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General | Posted 13 years ago...is easier drawn than done.
Just Hit Fast Forward
General | Posted 13 years agoTHE FLASH # Move Forward by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato (DC Comics, $25)
http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Vol-Move-Forward-New/dp/1401235530/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352827619&sr=1-1&keywords=flash+move+forward
reviewed by Roochak
It wasn't until the sixth issue, with a vastly more powerful Captain Cold on the verge of becoming a mass murderer, that the ongoing FLASH series got interesting, and by then it was too late for anyone but diehard Flash fans. Readers had had to sit through a five-part story arc about the boring new villain Mob Rule -- a guy who makes copies of himself -- and about Barry Allen's troubles, such as they are, with his boring new girlfriend, fellow crime lab analyst Patty Spivot.
Only when co-writers Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato begin to re-introduce the Rogues does their book become anything more than a generic superhero comic, and that's just a slightly more interesting generic superhero comic. Besides co-writing the series, Manapul draws and Buccellato colors the pages. They like dynamic page layouts with distorted panel shapes, lettering integrated into the backgrounds, and noirish color schemes (the Flash's adventures now seem to take place mostly at night). The first five issues were often more fun to look at than to actually read.
Still, I'm a sucker for my Rogues, and issues six through eight give us some intriguing reboots. Besides Capt. Cold gone wild (the most exciting segment of this collection), there are glimpses of Grodd and the Pied Piper, and the Top gets an extreme makeover -- hell, a complete reinvention -- as Turbine, a deranged fighter pilot trapped for decades in the Speed Force.
Generic superhero comics aren't necessarily a bad thing. They're not necessarily worth $25, either.
http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Vol-Move-Forward-New/dp/1401235530/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352827619&sr=1-1&keywords=flash+move+forward
reviewed by Roochak
It wasn't until the sixth issue, with a vastly more powerful Captain Cold on the verge of becoming a mass murderer, that the ongoing FLASH series got interesting, and by then it was too late for anyone but diehard Flash fans. Readers had had to sit through a five-part story arc about the boring new villain Mob Rule -- a guy who makes copies of himself -- and about Barry Allen's troubles, such as they are, with his boring new girlfriend, fellow crime lab analyst Patty Spivot.
Only when co-writers Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato begin to re-introduce the Rogues does their book become anything more than a generic superhero comic, and that's just a slightly more interesting generic superhero comic. Besides co-writing the series, Manapul draws and Buccellato colors the pages. They like dynamic page layouts with distorted panel shapes, lettering integrated into the backgrounds, and noirish color schemes (the Flash's adventures now seem to take place mostly at night). The first five issues were often more fun to look at than to actually read.
Still, I'm a sucker for my Rogues, and issues six through eight give us some intriguing reboots. Besides Capt. Cold gone wild (the most exciting segment of this collection), there are glimpses of Grodd and the Pied Piper, and the Top gets an extreme makeover -- hell, a complete reinvention -- as Turbine, a deranged fighter pilot trapped for decades in the Speed Force.
Generic superhero comics aren't necessarily a bad thing. They're not necessarily worth $25, either.
Marketing and Mayhem in the Mighty Marvel Manner!
General | Posted 13 years agoMARVEL COMICS: THE UNTOLD STORY by Sean Howe (Harper, 2012, $27)
reviewed by Roochak
http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Comics-Untold-Sean-Howe/dp/0061992100/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349802281&sr=1-1&keywords=marvel+comics+the+untold+story
By 1971, there was clearly no future in working for Marvel Comics. Jack Kirby had jumped ship for DC, sales were declining and Marvel's new owners, a New Jersey outfit called Perfect Film & Chemical, had installed a CEO who was making life so difficult for management that even Stan Lee was looking for the nearest exit. It was part of the boom and bust cycle that had plagued the comics industry (and Timely/Atlas/Marvel in particular) since the late 1940s, but when Marvel came back from its latest downturn -- as it would keep coming back from the brink of a series of disasters to come -- it was as a more resilient and ambitious company than ever.
Sean Howe's tale of the second-rate comics company that turned itself into the gold standard of superhero geekdom is a fascinating business book about the rising value of intellectual property in the late 20th/early 21st centuries, and a sweeping narrative history of the people and the work environment behind Marvel's best-remembered comics. Howe is enough of a fanboy to write knowledgeably about the great story arcs of past decades: the coming of Galactus, the Kree/Skrull War, the Dark Phoenix saga, the deaths of Elektra and Gwen Stacy. His critical eye is acute, as in his wonderful observation that "to a dedicated readership of gearheads, pot smokers, and art students, [Steranko's] 'Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.' was the apex of an art form."
A savvy journalist, Howe identifies the crux of Marvel's early history as the Stan Lee - Jack Kirby partnership, a dynamic machine built on fault lines of ego. They co-created most of the company's iconic characters, changed the way comics were drawn and written, and wound up feuding in public until Kirby's death in 1994. Money and story credits had a lot to do with the problem, but it seems also to have come down to bruised egos on both sides.
Howe's five-decade history of creative, editorial, and marketing imbroglios practically screams a moral at us: relatively few artists are good businessmen. In the divide between labor, management, and owners, those who remained incorrigibly labor, like Kirby (or Chris Claremont), could never win. Those who became management, or free agents, like Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Frank Miller, Todd McFarlane, and Jim Lee, more often than not acquired the bargaining power to get what they wanted.
The history of Marvel reads like a series of epic story arcs. There's the Big Bang of the 'sixties; the rudderless 'seventies; the Jim Shooter era, with an editor-in-chief seemingly dedicated to sabotaging Marvel's entire line of books; the boom and bust years of the early to mid 'nineties, in which the Heroes World distribution debacle and the mass defection of artists from Marvel to Image (who, once there, were incapable of releasing their books on time) helped to put thousands of comic shops out of business, just as Marvel, the former industry leader, declared bankruptcy. The book ends with Disney's acquisition of the company in a four billion dollar deal that validates an edict Stan Lee had handed down decades earlier: fans don't want change, but the illusion of change. Not bad for a faltering line of bug-eyed monster comics and Archie knock-offs, where a new type of creative team was about to give their readers what they hadn't known they'd wanted all along.
reviewed by Roochak
http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Comics-Untold-Sean-Howe/dp/0061992100/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349802281&sr=1-1&keywords=marvel+comics+the+untold+story
By 1971, there was clearly no future in working for Marvel Comics. Jack Kirby had jumped ship for DC, sales were declining and Marvel's new owners, a New Jersey outfit called Perfect Film & Chemical, had installed a CEO who was making life so difficult for management that even Stan Lee was looking for the nearest exit. It was part of the boom and bust cycle that had plagued the comics industry (and Timely/Atlas/Marvel in particular) since the late 1940s, but when Marvel came back from its latest downturn -- as it would keep coming back from the brink of a series of disasters to come -- it was as a more resilient and ambitious company than ever.
Sean Howe's tale of the second-rate comics company that turned itself into the gold standard of superhero geekdom is a fascinating business book about the rising value of intellectual property in the late 20th/early 21st centuries, and a sweeping narrative history of the people and the work environment behind Marvel's best-remembered comics. Howe is enough of a fanboy to write knowledgeably about the great story arcs of past decades: the coming of Galactus, the Kree/Skrull War, the Dark Phoenix saga, the deaths of Elektra and Gwen Stacy. His critical eye is acute, as in his wonderful observation that "to a dedicated readership of gearheads, pot smokers, and art students, [Steranko's] 'Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.' was the apex of an art form."
A savvy journalist, Howe identifies the crux of Marvel's early history as the Stan Lee - Jack Kirby partnership, a dynamic machine built on fault lines of ego. They co-created most of the company's iconic characters, changed the way comics were drawn and written, and wound up feuding in public until Kirby's death in 1994. Money and story credits had a lot to do with the problem, but it seems also to have come down to bruised egos on both sides.
Howe's five-decade history of creative, editorial, and marketing imbroglios practically screams a moral at us: relatively few artists are good businessmen. In the divide between labor, management, and owners, those who remained incorrigibly labor, like Kirby (or Chris Claremont), could never win. Those who became management, or free agents, like Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, Frank Miller, Todd McFarlane, and Jim Lee, more often than not acquired the bargaining power to get what they wanted.
The history of Marvel reads like a series of epic story arcs. There's the Big Bang of the 'sixties; the rudderless 'seventies; the Jim Shooter era, with an editor-in-chief seemingly dedicated to sabotaging Marvel's entire line of books; the boom and bust years of the early to mid 'nineties, in which the Heroes World distribution debacle and the mass defection of artists from Marvel to Image (who, once there, were incapable of releasing their books on time) helped to put thousands of comic shops out of business, just as Marvel, the former industry leader, declared bankruptcy. The book ends with Disney's acquisition of the company in a four billion dollar deal that validates an edict Stan Lee had handed down decades earlier: fans don't want change, but the illusion of change. Not bad for a faltering line of bug-eyed monster comics and Archie knock-offs, where a new type of creative team was about to give their readers what they hadn't known they'd wanted all along.
A Newspaper Reader's Guide to Newspaper Readers
General | Posted 13 years agoAn easy guide to keeping political news in perspective...
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown as pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
7. The Chicago Sun-Times is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy -- provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Key West Citizen is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.
(I didn't write this, but man, I sure do miss my San Francisco Chronicle. -- Roo)
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown as pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
7. The Chicago Sun-Times is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy -- provided, of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Key West Citizen is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.
(I didn't write this, but man, I sure do miss my San Francisco Chronicle. -- Roo)
The Popeye/Alice Connection
General | Posted 13 years agoSNARKED! Vol. 1: Forks and Hope by Roger Langridge
reviewed by Roochak
http://www.amazon.com/SNARKED-Forks.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
Set in an unnamed kingdom where the characters from Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land coexist with the mad mariners of "The Hunting of the Snark," Roger Langridge's new comedy/adventure series is an inspired Popeye-meets-Lewis Carroll mashup.
It's a classic quest story: Princess (soon to be Queen) Scarlett, the 8-year-old heroine, has to rescue her missing father, the Red King, from the three wicked royal advisors who've quietly ousted him in a palace coup. Her destination: Snark Island, a monster habitat and de facto political prison hidden from the rest of the world. Her unlikely allies: the Walrus and the Carpenter, a pair of hand-to-mouth con men dragged kicking and screaming into the potentially lethal adventure of a lifetime. Their adversary: the Gryphon, an implacable thug hired to hunt down Scarlett and her baby brother, Prince Rusty, at any cost.
