News of the Right

backronym (thanks to Derek!)

retronym

François Peneaud of The Gay Comics List wrote a really GREAT review for Frater Mine #5 and the goddess comic #1, seen here:

He also wrote a thoughtful review for Frater Mine #1 - 4, which I quote often in blurbs. Wait ’til he sees what happens next (especially with the “love interest” thing!).

François’ own comic book Brother to Dragons is on sale from Class Comics and will be reviewed at Prism Comics shortly. I’ve read B2D, and what I like most about it is its strong beginning and fully-fleshed out world. François has obviously put a lot of heart (and other organs) into his work. Buy it!

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Is there anyone cuter on the planet than Keri Russell? Her pixie-ish face, her bouncy hair, her perfect skin (and no Aveda endorsement yet! How odd!) OK, one could argue that Jonathan Rhys Meyers is cute, but one would be wrong - he’s HAWT!!! He sings! He cuddles!! He makes love to you with his eyes!!! Lord, what is it about men with pouty lips? Put the two of them together with a kid who can actually pull attention away from the insanely over-the-top Robin Williams, a kick-ass soundtrack and an uneven script, and you have August Rush.

It’s not that it’s the greatest movie in the world, and certainly not the destined-to-be holiday classic that Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is, but it’s loaded with schmaltz and is clumsy in it’s attempts to manipulate the audience.

And I was so willing to be manipulated by this movie.

The story isn’t new - upper class girl meets and gets pregnant by a blue collar guy before they are torn cruelly apart - but having their kid be the force that draws them all back together is pretty novel. August is prepossessed by music - he hears it everywhere and runs away to where it seems to be coming from - New York, the city of his conception. Then Robin Williams appears and the movie goes into a strange Hook-like tailspin for 40 minutes or so. I mean, orphaned kids who busk for their Faginesque guardian and make their home in an abandoned theatre complete with trapdoors and a slide. It stinks of Trevor Nunn. I hate that Robin Williams’ humor has taken a masochistic bent of late, even if it disguises itself as “physical comedy”. Ever since One Hour Photo, he’s become disturbing and unfunny. His character in August Rush, “Wizard”, just seems to bring the creepiness to the surface and give it a face.

But back to the good stuff.

Maybe it’s because we’re in the holiday season and I’m excited to go to PA and see my family, but little thing that even hint at separation are setting me off on long crying jags lately: commercials for the Human Society, The Lion King, Brothers & Sisters (best damn show on TV!!), and now August Rush. Maybe I’m having my gay male period. Whatever it may be, I found a real earnestness in August’s whole-hearted belief that he was loved and that someone would come for him. As August, Freddie Highmore is never coy or precocious or ironic. He’s a serious little boy who has a talent for music and a belief in parents who love him. Kid’s going places. Watch for him.

A final thing I liked about the movie was actually a long preview for the upcoming The Golden Compass. Loving the books so much and knowing that all references to Dust and God have been removed, there really hasn’t been any pull for me to see the movie. Until this trailer. Yeah, the atheistic heart of the movie has been removed (and, honestly, I’m about one papal encyclical away from being an atheist out of spite), but there were moments that seemed to have the book down pat. Who am I kidding? I’m going to see it no matter what, but my eagerness to see it may change between now and then.

I’m terrible at self-promotion. It’s not that I feel like I’m whoring myself out or giving up my ideals for a fast buck; I actually feel like I’m bothering people. At conventions I’ll be polite and smile and talk with people and direct them towards my book, but I’m not one of those people who stridently promotes his/her book… which is probably a shortcoming of mine. Sort of. I mean, this is supposed to be a hobby, not a career.

Off-point. Back on point.

Bad at promotion, right. BUT I couldn’t help myself when I was told I could promote myself and a few other gay-themed comics for Instinct. Pass up an opportunity for national coverage? I’m bad, not stupid. What I like about my Frater Mine promotion is that I can say something nice about myself as well: “bald men are sexy and powerful.” We are, you know.

My one regret for this column is that I didn’t know about Brian Andersen’s So Super Duper at the time. Otherwise, he would have gotten some press as well from me (luckily, he got a nice write up the month before).

