BE REAL COOL

(apologies to Gwendolyn Brooks)

Lately I’ve been obsessed with music comics. Some of my favorite comics this year have been SCOTT PILGRIM, 20TH CENTURY BOYS, and YOUNG LIARS--all about music (20th CENTURY BOYS less so, but still). UMBRELLA ACADEMY, which I rave about ad nauseum, by the guy from My Chemical Romance, and I really dug ONE MODEL NATION, by the guy from the Dandy Warhols. The first installment of the NEW LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN was a Brechtian musical. During lunch yesterday I read a HOPELESS SAVAGES special that was totally rad and not just because it had Becky Cloonan art. Warren Ellis just wrote about Brian Eno and Jack Kirby and about a dozen other things today.

My obsession goes in a few directions--comics in music, music in comics, and comics AS music. Because music is cool and comics are not. Well, unless you’re in-the-know. And why can’t comics be cool? Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis used to talk about the comicker as a rock star, mostly because Morrison did lots and lots of drugs and Ellis wants sex slave groupies to use as an army of whimpering ottomans. Joe Casey wears sunglasses indoors--the only way I could have recognized him at Comic-Con. So let’s all be cool like musicians and act like comics are the coolest thing on Earth--cooler than music, even--so everybody gets laid. Deal? I’ll bring the sunglasses if you bring the leather. Grant Morrison always puts his superheroes in leather jackets like Lou Reed.

Because I’ve got an ongoing series of 8-to-10-page stories, I want to experiment with treating them like songs. It’s a daunting task since music is so geared to emotional response and with comics you have to open the thing up and look at it, requiring a completely different set of alchemical tools to turn emotion into art. On the plus side, there aren’t any acoustic guitars or open mic nights for comics.

While alt-comix autobiography might sound like what I’m going for, I’m not. Those get a bit to close to transparent proclamations (“Here I am. I am a sad dweeb.”)--way more direct than I’d care to be for the purposes for this exercise. Like a pop song, I want to try pieces that are short, catchy, and easily digestible. The art is the music and the story the lyrics, which hide the internalized “Here I am. I am a sad dweeb” message behind artistry or cleverness or whatever. I guess the layouts are time signatures/rhythm. Pencils are guitar, inks are drums. Colors differ depending on style--could be synth, could be strings, could be a goddamn choir. If it’s black & white, it’s garage rock.

Now, for some rabbit holing: Xeroxed minicomics are cassette tape demos. Indie is indie. Superhero comics are rock ‘n’ roll. Grant Morrison is not Moby. R. Crumb and Harvey Pekar are the Velvet Underground. DC and Marvel are the major labels. Gerard Way is Gerard Way. Boring superhero comics are dad rock. Image Comics is Subpop. Alan Moore and Frank Miller are, respectively, The Clash and The Sex Pistols. Literary comics are jazz. SANDMAN is Joy Division or Cocteau Twins or something. Weird superhero comics are indie rock. ‘60s Marvel is the Beatles. Daniel Clowes is the Pixies. Warren Ellis is not Warren Ellis. If I do a crudely-drawn comic on a graphic tablet, I’m Wavves.

Metaphor: FAILED

Wait, I just thought of one more...

Huey Lewis & the News’ SPORTS is WATCHMEN.

Metaphor: SUCCESS

I guess it’s time to write the damn thing.

SPEAKING OF MUSIC COMICS

Bought PHONOGRAM: RUE BRITTANIA based on the quality of the Long Blondes issue of THE SINGLES CLUB. Comickaze’s only copy was a bit beaten up, presumably after two years of being unceremoniously pulled off the shelf, flipped through, and put back. Whatever, it still has that New Comic Smell.

TWEET OF THE DAY

@EddieArgos Just realised that when I was drunk about a month and a half ago. I added anyone who has anything to do with the Scream franchise on this

POP GOES THE HERZOG

Took a personal day after Saturday’s radio show, a day that involved, after vegetarian Asian (vasian) food and comics, sitting through BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS.

Oh. My.

It’s the kind of movie that you need to finish to figure out what to think of it. For much of the film I wasn’t sure if I liked it… and then came the fake-out ending that’s clearly meant to be a sardonic parody of Hollywood films… and then there’s the REAL ending, which is a bit darker and stranger but still kind of optimistic.

In retrospect, it reminds me of what poor Richard Kelly was trying to do with DONNIE DARKO and SOUTHLAND TALES as far as taking mainstream cinematic tropes and smashing them with a hammer. Herzog turns his eye to the cop movie, which BAD LIEUTENANT kind of seems like: there’s a case that serves as the spine of the movie, some police corruption, drug running, mob intrigue, and a partner going bad. Wrangling these clichés is screenwriter William M. Finkelstein, a veteran TV writer of procedurals like NYPD BLUE, LA LAW, and MURDER ONE. For added absurdity, he also wrote the entire series of COP ROCK. Y’know, the police show that was also a musical.

I’m wondering to what extent the finished product resembles the Finkelstein’s script, because it seems like Herzog and Cage took a cliché-riddled script and fucked with it until it became a Hunter S. Thompson drug distortion. It’s clear Herzog wants fuckall to do with a police procedural, and his BAD LIEUTENANT has as much to do with police procedurals as CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS has to do with meteorology.

Does anyone have as strange a career as Nic Cage? While Johnny Depp’s acting choices are an excuse to wear a variety of hats, Cage’s career involves eating a live roach, being in the worst Hollywood movies, and a neverending quest to play a superhero. Also, wearing a variety of wigs. He was John Woo’s American avatar. In THE ROCK he played a man named Dr. Goodspeed, probably named after the screenwriter’s drug of choice*. After he plays a violent superhero named Big Daddy in KICK-ASS we’re going to see him playing a goddamn sorcerer. And did you see THE WICKER MAN? This guy is PERFECT to play a stand-in for Klaus Kinski.

Plus, the guy named himself after Luke Cage.

It’s a shame the intended marks probably won’t see this. BAD LIEUTENANT’s floating-head-laden poster screams mainstream but I saw it in an indie/arthouse theatre, which says that whatever attempt at smuggling Herzog was trying to make (if he was trying to make one) was undercut by distribution. Imagine if this had wide release and people flocked to find an unabashed oddity where Nic Cage pontificates about his crackpipe.

*I myself have a bad tendency to name my characters things like Coffee Fuck You

WHY CAN’T AMERICA BE LIKE THIS

New Japanese train signs tell you where you should be doing the strange things that you do in public. Like swimming whilst being split in twain by train doors.

FIND ME ON THE INTERNET

This week a few of us at Comics Bulletin did a “slugfest” review of INCORRUPTIBLE, a spin-off/opposite of a book called IRREDEEMABLE. I felt like a bit of a dick trashing another BOOM! Comic, especially one by Mark Waid (who I’m a fan of). Criticism will bite you in the ass.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present 2009’s last installment of This Week in Comics, in which I come off as a bigger prick than usual. It was a slow week, so I picked a couple things I liked and then a few things I felt like complaining about. To make up for the venom I also detailed my favorite comics of 2009.

Also, I wrote about my favorite album EVER for Spectrum Culture. I heard RINGS AROUND THE WORLD when it first came out and have been listening to it pretty consistently ever since. I wish I could write songs like that. I wish I could write stories that read how this album sounds.

WONDERS OF THE NET

COMPLEX did a list of the 50 best comic covers of 2009. Lots of mainstream stuff, but it all looks great.

Also, Santa, No! is officially my favorite blog ever. That is all.

NEW OBSESSIONS

This is going to be in my head forever.



AH YA YA COCO JAMBOO AH YA YAY

BLACK TIE WHITE NOISE

During the UF/Alabama game*, about an hour before swampy superman Tim Tebow cried on live, national television, we saw an ad for a sale at the suit store. And their prices weren’t just insane--they were NUTS. To drive the point home, they were offering free peanuts to accompany their cheap suits. Raf and Shaun were ecstatic about the opportunity to buy cheap suits. I was glad to come along. Solidarity, again.

*Despite being a grudging member of the Gator Nation, I’ve never been to a football game. I don’t regret this yet. And I only watch football games for the sake of solidarity.

It was me, Shaun, Raf, and Theresa, a friend-of-a-friend who was training for her FDA inspector job in San Diego. She didn’t have a car, so she didn’t have a choice. Don’t worry, we took her to Lucha Libre afterward.
They weren’t kidding about the peanuts; there was an entire barrel of them by the register. Like a Texas BBQ joint, there were peanut shells all over the floor. Which is horrifyingly filthy for a suit store.

Well-dressed fogies wandered the store, seeming lost when they were really prowling for customers. Shaun ran off to buy suits. Theresa and I looked at shiny tuxedo vests in all colors of the rainbow, intermittently giving advice as Raf tried on jackets.

Then I saw the price tags. Nine bucks for sportcoats in unwanted colors? Their prices weren’t nuts, they were INSANE.

I walked out with two jackets (one Warren Ellis trademark white, one sportscaster yellow) and a bag of peanuts. Best $20 I ever spent at a suit store.

The following Tuesday was our weekly Trivia Night at Woodstock’s Pizza, where team Undercover Bear Surprise nearly makes first place every week thanks to Raf’s tumor that holds all the knowledge in the world. He’s like Johnny Mnemonic but without the threat of brain meltdown. It was our last Trivia outing of the year since Raf was flying out to Florida the next day.

To commemorate our last hurrah of 2009, we wore suits.

I looked like 007 in my white jacket and black bowtie*. Sporting a fedora and a cardigan, Raf looked like an English detective. Shaun had a white tie and a yellow jacket and mint juleps appeared out of thin air every time he snapped his fingers. We named ourselves Undercover Bear Surprise: For All Your Elegance Needs.

*Which I found under the neighbor’s car as a kid. Yes. I'm disgusting.

It was a spectacle of a gamble: If we won, we’d win in style. If we lost, we’d look like asses.

Somehow we won.

Even if you lose, gimmicks always win.

KOMIX

You better believe I bought DAYTRIPPER by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon. The promotion for this book puts a bit too much emphasis on the “twist” at the end of issue one. Seems to me more like it’s the premise of the thing. I’m loving how quaint and mundane the story is especially after knowing the twins’ work through books like CASANOVA, UMBRELLA ACADEMY, and BPRD 1947.

CHASTISEMENT

You totally didn’t stop me from playing DRAGON AGE ORIGINS.

FIND ME ON THE INTERNET

This week’s Monkey Toss TV segment, which will now be known as BIFF BANG POW has some great hamming at the end. You may want to skip the first segment because I’m practically somnambulant in it, having been out of practice for two weeks.

Jason Sacks totally namechecked me in his INVINCIBLE IRON MAN review.

POP

Got into CALIFORNICATION via Netflix Instant Play. Watching it, I realized that I love characters who are pricks and that David Duchovny should play the lead in that screenplay I wrote last summer. Someone go ask him if he wants to star in a psychedelic neon noir flick that a depressed college senior wrote after reading FLEX MENTALLO. Bet he says yes.

Amazing that the show works, because the premise is this: David Duchovny is a writer who hasn’t written since his last novel got made into a shitty romcom. He’s a raging prick, he’s got a supercool baby momma that still wants to hang out with him all the time, and he has sex with every single woman he meets. Also, his agent is Evan Handler, who has to fake a manly orgasm every episode because James Gandolfini isn’t on the telly anymore and somebody has to take his place. It reeks of “I’m an LA writer writing about LA writer-y things,” but somehow it keeps from being self-indulgent wish fulfillment. Blame the Duchovny.

COMMUNITY is the only show I look forward to anymore. I love 30 ROCK, and enjoy THE OFFICE/SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN THE OFFICE NOWADAYS shows, but COMMUNITY is where it’s at. It’s not afraid to be completely offensive and mean but with a nice gooey heart. It also is not afraid to feature a member of DERRICK COMEDY.

Outside of NBC, I’m ecstatic that MODERN FAMILY is the anti-family comedy that I hoped it would be.

Might need to see BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS this weekend.*

*I wrote this Friday night. I saw BAD LIEUTENANT Saturday. I'll write about it later.

