Will Eisner's "The Contract with God" Trilogy

Does God listen? Keep promises? What if instead of having a table before your enemies you're kept out of the banquet? Is it ask and ye shall be answered, or ask and strain your ears until something- anything- sounds like a response? What makes us keep on living beyond our disillusions? Is it the same force that inspires cockroaches to struggle for life? Surely God cares for cockroaches as much- or as little- as He cares for us? Who owns land? Who owns a neighborhood? What makes for a neighbor? Why do the Dutch hate the English who hate the Irish who hate the Italians who hate the Germans who hate the Jews who hate the Blacks who hate the Puerto-Ricans? Do we matter?



You can guess why Will Eisner's "The Contract with God" trilogy goes beyond questions of whether Spiderman would win against the Hulk; why the comics industry major award is called the Eisner; and why the first tome, published in 1978, is considered the originator of today's adult-minded "graphic novels" (even though it's more of a "graphic short-story-collection.")
But as I see it here, Eisner's contributions to the idea of "graphic novel" is still not fully explored by today's artists. (Correctly, a blurb by the late John Updike says that not only was Eisner ahead of his time- the times haven't caught up with him yet.) Here he's trying to work towards a graphic novel that is MORE than just a a traditionally panelled comic book with "adult" subject matter. He envisions a work where the panels are divisional tools to be used when appropriate, not cages. What he was aiming at here, if not always achieving, was a totally fluid experiential merging of words and drawings. We may yet in the future be perplexed by how most of today's novels are consigned to a single, same-sized font- BORING!- or how the author didn't scribble auxiliary drawings on the side of the page whenever he or she felt like it. After all, didn't books START as a far more syncretic combination of graphics and letters than they are now?

Happy Veterans Day, Aerosmith!

Just when I was jonesin' over Aerosmith's 14th acrimonious break-up, it turns Steven Tyler is NOT quitting Aerosmith- except maybe Aerosmith IS quitting on Steven Tyler, (which is kind of like the Looney Tunes disowning Bugs Bunny: DUMB.) Or they might not. Perry and Tyler will each give three more conflicting statements before I finish this post, and these guys have never had coherence on their side.
TOP: Steven Tyler, Joey Kramer, Joe Perry. BOTTOM: Tom Hamilton and Brad Whitford. Or Brad Whitford and Tom Hamilton, who cares?
This is all karmic payback- Aerosmith ALREADY went through this, except last time the exiled Toxic Twin was Perry, replaced with a teamster called Jimmy Crespo- don't worry, neither he or the albums he's in will be on any Aerosmith test. Only an Aerosmith geek like me recalls.
In honor of those fallen by the side, here's Jimmy Crespo fantastically fucking up the guitar in "Back in The Saddle". Well, Tyler is fucking up his parts too, but consider at this point in the band's career his body is made of 2/3 heroin: it's patriotic, the way he's still standing up.


Yeah, I'm uncool for liking Aerosmith, but I deal. Your mom blew Steven Tyler in '77 so how do you live with THAT?

Greg Mottola's "Adventureland"

One of the very few things I enjoyed about the "Twilight" movie was Kristen Stewart's valiant effort at bringing life to a character that was honestly called BELLA SWANN- a blank designed to be filled with its (mostly female) readers' projections. In retrospect, she may have been better than I thought, and I was surprised by how much I loved her and the rest of the cast of Greg Mottola's "Adventureland".

This is a movie I had no particular interest in seeing when it premiered, (the "Superbad"-in-the-80s campaign did noting for me), but it's now become one of my favorite coming-of-age-love-stories+hip-soundtrack. In an overcrowded field, Mottola's bittersweet script (about summer loving at the amusement park) distinguishes itself not by overcoming tropes, (let's face it, people in love behave in pretty tropish manner), but by winning details. He remembers how annoying it must have been to hear Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" playing again and again in 1987, and if you don't recollect with him, you will now. There's a very communicable nostalgia in "Adventureland"- I was six, but I too will get sniffy at a Replacements track that punctuates that inexplicable teenage dissatisfaction.

