How I Learned To Love Comic Book Fandom Yet Again

Another aspect of the whole comic book thing that can distract from the actual comics themselves is comic book fandom.  The wonderful most reviled and disgusting blog around, Fanboy Rampage, does a great job of exploring the not-so-pleasant side of fandom, but reading about the unpleasant underbelly of fandom day-in, day-out can give one the impression that all fandom is foul-mouthed, small-minded, and idiotic.

Which is why it's nice to run across a site like Amazon Archives every now and then.  Fan Chris Hayes has put together an impressive fan-site dedicated to the "Bronze Age" of Wonder Woman comics.  He's written up insanely-detailed summaries of hundreds of WW comics and scanned in cover images and select panels to boot.  It's a hoot to read through the descriptions of these goofy stories where it seems the motivation of every other villain is to force Wonder Woman to marry him.  Most of the plots are extremely repetitive (how many times can we re-read Wonder Woman's origin, or see her tied up with her own magic lasso?), but there's also interesting trivia on hand to learn.  (For example, I'd never known how or when WW's costume made the transition from eagle emblem to the "double 'W'" design.)  And then of course there are the glorious sample images (apologies if these screw up Ed's blog template):

The power of the Atomic Amazonian Chastity Belt is not to be trifled with!


Steve Trevor, Colossal Ass


Suffering Shades of JFK!


DC was very ahead of its time in terms of catering to fans' specific fetishes.


This is one battle that Wonder Woman never shared with the rest of the JLA.


Proof that Wonder Woman isn't above fighting dirty.

The only downside of browsing through the comic summaries is the sad realization that there's no cheap, easy way to read these stories.  I really wish DC would come out with something like Marvel's Essential line.  Maybe if the new Batman Chronicles does well DC will consider reprinting more of their extensive back catalogue.  Until then, it looks like it's eBay for me if I want to read some of the Amazon Princess's more amusing adventures.  But for now, here's a big thanks to fans like Chris Hayes for bringing the fun back to comic book fandom.

Links, memes and congrats. Oh, my.

• Shawn Hoke talks about some skateboarding-related comics that I'll end up buying for my wife, now that she's suddenly obsessed with "extreme sports," which can be traced directly back to her new crush on Bam Margera. Of course, I always have an ulterior motive, and there's something about this that grabbed me:

Sidewalk Bump is by Dan Moynihan, John Isaacson, Dave Kiersh, Leslie Klienberg, John Porcellino, Heath Row and Jack Turnbull. Included under a gorgeous wraparound watercolor color are 48 B&W pages (both Dan's website and USS Catastrophe say this book is 24 pages, but it's 48) of stories reminiscing about one thing - skating. With the first page, Moynihan sets the theme using three simple panels:

"We pave the world." (Cars traveling over a globe)

"But trees are stronger than concrete." (A tree bursting through a sidewalk)

"They make sidewalk bumps." (A skater grabbing air off of a concrete ramp caused by tree roots)

Also, Shawn then gets all sappy, talking about getting married this weekend and shit. Shawn, don't you know that all the personal shit belongs on blogs, and not in columns?

I kid, of course (and sent him an obnoxious sappy CD to prove that love). But, if you like his column and want to wish him well, e-mail him or congratulate him at the Comic World News forum.

• Speaking of forums... hey, new Isotope forum. Which is good--I've already learned about one project I hadn't heard of before--Alex de Campi and Seb Camagajevac's Faust comic, slated for a November release from IDW. No, not that Faust. The Goethe version. More info here.

• It serves me right, after forcibly memeing Kevin and Graeme, that someone would do it to me. Courtesy of Brad "Comics Should Be Good" Curran:

If a genie came to you and told you could make three wishes that would change comics forever (I'm talking art and commerce), what would they be?

1. A new comics-related magazine. Not that there's anything wrong with The Comics Journal in my eyes, but I'm painfully aware that not everyone else wants to heap loads of praise on it. At the same time, the generally shoddy writing and coverage that Wizard provides amidst the fart and tit jokes (and don't get me started on the now-supplemental-to-the-movie-issue Wizard Edge) doesn't make it seem like the best face to put forward at convenience stores and magazine shops across the country. Really, I'd like to see something like Amazing Heroes come back.

2. Comics racked by theme in big bookstores, rather than being shoehorned into the sci-fi/fantasy section.

3. A big old wad of cash so I could pull a Jeff Mason and spend it all spreading comics I think more people should be reading.

For discussion purposes, here's Brad's answer. I have to disagree on his first one, as I do think there are comics out there that could appeal to every possible demographic--I think the question is whether or not people actually want to get into the comics, rather than if there are comics for them should they choose to look.

How I Learned To Love Comics Yet Again

Over in the first installment of his newly-relaunched column "Grim Tidings," blogosphere bad boy Graeme McMillan closes with this thought:

"But you know what? When you forget about the state of the industry and what everyone else is saying and writing and everything, comics can be pretty good after all."

I'd have to say I agree.  For a while I was pretty heavy into the comic news cycle -- mocking solicits; arguing about the problems of the Direct Market; speculating wildly about upcoming storylines.  Then a couple changes in my life necessitated that I adjust my schedule and regular comics blogging was out.  But that doesn't mean that I've stopped reading comics.  If anything, I may be reading even more comics than I was a year ago when I was in full-on blogging mode.  And what's more, I feel as though I'm enjoying more of the comics that I'm reading.  Now, there could be several reasons for this: 

(1) The comics could actually be better. 

(2) I may have gotten smarter in my preordering, avoiding comics that looked likely to annoy me.  (For example, I passed on DC COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE TITLE LENGTH even though it would have only cost me 50 cents through DCBS.) 

(3) Focusing more on the actual comics and less on the behind-the-scenes of the comics industry may have improved my disposition towards comics. 

(4) Not writing about comics on a regular basis may have dulled my critical faculties to the point where a goofy comic about the "Lil' Avengers" entertains me.  (Yes, dammit, I actually enjoyed the first issue of YOUNG AVENGERS as well, although I'll probably wait until the trade hits the library to read the rest of it.) 

