Captain Enthusiasm: A Portrait
For the first time since, maybe, that Top Chef finale maybe, what, three years ago, I was suddenly compelled to draw something that I hadn’t previously conceived or had put on my To Draw list. Just a vision of radness that had popped into my head. Within an hour it was pencilled, inked, colored, and mottoed.
Feels pretty damn good.
Larfleeze Wants A MetroCard
So I was riding the subway the other day, musing, as I often do, about how totally awesome comics are. And my attention sort of drifted to the subway map on the wall and I was looking at all the lines and the fairly obvious hit me. So I made all these Lantern symbols into New York City Subway signs, naturally.
Whoops, almost forgot one!
It’s That Time Again!
HE’S ALWAYS WATCHING, GANG!
The Great American LOST Re-Watch Starts NOW
Now that the Season Finale has pretty much tied the entire series before together in a nice bow, I decided to fill the enormous gap of time between now and the (approximate) Season Six premier by watching every single episode of the show. Like thusly:
May 15: “Pilot”
May 19: “Tabula Rasa”
May 21: “Walkabout”
May 24: “White Rabbit”
May 26: “House Of The Rising Sun”
May 29:. “The Moth”
May 31: “Confidence Man”
June 3: “Solitary”
June 5: “Raised By Another”
June 8: “All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues”
June 10: “Whatever The Case May Be”
June 13: “Hearts And Minds”
June 15: “Special”
June 18: “Homecoming”
June 20: “Outlaws”
June 23: “…In Translation”
June 25: “Numbers”
June 28: “Deus Ex Machina”
June 30: “Do No Harm”
July 3: “The Greater Good”
July 5: “Born To Run”
July 8: “Exodus”
July 11: “Man Of Science, Man Of Faith”
July 14: “Adrift”
July 16: “Orientation”
July 19: “Everybody Hates Hugo”
July 21: “…And Found”
July 24: “Abandoned”
July 26: “The Other 48 Days”
July 29: “Collision”
July 31: “What Kate Did”
August 3: “The 23rd Psalm”
August 5: “The Hunting Party”
August 8: “Fire + Water”
August 10: “The Long Con”
August 13: “One Of Them”
August 15: “Maternity Leave”
August 18: “The Whole Truth”
August 20: “Lockdown”
August 23: “Dave”
August 25: “S.O.S.”
August 28: “Two For The Road”
August 30: “?”
September 2: “Three Minutes”
September 4: “Live Together, Die Alone”
September 8: “A Tale Of Two Cities”
September 10: “The Glass Ballerina”
September 13: “Further Instructions”
September 15: “Every Man For Himself”
September 18: “The Cost Of Living”
September 20: “I Do”
September 23: “Not In Portland”
September 25: “Flashes Before Your Eyes”
September 28: “Stranger In A Strange Land”
September 30: “Tricia Tanaka Is Dead”
October 3: “Enter 77″
October 5: “Par Avion”
October 8: “The Man From Tallahassee”
October 10: “Expose”
October 13: “Left Behind”
October 15: “One Of Us”
October 18: “Catch-22″
October 20: “D.O.C.”
October 23: “The Brig”
October 25: “The Man Behind The Curtain”
October 27: “Greatest Hits”
October 29: “Through The Looking Glass”
November 2: Missing Pieces
November 4: “The Beginning Of The End”
November 7: “Confirmed Dead”
November 9: “The Economist”
November 12: “Eggtown”
November 14: “The Constant”
November 17: “The Other Woman”
November 19: “Ji Yeon”
November 22: “Meet Kevin Johnson”
November 24: “The Shape Of Things To Come”
November 27: “Something Nice Back Home”
November 29: “Cabin Fever”
December 2: “There’s No Place Like Home”
December 5: “Because You Left”
December 8: “The Lie”
December 10: “Jughead”
December 13: “The Little Prince”
December 15: “This Place Is Death”
December 18: “316″
December 20: “The Life And Death of Jeremy Bentham”
December 24: “LaFleur”
December 26: “Namaste”
December 29: “He’s Our You”
December 31: “Whatever Happened, Happened”
January 3: “Dead Is Dead”
January 5: “Some Like It Hoth”
January 7: “The Variable”
January 9: “Follow The Leader”
January 12: “The Incident”
Hopefully I’ll do at least a small write up on each episode as I go. Either way, though, I hope you’ll join me.
