Whenever I remember, I'm going to spend a little bit of time picking apart back issues from my collection that I may or may not like particularly. Today's selection is Justice League America issues 38-40, which I pulled out on a whim to remember if they're still as effective as they were when I was a kid. For a bit of context, Justice League / Justice League International / Justice League America / Justice League Europe were pretty much the only regular superhero comic buys for me as a spotty youth. I've got the same sort of attachment to the first 40 issues of the main Justice League title as most people have to certain runs of the The Avengers and X-Men. Even with the humor that the series was best known for, it managed to pull out a crowbar and pull a Jason Todd on the reader with these issues.

The first part of this triptych starts off inauspiciously, with an overly long Spy magazine article that serves no real purpose in this story, but will lead to the infamous Wally Tortolini-with-a-superweapon story that was the first sign I should drop the title.¹ It's after these first six pages (which would mean nothing to anybody who hadn't read the previous 30 or so issues along with the Mister Miracle title) that we get to the meat of the story: Despero, the interplanetary despot that The Justice League Of Detroit had defeated per the usual whims of comics writers, is really, really, really pissed off that some dude named "Vibe" gave him shit and is hurtling towards our fair world to rectify the shaming he received by the League. He's so fucking angry, in fact, that every sixth word out of his mouth is "Hate." I am shitting you not one bit: Here's a bit of sample dialogue from the villain of the piece, right as he's made touchdown on Terra:

The stars flickered hate. I sang to them. The earth whispered hate. I whispered back. I rode the nightwinds on a wave of hate.

Now I walk this world: Spit fire. Scream rage. Roar, caper, laugh.

No, it's not quite Alan Moore, but J.M. DeMatteis manages to somehow make Despero's internal monologue, which should be hysterical, work in the context of the story. He's a giant red telepathic spaceman with a mission, our Despero: he hates the Justice League and humanity and he thinks that this is his time to shine with a bright spotlight of hate.

Normally, I want more in the way of motivation from our villains, but this is a pretty straightforward revenge piece - he's obviously been watching Kill Bill and thinks he's going to be the Bride to the Justice League's Crazy 88s. First off, he goes and visit Steel in his persistant vegetative state and rips him off life support out of frustration for failing to be the one to put him there. Then, he decides it's Gypsy's turn and slaughters her parents in a chilling scene that still manages to hit me harder that Blue Beetle's Bullet Lobotomy from Countdown before attacking her as she comes home from school. Finally (and this is all in one issue, mind, along with some storybuilding about the Conglomerate, Booster Gold's superteam and a cutaway featuring Kilowog receiving the alert that something's up), he wrecks a train and threatens to slaughter the passengers unless she comes out. See, this is the sort of stuff a guy named Despero can do, as far as I'm concerned; he's basically Space Hitler, so I've got no problems with his murderous rampage as a storytelling tool - it's completely in character, versus Dr. Light's sudden reveal as a rapist and the like. Of course, it's just as he is about to make with the murderation that J'onn J'onnz steps in and delivers a line laden with cliche when it comes out of the mouth of, say, Wolverine but is utterly chilling when the JLA equivalent of Spock utters it:

There'll be no more deaths today, Despero -- except perhaps -- yours.

I swear, Batman could take a lesson in Icy Calm Intoning Of Dead Serious Threats from this guy sometimes. I've always liked J'onn, and I think this scene is one reason why - he's the utterly calm Zen master of the insane JLA who can, you know, do everything Superman can do plus turn invisible and read minds as long as you don't have a match handy. When he actually is bothered enough to go and say something like that, the reader knows that he probably is planning on following it up.

Issue 39's cover has a humorous tone that is barely reflected within. The first third of this issue features J'onn and Despero duking it out and wrecking a town with only one semi-humorous aside from a bystander. It's in the middle of the fight between J'onn and Despero that the the Big Red Space Dude reaches into the Martian's mind and throws him back to his family's last day, which now features Despero as the cause of his wife and child's death. I've got to say that as far as these things go, that's pretty fucking awful. Despero is basically the evil version of J'onn when it comes to brute strength and mental powers, and the writers know how to use that effectively. It's only because Guy Gardner, America's Third Favorite Green Lantern, puts a green bubble around Despero's noggin and gives him a bit of feedback that J'onn isn't in a rest home somewhere, eating pudding-from-a-cup while sitting next to Gypsy and hoping that finger painting comes up today. Nice save for a dude with the worst haircut since Logan was first seen without his mask.

Reading this issue now, it's hard not to make the comparison to Doomsday's rampage through Superman #75, which is loud, stupid, and obnoxious in a way that only a comic from the 90s could be. What's shown here in this issue (from about 3 years prior to that particularly dark moment in comics history) is a well-executed fight that keeps the reader turning pages wanting to see what happens next instead of just going by the numbers. Guy knocks Despero into Long Island Sound with a giant green fist² and the rest of the League finally plays catchup just as Despero decides that he wants to see the selection at Midtown Comics before grabbing a bite in the Village.

A moment to review the state of the Justice League at the time: now split into two teams, JLAmerica and JLEurope, they weren't exactly heavy hitters outside of J'onn and Guy on the US team and Captain Atom and Power Girl on the Europe team. You can see how a bad guy who's whooped up on J'onn and is gunning for Guy is pretty much going to be able to cut through Blue Beetle, Mister Miracle, and fairly lame temperature twosome of Fire and Ice like a velicoraptor through a pack of a preschoolers. Oh, and Mister Miracle isn't really Mister Miracle - he's a robot who's constantly malfunctioning in place of Scott Free, who's off doing some kind of intergalactic escape artist thing with a duplicate that the League doesn't know is mechanical. The editors don't note that switch anywhere in this book, we're just assumed to have have read the recent Mister Miracle special and previous issues of Justice League America to be completely up to date. Editorial notes doled out to the readers in the mighty Marvel manner are probably a good thing on occasions where a team member is repeating the same bit of dialogue over and over in the Mamet style for no reason that's apparent to newcomers. I'm just saying.

The rest of this issue is pure superhero fight comics - Despero's determined to kill anyone in his path and you know what? It's only by the whims of the writers that he doesn't. There's a genuine sense of danger amidst the humorous asides and derring-do. Readers had not seen this Justice League fight anyone this dangerous or bloodthirsty before and as a departure from the previous hijinks on Kooeykooeykooey and such, this works effectively as well as standing up as Good Superhero Punchout material on its own. When Despero blows up the Mister-Miracle-robot-piloted shuttle with his Evil Third Eye with the beaten-and-bruised Beetle's neck in his hand and the next page showing J'onn announcing that he's going to have to help Despero destroy the Justice League to save the planet? Good, good stuff that makes you want more right away.

I don't want to go into too much detail as to how J'onn uses his plan to save the League and everyone else on the planet in issue 40, but it's worthy. It's worthy in the way that Batman's "You're Martians!" line in Grant Morrison's first story arc on the JLA title of the late 90s. It's worthy like Arnold dropping from the ceiling and decapitating a couple of baddies with rotary saw blades in Commando. It's something that was hinted at in the previous issues and is perfectly handled by all parties involved, even if it's the sort of "all we need is love" plot device that Mark Waid used far too often in his JLA run, ruining it forever for future writers. In the end, they defeat Despero, of course, and as you can see, there's a funeral for the assumed-to-be-dead-for-real Mister Miracle.

What's striking about the funeral is the way it manages to be effective, even if the readers know that the "real" Scott is alive and well. A priest that looks suspiciously like Jack Kirby gives the eulogy as a good cross-section of the DCU looks on. Hell, even Izaya, the Highfather of New Genesis is seen here watching from a distance, which is a nice idea if not actually that realistic - wouldn't a New God know if his son was dead? I mean, they are gods. Gods know these things, right?

This issue pointed to a new direction for the title that left me fairly cold; there was another year of increasingly insipid "humor," including a character called General Glory, but it all seemed seemed to be filler until Breakdowns was unleashed and pretty soon, Max Lord was shot and critically injured until Dreamslayer took over his body and started being really evil, as his name would rather indicate. From there, it just turned brutally stupid proved that yeah, the 90s were pretty lousy for the mainline DCU titles and the Justice League was excepted not one bit. As a finale, this works well, but it's sort of sad that it was the last decent issue on the title.

One quick note: this title does feature some of the very small full-storytelling output from Adam Hughes, now more famous for drawing boobies for covers. I know that this was exhausting for him, but I'd love to see him make a return to doing interiors again, even for a miniseries or something.

¹Breakdowns was where I stopped reading all the JL titles. It wasn't fun anymore and it was trying so hard to be taken seriously. Remind anyone of something?
²Fuck Kyle Rayner and his giant robot costumes. Giant Green Fist wins. Giant Green Fist always wins unless there's a boxing glove arrow around.

Friday, Friday, Friday! I've yet to pick up my comics this week, so nothing to say about anything that most of you care about. I guess it's time to talk about other things for a bit.

First up, music!
I've always been fond of a good cover and I've decided to arbitrarily pick a few that are worth noting for those of you whose musical taste has some confluence with my own. These are all 192kbps MP3 files that you can right-click or control-click and select "Save as" or "Download linked file as" to have deposited on your desktop or appropriate folder. If you like these, I recommend seeking out albums by these artists.

