Happy Fourth of July

Here's a quick Fourth of July treat:

The cover to Captain Marvel Jr. #9

I gotta say, I picked up the Shazam Family Archives Vol. 1 from the library and was astounded with how great the art was. I'd never seen Mac Raboy's art before and it's easily the most "modern" work I'd ever seen in a Golden Age book. He would be an A-list artist today. On top of that there's a scene where Cap Jr. beats up a squadron of Japanese Zeroes and then, beats on the pilots as they parachute to "safety". Now that's hard.

Independent's Day

Rising to Robert & Jake's challenge, I decided to pick up something new I'd been thinking about grabbing for a while now. That is the Annihilation Vol. 1 Hardcover. For those not in the loop, Annihilation was an event that Marvel put together last year to showcase their "space" characters that hadn't been used in quite some time. Though this could have been just a thrown-off "let's just make sure the trademark's are renewed" mini-series, they really did something special here. Maybe since they were dealing with mostly C & D-list characters, it allowed far more lee-way in how they were ultimately dealt with. Plus, they didn't have to cross into any currently on-going series so they didn't have to worry about continuity problems.

The way it was marketed was with a Prologue special, followed by four mini-series that set up what the main heroes are up to, and then capped by the blow-out six-issue series. Before any of this there was the Drax the Destroyer mini-series that seemed to come out of nowhere a few years ago. Written by Keith Giffen with art by Mitch Brewister, I had picked up the original trade of this book and found it to be very good. Drax, most recently had been portrayed as a Lobo-esque murderer for hire and all around bad-ass, was on board a prison ship which crash landed on Earth near a remote Alaskan village. From there, it's essentially Drax versus his fellow inmates and he is befriended/annoyed by a young outcast girl. It's good, but not great and after it was over I thought it would've made a great pitch for a movie since none of the main marvel characters are in it or even referenced more than one line of dialogue in the second issue. I can't imagine it sold too well, so I forgot about it until Drax poped up again in the Annihilation Prologue issue. That one-shot sets up the current status. A mysterious force has come out of the crunch (the place where our universe borders with others) and is razing every system it comes in contact with. The Nova Corps. (essentially Marvel's Green Lanterns) is assembled and the force (or The Annihilation Wave as it is referred to) hits the Nova's home-world of Xandar. The planet and the Corps. are destroyed except for the last Nova Centurion, who is of course the Nova of Earth, Richard Ryder. I've long had a love for Nova, pretty much because he one of the few "new" characters from the 70's that I was able to get in on from the ground floor with. It's funny to hear him say that he's been a Nova for 5 years, when I've been reading his books for close to 30. Fuck, am I old. Anyhoo, the four issues of the Nova series are the best in this book and suffice to say there's a lot of outer-space blowing shit up with a little Luke Skywalker-esque whining mixed in, but not too much.

Overall, this book gets a hearty thumbs up and I can't wait to pick up the second volume as soon as I'm next flush.

So celebrate the Independence of our Country by picking something new and talking about it!

(Image stolen from Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge)

Friday Night Fights

Sweet $%*&$^# Christmas!

Bahlactus shows how it's done.

What I Got - 6.27.07

Yipes, it's been a long week, and I was on vacation for most of it. At least the Cubs are on a winning streak. While I didn't think there was going to be much this week, it actually turned out pretty great on the comics front, here's what I got:

Immortal Iron Fist #6

Holy shit is this great. On the first page alone there's a reference to the "Lost Drinking Games of Me-lao" and later we get Luke Cage screaming "Sweet #@$%&*@ Christmas" as he caves in a Hyrda-Goon's jaw. If this was a movie, every single college-age male would own the DVD and throw it on when they got home from the bars at 4am and watch it with the sound off so they could quote the dialogue. Brubaker & Fraction are doing the Lord's work.






Sinestro Corps Special #1

I've always liked Sinestro as a villain. Probably because he was the only member of the Legion of Doom from the Superfriends that seemed remotely cool. Even with that, I wasn't going to pick up this special until I read the freaking out on Kevin's forum about it. They were right. This is easily the best set up for an event that the big two have done in a while. It feels epic and better than that, it feels perfectly logical. The villains joining together have a good common cause and are all very threatening. Also, they manage to make what they do to Kyle Rayner seem like more than the usual "Hey, we need to torture someone? Let's use Rayner, no one likes him anyway" excuse. It seems like a good idea. Now mind you, things that "seem" like good ideas can go to shit from time to time, but at least they're off to a good start.

X-Factor #21

Damn, in any other week, I would've probably considered this the book of the week. But, unfortunately for this forgotten X-title, it's sits behind the above two. Irregardless, the "X-Cell" arc comes to a pretty satisfying conclusion. Some have remarked that the art has been pretty bad lately, but I kind of enjoy this sketchy style, though some of the body-language seems a bit off sometimes.

Not too much to say, essentially, everyone figures out that Quicksilver is a dick and gets pissed at him, and we see some 90's style mutants get written out, which I applaud. I can only hope that Peter David can keep his book at this high of quality through the next X-debacle that's starting soon. I have faith since he managed to keep the wheels on the ground through House of M and Civil War. I just wish they would stop fucking with him and allow him to tell his own story with these characters.

Criminal #7

Hmmmmm....after the great first issue of this arc, this issue comes off as mostly set-up. We do get to see what happened to Leo after the last issue of the Coward story, so that's nice. But this is mostly about putting the pieces into place for the big heist and laying some back story for Tracey.

That's not to say it isn't very, very good, but not a lot happens.

