| Battered Geek Syndrome... |
[Oct. 10th, 2008|03:33 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Rise Against - "Appeal to Reason" | ] |
One of the most disturbing things I think I've viewed in all my years of comic booking has been the stubborn tendencies of the comic book reader, i.e. how they (meaning "we", I've been guilty of this too in the past) can continue to buy something they hate for whatever reason you care to insert. Sometimes it's "blind loyalty" in that particular title or character or even company or what have you, or maybe it's simply hope in that whatever it is they're bitterly sinking three or four of their hard earned dollars into a month will rebound out of it's funk or lull, or that a new creative team will come in and breath new life into the book. Call it whatever you want though, but at the risk of sounding brusque, I can't help but call it masochistic.
Nothing pains me more than being in a comic shop and hearing someone comment as towards the awfulness of something in their stack with a little off-the-cuff "Yeah, this is going to suck" as they anticipate more of the same. I really just cannot comprehend the kind of self-abuse that it takes to do this to one's self when it comes to their entertainment; to continually sink money into something that is doing anything but entertaining unless it's just that bad of a trainwreck you can at least get that little twinge of perverse joy from it's general crudiness. Comic book fans have to be the abused wives of the entertainment world; blacken their eye and kick them down a flight of stairs and thirty days later they'll pony up three dollars for you to do it again.
Sad thing is, I've been there. I get the idea behind these habits, I've kicked them once before and don't ever plan on looking back, that's why it's so hard to watch people struggle with their inability to shrug off these shackles of mediocrity and tell the people that produce these for our enjoyment that they're not accomplishing their jobs very well. I understand that you love Batman, so much so that it seems like even a shitty Batman story is better than none at all, but that's just such a horrible thing to do to oneself and, honestly, it's just going to hurt your comics as well as it's just showing the publishers that they can shovel you any piece of shit they choose and you'll burn it down like coal to fuel their journey to neutering the marketplace of any form of creativity.
There's no reason for this to happen though, and not only does it cost you money, and reward the publishers for uninspired work, but it denies other, more worthy and well crafted products of the support and capital they need to thrive. For almost a handful of months now I've watched people pick up TRINITY weekly at the shop and curse it's averageness or, even worse if you ask me, revel in averageness with an "it's not bad" as they read and dismiss it immediately before moving on. Don't get me started on the idea of buying a book just because it "doesn't suck" either, but just think about the implications of those actions for a second. TRINITY is a weekly book at the standard pricing of $3 an issue. So, that's four issues a month, fifty-two issues a year obviously, at a cost of around, say, $160 with tax, all for "not bad". Four issues of "not bad" a month that could be going to the purchase a trade a month from Amazon or InStock as someone tries out a new series like a SCALPED or DMZ or what have you. Or $3 a week that could to go picking up the first issue of Joe Kelly's FOUR EYES from Image, or hopping on the new story arc for NOVA or getting on GREEN LANTERN in time for the Blackest Night story. It just boggles my mind.
One of the main reasons the comic book industry will never go anywhere is that the fans it has already accumulated are push overs. They don't expect more from their comics. They're willing to basically take what they're given and bitch about it when they do. They get slapped around and come crawling back for more because the bad attention is better than none at all. Not even trying to play the "Indie card" with why readers continue to piss away money on bad books they're familiar with as opposed to great books they may not have heard of before, this goes on just with just the big publishers themselves. I'm not trying to say you should go out and pony up with Image and Dark Horse and Oni just because the Flash sucks right now, but hey, maybe that three dollars a month you're burning on shitty FLASH books just filling the time until Rebirth hits could be used to, I dunno, try the aforementioned NOVA or something of its ilk. Or maybe you could try out the SCALPED's and FEAR AGENT's and WASTELAND's of the industry, but there's just no excuse to continue such backwards behavior. If you really love something, let it go, because god forbid maybe enough of our fellow readers will do the same in enough numbers to let the great publishing gods know we're not having their shit anymore. We're tired of their yearly events that don't live up to the hype and promises, we're sick of them just throwing out another Batman title with little or no creativity behind it, just an assumption that because of the name on the book it'll garner enough readership to pad their bottom line, and we're sick of them fucking with books and characters in hopes of driving up cheap sales with gimmicks and the illusion of change.
Everyone should expect more out of their comics, and they should expect more out of themselves and their range of tastes and reading habits as well. Lowered expectations or just a "go with the flow" attitude are not going to accomplish anything but stagnancy in the industry and more "abusive" behavior from the publisher to the reader as they just assume their audience will just take it and accept it as the way it should be. Maybe if us readers actually put some weight into our buying habits, we can really start to capture the eye of larger public when we show them what our little monthly pamphlets are really capable of. That'll be a Brand New Day indeed...
Cheers... |
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| Long Box Extraction: Nextwave |
[Sep. 13th, 2008|05:17 am] |
One thing I wanted to start doing "little" blogs on when I got really set on talking more about comics in my free time were sort of "catch ups" on some of those series that are in full swing but you don't really here much about. Y'know, the WASTELANDS and FEAR AGENTS and so on's out there. Recently though I was redoing my collection, putting away about three long boxes of issues I had sitting out of line with the rest of the stuff in my bedroom that is a testament to the joke that is my sex life, and as I was putting integrating all these new books in with the old, I couldn't help but be compelled to start pulling out all these wonderful titles I haven't read in ages, or never got back to once they finished. It took me about an hour and a half to get all this junk settled, but once I was done I had a full longer of material in there of what I just mentioned, old runs I just haven't read in forever, some series that had ended not too long ago and I never had a chance to go over them again in a sitting or however many, or titles like I mentioned above that are going on right now and I want to re-season the old brainmeat with. ..
...Basically that was a giant expository ramble for me to say "I'm going to be rereading a bunch of shit in my comic book collection and talking about them." I don't know why I feel the urge to drag people along with my gibberish, I just do.
So, as you can see, the first set of issues of the near 300 I pulled to go back over was Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen's NEXTWAVE, a book that I absolutely adored when it was out and did something like four reviews on for the AICN site. There are titles I've been reading for the entire three+ years I've been doing reviews for there I haven't even reviewed for the quatro, let alone something that was only a dozen on the nose. I couldn't help but be a whore for the book though; it was unbelievably under-read and since I had that fabled "Power of the Press" I just had to speak up on its behalf. It was such a wonderful ride in the sense that it made your brain wonder just what the fuck was going on but at the same time your nuts (or female equivalent) hurt from laughing so hard at the said shenanigans. And going on near two years after it's unfortunate end, it's still damn near as funny.
Admittedly, I do think the overall tone of the book has worn a little bit. I think the rise of technology and social networking and sites like this one and the fact that several times a day ever since I've pretty much had Mr. Ellis talking in my ear with his Tweets and Mailing Lists and lord knows what fucking else he's wired into on my computer and phone, have kind of dulled his more extravagantly bugfuck crazy sense of humor on my tastes. Don't get me wrong, that British bastard still knows how to get me to burst out with those out of place HA!'s when I'm at work and a Twitter about god knows what comes to me via text, but the "My Robot brain needs beer" line and stuff like that has kind of worn a little thin.
Cable talking about "Techno-Organic Prolapse" and calling Boom Boom "X-Bait" though? Fucking amazing.
I still loved pretty much everything about the book though. The cast he assembled from pre-existing characters and his own creations in The Captain and Dirk fucking Anger (and you know a character is awesome when you feel obligated to insert the f-bomb as his middle name). The random emergence of other established Marvel characters for the gags was always impeccable too. From Fin Fang Foom trying to put people in his pants to the Celestials calling Machine Man @#$% to goddamn Forbush Man and his special, uh, Forbush powers? - it was all perfect. For someone who probably couldn't tell you more than five books the company produces, Ellis sure knew how to use some of these characters and creatures for a big gag. And I could go extolling praise for Dirk Anger alone, but anyone who read the book knows pretty much how much of The Man he was...
And the book looked gorgeous too. It damn well better have since apparently it's the combination of Immonen's pay grade and the inexcusably low sales of the book that caused it to go into hiatus I guess, but at this point I don't ever see it coming back. Without either one of these two on it, there's no point, and I didn't mean to sound like I was pointing a finger at Immonen, I was cracking wise there, but I still can't help but wonder what the fuck was going on that this thing couldn't even generate the 15K or whatever in sales to keep going. That's a different tangent though, and as I was saying, this thing looked amazing. It really had to be Immonen and his more "cartoony" and somewhat angular and highly detailed style that did this. It had just the best timing in the comic book sense to pull off all these bits while at the same time just looking breathtaking because of all the elements that composed each panel, and especially the splashes and two page spreads. All around just an amazing book to look at.
