The Factual Opinion

Music of the Weak: The 100 Greatest Songs of the Millennium (So Far) - #60-51

PREVIOUSLY: #100-91 - Introductions, yacht rock, epic narratives, Elvis tributes, and one-man Canadian supergroups.

#90-81 – Jazz revisionism, shady fact-checking, Muppetized gangsta rap, and the no pussy blues.

#80-71 – A ragtag assembly of pop stars and other hate-able entities.

#70-61 – More pop music, Australian pop, bedroom pop, Kanye West, and the decade’s greatest use of drum machines.

60. Stars – “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” (2004)

“Your Ex-Lover is Dead” is a straight-up rewrite of The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me,” with the synths subbed out for strings. Instead of two lovers wondering why their relationship has fallen apart, vocalists Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell play two participants in a one-night stand who randomly run into each other years later. They share a cab home, an intimate act with any almost-stranger, but one that possibly mirrors the events of their fling with notably different results. Along the way, the guy acknowledges the girl with bafflement and stunning indifference: “All of the time you thought I was sad/ I was trying to remember your name.” The girl, lightly wounded by the one-night stand, overcompensates with faint animosity. The song builds to a realization for the both of them, “I’m not sorry I met you/ I’m not sorry it’s over/ I’m not sorry there’s nothing to say,” after which, the strings climax and play the song out. When Stars played “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” at Lollapalooza a couple of years ago, singer Torquil Campbell announced it by saying, “This song is about the person you hate the most. You know that.” But it totally isn’t. At every turn, Campbell and Millan’s performances are knowing enough to avoid hate and scrape for something deeper, even if they’d prefer it the other way.

59. Quiet Village – “Too High to Move” (2005)

“Too High to Move” isn’t the only song this decade to make exquisite use of of a Toni Tennille sample. Bent’s “Magic Love” reworks Captain & Tennille’s “Love on a Shoestring” into a lush comedown track—but they also use Tennille as window-dressing in a song that could have just as easily been sung by Róisín Murphy or Robyn or any the other British sirens typically accompanied those kinds of tracks in the early aughts. On “Too High to Move,” Quiet Village make Tennille the whole show—at least, in the song’s first half. Joel Martin and Matt Edwards lift Tennille’s entire introduction from “Never Make Your Move Too Soon,” augment it with trumpets and bizarre, ambient laughter, and turn it into a compressed version of Isaac Hayes’ “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” The lyrics tell of a woman who runs to Vegas after her husband leaves her and strikes it rich. “I mean,” Tennille says in her arch black-Southern patois, “She is rollllllin’ in the dough,” and, though her delivery screams camp, Quiet Village play it totally straight. The end of the sample promises the story of what happens when her man shows back up in Vegas, but, suddenly, Tennille disappears, leaving Quiet Village to tell the couple’s story instrumentally. For the song’s second half, with piano, horns, and, strangely, the sound of seagulls and waves lapping against the shore (um, Vegas is a desert), the duo is attempt to reclaim lite jazz for the iPod generation, and nearly succeed.

58. The Pipettes – “Sex” (2006)

On paper, retrofitting girl group sounds with new-millennium pillow talk seems like a gimmicky idea at best, which is probably why it never grew into a full-blown trend, even after the release of The Pipettes’ debut album in 2006. We Are the Pipettes turns the iffy prospect into an alluring one using studied pop songwriting, charisma, and the subtle implication that any of the three members could be writing indie rock songs if that idea weren’t so booooring. One of the later album tracks, “Sex” exemplifies everything The Pipettes excel at, subverting the idea of a classic girl group with the efficiency and quick wit of a short story writer. Framed by the drum pattern from “Be My Baby” and some well-placed doo-wop harmonizing, it begins with an adolescent guy trying to talk his girlfriend into sleeping with him for the first time. He pulls a classic bait and switch, promising her conversation, but quickly shushing her with, “There’s no need for any talking in what we’re about to do.” They fool around for months, but, at the end of the song’s swift 160 seconds, she reveals, “Conversations in my head helped me to pass the time.”

57. Atmosphere – “Modern Man’s Hustle” (2002) 

One of the decade’s greatest ironies—or maybe one of its greatest tragedies—is that Atmosphere have built one of the most loyal female fan bases in hip-hop, while remaining covertly, and often overtly, misogynist. MC Slug constantly rides the classic line between loathing women, fearing them, and desperately needing them. But Slug also has enviable rap skills and an unyielding hunger. He almost can’t help but be compelling. At his best, he’s a cipher, representing both that suburban rap fan who finds the music because he genuinely feels it speaks to him and the everydude who doesn’t understand why he doesn’t understand girls. If he’s got issues with women, he’s at least honest and compelling enough that his audience could potentially learn from his mistakes, which is why, ironically, Atmosphere’s best tracks are often the ones that find Slug fully embracing his misogyny. “Modern Man’s Hustle” begins with “The first time I met the devil was in a Motel 6/ She left Hell to spend a weekend on Earth just for kicks,” and gets more uncomfortable from there. The chorus travels from “I will love you” to “Still, you’ve got to understand a modern man must hustle.” Ant, easily one of the most underrated producers in rap music, builds the beat out of forward and backward looking elements—reversed samples, RZA-twisted soul, and the steady clack of an 808—bridging the gap between BDP’s Blueprint and Jay-Z’s. Ultimately, though, “Modern Man’s Hustle” is precisely about the tug between loving and hating women—the one that Slug may or may not even recognize in himself.

56. Josh Rouse – “Sunshine (Come On Lady)” (2003) 

Josh Rouse just wasn’t made for these times. Or, at least, that’s what he’d have you believe. “Sunshine (Come On Lady)” is an anachronistic song on an anachronistic album. It is a syrupy, AM radio-friendly slice of pop rock, express built for a Rhino Records compilation, nestled on 1972, an album that pays tribute to the emphatically less-cool music of that era, like Don MacLean and America and Three Dog Night. Except, like plenty of the better rock radio hits of this decade (think “This Love,” not “How You Remind Me”), it’s also crafted with the attention to rhythm of a hip-hop generation producer. As if the song needed any more era-displacement, Rouse wants to be “your steady,” but he also wants to be your “baby-daddy.” Ultimately, though, “Sunshine (Come On Lady)” is a song about convincing someone to run off with you to the coast of California. With Josh Rouse’s exuberance and his sense of humor, dude must have that argument down to a science.

55. Mark Ronson – “Valerie (Feat. Amy Winehouse)” (2007)

While Josh Rouse is a one hundred percent cool, calm enticement wrapped in a package of subversive MOR, The Zutons’ “Valerie” is a blues-rock plea that can’t quite keep its resentment and jealousy contained. The original version is pretty great on its own, but in Mark Ronson’s hands, it’s mined for every ounce of urgency and soul The Zutons only hinted at. Ronson cranks the tempo, and The Dap-Tones turn the bluesy guitar riff into one of their finest horn arrangements. Amy Winehouse sounds more confident and less affected than on her own work, so much that she’s dropping Dave Chappelle references and hitting notes that she would swallow if it were her own record. She instills “Valerie” with a collectedness that balances out the song’s desperation. Ronson wisely leaves the gender pronouns accurate to the Zutons’ version, so, on the surface, his “Valerie” hints at a lesbian relationship. It’s more tempting, however, to hear it as a sober Winehouse in conversation with her crack-smoking, tabloid-baiting self, giving lines like “Stop making a fool out of me” and “I miss your tender hair and the way you like to dress” an eerie resonance.

54. Jean Grae – “Take Me” (2003) 

“Take Me” is about as bleak as it gets. Essentially, the song begins with Grae drinking her way through a depression and ends with her pulling the trigger of a gun pressed against her temple. Eminem had mined similar material for laughs and ironic distance, but Grae gets right inside of it, fearlessly. She doesn’t create a suicidal character, it’s always Jean. Strangely, the song is also kind of fun. Hearing Grae’s intricate wordplay is like reading a Don Delillo novel. Phrases like “bless me I’m blasphemous” unravel endlessly with layers of meaning and poetry, but Grae also never loses her humor. She calls herself “hard-headed like exotic dancers nipples,” and it’s not only a reference to being stubborn, but a reply to the thought that the bullet might bounce off of her. When she tells herself, “suicide is giving hell and devils privilege,” her response is, “well, fuck it, bring it!” Producer Will Tell makes the march into hell sound like the Reverend Al Green is leading a brass parade down there, passing by Robert Johnson’s porch on the way, where he sits plucking his guitar. Plenty of rap stars think that they’re hard when they’re battling other rappers, or role-playing as hustlers and crack dealers. On “Take Me,” Jean Grae talks shit to depression, God, and death—and, over the course of the song, renders most of her peers pansies by staring unblinkingly into the abyss.

53. Gui Boratto – “No Turning Back” (2009)

Gui Boratto’s 2007 breakthrough single, “Beautiful Life,” tilted slightly more toward pop than its Kompakt peers, but mostly it was a familiar techno sketch, featuring a euphoric catchphrase surrounded by a chain link synths and barbed wire drums. “No Turning Back,” off of this year’s Take My Breath Away, hooks into some of the best parts of “Beautiful Life” and explodes them into a fully formed, nearly 8 minute pop song. The central riff is a freshly sandblasted two-chord monster that jerks itself around for three full minutes before giving way to some hushed, androgynous vocals by Gui’s wife, Luciana Villanova, and Boratto expands on the template from “Beatiful Life” with actual verses. Whereas “Beautiful Life” was built for the height of the night, “No Turning Back” is essentially a comedown track, swelling to a frenzied peak before dropping the bottom out. With so much emotional range, “No Turning Back” turns its minute chord progressions anthemic, crafting an enormous effect out of the components of minimal techno.

52. Radiohead – “Idioteque” (2000)

The dirty secret of Radiohead’s Kid A was that they weren’t paving any new ground; the band was merely reinterpreting the Warp Records discography for a wider audience. They ended up with an album consisting of a couple of rock songs and a barrage of electronic scribbles, with a pedigree reminiscent of David Bowie’s Low. “Idioteque,” the album’s stand-out track, works because it’s a bedroom IDM experiment with a stadium-filling attitude. Radiohead were, and remain, one of music’s greatest songwriting machines because of the band’s duel abilities to catalogue avant-garde rock history and to know, without a wisp of doubt, its own voice. While the framework of “Idioteque” is as loose and playful as drum-machine music can be, with Radiohead seemingly throwing in errant bleeps and bloops simply because could, Thom Yorke’s performance is a breathless assault of surreal imagery. As Yorke tells the story of an acrimonious divorce using warhorse rock lines like “This is really happening” and “Take the money and run,” you can almost hear Steve Miller singing “woo woo” in the background. As with everything else, Yorke’s humor is nearly shrouded by his voice, which should be renamed The Falsetto of Impending Doom, but none of it can overshadow the song’s Kraftwerkian groove, which, despite the looming sense of disaster present in all of Radiohead’s work, sticks out as a moment of dance-worthy fun in a career of relative solemnity.

51. The Bad Plus – “Flim” (2003) 

Aphex Twin’s “Flim” is an especially delicate addition to Richard D. James’ discography. As delightful as it is to follow the intricately explosive drum patterns and nimble piano of the original, there’s no comparison to hearing it played live in the hands of The Bad Plus. Aphex Twin’s version sounds like a demo version recorded expressly to hand over to the three-piece jazz band from Minneapolis. Pianist Ethan Iverson dances in and out of James’ melody, often incorporating the drum machine’s rhythm directly into it. His improvisations give “Flim” the humanity that the original strived for, but that the mechanics prevented. Drummer David King is virtuosic in his appropriation of ever-changing rhythms that defined the original. Reid Anderson gives the song a rich low-end with his acoustic bass. Launching “Flim” from a surgically composed electronic tune into a living, breathing thing is like showing someone a sunrise after they’d spent their entire life only seeing one in pictures. They turn something that was perfectly composed in the first place into something somehow more perfect, simply by giving it the messiness of life and breath.