Jesse Eissenberg (from "The Squid and the Whale") plays James, Mottola's youthful stand-in. He's a familiar awkward nice guy who makes mix-tapes of despair and stutters on his way to subtle but perceptive punchlines, (I think I rehearsed to play that guy troughout high school.) When his post-graduation plans go to hell he's forced to take a pathetic, just-for-the-money job, (oh, hey, I AM this guy!). He ends up in "Adventureland" with a surrogate family headed by a paternalistic Bill Hader (sample line: "Hey, James! James, right, that's how you pronounce it?") and his SNL bud Kristen Wiig. Also in the family is pretty but sad-beyond-her-years Em (Stewart); Connell, (Ryan Reynolds) the married maintenance man who's seduced impressionable Em with possibly fraudulent tales of having once jammed with Lou Reed; 'nad busting Frigo, (Matt Bush); wisdom-provider Joel, ("Freaks and Geeks"' Martin Starr); and park hottie Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva, who, like most of the people here, provide huge warmth and understanding to what really are just sketches.)

And I do love it when a movie sucks up to my musical preferences. Particularly effective among many effective moments is the Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes" juxtaposed with an adoring shot of Stewart's stolid face in the moonlight. Remember that moment? Staring at that girl/ boy/ goat/ whatever that's driving you around and you don't say anything because you've been shut up by love and also don't want to ruin the fact that you're obviously about to get some? (Never mind that she's intently thinking about the cooler, older guy who's never going to leave his wife! It's totally like "The Apartment" for teens!)
Talking about the guy-who-leads-the-girl-on: Reynolds, (like Steve Zahn just did in "Sunshine Cleaning") takes what could have been the role of a philandering slime and makes you feel a certain kind of sadness for how people's mistakes accumulate as years go by- until they're clinging to that one story about Lou Reed and unable to remember if the song is called "Shed a Light on Love" or "Satellite of Love".

"Adventureland" is not perfect, but you'll care for it beyond its minor flaws, which would have fit so well in the Cameron Crowe/John Hughes' movies it grows out of. I didn't mind its plotless, lazy-summer feel as much as its misguided last act concessions to the box office. Much as one wants first love to turn out right, you know it doesn't. That's why they they don't call it LAST love.

It's Cold Out There for an Arctic Monkey-

"The proof that love's not only blind but deaf."

I recall the curious affair of the Arctic Monkeys, three or four years ago. There they were, if you believed cross-Atlantic hipsters: the most beloved, groundbreaking, influential, rock-saving band of its generation. Then it was back-lash time, and they were the most reviled and ridiculed wannabes imaginable. Oh, and then there was the anti-back-lash-double-back-lash, and they were beloved underdogs again, comeback kids barking in their DIY fervor.
True, no one had even HEARD their FIRST ALBUM, but don't quibble with love!

Three albums in, and no one much cares outside of the devoted in Sheffield, England, but it's all a pity, because the Arctic Monkeys are the real thing- once you modulate your expectations and take them for the eager, limited-world-view rockers they are. The formula is effective: Nirvana-like riffing smothered on post-Strokes affectations, and vocalist Alex Turner's tales of- well, hooking up in the dancefloor, or going for a (British) fag in the back alley. This is a band that has spent so much time immersed in cockney-club-land that they have nothing else to document with authenticity, but Turner has a way with words in "Whatever People Say I Am (That's What I'm Not)" and "Favourite Worst Nightmare" that tricks you into ignoring the repetitious insularity of the songs. "Humbug", their new album, steps a little differently, but we'll get there.

"WPSIATWIN" has indeed become a classic of its type: check out tracks like "When the Sun Goes Down", (an indignant take on "Roxanne"'s condescending nature); "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" (with its Duran-Duran come-on to remind you that, after all, one DOES start a rock band to get laid); and "Fake Tales of San Francisco" (another shining example of getting all your life wisdom from fighting with ego-tripping bouncers).


More muscular than its predecessor and less single-happy, "Favourite Worst Nightmare" was bound to be the moment where the masses tuned out and the fans felt confirmed. The songs still smell like cigarrete clouds and unfortunately spilled beers, but Turner's wordcraft vaccilates between too sped-up and too slowed-down and too strained, like he's been studying Elvis Costello and coming out with the wrong lessons: ("your rendezvous rate/means you'll never be frightened to make them wait"? That sounds like trying.) It's never too annoying though, and the best moments match (if not surpass) the debut's. Check out "Fluorescent Adolescent"- (which manages to make a rhyme between "rascal" and "Tabasco" charming.).