So that's what I got, now onto some cards tomorrow night, yay, free money from my friends!

Tag - I'm It!

Crap! Calvin tagged me with a meme. Granted, it's always cool when you get accepted into the cool-kids group that is the comics bloggohedron, but shit, all of my other internet friends have been tagged already. Anyway, here's what it means:

- I have to post these rules before I start.
- I have to tell you eight facts about myself.
- I have to tag eight people to participate.
- I'm supposed to leave a comment telling them they're tagged and to read my blog.
- And the tagees need to write their own blog post, telling us eight things and posting the rules.

All right, here are eight facts (though, not necessarily truths):

1. I have two sons, ages 4 and 18 months and they awesome. Actually, if you look up "awesome" in a dictionary, you will see their manically-grinning faces staring at you. THIS IS A FACT.

2. I was an all-state swimmer in High School. Though this is a fact, no one will ever believe me since the very thought of this body in a speedo is enough to cause blindness in lab mice. That and I can't dive worth a shit.

3. I enjoy watching crappy movies, not because I think they're good, but because I derive enjoyment from them being awful.

4. I cry at Roy Batty's death in Blade Runner and when the Millennium Falcon comes flying out of the sun in Star Wars as well. EVERY DAMN TIME.

5. All of my friends from college call me "Skip". There is no reason behind this nick-name other than the fact that there were four "Jason's" on my dorm-wing my freshmen year and they needed to give me a nick-name.

6. Zombies scare the living shit out of me. No other movie monster causes the same visceral reaction in me. Just blogging about this will probably give me nightmares.

7. I am a Cubs fan. I don't really know why since I grew up on the South-Side of Chicago and the sadness to joy ratio my fandom has brought me is sorely out of whack.

8. I hate the song "God Bless America". Don't get me wrong. I love America, I'm not even against God blessing it (as long as He blesses the countries that need it more as well; see pretty much the only good part of Chris Rock's Head of State), the song is just so cloying and arrogant. I'd much prefer that they sing "This Land is Your Land" at baseball games instead, or, do as the Cubs do and just sing a song that's actually about baseball. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm a huge Liberal.

So there you go, I guess I'm supposed to tag some other people, but it looks everyone else already got it. Shit, I'll get Spencer since it looks like he's hasn't got hit yet. Hey, 1 out of 8 ain't bad, is it?

Sticky: High Traffic Weekend

Hey all, just wanted to tell you that, between getting tagged by Calvin, reading an ass-load of comics this week, fighting, and in general finding interesting things on the web, we will be seeing an unprecedented amount of posting to this here blog this weekend. So feel free to keep scrolling down as you come by, because there's a lot of new stuff here.....and this means I'll probably get too busy to post anything else for a few weeks.

What's that, David from Phonogram, you want to say something?



Yes David, we all do....

Friday Night Fights!

Figured I'd get in on this eventually. And now a public service announcement:

Always Remember

Click to fight-size

There are places where even Greg Dulli can't protect you, gents.

Thank Bahlactus for giving us meaning.

Phonogram - Rue Britannia

I went to college from 92-96 and after graduation spent 6 months in London at an internship, so I was right in the wheel-house to enjoy the Bit-Pop experience, and I did. The music for the most part was very, very good and drama involved was amusing, especially because I never really cared about a lot of the personalities involved. Who cares if Blur & Oasis hated each other and were constantly playing little one-upsmanship games on the charts and in the press. I liked both of their music, so I didn't care to choose sides, aren't rock/pop stars supposed to be assholes anyway? They certainly thought so. And as for Richie Manic, well, I never really thought their stuff was much to write home about so, his disappearance certainly had no effect upon me.

ANYWAY, to the review at hand. Phonogram is essentially an " alternate world" take on the after-effects of brit-pop. In the world of the book, music is magic and in England, brit-pop was quite the revolution. David Kohl is our hero, or at least protagonist, since he's quite a dick. He's one of the last phonomancer's (ie. magicians) whose being is tied to brit-pop. After wandering into the wrong club he's forced into looking into what's going on with Britannia, the dead goddess of brit-pop. It seems someone's fucking around with her and it's up to him to see what the heck is going on. It's in his best interest since his "aspect" is still tied to hers, so if she is changed, so will his entire personality (as noted by his growing enjoyment of late-period-crap brit-pop bands).

The book reads pretty much like a music centered arc of Hellblazer, and after thinking about it, David Kohl isn't far from John Constantine in character traits. He's the asshole hero who is still wracked with guilt about all of the people he's fucked over (but he still keeps fucking people over because it's his nature) and while doing a job, he realizes that he's not quite as big of a dick as he thought. The only thing missing was him shooting the audience the finger over his shoulder in the last panel (and let's face it, if they'd done that in the Constantine movie, we'd all have liked it a lot better).

Overall, it's very well-written and though you don't have to know the music to enjoy it, the kibble for brit-pop lovers out there is very nice.

A few last things about the trade collection of this series. First, they do provide a fun reference section in the back, giving info about each of the bands referenced and what some of the references in the book are, it also displays the jaundiced opinions of the authors, which are quite funny. Lastly, unfortunately, they did not reprint the original covers in color, as they were really cool. Each one was an homage to a brit-pop record. Here's my favorite:



I realize that Black Grape really wasn't that good, but they played an incredible show at the Metro my senior year in college and that first album always takes me back.