-Martin Brown, 2009

Television Of The Weak: Coconuts, Crazed Or Otherwise, Make Better Companions Than Volleyballs

This week we've got Entourage, Hung, Top Chef Masters and the season finale of The Mighty Boosh. (Tucker, Nina and D. Brothers are all on vacation this week.)

The Mighty Boosh - "The Nightmare of Milky Joe" by Sean Witzke

The last one. "Feel my coco beats."

The plot of this episode is simple - Howard and Vince leave their snow English setting for a cruise to America. Vince is wearing a blouse. They are going to play a showcase that Whitesnake played once (Howard is afraid of flying, and shows a shocking misunderstanding of North American geography). Vince and Bollo have an emotional goodbye, and Bollo doesn't know Howards name. While they're leaving Bollo has a premi-vision of their boat sinking. But their boat doesn't sink, they get thrown off because Vince cuts his hair while he is sleeping. Into a mullet. They end up on a deserted island. We learn that Vince cuts Howard hair in the middle of the night - which means that all his slams on Howards hair are actually critiques of his own work. No one misses them, and they sit and starve for weeks. There's a sight gag with Vince pulling a tiny ship out of the rear-projected background. Howard slips into crazy cannibal mode, starts talking like all the (mostly Rich Fulcher-played) characters who have tried to rape Vince, calling him "Vincey". In fear, Vince bumps into a tree and discovers coconuts. Howard begins writing about all the women he'll never see again, Vince accuses him of looking like Kris Kristofferson and never having women come after him anyway. Howard draws a sitcom-style line across the beach, splitting the island in two. Vince gets the side with vegetation, builds a cottage out of bamboo and reeds.

Howard starts having philosophical conversations about Camus and Sartre with a coconut who he names Milky Joe and who is french. Vince tries to join in and they tell him he's not welcome. Howard feels content with Milky Joe as his friend in the Coconut Lodge until he sees that Vince has made Ruby, his coconut girlfriend. In order to make Vince jealous, he dresses up Milky Joe in a wig and calls him "Jemima". Vince returns the next day with Ruby and another girl coconut, named Precious. Vince is trying to get into a coconut threeway, as Ruby is "a bit kinky". Howard gets fed up with Milky Joe and his lectures. Milky Joe gets angry at Howard for going on a double-date with Vince and the coconut girls. Howard and Precious get on very well. Cut to a few days later where Howard is now in an abusive relationship with Precious, who has been hitting him and not allowing him to see his friends. Vince has constructed an entire coconut party scene, which actually includes Milky Joe and a videographer to document the scene. Howard accidentally knocks Precious over and murders her. When Howard tells Vince, the coconut videographer catches the two of them disposing of the body on film. Howard and Vince argue over what to tell Precious' best friend Ruby and they get into a high-speed chase with the coconut cops.

Then the coconuts start talking. We fade into the two guys in a coconut court, and Milky Joe testifies against the both of them in a Quebecois accent. A judge sentences them to death, and a coconut Hitcher uses their severed heads in his demented coconut carnival where Ruby hucks softballs at their skulls. Then they wake up screaming, having gone insane from eating rancid coconuts - which as we all know sends you coco-loco.

Rich Fulcher shows up twice - as a ship's captain doing his best Mexican Rod Steiger - which is pretty damn awesome but it's over before you have time to giggle. And as Bob Fossil doing his best Rupert Pupkin as host of the Pieface Showcase for three seconds. Bob Fossil's tv show and final appearance on our shores is introducing Milky Joe's appearance, which is a callback to a song that's been cut entirely from the episode. Speaking of which - Cut this week - A lot of dialog is cut in the first ten minutes but none of it was all that funny, so who cares. Howard's entire song "Isolation" is cut. Which - what the fuck? It's a huge production. Isolation. Isolation. Eye so lay shun. Howard sings his heart out and there's some really amazing yacht-rock sitting against the sunset video clip techniques slammed with Queen multi-projection five-part harmony, accompanied only by pan flute. The callback is Milky Joe and the Co Co Nuts, with Julian Barrat doing his best french Snoop Dogg impression. The moon has not been cut. Once again. This isn't funny ever. Okay, it's funny once where Tony Harrison calls him an alabaster retard. Other than that it has been held up where far funnier jokes were sacrificed in nearly every episode.

So yeah - this is a good episode to go out on - not great. It works in a kind of meta way - this episode is kind of a microcosm of what every Boosh episode does - these two guys argue over crap, despite their awful situation that will most likely kill them. Then they make the situation worse by slipping into fantasy, letting it take over their lives until it goes too far into nightmare-logic (that's when the Hitcher shows up), and then they are saved by a deus ex machina and made to look like fools (sometimes only Howard). But two guys writing a story about two guys who create a fantasy world that then tries to kill them, driven by the one guy's depressive tendencies - sound familiar? I've said a lot about this show being sold over here poorly - this episode is actually presented pretty well barring the cut of "Isolation" for some odd reason. That's something to be said - adult swim's editors clearly favored the plot over the songs every single time, editing them first at every chance they got. They prefer the comedy, I guess, which you can't fault them but IT'S A MUSIC SHOW. That's kind of the point, and they never really understood that, and maybe that's why the show wasn't the hit it could be. It seems to have done okay, but if there's a problem it's that, not the out-of-order presentation, not the cutting for time and standards which I had gripes with - but that adult swim fundamentally misunderstood what it was that they had. If they had Flying Circus they'd cut the Parrot Sketch. But it'd still be Python, and we still got the full run of the Boosh on American tv. All the bad presentation in the world can't stop that fact from shining. Technically you're not a peeping tom if it's one of your relatives. And I need you more tonight. And I need you more than ever. And that's why I can't go for that.

Entourage – “Fore” by Martin Brown

Part of the reason that it’s not possible to ever be entirely satisfied with Entourage (AKA, “Why there are so many haters”) is because it’s a show that’s never quite what you want it to be. It makes itself out to be a show about dudes, for dudes, with all kinds of things that dudes like, like race cars and boobies. Except that it’s secretly also more of a soap opera than Sex in the City. It’s set up as a satire, but one done completely without irony (yet also nowhere near as self-serious as some describe it). It’s built like a sitcom, but sucks at short-form storytelling, excelling instead in its multi-episode and season-long arcs. In terms of whether Entourage will ever be a truly beloved show, the way some of its HBO peers are, it’s totally fucked.

“Fore” is an episode that sees Entourage playing to many of its own weaknesses. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that Entourage is great at event episodes—and it is, but not when it does them all season long. So far this season, we’ve had The Great Gatsby’s premiere, Turtle’s birthday, the season opener—which is an event episode in timing, if not in content—and “Fore,” which follows the five main characters as they compete in a celebrity golf tournament. Between this and Entourage’s time slot following True Blood and Hung, it’s almost as if the writers have clocked out on their HBO viewership and are writing purely for syndication.

The episode opens with Eric’s ex-girlfriend, Sloan, interrupting a dinner date between Eric and his new girlfriend. Turns out she’s going to be doing whatever the celebrity golf tournament equivalent of hostessing is for them the next day and… tension between… ugh… jesus, does anyone actually care about E’s sex life? Just because dudes may not be versed in soap opera tropes, doesn’t mean that it’s okay to give them a Three’s Company rip off, with less panache—which is exactly what happens when the episode ends with Eric accidentally calling his new girlfriend, “Sloan.”

Also reinforcing the Three’s Company corollary is the appearance of Jeffrey Tambor, as Ari’s client and golf partner. Tambor’s comedic genius goes woefully underutilized in “Fore,” as the writers basically put a bunch of curse words in his mouth, and he mumbles his way through them. The only other subplots that “Fore” can muster up are one where Turtle drives across the golf course to call Tom Brady a dick (he’s a Giants fan), but backs off because Brady invites him over for dinner—Giselle’s cooking—and one where Johnny Drama can’t golf, which culminates in an unfortunate bit of physical comedy where Drama throws a fit and breaks one of Brady’s clubs.

Season six started off with some promise, but, especially paired with last weeks’ largely forgettable “Running on E,” “Fore” indicates that the show is now just treading water.

Hung – “Doris is Dead” or “Are We Rich or Are We Poor?” by Martin Brown

So, is Hung sexist or not? Are the women of Hung poorly drawn stereotypes, merely representing different shades of neediness? Or are they more complicated than that? Is the show, as HBO would have you believe, about a middle-aged guy—one that just happens to be an aspiring male prostitute—who finally learns how to communicate with and understand women? Or is it simply about a gigantic dick that can solve all of women’s problems? Yes.

On one end of the spectrum, Ray Drecker’s ex-wife, Jessica, represents exactly the worst kind of female stereotype: She’s a woman who gets botoxed by her new husband, who she married for his money; she’s pathologically desperate for her kids’ affection, but, like, only recently; she has a weak spot for animals, and a mother who encourages her to root around in her husband’s finances and withhold sex from him until she gets what she wants. On top of all that, thus far she appears to exist in Hung only to uphold that stereotype—like one of the writers was working out a grudge. So far, she hasn’t interacted with the plot in any meaningful way.

A good number of the other women in Hung follow the same pattern. There’s Ray’s daughter, who chases after a boy that cheats on her and treats her like crap; Ray’s next door neighbor, the hot wife of his arch-nemesis, who lusts after him; and Ray’s first two tricks, which have been a manipulative sociopath and an insecure, older housewife. If Hung ever even had a chance of being a non-sexist show about prostitution—one of the deepest quagmires of gender-relations in the first place—things are not looking good for it now.

On the other hand, Hung’s central female character, Tanya, Ray’s pimp, is constantly portrayed as meek and wispy—but she also consistently stands up for herself. She’s not very good at it, but she’s constantly fighting for what she believes in and what she feels she deserves. When her teacher makes a pass at her, she firmly refuses. (Hilarity ensues.) When one of her clients breaks the rules, she demands they be followed. She is as responsible for moving the plot as Ray, making her the co-protagonist, and I suspect that her story-arc will involve her slowly learning the ropes and becoming an excellent pimp.

Finally, there’s Jemma, the woman introduced last episode who hires Ray to participate in her fantasies—which would be awesome for him, except that her fantasies include things like a trip to the psychiatrist’s office. “Doris is Dead” features a scene that reveals Jemma as a respected business woman, but it isn’t really necessary. We know that Jemma is powerful by how clearly she has mapped out her uses for Ray—she has a very particular plan, and she’s executing it precisely. “Doris is Dead” is about what happens when Jemma is so good at role-playing that she makes Ray believe that her fantasies are reality.

The episode culminates with all three of the major female characters (four, if you count Ray’s daughter) watching one of Ray’s basketball games. Over the course of the game, the relationship between each of the three women and Ray becomes extremely complicated, and for maybe the first time in Hung’s history, the show becomes ripe with possibilities of what could happen next. Yes, Hung is built with a handful of sitcom-y character affectations, but if it continues to develop its characters in a way that deepens each of them and their relationships with one another, it stands a chance of transcending its sitcom stock. It’s only a show about a big, magical penis that solves everything if the big, magical penis actually does solve everything. Otherwise, it’s a show about a big, magical penis trying to solve everything but failing—which is infinitely more interesting.

Top Chef Masters – “Dietary Restrictions” by Martin Brown

At this point, Top Chef Masters feels as if it’s been split into two different seasons—the preliminary rounds and the finals. The preliminary rounds had no multi-episode arc, whereas the finals has a condensed one. Last episode packed in the character introductions that would typically come in the first couple episodes of any other reality TV show, and it did so incredibly well. If “Dietary Restrictions” were part of a regular season, it would be episodes 3-10, where the wheat is separated from the chaff, and the true contenders make themselves apparent. It does this pretty well also, it just doesn’t have as much great material to work with as the last episode, with the chefs forced to make a vegan meal with no soy and no gluten and, subsequently, not a whole lot of fun.