These are good comics people and good comics, people! Check ‘em out!

Frater Mine #5 has been released under the Making Comics Studios and Orthocomics Studio banners. In this issue, Matt returns to his hometown to rest and recover after he beats the snot out of a student (allegedly!), but soon he, his brother and Colleen are caught in a parent’s worst nightmare. Frater Mine asks how far would you go to protect your family and friends? Are there limits to “unconditional love”? Matt, Colleen, Jake and Mark push the envelope and each other in this magical adventure story.

Written by Sean McGrath
Drawn and inked by Juan Romera
Lettered by Ed Brisson
Covered and edited by Scott McGrath
Buy it HERE at IndyPlanet.com

Also, Orthocomics announces the release of its goddess comic book. A woman who has spent the last 30 years in seclusion is called back into the world when a letter from an old friend arrives. While this series has no official title, the story is tantalizingly familiar. A 60 year-old woman with a dual identity champions Truth and Justice in a city beset with violence and apathy.

Written by Sean McGrath
Drawn and inked by Fernando Melek
Lettered by Ed Brisson
Covered and edited by Scott McGrath
Buy it HERE at IndyPlanet.com

Wonder Woman #14: She’s BACK! “Pah!” (as my students would say. Well, “say”.) Gail Simone has bought us a Wonder Woman who is not an idiot, who is not confused and who is not going to shy away from her Amazonian heritage. She’s strong, sly and .. ok, her lasso twists at weird angles, but that’s about my only criticism. An old friend is retconned into continuity, and an older enemy makes himself known. All good stuff! A+

Thor #4: I never read Thor back in the days before he died, but now that he’s back and under J. Michael Straczynski’s care, I’m thrilled to get his book every month. Having reconstituted Asgard and soundly kicked Iron Man’s ass, Thor continues to re-people his kingdom by bringing home The Warriors Three (this is hardly a spoiler; they’re on the cover)! I liked the story itself, but I didn’t like the Kansas-Africa-Kansas commute (too jarring). A

Yeah, I don’t know why I keep watching either

BUT

I was pumped for Helen “Supergirl” Slater to be guest appearing as Lara-El (another L.L. (well, “L. El”) in Superman’s life). How is it possible that she’s even more adorable now than she was when she was 20? She still has that strange, breathy, hesitant cadence (but with a huskier bouquet) which I always found to be charming. I just wanted to reach into the screen and hug her, she was so sweet.

BUT

Dammit. I was on the couch with the dog and the housemate working ourselves into a frenzy PRAYING that the people who write Smallville would let Lara do some aerial ballet just before she read Zor-El his beads. How COOL would THAT have been???

BUT

No. Lara, for whatever reason, remained powerless. No flight, no super-strength, not even an accidental super-sneeze. Then there was Zor-El, zipping around like HE was the Last Son of Krypton (for as many of them as there are “last”) sent to Earth 20-some years ago with all that time to develop his powers. But, for having been “born” at the same moment as Zor-El, Lara stayed essentially human. Helen Slater was terribly underused

AND

Since when does blue kryptonite render Superman powerless? Wasn’t that the only kryptonite he suffered no ill effects from? The only kryptonite that would hurt Bizarro?

AND

Why all the “it happened off-stage” moments this season? God, it’s worse than Battlestar Galactica’s starting with an action sequence then flashing “24 hours earlier” across the screen every single week. Kara betrays kal-el? The ring is removed? Clark searches high and low for the missing Kara for almost 20 seconds before he exhausts all possible places to look?

ALSO

Have the current writers not seen previous seasons? I SWEAR Julian Luthor came back before only to die miserably in a back alley somewhere. And GAWD that clunky exposition scene between “Grant” and Lex! Then Jor-El says he will “finally” apply a consequence for Clark’s disobeying him AGAIN? What was Season 4 all about? What kind of control issues does this guy have?

ARGH.

No, really. Why do I do this every week?

food porn

I teach English as a Second Language for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students - grammar & writing classes and reading & vocabulary classes. God love them, they try really hard to understand English, but with all the rule-breaking and twists and turns there are times I want to throttle an OED. Sometimes, though, I come across sentences that are unutterably beautiful and others that are slightly hysterical. Were they written in error or were my students touching the heart of the language?