This is a fun read for all ages, especially for those who've already immersed themselves in the satirical, philosophical, and surrealistic world of Lewis Carroll's books, and who can't get enough of the literary Easter eggs in Langridge's panels. (His attractive, lively pen lines are a pleasure to look at on their own.) It's even sweeter for those who catch the "Thimble Theatre" references to Wimpy, Swee'pea, and Olive Oyl -- the last named in a salute that has to be seen to be believed.
reviewed by Roochak
http://www.amazon.com/SNARKED-Forks.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
Set in an unnamed kingdom where the characters from Wonderland and Looking-Glass Land coexist with the mad mariners of "The Hunting of the Snark," Roger Langridge's new comedy/adventure series is an inspired Popeye-meets-Lewis Carroll mashup.
It's a classic quest story: Princess (soon to be Queen) Scarlett, the 8-year-old heroine, has to rescue her missing father, the Red King, from the three wicked royal advisors who've quietly ousted him in a palace coup. Her destination: Snark Island, a monster habitat and de facto political prison hidden from the rest of the world. Her unlikely allies: the Walrus and the Carpenter, a pair of hand-to-mouth con men dragged kicking and screaming into the potentially lethal adventure of a lifetime. Their adversary: the Gryphon, an implacable thug hired to hunt down Scarlett and her baby brother, Prince Rusty, at any cost.
This is a fun read for all ages, especially for those who've already immersed themselves in the satirical, philosophical, and surrealistic world of Lewis Carroll's books, and who can't get enough of the literary Easter eggs in Langridge's panels. (His attractive, lively pen lines are a pleasure to look at on their own.) It's even sweeter for those who catch the "Thimble Theatre" references to Wimpy, Swee'pea, and Olive Oyl -- the last named in a salute that has to be seen to be believed.
My Gadget Moment
General | Posted 13 years agoGolly, I hadn't realized that Inkbunny was the new center of the furry cub porn universe! I signed up anyway. You never know when you might need it.
Bunny in the 'Burbs (or, Genderbent Bunny)
General | Posted 13 years agoTHE LOONEY TUNES SHOW: THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD (2 discs)
reviewed by Roochak
http://www.amazon.com/Looney-Tunes-Show-There-Neighborhood/dp/B007NPME5Y/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1344200276&sr=1-2&keywords=looney+tunes+show
It's good to see Bugs Bunny in women's clothes again. I mean it. What's a trickster figure without access to his feminine side? What's the coolest of all animated cartoon characters without his gender bending sangfroid? He's well worth watching in any of his episodic roles here, of course, whether as a would-be restaurateur, a free-spirited office worker, a desperate caffeine junkie, or a frustrated home repair project guy; but without at least the occasional foray into cross-dressing, something's missing.
On the other hand, these discs do emphasize the creepy, sadomasochistic vibe that exists between Daffy (the tormentor) and Porky (his willing victim) which, by the end of the "Murder" episode on disc two, has become more twisted and mirthlessly violent than it needs to be. "Is this funny," my partner wondered aloud, "or just really cruel?"
These fourteen episodes veer off in some mighty interesting directions, though. There's Daffy in an unlikely trial run for single parenthood, Lola moving in with Bugs (temporarily), Porky desperately seeking a date, Sylvester in therapy, Speedy in love, and Pepe shakin' his fine French thing in a music video. The show is still a visual treat for animation fans: you realize how much this generation of animators owes to Kricfalusi, and how much Kricfalusi in turn owes to Clampett and Avery, so the characters have come full circle. (The spatter effect on the background colors may be a little overused here, but it's a very distinctive way of punching up the backgrounds.) In short, it's a pretty good ending to season one of the 21st century's animated, surprisingly hip revival of THE JACK BENNY SHOW.
reviewed by Roochak
http://www.amazon.com/Looney-Tunes-Show-There-Neighborhood/dp/B007NPME5Y/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1344200276&sr=1-2&keywords=looney+tunes+show
It's good to see Bugs Bunny in women's clothes again. I mean it. What's a trickster figure without access to his feminine side? What's the coolest of all animated cartoon characters without his gender bending sangfroid? He's well worth watching in any of his episodic roles here, of course, whether as a would-be restaurateur, a free-spirited office worker, a desperate caffeine junkie, or a frustrated home repair project guy; but without at least the occasional foray into cross-dressing, something's missing.
On the other hand, these discs do emphasize the creepy, sadomasochistic vibe that exists between Daffy (the tormentor) and Porky (his willing victim) which, by the end of the "Murder" episode on disc two, has become more twisted and mirthlessly violent than it needs to be. "Is this funny," my partner wondered aloud, "or just really cruel?"
These fourteen episodes veer off in some mighty interesting directions, though. There's Daffy in an unlikely trial run for single parenthood, Lola moving in with Bugs (temporarily), Porky desperately seeking a date, Sylvester in therapy, Speedy in love, and Pepe shakin' his fine French thing in a music video. The show is still a visual treat for animation fans: you realize how much this generation of animators owes to Kricfalusi, and how much Kricfalusi in turn owes to Clampett and Avery, so the characters have come full circle. (The spatter effect on the background colors may be a little overused here, but it's a very distinctive way of punching up the backgrounds.) In short, it's a pretty good ending to season one of the 21st century's animated, surprisingly hip revival of THE JACK BENNY SHOW.
Secrets of the SWAT Kats -- Revealed at Last!
General | Posted 13 years agoCHANCE FURLONG ("T-BONE") & JAKE CLAWSON ("RAZOR")
Two paramilitary hotshots, both into crazy/sexy/dangerous/highly competitive shit. Having met during Enforcer training, they dedicated themselves to trying to outdo each other. Destined to fall in love with each other, and with Megakat City, they discovered that becoming vigilantes was the biggest turn-on of their young lives. For these two, the honeymoon has never ended.
CDR. ULYSSES FERAL
So deep in the closet he couldn't find his way out with a klieg light. Always a workaholic, Feral deliberately lost himself in his job after a marriage that lasted less than a year. He "doesn't have time" for women, despises all queers, but can't really explain, even to himself, why he allows his useless but oddly attractive second-in-command, Lt. Steel, to keep his job.
DEPUTY MAYOR CALLIE BRIGGS
This highly intelligent (and highly desirable) woman just can't figure out why all of her boyfriends turn out to be gay. Poor Callie -- she can't help falling for guys who are too good to be true. They usually are.
MAYOR MANX
A drunk, a coward, and a machine politician who's a lot smarter than he looks. Manx is determined to stay in office until he dies, and since half the city owes him favors, he probably will.
LT. FELINA FERAL
A stone butch lesbian who was once secretly voted the "straightest-acting man in the Enforcers," Felina tries to be just one of the guys, but there's such a competitive edge to everything she does that the only "guys" who really like her are the SWAT Kats.
ANN GORA
Ratings, ratings, ratings! That's what TV news is all about, and no one knows it better than Ms. Gora, who has her sights set on the next opening for a network anchorwoman -- an opening that can't come soon enough.
LT. STEEL
A half-baked know-it-all, but dangerously ambitious, who'll do anything, to anyone, to get what he wants. Making himself indispensable to Cdr. Feral (no one else wants to work with Steel), he's determined to become Megakat City's next top cop. Whether he lasts that long is another story...
THE VILLAINS
Megakat City has a pretty small rogues' gallery, but cats alive!, do they keep everyone busy cleaning up after them.
DARK KAT
A bargain basement Dr. Doom, and the biggest (in every sense) drama queen in town. Really just wants to be the center of attention all the time.
DR. VIPER
A mutated scientist who now listens only to the voices in his head. Enjoys sewers, swamps, insects, fungi, mass murder.
THE PASTMASTER
A time-travelling, dwarf zombie sorcerer who won't rest until the whole world is as ugly as he is.
THE METALLIKATS
A pair of thugs whose machine consciousness will probably outlive the entire population of Megakat City. Mac and Molly will most likely emerge from the rubble to find themselves rulers of the cockroaches.
Two paramilitary hotshots, both into crazy/sexy/dangerous/highly competitive shit. Having met during Enforcer training, they dedicated themselves to trying to outdo each other. Destined to fall in love with each other, and with Megakat City, they discovered that becoming vigilantes was the biggest turn-on of their young lives. For these two, the honeymoon has never ended.
CDR. ULYSSES FERAL
So deep in the closet he couldn't find his way out with a klieg light. Always a workaholic, Feral deliberately lost himself in his job after a marriage that lasted less than a year. He "doesn't have time" for women, despises all queers, but can't really explain, even to himself, why he allows his useless but oddly attractive second-in-command, Lt. Steel, to keep his job.
DEPUTY MAYOR CALLIE BRIGGS
This highly intelligent (and highly desirable) woman just can't figure out why all of her boyfriends turn out to be gay. Poor Callie -- she can't help falling for guys who are too good to be true. They usually are.
MAYOR MANX
A drunk, a coward, and a machine politician who's a lot smarter than he looks. Manx is determined to stay in office until he dies, and since half the city owes him favors, he probably will.
LT. FELINA FERAL
A stone butch lesbian who was once secretly voted the "straightest-acting man in the Enforcers," Felina tries to be just one of the guys, but there's such a competitive edge to everything she does that the only "guys" who really like her are the SWAT Kats.
ANN GORA
Ratings, ratings, ratings! That's what TV news is all about, and no one knows it better than Ms. Gora, who has her sights set on the next opening for a network anchorwoman -- an opening that can't come soon enough.
LT. STEEL
A half-baked know-it-all, but dangerously ambitious, who'll do anything, to anyone, to get what he wants. Making himself indispensable to Cdr. Feral (no one else wants to work with Steel), he's determined to become Megakat City's next top cop. Whether he lasts that long is another story...
THE VILLAINS
Megakat City has a pretty small rogues' gallery, but cats alive!, do they keep everyone busy cleaning up after them.
DARK KAT
A bargain basement Dr. Doom, and the biggest (in every sense) drama queen in town. Really just wants to be the center of attention all the time.