Who didn't love the cartoon Jem? OK, I didn't, but I thought the theme song was the balls when I was a wee lad who would turn it off immediately after the opening and go make giant Lego spaceships to be tossed off the back deck. Anyway, local synthpoppers Freezepop did a version of the opening tune and stuck it on their last album. I really like the break into the Misfits' portion of the song as it sounds like a 9 year old trying to be truly evil.

Reggae act Chosen Few shows up quite a lot on those Trojan Records box sets I buy impulsively whenever I find myself needing a little island riddims in my life. Their cover of the theme to Shaft makes me smile every time I hear it. I mean, you didn't think anyone would improve on the badassery of Isaac Hayes's original, but here we go. It's certainly better than that lifeless 2000 version that Hayes cranked out for the Samuel L. Jackson flick.

You know how I like the new Doctor Who program, right? The only way that they could improve it is to use the Orbital version of the theme. A live favorite for years, they finally put it on their otherwise-pretty-awful album The Altogether.

I fucking hate Pink Floyd. I just want that out there, because it makes me really feel conflicted over the version of "Comfortably Numb" that the Scissor Sisters put on their debut album. I shouldn't like this record one bit, but I think it's brilliant. Strange that it took Bee Gees-styled vocals and disco licks to make me know all the words to a twenty-three year old song.

I have no issues with the fact that I love Erasure. Their covers album Other People's Songs is loaded with interesting interpretations of standards from a broad spectrum of British pop. Like me, they love Trevor Horn and decided to pay homage with their take on "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggles. Yes, I know it was the first video played on MTV. Everyone knows that. Stop acting like you're some kinda goddamn genius because you remember something from the Pink section on a trivia pursuit card.

Finally, extra irony alert! The Pet Shop Boys decided to cover a song by My Robot Friend that paid homage to the smartest men in pop. Their version of "We're The Pet Shop Boys" delights the hell out of me as it's the ultimate in rock and roll egotism while still maintaining their humor.

Even more finally, I'm going to urge you all to check out Mastermix.org for a fascinating collection of old-school mastermixes (as the name rather implies.) There's several gems here, especially the "The House That Jack Built" and anything touched by the Latin Rascals, who were just insanely talented. You can even check out the copyright-infringing Lesson series from Double Dee and Steinski.

Now, movies!
We've got a new work project up as well. We're doing online movie reviews whenever we get a chance now. You can jump directly to mine by clicking here. A lot of these are remixed from the blog, but I'll be putting up new ones there as well, so check it out.

I've been assured that this is not a hoax and it comes directly from a trusted source in Los Angeles.

So, it's not enough that Jack "King" Kirby had to make with the racist portrait of the Japanese on the cover, but he had to do it with the idea that America's Great White Shining Hope was going to be portrayed by...The Twinkle Twins? That's what the Liberty Lads thought needed defending against the great Yellow Menance? Really, throw 'em to the Nipponese hordes - we don't want them.

He was made of fuckin' iron, our King.

(I should find out if Dr. Miracle stories are available anywhere - I like the name quite a lot. It looks like he doesn't crop up in any of the Golden Age Mystery Men reprints that AC puts out, though. It may require some searchin'.)

Call me cynical, but seeing that Marvel's going to be developing the rest of its films in-house proves that Fantastic Four is crap and they know it. I mean, The Punisher, Elektra, Man-Thing and even Blade: Trinity being pieces of garbage that break even or a bit better, you can sort of write that off, but not the film adaptation of their first family - a movie that should stand tall next to Spidey and the X-Kids, right? How do you prevent the butchering your properties in the future? In-house development.

Too bad that so many of their A-listers are already farmed out to Sony and Fox, huh? I guess Paramount will be distributing Power Pack: The Motion Picture in a few years.

Woke up with a still-sick girlfriend whose cough makes it look like she managed to put the mains back on the line in the last 10 minutes of Star Trek II and NECN's Matt Noyes has informed me that yes, there's more crap weather for the next three or four days. I'm cranky and have decided to just look at pictures of flowers I've taken. Flowers, bitches!

So, "our" president¹ managed to sign yet another hypocritical piece of legislation today, this time allowing companies espousing so-called "family values" to go and alter Hollywood content for home distribution. That's right - if Little Johnny's mama doesn't want him to see a nipple because fuck knows his eyes will explode and the bloodlust will fill him to the point of creating a being that feeds off rape and murder, they can now get that taken care of with a few clicks of the mouse. Normally, I'd be all for this - it happens in the home, lets parents control what their kids watch, whatever. Fine, fine, fine, take out the bloody parts of Gladiator and make it so the rave scene in The Matrix Reloaded looks like a Girl Scout Jamboree, but don't be surprised when he's knocked up Peggy Sue after the Fall Formal, as abstinence "education" doesn't work one goddamn bit. Honestly, I don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock what these wingnuts do in their own home, just like they shouldn't care that I'm current getting fellated by Javier, my man-slave².

What pisses me the holy goddamn fuck off over this is the fact that this administration is letting loony right wing "Christians" run roughshod over the media companies because they're flying the flag of "moral issues," defacing work that's been toiled over by tons of people while at the same time ruining CD art with warnings that strongly imply that my ass is getting tossed into the clink if I decide to go and share a few songs with my friends. They assist crazy-ass organizations like the MPAA and the RIAA in their anti-piracy efforts that reduce what I can do with content that I pay for fair and square while bending over backwards to service a crazy-as-fuck minority that happens to squawk a lot and threaten my tail with a couple of weeks in pound-me-in-the-pooper prison if I engage in any "unauthorized copying?"

Jesus, add in the fact that they're fucking with my Social Security while Bill Frist runs some sort of exorcism against filibusters, and Tom Delay runs like Vin Diesel escaping a fireball when questions about ethics comes up and you've got enough to give a man an high-quality embolism that would make make samurai movie fans gush with praise when they see the end result.

What the hell, guys? Are you that determined to get some that you're just going to fuck everything? At least Clinton restricted his fucking to the Oval Office and it was purely consensual.

¹I didn't vote for the fucker, the sane and/or intelligent people I know can't imagine voting for the fucker, only an additional 3% of Americans apparently voted for the fucker with the key electoral flop happening in Ohio, home of a voting machine company whose CEO promised to delivery the state to the fucker. In case you can't tell, not really a fan of him in these here parts. No, I don't hate America. Fuck you for thinking that.

²This is a vicious lie. His name is Eduardo. He's lovely.

I said I wasn't going to post. Then, Alice goes and points me to this article, which begins thusly:

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Soviet victory in World War II a circus show will dress monkeys as Nazis and have them act in wartime stories, NewsRu reports.

The director of the Yekaterinburg circus, Anatoly Marchevsky, said he opted for monkeys to represent Nazis because it was easy to design costumes for them.

My day is now 600% better.

You ever do that thing, you know, where your mouth keeps moving and stuff keeps coming out even though your brain says "Hey, really, knock it off, you moron! What the hell are you doing? Why did you mention that? Oh Christ Lord Almighty, what in the name of sweet holy fuck is wrong with you? Were you dropped on your head repeatedly as an infant? Do you have Tourette's? Are you, in fact, a gaping moron that shouldn't be let out on the street?"

Yeah, I did that very thing this morning and am really quite sick right now. Expect me to be nil by mouth and keyboard for the rest of the day.

As an apology to those of you who care particularly for my bon mots, here's a Jack Kirby book with a cover inked by Jim Lee, which I didn't even know existed:


Appendum from the Georgia office: "The inking seems perfectly serviceable. It's the colorist who should be hunted through the forest by dogs on a cold Bavarian night." Josh is, as always, pretty close to being something resembling right

Oh, what am I buying this week at the shop? I'm glad that you asked!

Apparently, People Magazine is going to be publishing a story about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie going off on some hottt sex and love trip as they wrap up filming on Mr. And Mrs. Smith, which looks to be loud and grating, if nothing else. Apparently, the tabloid (and don't act like they're anything but) is going be talking about how Angelina's adopted son Maddox is a factor in his breakup with Jennifer Aniston, as she didn't really want to have rugrats.

Me, I just think the man wanted an upgrade. I mean, why go with:

this...



...when you can get this?

(And yes, I spent quite a bit of time looking for a pair of photos where their assets could be shown equally. Yes, Angelina's makeup looks a bit tawdry, but...meow!)

Wired Online has a fascinating profile on George Lucas that starts off as a puff piece:

"I like Star Wars, but I certainly never expected it would take over my life," Lucas says in a conversation at Skywalker Ranch. He estimates that he gave two decades of solid work to Star Wars, not including a hiatus to raise three adopted kids as a single father. Now 60, the once-lanky wunderkind in aviator glasses has grown bearish, with a snowy, close-clipped beard and a sardonic wit that doesn't come through in the making-of documentaries. He says he's relieved that the longest chapter of his career is over.

"Normally at this time, I'd be under a lot of pressure to get the script done for the next movie. There wouldn't be any break from the stress and creative demands. So it's great to be able to kick back."

