Why am I so tired today? Because I have a cold, and have been caring for my two sons who also have colds? Because baby Guppy woke before 4 a.m., wanting to be fed?
No, it’s because yesterday was new-comic day, and my husband G. Grod and I stayed up late reading comic books in bed.
No wonder we can’t get Drake to turn out the lights and stop reading. It’s his birthright.
So far, my 3yo son Drake enjoys preschool. I appreciate that he’s meeting other kids and making cute crafts. But I exclaimed in excitement when I picked him up last week. Book club order forms! While I’ve enacted draconian cutbacks in book purchases for me and the husband, I am beside myself with excitement as I page through the options. I am overcome by nostalgia for one of the few things I remember fondly about school–these book order forms.
So many books! So cheap! How will I decide?
#s 28, 29, and 30 in my book challenge for the year, and 4, 5, and 6 of my summer reading challenges were the three Scott Pilgrim volumes. I read and reviewed #s 1 and 2 last year, and re-read them before #3 because I couldn’t remember who was who. The Scott Pilgrim stories are young adult graphic novels that reference music, magic, and video games. While manga is the obvious influence, I was more than once strongly reminded of Trudeau’s Doonesbury.
Scott is an amiable goofball who has a way with the ladies. He is still traumatized by his breakup with Envy Adams, he did a bad job of breaking up with his high school girlfriend Knives Chau, and he is trying to date the mysterious Ramona Flowers, but he must first defeat the league of her seven evil ex-boyfriends. The graphic novels are all fast reads, and I still highly recommend 1 and 2. I laughed out loud during both several times, and read bits aloud to my husband.
From Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life (Vol. 1)
“It’s…It’s her shoes. She was wearing these shoes. These HAUNTING SHOES.”
“What’d they look like?”
“They looked…really…uncomfortable.”
From Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (Vol. 2)
“What kind of idiot would knowingly date a girl named Knives?”
From Scott Pilgrim & the Infinite Sadness (Vol. 3)
“N…No way! Bionic arm?! Knives…!Oh my God, Knives! Your hair! She punched the highlights out of your hair!”
#3 tells the backstory of Scott’s ex, Envy Adams. I didn’t think it was as great as 1 and 2. The back and forth between present and past was jarring. Envy wasn’t at all likeable, as is Knives Chau–seventeen years old–Scott’s more recent ex. It is funny, especially some bits about Envy’s boyfriend (and Ramona’s evil ex #3) Todd’s veganism. I found it more sad than funny, though. Perhaps I should have expected that, given the subtitle.
While I was less enamored of #3, I still like the books and these characters, and I want to know what happens. What is in Ramona’s past? Who is Gideon? What’s going to happen with that guy who kidnapped Kim when she and Scott were in high school, and who shows up at the end of #3? What’s the deal with Kim–will this cool drummer chick be more than just an ex of Scott’s?
If Scott has to defeat one evil ex-boyfriend in each volume, and if each volume comes out once a year, there’s four more years till the end of the story. Perhaps author Bryan Lee O’Malley can put two boyfriends in each of the next two volumes, because four years is too long to wait.
A few things have slowed down my comic reading: the birth of Guppy, several deadline-driven books to read, and a slowly growing sense of comics ennui. Lately I’m reading comics out of habit, not for fun. Several of the titles I’ve enjoyed in the past just don’t excite me: 100 Bullets, Ex Machina, Fables, Queen and Country, Y the Last Man. Are they in a rut, or am I? Most comic-book people I know have experienced the ennui, as I have before, and I know that it usually passes.
It could be me. I took the time to read one of the best reviewed comics of the year, Ganges, and I was not blown away. It was good. It was thoughtful. It has very good art and a beautiful presentation. But, truthfully, I was kinda bored by it. It reminded me of James Kochalka’s work. It’s less crazy, and more polished, but also less wackily charming.