I'm guessing the real answer is somewhere along the lines of "all of the above."  But whatever the reason, it is refreshing to experience those moments where your comic-loving soul feels revitalized.  I felt that way last week when I looked over at the stack of read comics that had been piling up beside my bed and realized that I was batting nearly a thousand:  Almost everything I'd read recently was good.  Planetes ended strongly, with with some very nice bits about the Most Powerful Force in the universe (yeah, it is what you're probably guessing but it worked, surprisingly) and not giving up despite the frequent stupidity and pointlessness of life.  Daisy Kutter was a fun little romp in the Western-with-robots genre, with wonderfully loose art from Kazu Kibuishi.  Scary Godmother: Spooktakular Stories was a silly, surreal, spooktakular (couldn't resist) delight, with lively, playful black-and-white art from the always-great Jill Thompson (really looking forward to the upcoming Dead Boy Detectives manga by Thompson).  Thousand Faces was an engrossing Western horror story with gorgeous art from Marc Malès (my only complaint would be that the story ends abruptly in midstream with no second volume announced yet).  And Epileptic I finished months ago but I keep returning to it to immerse myself in the incredible artwork.  And that's not even counting all the manga (Prince of Tennis, Whistle, Berserk (which I've been enjoying much more than I would have ever guessed based on the first two volumes; I guess all those fans who told me things get more interesting in the "Golden Age" arc were right after all)) I've been checking out from the library.  Yeah, there aren't any superhero comics in that list, but given the overall "grim 'n' gritty" direction both DC and Marvel seem to be moving towards (again), I just haven't been that interested in superhero stories lately.  But that's fine, because as the list above shows, there's plenty of stuff other than superheroes to satisfy my comics cravings.  Besides, I should have plenty of Seven Soldiers comics arriving any time now and after the #0 issue I'm content to ignore what's going on in the "real" DCU and just enjoy what Morrison's doing off in his own corner.

So if you find yourself worn out by all of the crass, cynical events that seem to be dominating the Big Two's output lately, maybe it's time to look beyond the mainstream publishers for your sequential art entertainment needs.  I'm not saying you have to give up superhero comics completely (heck, I'm still enjoying Spider-Man/Human Torch and She-Hulk), but if you're not getting any enjoyment out of the series you've been collecting for years, maybe it's time to try something different for a change.  Who knows?  You may be pleasantly surprised by what you discover.

Reading is fundamental--various book memes

Hey, I love books. I love books lots and lots. So, here's two book memes floating around, which I've plucked while locked in a room with an aggressive, overprotective dog... Our company is afraid of him, and I'm antisocial. But, seriously... how can you be afraid of this face?



Anyway... So, motivated-by-boredom blogging.

The first one comes from Sean Collins originally, I think.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

If the question is the book I'd want to be responsible for memorizing: The Great Gatsby, because... dork alert... I can quote large chunks of it already, and I'm lazy. And I love it lots and lots.

If it's the book that I'd like to see burnt to sooty surrender, then probably The Bell Curve or something like that.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Probably. I mean, I develop crushes on everything. I'm a sap like that. Can't think of any off the top of my head, though.

The last book you bought is:

I don't remember what the last one was. I remember I bought books at Carroll & Carroll in Stroudsburg, PA last time I was home visiting, but I don't remember what. Isn't that sad?

The last book you read:

Shakespeare: For All Time by Stanley Wells.

What are you currently reading?

Love All the People: Letters, Lyrics, Routines by Bill Hicks. The wife got it for me for Easter, and it's good. Next, Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, which she also bought me.

Five books you would take to a deserted island.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Basquiat - Phoebe Hoban
A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn
The Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem
The Complete Works - William Shakespeare (more bang for the buck)

I hate narrowing it down to five, though.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

Kevin Melrose, Graeme McMillan and John Jakala, in an attempt to get him to post here again.

Here's another one, nicked from ADD, who nicked it from someone else--a book list meme thing. Here's the rules:

- Bold those you have read
- Italicize those you started, but didn't finish
- Add three books after the last one

001. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
002. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
003. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
004. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
005. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
006. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
007. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
008. 1984, George Orwell
009. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
010. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
011. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
012. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
013. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
014. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
015. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
016. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
017. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
018. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
019. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
020. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
021. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
022. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling
023. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
024. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
025. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
026. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
027. Middlemarch, George Eliot
028. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
029. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
030. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
031. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
032. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
033. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
034. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
035. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
036. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
037. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
038. Persuasion, Jane Austen
039. Dune, Frank Herbert
040. Emma, Jane Austen
041. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
042. Watership Down, Richard Adams
043. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
044. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
045. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
046. Animal Farm, George Orwell
047. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
048. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
049. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
050. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
051. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
052. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
053. The Stand, Stephen King
054. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
055. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
056. The BFG, Roald Dahl
057. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
058. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
059. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
060. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
061. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
062. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
063. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
064. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
065. Mort, Terry Pratchett
066. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
067. The Magus, John Fowles
068. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
069. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
070. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
071. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
072. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
073. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
074. Matilda, Roald Dahl
075. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
076. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
077. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
078. Ulysses, James Joyce
079. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
080. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
081. The Twits, Roald Dahl
082. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
083. Holes, Louis Sachar
084. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
085. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
086. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
087. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
088. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
089. Magician, Raymond E Feist
090. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
091. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
092. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
093. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
094. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
095. Katherine, Anya Seton
096. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
097. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
098. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
099. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-mith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. Winter's Heart, Robert Jordan
208. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
240. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
241. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
242. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
257. Xanth: The Quest for Magic, Piers Anthony
258. The Lost Princess of Oz, L. Frank Baum
259. Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
260. Lost In A Good Book, Jasper Fforde
261. Well Of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde
261. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel
263. The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
264. A Yellow Rraft In Blue Water, Michael Dorris
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Black Bird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt Bleh.
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Jester
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookman's Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison.
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving.
302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Lilith's Brood), Octavia Butler (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago)
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The mysterious disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, Uri Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevensen
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magic's Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime O'Neill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Divine Comedy, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. A Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
374. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick
375. Assassin's Apprentice, Robin Hobb
376. number9dream, David Mitchell
377. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
378. Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris
379. Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
380. Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman
381. Dance On My Grave, Aidan Chambers
382. Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Leguin
383. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
384. Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
385. Checkmate, Dorothy Dunnett
386. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
387. A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin
388. The Egyptian, Mika Waltari
389. Moab Is My Washpot, Stephen Fry
390. Contact, Carl Sagan
391. Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
392. Feersum Endjinn, Iain M. Banks
393. The Golden, Lucius Shepard
394. Decamerone, Boccaccio
395. Birdy, William Wharton
396. The Red Tent, Anita Diaman
397. The Foundation, Isaac Asimov
398. Il Principe, Machiavelli
399. Post Office, Charles Bukowski
400. Macht und Rebel, Abu Rasul
401. Grass, Sheri S. Tepper
402. The Long Walk, Richard Bachman
403. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
404. The Joy Of Work, Scott Adams
405. Romeo, Elise Title
406. The Ninth Gate, Arturo Perez-Reverte
407. Memnoch the Devil, Anne Rice
408. Dead Famous, Ben Elton
409. Scarlett, Alexandra Ripley
410. Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol
411. Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
412. The Colossus of Maroussi, Henry Miller
413. Branded, Alissa Quart
414. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
415. Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
416. White teeth, Zadie Smith
417. Under the bell jar, Sylvia Plath
418. The little prince of Belleville, Calixthe Beyala
419. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
420. A King Lear of the Steppes, Ivan Turgenev
421. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
422. Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Peter Kropotkin
423. Hija de la Fortuna, Isabel Allende
424. Retrato en Sepia, Isabel Allende
425. Villette, Charlotte Brontë
426. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
427. Ubik, Philip K. Dick
428. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
429. Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
430. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
431. Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre
432. The Island of the Day Before, Umberto Eco
433. The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq
434. The Angel Of The West Window, Gustav Meyrink
435. A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway
436. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
437. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
438. In the Eyes of Mr. Fury, Philip Ridley
439. Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks
440. Into the Forest, Jean Hegland
441. Middlesex -Jeffrey Eugenides
442. The Giving Tree -Shel Silverstein
443. Go Ask Alice -Anonymous
444. Waiting For Godot, Samuel Becket
445. Blankets, Craig Thompson
446. The Girls' Guide To Hunting And Fishing, Melissa Banks
447. Voice of the Fire, Alan Moore
448. The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler
449. Coraline, Neil Gaiman
---
450. Hip Hop America, Nelson George
451. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
452. Basquiat, Phoebe Hoban


So, go forth and meme, or something. Or not. But, you know, if you're bored, there's worse things to do.