So “Dietary Restrictions was mostly about positioning for the final four. Hubert Keller shows some signs of fraying at the edges this episode—any doubts as to whether or not Top Chef Masters’ editors would be taking it easy on the competitors should have been put to rest as “Dietary Restrictions” begins with a Quickfire Challenge that sees Keller talk at length about his restaurant that sells $5000 hamburgers, and then fail to make an enticing hamburger—as does Anita Lo, who seems pretty happy to walk away with $20,000 for her charity and be done with the show. Art Smith got the exit he always deserved. Michael Chiarello stepped his game up, winning both the Quickfire (with a big ass burger) and the Elimination challenges. And Rick Bayless continued to be the consummate craftsman who I may or may not be a little bit in love with. Other than that, it was just a ramp up to this week’s episode, which looks to be absolutely bonkers.

-Sean Witzke & Martin Brown, 2009

The Virgin Read: The Story Of The Guy Who Told The Story About Mount Everest

Buffy The Vampire Slayer # 27
Written by Jane Espenson
Art by Georges Jeanty, Andy Owens & Michelle Madsen
Published by Dark Horse Comics

Yeah, I don't know what we should call this one. I'm coming at this comic with all sorts of knowledge. This was an "educated" pick.

Okay, maybe "educated" is the wrong word. As you may or may not know, in the past year (or year and a half) I had been steadily netflix-ing Buffy The Vampire Slayer and catching up on this much loved pop-culture phenomenon. It was a slow start for me, and then midway through season one I really started to enjoy it, and stayed with it for a while. But the 5th Season....I don't even know what to say. It ceased to keep my attention? I got annoyed at the spontaneous materialization of Buffy's sister had me annoyed at first, and once it was explained I tried to hang on to see what else was going to happen, but...I don't know. It didn't really do it for me anymore. I tried, but the spell was broken. I do still want to see the musical episode that everyone loves so much.

In the midst of my Buffy exploration, I read a couple other (or was it just one?) vampire comics, attempted to read Twilight (I couldn't finish the first one - never in my life have I been reading something and clearly thought, "I'm so bored now", as if I was observing my actions from outside of my body, until wallowing through the 200th page of teenage sexual angst that makes up that terrible, terrible book), and now I find myself addicted to True Blood. Vampires seem to be a thing, if not my thing, and since they're running rampant over my fictional time-wasting, it seemed like the right time for me to give Buffy the comic book a little look-see.

I'm not sure if I can say that Buffy is good or bad, or even if I liked it or not. I'm feeling a little indifferent. The very things that might normally make something good to me, the Virgin Reader, annoyed me this time. And the things that normally I'd find to be lame ideas struck me as new and different. 

Before I point out those things, though, I think I have to address the TV show end of things. Just last week I read The Muppet Show and I found it really engaging how well that show's format translated into a comic book. I don't think I can say the same about Buffy. Which is fine, I guess. It's not trying to be the show. It's trying to be it's own book. But the people involved are still trying to write in some things from the show and it sort of jolted me.

First of all, the characters hardly look like their TV versions of themselves, but for hair color. And that seems odd to me. If you're going to use the same cast of characters, and the same names, you should make sure they look like, or look somewhat like those characters, right? In the section with the whole gang, I, a person who just spent time with 5 seasons of the show, should be able to recognize who is who. But I couldn't. I had to rely on the moments when they'd write in personality quirks. For instance, suddenly a black haired guy with an eye patch says, "My tea is greasy. Is your tea greasy?" And I figured out by that speech pattern that he's supposed to be Xander. Likewise, it took me a couple of pages up to where he said, "And if we could do something....soonish?" to realize that it was Oz talking. Okay, sure, someone wants artistic license to draw the characters as they see them - well then write them as you hear them, too. Like, either give us a whole new Buffy, or don't.  

The comic book is supposed to be Season Eight, and the story was bringing up a connection to a story line from Buffy Season 3 and 4. Again, I would've imagined that would be something I'd appreciate, because it's recognizable, something for the new-to-Buffy-comics reader to identify and get on board with. But I had the opposite reaction, I just thought, "This? Again? Seriously?" I mean, I loved that story line in the show, and I wept - I mean WEPT - when Willow was in pain. Like, as if they were my parents breaking up or something. So, to have it referenced was a little off-putting for me for some reason.  (This really is my visceral reaction. I'd love to be headier, a smarter complaint. But I feel like the visceral one is the truest one, so that's what you're getting.) It might not have been so bad for me, the whole Oz mythology and story line, if the comic didn't ALSO have Willow reacting to Oz moving on with his life as if she hasn't. She has moved on. She did move on. That was the whole point of the story line when the viewer last went though with it, and recycling it--not just the basic plotting, but the actual emotional beat--is just lazy and, yes, irritating.

Meanwhile, the whole other part of the story, the Slayer haters? Normally, I feel like I would've found that to be a bit lame, juxtaposed to the recycled story that I found tiresome, the whole Slayer-hating-diabolical-scheme thing seemed inventive, new and engaging. Go figure.  

Let's face it, we all know that the best part of Buffy was her relationship with Angel. Basically, the whole Vampire-Human thing that True Blood is capitalizing on. If I had any knowledge that he'd be showing up in this comic at some point or that their relationship trial and tribulations would fuel the story line, I'd probably read this thing as often as it came out. But as of now, after this read, I don't have any interest to read it again. You're welcome to fill me in on anything I've missed and/or tempt me with more information. But at this point, the next time I interact with Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be if I decide to recommit myself to her via Netlfix.

-Nina Stone, 2009

Comics Of The Weak: Phoning It In Is Acceptable If You Do It Long Enough

 

If one were to roll onto one's right side, this would be the view from TFO's current bed situation. But does that mean that Comics of the Weak is on vacation as well? Sort of. You'll just have to deal with this, the memories left behind by a bunch of comics, almost none of which were in any way memorable.

Absolution # 1, Avatar

Christos Gage has yet to write a really great comic book, although he has put some good scripts together with great art. Absolution won't be his game-changer, even by the bottom rung standards that have to be brought on board anytime one reads something published by Avatar, a company whose aesthetics are best understood when you look at it less as a publisher and more as a tax shelter for guys like Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis to hide income. However, this comic does include the line "He's the pussy eatin'est gay man I ever met". So yeah, if that's what you're looking for...well, actually, if that's what you're looking for, you must never have read an Avatar comic before. They're all sort of like that.

Abstract Comics, Fantagraphics

Guys like Jog can go a long way towards convincing that this coffee table conversation piece is a treasure trove of innovative comics, so if that's the version of response you're looking to emulate, go to the source. As far as can be gathered from TFO's actual experience, Abstract Comics is a tremendously random (as opposed to "diverse") collection of graphic design pieces and black and white sketches, only a few of which might conceivably have a place in Kramer's Ergot or one of those other anthologies people look at but don't read. The rest are in the same category as the Buddha Machine, or Rafael Toral's Space series--a specific, niche creation for a specific, niche audience. The only real difference is that the guys who make the Buddha Machine don't start calling people idiots when they say they'd prefer a little more music with their purchase of sound.

Big Questions # 12: A Young Crow's Guide To Hunting, D & Q

This was the big fight issue of Big Questions, but due to the fact that Drawn & Quarterly doesn't care about making Kicksplode style solicitations for the few serialized comics they publish, it showed up with no warning. That's why so many houses across the country are filled with mind-blown motherfuckers, because they had no way to prepare themselves for the moment when the blood started to hit the floor.

The Boys # 33, Dynamite

This was another issue of The Boys where the cover indicates that Darick Robertson is involved, because his name is on the cover, a cover he also illustrated. But no, he isn't anywhere to be found inside, and neither is Carlos Ezquerra, who handled the last issue. Instead, it's John McCrea and another fill-in penciler trying to make sense out of a big old fight scene that consists of horror movie poses while all the non-fighting characters try to instill the reader with a sense of fear about the badassness of a character who was last seen getting his ass kicked before running away like a six-year-old. Remember when you thought something might be going kinda wrong with The Boys from a production angle? Yikes.

Chew # 3, Image

It is pretty funny that a comic set in the "near future" uses people reading the newspaper as a plot point, because if there's one thing about the future we can be guaran-fucking-teed about, it's that nobody is going to be reading a fucking newspaper. Chew only gets to be innovative when you're talking to people who don't know what the word "innovative" means.

Irredeemable # 5, Boom

It's a lot easier to hate Irredeemable when you haven't just met a couple of nine-year-olds who love Irredeemable so much that the two of them have actually saved up money they should probably have spent on food so that they can buy the new issue, only to find out that the issue only costs 99 cents, which means they can, for the first time, both get a copy for themselves. Like--it doesn't really matter how bad the comic is when faced with that kind of reaction.

(It is a pretty shitty comic, if you care.)

Savage Dragon # 151, Image

According to the characters, the Savage Dragon character died in issue 150, so this issue decided to focus on the Savage Dragon's kids. They are a boy and a girl, and the boy gets an erection while wrestling with his sister. Other stuff happens too, but that's all that really sticks in the memory.

Tyrese Gibson's Mayhem # 1, Image

You know, yeah. It's terrible--the "cat-urine" dialog, the pointless torture sequence that results in Mapquest level directions to the next crime scene, the moment where "you're out of bullets" is responded to with "but not C-4", or the horrible, horrible art--but so what? Nobody involved in this comic is taking away space that would be better utilized by something that's operating on some higher aesthetic level, and if it is, whose fault is that? The consumer, reliant on a dwinding network of stores? The companies, desperately trying to capitalize on a dwindling network of fans? If there's a better comic than Mayhem--and obviously, there are--and it can't beat Mayhem for sales, what does that say? It doesn't say anything. Nobody who bought this thing was actually looking for Love and Rockets and settled on Mayhem instead. They were looking for comics where a guy who looks like Tyrese Gibson shoots, stabs and tortures people before going to see a priest and asking for forgiveness. That's exactly what they were given.

Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder # 2, Dark Horse

Well, we'll always have B.P.R.D.

DC

Batman Confidential # 32

Peter Milligan apparently has his signals crossed--the Batman story published in the "only for completionists" comic is supposed to be the throwaway work-for-hire one, and the Vertigo prestige series is the one that's supposed to be pretty fucking great.

Doom Patrol # 1

If you happen to be reading Spawn and wondering what the hell happened to Whilce Portacio, go ahead and check out the main story in Doom Patrol # 1. That's where all that Wetworks style action went. Also, why the fuck are you reading Spawn?

Final Crisis Aftermath Run # 4

Somewhere between Final Crisis and Final Crisis Aftermath Run, the Human Flame character went from looking like Mario (of the Brothers) to looking like Man-At-Arms (of the He-Man).

Greek Street # 2

Oh, come ON. Cut off your dick or don't, you fucking baby.

The Hangman # 1, A Red Circle Jerk

Because El Diablo wasn't enough, because a Ghost Rider in the Reconstruction wasn't enough, here he is, a Union Doctor turned scourge of evil-doers, filling in for the Spectre/whoever else. There really should be some kind of rule about using that horrible half-ass cursive version of lettering. It's hideous.

Justice League: Cry For Justice # 2

It would make a lot more sense to get upset about the sexism in the stupid threesome dialog sequence if the rest of the comic didn't read like its dialog was written by someone under the age of 12, but since it does--really. You get mad when a nine-year-old calls you a fag because you won't buy candy to support the soccer team? Do you? He's nine. That's what nine year olds do.