I love this book so much, I'm still crushed there hasn't been an over-sized collection of it all in one volume. It's something I'd gladly shell out the cash for and carry around with me, and the art has to look astounding with being blown up the extra couple inches. I love this so much so that I've been thinking of PM bombing Jen Grunwald via the Bendis Board with various nude photos of myself until she finally caves and pushes the project through for fear of losing her eyesight, be we all know that's more a call for a restraining order and maybe even a weekend in a holding cell than anything. There's got to be a better way to organize a rally for this though, I just am not much of a thinker past trying to scare people with my pasty manflesh. Still though, it got me that D I needed instead of the F in Business Law II in order to get my degree in college. You just never know...
So, yeah. NEXTWAVE good. Will definitely buy three copies of it if it ever comes back in hopes it'll never leave again. Next up out of the box is Ennis and McCrea's HITMAN, but that may take a while. Hopefully in the meantime I can continue with the "State of" blogs I want to make a thing, but I felt more like talking about this instead. All in due time though, all in due time, and this little book here might even be a part of one of the points I want to make in the next segment, which will probably be about Marvel. We'll see though.
And now, my beer is drained (yay Octoberfest!) and I need to be up in six. I'm out. Cheers... |
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| The State of Things (Part 1)... |
[Sep. 5th, 2008|02:26 am] |
I've been lazy. Lord fuck have I been lazy. Burnt out, tired, worn down, a shell of my former self - all also pertinent terms for what I've been, but mostly I've just been fucking lazy. No reviews in two weeks, no blog in three, and I've barely made it to the gym a handful of times in 18 days now. So little done from the guy who typically works forty-five hours a week, spends ten in the gym, cranks out three pages or so of "written word" (if you can call it that) and crams in a novel or two, dozens of comics, and even some electronic delights instead of sleep. I'm not going to get into where's and why-fores for all this (you could blame some of it on my shiny new Samsung TV I imagine, but then I'd have to cut you. It's like a child to me) it's just time to change all of this back to how it should be, which means it's time to sit down and talk comics.
So apparently Robert Kirkman wants change in the comic book industry. Good for him because I do too. And yes, I know this news is old hat by now, and everyone has weighed in everything and then some on the subject matter and yelled and hollered back and for at each other. And everyone has come up with their own solutions to "Save the comic book industry!" and on and on and on. And I'm here to say: You ain't saving shit. You're not saving anything, I'm not saving anything, the heads of every last publisher and distributor can sit down and brainstorm their fucking tits off - nothing is coming of it.
How the industry is going about itself as it tries to decide what it wants to be is almost never really going to be able to properly deal with what ever perceived problems it has in itself because, quite frankly, I don't even think we know yet. Is it too small a reader base? Is it practices and decisions made by the bigger companies of the industry? Is it that there's not enough quality coming from, or attention being paid to, the smaller publishers and Indie guys? Is it just the fact that people as a whole in our society just really don't read as much anymore?
I haven't a fucking clue. I have an opinion, and I have some observations I tend to make, and to be perfectly honest I actually tend to have a mad on at my fellow comic book readers, and on occasion lay a lot of blame as far as some issues I personally have with the comic book industry on them and their buying habits. I really do, unfair as it may be, but it's not unlike how some of your more "knowledgeable" or "discerning" movie goers will cite problems with Hollywood and the vast movie going public. Elitest? Yes. Snobby? Sure. A little close to home? Probably. I just happen to think people are too willing to settle on their comics, or too afraid to branch out, or that we as fans (yes we, I'm not going to sit back and point fingers at everyone else, I'm as much a problem as anyone in this matter. I'm not that big of an asshole, I just play one on TV) are a bit on the fickle side, or have a tendency to turn on our comics like a White House aide come scandal time.
So I'm going to talk about comics. Really what I want to do is more or less highlight parts of the industry. I want to break down the publishers and talk about what they're doing, what they're printing, and really what, if any, of it is worth a damn or dollar. The "Big Two", the "Biggish Two" and whatever Indies I delve in (which, sadly, isn't as much as it should be though I honestly do try). I wanna talk pull lists, cover price, ads, Previews, distro, and the people that read them... pretty much the full nine yards. Given that I couldn't be bothered to type anything up for almost a month I figure I'm either due for a long string of these things, or I'll never do a damn one of these again now that I've puffed up my chest and acted all full of resolve. Fuck you though, I've got a pretty new Flat Panel TV. And item of that type is like fucking crack to me. I won't rest until I've fidgeted with every setting, replayed every last video game I own, and redone every last piece of wiring I have. Before you know it, I'll be huddled up with a pint of HagenDaas watching repeats of Gilmore Girls in HD. Oh god HD...
Also, it's starting to enter election time, and if anyone knows me they know it's best to put me on Suicide Watch as this fucking mindless Dog and Pony show and travesty to the term "Society" progresses forward. I might have to hook up a Bourbon IV just to numb myself to it all. Or take the HST approach to dealing with the banality to come.
I'll try to be back in a couple days with something hopefully worth reading. For now though, time to go into "Ohhhh... pretty!" mode as I start cramming random Blu-Rays into the PS3 to see what all this tech I bankrupted my unborn child's future for can do. Please, someone call me off work tomorrow will you? I'm out of "New $2400 TV" vacation days...
Cheers... |
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| The One That Got Away... |
[Aug. 13th, 2008|03:24 am] |
| [ | music |
| | A Wilhelm Scream - "Career Suicide" | ] |
Lately I've been getting a little melancholy and reminiscing on the "good times". There was a time, not so long ago, where I was with someone special, that I thought could mean great things to me and looked forward to being with as often as I could. One of those rare occasions where an outside force brings that much joy to your life that their mere presence could fill you with as much giddy anticipation as the final bell during the school day.
But for some reason that feeling left me.
All those times of looking forward to being with them just cut short inexplicably. Just like that, and all I was left with was a scant handful of memories and questions. "Why? Why did you leave me? What did I do wrong? Please, please could you just come back to me for a little while? I can't stand not having you around..." and then you're left with quiet. Just yourself in a room, sitting and waiting, hoping and praying, not sure of where to turn to next...
... Fuck I miss Desolation Jones.
Seriously, what the fuck? You have this kick ass comic, written to bittersweet perfection by someone like Warren Ellis with all the gallows humor you could ever want, but just that smattering of hope that gave it that little bit of edge, and outstanding art by the man, the myth, the legend J.H. Williams III and then POOF! two years later you're siting there realizing that nevermind it's not coming out now, they didn't even get past a third of the second arc. It's so terrible to see, that something like that can just whisk itself away from you, without much ado or warning but leave you with some hope that it just might come back some day if you're really hopeful and patient. Has this ever happened to you?
... what? What did you expect me to talk about here? A girl? Please...
Fell. Desolation Jones. Gutsville. The Infinite Horizon. That's just a few off the top of my head. Seems like I can't go more than a quarter year with something either just disappearing into the night, falling off the face of the planet, or just being yanked from me because no one else loved it as much as I did. Doesn't it seem odd how this just happens in comics? That one month you're checking off the same old on your LCS order like any other day and all of a sudden you notice you're a little light. You do a little digging and notice something isn't shipping that month. Odd, but it happens, and you eagerly anticipate it being there the next month and curse the extra four weeks wait under your breath. Except that four turns into eight, then twelve. Then you're seeing re-solicites for it and you're back to your two month buffer, but you're starting to lose hope and you do damage control as you try and make your brain forget it exists until you actually have the next issue in your hands. If there is one...
And don't forget the books that are cut down before their time. I'm still lamenting the lack of Nextwave in my comic book diet. The Order, Irredeemible Ant-Man, The Thing, hell even Gotham Central - despite having three years plus - wasn't enough. What can I say, I'm a greedy fuck. I'd gladly cancel half those companies respective lines if it meant getting those books back up and running. Like we need those fucking Classified books anymore. But alas, you soldier on...
