We Lose This Round...

Hey, my own redundant "we sold out of WATCHMEN trades" post!

So whereas I have sold nothing in the way of Batman-related graphic novels or comics*, like every other comics retailer with a blog to complain on, I really could have used another two dozen copies of WATCHMEN last week.

I was able to get in 3 this week that disappeared within an hour. Here in Lethbridge, Alberta, I usually sell a copy of WATCHMEN a month so having two or three on hand usually works out. That changes until the time the movie comes out probably sucks. Now, just because I won't be able to handle this initial interest doesn't mean money will be lost down the road. The local Chapters had none either, so I haven't lost out to them yet. However, it is hilarious when the Diamond Comics Retailer section is so hopelessly behind the time, reminding us retailers to 'capitalize' on the newest movie tie-in/tv tie-in that actually results in losses as it sits on the dust because NO ONE WANTS IT. Where were the speculative Diamond capitalizers here? A week behind right alongside everyone else in the Direct Market. Boy did we miss the boat. I was too young for the Death of Superman hype, and the Captain America death was a non-event around here....this is something entirely different. This is that sort of influx on interest a bookstore not catering to such a subsect of consumers gets when a book appears on LOST, or on Oprah.

Anyway, I really hope those 200-250,000 new copies being rolled out by DC do not bare a big ugly sticker informing people of the obvious 'major motion picture' coming soon.

-Jarrett

*Though a mother bought her son the KILLING JOKE Collector Set with Maybe Rapist Joker action figure, even though I warned her it might not be appropriate for her 6 year old, she informed me he's 'very intelligent')

One Post That Always Works

I didn't realize that there as many of these as there are. Actually, I'm surprised there are only three (that I could find). It is kind of a fun thought experiment.

What I really like about the Brunetti strip is that it really is just an Ivan Brunetti comic.

-Jarrett

"Good News, Everyone!"

Hey, and I just finally bought this! Via Tom Spurgeon:

The cartoonist Paul Karasik has announced a second volume collecting the works of Golden Age comic book artist Fletcher Hanks, to be titled You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! Because of fortunate archival discoveries in the circle of collectors with whom Karasik has been working in terms of getting all the material on hand, the second volume will combine with the first to make up a "complete works" collection of the cartoonist's powerful and affecting comics. The first volume, I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets, was a surprise hit for publisher Fantagraphics in 2007, leading the publisher's sales at Comic-Con International in San Diego. It won a best archival collection Eisner at this weekend's show. It is tentatively scheduled for a 2009 release.

I was kind of surprised that I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS wasn't complete, but accepted it considering how incredibly hard to find this stuff is. But wow, what a nice surprise!

-Jarrett

What I'm Buying This Week...

Actually, this is a pretty small week compared to the past three. Like, really small. Reordered stuff outnumbers new stuff 4 to 5. I'm starting to fear that next week or the week after is going to be a shower of shit that I cannot afford to get all in one shot. Plus, where I was expecting to have 11 copies of WATCHMEN to be able to offer people this week I have 3 (I guess the other 8 are in next week?)

TWENTIETH CENTURY EIGHTBALL, by Daniel Clowes; I already own most of these in the long out of print ORGY BOUND and LOUT RAMPAGE, but there is some material in here that I don't own that my completion itch needs scratching. I have a feeling when I'm looking through some of these strips for the first time in so many years, I'm going to find myself going "Hey, that's a Boody Rogers rip-off" Oh youth.










EDEN: IT'S AN ENDLESS WORLD Vol. 6, by Hiroki Endo;Uh, this looks a whole lot sleazier than it really is. This is all sort of an elaborate NEON GENESIS EVANGELION fan fiction that's actually amazingly well drawn, well told, and no one is reading it, Dark Horse is thinking of abandoning the series, which has brought me to start ordering the volumes I don't have as who knows how much longer they'll be around. I think I'm already screwed on DRAGON HEAD as I've got the first four out of ten, and almost none of the later volumes are available from Diamond. Poppy cock







HAUNT OF HORROR: H.P. LOVECRAFT #2 (of 3), by Richard Corben; This is like the THIRD Richard Corben comic I'll have bought this month (the first was HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN, the second was CONAN THE CIMMERIAN). Like GLAMOURPUSS last week, this is my Comic Single Pick of the Week.

Strange convergences of the day: while looking for these images, I stumbled across this Daniel Clowes self-portrait that reminded me a lot of that H.P. Lovecraft image I used a couple of weeks ago. Probably just that hair...

I'd also like to point out that while Corben, aged 67, had three comics come out this month, while Frank Miller/Jim Lee have only averaged 3 issues a year for ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN. Take THAT, middle aged superstars! I mean, I'm sure that the sales of any one issue of ALL STAR BATMAN outnumber the total sales for all of Corben drawn titles in the month...but that says a lot more about taste than anything. I really can't imagine that DC Comics is happy with all the loss in sales on the ALL STAR BATMAN title because of the dozen delays (even bi-monthly, the book only really came out half as many times as it was suppose to, meaning no matter how many issues it sells in any given month it is selling half of what it should be right now yeah?).

I should sadly point out that I currently cannot keep the ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN THE BOY WONDER hardcover in stock. I think I said something about 'taste'...? Oh, and speaking of Frank Miller and Richard Corben all in one place, from Wikipedia:

Frank Miller in The Comics Journal:

“

I feel like I was particularly impressed by Richard Corben's work. But in general I would not say the underground made that big of an impression except for Corben... His science-ficiton stories, those almost primitive black and white comics he did back then. I was very struck by the visceral punch they had, by the unusual artistic point of view. And also by the unabashed exaggeration. It's as if you wanted a woman to have big breasts, you drew it. There was something just so joyously excessive and erotic about his stuff, that I just ate it up.

I guess Miller ate around the work ethic brush sprouts?

....

*Pats self on back*

IRONWOLF: FIRES OF THE REVOLUTION, by Howard Chaykin, Mike Mignola, et al; I ordered this out of sheer urge to fill in whatever Mike Mignola shaped holes I had missing from my 'Mignola' box. This could be a bit of alright, or Completely Terrible with Howard Chaykin writing, but we'll have to see.












WONDERMARK: THE BEARDS OF OUR FOREFATHERS, by David Malki; This I am absolutely jazzed for. Another of those hidden gem web comics ala TRUTH SERUM that I just discovered. Basically the sole reason I ordered this was because of the Tom Spurgeon interview with Malki from a week or so ago. Between this, ACHEWOOD, and PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP, Dark Horse Comics is becoming this amazing publisher of webcomics.

-Jarrett

For My 50th Post...

