Kittens for Breakfast

BoneBat Show Podcast #37

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:51:53 GMT

Me and Tamas Jakab appear on the BoneBat Show podcast, talking about El Gorgo! and sea monkeys:

http://www.bonehand.com/BoneBat.html

NSFW due to language (it being an audio presentation). We come in around the fifty-minute mark, but there's all manner of Reverend Horton Heat up in there first, so listening to it all? Could be worse. The show was a lot of fun, and I hope we get to do it again sometime.

EL GORGO! #3!!!

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:21:50 GMT

It's up there, yo:

www.elgorgo.com

I meant to tell you before. But like. Um. I've been busy. But! There it is. Enjoy!

EL GORGO! #3! (11-page preview!!!)

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:20:53 GMT

This is REALLY the first chance I've had to post this here since the preview went live Sunday night, although the ever-awesome Derrick Ferguson DID post it (thanks, D!). So! Here's the first ELEVEN PAGES (!!!) of EL GORGO! #3, in glorious B&W:

http://elgorgo.com/2009/09/13/el-gorgo-issue-3-preview/#more-480

The finished 32-page (!!!!) color book coming soon!

Vinyl

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:11:39 GMT

So yeah, I've been thinking about vinyl. It's to do with this book I'm working on. And I was listening to this song, and feeling guilty about not posting here, and so I said to myself, "Hey. I bet there's a video of this song. I should post it, because it's pretty great, and that'll kind of make up for me not posting in forever, right?" So then I found the video, and what do you know --

Hope life's treating everybody well.

Pulp Shakespeare

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:19:53 GMT

I completely forgot I'd written this (twas on a blog where others did the same!). It seems to me that one or two might enjoy it. Therefore!:

JULES. Dost thou know then Ant’Wan, son of Rock’mora
-- he of Moor’s blood and Samoan mingl’d --
Nam’d by men Tony Rocky Horror?

VINCENT. Aye, I think it thus – corpulent, was he?

JULES. Corpulent, methinks, be too bold a word;
With his girth did he struggle, this is fair,
But ‘tis a burden common to all folk
Of Samoa – how should he fare better?

VINCENT. At all events, I know the man. Not to
A certainty, but it seems I know him.
Why, at this juncture, dost thou speak of him?

JULES. I shall tell you.

(Oh, God, will he ever. THIS IS LONG, YOU GUYS.)

Twas our sire, Marsellus,
Who did bring fuckery upon his arse,
And no small amount. What’s more to the point,
Idle gossip would have it that the cause
Of Tony’s misfortune, of Marsellus’ ire,
One and the same, was good Marsellus’ bride.

VINCENT. Another type of fucking brought Tony her?

JULES. Nay, ‘tis not so; nothing so grievous did he.

VINCENT. What then?

JULES: Laid hands did Tony ‘pon her feet.

VINCENT. Laid hands did Tony ‘pon her feet?

JULES: Indeed.

VINCENT: This is all? How did Marsellus answer, then?

JULES: Two men sent he to Tony’s home. Outside,
To the balcony, did they escort him.
O'er the side hurled him, to plunge four stories.
Below there be a garden, enclos’d by glass;
Through this did sad Tony, toucher of feet, fall.
Since then, Tony speaketh slow and halting like.

VINCENT. ‘Tis a pity. Still. When one plays with tinder
And with flint, one must expect to be burned.

JULES: How now?

VINCENT: Thou dost not touch, not fondle,
The feet of Marsellus Wallace’s newmade bride.

JULES: Does it not seem Marsellus was too bold?

VINCENT: Likely Ant’Wan did not anticipate
Marsellus’ boldness, true, but he ought to have
Anticipated some consequence.

JULES: To rub the feet is nothing! My own dam,
Her feet would thus I rub! Is it not so?

VINCENT. There is a familiarity in’t.
Too much so, as regards another’s wife.
Did he lap at her labia? No. Yet
It is not far afield, I would argue.

JULES: Hold! Hold. To stroke the cunny with a tongue
And to knead to flesh of a woman’s feet
With your hands are not equivalent. To
Touch a lady’s feet has no meaning at all.

VINCENT. Hast thou been known to touch a woman’s feet?

JULES: I have no peer in touching women’s feet.

VINCENT: Many ladies, their feet hast thou touch’d?

JULES: Verily. Oft it is remark’d that
My nimble fingers do not e’en tickle.

VINCENT: Wouldst thou then consent to touch ‘pon feet mine?

JULES: To hell with thee.

VINCENT: My feet grow weary. Oh,
Sirrah, won’t thou rub them?

JULES: Thou best stand down.
Here is the door. What time?

VINCENT: Half past seven.

JULES: There is yet time. Let us hold here a while.
Mark me: That I would not touch a man’s feet
Gives not Marsellus cause to pitch a man
From a rooftop and through a house of glass,
Befud’ling the manner of his speaking.
Marsellus was not righteous in this act.
Should he attempt such upon my person,
He would do well to paralyze me e’er,
For, given mobility, I would kill him.

VINCENT. I do not say he was righteous, but thou say
Man’s hands ‘pon a woman’s feet lack meaning,
And this do I contest. A million feet
Have these fingers touch’d, caress’d, and each
Touch, each caress, was suffused with meaning.
We play that they mean nothing, but they do.
It is this that makes such caresses fine!
None speak of their sensual nature, true,
But thou dost know it and she dost know it,
And Marsellus knew it, too; and Ant’Wan
Should have known better. This is the man’s wife.
He will not laugh at impropriety.

JULES. You argue well, but let us now prepare.

Random Notes

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:24:34 GMT

So yeah -- I kinda got this whole conversation started last time and then, uh, let it drop? I've had a really busy last couple weeks, so my apologies to anyone who really wanted to keep that whole "literary" vs. genre fiction thing going. I think we pretty much hashed it out anyway; I am clearly right about everything and, insofar as you agree with my every utterance, so are you.

***

I should have said this ages ago: I have no idea what the ETA is looking like on How the West Was Weird, the fantastic -- fantastic! -- weird western anthology coming to you from Pulpwork Press, but you should totally go to their website RIGHT NOW and gaze upon the awesome Jim (Street Angel) Rugg cover that will grace it on its impending publication!:

http://www.pulpworkpress.com/upcomingreleases.htm

And do I have a story in it? Yes I do! Working from an idea by the legendary Chris Munn -- who, much like Batman, isn't actually a legend at all, but in fact a real live person -- I spent long laborious weeks drafting and then kinda cursorily proofreading this leviathan about a time long ago when people couldn't read so good and things were dirty and probably smelled awful, now with extra supernatural terror. I'm proud to say that it's the most profane thing I have ever written or likely ever will write, including the story where Baby Orajel was a plot McGuffin. (My research tells me that there was no Baby Orajel in the old west. Note to all writers of historical fiction: Do your homework! Accuracy counts!) Plenty of other people will also appear in the pages of the fantastic (!) How the West Was Weird, including Derrick Ferguson, Tom Deja, Barry Reese, and...other people I think got their stories in on time/were invited to submit work but I don't really know so I'll stop talking about it here, but if you're also gonna be in it, feel free to drop in and hype your story here! I HAVE LITERALLY DOZENS OF REGULAR READERS, OKAY, HE MENTIONED CASUALLY

***

Speaking of Tom and Derrick, the restoration of my internet connection almost made it possible for me to listen to their podcast, Better in the Dark (WHICH IS ABOUT MOVIES, OKAY), except that what I got instead was a very cultured British voice telling me that, "Hi, thanks for downloading me! You can't have your podcast." What the FUCK?! I inquired demurely. But it was just a recording, and so it said nothing. Well, evidently, all of that has been resolved now, and you can once again listen right hurrr:

http://betterinthedark.podomatic.com/

The episode on Dario Argento just helped me clean the kitchen! I will warn you that the episode is chock-full of spoilers (I had to fastforward the section on Do You Like Hitchcock?, because while -- fearing the worst -- I'm not sure I can ever bring myself to watch it, I might eventually), but if you've seen the films under discussion (Do You Like Hitchcock?, Tenebre, The Card Player, Phenomena [1], and Trauma[2]), it's pretty great.