There will always be a new batch of comics to take their place, and for the most part you can always find a replacement I guess. Something like Fell and Gotham Central, okay, not so much. But there will always be a new Order to rally behind, or someone pitching a Thing series or what have you, but it's never the same. And maybe you'll get lucky, like with all those SCUD fans who were handed the happy news that the series would come back after its nine year hiatus and you'll even get a pimp ass complete edition for your patience, but that's about as slim a chance as us getting Planetary before year's end (please, god, for fuck's sakes at least get us the last Planetary!). More likely than not though, you're going to have to get used to disappointment.
You always hurt the one you love, but sometimes the one you love hurts you back. That's just the nature of the beast. Comics are a tough trade, and you're going to get your heart broken. But thankfully there'll always be someone there to catch you while you fall. Thank you Fables and Criminal and The Walking Dead, I don't know where I'd be without you to lead me through all those troubled times.
Cheers... |
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| Balance... |
[Jul. 26th, 2008|12:29 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Less Than Jake - "GNV FLA" | ] |
Something horrible has happened. Something I never ever foresaw coming to be. Something that makes me wake in a cold sweat in the middle of the night with a queasy sensation typically reserved only for those that just found out they're going to be a parent for the first time...
... I dropped below sixty books on my pull list.
I KNOW!! It's fucking anarchy it is. I have no idea how this situation sneaked up on me like it did. Just like an STD, you're going about your business per usual, you're washing your bits in the shower and BAM! you find a growth the size of fucking Topeka poking out of the forest. Terrible, just terrible...
But, there is some good in this. This means I've got some flexibility in the old pull list again. I can go ahead and do some more experimenting on what I decide to spend my hard earned "I didn't go nuts and gun down everyone at work" dough for being such a diligent worker at Monotony Central. So what do we go for here. What should I try to expand my comic booking horizons and add some meat to the already rather filling allotment of books I buy? Do I go out and find some more Indie projects to expand my knowledge of what's out in the industry? Or do I maybe stick closer to home and just find some mainstream Big Two books I've been neglecting? My pull does feel rather light on the Fisticuffs and Spandex crowd. Maybe. Let's break this down.
Admittedly, my first reaction is to go to the Image or Dark Horse, more the former than the latter. Part of it would be because, well, I really do tend to not care as much about Marvel and DC as much as I used to. Part of it is just because they're in full-on event mode, and neither one of their offerings intrigues me at all. Another would be, well, I guess I'm just a little bit of an elitist when it comes to my comics. I want the best and only the best, nothing wrong with that, and honestly, the best typically comes from these two companies these days, at least when comparing them to DC and Marvel direct. Vertigo is still king IMO, but I already buy enough from that line.
I still love my superhero books, don't get me wrong their either, but quite frankly, and again IMO, if you have anywhere near a decent comic book budget (say 20+ books a month. If all you can afford is a handful of books a month, by all means, get your Batman fix or whatever and be happy) and all you buy are mainline superhero comic books, well then you're a bit of an asshole. And the converse is true too. If you're spending all your wad on just Indie books or less mainstream work like what Vertigo has to offer and so on, and not at least maybe getting your Superman on, then what the fuck is the point? Comics, arguably more so than any form of media out there, can and are about anything you want them to be. To waste all your time on just one genre, or completely avoiding it is to not be using your Comic Books for what they're worth. If books like FABLES, FEAR AGENT, DMZ, WASTELAND, CASANOVA, WALKING DEAD, CRIMINAL, FELL, and on and on can't muster any enthusiasm out of you they're you're either the most boring person ever, or don't even know what I'm talking about when I name drop books like those. It's like telling me all you watch on the teley are Sitcoms. That's bullshit. Expand your horizons or GTFO. Buy SCALPED you bastards, it's better than probably 99% of what you're buying right now.
End rant. Moving on.
So, DH and Image are out, and I don't really see anything from the outside like Avatar or IDW et al, and like I said I've been kind of hankering for more Supes stuff, probably thanks to them being so prominent this summer in the Box Office and how much fun I've had watching movies this summer thanks to that. The dilemna continues though: there's really not much left to pick from there either. I pretty much buy what I believe to be the best from both companies, with some person exceptions even though I know the books are good (like how I'm not buying the GREEN LANTERN stuff because I'm already getting my Cosmic fix from the Marvel equivalent like NOVA and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, which I think are just as good as the ring-bearing equivalent and I just tend to lean more that company's way when it comes to those types of books). But I've got my CAPTAIN AMERICA's and JSA's and THOR's covered, and while I might be jonesing for more comics I'm not about to buy average or subpar ones to fill out the roster. What to do, what to do.
Be patient, that's what.
One of the best things about comics, there's always more coming. I might have been down on Comic Con a couple days ago, but it's not like comics do get totally forsaken there. You've just got to stay on your toes. We already knew that James Robinson was going to be starting a new JLA series soon, lets start there. STUMPTOWN coming this fall, if you don't know what that is then you deserve to be slapped. Greg Rucka doing creator owned Crime Fiction. That's all I have to say. AGENT OF ATLAS ongoing? Sign me up. And no sooner do I drop the PUNISHER MAX series that word comes down Jason Aaron may in fact write it for a bit. I'll tentatively pencil that back in. Give me more people, give me more. I've got an addiction to feed and I've already tied off my arm (the irony not being lost on me that I use a heroin metaphor after dropping Jason Aaron's name). My stack of TPBs to the side is only shin deep right now. That's like, two weeks tops. Feed me. Feed me Seymour! *breaks out in musical*
... actually, lets not do that.
Time to break get my COMIC BOOK TATTOO on finally. This is gonna be good.
Cheers... |
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| A Whale's Vagina |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|01:10 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Less Than Jake - "GNV FLA" | ] |
Comic Con is upon us again. The time of the year when the comic book industry stands up and shouts "We still exist! Pay us monies for our shit so you can make movies out of it and we can feel somewhat legitimate as an art form!" or at least that's how I see it, over-exaggeratedly of course.
Apparently this show is the Mecca as they want to call it, the be all end all of comic book shows, but I dunno, the more I've paid attention to it these past couple years, and the more it has garnered steam what with it being the place all the big new summer movies get debuted now that Comic Book franchises are dominating the Box Office, and some shows get trailered or leaked or what have you, it just doesn't really seem to me like comics are actually the main focus of this monstrosity even though they're at its core if you get me.
Now, I've never been to one of these, so obviously I could just be talking out of my ass but I really don't have much enthusiasm to actually go to it anytime really. Like I was just saying up above, sure they're be comics, there'll be vendors and writers signing books and artists doing sketchwork, Marvel and DC I'm sure will make some over-hyped announcements that fanboys will wig out over but really don't mean dick all said and done while "lesser" books get completely overlooked and forgotten. Fuck, I mean, does Vertigo even do a panel at this thing anymore? Anyways. And yes, there'll be cosplayers en mass in their quaint little PVC creations or, god bless 'em, furries. And there'll be sets and posters and replicas, apparently the Owl ship from Watchmen is set up and ready to go.
There's just so much going on, and so many distractions, it just really doesn't seem to me like there's more than just a phantom presence of comics themselves there. It more seems like SDCC is the place to go if you have some little creation of yours that you think some Hollywood scout might hit you up on for some cool licensing cash than anything. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I don't want that to sound harsh, but I don't think it's too far off the mark.
We're even getting to the point where they're calling it the "Pop Culture" event of the year. Were they calling it that before Spider-Man made almost half a billion dollars not so long ago? As I type this I'm looking around and it looks as thought two Matt Fraction and a Rob Liefeld creation have been opted already, and we're not even on day one. Good for them of course, but I think this is what I'm jibing at. Again, I guess I'll never know until I go, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think my hatred of large crowds will probably ever stop me from doing so. Well, that and having to spend probably around $600 just to get to and stay there the weekend. I just like the smaller scale really. Chicago was always perfect when I went for having a good sized crowd but not overwhelmingly big and it gave you lots of options for the weekend but you could always remember your way around and to all the cool stuff you picked out as you paraded around in whatever your hearts' desired.
Maybe I'll go someday, but for now I think I'm fine with watching coverage of the highlights on G4. Hell, I don't even know if I'm going to be returning to Chicago in the future, it's starting to feel a little played out to me. Mostly I liked going just to hang out with Bendis Boarders and the Chitown contingent from AICN, but now I want to start getting excited about the con I'm going to itself, not just who I'm going to be rooming with there. HeroesCon may be the way to go for the next couple summers as I try and find that con that feels "just right". My Goldilocks con, the one with the perfect sized crowd, more emphasis on just having guests and artists than making "Internet breaking" announcements, and that I don't have to pawn off family heirlooms to afford... or sell bodily fluids.