More linking (since I'm leaving work early, but wanted to share)

• Hey, look. Graeme's having that malignant credibility removed.

I kid because I love. I love Graeme, at least. But I will say that I, too, was pleasantly surprised by the first issue of Young Avengers. Honestly, I'm looking forward to more lengthy pieces from our Rampaging Fanboy again.

• Since I've been linking and talking about writing a good deal lately, it seemed proper to link to Mark Steensland's latest piece at Broken Frontier. He makes an interesting comparison of storytelling basics and the game Jenga. A good primer on storytelling, and worth a look, even if he misquotes Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and attributes it to Hemingway.

There's a part of me that hates myself for remembering that off the top of my head, but that part, oddly, doesn't hate me for remembering things learned from Marvel Saga, which I was reminded of by a Fanboy Rampage comments thread. God, what a great series for a myth-obsessed adolescent--it's like Bulfinch or Hamilton for nerdy kids.

• Speaking of my inner dork... I hate you, Mike Sterling, for showing me this, because I kind of really want it:

----------------

And that's it for me, probably for the weekend, too. My wife has off work for a change, so we'll actually spend time together.

"Farrago"--with apologies to Melrose

Also, apologies to everyone else, because my brain has been really out of whack lately, and the only way I can work through it is by being insufferably obnoxious.

• ITEM! Kevin Melrose, always on the ball, had the Marvel-digs-slurpees-at-a-flippin'-higher-pricepoint story first. Also, he links a Rolling Stone piece on Paul Hornschemeier, which has me even more anxious to check out The Three Paradoxes.

• ITEM! Crisis on Infinite (well, one... Two? One? Whatever) blogs. Like a hydra, Comics Should Be Good lost two heads (Joe and Alex), and gained a bunch more, which explains the We3--Sentimental Crap! post that still has me shaking my head... But new head Brad Curran seems to say the kind of things I'd say if I could get my head out of my own ass, so there's that.

Fear not, fans of orgastic-declarations-of-comics-love and excrement-tinged-keystrokes-of-anger, Alex and Joe can now be found at the sticking-their-cocks-out-in-the-title Listen To Us, We're Right, where Joe sums up reasons why everyone should love Kyle Baker. Juvenile sometimes? Sure. Scatalogically obsessed? Perhaps. But I love that fucker (see, it's infectious).

• ITEM! Graeme beat me to the linking punch, but I still want to point people towards Neil Kleid's latest Big Pond column, where he talks with Brian Wood and Alex de Campi about pitching comics. For some reason, I love anything that's about pitching--it's just a prime topic for fun anecdotes. Some de Campi bits I liked:

"Most importantly, your first pitch to an editor is nothing but an opening salvo in a long-term conversation. Often it will take you three or more rejected pitches before you understand what the editor is really looking for. Listen to what the editor says, and learn from it. You must not get all bent out of shape if your masterpiece dream story gets dinged first-off. Chances are, it will. You’re a writer. Go out to the pub, bitch to your friends about how nobody recognizes your genius, then go the fuck home and write something else. Good thing you’re only sending these pitches as 200 word springboards, isn’t it?"

And,

"My biggest criticism of pitches I read is that many are all plot, and no story. Plot is what happens. Story is why, and how, it happens. You have probably thought up some wonderful plot details in your pitch, of which you are immensely and justifiably proud. Here’s the stone cold truth: you shouldn’t put most of them in your pitch. Spend your time making us fall in love with your main character. Be clear about who the villain is, and what their motivation is. Everything else is just plot gubbins."

Although I don't know what "gubbins" are, I think that's solid advice.

• ITEM! A space knight like Rom, consume planets like Unicron/Blasting photon bombs from the arm like Galvatron. - Wu Tang Clan, "Impossible."

I just kind of wanted to say that again.

Part two: I think I need to change the sidebar, too, now that I've decided to keep the template. Comics and comics blogs are great and all, but I need to add other things that reflect my interests, if only so I have easy access to make with the clicky. Example? Lyman's blog, which he slugs with "A journal recording the days of a hipper-than-hip jazz bassist trying to make his way in a rap and rock n' roll world. Pity the tortured artist ..." Self-deprecating humor, jazz talk, and random comics-related posts? I'm in.

• ITEM! Since he's going away for wedded bliss and honeymooning in a place obscenely gorgeous, Shawn Hoke used the quieter-than-the-vacuum-of-space Comic World News forum to announce the winners of his The Comics Journal #266 contest. I should have entered--I misplaced my copy after going through the great "Best of" stuff, so I still haven't read that Bendis interview. Shit. I'm hoping it turns up at some point.

• ITEM! Just so I have to hold myself accountable to it, here are the books I'll definitely be reviewing within the next month, provided the wife doesn't make me do other things:

• Escalator - Brandon Graham.
• A Strange Day - Damon Hurd, Tatiana Gill.
• Lunch Hour Comics - Robert Ullman.
• IWGP - Ikebukuro West Gate Park Volume 1 -Ira Ishida, Sena Aritou.
• Worst Volume 1 - Hiroshi Takahashi.
• Stickleback - Graham Annable.

It's a date, of sorts...

Or, as close to it as a married comics geek is going to get. We've settled it, and David P. Welsh and I will be making a day trip of the Pittsburgh Comicon, more because it's an excuse to get together. Looking at the guest list, it becomes pretty obvious that this isn't a convention I would be excited to attend, but it's better than spending a Saturday doing laundry.

In any case, there are some things I'm happy to see. Danielle Corsetto will be there slinging self-published goodness. My inner child really wants to meet Ernie Hudson, because I was a Ghostbusters kid. Ignatz nominee Pat Lewis will be there. I've never heard of Tod Allen Smith, but evidently he lives down the road from me (relatively speaking), so I'll see what he's up to. For the mainstream set, Mark Waid will be there--I have to say, he was one of the nicest people I talked to after filming the convention for work last year. And K. Brandon Wilt will be there! Ok, he's there every year, and I buy my comics from him usually, so it's not like I never see him. His work can be seen in War from Saddle Tramp Press, which also has a story by Damon Hurd.

Also, someone who drew The Gift will be there. I promise to be nice.

