More on SPX, including an -ahem- spirited take on a certain political cartoonist, from The Missus.

Jim Henley on Blankets. A pretty even-handed, largely negative take. Jim, I think a lot of your confusion over whether this is supposed to be read as autobio or fiction stems from the “novel” appellation on the cover, which was a marketing tool and not a creative decision; there’s also the general reluctance of many altcomix autobiographers to label their stuff fact rather than fiction. (If you think Craig Thompson’s been evasive on the issue, you should try Phoebe Gloeckner on for size!)

Big Sunny D on reading right-to-left manga. Personally, I thought that my occasional lapses in properly reading the book actually enhanced my appreciation of the overall page layout structure–you take in the totality of the page, rather than a panel at a time.

Eve Tushnet reviews a whole bunch of comics, including Alan Moore’s oldie dystopian-hero epic V for Vendetta and more recent super-cop dramedy Top Ten.

Eve, I think a goodly chunk of the appeal of Top Ten is how very different it is from pretty much everything else Moore has done–from both his capital-S Serious work like Watchmen, V4V and From Hell, and his seemingly endless string of goofy hyperreferential superhero pastiches, including all his work for Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, and the bulk of his own America’s Best line. (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though more complex by virtue of its encyclopaedic references to Victorian genre fiction, is in a similar vein.) My advice would be to pick up Volume 2, which is really just a continuation of Volume 1 and should have been published in a big edition with its antecedent as Top Ten: The First Season.

As for V for Vendetta, I think the problem here is the same one that, for a lot of people, besets Blankets–where do we draw the line between the opinions of the author and those of the protagonist? The line could be seen as blurrier for Blankets as it is an autobiographical work, but I think we all know our feelings and beliefs can change radically between high school and post-college; the extent to which Craig the Author currently holds the same “she was an angel” beliefs that Craig the Character attests to is something we’re all forced to puzzle out. Similarly, I find V for Vendetta’s “all fascism is bad, but some fascism is less bad than others” endorsement of kidnapping, murder and terrorism provided it’s against The Man to be somewhat troublesome. In that regard I suppose the book could be seen as an immature work, especially compared to the more considered exploration of the use of violence to affect the flow of history in Watchmen and From Hell.

Courtesy of reader Shawn Fumo, here’s an intelligent post on the Comicon message board about What a Manga Fan Wants. The writer emphasizes storytelling, characterization, and price, while (rightly) advising against American attempts to imitate manga art and (wrongly) discounting the impact of the manga format. The thing is, of course, that without the efficient book-style format, the price that the writer touts wouldn’t be achievable.

Courtesy of ADD, here’s cartoonist Scott Mills telling his critics that they’re right about his work, and announcing that he’ll be taking something of a sabbatical in order to hone his skills. I’m unfamiliar with Mills’s work, but I’ve seen him held up by many people in many places as the example of Team Comics boosterism enabling well-connected cartoonists to produce weak work. I’ll echo Alan’s sentiment that this was an impressive bit of self-evaluation to undergo–much less to post about on the message board that’s been the prime source of hostility towards the self-evaluater.

Finally, Dirk Deppey produces one of his best rants yet about the sad state of the Direct Market, this time focusing on its inability to cater to or even accomodate non-traditional comics fans (i.e. anyone who isn’t male and white) and responding to DM retailers’ cries of abandoment by companies who offer their wares elsewhere by saying “What the hell else did you expect?” Dirk’s right, as usual, about the DM in both regards. As far as the latter goes, I’ve definitely heard complaints first-hand from folks who feel betrayed by comics companies, anime distributors, even toymakers who–get this–are taking their products to where the customers are–namely record stores, video stores, electronics stores, Hot Topics, and other stores that one could find in malls (you know, those places where people go to shop a lot).

I was a latecomer to The Sopranos. I caught up with the show all at once in the months before season four. Since the show was so big a part of the popcult conversation during that time, I pretty much knew every major event and “whacking” before I saw them. Needless to say, I was super-excited for season four, since I’d be able to be surprised, at long last, by each episode.

Along comes the episode that, rumor has it, will be The Big One. Every Sunday I’d drive to a friend’s house to pick up his taped copy of that night’s Sopranos and watch it back at the house. But a medical emergency that Sunday meant that I’d have to wait till Monday to pick up the tape. Cut to the next morning, which finds me in the hospital waiting room, waiting (appropriately enough). I decide to go find the vending machines to get a snack and some soda. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but the New York Post vending kiosk and the headline “LOOK WHO GOT WHACKED!” with a picture, right next to it, of the whack-ee. This was published less than 12 hours after the episode aired, and before countless fans (myself included) got to see for themselves what happened. It was a spoiler, in other words, one that ruined the episode for me. And it was a dick move.

And so was this.

Eh.

To be fair, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, in terms of the Collinses’ ability to enjoy a comic book convention. Some personal/professional setbacks on my part and the overall stress of leaving a therapeutic live-in women-only program for the boy-filled irregularly-scheduled chaos of the real world on her part led to some very down-in-the-dumps moments for the two of us.

