Maps and Legends
Dec 27My wonderful wife got me two amazing gifts this year for X-Mas. One is a USB preamp thingee that enables me to create pro-am musical recordings in the comfort of our back closet.
The other is a copy of Michael Chabon’s new book of essays, Maps and Legends, one of those books you know you want, but you didn’t realize it yet. It’s a great read–he writes on topics from “the borderlands,” which includes comics, genre fiction, old stuff, and more.
Even more than a great read, it’s a great looking book.
I had really forgotten the sheer joy of holding and reading an incredibly well-designed, thoughtfully crafted book. Maps and Legends has three separate dust jackets, with art from Jordan Crane. They depict cartoon images of many of the topics in the book–monsters, mythology, and the like. Each separate jacket sits atop another, creating three separate layers of artwork–in the center is a die-cut hole, and beneath the hole is the title, set in black type within a gold-leaf X on the actual sewn cover of the book.
I’m doing a shitty job explaining it, but from the second I opened the wrapping paper, I loved this book. Hadn’t read a word, didn’t need to. It’s a beautiful object. Fondle a copy the next time you’re in a store.
Matt's Fave Comics 2008 – Avengers: The Initiative
Dec 26I love year-end lists, both reading them and writing them, but I rarely feel as though I’ve read enough of everything to actually offer any valid criticism.
So this’ll be an occasional, informal rundown of some comics that I enjoyed in 2008, most of them ongoing series, and none of them very adventurous from a mainstream vs. art/indie comix perspective. I tend to be too conservative when buying art/indie comics, waiting until the heavy weight of critical consensus forces a purchase or a loan from the library.
Anyway, that’s not to apologize for my taste, just to explain why this list will be heavy on the superheroes and quite light on the moody, introspective artsy fartsy stuff. That’s what early 2009 is for, after the experts have weighed in with their best-of lists.
There’s a very specific, unique style of serialized storytelling that can only be done in the Marvel Universe.
Merry Christmas!
Dec 25From all of us to all of you…
A very merry Christmas!
And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, just have yourself a fantastic day!
(Don’t go see The Spirit, though. Everyone says it sucks.)
Jingle Bell Grok: Blame Bea Arthur
Dec 24Alert Nerdian Jeff put out a call to our good pal Fake George Lucas for a contribution to our Jingle Bell Grok holiday feature. As always, we received a poorly-faxed note a short while later, sent from a Kinko’s in Marin County, CA. Our thanks to Fake George Lucas for his time and talent…okay, just the time.
I was fucking Bea Arthur.
There, I said it. The BIG SECRET is out. Gawd, you people! Vultures! Leeches! Dianogas!
And yet…and yet, it’s time for you to know this, o people, my people. You have wondered for so long–you have watched in confusion every holiday season on abruptly-terminated YouTube links and bootleg VHS dubs, you have discussed it in hushed tones at conventions and with your minister, you have written the Lumpy/Mala slashfic that has fueled many a lonely night at the Ranch.
Now, the truth can be told–in fact, it was just told. I just told you.
I made the Star Wars Holiday Special because I was fucking Bea Arthur.
Finally, Crisis
Dec 15So I spent some time this weekend re-reading all of Final Crisis to date, and then reading a CBR file of issue 5, since my physical copy is currently winging its way toward me in an envelope from Arlington, MA. Some notes:
I think it’s definitely true that a lot of Grant Morrison’s work tends to make more sense as a totality than as specific chapters published in incremental installments, but Final Crisis actually works pretty well from issue to issue, when you slow yourself down and concentrate enough to adjust to Morrison’s unique sense of pacing. He really does clip off the beginnings and endings of scenes, compressing each bit of action and dialogue until only the barest essentials remain. It requires a level of discipline as a reader that frankly most comics don’t need.
So on the second reading, I understood everything better, but not just because it was the second time I’d read it–I also slowed myself down enough to consume the story morsels I was being rapidly fed, instead of speeding through them with the expectation that at some point all the heavy lifting would be done for me and I’d get some kind of breather to process what I was seeing.
This fifth issue really does tighten the noose quite a bit–the threads are being pulled taut and we’re past the “what the fuck” moments and into the “oh, that’s what the fuck” moments big time. Finally, this does feel like a Crisis, beyond just the touchstone moments that Morrison gave us in rapid succession over the past four issues.