Ah well. This is me easing back into talking about comics and other geeky stuff here. No more personal rants about my sorry lack of love life. Soon I think I'm going to start doing something I always wanted to do for the AICN site but didn't think anyone would interest anyone there, re-reading and acclimating myself to more "neglected" books with a decent length to their lives and recapping/reviewing them, stuff like WASTELAND or FEAR AGENT or SCALPED and so on. Those consistently good to great books that tend to fall under the radar you know? Because they're just that: consistent. Apparently people only pay real attention if you slap a SECRET INVASION banner on it. Fuck that, I want to talk about real comics.
Anyways, time to go off and finally get to watch SPACED for the first time. I've waiting bloody ages to get to see this thing.
Also, in case no one has noticed, I decided to join in with some of the trendy kids and Twitter up. I'm Here
Cheers... |
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| Wast-E |
[Jul. 9th, 2008|03:08 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Alkaline Trio - "Agony & Irony" | ] |
Yeah, that's kind of an easy title, but I decided to go with it. For those of you who got it early on (meaning you saw that lovable little movie I decided to riff on), I'll give you respite time to stop groaning at it. For those of you that didn't, well then here we go...
People are many things tangible and intantible; many shapes, many sizes, many personalities, many attitudes, many ambitions, etc etc etc. There's also something that many of us also tend to be: Wasteful pieces of shit.
Blunt and heavy-handed sure, but true. And I know this doesn't go for everyone, but I see this every day and it's terribly shocking to me, and if there's anything that anyone knows me to be, it's jaded towards the tendencies and attitudes of the people around me. It's rare that I'm surprised by what people do, but this is one of those things that I'm still kind of boggled by.
Those of you that don't know me from Adam should know this: I work in Hotel Catering. What this means is everyday I'm exposed to the consumption habits of dozens, sometimes hundreds of people, whether it be from a business meeting with Coffee and Soda and so on all the way to Served dinners and the like. And man, the amount of shit we as people go through is staggering. And actually, the worst part of it is the amount of stuff that we don't go through. Let me elaborate.
For the past two days we've had a meeting summit for 200 people in our Ballroom. In the past two days I've seen consumption of at several hundred cans of soda and bottled water alone. Care to wager how many of those were even fully used? Care to wager how much of these consumables were opened for just a sip and left for refuse? It'd be a lot more than you'd think. Care to wonder where all this debris winds up since this unfortunately my property has only a scant recycling policy (cardboard only is all they've arranged for pick up sadly)? Yeah, that's right.
Even though our particular property doesn't have a recycling policy, well, I do. And I shit you not, me, just one little Shift Supervisor working barely in the outskirts of a decent sized "major city" collect and drop off somewhere in the realm of 60-70 pounds of plastic and aluminum to be recycled in a month. Let me repeat that: I myself drop off 70 POUNDS of material to be recycled in a month. That's half an average person. Shit, that's more than my 52" rear projection TV weighs. And like I said, this is just one little place in one little spec in all of the world. Don't even get me started on the amount of food gets tossed away during catered meals. It's disgusting in a way, especially when most days I come home to see a newsletter from WorldVision or whatever staring me in the face asking me if I have money for a donation this month (those bastards and their Ethiopian poster children. They always know how to get me).
Why do I bring all this up? Well, fuck, it should always be brought up. But one of the biggest and best movies of the year, Wall-E (see? it all comes around eventually) has taken a little bit of shit here and there about it's rather blatant message about the state of the world and litter. There's many little jabs and undertones throughout the movie, but this is the most projected. Hell, the whole premise of the movie is that the Earth was abandoned because it was too over-wrought with trash. Some people seem to think that such subject matter is a little to heady and overbearing for children and detracts from the fun for those that are old enough to actually question and wonder why people would do that. I think those people need to remove their heads out of their asses if it finally took a Pixar film to get people to take commentary on the kind of situation we're facing in the future if we don't start to watch ourselves and practice some more discretion.
I don't know if Global Warming is a real occurrence. I'd like to think we have enough scientific proof and measurements and a little something called "Cause and Effect" logic to make a case for it being a most likely scenario, but like the popular Anti-GW case likes to say "There's been warming periods before, this could just be another one". Sure, whatever. The basement's flooded, it could just be rain, but the fact that there's no clouds in the sky and that pipe in the corner looks busted would seem to argue otherwise, but still there's a chance, not going to dispute it. But one thing's for sure, we really just don't seem to pay attention to, or even really care about our crapulence.
In this fast food and Starbucks world, where it's so easy to just fill a corner trash can with plastic cups in the matter of an afternoon, day after day there just seems like there should be more action taken. I'm not sure what, obviously if I were a smarter man I'd be getting paid big bucks to sumise what measures should be taken, but it seems rather ridiculous to me that that trash bin doesn't also have a recycling one right next to it. It seems to me that people aren't exactly going out of their way to be wasteful or unconscientious, it's just that alternatives aren't particularly available to them. If helping to reduce garbage production was as easy as seeing a can on the corner to drop their cup or can in when finished, then I'm sure a lot more people would do it. But for some reason it's not, and that scares me, because if something as easily providable as public bins for paper, plastic, etc aren't being implimented, what the hell is actually being done?
I've been thinking of this more and more recently, I don't know why. I guess I just have this thing of mine, I don't really care how people remember me, or even to be remembered, but I just don't want to be thought back on as being an asshole. And if you ask me, kind of just going about your daily activities with kind of a disregard as to what your consumption - or not even consumption, because really I don't think something as simple as a burger wrapper in the trash because you had some convenient food is something to get up in arms about - but more the lack of a train of thought in the lines of "Maybe I should save all my beer cans for recycling instead of carrying three bags of them to the trash pickup every Tuesday night" is really kind of prickish y'know? I don't ever plan on having kids, but I don't want this group of youngins that just saw that adorable little robot grow up to realize "FUCK! The movie with the Johnny #5 rip-off was right! (is it too much to hope the kids will grow up to know that reference? Yeah, probably is). Why the hell did everyone leaves this mess for us to clean up?" It's just so... irresponsible. But we seem to be allergic to that these days. Responsibilty. And that's how the wheels eventually start to come off, because someone couldn't be bothered to tighten all the lugnuts properly. So simple, and yet apparently too much effort.
Yeah, I need to bring the next post back to comics. This kind of stuff just tends to make me grumpy.
Cheers... |
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| Oh God... Carnies... |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|02:48 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Alkaline Trio - "Agony & Irony" | ] |
So, Thursday I let myself get taken to a Town Fair. Yeah, I know. What the fuck am I doing at a Fair? Obviously, this is not my kind of scene. One, I obviously came over dress what with still having all my teeth and whatnot. Not a great way to blend in. But still, I soldiered on. The guys really wanted to see the Clarks (the epitome of one of those "local hero" bands. Mediocre radio play due to being a maybe two-hit wonder and building a career on, well, playing Town Fair's apparently) and I had the day off and figured that maybe I should finally get out and hang with some friends and, yes, even consume some alcohol for the first time in a month. Y'know, actually be a human being for once. Besides, I went to Fair's as a kid (I think) and never really recalled any bad memories of them. Maybe there could be some fun had here...
... god was I ever wrong...
I already mentioned the teeth thing, and that wasn't an honest to god stereotype joke, that was an honest to god observation. Look up "slack-jawed" in Webster's, and you saw what half of this crowd. And the place smelled quaintly of what I could only describe as Pony and Mullet. And believe me, for those of you that can't believe that Mullet can actually be a smell, it can and it does. Now I'm confused as to how Barry Melrose hasn't been confused for a garbage fire and beaten out.
Anyways, so we're walking around looking at what the place had to offer and to avoid being sucked into the earth since this place was muddier than the set of a Gay Porn Gangbang shoot (I am a master of the imagery I am). But by god, we can for the Clarks and we're staying for the Clarks! Kill me now. So I start looking around. Do we have anything of note here? Anything slightly interesting? Well, we have food stands set up that actually increased my cholesterol just by looking at them. Fuck, if a Fair is a true testament to anything, it really is that you can deep fry just about whatever you want. And they did. I honestly don't know how anyone eats this stuff. I didn't touch a thing and yet I walked out of there a pant size bigger and needing two fillings in my teeth. Susan Powter wept...