Here are this week’s selections:

I transcended time to get off work.

I have a lot of excess cakes in the yard. (completely unlikely they’ve heard of let alone heard MacArthur Park, and yet, there it is.)

I do not tolerate my videophone’s talking with my friends.

Awesome.

In September, I was assigned to interview Randy Gener for Instinct magazine because he won two prestigious awards this year for his tireless work in the world theatre community. It was a phone interview and I bought a digital voice recorder for the occasion. Who knew that when the two devices were on simultaneously, the conversation would record only as pulses and whirrs, masking any human voices and nullifying the interview?

In a panic, I emailed Jonathan Riggs and told him what had happened - a 2 hour interview without a word to show for it besides my notes! Jonathan suggested I call him back and explain the “oops”, but, ya know, the pride got in the way. I wanted to look all professional and make a good impression (by the way, Randy is just about the nicest guy ever! And so dedicated to the theatre!), so I sent Randy an email asking for points of clarification based on my notes (which was true). And Randy sent me back more information than I could have used in two feature-length articles.

The upshot is the article reads well and makes Randy look like the superstar he is. There’s one “oops” (Randy and his partner call “Whole Foods” “Whole Paycheck”, but the typesetter left it as “Paycheck”, killing the joke), but it doesn’t matter too much. I like doing this. I hope I keep getting assignments.

I’m still trying to decide if I’m a fan of the new Bionic Woman show or not. I’ve watched every episode so far, but that may just be because I’m pathetic and have no life (well, I have a hint of a life that’s been creeping up over the horizon since the AIDS Walk, but more on that later) or that nothing else is on TV Wednesday nights or it may be that I want to like the show but am a pussy about committing to it. I grew up watching the actual Bionic Woman (and my one gift to myself from this past July’s Comic Con was to buy the complete series on DVD (very pirated!)) and love its message that being a Cold War agent doesn’t mean you can’t hug and kiss on your superiors or let them dote on you like a favored daughter.

But tonight’s episode, Trust Issues was different. Not that the writing was better or that the insanely pithy prologue was absent, but it actually jettisoned a HUGE piece of deadwood from the cast, namely Isaiah Washington. I can hear the uproar now: “You don’t like him just because he used the f-word!” Nah. I don’t like this guy because he’s a terrible actor. Of the three talented actors on Grey’s Anatomy, he was not one (the again, neither is the lead actress, Ellen Pompeo). There, his cold-fish attitude, ironic laughter (noticeably non-ironic in scenes with George, but oh-so-profound-and-meaningful when with his girlfriend, Christine) and brusque pronouncements like God was pooping out of his mouth made him a bad doctor, but somehow these same acting techniques make him a terrible spy as well. Anyway, he’s gone. For now. We assume. We see him flatline in an ambulance, then cut to Jaime looking at his picture in his jacket (spy talk for “permanent record”) with her boss intoning “You never get over your first one.” Is that “your first partner’s death”? “Your first partner’s being a vegetable”? “Your first partner’s near-fatal wounding”? “Your first partner’s coma and eventual return as a bad guy”? We didn’t see the body, nor did we see the funeral, so I’m guessing he’s not dead, but in the wings somewhere. Hopefully in a Method class.

I do, however, like Tom, the new CIA love interest. So cute and spaniel-like for a spy!

 

Astonishing X-Men #23: Rumor has it that Joss Whedon finished all the issues of his X-Men run within two months of landing the assignment (despite the irregular publishing schedule). After reading this issue, I think that may be true. Joss’ backstory lets us in on the X-Men’s plan for infiltrating Breakworld and delivers a huge payoff in the last three pages. I’ll say only this - the look on Cyclops’ face. A+

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #8: Part three of Faith’s infiltration of an evil Slayer-killing Slayer’s life and plan to do away with Buffy. Faith and Buffy manage to misunderstand each other again, but it’s all good drama. Getting rid of all that great tension would kill this series faster than it did Moonlighting. A+

Groo the Wanderer: Hell on Earth #1: Ah, Groo! How you made me laugh when I was in high school! Now, not so much. Hell on Earth is an unsubtle and unfunny comic book with a message. I like the message; I hate the unsubtle. Related note: When did NBC go green? C-