Recommended Related Reading/Listening/Watching:

The Brit Box: This just announced box from Rhino sounds really good. It pretty much gives you the history of brit-pop from it's rise out of Shoegazing to its inglorious end at the hands of Northern Uproar and Kula Shaker. Yes, there are some omissions and they do include some of the unfortunate later bands, but if you're going to tell the history, you need the good with the bad. I'll be picking it up as I have a quasi-OCD love of greatest hits packages and compilations anyway.

24 Hour Party People: Though this movie isn't about brit-pop per se (it documents the Madchester scene of the 80's), it is crucial for understanding a lot of the insanity that was British music in the late-20th century. That, and it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Britpop - Live Forever: I had already gone over this BBC America documentary on Brit-pop here, but I felt I needed to mention it again. Though it is very self-important (but so was all of brit-pop), it's a very interesting document of the period and there's a lot of cool videos excerpted and will make you run to YouTube to relive the past.

Phongram #1: The first issue is available on-line at Image Comics's web site. Check it out!

I (Heart) Roger Ebert

I have long loved Roger Ebert not just as a movie reviewer, but as a writer in general. During his review for "A Mighty Heart" this week, he uncorked this quote:

The Americans who complain about "negative" news are the ideological cousins of those who shoot at CNN crews. The news is the news, good or bad, and those who resent being informed of it are pitiful. More Americans are well-informed about current sports and auto-racing statistics, I sometimes think, than anything else.

I realize that part of my enjoyment of his writing is that his politics so often mirror my own, but when he so dead-on articulates something I believe to be the truth, I feel I have to share.

Anyway, I'm done...enjoy your weekend!

What I Got - 6.20.07

Hey there, been up to a lot of late. Saw Changes, The Walkmen and Smoking Popes at the Taste of Randolph street last week and saw Patton Oswalt and Janeane Garofalo last night. Nothing like good live rock and funny, I must say. I'll complete the trifecta of live-entertainment by catching some Cubs-Sox action on Sunday. Too bad I have to go to the strip-mall that is US Cellular Field. SHIT, Sammy Sosa JUST hit his 600th. I don't really hate the guy that much, but still, couldn't he have waited until the Cubs were out of town? I will say, dude's lost a lot of weight since he was on the Cubs....just sayin'.

Anyway, it was a pretty heavy week, so here's what I got:

Nova #3

I know this came out a few weeks ago, but I just remembered to pick it up. Nova continues trying to figure out what the hell has happened to Earth while he was out saving the rest of the Galaxy. Pretty much he seems to sum up the feelings of a lot of Marvel fans currently, "wait a minute, The Thunderbolts, a bunch of sociopaths, are heroes; Speedball is now some type of S&M hero and Captain America was the bad guy for standing up for Civil Liberties?" I totally understand why he decided to ditch this dirt ball for the rest of the cosmos. Could be worse though, George W. Bush could be president there too, but that just might be too much for the readers to swallow.




Captain America #27

Brubaker's excellent book gets back on schedule now that he doesn't have to wait for Marvel's event machinery to allow him to tell his story. It's going to be interesting how long this book can keep going now that the title character is dead. I really don't care as long as the book is this good.

It looks that the story line will now follow Winter Soldier/Bucky as he tries to get revenge for Cap on Tony Stark. We also get treated to some nice retro-active continuity as it appears that not only did WS help train Black Widow in her Soviet spy days, but they had a little thing going. I thought they had previously ret-conned BW's cold war days out of her backstory, making her more of a glasnost-era Russian, but apparently she's also led a much longer life than it looks. Once again, the story is told well enough that I'll allow it (you know, if they ask). Irregardless, this book is great and I think it may go down as the best take on Cap since Kirby.

Brave & The Bold #4

More old-school super-heroing from Mark Waid and George Perez. While this was another good issue, it felt like it slowed down the momentum as we get Lobo and Supergirl bickering their way across the cosmos as she buys a ride from him to Rann and, on the way, they run into Destiny who explains to them the macguffin they're chasing.

While this did slow down the so-far break-neck pacing of the series, we did get some very funny characterization of Supergirl, who is a character I've never really warmed up to, but here she's fun (and gets a great dig in on Lobo).

We do get some fun pages dealing with Cyborg-Batman, looks like we'll have to wait 'till next issue to get some more on that.

The Spirit #7
Note: This is not the cover for this month

So The Spirit hit its Summer Fun Special and Darwyn Cooke takes a break. Instead we are given three short stories that are all good, but I think only one really rose above to be really good. Oddly enough, it was the story by the team whose work I didn't think I'd like, Jimmy Palmiotti & Jordi Bernet. Their story is essentially an extended chase scene of The Spirit running down a small-time thief through a tenement building (which echos Will Eisner's Dropsie Avenue tenements). All of the residents of the building have their own hard-luck story and the Spirit gives each of them a solution without even realizing it. We do get some cheesecake, but hey, it is a Summer Special.

The other two stories, by Walter Simonson & Chris Sprouse and Kyler Baker are nice and fun, but they both seem to lose a little something by being so short. Baker's especially seems to want to force a 22-page story into his 7 or 8. It just doesn't work, hey DC, give the guy a whole issue for chrissakes, he'd be great. The other thing about Baker's story was that he used a scratchier linework more than his normal more cartoony look, and while that may be closer to Eisner's work, I would've liked to see the cartoony style on the Spirit. But that's my damage. Irregardless, good stuff all-around, let's just hope Cooke used the month to re-charge his batteries and get back to the excellence of the first four issues of this run.


