There’s a lot going on, and I’ve been planning to do a summary of all the madness because my wife says that I don’t toot my own horn enough. Honestly, I’m not even that flexible, but that’s probably another discussion altogether.

Anyhoo, what does that mean? That means that I’ll try to drop a summary of everything I’ve done online over the last week. Yes, this idea is in part stolen from The Bloggess (who has agreed to introduce my keynote speech at Blogworld 2012), but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t leave any fingerprints.

Let’s move on …

• Fichiki Siri: I’ve been doing some fiction writing for Stranger Comics, doing some fantasy work set in their shared fictional universe. The character I created is on a singular and relentless mission, and this serialized narrative shows some of what he’s been doing (the first chapter is still online too). Free online, and two more chapters are just waiting for Stranger to publish them.
• #musicmonday: Every week I scour the web for free music that you can download. “Isn’t that illegal?” Not for me — I don’t host the music, I don’t upload the music, I just post links to other people in an aggregating fashion. Aggravating fashion? Hard to know. Anyway, it’s free music — mostly urban themed, but with alternative rock, country, pop and classics thrown in. This upcoming Monday, I’ll be posting the entire discography of this group called Orishas as well as an Icon collection of Teena Marie’s music, and last week I dropped (among others) Malcolm & Martin, The Black Keys, Akon, Pitbull, Fleet Foxes, The Strokes, Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg and music from the show Glee.
• The Commentary Track for The Buy Pile: After I do my weekly column of comic book reviews on CBR, I often bring the discussion back to my main blog to expand on concepts and delve into topics in a deeper manner. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes it’s gibberish, but it’s always about comics, so I’ve got that going for me.
• The Early Forecast and the Extremely Early Forecast for The Buy Pile: Before I go to the store, I make a list of what’s out and guess at what I’ll plan to buy. These blogs give you a look, a day before the column hits, at what you’ll find. The Extremely Early Forecast is done before I go to the store and the Early Forecast is done on Wednesday night, after all is said and read, and I know exactly what will be in the column (but before I write it).
• Twitter: I’m baaaack! Refreshed after a year away from social media, I’m dropping 140 characters at a time on your mind, discussing my life, pop culture, music and so much more. It’s also an easy way to interact with me.
• The Linkroll: I read a lot of stuff online, and most of the interesting things I click, I then “share” through Google Reader with a pithy little comment of my own. This includes all kinds of foolishness, from technology to politics to deleted scenes from the Star Wars movies.
• Tumblr: Updated Mondays (as noted above), Wednesdays (as noted above) and Fridays, you’ll find humor and commentary and what not, all rolled up into a mobile-friendly format.

Next week? Hopefully more cool stuff that I didn’t have to write or create myself. Good night!

Watching (Hulu): The Colbert Report

Every week I do a column full of comic book reviews as I’ve done since March 2003 and currently published at Comic Book Resources. Then, after the reviews post, I try to come over to my blog and expand on the thoughts and ideas listed there. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes it’s gibberish, but it’s always about comics … let’s see what we get this week!

What? This week’s reviews …

THOUGH THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL: Before we get started, my pals over at Stranger Comics are doing some cool stuff with the release of their new project, Ruining Christmas. When that leads to madness like this …

Do we really want to know what's happening here?

… well, you know something wonderful is going on.

As well, comics artist Afua Richardson (in her alter ego as “Candie Canes”) rocked a version of “Winter Wonderland” (purchase MP3) described thusly: “It is raspy. It is sexy. Let’s hope the elves, who sit upon red velvet couches, sucking on her namesake, appreciate all of her talents. For they are many.” Nice! Even Warren Ellis liked it.

She also did the art …

Candie Canes sings 'Winter Wonderland'

… as she should, as she should. A very talented young woman, and a very fun project from the upstart company that’s working on their first big screen movie for The Untamed with Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin, Shopgirl producer Andrew Sugerman and Eureka creator Andrew Cosby.

WE SHALL OVERTHROW: I’m not gonna lie like I haven’t been waiting for more answers from DMZ for some time, and this issue finally whetted my appetite. I’m a real deep continuity guy, so getting into the nuts and bolts of building the world matters to me. The fact that civil war could happen in the United States is not hard to believe — there’s a lot of weapons out there, there’s a lot of frustration, and everybody won’t be satisfied by some nutjob candidates getting junior legislative positions. I’ll never rule it out as a possibility.

