Comics Out September 6, 2007

Brian K. Vaughan and Georges Jeanty's Buffy The Vampire Slayer #6. I keep trying to like Brian K Vaughan, and people keep telling me to, but boy, no. At best the guy is solid, as in the best issues of his Runaways, but he is overrated, and I will not buy into the hype. In this issue I could not have been more pre-disposed to like him, since I am loving Buffy just now.

Among my complaints: the use of Doctor Suess is a leaden, obvious irony; a grown woman referring to tea as "those smelly bags?" (because she did not know this word ... "tea"?); a lame -- if I am reading this correctly, and I am not sure I am -- and pointless allusion to Alan Moore ("the great bearded Wizard of Northhampton"); showing the depraved rich by having them hunt not foxes ... but PEOPLE! (This was done definitively in the Invisibles); the awful exposition of Roden explaining to someone who must know by now that he is not a witch but a warlock; the cliched structure of "A wise man once said [insert low brow commonplace]"; overdoing quirky dialog when a few more "normal" words would better off-set the wit ("I thought this stuck up debutard lived in Jolly Olde. Why are we still chilling at the mistake by the lake?"); having a grown, sexually active woman respond to the word "cunning" by thinking, or pretending to think, the user is referring to oral sex with a woman; a grown, sexually active woman referring to said oral sex as "going downtown on this chick"; a grown person referring to fun as "getting down"; sloppy writing like having "getting down" so close to "going downtown" for no reason and using a phrase like "the stakes are higher" in a vampire book without irony; and the awful cliche of My Fair Lady -- I simply do not believe knowing a rule book's seating precedence at a formal dinner will help her with an assassination.

On the plus side Vaughan writes Xander a great speech about Kurt Russel. On the DVD commentaries for Buffy the writers always say they get compliments on lines that Joss silently added to their scripts. I bet, for know reason other than the weakness of BKV here, that this is Joss.

And the art. Is there a new inker? Did something go wrong? Faith's face is messed up on page 2, and 3, and 4, and 5, and again on 5, and many more times after that. It seems like he can draw faces -- Buffy, Xander and Giles look OK -- just not Faith's. She most often looks mongoloid, or melted , or very old. Principle Wood looks ridiculous standing calmly on a cell phone so close to a big fight. Or is that not a literal image? I should be able to tell.

Way to sink a good idea. Yick.

Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon's Sugar Shock #2. Now that's what I want. Whedon at his most wacky and funny and silly -- it is great to see Whedon without the angst and heartfelt sincerity, though I would not want to see him get rid of it in all his work. And Fabio Moon is one of my new favorite artists. I think I like him even better here than on Casanova -- I like him with the colors. His lines have such energy and charm. And his girls are cute. This is my favorite Whedon work. Period. This is one of my favorite new comics. It is just ridiculous. A great -- GREAT -- joke with Robot Phil saying "legs" over and over. You can read it online by clicking the Dark Horse Myspace link on the right.

But can anyone fill me in on Dark Horse Presents? Is issue one no longer available for viewing? How do I view this bigger, like I did last time? Are these going to be published at some point?

In Comics News, nothing caught my attention.

Can anyone spoil Spiderman: One More Day, which came out today? I opened it in the store and decided I did not like Quesada's art as much as I thought I did, or used to. Or I was in a bad mood because of all the hype.

From Harold Bloom's Genius

[It was Sara's birthday Monday which reminded me of this.]

"The ancient Roman made an offering to his genius [originally a person's attendant spirit] on his birthday, dedicating that day to 'the god of human nature,' as the poet Horace called each person's tutelary spirit. Our custom of birthday cake is in direct descent from that offering. We light the candles and might do well to remember what it is that we are celebrating."

Grant Morrison's JLA: Classified 1

[Some folks around here have wanted to know why Grant Morrison's three issues of JLA Classified are my favorite comics of all time, after Casanova. So here it is.]

JLA: Classified immediately connects with Morrison's JLA run -- the Ultramarine Corps, which he invented in his run there, are the heroes for this first issue.

