Trying to get back on track: Hibbs' 7/4 & 7/11

I posted the Batman Earth One review last week, so that covers my "quota", I guess. I'm going to mix up a little of this week and last for this week's post from me... ADVENTURE TIME MARCELINE SCREAM QUEENS #1: I've actually not read this, but I brought it home for Ben, as I've brought home every issue to date so far. Eight minutes of silence later, he handed it back to me, and said I should bring it back to the store. "What's wrong with it?" I asked, puzzled.  "Eh, I don't know," he said, "I don't think it had enough action is, and it wasn't very funny." So, that's what a comics-consuming eight year old boy thought. I'll go with that first word then and say EH.

  FUCK ALAN MOORE BEFORE WATCHMEN OZYMANDIAS #1 (OF 6): I kind of don't even want to discuss the "plot" (which, I shit you not, added a "Women in Refrigerators" moment to WATCHMEN as the grossest of its sins), but, oh my god what a crazily lovely comic book. Jae Lee just killed it here, invoking the sense of design that WATCHMEN had, and totally putting his own spin on it with a moving "round" design on every page. this may well be an execrable, money-grubbing project that is being told soullessly and clumsily by most of the writers, but fuck me if this isn't the most beautiful comic of the month by far. That's some Eisner-level art, yo. Too bad it is in service of such a horrible comic book. Two poles of rating for art and writing, landing it smack in the middle with an OK for overall rating.

BLOODSHOT (ONGOING) #1: Wow, that's a gory comic. Like really crazily keep it the fuck away from kids level of gory. Do people actually like that, actually? There's an alright set-up, I guess, in here, with "weapon for the government" and "everything you think is a lie" and all that, but there wasn't a thing in here that got me considering to actually come back and read issue #2, because I don't really see any signs of it going in anything other than a regular Frankenstein direction. Fairly EH.

BTVS SEASON 9 FREEFALL #11: Oh, I liked this issue. Actually, it might have made a better issue #1 than issue #1 was. I very much need Buffy to stop being such a whiny girl by now -- the character has been going backwards for most of the last year, and this plot line seems like it gives her a chance to move forward again. GOOD.

CROW #1: Uh, what? I know I've been saying this a lot lately, but IDW really has to get their shit together on the editorial level -- this comic's script is barely first draft where the title character appears on the last page, and the 21 before that is a ton of boring, endless repeating set-up -- the antagonist says or implies what they're going to do multiple times, AND we see it from another angle as well. This entire first issue should have been set-up in no more than eight pages, max, not padded out horribly like this.  I also think this new set-up completely upsets the straight-forward revenge of the original, AND misses the "sorrow is my fortress" vibe of O'Barr's gothy original. Almost as clear of a miss as I can possibly imagine, and I didn't even really LIKE the original very much (it remains a product of its time, very much) -- sadly AWFUL.

EARTH 2 #3: Honest to god, I wish ALL of the New 52 books were as solid and world-buildy as this one is. THEN we would have had something magic on display. This is really VERY GOOD stuff.

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #33: This year's annuals for this, DD and Wolverine are an interconnected story by Alan Davis, with connections to Clandestine. Clandestine has never quite worked for me, and I can't say why exactly, but I really love-ity love Davis' clean superhero art, and if I can't have him drawing silver age DC characters (or a variant thereon), then, yeah, have him draw what is very clearly his baby. I wonder though if he gets some kind of character participation or something for him to keep coming back to this when it keeps not clicking with the general audience? Anyway, this was solidly GOOD, and made for a nice stand-alone, star-drawn annual.

INFERNAL MAN-THING #1 (OF 3): In case you all were wondering, Jeff really IS sticking with his Marvel ban -- I could not get him to budge on what I thought would be the easiest tempt of all: new Steve Gerber, doing his #2 best known character, ooooh, with yummy art by Kevin Nowlan. It's a clear follow through on an old MT story, and I thought it showed a lot of strong maturity and growth in balancing the "Gerber wacky" with actually affecting human emotion -- that is to say: this is less of a lark than, say, NEVADA. I don't really like much of Gerber's tics, but I thought this was really solid stuff, well drawn and grounded. You can see why they let this take ten years (or whatever) to get drawn. Hm, maybe if I repitch it as "originated two editorial regimes ago"? GOOD.

PUNK ROCK JESUS #1 (OF 6): Wow, nice! It's a profane title (and probably a profane execution, if I was sensitive to such things, which I'm not), but I really really liked the setup of a morally screwed up entertainment corporation creating a reality show where they clone Jesus. Hijinx, as they say, then ensue. It's a little early to say whether Sean Murphy has the writing chops to stick the landing on this one, but this first issue was a pretty wonderful read. VERY GOOD from me, and my pick of the week!

SPACE PUNISHER #1 (OF 4): I didn't necessarily expect much from this (the name tells you most of what you need to know), but I did expect less toy-etic takes on the "normal" Marvel U (example: "Doctor Octopus" is a "Space Criminal" with octopus legs for a body) -- sadly AWFUL, and not the awesome I know you were hoping for.

ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #14 DWF: OK, the Ultimate universe has reached that point that it seems like all "alternate super hero universe" (CF: "The New Universe", the "Supreme Powers" Universe, etc.) finally end up at -- they don't know what to do with the CHARACTERS any longer, so they think "Well let's make big big changes to the WORLD". This issue opens with a map so you can keep track of all the fucked up things that have happened in Ultimate America -- DC nuked, the southwest an internment camp, and so on, and suddenly it is no longer "a world outside your window", it's something utterly unrecognizable and (this is more important, I think) unsympathetic. Even without the "We're officially out of ideas" stench that SPIDER-MEN brought to the line, copying the general throughline of (ugh!) THE PITT isn't going to lead to anywhere good for the Ultimate Universe. I have a hard time, other than from stubbornness, understanding why these books should still be published a year from now. AWFUL.

WALKING DEAD #100: That may be the single most fucked up thing that has happened in a series where all kinds of crazy fucked up things happen all of the time. Brutal, absolutely brutal -- but it sets the book out along what I hope will be a solid new direction that should shake all of the complacency away. I thought this was an EXCELLENT installment (And, ooh, MONSTER seller, too) -- may they have another 400 more issues after this! My ONE complaint? I was really hoping the 6 page (?) Michonne story that was in that issue of PLAYBOY would have been reprinted here after the letter col.

OK, that's me... what did YOU think?

-B

"'Freedom' Yang worship word!"

Yes, I’m back from Washington DC (back Monday at Midnight, worked 12 hours on New Comics Receipt Tuesday, then worked New Comics Wednesday, so… kinda bushed. Plus I got a not-quite-a-cold?) – what follows is a kind of a travelogue. It has very little to do with comics; it has a lot to do about America. And Ben.

Every year I try to take a boys-only father-and-son trip. These have usually been to Disneyland and Legoland, but this year I pitched the idea of Washington DC, and Ben seemed super receptive. I also pitched it to MY dad, and HE liked the idea too, so it became a father-and-father-and-son trip (which, score! He paid for, too!)

(Not only that, but it solved a lot of logistical problems, since I’m not a driver, and while I have an aunt in VA, and thus a free place to stay, they are all the way up in Great Falls, so it would have been very problematic to try and use public transportation on a steady basis)

I wanted to take Ben to DC because, at eight, he’s right at the proper age, I think, to start learning to be a Citizen. I, for one, take Citizenship very seriously, and I think understanding how our system works (or, at least, is supposed to work) is a pretty solid thing. Eight is a great age for it because (Ben at least) he’s deadly passionate to learn, but he is only just starting to solidify actual beliefs. He parrots me a lot, but I’m really working on him to form his own thoughts and opinions. A couple of years from now, he’s likely to think he knows it all (until his 30s teach him otherwise), so, yeah, we were right in the right range to do it.

Ben, I should also add, is the World’s Greatest Traveler. He Goes With The Flow, he almost never Complains, and he’s perfectly fine with flying 6+ hours without batting an eye, or need a ton of special attention. This is exceedingly rare in an eight year old.

Let me also add that my dad, Barr, was also a World Class trooper on the entire trip, willing to ferry us around almost anywhere with a great deal of calm equanimity that *I* would never have if I was driving unfamiliar streets. (if I, y’know, knew how to drive)

So, yeah, Civics 101 was the name of the game, and every topic was on the table – we talked freely about slavery and race, about Justice and Truth, about working together to solve common problems, and standing on Irresolute Principles, and Free Speech and hell, everything inbetween.

Here’s an example: It’s the Cherry Blossom Festival, and lots of tourists are in town, and so on come the fundamentalist Preachers on many corners on the weekends in the National Mall. They’re preaching their view of the world, how they have the only true religion and everyone else is going to hell, and so on, and you need to understand that my son is a Jew, and a reasonably proud one at that (I’m agnostic, myself), and so, this is kind of disconcerting, yes?

These cats have like hand-decorated pickup trucks, emblazoned with pictures of Obama with like flames in his eyes, standing over (and I swear I am not making this up) mutilated aborted fetuses, with gore dangling from their destroyed limbs, and the trucks say things like “Stop Obama’s destruction of Freedom of Religion and Speech!”

I mean, doofus, wake the fuck up, NO ONE has taken away your freedoms, here you are shoving your worldview down everyone else’s throats, saying in front of my child that he’s going to burn in hell, and no one is arresting you, or, hell, even asking you to stop. THAT’s America, right there. You have the right to your beliefs, to express those beliefs, that stand on a street corner and yell through a megaphone and show horrifying images, and no one would even consider asking you to stop.

So, we talk about this, Ben and I, and I we both decide that this is really a pretty cool thing – it is good to be exposed to things you disagree with, because that helps you figure out why exactly you do, and makes your own beliefs that much stronger.

So, yeah, the afternoon we walked from the Korean War Memorial, with “Freedom is never Free” inscribed large, to the Lincoln Memorial (where I teared up, like a little girl) (Come on, seeing the Gettysburg address inscribed in Marble like that sure should move anyone with a soul), then down a few steps to where MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, then cross over to the left and to walk among the names of the dead on the Vietnam War Memorial, and to talk about what these things mean to us, and about war and slavery and freedom and which wars are just and which aren’t, and how you support the people fighting those wars even if you disagree with the war themselves… well, that was one of the best afternoons of my entire life, I have to say, and hopefully it will be one of Ben’s fondest memories as well.

Ben took a rubbing from the Vietnam Memorial wall, and I think that touched him (thanks so much for the volunteer on duty [in the rain!] who encouraged Ben to do so, even when Ben said “but I don’t know anyone on this wall” and he said “You don’t need to, to do them honor”), and I think we were both pretty astonished by the stark beauty of “reflections” of the soldiers at the Korean War memorial. That’s a really really powerful piece, and we kind of just stumbled on it, rather than planned on going there – I can’t say that I’ve really ever heard anyone talk about it, it certainly doesn’t have the cultural touchstone that Vietnam Memorial does.

Conversely, I thought the WW2 Memorial was a little too “Will To Power-y” with its wreaths and eagles and towering “look how butch we are!” vibe.

We took in as many of the Smithsonian museums and Public Institutions as we could bear – Air & Space, including the branch out at Dulles (Dude, it has a space shuttle AND Enola Gay, good lord!) – though on the latter, I have to say the $20 parking charge when you can’t park elsewhere and walk is a little bait-and-switchy – Natural History, American History, American Art, National Archives (it was hard, standing in front of the Constitution, not to burst out with "What you. call. 'E Plebnista', we. say. 'We. The. People." in my best Shatner, nerd that I am), The National Zoo, Library of Congress, we sauntered through the statue garden, and toured the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. We drove around Embassy Row (there are some crazy beautiful buildings there… and someone needs to do a coffee table book of the Embassies, I think?), and spent an afternoon at Mount Vernon, and had lunch in Old Town (cobblestone streets? The Building that’s narrower than I am tall? Neat!), and another dozen things that I’m totally blanking on right now, and the remarkable thing is that almost everything is both non-partisan, AND  almost all of it is free. If you took your time and were very thorough, I’m sure you could spend three weeks just in Smithsonian run buildings.

