This week's reviews written specifically for the site are:
* The Red Balloon, the last of the three children's films recently released by Janus.
* Straw Dogs, Sam Peckinpah's hotly debated, arguably misunderstood rumination on the nature of male aggression.
Current Soundtrack: various from David Bowie, Michael Jackson, ABBA, Neil Diamond, the Pretender, James Brown, the Essex, the Beatles, Cat Power, Funboy Three & Bananarama, the Divine Comedy
While you're waiting for the sixth volume of Love the Way You Love to destroy western civilization with its disastrous powers (I originally mistyped the rather appropriate "destory"), you can read two of Marc Ellerby's minicomics that he recently put online for free.
Click on the images to see each one. I love Venal Muse, and for those keeping score, a new Polar Opposites will be showing up in Love the Way You Love, Side B.
Be sure to add Marc's Live Journal to your RSS feeder, as he's started updating "Ellerbisms" regularly again.
Current Soundtrack: ABBA, Gold
Current Mood:busy
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
WINNERS & LOSERS
First, the good news:
Popgun, vol. 1 was nominated for a Harvey Award for Best Anthology. Congrats to all involved! 12 Reasons letterer Douglas E. Sherwood was also nominated for his work on Oni's Local, but I think it's really an apology nomination for not giving him just desserts for his work on our book. See all the nominees here.
Now, the bad news, from Oni Press editor in chimp James Lucas Jones this morning:
Hey, sir, it looks like [the printer] got a batch of bad ink and it wasn't drying correctly. As such both Wasteland #18 and LTWYL got bumped and they're going to have to reprint. I'll let you know as soon as I have the revised ship date...
This book is freakin' cursed...
Current Soundtrack: Idlewild, "Modern Way of Letting Go;" Justice, "Phantom, Part II;" The Idaly Sisters, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?"
TOKEN Written by Alisa Kwitney Art and cover by Joëlle Jones
“Alisa Kwitney is my guilty pleasure.” — Neil Gaiman, Hugo Award-winning author of American Gods
Can a Jewish girl out of time and a Spanish old soul survive culture clashes and criminal records to find true love in the sun-drenched, sequined miasma that was South Beach in the 1980s?
Noted comics writer and novelist Alisa Kwitney (Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold, Flirting in Cars) and amazing artist Joëlle Jones (12 Reasons Why I Love Her) team up for the ultimate retro romance.
Retailers: See this month’s order form for a special ordering incentive on this title.
Advance-solicited; on sale October 22 • 5.25” x 8” • 176 pg, B&W, $9.99 US
***
Funny, I gave them a companion quote: "Joëlle Jones is so good, why the fuck would I have to feel guilty? You must be dreaming!"
I guess they didn't think it was appropriate to use. Maybe that "dreaming" pun was thought of as being kind of snide toward Mr. Gaiman or something. Who said I'm snide, because I never, I never...?
Anyway, I've seen the art and it's dynamite. Like 12 Reasons but 12 times better. The script is really good, too, so it's going to be a book worth having. Big congrats to Ms. Jones for finishing the principal inking last week!
Current Soundtrack: Paul Weller, 22 Dreams bonus disc
Current Mood:proud of Joëlle
I'VE COME TO WISH YOU AN UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY...
On this holy Bloomsday, once upon a time...
...The Smiths released The Queen is Dead. June 16, 1986.
I was 14, probably about a year away or more from even knowing anything about what this event would mean.
Or, if you want to be less Elvis and more Bob Dylan, "Tangled Up in Douche."
Don't let Portland's lovey-dovey hippy-dippy protest-all-evil hug-an-artist image fool you. We have just as many assholes as any other town, maybe more once you start to realize all of the above is often an excuse for assholery. Though, tonight, on what I have dubbed "The Night of Living Assholes," I encountered pretty much your garden variety version of walking anal cavities, the kind that are easy to recognize since they've been domesticated and show up just about everywhere.
Maybe it was catching the downtown train just before it left and not paying to ride it. Or maybe it was getting a free popcorn at the movies yet smuggling in my own beverage--a personal bottle of sake, no less. One would think I must have done something to have the universe drop its shorts and show me its backdoor goods.