Sadly (and Chris, you're right--I'm always a party pooper), I won't be able to make it to the next good show, because that week is the only week my wife can take for vacation post-graduation. I tried to convince her that Toronto would be a blast, but she knew I had other reasons for wanting to hit Canada up that weekend. But that means that I'll have to go to MoCCA again this year.

Idea Store links, and some boring quasi-academic crap

Before I get into anything else, I need to pull an "idea store" update. As I've already mentioned, David Welsh came up with ten great ideas of his own (and, with luck, one of them might get made!). During my week of not-updating, Chris Brown dropped twenty interesting ideas of his own, and Jason Richards throws out... one. But it's good, and really fleshed out. Jason's also thrown out some ideas for some superhero concepts. Also, some people have said they might take some of the ones I threw out, so that was kind of neat. Hey, take them all. They're free.

I'm slowly going to start my reviewing thing up again. I've got a big pile of stuff to go through, so I'll be splitting the reviews up between here and Comic World News over the coming weeks. My renewed interest in the site has nothing to do with the new columnist coming on board soon--honest. In the meantime, though, go read Kevin's thoughts on Brandon Graham's excellent Escalator, published by Alternative Comics.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get the reviews underway as quickly as I would have liked, because I've been working on something else, which I'm going to throw out there for comment. Every year, I end up getting drafted to do a guest lecture for my alma mater's Film as Literature class. This year, the theme of the class is "community," and since I suggested Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming to Dave and Dick as a possible film for the syllabus, they've asked me to do my lecture thing on that. The lecture's tomorrow night, but if anyone has any suggestions for my rough once-through on the topic, I'd be glad to hear them. Why should Fiore have all the fun? This will be wedged between the opening comments and closing comments Dave and Dick already have lined up (which means I get to skip all the introductory stuff), and I'll probably end up going off-plan and making things up on the spot. But, this is where it is, for now. It's usually just something I do, but doing it now as I wait to hear back from graduate school has me really hoping that I will get in--I think I'd be much happier working a T.A. position for a few years than working in television like I am now.

-------------------------------------


What Kicking and Screaming presents isn’t a community so much as it is a microcommunity. And, like any community, there are norms and mores central to the group dynamic. When the guys start playing their trivia game, they are the only ones that follow the rules, and reprimand others that don’t understand them, tightening their bond while pushing away everyone else. While Jane, Grover’s father, Miami and Chet are all part of the focal characters’ lives, they remain outsiders. They, too, recognize this. The line “You all talk the same” comes up too often to be coincidental. Language bonds the four as much—if not more than—common experience. And yet, as communal as their language is, they seem unable to actually communicate. When Max sleeps with Skippy’s girlfriend, Skippy hears it from everyone else in the group (and from Miami herself) before he hears it from Max. Similarly, while we know that Max was an English major from early in the film, Skippy is under the impression that he majored in Philosophy. Also, no one seems to know for sure that Otis studied Engineering until the first time he attempts to leave for graduate school. The characters talk a great deal, but no one is listening. It’s not so bad, though, considering that nothing is actually being said. As Jane discusses leaving for Prague with Grover at Max’s graduation party, Grover focuses on throwing out witty quips rather than discussing anything of substance, and avoids her suggestion that he go with her. This is reflected in Grover’s stories—in workshop, while everyone else in class if fawning over his latest story, Jane is the only one to notice that nothing the characters say is of any importance.

What, then, is the bond that holds these men together? In his review of the film, Roger Ebert suggests a commonality of class, which he calls “the great unspoken basis of the friendships” in the film. To him, the movie “is about a group of smart, articulate college students who have just graduated, and are hanging around the campus before the icy blast of real life begins. They have few plans or prospects, but they trust they’re clever enough to land on their feet.” However, Baumbach presents certain details that show how dissimilar the characters are in terms of class and education. Max comes from wealth—his family not only lays out for an elaborate graduation party, but also subsidizes his post-college inertia. Grover, on the other hand, doesn’t have the financial support that Max does, which troubles him. He points out that now, post-college, he and Max are no longer on equal footing when he laments spending his last twenty dollars on groceries. Similarly, education doesn’t bond them as much as Ebert suggests. While Max and Grover can talk about books the way most guys their age talk about sports, Otis can’t bring himself to read the book for the book club he starts in order to bond with Chet. Even more separated is Skippy—while he talks like the others, it comes across as emulation rather than kinship—he needs to feel connected with the others in that regard, but he is obviously more comfortable speaking with those outside the core group. Also, when starting a game of the trivia challenges that the four use to bond, his first inclination is to ask for “eight movies where monkeys play a key role,” which Max casually dismisses as “stupid” while Otis lets fly a litany of monkey movies, some of which I’m not even sure are movies. Skippy is the one who feels their club needs a name like Cougars or Hawks, “something that will look good on a satin jacket,” an idea he will later realize is silly. When he goes back to school, Skippy is doing it for two reasons. He’s worried that the dynamic of his relationship with Miami will change, but he’s also concerned that he needs to learn what he missed the first time around, perhaps to be on a more equal footing with the rest of his friends.

Instead, what bonds these characters is their inability to act, or to effect change in their lives. Grover recognizes this before the action of the film begins—in fact, he goes against his plan of remaining uninvolved when approaching Jane in one of the film’s flashbacks. And, when pressed for a post-graduation worst-case scenario, he responds “Ding—Jane dumps me to move to Prague, I spend the rest of my life with you idiots.” When Otis finds food in his beer, he doesn’t want to confront the waitress regarding what’s floating at the top. Instead, he drinks it, and ends up with a mouthful of someone else’s chicken wing because that is somehow less awful than confronting another person. The characters feel trapped in their inertia, and they recognize this. They’re stuck in a moment—even though they’ve graduated, time in the film is still demarcated by school terminology. While most films on college end with graduation, this one starts with graduation, and continues to signify time with plates reading “Fall term,” “midterms,” and so on. In many respects, they’re still children. Both Max and Grover become involved with women much younger than they are. When Chet gives the group a housewarming present, Otis replies, “Cool! A dictionary! I'm gonna look up blowjob.” Jane, again, as an outside observer, tells Grover that he is acting like a child, to which he replies, “but if I was a child, you'd find that endearing.”

Kicking and Screaming isn’t a long movie—-that would defeat the point entirely. Twenty minutes more, and the audience would likely despise the central characters as much as the characters themselves often seem to despise one another, because the line between familiarity and weariness would be crossed. At ninety-six minutes, the familiarity we feel with the characters on screen is still predicated on people we know, people we see reflected in Grover, Otis, Skippy and Max.

------------------------------------------------

Friday link-a-dink-dink

I'm unfortunately going to have to hold off and double up next week on the satellite radio challenge to the dismay of maybe three people, but there's some stuff I want to link before I depart for a weekend of debauchery with people I haven't talked to since college graduation (or, more likely, paintball and naps, because I'm not feeling so hot. Let them get go in for the bacchanalia, I say.) But, if you want to see what XM has to offer in the way of country music, check Chris Brown out.