God bless James Smithson, y’know?

We (thank you, the offices of Nancy Pelosi!) toured Congress, and heard a whisper across the room. We even sat in on a session of the House of Representatives, but it was something really really boring about derivatives or something; and walked in front of the Supreme Court on the first day of the Health Care trial, and while there certainly were protesters and copious media, the sheer power and size of the building made it seem less crowded than Haight street on a weekday (that is, touristy-busy, but not swamped). And we learned and we talked and we laughed and we downright thrilled at this maddening, wonderful country we live in, where we should never ever take our freedoms for granted.

God Bless America, I say.

I’m crazy proud to be an American, and I did my level best to install that same wonder and joy that I hold for my country, into my young son. The American experiment certainly isn’t perfect – and what you’re presented in museums and monuments absolutely reinforces all of the mistakes that America has made over the years! , but every day, as we folk of good will strive our best to make it better than we found it? Well, all I can say is that this trip did a whole lot to reinforce that sense of hope in my heart. My faith and belief in my country, not just in what we were and what we are, but what we can be, has never been stronger…

And I think the same is now true for my son.

-B

JOHN CARTER? It's terrific!

I thought the trailers were all incredibly blah, but I thought "Well, it's the director of FINDING NEMO and WALL-E, so it's probably got to have something going for it.", so when the envelope arrived with the free movie tickets, I thought, "OK, for once, I'll go stand in line for one of these" (Though, god, am I schmuck or what? I shoulda just put the call in, and I totally could have reserved seats to a press screener...)

Also? Took Ben with me -- and he loved it too.

Here's the first thing I'll say? The "Host" of the screener was KOFY TV. They're an independent local station. And when I say "independent", I don't mean "The WB" or something -- seriously, go look at their web site... they host a dance party on air, for god's sake! Actually, I think they're great because how many markets truly have a indy TV station like this any longer? But, from Disney's POV, it's the promotional partner you go to when you're trying to help the movie, but you expect it's just going to die.

The second thing? The theater was like half-empty. Damn, I didn't even need to stand in line, I guess... (oh well, an hour with my boy is an hour with my boy!) -- but clearly, the movie is in trouble, if they can't even get people to see it for FREE.

I'm not sure if I've ever actually read the ERB original (most everything "I remembered", but was it from the prose, or from like an adaptation or pastiche or homage, since there have been so many? If it was the prose, it was when I was maybe 12 or something? I know I didn't read them all), but there is a surprisingly deep world and backstory going on here with three different factions in battle, and another pulling various strings. There's culture and language and all kinds of crazy-ass world-building going on, and yet it's very open and very accessible, and very... mm, what's the right word? "Vital", maybe? I actually began to care about the cultures and the CGI characters inhabiting them, in a way that I very much don't usually get in Science Fiction.

The action is big and grand, the characters vivid, and the world engrossing; it's got a nice light touch for humor as well -- pretty much everything you want from a big Science Fiction movie... and if AVATAR made 2 gajillion dollars, there's no reason this shouldn't make at least a zillion.

I have problems with the movie (when do I not have problems with things?): It is a bit long, and I think that's almost all from the ERB-related wrap-around story that, while charming (IF you already knew that "Ned" was Edgar Rice Burroughs, which I kind of think less than half of the audience understood), it didn't add much to the tale itself. I also thought the flashbacks to pre-War JC didn't fit in the jump-cut way and when they were inserted, but that's small concern.

We saw a 3-D showing, but I didn't think it added anything -- I'd not hesitate to see it in regular old 2-D. In fact, there were maybe 2-3 places where I thought the 3-D made the CGI look really fakey. At least I assume it was the 3-D?

The lead, Taylor Kitsch, was actually quite good, but his look is a little "pretty boy" for me. Dejah Thoris was played by Lynn Collins, and she played both "hot" and "lethal" and "smart" equally well. Dejah kicked ass, and I think would be a good "role model" for girls, for those of you who care about such things.

I took Ben (who is 8 and in third grade), and it's probably a smidge more violent then I should have let him see, BUT virtually all of the blood is blue, so I was ... well, not "OK", but less than "annoyed" about the spurting blood. There wasn't any language stronger than "god damn", that I remembered. His favorite scene was the White Ape fight, and especially the end when JC comes bursting through the monster, sword in hand, which, had it been red, would have been gory and gross, but in blue was actually pretty funny.

The media has it marked as DOA, and the turnout at the theater would seem to indicate the audience doesn't know it wants to see it -- the marketing has been atrocious (and the end credits say that the name of the film is "John Carter of Mars", BTW), and while I don't know that I necessarily have any interest in making Disney profitable, this might really be one of those places where we need a Nerdtervention -- I strongly think you should see it because it's far far better than the trailers would seem to indicate.

Ben gave it a 9 (but, to be fair, he gives anything with a high enough wonder-factor a 9), and I'm quite happy to report that I thought it was VERY GOOD, and you definitely should go give it a see in a movie theater.

I'd ask "what did YOU think"? But it's still like a week from release, sorry.

-B

"Hey, Title that Post, Hibbs!" -- stuff from 7/20

Two Comics, and a Film!Let's start with the film, shall we?  

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER: I thought this was a fun and charming little movie, largely living up to the promise of the trailer. Cap, himself, is somewhat one-dimensional -- he doesn't have the drunken insouciance of Iron Man, or the charming arrogance of Thor, just a lot of earnestness -- but Chris Evans plays Cap with all of his heart, and sells it well.

(If you know nothing whatsoever about Cap the character, then there might be SPOILERS below, but I'm going to assume you know the basics?)

Like THOR before it, as long as you don't go in expecting more than popcorn fun, you'll get it, and this time leavened with a direct moral message of how important it is to stand up to bullies.

While the move from Nazis to Hydra was slightly disappointing from a purist POV, it did allow us to get Big! Mad! Science! everywhere. It's hecka revisionistic, but it yielded a fun movie, so all is well.

The script has a few problems: I really had a hard time understanding why Steve was staying in costume in the field, after the first time (and, heh, that scene of "early costume" Cap sneaking into the Hydra base was rendered pretty funny with that giant flag strapped to his back), and I thought they did a really bad handling the transition from '40s to c21 -- Ben turned to me immediately and asked me "What do they mean, 'you've been asleep for 70 years'?" "Well, Ben, he got frozen in a block of ice for all of that time" "How, daddy?" And, yeah, it sure ain't on the screen.

Also, as long as I'm complaining, the staggeringly multi-culti Howling Commandos kind of freaked me out, in the same way THOR's Warriors Three did... plus, historical accuracy and Sam Jackson's race aside, Nick Fury really should be leading them, damn it! And, uh, was Jim Morita talking into a modern operator's headset in that scene?

But then there were the swell and fun easter eggs -- did you spot the Human Torch on display at the World's Fair? How about the Red Skull's translation to Bifrost? That brilliant first, foreshadowing, shot of Arnim Zola? The filmmakers know their Marvel comics, and it shows.

I'm also kind of crazy excited for AVENGERS, now, which is maybe a terrible idea knowing that low expectations is one of the reasons I have dug THOR and CAP so much. Ben loved CAP, too -- gave it his usual "10 out of 10!", though he rates them: THOR, IRON MAN, CAP. I think I vote for IRON MAN, CAP, THOR, though.

Anyway, liked it a lot: VERY GOOD.

DAREDEVIL #1: Let me get one thing out of the way first: Marvel pretty much ruined Matt Murdock with "Shadowland", and it would take a lot of hard work, time, and redemption to get him back to anything resembling a sympathetic protagonist again.

Or you could just "pull a DC" and basically just ignore all of that, and then make it such a fun and entertaining story than cynical old farts like me have their Charm Barrier broken, so we grumble and say "OK, you get away with it... this time!" (rassen frassen Mark Waid!)

A lot of the credit really needs to be given to Paolo Rivera and Marco Martin, two dynamic artists with such strong individual styles, yet who flow well from one to the other.

I'll tell you something else, as well -- I'm usually leery about letting Ben reading my current comics, there's a ton of content that he's just not ready for in modern comics, but when he asked if DD was appropriate for him, I assented pretty quickly. And he was ENRAPTURED by the book, reading it very closely for quite some time. Then he went downstairs and told mom all about it "...So, see, he's BLIND, but he's got this wicked RADAR SENSE...")

Yeah, that was an EXCELLENT comic book.

INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #506: You know when I read the scene with Stark's sacrifice in FEAR ITSELF, I thought "Wow, that's a great moment", but this issue's fully-fleshed out version really kind of wore on me -- I found the foul-mouthed dwarves to be really overdone (and that thing about "content that I wouldn't want my son to see yet" from up above? Yeah), and then when the issue ends the way it ends, well, I just thought it was too easy. I also was really troubled with not having Tony deal with the aftermath of Paris personally. I don't know, I kind of realized that I haven't really liked this book at all in months (since #500, I guess?) I'll go with a very low EH.

That's me, this week: what did YOU think?

-B

Green Lantern: The Movie

I had to wait a little while to see Green Lantern because of scheduling issues with Ben -- he's in a crazy amount of camps, with enrichment afterwards (soccer, swimming, etc), and then weekends with his grandparents that Wednesday was the first chance we had to go together. And what's the point of seeing a superhero movie if you're not taking your seven year old?  

Before we get to my reaction, let's have his: Ben thought the movie was great. "Oh?" I asked, "what would you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best?" A Ten.

Now, one thing to bear in mind is that Ben isn't exactly a sophisticated movie watcher -- he loves ALL movies, and when I asked him what the WORST movie he ever saw was, he said the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film, that he really didn't like that one. "Yeah? And what would you rate that one?" A Seven.

So there you go.

One thing that I would like to note, and actually condemn the movie for, is some unnecessary use of language. I recognize that the film was rated PG-13, but there's a "Bullshit" and an "asshole" in here, both of which were entirely and completely unnecessary, and caused Ben to turn to me in the theater with a scandalized hand to his mouth. I don't care about the "damn"s and the "hell"s (though sure some people might), but there's really no need for that kind of adult language in a movie pretty much custom designed for kids. Just sayin'.

OK, now to me.

The critics have not at all been kind to this film, and for some pretty good reasons -- it's pretty much a hot mess. But I'm sorta glad I read so many massively negative reviews before going because I had negative expectations walking in, and, so, it wasn't quite as bad as I feared it would be.

The movie does have two Major problems. First: there's just not a lot of real human emotional core to the film. Oh, it tries to build in a whole bunch of strands with Hal's family/daddy issues, or the triangle between Hal/Carol/Hector, but there's so little screen time given to them, and in such a desultory way, that none of it really goes anywhere or means anything. Large bits of it (like the triangle) aren't even mentioned for the first time until well into the film, stripping it away of any power it might have had. It's a shame, because there actually was a possibility of having something interesting come out of all three human character's relationships to their fathers, and how they each dealt with it, but it really amounts to no more than background noise here. Likewise all of the talk about facing fear was just a lot of blahblahblah that never tested out in any kind of meaningful way -- Hal never actually faces any kind of fear other then a semi-generic "Parallax is kinda scary looking, ain't he?".

Look, no one expects a summer popcorn action flick to give deep insights into humanity, but it seems a shame to me to have these thematic elements sorta put upon the table, and then do fuck-all with them.