[1] Phenomena is quite possibly the most batshit insane movie I have ever seen that was actually good. It features one (1) Jennifer Connelly as a beautiful young woman who lives in a state of telepathic communion with bugs, one (1) monster, one (1) Motorhead song, one (1) Donald Pleasance, one (1) monkey with a straight razor, and ten thousand (10,000) maggots.

[2] Trauma teaches us that children should not be delivered by drunk doctors when there is an earthquake. Thank you, Trauma.

In which I say to fellow writers --

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:58:22 GMT

Oh, man. The below inspired by a variety of conversations I've had this weekend. Long post is long:

There is a great deal of excellent this-is-the-way-we-live-now "literary" fiction out there. I mean, I take it for granted that it's excellent, because I'll never read like 90% of that boring-ass bullshit, but the stuff that I have read -- work by people like Mary Gaitskill and Michael Chabon and Tom Perrotta -- leads me to believe that the labor of chronicling real life, as it is (or has been) lived by real people, is in more than competent hands. This is an endeavor that is doing just fine, thanks. Pick up a random issue of The New Yorker or The Atlantic sometime and I think you'll find you agree. You may not be crazy about what you've read, you may not even really enjoy it, but I doubt very much that you'll walk away from it thinking you've just read something out-and-out shitty. The base level of technical skill in these stories is uniformly high; if they don't always succeed in, you know, providing anything like actual entertainment, there's no question they almost always do succeed as examples of strong craft. In other words, it is unlikely that a Dan Brown will ever appear in these venues.

If you've ever taken a creative writing class, you've probably been led to believe that literary fiction is the height to which all serious writers should naturally aspire -- and, if you're not a serious writer, that you need to get your fucking act together and become one, STAT. Grow the fuck up already, Peter Pan! And actually? There's a lot to that. First and foremost, I think that literary fiction is important because it is a reflection of the world we all live in; I really do believe that fiction is something that helps us to understand ourselves and each other better, and in that regard, fiction about straight-up real life has a benefit that cannot be denied. I'm not sure at all that it isn't the greatest thing a writer can strive for. If you're a writer and you've never tried it -- if your bag is generally SF or horror or mellow whodunnits or fanfic about Wombat Man -- give it a shot. You can do it right now, if the idea works for you. I mean, I already wrote this whole thing, it's not going anywhere. I'll wait.

...Back? Awesome! How'd it go for you? My guess is it started out kind of uncomfortable, and maybe got no better. You probably looked back through your life for some character or incident that would, with little or no tweaking, make for some good fiction. Only you found you'd have to introduce a conflict that didn't exist in the real world. Or you found that there was one HELL of a conflict in the real world, something you would rather not dwell upon at all. Or you found that your life just isn't that interesting, and got kind of depressed, and wished you were writing Wombat Man and wondered why the hell you weren't, because you love Wombat Man, dammit, and who is anyone to tell you you shouldn't?

I certainly won't, and here's why: Because although literary fiction may well be the most capital-I Important thing a writer can do, it seems to me that those what wants to do it generally is, and that those what is are generally pretty damned good at it. Whereas a whole lot of people who are actually really quite bad at writing are writing genre fiction.

This may just be my perception -- I certainly read a whole lot more genre fiction. But as I plumb the depths of Amazon's Kindle store in search of a good horror or SF or thriller fix, I find of late a whole lot of crap. Why? If I had to guess, it's because there's a percentage in writing genre fiction (at least a potential one) that just isn't there for literary fiction. In other words, no one is trying to write the great American novel in hopes of making money. If you wanted to make money, you'd be trying to write the next DaVinci Code. And considerably more people are trying to make money than are trying to be timeless artists. It's cool that someone may be reading your work a hundred years after you're dead. But think of all the shit that you could do with a million dollars while you've still got a pulse, man!

Thing is, I like genre fiction. And I'd rather it weren't all crap. Now, your definition of "crap" and mine may not gel -- my definition of a non-crap horror writer, for instance, can be extended to include Edward Lee, whose work is sexist and gratuitous and sometimes laugh-out-loud unintentionally hilarious, a writer whose average 400-page novel appears to have been written in something like two weeks -- but whose work is also endlessly readable -- and that's okay. We'll never all agree on what's good or bad. But I think we can all agree that there IS a lot of bad. So if you've got a yen to write genre fiction -- if it's something you want to do just because (and, yes, also because you might like to get paid) -- please, please, just do it. Don't feel guilty about it for a split second. Don't listen to anyone who tells you you should be doing more, unless of course you want to do more, in which case, go for it. We'll never run out of serious literature, but we are in grave danger of running out of junk that's not written down to the level of Transformers 2. We need GOOD junk. Make it!

We got a video (NSFW)

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 01:28:36 GMT

Everybody else is posting videos, and I am nothing if not a total follower. But the difference is, this is actually the best video ever, and I didn't even know it existed until today. I knew the song existed, yeah, but a video? Really?! For me?! Awwwwwwww...

Also! Even as I type this, Tom is furiously drawing EL GORGO! #3, and I am halfass working on some prose stuff that is not connected to EL GORGO! but will be awesome nevertheless. Sorry I've been so quiet on the LJ front.

Top Ten Comics Writers

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:59:44 GMT

Chris did this, so anyway, yeah, here we go.

1. Alan Moore (From Hell, Swamp Thing, Watchmen)
2. Gilbert Hernandez (Palomar)
3. Jack Kirby (Fourth World, Kamandi)
4. Matt Wagner (Grendel, The Demon, Sandman Mystery Theatre)
5. Grant Morrison (The Invisibles, JLA, Seven Soldiers)
6. Steve Gerber (Howard the Duck)
7. Daniel Clowes (Ghost World)
8. Jamie Delano (Hellblazer, Hell Eternal)
9. Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub, Samurai Executioner)
10. Charles Burns (Black Hole)

I'm not...quite...100% on this ranking (I'm pretty sure about the top two, and everyone else just keeps jockeying for new positions), but that's pretty much it.

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:03:37 GMT

I LIVE

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:31:53 GMT

Yes! It is true. I could explain all the circumstances that led to my being without internet (no, they weren't financial...I'm rich, bitch!*), and may at some future date, but for right now, who the hell cares, really. Point being, I have the internets back now, and am here!

Uhhhhhhh...

That's really all I've got at present, but since Joel just ran his reading list, here's mine for the first half of year of our lord 2009 (I've had, like, a lot of time to read...and watch TV...and paint the cat):

*okay well not really

January 2009
1. Amazing Fantasy Omnibus – Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, et al (2007)
2. Steve Ditko’s 160-Page Package – Steve Ditko (1999)
3. Showcase Presents The Brave and the Bold, Vol. 3 – Bob Haney, Jim Aparo (2008)
4. Hellraiser: Collected Best – Various (2002)
5. Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things – Lafcadio Hearn (1904)
6. Showcase Presents Sgt. Rock, Vol. 2 – Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert (2008)
7. The Poor Bastard – Joe Matt (2001)
8. H.P. Lovecraft’s Haunt of Horror – Richard Corben (2008)
9. Creepy Archives, Vol. 2 – Various (2008)

February 2009
10. Slither – Edward Lee (2006)
11. The Complete Nemesis the Warlock, Vol. 2 – Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill, et al (2007)
12. Showcase Presents The House of Mystery, Vol. 3 – Various (2009)
13. Batman R.I.P. – Grant Morrison, Tony S. Daniel, et al (2009)
14. All-Star Superman, Vol. 2 – Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely (2009)
15. The Complete Nemesis the Warlock, Vol. 3 – Pat Mills, et al (2007)

