Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 283
Like an owl among the ruins
I AM LIBERATED FROM DAILY TRAVEL
I’ve been on tour for over a month. And now and I am excited to be in one place at least for a few weeks at a time. I can’t return to Australia as I sort a visa issue, so I am a vagabond for at least a time. Austin, then Albany, maybe Los Angeles, maybe Jakarta. I’m just excited to be able to unpack at least a little. Leave some clothes on the floor, etc.
Tour was successful and fulfilling. Hope anyone who made it out had a good time.
Now let’s talk comic books.
WHAT’S IN A FACE?
I’m fixated on doing the girl-with-gun genre right. So I spend a lotta time studying action and faces. Because I think once you’ve got a character and a central conceit, aesthetics power the ship.
So when the Youtube algorithm plops this in my lap, I can’t possibly ignore it:
Look at that face. I could get 120 pages from that face. Free this woman! She’s got a an Amazon Prime series to star in!
Unrelated: I’m not an EMT, but I feel like someone should apply pressure to that guy’s wounds.
SPEAKING OF FACES
Maria Llovet is someone I’m always proud to work with. THERE’S NOTHING THERE, a book we did together years ago, surprisingly stands the test of time. A fact I attribute solely to her fantastic art.
When retailers asked for ‘black bag’ variants for GEHENNA, Maria was on a very short list of artist names. The goal with these covers is to keep it simple and focus on the figures (black bag = partial nudity). The sketch:
And the final? Well, you’re gonna have to talk to your retailer when we announce. Keep an eye out.
HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE (again)
A thing I’d like to get off my chest before continuing:
When I review work, I lose work.
This is in contrast to many reviewers who glaze truly terrible comics in the hope it’ll get them work writing terrible comics. For me, there’s stakes to a bad review. Someone will forward this to editors and likely to creators. And I will fall off someone’s Good Guy list as a result. Boo hoo, but I do feel the need to point it out.
Normally I’d discuss this in the Media Consumption portion of the newsletter, but this time it’s a larger conversation.
‘Every’ comic reader knows the EC brand. I tried sorting through the reprint history for this newsletter, but found it too confusing. I wonder if the reprints I grew up on were cherrypicked stories rather than reprinted single issues. I have to imagine that was the case, because the truth -it should be said- is that the original EC books didn’t have a killer hit ratio.
And in the defense of everyone involved, we’re not all British. 2000AD writers have a special aptitude for this type of fulfilling short, but most of us find it difficult to land an effective story under 20 pages. It’s an art unto itself. And difficult, no doubt.
I don’t think anyone attached to EPITAPHS FROM THE ABYSS was really ready for that.
Because these stories are shit.
But don’t kill me just yet, fellow writers. I don’t believe you had any choice in the matter.
A number of my peers where contacted about the EC launch and were explicitly told they were looking for stories with a ‘social’ angle. Meaning social justice. Meaning the 2014-2024 idea of the term. These were to be progressive (read: corporate Dems larping as progressives) politics undergirding polemics that use the EC anthology format as a skin mask.
And, well, that’s what they got.
At least in part. There’s one classic “dead guy gets revenge” story here that is free of any effort at didacticism, leaning instead to a broader, familiar, ‘anti-wanker’ morality. But the others are just pure 2024 Twitter brain. “Why did someone change their mind politically?” Brace yourself. The twist is that the politician who appears mind-controlled is mind-controlled (lobotomized, actually, sorry for the spoiler).
Fuck.
A twist would be that the politician wasn’t mind-controlled at all. They made the change of viewpoint for personal reasons or money, but never had any contact with the mind-controllers. The mind-controllers didn’t have to work their science-magic on the politician. Mighta actually ‘said’ more with that twist.
I don’t mean to hammer these creators, because frankly, I’m sure I could not do any better. If the assignment is “signal your progressive politics to make your compatriots clap, also it’s a story, I guess” I’m fucking failing every time.
This isn’t dogshit because it’s progressive. It’s dogshit because there was a mandate that no good writer can fulfill. Brian Azzarello, whose bona fides are never in question, can’t do it. His contribution here is at least a bit more impressionistic, but it’s still a grueling on-the-nose non-story.
Again, for the people forwarded this newsletter in bad faith: I don’t hate the politics of this book because I disagree with said politics. I don’t think there’s enough substance here to agree or disagree with. I am completely indifferent to this brand of mushy, policy-free, vibe platform. Truly. Unoffended by any of it.
It just fucking sucks.
And it sucks because it HAS TO. And this is what has your man triggered: You set these creators up to do bad work by using a political civ that only allows for narrow and nuance-free sentiments.
My favorite Twilight Zone episode, a thing I reference a lot, is ‘The Old Man In the Cave.’ Go watch it. Spoiler: the question it raises is “if religion is a lie, does that mean there’s nothing worthwhile to pull from it?”
Rod Serling adapted the Henry Slesar story for television. I don’t know Slesar’s convictions, but Serling could be described as agnostic. Maybe a ‘skeptic’ in most regards. Watching the episode, I don’t get any sense that I’m having Serling’s viewpoints blasted against my eyeballs. Instead, I’m wondering the same thing he is. And as a result, I FEEL something.
Do you see the difference? When someone TELLS you something, your brain engages in a primate-style fight/dismiss/clap reflex. When someone ASKS something, you engage the question.
