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mrs-stans · 1 month ago

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The Actor Roundtable: Daniel Craig, Paul Mescal and Colman Domingo on Impostor Syndrome and the Dark Roles Women Love

Adrien Brody, Sebastian Stan and Peter Sarsgaard bond over the pressures of delivering a standout performance: "I had a panic attack every night."

BY SCOTT FEINBERG

Former James Bond Daniel Craig, The Pianist Oscar winner Adrien Brody, Euphoria Emmy winner Colman Domingo, Marvel superhero turned Emmy nominee Sebastian Stan, consummate character actor Peter Sarsgaard and Oscar-nominated heartthrob Paul Mescal range in age from 28 (Mescal) to 56 (Craig); hail from around the world (America, England, Ireland and Romania); and forged very different paths to stardom. But they all share one thing in common: Each gave a standout performance in a 2024 film — or, in Stan’s case, two — that led to them congregating in mid-November at Soho House West Hollywood for THR‘s annual Actor Roundtable.

Their characters are unforgettable: a Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and comes to America (Brody in The Brutalist); a gay American addict in 1950s Mexico (Craig in Queer); an incarceree who finds purpose in art (Domingo in Sing Sing); an angry young man set on destroying the city that betrayed him (Mescal in Gladiator II); a TV exec who oversees live coverage of a terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics (Sarsgaard in September 5); a disfigured actor who undergoes facial reconstructive surgery (Stan in A Different Man); and a striving young Donald Trump (Stan in The Apprentice). So, too, was their conversation.

Let’s talk about how these projects came to you. Daniel, after your Bond chapter — five films over 15 years — how did you wind up hearing from Luca Guadagnino, whom you’d met before any of that?

DANIEL CRAIG I had no plan whatsoever. I was like, “Maybe I’ll never work again.” But there’s a movie I did quite a few years ago called Love Is the Devil, which Luca is a big fan of. I play the reverse role in that movie [the younger man in a gay relationship rather than the older one, as in Queer]. But everybody gets old! Luca wanted to adapt Queer for many years. The rights finally came free not that long ago, and he approached me. I’d have swept the floor for the guy because I think all his movies are exceptional and individual.

Colman, how did you wind up working on a film with a cast comprising mostly nonprofessional actors, 85 percent of whom had been incarcerated at one time at Sing Sing prison and had been through the program that you guys depict in the film?

COLMAN DOMINGO My director, Greg Kwedar, and his co-writer, Clint Bentley, have been volunteer teachers at Sing Sing for years. They kept saying, “If we can capture what we’ve learned from this Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, wouldn’t it be great to do a film about that?” Greg said he put the idea in his drawer and then pulled it out a couple of years later and wrote a quick treatment, and at the end, luckily enough, he wrote down, “Colman Domingo.”

“For years, sometimes I’d bow and get a cab across town and take my bartending shift,” says Domingo.

Paul, nearly a quarter century after Ridley Scott made Gladiator …

CRAIG You weren’t even born, were you?

PAUL MESCAL I was 4. (Laughs.)

… Ridley begins planning to move forward with a sequel and sees you in Normal People?

MESCAL My dad showed me Gladiator when I was 13 — I was obsessed with the battle sequences. But Aftersun and things like that [indie movies], that’s my bread and butter in terms of what I’m drawn to as an actor. But if I was going to make a big film? And Sir Ridley Scott comes asking? Ridley organized a Zoom, which lasted half an hour — he spoke with me for 10 minutes about the arc of the story, 10 minutes about his dog and 10 minutes about Gaelic football, and then it was offered to me. (Laughs.) I was like, “I could go and look at the first film and see what Russell did so excellently.” But that felt like a mistake because that’s not my lane. If Ridley’s entry point to me was something like Normal People and Aftersun and All of Us Strangers, I was keen to, where possible, draw a performance style from those films and try to bring it to something bigger.

Peter, you were working on the television series Presumed Innocent when you first heard about September 5. The director, Tim Fehlbaum, had made two prior, lower-profile films. What convinced you to ask for time off from Presumed Innocent to go and do this, 21 years after acting in Shattered Glass, another great film about journalism?

PETER SARSGAARD Believe it or not, it started at a concert. Sean Penn, who was in the first movie I ever did, Dead Man Walking, was there, and we hung out for most of the evening. At the end he said, “There’s something coming your way, by the way.” I went, “Oh, great.” He produced this movie. So when I met Tim, to be fair, I was already like, “Sean likes this guy.” Then Tim started talking about all this real footage, and I saw Jim McKay, this sports announcer who delivered the terrible news [on Sept. 5, 1972] without making it about himself, and I thought, “That type of person and sincerity has really been lost.” I started thinking it was a really interesting idea to go back to the first time that a live camera ever covered a crisis situation. Then Tim showed me pictures of all the real [original newsroom] equipment that he had, and a lot of the shit worked — it wasn’t greenscreen on the monitors behind us; we were watching actual images from the Olympics and cutting to the real Jim McKay. I’d say the lead is almost Jim McKay. We’re supporting him.

“That type of person and sincerity has really been lost,” Sarsgaard says of Jim McKay, the anchor who covered the events of September 5.

Adrien, your director, Brady Corbet, is 36. His two previous features are nothing on the scale of this one, even if the budget on this one was less than $10 million. What made you want to be a part of it, 22 years after playing another man traumatized by his experience during World War II in The Pianist?

ADRIEN BRODY There’s a real richness to the storytelling, and it speaks to many things historically that are quite relevant today but also very personal to me. My mother is a Hungarian-born photographer and artist, Sylvia Plachy, and has been a beacon for me in all my artistic pursuits. And her hardships and her parents’ — my grandparents’ — hardships of fleeing Budapest in 1956 during the revolution, losing their home and leaving everything behind and escaping under a bed of corn on the back of a truck and eventually immigrating to the United States? They’re obviously not related to my character and his personal struggles, but I felt very fortunate to be able to represent that immigrant experience. We’re all on a quest to find something of meaning that leaves behind something of meaning, and that’s also the quest of my character, as an architect. Brady is also very much like László. I often just look at my directors and try to channel them. That’s my trick. (Laughs.)

Brody, the youngest actor to win a best actor Oscar, says that experience is the ultimate teacher: “You do not listen until you fail or until it really hurts.”

Sebastian, Donald Trump is probably the most famous — and most imitated — person in the world, so I imagine it might have been a little intimidating to be asked to join the long line of people who have portrayed him.

