- Alfonso Cuaron‘s first film since 2006′s brilliant Children of Men has finally set a release date: October 4th, 2013. While this may seem like eons away it really isn’t too far to go considering it’ll have been seven years since “Children”. The movie stars Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts attempting to return to Earth. I’m a sucker for high concept, intelligent sci-fi flicks, so I’m counting this as one of my most anticipated releases of the year. Not to mention Cuaron’s spectacular direction… he’s certainly got an eye for it. The movie is called Gravity.
- Similarly, Shane Caruth‘s first film since the brilliant Primer (2004) is also set for release this year, it’s called Upstream Color. Primer is confusing, no doubt, but it’s one of the best science fiction films of the 2000s and one of the best time travel films of all time. And — it could be argued — the complexities of the film serve a purpose, in putting the viewer in the shoes of the characters. Synopses for “Upstream” have been vague to say the least. The IMDB description reads: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.“ The obvious wrench in there is “ageless organism”. Hmm.
This may not be “Exhibit A” of why DC’s rebranding strategy blows, though it is certainly C or D. I’m not begrudging them for what they’re trying to do with all this “New 52 Issue Zero” stuff, and I honestly think it will lead to their intended goal: attracting and keeping new readers. But in the words of many o’ Conservatives, the strategy will and does have a slew of “unintended consequences”. One is bothering people like me, who read very few mainstream DC books (umm… ONE); whether it crossed their minds or not, they’re risking the loyalty of their current readership to fish for new readership. Does the risk outweigh the consequences? But forget about numbers and market shares and all that shit and think about comics artistically for a minute. Is it good for a comic artistically to disrupt the flow of a story arc by shoving in an introductory single issue into the mix? What does it do for the comic? What does it take away? With a Grant Morrison book (especially this one), this takes away more than it gives. To be honest, it gives very little. What we see here are tropes, scenes, and iconic imagery from the entirety of Grant Morrison’s Batman opus: the Island of Doctor Mayhew, the bell and the open window, the funding from Wayne Enterprises, the recruiting. None of this is necessary. Part of the fun of getting into a Morrison comic is the wanting… the craving, to go back and re-read older issues. When you do this on your own, it’s rewarding. When someone points out all this stuff to you to get people to read what you’ve been reading for some 7, 8 years, it’s insulting. Granted, Morrison and the art team of Burnham/Irving do an admirable job with the task given. But no new revelations plus a hand-holding journey through the past just equals tediousness in the end, I’m afraid. Skip this, return with #4 (which really is #12 considering they already started into “#1″ earlier this year and not counting this #0 which isn’t really part of the run and…. see how confusing this shit is?) which promises to plow the story forward.
- Manhattan Projects #6
The title of this issue — “Star City” — refers to a sprawling metropolis of the former Soviet Union, the scientific and ideas mecca of the State. We have yet to cover any sort of Soviet ground beyond a vague propagandist notion of who they are and what they want via the Manhattan Projects leering eyes. Misunderstood by the Americans, perhaps… but they are not the good guys. This is made clear (though I find it interesting that they implore the Aldo Raine style of permanent Nazi branding; instead of a knife they opt for a cattle prod). The irony of Communist nations of the past is on full display here: even the greatest mind(s) of the State are subject to Big Brother compensation. Such is the case with Helmutt Grottrup. Grottrup, like many of the physicists and inventors in the book, was a real person. German, he worked for the Nazi’s during The War, developing the V-2 alongside Wernher von Braun (also a character in the book). After the War ended, he opted to work for the Soviets. He thought, mistakenly, that he would be his own master in The Union. That he would not be anyone’s underling, a less than desirable experience under von Braun. But things didn’t change. In the Soviet Union he worked under a man named Sergei Korolev, not so far a character. Korolev in the book might be replaced with a certain Dmitiry Ustinov. Ustinov was the Union’s Minister of Defense for years during the Cold War. Except in the book he’s represented as a brain in a jar with a large robotic body. Anyways, most of this issue involves Ustinov and Braun shoving Grottrup in corners to work and question nothing. Then there’s quite a twist at the end. I love how this book is simultaneously batshit crazy yet steeped in reality, and real people and projects.