But then I read the four issue series Batman 100 by Paul Pope. Pope’s distinctive art infuses a frenetic energy into his dark, future Batman story. The four issues are satisfyingly long, with a lot of text intos and outros. The whole story is great. I can’t say it’s dispelled my comics ennui, but it has reminded me why I love the medium, as did recent issues of Daredevil, and Fell, the latter by my husband G. Grod’s favorite comics author Warren Ellis.
“Aah!” I screamed, and clobbered my husband who was holding the remote and scrolling through the schedule. “EZ Streets! EZ Streets!” I’ve written many times before that this is one of my favorite cancelled TV series of all time, right up there with My So Called Life. Great reviews and Emmys couldn’t save it. EZ Streets was written by Paul Haggis, the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby and the director of Crash. It is being shown on the new Sleuth Channel–”Mystery. Crime. All the Time.” I’m both excited and trepidatious to revisit EZ Streets, which ran in 1996 and 1997 and had only 9 episodes. Will I still like it? And if so, will it make me angry all over again that it got cancelled? If so, perhaps I can console myself this fall with this.
Some friends started a CD of the month club–each month, one family makes a mix CD and sends it to the other members. My 20th year high school reunion is this summer, so for our mix I decided I wanted songs from 1982 to 1986. I soon realized we didn’t have our favorite 80s albums on CD. We had them on vinyl or cassette; or we had a greatest hits CD, which often didn’t include the less popular tracks.
I began to doubt. Was there a need for an 80s mix CD? Between VH1 and radio, the 80s have been flogged to death. Can there be nostalgia for music that’s played all the time? How should I limit the songs? Did I want stuff I listened to then, or stuff I learned to like later?
I obsessed as nerdishly as I could with a new baby, but as our month wore on (and on, and ended) decisions had to be made. I used CDs we owned or could borrow quickly, started with songs I listened to then that I’m not ashamed to listen to now, and picked tracks not in heavy rotation now. G. Grod decided to forgo (or at least delay) a CD of songs I learned to like later. Here was the final tracklist. My sister Sydney helped with some of the track selections; I also took some inspiration from my friend Rock Hack’s birthday list.
1. 1999 - Prince [1999] (1983)
2. Would I Lie to You? - Eurythmics [Be Yourself Tonight] (1985)
3. Stay Up Late - Talking Heads. [Little Creatures] (1983)
4. Black Coffee in Bed - Squeeze [Sweets from a Stranger] (1982)
5. Twisting by the Pool - Dire Straits [ExtendedancEP] (1982)
6. Driver 8 - R.E.M. [Fables of the Reconstruction] (1985)
7. Kiss Off - Violent Femmes [Violent Femmes] (1982)
8. Borderline - Madonna [Madonna] (1983)
9. King of Pain - The Police [Synchronicity] (1983)
10. Foolin’ - Def Leppard [Pyromania] (1983)
11. Don’t Change - INXS [Shabooh Shoobah] (1982)
12. More Than This - Roxy Music [Avalon] (1982)
13. Slave to Love - Bryan Ferry [Boys and Girls] (1985)
14. Blue Jean - David Bowie [Tonight] (1984)
15. Love My Way - The Psychedelic Furs [Forever Now] (1982)
16. Save it for Later - English Beat [Special Beat Service] (1983)
17. Bad - U2 [The Unforgettable Fire] (1984)
18. The Chauffeur - Duran Duran [Rio] (1982)
The cast of Battlestar Galactica, drawn Simpsons style.
Thanks to Blogenheimer, who sent me the link.
I’ve waited years for this.
We’ve been chosen as a Nielsen Family for a one week TV survey.
At last, my opinion will matter. Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica will get the recognition they deserve. For years I’ve watched good shows get cancelled, like My So-Called Life and EZ Streets. Perhaps I can finally make a difference.
