Waydown #19.08.13

Well, a little over a year. Maybe there's been worse. Better than most.

I've been reading a lot lately. Or at least I have enough to review here. Backlogged, really, which encourages me to get more of these out. I don't read the quicker stuff as much if it's only going to go at the end of a long list to write about, so I've been reading the bigger books and writing more. Like with anything about me, it's a system. Often it (pretty-much) works.

I've been thinking about bookcases. What once seemed like such a necessary possession for a book-lover now seems obstructive and unnecessary. I've had plenty of bookcases through the years, ever since I started reading books, but the ones I have left and the ones I see in others' homes confound me for why they're around anymore. A lot of people -- and increasingly more -- are getting their books and reading digitally, which takes no space at all. Mark Waid said a few years ago that he was switching out all his comics to digital versions since he could have all of them on a tablet and not taking up rooms in his house. I wouldn't go that far, to replace all of my reading material (and pay for it again), and I'm not much of a digital reader in the first place (at least not yet. I could imagine a day when I'm only buying new stuff digitally), but it's been a while since I've been a collector anyway. I realized years ago that I was only collecting comics to read, not necessarily to keep. Up until recently I was still getting them every week, and even bagging and boarding, but it was all going into storage anyway. I had no aspirations of them appreciating in value -- always a fool's errand to me, and that was even before trade collections deflated a lot of value of the single issues -- but I was taking care of what I'd purchased, even if it's not likely I'll ever do anything else with the comics except get rid of them. And a lot of that translates to other books and the bookcases. Are we really getting bookcases just to display what we've read, and what's the point of that? Trying to impress anyone who comes around with the amount and quality of what you've read? I've never had over anyone who cares (though the custom-made CD shelves that took up one wall of my home was full of albums that would get some attention from visitors, but not often), and it's very rare that anyone comes over anyway. There for handy reference? When am I ever going to need to refer back to something I read years ago that will be so important that it needs to take up space in my home? It'd be easier just to look up online. There to read again? I'd rather read something new. Though there's another use of a bookcase, and the one I use mine for: To have a shelf for the next books to read, easily-accessible. I admit, I own a number of bookcases. The biggest one is just off the living room, one I've had for years. The bottom shelf is stuff I've read, the rest (most of four shelves, with one for the some of the wife's stuff) are mostly stuff I intend to read. Another two as tall but thinner, one which the wife owns the top half of, the bottom half I've re-purposed into a space for magazines I intend to read (and have gotten through more of than the books and comics I have); another entire case is all graphic novels and collections I intend to get to (or already have and they're getting ready for review or storage). Will I ever get to all this stuff? Not likely, but perhaps it's the optimism of having all this stuff around and ready. I'd rather have way too much available then not enough (a guide in my life that rules much more than it probably should). But as for showing off what I've read or having it ready in case I need it right away again? There's not much point. And all that stuff is taking up a lot of space. (Also, the dozen or so DVDs I keep around were shuffled into a cabinet years ago and I haven't watched one since I put them in there. Candles take up more space here than videos. Making even more the case: I'd much rather get a movie I want to watch on streaming (though could also easily wait for it from a Netflix mailer), even if I have to pay for it, than have it sitting around taking up space.) (The next level of this is getting rid of stuff in storage, my current mission, so this is an ongoing conversation.)

REVIEWS

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (audiobook). I don’t catch a lot of modern high-points in the literary world as they’re happening (as if to imply that I catch them anywhere else) but this one came to me, I don’t remember how, except that maybe providence said I needed to read this it was written for me (albeit more if I were Dominican). This would be a brilliant novel on its own, the engrossing and enchanting tale of the life of a boy and his family, told in different voices to give it some range of history and emotion. But of course I would take the details to know that this guy is one of my own people, a fan of comics and books and role-playing games, surely someone I can relate to. The references are deep enough -- some that probably got by me -- that Diaz earns his cred, almost so much that his nerdery would risk getting a Pulitzer if not for being such a great book, or he gets it as a brilliant researcher who can fit the information into a history, if he wasn’t already conversant in it. This was the book that Sweetie was reading when we met, and I’m amazed that she was able to hold on through all the references, but there’s enough that it only adds color (almost blinding, for me), not being its sole construction. It’s heartbreaking from the first page, but it wraps you up until the end. Come for the references or the story itself -- either way it’s a brilliant read (the best I’ve had in fiction since Kavalier & Clay, which, given the description of above, might be considered familiar territory but actually vastly different, and showing how rich that world can be in its interpretations).

