Return to the 'Verse

A friend sent me this and I thought it was cute.



Later!

mike

Live at the Rose Bowl

Here's the U2 concert that was broadcast off of YouTube if anyone is interested.



Later!

mike

When It Rains It Pours

U2 at the Rose Bowl

Just finished watching the U2 concert that was broadcast live online via YouTube and I have to say that I'm not as disappointed as I thought I might be. In fact, I would go so far as to say it was actually pretty good.

As a huge U2 fan through the late '80s and the following decade, I've found myself less than appreciative of their current output. Where I used to skip school to run down to the record store to buy the singles when they came out, now I wait months, sometimes years before picking up their 'latest' album. I grabbed Atomic Bomb long after its release date for $9.99 and I have yet to buy No Line on the Horizon (although I did buy two songs off of iTunes). I'm sure it must be a reaction similar to the backlash they suffered from old school fans when they unleashed Achtung Baby! on the world but, if you ask me, the songwriting just hasn't been as strong as it used to be. Their post-Pop material has been a little too...transparent and obvious. When Bono used the line "the air was heavy/heavy as a truck" in the song "Electrical Storm" I knew it was a love affair that had ended.

I jokingly told my wife tonight when the streaming broadcast begun that U2 and I broke up a few years ago but we've agreed to have coffee tonight, and I think that was a pretty apt description of the affair. The evening was spent with reintroductions, reminiscing over old memories and times spent together, and talking about what's been going on with each other since last we spoke.

To continue the metaphor, I think there was still enough good to agree to start seeing each other again on a trial basis. I may even spring for the new album on iTunes and give that a whirl. I'll definitely be revisiting my back catalogue of albums over the next few weeks and conjure up some warm fuzzies.

The rebroadcast of the concert is playing as I type this, so if you catch this and wanna check it out, hussle on over.

Peace!

mike

I Was Just Wondering...

...where is David Bowie these days and why haven't we seen any new material out of him in the last three or four years?

I can't be the only one wondering.

mike

'Porky's Shell Game'

Here's some more Pogo goodness courtesy of YouTube:



I wish I could find the full-length feature this was clipped from. Hell, I wish I could find most any Pogo merch without having to embark on a major expedition but such is not the case. I covet the two Pogo treasuries I have and what little scraps I can dig up.

Enjoy!

mike

World of Disappointment #3467

[This post may contain small bits of hyperbole]

I saw this in the bookstore today and, after briefly catching my eye as a possibly interesting thing, I set it down again and walked away disgusted.

Originally I thought to myself, "WTF, yet another Dracula edition?" before having my eye caught by the Jae Lee cover and the promise of an illustrated text. This could be a cool little thing to have, especially at the bargain price they were offering it for. I opened it up and saw that virtually every single image that Jae drew was a figure drawing with no background and very little detail in anything but exposed bits like hands, faces, etc. Any item of clothing being shown is just a grey tone shape and anything that is not humanoid in shape is a silhouette. How cheap is that.

I know he did some astonishing work on the Dark Tower comics and I've followed the guys work in the past so I know he's just totally phoned these images in. It probably shouldn't, but it bugs me.

Anyway, if you see this item and get tempted to pick it up, buyer beware! Flip through before purchasing. Or better yet, ignore it and grab the one illustrated by Ben Templesmith.

As an addendum, I wanted to add that some good did come from my bookstore trip since I grabbed a copy of Pullman's Once Upon a Time in the North, a copy of Christopher Golden, Stephen Bissette and Hank Wagner's Neil Gaiman wankfest, Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman and the lavishly illustrated and very eye-catching children's book, Varmints. I almost walked out of there with Hornby's new one, Juliet, Naked, but I have to finish The Beautiful and the Damned before getting into a new book. I read the first chapter sitting in the bookstore waiting for my daughter and I just knew I would get home and keep reading it with Fitzgerald odyssey of love and excess feeling the full on force of how fickle I can be.

Later!

mike

How Cool Is This?

Need I say more?

mike

Clone Wars Season 2 - Not Disappointing

I've been posting a lot of negative thoughts on the ol' blog of late, which may be bad juju since I'm trying to do the whole 'Hey, I'm back and blogging regularly' thing, so I'm going to change gears briefly and throw out some positive thoughts regarding the second season of The Clone Wars.

