Comments Off | Posted: May 31st, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Oh, the Diamond shipping list is up finally. Let’s rock this joint.
Your “Shit That’s Killing Comics” list for the week of June 2, 2005
JAN050111 KOTOBUKIYA CHEWBACCA SOFT VINYL MODEL KIT $99.99
MAR050085 KOTOBUKIYA SCOUT TROOPER SOFT VINYL MODEL KIT $99.99
I actually know somebody who buys these and he’s a handsome, dapper fellow with a quick wit and the ability to get kisses from many, many women. We call him “The Exception That Proves The Rule.”
MAR050358 BATMAN BEGINS CHRISTIAN BALE AS BATMAN BUST $45.00
MAR050361 BATMAN BEGINS KEN WATANABE RAS AL GHUL MINI STATUE $29.99
Bat-merch. I hope that this stuff doesn’t sell at all and they have to do some kind of deep discount to clear their warehouse, because who doesn’t want a little Ken Watanabe around the house? Really.
FEB051590 IMAGINARIES CVR A MILLER #2 (OF 4) $2.95
FEB051591 IMAGINARIES CVR B TITUS #2 (OF 4) $2.95
Oh, Image. You frustrate me so much by trying out new titles and doing OGNs that are decent a good deal of the time, and then your marketing department, hopped up on Liquid Paper fumes, decides something like this is going to mean twice the sales, but it never does, does it?
APR051867 HOUSE OF M #1 (OF 8) $2.99
JAN058160 HOUSE OF M QUESADA VARIANT COVER #1 (OF 8) $2.99
I am biting my tongue on Quesada crapping out yet another ugly-ass variant cover when he should be worried about his own damned deadlines first. Aren’t you proud of me?
FEB052486 10TH MUSE VOL 2 PHOTO CVR FOIL ED SGN #1 $29.99
Hey, hey, Alias! How’s it going with your 9 comics all launched at once? I know that we only ordered three or four of each one and they are still sitting on the goddamn shelf, even at a mere 75 centavos each! I know this photo cover, with the nice shiny foil, signed by…Cindy Margolis…what…the? I mean, who is actually attracted to Cindy Margolis, who claims to be the most-downloaded woman on the internets? Who cares enough to buy a comic that she’s written her name on, like a big girl? Oh, and your company’s logo looks way too similar to Palisades Toys’ own.
FEB052748 DARKSTALKERS ALVIN LEE CVR A #6 $2.95
FEB052750 DARKSTALKERS ARN CVR C POWER FOIL #6 PI
FEB052749 DARKSTALKERS SKOTTIE YOUNG CVR B #6 $2.95
My New Crappy-Ass Fighting Comic Is Unstoppable. And it has multiple covers.
APR052870 DF BATMAN SGN #625 $19.99
APR052871 DF DAREDEVIL FATHER SGN #1 $29.99
APR052872 DF GREEN LANTERN REBIRTH JOHNS SGN #1 $19.95
FEB052804 DF JLA CLASSIFIED VARIANT CVR #1 REMARKED $69.99
FEB052803 DF JLA CLASSIFIED VARIANT CVR #1 SGN $19.99
APR052869 DF LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #1 SGN $19.99
MAR052841 DF MONSTER WAR DRACULA DOMINATING EYE FOIL CVR #1 $14.99
DEC042592 DF SUPERMAN BATMAN #18 SGN $29.99
[INSERT RUDE COMMENT ABOUT SPECULATING ASSHOLE FANBOYS HERE. ALLUDE TO THEIR QUESTIONABLE PARENTAGE.]
MAR052770 FATHOM PRELUDE HIGH END LEE CVR #1 PI
1) You’re buying a Michael Turner comic that’s a ton of suck. Some would even say God giving him cancer is some kind of sign, but I am not one of those people, as I do not wish cancer on anyone, even if I am a bit of a prick.
2) “High End Lee CVR?” If a Jae Lee cover is “high end,” then I’m so set with this stack of Marvel books he’s done in the last couple of years! Oh, wait, you just made less of them. Jerks. From this point on, I won’t be buying your ugly, stupid comics. Wait, I wasn’t, anyway.
MAR052634 NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET SP #1 $3.99
MAR052638 NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET SP GLOW CVR #1 $14.99
MAR052637 NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET SP GORE CVR #1 $3.99
MAR052636 NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET SP TERROR CVR #1 $3.99
MAR052635 NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET SP WRAPAROUND CVR #1 $3.99
APR052671 STARGATE SG1 DANIELS SONG NOUVEAU JACKSON ED #1 $5.99
MAR052640 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE SP #1 $3.99
APR052703 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE SP BLOODBATH CVR #1 $5.99
MAR052644 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE SP GLOW CVR #1 $14.99
MAR052643 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE SP GORE CVR #1 $3.99
MAR052642 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE SP RYP CVR #1 $3.99
MAR052641 TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE SP WRAPAROUND CVR #1 $3.99
Oh, Avatar. You’re like a crazy ex-girlfriend. I don’t want to touch you with a ten-foot pole, but your provide me with such interesting things to pontificate, like who the fuck buys this stuff. I know it’s a common refrain in these lists, but c’mon – six covers for your comic based on a movie about a dude with a piece of lawn hardware and mother issues?
