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thenewwei · 7 months ago

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I saw 3 films on the plane to Athens, Greece, and since I woke up in the middle of the night here in Naxos, let me give you some thoughts:

1. Barbie—honestly, I thought it was awful. It fails on nearly every barometer—conceptually it made no sense, and while I know little to nothing about the Barbie universe, it seemed very dishonest in terms of its examination of its source material. The beginning ode to Planet of the Apes about mothers and baby dolls-huh? Why is there a “bigger Barbie” and why is weird Barbie like 40 and looks like she’s 60? (I understand there were some Barbie variations later on with older and career-oriented characters, but still?) Aren’t we supposed to examine a world in which Barbie is a thin white blonde Cali teenager with a stereotypical surfer boyfriend, where there’s maybe one (or two) black best friends (Christie? Later Grace?) just like in the typical Hallmark movie, which by the way, are still being made and mostly still dominated by the same racial and sexual formulas? Is there actually an Asian Ken? And I still don’t understand why stereotypical Barbie had to go into the real world to see why she suddenly had feelings—because a real world girl was having problems? And which problems? The real world girl ends up being a know-it-all over-educated Cali teenager (a Hispanic one—triumph!). Even from a feminist perspective, I felt it failed. Okay, so the Barbie world is supposedly ruled by women, while the real world is supposedly ruled by men, and Ken has a euphoria moment when he goes into the real world. Both are highly exaggerated and utterly ridiculous, but even so, I don’t see what it has to say about sex relations that isn’t obvious. And while the America Ferrara speech about double standards about women was spot on, wouldn’t it have been even more subversive to have Ken rant about all the double standards that exist for men (like for example, how society expects us to be aggressive, insensitive and dominant, and then punishes us when we are?). Instead, it’s all just typical, dumbed down stuff for the “universal” audience. Which brings me to why this film was so high-grossing, despite being utterly boring, badly made and intellectually idiotic (even sadder because I really liked Gerwig’s previous film Lady Bird). For the same reason they are making Total Recall remakes—because people are drawn to brands and what they are familiar with. The more original Margot Robbie vehicle Babylon, meanwhile, though also sourced from typical silent movie world info, was an utter flop. Maybe it is time to stop watching overly-marketed movies.

2. American Fiction—this was much different than what I expected, but in its own way, very dishonest too. It was more of a family story about a wealthy African-American man from an upper crust New England family who needs to make sacrifices while dealing with a series of family crises. To get money he creates a “ghetto” black book that suddenly sells, versus his literary books, which are only known to literary circles and marketed in African American Studies sections simply because he’s a black author (this part is funny and spot-on). This is a side narrative, but utterly untrue to reality. Black books that go “Ghetto” these days (and for the past 20 years or so) are immediately shoved into the Urban Fiction section of a highly regimented publishing industry and are unpublishable except to be self-published or distributed by Urban Fiction labels. They certainly would not get this kind of interest from the major publishing industry. The one exception to this is Junot Diaz (remember there can only be ONE), and that’s only because he became big in the 1990s, when we had a real indie grit lit sphere, with Sapphire etc. Yes, this whole scenario could have been plausible in the 1990s and very early 2000s, when indie lit authors had agents and were working through the now bogus traditional model (only reserved for the upper class, apparently), and the original book Erasure (2001) was published by Graywolf (and is nearly impossible to get now because of this) but it’s utterly untrue now. The celebrated black authors are upper crust Colson Whitehead, he of Black Sag Harbor vintage, or people who rant about (and make boatloads of money and endorsements through) anti-racism and reparations platforms. Otherwise, to have a “black” lit book published you have to be a well-educated Nigerian, and God help you if you are born in America! “Ghetto” black authors, subjects and books continue to be discriminated against, despite the fact that they actually depict (if in a steretypical way) the majority of the black experience today. In fact, the class and race dichotomy is worse than ever! Even my own book, Good Americans, a short story collection, won an award in the Urban Fiction category (because it has the “n” word in it?) but bombed in all the short story categories, because it dares to explore the class divide. And my ambitious new book Bad Americans seemed doomed to self-publishing for the same reasons.

3. The Holdovers—this was by far the best film structurally and in terms of impact, although not at all original. It’s the typical story about a teacher stuck with wayward students over a school break and how two become close despite their differences and of course there’s the black cook too, and isn’t it nice that there’s no racism mentioned except that her kid was the only one who died in Vietnam. We learn things about the teacher and we can ponder what being a good teacher means and about the nature of honor and dishonor. At least it was coherent and somewhat moving, unlike almost everything else being produced today.

#the new wei #movies #barbie #american fiction #the holdovers

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terramythos · 3 years ago

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TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 15 of 26

Title: Tehanu (Earthsea Cycle #4) (1990)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Third-Person, Female Protagonist

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 6/24/2021

Date Finished: 6/30/2021

Decades after The Tombs of Atuan, Tenar decided to settle down and live an ordinary life on the shepherding Isle of Gont. Now a farmer’s widow, she adopts a disfigured and horrifically abused child, who she names Therru. When a giant dragon deposits a grief-stricken Ged at her doorstep, Tenar finds herself in a strange situation as she cares for her old friend and her adopted daughter. But threats from Therru’s past and a malevolent force on the island soon threaten Tenar’s small family.

Despair speaks evenly, in a quiet voice.

Content warnings and spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Violence and death. Mentioned murder. Severe child abuse. Descriptions of traumatic injury and disfigurement. Mentions of r*pe, including of children. Trauma, sexism, and ableism are explored in depth.

Tehanu is a much different book than the trilogy that precedes it. Perhaps this is unsurprising, considering the 17-year gap between this book and The Farthest Shore. I’d describe the Earthsea series as “grounded fantasy”. While all of them take place in a magical world, the thesis of each book is universal; the fantasy always comes second. Tehanu takes this idea to an extreme. The story is about everyday life as a common woman in the Earthsea world, with fantasy barely factoring in. The pacing is intentionally slow and introspective, which is something I normally don’t like, but Le Guin is a consistent exception.

Key characters from the previous books make an appearance. Obviously Tenar is the biggest return, absent since The Tombs of Atuan. The Tenar in this book is older and much more mature, having decided to live a simple life in spite of her adventures and accomplishments. Ged returns, but he’s a shell of his former self, as he mourns the loss of his magic and the man he used to be. Even King Lebannen (formerly Arren, the main character of The Farthest Shore) makes a brief appearance, and is quite a palate cleanser after the horrible men throughout the rest of the book.

Probably my favorite aspect of the novel is the fact that these characters stand well on their own without magic to prop them up. Tenar explored the terrifying freedom she won in The Tombs of Atuan; got married, settled down, had kids — but still finds herself at a loss on what to do with her life after her husband dies. Ged is in a similar boat; he’s gone from an almost mythic character to an ordinary man, and like Tenar finds himself at a crossroads in life. Other characters embody this idea of transformation and uncertainty; Therru’s escaped her abusers and now has a loving mother, but what does the future hold for someone with her appearance? Stuff like that.

The idea of metamorphosis and new beginnings is well-trodden. But what makes Tehanu interesting is Le Guin primarily examines this with the middle-aged characters. Tenar and Ged are legendary figures in the world of Earthsea, but life has taken them to an uncertain future. The thrust of the novel lies in finding a purpose and becoming someone new. I also like that Tenar/Ged is endgame; I got Vibes from The Tombs of Atuan, but neither character was in a position where it would work. Seeing them form a romantic relationship much later in life is touching and cute. But it’s not the reason that either of them grow as people; finding one’s purpose is something one has to do on their own. Their relationship only develops once both parties have done so.

My main complaint about A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book, is the sexism inherent in the setting, which is never examined below the surface level. Perhaps Le Guin’s outlook changed, or perhaps the publishing environment did, because often Tehanu reads like a response to this criticism. The central theme of the book is misogyny, the patriarchy, and its debilitating effects on women. Le Guin examines everything from micro-aggressions (“common wisdom” that happens to paint women as inferior) to domestic issues (“women’s work” and how much that actually is) to outright sexual assault (both in threats and actual acts; it is heavily implied this is part of the abuse Therru endured). She even goes into how powerful women are only considered as such because a man gave them that power.

While I appreciate the fact she addresses these issues in such a frank, blatant way, at times reading Tehanu felt like reading a basic feminism primer. These subjects are all things I’m familiar with, and I feel like anyone who’s studied key feminist ideas would be aware of them also. Maybe 1990 was different? Le Guin doesn’t add any insights to the bleak reality of patriarchy and sexism, which is a little disappointing compared to previous books. That being said, this book is aimed at young adults despite its dark subject matter. Tehanu could be the first exposure to these ideas that many children receive; looking at it that way, it makes sense that the analysis comes off as basic.

I also found the book’s examination of gender to be very cishet-normative. That’s definitely not surprising, considering the book was published in 1990, but to a 2021 reader this hasn’t aged super well. There’s a lot of discussion about the relationships and differences between men and women--whether there are any or not, how magic differs between them, the ability to bear children, and so on. There’s a weird sexual component to this, like how wizards (who are exclusively men) have to remain celibate in order to… keep being wizards? But women who are witches don’t have to do that, and that’s an advantage women have? (There’s mentions of male witches too, iirc, but it’s not expanded upon— do they have to remain celibate? Who knows.). I found this whole bit pretty odd and unnecessary, although I realize a lot of my perspective on the matter comes from a modern view of sex and gender (and, y’know, being trans). Not all the gender takes in the book are bad, but they are limited.

I found Le Guin’s exploration of trauma and ableism through Therru to be more interesting. There’s a lot of examination about how society treats Therru, a survivor of unspeakable abuse. Her trauma is visible due to severe burns along part of her body, leaving her with a missing eye and disfigured hand. Tenar spends much of the novel wondering what future Therru has; no matter how capable she is and how much she acts like any other little girl, strangers gawk at her, or assume she “deserved” what happened to her. Therru becomes happier and more independent over the course of the novel, but relapses into a traumatized state when she encounters one of her abusers. As a survivor, it’s heartbreaking and distressingly realistic. As much as I like Tenar, I almost wish the novel was from Therru’s perspective (other than the brief jump at the end), but I realize it would spoil the ending.

I’m torn on the ending because, while I thought it was cool and had some interesting revelations, it’s a jarring tonal shift. As I mentioned, Tehanu is a slow novel with a heavy focus on everyday life, and the trials and tribulations both Tenar and Therru experience. There’s even a climactic event a few chapters before the end; the only thing left is a persistent loose thread from earlier in the novel. That subplot explodes to the forefront a bare chapter and a half before the end of the book, and a lot of action-y fantasy stuff happens. It doesn’t come out of nowhere; it’s set up throughout the novel, but it is sudden.

That being said, I do like that the subplot with dragons vs humans is hinted at as early as The Tombs of Atuan. When Tenar tells the legend about the origin of dragons early in the story, my mind immediately went to that one room from the Labyrinth with the sad winged humanoids painted on its walls. I’m curious if there are hints elsewhere in the series. I also figured out Therru’s true name and how she relates to that subplot based on context clues. While it’s not a shocking twist, it is a satisfying one. Though parts of it gave me a “magical destiny” vibe which is counter to much of the series so far; I do wonder how the last two books will address this. (Also… did Le Guin imply Kalessin is Segoy? AKA God? What did she mean by this. So Ged literally like… hitched a ride from God, who promptly yeeted out of the story until the end? That’s kind of funny. Maybe I misinterpreted something.)

I probably sound critical of this book, but I did genuinely enjoy it. It just didn’t speak to me the way the previous two did. The next book is a short story collection before the conclusion to the series, so we’ll see where it goes! Tehanu set some stuff up that I expect will be expanded upon in these volumes.

#8/10 #taylor reads #2021 reading challenge

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theyearoftheking · 5 years ago

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Book Eighteen: Rage (A Bachman Book)

“Maybe he had forgotten or never knew that little boys grow up remembering each blow and word of scorn, that they grow up and want to eat their fathers alive.”

As you can see, it’s day bajillion and fifteen of the quarantine, so I thought I’d break up the Bachman books into individual (but shorter) posts. I’m reading out of a book that lumps four of the five Bachman books together into one collection, so it feels like cheating to count each individual story as a seperate book, but it does say, “four early novels” on the front, so I’m going to count each one, and get caught up on my Goodreads goal. Yeah... I just admitted to that... we’ve unlocked a whole new level of nerd, I fear.

I think we all know Richard Bachman was an alias Steve used to publish some “meh” books. I did enjoy his author blurb, “Bachman was a fairly unpleasant fellow who was born in New York and spent about ten years in the merchant marine after four years in the Coast Guard. He ultimately settled in rural central New Hampshire. where he wrote at night and tended to his medium-sized dairy farm during the day. The Bachmans had one child, a boy, who died in an unfortunate accident at the age of six (he fell through a well cover and drowned). Three years ago a brain tumor was discovered near the base of Bachman’s brain; tricky surgery removed it. And he died suddenly in February of 1985...”

It’s got to be fun to write an author bio about your alias. Give it a try. Mine would read as follows: “Rebecca Jay was born in California in 1990, and grew up on the beaches of sunny San Diego. When it came time for college, the allure of east coast winters and seeing snow was too great, and she attended college at the University of Maine. She received a degree in journalism, and moved to Chicago where she met her husband; a successful financier from an affable family. After a whirlwind courtship, they married and had five children. Rebecca works from home as a writer, and splits her time between Portland, Maine; and Minoqua, Wisconsin. She and her husband can be found traveling the globe with their brood of shockingly brilliant, bohemian children: Poppy, Maisie, Cash Jackson, Sanger, and Sawyer (twins!).

I don’t know. I just threw that together. The idea of me having five children in this current state of affairs would push me straight into full-blown alcoholic territory. But it was fun to think about the amazing alternate life my alias is living. Buuuut this actual life is pretty cool too. I mean... I’ve spent the past twelve days not having to put on a bra or wear real pants (sup, leggings? The real MVP of the Coronavirus!), I get to finally catch up on all the Netflix garbage I haven’t had time for (Love is Blind is terrible. Of course I’m obsessed), I’m forced to eat healthy meals at home, I have no excuses for not working out, and I get to spend lots of time with my roommates, who I love dearly.

Ok, so Rage.

Rage is a weird-ass story that combines The Breakfast Club, with Lord of the Flies, and some Stephen King darkness. It’s bizarre, but compulsively readable. It was slow to start, but really took off about 20 pages in. It’s the story of high school student, Charlie Decker who takes a classroom hostage with a gun he brought to school. It lacks the terror most associate with high school shootings, and instead his classroom of hostages end up having honest conversations with one another, and breaking down the impressions they have of each other (like I said, Breakfast Club shit). At one point, a hostage leaves to go to the bathroom, and ends up voluntarily coming BACK to the classroom, instead of fleeing.

Charlie himself is a troubled kid, who just a few weeks ago got in trouble for beating a teacher in the head with a pipe wrench. When he explains why he did it, the whole classroom of hostages empathize. Like I said, it’s weird, but it’s an interesting twist on the hostage/school shooting topic.

Now, let’s address the elephant in the room... if I hadn’t known this was Steve writing under a pen name, would I have known it was really him? Yes. But also, maybe no. Here’s my take:

1. Steve tried to disguise his writing style by using short, choppy chapters instead of the long prose he’s known for.

2. The novel itself is very short, unlike the tomes Steve typically pens.

3. How many authors set their psychological horror novels in Maine? Dead giveaway.

4. Steve tends to re-use turns of phrase, or images quite often. One of those turns of phrase is, “blue chambray work shirt”. How many other authors out there have characters wearing these hideous shirts? Not many. Just sayin!

Kudos to the Bangor Daily News for catching onto the whole Steve is Bachman! fiasco.

No Dark Tower references, because “Richard” doesn’t understand about all things serving The Beam. But there was one Wisconsin reference, “She took a Polaroid picture of it to sending to Uncle Tom, who lives in Wisconsin.”

All and all, this was a quick, strange little read. Next up is The Long Walk, which my husband is still raving about, years after having read it.

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 15

Total Dark Tower References: 12

Book Grade: C

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Talisman: A+

Different Seasons: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Christine: D

Keep social distancing, washing your hands, and living that quarantine life, Constant Readers.

Until next time, Long Days & Pleasant Nights,

Rebecca

#rage #constant readers #stephen king #richard bachman #the breakfast club #love is blind

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arecomicsevengood · 5 years ago

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On Alan Moore’s SUPREME

It is an understatement to say we live in interesting times. These are chaotic times, and I hope we survive long enough to learn from them. I do not know how they will be remembered. I only know that I do not believe that hindsight is 20/20. Rather, nostalgia has distorting effects that render eras in caricature. I know this because while people often look at things and say “hey, remember the nineties?” with this quasi-ironic tone meant to pigeonhole things according to a handful of superficial traits, I actually feel like I do remember the nineties, and they were not that, but they were very far from where we are now.

