This one might have taken as long to edit as the last one but it wasn't as much of a pain to do. Maybe it's just smoother because I have the process down (or I'm not bothering myself with how much work it is).
Usually I list my reviews in the order I write them, which is also the order I read them. (Books first, comics after. Consider it giving the comics prominent placement for when anyone really starts to dig into reading this.) This time my instinct told me another order. I can't explain why but you won't tell a difference anyway. (I even forgot what it was.)
REVIEWS
White Noise by Dan DeLillo. I used to think Delilo was a crime writer, since Underworld came out when I was old enough to know about crime-fiction books but too ignorant to think that a book with that title might not be crime-fiction, but I assumed his work would get over to me if it needed to. And then of course the connection to the Airborne Toxic Event (great band!) but that still didn’t draw me to him. Then found this one in a pile of Sweetie’s book from school (in the ‘90s) and I put it on the bookshelf, which is also an entry onto the list to listen to as an audiobook (which can take a while, but every once in a while comes up a lot faster than I’d planned, and certainly sooner than I’d have read it in print). It took the movie coming out -- less than a couple months from finding out about it -- and a Baumbach movie we'd want to see eventually anyway, so I had to get the jump on what it, and apparently that’s what it takes for me to finally get to it. So it became one of my weekend audiobooks (competing with City of Quartz and Clandestine -- I hadn’t had as much weekend overtime at the job to get through some of these), and it only took a few shifts (around Thanksgiving weekend, when I got doped into working last-minute). It was taught in school (and UCLA, no less) so it has to be a classic, and existing entirely in our lifetimes, so let’s call it modern too.
It’s quirky, maybe before books could be so quirky and taken as legitimate, but the voice is solid. The part with the airborne toxic event actually isn’t the main thrust of the story (though it looks good in a movie trailer) but only the middle third, and actually fairly separable from the others. The first third is a lot of set-up without a lot of motion, but it charges along so consistently that it’s easy to get through a lot of it and realize not a lot has happened. Then the last third is resolution of the events from the cloud, but divided existentially as its own event instead of just carrying on from what happened in the middle. It’s a weird balancing act, but it’s a weird book. The main element going through the whole thing is the amount of noise -- there’s a reason it’s in the title. This was an early comment on the amount of material and crap floating through our lives, and how even the core of the important things that have made and currently make us just mix with all that, until it’s hard to decipher what’s real and what’s junk, and even challenge if it can or should be separated. This was revolutionary in the ‘80s, and it’s been copied plenty in the time since, in many forms (though not as a theme in the movie, but making it a visual thing there would be repetitive and exhausting). To call out the overabundance of modern life and the American overflow of stuff in our lives must have seemed like a call to arms, if its quirkiness doesn’t minimize its message. It's got a lot in it, probably too much, but that's the point. To study it would be to risk limiting how much to get out of it, digging in to what is guided, rather than admitting to the overwhelming flood of ideas. For it to be contained in just a book is to be gracious, since we already have enough noise to deal with IRL.
Retroactively it even becomes a comment about race, which might not have been one of its original intentions. But that’s also “white” in the title too. It’s a raft of white-people problems -- which were just problems back in the’ ‘80s -- and this book has existed for quite a while on the assumption that its issues and themes are universal (surely assumed by white, male critics). It’s hard to get around how white the book is, unless that’s just the default of perspective, but race becomes an issue when it declines to make it an issue in the first place. The movie tries to retrofit this before it becomes a bigger issue, but it too easily becomes the modern norm of a diverse cast as a matter of fact, without making a point of making it all white, if that’s considered an express issue (or non-issue) from the book. It certainly transplants it from the period when race wasn’t the same issue into a time that’s running a red queen’s race to be all-inclusive to everyone, but maybe for marketing, kowtowing to rules instead of the art. It’s nothing that’s fundamentally lost from the book in the adaptation, since the book has themes to burn, but it seems in disregarding an issue it’s making an issue from an adamant non-issue. Though if it can be overlooked, the movie also gets Don Cheadle (in the role of the only person that could possibly be considered remotely non-white, a Jewish fellow) but then loses the balance by having Andre 3000 and doing nothing with him (but teasing us with cookies).
If we can look beyond those issues and just take the characters as typical Americans we can also say it’s not much of a character work, since they get lost among all the crap anyway, and any possible arcs are quashed by just existing in the daily grind when we’re simply existing in the same place without a huge progression to anything else that we might have in dreams (which the book is also sparse on, to drill in the misery of living). The only connection to humanity is the life-preserver of familial relationships and chance friendships, to dig through the junk and find that anyone else is wandering through existence in exactly the same way. Everyone is on the same level, no better or worse, all just languishing to such a degree that even a major event can’t cause more action than just running away from it, then running back to the prison of regular life (a bit reflective of the pandemic and post-pandemic life, making this even accidentally commentary on modern life, for as far as it goes with it). There’s some action at the end but it’s a jagged edge of a resolution, in its own world divided from the movement of the second act, and aspiring to a charge of sleaziness after the cleanliness of family, and missing its mark. It also finally takes aim at religion as a tacked-on chapter, like a latter idea that got threw in, and it’s too much too late and loses any grounding among the noise. The movie manages to make it clearer (from something too easily forgotten in the book) but it can’t do anything with it and seems dutiful to the source material, in the same place as the book as being extra junk thrown in that just drags it out. Though the movie has the thrill of popping visuals where the book only gets monochrome words (and a comparable cover, which is appropriate), the movie doesn't go as far as the book does, just an adaptation of an “unfilmable” work (which barely exists anymore, and now is just a challenge for someone to call something "art" by proving it wrong (or make an admirable failure by trying)).