The narrator on the audiobook gives it a great effort but it can be hard to escape that it’s a very white voice actor. He can fake a Spanish accent for the dialogue but there could have been added layer of some authenticity by making it sound native. Not a point against since it’s still fine, but it’s a missed opportunity and a misstep not worthy of the adaption of such a great book. (A later version was read by Lin-Manuel Miranda.)

The audiobook includes Drown, Diaz’s short story collection (at least as far as I can tell. It says it does. It’s got some extra stories, in any case). It's the usual cash cow after an artist hits it big, an easy release with a bunch of older stuff that didn't establish their name. And they’re all good stories, but compared with the sustained structure of the longer work that is Oscar, they seem segmented, even if overall they’re a higher quality. They would have been fine read individually, or even in a magazine among other articles, but put together and read aloud on top of each other, they’re inconsistent. It can also be difficult to discern where which story ends and starts when it’s not noted but that’s just an element of the aural form rather than the visual. But it’s a great extra to be included, and a great come-down after the highs of Oscar (though initially frustrated when you thought you still had a few hours left in the main book).

Love Is A Mix-Tape by Rob Sheffield (audiobook). I first found Sheffield’s name when he was introduced in Rolling Stone as one of their big writers. They very rarely ever made a big deal about their contributors, but apparently he was going to stand out. They also included the story about how his life had turned a corner, with what happened to his wife and, presumably, how that got him to write for them (though hopefully it wasn’t only for that context). All that stayed with me but it was hardly important as I found him to be a stellar writer. I read most of the music reviews anyway, and the writing of his reviews always stood out. They were always fun and more free-wheeling than he should have gotten away with, with references rivaling Dennis Miller in number and obscurity (and also placing you in his generation if you catch them). The writing could be said to approach novelty, but his opinions on the tunes were as sharp as anything the magazine had (though four stars for Gwen Stefani’s first solo album?). I probably found a few bands I wouldn’t have bothered with just because I read a review he wrote on them. He’s penned a spate of other stuff in the time since and I’ve read as much as I can find, even his ongoing column on TV (though that didn’t affect my viewing habits (or lack thereof)). So if he did a book, yeah, I could read that. His point of access is writing about his wife, his relationship with her and her fate, and how music affected them and informed their time together. His life probably isn’t interesting enough for a book, and his wife is a better character than him (and surely he would admit that), but he brings it to life with his lively writing. It’s not even critiquing the music, though you certainly get a taste of the stuff he likes (a lot of pop music from the late ‘80s and the slacker-rock of the early ‘90s, not as much Britpop as you might think), but those two lived and breathed and ate music so much, in telling their story you have to include it. Of course it all wraps around the mix tapes they both made and lived with and for, and of course the metaphor of how a collection of random cuts of music can represent a life. It’s all very charming and clever and fun, as much as anything he’s written in RS, though it can be colored if you know what happened to her. It’s telegraphed from the beginning, and it’s not important what exactly happened, it’s just a matter of when, and the shock that comes if you don’t know where you are in the book (like listening to the audiobook). Even harder, there is still book after that. But he tells the story of her and his life, and even if it’s more about the writing, it’s mostly about the music. It may not be your stuff (though you’d be well-advised to have taste in music enough to at least recognize a lot of it) but there’s still writing to be enjoyed. This skirts the rule that autobiographies need to have a happy ending -- they survived well enough to write a book, after all -- since he shares the story with someone else who didn’t get to actively participate in it, but he still manages to get the joy from the time he spent with her and displays the wit that made him a writer who is always a blast to read. It’s a question that he could write another book with the same amount of heart, but it would surely still be full of charm and wit and Pavement references, which should be enough to get anyone cool enough to read it.

Sheffield himself reads it for the audiobook. He’s not a voice actor but he has the heart for it, once again showing how, just like in art and music, that feeling wins over proficiency more often than not. It’s also a quick read/listen, being fairly succinct and not wallowing in the memories and needless details. Plus, he got another payday for the work, deservingly. Of course he can’t include the audio for all the music he mentions, which is a shame, since it would be a great layer to add, even just as a filler for bumpers between chapters, instead of the dry reading of the contents of an ancient homemade cassette It’s understandable that they wouldn’t be able to do it, but it’s already special enough that it doesn't need to rely on it anyway. Besides, anybody with taste enough to know what he’s talking about would already have that stuff and could use it as instructions to make their own tape. And yes, the irony of listening to a book about a story from the ‘90s recorded to a CD uploaded to be downloaded would not escape anyone.