The Triumphant Return Of Your Panel Of The Week
From Secret Six #5 by Gail Simone, Nicola Scott, Doug Hazlewood (or possibly Rodney Ramos), Jason Wright, and Travis Lanham
What struck me first was the top of Deadshot’s face here. The eyes, the nose, the cheekbones. It was all just perfectly drawn. Not one line in excess of what was needed to convey the state of the character. Than, working out from there, Nicola Scott and Doug Hazlewood (or, as said, possbly Ramos) did a great chin/stache/lips/puke combo. Top it off with a very detailed realization of a casino bathroom and we’re off to a great start. (The detail on his gun bracelet [not belt?] and gloves, is also very nice.)
What pushed this over the top for me (when a Mike McKone Spidey close-up was very high in the running) was the really fantastic color work of Travis Lanham. There was a distinct painterly quality to the entire book, but especially this sequence. I don’t know why, but it really stood out to me.
Also, it might not be totally evident in this single panel (just because it’s out of context, not because it stinks), but Simone is writing the living crap out of this book. So much fun, such well drawn characters, and legitimate, earned surprises in every issue.
This is an ongoing, right? Please tell me it’s an ongoing. And please, don’t let the rest of this production team go anywhere.
Ending The Conversation
So, I was all set to write a really long farewell piece about UGO, Hearst Corporation, and Ziff Davis teaming up to decimate Electronic Gaming Monthly and the 1UP Network (I’d throw up links, but neither of them exist anymore). Then I read former 1UP employee Jenn Frank’s piece about the whole thing and decided to just forget it. Not much more to be said.
But I’ll say this anyway.
1UP Yours and The 1UP Show were just as much a part of my life as a gamer as the games themselves. Some of the best of the bunch had already moved on (Shawn Elliott, Luke Smith, Jeff Green, Che Chou, Mark MacDonald, Kathleen Sanders, Jane Pinckard, John Davison and a crapload of others) but two of the very best lasted all the way to the end, until they cleaned out their desks this afternoon. More even then the many personalities they captured on their podcasts, Ryan O’Donnell and Andrew “Skip” Pfister were the minds and the muscle behind an initiative that, honestly, changed the landscape of gaming enthusiast journalism. Decades of shrill, one way carping in previews and reviews had, seemingly overnight, been turned into a conversation. As much as the watcher and listener might not be able to directly communicate, just watching and listening to these shows made you feel like here was a bunch of folks who just plain loved games as much you did, and talked the same kind of shit about them. They disagreed, yes, of course, but they all knew they were all in the same boat. The same boat we all were in. The one where your eyes start to sting because you’ve been grinding the same JRPG for six hours now. The one where the heels of your feet are starting to hurt because you just can’t bring yourself to play Rock Band guitar sitting down. The one where the only thing as exhilarating as doing something awesome in a game is telling someone else about it, even if you’ve never met them.
Now, a world without such a thing seems ridiculous. There are a multitude of podcasts now that are little more than a few well-mic’ed gamers having a conversation they just as easily could be having by themselves, but that they’ve decided to share. None of these would exist without the work of so many people who, today, are now out of it.
It’s beyond a shame. But they’re not gone. No one as passionate about games will ever truly be able to shut up about them. And even now, fans are feverishly archiving the shows that at any minute could be flushed into oblivion. So they’re not gone.
But we did lose something, and no matter how much we’ll be able to revisit past enterprises, and no matter what forms future initiatives take, as Jeff Green put it so eloquently today, “This Fucking Sucks.”
Now Get Down From There!
So, Burn After Reading.
It’s weird, because after Ladykillers, even No Country For Old Men seemed like a strange anomaly, beamed in from another dimension where the Coen Brothers weren’t sort of just on cruise control. I didn’t even buy that on DVD a la pronto the way I normally would have instantly done so for a typical movie by the Coens.