I recently tracked down collections of Alan Moore’s run on Supreme via my local library. Supreme was a character created by Rob Liefeld at Image. Liefeld and Image are both prime examples of what people think of when they think of “1990s comics,” though their influence continues to this day, maybe stronger now than it ever was then. The backlash against this stuff that followed, which involved a great deal of nostalgia, that you see in things like Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come, or Kurt Busiek’s Astro City, is, I would argue, way more definitive of the era, in that there was maybe a “square” or defensive reactionary tone that seems more out of step with the modern moment, maybe because they essentially “lost.” Moore’s Supreme is about comic book reboots, and comic book history. It’s pretty nostalgic, but it’s also one of the more optimistic Alan Moore comics: The reaction against the superficial Image work also included a rejection of the “grim and gritty” aspects of Moore’s eighties work.

These Supreme collections are out of print, which is weird. While new stories continue to be told set in this universe Rob Liefeld created, but I think it’s pretty widely acknowledged that Moore’s comics were the best things to come out of there, the stuff where the ideas make the most sense, where there’s material that can be expanded upon. I know Brandon Graham took material from Moore’s work for his Prophet run. The recent Warren Ellis/Tula Lotay Supreme: Blue Rose derives from concepts in Moore’s run. It’s vastly tonally different, aiming for some sort of slow-paced Solaris vibe of mystery, which Moore’s run explains in such a way that it feels like Ellis’ run would have less of a reason to exist were his source text widely available.

I read Moore’s first issue at the time of its release, and was not that into it. When I think of the comics I was into at the time, I understand why: Thinking of Mark Waid/Humberto Ramos series Impulse, or Christopher Priest and Mark Bright’s Quantum And Woody, the emotional connection I had with those books as a reader is basically impossible to imagine anyone having with Supreme. I don’t think Moore was interested in doing that: I think he was trying to crack “nineties comics” and was seeing a bunch of dumb garbage it was very easy to think mixing in some pastiches would improve.

Also, the character is basically just Superman, and while in some ways Supreme is “better” than, say, Scott McCloud’s Superman Adventures, in that a good deal of work and thought is being put into creating these riffs on the Superman concept, Rick Burchett’s art, drawing Bruce Timm designs, is more appealing than what Joe Bennett comes up with, though, so it’s kind of a wash. Chris Sprouse comes on board later, and when he’s drawing the book, it’s great. The book moves from being “kind of a slog even though it’s clever” to “actually pretty fun.” After working together on Supreme, Moore and Sprouse would launch Tom Strong together. That’s another comic I stopped reading early on because I wasn’t getting that much pleasure out of it. Both Supreme and Tom Strong have flashback sequences drawn by other artists (in Supreme, they’re usually handled by Rick Veitch) that are also meant to be reference some other genre or historical moment, fleshing out backstory but also demonstrating Moore’s cleverness, which is two-fold: it’s both the cleverness of a plotter, telling stories pithily, and the cleverness of a student of comics showing how much he knows, via jokey parody. This becomes tedious when baked into the structure of every issue of a comic, but it’s also how Supreme gets to have Rick Veitch pages, which are welcome when the stuff set in modern times is drawn by people whose work isn’t fun to look at. Still, it’s a superhero comic where the core of most issues is not a fight but an extended vaguely comedic riff.

Another person to continue on to Tom Strong is letterer Todd Klein, who does a great job here, enough so that, when late in the run there are issues he didn’t letter, they’re demonstrably worse and harder to read. Tom Strong does have a different colorist than Supreme though, and in some ways there are weaknesses even in Sprouse’s issues that can be laid on the coloring: It’s “nineties” in a true way, in that it’s tied to the computer coloring that was then state of the art. I am pretty sure I read the later issues of Tom Strong in collections a roommate owned, but I remember none of them. Most likely I will forget these issues of Supreme. The most impressive thing about Moore’s run is the long-term plotting, that the payoff to a year’s worth of stories is set up very early, and points that would pay off later are seeded throughout.

Still, in the mind of a kid, a year is a very long time. A developing brain pursues a lot of interests. There are very few comics I read every issue of for a year: To do that would cut into my ability to take chances on comics like, say, Alan Moore’s first issue of Supreme, when I’d never read any of the previous ones. Another reason I didn’t follow the title as a kid is this: By the time you get to the point where you have a preference for good superhero comics over bad ones, you’re also interested in non-superhero comics. The best stuff in the series are later Chris Sprouse drawn stories that work effectively as superhero comics, where multiple villains fight multiple heroes, and jokes are made steadily. This all follows up on groundwork laid earlier in the run.

These collections are not published by Image, but rather a book company called Checker I am pretty sure is no longer in business. The books at my library were not in great condition, and they’re not very well-designed. There’s an Alex Ross image on the front, and Rob Liefeld on the back, alongside text that gives bios of Moore and Liefeld but says nothing about the Supreme comics the books contain. The interiors use Alex Ross drawings between issues, to cover for the original cover art being largely abysmal. I’m pretty sure Liefeld could reprint them at Image, although “this comic is drawn by a ton of different people, and quality varies” is not an appealing sales pitch. There were also other flashback stories, drawn by the likes of Melinda Gebbie and Kevin O’Neill, that ran in the original comics but aren’t in these collections, which I would hope a future reprint would restore. Around this time, Moore also did a run on Youngblood with Steve Skroce that was never collected, fondly remembered by some but also compromised by the fact that the last few pages currently extant, were drawn by a considerably worse artist.

What’s fun about these Supreme comics is that, for all the nostalgia for the past they contain, they’re still dense with ideas. It’s clear that what Moore appreciates about the old Superman comics he’s explicitly homaging is the imagination therein. He’s riffing, but extrapolating as well, these aren’t pure analogs. There are these science fiction or mythic elements all pressed together. I’m not saying there’s much that originates with Moore here, but in his bricolage things feel new, it’ll get your neurons firing. This is truly wild: the concept of the Supremacy, where all the alternate Supremes hang out, and its corresponding Daxia, where all the alternate reality versions of his nemesis hang out, both built in limbo, is surprisingly similar to plot points on the show Rick And Morty.

There are comics that are better than Moore’s Supreme, many more of them available now than there were twenty years ago. I read them, I write about them, and much of my championing of them stems from a preoccupation with storytelling. But there is a different kind of substance to these stories. It’s not “substance” in the sense of meaning, or emotional content. The substance is the sort of idea-space you swim in while reading fantasy or science fiction. I like to think that if you’re reading this you consider yourself a smart person, and that manifests itself as a certain snobbery in certain ways. Maybe you don’t read that sort of stuff as much as you did when you were a kid. As an adult, I’ve got other hang-ups. It is maybe a form of solipsism, though it stems from empathy, or a desire for it, obsessed over my own ability to relate to others. This is the stuff that makes up the content of “literary fiction” whereas I think of being a kid and trying to be imaginative or imagine possibilities beyond reality as essentially a spiritual quest. Reading this collection I could sense I wasn’t engaging it enough, even if only a portion of the pages were drawn well enough to make me want to engage it.

Moore is a spiritual person, obviously. You can listen to him talk about his work and artmaking and time and life and death and find a great deal of comfort. So much of his work is deeply reassuring and helpful, even though much of it is dark and more pessimistic than his Supreme run, and it’s often done through these genre pretexts. His work is much richer than what’s propped up by current trends, and it’s all informed by this grand history of literature, where what follows in Moore’s wake is frequently hollow because it doesn’t have this grounding in possibility and potential, but is instead premised on the observable. I’m making fun of Warren Ellis here, his obsession with science magazines and the idea of Moore’s run of Supreme as an observable phenomena after Moore made it exist.

It’s easy to view the way you engage this type of work as escapism, and there is truth to that, I think, when you’re an adult reader. I do think that when you’re younger, engaging with this stuff is more of a building a toolkit of ideas to engage with existence in a way that will stave off existential woe one encounters as they age. I frequently have this feeling that I am more tired than I used to be. My head is now subject to this feeling which is for all intents and purposes stupidity that maybe stems from trauma of having bad things happen to me (I have repeatedly been the victim of violent crime) and anxiety over things still to come. (Whether it be more crime or fascism or whatever, the complete collapse of the social fabric.)

There’s a feeling of being enervated I want to chase and have no idea how to, but it was genuinely present in my past. I know I can’t find it in nostalgia, in binge-reading old comics. That is 100% a trap and I know that the feeling I want is actually dependent on the absence of nostalgia, of being awake to there being possibilities in the future I can barely foresee. Moore’s run of Supreme taps into this energy, and he doesn’t think of it in a nostalgic way, the way he viewed 1963. He was engaging the moment, and finding the energy and collaborators that would propel him into the America’s Best Comics line, the sort of “better things” that might exist for a person in the near future that it is in the moment impossible to foresee. In all likelihood, the ability to manifest these things comes from a receptivity to potential that these comics evince.

Last week I turned 34, then the next day I found out my editor at The Comics Journal, Tim Hodler, was leaving it. I’m aware I need to leave Baltimore, get a new job, embark on a career path, enter into a new relationship, change everything about my life; all of these things both for their own sake but also to hopefully get the gears turning in my brain so I can write fiction again and feel that I am doing something.

When I read these book collections I was sort of wishing that like 2/3 of the pages were redrawn so that a book could exist which would have a reason to be read. Now I’m writing about it so I can remember I read it, and trying to explain why I’m doing so inevitably becomes about dissatisfaction with what is potentially giving way to something better, but I’m as overwhelmed by the facts of my own existence as Chris Sprouse would be at the fact that all the pages I would want him to redraw were already drawn by other people. Moore’s Supreme run can be reduced to these things that are essentially truisms: It’s “a moment in time,” “a transitional work.” This is true for so many things, but it is better to be these than the other thing that so much amounts to, a dead end.

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mondofunnybooks · 6 years ago

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MONDO FUNNYBOOKS; HITLER, BREXIT THE COMIC ,WEIRD INDIAN GAY PORN AND SADDAM HUSSEIN ON AN OSTRICH!

There was a time where comic creators worked to cause up a stink. Keith Giffen shot a comic (We're still after one, please, Dave or anyone else who worked for Blackball.) Kevin Maguire made ALL of Steve Rogers embossed. Spawn shipped 2 issues out of order. Lobo punched God in the face. Kyle Rayner became a Green Lantern. Barry Windsor Smith said some of the early Image Comics were a bit rubbish while promoting his new book 'Storyteller'. Youngblood: Year One would feature fully painted art by Rob Liefeld, akin to just released hit 'Marvels', featuring painted art by Alex Ross. Tom DeFalco famously declared his new ongoing from Marvel, 'Sleepwalker', would be 'Sandman' done right.

Copies of Sleepwalker are usually found in cheap bins across the Western hemisphere so feel free to judge for yourself how successful he was with that.

But for our money, nobody stirred up trouble like Gregarious Grant Morrison. His interview alongside Mark Millar with Comics World to promote their upcoming mini-series 'Skrull Kill Krew' remains one of the funniest moments of 'What a load of old bollocks this is!' vindictiveness since John Buscema told everyone in his art class to swipe since 'this stuff ain't going in the Lourve, pal.' Some of the less informed American hype rags attempted to suggest that SKK was the natural sequel to Zenith since it would see Morrison reunite with his partner in crime: Steve Yeowell.

Which either means they didn't know, or thought it wiser not to mention a strip that ran in Crisis circa 1990 called 'New Adventures Of Hitler'.

We'll come back to Crisis in more depth because it's probably the answer to the question a lot of the UK retailers are asking at the moment: How do we get people reading comics again. Crisis or something like it would be a good attempt, featuring a ton of original strips in a format that didn't suggest it ought to be stocked amongst a bunch of plastic bags full of toys and a magazine. Crisis also featured two of our favourite stories: 'Dare' which finished off from the sadly cancelled Revolver (Again, more another time.) as created by Grant and Rian Hughes and 'Trip To Tulum'. Which oddly was the only way to find the English translation of the collaboration by Milo Manara and Federico Fellini for quite a long time. God knows how they even got that in the first place.

NAH featured in issues 46-49 and surprised a few newsagents opening their delivery at 5am across the UK when confronted with 'Mr Hitler's Holiday', featuring your man from The Third on a bike against a dirty lurid purple cover. NAH concerned itself with Adolf taking a trip to Liverpool from 1912-1913 and learning a few tricks about fascism from the English while reality warps itself silly around the wee lad. Morrisey shows up singing 'Heaven Knows i'm Miserable Now'. A bunch of randoms begin chanting 'Hitler Has Only Got One Ball' on a bus he's on leaving the future Fuhrer mystified and mortified.

'NAH' originally ran in something called 'Cut' magazine but one of the editors, also someone from a band called 'Hue & Cry' having a strop so either 'Cut' itself stopped or at least stopped running the story. In any event, it migrated over to Crisis. It's rather excellent and while we don't know who owns the rights to it, it's one of those things that really ought to be in print.

Speaking of which......

Those more in the know will have to explain it to us, because the common answer is 'Because Grant and Mark aren't friends anymore.' and we're not sure that's how book publishing works, but the question is obviously 'Why isn't Big Dave in print?' If ANY comic were a timely insight into the mindset of the Brexit voting population of the UK, 'Big Dave' prophetically nails it like a time bullet fired from 1993. Essentially a high budget Viz strip beautifully pencilled by Steve Parkhouse, BD is a series of increasing ludricious adventures featuring that wide necked bloke in an England shirt with a bulldog tattooed to his forehead you see every St George's Day with a copy of The Sun in his back packet. It is ludicriously sexist, homophobic, racist and pro-monarchy.

Or at least the character is. Quite a few people seemed to confuse 'the portrayal of an attitude' with 'the glorfication of same attitude'. 2000AD apparently getting a bit narky if you bring this not being in print up. Frankly, if you don't find Dave having a threesome with Princess Di and Sarah Ferguson funny, you're probably reading the wrong column. We'd like to see this back in print. And please, please do not feel compelled to update this strip the same way 'DR & Quinch' was earlier this year. We'll stick that little relaunch in the same bin as the 'Femme Fatales/What if our artists swiped from Loaded and stuck some 2000AD related costumes on the art.' supplement from 1994, aye?

Finally, we go from the unreprintable to the never even published and perhaps not even written!

Unless somebody does something incredible, we will probably go to our graves saying that 'Kill Your Boyfriend' by Morrison & Bond is the best single story in comics ever published. This, before old men start getting heart attacks, does not include long form series, mini-series, single graphic novels, cartoon strips, etc. In terms of a story that starts, continues and ends in one issue with no knowledge of any other comic ever published, KYB is it. It brings up and destroys the notion of the personality as anything other than a series of reactions to various traumas and conditioning far faster than 'The Dice Man' does and with much funnier results. It could be read as the documentation of how a good acid trip will crack the inner monologue of the ego and set your inner self free, if you were of such a mind. It's certainly one of the best things Vertigo ever did.

'KYB' was part of a line called 'Vertigo Voices' published in 1995. The other books were 'Faces' by Pete 'Shade' The Changing Man'* Milligan and Duncan 'Oh, all the good things' Fegredo a book about why is plastic surgery and what does it say about us that we've conditioned ourselves to believe that there is such a thing as an imperfect face. Also 'Tainted' by Delano and Davidson (we've not read it, but the line up is well sound) and another book that we'll come back to in a bit but what's relevant here is that there was meant to be another comic in this line.

That comic would have been 'Bizarre Boys' by Grant Morrison, Pete Milligan and Jamie Hewlett.

The legend is that a suitably refreshed Grant and Pete were out in India and were looking around at various stalls filled with magazines, amidst the chaos the publication 'Bizarre Boys' caught their eye and was so outlandish (we're not Googling it, but nor are we stopping you from doing so.) that they committed right there to sell a comic with the same title to Vertigo. It got as far as being previewed in Spin Nov 1994 along with talk of an Invisibles TV Show (and come on. PLEASE. Netflix has cleared the deck of all the boring Marvel Superhero things so now is the PERFECT time for the adventures of Lord Fanny And The Other Ones.) but somewhere along the line it simply dropped from the publication schedule with no word of why, although as the comic was to be a fictional biography of Milligan and Morrison's alter egos, it's suggested that they were too busy living the life to settle down long enough to document.

