In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Happy 2005. I’m offline and my phone is turned off until tomorrow evening at the earliest. I’ll announce the contest winners on Sunday or Monday.

Last night, I gave what I could to the tsunami relief efforts for southeast Asia. I’m aware that most of the people I know have given or will give what they can, but if you’re still trying to figure out how to allocate your funds, Doug posted a link to a list of charities that Benjamin Rosenbaum researched and rated for your edification. Amazon has also set up a special link from its front page, which makes it easy to give to the Red Cross.

While others have also noted this, I feel that Bush’s continuing to enjoy his vacation while over a hundred and ten thousand people died in the worst natural disaster in a decade shows his lack of commitment to anyone not in his voting base. As the president, certain things should make him drop the GameBoy and lead our country’s efforts to help the millions currently suffering because of this tragedy. Once again, he’s proven himself to be less of a leader than the people of this nation deserve and the paltry $35 million he and his administration have committed while the United Kingdom (a much smaller country, for those not familiar with our cross-Atlantic kin) is handing over $29 million and Spain has already spent $68 million shows that he’s not especially familiar with the compassionate part of “Compassionate Conservative.”

Oh, and try $35 million versus this number:

The Julius contest ends tonight @ 11.59. The link on the left there will take you to the rules, which are dead simple and can be repeated in three lines:

• Best comics moment of 2004, 35 words or less
• Email it to beaucoupkevin@gmail.com
• Wait to see if you’ve won a copy of Julius from Oni Press

I’ve gotten some great entries that were more clever than I deserved, so work at it!

Taken down to preserve bandwidth. Will be doing anothing mix thing soon. Honest.

I’ve uploaded a best of 2004 compilation, but stuck it behind password protection to make sure that it’s not hotlinked like mad. If you want to hear my favorite tracks from the last year by bands like Modest Mouse, Fatboy Slim, UNKLE, Depeche Mode remixed by Goldfrapp, Freezepop, Miss Kittin, The Magnetic Fields, Pet Shop Boys and more, just click here. Enter the Username “givememusic” and the password “dammit” to download at will. I do recommend taking the whole thing because I fretted over sequencing it properly and it’s got an ebb and flow I’m proud of.

Yes, you’re welcome.

File Under: Insert Joke About Reggae-Influenced White Canadian Rappers Here.

I think two photos of my street are enough to indicate that yes, we had twelve inches of snow. Clicking makes ‘em big if you want to see the full horror.

Oh, and since I can’t sleep…here’s my pick for the single best webcomic of 2004. I see serious media potential in this single 4-panel gem, maybe a video game / movie / animated series crossover deal with kid’s meals at a fast food chain.

If you’re paying too much attention, you’ll notice I dropped Diesel Sweeties from my little comics section in the links. I got tired of it earlier this year, got very annoyed with the creator when he put out an annoyingly elitist / poseur t-shirt, and the final straw was the silly porn-star-girlfriend-sleeping-around story. Fare thee well, Pixelated Romance Comic, and welcome to the “I should really put this in the links one day” NYC shenanigans of Alien Loves Predator, which is like Seinfeld with an Alien and a Predator. Trust me, it makes sense when you read the archives and get the swing of the thing.

I like comics and I like records and I like ranting. Sadly, I can only tell you what my favorites in two of those categories are because, you know, my rants are all my little babies and picking one of them is just cruel.

Comic of the Year, 2004¹

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life. Aaron in LA told me to read it after I was initially dismissive, not being overly keen on Lost At Sea, but this was just a perfect piece of magical realism that made me crack a wide grin for the entire time I spent reading it.

Runners up:

• DC: New Frontier made me remember why I like superheroes in the first place. Smart, gorgeously drawn and colored, and uses history perfectly to make you believe in the ideals of the Silver Age.
  
• Global Frequency #12, which was late but so totally worth it. The spaceflight nerd in me cheered a bit and for once, Warren Ellis’s ideas and storytelling were on an even keel with one another. Gene Ha’s art was freaking beautiful – I nearly bought page from this at the recent BiMonSciFiCon Nerd Fest, but $150 made me wince.
  
• JLA: Classified #1 had the perfect amount of madness and destruction thanks to Morrison embracing the spandex, which sounds filthier than it is.
  
• Two Sisters was a sprawling spy novel by Matt Kindt, whose excellent work on Pistolwhip proved to be just a starting point for him. World War II was never this gorgeously rendered.
  