HORRORS OF THE NET

I give you the three best photos on the internet:

The 1990s in a single picture:



The last two are from Shaun.

The 2nd Best Picture on the Internet:


The Best Picture on the Internet:

SWAMPED THING

Oh Jesus, I’m being flanked by the holidays. Thanksgiving week was a total off-week and I’ve got an impending vacation to Chicago, Michigan, and Florida from the 17th to the 3rd of January, so the walls are closing in and it’s going to be freezing in the Midwest oh god why did I agree to this? Couple that with the wretched mood I’ve been in lately and you see why writing is just so hard.

Not that I don’t love it, but still.

It turns out, Internet, that when you take on lots of jobs at the same time your brain melts and you can’t do any of them. If you’d like my completely unsolicited advice, the solution is JUST FUCKING DO THEM and before you know it, you’ll stop crying at night.

An example: “I still have to draw Raf’s comic. Fuck!” became one of the running gags of this blog until I decided that it was a hex that would keep me from ever finishing it. Either that or I JUST FUCKING DID IT over Thanksgiving break. It was a great opportunity to learn that making a single comic page is very, very hard work and that even bad artists are better than me. Still, it was an ambitious undertaking and allowed me to play with Corel Painter’s various tools, which is the only way to put these kinds of programs to good use.

Now I just need to letter the thing.

Fuck!

QUESTION

Does FANTASTIC MR. FOX clean the palette after paying good money to see NEW MOON and BOONDOCK SAINTS II? I’m not sure.

FIND ME ON THE INTERNET

Now that I’ve come up with a format for MonkeyTossTV’s THIS WEEK IN COMICS I’ve done a lot less mockery of comics I don’t like, which says that either I’m losing my edge or that there are too many good books to feature. More likely both.

11/25: Had so many things I wanted to buy, so it’s a good thing CHEW is only ten bucks and I already own SHADE Volume 1.

12/02: Was totally crapped out because it was a slow week for comics. Ho-hum.

12/09: Quality stuff! Bá! Moon! Moore! Hernandezzes! DETROIT METAL CITY!

For Comics Bulletin I reviewed INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #20, which was what a fool would call “talky” and what I would call “fucking amazing. To contrast, Fraction’s simultaneous release, UNCANNY X-MEN #517, is the best fight comic I’ve read in a very, very long time. So many cool moments that I lose track, and Greg Land drawing things he wouldn’t normally draw. Bravo.

Also, I hated JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #39. Sorry.

Over at Spectrum Culture:

A DOOM record,

A Richard Linklater film with Zac Efron,

A depressing “art” film that wishes it was BABEL,

My favorite burger joint in San Diego,

And the best songs off the worst David Bowie records.

REQUEST

You may need to employ some seriously desperate measures to keep me from playing DRAGON AGE ORIGINS when I could be doing more constructive things.

COMIX

Diversions of the Groovy Kind have posted a FANTASTIC Alex Toth-drawn noir story from Creepy magazine called “The Phantom of Pleasure Island.” Toth is best known for his Hanna-Barbara design work (Space Ghost, The Herculoids, Birdman), but he’s also a brilliant and highly influential comic book artist. Go ahead, read it. Doesn’t it flow better than even most modern comics? That’s what good sequential art feels like.

My favorite page? The final one, with the word balloons that force the eye to move from panel to panel. Guess what device I’m going to steal.

Warren Ellis paints an insightful picture of Alex Toth with his newest DO ANYTHING column, by being unafraid to point out that, as brilliant at sequential storytelling as Toth is, nobody could ever tell you a truly great story he’s drawn.

HORRORS OF THE NET

Comics Alliance is trying to make me fall in love with them, aren’t they?

First they publish a list of the silliest moments in Punisher history, including a team-up with Archie and “that time Punisher was black.”

Now, prompted by the backlash against the “FrankenCastle” story arc in the new Punisher series, they’ve recontextualized some of the strange things that go on in the Marvel universe to point out that these stories are inherently weird, silly, and awesome. And that’s why we love them.

At least, that’s why I love them.

We take superhero comics waaay too seriously. It’s nice to have your stupid superhero stories considered legitimate with stuff like Watchmen, but the constant emulation of Moore & Gibbons has taken out all the fun and made superheroes boring and angsty when they shouldn’t be. I don’t need to feel bad reading Justice League of America. I want to have fun. I want to be inspired with weird ultra-imaginative craziness, not street-level grit. Their costumes are too brightly colored for me to get bummed out over them.

Obviously Marvel Comics’ whole “street-level” thing refers to its characterizations, not its content. Marvel can get as weird and cosmic as DC, but what separated the two in the ‘60s was the human element Stan Lee infused in his characters. As many negative zones and big purple planet eaters that the Fantastic Four tussled with, they were still a family that bickered and stuff. For all the bad guys that Spider-Man covered with webbing, he was still a petulant teenaged nerd with a jealous hatred for the popular kids.

Remember, kids, there’s a difference between “realism” and “humanity.”

PROMISE

Next post will be waaaay more entertaining. Less comic talk.

At Least It's Not the End of the World

Today marked my second apocalyptic dream in the past week. The last one I don’t quite remember except for the moment before everything exploded, like a last bit of consciousness before whatever the next step is. Not to be weird and existential, but dying in dreams is a weird experience. The last one I remember involved a Western showdown that ended with me stepping on a landmine and shooting up into the air in a brilliant blaze of flames.

Don’t worry, I’m not being dark or depressed. I thought it was funny. I mean, landmines in a Western town? Ridiculous.

What little I remember of this one was insane. I remember giant Transformers®-esque robots marching down the street, blowing up people with lasers (cue scratchy primitive animation effects) while, for some reason, I sat safely in my car. I guess, since they’re Transformers, it makes sense. They couldn’t destroy one of their own, even if a filthy fleshbag was inside.

The strangest part is this:

Once every other human was seemingly destroyed, I found myself in a house. All alone. Waiting.

Nothing happened.

Then I woke up. From lack of ideas, I suppose. I couldn’t think of a proper ending to my apocalypse dream. Ever the writer, me.

It’s nervousness and stress, I’m sure, like dreams where you’re a student and suddenly realize you had another class you haven’t been attending all semester and you’re going to faaaaail! Except everyone is destroyed.

Absolutely no idea where I’m going with this. Just thought it would be fun to share instead of the usual PLIGHT OF THE ARTIST wailing. I’ve become a bit wary of posting intensely personal stuff because I’ve had that bite me in the butt a few too many times. You don’t realize it until it happens, but you need to be careful just what you say on the net. You never know who it’ll get to.

Boy, this post’s a bit of a downer, huh?

FIND ME ON THE INTERNET

My opinions are easily swayed, because while I thought Precious (Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire) was very good, I fear I may turn on it or that all the naysayers were right and that I was just manipulated by a sense of white liberal guilt. We’ll see.

With Julian Casablancas’ solo record I'm more stable in my opinion: is like three solo records in one: a great electro dance album, a lame country gospel pastiche (seriously), and some middle-of-the-road electronic indie pop stuff.

I also wrote a self-indulgent travelogue-y piece about it being very hot in San Diego and ending up at a hip college cafe that looks like someone’s grandma’s house.

A long time ago I wrote a review of the first Young Liars trade when it was relatively new for Spectrum’s new books section. It’s finally up. My crowning achievement is getting Shaun to read this very strange, brilliant series. He liked it. Why don't you?

For Comics Bulletin, a few of us did a three-way tag of a superhero comic I didn’t like very much. No picture of me yet, but that should soon be alleviated.

Speaking of comics, for MonkeyTossTV I suddenly realized a format for my “This Week in Comics” column, which was a gradual movement from total chaos to selecting a specific number of comics to feature to realizing that each comic book should correspond with a day. It’s a lot stronger now, but I feel a bit ridiculous for not realizing it earlier. It’s like falling off the bike repeatedly, only having it televised and always available for complete strangers to laugh at.

Here's the latest one.

PRO TIP: Getting published will help you be a better writer because you’ll be desperate never to embarrass yourself ever again.

Are dialogue articles a heap of ego-stroking wankery? I’m not sure, but I like reading a conversation between two smart people (Timothy Callahan and Chad Nevett are a good example), but I’m probably not as qualified. Regardless, Matt Rios and I came up with a new recurring article for MonkeyTossTV called “The Fling” where we have a go at comics and hopefully have a lively discussion. In the first one, we talked a bit about Captain America Reborn, which I totally dug because it’s kind of cosmic and kind of weird and Ed Brubaker’s writing in the comic is kind of Slaughterhouse-5 and kind of “Grant Morrison in Final Crisis mode."

I’d post some videos from the weekly video segment that MonkeyToss does, but I was awful in the last one. Totally out of my element, bringing my F game and disgracing all the people I work with. Maybe next time.

What do you mean "I should post an earlier one, then"?

HORRORS OF THE NET

Last night Raf and I watched Maniac Cop 2, a wonderful action-horror B-movie that somehow manages to outdo the first in a lot of ways. You can tell they got a bit more money because some of the action scenes are a lot more spectacular and they were able to afford other actors like Robert Davi so they could easily kill off the surviving characters from the first film.

You know what else comes with a bigger budget? A theme song.



On a related note, I hear Robert Downey Jr. is going to sing “Theme from Iron Man 2.”

I’LL ALL BE SORRY

Apologies for the huge gap between updates. I got lazy and decided that these updates needed to be a touch less masturbatory and about a dozen times more interesting. Having a dozen different writing outlets does the first. Self consciousness covers the second.

I've got this blog on my business card, for god's sake.

I just wrote about 1000 words of a Life in Binary about so-called sellouts and how working in the mainstream can potentially be interesting, lucrative, and interesting (citing, among other things, David Bowie, Warren Ellis, Gang of Four, Matt Fraction), but I scrapped it because it felt ill-informed and half-baked. Maybe later I’ll think it’s not so bad and embarrass myself by publishing it on the ‘net. Or I can fully bake it.

I’m thinking of making it so that with every link of mine I want to plug there’s some original content.

For example, something like this.

I better publish this before I decide to scrap it.

FIND ME ON THE INTERNET
The next few plug sections are going to be site-specific, as I’ve allowed them to pile up and have much to share.

I've somehow scored a gig writing reviews for Comics Bulletin. I tend to do two a week, though I may need to drop that down to one at the risk of looking like a critic.

My first review was for BPRD 1947 #4 and I just reviewed #5. I had to catch up when I took the assignment, as I’m dumb for not paying attention to a comic with art by Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon. I really, really loved Age of Dinosaurs #1 and everyone who’s ever liked dinosaurs or sequential art should read it. It’s fabulous. Cowboy Ninja Viking #1 reminded me a bit of Casanova and made me giggle. Great Ten #1 was not a promising start to a comic I was really looking forward to. Batman/Doc Savage Special is a pretty good start to a comic I’m looking forward to.

It looks like I have a vendetta against BOOM! Studios, but I swear don’t. I write so many nice things about them on Monkey Toss TV. They just happened to make a couple of comics I read and didn’t like (Hunter’s Fortune, Kill Audio), but they also made a comic I did like (Nola). Turns out some Coheed & Cambria fan Twitter picked up on my review and Tweeted it without actually reading the review, which sparked some serious hatred from fans. One of the writers of the book (wife of Coheed frontman Claudio Sanchez) criticized the site for running a positive review of Issue 1 and a negative review of Issue 2, each one by a different writer. Ha ha ha controversy. The art by Mr. Sheldon was fantastic, though.

Plus, I liked Irredeemable and Unthinkable. Some of my best friends are BOOM! comics.

HORRORS OF THE NET

The first four issues of David Lapham’s Stray Bullets are available for free online--and legally, at that. Haven’t read through them yet, but I love Lapham’s Vertigo book Young Liars (and managed to get Shaun into it). I remember when #2 was a Free Comic Book Day release the very first year of the event, and what a shocking, killer story it was. It’s like Lapham is trying to make us feel bad.

Read them. You’ll want more.