March 2009
16. Northlanders: Sven the Returned – Brian Wood, et al (2008)
17. Grendel: Devil’s Reign – Matt Wagner, Tim Sale (2009)
18. She Wakes – Jack Ketchum (2004)
19. Jack Kirby’s The Losers – Jack Kirby (2009)
20. Savage Sword of Conan, Vol. 5 – Roy Thomas, et al (2009)
21. The Golem – Edward Lee (2009)

April 2009
22. Showcase Presents Ambush Bug – Keith Giffen, Robert Loren Fleming, et al (2009)
23. Let the Right One In – John Ajvide Lindqvist (2004)
24. House of Mystery: Room & Boredom – Matthew Sturges, et al (2008)
25. Showcase Presents Strange Adventures, Vol. 1 – Various (2008)
26. The Nightstand Chillers – Pat Boyette (1998, 2003)
27. Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol, Vol. 1 – Arnold Drake, Bruno Premiani (2009)
28. At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft (1937)
29. Captain Britain and MI13, Vol. 1 – Paul Cornell, Leonard Kirk (2009)
30. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon (2007)
31. Geek Love – Katherine Dunn (1989)
32. The Immortal Iron Fist, Vol. 3 – Matt Fraction, et al (2008)

May 2009
33. Devil’s Cape – Rob Rogers (2008)
34. The Green Lantern Chronicles, Vol. 1 – John Broome, Gil Kane (2009)
35. The Complete Ballad of Halo Jones – Alan Moore, Ian Gibson (2001)
36. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Century: 1910 – Moore, O’Neill (2009)
37. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Steig Larsson (2005, 2008)
38. This Year You Write Your Novel – Walter Mosley (2007)
39. The Wordy Shipmates – Sarah Vowell (2008)
40. Live Girls – Ray Garton (1987)
41. The Dark Tower: Treachery – Robin Furth, Peter David, Jae Lee (2009)
42. UR – Stephen King (2009)
43. Blazing Combat – Archie Goodwin, et al (2009)
44. Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business, 1953-1968 – Kevin Heffernan (2004)
45. Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years – Bruce Sterling (2002, 2003)

June 2009
46. The Strain – Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan (2009)
47. The Strange Deaths of Batman – Various (2009)
48. Catching the Big Fish – David Lynch (2006)
49. Dark Places – Gillian Flynn (2009)
50. The Partly Cloudy Patriot – Sarah Vowell (2002)
51. The Woman Chaser – Charles Willeford (1960)
52. A Vindication of Love – Cristina Nehring (2009)
53. The Shadow: Blood & Judgment – Howard Chaykin (1987)
54. Don’t Cry: Stories – Mary Gaitskill (2009)

What have yoooouuuuuuu read? I'm actually really quite curious to know, mostly because holy fuck you guys I haven't had decent net access in like months, so yeah, let me hear from you. Excelsior!

To get this out of the way

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:01:50 GMT

There is going to be so much BSG fanboy bitching, and I just want to say:

Yeah, that was awesome. The robot montage was stupid, but that was awesome. I know that some of you probably disagree with my assessment. And, well, you can suck it. Because that was great.

Except for the one thing you all really, really hated a lot. Which, actually, I can deal with. And you know that thing I mean.

I don't think they needed to elaborate on the nature of the unknowable, etc., at all -- I like that the show has a mystical element, if for no better reason than it contrasts neatly against the sci fi stuff. I did not, and do not, want that element explained away. My problem with Starbuck-is-an-angel is not that I'm some twitchy Dawkinsite who can't handle the idea of god(s) or whatever, but that I'm pretty sure the conversation in the writers' room probably was all sorta like:

"Well, shit. We still haven't explained what the fuck is up with Starbuck. I mean, she had this shiny new ship and all..."

"Dude, that was YOUR IDEA. You were like, 'It's so awesome! The shiny new ship! WHERE DID IT COME FROM.' And THEN you were all like, '...We'll figure that out later.'"

"Yeah. ...Yeah, I know."

"So here we are at later."

"Yeah."

"Uh..."

"Dude, what the fuck. Is she a cylon? We're setting it up so she's like this cylon half-breed, right? So she...resurrects. And her, um. Her ship. It also resurrects. ...Uh..."

"Yeah, that makes no fucking sense, actually."

"The ship is a cylon raider, and it resurrects."

"Fuck."

"Okay, so -- okay, so, fuck it, she's an angel. ...The ship's an angel, too."

"Angel ship."

"Yeah, fuck it. Hey, can we put a titty bar in the episode, too? I told this girl at the titty bar she could be in it."

"Yeah, fuck yeah, whatever. ....Which girl?"

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:11:47 GMT

Okay. Since everyone here in my corner of LJLand seems quite taken with Watchmen, which I myself would largely place in "admirably ambitious failure" category, I guess I better be That Guy on the Internet and explain (OH AND ALSO COPIOUS SPOILERS):

- The much-ballyhooed newsreel-style opening credits sequence? Campy; and the choice of music too on-the-nose besides. However, this did include my favorite character in the entire movie -- The Silhouette -- who gets to be gorgeous and adorable for like ninety seconds before she dies in a gory still-image tableau that would not be out of place at an undergrad art show or a Marilyn Manson video or something and, frankly, seemed more intended to titillate than anything else. Because, you know, why shouldn't two people hacked to death in bed be kinda cool-looking? Never mind that they appear to have died by being covered in stage blood and photographed. This like eight seconds of film pretty much contains the DNA of everything I don't like about this movie, except for all the other things I don't like about this movie.

- Why do we see The Comedian assassinate Kennedy? That this happened at all was only implied in the book, not seen, and the staging of this sequence is remarkable in its absolute absence of taste. The only reason I can see for its inclusion here is to underscore what a piece of shit The Comedian is, but frankly, I think we get that idea anyhow. By showing us the extent of The Comedian's piece-of-shit-ness this early on, we also essentially defuse later scenes that exist basically to show us what a bad guy The Comedian is. But Snyder -- who as a director has all the subtlety of a brick smashing through a window to shatter your nose in a volcano of CGI blood and bone cartilage and then a wildcat jumps on your screaming face and squirts hot piss into your wounds and lightning strikes you and you catch on fire and scream even more and then your head explodes and suddenly My Chemical Romance covers "Bela Lugosi's Dead" or whatever -- well, yeah, not a real subtle director.

- The violence throughout is amped up to Ichi the Killer levels, introducing itself to a few scenes that originally had no violence whatsoever, and while I have no problem with gory shit, it completely deflates any pretense of realism when it goes this far over 11. These are just supposed to be martial artists in costumes -- that's it. The reason Ozymandias catching the bullet near the end is so remarkable is that he's just not supposed to be able to. You kinda lose that when you have Dan breaking someone's arm in HALF earlier on. When you have Ozymandias throwing Rorschach fifty feet (!) to smash into a wall hard enough to knock bricks out of it (!!!), you're basically looking at a fight scene from an episode of "Angel," and it's a little difficult to take even a little seriously. Which is fine if this is supposed to just be some bullshit comic book movie, but it clearly wants to be taken seriously, so it's a pretty big Epic Fail.

- Musical cues overbearing, inorganic, way too obvious, and generally jarring. Why even try to evoke the period with VH1's Greatest Hits anyhow? This isn't our 1985. It's an alternate universe. Why would these songs even necessarily exist?

- Ozymandias's plan makes almost no sense AND relies on the devoutly unreliable Dr. Manhattan to just go along with it and/or never, ever return from Mars. It also relies on the world's governing bodies to basically just do something because it's the end of the movie and we need to see that stuff get done, so whatever, man. Yes, I understand why the ending was changed -- I think the squid would have worked just as visual spectacle, but setting it up would have required an extra entire layer to the movie for which there simply wasn't time -- but it could have been changed to something that, well, actually isn't stupid.

More? God YES there's more. But anyhow, you get the idea. I'm thrilled for you if you liked the movie -- I think it has likable things IN it, to be sure. But overall? Not my bag, baby.