And manages to make me respect him again by examining his roots:

The film that made the most profound impression on Lucas, however, was a short called 21-87 by a director named Arthur Lipsett, who made visual poetry out of film that others threw away. Working as an editor at the National Film Board, he scavenged scraps of other people's documentaries from trash bins, intercutting shots of trapeze artists and runway models with his own footage of careworn faces passing on the streets of New York and Montreal. What intrigued Lucas most was Lipsett's subversive manipulation of images and sound, as when a shot of teenagers dancing was scored with labored breathing that might be someone dying or having an orgasm. The sounds neither tracked the images nor ignored them - they rubbed up against them. Even with no plot or character development, 21-87 evoked richly nuanced emotions, from grief to a tenacious kind of hope - all in less than 10 minutes.

Lucas threaded the film through the projector over and over, watching it more than two dozen times. In 2003, he told directors Amelia Does and Dennis Mohr, who are making a documentary on Lipsett, "21-87 had a very powerful effect on me. It was very much the kind of thing that I wanted to do. I was extremely influenced by that particular movie." Deciding that his destiny was to become an editor of documentaries who, like Lipsett, would make avant-garde films on the side, Lucas worked in the USC editing room for 12 hours at a stretch, living on Coca-Cola and candy bars, deep in the zone.

"When George saw 21-87, a lightbulb went off," says Walter Murch, who created the densely layered soundscapes in THX 1138 and collaborated with Lucas on American Graffiti. "One of the things we clearly wanted to do in THX was to make a film where the sound and the pictures were free-floating. Occasionally, they would link up in a literal way, but there would also be long sections where the two of them would wander off, and it would stretch the audience's mind to try to figure out the connection."

Interesting stuff that manages to get quotes from a broad variety of people including Roger Ebert, Peter Jackson and Walter Murch, who Lucas worked with early in his career. I may be greeting the last part of the series with a mixture of dread and anticipation, but I have to say that getting reminded of his impact in the industry was a good thing. I mean, this is the guy that promoted his film at San Diego Comicon back in 1976 and picked Howard Chaykin as artist on the comics. He may have made The Phantom Menace, but he also gave us THX-1138 and Raiders of The Lost Ark. Let's hope that Revenge Of The Sith stuffs his coffers to the point where he can do what it appears he's interested in: small movies that are there because he wants them there, not because of audience demand.

"We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy in this (far too brief) Time piece on the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission, a group of representatives gathered from the telecom industry to discuss things like standards and regulations and how it'll impact you, the consumer. That's right - if your company donated to a Democratic presidential campaign, you're not going to be able to have a say at one of your industry's major meetings because the Bush White House views your vote as being the same as gettin' a posse together and having them all lined up outside of the Rose Garden with pitchforks and torches, screaming for his head.

I know that this might seem minor to a lot of people but this, combined with the Frist and pals playing around with "the Nuclear Option" to fundamentally change how our government works¹ and the fact they tried to get Yosemite Sam pushed through as our ambassador to the UN in just these last couple of weeks makes me think that this administration and the current state of the Republican Party is all an elaborate hoax to make Nixon look a lot better in this history books.

¹Not to mention, you know, Terry Schiavo being used as a political football.

This morning, I noticed that my copy of this comic had managed to free itself, Mister Miracle-style, of the bonds represented by my overburdened boxes and wandered into the living room. I picked it up and spent a moment contemplating why the book still grabs my eye, a couple of decades after publication (I mean, outside of the fact that it's a Frank Miller Spider-Man comic.)



Goddamn, that's a good cover that does its job well - it sells the comic. It tells the viewer everything they need to know about why they may want to pick up this particular Amazing Spider-Man annual in a succinct manner that's still visually punchy and carrying no small amount of humor. With so many covers going for the pinup instead of the expository, it's nice to look back and remind yourself that there's a happy medium between overly wordy and bootylicious. I mean, what kid wouldn't want to find out what was going to happen inside? Hell, what comics-reading adult isn't going to pick it up and give it a gander?

File Under: Again with the Byrning.
Let's say that you're John Byrne. Let's say that you've made public statements equating a Hollywood starlet with a whore because she's of Latino descent and has dyed her hair blonde in order to play Susan Richards, a character that you're pretty darn familiar with since you wrote and drew the Fantastic Four's adventures for quite a few years. Now, obviously, you have some strong opinions when it comes to female heroines and how you want them viewed and Miss Alba, well...damn it, she's too stank-tastic in your myopic view to play The Invisible Woman! I mean, she's got to be a bit of a paragon of motherhood and saintliness, right, even if she's boffing a guy who can, frankly, put Dirk Diggler to shame with a minor bit of effort. She's a heroine and damn it, she's on display to the public! They shouldn't use anyone who might have, say, starred in Sin City as a stripper or someone who doesn't match your narrow ideas of what race looks right with which hair color because superhero comics and movies should be pure and for the kids, right?

Using this logic, then, comic book creators should be beholden to the intended audience just as much as film producers and actors, yes? So, like, if somebody pointed people to an image that you had created that featured a naked Scarlet Witch, then, like, you'd probably owe everyone an explanation or at least admit that you're a raging hypocritical pervert with more issues that National Geographic has released since it started publication?


Start your sputtering, you fuck.

(You can click on that to see the entire NSFW image. Special thanks to Josh for pointing me here.)

Since Graeme over at Fanboy Rampage needs to do some work or something this week, he's not going to be posting the latest insane ramblings of John Byrne and this heavy duty has to fall on someone. Shaenon's comment to Graeme's latest post pointed to this thread on the ByrneRobotics.com forum wherein the mainstream's equivalent of Dave Sim talks about "correct" comics terminology and replies to this inquiry from one of his Moloids:

Then this all brings up the question of language. Do words have inherent meanings or just those we ascribe to them? If enough pros, in addition to the fans, say "speech bubble" then why wouldn't "bubble" be just as valid as "balloon"? JB says "balloon", someone else says "bubble", and they could both be right.

With this answer:

There are lots of people who call Black people "niggers". Are both terms "right"?

You seem to have missed the rather important point that my response indicated roughly the same percentage of fans and pros use the improper terms for various elements of what we do -- but that percentage does not approach a balance. It is not that roughly half say "balloon" and half say "bubble". It is that some say "bubble" and they are wrong.

That's right, Byrne - people who say "bubble" instead of "balloon" when describing speech or thought as presented on the comics page are the equivalent of racist bastards who want separate drinking fountains and happen to have a lot of white sheets laying about the house.

Jesus Christ on toast, I am going to be cranky over this for the rest of the day.

Random comics shop retail notes:

While working at the shop today, I sold Arana and X-23 issues to a thirteen-year-old girl. That was sort of bittersweet, as that to-the-intended-demographic transaction was almost immediately followed by an X-Fetishist telling me how freaking hot X-23 was and that I was stupid for not reading the X-Men titles because Claremont really turned it around after that "hack Grant Morrison" fucked it up. They'll find his body¹ after trash day.

This is a good week for myself, Ian, and any other Chaykin fans out there - he's got three, count 'em, three books coming out and I gandered at the previews provided helpfully by the fine folks at DC. City Of Tomorrow launches with a snarling first issue that reminds me in tone, if not content, of his Challengers of the Unknown series. We also get his issue of Solo, where he covers Nazi-occupied France, jazz, mad scientists, western comics, white supremacy, and fear in the space of 48 pages along with the third issue of his compelling, if not exactly pleasant, collaboration with Russ Heath, Legend.

I sold a stack of Byrne Doom Patrol issues to somebody who heard "they were really good." I want to track down whoever is spreading this vicious rumor and introduce them to my fist repeatedly.

There was one overlong conversation concerning the sex lives of Tomax and Xamot from GI Joe. If one was hurt and the other felt the pain, per the commercial, did the same apply for pleasure? If Xamot had a hot date with, say, The Baronness, did Tomax have to stay home with a sock handy or wear a raincoat to his night classes at COBRA's training academy?

Finally, I present a recounting my half of a conversation with a customer:

Did I read The O.M.A.C. Project? Yeah, but I didn't dig it that much, but there's a lot of people that liked it.

Hey, if you liked DCU Countdown, you'll totally enjoy it.

No, I didn't like that either, but lots of people did.

No. I don't have to like anything.

No, I'm not "wrong." I'm just not looking for bullet lobotomies and rape in my superhero comics. I've got Seven Soldiers, you've got all the Crisis stuff. Everyone's happy.

No, it's fine that you like it! Lots of people like things that I don't like and I like lots of things other people don't like. That's how these things are. No skin off my nose if you like anything that we sell.

How am I, exactly, insulting you?

And no, he didn't buy the fucking book.


¹I kid. Honest.

Look, I've never been a proper nerd because I never got the Doctor Who bug. Of course, it was always on the local PBS affiliate when I was at the Right Age For These Things, but the low-fi production values that led to three sets (the TARDIS, some tunnel, and a gravel pit near the BBC's studios) and storytelling that was paced at a level that I didn't think was quite fast enough made me not like it one bit¹. Oh, as a reader of Starlog and someone who'd turn it on to give it a try every once in a while, so I had my favorite Doctors (in order: McCoy, Baker, Pertwee, and Davison,) but it just wasn't my thing.

