Holy David Mazzuchelli! Now this looks promising. And it says here that Gina Gershon is going to be the voice of Catwoman. Meow, to coin a phrase.

With the preceding post in mind, here are some comments on the comics I bought in the last two weeks. I probably won't go into too much depth, since there are a lot of 'em, but I wanted to put my two centavos worth in just the same.

Books I picked up the week of January 27, alphabetically:

GLOBAL FREQUENCY 11: This book has been such a rollercoaster ride, and has been most enjoyable when Warren Ellis gets an artist who's able to effectively realize and spice up the often formulaic scripts he writes for this series. This issue we get Jason Pearson, an artist we don't get to see nearly enough of if you ask me, and he does a stellar job of illustrating a tale which is just a bit different from what he's established previously, detailing an attack on Global Frequency HQ and focusing on the coordinator Aleph. A definite peak in this up and down series. A

HELLBLAZER 192 A couple of guest appearances from the DC/Vertigo supernatural stable make this even more enjoyable, and this arc has been pretty darn enjoyable anyway. Mike Carey is proving that he can spread himself as thin as he likes, with no decline in quality. Makes him sound like peanut butter, doesn't it? A-

LEGION 29 I've really grown quite tired of this title. Too much superheroics and convoluted pseudo-science. It's mostly well drawn, but this once-promising book is dying on the vine. I'll be dropping it after this arc concludes. C+

THE LOSERS 8 Well, I liked this one, which is essentially an episodic look at the individual characters, all dealing with their individual pursuits, in between (I assume) missions which will resume next issue when the regular artist Jock comes back. There's not a lot of explanations regarding who's who and why they're what they are, but that's OK-I like Andy Diggle's handling of this type of story a lot more than his lackluster turn on Lady Constantine, and he has an affinity for this sort of action/caper movie type thing. I remain an admirer of the art of fill-in Shawn Martinbrough, who did a typically great job of illoing this and last issue. Hope to see more from him very soon. I think he needs a regular title again. A-

MIDNIGHT, MASS: HERE THERE BE MONSTERS 1 Ther original Midnight, Mass limited series, detailing the adventures of Nick-and-Nora Charles-ish supernatural menace fighters Adam and Julia Kadmon was very enjoyable, despite its troubled behind-the-scenes story of editorial interference and a lackluster artist. This second try gives us a much better artist, and is still a fun read despite some very dire and surprisingly violent goings-on within. Good start. A-

POWERS 36 Now here's a title which issue in and issue out is very well drawn and always tightly written, and I think gets taken for granted because of it. This, the finale of not only this title's first run (a relaunch is planned, with the next issue being V2 #1, I believe) but the most recent story arc is very strong and explains a lot about not only main protagonist Christian Walker, but the world he inhabited before we met him. And no ads! I wanna know more about the interesting-looking villianess with the black spandex suit and the green pigtails...but I won't hold my breath. A

WALKING DEAD 4 This is as well done as always, with nicely dialogued scripting and carefully detailed art...but this is still, when you get right down to it, a soap opera. Granted, it's a soap opera with zombies shuffling around in the background, but's 99 1/4 percent pure soap just the same. And while there's nothing wrong with that, I could use a little less of the daytime drama and a little more of the stuff like the frantic escape from the gun shop in the city. And this being said, I'm still not sure where this is all going and I'm sure as shootin' gonna stick around long enough to find out. B+

WANTED 2 Here's another one of those books that gives me the feeling that there's a hell of a lot more going on in, subtext-wise, that I'm able to see after a couple of reads. It goes without saying that it's beautifully illustrated- J.G. Jones is great. And you can't help but get caught up in the delirious glee with which Millar shows us the sordid details of our protagonists indoctrination into the world of the super-criminal. And if all the "fuck you"s are a little too reminiscent of Michael Douglas in Falling Down, well, that's OK, they're still kinda fun, albeit mostly bad-style fun and the influence is blended smoothly. So what I'm trying to say is that I'm enjoying Wanted, but I keep asking myself "Is this all there is? What am I missing?"... A-

Comics purchased week of February 4, in alphabetical order:

COURTNEY CRUMRIN IN THE TWILIGHT KINGDOM 2
I've become something of a CC fan in the time since #1 came out, having acquired and read the trade collections of the first two limited series in that interval. It's winning fantasy in that Harry Potter tradition, but isn't especially imitative of any particular source and is often very clever. This issue is no exception, as Courtney gets involved with a group of magically-empowered schoolmates who cast a spell on one of their number, transforming him into one of the "night things", which means that in order to restore the kid's humanity, she'll have to deal with the titular Kingdom, which is never a safe thing to do. I knew creator Ted Naifeh was a fine illustrator from his past work, but I had no idea that he could be such an effective and clever writer as well. I firmly believe that this is one of the best fantasy series coming out these days and is very underrated by almost everyone. A

MY FAITH IN FRANKIE 2 This enjoyable series takes a couple of unexpected turns this time out, with relationships between the four principal characters taking a turn for the worse, perhaps, and a whole different background for the entire series than I anticipated after reading #1. I'm really coming to admire the clever and energetic work of penciller Sonny Liew, and as always any Marc Hempel, even inks only, is always welcome. A-

SANDMAN PRESENTS: THESSALY, WITCH FOR HIRE 1 I was familiar with Neil Gaiman's petite Thessalonian witch from his Sandman run, but declined to pick up her previous showcase miniseries, probably because I wasn't all that impressed with the art. But even though the same artist returns for this second try, I'm more inclined to be interested this time because I've come to appreciate what writer Bill Willingham's up to in Fables, and am curious to see whether he can bring the same smart blend of real-world and fantastic to another series. McManus isn't terrible, far from it, but his style never seems to be comfortable with itself; it's often too cartoonish to be realistic and too realistic to be cartoonish, and as a result is neither here nor there and just sort of lies there on the page. He has a real problem with anatomy as well and draws some of the most awkward action sequences I've seen in a while. Oh well, I'm still interested, since this issue does little more than introduce the players and sets up the plot of what I assume will be the bulk of the next three. I hate to bail on 4-issue series, anyway, and the covers are stellar. B.

And since I'm trying to make this an all-for-one, one-for-all comics post, here's what I'll be getting Wednesday, according to the Diamond shipping list:
HELLBOY: WEIRD TALES #7
FABLES #22
GOTHAM CENTRAL #16 (I hope- I still haven't got #15 yet!)
H-E-R-O #13
LOSERS ANTE UP TP (Actually, I won't be buying this- I won a set of the first 6 issues on eBay, for only a buck more than this trade would cost)
1602 #7

And that's all! Really, the only one I'm looking forward to much is the new Fables...but you never know about Hellboy: Weird Tales. I have a copy of the new Mojo magazine put back for me, too, so I'll probably pick that up in place of the Losers trade.

While I did refrain from blogging during my recent vacation of sorts, I didn't give up all my vices: I still continued to buy comic books. And strangely enough, I continued to have opinions.

I'd like to try to get some of my thoughts down on writing about comics in general, and how it applies to me. One of the reasons, not the only one but one reason, for my recent sabbatical was my disappointment and self-doubt about my ability to write in an efficacious manner about four-color funnybooks. I was not an English major, nor was I a Journalism major. I haven't really studied form and structure of writing, other than the required classes for my Graphic Design degree program. I have not studied criticism, nor have I been published in a legitimate outlet for same. So I am less than a definitive authority when it comes to writing serious criticism of any sort, and I'm insecure about that, especially since I use this blog as a forum for my wannabe critical pretensions, right out there for anyone and everyone to see. When I miss something as obvious and as glaring as what Jim Henley wrote about in his critique of New Frontier, (which, in all fairness, creator Darwyn Cooke has gone on to explain, and Jim has retreated a bit from his original stance...now I'm thinking I'll give Cooke the benefit of the doubt) my initial reaction is to smack my forehead and say "Of course. Why didn't I notice that?"...but then that little fella in my head that always makes me see things in a realistic light tells me "If you miss something that obvious, then what makes you think that you should keep trying? What else have you missed? What more will you overlook?" And as I do far too often, I listen to this little Grima Wormtongue type fella, and that creates a sort of writer's block, more like a palsy I suppose and inaction is a result. It's frigging intimidating, that's what it is, having all that fine criticism and writing out there, and trying, if not to compete, to have a place in the metaphorical group portrait. But what I have come to realize is that even though I'll never in a million years be able to focus enough or recognize all the myriad particulars and be able to reference a thousand and one literary precedents and examples like Eve Tushnet, Sean Collins, Bill Sherman, Dave Fiore, Henley and others, and especially not be able to write such deep essays on the likes of Watchmen and so on, I still look at comics and sequential fiction in a way that many of my fellow full-and-semi-comics bloggers don't: I'm all about the art. For example, while I have the utmost admiration for Eve, Jim, Sean, & Dave's dissection of Watchmen, I noticed that not one of them remarked on Dave Gibbon's exacting sense of symmetry and detail in his deceptively excellent illustration work on that title. While I'm not really an admirer of Gibbons' style (he draws the homliest women this side of Guy Davis), I have always been extremely impressed by the skill and craft he brought to Moore's story. I dare say that in the hands of a lesser artist, or at least one without such a clever and effective vision for the script, Watchmen might not have had half the resonance it had, and still has, some 18 years on. All my esteemed colleagues seem to focus on all the various ramifications of the scripts for almost everything they choose to comment on, and hardly ever does the art enter into the equation...

