right him other than extremely focused, serious, and adaptable, but the Skull is pretty fun, and Waid does give Cap a good scene that shows his selflessness.

Although very capable on the first arc, artist Garney comes more into his own on "Man Without a Country," toning down some of the '90s excess (although there are some poor color and lettering choices that aren't his fault) and getting his style a little grittier, as well as drawing a not-bad likeness of President Clinton, who banishes Cap from the USA for suspicion of treason after reports come in about his teaming with the Red Skull. There's a scene where Cap is briefly devastated by this turn of events, but Waid doesn't seem convinced himself that Cap would ever lose heart, and he has Sharon get him on the move again very quickly. Essentially the story is about Cap finding old foe and sometime Skull partner Machinesmith, in order to clear Cap's name. Although still brisk and enjoyable, the story wants for some dramatic sequences and setpieces; it's hard to really remember the settings after one reads it. Waid also brings us up to speed on what Sharon has been doing all this time, and it's fine, though one wonders if there are any female characters in the Marvel Universe who haven't gone through periods of terrible degradation and torture.

The Waid/Garney run was cut short here, making way for the "Heroes Reborn" era, where Marvel threw in the creative towel and subcontracted several of their books to hot Image Comics creators, Cap being put in the laughably incapable hands of Rob Liefeld. Waid and Garney picked up the reins again after this all went away, to somewhat less acclaim, although I preferred that run, and some of its flaws can be attributed to editorial interference. One hopes that run is collected soon.

Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko
Written by Blake Bell
Published by Fantagraphics Books. $39.99 USD

Steve Ditko was one of my earliest artistic heroes, and one of the first artistic styles I recognized. While I started reading comics in the mid-'70s, after Ditko had left Marvel Comics, his was still one of the first versions of Spider-Man I encountered, as I had the Pocket Books collections of his and Stan Lee's first 18 issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Although I had yet to experience adolescence and all its awkwardness and self-doubt and horrible transformations, I was still plenty awkward and picked-on with my glasses and overbite, so I immediately identified with Peter Parker as depicted by Ditko. Not long after, I found a collection of John Romita, Sr.'s take on the character, which, while "an abomination" to author Bell for its abrupt changing of the status quo so that Peter Parker was now an accepted part of the gang, it was actually a source of comfort for me. It meant that no matter how out-of-place I felt at the time, things might just get better, at least in short bursts, as they did for Peter.

There was no such escape for Steve Ditko. A shy man of strict principles only made more rigid by his increasing identification with the Objectivist philosophy of Atlas Shrugged author Ayn Rand, Ditko was an iconoclast auteur in the comics industry, an industry built on compromise and downright exploitation, where there were few auteurs and the publishers and packagers held the power, the creators largely nameless and interchangeable.

Despite the conditions Ditko was working under in the '50s and '60s, he produced a mountain of dynamic, idiosyncratic work. For Charlton Comics he enjoyed above average creative freedom for below average pay, the volume he had to produce to make a living resulting in quickly refined work of high quality. For Timely/Marvel Comics, he got into a groove with science fiction stories scripted by Stan Lee, and then the two created the characters for which Ditko is most known: Spider-Man and Dr. Strange. For the latter, the straitlaced Ditko became a counterculture hero for the bizarre dimensions he depicted. When Steve Ditko left Marvel, his relationship with Stan Lee no longer tolerable, he left behind a body of work that would have justified a biography if he never drew another page.

But Ditko has become more legendary for being the man who walked away from the fame and fortune his creations would have brought him if he had been more willing to compromise, to play the game. Bell presents as much of Ditko's story as he or probably anyone is able. Ditko is notoriously reclusive, though unlike other legendary creative hermits like J.D. Salinger, Ditko has been quick to address any wrongs or slanders he feels have been perpetrated against him, through essays and letters to editors. This makes a biography a daunting task, and one feels for Bell, who had to know that no matter how respectful he was in his book towards Ditko, it was almost certain that Ditko wouldn't be happy with the result. In fact, it seems Ditko took umbrage at the title and cover of the book before even seeing a draft.

But make no mistake, Bell's work here is of impeccable scholarship and intellectual integrity. There is no dirt on Ditko here; the short section on Ditko sharing a studio and collaborating in the late '50s to late '60s with noted fetish artist Eric Stanton is only presented because it, like everything else covered here, was part of Ditko's career, and it's one of the few examples of the upright Ditko ever lying about anything, in this case his complete denial of being involved in inking Stanton's work on some mildly racy bondage comics that bear his unmistakable inking style.

The book surges along on the strength of the carefully selected Ditko artwork, much of it I'd never seen before from his pre-Marvel days and his beautiful wash and charcoal efforts for Warren's Creepy and Eerie magazines and the Charlton and DC heroes Ditko created like The Question, Captain Atom and Blue Beetle, but one knows there's not really a happy ending here. Well, to be more fair, no one really knows whether Ditko is happy or not living as he does. Aside from his vituperative missives he may be having a good time. What we know is that it's a life he chose. There is a parallel with the use of the Mr. A stories--a Randian vigilante who doesn't believe in forgiveness or rehabilitation--where Ditko's storytelling prowess deteriorates as he becomes more interested in preaching than in drawing a compelling yarn. The stiff figures and overcrowded word balloons are depressing; I had a similar experience reading some text-clogged Ivan Brunetti comics where it was clear emotional problems had caused him not to see how the comics were suffering. My first thought was to say that Bell pulls no punches in criticizing the late-period Ditko material, but in fact I think he does, a little, or at least mitigates the critical tone with digressions to highlight some minor late triumphs.

The Lee/Ditko Spider-Man work had a significant effect on the man I became, at least some of the good parts, and for that I'm grateful. I remembered in '89 or whenever it came out, I bought Ditko's Marvel series, Speedball, as a small way of showing that gratitude. It wasn't a good book, and that Ditko would draw '80s men walking around in suits and fedoras showed him to be hopelessly out of touch with everyday life, and yet it wasn't a great expense for me to buy it and there were some flashes of his old style there. But while I'm kind of pleased I did that, I also realize that as an adult one has to be true to oneself, and to uphold truth, despite the cost. It's unfortunate that Ditko is unable to recognize the service Bell has done him and his work with this thoughtful biography and analysis, but for Bell to present an incomplete or rosier picture would have been a crime worse than those committed by some of Mr. A's antagonists, and ironically, an example of the altruism Ditko so despises. A no-win situation for Bell as far his relationship with Ditko, but the book is definitely a winner.

Criminal Vol. 3: The Dead and the Dying TPB
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Phillips
Published by Marvel Comics. $11.99 USD

Some people think that critics derive great pleasure from being negative, from tearing up an author and their work, and that may be true of some. Aside from getting a chuckle at a well-turned snarky phrase, I really don't get that pleasure, but I will admit that the negative review is a lot easier to write than the wholly positive review. And that brings me to this latest Criminal edition, which I can't do anything but praise. This is my favorite comics series currently being published, Ed Brubaker one of my favorite contemporary writers, and Sean Phillips one of my favorite contemporary artists. And they, and the series, is just getting better.