I don’t think it’s fair to blame it all on us, though; coming as late as it did in the convention season (hell, I myself had already been to MoCCA, San Diego, and WizardWorld Chicago), there weren’t many interesting debuts or must-haves left to buy. (This isn’t true if you hadn’t yet been to one of these things this summer, I suppose, but still, books like Blankets, Kramers Ergot 4, Teratoid Heights, The Frank Book and Quimby the Mouse had been available for at least a couple months. (The delightful new real-life smut anthology, True Porn, was an exception, at least as far as I was concerned–I got the last copy!) Then there was the group mentality, which wasn’t so much Team Comix as it was Scene Comix: if you weren’t part of some anthology-producing collective with a snappy name and a handful of barely-legible minicomics (or at the very least didn’t bring a huge group of fellow fanboys/girls with you), it was easy to feel out of the loop. This was true despite the relative ease-of-access of the con’s big nightly party (it’s right there in the hotel lobby, for pete’s sake!).

On the other hand, it is easy to see how inspiring this con can be and has been for so many cartoonists. There’s a general can-do spirit, a do what thou wilt and damn the sales levels joie de vivre that you simply can’t find at the big cons. It’s certainly cool to attend a con where saying The Big Five means Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, Top Shelf, Alternative, and Highwater. There’s also the oft-mentioned fact that looking around at the majority of the tables, it’s easy to say to oneself, “Oh, I could do better than that.” Finally, there’s just the chance to get to hang out and chit-chat with friends in the biz. When they’re doing great work, that’s inspiring in and of itself.

Special thanks to TCJ messboard alums F.C. Brandt, Leland Purvis, and Zack Soto, who were kindly enough to walk right on up and say hi; to Wayne Beamer, Nick Bertozzi, Victor Cayro, Tom Devlin, Sara Edward-Corbett, Gary Groth, Dean Haspiel, Danny Hellman, Matt Madden, Anders Nilssen, Lark Pien, Eric Reynolds, Josh Simmons, Bwana Spoons, Kim Thompson, Robert Ullman, and Matt Wiegle, for talking shop; to Diana Schutz, who I never got to introduce myself to but who nonetheless tried to steer me and the Missus to a decent breakfast; to Jim Henley and Eve Tushnet, for trying to meet up with me even though I didn’t even know they were there till yesterday; to Frank Miller, for getting to see the end results of his love advice to a drunken yours truly a couple years ago; to Chris Staros and Brett Warnock for the time, advice, and attempts to score me free food and booze; to Jeffrey Brown, for having an extraordinarily high tolerance for shenanigans; and especially to Jim (& the future missus Rachel) Dougan and Craig Thompson, for being superfriends.

Where does the Stop & Shop near where I live get off calling itself “Super Stop & Shop”? Folks, I’ve been in Super Stop & Shops. I’ve shopped in Super Stop & Shops. Super Stop & Shops are friends of mine, grocerily speaking. And Stop & Shop on the corner of Newbridge and Jerusalem Avenues in Bellmore: You are no Super Stop & Shop. All you are is a regular Stop & Shop that slapped the word “Super” in big light-up letters on the outside of your building while I was away this weekend without actually expanding your store. Now, the Missus and I like you, a lot, and will still shop at you, but please–enough of this charade.

Also, where does the RIAA get off blaming filesharing for the recent 30% decrease in CD sales? And why on earth is the news media being so credulous about this claim? CD sales are falling for several reasons, most of which are the fault of the record companies themselves: Price gouging has led to the obscenely high charge of $18 per the average new-release CD; People are finished buying CDs to upgrade their old vinyl & tape collections (and those of us who aren’t might be a little annoyed at how CD versions of these oldies that actually sound good are only now beginning to appear, priced at a premium, of course); The big, actually good artists that contributed to the early-mid 90s CD-buying boom were largely altrock stars who have been supplanted by legions of indistinguishable pop, bling-bling rap, and nu-metal “stars” who simply don’t inspire the same level of repeat-customer brand loyalty. I’m sure filesharing plays some part in the downward slide of record sales, but a) the genie’s out of the bottle, guys, and b) in my admittedly anecodatl experience, I’ve found people more likely to actually buy CDs now that they can sample the goods for free–in the past, the kind of hilariously high prices the record companies are charging us would have killed new-artist sales dead, but filesharing is the best friend such artists ever had. And let’s not forget that basic business theory suggests that suing some of your customers and implying “you could be next” to all the other ones is not good customer relations. (For that matter, neither is the correct perception that the RIAA has in the past existed almost solely to fuck over the same artists that it’s now purporting to protect.) Fie on the RIAA, I say.

Please allow me to continue channelling my inner Andy Rooney:

How do pseudopopulist talk show hosts decide who gets to stoke the flames of each new manufactured culture-war controversy? Do they have meetings where they divvy this stuff up?

“Okay, you can have Snoop Dogg’s appearance on Sesame Street, but I get dibs on Danny Glover’s MCI commercials.”