• Over at Pop Matters, Ben Rubenstein drops some hip hop knowledge. Really worth checking out, even if you aren't a hip hop head.

• David Welsh takes the "idea store" concept, and runs with it. Don't listen to his title--his ideas show promise. Also, if anyone else is throwing ideas out there, I'll link them, too, before the Wal*Mart of idea stores pushes everyone out. Or something.

• Bill Baker talks to my man Rich Watson about his Glyph newsletter:

BB: Now I know that Glyph's intended for a mutli-ethnic audience, which leads me to wonder how it might ideally serve those different audience members it reaches...and how the same text can serve all these different needs simultaneously?

RW: Well, first of all I feel I should point out that my mailing list does include black and white people. Everyone chose to subscribe to The Glyph, I believe, because they sense that comics in general needs to be more inclusive and less insular if it is to survive, and to do that, we need to pay some attention to the things being said on other sides. I focus on black comics and creators, but I try not to go overboard with the Afrocentricity if it's not required. For instance, when I interviewed Firestorm artist Jamal Igle, we talked about the issues pertaining directly to the book itself; I didn't ask him questions like "How do you deal with being a black man in a white man's industry" or anything like that because in this particular case, it wasn't necessary. Nothing in Jamal's body of work, past or present, suggests a particular bent towards Afrocentricity. If I were to interview someone like, for instance, Lance Tooks, whose work is very Afrocentric, that would be different. My point is that I try to present the creators I write about as creators who happen to be black, not as black creators - the difference being that their ethnicity does not and should not define them. I believe that would do these men and women a disservice and I won't do that

And if you still haven't signed up for Glyph yet, you can do so by e-mailing Rich with "Glyph" in the heading. I think he's still looking for contributors as well.

• Kevin Church has a great review of Teenagers From Mars that makes me want to reread it.

• Jason Richards talks about the quirky stuff of superhero comics that appeals to him. Jason, please try The Comics Journal again--they're no longer pretending superhero comics don't exist (also, there's still time to win a free copy from Shawn Hoke--the contest update is right past his reviews of Project: Superior and other stuff--so you can maybe do it without parting with money). And I, too, dig Taskmaster. Even the Udon-crafted mini.

Don't judge me.

• Good new blogger Sean Maher is getting on the contest tip, giving away a copy of 1000 Steps to World Domination, a book I haven't read yet but many of my crew seem to like, so I'll be entering. Yay for an excuse to write poetry.

• EDIT: Tradewhore also has a contest of note, giving away some 100% stuff. This one is meant for Kevin Church:

That's right, the only way to enter this contest is to create a music mix based on relationships. The good, bad, ugly, sexy, joyful, regretful, distrust... any or all of it. Create a mix of break-up songs, or spring flings, I don't care. You just have to create a mix based on relationships in general. You can choose any genre of music you want: Pop, R&B, Rock, Easy Listening, Trance, Rap, Jazz, Adult Contemporary, and so forth.

Ideas: a steaming order of concept, hold the proof

How valuable is an idea? If one subscribes to the thought that there is an "ideaspace" or a collective unconscious, then the idea has no value as a unit. You see this in writing classes--instructor gives out an assignment with strict guidelines as to what a story/poem/script should have, and everyone in the class will come up with something different. Some will be good, some will be dreadful, but no two will look the same. It begs the question: is there such a thing as a brilliant idea? I don't think so. There have been times when I've said that someone's idea is brilliant, but that's conversational shorthand for "I think there's promise here that you can actualize." There are good and bad ideas, surely, but I don't think that an idea, just as a little nugget of thought, can be brilliant in and of itself. It's why there's such a thing as a proof of concept--something may sound great on paper as a pitch, or as a concept batted around between friends and colleagues, but the idea falls flat when put into execution by mediocre talents.

This whole train of thought came from a few sources: Alan David Doane's 15 Way's to Make Comics Better, the comments it spawned, James Sime's suggestions for what retailers could do, Neil Kleid's column on "Ideaspace," various things by Larry Young, including Proof Of Concept and some of his columns, conversations with a few like-minded individuals, supplemental material to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up, all those damn list memes, and a whole bunch of comics(x) activism.

Originally, I read Larry's comments as being big on the idea that "making comics better" can only be realized by making comics, but I later realized that either my reading comprehension skills fell off for a bit, or I was confusing things he said with things I've read elsewhere. Instead, I think the crux of his argument rests on that, in "pushing comics forward," action should trump talking about action. In some respects, I agree with the "put up or shut up" train of thought. Look at guys like James Sime or Jeff Mason, who are walking the walk, or a guy like Jason Richards, who is about to walk that path in his own way. In the past, I advocated doing things like forcing comics down the throats of those close to you, but I'm starting to doubt that method. My wife discovered Crayon Shinchan on her own (I left a copy in the bathroom, which I still maintain is the best place to reach a captive audience), and the comics I gave out as Christmas gifts a few years ago got some oohs and aahs, but most are sittting under a thin layer of dust. But, if that method of comics activism is working for you, keep on with it.

I will say, though, that the role of the informed pundit is to take an idea and throw it out for discussion. The discussion may or may not lead to consensus, but theoretical engagement is action enough for me--especially if it inspires or provokes someone to come up with something of his or her own. Perhaps I'm showing my own bias here, as a blogger and a former website columnist/interviewer/reviewer guy, but I think these modes of discussion are vital, if in a different way than the product itself. If I had to make an absolute, though, I'd amend it as follows: if you want to make comics, then fucking make comics. Stop talking about making comics, stop dreaming up ways to get in with people so you can someday put out a comic for someone else somewhere down the line, and stop bitching about people getting gigs out of jealousy or because they're taking jobs away from "real" comics writers, the kind you hope to be.

Of course, it's easy for me to say this, because I currently have no desire to create comics--it's not a format that appeals to me where I'm at right now. If I did have that ambition, I'm sure I'd fall prey to the same talky-talky-talky on the subject. I'd probably be more interested in creating comics if I could draw, because I'm a control freak who doesn't play well with others. Also, for as much as I love the medium, I don't think I'm ready or able to tackle something so reliant upon a visual element. Also, I'm having way too much fun playing with prose, rediscovering poetry and doing the whole blogging thing, so my writing time is pretty much booked at the moment. But I won't say "never," because I'd hate to be called on it later on, and I'd like to leave the door open should my opinion change later.

So, considering my initial misreading, how can I make better comics without actually making comics? I can't, I suppose. But that doesn't mean I won't spend entirely too much time typing up thoughts on it.

Even though I don't want to make comics today, I thought it would be a fun exercise (for myself, at least--you may be bored to tears) to try to comic up with fifty ideas for comics I would consider making. Not having any aspirations frees me up to share, because I'm not considering anything as proprietary knowledge (and, again, the value isn't in the idea, but in the execution of the idea). Plus, trying to come up with ideas can be daunting even if most stories can be broken down to one, three, seven, twenty, thirty-six or thirty-seven basic plot structures, because the magic is in the details. When I was working towards building a portfolio for graduate school applications, I'd get that "fear of a blank page" (to completely misquote Public Enemy), which means I may come back to this if I get rejected and have to do another portfolio next year. I only set a few ground rules for myself:

• No using ideas that I had come up with before. Almost everyone I know that does some kind of artistic thing has a journal, or some other method they have for keepign track of passing ideas (you can see some of F. Scott Fitzgerald's in that book linked up top). I refused to fall back on those, simply because it would be breaking the spirit of the excercize.