(My post about the movie is on my Facebook feed, posted February 14, 2023. To be fair, and because it’s relevant in experiencing them both as I did, it references the book as much as this reference the movie.)
Lord of the Flies by William Goldman (audiobook). The Kid had to read this for school so I got to it too. ( I decided to skip Hamlet, her next one, since I didn’t want to get into the deep study of Shakespeare that I’ve done elsewhere. And she had trouble with it and I’m not sure I could be the guide through it she needed.) I recall the 1990 movie being a big deal when it was out -- and when I was in a good high school English class -- and I still missed it. But out of everything I’ve read for school (mine or someone else’s), this feels the most missable. Maybe I was burnt-out on abandoned-island stories with Robinson Crusoe or high school-level books after Animal Farm, but it didn’t grab me. And while I was in it I happened upon an article where Stephen King said it’s one of his favorite books. It’s got a bunch of great themes to explore, but it seems like a lot of them have been done as well elsewhere, especially with books that have aped it. That any story about anyone younger than an adult becomes coming-of-age is so worn it's a cliche, and this might be the granddaddy of them all. (Why is it a character arc for a kid becomes a coming-of-age, but one for an adult just means they keep being an adult (and probably a crappy one)?) Ideally the kids learn something from it, especially when those lessons become fatal, but the ending is a cop-out when the deus ex machina saves them all equally and presumably they're all reset (except fort the dead ones). There might be conflicts between the two sides of boy son the island but morality leads to taking the good one, which also becomes the weaker one (possibly another theme). The themes are so heavy and thick that it’s hard to see around them to see some actually solid characters. There’s some intrigue to it, but mostly it’s about how crappy people can be to each other, especially adolescent boys. And the ending is a cop-out. It seems like a trick to be a boys’ adventure tale to grab high school kids, then couch a lesson in there and show how that fantasy wouldn’t or couldn’t work. Would any kid act any different if the story were actually happening to them? And how much does an adult get out of it when they can see through immature actions and boy-age groupthink? King still gets something out of it, and that’s probably saying something, but it’s hard to see how much of it applies to older people or the world outside the limits of an island. Unless adults really would revert to being asshole kids if abandoned to their own devices. It makes for a good story, and it’s solidly written, but it seems like a chore to decode all the metaphors and allegories just to get through (which make it perfect for school but not much fun to read on its own). Also, it gets plenty dark (darker than you’d think would be allowed to kids. But it’s a classic).
I got the audiobook version read by Goldman, though there are surely plenty others, maybe some read by real voice actors, but I figured the purest version would be the one read by the author himself. He doesn’t have the talent of a voice actor, but it’s not offensive, and he knows the story well enough to give it any kind of nuance. (Maybe also credit being helped along by the audiobook’s director, a position that surely only very rarely gets any recognition.) He also brings his reading close to the material itself in not being much fun, but it’s a commendable job, especially for someone unqualified. He also reads a short essay as an introduction that includes some of his story choices that's worth getting explanation of obvious issues it's always had. This gives an unneeded context, and one possibly not included in a print version (which would be a bonus to have it but also gives it a different perspective from the forced exposure to it), but it’s an added dimension to get an explanation why adding girls to those on the island wouldn’t be the same story (or even work as any story) (though surely it’s been long enough and this story is known to the extent that someone has done a version of it with an all-girl island).
Invisibles (DC/Vertigo); Anarchy For The Masses: The Disinformation Guide to the Invisibles (Disinformation Books). It’s not a big surprise that Morrison ever had enough pull to get their own creator-owned series to be published by DC (under Vertigo), but that it had happened so long ago, before All-Star Superman and New X-Men and the TV stuff and novels. They were a big star then (relative to comics), though still couldn’t compete with Moore, who was active at the time (though not at DC). Invisibles could have been Morrison’s magnum opus if they planned to do nothing else after it, and it’s clear they had free reign to do exactly what they wanted with it and take it where they wanted to go (even if and when it wasn't a great idea). Being guided by whims and over-research isn’t even its weakness, since at the time it was being published it must have been a thrill unlike anything in comics if not all of pop culture to see where it was going and where it would end up. There wasn’t anything else that had been like it anywhere and it was exciting. The problem with the series is looking at it now from a perspective over 30 years on and how it’s aged. The more of-its-time it was, the worse it was going to look later on, much like fashion. It was built on the white-hot conspiracy-theory craze of the '90s, which funneled into a greater fear about the millennium bug at the turn of the century, and when that wasn't fulfilled it instantly fizzled out and with relief and the Internet to dispel those fears (sometimes even with legitimate research) we moved on and found new distractions that didn't even always involve paranoia (for a while at least). Invisibles and its closest cousin, The X-Files, used as many of those conspiracy theories as they could fit in, and did it with some dexterity and action to feed the anxiety of the time, and emptied their loads right at the end of the movement. Morrison’s greatest prescience with the series was predicting that it was all going to culminate at 2000 and peter out immediately after, so they crafted the thing to go to that and be done. But that’s also the only positive thing that can be said about the ending.