Ha ha, you think because I'm using that cover I'm walking away from comics blogging, don't you? Well, not yet anyway. I think I've gone and quit blogging three times now, and I've always come back...like Spider-Man here. That cover, right along with this always stick out at me as The Comics Grammar. I really just needed something for the fiftieth post, and this really is THE number 50 cover, isn't it?

It was a toss up between this cover and maybe just indulging myself in THE cover of the Silver Age (and thanks to Douglas Wolk for pointing it out), SHOWCASE #4, the first appearance of Barry Allen Flash. It would have been especially appropo seeing as Mr. Johns is writing ol' Buzzcut Barry in a miniseries potentially bringing him back for good, running over the strewn out intestines of a dismembered Wally West...

Um, anyway, seeing that SHOWCASE #4 made me realize how much I really like Carmine Infantino's flat 2D superheroes. It is like the quintessential superhero art that The Public expects to see when they go into a comic store. Well, don't be surprised if you see a Infantino-heavy image jamboree in the near future!

So 50 posts huh? Well THAT was fast. *pats self on back* Let's move along.

Something I've always meant to take a slightly closer look at was the 1999 'Top 100 Comics List' The Comics Journal put together. Take a look at the history of the magazine, the controversies that arose after the list was released, and the list itself.

My responses to the controversies:

1) English only. Not too surprising, and probably helped significantly limit what the jurors could select. Honestly, I would have done it the same way.

2) Inconsistency. The almost arbitrary use of 'single entry/inconsistent quality' and 'specific storylines' is a bit unfair.. You go from something like B. Krigstein's "The Master Race", to "The editoral cartoons of Herblock"? WATCHMEN to "The theatrical caricatures of Al Hirschfeld"?

3) LOVE & ROCKETS. "Conveniently" some of those specific storylines are LOVE & ROCKETS storylines, which are also collected nicely into graphic novels which Fantagraphics (publisher of The Comics Journal) releases and sells. I honestly don't know what the point of Top Anything Lists are, other than to sell product, and if you're going to be putting the time and money into compiling one of these lists, you might as well get something out of it if you have the work that holds up under scrutiny (see the Modern Library Top 100 Best Novels 'Editor List'). I guess if you're going to try to sell some of your own books with your own Top Whatever list, you should maybe try to look unbias doing it though. Initially it doesn't seem like a big deal, but considering that the Hernandez Bros. get 5 separate entries between the two of them all within the top thirty-one, and the entirety of superhero production receives six entries in the whole 100? Credibility definitely has to be questioned. Does this change the fact that LOVE & ROCKETS isn't actually great comics? Not at all.

4) CEREBUS. I think the complete lack of Dave Sim's CEREBUS is pretty easily explained by the fact that TCJ and Sim just don't get along at all. That said, I think CEREBUS would be in my personal top three comics of all time.

5) Superheroes. As I said above, the complete lack of superheroics is kind of glaring considering the prominence of the genre within English comics. It really is the very nature of TCJ though to exclude something that gets talked about so much already, it really doesn't need the added exposure. I mean, on the flip side you have the Comic Book Resources-hosted COMICS SHOULD BE GOOD 'Top 100 Comic Book Runs Master List'. How many titles do they have in common? Six? I think somewhere in between those two lists is a pretty good representation of the Great English comics.

My personal reaction to looking over the list? I'm pretty well the biggest comic snob in Lethbridge, and even I find some of the selections in here pretty audacious and out of touch. Looking at the top ten, we've all mostly heard of these titles, but how many of us own most of them? I the first three volumes of the PEANUTS reprints (*cough* reprinted by Fantagraphics *cough*), MAUS, some various volumes of Winsor McCay (no LITTLE NEMO though), the first MAD Comics Archive from DC, and that's about it. KRAZY KAT is one of those highly overrated, very well drawn comics that I think only Chris Ware likes, Walt Kelly's POGO is supposedly coming back into print sometime this year or next (*cough* reprinted by Fantagraphics *cough*), and I've never heard of BINKY BROWN, let alone Justin Green.

I'm not arguing for the list to be 'more in step' with The Common Man, as The Common Man list is decided by ignorance, bad taste, manipulation (see the Modern Library Top 100 Novels List 'Readers List' to see some obvious voting irregularily with Objectivist/Scientology presence dominating the top rungs). I guess one of my biggest problems with the list is its inaccessibility for readers. Unless you live in a major metropolitan center with a fantastic library and archive, have the Fantagraphics Archive in your basement, or are extremely rich, or 100 years old and have read everything listed here as it originally came out or in old reprints, you aren't ever going to be exposed to half of this list (at best I've been exposed to around 30 or so of the works listed).

What IS nice is that a lot of these works listed ARE becoming available again in lush archival collections. Like I said, POGO is going to be collected by *cough* Fantagraphics, and TERRY & THE PIRATES is five columes in from IDW (who has become this covert publisher of stuff I actually would like to get), and all of the EC Comics stuff is coming out in $50 archives from Gemstone. The biggest problem really is there isn't enough money to buy all this stuff. I guess I'll have to leave it to our local library to pick up my slack...

-Jarrett

Well Deserved

Well it was the San Diego Comic Con this past week, which means they announced the Eisner Awards. This was brought to my attention just now:

BEST SINGLE ISSUE (OR ONE-SHOT)
* Amelia Rules! #18: Things I Cannot Change, by Jimmy Gownley (Renaissance"> Amelia Rules! #18: Things I Cannot Change, by Jimmy Gownley (Renaissance)
* Delilah Dirk and the Treasure of Constantinople, by Tony Cliff (self-published)"> Delilah Dirk and the Treasure of Constantinople, by Tony Cliff (self-published)
* Johnny Hiro #1, by Fred Chao (AdHouse)"> Johnny Hiro #1, by Fred Chao (AdHouse)
* Justice League of America #11: Walls, by Brad Meltzer and Gene Ha (DC)"> Justice League of America #11: Walls, by Brad Meltzer and Gene Ha (DC)
* Sensational Spider-Man Annual: To Have or to Hold, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca (Marvel)"> Sensational Spider-Man Annual: To Have or to Hold, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca (Marvel)

I'm sure if Will Eisner were alive, he'd agree with that choice. Actually, nothing on that list really screams out 'Eisner nominee', so I'm not sure if this year was somehow just 'slim pick-ins' or what. Hey, here's a blogpost about why these Awards aren't even worth talking about.

I'm just So Happy to see Brad Meltzer getting his well deserved dues. I'm pretty sure that FINAL CRISIS: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT is coming out any week now, and I Am Pumped. The scanner is all fired up, ready to capture the bucket loads of....fluid.

