* Have you pitched in to the Comics Comics fundraiser yet? I snagged myself three issues of Comics Comics, The Art of Hipgnosis and Overspray for a song. I mean, the shipping’s even free. Make sure to buy stuff today, because a lot of the offers are over as of midnight!

* How not to pitch to Secret Acres. I’d imagine this applies to virtually any publisher.

* Rich Juzwiak reveals the Manly Movie classic Over the Top. The phrase “a big fucking bear whose balls you can smell from your couch” is involved. MUST-READ

* Hubba hubba, Erin Womack!

* Frank Santoro takes you behind the scenes of a drawing of the evil Senator Wastmor.

* I don’t like M.I.A. very much, so maybe it’s just my low expectations for her, but I don’t think this instantly infamous New York Times profile about which she has subsequently flipped out and tweeted the interviewer’s personal cell phone number is all that bad. “Pop Star Says Vapidly Provocative Things, Is a Doofus” is a dog bites man story if ever there was one. Then again, these things are all relative.

* There are three things I’ve written recently that have generated some fun discussion so I wanted to make sure to call them all out again, in case you’d like to chip in your two cents:

* On Robot 6 I asked what comics arguments people would like to here more often, in place of the ones we’re all sick of. My suggestion was “Why do superhero comics so dominate the online discussion of comics?” And I’m talking even well-rounded readers/writers who are perfectly capable of talking about other things just as often.

* Also on Robot 6, I asked whether you need to like a character to like the comic about him or her. This stems from Dan Clowes’s Wilson and the focus on the titular jerk’s unlikability. In the comments I start wondering if maybe Wilson’s better seen in the context of comic character-constructions like Laurel & Hardy or Tim & Eric as opposed to your basic fully-fledged well-rounded psychologically complex literary character.

* Finally, here’s a working link to my third post on the Lost finale, which I flubbed yesterday. The discussion is still going strong, which isn’t surprising if the way my own thoughts on the episode fluctuate from day to day and hour to hour is at all indicative of a broader reaction.

* Tom Spurgeon disagrees with Tom Brevoort about the potential risks of the four-dollar monthly comic. Looking at the post in question, I think the Hindenburg comparison is cutting those sentiments a little slack, actually.

* Matt Zoller Seitz and Ali Arikan talk John Williams and his music for the Star Wars prequels, which they consider his masterpiece, with “Duel of the Fates” at the tippy-top. “Duel” is definitely dude at the top of his game decades into his career, if you ask me. To paraphrase Christopher Moltisanti, FUCK Carl Orff, Johnny Williams just took him to composing school.

* Curt Purcell talks Blackest Night again, from its leads to its compartmentalized-by-subgenre structure to its observation of Aristotelian temporal unity.

* Comics, wake up! The call is coming from inside the house! Great line, Heidi.

* Marvel is publishing a comic with this Alan Aldridge image on the cover. Wow.

* ABC is selling official Lost merchandise with these Ty Mattson images on them. Wow.

* It’s only when superhero comics are described by truly disinterested outsiders, as opposed to self-conscious fans or ex-fans, that you realize how truly ridiculous they can be.

* For a second there, I thought Rob Bricken had been replaced by Jason Adams. (Man, that is some Attentiondeficitdisorderly linkblogging inside baseball.)

* Happy 10th Birthday, Boswash!

My third all-new collection of thoughts about the show and its finale can be found here. Once again, it’s in the middle of a comment thread I think you’ll get a lot out of.

Click here for further Lost thoughts from me if you’d like. It’s a full-fledged post of its own, right smack-dab in the middle of one of our best comment threads yet.

SPOILER ALERT FOR BOTH SHOWS, SO UNLESS YOU’VE SEEN ALL OF BOTH OF THEM, STAY AWAY IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU

Okay, you knew this had to happen once you saw what went on in the Lost finale. I came thisclose to promising a separate post on this topic in my Lost thoughts last night, and when I woke up this morning multiple people had already asked me to do so. Like I said, you knew it had to happen.

I think there are two big differences between the two finales, both of which were a mainline hit of mysticism.