It started out with great promise, with Morrison showing they could set up a foundation to present all these crazy ideas with some good characters that he crafted with care, going into their origins after a splash of an introduction (sharing a P.O.V. with someone also brand-new to this fantastical secret world that was supposed to mirror our own, and angsty about it, reflecting our own relation to it and the general pissiness of the early ‘90s), then a forgettable first adventure, before disregarding most of those histories before pivoting to more action and a stronger through-line in the second volume. The characters (hesitating to call them heroes since that would imply some kind of moral stance and not devices to advance the crazy ideas) are some of Morrison’s best (even as tools) and most original, even when they were more known for using the corporation’s toys rather than their own. In predictable fashion, Morrison even inserts themself into the story, as the leader and aspiringly-sexiest of them all, a vacillation between slick spy and rough hooligan, that would have been an ill-advised idea (Morrison’s previous attempt to ingratiate himself into his own story -- as The Writer -- was unceremoniously knocked off in a Suicide Squad special), but they were able to do what they wanted with their own series (and they paid for it later, if you believe their spiel about the grave health misfortune that mirrored what they did to that character in the book). The other characters work well until they pick out only a few to carry on, then leave mostly just one (the replication of theirself, of course) to take it to the dregs that are the finale.
The second volume (since these have to be separated to provide for a new #1, a cheap ploy to reclaim interest that disappears with the very next higher number) picks up as an action-adventure romp in the usual tradition, with the characters solidly set up to run among the ideas (enough that a sexual coupling can be an amusing surprise), mostly just as ciphers to expose some nutty research based on the more relatable America and give Phil Jiminez some action to draw. (The original plan was to have a different artist for each arc, which would be as frustrating to have to get used to a new basis for the visuals as it would be compelling to see such a range of art every few issues, but that fell apart when -- surprise -- it was a headache for the editors to schedule. If they were going to go with just one artist then it should have been Jiminez, who could have handled any of it even if his stuff was slightly too sober, if he could have kept up with interpreting Morrison’s kooky ideas and abhorrent schedule, and losing him was probably the greatest failure of the project, and something it never recovered from (but still got to drag it on for plenty more issues, most of them not great, and more than it needed, just to reach 2000).) It whips through as many nutso ideas as it can, predictably getting to plenty of time travel (though by the time it gets there I was so exhausted by the flood of out-there theories that I couldn’t even care to hate time-travel stories like I usually do). It gets to be far too much, and looking at it now it’s too much that got disproven or was silly even then. It might have worked back when with so many ideas floating in the swamp but now it’s just a lot of research that can’t connect to the narrative and some roads that go exactly nowhere. The second volume could have done well with a stack of great action/adventure mixed in with wild ideas and a whole lot of time-travel, but it always feels like it’s too restless to get somewhere and it’s on a schedule to get somewhere exactly on time. So the third volume stretches out so it can land the ending right at 2000 -- maybe the reason Morrison went off-schedule so often, since they (and possibly only they) had the time-table in mind and knew there was room before getting to the end just right. I shudder at the thought of the scheduling nightmares for the editor(s) (or with anything Morrison does, which might be why Vertigo -- and pretty much anywhere else -- is so spotty with their stuff). The third volume seems held together only by the wild ideas, going a distance from what came before but not going anywhere with the mileage it had accrued, and could have used a dumping of all the unused ideas just to have some substance. Instead it takes one character (guess which one) and reinvents him (or is it them?) so they can be around for the finale. Some artists got juggled around to make something of what there was, which was a waste of Philip Bond at a time he could have had some wider cache, and the last big project from the Pander Brothers, which only could have been more.
It’s almost unfair to call out an flop of an ending, but it has to end somewhere, and for what it was it deserved better than an unceremonious canceling leaving off what could have been, though that could have built a legend to the project that it didn’t have even a day after the last issue. The year 2000 and Vertigo and even Morrison were already well beyond the series, and there were plenty of other ideas out there. Morrison laid it all out but the most explosive thing they might have done for comics was to show how limiting the form can be, especially in those early years of the really sexy technology taking over our lives. Morrison might very well have been ahead of their time with this, but it didn’t do much of anyone any good, and now it might miss its window of ‘90s nostalgia. The culture and the technology might have even caught up to it enough to do something with it in another media, except for The Matrix constantly jumping in front of it getting any attention, and its karmic punishment burying them both. There could be a good remix of the material, if anyone wanted to put that much effort into it, and it could work today better than it did then (even the culture catching up to it and forming around it makes it pedestrian), but Morrison has gone on to all the other ideas (none as crazy but a lot more digestible), leaving this thick volume of imagination left to rot like anything else that isn't actively toyed with.
No series should need its own study guide, but someone actually went to the effort to put one together (something I found almost by accident in the small press area at the San Diego Con). It’s basically a book of footnotes for every panel from the entire series, and possibly more research digging up Morrison’s sources than Morrison did for it (which could be possible). That much research is probably unprecedented in comics (though it’s great seeing someone make the effort to do it), though it doesn’t go far since most of the audience is men weened on the most mainstream superhero comics available. This might have had a better market, and maybe even Vertigo could have taken it there, but not in the pre-Internet days (which, even by 2000, the world still was). There could have been people for this series and these ideas, but by the time there was technology to reach them they had moved on (particularly to do their own research with the infinite tools of the world-wide web). Any book these days is a relic, but this one is a printed database of the surface details of Invisibles. It can’t be responsible for the ideas the series tried to penetrate, but each issue studied features some commentary that stays thankfully brief (but gives the writers -- it takes two -- some voice of their own in the project) and snippets of interviews from editors and artists which are specific to chapter’s situation but too brief to draw an artistic context or any personal view from the interviewee. Alas, there is very little exclusive art, maybe just the cover (though it’s by a pre-fame Frank Quitely) and the spot illustrations inside probably appeared elsewhere first (though it’s nice of Chris Weston to allow so much of his own extra-issue stuff). The meat of any aspiration for such a work is for Morrison themself, a good chunk of an interview. It’s as exhaustive as anything, and the reason to get the book (if it’s not online, which it probably is). It might as well be the last word on the series and maybe it gave Morrison the opportunity to empty their head of the project and get some closure from it, for as much as they put into it and as much as it took out of them. Though for all that iffy magick and personal drama, it's now just a minor footnote in Morrison’s life, as they got to another level of artistry and popularity before long. It could be argued if the better stuff they did after was just the progression of an irregular but ever-upward trajectory of a rich imagination and presence among the zeitgeist, but they didn’t seem to approach such wild ideas later on, from getting older or towing to the machine or taming impulses to go farther with less, or instead being to cautious of being tamed by them again.