DR. VIPER
A mutated scientist who now listens only to the voices in his head. Enjoys sewers, swamps, insects, fungi, mass murder.
THE PASTMASTER
A time-travelling, dwarf zombie sorcerer who won't rest until the whole world is as ugly as he is.
THE METALLIKATS
A pair of thugs whose machine consciousness will probably outlive the entire population of Megakat City. Mac and Molly will most likely emerge from the rubble to find themselves rulers of the cockroaches.
The All-Too-Brief Return of the Rescue Rangers
General | Posted 13 years agoIt's old news now, but in case you missed it:
http://www.amazon.com/Chip-Dale-Res.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
CHIP 'N DALE RESCUE RANGERS: WORLDWIDE RESCUE (Boom Studios, 2011, ISBN 978-1608866557)
reviewed by Roochak
A funny thing happened to the Rescue Rangers on the way to the 21st century: they've matured. Increased confidence and professionalism, not to mention twenty years of internet fan fiction, will do that to characters. It seems as if the team members were designed to get on each others' nerves: there's a blustering know-it-all, a scatterbrained genius, a half-pint scrapper, a joker, and a control freak, each reliant on the others. From the start they were such an unusually complex ensemble that they transcended the relentlessly mediocre TV episodes they appeared in, sparking a fan fiction phenomenon: Ranger Noir. Several fan writers did justice to the concept, and something of that spirit -- within Disney's kid-friendly guidelines -- informs their return in the present graphic novel.
"Worldwide Rescue" pits the team against their old nemesis, Fat Cat, who's gotten his paws on a long-dormant mind control device, but while the series's familiar blend of comedy and action hasn't changed, the stakes are higher and the tone is darker. There are new and decidedly noirish elements in the mix: a frequent use of flashbacks, a morally compromised former good guy, and the (off-panel) death of a supporting character. In spite of these more mature elements, it isn't really the story this time around that grabs me, but the Rangers themselves: it's a pleasure seeing once again how this clashing, contradictory bunch of oddballs makes up a team greater than the sum of its parts. Ian Brill's dialogue (right down to Zipper's pictographic buzzing) perfectly captures each character's voice; Leonel Castellani's drawings give the figures and their backgrounds a warm but sculptural quality; it's a more rounded, slightly old-fashioned depiction of furry characters that evokes the traditionalism of Disney animation in the 1980s (before the extreme stylization of "The Ren & Stimpy Show" conquered all). Castellani's elegant, gorgeously rendered artwork complements the more emotionally realistic tone of the story, but it's Fat Cat himself that seems the most retro, if not timelocked, thing about this story arc; while the Rangers have evolved since 1989, he hasn't. It's in the second Kaboom story arc Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers: Slippin' Through the Cracks that full-fledged Ranger Noir gets the Disney imprimatur -- but that's another story.
http://www.amazon.com/Chip-Dale-Res.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
CHIP 'N DALE RESCUE RANGERS: WORLDWIDE RESCUE (Boom Studios, 2011, ISBN 978-1608866557)
reviewed by Roochak
A funny thing happened to the Rescue Rangers on the way to the 21st century: they've matured. Increased confidence and professionalism, not to mention twenty years of internet fan fiction, will do that to characters. It seems as if the team members were designed to get on each others' nerves: there's a blustering know-it-all, a scatterbrained genius, a half-pint scrapper, a joker, and a control freak, each reliant on the others. From the start they were such an unusually complex ensemble that they transcended the relentlessly mediocre TV episodes they appeared in, sparking a fan fiction phenomenon: Ranger Noir. Several fan writers did justice to the concept, and something of that spirit -- within Disney's kid-friendly guidelines -- informs their return in the present graphic novel.
"Worldwide Rescue" pits the team against their old nemesis, Fat Cat, who's gotten his paws on a long-dormant mind control device, but while the series's familiar blend of comedy and action hasn't changed, the stakes are higher and the tone is darker. There are new and decidedly noirish elements in the mix: a frequent use of flashbacks, a morally compromised former good guy, and the (off-panel) death of a supporting character. In spite of these more mature elements, it isn't really the story this time around that grabs me, but the Rangers themselves: it's a pleasure seeing once again how this clashing, contradictory bunch of oddballs makes up a team greater than the sum of its parts. Ian Brill's dialogue (right down to Zipper's pictographic buzzing) perfectly captures each character's voice; Leonel Castellani's drawings give the figures and their backgrounds a warm but sculptural quality; it's a more rounded, slightly old-fashioned depiction of furry characters that evokes the traditionalism of Disney animation in the 1980s (before the extreme stylization of "The Ren & Stimpy Show" conquered all). Castellani's elegant, gorgeously rendered artwork complements the more emotionally realistic tone of the story, but it's Fat Cat himself that seems the most retro, if not timelocked, thing about this story arc; while the Rangers have evolved since 1989, he hasn't. It's in the second Kaboom story arc Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers: Slippin' Through the Cracks that full-fledged Ranger Noir gets the Disney imprimatur -- but that's another story.
A one-line journal entry
General | Posted 13 years agoI could be wrong, but I think Anthrocon saved my sanity this year.
It's Anthrocon, Charlie Brown!
General | Posted 13 years agoOh good grief.
But seriously, I'm looking forward to renewing old acquaintances and making new ones this week. Sleazy kisses to all y'all!
But seriously, I'm looking forward to renewing old acquaintances and making new ones this week. Sleazy kisses to all y'all!
Salesmanship, and my half-assed theory of porn
General | Posted 13 years agoPorn. You've probably guessed that it's one of my favorite things, and I've recently learned that one of my favorite writers of furry porn (and a long time collaborator) has made his books available for download.
I've an admittedly half-assed theory about two strains of porn: stories from the POV of characters who are afraid to be seduced (the slow burn), and stories about characters who aren't the least bit shy about seduction (the fast burn). Roland Guiscard is a writer comfortably ensconced in the second camp. He likes to write about power and control, but his anything-goes fictional world, one that often seems as gritty as our own, still comes with a moral center: it's the simple recognition that "you don't have to fuck people over to survive." Have I mentioned that his stories are fun and exciting to read?
Three of his books are just a click or two away, and available, like public television, on the honor system: pay what you like for them. A Dragon's Poison is his novel about the waning days of the porn video industry, an interesting background for the rise and fall of Cockzilla, a manipulative asshole who sets the gears of his own comeuppance in motion. The Definitive Roland, vol. 1 collects fifty early stories featuring such characters as Zig Zag, Roxikat, Dr. Wednesday, Kitty Comments, and vixen superslut Alex. The Definitive Roland, vol. 2 collects stories about characters created by GSPervert, Tetsuo, and myself, and I'm still impressed by how well those thirteen Jimmy Lee stories, and the two about Genevieve, came out.
Click http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3250412/
I've an admittedly half-assed theory about two strains of porn: stories from the POV of characters who are afraid to be seduced (the slow burn), and stories about characters who aren't the least bit shy about seduction (the fast burn). Roland Guiscard is a writer comfortably ensconced in the second camp. He likes to write about power and control, but his anything-goes fictional world, one that often seems as gritty as our own, still comes with a moral center: it's the simple recognition that "you don't have to fuck people over to survive." Have I mentioned that his stories are fun and exciting to read?
Three of his books are just a click or two away, and available, like public television, on the honor system: pay what you like for them. A Dragon's Poison is his novel about the waning days of the porn video industry, an interesting background for the rise and fall of Cockzilla, a manipulative asshole who sets the gears of his own comeuppance in motion. The Definitive Roland, vol. 1 collects fifty early stories featuring such characters as Zig Zag, Roxikat, Dr. Wednesday, Kitty Comments, and vixen superslut Alex. The Definitive Roland, vol. 2 collects stories about characters created by GSPervert, Tetsuo, and myself, and I'm still impressed by how well those thirteen Jimmy Lee stories, and the two about Genevieve, came out.
Click http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3250412/
Better late than never, right?
General | Posted 14 years agohttp://www.amazon.com/Looney-Tunes-.....cm_cr-mr-title
reviewed by Roochak
I couldn't believe how hard I was laughing the first time I watched this disc. What, the Looney Tunes are funny again?! In a 21st century setting? How'd that happen?
Some viewers are awfully disappointed that THE LOONEY TUNES SHOW isn't an attempt to revive the characters in the style of the classic theatrical shorts we all know and love. First of all, LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION tried to do that very thing, and failed miserably. Second, this show is a TV sitcom, but a sitcom so aware of six decades of television history that it comes to us with a sly, subversive panache worthy of Bugs himself. There are knowing winks at SEINFELD's great ensemble pieces and its comedy of escalating nuisances; THE ODD COUPLE's successful formula of oil-and-water roommates; THE REN & STIMPY SHOW's unholy marriage of kidvid and August Strindberg; and THE JACK BENNY SHOW's metafictional premise of comic actors playing warped versions of themselves (in this case, it's Bugs and Daffy playing new, downscaled characters called "Bugs Bunny" and "Daffy Duck" -- and it works brilliantly).
Let's remember that the theatrical Looney Tunes shorts were made for adults as well as kids, and the new show takes that outlook and runs with it. It's disconcerting but somehow logical to see Bugs and Daffy cohabitating, though Daffy is a bum who crashed on Bugs's sofa five years ago and hasn't left since; they remind me of a divorced showbiz couple living only to torment each other, but who stay together because the act is too good to break up. Lola Bunny returns as a beautiful but completely crazy stalker obsessed with Bugs. Yosemite Sam is scarier as a well meaning but paranoid next door neighbor than he ever was as a career criminal. And no one's pretending that Mac and Tosh, the gophers, are anything other than a deliriously happy gay couple now living in a permanent honeymoon.
Forget the rounded look of the old cartoons, though. Now the characters are drawn in an angular, extremely stylized manner owing a lot to John Kricfalusi and his crew. Daffy's wild takes in the second kitchen sequence in "Best Friends" (with Daffy on the receiving end of a "motivational" speech by a no-nonsense Speedy Gonzalez) could've been lifted wholesale from episodes of the twenty-year-old REN & STIMPY SHOW, but I'm damned if they don't look good in this setting. The voice work is uniformly excellent, and the backgrounds are drawn with real character and presence -- more than once I was reminded of Maurice Noble's gorgeously rendered environments from forty or fifty years ago.