There is something quintessentially "superhero" about the JLA, more than any other comic book I can think of, because the JLA consists of characters from other books all on a team together -- with all the smash up of continuity that implies. JLA: Classified goes out of its way to emphasize such a smash up: Batman gets gear to deal with the Ultramarine Corps being kidnapped and says "I'm opening the Sci-fi closet, Alfred. Don't tell my friends in the G.C.P.D. about this." First of all he identifies all the crazy gear he has as "science FICTION" gear even though, for him it is real. He does this, and he needs to keep it secret from the local police, because as far as much of Batman Continuity goes, for the characters in the Batman title, including to some extent Batman himself, this stuff it just that -- science fiction. But in JLA is is just everyday business.

The issue opens with a character speaking a scientific formula for gravity -- the situation is grave, get it? Formula puns. You have to be a little impressed with that. Warmaker One, the leader, then says this -- read this out-loud:

The JLA are AWOL. These terrorists are, quite literally, animals. Wanna bet the International Ultramarine Corps can wrap up this little insurrection in ... what? Let's give it ten minutes? Who needs the Justice League? Shock and Awe, Gentlemen.

I am going to say this and risk looking like an idiot. More than half of the first sentence is acronyms. The second sentences has, I don't know, some kind of rhythm that makes my ears perk up, as does the all the W sounds and images: AWOL, Wanna, wrap, what, who, awe. This has -- I cannot believe I am going to write this down on the internet where I will never be able to take it back -- a kind of poetry not unlike David Mamet. This is Morrison at his dialogue best. And actual poetry will not be far behind, as Goraiko speaks Haiku-type metaphors before smashing stuff. "As a flower opens to the sun / So Goraiko's wrath." "Crushed like autumn leaves in my hands / The bones of bad monkeys." Here also, is Morrison at his best:

My original country is in the cold region of the vampire sun. I was born of the eternal fogs, there is Last Country. Neh-Buh-Loh the Huntsman, am I, master of the Wild Ride. I prepare the way for my Queen of Terror, who will come soon. I will spread at her feet a carpet of skulls. I am of the Other World. I herald the end of this one. Now let us make weapons of these supermen.

Creepy well done, in all the silly.

Ed McGuinness is THE artist for this title. Just as the last issue of the Invisibles made me wish Quitely had gone back and drawn every issue of the series, Ed McGuinness makes me wish that he would go back and draw all of Morrison's JLA. The first thing that strikes you when you see
a Quitely image is the sense of design. The first thing you see in an Alex Ross image is the person he used for a model. The first thing you see in a Bachalo drawing is, if not a cute girl, than a little chaotic puzzle. The first thing you know when you look at McGuinness's drawings is that this is meant to be FUN. The best cartoon you never saw. So Morrison has him draw an English Knight on a motorcycle, Monkeys in jet packs and goggles, a giant telepathic ape, little tiny airplanes, a flying city, a man made of goop, a robot with a "cosmic keyboard" who later gets sucked into a cube of stars, Batman with a red rotary phone, Batman in a flying saucer, Robot Supermen. And that is just the first issue. Fun stuff for a fun artist.

Plus the panel designs are great throughout -- tall disjointed windows at angles, little reaction panels, Grodd's head literally splitting into panels -- get it?-- he has a splitting headache. Concentric circles for the massive reverberation of sound, globs for that "information soup" Morrison always talks about, panels in a cube for guys about to be trapped by a magic cube, Bat-shaped panels, falling boxes for chaotic air movement, panels that zoom out of the background, as Batman does when he arrives.

This is what I want from a comic book -- a big team, and lots of fun in the ideas, speeches and images. JLA Classified is a distillation of what I think the Superhero genre should provide. Everything I want and nothing I don't.

[I may not even need to get into the next two issues. Depends on the response to this post.]

Neil Shyminsky and Jason Powell Can Work It Out (Comment Pull Quote)

[Last week I had the idea to do a post every Sunday pulling a good quote from the week's worth of comments and giving it its own post. The post from a week ago today that announced that idea generated the best discussion this week, including some great stuff on Batman and criticism. But the award this week has to go to Jason and Neil on the Beatles -- which began life as an analogy for the collaboration of Morrison and Williams in Batman].

Neil said...

One of the reasons that the Beatles 'We Can Work It Out', for instance, works so well is in the bridge, where McCartney sings a high, almost manic melody and Lennon contrasts it with a low, nearly monotone, and vaguely snarling harmony. McCartney's optimism is completely undermined by Lennon's boredom, leading us to believe that McCartney's confidence in the chorus/verse is wholly unfounded.

Jason said...