It wasn't my thing, of course, until I got far too old to really dig it and they snuck Christopher Eccleston into the role. His mad eyes, his body language, his ability to say ridiculous lines like they were born on his tongue and happened to gestate there for years before delivery makes me completely believe in the character in a way that nobody else has - he seems genuinely alien a lot of the time instead of just being British. I'm also shocked by how much I like Billie Piper as Rose. I've watched three episodes now (the pilot and second episode and the first half of the London two-parter - the second is torrenting now) and think it's now exactly the sort of show I always wanted Doctor Who to be now that I'm past the intended age of the viewing audience².

Now that I like it, of course, Eccleston's saying he's not around for a second season, which is a bit maddening, but if the scripts keep this quality up, I'll be getting BitTorrents and watching and laughing and getting caught up in the madness in a way that I never managed to the first time around.

¹For the record, I liked the first season of the War Of The Worlds series, so my taste was and is pretty questionable.
²Anyone who thinks that Doctor Who isn't for smart ten year olds is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Dear Hollywood:

I have seen Stephen Chow's newest movie, Kung Fu Hustle, and wanted to let you all know that it's OK to stop trying - cinematic perfection has been achieved.

Love,
BeaucoupKevin

Allston resident Karl Stevens went and got himself a Xeric grant a little while back and used it to focus his efforts on Guilty, a slice-of-life comic that ably explores the awkwardness of seeing someone from your recent past with whom you had one of those breakups that was more effort than the relationship deserved. There's no real plot here, but with a work like this, the presentation is what matters, not the actual content¹ and what we've got here is the first "real" work from somebody who could, with a bit of effort, find himself in the company of guys like Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine.

The gorgeous black and white art, taken from photos of models and friends, is at first fairly disconcerting. When I look at this work, my eye wanders to the small details that Stevens captures perfectly and I ended up with pacing issues for the first few pages until I came up with a way to view the page that worked for me: start off holistically taking in the entire thing, then go panel by panel, so I had the timing worked out in my head.

Stevens seems to have taken the dialogue directly from actual conversations because it's all there; the strange half-sentences and the not-quite declarative statements that people are fond of using keep you amused because hell, it's voyeuristic and there's a tiny thrill you get from seeing people being themselves. Hell, even the thought balloons reflect a natural approach that's light-years ahead of his apparent experience and I'd love to see more people manage to pull off what he's doing so well in this book.

A few minor quibbles are there: the title of the book should be on the spine or on the cover, even if the art is distinctive and will pull people towards it. Sorry to be pedantic, but it's true - selling a book by name is hard when the name isn't on the damn thing. There's also a fair number of proofreading errors that should have been corrected: misspelled words and an appalling abuse of apostrophes, for instance.

Still, this is an excellent start for someone I'm looking forward to hearing more from in the future. If you'd like your own copy of Guilty, you can send $9.95 + $2 for shipping and handling to:
Karl Stevens
20 Coolidge Rd #2
Allston, MA 02134

I'm not sure if it's still available through Diamond; look under Karl Stevens Publishing when you get a moment.

¹I know this goes against my general instincts, but this is explicitly written and drawn to capture "real life," I'm going to discuss technique over story for once.

BeaucoupKevin: Oh, that reminds me - Flight Volume 2? I don't know if I can actually review it properly¹, but it is wonderful. Even the stories I'm not wild about, they're far above most stuff. The production values are through the roof and everyone seems to be fully invested in the project, except perhaps for Doug TenNapel, who seemed like he had a half-story that he sent in at the last minute.
EdCunard: I still haven't read the first one, because I suck.
BeaucoupKevin: What is it about you, anyway?
BeaucoupKevin: With the SUCKING.
EdCunard: I'm "busy."
BeaucoupKevin: All that internet porn's not going to look at itself, I suppose.
EdCunard: Yes. Pictures of the GMA anchors get me ROCK FUCKING HARD.

¹I hate, hate, hate reviewing comics anthologies. I always end up missing something and the wildly variable quality generally drives me bugfuck. Just go buy Flight Volumes 1 and 2 if you've not.

So, my friend wants to listen to the new CD from Erasure-opening band Elkland on her work computer.

*** Message (#187) from InternetFriend at 10:00 ***
>I just want to effing listen to the CD.
>I don't want to rip it. I don't want to illegally distribute it.
>I JUST WANT TO LISTEN TO IT.

Now, to get to listen to this record, the person that has the CD has to go and install some sort of proprietary player, which she can't do because she doesn't have administrator rights on the work computer. I just love how Sony is a pile of hypocritical jackasses who get bands into usurious contracts full of bullshit terms like "cross-collateralization" that make sure that the artist sees less money than they'd make with an indie label that wouldn't restrict them in as many ways who then turn around and fuck over the consumer in the exact same manner with restrictions on what you can do with the music that you bought outright.

There are, of course, many sites that offer better arguments than myself against the major labels, but you get to benefit directly from my rage. I am offering a completely free taster from Elkland's new album, Golden. Right click (or control-click if you're on a Mac) here to download a 4.3mb, 192kbps MP3 of "Everybody's Leaving," which is my favorite song on the record. If you like this, of course, I recommend buying the album as it's a decent enough record - they've got about four songs that they represent in three different ways, like the Killers did on Hot Fuss. All in all, this is fun synthpop that sounds like they raided my diary when I was 17 and wrote songs about all the pining and angst and miserablism I had then.

Sony, you bastards, I'm promoting your record that's not going to get any fucking radio play. I am encouraging people to purchase this album, even with your restrictive measures that don't, you know, work against a Macintosh. You have to know that The Long Tail exists thanks to people like me, so why make it harder to get the good word out?

Chris nails it:

It's just absolutely amazing, coming into the store on a Wednesday and seeing so many great books. And people happy to pick up those books. Like, even when I don't particularly care for their tastes, and I'm not gonna name books here or anything, I don't want to alienate anyone, but when they come in and they're like "YES! _____ CAME OUT!" that, to me, is the very definition of why I'm in the biz. I want people to read good comics, for sure, but I think more importantly for me I want them to be happy with what they're buying. It's not that I'm sick of 'negativity' (although I think that's just a catch-all word for retards to defend against any criticism, legitimate or otherwise), I'm just sick of unhappiness, the dark cloud of dissatisfaction that surrounds so many people purchasing SO MANY books. If it doesn't make you happy, don't buy it. Buy things that make you happy, you know?

Amen, brother. Stop being zombies, people. Open your mind a bit and discover that there's something out there besides your beloved-more-for-nostalgia-than-any-real-reason comics from the Big Two. Stop bitching about Hawkeye and Blue Beetle and check out something that's genuinely enthralling.

This is the end of today's lecture.

So, Mal¹ wanted a coherent review of Sharknife and as I finished it, I decided what it reminded me of:

When my friend Pete and I first saw Fight Club, I wanted to go do all the things seen in the film. I wanted to destroy franchise coffee bars and get into fights for the sake of feeling something. Sharknife makes me want to huff Pixie Stix, listen to Yoko Kanno's anime soundtracks, and play Viewtiful Joe until my eyes bleed, and in a good way.

Like Scott Pilgrim², it is The New. It makes me feel old and frail and wonder when the pudding is going to come along and you know what? I want it that way. I want to be confronted by madness and genius and a pure creative vision. I've been wanting to see the true heirs to Kirby, not John Byrne whining his way through yet another New Gods riff, and these guys are doing it by creating entirely new genres and methods of comics storytelling. Bra-fucking-vo.

¹Brian: This weekend, I am burning and arting your 5-disc jazz introductory course. I spent all last weekend figuring out the track order and putting it together. You will be blinded by its brilliance and start wearing a beret and snapping your fingers to indicate your approval with something.

²I don't care if Mal's reading this and you think I'm sucking up to him. Until you've read Scott Pilgrim, you have no idea how fucking excellent it is. The only thing that could improve it is having Batman show up, but we've been over this.

Updated my Flickr page since I went and decided the Pro thing was the way to go. Took a lot of photos of the downtown area near my office for Gwen, who was asking me what Boston's downtown was like. There's a lot of truly ugly buildings with a few from an earlier time that are quite nice. I suppose I'll be doing more photos with the spring coming and all.

Speaking of weather: today, it is 84F°. Tomorrow, it will be 58F° for a high. Love that New England weather.

According to the Diamond shipping lists, every freakin' comic from
Marvel and DC is coming out today.

Fuck 'em. I mean it. They can fuck right off because you only
need to buy one comic today, and that is...


SHARKNIFE!

"Hey, you got your realism in my superhero!" or "Another fucking Alex Ross cover?"

Sometime during my wanderings this weekend, I saw that someone (whoever you are, please comment so I can attribute this properly) pointed out something interesting and vexing about the new Superman vs. The Flash trade paperback. They've taken these pop superhero stories that are absurd, childish, and sheer fun and slapped an Alex Ross cover on them to make it more sellable. See, Alex Ross is the exact fucking opposite of "fun" in my book ­ his heavy-handed Norman Rockwell approach to superheroes is one of the things that's driving me right up the fucking wall lately.

Why do comics companies (DC, in particular) feel the need to burden escapist entertainment with "realistic" and "grim" storylines? Why do they think that getting some guy to paint a cover that shows how utterly fucking serious a pair of people who dress in spandex and primary colors are about their little race is in any way a true reflection of what's inside? Why go with Alex Ross instead of a Darwyn Cooke or Alex Toth? Why not ask Carmine Fucking Infantino to show them some love now that they've taken care of that lawsuit? I mean, he only helped define the Flash in the Silver Age and can sling ink fairly well to this day. Ross is also doing a variant cover for the new Green Lantern #1. Why? Carlos Pacheco isn't good enough? Last time I checked, his art was more fluid and alive than anything Ross does outside of his sketchbooks¹ and the preview covers I saw from him were good enough, thanks very much for asking.