My Life in Binary: 09/28/09

Last week, amidst the ongoing threat of swine flu (even though the media’s gotten bored with a goddamn PANDEMIC, of all things) I suffered the quickest illness of my life, presumably to make-up for the incredibly awful ear infection I had in high school where I was so sick that I saw the clouds in the sky forming skulls and crossbones.

The weekend before that I had come up with a great premise for an anthology project I refuse to tell you about and managed to hash out the story (pun intended) over breakfast at The Mission as my roommates and our friend on-his-way-to-LA sat in silence at our booth, each working on separate things as we waited for breakfast to come. It would be another week before I’d be able to come up with a decent execution for it.

Which brings me to my illness. Exactly a week ago I suffered a harrowing, surprisingly linear fever dream of Lynchian proportions in which I went with my sister and dad to see a screening of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that was for some reason being attended by Halle Berry. In the middle of it, my dad decided to leave, confusing and upsetting me as we followed along. Hysteric and bawling at the dinner table, I couldn’t figure out why he would do that as my sister coped with the preposterous action quite well, my other sister verbally dissected me, and my mom was nowhere to be found (probably in the kitchen making dinner, as she is wont to do)--heightened versions of my entire family to drive me into hysterics. To further exaggerate reality, I was completely unable to maintain my histrionics, stopping my bawling to deliver a joke. It was like my mind was trying to deconstruct itself.

Waking up with a jolt, I coughed out the essential puzzle piece to my story. My hero would face an ad hoc dissection of his entire existence, and he would need a partner/lover to instigate the whole thing. Scrambling for a pen and paper, I hazily, hastily scrawled ideas into my notebook, and finished the story another week later. Took a bit too long, I’ll admit, but writing isn’t so convenient.

NOM NOM NOM MEDIA

Caught Arctic Monkeys at Soma in Northeast San Diego. One of the bigger small venues in town, the place turned out to be an all-ages affair packed with kids and adults annoyed to be around kids. Which means moshing. At an Arctic Monkeys show. Not the greatest show I’ve ever seen--when did the Arctic Monkeys grow from snotty little shits into well-dressed longhairs?!--but I did go a bit nuts during “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” which I always thought was the band’s bratty little masterpiece. First time going to a show alone, which wasn’t as traumatic as my neurotic fears would have be believe.

Entering the venue, security patted me down and took my (rather nice) pen, tossing it in a box with other crude writing implements. Leaving the venue, I saw they had left the box out on the floor and I got mine back. Victory of the night.

The Dirty Harry tour continues. The Enforcer really sucks, but I’d like to see someone dissect it vis-á-vis the fairly contemporaneous women’s lib movement, as Harry Callahan’s partner in this foray is a woman who carries around a huge, unwieldy purse and has to catch criminals in heels. You’d be amazed at what movies are automatically improved by their critical papers. For example, James Kim’s "The Legend of the White-and-Yellow Black Man: Global Containment and Triangulated Racial Desire in Romeo Must Die" totally justifies the existence of one of the relatively better entries Jet Li’s very bad streak of American films.

Sudden Impact proved a slightly better film and features the line "What you doin', you PIGHEAD SUCKA?!" as Harry kills the only black criminal from the 1970s he didn't get in the first few gos. However, it's a movie with Dirty Harry as a guest star. When you’re raped and you spend the entire movie exacting revenge on the people who wronged you, you become the hero of the movie--not the no-nonsense, rule-breaking cop who has nothing else to do in the movie. Good thing Abel Ferrara made a proper version of Sudden Impact two years earlier and called it Ms. 45.

The Dead Pool, the final Dirty Harry movie, is more cohesive than the previous two but suffers from a fatal case of who-gives-a-shit outside of the amusement of seeing early work from Liam Neeson and “James Carey.” There’s a scene where the killer gets his victims with bomb-rigged R/C cars that’s laughably silly and makes me think of the cleverness of the screenwriter.

You see, The Scheme is how a screenwriter high-fives himself in a script. He’s come up with a new, original way to do something in an otherwise boring, by-the-numbers script. It was a neat idea when it first came out, I’m sure, but to posterity it’s weird and silly and trendy. Imagine a 1998 sequel, Dirty Harry Blows Someone's Head Off Again, where he has to track a killer who uses the internet to kill his victims. And once again, we the screenwriter high-five himself for being so clever.

Last movie I saw in theatres was Gamer. It was not the brilliant Godardian masterpiece that Crank 2 was (no, seriously), but it’s worth a rental at least. For a lot of reasons.

Been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and being shocked at how throwaway most of Season 1 is (Demons are rigging the school election! Frankenstein's crashing the prom!), and how the quality takes a dramatic spike (pun NOT intended) with Season 2. I guess The WB saw that Buffy was going to be a hit and decided to finally let Joss Whedon do the show his way.

READIN’

Finished Rick Spears and Rob G’s Teenagers from Mars and thought it was a ripping good tale of teenaged rebellion and comic book love.

Finally read Cameron Stewart’s Sin Titulo webcomic and regretted that I hadn’t done it earlier. It’s got a wonderfully breakneck pace and a lot of surreal intrigue to set it apart from the more mundane crime comics. I updated the “Webcomics I read” sidebar on the blog to include Sin Titulo and other webcomics I love. Go read and be merry.

Been reading Thomas Pynchon’s V. as an ebook on the iPod Touch and the experience itself isn’t bad. Read a chunk, tap on the right to get to the next page, reducing an entire novel into thousands of tiny, digestible chunks, which I’m sure someone will give me shit for, but my iPod fits in my pocket and I don’t go to bookstores as much as I’d like to. As for the book itself, the Whole Sick Crew chapters are a bit like Kerouac without the Benzedrine, and I’m learning to appreciate the epoch-spanning Stencil chapters considering they’re proving to be the brunt of the book.

FIND ME ON THE INTERNET

At Spectrum Culture, I teamed up with colleague Eva Gordon to write a mega-review of the Feelies rereleases, which are fantastic. With Crazy Rhythms, you witness the birth of the Pixies, and with The Good Earth the birth of REM.

White on Rice has an unfortunate title that implies that it’s going to be a movie about the Asian-American experience, which thankfully it isn’t considering it’s made by a white guy who discovered Japanese people while doing Mormon missionary work in Australia. It’s not incredibly funny, but it’s likable enough to make me sit through it once.

Over at Monkey Toss TV, we’re gearing up to start shooting video segments at various comic shops in San Diego. For some reason I’ve been deemed appropriate for this venture, so I’ll start posing links to them once that gets started, provided I’m not too embarrassed.

In the meantime, here are the last couple installments of This Week in Comics. In the 9/16 edition, I cover some interesting manga, make fun of Galactica 1980, and feature a couple too many superhero comics. In the 9/23 edition, I quote The Simpsons, tell you what you’ve been missing by not reading Wednesday Comics, and jump the gun on Umbrella Academy: Dallas.

One Model Nation is an upcoming comic by C. Albritton Taylor (Courtney Taylor-Taylor of The Dandy Warhols) and Jim Rugg (of Street Angel) that looks awesome. Given a preview of the book, I managed to write an article about the unlikely partnership of comics and music.

HORRORS OF THE NET

Marvel Smart Ass illuminates the beauty of old Marvel Comics in all their wonderful POP silliness by looking at Incredible Hulk #111.

This Hark, A Vagrant comic amuses me to no end, especially the final panel with Joe Kennedy’s stern face and the completely oblivious baby Ted Kennedy. Kate Beaton should be made known to everyone who is smart and cool.

And here I will share the greatest comic panel in history:

Joe Matt’s Spent and Alt-Comics Autobiography: You Can’t Possibly be THAT Important

Remember that 1960s Marvel Covers post where I mentioned wanky Drawn & Quarterly autobio bullshit? I was referring to Spent by Joe Matt, which I bought a year ago in a wonderful Chicago bookstore and finally got around to reading a couple weeks ago.

Which I kind of fucking hated.

I have no prior experience with Joe Matt’s work -- his Peepshow and The Poor Bastard are supposedly good -- but from Spent I get the sense that Joe Matt is like every other indie cartoonist who writes self-indulgent autobiographical comics.

Spent, like most alt-comics sprung from the loins of Crumb and Pekar, is about the cartoonist, who likes esoteric, oldtimey stuff like early 20th Century comic strips, antique records, and being insufferable. To add an additional dimension to the work, Spent (a collection of a few issues of his Peepshow series) is also a self-loathing wankathon about how much Joe Matt likes to masturbate. How meta!

Assuming it’s all true and not a parody of autobiographical comics (in which case I’d praise the thing as a genius satire), Joe Matt’s greatest talent is his brutally honest self-awareness. He paints himself as an angry, pathetic, dislikable gremlin, which is a brave move for a guy creating a comic about himself (it’s so easy to cast yourself in a favorable light, especially when you can draw, too) but it’s impossible to figure out why we should care. Major events in the book: Joe Matt cockblocks fellow cartoonist Seth by buying an old comic strip Seth was collecting. When he’s not jerking off, he’s dubbing his friend’s porn tapes to blank VHS, deleting all the shots of men. Then he jerks off.



The big question that Spent makes me ask is why so many alt-comics creators insist on writing about themselves. Is it to rebel against the mainstream which is wholly fictional and features people flying around? Is it that many of these guys are self-absorbed twats who think their lives are important enough to put into pseudofictional form? Don’t they realize that we can’t ALL be Harvey Pekar?

Books like this always remind me of an issue of DORK! where Evan Dorkin turns his critical eye on mainstream comics fandom in the other direction towards indie comics and introduces The Northwest Comix Collective, the alt-comics version of The Eltingville Club. Instead of a bunch of spiteful fanboys they’re a bunch of spiteful cartoonists who all do autobiographical wank. Welcome to a life of stereotypes. I’ll be your tour guide today.


The best chapter in Spent is the final one, where Matt seems to have a mini-nervous breakdown as he approaches his own drawn comic pages -- presumably the one you hold in your very hands. He admits he’s not even trying with his comic work anymore, and then his pet cat diarrheas all over him. It almost -- ALMOST -- satisfies, but only in terms of schadenfreude. There’s no payoff to this autocritique, however, so all his cheap meta moments just hang in the air. While I don’t expect Joe Matt to be a dynamic character, I’d like his comic life to be more interesting and insightful.

Then again, he could be pointing out the futility of navel-gazing work like this, especially considering that the most telling moment in Spent has Joe Matt searching his apartment for something to wipe, um, himself off. What does he find as a suitable rag? An old R. Crumb T-shirt. Ha.

There seems to be at least two strains of autobiographical comic books: the kind about significant events in the author’s life and the kind which explores the mundane for whatever reason -- be it lack of ideas or simply a gift for looking at every day life with an interesting perspective.


After Spent immediately came Epileptic by David B., which belongs to the former category of autobio comics with pathos and a point. It helped me to remember that autobiography is not as self-indulgent as Joe Matt and his ilk make it. Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Allison Bechdel (Fun Home), and the aforementioned Craig Thompson (Blankets) also help matters like this.

Notice the autobio books I do like, which provide me with a perspective of people I do not have an intimate knowledge of. I have no experience being a French boy with an epileptic brother, an Iranian girl, a lesbian with a dead father, or a guy coming of age under an Evangelical Christian upbringing. I do know, however, what it’s like jerking off, being a dick to my friends, and not getting any work done. It’s about as interesting to live as it’s interesting to write about.


Rereading an old Suicide Girls interview of Joe Matt by the late, dearly missed Daniel Robert Epstein puts Spent in a better perspective as a case of the author spending his career working through his hangups and obsessions, but still doesn’t prevent the work itself from being a self-flagellating bore for everyone else.

This is because your problems as a white American male (for those of you who are white American males) have a limited mileage. When Rivers Cuomo ran out of songs about his experience as a sexually frustrated male he turned his sword to his own fans, himself, and resorted to wildly flailing musically as Weezer grow more inscrutably irrelevant. At least with pop music you can ignore the words.

Even Harvey Pekar knew to shut up about himself when he did American Splendor: Unsung Hero and focused on the experience of a Vietnam vet. But Pekar, in regular American Splendor mode, has a gift for turning the mundanity of human experience into something the reader can actually care about. It’s autobiographical, yes, but Pekar has a distinct view and personality that makes him a character worth following.