Anyhoo, so I liked getting a look inside the mechanism of the Free States here, their Tea Party-esque origins (and yes, those parallels are interesting/frightening to me) for instructive purposes as well as entertainment ones.

JORMUNGANDR: The visuals needed to grow on me, but I gotta say I am loving the subtle understatedness of IDW’s Cobra Commander. His seduction of Chuckles (and it is a seduction, despite the fact that technically Chuckles hasn’t done anything outside of his mandate as a Joe, and killing people isn’t a big deal) is a thing of beauty, especially when you consider all the other plates Cobra keeps spinning (their Scientology-styled cult The Coil, sucking in cash like crazy, Crimson Guardsmen in politics and banking, military forces deployed all over the world, secret antarctic bases and huge submarines). How could such a huge organization ever really be beaten, permanently? I love that, and could honestly make with seeing a lot more of it. Not that I don’t love the Joes — I do, Stalker is my dawg, I love the possibilities in Sci Fi and Flash, and even Cover Girl has developed into an actual character — but Cobra is just so … much … yummier.

HERE BE SPOILERS: Sorry, need to go off the deep end past this point. You’re welcome to step out …

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… or not. Here we go.

THE ONGOING INSULT: I just can’t get over how angry I am about T’Challa.

I gave a friend of mine the TPB of Enemy of the State for Kwanzaa (since I found out that The Client is out of print — thanks Mouse House of Ideas!) and, in rereading it, remembered how much I came to love the character despite his flaws. He was A Man Called Hawk, James Bond, Captain America, Batman and Barack Obama all rolled up into one vibranium-encased bundle of whup ass.

Now? How could he ever be called anything buy T’Challa the Weak, T’Challa the Failure, T’Challa the Foolish? Under Jonathan Maberry’s direction, T’Challa did what no Black Panther ever did — let Wakanda be conquered from without. Not just like his rope-a-dope with Reverend Doctor Michael Ibn al-Hajj Achebe, which was actually a move of strategy that could have been considered brilliant despite the chaos that ensued. No, in his struggle with Doom (and if you’re gonna lose to somebody, Doom’s the one, I’ll admit), he destroyed everything that made Wakanda — and by extension him — wonderful, all the gifts that Stan somehow created.

Now? On the word of a man who he has a passing acquaintance with (Daredevil? Really?), he abandons his wife, his shame, his company, his nation in need, his family, his responsibilities, his people and his friends … to “test” himself? T’challa was never so selfish, he was never so stupid, he was never so self-involved. What Marvel is doing with “Black Panther: Man Without Fear” is wrong politically, from a creative and narrative standpoint, culturally and intellectually. It makes no sense, and I could not stand more strongly against it.

REALLY? So Chaos War: Thor expects me to go for the following …

• Thor can combine more than one mortal into himself, Firestorm style, to share the power.
• Thor, in his hour of darkest need, would pray to a non-Norse god that he’s never met … and it would work.

Get the hell out of my office. Get that garbage out of here. That’s disgusting.

TABU OUT: That should hold you for a while, my little sandwich spreads. I’m on vacation days from my job at MIMCO, my first paid vacation in my entire adult life. I hope to finish my latest novel by year’s end and have some other fun stuff to drop on your brain in 2011.

Playing (Music): “I Need A Doctor” by Eminem feat. Dr. Dre

Every week I do a column full of comic book reviews as I’ve done since March 2003 and currently published at Comic Book Resources. Then, after the reviews post, I try to come over to my blog and expand on the thoughts and ideas listed there. Sometimes it’s profound, sometimes it’s gibberish, but it’s always about comics … let’s see what we get this week!

What? This week’s reviews …

As noted, the reviews from last week did not post on CBR, and the apparent cause was that somebody didn’t check an email address that I was allegedly told to stop using. I can’t find any record of that communication, but time marches on and waits for nobody to complain about some old isht.

I already hyped up the big movie deal struck by Stranger Comics for their new (and as yet unpublished) property The Untamed, which has a host of big names involved (produced by Lloyd Levin from Watchmen and Andrew Sugerman from the very creepy, very involving Shopgirl, plus Eureka creator Andrew Cosby directing and Matrix effects guru Ken Locsmandi making with the pretty). This week, I dropped a blog on the fixation on the lone anti-hero and why that’s important culturally for Stranger Comics’ blog. Big things developing over there, and I’m keeping my eye on it.