We'd have to make the point that an oral account of the Vertigo offices circa 1994-1996 as spoken by Pete and Grant while drawn by Jamie would be a far more interesting thing to bring us back to the shops for new comics than, well, Tank Girl or Green Lantern.

The following pitch ran as part of The Time Is Now: DC Comics' Editorial Presentation 1994.

'Here's the solicitation copy for Bizarre Boys, which ran as part of The VERTIGO does what it does best in VERTIGO VOICES - a new umbrella title for four distinctive one-shots - where four of VERTIGO's most creatively deranged writers give voice to their most outrageous, gripping and graphic imaginings. Each "VOICE" delivers its own sound, in turn hyperreal, darkly disturbing, irreverent, and biting. FACE is the first "VOICE" to be heard, followed by KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND, and closing with BIZARRE BOYS. These are stories with sounds all their own, tearing a jagged rip through reality.

BIZARRE BOYS, VERTIGO VOICES' most irreverent title, is a story within a story within a story. It's about some fictional characters called the Bizarre Boys, and about the writers who write them and about the writers who are writing about the writers... There are two voices telling the tale of BIZARRE BOYS, and they don't agree with each other at all.

BIZARRE BOYS is a comic about a comic and about the process of putting together a comic. It's a sparkling tapestry of post-modernism and a fast- moving breathless chase across time and space.

It all takes place - naturally - on Bizarre Boys Day, when writers Peter Milligan (SHADE, THE CHANGING MAN) and Grant Morrison (THE INVISIBLES) join forces with artist Jamie Hewlett (SHADE, THE CHANGING MAN, Tank Girl) to tell the tale of two writers called Millison and Morrigan, and their fabulous creations, The Bizarre Boys. Echoing James Joyce's Bloomsday, whatever events happen on Bizarre Boys Day also happen in the comic.

As the two writers begin their quest for the fantastic Bizarre Boys, whose sweat contains miraculous healing and hallucinogenic properties, these latter-day Brothers Grimm weave some dissolute modern fairy tales, take the wraps off the creative process itself, and tell a joke or three.'

We're told by inside sources that elements of 'Bizarre Boys' ran in the final book of The Vertigo Voices line: 'The Eaters' as drawn by Dean Ormston and Pete Milligan.

And that's us for now. What do YOU think? Should these projects remain in the dustbin of FunnyBook History? Maybe Kickstarters, er, started to try and release them as independent books (Lord knows if Cyberfrog can be a thing again, then...) Amazon have begun publishing comics directly from creators like Kyle Baker and Rick Veitch, which could sidestep the whole 'Comics are for kids so why is this in Sainsbury's!?' furor all over again. Image has put out some fairly anondyne nonsense lately and could do with something like this in their line-up. Let us know in the comments and as ever we'll see you in The FunnyPages.

(Big Dave ran as part of 2000AD's 'Summer Offensive' in 1993, some of the most fun the Progs have ever been. Big Dave features in the following issues*:)

"Target Baghdad" (with Steve Parkhouse, in 2000 AD #842–845, 1993) "Monarchy in the UK" (with Steve Parkhouse, in 2000 AD #846–849, 1993) "Young Dave" (with Steve Parkhouse, in 2000AD Yearbook 1994, 1993) "Costa del Chaos" (with Anthony Williams, in 2000 AD #869–872, 1994) "Wotta Lotta Balls" (with Steve Parkhouse, in 2000 AD #904–907, 1994)

*according to Wiki, anyway.

'New Adventures Of Hitler' can be found in Crisis: #46 - 49.

#Grant Morrison #Mark Millar #2000AD #New Adventures Of Hitler #Crisis #Skrull Kill Krew #Zenith #Vertigo #Steve Parkhouse #Phillip Bond #Steve Yeowell #DC #Jamie Hewlett

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wumingfoundation · 6 years ago

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On #QAnon: The full text of our Buzzfeed Interview

Ryan Broderick of Buzzfeed just published an article on this #QAnon conspiracy bullshit titled It's Looking Extremely Likely That QAnon Is A Leftist Prank On Trump Supporters. The piece features quotes from an interview we gave via email. Here’s the full email exchange.

Can you tell me a bit about when and how your book Q was written?

We started writing Q in the last months of 1995, when we were part of the Luther Blissett Project, a network of activists, artists and cultural agitators who all shared the name «Luther Blissett». Luther Blissett was and still is a British public figure, a former footballer, a philanthropist. The LBP spread many mythical tales about why we chose to borrow his name, but the truth is that nobody knows.

Initially, Blissett the footballer was bemused, but then he decided to play along with us and even publicly endorsed the project. Last year, during an interview on the Italian TV, he stated that having his name adopted for the LBP was «a honour». The purpose of signing all our statements, political actions and works of art with the same moniker was to build the reputation of one open character, a sort of collective "bandit", like Ned Ludd, or Captain Swing. It was live action role playing. The LBP was huge: hundreds of people in Italy alone, dozens more in other countries. In the UK, one of the theorists and propagandists of the LBP was the novelist Stewart Home.

The LBP lasted from 1994 to 1999. The best English-language account of those five years is in Marco Deseriis' book Improper Names: Collective Pseudonyms from the Luddites to Anonymous. One of our main activities consisted of playing extremely elaborate pranks on the mainstream media. Some of them were big stunts which made us quite famous in Italy. The most complex one was played by dozens of people in the backwoods around Viterbo, a town near Rome. It lasted a year, involving Satanism, black masses, Christian anti-satanist vigilantes and so on. It was all made up: there were neither Satanists nor vigilantes, only fake pictures, strategically spread rumours and crazy communiqués, but the local and national media bought everything with no fact-checking at all, politicians jumped on the bandwagon of mass paranoia, we even managed to get footage of a (rather clumsy) satanic ritual broadcast in the national TV news, then we claimed responsibility for the whole thing and produced a huge mass of evidence. The Luther Blissett Project was also responsible for a huge grassroots counter-inquiry on cases of false child abuse allegations. We deconstructed the paedophilia scare that swiped Europe in the second half of the 1990s, and wrote a book about it. A magistrate whom we targeted in the book filed a lawsuit, as a consequence the book was impounded and disappeared from bookshops, but not from the web.

This is the context in which we wrote Q. We finished it in June 1998. It came out in March 1999 and was our final contribution to the LBP.

I've been reading up about it, and it's largely believed that it's underneath the book's narrative it works as handbook for European leftists? Is that a fair assessment? I've read that many believe the book's plot is an allegory for 70s and 80s European activists?

Although it keeps triggering many possible allegorical interpretations, we meant it as a disguised, oblique autobiography of the LBP. We often described it as Blissett's «playbook», an «operations manual» for cultural disruption.

The four authors I'm speaking to now are Roberto Bui, Giovanni Cattabriga, Federico Guglielmi and Luca Di Meo correct? The four authors of Q?

You are speaking with three of the four authors of Q, and you're speaking with a band of writers called Wu Ming, which means «Anonymous» in Chinese. In December 1999 the Luther Blissett Project committed a symbolic suicide - we called it The Seppuku - and in January 2000 we launched another project, the Wu Ming Foundation, centred around our writing and our blog, Giap. The WMF is now an even bigger network than the LBP was, and includes many collectives, projects and laboratories. Luca aka Wu Ming 3 is not a member of the band anymore, although he still collaborates with us on specific side projects. Each member of the band has a nom de plume composed of the band's name and a numeral, following the alphabetical order of our surnames, thus you're speaking to Roberto Bui aka Wu Ming 1, Giovanni Cattabriga aka Wu Ming 2 and Federico Guglielmi aka Wu Ming 4.

Can you tell me a bit about your background before the Luther Blissett project?

Before the LBP we were part of a national scene that was – and still is – called simply «il movimento», a galaxy of occupied social centres, squats, independent radio stations, small record labels, alternative bookshops, student collectives, radical trade unions, etc. In the Italian radical tradition, at least after the Sixties, there was never any clearcut separation between the counterculture and more political milieux. Most of us came from left-wing family backgrounds, had roots in the working class. Punk rock opened our minds during our teenage years, then in the late 1980s and early 1990s Cyberpunk opened them even more, and inspired new practices.

When did you start noticing similarities between Q and QAnon? I know you've tweeted a bit about this, but I'd love to get as many details as I can. I feel like the details around QAnon are so sketchy that it's important to lock in as much as I can here.

We read a lot about the US alt-right, books such as Elizabeth Sandifer's Neoreaction a Basilisk or Angela Nagle's – flawed but still useful – Kill All Normies, and yet we didn't see the QAnon thing coming. We didn't know it was growing on 4chan and some specific subReddits. About six weeks ago, on June 12th, our old pal Florian Cramer – a fellow veteran of the LBP who now teaches at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam – sent us a short email. Here's the text:

«It seems as if somebody took Luther Blissett's playbook and turned it into an Alt-Right conspiracy lore. Maybe Wu Ming should write a new article: "How Luther Blissett brought down Roseanne Barr"!»,

After those sentences there was a link to a piece by Justin Caffier on Vice. We read it, and briefly commented on Twitter, then in the following weeks more and more people got in touch with us, many of them Europeans living in the US. They all wanted to draw our attention on the QAnon phenomenon. To anyone who had read our novel, the similarities were obvious, to the extent that all these people were puzzled seeing that no US pundit or scholar was citing the book.

Have there been key moments for you that made you feel like QAnon is an homage to Q? What has lined up the best?

Coincidences are hard to ignore: dispatches signed Q allegedly coming from some dark meanders of top state power, exactly like in our book. This Q is frequently described as a Blissett-like collective character, «an entity of about ten people that have high security clearance», and at the same time – like we did for the LBP – weird "origin myths" are put into circulation, like the one about John Kennedy Jr. faking his own death in 1999 – the year Q was first published, by the way! – and becoming Q. QAnon's psy-op reminds very much of our old «playbook», and the metaconspiracy seems to draw from the LBP's set of references, as it involves the Church, satanic rituals, paedophilia...

We can't say for sure that it's an homage, but one thing is almost certain: our book has something to do with it. It may have started as some sort of, er, "fan fiction" inspired by our novel, and then quickly became something else.

There will be a lot of skepticism I think that an American political movement like QAnon could have been influenced by an Italian novel, how do you think it may have happened?

It's an Italian novel in the sense that it was originally written in Italian by Italian authors, but in the past (nearly) 20 years it has become a global novel. It was translated into fifteen languages – including Korean, Japanese, Russian, Turkish – and published in about thirty countries. It was successful all across Europe and in the English speaking world with the exception of the US, where it got bad reviews, sold poorly and circulated almost exclusively in activist circles.

Q was published in Italian a few months before the so-called "Battle of Seattle", and published in several other languages in the 2000-2001 period. It became a sort of night-table book for that generation of activists, the one that would be savagely beaten up by an army of cops during the G8 summit in Genoa, July 2001. In 2008 we wrote a short essay, almost a memoir, on our participation to those struggles and Q's influence in those years, titled Spectres of Müntzer at Sunrise. A copy of Q's Spanish edition even ended up in the hands of subcomandante Marcos. It isn't at all unrealistic to imagine that it may have inspired the people who started QAnon.

Have you seen anything in the QAnon posts that leads you to suspect any activist group in particular is behind it?

No, we haven't.

You think QAnon is a prank? Without some kind of reveal it's obviously hard to see it as that. If you think it was revealed that QAnon was actually some kind of anarchist prank, would it even matter? Would its believers abandon it or would they just see it as a smear campaign?

Let us take for granted, for a while, that QAnon started as a prank in order to trigger right-wing weirdos and have a laugh at them. There's no doubt it has long become something very different. At a certain level it still sounds like a prank, but who's pulling it on whom? Was the QAnon narrative hijacked and reappropriated by right-wing "counter-pranksters"? Counter-pranksters who operated with the usual alt-right "post-ironic" cynicism, and made the narrative more and more absurd in order to astonish media pundits while spreading reactionary content in a captivating way?

Again: are the original pranksters still involved? Is there some detectable conflict of narratives within the QAnon universe? Why are some alt-right types taking the distance from the whole thing and showing contempt for what they describe as «a larp for boomers»?

A larp it is, for sure. To be more precise, it's a fascist Alternate Reality Game. Plausibly the most active players – ie the main influencers – don't believe in all the conspiracies and metaconspiracies, but many people are so gullible that they'll gulp down any piece of crap – or lump of menstrual blood, for that matter. Moreover, there's danger of gun violence related to the larp, the precedent of Pizzagate is eloquent enough. What if QAnon inspires a wave of hate crimes?

Therefore, to us the important question is: triggering nazis like that, what is it good for? That camp is divided between those who would believe anything and those who would be "ironic" on anything and exploit anything in order to advance their reactionary, racist agenda. Can you really troll or ridicule people like those?

It's hard to foresee what would happen if QAnon were exposed as an anarchist/leftist prank on the right. If its perpetrators claimed responsibility for it and showed some evidence (for example, unmistakeable references to our book and the LBP), would the explanation itself become yet another part of the narrative, or would it generate a new narrative encompassing and defusing the previous one? In plain words: which narrative would prevail? «QAnon sucking anything into its vortex» or «Luther Blissett's ultimate prank»?

In any case, we'd never have started anything like that ourselves. Way too dangerous.

#QAnon #Luther Blissett #Q #novel #Wu Ming

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duhragonball · 6 years ago

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Done.

Finally knocked out Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men #1, and that’s the last guy on my mission to read my whole X-Men collection. Strictly speaking, I’ve still got a few stragglers, and there’s some other comics I’d like to purchase down the line, but the point of this was to read the main X-Men titles up to 2005, while reading my collections of New Mutants, Wolverine, and Cable alongside them. There were too many discontinuities in my memory. I read like the first twenty issues of Cable and the first sixty-nine issues of Wolverine, and the first two-thirds of New X-Men, then the first two-thirds of Astonishing. I wanted to get it all done in order, and finally take in the whole enchilada for myself, instead of looking up what other people thought of it.

Most of it sucked, but that’s true of almost any read-through of a long comic series. You get to certain periods where the publisher was just trying to meet deadlines and no one was particularly worried about quality. I’d say the X-Men really hit that mark around 1989 or so. There were stinkers before then, and good stories after then, but I feel like that was right around the time no one was especially worried about making one over the other.

If anyone’s interested, this is my machete cut on what’s worth reading and what isn’t.

(Uncanny) X-Men #1-66: The Silver Age X-Men are kind of obscure, but I found them to be kind of overrated at the same time. Worth reading just because so many important concepts were introduced here, and in X-Men land, everyone just assumes you memorized these issues beforehand. #67-93 are reprints, so don’t even worry about ‘em.

Giant-Sized X-Men #1; (Uncanny) X-Men #94-167, Annual #3-6: This is the classic era, what everyone thinks about when they refer to the good old days.

X-Factor #1-70; Marvel Graphic Novel #6; New Mutants #1-100: Frankly, these spin-off books turned out to be far better than the X-Men comics that came out at the same time. The weird thing is that Marvel went out of their way to keep the X-teams from interacting with each other, even when the X-Men and New Mutants were living in the same building. The early crossovers like “Mutant Massacre” and “Fall of the Mutants” were like these weird exercises to see if they could write a story featuring all three teams without having them meet or work together at all. My advice is to just read the X-Men comics that tie into the crossovers, and only check out the rest if you like what you see.

X-Men v.2 #1-45; 48-65 and assorted crossovers: In 1991, they launched a second X-Men book to accompany Uncanny X-Men. I thought they would be pretty much in lock step with each other in terms of continuity, like you’d have to read one issue of Adjectiveless, then jump to the same month’s issue of Uncanny, and back again, sort of like how the Superman books worked in the same decade. And sometimes it works that way, but most of the time it doesn’t, and you often end up with two separate writers scripting two separate groups of characters, trying to keep the stories interconnected without stepping on each others’ toes. Of course, they did a bunch of big crossovers in the 90′s, and during those stories, you read them in the order they give you, but most of the time it felt to me like they expected you to pick your favorite book and focus on it. Usually Adjectiveless X-Men was the better book of the two, so I say stick with it.

What you don’t need to do is try to read all the other X-titles at the same time. X-Force, Excalibur, and X-Factor after #71, have almost nothing to do with the events in the main X-Men books. The characters pop in for guest appearances a lot, sure, but the storylines generally steer clear of each other until there’s a crossover, and sometimes not even then. Like, you can just read Uncanny X-Men #304, X-Men #25, and Wolverine #75, and leave the rest of “Fatal Attractions”, and you can still feel like you got all the story you need.

A lot of fans don’t like the crossovers, but I think that came from having to shell out extra money to collect the entire story that’s overhyped and usually under-delivers. Me, I think they’re pretty neat, now that it’s decades later and I don’t have to worry about collecting comics on a budget.