This short arc of three stories is set in 1972 and is a variation on Rashomon storytelling--each story is told from a different character's point of view and self-contained, but they all concern some of the same people and events, like a youngish crime boss, his ruined and treacherous girlfriend, and a big score. In the first story, we meet the crime boss' old friend, who gave up the girl to her in his past and regrets the effect it had on her life. Next we meet the scion of the Lawless family seen in previous volumes, the violent, rudderless Vietnam vet Teeg Lawless, who needs to make a big score fast and alters (or ends) several lives to make up for his mistake, and finally we meet the girl, Danica, wounded but tough, with just a sliver of tenderness left, and it's no match for her vengeful and self-destructive impulses. Phillips sets the early '70s scene perfectly, with wonderful pulp paperback-style covers as good as anything he's done. And while Jake the boxer may be the most purely good character in this world, Brubaker is able to find the humanity in even the monstrous Teeg, and a large amount of poetry amid the brutality. There is a feeling that Jake, Danica and Teeg are all living on borrowed time, dead inside to varying degrees, and yet it doesn't make one care any less about what happens to them.

The title refers to a cocktail I made for a dinner party at a friend's Friday night, a female coworker (married) whom I've been friendly with for a year or so but never really socialized with. She and her husband had a small group of coworkers over, and it turned out to be a lot of fun, even with a grueling fifteen minutes or so where a comment from me led to having to reveal a particularly unflattering anecdote. But then, what are friends for?

The Stormy Weather is rougly 1 oz of dark rum (not white, not spiced) over about 5 oz. of ginger beer (not ginger ale, which tends to be too sweet and not gingery enough), and a healthy splash of lime juice. Very refreshing and not all that strong, as ginger beer is just as nonalcoholic as ginger ale. It was kind of a hit at the party.

Good group of people there, though an odd and yet warm end to the night, as a nice, cheerful, morally upright woman and I were given romantic advice from our host and hostess. I only describe her thus because those adjectives apply and I think her upbringing had led her into being used a bit by a man or two, not in really ugly ways, just that her helpful nature was being exploited. It was really nice to meet her, though, and hopefully my coworkers and I will continue to socialize, as I realized at the party that although I'm pretty well-liked, I don't really hang out enough outside of work with these people.

Watched a short documentary on The Pet Shop Boys, which, as music documentaries often attempt to do, places them in a more influential context than I'd probably considered. More importantly, it reminded me I still liked a lot of their music pretty well, and that there's nothing wrong with it. To be clear, I don't mean that it's homoerotic or anything, just that one style of music that hasn't stayed with me that strongly is the very smooth, precise, mannered synthpop. I tend to like more of an edge, weirder sounds and beats. But it's pretty hard to knock their melodies and lyrics, and I respect that as their hitmaking ability has mostly left them, or tastes have changed, they have pushed their music into other areas to stay relevant, such as their musical and their score for silent classic Battleship Potemkin.

Finally, it must be old home week or something. My old high school friend JoAnn, one of the few with whom I've kept in touch, was visiting relatives in San Diego last week, and I saw her one night at their house at the last minute for a nice chat and a tour through her 20th reunion website. She was a year younger, but I did remember quite a few of her classmates. That made me register for my own alumni site (1987), which unfortunately had only seven other registrants, but one of them was another old friend named Tracie. We grew up a few blocks from each other in Illinois and were friends from about third grade through high school, though I can't recall why we didn't stay in touch after that. Knowing me, I probably just never got her info and let it go at that. I have a memory of being nine or ten and swimming with her in a neighbor's cold, dirty aboveground pool. I'm pretty sure she was my first African-American friend, and probably my first female friend as well. She was always cooler and more mature than me, and she fostered my interest in British New Wave and synthpop beyond the Depeche Mode and Duran Durans that everyone knew about and on into Bauhaus, Japan, Specimen, Cabaret Voltaire and more, some of which I gobbled up and some I wasn't ready for. She also was a talented keyboardist and even played a little on some early recordings of mine, probably the closest things to professional I did, even as rough as they were.

Well, I noticed on the site that she and her husband are now living in San Diego, too, after living in Reyjkavik. What are the odds? We've exchanged some emails this weekend but I have yet to call her. I want to get a few things done first, and to be honest, I'm slightly nervous about it, though she still seems to be her great old self. You just want it to be perfect, you know?

Achewood: The Great Outdoor Fight
By Chris Onstad
Published by Dark Horse Comics. $14.95 USD

This was an odd experience. I'm not what you'd call an Achewood fan, as I don't read the webcomic regularly at all, but I've seen chunks of it and have enjoyed it. When I was an Eisner Awards judge in 2006 I'm sure I rated it highly as a possible award winner (though honestly I don't remember who won). Anyway, when I ordered this I figured it was just a collection of the webcomics, but it appears Dark Horse hired Onstad to come up with a new, book-length adventure, judging by the varying page layouts and quiet, gagless portions. The story goes that Ray, who I guess is the scam artist of the cast, discovers his father was the 1973 winner of the Great Outdoor Fight, a kind of last man standing annual contest that has been going on for decades, so Ray decides to use his blood connection to get in on this year's fight, aided by his pal, Roast Beef. With cunning, mental cruelty and not a little bit of legitimate asskicking, Ray finds himself defeating man after man, and I'll leave it at that.

Now, I didn't hold it against Onstad that his Introduction and The Beginning text pieces about the history of this fictional fight were very tedious and self-indulgent. If one of you readers makes it through even the second page of The Beginning, you're stronger than me. But really, that's fine. The guy gets a book and gets a little carried away. No problem.

And honestly, for much of the book I was enjoying it. Although Onstad's lack of punctuation in his word balloons is a little annoying, both Ray and Roast Beef are very funny, both what they say and the rich patois in which they say it. The best parts are where they figure out the weaknesses of various fighters and exploit them. But at some point, the story gets away from Onstad. It may be sort of the problem with the recent film Pineapple Express, where the violence and comedy don't sit that well with each other, but I think it's more that an easily-winning, actually pretty tough Ray is just not that interesting. There's not much to fight against or root for, and the cutaways to the other characters at home are as distracting and unsatisfying as the flaming Jeep climax is just overblown action without the comedy. It felt like Onstad may have experienced some doubt about the conclusion, and decided to just go big and hope for the best. It could be that Ray just works best in small doses where he's not required to be sympathetic. An appearance by Ray's dad almost pulls the story back on track, but significant damage was done. I did enjoy the fake recipes and blog entries at the end of the book. Overall, a good try and a lot of effort put into the book itself as an object, but the story went wanting for laughs in too-long stretches. I'd probably be more interested in a collection of strips but can't fault Onstad for trying to stretch.

I'm just watching the Olympics closing ceremonies right now. All the political stuff aside, I really enjoyed them this time. I mean,I always do, but I thought there were some incredible moments and the opening and closing ceremonies, and designs of the Birdcage and Water Cube, were amazing.

Halfway through a review of The Best American Comics 2008. I don't get a lot of review copies these days, especially from big publishers, so this was a nice surprise.