Now, this week’s comics … yuck. I’m tempted to cover last week, let’s see …

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: I use some terms in the reviews that may not have a definition posted, and you can get a look at some of my rules, gleaned from a lifetime of consuming fiction as well as my training as a writer. They are as follows …

TV GOOD: When you’re flipping through channels and you land on something that looks interesting enough to sit and watch. You might even set a TiVo for it or add it to a Hulu queue. The point is that it’s good enough to enjoy if it doesn’t make you go to any extraordinary lengths: it’s not a pay-per-view, it’s not a premium service like On Demand, it’s just on the TV you have and you are willing to look at it as long as it doesn’t cost you anything extra or make you work for it. Many “okay” comics fall in this category for me (and therefore for the column). Often used in conjunction with or in place of “not bad.”

PLOT’S NOT TIGHT/DRIFTING: There are comics that feel perfectly balanced on each and every page. Most of the issues of Dingo for example or a couple of Astro City pieces (the one with Beautie, for certain, and the Infidel’s dinner with the Samaritan). On the other hand, there are issues that start strong and peter out near the end (the first issue of that recent Black Widow series) or ones that chatter on endlessly without having any real story beats (most Avengers books) or hit plot points without making them mean anything through characterization (a lot of Kirkman books like Invincible). Those are all examples where a plot tune up is needed, likely by a more certain editorial hand (and many of the sure editorial hands have seen their workloads increased while the number of assistants they can call on diminishes).

THE TRAILER PARK THEORY: This was huge through DC’s onslaught (52 and Darkest Night/Brightest Day in particular). It goes like this. Show a few pages of something happening to somebody. Move on. Martian Manhunter gloomily considers his past, and gets an idea to go somewhere to check something out. Cut to the new Black Aqualad standing dreadlocked in the middle of a desert looking around like “WTH?” Cut to Hawk punching somebody and Dove looking worried. Cut to Aquaman and Mera with some oceanic backdrop. Cut to some supposedly suspenseful scene with Aliveman or Whiterstorm. End comic book. That’s not a story. That’s a series of movie trailers, stapled together and sold for three or four bucks. Not cool. It’s like decompression’s ADHD little cousin.

BALANCE OF BANTER AND BASHING: A good comic compels. There are issues of Transmetropolitan that had literally nothing but people talking, yet contained such dramatic tension that it didn’t matter. The average capes-and-masks book needs to balance action scenes (mostly melee combat, but you can make with a good chase scene or even a particularly thrilling rescue) with plot development/character scenes (talking/working on stuff in labs/pointing at the sky/fixing stuff/et cetera). Balancing this is hard. I went to college to learn it and still stumble. When it happens it’s amazing. When it misses wildly it can disappoint or break your heart. There’s a lotta ground in between.

RETROGRADE: Let’s say you started reading comics in the early 1990s. Let’s say, suddenly, you have a chance to write for a major comics company. You start pitching a story where a super powered team of misfits who sometimes have problems getting along work for the government, bringing down the bad guys. Or, as many people would call it, “X-Factor” or “Stormwatch” or “many iterations of The Avengers” or “Suicide Squad,” et cetera, ad nauseum. Does your approach have a really unique spin (don’t say “Some characters are gay!” or I’ll scream “The Authority, in their Stormwatch days” and don’t say “they’re people of color!” because I can dig through and find some examples of that, just probably not from major companies)? What’s different about your approach, so much so that it’s worth my money?

What’s that? You just wanna retell the stories you grew up on, adding gratuitous violence, pop culture references or prurient content for shock value to show how extreme and hip you are? I’m sorry, we already have The Ultimate Universe. BE ORIGINAL … or as original as you can be, or I’ll label your work “retrograde,” meaning “been there, done that, no improvements found here.” To be fair, there’s nothing new under the sun, but even when Image Comics asked me to come up with a way to have “Luke Cage done right” I changed almost everything I could, from geography to family to power set to source of the powers. That never got made, but whatever, let’s stay on target here!