-Jarrett

Manga I Forgot

While digging through the garage boxes for ART OUT OF TIME (go see the update), I discovered some manga stuff of mine that I didn't mention! I know, I know, I fucked up real bad, so here are two works by the same dude. Both works are kind of unusual (and why I missed them when doing the initial manga post) is that both works are from DRAWN & QUARTERLY, making these (I think) the only manga they have published, and not only that, the works are 'flipped', completely unlike everything else on my shelf save LONE WOLF & CUB....and BUDDHA....and ADOLF....and EAGLE...and my old printings of PARASYTE....and....alright, I just kind of suck.

So there you go! Even more manga that you won't buy!

-Jarrett

REVIEW: The Luna Brothers' GIRLS

After seeing several passing references to the Luna Brothers, their series ULTRA, GIRLS, and THE SWORD all in fairly positive spin, I thought I would actually sit down and read something of theirs. There was the SPIDER-WOMAN miniseries they drew for Brian Michael Bendis....pass...oh look, the first trade of GIRLS. So, how was it? Well let's respond to cliche'd series with a cliche format review!

The Good: An interesting idea for a story. Reminded me of that Master of Horror episode THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION by Joe Dante. Sort of a inverse of Y: THE LAST MAN, and I liked Y: THE LAST MAN. Of course, the inverse of the other good qualities of Y: THE LAST MAN (ie. good story driven art, stylized but entertaining dialogue, a sense of plot and other basic narrative tools), would make for a pretty terrible comic. Uh oh. The rest of this post is The Bad and The Ugly! This doesn't look good for the Lunas!

The Bad: I found this back cover quote from Brian Michael Bendis hilarious.

"The Luna Brothers are the future of comics and it's happening right now. This book is essential for your collection. My highest recommendation."

You know, at some distant point in the distant past, Brian Michael Bendis use to be worth listening to. In POWERS Vol. 2 #1 (July 2004), his list of recommendations include THE SHIELD, KILL BILL, and FREAKS & GEEKS. He might even recommend to you something you've never heard of (I'd go back even further, but Vol. 1 is lodged somewhere deep in my stack of leprechaun coffins). How far has Bendis fallen? In the latest issue of POWERS, he recommends INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL and WEEZER'S "Red Album". The first volume of GIRLS came out in 2005, so somewhere inbetween Bendis really went for a dive (or he's just greasing the palms of his friends with his full of hot air pull quote.

Maybe this wasn't for me. Which doesn't make for a good marketing plot ("making yourself unsellable"), and I would not in a hundred years go out of my way to tell someone to pick this up. The book opens up with this really embarrassing sequence of sperm making their way to an ovum. OR IS THAT WHAT WE SEE?? The next page is the series protagonist, Ethan, ejaculating while standing up in the bathroom, holding a magazine up as he does so. Apparently this guy lives alone in a small town, and he's masturbating like a fourteen year old afraid to be caught by his parents? Well, I guess this character does have problems, but I'm sure this bit is suppose to be 'clever staging' instead of character building. It fails in either regard as being pretty ill thought out, and almost enough to make me want to put the book down and go read some Ed Brubaker X-Men comics with Vulcan.

If the opening scene doesn't kill you, the dialogue might. Here are some random ways in which people talk in the Luna-verse; "You misogynist piece of shit! My husband will kick your ass!""This is a nice town, Ethan...because I keep it nice. I'm just a nice guy. But last night--you took advantage of my good nature. That's why I had to teach you a lesson today." In case you didn't guess, that last one is spoken by The Sheriff of This Here Smalltown. The first one is spoken by the Emasculating Bitchy Wife. Before too long, the Hillbilly Cracker with Lil' Hillbilly Cracker Kid Who Rapes shows up, the first issue red herring.

Oh, thinking about Y: THE LAST MAN; you know how Y: THE LAST MAN always had these amazing cliffhanger endings? Well GIRLS ends with a plot point last seen by me in THE SIMPSONS MOVIE. Someone'll have to let me know how Volume 2 was.

The Ugly: Boy do I hate this artwork. Remember Chuck Austen's computer generated slop that was the weekly WAR MACHINE series for Marvel years ago? This looks about the same. Flat, stiff, fat, ugly art, overuse of 'focus filters', unimaginative character design, a complete and utter turnoff. Characters' ages are unidentifiable unless one is 'obvious old', and the rest are sort of all 19 years old "or something".

The worst bit about this comic is that it is seriously entered into the world of comics where WALKING DEAD and INVINCIBLE are being released by the same publisher, doing the same sort of long form genre story, and your real money is on the line. If you want to get the same quality work, the same tropes, the same execution as is on display here, go and save yourself some money and buy SLITHER for $4.99 used at the King of Trade or something. Seriously, this trade paperback is $14.99, and worth not a one of those dollars or cents.

-Jarrett

Hey, It's CLOAK & DAGGER

You know, I have absolutely zero interest or attachment to the CLOAK & DAGGER concept, but I am going to be getting the new series. Why? Because it is written by Valerie D'Orazio, of course. I think this is her first comic scripting work, so it is hard one way or another to say how this will be, but based on the strength of her online persona, it is at the very least worth a try.

Apparently your Newsarama posters are of a different mindset. Now if I was signed up on Newsarama, I would perhaps criticize the article for not even telling us the name of the artist of the book (her first name is Irene?), but we'll just chalk it up to the nauseous fumes of the SDCC to the writer's sloppiness.


But let's see what some of our Newsarama-ers have to say!

"Ace wrote:

I've got no desire at all to read something by someone who's been so incredibly negative about everything over the last few years. Just don't"

Ken_B wrote:

15k issues by #3, I bet.

Mr_Anthrope wrote:

No thanks. Sounds like she is taking this story in a direction I have zero interest in reading about.

CaptainAwesome wrote:

I find D’Orazio's blog to be very bland. I hope she writes better on a comic page. I've been a Cloak & Dagger fan since the Mantlo/Leonardi days, so I hope she can do the characters justice.

The Guvnor wrote:

You wait ages for a Cloak & Dagger series and they put unknown talent on it. Great move Marvel. I wonder what made her pitch so different from the countless others Quesada repeatedly says have been rejected over the years because nothing D'Orazio said in the interview excited me in the least.

LSHBear68 wrote:

Love Cloak & Dagger but HATE manga style... Unfortunately will have to pass on this book.

Kent Horton wrote:

Ugh, they finally finally greenlight a Cloak & Dagger project, and it's by Valerie????

No, just no.

Groovie_Mann wrote:

the little of the opinions i've read of hers makes me think that i might not like her writing. still, i thought Cloak and Dagger were interesting in Runaways so i might give it a try.

I don't know...something about the overall attitude of these...male....comic...readers...strikes me as not giving the new title a fair shake because the writer happens to have a vagina. Don't get me wrong, there are some positive comments in the threads too, your typical "this sounds great, everything is great, I buy everything" uncritical sort of way, which isn't all that helpful.

I don't know, perhaps too knee-jerky?