APR052972 WILL EISNERS JOHN LAW VOL 1 S&N HC ED $50.00
I mean, I know he signed this before he died, but this makes me feel ghoulish anyway, not that I bought it.
Stuff What Is Not Marvel Or DC But You Should Care About Anyway for the week of June 2, 2005.
JAN052669 PAUL MOVES OUT HC $19.95
Jason Marcy over at Comic Book Galaxy gave this a great review and judging by how much I enjoyed the other Paul books by Rabagliati, I’ll probably give this a nice long, hard, wet look.
MAR052962 SMOKE #1 (OF 3) $7.49
Give Alex DeCampi your money or perish. She’s one of the good ones, and even if IDW seems to think her comic is worth $7.50, it’ll kick your ass ten times more than Batman: Getting It On With Catwoman or whatever “prestige” title you were going to pick up, and you get to see Igor Kordey make with the pretty art.
MAR053221 SUPER F$$$$$S #1 $7.00
That’s Super F*ckers, and it will rock your socks right off, my brothers and sisters.
Other Comics Stuff, Mostly Links:
Ian says everything I could about Green Lantern #1, so we’ll just let him do that, OK?
Mike Sterling keeps us updated on Swamp Thing-related domain names, which is very important.
AiT/PlanetLar’s forthcoming Seal Team Seven gets previewed over at CBR and it looks like just the thing to this fan of The Abyss and the occasional bit of Crichton and the like. The art looks freaking terrific, too.
Boy, the Ultimate Defenders were a bit of an abortion, weren’t they? Thumbs down to Millar’s infantile proving-he’s-nasty script for The Ultimates #6 that was the equivalent of a SLAM book where he’d written Those stupid-ass Defenders who suck a lot and should be buggered. under Superteams You Hate. Lovely art by Hitch, mind. I could gaze at his linework for days with a dreamy look on my face, sighing occasionally.
Comments Off | Posted: May 31st, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
My morning in far-too-much detail:
- Wake up @ 5.30 ante meridian to the sound of a thousand birds trying to out do-re-mi the other.
- Kristin’s off to
rummage through trash find boxes to ship her Amazon and eBay sales. Cheaper than Staples.
- Try to grab another 45 of REM, fail utterly thanks to a fleet of chickadees located at the precise point where anything that I hurled at them would not arrive.
- Check email: delete 1-800-FLOWERS spam, think about the Nigerian fraud industry as three of their solicitations requesting my most urgent and confidential assistance get tagged with “Report Spam” and zapped into the microcosmos of digital detritus.
- Kill a few baddies on Half-Life Multiplayer to wake up a bit more thoroughly.
- Shower, shave, dress, out the door in about 30 minutes, making sure to kiss the now-returned-and-back-in-bed Kristin.
- Davis T Stop, ignore the person handing out the free news pamphlet, per the usual – if I want one, there’s always at least three dozen on any given subway car.
- Swipe my T-pass, think about how the new Charlie Ticket (pronounced “Metrocard”) means that they can look at eliminating the monthly swipers and the savings associated with them.
- Stand at optimum position to step onto train and be able to get out right at the escalator at Downtown Crossing.
- Pull out Eastern Standard Tribe and continue reading. Contemplate Doctorow’s place as the slightly-more-emo Warren Ellis, especially with his love of theory-as-dialogue. Enjoy book anyway on the subsequent ride (grabbed prime seat: end of the car, allowing me to experience only one person rubbing against me in a manner I associate with only the most intimate of friends.)
- Pop out of the subway, cross, grab McBreakfast despite knowing just how awful it is for me, hack their restrictive napkin dispenser, make sure I have enough for lunch and possible dinner, spills, gunshot wounds, etc. On the fast food napkin scale, McDonald’s wins the silver – Wendy’s has the gold, with a lovely bright yellow color and imprinted image of their mascot , along with thicker paper that means that you can actually get their foodslime off your fingers without going through a ream.
- Pass the exact change panhandler. “I need $1.12. I need a dollar and twelve cents. Buck twelve, buck twelve.” Contemplate nip bottle microeconomics before entering building and playing elevator roulette at 10 High Street.
- Hit the button, get lucky – far right, which has only mistakenly taken me to the twelfth floor twice. Light up 5, hit Close Door, shuttled up.
- Quick desktop ritual, snarf down breakfast as eMac warms up, take out CDs to be ripped that were purchased this weekend, (Fannypack’s See You Next Tuesday, Demon Days from Gorillaz, New Order’s “Jetstream” single, Annie’s “Heartbeat” single.) I also have a couple of disks that aren’t rip-friendly; iTunes always inserts tiny little pauses in rips of DJ-mixed CDs that drive…me…crazy.
- Work email: assignment waiting for me, like math class. Private email: offer to help me receive up to $10,000,000 for assisting in the transfer of gold bullion.
- Work on payday advance loans “information” website as I rip CDs and listen to my BeaucoupRadio playlist. This morning: “Jetstream” (Arthur Baker Remix) by New Order, “Push Upstairs” by Underworld, and I’m now on “Revolution 1″ by little-known pop foursome The Beatles.
- Note that Diamond’s shipping list isn’t up yet and AIM is down, leaving with only Work and Music to amuse myself. Primitive living, what?