BSG: Let me solve it for you (POSSIBLY FEATURING SPOILERS, FOR GOD'S SAKE DO NOT LOOK)

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:41:07 GMT

Obviously, that last scene was meant to imply that the entire series is the desperate hallucination of a portly hipster somewhere in Vancouver who lost his wife and child and went into a Lost Highway-esque fugue state that was really just an elaborate reworking of his favorite childhood TV show. And everything was going so well! For years, he labored happily on his imaginary starship. But suddenly his fantasy involved him secretly being a killer robot, and from there it all unraveled, the internal contradictions more pronounced, making less and less sense until the very senselessness alerted him that nothing was real, and he had a horrific moment of clarity!!! ONLY THE HOUSE HAD EVER BEEN REAL

THE SAD, SAD, EMPTY HOUSE.

Fucked. Up.

All right, well...

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:26:26 GMT

Remember when I said that even I realized that my LJ was now nothing other than an extended infomercial for EL GORGO! and that, with this in mind, that would soon change? And I'd start talking about other stuff? And not just try to, like, use this space to sell things? Well...

That was before the arrival of this most momentous product line: THE EL GORGO! T-SHIRTS!!!

They are here!

http://elgorgo.com/2009/02/22/new-el-gorgo-t-shirts/

But you don't have to buy them! No, in this brave new electronic age, you can through the power of the internet embrace -- for free! -- virtual versions of clothing that would once have required actual cotton and the labor of dozens of hardworking seamstresses/seamsters (?) to --

Oh. Oh, wait. No. No, actually, I'm sorry. I'm being told that you do have to buy them. BUT! I myself have already purchased prototypical versions of two (there are four magnificent designs in all!!!), and I assure you that these function much as t-shirts in your experience ordinarily do, covering your torso and upper arms in a sheath of high-quality fabric. BUT THESE T-SHIRTS ARE DIFFERENT IN THAT THEY GIVE YOU SCIENCE POWER. They also wash well and feature designs that will survive my dryer!!! And, I can only presume, your own dryer, too. These truly are the shirts that El Gorgo himself would wear if he wore shirts!!! He doesn't, but you probably should, because it is wintertime...but THESE shirts you will want to wear even when it is NOT COLD. You will want to wear them all year round! But for the love of God, please wash them on occasion.

.....Please.

Thanks, all!

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:47:32 GMT

A lot of people here in LJ Land put up links to the interview Comix 411 did with Tom and me vis a vis El Gorgo! -- much obliged! Much love was also dispensed here at my own journal, and I am grateful for that, too. My apologies if the journal's starting to feel like a big El Gorgo! infomercial; I'm gonna try and keep it a little more up-to-date, but the comic and Real Life have left me with less and less time of late. Uh...hey, but guess what? If you pre-ordered El Gorgo! #2, print copies should be in stock soon! And if you haven't pre-ordered El Gorgo! #2, then print copies should also be in stock soon! Uh...just so you know. Awwww yeah!

Great googly moogly!

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:43:58 GMT

Myself and El Gorgo! artist/co-creator Tamas Jakab are interviewed over at Comix 411!:

http://comics.gearlive.com/comix411/article/q308-qa-mike-mcgee-tamas-jakab-el-gorgo/

Final Crisis...

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:02:03 GMT

...The sobering conclusion!!!

#6

Page 1 – I guess this takes place somewhere before the end of Superman Beyond #2? Seems to, given Superman’s insistence on returning to the exact instant he left.

Pages 2-3 – When I was a kid, I had a Legion digest that reprinted the first appearance of the Miracle Machine. I do remember how they finally had to seal it up, because it dawned on the Legionnaires that any stray thought could activate it…the line was something like, “Suppose one of us is having a bad day and we think, ‘I wish I were dead?’” Freaked me out (of course, I was seven).

Page 4 – Jesus, The Tattooed Man again.

Page 10, Panel 3 – I guess we’ll never know!

Page 12, Panel 3 – Yeah, okay, why not.

Page 13, Panel 1 – Oh snap! How’s that philosophy working out for you, Kalibak?

Page 13, Panel 2 – Evidently, not so great.

Page 13, Panel 3-4 – Yahhhhh. Creepy creepy. Again, all lifted right out of Miracleman, but it’s the kind of appropriation that everybody knows is appropriation, so it seems…I dunno, acceptable, somehow. Anyway, it’s obvious this storyline will be picked up again – and, having read Miracleman, I have a pretty good idea of where it’s going (though I don’t foresee Mary getting her head bashed in) – so I think I can safely miss the rest.

Page 14 – Heh.

Pages 16 – 17, Panel 1 – Nice.

Pages 16-17, Panel 2 – So now Shilo is…Asian? All right then. At any rate, what happened to Sonny seems pretty relevant, given where this book ends.

Pages 16-17, Panel 3 – “Most of our powers are cosmetic!”

Page 18, Panel 4 – Oooof. I know Black Canary’s anguished and all, but still.

Page 18, Panel 5 – Why is the Tattooed Man so attached to BC? Who knows.

Page 19, Panel 1 – BATTLE VAG ENGAGE!!!

Page 19, Panel 2 – The tattoo jams their signal? What the fuck?!

Page 24, Panel 5 – “Meh! Meh! Sentimental meh!”

Page 25 – Barry’s return seems to make some more sense after Superman Beyond, though on a literal level I’m afraid it’s firmly rooted in deus ex machina territory.

Page 27, Panel 5 – And yeah, this is basically King Mob in the last issue of The Invisibles. I don’t have any of those books here at the moment, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of this is the exact same dialogue.

Page 28, Panel 3 – And even though it should be obvious to even the thickest readers that Batman’s “death” isn’t gonna be anything like permanent (it’s undone by the end of next issue!), this is still a neat way to close the circle – with Batman taking on the Joe Chill role.

Pages 29-30 – Oh, like Batman didn’t see that coming. HE’S BATMAN.

Pages 31-32, Panels 3-4 – Right, this subplot means nothing to me. Maybe if I read JSA.

Pages 31-32, Panels 6-7 – Sorry, GLs: You got punked.

Pages 31-32, Panel 10 – The Bleed?! Omigod, do you need to have read the Wildstorm books to understand this? That’s like making an episode of ER incomprehensible unless you watch, I dunno, Stargate Atlantis.

Page 35 – I know there are like three people who fell for this. These people are idiots.

#7

Page 1 – Face of Barack Obama, physique of Superman, hair of…late ‘80s Prince?

Pages 2-3, Panel 1 – Nubia!

Page 8 – Honestly, the comics commentary here is so obvious that spelling it out just makes me tired. I’m not saying it’s bad commentary or too obvious or what have you, just that I don’t feel like applying undergrad analysis to it. You either see it or not.

Page 12, Panel 1 – Yeahhhhhhh.

Page 12, Panel 2 – Aquaman leads some fish! Truly the prophecy is fulfilled!!!

Page 12, Panel 3 – Awwwww.

Page 15 – Lolita Canary!

Page 16, Panel 1 – Supergirl…or Street Angel?

Page 17 – NEIN! I’m sorry, that’s supposed to be funny, right? Please tell me it is.

Page 18 – Really, Lex, this just isn’t the time.

Page 22 – Heh. Apparently, we just skipped over Lex because hey, it’s Superman. He’s gonna win. Moving on. And look – Final Crisis IS a musical after all!

…And, you know, there’s fifteen more pages. But honestly, there just isn’t that much more to say about them. This is a fun comic book. I had fun reading it (mostly). But it’s a comic that wants to point the way to the future even as it’s completely impenetrable to anyone who isn’t very, very familiar with the last thirty-plus years of mainstream comics. Is it a better comic than any mainstream event book has any right to be? Yes. GOD yes. But it also feels incomplete, less than the sum of its parts…a little bit pointless. Or is that just my reaction to reading a mainstream superhero book for the first time in years? Because, really, it’s cool that this stuff just spins onward and onward, I guess, but it’s not so cool if you’re an adult and expect meaningful character progression and, I dunno, an actual fucking ending. Is it the fault of Final Crisis that it can’t give me something that comic books like this just aren’t built to give? I’m not trying to bring down the room here, but I do wonder how after a certain point in our lives we’re supposed to stay invested in the endless handjob of continuity-driven stories that never, ever end. Oh well.