In short: these characters may be cash cows, but they ain't museum pieces. These are Tunes for our times, and they're as funny as they ever were.
reviewed by Roochak
I couldn't believe how hard I was laughing the first time I watched this disc. What, the Looney Tunes are funny again?! In a 21st century setting? How'd that happen?
Some viewers are awfully disappointed that THE LOONEY TUNES SHOW isn't an attempt to revive the characters in the style of the classic theatrical shorts we all know and love. First of all, LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION tried to do that very thing, and failed miserably. Second, this show is a TV sitcom, but a sitcom so aware of six decades of television history that it comes to us with a sly, subversive panache worthy of Bugs himself. There are knowing winks at SEINFELD's great ensemble pieces and its comedy of escalating nuisances; THE ODD COUPLE's successful formula of oil-and-water roommates; THE REN & STIMPY SHOW's unholy marriage of kidvid and August Strindberg; and THE JACK BENNY SHOW's metafictional premise of comic actors playing warped versions of themselves (in this case, it's Bugs and Daffy playing new, downscaled characters called "Bugs Bunny" and "Daffy Duck" -- and it works brilliantly).
Let's remember that the theatrical Looney Tunes shorts were made for adults as well as kids, and the new show takes that outlook and runs with it. It's disconcerting but somehow logical to see Bugs and Daffy cohabitating, though Daffy is a bum who crashed on Bugs's sofa five years ago and hasn't left since; they remind me of a divorced showbiz couple living only to torment each other, but who stay together because the act is too good to break up. Lola Bunny returns as a beautiful but completely crazy stalker obsessed with Bugs. Yosemite Sam is scarier as a well meaning but paranoid next door neighbor than he ever was as a career criminal. And no one's pretending that Mac and Tosh, the gophers, are anything other than a deliriously happy gay couple now living in a permanent honeymoon.
Forget the rounded look of the old cartoons, though. Now the characters are drawn in an angular, extremely stylized manner owing a lot to John Kricfalusi and his crew. Daffy's wild takes in the second kitchen sequence in "Best Friends" (with Daffy on the receiving end of a "motivational" speech by a no-nonsense Speedy Gonzalez) could've been lifted wholesale from episodes of the twenty-year-old REN & STIMPY SHOW, but I'm damned if they don't look good in this setting. The voice work is uniformly excellent, and the backgrounds are drawn with real character and presence -- more than once I was reminded of Maurice Noble's gorgeously rendered environments from forty or fifty years ago.
In short: these characters may be cash cows, but they ain't museum pieces. These are Tunes for our times, and they're as funny as they ever were.
To Infinite Darkwings and Beyond
General | Posted 14 years agohttp://www.amazon.com/Darkwing-Duck.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
reviewed by Roochak
What a fine series this is turning out to be! For a kid-friendly superhero action comedy, there's more going on in these stories than you'd expect. Where Darkwing Duck: The Duck Knight Returns was, for all the gags, a story about aging, disillusionment and compromise, the theme running through Crisis on Infinite Darkwings is one of loss: lost loves, lost memories, lost lives, the loss of everything precious. Even Negaduck has a fleeting, poignant moment of something more than mindless destruction...before he channels it, of course, into more mindless destruction.
In this story arc, St. Canard is overrun by an army of mind-controlled Darkwings, kidnapped from other dimensions and unleashed on the terrified populace by the gruesome twosome of Negaduck and Magica deSpell. James Silvani's gorgeous pen lines, dynamic, widescreen compositions, and penchant for cramming his panels with Easter eggs is as tasty a serving of eye candy as in the previous volume, and his visuals (an anthropomorphic riff on George Perez's jam-packed superhero team-up extravaganzas of the '80s) are a lovely interpretation of Ian Brill's zany but surprisingly subtle scripts. Don't miss out on this one.
reviewed by Roochak
What a fine series this is turning out to be! For a kid-friendly superhero action comedy, there's more going on in these stories than you'd expect. Where Darkwing Duck: The Duck Knight Returns was, for all the gags, a story about aging, disillusionment and compromise, the theme running through Crisis on Infinite Darkwings is one of loss: lost loves, lost memories, lost lives, the loss of everything precious. Even Negaduck has a fleeting, poignant moment of something more than mindless destruction...before he channels it, of course, into more mindless destruction.
In this story arc, St. Canard is overrun by an army of mind-controlled Darkwings, kidnapped from other dimensions and unleashed on the terrified populace by the gruesome twosome of Negaduck and Magica deSpell. James Silvani's gorgeous pen lines, dynamic, widescreen compositions, and penchant for cramming his panels with Easter eggs is as tasty a serving of eye candy as in the previous volume, and his visuals (an anthropomorphic riff on George Perez's jam-packed superhero team-up extravaganzas of the '80s) are a lovely interpretation of Ian Brill's zany but surprisingly subtle scripts. Don't miss out on this one.
Duck and Cover Variants
General | Posted 14 years agohttp://www.amazon.com/Darkwing-Duck-Knight-Returns/dp/1608865762/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1303832298&sr=1-2
For a 20 year old TV series I watched more out of force of habit than anything else, DARKWING DUCK gets a very, very good reboot as a comic from Disney's BOOM! Studios. First things first: Ian Brill's witty, grown-up (but kid-friendly) scripts and James Silvani's dynamic, surprisingly detailed artwork give us the comic book equivalent of Darkwing in widescreen and HD, only funnier. The sometimes melancholy laughs come from moving the perpetually imperiled city of St. Canard into the 21st century, when the heroes and villains, having been put out of business by a robotic police force, have all hung up their costumes and gotten jobs at the same mega-corporation. Gosalyn's enrolled in an expensive private school, Launchpad's gone back to being a mechanic, and in the ultimate indignity, DW, in his Drake Mallard identity, is forced to share a cubicle with his old enemy, Megavolt.
Of course there's a criminal mastermind behind it all, but I can't shake the feeling that the real villains of this story arc are economic reality and the inevitable compromises of middle age. As a couple of the characters point out, if you want to enslave a city, don't waste your time building a death ray. Use something more insidious: a paycheck.
Former Disney writer and producer Tad Stones, Darkwing's creator, contributes a bonus essay in which he explains how the DARKWING DUCK TV series (1991-92), envisioned as a James Bond parody, evolved into the superhero action comedy we remember. It makes for interesting reading.
For a 20 year old TV series I watched more out of force of habit than anything else, DARKWING DUCK gets a very, very good reboot as a comic from Disney's BOOM! Studios. First things first: Ian Brill's witty, grown-up (but kid-friendly) scripts and James Silvani's dynamic, surprisingly detailed artwork give us the comic book equivalent of Darkwing in widescreen and HD, only funnier. The sometimes melancholy laughs come from moving the perpetually imperiled city of St. Canard into the 21st century, when the heroes and villains, having been put out of business by a robotic police force, have all hung up their costumes and gotten jobs at the same mega-corporation. Gosalyn's enrolled in an expensive private school, Launchpad's gone back to being a mechanic, and in the ultimate indignity, DW, in his Drake Mallard identity, is forced to share a cubicle with his old enemy, Megavolt.
Of course there's a criminal mastermind behind it all, but I can't shake the feeling that the real villains of this story arc are economic reality and the inevitable compromises of middle age. As a couple of the characters point out, if you want to enslave a city, don't waste your time building a death ray. Use something more insidious: a paycheck.
Former Disney writer and producer Tad Stones, Darkwing's creator, contributes a bonus essay in which he explains how the DARKWING DUCK TV series (1991-92), envisioned as a James Bond parody, evolved into the superhero action comedy we remember. It makes for interesting reading.
Going For a Song
General | Posted 15 years ago(Side note for my friends on FA: as of today, I'm a "Top 500 Reviewer" on Amazon UK. Yay me.)
http://www.amazon.com/Biographical-.....own_review_img
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biographical-Guide-Great-Jazz-Singers/dp/0375421491/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289493803&sr=1-1
Will Friedwald's gift as a critic is his ability to make anyone reevaluate their opinions about popular singers, including his own. It'll come as a surprise to readers of his 1990 book Jazz Singing: America's Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond, in which he argued that rock & roll ushered in the Apocalypse for good music, that he now considers Elvis Presley to be one of the greatest of all popular singers, the first man to assimilate rhythm and blues, country, and mainstream pop into a seamless whole. Even in praising an artist, Friedwald's opinions are provocative, as when he avers that Dean Martin was a major influence on Elvis's singing; it sounds nutty, but careful listening will back it up.
What makes a jazz or pop singer "great"? Tricky question. The 811 double-columned pages of this book provide a series of contentious, informed, and highly entertaining answers in the form of extended essays on its two hundred or so performers. (The BIOGRAPHICAL GUIDE TO THE GREAT JAZZ AND POP SINGERS (Pantheon, 2010), which Friedwald spent a decade writing, is modeled after David Thomson's BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM, but with much longer, and better written, entries.) For Friedwald, great pop music is centered on the American songbook, and its finest singers were active during the LP era, the heyday of the concept album (1955 - 1985). What this means for his book is that he doesn't write about too many singers born after 1950, though Diana Krall, Kurt Elling, Michael Feinstein, Audra McDonald, and Dee Dee Bridgewater are among the boomers too interesting NOT to warrant an essay apiece.
Elsewhere, Friedwald is busy challenging our perceptions of the classic performers and throwing away critical gems on almost every page. For example: "I can only imagine that both Sinatra and Dylan had moments when they felt like Dr. Frankenstein: They had created a monster and couldn't control the damage it caused." "Streisand...is incapable of easing up -- whether on a note, on the beat, on the band, on the words, on anything. [She] nearly always sounds as if she's attacking you with a song." "What will it take to convince Aretha Franklin that she is, in fact, a great artist, and not a fly-by-night hit maker? Why does she consistently act as if she's in the same league with Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston?" And then there are the deeper insights: "One thing [Ray Charles] has in common with Tony Bennett is the way he revels in the rapture of the sound of strain -- like an alto saxist struggling for a high F. And one thing he has in common with Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, two bluesmen in a different kind of music, is that he challenges our notion of sound itself."