SEBASTIAN STAN So much of what Adrien just said resonated for me in terms of wanting to be part of something that stands the test of time. I had a personal thing with the American dream because I came to this country from Romania when I was 12, and my father helped people escape illegally. I had heard all about the American dream and have been trying to this day to figure out what this dream is and what it gives us and what it takes away. That overrode any sort of fear about doing it because it was him. I played this little game with myself where I crossed out the names [of the characters], and there was still a Michael Corleone sort of story. And here was this filmmaker [Ali Abbasi] who was European, who’d fled Iran, who’s fearless and whose last film was all about his previous country, coming into this with a fresh perspective, not wanting to play for any team, just removing all judgment. I thought, “Can we just try to find out who the hell this person [Trump] is? What’s beneath this character?” And when you peel back the layers, you get to the core of a powerless child who has been enacting a sort of vendetta of revenge that we’ve all been subjected to, to no end. I think that we as artists, as actors, have to keep reflecting the times that we’re in as best as we can, no matter how ugly they are.

For Sebastian, there were two big-swing projects this year, the other being A Different Man.

BRODY Double feature. That’s so impressive.

STAN It’ll never happen again. It was thanks to the strike.

Stan stars in two Oscar contenders, The Apprentice and A Different Man. “It’ll never happen again,” he says. “It was thanks to the strike.”

Sebastian, your character in that film has neurofibromatosis, a form of facial disfigurement, and you were only willing to play him because your director and co-star wanted you to, right?

STAN With this one, I definitely feel like I took a little bit of what Adrien said about playing your director because [director Aaron Schimberg] also wrote it, and it’s so much about his experience of being a disfigured man. Sometimes I was like, “I’ll just copy.” But he’s been trying to figure out how he can get us to see a movie that represents this disability, and he was finding it very difficult. In his previous film, he hired Adam [Pearson, an actor who has neurofibromatosis] to be in it, and he got backlash because people were saying he was exploiting Adam, so the movie didn’t get seen. But if he was casting an able-bodied actor to play a disabled person, then he’s not really representing, and nothing happens. So he found a way with this movie of doing both.

These performances were ballsy. At what point did you feel most in danger of failing?

CRAIG Every day I was thinking, “This is all failing. Where is this going?” From the moment I got there in the morning until the moment I’d leave at the end of the day, it was like, “What the fuck?”

DOMINGO I was working with men who had the lived experience of being incarcerated, and every day I was like, “I don’t want to be a fraud.”

SARSGAARD If you play a real person — Nixon or somebody like that — it requires a different level of acting. When you play a Roone Arledge, nobody cares [because he’s not instantly recognizable]. You can just take whatever you want from the person. (To Stan) To succeed at what you did [playing Trump] is a whole other level.

STAN I was having panic attacks every night. There was not enough time to gain weight, and the prosthetics test failed badly, so I was fucked. And not only that, but the director, two weeks out, goes, “Originally, I was going to cast a woman to play Trump.”

BRODY That’s reassuring.

STAN “Why are you fucking telling me this two weeks before?! I’m going to die.”

Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice and A Different Man.

Most of you have played recognizable people at some point. What makes the difference between an impersonation and a performance?

DOMINGO You’ve got to find their soul. You’ve got to go deeper. When I played Bayard Rustin [in 2023’s Rustin], I had teeth knocked out and an accent and a wig, but I was like, “I can’t let that be the performance.” You’re required to find their soul.

MESCAL Sometimes those things help though, right?

DOMINGO Yeah. The physical helps.

BRODY You have a responsibility to represent the physicality and something that’s familiar.

STAN I always think of that Apollo 13 scene when they dump all the stuff on the table and they take a triangle and a circle and they’re like, “You’ve got to take this and make it fit into that.” With real people, you have targets — you know where you’re aiming.

SARSGAARD Well, you guys [Stan and Jeremy Strong, who played Roy Cohn in The Apprentice] anchored each other. You fed back to the other person, “This is who we are.”

DOMINGO (To Stan) When I watched what you did, I thought, “Oh, he’s taken away any judgment [of Trump].” I thought that was exceptional because everyone has an opinion about him, but you’re like, “No, I’m going to do the soul work.”

STAN Thank you. I always think of the great [acting coach] Larry Moss. The Intent to Live was a big book for me, about “everyone has a big emotional need.” Is it to be loved? Is it to be heard? Is it for approval? I mean, everything for Trump, from my perspective, is about power. It’s, “I want to be the most powerful person in the world.”

Mescal was 4 years old when Gladiator was released: “This is a mad experience for me, just to clarify. I’m 28 years of age.”

You’ve all worked in the theater — in fact, Paul, you’re soon doing A Streetcar Named Desire off-Broadway. Is there something about being onstage that makes you a better screen actor?

MESCAL Yeah, I think so. Somebody said to me that film is a director’s medium — they have the canvas and you’re the paint — but stage is very much a writer’s and an actor’s medium. Once previews are over, that’s your stage, that’s where you go and play. More broadly, something like Streetcar obviously has a very famous performance history, as does something like Gladiator II. Once I’d been cast in Streetcar, I was like, “I can never go back and look at the film until the dust has settled on it all.” And being onstage, you’re acting in a wide shot the whole time — there’s no hiding, there’s no going again. On a Ridley set, a lot of it feels theatrical because it’s not wide shot then tight coverage then medium shot; it’s all happening in one go.

He has a zillion cameras going at once?

MESCAL It depends. In the scenes in the cell, he would get as many cameras in there as possible — maybe he’d get to five, trying to cram a sixth in the door. Whereas when you’re shooting the battle scenes, it’s 12.

SARSGAARD Twelve?! (Laughs.)

MESCAL Twelve cameras, easy. Camera operators dressed up in costume like Roman soldiers.

DOMINGO Really?! That’s fantastic. (Laughs.)

MESCAL So you save time with the amount of takes that you’re going to do because the coverage is there. But you also gain a sense of freedom because continuity goes out the window.

Daniel, you’ve often returned to the stage in New York. For some of the more theatrical characters that you’ve played onscreen, like Benoit Blanc, I imagine that’s helpful?

CRAIG The first movie job I ever did, I went on the set and the director kept saying to me [complimenting him], “God, you’re so still!” I was like [to myself], “Because I’m terrified!” On the stage, because I’d been doing that for so long, there was just the freedom to be. I didn’t go into film knowing how to do that. That I had to learn — and I’m still learning to this day how to be as free on film as I can be on the stage.

“Oh, it doesn’t go away,” says the Bond actor on imposter syndrome. “But I think as soon as you think you can do it, you can’t.”

A lot of actors are surely thinking about you all, “They are exactly where I want to be.” But that hasn’t always been the case. Colman, your story of the past 10 years is so inspiring. You were almost ready to hang it up, right?

DOMINGO Not almost. Full-out.