The Weight by Andrew Vachss (audiobook). I’ve read Vachss’s stuff for years, even recently (as I’ve told you) though it’s his Burke novels I’ve been into.  I like his writing enough that I”d follow him to another tangent, even to somewhere without Burke.  And so I discovered this, a non-Burke novel that I dove into just as energetically (and it helped to find it on audiobook). It takes more than half the story to figure what it’s going to do, which is frustrating in how much it meanders, but that also marks some of Vachss’s best stuff (particularly Strega, probably his best). He should know how to tighten a story by now but it can be forgiven if it's how he gets there. It’s still in Vachss’s inimitable hard-boiled style, but without the characters he carried through all those Burke books, it comes out a bit faceless. Depending on what he has intended to do with these characters, we can’t tell if we should get invested in them or not. As it is, there's no point in it standing as its own one-off book; if it was part of a series it would just be one of the soggier chapters. If he has another series in them, hopefully he’ll find more interesting characters to bring in, and can give them a little more color if he’s just trying to make a point.

Bossypants by Tina Fey (audiobook). It’s not always that biographies are my thing as much as books on Saturday Night Live are. I’ve always been a fan of Fey’s but I wasn’t particularly drawn to her book. Call it being overwhelmed by the glut of celebrities writing their memoirs and hers seemed like just another one, and possibly skippable. We went to a talk that Fey did with Steve Martin on the tour for the book, and she quoted some of it and it was hilarious. Then Sweetie read it herself on her Kindle a while ago, and I even started it on the same just to see how it worked to read a book on a screen, but I didn’t get more than half a chapter in and I didn’t go back to it in favor, presumably, of reading something else (and I probably haven't even touched that Kindle since). It took getting it on audiobook -- and even passing on it a few times -- then listening to it only because it was the next one on the list (in order of when I found them at the library). So maybe it was putting it off for the right weekend shift at work or leaving it to be one good thing on the horizon, in whatever form I would experience it. The last one is the one excuse I shouldn't live with, since the book is so good that it should be gobbled at the first chance. It might be hard to approach the same level with the next book, but there’s no reason to delay such a rich experience. Fey is funny enough on her own and in the shows she puts together that it shouldn't be a surprise that she could write a book just as clever and hilarious. Sure, having one talent isn’t a guarantee of all the others, but when you read this it seems foolish to think she could ever be doubted. It can be hard to be funny in print but Fey knows the secret. Maybe it’s helped by the audiobook, which she reads, but the best bits are in the writing and that could translate back and forth. The audiobook also has some audio clips from SNL, including her first turn as Sarah Palin, which don’t necessarily add anything essential but it shows off what they can do with the format and maybe gives it some extra value (if you paid for it) or makes up for having no pictures. As for being a Saturday Night Live book, that’s an element in her story, especially since this was before she did all the other projects post-30 Rock (most of which we can live without, but it could have been fun to know how Kimmie Schmidt came together), but it was probably the best point to capture a perspective on her life. Even if you don’t need to know about her life -- and really, no one needs to know anything about anyone just because they’re famous -- there’s plenty of ridiculousness and uproarious bits -- laugh-out-loud funny, which is only slightly more embarrassing when you’re caught laughing listening to headphones than when reading, though hopefully they’ll ask you about it. And there’s really no sense in always keeping good things on the horizon, since there’s always going to be something else to get to. Maybe it will even be a genius writer's book.