Anyway, this has been…weird? It’s been kind of a nostalgia trip. The only modern mainstream superhero comics I’ve followed in years are things like All-Star Superman, Immortal Iron Fist, Batman…and that’s about it. So there are characters in FC I haven’t seen in (real-time) action since I was in junior high. Kinda neat. Will I be making a habit of it? HELL FUCKIN’ NO. I love these characters – well, most of them – but I don’t see any reason to keep up with them. I’m happy to check in, sure. But that’s about as far as my interest goes.

I…feel like I need to go outside now. NOW.

Final Crisis #5!

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:20:06 GMT

Thoughts on the others will wait until I've read the Superman Beyond issues, since I get the feeling #6 and (especially) #7 will make much more sense once I have.

#5

Page 1 – Is this Alpha Lanterns thing a part of the regular GL book? I haven’t actually read a Green Lantern comic since something like 1995 (unless you count the Sinestro Corps story from a year or so ago that was basically Jones and Wrightson’s “Jenifer” in sci-fi drag – I liked that one!), so I have no idea. Anyway, I dig the hollow torso on Kraken…that’s a cool design.

Page 2, Panel 1 – What’s up with the bald Guardians?

Page 2, Panel 2 – I presume this whole scar-on-Hal’s-forehead thing refers to something in the Green Lantern series, since I don’t think it’s appeared in FC before now.

Page 3, Panel 2 – Great lines.

Page 3, Panel 3 – So are these psychic projections or something? I’m not nitpicking – I get the idea; she’s kicking their asses – but still, this is just…odd.

Page 4, Panel 4 – Dude, I didn’t even know that could HAPPEN.

Page 4, Panel 5 – “The ultimate technology Metron pointed them towards” – that technology, as we saw in #1, is fire, here defined as “a deadly plasma that responds to dictates of pure will.” More alchemically-minded sorts than myself could surely make more of this (and I’m sure they have); but in any case, here it is again. The GLs’ rings allow them to make manifest the products of their imaginations (if they have the will to do it), which – presumably – is the power Metron was attempting to give all of humanity (and which Darkseid is attempting to subvert).

Page 5, Panel 2 – Logically, Granny – who, like all of Darkseid’s people, has turned her will over to her master – would be kind of a shitty Green Lantern, really.

Page 6, Panel 1 – “Weeks smashed into days.” Hanging a lantern (as it were) on the increasingly staccato pacing of the series (which has lingered on this particular scene for an almost unbelievable six entire pages, by the way).

Page 6, Panel 2 – “They have word-weapons capable of enslaving souls.” This has gotta sound pretty familiar to anyone who read The Invisibles.

Page 6, Panel 5 – Little does Hal realize he’s about to spend the rest of the series standing around with his dick in his hand.

Page 7, Panel 1 – I presume Nazi Supergirl is somehow relevant in some tie-in.

Page 7, Panel 4 – Build your own OMAC!

Page 8, Panel 2 – And a thousand VERY dirty fanfic stories are born.

Page 9, Panel 1 – Ugh. Wonder Woman looking at the mask. Brrrrrrrr.

Page 9, Panel 2 – I dunno what “rabid angel” is, but it sounds cool as hell.

Page 9, Panel 3 – Should have mentioned this before, but: Evil Catwoman is…exactly the same as Not Evil Catwoman?

Page 11, Panel 1 – Heh.

Page 11, Panel 6 – I’ve been calling Blackberries “motherboxes” pretty much since the first time I saw one.

Page 12, Panel 1 – About time Shilo was black again. Since he was still white on the previous page, I’m going to guess the whiteness was a printing error (as opposed to a colorist’s mistake).

Page 12, Panel 3 – Uh…Mr. Terrific wants to take a look at his what?

Page 13 – Face-painting will save us all!

Pages 14-15 – Shades of Dr. Moreau! I mean…more than before. The dialogue.

Pages 16-17: FRANKENSTEIN ON A MOTORCYCLE. Now that’s cool. Incidentally, though, is this Faux Hellboy schtick really what they’re doing with Blue Devil now? Talk about a character that’s been completely turned to shit. I don’t think they’ve done anything worthwhile with him since his original series. Like, EVER.

Page 20, Panel 2 – Just how all-consuming is this possession thing? Is Desaad talking like a teenybopper because he’s just a really weird, pervy dude? Or is that not Desaad talking? I get the feeling later on that Mary is still Mary, albeit corrupted by Desaad’s influence, but I’m not really sure…and I think this is a fairly crucial question vis a vis the series as a whole. Anybody?

Page 20, Panel 3 – Another Miracleman callback.

Page 21, Panel 2 – Okay, well, I’ll be in my bunk.

Page 21, Panel 3 - …And for God’s sake, cover yourself, girl! …Sorry, that was me.

Pages 22-23 – I’m sure this another scene that’s been dissected endlessly on the interwebs, although it seems pretty straightforward to me.

Page 24 – Well, this part doesn’t, exactly, but it is pretty awesome.

Page 25 – Ewwwwwwwww. Okay, look, I know this is meta-commentary, yada yada, but if we can not have any more Rape Squad supervillains, that’d be great.

Page 26 – Monotheism bad?

Page 27, Panel 3 – Paradise Lost, as I’m sure the internet is well aware by now.

Page 27, Panel 4 – Burning off Mary’s hair would be a mercy killing.

Page 28, Panel 2 – Between this and “I forget not everybody has super-hearing” on the previous page, this is our hoary old friend “The Waste Land,” I think: “The falcon cannot hear the falconer.”

Page 29, Panel 1 – That’s maybe Bush minus like eighty pounds.

Pages 30-31 – “When I break your heart.” The Creepy Jesus in The Invisibles told us that he was “the stone that breaks all hearts.”

Final Crisis Part Deux (Issue #4)

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 02:06:05 GMT

Man, I'm not feeling great. Only the combined power of Brave and the Bold, BSG, and Nemesis the Warlock* can resuscitate me now.

*That would be The Complete Nemesis the Warlock, Volume 2, which I unexpectedly received in the mail today. Mind you, it shouldn't have been unexpected -- I mean, I DID order it -- but I ordered it a month ago, never received any notification that the order had been filled or shipped, and probably would have canceled it if I could even figure out how to do that. I'm okay with it taking a long time to get here (it came from the UK, fer chrissakes), but the enclosed receipt says it was mailed two weeks after I bought it, which itself is not great, and you'd think SOME kind of communication...well, anyway. Point being, while I'm thrilled to have it (seriously, I love this book), if someone reading these very words(!) did end up receiving a copy for his store...uh...hey, let me know what else you guys might have that I would want? If possible? Because I will totally buy something. I worked in the book trade long enough to know that ordering something in and not selling it is kinda not great, and will be more than pleased to make up the difference (preferably with awesome stuff that I can't find here). Okay? Okay!

Final Crisis #4 - below the cut!!!

#4

Page 1 – Personally, I would find being welcomed aboard an airplane like this annoying and intrusive as hell (even a little bit Orwellian). But maybe Carol just had to lay off the stewardesses.

Page 2, Panel 3 – Is a Blackberry considered a cell phone?

Page 2, Panel 5 – Callback to Seven Soldiers.

Page 3, Panel 1 – TJ? Anybody?

Page 4, Panel 2 – I’m not real clear on what The Ray actually did here.

Page 4, Panel 3 – I’m sure The Tattooed Man is a really interesting character in whatever book he normally appears in, but he sure feels like Poochie in this one.

Page 4, Panel 5 – So now I guess Green Arrow is (ironically!) The Man. Oh noes. Really not digging the way Morrison’s using this character. But actually…remember how well Morrison wrote Connor Hawke in JLA? So I guess this is all Kevin Smith’s fault. I can accept that.

Page 5, Panel 2 – They don’t seem like people who have dark senses of humor. They seem like people who probably never call themselves that at all! Christ, what an asshole.