DVR has been a real boon to me as far as discovering some movies I didn't think I would like. Saturday I watched The New World, the Terrence Malick film about John Smith and Pocahontas, starring Colin Farrell and a lovely Native American newcomer named Q'Orianca something. Maybe she was Maori or something instead? That name doesn't sound Native American, but I guess I wouldn't know. The saving grace with Malick films is how much beautiful nature imagery he packs in, and that's the case here. It's food for the soul, and so the story is kind of secondary. However, Farrell wasn't too bad, and what really improved things for me was that he was out by the halfway point, when Pocahontas hooked up with another English colonist, played by Christian Bale, an actor I like ten times as much as Farrell.

I'm halfway through Jiro Taniguchi's The Ice Wanderer, and so excited by his stuff I think I need to get The Times of Botchan. I also started the American Flagg! hardcover, and finished the first volume of The Starman Chronicles. As for the latter, although the Tony Harris art isn't as good as I remembered, the writing overall really holds up for me. I remember finding that book, and the Jack Knight character, to be really special and a great middle ground between typical superheroes and darker Vertigo-type comics, and it still is.

Comic Art Now
Written by Dez Skinn, with a Foreword by Mark Millar
Published by Collins Design, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. $29.95 USD

From the first paragraph of Skinn's Introduction, with its confusing references to Carole Bayer Sager, Peter Allen, Barenaked Ladies and Huge Jackman, I was concerned that he as author and I as reader just wouldn't be on the same page, and that turns out to be true for the most part in this coffee table book of comics art meant to represent the contemporary pinnacle of the medium. Actually, I'm not quite sure what Skinn's purpose is here. The Introduction goes on to hint that now that comics have come of age and are popular worldwide, this book would represent the best of what's popular, or maybe he's after something else altogether. Maybe it's just the stuff he likes best, or what was available to reprint cheap, or the best and cheapest of artists he knows? I don't know, but since I've been told before not to try to guess at creators' motivations, let's just look at what the book is.

We begin with Chapter 1, Heroes and Villains, with a nice, busy double-page spread of various Marvel Comics heroes and villains drawn by Ron Garney. Now, I like Ron Garney a lot. He's not a brilliant, envelope-pushing artist, but he's a reliable, appealing, underrated craftsman. OK. If Skinn is going in this direction, more power to him. There's a brief description of Garney's process and a quote from him on how inker Bill Reinhold complements his work. But then on the next page we get a few panels of not a comic, per se, but a superhero comics-inspired ad for something called "Aussiebum," drawn by a John Royle, who apparently works on a UK Spider-Man comic as well. The style is standard, fairly generic superhero stuff, which you'd probably expect in an advertisement, in Royle's defense, but hardly justification for a coffee table book. Then follow nice, if to my eyes fairly derivative images of The Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man and Thunderbolts by Garney, Carlo Pagulayan and Mike Deodato, Jr., a striking Alex Ross take on the Golden Age Daredevil, a computer-aided but rather disappointing Michael Golden Thing/Surfer battle, and some unknown to me characters and teams such as The Danger's Dozen, S.T.E.M. Cell (Ha!), Garth, Jet Black, Crimson Todger and others, which I'm guessing are European album and comics properties. And believe me, I'd love to be blown away by artists I haven't seen before, but Huw-J Davis, Cosmo White, Jack Lawrence and Dan Boultwood didn't do it, and for the most part don't appear like they have the skills to make it in North American comics.

My worry already was that while Skinn certainly knew about lots of comics I'd never heard of, he wasn't going to show me much if any that I felt I was missing. Chapter 2 has a lovely CG space image by John Ridgway, an artist I know who has always used the latest technology to stay interesting, perhaps to his career detriment as his evolutions mean he doesn't have a recognizable style. Then there's a pencil page from a Starship Troopers comic, followed by the final version, which isn't much different except that it highlights how the computer coloring is way overdone. There's some nice stuff from Rian Hughes and Matt Haley, and a monstrosity called "Nunblade" that I hope is a joke and not a real character, some crazy manga called Dominator by a Tony Luke, some decent Judge Dredd stuff by Siku, and again, some mediocre stuff you're not missing.

This is just the way of the book. For every startling image by an Al Davison, Carl Critchlow, Bryan Talbot, Ben Templesmith or Sean Phillips, there's plenty more average work by artists known or unknown, and sometimes annoyingly repetitive. I mean, how many Norm Breyfogle pages does a reader need to get the idea? By the book's end, and with no final attempt by Skinn to pull it together into some sort of context, one feels this book was a missed opportunity. Comics art is at least as important as story, and most would agree there are many exciting artists working today, and yet Skinn excludes so many to focus on genre artists, and many of them not of high caliber. There are some good artists here, for sure, but the reasonably well-read comics reader will already know the work of almost all of them.

Wolverine: The Death of Wolverine TPB
Written by David Aaron and Marc Guggenheim
Art by Howard Chaykin
Published by Marvel Comics. $14.99 USD

A little observation before the review: I've got this and Batman: Jekyll & Hyde stacked together, and while both comprise six issues of comics, the Wolverine volume is about 50% thicker! So way to go on the heavier paper, Marvel.

Let's face it--superhero comics are really a crapshoot these days. I don't follow much of anything, but will pick and choose trade paperbacks based largely on the creators involved. In this case it's Chaykin, an artist I've always liked and who did a pretty good Wolverine graphic novel many years ago. Chaykin's style has changed some; the faces are rounder (offputtingly fat at times), and as with many artists he lets the colorist help define features and contours rather than using as much ink. But it's still Chaykin, and while I had some concerns he was just picking up a paycheck, he seems to really get into the work here. It may be something of a new chapter for him, as the last time he came back to comics he spent years mainly writing for others, and here he's not involved in the story at all.

This volume includes the five-part title story, but first starts off with a standalone by Aaron called "The Man in the Pit," a tidy little psychological thriller where Wolverine has been captured and every day a guard shoots him to within an inch of his life. Wolverine's best hope to get out is to taunt his tormentor, break him down to the hurt, confused boy he's always been, until his shame is too much to bear and he lets Wolverine out, hoping for death for the pain he's inflicted. It's a grim one, and I might add that it's not exactly standalone, as the end clearly sets up a future storyline for who is behind this experiment, which I would suspect will be written by Aaron.

But then we get into the main reason for the book, Guggenheim's story, which is about as fast-paced and surprising as Mark Millar's run at first, including Wolverine with a new Atlantean girlfriend, flashbacks to WWI, cameos by Doctor Strange and Iron Man, and then it gets into mystical areas. See, Wolverine is killed when he swallows a bomb, and his body heals, but his soul hasn't come back. He has to fight the angel of death for it and...well, it sounds silly, and maybe it is, but it's also a lot of fun, and Guggenheim writes a solid Wolverine. And for longtime fans, there are bonuses such as the return of an enemy most people truly wouldn't expect, and we get to see Chaykin draw just about every incarnation of Logan/Wolverine ever, including his debut costume. And as I said before, Chaykin seems to have a good time, even adapting his style a little in places to recall Bill Sienkiewicz and Frank Miller (there's a clue there). He's not without his flaws--he has such a narrow range of male faces that Strange and Stark are virtually indistinguishable except for the parts in their hair--but he's still plenty good.