-Jarrett

"Wow, I have nothing in common with these people."

Well, it's Sunday morning. I was starting to think that I would actually miss a day of posting there! Well, Journalista has come to the rescue with a few neat bits....from March 2007. Oh Jarrett, you're so timely!

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I had heard about an Evan Dorkin METAL MEN miniseries sometime ago (from rumours, to confirmation, to dead in the water), so it was really nice to have found for me some preliminary layouts and sketches for it, at the very least.

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The last issue of Grant Morrison's ANIMAL MAN seems to be more and more relevant, doesn't it? One hopes that this humanism starts popping up in FINAL CRISIS.

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Dan Nadel (author of the previously mentioned ART OUT OF TIME), had this short blog post, encompassing thoughts that pop into my mind when at the Calgary Comic Expo, or even while working at the comic store.

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I guess all three of those links are saying something pretty dire about the state of comics, eh? And all three are over a year old, and still as resonant as ever. I don't know, are we comic types just a bunch of complainers? One last piece, with Eddie Campbell talking about art criticism and its potential for entering art history itself, and how it works back into comics. Haven't read it yet, but should be worth while.

-Jarrett

STARDUST vs SUPERMAN, and ART OUT OF TIME

"JESUS CHRIST, WHAT IS HE DOING TO THAT MAN??"

Two Golden Age Titans! Who Dares Win?

A few quick thoughts on I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED WORLDS, edited by Paul Karasik: as poorly drawn as Fletcher Hanks comics actually are, they look a lot more modern in their sparse, large layout and composition than the just few years later ACTION COMICS material (which are slightly better drawn, but pretty dense, and amateur).

Content wise, STARDUST and the rest of the Fletcher Hanks material is pretty ridiculous. It is summed up quite well here...

It's like a memory of a comic book story you read as a kid but are now not certain whether it really existed or not because nothing else has ever lived up to that particular type of thrill. It really existed, alright.

It is amazing to see this material, seeing writers and cartoonists like Grant Morrison and Chester Brown constantly aiming for this sort of...literal abstraction?...and here it is, just presented so naturally, with little, to no conscious effort.

So here's a sequence from ACTION COMICS #2:

Hey, that's pretty bad ass of Superman, hurling this guy a quarter mile without much regard as to what shape this man will be in when he lands! I guess it all worked out alright, as the guy in the panels before is established as a 'torturer' for some undisclosed Enemy of America. I guess this is along the same lines as Batman gunning people down in his early appearances.

Here's a sequence from FANTASTIC COMICS #7, "Gyp Clip's Anti-Gravity Ray":

So "Gyp" created this anti-gravity ray which causes all of us on earth to rise to orbit and float in permanent suspension. Ultimate superhuman Stardust arrives and decided "Hey, I'm going to hurl this guy into space!" Not only that, he follows behind "Gyp", somehow propelling him along until they reach a floating space prison, where "Gyp" is put on ice for all eternity to contemplate his crimes.

So I think in terms of laughs, STARDUST wins by a long shot. I think Chris Ware's GOD Comics were pretty well the masterstroke of the Superman legacy of a hateful, selfish jerk who lords over everyone with his petty concerns. Stardust, for whatever reason, reminds me of the Marvel character Sentry: this "forgotten", incredibly powerful weirdo who drifts in and out of stories to...well...hurl Carnage into orbit in the first NEW AVENGERS storyline by Bendis! Looking at these panels one can't help but think maybe STARDUST THE SUPER WIZARD is nothing but an elaborate hoax, ala THE SENTRY. If it is, Paul Karasik is a genius. STARDUST even kind of looks like MARVELMAN/MIRACLEMAN, doesn't he? I'm sure he did his fair share of hurling people too....Actually all this tossing people into the distance reminds me of a whole bunch of stories. Most memorably the cliffhanger of CEREBUS: CHURCH & STATE Vol. 1, with Thunk tossing Cerebus down the side of Iest to his uncertain demise.

The first place I encountered Fletcher Hanks and previously mentioned HERBIE, was all from this fantastic comic compilation called ART OUT OF TIME: UNKNOWN COMICS VISIONARIES by Dan Nadel, from 2006. (if this is a hoax, a lot of setting up went into it)

Besides Hanks and Ogden Whitney (the illustrator of HERBIE), there's also Rory Hayes, who kind of creeps me out a little. His death was the day before my birth date, and I've always felt it was really odd that Robert Crumb and I share the same birthday...and this Hayes fellow was something of a "protege" of Crumb too...


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UPDATE: I actually had some spare time to go get my copy of ART OUT OF TIME from the garage and take a closer look at it. As far as STARDUST goes, along with the other FANTASTIC COMICS character, there was a recent Image one shot called FANTASTIC COMICS #24, which had a new STARDUST story drawn by Mike Allred (here's an original FANTASTIC COMICS cover to compare it to).

Howard Nostrand does a mean Will Eisner/EC Comics twist impression with "What's Happening At...8:30pm". "Shlup shlep shlup shlep..." I'm pretty sure Dave Sim even used that particular sound effect in an early volume of CEREBUS.

Yep, that HERBIE comic is one of the funniest comics I've read in a long while. The only modern equivalent I can think of would be SOF' BOY by Archie Prewitt.

The Bob Powell story here, "Colorama" is a nice looking EC Comics style comic that packs a pretty lame ending, but displays some very lovely linework and colour.

John Kricfalusi has talked about Milt Gross before, and I honestly don't get the appeal at all. The idea of a Yiddish comic strip sounds good on paper, but I just find the Gross humour really obvious and dated.

I didn't know until today, but I guess that Dan Nadel is doing an entire book just on Rory Hayes from Fantagraphics this year, called WHERE THE DEMENTED WENTED. Kind of hyped!

The ELMO bit drawn by Cecil Jensen is really nice to look at, but the writing is pretty standard for 1948. SPARKY WATTS by Boody Rogers is a bit alright though, with this style I swear you see Daniel Clowes use in his early work. This comics scream fun though, and I'd have been a pretty happy kid with insane shit like this. Nice use of colour, nice open compositions that breath, and are pleasant to look at with a glance....

Probably my least favourite parts of the book are also the parts of the book I know the least about: the newspaper strips. It doesn't help that, with the size of the book, the small fine print of these newspaper stories are such a strain to look at, you just don't want to bother. I have to say that looking at some of the artwork in these, especially Charles Forbell, it really takes you back at what the medium has produced. I haven't read any biographical material on Gene Deitch, but I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he went on to work at UPA or something. ***checks the biographical material in the back** Yep, he was an assistant at UPA Pictures in 1946! I guess going through almost three years of John K. blog posts did hone my eye just a tad.