• New X-Men #151-154. Other people have criticized Grant Morrison’s last X-Men arc as unreadable and confusing, but it was more satisfying to me than I expected, even with Mark Silvestri’s art. Surprisingly touching in the end, and every clever thing done by Grant has now been completely undone by Claremont and Austen. NuNuMarvel: Like OldNuMarvel, but suckier! Come back, Bill Jemas.
  
• Then there’s We3, finishing my Morrison Trifecta² for the year. With Frank Quitely’s insane idea of what comics art should be and characters I found surprisingly easy to empathize with, this was the crown jewel in Vertigo’s lineup this year, despite dismal sales.

Album Of The Year, 2004

Mouse On Mars, Radical Connector. Poptastic melodies, deep grooves, and Dodo Nkishi’s passionate vocals are nothing like the sound this German band started working with about a decade ago, but this record is so, so perfect in its own ass-shaking way.

Runners Up:

• RJD2, Since We Last Spoke takes the last 40 years of funk and distills it it into a razor-sharp hip-hop masterpiece.
  
• Modest Mouse’s second sell-out album, Good News For People Who Like Bad News is a rock record I don’t much mind, which is high praise from my neck of the woods.
  
• Never Never Land from UNKLE. Jesus. It’s dark, sprawling, and worth the 6-year wait, even without DJ Shadow’s touch.
  
• Blockhead’s Music By Cavelight features tasty, melodic hip hop from the guy who made Aesop Rock and other Definitive Jux artists bump a little harder.
  
• I by Stephin Merritt’s Magnetic Fields project is a concept album that never grates and manages to cross genres as smoothly as a BMW switching lanes while bombing down the Autobahn. Heartbreak, disco, folk, and melancholy all meet and leave the listener touched.
  
• Miss Kittin’s solo debut, I Com, is snarling electro-punk at its best and anyone that knows me heard “Meet Sue Be She” at least once in my presence. Addictive fun.
  
• Orbital’s final record, The Blue Album, is not the best they’ve made, but between opener “Transient” and its fusion of strings and beats (a sure way to get me to notice what you’re doing) and the grand “One Perfect Sunrise” (my favorite track of the last year) it ends up being a fitting coda to a career that’s helped redefine electronic music.

¹Special note should be made to the fact that I wanted to like Eightball #23 much more than I did, but I want to say that is one of the most technically perfect comics I’ve read in years. I know it’s rated very highly with a lot of people I respect, but it left me utterly cold despite my admiration for what Clowes does.

²I enjoyed Seaguy, but only because it was just so damned weird and Cameron Stewart’s art was a delight. As a comic, it made a great piece of pro-drugs propaganda.

File Under: Bing Crosby, Bing Crosby, are you listening to me?

Remember to enter the Julius contest! I’ve only received a few entries so far and you know, you can’t win if you don’t play! Just like scratch tickets, but with a really good comic.

This is one of the very few Christmas songs I like – the Pet Shop Boys’ fan-club only track “It doesn’t often snow at Christmas.” Here’s the link to download it. Call it a Christmas gift from me to you, the loyal readers.

Have a good holiday and take care of yourselves.

Grant Morrison Superman Is Go:

I don’t think we need to ‘make’ Superman relevant. We just have to tell stories which resonate with human experience. The best Superman stories are fables about love, pride, shame, fear, death, friendship etc. We can all relate to those big�issues. Superman stories should�represent huge, basic�human dramas and�human emotions,�played out on a larger than life canvas.

Got $25? I happened to and I did something I feel good about with it.

You should, too. Dave will match your donation, which is just too neat.

Mike Sterling’s doing it. Johanna’s doing it. Ed Cunard’s not, but he’s a big jerk anyway.

I’m talking about a contest here. And this is a good one. I’m giving away a copy of Julius from Oni press. A re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar set in the London criminal community, this was one of my favorite graphic novels of the last year and you can get my spare copy by telling me, in 35 words or less, what your favorite comics moment of 2004 was and why.

You’re not eligible if you’re one of my regular associates from the shop or the internets. You people know who you are. Yes, Doug, this means you.

Email your 35 words-or-less entry to me at beaucoupkevin (at) gmail.com before 11.59PM on December 30th. I’ll announce a winner the first week of January and print up their entry as well as any runner-ups. Humor is a plus and sarcasm and irony rate mighty high with me. Good luck!