I know it's a digression, and Neil sorry to disagree, but ... man, I hate that popular interpretation of "We Can Work It Out." Lennon’s section doesn’t undermine McCartney’s section. It complements it. (Sorry if that word is starting to be overused in this thread.)

To call McCartney’s section optimistic and Lennon’s section bored is to ignore the lyrical content. There’s not a lot of optimism in McCartney’s line, “There’s a chance that we might fall apart before too long.” And Lennon’s section is not bored – it’s urgent. “Life is very short, and there’s no time...”

There is contrast in the music of the two different sections, and I agree that the tension between McCartney’s high-flung melody and Lennon’s dogged single-noted-ness does is part of what makes the song so engaging. But Lennon’s single-note style (which he utilizes in most of his work as a Beatle) is a result of Lennon’s songwriting style, which was to avoid extemporaneity in order to get his point across in as naturalistic a way as possible. He writes melodies that imitate the way he speaks. He sings “Life is very short” on a single note because that’s how he’d say it, not because he’s bored.

I also don’t see mania in McCartney’s bit. It sounds as controlled as any McCartney’s melodies – but that’s probably getting a bit subjective. The mistake, I think, is to see McCartney’s relentless “we can work it out” as optimism rather than an attempt to win an argument (i.e., my way is right, your way is wrong). It’s almost overbearing, in a way, and when it’s read in that light, Lennon’s text flows quite naturally from McCartney’s. If anything, the dichotomy being struck is not optimism/boredom, but rather personal/universal. (McCartney is about “my way” and “your way,” and Lennon’s is about “life.”) Lennon isn’t knocking the foundation out of McCartney’s verse/chorus – he’s providing it.

Neil said...

Jason - I don't necessarily see a contradiction in my labeling McCartney's vocal 'manic' and your calling it 'overbearing'. In fact, I think they're entirely consistent - manic and overbearing would actually serve as a perfect description of McCartney's method as a songwriter and performer with the Beatles. I also think that optimism and 'i'm right' work well with McCartney in this context. The song, reportedly, is about his relationship with Jane Asher, which was falling apart at the time. He was desperately clinging to it (while controlled, it's also near the top of McCartney's range, and 'life is very short' is very staccato, almost screamed), confident they'd figure it out, but also wanting to dictate its terms.

But I certainly have to disagree with your interpretation of Lennon's vocal. The single-note style, for one, has nothing to do with naturalism - it's because he wrote songs on his guitar, and since he wasn't a very good player he preferred progressions that required limited hand movement. But even if I were to agree that Lennon's vocal sounds like it's being spoken, anything less than McCartney's intensity provides a contrast whereby that same intensity is made to seem excessive.

I'm perhaps reading too much of their biographies into the song, but I don't think that's unfair with the Beatles. Lennon sounds bored to me because this song was written during his incredibly depressed period. He doesn't care if he wins the argument, his delivery sounds snide because 'fussing and fighting' is all he and Cynthia ever do. He's 'asking once again', but he knows it's useless - it's still incredibly intimate, not at all universal. When we read that on to McCartney's performance, we get the sense that he may be equally hopeless - but only because Lennon's there to provide the subtext.

Jason said...

“The song, reportedly, is about his relationship with Jane Asher, which was falling apart at the time. He was desperately clinging to it (while controlled, it's also near the top of McCartney's range, and 'life is very short' is very staccato, almost screamed), confident they'd figure it out, but also wanting to dictate its terms.”

Hmm. I see where your “manic” and my “overbearing” dovetail. But then, as you note above, McCartney’s mania spills over (in the form of staccato, high-pitched singing) into the bridge that you claim completely undermines it.

“But I certainly have to disagree with your interpretation of Lennon's vocal. The single-note style, for one, has nothing to do with naturalism - it's because he wrote songs on his guitar, and since he wasn't a very good player he preferred progressions that required limited hand movement.”