“Fine, fine, and since I got Ludacris’s Pepsi endorsment deal, I guess we’re even. But who covers Madonna & Britney’s MTV kiss?”

“Oh, who the hell cares about that, anyway?”

The point is, watch Scarborough Country tonight for the latest coverage of Sean-related smut-peddling!

Some comix, some not. We’re mixin’ things up, baby!

SPX recaps may be found courtesy of Eve Tushnet, Jim Henley (I was gonna ask you how many people thought you ran a store, Jim), the Comics Journal messboard (featuring an intriguing argument that the NYC-based MoCCA festival has stolen SPX’s thunder) and The Missus.

Forager muses on the distinctions between high, low, bourgeois and modernist art. I think he’s harder on comics and rock and roll than becomes his art-for-the-people position, but diff’rent strokes and all that.

I don’t have anything particularly profound to say about the death of Warren Zevon, other than that I used to dance around my family room when I was a little kid as my dad played “Werewolves of London” over and over again for my listening pleasure. I thought the line about wanting to meet the werewolf’s tailor was particularly clever, since, you see, werewolves have tails.

I’ve been informed by reader Elliot K. that, contrary to my earlier conjecture, Akira Kurosawa did in fact take legal action against Sergio Leone’s swipe of Yojimbo. Look out, Mark!

Bill Sherman counters my defense of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club by arguing that the band’s own sullennes, recalcitrance about its influences, and relative lack of movie-star looks is what makes it a record-critic pinata relative to much more enthusiastic Jesus & Mary Chain enthusiasts the Raveonettes. That all makes sense–indeed, my quip about American critics “eating Danish” wasn’t so much an attempt to decry creeping Europhilia as it was a slightly drunken indulgence in a pun I’ve honed through eight years of going out with a woman of Danish descent. Ha ha.

Actually, I think the real argument is that American critics now adhere to what I call the Cult of the Exuberantly Stupid–that is, the dopier the song, the better it is as rock music. This reverse snobbery is anti-intellectualism for intellectuals–call it Earlier, Funnier Stuffitis if you prefer. It’s the same syndrome that leads people to say they prefer The Bends to OK Computer, Britney Spears’s “Satisfaction” to the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction,” Meet the Beatles to Abbey Road, Piper at the Gates of Dawn to The Dark Side of the Moon, the Beach Boys to the Beatles–Christ, Paul McCartney to the Beatles. BRMC’s sonic palette is inarguably more ambitious and expansive than the Raveonettes, hence they’ve just got to be the sort of pretentious drivel that rock’n’roll is around to deflate, right? There’s a certain element to tautology in first asserting that rock music can only do one very simple thing well and then basing your qualitative assessments of rock music on how much it manages to live up to your own low standards.

Bill also linked to a pretty good Village Voice piece on the two bands, sullied only by its de rigeur dig against electroclash. Just because it’s trendy don’t mean there ain’t something to it, folks! I’ve certainly enjoyed electroclash songs as much as any rock/pop music of the last couple years. Also, I happen to sport a fauxhawk and like it just fine, thank you very much.

Johnny Bacardi offers a few thoughts on Nick Drake. Much as my few remaining “I’m not a poseur!” protest-too-much braincells are loath to admit it, I was one of those Volkswagen Nick-Drake newbies. All I can say is, thank God for the new Beetle.

Team Comics, meet Team ComicsBloggers.

Anorexia, SPX retrospectives coming soon. In the meantime, here are some of the random, disconnected thoughts that I’m sure you’ve all come to know and love from ADDTF:

I’m very glad the President gave his little speech last night, though I didn’t get a chance to watch it. One of the reasons the war’s opponents have been able to make so much hay out of the Post-War Chaos (TM) that, y’know, has never ever happened after any war ever, is because Bush & Co. have been spending the last few months doing the whole crime-scene “keep moving, nothing to see here” routine for the American people. Well, duh, there’s definitely something to see, and it’s important that we see it. If you’re as sold on the real reasons for Gulf War II as I am, and as the administration claims to be, you’ve got to make this case, over and over and over again. If you don’t, you run the risk of letting Howard Dean and Maureen Dowd set the tone for what’s going on over there and why it’s going on, which is potentially disastrous. The single greatest risk facing this country is that large segments of the population will start thinking “Hey, 9/11 was two whole years ago now–isn’t it time for things to get back to normal?” The answer, as much as anyone would like to believe otherwise, is no; we MUST learn the lessons about complacency (or, in the case of so many of our old-world and third-world “allies,” complicity) in the face of theocratic-fascist terrorism that those falling buildings tried to teach us.