-Jarrett

UPDATE: Brubaker's X-MEN Comics

Needing to take a shit and wanting something to read, I grabbed the first part of "THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SHI'AR EMPIRE". I literally was shitting while reading #475, which just so happened to coincide with my not believing that this actually OK comic was written by the same person who wrote DEADLY GENESIS. The art is still pretty meh, with every character's face looking The Exact Same, but there is actual characterization, some pacing, that...Barton Fink feeling! So I guess now the question is "does anyone want a partially Seinfeld marked run of Brubaker UNCANNY?"

Based on the return of form of Brubaker(or SPECULATE! perhaps Brubaker actually writing these comics), I will actually finish reading his run. I'm sort of dreading #477, as it looks to be a Vulcan issue.

UPDATE Again: Yeah, Vulcan is a really awful character, isn't he? Here's a caption from yet another shockingly terrible Ed Brubaker comic:

"KNOWING THAT RUMOR AND FEAR OF HIS APPROACH HAS BY NOW REACHED THE THRONEWORLD. KNOWING HE'S CREATED A PERFECT PLAN. LIKE THAT OF HIS HERO, JULIUS CAESAR."

I also immediately missed Brian Tan from last issue, because Clayton Henry? Pfew. What a jarring read these comics are. That's...that's got to be it! I can't take this! Seriously, I should be re-reading Y: THE LAST MAN instead, or starting SCALPED, you know? Not to mention SUPERMAN CHRONICLES, or I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS!

UPDATE Again Part II: Well, flipping to issues ahead it seems that the Vulcan-centric issues are all drawn by Clayton Henry, meaning I might just be able to skip those issues altogether and get by simply on Brubaker/Tan. Maybe.

-Jarrett

DC COMICS: Afterbirth

So, uh, speaking of Geoff Johns...I guess this quashes those Marvel rumours!

Well, I guess we're about finished here. In general. Geoff Johns now has both his Silver Age buddies back, soon to be together again with one writer (at least since FLASH & GREEN LANTERN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, with Johns in the middle of his older friends doling out the NSFW ski poles.

It makes a lot of sense though. For those of us who have been watching DC's month-to-month sales performance sink and sink, FLASH has pretty well tanked with every new creative team. Even Mark Waid himself couldn't get FLASH kick started again. Geoff Johns to the rescue! Based on FINAL CRISIS: ROGUE'S REVENGE #1, I really don't know if I want to read REBIRTH (though I will). Sales wise though, I think this will do pretty decent, but probably not GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH good (though I could be underestimating the interest in this sort of project).

Cory made a pretty good point though, that is is really surprising that Grant Morrison isn't behind this, and hasn't done more with the Flash concept save that year long bit he did with Mark Millar back in the late 90s. Morrison I recall has said that Flash is one of his favourite concepts. Well, I guess we'll just have to settle for SEAGUY 2, WAR COP, and whatever else he's doing that will probably be more interesting than Barry fucking Allen. I'm sure Cory agrees.

In comic news that doesn't just further prove how accurate 'Captain Yesterday' is of a moniker for Geoff Johns, Darwyn Cooke will apparently be adapting 'Parker' novels into graphic novels for IDW. I just re-read his Slam Bradley back-up from DETECTIVE COMICS that was written by Ed Brubaker (and great EC Comics style lettering), and this might actually be pretty nifty, considering I can't find any Richard Stark/Donald Westlake novels at the local chapters.

-Jarrett

My Batman Chronicles

I just keep thinking about that Batman movie, people! It got even worse when I worked at the comic store Thursday and was talking with a whole slew of people who are all saying this is 'the best superhero movie Ever!' I think just calling this a superhero movie is a bit short sighted, as I think it is a pretty good movie on the whole (at least after one viewing) compared to anything that has come out in 2,000+ theaters this year. We'll have to see how the rest of 2008 shapes up though before we start saying 'best movie/perfomance/director of the year' I think.

At the top, Chip Kidd and Tony Millionaire's "The Bat-Man", from DC's BIZARRO COMICS.




So, in hopes of cleansing myself of Batmania, a Jarrett Duncan Batman retrospective/prospect of the character is in order methinks. This could become a really long winded article if I really thought this through and wrote it up...and I don't think I want to put that kind of time into it. Hopefully it'll work out alright anyway! Probably the first or second exposure I have of Batman was either this Super Powers figure (from the thin-pack packaging available through Shell gas stations), a Burger King plastic cup (I really wanted Batman, but got Superman, Wonder Woman, and generically designed Darkseid...oh how sad I was), or this awesome anime style, super-deformed Batman kid puzzle (which I desperately want to find a picture of, and would love to own out of sheer, disgusting nostalgia). Comics came later when I learnt how to actually read. Let's jump ahead!

The first BATMAN comic I ever bought is pictured to the left, which was bought by me shortly after watching the BATMAN movie on VHS and desperately wanting more Joker. As it turned out, DC Comics was doing a Joker origin issue here, and whatdoyaknow: it is even drawn by longtime Batman artist Jim Aparo! There is nothing I remember about this comic book at all, except that I bought it at Danny's Grocery, which was right across the street from my elementary school. Now more than anything I remember liking Joker a lot more than Batman, and for the next several years I would always actively try to find anything Joker to sate that interest.








Probably one of the greatest boons of being a child between 1990 and 1999 was that in Canada we had YTV, which was syndicating quite a wide variety of cult children's programming, such as COUNT DUCKULA. Most notably was the BATMAN TV Series with Adam West and Burt Ward. Mike Robertson and mine's CAPES stands as a sort of testament to our fondness of the show when it was on, and there is still great confusion and bitterness that the law and greed stand in the way from having all three seasons of the show on DVD, or even on television for another generation to enjoy. It is only a matter of time, I suppose, until it comes rolling out, and sure enough I know I'll be out hunting down my copy.

My only other regular fix of Batman was in the BATMAN ANIMATED SERIES (which were just so much better than the comics at the time), and it didn't seem to air in Southern Alberta, so in our bi-annual trips to Edmonton, I would have to catch episodes of BATMAN on 'RD-TV', which would last me for the next six months. Boy was it good. I own all of it on DVD, and I think a lot of the early seasons haven't aged too terribly well (especially considering how good the animated SUPERMAN cartoon a few years later was), but the style, the score, the atmosphere, and the comic tie ins are all still excellent compared to any of the 90s movies. As far as Batman cartoons go, I probably would have come across THE KILLING JOKE by this point, which rocked my little world as "All Joker, All The Time". I still think Brian Bolland's design for Joker the finest defintion for me.*

The BATMAN comic here now basically starts my regular ongoing Batman purchasing, which basically goes completely uninterrupted to the end of the Greg Rucka DETECTIVE COMICS story ends, and Jeph Loeb/Jim Lee's "Hush" story in BATMAN begins. I did buy "Hush" at the time, and just wound up selling them at a profit as the awful comics were selling for money to stupid people, and don't regret the decision for a minute. What's funny is that one of the highlights of my early Batman purchasing was that "Hush" writer Jeph Loeb also wrote the actually decent LONG HALLOWEEN, with Tim Sale on art. Oh how far he fell as a writer, let me tell you!