The games were everything you'd expect. Shoot something win a prize. Throw a ball at the bottles - beer bottles mind you, this is western PA after all - win a prize. And the ring toss is self-explainatory too except you threw them at not bottle or whatnot, but knives that were wedged blade first into a rotating platform... okay, let's talk about this more. This, honestly, might have been the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. FUCKING KNIVES?! Are you kidding me? You mean I get to toss little plastic hoops on blades that some of which were the size of my fucking head for the right to take them home? And the kids can play too?!? Is this shit even legal? Fuck, you just earned my $5 right there sir. God bless America, I've never felt so Patriotic.
And the crowd, yeah let's talk about them some more. Again, I felt out of place simply because I left my beer gut at home. And my god, these really were just walking stereotypes. Well, about half of them at least, there were some normies there to be fair. But the guys wearing their sleeveless shirts and dirty tractor repairing jeans and whatnot, all acting all badass as they tried to win their girls a fucking stuffed bear while hucking baseballs at fucking empty beer bottles, if you can even call Coors Light fucking beer (word to the wise: it's not).
Oh, and their girls! Talk about their girls. Immediately I'll say this: Thank god it was raining because if the sun had been out, I'd have probably gone blind from its reflection off the bleachedness. And I don't think I've ever seen so much makeup caked on human beings before since the last time I accidentally ended up watching Nancy Grace on the television (which, mark it down now, that bitch is getting hers soon). It's like they fucking woke up that morning, showered, plucked, bleached, etc... and then fucking loaded a cannon with some Mary Kay and opened fire on their faces. Of course, there were some cute country gals, and I'll tell you what, a cute country gal is a damn great thing to behold, but the rest looked like they could have been turned away from the pony rides because to let them on would be animal cruelty.
Oh yeah, and the Clarks fucking blow. Bad enough the highlight was a two-hitter, and that dos-bateador was working with one of the worst sound systems I've ever witnessed at a live show. And I've seen some dive-ass live shows from some punk bands that look like they all sold their sneakers to afford their amps - still better sound quality.
And then we went home and I made a gin bucket (mmm, mmm good!) and all was right with the world. Now let us never speak of this again...
Now I know how Bush fucking won his second term. God Bless America!
Cheers... |
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| Sometimes, I talk to God... |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|12:50 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Alkaline Trio - "Agony & Irony" | ] |
Yeah, wow, I just totally baseball batted you in the face with that huh? But no, it's true, I actually do find myself time to time questioning a being that most times I'm not sure even exists, though a part of me really wants to think does if for no other reason that I'll get to call him on some shit once I kick it. And no, I'm not talking getting down on my knees and praying. In fact, I guess I more talk at him than to him because yes, I might not be all there, but I don't actually have "conversations" with the Almighty like that homeless guy on the bus who looks like he lost a leg in Nam or something sad like that. I'm not that crazy. There are voices that tell me to rain down my righteousness on those around me, but those are different voices, not God's...
...that was a joke people. Moving on... sheesh. Tough crowd...
The most common thing that I say to the man in the sky, or in the center of the Earth or fucking whatever residence he/she/it/they whatever takes up is simply this: "Good One." Because, I don't know what it is, maybe I'm just that observant, maybe I for some reason think the Lord likes to play little games with me because I'm "special" or some shit, but my life is one of weird coincidences and irony. When something randomly happens to people, some odd little coincidence, some little twist of fate or what have you, someone normal would probably just think "Oh, just my luck!" or something along those lines... I just happen to think God, if one even exists that is, gets his jollies by playing little practical jokes on me. Arrogant huh?
It's been a stressful week. I finally can't take it anymore; the singleness, the sexual frustration, the soreness from working and lifting all week - I decide to have a cigarette (ooo, that sounds good right now) to take off the edge. I walk outside for that sweet little five minutes of release and... a rain drop hits me right in the middle of my forehead... its brothers and sisters soon come cascading down... Good One.
I walk through the aisles of the bookstore, iPod earbuds pumping some Alkaline Trio into my cranium. Only casually paying attention I turn the corner to see a cute little geek girl perusing some Trades in the comic aisle (and yes, this has happened before). At first I assume this is some manifestation of my pathetitude (copyright by me) but I hold back and see how this unfolds. She grabs a couple books and goes and has a seat. By herself. There she is, sitting and reading, sitting and reading. Five minutes go by. Ten. I'm off doing my own shuffling through some books, but keeping an eye on the prize. This is it. It's all lineup for me. Time to say hi. I have the perfect opening. I can do this. I can... wait... who's that guy coming up to her? Is he taking my catch? Is he... oh my, they're awfully friendly for some people that just have met. Real friendly. In fact... SON OF A BITCH!!!
... Good one
Sometimes he plans longterm too. Something simple like I might say "Good thing such and such didn't happen today here at work" and, to a normal person they might turn around and bam! There's that little jinx staring them right in the face. Just a little bad luck. It happens.
Not me. Nope. Mine will stretch out for weeks. A month later, there it is. At the most inopportune time possible and with the maximum potential for me hating my life. You dirty son of a bitch, you always get me right when I finally drop something out of my head don't you? Patient bastard. Can't help but respect that now can I?
I guess if this were the time for you to finally size me up for a straight jacket this would be it for even having typed all this, but I swear I'm not crazy. Mostly that's as far as it goes. "Good One". Yeah, on my more angry or,* ahem*, intoxicated days I'll get aggitated and start questioning the skies. Why the fuck can't you cut us a break? Why are those kids over there starving? Why are you letting these assholes fuck over those they deem "below them" just because they have the money and power to do so? One date! Why the fuck can't you just let me have one fucking date you asshole?!? What did I ever do to you? I'm a nice guy! I treat everyone around me with respect and compassion, how about a little over here for me buddy? JUST FOR ONCE CAN'T YOU FUCKING!.....
...wait...
... did that girl just look at me? Oooooo, she's cute. That's some nice work there partner. Glasses. Tattoos. Creamy skin. Alright, now we're talking! I accept your little apology. Let's just mosey on over and... oh, she's got a little chick friend. Eh, I guess I'll have to do a little work to get into this conversation but nothing I can't... My, they seem awfully friendly... really friendly...
OH YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!
...
.... Good one...
Cheers... |
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| Ooo... Internet Drama!! |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|05:44 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Less Than Jake - "GNV FLA" | ] |
Eh, okay, not really so much drama, but there was a little bit of "verbal sparring" and whatnot going around some of the geek websites I frequent when it comes to reviewing comics on the Internet. First, it started with a little bit of a "tangent" I guess you would say by comics writer B. Clay More on his blog about Reviews on comics when it comes to Creator Owned material and so on. This prompted Josh from iFanboy, pretty much the only review site I even check out anymore besides seeing what my cohorts at AICN did up for the week, to comment on the blog, and talk about BCM's posting on the iFanboy site, and which to go even further caused a podcast to be formed between BCM and Josh about the "fine art" of the internet review and what exact is the worth or even point of them.
You (all five of you that is) can go and read up on everything if you want and decide what you think, but mainly I was posting this because yeah, I do Internet Reviews, and yeah, sometimes I wonder what the point is. With this age of the Internet, where everyone has a voice and an opinion they want to use with it, where people make random posts on random sites like this one and expect people to actually read and care, does anything anyone says even register? There's just so much information, and so much wordage being thrown about, it's almost like pissing in the wind don't you think? Sometimes I do, most times I do, but y'know, sometimes it really does seem to work out.
Sure, I know no one reads this nor cares, and that's fine because I've said many times I do this for me anyways. It gets the writer bug I tend to have out. Just like why I do the AICN review thing, because y'know, I read a lot of comics, and I tend to think I know what makes a good one, and I also personally hate to see good books get neglected in place of stuff that is highly mediocre yet more available. It downright pisses me off. And I know for the most part we're just a little corner of the Internet, but I also know that apparently some people care because I've gotten feedback on a forum or two that some people have actually picked up a book or two or three on my say so, which is neat, and occasionally I get a thank you from a creator here and there that appreciates the attention, for good or for bad honestly. But I just dunno if I like the concept of Internet Reviewing being so passe already, because while for the most part, the very most part, a review on the internet really is some random schlub, who really is pretty ignorant of the medium as a whole going on some rant or tangent or just had something they thought was clever or "snarktastic" to relay, but there are some good peeps who know their shit out there and do tend to help out here and there.