Chances are, several of your favorite contemporary singers, like several of mine, are going to be missing from this book, but there's more than enough interesting material here to make it an essential purchase anyway. You'll be reading and re-reading it for months.
http://www.amazon.com/Biographical-.....own_review_img
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biographical-Guide-Great-Jazz-Singers/dp/0375421491/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289493803&sr=1-1
Will Friedwald's gift as a critic is his ability to make anyone reevaluate their opinions about popular singers, including his own. It'll come as a surprise to readers of his 1990 book Jazz Singing: America's Great Voices from Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond, in which he argued that rock & roll ushered in the Apocalypse for good music, that he now considers Elvis Presley to be one of the greatest of all popular singers, the first man to assimilate rhythm and blues, country, and mainstream pop into a seamless whole. Even in praising an artist, Friedwald's opinions are provocative, as when he avers that Dean Martin was a major influence on Elvis's singing; it sounds nutty, but careful listening will back it up.
What makes a jazz or pop singer "great"? Tricky question. The 811 double-columned pages of this book provide a series of contentious, informed, and highly entertaining answers in the form of extended essays on its two hundred or so performers. (The BIOGRAPHICAL GUIDE TO THE GREAT JAZZ AND POP SINGERS (Pantheon, 2010), which Friedwald spent a decade writing, is modeled after David Thomson's BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF FILM, but with much longer, and better written, entries.) For Friedwald, great pop music is centered on the American songbook, and its finest singers were active during the LP era, the heyday of the concept album (1955 - 1985). What this means for his book is that he doesn't write about too many singers born after 1950, though Diana Krall, Kurt Elling, Michael Feinstein, Audra McDonald, and Dee Dee Bridgewater are among the boomers too interesting NOT to warrant an essay apiece.
Elsewhere, Friedwald is busy challenging our perceptions of the classic performers and throwing away critical gems on almost every page. For example: "I can only imagine that both Sinatra and Dylan had moments when they felt like Dr. Frankenstein: They had created a monster and couldn't control the damage it caused." "Streisand...is incapable of easing up -- whether on a note, on the beat, on the band, on the words, on anything. [She] nearly always sounds as if she's attacking you with a song." "What will it take to convince Aretha Franklin that she is, in fact, a great artist, and not a fly-by-night hit maker? Why does she consistently act as if she's in the same league with Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston?" And then there are the deeper insights: "One thing [Ray Charles] has in common with Tony Bennett is the way he revels in the rapture of the sound of strain -- like an alto saxist struggling for a high F. And one thing he has in common with Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler, two bluesmen in a different kind of music, is that he challenges our notion of sound itself."
Chances are, several of your favorite contemporary singers, like several of mine, are going to be missing from this book, but there's more than enough interesting material here to make it an essential purchase anyway. You'll be reading and re-reading it for months.
Enter the Dragon
General | Posted 15 years agoA DRAGON'S POISON by Roland Guiscard, illustrated by GSPervert (CreateSpace, $15)
http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Poison-Roland-Guiscard/dp/1453768556/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284442092&sr=1-8
(Reviewer's note: I'm collaborating with the author on a forthcoming book)
Days after this book first appeared, the publisher, Lulu, suddenly noticed they had handled illustrated furry porn and immediately destroyed most of the print run, creating an instant collector's item. Thanks to author Roland Guiscard's persistence, a second publisher, CreateSpace, has now re-released the novel, which is not your typical furry porn story. It's a tale of control, coercion, and manipulative sex that often blurs the boundary between barely consensual and outright rape.
It's also a timely depiction of the end of the old porn industry and its studio system, an economic anachronism in the days of unlimited internet access. It's the old star system that the novel's villain, Cockzilla, tries to bleed dry, but by the end of the story, nearly all the characters have come face to face with the limitations of a career in porn, and the reality of the porn star's short sell-by date. It's also true that most of the characters are far from admirable, but Roland has chosen to depict the flawed reality most of us encounter every day, with its examples of selfishness, dissembling, indecisiveness, apathy, and self-delusion. Cockzilla, the moral equivalent of a toilet that won't flush, isn't even the most repulsive character in the novel; that distinction belongs to a sex-trafficking mobster to whom people are, literally, property.
Is all of this really erotic? If you like your sex with a heavy dose of power and control, yes. If you're into something more subtle...well, it's still a well-told story. GSP's b&w illustrations follow erotica's golden rule: bigger is better.
Roland has three other story collections available, like this book, through Amazon, Rabbit Valley, and Second Ed.
http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Poison-Roland-Guiscard/dp/1453768556/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1284442092&sr=1-8
(Reviewer's note: I'm collaborating with the author on a forthcoming book)
Days after this book first appeared, the publisher, Lulu, suddenly noticed they had handled illustrated furry porn and immediately destroyed most of the print run, creating an instant collector's item. Thanks to author Roland Guiscard's persistence, a second publisher, CreateSpace, has now re-released the novel, which is not your typical furry porn story. It's a tale of control, coercion, and manipulative sex that often blurs the boundary between barely consensual and outright rape.
It's also a timely depiction of the end of the old porn industry and its studio system, an economic anachronism in the days of unlimited internet access. It's the old star system that the novel's villain, Cockzilla, tries to bleed dry, but by the end of the story, nearly all the characters have come face to face with the limitations of a career in porn, and the reality of the porn star's short sell-by date. It's also true that most of the characters are far from admirable, but Roland has chosen to depict the flawed reality most of us encounter every day, with its examples of selfishness, dissembling, indecisiveness, apathy, and self-delusion. Cockzilla, the moral equivalent of a toilet that won't flush, isn't even the most repulsive character in the novel; that distinction belongs to a sex-trafficking mobster to whom people are, literally, property.
Is all of this really erotic? If you like your sex with a heavy dose of power and control, yes. If you're into something more subtle...well, it's still a well-told story. GSP's b&w illustrations follow erotica's golden rule: bigger is better.
Roland has three other story collections available, like this book, through Amazon, Rabbit Valley, and Second Ed.
Great, Really Good, and Important Lousy Movies
General | Posted 15 years agoTHE GREAT MOVIES III by Roger Ebert (University of Chicago Press, $30)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/02....._rev_itm_img_1
reviewed by Roochak
As Roger Ebert makes clear in this volume, "great" doesn't always mean "enjoyable." Take Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda picture, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL: "It is a terrible film, paralyzingly dull, simpleminded, overlong, and not even 'manipulative' because it is too clumsy to manipulate anyone but a true believer." Or Bruce Robinson's scabrous comedy, WITHNAIL & I: "Conveys the experience of being drunk so well that the only way I could improve upon it would be to stand behind you and hammer your head with two-pound bags of frozen peas."
Ebert's conversational prose style could almost fool one into thinking that writing film criticism is easy. Reading him is like listening to a learned and entertaining friend (who, perhaps, provides commentary tracks for DVDs), a thinker who long ago chose to avoid the snobbishness of an aesthete, the pseudoscientific language of a film theorist, and the aesthetic imbecility of a consumer guide. His designation of a film as "great" is a rhetorical tool used to nudge readers out of their cinematic comfort zones and into something new. This includes Ebert himself, who finally gets around to reviewing three of the canonical texts of American animation ("Duck Amuck," "What's Opera, Doc?" and "One Froggy Evening").
While he's written, in his review of Ingmar Bergman's WINTER LIGHT, a magnificently quotable line ("It is the portrait of a man who thought he was God, and failed himself"), his insights into a film tend to be less overtly poetic than that. He credits Nino Rota's music with provoking the image of THE GODFATHER PART II as a Mafioso CITIZEN KANE (but an inferior gangster picture to Brian DePalma's 1983 SCARFACE). FITZCARRALDO, the story of a madman's obsession brought to the screen by an obsessed director and a possibly mad actor, is both a visual spectacle (a real steamboat is slowly dragged uphill through a real jungle) and a case study in human folly, behind the camera as well as in front of it. THE SHINING is less a ghost story than a puzzle film about three unreliable observers who seem to descend into madness together; LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD with a fireaxe. There's plenty to disagree with in this book -- my examples will differ from yours -- but civilized disagreement is fun, educational, and often necessary.
What the book lacks, though they're icing rather than the cake, are the beautiful film stills, selected by archivist Mary Corliss, that illustrated THE GREAT MOVIES I and II. The Film Stills Archive of the Museum of Modern Art presumably remains in cold storage, and inaccessible, in Hamlin, Pennsylvania; the Photofest stock image agency seems not to've been an option this time around, either.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/02....._rev_itm_img_1
reviewed by Roochak
As Roger Ebert makes clear in this volume, "great" doesn't always mean "enjoyable." Take Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda picture, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL: "It is a terrible film, paralyzingly dull, simpleminded, overlong, and not even 'manipulative' because it is too clumsy to manipulate anyone but a true believer." Or Bruce Robinson's scabrous comedy, WITHNAIL & I: "Conveys the experience of being drunk so well that the only way I could improve upon it would be to stand behind you and hammer your head with two-pound bags of frozen peas."
Ebert's conversational prose style could almost fool one into thinking that writing film criticism is easy. Reading him is like listening to a learned and entertaining friend (who, perhaps, provides commentary tracks for DVDs), a thinker who long ago chose to avoid the snobbishness of an aesthete, the pseudoscientific language of a film theorist, and the aesthetic imbecility of a consumer guide. His designation of a film as "great" is a rhetorical tool used to nudge readers out of their cinematic comfort zones and into something new. This includes Ebert himself, who finally gets around to reviewing three of the canonical texts of American animation ("Duck Amuck," "What's Opera, Doc?" and "One Froggy Evening").
While he's written, in his review of Ingmar Bergman's WINTER LIGHT, a magnificently quotable line ("It is the portrait of a man who thought he was God, and failed himself"), his insights into a film tend to be less overtly poetic than that. He credits Nino Rota's music with provoking the image of THE GODFATHER PART II as a Mafioso CITIZEN KANE (but an inferior gangster picture to Brian DePalma's 1983 SCARFACE). FITZCARRALDO, the story of a madman's obsession brought to the screen by an obsessed director and a possibly mad actor, is both a visual spectacle (a real steamboat is slowly dragged uphill through a real jungle) and a case study in human folly, behind the camera as well as in front of it. THE SHINING is less a ghost story than a puzzle film about three unreliable observers who seem to descend into madness together; LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD with a fireaxe. There's plenty to disagree with in this book -- my examples will differ from yours -- but civilized disagreement is fun, educational, and often necessary.