Comments Off | Posted: May 30th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
I was surprised to find Marc Malès’s Different Ugliness, Different Madness in my huge pile o’ stuff from this past week, as it was solicited just last month by DC. Apparently, they’re trying to get all of the Humanoids stuff out the door so they can close down yet another imprint in a series of interesting experiments that weren’t just spandex porn or Vertigo cash cows.1 This is an interesting graphic novel about confronting the mirror and accepting who is looking back on you and I enjoyed it quite a lot, even if the back cover copy makes it sound much more sappy than it is – “heartwrenching” is not an adjective I’d use to describe it, certainly, as that word brings to mind Bronte and other swoon-and-bemoan novelists from the 18th and 19th century.
Malès is a gifted storyteller, to say the least – he manages to tell a non-sequential story that includes multiple flashbacks and forward jumps without ever losing the reader. Special note must be made of his sparse Toth-like art, full of abstract black shapes that form perfect examples of minimalist faces and objects while still giving you all the detail you need so that emotions and thoughts are projected with perfect clarity. When Malès uses visual effects such as a fish-eye lens on page 78, it’s not for flash – this is in pure service to story.
As far as the story itself, I find it interesting to note how Europeans manage to convey universal truths about America in ways that Americans never manage. This happened with the Ennis and Dillon series Preacher, which was set in the America of myth, and Malès’s appraisal of the country during the first few decades of the twentieth century seems to take as much from Steinbeck as it does any “real” history. This is the sort of tale that could take place only when radio was king and travel wasn’t as antiseptic as it has become, with Lloyd and Helen’s parallel problems in regards to their reflections providing the reader with clues that build perfectly to a satisfying ending. This may be the tiniest bit clinical in regards to their traumas and tragedy, but I prefer that over mawkish pathos most of the time, especially when you get silent sequences that would be ruined by any sort of caption.
This is the sort of thing the comics market needs to see more of from the big publishers and it’s a shame that it’s not going to be happening anymore with DC.
1Paradox hasn’t put anything out in forever outside of the rather pointless sequel/prequel/midquel for Road To Perdition, and Pirahna, sadly, is now over a decade dead. Yes, Vertigo puts out some non-Sandman related titles, but for ever 100 Bullets or Y: The Last Man, it seems like there’s yet another story about someone from or related to The Endless because they know it’ll sell enough to get along without much effort.
Comments Off | Posted: May 29th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Genius Covers Sunday: The Late Edition
I actually saw all these books at the shop
this weekend and thought they deserved some love.
Oh. My. God. Perfection!
If Superboy was the Legion’s heart, I guess
Bouncing Boy was the Legion’s asshole.
There’s no way the interior can match this image.
Comments Off | Posted: May 29th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
A while back, Rogers mentioned that a guy he knows is producing a film version of Meg by Steve Alten and when I saw it sitting at Goodwill for the princely sum of seventy-nine American cents, I laid my cash down and made with the reading. It’s about this giant shark that’s causing a bushel of havoc, which may sound familiar to anyone who’s ever been within 20,000 feet of Jaws, but there’s a critical difference: this is a 60-foot-long, 45 ton dinosaur shark. Yes, that’s right, a giant dinosaur shark. Wait, correction – a 60-foot-long, 45 ton, pregnant dinosaur shark
Yes, Meg is glorious in its awfulness, displaying its alternately lean and turgid prose proudly, mocking your attempts to find a consistent tone. There’s not an action movie or bad thriller novel cliche left untouched as our title character destroys small submersibles, surfboares, small boats, a yacht, a research ship, and what was that last thing…um…oh yeah! Meg sinks a nuclear submarine. Every character in this book is such a thin, thin collection of adjectives with the occasional verb that lets you know that they are Good or Bad and you can’t help but smile a bit as the true hero of the book starts to take them out en masse in her quest to make sure that we know she’s number one in the ocean, at least until those cute widdle baby dinosaur sharks start splashing around. It’s hard to care for the supposed protagonist, Jonas Taylor, as he seems to be there primarily to inform us of how dangerous Meg is – he’s a more of proactive information pamphlet that you’d pick up at the aquarium than a real character and the tacked-on “romance” in the book is the sort you’d see in a particularly atrocious gum ad, where Dentyne makes a girl’s knees wobbly after her initial spurning of our handsome lead character.
I read this 350-page book in two and a half hours,tops, and I’m not a real speed-reader. Alten’s sentences start and end with a maddening regularity and I was reminded heavily of Dan Brown’s DaVinci methodology of making sure that the nonreader that picked the book up off the spinner at Wal-Mart or at the airport feels they’re smart because, you know, they’re reading a genuine novel while people who read more than three or four books a year that aren’t fishing or home-repair related are saddened that this sort of tripe becomes a bestseller. Short chapters, short sentences, with the occasional bit of pseudoscience (or pseudohistory in the case of Brown) that appeal to the same people who watch CSI regularly and think real police work is just like that1.
Anyhow, I can see how Meg is going to make the sort of movie that gets people into theaters, but as I’ve already seen Deep Blue Sea, my tricked-out-knockoff-of-Jaws quota has been filled for the next few decades. Besides, that shark in Deep Blue Sea killed Samuel L Jackson – what’s a nuclear submarine compared to him, motherfucker?
