And now, finally, it's time for that long promised JOHNNY B's MONDO VINYL-O! In which I discuss, inform, opine, and otherwise enlighten all of you wonderful people out there who deign to read my little bloggie-poo about at least ten, count 'em, ten vinyl long playing 33 1/3 RPM stereo unless otherwise noted stacks o' wax to which I have listened to since the last time I did one of these here things. This was started when I got a new turntable several months ago and I had literally thousands of records that I hadn't listened to in over three years, and I thought it would make great blogfodder to inflict, I mean pass on my joyful reunions to all of you. I still listen to those newfangled compact disc things a lot, too, but this here's an exclusive vinyl joint, yo, so I don't discuss them. I've thoughtfully provided a scan of the cover when AMG didn't have one. So without further a-do-delee-doo, here goes...

Wendy Waldman-The Main Refrain (1976)
Wendy was one of a spate of West Coast female singer-songwriters that emerged in the early 70s in the wake of Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro and Janis Joplin. I've always placed her in a little group with Maria Muldaur, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, The McGarrigle Sisters and later Karla Bonoff, but she was different in that unlike Muldaur, Raitt and Ronstadt she wrote her own songs (several of which were covered by Muldaur, on whose records she often performed). Her records were always well-crafted LA-style country-pop-rock, often tinged with jazz stylings like her most obvious influence, Nyro. Her vocals even resembled Nyro's. But for some unexplainable reason, despite recording for one of the biggest record labels on Earth, her five Warners records from 1973-1978 probably sold as many all together as one of Ronstadt's. Guess she was just too smart for the room, who knows. Anyway, Refrain, her fourth solo album, is probably her strongest cut-for-cut, often featuring expansive, even cinematic arrangements and some nice harmony singing, especially on the title cut. Other highlights are the breezy, recorder-accented "Goodbye Summerwind", the dramatic, rockish "Soft and Low" and "Living is Good", and the reflective, jazzy "Back By Fall" which Muldaur also covered that same year. Wendy went on from here to release one or two records on other labels in the 80s, which were laden with typical 80s rock-guitar bombast and slick production, wrote a song called "Heartbeat" which Don Johnson, of all people, riding high on the success of Miami Vice had a hit with; then she went to Nashville where she's had a decent career of professional songwriting and production. Most recently, she's recorded with her pre-solo career band Bryndle, which features Andrew (Lonely Boy) Gold and Karla Bonoff as well. Sadly, none of her albums are available on CD; only a best-of sampler, released by Warner Archives about five years ago and one which doesn't begin to scratch the surface of her best work, is available.

The Mothers of Invention-Over-Nite Sensation (1973)
This album was (and still is) the line of demarcation for many Zappa fans. Sensation was his first album in which every song was conventionally structured, in a verse-verse-chorus-bridge-verse sense, rather than the mix of Varese, Ornette Coleman, doo-wop and blues to which Zappaphiles had become accustomed. And it was on this record that Zappa's sense of humor, always sarcastic, added an overtly surly and dismissive edge- one of the things I've always disliked about Frank's music was his nasty air of disdain for those that he perceived as beneath his contempt, and it's on this record in abundance. Guess getting pushed off a stage by a crazed "fan" and breaking your leg will do that to you. Anyway, I too am a little undecided, even after all these years, about what I think about this record...most of the satire takes shots at easy targets, unless you choose to go by Ben Watson's book, with all its "conceptual continuity" and multiple meanings and layers, and the arrangements of many of these songs are a bit too repetitious ("Camarillo Brillo") and busily arranged. Still, geez- it's got "Montana", one of his best songs and one of the few times his playful whimsy gets to shine though here, with speeded-up vocals by Tina Turner and the Ikettes; "Zomby Woof", which could have been a leftover from the Flo & Eddie band days; and of course, the elaborate and notorious dirty joke "Dinah-Moe-Humm", which is as catchy as it is crass. "I'm The Slime" is passable blues-rock, although its satirical target is a sitting duck. Really, the only cut which I don't like on this is the too-slick and horribly sung (by one Ricky Lancelloti) "Fifty-Fifty", in which Zappa states his musical ideology circa 1972. Time has been kind to this record- compared to much of his mid-to-late 80s albums, Sensation sounds like a major work.

Uriah Heep-Sweet Freedom (1973)
Ladies and gentlemen...THIS is Spinal Tap. These guys were critical whipping boys for so long, and mostly for good reason. Ostensibly a heavy blues-rock boogie outfit, they began early on to incorporate grandiose harmonies and fantasy themes into their music, and managed to hit it pretty big in the early 70s with albums such as Demons and Wizards, with its hit single "Easy Livin'", and The Magician's Birthday, appealing also to the Prog-rock crowd due to their Roger Dean album covers. And it's true, a lot of Spinal Tap's material was inspired by bands like the Heep...but when I was growing up, I kinda liked the guitar-keyboard-harmonies blend, as well as the hippie-dippie sword-and-sorcery subject matter so as an adult that should theoretically know better, I retain a soft spot for the classic incarnation of Uriah Heep. That being said, unfortunately the Heepsters were saddled with a preening vocalist, David Byron by name, who had one of the most cringe-inducing voices in rock music history. He had the unfortunate tendency to break out, at odd times, into a falsetto vibrato that would peel paint off a wall. Anyway, by the time of this record they had changed US record companies and this was their first release with Warners. It spawned a hit single, the catchy bluesy "Some Kind of Wonderful"-ish "Stealin" but largely abandons the fantasy themes of its immediate predecessors for more down-to-earth topics. The opener, "Dreamer", is a punchy rocker which Byron almost kills with his screeching at the end and I also like "Seven Stars"- another driving rocker with weird backwards-masked voices at the end. "Circus", an acoustic "pity the lot of the poor rock star" tune, is normally the sort of thing that annoys the hell out of me but the whining is at a minimum so it gets a pass. On the negative side, the plodding title cut sports a memory-defying hook and lyrics of the self-pitying type, and the album's closer, "Pilgrim", is the sort of song which gave the Heep its sometime unfair rep. The story of a wandering warrior who has to choose between love and battle, or something like that, it's bloated and overlong and horribly sung (especially at the end) by Byron, you won't know whether to laugh or leave the room. For what it's worth, I always liked Uriah Heep, even after Byron left or was sacked or whatever, and stuck around for a couple of records after he left- one of which, 1977's Firefly, was quite good. But I can certainly see why they were scorned like they were. We all have our guilty pleasures. Caveat emptor.

The J.Geils Band-The J. Geils Band (1970)
Most people that remember the Geils band at all remember their slick, oversynthed (but catchy) 80s hits like "Love Stinks" and "Centerfold". However, when they started out they were a straight up blues band- idolizing, emulating and covering the likes of John Lee Hooker, Otis Rush and Albert Collins. This, their debut on Atlantic, is about as bluesy as five white guys from Boston can get. They cover all three of the aforementioned gentlemen here, along with Smokey Robinson and Big Walter Price, and manage to hold their own with originals like "Wait", which kicks off the LP, and "Hard Drivin' Man". Later records adopted a more R&B-rock tone, and were not successful sales-wise even though they were popular on the road throughout the 70s. Of course, I liked 'em all, but as you're probably beginning to notice, my tastes don't always coincide with that of the record buying public at large. These guys are long overdue for a reunion album, but it probably won't happen despite the fact that neither lead Peter Wolf or anyone else in the group are having any sort of success whatsoever right now. Ego clashes, I suppose. Pride swallowing difficulties, maybe.

Bloodrock-2 (1970)
Gotta give a shout out for this one to Russell Butler, the cool older guy that lived next door to me when I was growing up and exposed me to bands like Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and these guys. Bloodrock was a Texas heavy blues rock group that was managed and produced by Grand Funk Railroad Svengali Terry Knight in the early 70s. According to AMG, and I didn't know this, they had six charting albums between 1970 and 1972 but the only one anyone ever remembers is this one, which features the top 40 hit "D.O.A.". I've always been amazed by the chart success of this song, which was so unlikely given its morbid subject matter. But you know what? That tale of two unfortunate young people who OD on drugs and jump off a building is still kinda gripping, the ominous, spooky music memorable and the lyrics crossed a lot of taboos for radio, causing a sensation among those who tend to become sensationalized by that sort of thing. And it definitely didn't sound like much else that was on the radio at the time, that's for sure! Anyway, there are several other songs here that are tuneful and rocking, if not especially well played, but the leaden production style of Knight doesn't help. Many of these, and I assume other songs on subsequent records, were co-written by one John Nitzinger, who went on to release several solo records as the decade wore on. I dig this one out from time to time for nostalgia's sake...it's one of the oldest records in my collection. Sadly, the first cut "Lucky in the Morning" is so scratched it barely plays.

Status Quo-Rockin' All Over the World (1977)
I'm sure you all (or many of you, anyway) remember the mid-1960s psychedelic pop hit "Pictures of Matchstick Men" which put the Quo on the map way back when. After unsuccessfully trying to follow that song up, they decided to make a major shift in their sound and went all heavy and bluesy, like the Cream, Foghat, or Humble Pie and many other groups of that ilk that were popular in the late 60s and early 70s. And they boogied along for several years, releasing several albums which did quite well in the UK but not so well over here until they released a live album in 1977 which finally got them a little attention. Then they released this, the studio follow-up, and it sounded very little like what had come before. Gone were the eight minute extended jams and piledriver riffs, replaced by a more compact and sleeker sound which rocked just as hard but more economically. I don't know why they chose to do this, maybe Punk and New Wave had something to do with it, but I'm glad they did because this little record is a joy. Yeah, it's slickly produced but for once the processed group vocals and guitar licks are in service to tightly arranged, strongly melodic songs which make all but the most lead-assed among us nod your head or dance around. All the songs are written by the band themselves, except the title cut which was taken from John Fogerty's self-titled first solo album. The Beatles and Cream are obvious influences, as well as Creedence to a point, and a couple of cuts- "Dirty Water" and "For You" sound like the Kinks. I'm tellin' ya, if you haven't heard this one I recommend it very highly. It's a good-time record if I ever heard one. Of course, this record failed to build on the Live record's sales, and it was back to the heavy boogie for the Quo. Honestly, I've heard very little of what they've done since this record because its follow up didn't come out in the US right away (or at least not where I could find it) and I just kinda lost interest...but they're still together and boogieing strong to this day. Here's their official website, if you're curious.

David Lindley-El Rayo-X (1981)
I've never had much use for the music of Jackson Browne, so it took me a while before I discovered the four albums that his sidekick and guitarist Lindley did in the 80s. This one was the first, and it was after this that he assembled an actual group named El Rayo-X, which toured in between session commitments. El Rayo-X is the best of the eclectic bunch, and it's consistently entertaining and surprising, combining a multitude of styles (mostly reggae, zydeco and Tex-Mex) and rhythms. Best of show here is the cover of the old song "Mercury Blues" later an enormous hit for some singing hat from Nashville...but that version couldn't hold a candle to this one, with its downright terrifying slide guitar solo. Other standouts are "Quarter of a Man", a funny reggae tale of a vertically challenged fellow who manages to get by just the same, "Ain't No Way", two of three excellent Robert "Frizz" Fuller songs on side one (whoever the hell he was), with a great melody and another excellent slide solo, and a reggae-ized cover of "Twist and Shout". A fun record, and highly recommended along with the two other El Rayo-X albums, Win This Record! and Very Greasy. We used to play the heck out of these at WLOC back in the old days.

Seals and Crofts-Summer Breeze (1972)
OK. I know by now that I have lost a ton of critical cool points for my earlier advocacy of Chicago. And I know I didn't help it any by admitting to liking Uriah Heep. Now I've probably destroyed it beyond all recognition because I'm going to step right up and say that I liked this record. Or to be precise, I liked the album cover design, and two songs: the title cut, and "Hummingbird". Those are both catchy and winning folk-rock songs with nice, polite, but somewhat snarly guitar licks spicing them up. Of course, they went on to record many schlocky albums sporting many schlocky cloying hit singles...but there's just something about the hippie vibe of this album in its entirety that appeals to me. While I'm at it, the later songs "Diamond Girl" (from the album of the same name) and "King of Nothing", from 1974's Unborn Child, were nice, too. And that's all I'm going to say about Seals and Crofts, pro or con. Heck, it's Summer, and that's when these songs sound the best, so I put the record on. Sue me.

Rick Wakeman-The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1973)
PBS recently aired a two-part documentary/dramatization which dealt with the lives of Henry's spouses, and I watched most of it, which in turn led me to dig this record out and give it a spin for the first time in several years. Of course, Wakeman was a pianist who started out as a session guy in his teens, then eventually hooked up with the Strawbs first, then Yes, and launched a solo career during his tenure with the Prog supergroup. This was his first, and it purports to be his "musical impressions" of each of the wives. It's tuneful enough, and very well played...there was never any doubt that Wakeman could play. He would never play one note when he could throw a hundred in instead. There are several nice, complicated passages of music, featuring not only piano but a barrage of keyboard instruments that were cutting edge then but sound a bit dated today...time marches on, I suppose. As a longtime Strawbs fan, I was especially gratified to see that some of the band members circa 1973 played on one cut here. The problem I've always had with this record is that in spite of all the craft and musicianship that went into it, I never get much of a feel for the personalities of the individual subjects. It all just sounds like a bunch of trademark Wakeman keyboard flourishes, punctuated by oohing and aahing from group vocalists. Sometimes he plays quieter, sometimes he plays faster and louder. Sometimes he plays a Hammond, sometimes a Moog, sometimes a Mellotron. Guess I just can't hear it, I don't know. Also, the track sequence is not the same as the sequence of Henry's wives, and this annoys my anal nature. Wakeman later went on to release enormously successful records with enormously overblown stage presentations, and when his career momentum died out he reunited with Yes, and has hung in there to this day...he's released an astounding number of records over the last three decades.

Marshall Crenshaw-Marshall Crenshaw (1982)
I gotta confess: when skinny-tie New Wave bands and their music came along, I was just as slow to embrace it as I was Punk. I liked what I liked, by God, and I didn't like all the synths and simplistic guit-bass-drums arrangements and gulping vocals and lyrics that were just boy-girl-whatever love songs. So when I first saw this record in Creem magazine, I was prepared to ignore it...Crenshaw looked like a less-nerdy Elvis Costello and I thought it would be more of the same. This was before I saw the light with Mr. McManus, so cut me some slack. However, something in both the Creem proper review and Christgau's review in the next issue (I think) broke me down a little, and I took a chance. I am very glad I did. For a bright shining moment, it looked like Marshall was going to be the savior of pop music itself- this record was so unpretentious, filled with great hooks and arrangements, and rewarded repeated listenings with a sharp, funny lyric here or a great lick or percussion embellishment there-and I think everyone got their hopes up for more of the same in perpetuity. Uh...didn't happen. Apparently the song well was a shallow one, because the sluggish, overproduced follow-up Field Day was a huge commercial flop with only one or two really memorable songs (and I know this record has its admirers...I just call 'em like I hear 'em) and subsequent records, while still delivering a great tune or three, were disappointments as well. Still, many artists go their entire careers without releasing one album this strong, so I can't feel too bad for Crenshaw, but it's a shame he couldn't sustain whatever he had. That doesn't take away from this album, which I think is one of the best in the history of pop music, no kiddin.