What the book lacks, though they're icing rather than the cake, are the beautiful film stills, selected by archivist Mary Corliss, that illustrated THE GREAT MOVIES I and II. The Film Stills Archive of the Museum of Modern Art presumably remains in cold storage, and inaccessible, in Hamlin, Pennsylvania; the Photofest stock image agency seems not to've been an option this time around, either.
Me and My Shadows
General | Posted 15 years agoWARNING SHADOWS: HOME ALONE WITH CLASSIC CINEMA by Gary Giddins (Norton, 978-0-393-33792-1
http://www.amazon.com/Warning-Shado.....wn_review_prod
Gary Giddins seems to have seen and read everything, which one would expect of a professional critic, yet his literary voice is that of a populist, a thinker who lives and breathes aesthetics but writes from the conviction that cinema, like jazz, is fundamentally a folk art, however rarefied.
This is where things get dicey. Public exhibition, Giddins argues in his opening essay, "Home Alone with Classic Cinema," is an integral part of the movie watching experience: "Only in a crowd is the viewer borne away on waves of joy and sorrow and recognition." Freed by our DVD players from lack of parking, overpriced concessions, and babblers in the audience, we have virtually unlimited access to good films, and fewer people to watch them with. If Giddins is right, that isn't cinema; it's television, or parlor entertainment.
Still, when it comes to an informed appreciation of those films, it's a pleasure to read him. Recent blockbusters don't interest him; as he says of one little-known, European avant-garde director, "[his] films are the sort about which mainstream reviewers remark, 'not for every taste.' Nor is THE DARK KNIGHT for every taste." What interests Giddins are the pleasures of Bette Davis's operatic acting; the Freudian fantasies of German Expressionist cinema; the energy and intelligence of Sidney Lumet movies; Hollywood biopics worthy of their subjects (YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, LUST FOR LIFE); and, among other bits of movie history, the wonderfully weird story of how Walt Disney and Nelson Rockefeller joined forces to fight the Nazis with cartoons and samba.
WARNING SHADOWS (those on Plato's cave wall, of course) is both an elegy for the near-extinction of the moviegoing experience and a celebration of a large number of movies that made it all worthwhile.
http://www.amazon.com/Warning-Shado.....wn_review_prod
Gary Giddins seems to have seen and read everything, which one would expect of a professional critic, yet his literary voice is that of a populist, a thinker who lives and breathes aesthetics but writes from the conviction that cinema, like jazz, is fundamentally a folk art, however rarefied.
This is where things get dicey. Public exhibition, Giddins argues in his opening essay, "Home Alone with Classic Cinema," is an integral part of the movie watching experience: "Only in a crowd is the viewer borne away on waves of joy and sorrow and recognition." Freed by our DVD players from lack of parking, overpriced concessions, and babblers in the audience, we have virtually unlimited access to good films, and fewer people to watch them with. If Giddins is right, that isn't cinema; it's television, or parlor entertainment.
Still, when it comes to an informed appreciation of those films, it's a pleasure to read him. Recent blockbusters don't interest him; as he says of one little-known, European avant-garde director, "[his] films are the sort about which mainstream reviewers remark, 'not for every taste.' Nor is THE DARK KNIGHT for every taste." What interests Giddins are the pleasures of Bette Davis's operatic acting; the Freudian fantasies of German Expressionist cinema; the energy and intelligence of Sidney Lumet movies; Hollywood biopics worthy of their subjects (YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, LUST FOR LIFE); and, among other bits of movie history, the wonderfully weird story of how Walt Disney and Nelson Rockefeller joined forces to fight the Nazis with cartoons and samba.
WARNING SHADOWS (those on Plato's cave wall, of course) is both an elegy for the near-extinction of the moviegoing experience and a celebration of a large number of movies that made it all worthwhile.
Why Saturday Morning Sucked (though we didn't know it)
General | Posted 15 years agoThe comments I've been getting to this particular review on Amazon have been coming for months now, and what amazes me is that there seems to be more at stake here than just an evaluation of some ancient Saturday morning cartoons. No other product review that I've written has garnered this many responses, nor this level of interest.
Warner Bros. Presents Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s Vol. 1
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2AKN07PAK0EV2/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg1?ie=UTF8&cdPage=1&asin=B001QU880M&store=dvd#wasThisHelpful
It amazes me to think I once considered these cartoons entertaining. Then again, when I was a kid I considered a bowl of cereal, a candy bar and a can of soda to be a good meal. You outgrow stuff like that, and stuff like this. If you buy it, like we did, then the nostalgia racket has your number.
What's wrong with the cartoons in this compilation? Well, the comedies aren't funny, the adventure shows are boring and inane, and the one ray of light on these discs -- the Warner Bros. theatrical cartoons repackaged for television on "The Porky Pig Show" -- includes a truly disturbing "Honeymousers" cartoon that plays domestic violence for laughs.
It's instructive, if painful, to watch both of these discs from beginning to end. The "Top Cat" and "Flintstones" episodes on disc one feature actual storytelling, characterization, and evocative settings -- Top Cat's Damon Runyon-esque New York, the Flintstones' satirical Bedrock (a clear precursor to the Simpsons' Springfield) -- that the shorter cartoons dispense with in favor of rapid fire slapstick (or rapid fire action in the case of the superheroes). In the earlier short subjects, you can still detect the occasional flash of imagination, as in the "Snooper & Blabber" cartoon that has a pair of furry gumshoes investigating a mystery on Mars, but not long afterwords we're stuck with increasingly generic characters in increasingly generic settings and stories. Atom Ant? Secret Squirrel? Ricochet Rabbit? Magilla Gorilla? What do you actually remember about any of these characters?
Though the "Space Ghost" and "Herculoids" cartoons are less than ten minutes long, watching them seems to take an eternity. Are these characters successful heroes only because all their adversaries are idiots? Does anything at all about "The Impossibles" -- pop stars who double as a quasi-military crimebusting unit -- make sense? As a kid, I didn't care; as an adult, this tripe just makes my head hurt.
No, I'm not about to pick up the second "Saturday Morning" volume, devoted to the cartoons of the 'seventies. I have my limits.
Warner Bros. Presents Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s Vol. 1
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2AKN07PAK0EV2/ref=cm_cd_pg_pg1?ie=UTF8&cdPage=1&asin=B001QU880M&store=dvd#wasThisHelpful
It amazes me to think I once considered these cartoons entertaining. Then again, when I was a kid I considered a bowl of cereal, a candy bar and a can of soda to be a good meal. You outgrow stuff like that, and stuff like this. If you buy it, like we did, then the nostalgia racket has your number.
What's wrong with the cartoons in this compilation? Well, the comedies aren't funny, the adventure shows are boring and inane, and the one ray of light on these discs -- the Warner Bros. theatrical cartoons repackaged for television on "The Porky Pig Show" -- includes a truly disturbing "Honeymousers" cartoon that plays domestic violence for laughs.
It's instructive, if painful, to watch both of these discs from beginning to end. The "Top Cat" and "Flintstones" episodes on disc one feature actual storytelling, characterization, and evocative settings -- Top Cat's Damon Runyon-esque New York, the Flintstones' satirical Bedrock (a clear precursor to the Simpsons' Springfield) -- that the shorter cartoons dispense with in favor of rapid fire slapstick (or rapid fire action in the case of the superheroes). In the earlier short subjects, you can still detect the occasional flash of imagination, as in the "Snooper & Blabber" cartoon that has a pair of furry gumshoes investigating a mystery on Mars, but not long afterwords we're stuck with increasingly generic characters in increasingly generic settings and stories. Atom Ant? Secret Squirrel? Ricochet Rabbit? Magilla Gorilla? What do you actually remember about any of these characters?
Though the "Space Ghost" and "Herculoids" cartoons are less than ten minutes long, watching them seems to take an eternity. Are these characters successful heroes only because all their adversaries are idiots? Does anything at all about "The Impossibles" -- pop stars who double as a quasi-military crimebusting unit -- make sense? As a kid, I didn't care; as an adult, this tripe just makes my head hurt.
No, I'm not about to pick up the second "Saturday Morning" volume, devoted to the cartoons of the 'seventies. I have my limits.
Time and the Dancing Image
General | Posted 15 years ago4 Elements/4 Seasons (Harmonia Mundi video, 2009)
http://www.amazon.com/4-Elements-Se.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor (Norton, 1998)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/03.....cm_cr_asin_lnk
reviewed by Roochak
The metaphysics of music and dance are compared early on in Rafi Zabor's extraordinary jazz novel, The Bear Comes Home (1998): "I mean, dance is all right, even street dance. It's the poetry of the body, flesh aspiring to grace or inviting the spirit in to visit." Grace and spirit are manifest in dancer Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola's evocation of the creation of the world, form wrested from the chaos of the dissonant opening chord of "Les Elements," a 1737 dance suite by composer Jean-Fery Rebel. A rock, and then dirt, issue from the dancer's mouth; he strips to his skivvies to perform a playful water dance; lit candles are placed on his body, resembling the stars on an anthropomorphic map of the constellations; taped birdcalls work in concert with Diaz's wheeling mimicry of flight.
"But music," the ursine hero of Zabor's novel goes on, "That's one level more subtle. I mean, if the universe is vibration, and after Einstein who's gonna deny it, energy sifts down to matter and before it gets there it manifests as sound. So playing music -- playing music well, it's like taking an active part in the future..." And what if one possible future for musicians is to join in the dance themselves? That's the conceit of the second half of this unusual concert, in which the members of a Baroque orchestra doff their shoes and move around the stage while playing their instruments in Diaz's elegantly choreographed theatrical representation of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (1725), featuring Midori Seiler as the solo violinist who becomes the dancer's love interest/nature goddess/symbol of the unattainable ideal. The orchestral musicians play backup dancers as well as their instruments, in scenarios based on four programmatic Vivaldi poems published in this DVD's accompanying booklet.
I'm not finished with Zabor yet. "At first the crowd thought this was a brilliant new wrinkle in the performance...and although they were uneasy they applauded. But...uncertainty set in, as if the crowd were seeing a piece of modern theater no one had written an essay about yet." When did my uncertainty about this performance set in? When the first paper airplanes were launched across the stage? When one violinist slowly propelled himself in a circle while lying on his back, playing his instrument all the while? When Diaz flips Seiler and her instrument upside down in mid-solo? Time will tell, and this entire dance/concert is a graphic representation of the passage of time.