Marvel Adventures: Avengers Vol. 3

Allright, if you like fun superheroing and you're not reading this book, well, you're hurting yourself. There's so much insanity between the pages of this digest, I can't believe that this is an all-ages book. This volume in particular includes one of the best uses of MODOK in years and the Hulk telling an amorous living planet that Earth "only wants to be friends" while beating on it. Damn is this awesome.

Anyway, this is probably the best volume yet and I really can't say anymore about it before just leading to string of expletives, which just aren't apropos for an all-ages book. Just buy it, and then send Marvel e-mails and letters requesting a "Karl: Inept Agent of AIM" mini-series.

So that's a lot of stuff. I also picked up the Phonogram trade, but hopefully I can get into a more in-depth look at that over the weekend. Have a good one and go Cubs!

What I Got 6.13.07

Woo...it's been how many weeks since I posted at anything resembling a regular rate? Hell, Summer is kicking my ass. Anyway, here's what I got:

World War Hulk #1

I gotta say, this is pretty much exactly what I expected/wanted out of this book. That's a very good thing since Marvel has pretty much underwhelmed for such a long time with their "event" titles.

Basically, the Hulk has a mad-on against the Illuminati (Mr. Fantastic, Iron Man, Black Bolt & Dr. Strange) and he's prepared to destroy the planet to get to them. First up is Black Bolt and Iron Man and neither fares very well. Good times....

Countdown #46

A demon made out of still-born babies!?!?!? I really didn't need to see that and it pretty much killed this pretty good issue for me. Don't know if I'm going to follow through on picking up another issue of this next week. We'll see.

Books I Didn't Pay For

(but I got from the library)

The Professor's Daughter

I really wanted to like this tale of a 3000 year-old mummy falling in love in Victorian England, but there was something missing. Maybe it just felt too rushed, or with it's dry English humor it didn't feel like the story carried the correct "weight" (there's a lot of death in this book). I think what they were trying to go for was something like a Grimm's Fairy Tale.

Overall, there are some very, very funny bits, some beautiful artwork and an overwhelming air of sweetness, but I was just left with the feeling that this was a good book that could've been great.

Clip Show!

The Pips sing an ode to the dashing young man in the Wedding Present t-shirt.

Pic from pitchfork

So after getting sufficiently rocked last night at the Pipettes show (in the rock n' roll way, not the alcoholic way), I'm left a shell of a man after dancing my ass off and rolling into bed at 1:30 am. I'll say this for the girls, if they come to your town, you MUST go see them. They are, quite simply, a perfect pop group and I'll be dumbfounded if they don't blow up huge. Bill and I have already vowed to drag all of our friends to their next show in Chicago.

Anyway, since I am completely spent, here's a lazy post with some YouTube clips that I've enhjoyed recently:

Here's a Bud commercial that Kevin recently posted. While I don't share his opinion of this fine lager from St. Louis, I do share his opinion that this is comedy genius (quasi-NSFW):




I'm going to see Patton Oswalt and Janeane Garofalo in a few weeks (Happy Father's Day to me!). I've come to regard Mr. Oswalt as one of the funniest men in America, here's an amusing appeariance on Conan a few months ago:




And here's 29 seconds of one of the most rocking 80's movies ever (NSFW):




Axe to the balls! Ha!
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I'm starting to catch my second wind, so it's time for:

Bonus Reviews

Black Summer #0

This is a very nice lead-in to Warren Ellis's new Avatar mini-series. Don't let the issue-0 numbering fool you, this is actually a brief first-issue laying out the basic plot fore the series. John Horus (this book's Superman-analogue) walks into the White House briefing room covered in blood. He announces that he's just murdered the President, VP and most of the Cabinet. He believes that the President has lied the country's way into Iraq and specifically sent all of the super-heroes out of the country on 9/11 to allow the attacks to happen. He gives America one day to think about freedom and then begin prepartions for new elections. Come back in August for the shit to hit the fan in issue #1.

I've gotta say, I'm intrigued by this set-up and in his essay in the back of the book, Ellis admits that he's mined this area before in Stormwatch and The Authority and is looking to go in a new direction. Overall, this is great package, 16 pages of story, plus two pages of essay and some sketches and preview art for $.99. It's a great way to pull me into series that I would've otherwise would've skipped.

Coutdown #47

I had read the first two issues of this on mySpace Comics and was unimpressed, since I had nothing else to buy this week, I picked this up on a whim. While I remain slightly unimpressed, I'm interested enough by this to give it two more issues to suck me in before punting to trade (if critical reaction warrants).

In we get a couple of quick hits on the main players, plus the entry of a new one:

-Jimmy Olsen has a wierd dream about the source wall

-Holly (of Batman: YO and Catwoman) returns to Gotham

-Black Adam meets with Mary Marvel and gives her his powers

-The Monitors decide to be dicks about keeping the multiple earths separate

So far the Monitor arc looks to be the most interesting, but the execution seems to be a bit lacking. Check back to see if it picks up!

Positively Giddy

So yeah, I'm going to see The Pipettes tonight and I'm freaking ecstatic. Their perfectly written and executed pop music cuts right through my rough, indie-rock exterior to my true, sappy core. The fact that they're smokin' and English is pure gravy.

I was able to pick up their album on e-music last year, but since they've signed with Interscope in the US, anyone who missed out will have to wait until their album physically drops in July or August. To tide people over, the Your Kisses are Wasted on Me EP just came out and it's very nice. Here's some B-Side action:

The Pipettes - Guess Who Ran Off With the Milkman?