The other Major problem with the film is that it's packed with two movies worth of story, and it therefore does almost nothing good with either of them. It is easy for me to armchair quarterback, but I don't see how anyone thought it was a good idea to try and have GL's origin, Hector Hammond, the Corps, AND Parallax all jammed into a single movie and expect it be compelling.

I'd like to point out that in the comics, Hal never met the Guardians until his eighth story (and then they made him forget!), and we don't meet a single member of the Corps (other than Abin Sur) until GL #6 -- I certainly wouldn't have taken Hal to Oa in the first movie. I think it would have been much stronger to stay Earthbound and to not have even a whiff of the Corps until maybe the last few seconds of the film.

There's a lot of Telling in this movie, rather than showing -- there's a throw away line about being a space-cop, but there's not even a second of "policing" shown by anyone, for example. There's also a lot of screen time frittered away on things without a payoff -- we're introduced to Hal's family, and there's a clear setup for something with his nephew, and then you never ever see those characters again; we're shown the entire Secret Origin of Amanda Waller (though one who is physically nothing like The Wall, nor who is indicated to be anything other than a scientist), but why? She, too, then disappears from the film. I hope, at least, that John Ostrander is getting a hella big check.

It's a real shame, because there's a few minutes of real visual creativity and wonder -- I really loved the sequence with the out-of-control helicopter and the racetrack -- and if more of the movie had been about the Cocky Fighter Pilot Learning To Use His Magic Wishing Ring To Fight Crime, then I think it would have had more of the Sense Of Wonder that superhero movies really kind of need.

I thought Ryan Reynolds was adequate in the role. My largest problem is that my Hal Jordan is cocky and arrogant, but he isn't Sarcastic. I also really didn't like the CGI costume, but, eh, I'm a bitter old man and who thought I would?

I also kind of can't believe what happened to both of the antagonists. Way to build a rogues gallery!

There's an extra scene in the middle of the credits. It is very very bad. It makes no sense whatsoever after seeing the backwards Earth Man single-handedly defeat the Big Bad that that character, of all the characters shown in the film, would take that action.

One last note: the music was terrible. I actually started dreading anytime the musical cues came on because it was so horrible, almost 1980s hair bands, and really inappropriate to the action. It's rare that I actually notice scoring, but this time I did because it was awful.

So, yeah, not a good movie at all, and if I were an adult seeing it with another adult (and paying ELEVEN DOLLARS to get in? Are they INSANE? Is that what movies actually cost? This is the first non-matinee priced movie I've been to in a long time at a mainstream theater), then, yeah, AWFUL movie... but I saw it with a seven year old and he had a blast (except for the unneeded swearing) and I had fun watching it with him, and, yeah if you approach it as "one and only shot to cram in 50 years of GL" then the structure of it works a little better, and, alright, charitable Dad-based me says it was a low OK.

My advice: take a seven year old boy with you (except for the swearing, those fuckers!)

Dunno, what did YOU think?

-B

Two things that have nothing to do with one another!

What could they be? Find out under the jump!

CHARLES BURNS X ED OUT GN: Well, there's an apostrophe or two in that title, but Diamond's database doesn't play well with those (not that I bought it from Diamond, but there you are)

Charles Burns is, I think, one of our best working cartoonists -- his line is as distinct as it is accomplished, and he knows how to weave suspense and tension in really amazing way. There's nothing else that FEELS like a Charles Burns comic, in a way that exceedingly few of his contemporaries are able to achieve. Disturbing, off-kilter, askew -- and I find that tremendously appealing.

I think that his previous major work, BLACK HOLE, was one of the seminal works of the late 20th century, and much of its strength came from the mining of teenage angst and alienation where I imagine that much of the vibe of that work would translate even if you were culturally distinct from the late 20c North American setting.

This new work tries, I think, to be more "international" in tone -- the Tintin homages couldn't be more clearer, and about a third of the work takes place in an unsettling alien (?) landscape that makes me think of Tunisia or something (or, at least, my perception of Tunisia filtered through Western movies, which I bet is NOTHING like the real Tunisia!). But either way, Burns remains a master of tone, and reading his comics always makes me feel like an unseen spider is scuttling up and down my spine.

If you like Burns' previous work, you'll love this, I have no doubt -- I certainly did. Which is why it bugs me that I have to pan this based on price and format.

The first problem is that this isn't a complete story -- there's a clear "to be continued" at the end of the book, and who knows exactly where or how it is going to continue? There's no volume number on the book anywhere, and I can't find anything on the web (including the B&T website, which has books as much as six months before they'll appear in stores) to indicate that there IS going to be more. Even Pantheon's solicitation copy doesn't give a lot of insight:

"From the creator of Black Hole, the first volume of an epic masterpiece of graphic fiction in brilliant color! Doug is having a strange night. A weird buzzing noise on the other side of the wall has woken him up, and there, across the room, next to a huge hole torn out of the bricks, sits his beloved cat, Inky, who died years ago. What's going on? Drawing inspiration from such diverse influences as Hergé and William Burroughs, Charles Burns has given us a dazzling spectral fever-dream - and a comic-book masterpiece."

Heh, they used "masterpiece" twice!

But this makes it mostly sound like the work is self-contained, and it most assuredly is not. And that makes it an extremely frustrating work. I quite imagine that it will continue/complete at some point somewhere, but for someone picking this up "cold", it isn't anything like a satisfying read thanks to that "to be continued" there.

There's another problem, too: it is 52 pages (albeit in oversized and in color) for twenty bucks. I know the creative costs are the largest expense in creating a new work (which is why Pantheon has mostly published comics work that's been serialized elsewhere, I would imagine), but, ugh, nearly 39 cents a page for something that is a work-in-progress (and, more importantly: not self-contained within itself, or even "self contained"...) seems unforgivably expensive.

Don't get me wrong: I loved what I read, I love his line and his tone and the pervasive sense of...oddness that permeates every page, but this is pretty close to double (or maybe more) of what this should really cost, especially for only a fragment of a story. When this comes out in a cheaper and complete SC format, I'll be all over this, but this format and this pricing means that even I aren't going to buy it for my personal bookshelf -- and I pay wholesale!

For craft it's an easy VERY GOOD; for pricing and format, it is pretty AWFUL.

(First week sales have been fairly solid -- actually even a bit better than I initially expected, but I expect a certain amount of "Buyer's Remorse" happening this week)

******

SUPERIOR #1 (of 6): Mark Millar is one weird cat. He wrote a long run of some of the best Superman stories I've ever read in "Superman Adventures" (wouldn't it be nice if there was a full-sized trade of those out there? Just sayin', DC), where he's shown he can write "all ages" with the best of them, and he's also written some of the filthiest comics of all time (a decade or so later, his "Authority" arc with Quitely still kind of creeps me out... and that was, or so I understand it, extremely toned down from the original intention)

So that makes SUPERIOR even that more jarring to me -- here's a story that would have been an excellent all-ages superhero thing (it even has wish-granting space monkeys!), but the impact and the potential audience is entirely gutted by the rampant and wholly uneeded cursing.

I have no real problem with profanity, in its place -- KICK ASS becomes all the more amusing from the over-the-top swearing from its pubescent cast for instance, but the subject matter (and the specific cast) of SUPERIOR doesn't seem to lend itself to the potty mouthing here. I could give you ONE, right there at the last beat, there's an "Oh SHIT!" moment, sure, but the rest of it seems so completely unnecessary and out of tone from the rest of the comic, I really wonder what the fuck he's thinking?

As I have to say to my newly seven-year old son, Ben, a lot these days, "swearing isn't really big nor clever, little man" (he's reached that wonderful age where the ABSOLUTE height of wit is "ballsack" and "dingleberry" and stuff like that)

What's funny about Ben (if you'll permit me to digress) is despite that he's slightly puritanical when cursing appears in something. We've just finished the final Harry Potter book last night, and while I self edited a few times, when the text really supports it (I try hard to "stay in character", as it were, when I read to him), I'll let a "Hell" slip through (instead of "heck, y'know). "Did they REALLY say the "H" word, Daddy?"

Heh, and last night there's the final battle in Hogwarts, and Molly Weasley screams at Belatrix Lestrange, "STAY AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!", and I rendered it as "B-word", and Ben insisted I stop reading right there: "They said 'B-Word'?" "Well, no, son, not exactly" "Let me see the book!" and he wouldn't let me go on until he took the copy from my hand to see "bitch" spelled out (well, he knows how to SPELL it, already), and we had to delay the final battle to have a 10 minute conversation about the acceptability and context of using a word like that, where I think I left him pretty confused, actually, if I'm being honest.

As long as I'm digressing here, let's go with one longer one: I like reading multi-book series with Ben. Like a whole lot. One of my favorite things to do in the whole wide world. We started with the Lemony Snicket "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books when I had a wild hair as he's-an-older-four-year-old, and we've ventured into Oz [staggeringly archaic in a few of those books; and I totally lost the thread in the one where the Wizard returns to Oz. BOTH of us got completely bored about halfway through that one], and now Harry Potter. We're going to take a break from multi-book series for the next week or two -- I'm going to start "Harriet the Spy" tomorrow night, which I recall from my own childhood as being pretty awesome -- and I might descend into Narnia after that, but I'm not so sure that those have the "acting and readability" I'm looking for. (for example: "The Hobbit"? Completely unreadable outloud -- not enough dialogue driving the narrative, we never even got to a second night of reading it -- which kind of surprised me)

So: anyone have any recommendations for multi-book YA or younger series that has a gripping story, and out-loud-readability and -acting opportunities for us to dive into? Ben likes stuff that's scary, for sure [he does a better and creepier "Voldemort voice" than I do!], and he's totally not into like kissing and stuff (making Harry Potter v6 a hard read for us), and I want something that uses good (and smart!) vocabulary, and trips off the tongue when you read it. You can say what you want about Potter, but JK Rowling writes good reading-out-loud prose.

(I just wish Ron and Hermione had had really ANYthing to do in the last half of the last book, whatsoever)

Anyway, digression done: I liked SUPERIOR pretty well, but I think the blue language cut off 3/4 of the audience that would really REALLY like it, while being too simplistic and silly for the cats who like KICK-ASS and NEMESIS. I'll give it an OKAY, but I would have happily given it a GOOD or better with a little more self-editing on the swearing front. I don't think it needed the @#$% school or the Milestone-Squiggle either; the swearing was just entirely out of place for this reader, in this story.

As always: What did YOU think?

-B

Arriving 10/6/10

First and foremost: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my wonderful son, Ben, who is now 7 years old today! W00t! It is a good week of comics, I think -- Alan Moore, Buffy, Metalocalypse. And remember how there were no Vertigo books last week? Welp, you got two weeks worth today...

PLUS! the new Darwyn Cooke PARKER book -- that's worth a trip to the comics store all by itself...