Basically, I don't want being a reviewer on the Internet to come down like having sex with an ugly person, where everyone does it and some point, but only the really bold ones admit to it.
Oh yeah, and I have a pretty huge ass response in detail to what BCM and Josh were talking about down towards the bottom of that "podcast" link up above. So, y'know, more random wordiness on my part. Yays...
And now I'm off to see the Alkaline Trio, and a midnight showing for Wanted. GiddythefuckUp...
Cheers... |
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| Rage, rage against the dying of the... |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|06:06 am] |
... actually, just fucking rage.
It's been happening for about a week now. I can't help it. I contain it, but I can't stop it from welling up. I'll stop and say right now I don't want to drag this thing down with personal expression. I still do mostly like to type up little snippets and commentary of life or media(something I probably should do more than once a week) or whatever for the .0000000001% of the population of the globe that might read this because I happen to know you from a Messageboard forum, but it's been such an odd sensation, and I'm not sure what to make of it.
Part of me knows it's probably because I'm not happy with my station in life right now. I hate my job or, more accurately, I hate the fact that I'm not where I should be in it. I like the work, I like the people (for the most part, the exception being the reason I tend to shudder in anger at least once a day while on shift), but I should have moved up years ago, and right now the best I can apparently muster is trying to take openings two or three states over, for a 16% pay cut and the privilege to pay for my U-Hauling. Some people say Illegal Immigration is a problem rifling through our country, I say I wish I had about a dozen of them so that I could strap to a flat bed to them and mush them towards Kentucky for me. But I digress...
Is it the job thing? Is it the relationship thing i.e. new TV shows on fucking FOX get more playtime than I do? (god I had to stretch for that, but I think it worked) Is it the fact that it's an election year, and despite the fact that I fucking hate politics with every fiber of my being I can't stop paying attention to them and getting swept away with them? Hell, is it the fact that sometimes I really wish I was more of a writer besides doing the AICN thing (because, really, posting comic book reviews on a website is almost as minor as, uh, blogging about somewhat personal things on this site really) but I know that I don't have it in me except maybe some columnist ability?
All possible. All feasible. All... a good thing?
Obviously anger can lead to, or is a direct result of some bad frustration. Most of which in my case that could probably be relieved by a few bourbon mixes and a trip to the lovely ladies of the 'Port (don't let me fool you though, I have no idea where you can find more "prostitutionary" delights in this city. I'm just guessing. Honest Injun.) but sadly I quit drinking and am not much of a manwhore... and here's where I feel you pulling away from me.
But I think this can be a good thing, in doses. For the first time in a while I'm being proactive about getting a new job, maybe even in a new location, and while the prospects aren't terribly attractive it's still a step forward. I'm busting my ass working out like I haven't since back in the day when I was trying to shed my old fat-assed self and I want to be a machine by summer's end so that maybe, god forbid, instead of feverishly working this keyboard at this ungodly hour, maybe some cute little gal will appreciate all the work I'll be putting in these summer months and let me work her c-board for her (god, that made even me wince). Highly doubtful of course, but it could happen, and at the least I'm wanting to post more and more, and maybe even tighten up the little smidge of "professional" writing I actually do do each week.
This needs to be harnessed of course. Despite the energy it's giving me, I don't necessarily think I'm a fun person to be around right now. In fact, in some situations (like being around certain someones that are constantly rubbing me the wrong way wether they know it or not) I'm kind of downright scummy. I'm definitely not myself which despite obvious quirks, I tend to think is a pretty alright chap, and not too hard on the eyes if I may say. I don't want to calm down completely, because there's an edge here and I like it, but it could be such an easy fall over it with the slightest of tips.
Funny, most times I'm usually ranting that most people aren't angry enough about what is going on around them and here I'm trying to reign mine in. If I were any sort of real writer I could use all the excess I have flowing through me to infect others with and make them proactive. Instead I think I'm going to go furiously masturbate so I can end my restlessness tonight, finally stop "After the Eulogy" by Boysetsfire from playing in my head, and get some goddamned sleep.
God I'm such a weird little fucker.
Cheers... |
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| Mojo |
[Jun. 15th, 2008|04:25 am] |
It's that time again. The personal life is stagnant. All the friends are either far away or might as well be as they get all schmoopie with their significant others instead of hanging. No friends. No girl. No one interesting. No one even remotely intriguing. The newest prospect also became one of the most irritating. Sweet to controlling bitch in under six seconds. Somebody call Guinness, I've got a record for them and would like a beer.
But that's fine. Every once and a while it pays to be brought back down like that. That's when it becomes time focus on everything else. Media. Culture. History. Politics. Information. Information. In. For. Mation.
There's books to be read. Stacks of them, prose and comic alike. David Eggers doing the Lost Boys. Chuck Palahniuk doing a faux oral-biography. Another, truer Oral-Bio on the legend, Hunter S. Thompson. Nothing has ever been truer than HST. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Get through these and buy some more.
Comics. So many comics. Doug TenNapel's awkward, thick lines forming his wild imagination. A phone book of Tom Beland. A smattering of First-Second and Top Shelf. Always the goods. And some "retro". A run of New Teen Titans literally as long as my arm. A new stack of floppies every week. Where do we find the time?
Movies. NetFlix, bringing me dozens of flicks I missed the past year despite making over fifty trips to the Loews. Mostly Indie, but also some classics. Summer Blockbusters galore, thanks to the comic book industry. Hulk was the most recent with almost a dozen weeks straight of something cool or at least humorous looking coming from here out. Makes me almost wish I knew what a Friday night off was like.
Music. Concerts keep on coming in. Alkaline Trio in under two weeks. The Gutter Twins next month. NOFX and New Found Glory coming to the Burgh this fall. Fuck I wish the Warped Tour hadn't gone to shit. New discs by the Briggs, the Trio, and Less Than fucking Jake all in the next month. Still to comes in '08 by NFG, Bouncing Souls, Rancid, Ryan's Hope, Rise Against, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, maybe even Madcap and so on. I think I just filled the cup...
Politics. We have a race now. One man is preaching Hope and Chance (we'll see). The other is fighting a war on senility (Patton wept). We fuck this up and we at least we'll be able to tell our children (well, your children. The only "offspring" I want is the 18 year old Brazilian gal I plan on "adopting" when I hit nearer my 40's) that we were there for the death of an Empire. There's research to be done. Candidates to be evaluated. Judged. Scrutinized. Will you be our guy (or gal, I'm no sexist)? Or will I be sharpening my blades to crucify you with later? There's people to feed, homes to build, jobs and industries to bring back home, and soldiers that need to see their families again.
DON'T. FUCK. THIS. UP!!
Productivity. There's reviews to be written. Comics do come out every week you know (thank god). Interviews need conducted (why they come to me, I don't fucking know, but they do and I like to help out when I can). Maybe even some scripting to be done. Who knows? I still think I suck, but might as well try to not. Body needs work. Muscles are getting to where I want them, now it's time to see those abs better. Sprinting needs to be done. Gains need to be pained. Let's get that body fat %age down and try and snag a tan while we're at it shall we? Job is bringing me down again, let's work on that too. Boss is a lazy fucking loud-mouth, maybe we should go some place where he's not. It's a start. Hop to.
Might be time for another tattoo, but I really have an eye on a Flat Panel by summer's end. Hrms...
There's a start. A guideline. Let's see if it holds. Five hours of sleep now, followed up by 18 hours of exercise, work, the written word and some video gaming glory. Again I say: Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride.
Cheers... |
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| They |
[May. 29th, 2008|08:45 pm] |
Has anyone else noticed just how much "they" get brought up? You know "they". Those guys. Them. They did that thing that you liked, or hated. They're casting Captain America as we speak. Or they're choosing who gets killed off in the next issue of FINAL CRISIS or whatever. Or they're giving the green light for another season of your favorite new show. You know who I'm talking about. Or do we?...