Page 5, Panel 3 – So these are the Flash Kids? Man, that’s annoying.

Pages 6-7 – Negative Woman?!

Page 8 – Okay, really? The Fourth World is about punching. It’s not about cattiness. That’s not the Fourth World; that is Project Runway.

Page 9, Panel 1 – THAT’S more like it.

Page 9, Panel 2 – Bowie reference, but like that’s a surprise.

Page 10, Panel 1 – Anti-Life = demoralization, in a nutshell.

Page 10, Panel 2 – Yeah, yeah, Green Arrow is THE MAN. In a bad way. We get it. Now shut up, Poochie. And find a goddamn t-shirt. You’re making me cold.

Page 10, Panel 4 – Okay, Cheney I can see as Desaad, but no way is Bush Darkseid, man. Other than that, a pretty compelling description of the last eight years of American life.

Page 11, Panel 1 – “There’s no Anti-Life a little narrow escape can’t cure!” At first I thought this was something so moronic it was almost like a parody of an action hero line, like it was so stupid and nonsensical it had to be on purpose, but then I realized Green Arrow was referencing his own death and fanservice resurrection. I think I liked it better when I thought it was just a total non sequitor.

Page 11, Panel 7 – Oh Jesus.

Pages 12-13: Days of Future Past, yada yada. I…could be happier with this issue, really.

Page 14, Panel 2 – Are these the Anti-Life Kids, rescued off-panel somehow?

Page 14, Panel 3 – Has anyone other than Morrison ever written the Ultramarines?

Page 15 – Black Adam = Kid Miracleman, yet again.

Page 16, Panel 1 – Clifford!!!

Page 16, Panels 2-4: Yeah, maybe whatever Poochie’s talking about should have been in the main book. It seems…important?

Page 17 – The Flash makes it all better. First scene in the whole issue I really like, but man…that is a good scene.

Page 18, Panel 2 – Wonder Woman’s mask IS SO CREEPY.

Page 18, Panel 3 – Clearly, this is the meta-commentary on upskirts.

Page 19, Panel 3 – Okay, that could have been handled a little more dramatically.

Page 19, Panel 4 – YAHHHHHHHHHHHH

Page 19, Panel 5 – See, and that’s a really cool transition.

Page 20, Panel 1 – I’m sure the Tiny JLA is a callback to some Justice League from 1962 or something, but I have no idea. It’s kinda neat, though, in a totally random way.

Page 20, Panel 5 – “You’re the leader of the Justice League, T-Man’s rocking the voodoo tattoo. Ray’s the carrier wave…” Is this like Jack Kerouac’s Green Arrow?

Page 22 – OH CLIFFORD NO

Page 25 – Again with the flame! Also: SLAYER

Page 26, Panel 3 – Ladies and gentlemen, the GOP!

Page 27 – Favorite page of the series.

Page 28 – Vreeeeee-owwww…dee-nee-nee-THUM-THUM-THUM-THUM-THUM!!!

Page 29 – Annnnnnd Shilo is suddenly a white guy. Ye gods. You’d think this book, of all books, would see a little more quality control…did anyone look at this before it went to press?

Page 30 – Yeah, I don’t know…I understand what Morrison’s doing here on a symbolic level and all (though you have to be fairly invested in the Fourth World to really grasp that Kirby’s heroic everyman has become Kirby’s Satan; my guess is most readers are not thusly invested); but on the other hand, he’s sacrificing a great character to get that point across. I’m also just not buying that Turpin is breakable. New Gods Turpin sure wasn’t.

Final Crisis Singalong! (Issues #1-#3)

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 04:06:08 GMT

Okay, not really, because -- sadly -- Final Crisis was not a musical. Can you imagine, though?

Anyway, what follows are not annotations, per se, but me basically riffing on Final Crisis on the occasion of my finally breaking my no-floppies rule and just buying the whole fucking thing off eBay when I couldn't stand people talking about it and me not knowing what the hell they were talking about anymore. Overall, I'd have to say I dug it, though I wasn't 100% on the venture (I thought the ending was particularly garbled). Anyway! Grab your copies of #1-#3, if you will, and walk this way...

#1

Page 1: Hey, it’s Anthro! I only know this because (a) at some point Morrison said FC #1 would start with Anthro and end with Kamandi, and (b) because it’s not like there’s this huge number of other DCU caveman characters to confuse him with.

Page 4: I too have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey! Given all the Kirbyana of this book, though, it’s maybe significant that Kirby adapted the film himself (about a decade after its release).

Page 5: And I guess that would be Vandal Savage.

Page 6: Okay, it’s all well and good that these guys don’t look real simian, but Jesus: Did they have Curves at the Dawn of Time? That’s one toned cavewoman. I think she’s wearing makeup. And someone definitely did her hair. Okay, moving on.

Page 7: Well, that was pretty cool. Good opening.

Page 8: How much of a comics dork do you need to be to know who Turpin is? I’m thinking you have to be pretty steeped in this shit.

Page 9: This dialogue, obviously, makes a lot more sense the second time around.

Page 10, Panel 2: What the hell is that girl doing?

Page 10, Panel 4: John is GL 2814.2? That’s gotta hurt.

Page 12-13: These are really not Morrison-type characters, but you wouldn’t know that from reading this. Great color here.

Page 14, Panel 2: “Deep and dreamless.” The fuck? I have no idea.

Page 14, Panel 3: Heh. Shades of Top 10.

Page 16, Panel 2: Were Mas y Menos part of DCU continuity before now? I thought they were created for the Teen Titans animated show. I’m not sure I really care unless they’re tiny and voiced by Freddy Rodriguez; I’m just saying.

Page 16, Panel 3: It’s impossible for me to read Doctor Light’s dialogue and not hear it in the voice of The Monarch. So I’m not sure whether this scene is actually meant to be hilarious, but it is for me.

Page 16, Panel 4: See? Self-referential rape humor. Not funny…unless you’re The Monarch!

Page 17, Panel 1: I guess I’d need to have read one or more tie-ins to understand this. I think I get what’s happening anyway. Looks like kind of a lame story…

Page 17, Panel 2: Yep. Still funny.

Page 17, Panel 3: Oh my God, dude: The Monarch. This is total Venture Brothers shit, right here.

Page 17, Panel 5: Ouch. And not the kick to the face. That is some uncharacteristically murky-as-fuck storytelling from Mr. Jones. Seriously, what the hell just happened here? How exactly is this woman on the ground all of a sudden? Gah.

Page 18, Panel 2: On a related note: Did J.G. Jones actually draw this panel? It’s not a bad panel; it just looks nothing like his work.

Page 18, Panel 4: “I am not averse to the taste of human flesh, sir!” Fantastico.

Page 18, Panel 5: Is Gorilla Grodd napping? It doesn’t seem like a dull meeting to me, but I guess if you’re used to talking smack to The Flash while your buddy ties him to a giant boomerang made of C-4, a gathering like this would feel pretty low key.

Page 19: If I were the kind of guy who, you know, read superhero comics for their symbolism and stuff, I’d maybe be drawing a parallel between the beginning of the issue and the fact that right here we’ve got a guy called The Human Flame. Remember? Like how in the beginning of the issue Anthro was given the gift of fire to beat the bad guys? Very simple conflict; very clear-cut. And now here we are at the moral collapse of the DCU, where nothing seems clear and people may start thinking about how the ends justify the means if the ends are things they really really want, and the Darkseid stand-in says, “The Human Flame here believed in me.” Only the Human Flame is fat and dumb and easily led and constantly talking about how awesome he once was/could have been? Yeah? Well. I’m sure that’s all coincidental. I’d hate to be accused of, like, reaching.

Page 20, Panel 1: First moment that made me feel like a couple pages must have stuck together or something. Is this a little later? Just a clunky transition from the end of 19?

Page 20, Panel 2: So yeah. The Human Flame: From Anthro heroically saving his village to Silent Bob torching someone and taping it on his cellphone to prove he’s a badass. It’s like Morrison is implying something! Something about…superhero comics? It could be!