And I figure as long as I have that going for me, then perhaps I can slide by on the rest. Not that I'm always gonna focus on art at the expense of story, but I think that it at least gives me a mental hook to hang my hat on, and that will keep me inflicting myself on you, my wonderful readers, for some time to come. Aren't you lucky.

A while back I was reading on somebody's blog, in fact a couple of somebody's blogs, about the curious phenomenon that has been observed in the art of many comics of the last two or three decades: the boob sock. In other words, as I understand it, this applies to any female character drawn wearing a tight spandex, cotton, or leather upper garment with shape and outline of said character's breasts being plainly shown, almost as if the shirt or whatever was designed with form-fitting cups, or "socks" for the mammary glands in question. As many discerning people know, clothes just don't fit like this, not even when extremely tight or wet. The pundits describe this as "Boob Socks".

After having read this enlightening exchange, one of the first things I noticed when reading the first issue of DC's Sandman Presents- Thessaly: Witch For Hire, was that the tit-ular character (sorry, I'm a bad boy) was wearing boob socks, courtesy of "fan-favorite" artist (that's what it says in DC's full page ads for this book, anyway) Shawn McManus, whose chief claim to fame was illustrating Alan Moore's "Pog" story in Swamp Thing over 20 years ago. I wonder which fan he is a favorite of. Anyway, enough with the snark, I just wanted to show that I, too, am "hip" to the boob sock phenomenon.

During my self-imposed time of wandering in the non-blogging wilderness, I found the time to view several movies, and here are the most memorable.

Our cable company has been giving us a free week-long preview of the Starz and Encore premium cable channels, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how many films they've shown lately that I was curious about, but not curious enough to go see in the theatre or rent, like 8 Mile, The Bourne Identity,and Frida, Salma Hayek's pet project slash star turn slash biopic about Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. There's just something about films about painters that seems to fascinate me. Guess maybe it all ties in to that search for my missing alcoholic crack whore art muse. Anyway, I enjoyed the hell out of Ed Harris' thematically similar Pollock, and was happy to finally get a chance to see this. And I wish I could say that I was bowled over and blown away, but while Frida is often visually stunning, it tends to jump from melodrama to melodrama and rarely allows a glimpse into what made its subject, or for that matter co-lead Alfred Molina's Diego Rivera, tick. This is probably a result of several rewrites- I noticed where no less that four screenwriters are given script credit. That rarely lends itself to coherence, and it's a tribute to director Julie Taymor that she's able to not only hold it together, but inject some of her trademark imagination into several brilliantly staged scenes which combine animation with reality. I really enjoyed her adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, cleverly retitled Titus, and this was her first film since. There's a parade of cameos by actors like Ashley Judd and Geoffrey Rush, the latter almost unrecognizable playing Russian philosopher Leon Trotsky, who enters Frida & Rivera's orbit in exile (of course, Frida sleeps with him). By the time Kahlo journeys to France for an exhibition and winds up sleeping with Josephine Baker, I had begun to roll my eyes a bit and wonder who was next...anyway, Frida Kahlo was a remarkable artist and woman, and perhaps deserved a bit more of an in-depth look...but this is far from a failure, and its ambition gets it over in the long run. This was a labor of love for Salma Hayek, and she gives the best performance of her career (that I've seen, anyway) as Kahlo. Frida is well worth watching, but don't go in expecting a lot.



Another of my Holy Grail films fell by the wayside the other night when I caught a showing of the 1997 film The Whole Wide World, which starred Vincent D'Onofrio as pulp writer Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, Kull, and many other rip-roaring characters. It also stars Renee (sigh) Zellweger as teacher/writer Novaline Pryce, who had a romantic, but mostly unrequited, relationship with Howard in the Thirties, while he was in his creative prime and in the days leading up to his suicide. She eventually wrote a memoir about her time with him called One Who Walks Alone, and it's on this book that this movie is based. It's fascinating all the way through, and the leads are outstanding, especially D'Onofrio, who brings a spark and fire to Howard and keeps him a mostly admirable figure, even though he's portrayed as a eccentric yahoo mama's boy for the most part. There are several memorable scenes, many of which take place during walks or picnic excursions the two would take and feature some gorgeous outdoor scenery. Also, another noteworthy segment features Howard sitting at his typewriter, pounding the keys furiously while the story he's writing is narrated in a voiceover as the camera spins about him, completely engrossed in the sheer physical act of writing to the complete exclusion of everything else. These are just a few of many amazing moments in this film, which is a bit more of a "chick flick" than you'd think, but is one hell of a good one none the less.



At the Daily News, they gave us 3 $5 passes to the nicest theatre in Bowling Green, and finding myself with a Saturday afternoon to kill, I decided to take in a matinee showing of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. But. I didn't get off work till 12:30 PM, and the first show started at 12 noon, with the next screening to begin at 4PM. What was a poor boy to do? I decided to take in the 1:00 screening of a film that was taken from a Saturday morning cartoon I had seen several times and enjoyed very much, Disney's Teacher's Pet...which would leave me with only an hour to kill before LotR started. Pet is the story of a intelligent, talking dog named Spot, whose most fervent wish is to be a human boy like his owner, Leonard Helperman. This he accomplishes in part by dressing in human clothes, tucking his ears under a hat and donning glasses, and attending school (Leonard's dingy mom is the teacher, and of course doesn't recognize her son's pet) as a new student named Scott Leadready II. The look of the series and character designs are by Gary Baseman, whose oddball balloon-person figure drawings guarantee a novel look for the film and series, if nothing else. Having watched the cartoon on TV, I pretty much knew that it would be fun and clever, and it was for the most part...but the story didn't really live up to the excellent visuals. It was a pretty straightforward tale of Scott seeing a TV show that had a mad scientist, from Florida, as a guest whose particular goal in his experiments was to create humans from animals, which he had done with varying degrees of success. Scott, of course, sees his chance to make his dream come true and undertakes the journey to see the Wizard, I mean the mad scientist, and many complications ensue before it's all resolved. While the plot is nothing special, there are several clever in-jokes, wisecracks and film spoofs (Pinocchio, and its Blue Fairy, especially get lampooned quite cleverly) along a few imaginatively staged musical numbers. It's never dull. As befits a project so closely based on a particular artist's style, though, this film is at its best when it comes to the odd, but brilliantly colorful and very clever visuals. This film will look better on a large screen, I'll bet, than a small one because it's just bursting with vivid color...and it puts most of Disney's recent hand-drawn output to shame, Lilo & Stitch excluded, because it's so audacious and bright. Teacher's Pet engages the eyes more than the mind, but it's well worth checking out as a rental, especially if you have a large screen TV. I will admit to being just a wee bit uncomfortable as I sat and watched- I was the only adult in the house that didn't have a child with them! Whatta geek.

Other films, sans pictures: I did finally get around to viewing Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King later that day, and I found it to be as impressive as the first two before it. I know the hardcore are whining because Peter Jackson has taken a lot of liberties with Tolkein's narrative, and a couple of the rearrangements and omissions do bug me a bit- but I think this trilogy is a textbook case of the ends justifying the means. When you step back and look at this film series objectively, it's amazing how he was able to pull off such a daunting and exhaustive task and do it so well, and stay so true to Tolkein's vision. While I'm sure the eagle-eye obsessive fan can spot numerous continuity glitches (and there's a website devoted to them, contributed by people who have a hell of a lot more time on their hands than I, that's for sure), and even I, who usually completely overlooks stuff like that, noticed a couple, it's completely irrelevant to the sum total of what Jackson and his fine group of actors have done. I'm hoping that eventually a DVD box set will come out that has all three films, with omitted scenes, and it costs less than a sports car so I can afford to buy it...

Caught two Hitchcock flicks on TCM, 1956's The Man Who Knew Too Much, which starred Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day as a vacationing American couple with son who get mixed up in political intrigue and kidnapping. I'm tellin ya- I don't go out of my way to watch Hitchcock films, but when I do get in the right mood and one comes on I haven't seen before then I'm hooked, which is what happened with this one. While credibility got a bit stretched in a couple of places, mostly this was a taut, riveting suspenser and I enjoyed it very much, especially the penultimate set piece in which Doris Day is forced to decide whether to scream at a symphony performance attended by the assassination target, warning the target and ensuring the death of her son as a result. What followed was a bit anticlimactic, but still enjoyable. This film was a remake of Hitch's 1936 attempt at this story. Not as enjoyable was the other Hitch film I watched recently, 1966's Torn Curtain, which betrayed its conflicted and troubled production and wasted the talents of Paul Newman as its star. Lots of negativity and controversy surrounded the making of this film, which I read about in the unauthorized Hitchcock bio that Donald Spoto wrote several years ago. It was watchable, but never gripping, and the ending seemed to come out of left field. Not one of the Master's best by a long stretch. Julie Andrews was better than I expected, though, as the love interest. I keep hoping TCM will air Saboteur, which starred Priscilla Lane. I haven't seen this film in years and years, and definitely not since I have become so infatuated with Lane.