From Fanboy Rampage:

I got the latest issue of Wizard today, 2 days early…, and there is an article about DC’s ALL STAR line which is being compared to the Marvel Ultimate line. It looks like they are gonna start off with Superman & Batman. The Morrison/Quitely Superman story is going to be done in All-Star Superman and the long awaited return of Jim Lee to Batman will be in this All-Sytar line with the writer yet to be announced. According to DC, these books define what All-Stars is all about: giving only the best creators in the business access to the biggest characters in the DCU – and then watching the titles fly off the rack.

If this is true, it would appear that the head->ass surgery they were looking for might have worked. At least in the All Star line, which appears to not be the DCU proper, or is it?

Ah, the GRAMMYs. Is there a more obsolete award out there? It’s not as if the Billboard awards have ever bothered to be anything but the Lowest Common Denominator Clear Channel Told Us To Select It Awards, but the GRAMMY Awards have always been this frustrating blend of “Well, that’s not that bad, is it?” and “Jesus, you’re joking, right?” This year, they’ve caught up with 1992 and have announced an Electronic/Dance album category. And per their usual form, it’s vexing, to say the least.

I’m going to avoid whining about how Orbital’s spotty-but-in-parts-dead-brilliant Blue Album wasn’t even noticed, even if “One Perfect Sunrise” is the best song that came out this year and don’t even think about arguing the point with me and just look at what they’ve decided to foist off on the American public.

Best Electronic/Dance Album Category:

Kish Kash by Basement Jaxx – Yes, it is an excellent album that was released in October of 2003. While I’m not sure what their nomination window is, it’ll be weird handing out an award for a record released in 2003 in February of 2005, won’t it? Still, it’s the most inventive record out of a pretty sad lot, with Prince, ska, and sloppy house music being filtered down to create the Brixton duo’s most ambitious album yet.

Legion Of Boom by The Crystal Method. Yeah, right. They have that one song that they remix to add more crappy guitars on or take those out and replace them with a sample or bad rock vocal while it goes “BOOM Wananana.”

Creamfields by Paul Oakenfold. I’m a fan of a good DJ mix, but this is Oakenfold on cruise control, playing anthem after anthem before a huge crowd and never doing more than raising the pulse a few BPM¹ when he drops certain records. If we assume that he wins, does this mean that U2, Carlos Vives, Matt Darey, and everyone whose records he played will be getting miniature GRAMMYs as well? If this award category had been out when it should have been, epic works like his Fluoro compilation would have gotten the notice they deserve.

Always Outgunned, Never Outnumbered by The Prodigy. A day late and a sample short, guys. I bought a $5 promo of this and tossed it back at the record store within a couple days.

Reflections by Paul Van Dyk. I could probably argue for any of his previous records, but a friend gave me a copy of this to check out a few weeks ago because, well, she wasn’t going to bother and I have to say that he’s slid down to complete commercial pablum. I’m saying this as someone who actually likes Out There And Back, even if it’s a bit begrudged, that affection.

Best Dance Recording:

Kylie, the Chemicals, Scissor Sisters, and Basement Jaxx can all take it as far as I’m concerned. Britney’s in there for some reason or another. Maybe because “Toxic” was played on WYYZ, “The Wave” 104.3, the hottest dance sounds of the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today².

¹Get it?

²Don’t forget to check out Boomer and the Zany Morning Zoo Crew from 6 to 11 every weekday morning.

File Under: New York Trip Report (The Short Form)

No Sarah. Gregor fell ill, as is detailed in this post, which left Dann and I without a guide that speaks our unique male language of pointing and grunting. Thankfully, we had great directions and managed to meet up with Ryan (who let me crash on his couch) and wander around a bit ¹for the afternoon before going to see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou² and while Dann made off for Brooklyn, I contacted friend Mika and we went to Hell’s Kitchen and enjoyed the fine atmosphere and companionship of the patrons of Rudy’s, a proper dive bar. We drank. I fended off a slow-dancing fool. We drank some more. We talked and argued and had a blast. And drank.

This morning, after Meet The Press and The McLaughlin Group³ with coffee, Ryan and I did the Central Park-5th Avenue-Grand Central-drop me off in Chinatown to meet up with Dann and go back to Boston thing. I did’t see everyone I wanted to see or talk to – yes, you, Megan, are on the short list, but I think we’ll be going back next month if Sarah manages to stop creating crises involving blood clots.

¹Commerce! Forbidden Planet! Other Music! I’m planning in reviewing the comics and CDs I picked up sometime this week.

³Political junkies? Us? No way!

Identity Crisis #7? If you’ve not read it, well, I’m sorry, I’m going to rant anyway.