The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1-4; The Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #1-4: These are kind of off the beaten path, but they’re pretty good and you sort of need these miniseries because they depict the origin of Cable and Sinister respectively, and they’re all over the damn place in the 1990′s. Sinister was introduced as a villain in the 80′s, but no one bothered to explain what his deal was until 1996, because X-Men Land is very dumb. Anyway, Sinister is basically Majin Vegeta, only Bulma was already dead and Goku wasn’t around to convince him his forehead bling looked stupid. Also, Sinister refuses to explode, not even once. Maybe this analogy was flawed.

X-Men v.2 #66-99, Uncanny X-Men #351-380, Cable #45-96: This is where you need to read Uncanny X-Men to keep up, as the two books start getting tighter in terms of continuity. I’m also throwing in Cable because this is the period where it got super awesome, minus some crappy Rob Liefeld art around #71-75. Not everything here is a winner, but a lot of it is good to great. I didn’t think I’d enjoy the Alan Davis run as much as I did, and while it’s not perfect, it turned out to be pretty satisfying.

X-Men: the Search for Cyclops #1-4: This one isn’t very good, but it wraps up the conflict with Apocalypse that the X-Men had been dealing with throughout the 1990′s, so you kind of need to read it to understand all the callbacks to it.

New X-Men #114-154, Annual 2001; Astonishing X-Men #1-24, Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men #1: These are pretty much the only X-Men series that matter in the 2000′s. Claremont’s second X-Men run went from unintelligible to auxilliary to fluff. Joe Casey’s run was decent but forgettable, and the less said about Chuck Austen, the better. All you really need is Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men followed by Joss Whedon’s run on Astonishing. The rest is just filler. I suspect this all along, but now I’ve read the filler and I know it’s true.

Wolverine #1-189: Maybe Wolverine is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I don’t feel too guilty about it. The first thirty issues are classics, and the Larry Hama run that followed is criminally underrated. Then you get the Warren Ellis classic “Not Dead Yet”, and a couple of really good fill-in issues, and... a crappy story about Wolverine marrying the Viper, but at that point you might as well read it so you can say you did. Then Erik Larsen’s run is pretty good, and crap there’s a Rob Liefeld run, but then the rest of it is pretty good until the end. I’d also recommend the Wolverine miniseries that preceded this ongoing, as well as the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine miniseries.

You may notice I didn’t list too many annuals here. That’s because almost none of them really matter, and most of them were outright terrible. Honestly, New Mutants Annual #2 may be one of the worst comics I’ve ever read, and I think the rest of my Bottom Ten would include a lot of crappy X-Men annuals. The thing I’ve realized in reading all these comics is that only some of them were actually good and/or important, and the rest were side attractions designed to help cash in on the success of the franchise. X-Man just plain doesn’t matter. I kept forgetting there even was an Excalibur team until Excalibur got cancelled and its members drifted back into the main X-Men team. I’m not saying you shouldn’t read those other series--I rather enjoyed X-Force when I read it fifteen years ago--but you shouldn’t feel obligated to read it in order to get the full story. It’s more modular than it looks. They only marketed the comics to make you think you needed to buy them all.

#no more x-men #for now anyway

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pinelife3 · 5 years ago

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Getting Short Stories

I read the short story “The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women” by Haruki Marukami last weekend. I really enjoyed it - until it finished. Because then it was obvious the story wasn’t going to give me any more help to understand it. Of course, I thought about if after I finished it, still trying to get whatever Murakami was on about. And I’m still thinking about it now. I don’t get it.

(Disclaimer: I cannot give you a clear definition of what it means to get it. It’s the same as when a poem works. It’s something clicking into place. Something you couldn’t learn on Wikipedia. Sweeping clear new pathways in how you think about something. I’d argue that you can get something from a piece of media without explicitly getting the media itself (for example, I love “Burnt Norton” but it is pretty inscrutable to me). Equally, you can get something without really caring about it (see: the more recent seasons of Black Mirror) - but that’s not all that interesting to talk about.)

“The Semplica-Girl Diaries” by George Saunders is an example of a short story I like and get: the character’s actions and motivations are sometimes surprising but still make sense, the world is vivid and interesting, the writing is highlightable, and I think I understand what Saunders is trying to say. Or - if I’ve misunderstood what he’s saying, I’ve been able to wring something satisfying out of it on my own. It means something to me, and I feel moved by the story and its ideas in some inarticulable way. I think I read it in a food court.

“The Wind-Up Bird and Tuesday’s Women” was published in The New Yorker in 1990 and then made its way into Murakami’s 1993 book of short stories The Elephant Vanishes (published in English in ‘93 - it wasn’t published in Japanese until 2005). Probably like many people who have bought the book in the past year, I was inspired to read it after seeing the Korean film Burning (which is based on a story in the collection called “Barn Burning”). Also, I haven’t read any Murakami (that’s a lie: I tried to read Norwegian Wood when I was 21 but didn’t have much patience for it and gave up after ~100 pages) and thought this might be a low-effort way of remedying that.

In terms of the action of the story, The New Yorker summarises it well:

The narrator, a resident of Tokyo, has quit his job in a law office, and is living as a house husband. One Tuesday morning he receives a phone call from an unknown woman, who says she will help him "come to an understanding," if he'll give her ten minutes. Busy cooking spaghetti for brunch, he hangs up. Later, his wife calls to tell him of a job prospect, as poet and poetry editor of a magazine for young girls. She also asks him to look for their missing cat; it's named Noboru Watanabe, after the wife's brother. She thinks it's in the yard of an abandoned house on their street. In his own yard, the narrator hears a bird screeching; he doesn't know what species of bird it is, but he and his wife think of it as the windup bird: it's there each morning, as if to wind up their world. That afternoon the mysterious woman calls back, and tries to have an erotic dialogue with the narrator. After he hangs up, the phone rings again; he doesn't answer. At the abandoned house, a young girl coaxes him to sunbathe with her. She tells him a fantasy about ripping up a corpse to get at "the lump of death itself." That night, his wife angrily accuses him of killing the cat. He writes a poem: Noboru Watanabe Where have you gone? Did the windup bird Stop winding your spring? The telephone begins ringing once again, but neither the narrator nor his wife will answer it.

This is basically the extent of the story but there are some weird details that add flavour. For example, the protagonist seems to have an auditory fixation. A lot of the story is about him listening to female voices (side note: Murakami is known for having a thing for ears - or formerly having a thing for ears). When a woman calls him on the phone, he makes much of his ability to place voices but has difficulty placing hers. Eventually, their conversation devolves into what is essentially phone sex. He hangs up and avoids answering the phone for the rest of the day, although it keeps ringing. The narrator describes a secret garden path/passage with no entrance or exit. It runs behind all of the houses in his block, so when he walks down it, he has a view into everyone’s backyards: he can see their washing, smell their cooking, etc. He is surprised and suspicious that his wife is familiar with this corridor. (If this were high school English I would be hammering home that the blocked in tunnel is a metaphor for the protagonist’s directionless existence, etc.) The ‘young girl’/teenager mentioned in the summary above, is described as crippled/limping and she mentions that she’s taking the year off school while her leg heals after a bike accident. He falls asleep in a deckchair in her garden while she talks to him. When he wakes up she’s gone. This never goes anywhere. The phone sex never goes anywhere. The corridor never goes anywhere.

The passages about the wind-up bird are brief and seem trivial while you’re reading them: just lazy, dreamy thoughts from our unemployed protagonist as he drifts off to sleep on a warm Tuesday afternoon:

A regular wind-up toy this world is, I think. Once a day the wind-up bird has to come and wind the springs of this world. Alone in this fun house, only I grown old, a pale softball of death swelling inside me. Yet even as I sleep somewhere between Saturn and Uranus, wind-up birds everywhere are busy at work fulfilling their appointed rounds.

Okay... sure. Clearly, the bird has some significance, but the protagonist spends an equal amount of time thinking about spaghetti. What I also find difficult is that people’s emotions, reactions and motivations in the story don’t make sense. When his wife yells at him at the end of the story, accusing him of killing their cat, I wondered if maybe she was trying to pick a fight, if she’s sick of the marriage and wants out. I also thought she might be more distressed because the cat is named after her brother - how do you tell your brother that the cat you named after him is lost, probably dead. What would that symbolise? Still, to me she seems like an unreasonable person because the way her emotions escalate (apparently without any real trigger) is seriously out of step with normal human behaviour:

I emerge from an after-dinner bath to find my wife sitting all alone the darkened living room. I throw on a gray shirt and fumble through the dark to reach where she’s been dumped like a piece of luggage. She looks so utterly forsaken. If only they’d left her in another spot, she might have seemed happier.

...I take a seat on the sofa opposite her. “What’s the matter?” I ask. “The cat’s dead, I just know it,” my wife says. “Oh c’mon,” I protest. “He’s just off exploring. Soon enough he’ll get hungry and head on back. The same thing happened once before, remember? That time when we were still living in Koenji -” “This time it’s different. I can feel it. The cat’s dead and rotting away in the weeds. Did you search the grass in the vacant house?” “Hey no, stop it. It may be a vacant house, but it’s somebody’s house. I’m not about to go trespassing.” “You killed it!” my wife accuses.

I heave a sigh and give my head another once-over with the towel.

“You killed it with that look of yours!” she repeats from the darkness. “How does that follow?” I say. “The cat disappeared of its own doing. It’s not my fault. That much you’ve got to see.” “You! You never liked that cat, anyway!” “Okay, maybe so,” I admit. “At least I wasn’t as crazy about the cat as you were. Still, I never mistreated it. I fed it every day. Just because I wasn’t enthralled with the little bugger doesn’t mean I killed it. Start saying things like that and I end up having killed half the people on earth.” “Well, that’s you all over,” my wife delivers her verdict. “That’s just so you. Always, always that way. You kill everything without ever playing a hand.”

I am about to counter when she bursts into tears. I can the speech and toss the towel in the bathroom basket, go to the kitchen, take a beer out of the refrigerator, and chug. What an impossible day it’s been!

Am I dumb? Do I not understand adult relationships? Because this seems like a very weird exchange to me. Does the way he reacts to her accusations, with exasperation rather than anger or surprise, suggest that he’s seen her behave like this before? A pop culture analogue: remember the video of Solange beating up Jay-Z in an elevator after the 2014 Met Gala?

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Jay-Z is in the white suit. Solange is the one hitting him. There’s a bodyguard trying to keep them apart. And Beyoncé is standing there calmly - not getting involved, just trying to protect her outfit. Here they are directly after the incident.

What a fucking pro. Thousand yard smile.

At the time, speculation was rife about what Jay-Z did to trigger such a beating (in italics because it’s still surprising that everyone was so okay with the domestic violence). What really thrilled people was the crack in the facade of perfection. A glimpse into their lives that hadn’t been perfectly curated, something we were never meant to see. The common read was that Jay-Z must have done something because otherwise Beyoncé would have stepped in to protect him. The consensus now is that Solange had found out that he’d cheated on her sister. Maybe even that he’d done something at the Gala. This is all now part of the Carter canon because they’ve referenced it in their music to great commercial and critical success.

Another interesting interpretation was that perhaps Beyoncé had seen Solange raging and uncontrollable many times before and knew how to weather the storm. Maybe Solange has a temper when she drinks? Maybe she’ll have an outburst, and all you can do is stay out of the way and ignore it until the mood passes and she sobers up. Perhaps her family is used to this behaviour. There’s no point engaging or trying to reason with her, you just have to let her get it out and then smile for the press at the elevator doors.

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As with Beyoncé, maybe our protagonist is accustomed to bad behaviour: recriminations, tears, tantrums. You kill everything. Most people would want to dig in if their partner said something like that. But perhaps it doesn’t trigger such a strong reaction in him anymore. Another odd behavioural detail, perhaps again showing the protagonist’s muted response to the world, is that he is pretty indifferent to the mysterious phone call. He resolves not to answer the phone, but is otherwise not at all curious about who’s calling him. If I received a call like that from a shadowy stranger, I would sacrifice a great deal to find out who was behind it. I know I’m not alone here - because, as every scammer knows, the most efficient way to get someone to open an email which it is in their best interest to not open (full of malware, spyware, etc.), is to include a declaration of love or romantic interest in the subject line.

Searching for some connection between the events of the story, I wondered if maybe the wife hired the woman on the phone to seduce her husband so that she’d have a concrete reason to divorce him. But this doesn’t really track because just earlier in the day she was encouraging him to stay a house husband - why would she do that if she wanted to leave him?

There are lots of weird details in the story, none of which signify much to me. Our protagonist is unemployed, he doesn’t have much to do and isn’t looking for much to do, his voice as narrator is anxious, circular, repetitive. The key themes seem to be curiosity, restlessness, loneliness, directionlessness, nessness, etc. But unless the point is that everything that happened in the story was pointless, and that’s supposed to echo the protagonist’s torpor, I don’t get it. Basically every major plot element is still a question mark - are we supposed to dismiss those as magical realism or wishful thinking on the part of the protagonist and move on with our lives, never being curious about who the lady on the telephone is, or why the girl has a messed up leg and won’t go to school? I can’t do it. I want to know! I want to get it.

Fortunately for us, Murakami wrote a novel called The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle which spins off the short story into the first chapter of the novel and runs from there. Do you think it answers any of my questions above?

Remember the cat named after the wife’s brother? In the novel, the brother is an incestuous rapist. Maybe that is why the narrator doesn’t care for the cat much. Maybe that’s why the wife is accusing her husband of killing it? Some kind of wishful thinking? Still, we don’t get any background on the relationship with her brother until The Wind-up Bird Chronicle so you’re kind of grasping at air in the short story.

In a chapter of the novel apparently not published in English versions (according to Wikipedia, Vintage, the English publisher, was concerned the book was too long so they had the translator cut about 61 pages from the original 1,379 pages), it is revealed that the phone sex lady was actually his wife. Twist! In the short story he said of the woman’s voice:

I have absolutely no recollection of ever heading this woman’s voice before. And I pride myself on a near-perfect ear for voices, so I’m sure there’s no mistake. This is the voice of a woman I don’t know. A soft, low nondescript voice.

I presume his skill for placing voices isn’t in the novel. Because that seems like a pretty lame trick to pull on your reader. It’s one thing to have an unreliable narrator. But an incompetent, overconfident one is just setting you up for a shitty experience. That’s a book I don’t want to read. I also don’t want to read it because it’s 1,318 pages, so that’s that.

Perhaps it’s wrong to judge Murakami based on one short story. But he put this one at the start of the book! And actually (even though I’ve read hardly any of his stuff) I would argue this story is probably representative of his work. Check out this Murakami bingo card:

Appearing in “The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women”:

Mysterious woman

Ear fetish? Perhaps not - but, like I said, an auditory fixation for sure

Unexpected phone call

Cats

Urban ennui

Secret passageway

Precocious teenager

Cooking

Vanishing cats

This story is in his usual stylistic neighborhood. He’s got to be comfy here.

What do people like about Murakami? Does his writing make me feel like the universe is singing a song? Certainly, this story has stuck with me. By which I mean, it plagues my every waking thought. It torments me. It twists my toes backwards, blocks the drain of my shower with hair, corrupts my Excel files. It is a blight I shall bear for the rest of my life: who was on the phone? Not only do I not get Murakami, but I don’t get what others might like about him. Like I said at the top, I did enjoy reading this story because there were tantalising threads. I could tolerate the dull inner monologue about the narrator’s erstwhile legal career and how he felt as he drifted off for an afternoon nap if there were a resolution to at least one of the story’s mysteries. But this story does not pay off. Not even a little bit. The idea that you need to read 1,300 more pages for a resolution is frustrating. In 2014, The Guardian covered an event where Murakami spoke about The Wind-up Bird Chronicle:

The author of 13 novels and many short stories admitted to having completely forgotten what he has written – or indeed why – when asked about specific plot points, without seeming bothered at all. “Really?” and “I don’t remember that” were two of his most frequent answers, and he had the audience laughing at his frankness every time. “It was published 20 years ago and I haven’t read it since then!” he said of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, around which the event centred...

“I don’t have any idea at all, when I start writing, of what is to come. For instance, for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the first thing I had was the call of the bird, because I heard a bird in my back yard (it was the first time I heard that kind of sound and I never have since then. I felt like it was predicting something. So I wanted to write about it). The next thing was cooking spaghetti – these are things that happen to me! I was cooking spaghetti, and somebody call. So I had just these two things at the start. Two years I kept on writing. It’s fun! I don’t know what’s going to happen next, every day. I get up, go to the desk, switch on the computer, etc. and say to myself: “so what’s going to happen today?” It’s fun!”