Largely produced by Queens Of The Stone Ages' Josh Homme, "Humbug" is a more moderate affair: the Monkeys got the critics off their backs and aren't embarrassed to embrace their inner Beatles... I'm sorry, I meant their inner Oasis. But not in the anthemic or psychedelic way, (that would be something!): It's more like: "does anyone know how to play the organ? Then they'll say we 'expanded' our sound!" "Humbug" is dark, disappointed, and, as its title suggests, of an almost Scroogeian nature. It's hard to tell if they want us to take them seriously, or if they've unfortunately BECOME serious- and seriousness is for the most part a divorce from the dancefloor. And Turner, who started as a colloquial story-teller and moved on to a Thesaurus devotee is here- he thinks- a poet. Moments like:
"I was biting the time zone, and we embellish the banks of our bloodstreams,
and threw caution to the colourful" are not bad, but when you consider that once the band had you shouting this chorus: "Yeah, I said, what do you know? /Oh you don't know nothing, no!/But I'll still take you home/ Yeah, I'll still take you home" it can't be denied that there's a change in aesthetic. It's dumb to gripe about a group changing sound for the BETTER, but "Humbug" is a sideways crawl that doesn't improve on their past- although it doesn't turn you off from their future.
There's stand-out tracks: (do you hear the Nick Cave in "Crying Lightning"? They
also cover "Red Right Hand" as a bonus track.)

And there's the Beatles (again, I mean Oasis), with a turn for the melodic in "Cornerstone" ( "I elongated my lift home"!) and "Secret Door", which sound pretty but still manage to turn the Nirvana-snark on their fans- and themselves: "Fools on parade conduct a sing-along..." (but they don't know what it means?)

Carl Moore's "State of the Union"- the Stupidest Strip in America- and a heads up on "Imperial"

LOOK AT THIS
HMMM. No. Illegal immigrants don't vote Democrat. Or Republican or Labor or Tory or National Socialist. They just CAN NOT VOTE and will NOT show anywere near a voting booth unless somehow the Border Patrol beat them and dragged them to one and threatened to shoot them if they didn't vote. TRUST ME, Carl Moore. "State of the Union" is always ridiculously anti-liberal (and not very funny: conservatism is inherently anti-creativity) but with this one panel it wins the award of STUPIDEST COMIC STRIP OUT THERE. You know, my mind is so open I'm spilling Republican elephants everytime I nod my head, but when a party's political arguments are outright lies one can't help but be frustrated. It doesn't help that I've embarked upon the staggering adventure that is William T. Vollman's "Imperial."

I keep thinking about that Steve Toltz' line: "People aren't ever FOR anything: they're just opposed to its opposite.". Look at this oh-so-debated health care bill. I'm opposed to 36 million Americans going without health care. Diseases SPREAD, you know? I can't imagine at what levels of selfishness, greed, or ignorance a mind must be working when it says: "Well, I want to make sure 36 million can't get help if they get sick."

You know, it really doesn't surprise me that Jesus hasn't returned. If I was him, I would be too embarrassed to see how the teachings didn't take.

"Friday Night Lights" Season 1 Pilot

"Do you think that God loves Football?"
"I think EVERYBODY loves Football."