- The Massive #4
At some point this comic will dip in quality. The interest it extracts from the reader will level off. And it will still be good, but not this good. Luckily, this peak still feels very far off on the horizon. That is because this world that Brian Wood has crafted with THE MASSIVE is so vibrant and alive the nooks and crannies to explore are next to endless. We’re still learning about “The Crash”; the series of cataclysmic natural disasters which led to a series of cataclysmic sociopolitical disasters. But forget all that for a moment. We also don’t know much about The Kapital or The Massive… the two ships of the (supposedly) pacifist conservatory non-profit Ninth Wave, or their crews. Not to mention Ninth Wave itself. Wood throws in a little taste this issue of the history of the organization and that of the main character, Callum Israel. Ninth Wave had apparently gotten itself on the shitlist of many governments when they used The Massive (the larger of their ships) to blockade oil tankers from exporting out of the Middle East. When 9/11 happened, their name was brought up vaguely, but not outright named. Ninth Wave went off grid. The organization stayed largely silent during a large chunk of the first decade of Century 21. All charges were dropped and their reputation was cleared though. So they resurfaced prior to The Crash. And now, in a post-Crash world their conservationist mission continues; as they see it as important as ever before. A post-Crash World where, as is shown in this issue, the rules and ethics of society have been swept aside. Callum knows this, and admirably (even with a gun pointed in his face in this issue) he sticks to his vow of non-violence. But he wasn’t always that way. We also get a good helping of Callum’s life pre-Crash. Very, very interesting. We learn of his history with a private military contractor (something all too familiar since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan). A glimpse at his former partner then and now reminds us that even with post/pre Crash Worlds, very different Worlds, some people never change. They only amplify. The biggest part of this issue that moves the story along is Cal getting supplies from a shady character, to say the least. The rest is backstory. But the backstory is so damn interesting, I’ll take issues like this all day long. This has got to be one of the best books on the stands right now.
- The BBC should be switching the word “wimps” for “addicts” when discussing the abuse of prescription pain killers in the United States, the “Nation of Wimps”. The USA consumes 80% of the world’s pain killers. And maybe we are complete pussies, but I personally know several people who have been, or are, addicted to pain killers (one being a former employer). It’s a big problem. We don’t think twice about it because, hey… ya know, a doctor told me to take these so it’s okay right? Getting prescribed something from a doctor certainly makes it more acceptable, but not necessarily more safe. As the BBC video and accompanying article explain:
“Prescription drug abuse is the fastest growing drug abuse in the USA with more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.”
- Currently going through a huge Buck 65 kick. This song is awesome:
- Updates on Ridley Scott’s upcoming projects. Including a sequel to Blade Runner (or… “spin-off”), a Prometheus sequel, and some sort of thriller with a script written by Cormac McCarthy. I’m so glad he got all that epic, historical war shit out of his system.
- This morning I was doing some career related shit at home, and wanted to listen to some form of podcast not music (for once). I made a huge mistake by not tuning into the latest Marc Maron WTF podcast (David Cross!!)… I ended up wasting the opportunity listening to a bunch of fanboys talk about upcoming movies, mainly comic oriented. It was horrible. For example, they’re supposed to be experts — lovers of all comics to films — yet they showed a very fundamental lack of understanding of The Joker, Justice League, Iron Man just to name a few. And I don’t even care. But c’mon, if you’re going to spend the time making a podcast and releasing it out into the world for global consumption at the very least know the subject matter you and your cohorts are tackling. Right?
- I’ve got a nice little stack of comics here to read through tonight; including the new Casanova, which is always a treat. The most intriguing cover of the bunch is probably Walking Dead #95, which looks to be promising new characters and some human on human violence. The most haunting cover goes to the fourth issue of Fatale, it just screams whathefuck:
- Umm… speaking of Tony Stark, it has recently been reported that legendary character actor Sir Ben Kingsley will be playing a villain in Shane Black’sIron Man 3 flick, AND that the story will be based loosely on Warren Ellis‘ Extremis story. Nice. This all makes sense though considering the first movie was based partly on the arc as well. Yeah Uncle Warren! Internet Jesus for the win!