#75 in my book challenge for the year, this mini-series and its subsequent graphic novel collections are like historical fiction of the DC universe, so a sort of meta-fiction about DC silver-age heroes like Hal Jordan and Barry Allen. This is both a history and a new story, though, so seasoned comic book readers have something new to read for. It is incredibly dense, so much so that I understand, though am annoyed by, the need to put one story into two graphic novels. Cooke’s art is distinctive and well-suited to the type of tale he’s telling. Additionally, each issue is dedicated to the writers/artists who created the heroes of the tale, and it is a skillful tribute. Best of all, for someone like me who does not have an encyclopedic knowledge of comic book history, it unfolds in such a way that new readers can get to know a character before finding out which superhero s/he is, while more experienced readers can have fun identifying who’s who.
I just picked up a couple this week, but thought I’d do quick reviews, in case any of these titles are ones you’ve wondered about picking up.
Seven Soldiers: The Manhattan Guardian #4 by Grant Morrison. I’ve liked but not loved the Seven Soldiers series, but the last few issues have begun to tie all the threads together, and I’m hoping that it will work well as a whole. The art in TMG has gotten a lot of attention, including the New York Times, but I think this was the most entertaining story thus far.
Gotham Central #35 by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker. This is a really solid crime comic with great characterization among the staff of the Gotham City detective unit. The current storyline has young boys dressed as Robin turning up dead. Are they Robin? Is there more than one Robin? And who’s killing them? The art is perfectly suited to the story, and this is one of my favorite monthly titles.
Fell #1 by Warren Ellis. I liked this comic even before I read the “Backmatter” by Ellis, after which I liked it even more. Ellis said he wanted to put together a comic that told an individual story, yet cost less than the usual $2.25 and up comics. This one, at under $1.99, does exactly that. A single, self-contained story, yet one that lays the groundwork for future related ones, and at the old fashioned price of under $2. Ellis can get a bit gonzo for my tastes sometimes, but when he’s on, he’s good, and this is a good comic at a good price. Check it out.
From a few weeks ago:
Rocketo by Frank Espinosa. NICE! A fantasy story about an Atlantis-like world about a young boy named Rocketo who grows into a famous adveturer/cartographer. Lovely art, compelling story, a top rather than a side binding, good colors and nice paper stock for the covers and interior. This looks like a very promising new series.
Drake has been napping sporadically lately. Often I will put him down at the usual time, and if he’s not ready to go to sleep he’ll talk and sing and holler until he does, or until he sounds unhappy enough for me to go get him. Yesterday he sang the ABCs several times (with a bewildering “ah-go, sah-go” for W-X), then amazed me when he launched into the Philadelphia Eagles fight song and sang every word. He did not sing it again, but I called G. Grod at work to let him know. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard G. sound much happier.
I’ve written before about how I’ve become a faithful library patron. A few weeks ago, I tried the “recommend” feature on my library’s web site. It allows me to recommend an item, then put myself on the wait list if they do purchase it. There are now five items on my wait list that weren’t previously in the library’s collection. I’m thrilled, but I must remember to use this power for good, not evil.
It is an growing peeve of mine when literary folk look down on comic books. (What does a peeve grow up into? Mine has gotten pretty big over the years.) Yesterday I read comics referred to on a literary blog as trash reading. In Ebert and Roeper’s review of Stealth, both agreed that it had “comic-book” effects, meaning flashy and non-substantive. “Comic book” is not an adjectival phrase that means simple and bad. Yes, some comic books are trash, just as some books are trash. But comic books and graphic novels can be art in a way that non-picture books can’t. Comic books and graphic novels can be literature told with words and pictures. If one loves books, I believe one can love comics. Comics, like all art , have myriad genres. If a comic book neophyte tells me what kind of book she likes, I can recommend a complementary comic book or graphic novel.