This means making the necessary points about Saddam Hussein’s late regime, loudly and often: that his connections to terrorism (including, through Ansar Al-Islam, al Qaeda) were well established; that his WMD capacity was, until challenging it became the easiest way to piss on the Bush Administration, almost universally unquestioned; that for most people, being “anti-war” meant nothing more or less than being anti-THIS war, fought by THIS adminitration (after all, the opposition to this war, were it successful, would have ensured the prolongation of the low-level war between Saddam’s Iraq and the Air Forces of the US and UK; as well as that between the economic sanctions of the UN and the Iraqi civilians of whom Baathist criminality and UN complicity made victims; as well as those between Saddam and all the Kurds, Marsh Arabs, Shi’ites and dissidents within his range; as well as that between Saddam and the bus-riders and cafe-goers of Israel (as waged through his proxies in Palestine); as well as the endless bellicose gestures toward Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and, of course, the United States); that if the war were avoided, the anti-war contingent (led by M. Chirac, in the main) would have eventually returned to its previous cause celebre, the removal of sanctions, and would have done so probably at the same speed with which they had swapped their previous claims that such sanctions equalled genocide for the notion that the sanctions represented an almost Solomon-wise bit of diplomacy; that the moment this occurred Saddam would begin whipping up those backyard-buried, file-maintained WMD programs and begun the whole macabre dance anew, during which time countless thousands more Iraqis would starve, be executed, be tortured, be disappeared, or if they were lucky simply be indoctrinated into the grotesque cult of personality that was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

It galls me to no end that up until this point, the Bush Administration had so little faith in its constituency that these arguments were seen as unnecessary, if not downright dangerous, to make; it galls me further that last night’s address was, if the pundits are to be believed, a fairly half-hearted and disingenuous stab at so doing. But it’s better than nothing, I suppose, to claim that we’re in it for the long haul, even if you don’t make it clear to us what “it” is and why we’re “in” it. Does Bush himself know? I’m just not sure, not any longer. But to reference the kind of pre-9/11 government-conspiracy jargon that was once my stock in trade and now seems so sadly credulous in man’s ability to get any kind of large-scale project done: I want to believe.

Can someone please explain to me how the Raveonettes have gotten a free pass when it comes to flagrantly ripping off their fellow Spectorphiles, the Jesus & Mary Chain?

I like the brothers Reid as much as the next guy, which is why I found the ceaseless comparisons of California’s garage-psychedelia upstarts Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to the Reids’ J&MC so silly. Sure, BRMC look a little like those mid-80s miscreants, but their self-acronymed debut album was far more muscular, bottom-heavy and anthemic than the Chain gang’s Psychocandy.

Then along come the Raveonettes, a Danish duo whose new full length, Chain Gang of Love, literally could not sound more like the Jesus & Mary Chain if their European-answer-to-the-White-Stripes lives depended on it. I’m telling you, people, it sounds like a cover album. Which is not to say it’s not hella enjoyable, of course: It is, really it is; it’s a big ol’ reverb-y slice of young-lust ear candy. But how come all the big music mags are giving the thing (which has a J&MC reference in the title, for cryin’ out loud) kudos for referencing “pre-Beatles America” (Rolling Stone) and awarding it four stars over and over again, while the far more innovative Black Rebels get saddled with nicknames like “Black Rebel Mary Chain” and have their new album slapped with three-star “well, that’s about what I figured they’d do” kinda reviews? Even Blender–the Maxim spinoff that has suddenly and unexpectedly become my favorite music magazine simply by virtue of reviewing a lot of albums, landing the least annoying interview and happiest looking photo spread with Radiohead I’ve ever seen, and employing critics who opt against trying to impress you with how fuckin smart they are (Spin) or how many derogatory references to Don Rumsfeld and/or laudatory references to Pat Benatar they can work into a Britney Spears review (Rolling Stone) in favor of actually reviewing records–has decided that BRMC is underwhelming while the Raveonettes are history in the making. (They do at least mention the Jesus (in the tradition of Walter Sobczak) in their Chain Gang review, but I swear, people, this record is like Reid Brothers Karaoke Night–it should be all they can freaking talk about.)

I guess the conclusion we can draw is that, when it comes to bandwagon-jumping, rock critics will always bypass American in favor of eating Danish.

Ladies and gentlemen of the comicsphere, here’s something I never thought I’d say:

Boy, did I enjoy the latest Rob Liefeld comic.

For the uninitiated (who, in all probability, stopped reading when they saw the word “comicsphere”), Rob Liefeld was once the Golden Boy of mainstream comics. One of the seven superstar artists who broke away from work-for-hire status at Marvel Comics to form the upstart creator-controlled comic company Image, he soon became the bete noire of fanboydom thanks to countless blown deadlines, needlessly picked fights with other creators, comically overmuscled heroes and overendowed heroines, and general slackerhood–quite a fate for a creator who once appeared in one of Spike Lee’s jeans commercials.

Liefeld suddenly found his fortunes resurrected with the intervention of star spandex-set writer Mark Millar, who lent his box-office midas touch and over-the-top salesmanship (and oh yeah, his writing) to Liefeld’s attempt at a full-fledged comeback: Youngblood: Bloodsport. A sequel of sorts to Liefeld’s flagship Image book, Youngblood, it offers the continued adventures of a team of superheroes picked at a young age to become the good-lookin’ fast-talkin’ media darlings of the crimefighting crew.