Yes, Please by Amy Poehler (audiobook). We probably don't need yet another celebrity doing their biography but Poehler doing one would be spending more, and more intimate, time with her than we get from her. And, especially since it will have something to do with SNL, I'll read it eventually. Poehler can't be faulted for jumping on the bandwagon, though doing hers so soon after Fey's makes it smell like a move calculated to sell books rather than reveal the inner workings of a great artist. And it's a good book, even if Poehler's desperation sometimes comes through more than her charm. She starts it with complaining about how hard it is to write a book (not something anyone reading it would swallow, if they could get the advance she surely got from it) and she uses it as a life-saver when she gets too deep, but it's doubtful she would have deeper material to mine if she went ahead instead of backing off. She has a few decent stories and she dresses them up well, but it's not a deep revelation or a raucous read. Comparisons to Fey's book couldn't have not been expected, but they did it anyway, which only goes to show how much they wanted to push this (or ride the other book's coat-tails). Fey's is much funnier and more comfortable with much the same material and themes, and Fey is a natural and confident storyteller. Even if making a book was a chore for Fey, at least she didn't complain about it. The audiobook even has some extras, with guest voice-actors (including Patrick Stewart splendidly for no reason), and one chapter shared with Seth Meyers which becomes more like a podcast than an adaptation (and also shows that Meyers needs his own book ASAP), and a great chapter on the creation of Parks & Rec (which gets special consideration, but this was made when they were still producing that show and, at the time, ramping to its end) with its creator, but there are only so many stunts that can cover up Poehler's insecurities about the whole project. She needn't have worried, though, and the book would have been at least as charming without the meta-commentary about the struggle to write it. These kinds of books about these kinds of personalities aren't usually trolled for gossip and juicy bits, and Poehler is classy enough to mention Arnett only minimally, as the father of her children, which could be a missed opportunity for some entertaining stories but she takes the high road (over my lamenting the break-up of such a great combination of people). Her insecurities are part of the person we're reading this book to know better, and she should be free to write what she likes when she has this opportunity, so the complaints are a minor criticism. And it's certainly not fair to judge this one compared to Fey's, so it can be taken as a light, easy read, without too many heavy expectations. You get pretty much what you expect. But from an entertainer who always seems to give more than we expect (even more than Fey does, in her bigger projects), it's too bad that it's only good enough (though a bit more with the audiobook).

Drax (Marvel). Drax gets his own series -- why not? A character popular somewhere could get lucky and it might last. Marvel even throws a celebrity at it as either a show of commitment, a want to cozy up to someone famous, or just give up a book in the hopes that his name might bring some attention to it. It’s a wrestler as a writer, or co-writer, denoting how little he might have contributed, but they assigned Cullen Bunn, one of their name writers at the time to do the rest so it might not show much faith in more than the star’s name and yet another book for Bunn, who was already doing a few dozen, it seemed, at Marvel or elsewhere. It wouldn't be expected to be much more than a throw-away effort, something that doesn’t connect to any greater continuity at a time when the publisher seemed to be about anything but.  It’s not anything more than those expectations, a romp with Drax as the hero, with small ties to obscure facets of the space universe.  It could have been condensed into a Special to be more easily thrown aside, but stretching it into 11 issues milks at least a few readers (including, I must admit, myself.  I was looking to get the voice of Drax for a Marvel Heroic game where I was playing him, and it didn’t much help. I still prefer the Starlin/Lim version from their Silver Surfer run, the dumb brute who epitomized that role ultimately). The series goes nowhere but forgivably because it starts at the same. Besides the standard production, it actually reads like one of those short series from the ‘70s they put out for the publishing schedule and the drugs, and it also doesn’t add up to much. It makes a few efforts to create new characters, to surely be picked up by Marvel obscurists in later generations, and they bring back Planet Terry, surely Bunn’s suggestion (perhaps the only reason he agreed to do the book, whether the character needed to be revived or not; or maybe Marvel’s suggestion, in their effort to bring back the most obscure characters from even the most ridiculous corners of their universe post-Battleworld), but none of goes anywhere. The timing is unfortunate as well, being in the stagnant period between Guardians movies (when every other character in that team gets at least one series). Drax works best as a supporting character (or bonehead villain, I would argue); there’s no reason that one day he couldn’t hold a story as the lead, but it needs to be with more inspiration than there was this time. This series will be in the bargain sets for a few bucks, which is still overpriced, since it doesn’t need to make it to a collected edition, even on a wrestler’s name.