Caught a showing of 1997's Donnie Brasco, which was a veritable compendium of every Italian stereotype you could think of, but was still very watchable and engrossing thanks to excellent performances by all involved, especially star Johnny Depp, who plays an undercover FBI agent who wins the confidence of wiseguy Al Pacino and infiltrates the Mob, at the cost of his sense of self and his marriage. Was this film good? Fughettaboutit.

Finally, I saw a film that I hadn't seen in years: 1983's The Keep, made by director Michael Mann right before Miami Vice. I had read the novel by F. Paul Wilson beforehand, and found it an unusual concept and a hell of a good read, so I was really looking forward to the movie at the time. However, it didn't play anywhere nearby where I could see it, and had to wait to rent it on VHS a year later, and I hate to say it but it was not worth the wait. I was disappointed in the miscasting, the subtle script changes, and the rubbersuited monster, which was portrayed much more mysteriously in the book. The story involved a immense keep, located at the foothills of the Carpathian mountains next to a small village, which comes to be occupied by Nazi soldiers in the waning days of World War II. The walls of the keep are studded with what appear to be silver crosses, and despite the assurance of the village caretaker that they are made from nickel, the greedy soldiers eventually find one cross that seems to be made of real silver, and pry it off...releasing an ancient evil that the keep was designed to confine forever. As it wreaks havoc on the Nazis, every subsequent night, eventually the Nazi general seeks help and gets some advisement from a nearby professor who did a study of the keep in the past. The professor also happens to be Jewish, and arrives with his daughter, who is taking care of the frail old man. The being appears to the old man, and they strike a deal- if the Professor will carry a certain talisman out of the keep for the being, then the being will give him new strength and promises to go after Hitler! Adding to the complications are the arrival of the Gestapo, which is trying to find out what is causing the deaths of the soldiers, and a fellow who is an immortal warrior of sorts, whose task in life is to deal with the keep's occupant should he ever be released. See? Fascinating stuff. But it gets buried in a mass of poor performances, miscasting, and cutting-edge for 1983 but hokey-looking now special effects. A lot of notable performers get lost in the mess, including Gabriel Byrne as the SS leader, Jurgen Prochnow as the conflicted Nazi general in charge of the doomed battalion, and Ian McKellen, giving the hammiest perf I've ever seen from that fine actor, as the Jewish professor (reminding me a lot of his Magneto in the first X-Men film). Scott Glenn, then an up-and-comer, plays the champion, and his seedy looks just don't suggest any sort of supernatural warrior. I watched this, thinking perhaps the time that had passed since I saw it last might improve it, but sadly just the opposite was the case.

And that's pretty much it for movies I've seen lately! More about comics and music later...

Longtime readers may recall that ofttimes I use my little bully pulpit here to hype artists I admire, and one such artist is my friend, the most excellent Neli Ouzounova, with whom I had the privilege to take an art class or three at Western Ky. University a few years ago. Above is another JPEG of one of her paintings she sent me a few months ago, and last night I found a link to a site which is selling some of her work, along with several others. So go already. It's got her picture, too!

RIP Julius Schwartz, one of the legends of the comics business. I (literally, in some cases, I think) cut my teeth on many, many Silver Age DC comics that he had a hand in editing.

Yeah, that's right. Sorry, but I'm gonna put in my two cents' worth on this Janet Jackson Super Bowl halftime show thing.

Actually, I didn't even know about this until the next morning, because I didn't even watch the halftime "festivities". Haven't in years, because they've become huge, overblown Vegas style spectacles, with overblown, slick, boring artists that ceased to interest me, if they ever did, years ago. In the past I've checked out alternative programming such as, ironically enough, the Beavis & Butt-head or SNL shows, or, like I did this year, tuned in to ESPN News for some honest-to-God football talk. I suppose because of the Lingerie Bowl (which no one even mentions anymore in the aftermath of Nipplegate), there was a disappointing dearth of Super Bowl Halftime Show counter-programming, even on ESPN, which featured one brief segment, then went back to business as usual. So basically I flipped around and came back in time for the start of the third quarter, blissfully unaware of the controversy to come.

This whole thing has become such a colossal cluster fuck of sanctimony, stupidity, boorishness, and just plain silliness that it's difficult to know where to begin.

CBS either didn't want to know or stupidly didn't realize what they would be getting with performers of Jackson, Nelly, & Timberlake's ilk; one hour spent watching videos late at night on MTV would have clued them in fast. I find it difficult to believe that they thought MTV would show any inclination to produce anything but the crass, oversexed rap & dance-video ethos that has become the norm ever since Madonna made her first tentative pushes on the envelope of class & dignity. So I gotta believe that CBS didn't care, all they knew was that they were getting the sort of names they thought "all the kids are listening to these days". Dumb. Even dumber was the puffed up indignance when they got called on it after the fact...but they weren't alone. More on that later.

The NFL, of course, has gotten all indignant as well. My feeling is, as far as they're concerned, is the old saw "...when you lie down with dogs...". What did they expect? Julie Andrews? Up With People? Just shut up, Tagliabue.

Janet Jackson. Oh, Janet. Being such a fan of Prince, and his 80s side projects such as The Time, of course I followed the production career of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis after Mr. Rogers Nelson kicked them off a tour for being late to a gig due to producing the S.O.S. Band...so of course, I gravitated to Janet's records as well, and enjoyed almost every one that I've heard. She has made some excellent funk-pop-a-roll, in large part thanks to Messrs. J & L. Janet has parlayed the good will engendered by her relative normalcy (compared to the rest of her looney tunes family) and perceived sweetness into a successful career in which she has taken her fair-to-good vocal and dance skills and has ridden on the backs of producers and principal songwriters Jam and Lewis and choreographer Paula Abdul, along with the notoriety inherent in, again, her family name to fame and fortune. However, her fortunes have dipped a bit- a whole new generation of wannabe uninhibited disco dollies have sprung up since she charmed us all with 1983's fine Control album- Pink, Britney, Christina, Mya, Beyonce, not to mention the more "serious" teenstars like Avril Levigne and Michelle Branch (did you get a load of her feature in a recent issue of Maxim? Oy gevey) and her last album, The Velvet Rope (ooh- a soft-core porn feel there) underwhelmed everyone. Her star has begun, it seems, to lose a bit of its luster-completely unacceptable to someone of the Jackson lineage, Jermaine notwithstanding. In this "what have you done for me lately" music business, pun intended, Janet has become mostly irrelevant- following in Madonna's "shock 'em and show what a free spirit, grown-up lady and totally uninhibited sexual animal I am" footsteps, but never able to top her. Small wonder then, that she hit upon this little bit of preplanned desperation-smacked spontaneity, and you gotta admit it has worked, for what it's worth. But you gotta believe Madonna, Pink, Christina, or even Britney would have forced CBS to try and stop her from showing up for the Grammies. Instead, we get a repentant, withdrawn Janet who apparently doesn't have the courage of her convictions. I would also hope Miss Jackson-if-you're-nasty will think about getting a boob job at some point- that floppy teat has probably killed thousands of fantasies worldwide.

Justin, for his part, seems to be getting most of the slack anyone is inclined to give, viewing him as almost an innocent, hoodwinked participant in this debacle. But the thing that I had the biggest problem with about this whole affair was the perpetuation of the appearance of cruelty to women and male domination that was insinuated by not only the song they were singing but their actions as part of the performance as well. And I think ol' Justy gets a major part of the blame for that. So ta heck with him, too.

And even more nausea-inducing is the puffed-up, self-righteous, indignant responses of the knuckleheads who have the tendency to puff up and get all indignant whenever confronted with this sort of thing. These folks never fail to seize upon opportunities like hold their children up in front of them a la Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone and decry the effect of seeing such shenanigans on their unspoiled little angels, hurling verbal volleys in letters pages, threatening boycotts, and pissing and moaning about civilization and how we're approaching Sodom and Gomorrah-type levels while never acknowledging their own responsibilty towards not only monitoring, but talking about and explaining things like this to said children, which is often difficult and uncomfortable and therefore out of the question. Far easier to bitch to newspapers and TV stations and call for boycotts and such. And heaven forbid the little rugrats should see a female breast. I'm sure that tey could have found a far better (apparently) alternative- wasn't there a war hero movie on somewhere that would be more suited? Or a cop show or ER/CSI-type show with dead people laid out and cut open or stray body parts being found in dumpsters, as on last week's Navy NCIS? What utter horseshit. I hate to be the one to break it to them, but first of all their precious kids are more than likely already very well indoctrinated to the MTV ethos via not only MTV programming but also the proliferation of so-called reality shows. Sexuality of this nature has most likely already been rubbed in their faces more than they think. And if these same kids been raised with even a modicum of common sense and a clear cut out idea of what's right and wrong, never a given all things considered, these overbearing parental-unit types probably have nothing much to worry about anyway. Also, I'm almost absolutely positive their TVs have remote controls or at the very least channel changing buttons. They could always turn it over to ESPN News and get bored silly, like I did. I also honestly believe that this would not have become as much of a full-blown, tedious controversy if not for the reaction of these people. And you know who you are.