“I guess I’m writing this to tell everybody to stay encouraged because there is nothing that you can’t achieve. I’m not technically an author or a video director, but if I can do what I’ve done then so can you. A dream is only a dream if you’re not willing to work towards it. Once you’re willing to put in work, it changes from a dream to a goal, then from a goal to a reality. The momentum of achieving that goal will push you to take on more ambitious things the next time around. It’s a great cycle, but it starts with you. Be willing to work on the things you’re passionate about, even if it’s just a little bit every day, and know that the time you put in towards those things isn’t wasted. Every minute of it is worth it. Chip away at your goals.”
I’m a huge fan of the Brubaker/Sean Phillips combination. Of course, as many are. They’ve had a wonderful history together, growing into one of the better writer/artist teams in the industry. When I heard they were taking a stab at a Lovecraftian horror/Noir book I thought it a little insane, but I dug the fact that they were willing to step out of their pre-established Criminal/Incognito boundaries to try something new and exciting. Then I read the first issue of Fatale and thought, “well, this is eerily similar to something these two have done before…” It’s no slight on them as artists, as creators. When one has such a singular voice — even as a team, or especially as a team — that voice probably transcends almost all things like genre, setting, characters and the rest. But it’s hard to read Fatale and not feel like I’m reading a Criminal arc with Chutulu worshipers embedded into it. Again, damn fine comics… but more of a change of pace from these two could only help their cause. They’ve already made gold, let’s see what they can do with coal. Because there’s that small chance it may turn to diamond.
(Jess Nevins, who writes post-script articles after Phillips/Brubaker’s comics, writes an interesting blog.)
(I’m releasing my new album tomorrow — which I’ll post — but in the meantime here’s the flash-fiction piece I wrote for it. Hope anyone who reads it likes it. Items in italicized-bold indicate track names, the album title is “The Parallel”.)
The dust bowl got us moving. I’ll never forget that billowing monster looming on the horizon, inching closer hour by hour, tumbling over itself and infecting all it touched. Sometimes I still see it: a black cloud, spitting venom and creeping into the boundaries of my consciousness. It shouldn’t happen to a dream. We cultivated all we could and got out. The road crumbled underfoot, weary old expansion. Millions of stars played tag in the sky. Summers at Itasca were just memories. Flashes of moonlight, Lakeshore, tiny little rocks in my hand. A signpost outside Pipestone read hash-mark, N, G. We setup camp outside town and scavenged for wood. We were sleeping in our tents when the Earth cracked apart and something terrifying emerged from the unknown. The glow of smoldering embers lit the creature’s face orange. Horns dripping sticky waste, wounds all over. Minotaure of the Beyond. It receded after it saw nothing to fear. The next morning we came to a train yard sprinkled with rust and tags. A teenage boy with a guitar and little more lay hungry amongst the cargo. His case was covered in a story written in white paint. Words, pictures, symbols. The story of his life. We left him with a can of beans and hopped the switchbacks West. A couple days later we came to a taconite mine and managed to flee without being seen. The sound of dynamite blasts echoed through the Range. An aging ship captain let us rest in his home for a day and night. His wife took a shining to Maria, gave her a crushed Velvet dress and some pearl earrings to boot. We hadn’t eaten so well in days. They sent us on our way to St. Paul to meet a 7th Street swing dancer who, they said, could help us in our travels. The road became grey as the season changed over. Frost came and went. Tunnel passage. The map shifted again and again. Smoke signals emanated from the valley to the East. Ancient beacon. We huddled around the fire, singing “Carryin’ On” until our voices ceased. Our last day on the road led us to a farm knee deep in repairs; it had encountered a devastating tornado weeks prior. The fields were cloaked in splintered wood and uprooted crops. The farmhands never stopped working. A photographer from out East photographed a migrant mother with the pea pickers. The negative reached out to me, I reached back. The sharecroppers gave us a jug of their moonshine for lending a hand. It was brown, bitter, and reeked of