Since Diamond, the only game in town for mainstream comics distribution, took a pass on handling the comic due to Liefeld’s long string of broken promises, Liefeld himself took on the responsibilities of arranging the distribution of the book. This means the thing’s sorta following the pattern of pre-Jaws/Exorcist/Godfather Hollywood, showing up in certain markets (and at conventions) first and slowly spreading across the retailer landscape. Copies landed at my store of choice this week; having enjoyed Millar’s company and found his Superman: Red Son and Trouble series bearing increasing returns, I decided, despite its not being on my pull list, to give the book a shot.

Golly.

I made sure to grab a copy of the Frank Quitely-drawn cover, which I suppose predisposed me to the comically arrogant doings inside the book, but as a longtime Liefeld basher who didn’t even like Youngblood when he was a 13-year-old, I was unprepared for finding myself so entertained by the book’s contents. Liefeld’s hyperactively overdrawn style has found its ideal counterpart in this, Millar’s most hyperactively over-the-top script yet. (Readers of The Authority and the “Hulk Attacks” issues of The Ultimates know that that’s saying quite a bit indeed.) Here’s a book that starts with an entirely gratuitous coked-up jacuzzi blowjob scene that manages to be completely unpredictable (in a way that’s hugely insulting to fanboydom, might I add), segues into a Tom Savini-esque fight scene between a bow-and-arrow-wielding superhero and the resurrected corpse of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and just gets goofier from there. Included are enough Easter-egg eye-pops to keep devotees of Kingdom Come entertained for hours, one very funny reference to Milligan & Allred’s similarly themed X-Statix, and a big-ass swipe from–how can I put this without spoiling?–a certain series that’s been quite a hot topic amongst the comics blogosphere of late. (I’d wax outraged about how incredibly flagrant this last bit of thievery is, but to the best of my knowledge Akira Kurosawa never complained about Sergio Leone, so nevermind….)

Printed on luxurious stock with lovely colors by Matt Yackey and Kevin Senft, this book is an unexpected delight. Is it great art? Hell, no–and I don’t think Millar nor Liefeld would have it any other way.

Amanda’s getting out of the hospital this weekend–just in time for SPX! I think this was a “fangirl, heal thyself” kinda deal. (And no, I can’t believe she’s a fangirl either. Thank you Craig, Jeffrey, Phoebe and Jordan!)

Between the emotional and logistical events of Amy’s last days in treatment and the altcomixy goodness to follow, I don’t know how regular blogging will be through Tuesday or so. But I usually get a few licks in, so keep dropping by.

In the political blogosphere, blogs helped bring down both Trent Lott and Howell Raines. I know that the comicsphere is a lot smaller, but if the right people have been reading us lately, do you think all this manga talk will have a similarly positive effect?

Anyway, yeah, the manga conversation continues. Forager’s comment sections are extremely informative, populated as they are by people who, like Forager himself, (get this) actually read this manga stuff we’ve all been talking about. The debate centers around such issues as the relative variety of style and tone in manga vs. American comics (or even just American artcomics), the quantity of quality (sometimes synonymous with “grown-up,” sometimes not) manga available in the States, the chicken/egg question of manga and its ancillary card games, video games, anime, etc., and more. Go here and here for the conversations, with a brief follow-up and a promise of more by Forager here. (And when you do, ask yourself: why doesn’t Shawn Fumo have a blog?) (And also, Forager, thanks for the kind words: I’d return them, but I’m still too busy laughing about that “Battle Royale: a bargain. Wolverine: a scam” caption.)

Speaking of promises, Jim Henley swears on a stack of bibles that he’s got a post on manga in the oven. A little bird told me what the crux of his argument will be, and it could reframe the whole debate, folks.

Finally, Bill Sherman clarifies where he’s coming from when he approaches manga titles for his new review series. Which only whets my appetite further for his take on Battle Royale…

I’ve been downloading a lot of disco today. I used to be one of those “disco sucks” kids, by the way. I remember very vividly being at some event or other with some friends in early 1992, chanting “four more weeks!” in ‘honor’ of President George the First, when some Republican turned around and said, “Hey, the last time the Democracts were in office, disco was in.” We started chanting “four more years!” post-haste. But my perception of disco changed when I realized A) how goddamn good so many disco songs are (“Stayin’ Alive,” “Keep It Comin’, Love,” freaking “I Feel Love”); B) Read Barry White’s summation of disco as music that made people feel beautiful. Well, damn if Barry isn’t right. This isn’t to say I like everything from the era: I can’t stand bar mitzvah classics like “I Will Survive” and “Let’s Dance the Last Dance”; some stuff, like the Village People and the Weather Girls, is fun but too cheesy to take seriously. But I love the joy, the exuberance, the excess, the queerness, the freakiness, the funkiness, the beauty.