This polemic with pictures isn’t asking any questions. It’s providing pat and partisan answers for people who have stopped asking questions themselves.
And, creatively, there’s no way to win at that.
SORRY I GUESS I GOTTA AUDIT THIS STATEMENT
I’m not the comptroller of punk. Nobody elected me to tell you what is or isn’t an amorphous thing I’m not even sure matters in 2024.
But it is a subject I’m knowledgeable on, so I’ll just drop this opinion here, in the newsletter you opted to subscribe to:
There is something fundamentally confused about the idea you can be counterculture while creating pop-culture. Something very self-deceiving in the idea you can be an Amazon Punk.
Many of my colleagues in comic books convince themselves that they are double agents. Sure they WORK for the largest entertainment corporations on the planet. But REALLY they work to undermine the very pillars of that same industrial complex! Brave souls.
I’m gonna say this again, for anyone still lying to themselves about corporate work: ANYTHING YOU PRODUCE IS APPROVED. WHATEVER YOU CREATE IS IN LINE WITH THEIR VISION. THEY DID NOT ‘MISS’ YOUR SUBVERSION, THEY BELIEVE IT SERVES THEM.
Look, man, not everything you do has to be ‘punk.’ Not everything you do needs to be a statement. We do things because we like to. Or because we like money. Attaching fake meaning and fake protest and fake gravitas to vanity just makes you look delusional.
“Stop the cap!”
MEDIA CONSUMPTION
If you’re gonna get political, why not do it like Angel Cop, wherein a stupid story houses pointed critique of imperialism? While proposing nationalism is the antidote… While slipping into antisemitic conspiracy… Hm. Well. Maybe don’t do it exactly like Angel Cop. But you get my meaning. Also, why can’t we have nice things? Was the open bodysuit really that offensive?
vs
So goddamn dumb. Edits of this type make me feel like someone believes me an idiot child. Also, it seems they scrubbed the “jews are taking over Japan” thing from more recent translations. Not really a translation then, is it? Keep the ugly sentiments, censors. The art is the art.
Oh, I finally got to read some comics. After a month of not wanting to have trades or graphic novels destroyed in the van, I bought some single issues that were destroyed in the van.
Love what Von Buhler is doing with the Minky Woodcock titles. Love that she’s got a protagonist with a ‘name’ that she can build a whole world around via mini series. Love the art, which reminds me of the time that artists with very offbeat styles were still doing genre books rather than SPX navel-gazing. But the execution of the writing lost me and likely loses others. Cool ideas that don’t just collide, they clash. Everything feels abrupt when you have this many ideas in one book. I get that minis are all the market allows some titles, but I think if that’s the cross you’ve gotta bear- then bear it. Pare down the ideas. “Stay focused,” would be my unsolicited advice.
That wasn’t the only Hard Case Crime title I gave a chance this week.
HEAT SEEKER is a spinoff of GUN HONEY. These are titles I am always game to check out, because they are shooting for an elevated exploitation that I think is the future. But, this one let me down. Respectfully, I did not find the interior artist to be up to the job. The fundamentals are there and I hope he proves me wrong on future titles, but this one couldn’t connect.
Moving on, remember MTV Films? They’re still doing their thing, but I wish I could go back to the heyday of really terrible 16-26 age bracket piles of dogshit like THE PERFECT SCORE.
Truly a terrible movie. Every moment of it I became more impressed with how stupid it aspired to be. When people say something “didn’t age well” they typically mean some aspect of it doesn’t map perfectly onto 2024 sensibilities. As if that was ever a goal. It’s a dumb person’s criticism because it advocates for a single context, and that context is “the moment I’m currently living in.” But when I say this movie didn’t age well, I mean it’s just trapped in amber in every regard. It looks, sounds, and feels like 2006. The only real reason to watch it is for a genuine appraisal of that exact moment.
The next movie I watched this week may also be trapped in time, but I’m not old enough to make that call. It’s certainly a type of movie that doesn’t exist anymore.
All Night Long is BREEZY. It’s a dramedy about the middle-class. A man’s life falls apart and it’s processed by the movie and the characters as ‘just a thing that happens.’ There is nothing verklempt here. It’s all another day on Earth for all involved, even as their lives go through upheavals.
And Gene Hackman, man. I know this isn’t normal, but I get choked up when I watch this guy. Every movie that he’s truly great in is like watching home movies of dead relatives. You’re taking in something that you know can’t exist again. He’s so goddamn good. We pretend acting is pure art wherein the primacy of self-expression can edge out greatness. But, no. That’s not true. There is an objective ‘best’ actor. And it’s this guy.
Oh, back to crap. Miller’s Girl. Woof.
I watched this film because I suspected critics were unkind for dumb reasons. I thought the subject matter was too retrograde for them and the reviews reflected some misplaced moralism.
And maybe it was. But on watching this stinkheap, I gotta say reviewers were too generous. This is a bad movie. Period. Maybe interesting in a double-feature with Saltburn, as an exploration of the aesthetics of the moment. But as a narrative? Barf, brother. As a piece of art? What art? Pretentious or stupid: pick one, Miller’s Girl. Can’t bogart all the bad qualities.
I’VE BEEN WARNED
Substack says I’m approaching the character limit! How did that happen? Stay healthy until next time. Make or read or both some comics. Do for self.
Great show in Austin!