Today is No Music Day.

I’ll take "Solicitations For Books I’ll Believe Exist When I Hold One In My Hand And Not One Second Before" for $1200, Alex.

What.

HOWARD THE DUCK OMNIBUS
Written by STEVE GERBER
Penciled by GENE COLAN, VAL MAYERIK, FRANK BRUNNER, JOHN BUSCEMA, CARMINE INFANTINO & MORE
Cover by FRANK BRUNNER
Variant cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
Get down, America! Vote Howard the Duck in 2008! That’s right, folks. It’s an election year, and what better way to celebrate than to cast your vote for the one candidate who’ll really tell it like it is. Born on a planet populated by talking waterfowl, Howard the Duck found himself trapped in a world he never made: ours! Howard was the archetypal outsider, able to see through the absurdities of human society in the 1970s with uncanny accuracy and an acerbic wit. His adventures presented writer Steve Gerber with a platform from which to engage in an ongoing critique of contemporary fools and pretenders, from power-mad capitalist wizard Pro-Rata to cult leader Reverend Joon Moon Yuc to the dreaded Doctor Bong! Experience for yourself the complete comic adventures of Howard in this Omnibus collection, reprinting his first appearances and the entire run of his first series. Collecting stories from ADVENTURE INTO FEAR #19, MAN-THING #1, GIANT-SIZE MAN-THING #4-5, HOWARD THE DUCK #1-33, MARVEL TREASURY EDITION #12 and MARVEL TEAM-UP #96.
800 PGS./Rated T+ …$99.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3023-9
Trim size: oversized

Answering a question nobody has asked, yet.

Question:
Kevin, why is your posting so spotty this week?

Answer:
Oh, you know, I’m just starting my new SEO consulting business, so my hands are abundantly full at the moment. Besides, it’s Thanksgiving. I figure you can do without my blathering for a few days.

Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions.

The Rack: The Hours.

The Rack: Misleading

In which I discuss The Black Dossier in a format many people may find convenient.

1.
At some point in the last decade or so, Alan Moore became more enamored with displaying the width and breadth of his arcane knowledge than storytelling in any conventional sense of the word. This (most) obviously comes to the fore with Promethea once the pretense of Wonder Woman-as-mythological figure was dropped.

2.
Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen work has let comics’ grand wizard indulge in his intricately-wrought Wold Newton fantasies while generally providing a high level of entertainment. The latest installment, The Black Dossier crosses the not-very-fine line between providing said entertainment and smarmily showing off just how deep into the esoteric Moore’s mental archives reach. It’s much more backmatter than matter.

3.
I admire Moore’s ability to ape other writers and even think his Wodehouse comes quite close to the dizzying heights of The Master himself, but you could not pay me to read the excerpt from the beat novel again. “Back in the wild ride crankin winder down to flip a butt a tiny red hot acrobat somersaults away towards the smearin streakin road below and gone and sinkin back in an ass-plasterin’ bake o Summer leatherette I’m prop’ly innerduced t’Minnie n her boyfriend English Al who’s drivin face all dashlit green,” indeed.

4.
I admire Moore’s ability to write Alan Moore comics more than the previously mentioned talent.

5.
That said, this may be my favorite James Bond ever, and that particular reveal concerning Doctor No had me in stitches.

6.
Moore’s becoming a dirty old man and a half, isn’t he? I’d estimate that a good 30% of this book was devoted to nookie in its various fictional incarnations. You’d think he’d have worked it out of his system with Lost Girls, but maybe, like me, he found his wife’s art to be the exact opposite of arousing.

7.
Kevin O’Neill is a wonder and should probably be enshrined in some fashion. I’d recommend gold plating. It’s amazing how, unlike Moore, he doesn’t disappear while providing art in a appropriated style. Someone much brainier than me can probably work up quite a dissection comparing the authorial voices at play here.

8.
I’ve hit the point where 3D glasses make my brain explode with paroxysms of agony. I actually stopped reading that chapter in its preferred format, which surely means I’ve violated some sort of reader-author contract and will pay for this trangression at some point. I could tell there were clever things going on, however, particularly the “hold one eye closed” routine.

9.
In the end, I’m glad to have read The Black Dossier, but despite the obvious attention paid to both presentation and content, I find myself wanting Century to come out that much more quickly.

10.
I’ve unashamedly swiped this format from Paul Morley. You really do need to read Words And Music: A history of pop in the shape of a city. It’s one of my favorite books.

The Rack: Cavalry

Friday Night Fights: Nice one.

One, Two, Three and to the Four
The Purveyor of Cosmic Funk is rappin’ on your door.

The Rack: Delayed!

I just got a text message and phone call from Birdie stating that, despite his best efforts to shout at his internet connection until it worked, his end of the pipe was down for the time being. Sadly, his office looks down on cartoonists uploading their strips using FTP, so it’ll be tonight. I’m sorry, he’s sorry, we’re all sorry. In the meantime, you can look at the archives.

Evan Dorkin’s Frightful Four.

I saw it on his blog and liked it so much I stole it for my own!

I’ve got your "Project Rooftop" right here.

A link of no small import.

Andrew, like all right-thinking Superman fans, believes Steve Lombard to be an essential part of the mythos. The fact that he manages to work in local hardcore act The Freeze into the proceedings pushes the appreciation of WGBS’s best sports reporter from amusing to essential.

Continuing the work of Chris Sims.

Further findings are available here.

The Rack: Staff Picks for the week of November 14, 2007

The sum totality of my opinion concerning Marvel’s new Flash-dependent, slow-moving online comics service.

Ladies and Gentleman, we’ve got a special guest tonight. Let’s have a big hand for 1997!

The Rack: Side Window.

So.

This is what a Warren Ellis phone boner feels like.

Huh.

The Rack: Stockholm Syndrome

Our true-crime saga continues with the latest installment. (By “true-crime,” I mean “didn’t happen at all, really, but don’t let that stop you from reading it.”)