Horror Business

Man, this year is just flying by. How can June be approaching already? How can Ropecon and GenCon be right around the corner? How is it was like 50 degrees a couple of days ago and it's supposed to be 90 tomorrow? The hell.

Without really being conscious of it, I've been on a bit of a horror kick lately. It started musically, as I've been frequently listening to Danish psychobilly stalwarts the Nekromantix and the Horror Pops. I finally realized what it is about the Nekromantix I find endearing. It's that their over the top, B-movie lyrics really remind of classic Misfits. I've kicked off almost every day at work for the past week with "Gargoyles Over Copenhagen." The Horror Pops, who share a member with the Nekromantix, also should not be underestimated. "Walk Like a Zombie" is awesome. Their non-conformist anthem "MissFit" is also great. It's got a ska flavor, which is only fitting when they break into the tune from "Our House" by Madness but sing instead, "My fist--in the middle of your face!"

I also just finished reading the first volume of Fall of Cthulhu, a comic by Boom Studios. It takes your basic Lovecraft storyline and updates it to the modern era. Not groundbreaking by any means (which I guess is par for the course with Lovecraftiana), but enjoyable and has a couple of good twists. I've got Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah on deck. This is a new title from Mike "Hellboy" Mignola that takes place in Victorian London and is said to be "reminiscent of Lewis Carroll, H.P. Lovecraft, and Captain Ahab." Sounds good to me.

Nerdy Saturday

Yesterday was pretty nerd-tastic. I took the bus downtown in the afternoon to go to Emerald City Comic Con. I generally far prefer gaming cons to comic and scifi cons because there's a lot more to do. Emerald City had some seminars but nothing like the programming you'd see at a game convention. I was there to do a bit of business and then catch up with a bunch of people I don't see that often. I also ran into some old friends from WotC, as well as some of the newer blood like Rodney Thompson (who contributed to Buccaneers of Freeport, at print now). I picked up volume 2 of the Walking Dead, which I've had trouble finding locally. Then I stopped by the Boom booth to chat with Ross. He's an old gamer and I had sent him a box of GR stuff a while back. He loaded me up with 14 of their graphic novels and that put an end to my shopping, as my bag was stuffed.

Nik and Kate arrived mid-afternoon. Kate was a zombie because she had stayed up half the night doing a sleepover with her friends. I tried to find some things of interest to her but she was too tired and couldn't muster any enthusiasm. After we left the con, Nicole suggested we make a second attempt to see Iron Man. That seemed only too appropriate so we walked over to Pacific Place and had no trouble getting tickets this time. I enjoyed the movie, particularly the performance of Robert Downey Jr., though I wasn't as blown away as some of my friends have been. I understand the impulse for film makers to do origin stories in superhero movies but I wish they'd stop. This one was better than most attempts, but I'd rather they just got on with the superheroics. I also want to see the protagonists as part of a larger superheroic world. In the Superman movies, for example, you never get the sense there are other supers in the world and that's too bad. This is why the scene after the Iron Man credits excited me a lot more than the movie itself. Until the promise of that movie is fulfilled though, my favorite supers film remains X-men 2.

I Guess the Artist Didn't Get the Memo

I was reading Warren Ellis' Crecy, which tells the story of the famed triumph of the English longbow over the chivalry of France in 1346. Early in the comic, Ellis tells us via his narrator, "We shoot or loose an arrow. We do not fire it. Firing is for cannon. Not cannons. Cannon is the plural of cannon."

Later on there is a map of the battlefield that shows how the troops were deployed. The artillery is shown in two spots with the following label: cannons. Whoops. The map of Great Britain is pretty funny though. To the north there is "Fucking Scotland," while to the west Wales is labeled simply "Sheep Shaggers." Did I mention this comic is very English?

PS Samwise Is Dead

I finished the various graphic novels series that I’ve been plowing through over the past few months. Then I paused, undecided on what to read next. Last week Ray recommended a few things to me, including Grant Morrison’s run on the Justice League of America. I hadn’t read a team supers series since I tried (and discarded) Whedon’s run on the X-Men, so I picked up the first three graphic novels to give it a shot. I like Morrison, so I figured I’d like the books and largely I do. What’s really irritating me though is that these stories were apparently forced to maintain the continuity with the characters’ regular comics. This means that major developments occur offscreen and are never really explained. So in between the first graphic novel and the second, Superman is transformed into a being of pure energy who must wear a containment suit. Then between the second and the third Wonder Woman dies. It’s like picking up the Two Towers and finding a footnote from Tolkien that says, “PS Samwise is dead and I won’t tell you how or why it happened.” I’m on the fence on whether or not to continue after #3. Anyone got some good suggestions for other graphic novels to check out?