Here's a fun video too:

What I'm Reading

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea

I'd recently heard an interview with the author of this book on NPR and was very intrigued by his trip. Guy Delisle is a French-Canadian animator that went to North Korea in 2001 to supervise the animation of a kid's TV series there. While there he kept a diary and took sketches and they morphed into this book. North Korea is a fascinating country right now because it's people are so insulated from the rest of the world and hear only what their "Glorious Leader" Kim Jong-Il wants to tell them. Every single pop song on their one radio station sings their Leader's praises and they are taught that America will attack them any minute.

Delisle also serves as a great narrator for this story since he doesn't want to offend, but he still wants to challenge all of the bullshit that is slung at him. It's interesting to see how far you can go when you're visiting a dictatorship that desperately wants and needs the money your company is supplying the country. Unfortunately, Deliesle is unable to pry and significant candor out of his contacts, but you're left to wonder if they have any knowledge about how much they're being lied to. At one point Guy takes notice that he hasn't seen anyone in a wheel-chair during his trip and he asks his guide why that is. His guide's answer is simple, there are no handicapped people in North Korea, all children of North Korea are born strong and healthy. I'm afraid of what type of existential crisis this country faces when it's government inevitable collapses and they are exposed to the world that they have been shielded from since 1953?

Is It July 4th YET?

Is it a sign of the apocalypse that I'm getting THIS excited about a Michael Bay film?



If it's that fucking cool on grainy YouTube, imagine it on the big screen.

June Swoon Starts Right on Time

Cub's Baseball, feel the excitement!

Hey Lou! How should I feel about all this?

OK THEN!!!

Friday Rawk!!!

In lieu of actual content, here's some rawk for the weekend:

Maximo Park - Our Velocity

If you like what you hear, DB's got more over at his blog.

Reviews return tomorrow.

Is Ret-Conning Addictive?

So I checked out the New Avengers: The Illuminati #3 preview on Newsarama and there's a great splash page from Secret Wars (a favorite of mine) re-drawn by Jim Cheung (very well, I might add), but then I read the other pages....they've ret-conned the Beyonder into being an Inhuman. WTF??? Why did they do this? It's stupid, and really makes no sense. I'm not going to read this issue, I haven't read the other two, I think they came out in, like 2001 anyway. But it makes me think that they just can't stop ret-conning over at Marvel, they're not even trying to straighten out continuity glitches anymore, they just f---ing around to f--- around.

Do they need help? Is there a twelve-step group formed by the editors of the Clone Saga and Sins Past? Ug, I guess I should just take Spencer's tact and give up, but the stupidity of it all is just galling.

Memorial Day Rawk!

Well, no reviews this week, haven't made it to the shop yet, and frankly, there's really nothing waiting for me there that gets me too excited.

Hope everyone enjoys their Memorial Day weekend. Though July 4th is over a month away, I'm sure my neighbors will celebrate America (and the fine Men & Women of the Armed Forces)this weekend by blowing up a small part of it, so this song is for them:

Voxtrot - Firecracker

_________________________________

In honor of Memorial Day, here's a very beautiful strip by Chris Ware (from the New Yorker).

Elvis & the Beasties?

How the hell did this happen without me knowing about it:



Well, despite not being one of my favorite bands, this just goes to prove that the Beastie Boys are some of the coolest guys around.

Here's a link that explains why this was particularly significant.

I am Ti-Red

Damn, after a weekend that included watching Pan's Labyrinth (good, but man, what a downer), going to a 4-year-old's birthday (not too bad), doing yardwork (boo!), seeing Sloan (yay!) and doing even more yardwork (double boo!) all while getting over a cold, I am f---ing exhausted. Good thing I'm at work today, finally I can rest.

I've been going through my CD's and I found one I really loved back when it came out in 95, here's an appropriate Monday-morning track:

Ride - Sunshine/Nowhere to Run

Couple quick notes on this week:

• The Voxtrot album comes out on Tuesday, go get it. Then, send them an e-mail telling them to hit Chicago again on tour.
• Go see Sloan if they're coming to your town. They really brought it, and they definitely need some new fans, I swear it was all the same people there as the first time I saw them in 1996.
• Jake's back! Finally, my weekly dose of insane Lois Lane re-caps has returned. Good to have you back Jake.
• Help try to save internet radio. A quick note to your Congressman isn't a lot of work, and if internet radio dies, a lot of new and indie artists will lose a way of getting their stuff to the masses.

Weekend Rawk!!!!!

So, another Friday is upon us. As a gift, I present to you 1 minute and 11 seconds of your weekend that is guaranteed to rawk!

Sloan - HFXNSHC

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Bonus:

Sloan - Fading into Obscurity

What I Got 5.16.07

Howdy! Holy crap, I actually got to the shop on a Wednesday. The same Wednesday that both Ultimates AND ASBAR came out, so, after this post I'm going home to prepare for the coming apocalypse. Here's what I got:

Ultimates 2 #13

(In lieu of the cover, I've posted the center spread, it's prettier. Click here to embiggen.)

Let's face it, my views of this book are incredibly skewed by its chronic lateness and the fact that the writer (Mark Millar) has become one of the biggest dicks in comics. It's good, but I don't think it's at the same level as the rest of the series. I think it tries to be two issues in one (the big end-fight & the epilogue) and in doing so, give short-shrift to both stories. The art is fantastic, but the center 8-page gatefold spread is a little too much. I'd much rather have seen Hitch do something like Immonen did in NextWave #11 where he told a fight over several two-page spreads, the one in this issue is just too much for the eye to follow, and from a pure physical sense, it requires a really big table to open it all up.