rotten tree bark. That night we passed it around and stumbled into the city’s outer limits. A bluesman repeated a lick on the corner, while a stranger dressed in all white improvised to the chaos. Blurs like long-form exposure. We woke to one of our party lying dead on his back, the concoction poisoned him. That was one gloomy Sunday. Blast furnace… wondering why. I broke bottles all day in an alley behind the depot. Entry static resonated through the brick. I ran away through the broken glass, cuts in my palms. Trail of blood down St. Peter cobblestone. I ran into a bearded plainsman with a hatchet and a pocketwatch; he clutched me tight, smearing ashes across my face. Light embedded eyes blinded me. I tried to squirm free but it was no use. The traffic stopped and we walked across river road, down to the embankment. On an island I saw my traveling party, my family. They smiled and waved and yelled for me to join them. The plainsman heaved me into the river. I flailed, unable to swim, desperately kicking. The water started to fill my mouth, I began sinking. I touched down to the muddy river bottom. As all hope ceased, I saw their faces emerging from the darkness. They carried me to the surface; I coughed and rolled over on the island shore… Closed my eyes under a full moon and dreamt of…
I was paging through some John Dos Passos at the library today and noticed some lines that eerily apply to today’s cultural environment. It’s astonishing:
“It is time for all honest men to band together to resist the ravages of greedy privilege.”
“I make the prediction that unless those in charge and in whose hands legislation is reposed do not change the present system of inequality, there will be a bloody revolution in less than a quarter of a century in this great country of ours.”
“Law-Hating Gatherings not to be allowed in critical time threatening social upheaval.”
“Bankers Hail Era of Expansion”
“These are men for whom the rabid lawlessness, anarchistic element of society in this country has been laboring over since sentence was imposed, and of late they have been augmented by many good law abiding citizens who have been misled by the subtle arguments of those propagandists.”
Things were set in motion for the conclusion of R.M. Guera and Jason Aaron‘s critically acclaimed creator-owned series around issue #50 (which, if I remember right, was an odd one-off flashback issue?), perhaps even earlier. Then again, I suppose you could say things have been set in motion for its conclusion since the series’ inception.
Scalped #53 is an excellent example of the biggest strengths of this comic: pacing and ensemble cast juggling. The book moves effortlessly — though there is a sense of uneasiness — from page to page. Each conversation and interaction fleshed out enough to work as a character driven piece simply on its own, each plot advancement the same type of slow, steady-burn we’ve come to expect from our best noir stories. Never slow, never fast, the issue grinds along towards its cliffhanger the same way the overall story has since the beginning. You cannot look away.
In terms of the story, the reservation, the people, there’s a lot going on here. And that has always been one of Scalped‘best attributes: this isn’t any one character’s story. Some reviewers have argued that the main character of the book is indeed the reservation itself, with the characters acting as a moving backdrop the way a setting normally does, to reflect off of. Rez as protagonist, characters as setting. That is the case here, and probably will be until the book concludes sometime next year. Agent Nitz runs into Sheriff Karnow with unexpected consequences, so he flips the tracks. Catcher and Wade talk of “the Gods” behind bars. Dash gets spat upon. And Shunka gets double-crossed by his associates.
The beautiful — if haunting — artwork continues from Guera. Who I hope can find another stellar crime book to work on next lest his his talents not be used properly. That is not to say he couldn’t do another type of book (hell, a Daredevil/Batman or history/science fiction stint would be off the charts), but his style is best suited for crime. His buildings and locales evoke as much emotion as his characters do. One lost member of the team is the colorist Giulia Brusco, who’s color toes the line between oddly surrealistic and starkly real. The use of specific palettes in specific scenes help transition the book from place to place, situation to situation, adopting a different feel for each. The reds of Shunka’s sex scene, the cools of Red Crow’s attempted assassination, the sterile tones of Dash in the hospital.