Well, that's gonna do it. I've listened to several others lately, but I'll have to do them some other time. I think the next Vinyl-O will be a special solo Beatles edition, since I'm always digging those out and giving 'em a spin.

Thanks for reading, and by all means feel free to comment!

Just added Tommy Lee Edwards' site to the "creators" section of the blogroll. Of special note is an ongoing story of which he has the first chapter up: it's called Teddy Grant, Soldier of Fortune, which seems to be, so far, a bit of a blend of the stylings of Toth (especially Bravo For Adventure) and Caniff with Raiders of the Lost Ark and X-Files. Go forth and viddy it, O my brothers and sisters.

Unconscious Mutterings again:

I say ... and you think ... ?

Miss America:: Styx. They did a song by that name that my high school rock band covered. Still can't listen to that frigging song, and the band thing didn't turn out all that great either.
Cherubs:: angels (sorry..can't think of anything else)
Shark Week:: Discovery Channel
Sunflowers:: Beach Boys
Sorority:: girls
Grilled chicken: Wendy's
100:: Bullets
Tickle monster:: Elmo
Veronica:: Lodge
Slurpee:: Cherry


Looks like this is all the posting I'll be doing today...I'm still working on the Vinyl-O, but it's gonna be a big'un and it takes time, something I can't seem to find a lot of right now.

See ya later, and like the Stones once sang: "May every song you sing be your favorite tune".

Speaking of Wizard World Chicago, the best news I've heard so far:

Howard Victor Chaykin is going to do the Challengers of the Unknown. Can't wait.

Via Newsarama by way of !Journalista!.

Update: Please see the comments section for more about recent Chaykin stuff from me.

You know, I should check Newsarama more often...though Neilalien I found the announcement that none other than my old fave Tommy Lee Edwards, whom you may recall from my Gemini Blood description in my "12 Comics You Should Read" list, will be illustrating the new adventures of fan-favorite character the Question. Originally created, written and illustrated by Steve Ditko as sort of a no-nonsense Spirit knockoff for Charlton Comics, the Question was one of a group of characters that DC acquired when Charlton went out of business back in the 80s. His gimmick was a mask that he wore, which had no facial features, hence the name. He always seemed to be accompanied by a lot of that trademark Ditkoesque swirly smoke. DC then published a Question comic for what seemed like a hell of a long time, with scripts by Dennis O'Neil and art by Denys Cowan, and while I was initially intrigued, I was completely underwhelmed by it so I stopped buying after about 6 issues. I've never had much affection for the characters, so believe me when I tell you that Edwards art is the only thing that could get me to buy a Question comic.

Here's another one of those quizzes where if you have any familiarity at all with the subject you can skew it towards any result you want...but what the heck.


You are "Uncle Black"


Which Mark Ryden Painting Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hey, any excuse to post a Mark Ryden piece. Chris, aka the lucky bastard that got to go to Wizard World Chicago, you should take this quiz.

Poached from Very Black, by the way.

Went to see Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl Saturday. About all I can say is that it's better than Cutthroat Island, though not by much, and Johnny Depp is almost as pretty as Geena Davis was...and it's Depp, like Davis, that makes the film worthwhile.

Don't know what moved Depp to play his Jack Sparrow (Captain Jack Sparrow, I can hear him say) as some kind of mincing mix of Tim Curry, Errol Flynn and RuPaul, but I can guess: other than Sparrow, the most colorful character is Geoffrey Rush's scowling Captain Barbossa and the script is a by-the-numbers pirate adventure, badly needing some spice- which Depp provides by the barrelful. He seems to be having a large time, wisely kidding the material, and as a result the viewer has a large time along with him. His performance is the best reason to see this film. Rush gives a fine, nuanced performance too, and Orlando (Legolas) Bloom is OK in a role which, despite the fact that his character is pivotal to the goings-on, isn't asked to do very much acting-wise. The special FX are fine, especially the scenes with the ghostly, decomposing buccaneers by moonlight...as they swordfight with living opponents, I couldn't help but flash back on the recent Ray Harryhausen documentary I saw on TCM and how difficult it was for the Master to pull off the Jason vs. the skeletons scenes. We've come a long way, I suppose. There's a lot of nice scenery, not all of it being chewed by Depp and Rush, and the period detail appears to be very nicely done. One or two of the action scenes work as well as they're supposed to. Director Gore Verbinski, with whose The Ring I was unimpressed, does a fine job, free of the noisy and annoying MTV-ish tricks he brought to his previous effort.

But.

The movie is too damn long by at least 20 minutes because modern scriptwriters, especially when they write action-adventure films, can't resist the urge to pad the story with false endings and unnecessary plot twists. There is at least one too many swordfights as well, among all the other requisite pirate movie trappings, such as battles at sea, and people being washed up on tropical islands. I realize that the prevailing thought is that hey- this is a "Summer action movie", based on a Disney World ride, so we have to make it as much like a roller coaster as we can...with lots of ups and downs and ins and outs and "make you jump" scenes as possible. Fine. But I don't like roller coasters. More negatives: the young actress Kiera Knightley has absolutely zero charisma playing the female lead. None. Her character is given plenty of opportunity to do all sorts of things, and she does them all in the same, low-key way. Even her drunk scene with Depp. A little more spark on her part would have gone a long way towards making this movie a lot more entertaining. There's a lot of exposition, because the story itself is needlessly cluttered, and you have to pay attention (especially at the end) or you'll be confused.

All things considered, though, I thought Pirates was OK. In a lot of ways, I was reminded of late 50s and early 60s Disney films like their version of Treasure Island and The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh. Guess it was the priggish, uptight would-be suitor and captain of the guard, and Knightley's character's clueless father (Jonathan (Brazil) Pryce, always welcome in any film), along with all the redcoats. If this had been made in 1963, it would have been split in two parts and shown on Sunday night on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. So what the heck...go see Pirates, for Depp if nothing else, and park your brain at the door.

A couple of things from Mark Evanier's website, which always provides a ton of interesting stuff-

A look at why "critically acclaimed but cancelled" titles are still worthwhile, which mentions one of my 12 comics you should read, Bat Lash. This article is almost a year old, and I'm sure many of you have already read it...but it sheds some light on that title. Plus, he reproduces the cover to #2 again...it's definitely the best cover of the series' run, but I'm thinking I should post another issue's cover sometime, just for the heck of it. #2's the only one that ever gets used!

Also, Evanier points us to art from what is now apparently going to be an unused Jay Stephens Teen Titans story. It's very retro, and appears to be set in 1964, is written by the original Titans (and longtime Brave & Bold) cscripter Bob Haney, and looks extremely cool. Hell, I'd buy it, unless it came out as a thirty dollar hardcover...but apparently those enlightened folks at DC say it's "too weird". As Rorschach would say: "Hurm."

Greetings, salutations, felicitations and Bacardi Show Birthday Greetings on this Sunday morning go out to:

Rock/hip-hop/jazz singer Neneh Cherry, 39 today. She hasn't been exactly what you could call a prolific artist, what with only three proper albums (only two released stateside) since 1988...but they've each been of high quality. Hopefully she'll get a new one out before the Aughts are over. Wonder if anybody hangs in the Buffalo Stance anymore...

Also


Everyone's favorite one-legged flautist and rock philosopher Ian Anderson, 56 today. I've always been a fan of Jethro Tull's early albums (pre-1976), as long-time readers may remember. He looks like the sort of fellow who'd "Give up his halo for a horn/and the horn for the hat I once had", doesn't he?

And by the way...he really has both legs. He sometimes played flute standing on one leg. Just in case you were wondering.

BSBdG's today for Agent Scully, aka Gillian Anderson, 35. I know, X-Files is over, and I shouldn't perpetuate typecasting. Apologies. I hope she goes on to bigger and better things as her career progresses.

But I'll still think "what's Agent Scully doing in that period drama?"...

Click on the picture above to go to her official website.

BEST OF THE WEEK

COMICS REVIEWS!
What I bought and what I thought, week of August 6

FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE 2
Honestly, I don't know how I can add to what I've said before: it's like Giffen and Dematteis found a script they had written back in 1986, dusted it off, and turned it in. Highlights this time around: the running joke with Fire, Sue Dibny, and hubby Ralph, the intellectual thugs, and the small, but hilarious Oberon cameo. Small...Oberon...BWAH-HA-HA! Big difference between now and then: Kevin Maguire has grown as an artist...his facial expressions, which were always realistic but sometimes didn't always match the emotions required back in the day are letter-perfect now, and he's gotten looser and more imaginative with his layouts. Only one complaint: colorist Lee Loughridge really needs to rethink his color palette. I suppose if I wanted to be true to this issue's spirit, I'd give it a 9, but instead I'll just stay with the norm and give it an A.

BAD GIRLS 1
What we have here is really nothing different than the sort of TV movies you see on the Disney Channel all the time, and since I watch Kim Possible whenever I can, I see plenty of that sort of thing on that network. Strong Buffy vibe, too. It's also reminiscent of theatrical releases like Zapped!, The Craft, or Clockstoppers. Or if we must compare it to comics, perhaps H-E-R-O combined with Will Pfiefer and Jill Thompson's recent miniseries Finals. A teenage nerd creates a serum which gives the four "Heathers" of his school super-powers, and it definitely doesn't appear as though they'll use them responsibly. This was an engaging read, despite the second-handedness of its plot, and well drawn by newcomer (to me, anyway) Jennifer Graves, who inks herself this time but I read where personal fave Jason Bone will do the tracing honors next issue, which is just fine with me. Still, I'm glad I got to see her own inks, and I'll be interested in what she does next. Gotta give a special mention to the nice Darwyn Cooke cover, which induced me to pick this up in the first place. Again, murkily colored by Lee Loughridge, who really should take that colorblindness test I had to take years ago for my graphics jobs... A-

ARKHAM ASYLUM: LIVING HELL 4
Moody and fast-paced, as usual, and Wade Von Grawbadger is a much better inker for Ryan Sook than the guy they got last time...but the story jumps around from place to place and flashback to flashback, often making it hard to follow, and I'm not sure if the focus didn't shift from the "Fish" too soon. The Demon's coming up, and all hell promises to literally break loose, so I'm still interested. B+

SOCK MONKEY Vol. 4 2
I still like Tony Millionaire's oddball sense of humor, and his excellent re-creation of the turn-of-the-century cartooning style...but his last few Sock Monkey stories have sported downbeat, glum endings which don't reward the faithful reader at all and definitely tempers my enjoyment and appreciation of his efforts. I'm not one that expects to be uplifted and favorably entertained every time out, but geez...misery doesn't always love company, you know. B+

STRANGERS IN PARADISE Vol.3 59
How typical of Terry Moore to finish his most involving issue in months with that hoariest of hoary comic-book cliches, the bitter victim of parental abuse. In this ever changing world in which we live, I suppose it should be reassuring to know that Mr. Moore will always be counted upon to do the melodramatic and cliche without fail whenever presented with the opportunity.
B-

Great post/appreciation of Bruce Campbell over at Big Sunny D's, along with a link to the upcoming film Bubba Ho-Tep, which sounds like one can't-miss oddball flick. Boy, I miss The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr....

Blogging's probably going to be light for me the next couple of days...many things to do this afternoon, and they're showing several James Cagney movies back to back on TCM...must...watch...Cagney...(one had Joan Blondell!) plus tomorrow will bring a doctor's appointment and a possible "Loser's Luncheon", so that's gonna minimize my quality time with the ol' iMac. I still need to post reviews of the new comics I picked up yesterday, plus I still have that overdue Vinyl-O, so don't despair. Like I'm sure you were. Despairing, that is. Whatever.

Once in a while I'll use this Bacardi Show Birthday Greetings conceit simply as an excuse to post pitchers of purty girls. Today, 28 years ago, Charlize Theron was born. Happy happy to ya, Ms. Theron.

More random musings about (everybody repeat after me) everything in general and nothing in particular.

Maybe I could organize a flash mob event where everyone repeats that phrase then disperses. Actually, I've been seeing the occasional article and blog post about this phenomenon, and it sounds interesting. I find myself wondering what Warren Ellis thinks of it for some reason. Anywho, the most recent blogpost/article link I found was over at Susan's. Go! Read! Return!

A serious note: the truly scary outcome of the Jesus Castillo case, as reported by Dirk Deppey and others. Scary, more for the precedent it sets than anything else. If this sort of transaction, to an adult with no children present, and the book in question having been found in a section clearly marked "adult", can cause this sort of legal trouble...then what's next? The definition of "porn" is a subjective one, at least the way it's set up in the USA, and all sorts of hell can be raised using this very shortsighted and ignorant ruling as an example. I know what they say about Texas justice, but this goes beyond the pale and is a dark blot on an already dark record.

Once in a while, I find myself awake at odd hours. Often, I'll sit and watch VH1's Insomniac Music Theatre, just to see that rarest of rare birds: a music video. Found myself doing just that the other night, and I'll mention a few in an effort to demonstrate to you people that my musical tastes are not stuck in 1974. I found myself enjoying several videos both on VH1 and (wonder of wonders) MTV, including Liz Phair's new one and a truly nutty crazy video for a dance song by a pair of Danes who go by Junior and Senior. It's called "Move Your Feet", and it features graphics which look like old Atari 2600 video games. It's catchy, silly, and totally fun, like the B-52's were when they started. Phair has caught a lot of crap for the new direction she's taken, for sure, and I can see why- the song I heard, "Why Can't I", sounded a lot like something from the Vanessa Carlton/Michelle Branch/Avril Levigne school...and while it wasn't bad in and of itself, quite catchy, actually- we all know she's capable of much more so it disappoints a bit. Still, I'm sure she's a bit tired of being a cult artist and this was the way she decided she could perhaps break out, so best of luck to her. The video, though, for this song is very imaginative and clever- it featured Phair and her band performing the song, which each scene aping album cover graphics- an interest of mine, hence my particular enjoyment of the clip, I'd say. Also, I caught the video for my favorite song on Coldplay's Rush of Blood to the Head, "The Scientist", and while it's not an interpretation I would have chosen, it's still a somewhat haunting depiction of the aftermath of a car crash in reverse. If you ever see it, you'll see what I mean, and I hope I haven't spoiled it for you.