Fun for you, maybe.

I don’t think a feature of good fiction is wacky shit inexplicably occurring with no explanation or follow up - otherwise, it’s not a narrative.

I don’t need every plot line neatly resolved, and I don’t need to be told explicitly what everything means (I’m happy to do some legwork on my own) but none of the plot points are resolved at all in "The Wind-up Bird and Tuesday’s Women”. In fiction, as in life, I want things to be connected, to have a cause and effect relationship. I want things to make sense: to have a trigger, make an impact, be remembered. Even if the trigger is hidden, I want people to react to the things happening around them in a plausible way. Ideally, I want to think the things in the story mattered.

“Up in Michigan” by Hemingway is a short story I like. It’s an interesting depiction of sexual politics, innocent female affection, etc. As I’ve gotten older, the reasons I like it have changed. When I read it when I was 20, I felt some kind of feminine kinship across time with the protagonist because she falls for the wrong guy, and her romanticism is crushed by the weight of the drunk guy she likes falling asleep on her after some bad sex, and she loses a little bit of herself that night - yes, her virginity but also some trust and whatever. And now I find it kind of amusing because you know Hemingway killed with the ladies and probably played the heart breaker (or the drunk dude falling asleep on some poor girl) a hundred times over so it’s funny to imagine Hemingway in his early 20s, having just got done stomping some girl’s romantic aspirations, then sitting down to write this story, all soulful and sensitive, as if he gave a fuck about girls crying over boys who will never like them. Still, Hemingway’s short stories fucking kill. Killing fuck. They’re good. In “Up in Michingan” as in many of Hemingway’s stories, things are implied rather than uttered (as per the law in Hemingwayland), so sometimes you don’t know the background to a conversation and have to deduce what two characters are talking about, but the dynamic between them is revealed through dialog and their actions. You may not understand why something happened, and often there’s no narrator to help you out, but you infer how people feel about it and what it means to them. Not everything needs to happen for a reason: sometimes babies are born with cancer, sometimes the guy you like doesn’t like you back, sometimes guys get into fights outside bars, sometimes you meet a weird teenager in a secret garden path. But the things that happen should matter to you, to your reader, and to your protagonist, at least a little bit. Otherwise what’s the point?

#haruki murakami #burning #the elephant vanishes #the wind-up bird and tuesday's women #hemingway #up in michigan #george saunders #the semplica-girl diaries #the wind-up bird chronicle #jay-z #beyonce #solange #met gala #the new yorker

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studentsofshield · 7 years ago

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Pick of the Week and Comics Reviews for the Week of 4/26/17

By Vincent Faust

This was originally published on the date in the title derp

It’s new comics day, everyone! For those totally unaware, the majority of comics come out in a serial format. A single comic is usually called an issue, though there are other weird nicknames like singles, floppies, etc. Major publishers put out their several series once a month. Though the different series are spread out so that product is coming out every week. Special issues called annuals even come out to cover that “13th month” of uneven weeks.

Today I will be reviewing some of the major releases of this week. After reading and reviewing all of them, I will also select a “pick of the week” as the standout issue. At the end I will also make some recommendations about new collected editions that have come out this week.

Pick of the Week: Flash 21 Writer: Josh Williamson, Artist: Howard Porter

5/5

This is how you do a fantastic comic book. Rebirth, baby, let’s go! The DC Universe that everyone knows and loves is on its way back to us. There are so many things to discuss here and I also don’t want to spoil much.

Howard Porter’s art is gorgeous. His representation of Barry’s super speed is gorgeous, though we already know that from his run on the title with Geoff Johns over 10 years ago. We also get a shot of the gruesome corpse of Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash. A bruised and bandaged Bruce Wayne also highlights Porter’s versatility. He also admirably handles some flashback peeks in a time travel sequence.

A Watchtower “lost and found” scene shows off so many Easter eggs. What to think of some of these? Meaningless background art or a hint at what is to come? These are clearly the costumes of Hourman, Star-Spangled Kid, and Doctor Midnite. A Rocket Red #7 suit is also seen, which specifically refers back to the 1980s JLI iteration of the character. As opposed to the Generation Lost/New 52 version. The issue also opens with another Johnny Thunder scene.

The final page reveal is insane. Reading this issue makes me realize how much I love these darn characters and how giddy I am that DC is finally taking steps after seven years to make things right again. Perfect.

Action Comics 978 Writer: Dan Jurgens, Artist: Carlo Barberi

5/5

This is continuing Dan Jurgens’ aftermath story following the Reborn crossover saga. Clark is checking through Fortress of Solitude memories to determine what all has changed in his past thanks to the merging with the Superman of Earth-Prime. He basically has phantom memories. This allows Jurgens to do some refreshing on the origin and clarify what is in continuity and what isn’t.

Readers get a jaw dropping splash on page 6 showcasing many of his villains and eras. Electric Blue Superman is notably shown. Darkseid is drawn in his Jack Kirby style. Manchester Black is even here (obviously specifically nodding to What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way from Action Comics #775). We even get to see the trunks on for a second.

Jurgens basically runs us through the major emotional moments of his original 1990s tenure on the Superman books. From his proposal to Lois, revealing his secret identity, to his death at the hands of Doomsday, to the marriage.

The book ends with Mr. Oz teasing something for Clark and Hank Henshaw forming his Superman Revenge Squad with Eradicator, Metallo, Blanque, and soon to be Mongul.

The Superman books are going through a really exciting period right now. Just like many of DC’s characters. But Supes is at his best he’s been for probably a decade. Truly magical work.

Blue Beetle 8 Writer: Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, Artist: Scott Kollins

3/5

This has been the lowest selling Rebirth title from its debut to its most recent issue. It’s really a shame that it isn’t clicking with readers considering the all-star classic creative team. Though maybe it’s precisely that traditional feel that is holding the book back.

One thing the old school style has going for it is a meaty feeling. I don’t get the same feeling reading this issue that I did from the X-Men books. Not much decompression here. Lots of dialogue and action is packed into this little package.

The title page describes “the reunion of one of the greatest teams in comic book history.” I got really excited and thought it was going to be the return of Booster Gold. But it was referring to DeMatteis joining the creative team as scripter. I haven’t read enough of the previous issues to determine if this marks an improvement.

The final page of Jaime Reyes putting on Ted’s classic Blue Beetle suit is giving me more of those great Rebirth feelings. Check out my post on Rebirth dream books to hear what I think could save this book (it’s Booster Gold).

Justice League of America 5 Writer: Steve Orlando, Artist: Andy MacDonald

2/5

Nothing offensive about this issue. Nothing to write home about either. I still don’t totally understand why this specific lineup has been assembled as the splinter Justice League team. Seems like they’d be better off called the Outsiders. Ryan Choi gets so little attention. As do pretty much everyone on this team. Characterization is completely lacking. As a Philadelphian, I was annoyed that Ray’s home city was teased but the change was not actually acknowledged. Not much else to say about this book. Doesn’t pique my interest much.

Suicide Squad 16 Writer: Rob Williams, Artist: Tony S. Daniel

2/5

First of all, I have not read most of this series. I admit complete bias before cracking this issue open. I don’t think the Suicide Squad has been interesting since John Ostrander left it in 1992. There have been worthy successors like Gail Simone’s Secret Six and Greg Rucka’s Checkmate as far as DC Universe political intrigue and bad guys turned sorta good stories go.

I also think that DC completely ruined the franchise with the New 52. Presenting the book as a core flagship and making Harley Quinn a featured character deflates all of the tension and entire premise of the book. DC considers Harley their “fourth pillar” after Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. So the entire point of the Suicide Squad – that a member could die at any minute – is made moot.

DC tapped Jim Lee to initially draw the Rebirth iteration of Suicide Squad. Which obviously indicates they see it as a blockbuster title. Which makes sense from a business perspective given the recent (crappy) film adaptation. But Lee is not a good fit for this title. I also think he tries to return to something close to his 1990s X-Men/Wildcats aesthetic when on major books nowadays. Something has happened and that style of his has been rough on everything since All-Star Batman and Robin.

Enough rambling and onto the actual book at hand. Right off the bat on the cover I spy atrocious costumes for Harley and Deadshot. Katana has some obnoxious TnA perspective going on. On the interiors, Tony Daniel is at least a step up from the misplaced Lee.

The most interesting character here is Lex Luthor in his new status quo. The Squad infiltrate his complex while Amanda Waller talks him up. All to receive some Kryptonite so that General Zod can join the Squad. Because that is sure to work out.

X-Men Blue 2 Writer: Cullen Bunn, Artist: Jorge Molina

3/5

I still don’t care about these versions of the Original Five. Across Bendis and Hopeless, I was never given a reason to care about this time-displaced Wonder Bread. They’re just boring versions of their older selves. Which of course makes me upset seeing as how Cyclops is my favorite Marvel superhero.

Bunn was clearly born to write Magneto. He’s done fantastic work with the character previously in the Marvel Now era solo series and then in the All-New All-Different Uncanny X-Men. I just wish that he was more of a central character in this book. Jean goes into his mind and Bunn effectively pulls the heartstrings with a Holocaust flashback that was not done in an exploitative way.

Some of the dialogue between the teenagers is iffy. I am not a fan of Jorge Molina’s Jean Grey design. Otherwise, this book felt pretty decompressed. Nothing actually happens, there is no complete story within these pages.

A beginning flashback scene has Jean Grey arguing with Magneto over cooperating. She states that he had battled them over and over again, with his response being “that was a long time ago.” It was for most readers as well. Which is why we don’t care about these characters. But maybe there is a silver lining, with a tasty final page tease.

Though this will likely just turn Magneto into a stock villain again. Here’s hoping Bunn has interesting plans.

X-Men Gold 2 Writer: Marc Guggenheim, Artist: Ardian Syaf

3/5

I’m not going to get too into the Ardian Syaf controversy here. His art is meh in this issue, with some bright spots and some sequences that look really lazy.

We an incredibly abridged fight with the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Who we learn are joined by Mesmero. Kitty has an awkward exposition scene with Steve Rogers. Are other books not addressing his H.Y.D.R.A. stuff at all yet?

Nightcrawler gets injured, Old Man Logan gets captured. A generic faceless mutant gets shot. Guggenheim is already going overboard with the race metaphor. The new Avalanche and Pyro aren’t explained yet either.

This Brotherhood arc doesn’t have me jazzed to keep reading. It offers nothing new but is also not effectively pulling at my nostalgia for X-eras past.

Reprints

Marvel has a publishing initiative that they call True Believers. It reprints certain classic single issues for a dollar cover price. There are two really cool ones out this week.

One is True Believers: Generation X which collects the debut issue of that titular 1990s X-title. Everyone likes to dig on the 90s era in comics, and especially the X-Men. However, Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo did some wonderful work on this underrated title. Bachalo’s art is on a whole other level of innovative and unique. The characterization of these young mutants under the pen (or rather keyboard) of Lobdell was unparalleled for years. This is obviously being released to coincide with the upcoming Generation X series with limited connections to the originals. I am hoping that this new book does well and motivates someone at Marvel to give fans a comprehensive reprint of this classic.

Another is being labeled as True Believers: X-Men Gold. There actually was previously an X-Men Gold book prior to the ongoing one. It was a one-shot released in late 2013. However, this is not that. This reprints Uncanny X-Men #281. Which is the first issue of the next major status quo after Chris Claremont left the X-Men. This is the origins of the Blue and Gold era which the current X-books are trying to recapture. Beautiful (though very 90s) art by Whilce Portacio. A little less impressive script by some concoction of Jim Lee, John Byrne, and Whilce Portacio. This is before Scott Lobdell came on to give an actual direction to Uncanny X-Men.

Avengers: Masters of Evil Epic Collection

This is the third epic collection of Silver Age Avengers from Marvel. It collects issues 41-56, Annual 1-2. The beginning of this is the tail end of the Kooky Quartet era of Avengers history (though at this point joined by Hank Pym as Goliath). This period then proceeds with classic Avengers like Hercules and Black Panther jumping on. Roy Thomas picked up writing the book in the last epic at #35. He will do lots of character development for Black Panther across his run. This ends right before the debut of Vision. One can actually buy four Avengers epic collections from the very beginning. That’s almost 2,000 pages of classic Marvel action.

Flash by Waid Vol 2

The greatest Flash run of all time. In fact, this specific collection collects The Return of Barry Allen. Which is almost universally considered the best Flash story of all time. A Flash fan would have to be insane to not instantly be on the lookout for this.

Saga Deluxe Vol 2

Everyone loves Saga. I think? Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ smash hit Image title wows most who read it. With its emotional drama and wacky characters. What is there not to love? If you don’t already rabidly pick it up in issues or paperbacks, here’s a sexy hardcover. Or just upgrade. This collects issues 19-36. Which is equivalent to the fourth through sixth trades.

Young Justice Vol 1

Do you like the animated TV show of the same name? With characters like Connor Kent, Tim Drake, Bart Allen, and Cassie Sandsmark. This is the origin of that title and much of its roster of teenage superpowered heroes. This is also a comic written by Peter David. Which means, as long as DC continues printing them, you will have a solid chunk to read and digest. It also means that the characterization and relationships are on point. I’ve been looking forward to checking this out.

Let me know in the comments below what comics you enjoyed this week or intend to pick up.

#blog #Vincent Faust #comics #comics criticism #comics review #the button #dc rebirth #rebirth #blue beetle #flash #batman

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veganvagabond88 · 8 years ago

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Good Morning Vietnam

Hanoi

As we drove to Hanoi from the airport we instantly knew we would love it. A main highway takes you to the city aligned with stunning green rice paddy fields. As you enter the city the carnage begins. It had a very similar feel to Nepal, without the dust, but still the constant beeping and horrendous driving. It was fun if not a bit terrifying at times, we arrived quite late so we found some dinner and had a wander around the busy streets before going back to our hotel.

As nice as the staff was the room was damp and had mould so we couldn't stay here another night, id developed another chest infection so I’ve had to find a better place to stay. Since Nepal I haven't been 100% and keep getting sick. I think the constant travelling from place to place definitely takes its till on the immune system. People seem to think that travelling is easy and its all fun and sitting on a beach all day relaxing, but the hard reality is that its difficult and exhausting at times, spending hours on a crappy bus/train, turning up somewhere with no where to stay etc, isn't exactly my idea of fun but I am grateful that I have the opportunity to travel, sometimes taking a bad cheap bus/train is necessary to reach a location of beauty, which in the end is worth the sleepless night and cockroach infested train cabin, haha.

There is so much to do in Hanoi, I could easily spend a week or two here. If you don't like a busy city though id suggest just spending a couple of nights. After a while you get used to the beeping and crossing the death trap roads.

Crazy roads

Definitely see some sights here!

Random barber shop!

I visited the women's museum which was great. If you are interested in History then this is the place to go. The museum is split into 3 floors, women in family, women in history, and women in fashion. It is located on one of the most ancient streets of the city amongst French style buildings, big hotels and embassies. The place itself is quite contemporary and houses some of the most important and cultural information artefacts from Vietnam women's history. My favourite part was probably women in history, this documents the struggle, but also important role that the Vietnamese woman had on the country during the war especially.

Beautiful photos of Vietnamese women

The centre of the museum was pretty cool

One of the most interesting stories is that of Dang Thuay Tram, she was a north Vietnamese army doctor who fought the Americans during the Vietnam war and died defending her hospital from US attack. She is known as the Anne Frank of Vietnam, after documenting her life as an army doctor through a diary which has since sold thousands of copies and become a phenomenon. I am going to read the full book now after learning about her.

The rest of this section is full of stories documenting other brave Vietnamese women, its a little hard to digest at times as you get a real sense of what these women went through and realise that when you've had a shitty day you really had nothing to complain about, compared to the women who fought and sacrificed their lives.

Really cool propaganda art

Its not all doom and gloom though, the museum is also a celebration of women throughout the country displaying beautiful jewellery, clothing's, including the many different dresses/outfits from the many provinces of Vietnam, which shows the different culture and heritage.

So many different dresses, all hand made and beautiful

The cost of this was 30,000 dong as well as another 30,000 for an audio guide which I thought was a must, it was very insightful and clear. I spent a good 2 hours in the museum before making my way to a nearby cafe where I sat and digested all of the information I had just learnt, of course some of it made me sad but I also felt great admiration for the countries women and walked away feeling like Id gained a lot and learned the truth and realised how lucky I am.

Another must to do is the Hanoi Prison, now this is quite a deep and moving place. The Hoa Lo prison was used by French colonists for political prisoners then later on by the North Vietnamese for the POWs, during this time it was rather aptly known as the “Hanoi Hilton” by the POWs.