I figured it was Jean Loring. I figured out that she’d gotten the equipment, but I couldn’t figure out why she’d do it. Apparently, Metzler didn’t bother work up a decent motive, either. The following is what we’ve learned from Identity Crisis:

• Batman apparently hands out business cards that say “Bruce Wayne, Superhero” because everyone seems to know the secret, even the Atom’s spouse!
• Superman apparently hit the same Staples location because – I’m going to repeat this – the wife of a B-list hero knows that he’s Clark Kent, who is married to Lois Lane!

Now, I can buy into the core JLA members knowing, but I can also see them being told “If you tell anyone, Batman gets to put you in the Robinator¹ for a three hour hard anal workout.” It makes no sense for a civilian to know, just like an undercover cop’s spouse shouldn’t know the IDs of the people he’s working with. That she went bugfuck crazy, missed her now-ex-husband, came up with some bullshit plan, and then ended up accidentally killing not only Sue Dibny (while happening to be carrying a flamethrower, you know, just in case), but Jack Drake and Captain Boomerang snaps credulity like a three-decade-old rubber band. There’s consequences to this, of course, and some of them are slightly interesting: Ralph’s never going to be, you know, right in the head, and once again, Batman distrusts everyone, but that’s the status quo for him anymore, innit? I guess everyone can save themselves the effort of writing The Atom any Christmas cards as well, since I imagine he’s not really in a fit state.

All of this senseless, stupid death and subsequent thrashing about could have been avoided if she’d rung up The Atom, who’s been wanting to get back with her since at least the late 80s, and offered her ex-husband a hummer. Maybe a three-way with Zatanna, who could brainwash herself afterwards.

Aaron warned me I would want to “un-read” it and maintain the generally positive feelings I had for the structure, if not all of the content presented within. This, combined with recent events in JSA has tainted the DCU for me as a reader. It’s so dark with no sense of wonder or joy. Outside of the silver-age throwback New Frontier, I can’t think of a wholly positive experience I’ve had with the any of the superhero titles. It’s telling that my favorite currently-published DCU title is Gotham Central, which is a procedural with people who have no powers and are colliding with a city gone mad and a masked hero whose motivations and actions they can’t grapple with. I can take the darkness and fumbling with these characters – they’re human. I guess I just want my comics simple and all, but why can’t heroes be cool again? Why does Dan Didio and the current editorial staff assume that we always need to see the dark underbelly with people who should rise above it all²?

While I do think that something like Identity Crisis can serve to give us a new angle on this fictional world, I hate that it takes away what makes these guys compelling. There’s a moment in New Frontier (yes, again with my mentioning this) that gives me everything I want from comics:

The Flash, about to go fight the big bad menace, turns to the assembled heroes and the scientists, tells them to “Cover their ears,” and the next panel features the crowd in the same position, the Flash replaced with a loud BOOM. The next page is a splash – a long shot of the hero running over the ocean towards danger like it ain’t no thing.

That right there. That’s what I want. Wonder, joy, glorious fun. What do I have to do to get that back from people who aren’t named Grant Morrison or Darwyn Cooke?

¹Josh says: “The Robinator” is an apparatus that anyone who’s seen the Bruce Willis segment of Pulp Fiction will be passingly familiar with.

²Apologies to any Todd McFarlane fans for that one.

Pictured: BeaucoupKevin with mug that he’s masculine enough to carry about proudly, sipping a mocha. Featured in background: his boss, Matt, working. This is a typical iScribe moment.

It’s that time of year again. Your children have probably written their letters to Christopher Walken by now, but if they’ve not, don’t worry. You can tell them that Walken gave the world a brand new monkey species and they’ll have nothing but old watches and Russian roulette-ready revolvers under their tree this year.

And yes, I know I’ve not written about Identity Crisis yet. I’ll be picking up comics tonight for the bus trip for my all-too-brief sojourn to visit Ryan and see The Life Aquatic with Sarah, Dann, and Gregor a week earlier than I could here.

Courtesy of Graeme over at Fanboy Rampage, here’s the the cover of the first New Frontier trade collection.

You will buy it, of course.

PS> Isn’t Darwyn Cooke’s Wonder Woman freaking hot? That’s some Los Bros Hernandez and Kirby action on her!

File Under: “I don’t care about the Prime Directive…”

The music industry can stop right now. One man has done it. He’s combined bad guitar ballads, Star Trek, and cheesy CGI into a brilliant frisson of pop culture madness!

Once again, thanks to Karen for finding things that seem to be tailor-made for me. I’ll have to dig up my S.P.O.C.K. CD sometime soon and stick “Spock’s Brain” up here for you kids.