* There’s a good chance that the excellent Batman #682, which runs through about two-thirds of Batman’s career in the space of 22 story pages, will get overlooked because DC created the impression that Grant Morrison’s Batman run ended with last week’s (!) #681. Douglas Wolk annotates the issue so that maybe that won’t happen.
* I saw this Steven Grant essay about how bad comics stunk in 2008 linked here and there, and I’m sorry but it just seems patently ridiculous to me. Aside from his cockamamie Comic Foundry-style conflation of celebrity with artistic success, anyone who argues that only two Best Of-worthy comics were made in 2008 simply either was not paying attention or has horrible taste.
* Viggo Mortensen talks to AICN about possibly being involved with The Hobbit 2: Imladris Boogaloo or whatever it’s going to be called, revealing the existence of a neat-sounding outtake from the original LotR films that showed Aragorn and Arwen back when they first met. (Via TORN.)
* Ta-Nehisi Coates on season five of The Wire (SPOILERS AHOY):
I thought [the notion that The Wire avoided agitprop] was less true in Season Five, when a clear ideology did emerge, but it wasn’t left or right. The ideology was nihilism. Now, nihilism was always at work in The Wire, but at the end, I felt like it just became too much. It felt like a desire to show futility of systems became the author of plot, not character. I thought that the press angle was poorly done–and saying “Yeah well it’s reporters who are objecting” is a weak, ad-hominem defense.
I thought the serial killer turn–particularly the way Freeman embraced it–was hastily executed. I most disliked the ease with which Marlo took over the city’s drug trade. I even hated the manner of Omar’s death–not that he was killed by Kinard, but that he was basically brought back into the plot, simply to be killed. He really served no major plot point. It all felt deeply cynical.
Oh, MAN, is all that refreshing to hear from somebody else, particularly because my past attempts to point out very specific plot-based flaws in the show, including three of the ones Coates notes, were greeted with sneering derision. As I’ve said before, it’s no coincidence that most of the writing about The Wire you see online these days comes from political bloggers, so it’s nice to see one–a liberal who grew up in inner-city Baltimore, no less–basically tell me I’m not crazy. However, I do disagree with Coates’s contention that the show, and season five specifically, was nihilistic. Nihilists believe in nothing, but it seems pretty clear that David Simon believes in David Simon, and in David Simon-esque figures generally.
* Finally, rest in peace, Paul Benedict. You were just as God made you, sir.
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Possibly my favorite line from This Is Spinal Tap.
I haven’t read the Steven Grant column yet–I don’t generally read it enters the larger blogsphere discourse–but that sounds like something he’d say. Like, you get the idea that he values craft above all else. Which I disagree with, but at least I can understand that perspective. What’s harder to defend is his apparently narrow view of what constitutes well-crafted comics. He’s said things which imply that all (or nearly all) independent comics are amateur efforts, which is absolutely insane. You almost get the idea that the only things he reads are the things people send to him.
Also, agreed on Comic Foundry. Hard to feel bad about losing a magazine that valued interviews with G4 personalities so heavily.
Man, that was an excellent issue of Batman, wasn’t it?
As for Grant, he comes across as a big ol’ grumpy pants 9 times out of 10, but I think he still writes one of the intelligent comics’ related columns out there. Just don’t read his movie reviews – yikes!
I’m not in disagreement with the idea of The Wire being read as a portrayal of nihilism, but I’m curious…are you claiming that as a negative mark towards it? Part of my own enjoyment of the Wire was how I watched it, and as time went on, it struck me as something that put the lie to the concept of the major urban overhaul being performed at the hands of the few, when the masses were content to ignore–which struck me as a still valid take, regardless of it’s cynicism.
I don’t get the sense from the way you look at comics that you place a value judgment on the philosophy behind a work, so I don’t want to lump you in with a group…but there is a group of people that automatically disregards the quality of work that embraces an attitude that “nothing matters” as if that’s somehow a value judgment that makes the work unnecessary to pay attention to. That mentality that says “well, this is just nihilist, and that means it has nothing to say.” For me, The Wire was nihilist, sure. But I guess what I’m saying–and i’m not trying to be flip–is “yeah, so what if it was?” That doesn’t make it any less valid or interesting.
I don’t know if I’m making my question clear, but on the side, plot developments in the Wire were always far better when they were done on the slow burn–season five particularly has quite a few that seemed to exist solely to set up specific subjects. The serial killer thing was especially irritating.
Oh no, I’ve got no problem with nihilism. I enjoy it! I’m probably closer to being a nihilist myself than I am to anything else. It wasn’t that aspect of Coates’s critique I agreed with–it was the specific plot points he tackled, like the serial killer thing. I probably should have been clear about all this, rather than simply using the nihilism point as a springboard to make fun of David Simon’s ego.
Oh yeah, I gotcha. Simon’s probably a relentless irritation to be around–i’ve heard him speak and he needs to get punched more than once.
And you were probably clear to everybody else–it’s been made obvious to me in recent months that I pretty much read into everything shit that is totally not there.
I agree. Grant’s head is up his ass. He hasn’t looked around and his gears are stuck on just the mainstream work from Marvel/DC, not stuff outside that tunnel. Let’s not forget that he used to write for Marvel/DC, so he’s got tunnel vision. And probably regrets that he’s not working for them today. Sour grapes!
Every time somebody says something like “Grant’s head is up his ass” I’m waiting for Sean to pounce, then I realize they’re talking about Steven Grant.
LOL
I actually got really confused by that comment for that exact reason. “‘I agree. Grant’s head is up his ass’? When did I say that??? I love Arkham Asylum! I–oh, wait.”
I agree with Sean. Grant’s head is up his ass. He hasn’t looked around and his gears are stuck on just the mainstream work from Marvel/DC, not stuff outside that tunnel. Let’s not forget that he used to write for Marvel/DC, so he’s got tunnel vision. And probably regrets that he’s not working for them today. Sour grapes!