Gotta bitch about the news media, too- they simply refuse to let this story die a merciful death, therefore becoming cogs in the Janet publicity machine. Since CBS cut away abruptly from the ultimate moment of revelation, and didn't mention or show it again for the remainder of the telecast, then who's to blame for repeated showings? ESPN. NBC. ABC. CBS, even. Faux News. CNN. MTV. And even good ol' Yahoo! News, from whence I stole the above picture. THAT'S where this story has gotten its legs- from the various media outlets. So is anybody calling them out? Nah. Freedom of the press, buddy!

As far as I'm concerned, I'm kinda difficult to shock and offend, and from looking at my links list you gotta know that I'm not afraid of sexuality of any kind. I'm also certainly not averse to admiring the female form, not only in today's fine art and illustration as well as from days gone by. So I'm not indignant, only a bit amused and slightly disappointed that these performers and the people who make decisions for them via MTV and CBS are so desperate, so eager to be perceived as hip, free-spirited, cutting edge, sexually-enlightened-and-I-want-to-enlighten-you-as-well-ish, and so clueless that they would think it was perfectly fine to present this sort of soft-core bump-and-grind as entertainment at a fricking football game. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to see the days of marching bands and Up With People return, but Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, there's a time and a place for everything, and this was not it. One would think a happy medium could be found, without trotting U2, Aerosmith or ZZ Top out again, snore, but I don't know what it would or could be. But perhaps this will have a positive effect- perhaps the suits, especially those at the NFL will realize that this is first and foremost a FOOTBALL GAME, and should look into scaling the Vegas back and concentrating on making this the most important FOOTBALL GAME of the season, not bread and circuses for the filthy rich who inhabit the good seats at the venue.

Well, one can hope, can't one? That's all I got to say about this whole situation, and look forward to this becoming trivia real fast at some date in the future.

OK, I know I said I was coming back tomorrow, but I'm here at the radio station, bored as usual, began to think about that whole Nipplegate flap, started to write and save it as a draft but got on a roll and finished it-so now I'll jump the gun with the above post. Hope you don't mind.

Well hello there! Long time no see, so to speak. Yes, I'm coming back, and I'll officially end my little sabbatical on Monday. Sincere and heartfelt thanks to those who have posted and wished me well. You guys are the best.

Anyway, I thought that I should at least note in passing something of which I'm sure you're probably aware, that today marked the 40th anniversary of the first arrival of the Beatles on American shores. Monday will bring the anniversary of their debut appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, an event which (I daresay) changed life as we know it for a significant number of people. Myself, I was every bit of four years old, and this telecast is one of my earliest memories. I had already heard my Aunt Lavana's copy of Meet The Beatles, and was absolutely stone crazy locked solid in love with it, so there was no way I was missing the chance to see these guys, easy 'cause my folks watched Ed every Sunday night anyway. I vaguely remember them launching into "All My Loving", and my Mother remarking "So that's the Beatles". "Look at that hair", I seem to remember my Dad saying, although I may be confusing this with the hundreds of thousands of times he said it to me over the next 20 or so years.

And that's my Beatles on Ed story. Needless to say, the Lads definitely made a strong impression on me. Which is one reason why I'm such a hopeless music junkie to this very day.

See ya Monday, with some comments on the last two weeks' new comics, some movies I've watched (including Frida, the beginning of which I'm missing as I type), some of the hot topics in the comics blogosphereiverse, and who the hell knows what else.

Oyasumi nasai, and I'll be seein' ya!

Hello. I'm not ill, not physically anyway, and Jim Henley didn't dissuade me from ever blogging again. I'm just not feeling it right now, as the homies say, and rather than waste my time and yours I just thought I'd take some time off. I'm kinda struggling with this and a lot of other stuff at present, and I just don't have the enthusiasm or heart to do whatever it is I do that keeps you, my valued reader, checking in on this page as frequently as you do. Bee do. Take heart (or be afraid, whichever you're inclined to do)-I'll be back, especially if and when my runaway alcoholic crack whore writing muse decides to revisit me (I've given up on my drunken crack whore art muse ever returning), so everyone be good, and be good to each other, and hopefully I'll be back wasting your time in no time.

By the way, in case I don't get around to it, my Super Bowl prediction: The Carolina Panthers have a great running back tandem in Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster, tailor-made for ball control, plus an opportunistic QB in Jake Delhomme, and a stingy, aggressive defense. Coach John Fox has been to the SB before, and knows how to prepare a team.

So I'm picking the New England Patriots. Whadda you think, I'm stupid or something? I don't usually predict scores, but if I did I'd say something along the lines of 22-13. Lotsa field goals.

Nothing yesterday, and I apologize. Been dealing with some personal issues. I'll try to get back into the swing of things at some point in the future, so bear with, please.

In the meantime, I give you exhibit #100,432 in the case against me in regards to ever being a comics reviewer one can take seriously: Jim Henley helping burst my bubble on New Frontier. I have this nasty compulsion to kick myself when I'm down, you know.

In my never-ending efforts to become a full-service blogging experience for all of you wonderful peoples out there, I have taken advantage of Blogspot's new offering of an Atom syndication "feed" and have enabled this blog to provide same. So if that's the way uh-huh, uh-huh, you like your blog reading, then there you are!

Of course, I have no idea myself how this works but if I get more readers, and my fame is spread far and wide as a result, then why the heck not?

COMICS REVIEWS!
What I bought and what I thought, week of January 21

NEW FRONTIER 1
Darwyn Cooke gets his glory-shot series off to a bang with nothing less than an ambitious tribute to the war comics of the Fifties and Sixties, casting a reverent but somewhat revisionist eye at DC war comic stalwarts, then cleverly incorporating Hal Jordan of the soon-to-be Silver Age DC pantheon in towards the end, neatly referencing if not wholly following up on DC's The Golden Age series. Cooke's Kirbyesque art crackles with energy throughout, and there are some absolutely drop-dead gorgeous action scenes- most notably the newspaper-photo scene of Hourman falling off a roof, and a battle between "The Bat-Man" and Superman which is thoughtfully reproduced on the back cover. Cooke as a writer is a bit less accomplished; there are a few instances of awkwardly-placed expository dialogue but overall he does very well, with the death-fight between Jordan and a Korean soldier being particularly involving and ending with a Kanigheresque twist. Thoughtful and unpretentious, New Frontier, at least in its first chapter, lives up to the hype. Now if I could just get that Donald Fagen song out of my head... A-

SLEEPER 12
Much is revealed but little is actually resolved in this, the final issue of volume one...and that's pretty much in keeping with the entire thrust of this book. We find out just exactly how devious and amoral Tao is, and protagonist Holden Carver makes a big decision, one which enables him to go forward but doesn't exactly get him out of any of the messes he currently finds himself in, and then we get a surprising revelation at the end. Brubaker and Phillips have created a small masterpiece with this book, and if you're not one of the converted, give the TPB (and the second one, which should collect the final six issues) a shot in the interval between this issue and Vol. 2 and see if you don't agree. Then make sure you don't forget to add vol. 2 to your pull list! A

DAREDEVIL 56
In which we find out what Matt Murdock's been up to while we've been vision questing with Echo, as the scope and ramifications of his assumption of the Kingpin's position in the underworld are investigated. Typically smart and sharp Bendis script, equal parts grim and humorous (Neilalien isn't gonna like this one, I don't think). Another fine, if a little static art job by Alex Maleev, who maybe should pull back just a hair on the ol' murky atmosphere reins. Still, nice to have ya back, boys. A

LUCIFER 46
This one's gonna be a lot more interesting to those who have been following this book for a while that those who haven't, "New Storyline" cover tag notwithstanding. Basically a story of a troubled young boy who stumbles upon a doorway to Lucifer's recently-created alternate universe, and the odd spider-like creature that's been using the doorway as a garbage dump, the primary points of interest to me were Mazikeen's reactions to Lucifer's latest machinations, and the conversation with former teenage witch-turned-alternate universe diety and respected-almost equal Elaine Belloc. Nope, not quite new reader friendly, but pretty darn engrossing just the same. Art-wise, it's a testament to how used to Peter Gross and Ryan Kelly's stuff I've become that I don't wish someone would replace them anymore. They're just part of that Lucifer experience, I suppose. A-

HUMAN TARGET 6
Chris Chance impersonates a priest that someone's trying to kill for some mysterious reason, and despite a pat and somewhat too easily resolved Milligan script, it's still an involving story all the way through as we find out how much difference there is between the perceived good guys and bad guys. Helped a lot by fill-in artist Cliff Chiang, who underwhelmed me on "Josie Mac" in Detective and Beware The Creeper, but whose stuff I found more enjoyable here. He's not as fluid and expressive as regular Javier Pulido, but his work is more detailed and is similar enough stylistically that it doesn't disrupt the feel. A-

All in all, a very good week for comics this time out...nothing less than A- ! I still haven't gotten a copy of Gotham Central 15 yet, though. Sigh.