WRONG.
I'm not big into any kind of -balls, and I particularly dislike what I (admittedly in an idiosyncratic manner) perceive as the slow nature of Football, but I still spell the word with a capital F with the care of the superstitious. And I love "Friday Night Lights", how about it? I watched its first season intermittently- given the way it was handled by its parent network, NBC, that was the only way anyone watched it. Now DirectTV airs it with a promise of an extra two seasons, (again with a schedule so disjointed it might have been a side-lined quarterback's femur). That makes that for a relatively long-running, 5 season show that no one ever talks about- but I'm joining in.
It's impossible to figure out WHY such small fandom from Peter Berg's direction and writing on a pilot powerful enough to proudly bump shoulders with its originating Billy Bob Thornton movie, (also directed by Berg.) This is a show about the same Middle America that complains it's always being neglected in television portrayals: L.A. and New York and all-purpose, no-geography suburbia replace it. Well, here you are Middle America, and your religion is Football and Mass takes place on Friday Nights and the State Championship is the Holy Grail. But this is no religion for the meek and saintly: you gotta be able to crush God to a pulp if you wanna win. That pre-game prayer is only a propitiary ploy. The local chapel is closed on Friday evenings- and it ain't no Sabbath thing. When a drunk high school player toasts: "Here's to God, and Football", it's pretty clear which one of those items is just getting lip service. And when a woman from Dillon, Texas tells new coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler): "You're gonna kill them, coach, give them Hell", she's not being metaphorical.

Before the big game, Taylor is completely deaf to his wife, Tami (Connie Briton), and her campaign for a new house, as well as to Julie (Aimee Teegarden), his "brainy" teenage daughter who reads Moby Dick and tells us, we couldn't guess, that the whale is the state trophy and Dad is Coach Ahab. (She doesn't tell him how the book ends, and he clearly isn't going to read anything short of Vince Lombardi's memoir.) But the show is not critical of that, it gets it: its alliance, too, is with the goal line.
The way football brings everyone together even as team egos strive to pull the players apart is INDEED inspiring and more energetic that many a Church meeting. (BTW, energetic Church meetings are always cause for alarm- a lynching mob follows not soon after.) Who's in the team? There's "Smash", (Gaius Charles) the trash talking Muhammad-Aliesque quote-dropper, ready to endorse Adidas, Nike, AND Reebok: his heart and greed are big enough for it all. There's Jason (Scott Porter), the golden quarterback whose career (apparently) ends just as the show begins. There's Tim, (Taylor Kitsch, who went on to play Gambit in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine.") Tim starts out as the team-mate bashing drunk who expels alcoholic fumes during interviews- and who, realistically, hopes Jason makes it big and sends him 1% of his paycheck to save him from the oblivion that inevitably follows football players who don't make it to college. There's Matt (Zach Gilford), the sweet back-up quarterback who likes Julie and will obviously have to man up and step into the game- all kinds of game.
There's the hottie duo of light Lyla (brunnete Minka Kelly) and dark Tyra (blonde Adrienne Palicki)- they fight over guys but one does wish the guys would quietly back up and leave them to make nice- amorously, if they have to.
And then there's Football, overpowering all-mighty Football.


ABOVE: The girls from "FNL", Minka, Adrienne and Aimee. The one to the right looks like she's 14, so don't allow yourself naughty thoughts. They're all supposed to in high school anyway, so you're a pervert if you looked. Pervert! You looked, didn't you?
It's ok, you're forgiven, I sympathize: Like I said, I'm not big into -balls.

Joni Mitchell's "River"

Bob Dylan's not the only '60s icon with a Christmas vision. Joni Mitchell's "River" is one of my favorite holiday songs ever- and certainly the saddest: listen to it enough times on a heartbreak Christmas and you'll gladly go skating on the thinnest of ices, guaranteed.

"I made my baby say goodbye". That line means it's sobbing time for Hans. Hey, like Jack Donaghy says: "I have two ears and a heart, don't I?"

Brian Michael Bendis' "New Avengers" Annual #1

Dear Imaginary Reader:
Let us press pause in the fast-forward no-budget surrealistic movie that is our daily lives of muted acknowledgements and mumbled half-engagements for one pure moment of superhero romanticism: The wedding for Luke Cage and "Alias'" Jessica Jones in "New Avengers Annual #1.
CUTENESS!
Yes, they're interracial and had their baby out of wedlock, and she has a drinking problem, and he asks her if she's "aight" as she stares at his expansive-made-in-Attica-pectorals, and sometimes she totally gets cranky and wants to drop the baby on the Spiderstein neighbors... but screw you, conservative judge! It's still adorable and totally family values when Jessica stops Stan "Preacher Man" Lee with his recycled vows and beams at her new husband:

"These words. They're just...words. I'm dedicating my life to you- and I'm saying someone else's words? That's nuts. I want you to know, I truly believe that together we're so much better than we are apart. And not in that creepy way! Really, I'm inspired by you. I don't get lost in my own head like I used to. This world is a scary place. But ever since we got together I just haven't cared. (...) Look at that kid over there. LOOK at her. We MADE her. And I LOVE watching you be a father. So much so that I'd wear this big poofed-out dress. I just wanted to let you know in my words. This is why I said yes to all this crazy. That's why."