As the CBR review explains, this is the type of comic you buy for people who think comics are only (or best) with superheroes:
“For those who want literate comics without spandex or ridiculous conceits, you can thank Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera on your way through the door. “
There are talks of an HBO series. Which would be great. But there’s no way the level of tension and quality could be on par with this comic. Definitely get into the trades if you haven’t.
Earthscraper Concept: The Opposite of Skyscraper. The concept is from a Mexican architectural company called BNKR Arquitectura. Interesting, and the concept art looks amazing (I especially like the inverted hollowed out pyramid shape, as to let light into the surrounding floors). My only question is, what happens during an Earthquake?
Also, recessions can help society as much as they hurt us. This is very, very good news:
“Cocaine-related emergency-room admissions, overdoses and requests for rehab have declined since the economy started its 2008 decline, according to data obtained by The Post.
“It is sort of on a slight but steady downward trend,” said Dr. Stephen Ross, director of NYU’s Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction. “I treat patients in private practice. Many cocaine addicts tell me stories they don’t have enough money to buy it anymore.”
There were 478 “accidental” deaths in which cocaine was a factor, typically overdoses, in New York City in 2006, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
That number plunged to just 274 in 2010.
Powder-cocaine addicts typically shell out $60 to $80 a gram, so perhaps the high cost of blow is why also a smaller number of people — 7,693 — sought treatment for cocaine addiction in New York City last year, according to the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services. That number is a drop from 9,654 in 2008.”
And, surprise, surprise… Verizon (the largest cell phone carrier in the Unites States) is suing the federal government over their recent Net Neutrality legislation. Net Neutrality is a strange topic, this is such a brave new world we live in. But in general I’m for it. Not that I’m a huge fan of government regulation, I just think that if one PAYS for the internet (be it on a mobile device or a computer or a tablet device), one should get the Internet in all its glory and power regardless what types of signals/traffic that device is sending/receiving. Some people (and companies for that matter) naturally use more bandwidth, some do not. Why should we let ISP’s punish the ones who need more? It’s sort of the same reason why I don’t like tolls on the Interstate system… some people have to use the freeway more than others, it’s only natural. Those people are already paying for the Interstate via a litany of other taxes anyway. Then there’s always the capitalistic response of: “well, if people don’t like ISP’s enforcing bandwidth limits and rules, the free market will siphon that out”. Perhaps, if this was 1926. But in a world of mergers and conglomerates, the options (the “competition”) is limited. Where I live there are two companies I can get the Internet from. TWO. ISP’s can jerk people around all they want because there is no competition.
- I cut my fore-finger pretty deeply yesterday, right on the tip too. So typing is kind of a bitch right now. Not that I normally write a TON on here anyways, just saying. Guess I can kiss any guitar playing goodbye for at least a good week (probably more).
- I wish I could write a ton though, the new CASSANOVA is badass. Matt Fraction is back on that title, returned from the depths of the mainstream heroes, and it is a pleasure to read. Very, Very good comics:
- BleedingCool has an article titled “When A Seven Year Old Girl Reads The New Starfire”. (DC, in their infinite wisdom, has been accused a bit lately of sexism in their company-wide reboot. A combination of a tasteless appearance of Starfire wearing a translucent bikini and Catwoman turning into little more than a man-hungry tramp.)
This is what she thinks of the old Starfire.
“She’s like me. She’s an alien new to the planet and maybe she doesn’t always say the right thing, or know the right thing to do. But she’s a good friend, and she helps people. She’s strong enough to fight the bad guys, even when they hurt her. Even her sister tried to kill her, but Starfire still fights for the good side. And she helps the other heroes, like Superboy and Robin and Raven. She’s smart too. And sometimes she gets mad, but that’s okay because it’s okay to get mad when people are being mean. And she’s pretty.”
This is what she thinks of the new Starfire;
“I can see almost all of her boobs… Well she is on the beach in her bikini. But… she’s not relaxing or swimming. She’s just posing a lot… she’s not fighting anyone. And not talking to anyone really. She’s just almost naked and posing.”
And when asked if the new Starfire is a good hero, replies;