Here's a site I found this morning: Soul Trekking With Pastor Steve. He writes essays and reviews of comics, movies, and so on.

BSBdG's today are for Nastassja Kinski, 44, star of such films as Cat People, Tess, Faraway, So Close, and was mighty fetching in a bear suit in The Hotel New Hampshire.

Also, today would have been the birthday of the late Warren Zevon.

A special Bacardi Show Birthday Greeting to the Apple Macintosh computer, 20 today. Used my first Mac in 1990, and have been a Mac guy ever since.

Here's the new trailer for Kill Bill vol.2!

Found at Franklin's Findings.

Sad news: Bob Keeshan, aka Captain Kangaroo, died today.

Watched the Captain all the time growing up, and I especially liked the books he read and the cartoons ("Tom Terrific") he'd show. God I'm old.

Since all I seem to be good for lately is posting lists, I'm now going to try to emulate Sean T. Collins and make a list of albums that influenced me (in whatever way that I could be "influenced", since I no longer write or perform songs) back in the Silurean Epoch, when I went to high school.

This is problematic, since there is just so much that I listened to back then. I've tried to impose a guideline of sorts, and limit this to what I remember listening to the most from 1975-1978. The first thing you'll notice is that many of these records were released a few years before 1975, and I tried to narrow it down (for example, my favorite Jethro Tull album is A Passion Play, but the Tull album I remember listening to the most in that period is the far inferior Songs From the Wood, so it makes the list.). I also limited the citations to one album per artist, like Sean did. I'm also listing them in alphabetical order, so as to not show favoritism.

1. 10cc-Deceptive Bends (1977)
2. Aerosmith-Rocks (1976)
3. Tony Ashton and Jon Lord-First of the Big Bands (1974)
4. Beatles-Abbey Road (1969)
5. Elvin Bishop-Hometown Boy Makes Good (1976)
6. Black Sabbath-Sabotage (1975)
7. Tommy Bolin-Teaser (1975)
8. Bootsy's Rubber Band-Bootsy? Player of the Year (1976)
9. David Bowie-"Heroes" (1978)
10. Cheech & Chong-Sleeping Beauty (1976)
11. Alice Cooper Goes To Hell (1976)
12. Deep Purple-Who Do We Think We Are? (1973)
13. Donovan-Cosmic Wheels (1973)
14. Electric Light Orchestra-Out of the Blue (1977)
15. Emerson, Lake & Palmer-Works Vol. 1 (1977)
16. Faces-Long Player (1971)
17. Flo & Eddie-Flo & Eddie (1973)
18. Foghat-Rock 'n' Roll Outlaws (1975)
19. Roger Glover & Guests-The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast (1975)
20. George Harrison-Thirty-Three & 1/3 (1976)
21. Ian Hunter-All American Alien Boy (1976)
22. Jethro Tull-Songs From The Wood (1977)
23. Elton John-Rock of the Westies (1976)
24. King Crimson-Starless and Bible Black (1974)
25. Kinks-Celluloid Heroes (1976)
26. Led Zeppelin-Presence (1977)
27. John Lennon-Shaved Fish (1975)
28. Little Feat-Time Loves A Hero (1977)
29. Manfred Mann's Earth Band-The Roaring Silence (1976)
30. Roger McGuinn-Cardiff Rose (1976)
31. Bette Midler-Songs For the New Depression (1976)
32. Montrose-Paper Money (1974)
33. Maria Muldaur-Sweet Harmony (1976)
34. Elliott Murphy-Just A Story From America (1977)
35. Nazareth-Razamanaz (1972)
36. Randy Newman-Good Old Boys (1974)
37. Harry Nilsson-Pussy Cats (1974)
38. Parliament-Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo System (1977)
39. The Pentangle-Solomon's Seal (1972)
40. Richard Pryor-That Nigger's Crazy (1975)
41. Queen-Jazz (1978)
42. Bonnie Raitt-Home Plate (1975)
43. The Ramones-Rocket To Russia (1977)
44. Lou Reed-Coney Island Baby (1976)
45. The Rolling Stones-Made in the Shade (1975)
46. Roxy Music-Siren (1975)
47. Todd Rundgren-Hermit of Mink Hollow (1977)
48. The Rutles (1978)
49. Santana-Festival (1977)
50. Leo Sayer-Just A Boy (1974)
51. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band-The Impossible Dream (1974)
52. Sparks-Kimono My House (1973)
53. Cat Stevens-Foreigner (1973)
54. Rod Stewart-A Night On The Town (1976)
55. Sly Stone-High on You (1975)
56. T. Rex-Tanx (1973)
57. Uriah Heep-Wonderworld (1974)
58. Wet Willie-Manorisms (1978)
59. Roy Wood's Wizzard-Introducing Eddy and the Falcons (1974)
60. Neil Young-Decade (1977)
61. Frank Zappa-Zoot Allures (1976)
62. Be-Bop Deluxe-Sunburst Finish (1976)
63. Blue Oyster Cult-Secret Treaties (1974)
64. Steve Hillage-L (1976)

A very incomplete list, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind. Again, bear in mind that these are not necessarily my favorite albums by these artists, though many of them are, they're simply the ones I remember listening to the most when I was in high school, grades 9-12.

I promise, no more lists for a while.

Retrocrush's list of the 100 Most Annoying Things of 2003 is a hoot and a half. Go read!

Muchas gracias to The Only Blog That Matters for pointing it out!

Gotta point you to Eve Tushnet's outstanding dissection/essay of Watchmen.

As you may have noticed, essays aren't exactly my strong suit. I couldn't write something like this in a hundred years, well, I could write something, but it would be nowhere near as insightful and plain ol' fun to read. Which is why you don't see that much of that sort of thing over here. I'm so jealous.

This should be required reading for the kneejerk-reactive knuckleheads who think Moore's magnum opus is overrated.

Anyway, enough- go read, already! Go!

Noticed this yesterday, and meant to link to it, but didn't get around to it. It's an interesting post-with-links about Wally Wood by Rodrigo Baeza.

For my contribution to the Legend That Is Wallace Wood, go here.

Oh, by the way, happy Chinese New Year, if you observe it! It's the Year of the Monkey. I'm a Rat, by the way...we all had Chinese takeout today for lunch in celebration.

For an interesting take on Chinese mythology, go read Jen Wang's Strings of Fate...

Art site link of the week: Butter and Toast, by Flight contributor Ben Lee.

Posthumous BSBdG's today for Ann Sothern, who would have been 95 today. I remembered Sothern from TV sitcom appearances, mostly, but last year I happened to catch her in one of the 40's series of Maisie films on TCM and I was smitten. Haven't seen 'em all, yet, but I'm working on it...

Theresa's done it again: this time, a "books I've read" meme. So without any further ado, hyar 'tis. Books I've read in bold.

1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones?s Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli?s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher?s Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker?s Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blighton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight?s Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Suskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Tess Of The D?urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

Well, that's it. Obviously, I watch more movies than read books, at least going by this list which doesn't include many of my favorites.

Many in the comics blogospheriverse have expressed their best wishes to artist Dave Cockrum, who's fallen ill lately, and late for the party as usual I'd like to send mine as well. Like he's ever gonna read 'em, but it's the thought that counts, right? Anyway, here's Mark Evanier's most recent update on his condition. Like most comics readers of my age group, I first saw Cockrum's work on his excellent revamp of DC's stodgy old Legion of Super-Heroes in Superboy and the LSH. As usual, I picked up on this series after about three issues had already come out, so naturally Dave did two more and left, to be replaced by the awkward pseudo-Adams stylings of Mike Grell, whose work I dislike to this day. Not to worry- he resurfaced at Marvel a year or so later with a bang on the all-new, all-different Giant-Size X-Men #1, the revamp that changed comics history as we know it. I gave 25 fricking cents for my copy at Caverna Drugs. Anyway, I have fond memories of Cockrum's work, and hope he pulls through as soon as possible.

Longtime readers of my little bloggie-poo may recall that as a teenager and young adult, say from 1977-1982, I was very slow to embrace or even develop much of a taste for Punk and New Wave music. As a Kentucky boy, I just couldn't relate to all the synths and attitude. The things that motivated the Punks and New Wavers just didn't register with me, plus I was very happy with the music I was hearing from all those dinosaurs in 1975, thank you very much. However, eventually my instinct for good tunes won out over my stubbornness, and I came to like a lot of what came to typify the late 70s-early 80s music scene, at least according to the media. Television, Talking Heads, Human League, The Ramones, U2, and so on. A couple of groups that I had no interest in, though, were Berlin and Romeo Void.