The people that go towards things with Alex Ross covers generally don't want to read older comics - they want to feel like they're getting in touch with some sort of pseudo-art that's ponderous and important. Superhero comics, while culturally significant as a genre and a great deal of fun when done properly are not, in fact, important a good 99.95% of the time. It's not enough to tell your audience that something is important because it's drawn in a dark, brooding style and some rape happens within; you have to give them more.

So, it's not enough that heroes wives have to go and get the Law And Order: SVU treatment. Now we have to make sure that people go "Oh my god, this comic is important because that Alex Ross painted that cover and he's a real fucking artist" in order to get more sales on a title that is going to do gangbusters anyway because it's Geoff Johns doing Hal Jordan? Do they not notice that shows like Teen Titans Go and Justice League Unlimited have an audience primed for fun? Do they not notice that Morrison's managed to do some sales magic with C-list characters because the Seven Soldiers stuff is pop and surreal and fun?

I've been assured by people "who know stuff" that all this darkness is going to lead to a brighter tomorrow, but I'm choosing to ignore it unless somebody at the shop on a Sunday asks me directly about a title. I don't need to be told that something is important and I find it personally insulting that they choose to go that route instead of letting me figure this stuff out myself.

Yes, this is like my ninth rant about the current state of the DCU. I'll get over it one day, when they stop telling me how fucking seriously I should take their books about guys with names like Mister Terrific.

¹I've seen some sketches from Ross that were, in fact, quite good and could be used on their own as comics art quite easily. It's when he starts applying the paint and making Superman look as if he were crapping a nine-pound piece of brie that I go off the rails in regards to his art. See also: he made a friend dress up as Galactus for Marvels, for Christ's sake. I don't think any of my homies would do that for me.

Minor tweaks time - the blogroll is getting updated a tiny bit with some careful, surgical cuts and additions, including the new groupblog from Kevin Melrose, Rick Geerling, and Sam Costello, Dark, But Shining. I'll be taking down the link to Rick's solo blog, which he's abandoned so it may go feral and roam the web, destroying all who stand in its way and eating their children. Melrose reminded me that I wanted to point out that it looked like this week's New York Times Sunday Book Review was crafted for me with a great piece on the new Lovecraft anthology edited by Peter Straub (registration required - you may want to ask BugMeNot for a login if you don't have one already) as well as a dark and moving look at Hunter S. Thompson in his final months.

Today, I will be working, but here's something neat and fun. Confess something anonymously in the comments. I won't look at the IP unless it's to delete something truly hateful and do some banning, so worry about your privacy not at all. Of course, why should you trust me? I look shifty.

Nerd Conversations I Have Had:

InternetFriend: See the Marvel July solicits?
BeaucoupKevin: Nope.
BeaucoupKevin: Note that I didn't comment on DC's.
InternetFriend: I don't even remember DC's.
BeaucoupKevin: Exactly.

InternetFriend: Peter Weller and Harry Groener are in the series-ending three-parter for Enterprise.
InternetFriend: About which all I know is the following TV Guide blurb: A xenophobic faction of humanity threatens to undermine talks to form a new coalition of planets.
BeaucoupKevin: "...and they're summarily executed by the Mirror Universe crew. Who then gang-rape Delta - the whole planet."
BeaucoupKevin: This is why they keep me away from Trek.
InternetFriend: So that's the reason.

The idea of structure and storytelling being the point of the work in comics isn't especially new. When it's pulled of well, as with Watchman and Brat Pack, it can be a glorious story experience as well as a fascinating exercise in deconstruction. Badly handled use of metatext is, of course, pretty awful on the eyes and minds of those who have been abused by it. Deciding not to hide anything at all, however, is a completely new approach and James Turner's Nil: A Land Beyond Belief from Slave Labor is one of the freshest comics I've read in the last few years for taking analytical and surreal work into an entirely new direction as well as providing a coherent, enjoyable story (unlike, say, The Filth.)

I've spent the last hour or so trying to come up with a way to easily give you the gist of this book with no real satisfactory results. Instead, here's a breakdown of what kicks off the story:

• Our hero, Proun Nul, destroys memes and contains idealogical outbreaks for a living.
  
• He lives in a Nil, a nation dedicated to Nothing and at war with Optima, their cheery neighbors.
  
• He drinks a lot of coffee, his boss regularly abuses him, and he's in love with a girl who'd rather pretend he didn't exist.
  
• He's accused of murdering the abusive boss and finds himself linked to terrorism before being sent to the front lines of the war with Optima.
  
• At the same time, the government of Nil is enacting more and more restrictions upon the populace in pursuit of Nothing.

Handled in another matter, this could be a pretty by-the-numbers, academic wank comics experience, but it's the density of story and deconstruction that really pulls you in - there's always something to look at and you wonder what the hell is going to happen to Proun Nul next as his life falls apart.

At first, Nil's look was offputting to me - the death's head iconography of all the characters with the vector-based graphic design made me feel like I was reading something a little too clinical, but Turner manages to balance plot with satirical statement perfectly and the propaganda-derived art suits it perfectly once you get the swing of things. The reader is explicitly assaulted by the messages promoted by the government of Nil, barraged by ads and constant footnotes and asides pointing out the failures of random individuals, and this isn't distracting in the least; it provides more world-building in an entertaining way that just adds to the total experience.

This slab of fiercely funny comics is $13, which is a bargain - I would have paid $20 for it quite happily. You can visit the Nil website here.

My view at Diesel this morning, around 10.

Back in BOS early. Missed out on certain things and people, which is a situation that I will resolve in June. Prepare.

Five good points of last night's Erasure show:

1. Opening band Elkland did a good job of the whole Joy Division-meets-Duran Duran thing. A little too arched-eyebrow in places and the lead singer's dancing is, frankly, dreadful, but all in all quite enjoyable.
   
2. Erasure themselves were spot on and quite wonderful to behold as a slab of disco fun, fun, fun. Andy played to the crowd well and Vince seemed to be having a great deal of fun. The backup singers were gloriously outfitted and did a great job of giving me some eye candy while the disco boys were all about The Andy.
   
3. Sarah had a great time, which was important to me. I even caught her singing along with the chorus a few times.
   
4. Gaggles of cute Asian girls around me for some reason. I ain't complaining.
   
5. There were some very lovely people in the crowd, including a nice enough couple that we shared some words with.

Four bad points of last night's Erasure show:

1. Jesus Christ, some people need a life outside of certain bands. Wearing costumes during certain songs? Throwing glitter? Interpretive hand dancing? I mean, yes, that's quite fun for you, but it makes you a giant obstruction to those standing in your wake.
   
2. You know, if you wanted to be up front in a general admission show, you should show up early. Stop trying to bully your way to the front. It's hard enough putting up with the crowd bumping against me without drunken buffoons showing up three songs before the end and causing a scuffle to my left.
   
3. Judas priest, when did I get so old? Sarah and I had to sit down on the steps near Union Square for twenty minutes after the show, complaining about our aching feet. Andy goes and gets his hips replaced and dances about like a 13 year old sugar freak for two hours, we're contemplating our sciatica issues.
   
4. Didn't bring my camera, assuming that the Irving Plaza staff would grab it from me, so I ended up taking a few pictures with my cameraphone, which you can see here. Meanwhile, everyone else is shooting with their nice units and my god, the lighting was excellent. Bah.

All in all, a fine show that offered very few musical surprises. I do wish they'd managed to work in a few older numbers along the lines of "Phantom Bride," which was nice to hear. Several albums were skipped entirely; nothing from Cowboy or Erasure was performed and I was disappointed in the way that only a discography-memorizing fan can be.

On the bus down, I read the new Slave Labor graphic novel, Nil: A Land Beyond Belief and will do a full review soonish as it deserves a proper look.

Out of town for a few days and I may or may not be making audioblog posts while in The City. Benari - ring me or I will mock you mercilessly and heckle you at your next local show, which I will not sleep through in a NyQuil haze next time, I'm sure. Anyone else looking to get in touch with me can fire off a quick SMS to my phone or ringing me. You have the number if I want you to have it.

Other news: finally saw Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow and think it's a gorgeous, funny, fast moving movie that needs only one thing to make it perfect: the gory on-screen death of Gwyneth Paltrow, who couldn't act her way out of a wet paper sack with David Mamet directing her.

I am, of course, a massive fan of the Pet Shop Boys. At the drop of the metaphorical hat, I can go off on why, exactly, I think they're the smartest people to work in pop music and how they understand how dance music with words doesn't need to be inane. I can tell you huge chunks of trivia about them and have read the two "official" books on them innumerable times. I'm a gawking fanboy, in other words.