*SNIFF SNIFF* I always cry at superhero weddings.

Walter Simonson's "The Mighty Thor"

Frank Miller and Walter Simonson were studio partners for a heady time in the late '70s- and Walt and Will Eisner both shared ideas about sequential art in a book called "Panel Discussions"- and the only reason that matters is because I just mentioned Miller and I'm about to mention Eisner's "Contract with God" trilogy, and I like to mention things- particularly if those things are only stretchily connected, and I'm all down and tired and don't want to write, but I should note that I just read "Thor: Visionaries" and I loved Simonson's aesthetic and wished his intrusive "I-just-read-the-Eddas" text would go away.

ABOVE: "Mr Fantastic reflected: 'Thor should have consulted with me before that awful face lift.'"

God, I should never allow myself to read other people's actually decent, well informed blogs. Like This One.

CRITERION: Marco Bellocchio's "Fists in the Pocket"

For a few minutes, it looks like Marco Bellochio's "Fists in the Pocket" might be about Augusto, (Marino Mase), handsome and assured and in control of his female conquests. (If this was Fellini, a young Mastroianni could have slid into the role.) Then we learn that Augusto's seductive powers extend to his beautiful, playful sister Giulia (Paola Pitagora), and not soon after that things slide into focus: It's the younger brother, Alessandro (Lou Castel), we must watch out for, as goes into fits which might come from epilepsy or from sheer incestuous desire. "Ale" wants Giulia too, nozzles her neck, writes her love letters while she mocks and torments him and, in ocassion, satisfies him. She's not a bad sister after all.

See, Augusto represents the hypocrisy of comformity and ties and professional success; he's dishonestly proper in his courtship of a town beauty whom he will marry with priestly approval; he'll keep his mistresses and his prostitutes entirely hush hush, as befits a proper member of society.
Marco Bellochio hates Augusto and, worse, finds him boring. It's Alessandro's alternative repressions and outbursts he chronicles. Lou Castel is a prolific actor who never really upstaged his role here: in 1965 he sort of resembled a cross between Matt Damon, Neil Patrick Harris and Marlon Brando, and he's captivating. His Alessandro is a child at play, and a tormented rebel, or all-out bonkers depending on whether this is an odd minute or an even minute. His whole body seems like the angry fists on the title, ready to slink into a corner pocket or spring into violent action.
The violent action comes in the form of matricide- after "Ale" realizes that getting rid of his blind charge of a mother will surely help the family financially. Isn't that how one becomes a man? Tough financial decisions? Things get a little better for a while, Augusto approves, Giulia is more generous in her sisterly games, but soon enough Ale realizes they're not quite free yet: there is an even younger, mentally challenged brother gravitating around the sin twins. It's time for Alessandro to once more suck it up for the greater cause, and commit fratricide. That way leads to freedom.

All this is equal parts shocking, cross-yourself-blasphemous, saddenning, and darkly satiric. No one would call Alessandro sympathetic, but somehow he becomes a sort of hero in his honest madness: maybe simply because, bonkers or not, he's more honest than those around him.

(Ennio Morricone's soundtrack is quite on the same vein as the one for "La Dolce Vita"- cha-cha-chas and all. Yes, of course the soundtrack is by Morricone. This is an Italian movie. Duh.)

"V" Pilot

The "V" pilot has got HIT written all over it! It's not, like, SMART a la "DULL-HOUSE!" Its characters talk in very simple sentences with none of that mortifying snobby "wit". And the plot is pretty simple, yay! Super-advanced-but-super-mean aliens come to destroy Earth. How can we tell the ultra-realistic computer-generated aliens are evil?