The first encounter was post movie. For those who want to know, I saw The Incredible Hulk, and it's actually good, though not Iron Man good. The action is fun at times, even though it's like watching two Gumbies wailing on each other in some scenes, and the King Kong moments between the creature and Liv Tyler are actually kind of touching. The problem is, the movie is often very dull, and that pretty much comes down to Bruce Banner having no personality as a character, his alter ego having even less, and the fact that he is played by Ed Norton. Though, God, how awesome would it be if he were actually Ed Norton from The Honeymooners? Then we'd have a movie! Anyway, you really realize that this is the weak link during the much publicized Tony Stark cameo. That character has personality, and if Ed Norton were half the actor he thinks Robert Downey Jr. is, he'd maybe give this franchise some life. But, alas...
Anyhoo, my evening plans were to see the last matinee of Hulk, and then sit and read The Education of Hopey Glass somewhere until it was time to go to the Stolen Sweets show at the Someday Lounge. It was in doing the middle activity that I encountered my first asshole.
I sat in the window of a coffee shop on Broadway and dialed up my iPod and sat down to read. Fifteen minutes or so into my cup of cofee, I saw a rather large bald man pass in front of me, and it appeared that he was talking loudly and boisterously, and seemingly shouting at a couple of guys several paces in front of him. He had a little man with a graying moustache in tow, but baldy didn't look like he was talking to him. He had a familiar fanatical air about him, but I assumed it was possible it was a group of guys and he was just the loud fat one.
Well, lo and behold, the pair of baldy and moustache return a little later, a sight I notice because I see the little gray mouse sticking his head in the car window of a young couple at the stoplight. This passes without incident, but the next thing I see is bald asshole talking to two young men holding hands and waiting to use the crosswalk. I can't hear anything, even with the iPod stopped, but it starts to get heated. I now realize that gray mouse is holding a Bible, and so it's pretty obvious why one of the gay boys is getting pretty excited and the exchange between him and the two allegedly Christian closet cases is getting heated. At least two stoplight cycles pass while this is going on, which I notice because each time the walk signal comes up, the boy who isn't arguing is trying to get his boyfriend to go with him.
I kept my eye on this. I thought maybe I should go out there and interject, but the boy arguing is clearly holding his own and I figure I should let him. If it looks like it's going to get physical, then I will leap off this chair and go thump some Bible. This seemed like a good idea to me, until a woman in the coffee shop with me goes out there and tells baldy to keep it down, she's trying to read. Then I felt like a real wuss. Of course, baldy's response is that he's on a public street, yada yada, but now the bubble has burst and the gay boys have moved on and the evangelists cross the street perpendicular to them and start harassing other people (I actually saw them doing so). I am pretty sure it's not very Christlike to walk up and down the street accosting people you don't know. Only Jesus has the ability to recognize your sins, should you believe in Him, and my Sunday school always taught me it was a sin to pretend you're Jesus. I guess these two bullies were absent that day.
It wasn't long after that it was time for me to move on, and as I headed to my destination, I prepared myself to encounter the wandering religious bullies. This was not my lot in life, however, I was instead to encounter another kind of bully--one with a car. Maybe he was visited on me because on the way to meeting him, I denied a panhandler money though I had money in my pocket. He was polite to me, and I politely declined, but maybe I needed to be charitable. I don't know. Either way, I was about to meet Asshole #2.
I should state up front, I don't have rose-colored glasses when it comes to my fellow pedestrians. In fact, I can't stand pedestrians who don't pay attention any more than drivers can. I am not one of those walkers. To be a clueless foot traveler in my neighborhood is to take your life into your own hands. Drivers up here apparently never learned that the line in the road by a stop sign is not just a helpful signal that you are supposed to stop, but it's where you are supposed to stop.
I frontload this information because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that when I stepped into the intersection, the little walking man was illuminated. That is why I was so surprised to see a car turning right onto my street directly in my path. In fact, had I not been alert, I would not have seen him in time to pause, wonder what the fuck?, and then make eye contact with him, at which point this cock starts to shake his head, point at his ears, and mouth the words, "No." Seriously. He is saying "no"!