• No stories with already-established comic properties. The ideas have to be something that could be put into motion now. On some of the more recent historical ones, that might be a stretch, but it's somewhat easier to twist things around to get past the source material than it is to take, say, a Spider-Man story and twist it into something else entirely.

• Tossing every idea--no matter how cliche, stupid or redundant--into the post. Because they can't all be winners. Most of them won't be. Also, some might already be comics I'm not aware of, either because of ignorance or forgetfulness.

So, now that that's covered... I'm not saying that they're good ideas, but they're what I came up with when pressed. In most cases, they're purposefully undeveloped, as they are meant to be a springboard more than anything else. I wanted them to be open to tweaking, switching settings, character gender, relationships to fit the kind of story someone might want to tell.

Ed's Idea Store (with nods to Neil Kleid)

1. High school kid who works at a resort has to come to terms with getting a guest pregnant after a one week stand.
2. A 19th century paleontologist spends as much time trying to decipher the pattern in his love life as he does trying to decipher the big pile of bones he's brought back to England from Mongolia.
3. A comics biography of Gregory Corso, focusing on his time in prison when he discovers poetry.
4. A week in lives of three teenagers in the '50s immediately following the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper.
5. Two brothers bond over the deaths of obscure famous people as a way of saying "I love you" to one another.
6. A behind-the-scenes recounting of the last Hamlet performance by the Booth brothers, which concluded three weeks prior to Lincoln's assassination.
7. An anthology set around the theme of music, containing stories of varying lengths, tones and settings (examples of settings: strip club, elevator, car stuck in traffic, radio station, DJ battle, wedding, '50s jazz club, musical, etc.)
8. Two rival teams battle in a poetry slam, while two members of one team are going through a divorce.
9. Two people are on a cross-country trek from California to New York. One has Tourrette's. The emphasis is on language, both printed and spoken, and how we communicate.
10. Retelling of the first major tank battle at the Battle of Cambrai, told from the perspective of three British soldiers.
11. Fragrant Harbor: A man in his late fifties returns to Hong Kong after living in the U.S. for forty years, and has difficulty relating to the people he grew up with.
12. Family goes on daytime talk show pretending to be dysfunctional, but the experience ends up adding real dysfunction after the cameras stop filming.
13. A graphic novel designed to appear as an illustrated journal from the perspective of a cartoonist suffering from bipolar disorder.
14. A Bildungsroman focusing on two boys of the Dayak tribe in Indonesia, about to enter their rite of passage to manhood.
15. A crime scene clean up crew starts committing crimes to get more business.
16. Three fast food franchises engage in industrial espionage.
17. The private lives of three Studio 54-type velvet rope door people, set in the disco era.
18. A series of anthologies presenting tales from various mythologies and folklores without stripping out the guts of it (gypsy folktales, Egyptian mythology, Greek mythology, Chinese mythology, etc.)
19. A party planner who caters primarily to the superhero set, and does "debutante parties" for new cape types on the scene.
20. An infomercial producer is prohibited from marketing any products that don't actually work, who goes on a quest to find something he can market legally in a capitalist redemption tale, or something.
21. Woman visits her family for the holidays, finds her alcoholic mother's secret stash of vodka bottles, but keeps it secret because other family members have kept her secrets.
22. College student is haunted by the ghost of William Blake, who becomes his sounding board for the things going on in his life.
23. Someone sets up a Lord of the Flies-type experiment in a research lab.
24. Murder mystery set in an ecovillage/intentional community.
25. Boy meets girl in his mappoint quest to find an early '90s rave. She's playing the part, but is writing a magazine piece on the culture.
26. Street gang members congregate in and around a '50s Coney Island tattoo shop.
27. A couple (one atheist, one Christian) struggle with hope and faith, as well as understanding one another, after the loss of a child.
28. Man moves to Whittier, Alaska to die in relative seculusion, but becomes involved with the community (a strange one, where 90% of the population lives in one giant building) before he dies.
29. An Afghani woman struggles with her family in her attempts to become a journalist now that she's legally able to do so.
30. This one may be a little precious or artsy-fartsy, but fuck it--a minicomic where each page is an illustrated haiku. Not just the 5-7-5 syllable count haiku, but traditional haiku. Cribbed from Wikipedia (and much more at the link): "The haiku poet (haijin) writes about a moment in time, a brief experience that stands out. The traditional haiku poet usually focused on nature, although modern poets may have the urban setting as their venue. Often, at least in translation, the subject matter of many Japanese haiku may seem banal, but the subtle linkage or juxtaposition between the two sets of images within a haiku will be found to contain an interesting insight or spiritual message." Each page could either be strictly illustrated so as to try capturing that time essence visually, or could be content tied into a traditional haiku.
31. A modern retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, replacing the underworld with a gang's turf and getting rid of all the fantastical stuff. Or, perhaps doing it in the '30s with the mafia.
32. 1066: An Age of Bronze-esque look at the Norman Conquest.
33. Father discovers his son is a professional hitman in the week leading up to his daughter's wedding.
34. A forensic linguist is called in to discover the identity of a serial killer, but finds something oddly familiar in the notes left behind.
35. City guy tries to become accustomed to life in a rural area.
36. A television crew covers the Vietnam conflict, faces opposition from both the enemy and the US military.
37. Managing Editor of a small literary magazine aspires to the top spot, playing everyone else against each other in an attempt to take over.
38. I don't quite have the vocabulary to express this in terms not related to film, so... an comic written like an ensemble film (you know, like a lot of Robert Altman flicks) dealing with gentrification in a newly-hip urban area.
39. Five college friends try to stay connected as their lives pull them in different directions -- ooh, original.
40. Girl tries to find the secret language of the world, looking for signs and symbols in every day life, and her family has trouble getting the "real world" into her.
41. Guy gets dragged into running for local office in a special election, gets caught up in the small town political machine.
42. A fictional tale set against the backdrop of Negro League Baseball, focusing on an up-and-coming pitcher.
43. A small group of people take to breaking and entering to fund their non-profit group under the rationalization that the ends justify the means, but most become enamored with life as criminals.
44. Story of two brothers from China who come to the US to work on the Transcontinental Railroad in the mid-1800s, and the rift that comes between them (maybe with the title Suffering Strength, playing off the etymology of the slur "coolie").
45. Astrophel: struggles of an aspiring, sycophantic Hollywood hanger-on (because it's not that far of a leap to get from "star lover" to "starfucker," and I'm totally captivated by the idea of people whoring themselves out to get ahead).
46. Guy develops superpowers, but refuses to use them because he thinks they're a sign of the devil.
47. 1980s psychiatrist uses MDMA (ecstasy) in his practice, going against the new laws prohibiting its use.
48. Romance comic set in the heydey of late '70s/early '80s graffiti, with a tagging-as-courtship-dance kind of vibe.
49. Martial arts comic on the development of Wing Chun, working off the common presumption that "Wing Chun, according to legend, was a style of Chinese martial arts technique designed by the Shaolin monks for the smaller stature of women fighters."
50. Man gets breaks out of the holding pen of a police station, hitches a ride home with a police officer, and goes on the run until a family member turns him in.