1Yes, I know a lot of my intelligent friends love
CSI like a crazy pop star loves kids and monkeys, but they’ve got to know that it ain’t like that in the field, even if we wish that collecting bullets and looking through a microscope in a well-lit laboratory was that awesome to behold. The show takes place in the Jerry Bruckheimer universe, where
The Rock was a documentary and
Armageddon is treated as good science fiction, and I’ve never liked that particular reality very much. Besides, I deeply suspect that
Reno 911 is much closer to the truth when it comes to criminal justice in the state of Nevada.
Comments Off | Posted: May 28th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
That’s more like it.
Comments Off | Posted: May 27th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m done with this weather now.
Comments Off | Posted: May 27th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Normally, I try to avoid reposting from BoingBoing because it strikes me as being more than a bit lazy. If people wanted to see BoingBoing’s content (which is 1/4 Cory Doctorow Spaffing About Disney, 1/4 Xeni Jardin making sure you know that she’s going to be on NPR or in Wired,) they could and should go there. However, when they go and point me to a gallery of erotic Batman and Robin images by watercolor artist Mark Chamberlain, that needs to be blogged tout suite. So, here you go, slash fiends – Batman and Robin, doing what seems to come naturally to them.
Comments Off | Posted: May 26th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
If it’s Friday, it must be Archie.
(OK, I just decided that randomly.)
That’s right – it’s Archie’s world.
You’re just living in it, baby.
Archie…isn’t that bright sometimes.
The importance of pimples, hormone changes,
parents who seem to speak Esperanto, and high school?
No thanks.
I just appreciate a good snarky Archie moment.
From the same people who gave us the mad genius of
Hansi, The Girl Who Loved The Swastika, I give you…
I heard Archie went both ways – that’s why he
couldn’t pick between the gals. Don’t tell
Spire Christian Comics or Hansi – she also
loves pink triangles!
Let’s all go to the orgy /let’s all go to the orgy
let’s all go to the orgy / and get ourselves some sex!
And what the fuck is Archie wearing? He’s #1?
“Hey look, a goofball!”? What…does…it…mean?
Comments Off | Posted: May 26th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
File Under: Sterling sets ‘em up…
So, did ya hear Mark Millar’s writing Swamp Thing again? Click here for a special sneak peek!
(This joke has an intended audience of maybe ten thousand people worldwide. I apologize to the rest of you. Thanks to Mikester for pointing me to Georgio Comolo’s site, where you can check out some awesome work on Kirby characters.)
Comments Off | Posted: May 25th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Garnier’s got a new hair product line called Manga, and their 6-page instructional comic about the genre is surprisingly well-done with pointers to Tezuka and how the artist can change methods on the fly to depict shifts in tone. Some of the hairstyles are pretty freakin’ cool in that cosplay way, actually.
Comments Off | Posted: May 25th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Kristin loves her some Law And Order, which I don’t particularly care for. I love me some Batman, which she shows a great amount of indifference to. Will there ever be a program that we could both watch featuring our favorite crimebusters?
Ink Drawing for The Believer by Andrew Leland.
Found here.
Comments Off | Posted: May 25th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
I said I wasn’t going to talk about comics today and then I come across this nicely-written personal essay from Michael Chabon (whose The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay is a book you really should have read by now) about how Big Barda changed his view of superheroines. As I am an…enthusiastic fan of Jack Kirby, the New Gods, and especially Barda, I have to link to it.
Say �superheroine� and most people, I suppose, will think of Wonder Woman. With the possible exception of Supergirl, she is certainly the best known, or maybe it would be more accurate to say the most recognizable of costumed comic-book females. And Wonder Woman is strong, and buxom, and noble-intentioned; and when necessary she, too, has never hesitated to knock some heads together. When I was a boy she was, as she remains to this day (because of her ancillary trademark value as a superficially feminist icon), a star in the firmament of DC Comics, far more important than Big Barda could ever hope to be.
Now, I have heard some women say, over the years, that growing up they liked Wonder Woman (an affection which says less about the character, I think, than about the thirst and adaptability of young girls seeking female heroes in the relative desert of comic books.) But she never came anywhere near reconfiguring, like Barda did, the erotic topography of my brain
Man can write when he wants to, can’t he? I know that Ed (currently on Cape May, enjoying this not-at-all-lovely weather the northeast has been experiencing) has issues with Chabon’s texts falling apart for the last third, but not even he can knock this romantic piece of analysis.
Comments Off | Posted: May 25th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
As it’s new comic day and I’m a pure contrarian, I’m going to talk about things that aren’t comics. The reason for this is twofold: first, I want to give Christina something to read, as she’s a good friend who doesn’t like comics as much as she should (even if she likes it when I hook her up with some high-quality Colombian Batman product) and secondly, I’ve had the urge to write about music of late.
I’ve listened to Waiting For The Siren’s Call a few dozen times since it came out and I think that once you get past the first two songs (which are stunning in their awfulness,) there’s a really good record that could use a little trimming up front and at the tail end. The title track is where Waiting… swings into full gear, a tune that sounds like it was borrowed from the same Technique recording session that gave us “Mr Disco” (my favorite song by the band) and it’s followed by the catchy, insistent “Krafty,” boding well for the rest of the record. “I Told You So” sounds much, much more like a song by vocalist Bernard Sumner’s Electronic project than a New Order tune in its own right, but “Morning Night And Day” and “Dracula’s Castle” are where the same band that recorded “Temptation” seems to have found itself two decades later – pure dance rock.