So overall, it's good, but I don't think it's up to snuff, this weekend, I'm going to re-read the whole darn thing to see how it all comes together, so maybe I'll up my rating on this one.

X-Men: The First Class: Special #1

I haven't been reading Marvel's all-ages X-Men: First Class, but I've really liked Jeff Parker's work on Marvel Adventures: Avengers, so I decided to give this special a shot based upon that and the roll of artists they had lined up. The special is made up of three short stories with the murderers row artistic line-up of Kevin Nowland, Mike Allred & Paul Smith. On top of that, they're all punctuated by comic strips drawn by Colleen Coover, a very nice package (even at $4). All of the stories are fun, if a little light. The best is the last one, place during the classic Claremont run on Uncanny X-Men featuring Cyclops telling a then-young Kitty Pryde a story about his then-lost love Jean Grey. It's a very sweet story and it hits a lot of the right notes for those of us who were reading the book in those days.



Ex Machina #28

Dear Ex Machina,

I'm sorry, but it's me, not you. I just don't seem to care anymore, so I'm dumping your single issues for trades. I really think it's the fact that you've been so good for so long, I really haven't had a chance to miss your goodness. Oh well, we'll always have issues 1-28!

Love,

Jay

X-Factor #19

Didn't get a chance to read this yet, will update tonight.














So that's it, I'll probably throw some music up tomorrow. See you then.

Happy Brithday Studs

Stud Terkel, one of the greatest living Americans, turned 95 yesterday. He practically embodies everything that is and was America. He's also the living embodiment of Chicago. Read Roger Ebert's article about his birthday here. If you haven't read any of his books, here are a few good ones to start out with:

The Good War - His oral history of WWII is completely different from anything you were ever taught in school. It's one of those books that opened up my view of history to it being a living thing, with many, many points of view.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken? - A great selection of interviews dealing with the subject of death and life itself.

My American Century - A selection of interviews from many of his greatest oral histories, this is a great place to start.

Hmmmm....looks like I'm going to the bookstore.

What I Got: 5.9.07

Well, I've gotta say, with the rate of speed I'm getting reviews out, this may become a nostalgia blog before long. What the hell, let's face it, I'm mostly putting stuff up here so I don't have to talk to myself about it. Anyhoo, enjoy some late remarks on last week's books. Hopefully, I'll actually hit the shop on Wednesday this week, so there won't be as big of a delay.

Nova #2

I enjoyed this issue quite a bit, but it suffered from felling like 'half-a-story" since it's continued next month. Richard rider has come home for a quick breather after literally saving the universe. While home, he gets chewed out by his father for having the temerity to be a super-hero and he gets (figuratively) wined & dined by Tony Stark to join up with the government in hunting down his old buddies. Not exactly a vacation. I'll be happy when Nova dumps Earth to get back into space.

Immortal Iron Fist #5

Now this is how to tell a 6 issue story and still make each single issue filling. We get the conclusion of Danny and Orson's battle with Hydra in the subway, and man is it cool. Check out this page that Chris Sims scanned for an example. Wicked cool that is.

We also get a very good Luke Cage and Daughters of the Dragon cameo that'll bring some added drama (and ass-kicking).

The writers of this book are adding some great stuff to the whole Iron Fist mythology. For all of the origin ret-conning that's going on these days, this is a great example on how you can expand the world/history of a given character without hurting what came before.

Cover Girl #1

So I picked this up since I consider the writer an "internet friend". I enjoy his blog and belong to his forum, so I feel pretty bad that I didn't like this book. The premise is that a failing actor saves a mysterious woman on his way home from an audition and instantly becomes a star. Once that happens the men who were trying to kill the mysterious woman, come to kill him. Now his bosses want a bodyguard on him, but one that won't make him look like a wuss to the public (as they're selling him as an action hero) so, enter the title character, a hot-chick bodyguard that doubles as arm-candy.

I have two criticisms here:

1. It's obvious that they want to make fun of hollywood, specifically action movies, but this whole book reads as a pitch for the very type of hollywood action movie it would like to make fun of.

2. The whole idea that having a bodyguard would hurt the image of a star in our society is stupid. Hell, look at rappers, they are pretty much the definition of testosterone gone awry these days, and if they DIDN'T have thirty bodyguards surrounding them at all times, people would think they were less hard.

None of this is to say it's bad, it just wasn't compelling enough to justify $4 from me monthly. Sorry Kevin, I'll still read the next series you write (along with your webcomics), but this one's not working for me.

Comics I Didn't Buy

Countdown #51

I loved, loved 52, so I figured that another weekly from DC would be a prescription for happiness for me. I was wrong. I read the first full issue (and 10 pages of #2) on MySpace and wasn't sucked in. I think the biggest thing is that this series just doesn't have the same draw for me that 52 did. Since the main characters of 52 were some of my favorites, the book had me hooked from Week 1. The other problem with Countdown is that since we're no longer dealing with DC's "missing year", this book will cross-over into other books, and that's a bad thing. The book could very easily turn into a preview of what's happening in other DC books each week, with little or no context to clue people who are only reading Countdown in (see #2's pages with Batman and Karate Kid. If you didn't read JLA you'd be completely lost).

I'll keep checking it out on MySpace as long as they keep posting the issues, but unless there's some significant changes to the story, I'll sit this year out.

Human Giant is Funny

You know, when I saw Tapes N' Tapes at the Pitchfork Festival last summer, I wondered what was up with the intro (as I did not know who Aziz Ansari was). Now it all becomes clear:



Incidentally, Tapes N' Tapes is a very good band, probably not worth murdering over, maybe just maiming.