Secret Six # 12

One would think that, since Gail Simone writes Wonder Woman, she would want Wonder Woman to appear as a total badass when Wonder Woman shows up in Secret Six. Surprise! You can beat up Wonder Woman just by telling her a sad story! It has to be a really, really sad story though.

Marvel

All Winners Comics # 1, Marvel

The ugliest one of these specials so far, which is saying a lot. But it does have Namor make an inside joke about old comic book creators in it, so there's some depressive appeal there.

Amazing Spider-Man # 601

The guy who did the art for this comic draws really good buildings, like so good that it almost makes you feel sorry for all those art jerks who don't read super-hero comics. Then you remember that the rest of the comic is some soap opera story where Peter Parker is struggling to decide which of the personality-clone women he wants to Spider-fuck, that it costs four dollars, and that it had one of the shittiest covers you've seen in awhile, and you realize that shit, maybe those art jerks have a point. And they do! It's shoved right up their ass, which is why they always sound so bitchy.

Black Panther # 7

There's a panel in this comic where the new Black Panther meets with Barack Obama, but Barack Obama has his eyes averted, like he's bashful or something. Really? Bashful? Is that a political statement or something? It would make sense if it really was Barack Obama, but this is just a DRAWING of Barack Obama. Drawings don't have to be embarrassed about appearing in some comic book that is going to get cancelled really soon.

Captain America: Reborn # 2

Although it's pretty common practice to put stuff on covers that never happens in comics, it's really fucking irresponsible to depict Captain America putting Hitler in a sleeper hold and then fail to present that image in the actual story. Hitler in a sleeper hold--that's at least one of the top ten reasons super-hero comics still exist. Don't shit on the formula.

Destroyer # 5

The first three issues of Destroyer had a whole bunch of really epic fights where an elderly man beat the shit out of lots of things while screaming. This issue tried to do the same thing, but it included a junior high version of the Seventh Seal (with punching), and none of the versions of Death that the elderly man fought were gigantic and monstrous, and he won the fight. And then he told his wife that he loved her. And then he sat in a lawn chair.

Ghost Riders Heaven's On Fire # 1

It isn't enough to title a Ghost Rider comic so it sounds like an AC/DC song. You have to actually include AC/DC level action to pull it off. It wouldn't take much--just put somebody in a schoolboy outfit. Not the nun though, that'll just piss off the ladies.

Hulk # 13

It's kind of sad and horrible that Americans live in a world that prefers its "Hulk" related comic books not to be about a nerdy scientist who turns into a giant green destroying machine, but instead to be boring conversations about grief.

Invincible Iron Man # 16

According to people who would know, the reason Iron Man shaved off his mustache is because he is on the run. According to people who wouldn't know, that isn't a good enough reason for Iron Man to go without his mustache, which is both his most identifiable feature and Most Excellent one. It also makes it that much harder to believe the plot of this comic, which is that two women love Tony Stark so much that they're willing to die/kill/maim for him, because really, without his mustache, Tony Stark looks exactly like every single other male comic book character in every single other Marvel comic book.

Luke Cage Noir # 1

The choir has spoken, and yes, this Luke Cage Noir series does read just like Harlem Nights with Luke Cage. The question remains whether one thinks that's a negative or a positive. On the basis of the first issue, which has all kinds of "Harlem-y" moments like Luke's trip to the barber shop and Luke's trip to the speakeasy, we'll call it a wash. Oh look, Tombstone. In a graveyard. How quaint!

Ultimatum Fantastic Four: Requiem # 1

It's a little known fact, but after 9/11, a whole lot of grieving New Yorkers made a special trip out to Liberty Island for the express purpose of yelling at the Statue of Liberty for not protecting the city from the attacks. Thankfully, one can rely on Marvel Comics to depict such a scene for the purposes of giving depth to their fictive portrayal of the Human Torch.

Ultimatum X-Men: Requiem # 1

Iceman, Jean Grey, Rogue, Kitty Pryde and Captain America get together for a funeral! They have fourteen BODIES and one severed ARM. They kill some more people at the FUNERAL. Then they CRY. Then the comic is OVER.

War Machine # 7

War Machine is like Iron Man, except that Iron Man has Tony Stark, and War Machine has a guy with no arms and no legs. One assumes that the plan is to appeal to a subset of Iron Man fans irritated that comics about a human dressed like a Go-Bot will occasionally focus on said human doing non-Go-Bot related things by crippling the main character in such a fashion that his dating prospects will be, at best, minimal. Not a horrible business model, albeit one that is all but moot in issue 7, which spends a good percentage of its pages flashing back to a period of time when said character had arms, legs, and a compulsive desire to run towards things that explode.

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Music of the Weak: The 100 Greatest Songs of the Millennium (So Far) - #70-61

PREVIOUSLY: #100-91 - Introductions, yacht rock, epic narratives, Elvis tributes, and one-man Canadian supergroups.

#90-81 – Jazz revisionism, shady fact-checking, Muppetized gangsta rap, and the no pussy blues.

#80-71 – A ragtag assembly of pop stars and other hate-able entities

70. Kylie Minogue – “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (2001)

“Can’t Get You Out of My Head” has more in common with “Love is a Battlefield” than “Cry Me a River;” it doesn’t quite fit in with early 00’s pop because of it's classicist sheen. Most great pop music of the 00’s so far has some kind of a rough edge to it somewhere, whether it’s in Britney’s freaky orchestral electro-pop, a JT stalker fantasia, or Rich Harrison’s disarmingly off-kilter production for Beyoncé and Amerie. Each of those songs snakes around itself, so that you never quite know what’s coming next. You can’t get ahead of the music, so that even on the thirtieth or three-hundredth listen, there’s still an air of mystery about it. In that respect, Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” is old fashioned, verse-chorus-verse, bulletproof radio fodder. You couldn’t ask for a simpler musical framework to build around—the beat is a virtual conveyor belt of cosmic squelch, but it’s also dependable and relatively inflexible. There are some interesting switch-ups: By all rights, the verse, with its saccharine “la la la”s and repetition of the titular phrase, should be the chorus. The chorus—which provides a languid, assailing counter to the verse’s determined grind—should be the verse. But beyond that, it’s a bizarre song to have “represent[ed] an important change in the way that we thought about and selected our music,” as P4K writer Mark Pytlik claims it did in an article in 2004, if for no other reason than because it didn’t change anything about the way music was made. Ultimately, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” connects because of its formulaic nature, not in spite of it. In a decade full of ideas and innovations, it was evidence that sometimes all you need is a bulletproof melody to succeed.

69. Cut Copy – “Saturdays” (2004)

The best Daft Punk single of the 90’s was Stardust’s “Music Sounds Better with You.” The best Daft Punk single of the 00’s is Cut Copy’s “Saturdays,” which co-ops the syncopation trick from Discovery’s “Face to Face” (and, come to think of it, “Music Sounds Better with You”) and humanizes it the tiniest bit with a few hand claps. The refrain, “When I am looking for you/ I call your number but I can’t get through,” repeats throughout the song, and Cut Copy arrange some electronic blips to evoke the sound of electronic dialing (though it sounds more like an old internet start-up than anything else.) While Stardust was at least part of the fam, with Thomas Bangalter helping to man the boards, Cut Copy were merely imitators without even a tenuous connection to Daft Punk. Though they were four years and one album away from truly establishing themselves as artistic forces with 2008’s In Ghost Colours, Cut Copy show an immense amount of promise on “Saturdays,” creating a “Hanging on the Telephone” for the vocoder age. It’s a song lighter and more palatable than any single track off of Discovery, even if it’s nowhere near as innovative.

68. The Shins – “Kissing the Lipless” (2003)

It’s a testament to “Kissing the Lipless” that not much has been made about what a horrible song title it has. It’s as if The Shins felt there was some sort of buried profundity in that weird, funny image. They aimed for surrealism and unintentionally got dada. Of course, it’s a moot point, when “Kissing the Lipless” is one of the best rawk songs of the last decade, referencing classic rock without getting mired in (most) classic rock tropes; leaning toward indie and eyeing folk without ever settling on either; subverting their natural likability with abrasive falsetto and production nearly in the red. Structurally, the song builds steadily for the first minute and a half, then plateaus for the next minute in a flurry of unctuous screaming. For a band that helped kick-start a mid-00’s Beach Boys fascination in indie rock, The Shins sure weren’t afraid to get rowdy. Well, at least, not on this one song. Yet, the things that stick from “Kissing the Lipless” aren’t the song’s edgier aspects. You have to dig a little to notice those. What sticks is the urgency with which James Mercer pleads, “Called to see if your back was still aligned/ And your sheets are growing grass/ All in the corners of your bed,” getting away with his awkward phrasing and junior year symbolism because of the sheer clarity of his intention.

67. Das Racist – “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper Remix)” (2009)

Too soon to call this a classic? Maybe. Yet, much of “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” hints that it might be that rare novelty song with an appeal that lasts longer than a single season. There’s the drama of the two protagonists wandering around the same labyrinthine fast food chain restaurant on Jamaica Avenue and never finding each other, like two characters out of an Ionesco play. There’s tag lines galore—not only the obvious “I’m at the Pizza Hut!” “I’m at the Taco Bell!” “I’m at the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell!” But also the line, “I’m at the Pizza Hut/ I’ve got that pizza butt,” which could be the “I love you like a fat kid loves cake” of the next few years. Even the opening, nasal “Haaaa” deserves its own Budweiser commercial. And of course there’s the unspoken philosophical underpinnings of what it means to be both at the Pizza Hut and at the Taco Bell, as if time and space has bent in order for you to wash down your buffalo wings with a chalupa, as if the mere confluence of the two Yum! Brands franchises is some sort of a zen koan. Shit goes deep. Real deep.

66. The Blow – “Parentheses” (2006)

“When you’re holding me/ We’re like a pair of parentheses.” The central couplet of The Blow’s “Parentheses” is easily one of the most evocative images of the decade, swiftly conjuring both the lovers’ closeness and the distance between them. Pair that with the song’s tale of one half of the couple emotionally breaking down because of some unnamed thing he or she catches sight of in the deli aisle, and you have a funny and sad portrait of a relationship. While most examples of Khaela Maricich’s bedroom pop sound like exactly that, “Parentheses” doesn’t need that pesky adjective—it’s radio-friendly, and ready to go, even though it will probably never get anywhere near the airwaves. The electronic scribbles sound like bits of guitar tuning or computer malfeasance, but they only sound homemade upon close examination. In many ways, it’s exactly like her subject matter—shiny and airtight on the outside, but look closer and you start to see the delicate humanity.

65. Portishead – “Machine Gun” (2008)

When Portishead dropped its first album after an 11 year hiatus, no one could ever have expected that album to be Third. The Bristol trio tore down the signature sound they’d developed with mid-90’s touchstones Dummy and Portishead, and rebuilt it piece by piece from the ground up, ending up with a masterpiece of forward-thinking beatmaking while retaining the melancholia of their earlier work. “Machine Gun,” the album’s lead single and spirit animal, takes a simple idea and executes it masterfully. A duel between two fully-loaded drum machines, juxtaposed with Beth Gibbons’ calm, siren-like singing, “Machine Gun” jars where Portishead’s trip-hop works lulled and creeped, resulting in one of the biggest surprises of the last few years.

64. Squarepusher – “My Red Hot Car” (2001)

Why not fuck around with Two-Step/UK-garage? That must have been the thought running through Tom Jenkinson’s head as he composed “My Red Hot Car,” a subversive deconstruction of the short-lived microgenre. “My Red Hot Car” is well known for its sole decipherable lyric, “I want to fuck you with my red hot car,” but, as apt a lyrical choice as that is, the words are only used in Squarepusher’s composition as textures to be bent, tweaked, and obscured, along with all of the other musical elements. While the lyric, provides more than enough novelty to reel you in, the real show is how Squarepusher builds a simple two-step beat, and then spends the rest of the song trying to knock it off balance until he finally gives in all the way and pushes every button on his keyboard.