Get Jiro! (DC/Vertigo). Sometimes I’m interested in creators outside of comics doing comics. Most of the time, writers who didn’t learn to write from only comics can bring something new to the form, though there’s always the chance that they’re doing a vanity project trading off their name and it won’t go far because their bigger gig is elsewhere and even writing comics can be work, no matter how much they loved them when they were a kid. (I’ll still hold that Gerard Way was better for being a rock star than a comic writer, and that the first volume of The Umbrella Academy was deserving of acclaim but a fluke.) Anthony Bourdain seems like an odd choice to do a comic, from a field that’s not even tangential to comics, but he was also the big name. Get Jiro! is certainly a vanity project -- though better than tossing off the Batman story he’s been dying to do his whole life -- but it's a book just like any could be. Stretching his talents beyond memoir is risky, but with something as marginal as comics it can only go up, and he got a reason to go to Comic-Con (for work). Creators outside of comics can also bring their own background to it, though cooking is a challenging genre to bring into a graphic medium. Of course it doesn’t work but the ambition is exhilarating. No matter how story-worthy the culinary arts have become over the last generation, even becoming something of a spectator sport in however they’ve been able to do that, there’s still no way it could work in a comic. Though it’s confounding that cooking shows have ever been a thing, since the most prominent aspect of a dish is a taste, which doesn't translate through a screen, so what is left is the far-distant element of presentation, and at least television is an animated medium, whereas comics have the added filter of the pictures being interpreted by an artist. There’s really very little point to it in the first place, except to do it. And Bourdain had the pull to throw in the experiment just to see how it could fly. But as much as drawn pictures of real-world food don’t work, they’re at least an attempt at making it work, and tons better than the stale fighting scenes and a leftover action plot. There’s even something resembling a cyberpunk setting, but for as much as it is present it means nothing; this story would have lost nothing by being set in the present day, and would have been more accessible, for as much as the unwieldy writing makes the environment essential in the first place. The art doesn’t save it but it’s enough to look at, more from the Geof Darrow school of hyper-detail and clean, thick outlines that has always been one artist less than needed to make it a really tired style. They did a second volume with this character (so buried that I didn’t even know it existed until I was checking in with Goodreads, which might show how much value this whole project had), so at least the one book wasn’t just an itch to scratch and getting someone else to pay for establishing the IP, but I might not try so hard to dig it up. (As it is, this book was a gift to the wife since she was a Bourdain fan, and she never read, or needed to read, it.) Bourdain did some other books, so maybe he had some commitment to doing some comics, but, sadly, not a commitment to life. Maybe he could have eventually made something of bringing the culinary world to comics, or he could have overcome needing to put that background with cooking into something he was writing (challenging editors who think they know what will give a book enough credibility to sell, in addition to the celebrity name). The world can miss the man and probably not this particular work, but it was great that he could do it, and even risk ambition to actually do something new for once.
Scarlet Witch (2016). Of course a cash-in to connect to the character being in the movies but she’s so rich -- in powers and connection(s) to the Avengers and the Marvel Universe then the X-Men, as well responsible for more recent tragedy (not for the in-world events of “House Of M” but just that it had to exist) -- that it’s a surprise or a shame that she hasn’t had her own series (at least that she didn’t have to share). They even put a good writer on it then the resources to have an unconventional art scheme. Though Robinson might have been going cheap, as the stuff he wrote for hire could be pedestrian enough to betray the much greater stuff he did when he had the freedom to guide it (making him a bad fit for recent Marvel or DC (except that they pay)), and this becomes another example of a series that just couldn’t catch fire. It’s a study of Wanda Maximoff, but divorced from the MU connections she’s had through mucking with her history unnecessarily -- since a Marvel character can’t be proven until their histories have been so thoroughly revised that they’re unrecognizable beyond what is arbitrarily allowed to stand or redone in the movies -- until she’s left as an Avenger trying to prove her own value, even though that would only be needed, and even then tenuously, to make up for wiping out the mutants, which they’ve already undone anyway. So it’s some kind of meandering adventure tale where she goes in search of herself through her relations to the world, yadda yadda yadda. It strides through its 15 issues like it wants to go somewhere but doesn’t go far. Maybe a few guest-stars beyond the most obvious appearances of Quicksilver and Agatha Harkness -- so stale that it seems like those stories have already happened -- might have grounded it, but as it is it’s some dour chapter and by the end she decides she can finally call herself an Avenger but it sounds like something that didn't need to be said. Even worse is that they can’t get the powers right: Her actual powers, and the ones she had from the beginning, were in manipulating reality, which can be a lot of fun, and often done well with her early on even if they (including Stan himself) couldn’t always get them just right, but done so rarely (except for the Mage RPG) that they're too abstract to really sync with her, and eventually when they couldn’t understand powers being so weird (even though they’re not), her abilities just melt into her being a standard-issue witch, which is a dull miss that doesn’t even try, but it’s also what they aimed low for in the movies so it might as well be canon everywhere. Such a great power set, and something that could have really made her come to life in the MCU (or at least give her a pulse) but instead she’s left as this, as if her own series has to be an explanation or an apology. The concept for art teams is ambitious: a different artist for each issue (and generally one without an inker). It’s a sharp idea, for the diversity and range of work that could enliven each story, even if it’s probably an active torture for the editors who have to coordinate all that, and it could have been a minor landmark if they had pulled it off. Unfortunately, the artists, while often having surreal styles, don’t ever gel issue-to-issue, and aren’t always great enough to conquer the inconsistency. Kudos to them for avoiding the easy and accessible artists that are used to fill in for an issue with a similar style to the regular artist or are unchallenging enough to fit in easily, but many of their picks are too distant from mainstream comics that even when they work just barely for an issue, since the individual stories aren’t strong enough to stand on their own, there isn’t any carry-over to the next issue. It’s the kind of thing they tried to do for Invisibles, and they couldn’t even do that between story-arcs (though that was more for Morrison’s defiance of the schedule). It would be too bad if they didn’t try it again somewhere else, no matter the anguish to put it together, but hopefully they can find a more deserving and compelling story to carry the visual changes, and a main character that wasn’t already obligated elsewhere and mangled beyond recognition. At least the covers are good (by David Aja), and all the better for being consistent (if the tri-color scheme looks a lot like swiping the White Stripes).