Let's see: The "Visitors" work in "sleeper cells" and plot "unnecessary wars" and cause "economic crisis and foreclosures" and- this is how you know they're beyond redemption- they want UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!!!
I was thrilled to see "Firefly"'s Morena Baccarin- the galaxy's most sought after courtesan- but why did they cut off her flowy silky hair?

ABOVE: Seductive Space Hotness.
BELOW: Health care AND androgyny! SHE'S TROUBLE!

Darwyn Cooke's "The Spirit, Volume 1"

Like Charles Burns', Darwyn Cooke's drawing lines might as well come with a copyright warning, so it's fascinating that he manages his current homage to Will Eisner's "The Spirit" without giving up the style of a Darwyn Cooke comic. I love how he takes the IDEA of Eisner's classic splash pages and furthers it with double-splashes that are confident in their modernity. This is what a good update is, this is what Frank Miller should have defered to when he got the chance to defile Denny Colt's grave.
(Ebony White is here even- and watch how Cooke addresses the obvious with humor, where Miller simply eliminated the character.)
REPORTER (on meeting Ebony): "Now, who is this snack-sized Nubian savior?"
EBONY: "Name's Ebony."
REPORTER: "Ebony? You're playin' me, right? I mean, when you get home, do you stand on (the Spirit's) lawn with a lantern or what?"
THE SPIRIT: "No, it's Tuesday. I stand on HIS lawn tonight."

Bob Dylan's "Christmas in the Heart"

Talking about jokes and Bob Dylan!

I don't know if it's unintentionally funny, or if the old croak is in on the joke, but "Christmas in the Heart" invites grins (for the first, and likely last, listen). I suppose that's all one needs on the Holidays. What you DON'T need is Dylan's strangled voice to guide you through "Adestes Fideles" or "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", but the funner covers are not, I submit, terrible. I sort of like "Winter Wonderland", "The Christmas Blues", "Christmas Island", and particularly the addictive "Must Be Santa". It's the slow, "heartfelt" stuff that will put a tragic halt to your Christmas dinner while the horrified kids wonder if the little drummer boy got the "throat cancer".

This will give you an idea. "The answer, my friend, He was born in Betlehem- the answer, He was born in Betlehem."

"The State" Season 1

Understanding Dad (Thomas Lennon): "Doug, your mother and I think you're on drugs."
Doug the Angry Teen (Michael Showalter): "No way, man! I'm DOUG, not BOB DYLAN hehehe."
Dad: "Doug, do you even know who Bob Dylan is?"
Doug: "NO, but I know he died of DRUGS, duh."'
Dad: *sighs* "Doug, Bob Dylan is alive and well. I produced his last three albums."
Doug: "Oh, you mean Uncle Robert? (...) Forget it. I'm outta... I'm outta heeere!"

- "The State"



Before MTV became a joke it actually HAD jokes in the form of "The State"- the great sketch-show incubator with a cast that, 16 years later, is still pretty much defining American comedy. You get Michael "The-Baxter" Showalter and Michael Ian Black, who you know from "Stella" and "Michael and Michael Have Issues" and "Wet Hot American Summer"- the latter directed by fellow cast-member David Wain who directed "Role Models" and "The Ten". Now "The Ten" featured practically every cast member from "The State": that means Ken Marino, whom you remember as Vinnie Van Lowe from "Veronica Mars", and of course Joe Lo Truglio from "Superbad" and "Pineapple Express", as well as Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon and "The State's" sole reigning female Kerry Kenney, and you know THEM from "Reno 911".
Look, I'll stop, it's an IMDB-full of talent- and I had never seen a single episode until right now, 'cause I was being lame in some other country in 1993! That means I'm unhip AND lucky to be finally devirginized by Louie (the "I wanna dip my balls in it!" guy!). The haircuts date them but the sketches don't (Watch SNL from five years ago and you'll catch yourself trying to remember who's Katherine Harris). Not everything is golden, but show me the sketch show that can claim that- and no, not even Monty Python, bub.



So what do you get in Season 1? Digs at MTV for branching off into "sports" (if only they'd known!), enough catchphrases to bury your moose in, Doug the angry teen, Captain Monterey Jack's rapping to the youth about "how to properly wrap your cheese", Sid and Nancy attempting to play Password, Pythonesque transitions between sketches, and the sadness of knowing all these kids are way, way older now- and so are you.
What don't you get? Apparently, the original nostalgia-inducing soundtrack has been replaced with sound-a-likes, but you'll know when The Breeder's "Cannonball" is supposed to be playing- create your own '90s mix and play it against the show, "Dark Side of the Moon" vs. "Wizard of Oz" style.