Many people on the message boards do not like “Jetstream,” but this is because they are suffering from some kind of mental debilitation, obviously. The song has spelling in it, OK? It’s got spelling and the chick from Scissor Sisters doing vocals. “J-E-T (you are so good for me) / You are my jetstream lover / you’re how I wanna be.” That’s right up there with “Eleanor Rigby” in my mind, and it may beat that Beatles tune because it’s got spelling in it. Other excellent songs featuring spelling include “Washington, D.C.” by the Magnetic Fields and Elkland’s “I Need You Tonight,” where “disco” is spelled. You can’t beat that and you shouldn’t try because your mind will shatter.
The highlight for the album has to be “Guilt Is A Useless Emotion,” a snarling slab of technopop that’s propelled by bouncy beats and Peter Hook’s bass pinning the whole thing together perfectly. Ignore the rather dodgy lyrics – New Order’s only sporadically excellent in that area, and revel in the fact that this is a group of 50-year-old men making music that sounds more vital than people half their age. It does not, however, feature spelling.
“Turn” reminds me of the guitarrier songs off Technique with a bit of that Brotherhood sweep mixed in. I forget I like it, then I hear it and go “Oh, that’s really quite nice, isn’t it?” It’s one of those upbeat tracks that has sadness running through it, which is always a winner with me.
Much like the first two tracks, I think that the album’s finale (discarding the US inclusion of a remix of “Guilt…”) needs to be kicked to the curb. It sounds like a Primal Scream b-side from the Rocks period and, frankly, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Blech.
You all know how I feel about the Pet Shop Boys; even at their worst (see Release,) they still outperform anyone else writing pop songs on either side of the Atlantic with the possible exclusion of Stephin Merritt, who’s now savoring his second mention in this blog post. (Japan may have a secret weapon and I’m hedging my bets here.) With this volume of the Back To Mine series that DMC puts out, you get the chance to find out what they listen to when they’re not making records of their own. This is great for two reasons: people like myself who better want to inform themselves about the music that inspires these guys get a chance to peek at their record collections; everyone else just gets a nice selection of tunes that stands out quite nicely in a sea of samey-samey compilations.
Chris Lowe’s CD represents music he plays for his friends when they come over to his beautiful apartment. You get the dirty synthpop of Savage, the Bobby-Orlando-produced ecstatic “Passion” by The Flirts (a record I’ve loved for years), Italian disco records, gospel, and even Queen and Dusty Springfield make appearances. I put this on while writing last weekend and noticed it seemed to fly by with each tune making me smile a little bit more with the possible exception of Queen, who needed to learn the art of the fade-out at the three minute mark on all of their songs.
Neil Tennant goes a little more cerebral with his CD with a selection for late-night listening: electronic, ambient, classical, and pop are all blended together perfectly and this serves as the perfect soundtrack to quiet contemplation without sliding into the wank territory of Whalesongs Volume 9: Now With Cheesy Synth Chords. Highlights include opener “Traum” by Fairmont (a bleeping bit of slow-chugging warmth), “Microgravity” by one of my personal favorites, Biosphere, and the finale, Edvard Grieg’s “Melodie Opus 47 No. 3″ as performed by Emil Gilels – I am not embarrassed to say I got a bit of a lump in my throat as it wrapped up. This record may have a bit of an edge for me, as I feel like I’m getting a bit more of an education when I hear it, which may not be the point for many people but I’m a bit of a freak like that.
I received the import version of this collection rather unexpectedly, but you’ll be able to buy an American version starting on July 12 and I daresay you’d not regret spending the cash one tiny bit.
I rushed out and purchased the DVD of Lil’ Beethoven Live In Stockholm by Sparks the day it came out because I’ve not yet had the chance to catch the brothers Mael live in Stockholm or anywhere else, so this was a chance to see how they were holding up. Their previous concert video from the Balls tour is what had made me a fan, so this one had some high marks to hit and for the most part, it succeeds pretty admirably once you get past the fact that the album they’re touring around, Lil’ Beethoven wasn’t exactly meant to be performed live without a full symphony orchestra backing the band up.
This means that there’s pre-recorded tracks and lots of them. As I’m a fan of electronic music, this doesn’t particularly bother me when it’s bits, bloops, and bleeps, but when it’s orchestral sounds seemingly coming out of nowhere, it’s a bit disconcerting and the Lil’ Beethoven material (performed as a complete set for the first half of the show) really suffers for it; only “I Married Myself” and “My Baby’s Taking Me Home” really perform well as songs in their own right in the live setting, but the more-than-adequately clever video material and staging helps you enjoy the entire set well enough. The second half, a retrospective set that includes wonderfully obscure tunes and their more familiar material could have been a tad bit longer, but I think it’s just because I constantly want more from these two – I’m greedy like that.
There you go – I like things that aren’t comic books, but they seem to be things that not many other comics fans like. I know I enjoyed it when Dorian did his not-going-to-talk-about-comics week and even if my blog has sort of slowly transmogrified into being primarily about my favorite visual medium, I’d like to try this sort of thing a little more often than I have been of late.
Comments Off | Posted: May 24th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Yes, Uri Geller really did appear in Daredevil #133,
but the cover copy lacked the necessary punch.