You acted in the musical The Scottsboro Boys on Broadway and got a Tony nomination, then you acted in it again on the West End and got an Olivier nomination, and then you came back to the U.S. and …

DOMINGO I was a journeyman actor for years. Sometimes in the same night, I’d bow and then get a cab across town and take my bartending shift — I couldn’t give it up because I was getting $400 a week. That had been going on for many years — I’ve been working for about 34 years now. I came back to New York and was really disheartened because I was still going in for under-fives [auditioning for parts of less than five minutes of screen time], and I just thought, “My talent is not being used. And I don’t want to be bitter about it.” Because you start to feel a little bitterness. After feeling disrespected in an audition, I’d take the sides and put them in the trash before I walked out. Then there was a series of auditions and no’s — like eight no’s in one week — and one just broke me. It seemed perfect for me. The casting director and everyone said it was perfect. I went and met with the director and the producers. And then there was the most insane reason why I didn’t get it. [Domingo has previously said that the audition was for Boardwalk Empire and he was told that the part required a Black actor with lighter skin than his.] I pretty much collapsed in the gym [upon being told that]. I was crying and thought, “This is going to kill me. I have to leave before it kills me.” And right when I said, “That’s enough,” a friend said, “Hey, my managers have been wanting to meet with you.” I said, “No, I’m good. I just dropped my manager, and I’m about to drop my agent and do something else.” He said, “Just meet with them.” I did. Honestly, I felt like it was the worst meeting I’d ever had because I went in there with my arms folded and said, “I know myself. I don’t fit in certain boxes. I know what you see is different, but I do all these different things. But I don’t think that there’s a place for me in this business.” They said, “Give us six months and we’ll make some changes together.” My first two auditions after that were for a Baz Luhrmann series and for Fear the Walking Dead on AMC. I thought, “Fear the Walking Dead? I don’t do things like that.” But then they sent me this monologue that felt like I was doing Richard III, and I thought, “This is beautiful.” Television was starting to change, and I felt like there was a place for me. I booked both jobs — which was odd to me because I hadn’t been booking anything, and those were off of self-tapes — and that gave me a new footing in the industry. I want to be useful in this practice of being an artist. I think what we do at our best is we’re in service. This is a service job. And I want to be in service to this work. (Chokes up with emotion.) I’m glad I stuck around.

We’re sitting here talking during the weird circus that is known as awards season. Some of you have been through this before. Adrien, 22 years ago you went through it with The Pianist, and at 29 you became — and to this day remain — the youngest person ever to win the best actor Oscar. What do you know now that you wish you knew then?

BRODY Oh, that’s a lovely question. No one’s ever asked that. I don’t “wish I knew” because you can’t. You only learn things through experience. CRAIG You wouldn’t listen. My younger self just wouldn’t listen. He’d be like, “Whatever. Blah, blah, blah.”

BRODY It’s absolutely true. You do not listen until you fail or until it really hurts. For a shift to occur, there has to be enlightenment. Enlightenment comes oftentimes through suffering or hardships. I’ve had a very blessed life and career, but it’s never been easy. The thing to know is there are many chapters. To be at this table, both physically and metaphorically, is a triumph, honestly. And there are wonderful, positive career bonuses from accolades. But I think at the end of the day, everybody at this table will tell you that it’s the work — the experience of getting it and making it and enduring it and feeling great about the accomplishment of leaving it — that is the beauty, the joy. I’d been acting professionally for 17 years before that [Oscar]. To a lot of people, I was an overnight success, but I’d been kicking around, paying dues. And it was a remarkable thing, but it was kind of jarring.

MESCAL This is a mad experience for me, just to clarify. I’m 28 years of age. CRAIG Yeah. Why are you here? (Laughs.)

MESCAL When I was in drama school, I became hyperfixated on watching actors that I really admired talk about the work that they do. So I’m sitting here and I’m like, “What the fuck is going on?” For me, anyway, there’s this latent imposter syndrome.

CRAIG Oh, it doesn’t go away. I walk on the set thinking someone’s going to go, “Bluff.” It’s always there, that self-doubt. But I think as soon as you think you can do it, you can’t.

Peter, you once said that after playing a rapist and murderer in Boys Don’t Cry, you were disturbed to find that out in the real world, you got more female attention than ever before.

SARSGAARD Why did I say that? Oh my God. Yeah, that was true.

That’s obviously an unexpected response to your work. What have you all noticed about the way people interact with you in the aftermath of seeing these performances?

MESCAL People think I’m a tough guy. We had a premiere in Dublin, and we were walking past the pub, and there were these Irish lads, and for the first time ever, they were like, “Go on, the Glad [as in Gladiator]! Just walk!”

BRODY No one has seen this movie yet. But it’s funny, people will say, “My mom really likes you.”

DOMINGO Oh my God. Isn’t that the wildest thing? “So you don’t, right?”

What would you be doing today if you had not become an actor?

SARSGAARD I really like being around young people, and I’ve had some experiences with teaching, so I can imagine that route.

STAN Yeah, maybe something with young people because that’s always going to humble you.

CRAIG Serving cocktails on the QE2. DOMINGO I wanted to be a chef. I still cook as an amateur — I love food. MESCAL Something that would enable me to play Gaelic football. BRODY I used to paint and draw before I was acting, and I loved that. I rediscovered it later when I put down acting for some time.

Which living actor with whom you’ve not worked before would you most like to work with?

SARSGAARD It’s going to sound schmaltzy, but I’ve never acted with my wife [Maggie Gyllenhaal] in a movie. We did a film together — when we first met, I got her a part in this movie that I was doing, and she did one scene where we made love. But then the whole film was actually out of focus — we shot it for nine weeks — and the whole film was gone. MESCAL No way. DOMINGO What?! BRODY Oh my God, that’s horrible. MESCAL Michelle Williams. BRODY Robert De Niro. STAN Cate Blanchett. CRAIG All you guys. DOMINGO Adrien Brody. BRODY Brother, that can happen!

#THR #Actors Round Table #Sebastian Stan #Colman Domingo #Daniel Craig #Paul Mescal #Peter Sarsgaard #Adrien Brody #The Hollywood Reporter #THR Actors Round Table #The Apprentice #A Different Man #Sing Sing #Queer #Gladiator II #September 5 #The Brutalist #mrs-stans

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f1archives · 29 days ago

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George Russell in the pit lane during testing - 10/12/24 (📷 James Gasperotti)

#george russell #gr63 merc #mercedes #formula 1 #f1 #testing #10/12/24

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pearblossomrain · 2 months ago

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final personal race recap of 2024 time!

first of all before everything flew off, what the Fuck was qualifying. hamilton out in q1, leclerc out in q2 with a 10 PLACE GRID PENALTY, bottas starting p9 in a freaking sauber and hulkenberg qualifying p4 (but he got penalized and dropped 3 places)......and wdym leclerc had FOOD POISONING TOO....does this man's bad luck never cease 😭😭

[cut for length bc sadly i'm a yapper™️]

● when they're all lining up and during the formation lap a bunch of drivers leaving the grid like colapinto and bottas are already saying their goodbyes and im like oh my god i dont go here but this is Emotional (and especially so given that later on....)

● anyways right from lap 1 on turn ONE verstappen goes right into piastri?? both get booted down the ranks and perez immediately spins out and retires right after that mess where kmag and leclerc both somehow jump up like a whole bunch of places.