Batman: Jekyll & Hyde
Written by Paul Jenkins
Art (Ch. 1-3) Jae Lee and (Ch. 4-6) Sean Phillips
Published by DC Comics. $14.99 USD

Paul Jenkins has been a writer I tend to overlook these days, as I've found his past work so uneven. I think he's often been too willing to go with a bad idea, especially on monthly series, but at his best he finds psychological depth in his characters. My main reason for picking up this book was Sean Phillips' art, but I was hoping Jenkins could do a decent job with the duality of both Two-Face and Batman, which one would have to expect he would explore when he titles the book "Jekyll & Hyde."

And he does do an okay but flawed job. The gritty Lee artwork distracts the reader somewhat from questioning some easy choices. Batman investigates the latest in a series of bizarre murders by seemingly ordinary people. It's not great detective work that Batman finds a prescription bottle on the scene, it's just convenient. As Bruce Wayne, he visits the doctor, Rousse, who springs a quote from Stevenson's novel on him that Wayne is literate enough to finish, and then he has to go back to being the flighty bored billionaire again. And, while we know that Rousse is behind the killings and probably working with Two-Face, the plot thread of Alfred analyzing the prescription drug gets forgotten. That is, it becomes less important, because Jenkins has Batman go out and get beaten up and captured by Two-Face, which is an easier, if more painful, way of finding answers and advancing the plot. Still, it doesn't advance all that fast, as Two-Face's limp plan to turn Gotham's citizens crazy through free, tainted ice cream cones is really just the framework for Jenkins to offer lots of flashbacks that put forward a different reason for Harvey Dent's split personality--childhood guilt when he was playing with matches and burned the house down with his brother in it, his brother now the dark, Two-Face side of Harvey. It's as good a reason as any, I guess, but the flashbacks aren't all that interesting, however artfully composed by Phillips, who takes over in the second half of the miniseries, where things get a little more action-oriented.

If this was just three or four issues, it might have pushed Jenkins to tighten things, condense his flashbacks and the jawing with Jim Gordon, who is at his least effectual here and present mainly out of habit and for exposition. I think what gets me about Jenkins is that he seems lost or desperate half the time, like he's got to come up with quirky stuff to fill the space, so we have an uncharacteristically sardonic Batman putting down the Mayor, an uncharacteristically wisecracking Gordon, a Two-Face applying lipstick to the bad half of his lips, for no apparent reason, and an Alfred laboring to be the most tediously backsassing butler ever, along with lots of little unconvincing character droppings like the revelation that young Bruce Wayne was always a Three Stooges fan. and a Two-Face who changes from good to bad every few seconds, sometimes within the span of a laugh.

I'll end it with some good points. Lee designed a good Two-Face, and Phillips' is pretty good as well, and while Phillips has never been great at action sequences, he draws a nice Batman and gets some emotion out of the ending. Credit to Jenkins for that as well; it's a bit melodramatic with injured Harvey in Batman's arms, begging him not to let Two-Face/Murray win, but the very end, with Bruce trying to break out of his own dark nature by suggesting a walk, was simple and well done. I also got a chuckle out of Two-Face shooting Batman in the leg, prompting an "Aaouw! Damn..!" because it was one of the few real moments in the book, something even a tough guy like Batman would probably do if he got shot rather than stoically suffer and grit his teeth through the pain.

This is too brief to call a review, but I had a nice time reading this book last week. I'm so busy with work these days that it's hard to find a lot of time to read comics, much less review them. But I have started catching up a little on my huge stack of graphic novels of the past few years--the ones that have helped put me in debt. Anyway, so I picked this book from the pile last Sunday and just started reading, and didn't stop until the end. We're talking a few hundred pages here of tight storytelling, and I was totally engaged.

To back up a bit, I first started reading Next Men after a brief period of not reading comics, not the first nor the last. And my return to comics began with the thought, "Hmm, wonder what Byrne's been up to." This was my guy, you know? I'd been with him not from X-Men, which I found after the fact, but Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, West Coast Avengers, Superman, etc. So I think when I started looking through the back issue bins I was surprised by this Next Men thing, that he was working for then-smallish publisher Dark Horse and that he was perhaps doing a mutant book totally his way. That wasn't exactly the case--Next Men isn't quite a mutant book--but it is a book that's unmistakably, uncompromisingly Byrne. In fact, this is some of the darker work Byrne has done, but as opposed to, say, Blood of the Demon, there's a real point to the dark tone and most of the shocks. That said, women don't fare too well in the book, but I can't really say it's misogynistic as much as just illustrating that those who gain power will always exploit those who don't have the power.

The book comprises the 2112 graphic novel that's sort of a sequel to the unfinished Next Men series, a standalone future story where the main bad guy of Next Men, Sathanas, finally gets his. Next Men would then be not so much about his defeat but how he becomes as powerful as he does. Mainly, though, it's about five young people living in a kind of virtual world, thrust out into the real world, where they display incredible superpowers. Byrne takes pains to present a more realistic side to these powers, such as the speedster, Danny, having huge thighs and burning his feet when he runs fast, and he mainly succeeds in making this a science fiction book rather than a superhero book, even though it's not long before the team goes up against some other superpowered folks. That's just as well, because the book works best when there's action and intrigue, and slows down when everyone is separated. One problem with these characters is that, having emerged from this idyllic, false existence, they don't have a lot to say to each other. It will be interesting to see the next volume* because as much as I liked it at the time, I don't really remember how Byrne left it. I don't think he ever plans to finish it unless IDW has convinced him otherwise.

*I was a little irritated to hear that IDW plans a color omnibus volume for the series, which means I should have waited for that and not bought this black-and-white newsprint edition.

We had our company picnic yesterday. Pretty odd to have it on the first day of August, as the first of the month is always the most important day in Workers Comp insurance; that is, many more companies start insurance on the 1st than any other day in the month, so it's unusual we wouldn't be in the office for last minute quoting or revising outstanding quotes.

The picnic was a little different than it's been in past years. First, we moved the location a to another area of Mission Bay, which wasn't a big deal, and we also had a chainlink-enclosed "beer garden" area, now that open containers aren't allowed. I guess you obtain a permit and you can have one of these enclosed areas, with a maximum 40 people in there, and it can only be cans or boxed wine, no bottles or hard alcohol. Of course, some people from our claims department misread he memo and had bottles of Smirnoff Ice in their cooler (yes, they were all women), which further confused some people who thought Smirnoff Ice contains vodka. I think it's just a malt beverage.

I can't say I had a great time, but it was okay as far as these things go. I didn't end up playing flag football, which really took up a lot of time. Not sure what happened; nobody asked me and I was ambivalent about it, though it probably would have been a better idea running around for a couple hours instead of just drinking beer and chatting. I dunno. We had a silly but kind of fun obstacle course that our team won, and I even played bingo for a little while, more because it was fun to make fun of. I had intended to talk to a lot more people, and I did talk to quite a few, though not anything all that deep or interesting. Well, one female friend made it very clear to anyone in earshot that she doesn't like a dick in her ass, despite a couple gay coworkers telling her it was something you learn to like. I did get to talk to our new Marketing rep for a little while, who's quite attractive and nice, and apparently that started some rumor of blossoming romance, since work is really just high school all over again. We actually just talked about work.