I guess I started back on BATMAN when Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso did their brief run (and it wasn't all that great either), and stayed on through Judd Winick's bringing Jason Todd back. It was at about this point that I realized I was just sort of buying these comics and not enjoying them at all. Seriously, "War Games"? Wow. This all started to interwine with INFINITE CRISIS, and I just hung on for hopes that something good would come out of all of this. Well, James Robinson's ONE YEAR LATER material was pretty weak, though decently drawn for this sort of thing, but when Grant Morrison and Paul Dini were announced as the regular writers, I was pretty damn glad. Well, that was two years ago, and while Morrison's BATMAN is far from the best thing he has written, it is at least worth reading and talking about every month. As for Paul Dini's run (which is filled with sporadic one-off fill-ins by some decent writers), I actually haven't read any of it since about the first two issues of it. That's almost two years of comics that just....sit....in a longbox, for no apparent reason. Now I have a whole lot of various Batman miniseries, oneshots, Elseworlds, miniseries, maxiseries, toys, statues....I've got to draw the line somewhere! Hey, so how about a little Bat-tragedy!

So hey, remember my Scud t-shirt mentioned recently? Well, I had this shirt too. It's that Year One/Animated style Batman logo design that is such a nice clean piece of design that even my grade 9 junior high self recognized it (as did friend Mitch, who owned his own). Anyway, here's one of those Todd Solondz-ish WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE moments from my adolescents: during gym class, we would have our 'gym clothes' that we would change into so we wouldn't come out of gym stinking like....well, grade 9 kids with B.O. On one particular occasion I was wearing this shirt to school, and for gym I took it off and put it in my locker which I never kept locked. Sometime between the start of the class and the end of the class, some thoughtful fellow went into my change room locker and decided it would be a clever idea to tear the shirt right from the collar down about halfway, completely ruining it. Well, THAT was a delightful surprise to come back from running around in a field playing fucking baseball or something! I pretty well figured it to one or another person, couldn't actually prove it, but boy I was angry. I went to the gym teachers, these two lazy hack leatherbag broads, who were utterly indifferent to the incident. I don't know, I somehow think that if this had happened to women in the change room there would have been hell to pay. I don't think I'm misremembering this, but I am pretty positive nothing came out the destruction of my shirt, and that was about that.

The first image I posted here was from BIZARRO COMICS, and this gem (sorry for the crap scan, blame the binding and placement of the strip) from DC's BIZARRO WORLD (the conceptual sequel), is from Evan Dorkin and Ivan Brunetti and is probably one of the most logical (and funny) playing outs of Two-Face's psychosis. Actually, those two collections are probably two of the best things DC has done for itself in a long time, and are probably the two books I have gone back to time and time again to chuckle at the highlights.** I guess even Grant Morrison actually wants to depict Supergirl in the same way Dylan Horrocks and Jessica Abel did in "The Clubhouse of Solitude".

For whatever reason (probably due to copyrights and likeness'), the "Bat-tousai" cover of Mike Allred's SOLO issue become Wonder Girl instead, but at least the Batman-A-Go-Go story finally got printed here! But seriously, combining Mike Allred, Adam West Batman, AND one of the funnier lines from early Simpsons? Such a brilliant mixing of ideas in great execution!

Now we move into the wonderful books of Batman involving Chip Kidd (and this doesn't even mention the cover designs he did for the latest printing of DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, or DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN, or the trade dress for DC's ALL STAR line (which I've touched upon).

Before I had any idea what a 'Chip Kidd' was, I definitely knew who Batman was, and I thought this book was amazingly designed, filled with really weird and cool Batman and Robin toys and tie-ins from every era since Bob Kane created them. Found at a Coles Bookstore clearance shelf quite a few years ago.














Considering I'm a fan of Chip Kidd, Bruce Timm, the animated series, AND the Batman concept, I have no idea why I don't already own this. *off to eBay*
















Hm, written by Les Daniels, but designed by Chip Kidd. Something is telling me that I ought to own this too, if I don't already... *off to eBay*















Hey, Chip Kidd AND Batman, together again? And it comes out soon?? *glop* Well, I think all this reverence of ol' pointy ears is getting out of hand. I need something to sober me...














Thanks again, Ivan Brunetti, for lighting the way.

(Probably a few more to come once I'm at home with my scanner)

-Jarrett

*God do I still hate how Alex Ross paints Joker as Jack Nicholson. Actually, I wonder if how Grant Morrison has decided to depict Joker in his current BATMAN run was decided for him by pre-production of DARK KNIGHT? I haven't read anything one way or another.

** My profile picture of 'Hawkman' is also from BIZARRO COMICS.

Regarding GREEN LANTERN and Comic Breasts...Err, Covers

I thought this was a pretty relevant, and funny, point to bring up.

The Girl Who Wanted to Buy Green Lantern,via Laura Hudson

An attractive female customer came into the store today, piled her Fables trades and singles on the counter, and sighed.

"I wanted to buy the new Green Lantern," she said, "but, well... I couldn't really read it in public, could I?" I raised an eyebrow, then glanced around her to the rack, looked at the cover, and nodded.

That's right, a woman came into a comic book store wanting to buy Green Lantern, but the stupid cheesecake cover actually embarrassed her to the point where she did not feel she could do so.

It's not that I really expect that much from you, DC/Marvel--I know that emotionally or physically realistic females in your comics are usually too much to ask. But if you're wondering why 90% of the girls that come in this store head for the manga section, then a word to the wise: in many cases, it's not that you need to market directly to women so much as you need to stop actively driving them away. Mainstream comics, you fill me with sighs.

A point of view that a male dominated field will frequently forget to consider, and needs to be brought up. Along the same lines, from around the same time period: Power Girl's chest! Hey, it's even on Brad Meltzer's MySpace. Will he be My friend, I wonder? Read some of those comments, especially the exchange between 'paperghost' and 'Randy'.

-Jarrett

REVIEW: Ed Brubaker's X-MEN: DEADLY GENESIS #1-6

Continuing on the long road of reading through my massive stack of comics from the last two years...

I know I still have my SINESTRO CORPS WAR review to write, as well as my BPRD series review, but this couldn't wait. What a terrible comic book. I can't even believe that this is Ed Brubaker writing, who is doing some fantastic CAPTAIN AMERICA stories at the same time this was coming out.