Which brings me, in my typically roundabout way, to what I've watched on TV the last couple of evenings: VH1's Bands Reunited, which features hyper host Aamer Haleem going around and digging up past members of groups which have broken up long ago, and persuading them to get together for a reunion and one-off concert two days later. The first episode was devoted to Eighties synth-band Berlin, of "You Take My Breath Away" fame. People, I hated that group back in the day, but I could not help but watch in helpless fascination as Aamer hunted down each fat, balding past member, stuck his foot in their door, and convinced each of these faceless people to reunite one last time. There was even a strong soap opera element as lead singer Terri Nunn and one of the keyboard players, whose name eludes me, and who apparently had some sort of relationship and parted acrimoniously (to say the least) had their own tearful reunion. Last night's group was another 80s synth group, Romeo Void, who broke up without anybody noticing back in the mid-80s and apparently hadn't seen each other since. Actually, I kinda liked a couple of Void songs: "Never Say Never" and "A Girl in Trouble is a Temporary Thing"...but I didn't like them enough to buy any of their albums. They were all up for it, but there was one problem: the sax player- Benjamin Bossi, I think his name was- had experienced severe hearing loss and couldn't play anymore. They still all got together, but Bossi had to remain a spectator. Very sad, and the VH1 people milked it for all it was worth. Still, I was fascinated...and tonight is A Flock of Seagulls! Hope they mention producer and musical inspiration Bill Nelson.

"Bands Reunited" is a great idea for a show, something VH1 manages to pull off once in a great while, and so far the results have been great. Now, fellas- get to work on reuniting Jellyfish, the Rave-Ups, Green on Red, 1994, and the Pursuit of Happiness!

Via Alan David Doane comes this link to a preview of an interesting-looking new comic coming out in March: Street Angel. The art and dry writing style remind me somewhat of Bob Burden or Charles Burns (or both together), but more than anything of early Mike Allred. I like what I've seen, but that back cover should never have seen the light of day. Makes me wonder which direction they intend to go with it...

Fair is fair. I did Geri and Mel C, so now here's a BSBdG for Baby, aka Emma Lee Bunton, 28 today. Think someone will make a movie someday titled Whatever Happened to Baby Spice?



Also, happy happy to Geena Davis, 47, who's been in a lot of fine films over the last two decades, just not so many in this one ever since the one-two punch of The Last Kiss Goodnight and Cutthroat Island (both of which I liked, actually) pretty much killed her career for all intents and purposes. Still, we have Earth Girls are Easy, A League of Their Own, Beetlejuice, Thelma and Louise, Cronenberg's The Fly, and others to remember her by.

Just read over at Theresa's about this movie meme that's going around, and it's a list so I can't resist. I'm a poet and don't know it.

Anywho, here's the way I think it's supposed to work. I reproduce the list and note which I've seen and so on.

First, the required (I think) notes:
+ I've seen 72 of the movies.
+ 34 of the movies were filmed before the year I was born.
+ Six of my favorite movies are on the list.
+ I want to and plan to see 2 of the movies I haven't seen.

*-movies I've seen **-favorite ***- I want to see

1. Godfather, The (1972)*
2. Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)*
3. Godfather: Part II, The (1974)*
4. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The (2003)***(soon)
5. Lord of the Rings: Two Towers, The (2002)*
6. Casablanca (1942)*
7. Schindler's List (1993)*
8. Shichinin no samurai (The Seven Samurai) (1954)***
9. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)*
10. Citizen Kane (1941)**
11. Star Wars (1977)*
12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) *
13. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) *
14. Rear Window (1954) *
15. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)*
16. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)*
17. Memento (2000)
18. Usual Suspects, The (1995)*
19. Pulp Fiction (1994)**
20. North by Northwest (1959)*
21. Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain, Le (Amelie)(2001)*
22. Psycho (1960)*
23. 12 Angry Men (1957)*
24. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)*
25. Silence of the Lambs, The (1991)*
26. Buono, il brutto, il cattivo, Il (The Good, The Bad, The Ugly)(1966)*
27. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)*
28. Goodfellas (1990)*
29. American Beauty (1999)*
30. Vertigo (1958) *
31. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
32. Pianist, The (2002)
33. Matrix, The (1999)*
34. Apocalypse Now (1979)*
35. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)*
36. Some Like It Hot (1959) *
37. Taxi Driver (1976) *
38. Paths of Glory (1957)
39. Third Man, The (1949)***
40. C'era una volta il West (1968)
41. Fight Club (1999)
42. Boot, Das (1981)
43. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001) (Spirited Away)**
44. Double Indemnity (1944)
45. L.A. Confidential (1997) *
46. Chinatown (1974)*
47. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
48. Requiem for a Dream (2000) *
49. Maltese Falcon, The (1941)*
50. M (1931)*
51. All About Eve (1950)
52. Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)*
53. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)*
54. Se7en (1995)*
55. Saving Private Ryan (1998)*
56. Cidade de Deus (2002)
57. Raging Bull (1980)*
58. Wizard of Oz, The (1939)*
59. Rashmon (1950)*
60. Sting, The (1973) *
61. American History X (1998)
62. Alien (1979)*
63. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
64. Leon (The Professional) (1994)
65. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)*
66. Vita bella, La (1997) (Life Is Beautiful)
67. Touch of Evil (1958)*
68. Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)*
69. Wo hu cang long (2000) (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon)*
70. Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948)*
71. Great Escape, The (1963)
72. Clockwork Orange, A (1971)**
73. Reservoir Dogs (1992) *
74. Annie Hall (1977)*
75. Amadeus (1984)
76. Jaws (1975)*
77. Ran (1985)
78. On the Waterfront (1954)*
79. Modern Times (1936)
80. High Noon (1952)*
81. Braveheart (1995)*
82. Apartment, The (1960)
83. Sixth Sense, The (1999)*
84. Fargo (1996) *
85. Aliens (1986)*
86. Shining, The (1980)*
87. Blade Runner (1982) *
88. Strangers on a Train (1951)
89. Duck Soup (1933)**
90. Metropolis (1927)*
91. Finding Nemo (2003)*
92. Donnie Darko (2001)*
93. Toy Story 2 (1999)*
94. Princess Bride, The (1987)*
95. General, The (1927)
96. City Lights (1931)
97. Lola rennt (1998) (Run Lola Run)
98. Full Metal Jacket (1987)*
99. Notorious (1946)
100. Sjunde inseglet, Det (The Seventh Seal) (1957)**

Update: My translation skills are somewhat lacking, so I discovered that I had actually seen a couple of the films for which only the foriegn titles are provided. I have updated the list, and provided translations.

Just in case you care, here's what I'l be picking up tomorrow according to the Diamond shipping list:

DC THE NEW FRONTIER #1
HUMAN TARGET #6
LUCIFER #46
SLEEPER #12
DAREDEVIL #56

And that's it! Looking forward to New Frontier, which promises to be a good one, and I'm curious to find out how Brubaker & Phillips is going to wind up the first run of Sleeper. Since we already know there's going to be a vol.2, that kinda takes some of the suspense out, but everything in that book is so gnarled up right now that I want to see how he resolves it all. And Bendis and Maleev are back on Daredevil ! Hoop-la!

More whoops and haloos are in order because I just read over at Graeme's where Andi Watson's Love Fights, which I inexplicably declined to pick up when it was initially released, is coming out in a trade collection of the first six issues. I had been kinda keeping an eye out on eBay for a set of the first six issues, and now that will no longer be necessary, thank you very much.

BSBdG's go out today to that Bloggety-Blog-Bloggin' Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag. Hope you enjoy your Aquacake!

John Jakala posts and discusses some of DC's upcoming April comics and covers, including a sweet Alex Toth Black Canary illo that I'd bet a nickel or three was originally done to go on an issue of Action Comics way back when, but got shelved until someone exhumed it for Birds of Prey. Of course, I don't know any of this; all I have to go by is the text on the cover, and the fact that new Toth mainstream comics work has been scarce over the last few years. None of this makes it any less excellent.

Speaking of Ms. McPherson, here's her cover for Sandman Presents: Thessaly, Witch For Hire #3. As with The Losers, strong, interesting covers have roped in another sucker, I mean buyer, who wouldn't ordinarily. I'm talkin' 'bout me here.

While checking out the links list at TaraMcPherson.com, I was taken by the art of one Seanna Hong, an example of which can be seen above and in the feature image spot at right (or above, depending on when you read this post). Why don'cha go check it out?

And appearances to the contrary, her work is not particularly devoted to cheesecake. I just liked those the best.

BEST OF THE WEEK

COMICS REVIEWS!
What I bought and what I thought, week of January 14, better late than never!