I did get a free Heineken mini-keg someone bought and didn't use, so that's cool. Got some groceries and made pizza for the kids and me, which was probably the best I've ever made it. Watched some recorded Shark Week shows and we all fell asleep in my bed, which doesn't make for the most restful night, but it was nice.

I had a nice July 4th with some friends, who invited me to dinner at their house. Not a party, just me and them. They always do something a little odd with dinner, kind of throwing it together, but it usually works out fine. This time they had barbecued drumsticks, salad, garlic bread and wine, and I brought salmon that we grilled on cedar planks with a maple/dijon/balsamic glaze. The salmon was fresh from the Copper River rather than Atlantic frozen, and while it was a lot more expensive than I thought it was when I picked it out at the store, it really was great, and that cedar added great smoky flavor. We tried a few wines and the $1.99 Chardonnay I got as an afterthought stood up fine with the $15 one. I ended up falling asleep on their couch, not unpleasantly, and then slept in the guest room when I woke up. It would have been great to have the kids that day, but it ended up being nice to just be one guest.

Today I had them and we mainly swam in the pool, after which I made some orange shrimp and fried rice, followed by a little ice cream and several Batman Adventure cartoons in my room. Monday we all leave for Chicago for a week.

Probably a little too tired to do this up right, but...

*I really don't pay a lot of attention to comics news anymore. My job is really demanding and when I get home I watch TV, dvds, read, write, email or listen to music. So it was kind of a flurry of blows this week to find out about the deaths of Dave Stevens, Will Elder, and to a lesser extent, Steve Gerber. Nothing against Gerber; I just never read anything of his I loved, though I recognize he did bring some fun ideas and energy to '70s Marvel. Elder I actually did love as a kid, as my mom once brought home a slipcase of paperbacks collecting the first years of MAD (the comic book). I also always looked forward to the Super Specials that contained inserts of the old MAD comics issues and recognized Elder as a genius, even as his parodic depictions of Archie and other comics characters were often my first exposure to those characters. Dave Stevens was a master artist from MY time, and I respected the time he put into The Rocketeer even if it meant he didn't get very far with it. And to be honest, when I met him, it was kind of inspiring to learn that handsome men could make good comics, too. Not that I thought I was handsome, too, but that comics finally seemed like an acceptable career even if one was gregarious and attractive. I believe I got him to sign my Rocketeer graphic novel, and now after reading Jamie S. Rich's remembrance I'm curious if he wished me, "Happy Landings."

*Liked Iron Man a lot.

*Read a few graphic novels. I'm honestly sort of ambivalent about reviewing anything right now as I really want to just write my own stuff. My time is more limited than ever and right now time not spent working I spend writing (a little) and relaxing with movies, TV and Grand Theft Auto IV.

*New cds by Death Cab for Cutie, The Jealous Girlfriends, and The Long Blondes, are very good. Despite great names, Shit Robot and Fuck Buttons are somewhat disappointing.

*Saw The Police in concert, with Elvis Costello opening. EC was very good is a short set of a handful of expected hits, one new song from rocking, unselfconscious new cd Momofuku, and is joined on "Alison" by Sting. The Police themselves are excellent, much better than expected. The arrangements were smart but not too different from how they were originally done, the musicianship very solid from all three, and I was thrilled to hear Sting can still sing in that high register like he used to. Why he has sung in that whispery thing for the past 25 years of solo work, I have no idea. It was clear to me this would be just a bunch of Police songs, but I was surprised how many people I told about the show wondered with morbid interest if any Sting material was performed.

Very sore neck today from falling asleep on the floor last night watching Monty Python. My friend Jeff and I tried to move my couch downstairs but it was a no-go due to the high back of it. So it's now on the balcony awaiting when I can get two guys together to try to lower it to the street. Then I'll just put it in my garage and try to sell it or donate it.

All this was because today I had a new couch and loveseat delivered. Dark brown leather. They came this morning but I had the couch sent back because it came with a scratch on the front. So the replacement came tonight and in trying to get it up the stairs they put three much worse scrapes into the center cushion. The cushions are attached so I can't just flip it over or anything. Pain in the ass. I'll have to arrange for a technician to come out but not sure what he'll do. I don't think the brown pen will be quite good enough; maybe they'll have to send a third one.

Saturday my son had a baseball game and it was a really good one, very close and everyone playing pretty well. He caught a line drive at shortstop and in the bottom of the sixth (games only go this long at this level) he got a three run inside-the-park home run to tie the game, which is how it ended because we didn't score anymore and they don't break ties. Very cool. Then we had the team party (we have two make-up games left, but whatever), and that was all right, though I was the only single parent there.

I've been enjoying Grand Theft Auto IV a lot--looks great, good story, not too hard yet. As with pretty much every videogame, I'm sure I'll come to a mission I'm unable to pass without devoting my life to it, but so far all is well.

Music - as far as current stuff that's holding up to repeated listens it's mainly the veterans like the latest from R.E.M., Radiohead, The Breeders, and now Portishead and Elvis Costello's newest are grabbing me. Very much looking forward to the new Death Cab and preordered it from iTunes because it comes with some extra demos and videos. Also downloaded the latest from a band called Augustana that I saw a good review of. It's like a softer Jayhawks or an American Travis. Sounds good but kind of slides right out of your head. Of more current bands, Vampire Weekend and Dengue Fever impress me.

I have a lot of work left to do before tomorrow, as well as laundry and maybe making some pasta, so...later.

Saturday I spent a ridiculous amount of money on margaritias and overpriced appetizers at a pretty-good Mexican eatery near me. Seared ahi tostaditas were nice but should have been much better or in bigger portions for the price, but the guacamole was fresh and good and the fried calamari with honey and a chile vampire donkey blood salsa was extraordinary. Had a dvd fest with a friend afterwards, watching Act of Violence, which was in Vol. 4 of Warner Bros' Film Noir Classics series. Like about half the films in there, it's not really a noir, just a black-and-white crime film from the '40s. We chose it because of the back cover description of "gimp-legged war veteran" Robert Ryan, who limps his implacable way to the door of Van Heflin, his old CO whose deal with their Nazi POW camp commandant led to Ryan's injury and the deaths of the rest of the men trying to escape the camp. Heflin was trying to save their lives by informing, but that's not how Ryan or the courts would see it, so Heflin tries covering up his lie and keeping his genteel suburban life going. Janet Leigh is his wife and she's ridiculously dumb and hysterical, a fault of the script and direction rather than hers. There's a pretty good tension going for a while but the pace is just too slow to sustain it and soon enough we were MST3King funnier dialogue.