I was tempted to throw "a cinemanga of My Dinner With Andre" on there, but I'm trying to be semi-serious for a change.

Not that I'm a writer, or that anyone would ever ask, but I also thought briefly discussing where the ideas came from might be interesting. I've tried breaking them down into categories, but there's overlap in some cases.

• Many of them came from reading. Not much of a shock, really, considering that most of my leisure time is spent with books. #2 came from some book (the title of which escapes me presently) on the history of the Beat Generation of writers and artists. #6 came up while I was reading Stanley Wells's Shakespeare: For All Time, which had a publicity picture of John Wilkes Booth and two of his brothers in a production of Julius Caeser, along with a few paragraphs on their productions. In the picture, John Wilkes looked disturbed. The accompanying text highlighted Edwin Booth as the most memorable thespian of the three, which made me think of sibling rivalry on the stage. Also, three weeks before Booth assassinated Lincoln, he performed Hamlet, in which a monarch is violently dispatched. All these elements made me think this might be a story worth telling. #26 was inspired by Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos by Samuel M. Steward--who also wrote gay erotica under the name Phil Andros--but transplanted to an area with which I'm more familiar. Much of that book had to deal with sexuality, and I'd probably play up the relationship between an awkward young man and his attraction to an experienced tattoo artist, if I stuck with the source material. Much of the historical fiction ideas also came from reading (#10, #11, #32, #44, #47 and #49). This type of thing can be stretched out further--other ideas came from listening to NPR, watching documentaries on television, and generally trying to follow the path of lifelong education.

• Write what you know, and the people around you. An oft-repeated maxim, but the method yielded a few ideas. #1 is something that happened to me while I worked at a resort growing up, but written large--the situation never happened, but it easily could have. #5 is basically how my little brother and I stay in touch. #8 is another thing from my backstory written large--I never actually "slammed," but I did spent entirely too much time doing performance poetry for about seven years, and even in just reading poetry at events and clubs, I noticed the competition element that goes with that creative process (and, lately, have seen similar competitive tics in the comics world). #12 came from a position of observation--for work, I've gone to a few daytime talk show tapings where I've seen producers trying to amp up the discord between family members, and from watching some shows and thinking that these people have to be playing a part, because no one could possibly be that dysfunctional in real life. #21 is also close to home, with the protagonist's gender changed. #35 should be obvious to anyone who's ever had to suffer through me bitching about my current environment. #41 came from a guy I know who's getting involved in local politics in my home town, but with the scope narrowed down to localize it a little more, his role changed to make the protagonist more central to the action, and adding a different internal conflict. #50 isn't my story, but it's my father's.

• Find something outside your comfort zone. In some cases, just thinking visually forced me outside my comfort zone, which got me to #48--I'm captivated by graffiti, and I think it's something that tranlates well to comics. Similarly, #30 came from visual thinking--specifically, visual juxtaposition reflecting idea juxtaposition, as well as a panel meter to poetic meter juxtaposition. Trying to work poetry in informed #40 (although, looking over the list again, it sounds highly reminiscent of Sam Kieth's Zero Girl), which came, in part, from Saul Williams's metaphor-heavy wordplay (quick example: his line about his name--Saul Stacy--and it's similarity to "solstice"). Also, I challenged myself by trying to get something "musical" across, which yielded a few ideas. I might actually try to use #7 if I have to redo the fiction portfolio. The Orpheus myth I used in #31 is heavily dependent on music, and both suggested settings play to music I love--jazz and hip hop.

I'd love to see others throwing ideas out there (maybe not fifty--I'm so glad I decided against doing a hundred, and even fifty seemed an insurmountable number halfway through), but people tend to hold their ideas close to their chests. I'd recommend doing it, though. It was a fun learning experience. For example, I surprised myself by coming up with two superhero-related concepts, because I didn't think I'd have any. I also surprised myself by not giving up once I got frustrated, because that tends to be a trend with me.

As I've been working on this for a little over a week, Steven Grant weighs in on the topic of ideas as well, maybe giving some more support to the concept of "ideaspace." It's a slightly different look (and a better written one). In it, he says "[s]uccess doesn't come from generating ideas. Success comes from being able to tell the good ideas from the bad ones, which is a much, much trickier thing," and that's quite true. If there's something here that strikes you as being good (or something that could be molded into something good), and you want to do something with it, by all means, go ahead.

Just don't fuck it up. Make some better comics, already.

Second Round Knockout: SIRIUS VS. XM on hip hop

I'm a day late, so Chris has chimed in first with what XM has to offer with the hip hop, R&B and urban music scenes. So, go read. Imagine him being Kool Moe D, and me being a decidedly less pretty LL.

Since there are so many stations covered this week, I'll try to keep things short.


------------------------------

Hip Hop Nation (Channel 40):

From Sirius's revamped website: "The hottest hip-hop, rhymes and beats from the biggest names in Hip-Hop Nation. East Coast style, West Coast jamz, the latest flow from the Dirty South—it’s all here.

What we play: 50 Cent, G-Unit, Eminem, Lil Flip, Jadakiss, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G, Kayne West, Talib Kweli and many more."

They should also mention The Game, T.I. and Cassidy, because they play a lot of that. I mean, a whole bunch. It seems every time I'm in the car, I'm hearing something from two out of those three every hour, which I probably notice because I think they're all entirely over-rated. Lately, though, Hip Hop Nation has been getting more diverse, playing tracks by Common, Nas, De La Soul, which I'm definitely feeling. The on-air personalities on Hip Hop Nation shine and, in my opinion, they're another benefit of Sirius over XM--the DJs talk enough to remind you that you're listening to the radio, and not just some kind of streaming music, and they've got personality too. Amanda Diva is probably my favorite--she's crafty.

------------------------------

Wax 42 (Channel 42):

Again, from the website: "Welcome to the underground, where it’s all about exclusive mixes, blends, mash-ups and freestyles from the world's best DJs. From the streets to your ears, it's the ultimate nonstop mixtape.

What we play: Eminem, Notorious B.I.G., 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Tupac and many more."

This is Cunard-approved Certified Hot Shit. You can't trust the sample playlist to give you an accurate feel for the station, which plays remixes alongside much longer DJ sets, which is what I'm into--hip hop as a listening experience, not in nugget-sized chunks. Just after Ol' Dirty Bastard died, they (I forget which DJ did the mix) aired an hour long tribute set which was on-point and not even slightly maudlin. And Wax 42 has the my favorite programming of any of Sirius's hip hop stations:

• DJ Jamad Brings You - Afromentals (Sundays 6 pm - 8 pm ET). A progressive contemporary HipHop/Nu Soul show incorporating elements of jazz, R&B and HipHop songs, from the past and into the future.