I watched a really odd film the other night, as well...Flamingo Road, starring a by-then-long-in-the-tooth Joan Crawford playing a carnival dancer (she looks ridiculous in her carny costume) who becomes romantically involved with a young small-town deputy sheriff who is being groomed for state governorship by Titus Semple, played by Sydney (Maltese Falcon) Greenstreet, the corrupt, evil sheriff who pretty much has his way in both local and state affairs. Of course, Titus can't have his governor-to-be snogging an ex-carny girl, so he makes life miserable for Joan, eventually framing her for a crime and geting her sent away. When she returns, she gets a job at the local roadhouse and hooks up with another of Titus' political circle, the only one poweful enough to stand up to him. Much soapy melodramatic stuff ensues, before the somewhat contrived ending. Still, this was an interesting film, if nothing else than for Greenstreet's malevolent scenery-chewing. He had his difficulties with the southern accent, predictably for a trained Shakespearean actor, but he was otherwise excellent. Joan has her moments...no one could express indignant rage like she could. But jeez Louise- she had no business in a role that should have been played by someone half her age then.

The White Sox won the second game of the series with the Royals last night, so I'm feeling a bit better about them for now. It sounds like they came ready to play and didn't get out-hustled too much, which is what they're going to have to do to hold off the gutty Royals.

On the job hunt front, I got a phone call screening yesterday evening from a hiring manager from Phototype, a prepress operation based in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. It went pretty well, I suppose, even though I think my lack of experience with Flexo printing might be a drawback there. I have a passing familiarity with it, but I get the impression they need someone who can hit the ground running. Still, their classified ad that I responded to a while back stated that they needed several positions, not all of them Flexo related, and he hadn't looked at my resume yet, so who knows. Ohio's a lot closer than Nebraska, but the Nebraska gig sounds better. Stay tuned...

Taking a look at the Diamond Shipping List for today, I'll have the following waiting for me when I get down to the store:

TONY MILLIONAIRE SOCK MONKEY #2
ARKHAM ASYLUM LIVING HELL #4
FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE #2
STRANGERS IN PARADISE VOL III #59

I also see where BAD GIRLS #1, with a sweet Darwyn Cooke cover, is coming out...since my haul looks light I might pick it up too. The softcover TPB of HUMAN TARGET: FINAL CUT is supposed to come out, and I might stick a copy back to buy later.

OK, I'm done for now. Gotta go buy a birthday cake. Everyone have a great day and hopefully I'll post more later on.

Music today so far: Geri Haliwell-Schizophonic, Coldplay-A Rush of Blood to the Head, Eels-Daisies of the Galaxy, Allman Brothers Band-Eat A Peach, R.E.M.-Reveal (still haven't warmed to this one yet) and David Lindley and El Rayo-X: Win This Record!.

And another, very special BSBdG goes out to my darling daughter Brittany Abigail "Abby" Jones, every bit of 19 years old today. And fellas, she's single!

Bacardi Show Birthday Greetings go out today to ol' Ginger Spice herself, Ms. Geraldine "Geri" Haliwell, allegedly 31 years of age and a bit thinner and a lot blonder since the above picture was made. Still, that's Geri as I liked her best.

Actually, her 1999 solo debut Schizophonic really isn't all that bad. Can't comment on the follow-up Scream If You Wanna Go Faster (cool title), because I never got around to picking it up. Oh well, ces't la vie.

Been checkin' the ol' Site Meter, and I am in a state of shock.

I usually average 40-50 hits per day, sometimes less than that.

As of this writing, I have had 134 hits, and it's just mid-afternoon! At least 50 of these have come from Alan Doane's Comic Book Galaxy link, maybe more...my stat page only goes up to 5 pages. I'm amazed. I've even had some comments from some people whom I haven't heard from in a while.

Anyway, welcome to everyone, and thanks for checkin' me out! I'll try to post some more interesting stuff as the week goes by, so come back often!

134. Wow.

Update 8/6: I ended up with in excess of 180 yesterday. Double wow.

A quickie sports note:

I didn't like White Sox manager Jerry Manuel much before the season started; I like him and his style a lot less after last night's debacle in Chicago.

If the Sox want to win this division, this series is absolutely crucial. But Manuel's low-key, laid-back style has fostered an air of apparent lethargy and indifference in the clubhouse, and his season-long mishandling of his pitching staff was painfully in evidence last night, when he burned four pitchers in one inning, and had his bench coach (Manuel was ejected in the sixth inning with very little protestation, I might add) Joe Nossek leave closer Tom Gordon in for two innings, getting him lit up in the process.

Kansas City Royals manager Tony Pena out-managed, out-motivated and out-hustled him in every conceivable way. The Royals dugout was fired up and ready to play, and they executed flawlessly. I was even more impressed with Pena after outfielder Michael Tucker fouled a pitch off his knee and laid on the ground, writhing in pain...with Pena there, holding his hand as the team trainers examined him. No wonder the Royals have overacheived this season...this is the kind of leader players want to win for. He was animated and up the whole game, clapping his hands and talking to his players, with a lot of help from crazy man pitcher Jose Lima.

I'm a Sox fan, and I want them to win this division and maybe even get in a World Series before I die...but after last night's game I've developed a ton of respect and admiration for the scrappy Royals and their manager, and have nothing but scorn for the knuckleheads calling the shots for the Sox.

And that's your sports for today...now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

While reading Bill Sherman's review of the new show Peacemakers, in which he mentions the early 70s Richard Boone vehicle Hec Ramsey, I was reminded of another show of a year or two earlier, Bearcats! .

I was all of eleven when this show aired in 1971, and I suppose I was just the right age for this sort of thing. Also, it seems that when I get attached to a Western film or TV program, it's usually always an off-the-wall one (Wild Wild West (60s)or Valley of Gwangi, anyone?), and this one certainly qualified. Essentially, Bearcats was a hybrid action-adventure and western series about two soldiers of fortune, played by Rod (Pal's The Time Machine, The Birds) Taylor and Dennis Cole who traveled around the turn-of-the-century American west in a 1914 Stutz Bearcat righting wrongs and looking for adventure. For their services, they insisted on being paid with a blank check.

I wish I could go into a long, detailed explanation of what happened in this show, but hey, let's face it- that was 32 years ago and I just don't remember all that much. I remember one exciting episode in which some nutball ex-WWI German fighter pilot was flying around causing trouble and the Bearcats were hired to shut him down, and did so with the help of a Gatling gun which they mounted on the back of the car. The action scenes, with the pilot swooping down and the guys firing back at him, were pretty darn cool. I know I never missed an episode when I could help it, but it must have been up against some really popular show on another network, because it only ran for 8 months before it was cancelled in December of '71.

Anyway, I did a Google search or two for the program so I could write a semi-intelligent post, but I didn't turn up much. Here's TV Tome's entry, which features episode guides, and the link in the above paragraph will take you to another site which provides a little more info. Here's IMDb's entry.

I really wish that TV Land or some other network would rerun these...originally I thought there weren't enough episodes but according to TV Tome.com there were 13, including the two hour pilot. I won't hold my breath.

Part of the fun, or maybe more accurately one of the guilty pleasures, of Blogging is getting namechecks, linkage and such from other bloggers out there in the blogiverse, or blogtopia, or whatever you want to call it. Thanks to Sean Collins, Alan David Doane, and Eve over at Eve-tushnet for mentioning my "comics you should read" list. Thanks, too, Alan, for the linkage! Speaking of linkage, I've added a new semi-comics blogger at right, found at Alan David Doane's, named Michael Paciocco's Mind.

Maybe I should write more lists like that...

Random musings about nothing in particular and everything in general, just like it says in many of my blog descriptions.

First of all, go to Flat Earth for a very nice memorium for the late Warren Kremer, the Harvey artist par excellence who died on July 24. He was one of those creators who I never paid attention to until a recent Comic Book Artist issue devoted to Harvey Comics and realized how many Richie Riches and Hot Stuffs I read when I was a little kid. Steven Wintle doesn't update his site all that often, but when he does it's always worthwhile.

Went to the grocery yesterday, and while in the cereal aisle I was dismayed to note that not only is Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries now costing FOUR DOLLARS a box, but they're not even crunchberries anymore! Now those succulent little magenta sugar-and-oat bombs are now several alleged fruit flavors, and are not spherical in shape, but are in the form of whatever merchandising tie-in Quaker Oats is trying to push on its consumers. Feh. For four bucks I want CLASSIC MAGENTA, SPHERICAL crunch berries, or I don't buy.

I really wanted to add a Google search box to the Show, but those frigging Mac-phobes over at Google don't offer one. Bastards.

I have rearranged the blogroll at right somewhat, moving up a number of blogs I read more regularly than others and dropping others, who haven't reciprocated my linkage, altogether. If yours wasn't moved up please accept my sincere apologies, I still like you. Nothing personal was intended. I also added the Kinetix smiley, just as I said I would, now linked to a fansite devoted to the character. One little problem- the site hasn't been updated since 1997 and a lot has happened to that character since then- so if I find a better one I'll change the link. This will do for now. In the process, I have also somehow fucked up my template code, and have an extreme excess of white space at the bottom of this webpage. I went to Blogger.com to see if I could copy the original code for this design, but they don't offer it anymore! Gah! Is there anyone else out there who uses this template design and could send me the bottom section of your code? Help a brother out, whydoncha? If I had a job, I'd consider finding a nice webhost somewhere, download some other blogging application like Movable Type and forget Blogger altogether. I'm not that unhappy with Blogger, but little things keep popping up and driving me nuts. Update The excessive white space is gone, but I still have about a quarter inch of white at the bottom which I didn't have before. What's a poor boy to do.

Watched the mega-flop (both critically and at the box office) Eddie Murphy movie The Adventures of Pluto Nash Saturday night. And I guess I'm getting soft in my dotage because I didn't think it was all that bad. Labored and extremely silly, yes. Botched ending, oh my, yes. Retro-styled moon cars? Huh? But heck, Murphy was Murphy- rascally and appealing, Rosario Dawson was fine as the love interest, and even Randy Quaid as the son of Andy Kaufman in Heartbeeps gave me a chuckle or two. I'm sure I won't want to watch this again, but for a ninety-odd minute timewaster you could do worse.

I watched a generous portion of Minority Report earlier Saturday, not long after reading Evan Dorkin's little rant about the Spielberg-Cruise film. When I wrote about it back in March, I was quite impressed, and even though it might have been Oscarworthy. Problem is, Dorkin pointed out several things which I had overlooked or didn't notice, which always bugs me but I gotta admit he's right. The ending, after a second look, was cliched and it's true- the main villian's identity was easy to guess, because that type of character is always the villian in movies like this. Also, Evan asked how Cruise's psy-police intended to police the entire USA (or even, eventually, the world) with only three psychics? It's true that there may be more out there, but it was never mentioned. Oh well. Even with this, I stil thought it was a thought-provoking concept, with excellent and imaginative FX and I was still quite caught up in it until the end, which felt tacked-on. Oscar? Nah. But I still liked it better than Dorkin did.

Those of you who are longtime readers o'mine will be aware, I'm sure, of my intense admiration of the art of Vera Brosgol, she of the webcomic Return To Sender and the Pants Press Sketchblog. She recently announced over at RTS that she is...well, I'll just let her explain it:

No update this week. Or next week. Or for a while. Return to Sender is going on hiatus because I am running away from my life to join an animation studio, much like Steven Wolfhard did quite recently. In fact, he's getting me from the train station. And at the end of August I am moving into my new apartment and starting school. Sorry to do this to you but the comic isn't all that high on my list of priorities, and the whole animation thing looks a tad better on the old resume.

I'll miss reading RTS, it's fun even though it's not her best work...her illustration, design and pinup-type stuff is far, far stronger. She's always wanted to get into animation, and she'll be great at it, I'll bet, so best of luck to her. Boy I wish I'd done something like that when I was her age.

You know, actually I did look into attending the Joe Kubert School of Art when I was 18 and just getting out of high school, and all I wanted to be was a comic book artist. Problem was, the guidance conseling at our school left a lot to be desired and was nowhere near as developed as it is today, so I had no idea about how to get financial aid and I didn't think my parents would be able to afford the somewhat pricey Kubert school. So that never happened. I would have been attending at the same time as such later comics luminaries as Steve Bisette, John Totleben, Tom Yeates, and others...ce'st la vie. Sigh.

On the job hunt front (hee-I'm a poet and don't know it), I received an email last week from a recruiter from Printlink.com, who has had my resume on file for several years now, about an opportunity with the catalog production/marketing department of a outdoor gear & hunting/fishing equipment supplier called Cabelas, doing pretty much the same graphics/prepress work I did at Camping World! But...and there's always a "but", you know...this is in Sidney, Nebraska.

Nebraska. That's approximately 1200 miles away. Almost 80 miles north of Denver, closer to the Rockies than the plains, or so they tell me.

Still, it sounds like a great opportunity, they're willing to "relo" (recruiterspeak for relocate...wonder if I could get J-lo?) and I can't not check it out...so Printlink is supposed to set up a telephone interview with me after the 18th, when the hiring manager gets back from vacation. So stay tuned. I've got some other resumes out, but this is the most concrete thing right now. Nebraska. Geez. Here's a little irony for ya- when I was at CW, we used to refer often to Cabelas catalogs, to see what they were selling, for design ideas, prices, what have ya.

Ever since I saw a clever cameo appearance by the Michelin Man in a strip in Heavy Metal magazine, I've loved the character. You can go to the Michelin website, which you can visit by clicking here, and get a swellio bobblehead doll! I want one! I don't remember which HM story it was or who the artist was, either. Sorry. It was from around 1977 or '78, though, if that helps...

I'm thinking about creating a button for this site, so people can link to me with it. I think about a lot of things, including a website for my Pandora Arcana character (the synopsis for which I never did get around to submitting to Mike Carey...I'm sure he's lost a lot of sleep over it) and other things. I have a nifty logo which I created for my would-be cottage industry Psychic Martini Productions (TM, all you theives out there), but it's mighty big and even though it would be perfect for "Johnny Bacardi", when it's reduced as small as I would need it to be reduced, you can't tell what the hell it is...so back to the drawing board. Actually, I have a drawing board, given to me as a gift by Mrs. B back in 1980. I never got around to assembling it, and it's still in my basement some 23 years later. Sigh again.

All right, this is enough. Thanks for reading, now go out and live your lives and be happy and all that stuff. And come back soon.