First, the mysticism of the Battlestar Galactica finale tied in directly to the show’s central driving conflict and overarching mythology. The “God” we hear about here was the one responsible for such major mystical mysteries as Gaius Baltar’s visions of Six (and Caprica Six’s visions of Gaius Baltar) and Kara Thrace’s strange resurrection, and is the “truth” behind the bowdlerized judgmental monotheism of the Cylons and the more humanistic but still off-model polytheism of the Colonists. In Lost‘s case, while it does seem like the Island is the world’s most direct manifestation of the force for good behind the flashsideways afterlife, that’s a link in a much more general sense. It seems like any group of people who were tied together by anything would have ended up in much the same place; moreover, the Island plot is resolved without requiring any knowledge of the show’s conception of the afterlife, if that makes sense. The afterlife ties things together emotionally, not narratively, whereas in BSG, it’s linked directly to the big plot questions.

The second and more damning thing for Lost is that its conception of spirituality as articulated in that final sequence is awfully banal: The afterlife is a place generated by the force of goodness behind all major religions where you reunite with your loved ones, atone for your sins and shortcomings, and find true happiness before achieving literal enlightenment. Generic New-Age self-help stuff–whoopedy doo! By contrast, the “God” of Battlestar Galactica embraces its own sneer quotes and acts in morally dubious fashion in order to push humanity and cylonity (?) through a series of cycles of genocide and rapprochement for reasons still unknown. The God of BSG is a weird thing whose role in the finale is still haunting and challenging me today, whereas the creators of Lost could have just mailed every viewer a copy of The Celestine Prophecy and been done with it.

Actually, now that I think of it, the God of BSG is a bit like what we thought about “the Island” when we believed it was the source of all the manipulative goings on, before Jacob and the Man in Black entered the picture–a near-omnipotent force that’s probably ultimately a force for what we’d consider “good” but which on the way there does all sorts of heinous shit for reasons we can’t begin to comprehend in the moment.

Finally, I’ve always found it super-stupid to object to genre fiction simply because you discover its conception of the supernatural doesn’t jibe with your own: I read people saying things like “The Exorcist isn’t scary to me because I’m not Catholic” and simply can’t fathom how crazy that is. You don’t find many mackerel-snappers more lapsed than me but I still get the chills when they chant “The power of Christ compels you!” So it’s not like I’ve got beef with Lost for having a relatively upbeat view on spirituality whereas I tend not to. But I do tend not to. I find the atheist/anti-mysticism apoplexy over Lost‘s finale–seriously, people were losing their shit on Twitter–as silly and funny and pathetic and small-minded as I did when it happened at the end of BSG; that said, my hunch is that if there is a God then he’s a lot more like the vast and cool and unsympathetic entity running the show in the BSG universe, or like “the Island” or like a one-man Jacob/Man in Black mash-up. I figured I might as well cop to that.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

* Hmmm, I dunno. Honestly I had to take my cat to the emergency vet tonight and that situation is far from resolved so I don’t know if my head’s in the game, really. I do have two major thoughts.

* I think the main thing I haven’t wrapped my head around just yet is the disconnect between the flashsideways and its resolution and anything having to do with the Island. I mean, yeah, on a certain level that stained glass window is telling us that the Island is connected with whatever spiritual whatsit is in charge of whatever afterlife they went to. But it’s not a specific connection as best I can tell. It’s sort of like, I don’t know, if at the end of…I don’t know, Road House? If Dalton defeated Wesley and saves the town and avenges Wade Garrett and all that stuff, and then also he goes to Heaven. Like, the actual resolution of the show doesn’t really have anything to do with the resolution of the plot. So I’m gonna have to wrestle with that some.