Most disturbing is that I have EVERY ISSUE OF BRUBAKER'S UNCANNY X-MEN RUN FOLLOWING THIS! I guess this will learn me for buying a book blindly and not actively read them to know that they are this shit. That's disingenuous of me though: I did read DEADLY GENESIS when it first started, and it was cock then, and it is cock now. So, from the top!

1) The Marc Silvestri covers bring me awful memories of the last storyarc of Grant Morrison's NEW X-MEN run (definitely the last time the X-Men concept was readable, though I have heard favourable things about Jeff Parker's X-MEN: FIRST CLASS stuff). I did have to laugh at Silvestri's cover for #1, showing the stripped bare figures of the X-Men, mimicking a 30 year old cover. The metaphor of a dead concept, strip mining the past, forcing their way through to a new readership....so unintentionally rich! Hey, not unlike those Marvel Zombie variants which plague us still!

2) From our writer, Brubaker presents us with the horrible, generic cardboard cut out, two-dimensional X-Men characters we have all grown to love to hate for over forty years.

3) Ok, I know that Xavier isn't dead at this point, and I know he comes back, and I think he gets his mutant powers back...but I also know that during MESSIAH COMPLEX he gets shot in the head, and comes back not two months later! Oh my god, people, stop buying this book!

4) Vulcan is everything that I feared Winter Soldier aka Bucky would be in CAPTAIN AMERICA. One-note, uber powerful, 'bad ass' that 'always existed', but you just don't remember because of retconning. In a way, Vulcan is sort of a magic receptical of all our fears all put into one place, and set free to destroy a dead comic franchise that can be utter gash (well, not worse than Chuck Austen/Joe Casey era X-Men) and will still sell. Actually, it makes my day to see the sales of X-MEN and UNCANNY dwindle little by little, even after the sales-balooza MESSIAH COMPLEX.

5) This retcon prestige format miniseries really illustrates why Geoff Johns' GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH isn't as bad as it could have been. It could have been DEADLY GENESIS.

6) Trevor Hairsine is one fugly looking artist, not even able to finish a six issue miniseries himself without help from finishing artists and inkers.

7) I had to force myself to finish reading the whole thing. In fact, I can't even justify to myself the waste of time it would be to read the rest of Brubaker's run to see if it at all improved from this. One friend says it is alright, another says it is 12 issues where nothing resolves, and only shows how much of a bad ass Vulcan is. Life is too short for reading intentionally bad comics when you don't have to.

8) As I was reading the final issue of DEADLY GENESIS, a big ol' fly found its way into my bedroom and was buzzing about me and my cream cheese bagel. Without much thought I was rolling up my #6 and swatting at it.

9) I would like to end this review with the final kick to the balls this entire miniseries amounted to: from the letter page intro by Brubaker himself from the last issue:

"Hey X-fans! Now that our mini-epic has come to a close, I'd just like to take a minute to express my thanks for all the support the book has received throughout the X-Men fan community. This was by far the biggest project I've yet been a part of, and it was both scary and overwhelming at times, but in the end, it was a richly rewarding experience. I'd also like to thank my pal Brian Bendis, for getting me this gig in the first place, and Nathan and Mark, for putting up with all the hassles of trying to eke out pages out of my sometimes."

Wow, it really sounds like he enjoyed writing this crap. Of course, if the standard X-Editor/Marvel corporate nightmare is actually true, he wouldn't actually tell us how awful it was writing this if it were the truth of the matter anyway. Poor bastard. I haven't actually read a Marvel letters page in a long time, but this takes the cake: it is filled with people who are either fictional, or so retarded that they only actually buy the "X-line" at Marvel, and not much else. In other words, they aren't Alan Moore fans.

So, uh, anyone want a run of Brubaker UNCANNY?

-Jarrett

Regarding the Blog Banner

Looking for a Brunetti illustration for last post, I came across the lovely wide shot drawn by Brunetti that would fit perfectly into the banner. Right now it is serving as a fill in image until I can actually design something myself.* I realize the text is unreadable, which I might work on when I get home...but probably not.

Since I'm using that Brunetti image, here's a list of awesome Ivan Brunetti stuff to fill your shelves with! Buy his stuff!

HAW! and HEE! are collections of one panel gags, reveling in the foul mind of Brunetti. I first read about Ivan Brunetti in an issue of COMIC ART, in an interview with THE IMP zine creator Daniel Raeburn.** There was a never published issue of THE IMP that was going to be all Brunetti, but it never happened. I stumbled across HAW! in The Beguiling in Toronto on my only trip to Toronto, jumped for joy, and I've loved his work every since.

There's also SCHIZO, which one can find the first three issues all collected in MISERY LOVES COMEDY.

And he's done 'this and that', covers here, a strip here. But really, that's about it. For a guy who has been around for as long as he's been, he's not prolific (but neither is Joe Matt, who I also love).

-Jarrett

* I was actually going to work on that tonight, but the hotel here was far too busy for me to sit down and get anything worth doing done.

** What desperately needs to be reprinted are the early issues of COMIC ART as searching eBay for them is a nightmare (right, go ahead, prove me wrong and type in 'comic art' into eBay, because you can't assume the person listing it will bother mentioning it's a magazine!), as well as a big fat book of Raeburn's THE IMP.

I've Been Saying This For Years!

“Political cartoons are the ass-end of the artform.”
-Ivan Brunetti

Damn right! I should mention that a lot of these wonderful quotes I pull magically out of the air are via Dirk Deppey's Journalista blog, which I find the final word on daily comic book news. I've been going back through the archive, currently in April 2007, and keep finding stuff that's more relevant than ever.

I think, as with any genre of a medium, there is potential for some really great work to emerge from out of political cartoons. I find that with political cartoons that with the very way it is produced (that is, daily), it doesn't allow for a lot of thought to go into the work, and it becomes dated faster than most anything.

-Jarrett

What I'm Buying This Week...

Well, I can't really talk about stuff that I don't even have yet...so a few things to note about the 'why' of the purchases.

1) Between the Fletcher Hanks book and SUPERMAN CHRONICLES, that's a lot of Golden Age superheroics in a short period of time. Am I enjoying it? Yeah....I think so. My expectations for the Hanks book in particular are pretty high (and I would have probably had it sooner, but someone named Bob went and sold it on me without reordering it.

2) Half of what is there is actually reordered, and I believe almost all of what I got last week was reordered too. This is actually a good ratio, telling of a good week.

3) I own three trades of Scud, and everything else in original issues....but hell, it's Scud! In a brick! My first comic book passion! Strangely enough, I think I have WIZARD Magazine or something to thank for that too. I remember owning this Scud t-shirt that said something like "Surreality Just Got Funky" and was teased/harassed about its slogan, I think because no one knew what 'surreal' meant.

4) I'm actually kind of excited for the second issue of GLAMOURPUSS. It seems like quite a while since I
read the first issue, and I am looking forward to more 'cute girls in a Al Williamson style' with Dave's own notes on his process.