PEDESTRIAN: I don’t remember when I first saw a fan image of Hal Jordan as a White Lantern, but I do recall that it was at least six months before it actually happened in a real comic book. If plot elements are that easy to predict, that far out, then it feels like anybody could be coming up with this stuff, as common as any of the feet falling on concrete and blacktop.

MOMENTUM: You’re telling a story, and you somehow manage to draw the crowd in (doesn’t matter how, be it stunning visuals or intriguing developments or an action sequence that grabs you by the throat, flips you over and has its way with you, like the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan). Once you’ve captivated them, you veer off into a nineteen point dissertation on procedural points for a fictional governing body. In developing your story, you might need to know those details and intricacies, but unless you’re producing a reference work, your reader probably doesn’t need to. Stay on target. Keeping momentum once you have it helps create those “I couldn’t put it down!” kind of reads, and those are far too few in the comics world, IMNSHO.

NAZIS/ZOMBIES/PIRATES: Sorry, if I see any of these types of characters, my eyes starts to glaze over. The Nazis perpetrated the largest atrocities of the twentieth century, and were the last people to help push an entire world towards war with their fascism. This is the twenty first century. Terror is the enemy, whether your opponent is a suicide bomber, a Predator drone or a paunchy cop with a bad attitude. It’s a new day, and the horrors of yesteryear served their purpose. I believe in looking forward while still being able to remember what happened before.

BUY ON SIGHT: The opposite of the above. For example, Fables has consistently been the best series on the stand … like for years. I pick it up and I have a reasonable expectation of a level of entertainment worth the money. I’ve come to trust the series and its creative team, and rarely has that trust been misplaced. On the other hand, Wonder Woman has barely been interesting since the Embassy days, and then it was a thin margin. I have no trust, so each issue must try to win me over, as I want to like everything I pick up. Yes, that means I live with a lot of disappointment. I deal.

If three issues in a row are worth owning, I label a series “buy on sight.” If three issues in a row of a “buy on sight” title are bad, I drop that designation. Simple rule. I’ve been waiting for, say, X-Factor to quit messing around in third gear and haul ass like it used to, becoming a “buy on sight” title again. Ditto Legion of Super Heroes and G0dland. Off the top of my head, some “buy on sight” titles include …

• Invincible Iron Man
• Secret Six
• Doomwar (although it needs a kick in the pants, and I’m not sure Deadpool is it)
• Almost anything that is from the Astro City line
• Gravel (took a while to get there)
• The Great Ten
• Almost any book with Amadeus Cho as a lead character

There’s probably more, but those leap to mind easily. I’m not in much of a mood to go with the “ones that almost never get it right” list.

More than I expected there, but that should help me when people ask me repetitive questions. I do love a good reference work.

WHAT ABOUT THE ACTUAL COMICS YESTERDAY, JACKASS? Oh, right, sorry. Interrogator was cooler than his name, and I liked that a lot (much like the reworkings of Xamot and Tomax — that’s a way to avoid being “retrograde”). Deep Six is an underwater version of Tripwire without having any of his motivations revealed. It could do better.

Kieron Gillen has a great grasp on Thor as a character and keeping the Asgardians in an awe-creating position but making them relatable as well. There’s no simple definitive like last issue’s matter-of-fact “To Hell,” but Mephisto is a delight, as was (honestly) Ultimate Captain Marvel. Less “drift” could have helped both. (I like this reference system already, I should put anchor links in … and done).

Incorruptible is literally inches away from being a “buy on sight” book.

I am afraid that Artifacts is too ambitious.

The Black Cat book made me wanna check out the show Leverage. Well, that and the Kung Fu Monkey blogs about it.

BEFORE I FORGET … Oh, did wanna note from las: week: there was a bit about ancient Egyptian (once called “Kemetic”) spirituality in Prince of Power #3 where Sekhmet was transformed into “Hathor” (it’s really “Het Heru,” but the Kemetic approach to vowels often confounds westerners), which was mostly accurate except for the fact that the Kemetic goddess of love actually has the head of a cow. Making that work visually, transforming a lion-headed angry goddess into a nice cow-headed one … that would have been tough. Sure, she looked like Bast (who’s been revealed as the 616’s universe’s Panther God for the Wakandans), but I can actually allow that one.

Okay, screw that noise, off I go.

Playing (Music): “Thank God” by Malcolm & Martin