● piastri hits colapinto! and it turns out that bottas also hit perez previously and all 3 plus verstappen for hitting piastri get penalties Whoops. i heard leclerc shrieking "WOOOOH" on the radio 😂 after leaping up to p8 from p19 which mad respect and then he goes and gains another place right after that!

● albon and zhou both get noted for false starts, and speaking of which tsunoda had a NASTY start with no clutch and the car clearly having issues starting, dropping him way down the grid. on the other end leclerc and hamilton and rapidly going up the ranks with a few midfielders pitting almost as soon as the window is open.

● pits! and alpine decided to pit pierre gasly when he's near the top?? questions but sure alright if that works 😭 he went from mediums to hards like almost everyone else except hamilton who started on hards and soon they all start pitting except vcarb who stick it out and hear one of the most anguished "why?!" i have ever heard from tsunoda.

● it doesn't end there for that team though after they finally pit, lawson says "the wheels aren't on!" which had me squinting at my screen trying to figure out what the hell he meant by that (like. is a wheel gonna end up in the middle of the track??) and he's gotta pit again, leclerc overtakes and is up to p3 in the pit lane, and colapinto is out?? i assumed he had sustained damage from earlier but they say it's a power issue which. okay fair enough because the car is running on $5, duct tape and the dreams of james vowles. 😭😭 that poor garage!

● verstappen and piastri both serve their respective penalties in the pits and oh my god bottas goes right into kmag?? whole bunch of debris on the track (that hamilton calls for a safety car or some action for) and bottas is out?? that is 2 cars out of their final race in formula 1 (though admittedly, colapinto could fight to return from f2) which is honestly really sad....

● the gap between norris and sainz (who has managed to cling onto p2 until now) kept on growing and growing with hamilton leaping tf up to p5 behind russell while the 2 penalty servers have to make up a whole bunch of places 😭😭

● haas puts magnussen on softs after the collision with bottas? i think they're scrapping for points in the bottom half of the constructors' but i'm not sure how close the gap there is. sainz says he ran over some debris (perhaps from said collision?) and i can see the mechanics coming out but they go back in and he continues. (i feel like it's not a race without the ferrari mechanics coming out and going back in without a pit stop)

● the mercedes radio told hamilton "you can do it" after he's told he has a 14s gap with his teammate and to he honest, i thought this was pure delusion because we almost had only 10 laps left but the madman DID IT?! in the split seconds i took to look at the top 3 passing the checkered flag, he miraculously managed to pass russell after fighting for quite a while at the end.

• speaking of radios the gaps between the top 3 are Nasty with sainz 7s behind norris and leclerc a whole 21s behind his teammate which, when leclerc asks and is told about the 7s gap, he simply lets out one f-bomb. valid considering ferrari would have clinched the wcc with just a 1-3 finish (assuming piastri did not finish in the pts at this time)

● final lap!! and lawson's car is stopped out on the track?? yellow flags are hence brought out but too late as the leaders cross the checkered flag! that's a constructors' for mclaren, a 2nd in the wdc and a win for norris, a final p2 for sainz in ferrari who have a 2nd in the wcc, plus a p3 and a 3rd in the wdc for leclerc. (and also a 3rd in wcc for red bull but i honestly forgot about that.)

● p6 for gasly and alpine! they suddenly woke tf up in the last few races

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conradscrime · 2 months ago

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Ronald Gene Simmons' Christmas Murders

December 07, 2024

Ronald Gene Simmons Sr. was born on July 15, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois. In 1957, Simmons dropped out of school and joined the U.S. Navy, stationed in Washington where he met his wife, Bersabe Rebecca "Becky" Ulibarri, on July 9, 1960.

Between this time and 1978, the couple had 7 children together. Simmons left the Navy in 1963, and by 1965 had joined the U.S. Air Force. Simmons won many awards during his military career.

On April 3, 1981, Simmons was investigated for allegedly having a child with his 17-year-old daughter, Sheila, because he was sexually abusing her. Simmons did not want to be arrested so fled to Arkansas with his family later that year from New Mexico.

The family had a 13 acre piece of land that they would call, "Mockingbird Hill." The home did not have a telephone or indoor plumbing, and had a private fence built around it. Because of no plumbing, Simmons got his family to dig 3 cesspits, which he would later dispose bodies into.

Simmons worked a lot of random jobs during this time, and even quit a position at Woodline Motor Freight after he had multiple reports of sexual advances he was committing.

By the time the killings happened, two of Simmons older children had already moved out, including Sheila, and had families of their own.

Before Christmas 1987, Simmons decided to kill his entire family. On December 22, Simmons killed his wife Rebecca and oldest son Gene, by bludgeoning them with a crowbar and shooting them. He then strangled his 3-year-old granddaughter, Barbara.

Simmons dumped the bodies into one of the cesspits and waited for his other children to return home from school. When the children arrived home, Simmons told them he had presents for them but wanted to give them one at a time. He killed 17-year-old Loretta by strangling her and held her under the water in a rain barrel. His other children, Eddy, Marianne, and Becky were then killed the same way, all of their bodies going into the cesspit.

On December 26, 1987, Simmons two older children arrived home as he had invited them over for the holidays. Simmons then killed his son Billy and his wife, Renata, by shooting them. He then strangled and drowned their 20-month-old son, Trae. Simmons then shot his daughter Sheila, and her husband, Dennis McNulty.

Simmons then strangled his child by Sheila, 7-year-old Sylvia Gail, and then his 21-month-old grandson Michael.

He laid their bodies in neat rows in the lounge, with all of them covered by coats except for Sheila's, who had been covered with their best tablecloth. Trae and Michael's bodies were wrapped in plastic and put in abandoned cars at the end of the lane.

Simmons then drove to a Sears store where he picked up Christmas gifts he had ordered for his family. He went out for a drink at the local bar that night, before returning home to watch tv and drink beer.

On the morning of December 28, 1987, Simmons drove to Walmart where he purchased another firearm. His first target was the law firm where he had previously met a secretary named Kathy Cribbins Kendrick.

Simmons had been infatuated with her but she had rejected him. He walked into the office and shot her. He then went to an oil company office, intending to shoot the owner, Russell "Rusty" Taylor. Russell had also owned the Mini Mart where Simmons resigned. He shot and wounded Taylor, and killed another man, James David Chaffin, who was a total stranger to Simmons. Another employee was also shot at but the bullet missed.

Simmons drove to the Mini Mart where he shot wounded two other people. His final target was his former supervisor, which he shot twice wounding her. He then ordered one of the employees to call the police.

When police arrived, Simmons handed over his gun and surrendered without resistance. Simmons killed two people and injured four others during his rampage.