28 DAYS LATER #15 ALAN MOORE NEONOMICON #2 (OF 4) AMERICAN VAMPIRE #7 AUTHORITY #27 AVENGERS ACADEMY #5 BALTIMORE PLAGUE SHIPS #3 BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #49 BATMAN HIDDEN TREASURES #1 BATMAN ODYSSEY #4 (OF 13) BOYS #47 BRIGHTEST DAY #11 BRUCE WAYNE THE ROAD HOME RED ROBIN #1 BUFFY VAMPIRE SLAYER #37 LAST GLEAMING PT 2 (OF 5) JO CHEN C CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #52 CBLDF LIBERTY ANNUAL 2010 CVR A CHAOS WAR #1 (OF 5) CHARMED #3 A CVR SEIDMAN CLINT #1 DC COMICS PRESENTS GREEN LANTERN #1 DC COMICS PRESENTS JACK CROSS #1 DEADPOOL PULP #2 (OF 4) DEADPOOLMAX #1 DOOM PATROL #15 FANTASTIC FOUR IN ATAQUE DEL MODOK #1 FREEDOM FIGHTERS #2 GREEK STREET #16 GRIMM FAIRY TALES #51 HAWKEYE & MOCKINGBIRD #5 HOUSE OF MYSTERY #30 INCORRUPTIBLE #10 IRON MAN LEGACY #7 IZOMBIE #6 JIM BUTCHER DRESDEN FILES STORM FRONT VOL 02 #3 (RES) JSA ALL STARS #11 KLAWS OF PANTHER #1 (OF 4) LONE RANGER #24 LOONEY TUNES #191 MADAME XANADU #27 MARVELMAN FAMILYS FINEST #4 (OF 6) META 4 #3 (OF 5) METALOCALYPSE DETHKLOK #1 (OF 3) ERIC POWELL CVR NANCY IN HELL #3 (OF 4) NEW MUTANTS FOREVER #3 (OF 5) ORC STAIN #5 PILOT SEASON CROSSHAIR #1 REBELS #21 RED HOOD LOST DAYS #5 (OF 6) SCALPED #41 SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #2 SECRET SIX #26 SHADOWLAND SPIDER-MAN #1 SL SHIELD #4 SPIDER-MAN BACK IN QUACK #1 STAR WARS OLD REPUBLIC #4 (OF 6) BLOOD OF EMPIRE PT 1 (OF 3) STRANGE SCIENCE FANTASY #4 SUPERMAN THE LAST FAMILY OF KRYPTON #3 (OF 3) SWEET TOOTH #14 TASKMASTER #2 (OF 4) THOR FOR ASGARD #3 (OF 6) TOM STRONG AND THE ROBOTS OF DOOM #5 (OF 6) TOY STORY #7 TRON BETRAYAL #1 (OF 2) ULTIMATE COMICS THOR #1 (OF 4) UNCANNY X-FORCE #1 UNKNOWN SOLDIER #24 WHISPERS IN WALLS #3 (OF 6) WOLVERINE #2 YOUNG ALLIES #5

Books / Mags / Stuff 14TH DALAI LAMA GRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY PUTNAM ED BACK ISSUE #44 BATMAN UNSEEN TP BTVS SEASON 8 TP VOL 07 TWILIGHT DC SUPER HEROES ULTIMATE POP UP BOOK DISNEY FAIRIES HC DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP HC VOL 03 (OF 6) DOCTOR WHO ONGOING TP VOL 02 TESSARACT ESSENTIAL AVENGERS TP VOL 02 NEW ED FABLES COVERS BY JAMES JEAN HC NEW PTG FISH N CHIPS TP VOL 01 FLUORESCENT BLACK GN FRANKIE STEIN HC GREEN WOMAN HC HI FRUCTOSE MAGAZINE QUARTERLY #17 HOGARTHS DYNAMIC LIGHT & SHADE HOPELESS SAVAGES GREATEST HITS TP VOL 01 IRREDEEMABLE TP VOL 04 LOCKE & KEY TP VOL 02 HEAD GAMES NARUTO TP VOL 49 PERCY JACKSON & OLYMPIANS SC VOL 01 LIGHTNING THIEF POWER GIRL ALIENS AND APES TP RICHARD STARKS PARKER THE OUTFIT HC SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN TP VOL 08 SECRET SIX DANSE MACABRE TP SHAUN OF THE DEAD TP (TITAN ED) STAR TREK MOVIE ADAPTATION TP STARMAN OMNIBUS HC VOL 05 VLAD THE IMPALER MAN WHO WAS DRACULA TP WALKING DEAD COVERS HC VOL 01 (RES) X-MEN SECOND COMING REVELATIONS HC

What looks good to YOU?

-B

Comix Experience is 21 today

About 3 hours from now, 21 years ago, I walked down the block (I literally only lived a block away back then) and threw on the lights for the very first time. As I recall, we made $56 the first day open -- I was so proud!

I was 21 years old myself when I opened the store, which means from now on, I've been doing this longer than I haven't been doing it. Jinkies!

I'm wearing the teal and pink CE shirt today, to celebrate -- well, in my defense, it WAS the 1980s.

Plus, Ben lost his second tooth today, so it's a real day for milestones!

-B

'tisn't easy bein' green, tee tee tee tee tee

I've never been a massive fan of St. Patrick's Day -- it is one of those days where I want to get the hell off the streets before the sun goes down to avoid "Amateur Night", where all of the people who really don't know how to drink large amounts of alcohol get to, in fact, prove that. I do like how Ben's school does it though. In Kindergarten and First Grade (at least) they have the kids build and design "leprechaun traps", which is a fun project that really exercises both the kid's creativity as well as their engineering skills. Ben built an awesome "bank" for the "Leps" to "rob", with ladders to climb, and a collapsing rug over this neat net trap. He covered it in shiny paper and chocolate coins and (ha ha!) Lucky Charms cereal. It probably isn't very culturally sensitive (though the Irish-as-in-actually-FROM-Ireland parents in the class thought it was a hoot), but these little 6 and 7 year olds really went all out in coming up with non-lethal ways to catch the Leps. Mechanically, some of them were really cleverly designed.

In Kinder, I did most of the construction for Ben (he didn't have the manual dexterity then), but I left it mostly to him this year -- about the only thing *I* did was show him how to to cut a hole in the "rug" so it would "collapse" into the actual trap area, but not show the trap (I cut an "x" in the center of the rug) -- and his trap was the most popular one with the kids, which made me deathly proud.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon the kids carefully set their traps up all over the room (they called them "L.T.s", in case any of the Leps were listening in [Sneaky bastards!]), and went home.

This morning they came in, and the classroom was totally wrecked! Desks turned sideways, chairs thrown around, "Lep dust" on everything... and all of their traps wrecked, in a giant pile, with parts tacked up to the wall, whatever. There was even a clear line of "Lep dust" that lead out a window, that some of the clever little detective girls found. It was chaos, it was madness, and it was an enjoyable of a morning as I've ever spent in class as the kids all screamed (in joy!) at the disaster the Leps left.

The Lep even left a note, and a sack of potatoes (!) for the kids. Apparently, they're going to do a science lesson today with turning those solids into liquids (soup)

This has nothing to do with comics, I know, but I was entertained...

What I wasn't really at all entertained by was last weeks JUSTICE LEAGUE RISE AND FALL SPECIAL and this week's GREEN ARROW #31...

...which both made me think of other things I had read on the net this week. One of those was this interview with Steve Englehart on Newsarama, where Steve says, in response to "do you want to do more comics?":

The last stuff I did for Marvel and DC had way too much editorial back-and-forth.  Once upon a time, editorial said, “These are your books, do whatever you want to do.”  The story I’ve told a zillion times is that Roy Thomas said, “We’re giving you Captain America – if you can make it sell, we’ll keep you on, if not, we’ll fire you and we’ll get somebody who can.”

That was the sum total of the editorial influence!  What I did and what Steve Gerber and those other guys did came from that.  Now, editorial says “Here’s what we’re going to do with the line and the major books, and we’ll just get people to fill in the blanks.”

The other thing I read that I flashed on was Buddy Saunder's letter to CBG that Stephen Bissette reprinted in his excellent ongoing series about the rise of comics labeling in the 80s.

Then, as now, I disagreed with a number of Buddy's points -- especially with his seeming insistence that comics are, would continue to be, and should be anything other than a juvenile medium for juveniles (that's a dramatic oversimplification of his point)

Now, despite the perhaps foolish nature of some of his complaints, a tremendous amount of what he said ended up coming reasonably true -- "mainstream" superhero comics are really unacceptable for kids these days; I literally can't have my son look at this week's new books until I fully vet them first, and that's a pretty drastic sea change from 1980-something, and probably not one for the better.

I've been thinking of this all this week anyway, as I decided Ben was probably old enough for James Bond films. He saw the box for Live and Let Die at the library, and wanted to know what was up with the skull-faced guy. So we borrowed that, and quickly went through The Man With the Golden Gun and The Spy Who Loved Me, and since they didn't have Moonraker in stock, we went backwards to Goldfinger, and we'll do the rest of the Connery pictures soon.

These are, of course, violent films, and there's a smattering of salty language ("Daddy, he said the 's' word!") -- but the violence is generally cartoony. When Bond mows down a line of Faceless Minions with a machine gun, they all just kind of fall over, bloodlessly, y'know? The character Jaws is scary to Ben, but it isn't gross or anything, even when he bites people.

But Ben also saw Goldeneye and wanted to see that one, and I hesitated, because my memory says that by the Dalton era the violence starts getting ramped up with blood flying around, and that I am less than cool with. I don't know, maybe I'm being silly, but I want Ben to be able to enjoy things I enjoyed when I was his age-ish, but we hit a point culturally where violence is portrayed harshly, and I don't trust his instincts that those things aren't "Cool!", and maybe desensitizing him.

So, when I read comics like those Green Arrow ones, I wonder: "who is this really aimed at?" and "why are they doing this?" -- on screen graphic murder and dismemberment, with blood spraying everywhere... clearly "Justice League"-branded material is no longer suitable for kids, but I don't know any adults who are saying that this is what they want or need to see.

I might, maybe, be able to justify it in my mind if it lead to giant sales, or massive interest in Green Arrow -- DC seems to be trying to manufacture a "Big Year!" for GA, but after week 1, our sales on JL:R&F are barely a third of JL:CFJ #7, and while, sure, that's 50% above "normal" GA sales, that's still that sales level where it is barely profitable for me to even rack the book in the first place, and I suspect all of that "bounce" will be gone by this time next month anyway.

Dubious editorial direction leading to no long term sales benefit, and putting a somewhat viable character in a position that doesn't appear to have a lot of real long-term storytelling potential... I dunno, this doesn't seem to me to be a smart plan?

I probably wouldn't mind as much if there was stunning craft on display, but these comics just simply felt mechanical to me -- like the editorial flow chart says this beat must happen here and that one there, so get to it, Mr. Writer Cog. And I know story-logic goes out of the window when you're talking about superpowers, but I have a hard time believing that the guy with the Magic Wishing Ring (which can find ONE person "without fear" in a population of billions in a split second), or the other guy who can run from here to Africa between heartbeats is going to have ANY problem dealing with a guy and a bow, even IF he's "hiding in the sewers".

Plus the less said about Conner renouncing Buddhism, the better.

I don't know, I found these comics to be mechanical, souless, repellent, and very very AWFUL.

What did YOU think?

-B

What scares you

I was standing around Ben's schoolyard the other morning talking with the first graders while waiting for the morning bell to ring, and one of them announced to me that they were afraid of squirrels (first graders are really cute with what will just pop out of their mouths) (She had been bitten by a squirrel a few weeks before apparently, so I can get behind that)

So I started asking the kids what they were all scared of -- I have a very mild fear of heights (more like I get dizzy), and Ben said "Ghost Galaxy!" (I think we'll come back to that), one little boy said people dressed as zombies, and another said spiders, but the one that tugged at my heart was the precious little girl who declared it was "Jesus"

I blinked rapidly.

"Um, honey, why are you scared of Jesus, he's supposed to be very nice and said everyone should be friendly to everyone else."

"Yes, but he's part of God, and God is very very very big, and we're like ants to him."

***

ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE: RECORDED ATTACKS: Another thing that scares me is the notion that book publishers are going to come into comics not having the slightest idea of what they're doing. This was proven to me with this volume from Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House.

I really really really liked Max Brook's WORLD WAR Z -- more for its scope of history and world building and just plain thinking about the impact of the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse on the whole of the world than about the zombies themselves; heck, I like it so much I even bought the audiobook version (truncated as it is, it has some excellent performances -- Alan Alda FTW!), so I'm pretty hip to the idea of a GN extension of that world. The premise is to show various Zombie attacks, all before modern times, and how other cultures and historical periods would have dealt with them (I'm iffy on the Caveman one, just from a Reasoning POV, but the rest are clever)

However, take a look at that cover. Here's a copy of it.