Page 20, Panel 3: I kinda hope J’Onn got more screentime in one of the tie-ins. I mean, jeez.

Page 21, Panel 2: Glorious Godfrey, it would seem.

Page 21, Panel 4: “Lemme guess: It’s somethin’ sad and stupid with whips and leather.” I…I think I love Terrible Turpin.

Page 22: I love this scene.

Page 23: I’m not sure the thing with the kids ever pays off. A tie-in again?

Page 24: The fucking Hall of Justice? I knew there was a reason I didn’t read JLA. Some people need to kill their inner children already. The Superfriends? Come on, guys. (This isn’t really a criticism of FC, mind you. Still, though.)

Pages 25-29: It’s not that I don’t care about the part with The Monitors…

Pages 30-31: Kamandi is never wrong.

Page 32: I completely didn’t get who this guy was supposed to be on first reading. If that was intentional, then I think this wins for most oblique cliffhanger ever.

#2

Page 1: “Your life depends on it!” Heh. Well, it’s not like I don’t know where Morrison swiped that from (considering that I swiped it from the same place).

Pages 2-3: I’m really not sure whose side Morrison is on here at all.

Pages 4-6: Sonny Sumo. Yes.

Page 8: Mister Miracle was not this cool in Seven Soldiers. I mean, look at panel 4. That is one cool motherfucker, man! Also: Sonny Sumo regenerating in front of a mirror is a callback to Forever People.

Page 9: The Monitor, strangely enough, is a lot more fun to read about as a normal guy. Parallels here to the dreaming kid/homeless guy of Morrison’s Sandman/Starro story in JLA, though of course it’s also a gentler version of a frequent trope in The Invisibles. The forgotten magic word is straight out of Moore’s Marvelman/Miracleman.

Pages 10-11: And Turpin turns into Marv. (They can say “asshole” in DC books?)

Page 12: Perfunctory funeral scene. I like that so many characters have come back from the dead at this point that the mourners are actively hoping for a resurrection. Because, you know…it could happen, right?

Page 14: Man, I don’t even wanna know where this scene is going. Ewwww.

Page 15-16: Poor Batman. I feel like that at work all the time.

Page 18: Uh…it’s who? Do we ever actually find out? I dunno, whatever.

Page 20: Of course Batman doesn’t trust Hal.

Page 21, Panel 2: Heh!

Page 22: Sweeeeet.

Page 24, Panel 4: …Kamandi?

Page 26: Evil Jimmy looks like he’s about fourteen.

Page 27, Panel 2: 9/11 echoes – still vaguely tacky.

Page 27, Panel 3: “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” callback.

Page 30: The “You have been reading” tags at the end of the issues remind me of “You have been watching SUSPIRIA” at the top of Suspiria’s end titles. I mean, I’m sure other movies and whatnot have done that, too (although I can’t think of any).

#3

Page 1: Death turns Dark Side white. Either this is a subtle reference to the end of Return of the Jedi, or it’s a coloring mistake (we haven’t seen the last of those).

Page 1 again: DUDE IT IS FRANKENSTEIN.

Page 2, Panels 7-9: Nice sequence.

Page 5: Heh.

Pages 6-9: Pretty unmoved by this whole storyline at this point, though I like where it goes later.

Page 10, Panel 1: Yeah, I know I made fun of the Hall of Justice, but the Legion of Doom’s hideout is pretty sweet (though impractical…where exactly is this swamp in relation to anywhere else these people would ever logically be?).

Page 10, Panel 2: It’s starting to come over kinda gay?

Page 10, Panel 5: Ha!

Page 11, Panel 2: Lex is pretty awesome in this, I gotta say.

Pages 12-13: Good scene. It feels out of place, but deliberately so. The pacing, the art – everything’s just so traditional. It may be the first time we’ve been allowed to breathe in the whole book. I think more stuff like this would have helped the series go over better.

Page 16, Panel 2: Hey, yeah, that mysterious new Aquaman that showed up! Wow, that sure wound up being a crucial storyline.

Page 16, Panels 3-5: Oh, Freddie, you’re so emo.

Page 17, Panel 1: Streaky must know my cat.

Page 17, Panel 3: O-KAY, then.

Page 17, Panel 4: Yeah, you know, Green Arrow as perpetually angry liberal just kinda didn’t work for me as a joke in this book. Don’t get me wrong, I understand goofing on the character; it was just a joke that I got without laughing at, because it was always a little too obvious. (You know who else didn’t have a sense of humor?!)

Page 18: Wow, that draft happened fast!

Page 22, Panels 1-2: Is it just me, or does “Bludhaven” sound like a place with a really small black population? Like, perhaps somewhere in Eastern Europe. Actually, I always assumed it was somewhere in Eastern Europe. (I never really followed Nightwing; sorry.) Anyway, this exchange is kind of dumb and doesn’t work insofar as it’s meant to be evocative of Katrina for no real good reason other than to be vaguely topical, I guess; and what’s more timely than a disaster from four years ago. I do, however, appreciate that the Atomic Knights are riding gigantic Dalmatians, apparently just because…

Page 23, Panel 1: …Ah, but wait: That’s why! Command-D. Rock on. I’m still not entirely sure how the resolution of FC leads into Kamandi (if it does), but okay.

Page 23, Panel 3: We…still haven’t seen a man turned inside out.

Page 24, Panel 2: OH MY.

Page 24, Panel 3: Hey, it’s Oubliette!

Page 25, Panel 1: Oh jeez. Mary’s hair is really awful. Is it supposed to look cool? Fuck, that is terrible. It sorta hurts my feelings.

Page 25, Panel 2: OH PUPPY NO

Page 26, Panel 4: “Your weapons can’t harm her! She’s not a killer!” Are those statements meant to be related? Do the Atomic Knights have weapons that can only harm killers? Because that’d be…not a great weapon, really. I mean, useful in some circumstances, I guess, like if you’re concerned about civilian casualties and whatnot. But you know, no one starts out a killer. Maybe they’ll start by killing you, Mr. Useless No-Killer-Harming Weapon Guy. (Or…maybe she just meant “Don’t shoot.”)

Page 27: I’m not following this whole Wonder-Woman-as-disease-carrier thing – isn’t spreading Anti-Life the point of the TV/internet invasion?

Page 28: I’m having flashbacks to the trailer for Untraceable: “He’s in the internet! He’s hacking into the car!!” Like: “The email is opening itself!!!” Yeah, okay. Then she turns off the internet. The whole entire internet. This is not the book’s finest hour, I’m afraid.

Pages 29-30: This is pretty much exactly what happened about halfway through “Rock of Ages” in JLA, but I can roll with that.

EL GORGO! #2 is HERE!

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 07:15:36 GMT

http://tinyurl.com/73fmzf

EL GORGO! #2!!! coming 1/4/09

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:40:16 GMT

Until then:

http://elgorgo.com/2009/01/02/01042009/

Books what I been reading

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:02:28 GMT

Okay, so, for some reason I kept track of what I read this year. Just to do it, I dunno. Here's what's NOT on this list:

* Books by people I know personally. Why? Because while if you're someone I know personally and your book is here you'll be all "yayyy," if you're someone I know personally and your book is NOT here, you'll be all, "Dick." So whatever. EVERYBODY LOSES AND I WILL STOP THIS CAR AND DRIVE HOME RIGHT NOW IF I HAVE TO LISTEN TO ONE MORE WORD OF THIS

* Stuff that probably comprises a book (i.e., runs of comics that may or may not have been collected into book form at some point) but isn't a book, per se. Look, I wasn't all competing with myself to read two hundred books or some shit. But if you're interested, I also read a lot of old Hulk and Deadworld comics, as well as Jack Kirby's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which ruled and you should go on the eBays and buy it. Now.

Other stuff:

* I tracked the publication dates of the books I was reading. A lot of those dates don't correlate too well to the original publication dates of the material contained therein. I'm not really sure why I tracked this. You can probably ignore that part.