Go ahead. Dip your balls on this.
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OH, WOW. Now THAT wouldn't fly anywhere in 2009. We have lost so much comedy after the 'tarded started unionizing!

"The Vampire Archives", (Otto Penzler, ed.)

One last Halloween salvo!


WHY VAMPIRES?

The not-one-but-three prologues to "The Vampire Archives" (by Otto Penzler, Kim Newman and Neil Gaiman each) try to answer the question, with all sorts of fascinating tidbits: Did you know that the ORIGINAL non-folkloric vampire story, "Lord Ruthven", which inspired "Dracula", was just a parodic caricature of Lord Byron's eccentricities? Did you know that Anne Rice's real name is HOWARD ALLEN O'BRIEN? THAT'S SCARY!

But why ask? The vamp's popularity over the last century lies on the double hitting quality of the myth: SEX AND DEATH! What else IS there? (Zombies aren't sexy, not even the stripper ones! Maybe if werewolves shaved their legs?) Also, as a mythologist, you can do just about anything with this creature of the night, including taking it into the day, and this bargain-priced close-to-1000-page anthology proves it. Almost every great horror author is represented here, from Lovecraft to King and Poe to Bloch... Interestingly, I didn't notice Charlaine Harris contributing. HMMM.

I shall end the week's ghoulishness with the closing lines of this classic Poe(m) from "Ligeia", the even classicker tale of unbridled opium consumption, vampiric love lost, and vampiric love eerily regained.

Out—out are the lights—out all!
And over each quivering form
The curtain, a funeral pall
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.



Food for WORMY thought. And now it's CRIME to say good FRIGHT, Dear Imaginary BLEEDER!

(The Cryptkeeper made it sound so easy!)

"Fear(s) of the Dark"

The individuality of graphic artistry goes beyond most conglomerations of words. Early on the animated black-and-white anthology "Fear(s) of the Dark", we have a close up of some lines- ink strokes, no more- and I go: "Well, now, isn't that like a Charles Burns line!"

It is! It is a Charles Burns line! I could never tell you why an eye drawn by Burns is different from one by Adrian Tomine or by Daniel Clowes or by Chris Ware- all dealing with CIRCLES I would think were universal- but darned, they're theirs, and my doodles are mine, and everybody else has a copyright on their own universe of circles and lines. How few writers shy of gimmickry can claim the same!
Burns contributes a typically Cronenbergian, mysognistic story about an initially affecting relationship devolving into vampiric deformity- complete with women-as-praying-mantis images that would be reprehensible if they weren't so honest. The clip issues right off his monumental "Black Hole", which you should read NOW. (I mean NOW, forget the rest of the post, abandon the Internet, run to a bookstore- or buy below! Make me a commission!)
Of the remaining five stories in the anthology, two are great, two little more than connective tissue, and one rather boring; not an awful average, for these things.
The great:

Marie Caillou's mock-culture-phobic compendium, an unnerving tale about Japanese school-bullies/ghost-samurais/raping-tentacles, all tormenting a cutely designed little girl. The scene in which her mates shove Hello-Cutie to the ground and let spiders loose up her thighs is easily the scariest animated thing I ever saw. (Does Jar Jar Binks count as animated?)

Robert McGuire's cartoon is sooo inventive one forgives its too-literal take on the black-and-white-and-fear motif- and don't let is cartooniness disarm you: it has a truly chilling ending.
The boring:
It's boring.

The connective tissue involves rampaging bestiality and, most frightful of all, GUILTY EUROPEAN LIBERAL WHINING: "My carbon footprint won't let me sleep at night! Have I done enough to stop racism? Have I enjoyed American movies too much recently? I surprised myself having a conservative thought about safe neighborhoods for my kids! OH, NO, NO, I may be becoming CENTER LEFT! THE HORROR!"