However, I can not compete with Marcin Wichary, who created a site celebrating 10 years of "Being boring," their poignant look at growing up. Mind you, it's now been 14 years since the song's release and the site hasn't been updated since mid-2003, but give them credit for keeping the hosting and the domain name going just to celebrate their love for this song. And now, a quote about punctuation and the Pets from the site, which cribbed it from Literally issue 24¹:

Long hours were spent trying to agree on consistent rules for punctuation, particularly in Neil�s lyrics. (The basic rule followed is that a new line begins with a capital letter when the previous sentence�which of often far from the same as the previous line�has finished). One of the many points of dispute in the text itself was Neil�s insistence that the Pet Shop Boys� rules for how they write their song titles�in particular which letters should be printed in upper or lower case�should be formalised and rigorously followed. The rule is that, in this respect, all Pet Shop Boys song titles should be treated as if they are sentences: the first word should be capitalised, but subsequent words should only be capitalised if they are proper nouns. So it should be I want a dog but it likewise should be Dreaming of the Queen (as the song refers to one particular queen, the Queen of England). Most controversial was Neil�s insistence that�because the West End is a specific area of London� West End girls should henceforth appear like that. This rule only applies to songs the Pet Shop Boys have written, or to the Pet Shop Boys recordings, so it would be correct to write about the Pet Shop Boys number one hit Always on my mind whilst also noting that they were inspired to record it after hearing Elvis Presley�s hit version of Always On My Mind.

I rather appreciate this monomaniacal approach to punctuation and think that Lynne Truss would agree with me.

In other intelligent popsters news, the live DVD for the Sparks Lil' Beethoven tour will finally be getting a stateside release on April 26th. The first half is the titular album being performed in its entirety with the second portion serving as a "hits" sort of thing. The reviews were fairly stellar for this, and as their Live In London DVD from the Balls Tour is a staple of my working background noise, I am looking forward most eagerly.

Finally, I'm returning to the city that never sleeps this weekend for a limited engagement - seeing Erasure at Irving Plaza with Sarah and then spending the rest of the weekend attempting to avoid her efforts to get me out to Coney Island. Hopefully, Kristin will be coming down on Sunday for the day so I can have her meet Ryan, the other loud southern liberal in the Northeastern US and run around a bit to her favorite spots.

¹This was added after Isaac at Toner Mishap pointed out that I didn't attribute properly. This sort of thing is, frankly, shoddy and I should be beaten for it.

In an effort to tarnish, rape, and plunder that last bit of innocence that you have, some cat has created a full-length Jetsons/Flintstones orgy comic¹ that, frankly, shows far too much talent in the fine art of drawing Hannah-Barbera-styled genitalia. I suppose that Blue Beetle getting a bullet lobotomy while Sue Dibny's dead ass is raped by Congorilla is freaking Shakespearean compared to this, but I have to say that I enjoyed this little thing much more than the current not-Morrison DCU stuff because it has no pretensions at all; it's a dirty little fuckbook.

Sort of sad that my view of comics has reached that point, isn't it?

¹If you need to be told that this is Not At All Goddamn Safe For Work, then you probably don't deserve to have the job you currently possess unless you're a Subway sandwich artist and no, I'm not going to order the mayo on that, thanks.

I am now on Flickr and will be updating that more often than I managed to do photobloggery posts. So, you know, go there. There's a permalink on the left now, replacing my now-idle eBay auctions. While I'm at it, you should check out Cecil of 100n30th's photos - I think they are, as Manolo would say, the superfabulous.

Baseball. I like it well enough, I suppose, as long as I'm not forced to watch an entire game without a bottle of bourbon next to me and a Gameboy in my hand. Don't get me wrong - I truly appreciate the amount of strategy and athleticism the sport requires, but so much of the time during a game is spent with nobody moving and a good deal of staring and overanalysis on the part of announcers that my ADD-addled, MTV-rotted brain decides that yes, that piece of tin foil is an excellent way to pass some of the downtime. Comics and cinema, however, can compress and expand time at will, letting the audience get past all of the dull standing about and crotch grabbing and focusing on the actual sporting aspects. This is why I like Major League and The Natural more than, you know, the Red Sox winning the World series - I get to the story that lies in the middle of all the minute detritus that appeals to me not one bit.

There's not much in the way of sports comics, however - Julie Schwartz got a hair up his ass in the early 70s and Strange Sports Stories was born, but it was a short-lived experiment; even Marvel's Sports Action series of the 50s only lasted 14 issues. Hell, when it comes to just baseball, the pickings are even more slender - not even Will Eisner could make a baseball title sell, so they've laid pretty fallow over the years.

James Sturm, however, isn't a man who's going to let failure on the part of others stop him from trying to make something unique. As the third and most ambitious part in his trilogy of historical works, this story of a Jewish baseball team in the 1920s stands as a parable that illustrates the dangerous stupidity of anti-semitism as well as the love of a sport that's pretty much got our country by the short and curlies now and maybe even moreso then. The Stars Of David, a minor league team managed by our narrator Noah Strauss, travel throughout the country playing against local teams in a circuit that includes gimmicky groups such as the Hoboes and the Zulus. They're paid upfront for their skills, generally barely break even, and have a pretty hard time of it considering the fact that people at the time just plain didn't trust the Jews.

The Stars Of David, however, have a secret weapon in the form of Henry "Hershl Bloom" Bell, a towering black man with an incredible swing who is a little too old for the Negro League but still has plenty of play left in him. It's this man who catches the attention of an agent, Victor Paige, whose Big Inning Promotional Agency promises to double the group's revenue with a clever bit involving Henry being dressed as the mythical Jewish saviour, the Golem. This sets the team's fortunes on a new course and creates a sensation that brings as much trouble as it does success.

There's a very funny bit from one of the early episodes of SportsNight where Jeremy is trying to edit a baseball game down for a highlight reel and he finds a bit of beauty in every moment of the game - he's unwilling to cut anything that builds the struggle in the minds of the viewer but he only has thirty of forty seconds to give the viewer a look at the game where he's created an eight and a half minute short film that would make Ken Burns pause. Sturm's an ambitious cartoonist and manages to create this ideal highlight reel for the readers in a few pages per game, really showing the ebb and flow of the game as well as the individual players' struggles.

This talent, combined with his natural interest in American history and ability to fully flesh out characters with a few discrete brush strokes, makes this an easy to read story that rewards the reader on multiple levels: it's a fun story about baseball; it's an interesting study of racial prejudice in the early 20th Century; it's a statement of what can be done with comics without pretension while still being worthy of serious consideration. I highly regret not reading this earlier and urge you to spend some time with this.

Click to make big and see how freaking weird my tastes can be.

I've done another review for Taco Addiction. I've finally capitulated and agreed to use their arcane and arbitrary x-out-of-10 system to express my delight and/or disgust with a place's offerings for those who are too bloody lazy actually, you know, read three poorly-written paragraphs. Today is a day of much plate-spinning, so you'll have to wait until tonight or tomorrow to know what I thought of the latest 4 trade from Marvel Knights along with whatever else I manage to consume between the subway and home.

So, the comics that are coming out this week which are new and you should pay attention to because I say so, then? That's what I thought. I read two DC titles from the preview pack, Gotham Central and Mnemovore, and opted to ignore everything that Marvel was unleashing upon an unsuspecting populace in some sort of effort to ensure that they earned a place in the Biohazard Hall Of Fame.

People that read this blog and know that I have an affinity for Gotham Central will have no surprises at all when I say that issue 30 is a fine comic well worth reading, but I have to include the disclaimer that this is only true if you've never seen Silence of the Lambs or read Batman hissing the line "It ends now!" That's right, Gotham Central has managed to lightly spring over the shark in an amazing show of laziness that only the truly overburdened can manage. Ah, Rucka - I love so much of what you write so very much and I love this particular title as if it sprang from my mother's loins and was raised alongside me - but this is a remarkably tiresome issue with only a few character moments involving Montoya's girlfriend and Allen's fear of flying that make it seem like anything more than a cut-and-paste exercise that gets our Lecterized version of Dr Alchemy over to Gotham from his cell in Keystone. I do hope that the next issue doesn't feature Batman's doing the snake routine over more overwrought lines while a remarkably dapper Dr. Alchemy makes with the destruction through his proxy, but I fear that will be the case. A fairly lousy issue in a normally very good series that I can't recommend enough - a thorny dilemma for an unapologetic fan like me.

Issue 1 of Hans Rodinoff's collaboration with Ray Fawkes, Mnemovore, launches this week with moody art by the always-nice-to-see Mike Huddleston. Amnesia, a beyond-hackneyed plot device, is used to better-than-usual effect to start the reader as well as our lead character, Kaley Markowic, off from ground zero. She's an extreme snowboarder who manages to get her head whacked in a quite-righteous manner and ends up in the hospital. She gets out, of course, and tries to start living her life. The first issue ends as truly horrific stuff happens to the boyfriend she's not sure she's all that fond of and it leaves the reader going "...and then?" That's what you want in a first issue of a six-issue miniseries - introduce your players and start the action up. There was a disturbing jump that gave me a moment's pause: something that looks like a Fearsome Brain-Eating Worm is sliding into Kaley's boyfriend's ear and when you turn the page, you get an ad for this godawful looking videogame called God Of War. I thought that the reader was getting a look into the boyfriend's head until I noticed the sales pitch on the left side of the spread. Other than this little odd moment, I thoroughly enjoyed the start of what looks to be an interesting story.

