November 8th's Meanwhile, in Las Vegas...

This week’s Las Vegas Weekly comics column takes a look at Kazimir Strzepek’s The Mourning Star, which you really ought to read. The Mourning Star that is. Not the column. Well, actually, you should read the column too. I mean, that’s why I linked to it.

And speaking of links…




Aaaa! Man, that is one crazy-looking, scary-ass image! I suppose that’s appropriate though, given the subject matter.

Once I recovered from my initial horror and revulsion though, the second thing I thought of when I saw that image was how weird the very existence of variant covers are from a business standpoint. I understand they drive sales up, but, at the same time, the company is essentially paying two different people to provide the covers for a single issue, so, whatever the sales ultimately are, they spent twice as much as they would have if they just paid Jim Lee to draw the cover, instead of Jim Lee and Neal Adams.

Why is DC spending their money like this, particularly since a) Goddam Batman and Robin, the Goddam Boy Wonder is already one of their best-selling goddam titles and b) investing in variant cover schemes only encourages a collector’s mentality and speculation in the Direct Market, which history seems to indicate isn’t healthy for either the market or its leaders like DC?

Why not just have one Jim Lee-drawn cover on this issue, and pay Adams to provide covers for some other Batman-related books that won’t be anywhere near as high-selling as this one will be already? For example, why not put Adams on the covers for the “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” crossover in the Bat-books? That would have gave slow/hurried/lazy artists like Tony S. Daniel more time to make the interiors of his Bat-book good instead of having to waste time drawing a pretty generic Batman-on-improbable-gargoyle cover, and likely have boosted sales of each installment of the crossover. Adams art, even just covers, is pretty damn rare these days, after all, and he’s closely associated with Bat-characters Ra’s al Ghul and Talia.

Or if DC doesn’t want to abandon the asinine drive-sales-up-artificially-with-variants-and-damn-the-consequences schemes, why not at least apply it to the lower-selling Bat-books? Like, Batman #670 could have had the Daniel cover and an Adams variant, inflating sales for that book (and then the Detective, Nightwing and Robin, the last two of which sell dismally), instead of making sure All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder sells 90,000 copies instead of 80,000?







Fellow “Best Shots” shooter and controversial Fox Sports soccer writer Jamie Trecker has a new (prose) book out, entitled Love and Blood: At the World Cup with the Footballers, Fans, and Freaks. Here’s an article on Jamie and his book in The Chicago Reader, here’s the publisher’s page (featuring more info and an excerpt), and I understand you can impulse buy books right off the Internet now through sites like this one.

Is it the book any good? Well, I’m only on page 50 so far, but, well, I’m on page 50 of a book about World Cup soccer, and considering the part of my brain where any interest at all in sports would lie was long ago devoted instead to comics trivia, Jamie’s definitely doing something right with his writing. So far, the book’s as much a memoir of his experiences covering the Cup and a recent history of American soccer as it is sports writing. The narrative is fast moving and written in an engaging style.

Given the fact that Jamie and I are on the same comics review team, feel free to take this recommendation with a grain of salt if you like, but I’m enjoying it, so I imagine readers with any interest at all in soccer and/or sports will love it.






Megan Palmer’s song “Deadman” probably isn’t about Boston Brand, but you can listen to it (and two other songs) at her myspace page and decide for yourself. If you like what you hear there, her new album will be available through local label Sunken Treasure Records (from the makers of donewaiting.com!) shortly. Alternately, if you live in Columbus, you can check her out live and snag a copy for yourself at Andyman’s Treehouse November 15-17th.

October 4th's Meanwhile in Las Vegas... plus three other things

This week's LVW comics column features reveiws of



and



So go read it. If you want. No pressure. I don't care one way or the other, really. Seriously, if you don't want to go read it, that's fine. Don't.




Meanwhile, in other, less self-obsessed news...





1.) So I read Shortcomings Monday night, and my initial reaction was this: “Fuck you, Adrian Tomine!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah the art is really incredible and it tells a compelling story and blah blah blah, but Jesus God did it bring me down.

I don't know if I was just feeling particularly bummed out or lonely that night or what, but man was I depressed by the time I closed the covers.

And I blamed Tomine, for subjecting me to his unsympathetic protagonist and all the unsympathetic people in his life, none of whom seem like they should be in relationships, and yet all of whom are in them, gradually breaking one another's hearts and ruining one another's lives.

And the worst part of it all? The characters are all so sharply realized and realistic they're bound to remind you of yourself and people you know and the real world relationships you've experienced, either firsthand or among your friends and aquaintances.

Of course, the fact that Shortcomings was strong enough to effect my mood and mental state at all is a pretty strong reccomendation for how effective it is alone.

But Monday night, I was all "Fuck you, Adrian Tomine! Thanks for ruining my night, jerk!"

Luckily I had a trade collection of Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy’s 2002 series Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu on hand, and its mindless escapism offerred a welcome distraction from the dark mood Shortcomings left me in.

It didn’t occur to me at the time, as Tomine’s book was just the next one I needed to read to review and the Marvel trade was just the next one on my escapist-comics-to-read-before-bed pile, but now, a few days later, it strikes me what an odd double-feature that is.

I’m sure reading Shortcomings, which deals with Asian-American race issues through the prism of relationships between Asians and Caucasians, and Master of Kung-Fu, a story about a stereotypical martial artist hero fighting fucking Fu Manchu, back to back says something about me as a reader and the American comic book industry in general.

I’m just not sure what.

Anyway, a real review of Shortcomings—which in all seriousness is a great read—is in the works for next week.





2.) Speaking of graphic novels, Columbus writer Dara Naraghi’s Lifelike is in the latest issue of Previews. (Page 300, Diamond order code OCT07 3596).

If you live here and read comics, chances are you already know Dara, who’s been heavily involved in local mini-comic collective Panel and is a regular fixture at SPACE. He’s also probably the most often drawn man in Columbus, Ohio.

I’m not exactly sure why, but his fellow Panel-ists are always drawing Dara here and there. I think I’ve seen more drawings of him then I have of ex-Governor Bob Taft, and considering the latter appeared regularly in political cartoons for almost a decade, that’s saying something.

Anyway, the book is called Lifelike and IDW is publishing it. It’s a series of slice-of-life vignettes written by Dara and illustrated by 11 different artists, including fellow Columbusites Tim McClurg, Andy Bennett and Tom Williams.

You can read more about Lifelike here, and read much of it in its original webcomic format here.




3.) Not specifically comics, but close enough for linkage, is the documentary film Strange Culture, which is playing this weekend here in Columbus (You can read my review of it here). The subject matter of the film is the sad, scary, infuriating case of Steve Kurtz, a long-haired college professor, artist and activist who was investigated for bioterrorism when Petri dishes and lab equipment were found in his home when his wife died. (Completely coincidentally, as it turned out, although the authorities seemed to think the two things connected at first).

Because the case is still ongoing, there’s a lot Kurtz can’t talk about, and to help fill the screen with images, director Lynn Hershman often pulls panels from a comic book/sequential art story written by Timothy Stock and illustrated by Warren Heise.

It was called “Suspect Culture” and appeared in 2005 small press multi-media book Supsect (which contains comics, drawings, essays, fiction and more on the subject of “the suspect in a post-9/11 world.” Heise has a an incredibly bold, detailed style, with his individual panels resembling blocky woodcuts.

That’s a page of it above. You can see seven more at his site (Click on “Suspect Culture” on the menu on the right).