See, I've just recently found it kind of funny how much of our "lives", you know, our recreational sides are spent talking about "they". What direction they're going with our comics, what remnants of our childhoods they're resurrecting in motion picture form, or even what laws they're trying to pass. All these "invisible" people getting so much of our breaths as we discuss amongst ourselves what they're doing and how it affects us, and yet we probably haven't met a one of them. Hell, we probably can't even call them out of a lineup if they were in front of us. Really, does anyone else find this kind of funny?
Editors, producers, writers, musicians, artists, senators, colorists, republicans, democrats, directors... creators and those guys behind the creators, all in their magical little lands, making the world go round in their own little or big ways. We talk about them so much. We praise them for their creativity when it amuses us, we damn them for wasting our time when they fail. We curse them when they cost us money, we begrudgingly nod approval when they send us $600 checks. We call them geniuses, we call them hacks, we say they're somewhere in between. Some we don't even talk about at all because they're just "little guys" in their own right, but they make the process happen with their own contributions so we throw them in the overall use of the term, but we have no idea who they are unless you sit all the way through the credits.
Who are all these people? What do they do in their free time? Do they think about the next project? Do they go out on the porch to enjoy a cold beverage and the sunset like us? Do they stand around their own water coolers talking about something a fellow creator or man of power did before they go and try to either outdo that person, or borrow from them? What do we have to do to become one of them?
Do we even want to? Seems like a lot of pressure in some of these cases. Even for someone as "lowly" as a comic book writer. People can be fickle; I should know, I'm a person too sometimes.
It's something to think about isn't it? Well, maybe later it will be. The season finale of LOST is coming on. I want to see what kind of shenanigans they pull out next...
Cheers... |
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| Repulsor Rays and Dead Hookers |
[May. 5th, 2008|02:22 am] |
Just two of the things I got to combine this past weekend in between bits of "let's see how much we can pile on Joe before he finally untaps his latent ability to kill people with his mind".
Fuck how I wish I could kill with my mind.
Anyways, yes, I did get to entertain myself with both a viewing of Iron Man this weekend, and some immersing of myself in the Next Gen version of Grand Theft Auto. Both very awesome, both something I'm looking forward to doing again soon when I have the free time, if I have the free time (of course, I guess I could GTAing right now instead of doing this nonsense, but eh, bonus Hockey is on the teley. Speaking of which, GO PENS! I hope all the Flyers and their mothers die of monkey AIDS).
To start with GTA since it came first, I can say that I'm really quite enjoying the game. I've only logged about a dozen hours onto it so far, but this thing is so overwhelming I can't tell if I want to just keep going in small doses so I don't completely freak out trying to do everything, or if I indeed want to freak the fuck out and go on a 14 hour drug running and hooker killing binge. I mean, when the opportunity to commit homicide on our street walkers presents itself, digital or otherwise, you take it. They have no souls and it's your right as one with that otherwordly essence to remove them from society, get me?
.... moving on.
But as far as the game goes, I think this is definitely going to be the best installment by the time the story starts to resolve and I can fully judge it. Niko is a great character, all the other players are equally endearing from who I've encountered so far, and the city is so fucking vibrant it's intoxicating. I'm much more interested in exploring its streets and alleyways than I am the Steel City I reside in.
Gameplay-wise though, I'm not so excited about a couple things which definitely radiate enough to immediately dismiss this as a "perfect" game like so many mags and sites with their 10 out of 10's and whatnot would, or at least should, imply. For one, the targeting system to me still seems pretty clunky. It locks on hard enough, but even though it's supposed to be a simple push of the joystick towards the next target that doesn't always happen until you're exerting a large amount of effort to make it do so. And free-aiming tends to be a tussle with the controller as well from my experience. The new driving physics too I think are a bit off. Oh, I know they deliberately went with more of a "rag doll" engine to make it all the more awesomer when you completely send a pedestrian flying over your hood, and sometimes even Niko, but the constant skid outs the cars do, and the sad ease with which they can and will flip while on the run is infuriating. I mean, overall this doesn't completely ruin the gameplay, but it knocks it down a bit enough to make me not really even want to do missions and settle with learning this fucking massive city (of which I know my way around maybe 10% of it so far. Sheesh).
All in all, a 9 out of 10 for the characters, story, and the glorious amounts of chaos within. Maybe a 9.2 for giving the option to select a price range for the services all those walking pieces of crushed self-esteem that wander the streets of LC offer.
And on to more comic booky pursuits, I did indeed dig the hell out of Iron Man. Pretty much everything you'd want out of a superhero flick and a summer blockbuster. I'd say from those aspects I like this just as much as I do Batman Begins with a slight edge to BB because I thought it was executed better technically. What I mean is that I think Iron Man had maybe some pacing issues, especially towards the end as it rushed to get out the big bag for the final showdown and whatnot. But Downey Jr. was the fucking mans, just like Bale in the Batsuit. Those two are easily the best castings ever done in comic book films.
The action was great for the most part too, except again that last battle seemed rushed and a little bit of some good old "Robot" smashing. Of course you want to see Stark win using his brains, but two minutes of car tossing, repulsor raying smashy smash is not enough to get you going. But a good origin retelling, a great build up of all the supporting cast, and that Cup Filling moment after the credits made the inner fanboy that I typically leave beaten and locked up deep down in side me running around his cage in ecstatic glee. Of course that means it's time to drown the uppity fuck in Indie comics to get that out of the system, but for now I'll let him have his moment.
I guess there's more Bonus Hockey to be played, so maybe I'll do all that up there now with some QUEEN & COUNTRY as I multi-task. Lord knows it's the only fucking way I'm going to get any geek shit done this next month. I gotta find a way to read comics and kill hookers at the same time. I wonder if they're sturdy enough to cover someone's face and suffocate them with... hrms...
Jack Thompson wept.
Cheers... |
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| Do you ever catch yourself... |
[Apr. 23rd, 2008|01:40 am] |
Caught in a repetition? Not so much with how each day unfolds. I understand the basic "Get up, have breakfast, go to work..." blab blah blahsense, I'm speaking more about how we speak and act. The banal stuff. The same jokes we repeat until they're not funny anymore, but occasionally still are so we keep with them. The same greetings, the same little clever responses to the same questions people ask us day in and day out.
"How are you doing?"
- Oh, I'm here.
"What's going on?"
- Oh, y'know. Another day in paradise.
And if someone actually has the gall to say "Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays" you have my permission to decapitate them with a shovel. But still, you get my meaning right? It's so easy to fall into a routine. Even when you think you're being witty or clever, you're still probably reciting bits that either someone else popularized via the old cathode-tube box or some movie or song, or you have that little piece of you, that little thing you invented all so long ago and that you keep on keeping on with it no matter how little a response it gets anymore because, let's face it, no one is really listening to you anyway after a while because they generally know what to expect by now it's so easy to fall into a bit of complacency.
Have you ever tried to get out?
Easy to fall into, hard to get out. Like a Tiger Pit in a rain storm. It's so easy to become set in your ways, even when you blatantly are trying not to. What you eat, how you dress, little habits like what order you do the morning three S's in and so on, and we're just talking simple every day things like that.
What about what you read, or watch, or listen to? See where I'm going now? I said I wanted this blog to be mostly about media and that didn't I? Weren't you paying attention?
Of course not, no one reads this bloody thing. But the point still remains. Everything becomes a routine at some point. Whether we snap ourselves out of it or not is up to us. And as simple as it sounds it really is a dedicated effort because we humans more than ever tend to get easily distracted. There's just so much stuff out there, it's overwhelming, and thus the idea of falling into a comfort zone becomes much more reliable proposition, and how our eyes, ears, and brains can become much more tuned to stuff a little on the generic side. Sure, sometimes something genuinely original, or most likely unique, will come our way and we'll embrace it, but for the most part is seems these kinds of ideas or creations get passed over for something more familiar. Something safer.
I've always wondered what happens when, how, or if a creator, a writer, a musician whatever realizes they too are in this zone. For I like many am just a common lay person, as uninspiring as the next person as I'm showing right now with such riveting prose, and I wonder how the minds of those that we look to for our entertainment and our catchy phrases. Thing is, like I said it's so hard to be original as is, I've noticed that a lot of these artists tend to just take somewhat familiar archetypes and genres and just perform the shit out of them. There's a lot to be said for something familiar yet FRESH. Execution is always key, though as I'm noticing you can always keep a good sized audience enthralled with just something just plain catchy.