Squadron Supreme: Death of a Universe (Marvel). A collection of the few Squadron Supreme stories that came out after the classic mini-series, the story which would have established them as the grand heroes they could be, but since it didn’t it probably means that it was never meant to be, yet they still had their fans (which may have only been me and Mark Gruenwald) It includes the graphic novel (after which they named this collection, since that was as good as anything). It was always unclear what Marvel’s mission statement was with the graphic novel line (which was even numbered, even though they weren’t sold on the newsstand), whether they were special stories firmly in continuity (the death of Captain Marvel) or creator-owned properties that didn’t have a longer Epic deal. Instead, it seemed like they were available to any artist who wanted to work in the comic-box-hating landscape format, which could be befitting a more prestige story (but not the prestige format), but confounding being reprinted in the traditional form. The reformatting in this book -- with half a page of gutter at the top and bottom -- is second only to the transfer of the colors to modern techniques and paper stock, not to mention Paul Ryan’s art that looked staid and stale even then. The story is basically a Crisis on Infinite Earths retread shrunk to the smallest scale and stakes, even though its point is to kill off the Squadron’s universe and leave them stranded in the Marvel Universe so they can find a better reason to exist. The fact that it was given the vaunted graphic novel treatment is the only expression that it’s important at all, as if it was part of Gruenwald’s contract negotiation to get to write a graphic novel (though it would have been worth it just to let him keep writing Captain America). The consequences are negligible, save as explanation why they aren’t actually the Justice League analog they’re supposed to be. Gruenwald adamantly refused to take them down that path, even if they suffered for it, since without that distinction they were just another bunch of superheroes without much reason to exist. Their purpose was to be the big DC heroes in the Marvel Universe, which might have gotten old (or sued) quick, but they didn’t give it much in the way of legs from the beginning, and efforts to go back to it (random appearances, Supreme Power) still couldn't do much. It could have been fun, but instead the characters wound up as a broken bunch of superheroes that seemed victim to bad dice rolls to arrive at where and who they were. The GN is basically a sequel to the '80s mini-series, and this book is basically a companion volume, and could offer something only for the big fans (who aren't there for the the DC heroes, so it's hard to know what they're loving (which includes myself)). A ‘70s Thor fill-in issue here shows them in even worse condition, as a crowd of dimension-hoppers showing up at random moments, but it also speaks to the dearth of ideas for superhero books at the time. There’s also a latter-day Avengers Annual from the mid-’90s when Marvel were really doing anything to make anything stick, and it’s completely forgettable (and not even written by Gruenwald). Seeing how many times they’ve tried to revive the Squadron -- including the recent mega-event where they replace the Avengers (which couldn't even earn my interest) -- but failed shows how broken the concept is. But if they’re really desperate to do something with them, they could do worse than that Justice League-duplicates idea. Or we can wait to see how they do it in a show and what kind of balls it will have to go all-in on doing something with what are basically DC’s properties.
Young Avengers: The Children’s Crusade (#1s 1-3 collection) (Marvel). One of my obligatory buys for perusing the comics shop, assuming this was just a collection of three issues, as self-contained as Marvel can get in its continuity. How many issues would a search for Scarlet Witch need to go? I assumed it was just that mini-series but I didn’t know and got it anyway. No, this went nine issues -- six more after this -- so it’s only the first act. That might as well be an event, or a whole series for as long as Marvel cuts off some of their books (and maybe they did for this). So of course it’s the appetizer, not the main meal, and even though it ends on the precipice of some action, it’s not really a cliffhanger or a surprise reveal on the last page. Not enough to rush to get the trade that has the rest of the issues (despite what Goodreads thinks I have) but I’m a completist so I might as well. Marvel only puts out a taster to entice for the rest of it, so I guess I fell for it. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.
Convergence: Blue Beetle (DC). DC had some kind of crossover a while ago where a bunch of their characters from all worlds and times fought each other in gladiatorial combat. Or at least that’s what I got out of it, and it wouldn’t be surprising that they conducted an event so one-dimensional and inconsequential. This apparently gave them leave to put out two-issue stories continuing long-canceled series, which might have been a good idea if it was a new one, but they’ve already done it at least once, more than enough to block just tacking on the next issue again, making it confusing how these float without being connected to the original series (and not featuring the characters in their own stories as much as the series) and for that to lead to showing how barren for ideas DC is to add anything special to a concept so flat that anything would work. But they got me to buy new issues of Blue Beetle. There might have been some nostalgia for the issues that my brother would get (just because I was getting comics, and somehow he found something in Blue Beetle), but whatever happened, I fell for it, and was justly punished by two comics as lame as the concept. It can’t even get by with appearances by Captain Atom and the Question (and I would have bought it for the Question in the first place), and fighting a newer-than-classic-but-better-than-anything-they’ve-done-since-yet-buried-now version of the Legion of Superheroes, somehow missing them on the cover, giving more prominence to Blue effing Beetle. Whatever.