Onto other comicky things, then. Mark Millar may have earned a good deal of scorn with his mindless and unrelentingly violent tour of the Marvel Universe that culminated in the shocking-to-those-who-get-shocked-by-this-sort-of-thing death of Northstar, a character whose primary attribute as far as most people were concerned was "being The Gay One." Northstar's managed to return, though, in the last few pages of Wolverine #26, which Young Aaron showed me at the shop today. In the penultimate spread of this issue, he's back and leading the recently-resurrected parade characters that Logan's offed in the Millar run against Nick Fury's vehicle of choice. Say what you will about the general awfulness of this book; the image of a Zombie Homosexual Mutant leading a Rocketpack-Utilizing Brigade Of The Undead against a SHIELD Helicarrier is, frankly, the sort of absurd thing I'd like to see more often in my spandex books.

We received a fuckton of backlist and out-of-print graphic novels at the shop that I got to put away - the quite-good Giant Robot Warriors and The Annotated Mantooth came in from AiT/Planet Lar, along with copies of The Golem's Mighty Swing and Jis's Cats Don't Exist, which I took home for perusal. I've read several other things by Sturm, including Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules and his shorter historical works Hundreds Of Feet Below Daylight and The Revival, and am looking forward to finally getting around to The Golem's Mighty Swing as I've been missing my RDA of indie graphic novels centering around Jewish baseball and feel like a bit of a prat for not getting around to it sooner. I'm sure I'll give it and Cats Don't Exist a rattling about on here soonish.

I finally got around to seeing the deservedly award-winning The Fog Of War and it's a fascinating study of Robert S. McNamara - a man who's obviously haunted by his role in the firebombing of Tokyo in 1945 and the many deaths that took place under his orders as Secretary of Defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Here are the ten lessons he's learned from his life in public office and beyond. I think they are more relevant than ever and show a man who's willing to analyze the things he's done, even if he'll never admit direct responsibility.

Lesson One
The human race will not eliminate war in this century, but we can reduce the brutality of war- the level of killing- by adhering to the principles of a "Just War," in particular to the principle of "proportionality."

Lesson Two
The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations

Lesson Three
America is the most powerful nation on earth- economically, politically and militarily- and is likely to remain so for decades. But it IS not omniscient.

If it cannot persuade other nations with similar interests and values of the merits of its proposed use of that power, it should not proceed unilaterally except in the unlikely requirement to defend directly the continental US.

Lesson Four
Moral priniciples are often ambiguous guides to foreign policy and defence policy, but surely it can be agreed that we should establish as a major goal of foreign policies across the globe: the avoidance in this century of the carnage - 160 million dead - caused by conflict alone in the 20th century.

Lesson Five
America, the richest nation in the world, has failed in its responsibility to its own poor and the disadvantaged across the world to help them advance their welfare in the most fundamental terms of nutrition, literacy, health and employment.

Lesson Six
Corporate executive must recognize there is no contradiction between a soft heart and a hard head. Of course, they have responsibilities to stockholders, but they also have responsibilities to their employees, their customers and society as a whole.

Lesson Seven
President Kennedy believed a primary responsibility of a president - indeed the primary responsibility of a president - is to keep the nation out of war, if at all possible.

Lesson Eight
War is a blunt instrument by which to settle disputes between or within nations, and economic sanctions are rarely effective. Therefore, we should build a system of jurisprudence based on the International court - that the US has REFUSED to support - which would hold individuals responsible for crimes against humanity.

Lesson Nine
If we are to deal effectively with terrorists across the globe we must develop a sense of empathy - I don't mean "sympathy," but rather "understanding" - to counter their attacks on the western world.

Lesson Ten
One of the greatest dangers we face today is the risk that terrorists will obtain access to weapons of mass destruction as a result of the breakdown of the Non-Proliferation regime. We in the US are contributing to that breakdown.

Don't worry. Fun content is coming tomorrow, when I finally read some new comics.

BeaucoupKevin: I picked up The Comics Journal this morning.
EdCunard: Grr. I won't get my TCJ until next week.
EdCunard: DON'T SPOIL IT! I WANT TO KNOW IF EISNER COMES BACK FROM TEH DEAD!
BeaucoupKevin: I mean, I can't believe Joe Simon was the one that shot him...
EdCunard: FUCK.
BeaucoupKevin: To find out he'd be behind the Harveys all these years was pretty shocking. And I'm glad to see that they're finally giving Fighting American the serious treatment he deserves.
EdCunard: Next, you'll tell me he did a racist characature at one point, or something.
BeaucoupKevin: That's being written out of the continuity with a six-part mini called The E.B.O.N.Y. Edict.
EdCunard: Ah.
EdCunard: Who gets raped in that one?
BeaucoupKevin: Sand Serif is revealed to be a man named Omar Freedom-hayter. That's when American Power gets involved.
BeaucoupKevin: HE gets raped by Ayatollah Assahollah!
EdCunard: Nice.
EdCunard: Assrape=good comics.
BeaucoupKevin: But really, you should read it to really understand what they're trying to say. There's a lot of context missing from what I just told you.
BeaucoupKevin: I guess we just wrote today's blog entry, didn't we?
EdCunard: YAY! I FEEL LIKE A CELEBRITY BUT WORSE!

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Pope John Paul II is being reborn in a Colombian comic book as a superhero battling evil with an anti-Devil cape and special chastity pants.

The first episode of the "Incredible Popeman" is about to go on sale in Colombia and shows the late Polish pontiff meeting comic book legends such as Batman and Superman to learn how to use superpowers to battle Satan.

"The pope was a real-life superhero, of flesh and blood," said Colombian artist Rodolfo Leon, a non-practicing Catholic who has been working on the comic book for about a year.

Like any self-respecting superhero, the Incredible Popeman has a battery of special equipment. Along with his yellow cape and green chastity pants, the muscular super-pontiff wields a faith staff with a cross on top and carries holy water and communion wine.

(Eddie Izzard is, once again, ahead of the curve. Nananananananana Popeman! More after the link. This was sent to me by the one, the only, the Gw3n. She gets +3 points.)

What happens when a stuntman and extra on Star Trek and VIP and the director of Elektra and the X-Files flick team up to help bolster a nation's spirits after the tragic events of September 11?

Pure magic. This will take a bit to load, but it's so worth it. Courtesy (if you can call it that) of Scotto.

I've written up a new entry for those tough-ass LA chicks that run TacoAddiction. Check it out.

So, I get this information sent my way today. Kraftwerk's on tour.

May 30, 2005, 9.30 Club, Washington, USA
May 31, 2005, 9.30 Club, Washington, USA
June 1, 2005, Hammerstein, New York, USA
June 3, 2005, State Theatre, Detroit, USA
June 4, 2005, Riviera, Chicago, USA
June 6, 2005, Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, USA

I really like that the NYC date is, of course, on a Wednesday so there's no way I can manage to do that and feasibly take a Friday off to attend the MoCCa Art Festival a week later.

I am Jack's enraged bile duct. At least they're offering a live package in the near future, so I can content myself with merely controlling the German Fathers Of Motherfucking Techno from the couch.

BeaucoupKevin: On my list: you, for suggesting Indian. Oh, my tummy.
Sarah: That's what you get for ordering vindaloo!
Sarah: and not washing it down with Flying Horse beer
BeaucoupKevin: Like, up all night with the misery, me.
Sarah: awww
Sarah: sorry to hear that
BeaucoupKevin: Normally, my stomach is cast in lead.
BeaucoupKevin: I dunno WHAT it was.
Sarah: did you eat that sausage? I BET IT WAS MYSTERY INDIAN SAUSAGE!!
BeaucoupKevin: YOU GAVE ME THAT SAUSAGE.
Sarah: you -asked- for that sausage
Sarah: How was I to know you weren't man enough to handle it!?
BeaucoupKevin: "Is that sausage?"
BeaucoupKevin: "Yes, do you want it?"
BeaucoupKevin: "I'll try it, sure."
BeaucoupKevin: THAT WAS THE DIALOGUE.
Sarah: I don't remember it that way. I was trying to eat my sausage, somebody swiped it off my sizzling tray, and the rest is - as they say - history.
BeaucoupKevin: You're a bloody liar.
Sarah: I prefer the term "revisionist."

This is why I keep her around.

In an attempt to revive my rapidly waning interest in all things Star Wars, I picked up the Clone Wars animated series on DVD. It's not bad, really - there's quite a few decent setpieces and some fun action sequences that compare equally with the current films, the space battle in particular. But one thing kept bothering me the entire time - why did Anakin look so...off? That's when I put two and two together.

I can't be the only one perplexed by that neck, can I? I mean, really.

So, I'm contemplating attending SPX this year, as Kristin's wanting to go to Baltimore and it seems like a decent way to at least kill a day in a long weekend. Flights are like $40 each way. Is managing to work both Bethesda and Baltimore into the same weekend with a serious stretch of geek time do-able? We'd probably go down the Friday before and leave the Monday after or something like that. Comments? Questions? Warnings?

Today's Picks from the huge swath of comic-related goodness include:

I'm fairly sure that I ordered Action Philosphers by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey. If you didn't, you'll find handy Diamond Ordering Codes on that link so you can be more sure than me and make with the telling of the LCS to get on the stick. Or something. Just get it. I can't resist anything that has Bodhidharma: Grandmaster Of Kung Fu, and neither should you.