To bring this to comic books, which again is really what I'm trying to talk about here, I think that's how you have an industry in the state that it is. That's how you get certain books selling at obscene quantities definitely not in proportion to the quality therein. But they're safe. They're familiar. We know the characters, we know what to expect. You know what you're getting with a Spider-Man book. Superman. Batman. Not even talking superheroes (though obviously that's where this diatribe is mostly going to make its point) look at something like the top selling Dark Horse book, Buffy. Or even FABLES from Vertigo. Sure, the storytelling might be new and working on a larger scale than we've seen in comics since maybe even the SANDMAN was in print, but it's still a book about characters we grew up reading about, or more apt being read to about as we were tucked in at night.
Why is there an X-FORCE book selling in the Top 20 considering the memories of the 90's it should be invoking? The Top 20 is your basic assortment of Batman, X-Men, Superman, Spider-Man etc titles, some of which may in fact have a quality score justifying its placement sure, but most likely not. "Run of the mill" I think is too strong a term here, but "Complacently average" I think does the trick. Why don't people even know FEAR AGENT exists? Why did a mini-series written by the front man for arguably the most popular band on the planet (THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY and MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE respectively) get outsold by something like 70+ books a month when it was rolling? Sure, you've got your SCOTT PILGRIM catching on like wildfire, but why does a book from the same company like WASTELAND struggle to find new readers?
And it's not like any of those books I just mentioned are terribly original, but they are unique in a medium lopsidedly dominated by one particular genre. But even books wholeheartedly in that genre tend to get overlooked simply because they lack familiarity. THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY doesn't have Spider-Man. THE ORDER didn't have Wolverine. GODLAND doesn't sport the Fantastic Four and so on. Instead of finding books like these, we just instead have a readership that buys what they buy, reads what they read, and bitches about half of all of it, yet continues to support it with their dollar.
Complacency.
I just don't get it, and yet I too tend to fall prey to it. I like teh punk rock. Apparently, I really like teh punk rock because it's a huge percentage of my 5000 songs on my iPod. But I catch myself enough I think to branch out and find new stuff. To find some Folk music Rocky Votolato style. To sample some random Metalcore like Bullet For My Valentine. To hear the odd instrumental sounds of Battles. But is it enough?
Well, is it? How much do you really care about your music? Your movies? Your comics? What do you plan to do about it, because I would genuinely like some new pursuits.
And while I think upon this, I believe it's time for some major Pwnage Warhawk style. Because I am a simple man, with simple needs, and a desire to blow things to fucking Valhalla and back with my trust Tank and Proximity Mines.
Cheers... |
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| The Main Event...s |
[Apr. 2nd, 2008|03:38 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Crash Romeo - "Gave Me The Clap" | ] |
It's that time of year again. With warmth flowing a little more freely in the air, the first of the "summer" blockbusters is bearing down on us, and in comics apparently the Cylons... er, I mean Skulls are invading and someone is having a Crisis of sort. Possibly a mid-life one judging by the creative and editorial staffs involved in all of these things.
I kid because I love... mostly.
So yes, it's "Event" time again. You know, events. Those things that everyone time and time again, no matter how the previous one turns out they always end up coming back for more despite some claims to the contrary? (because, let's face it, with the ungodly amount of hype surrounding each and every one of these things, it's rare you're going to find someone not disappointed on some level). But y'know, as much as I've grown cynical about highly hyped books and kind of stopped caring about Big Two books in general, I understand where the excitement comes from, I really do. The main complaint with your more mainstream comic books, and more to the point your "Franchise" books is that they really for the most part run pretty stagnant. That's kind of how they have to run. These books need to be around for years and you can't really change them and the characters that run them too much. Status quo and all that. But the landscape around them, now that's something that you can fuck with, and it's not much but at least it's a change right?
And that's where I think all the excitement comes from. Sure, at the end of the day, I think most of us would admit that not necessarily much changes from the fallout of a big event. I'm not even being pessimistic here, I'm just being truthful. Short term, sure, you'll have some deaths to reconcile, or maybe you'll get a "Fifty-state Initiative" or something to tide fans over after the wake of something, but the main point of an event to generate excitement in the here and now and lay groundwork for the next one. Keep the fans on their feet and, again, at least try and keep the universe these characters share fresh because, like I said, if anything is going to change, that's really your best bet there.
Breaking down both of the ones we're now confronted with personally, Marvel's "Secret Invasion" and DC's "Final Crisis" I can say that I am filled with both "cautious optimism" for one and complete fucking "meh" for the other. Even though another staple of geek culture in the form of Battlestar Galactica has been running the tried and true "Who can you trust?" type storyline for a couple years now, I can say that I'm more interested in SI than FC by a mile right now. Mainly I think the reasoning for this is that by the very nature of this kind of "Body Snatchers" story, you're invoking a nice base of intrigue with an emphasis on the characters, which is key given when I just said about the status quo earlier. Important characters may not die in these things, but having them not being themselves for several years of storylines now is something that can be done, and occasionally be ballsy even though it is a cheap trick at the end of the day.
As for Teh Final Crisis!... I don't think I could give less of a fuck if I tried. The build up has been, at the least, terrible. There's many other adjectives I could use to describe it, but that one sums it up rather nicely. I may not be the biggest fan of Invasion's main build titles, Brian Michael Bendis' Avengers titles. I think they're both kind of lacking in the plot department, and I think he gets too carried away with his dialogue for his own good these days, but at least he has done very well with developing characters that for the most part have been nothing but B and C listers since their creation. So far the main build book for FC, Countdown to Final Crisis, has... well, let me put it this way: I was only reading it off the shelf, and after seven issues of it, I couldn't even be bothered to do that anymore. That's right, a book so good I couldn't even fucking stomach reading it for free. Between this, the fact that the last Crisis event was a pretty solid blah-fest in the end, and for the most part I would say most (most, not all) of the DCU line is being ravaged by mediocrity as of now, the only reason I'll even read this mini will be just so I know what is happening, and because in Grant I trust. If anyone is going to turn this mess around, I guess it would be him...
So there all that is. Again, I'm not really expecting either of these to be the "be all" but that comes with the territory, because they're not going to be. If anything, I think that's kind of why I tend to get down on events. Sure, I've been burned before on them, but I've rectified that by simply deciding I'm just not actually going to buy them anymore. I'll read 'em yeah, but my money has so many better books to be buying. But that right there is my point.
All the hype, all the hyperbole, all the rampant fanboyism, it just turns me off if I don't actively avoid it. "This is going to be the greatest comic ever!!!" No, no it really probably isn't going to be Jocko. At all. But what it hopefully is going to be, and what I these kinds of books should be aiming for, is the equivalent of those Summer Blockbusters I mentioned way up in the header. Something that will stimulate the part of my brain that seeks just entertainment, that won't insult my intelligence but doesn't try to over-stimulate it, and that occasionally pulls a twist out of its ass that makes me give a kudos and maybe even generally has a ramification of some sort.
One can only hope... but that's it.
These things aren't going to set a new standard for quality and art in comics. They're not going to become "Watchmen's" and re-invent the wheel so to speak. And I'll still be able to point to the FABLES and EX MACHINA's and SCALPED's and CRIMINAL's and FELL's and on and on's of the industry as far superior products from a quality and "art" standpoint (And if anyone out there actually thinks these statements aren't true, well, then please don't ever try and talk to me without wearing some sort of head guard or protective cup) but that still doesn't mean they can't be enjoyable and deep down, I hope that does happen because frankly, I'm sick of shitty comics dominating charts. I really am. And if these are what are going to sell, then by god at least let them have some substance to them.
I guess I'll find out in about 11 hours if this little miracle actually occurs from the first issue in our Dopplegander Menagerie. Let's go Wonder Jew!
Cheers... |
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| Oh god, the horror. |
[Mar. 30th, 2008|02:20 am] |
THE HORROR!!
Quick, I need Filthy Assistants, a Bowel Disruptor, and a bucket of moist towelettes STAT!!
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| I know I wasn't the most fanatical of followers... |
[Feb. 20th, 2008|02:02 am] |
Simply because I pretty much wasn't alive when he was at his most relevant, but here I am, sitting and wondering, and I can't help but feel like the world is a generally less exciting place without Hunter S. Thompson in it.
R.I.P. H.S.T.
I made this Bourbon and Coke just for you...
Cheers... |
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