* Uh...that's it, I guess.

* Also, I was gonna do this groovy survey where you could check off which ones you read? But I can't figure out how to do that, and LJ's FAQ blows, so fuck it.

...Behind the cut!!

January 2008
1. New Frontier: Absolute Edition – Darwyn Cooke (2006)
2. Kamandi Archives, Vol. 2 – Jack Kirby (2007)
3. JLA: Ultramarines – Grant Morrison, et al (2007)
4. Action Heroes Archives, Vol. 2 – Steve Ditko, et al (2007)
5. Showcase Presents Brave and the Bold, Vol. 2 – Bob Haney, Jim Aparo, et al (2007)

February 2008
6. EC Archives: Crime SuspenStories, Vol. 1 – Al Feldstein, et al (2007)
7. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy (1985)
8. The Road – Cormac McCarthy (2006)
9. Savage Sword of Conan, Vol. 1 – Roy Thomas, et al (2007)
10. Showcase Presents Enemy Ace, Vol. 1 – Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert, et al (2008)
11. Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke (1953)

March 2008
12. Duma Key – Stephen King (2008)
13. Kirby: King of Comics – Mark Evanier (2008)
14. Taboo 9 – Stephen R. Bissette, ed. (1995)
15. Samurai Executioner, Vol. 3 – Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima (1995)
16. Showcase Presents Phantom Stranger, Vol. 2 – Len Wein, Jim Aparo, et al (2008)
17. Astro City: Family Album – Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, et al (1998)

April 2008
18. Savage Sword of Conan, Vol. 2 – Roy Thomas, et al (2008)
19. No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy (2005)
20. Turn off Your Mind – Gary Lachman (2001)
21. Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus, Vol. 4 – Jack Kirby (2008)
22. Heart-Shaped Box – Joe Hill (2007)
23. Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C. Clarke (1973)
24. Samurai Executioner, Vol. 4 – Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima (1995)

May 2008
25. The Un-Men: Get Your Freak On! – John Whalen, Mike Hawthorne (2008)
26. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold (2002)
27. Samurai Executioner, Vol. 5 – Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima (1995)
28. Jonah Hex: Only the Good Die Young – Justin Gray, et al (2008)
29. Outlaw Nation – Jamie Delano, Goran Sudzuka, Goran Parlov (1999, 2006)
30. Conan: The Blood-Stained Crown and Other Stories – Kurt Busiek, et al (2008)
31. Courtney Crumrin and the Coven of Mystics – Ted Naifeh (2003)
32. Demo – Brian Wood, Becky Cloonan (2005)
33. Samurai Executioner, Vol. 6 – Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima (1995)
34. Courtney Crumrin in the Twilight Kingdom – Ted Naifeh (2004)
35. Three Fingers – Rich Koslowski (2002)
36. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – Susanna Clarke (2004)

June 2008
37. Samurai Executioner, Vol. 7 – Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima (1995)
38. The Keep – F. Paul Wilson (1981)
39. Savage Sword of Conan, Vol. 3 – Roy Thomas, et al (2008)
40. Showcase Presents Metal Men, Vol. 1 – Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru (2007)
41. Samurai Executioner, Vol. 8 – Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima (1995)
42. Hellboy: Darkness Calls – Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo (2008)
43. Essential Rampaging Hulk, Vol. 1 – Doug Moench, et al (2008)
44. Marvel Westerns – Various (2006)
45. The Eternals, Vol. 1 – Jack Kirby (2008)
46. Amor y Cohetes – Los Bros Hernandez (2008)

July 2008
47. Child of God – Cormac McCarthy (1973)
48. Conan: Born on the Battlefield – Kurt Busiek, Gary Ruth (2008)
49. Sandman Mystery Theatre: The Tarantula – Matt Wagner, Guy Davis (1993)
50. House Infernal – Edward Lee (2007)
51. Samurai Executioner, Vol. 9 – Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima (1995)
52. Daughter of Dracula – Ron Fortier, Rob Davis (2007)
53. Showcase Presents The Haunted Tank, Vol. 2 – Kanigher, Russ Heath, et al (2008)
54. What Dreams May Come – Richard Matheson (1978)
55. Samurai Executioner, Vol. 10 – Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima (1995)
56. The Immortal Iron Fist, Vol. 2 – Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, et al (2008)
57. Sandman Mystery Theatre: The Face & The Brute – Matt Wagner, et al (1993)

August 2008
58. Girls, Vol. 1: Conception – Luna Brothers (2005)
59. Girls, Vol. 2: Emergence – Luna Brothers (2006)
60. Welcome to Tranquility, Vol. 1 – Gail Simone, Neil Googe (2008)
61. Welcome to Tranquility, Vol. 2 – Gail Simone, Neil Googe (2008)
62. Girls, Vol. 3: Survival – Luna Brothers (2006)
63. Girls, Vol. 4: Extinction – Luna Brothers (2007)
64. Grendel: God and the Devil – Matt Wagner, et al (2008)
65. Dracula – Bram Stoker (1897)
66. Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko – Blake Bell (2008)
67. Essential Man-Thing, Vol. 2 – Steve Gerber, et al (2008)
68. Invaders Classic, Vol. 2 – Roy Thomas, et al (2008)
69. Showcase Presents House of Secrets, Vol. 1 – Various (2008)
70. Brides of the Impaler – Edward Lee (2008)

September 2008
71. Creepy Archives, Vol. 1 – Various (2008)
72. What If? Classics, Vol. 3 – Various (2006)
73. The West that Was – Thomas W. Knowles, Joe R. Lansdale, eds. (1993)
74. 20th Century Ghosts – Joe Hill (2007)
75. After Dark – Haruki Murakami (2007)
76. Night Raven: House of Cards – Jamie Delano, David Lloyd (1991)
77. EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt, Vol. 3 – Al Feldstein, et al (2008)
78. The Eternals, Vol. 2 – Jack Kirby (2008)
79. Janes in Love – Cecil Castellucci, Jim Rugg (2008)

October 2008
80. Showcase Presents Metal Men, Vol. 2 – Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru, et al (2008)
81. Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft – Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez (2008)
82. Punk Rock and Trailer Parks – Derf (2008)
83. Leather Maiden – Joe R. Lansdale (2008)
84. Batman and Son – Grant Morrison, Andy Kubert (2007)
85. Batman: The Black Glove – Grant Morrison, J.H. Williams III, et al (2008)
86. Secrets of Voodoo – Milo Rigaud (1970)
87. Jonah Hex: Luck Runs Out – Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, et al (2008)
88. Savage Sword of Conan, Vol. 4 – Roy Thomas, et al (2008)
89. Speak of the Devil – Gilbert Hernandez (2008)

November 2008
90. Watching the Watchmen – Dave Gibbons (2008)
91. Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan – Jiro Kuwata (2008)
92. Sloth – Gilbert Hernandez (2006)
93. Doctor Who: The World Shapers – John Ridgway, et al (2008)
94. Just After Sunset – Stephen King (2008)
95. Essential Marvel Horror, Vol. 2 – Various (2008)
96. The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home – Robin Furth, Jae Lee, et al (2008)
97. Jack Kirby’s The Demon – Jack Kirby (2008)

December 2008
98. The Reach – Nate Kenyon (2008)
99. Essential Iron Fist, Vol. 1 – Chris Claremont, John Byrne, et al (2005)
100. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – Simon Armitage (2007)
101. Doctor Fate: Countdown to Mystery – Steve Gerber, Justiniano, et al (2008)
102. The Complete Nemesis the Warlock, Vol. 1 – Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill, et al (2007)
103. Metalzoic – Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill (1986)

StuffPurge Winner!

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:59:14 GMT

straussdc!!! Dude. Email me your address. My email is: dingo.action@gmail.com

(I must stress: I haven't selected a title, but I don't think there can be any question that the man who brought us "The Dunwich Rodeo" and "Billy the Kid Vs. the Cannibal Mormons" has won the day in terms of just sheer awesome.)