If you saw season one, you probably were very aware of the various limitations of the show. Not a lot of characters, not a lot of settings/environments, characters whose models were a little stiff and whose faces did not move quite right, and the usual first season stumbling around and finding your rhythm kind of thing. With season two a lot of that has changed. Subtle bits of acting are not uncommon, better mouth movements to match the voice actors, humongous improvements to details, textures, editing and story. Most of all the stories.

Before there were a lot of two or three part arcs that were generally interesting, but there was a rhythm to the storytelling that felt off. Whether that was due to budget and time restrictions, I'm not sure. But lately I've just been feeling that I am, indeed, watching Star Wars, or a logical extension of it. Plus, watching the relationships develop is nice because it gives some context that was missing from Revenge of the Sith and, at the end of the day, may just make the prequel series a little bit better than it was a couple of years ago.


I'll leave you with the trailer for season two. There's some nice teaser stuff in there if you've yet to see any episodes, and other than that, it's just fun to watch.



May the force be with you.

Mike

Grisms

I was posting a message on a friends blog and I was prompted, both times, to verify that I was, indeed, a living breathing entity by punching in the random set of 7 letter combinations they provided. Looking at the two 'words', meaningless and random though they be, it reminded me of Douglas Adams and John Lloyd's wonderful little dictionary of non-words, The Meaning of Liff (an online version is available here). Wikipedia describes the book as 'a "dictionary of things that there aren't any words for yet"; all the words listed are place names, and describe common feelings and objects for which there is no current English word.'

Looking at the two 'words' I was prompted with - Wizizi and Grisms - I can't help but wonder what possible meanings they could have if they existed as real words. It is very early in the morning for me right now and I have a splitting headache, so I'm not going to venture a guess. I will, however, open the floor to anyone out there who is interested in kicking it Liff-style. If nothing comes of it, I'll return at some point and take a crack at it myself.

Either I am really reaching for blogging content or Meanwhile... just got mondo interactive.

Later!

mike

No Control

This is going to be a self-indulgent rant, so you've had your warning if you want to bail now.

Jen has been bugging me to watch some Burn Notice and I, honestly, have just not been in the mood. I love the show to bits and we were watching season three for a while but we got derailed when the second season of True Blood came on HBO and that was 'the show' we watched for the next few months. There are many shows that we like and watch separately when we have the chance (because we are notorious for not agreeing on just about anything) so, when we find a show like Burn Notice, something we both enjoy, we try and hold off and watch it together.

Recently, though, I've been accused of holding the television hostage since I'm not overly interested in watching what she wants to watch right now (meaning BN). This is partially true, but only in the sense that, if I give her any episodes to watch, she will be unable to stop herself until she hits the end and then I either have to catch up, give up, or shut up. I'm sure it's obvious which option she would suggest I take.

Take tonight, for example. I went out with some friends and conceded an episode as a gesture. One episode is not a hard thing to catch up on. Heck, I could watch it when I got home before bed and nobody would know the difference. We could pick it up again together any time. She'd be happy, I'd be happy and there would be happiness all around. However, me being the idiot I am, left her with 3 episodes at her disposal and she watched every damn one of them. I came home and 'walked in' on her watching the last one. "This is one of the best episodes of the series yet," she says to me.

sigh

So, now I'm pissed, she thinks I'm retarded, I'm aware of the level of self-pity but am feeling burned on the 'the show we watch together' factor (something that has happened at least three times in as many years), and now we're not talking to each other.

Another wonderful day in the corps.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

mike

Will the Disappointments Never Cease?

One of my most enjoyable moviegoing experiences this year involved going to Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell with a couple of friends at a second run theatre here in town. I figured I would enjoy the movie but had no idea just how much. Like almost all the critical reviews, I felt that Raimi had put together one of the best horror movies in the last ten years and effortlessly recaptured the low-budget scare-fest that introduced him to cinema goers across the world.