I am not going to get into a game of chicken here, so I slow up and let him turn in front of me, and as he does, he actually slows down and stops so that he is facing me, his driver's window is where I am at. At this point, I'm thinking maybe he wants to ask a question, and I hit stop on my iPod. For some reason, people ask me for directions all the time, even though I don't know anything about giving directions, I am truly bad at it. As this is happening, too, I notice that the walk signal is now the blinking red hand. Not the solid red hand, but the blinking one, the yellow light of the pedestrian world.
That's an important distinction, because half-bald asshole has stopped to point out to me that there is a walk signal behind me that tells me when I can and cannot walk and I should pay attention to it. Ignoring the fact that the one behind me is completely useless when I am standing on the curb under it, it's the one in front of me that is important, I tell him that when I stepped into the street, I clearly had a walk signal. He tells me I need to wake up, and then starts to drive away. I guess pointing at his ears was indicating that I was listening to music and this somehow hampered my ability to see the world around me. I shout at him that he should go fuck himself, he calls me an asshole--as he's driving away, after making me get out of the way of his big metal car, the pussy!--and I shout even louder "Fuck you, you cunt!"
I've never been more sorry that the guy didn't get out of his car to start something. But that's always the way with car bullies. They have their death machines, they don't have to get out of them, and they can zoom away faster than you can chase them.
Now is when I note that both of these men were cresting past middle age and both were wearing Hawaiian shirts. Apparently this is now the universal symbol for asshole. It used to be jolly fat guys that wore Hawaiian shirts, but now they are bitter and full of rage.
[Note: Family Guy is a favorite show amongst assholes. Watch accordingly]
I also think it's interesting that as my chain of ass commenced, each successive jerkoff had more hair than the last. Because Asshole #3 had a Hawaiian shirt, a pot belly, and a full head of hair.
The third in this trilogy of sphincter was spotted at the club. He was there even before I was, and at first I thought he was that obnoxiously gregarious older guy that just talks to everybody regardless of who they are. My first encounter with him was actually quite fine. The bar has a spot where they put out plates of food people ordered, and you have to come find your meal on your own. I was sitting near that spot, finishing reading my comic. He pondered aloud whether any of them were his, and I shrugged. Don't ask me directions, I suck at it.
Things changed as soon as the music started. This dude decides to set up shop on the corner of the bar next to where I am sitting, and not only is he talking loudly, but he's completely crowding my area. Like, if I moved half and inch, I'd be touching his fanny. He's that close. It's also basically standing in the exact spot where all I can see is his back, not the stage. If this had been a capacity crowd, I would have understood, but at its height tonight, the room was barely half full. This is the guy who, even though there are only five people in a movie theatre, decides to sit right next to you. Because, you know, why spread out on this great spaceship Earth when you can?
Having the asshole right next to me, though, I can observe him exhibiting his natural behavior. He ordered a couple of drinks: a blue one for a pretty girl and one for himself. The one for himself is Patron tequila, and though the bartender brings him a glass that is 4/5 full, the pot-bellied asshole points at it and says, "That's a weak pour." The bartender, not having any of this nonsense, quickly and curtly responds, "No, that's a heavy pour." The asshole harumphs and says, "What is this? Is this the best bar in the world? Because that's a weak pour for a $9 shot of tequila. Why is it $9? It's $7 everywhere else." The bartender smirks, says, "Not Patron, sir," and walks away.
Asshole! Seriously, I needed some Hulk rage right about them. Hulk smash!
He also took my chair the moment I stood up, would respond to things the band said loudly and to no one in particular, and danced with the pretty swing dancing girls but did so badly so that they basically had to dance around him like he was an obstacle. You're old, asshole! You can't dance!
Thankfully, he left before the start of the third set of music, and so the night ended asshole-free.
Weirdly, and maybe it was just in direct opposition to the rest of the world this evening--you know, the way the good yellow banana is easy to spot in the bunch amongst the bruised and brown ones--I got chatted up by several ladies tonight. Either the sitting alone and reading books made me appear to be a puppy in need of rescue, or I was sending out my solid "gay best friend" vibe, because otherwise I have no explanation for this.