5) The CBLDF fundraiser book has a magnificient line up for this sort of thing, and I'm fully expecting to flip through it for the lovely art and put it alongside my other one-off pamphlets of its kind. Hey, it is for a good cause and all...

6) Also really looking forward to more DAN DARE this week too.

-Jarrett

Thoughts on DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN

"I suspect that this phenomenon also explains the widespread fanboy revulsion for Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s Dark Knight Strikes Again, a celebration of the jubilant goofiness of silver-age superhero comics that also adroitly parodied Miller’s own legacy in comics. Typically, DKSA struck many readers looking for more of the original Dark Knight’s supposed “literary validation” of the superhero genre as some sort of obscene personal attack. It’s their loss, of course — DKSA was a hoot and a half, and proof that Frank Miller still had it in him to make good, fun comics."

-Dirk Deppey, Journalista April 18th, 2007

I remember when the first issue came out I was in the mindset of "literary validity" when it came to superheroes, and didn't like this at all. About, oh, three years later, out of high school and reading stuff Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, Dave Cooper, Seth, Dave Sim, Chester Brown, James Kochalka, Julie Doucet, I somehow wound up going back to this (I think Kochalka really loved it) and found myself enjoying it for all the right reasons that Frank Miller had pulled off in the first place. Because of this, I always wonder just how my perception of ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN will change when it is finished and it has had time to ferment.

I think in a lot of the ways the reason "DK2" works so well is because of the utterly grotesque, over the top art style Miller exaggerated to this degree. His partner Lynn Varley really outdid herself in creating some of the most hideously garish computer generated colours I've ever seen outside of bad marketing. But it all has this point, and it is oh so enjoyable now. The book is actually kind of hilarious, a complete farce, but it 'gets' what makes superheroes (specifically DC, obviously) such a joy to read. I believe that this has aged really well, and has aged a lot better than DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.

-Jarrett

Thoughts on THE DARK KNIGHT and Language

So my friend John and I were discussing THE DARK KNIGHT (which we each saw separately tonight), and he mentioned that some of his friends complained that the movie didn't have any swearing.

That's right: there are people who complain that the movie doesn't Have swearing.

Right, because as we all know the route to true, naturalistic expression of oneself comes from an inarticulate gutter mouth! This is perhaps true when done in, say, DEADWOOD, but so much of the show is part of the artful way in which vulgarity and expression merge. Now, the clip below I'm sure was actually edited to bask in the awesomeness of the movie WAY OF THE GUN, only with ironic laffs because it is now DC superheroes swearing (OMGLOL). To me, it actually illustrates the main reason I absolutely hated WAY OF THE GUN.



Yeah, just....terrible! You know how much 'swearing' occurred in the long running series HOMICIDE: LIFE IN THE STREET? Almost none. Thinking about terrible movies from the same period of time as WAY OF THE GUN, there's RULES OF ATTRACTION which, none only misunderstanding language in real life and in drama, but also receives my vote for Worst Movie of All Time. Start watching around the 1:20 mark for another winning exchange.



Now, I am no prude: I am an appreciator of a well timed f-bomb as much as anybody...but come on!!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hmm, I don't know if I'm actually going to get around to writing a real review of DARK KNIGHT, so this is going to have to suffice I think I've developed a real fanboy crush on the movie. I have always been a big nerd for The Joker, and this is probably one of the best jobs I've seen of the Joker character from how he was played, to how he was written. It is everything that I've hoped the superhero movies that have come out since X-2 would be....but instead it has just been more and more steadily downhill. So some random thoughts about my experience at the movie.

1) Trailers! A whole lot of shit coming out, eh? QUINTESSENCE OF SOLACE looks utterly baffling. Saw a trailer for this movie called TWILIGHT, which is, like, modern day vampires? Looks like Canadian made-for-tv quality. Was suppose to get the trailer for THE SPIRIT too, but got short changed...watched it at home here, and it is just stupid looking. Oh, and a remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL! With Keanu Reeves! I didn't even know they were making this...if I had, I probably would have 'magic tricked' myself (see #5) Am I missing anything?

2) Seeing the WATCHMEN trailer on the big screen finally broke me so I decided to finally watched 300 this very night....which was a poorly calculated mistake. It is really, really....Really....awful. It is everything I thought it would be. The slow-motion, the overwrought nature of everything, the score, the cheap gore, the green screenery, everything bad that there was in the Frank Miller story on 11....just putrid. I can't wait to lend it to all my friends!

3) Skanky teenage girls who think it is cool to kick off their sandals and put their bare stinking feet up on the seat in front them...which is occupied by somebody! Not once did an usher come by for the entire 2 1/2 hour movie to, I don't know, beat them with a flashlight or anything! Actually, the whole theater as packed with the age 16-20 set, something I pretty well have avoided for many years. But here they were, in full force, in their 'bro' and....'gurl' wears.

4) Heath Ledger's performance pretty well lives up to the hype. I don't know, we'll see what happens when I watch this on DVD a few months from now.

5) The Joker's magic trick Really lives up to the hype. My audience applauded here, and at another spot too. I think the last time people applauded at a movie I was in theater for was the end of GRINDHOUSE, in DEATH PROOF (well deserved).

6) Christopher Nolan is now, officially, Hot Shit, and I think is the first director since I guess Peter Jackson who deserves to be Hot Shit, if only for his MEMENTO and THE PRESTIGE.

7) The first movie score I actually want to own in a long time. I can then play it as I practice applying my Joker make up for my big crime spree...or perhaps I've said too much....

8) I don't think I'm ever going to quite like any Batman costume they make in movies. Other than a Golden Age-ish cloth costume, it always looks...practical but wrong?

After the fact, I also found out that Christopher Nolan is colour blind in the exact same way that I am, which actually explains why I kept thinking throughout the movie how much I loved the look of everything. Shanell and I were talking about how we both loved Joker's outfit too: it actually looked like real clothes, not like the always flat purple they've used in the past. I guess it was always the limitation of the filmmaker's imagination to think about how these characters would actually fashion 'costumes' in the real world. Yes, Mike and I were very much conscious of this when doing CAPES and it is nice (and sad) to see that someone has finally caught on.

And I just realized that the Joker had no 'origin story', which superhero films since the dawn of time have always felt were mandatory for understanding. Instead Nolan knew his audience was smart enough to realize that the Joker is beyond something so simple. I also admire the Nolan brothers for not deciding to mine THE KILLING JOKE for something to give the audiences. And Holy Crap, a Batman movie with TWO villains that actually worked? And naturally?

I should enjoy this moment of enjoying a movie fresh from the theater as who knows how long before I get to enjoy this again (let alone it being post-superhero movie).

-Jarrett