Update: After also getting the Batman & the Outsiders, Justice League International, and The Question add-on books (from numerous series I liked back in the day), it's clear how mechanical and devoid of inspiration the whole concept was, if only from how they're all structured the same: the first issue is a refresh on the characters from the height of their popularities, then they're told they have to battle some other familiar characters, and in the second issue they fight. They are all the same, and equally lifeless for it. At two issues it's not enough to really get into any character, especially any deeper than we already know them, or to get a compelling story going when most of it is just a fight scene (so long a cliche in comics that now it's been able to come back, far too easily). There's hardly reason to revisit those characters, especially when they've probably already been brought back if they needed to, and newer versions can have fresher stories (at least potentially), and when it goes to a fight scene that leaves off on the last page to lead back to the main Convergence mini-series (which has even less reason to find, even despite Tom King having something to do with it) then is going to get wiped out of continuity anyway (which seemed the point of a faux-Crisis plot (as if DC would do anything else)), it's all pretty pointless. At least the extra issues from the "Darkest Night" event connected back to the original series (at least in numbering). I'm a sucker for self-contained stories and wouldn't even be wounded when they're not always great, but it stings to be taken by such a lazy gimmick.
Fleetwood Mac: 40 Years Later: John, Christine, Stevie, Mick and Lindsey - Together Again (LIFE). A grocery-checkout-aisle impulse buy (a very rare instance, especially for reading material) from some years ago (since the timing on this is important, in view of what happened after this was published) that got shuffled into my pile(s) of magazines and eventually became a bathroom read. It’s a breezy scan of the history of the band, from the very beginning, giving as much weight to the pre-Lindsey & Stevie years as if those are a necessary base to build the rest on and Lindsey & Stevie aren't the main thing that anyone would read this for. It might lean toward unauthorized since there are no interviews with the band members or anyone close to them, and much of it could have been collected from other sources over the decades, but it's also a collection of pictures and a scattershot narrative of the high points of the band, not horrible for a casual fan who wants to know just a little more about them (or wants their grocery trip to have been more substantial than picking up the usual provisions). I count myself as a big Fleetwood Mac fan (as much as anyone could be when they were three years old when Rumours came out), but even I find it hard to care much about those early years, which accounts for almost half of the entire read, even though that’s mostly just to trace the constant rotation of the band members (even more than the later years). It says that the early formation of the band had some hits in Europe -- enough to bring them to America (and their fateful meeting with their future members) -- but it's easy to assume that none of that stuff would go beyond obscurity if not for what they would do later with those new members and how much further they would get to go. I still have never found a reason to discover any of that stuff (as I can’t necessarily be drawn by only the reputation of a rhythm section without the more important components). The read is selective about its amount of detail since it’s only a magazine but it slows down at a few select points, like a track-by-track dissection of Rumours, which is surely only collected here after being scattered trivia anywhere else. It also tends to take Stevie’s side and makes her to be one of the chief creative motivators of the band, possibly more than she deserves when compared to Buckingham, who gets a shrift as short as hers is long, as if the read feels it has to take the side of one of them. (And I would ask why anyone would ever have to do such a thing and why can’t we all just love them as a band equally, but you know I take Buckingham’s side every time, even to equal Stevie.) Its reverence to Rumours is clear (though playing to the market-goer who would impulsively pick this up without needing much familiarity with them anywhere else but the hits), then casually dismisses anything else, including dissing my beloved Tango in the Night (savaging a few deep cuts and not mentioning its solid details or importance in the band’s history) or the criminally-underrated (and Buckingham-driven) modern classic Say You Will but also doesn’t get to the non-Buckingham stuff (which, predictably, I will not side with) or the scabs in the band during that era (after giving as much attention as it can to the players from the early days). And the story it fashions probably wouldn’t even be altered if it hadn’t been published before Buckingham’s firing (in 2018) since it would take the other side, but for what it is it can revel in the high points of a monumental band during one of their modern bright spots and appreciate that they would come back together at all (now completely rubbish forever more (as C. McVie’s death occurred in the time just before I wrote this)). There are surely better and more complete time-capsules of the band and their history -- as if the music wasn’t enough (not just as a document but for all the interpersonal details they boldly included as part of their songs) (though the article in the October ‘97 Rolling Stone issue was more focused and complete) -- but this is fine for the casual reader who hasn’t ventured too far with the music but might also be old enough to regard (or know) the stuff before the stuff.
What I'm Listening To When I'm:
...Sitting at the main computer (at home, working or otherwise): The main iPod (we'll call it #1), which has a playlist of albums rotating from a long-running list (for all: always a single playlist, for ease of removing tracks and not repeating anything I've already heard; an iPod restarting is a huge pain since I have to then hook it up to the computer to make a new playlist with the played songs removed so I don't repeat anything I've already heard); set on shuffle for songs.
...Driving to on-site work: The new-stuff iPod (#2), which has all the newest albums I've gotten, on album shuffle (though in order that I found them if I'm listening to them for the first time).
...At on-site work or working from home, waiting to get into the day, up to the first potty break: iPod #1.
...Working, doing roto (a fairly automatic task): Articles saved to Pocket, listening with @Voice text-to-speech (generally in tags I've made ahead of time).
