#okay so as an art history nerd it’s not exactly suicide

[cartoonscientist]

saw an ad that was all you know what da vinci would have saved a ton of time if amazon existed back then and now i think drug companies should run ads like damn imagine all the van gogh paintings there would be if he’d been able to take effexor

[davidmann95]

Thoughts on this week’s comics?

Doomsday Clock #12: I’m not going to comment on it much in depth here - I’ve already vented some on Twitter and I’m recording a podcast on it with a couple friends, a plan that has just taken some truly wild turns in terms of what my takes are going to be - but this last issue finally got as meta and buckwild as it should have been all along, and in the process it turned this series around at the last from a charming grotesquerie to a comic I sincerely believe to be worse than Identity Crisis.

Superman Smashes the Klan #2: Thank god we’ve got this in recompense, remaining a shining platonic ideal of Very Good Superman Comics.

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #6: Rules now that it’s kinda stopped caring about whatever plot it’s building up to and is just back to having fun.

Shazam #9: In spite of myself I continue to dig it.

Wonder Woman: Dead Earth #1: Decent enough but I’m not going to be getting more of it.

Wonder Woman #83: Sucks that Orlando’s big debut on the book is getting art like this.

Batman/Superman #5: How is it I continue to like this? How, I ask you? Doesn’t matter, I do and Nick Derington’s drawing a couple issues soon.

Legion of Superheroes #2: A friend’s statement this very night has made me finally come to terms with the fact that I just don’t fundamentally care about the Legion of Superheroes, but in spite of that I think I liked this more than the first issue and I’m excited to see where it goes.

Suicide Squid #1: Rad, mean, exactly what I’d hoped for out of this relaunch.

Justice League #38: Still great, but kinda sucks that this was marketed as the big climactic issue.

Hell Arisen #1: A lot more fun and essential than I was expecting, but it’s unbelievably frustrating that it flat-out spoils big twists in next month’s comics.

Batman: Last Knight on Earth #3: Really good but that ending raised an eyebrow for me on more than one level. Good New Batman I suppose kills but it’s okay? And I just don’t know how to parse those last few pages other than Snyder moving on to write Superman, except that we’re all about 90% sure that his next project is Wonder Woman and/or JSA. Perhaps it’ll work better for me when rereading the book as a whole, but this fell a touch flat for me, even if thematically it really is a pretty much perfect final statement on Snyder and Capullo’s very specific take on Batman and his world.

Harleen #3: A phenomenal conclusion to what should absolutely be seen as the definitive post-Mad Love take on the character.

Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child: ...good? Holy shit, good? Without any qualifiers beyond a few bits of weird Miller-speak? I skipped this last week because obviously, but then a few friends I trusted suggested this one for real had something on the ball, and holy cow, it’s great? Not transcendent or even excellent, it’s messy and weird in the way Miller’s modern comics are as a given, but it kicks ass and it flows and out of NOWHERE Miller goes and decides on a whim to cement himself as one of the absolute definitive post-Kirby Darkseid writers. Never in a million years would I have thought it possible, but I’m grateful that it was brought to my attention enough that I was willing to ignore my better judgement.

Batman #85: If you hated this run this won’t save it, if you loved it it’ll leave you a happy camper.

Klaus and the Life and Times of Joe Christmas: Absolutely delightful, hopefully next year Morrison and Mora do the second proper mini they promised once upon a time now that they’ve done the 3 one-shots they initially discussed.

Once & Future #5: Giving it one more issue - I believe what was originally going to be the last one before it was reclassified as an ongoing - and if it doesn’t win me over I’m done.

Invaders #12: Not spectacular, but a satisfying conclusion all-in-all.

Daredevil #15: This continues to rule, and there’s no better way to end a Daredevil comic than with a sequence that makes you go “Oh Matt, Matt Matt (and/or Wilson)...whatEVER are we going to do with you?”, a truth Zdarsky understands like perhaps no writer before him.

New Mutants #4: Given this is the non-Hickman chunk of the book I don’t care about, I’m quite pleasantly surprised.

Avengers #28: God, I wish that first arc was any good so people knew what a wild fun comic this has turned into.

History of the Marvel Universe #6: It only grows a soul in its last couple pages, and a very simple one at that, but damn if it didn’t get my nerd ass and stick what landing there was for it to manage.