* I don’t really mind, in the end, all the loose ends. I never thought I’d mind the various dotted-I crossed-T loose ends like who shot at the kayak. And I’ll live without some of the “we thought this was gonna be a big deal in the early seasons but then we went in a different direction” loose ends like WAAAAAAAAALT!!!!! I’m not thrilled, but I’ll live. But what I’m really okay with is just how much is an out-and-out mystery. Why did Ben and Widmore have their falling out? Why was Dogen so important? How did the Monster swoop in to manipulate the Others without Jacob stopping it> When the hell did the Island get overrun by Egyptian architects? How long was Mother around? Et cetera et cetera et cetera. I am pretty much fine with not having any idea but what I myself can deduce and infer and other words of that nature. I totally don’t mind looking at the show like you looked at the Star Wars franchise after Return of the Jedi. What were the Clone Wars? How did Yoda train Obi-Wan? Why did Darth Vader turn on the Jedi? Where’d the Emperor come from? What was up with Boba Fett? Folks, are you better off knowing those answers?

I would love, love, love to see a Hulk vs. Superman fight done with the intensity of that fight from Deadwood. You know the one.

(Via Tom Spurgeon.)

* Zak Smith ought to be making all fantastic-fiction writers raise their respective games.

* Ron Rege Jr. joins What Things Do! And with one of the better Ron Rege Jr. comics you’re likely to see.

* More like this, please, Dave Kiersh!

* Another new Josh Simmons comic!

* Cute idea. Would have been cuter if they’d gotten A-listers to do all of them instead of admitted rush-jobs, but still cute.

* Real-Life Horror: Bagram is the new Guantanamo.

* Okay Internet, you’re definitely right about this one.

* Finally, this is your last chance ever to join our weekly Lost thoughts discussion and speculate about what might happen next; after Sunday night, there are no more nexts. Please stop by then, too, and we’ll hash out the whole damn series together!

* Go support Team Comics Comics!

* It’s an interview with Grant Morrison. Money quote:

I tend to only read comics written by friends or people I’ve known. And I’m not a great comic reader. I get a bunch of DC stuff sent in a box every month, and I’ve got a friend in town who runs a store, and he gives me stuff every now and again. But I’m not a big comic reader, so I tend to read people like Warren Ellis or Alan Moore. People I’m familiar with, or that I’ve met, or that I’m friendly with. Like Mark Millar or whoever. It’s more on the basis of who I know rather than who I like. 

(Via JK Parkin.)

* I’m actually dreading the conclusion of Anders Nilsen’s Big Questions. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle it.

* Hey, wanna by some pages from Ron Rege Jr.’s masterpiece Skibber Bee Bye? (Via Tom Devlin.)

* It’d be relatively easy to believe that the notion that comic shops with creepy stuff on display or creepy people in their employ are a barrier to female readers was some kind of Comic Shop Guy-style self-loathing comics-community stereotype, but no, it’s true, they’re a barrier to female readers as Hope Larson’s survey of some of them confirms. My wife and I haven’t gone to many comic shops together, but I can tell you that the creepy one–the defunct Village Comics–is the only one she ever talks about. Bad impressions last, and a few topless Nazi women in a display case at the checkout counter can go a long way toward making someone never want to visit any comic shop again. (Via Tom Spurgeon.)

* This Ken Parille piece on monologues, soliloquies, and thought balloons vs. speech balloons in Daniel Clowes’s Wilson is really worth considering when reading that book.

* Topless Robot’s Merrill Hagan returns to the Disturbing Moments in Kids’ Movies well with predictably unsettling results. Points of interest: The Flying Monkeys get their due; “Remember me, Eddie? When I killed your brother?” beats the death of the squeaky shoe; at least one moment cited is genuinely emotionally devastating rather than just scary (“Arthax, you’re sinking!”); and Jesus Christ, that scene from Superman III where the lady gets sucked into the computer and turned into a cyborg is like something out of Hellbound: Hellraiser II. That scene scared me so badly as a little kid I wouldn’t go into the TV room alone in case the TV switched on by itself and showed me that scene again.

* It’s like “Xanadu” meets corpse paint meets vampires meets the video for “Call On Me” by Eric Prydz. Goldfrapp are great.

* “Likable characters are for weak-minded narcissists.”–Daniel Clowes. That quote just really needed to be present on this blog. (Hat tip: Matthew Perpetua.)

* Frank Miller is totally blogging on a regular basis. That’s so awesome. I can’t find an RSS feed but there’s gotta be one, right? (Via JK Parkin.)