Squadron Sinister; Squadron Supreme vol. 4 (Marvel). We may not be talking long about superhero comics before I bring up the Squadron Supreme. I never thought I was a big fan of the characters but I always go back to their ‘80s mini-series, especially #12, which would condemn comics as only long fight-scenes, if not the genesis of that trend that came in the ‘90s, as well as playing like some kind of role-playing game (and something I take inspiration from when running my own). That last issue was also the death-knell of that team, as they up-ended so many of the characters, then put them in a different dimension, that it erased whatever fertility might have been there. How they fueled or even deserved a graphic novel after that is baffling. The concept of being Marvel's Justice League analog (an in-joke that had a surprising amount of distance) fell apart, and they became just another group of superheroes that had one good story in them, but Marvel kept pushing the idea, with the Straczynski re-imagining that should have gone on longer than it did (even if it lost the mature-reader ranking, which only made it The Authority), or maybe it ended when it needed to, but there was little doubt it would have gone the distance, if not for the fact that Marvel wants to restart everything they have as frequently as they can get away with in the first place. So the cycle comes around and they give the concept yet another shot, even starting with a blank slate to give it a new life.  It’s the rough outline of the J.L. analog but leading out of its foundation of the "Secret Wars" thing (the unnecessary new one) and actually building on that concept, building the team from pieces of different worlds just like the new Marvel universe was purported to be (and nothing like exactly what DC had done (more than once)).  It’s not the worst idea but after that initial concept it’s just a team of superheroes since the idea of different dimensions can only go so far. They seemed serious about the roll-out but the whole series pretty much just comes down to one event, the murder of a notable (but not necessarily loved) Marvel character and its aftermath. As it usually is, the character death is empty since anyone knows they’ll come back (and probably did before the last issue of the series came out) but that was the pad they were trying to launch from. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go much further and the characters are left lifeless, and didn’t get come back with another plan after it ended. The Squadron Sinister mini did much better, even being a "Secret Wars" tie-in, and separate from the full series. That goes back to the J.L. analog idea but as villains, that might work even better, except that it’s really hard to make the core idea of those characters anything but heroic, as hard-wired into our fandom as they’ve become for most of our lives (since we discovered comics and superheroes). They even put some care into both series by giving them sturdy superhero artists. In the case of the regular Squadron Supreme series, the pencils are unsurprisingly dull but Mark Farmer’s work is magic, pulling the art up levels just from adroit ink-work. It spins better than anything else in the series, which comes down to a middling effort and an appropriate end after eeking out 15 issues.  Now this concept of the team is established in the Marvel universe so it's theirs to lose if they follow the continuity, but they’ve already covered enough angles to not want to go back even if it worked well. Hopefully they find the seed in there that can grow a great concept and it'll actually stick, and for more than one issue’s fight scene. R.I.P. Mark Gruenwald.

Avengers: Secrets & Lies (Marvel). The Burbank library has a collection of these trades, probably an easy shot since Avengers books would be the ones that would stand out to anyone even if they didn’t know the comics at all. But however they’re curating their selection, they still get some stuff I would check out. And while I’d be happy to read these (either for a straight-ahead superhero title, or for the sheer joy of Avengers comics, or for researching my Marvel Heroic game), there’s no reason to buy them since I probably wouldn’t need to refer back to them in the future. I could still also be on the fence about Bendis doing straight superhero stuff, especially when he does something experimental (for comics) by having so many talking heads, which had become his trademark by this point.  Though I would never mind that much conversation, as long as it goes somewhere, but giving that to as high-profile (as Marvel made him) and dynamic an artist as David Finch  would seem a waste. Though whether Bendis got wise or learned his lesson by then or Marvel handed down an edict against so much talking, there was a lot more action in this one, and a lot more for Finch to do. The artists that got churned out by Top Cow and the dregs of early Image didn't need to go anywhere  -- I even lost interest in Silvestri’s stuff when he started being his own clone -- but there was something about Finch’s style that had some energy. Sure, he uses detail to cover up some deficiencies, especially when his anatomy is wonky, but his stuff is more exciting than his peers, and for a pure, straight-ahead superhero artist, especially with the darker cast he gives his stuff, there's a thrill in it, or at least it's better than other comparable artists who can't make it work nearly as well (such as it is in the first place). Here, Bendis and Finch meld more comfortably, even if the jagged edges of their past collaborations had more electricity. Whether it was the Avengers falling apart or forming again, at least something happened. With this book, early in Bendis’s modern-monumental run on the title (and the ones connected to it), a big sub-plot lays out with Spider-Woman, who was only freshly an Avenger, and one that didn’t even stick, so it was a side story that didn’t need to venture toward center stage. There have been better entries to yet another fight between the Avengers and Hydra, but this one had a lot more words. It gets stretched out by Finch filling it up with sellable splash-pages, from that kind of decompression being the taste of the day (and why his name lost some shine when that mostly went away). There are a few fights with ninjas, the Silver Samurai and Viper talking a lot, and a stat panel with a repeating floating leaf that made its attempt at pacing look like the poorest craft in a comic, encouraged for inclusion in a worst-moments blooper special, if comics had them. If you don’t know how to properly do a stat panel then don’t bloody do them. The editor (and layers of them at Marvel) and whoever let it into a reprint should be fired, or at least ashamed. As it is, Finch burned out on the title and Marvel caught the next biggest artist available to take over. Whether they were burning out or Marvel was just trying to keep new blood going through the book (at the cost of consistency), the artists kept it going and there were plenty of other books. Bendis doesn’t have much interest in short-form stories, but most of his runs worked, so there’s more to get, to see if the next one got better (spoiler: it didn't). But stings less getting them for free from the library.