Also, saw Spidey 3 yesterday, good, not great. If you have slightly lowered expectations, and you liked the other two, you should be happy.

What I Got: 5.2.07

Alright, let's all hope Cap Rider's done for now. Granted, it looks like we might be dealing with a Cap Clone some time in the near future, and that sucks, but hey, Marvel didn't get any of my money this week anyway, so they can suck it.

With that happy thought, let's move on to what I got:

52: Week 52

Great. Wonderful. Perfect. Pick your adjective, because they all pretty much fit. I'm sure if you're looking for it, you could find some fault with the last issue of this year-long weekly series, but I think it came out great. Enormous credit to all who worked on this series (and kudos to DC for giving Steven Wacker a shout-out even though he jumped to Marvel mid-way through). There's not much more to say. The central mystery of the new multi/mega-verse is brought to the fore and Booster Gold has to be the greatest hero never known. I really hope that there's a new Question series and a new series for the Dibney's launching out of this (along with the already announced Booster Gold series). High marks, I can't wait to read this all over again in one sitting.



Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil #3

Another great book, once again Jeff Smith brings us along on a great adventure for Captain Marvel. If there is one fault with this book, it's that I suspect it'll read even better when collected. But it still reads pretty darn near perfect right now.

Astonishing X-Men #21

[Note: This is not the cover I got]

Crap! Marvel did get their $2.99 outta me this week! Oh well, this book is of such great quality and story-telling, you forget the dunderheads at the House of Ideas are publishing it. Not much more to say hear. Great dialogue, some fun action and it all leads up to what I have a feeling will be a pretty great ending to Whedon & Cassaday's run. Too bad it's all over in 3 issues.

Hellboy: Darkness Calls #1

A good start to a new mini from Mignola with Duncan Fegredo on art. Though I'm disappointed that Mignola's moved to just the writer's role on this book (as it was his art that originally drew me to the character), I'm glad that he'll finally be able to get to all of the stories that he's wanted to tell. Fegredo's a good substitute on art as he seems to be a mix between Mignola's and (BPRD's) Guy Davis's styles. I'm glad I hung onto this after I cut BPRD loose.

The story is pretty much a cookie cutter Hellboy story, he hears weird voices in the woods, follows some weirdos into said woods, the weirdos turn out to me monsters, Hellboy says, "Son of a..." and punching commences, rinse, repeat. Let's hope they mix it up a little in the next issue.

Thanks for listening, and be sure to stay in your car while it's moving. We have enough problems with dead, cursed, flaming Captain Americas running around.

Cap Rider....Again

So, my photoshop-fu sucks, but Pachoob and Spencer kept going on about Liefield's Cap Rider, I had to see for myself.

I promise, this is it for this line of discussion. Unless Marvel picks up Spencer's pitch.

Cap's Ghost Ridin'

For Spencer & Pachoob:

GHOST RIDE THE WHIP !!

GHOST RIDE THE WHIP!!!!!

Sorry, I'll try to make it better when I get home to photoshop, for right now, my poor flames courtesy of microsoft paint will have to suffice.

What I Got - 4.25.07

Hey there! Let's get this thing back on track. I don't want people to think I'm a quitter like Spencer (yeah, go on over to his blog and give him crap). Overall, a light week and while nothing was bad, nothing was truly satisfying, so here's what I got:

52: Week 51

Easily, the best of the week, serving both as an epilogue to last week's WWIII and tying up the "space arc". Adam Strange and Buddy Baker get very satisfying conclusions to their travails and Starfire gets the best one-liner of the year leveled at her for her trouble ("Did Roger order a stripper?"). Good stuff all together.

Then there's the lead-in to next week's finale, we see the rebirth of the new Mr. Mind. Kinda cool, until you realize that Mr. Mind's appeal is that he's a cartoony caterpillar with glasses and an old radio hanging around his neck for him to speak through. But now that he's a alien-bat-butterfly-creepy-ass thing, he kinda loses that. I'm still excited to see where this leads.

Amazons Attack #1

Crap. Well, I don't want to say absolute crap, since Pete Woods's art is always welcome, but c'mon DC, can you at least start by re-capping what the hell is supposed to be going on first? I mean, this isn't even number one of this series, from what I understand, everything began in Wonder Woman #8, which I didn't read, and neither did anyone else since you fucked that series up so much. Ug, the worst part is that I'm still going to pick up the next issue to see if it's better. Damn it.

Astro City: The Dark Age: Book Two #3

Dear Mr. Busiek & Mr. Anderson, I love your book, but the whole wait between your oh-so-not-often issues has led me to completely forget what the devil is going on from issue-to-issue so I'm ditching your single issues for trades. Sorry.

For what it's worth, this was a very good issue, I can't wait to read it again in the trade in 2 years.

Bonus DVD Review

Venture Bros. Season 2

I just had to include this. This series is what I always wanted Johnny Quest to be when I was watching it at 3am after coming home from the bars in college. Sample dialogue:

Dean Venture: "Dad, you wrote a fan letter to the Herculoids when you were 10?!"

Hank Venture: "This isn't a fan letter, he calls them hippies for not fighting in Vietnam."

All that, and you get the final battle between David Bowie and Iggy Pop & Klaus Nomi. Awesome.

Have a good one, talk at you in a few.

Friday Rawk!