Granted, just to add fuel to the fire that I live my own fiction, I did not do anything about this female friendliness. Rather, I decided to place all of my bets on the pretty girl in the sleeveless white dress and the tight curly hair with the blue flowers in the back, because I made eye contact with her twice and she smiled once and I also caught her turning her head to the side to read the title of my book, which was upside down in her field of vision. I never actually talked to her, though I thought of many things to say. I also couldn't ask her to dance even though she was there to swing dance and didn't have a regular partner, because we all know what happened when I took swing dancing lessons.
Oh, yeah, did I mention she was one of the girls the asshole danced with? And the one he bought the blue drink for? (Conversation starter probably better left unused: "You know, in the wild, when something is colored that brightly, it's to warn you that it's dangerous. You'd better be careful.") Or that I saw her give some douche in a sideways baseball cap her number and heard him basically blow it off? Yeah, I decided to keep my options open for that girl. Maybe it was me picking up the lost puppy vibe.
CHANCE MEETING: Swing-dancing girl in white dress and blue flowers. I'm the idiot who sat and read comics. Call me.
rating: 4 of 5 stars I haven't read the entirety of Love and Rockets, but from what I can tell, the Hernandez Bros. plateaued artistically somewhere in the mid-90s, and their draftsmanship and writing style hasn't progressed at all since. This makes it all the more impressive that their level of craft is so high, it still manages to astound me. (As opposed to, say, Steve Rude, whose stagnation is still pretty to look at, but not really inspiring.) I am particularly amazed by how well Jaime moves around on a page, the different angles he shows of one character from panel to panel as his or her mood or situation changes, the psychology of his framing.
It is also a testament to how interesting his characters are that they are still so compelling. I guess they've aged in real time. Ray makes mention of being in his 40s, and Maggie is looking like a woman in her late 30s. Yet, their day-to-day lives are still the fodder for great fiction. The opening strip of this book even follows Hopey over a week and a half or so, dividing each strip from one day to the next.
I actually wish I had read these stories in the original comics, because I would appreciate Jaime's construction all the more. He tells long stories that are broken into shorter strips, sometimes only one or two pages, and yet sometimes picking up mere seconds after the last one ended. Presumably these are spread over several issues, where they might appear somewhat disjointed, but put together in a book, they form a flawless narrative.
IF I WORKED MY HANDS IN WOOD, WOULD YOU STILL LOVE ME?
I finished! I now have a complete first draft of the entirety of Lying Down!
Now it's time for a celebratory shave and a bath!
Current Soundtrack: Tim Hardin, Hang On To A Dream: The Verve Recordings
Current Mood:accomplished
MY SHADOW IS A THURSDAY
I have a GoodReads account to track the books I read and review them, and I'm thinking if I write something there, I should also post it here. What do you all reckon? I'm going to post my most recent review below, and if readers of this blog think this will be a good idea and say so in the comments, I will start doing it regularly. If you don't care what I think, then say so, too. Though, to be honest, I really only care what Renee French thinks. (I don't review everything I read, just sometimes write a quick little blurb if I have thoughts to share.)
This book reminds me of the early work of Scott Morse, particularly Soulwind, both in terms of some of the fantasy elements but also in the storytelling influences Cyril Pedrosa brings into his narrative. You will see shades of Disney, European comics, and traditional Japanese painting.
The story involves a family living on a remote farm in an imaginary country who one day see three horses and riders in the distance. Believing they have come for his son, the father tries to take the boy far away, hoping to outrun these dark harbingers. The plot is largely about the bonds of family and the strange people along their journey who run counter to their beliefs and their mission. At times, the structure meanders a bit, particularly in a side story near the end that actually follows the three shadows on a misadventure, but these are forgivable quirks. Three Shadows is otherwise touching, vividily imagined, and beautifully drawn.
THEY CAPTURED WHAT SEEMED UNKNOWING AND CANDID, BUT THEY SUSPECTED IT WAS FALSE
Yesterday was productive. I wrote the entirety of Lying Down #5. I kept telling myself I was going to stop and pick it up the next day, but the dominoes kept landing one in front of the other.
I started the script using a grid structure that allowed for a particular sequence to be embedded in another sequence, another something I thought I would stop at some point, but it kept going and before I knew it this technique ran through the entire script. At times, I wrote both elements together, and then in the middle, I wrote the sidebar on its own before backtracking and filling in the main story all the way to the end. This left about half of the experiment to polish off as the last work to do.