Today marked the release of Drag Me To Hell on DVD and Blu-Ray and, like a good little soldier, I went out and bought my copy (in Hi-Def since having a PS3 now means I have no excuse not to). On my lunch break, no less. I wanted to be able to grab my copy, get it home and not have to stop anywhere between the end of work and sliding that puppy into my PlayStation.

Browsing through the disc I discovered that, with the exception of some production diaries, there are no meaty features to speak of. No commentary (which I was pretty sure would be there), no sizable documentaries, just 30-odd minutes behind-the-scenes clips showing how they created the nose-bleed scene or the maggot scene. I should probably check if they're branching, now that I think about it, because that might make them a little more entertaining. But, the point is, this is a 50GB disc and that's all you have to offer?

Argh!

On the plus side, the video is flawless and the audio is source audio, so I don't regret the Blu-Ray purchase in the slightest. I'm especially looking forward to the movie night some friends and I are putting on where we'll watch it on a 52" plasma screen with the sound pumping out the roaring soundtrack. I just wish that there was a bit more in the extra features department to satisfy the features whore in me.

Anyway, watch the movie if you haven't, check out the DVD if you can.

Until next time...

mike

Why Does Larry Niven Know So Much About Kryptonian Sperm?

I've been away from the blogosphere for some time (as I'll elaborate on in a future post) and, having some free time on my hands, took the opportunity to browse around and reacquaint myself with various and sundry online places and happenings. Along with hitting all the usual haunts, I took it upon myself to try out some new blogs, one of them being Steve Thompson's BookSteve's Library. Thompson is a pop culture enthusiast (as so many of us are) but he's operating on that Jedi-blogger level like Mark Evanier, so the deeper you go, the richer the rewards.

Among other things, I found the most amazing embedded videos on his blog. I'm talking about stuff that I have searched for extensively in the past but came up woefully empty-handed. Now, thanks to Steve, I'm buzzing over the fact that I found a long sought after Pogo special (one of two, I believe) that was directed by Chuck Jones and written by Kelly himself. I had long since given up on trying to find it online and then - BAM - there it was. Just sitting there and waiting to be watched.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to this evening, but I'm thinking maybe after work tomorrow.

Another video I ran across on Steve's site is this 1981 Superman documentary. It sort of covers the history of Superman through interviews with Siegel and Shuster, shows some behind-the-scenes footage over at DC Comics circa 1981, and gives some face time to Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder who gave their perspective on Superman through their involvement in the film series. They also talk to a psychiatrist, some amateur filmmakers who made a Superman spoof, and Larry Niven who, by the way, comes off as an incredibly unusual and creepy guy. His segments are some of the stranger elements of the doc, but when he starts talking about Kryptonian sperm (in Part 4 or 5, I think)...I just kind of tuned the guy out from that point on.

Anyway, Thompson claims that it's the best superhero doc ever made, but I've seen dozens that have been done better. I'm not sure what the yardstick is on this one, but just off-hand I can name Moebius Redux: A Life In Pictures, Comic Book Confidential, Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television, and In Search of Steve Ditko just off the top of my head. For the time, however, this was probably the the tippity top as far as production values, the quality of the overall presentation, and the analysis given to a comic book subject.

You can be the judge:



Up, up, and away!

mike

Obi-Wan Insider

I took my daughter to the 7-11 this evening and along with our Big Gulps I purchased the latest issue of Star Wars Insider (#112) that puts the spotlight on my favourite Prequel Trilogy character (meaning Ewan McGregor), Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was an impulse buy but I've been in a Star Wars mood lately and I'm a sucker for Obi-Wan stuff. Whenever I see a clearance figure at Wal-Mart or some other Kenobi curio in my travels I can't help but pick it up. I know, it's probably a sickness, but I've learned to live with it. Anyway, this issue of Insider, with it's bold action shot of Ewan on the cover, was no exception to the rule.