Comments Off | Posted: May 24th, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Hovy over at Gotham Lounge pointed out that Comics Continuum has an until-the-end-of-the-year rundown on Marvel’s trade paperback schedule. As you can imagine, I’ve got a few things to say about this, as this company’s release policy drives me mad in its inconsistency.
First of all, I want to say that yes, I love the fact that so many collections are coming out so quickly now. I think it’s great that non-collectors can get a bookshelf version of a story they might like, even if it’s Bendis and Finch’s Clenched-Jaw New Avengers. The problem is the proliferation of the seemingly-obligatory hardcover edition. I do think hardcovers have their place and can be pretty neat – I myself buy the Ultimate Spider-Man hardcovers because they’re a bang-up value – $30 for around a dozen issues all supersized and shelvable and, like Hovy, I think some things beg for that format, like the currently-in-two-trades-fuck-you-DC New Frontier.
I do find myself wondering who the hell was begging for a Young Avengers hardcover; not that it’s a bad comic at all – I really enjoy it far more than most would expect – but this is a title that would benefit directly from being cheapish and available quickly, much like DC’s Teen Titans reprints, which are all in the $10 range for 6 or 7 issues. This is the approach that they’ve taken on the Marvel Knights Spider-Man title – three trades that came out pretty quickly that are now being collected in a big hardcover for the Christmas market, in a nice little matched set with Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, whose title I find a complete misnomer outside of the rather excellent art by Cassaday.
Oh, and if I happen to see you buying that NYC/X-23 hardcover, I will beat you to death with it on the spot. The Millarverine one might buy you an extra two or three seconds before I freak out, because I might mistake it for the Classic Wolverine trade that has some stories I enjoyed more than I should.
I’m also wondering who’s going to buy all seven House Of M trades – this is the sort of event that weekly visitors to a shop are going to get and then thing to themselves “Self, I don’t need the trade for that, as my longboxes are bulging with my many, many issues, and only a few of them relate to my father.”
I will say that I am liking these digest titles – Machine Teen and Livewires are things I can see appealing to a broad audience while their other titles will have their niches – the manga kids, the kids what want to read about Spidey, etc. However, Mighty Morphin’ Marvel Rangers AKA Megamorphs getting any sort of reprint treatment makes about as much sense as collecting the cartoons and puzzles from the side of Happy Meal boxes into a book.
As far as older material goes, it’s nice to see that shiny Alan Davis art on Excalibur (despite the Claremont scripts not being very good, if I recall correctly) and Peter David getting love with Hulk Visionaries and that X-Factor book, along with the Spider-Man Versus Silver Sable Volume 1 trade. (Speaking of, not that I’m complaining, but what an odd trade. Is there a Silver Sable related event that I’m not aware of? Has she been Dibnyed?)
Oh, and all those Essentials? I’m on it, dogg, across the cliched board. That Marvel Two-In-One collection is something I’ve been demanding in Jesse-Baker styled rants to Marvel editorial. Nice to see they’re continuing the near-Halloween monster-themed releases with Werewolf By Night, too – did they ever make that movie?
OK, work beckons, so I am going to write about debt consolidation loans now.
Comments Off | Posted: May 23rd, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Your “Shit That’s Killing Comics” List for May 25, 2005:
FEB050055 KOTOBUKIYA STAR WARS SANDTROOPER ORANGE MODEL KIT $99.99
NOV040055 MATRIX REVOLUTIONS NEO MINI BUST $45.00
NOV040054 MATRIX REVOLUTIONS PERSEPHONE MINI BUST $45.00
Look, I love me some Star Wars shit, and hell, this may be as close as I can get to having Monica Bellucci in my bedroom, but talk about tossing good money after bad.
MAR050360 BATMAN BEGINS CHRISTIAN BALE BATMAN MINI STATUE $29.99
MAR058071 RANN THANAGAR WAR #1 2ND PTG $2.50
That slab of porcelain or whatever is much less excessive than the previous mondo-huge one, but why not just go buy an action figure or two? And, really guys, can’t you just print enough goddamn comics instead of having to announce everything’s gone out of print just to get another stupid press release that nobody cares about out the door?
MAR051912 SECRET WAR FROM FILES OF NICK FURY $3.99
Can’t put the comic out on time? Well, a guy who’s not Brian Michael Bendis will knock together a few text pieces that will then get stitched into the back of the oversized hardcover and subsequent trade paperback, saving you the trouble of having to find any bonus materials and making it look like you care.
FEB058475 X-MEN PHOENIX ENDSONG LTD ED VARIANT COVER #5 (OF 5) $2.99
MAR051923 NEW X-MEN HELLIONS #1 (OF 4) $2.99
MAR051925 X-23 #6 (OF 6) $2.99
Fuck you and fuck your X-Men.
APR052474 WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE FANTASTIC 4 PHOTO CVR #165 $5.99
APR052475 WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE WILDSIDERZ CVR #165 $5.99
Fuck you, too. I loathe Wizard with the passion of a thousand burning suns – their frat-rock take on comics, dismissing anything that’s not accompanied by a glossy press release, is the twenty-ninth place I go to for any comics news, just after the American Eagle catalog.