Daredevil by Mark Waid vol. 1. Mark Waid writing Daredevil seems like the most obvious pairing since Stan started (even more than Waid taking a shot at a shot at any superhero). Even more than Miller and Bendis, who took him dark, way darker than maybe he was intended when he was a Spider-Man knock-off, and Waid takes him in the opposite direction. He returns him to his swashbuckler roots, which seems even more revolutionary than when they first took a superhero to a dark place, more free-wheeling than a Spidey copy, and even more fun when relieved of all the angst that comes when making superhero adventures grim or overly human. It’s harder to write bright, uplifting stories than to lean back on grim n’ grit, but if anyone could avoid the easy dark spots, it’s Waid. The difference from the earlier versions is striking but it’s so true to the core spirit of the character and his world that it feels more like an evolution than a reinvention. Waid has always been more interested in developing upon what’s already come before than shuttling what he doesn’t like, so it’s more a matter of moving on to the next thing and new adventures. There’s a least one DD issue coming out every month, which makes for a lot of stories, and the high-points haven’t lasted forever so there’s some space between them, and there’s been enough since the last big one (maybe Brubaker’s run?) that Waid had some distance to develop his own thing. He still had to deal with the albatross that was Bendis outing DD’s alter ego but it doesn’t dominate the story and Waid is still free to take the stories where he wants. The story flows easily, as Waid is a master storyteller (winning an Eisner from this run) who doesn’t let his ego drop obstacles along the way of a well-constructed story, so it can be a quick read (I read it in one sitting while at the beach) yet not the decompressed stretch that even the best moments of Bendis’s run was. The art stands on its own, being a classic almost cartoonish style by Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin that matches well, along with enough clever visual tricks that the only reason they didn't get more recognition was because the story was so good. The total work could almost be considered a throwback, except that there’s so little connection to the past in comics that this seems even more fresh and new. It might not be cynical enough for a new or young comics reader except that it’s such a great story that holds together that it would be a shame for anyone to miss it. Of the many high-points in DD’s total run, this could certainly be one. If this one isn’t remembered like the classic runs (by not being so edgily dark), at least it’s some solid connective tissue between the last one and the next.

Captain America: Rebirth (Marvel). I may not get to the opus that was the Brubaker run on Captain America -- both because it’s a good chunk to get through, and for my modern superhero reading usually tending toward the most current continuity -- but I was hoping for an encapsulation of it in this mini-series (and also a find at the library), if not a decent Brubaker story and the Hitch/Guice art/experiment. It’s easy to be distracted by the fact that Cap and Batman were “killed” around the same time in the comics, for the sensationalism, of course, then brought back in very similar fashions. I haven’t read the Batman story but if it’s any more convoluted than how it happened with Cap, it’s probably a mess (and may not help by being written by Morrison, whose work is often a mess to begin with). Here there’s probably a hint of that Cap run, and there is plenty spy & WW2 & superhero stuff, so it works just as well, and Brubaker pulls through an acceptable story. This was a way to match -- and pay off from -- killing off Cap, for a little while, at least, and make it a bigger deal than just another arc in the running series, but now it’s just another Cap story, and probably overshadowed by “Secret Empire.” They even tried to give it some weight by having art by Hitch, which has been the Marvel sign for This Is An Event, We’re Just Not Crossing It Over With Everything Else, but without his full commitment so they threw another artist over him. This art gambit is the biggest risk the whole thing takes, even more since this is supposed to be an event, and even grander when it doesn't really work. Hitch might be one of the few pencillers to be able to do the so-called wide-screen shots like Kirby did, and he throws in enough detail along with a solid sense of anatomy and structure, but lately he’d been cursed with inkers who couldn’t really get him or stick around long enough to learn, or, worse, digital inking, which left his art dirtied when it looks its best clean. Then they throw in Guice, a solid penciller in his own right, but with a more impressionistic style, with a scruffiness as part of his art's charm. His stuff is much looser, the complete opposite of Hitch. Putting them together was a volatile mixture, and one that could have been a bold expression of both if it worked. Instead, when they meet in the middle it's a compromise of both their styles, dull at best, some of their lesser work at worst. It’s not clear which artist performed what duties, as each panel seems a rough blend of both, but if it was anything other than Hitch doing the layouts and Guice doing the finishes, the editor should have been punished (as well as for not getting a solid inker to do the real finishing and to tighten up the whole package). Hitch was a big name, and Guice was known on the regular Cap book at the time, so they were both noteworthy, and maybe the best team they could put on the book, at least how it looked on paper (not literally), but better as individuals. Though to have each of them switch off on issues would surely have thrown the flow and sales of each way off balance, so Marvel was wise to try to mix them up to spread the bigger name as much as they could, but the execution shows how ill-advised it turned out to be. It’s not ugly, and there are some parts, like the scenes that take place in the war, when the scruffy look works, but in general it’s not a good exhibit for either artist. It all adds up to a decent effort, though one forgotten just like the stunt of killing off Cap, and a missed opportunity for two artists whose time could have found better experiments.