Music this morning: Johnny Cash-American Recordings, Iris Dement-My Life, Alan Price-O Lucky Man! Soundtrack, The Mothers of Invention-Over-Nite Sensation, Status Quo-Rockin' All Over the World (a really great, forgotten record-bet your ass it will be in the upcoming Vinyl-O), Sandy Denny-Like An Old-Fashioned Waltz.

BSBdGs today go out to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who would have been 211 today. Now that would be impressive.

Unconscious Mutterings!

I say ? and you think ? ?

Hook:: line and sinker
Greg:: Briggs, a buddy of mine
Sixty:: Minute Man
Breakfast:: of Champions
Dollar:: General Store
Unpredictable:: emotions
O:: Lucky Man!
Bathing suit:: hot fun in the summertime (ooh lawd)
Inconsiderate:: bastards
Marx:: is there anyone who wouldn't reply Brothers?

BEST OF THE WEEK

COMICS REVIEWS!
What I bought and what I thought, week of July 30

ULTIMATES 11
Let's face it: Mark Millar has one story to tell, and this is a textbook example. He did this during his Authority tenure, in almost exactly the same fashion: set up a formidable, seemingly invincible menace, place the protagonists in a position in which it seems impossible for them to triumph, then a-ha! Pull something out of the blue. Again, as with the Authority, what makes this formula storytelling interesting is the attention paid to the characterizations. Many don't like these less than noble portrayals of the classic Marvel heroes, and I'm sympathetic; but to be honest, I never was all that attached to them anyway (OK, maybe Giant-Man, but it's not like this spouse-abusing version is an innovation or anything) so I'm just fine with it. For me, many of those grand Marvel stalwarts lost their appeal due to lackluster scripting and bland art over 30 years ago. So I still like this book, and I'm looking forward to the grande finale, whenever it comes out. A-

JOHN CONSTANTINE: HELLBLAZER 186
More deja vu. We've seen Johnny tripping and talking to the Aborigines before, but it's been a long time ago and I don't really think Conjob's somewhat confusing little nightmare 'shroom trip was the point of this tale anyway. Mike's trying to acquaint us with new girlfriend Angie, and he's succeeding in rounding out her character, all the better to set us up for some sort of major role I'm sure she's gonna play before this arc is over. OK, fine with me. I also hope that artist Marcelo Frusin stays on this book a long, long time. B+

LEGION 22
Well, we're four issues in to this five-issue arc, and I'm sorry...I just can't get caught up in it. Too many diversions, digressions, catastrophic events that only evoke shrugs, and red herrings. This whole thing has been oddly paced and there has been less than no suspense at any point in the proceedings, nor is there any reason to believe that the Legion won't persevere in the end. Perhaps Abnett and Lanning should read a few Mark Millar comics to get an idea about how to set this type of thing up. Anyway, this particular ish merely seems to be an excuse to get the two missing Legionnaires, Karate Kid and Ferro, back into the fold...and frankly, I didn't miss them all that much in the first place. This being said, at least we've had excellent art throughout by the Chris Batista/Mark Farmer team, so it's not a total loss. Of course, after next issue we get fill-in artists. B

CATWOMAN 21
I think the earlier announcement that artist Cameron Stewart is leaving after #25 tempered my enjoyment of this diverting heist tale somewhat. The artists slated to replace him just don't seem to be a good fit with the current direction of this book, and it makes me apprehensive, based on the pinup I saw...it's big boobs and spandex all over again. We'll see, I guess...writer Ed Brubaker says that the pinup isn't indicative of what they'll do when their tenure starts. Anyway, Stewart isn't at his best here, especially compared to last issue...his Captain Cold looks too young and he doesn't have the visual flair to bring off the humorous aspects Ed's script hints at. This isn't a disaster, but it's the first disappointing Catwoman issue in a long while. B

BEWARE THE CREEPER 5
I still think this is a poorly scripted and unimpressively drawn failure, but I will admit to liking a few things this time around...the Creeper's flaming statue performance art and the Josephine Baker-as-dressed-by-Ditko cameo were fun. C+

JLA 83
Gotta give Joe Kelly points for good intentions, and I'm down with his message. But his normally sharp characterization is nowhere to be found, and the twist ending is a groaner. The fill-in artist, helped a lot by regular inker Tom Nguyen, is OK. After four straight issues of heavy-handed, thinly veiled political allegory, I'm ready for some doomsday-scenarios-that-only-the-combined-might-of-the-JLA-can-avert type stories again. C

GLOBAL FREQUENCY 10
A very definite valley in this up-and-down series. Someone actually pulls someone's arm off and beats him with it, ha ha, and this whole story is actually a set-up for a punchline that lands with a thud. Not badly drawn, for what it's worth, but the coloring is excessively dark for no good reason. Bloody predictable, bloody formulaic, bloody bloody, and bloody awful. D

The Dirty Dozen!

The time has come, my friends. Due to requests from thousands out there, give or take 998 or so, I will now present my Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

This was inspired by ***Dave, of ***Dave Does The Blog fame's own Top Twelve list. And before I begin this gargantuan list o'mine, I'd like to add this disclaimer: this is not being done to dispute or refute ***Dave's list; it's a fine one in its own way, full of landmark titles by gifted creators. Some of his choices (Marvels, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen V1, Watchmen, Sandman, Astro City) are comics that I personally own and like very much, thank you. Some (Bone, Usagi Yojimbo) I haven't read, so I can't comment one way or another. There's only one real clunker to be found on his list, and that's Terry Moore's pretentious, outlandish soap opera-slash-latenight Cinemax "erotic thriller" wannabe Strangers in Paradise, which I buy in spite of my better judgment. I like the strong, memorable central characters and many of their ancillaries, and that's what keeps me buying, but I despise the often ludicrous mixing of genres and Moore's propensity to devote pages, nay entire sections of his books to embarrassingly bad poesy and silly dream sequences. But I digress. The problem with the list is that it is essentially a compendium of the same old same old, favoring books that are usually trotted out when people with otherwise good intentions make these sort of compilations. And I thought to myself, "Self", thought I, "If I were making such a list, it wouldn't have any (or at least very few) of the ones on ***Dave's list. So maybe I should put my money where my mouth is and come up with my own list for people to shoot holes in and pick apart, and hopefully even discuss among themselves." So here 'tis. A couple of more things before I commence ta writin': first, very few of my dirty dozen are available in collections. The price I pay for my eclecticism is that I have a tendency to become devoted to series that are revered by a cultish few, and you'll see what I mean when I begin listing. Also, when I conceived of this list, I decided to write this as if someone had asked me to dig a dozen titles out of my own personal collection. There are many, many series which I absolutely am nuts about which I haven't listed, because they're either just too odd and two dense and involved and full of reliance on knowing the conventions of comics and comicdom to recommend to a comics neophyte. So, such longtime favorites of mine like Starstruck, Flex Mentallo, Thriller, Amazing Adventures featuring Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds, American: Flagg!, Chase, Jack Staff, and others don't make the cut. I'm trying to keep these choices somewhat accessible to the uninitiated.

Are you ready? All right. Here we go. Apologies in advance for the inevitable typos, I'll try to seek 'em out and correct 'em as time goes by.

These are in no particular order of preference, by the way.

THE SPIRIT 1, 2 (Harvey Comics) Art/Script: Will Eisner and inking assistants
Back in 1966, Harvey Comics was looking to get into the Batman TV Show-fueled superhero comics trend, and trotted out a number of mostly lackluster titles which lasted no more than 4 issues. But here was the gold nugget in the Harvey river, two issues devoted to reprints of the very best of Eisner's post-WWII Spirit stories. Eisner was doing most of the art and scripting, and he was at his peak. If you're aware of Eisner's reputation, know that it was built on the stories contained in these two comics, which cost an astounding 25¢ each when they came out! Most of these stories were subsequently reprinted by Warren, and they're a bit easier to find like that, plus they'll eventually come out in DC's hardcover reprint series...but these two books are all the Spirit you'll ever need. But know this- if you borrow these from me, you'd better give 'em back in the same shape you got 'em in or there'll be hell to pay! They're very scarce.


BAT LASH 1-8 (DC Comics) Script/Plot: Dennis O'Neil, Sergio Aragones; Art: Nick Cardy
Here's a book which was ignored when it originally came out (1968) but has grown in critical stature in the decades since. Essentially an attempt to do Maverick, or perhaps something in the spirit of the original Wild Wild West in comics form, Bat Lash became much more- the whimsical, but definitely mature-in-tone scripts by O'Neil and Aragones (yes, that Sergio Aragones) perfectly complimented the stellar art of Nick Cardy, who was also drawing Aquaman at the time. Bat may have been a womanizing gambler and drifter who preferred to dine on pheasant and fine wine than brawl in a saloon, but he was one hombre you didn't ever want to cross and he had a heart of gold, as in the best issue in the series, #2 above, where is is forced into the role of protector and surrogate father to a young girl who had just witnessed the bushwhacking death of her sheriff father. DC is long overdue collecting these, and reviving Bat has been tricky...despite some fine artists and writers who've tried in the subsequent decades, none have really come close (not even O'Neil himself) to capturing the sass and charm of those original 8 (9, counting his premiere appearance in Showcase) issues.


DEATH: THE HIGH COST of LIVING 1-3 (DC/Vertigo) Script: Neil Gaiman, art Chris Bachalo
I'll tell ya up front: I don't have any Sandman proper titles on this list. I loved that series, more so when an artist I liked like Jill Thompson or Marc Hempel illustrated, but it's just too episodic and self-referential for me to spring on an unsuspecting comics newbie. If I was inclined to do so, I'd probably give 'em The Kindly Ones, the Hempel-illoed chapter which is my favorite Sandman arc...and ye gods, that one kinda presupposes familiarity with about 50-odd issues' worth of continuity already established, so...I decided to cite the self-contained first Death miniseries instead. It's a fine, touching, memorable story, ably illustrated by Bachalo before he became too clever for his readers' own good, and it features Morpheus' very likable sister. I thought the "is-she-or-isn't-she-really-Death" aspect of the script was clever. The second Death mini wasn't quite so hot, but if they liked this, I'd gladly guide them to the beaucoups of Sandman TPB's that are available at your local Barnes and Noble.


SCENE OF THE CRIME: A LITTLE PIECE OF GOODNIGHT (DC/Vertigo) Script: Ed Brubaker Art: Michael Lark
One of Brubaker's first DC assignments remains a high point in both his and artist Mike (Gotham Central) Lark's careers so far. A no-frills detective story, which involves a private investigator's search to get to the bottom of the murder of a runaway girl that he was hired to find, SotC is always suspenseful, surprising, and actually has a satisfying ending that makes sense, a rarity these days. The lead character has the requisite quirks and an odd, but believable cast of characters, including an uncle who is a renowned police photographer, and none of this bends over backwards to call attention to itself. This was better than most cop shows I see on TV.


TOP TEN 1-12 (DC/America's Best Comics) Script: Alan Moore, Art: Gene Ha/Zander Cannon
Speaking of TV cop shows, here's Hill Street Blues with superheroes. However, it's much more than that. All of Moore's ABC titles are of high quality, and really I would have loved to be able to recommend his excellent, but dense and sometimes offputting Promethea instead, but his Top Ten, now on hiatus, was always accessible and gripping. The titular Top Ten is but one of many precincts in a galactic police force in a universe where everyone has superpowers or enhanced abilities of some sort. Moore creates a vivid, clever and utterly believable cast, and the Ha/Cannon art team brings them to life in a world full of visual eye candy...in fact, part of the fun of Top Ten is going back and looking for all the "easter eggs" they place on every page, usually slightly different but familiar characters from all walks of fiction. Top Ten is a fun, engaging read...and oddly enough, one issue contains one of the most sympathetic (and touching) depictions of religious beliefs that I can recall in comics, anyway. This from Alan Moore, who gets raked over the coals on a regular basis for his unconventional beliefs. Funny world, ain't it...


GEMINI BLOOD 1-9 (DC/Helix) Script: Christopher Hinz, Art: Tommy Lee Edwards, with Bill Sinkiewicz and Richard Case inks in two issues
Now here's an overlooked gem of a series. When DC launched its Sci-Fi oriented Helix imprint back in '98, there was a lot of optimism but unfortunately most of its high-profile ongoing books like Howard Chaykin's forgotten (and forgettable) Cyberella, Lucius Shepherd and Al Davison's horrible Vermillion, and limited series like Tim Truman's laughable Black Lamb were tepid and disappointing, so everything from the line was dismissed as more of the same. Eventually, a couple of years later the entire Helix line was canned, with only Warren Ellis' moderately successful Transmetropolitan surviving. Apparently, for this reason, nobody paid much attention to this- the only (in my opinion) worthwhile Helix title. Gemini was an extrapolation of SF author Hinz' Paratwa series, three novels of which had already been released. The comic took place a couple of centuries prior to the events in the novels, but retained the three principal characters: Nick, a gentleman of short stature who had devoted his life to fighting the menace of the Paratwa, intellectually superior beings created by genetic manipulation as two separate bodies (called tways) who shared the same consciousness...which made them consummate assassins, almost undetectable spies and devious adversaries. Of course, the Paratwa's goal was complete domination of the known universe, including the barely livable planet Earth. The third principal was Gillian, Nick's mercenary super badass right hand man who possesses a surprising secret. The majority of Gemini Blood is given to the Paratwa plan to take over Flikker-Wixon Construction, chief supplier to Earth's cities in orbit project. By the time of Blood, Earth's ecology and social structure had devolved to the point where it was becoming necessary to try to live off-world, something which the Paratwa wish to control. They harass Chairman Chime Flikker-Wixon (one thing about Hinz-he came up with some great names), who in turn enlists the Earthian anti-tech police E-Tech, who sends Nick and Gillian and a small group of mercenaries to combat the Paratwa assassin named Rolk who's been attacking the Flikker-Wixons. Along the way we meet a diverse and surprising cast of characters, including Paratwa pawn Doctor 303, a charlatan psychiatrist who is treating Chime's daughter (who is more than she seems...) and has a dismaying hobby-he mounts human heads on a huge clock with a keyboard, which he has rigged to play Christmas carols! I took that name for one of my email addresses, by the way. Eventually we get to the bottom of what's going on with the Paratwa plot, and witness a climactic battle between Gillian's group and Rolk. The next three issues deal with Gillian's secret, and a genetic experiment gone wrong which Nick and another member of Gillian's group, the cigar-smoking merc Laura, investigate.