Notice anything odd about that?

Think about it a moment.

For the slow among you: Max Brooks is "just" a writer (at least as far as I know) -- and he certainly didn't draw the book. YET THE ARTIST'S NAME IS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND ON THE FRONT COVER (or spine, for that matter)

There's a little small line on the BACK cover about how the book is "illustrated by" Ibraim Roberson, but it's all just an afterthought in the marketing copy. Even in the indicia page (or whatever they call that page in proper books) Roberson's name is in a smaller type size than the ISBN number.

The weird thing to me is that this was apparently changed at some point in the production process -- here's the Random House website with the cover as it was solicited -- and Roberson's name is right there on the front cover where it should be. Some Marketing (probably) person made a conscious decision to remove Roberson's name from the book.

Here's the thing: in comics, there's no such thing as "illustrated by" -- the artist (or artistS, since penciller, inker, and colorist are all common components) is either an equal, or, in some cases, greater-than participant in the creative process as the writer. Especially in a book like this which has lots and lots and lots of silent sequences.

For all I know Max Brook's script is very very detailed, dictating "camera position" and exact details and everything so that "any" artist could have done exactly the same work... but from what I know about comics production, that seems pretty darn unlikely to me. In fact, in a lot of ways, the text seems a bit divorced from the sequential story-telling, almost as if Brooks just wrote some (very) short prose chapters and left it at that. I don't know.

But I do know that "comics" is "Words AND Pictures working together", and to not credit the artist on the front cover or spine is, in my opinion, horrifically disrespectful, and utterly screwed up.

The book itself is a low GOOD, being mostly vignettes that don't add together, and being, let's be charitible, outrageously expensive at $17 for a black & white paperback, which should be selling 10s of thousands of units based on the Author's cachet.

***

So far for three years running, Ben and I take an annual "father and son" trip; and, so far, each year we head down to Disneyland. Ben's an October baby, so we're always there for the Halloween decorations at Disneyland, especially the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay on The Haunted Mansion (which is 99 flavors of awesome, I got to tell you).

This year Ben was (finally!) tall enough to ride the Indiana Jones ride, and he DUG IT -- we went on it three times before the lines got too long to make it "worth it"

We go midweek on a week with no holidays or anything, hoping for the least lines possible, but this year it was absolutely packed. I'm thinking the "get in free on your birthday" promotion is REALLY working, because I saw a TON of people wearing "It's my birthday" pins. Also, there's a marked rush at about 3 PM, making me think a lot of locals have annual passes, and come by after school for a ride or three.

We did little this year that we didn't do other years -- I still can't get Ben to consent to the Twilight Zone ride, though we did get on Soaring Over California as our last ride of the day. Very impressive, but way not worth the hour in line that it ended up being (it was 25 minutes we we got in line, but I guess they had an army of "Fast Pass" people show up, because it took 65 minutes total)

Other than that was a new overlay on Space Mountain, called "Ghost Galaxy".

I had the vague thought that maybe they'd just replace the streaking lights with ghost shaped lights or something. Maybe change the sound track a bit.

You couldn't tell what it might be from the outside of the ride, since they couldn't be bothered to change the entry whatsoever -- and, seriously, walking through that 1970s edifice to futurism is about as unghostly as one might get. There WAS a sign or two that said "small children might find this frightening", but hell, Indy says THAT, and Ben was grinning and cackling through Indy.

Not on Ghost Galaxy. He was as white as a sheet at the end, and said, in a very quiet voice, "I never want to go on that again as long as I live, Daddy"

Dig that he LOVED Space Mountain last year, AND as a four year old too.

Ghost Galaxy basically just projects "gory" spirits up on the walls -- there's no blood, per se, but they're colored blood red. As an adult, it's utterly laughable, but it freaked the fuck out of Ben. It also sort of ruined the ride. Space Mountain is awesome because the ... well, I don't know what to call the moving lights... the hyperspeed effect, maybe?... really helped with the smoothness and the movement of the roller coaster part. Randomly projecting big square "ghost" portraits completely screwed up the effect. That's a ride I'll never ride again myself. AWFUL.

***

BLACKEST NIGHT BATMAN 1-3, and SUPERMAN #1-3: To me, the biggest sin of a crossover tie-in is to be "red skies". That is, where basically nothing really happens, except to take money from your pocket. And I kind of feel that BN crossovers are doing pretty much that -- zombies show up, get fended off, the end.

BATMAN was especially that -- there's nothing in there that "moved the needle" much, while SUPERMAN at least put up an "anti Zombie field" around "New Krypton" (that will also repel anyone else), which, I'm thinking, is going to explain why SUPERMAN: WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON is only a 12 issue mini-series. Of course, that will make WoNK a less satisfying read, perhaps, with "See something else!" as it's big conclusion.

Overall, neither was any better than OK.

***

The pounding in my head is starting again from all the drilling outside. Maybe THAT's what I really fear: street construction (And the loss of business from it)

What did YOU think?

-B

Super hot collectible alert!

[Don't forget that we've got Scott Allie and Kevin McGovern on Wednesday from 5-7 -- please try to come!]

In about 20-25 years, when my son is a famous artist, you're going to want to have in your collection a copy of SCOOBY DOO #149, out this week. Why? Because Ben's first published piece of artwork is in there on the letter's page!

I'm actually a little shocked how long it took to run -- I think it was nearly eight months ago that we sent it in, and they run 4-6 pieces from kids every month (can you tell I've been religiously checking every issue as they get released?) -- I'd actually given up hope it was going to run... so that's a lot of art they must be getting sent by kids.

Also, below the jump, if you care about pictures of what Divisadero St. looks like during the construction, you can find some there. I'm told the major drilling/smashing/whatever will be done on Saturday. I pray to God that is so...

Right, this first picture (if I'm linking correctly) is what Divisadero St., in front of the store, looked like at 8 AM this morning, just before the workers started working in earnest. Note that to get onto our block you have to dodge that funky corner thing. Also? The two western lanes (ie, my side of the block) are closed to through traffic while the guys work...

This second one is looking directly out our door this afternoon, as they decided they needed to rip into the sidewalk to fix another sewer line. Joy for me!

This is why I've barely got any writing done the last bit of time -- hard to concentrate with all that noise going on outside!!

-B

Arriving 9/2/2009

So, Disney buying Marvel, eh? Yeah, that's likely to be a game-changer.

No real commentary from me today on that, however -- Ben broke his arm yesterday, so I lost most of the day to the Emergency Room (and, let me tell you, if you have an injured kid in San Francisco, you'd be REALLY smart to take them to the new Pediatric Emergency Room at California Pacific Medical Center on California St., because those people were AWESOME, 100% kid-oriented [They have a staffer JUST to explain procedures to kids in kid-language!], astonishingly professional, and we didn't have that wait-to-entry that I normally associate with ERs -- we had a doctor to see in like 15 minutes. I'd never call going to an ER "pleasant", but that was pretty darn close!), and I've got to finish the order form to boot (plus, huh, first of the month tomorrow, got to pay some bills before I go today...) -- I'll think more about that tomorrow and Wednesday...

Anyway, sold looking week o' comical goodness...

AGENTS OF ATLAS #10
AUTHORITY #14
BATMAN #690
BATMAN CONFIDENTIAL #33
BETTY & VERONICA DIGEST #197
BLACK PANTHER 2 #8
BOYS #34
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #28 CHEN CVR
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #28 JEANTY CVR
CABLE #18
CARS RADIATOR SPRINGS #1
CHEW #4
CURSED PIRATE GIRL #2 (OF 3)
DARING MYSTERY COMICS #1 70TH ANNIV SPECIAL
DEAD RUN #4
DEADPOOL #15
DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP #3 (OF 24)
EXILES #6
FALL OUT TOY WORKS #1 (OF 5)
FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH RUN #5 (OF 6)
FROM THE ASHES #4
GHOST RIDERS HEAVENS ON FIRE #2 (OF 6)
GREEK STREET #3
GRIMJACK MANX CAT #2
HERCULES KNIVES OF KUSH #2 (OF 5) A CVR MARKO
HOTWIRE #4 (OF 4) A CVR PUGH
HOUSE OF M MASTERS OF EVIL #2 (OF 4)
IMMORTAL WEAPONS #2 (OF 5)
INCOGNITO #6
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #17
IRON MAN ARMOR WARS #2 (OF 4)
IRREDEEMABLE #6
JERSEY GODS #7
JONAH HEX #47
JUSTICE LEAGUE CRY FOR JUSTICE #3 (OF 7)
LAST RESORT #2
LOONEY TUNES #178
LUKE CAGE NOIR #2 (OF 4)
MAGOG #1
MARVEL ZOMBIES RETURN #1
MICE TEMPLAR DESTINY #3
MIGHTY #8
MYSTIC COMICS #1 70TH ANNIV SPECIAL
NORTH 40 #3 (OF 6)
NORTHLANDERS #20
OFFICIAL INDEX TO MARVEL UNIVERSE #9
RAWBONE #4 (OF 4)
RED TORNADO #1 (OF 6)
RESURRECTION VOL 2 #3
ROBERT E HOWARD THULSA DOOM #1
SAVAGE DRAGON #152
SCOURGE OF GODS FALL #3 (OF 3)
SOLOMON GRUNDY #7 (OF 7) (BLACKEST NIGHT)
STAR WARS INVASION #3 (OF 5)
STARR THE SLAYER #1 (OF 4)
STRANGE ADVENTURES #7 (OF 8)
STRANGE TALES #1 (OF 3)
SUPERGIRL ANNUAL #1
SWEET TOOTH #1
THE GOOD THE BAD & THE UGLY #3
TORCH #1 (OF 8)
ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #2
VERONICA #196
WEDNESDAY COMICS #9 (OF 12)
WITCHFINDER IN THE SERVICE OF ANGELS #3 (OF 5)
YOUNG LIARS #18

Books / Mags / Stuff
ABSOLUTE V FOR VENDETTA HC
AMULET SC VOL 02 STONEKEEPERS CURSE
ANGEL BLOOD AND TRENCHES TP VOL 01
BATMAN GOTHAM AFTER MIDNIGHT TP
BLEACH TP VOL 28
CLASSIC MARVEL FIGURINE COLL MAG #101 WAR MACHINE
CSI INTERNS GN VOL 01 (OF 2)
DC LIBRARY JLA BY GEORGE PEREZ HC VOL 01
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #18 M MANHUNTER
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #19 NIGHTWING
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #34 BLUE BEETLE
DC SUPERHERO FIGURINE COLL MAG #35 BIZARRO
DEAD IRONS HC
DMZ TP VOL 07 WAR POWERS
ESSENTIAL SUB-MARINER TP VOL 01
FOODBOY GN (OCT032442)
GI JOE ORIGINS TP VOL 01
GROWN UPS ARE DUMB NO OFFENSE SC
HONEY LICKERS SORORITY GN VOL 02 (A)
HULK GRAY PREM HC
INCREDIBLES FAMILY MATTERS TP
JSA HC VOL 05 BLACK ADAM AND ISIS
LORDS OF MISRULE HC
MARVEL SUPER HERO SQUAD TP HERO UP DIGEST HERO CVR
MARVEL ZOMBIES ARMY OF DARKNESS TP
NOCTURNALS HC VOL 02 DARK FOREVER AND OTHER TALES PX ED
NOCTURNALS HC VOL 02 DARK FOREVER AND OTHER TALES REG ED
PROCESS RECESS HC VOL 03 HALLOWED SEAM
REBEL GN
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN TP VOL 06
SILENT MOBIUS COMPLETE ED GN VOL 01
SPY VS SPY TP DANGER INTRIGUE STUPIDITY
SPY VS SPY TP MASTERS OF MAYHEM
SPY VS SPY TP MISSIONS OF MADNESS
STAR TREK ARCHIVES TP VOL 06 BEST OF ALTERNATE UNIVERSES
SUPERMAN NEW KRYPTON HC VOL 02
WOLVERINE AND POWER PACK TP WILD PACK DIGEST
WONDERFUL WIZARD OZ HC
ZOMNIBUS GN VOL 01

What looks good to YOU?