* Recently on Robot 6:

* Neato Monster Squad art;

* and the comics arguments you never want to hear again. So far, I think I agree with the listing of almost every such argument in the comment thread.

* Am I crazy to think that the guy suing Heroes for ripping off his dopey comic may have a case?

* Now that’s shelf porn. I think the most entertaining shelf porn is the sort where you can’t imagine living the life that would lead you to compile this particular shelf-porn configuration but find it hugely impressive nonetheless; that’s certainly the case for me here.

* I can’t really imagine that anyone reading this blog has any interest in the music of Eric Whitacre, and it’s not like I’m gonna front and say I know a whole lot about contemporary choral music–my knowledge and fandom begins and ends with Whitacre and Morten Lauridsen–but the guy is stupid talented and makes the most heartrendingly beautiful music I’ve ever heard. He’s forming his own ensemble and recording a complete choral works album with them, which is terrific news and will serve as a great gateway into his stuff for interested parties beginning this autumn. In the meantime, I think you can listen to everything he ever wrote on his site; start with “Lux Aurumque.”

* Speaking of music, boy, did I ever need this new Underworld song.

Back by popular demand! SPOILERS for Monday’s season finale, so watch out.

* I stopped writing about Gossip Girl after it returned for its third season’s back half because, frankly, I was a lot less entertained by it. First off, I hate to be one of those people who turns against a show when it’s not even on, but I think that endless hiatus between the two halves of the season really hurt the show’s momentum in and hold on my mind, if not the larger pop-cultural hivemind too. The thing about Gossip Girl is that it works in, what, three-episode arcs? So unless you’re super-invested in whatever cliffhangers you have before a hiatus, it’s not like there’s some over-arching narrative that will pull you back in when it comes back.

* My biggest problem with this season is easy to pinpoint: The constant, purposeless lying by everyone to everyone about everything. Who slept where, who’s going to what party, who’s applying to what school, who’s sick, who’s healthy, who’s having an affair, who’s in town, who’s out of town, who’s a long-lost parent, everything, all the time. And since every lie is inevitably exposed within two episodes of its initial utterance, it’s all so pointless! I joked to a friend that you could replace pretty much every script this season with the sentence “Look, I was gonna tell you…” It’s simply impossible to get very invested in characters who lie all the time, to the people they love, about things they easily could have–and ought to have–told the truth, with ultimately no payoff for having lied.

* It didn’t help that in service to this constant-lying pattern, Serena and Jenny in particular became almost unwatchable. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two of them were put in more and more revealing clothing as the season went on: Without Blake Lively’s thighs and Taylor Momsen’s jailbait cleavage, I think most viewers would have just checked their email every time those two amoral idiots were on screen. It’s not so much the amoral part that irks–on a show starring Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf, how could it be–it’s the idiocy. The dopey duo’s backing of Serena’s evil deadbeat dad’s play to break up Lily and Rufus was the icing on the cake of a season’s worth of moronic decisions that constantly hurt the people they cared about for no good reason.

* A related problem is how repetitive the show got. When your M.O. is “Have Character A lie to their significant other Character B about Life-Goal X,” that’s bound to happen. But even in terms of the specifics, this season saw two long-lost parents return to the lives of two characters, only for them to discover they had ulterior motives, only for us to discover these people had hearts of gold way down deep anyway, only for them to leave Manhattan. That’s an awfully weird well to draw from twice in one season.

* But I have to give the finale props, since it basically dropped a neutron bomb on the unsatisfactory status quo. Serena breaks up with Nate, and good riddance because she doesn’t deserve him. (Look at that guy, he’s a god walking among mortals.) Jenny’s reign of dumb terror is over and she’s off to the sticks, Serena’s sophomore year style. Dan’s ready to ditch the insufferable Vanessa and their joyless relationship, which started in a threesome with a movie star and quickly devolved into constant attempts to undermine one another’s college career, for another shot at being Serena’s human legwarmer. Nate’s playing Dick Grayson to Chuck’s time-lost Bruce Wayne, inheriting the Mantle of the Bass. Blair and Serena are off in Paris, mutually free of commitments for the first time, which really is just as cool as they seem to think it is. Lily and Rufus seem okay, and I’m glad because enough drama between those two already. Georgina and her amazing changing haircolor are pregnant, probably not with Dan’s lovechild but whatever, we can play along for the episode and a half tops it’ll take them to reveal he’s not the daddy. Chuck gets gunned down in Crime Alley, surely soon to be born again as the billionaire crimefighter he already more or less became this episode. Eric remains adorable and decent, and because he’s a young gay man he’s never going to get any on-screen action.