King Thor #4: Hey, I just realized Aaron’s big run is ending with a Thor number four, that rules! Anyway this nearly made me cry and of all the major releases today had to offer, this was unexpectedly far and away my favorite of the bunch.

[hale-of-stiles-heart]

🎨🎧🛁

CHARLIE! MY LOVE! I HOPE YOU LIKE IT! (also on ao3!)

There was music coming from Cas' room. Again.

A more accurate word would be still. He had been playing the same playlist on repeat for the past three days in a row. No breaks, no pauses, no deviation in the pattern of songs.

The only thing that changed was the volume. It fluctuated as the day went on, barely audible in the mornings and at night, sometimes almost deafening loud in the interim.

It was a small mercy for the humans who also called the Bunker their home, the ones who actually needed to sleep and shower and shit.

The playlist started with classical music. Strictly instrumental songs. Concertos and arias, haunting melodies and romantic ballets.

Dean thought it was rather fitting. Leave it to an angel to be naturally attracted to music heavily featuring harps and heavenly choirs of violins and cellos.

Sam found it pretty ironic entertaining, too. He had joked a few times about the piano they had found in one of the larger storage rooms, suggesting they move it into the library.

Knowing Cas, he would probably be both bemused and charmed, more than willing to learn how exactly to navigate the black and white keys. And if Dean knew Cas as well as he thought he did, the angel would ramble for hours about the history of the instrument.

The mere thought made him smile. Cas would probably be a wonderful musician with his long fingers and sometimes unnerving eye, or rather ear, for detail.

Who knew, maybe Cas could become the first angelic composer. He might even be famous, and wasn't that a hilarious thought.

Dean could just imagine awkward, dorky Cas in a sea of adoring fans fawning all over him. Poor guy would probably be traumatized.

But until then, until he even learned how to play an instrument himself, he would have to make do with his playlist.

The classical section of the playlist started slowly with Nina Miller's Plié Slow and Rinaldi's Spanish Waltz. Both of which were soft and soothing, perfect for greeting the pale sunlight of the morning.

Christine Prato's the Prayer was up next, immediately followed by Elger's Serenade for Strings and a lovely harp solo that's name constantly escaped Dean. They were just as sweet as the first songs, flanked by more of the same.

From the serene, tranquil songs, the tone quickly turned rather melancholic. Samuel Barber's Adagio For Strings was tailed by Bach's Come, Sweet Death.

The latter of which a bit too morbid in Dean's opinion, especially for a song in the morning. Fortunately, the clinically depressed portion of the playlist did not last very long.

Opera was next up on the set list.

There were some classics that Dean recognized, Don Giovanni, Ave Maria, Andrea Bocelli's Con Te Partirò. But it was mostly composed of a plethora of songs that he couldn't have been able to name if someone had a gun to his head.

Sam, the nerd, was a bit better at identifying the miscellaneous songs. He pointed out a few names here and there. Vivo Per Lei, Vide Cor Meum, Die Zauberflöte.

Around ten o'clock, the era of the music changed, shifting into contemporary instrumentals. They ranged from slow and ethereal sounding, like the first snowfall of winter, to fast and blood pumping, like a shot of adrenaline.

Both Sam and Dean had been surprised when they heard the first chords of a contemporary song echoing through the Bunker from Cas' room. They had never had an inkling whatsoever that Cas might actually enjoy modern music.

Their surprise continued when the contemporary instrumentals bled into modern ballads and softer pop songs. There was an interesting mix of songs in foreign languages, French and German and Korean if they weren't mistaken, blended together with songs from American artists.

Another intriguing change occurred mid-afternoon when the upbeat pop songs and, yes, even rap music faded away to be replaced by nothing other than classic rock.

Electric guitars and loud drums replaced autotuned voices and synths, filling the Bunker with tunes from the seventies and eighties. The songs were familiar, full of nostalgia and memories of days spent on the road.

Dean had nearly choked on his beer the first time he had heard Ramble On coming from Cas' room at full volume. Sam had been equally surprised.

Neither of them would have ever guessed that Cas would be a Led Zeppelin fan. Yet, the angel wound up going through nearly their entire discography.