Simmons underwent psychiatric evaluation where he was found fit to stand trial. He was found guilty on May 12, 1988, for the murders of Kendrick and Chaffin. He was then on trial for the murders of his 14 family members and found guilty on February 10, 1989. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

As a potential motive, a family friend claimed that Simmon's wife, Rebecca, had been saving up money to divorce Simmons when the killings happened. During the trial, Simmons actually had to be removed at one point for punching the prosecutor, John Bynum, and trying to get a deputy's handgun, after Bynum introduced a letter between Simmons and Sheila.

The letter stated that Simmons was expressing anger that Sheila told people he was the father of her child, and he would see her in Hell. Simmons refused to appeal his death sentence.

Simmons life was constantly threatened in prison, and he had to be removed from other prisoners. This was due to him refusing to appeal his death sentence -- the others believed he was damaging their own chances of beating their sentences.

On June 25, 1990, Simmons died from lethal injection. None of his surviving relatives would claim the body, and he was buried in a potter's field in Lincoln County, Arkansas.

#true crime #crime #unsolved mysteries #unsolved #homicide #murder #unsolved case #solved #unsolved murder #mystery #family #masscare #arkansas #christmas

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mysteriouslyjovialcolor · 3 months ago

Text

Austria 2018

-Shortest circuit of the season

-Mercedes have won here since 2014! And have a front row lockout again!

-Championship battle between Seb and Lewis again

-Very random but the graphics are better this season

-Ooh Valterri has pole!

-Oh? Daniel’s 29th birthday? Nice!

-Carlos is in Renault!

-Pfft apparently Ocon and Gasly are already clashing (they’re not even on the same team yet)

-Charles Leclerc is here this season!!!

-I’m looking forward to seeing his old races

-Fernando starting from the pit lane (Maybe I’ll actually see someone start from there this time)

-“Lance Stroll who is a traditionally very fast starter” Is it the Aston Martin that sucks then?

-“Only 2 drivers have ever won a Grand Prix on their birthday” who??

-George Russell!!!!

-Ohmygod Kimi had such a good start and then he lost it!!

-Both the Ferraris going wide

-Can I root for Nico having a good race this time or is that a lost cause?

-Charles going up 3 places 👏👏

-Oh no he went wide! He’s p19 now! (I may have jinxed him 🫣)

-Toto’s reactions are so emphatic

-Not me focusing more on Charles moving from p19 to p17 than focusing on whatever is happening out in the front

-“Nico Hulkenburg in trouble I think there” NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! JUST WHY!

-I hate this Renault

-Sigh, at least let Sainz pick up a point or two

-Oh no! Valterri retiring too??

-I’m sensing that the cars did not in fact get better in 2018

-Stacking pit stops for one team looks very cool

-Yay Sainz in points

-New season and still no radio subtitles, the disappointment is real

-Ricciardo p3!! Red Bull 2-3!!

-Kimi locked up so many times this race

-The Williams and Sauber look so similar

-Fred Vasseur is Sauber’s team principal? No wonder Charles works well with him now, he basically debuted under him

-Lewis running out of power too?

-Just learnt about blistering in real time. Really wish I didn’t learn about that through Daniel Ricciardo’s tires

-Sainz has dropped to p17, my curse on Renault worked a little too well (It was supposed to avoid you Carlos, I’m sorry)

-I’m going to be so sad if Daniel loses p2 on his birthday

-Big sigh

-That was a smooth overtake by Vettel on Hamilton

-Ferrari 2-3 now

-James Vowles: “Lewis, sorry. I have thrown away the win today but you can still go back up there, I believe in you”

-If I was Lewis I would so curse the man out

-Oh come on, let the Ferraris race

-I’m going to be so annoyed if the team just makes them swap positions without letting them fight

-“What about Max Verstappen?” “Is he still in the race?” lol as he leads 7 seconds ahead

-Oh Charles in p13

-p12

-“I’m feeling good so don’t worry” At least Max is having a good day

-Haas is having a good day too, which is really weird to say, but I hope they have a good day at COTA 2024 too

-Oh for god’s sake, Red Bull was supposed to have a better car this season, why is Daniel out rn, on his birthday too

-At least Charles is in the points now

-“We are not okay, we are not okay” I see the Toro Rosso has not improved at all

-From a Mercedes 1-2 to a Red Bull 1-2. If Ferrari manage to overtake Max, it would be a Ferrari 1-2.

-That would be a crazy race run

-“Unless, if the two Ferraris and Red Bull blow their tires up now, Hamilton might still have a chance here” Now that’s a tall order

-Nice move there from Checo

-Woah cars up to p5 have been lapped

-Oh no Charles out of the points again

-* gasp * Lewis actually lost power! No way!

-Who put a curse on the Mercedes this race??

-My only consolation, once again, is that this means Charles is back in the points

-p9!

-“They’re looking maybe for some divine inspiration to help Max Verstappen to win the race here” yes me too

-“I think he should keep that rear tire if he wins this Grand Prix, make a coffee table out of it”

“Kiss it for good luck maybe”

Oh these guys think they’re so funny

-One more lap, ohmygod this is stressful, I can’t believe I’m worrying about tires, what has life come to

-Come on come on come on

-Let’s go Max!!!!!

“Aah this is amazing, in front of all those fans, in the Red Bull ring, with a Red Bull” yesss let’s go!

-Aww the mechanics just pulling him into a group hug

“Your fourth Red Bull victory. It felt like your first now with Kimi Raikkonen chasing you down till the last lap” That’s such a good call back

-The last time Mercedes had a double mechanical retirement was in 1955- that’s crazy. They really did get cursed.

-They’re all so cute on the podium

-Adorable fr

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f0point5 · 3 months ago

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Okay, I had to work during most of the race which was super unfortunate and I didn't really get to watch the post race interviews until just now and boy..... people talk about media literacy but completely disregard one of Lando's interviews.

Lando Norris. I almost feel like something happened between Mexico and Brazil because his attitude just seemed off. Arguing about positions in the sprint, getting snippy with the reporter asking about Max and the Championship for the millionth time and then everything that was the post race interviews. The clip thats going around with talent and luck IS taken out of context because he was referring to pitting under the red flag. HOWEVER, I wouldn't have used talent or luck but rather say they had a better strategy than we did and it paid off. Lando was the one begging on the radios to pit laps before he did and now he's frustrated that everyone else got a free pit stop. They took a gamble when they pit and it didn't work. Them be the breaks. Lando saying that "they didn't do anything wrong" and "I don't care what people have to say" You do care and thats fine. But just admit that McLaren had a bad strategy. It's fine. That happens to everyone. Then he's complaining that no one agrees with the rule about being able to change your tires under a red flag unless it benefits them. Lando - didn't you win your first GP under similar circumstances with a free pit? Pot meet Kettle. Now in a DIFFERENT interview Lando clearly states that George deserved the win over anyone else and that yes Max drove well but he got a bit lucky. Luck is will always be involved with racing and to lean so heavily into that luck was a big factor in Max's win is a little cringe. Lando did admit he made mistakes but his whole vibe was VERY defensive and just off putting. Get this man PR training and an agent ASAP. Regardless - this man shouldn't be receiving any sort of hate or death threats - no driver should be.