I’ve also been skewing very heavily towards 80s electric pop in recent months. In part this is a natural outgrowth of my longstanding obsessions with David Bowie and Gary Numan. It’s also tied into all the delightful electroclash records that I, as a twentysomething involved in the arts in NYC, have issued to me biweekly by the New York Trend Authority. And I guess the final link in the chain is the epochal Frankie Goes To Hollywood scene in Brian DePalma’s gorgeously sleazy Body Double (that’s right: a Frankie Goes To Hollywood scene). But mainly it’s related to something that I remember Moby saying years ago: Everyone thought that all that 80s music was so disposable and forgettable, yet listen to almost any of it and it’s amazing how well it holds up, the level of creativity and craft that went into it. It sure holds up a billion times better than the EZ-folk of the 70s, which I think was the comparable mass-popularity music. “(Keep Feeling) Fascination,” “Automatic,” “Everything She Wants”…tremendous, one and all.

Interesting people say fascinating things every day!

My recent post on eating disorders and the necessity of expressing negative emotions generated thoughtful responses from Eve Tushnet and a fan of fine sketch comedy known only as Eileen. Apparently, it’s not just ED sufferers who are subjected to the “positivity at any price” mentality of well-meaning family and friends.

And as always, if you want to hear about ED straight from the horse’s mouth, go to my wife’s blogs here and here.

Johnny Bacardi is a good sport. And Sean Phillips has no abler defender.

Johnny’s also got some astute observations on how good semi-forgotten Beatles songs like “Fixing a Hole” and “Within You Without You” are. Also, Johnny: yes, there is.

Big Sunny D recaps the Big Day Out @ Glasgow rock festival. In so doing he rightly decries the nonstop barrage of sexist nonsense flung by the audience at PJ Harvey, a rock and roll animal if ever there was one and a woman who, if this crazy world made any sense whatsoever, would be a fucking superstar by now. He’s a little hard on Queens of the Stone Age and the pre-Californication/non-ballad output of the Red Hot Chili Peppers for my taste, but hey.

Kudos to James Taranto for calling a spade a spade and labelling a soon-to-be-executed anti-abortion murderer a terrorist, which, of course, he is. (You have to scroll down for the item.) This is not to say, of course, that “the Bible-thumpers are just as bad as al Qaeda and Hamas” or any such twaddle. When Justice Ray Moore has his minions hijack some commuter planes and ram them into the Sears Tower, we’ll talk.

For some reason I don’t really read James Lileks every day anymore. But boy, am I glad I read him today.

Finally, I’ve owned it for over a week now, and I still haven’t finished watching the Two Towers DVD. I’m right up to the start of the battle–seriously, the orcs have just stopped marching. I’ve been working late and when I do get home I’ve got spend a few hours cleaning up the apartment (it simply won’t do to have the Missus come home to an apartment that hasn’t been cleaned following three weeks of me as its sole inhabitant, believe me), but as God is my witness I’m going to get some sandwiches from Peanut Butter & Co., drink some beers, and watch me some uruk-killin’ tonight.

Hooray! The Missus has been blogging again recently: go here and here.

(So have Andrew Sullivan and James Taranto, by the way. But they talk a lot more about, y’know, being awful bloodthirsty warmongering imperialists and a lot less about, y’know, having sex with me than the Missus does.)

The Forager has weighed in on the big manga debate, and as far as he’s concerned the emperor (a particularly appropriate term when discussing comics from Japan, no?) has no clothes. Why? Because the manga that comprise the big American manga-buying boom are just as slavishly devoted to entertaining teenagers as are their American supercomic counterparts. To be perfectly frank, I’ve seen little evidence that contradicts this assertion, and this is indeed a problem. While it is true that, at long last, “kids are reading comics,” if Japan’s more sophisticated efforts in the medium aren’t also translated and mass-marketed, their most logical next-step purchases (far more logical, as many people have pointed out, than Love & Rockets or Planetary or whatever) won’t be around when the kids grow up and are ready to make them.

Dirk Deppey responds with a two-point rebuttal: 1) That Japan produces plenty of good comics, thank you very much; 2) That his endorsement of manga isn’t some sort of Team-Comix “and then they’ll start buying Eightball!” bit of proselytizing, but a simple market-force reality check.

I agree, to one extent or another, with both points. When a good friend of mine returned from Japan after spending several months there studying manga on a grant, he dove right into the American undergrounds, reasoning that since what he liked most in Japan’s comics medium were its alternative titles, he’d have similar good luck finding quality titles with the American independent scene. So obviously Japan is perfectly capable of making some damn fine comics.

But the issue, as the Forager then responded, was not whether there are any good Japanese comics; the issue is whether many (or any) of those good (read: suitable for grown-ups) comics are finding their way over here. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it. Witness the intrepid Bill Sherman’s unaided foray into Tokyopop territory: by his own admission, this book may be perfectly good, but there’s almost no way for an American adult to find magnetic north when reading the damn thing.