The prison was demolished in the 1990s however the original gatehouse remains as the museum

Hoa Lo can be translated to “fiery furnace” or even “hells hole” it really was a place of hell.

weird feeling being behind these bars :-/

Around the grounds of the prison parts of the tunnels which were used as an escape route are on display, can only imagine how claustrophobic this must of been!

The prison was built by the French when Vietnam was still part of the French Indochina. The prison was called “Maison Centrale” meaning Central House.

From the late 1800’s to 1954 it held up to 8000 people with the inmates held in terrible sub human conditions, where the prisoners were subjected to torture and eventually execution. Some were even kept in one cell chained down for up to a year, eating and going to the toilet on the same spot before finally being executed.

This was so eerie and surreal, the wax work models show how the inmates were held down in these awful conditions, it started to make me feel a bit sick thinking about it, i was keen to leave by then.

The prison documents the history from the French era right to when it was used to have US troops during the Vietnam war. Some were captured and held for up to 7 years, before the war ended they were released between the late 70’s early 80’s.

The museum still displays the original guillotine room with all original equipment as well as the different quarters men and women Vietnamese political prisoners.

Displays in the interrogation room show the propaganda used showing that the Americans were treated well and not harmed and even cite the nickname “Hanoi Hilton” to “prove” that inmates found the prison to be like a hotel.

Propaganda includes photos of the US POWs playing chess, pool, gardening, raising chickens and receiving large amounts of fresh food. However the claims of the prison are contested by the US prisoners published memoirs which identify the rooms as the site of acts of torture.

I have mixed feelings about it, no one will ever know the real truth except for the prisoners themselves. It serves as a good reminder of the past and an appreciation lesson of how privileged we are now.

How to get there:

We walked, its only a 10 minute walk from the old quarter. I recommend downloading the app “mapsme” its been brilliant and works offline (that being said its sometimes got confused and we've ended up somewhere completely different)

Cost:

As of February 2017 it cost only 20,000 dong which is less than a dollar! Well worth it, apparently the museum is closed on Mondays but check before you go.

We spent a few days in Hanoi, exploring the local markets and enjoying walks around the lovely Hoan Kiem Lake, the lake is a main focal point of Hanoi aligned with cafes and street vendors. It is the best at the weekends when the roads around the lake are restricted so that families can play around the lake. So much is going on here, street performers, markets, games, people exercising. Brides have their professional photographs done here which was lovely to see. Also note its a selfie stick haven so id recommend going at less busy times to avoid the masses of selfie hungry tourists. It gets a bit annoying at times but also quite entertaining.

I sat on a bench with a coffee one day and was approached by a local Vietnamese young man who wanted to practice his English, he was a doctor and spent his weekends down at the lake to speak to tourists so he could improve his English. I thought this was great, he was really nice and taught me some Vietnamese and even walked me to the women's museum and told me some facts about the city which I otherwise wouldn't of known. After this I actually noticed quite a lot of local youngsters speaking to westerners, I think practising like the man I met was. In fact one evening we were sat by the lake when a small boy came up to us and started asking lots of questions and wanted his photo taken with us, he was with his mother and little brother. He was super cute and a very smart inquisitive boy, its awesome that they do this to improve their English.

We found some amazing places to eat which did vegan food, in particular Minh Chay vegan restaurant which is located near the Catholic Church.

The gothic style church was stunning at night, was nice to see a church actually after being in Asia for so long now.

We ate there a few times, I really recommend the salads, burgers and vegan cheese pizza. It was AMAZING!. We also tried the pumpkin flan which was so tasty. Our hotel “The Ritz Boutique” was only a few doors down to here. We loved staying here and the host Thuy was so helpful and kind to us. We stayed in a dorm which was one of the most comfortable clean dorms I’ve ever stayed in, plus for the first night we had it to ourselves, i slept like a baby that night :)

Vegan Pizza, Tempura and Salad!

Amazing Flan!

Thuy was great and helped us organise a trip to Cat Ba Halong Bay. We got a VIP bus and boat then a coach on the other side, this took around 3-4 hours. It was a pretty good journey I really recommend paying a bit extra, I think it cost us $18 each for a better bus, it was definitely worth it, we spoke to some people who got the cheaper option and said it was pretty bad. The tour operator for this was “Good morning Cat Ba”

Unfortunately we missed the good weather in Cat Ba, we were met by overcast skies and a kind of eerie feel about it, it was pretty lifeless really however we were told by a local that we were in the low season, so maybe that's why.

It was a bit like going back in time, the views out to sea were pretty amazing though but the island itself felt a bit tired and lacking modernisation, in a way I kind of liked it, it had a retro Southend feel about it haha.

We booked a one day boat tour to visit Halong Bay. This was beautiful, it is known for its emerald green waters and thousands of tall limestone island topped with rain forests. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and is a very popular destination for tourists.

First stop was to a stunning spot where you could jump off the boat and swim to a little island. It was way too cold plus I had a cough and cold so I decided to stay on the boat and had a coffee while Ben jumped in and explored the little island.

We took the boat out to the islands where we stopped to do kayaking around the coves and caves, it was like something out of Jurassic Park, a picture just couldn't capture its beauty. I can only imagine how nice it would have been if we had good weather. Nether the less it was lovely to kayak around for an hour or so. Unfortunately the destruction of man is evident here where non recyclable plastic, cans and polystyrene litters the waters. It really is sad to see. Hopefully some sort of clean up will happen and fines imposed for littering as it really is destroying the planet.

Other than that I tried to look past the bad parts and enjoy the day. After kayaking we got back on the boat and enjoyed a freshly cooked meal of tofu, greens, spring rolls and rice, it was so good.

We then made our way to monkey island, my friend had “warned” me about this. The monkeys are very naughty here and are known to steal peoples food/beer and even attacking tourists so I was a bit apprehensive as we stepped onto the island.

Beautiful monkeys but also cheeky, after all they are wild so you never know how they are going to react, these two seemed ok and are used to tourists but they did get a bit fiesty at times! i kept my distance :p

I was a bit disappointed we only saw 2 monkeys which were hanging around the (overpriced) bar/shop that you get dropped off at. We took some photos and witnessed one of them stealing a bag of nuts from an unsuspecting tourist, this made me laugh.

We then made our way up to the well known viewpoint (stepping over rubbish along the way). We actually stopped as we neared the top and came back down as it was packed with people so it was too crowded going up the narrow path. We could still see the amazing panoramic views from many points up the hill though.

Quite upsetting to see this :(

We hung around on the island for an hour or so taking photos, before getting back onto the boat and making our way back to Cat Ba.

Muay Thai pose :p

There is lots to do in Cat Ba, trekking, caving, kayaking, boat tours etc. we explored some of the beaches which were stunning and surprisingly empty as well. For our last day we rented a scooter and visited the Cat Ba National Park.

I even had a go riding the scooter!

This was a bit weird, the place looked deserted, you can tell it must have been a busy tourist place at some point, I’m not sure if we were there in an off peak season maybe but it just seemed so run down which was sad. We trekked up to the top view point which has fantastic views so that made it worthwhile. On the way back down we bypassed the busy restaurant and had a coffee at a little shack run by a local couple. It was nice to give back and help them out a bit, even if it was just a coffee.

Dilapidated french buildings in the grounds of the National Park.

We did get back to the main town and had a yummy late lunch of vegetable spring rolls and a Vietnamese Pho before catching the bus, ferry and another bus back to Hanoi.

We visited the vegan restaurant one last time, amazing salad and vegan cheese lasagne. I was sad to be leaving Hanoi as I really love it, but it was time to move on. Our hotel host Thuay booked us a sleeper train to Danang where we then took a taxi to the city Hoi An.

The sleeper train cost $45 but it does take 16 hours so I guess its worth it. The train wasn't exactly clean and we shared our 4 bed cabin with a French couple plus a few cockroaches and god knows what else, haha. Oh well it got us from A to B so that's the main thing.

Its nice to wake up on the train which passes through the gorgeous Vietnam countryside, it was raining a bit but it was beautiful still.

Danang

We arrived in Danang around lunch time and walked around for an hour or so trying to find some food or at least a good coffee. However this didn't happen, quickly we learnt that Danang didn't have much to offer for tourists, so deflated and tired we walked back to the station, picked up some crisps and a water and got a taxi to Hoi An. This ended up costing around $5 each, but I’m pretty sure you can get a shared mini bus when you get off the train (although as no trains were arriving when we went back this wasn't possible)

Hoi An

We arrived in Hoi An later that afternoon and found somewhere to stay, the “Hoi An Villa” (it wasn't a villa haha) but it was nice and came with free breakfast – the usual bread and eggs! Bore! I ended up buying some peanut butter and jam though so that's been useful for me as I don't eat eggs. Got to love p&j on toast (well a warm baguette) loving the Vietnamese coffee though!.

We spent a few days here, its pretty expensive though, the best way to see Hoi An is by bicycle, we rented these for the day and took a ride to An Bang Beach which takes you through rice paddy fields which was gorgeous. The beach was lovely but it was a bit overcast and cold. We had a paddle then went for a delicious ice coffee and coconut treat before riding back just before the sunset. The light is awesome here, its perfect for taking photos.

This is the part of Vietnam that I love, the countryside and simple life that the Vietnamese people lead is so lovely.

Hard at work!

An Bang Beach

We met up with Molly, Jon and Mario again which was nice, they are travelling a little ahead of us but we keep catching up to them which has been fun.

Night time around the streets of Hoi An, really pretty!

Hoi An is pretty touristy just walking around and exploring things such as the Japanese Bridge which is in the ancient town is awesome. They try and charge you to walk over but we managed to by pass this and found another way through the back streets. (backpacking 101 ha-ha)

met some cute pooches taking the back roads :)

The town is also famous for its tailor shops, you cant walk down a street without finding one, or better yet being hassled to come in and buy something. We found a lovely shop though and I picked out a navy maxi dress and playsuit which the lady altered to fit me perfect. This only cost around £22 for both items. Ben also got a couple of lairy shirts very cheap. Lots of people actually come here to purposely get suits and dresses made for weddings, combining it with stag and hen do’s which I think is a great idea. Id definitely recommend this as its so cheap and the clothes/fabric are lovely.

Food

We found an awesome vegan restaurant called Minh Hien we ate here a couple of nights running before discovering the restaurant across the road called “number 43” which also had a great veggie friendly menu. The Cao Lau was amazing and we also had the veggie set menu which only cost a few quid/person. It really is worth it and both restaurants were always busy which is a good sign.

Cao Lau , super tasty!

After a few days here we moved on and booked a sleeper bus to Nha Trang, this was pretty awful but I’ve come to realise that nothing is easy and straight forward in Asia.

Cosy! :-/

Everyone got on the bus but was made to go to the back as all of the seats near the front were “reserved”… They wasn't it was just the bus driver being awkward as usual. The ride wasn't too bad and was better than the last sleeper bus, we had a loo break and then a dinner break at around 11pm! Had some veggie noodles which were pretty much plain noodles with a few greens on top but it was OK, we got back on the bus and managed to sleep a little bit.

Nha Trang

We arrived in Nha Trang around 5:30am and got scammed, the driver said a guy from our hotel was here to pick us up on bikes, the guy even had a card with the name of the hotel on so we said how much and they said it was free and that they were from the hotel. After a 5 minute journey we got off and they demanded money from us (a lot more than what a bike taxi should be so we argued with them and they turned a bit violent. Eventually we just gave them 50,000dong and walked away with them shouting abuse at us. Arriving at a hostel so early is a bit annoying as you cant check in but the staff were friendly and let us catch some sleep in a free dorm for a few hours until our double room was ready.

The next few days we walked around a lot and explored the city, we quickly came to realise that it was pretty much run by Russians, it was quite weird even all the menus were in Russian and we had to ask for English. The beach part is pretty nice and the weather was starting to warm up a bit, however we were pretty run down so didn't really do much here. Its expensive to so we decided to save the money until we went somewhere else.

Fresh coconut on the beach ;)

A few friends have actually visited Vinpearl and said its awesome, its like Vietnam's version of Disneyland however we decided not to do this as it was quite pricey. Apart from that Nha Trang is a resort town so for backpackers I wouldn't recommend staying here no more than a few days. There are trips out to diving sites but I wanted to save diving for when I get to Thailand. Tip if you want a real healthy smoothie head to “Core” its a juice bar similar “Boost” that you get in England/Oz. They also do amazing dark rye veggie wraps!.

Green smoothie at “core”

Dalat

Next stop was to Dalat this is a city in Southern Vietnam's central highlands and is centred around a huge lake, surrounded by pine forests, lakes and waterfalls. It was developed by the French in the early 1900’s which is evident from the colonial heritage that remains.

There are plenty of trips you can take but we decided to rent a scooter and explore for ourselves. We rode out to the Pongour waterfalls which are the best and biggest ones there. Its around 50km from Dalat city but its well worth it as they are not as touristy which was nice, we stopped on the way for a sugar cane juice which was super cheap, fresh and delicious.

I cant remember how much we paid for entry but it was cheap however they do charge a bit for parking which I thought was a bit cheeky. After a little bit of a walk you are met by the huge waterfalls which are pretty stunning, the views from the top are beautiful to. Many people pick to do this rather than the Elephant waterfalls which are closer to the city centre.

The other attraction we did was the cable car, this takes you 2.5km across the pine forests of Dalat which is pretty impressive, you can see for miles around, farmland, greenhouses, lakes and distant mountains. The cable car runs from Robin Hill to Truc Lam Pagoda and Tuyen Lake. The Pagoda was amazing and is surrounded by beautiful gardens of flowers and temples. Its definitely worth a visit.

Top Tip: The Truc Lam Monastery is open daily from 06:00-18:00 but the cable car station closes at 17:00.

Take something suitable to wear (cover your arms and legs) if you want to go inside the temples.

Apart from that there is plenty to do, Dalat is full of the usual tourist stuff, markets, a lot of coffee shops and clothes shops. As well as this you can do many hikes and it is also famed for its golf courses.

We did go to do the Datanla waterfall with the roller coaster however we fell out with the people there as they didn't mention you had to pay two entrance fees, so bare that in mind if you are on a budget, we didn't want to see the Datanla waterfall we only wanted to experience the toboggan style roller-coaster that they have. We ended up leaving it and riding around the city instead, then went for a nice coffee and treat :)

There are lots of nice cafes, but one of my favourites was “An Cafe” they do real smoothies and also give you crayons and paper to doodle on which I thought was very cute.

Also if you are a coffee lover then visit “Lens coffee restaurant” this is located above the market so its perfect for people watching, they do an awesome Americano.

We managed to find quite a lot of veggie friendly restaurants but one of the best was “V Cafe” I recommend the Tofu curry and salads, they also serve Dalat red wine which was amazing, I haven't had red wine since I left the UK so I was very excited about this and had a few glasses (30,000 dong a glass so cant complain) every night they have live music to which was great really enjoyed the vibe here.

Red wine and veggie/tofu curry! perfect

After exploring as much as we could of Dalat by scooter and foot we made our way to Mui Ne, this is a beach resort town along the South China Sea in South-east Vietnam. Its a popular spot for things like windsurfing, kitesurfing sailing etc, so if you have time id recommend going there, and also visit the sand dunes, I didn't get a chance but it looked really cool. I only spent a night here as I wanted to move on to Ho Chi Minh as I was flying to Koh Samui to meet my sister and her boyfriend who were holidaying there.

Going solo...

I took the bus from Mui Ne down to Ho Chi Minh, this was probably the best bus I’ve been on, it was a sleeper bus even though I left around 1:30pm but it was nice to lay down a bit and catch up on some sleep, I think I arrived in Ho Chi Minh around 5:30pm so it wasn't a bad journey.

The traffic was insane as i arrived!

I met Molly, Jon and Mario again and we had dinner and some drinks so that was nice.

Mariooooo! love this guy, hes currently in New Zealand extending his travels :)

The next morning I then took a taxi to the airport to fly to Bangkok (under £10 i think). The flight didn't cost much, I think it was just under £50 and the flight time was around 1.5 hours. Ho Chi Minh is a pretty crazy city, it was a shame I couldn't explore more, I would of liked to of visited some of the museums and the tunnels, but I didn't have time, im sure I will go back at some point though.

Everything was going smoothly, then I tried to check in…. They said I couldn't fly because I didn't have an outbound ticket out of Thailand! My heart sank as I thought Im not going to make it and see my sister, at this point id become so home sick I needed to see her. Eventually though after speaking to the manager of the airline he let me through! I was happy again.