When I got it home and cracked it open, though, I was disappointed to find that there was very little of substance inside. I mean, I'm not a regular reader but I've purchased issues of the Insider in the past and never regretted doing so. There has always been enough material (promotional fluff though it may be) to at least keep me entertained for 20 minutes or so. Usually there is some rare photos, trivia or a decent enough interview to serve as a pleasant distraction and feed my Star Wars craving. This time around they focused on the voice actor for the Clone Wars series, James Arnold Taylor and included random quotes from Ewan and Sir Alec who each got a single page bookending the Taylor interview. There is a history of Obi-Wan which seems fraught with EU inconsistencies and a couple of articles on the Death Troopers novel and the Mandalorian comics that DHC will be putting out, neither of which I am interested in exploring.

I probably should say that claiming there was nothing of substance was a bit of hyperbole since there is a piece on the newspaper strip that ran in the late '70s, and anything about Al Williamson or Russ Manning is worth a few minutes of my time. Also, there was an article on the exhibit of rare Star Wars artifacts that is travelling with the In Concert tour right now that may prove to be mildly interesting. Both articles are also accompanied by a number of pretty cool images, too.

I guess I'm just feeling burnt by the lack of useful Obi-Wan material.

Bah.

For the record, I would one day like to see someone take a franchise like this and really go to town on a behind-the-scenes magazine. Instead of fluff pieces like you see here or in any of the other myriad licensed magazines you would have some in-depth commentary, interviews and behind-the-scenes reporting that would make it more than an all-in-one-sitting kind of read. You would have to come back to that puppy one or two more times to dig through the articles and features.

Pipe dream, I know, but I still foster dreams of one day being a content developer for someone. I'll probably have to start something on my own if I ever want to fulfill that particular dream.

May the Force be with y'all!

mike

Is the Dude Being Rude?

Now, I'll go on record right off and say that Steve Rude is one of my favourite artists currently working in the comics industry. His seminal work on Nexus with Mike Baron has endured for two decades and remains, not only one of my top 5 comic book series of all time, but also relevant. Over the last little while I've been re-reading my Nexus collection from The Capitol issues to the most current Rude Dude issues and I'm continually amazed at how much of the '80s is reflected in those stories but how little they have dated over the years. So, when Steve Rude announced that they would be returning to the character and self-publishing new stories...well, let's just say that the return of Nexus to comic book shelves was one of the single most exciting things to happen for me in many, many years of collecting comics.

I was so pumped to have the book back and to have Rude and Baron working together again that I was willing to put out a little extra just to show my support. When they released the Free Comic Book Day book, Nexus' Greatest Hits, as a regular Rude Dude release, I bought it even though I already had it because I know self-publishing can be a tough racket. Then, when they released the Nexus Origin book I grabbed that one also, even though I already owned it from back when Dark Horse launched Nexus. Then, when Steve re-released it as a squarebound book with a new cover and 'extra pages' for a buck more, I bought that, too. It was supposed to be completely remastered and have extra stuff so damn the torpedos, right? Well, it was exactly the same as the previous Origin they published and featured 'extra' material that had been published elsewhere. I wasn't going to complain, though, because losing Nexus again was something that I did not want to see happen.

Lately I've been reading Rude's blog posts where he's been asking people to buy stuff at his store so he can pay his bills and how his brief return to comics was a failure and I can't help but be a little pissed. Not only have we, as readers/consumers, bit our collective tongues while waiting for each issue of "Space Opera" to come out (invariably late, it should be stressed) and spent money on materials we probably all already owned being Nexus fans, but now we're being asked to go and spend $250 at his online store for the privilege of having an original sketch?

When I think of how the 'failure' of Nexus may have had something to do with the irregularity of its schedule, and how opportunity and momentum was likely lost to whatever issues were being played out behind the scenes, I cringe. One of the lessons I thought most publishers learned throughout the last ten years was that when a book is solicited to come out, it better come out because, beyond just looking bad, readers are fickle and don't have a lot of money to spread around. Certain marquee books can weather that storm but, ultimately, if your book is not on the shelf readers will likely spend it on something else that is there.

Once retailers have lost confidence in your publishing schedule they will likely look at your book in Previews and pass you over because who knows if it's really going to show up. They'll order enough for their file customers and that's all she wrote. All the interviews, good faith, nostalgia, hype and media attention can't save you from general apathy once it sets in.

So, to be as supportive as I can as a consumer towards Rude Dude Productions and then have them tell me that not only is Nexus done but that I really should come by and give them some more money, has me just a little ticked.