One of the most remarkable things about Hinz's scripts for Blood is the remarkably realized future reality he's set up. As in his books, there's a lot of care taken to make sure that nearly every gadget, every character, and every situation makes sense, or doesn't require a ton of disbelief suspension to appreciate. Some of his gimmicks and the names he's created for them are wonderfully imaginative: spellgel, a substance which is forcibly ingested by an unfortunate ambassador who is then reduced in size by the Paratwa (barbiized-honest, that's what it's called) then shipped to the Flikker-Wixons, whereupon he regurgatates it and it and displays a message, vegetable-soup like; twistik (activated by twisting the tube it's contained in, hence the name), a super-adhesive used by Gillian's mercs to combat the cannibalistic Earth race called the Shraddhan, cannibal part-mechanical people who descend, spider-like, upon unfortunates on the streets of the city at night, crescent shields and cohe (for coherent light) wands, the weapons of choice for both Paratwa tways and the humans who choose to battle them, and much more. And I can't not mention the always excellent art by Tommy Lee Edwards; he has a blocky, angular, sometimes sloppy style, but he also is an imaginative illustrator with superlative layout skills. Again, DC could do worse than to reprint these in a collection and see if there's an audience, however, Hinz and Edwards may have retained the rights. I don't know...but if you spot these in a quarter box somewhere, snap 'em up...you'll be glad you did. Gemini Blood, in my opinion, is among the best Science Fiction comics ever published.


TIMESPIRITS 1-8 (Marvel/Epic) Script: Steven Perry; Art: Tom Yeates with Rick Veitch in one issue
I wrote about this clever and winning sci-fi/fantasy 1985 series a few months ago. Highly recommended, but good luck finding the individual issues. Of course, there's no collection.


LOVE AND ROCKETS: WIG WAM BAM TPB (Fantagraphics) Art/script: Jaime Hernandez
Maggie and Hopey are arguably two of the most important (and certainly among the most memorable) characters introduced into comics in the last 30 years, and this, to me, was the storyline that featured Jaime at his peak. Maybe it's just because he used an old Sweet song as the title, I don't know. Gilbert's work is also worthy, but just doesn't grab me the way his brother's does. I love Jaime's clean, neat ink line and his way with drawing the ladies. I won't go into too much more detail, because I have a feeling many of you are already familiar with these tales of the Hoppers residents.


HELLSTORM 11-19 (Marvel) Script: Warren Ellis; Art: Leonardo Manco
Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, made his debut in a 1973 issue of Marvel Spotlight which featured the Ghost Rider. Not long afterward, he took over that title and was, well, spotlighted there until issue 24, after which they gave him his own series which lasted eight issues. Son of Satan was about the closest thing to an old-school DC series that Marvel ever did, which is to say that the stories were all plot-driven rather than character driven. Daimon, the true son of Marvel's Satan, renounced his evil father and battled him (and other supernatural foes) on Earth as a paranormal investigator and exorcist, wearing a ludicrous spandex red and yellow shirtless "ceremonial garb" complete with pointy yellow boots and a cape, and a large trident made of something called "Netheranium". He also had a dual nature- he would go all postal and unleash his "darksoul", which caused him to go berserk conveniently in the nick of time. Attempts to give him a compelling supporting cast were mostly unsuccessful, and Daimon soon found himself battling demons which could possess more than one person at a time, changing bodies effortlessly; a witch which used scenes from tarot cards to work evil magic on him and his friends; his sister Satana; the Cult of Entropy, which then-writer Steve Gerber had created in a previous issue of Man-Thing, and other oddball menaces. Readers soon grew bored, paper got expensive, and Daimon got the axe about 1977 or so. Even after all that, I thought the stories were somewhat clever and I liked SoS, I was sorry to see him get canned. He didn't stay in comics limbo long, but it was all downhill for several years thereafter; he would pop up occasionally in other Marvel books, most notably in Defenders where they married him to Patsy Walker neé Hellcat and gave him a costume even more embarrassing than the one he had previously sported complete with red mask and a tiny trident. Oy. Then, in the early 90s, obviously inspired by the success of DC's Vertigo line and its Hellblazer book in particular, Marvel relaunched a number of their old horror characters, and Daimon was the beneficiary of a total rethink and makeover. Gone was the tiny trident and red mask; he now sported long red hair, often tied back in a ponytail. He also frequently wore a trenchcoat. His origin story got a makeover, and Patsy was now insane after summoning a demon to help Daimon defeat his darksoul, which had split from Hellstrom, causing a Jekyll-Hyde type situation.

Even though this new direction was not bad in itself, the new book suffered from inconsistent art and lackluster scripting until a hitherto unknown Brit writer named Warren Ellis came aboard. Ellis's imagination went into overdrive, and he had perfect synergy with another newcomer, artist Leo Manco, who had come aboard one or two issues previously. As Ellis is wont to do, he surveyed all the bullshit and baggage that had accumulated, barnacle-like, around the Daimon Hellstrom character and totally re-made him into a cynical, sarcastic, no-nonsense (alright, "grim and gritty". Ugh.) bastard. He came up with the notion of a war between Heaven and Hell for souls, and a drug which angels were selling on the streets called "K". He had Daimon kill his father, Marvel's Satan, and take over as ruler of Hell (complete with "black halo" aspect) with the intention of preventing the malignant forces of Heaven from gaining a foothold on Earth. He created, for the first time ever, a worthy foe- nutball occult investigator Dr. Loss. He gave him a fascinating girlfriend-one Jaine Cutter, a Goth girl type who was magically altered to project razor-sharp spikes from her face, hands and arms when confronted by angels, who she was sworn to kill. Patsy died- only to be brought back as a eerie disembodied voice on a radio which was brought to Daimon by the gloating Dr. Loss. The old Marvel character Gabriel the Devil-Hunter was revived as an alcoholic pawn of Heaven, and stole a "breathing gun" from Jaine whose bullets could pierce magicks and demons- making it potentially fatal to the Lord of Hell. He gave an actual personality to the old Gargoyle character, who was Patsy's friend in the Defenders days and had been living in Hellstrom's mansion, looking after her. He reinvented the almost-equally as lame Satana character, making her a completely remorseless succubus, soon to clash with our "hero". And believe me when I tell you I'm just scratching the surface of the wild and weird stuff that Ellis cooked up. Manco's dark, atmospheric art worked perfectly in rendering all this. Of course, by the time Ellis came on board sales were already low and extremely positive word-of-mouth didn't come along in time to help spike them, so Hellstorm was cancelled with issue #19. Ellis only found out about it when he was scripting #18, and was just preparing a epic multi-issue story arc- so he had to literally tie up probably what would have been a dozen issues worth of plotlines in one issue. And he did- in a ridiculously efficient manner. It worked, against all odds!

I think Warren Ellis has done many fine books since Hellstorm, but I honestly don't think he's ever topped it. Sad thing is, he apparently doesn't agree, because he never discusses it and doesn't even list it in his bibliography on his website, even though he was slated to do a Satana miniseries a few years ago but dropped out due to conflicts with TPTB at Marvel. Back issues can often be found in quarter boxes...look for #'s 11-19- you won't be sorry.


STARMAN 0-80 (DC Comics) Script: James Robinson; Art: Tony Harris, Peter Snejbjerg, others and various inkers, particularly Wade Von Grawbadger
You may have heard a lot about this series, and I'm sure most of it is true. Sometimes it could be confusing, a bit pretentious and a little too self-referential, but what James Robinson achieved here is nothing short of spectacular. He created a thoroughly believable and mostly likable character, placed him and his in a fanciful, eccentric but at its base convincing city which almost was a character in itself, and explored a number of issues germane to comics in imaginative fashion, such as hero worship, lines of succession between fathers and sons who were costumed adventurers, the nature of parenthood, a generous helping of re-examination of DC history, canonical or not, and much, much more. Fortunately, these are all collected, I think, and one can start at the beginning and get caught up in an engrossing tale, well told. And well drawn, too- first by Tony Harris, his first regular ongoing, and later by then-Vertigo stalwart Pete Snejbjerg, who didn't seem like a good fit at first but grew into the job spectacularly. But it was Harris who set the look and the feel, and gave life to all of Robinson's characters and ideas. His renditions of Opal City are almost worth the price of admission alone, as is Robinson's brilliant re-imagining of old Golden-ager the Shade.


HELLBOY: CONQUEROR WORM (Dark Horse) Art/Script: Mike Mignola
Hellboy is another series that no matter which collection you pick up, you can't go wrong. If you like horror or fantasy, and you like action-adventure, then there's no one that combines the two better than Mignola in this series. I chose this particular TPB because I enjoyed the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink nature of this tale, it's a whopping fun yarn with Nazis, ghosts, alien creatures, old castles, and our favorite demonic paranormal investigator (along with his colleagues in the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) right in the middle as usual, getting the crap beat out of him, but doing his fair share of dishing it out as well. Mignola avoids some of the arbitrary nature of some of his other serials, some of which try to cram too much in and lose the plot sometimes...I'm specifically thinking Wake The Devil. I realize Hellboy is a fixture on many best-of lists, but I still get the feeling sometimes that this series doesn't have half the readership that it should. The Chained Coffin and Other Stories and The Right Hand of Doom are other especially outstanding entries, but like I said, you can't go wrong with any of them.


MAJOR BUMMER 1-15 (DC) Script: John Arcudi; Art: Doug Mahnke/Tom Nguyen, plus other inkers on a couple of issues
Major Bummer is one of the funniest, laugh-out-loud comics I've ever read, and absolutely nobody picked up on it back in 1998 when it came out. Sales were consistently low, thanks to the comics-shop system and buyers that were reluctant to buy anything new that didn't have Batman, the JLA or an X-Man in there. Their loss, but it also led to the premature cancellation of this book just when it was really kicking into overdrive. Bummer was the story of one Lou Martin, a young, numbskull slacker who receives a box in the mail one day addressed to "Martin, Louis". He opens it, a bright light flashes, and when he comes to he eventually discovers that he has changed to a being of Herculean proportions, with super-intellect to match, but only when he focuses and tries really hard to think. Lou, ever the slacker, is determined to carry on his life as though nothing has happened, but what he doesn't know is that the same package has been sent to several different people in the same city- some mostly law-abiding citizens, some with a tendency towards law-breaking. Of course, these people (except Lou, of course) are subliminally induced to band together to combat or perpetrate evil, and when the equally inept good guys try to enlist Lou, he wants no part of it. As it turns out, the boxes were sent by alien college students, who are conducting an experiment with Lou and Co. as their test subjects... and one thing leads to another as these people, with their new powers, carry out their agendas and Lou just tries to keep his job. The aliens turn out to be just as inept and boneheaded as their guinea pigs, and Lou has several hilarious encounters with his "benefactors"- and get this- he wasn't even supposed to get the package in the first place! They meant to send it to brilliant lawyer Martin Louis, but one of the aliens stuck a comma in the address! I'm not doing this justice, I know...just keep an eye out for these issues in the quarter boxes and you'll see of which I speaketh. It was in the pages of Bummer that I was introduced to one of my current fave art teams, Doug Mahnke and Tom Nguyen, who are currently turning in stellar work in JLA.

Thanks for reading, and I hope I lead you to check some of these out.

Again, like good ol' Professor Farnsworth says, "Good news, everyone!"

While reading the new Mojo magazine yesterday, I saw where one of my Ten Great Albums Not Available on CD, Neil Young's On The Beach, has finally been remastered and is set to come out in the US later in August! And looking at Amazon's listing, it's only ten bucks!! Now where's Time Fades Away, Mr. Young? Also, in an ad in that same magazine, I saw where Alan Price's 1974 Between Today and Yesterday, another later addition to that list o'mine, is also now on CD- right now as an import!

Now if they'd just issue Flo & Eddie's 1973 eponymous LP and Graham Central Station's Mirror...

Happy Deathday!
Your name:	Johnny Bacardi
You will die on:	Wednesday, August 22, 2012
You will die of:	Spider Bite
Username:
Created by Quill

Shit effing fire, that's only nine years from now!

...found over at Rhonda's.

The Final Word on Roxy Music. I promise. Sweet poster, huh!

The first time I heard of Roxy Music, I was 14 and read a review of their then-current release Stranded in Creem magazine. Sounded interesting. I was intrigued by the name of the band, and since there weren't any pictures of the group to give me any idea who was who, for all I knew there was a lead singer named Roxy Music or some such (remember, these were the Gary Glitter days), and that sounded cool to me. So, the next time my parents made their weekly trip to Louisville to visit friends and shop, I got the ten bucks they usually gave me, headed over to the Oxmoor Center record store I liked to frequent in those long-gone days (but I don't remember the name, sorry to say...Disc Records or something like that. Not Disc Jockey, by the way) and plunked down my cash for RM's third elpee. Looking at the inside sleeve on the way home, I first noticed that there was nobody named "Roxy" in the group at all, and it was kinda hard to tell much about the fellows in the group since they were represented by monochromatic, blurry pictures on the inner sleeve. But when I got it home and put it on I was transfixed. I had never heard such sounds before in my life, from the swirling atmospherics of Eddie Jobson's strings to the melancholy, retro-sounding woodwind sounds of Andy Mackay, to the live-wire guitar of Phil Manzanera...and the attitude and world-weary air of the singer totally captivated me, or as much as a fourteen year-old Kentucky boy could process the Ferry mystique...I listened to that album constantly for the next few weeks. At some point later the same year, RM's next LP, Country Life, was released, and of course I had to get it. When I plucked it out of the rack, I was a bit puzzled...I thought RM always had pinup girls on their covers. Why was this one covered in opaque green shrinkwrap? When I sat down in the mall after purchasing it, and looked under the wrap, I discovered why! There were two girls, photographed from the thighs up, both wearing nothing but their lace undies (one topless!)! I sat there and wondered how the hell I was gonna keep my parents from seeing this one...then I had a brainstorm: I just wouldn't take the shrinkwrap off. And I kept that record in my collection like that for the next few months, sliding it out of the wrap (when they weren't home) to...admire...the photography. Yeah, that's it. Heh. Anyway, I eventually left it out and kept it in my growing record stack, being careful to keep it out of sight (my 'rents were pretty cool about a lot of things, but not nudity or cussin' in their only son's records). By the time the year was over, I had also picked up the first two RM albums, Roxy Music and For Your Pleasure, and had added RM as one of the pantheon of my favorite Glam bands like Bowie, T.Rex, and others in those waning days of Glitter Rock.

Of course, as is so often the case, not long after they got their hooks in me the band went on hiatus after releasing the excellent Siren and began to concentrate on solo projects for the next 4 years. I dutifully bought as many as I could find, and while I liked (even loved) many of them, I kept hoping they would reunite someday and give me another Stranded. Problem was, as the times changed, so did Bryan Ferry & Co.'s tastes and styles, and when RM did finally get back together it sounded like an altogether different creature. Gone was the avant-garde experimentation and the what-the-hell edge, replaced by Ferry's world-weary lounge-lizard persona cranked up to eleven and a overly slick, synth-dominated sound, professionally if not passionately played by some of the most well-known studio musos in the business. So while I found much to like, I wasn't nearly as captivated by this edition of RM so eventually I stopped buying. The last RM-related albums I picked up were Ferry's 1987 bland Bete Noire, and Phil Manzanera's 1989 Southern Cross- an overproduced, glossy snoozefest with no trace of that fantastic, distorted, howling guitar sound of his RM peak.