-B

Smidge more on Gaiman

Here's at least two bloggish posts about the Gaiman signing:

First from Matt Maxwell, and the second from Seth Rosenblatt.

The latter has this nice pic (if I'm linking correctly, at least)

Also, here's the photodump of pictures that Susan Riddle took.

If you know of any other posts, please let me know!

-B

I don't know how to title this one!

I meant to say something last week (ugh, or was it two weeks now) when Spurgeon linked to Johanna's (we miss you!) note about the pending release of the last color BONE volume.

I volunteer at Ben's school library one day a week (what can I say... I believe in libraries!), and, man, do the comics circulate like crazy! I'm only in there one day a week, but based on looking at the shelves I think it is true for every day in there -- the comics circulate the INSTANT they get put back out on the shelves.

My responsibilities include checking in each classes books, as well as checking the kids out each week (basically, it's just retail, but it is free -- using POS to scan stuff in and out, the whole thing), and I quickly learned that the first thing I should do when I'm done checking everything in is to shelf the 741.5's. That's the Dewey Decimal System code for graphic novels. Virtually everything I shelve while the librarian is reading to the kids gets checked back out during the same shift. It is insane!

The King of 741.5? Jeff Smith's BONE.

Those always always always go back out the moment they come in (not even counting the Hold requests) -- even when the kids have to read them OUT OF ORDER, they freaking fly off the shelf. Our library has two full sets, and the Librarian is getting at least a third one in because they circulate so fast.

The only other books (at least during my shift) that circulate as fast are the Lemony Snickett "A Series of Unfortunate Events" books.. but even those aren't quite (to my eye) as consistent -- usually you can find 3 or 4 of the 13 volumes on the shelves (they also have two sets of those... I think)

I suspect that this couldn't have happened without Scholastic (as much as it pains the self-publishing lover in me), and it could not possibly have happened to a nicer guy. Jeff Smith is a sweetheart among sweethearts, and he deserves every single copy sold.

Obviously, this is just a snapshot of ONE Elementary school library, and ONE shift of that library, at that, but it is an awesome awesome thing to encounter every week, hopefully saying really good things about 21st century comics literacy and the future of the comics readership.

I love volunteering at school in general: watching the ASTONISHING gains the kids have made just blows my tiny little mind every time I think about it. It's been... 14 weeks, is that right? since Ben started Kindergarten. When he started he knew his ABC by sight, and he was pretty decent with the phonic sounds of the letters. He could JUST write his name (though oddly spaced, and nearly always with backwards "N"), but that was it.

Now he's writing (simple) sentences ("I see my _____"), and the characters are pretty correctly spaced and sized and facing. He can sound out a word and basically spell things about right.

What I find fascinating is that what we're meant to teach them isn't really how to do things exactly correctly, but for them to have the tools to do those things for themselves. In other words, my instinct when Ben asks "how do I spell...."? is to tell him how to spell it. "'Witch' is spelled 'W. I. T. C. H.', pal." But sitting in class one day a week, I've realized that what you do is actually turn it around. "How DO you spell that? What's the sound of the first letter?" "It is 'wuh', Daddy." "Right, so what is that?" "Uh...W?" "Exactly, you little rocket scientist! Good job!"

To the point where even if they're not spelling a word correctly (A "cuh" sound could be either a "K" OR a "C"), the important thing at this stage isn't that they're spelling it right or wrong (they're only five and six!), but that they're developing the tools to FIGURE OUT how to spell it. The actual spelling correctly part comes later -- confidence is the skill to install right now.

As far as I can tell, nearly EVERY kid in the class is making AMAZING progress... and thanks to their awesome awesome teacher, they're ENJOYING making that progress. Schoolwork isn't "work", it is FUN, which is EXACTLY the kind of attitude that I was hoping school would inculcate.

We feel hugely lucky that we got the Kinder teacher we got at the public school that we got -- for security sake I'm not going to really broadcast those details -- because we really won the lottery for the type of school environment we were hoping for where learning is something that not only every child sees has value, but that they encourage in one another as peers. I (naturally) think my kid is pretty inherently smart, but to have an environment that really works at encouraging that is something we weren't sure we were going to get from public school.

And it makes it even that much more exciting to volunteer into that kind of environment where you can help OTHER people's kids make the same kinds of leaps, too!

Kids WANT to learn, really. It's pretty awesome to watch them do so, so well.

******

A comic review? Sure why not...

SECRET INVASION #8: I'm not so bugged by the What of this, as I am of the How. I mean, no matter what, you've got to give the Marvel universe some props for changing up the status quo every few years, and doing so in FAIRLY organic ways. By this I mean, by and large, the things that have changed have largely flowed from character, rather than being imposed from above. Sure there's been a few mis-steps (most of them involving Spidey), but overall, the generalities of the Marvel U have been reasonably logical and satisfying.

YMMV, naturally.

While I might dun Secret Invasion for misreading the post-'08 Election environment (the ending feels a lot more suited for a McCain/Palin administration), you have to give it points for setting up what will POTENTIALLY be a story-rich new Status Quo. That doesn't mean that writers WILL be able to draw that potential out... but it is there.

But I'm more convinced than ever that Bendis just shouldn't be writing this kind of a story -- he's just not very good at it.

As a conclusion, SI #8 is marred off the bat by its structure: you WANT to see the Big Fight Scene at the end. We've had seven previous issues that were basically nothing than unimportant fights, and when we finally get to the Title Bout (as it were), Bendis decided that it's best to mostly cut away from it, or to handle it perfunctorily and via narration (!)

It opens with a completely pointless death -- one that isn't really relevant to the 150-ish pages that proceed it -- and one that can be retconned faster than Bendis drops to talking heads: Thor just sent her someplace that she'll end up getting saved. She'll be back faster than Mockingbird was, bet on it.

But even if it wasn't so trivially reversed, what sucks the most about it is that it was a punk death, where none of the characters involved were even remotely heroic. I have no problem with death (or even "death") in comics, but I do very much want for it to invoke heroism and sacrifice for the greater good. If the character who died did so by stopping the Skrull doppelganger she was most associated with by using a weapon based upon their technology, that might be one thing, but instead the character died from plothammer and fiat, where it wasn't even explained WHAT was happening, or really how it was resolved. Yuck, that's just awful storytelling, lacking any thematic resonance, IMO.

I also have to say that one of the few genuinely human relationships in recent comics has been Luke & Jessica's. I truly like those characters as "people", so for us to have a "The Dingos ate mah baby!" scene... and without ANY payoff; and with that being on top of what now appears to be a complete red herring of that "glowing eyes" thing... well, most of my goodwill is just utterly pissed away.

I'm also upset that the well-toted idea that the Skrulls had this religion, and that this was actually meaningful from a story perspective, and to have it all basically come to nothing in the end... sheer anti-climax. They had a real opportunity to make the Skrull newly significant in the Marvel U, and it all feels pissed away to me.

As for the "Illumi-naughty", I really am not buying it. Oh, it's a clever enough conceit, but not those characters in that way. I mean, really, do you think Doom and Namor and Loki are going to give 10 seconds consideration to Mr. Crazier-than-a-shit-sandwich, and the jumped up thug? Really? Emma doesn't make any sense to me either, in the post-San Francisco world. Gah, plus that coloring -- I thought Namor was a Skrull, at first...

So, yeah, I didn't like this as a comic. It was pretty stupendously EH, and your Big Finish to your Big Event needs to be a lot more than that.

What did YOU think?

-B

Oh Disneyland, my Disneyland

It's a field trip report for those of you who care about such things... find it under the jump... (with some cute pics, as well!)

It was just Ben's birthday, and is my wont, I took him for a trip. Theoretically, these are "father/son" trips, but this year Ben wanted Mama to come along as well, and since it's HIS birthday, we went along with his plan.

Like last year, we headed south for Disneyland (but I'm not set on this being a Disney trip every year... taking ideas for next year already, folks!), but because Mama was with us, we made it a little more of a production number than last year.

Last year it was a "day trip" -- we went in the night before, went straight to bed at a motel, then spent the whole day at the park. THIS year, we left butt-early on Sunday, and came back on the last flight on Monday night, giving us two full park days.

Also, because Mama was with us, we decided to not stay in the cheap motel across the street (I liked the Park Vue Inn... it is a clean place to sleep, about 1/3 of the price, AND it is actually physically closer to the front door of the park), and instead stayed at the Disneyland hotel. The only real advantage there is that the Disneyland hotel has a MUCH nicer pool, with a huge model of Captain Hook's pirate ship, and some water slides (which, uh, Ben can't actually use because he doesn't KNOW how to swim [yet], and we can't slide down in tandem). We made a point of getting in an hour or two at the pool because of that... but it really isn't worth the triple price by itself.

I've noted Ben's affection for Ariel from THE LITTLE MERMAID, which, can I say, it sorta surprises me that she doesn't have a bigger Disneyland presence, as she appeals to both boys AND girls, and she basically single-handedly saved Disney animation in the 1980s...

But she's got a little statue by the (heated!) little kid's pool, so here's the first of the cutie-pie pics....

From CE

(let's hope that worked... thanks to Jeff Lester for putting the pic up and giving me the HTML...)

Anyway, we started the first day at the California Adventure park, the newer of the two parks on the complex. We did this because, mostly, we'd never been there before (either together, or singly). It's alright, and it looks and feels a lot more like a "traditional" amusement park -- it sure felt to me that there were longer walks between rides, and it doesn't have that super-compact feeling that, say, Fantasyland has.

We started the morning by beelining to the... well, I don't remember the proper name, it's something like "Grizzly Mountain White-water rafting", and it's your basic water-coaster, except that it spins a bit, like a whitewater raft. It's fun, but we probably should have done the "Flying over California" ride first thing, because by the time we got back there at the end of our day, the line was WAY too long to wait through. Oh well.

We went over to the pier area, and no one was willing to go on the Sky Wheel with me (chickens!), not even with the non-moving cars. Bah. We did some sort of rise-and-drop ride, which Ben liked, but I was bored with, and Ben couldn't go on the big coaster (height reasons), so we opted for standing in line for the "hot new ride", Toy Story 4-D. That took nearly an hour (ugh!), but it was nearly worth it, as it is a really clever updating of the Buzz Lightyear Astro-Blasters in dland proper. With a 15 minute wait, we'd have done it several times, it was that cool, but the line was really hellish.

Then Ben wanted to go on the Merry-Go-Round, so we did that (it was King Triton themed, about as close to Ariel as we could get), and the ride operator decided, unprompted, that Ben should be "Prince Ben", and he got a little crown and was announced to all of the other kids on the ride. That was nice for the boy, though I noticed when he repeated the ride (no line for a carousel!) that the operator wasn't naming a prince or princess on each go round, so not sure what the thinking was there. Still, nice surprise!

By then we're hot and tired, so its food time. Ugh, this is the real difference in staying two days -- you're basically eating three meals a day on dland property, and they are EXPENSIVE. Yikes, brutally so...!

(I thought Tzipora's burrito was horrific, but my Chinese Chicken Salad was pretty decent)

We then wandered over to the "Bug's Life" area (so much space devoted to such a minor movie!), which is okay-ish, but is really aimed at teeny kids. Ben will be too old for that next year, but this year he was fine with the gentle rides, and the joke of a bumper cars, and especially the "sprinkler park" (which purported to teach you about how irrigation worked in large scale farming, but was mostly an excuse for kids to get SOAKED). It was a hot enough day that by the time we walked to the next section, Ben was mostly dry.