On the other hand, earlier in the week I did enjoy some other films from the set, The Big Steal and Illegal, both on the same twofer disc. The Big Steal is a Mexican romp with Robert Mitchum on the run from a corrupt Army CO, teaming up with the acidic but eventually charmed Jane Greer, his earlier costar in Out of the Past. Mitchum is a hoot, and probably pretty risque' for the time, as he openly looks Greer up and down and his whole demeanor makes clear he wants to bone her if they get a free moment. Greer is a bit too thin and hard-faced to be a sexy screen goddess, plus she has a hard, Alice Kramden voice, but that's part of her appeal to me. Ramon Navarro's white suit marks him from the start as a lothario of weak character. Some fairly exciting chases for the low-fi filmmaking of the time, with what I'm guessing is Palm Desert subbing for Mexico. It's a fun one.

Then I went into the Edward G. Robinson legal thriller Illegal with low expectations, but really liked it. Robinson was getting older, in between his gangster and wise old man roles, and grey-listed due to suspicions of Communism (he wasn't) so he wasn't getting a lot of prime roles, but he makes the most of this one. He's a district attorney who quits after his conviction leads to an innocent man's death. He goes on a long bender, then climbs back as a defense attorney of dubious and flashy practices, such as punching out a witness exiting the stand to disprove the man's claim that an average man couldn't knock him out (Robinson had a roll of nickels hidden in his fist). He lets his former assistant and secret love Nina Foch marry a bright young DA because he thinks he's too old for her, and both men separately come under the spell of a big crime boss, Albert Dekker, due to their legal skills. Robinson refuses to be in Dekker's pocket but does turn a blind eye when his defense efforts aid the boss, while Foch's husband directly informs Dekker of the DA office's plans. Foch discovers his treachery and ends up shooting him in self-defense, and Robinson defends her and stands up to Dekker in the bargain. It's a brisk and surprising film with a great Robinson performance, dynamic, funny and at times melancholy. Also look for the debut of Jayne Mansfield as the crime boss' new moll and pianist; she sings a song and has a pivotal scene on the witness stand.

We also tried watching Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, which I'd seen and dug about 10 years ago, but it was the wrong vibe for it this night. It's pretty slow. I did love the hotel scene, though.

I discovered I have the Sundance Channel, or maybe just for this weekend, who knows, so I watched an Iconoclasts with Samuel L. Jackson and Bill Russell that was pretty good if a bit too easygoing and lightweight. I also saw an episode of Live from Abbey Road, featuring performances and interview segments with Kasabian, Josh Groban and The Good, the Bad & the Queen. Kasabian are a decent if unexceptional British rock band. I have their first CD, where they're more dance-oriented. The lead singer has an almost perfect look--handsome unshaven face, Beatley hair, striped shirt--but he's getting a little fat for it, and I was curious why the guitartist/songwriter sang one of the three songs when clearly his voice isn't that good. It's that Oasis thing all over again. There were a number of string players and oddly enough, they were all really pretty women. Josh Groban is someone whose music just isn't for me at all, but he comes off well enough in the interview bits. Who knew he was so influenced by Peter Gabriel? The Good, the Bad & the Queen quite rightly finish the program as they're the most musically interesting, with the African/West London potpourri they brew up. They decorate the Abbey Road studio with squares of hanging red fabric and bare bulbs for atmosphere, singer Damon Albarn's red-lensed shades probably a deliberate choice, and they all had nice black or pinstripe suits. I already liked their music but this performance should net them some more fans.

The presence in the band of Tony Allen, first known for his work in Fela Kuti's Africa 70, made me seek out some Fela music, finally, and I found the albums Open and Close, Shakara, He Miss Road, and Expensive Shit (the title comes from an incident where Nigerian police try to plant weed on Fela, who swallows it and eventually has an um, expensive shit) for really cheap, as each album is only two or three long tracks. His songs are long jams with some similarities to James Brown in the horns and chickenscratch guitar. I kind of knew what to expect of the music and yet had never heard it before. It's really good, though, almost trance-inducing in its funky repetition. I read some on Fela and discovered his middle name was Anikulapo, or He Who Carries Death in His Pouch. I have to use that somewhere, as well as the character in one of his songs, Suffer-Head.

Also downloaded Shit Robot's first two EPs, which are pretty good DFA releases. Good club stuff. Also got Robert Forster's The Evangelist, which is his first work after the death of friend and Go-Between partner Grant MacClennan. I don't really know their work, so this was sort of an odd introduction, but what I've heard I'm liking a lot.

I got a haircut yesterday and my stylist, Le Sean (woman), informed me that Atlanta provides the best shopping for African-American women. You may now go forth and use this conversational tidbit wherever you feel it will most help. You're welcome.

Night of the Hunter is a terrific, weird, cheap, beautiful, dreamy and tacked-together masterpiece, a rare auteur film from the '50s Hollywood studio system as stylized as Douglas Sirk but all the more remarkable for being the sole directing effort of hammy but riveting actor Charles Laughton. It's a black-and-white fable with two innocent children--precocious Pearl and man-before-his-time John, defending their late father's stolen nest egg and their very lives from evil con man, phony preacher and legitimate psycho Robert Mitchum, he of the "LOVE" and "HATE" on his knuckles, lifted by De Niro for the Cape Fear remake. It's a film you have to give yourself to, because there are ample exit doors: the intentionally crude sets, with barns and houses often looking no better than school play dressing (clearly intentional), the thankless, infuriating mother role for Shelley Winters, who so quickly falls under new husband Mitchum's spell and betrays her children; and finally the cackling, hysterical hypocrisy of supporting character Icey Spoon (Evelyn Varden). It's a high-pitched movie at times that somehow turns into a quiet, nature-filled dream just when it should by rights start cranking up the action.

The film is not a noir, though it is sometimes labeled as such. It does start with some police activity, as murdering robber Peter Graves is arrested in front of son John, but after that crime isn't really the point. And neither, really, is the money. That's what creates the conflict between John and Mitchum's Harry Powell, but the movie is more a dark fable than anything else. Much power is derived from just how bad Mitchum gets with the kids. Laughton dispenses with cat-and-mouse games and one feels in several scenes that given just one more minute, Mitchum would just kill the children to get the money. Holding his own is Billy Chapin as John, his wise young face and even stride signaling to the viewer that he is the only one capable of standing up to Powell.

But he's still a boy, and as his unsuitable father figure, the drunk fisherman Birdie Steptoe, crumbles, John and Pearl take a journey upriver, the harmless frogs and bunnies on the shore eventually giving way to the predatory fox as Powell closes in, but there is safety in the Mother Goose-like Lillian Gish, a saintly woman caring for children abandoned during the Great Depression in which the film is set. What's at stake in the film is not money but innocence, and she does her best to keep John, Pearl, and the other children safe. In one of many haunting scenes, she sings a spiritual, "Safe in the Everlasting Arms," shotgun poised, as Powell lurks outside, harmonizing with her. They share the same God but seen from very different angles. The ending is surprisingly moving.

Curiously, IMDB uses "Oedipus complex" as a key phrase in their page for the film, but I don't see that at all. It's true that with the dad dead, John is the man of the house in the brief period before Powell arrives, but John is not competing for the job, nor is he competing for his mother's affection. He's a daddy's boy all the way, and both children are very distant from the Winters character. She hardly has any scenes with them.