Hey all, a large contingent of my friends will be attending this Saturday's Ted Leo & the Pharmacists show at the Metro. I'm stuck at home with the boys, unfortuantely, so hopefully it'll be a good time none-the-less. Here's a little bit of what the rest of us are missing:

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Sons of Cain

Pardon the Interruption

Yeah, so it's been a shitty week or so, so I'm skipping last week's reviews. To sum up:

Good: 52, The Spirit (despite this), X-Factor, The Brave & the Bold (best of the week) & Volume 2 of Brubaker & Lark's Daredevil.

Bad: DC's World War III one-shots. Worse than the Planet of the Apes remake.

So, to amuse you and hold you over until this week's review (most likely on Saturday), watch this:



Apparently, they're making an entire special like this. I'll watch.

If you need another smile, check out Spencer's APE sketches. If he didn't live 2000 miles away, and I wasn't so darned lazy, I'd steal them.

Have a good one!

Question: Could OYL Become the New Year One?

I've been thinking about this a lot. Since it's now evident that 52 will not be covering a lot of the major changes that happened during the "missing year" in DC continuity, will we see a rash of OYL mini-series in the coming years? I realize that there's a whole gang of Year One series coming in the next year, but there's a lot of story-telling possibilities in what happened during the missing year. Maybe this will be the focus of up-coming annuals (as is the case in Nightwing and The Outsiders), but I'd really like to see at least a mini focusing on how Gordon and Bullock came back on the force in Gotham City. Maybe if DC can lure Brubaker and Lark back from Marvel..... Well, a guy can dream at least. Any thoughts out there in the blog-o-drome?

FYI...Reviews for last week on Monday, it's been a busy weekend. Have a good one!

What I Got 4.11.07

Hey there, well, it's been a long week, and I have no idea why. Nothing exciting's happened, it's just been long. Irregardless, I'm going to see Iggy & The Stooges on Sunday, so I am a happy man. Now on to the comics:

52: Week 49

The JSA finally gets their shit together and decides to take out Oolong Island, but China's Great 10 have an issue with that, a political issue. This brings the saga of Will Magnus and his fellow mad scientists to a very satisfying close. Will shows why you don't want to take him off of his meds. The art wasn't the greatest and it was a shame that they didn't line up "name" artists for the last four or five issues, but the World War II one-shots next week all have excellent pedigrees, so I won't quibble about that too much. As good as this week was, it's all set up for the blow out next week, so stay tuned!

Fell #8

So Warren Ellis & Ben Templesmith's short-form cop series finally gets another issue out. This isn't such a big deal, since they're all self contained tales, but they're SO DAMN GOOD. Our "hero" gives us a brief tour of the City of Snowton and this seems to be a kick-off for a second "season" of sorts for this title. If you're not reading this, give it a try, hell, it's only $1.99, so you really can't go wrong.

Nova #1

As I said in my pull-list column, I have an unexplainable love for Nova, but this issue makes it worth it. After the Annihilation War (which I didn't read), the Nova Corps (essentially the Green Lantern Corps of the Marvel Universe) has been decimated and all that's left Richard Ryder as the last Nova Centurion. Unfortunately for him, there's a lot of war fall-out to deal with. Since he now contains all of the power of all of the Nova Corps (and the world-mind, which was their database), he's up to the task physically, but maybe not mentally. This issue shows how jumping from extinction-level-event to event can really wear you down. This is a very good set up for a series and the preview of the next issue looks like I'll be happy again next month.

My only real complaint was the art by Sean Chen. There wasn't anything wrong with it, it was just very plain, especially after the amazing Adi Granoz cover, but then again, if Granov was doing this book, I'd be bitching about the schedule, like our next book...

All-Star Superman #7

This series would probably be hailed as the greatest thing EVER, if not for it's lousy schedule. In this issue, we get a Bizarro attack on Metropolis, and it's awesome. I really can't quantify why this is so great, it just is. The last page made me shriek like a little girl, mostly because it's cliff-hanger and we'll be lucky if we get the conclusion before the All-Star Break. Damn you Morrison!

Incidentally, if you are currently not in possession of the first six issues of this series, they're now out in hardcover, go get them, NOW.

Madman Atomic Comics #1

Another decade, another volume of Madman. They always begin with a lot of promise, and they always end with a lot of blown deadlines and a move to another project. Either way, I'll keep reading because Mike Allred's art is so darn beautiful. Sometimes his writing isn't the best, but I'll pay the admission just to look at the pictures. For example, I almost bought The Golden Plates, his adaptation of the Book of Mormon, a religion I'm really not interested in, just to look at his art. That's dedication for you.

Now he's back on his first creation and it's a good first issue, mostly it's a recap of the previous 20 or 30 issues he written and it's very good, but the real test will be the next issue to see where the story's going. I don't really care, there'll still be pretty pictures.

BRITPOP!

So I'm watching this Britpop documentary on BBC America, and they show a snippet of this video which I had thus far never seen.



I immediately jumped on the 'tube and took a look at the full thing and I was struck with some thoughts:

1. What a perfect, perfect pop song.
2. What an ugly, ugly band.
3. I will be listening to a lot of Supergrass this week.

Incidentally, the doc (which is called Britpop: Live Forever) is OK, but a little too self-important. They tried comparing Britpop to Grunge in that they were both major music revolutions. However, Grunge pretty much conquered the US and England and Europe, while Britpop was pretty much confined to their side of the Atlantic. Mind you, I MUCH prefer Britpop, but hey, you gotta tell it how it is (or was).

[Update: Incidentally, the track is Allright by Supergrass, if you are unfamiliar, go out and get their excellent Best of album as a primer.]