Okay. Now, here's my top five favorite RM records, in order of preference.

1. Stranded (1973) Even though Eno had left, there was still enough of the reckless spirit of the first two records left with Ferry, Manzanera and Mackay that every cut here is a keeper, from the Eno-ish opener "Street Life" to the closing, hushed, even reverent "Sunset". I don't think Ferry ever wrote better lyrics than those to "Mother of Pearl". Underrated cut: the lovely and atmospheric "Just Like You". This record strikes a perfect balance between the compromised convention of subsequent records and the nutball feel of the first two.

2. For Your Pleasure: The Second Roxy Music Album(1973) I just think it sounds better with the full title. My favorite cover. This one is strong cut for cut but has a couple of clunkers which keep me from completely embracing it: the plodding, endless "The Bogus Man" and the lugubrious title cut, with its cheesy-spooky vocal treatments as it gradually comes to an end. But the good ones are very good indeed: the audacious "Do The Strand", the creepy/cool/weirdo Manzanera/Eno showcase "In Every Dream Home a Heartache", "Editions of You", fun and rocking and a chance for everyone (even Ferry, who plays a hilarious one-hand keyb solo) to take the spotlight, and the crooning "Grey Lagoons" with its strong melody and interesting arrangement.

3. Siren (1975) Their fifth group release is more conventionally structured than the first four, but every cut is strong both lyrically and musically. "Love is the Drug", their only US hit, is deserving and very catchy but it's the two songs after that, "End of the Line" and especially "Sentimental Fool", which grab me the most. "Just Another High" is also a remarkable song...but there's a samey-ness to this album which tempers my enjoyment a bit.

4. Country Life (1974) There's a samey-ness to this one, too, but it's a murky kind of feel rather than the pristine-ness of Siren. After I had listened to this one for several years, I could tell that they were beginning to feel a bit limited because there's a trace of ennui in all these songs, even though they're all great cuts. My faves include the surging opener "The Thrill of it All", the insistent "All I Want is You" (love the ending "Oo-ooh, I'm all cracked up on you"), "If it Takes All Night", which has always had a vaguely Fifties-ish feel to me and I wish Dave Edmonds would cover it, and while some may disagree, I've always had a soft spot for the goofy closer/tribute to Ferry's then-girlfriend "Prairie Rose", with its wink-wink lyric and chiming Manzanera guitar.

5. Roxy Music (1972) This is just a weird-sounding record. Everything sounds excessively separated and muffled, and can be distracting, especially upon first listen. I suppose in hindsight, getting King Crimson lyricist Peter Sinfield (a longtime favorite artist of mine, I have to add) to do his first solo production job for your debut might not have been the strongest of strategies. Still, there's not a bad track on this one, and some are brilliant, like "If There is Something", one of my fave RM tracks, and "Sea Breezes".

Others, and I won't list solo releases because this is already a Godzilla-sized post, include the 1976 Viva! Roxy Music Live! which isn't really all that bad for a live record but doesn't particularly improve on the songs chosen; 1979's Manifesto, the reunion record but really, it sounds more like a Ferry solo record that he invited the others to play on. It has a stripped-down, disco-poppish sound and some OK tracks, including the title cut, "Trash", and "Dance Away". The next record, 1980's Flesh and Blood is even more anonymous and bland than its immediate predecessor but when I get in a mood I can enjoy the title cut, the Byrds cover and "Oh Yeah". Everybody seems to love 1982's Avalon but me. I mean, "More Than This" is a great song, but nothing else on this slick, overproduced, homogenized record registers with me at all. Still, lotsa people dig it so what do I know?

And that concludes, boys and girls, my thoughts on Roxy Music. Thanks for your time.

All the recent hoo-hah after the SD Con about Jemas and Marvel's financial situation and Quesada and Grant Morrison and DC's snapping up names and so on and so forth has prompted some interesting writing in the comics blogosphere, both at the Gadabout's, Attentiondeficitetcetera, Jim Henley's and !Journalista!.

As someone who's been watching this shit go down for probably far too many years, all I can say is that it reminds me of little generals, bickering, squabbling and playing games with their troops and countries while the supporters and detractors on both sides watch on from afar and in turn squabble and bicker among themselves...while the rest of the world shrugs its shoulders and moves on. I would think that DC and Marvel needs to see the big picture rather than playing one-upmanship games, but I suppose to get over the apparent big fish-little pond egoism is a lot to ask, especially in Bill Jemas' case.

And if that's a muddled metaphor, I apologize...it's early. Whaddaya want from me?

Kickin' things off with a BSBdG to one of the most innovative and interesting artists of the Eighties, Kate Bush, all of 45 today. My favorite of her albums remains 1983's The Dreaming, although 1985's Hounds of Love is probably her most accomplished record. Unfortunately, she only released one album in the Nineties and has pretty much been invisible so far throughout this decade. I keep reading that she's working on something, coming out soon...so hurry up, already, Kate! Tori Amos is running out of inspiration!

BSBdG's go out today to one of my favorite character actors, David Warner, 61 today, who has appeared in a ton of great genre movies and TV shows, including Time After Time (Jack The Ripper, above), Tron, Time Bandits, Nightwing (playing a nutjob bat hunter named Payne...not the best film, but Warner was excellent and it's one of my favorite of his many roles), The Man With Two Brains, Alfie, and many more. He was also the voice for Freakazoid! villian The Lobe. Oh yeah, he was also in that film about the big boat that hit the iceberg...what was that title again...

Steve Winwood once wrote a song, and I'll betcha that if he could do it all over again he wouldn't, called "Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired". And like our Stevie, today has been one of those days when I share that feeling. However, I like to try to post something at least once a day, so here it is.

I have read some other blogs as the day has passed, though...One stop was at ***Dave Does The Blog, (what's up with those three stars anyway, yo?) which has so far seen fit to ignore any reciprocal linkage to yours truly but still features good writing so I persevere. The titular ***Dave has written (during the course of his blogathon over the weekend) of 10 (or 20, I forget) comics he feels one should give to non-comics reading people in order to try to convert them to our holy cause...and it's a fine list, but there was just something about it, a certain "usual suspects" feel that caused the sizzling, sputtering christmas light idea bulb in my brain to flicker. What comics would I give to some unsuspecting "normal" person who was uninitiated to the wonderful world of graphic narratives? At the risk of seeming like I always promise more than I deliver, I think I'll ponder this for a while and perhaps write on the matter later. And this is not to say that there was anything wrong with ***Dave's list; there were many worthy titles that I have read and loved like Watchmen and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But if I were to make a list it might be a wee bit...different...

Also, the redoubtable Bill Sherman, that Pop Culture Gadabout for all seasons, has written an appreciation of one of the bands that, like Grand Funk Railroad, all the cool older guys and gals listened to in 1970-71, the Iron Butterfly. I don't have any of their albums, but I had a friend who had that storied In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida record, and I listened to it many times and everything he saith, verily, is sooth. But I wanted to tell ya, Bill, and I would have done this over at your house if your comments were working, was that the IB released a few more albums on Atlantic (actually its Atco subsidiary, I think...also the US label of, that's right, you guessed it...ROXY MUSIC!) before disappearing into the archives of oblivion. And if we're gonna start namechecking heavy blooz rock bands of the 70s, then I got two names: Bloodrock and Uriah Heep. Both coming soon to a Mondo Vinyl-O near you!

But there I go again, promising more than I deliver.

Oh yeah. There's a new Christgau Consumer Guide up, if you're inclined to care...

Update 7/29 I just remembered an amusing little ancedote involving Iron Butterfly: when I was in marching band in high school, our drummers created a cadence based on the drum solo in "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida". It sounded pretty cool, as I recall.

RIP Bob Hope.

Like Professor Farnsworth says, "Great News!" Except this time it really is.

There's an article over at Newsarama which focuses on Paul Grist's Jack Staff, the latest issue of which is a bit overdue, and provides an explanation as well as a look ahead at what's coming up from the innovative Grist.

Also, if you've got the cash, you can now pre-order the Firefly DVD from Amazon.com!

Attack of the Puppet People, one of those great old 50s drive-in horror flicks that I love so much, is coming on in about 30 minutes. It's been 30 years since I've seen this one, I'd bet.

Speaking of Prof. Farnsworth, there's a new Futurama coming on Fox tonight at 6 central. Only 2 more new episodes to go after this one...

And speaking of TV, right now I'm still enjoying the new series Teen Titans (watched the second new eppy last night; it was better than the first) and Dead Like Me-they're really beginning to explore the situations inherent to the premise, and doing so quite cleverly. The season premeire of Kim Possible on Disney was as clever and fun as the first season was, so no decline in quality there. I think KP gets overlooked sometimes because of the misconception that it seems to be aimed at the pre-teen crowd, but the writing is sharp and the animation's fine as well so I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for something new to watch. I've recently seen a newish cartoon on Nickelodeon as well, named Chalkzone, which is also worth a look.

Spent the day yesterday working at an auction for my father-in-law. If you've ever done anything like this, you'll understand when I tell you that whoever tought up the phrase "one man's trash is another man's treasure" was a genius. Saw a classified ad in the paper this morning for a pre-media operation based in Ohio, called Phototype. They seem to be looking for a wide variety of skillsets and personnel, so what the hell, I'll send 'em a resume. Whether or not I can actually pack up and move there remains to be seen...

Found another website whch features an article on those Warner Bros./Reprise Loss Leaders promo albums that fascinate me so. Go here for the intro, go here for a detailed list. Most, but not all of the covers are reproduced, and all the tracks are listed on every album. As someone who has made, and tried to make, multitudes of mix and sampler CDs and tapes for both personal use and as gifts for people, and been frustrated when you have one great song then another great song which sounds good on its own but totally sinks the compilation when you stick them together, it amazes me how the people that assembled those compilations could take such varied artists and types of music and set them so comfortably next to each other. Of course, some sides were given to themes and such, but it wasn't unusual to have a lineup like this:

Deep Purple: Strange Kind of Woman
John Baldry: It Ain't Easy
Labelle: Shades of Difference
Redeye: Beginning to End
T. Rex: Hot Love
Randy Newman: Last Night I Had a Dream
Jackie Lomax: Helluva Woman
Paul Stookey: Sebastian
Norman Greenbaum: Circulate
Ron Nagle: Marijuana Hell
Gordon Lightfoot: 10 Degrees and Getting Colder
The Beach Boys: Feel Flows
Fanny: Soul Child
The Kinks: Animals in the Zoo

This is two sides' worth of the two-fer! Boy, I wish someone at WB or Rhino would re-issue these things on CD, or I could afford to get the originals on eBay. And this is despite the fact that I own many of these tracks on the original albums!

OK, almost movie time and I've rambled enough for a Sunday. Maybe I'll ramble more later. Coming up soon: that long awaited Roxy Music overview from my twisted viewpoint, and another Vinyl-O, and God knows what else.

You know, when I started this blogging thing I didn't intend for it to turn into a birthday blog, which is certainly what it seems like I'm doing lately. But I just gotta mention that today marks the big 6-0 for old Mr. D himself, Mick Jagger. You probably know what blues-rock combo he made his name with as the frontman. Underrated record: 1993's solo Wandering Spirit.

Getting back to the Roxy Music theme, Jerry Hall dumped Bryan Ferry for Mick. Let's play "six degrees of Roxy Music", shall we?

The great Roxy Music discussion continues over at Sean's, who gives us an opinionated career overview. Of course you know this means I'll have to give mine, but it will have to be later.

I've got to get up from here and do something productive today...

New discovery Eve-Tushnet writes a interesting review of the ill-fated Hulk film. In case you missed it, here's mine. I no longer think a sequel is a lock.

BEST OF THE WEEK

COMICS REVIEWS!
What I bought and what I thought, week of July 23

LUCIFER 40
Big apocalyptic finale to the most recent arc, and a rousing one at that. Even though this was most satisfying, and ends with a most unique cliffhanger, this particular arc seemed a bit rushed and underdeveloped and probably deserved a few more issues of buildup. Not to worry- there are lots of dangling threads left and I'm sure Mike Carey will tie them up in splendid fashion. It's funny, after a while I began to not even notice the disparate art styles of the tag-team artists for the last several issues, Dean Ormston, Peter Gross and Ryan Kelly. A

B.P.R.D.: DARK WATERS one shot
It's always great to read new stories of Mignola's Hellboy supporting cast, and this is done with total fidelity and care. Problem is, the story has a been-there-done-that feel to it, and fails to leave much of an impression. Nicely drawn by Guy Davis, whose work I disliked many years ago but has become a favorite now, and that carries the day. A-

LOVE and ROCKETS v2 8
As usual- idiosycratic, oddball and somewhat incomprehensable stuff from Gilbert and excellently drawn exploits of the Hoppers gang from Jaime. For them that likes, and I'm one, here's more. A-

STARTLING STORIES: THE THING-NIGHT FALLS ON YANCY STREET 3
Obviously, Evan Dorkin's busting his ass to write what he hopes is an honest, no-nonsense tribute to the great Lee-Kirby Marvels of our youth, and as far as that goes, he's done it. But the great Lee-Kirby stories of yore had fresh, often funny dialogue and were stuffed to bursting with Kirby's hyperactive imagination...and here's where Evan's story falls short of the goal. Unless Dorkin comes up with a bravura finale next issue, I think we have to consider this a noble failure. Dean Haspiel does a great job of drawing all this, but after the novelty of seeing him render the likes of the Frightful Four wears off, one has to stifle a yawn or two. B

INHUMANS v6 3
The script is dull and derivative, the art awkward and too prissy, and if I had a yen for "misunderstood teens with special abilities try to fit in on Earth" type stories I'd be a regular X-Men reader. I hate to bail on limited series, but I'm not looking forward to #4 very much at all. C-

Today would have been the 123rd birthday of the great Maxfield Parrish, who passed on in 1966. Click on the image above to go to a tribute site.

Good morning!

You know, it has occurred to me that I haven't written much about sports lately, and part of that is because I try not to get too caught up in the private lives of athletes and therefore don't really follow stories like that of Kobe Bryant or the Baylor basketball player who is missing and was allegedly shot by his best friend and teammate. I hear about them a lot on ESPN Radio and their News channel, so I know what's going on but don't really feel moved to write about it here. But since I list "sports" in many weblog directories, I feel obliged to at least post once in a while about them, so here's the obligatory sports post.