George Russell. George was frustrated and rightly so. You can clearly see in his radio messages he was fighting to stay out to pit under the red flag but was told to come in early by his pit lane which ultimate screwed him over. He just expressed his frustration with the bad strategy call. A much different vibe than Lando.

I feel like it physically pained Buxton to say race winner Max Verstappen 🤣 It was also so frustrating yet slightly funny watching them have to compliment Max after his dominate performance after all the shit they were talking about him in previous weeks.

James Hinchcliffe described it perfectly "Some teams made the right calls at the right time" McLaren and Lando's pit stop was not it.

Buxton, when talking about all the infringements and penalties in regards to the aborted start, said Rules are Rules and Lando CLEARLY broke the aborted start procedure yet he ONLY got a fine and reprimand.... okay we all know if it was Max he would have gotten something worse except Max actually knows the rules so he wouldn't have done it in the first place.

Buxton again saying that it was a good thing the race started earlier with the amount of meetings with drivers they have (for the first time in a while Max wasn't involved 🤣)

Alpine deserves SO much praise. Seeing that whole garage, Pierre and Estie so happy was just just so heartwarming.

I also cannot stop smiling from how happy Max was with this race win. It looked near impossible with how quali went. But boy did he use every piece of luck and talent and pure spite to get that RB20 to P1. 17 Fastest laps to the point where GP was like Max cut it out you've made your point 🤣 It feels like such weight off the shoulders and relief after the last few races. Fingers crossed this momentum can keep up the last 3 races.

I hate McLarens hats. Lol they look like visors with the placement of the black coloring ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apparently, Williams doesn't have enough parts to fix the cars by Vegas. I don't have a ton of information on this but I saw this briefly on a TikTok from someone who has an in at Williams.

Thank you for letting me rant and getting all that off my chest.

Oh I could talk all dayyyy about those Lando interviews and I did. I think I’ve talked that whole thing to death lol but I just need to reiterate…Red Bull and Alpine made a calculated decision to wait for a red flag. Are they lucky it worked out? Yes. But they made a gamble, they weren’t just sitting there waiting for the race to come to them.

McLaren and Merc made bad calls. And I will introduce my latest evidence of this - they both put on new inters? When the rain was clearly increasing? So they gambled on not having to come back for full wets…what the fuck kind of move was that when Max said you could pretty much drive a jet ski in the puddles on the camber? So not only did they pit and lose track position, if they thought the red flag wasn’t coming surely they should have at least gambled in wet tyres? Sorry but I think they shit the bed there. And what reallyyyy gets my goat about it is that Lucky Lando over there wanted to pit earlier. George at least didn’t want to come in at all but Lando was out there on lap 10 wanting to come in and even the engineers were perplexed. Sir, you weren’t unlucky you were just wrong.

I said I wasn’t going to rant about it again but I couldn’t stop myself because wow those comments were stupid 😂

I don’t know what happened to him after Mexico, he just cracked like an egg. Idk if it was the moment he realised the WDC wasn’t happening or what but he turned up in the paddock like “I don’t care don’t even talk to me who is Max don’t know him WDC never heard of her”. Fair enough bro I get it you’re bored of the questions and I understand why he feels he needs to defend himself but him saying Max has to change his driving like Lando what are you smoking? 3x WDC has to change his driving style because boy with fast car says so? Don’t make me laugh. It’s unfortunate because he came back from autumn break in such a good place and that seems to have evaporated, which is why I say, the paddock is not a place that brings out his most likeable qualities.

If I had to guess, I think Mexico really took him out of it a bit. He said the moment with Max was a “momentum killer” and I think he meant for more than the race. I think he realised that unless he is able to avoid Max entirely till Abu Dhabi he’s a bit fucked because Max will burn every single bridge in pursuit of that championship. I don’t think Lando can comprehend that level of ruthlessness and I think he was like “well wtf can I do now because if I get within 100m of him I’m risking a DNF”. He seemed annoyed but also quite hopeless even on Thursday. He did not seem like he had any confidence in the championship battle after Mexico.

Will Buxton and Damon Hill having to watch that drive…I hope it burnedddd. Damon in the post race with Christian…man was seething. It was like all his Schumacher trauma was playing like a film reel in his head. they’re so unnerved by him. It is delicious.

The Baguettes brought so much to the podium. Those guys in the best cars, they get on the podium and all they’re thinking is they didn’t win, and they’re doing maths in their head for points totals. It was such a refreshing change to see two guys on the podium who were nothing but overjoyed to be there. And the fact that they were so happy to do it together was so touching. You can feel that there is almost like a familial bond between them - complicated but inescapable. Also having them in the cool-down really drove home that the vibes have been pretty off in there for a long time.

Max cooked, fished out, and served in that race. The unadulterated rage simmering in him after that qualifying did something to him. And shoutout to GP because the way he spoke to Max through the race was so spot on. He knew what he needed to hear the whole time, it was like hive mind. Their relationship is something so special. Hearing GP clap over the radio and him betting with Helmut on Max making the podium, it’s too cute. I was worried as hell when he kept banging in those fastest laps though. I was like he’s going to cook the engine or spin to win like in Hungary 22 😭 but as always he knew his limits.

Mclaren’s hats looked better with the numbers in blue. Black is too harsh on that orange and it always looks like a Halloween thing.

Not surprised about Williams. I wonder what kind of conversations they’re having about Albon because since Colapinto arrived Alex has been on fraud watch and I don’t think he likes having a good teammate. Will be interesting to see what happens when sainz arrives

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fanfictionfaberrycentral · 3 months ago

Text

Good Luck, Babe by Fyonah_MacNally

Fandoms:Supergirl (TV 2015)

Teen And Up Audiences

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings

No category

Complete Work

29 Oct 2024

Tags

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor

Alex Danvers/Kelly Olsen

Samantha "Sam" Arias/Andrea Rojas

Querl Dox/Nia Nal

Lucy Lane/James "Jimmy" Olsen

Lena Luthor

Kara Danvers

Alex Danvers

Kelly Olsen (Supergirl TV 2015)

Samantha "Sam" Arias

Andrea Rojas

Nia Nal

Querl Dox

Lucy Lane (DCU)

James "Jimmy" Olsen

Jack Spheer

Russell Rogers

Song: Good Luck Babe! (Chappell Roan)

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

Alternate Universe - No Powers

Ghost of Girlfriends Past

i told you so

You can say that we are nothing

but you know the truth

Summary

“Chiquita, are you okay?” Andrea whispers, startling Lena from her thoughts as the hostess seats them at their table. “I know that look, you’re in your head. You’re not usually this contemplative when we go out. Are you and your cariño fighting? Did she eat the last slice of cheesecake again?” Both of them glance over at their girlfriends laughing with each other. “No, no. Not at all. We’re better than ever, actually. I guess I’m just lost in my thoughts. We’ve been listening to Chappell Roan all week to get ready for the concert.” She rolls her eyes at the rest of their friends giggling like children. “You know where 'Good Luck, Babe' takes me.” “Indeed, I do.” Andrea scoffs before smiling and dragging Lena to the two chairs between their girlfriends. “Such a great song isn’t it? Last I heard, she is married to the guy, what was his name…James? Isn’t that the one she dated when you two split? Or, I guess the one she cheated on you with? Have you heard anything about her?”