...Working, doing anything but roto (requiring more attention and brainpower): iPod #1.
...Lunch, on-site or at home (while editing/posting, some lite writing): Groove Salad on Soma.fm.
...Lunch at home on Fridays, while sorting and reading articles in Hotmail: iPod #2.
...Driving home from work: iPod #3, hand-picked albums skipping ahead on the list; set to shuffle for songs. (iPods are usually connected to computer once a week* to remove what I've listened to then add the next stuff from the list (though music on #2 stays, but removed from the current playlist (to be added back a month later), until replaced by incoming new albums. (* That could become the day before beginning an on-site job then the day after it finishes.)
...Driving around town while not working: iPod #2, sometimes loud.
...Driving back after dropping off kid (1 1/2 hour drive): iPod #2.
...Getting eBay packages ready to send (after 2pm on weekdays, when necessary (the last day or close to the last day required)): iPod #1.
...Making dinner: iPod #1 (though sometimes it's putting on Flood FM early (see below)).
...Eating dinner: Flood FM on TuneIn; using Alexa, volume 3. Alexa, stop.
...Doing dishes/cleaning kitchen, then into the evening: Flood FM is still on but can't hear it as well in the kitchen (since Alexa is in the living room. Alexa, stop). Might become Alexa, volume 4 then 3. Alexa, stop.
...Doing tasks on the computer after dinner, if we've already heard the weekly Flood FM guest DJ set: KCRW 24, using Alexa. Alexa, stop.
...Doing tasks (mostly making dinner) on Friday evening: It used to be KEXP, using Alexa, volume 5 (to hear it in the kitchen), (Alexa, stop), but they changed their programming in the time I was writing this and now I'll go with something else, probably a song station on Soma, or, if I'm feeling energetic, maybe Pandora (see below).
...Working on the weekend (including doing roto): Audiobook, either from OverDrive (now Libby, which might be a pain to transfer) or Audible (using wife's account); classic literature, a Burke novel by Andrew Vachhss, whatever the kid has to read for school, or something I ripped from audio CDs (particularly Chuck Palahniuk books) on an iPod Shuffle (one of the long ones, different from the one I used for running (see below), but I haven't used that one in a long while so I'm not sure if I would (it also doesn't have a screen, which isn't such an issue if I can navigate a book without it).
...Giving platelets at the blood bank: Ditto.
...Doing miscellaneous tasks on the weekend if wife is present, especially while going through Hotmail and playing Forge of Empires (but mostly waiting to leave): Soma.fm, usually Secret Agent, Lush, Left Coast 70s, PopTron, Fluid, Bossanova, or even something more adventurous just to try it out.
...Doing physical tasks on weekend if wife is gone (but especially kid is here): Metal Detector on Soma.fm.
...Doing physical tasks on Sunday morning: Boot Liquor on Soma.fm.
...Cleaning the house (especially the bathroom): iPod #2, either on iPod dock mini-boom-box (see below) or headphones.
...Taking a phone call: Low in the background, Soma.fm station where the songs don't have as many words. Might let who I'm talking to pick the station (from a photo I took of the station choices).
...Sitting in the living room with the TV off: A Soma.fm station, randomly picked with the Spin The Wheel app.
...After wife has gone to bed, writing: iPod #2, on boom-box (see below) or headphones.
...Reading (comics, usually single issues), before bed: iPod #4 (an iPod Touch, as it might have been known, or a proto-mini-iPad, which I've only ever used for music), which has songs downloaded from an e-mail circle with music-knowledgeable friends (since defunct); songs of the day from KCRW, KEXP & The Current (from Minnesota, a station that doesn't seem to work on TuneIn). (iPod #4 has a bad headphone channel so it has to be plugged into a small and aged iPod boom-box with a cord issue where it has to be fiddled with to position just right, so it doesn't go far.)
...Having guests over: Let them pick the Soma.fm station (though it will default to Underground 80s or Left Coast 70s if they don't).
...At the gym: I'm focused on taking a class, which has its own music (often pop music I mostly don't recognize). I don't know why I'd be there not taking a class (though if I am it's in the pool, and that doesn't work for having headphones on), but when I used to have my own routine or be on the elliptical I'd have an alternate playlist on iPod #1 (and one of the reasons I still have iPods, so I can put my phone somewhere else and not need to rely on a wi-fi signal for something to listen to). Back when I used to run I had an iPod Shuffle, one of the tiny ones, which had its own playlist of songs to get me pumped. I haven't seen that one around in a while and I'm not even sure I have the cord to plug it in.
...Going for a run: I don't run anymore.
...In bed after waking up, doing stuff on phone getting prepared for the day: Nothing. It's kinda nice to have some silence for a bit.
(And somehow my Pandora station filled with my favorite bands gets lost in the mix. We used to listen to it during dinner. Now it's the one that got pushed out.)
My Top Rolling Stones Songs of All Time:
20. "Dance, Pt. 1"
19. "Rip This Joint"
18. "She's So Cold"
17. "Under My Thumb"
16. "Street Fighting Man"
15. "Shine A Light"
14. "Flip the Switch"
13. "Mixed Emotions"
12. "Get Off My Cloud"
11. "Miss You"
10. "Hangfire"
9. "Tumbling Dice"
8. "Wild Horses"
7. "Beast of Burden"
6. "Paint It, Black"
5. "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)"
4. "Sympathy for the Devil"
3. "Gimme Shelter"
2. "Monkeyman"
1. "Shattered"
RAVES
Taylor Swift. TSwift could have been a huge pop star and left it at that. She could have existed in her world and didn't need to cross over into mine and I could have lived my whole life never knowing that any song I heard was hers. But then I had a daughter who's right in the cross-hairs of the perfect age to be an obsessive fan (though that range is about birth to death, and not even necessarily female), and I've also existed in the world. We got tickets for the family for the concert for The Kid's (16th) birthday, and we thought we could leave it at that. We've been to big shows before, both in size and cultural relevance (the first Lollapalooza, the first dozen or so Coachellas, Michael Jackson back in the day), so we didn't think it would be much more than any of that. Then we got caught up in the frenzy that seemed to take over the world for Swift's "Eras" tour and we actually didn't mind being a part of it. Bracelets, our outfits/costumes for the show, memorizing the songs as well as we could.