I was finally on my way to Thailand my favourite place

To be continued…..

P.S

Ive had alot going on over the past few months, so sorry for not keeping up to date, ive been in the South of Thailand for around two months, exploring islands, lots of diving (I got my SSI qualification, open water and advanced diver), snorkelling, hiking and of course partying :p. Im now in Malaysia!

I will keep on exploring, writing and taking photos while keeping you all updated when I can :) lots of love <3 VB xx

Some recent photos on my Insta: vegan_bunny_girl

#travel #travelwriter #vietnam #vietnamtravel #vegantravel #vagabond #veganvagabond #travelgram #aroundtheworld #hanoi #travelblog #vegan

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swelldomains · 8 years ago

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Digital Immigrants Helping to Build a Digital Nation

A instead silly fixation has actually created in our 'digital' globe today: that there is some type of divide between those who are 'digital natives,' and also those that are not.

Worse, some feel that there is no higher compliment to pay someone than to describe them as a digital local ... which it's perfectly acceptable to disregard 'non-natives' as in some way outré.

With the possible exception of Nicolas Sarkozy, that language is no much longer acceptable in the real world of constructing genuine nations. And a good idea, too.

Immigrant Nation

Little Italy...

Rocco Rossi, a previous Toronto mayoral candidate and previous Head of state of the Liberal Celebration of Canada, recently told a touching tale concerning his uncle's challenging beginnings as an 18-year-old Italian immigrant to Canada in 1951, landing at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Later, after the uncle had damaged this fresh ground, others from his household and also the inadequate farming area he had emigrated from made the journey throughout. Today, 350 people from that neighborhood now call Greater Toronto home.

What struck me regarding the tale had not been concerning how various most of us are, but rather, the similarities. Outside of First Nations and also (now) a fairly little portion of those descended from those that showed up early, in the 16th as well as 17th centuries, the majority of Canadians are first, 2nd, and also 3rd generation immigrants. And many have moms and dads or grandparents that can associate tales of what life was like trying to obtain developed 'off the watercraft.'

Yet we frequently deny these similarities. Established immigrant teams typically aren't as inviting as they could be of the newer ones. The most recent ones cannot recognize the dull society of the well-known team. As well as the reputable, however still relatively new, groups like the Italians as immortalized by novelist Nino Ricci, desire to convey a Goldilocksian top quality of being not as well fresh, and also not as well stagnant, not delighting in the complete advantages of the establishment but not destitute anymore.

Everyone jockeying for placement - and also lobbing subtle putdowns at groups that showed up on a different watercraft. When in truth, we're all in the exact same boat.

The Digital Nation

That got me thinking about the "Digital Nation."

In Digital Nation, the chronology is in reverse: the newer generations are the 'citizens,' the older generations supposedly the uncomfortable, unpredictable 'immigrants.'

The Digital Nation...

In this version of truth, there is a shocking quantity of displaying around that qualifies to function as well as prosper in the sector. If you didn't just get here, possibly you're as well set in your means to really 'obtain it.' (As Dilbert when aptly shared, the older tech employee could be changed by the younger tech employee, that could subsequently be changed by a 'unborn child.')

Or on the various other hand, if you arrive far too late, maybe all the great get-rich-fast possibilities (Microsoft millionaires, Google worker # 76, obtained an excellent gig at Facebook 3 years ago) will certainly be gone!]

All of it is nonsense…

The Digital Generation Gap

At most ideal, this department offers to remind us of how younger individuals think, or ways to drop old baggage from our business techniques in order to gauge range, networks, and also the rate and also power of the info revolution.

Crossing the divide...

At its worst, it assigns excessive credit rating to any individual who merely shows comfort with using their new tablet, and also that could string a few buzzwords together from Silicon Valley startup culture.

And this underestimates simply exactly how strong the digital divide still is even among young, educated people under 25. There are those that make use of Facebook as well as jargons, and after that, those who can grasp sophisticated shows languages (as well as comply with official scholastic research study, at the very least for a while) to address hard troubles. The substantial majority of 'electronic citizens' are passive fans of the productions as well as improvements headed by a driven, accomplished few.

It's unsurprising to this Gen-X' er that it's often baby boomers who appear obsessed with electronic natives, and even desire to be viewed as digital locals. These are the ones who write books on ways to recognize those that are born electronic, or tweet constantly concerning this application or that.

How do they ever before get anything done? Some of it's downright weird, when you look closely.

Faking It Till You Make It

Most achieved individuals can take advantage of digital innovation as well as digital society - regardless of whether they are in the ideal age brace or straight able to code in the current languages. And also they do so in interesting ways.

Most notably, if they fake-it-till-they-make it hard sufficient, they're left with legions of followers that casually throw around discusses of usages of their systems as methods of faking-it-even-harder. Perhaps a few examples will certainly allow clarify.

Take Matt Drudge, publisher of a page of web links I do not know exactly what making of called the Drudge Report:

Drudge has commonly been lauded as a leader of the fast-moving electronic national politics press. Evaluating only by his age, he could have had a Commodore Pet dog in college, and also he can also do a mean pantomime of a rotating dial phone. Drudge's dad is an electronic leader, having started an on the internet study shop called refdesk. Drudge is an unlikely hero, offered that the style of his site was in fact ripped off from his Dad's.

But then once more, Techmeme's aggregation style was torn off from Drudge. It seems our heroes obtain unlikelier and also unlikelier with each passing generation.

And what about Arianna Huffington The queen of the vaguely dynamic soft-scraper empire referred to as the Huffington Blog post, is an effectively off Child Boomer. I make sure she goes to fantastic initiative to look laid-back when she utilizes her smart device (without reading glasses).

Then there's Nick Denton founder of Gawker Media. He's a splendidly creative business owner and also always exact commentator on the state of our industry. Denton is an authority of breathless, shameless, bawdy blogging.

Today's chatter is tomorrow's news

But did you recognize that Denton left his task as a financial reporter to launch just what was basically a kind of venture internet search engine modern technology? A news collector called Additionally, among a pack of very early solutions planned to transform the archaic technique of 'news clipping solutions' on its head. Denton acts all casual, but it takes a whole lot of deep understanding of the info transformation to develop a successful start-up that changes just how business works.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg started up something not so dissimilar to Denton's business, unlike the mildly wealthy Denton, Bloomberg got very abundant off it. Bloomberg is still a global information realm, majority-owned by Michael Bloomberg, regardless of being pre-Web in its genesis. It was started in 1981, around the same time Microsoft created MS-DOS.

A fellow named Alan Meckler belonged to a team who began up conferences with names like Internet Globe back in the early 1990's. He later went on to own companies with names like Internet.com. Before all that, he was associated with 'information changes' on media like CD-Roms. He is around 70 years old.

Google is stocked with young, wise coders. They're likewise filled with skilled Ph.D's, directed by many Silicon Valley elders, as well as have actually typically had their butts kicked by a seasoned company advisor called Costs Campbell, who not just holds a Master's level, yet was train of the Columbia University football team in the 1970's, VP of Advertising with Apple, as well as much more just recently, CEO as well as Chairman of Intuit. For every one of these factors, Googlers dubbed him 'Train.'

Sheryl Sandberg, also a vital number in the early days of Google's procedures as well as the ethical conscience of its advertising program, is currently COO of Facebook. She pertained to Google with a background in seeking advice from at McKinsey, and as an upper-level official in the Treasury Department under the Clinton Administration. Her role at Facebook has actually been so critical to the business's survival and profitability that her total (mainly stock-based) payment (until now) is valued at better compared to $1B.

Turning to non-media companies.

Amazon.com, led by the irrepressible Jeff Bezos, is today an $83 billion firm. Bezos began Amazon in 1994. He is a true digital pioneer as well as enthusiast. Yet he is not a 'digital indigenous' by today's meaning, neither was he viewed as an especially accomplished techie.

Like Steve Jobs, Bezos found out a great deal on the task, though he knew sufficient in 1994 to write job descriptions for established coders. He came down from Wall Street with a vision as well as implemented it with an outlandish degree of obsession to information. Amazon.com is so influential that its simplicity of usage ended up being a darkness under which all ecommerce suppliers lived for years.

Groupon is a 'laughable' development by a cabal of tech-agnostic financiers that take place to have actually made fairly a dent in the market. It's a digital company, kind of. Movie critics of the business appear to really feel that by slamming the company for 'not being actually electronic,' they could in some way talk down its evaluation. Best of luck with that said! Current appraisal: $11.4 billion. I'm not a follower of Groupon myself, yet it's extremely real.

How numerous various other examples would certainly you like?

In cloud computer and also SaaS, middle-aged to older conglomerates like IBM, Xerox, Oracle, and so on compose a substantial part of the value of the US stock exchanges. Also Salesforce.com, the 'startup,' is also mature to be amazing to the amazing youngsters. However it deserves $20.7 billion. Its 47-year-old founder, Marc Benioff, cut his teeth at business at Apple as well as Oracle after developing a software application firm in high school, selling games for machines like the Atari.

Digital Elders

' It's the wood that must fear your hand, not vice versa.' -Pai Mei

What's my verdict? Well, I don't suggest to reject the noticeable: that it could be a great benefit to be born right into the digital change. Several new and also important solutions will certainly be begun up by those that involve the table with a lot of the appropriate prerequisites in terms of understanding as well as disposition.

But 'digital immigrants' like Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Marc Benioff, as well as Arianna Huffington bring something special to the table as well:

They create ventures and address problems self-consciously instead of intuitively. Perhaps it's 'you state tomato, and also I state tomahto,' but those who can bring aware, organized effort right into an area typically get to elevations that the plain virtuoso cannot.

More exceptionally, they understand just what's absolutely effective and game-changing about a fad or technology, and could evangelize that adjustment to those who aren't sure.

They could be ready to work harder, be more stressed, remain the course seemingly forever on a lengthy march to monotonous greatness.

And one more thing. Due to the fact that they're not captured up in the 'social scene' of 'being digital,' the 'digital immigrants' are suitable to inform the truth.

Alan Meckler, that somehow does not have a Wikipedia access (though his business does), uploaded merely and also directly: 'Wikipedia is a Farce' as well as Wikipedia is Dishonest:. And also just what did he need to lose? Lunch with Jimmy Wales?

Digital Nation Building

There is going to be much worth and an extraordinary amount of fresh cultural outcome rising from Digital Nation in the coming years. However Digital Country needs - desperately requires - the equilibrium, official academic histories, framework, greed, worries, planning experience, bridging abilities, and also irreverence of its 'electronic immigrants.' (' Immigrants' who represent, paradoxically, the older generations of technologies and also economic go-getters from worlds far, much away - specifically, previous years like the 1990's, 1980's, and also when it comes to IBM, long before that.)

Were you aware that good ol' Microsoft (MSFT, at $273B) is still valued more than Google to this day? Crazy, right? Resting pleasantly in the list of top 10 business by market capitalization in the Criterion as well as Poor's 500: IBM, at $238B. Google's holding its own at $203B. Facebook, after it goes public, is expected to be valued at $100B. We'll see if they have exactly what it requires to maintain. It's actually prematurely to say.

Or to sum it up most briefly: Zuckerberg, Schmuckerberg.

#business #business owner #marketing #marketing agency #search engine marketing #social media #social media management #social media news #social media strategy

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awesome-shirley-fan · 4 years ago

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What's old is new

DESCENDER

One young robot’s struggle to stay alive in a universe where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters lurk on every planet. A rip-roaring and heart-felt cosmic odyssey that pits humanity against machine, and world against world, to create a sprawling space opera from the creators of Trillium, Sweet Tooth, and Little Gotham.

ASCENDER

Powerhouse creative team JEFF LEMIRE and DUSTIN NGUYEN launch an all-new sequel series to DESCENDER with the launch of ASCENDER! Set ten years after the conclusion of DESCENDER’s storyline, magic has taken the place of machinery and the rules are very different indeed… Mila, the daughter of Andy and Effie from DESCENDER, spends her days exploring the lonely wilds of the planet Sampson and trying to stay out of the clutches of the evil disciples of the all-powerful vampire witch known only as Mother. But, like her parents, Mila doesn’t like to play by the rules, and when a certain robot pal of her dad’s shows up, nothing will ever be the same! With all the scope and heart of the sci-fi classic DESCENDER, LEMIRE and NGUYEN reunite to take readers on an unforgettable fantasy quest!

Like you I’m sure you can tell when something is good, whether it’s a book, comic book or podcast you can’t stop consuming it. This is one you won’t be able to put down. Like most of Lemires work it’s excellent and addicting. The whole future dynamic between robots and humans is fascinating to all of us, especially now when AI is getting closer than it ever has been. The art is gritty and fits the story telling. The story starts with Descender and chapter two is Ascender. Also as I have said before I like the story because it has a beginning and ending.If you like the conflict between humans and robots you will love Jeff Lemires Descender/Ascender.

This isn’t new, but it’s new to me. EC Comics collection from Dark Horse. When you think Dark Horse might be down for the count they hit back hard, THE EC ARCHIVES

Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950s, notably the Tales from the Crypt series. In 1954–55, censorship pressures prompted EC Comics to concentrate on the humor magazine Mad, leading to the company’s greatest and most enduring success. Initially, EC was privately owned by Maxwell Gaines and specialized in educational and child-oriented stories. Later, during its period of notoriety, it was owned by his son, William Gaines. He sold the company in 1960, and it was eventually absorbed into the Kinney National Company, the same corporation that later purchased DC Comics and Warner Bros.

EC had success with its fresh approach and pioneered in forming relationships with its readers through its letters to the editor and its fan organization, the National EC Fan-Addict Club. EC Comics promoted its stable of illustrators, allowing each to sign his art and encouraging them to develop unique styles; the company additionally published one-page biographies of them in the comic books. This was in contrast to the industry's common practice, in which credits were often missing,

They were also known for their shock endings in the stories, like Weird Fantasy #18 (April 1953) The story depicted a human astronaut, a representative of the Galactic Republic, visiting the planet Cybrinia, inhabited by robots. He finds the robots divided into functionally identical orange and blue races, one of which has fewer rights and privileges than the other. The astronaut determines that due to the robots' bigotry, the Galactic Republic should not admit the planet until these problems are resolved. In the final panel, he removes his helmet, revealing himself to be a person of color. Which in 1953 America was shocking. Almost all of their stories had an ending like this.

Another fun series is Adventure into the unknown. One of the stories simply titled Haunted house might be what a Scooby Doo episode was based on. A couple has to stay overnight in a haunted house in order to get their inheritance from a rich relative. The lawyer in charge of the estate tries to scare them out of the house by making the house appear to be haunted. Classic story and art from 1948. At the time these stories were considered edgy before the comics code of authority. These comics are the reason for the code.

What a great idea! Rather than create new characters and stories why not go back 75 years and retell stories to many who have never seen it.

This concept fits the saying “why recreate the wheel” you have great stories very few today have seen, why not reprint and give a chance for new readers to experience and enjoy an old story.

IDW also released a special limited run edition feature the best artists edition, but I believe the Dark Horse reprints are complete and unabridged.

If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you can tell I’m a bit of a nostalgia nut. Seeing these old comics even though I didn’t live in this time period I still like the vibe I get from reading them. The optimism they project is inspiring, for example the writers had humans traveling in space like we drive to the grocery store. Yes, I will admit some of it is a bit corny but getting a glimpse of what people living in that time period were thinking is fun to consider.

Look at least one of these volumes and see what you think. The people who created these comics and stories were the pioneers of the industry that we enjoy today. They were learning as they went along. They created the medium and creators today are perfecting the medium.

This reminds of the SNES classic my kids gave me. To clarify if you don’t know the SNES classic is a small Super NES console with 21 SNES games on it. No carts and they included controls identical to the original 1990 controllers. The games play just like the originals. again, what's old is new again.

Favorite games: Zelda Metroid and best of all you can hack it to play even more retro games from the NES to Sega Genesis and more.

Nostalgia is in and in a big way. With all that is going on in the world I believe people like to go back to what they believe in their mind was a simpler time. Whether it was or not is debatable, but if you go back to when you were 10 it was a simpler time. Or at least I hope it was for you. When you are 10 you don’t have to concern yourself with a job, house payments and getting the next promotion. The most you had to worry about is who you are going to hang out with today and what game to play.

Some may knock people who like to talk about and buy things from their childhood. I would say like most things there is a healthy and unhealthy balance that needs to be adhered to. For example, do not put a second mortgage on your house to buy that one-of-a-kind limited-edition Star Wars action figure. The guys over at the MEGA podcast came up with the idea of having a mini collection of MOTU figures. I believe the number to be considered mini was 8-10 figures. I thought this was a good way to not go overboard, but still have a piece of your childhood.