Those of us who don’t have a personality worth paying attention to would do well to retreat to fiction, where you can act out all your weird obsessions in a palatable, entertaining way that forces you to work to figure out presentation instead of simply drawing yourself touching yourself. G. Willow Wilson, a young woman who converted to Islam, works out her concerns with terrorism, faith, and geography with Air, a comic about a young woman who falls for a Middle Eastern man and gets entangled with terrorist groups, a forgotten country, and other oddities. Grant Morrison frequently dons fictionsuits, most notably to purge himself of all his post-millennial demons as Greg Feely in The Filth. Both are wonderful works that court themes and meaningful events in the authors lives, but do so with a degree of distance that allows the creator a freedom to go beyond him or herself and not be limited by the writer’s own limits in reality.

It’s something you learn in creative writing class. It’s as simple as taking you and changing your name and hair color. That’s enough separation to start to be interesting. Take it further and change gender, occupation, interests, and so on. Now you’re writing a teenaged girl treasure hunter who likes REM instead of a thirtysomething film critic who likes Hüsker Dü. And more: instead of obsessing over French New Wave, she obsesses over treasures found on sunken Spanish galleons, which leads her to discover the selling of priceless artifacts on the black market…

And imagine if you stayed the thirtysomething film critic. You’d get bored with yourself and jerk off.

My Life in Binary: 09-10-2009

Sunday night, a cool breeze begin to blow in through my window. Huzzah! Maybe I can stop complaining about the weather now like an old person. Remember this in November when I complain about how cold it is.

Also, what’s going on with the comics industry right now? A week after Disney bought Marvel, DC Comics has been restructured into DC Entertainment. Suddenly the future is looking very, very uncertain, and I find that very, very exciting. Ask me a month ago and I would have said the very status of the industry means DC and Marvel were going to run themselves into the ground.

Hmm…

This post is nearly 2,000 words. I am so sorry, Internet.

THIS IS GOING TO LOOK VERY EMBARRASSING

A sense of irony is important. I was looking through the Netflix Instant Queue on the Xbox when I noticed that Showtime’s Barbershop: The Series was on. We watched it, thinking it was going to be terrible. After all, the Barbershop films were mostly okay and didn’t really justify a series being made of them, right?

Oh, how wrong we were.

Barbershop: The Series is a live-action Boondocks yet somehow more silly. Developed for television by legitimate screenwriter John Ridley, the show’s full of racially-charged humor and witty repartee as young Barbershop owner Omar Gooding (playing the Ice Cube role with more charisma) has to wrangle his goofy, borderline insane employees. It even features one of the dudes from House Party (I can’t remember if it was Kid or Play). Raf called it “The Black Arrested Development.” He’s not too far off.

The quality of True Blood Season 1 doesn’t get better than the first few Alan Ball-directed episodes. It does, however, get increasingly ridiculous as the show goes on. I’m not too convinced yet, but I’ll keep watching because it’s massively entertaining. The final episode of Season One is playing right in front of me. I’m not quite sure what Alan Ball is thinking with this show (I think it might be “Cash in on Twilight with ridiculous accents while working on real movies”), but I really wish he’d get HBO to pay for some decent special effects.

Have we talked about The Friends of Eddie Coyle? A wonderful ‘70s crime film that manages to put off action more than it indulges in it? The movie that made me realize I have a pretty good Robert Mitchum impression?



Last night I caught I Shot Jesse James on The Auteurs, and it was not quite as good as Pick-Up on South Street, though I loved the final scene. I also loved the climax of Pick-Up on South Street -- a surprisingly brutal (even by today’s standards) subway brawl -- which leads me to believe that it is Fuller’s forte. I guess one has to accept the B-movie trappings of Sam Fuller’s films and appreciate the innovations and artistic indulgences within.

It doesn’t help that The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford stole much of this film’s thunder.

AND FOR SOME REASON MY WALLET IS EMPTY

I did it, Internet: I broke down and bought the single issues of Cassanova because not only did I need to read the as-yet-uncollected second story arc “Gula,” but I also had to read the single issue exclusive backmatter. I’m not obsessed. Shut up. With this purchase I no longer have urges to visit every comic shop in San Diego and spend money I don’t have on wonderful, interesting comics.

With Volume 2, Matt Fraction managed to change the very premise of his own comic book by making it a less dense ensemble piece. It never occurred to me that one could just consciously DO that with a comic. Then again, The Invisibles shifts gears in each volume, but some of that is a result of Long-Running Vertigo Series Syndrome, where a creator changes with his creation, finding his footing and sometimes even losing it as the book evolves.

Casanova works especially as an example of what you can do with your own comic. Free of creative limitations of corporate properties, he can essentially do whatever he wants: kill important characters, completely change the tone, and even have the protagonist disappear for the entire story arc.

The single issues are especially desirable for their backmatter, which feature Matt Fraction as well as Gabriel Bá (in Volume 1) and Fábio Moon (Volume 2) talking about the issue, their influences, and other matters. Particularly compelling is Fraction’s self-conscious frankness. It’s amazing how much of himself he puts into the book -- not only just a quote from an obscure ‘70s crime film, but also bits from his personal life.

You can read the first issue of Casanova here.

FIND ME ON THE INTERNET

Over at Spectrum, I reviewed the new Postmarks album, Memoirs at the End of the World. The official Postmarks Twitter (I’ll assume it was Tim Yehezkely herself) liked my review. Apparently I’m one of the few critics who “got” the album and didn’t just write it off as a Belle & Sebastian clone, which it assuredly isn’t.

Before I realized just what the album was doing, I wrote this opening paragraph:

Good music so rarely comes out of Florida. As a former denizen of the Sunshine State, I must apologize for the following bands: Underoath, Limp Bizkit, Creed, Matchbox 20 (or Twenty depending on your era of allegiance), Newfound Glory, Yellowcard, Dashboard Confessional, every late ‘90s Boy Band that ever was, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and, of course, Lynyrd Skynyrd.

There are, however, some bright spots in the Florida music scene (Morningbell, Joon, Inuit Jargon), but many of them are bands I’m friends with and it would be unprofessional to write about them . Thankfully, for the purposes of this review, I am not friends with South Florida’s The Postmarks even though I’d really like to be.

And now, my ending statement where I say not only is the album great, but it’s

also proof that not every band from the Sunshine State is utter crap. So you can thank me for 2 Live Crew, Iron & Wine, Against Me!, T-Pain (shut up), Tom Petty, and The Postmarks.

At MonkeyTossTV I have a couple new articles. I wrote a really pompous article where I claim to know just how to get new readers in comics as if it’s the easiest thing on the planet. And you know what? It probably is.

There’s also another This Week in Comics (its lateness the reason this post has been delayed), wherein the most mainstream comic I feature is the new Secret Six and I fawn over books I probably will never get around to reading. I also realize that Fantagraphics is better than Drawn & Quarterly.

WORKLIFE

Finished a draft of one comic. As much as I love writing, scripting a comic book is grueling, especially if you’re thinking while you write. Not thinking about the story, I mean. You should be thinking about that. The bad thinking, however, is when you’re dwelling whether you’re doing anything even remotely important or if this is another step towards becoming hack who makes a living doing Warhammer books and movie novelizations. Then you think of other writers and how they script their books and you wonder when the hell you’re going to develop your own style and voice and whether the things you love are taking too much influence upon your work ACH! MY ARTISTRY!

But when you finish your brain becomes the lower levels of the Titanic that were full of neglected poor people and the endorphins are Poseidon’s fluid trident come to drown your stressful little brain peasants. So you get lost in a stupid metaphor, fall over, and wake-up in a bleary daze only to reread what you’ve written and realize that, save for one really ambitious page, it’s mostly unreadable pap.

Then comes the second draft.

Writing is hard, if you didn’t already know.

With the second draft done came one of the best premises I’ve ever come up with, for the same project. Just need to get a decent script out of it.

Also, still need to finish Raf’s comic.

Fuck!

HORRORS OF THE NET

Alan Moore, in an interview with Mania.com, expressed his desire for his Marvelman/Miracleman reprints to be republished without his name and for the money to go to original Marvelman creator Mick Anglo, saying that he wants nothing to do with the American comics industry, especially because they make enough money on his name already.

So, please give any royalties and such that I’m entitled over to Mick Anglo, but make sure nobody knows that I, the most famous and greatest comic book writer on Earth, wrote it.

Does anyone else see some mixed signals in there? He wants the money to go to Mick Anglo, which is noble, but that he doesn’t want his name on it -- a name that ensures that more people will pay money that will, one assumes, in some fashion go to Anglo. Sure, those of us who have been reading comics long enough know what Marvelman is, but thanks to V for Vendetta and Watchmen, a few regular folk have become interested in Moore and will just think Marvelman is some really lame new character from Marvel Comics.

Moore just grows more insufferable with age, doesn’t it? His stance on movies was a bit noble (if he didn’t talk about it all the goddamn time), but now he’s trying to erase his legacy like a cripple trying to halt a tsunami. I'm sure if he had his way his name wouldn't be on Watchmen or V for Vendetta.

So please. Shut up. Alan Moore.

Over at Comics Reporter Ng Suat Tong posted a fairly competent but ultimately useless formalist piece on the difference between writer/artist teams and an artist who handles both scripting and art. While he does some impressive analysis, Tong’s argument is inevitably, to quote Heidi McDonald

Ng Suat Tong labors mightily and makes the startling and groundbreaking twin discoveries that cartoonists who write use the formal conventions of the comics medium more fluently than writer artist teams and — even more shockingly — that few comics writers are as inventive as Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.

She forgot the surprising revelation that the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil is inferior to the Miller/Mazuchelli Daredevil. Gasp!

Number one, it’s really unfair to slight anyone in favor of Moore and Morrison. Moore’s scripting method is “describe every single minute detail of a panel so things will come out your way no matter the quality of the artist,” while Morrison, himself a capable artist, is capable of generating more ideas in a single issue than many of us are capable of in a lifetime.

Tong also totally ignores that Bendis and Brubaker used to draw their own comics.

Number two, comic book scripts don’t have a set format like screenplays. Until someone agrees to draw your stupid story, a comic script is pretty much an unsent letter that nobody wants to read.

There’s a benefit to sparsely written scripts. That is, that the artist gets a ton of freedom to do what he or she wants with your idea.

Sean T. Collins also takes Tong to task less sarcastically, but equally as thoughtfully.

Blah, blah, blah comics. I talk too much about this shit.

Here’s a German TV show about a cop who is also a dog, thanks to Eddie Argos of Art Brut.

THE GREATEST BLOG POST EVER WRITTEN! AN ANALYSIS FOR THE AGES!

Mere moments ago I finished an article for MonkeyTossTV that was a broader, more common sense version of all those silly “Why don’t girls read comics?” articles. Short answer: SHUT UP, THEY ALREADY DO, MANGA COUNTS.

However, in my modicum of research I came across a quote from writer Sean McKeever about how such little promotion goes into a new comic book.

“We put out these new series with new creations and do little more than hype the first issue in the catalogs, show a preview online and do a few interviews. Really, to me, a big part of the reason new characters tend not to 'stick' in comics is because there's no excitement built around them.”

This is what we must do in the modern age with our Internets and skywriting technology. Good thing we’re trying to save the trees. More objects to staple fliers to.

Still, we can learn from the past here -- back when comics were available in all sorts of stores and mostly read by kids and college kids on drugs.

Reading McKeever’s quote my mind immediately went to the old cavalier pop art 1960s Marvel Comics, where Stan Lee came up with a million half-baked ideas in the span of a month and a cabal of artists like Kirby, Ditko, Heck, Steranko, and Everett would fully bake the ideas before Stan the Man came back to slather on icing in the form of dialogue.

But I’m not looking at the Marvel Age of Comics as a lesson in efficient comic production. I just want to look at the covers.