Garth Ennis and Glenn Fabry's enjoyably slight Authority: Kev works are put together in a handy trade for those who didn't pick them up in singles form. I laughed quite a bit at these, even if they utilize a befuddled version of Stereotypical Ennis Hard Nutter #237.

DC: The New Frontier Volume 2 is now out. You can finally read second part of the series that will be remembered much more fondly than the vast majority of work they're putting out currently and be reminded of how cool superheroes can be. I'm sure there's going to be an Absolute edition, but it's the sort of book I need to have around. Yes, I'm that sad of a human being. Want to see my pogs?

Great Lakes Avengers #1 reminded me a whole lot of Quantum and Woody, a book I enjoyed despite its shortcomings. This is a little more slapstick than Slott's She-Hulk work, but still chugs along quite nicely. You don't need to be that familiar with the Marvel Universe or the title characters, so people worried about the all-consuming Continuity Gods shouldn't worry one bit.

I read Seven Soldiers: Zatanna and declared it quite good. Unfortunately, I was alone in a comics shop on a Sunday morning, but hey...I declared it, so it must be so. Sook learned to draw real pretty when I wasn't looking.

You may have the stories anyway, but getting Vertigo: First Taste as an introduction for an unsuspecting sort into the world of good comics is an idea worth consideration, no? I'd almost like to see them continue this as a regular thing along the lines of Shonen Jump or the like.

About twenty minutes after this posted originally, I realized I'd missed two things, so I present a special BeaucoupKevin Appendum.

Lex Luthor Man Of Steel #2 comes out today, too, but you're probably reading that already. Good luck finding #1 if you didn't grab it. Worry not - they'll do a hardcover, and then a trade paperback eventually.

Rick Remender, Keiron Dwyer and Salgood Sam set sail with Sea Of Red #1 coming out this week, too. Pirates that are zombiefied or something. It'll have an audience, I'm quite sure.

(And yes, that's about it worth really noting this week - I see a bunch of manga there, but I'm sure those who care for it more than I do will tell you about the fine releases in that section.)

Ren sends me the strangest things.

"As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create."
                                                                 Spock, Star Trek II

I've been doing some thinking. Yes, I know the immediate reaction is to run to the hills with your families and pray that the Nerd Gods don't rain heavenly fire down upon you for reading that sentence, but hear me out, here. As it were.

Some discussions with people who better inform and help shape my opinions in regards to my preferred medium of comics have led me to a conclusion: I'm not going to bother with comics that I don't like anymore. I'm not going to talk about them for the most part and I'm going to, for lack of a better phrase, ignore them whenever possible. Why? For the same reason I dismiss movies featuring Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray with soundtracks featuring that new single from Faith Hill or whatever - it's obviously not me who they're aiming for with this stuff.

As you can see from this CBR poll, I'm in the vast minority in regards to DC Countdown and I've realized that's just fine. If they're going to smack readers like me around in search of a reaction, I'm going to do exactly what they don't want - walk away and go to another playground. While the "mainline" DCU is suffering tragic consequences, yadda yadda yadda, I've got Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers to enjoy. While Marvel shakes everything up with House Of M, I've got...well, Daredevil, for now. Obviously, a lot of the comicsblogospheriverse agrees with me, but we're not driving sales for DC or Marvel as much as we'd like to think we are. During the poker tournament this past weekend, I heard a lot of people speaking very enthusiastically about Countdown and how "freaking awesome" it was that Max Lord was behind it all. Hey, good on DC for getting people talking - it's just not a discussion I want to join.

I'm fine with being a bit of an odd duck in my choice of comics - I'm not completely indie, even if I find plenty to like there and I'm not a continuity-studying superhero fiend despite the fact that I think very little beats a cool Batman Moment or Superman managing to save the world again. Most manga doesn't appeal to me, but when it does, I get The Tingle and want to wander around, preaching about it until people buy it to avoid my holy wrath. In other words, I'm all about The Good Shit - that's what I'll be focusing on more.

Instead of disparaging something completely, I'll talk about another work that's quite nice and maybe people who've liked X will want to check it out. It's easier to tear something down and tell you why you shouldn't read it than it is to tell you why you should check out something new and different. Think of it as The High Road (Hi, Ed) Approach to looking at comics and whatever other media I end up discussing here. And for those of you worried that I'm going to become some sort of Zen saint, worry not - I'll still crack wise on occasion about a book, but in the same way I'd dismiss Everybody Loves Raymond, not how I'd go on about how horribly misguided a Ken Burns Documentary Series About Something Important could be. As the website says, Comics Should Be Good and I'll try to point you towards the ones that I like best.

And on that note, we have Or Else #2 from Kevin Huizenga, whom I've seen quite a lot of work from in collections and anthologies, but never actually read a full-length comic by. Glenn Ganges is, I suspect, a thinly-veiled Huizenga and serves as our lead character for a neat little book that that manages to disassemble time, explain optical illusions, and talk about basketball in the space of 96 pages. Reprinting the Gloriana minicomic, this is a skillful bit of cartooning that is, frankly, amazing in how much information is imparted to the reader. It starts off simply enough - we see Wendy Caramel-Ganges at work, and then she and Glenn go home, where he watches her unload groceries and thinks about the baby she's going to have. All very nice, very domestic, very still-life. It's then that Huizenga starts to play with time, showing possible futures for the child from the point of view of both Glenn and Wendy and their reactions to the horrors and triumphs that may be coming for them. The first part of the book seems to end not at all, with a non-sequitur coda that mirrors real life a little too closely.

The second part of the book is where Huizenga really cuts loose, turning Glenn Ganges's relating a trip to the library and return home into Koyaanisqatsi meets 2001 meets Fast, Cheap & Out Of Control . The reader scans over repetitive, out of sequence images that go into a completely abstract universe for a while before turning into a proper science lesson, which is when you get to the meat of this issue - a scant eight or ten pages that took me twenty minutes or so to read as Glenn tells you why the moon looks bigger when it's rising and setting than when it's high in the sky. It's not as epic as Clan Apis, but it's funny, fascinating and informative even if you're aware of the science behind optical illusions like this and I think that a slightly reworked version of this piece would make a great addition to books that actually wanted to teach science to kids instead of just relating facts.

Finally, there's some talk about basketball as an abstract in a boy's life as he grows up, and that's more memorable for the invoking of nostalgia for a time you never had than the actual content - rather the point, I think. I'll be ordering Or Else #1 and diving into the minicomics thing a little more, even if I have no plans to become the great Tom Spurgeon, master of the minis.

Jeffrey Brown's no longer that up and coming when it comes to the indie comix scene, but let me tell you - I still have that thrill of discovery with everything he puts out. His new book, Miniature Sulk is a collection of works that cover a broader palette of stories than the norm that most people expect with works like Clumsy. A fun compilation that jumps around wildly, Minisulk gives you a grab bag of ideas - some are quite close to genius while others are merely nice. I especially loved "Cute Girls Are Cute" and "Action Television Show." If you know his work, you'll enjoy this just fine, even if it's not completely off-the-wall like Bighead and "Holy Shit, It's Cycloctopus" from Project Superior or as complete a work as Unlikely. Fine, fine comics and well worth your attention if you've not come across him before, even if I think the novels are better bang for the buck, especially as Clumsy is only $2 more than this.

Who needs content when I can just show you pictures of Katee Sackhoff smiling?

That's what I thought.

Ian writes about Grant Morrison's appearance at Meltdown Comics in great detail with around 17,000 words in just the first part.

�It�s just fiction, but it�s not just fiction. It�s not something you make up; it�s something you participate in. You can�t fuck with it, it�s a paper universe.� He said that�s why he�s not too big on when other creators try to bring the grim real world into their superhero stories. He said it was like bad anthropologists bring Christian ideas to their findings. The two things aren�t going to work together. �That world is unfettered and the real world can�t apply to them.�

Seems to me that Morrison, you know, gets it.

Just like always.

Yes, that's DC Countdown To Infinite Motherfuckin' Crisis OMG d00d It's All Over that I'm looking at accusingly. John Rogers has managed to work up a possible reason for all of this miserablism in my funnybooks.

Tonight, poker! Tomorrow, the shop! Maybe I'll finally read the rest of this week's books, blah blah blah.

I was rather struck byJeff Smith's very clever cross-promotion with the 1997 Mormon porn comedy Orgazmo, directed by Trey Parker of South Park fame.


Here, we see the first appearance of our hero, Joseph Young, as Orgazmo. To the right, we see his faithful companion, Choda Boy. Look at the emblem on Choda Boy's chest.


Here's a slightly closer view.


And here's the Bone creator's company's logo.

He's a clever man, that Jeff Smith. However, I do wonder how big the niche for pornographic superhero flicks that feature naked mariachi bands and Ron Jeremy is when compared to the ideal Bone demograp-

Oh, Bone.

I get it.

I've archived the April Fool's Day blah blah here.

And holy shit, that's a season finale for Battlestar Galactica right there. July can't come fast enough.

Oh, and if you're reading my site from a feed or whatever, check out my homepage to find out what the whole April Fool's Day "joke" is.

Happy April Fool's day.

Ha.

Check out Hulk's Diary for more mirth.