Bryant? Well, of course he's guilty of screwing around, many NBA players are. I don't really have a problem with him being an adulterer, because I don't recognize professional athletes as "role models" anyway and have always encouraged the impressionable to focus on their acheivements on the playing field and recognize that these people are human and have all the human foibles and faults. Parents or caregivers of kids are the ultimate role models anyway, if you ask me. Anywho, it kinda looks to me like the unnamed young lady was perfectly willing to be Kobe's mistress until some unknown something happened, then she decided to grab for the brass ring. Rape? I kinda doubt it, but who really knows. Kobe had a good rep prior to all this going down. And Bryant's public repentance was so self-serving to be disgusting. Oh, yeah...he's sorry now that he got caught! All I'm saying is that no one is innocent here, or at least the way I see it. I don't know all the facts, and I know that there are two sides to every story- and usually the truth falls somewhere in between.

On a happier note, my White Sox have won something like seven straight, and seem to be acting like they want to stay in the race. I'm still not crazy about manager Jerry Manuel, especially the boning he gave former closer Billy Koch, but he's OK as long as they keep winning. Fantasy-wise, I'm currently in first place in my freebie Yahoo! league, and am in 4th place (one through three finishes in the money) in the expensive one.

Another reason for celebration- NFL training camps are opening all over. Yesterday my beloved Atlanta Falcons opened camp, and optimism runs unusually high. Of course, they (and I) have had high hopes before and have seen them dashed to earth by the end of November. Still, they've never had an athlete at QB like Mike Vick before, and they made some key acquisitions in the off season...so we'll see. Fantasy-wise, it's looking like the Glasgow Fantasy Football League, which I've run since 1990, is about to bite the dust...done in by people growing apart (we all used to work for the same company, now only 4 of 10 do), losing interest and getting on with their lives. I've been putting off calling everyone, I need to do that soon. Myself, I hate to see it fold but it hasn't been too much fun the last two or three years so maybe it's time.

And that concludes the Obligatory Sports Update. I'll probably do more as it gets closer to football season, so you've been warned.

Continuing with the Roxy Music discussion, here's a reply to Bill Sherman, and by proxy Sean Collins:

Stranded is my favorite RM album, too, and not coincidentally it's the first Roxy album I heard. I ran out and picked up Roxy Music (on Reprise, with "Virginia Plain", gloat gloat) and For Your Pleasure, also on WB and probably my 2nd fave, before the end of the year. Even though Eno didn't participate on Stranded, I think tracks like "Street Life", "Serenade", "Mother of Pearl" and "A Song For Europe" are some of the best things to ever issue from the RM collective. I wish you would review that one, Bill, I'd like to read it.

Also, BSBdG's to Thriller artist Trevor Von Eeden. Von Eeden started working for DC at the ripe old age of 16, co-creating and illustrating several issues of their Black Lightning character before moving on to Green Arrow and Black Canary and various Batman stories, all the time developing his expressionistic style and making a name for himself as one of the hottest artists of the early 80s...until he collaborated with Robert Loren Fleming on a brand new book, Thriller, where he really cut loose but the daunting, complicated narrative, combined with some hit-and-miss experimentation of TVE's part, polarized many readers who were accustomed to a less involved reading experience. Their stint only lasted eight issues, after which TVE went into a period of disallusionment with both his work and the comics biz in general. Throughout the 80s and 90s, he did sporadic jobs for both DC, mostly on Bat-books, Milestone Comics, Black Canary's early 90s solo title, and Neal Adams' short-lived Continuity Comics line. It was all fine work, but lacked the panache of his Thriller stuff.

Still, he's recently become re-energized in regards to his work, he tells me, and has recently done illustrations for Moonstone Comics' Mysterious Traveler and Kolchak books. It will be interesting to see what comes next for this former prodigy and heck of a nice guy. The above is a comissioned drawing of the two titles he's most associated with: Batman and Thriller's Seven Seconds. Wish it had been for me!

She's going to shoot me after she sees this, but I couldn't not mention that today is Mrs. Bacardi, aka Theresa Ann Doyle-Jones' birthday. Happy birthday, sweetheart!

Speaking of Roxy Music, today's BSBdG goes out to Andrew Mackay, 57 today. The above is his 1974 solo album In Search of Eddie Riff, an all instrumental album recorded with Eno, Phil Manzanera and others which has been a fave of mine since I picked it up as an import back in 1975.

Yikes! Just read at Brendan's that our very own CzelticGirl, Annie, is celebrating a birthday today! So here's a BSBdG for you!

You know, every time I scan that "CzelticGirl" name, I get that old song "Candy Girl" in my head. Weird.

Via Franklin's Findings, I read these articles which describe Disney's scaling back on and Dreamworks' decision to stop producing traditional, cell-derived animated films.

I can understand why they would want to stop throwing money into a black hole of diminishing returns. But like I said before, and I don't think anyone can convince me otherwise- it's not the fact that these films are mostly traditionally animated that is causing them to fail at the box office. I mean, Jesus God, there are scads of trad-animated shows on TV that are doing quite well, in fact, well enough to get made into feature films (which sometimes flop- does this refute my point? Who knows...)! It's the CONCEPTS that are lackluster and stale. I mean, geez. Sinbad? Treasure Island? The generic Star Wars-isms of Titan A.E.? I'm surprised they haven't looked into doing an outer-space Little Women!

And here's another thing of which I'm convinced- films like Shrek, Monsters Inc., and Toy Story would have been just as successful if they had been hand-drawn. You know why? Because these concepts were FRESH! There may have been a curiosity factor, especially in the case of Toy Story, which was one of the first Pixar efforts, but I honestly believe that it was the concept, story and dialogue which made these and other Pixar-type films as interesting as they were. Finding Nemo? Derivative of other films and stories, perhaps, but fresh and unique in its presentation.

Of course, I'm far from a Hollywood insider, and I'm sure the Disney and Dreamworks folks have done test after test and poll after poll. But this is just a viewpoint from an objective distance, and I have been known to be wrong before.

End of rant. I'm feeling better now...think I'll go lie down.

"Sometimes I just think, 'You won't read somethin' because it's called a 'comic book'? What an elitist loser- Why the hell would I want you to read my book?' I wouldn't treat a ditch-digger the way some people treated me when I told them what I did. Who needs them?"

Artist/writer Colleen Doran, as quoted by Sean Collins in his mammoth SDCC summary. To quote Morris Day: "And I know that's right!"

But Colleen! Maybe you should have told them you write and draw "pamphlets!"

I also noted with amusement his recounting of being in a long conversation with Chris (The Filth, Time Breakers)Weston and Vertigo editor Shelly Bond about one of my favorite groups, Roxy Music, and how rare it was to get a group of Roxy fans together in the same place. Oh, boy...I would have been right there with ya. I absolutely love anything the Roxy collective did pre-1977.

While perusing Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters Monday column, I noticed the entry which dealt with the Royal Rumble anthology from the Royal Academy of Illustration and Design, and the Cartoon & Illustration Paradise (a message board which I have been known to post on once in a blue moon) post by Darwyn Cooke refuting that all was happy and good times in the creation of said anthology, specifically citing project editor Cameron Stewart and contrary to what Johnston had written in a previous column. Now, I have been an admirer of the work of both men, and while I know it happens more than we hear about, I still hate to hear about falling-outs between creators of this stature. Be that as it may, I thought it might be of interest to you who are inclined to care about these things, so I pass it on to you.

The BSBdG torrent continues!

First, funkmeister George Clinton, 63. Since 1975, when we used to listen to an 8-track of Parliament's Mothership Connection in the kitchen at Carmen's Pizza, where I worked as a kid, I've put a glide in my stride and a dip in my hip as I partied on down to the Mothership. Most of all, we need the funk, as George has been telling us for many years now. Go here for a P-Funk FAQ. Click on the picture for his official website.



Also, Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls turns the big 4-oh today. She is the one who's written most of my favorite IG's tunes, like "Least Complicated", "Galileo" and "Peace Tonight". Credit where credit is due dept.: the above picture of Ms. Saliers is by one Berta A. Daniels.

You all probably know I like Paul (100%) Pope's work very much. See link at right for his website. Via Big Sunny D, I found this career overview at Ninth Art. Just wanted to pass it on.

After a slow stretch, suddenly a flood of interesting birthday people hath issued forth. Today's BSBdG goes out to Yusuf Islam, or Cat Stevens as we knew him way back when.

I've always had a soft spot for his music, especially his 1974 effort Buddha and the Chocolate Box. He's been out of the music business now for a lot longer than he was ever in it, and he seems to have found happiness, so good on him. Still, I wish he had put out a few more records before he was done...

Click on the picture above to go to a nice fan site. Here's his official site, and here's another, very thourough fan site.

Yeah, I watched the new Teen Titans anime, I mean animated series last night. And you know what? I kinda liked it. It's fast-paced and fun. Now I fully expect a lot of those dyed-in-the-wool Titans fans, who just can't let go of Saint George Perez's definitive rendition of DC's original teen sidekick group, to be in caniptions over the manga-izations of those iconic characters like Raven and Starfire, but myself, and I speak as one who bought the very first Teen Titans appearance in Brave & the Bold 54 (well, my Mom or my dad bought it, because I was 4 at the time), buying the 60s and 70s book periodically (no pun intended), and was also there at the beginning of the storied Marv Wolfman/Perez run which began so fresh and promisingly but devolved into standard, melodramatic superhero sludge before it limped to a finish many years later by other hands...I didn't have a problem with this new cartoon version at all.

True, this is only the "getting acquainted" opening episode, and it was rather slight...but hey, it was action all the way and was never dull. The re-imagining of the DC characters in manga style was a great idea, and in their individual characterizations Robin falls into his junior Batman role quite nicely, Beast Boy nee Changeling (I've heard people bitching about this namewise change-back, too) was fine comic relief, and if Starfire's a bit ditzy in this incarnation, well who cares. She was kind of a wet blanket back in the day, if I recall correctly. My favorite re-imagining is the Raven character, who became tedious, then evil, then who knows what (I had stopped reading long since) in the original comic. Here, she's the Janeane Garafalo of the group, always with the wry quip or observation. The Cyborg character is probably the least changed from his comic incarnation, except he, too got an emergency angst removal operation. I also got a chuckle at the Gloom Cookie-ization of the bad-girl Jinx character.

Gotta mention the nice Glenn Murakami-designed opening title sequence, with a Japanese girl group bashing away in best Shonen Knife fashion as ribbons snake along the screen, leading to shots of the principals, punctuated by a cutesy exclamation of "Teen Titans!" at varied intervals. Fast and clever, and definitely an indication of the nature of the show.

Hopefully, as the series unfolds, we'll get to know these similar-but-different Titans and their world a lot better. I know some will miss the sturm-und- drag, but that's why God made back issues.

Couldn't let the day go by without extending BSBdG's to Dame Diana Rigg, 65 today, whose portrayal of Emma Peel on the British TV show The Avengers triggered those first stirrings of hormonal lust in 8 year old me. And I liked the show very much, too...still do.



Also best wishes to Carlos Santana, 56 today. While his music in the 30 plus years he's been recording hasn't always been particularly interesting in my opinion, anyway, I will always love the jazz-influenced stuff he did in the early 70s, especially the Caravanserai album. Credit where credit is due dept: the above picture is by one Robert Venosa.

The coveted BSBdG goes out today to Queen guitarist Brian May, 56 years old today. May's distinctive guitar sound added immeasurably to those early Queen records, which I liked, thank you very much.

I remember reading a caption in Creem magazine, back in the day, which stated "If Truman Capote were God, then Brian and Freddie (Mercury) would be his salt and pepper shakers". Oh, those crazy Creem writers.

After viewing Maisie Gets Her Man this morning, I thought I should note that today would have been the 90th birthday of the late comedian Red Skelton, who appeared in a lot of 40s and 50s films before moving to television and entertaining a whole new generation of people, including li'l ol' me who used to watch the Red Skelton Show faithfully growing up in the 60s and early 70s.

More from the Political Correspondent:

Throw Away Those Yellow Ribbons, Because Johnny is Never Marching Home

Cheney Energy Task Force Documents Feature Map of Iraqi Oilfields

UK Whistle Blower Found Dead

Bush Lies About Iraq Are Only The Symptom, Not The Disease

BEST OF THE WEEK

COMICS REVIEWS!
What I bought and what I thought, week of July 16!

BATGIRL YEAR ONE 8 Once again, the top of a very good heap. A bit more action this time out, with a subway traintop battle with Blockbuster (the Bat-villian, not the movie rental chain) as a highpoint, along with a fiery cliffhanger that's much more ominous than one would think, since it involves the Killer Moth...who I hope has fireproof tights! More nice characterization spread throughout as well, mostly involving Robin and Jim Gordon. A

GOTHAM CENTRAL 9 Cover-to-cover police dramatics focusing on the murder investigation of GCPD Det. Renee Montoya, with nary a stitch of spandex in sight. Wonderful use of the Bat-supporting cast, especially Bat-fan favorite Josie Mac. Can't imagine how this is all going to turn out, and that's all right with me. A

DAREDEVIL 49 Just a few observations: Matt Murdock needs to move. Seems like every nutjob super-psycho knows where he lives and can just walk in and give him trouble. Also, this Milla person who he's fallen in with is as big a loony as any Stilt-Man or Owl. Daredevil's little beatdown of Bullseye in this issue was certainly overdue, and Bendis even gets a little slam in at Bullseye's movie forehead tattoo. Alex Maleev's action sequences were much better this time out. And while this issue's central conflict was a wee bit contrived, I was as impressed as ever. A-

SLEEPER 7 The series that lives up to its name serves up another outstanding, if somewhat low-key, chapter of well-drawn skullduggery. You can't help but sympathise with protagonist Holden, but you also can't help but think that things aren't going to turn out all that well in the end because this just isn't that kind of story. A-

GLOBAL FREQUENCY 9 Here's the established Global Frequency pattern: Warren Ellis provides the canvas with only the most basic of scripts, and it's up to the chosen artist to carry the day. Some have succeeded with aplomb, some haven't. Lee Bermejo, impressive on a recent fill-in stint on Hellblazer, once again comes through with an excellent art job, and this grim tale is a keeper because of it. A-

H-E-R-O 6 Well, if the last issue was American Beauty with superheroes, then this issue is Lizzie McGuire. Quite fun, if slight, and nicely illustrated by that Kano fellow. B+

THE TRUTH: RED WHITE and BLACK 7 To sum up this not-bad miniseries: Clever, often powerful script, indifferently illustrated by Kyle Baker. Once in a while Baker would turn in a page or a sequence that hinted at what he can do when committed, but it wasn't nearly as often as I would have liked. Baker indulges his love of caracature towards the end of this issue, if you're into that sort of thing. B+

Also, I picked up the softcover edition of Darwyn Cooke's Catwoman graphic novel, SELINA'S BIG SCORE. As you may remember, Cooke pencilled the first few issues of the current Catwoman ongoing, and this story takes place just before the events in that title; actually, this story coincides with the Slam Bradley Detective Comics backup feature that appeared a few years ago. It's a fun, fast-paced heist thriller, and Cooke turns out to be as good a scripter as he is an artist. Although his inking line gets fatter and sloppier than I like sometimes, and he should never ever ever letter his own work again, this is a greatly entertaining story and is almost worth the 18 bucks I paid for it. A

Today's BSBdG continues my preoccupation with film actresses from bygone days. Lupe Vélez, the "Mexican Spitfire", would have been 95 today if she hadn't taken her life at age 36. I had never heard of her until I watched the installment of E!'s Mysteries and Scandals which spotlighted her life and career, and let me tell you, she certainly lived up to her nickname. Click on her picture above for her IMDb bio. Here's a website devoted to her.