Victorian lit? League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Cop thrillers? Top Ten
Horror/fantasy? Shakespeare? Sandman
Military/Spy novels? Queen and Country
Mysteries? The Whiteout graphic novels
The Kite Runner/Reading Lolita in Tehran? Persepolis 1 & 2
Young adult coming of age? Goodbye Chunky Rice, Blankets
Travelogue? Carnet de Voyage
One of my favorite events is our family’s weekly trip to the comic store on Wednesday, which is new-comic day. Yesterday there were three–three!–new graphic novels (Tricked by Alex Robinson, Mort Grim by Doug Fraser, and the hardcover collection of Bryan K. Vaughan’s Runaways) plus a few issues from my favorite ongoing series (Fables and 100 Bullets.) When I go to the comic shop, I get to see friends, buy books, and watch Drake while he runs up and down the aisles, crowing with glee. It’s a rich joy, not non-substantive trash.
Last week I read Bruce Campbell’s autobiography If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor (#56 in my book challenge for the year) and went to see Bruce host a screening of The Man with the Screaming Brain (#38 in my movie challenge for the year).
Bruce Campbell is best known for his starring work in the Evil Dead trilogy, a set of B-movie horror flicks from the 80’s and 90’s. I saw Evil Dead for the first time when I was in college (in Henle 21, for the record), because some guy friends were big fans. It was bloody and it was funny, and I remember one of the guys kept up a continuous chorus of, “Oh, this part is so awesome.” It was clear that the guys had the movie memorized.
The director of the Evil Dead films, Sam Raimi, hit the big time finally with the very good Spider Man and even better Spider Man 2. Campbell has managed to stay alive in Hollywood as a B actor, but he doesn’t bemoan his fate. He has genuine affection for the early movies and how much creative control he and his friends had on them. He’s been in some big movies, such as the Coen Brothers The Hudsucker Proxy, and has spent a lot of time doing series television, first on the short-lived Adventures of Brisco Country, Jr. and later as a recurring character first on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and later on Xena: Warrior Princess. If Chins Could Kill is an entertaining, anecdote-laden trip. Campbell is humorous and self-effacing, and comes off as a likable guy. Bruce is touring in support of his new book, How to Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way.
The Man with the Screaming Brain is his first time directing a film. It was financed by the Sci-Fi channel, who told him he had to film in Bulgaria, so he re-wrote the movie around that. During the Q & A after the showing, Campbell joked that the film wasn’t released, it had escaped. He did a good bit of bantering back and forth, solidifying that funny, good-guy persona. The Man with the Screaming Brain is the story of a mad scientist (Stacey Keach) who discovers a way to merge brain cells of different people. It’s played for slapstick, and it is quite funny at times. Both City Pages and The Beat have reviewed it favorably, and perhaps a bit kindly, but it’s hard not to want to be kind to Campbell. It will air on the Sci Fi Channel on Septemer 10.
I can’t be the only one who has noticed that nothing has happened in the first two episodes of season two of Battlestar Galactica. Oh sure, there’s been some shooting, and a lot of people we’d never met and didn’t care about died, but at the end of the second episode we’re in a place no different than we were at the end of Season One: Adama’s unconscious, Apollo’s in trouble, Starbuck’s on Caprica, and that landing team on Kobol is screwed. Something better change Friday. I know it’s normal for a show to slump in its second season, but I can’t stop hoping. And I’m warning all and sundry, if the sophomore slump happens to Veronica Mars this fall, my wrath will know no bounds.
Also, if you didn’t notice but do care, Sci Fi is re-running Joss Whedon’s Firefly series in order in preparation for the release of the movie Serenity. Firefly is decent, and has a few cool bits, like how the ships don’t make sound in space, because, of course, they wouldn’t.