The phenomena of a single-note melody and an uncomplicated chord progression are not necessarily connected, and I don’t think they are in Lennon’s case. A wide, far-flung melody can be sung over a single chord. (Example: the first line of “When I’m Sixty-Four,” everything up to “many years from now” is over a single chord, for example, with the first change happening on “now” – unless I’m misremembering/mishearing). Meanwhile, the same note can be sung over complicated and rapidly changing chord progressions. (For example, the Lennon-composed “If I Fell” changes chords on almost every word, but the notes of his melody move in small increments. Also, a listen to other songs in the Beatles canon shows that even when Lennon has devised a harmony vocal on a progression built by McCartney, he still very doggedly will keep things on a single note if the progression allows it.) Melody need not be dictated by what chords can or cannot be played. The reason Lennon’s melodies are low on incident and tend to lack a lot of jumps in intervals is because Lennon sought melody in a naturalistic way, i.e, seeking out a note for the new chord that was as close as possible to the note he’d previously sung. Which is to say, he didn’t fuss over complicated melodies – life was too short. :)

“But even if I were to agree that Lennon's vocal sounds like it's being spoken, anything less than McCartney's intensity provides a contrast whereby that same intensity is made to seem excessive.”

But again, as noted above, the bridge also contains McCartney’s vocal right on top of it. If you’re arguing that “desperation” characterizes the “optimistic” verse/chorus, then doesn’t that desperation carry over into the staccato and high-pitched plaintive cry of “life is very short and there’s no tiiiime”?

“I'm perhaps reading too much of their biographies into the song, but I don't think that's unfair with the Beatles.”

I agree, perfectly fair, but at the same time ...

“He doesn't care if he wins the argument, his delivery sounds snide because 'fussing and fighting' is all he and Cynthia ever do. He's 'asking once again', but he knows it's useless”

This all seems like a lot of “reading in” to stuff that isn’t actually in the text of the song. Other than implication based on vocal tone, there’s nothing to suggest he doesn’t care, or that his “asking once again” is useless. Indeed, if he thinks it’s useless, why is he asking again? I’d say “asking again” implies the opposite, that he thinks there’s a point in asking.

“it's still incredibly intimate, not at all universal.”
If it’s all about Cynthia, then yes, it is. But I think that’s too much reading in. “Life is too short for fussing and fighting, my friend.” That’s contextualizing one argument in the frame of life in general.

“When we read that on to McCartney's performance, we get the sense that he may be equally hopeless - but only because Lennon's there to provide the subtext.”

I realize it might be hairsplitting, this argument, because I of course agree that the two sections enrich each other – I just don’t think it’s an “optimism”/”pessimism” dichotomy. It is McCartney who sings, “If we see it your way, there’s a chance that we might fall apart before too long.” That – along with his worry that he might eventually not be able to “go on -- is as pessimistic as anything in Lennon’s bridge, so I can’t see how it is Lennon who is solely providing that darker angle, either as text or subtext.

(You know, it suddenly strikes me as hilarious that we’re arguing about a song that itself is about an argument. Try and see it my way, Neil! Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on?)

Neil Said...

Hey Jason - great discussion. I'll make only a couple quick comments.

"Indeed, if he thinks it’s useless, why is he asking again? I’d say 'asking again' implies the opposite, that he thinks there’s a point in asking."

Because I think that Lennon is going through the motions. I don't have my copy of 'Revolution in the Head' nearby, but I seem to recall that this song was written only months after other Lennon pieces like 'Nowhere Man' and 'Norwegian Wood'. There's a certain nihilism and self-defeating angle to a lot of his lyrics at this time. Lennon hasn't quite figured out what he wants out of life just yet, and so he's asking simply because he's supposed to. And don't the lyrics admit this much? 'There's no time for fussing and fighting my friend' is contrasted with 'so i will ask you once again', as if they realize it's an inescapable trap that demands a certain performance that will never yield a desirable result.

"'Life is too short for fussing and fighting, my friend.' That’s contextualizing one argument in the frame of life in general."

Except that the Beatles, and Lennon in particular, tended to draw the great majority of their material directly from their lives. There's a personal story behind nearly everything John wrote. I would also be remiss if I didn't point out that Lennon himself would later claim that every song he wrote was about him and spoke to specifically to his own life. But he had a certain revisionary streak. :)

"(You know, it suddenly strikes me as hilarious that we’re arguing about a song that itself is about an argument. Try and see it my way, Neil! Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on?)"

But if I see it your way, there's a chance that things my fall apart before too long!

And it's a song about an unending argument, no less. It's really just a metaphor for the internet, isn't it? :)

Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88.10.2

The new episode of Brad Winderbaum's Satacracy 88 is up at itsallinyourhands.com. It is the 70th most watched clip on youtube.



This installment stars Kirk Ward, the title character in Brad's student film, The Futurist. His freakout in the final moments of this episode makes the whole thing for me -- this guy seems like he jumped right out of a comic book.