It went beyond just a show: Five (then six) nights at a stadium in L.A., all of them sold out so hard that the second-hand tickets -- even the worst seats -- were something like 40x face value (we got ours when they were only 6x or so). The majesty of selling that number seems lost in simply adjusting for the enormity of it, and just relaxing into the knowledge that obviously she's that big. Her marketing actually isn't aggressive, as it too often is for most pop strumpets. She puts out songs and they just happen to be good and they're just there and her fans find them and go wild. They're not even all pop songs in the traditional sense, especially not in the way that most popular music is about being paved over by production more than being an actual song these days, and her catalog swallows the few poppy songs specifically designed to be shallow pop songs (and even those aren't that bad). Her public persona is a humble, young lady who happens to enjoy doing all this but doesn't make too too much of it, which is perfectly believable, but it doesn't matter much anyway. The fans are compelled to keep it going, and she seems welcome to serve. Such modesty, when done honestly or well, can endearing enough to sometimes turn more lucrative than desperation to make it all hit. Then even push her to be even bigger. But there's a place for her in the world, if not a need. A modest, smart girl seems an aberration these days, especially one who didn't need a sex tape to get or maintain being famous. Instead of being used by any man, she even got to use her past boyfriends as grist for her creative process. I've never had a problem with her but now she's become an amazing role model, and maybe one who can guide the girls/kids through this world of crappy culture that's in our faces every minute. For that alone Swift could be commended, but she also has some songs that are pretty good too.
For the record: Before the our week and the show I'd have said Evermore (but not Folkmore as much when I discovered I was less enamored with it than I thought when I'd usually just put the two together); 1989 has the best songs; but there's a lot of digging still to do on Midnights (but one of the richest albums in years).
My "BU" doc. I have a lot of different Google docs for different functions, but sometimes I need one just to jot down some notes, or to be a way-point between copy-n'-pasting, or write a review quickly when I have a spare few minutes, and, to maximize efficiency, I want to access it quickly. So I created a doc -- named just two letters so it's instantly recognizable and doesn't take up much room among tabs (originally an abbreviation for "Back Up" but it became much more than that) -- and keep it in my browser bookmarks so I can bring it up with a couple clicks (though I would vote for a hot-key). I slug in whatever I need then move on. Since it's a Google doc, I don't have to worry about space so I just put whatever in there and forget about it (though I'll usually go back and italicize used text, which has become my habit to do as a note that I've done something with it elsewhere (but I'll leave it as a back-up)); Google automatically saves docs so I don't have to concern myself with keeping it or not or that I didn't save when I clicked out of or away from the window; since it's all raw text going somewhere else I don't bother with formatting; also becomes a blank writing space, like a page in a notebook, especially if another window is being slow or if I haven't decided where to put it yet. It's become an essential part of my process, and piece of mind for my writing and creative endeavors, that I wonder why it's taken me so long to realize it's all I need.
Carrot sticks. Eating fresh vegetables at least once a day isn't impossible, but the intention can fall through the cracks. On days when I'm not having a meal that would normally have a helping of vegetables (I don't always count salad as a vegetable), and it's usually a sandwich, I throw in a pile of baby carrots (that will balance the pile of potato chips, right?). And if it's not that then some carrots as a snack, maybe with some hummus.
Magazine-sized & over-sized bags. When I started posting sets of comics on eBay (almost through all my mainstream DCs, thanks for asking), I needed bigger comics bags than the ones I had for individual comics. Years ago I took my single issues and put many of them in one bag, usually four or five issues in an arc or limited series, for tidiness and fewer bags to keep, but those bags don't fit trades, which I had plenty of. Magazine-sized bags fit great, and you can fit even more individual comics in them, maybe a dozen or more, often for an entire run (especially for how long most series go these days). Then wrap that with a few layers of packing tape and they're water-proof for shipping (and looks extra- professional when the buyer has trouble getting into them, which means anyone else would, and which could mean they're in better condition (good for feedback)). I can even use them with non-comics books, including hardcovers, so they've become vital for my eBaying (about six out of 21 boxes sold so far), and a bag of 100 isn't too much on Amazon. There's even a larger size, which can fit a few dozen issues in one, though I don't have any books that would be big enough to need that (and nothing is big enough for the Wednesday Comics hardcover).
Next issue I'll have something about the Beastie Boys book and Moore's Swamp Thing run. Yeah, probably better material than this one had, but if I'm going to go in some kind of order then some it just comes up when it does. Then that might be it for a while. Through making and posting these blog-zines with some regularity I might actually be mostly caught up with what I've read and the stuff I've been into (which often has another outlet elsewhere). I won't do this if I'm putting in filler just to do it. I'd like to keep it going, and I have no reason not to, so if I don't have a new crop of comics and books to look over I may be open to what else I could put in here. Maybe make it less regular. For as long as I've been doing this like this I never gave much thought to what would happen if I actually caught up with what I've had. I'm sure something will come to me.
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