I dunno what happened in the last decade, but comics stopped having words on the covers. For a while, if you checked Marvel’s submission page under “Cover Artists,” you’d see that they favored generic, iconic depictions of their characters as opposed to any plot detail. This sadly missing element might be the key to why comics sell less these days. When comic book covers were terse, it meant shit was SERIOUS.


Let’s start with Fantastic Four #41:


Look at that. Better yet, read it: “Possibly the Most Daringly Dramatic Development in the Field of Contemporary Literature!”

Oh my god, this must be the important issue of Fantastic Four EVER. I immediately want to read this not only because I want -- nay, NEED to find out why Ben Grimm has betrayed Marvel’s First Family, but also because the comic claims to revolutionize modern literature.

Try #32:


“NEVER BEFORE SUCH DARING DRAMA… SUCH RAW REALISM!” It praises itself!

Enough Fantastic Four. Let’s look at Amazing Spider-Man #16:


Amazing Spider-Man #16 REFUSES TO BE YOUR FRIEND if you don’t like it. It dares you to dislike it. It spits in your general direction because it knows it’s brilliant.

I don’t care if we’re talking superhero comics or Drawn & Quarterly self-flagellating autobio bullshit about buying records. Let’s forget that comics are neither irrelevant power fantasy pap nor legitimate, introspective literature and just TELL people that these stories are going to permanently damage your senses (“Senses Shattering FIRST ISSUE!”). In the good way, of course.

Because that’s what POP does. It insists on itself.

And let’s not forget, for a brief period in 1965 Marvel Comics rebranded itself as “Marvel Pop Art Productions.”

My Life in Binary: 08/31/2009

WHAT WE’RE ALL TALKING ABOUT

So Disney purchased Marvel. Fanboys are screaming THE END IS NIGH and crying into their semen-flecked issues of Dark Reign: They Saved Captain America’s Brain, Marvel’s staff are making jokes about the merger on Twitter, and those of us who are sensible are explaining that shut up, you’re not going to have Goofy in Dark Avengers or whatever. I’m to write an article about all this and what it means, so no freebies here.


Still they say “A popular children’s entertainment company bought an unpopular children’s entertainment company! They’re raping my childhood!”

Now here's too much information about my silly little life.

IN WHICH I COMPLAIN ABOUT THE HEAT LIKE AN OLD PERSON

Good lord, what a shitty week. California is experiencing a heat wave, an evil punishment from God considering that SoCal weather reports are supposed to be undescriptively terse:

My Mom, over phone: “How’s the weather?”

Me, spinning in my office chair and looking longingly at the empty text document on my computer: “Nice.“

It does not help that many San Diego apartments don’t come with A/C (why would they need them) and I’m also cursed with the inability to work in uncomfortable conditions. In my last place when my bedroom got unbearable I could go down into the kitchen where sun does not venture and work a bit whilst waiting for my room to cool off.

The new apartment does not work that way. It gets hot and does not stop and then you wake up with self-inflicted wounds because you woke up in a feverish mania and thought you’d be cooler without any skin.

SCARS OF THE SILVER SCREEN

Because of that subtitle, Fall Out Boy has to think of another name for their new album.

I don’t remember watching very much. In fact, I don’t remember most of the week.

Finally saw Dirty Harry and loved it. The following night we watched Magnum Force and liked it quite a bit. It a more meandering affair, lacking the immediacy of the first, but a pretty fun ride. Would make for a good double feature with Electra Glide in Blue. But you’d have to watch Magnum Force first so you can see the best opening in cinema.

Most painful media watching memory involves eating vegetarian pozole in the middle of the warm night, huddled with my roommates on the couch, watching Breaking Bad before passing out from heat stroke. Breaking Bad is essentially the male version of Weeds, which I guess makes pot a girly drug.

Most striking about Breaking Bad is how consistently funny it is. Your protagonist is dying of cancer, cooks meth so his family will have some money, and deals with the scum of the Earth on a daily basis while lying to his wife, family, and DEA agent brother-in-law. And the writing is really, really funny.

Remember, kids: your trappings can be dead serious and you can still make a story naturally funny.

Or maybe we’re just sick fucks and nothing is funny.

Further proof: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li was pretty fun in a minor action movie/DTV film short of way. I think the first Van Damme Street Fighter flick is a glorious cheesefest that, for all the fan service in it (read: costumes straight from the game), is completely and utterly disappointing to anyone even remotely familiar with the games. In other words, THERE’S NO FIGHTING.

This new take features more fighting, but that’s negated by the lack of goofy costumes. However, it does feature the weirdest Chris Klein performance EVER and the Neil McDonough accent that won’t stop fluctuating. Also, Robin Shue emerges from the pocket universe where he is the World’s Greatest Actor to take his rightful place as the youngest Old Martial Arts Master.

Here’s how a Street Fighter movie should work: a three-hour movie of 12 slightly parallel stories of fighters in goofy costumes making their way to some common goal (Street Fighter tournament, final boss, whatever) at the end, constantly intersecting along the way. Then everyone fights. It’s Crash with kung fu. In other words, 10,000 times better than Crash.

Why am I writing this? Better yet, why AREN’T I writing this?

COMICS TO MAKE ME CREDIBLE

The name of the game is “Go to Comics & Stuff and scour the dollar bins for interesting books.” This game has mixed results. Recent notable grabs include a bunch of issues of Metal Hurlant and the entire run of Jonathan Lethem’s Omega the Unknown. I’ve read through the first issues of Omega, and it’s wonderfully strange. Totally bizarre that Marvel published a comic with such thick indie trappings.

Meant to pick up a big stack of Casanova single issues, but most of them were gone from the last time when I restrained myself from buying all of them, so I picked up the remaining few. Resisting the urge to look at other Comics & Stuff locations for the rest of them. I reread the first trade, which makes more sense to me the first time because I’m not trying to read it on a plane. Funny how that works out. Also, why the hell did I take so long to get to this?

What’s most surprising about Casanova is the change that the series makes with issue 8. Suddenly, it’s all rendered in the grungy linework of Fábio Moon instead of his cleaner brother, everything’s in a medium blue instead of a weird green tone, and there’s a thick streak of somber running through the thing. The opening features Casanova Quinn in a hospital and it’s clearly been written in duress -- and not just because the backmatter told me so.

Yeah, I think I’m gonna track down the other issues ASAP.

NYC Mech is an old mid-period Image Comic published after they started giving up on the bad ‘90s trends they invented but before they were recognized as THE publisher for creator-owned books. It’s a slice-of-life crime comic with an ever-changing cast, except everyone is a robot. That’s it. It’s a cool aesthetic choice, but not much else.

Pirates of Coney Island is a comic by Rick Spears (this guy must be labeled “underrated” considering he’s so prolific but nobody talks about him) and Vasilis Lolos. It is a wonderful take on The Warriors if The Warriors jumped on top of cars and robbed people. Shaun bought one issues and I liked it so much I picked up the other available issues. I’ll slowly piece together the story.

Warren Ellis’ 1990s for-hire work intrigues me for the author’s emerging voice. Take, for example, his run on Ultraforce, a Malibu comic we’ve all forgotten about. Ellis trademarks: nobody seems to like one another, there’s an English character in the form of Black Knight, and Rotting Corpse Man jokes about peeing in someone’s eye sockets. The angry banter is the best part.

Marvel should wrangle all those legal issues involving the Malibu Comics characters and bring Ultraforce back. They could be such fun in the right hands. Especially Rotting Corpse Man: a green mossy guy with a trenchcoat and a scarf. There’s no built-in audience for it, so you could make it anything. A MAX book, for example. I’m full of ideas, aren’t I?

Finally finished the first volume of 20th Century Boys, and must resist a new urge: paying 12 bucks for the next volume.

FRIGHT AND SOUND

Sorry again, Fall Out Boy.

Camera Obscura tend to get flack for being a Belle & Sebastian clone, but the two bands have diverged sonically while having similar MOs. Admittedly, I may have stolen that observation from Pitchfork, but I agree with it, so hah. Regardless, My Maudlin Career is a really, really good album.


FIND ME ON THE INTERNET

Over at Spectrum Culture I reviewed the new Arctic Monkeys album, which is pretty good with a surprising Nick Cave influence.

At MonkeyTossTV there's another This Week in Comics, of course, which needs a far better title than the one I gave it. Suggestions at the ready, friends.

Regardless, everybody please read Chew.

WORKLIFE

Did a bit of scripting at the laundromat today. Tried out a new method where I write out the basic skeleton of a page script so I can add the fun parts later.

The result looks something like this:

PAGE 4

Panel 4.1

They wonder what it is

Panel 4.2

They decide to LOCK & LOAD

Panel 4.3

Jenni begs they wait

Panel 4.4

CRUNCH -- heads explode

I feel comfortable posting that because it’s barely a sketch.

Speaking of sketches, I need to finish Raf’s comic. Fuck!

HORRORS OF THE ‘NET

Katie Brown sent me a couple of music videos from some female hip-hop(?) group called Millionaires. It is hilarious in its stupidity, right down to the YAMAHAWT keyboard. I remember Chuck Klosterman, who is a big fat pseudointellectual twat but I’m gonna mention him anyway, talking about how the old question one had to ask was “Is he a hipster or homeless?” and that the new one is “Is he a hipster or retarded?”



Guess which question I’m asking.

I hope Andrew Tan doesn’t watch this video or he’s going to go out and punch the first woman he sees.

Amypoodle of Mindless Ones has read Blackest Night and fucking hates it. He’s not wrong, either. In fact, he’s right about all of it. Especially that all the superheroes should just fuck and get it over with. Blackest Night features the worst excesses of superhero comics: an impenetrable bore only important to people who have read decades of comics. I know who these characters are and I don't give a fuck.

CHUD has written a quick piece on the 10 Marvel Comics that Pixar should adapt. Is it just me or does Project Pegasus sound fucking awesome?

Warren Ellis has posted a heart wrenching account of Satanism and PCP. Shame it’s a Facebook hack, but whatever, it’s funny.

My Life in Binary: 08-24-2009

I’ve decided to include all my plugs in one weekly post of varying length where I talk about my silly life, much of which is spent front of the computer, caffeine addled, with weird music playing.

THE BOY WITH THE CRYSTAL EYEBALLS

I saw Inglourious Basterds and loved it. Loved everything about it. Expected another loving tribute to genre film and got something entirely different and far greater. I may write a post about it.

Earlier in the night I watched Electra Glide in Blue and witnessed the finest closing shot in cinema history. Saw Point Blank and desperately wanted to do a graphic novel about stoic, aging Lee Marvin punching people. Maybe I’ll work on that.

Got through Mad Men Season 2. A few strange decisions like opening an episode with The Decemberists’ “The Infanta” but some things you just have to roll with. Otherwise, a great season, and Season 3’s already shaping up as well. Then came rekindling that affair with Breaking Bad which we’re only 2 episodes into the second season and it’s already proven to be one of the most intense, funny, well-written shows on TV.

Dragonball Evolution was really, really bad in a way that few movies are. Morbid curiosity put me in front of a movie that barely held together as anything even remotely coherent.

THE BOY WITH THE CAMERA OBSCURA

Falling in love with Bat for Lashes. Falling in love with the new Camera Obscura. Started listening to The Rolling Stones London Years singles collection and remembering how much I like stuff like “Ruby Tuesday” and “She’s a Rainbow.”

Found the new Antony and the Johnsons album on my computer. Needs a few more listens, but I’m intrigued.

Did you guys know that A-HA is still around? And that their new album is GOOD? If you’ve only heard “Take On Me” like I have, then you’ll think Foot of the Mountain is vintage A-HA.

Recommended listening: “Riding the Crest.”

WORKLIFE

With Spectrum Culture I’ve been trying to get back into the groove and be a bit more consistent in both quality and output. This is my promise to you. And my editor, who is probably reading this and cackling to himself.

Year By Year: Modern Science Fiction is a list of the best Sci-Fi films of each year since 1969, which provided me a lovely excuse to finally get around to watching movies I hadn’t yet seen. In Part One I cover The Man Who Fell to Earth (great), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (needs more Truffaut and less Dreyfuss, and then we'll talk), and The Fly (contains sufficient amounts of Jeff Goldblum and Cronenberg body horror). I created no content for Part Two.