The image and sound are excellent, as I'd expect of Harmonia Mundi. Bonus features include Folkert Uhde's program introduction and his recitation of the Vivaldi poems (in German), and a slightly awkward conversation (in English) between Diaz and Seiler on the music...and the weather.
http://www.amazon.com/4-Elements-Se.....f=cm_cr-mr-img
The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor (Norton, 1998)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/03.....cm_cr_asin_lnk
reviewed by Roochak
The metaphysics of music and dance are compared early on in Rafi Zabor's extraordinary jazz novel, The Bear Comes Home (1998): "I mean, dance is all right, even street dance. It's the poetry of the body, flesh aspiring to grace or inviting the spirit in to visit." Grace and spirit are manifest in dancer Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola's evocation of the creation of the world, form wrested from the chaos of the dissonant opening chord of "Les Elements," a 1737 dance suite by composer Jean-Fery Rebel. A rock, and then dirt, issue from the dancer's mouth; he strips to his skivvies to perform a playful water dance; lit candles are placed on his body, resembling the stars on an anthropomorphic map of the constellations; taped birdcalls work in concert with Diaz's wheeling mimicry of flight.
"But music," the ursine hero of Zabor's novel goes on, "That's one level more subtle. I mean, if the universe is vibration, and after Einstein who's gonna deny it, energy sifts down to matter and before it gets there it manifests as sound. So playing music -- playing music well, it's like taking an active part in the future..." And what if one possible future for musicians is to join in the dance themselves? That's the conceit of the second half of this unusual concert, in which the members of a Baroque orchestra doff their shoes and move around the stage while playing their instruments in Diaz's elegantly choreographed theatrical representation of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (1725), featuring Midori Seiler as the solo violinist who becomes the dancer's love interest/nature goddess/symbol of the unattainable ideal. The orchestral musicians play backup dancers as well as their instruments, in scenarios based on four programmatic Vivaldi poems published in this DVD's accompanying booklet.
I'm not finished with Zabor yet. "At first the crowd thought this was a brilliant new wrinkle in the performance...and although they were uneasy they applauded. But...uncertainty set in, as if the crowd were seeing a piece of modern theater no one had written an essay about yet." When did my uncertainty about this performance set in? When the first paper airplanes were launched across the stage? When one violinist slowly propelled himself in a circle while lying on his back, playing his instrument all the while? When Diaz flips Seiler and her instrument upside down in mid-solo? Time will tell, and this entire dance/concert is a graphic representation of the passage of time.
The image and sound are excellent, as I'd expect of Harmonia Mundi. Bonus features include Folkert Uhde's program introduction and his recitation of the Vivaldi poems (in German), and a slightly awkward conversation (in English) between Diaz and Seiler on the music...and the weather.
Inkbunny Blues
General | Posted 15 years agoTaken from http://inkbunny.net/fees.php
"Prints
"The base price of providing the print production services (materials, ink and labor) is deducted from sales. The base costs for each print size are currently as follows:
Print Size Min. Pixels Base Price
5.5" x 8.5" 825 x 1275 $2.10
8.5" x 11" 1275 x 1650 $4.20
18" x 24" 2700 x 3600 $12.00
24" x 36" 4800 x 7200 $18.00
"A fee of 20% is deducted from your print sales profit. Your profit is the difference between the retail price you choose, and the base cost. This fee is charged for providing the file hosting and sales system. We take care of everything automatically, from taking the order, producing the print and shipping it to your customer. We even deal with refunds, returns and replacements, all at our own cost. Just sit back and let us do all the work!
"Artists can buy their own prints at wholesale price. This means you pay the minimum base price and no other fees if you order your own prints. This is a great way to stock up on your own prints for conventions! Of course, you do not receive any profit from buying your own prints.
"Digital Content Sales
"A fee of 20.00% is applied to your Digital Content sales. We allow you to upload files of any type/format for sale, up to 200MB in size per file. We host your files and provide customers with secure download links once they pay, so it's all taken care of for you.
"Payouts (when we pay you)
"Payouts via Alertpay incur a $0.00 fee.
"Payouts via Check incur a $10.00 fee."
So...it appears that the artists who are actively trying to sell prints through Inkbunny are willing to settle for very little profit if they keep their retail prices low, or are willing to inflate their prices in order to make selling prints through these middlemen financially worthwhile.
Good business strategy on Inkbunny's part. Do people still buy prints?
"Prints
"The base price of providing the print production services (materials, ink and labor) is deducted from sales. The base costs for each print size are currently as follows:
Print Size Min. Pixels Base Price
5.5" x 8.5" 825 x 1275 $2.10
8.5" x 11" 1275 x 1650 $4.20
18" x 24" 2700 x 3600 $12.00
24" x 36" 4800 x 7200 $18.00
"A fee of 20% is deducted from your print sales profit. Your profit is the difference between the retail price you choose, and the base cost. This fee is charged for providing the file hosting and sales system. We take care of everything automatically, from taking the order, producing the print and shipping it to your customer. We even deal with refunds, returns and replacements, all at our own cost. Just sit back and let us do all the work!
"Artists can buy their own prints at wholesale price. This means you pay the minimum base price and no other fees if you order your own prints. This is a great way to stock up on your own prints for conventions! Of course, you do not receive any profit from buying your own prints.
"Digital Content Sales
"A fee of 20.00% is applied to your Digital Content sales. We allow you to upload files of any type/format for sale, up to 200MB in size per file. We host your files and provide customers with secure download links once they pay, so it's all taken care of for you.
"Payouts (when we pay you)
"Payouts via Alertpay incur a $0.00 fee.
"Payouts via Check incur a $10.00 fee."
So...it appears that the artists who are actively trying to sell prints through Inkbunny are willing to settle for very little profit if they keep their retail prices low, or are willing to inflate their prices in order to make selling prints through these middlemen financially worthwhile.
Good business strategy on Inkbunny's part. Do people still buy prints?
Flash and Substance
General | Posted 15 years agoThe Flash: Rebirth by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver (DC Comics, 2010, $20)
http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Rebirth.....own_review_img
Of the many questions this volume leaves me with, I'll focus on one: why bring back Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash?
The short, flippant answer: nobody stays dead in comics. A better answer, provided by the superstar creative team of writer Geoff Johns and artist Ethan Van Sciver: Barry Allen is central to the Flash franchise, both ontologically and morally. Flash: Rebirth has so many plot twists and major revelations (including, at last, an explanation of how the "speed force" that all Flashes draw upon works) that it's difficult to suggest how good this story arc is without dropping any spoilers, so let's just say that in the aftermath of the Final Crisis, Barry Allen returns to Central City, which is more than happy to welcome back its original Flash. The moment Barry confronts his first supercriminal, though, things go catastrophically wrong.
Time and physics are always, uh, flexible concepts in a Flash story, and when I wasn't trying to wrap my head around this book's grim time travel/murder mystery plot, I found page after page of smaller pleasures to enjoy; for instance, Barry's conversation with Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan in the Flash Museum; Iris West's first meeting with Paul Gambi, tailor to the Rogues; another Superman/Flash race, ending with a Smallville-inspired punch line; even a thoroughly delightful explanation of why Barry Allen used to wear those goofy bow ties in his early appearances.
Geoff Johns, whose 2000-2005 run on the Flash comic book convinced me that Wally West was THE Flash, now imagines Barry Allen as "a man out of step with everyone else," from his quirky sartorial and social habits to his old school sense of morality. His reintegration into a grittier, somewhat more corrupt 21st century Central City will be a treat to watch. Ethan Van Sciver's artwork, a blend of photorealism and wild exaggeration, is in a class by itself, and Rebirth looks like a six-issue riff on Carmine Infantino's spare, stylized Flash pages from the 'sixties and 'seventies. Like their previous collaboration, Green Lantern: Rebirth, the Johns/Van Sciver Flash is an exciting, must-read update of a classic Silver Age hero.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/....._rev_itm_img_1
http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Rebirth.....own_review_img
Of the many questions this volume leaves me with, I'll focus on one: why bring back Barry Allen, the Silver Age Flash?
The short, flippant answer: nobody stays dead in comics. A better answer, provided by the superstar creative team of writer Geoff Johns and artist Ethan Van Sciver: Barry Allen is central to the Flash franchise, both ontologically and morally. Flash: Rebirth has so many plot twists and major revelations (including, at last, an explanation of how the "speed force" that all Flashes draw upon works) that it's difficult to suggest how good this story arc is without dropping any spoilers, so let's just say that in the aftermath of the Final Crisis, Barry Allen returns to Central City, which is more than happy to welcome back its original Flash. The moment Barry confronts his first supercriminal, though, things go catastrophically wrong.
Time and physics are always, uh, flexible concepts in a Flash story, and when I wasn't trying to wrap my head around this book's grim time travel/murder mystery plot, I found page after page of smaller pleasures to enjoy; for instance, Barry's conversation with Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan in the Flash Museum; Iris West's first meeting with Paul Gambi, tailor to the Rogues; another Superman/Flash race, ending with a Smallville-inspired punch line; even a thoroughly delightful explanation of why Barry Allen used to wear those goofy bow ties in his early appearances.
Geoff Johns, whose 2000-2005 run on the Flash comic book convinced me that Wally West was THE Flash, now imagines Barry Allen as "a man out of step with everyone else," from his quirky sartorial and social habits to his old school sense of morality. His reintegration into a grittier, somewhat more corrupt 21st century Central City will be a treat to watch. Ethan Van Sciver's artwork, a blend of photorealism and wild exaggeration, is in a class by itself, and Rebirth looks like a six-issue riff on Carmine Infantino's spare, stylized Flash pages from the 'sixties and 'seventies. Like their previous collaboration, Green Lantern: Rebirth, the Johns/Van Sciver Flash is an exciting, must-read update of a classic Silver Age hero.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/....._rev_itm_img_1
"As soon as Ryan's tongue touched Nicole's..."
General | Posted 15 years agoThe Male Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D. (Broadway Books, $25) has just been published, and while I haven't yet read it, I'm going to share some of the dust jacket and interior copy with you.