He also worked his way through several albums from Queen, Kansas, the Beatles, and Aerosmith, keeping the volume almost as high as Dean did in the Impala. Apparently, Dean's taste in music had rubbed off on the angel.

After a few hours of classic, the era of music shifted once again and modern rock began pouring out of Cas' room. The songs varied between punk rock, pop rock, and hard rock but it was all raucous and loud and full of angst.

Neither Sam nor Dean could name any of the songs, raising the question of where exactly Cas had heard them in the first place. He seemed to enjoy them, listening to them throughout the night, volume turned down until the music was a mere whisper is the quiet of the night.

Usually Sam and Dean didn't mind. They were more than happy to let Cas listen to his music all day, to let him get lost in his own playlist when he wasn't busy tracking down the last of the rogue angels or helping the Winchesters hunt.

Hell, they were just glad he wasn't off somewhere in the middle of yet another suicide mission. And if music was what kept him at the Bunker, then so be it.

But after three days of the angel locking himself away in his room, music playing non-stop, not even venturing out for some pancakes, his favorite, Dean had had enough. So, while Sam was out on a grocery run, the nearest grocery store an hour away, Dean decided to pay Cas a little visit.

Hotel California was reverberating through the Bunker as Dean marched down the hallway to Cas' room. The music grew subtly louder as he approached the angel's room, Don Henley's voice growing more clear.

He didn't bother knocking, it wasn't likely that Cas would be able to hear him over the guitar solo anyway, regardless of angelic hearing. Pushing open the door, Dean found Cas in the same spot he left him four days ago.

Sitting cross-legged on the polished concrete floor in a pair of gray threadbare sweatpants and an old black AC/DC t-shirt, covered nearly head to toe in splotches of dried paint, Cas was staring at a large canvas.

He was using his right hand to smear dark blue paint on the canvas, his eyes narrowed in concentration. The tip of his tongue was sticking out, a habit he had picked up from Dean himself.

His hair was messy and if he wasn't an angel, it would probably be greasy. There was a spot of lilac paint on his left cheek, flaking and peeling off.

His borrowed t-shirt was splattered with strokes of paint that varied in color from a stark white to a vibrant spring green to a delicate blush pink. His sweatpants were similarly messy, stained with dark red stripes and globs of bright yellow.

Dean took a glance around the room, whistling at the changes Cas had made.

The angel had shoved the bed, dresser, and nightstand against a far wall, filling the rest of the room with dozens of canvases and poster boards. Art supplies littered the floor, mostly paints and paint brushes, ranging from watercolors to acrylic to tempera.

Finished paintings hung on the walls and the shelf that ran along the wall above the bed. There was a watercolor scene of green trees surrounding a crystal clear lake on one wall, a nebula of deep purples and blues done in oil paint hung on another.

Since moving into the Bunker, Cas had taken up painting. Dean had no clue where Cas had gotten the idea from but he wasn't going to begrudge him his new pastime.

Sam had been just as supportive when Cas announced his interest in taking up the hobby, driving him to the nearest craft store to help him pick out some supplies. He had returned to the Bunker two hours later with his arms full of canvas and paint sets and a beaming angel in tow.

Cas had taken to painting like a fish to water, or some other simile more befitting to an angel, using it like a form of meditation. Which wasn't a problem until the angel holed up in his room for half a week painting.

"Hello, Dean," Cas greeted, his voice a monotonous drone, absentminded and automatic. He was clearly distracted, too preoccupied with his finger painting to even glance in Dean's direction.

"Hey, Cas," Dean replied, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the door jamb. Scanning his eyes over the room again, he quipped, "What's it been, man? Few weeks?"

Cas just hummed, stretching his arm up to add a smudge of blue near the top of the canvas. Dean couldn't tell what exactly it was that Cas was painting but it was pretty nonetheless, a smattering of various colors smashed together to make something breathtakingly beautiful.

"Alright, c'mon," he urged, pushing himself away from the wall and taking a few steps towards Cas. Making a quick come hither gesture with his hand, he continued, "Get up. You need a shower. Then we're gonna get you something to eat."

"I don't require sustenance, Dean. You're aware of that," Cas retorted, a little bit of emotion bleeding into his voice. Of course, that emotion was irritation but beggars couldn't be choosers and Dean was content to take whatever he could.