I quite liked the "Hollywood" area, which has this GIANT illusion of a summer day, and a street receding into infinity down it. Must be 60 feet high, and Ben and I talked about how they do that kind of visual trickery for film, so it was almost even educational. Had we more time, I kind of wanted to go into more of the exhibits in the Hollywood area (how animation is done, that kind of thing), but the day was quickly creeping closed, so we limited ourselves to the Monsters Inc ride (a classic "Dark ride", which like all of them, doesn't make a ton of sense if you haven't seen the movie) (Ben hadn't... but wants to now), and the Muppets 3-D thing which is AWESOME. Seriously, that one alone is worth the price of California Adventure admission, and if we had more time, I would have gone through it a few more times. It was both hysterically and injokey, but it also had some of the best 3-D I've ever seen anywhere, as well as environmental things happening in the theater. Great great stuff.

I wanted to do the Twilight Zone "Tower of Terror", but neither Tzipora or Ben did, and I got outvoted, so we headed back to the hotel for some swimtime. Overall, the Hollywood area was the only part of the CA park that I actually *liked*. the rest was fun, but not stellar.

After swimming for a while, the family was bushed. We ordered in some room service (ugh, expensive!), and Tzipora and Ben crashed, hard.

I was still awake enough (it was barely 9!), and Disneyland was open until midnight, so I left them sleeping and went on the prowl with myself. It's fun walking around by yourself in a park at night with your iPod giving you your own soundtrack, I have to say!

I tried to hop back over to CA, to do the TZ thing, but that park closes at 9. Um, OK. Dland it is, then!

Since I knew he was too small for it (4 more inches to go!) I made for the Indiana Jones ride. The first pass through was about a 30 minute wait, but after that a staffer said to me that the ride had a "single rider" option, and I could skip the line if I wanted to do it again. Which I did. Three more times.

Here's a good place to note this: most of the rides (in both parks) SUCK for three people. Why? Because most of the time most rides only seat two across, which meant one of us rode with Ben, while the other was stuck alone. And, OF COURSE, Ben wanted to do most of the rides with D-A-D-D-Y, leaving Tzipora as the third wheel. Not fun for her.

(Indy seats 4 across, which is why they can do single rider to fill in the holes)

So: go to Disneyland in multiples of two if you want to have the best time, is the lesson!

(And, ask for "single rider" on Indy, instead of standing in the line the first time!)

I also did the Haunted Mansion solo (twice), since I just love the Nightmare Before Xmas decorations this time of year.

I missed the fireworks, though, because I was waiting for Indy...

Anyway, we get up early on Monday to pack as much in as we can. Monday was the first time I'd ever personally experienced the Santa Ana winds. HOLY COW. Now I understand how those SoCal wildfires happen. Especially standing at the monorail station in "downtown Disney", it was like being inside of a shotgun, the wind was blowing so hard!

Once in Disneyland itself, it wasn't too bad, but man that monorail station was a rare form of torture!

Last year we went mid-week, and the lines were all pretty small -- except for last year's "hot new ride" (The Finding Nemo Submarine ride), which was at least an hour, and we skipped) -- nothing took more than, say, 15-20 minutes. THIS year we went during Columbus Day, so lines were AT LEAST twice as long. Another lesson learned! We did about 20-25 rides in '07, but this year I think we made a dozen?

Knowing my boy's taste, we stuck mostly to the Jungleland/New Orleans Square area in the morning -- Haunted Mansion (twice!), Pirates of the Caribbean (this is where Tzipora started to say "Wow, this is amazing!"), then Ben and I climbed around the Tarzan treehouse while Tzipora used the Single Rider trick to do Indy. (She was GLOWING after that one!)

Tzipora still wasn't done with indy when we were ready, so I talked the staff into letting me and Ben "do the line" for Indy. The line area is at least as cool as the ride itself, going through an "archeological dig", with runes on the walls, and spike traps and stuff, and even Indy's office in the back, where the normal line doesn't actually go (that's where singles and Handicaps line up). Technically, they were breaking the rules, but we got a personal tour of the Dig, and Ben was happier than a pig in shit, even without being able to do the RIDE. We got through it at about the same time as Tzipora did the ride, so we exited as a family which was nice.

It was hot then, and definitely Sit-Down time, so we did a no-line "Jungle Cruise" (Which Ben adored more than I would have imagined), and also did the Enchanted Tiki Room. It's easy to dismiss those kinds of rides as an adult, but 5 year olds really do seem to love them, plus they rested and refreshed us.

Off to Tomorrowland, where we did Star Tours, and Buzz Lightyear (twice!), and Space Mountain (Tzipora vows she'll NEVER do a coaster again, but Ben loves the mountain just like his Daddy, yes!). If the lines hadn't been so long, all day long, I probably would have tried to do Honey I Shrunk the Audience and the World of Tomorrow, but we were beginning to run short on time.

Tzipora, for some reason, was dead-set on doing Nemo, so I let her and Ben do that while I took a little chill-out time for myself, hurray. They said it was worth the 45 minute line, but I doubt that, myself.

Then it was the big one: Jedi Academy.

This is an outdoors, in-the-round kind of show, where a "Jedi Master" picked 10 or so kids to be "Padawans", and taught them how to use a lightsaber. They do this maybe 5 times a day, so only about 50 kids a day get to participate, out of the 10k+ that go through the park. Last year, I steered around it, but this year Ben was eager to try.

What's cool is that the floor opens up and Darth Vader (and sometimes Darth Maul?) comes out, and "fights" the kids.

Long story short, Ben was lucky enough to be one of the kids picked (it prolly helps that he looks like a young Luke Skywalker... and that his dad was standing behind him waving HIS hands as well!)

Let me tell you, as an American male who was 9 years old when STAR WARS was released (and I saw it 2 weeks-ish pre-release, too, with the print we watched having the Biggs-on-Tatoonie scenes), there was nothing NOTHING that's given me as much as a thrill since seeing Ben BORN, as watching him fight Darth Vader! Yah, boyeeee!

Now you can thrill as well...:

From CE

Our day was approaching done, but we had time for ONE more ride, and we picked a (probably THE) classic Fantasyland ride: Peter Pan. I wanted Tzipora to see a "classic" Dark Ride, and I think we picked well.

Then it was time to start heading back (already?!?!), with us still not making it back to Toon Town for the second year in a row.

FOR SURE *if* we go back again it will be midweek (I'll pull him out of school, if I need to) for the smaller lines mean being able to do a WHOLE lot more rides.

I'd say we had a great time -- Ben certainly did, which is the important thing, and he got to be a Prince, speak to Jack Sparrow, and fight Darth Vader, which was more than was on his agenda in the first place.

Bringing your wife, staying on dland property, staying for two park days, all of that QUADRUPLED expenses from last year, but I have no problem working a little harder to give the little guy that much fun. Next time (IF), we definitely go back to doing it CHEAPLY, however.

That was my trip, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

-B

(oh, and Virgin airlines? Very nice carrier. I'd take them again anytime, for sure)

Some burbling from Hibbs (new business)

Besides the time pressures lately (once we get used to this Kinder schedule, things should be smoother), I've been kind of unimpressed with most of the comics I've been reading lately. Its not even that I hate them or anything -- that's always worth a few inches -- but just that I've been feeling "Meh" about most stuff I'm reading.

It could be the lack of sleep, or it could just be me getting (more) jaded, I dunno.

So I'm really happy that in the last week or so I've read two things that fill me with enough love and joy to actually sit down and write!

We've received both of these books from Baker & Taylor, so I couldn't tell you if they've made it through Diamond's system yet, but both are well worth seeking out:

BURMA CHRONICLES HC: This is Guy Delisle's third "travelogue" book (the previous two are PYONGYANG: A JOURNEY IN NORTH KOREA and SHENZHEN: A TRAVELOGUE FROM CHINA). I quite liked the first, but thought the second was kind of flat. Maybe because North Korea is more mysterious than China? Maybe because there's more dramatic tension (such as one can get in an autobiographical comic!) in the repressive dictatorship than the less-repressive China? Maybe more interesting incidents happened in the first than the second?

Hard to say, but BURMA CHRONICLES, Delisle has a big return to form, with my enjoying this even more than I liked PYONGYANG.

This time through, incidents are often more fragmented from one another, and with a significant portion of the book being one-page relations, Delisle perhaps acts more like a cartoonist, and tries to find a punchline in each vignette.

Delisle's cartooning is deceptively simple, but there's a few places where his mastery of craft is really clear -- especially in comparison to some of the "bad panels" he shows (from lack of proper ink to draw with, or tendinitis at one point)

What I like best about these books is they both teach me something new, as well as being entertaining in their own right. Delisle comes off as an extremely entertaining person who'd you'd love to be seated next to at a dinner party while he regales you with stories of his trips. This is EXCELLENT stuff, and I highly recommend it.

My one complaint: the book is in a different format than the previous two (no dust-jacket [which I actually prefer] and just a little physically shorter), and isn't going to look as nice on the bookshelf.

TAMARA DREWE: Posy Simmond's new book isn't exactly "new" -- it's been out in the UK for at least a year, maybe more, but it is just coming out in the US now.

What a masterpiece!

It's sort of 1/3 prose, from three different characters thoughts, with a mix of panel narrative and single piece counterpoints to the text. It is bold, it is supremely assured, and I think it is the best piece of comic-ing that I've read this year.

The story sounds a little dull on summary -- it is about a writer's retreat and the characters that live in and around it, and how they react to return to the area of the book's title character, but it is sharp and expressive and extremely rich and vivid in detailing that world and the characters in it. I also liked how the book is ABOUT Tamara Drewe, but that the narrative focuses mostly on characters around her orbit.

I got lost in some of the British slang in a few places (thankfully, they explained what "paps" were a few pages on), and I think the TWO deaths at the end of the book lost some impact being piled upon each other, but otherwise I absolutely adored this comic, and give it my strongest possible recommendation. EXCELLENT!

What did YOU think?

-B

Two Comics and One Not from 8/20

The Castro Theatre here in town is showing a sing-along copy of THE LITTLE MERMAID this week (through the 28th). There are two shows a day -- one at 2 PM and one at 7:30 PM.

Today, at least, the 2pm showing is all about the kindergartener (Ben starts on Monday, jeez we're nervous. He's not, however), and I quite imagine that the 7:30 show is going to be about the drag queens, but if you either like the film, or have a little kid, then I really recommend going.

What's nice about THE LITTLE MERMAID is that it works in nearly equal measure for both boys AND girls. Ben can barely stand SLEEPING BEAUTY or CINDERELLA or SNOW WHITE, because they are "too girly" for him, but he LOVES TLM, because there's also plenty of action and 'splosions and scary bits and stuff.

Even if you're an adult, it's really fun to watch the movie with audience response and call backs (we were instructed, variously, to make smoochy noises when Ariel and Eric are about to kiss, hiss and boo when Ursula shows up, go "woof! Woof!" everytime Max the dog does, wave glowsticks, or use those clapper-on-a-stick things at appropriate times, scream "no, Ariel, don't do it!" when she's about to sign the contract, and so on), and with everyone (well, all of the adults... most of the kids can't read the subtitled lyrics, actually) signing along with gusto. They had awesome gift bags for everyone attending (with crowns, and pearls, and glowsticks and poppers and even a dinglehopper!)