In Year One: Music we wrote about albums that were released the year of our birth. I covered Tim by The Replacements because it was awesome and I was on vacation at the time and didn’t have a copy of Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs on me. Then again, I probably would have picked Tim anyway.

Ponyo is a film by Hayao Miyazaki. Now that you already know how good it is, my review pinpoints his place in his oeuvre and engages in a bit of ham-fisted animation theory.

I also reviewed Paper Heart, which was a cute movie. That’s all I’m sayin’.

Over at Monkey Toss TV, I’ve done a few small reviews and one gigantic one.

The Ultimatum: X-Men Requiem one-shot allowed me to mourn the failed experiment that was Ultimate X-Men, which managed to compress the decades-long derailment of the X-Men franchise into a manageable 35 issues.

Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire #1 was not a train wreck, but an enjoyable comic that will surely get even more AWESOME now that the setup is out of the way. Also, as an added bonus I was finally able to officially write My Four Rules for Ghost Rider (Formerly Known as My Three Rules for Ghost Rider).

In my mega-review of the first five issues of Chris Claremont’s X-Men Forever I analyze the difference between old Claremont and Nu-Claremont, point out that Tom Grummett’s a bit of a boring artist, and try to figure out what the point of X-Men Forever is. Do-over, self-tribute, glorified fanfic, or effort to keep Claremont away from the major X-Books? U-DECIDE!

I’ve also started a weekly ordeal where I look at the list of upcoming comics for a week and write a few hyperbolic putdowns and beg you to read Scalped. It’s getting me to pay attention to things that are less prominent when you obsessively check Newsarama and CBR like I do.

Thus, I’m really excited for King City. And Spin Angels, though that one could suck.


THIS IS THE ONE THEY’LL REMEMBER ME FOR

Non-ranty creative work (a.k.a. “Working IN the mediums I complain about”) is going pretty well now that I’ve gotten into the groove of being productive and beautiful. Must be all that weird brainwave-altering music I’ve been playing. I’ve been plotting out seven issues of one Big Comic Project and figuring out how to put together an epic, overarching story. Currently, the last installment is a ponderous, ultracompressed monstrosity that could actually go for a bit of decompression lest I attempt to recreate Final Crisis or something. We’ll see how that goes.

Screenplay Project goes incredibly slow, and I’m totally to blame. I’ve been trying to watch some giallo flicks (Suspiria, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) for inspiration, which gave me some ideas about how to structure the thing and what the characters should do. Remember, kids: take notes when you watch movies. It helps you learn stuff, and that way you can remember what you want to plagiarize.

Video Game Project chugs along as usual. It’s pretty fun to add your own flavor to an entire fictional world a player interacts with. I wouldn’t mind doing this to a world of my own creation. Imagine having to design every element, right down to your dialogue with the butcher who sends you on a quest to find him the Crystal Cleaver or the incidental background dialogue by the trollop’s son as his mother accuses you of stealing her petticoat.

I don’t know what kind of video game THAT would be, but based on those two things I would play it every day.

There are still a few other projects I need to move forward on such as Short Comic Project and Short Film Project. I really should be working on those instead of talking vaguely about them.

Oh, those ideas Shaun and I are working on.

Oh, and that comic I’m drawing for Raf.

Fuck!

Tossing Monkeys or Something

Oh, there you are. Still not mad about the Comic-Con writeup, are you? Good.

According to this bio I'm writing reviews for this website called Monkey Toss TV. I'm not sure how you pronounce it. Monkeytoss TV as if "monkeytoss" were a curse like "buggerall?" MONKEY TOSS TEE-VEE as if you were talking like a caveman? I have no idea and I'm not going to ask anyone.

First review is for Justice League: Cry for Justice #1, which was laughably overwrought crap. I just make fun of it. It's tits.

Second review is for Marvel Divas #1, which I tried out of morbid curiosity and found myself pleasantly surprised that it wasn't made by Hitler. But, Jesus, how can you blame me when the cover looks like THAT?

I'm thinking about using Monkey Toss as a place where I can write the most snotty, snarky, irritating things and save the pseudointellectual wank for this blog. Until I find a place that will officially post my pseudointelletual wank, in which case I will reserve this blog for nudie links and shameless plugs.

Or I might just save the nudie links for myself.

Comic-Con 2009: The New Disneyland

Special thanks to Shaun Spalding for the photos.

[WARNING: This post contains excessive namedropping, esotericism, and gushing. Now that I’ve gotten this out of my system, Dial D for Djeljosevic will return to the regular stream of drunken rants about comics and open letters to Kanye West.]

Comic Conventions have gotten better for me over the years. As a teenager in South Florida, I had to deal with lame “collectibles nights” in a hotel ballrooms, tiny South Florida conventions populated mostly by vendors and creators of self-published books that didn’t go past the first issue, and slightly bigger cons where Richard Hatch is the biggest draw of the weekend. A contrarian teenager, I decided I hated cons and the weird gremlin fanboys who populated them.

Then came MegaCon, the great convention below the South (clarification: Florida, despite its geographic location, is not a Southern state) with its swarms of cosplayers, “Free Hug” signs aplenty, and the presence of real creators like Darwyn Cooke and Mark Waid and top-tier convention celebs like Peter Mayhew. It was huge. It was overwhelming. It was gleefully geeky. I took it all back; I love cons.

MegaCon was monstrous enough, but Comic-Con International: San Diego* is the biggest convention in the world. A year ago, I moved to the city where it’s happening**.

*This is what it’s really called. Found this out after getting it wrong in a bar trivia contest.

**San Diego, if you weren't paying attention.

THURSDAY: OVERSTIMULATED

We parked in a less-populated area of town and took one of the Con’s generous bus shuttles to the convention center.

Shaun: “Is this the shuttle for Comic-Con?”

Bus driver: [Derisive laugher]

Oh, how he laughed. Ever get laughter in response to a simple question? It’s ominous.

Soon enough we were nearing the San Diego Convention center and we saw the number of people outside. There was no line. There was no crowd. It was a fucking horde. Comic-Con is bigger than any of us ever imagined.

The line to get our admission badges snaked around itself. It was during this long wait that we learned a valuable PRO TIP: if an infinitely long, snaking line moves and someone on the side ahead of you doesn’t notice the movement, everyone in the latter portion gets to skip* .

*Warning: may not be a real rule. Unless you count mob rule.

After spending minutes upon seconds at a couple of panels we simply weren’t feeling, we ended up in the exhibit hall, which reminded me of every other Con floor I’ve ever been to: mini-comic shops, bootleg DVD vendors, indie comics presses. It would be hours before I realized that we were just in the comic book portion of the exhibit hall and that you could fit an aircraft carrier in there.

The first panel we sat through in its entirety: “Spotlight on Bryan Lee O’Malley,” wherein Scott McCloud gushed and chatted with O’Malley about the creation of Scott Pilgrim and other craft-related things. It was a treat to hear about the things that inspired one of my favorite comics (seriously, go read it now*), but what really struck me was O’Malley’s low-key demeanor. For the creator of such an energetic comic book, he’s an incredibly soft-spoken guy who seems like he might be more comfortable at his art desk or in front of a vintage NES than talking about River City Ransom in front of hundreds of admirers.

*Don’t forget to Digg me first.

Immediately following was the Dumbrella panel, which for me was the biggest surprise of Comic-Con, as I’m not a huge fan of webcomics. You can blame this exclusively on the fact that most of them are about the creators playing video games with their robot sidekick. Then there’s a matter of the oft-employed “joke a day” format, which doesn’t quite give me what I want out of sequential art. Then again, Diesel Sweeties really speaks to me, so I think it’s a matter of finding something I care about. And, let’s be honest, even something that I can’t stand like Questionable Content is more authentic and better made than Hi and Lois.

The panelists (because they deserve the attention) were Andrew Bell ( The Creatures in My Head), Sam Brown (explodingdog), Jon Rosenberg (Goats), Meredith Gran (Octopus Pie), Chris Yates (Reprographics), and the incomparable R. Stevens (Diesel Sweeties). Unsurprisingly, it was a joke-a-thon. Pretty sure my friends and I were a bit obnoxious, as we sat near the front and laughed loudly at every R. Stevens one-liner, who may have that disease where every response is an involuntary joke. What’s that called? I think it’s Djeljosevic Syndrome.

(if you look closely, you can see us in the last panel of this Repographics comic)

I’ve been thinking a bit about collectives like this. A while ago Warren Ellis encouraged/demanded that up-and-coming writers form a “band” with three artists and do an anthology book. Becky Cloonan, Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon, and Vasilis Lolos formed a supergroup and even released a book (Pixu) which I forgot to pick up and have each of them sign. Maybe next time. There’s something to a collective. It’s strength in numbers, it’s more bang for your buck — it’s a series of clichés, really. Though mainstream comics seem a bit compartmentalized (here’s the writer, here’s the artist, here’s the letterer), there’s tons of room for active collaboration and beautiful serendipity.

Plus, I always wanted to be in a band.

The rest of the afternoon was going to be a solo flight (speaking of clichés). I went to a bunch of panels about breaking in and other boring professional stuff. No complaints, but Shaun and Raf went to see previews of Terry Gilliam’s newest and Kick-Ass while I watched people like C.B. Cebulski, Joe Quesada, and Jeph Loeb tell me what I already knew about working for Marvel — they don’t accept unsolicited writing, there’s minimal chance they’d give a complete newbie the chance to take over Astonishing X-Men, and that the best way to get your start with them is to get published elsewhere and come up with pitches for solid 8-page stories. Looking for a get-rich-quick type of answer is, of course, idiotic, but hearing these people give the same advice {in person} is reassuring.

Then came the Q&A section, the part I dread. I still live under the impression that most Con attendees live underground only to surface when Dan Didio is within shouting distance so once you give geeks a microphone someone’s going to break the taboos of basic human interaction. I had hope, though: this was a group of aspiring artists, writers, editors, and other comic book publishing staples (except, of course, aspiring staplers. The Staple Industry Convention is in October — or, as they call it Stapletober). Surely they’d be smart enough to solicit thoughtful advice and not make asses of everyone in the room and our ancestors.

“I want to write. I’ve done everything I can. I’ve spoken to all of you at cons, I’ve applied to be an intern, I’ve read all the books. What more can I do?”

“I’m a law student and I love comics, so what would it take to join Marvel’s legal department?”

“As an aspiring writer, it’s hard to find artists. Where do you recommend a writer find an artist besides Digital Webbing?”

So far so good.

"I'd love to be a voice actor. What would I need to do for that?”

Okay, maybe a bit misdirected, but still. Not a complete crazy, despite wearing a Deadpool costume.

The penultimate questioner stepped up to the mic.

“Why do you only hire either big-name writers or people from guilds?”

Oh Jesus.

Here it was: the crowd was going to gasp and the panel was going to be taken aback as this loonie berates them for hiring only Hollywood writers and major talents* . And we had to witness this and our dead grandparents were going to turn red and *POOF*.

*This claim may seem true, but it’s incredibly false.

Joe Quesada leaned over to his mic.

“That’s not true.”

The panelists, while clearly annoyed, took his question seriously and explained that no one in their right minds would let some random yahoo take over the Marvel Universe and urged him not to be mad just because Brian Michael Bendis writes Avengers and he doesn’t.

Despite my white T-shirt, it was a bit warm in the room.

Then came what could have been a more helpful workshop: “Creating Creator-Owned Comics the Image Comics Way,” which featured such creators as Stephen T. Seagle, Richard Starkings, and Joe Kelly talking about making creator-owned work. This should have been more helpful than it was, but they only had an hour to talk about stuff and they didn’t get through everything. Important lessons learned: the power of the Internet (might have known that, not sure), and the glorious opportunity we have as con attendees to talk to professionals and the like.

Skipped the Vertigo panel to wander the exhibit hall in a caffeineless daze. Like I said: real big, aircraft carrier. Minor tragedy when I got in line for swag at the DC booth and they ran out of Green Lantern rings six people ahead of me. One childhood dream quashed, and I didn’t mind all that much.