"Dollhouse" Season 2, Episodes 3-4

"Dollhouse"! Creepy mannequins on Episode 3. Sierra (Dichen Lachman) gets her shining moment on Episode 4. There have been enough "Battlestar Galactica" guest appearances to appease the nerdiest fienders: Jamie Bamber- APOLLO!- was in Ep. 2, and Michael Hogan- COLONEL TIGH!- on Ep. 3. What do you need to tune in? Freaking Edward James Olmos? This season is looking good, people!

Bah. You've all moved on. "Dollhouse" goes largely unwatched. It's still waiting for an unthinkable FIVE votes before it gets a rating on IMDB. There will be no eps during sweeps. (That's like being locked in the broom closet at the orphanage the one day prospective parents visit.) (It's also like watching a quarantined patient make a full recovery right after the doctor retreats screaming: "It's hopeless, just seal the ward and gas everyone in it!")

This is TV tragedy in the making! The scariest thing happening this Halloween!

Ah, well, I tried, Joss. You gave me some of the best years of my TV-addicted life. I talked up your show as best I could. Felt like the right thing to do. We cool, right?

"The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror XX" And "Deadman's Jest"

While the family-oriented take their declawed-Wolverine and webless-Spiderman sons and daughters and nieces and nephews out on the town to score their sugar fix; while the closeted freaks indulge their inner tranvestites; while the teen girls dress up as smarmy Hermiones and the teen boys pretend Halloween is not cool but they'll play along to spy up their Hermiones' schoolgirl skirt; while the ironic Halloweeners dress up as "Guy with An Alcohol Problem" or "Slutty Dental Assistant"; and while the vampires suck necks with impunity and the zombies behave more or less the same way they behave all week at the office, nerds like me cling into the wonderful Treehouse of Horror that the Simpsons have built for us. This 20th time around, we get 1) a very decent parody of Alfred Hitchcok movies; 2) an overly familiar "28 Days Later"/"Children of Men"/"I Am Legend"- etc etc; 3) and a slightly off-key nod to Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd."


Extra: "The Simpsons" comics are always paler than yellow, but they're a nice supplement when you're running as low on vitamin S as we've all been in the last few years (there WAS that movie.) The "Deadman's Jest" compilation has guest-writing by Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons and... use your psychic powers to anticipate this one: Pat Boone. Musical droppings aside, the ghoulish treat here is "Squish Thing", written and drawn by the legendary Len Wein/ Bernie Wrightson team that made "Swamp Thing" one of the most original comics of the '70s, before Alan Moore came in and made it one of the most original comics of ALL TIME.

Ivan Reitman's "Ghostbusters 2"

Dear Imaginary Reader:
HERE'S SOME HALLOWEEN BAD VOODOO SEQUEL COMING ATCHA!

1989's "Ghostbusters 2" introduces the sequel as a lazy get together, and it's very relaxed and fun if you can tune in to that particular vibe. Ivan Reitman calls everyone and Harold Ramis is like: "Hey, weren't we in that big movie five years ago? With Slimer! We should wear the outfits again and just chill." Dan: "Yes, yes, Bill, you want a beer? You want me to call Ernie?" Bill: "Oh, we don't have to call HIM! But, hmmm, is Sigourney... is she still single? I forgot her number, you got it?" Dan: "Hey, what's wrong with Ernie? He's good for a few jokes!" Harold: "Yeah, I like Ernie." Bill: "Yeah, well, everybody likes Ernie. Is that the Statue of Liberty covered in ectoplasm over there?"

T.C. Boyle's "Stories"

The T. C(oraghessan) Boyle story I just referenced is "The Descent of Man" and you can find it, and sixty-some lovely peers, in this volume of Boyle's short fiction. This is an indispensable delight which has entertained me for almost a year of sporadic picking. You can guess why I like him: Boyle writes like an omnivorous satirist, and he likes a light story with some wordplay (he's almost too generous with his verbiage) and a what-if spirit that might have been appropriated from the long running Marvel magazine comic.

While his stories are widely anthologized, I've never actually read any of his novels, a slight which I intend to remedy inmediately with his latest, "The Women": which, if you can look past its pedestrian title, it's purportedly about the lovers who influenced Frank Lloyd Wright.