"Yeah, well, it'll make me feel better, okay?" Dean shot back, gesturing a bit more urgently. He knew he had won when Cas sighed and reached over with his clean hand to pause his playlist, cutting Robert Plant off mid-lyric.

He rose to his feet without any discernible effort, turning to Dean for further instruction. Dean wasn't shy about providing it, hooking a thumb over his shoulder and directing, "Bathroom."

Cas bobbed his head in acknowledgement before slipping past Dean to pad down the hallway to the bathroom. Dean flicked the lights off in Cas' room and turned to follow Cas to the bathroom.

When he got there, to the room of white tiles and multiple showerheads that ran parallel to a row of lockers, he changed his mind. Instead, he laid a hand on Cas' back and led him over to the clawfoot tub in the corner of the bathroom.

"Take a quick shower then come back over here, alright?" Dean suggested as he took a seat on the lip of the tub. He leaned over to turn on the faucet.

Cas nodded and disappeared around the corner of the lockers. Dean could hear the soft sound of his clothes landing on the floor before one of the showerheads turned on, a rush of water drowning everything else out.

While Cas scrubbed off the worst of the paint, Dean fussed with the bathtub knobs, occasionally dipping his hand under the faucet to check the temperature. Once he deemed it affordable, he plugged the tub, sitting up to wait for it to fill.

On a whim, he stood and crossed to one of the lockers facing the tub. He rifled around in it until he found the bottle of fancy bubble bath that Charlie had given him for his birthday.

He squirted some into the tub, figuring that Cas would appreciate the bubbles. The angel was a sucker for any sort of luxury like plush throw pillows or fuzzy slippers, so a bubble bath wouldn't be too outlandish for him.

Cas shut off the shower just as Dean was turning off the bathtub taps, rounding the corner a few seconds later. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his face pink where he had scrubbed off the blotch of light purple paint.

Dean waved him over to the tub, noting with great pride the wide smile that stretched across Cas' face at the sight of the bubbles in the tub. Grabbing his elbow, Dean helped Cas climb into the tub.

The angel let out a low groan of contentment as he laid down in the warm water, his eyes falling closed. Dean reclaimed his seat on the lip of the tub, reaching a hand down to tangle his fingers in Cas' wet hair.

"Feel better?" He asked, scratching his nails along Cas' scalp. Cas just nodded, another low hum thundering out of him.

"Much," he responded softly, sounding peaceful and tired. Sniffling a bit, he announced, "Perhaps I should do this when I'm stressed. Rather than spending all my time painting."

"Yeah, sounds like a plan," Dean agreed, smiling down at his angel. "We can even make you a new playlist."

[jillmckenzie1]

A Little Magic

The internet has given us a great deal. From my laptop or phone, I have access to several lifetimes’ worth of information and culture. I can order a pizza, have it personalized precisely to my specifications, and it will be delivered to my overpriced hovel—all without having to speak to a human being. It’s a kind of magic.

The internet has also taken away a great deal. It can feel like decency is in short supply sometimes, and it can also feel like blizzards of information hide the fact that much of the information can’t be trusted. One of the worst casualties of the information age is the untimely demise of nuance.

Go online and things tend to be either the pinnacle of human perfection or a literal bucket of sewage. That’s particularly the case when it comes to movies. I have seen people post that Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is the worst studio blockbuster in the history of film, and I have also seen posts about the very same movie opining that it operates at such a high level of quality that it cannot be understood by average folk.*

I’m just as guilty of being bitten by the hyperbole bug as anybody else. The fact remains that most movies fall somewhere in the “okay” category. Usually they’re pretty good, not so hot, fairly average, or “meh,” in the parlance of our times. Even the mighty Pixar, the juggernaut of family-friendly entertainment, has made a chunk of films that are perfectly fine, and friends, I submit to you that their latest film, Onward, is also perfectly fine.

Once upon a time, there was a land filled with magic. There were verdant rolling hills. There were unicorns frolicking upon the rolling hills. The air was lousy with pixies zipping hither and yon. However, much like yoga, magic was fiendishly difficult to perform properly, and much like yoga, most people simply gave it up after a while.