Series

Part 11 of Mac's One Shots

Language: English Words: 3,257 Chapters: 1/1 Comments: 12 Kudos: 34 Bookmarks: 2 Hits: 455

#Aoo #Supercorp #new

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missluthorwillseeyounow · 2 years ago

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I still find it funny how incestuously interconnected the Superfriends and the Superfriend-adjacent characters are.

I mean, you have Kara and Lena (who, let's face it, are always two seconds from either eyefucking or heart-eyeing whenever they're within a hundred feet of each other). Kara and Lena are best friends. Kara dated James. Lena also dated James. Kara dated Mon-El. Lena was engaged to Mon-El for like five seconds. James's sister Kelly is married to Kara's sister Alex. James was also best friends with Kara's cousin Clark, who is married to Lois Lane, whose sister Lucy also dated James. Kara's cousin Clark was also best friends with Lena's brother Lex. Lena's brother Lex tried to kill Kara's cousin Clark, not to mention Lois Lane, and Kara, and Lena, and James, and pretty much everyone in the universe and several others beyond to boot (gotta love that Lex is such an overachieving megalomaniac).

In the comics, Kara dated Braniac 5. In the show, Brainiac 5 dated Nia, who is being mentored by Kara. Except when they went back to the past, it was Nia who became a sort of mentor to Kara. Not to mention Nia had a hand in inspiring Cat, who later became a mentor to Kara, and then to Nia. Cat was also the mother of Adam, who also dated Kara. (And we haven't even gotten into the whole thing with Kara and Cat).

Kara also dated William, who was best friends with Russell, who dated Andrea, who was best friends with Lena. (I haven't even gotten into the whole thing with Kara and Andrea, or the whole thing with Lena and Andrea).

This isn't even mentioning the whole six degrees of separation between Cat, Lillian Luthor, Red Daughter, Reign, and all of Lex's ridiculous love interests.

#supergirl #supercorp #not gonna tag all of the other ships. there's too many that's the point.#also. gotta love how james is like a common denominator for a lot of these. the man gets around 😏#the moral of the story is that kara and lena like to share partners 🤣

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burins · 1 year ago

Text

as promised the separate comics/graphic novels roundup for 2023! this is a normal post until May when I realized I could (as a graphic novel librarian) become an Eisner voter and read 54 comics in a month (and then slightly less so in August when the Harveys came up.) below a cut because it's heinously long. I'll include my little write-ups and some panels right after my faves

JANUARY

Superman: Reign of the Supermen by Dan Jurgens and others

Under the Red Hood by Judd Winick and Doug Mahnke

I read this January second. Begin as you mean to go on! For all its flaws (Dick's Squidward face) the emotional arc of this story puts me right into the pit about Jason Todd.

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest (ongoing) by Mark Waid, Dan Mora, and Travis Moore

First off Dan Mora draws everyone like the most beautiful people in the world, which never hurts to look at. But also this is just a really fun comic! The action is fun the characters are very sweet and we get an honest to god Superbat gem fusion

Young Justice (1998) by Peter David and Todd Nauck

MY CHILDREN! I was finishing up my Tim readthrough and was so delighted to meet Kon and Cassie and Bart and Cissie and Anita (I still don't care for Lobo.) Nauck's art is cartoony in a way that fits the comic really well.

Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day by Judd Winick and Ale Garza

Red Robin by Christopher Yost, Fabian Nicieza, Ramón Bachs, and Marcus To

THEEEEE ARC for Tim. Everyone says read Red Robin. Yes read Red Robin but also understand this is him at his worst and most scrungly. This is not normal Tim. This is Tim's failgirl era.

MARCH

You and a Bike and a Road by Eleanor Davis

Beautiful little memoir comic about biking across the US, and also about borders and travel and isolation/togetherness.

Superman for All Seasons by Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, and Bjarne Hansen

I love this comic. Tim Sale draws Clark like the biggest, softest person you've ever seen, and Bjarne Hansen's colors are so gentle. (if you remember the rock metaphor from mission parameters, it's inspired by this scene from Book 1: Spring)

APRIL

Superman: Lost by Christopher Priest and Carlos Parlaguyan (ongoing)

This series cuts right to the horror of being Superman and also the horror of being Lois Lane SO deftly. a few plot points I don't love but overall God it makes me miserable

Birds of Maine by Michael Deforge

A delightful, dreamy collection of comics about birds living in a utopian society on the moon. The art is weird, the story is weird, everything about it is lovely.

MAY

Divinity v1-2 by Matt Kindt and Trevor Hairsine

The City of Belgium by Brecht Evans

This is not a perfect graphic novel but the stuff it does with art and page and rhythm is so so phenomenal.

Lights, Planets, People! by Lizzy Stewart and Molly Naylor

Killadelphia v1-3 by Rodney Barnes, Jason Shawn Alexander, and Christopher Mitten

The Department of Truth v1-4 by James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds

This is a book about conspiracy theories and it is DEEPLY unsettling. Martin Simmonds' art makes me legitimately queasy to look at. Really really good but also it did send me into a little spiral for a bit.

Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely (Mat Lopes' colors also deserve a shoutout)

This book made me cry! Also I have yet to read another Kara comic because this one was so good and I'm afraid the others won't be. She's sharp and angry in all the best ways and also deeply deeply caring and good. Capes meets space fantasy at its best. I would die for Ruthye

Nightwing (2016) v1-2 by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo

Batman: One Bad Day: The Riddler by Tom King and Mitch Gerads

She-Hulk (2022) v1-2 by Rainbow Rowell, Luca Maresca, Rogê Antônio, and Takeshi Miyazawa

Superman: Space Age by Mike Russell and Michael Allred

Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld

Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball by Jon Chad

Down to the Bone: A Leukemia Story by Catherine Pioli

So Much for Love: How I Survived a Toxic Relationship by Sophie Lambda

Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox

Chef’s Kiss by Jarrett Melendez and Danica Brine

Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith

Animal Castle v1 by Xavier Dorison and Felix Delep

Bungleton Green and the Mystic Commandos by Jay Jackson

Rain by Joe Hill and Zoe Thorogood

Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith by Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer

Masterclass in writing a biopic that doesn't shy away from its subject's being kind of a wretched person while also producing art that is deeply meaningful to many, many people.