This is a new show, but it makes great driving music for my weekly grocery trip.

• DJ Premier Presents "Live From HeadQCourterz" (Fridays 8 pm - 10 pm ET, Rebroadcast Sundays 8 pm - 10 pm ET) Gang Starr's very own producer/DJ takes the stage with his 2-hour show, bringing the streets to the airwaves. Playing those hard-to-get exclusives, with special guests coming thru the studio, and some straight hip-hop music.

Come on--it's DJ Premier. It gets love just for being DJ Premier's show.

• DJ Concept Presents "The Mix Chronicles" Mixshow (Mondays 12 am - 2 am ET) Take the midnight run and listen to the hottest 2 hours of underground Hip-Hop, B-sides, album cuts, and lost gems. Taking you beneath the surface with special guests, exclusive mixes, and "The Throwback of the Week."

I wish there was some way to "TiVo" this program, because I have trouble staying up that late. Another great program.

But, if I have to play favorites...

• Kool DJ Red Alert Presents "Classic Collections" (Friday 6 pm - 7 pm ET, Rebroadcast Sundays 4 pm - 5 pm ET) The pioneer of what we know as HipHop runs an hour deep into nothing but classix. Hands down, our favorite Uncle Red is taking it to the Ole Skool! How it used to be...

The man used to spin for Afrika Bambaata, was a part of Boogie Down Productions, and was an honorary ambassador to the United Nations, so much respect for that. Classic Collections" is like the next channel I'm going to talk about (Backspin) condensed into an hour-long mix. It's the perfect way for a hip hop head to start the weekend.

------------------------------

Backspin (Channel 43):

From the station list: "Put on your Adidas and your Kangol hat and join the party—you'll hear nothing but the early days of Hip-Hop. Tune in to one of the original pioneers of old skool rap, Kurtis Blow, every weeknight (7 pm – 1 am ET).

What we play: Grandmaster Flash, Run-DMC, Sugar Hill Gang, Salt-N-Pepa, LL Cool J, Heavy D, Digital Underground, Queen Latifah and many more."

Backspin does this neat thing every Tuesday where they drop "old school facts" in between songs, letting listeners bone up on their hip hop history. Plus, Kurtis Blow! I mean, that's some classic hip hop right there. Backspin definitely gives props to the old school. Sometimes, though, the station gets too repetitive, and it's on weird choices--I've defintely heard Jimmy Spicer's "Dollar Dollar Bill" a few times, but for a while they were playing the shit out of his "Bubble Bunch" track. And, like Chris Brown says about XM's "The Rhyme" over at his spot, they play a lot of the "Roxanne" records. Another guy they play a lot of is Dana Dane, who's one of the station's DJs (and we all know how I feel on the bias/perceived bias issue). Props to Backspin for playing MC Hammer, though--even though we joke about him now, he had asses bouncing in clubs before hitting the national charts hard. Also, Awesome 2 DJs for Backspin, so that's old school (immortalized in KRS-One's "Outta Here": "Back in the days I knew rap would never die / I used to listen to Awesome 2 on WHBI," if it sounds familiar).

------------------------------

Shade 45 (Channel 45):

From the website: "Completely uncensored hip-hop radio created by Eminem and SIRIUS. No filters, no commercial restrictions. On-air hosts and mixers who say whatever they want, including Eminem’s DJ, Green Lantern. Shade 45... the hype is real."

I don't listen to much Shade 45. It seems like they want to be a lot of things... Listening to Shade 45 is like hearing the previous three hip hop stations jammed into one, with some shows in between. I think the station has the potential to find it's niche, but it hasn't quite hit that. The morning show is kind of funny, sometimes. Plus, they have Eminem's touring DJ, DJ Green Lantern--I wonder how he feels about Rebirth... What is good about it is that, while Eminem created the station, it isn't just promoting his and his crew's music.

------------------------------

Now, to the R&B tier.

Hot Jamz (Channel 50):

The site says: "The best Hip-Hop and R&B. From unadulterated crunk to smooth R&B, if it’s hot right now, it’s on Hot Jamz.

What we play: Lil' Jon, Usher, Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, 50 Cent, Missy Elliott, Nelly, Ashanti and many more."


If you live in a middle-sized market that has a station that calls itself "Hot [whatever the dial number is]" that plays urban music, this is probably its closest satellite radio analogue. Hot Jamz plays a lot of top 40 hip hop and R&B, but it also has a weekly reggaeton show. What I give it props for is having both MC Lyte and Grandmaster Flash as weekend DJs.

------------------------------

Heart & Soul (Channel 51):

From the site: "Today's R&B and old skool from the '80s and '90s. Get into the groove with Luther Vandross, Brian McKnight, Mary J. Blige, the Isley Brothers and other greats of modern soul.

What we play: R. Kelly, Gerald LeVert, Musiq, The Gap Band and many more."

While Shade 45's variety makes things seem disconnected, Heart & Soul's diversity has a more eclectic feel, but nothing feels out of place. I'm kind of sad that every time I listened to it, though, I never got that Isley Brother's music they promised me.


------------------------------

Slow Jamz (Channel 52):

From the site: "Lose yourself in the rapture of smooth, sensuous soul ballads—the music you love when you’re in love. Soft, shimmering, sophisticated, sexy, it’s music for your body and soul.

What we play: Luther Vandross, Alicia Keys, Joe, Jill Scott, Gerald Levert and many more."

Alright. I likes me some sappy shit, so I'm down with Slow Jamz. They've got some interesting program gimmicks. On Wednesdays, they do this "Double Play" thing where they play an original recording followed by a cover, so you get to hear two versions. On Fridays, they play live versions of songs throughout the day.


Soul Revue (Channel 54):

I talked about this a while back for the first part of this thing with Chris. You can find it here, and you can find Chris's look at XM's classic soul station here.

Also, I'm holding off on the last channel of Sirius's R&B tier, because I'll need something to talk about when Chris covers the Christian stuff on XM. Sirius spreads the Christian stuff out by the musical style, not the thematic focus.

Linkage: TCAF

Sorry for not updating for about a week--it's the end of the television sweeps period, so I'm utterly swamped. I can't even see the floor in parts of my office. So, hopefully I'll be able to meet the Sirius vs. XM challenge tomorrow at some point. I've also been working on this really big, long entry thing, but it probably won't get posted for a while.

In any case, I just wanted to drool publically on theToronto Comic Arts Festival, which has one of the best line-ups I've ever seen, and the events aren't too shabby, either...

I'm still undecided if I'll make it up for the show. I'll have to convince the wife that This Is Important And She Won't Be Forgiven If She Says No. Also, it's an eight hour drive.

If anyone has plans to go, let me know. At the very least, go check out what a comics festival can be.