Later!

mike

Kathy F***ing George!?!

So, I'm sitting on the crapper reading the latest issue of John Constantine: Hellblazer - which may be more information than you need to know but is a disturbingly apropos place to have been reading it - when I get to a part near the end where John is stumbling through some public bathroom in Hell and comes across two individuals. The first is a red-headed, grungy looking, bad-mofo kind of guy and he is sitting next to an attractive, sad looking girl with dark black hair. Upon seeing them, John mutters, "Kathy? Kathy...George?"

WTF!!!!!

At that precise moment, I barked with one of those surprised but happy one note laughs - "Hwah!" - which I'm sure must have had the poor wife thinking I'd dropped something terrible or torn something somewhere. Once my business was done and hands were washed and all that, I ran to my wife who was in our room and I held the page in front of her and said, "Look at this page until you see it. You'll know what it is." She stared at it for about a minute and a half when a smile, big and wide, crept across her freckled face.

If you don't know who Kathy George is, Peter Milligan, the current writer of Hellblazer blazed his trail in American comics by writing a weird little mature readers title called Shade the Changing Man (of which both the wife and I possess complete runs). It ended years and years ago but it was one of my favourite comic series of all time and Kathy was one of the main characters, along with Rac Shade and another female character named Lenny. To have her show up again, in any capacity and after reading her dialogue where she says, "You can't help me. Not now. Not yet..." it sounds like we will be seeing the cast of Shade yet again, which is just a real mind-blower. So completely unexpected, although not entirely unprecedented.

There's actually a John Constantine connection with these guys since the four actually met during a cossover where they are sent back in time and have to deal with some puritans and Shade is turning into a tree and Lenny and Kathy are going to be hung as witches. John takes a particular shine to Kathy, as most people who meet her do, and it was something left unresolved at the end of the storyline, if I'm not mistaken. Clearly Milligan never forgot and I have every confidence that it will have something to do with where that call-out is going to lead in future issues of Hellblazer.

The prospect of seeing these characters again has me very excited. I never thought I would see them again. If ever there was a way to hook me in to a series so thoroughly that I wouldn't dare drop it so long as a single particular writer was guiding the destiny of said book, Milligan has found it.

I will be waiting with bated breath.

Later!

mike

The Ballad of G.I. Joe

This reminds me of the unofficial, unreleasable "David Duchovny, Why Don't You Love Me" video. I mean, Julianne Moore is playing Scarlett? Also sounds a little Flight of the Conchords-ey.

Anyway, enjoy...

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Cheers!

mike

The Fixer

Listening to Pearl Jam's new single and I have to say I'm enjoying it a great deal. It's been a while since I've paid any attention to the band.I think Vitalogy was the last time I really knew what they were up to, even though I do remember having Yield at some point. I don't know where the appeal left me back then as they were clearly one of the best things to emerge out of that whole Seattle boom back in the early '90s.

Anyway, judging by the quality of this first single, I'm seriously considering picking up the new album when it comes out. That didn't work out so hot when I returned to another old fave, but I've got a good feeling about this one.

Oh, I should also mention that I've been listening to the new album by Jet, Shaka Rock, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I was hoping for more of the same but there have been a few stylistic changes. Not enough to be really jarring, just interesting.

If you have a chance to check out either I would give them my official Meanwhile... seal of approval.

Later!

mike

I Aint Afraid of No Ghost

Considering how I felt about the last Ghostbusters comic book effort from IDW, I wasn't going to try and usher in the new mini with any kind of fanfare. The art looks okay, but the writer, Scott Lobdell, is an unknown quantity here. I thought his work on the X-Men franchise over at Marvel in the '90s was absolute crap but I did very much enjoy his run on Buffy, High Roads was fun and his Wildcats work was decent, also.

The question remains, however. Can he write a decent and faithful time-travelling Ghostbsters story? We'll see when the new mini, titled "Displaced Aggression", debuts in just a little bit.

Could be crap, could be awesome. It doesn't have to live up to the films, just the excellent Ghostbusters: Legion comic book published by 88Mph a few years ago.

i09 has some artwork displayed at their website if you wanna have a look see.