THURSDAY AFTERPARTY #1: Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
Or: Shut Up We’re Not Seeing Tyrese

Paid ten bucks donation for a bag of swag (Rasl #1! Some art prints! $20 off at Things from Another World!), free food, access to a cash bar, and the opportunity to hobnob with some genuine comics talent like Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon, and Tyrese Gibson* .

*No, seriously.

We sat at our table, looked around a lot as Raf tried to use mental powers to get a girl to talk to him. After a little while, having seen few creators (I did later realize that we were in the presence of Gabriel Bá), we decided to go, as we had a GWAR concert to go to*.

*No, seriously.

THURSDAY AFTERPARTY #2: GWAAAAAR
Or: I’m not sure why security is patting us down at a GWAR show — oh

Turns out this (free) GWAR concert was to promote Tim Schafer’s new game, Brütal Legend, which I assure you will be my new favorite game after I get through all the new Monkey Island and Sam & Max material. Which will be after I finish Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Saints Row 2, Fallout 3, Xenosaga Episode 1, Eternal Sonata — good lord, someone pay me to play these games.

Being a promotional event, the bar served free tequila drinks and tall boys of Asahi (!?).

Needless to say, we got drunk.

Chatted a bit with this hardcore GWAR fan who probably went on to seriously injure someone in the pit and then, more interestingly, we talked to a man we deemed Zombie Eric, organizer of the world’s largest zombie walk. He was at Comic-Con to get his Guinness World Records certificate. He told us about how the late creator of Poison Elves based a certain locale (I dunno, I’ve never read it) on a party house in their mutual hometown. We exchanged numbers but didn’t get a chance to hang out the rest of the weekend.

GWAR itself was okay. For a metal band that dresses in ridiculous rubber costumes, they don’t seem to have very much energy. If you took away the pageantry, they’d just be any other metal band. Once the novelty went away halfway through, time slowed down to a snail’s crawl and the music wouldn’t stop no matter how much I begged the world on Twitter.

A lesson was learned: GWAR is a vengeful band.

For some reason someone snuck a tallboy of Asahi into Shaun’s bag. How generous.

FRIDAY: YOU CAN EAT MY HEAD IF YOU WANT

Somehow managed to lose Raf during the act of getting off the bus. It was a rough night, so we wrongfully assumed he fell asleep on the bus and we unknowingly abandoned him. Turns out he just found another way in and spent the first half of the day hungover, cursing the God that zapped him into existence. Close enough.

Skipped the Mike Allred panel, couldn’t get into the Coraline panel, so we ended up at the X-Men panel to satisfy my comic book mancrush on Matt Fraction, who I assumed I wouldn’t be seeing at any other point during the con.

Shaun: “Which one is Matt Fraction?”

Me: “The dude in the hat.”

Shaun: [Thumbs up]

The panel itself was fine. A powerpoint presentation accompanied the writers’ rote, borderline disinterested descriptions of upcoming storylines. Where the panel really shined, though, was during the usually dreaded Q&A section which featured two guys in Deadpool costumes asking Deadpool-related questions*, a person in a Northstar costume asking questions in character, and Matt Fraction making fun of a stupid question.

Fan: “Is Jean going to have a part in [whatever the hell the next big crossover is]?”

Fraction: “Jean’s dead, dude. What kind of fan are you?"

*Seriously, people in Deadpool costumes are the winners of the con. Especially the one in the bathrobe.

The rest of the day was a blur as Shaun and I met up with Lauren for the end of the Prisoner panel (looks cool), the entire Spartacus: Blood & Sand panel (holy crap, it’s 300: The Series with more killing), and wandered the floor to check out the video game portion of the exhibit hall, where I spied Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell but wasn’t sure what to say and got a picture taken with a girl in a Max costume eating my head.

At some point I found myself in line to meet Bryan Lee O’Malley/get my newly-purchased copy of Lost at Sea signed. O’Malley seemed a bit more lively in person, as I suspected. When he asked me who to make it out to, my voice cracked when I said “Danny.” I repeated myself whilst affecting a deeper voice. Nobody found this funny. He did, however, sketch a kitty in my book.

Next up was the Marvel Animation panel, where we sat through clips and announcements about Iron Man: Armored Adventures and Wolverine & the X-Men just to see Warren Ellis (due to a convenient contractual obligation!) and get a first look at Marvel’s new anime venture. We were horrified by the Wolverine anime footage, which was a clichéd panderfest, with a spiky-haired swordsman with claws dispatching Japanese spirits — exactly what you’d think of when someone told you that Marvel was making anime. The Iron Man footage proved a bit more palatable, with missiles that turn into Iron Men and explosions abound. Thankfully, we were assured that this was only test footage to show what the animation would be like and reflected none of the actual content. Whew.

Warren Ellis I’ve never seen in live captivity before, but what surprised me most about him was his very Neil Gaiman-like accent — delicate, friendly, reassuring. Surely you’ve seen video of Neil Gaiman. When Ellis isn’t calling security on an overzealous fan, he sounds just like that. Shaun remarked that he looked like some sort of frightening British trucker.

Additional highlight featuring Madhouse President Masao Maruyama:

Panel moderator: “Who’s your favorite Marvel Comics character?”

Maruyama: [Japanese, a name that sounds like Jubilee]

Translator: “Maruyama-san’s favorite character is Jubei from Ninja Scroll — that is not a Marvel character!”

Maruyama: [Facepalms]

Translator: [Saving face] “He likes them all. He can’t decide.”

Skipped the DC Animation panel to go move my car.

Thursday was surprisingly uncrowded, and Friday was pretty thick with bodies, especially on the video game/media side of the exhibit hall. Following days were considerably more crowded. God help those who had to navigate the place on Saturday.


FRIDAY AFTERPARTY: TRUE BLOOD
Or: This Place Has Nothing For Me

Rock Bottom was hosting a True Blood promo party, with free drinks and swag. We had so many drink tickets (both ours and donated by people who were leaving) that we could all get nice and loaded. Too bad I had to drive. At least I got a “Fang Banger” T-shirt.

The only vegetarian option of the free food was some sort of giant mushroom (unacceptable), so there was a quick reprieve to the nearby Fuddruckers so I could get a veggie burger. That’s right: Fuddruckers had more to offer me than gourmet free food.

Sat with some new friends Lauren made that day whose names I’ve completely forgotten. In my memory they will be Derek and Priscilla. Derek stands out for bringing up Captain Britain and MI:13.

In walked in three actors from one of the twelve iterations of Stargate on TV and a couple actors from True Blood including Stellan Skarsgård’s son. Lots of picture flashing.

Had exactly one beer (“Surprise me,” I said, ensuring that I would not be able to order that drink again because I don’t know what it is) and considered seeing a late night showing of the new Harry Potter film. Didn’t happen.

SATURDAY: REPRIEVE

The scene, months previous:

“Saturday sold out.”

“Fuck!”

Guess who didn't buy tickets until after this scene.

A free Saturday meant I got a proper night’s rest for once this week. Raf and I did our radio show for the first time in weeks, where we read our short stories in our ongoing attempt to find a format worth a 20-minute drive to La Jolla. We’re getting ever so close.

Raf read a relatively normal but quite good short story while I read “Congratulations, Herr Jacobs. You’ve Just Been Promoted to The Life-Farm,” a borderline abstract pervert sci-fi story about god-knows-what. Nazis? Fucking? The meat industry? It pleases me to imagine the joggers and students walking by our speakers while I read things like

“MEAT! MEAT MUST BE COOKED!” I bellowed as I burned the damaged Reich Property formerly known as people.

Really, it’s about love. Between future Nazis. Spread over centuries.

Can’t wait for next show.

SATURDAY AFTER(?)PARTY: FALSEBLOOD
Or: A Shlock Smoothie Just for Me

Nighttime was another True Blood party we couldn’t get into because the line stretched all the way to Jupiter. We picked up a very drunk Lauren from this shindig and made our way to the Petco Park area for a free taping of Kaiju Big Battel. Did I mention I’ve never seen an episode of True Blood?

The taping took place in a building called Wonderhaus, an old Wonder Bread factory converted to a warehouse people rent for things like movie sets and art exhibits. I did background work on a TV show set that took place at an art gallery, so technically I’ve been to both at the Wonderhaus.

Whilst waiting in line, a conversation about how we weren’t going to argue Pirates vs. Ninjas attracted the attention of one Steve Wakcher, creator of the webcomic Circle vs. Square. Guess what it’s about. We had a fun chat, I’ve plugged him on my blog, and now I await payment.

For those unfamiliar with Kaiju Big Battel, it is like pro wrestling, but with people dressed as Godzilla-like monsters and Ultraman. It combines my two favorite bits of so-called low culture. Needless to say, it was amazing. The guys in front of me cheered on the villains and booed the heroes.

Walked all the way across town back to my car. San Diego was beautifully bustling — geek and bro alike swarmed the streets. I imagined all the exclusive industry parties and wondered how the usual San Diego nightlife felt about the nerds that cramped their style as they tried to neg some poor floozie at Aubergine or tried to look comfortable in high heels.

SUNDAY: SCHMOOZEDAY

Today was going to be the day: I printed 600 business cards, brought along the 100 good ones, and I was going to MAKE CONNECTIONS.

It helped that we all ended up going our separate ways for most of the day. Walking around in a group means you have a convenient set of people to talk to and less drive to chat with new people, make connections, and all that. One of my complaints about my MegaCon excursion, if you read that load of wank.

It also helped that I started the day waiting in line and talking to a very friendly aspiring actress named Raven who was courting the producers of the live-action Cowboy Bebop to play Faye. Having a conversation with a stranger does a lot for one’s confidence when you completely lack it.

Whilst waiting in line, I realized what I was wearing: beat-up Chucks, gray non-jean pants, a quirky button-up shirt, and a blue velvet jacket. Not to mention the black-frame glasses and goofy Caucasian appearance.

Holy crap, I looked like Doctor Who.

Except Doctor Who doesn’t wear a hat. Maybe no one will notice.

Spent about an hour trying to meet up with my Twitter friend Leeanne (“Where are you?” “In front of a condiment stand.” “So am I.”) before we finally met up at the Oni Press table and had a quick chat (she immediately noticed the Doctor Who resemblance) before she had to continue to volunteer. Maybe next time.

Also tried to meet up with my professional friend, Quarterstone Comics’ very own David LeVack, once I finally got the hang of Con and figured out where his booth was. He was busy being elsewhere the whole time (presumably doing the same thing I was), but I left my card and got an action figure made of me in the process.

Only one panel today. Caught the end of the Paper Heart panel as Charlene Yi called some douchebag questioner a creep for asking if Michael Cera was going to be an annoying weirdo in this movie too (“Go down your walk of shame!”). The Mystery Team anel was short, but hilarious as Donald Glover acted as a diva with a head injury and a fake mustache. Derrick Comedy’s going to be big(ger) with this one.

Afterward, I caught Devin Faraci of CHUD shooting the shit with what I assume were his fellow film critics. I thought it best not to bother a snarky film critic, so I went back to the exhibit hall.

Missed the “Making Webcomics” panel (sorry, Cameron Stewart and Molly Crabapple) as I wandered the convention floor and tried to talk to creators and the like. Good thing it's available online.

Doing this sort of schmoozing thing can be confusing. Which small press publisher is a legitimate publisher and which one is just a couple of dudes putting out their one crappy comic? Are they talking to me for the love of the game or do they just want to sell, again, their one crappy comic?

Got called over to a booth with some creators selling their graphic novel series called Age of Insects, about a war between humans and insect-human hybrids or something. They were classy enough to rope Ben Templesmith into doing the covers, so it can’t be all bad. I haven’t read it yet, but flipping through later chapters reveal some pretty good gore.

First intentional stop was comics bad boy Rich Johnston — gossip monger (I mean that lovingly), journalist, comic book writer, and friendly Brit. “Don’t shoot me — shoot Daniel!” he wrote as word balloons on the Doctor Who: Room with a Déjà View issue I just bought from the IDW booth.