* So, I guess the whole sexual-assault thing is forgiven and forgotten, huh, Jenny? I’m actually a little disappointed in Chuck’s deflowering of Jenny. I know they were both supposed to be totally depressed and miserable at the time, but it would have been extra-delightfully perverse if they’d, you know, enjoyed it.

* That and the bogus gunshot/pregnancy cliffhanger’s aside, it was a fine clearing of the decks, with some fun, intense, ultra-dramatic confrontations and hook-ups and break-ups. It’s sort of like Gossip Girl Season Three Part Two was “Dark Reign,” the finale was Siege (with better fight choreography), and now hopefully Season Four will be the Heroic Age.

S

SPOILER ALERT

* This was pretty much the episode that the people who didn’t like last week’s episode wanted instead: Following the various bands of characters around as they drop exposition on one another on their way to getting where they need to be, physically and mentally, for the finale. Indeed, I’ve already seen a couple of things from nerd-friendly mainstream-media people that indicate, in spoiler-free fashion of course, that this was a whoo-boy episode for them.

* Me? Other than voicing my sinking suspicion that I’m never gonna see Walt again goddammit, I don’t have a ton of stuff to say about this episode. As a discreet, hour-long unit of television, I prefer last week’s intensely acted, emotionally violent, “Long ago there were two sons” creation fable. Now, obviously at this point in the show, and for several earlier seasons besides, none of these episodes are really just a discreet, hour-long unit of television, so that’s probably neither the fairest nor the most germane standard to hold it to. Still, that’s where I’m at.

* So what did I like about it? The violence, mainly. Not ashamed to say it! I’ve written about the appeal of violence on the show before–I remember mentioning it in my thing a few things back about how I like this show as a narrative genre drama, and all that entails, rather than as some kind of elaborate crossword puzzle. But I think it was last week’s episode that really crystalized that this is a show about violence as much as anything this side of Deadwood. With a few exceptions, it’s about how the Island took people who’d made choices that hurt people emotionally, or fallen victim to choices that hurt them emotionally, and gave them choices that could lead them to hurt people or be hurt physically. It’s about murder as much as a superhero comic is about the big fight with the supervillain. In this case the supervillain is the Monster, and watching him murder his way through Richard and Zoe in no-nonsense split-second fashion now has all the weight of that shot of the Man in Black gripping his game box in the middle of his leveled village and seething with insane rage.

* Plus, Ben finally gave Widmore his comeuppance. Because this show is rivaled only by Gossip Girl in its infatuation with characters who lie all the time, I’ve got no idea whether we can believe a word Widmore said in this episode regarding turning babyface, but I did at least think he and Ben would forge a tenuous alliance. I thought so right up until the moment Ben apologized to Widmore for leading the Monster to him–I really assumed Ben had quickly conspired with Widmore to lead Fake Locke into a trap and blow him up with the C4 or something. Anyway, I think the presence of the Monster sort of distracted from the potentially epic feel of a final Ben/Widmore showdown, but in a way, that’s probably how it should be. Ben’s not an epic-confrontation kind of guy. He’s more a “shoot him repeatedly when he’s not looking” kind of guy. As with Widmore’s supposed switch to the side of the angels, I have no idea if Ben’s (presumably final) heel turn is for real or a ruse, but that’s certainly the fun thing about Ben.

* Well, it was Jacob’s cave, how about that.

* Hey, wait a minute, Fake Locke got Ben on board (maybe, at least in theory) by promising him the Island. But our cliffhanger ending was Fake Locke telling Ben he’s going to destroy the Island. If I were Ben I’d get nervous at this point, especially standing right next to that well.