63. Neko Case – “The Needle Has Landed” (2006)

In the pantheon of great “If I had known then what I know now” songs, Neko Case’s “The Needle Has Landed” is a sleeper entry, tucked onto the back of her brilliant 2006 album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. The narrator plays through her self-effacing nostalgia like she’s spinning an old record—it’s almost as if she’s nostalgic for the feeling of nostalgia itself—and details her departure by Greyhound from the town she grew up in. Plenty of things keep her from returning to her former home—her own pride, her remorse, her ex’s exes—but she’d also rather just sit in traffic and mentally revisit her losses. Her conclusion to that central thought: “If I knew then what’s so obvious now/ You’d still be here, baby.” But she has no intention of doing anything to make things any different.

62. TV on the Radio – “Ambulance” (2004)

“Ambulance,” a lush album track at the center of TV on the Radio’s debut, helped spark a doo-wop trend in indie rock, but most of its antecedents miss out on what makes the song so special. Despite having some of the most twistedly romantic lyrics of recent memory—“I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance”—TV on the Radio recognize that the song’s power is its aesthetic, and proceed slowly and deliberately. The vocal loop, “dum-dum-dum dum-dum-dum dum-dum-dum daa-dum-dum,” repeats like a sample throughout the song, never crescendoing or softening, a constant. Vocalist Tunde Adebimpe slow-plays his hand, allowing the melodies and images to unfold slowly over the course of the five minute song, until they build to a heartbreaking climax: “Fall fast, fall free, fall with me.” It’s a patient, lovely song in a genre that typically thrives on impulsiveness, and it’s the type of move that brands TV on the Radio as one of the most pivotal artists of the decade.

61. Kanye West – “Flashing Lights (Feat. Dwele)” (2007)

“Flashing Lights” marks the point when Kanye West stopped looking toward the past for inspiration and started looking toward the future. Composed by West and Eric Hudson, the song sets a distinct new blueprint for non-sample-based rap music, fusing epic string section swells with techno that feels like rave music without actually being anything resembling rave music. By Graduation, Kanye had mostly stripped his rhymes down to “rhymes,” but “Flashing Lights” suits his new style so much that he could be the Saul Williams of bad fashion puns. It hardly matters that the next move was the genius/tranwreck AutoTune concerto 808s and Heartbreak, “Flashing Lights” revealed Kanye as a producer as nimble and innovative as the rap game has ever seen.

-Martin Brown, 2009

Television Of The Weak: Hung Is Apparently Not Awful, According To Some Guy

This week we've got Hung, Leverage, The Mighty Boosh, True Blood, Top Chef Masters & more on The Prisoner.

Hung – “Do It, Monkey!” by Martin Brown

Most great television shows take anywhere from half a season to a couple of years to truly find their voice—rarely, does one come fully formed out of the womb. Considering the amount of potential that Hung has shown so far, it’s not completely surprising that the series’ fifth episode is a truly great one, but it is a bit of a nice payoff after four episodes worth of (*ahem*) hanging around to see whether or not the show can make good on its promise.

“Do It, Monkey!” is structured around a single customer, Jemma, who hires Ray to act out a damsel-in-distress fantasy, but is continually dissatisfied with his participation. The first scene between them plays out as if it were happening in real life, with no indication from the writers or actors that Jemma is simply a trick—even the preview refused to give it away, though the description on TiVo blew it. The sequence ends with Ray and Jemma getting it on in a diner bathroom, and cuts immediately to a scene between Tanya and Ray where she informs him that the client wasn’t into it.

From there, the episode becomes a series of escalating role-plays between Ray and Jemma, creating a fascinating relationship between the two of them, and culminating in Jemma telling Ray she loves him. Hung manages to both explore male/female intimacy and subvert audience expectation by letting things play out in a somewhat excruciating manner. Ray can’t bring himself to tell Jemma that he loves her, capturing an elusive feeling (known to many actors) that is difficult to get on film—grappling with real psychology and emotions under imaginary circumstances. Natalie Zea, plays Jemma so straight-forwardly that she’s a complete mystery—neither her nor the writers make the mistake of giving away her reasons for hiring a man-whore to complete her fantasies.

There’s an equally uncomfortable and fun subplot between Tanya and her How to Be a Millionaire teacher, Floyd, which erupts into a hilarious screaming match, and some less compelling stuff with Ray’s ex-wife, kids, and her new husband, which the writers still don’t seem to know what to do with. But it’s Ray and Jemma’s meta-theatrical relationship, which looks like it will continue to grow in the next episode, that makes “Do It, Monkey!” one of the best episodes of any show so far this year.

Leverage - "The Order 23 Job" by David Brothers

People like to say that Nazis make the best villains. Close, but no cigar. Wife beaters and child abusers? Those guys are the best. You watch as your hero bounces their head off a stone wall, tosses them down a stairwell, or blindfolds and pushes them into traffic without even a twinge of "Ohh, I may be desensitized to violence." No, you cheer, and then you look around for whoever isn't cheering, because they are obviously sympathizers and fifth columnists. Get them.

Leverage doesn't go quite that far, but it's nice to see a member of the team take a break from the heist of the week to at least attempt to put the fear of God in a scumbag. It hints at both a Tortured Past and a moral code that has no time for that kind of funny business.

The rest of the episode is good and solidly high-stakes. The team has to "steal a hospital," in Nate's own words, and they do it with aplomb. Elliot and Hardison put on small town cop disguises, Sophie gets her Noo Yawk Fran Drescher on, Parker gets to be giddy a couple of times and creepily focused in others, and Nate gets to play bastard.

The villain is almost an afterthought in this one, since so much of the episode is based around the mindgames and hijinks of the gang. There's the "drip roofies down a rope and into a water bottle" trick, rewiring an entire security system to display through a cell phone (old hat for Hardison, of course), a fight in a morgue, and tricking a cop into stripping down and showering. Add all this up with a biological weapons hoax and a pretty clever zombie homage and you've got the kind of show that you can smile at.

Elliot should've tipped the guy over into the stairwell, though.

The Mighty Boosh - "The Priest and the Beast" by Sean Witzke

"Its the tears of Mozart... mixed with the urine of Mark Knopfler"

The Priest and the Beast is Julian Barrat's favorite episode of the Boosh - which makes sense as he plays Rudi, who is a black psychedelic monk guitarist with a fucking door in his afro. It's also the one episode in the show that's exclusively focused on music, and not in the half-assed way something like "Journey to the Center of the Punk" is. And Barrat is right, this is a classic.

The plot of this week's episode is simple: Howard and Vince are awful musicians and have to find a new sound before tomorrow morning, where they have a meeting with the head of pieface records. Naboo calls them idiots and starts telling them the story of how Rudi and Spider recorded their greatest album, El Sonido Nuevo. He knows because he was their dealer at the time. Cut to Rudi and Spider in the desert, fighting and searching for the new sound. They jam out, all their bullshit gets aired - Spider has offers to drum for Santana, Spider is illiterate, Rudi fucks his guitar, Spider (and many others) have slept with Rudi's wife, Rudi has stolen from Carlos Santana frequently and feels very guilty about it, Rudi treats Spider like shit, Spider is a horny weirdo who always thinks with his eight dicks. 

Get it? He's called Spider because he's got eight dicks.

Rudi plays his guitar at Spider like a weapon. Spider calls up Santana on a phonebox in the middle of the desert, but is distracted by a woman with an inscrutable accent. She points out that many people go to this desert looking for the new sound, pointing out the guy from Dexy's Midnight Runners, Chris DeBurgh, and Razorlight (who are actually played by Razorlight, albeit Razorlight walking around with a metal detector. Hey at least they don't play any music). Spider goes to a town full of women, sings his song "Spider Lovin" and hits on the entire town. Except Monkey, who's played by comedy genius Alice Lowe. Rudi berates Spider, turns down some free sex ("Put away those fiery biscuits") and compliments for his dress, and then gets all angsty and lets out that he only has sex for one and a half minutes. Which explains why he's a priest now? There's a moon scene that's so crappy it's appalling. Then Monkey goes to Rudi. Monkey drinks her own pee, covers herself in peanut butter. Her father was killed by the evil bandit Betamax. The bandit kills every man in the town, and has sex with all the women. Except Monkey, who covers herself in peanut butter because Betamax is allergic. Does not explain the pee drinking. Alice Lowe is better known for playing Liz Asher in Garth Marenghi's Dark Place - where she works with Matt Holness, Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry - with this episode that makes 3/4 of that crew have appeared on the Boosh. In an interview @ SDCC last week Noel Fielding described the Garth Marenghi show as the Stooges to their MC5. Not really relevant to the episode at hand, but that is fucking awesome and I will slap your fucking lunch out of your hand if you disagree you godless piece of shit how fucking dare you. So Monkey warns Rudi that Betamax will kill him while flirting in the most awkward and stilted way you could possibly imagine people talking in. Outside of a Todd Solondz movie. (Only funny.) Rudi debates going or staying and then Spider tries to screw him because he thinks he's a lady in the robe of the high priests of the psychedelic monks (which looks a whole lot like a combination of what Jordorowsky is wearing in the first and second halves of El Topo). Spider is going to bug out so he doesn't get his ass kicked by Betamax, Rudi tries to stop him. Spider relays the story of how they got stuck with the cleanup after Woodstock, and how the Who were smart enough to leave after they played "Roger Daltry doesn't hoover for nobody, he's his own man!" - please note this is actually important. Rudi pulls plane tickets to Brazil out of his afro-door so Spider can go jam with Santana in Rio. Spider tears up the ticket and decides to stay and fight with Rudi, grows a door in his own forehead. They go to fight Betamax, who is actually pissed because Spider fucked his wife decades ago, which means he fucked a big pile of tape. Rudi attacks Betamax with his hi-speed shredding, is wrapped up with tape, Spider pulls a remote out of his door and rewinds Betamax until he dies. Then Rudi + Spider play a show for the whole town, finally discovering the new sound. Cut to Naboo telling Howard and Vince the only way to find a new sound is at the end of a long journey. It's been all night and they have only ten minutes left. They threaten to beat his ass, he gives them "liquid music" which is actually just Lucozade. Then over the credits we see the actual Roger Daltry cleaning up after Rudi and Spider's show.

Cut - Naboo freaking out that Bollo is planning to tour with Howard and Vince across Europe. Spider giving Rudi shit for about ten minutes at the start of the episode. Half of "Searching for the New Sound" has been edited out. Both of these are very bad choices because they establish that Rudi is searching for the new sound because he feels guilty that he's been stealing from Carlos Santana his entire career. Cutting the sound is fucked up because it proves that their weird, languid Santana-influenced jams are actually pretty good already, and that Rudi kind of treats Spider like shit (hence the tarantula imagery). Rudi getting walked-in on by his wife as he fucked his guitar. Rudi's Lament, which is a straight-up horn-laden Morricone homage and you don't get to hear it, America. It's beautiful. Spider Lovin'" is cut in half too. The Moon is not cut. It is the absolute worst Moon gag. A bunch of exposition with Rudi in the barn. Spider's lines "He sounds like a whole heap of bullshit!" and "I've got eight cocks!". No Rich Fulcher, except a heavily-modulated voice for Betamax.