"In the mating game, a kiss is more than a kiss -- it's a taste test. Saliva contains molecules from all the glands and organs in the body, so a French kiss serves up our signature flavor. As soon as Ryan's tongue touched Nicole's, information about each other's health and genes was collected and secretly sent to their brains..." (page 56)
From the dust jacket:
"In the eagerly awaited follow-up to the bestselling The Female Brain, Dr. Louann Brizendine turns her attention to the male brain, showing how the 'male reality' is fundamentally different from the female's in every phase of life, from babyhood to old age...
"Drawing on her clinical work and the research in many fields, from neuroscience to behavioral endocrinology, Dr. Brizendine reveals that the male brain:
"...Is a lean, mean, problem-solving machine. Faced with a personal problem, a man will use his analytical brain structures, not his emotional ones, to find a solution.
"...Thrives under competition, instinctively plays rough, and is obsessed with rank and hierarchy.
"...At certain points in its development, has difficulty following the pitch and cadence of female speech.
"...Has an area for sexual pursuit 2.5 times larger than the female brain's, perpetuating a virtually endless loop of sexual thoughts and impulses."
From the opening pages:
"THE CAST OF NEUROHORMONE CHARACTERS
(how hormones affect a man's brain)
"TESTOSTERONE -- Zeus. King of the male hormones, he is dominant, aggressive, and all-powerful. Focused and goal-oriented, he feverishly builds all that is male, including the compulsion to outrank other males in the pecking order...
"VASOPRESSIN -- The White Knight. Vasopressin is the hormone of gallantry and monogamy, aggressively protecting and defending turf, mate, and children...
"MULLERIAN INHIBITING SUBSTANCE (MIS) -- Hercules. He's strong, tough, and fearless. Also known as the Defeminizer, he ruthlessly strips away all that is feminine from the male...
"OXYTOCIN -- The Lion Tamer. With just a few cuddles and strokes, this "down, boy" hormone settles and calms even the fiercest of beasts. He increases empathic ability and builds trust circuits, romantic-love circuits, and attachment circuits in the brain...
"PROLACTIN -- Mr. Mom...He stimulates connections in the male brain for paternal behavior and decreases sex drive.
"CORTISOL -- The Gladiator. When threatened, he is angry, fired up, and willing to fight for life and limb.
"ANDROSTENEDIONE -- Romeo. The charming seducer of women. When released by the skin as a pheromone he does more for a man's sex appeal than any aftershave or cologne.
"DOPAMINE -- The Energizer. The intoxicating life of the party, he's all about feeling good, having fun, and going for the gusto...But watch out -- he is addictively rewarding, particularly in the rough-and-tumble play of boyhood and the sexual play of manhood...
"ESTROGEN -- The Queen. Although she doesn't have the same power over a man as Zeus, she may be the true force behind the throne, running most of the male brain circuits..."
Oh, and as for the long-unanswered question of whether men are gay because their brains are different from those of straight men -- sorry boys, but the jury's still out on that one.
"In the mating game, a kiss is more than a kiss -- it's a taste test. Saliva contains molecules from all the glands and organs in the body, so a French kiss serves up our signature flavor. As soon as Ryan's tongue touched Nicole's, information about each other's health and genes was collected and secretly sent to their brains..." (page 56)
From the dust jacket:
"In the eagerly awaited follow-up to the bestselling The Female Brain, Dr. Louann Brizendine turns her attention to the male brain, showing how the 'male reality' is fundamentally different from the female's in every phase of life, from babyhood to old age...
"Drawing on her clinical work and the research in many fields, from neuroscience to behavioral endocrinology, Dr. Brizendine reveals that the male brain:
"...Is a lean, mean, problem-solving machine. Faced with a personal problem, a man will use his analytical brain structures, not his emotional ones, to find a solution.
"...Thrives under competition, instinctively plays rough, and is obsessed with rank and hierarchy.
"...At certain points in its development, has difficulty following the pitch and cadence of female speech.
"...Has an area for sexual pursuit 2.5 times larger than the female brain's, perpetuating a virtually endless loop of sexual thoughts and impulses."
From the opening pages:
"THE CAST OF NEUROHORMONE CHARACTERS
(how hormones affect a man's brain)
"TESTOSTERONE -- Zeus. King of the male hormones, he is dominant, aggressive, and all-powerful. Focused and goal-oriented, he feverishly builds all that is male, including the compulsion to outrank other males in the pecking order...
"VASOPRESSIN -- The White Knight. Vasopressin is the hormone of gallantry and monogamy, aggressively protecting and defending turf, mate, and children...
"MULLERIAN INHIBITING SUBSTANCE (MIS) -- Hercules. He's strong, tough, and fearless. Also known as the Defeminizer, he ruthlessly strips away all that is feminine from the male...
"OXYTOCIN -- The Lion Tamer. With just a few cuddles and strokes, this "down, boy" hormone settles and calms even the fiercest of beasts. He increases empathic ability and builds trust circuits, romantic-love circuits, and attachment circuits in the brain...
"PROLACTIN -- Mr. Mom...He stimulates connections in the male brain for paternal behavior and decreases sex drive.
"CORTISOL -- The Gladiator. When threatened, he is angry, fired up, and willing to fight for life and limb.
"ANDROSTENEDIONE -- Romeo. The charming seducer of women. When released by the skin as a pheromone he does more for a man's sex appeal than any aftershave or cologne.
"DOPAMINE -- The Energizer. The intoxicating life of the party, he's all about feeling good, having fun, and going for the gusto...But watch out -- he is addictively rewarding, particularly in the rough-and-tumble play of boyhood and the sexual play of manhood...
"ESTROGEN -- The Queen. Although she doesn't have the same power over a man as Zeus, she may be the true force behind the throne, running most of the male brain circuits..."
Oh, and as for the long-unanswered question of whether men are gay because their brains are different from those of straight men -- sorry boys, but the jury's still out on that one.
Supervillains & Philosophy
General | Posted 16 years agohttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Supervillai.....cm_cr-mr-title
It's a truism that superheroes are only as interesting as the villains they fight, and at the root of comic book supervillainy is the philosophical problem of evil -- a problem, liberated from its theological context, of value judgments, free will, and right and wrong actions. While the book Supervillains & Philosophy (edited by Ben Dyer; Open Court, 2009) focuses on superhuman morality, resulting in a pretty thin book (one that could've been titled, with much less commercial impact, "Comic Book Utilitarianism & Its Discontents"), most of the nineteen essays here have something interesting to say about our moral and intellectual fallibility; that is, our common experience, magnified and exaggerated for the larger than life stories we enjoy in comics, movies, and television.
Things start off well with Ben Dyer's close reading of the graphic novel Wanted and the perverse moral education of its protagonist, Wesley Gibson; the nihilistic life examined. Robert Arp reads V for Vendetta and argues that its anarchist hero and the fascist government he opposes subscribe to equally evil versions of utilitarian justice. Christopher Robichaud bases a comparison of moral objectivity, moral nihilism, and moral relativity on a careful viewing of the movie Superman Returns. Daniel Moseley asks what the Joker has in common with Friedrich Nietzsche. Libby Barringer analyzes the Hobbesian political dilemma of Marvel's Civil War. Andrew Terjesen argues that Dr. Doom's "benevolent" despotism would be preferable for most of us to the rule of the murderous superhero team, the Authority. But my favorite piece in the whole book is a short story by veteran comics writer Dennis O'Neil, who revisits Two-Face's origin story, imagining a strictly religious upbringing for Harvey Dent. If the question most writers seem to ask themselves about the character is "what could turn a good man into a monster?", O'Neil, no slouch at philosophy himself, considers it a loaded question; what if Two-Face's monstrosity was a matter of perception all along?
I frankly lost interest in the geeky metaphysical questions that provoked the book's last four essays. Omnipotence, artificial intelligence, and personal identity are interesting topics, but when I read a question like "just how intelligent is Brainiac?", my mind starts to wander. This is an enjoyable book for the most part, but it would've been even more enjoyable if there hadn't been so many damned typos in the text. Couldn't Open Court afford a proofreader?
reviewed by Roochak
http://www.amazon.com/Supervillains.....cm_cr-mr-title
It's a truism that superheroes are only as interesting as the villains they fight, and at the root of comic book supervillainy is the philosophical problem of evil -- a problem, liberated from its theological context, of value judgments, free will, and right and wrong actions. While the book Supervillains & Philosophy (edited by Ben Dyer; Open Court, 2009) focuses on superhuman morality, resulting in a pretty thin book (one that could've been titled, with much less commercial impact, "Comic Book Utilitarianism & Its Discontents"), most of the nineteen essays here have something interesting to say about our moral and intellectual fallibility; that is, our common experience, magnified and exaggerated for the larger than life stories we enjoy in comics, movies, and television.
Things start off well with Ben Dyer's close reading of the graphic novel Wanted and the perverse moral education of its protagonist, Wesley Gibson; the nihilistic life examined. Robert Arp reads V for Vendetta and argues that its anarchist hero and the fascist government he opposes subscribe to equally evil versions of utilitarian justice. Christopher Robichaud bases a comparison of moral objectivity, moral nihilism, and moral relativity on a careful viewing of the movie Superman Returns. Daniel Moseley asks what the Joker has in common with Friedrich Nietzsche. Libby Barringer analyzes the Hobbesian political dilemma of Marvel's Civil War. Andrew Terjesen argues that Dr. Doom's "benevolent" despotism would be preferable for most of us to the rule of the murderous superhero team, the Authority. But my favorite piece in the whole book is a short story by veteran comics writer Dennis O'Neil, who revisits Two-Face's origin story, imagining a strictly religious upbringing for Harvey Dent. If the question most writers seem to ask themselves about the character is "what could turn a good man into a monster?", O'Neil, no slouch at philosophy himself, considers it a loaded question; what if Two-Face's monstrosity was a matter of perception all along?
I frankly lost interest in the geeky metaphysical questions that provoked the book's last four essays. Omnipotence, artificial intelligence, and personal identity are interesting topics, but when I read a question like "just how intelligent is Brainiac?", my mind starts to wander. This is an enjoyable book for the most part, but it would've been even more enjoyable if there hadn't been so many damned typos in the text. Couldn't Open Court afford a proofreader?
reviewed by Roochak
http://www.amazon.com/Supervillains.....cm_cr-mr-title