JACK STAFF (Dancing Elephant) 12
My admiration for Paul Grist's work sometimes enables me to overlook things that would drive me crazy in lesser creators' efforts- case in point, the dubious physics behind the bank vault escape in this issue or the non-explanation of how Charlie Raven (the "Greatest Escapologist of the Victorian Age!"- get him in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen right now!) was able to survive 127 years after being drugged and buried alive. But Grist's standard type-and-graphics incorporation, along with his tricky-in-a-fun-way non-linear storytelling style, completely blinds me to such trivial things. I've been waiting for the resolution to this storyline for so long, and my anticipation has built up so much, that I was bound to be a bit disappointed, and I was- this was all tied up a bit too neatly, plus the aforementioned issues tempered my enjoyment somewhat...but you know what? I don't care. This is vibrant, fun, vital storytelling, and everything that's good about comics, specifically "genre" comics. I wish more creators could be "off" as spectacularly as Paul Grist. A

FABLES 21
Status quo for this arc. Imaginatively woven plotline by Bill Willingham, with several subplots clamoring for your attention. Each issue, he introduces new characters, some familiar, like Jack Horner, and some which I oughtta know but can't recall (Thrushbeard, the blind "Kay" fellow who can see the evil in people). And it's all made a challenge to read by the hit-and-miss pencils of Mark Buckingham, who never met a human anatomy that he could portray adequately, and the indifferent inks of Steve (where's my paycheck) Leialoha, whom I know can do much better. A-

H-E-R-O 12
Twelve issues in, and sadly this series, which stared so promisingly, has shown signs of running out of steam. This issue takes a less-than-fresh premise, which has been done before in films such as Switch, and makes it as lively as is possible in a PG rated comic book, I suppose, with one or two humorous lines and situations, but it just doesn't add up to a comic that excites me much. Ably illustrated by Leonard Kirk and Wade Von Grawbadger, late of the unlamented-by-my-holds list JSA, and they're as stolidly capable as always. Of course, if I had somehow been magically transformed into a voluptuous female super-being, I know what I'd do- I'd never leave the house! But cheap jokes aside, with this issue the death watch begins. B+

1602 6
Glory be, things actually happen in this issue! And they're actually somewhat diverting! It's as if Gaiman suddenly got excited a few weeks into writing and began to try, and good for him. However, the diagonal lines that are Photoshopped on top of the art, in an effort to make it look old or blurry or somesuch, are still a major annoyance. B

Also poached from the amazing Miz Brosgol: Hand Knits for Young Moderns!

Vera Brosgol over at the Pants Press Sketchblog has posted some swell Bettie Page-inspired drawings. Click here to check 'em out.

Good morning! Yes, I have return-ed. I have been in the Great Smoky Mountains area for the last three days, staying in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The occasion was that my daughter, who has an interest in musical theatre and performing arts, wanted to audition at the Dollywood theme park down there. So, like good parents should, we all packed up and took her down.

When I was a kid, my parents and I would take Summer vacations in Gatlinburg (another tourist trap, I mean mecca, in the Smokies) practically every year, sometimes even going back in the Fall. So I quite naturally developed a sentimental attachment to the area and all the motels and attractions. Side note: comics and books I remember buying in Gatlinburg: X-Men 94 (1975), Brave & the Bold 60 (second appearance of the Teen Titans!), and one of the "Days of Future Past" issues of the Byrne/Claremont X-Men, along with a ton of Doc Savage, Avenger/Justice Inc., and Dr. Who paperback books. But the last time I was able to visit the Smokies was 1983, with my in-laws to attend a toy distributors trade show (my pater-in-law was owner of a museum-type attraction back then). After that, after noticing how so many of the old places that I liked as a kid were gone and replaced by malls, McDonald's and the like, so I said "I don't want to go back, I've had enough of this mess". And until this weekend I was as good as my word. Thing is, about ten years after that prophetic utterance I began to kinda want to go back, maybe stay in a cabin in the mountains or chalet or something, and not necesarily spend all my time on the strips in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge...but by then I was in my sadly-still-ongoing wage-slave-with-mortgage-and-family situation and just couldn't see my way clear to it. For 20 years. Then, my daughter decided to give Dollywood a shot, and we decided to go whether we could afford it or not.

We left at 6 PM central, fully expecting to roll in to our hotel sometime
after midnight, but made great time and got there a little after 10:30 CST. After we checked in, we thought we'd better make sure how to get to where we needed to be the next day, so we headed out and found Dollywood (not too difficult- Dolly and her Wood are God in Pigeon Forge) and where the auditions were being held. Then I decided that I wanted to see Gatlinburg again after all this time and we headed straight over. So much had changed, but in an odd way some things were still the same. The streets were configured the same way and some old motels and attractions were still there, and I was all over the road pointing to Theresa and Abby "Look! That's where Hays House used to be! I think ... was there or ...was over there!" I became tiresome quickly, I'm sure. Anyway we were hungry by this time so we went to the packed Denny's in PF and had a quick late supper/very early breakfast. We were waited on by a fellow that reminded me a lot of the homeless cabaret singer in The Fisher King, and we also saw two Elvis impersonators! We then went back to the room and retired for the evening, all of us being too keyed up to sleep much. The audition the next morning was held in a big auditorium in Dollywood, and at least 200 performers showed up for it. Singers, dancers, bluegrass groups, the whole gamut. Even a clown, who came in full clownish regalia...guess he got hired, he was the only one! Anyway, they gave each performer a number and called them onstage in groups of 25 to do their thing. Abby was in the second group (even though her number was 51), and her actual performance went very well. She sang two songs, and she said later that she saw a couple of judges saying favorable things as she performed...the whole thing seemed to go well. So now she waits for a call, and we shall see what we shall see.

We got to wander around in parts of Dollywood, which is basically a replica of an old-fashioned Western town. It seemed to be pretty nice, if you're into Old West/Old South type theme parks. Of course, still on my nostalgia kick, I was walking around trying to see if I could recognize anything from its previous incarnations as Silver Dollar City and Goldrush Junction. Sigh.

By then, my wife's sister and some of her friends had decided to drive down as well, and had rented a cabin in the mountains outside Pigeon Forge. We went up there afterwards and hung out for a while, went back out to look around and shop a little, came back to the cabin (really steep roads...my Blazer protested a bit), hung out some more and had supper, then went back to our room, because the cabin, while very nice, was too small to sleep seven people comfortably. Then the rain set in. And it rained all that night and all day the next day, when we tried to go wander around Gatlinburg before we left. It was a sodden, wretched, miserable day, and of course I failed to bring an umbrella, cap or jacket with a hood, so after buying some candy from the Smoky Mountain Candy Kitchen, something Theresa had her heart set on since she was dieting the last time we were there and had to pass, we took some pictures and headed for home.

And that's the story of our weekend adventure. Thanks for reading. More stuff later.

Oh, by the way, appropriately enough today is Dolly Parton's 58th birthday. BSBdG's to ya Dolly, and give my baby girl a job, willya?

Looks like this is gonna do it for me for the weekend. My daughter's going to an audition out of state and we're driving her down, so we most likely won't be back until Sunday at the earliest. So if you've been casing my house, now's your chance. Anyway, I'll try to get comics reviews up by the end of the day Monday, both here as well as on Four Color Hell, plus I've been meaning to write some about a comics series or two when I can sit down and focus for an extended period of time. Plus, I'm overdue for a new Vinyl-O...oh well, everyone have a great weekend and I'll be seein ya!

A lot of folks have linked to this Trapped In A Lyric They Never Wrote! page, which is a worthy attempt to catalogue songs which contain lyrics that reference comic book characters. I haven't studied the list real hard, but I've found a couple of mistakes- Black Sabbath never recorded a song titled "Superman", I think he's thinking about Black Sabbath Vol. 4's "Supernaut" instead, and while I'm always happy to see a Captain Beefheart reference, when he recites "Make me grow Brainiac fingers" in Bongo Fury's "Debra Kadabra" he's talking about the old early 60s Mexican horror flick and its titular character, not Superman's arch-foe. Also, a couple of omissions- Southern boogie guys Wet Willie recorded a song called "Comic Book Hero" on their 1976 album The Wetter The Better, which is a humorous look at the Superman/Lois Lane thing, and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band did a song called "Sgt. Fury" on their Impossible Dream album.

I'll try to examine it in depth later, and maybe even come up with a few others...

Time now for an early edition of Johnny B's Fearless NFL Pigskin Playoff Prognostications!.

Last week: 3-1. Overall: 5-3, .625 .

New England over Indianapolis. Yeah, yeah, I know I picked Indy to go to the Super Bowl, but I'm seeing a couple of things here: first, the Colts' defense is darn near as bad as the Chiefs' was last weekend. They've been underwhelming all year long, as a matter of fact. Second, it's gonna be cold. Wicked cold, as they say. Indy is a dome team, and that's gonna be a problem too. Peyton Manning will get his, but I think the weather and a soft D will undermine his cause.

Carolina over Philadelphia. Philly's D has looked soft to me, too, and Carolina's has been solid...so for that reason alone I think I'll go with the Panthers, even without Stephen Davis. Never count out Donovan McNabb, though.

BSBdG's go out today to director John Carpenter, who turns 56. He's made a ton of great movies (sadly, most of them in the 80's) like personal faves The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China.


Oh yeah. It's my birthday today, too. Whoopee!

Here's something I wasn't aware of, but I'd bet many of you are quite familiar with: The International Catalogue of Superheroes. It has a nice overview of Jack Staff, by the way.

Which brings me to the good news/bad news department. My comics shop got short-shipped yesterday on Gotham Central, but did manage to score me a copy of Jack Staff 12, which more than made up for the disappointment. So hopefully I'll get my copy of GC next week.