Kill Baby Kill! and Baron Blood

Two more Mario Bava movies consumed. Kill Baby Kill is the last disc in the first dvd box set, about a town literally haunted by the death of a little girl. Apparently she is forcing people to kill themselves. There ends up being a little more to it. It's another low-budget Gothic gem from Bava, with great atmosphere and some unnerving sequences. It's creepy whenever you see the girl huddled silently in a corner of the room, or wherever.

Baron Blood is in the second box set, and it's a little curious how Anchor Bay packaged these because it's very hard to tell the chronology of these films. I picked this one because another one in the set said it was made after the widespread success of Baron Blood, so I figured I'd start with a good one. In late '60s or early '70s Vienna, a young man comes to his ancestral castle, curious to unlock the mysteries surrounding his ancestor, known locally as Baron Blood for his Vlad-like terror upon the citizenry in his time. The castle is undergoing renovation to become a tourist attraction or hotel, and there he meets international sexpot Elke Sommer, a student helping with historical details about the castle. They read an incantation to bring the Baron back to life, and it starts to work, so they read the one to cancel it. But later, they do it again, and the old parchment gets burned, so they can't undo what they've done, and the shambling Baron goes a-killin'. The movie gets a bit disjointed with the arrival of Joseph Cotten as the new owner of the castle, bought at silent auction. I guess it was just being cleaned up for the sale, because then Cotten goes through with the real renovations. He's creepy, and has his eye on Sommer, and whether he has any connection with the Baron should not be a surprise to anyone. Bava as usual gets great value out of his surroundings: the castle, the foggy Viennese streets, the wooded countryside. There's a great scene with a medium they ask to help them undo the curse. Some nice tracking shots inside an airport, apparently a first for Vienna. This one has commentary from the author of a book on Bava and though I put that on ostensibly to put me to sleep the other night, what I heard was pretty interesting as far as how the film came together and where the cameos were. It's a good one. It should be noted these films are not up to very high standards technically--they're pretty grainy, and it's a crap shoot whether a film has subtitles or is dubbed into English, but they're quite enjoyable.

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

I finally bought this acclaimed Wilco documentary. I don't know why I waited; I guess I was concerned it was going to be mainly about stuff I already knew a lot about, like their record label drama and the dismissal of band member and co-songwriter Jay Bennett. But not only is all that much more interesting to see play out chronologically during the film, the film is just great because you get to see this committed, creative band working out their music in front of the cameras. It's not phony, and none of the performances seen here end up being exactly how the CD sounds. Better still, this dvd is I believe a reissue, with bonus disc of more performances, and a very detailed booklet which features a David Fricke essay and film diary entries from director Sam Jones. It's one of the most content-heavy dvd booklets I've seen, almost in the realm of what Criterion includes in their releases.

I also picked up the CD/DVD version of Wilco's 2007 album, Sky Blue Sky, as the DVD is another short Sam Jones film (this time in color) of the current lineup rehearsing nearly all the tracks on the CD, along with some brief interviews with Jeff Tweedy and other band members about the CD. Essentially, Tweedy felt the times we're living in are some fraught and complex that he wanted to make some more direct music, lyrically and arrangement-wise, with few overdubs. He also wanted to make music for his wife that she could enjoy, free from references to painful times they'd been through together.

Labels: Wilco

I saw this Saturday night with a friend. Very well done, funny romantic comedy written by and starring Jason Segel, also starring Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd. As far as I'm concerned, another success from the Apatow gang. Segel gives a great performance--he's just a naturally likeable actor, plus he gets to show some musical skill and...other assets, too! Kudos to a guy willing to do full frontal in the name of comedy, and it actually made for a good full circle element to the story. I also admire that he gave the ex-girlfriend some dimension (I hate when they're depicted as total shrews because it makes you respect your hero(ine) less, like Why was s/he ever interested in this person?), and even her posturing rock star new BF ends up kind of appealing. I always thought Mila Kunis should be a bigger star, and hopefully this helps her a bit. I don't imagine this will be a megahit, but it's a very worthwhile date movie that will not disappoint either party.

Continued my Mario Bava thing with two more from the five disc Anchor Bay set, Mario Bava Collection Vol. 1. The first was The Girl Who Knew Too Much and I think it was Bava's last movie in black and white. It's supposed to be the first giallo which I think means first slasher film, but it's quite tame and not that interesting. Well...I was watching it in bed and fell asleep, so when I watch the second half again maybe I'll feel differently and redact this statement.

I did enjoy Bava's color Viking film, Knives of the Avenger, which finds the bizarre-looking Cameron Mitchell protecting a queen and her son from the same marauders who had sacked his village and killed his own wife and child. The problem is, in his madness and grief during that time, he had raped this queen while wearing a mask. He falls for her now, but she is loyal to her husband, who has been at sea for three years, but obviously when he returns there's going to be a problem.

This film was described as virtually a remake of the classic Western Shane, which I cannot confirm or deny, as I saw that movie many years ago and don't remember much about it. It does have the feel of a Western, though, just with a different setting and outfits. Mitchell looks kind of like Anthony Quinn at that age, with orange-blond hair and strangely sculpted eyebrows. In the fight scenes it's obviously not him as the haircuts and body builds don't match well at all. Still, for its low budget it's effectively made, with decent performances and good use of the settings, including a great cave where the film reaches its climax. I just have one more film in the set to watch, Kill, Baby, Kill! Then I will get Vol. 2.

I also finished the entirety of the Twin Peaks set. I thought the final episode, directed by David Lynch, was very good despite having to resolve tons of plotlines and then not resolving the main one with Agent Cooper. It was really creepy for network TV, to the extent I had to turn the volume down during the Black Lodge stuff because I was worried it would wake up my kids or subconsciously give them nightmares. As far as the last disc, which has the bonus features, the contemporary conversation between Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan, Madchen Amick and Lynch assistant John Wentwood was very good, if a little contrived with the diner setting, coffee and cherry pie, etc. Still, it was great-looking. Of course, one would have liked other contemporary interviews with some of the series stars as well. In fact, I went to IMDB and read the bios of the entire cast, pleased to find out where life has taken Sherilyn Fenn and others. I was also happy that aside from Jack Nance, everyone else seems to be still alive. I am curious why there wasn't anything with Mark Frost, who Lynch said was responsible for at least 50% of Twin Peaks and for whom he didn't appear to have anything but respect.

Little Things: A Memoir in Slices
By Jeffrey Brown
Published by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. $14.00 USD

The prolific Jeffrey Brown returns with another thick collection of endearingly imprecise slice of life stories and vignettes. That this is for a large "real" (i.e. not comics) publisher like Simon & Schuster is no cause for alarm, nor should one expect a leap forward in artistic growth or ambition. It's just more of the same, with one exception, and that's just fine. The stories do benefit from the fact that many of them document travel experiences by Brown, so he's not always in the same Chicago haunts, and a couple of health issues don't hurt, either, though Brown laudably doesn't mine them for sympathy.