This here is a scan of the notes I did to plan out those pages, sequenced here as their matching double-page spreads, pages 16-23.
I don't know if Mike Holmes is going to love me or hate me with this.
Writing Lying Down has been a challenge at times. I had a lot of days where I felt I was in over my head, tackling something I was not capable of, followed by bouts of self-confidence and elation. Yesterday ended in elation.
I've been experimenting with the structure of this one a lot, writing each issue as individual units, like shuffled pieces of the larger whole. Then, within each of those units, more pieces, more shuffling. It continues, in some sense, structural techniques I began in 12 Reasons Why I Love Her and that have been cropping up in my work ever since, including in "Reverberation," the story for Popgun, vol. 2. Not being so linear allows me to control how information is released to the audience and thus manipulate perceptions. What you know when and how you know it can make a huge difference. Thematically, this makes sense in Lying Down, which is about deception and how one presents oneself to others. It's also about con men.
Today, we start the last issue.
Current Soundtrack: Spearmint, A Different Lifetime
The Newsarama blog has a feature called "I [Heart] Comics," where different comics professionals talk about a specific corner of the art form that lifts their skirt. This week, I am the guest contributor, and I wrote a piece on comics about rock 'n' roll. It was posted this morning.
Of course, I mainly picked that topic so I could leak this Red Rocket 7 cover:
I think I've mentioned, I wrote a new afterword to go with this forthcoming Image Comics edition. I'm pretty stoked to see it coming back in print.
Current Soundtrack: Primal Scream, "Loaded (Terry Farley Mix);" the Futureheads, "Return of the Berserker;" Mos Def & Shuggie Otis, "Blue Black;" Roddy Woomble, "From the Drifter to the Lake"
Current Mood:in tune
Monday, June 09, 2008
AIN'T NO LOVE IN THE HEART OF SNAP CITY
Looks like the script I was struggling over the last couple of weeks has been accepted. They went for version 3. So, now I'm willing to say that it's actually for this anthology, Portland Noir edited by Kevin Sampsell. Crime tales set in different Portland neighborhoods. It seems only fitting that a Portland anthology would have a comic book story, and mine even has cartoonists in it.
I've been spending my time otherwise working mainly on the comic book I am doing with Mike Holmes, and I wrote early scripts for the third and fourth issues last week. It looks like it will be six issues, and I am working on notes for the finale now. No ETA or publisher as of yet. It is also a crime book, though with a much different, classic Hollywood tone--not like You Have Killed Me, though. Like Denise Richards, it's complicated. It's called Lying Down.
You can, however, go to your comics shop this Wednesday and purchase Madman Atomic Comics #9.
This is the issue made up entirely of double-page spreads, and if you laid them each end to end, they would form one continuous background with the characters in constant motion, moving from the first page all the way to the last. In film terms, it's one tracking shot. Prepare to be impressed.
Current Soundtrack: Shufflin' with the Cardigans, Outkast, Girls Aloud, Dubstar
When I have more time, I may do an extended essay on Bryan Bertino's The Strangers as a metaphor for marriage. From the moment Liv Tyler puts on that engagement ring--which, I might add, she cannot remove--things go horribly wrong, and she and her significant other die a slow and painful death. The man (Scott Speedman) isn't even allowed to have friends anymore. What's up with that?
Suffice to say, if you want to see a freakin' scary movie, then you should go see The Strangers. I was so tense watching this movie, at one point in the climax, I thought I was going to vomit. Not from blood or guts, either, but just from having my stomach tied in knots for 90 minutes. I don't understand the criticism that has equated this movie to torture porn, actually, because though the violence is swift and precise, it is not overly gory. There is decidedly little blood, and Bertino regularly knocks his camera away when the worst of the action is about to happen.