Time passed, and that land ended up looking an awful lot like ours. There are still creatures of myth like centaurs, yet now they just drive around everywhere.** Baby dragons have become obnoxiously affectionate household pets. The suburbs are made of whimsical houses with mushroom-shaped rooftops. That’s where Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) lives, and on his sixteenth birthday, he dreams of just a little bit of magic.

It’s not that Ian’s life is bad, per se, it’s just missing something. His mother Laura (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) loves him and works hard to give him a good life. His brother Barley (Chris Pratt) looks after him and means well, yet he’s the tiniest bit an underachiever, more focused on playing his Dungeons and Dragons-esque roleplaying game*** and fixing up a banged-up van that would be right at home in 1973.

There’s a hole in Ian’s life, one caused by the passing of his father due to illness. He never knew his old man, but he yearns to learn something about him. He’ll get his chance due to a secret revealed by his mother. You see, his father left a staff, a rare Phoenix Gem, and instructions for casting a spell to bring his father back. The spell goes wrong and only the lower half is resurrected. Now, Ian and Barley must undertake a quest to bring back the rest of their father, and they just have 24 hours to do it.

When most of us think of Pixar, we think of the art-deco style of The Incredibles or the potent and witty nostalgia of Toy Story. Pixar has developed a reputation for making some honest-to-goodness classics, and it’s perhaps a little unfair when they simply deliver a perfectly nice time at the movies. I liked Onward. I chuckled a bit at the onslaught of fantasy-inspired gags and felt a twinge of sentimentality as the movie desperately yanked on my heartstrings.

Director Dan Scanlon has been a part of Pixar for over a decade, and he’s absorbed the lessons of the studio to an extent. He’s made a film with zippy pacing and an airy touch, the kind of movie that young kids will enjoy due to goofy visuals, older kids will enjoy due to the amusing idea of Star-Lord and Spider-Man from the MCU ragging on each other as brothers, and adults will enjoy due to some well-placed moments of emotion. Scanlon’s film is a well-animated crowd-pleaser, and he really, really wants the crowd to be pleased.

Scanlon also has something to say. Along with co-screenwriters Jason Headley and Keith Bunin, Scanlon intended for his script to be more than a comedic and episodic fetch quest — which it definitely is. He wants to focus on how we deal with the loss of a parent and the accompanying unresolved issues. Their script should rip my heart out, since those themes are definitely something I can relate to. I wonder if the problem is with the movie or me, since I didn’t feel much beyond a vague, “I miss my dad,” which was followed quickly by, “I need to get more dog food tomorrow.” At their best, Pixar’s films are legitimately profound. Ratatouille shows us how food is tied up with emotion, while Inside Out deals with the chaotic business of emotions themselves. They achieve that profundity by knowing exactly when to get silly, when to get serious, and when to marry the two to create something more. This screenplay never reaches those heights, and we can feel the familiar Pixar formula a little too acutely. Its heart is in the right place, though, and I’ll always give a screenplay credit for that.

For the most part, the cast is firmly in their comfort zones. Chris Pratt is a sweet and swaggering blowhard who’s about 60 percent less cool than he thinks he is, while Tom Holland is a young man trying to figure out who he is. That’s all fine. What’s less fine is casting a comedic force like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and giving her so precious little to do beyond being supportive. Octavia Spencer is entertaining as The Manticore, a…um…manticore. A once tough adventurer, she’s traded in the questing for managing a family-style restaurant, and it’s a life change she’s less than thrilled by.

Onward is a comfortably mid-tier work from Pixar. I think it’s destined to become an “Oh yeah, I remember that!” kind of movie. There’s a place for movies like that. If you want to take your kids to something that won’t be highly annoying, want to suggest as a safe option for a first date,**** or want a lazy Sunday post-hangover film that’s not too taxing, Onward will do the trick nicely.

  *The internet also gives people the ability to express opinions that they would never have the courage to say out loud in public.

**One of my favorite throwaway gags in Onward is a split-second shot of a centaur playing Prance Prance Revolution.

***If nothing else, I hope this film helps to get more budding nerds into D&D.

****Contrast that with the first date my wife and I had, where we saw Bringing Out the Dead, a Martin Scorsese film about a suicidally depressed paramedic.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/33581-2/