My husband and I got married and moved in together in 1998. We bought a condo in 2001. We had our son Drake in 2003. We bought a house last fall. Yet G. Grod swears that he didn’t witness true commitment on my part until last month, when I finally merged our comic book collections. For years, his Green Lanterns, Wolverines, and Uncanny X-Men have been sequestered in their own boxes. And for a while, I fiddled around with an elaborate filing system that had completed series in one place and titles I was continuing to buy in another. My friend the Big Brain rolled his eyes, and advised me that there should only be two piles–read, and unread. So I merged all our titles, filed them alphabetically, and the only ones out are the ones unread. Additionally, I put all the graphic novels together, too, filed mostly by title, though a few are by author’s last name. They are arrayed in one line above the computer as I type. It feels good to know that I am both better organized, and that my husband thinks I’ve finally committed to this relationship.
Yet another great graphic novel collaboration for Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev. Strong story, strong art, and book #45 in my 50 book challenge for the year. This story jumps between three main points in time. Each part of the story is drawn in a different style, suited to the comics history of the time. The flashbacks are seamless, and both story and art lend to good characterization. We are also introduced to a new superhero. This could be a standalone graphic novel, but I recommend you go back and start with Volume 4: Underboss, and keep reading. Daredevil is a great character, and this team has put together a series of really good books.
Batman and I go way back. My first celebrity crush was on Adam West, when I was in first grade. I watched Batman every day, even if I’d seen the episode before. I remember lying to my mother that they only re-ran episodes once to try to get out of a trip to the store. I missed whatever episode that was (Batman and Robin trapped in a beehive, perhaps?) but I did get a few comics that day. Then my comic reading and Batman appreciation went dormant for many years, emerging much later when a boyfriend handed me the two graphic novel standards–Watchmen by Alan Moore and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. I was back into Batman, and back into comics, and have not abandoned either in the fifteen (!) years since. Soon after those initial graphic novels, I read Batman Year One, also by Frank Miller, and I liked it even more than I did Dark Knight Returns. (This view, I know, borders on heresy in the geek-dom.) It was a dark story, very much of its time in the 80’s, that emphasized the all-too-human aspects of the characters Batman, James Gordon, and to a lesser extent, Catwoman.
Therefore it was with some trepidation that I saw that a Batman origin movie was coming to the screen. I’d seen all four Batman movies, liking each one less, and actually feeling ashamed at having seen the last one. I had to be reminded who it was who played Batman in it–that was how forgettable George Clooney was in the role. Part of the problem of a Batman movie is the casting of Batman. Most actors can play either rich playboy Bruce Wayne or Batman, but not both. But when the reviews started to come in that Batman Begins was good and Christian Bale was well cast, I began to hope. And when a friend offered to watch Drake so that my husband G. Grod and I could actually go out and see a movie together, we knew immediately what we wanted to see.
Batman Begins was movie #29 in my 50 movie challenge for the year. And it was great fun. It was dark and atmospheric with good special effects. Everyone there played it straight, even the villains–there was no overacting or kitsch factor. There were a few throwaway one-liners to please the groundlings, but overall, it was extremely well done. This is not a movie of Batman Year One. The director and Frank Miller have been reminding people of that in recent interviews. It is, however, a well-done work on the origin of the man behind and within the mask. And because of that, I think it’s a fitting homage to one of my favorite graphic novels.
There are several geek-friendly movies coming out soon. Frank Miller’s Sin City on April 1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on April 29. Batman Begins on June 17.
Wait, isn’t there something else the geeks are excited about this year, coming out soon?
Oh, right.
I don’t want to go into nerdishly obsessive detail about this, but I think there are some cool things going on in Battlestar Galactica. The original series contained references to leading the tribes out of Egypt (the pilot helmets had Egyptian imagery) to the promised land of Earth, with stately Lorne Greene as the Moses figure.
In the present series, the creators have made some interesting twists, key to which is that the human race created the Cylons as slaves, who then rebelled. The Cylons are monotheists, while the humans believe in a pantheon of gods. There are many references to how the same stories happen over and over, throughout history. Are the Cylons now the analog for the persecuted Christians who rise up against their polytheistic oppressors? If so, why are we rooting for the humans? Further, who is the savior? Even further, will s/he be a lunkhead?