I'm also at a loss over the charges that The Strangers is plotless. There is a plot there, it's just not needlessly complicated. The lack of an overly detailed set up or a convoluted explanation is part of the point, that these things don't happen for a reason, that people are just sick and bad and they get off on cheap thrills. Unlike Michael Haneke in, I guess, either version of Funny Games (I've only seen the German original), Bertino doesn't feel like he has to bring the proceedings to a screeching halt or play any tricks with the fourth wall to make sure that we know that he knows that we know that he's making a comment on the cruel downside of voyeurism. Outside of the opening voiceover about the movie being based on "true events," first-time writer/director Bertino lets the story do the talking. And since that claim is apparently a fake-out a la Fargo, he really could have done without it. Horror movies carry their own message: I'm locked in a dark room experiencing all manner of unspeakable acts and enjoying myself doing so. I'm not desensitized; on the contrary, my senses are alive.
I've had this theory that horror movies make armchair quarterbacks out of us all. People love to be smarter than the characters in the movie. You know the type, who always leave a flick like The Strangers and say, "Well, I would have ran out the back" or "I would have grabbed something heavy instead of just standing their screaming." Grant yourself an honest moment, though, and admit it. You'd be even stupider than the people in the movie. We all like to think we'd rise to the occasion, but unless these very unreal things were truly happening to us, we don't know for sure we wouldn't just sink into a puddle of our own tears and piss.
Well, the best thing I can say about The Strangers is I never felt like I was smarter than the targeted couple. I never saw a better way out, I never fell out of the mood. The masked killers were genuinely creepy, and the movie delivered several real jolts to my system. We had a fun Sunday matinee audience that wasn't afraid to be afraid, and I must say, having some actual exclamations of fright really does help get one into the experience, the way a good, laughing audience can help a funny movie be even funnier. Good audio also helped. Bertino only sparsely used music, choosing his moments wisely for the most effect. Even better, though, he used mixing to his advantage and had his sound effects move between different speakers to achieve maximum scariness.
I'm down with whatever Bryan Bertino makes next. I put this one in the same category of Vacancy or The Orphanage, movies that did exactly what I wanted them to do, telling a story and putting me on the edge of my seat for an hour and a half. I'd gladly climb out onto that edge with this filmmaker again.
A new review of 12 Reasons Why I Love Her showed up today. I was not familiar with Tiny Heroes before, but it looks like a Portland-based blog by a reader named Mindy C. In her "about me" section she mentions having a pug, and I just got back from pug-sitting for Ms. Joëlle Jones herself, and I smell like dog.
Which is neither here nor there. The review is very nice, and it's cool to get the perspective of a fairly new comics reader. An excerpt, with link to the full review:
To recommend my own newly discovered love poem, Mod-ified Music had a post today about a French singer named Sophie with a downloadable mp3 of her cover of "Be My Baby," which we all know is one of the best songs of all time. Get the song here. Mod-ified is a blog out of Singapore and is routinely full of gems, usually great discoveries of '60s music from overseas, including many Asian covers of familiar tunes and sometimes even modern bands.
Current Soundtrack: Tex Ritter, "High Noon;" The The, "I've Been Waitin' For Tomorrow (All Of My Life)"
Current Mood:pleased
Thursday, June 05, 2008
ALL MOUTH, NO TROUSERS
Well, so far the box office this summer seems to be right on, rewarding Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Sex and the City the status of hits, and sending Speed Racer to the scrap heap. I'm a little surprised the only mail I've gotten on Sex and the City was one nice note pointing out that I had gotten an actor's name wrong. My review isn't at all contentious, but seeing as how personal a lot of men are taking the fact that there is a movie in the Cineplex that doesn't actually care whether they spend their money on it or not, I expected a few fellows to write and accuse me of betraying my gender. (I'll do it every time, guys, don't tempt me. Show me a river, and I'll sell you down it without a second thought.) I find it fascinating how vitriolic people seem to get when it comes to this series. I notice some try to hide under a dubious claim of higher thinking by complaining that the movie is too materialistic and the product placement is out of control. Really? How come no one ever talks about the classism of a James Bond movie, how it glorifies the rich and encourages the need for bigger, better toys? Or, in general, how most summer blockbusters, product placement or no, are really just big commercials for ancillary products? If it's based on a toy line, a video game, or nostalgia, trust me, the intention isn't art, and it shouldn't get a pass just because the main characters have penises. Just because most guys I know wouldn't know a wardrobe from a lion or a witch, doesn't mean they aren't materialistic. Maybe if more of them cared about their appearances, they wouldn't need things like video games to pass the lonely hours.