Thus, I was kind of in no rush to see this film. Missed it in the theaters, but now finally caught it on DVD, and *deep exhale* man, that was a way solid return to form. Smart, funny, great performances, the whole nine. That strangeness that even NCFOM couldn’t really recapture is back 100% and, for the first time in a while, is aligned with the modern day. Usually a Coen Brothers movie has some kind of detachment of time working for it, helping ensconce it in its own little universe, so it’s nice to see them working in such an easily recognizable setting.
What’s really crazy about George Clooney and Brad Pitt and how deceptively talented they are, it didn’t occur to me until they were in the same room together that they were both the top billed stars of Ocean’s 11, 12, and 13. Wild.
So, yeah, it’s nice to have Joel and Ethan, the dudes I totally and unabashedly idolized in my younger days, back making movies I love.
Happy Hanukkah, Everyone!
My buddy Dave Campbell completely rocked the pants off of this holiday season with a homemade cyclorama telling the Story of Hanukkah. A must see.
The CBR Review: Ex Machina #40
I have a whole recap post of reviews brewing since my last, sadly distant, update to the site, but I just submitted this review of Ex Machina #40 and I’m so darn pleased with it (both the issue and the review), so here it is.
Because in so many ways, this issue was directly about comics and the city that so many of its stories have taken place in. And the final pages, as clever, truly surprising, and beautiful as they are, nail that convergence in so many ways. They illustrate so many things in such a small span of time. How fantastic a creative space modern comics is, how simple and singular a character Mayor Hundred is, what an extraordinary city Manhattan is; and how fundamentally captivated by all three Brian K. Vaughan remains.
Introducing Project P.R.O.J.E.C.T.
From Issue 10, Page 14, Panel 3
I ended my review of All Star Superman #12 (which I’m thoroughly happy with, by the way) by comparing Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s landmark run on the book to the book’s subject. A remarkable and alien artifact, crash landed in a medium that was not prepared for its sheer spectacularness, and whose presence had forever altered it. I stand by the assessment. All Star Superman was certainly one of the best comics I’ve ever read. And as a writer and an artist, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely stand as two of the most influential figures in their respective fields, at least as far as my own work goes.
And so it got me thinking. As readers of this blog and my reviews might already know, I’m awfully keen on deconstructing the mechanics of how comics work on the page. Part of this is because it’s obviously quite important and not very talked about, but part of it is because I’m just saying out loud what my brain is always thinking when it reads comics. ”How does this work?” ”What goes into making this work?” All, naturally, in the hopes that some of that process and problem solving might seep into my own work.
And so, along those lines, and carrying through on this All Star Superman as Superman himself idea, I thought it’d be neat to do what Clark does for Leo Quintum, both throughout the book and specifically in the panel cited above. Examine, in detail, the genetic structure of this book, how it was built, in the hopes that, if necessary, we (okay, “I”. I admit it. I’m both selfish and egotistical.) could build another one.
Now, one thing you won’t see me talking about are the kind of Barbelithy (but seriously, I love you guys!) kinds of discussions about arcane symbolism and that sort of thing. I just don’t have the head for that. I’ll be talking more about the straight ahead storytelling stuff. The book is obviously not without it’s overt symbolism, and I’ll of course touch on that, but if you’re looking for a guide to what chakras the Kryptonian Bloodline represents, you’re in for a disappointment. A lot of criticism of Morrison’s work tends to focus a bit too much on that sort of thing when, on the surface, I always feel that his work is far more straightforward than people give it credit.
I’m making no promises about how frequently you’ll see installments of Project P.R.O.J.E.C.T., or provide any kind of schedule. I am a simultaneously very busy and very lazy man.
But hopefully it won’t be too long before you and I take an extraordinarily close look at one of the best first pages of any comic, ever, and why it’s not the four panels themselves that make it so amazing, but rather the double page spread that follows it.
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Benjamin Birdie
Suddenly kind of aged, Benjamin lives in Queens with his cat. His Master's Degree in Creative Writing has helped him immensely with his primary responsibilities of drawing things.
He can be reached at benjaminbirdie (at) gmail (dot) com.
And do feel free to follow him on Twitter.
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His Comics
Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, this charming comic strip by myself and Kevin Church receives a sparkling new installment. A Comic Strip About A Comic Shop.