Music - Like CB4, The Phantom of the Paradise, and the Monkees - "The Priest and the Beast" actually features music by fictional musicians you could listen to shorn of it's fictional context. Rudi and Spider actually make music that you could conceive of enjoying. 4 song in this episode, one cut out completely (ironically the shortest one). All of them are damn good - "Searching for the New Sound" is loose psychedelia which has been unceremoniously cropped. "Spider Love" is a kinda nasty Bobby Brown song dipped in carbolic acid. And "The New Sound" is one of Boosh's greatest successes - while not exactly new because it robs a little from Santana's "Soul Sacrifice" - but it's undeniable how great a piece of music it is. The lyrics aren't even trying for funny, it's actually pretty bad ass - "We have searched all over this world, Spider, to find the new sound, but there is one place we forgot to look..." "Oh yeah where?" "Inside our own minds!" before it explodes into bongo-driven chanting fantasia. It's some good shit, and it doesn't go on longer than a couple minutes so it never has time to disappear up it's own ass. Boosh killed it this episode, no amount of shoddy editing can screw that up.

Next week - Milky Joe, Bob Fossil's tv show, and the Boosh go out on a high note.

True Blood - "Release Me" by Nina Stone

SO good! No more treading water. Nearly every scene this episode revealed something important or something important/drastic/dramatic happened. Or both. I mean, I tried to do my usual multi-tasking while I watched, but kept missing things and had to keep rewinding. (Thank god my normal television watching partner ignores this show. Otherwise, I'd probably have found myself single by episode two.) So finally I just sat there and watched. There is SO much happening. Not that the most linear truth was revealed about Maryanne, but I love that Daphne said that Maryanne goes by lots of names such as Lilith, Gaia, Dionysus, Isis, etc. And what she said about her - that there's never been a time when she hasn't existed, she's always been here. I'm not sure why I'm so charmed by all this inscrutable rambling, this torrent of overused mythological references, but, hey, I am. And of course, the female personification of all things evil lives down in Louisiana near New Orleans and all that voodoo and Vampire stuff. I just love it.

But there's so much more - the history of Bill & his Maker; learning that Vampires start to bleed from their various orifices if they don't sleep during daylight hours; Sookie learning that they guy she's been teamed with is part of the Church that they were sent to infiltrate; the fact that Eric ran to Sookie's rescue...but that it's not him we see saving her, it's Godrick. Pretty rad. And oh wait! I just remembered that Jason was shot! Was that the gun with mini wooden stakes in it? What on earth is going to happen? How many episodes are left? I'm guessing not many as so much is starting to happen. Oh, man, it's so good that I want more as soon as it's over. I think I'll go rewatch it right now.

[Editorial Note: She went and watched it again.]

Top Chef Masters – “Champions Round Begins” by Martin Brown

Top Chef, like 90% of other reality competition shows, relies heavily on its structure—a large pool of contestants is slowly whittled down to a small group of finalists. Usually, what happens is that, over the course of the season, as a viewer, you pick a horse—the person who you may or may not expect to win, but root for against all the others. (Sometimes the horse picks you, which is what happened with me in season 1, when I found myself inexplicably rooting for Miguel Morales) Occasionally it turns out there are a couple of people to legitimately care about, but most of the time, you’re saddled with one tolerable contender, some cannon fodder, and a fair amount of assducks.

Top Chef Masters, by necessity, had to fuck with the formula a bit. They couldn’t rightly expect the 24 participating chefs, each of whom has at least one restaurant of his or her own to deal with, to commit to a weeks-long competition. So, they created a tournament-like structure, with six preliminary rounds—in which four chefs compete, but only one advances—and a more traditional reality TV, one person eliminated a week structure for the top 6.

Plenty of people found the first six episodes of Top Chef Masters tedious, what with each week’s introduction of a new cast that may or may not have been even remotely interesting. (I, for the record, was not one of those people, but I admit that the failure could be mine.) Now that we are in the final-6, showdown, however, the long introduction seems to be paying off. Because we’ve seen each of the top 6 compete and win a prelim already, there’s been a substantial amount of what you’d call “character development” with each of the finalist chefs. It’s an exciting and fulfilling—and totally rare—feeling to be able to root for at least five out of the six remaining players. (The sixth one, Art Smith, who you know as Oprah’s chef, is the one that the show seems to want you to root for, except… yikes.)

The first half-hour of “Champions Round Begins” is constructed in a way that enhances that character development. Top Chef Masters has to re-introduce each of the chefs—who also include Rick Bayless, Anita Lo, Michael Chiarello, Hubert Keller, and Susanne Tracht—because there’s been as much as six weeks since you’ve seen them last, and it has to do it within the framework of competition, because there’s no house that they all live in together, like there would be on Top Chef. The opening Quickfire Challenge is Top Chef’s Mise en Place Relay Race, in which two teams have to shuck 15 oysters, dice 5 onions, butcher 4 chickens, and then separate 5 eggs and beat them so that when they turn the bowl upside-down it will hold for five seconds. If that doesn’t sound exciting to you, you’ve never seen Anita Lo dismantle a chicken.

There are a handful of disclaimers about how these chefs haven’t done this kind of prep-work in a while, but they turn out to be completely unnecessary. Each of the finalists excels at his or her individual task/s. Art Smith tears through his five onions with the quickness, Anita Lo goes hog wild on her four chickens, and, in a last-minute showdown Rick Bayless wins the whole thing by beating the everliving fuck out of those eggs. You could craft an entire spin-off show out of this Quickfire, and air it on ESPN.

Team Bayless, which also includes Lo and Hubert Keller, is awarded five stars for their victory (don’t worry, the losers get four). The contestants are then asked to cook their “signature dish” for the other chefs, and Top Chef focuses on each of them for a moment, filling in a little bit of back-story for each of the finalists. For Anita Lo, they show a hilarious picture of her high school graduation; Michael Chiarello talks a little about his relationship with his mother; each of the snapshots gives an acute representation of the chef.

Ultimately, the chefs are asked to choose one of their fellow contestants’ signature dishes to recreate for the elimination challenge. Besides the charismatic contestants, one of the things that makes Top Chef compelling, is watching people who are verifiably good at what they’re doing cook. That being said, two of the chefs make horrendous missteps. Art Smith tries to cook an egg inside of a ball of lamb, and somehow ends up with undercooked lamb and overcooked egg. Susanne Tracht ends up plating her food ten minutes early, meaning that she serves her meal cold, and she goes home for it.

Of the five chefs left, both Art Smith and Michael Chiarello seem primed to make some big mistakes along the way, leaving Hubert Keller, Anita Lo, and Rick Bayless as the ones to beat. Hubert Keller is a classically trained French chef, making him a little bit of a quiet underdog in the midst of some of the flashier chefs. Anita Lo is an absolute monster, winning the first round with a reinterpretation of Hubert Keller’s “lobster cappuccino” which consisted of a corn chawanmushi, champagne gelée, and lobster biscuit sandwich (only with one of those could I even begin to tell you what it is).

But my money’s on Rick Bayless to win the whole thing. Aside from his generous spirit (when asked to make his signature dish for the other chefs, he responded, “Just the opportunity to cook for these other chefs is probably going to be the highlight [of the show] for me”) and infectious enthusiasm (see his Top Chef Masters blog, Root 4 Rick (http://www.root4rick.com/)), dude is an obvious force in the kitchen. He tied with Anita Lo and Susanne Tracht for highest score in the preliminary rounds, with 22½ stars. He brags about being into “the physicality of cooking.” And this episode’s quail with parsnip and prosciutto looked absolutely bonkers. Plus, he can beat a mean egg.

The Prisoner - "Free For All" by Tucker Stone

As was mentioned in last week's comments section, I'm watching The Prisoner via the order of the DVD box set. While it certainly sounds like that's going to be an eventual irritation, the alternative method--doing a bunch of research online--would end up giving me, the viewer, more information regarding the as-of-yet unseen episodes than I'm interested in having. It's not so much that "spoilers" worry me, it seems apparent already that the Prisoner isn't the sort of show that is going to have some "they're all dead" or "Keyser was the cripple" kind of twist to it. I'm just interested in the show, and I'd rather save reading the critical interpretations for after I've experienced the entire thing. So box set ordering: roll out.

All that being said, it did feel like "Free For All" works fine as a second episode. Number Six remains focused on escape from the Village, so much so that his furious attempt to escape via boat--which he had to know was going to turn at out as poorly as the first episode's attempt via helicopter--made sense for the character, despite this episode's tendency to bounce a bit rapidly between when he was brainwashed and when he wasn't. Of course, maybe that's a slam on the nature of ignorant hordes to immediately reverse course and suck up to the New & Flashy while ignoring substance--after all, Six's very opening message, and the only one he seems to be in full control of, is one of frank simplicity--all of you used to be agents of some kind, our captors wish to break you, I, alone, will tell you the truth--and yet he doesn't get any love out of the crowds until he starts parroting meaningless fist-pumpers. Of course, the trick seems to be that the people--at least, the people wearing the zany stripes and carrying the rainbow umbrellas--are just as much under the firm control of a dwarf with a placard as Number Two's room full of mute yes-men. (Is it just me, or did none of those guys have real numbers? I couldn't catch them all, but it seemed like there were letters on their nametags.)

Overall, I'd say that I enjoyed this episode pretty thoroughly. I think the first episode was a little more content-heavy, but this episode was less relentless with the jump-cutting between shots. "Arrival" was a non-stop barrage of camera angles and split takes, and I'm still not really sure why. Guy-looks-at-other-guy scenes don't need to be seen from seven to ten angles, and "Free For All" thankfully does away with that type of editing, which made the first brainwashing scene that much stronger. (I'm calling it brainwashing because I'm not sure what else you're supposed to call it.) After Six ends up in a tube, shot and spiraled out into the doctor's office--his only promise, "not to hurt the tissue"--it's the first major visual screw with the viewer in the episode. And while I was digging the episode fine up until that sequence, it really took off from there. Brainwashed protagonists aren't that unusual, but there's usually some kind of off-brand viewer helper in the wings--that dumb kid in Temple of Doom, funny contacts as a tell for when the character ain't in charge--and yet here, it's up to McGoohan, and he does a bang-up job--subtle strains around the eyes, the occasional twitch around the mouth...I'll admit, the first episode had some pretty grotesque face-acting, and I wasn't sure whether or not the guy could bang out a performance that kept up with the complex material. Wrong. It doesn't hurt that McGoohan was blessed with my favorite Number Two so far, a sinister fucker who seemed unwilling to lose himself totally in the "game", and that guy, whoever he is, paved the way for Rachel Herbert--McGoohan's foreign confidant who eventually reveals herself to be a masquerade. Now, it's no surprise when Herbert drops the smile and takes over, but the scene in which she does it! That's the sort of jaw-dropping performance that puts to question the very notion that television only achieved "art" status with the last decades output. It's not about to make me reassess the quality of Combat! or Dynasty, but it's the sort of acting that you just don't see very often. Although I know enough about the show to know that Rachel will turn over the reins to another Number Two--and I'm guessing it will occur off screen--she'll still be missed. That woman got the devil in her.

-Martin Brown, Sean Witzke, David Brothers, Nina & Tucker Stone, 2009

The Virgin Read: Long Time Coming, If You're Asking

The Muppet Show: The Treasure of Peg Leg Wilson # 1

By Roger Langridge

Published by Boom Studios

I grew up with Sesame Street and the Muppets, but just when I thought I had to give up those Muppets for the acceptance of my second grade peers, I was blessed with the opportunity to watch the Muppets on prime time television, back when that was a phrase in common usage.

As a side note, I find Jim Henson and all his creations fascinating. I own the first season of the Muppet Show on DVD, and I love being able to witness how the show evolved and changed. That type of evolution is true of a lot of shows, but it's even more evident with the Muppets because one gets to witness character development, voice changes, and the growth of a personal vision from a small-ish enterprise on Sesame Street to its current home, a Disney cornerstone. Sesame Street and the Sesame Workshop are world renowned. And it all started with one little puppet and five minutes on TV. Pretty cool.

Anyhow, that really is a digression. I’m just feeling a little bit inspired, which is good, because I had to re-write this entire review because the computer farted out its brain. Let's look at the comic.