Runaways #28: Big week for me and Joss Whedon, it seems. I only picked up Runaways when Whedon took over, so there are some points in this issue I’m really unclear about, like whose parents are these people are who died when by whose hand? This may have been explained in a recent issue, but again the irregular release of this title and the depth of the story and characters make it hard to remember all the details. Still, this is a strong story that manages to stay in its 1800’s character. B+

About four weeks ago, my friend Michelle started asking me if I wanted to go see Beowulf on November 16th. While unusual for her (Michelle, much as I love her, is no great fan of the classics. Moreover, she asked me three times about going. After the second time, I was going to call her husband and warn him about her having a pod with his name on it waiting at home.), being a Brit Lit geek and Neil Gaiman fan, I was hardly going to say no.

Yeah. Then I started to see the trailers.

And not the trailers I had been seeing. Beowulf was sold high and low at Comic-Con this past July, much like Stardust was in 2006. And let’s talk about that particular piece of effluvia for a moment. I loved the Stardust comic books (if they can be called that). Together, they were a beautiful piece of work that was not embarrassed to reveal the cruel nature of fairy tales perfectly exemplified when the incarnate star evaluates her Earth-bound situation in a single word: “fuck.” Gorgeous drawings. Lyrical prose. Well-rounded characters. And a pat, but satisfying, ending.

Throw all that away and you have the movie Stardust; truly, no relation to the book. Complaint #1: Claire Danes as Yvaine?!? This is the girl who smiled her way through Brokedown Palace and Princess Mononoke. All the appeal and interest of white rice. Take this as you will, but in the IMBD entry for Stardust, she’s listed below Ditchwater Sal (then again, Robert Deniro is listed below Claire Danes for his… let’s call it a “role”, just for the sake of argument. The only thing I liked about that was the role-reversal of his faux gay pirate being beaten up by real-life poofter Rupert Everett). Complaint #2: the Hollywood ending. There just had to be a fight, didn’t there? And not jut swords clashing but headless capering corpses, witch guts, a tearless reunion and a “let me shimmer” moment the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Mac and Me. Gag.

But back to the Beowulf trailers.

Different trailers. Newer trailers. Trailers that made me think, “I can’t believe XBox has jumped on Beowulf for video game fodder. I wonder if this will make kids read the poem. Nah.” but then turned out to be actual trailers. This trend in using digitally enhanced live action hopefully will not last long.. well, let me qualify that. If this is a related process to what was done in Sin City and A Scanner Darkly, why did Beowulf have to look like Final Fantasy XII? Real people are made to look like video games? Why not just use real people? Does wiping out texture and color tones equal artistic film-making? Did that work out well for Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings (a movie I love, actually).

The long and the short - Neil Gaiman needs to get out of Hollywood, just like Stephen King does. They may be great in their writings, but so far, no one has gotten a handle on how to make them into decent cinema.

Ezekiel 23: 19-20

19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.

20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose members were as those of asses, and whose emissions were as those of stallions.

DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths is still the most audacious idea any comic book company has ever come up with: a gripping story to reset the universe and clear up all the lingering plot holes (some of which had been around for decades!) that had been plaguing writers and editors. Not to be outdone, Marvel gave us Secret Wars (I and II because one really should flush twice), to which all comic book maxi-series’ and crossover badness can trace its ancestry.

Worse, such badness has become de rigueur; every year, a new crisis or complex or conflict has to invade the Big Two’s Universes and (without getting into too much detail) they all blow goat cock. Sorry, but I still don’t know what Infinite Crisis was all about, who died, and why I should care.

That’s where Matt Gardner comes in. Matt, AKA “wogoat”, has created a series of stunning flash videos which beautifully summarize all of Marvel and DC’s incomprehensible plot lines and editing gaffes. My personal favorites are Phoenix Season (not only because I love Jean Grey, but also because I love anything that makes fun of X3 and Emma Frost) and Justice League: Countdown (mostly because of Zatanna and her mind-wiping “magic”).

Enjoy!

Thanks to Mando for the link!