Wolverine: Evolution (Marvel). Any mainstream artist who wants to do a story out of as many splash-pages as possible and have minimal ambition of writing their own stuff has had a pretty good chance of doing a book with Jeph Loeb. He’s no extraordinary writer but he has a skill for writing just enough to guide a story and keep words out of the way of the art. He’s done well enough in comics but his artists made more of a splash than his writing and connections did. His name would work against me picking up any of his work but he’s been connected to enough great artists with good projects that they're often worth a look even if he's on it. Simone Bianchi doesn’t need to be a recognizable name when you can can just be taken over by his art. He might not have done much mainstream work to get a name in America but what little there is is a beauty to behold. Painted comics used to be the pinnacle of high art in comics, but now, even with advanced coloring and production modes that could easily make that form easier than ever, there are so many other techniques to alter art to anything beyond just a painterly style in the traditional sense. Maybe Bianchi is all brush or all tech, but in that style, I would take him over Alex Ross any day. Bianchi’s style is lush and slick and shiny, as great as anyone in that universe could put out. Even when it gets muddy, possibly from poor page production that can’t catch up to ably reproducing his stuff in print yet, it’s still gorgeous. If he’s going to sniff around the big American companies for work and Marvel will throw some his way, they would be fools not to put him on their biggest property, and Wolverine fits that bill. The lushness of his art puts beauty into the violence of the character, and the sum of the parts could pull in even a minor fan of any of its elements. Unfortunately, Loeb is writing it so there’s some kind of story in there -- something that the most willful and optimistic view could note as just something to string along the action. This is a guy who wrote an ‘80s Schwarzenegger movie, after all. You could say it’s a concession that there’s a story in there at all, but generally it’s the thing that weighs down the action. At the most ideal this could have been six issues of a fight scene -- usually the worst exhibit of all comic-book cliches -- but if it’s Bianchi drawing it, all could be forgiven. As it is, there’s a story in there that needs to get out of the way, but we still get a lot of brilliant splash-pages and a sustained run of Wolverine vs. Sabretooth images. Buy it because it’s pretty, not because you want a story to read (a “story”).

Quick bites:
* Injustice: Gods Among Us vols. 1 & 2. The only DC series from the New52 that I could fathom reading since it's pretty much the old-school DCU. It would be bland as an event but it's not pandering to fanboys and it's a good survey of the high-points of the old, best DC mythos. And it went for a while so it's something to follow for a bit (even if it's just waiting patiently for DC to put out something worth picking up again).
* Ex Machina Vol. 1: The First Hundred Days. I was excited to find this at the library, it being a Brian Vaughan series that I completely missed before I became a big fan of his. I’m finding there might be a reason it’s overshadowed by so much other stuff he’s done (though anyone would be, compared to Saga). I’ve probably committed myself to it, and the library seems to have all the volumes, so I’m hoping it gets a strong stride once it gets going, after this.
* Avengers (current series) #1. If I can’t find single-story issues regularly, maybe I could follow just one monthly series, especially if it’s a team that showcases a lot of characters, and even better that it’s one of the big Marvel series (and one that doesn’t always ooze into a bunch of other series). What really sold me was it’s said that this is a survey of the Marvel Universe, that you could keep up on what's going in that world by following this one. Unfortunately, the first issue is a mess and it’s the worst start of an Avengers team probably ever. Even if they’re breaking up the Avengers and starting them again with enough regularity that there’s no sense in not following the team from single-volume trades, this is a crap start to the current team (which might even be restarted again by the time I post this. Or we can hope). The worst characterization ever of Cap, Thor, and Iron Man, and not a strong reason to even start a new team at all. There might be so much of this story that it can’t fit in one issue, but this piece doesn’t give reason to keep reading. If it was made for the trade, it should have just started as that instead of Marvel offering the pieces to start. Hopefully the rest of the Marvel Universe is in better shape than this.
* Revival -- Deluxe Collection vol. 1 (Image). I had most of my review written in my head as I was reading it but I don’t review stuff when I know the creator. Still, it’s a nice book as a book. I don’t usually tend toward hardcovers but this was a gift and it looks great on a bookshelf. The star of the show, though is Jenny Frisson, who does covers great enough to be worth the whole issue, even better with all of them in a handsome collection in one place. It would almost be a shame to lose her static, single pieces of art to wish for interior art, but it would be more of some good stuff. The hardcover is good enough to have just for the covers (especially as a gift).