As for Dirk’s assertion that store owners should be offering manga titles not in order to convert Yu-Gi-Oh! fans into devout X-Men or Acme readers, but in order to stay in business–well, yeah. I’ve always thought Dirk (and the TCJ team in general) are a little harsh on people who have, oh, I dunno, some hope that this medium we love will be able to thrive, or at least survive, for our children and grandchildren to enjoy–why, exactly, would such sentiments automatically lead to Team Comics boosterism? Why couldn’t they lead instead to the stringent critical standards that the medium needs to survive? But still, he deserves kudos for trying to shake retailers out of their attachment (it’s deeper than “sentimental,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not a dodge from reality at times) to what we’ve traditionally thought of as comics here in the States. My own pro-manga argument, centered as it was on formatting, tried to split the difference: I looked at the strength of manga from a publishing perspective, not a content one, which meant that I thought the American industry needed to wake up and change the way it did things in order to survive, but not necessarily abandon its preferred modes of storytelling wholesale–just its preferred methods of publishing.

NeilAlien, in his own post on manga, seems to agree that this is the way to go. The American comic book, both in its superhero and altcomix iterations, is an artform worth preserving. Does our attachment to this artform mean we must ignore the innovations that could well help us preserve it? Of course not. If anything, it should help us to separate the baby from the bathwater–the baby being format, marketing, publishing, and retailing strategies; the bathwater being putting big-eyed girls in the monthly Avengers floppy and blaming “that anime crap” when, astoundingly, it fails to sell.

Forager, though, argues that manga still can’t save the Direct Market, since DM retailers, even the best ones, lack the natural advantages that the big chain bookstores have–from purchasing leverage to walk-in traffic to family shopping patterns. In essence, he’s pointing to a deeper problem: The comics industry will always need comic shops to survive, but the entire comic-shop industry needs to completely transform in order for it to survive.

Two years ago, during his panel in San Diego, Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada said that the biggest obstacle facing comics is the lack of a national chain of well-organized, well-stocked stores with employees in uniforms able to direct shoppers to exactly what they need (a la Blockbuster, Borders, B&N, etc). As chic as it is to hate the big entertainment retailers, I’m not sure that Quesada is wrong. Manga’s the stitches; an overhaul of comics retailership’s the surgery.

Amanda on CrossGen Comics: “How did they not realize that their name sounds like some sort of reference to transsexuals?”

Amanda on me: “You’re the white Humpty Hump.”

I think that’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever said to me. (It almost makes up for the fact that she’s thwarted my every attempt to get busy in a Burger King bathroom.)

Let’s look at this post as an object lesson in how steadily partaking of your little sister’s fridge full of Coors Light affects your blogging, shall we?

Does Milo mystify you? Does Fiore freak you out? Does Groth leave you gasping? Fear not! Take this quiz and find out if you live up to the stringent critical standards of the Comics Journal. Team Comics beware!

If you read all the links in this Eve Tushnet post in order, you get a pretty clear picture of why the American comics industry is in such a sorry state. It’s almost as if folks are deliberately trying to burn up any vestiges of consumer goodwill.

Dirk Deppey deflates my theory that Chris Ware is the Thin White Low-Self-Esteem-Having Duke of Comics. I don’t know what’s more depressing: the fact that the greatest cartoonist in the world thinks he’s for shit, or the fact that the greatest cartoonist in the world is only 35 freaking years old.

I know it’s about a week old, but this Newsarama story on the long, strange trip of Silver Surfer artist Milx is a real bring-down, since it means that the guy will pretty much never get work in the business again.

A tale of two visionaries: Terry Gilliam vs. George Lucas on evil in fantastic fiction, courtesy of Big Sunny D.

This is the kind of pragmatic criticism comics needs more of: the Comics Journal’s online criticism column, Dogsbody, offers practical advice to Expo, the ambassadorial anthology of America’s premiere altcomix convention, SPX. Personally, I enjoy the like-a-box-of-chocolates nature of this yearly collection, but the hit-or-miss quality of the material included therein means that I’m unlikely to ever buy myself a copy.

It’s been a banner week for NeilAlien. I can’t wait for these plotlines to progress, so that at long last I can truly see the ‘Alien in his element.

Like pouring Lemon juice on the papercut that is mainstream comics, folks.

I hate to call out Johnny Bacardi (and yet I’ll be doing it twice in this post alone!), but Sean Phillips in the pantheon? C’mon. He’s quite good at what he does, but what he does, at this point, isn’t much more or less than depicting tough guys killing each other pretty well. And he doesn’t do it with the arrogant style of a Quitely or the square-fisted exuberance of a JRJR or the OCD intricacy of a Geof Darrow or…well, my point is, we can enthuse all we want about really good mainstream comics, but we’re not doing anyone any favors if we start talking like solid entertainment is on the same level as great art. (This really isn’t to single out Sean Phillips, who I like quite a bit–it’s a reality check more than anything else.)

Silver Bullet Comics represents for Rubber Necker: here’s their interview with indie wunderkind Nick Bertozzi.