Why did I choose this one? Why wouldn’t I, when you look at my history? In fact, what’s taken me so long? It's come up before, it's even been purchased FOR me, under the expectation that I would be excited to read it.

Even so, my expectations were low. I do love my Muppets, I just wasn’t sure how it would translate into book form. But I just gave myself a little Wikipedia crash course on all things Jim Henson related and now that I think about it, why wouldn’t this work? Jim revolutionized puppetry, especially in relation to television. Comic books, at least many of them, draw a lot of imagery from cinema. Now, this isn’t the type of “cinema” where we need four frames for a close-up, but the original show was shot for TV – and the Muppets themselves were made specifically for TV. They were designed to be manipulated by people off screen, making functionality just as much part of their design as were aesthetic concerns. The softer look of them wasn't just a choice for appearance sake, it was because it made them more accessible and capable of expressing emotion. It’s all perfect for drawing.

The comic follows the show's old Vaudevillian format, or at least, it sticks pretty close to it. There's lots of acts, and a smattering of behind-the-scenes gags. I’m glad I pulled out my DVD collection and watched a few episodes before reading this, because it was cool to see that they used all the same characters while sticking with the same structure throughout--after all, the structure that the Muppet Show eventually perfected gives a huge leg up to anybody doing a comic based off of the characters. They pretty much perfected the way all of these characters are going to work. It would've been a silly choice to ignore that, not because it wouldn't have been "the REAL Muppets", but because the show had already gone to the trouble of hammering out the best storytelling structure. (The show eventually found it, and from there, they just hammered them out of the park, over and over again.) 

If you haven't worked on stage and film, you wouldn't know this - but things that work on stage don't work for film. It's something that was realized a while back for straight (non puppet) acting. It took a while for the world of dance to learn the difference between choreography for stage and choreography for the eye of the camera. Although I've studied both of those, and not studied puppetry, I'm sure the same thing applies. The kind of puppets one would go see in puppet theatre - marionettes particularly, probably translate horribly to film. (Which might be why you don't see them on television.) After Henson mastered his style of television based puppetry in short form, he took the old stage form variety show and learned how to make puppetry that could fill an entire show. Variety shows like Benny Hill and Laugh-In probably paved the way, but for my money, the Muppets perfected it. You can imagine why I'd be apprehensive about this whole thing working in an entirely new media. But all the work has been done to make the format, and the characters, work. A cartoonist just needs to mimic the camera's eye.

There are other elements that I wasn't sure would work. For instance, the content of the quintessential Muppet Show Format - the Vaudevillian/Variety show meets modern day sitcom. (I’m glad I pulled out my DVD collection and watched a few episodes before reading this. It’s cool to see that they used all the same characters, and all the same “acts” throughout). But it does work. In fact, the way they intersperse the “story” with the other bits such as The Swedish Chef, At The Dance and Pigs In Space, is similar to the format I’ve enjoyed in my favorite comics. (Yes, I have favorites now.) It’s not a situation of too many subplots like some, nor is it a situation of 23 pages that encompasses five minutes of a story. The old Muppet Show format turns out to be the perfect format for comics.

And know what else? The jokes work! I mean, they did on the show, of course. On the show, sometimes the set-ups were hugely obvious – but that was excused because a.) it was seen as being “for kids” and b.) that’s that old Vaudeville style. But off the page? Maybe it’s time for me to formally compliment the artist because that’s truly why and how the jokes work. Many Muppet show jokes were often sight gags, physical comedy and out and out slapstick, and I'll bet that’s not as easy to draw as one might think.  The renderings of facial expression, the timing of all the comedic elements has to be drawn just right.  The little "bit" from Wayne and Wanda, is a great example. Their "numbers" always consists of something physical happening – the guy being upstaged by the girl, set pieces falling down or in this case a slowly sinking ship. Here, it’s handled expertly. In one page and a few frames the joke is set up, and the punchline is achieved by the close. On the show, there was music and singing, and although this is (obviously) missing from the book, we still read the words that are being sung which actually engages us a bit more in some of the subtle cleverness that could go by too fast on the show. 

I really enjoyed reading this comic. But I would have preferred this to be a done-in-one. That, to my mind, would be true to the form of the show. I mean, I know this is comic books and the nature of them is to have an ongoing story, but the story introduced here seems like it's going to be very long. I say that because this whole issue, in the plot related parts, was a set up of this story. And I “got it” within a couple of pages – Kermit’s not himself, Amimal’s not himself, Ninja Rogers came out of nowhere, and the mice/rats are digging for a treasure in the studio. But on and on it went without anything really happening. It seems a little disjointed from the rest of the package of this comic which is all about timing and keeping things tight in a “show biz” way.  

But honestly, although that’s my criticism, it doesn’t really get in my way of the enjoyment of this. I think it’s clever, well-done, well-handled and expertly drawn. I’ll be interested to see if the next issue moves the plot along a little faster. I imagine if all the Muppet Shows were done-in-ones it wouldn’t be necessary to write anything original – one would just have to draw all the shows. And what’s really the point of that?  So, I’ll keep an open mind and see what happens in the next issue.

Yeah, I said it.  I’m gonna read the next issue.

-Nina Stone, 2009

 

 

Comics Of The Weak: Particle Overdrive

Detective Comics # 855
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by J.H. Williams III, Dave Stewart, Cully Hamner & Laura Martin
Published by DC Comics

There's a lot of magic to be found in the art of J.H. Williams III, and Greg Rucka going purple is a neat trick too--but one has to wonder why, yet again, a hero needs to have their origin dealt out in flashback while they struggle with a hallucinogen. Sure, it gives Williams a chance to show off yet another style of art for the comic, bringing the total to three (or four, if you count the solo-Alice stuff as new), but it's also a bit irksome for something as unusual as this--and make no mistake, this is the most unusual regular artist the big two Batman titles have had since Kelley Jones--to be used in the service of a story twist so prosaic. Part of what made the last issue of Detective Comics such a dynamic read was that it subverted the normal Bat-twists while ignoring so many of the others. (Yes, she will make you talk, but trust us, you'll want to.) This--a sacrifice of henchmen, a poisoned hero recalling their past, the arrival of the at-home help--reeks of normalcy. Maybe that's all this extended run of gorgeous art will end up being, when all is said and done. But hopefully, the final panel--a goofy horror movie poster--will maintain its promise of a return to confusion.

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps # 3
Written by Geoff Johns & Peter Tomasi
Art by Chris Samnee, John Kalisz, Pat Brosseau, Mike Mayhew, Andy Troy & Others
Published by DC Comics

There are only two actual stories here, the first being Kilowog recalling his first meeting with Sinestro, also known as the day that his drill sergeant--who is, of course, called Ermey, because there is no bit of pop culture not worth mining, even if it's been mined a billion times before--ended up dying in his arms after teaching him the importance of Doing Your Best and Teaching By Yelling. After that, it's a hideous short story about some female Green Lantern who made the cross-over from the Jem cartoon, and while she is not truly outrageous, her father's facial hair is. Then it's time for the "Director's Commentary" to Blackest Night, which includes a veritable treasure trove of notable quotables, only one of which is this nugget of genius: "Hal loves to fly headstrong into battle with no care to who knows he's coming while Batman needs the shadows to operate. Again this showcases the difference between darkness and light and how they can't be effective together." There's a tendency to get all uppity and defensive when super-hero comic books don't get taken seriously as an artform, and it's great to see that a big company like DC is doing something like a Director's Commentary, because they really don't need to defend against those insults--Blackest Night will sell a lot of comics anyway--but here they are, presenting the type of intricate world-building and specific forethought they put into one of their major stories. "It's ironic that the Fastest Man Alive needs to catch up." Think about that for a second. It is ironic! "Geoff [Johns], you're great at making characters regular people with minor lines here and there. Makes us believe that Barry and Hal really exist and are friends." So true!

It's incredible stuff, this level of honesty and depth--worth remembering the next time somebody criticizes super-hero comics. There's a lot of heavy thought that goes on before "pencil hits the page".

Citizen Rex # 1
By Gilbert & Mario Hernandez
Published by Dark Horse Comics

As with any comics by the Hernandez crew, Citizen Rex is fun to look at. Anything they do always is, even when it's obtuse, even when it's confusing, even when it's most vocal fanbase is made up of elitist pricks who should just read super-hero comics. At the same time, Citizen Rex is published by Dark Horse, and there's some kind of implicit "meh" when the Dark Horse stuff shows up, as if the publisher of a story somehow bears freight on the stories quality--if it ain't Fantagraphics, it ain't canon, that sort of tomfoolery and chuck-ulligans. And yet, Citizen Rex: pretty to look at, engrossing to read, and there's a guy vomiting down the side of an overpass. That guy, that vomiting guy: that's the sort of background imagery that so few cartoonists seem willing to throw into the game. That guy, his vomit: it speaks multitudes.

Justice Society of America # 29
Written by Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges
Art by Jesus Merino & Allen Passalaqua
Published by DC Comics

This is a single issue comic book about a team of super-heroes fighting a team of super-villains. There are 16 super-heroes in the fight, and it looks like 21 super-villians on the other side. There is also another super-hero, whose name is Mr. Terrific, and he is playing with a computer at the team's headquarters because one of the members of the team has turned into an egg. And out of all the characters on the team, who does the known conservative writer stab in the back in his first issue?

The black guy. Sixteen people to choose from, and he picks the black guy.

God's weeping, ya'll.

New Avengers # 55
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger & Dave McCaig
Published by Marvel Comics

Things you learn from New Avengers # 55:

1. Nothing disappoints Captain America more than when a motherfucker can't keep a clean house. Stuart Immonen had a lot of practice drawing pure hatred when he was over at Nextwave, and it's pleasant to see that skill being used here. Yes, Bucky: Wolverine is not someone you'd want as a roommate.

2. Bendis misses writing about the "drainers" from his Powers comic so much he's brought them over to Marvel continuity. Also, the term "powers" has been brought over. The word "cunt" can't be far behind!

3. Spider-Man has no problem at all, like zero problems, like, the actual physical opposite of problems, with the Avengers killing their way through the Skrull empire. But killing Norman Osborn? That dude is a human being. He's a Human Being. Don't you know what a hero is? Don't you know? You, in the back. The one who laughed at the "Luke Cage has a man-crush on Spider-Man" line. Don't you know?

You know who shouldn't get to chide people about the sanctity of life? People who make deals with Satan shouldn't get to.

Thunderbolts # 134
Written by Andy Diggle
Art by Miguel Sepulveda & Frank Martin
Published by Marvel Comics

The "next issue" blurb excites the reader with the prospect of "Black Widow versus the Thunderbolts", which succeeds in being exciting only as long as you ignore that the current issue, i.e., the one that you had to read to get to that "next issue" blurb, was titled "Songbird versus the Thunderbolts", and Songbird didn't actually fight the Thunderbolts at all. (Unless you're counting the scant two panels where she got hit by debris and crashed into the ground as a "versus" moment.) No, this issue just consisted of Songbird kissing some guy alongside the still-going reintroduction of a guy who combines the tattoo's of Spider Jerusalem and the scars of Zsaz with the backstory of Lady Shiva/Batman/Prometheus, all of which prove the old saw, once again: you can go back to the well again. You just have to make multiple trips.

Wonder Woman # 34
Written by Gail Simone
Art by Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan & Brad Anderson
Published by DC Comics

There are things that you cannot believe, that you cannot fathom, and they are the fact that a Wonder Woman comic in 2009 opens with Wonder Woman in the arctic tundra, embracing a polar bear as if they were to dance. Watching from the sidelines, the polar bear's cub--for yes, Diana's dance partner is a mother--and this cub teaches a Life Lesson about finding one's own tooth and claw. From there, the story skyrockets into the next dimension of comic books as Black Canary tells Wonder Woman that she bears the second best bosom in the DC universe.