Tiki: A Very Ruff Year by David Azencot and Fred Leclerc

Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly, adapted by Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh

Ultrasound by Conor Stechschulte

Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes, The Graphic Album (various)

A Visit to Moscow by Rabbi Rafael Grossman, adapted by Anna Olswanger and Yevgenia Nayberg

Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto

Shuna’s Journey by Hayao Miyazaki

Come Over Come Over by Lynda Barry

It’s So Magic by Lynda Barry

Macanudo: Welcome to Elsewhere by Liniers

My Perfect Life by Lynda Barry

What a lovely collection of comics. Barry captures being a teen in all its mess and glory.

Always Never by Jordi Lafebre

The Pass by Espé

Mary Jane and Black Cat Beyond

Moon Knight: Black, White and Blood by Jed Mackay and Carlos Villa

The Nice House on the Lake v1-2 by James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martínez Bueno (Jordie Bellaire colors)

I know Tynion can do horror, but he really really can do horror. This is like Glass Onion meets the worst nightmare you've ever had, and the way it unfolds is masterful. Martínez Bueno's art is dreamy and unsettling, especially combined with Bellaire who colors like she's painting oil slicks.

A Vicious Circle by Mattson Tomlin and Lee Bermejo

The Human Target v1-2 by Tom King and Greg Smallwood

Booster Gold (1986) by Dan Jurgens

Booster my friend Booster. I really didn't expect this to be as FUN as it is! There are occasional storylines that drag but overall a delight.

Heartstopper v2-4 by Alice Oseman

Killer Queens by David Booher and Claudia Balboni

I Hate This Place v1 by Kyle Starks and Artyom Topilin

I really need to read v2 because this was so fun. Queer backwoods horror, sarcastic, delightful, and never heavy-handed. I read this right after Killer Queens, which read like someone fed a bunch of Drag Race episodes and 2012 tumblr posts into a comics generator, and Heartstopper, which was so blandly unobjectionable I actually forgot I'd read it, so I Hate This Place felt refreshing as hell. (actually while looking up screencaps I remember why I didn't read v2 which is that v1 has a LOT of gore and body horror and I gotta be careful with that stuff. however if you like a slasher go forth)

It’s Lonely at the Center of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood

Gut punch on every page. Thorogood's art is weird and wild. It does feel a bit as though she's opened up her ribs for us to peruse.

Chivalry by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Sensory: Life on the Spectrum (various)

Cryptid Club by Sarah Andersen

Public Domain v1 by Chip Zdarsky

Love Everlasting v1 by Tom King and Elsa Charretier

Mazebook by Jeff Lemire

A twisting fable about grief and the paths it takes you down. A lot of the Eisner noms had dead wives or daughters which I began to resent, but I gave this a pass because it was really, really beautiful.

Days of Sand by Aimee DeJongh

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

Everyone has told you it's good! oh it's good. Beaton's style, which I associate more with her humor work, at first feels somewhat at war with the subject matter, but it ended up really working for me.

Talk to My Back by Yamada Murasaki

This was one of my favorite books of the whole year. Beautiful meditation on the compromises of marriage and motherhood in beautiful, sparse drawings that lingered with me long after I'd finished reading.

Crushing by Sophie Burrows

JUNE

Do a Powerbomb by Daniel Warren Johnson

Do you like wrestling? I don't really care about it, but I do love weird wacky stories about grief and trying to fight your way through the afterlife to get your mom back. Both hilarious and poignant. The art is as bombastic as it needs to be.

The Night Eaters v1 by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Liu and Takeda are back! This time with some horror about a pair of siblings and their fucked up parents. Great stuff.

Ripple Effects by Jordan Hart and Bruno Chiroleu

Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross

Superman: Up in the Sky by Tom King and Andy Kubert

Oh the Clark Kent of it all. the panel where Clark is calling home from alien customs because he has flown to the ends of the universe for one little girl is really what got me in this one

Superman: American Alien by Max Landis and various artists

JULY

Superman Red and Blue (anthology)

This is a whole lot of writers and a whole lot of artists and all of them are excellent. Once again the Clark Kent emotion is happening to me.

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu

Superman (2011) v5-6 by Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder

Superman: Warworld by Philip Kennedy Johnson and various artists

AUGUST

Justice League International by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire

Booster my friend Booster is here and also so are all of my other new friends. I loved the initial run (though it has its weak spots) but then I had to slog through a lot of very bad later stuff.

Blue and Gold by Dan Jurgens and Ryan Sook

New Teen Titans (various Brother Blood issues) by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez

Acting Class by Nick Drnaso

Follow Me Down: A Reckless Book by Ed Brubaker

Girl Juice by Benji Nate

Little Monsters v1 by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni

Who Will Make the Pancakes by Megan Kelso

Cat + Gamer by Wataru Nadatani

Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto

Spy x Family v1-2 by Tatsuya Endo

Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War by Gaspard Talmasse

Ashes by Álvaro Ortiz

The Extraordinary Part: Book One: Orsay’s Hands by Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot

The art and story here are simply so fabulous. A better world is possible and sometimes you have to take direct action to make it!

SEPTEMBER

Batman RIP by Grant Morrison and Tony S. Daniel

Batman Incorporated by Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham

OCTOBER

Batman and Robin (2011) by Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason

I've talked about this one before but I think it is truly one of my favorite depictions of Bruce as father in all the ways he succeeds and all the ways he fails. John Kalisz's luminous colors also deserve a shoutout.

Batman: Failsafe and Gotham War by literally everyone currently working in DC but especially Zdarsky

DECEMBER

Birds of Prey (1999) by Chuck Dixon and then Gail Simone and a number of other people (this continued into November and December)

This made the worms in my brain wriggle so bad that I wrote a whole yuri zine piece about Dinah and Babs, coming to a PDF (or physical copy!) near you soon!

Dungeon Meshi v1-11 by Ryoko Kui

Is it romantic to devour and be devoured in turn? Ryoko Kui sure thinks so. I was hungry the whole time I was making these my bedtime reading.

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Emily Carroll is among the best to ever do it. This collection of stories is her at her unsettling best.

Batgirl (2000) v1-3 by Kelley Puckett and Damion Scott

thanks to Mssrs Puckett and Scott I am now fully unhinged about Cass Cain and her quest for immolation. the art in this is so stylized but so well-done, especially given how little text is in much of the series. when the paneling hits it HITS.

and that's everything I read this year!! god there was a lot of it. I liked a lot of the stuff I didn't bold, but also I hated some of it. please feel free to talk to me about any of it!!!

Bruce Wayne Murderer/Fugitive by everyone working at DC in 2002

When a good crossover storyline works, it really really works. I love to see Bruce completely blow up his life because he doesn't see any point in existing outside the cowl anymore. Even more do I love to see the fallout from this on everyone who loves him! delight delight delight.

#comics not even once #book roundups #recs

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