Cheers.

mike

Joe Hill

At the library the other day I saw a copy of IDW's Locke & Key. For those of you who don't know, the book is written by Joe Hill and features artwork by Gabriel Rodriguez. It's the story of a family who survive a major tragedy and move to a relative's house that has some special characteristics. At Keyhouse, there are certain keys (if you can find them) that will open certain doorways that lead to other places and states of being. Within the grounds of Keyhouse exists an entity that wants these keys and uses its influence to achieve its goals. This is where most of the action and drama come into play.

In the introduction, there is some discussion on how the writer, Joe Hill, is a brilliant young novelist in the genre and everything he touches is golden. Well, seeing as I thought the first few issues of the comic reprinted in the collection were pretty good and not absolutely astonishing, I took these comments with a grain of salt.

A few days later I was shopping at Indigo! and I noticed a collection of Hill's short stories called 20th Century Ghosts. It was on sale for $7.99 and Christopher Golden (one of my favourite genre writers) spoke incredibly highly of him and the work in the introduction. I thought if everyone seemed to be praising everything Joe Hill does, I might as well try out this short story collection and see where that leads me.

Well, I'll tell you where that leads me. I am now a huge fan of the work of Joe Hill. This guy is everything they say about him. I have yet to read his full-length novel, Heart-Shaped Box, but these short stories are superb. His expert handling of the genre is a refreshing surprise considering so many of his contemporaries (literary and cinematic) go for the jugular and try to give you as extreme an experience as possible while sacrificing mood, and story. Hill knows what it means to build to something and make the reader an active participant in his storytelling.

Finishing Locke & Key I was treated to some of the same surprises that I had seen in his short story work. I assumed that L&K was going to trade on the nasty bits with lots of killing and abuse and cruelty, but that's just not the case. There's a mood to it, a quality that feeds off of the darker points but also shows a lot of humour and sensitivity and I'm really looking forward to seeing where this story goes. I have another storyline to catch up on ("Head Games") and then I'll be up to date.

Oh, and if you haven't read his short story "Pop Art" then you must go out and do so now. You really, really must.

Later!

mike

Reading The Unwritten

It kind of surprises me that I'm still engaged with Mike Carey and Peter Gross' new Vertigo series, The Unwritten. I wasn't overly impressed by the $1 first issue, finding it slow to get moving and somewhat predictable, and I was skeptical as to whether or not the metatextual premise of the series would be sustainable over a long run. In most of the interviews I've read Carey addresses, and diffuses, the obvious comparisons to Rowling's cash cow, but whether you were comparing it to Harry Potter, Tim Hunter or any other fictional boy wizard creation was irrelevant to me. I just felt like the similarities, period, would sink the general appeal of this book sooner than later.

Four issues in, though, and I'm still buying it, still reading it, and it looks like I'm going to be in for the long haul on this one.

What's keeping me intrigued so far is the fact that Carey hasn't fallen back on as many 'obvious' devices as I had expected him to. Going for the shock reveal that the reader expects has little appeal. If they revealed right out in the first issue that yes, Tommy Hunter was a fictional character brought to life by his creator or by some other means and raised as a real boy in our world, I would have been gone right then and there. Heck, I was dicey on whether that same reveal on periphery characters was going to be make or break for me. Carey seems to be trying to keep things ambiguous on that point, however, and the true origins of everyone are still shrouded in mystery 48 pages or so into the tale.

There have been some interesting thoughts that Carey has put to paper on the ideas of language and fiction, and I have a growing curiosity regarding the character of Mr. Pullman whose motives are unclear as anything else in the book. The artwork by Peter Gross is stellar, as always, and while the first story arc has reached a conclusion there is very little closure. What that means is that it reads like an ongoing serialized story and not a 'paced for the trade collection' that so many other books are.

I was genuinely excited when I saw the fourth issue on the racks today and eagerly snatched up the last copy my LCS had. It was a deliciously macabre issue (much like the last one) that I read as soon as I got home. I figure that's as good a sign as any that I'm on board for the first year at the very least. I'd be curious to hear what, if any, opinions anyone else has on this series to date.