Overall, I don’t think it’s bad to have a few things from your past. You know the feelings and memories that come rushing back when you hold that one thing from your childhood and instantly you are 10 again and you have your whole world to explore. Even if it’s only for a few minutes at least let people enjoy it and let them share their memories with you and the excitement they got to experience. A friend told me his wife didn’t understand why he collected and talked about old MOTU figures. He said because it brings back feelings and memories from a good time in his life and made him feel good to revisit those memories again. She still didn’t understand why. A few months later her birthday came around and he bought her an original bear she had as kid that she mentioned she had lost during a move when she was a kid and wished she had never lost it. When she opened the box she was stunned and started to cry as the memories of the bear came rushing back. He had bought her the exact bear she had lost. And he said this is why I buy those old figures. That story nailed it for me. Maybe you have a similar story. If so you can email me [email protected] or go to covertnerd.net to find out how to reach me. I will put a link in the show notes that you can access on whatever device you are using to listen to this podcast.

Let me know about your thoughts on this episode and any ideas you have for future topics I would love to hear what you think.

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airoasis · 5 years ago

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Everything Wrong With Captain Marvel In 16 Minutes Or Less

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/everything-wrong-with-captain-marvel-in-16-minutes-or-less/

Everything Wrong With Captain Marvel In 16 Minutes Or Less

never much like the Stanley cameos and definitely don’t like logos but this is goddamn touching but while we’re on the subject of opening logos for movies let’s frame it this way imagine buying the new Taylor Swift album but before you can hear me you have to first listen to 20 seconds of a universal music group audio jingle it would probably be rocking and full of tight harmonies but it would still forever be 20 seconds of norway’s standing between you and your music that’s what opening studio logos do for movies place my hands so angry oh my god they give us the name of the city the description of that city’s importance and then a third line with an utterly incomprehensible series of letter and number characters do you know what time it is Jesus Marvel movies young Dumbledore young Pope Sherlock Holmes is there any beloved institution that Jude Law hasn’t infiltrated anything you know funny how I was thinking the same thing about this chatty friendly fight scene which happens in every movie there’s nothing dangerous warrior an emotion not even a nuclear weapon a landmine sharp sword sniper’s bullet jagged rocks meat from a plant that once had an e.coli outbreak control your impulses so easy miss start using this there’s so much goddamn pedantic mansplaining in the beginning of this movie that I fast forwarded to the end where Carol blasts the Balrog and watched it three times in a row future VR requires artificial tendrils that get to know you better than your spouse just because it looks kind of cool doesn’t make it practical so the burrito supreme searches your thoughts and becomes the person that you’re closest to before communicating I mean contact got murdered for doing that at the end of the movie so long the scrolls have invaded yet another border planet this time Topher already lost me dude if you think for one minute I’m getting all this down plus the three or four other names organizations planets he mentions in this briefing you sadly overestimate my ability to give it well marvel do you read me anybody copy as technologically advanced as they are at a Cree or apparently still reliant on 1990s cellphone reception this is some dusty furry dust things suspense I’m no expert but maybe if you spent less time screaming you’d be able to do more scrolling no one will be seated during the bunch of old portion of the movie some stuff is happening just try and keep track of the purple in the green they’re on different sides I think movie does a great job advertising the Air Force you don’t now the movie does pile on a bit heavy with this stuff about her constantly being told she’s not good enough I get that people are told that but in movie form maybe we don’t need to see it a dozen times to get the point okay fine we need some back story on why Carroll’s so driven to be the best but this exposition brain probe really feels more like a Nike commercial than an MCU film okay wait can you change the way the camera of your memory tilts so that you can pick up fine details let’s just like the zoom and enhance cliche but for your brain dr.

Wendy Lawson that’s her so Carol can hear the scrolls that are digging around in her memories and she in memory reacts to it you can’t change an event by remembering it right fright she got knocked out cold and captured on that planet with a single blast of one of these space Tasers now she’s impervious to them that’s not exactly full-sized so I guess we can call this a little helm scream in case you thought this movie’s 90s references we’re gonna be subtle she crashed lands into a king blockbuster huh movies playing this is a visual gag but was Carol seriously gonna immediately shoot any non-threatening presents in this environment what if this were the janitor doing a late-night cleaning this top shelf here goes hudsucker proxy hook something else that I’m pretty sure is hamburger hill then first night then jumping jack flash jr.

And just cause I worked at three different blockbusters in my lifetime and you could fire four there you have one job and I think half these movies on the Shelf star Sean Connery and Arnold Schwarzenegger how likely in 1995 is it that a blockbuster would be advertising babe with a giant poster and standee when that was only released in August of that year the church wasn’t coming out on video at this point honestly we take care of those dirty looks is quite simply the worst dry-cleaning advertising slogan I could even fathom why does a dry-cleaning service even need a slogan look at you be better off just writing your hours of operation talk about some nuclear yadda yadda how the hell does outdated 90s tech and a payphone and turn into a communicator with the ability to send signals to her people millions of miles away in space all did it book work sure she could make a space phone out of that but she couldn’t bypass Ma Bell in the ill communication once it’s real aliens find the earth to be way less than acceptable cliche okay if this call is urgent enough to use the sirens why not take the cops and shield until after daybreak to respond why was shield alerted at all it’s a broken window in a fucking blockbuster okay this d aging technology has officially gotten creepy as hell I’ll be honest Jana fired Sam Jackson looks pretty awesome here and I am terrified of how that technology will definitely be used in the future this is the most convenient Road near a train situation any city planner ever cooked up in pursuit and she should be easy to track considering she’ll be the only person in Los Angeles to take the train sure Stanley could have been reading Kevin Smith’s mole rat script in 1995 the movie came out on October 20th 1995 so this could be early in the year when it was about to get shot or something the problem is the record story just left Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the infinite sadness being advertised here is coming soon or already out came out October 23rd 1995 and while it’s insane that those two things were only three days apart Stan Lee would not have been reading the script in October unless he was just getting nostalgic about his cameo for the residents of LA to jump to an old lady’s needs and all but how is this even possible you’re telling me that after all the kicking Carol’s done three regular ask commuters could temporarily restrain her fight chase on top of a moving train I feel like I’ve never seen that before except always of course it is tunnels the only logical choice once you’ve opted for fight on top of a train what I’m still here at the blockbuster Coulson saw fury take off forever ago so why is he just calling it also look I think the young ending effect they’re using on Sam Jackson is amazing but they must have used all the resources on that because Clark Craig’s face makes Jeff Bridges and Tron Legacy look like fine art look movie no one in a major city subway terminal would look this hard and long and a girl in a weird costume subway terminals are beacons for folks in weird costumes I rode a train once with spider-man and Marilyn Monroe and a guy that look exactly like Richard Grieco only I don’t think that was a costume I think that was just Richard Grieco there you go now that no one can tell that’s an alien no one will ask questions about the body with a jacket thrown over its face inside the wrecked car ah cool the doohickey that the scroll dropped on the train gets inserted into the whatchamacallit and immediately displays plot convenient footage perfectly edited for maximum exposition alta vista internet cafes modems big computer monitors wasn’t 1995 hilarious but seriously how would carol have the first goddamn clue how to work this fad and sure the motorcycle guy was an asshole and probably deserved it but what did this vintage boutique ever do to anyone hey how’s your eye that’s a fine yeah they’re not gonna hem handedly try and shoehorn a reason for Fury’s eye patch into this movie I got word on a motorcycle thief that fits her description but instead of immediately following up on that lead I’m gonna waste valuable time at shield espousing this clunky dialogue might even drink a tear wine and stop by Sam Goody’s to pick up a jagged little pill CD before I act on any of this information toggling Scrolls can only some recent memories of their host bodies that is literally the definition of a stupid restriction to put on an ability just for plot or hero reasons why should they even be able to access any memories if all they’re doing is copycatting where are you born Huntsville Alabama does this do Carroll except to provide a little more backstory for fury is she able to verify this bolt in any way Ruth you’re not a scroll Carol is a dick – what if this is a jukebox from the 90s has to be 30% ac/dc CDs 40% Tom Petty CDs 29% journey CDs and 1% Van Morrison CD is that a communicator yeah state of the art – wig agent which would in no way and work in a bunker like this but I’m gonna keep making these nostalgic references as long as Marvel pays me to do so Oh how did this cat get into this official government covert facility and did they know he was a flirt come if so why is he out roaming the halls hey that’s exactly how Eminem writes his lyrics I’ll assume Lawson was writing the follow-up to Stan I want to question her along that sounds well evil and/or dirty all I know is we take them in to dead or alive dead or alive yeah agreed that’s excessive it makes no sense unless your bosses bosses a scroll poly these are the loudest lights I’ve ever heard can you imagine the constant jump scares you’d have to endure if you were collating these records the CGI cat is a king abomination and yes the actress is allergic and they had to do a CGI cat in some places but just take twenty thousand dollars of the money you’re spending on unifying Sam Jackson and put it into realistic in the cat god damn also they ran into that cat on level five in the storage room and somehow it ran several floors away from that position and got into the hangar and onto a prototype aircraft that they would eventually use Maria Rambo so how do we get to Louisiana I’m sorry but the amount of information they’ve gleaned from a few seconds of glancing through the records like Maria’s exact address is such bull that this movie is actively starting to stink what is Ronan looked like a character from mist here Carol appeared almost lifelike on the hologram earlier and even in full color his accuser tech still using dial-up or something she flashes little moments but I can’t tell what’s real I’ll tell you what’s real someone on this movie set design team thinks this single mother living alone with her daughter keeps a bowl on the table with 16 lemons in it that’s real that happened you’d better come take a look at this cliche that was all that survived the crash well that’s a lie you’re telling me a prototype aircraft crashed and every single piece of it disintegrated into dust including the rest of this dog tag but not this tiny corner of dog tag you know you really should be kinder to your neighbors you never know when you’re gonna need to borrow some sugar this is pretty hilarious but it’s also ridiculous to think that the scrolls stopped off at a fast-food joint to pick up some burgers and shakes on the way to Louisiana and how would you know about the sugar borrowing habits of earthly suburban Knights this soon into your stay on the planet that was before on you you uh before I knew what made you different from me honest Talos had to have gotten this information before the confrontation at the Pegasus base since that’s where he heard the recorder so if he knew that then why did he try to kill Furies ass he knew they were working together and now he’s all peaceful I actually really like this characters turn but given the sequence of events it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense what’s happening it’s loading windows 95 okay so Jude Law shot Lawson before she could blow up the ship but it takes like 15 seconds for him to show up at a distance in all this smoke plus their obstructed somewhat by the crash ship and they’re on the down slope of a hill how did he know where to aim Carol got her powers by being fantastic forward by the warp engine but the energy only hit her despite yon raw and about the same distance away she assumed his power she’s coming with us okay I’d maybe buy that this recording spurred Carol’s memory to recall the crash but she’s being unconscious here so how would she know this part quick question why did they leave the main house and all go to the one day from collapse cabin to listen to the audio it makes a nice shot but it makes no sense from a human being standpoint is this houses only computer out in the decrepit barn why does Talos still have Keller’s jacket on we’ve seen that when they morph into other humans they already have their clothes on but now that he’s turned back into his natural shape that jacket should be gone right she wanted you to help us find the core and why the hell didn’t she tell Carol about the reason for the mission in the first place I know it would have been weird to come out as an alien but they were already in top-secret mode this withholding of information both makes about as much sense as what happened to Poe in the last Jedi did you hear me man this depiction of the friendship between two strong independent women that is emotional but not corny is long overdue and it’s about goddamn time that Marvel showed it so I’m gonna take us in off because I’m totally a social justice warrior or virtue signal or whatever the latest term that’s complimentary but is being used to be derogatory take it off this moonlight shot makes no sense the pole at the bottom right of the shot shows a shadow that matches up with the moon’s location but then the spaceship thing that veers flew here has a shadow that suggests another even stronger light source off-screen to the right when they were handing out kids they gave up a toughest one lieutenant trouble so is everything cool now like KanCare remember everything about her life on earth black box recording was fucking magic what purpose does this function of the spacesuit serve like some cream was almost finished designing it and the supreme intelligence poked its head in and was like don’t forget to add the unnecessary color wheel why did they bring the can captivate this cat will lead her freak out on fury and cut his face but he doesn’t want to do it here in zero gravity which is baffling because I’ve owned a cat before a lawnmower can freak them out a clap of thunder can freak them out suspending in zero gravity but but have them clawing out the eyeballs of all the motherfuckers nearby until they were on solid footing the cloaking activated holy balls is there anything this magical wrist doohickey can’t do can it order takeout purchase ebooks access free porn ah Who am I kidding of course it can access free porn in her note she called us a tesseract you know I’m fine with the timeline of the tesseract the idea that Howard Stark helped found Pegasus in the 80s and handed it over to this project is totally okay I’m just tired of the fucking tesseract it shows up and seemingly every movie being on tesseract and stuff she’s a pinball wizard it’s gotta be a twist a pinball wizard has got such a supple wrist evil dude picked up the cat carried it all the way here and just tosses it casually and that is a ton of wasted effort what did you do to your uniform he got in her head just like we thought when Carol’s been calling with updates constantly since she’s been on earth and there’s no way they would know that the scroll to flipped his jacket it’s killer by the way does the supreme intelligence seriously have the bandwidth and the inclination for pithy one-liners species flirty threat hi so I’ll calmly place a cat’s eyes muzzle over its mouth and I just happen to be carrying on my person without us you’re only human flesh you may be you’re only human to me mistakes this montage of various Carol’s getting up after falling down is excessive and on the nose and over-the-top anjala you were reborn fierce because every sci-fi movie apparently needs an alien race to miss read something and call it something else like Star Trek with Vedra Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes with kolima this goes on for some time I will say this about the movie it waits until the perfect time to unveil Carol’s true powers and this is a goosebumps inducing moment so it absolutely deserves us in off having said that this reveals sets up the same issue as DC has with Superman Carol is all-powerful she hasn’t discovered everything she could do yet but she’s pretty much unkillable now and future movies and game mm we’ll have to do a ton of hand waving and marginalization for her to be included at all into the rest of the MCU okay let playing on just a girl during the climactic scene of this movie that’s more on the nose than anything ever literally the only more on the nose song you could have chosen is Meredith Brooks bitch or maybe Barbie girl or Cyndi Lauper’s well the movie never explains it or even suggests it but jaan raghav errantly has the ability to manipulate metal like magneto and I needs more backstory than anything in this movie that you actually gave a backstory fool god damn huh did that happen the movie is directly contradicting its own previous implications about the power differential here oh they’re dogfighting in the canyons just like an independent Sky Captain and the world of to marvel dude Carroll may be all-powerful but does she also have a GPS built into her headpiece how the hell did she know exactly where yawn Rhonda DUP she didn’t even see him crash poop to me you can beat me this is a great moment but it was also super fucking obvious that it was gonna go down like this this is basically Indy taking out the sword guy with the gun and Raiders of the Lost Ark motherf lurkin I’ll be back before you know it she will not for emergencies only okay and real emergencies too not like of an alien species is invading one of your most populous cities and your shadow government is about to nuke the god of it as a result and really it would take a giant stroke of some luck and some space gravity to avoid total annihilation you could totally handle that you think you can find others like her we found her and we weren’t even looking okay the logic here is stunning and yes they do end up finding more heroes but it’s not because they already existed Carol was a one-in-a-billion fluke banner still hasn’t tested gamma radiation yet Tony has to be kidnapped and build a suit in a cave black widow is just a human badass and Hawkeye is decent too okay with arrows just how amazing with this cat vomit scene be if we didn’t know where the tesseract went during the sequence on lawson’s lab it might have felt worth sitting through the 12 minutes of credits might have there I said it I like a cat ah I’m just a free we have Vincent yeah we happy your father and I were just discussing his day at work why don’t you tell our daughter about it honey Janie today I quit my job and then I told my boss to go himself and then i blackmailed them for almost $60,000 past nice pair your father seems to think this kind of behavior something to be proud of and your mother seems to prefer that I go through life like a king prisoner while she keeps my in a mason jar under the sink tell the supreme intelligence that I’m coming to end it you Tom I’m coming and hell’s coming with me before we get started does anyone want to get out you want to play blind man go walk with the shepherd me my eyes are wide just talk

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batterymonster2021 · 5 years ago

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Everything Wrong With Captain Marvel In 16 Minutes Or Less

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/everything-wrong-with-captain-marvel-in-16-minutes-or-less/

Everything Wrong With Captain Marvel In 16 Minutes Or Less

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