'm just saying.
One thing I did notice is that there is a lot of interest in the scene in the movie where one of the characters has an accident in her pants. We can see how people find our reviews on DVD Talk, including what they type into search engines. Quite a few people have searched on "sex and the city poop" or "sex and the city poop themselves" and the like. I am not sure what they are hoping to find. An explanation? The only similar phenomena I can think of are people searching for the meaning of the dollar bill in The Good Shepherd or the fate of Iggy in Flags of Our Fathers. Does a woman messing herself cause the same kind of confusion? The plot becomes just one big diaper of confusion as a result!
THIS WEEK IN THEATRES...
* The Promotion, a well meaning but underwhelming comedy with John C. Reilly, Seann William Scott (each of his names has a double consonant), and Jenna Fischer.
* Diva - Meridian Collection, the influential French thriller from the early '80s. Seems to me it mainly skates by on reputation, the actual product leaves something to be desired.
I was going to close with an image from Avatar, but my Google search turned up thesesites, and now I hate the internet. Very much NOT SAFE FOR WORK! Seriously, the first link has the #3 image you see when you search "Avatar Last Airbender" in Google Images.
And, of course, this completely confirms for me what I feared people wanted when they search "sex and the city character poop herself."
Current Soundtrack: misc. Gallon Drunk tracks; King Black Acid, "Behind Blue Eyes;" Paul Weller, "Rip the Pages Up (Brendan Lynch Mix);" Morrissey, "Children in Pieces"
Current Mood:disgusted
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
I DO LIKE TO BE B-SIDE THE A-SIDE
Love the Way You Love: Side B by myself and Marc Ellerby, and collecting the last three issues, is in the new Diamond Previews, putting it on a publishing track to get it out in August.
Preorder it now!
Diamond order code: JUN08 4144. ISBN-10: 1932664955 ISBN-13: 978-1932664959
Don't worry. For those sticking with the serialization, the sixth volume should be out in the next two weeks.
***
Completely unrelated pet peeve thing here.
To the creative types out there, don't you do a search when you come up with a title? Sure, we all know the chorus of "You can't copyright a title," and literature has a long history of titles being allusions or straight lifts from other things ("Love the Way You Love" is a song by Suede), but aren't you concerned there is already something out there called what you want to call your book that might compete or confuse? If I get a title, even if I'm yanking it from a song ("Cut My Hair" by the Who) or a poem ("I Was Someone Dead" was a phrase in John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet), I usually check both Amazon and Internet Movie Database to be safe. Thus, You Have Killed Me is named after a Morrissey song instead of being called by its original title The Big Empty, because there was a movie called that a couple of years ago.
I don't know Paul Peart-Smith, and I wish him all the luck in the world, but there has already been a comic called One Plus One, and it's a book that may have a sequel someday, so why call your comic that? I saw the title listed on Comics Reporter and was shocked to see Neal and Daniel had gotten something together, only to click through and see they hadn't. Bummer.
I wonder if Peart-Smith also took his title from the Godard film about the Rolling Stones?
Wouldn't it be bizarre if comics were treated like bands. You know, how the Charlatans had to be the Charlatans UK in the States because there was already a Charlatans from San Francisco in the '60s. Or Suede and the London Suede (I actually see the lesbian folk singer Suede who caused the "London" prefix is playing in Portland this summer; I'm going to go and keep shouting, "Metal Mickey! Metal Mickey!"). This comic could be called "The Online One Plus One."
Again, best of luck to this endeavor. I'm not suggesting anything or wishing to besmirch anyone, I'm just making a point. Google is your friend.
Current Soundtrack: Morrissey, "All You Need Is Me" single & B-sides; Elle S'appelle, "Little Flame"
Author of prose novels and comic books like Cut My Hair, It Girl & the Atomics, You Have Killed Me, and 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. Jamie's most recent novel is the serialized book Bobby Pins and Mary Janes, and his most recent graphic novels are the sci-fi romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Madame Frankenstein with Megan Levens; and the weird crime comic Archer Coe & the Thousand Natural Shocks with Dan Christensen.