You say a lie has been told.

No lie has been told!

No lies need be told!

After that, saucy fighting, and Black Canary mentions that her panties ride up her crack. One wonders how far that "no questions asked" idea goes. "If you just go ahead and mix the cocaine with heroin, it gives you strength to make it through the night, that was something else I learned early on."

Parasyte 8

By Hitoshi Iwaaki

Published by Del Rey Manga

The art on Parasyte has a tendency to be a bit sloppy. And bad. The dialog in Parasyte has a tendency to be a bit sloppy as well, with chokers like "We were all born here on Earth...and we all live here together." Also? Bad. But usually, that stuff was broken up by extended fight scenes, and while Iwaaki's character design was pretty limited to Adult Male, Lead Character, Adult Female, Teenage Female, the fight scenes had a lot of elastic monsters doing the sorts of horrible things that one might expect if Mr. Fantastic and the T-1000 shared a body with the brain of a speedfreak scorpion. Unfortunately, this volume--the last one of the series--decided to abandon the cool thirty page fight scenes in exchange for three hundred word monologues on overpopulation and man's disinterest in non-man related beings, making it one of those rare comics that would actually have been improved if the dialog had been plagiarized from some breathless college freshman's attempt at an Environmental Manifesto. Probably best to have just jumped ship on this ride at volume 7. You'll find no quarter here.

Wednesday Comics

By Azzarello, Risso, Gibbons, Sook, Bermejo, Arcudi, Bullock, Heuck, Gaiman, Allred, Busiek, Quinones, Baker, Berganza, Galloway, Pope, Palmiotti, Conner, Didio, Lopez, Nowlan, Caldwell, Kubert x 2, Kerschl, Fletcher, Simonson & Stelfreeze

Published by DC Comics

Batzarello: Really, all Batman comics should start with a mention of premature ejaculation.

KamanSook: In a world where animals walk alongside (and in many cases lord over) men, no one is more pathetic than the horse, who remains the biped's slave.

Superman: Truth, Justice and The American Way? You can keep it, sailor! Superman is here, and he's a huge, sniveling pussy. In this installment, Superman asks his mommy and daddy if he should move back home. Next time, he's going to learn that bullies often come from broken homes.

Deadman: Last week was the introduction of Kirby's lava, this week it's Parademons. This is just going to turn out like the Wizard of Oz, isn't it? It better go black and white, if that's the case.

The Busiek Lantern: It's funny how people get the chance to draw Green Lantern at this size, and they're still like--shit, I don't want to draw Hal Jordan at all. Isn't there an alien one we can have instead? How about the racist with the bowl cut? Or the black guy, he's always shooting things. 

Metagaiman: Oh, Gaiman's schedule must have cleared up, he actually wrote something this time. What did he write?

Yeah, that's Post-Sandman Gaiman alright. Better go find the thesaurus, got to be some way to pretend this is entertaining. Humm, is "transient" a compliment?

Teen Titans, Always Fightans: "See there's this guy Trident, right? Totally hates the Titans."

"Okay, what happens next?"

"...Sorry, maybe you didn't hear me. There's this guy. Trident. Right? Totally hates the Titans."

Strange Papal Adventures: God, and he can spin records as well? It's like he was cut out of a mold of diamonds to save the weary sinner.

Supergirl: Look, some people put cats to sleep for scratching the coffee table too much. Knocking a plane out of the sky--who is going to pay for that, Supergirl? You? The cat? It's time to let it go.

Metal Men: Remember last week when Lopez and Nowlan had to draw that dude with a hat, and they tried to do it inconspicuously? Turns out the dude with a hat had a plot twist in his overcoat.

Really, this thing could be written by wolves at this point.

Wonder Woman: The funny thing is that there are some people who will still claim that this particular comic is easier to read than Dragon Ball Z. And they'll mean it, too.

Sgt. Rock, Buried In Cock: The more time they spend hurting Sgt. Rock, the more awful Sgt. Rock is going to be when he busts out. That's the sort of math you'd think Nazis would want to learn.

FlashFlash: See how they put little dots all over it when they color it? They don't do that in the other comics because the other comics don't care about you.

Catdemon: Oh look he rhymed something.

Hawkman: Hawkman isn't just good, it's embarrassingly good, because they did an entire series on Hawkman, and except for the time that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips snuck in a Maltese Falcon homage, there wasn't a story in the bunch that could hold a candle to Kyle Baker doing mercenary work for four goddamn pages. This issue has maybe the best panel yet, when Hawkman looks out at the reader, catches the reader's eye, and dares you to laugh at him before he goes and catches a plane. With his hands.

Sinister Spider-Man # 2

Written by Brian Reed

Art by Chris Bachalo, Rob Disalvo, Tim Townsend, Sibal, Mossa & Fabela

Published by Marvel Comics

Ever been to a mususem where they hand out those little headsets so that you can be told what to think of the modern art section? Like, one of those tapes that says things like "a lesser work by the great man, one that fails to conceal its stunted beginnings", and you're thinking Shit, this is way better than those fucking sculptures you said were so important, Mr. Tape Man, why don't you eat a dick. That's the equivalent of the words in this comic, which are all useless, because this comic achieves all its goals off the work of the artist, who never really liked drawing people that much anyway. (In this case, that has to be extended to "artist(s)" since Marvel was so hot to trot to get this bitch out they brought on another penciller). It's about a big monster who eats squirrels and fights black people, and his mortal enemy, J. Jonah Jameson, a man whose mustache tries to jump off his face when he screams. That doesn't need words. It just needs you, bitches.

Ultimatum # 5

Written by Jeph Loeb

Art by David Finch

Published by Marvel Comics

The importance of Ultimatum: can it be overstated. can it be topped. can it be imagined. No! No! No!

See, here's the thing: what people say/what people buy. Not the same thing, never the same thing. "Blue Beetle/Young Liars/Captain Britain/Agents of Atlas, these are the comics of Multitudes, they speak volumes, people want these kinds of comics!" No, no, no, they don't. Should they? Maybe so, maybe they should want to all get along too, right before they want equal pay for equal work, and bednets for everybody. Event comics are just sneering: "We beat you to the curb! We curb you on the curb." Asterios Polyp: can't keep it on the shelf! Flying off the shelf! Y: The Last Man in collections: Flying off the shelf! Captain Britain, crickets. Phonogram, crickets. Batman: Streets of Gotham: CRICKETS. Fucking Crickets itself: CRICKETS. And yet, Ultimatum: who liked it? Who liked it? Who liked it? 

Nobody seemed to like it!

But fuck it, this shit sells, it sells like a whore on Fleet Week, you can keep your cameraphone threats. What are you gonna threaten with? "Caught you reading!" Like, Wolverine gets his body ripped apart by his own pals. Like, Magneto gets shot full of the Truth, and the Truth just makes him cry, so Cyclops peels his cap back. And not in the "hey, did it happen over there? did it happen in the shadows?" Naw dawg: live in color. Live on screen. You can see the bits and pieces, cap was officially pulled back. Like, then Cyclops gets a bullet shoved into his brain at hyperspeed by a dude who used to bang his sister, and then Ben Grimm crushes Dr. Doom's head between his orange rock fingers, and you get. to. see. the. brain. You get to see the brain, motherfucker, you get to see it squirt through his fingers.

This isn't made in a vacuum, playboy. This is comics.

Battlefields: The Tankies # 3

Written by Garth Ennis

Art by Carlos Ezquerra

Published by Dynamite Entertainment

Things Tankies didn't really have: a lot of color, an ending, or a plot. And yet, Tankies is probably closer to actual war than most war comics--like real life, or Generation Kill, actual war isn't really a plot-driven occupation. It's a reactionary activity for the men on the ground--go here, do this for a while, some of you die, some go home, go here, now go here, it's over when we say it's over, and sometimes you're a part of that (Iraq has been liberated!) and sometimes you're not (Iraq has not been liberated!). But is that what a war comic is supposed to be, an accurate representation of something that's all but been turned into a three-act play by movies and literature? Technically speaking, it's probably not Supposed To Be anything, comics are rarely Supposed To Be, they're usually What Was Finished In Time, and occasionally that's great (Kirby, you're a 17 page a day god!) and occasionally that's a smudged reflection of coulda-been-great (Tony Daniel, Wha- happen?), and occasionally, or most of the time, it's "good enough for me!" And Tankies, while never really doing anything, while, best of all, not really even seeming to try, that's what it was, square peg, square hole: good enough, maybe so. It wasn't a hammy "war, a miserable, horrible thing, oh woe be those who put our engines at work, powered by the blood of the children, God himself, Heads Hung In Shame", and it wasn't a "Up by your bootstraps, use the flag of your father to stem the tide of blood, oh hosanna", it was just a ramshackle crew of funny accents bumping into the anecdote they'll regurgitate when Ken Burns comes a-calling. "He was a big fellow, a massive fellow. I gave him a light. He gave me a memory."

Wolverine Noir # 4

Written by Stuart Moore

Art by C.P. Smith & Rain Beredo

Published by Marvel Comics

Wolverine Noir will probably end up, like most Wolverine: Doing Something Not In Continuity stories, hugging a spot in the beater bins. There, it might actually find the audience that seems to have ignored it, and they'll be surprised when they do--a sober take on noir with some excellent pieces of art. The interesting thing about what C.P. Smith did here was that he just ignored flash, choosing instead to shoot for the best possible depictions of emotion he could--Creed's arrogant sneer, Dog's terrified confusion, Mariko's disgust, and Rose's crazy rage. At the end of the whole thing, Logan must have been the hardest of all--beyond the difficulty in finding the face under the mountains of blood and waste (this Wolverine can not heal himself), Logan was the ringer for the story all along--a confused thug of a protagonist, a character that had never really figured out what he was supposed to be doing. Without the necessary obligations of a Dog's care, without an excuse for revenge when those who owed him their own justice stand in front of him, Smith chose, again and again, to draw a face with the expression blanked into shock. Never an easy choice, especially when those who care to look upon art have all but abandoned the New Release shelves along with the abandonment of Wolverine stories. Understandably so, it would seem--after all, how would they know what lurked amongst the terrible onslaught of horrible Noir stories shoveled out by Marvel? The cash-grab aspect of it was obvious to everyone--why publish Criminal, why lose sales to 100 Bullets, if all that was needed to bring the dollars home were throwaway reworks of the Big Sleep with spandex re-works installed? And yet, Wolverine Noir: an actual comic book, an actual story, a terse script, an avoidance of "best I am at what I choose to be" dialog. Someday, it finds an audience. Hopefully, that audience comes bearing less of this past we've so thoroughly created. Hopefully: just comics.

Justice League of America # 35

Written by Len Wein

Art by Tom Derenick, Pow Rodrix, Marlo Alquiza, Rob Hunter, Walden Wong, Dan Green & Pete Pantazis

Published by DC Comics

Q: How many people does it take to draw a thoroughly adequate version of a Justice League of America comic book?

A: According to this issue, at least eight. Unfortunate that this issue had only seven! Being close counts with hand grenades, but not, sadly, in crappy illustration. For future reference, maybe less time should be spent on cross-hatching faces.

Of course, the cover told the tale before the issue hit the floor: if the Royal Flush Gang is a-calling, you've got yourself a fill-in "will be nigh-unreadable" comic. Own fault, and all that stuff. T'was nice of Plastic Man to show up and, in the space of four panels, make one tasteless joke about Batman being dead before insinuating that Dr. Light Number 2 is a transvestite. Now, ain't nobody got a tasteless joke problem round here, it's just preferable that they be funny.

Well, that's not really true. Best issue ever!

-Tucker Stone, 2009

More new releases available here, because why the fuck not.