You know, the Comics Blogosphere really is an interesting place to be right now. I say this not just because it’s playing a big role in keeping me sane while the Missus is indisposed, but because it’s been regularly churning out interesting, ongoing conversations about comics lately. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen Eve Tushnet make the link between the stylistic spectacle of comics and opera; Jim Henley challenge other writers to comment on Neil Gaiman’s much-hyped return to comics, 1602; Alan David Doane single-handedly raise awareness of the work of cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier; Elayne Riggs break the story that CrossGen’s financial straits were leading it to stiff freelancers; and yours truly advance the theory that, to paraphrase Cabaret, tomorrow belongs to manga. All of the above stories generated a slew of blog entries, messboard posts, comment submissions, email messages, and so forth, all of which help make the blogosphere my favorite place to talk comics. (With the exception of a plus hotel room paid for by a certain major American clothing retailer, of course.)

Finally, c’mon, Johnny–you’re acting like you’ve never seen lousy pre-fab pop singers pretending to be lesbians on an MTV awards show before!

I’ve noticed, from time to time, that some loved ones of a woman with an eating disorder (usually the parents) all but insist that the ED sufferers they encounter produce some sort of “positive” subject to talk about–an aspiration, a goal, something that would make them happy, something that currently makes them happy–basically, anything but all that gloomy gus talk about pain and resentment and being pissed off and miserable and slowly dying that tends to dominate the discussion about ED.

Maybe their intentions are good: the power of positive thinking, the cup is half full, et cetera. But my theory is that the barely unspoken subtext is twofold: 1) “Please tell me that it’s not all pain and hurt and anger so I don’t have to feel like I’ve done a lousy job loving you”; 2) “Quit your whining and snap out of it already.” If all it took to overcome ED were to turn that frown upside-down and ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive, we’d all be skipping family therapy sessions and chowin’ down at the Cracker Barrel.

I thought about this (unsurprisingly) in terms of Star Wars. In the Lucas cosmology, the Dark Side of the Force is driven by anger, hatred, fear, agression, and jealousy. The message is to refuse to let those feelings take over your life. But the message is NOT that those feelings have no place in your life at all, that such feelings are invalid, shameful, inappropriate, bad. We’re human, and we feel, well, pissed off sometimes. We shouldn’t let that run our lives, but nor should we try to eliminate those feelings from our lives altogether.

I’ve found that many women with ED use their symptoms as a way to sublimate the negative emotions they won’t allow themselves to feel and express–or that their families forbid them to feel and express. When their loved ones, in the guise of encouragement, try to goad them into don’t-worry-be-happy mode, focusing on long-term aspirations that would make them feel good about themselves in some theoretical future, they (intentionally or not) discourage or even prevent them from feeling and expressing the anger, sadness, frustration, and hurt that are just as much a part of human nature as the happy stuff, and just as valid a part as well.

I’ve watched family, friends, and lovers attempt to comfort their loved one with ED, all the while transmitting wave after wave of needy “please act happy so I don’t have to worry so much” vibes like an enmeshed-family version of the RKO tower. I’ve done it myself. But when the ED sufferer is ready to be happy, she’ll let you know. It’s not a process you can force them to focus on, nor should you try. To do so is to send yet another message that a woman who isn’t happy is a bitch, that anger and sadness are not something good people feel, and that expressing negative feelings is something to be avoided at all cost. Avoiding the expression of those feelings is what got them starving or bingeing or purging in the first place. Now, it’s important for everyone involved to acknowledge and appreciate those feelings for what they are–not part of the Dark Side, but part of being human.

Wasn’t that outrageous? Of course it was! It was that kind of zeitgeist-defining moment that only the VMAs can produce! Like the snake dance from a couple of years ago–dude, that’s ALL we would have been talking about if it weren’t for, y’know, that whole terrorism thing a few days later. And one time they had, like, a million Eminems! This is not your father’s award show, people!

Anyway, nothing spells sexy like Women Pretending To Be Lipstick Lesbians In A Very Public Fashion In Order To Get Guys Off While Nominally Purporting To Strike Some Sort Of Blow For A ‘Pro-Sex Feminism’ So Corrupt And Male-Dictated As To Be Actively Detrimental To Actual Women’s Sexuality! So let’s all go masturbate like bonobo monkeys, and then talk about it on VH1’s I Love the Naughties in 20 years, okay? Okay. Gosh, remember the first season of The Real World? And then they played “Billie Jean” and killed racism forever! I want my MTV!

JOHNNY MOTHERFUCKING CASH FOREVER

Busy enough that I bought The Two Towers on DVD on Tuesday night and still haven’t watched it. Folks, if you know me at all, you know that means I’m pretty motherloving busy. An unexpected visit from my old college buddy/artistic collaborator last night and a delightful dinner at a pub with my grandparents tonight are both extremely pleasant ways to be busy, however (as was putting all the comics I’ve bought in the last two months or so on the kitchen table, as there’s no room for them anywhere else. A movable feast indeed!).

Once again, I’ll be visiting Amanda this weekend (actually from Friday to Monday this time around). I should be blogging from the road, though, so, y’know, take it easy.