* One thing I’ll say for all the chess-piece movements in this episode is that the final confrontation ought to be fairly clear-cut at this point, simply because there are so few people left. You’ve got Ben and the Monster, you’ve got Jack and company, and Miles and Desmond and Claire are out there someplace. I suppose there are still Widmorian scientists on Hydra Island, but I can’t see that making much of a difference.

* Sinister Sideways Omniscient Desmond is a scream. Man, he took Dr. Linus down like wo. It was nice of him to involve Ana-Lucia, although I was hoping for Mr. Eko.

* Sideways Rousseau cleaned up good! Love her love connection with Ben.

* I wanted to write out a couple of things here because I can’t remember if in the past I’d only written them in comment threads. First, everyone convinced me last week that I was wrong about the Monster’s origin–it’s not just some independent Monster mimicking the Man in Black, it’s the Man in Black trapped in Monster form. That was confirmed by Jacob last night, so good call, everyone.

* Second and most importantly, I no longer think that the flashsideways characters will have to choose to sacrifice their happy lives in order to stop the Monster in the real reality. I think their happy lives are their reward for having stopped the Monster in the real reality. The flashsidewayses are the show’s happy ending. Sideways Desmond’s mad scheme to show everyone the other reality isn’t an attempt to get them to relinquish the sideways reality, it’s a way of drawing their memories of their Island-influenced lives into their current lives, so that all of that will still matter, but now they’ll be able to move past it.

* Why could no one on the Island have babies? Why was Walt a big deal? Why did the Others act like murderous assholes all the time if they were working for semi-benevolent Jacob? Why did Ben and Widmore have their falling-out? What was up with the Cabin, the Temple, Dogen, the ash, and other apparent Monster-containment devices? Will the elusive #108 ever show up, or was that just Desmond all along? What were the rules that bound Jacob and the Monster, or Ben and Widmore, and were they really rules that couldn’t be broken, or were they more of a guideline than a rule in the grand Venkman tradition? See you Sunday!

* Recently at Robot 6:

* Wizard ends it Charge of the Big Apple Brigade against the New York Comic Con but still schedules shows around it sniper-style;

* storybook drawings of R-rated movies;

* and three art-heavy reviews I liked a lot. Hmm, I wonder what it says that I liked these reviews in large part because of their well-chosen art, but virtually never include art in my own reviews. I think it mostly says that scanning is time-consuming and there are no scanners on the Long Island Rail Road.

* Hey, it’s a movie about a British Cold War-era submarine getting attacked by a giant squid. Apparently. It’s all rather oblique. Still, you know me and sea monsters. (Via Topless Robot.)

* Until you’ve bought and used a lawn mower on your own yard, you’ll never understand.

* Only two more episodes to go, so please check out last week’s Lost thoughts and then join us tonight for more!

[Noah Berlatsky:] I basically agree that saying, “Well, Clowes’ character shouldn’t talk about Dark Knight because Clowes was involved in a lousy movie,” seems ridiculous. I do have some sympathy with the irritation Abhay expresses. Which is, there’s a default stance in certain regions of lit comics land which is basically: “life sucks and people are awful.” Which I think is glib and overdone and tedious, a, and which, b, can be made even more irritating by the fact that the people promulgating it are, you know, fairly successful, and (what with various autobiographical elements thrown in) the result often looks like a lot of self-pity over not very much.

So…I’m wondering how strongly you would push back against that characterization of lit comics in general…and also whether you feel it is or is not ever appropriate to think about a creator’s biography in relation to his or her work in that way.

[Tom Spurgeon:] At this point I wouldn’t push back at all against the stance that says the default mode in lit comics land is basically “life sucks and people are awful” because it’s no longer an argument I take seriously. I don’t think it’s true by any reasonable measure and I’m done with entertaining the notion until someone presents the argument in a much more effective or compelling fashion than what always sounds to me like some angry, lonely, re-written Usenet post from 1997.

—Tom Spurgeon, in an interview with Noah Berlatsky