It was about 90% little girls (and 90% moms, too -- virtually no dads attended), and almost all of them wore a costume. They brought every single kid in a costume up to the stage, with the Castro's Wurlitzer playing Disney tunes to accompany them. Ben wanted to go up too, and since he was wearing a skeleton shirt, I told him to go for it. Since it was all kids, they declared them ALL to be winners, but I imagine the 7:30 show with be a little more cut throat...

Anyway, it was a blast, and I don't know if the print can tour or what, but if you're in the Bay Area, I thought it was totally worth making the trip to the Castro, one of the most beautiful movie palaces to grace the world, and see the film like this.

But I know you don't actually care about that... you want to know about comics...

FINAL CRISIS: LEGION OF THREE WORLDS #1: I'm gently torn on this one. On the one hand I would imagine that the audience for this is somewhat small -- if you're not already a LSH fan, then why would you want to see three iterations of them together? But maybe not that small, because at one time the Legion was one of DC's biggest books, really.

In a way, Geoff Johns' recent career has all about the fan service, and the fan service to a very specific period of time. Bringing Hal and the Corps back to their glory, returning to Infinity Inc, and now his what-if-Zero-Hour-never-rebooted-them LSH, I like virtually every move Johns makes. I, too, am of that very specific time frame.

Plus, y'know, George Perez. Who doesn't like to see him draw Cast-of-Thousands stuff?

So, yah, fanboy tingle, super-double liked this, hit every note I would have hoped, and so on.

On the other hand, there's a LOT of yadda yadda going on here -- virtually nothing HAPPENS in the comic, and that which does was either more or less shown before in the recent ACTION COMICS arc about the LSH, or, like in every Legion comic in the past (Have we EVER seen Takron-Galtos, and NOT have it involve everyone busting out?)

Lots of the yadda covers stuff that, frankly, I'd expect the audience for a LSH-centric tie-in to a CRISIS mini-series would way already know. There's something like 4 pages devoted to nothing more than Superman's origin, and his rogue's gallery. Who DOESN'T know that stuff? And would they buy a continuity-unknotting tie-in to a big-summer-crossover?

You have to give it up to Johns for doing what he said, and making this completely 100% accessible to people who don't know these characters or situations... but I really don't think that there's very many living humans who DON'T know them, AND would want to naturally buy this...

The problem with being that "accessible" is that it makes this pretty much 36 pages of set-up, and the story doesn't begin in earnest, really, until issue #2 (well, or I'll assume, at least). Still, with Perez drawing, you could have 36 pages focusing on the HOMEWORLDS of the Legion, and I'd still probably be happy, really. Had nearly anyone else drawn this script, I might have had to go with a high "OK", but, pushing my fan buttons with Perez art, I think I can say VERY GOOD. I'd need an actual story to call it "excellent"

AIR #1: Didn't work for me, really at all. The set-up situations were really too unbelievable, both in the acrophobe flight attendant, as well as the vast conspiric(ies) who go on multiple flights and multiple identities as they please.

Plus besides a few token words in Dutch, there's a maddening unspecificity in where we are at any given point in the story, and there's a lack of any consequence in what would seem to be from the outside, several suspicious and strange incidents happening to the same attendant.

I'll give it another issue or two to surprise me, but at this moment, I'll go with an EH.

Well, hrm, actually, I want to add points for it being the first first issue I've read in a LONG time which had something I very very much missed -- the introductory backstage text piece. I LOVE columns on process or "why are we doing this book" or whatever, so I'm going to bump this up to OK, *just* for that. Now, it wasn't a good example of it (it's a little too self-congratulatory and sure of "Good" Art for that), but damn it, that's the kind of thing all new books should have.

That's my opinion, but what did YOU think?

-B

Indiana Jones and the Really Awful Third Act

Nope, no comics review this week -- nothing really struck me at all this week at all, good or bad.

Instead I'm going to go back in time to a week or so ago when I saw INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.

But let's start in the present day.

I had Ben this morning while Tzipora had a doctor's appointment, and I knew that they had a playdate planned for the afternoon, so I opted to not take him to the park, since then he'd be park-ed out at that point.

So, I thought, let's watch some movies. In fact, let's watch RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK -- he's been begging for Indy for weeks (which he was, for a lot of that, was calling "Hannah Jones", har!) I was a little tiny bit hesitant because of some of the violence (especially the face melting thing at the end), but he absolutely assured me that he wasn't going to be scared, so I thought, ah what the hell?

He LOVED it. Just freakin' adored it. So all good there.

Then he started begging for more.

"Well, only until your mom gets home, dude -- we WON'T be watching another FULL film"

I opt out of TEMPLE OF DOOM because, really, I think that heart-pulling scene is way too intense for him, so I go for LAST CRUSADE.

We get to the scene in the castle where they reveal the nazis are there, and Ben says to me, SECONDS before Indy's similar line, "Aw, man, Nazis! I HATE those guys!" ("Too true, Ben, too true..."

He was really digging what we watched of LAST CRUSADE (about 3/4s, I think), so I'm going to see if the library has the YOUNG INDY TV series (or whatever the thing was called), since I think he'll dig those too....

Anyway, like I said, he can wait a few years for TEMPLE, and I probably won't be taking him to see the CRYSTAL SKULL, mostly because I am not sure if I could sit through it again.

I saw it bout a week ago with Anina Bennett, at the Castro Theater. MAN is it nice to see a first run film in a gorgeous palace like the Castro -- which is almost ALWAYS a revival house. The place is lovely, and a real joy to see films in. Heck, Jeff Lester got married there, so you know it must be nice!

They've got a Wurlitzer theater organ, which is frickin' awesome-sauce, and the organist is playing his usual medly on 1930's biggest hits, and right before the show is to start, he kicks it over to the Indy theme. DOUBLE-awesome.

Anina tells me that one of the places INDY is showing in Portland is also at a revival theater. I wonder if this is a conscious plan by Lucasfilm (or whoever) to help Revival palaces? If so, give them props, that's a wonderful wonderful thing. There's nothing that beats seeing a period film in a period hall, really.

So, I was feeling the love going in, right? And the movie unfolds adequately -- Indy is feeling his age, but he's discernibly Indy. There are nods to previous continuity, and there are visual cues, and it's working just fine.

But it completely blows it in the third act.

After thinking about it for a while, I think the problem is the complete passivity of Indy in the third act, and, while he's meant to be older and wiser and all that, he uses LESS of his brains than he does in the earlier films.

In RAIDERS, Abner Ravenwood is the one studying the Ark, but it is INDY who puts together the clues to find the thing. In CRUSADE, it is Henry Jones who is the font of Grail Lore, but it is up to Indy to put it all together ("Penitent man, penitent man... IS ON HIS KNEES!") -- but in SKULL once they rescue Oxley, Oxley does all of the work, even showing Indy what to press and how and whatnot.

Further, WAY too many characters at the end, none of whom are really doing a thing (Triple-cross guy really only succeeds in making the commies look absolutely incompetent, rather than moving the plot along), and while the idea of a lost family could have possibly been interesting, Indy and Marion have very little chemistry in their 60s (or whatever), making that last scene feel tacked on and gaggy.

I didn't have a lot of problem with Old Indy, really; although he might have broken a hip in there, I was fine with transferring at least some of the action over to "Mutt" ("We called the dog Indy...") -- but there's no reason that Indy shouldn't have used his BRAIN and TRAINING a whole lot more in the third act. He didn't seem to have a thing to do in the end of his own movie!

At the end of the film, I walked out thinking EH. Here's hoping that maybe it's a reverse-STAR TREK film thing, where the odd # ones are the good ones...

What did YOU think?

-B

Arriving 4/30/08

In good news, on Round 2 of the SF public school lottery, Ben got into the A#1 school we wanted him to get into, so there's happy happy happy dancing all around.

In the mediocre news, its yet another small teeny week of comics.

Considering this Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, can I declare THE ENTIRE COMICS INDUSTRY as the ASSHAT OF THE WEEK? It really woulda been a smarter idea to have a rich and full week of comics this week, given that we'll have thousands of civilians pouring into DM stores, right? *sigh*

2000 AD #1581 2000 AD #1582 ACTION COMICS #864 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #557 ARCHIE #584 ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #188 AVENGERS INITIATIVE #12 BIG AMOEBA ONE SHOT BLACK SUMMER #6 WRAP CVR BLUE BEETLE #26 BUDDHA STORY OF ENLIGHTENMENT #2 CALIBER #1 STANLEY LAU CLOSEUP CVR B CALIBER #1 STANLEY LAU FULL BODY CVR A CALIBER #1 WILKINS CVR C CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #44 CRAWL SPACE XXXOMBIES #4 DAREDEVIL BLOOD OF THE TARANTULA DC UNIVERSE ZERO DEVI #19 (RES) ELEPHANTMEN WAR TOYS #3 (OF 3) EX MACHINA #36 GIANT SIZE AVENGERS INVADERS #1 GLAMOURPUSS #1 COMICS ED GLAMOURPUSS #1 FASHION ED GON VOL 04 GREEN LANTERN #30 GRIMM FAIRY TALES PIPER #2 (OF 4) HELEN KILLER #1 (OF 4) HERCULES #1 ADMIRA CVR B HERCULES #1 STERANKO CVR A HUNTER #2 IMMORTAL IRON FIST #14 JACK OF FABLES #22 JSA CLASSIFIED #37 LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #41 LOCAL #11 (OF 12) (RES) MARVEL ADVENTURES IRON MAN #12 MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS #8 MARVEL ILLUSTRATED MOBY DICK #3 (OF 6) NEW AVENGERS #40 SI NEW BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON ZERO #7 NEW WARRIORS #11 ORDER #10 PROOF #7 SNAKEWOMAN CURSE OF THE 68 #3 (OF 4) STAR TREK YEAR FOUR ENTERPRISE EXPERIMENT #1 STAR WARS REBELLION #13 SMALL VICTORIES PART 3 (OF 4) TALES FROM RIVERDALE DIGEST #28 TEEN TITANS #58 TEEN TITANS GO #54 TEEN TITANS YEAR ONE #4 (OF 6) THOR AGES OF THUNDER ULTIMATE HUMAN #4 (OF 4) ULTIMATE X-MEN #93 UNCLE SAM AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS #8 (OF 8) USAGI YOJIMBO #111 WILDGUARD INSIDER #1 (OF 3) WONDERLAND #6 X-MEN LEGACY #210 DWS YOUNGBLOOD #3

Books / Mags / Stuff ADAM STRANGE ARCHIVES HC VOL 03 ALTER EGO #77 BACK ISSUE #28 BLACK PANTHER TP LITTLE GREEN MEN BPRD TP VOL 08 KILLING GROUND BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS TP VOL 04 COMPLETE DICK TRACY HC VOL 04 COMPLETE GREEN LAMA FEATURING ART OF MAC RABOY HC DANGEROUS INK MAGAZINE #3 DELAYED REPLAYS GN FACTS I/T CASE O/T DEPARTURE OF MISS FINCH HC (RES) FANTASTIC FOUR TP BEGINNING OF THE END FRANK FRAZETTAS DEATH DEALER DELUXE HC JUXTAPOZ VOL 15 #5 MAY 2008 KABUKI REFLECTIONS #10 KIRBY FIVE OH 50 YEARS OF KING OF COMICS TP (RES) MYSTERY IN SPACE TP VOL 02 ORDINARY VICTORIES GN (O/A) REMEMBRANCE THINGS PAST PT 3 TP VOL 01 SWANN IN LOVE SFX #169 SHOWCASE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN TP VOL 02 SUPERMAN BATMAN HC VOL 06 TORMENT TALES O/T FEAR AGENT TP THOR BY J MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI PREM HC VOL 01 WIZARD MAGAZINE #200 PLATINUM MARVEL JAM CVR X-MEN HC MESSIAH COMPLEX

What looks good to YOU?

-B

The A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words Department

Since Hibbs is having trouble posting this....