Where I Currently Stand With Tattoos (in order, bad to good):

On face
On neck
On front of thigh
Something noticeable/can’t be covered up
Indistinguishable words
Entire phrase or poem
On front of foot
On back of hand
On lower back
On upper back
On ankle
Tiny, unconnected to anything
Anything clever but not too clever
Wrapped around arm or leg
Dragon(s)
One full sleeve
Full sleeves
None

Top Albums Of 2018 (In This Order):

10. Freedom’s Goblin- Ty Segall
9. Negro Swan- Blood Orange
8. Boarding House Reach- Jack White
7. Warm- Jeff Tweedy
6. Wanderer- Cat Power 
5. High as Hope- Florence and the Machine
4. Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino- Arctic Monkeys
3. Eden- Cupcakke
2. Bad Witch- Nine Inch Nails
1. By The Way, I Forgive You- Brandi Carlile

My Top Smiths/Morrissey Songs Of All Time (In This Order):

20. "In The Future When All’s Well"
19. "Girl Afraid"
18. "Something Is Squeezing My Skull"
17. "Sing Your Life"
16. "November Spawned A Monster"
15. "Bigmouth Strikes Again"
14. "Still Ill"
13. "Suedehead"
12. "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others"
11. "Panic"
10. "The Queen Is Dead"
9. "Hand In Glove"
8. "A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours"
7. "Jack The Ripper"
6. "Pretty Girls Make Graves"
5. "Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me"
4. "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want"
3. "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"
2. "How Soon Is Now?"
1. "Speedway"
And if you allow non-Morrissey, Johnny Marr songs into that list, then the entire first Electronic album.

RAVES

The 10 o'clock news. I have memories of my Granny & Poppy in front of the TV watching the news, like they never did much else around their house, and I thought, as a kid, that I would never grow up to do that. Even in the days of the three-network TV, surely there had to be something better to watch. And yet, I find myself now, in my later years, being comfortable watching the news when it’s on, and even switching it on at 10 when Sweetie goes to bed and I get on the computer in the living room. It’s nice to be in the loop with what’s going on in the world, especially with local stuff, and not having to be distracted by actually reading a story for something that will likely be inconsequential. Just leave it on in the background, nothing that will lose value by not paying attention to it, and catch what comes up (and, maybe, what could happen (for the weather)). Call me an old guy, but I can’t find much else to have on that would be worth the effort than a peephole into the rest of the real, living world. It’s the only thing on network TV (we don't have cable) that I’ll have on outside of original-airing SNL. I'm not a grandparent, but I get it, and that's what I’ll be watching. Though I won’t drink as much black coffee as they did (since no one, safely, can).

asdf. Even for a non-typist, it’s the easiest thing to type. And it makes a good bookmark. I keep a lot of my ongoing writing in a Google Doc (as I’ve raved about before) and it can be a lot of material to sift through. Recently I finally had the bright idea to put each project in a block together, which would still be a lot to go through, but I put an asdf at the beginning of each block then can use a Search (CTRL + F then, again, asdf) to jump to each, especially since it won’t pick any words that are similar (since it’s not even a word in the first place). It sounds like a minor thing but it has helped me get to what I’m writing or using in a fraction of the time, and that time saved adds up (to write more, of course). It’s such a great trick, I’m surprised no one else has made a big deal of it. You can use it (though give me credit in case that's my only lasting legacy).

Small apples. I have one after work to break my hungry when I get home. They're tiny and tasty, just enough for a quick snack that won't mess up your appetite or drag you down.

Update: I don't carry around that "purse" anymore. I barely did even when I posted the last zine. Once I got a new phone and had to get a new set-up for it (grrr), I no longer had a few dozen extra cords and had to pay attention to the ones I had, which meant I didn't have a surplus to throw in an extra bag. So I pretty much just take the cord if I have to and leave the rest in the car. But maybe it will come back. It was a great idea.

I already have the next one or two written, so not as long for another. Maybe. Possibly. Eventually.