APR052699 BRIAN PULIDOS LADY DEATH SWIMSUIT EMERALD FOIL CVR 2005 $6.99
APR052763 BRIAN PULIDOS LADY DEATH SWIMSUIT MOMENT OF PEACE CVR 2005 $5.99
APR052700 BRIAN PULIDOS LADY DEATH SWIMSUIT SCORCHING ED 2005 $5.99
APR052701 LADY DEATH LEATHER & LACE 2005 CRUEL MISTRESS CVR $5.99
APR052764 LADY DEATH LEATHER & LACE 2005 PRISM FOIL CVR $12.99
APR052677 MEDIEVAL LADY DEATH FEAR HER WRATH CVR #1 $5.99
Say it with me one more time, kids: fuck you. And fuck the sad assholes that buy this shit. Go pick up a goddamn issue of Leg Show or use the interwebs to find some big-tittied chicks.
MAR052790 GI JOE MASTER & APPRENTICE VOL II CVR B #4 $2.95
MAR052789 GI JOE MASTER & APPRENTICE VOL II UDON CVR A #4 $2.95
…I don’t need to say it, do I? Hell, I sorta liked the first Master & Apprentice series as it had cool ninja action in it, but a followup and variant covers? How much does shit like this increase sales?
APR052675 STARGATE SG1 ARIS BOCH WRAP VIRGINIA GOLD SEAL #1 $4.99
APR052669 STARGATE SG1 DANIELS SONG NOUVEAU CARTER ED #1 $5.99
APR052672 STARGATE SG1 DANIELS SONG NOUVEAU HAMMOND ED #1 $5.99
APR052670 STARGATE SG1 DANIELS SONG NOUVEAU ONEILL ED #1 $5.99
APR052673 STARGATE SG1 DANIELS SONG NOUVEAU TEALC ED #1 $5.99
Boy, I thought Trek fans liked the rough-anal-with-no-lube. Who’s buying all these covers? Who in the target audience for this comic would go “Oh, fuck no – I ain’t buying this comic without the spooky black dude on the front!” ?
Finally, I saved this gem for last:
FEB052797 DF COUNTDOWN #1 DOUBLE SGN $49.99
That’s right. $50 for a one-dollar comic where Blue Beetle caught a bullet lobotomy. I don’t care of it’s signed in Ted Kord’s blood, there’s no excuse for this shit. Dynamic Forces, from Hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
Stuff What Is Coming Out That You May or May Not Want To Buy.
I’m just doing this in the order that it’s on the invoice, so bear with me – this doesn’t indicate preferences, as the book coming out from AiT/Planet Lar would be at the top of my list, certainly.
Previews Publications
APR050006 MARVEL PREVIEWS JUNE 2005 PI
APR050009 PREVIEWS ADULT VOL XV #6 PI
APR050005 PREVIEWS VOL XV #6 PI
Hey, it’s Previews – you gotta give it a look. When is Marvel going to stop charging a buck for their catalog and put it back into the already-$5 Diamond tome?
Dark Horse
MAR050040 BILLY THE KIDS OLD TIME ODDITIES #2 (OF 4) $2.99
The first issue sold pretty well to people who like The Goon and Hellboy, and with the now-kinda-hot Western thing, it seems like the sort of thing that a lot of people that don’t normally step out of their safe little niches could dig. They won’t, of course, unless Billy The Kid beats up people while he wears spandex and pontificates on the lonely road he walks.
DC Comics
MAR050476 100 BULLETS #61 (MR) $2.50
MAR050461 CITY OF TOMORROW #2 (OF 6) (MR) $2.99
MAR050377 GOTHAM CENTRAL HALF A LIFE TP $14.99
MAR050403 GREEN LANTERN #1 $3.50
MAR050470 SLEEPER SEASON TWO #12 (OF 12) (MR) $2.99
MAR050425 WRATH OF THE SPECTRE TP $19.99
This is what I’m buying. You may be surprised to see that Green Lantern is on there, but from what I’ve read from Johns about this being Hal as a shining star and the fact that it’s Carlos “I Draw Real Purty” Pacheco doing the art, well, I am going to make with the looking at. God bless you, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, for making Sleeper. It’s a wonderful title that I will miss, but appreciate that you’re wanting to end it naturally.
Yes, I buy Gotham Central anyway, but the trade for my favorite story is sort of a “must buy,” isn’t it? It’s sort of depressing that it’s taking this long to get into paperback – it’d build a larger audience, especially from the Vertigo Types, if it were collected at Ultimate Swarm: Hitler’s Mouthbees! speed.
Wrath of the Spectre in trade? Aw, hell yeah. I think I previously stated that one would need two copies – one to read and one to spaff all over in while beholding the glory of the sheer fuckedupedness of the shit that Fleischer and Aparo came up with.
MAR050397 DAY OF VENGEANCE #2 (OF 6) $2.50
APR050333 DC SPECIAL THE RETURN OF DONNA TROY #1 (OF 4) $2.99
MAR050415 OMAC PROJECT #2 (OF 6) $2.50
Four Crisis-related books (See also: Rann-Thanagar Asswhooping 2nd printing) in a week? Nice. Real nice. No breathers for you, fanboys.
Image
MAR051667 GIRLS #1 (MR) $2.95
I like the goddamn Luna brothers and so should you. If you do not, I will tell your mom about your Emma Frost/Jean Grey slash fiction.