Hopefully more later...

BSBdG's today go out to Terence Michael "Geezer" Butler, Black Sabbath's bassist. At 54, I suppose he really is getting to be a geezer now!

If I had to come up with a one-word description of the new album by the Thorns, it would be "harmony". In fact, they say in the bonus video on the CD that this was the reason they decided to unite in the first place- Pete Droge, Chris Mullins and Matthew Sweet's voices blend beautifully and every song features plenty of group vocalizing. It's when I try to think of what the music they make reminds me of that I begin to falter somewhat.

I've been a huge fan of Sweet's for several years now, since his Girlfriend album over 13 years ago. I've got three of Droge's albums as well, and I like one or two songs on each and am totally indifferent to the others. Mullins I remember from his hit single "Lullabye", but despite purchasing the CD for my wife a year or two ago I've never been curious enough to listen to it. If I had to hazard a guess as to who the principal songwriter is, I'd say Droge, because like his solo albums this one kinda runs out of gas before it's over. But Droge's music never sounded like this- possibly Sweet brings some pop smarts to the mix. The overall sound of this album is melodic soft-rock, with a sound that reminds me somewhat of Bob Welch-era Fleetwood Mac in some places, dead ringers for CSN & Y others, and in a couple of instances late-Beach Boys and late-Beatles. Early 90s Tom Petty is also a definite influence. The title cut is the hardest-rocking thing here, with its insistent lock-stepped beat. They claim that it's not an attempt to write a "Hey Hey We're the Monkees"-type theme song...uh huh. The Pettyish opener, "Runaway Feeling", is nicely sung and arranged and quite catchy. The best song is the first single "I Can't Remember" which has a bittersweet sentiment, a gorgeous melody and in a perfect world would be a huge smash. There's also a nicely done but somewhat pointless cover of one of the Jayhawks' best tunes, "Blue", which I suppose is to prove that they can harmonize purty-er than Gary Louris, Mark Olson and Marc Perlman, because otherwise their version is identical to the original...and "No Blue Sky" features a string arrangement by one of my absolute favorite arrangers, Paul Buckmaster, which allows me to forgive the title swipe from Lloyd Cole. "Think It Over" and "Dragonfly" are the best CSNY songs in three decades. Even though this album has its definite strengths, the overall sound of the album becomes a bit samey after a while, and renders the last few songs forgettable. I have a feeling, though, that I'll come back to them eventually and wind up liking them too.

Even though the rustic cover photos suggest Band-ish country-rock, this is actually quite an accomplished pop-music album. For those (like me) who flat out groove on well-done harmonies, you could do worse than to give The Thorns a listen.

Found myself awake at 2:30 this morning, and while flipping around the TV I came upon the above scene, from the 2001 film The Lady and the Duke, about the relationship between an expatriate Englishwoman, living in 18th century France at the time of the Revolution, and the cousin of the deposed King Louis XIV. At the very least, it was an involving character study in a period setting...but the most interesting thing to me were the unusual visuals, which combined digital manipulation with hand-painted backgrounds (on all outdoor scenes; all indoor scenes were filmed on sets) which gave them an odd, almost eerie look, something like old postcards from that time period. People fade into the distance, horses and carriages blend in and out...see the photo above for an example. She actually hides behind that log in the foreground at a later point. It makes the film a fascinating one to watch, and it's a conceit which, with a lesser hand at the helm, could have become old fast but 81-year-old director Eric Rohmer still had the imagination and skill to make sure this didn't happen. Some critics that I've read since watching this complained that the film, despite the distinctive visual style, was talky and dull but it didn't seem that way to me at all...and if a talky dull film doesn't put me to sleep at four in the morning, then it must have something going for it! Another thing I thought cool was the fact that it was based on a written-long-ago and mostly-forgotten-now memoir of the real-life Lady Grace Elliott.

I also watched last year's hit film The Ring, which was a remake of a Japanese film (haven't seen it) called Ringu. In Ring, people watch a weird Nine Inch Nails video (or at least something like one), then get a phone call from a mysterious voice informing them that they will die in seven days. This happens to a skeptical reporter, who, investigating her niece's death at the request of her sister, foolishly views the tape. A somewhat convoluted race against time to find out who made the film and why follows as her son and his estranged father also foolishly watch the video and receive death sentences as well. At first I wasn't sure whether I was going to be able to hang with it, because it was such a smorgasbord of modern horror flick cliches- a little I Know What You Did Last Summer here, a little David (Seven) Fincher there, and a whole lot of Sixth Sense ambience everywhere (is there a law stating all modern horror films have to feature spooky kids who act like they're on a lithium? I blame Christina Ricci in Addams Family)...but it still built up a good tense head of steam, and I became caught up in it about halfway through in spite of myself. Of course, and I hope I won't spoil it for you too much, it has one of thise irritating false endings- you know, just when you think everything's gonna be all right- OH NO! I suppose people crave this sort of thing out of their horror movies these days, but I just find it annoying. I also had a hard time figuring out exactly what happened with the family that lived on the island that was at the root of the whole mystery, which the director didn't help by editing out a couple of scenes which helped explain what was what and who was who. On DVD, these are available as a bonus feature. Still, I liked The Ring OK, once it got going...but I wish the execution had been as fresh as its premise.

I've been remiss in passing along many of the links that the Political Correspondent's been sending me lately, so here's a couple he sent me today:

U.S. death toll in Iraq equals '91 War

Terror War? What Terror War?

BSBdG's go out today to my 80's inamorata, Phoebe Cates, who turns the big four-oh today. Once a star in such films as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Gremlins, she has pretty much dropped out of acting and modeling these days, preferring to concentrate on being a mother to her kids by the Luckiest Man on Earth, aka Kevin Kline.

Oh, dear. The always interesting Sean T. Collins has thrown out the p-word. "Pamphlets", that is- and that word still makes me cringe. But the article he drops it in is an interesting one, so he gets a pass.

Me, I'm not necessarily against the demise of the "pamphlet", especially if it means creators, working in a larger, less deadline-strict format, can stay on a project from beginning till completion and produce a more cohesive work. Still, I have two reservations. One, price. I would have loved to have bought Selina's Big Score in its hardcover version, but just can't afford it. It's supposed to come out in softcover tomorrow, and I'm supposed to be getting it in my holds but I'm still not looking forward to dropping 15 bucks on one book, no matter what its size. Also, the effect of reading a collection or a novel sized TPB is akin to sitting down and watching 6 episodes of your favorite TV show back to back to back...and while this may be nirvana to some, I tend to lose interest unless the book in question is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece of engaging storytelling. I still like reading a chapter at a time. I recently obtained the final TPB collection of Paul Grist's Kane, and while it was engrossing and quite good, and everyone knows how much I love Grist's work, I still couldnt read it in one sitting. Maybe it's ADD on my part, who knows.

The rumor of the demise of the "pamphlet" has been with us for years and years, and somehow I suspect that it will be a few more years before it comes to pass. Whether or not this is a good thing I leave up to you.

Update 7/16 I suppose I should mention that I bought the softcover trade of Darwyn Cooke's eighteen dollar Catwoman opus Selina's Big Score today. I think I'm a bit more amenable to this, a story written and illustrated with the knowledge from day one that it's going to be a self-contained story, rather than collections of single "booklets" as many TPBs tend to be these days. They tend to be less episodic, I suppose. And to underline what I said before, instead of the twenty dollar tab I would have had if I had not chosen to purchase Score, I wound up spending forty. Now whether or not this would be a deterrent to the non-comics-fan Barnes & Noble browser I can't say for sure.

Also, after reading Bill Sherman's commentary on this and Sean's posts, it occurred to me that I have purchased trades in the past to give me an idea if I want to start buying a series that has already seen a number of issues printed...and the example he gave of X-Statix nee Force was the opposite of my experience! He bought a single issue or two of X-Statix to see if he wanted to continue picking it up, but by the time I got interested in it there had already been eight or so issues released so I decieded "in for a penny, in for a pound" and picked up the first collection...liking it enough to buy the series regularly for another year or so.

Like I said earlier, I watched a movie or three over the last few days. First up, Martin Scorcese's Big Sweeping Epic Gangs of New York, which dealt with 18th century New York, the Irish-American section in particular, and the relationship between three people: Bill (The Butcher) Cutting, who pretty much runs things in the Five Corners, played with brutal bravura by Daniel Day-Lewis; Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio), son of Cutting's chief rival, who seeks revenge for his father's death by Cutting's hand; and Jenny Everdeane, a pickpocket and thief once indebted to Bill and falls in love with Leo. It's a very long film, but I kinda wish it was longer because it's oddly paced and one wishes more time had been spent on certain scenes and situations. The ending, in particular, seems rushed and somewhat unsatisfying. In fact, the middle part of the film is given to the conflict that Leo's character feels when he's taken in, recruited into Bill's gang and is treated like a son by the Butcher, who is totally unaware of Leo's agenda, and for me it's the most involving part. After the deception is revealed, the rest of the film became anticlimactic. But Gangs is still very much worth one's time- the sets and costumes look absolutely authentic and the performances are all first rate, not only the principals but supporting players like the great Jim Broadbent and John C. Reilly, who was in every other film released in 2002, I think. Leo succeeds in making his character work despite his unconvincing baby face, and Day-Lewis is amazing in his role, even though his accent (more Brooklyn-ish than Irish) bugged me throughout. I mean, everyone else in the film, even Leo, spoke in that Irish brogue: "Oh worra worra me, faith n' begorra" type stuff, but Bill was all "dese" and "youse". I'm sure Scorcese and Day-Lewis did their homework, but it kinda jumped out at me.

Also, I rented Treasure Planet, last year's big flop Disney traditionally-animated feature film. Everybody's wailing, lamenting and gnashing teeth about the death throes of hand-drawn animation, citing the failures of this and this year's Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. It seems to me that the problem isn't that people are rejecting traditional animation out of hand, it's that the concepts that trad-animators are proposing and getting approved somehow are DOA. Boring. Stodgy. For the life of me, I couldn't imagine why, when Planet was first announced, anyone would want to see it. Kids don't know jack about the Stevenson tale, and we already have at least two live action feature films of the story. Same goes with Sinbad. It seems to me that if trad-animators would work a little and seek out projects that are, shall we say, a bit more unusual and interesting to people other than bean counters, then perhaps their films would fare a bit better at the box office. Even going back a bit, projects like Titan A.E. and Spirit: Wild Horse of the Cimarron were yawn-inducing as well. The exception to this was Lilo and Stitch, which still suffered a bit from Disneyization but had a novel setting and characters to bouy it. Emphasis novel. Be this as it may (and bear in mind that this is just my opinion) there was much to like in Treasure Planet. Character designs were great, and there were several exciting set pieces, especially the struggle to escape a black hole; I liked the way the Jack Hawkins/Silver relationship played itself out too. I liked the feline Captain character, voiced by Emma Thompson. She was smart and tough. But they had to hedge their bets by infusing the hoary old Stevensen story with typical Disney-ish cliches like annoying comic relief robots and the obligatory contrived happy ending, not to mention songs which were (thankfully) not sung by the characters themselves. I could live with the conceit of the starships looking like old wooden sailing ships, but the more one thought about it the less sense it made. Treasure Planet is worth a rental, because it's well animated and involving, despite the cliches...but I'd wait until the rental price goes down.

And of course, there were my usual Turner Classic Movies viewings. I watched 1939's The Roaring Twenties, a big-budget gangster flick set in the prohibition era and featuring the best: James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. And of course, there was the angelic Priscilla Lane as Cagney's would-be romance. She gets to sing several songs, including "My Melancholy Baby" which I think made its debut in this film. Poor Cagney couldn't catch a break in this flick. Here's a link to a TCM piece about Twenties. Bogie also appeared, with Edward G. Robinson and another of my long-ago inamoratas, Ann Sothern, in Brother Orchid, an amusing tale of a gangster that hides out from his enemies in a monastery and learns a few life lessons in the meantime. Bogart is pretty slimy, Robinson shows great range, and Sothern is lovely and funny as always. On Sunday, I caught two Errol Flynn adventures: They Died With Their Boots On, with Flynn as Custer at Little Big Horn, and The Charge of the Light Brigade, this time with Errol as a Major in the British army in this tale based on the Alfred Lord-Tennyson poem. I always enjoy flicks with Flynn in 'em...he has that dashing air of good fun and high adventure, but is good enough of an actor to convey drama as well if need be.

I've got a few more films that have come out lately I want to see, and I'm sure some good stuff will come on cable eventually (there's a Maisie film coming on sometime in the next few days...!) so you can be sure I'll eventually write about 'em right here.

In my review of the Hulk film, I wondered what 70's Hulk artist Herb Trimpe thought about the big screen version of the character he had worked on for almost 90 issues. I need wonder no longer. Over at Pulse, they have reprinted comments he made in a local newspaper. Go here to read.

In fact, there are several interesting news items over there today, including a review of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film by Heidi MacDonald. I haven't read all of it yet, because despite my misgivings I might still go see it and spoilers are contained therein.

Hey there hi there ho there.

I was going to sit down first thing this morning and write about the movies I've seen and stuff I've read and listened to over the last few days, but when I sat down at my desk I noticed that my daughter had left a soda can on the top, and I had an ant party going on on top of it! So I had remove everything off the desk, move the desk away from the wall and the window in which the ants were entering, and clean and spray. It was a battle that made Helms' Deep look like a walk in the park. Though it was a mighty, time-consuming struggle, I am pleased to report that the ant menace has been suppressed, for now. If you find any misspellings or mistakes, it's all the ants' fault.

I've got places to go and people to be this afternoon, so I won't be able to write about anything much until later. Again, bear with me, puh-leeze.