BSBdG's are in order today for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have been 75 today.

I've also been spending some time over at tothfans.com, the official site of the great Alex Toth. I've been linked to it here forever now, but hadn't actually spent a lot of time browsing it, until this morning. One of the most interesting features on the site is the "Annotated Toth" section, which contains complete stories, illustrated and in some cases written as well, by Toth with commentary on each page. He also comments on a couple of Mort Meskin stories...fascinating reading, especially if you like Meskin's work as much as I do. And if you don't know who he is, it's a great way to check out some of his comics work. The two most recent annotated stories are two from 1970, the House of Mystery days. Both are kinda sabotaged by rotten coloring, which Toth never fails to point out, but the art (especially in "Turner's Treasure") is excellent. Wonder what he'd think of Lee Loughridge?

It's been slow again this morning, leaving me some time to click around a bit. First, an interesting link, thanks to Bill Sherman, to the Official Pogo website, designed by Mark Evanier. I go back a ways reading Pogo. They ran the strip in the Louisville Courier-Journal when I was growing up until it stopped with Walt Kelly's death, then ran the subsequent (80s, I think it was) revival attempt, which I thought was excellent, after a slow start. I remember seeing the animated specials (which you'd think someone would run again somewhere), and I even had the plastic figures which were given away with detergent. Still do, somewhere. Anyway, check it out- it's by no means complete yet, but I'm sure they'll be adding more material in the future. Plus, there are links to other Pogo fan sites if you want to know more.

Say...didn't Mark write the Pogo revival strip? My memory is so haphazard these days...

I love this album cover! From the official website of former Plimsouls leader Peter Case. I haven't bought any of Case's music since 1992 (and I didn't even buy that one, got it as a radio promo)...this particular one was available originally by mail order, which may account for why I didn't get it, but doesn't explain why I haven't bought any of his subsequent releases. Anyway, nice cover!

The coveted BSBdG goes out today to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 43. Despite the fact that those who tend to make note of that sort of thing rarely credit her as such (probably because she played such a klutz on Seinfeld for so long), I've always thought she was jaw-droppingly beautiful. For what that's worth.

Little slow today at work, hence my numerous postings. Whilst Googling around, looking for a new feature image, I note that while it's not unusual for many illustrators to have an official website, devoted to their work there are several wonderful illustrators that don't, among them Adam Warren, J.G. Jones and Sean Phillips. What's up wit dat? Here's a one-pager for Warren, also here's a not-bad fansite with a lot of pencil art reproduced. Google searches for Jones and Phillips turn up nothing but original art dealers and online shops selling their graphic novel work.

A search for Michael Lark turns up more of the same, with the only really notable site being one which sells his original art, and lets you take a look at a goodly number of the pages for sale, including many from the wonderful Terminal City series, all reasonably priced at $60 per. I'd love to have a couple of those. A search for Promethea and Chase artist J.H. Williams III turns up a website which says it's soon to be obsolete, and directs you instead to the newish site of his longtime inker Mick Gray. All very nice, but I want to see some Williams art! You can still visit a gallery or two which features, among other things, unused covers for Batman 550, Cameron Chase's first appearance, and an unused promo illo for that late, lamented series, cut down in its prime. Speaking of Chase, her writer and co-creator D. Curtis Johnson has no site. Sad. Also siteless are Howard Chaykin, Elaine (Starstruck, Vamps) Lee, and Jay Muth, illustrator of Epic's Moonshadow, among other things. Personal fave Trevor Von Eeden doesn't have one either, although he told me a while back that he hoped to launch one someday.

So what does all this mean, exactly? Not much. Just passing this info on. I know that there are plenty of creators who do have websites, and that's very cool. But it sure would be nice to be able to visit some of these theoretical sites. wouldn't it...?

I'm geeked to see that I have been included in Fred Hembeck's links list. Even though he (or his webmaster) misspelled my name. Shit happens, I guess.

Also, many thanks to Dirk Deppey for the anniversary wishes. Her name is Theresa Ann Doyle-Jones. She uses the hyphenated format when she writes childrens' stories, none of which have, unfortunately, seen print yet. But I think she's pretty good, and hope springs eternal as they say. Maybe if she dropped the -Jones she'd have a better chance...

Hunter S. Thompson says take the Panthers, Colts and the points this week. I'm leaning towards agreeing. I love his 100% accurate description of the upcoming Colts/Patriots tilt; he calls it a "tall-walking bitch of a game". Cracked me up, it did.

In regards to this Marvel Age thing that's sparked some discussion here and there, I don't really have an strong opinion one way or another- I recognize that it is in the industry's best interests to get younger readers buying comics again, and this sounds as good as anything. Nothing attempted, nothing gained, as that Shakespeare fella once wrote. As far as the actual notion of redoing those great Lee/Kirby/Ditko/Heck/Ayers etc. stories of yore, and the potential aesthetic disaster that is implicit in that notion, well...it seems to me that the last thirty-odd years of convoluted continuity, Liefelds and Rich Bucklers have done far more to tarnish the luster of those classic originals than any attempts to totally re-write-and-draw them now, especially in the clever and energetic modern amerimanga-ish style could do, especially since the medium is intended to be such a niche item anyway. In other words, let 'em rip. We still have the originals to go back (and the various reprints of same) if we want to get the uncut funk, as it were. Like Bill Sherman says, I'm not the target audience for this, so I will retain a healthy skepticism but also force the jury to remain sequestered until I'm ready to make a verdict.

Good thing I didn't have a strong opinion, huh!

Aw, hell, I probably won't even read the damn things myself. Right now, I can't care less about mainstream Marvel comics. Hope lots of kiddies read these, though, and who's to say that I won't buy a couple for my grandson, if I can afford 'em!

Books I have to look forward to tomorrow, according to the Diamond shipping list:

FABLES #21
GOTHAM CENTRAL #15
H-E-R-O #12
1602 #6

And that's, as the pig says, all, folks!

You know, it's getting to the point where it's barely worth my while to go to the shop these days, it seems. I've dropped so many titles lately, and added very few (many more drops than adds, for sure), and my purchases are beginning to reflect this. Of course, now that I'm employed in a job that pays significantly less than my previous one, that's a good thing. But this is also a sign of my growing disillusionment with superhero comics in general...specifically the stuff cranked out by the Big Two. S'funny...I was thinking about this the other day, and the only books I still buy that feature spandex superheroes are Jack Staff, Daredevil, the Ultimates, Ultimate Six, The Legion (and as soon as the current creators step down, I'll be dropping that one) and Powers, none of which can really be accurately described as typical. Except perhaps Legion. Am I finally growing up? Am I finally reaching a higher level of sophistication towards the entertainment that I put in my head on a regular basis? Am I overthinking again? Who the heck knows. I'll have to ponder this.

By the way, I just won a copy of Superman: Red Son 3 on eBay, so that solves my "should I take my first two singles and sell them to my comics shop and buy the trade" dilemma. Just in case you're interested.

I'm sure many of you are aware of the recent Funky Winkerbean comic strip storyline, which involves the closing of the neighborhood comics shop and the reactions to this news by the regulars, specifically mailman "Crazy", he of the air guitar proficiency.

All in all, pretty interesting storyline, one which many of us can relate to (although thankfully not me...yet), and while it lapses into some teeth-grinding pretentiousness sometimes, in this as with most Funky storylines, I'm interested in how it all turns out. They've been running this strip in the Louisville Courier-Journal since I was a teenager, it seems, and I've enjoyed seeing how it has progressed from a high school hijinks type gag strip to what it is now, more of a drama involving the high schoolers as thirtysomething grownups. One recent storyline, which involved new lawyer Lisa Moore and her quest to juggle her home life while she tries to prevent the execution of a death row prisoner, was equal parts happy and sad, and very engrossing. Kudos to Tom Batiuk and company on his underrated comic strip.

Submitted for your perusal, and presumed approval: The Comic Book Reader's Bill of Rights (Version 1.0), at Alan David Doane's blog.

I don't know who was threatening to take these mostly of the "it-goes-without-saying"-type freedoms away, but it's interesting to have them all in one place like this. I agree completely with most of the entries, although I think the word "expect" in the first should more realistically be written as "hope", knowing how cutthroat business is, and I wonder if anyone has actually come up with a better alternative to the comics ordering system cited in #7. I especially back #3, it's at the core of what I'm trying to do with this blog.

Just found the funniest review I've read so far of JLA/Avengers, at a new blog named, with such charming modesty, "The Only Blog That Matters". You should click this link and read it. And you know what? I actually think he has a point...

BSBdG's today go out to the Sporty One herself, Melanie Jayne Chisholm, aka Mel C of the Spice Girls, who's every bit of 30 years old today. For what it's worth, her 1999 solo album Northern Star was pretty good in my opinion. Haven't heard the other one.

Me and Mrs. B, 25 years ago today. Makes you want to hum that Smashing Pumpkins song, dunnit?



Me and Mrs. B, 25 years later. My, how time flies, as the saying goes.