Marvel
MAR051962 ESSENTIAL THOR VOL 2 TP $16.99
MAR051958 FANTASTIC FOUR VOL 6 RISING STORM TP $13.99
MAR051873 MACHINE TEEN #1 (OF 5) $2.99
MAR051878 ULTIMATES 2 #6 $2.99
Got me some Jack Kirby up in this mug, yo. Got me some motherfucking Thor by Jack Kirby. Y’all ain’t even ready for that shit, yo.
I’ll be picking up the next-to-last Waid/Ringo Fantastic Four trade because hey, it’s just non-offensive enough to keep me interested. It is a crying shame that the genius of Walt Simonson on this title has not been collected – even the stuff related to the Acts Of Vengeance crossover is smarter than anything else related to the first family at Marvel since Jack walked away. Hey, did you know that Jack Kirby got some shit about gods you gonna buy coming out this weeK? He does. Word.
Machine Teen seems worth a gander, at least – the cover is mighty purty, and I love the idea of revisiting Machine Man, one of Jack’s stranger Marvel creations.
Yes, I’m still buying The Ultimates. It’s my hypocritical superhero porn title.
Other Companies
FEB053044 JAMES BOND DR NO TP $16.95
If you’ve checked out the Modesty Blaise reprints and dug them, these newspaper versions of the Fleming novels will be up your alley.
MAR052503 TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD VOL 2 THIS ONE GOES TO 11 TP $12.95
Hey, Larry! Seriously – this is something you all should buy, as this is completely neophyte friendly romance comics that carries enough charm to make you forget that sometimes it’s a little too sweet.
There. Go and do likewise, gentlemen. Go and do likewise.
Comments Off | Posted: May 23rd, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Hey, my review of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith is up. I’d appreciate comments about the review, if not the film itself.
Comments Off | Posted: May 23rd, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
British MP George Galloway, under the glaring lens of the Senate investigation of the UN Oil-For-Food “scandal,” manages to pummel the shit out of Rummy during his statement to the committee, which you can read in its full beautiful, wrathful glory here.
“Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are – let’s be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had ‘many meetings’ with Saddam Hussein. This is false.
“I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as “many meetings” with Saddam Hussein.
“As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country – a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defence made of his.”
I’m seeing Revenge Of The Sith today during an extra special extended long, early lunch, so expect some kind of review to go up over here. For those of you who want to catch up on my reviews of the previous movies, wherein I spaff a bit much over A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, you can check them out in the Nerds And Trekkies section of the site.
Comments Off | Posted: May 22nd, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
I was fortunate enough to get to spend some time with a nice big stack of old issues of The Brave And The Bold today and I have two things to say: 1) goddamn, that Bob Haney can write him some craaaaaazy shit and 2) goddamn, they got Jim Aparo and other folks to draw some craaaaaazy shit.
First up is an issue of the title just prior to it becoming the Batman team-up book most of us remember it as. In issue 63, Wonder Woman and Super Girl turn into Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, foresaking their heroic identities to slut around a bit in France in “The Revolt Of The Super-Chicks.” After rescuing a couple of movie stars from an on-set disaster, Supergirl thinks that she’s tired of being a paragon of virtue and wants to get pounded real hard by some frog-eating piece of Eurotrash. Superman, is, of course, a bit incestually motivated to keep this from happening and he ring-a-ding-dings Wonder Woman, asking her to pop by Kara’s pad in Paris and give her what for. If you click on that picture there, you can see their initial discussion of this subject and how it turned into Diana trying a dress on and, well…just click on this next picture.
All it takes to get Wonder Woman wet in the knickers is apparently knowing some sort of secret French tongue move and she’s opting for a life of lying about on chaise longue and nibbling on snails? Darkseid really should look into this methodology next time he’s really freaking out over finding “Anti-Life,” you know? I was hoping that this story, which shows the two “super-chicks” struggling with trying to be normal and dainty females because they want to keep bumping uglies with Jean-Luc and Pierre or whatever their names were, would end with their having been mind controlled by the cover villain, Multi-Face. No, they’re just vapid cunts in this one until the last page, where they magically change their apparently pea-sized minds and go back to knocking down the sort of people who need that sort of thing in order to save the world. This even lacks the fun, stupid charm of Haney’s attempts to write “relevant” teenage characters and makes you want to smack the pair of femme-heroes about until they sober up. Bad form, really.
Oh, since I spoke of the Darkseid in the previous paragraph, I’d though you’d all like to see this charming image of Granny Goodness from issue 128′s Batman / Mister Miracle pow-wow. Sadly, this story does not connect to #151′s epic concerning the disco of death, but managed to make me shriek in abject horror anyway. Dance Music hasn’t had that much luck with comics, really – Dazzler, the Hypno-Hustler and his Mercy Killers, and the unforgivably-stupidly-named Superboy And The Ravers all sprang to mind far too quickly when contemplating music with repetitive beats, but it’s not like rock hasn’t had its own embarrassing comic book moments – think Sonic Disruptors.
Finally, two random images. The first is from a Hostess ad that was in one of the issues I flipped through – I found a copy of it on SeanBaby.com and edited it down to just the relevant panel that caused me much dismay for the children of the DCU. The second, well, doesn’t need much explanation at all, really.
They see an alien ship with Superman in tight pursuit
and they can’t be bothered to use exclamation points?
How fucking jaded are they?
“You shot me. Ow.”
“Tommy, you’re on fire.”
“Oh, no. A bear is mauling the counselor.”
Take that, Identity Crisis!