“This is not cosplay, by the way,” I said, pointing out my outfit. Immediately a real Doctor Who cosplayer showed up and he and Tony Lee took pictures with him.

Johnston gave me a Bleeding Cool business card, so I gave him mine — “Just as a confidence booster for me. Feel free to throw it away later.” He politely accepted it. Nice guy, that Rich.

And holy crap, Matt Fraction was doing a signing at the Marvel booth. I searched through the first comic book vendor I found and came across exactly what I was looking for: a 2007 Sensational Spider-Man annual* by Fraction and Salvador Larocca — a nice one-shot story about the relationship between Spider-Man and Mary Jane and one of the few superhero comics to emotionally affect me. For my heart is otherwise black and lumpy.

*The only mainstream superhero comic I bought this weekend, by the way.

Waited in line with a bunch of fans who wanted their favorite creators to sign like five comic books while we watched other people at the booth get photoshopped into pictures of their favorite superheroes whilst holding up goofy props. It was very Disneyland.

“Just one,” I said once put my single issue of Spider-Man in front of him. “Hope that’s not too much.”

As he signed it with a heart-within-a-word-balloon coming from MJ’s mouth and a scribbly signature, I asked him what I referred to as “a probing professional question” about how much trust to put in an artist whilst scripting. Got a good answer about playing to the artist’s strengths. Plus, a Stark Enterprises business card.

“Stark Industries is looking for fresh talent. We’ve got a place for a fine young man such as yourself,” he said as I thanked him and walked off.

Additional fanboy moment: Walked by Nathan Fillion. Immediately stopped in my tracks and grinned.

Went over to the Dumbrella booth, bought/got autographed a Diesel Sweeties book and an Octopus Pie book whilst soliciting valuable coffee advice from R. Stevens himself. Will act on the advice once I run out of coffee.

R. Stevens himself is an incredibly friendly fellow — so friendly, in fact, that we ended up talking like three times that day. The second time I only stopped by because I forgot to thank him for the signing/advice and we ended up talking about Ninja Turtles with this TMNT superfan who comes by every year with free Turtles swag for the Dumbrella kids. Usually when people are done with you at Con (usually after you’ve paid them) they’ll offer a handshake (maybe) and say “Enjoy the show” as secret Con code for “I’m done with you. Who else wants to buy my self-xeroxed minicomic for 12 bucks?” but it felt like R. Stevens would have been cool with fans just hanging around all day.

Stopped by the AIT/Planet Lar booth and ended up buying Warren Ellis’ Switchblade Honey like I kept meaning to and publisher Larry Young’s complete Astronauts in Trouble. I got to talking to Young, who introduced me to Kirsten Baldock , writer of their newest book, Smoke & Guns (drawn by Fábio Moon!). Guess whose book I then bought. Then I was introduced to Stephen Grant, writer of Badlands. When I said I actually owned the published, unproduced screenplay but not the comic book, I found myself with a free copy of the screenplay (in lieu of the comic, which was sold out) signed by Grant. Let it be known that Larry Young might be the friendliest person in comics.

Best advice from Mr. Young: “Don’t worry about seeming too schmoozy. That’s why everyone’s here.”

Beaming just a bit after that experience, I found myself called over by Douglas Paszkiewicz, creator of the sick, hilarious Arsenic Lullaby. I mentioned that we met years ago in one of those tiny Pompano Beach conventions and we bonded over Insane Clown Posse, who were the special guests that year.

“It was like someone shook out a hot trailer home,” he said.

“You’re a sick, sick man. I love it,” I said as bought his newest book with quarters.

Met up with Shaun and I ended up in front of R. Stevens for a third time. I assured him I wasn’t a stalker. He pointed me out as the average fan (“low-key, well-dressed”). Shaun and I agreed to work on a webcomic* in front of him like we were getting married and he was the trustworthy sea captain.

*Still banging out that idea, by the way.

Our con experience ended with a reuniting with Raf as we attempted to get free swag at the Marvel booth — “attempted” meaning we shouted inane things to get attention like “This is my only shirt!” and “Pick me! My dad was a Hulk notebook!” We didn’t get anything, but it was fun little rally. I tried to negate the punk kid who was getting obnoxious about getting some swag by politely cheering on those who won things, be it a surf boards, statues, or shiny Dr. Doom hat.

Because Comic-Con is a happy place.

Like any good day, Sunday ended with burritos.

Jesus, my feet hurt.

TRANSFORMERS 2: WHAT THE FUCK

DON'T FORGET: YOU PEOPLE ASKED FOR THIS

What happens when an auteur known for his excess is given all the money in the world and nobody ever thinks to tell him “Michael, I don’t think that’s a good idea?”

You get Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Transformers 2 has to be the most expensive film ever made, right? Considering how many things blow up and how 99% of the film is a special effect (including Megan Fox). It’s so expensive that everything is rendered in a gold hue. This is a 24-karat movie.

And don’t act surprised that it happened. All of us gave money to movies when we paid to see the first one, and sequels nowadays do nothing if not escalate matters. If there was a scene in Transformers where Michael Bay shot a minority point blank, the sequel would have had Michael Bay orchestrating the extermination of an entire race.

Remember, we gave him permission because we paid for the first one.

And I don’t even like the Transformers all that much.

FULL DISCLOSURE

Let’s be honest here: Transformers is a stupid movie based on toys. Oh, and there’s a cartoon or something. I hated the first one, for all I wanted was robots and explosions -- not robots hiding behind trees from easily crushable parents and a Spielbergian treasure hunt. The night I saw it, a friend of mine exclaimed it was the best film he had seen in a long time. I quickly turned around, left the theatre, and drove home alone.

Transformers 2 is about 30 to 40 minutes way too long. If you cut out some of the boring human parts in the latter hour of the film, I’d call it the best thing ever. As it is, I might still call it the best thing ever. Not the best movie ever, mind you. The best thing ever.

PAINTING OVER THE POSTER

Michael Bay’s best film is Bad Boys II. It’s where he perfected his cinema of excessive overindulgence, with a car chase that uses cadavers as obstacles hurled at our heroes and a third act that involves Martin Lawrence and Will Smith invading Cuba. I’m not joking. There’s some semblance of a plot (about drug dealers or something), but Bad Boys II is almost exclusively about set pieces, quips, and a complete disregard for all we hold dear. It’s so over-the-top that it’s clearly the work of a mad genius with a disregard for things like the three-act structure or emotion or even humanity.

Transformers 2 is even above that.

I cannot tell you what Transformers 2 is about. I don’t know who the new villain is or why he wants to blow up the sun with a laser hidden in a pyramid. I don’t know why Optimus Prime is the only robot that can defeat Robo-Pharaoh. I don’t know how a chase scene that began in a college moved to a torture scene at a warehouse and suddenly ended with a fight scene in the forest (you see, it’s like nature versus technology!). I don’t know what’s so important about all those weird symbols that Shia LeBeouf sees or why he doesn’t want his robot car to come to college with him. I don’t know why Tyrese or Josh Duhamel or even John Turturro are even in this movie.

None of it. Makes. Any. Sense.

When you give Michael Bay so much money to make a two-and-a-half hour film, don’t be surprised that the suburban family house explodes because it’s full of transforming kitchen appliances or that there’s a completely unnecessary scene where the mother accidentally eats pot brownies and goes apeshit. Don’t be surprised when the elderly English Transformer farts and a parachute POOFS out of his ass or when the family dogs are humping then the doghouse explodes. Definitely don’t be surprised when the tiny sidekick Decepticon starts humping Megan Fox’s leg or that there are like SIX sidekicks and five of them are ridiculous stereotypes. This is where Michael Bay’s perverse interests lie and giving him more money means that he just ups the ante on all of it.

There’s a scene where Shia LeBeouf is stricken with A Beautiful Mind and starts scrawling weird alien symbols all over his dorm room. His walls are adorned with posters of movies and half-naked supermodels. Which poster does he begin to paint over?

Bad Boys II.

SOME OF US STILL VIEW THE WORLD THIS WAY

Imagine you were born in -- Jesus Christ -- 1997. Kurt Cobain and Biggie are as irrelevant as classic rock. You never saw a good episode of The Simpsons. You’ve never known what it was like to grow up as an American feeling relatively safe under Clinton. Nay, while you were relatively conscious when planes flew into the World Trade Center (but you didn’t understand it) and as you rose through the ranks of elementary school, the adults kept talking about terrorism. Being a 12-year-old, you like robots and explosions and Spider-Man. Your cousins are probably getting limbs blown off in the Middle East (whatever that is) and you don’t really know why except that your parents and teachers tell you it’s for your freedom. Meanwhile Jack Bauer is punching Muslims on television. You just got your first hard-on and look on the internet for porn when Mom and Dad are asleep. All you know about other races is what you’ve seen on TV -- rap videos, sitcoms, those boring political dramas your parents watch. You stayed up late without your parents noticing and watched Species on the Sci-Fi Channel. All the while everything is a bomb waiting to kill you. Technology is a mystery. Even cars. What do you know? You can’t even drive yet.

Now you see Transformers 2. A film where household appliances turn into missile-shooting killing machines. Where geography makes no sense because you haven’t been anywhere. Where your best friend is your car-which-turns-into-a-robot. Where even the weird Italian stereotype robot wants to fuck Megan Fox. Where a robot made of construction equipment has wrecking balls for testicles. Where there’s a Decepticon with a murderous tongue tentacle who poses as a slutty college girl with no explanation or reason. Where the black stereotype robot has a gold tooth. Where the villain has a helmet like a Pharaoh and the Sun-Destroying-Laser is hidden in a pyramid in the desert. Where the bad guy wants to destroy the Sun for completely unknown reasons except for the fact that he’s evil. Where heaven is full of robots. And it all makes perfect fucking sense to you.

I submit to you, then, that Transformers 2 is a perfect depiction of a 12-year-old’s Freudian fever dream of what the world is, oversimplified with lots of juvenile dick jokes. The line dividing reality and cartoon doesn’t exist and things just happen because the world’s confusing and you don’t really understand cause and effect yet. And surely cars can turn into robots because you saw it on TV and science can do anything.

It’s the feeling I got watching James Bond films as a kid, where I didn’t understand why Agent 007 was traveling to five exotic locales in two-and-a-half hours but I knew who the bad guy was because he sat in a chair. Transformers 2 recreates that by completely lacking basic connective tissue. I don’t know what I watched, but I know I was amazed that it happened.

LOGGING INTO ROBOT HEAVEN: THE DEATH OF REALITY AND CINEMA

My nightmares from now on will be about what Transformers 3: Megatron Unleashed: Succumb to The Doom of Your Perceptions will be like. He put Earth in debt in order to make this film. How will he ever be able to top it? Will Transformers 3: God is a Decepticon be the film that bankrupts cinema?

Why does this keep happening? Why are summer films getting increasingly expensive and longer? I await the summer blockbuster that changes the way summer films are made. What is the film that will finally doom the form and make Hollywood collectively say “No, this will never happen again.” I’m betting on Transformers 3: Cannon Robo Overdrive.

Wikipedia tells me that Michael Bay keeps having trouble introducing a Transformer that turns into an aircraft carrier. Holy shit. Suggestion for next time: make The Moon a transformer.

Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly seemingly made Southland Tales to show his distaste for traditional Hollywood storytelling by making a borderline nonsensical film that only pretends to be some kind of socially conscious Phillip K. Dickian sci-fi piece but might just be either a brilliant piece of anti-cinema or a mess of pretentious wank. Or both.

Michael Bay did nearly the same thing, but with racial stereotypes and completely unintentional.

FURTHER READING

io9 reads {Transformers 2} as “a brilliant art movie about the illusory nature of plot,” and I’m inclined to agree.

Devin Faraci on CHUD gives an objective criticism of the film, though I don’t think the film is interested in being an entertaining summer film. In fact, I don’t think the film is interested in existing in the traditional sense. I think it’s interested in existing in the same way that a tornado is. He also digs Bad Boys II.