Later!

mike

There is a CD, Burn, Burn, Burn

I've been in a bit of an Our Lady Peace mood and I decided to pick up their new album, Burn, Burn, Burn. I heard some good pre-release press and was interested in seeing where exactly the band had landed after several years of spinning their wheels and producing yawn-worthy power pop.

Well, I can't say as it is a terrible album, but they certainly haven't left their current comfort zone. The first single, "All You Did Was Save My Life", is catchy, driving, and gets under your skin after a few listens but, so far, none of the other songs on the album have managed to equal that. I like some of them just fine, but I will find myself humming the new track from time to time. It does require a few more sit downs and listens before I give it my final verdict, but I'm not holding out hope for it making its way into the same category as their first four efforts which defined their sound and writing so expertly that anything since has seemed trite.

One of my favourite songs from the band, and one of my all-time favourite videos, is a track called "Thief". Embedded YouTube link was not enabled so you're just going to have to click through to watch it.

Later!

mike

Sort of SDCC Related

In 2000 I made a Comikaze trip down to San Diego with my buddy Karl. It was the first time I ever attended the con, and I was going under the auspices of doing some coverage for FEARS Magazine, a web publication that I was writing for that was run by a very cool cat named Ed Flynn. Almost on a whim (I think we decided the same day we left on the trip), Karl and I rented a car, loaded up our stuff and drove 33 odd hours from Saskatoon to San Diego (with a few stops in-between for sustenance and one stop in Vegas which was more curiosity than anything else).

I have a lot of fond memories of that con. I met Chris Carter whose shows I have been loving for the last 15 years or so, and even got to ask him a question on the X-Files/Lone Gunmen panel that made all the news sites by the time I got home (I asked him about Millennium, what the future holds for the series and was he truly happy with the 'closure' they gave the character of Frank Black in the New Year X-Files episode, "Millennium"). I met Will Eisner and got to shake his hand and thank him for all of his excellent work over the years, not to mention getting my Spirit Archives Volume 1 autographed. I did some great video interviews including one with Jill Thompson that I especially enjoyed. Nobody has ever seen the video outside of me (although the text for which has been transcribed and published) which I may remedy in the future. I had a chance to talk to Jose Ladronn and Sylvain Despretz (who, when I asked him for a sketch, wanted to clarify that I actually knew who he was since he wasn't really a comic book guy), met Walt Simonson, Sergio Aragones, Bob Burden, Brian Azzarello, Stan Sakai, and Mike Mignola. It was good times.

Outside of the con, Karl and I hung around with friends Kaare Andrews (who was living in town while doing work for Wildstorm), Trevor McCarthy (who taught me how to talk like a New Yorker should I ever find myself in the City), and a retailer out of Edmonton named Kelly (whose last name I shamefully forget). Karl played pool with Howard Simpson, we crashed the Wizard party, and closed the show down with an extra day in SD, spending most of it on the beach to recharge before making the epic trek back home.

At the con I managed to snag a sketch by Duncan Fegredo which remains one of my most prized possessions. Shade the Changing Man was an important series for me during the Peter Milligan run and Fegredo did some of the most amazing painted covers for that book. I loved them all. It was one of the things I looked forward to every month. So, I stood in line and when it was my turn I asked Duncan to either draw me one of two characters: one whose identity escapes me at the moment, and the other was a Mad, Mod, Poet God. He chose the latter and I was ever so happy he did.

I always intended on framing some of the sketches I acquired at SDCC and I never got around to it until tonight when I finally set it up and hung it on the wall. Jen has been pushing to finally start putting up some art or posters or pictures or something to beautify the homestead a bit, so we put up one of my favourite Moonshadow posters and the Shade image, so far. I've attached images of them (taken with my shitty phone, I know) below so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.



So, yeah, I just wanted to share that little tidbit. I'll be framing my Usagi Yojimbo, Scary Godmother, Sylvain Despretz rendition of Maximus from Gladiator and a Mike Mignola Hellboy sketch as soon as I get some matte boards for the frames. Until then, I'll have to enjoy ol' Shade for a while, which shouldn't be hard because the image gives me a lotta joy.

Take care!

mike