The exception here is the last story, which finds Brown with a partner and infant son. Even if this is your first Brown book, it's bound to be jarring, because the stories preceding it dealt with Brown in and out of relationships; nothing steady or long-lasting and no extended romantic bliss or this-is-the-one moments. In a way, it short-changes this current relationship, which the credits indicate is very real and ongoing. Of course, it's not the reader's business whether Brown wants to chronicle this relationship in comics as he has with so many others before, but it does feel like a very separate piece from the others in this book, enough so that I'm surprised that the editor didn't exclude it. At any rate, this is another winning compilation from Brown, who seems to effortlessly make even the most mundane incidents entertaining.

That Salty Air
By Tim Sievert
Published by Top Shelf Comix. $10.00 USD

That Salty Air is a graphic novel that really had to be published by Top Shelf: heavily inked art style not too many nautical miles away from Craig (Blankets) Thompson; spacious storytelling; and, unfortunately, an editorial stance that pretty good is good enough. Let's start with the good stuff, and there's enough of it that the book merits a look. Sievert's art is big league in the silent, scene-setting panels, a little less polished but still appealing with the figures. I like that the wife is just as much of a lead character and not merely window-dressing--she goes out and tries to fix things herself rather than wait on her mama's boy husband to get his shit together. And the cover is lovely.

As for the not-as-good stuff, well, the lead character is, as mentioned, so broken up about the death of his mother (unseen until near the end) that he abandons his responsibilities as breadwinner and expectant father. He only takes responsibility again when his wife pleads with him, and even then reluctantly, and his actions even then are spiteful, destructive and irresponsible. It's really hard to feel much for him or his redemption (more just an escape) because it's not earned, nor do we feel anything about his relationship with his mother because it's not shown. Sure, most of us love our mothers and would be broken up about their deaths, but so what? Beware of blurbs calling a book "deeply felt" because it's not relevant how deeply the author feels about what they've created; it only matters how he makes the reader feel. At the end, what I felt was kind of sorry for the wife, who has chosen to stick with this shithead, now even less useful.

And while I understand the story isn't meant to be realistic--it's rightly described as a parable, deeply felt or not--I had difficulty buying into a vengeful and then forgiving octopus, handing (tentacling?) out judgment on whether someone exceeds the fishing limit. It just seemed clumsy and too convenient. Sure, we'd all like to know our dead parents have gone onto a better place, but isn't it more moving for a character to grow up without the aid of ghosts and deus ex cephalopods? It's not that this is a bad book--it's a nice-looking, good-hearted, fairly competent little story--but while I think Sievert has demonstrated enough talent that he bears watching, I also think this isn't good enough to be called good. It's a start, and the next one needs to be a whole lot better.

I took a rare day off (scheduled), not to relax from the trying 4/1 quarter at work but to a) get my home theater installed and b) file my taxes. I succeeded at both, not without some difficulty. As I worked downstairs, I heard a thud as the Best Buy Geek Squad dropped the center speaker off the cabinet as they were moving it. It made a small dent and groove on the top of the cabinet, near the front. Not enough to be too upset about. And of course, though I thought I'd paid for everything, I did end up springing for the Harmony remote to run everything easily, and the programming of said remote. Better than dealing with several remotes. I did have to chase after the guys before they left, because I found I was watching cable but hearing the sound of Spider-Man 3, which was in to demonstrate the surround. We got it figured out, but the guy did notice a couple buttons on the remote didn't work and he had to do some additional programming. That's the thing I find about almost every customer service rep or contractor--they can't wait to get the job over with and frequently that means something gets overlooked.

I went to H & R Block to do my taxes, and that was fine, except I didn't have a receipt for my mortgage interest. I found a current bill but not the 2007 statement. Although Washington Mutual's bills and phone menu recommend doing almost everything online, it's really difficult to set up your log-in and have it pull up the account you need. It took over two hours of phone calls to actually get a profile set up for my 2007 loan and another for my current loan (I refinanced a month ago). Part of it was just stupidity on the part of one of the customer service people, as she kept suggesting whatever was easiest for her to do or understand rather than what I needed. Eventually, it did get done, and I was able to get right back in to the tax preparer and get it filed. Looks like pretty good refunds coming, plus that economic stimulus thing.

Good thing, too, as I have been on a dvd/blu-ray tear lately. Buy.com is currently selling Criterion dvds for substantial savings, especially on multi-disc sets. I'll start reviewing those as I watch them.

Tonight I watched Kansas beat Memphis in the NCAA tournament. A very good game, though lacking in a "sexy" story. No particularly charismatic players or coaches, just good basketball, though I was honestly surprised how Memphis blew it. The lack of urgency in particular I would have to put on the coach for not drilling it into the players enough.

I also watched a couple eps of Twin Peaks--I think 21 &22? I'm getting near the end. It's all new for me--I was a huge fan of the first season and then for some reason didn't watch much of the second at all. It's easy to see where things get off course, but there's still great stuff in each episode.

Big box of graphic novels arrived. I have been lax on comics for a long time and really need to start catching up, despite this movie fever. I read some of the first volume of Terry and the Pirates last night, and today I got through most of the first volume of the new format Comics Journal. I liked it a lot, though it's kind of a ringer--who doesn't like lists of great comics? It either supports your own tastes or gives you suggestions for what to check out. It's not tough--Exit Wounds was a very well done book, and since there are only a handful of well done (new) books each year, of course it will be on most people's lists.

I enjoy most of the regular columnists and critics like Crippen, Kreiner, O'Neil, Harvey--cool to see R.C. is very much up on current stuff rather than just old strips. I think it was Crippen who did the long piece on Stan Lee (using a book of interviews and Stan's most recent Marvel scripting job, The Last FF Story as an excuse to explore his theories of Stan the Man, Stan the Boss, Stan the Collaborator and Stan the kindly Hollywood Pitchman). After a couple pages of shots, I started wondering how long this old hat was going to go on, but then he found a groove and it ended up feeling pretty fair. Whether it's accurate, I don't know, but it felt like it was probably pretty close. He has a great line in there about how everyone loves Stan, and if they don't, it's because they've taught themselves not to (I'm paraphrasing and it might be better than that). It's true, and Crippen should know, because his piece is probably just about the best example of what I feel is pretty much an unavoidable assignment for comics critics--reconciling or rationalizing or somehow addressing how the magic of the '60s Marvels came with resentment and greed and other human failings.

By the way, I did flip through the final volume of the Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, and while I'm happy it's here, I think customers were sold a bill of goods as far as the "original Mike Royer inks" on The Hunger Dogs. I didn't expect to just see the original graphic novel with the bad D. Bruce Berry inks, and then tiny thumbnails of the original inked pages. Even at that size you can see how much better a job Royer did, but still, it's really difficult to read. I think it was a lame decision, unless they decide to put out a separate Royer version of Hunger Dogs. I liked Evanier's Afterword.

Speaking of Evanier, I know I wrote that his Kirby-King of Comics wasn't the thorough bio I expected, but as I'm reading it, it's really good. Evanier finds just the right note for it even if he doesn't have the room for lots of anecdotes. He's wry, admiring, loving. I think it's quite a worthy effort.