The Big Sit

So I saw five movies the weekend before Christmas, and am happy to say I didn't entirely like any of them.

First up was Barbara, a German movie which has been getting excellent reviews.  It isn't so excellent.  The eponymous lead character is a doctor in East Germany in the early 1980s who has been assigned to work at a new hospital.  We see her working at the hospital, getting attached to another doctor in a romantic way, and to a patient or two in an empathic way.  The German secret police come by every so often to her apartment and search it up and down, then have a female agent come in to search her up and down.  We see her biking all over town, sometimes to have a romantic tryst with a government official.  Well made, yes.  But sometimes I think critics are hampered in their judgment because they go to a movie with the press kit, or they go to a play and are given a copy of the play.  And this is one of those times.  Barbara is so suffused with subtlety that it's chock full all over of things that only make sense if you have somebody explaining them to you.  I didn't.  I couldn't figure out why, at least within the context of the actual movie on the screen, where the movie was set (well, OK, they were speaking German, so it was in Germany, and there were secret police, so it was probably Eastern Germany), or when it was set.  I only know it's in the early 1980s because a reviewer told me.  I didn't know why Barbara was where she was.  I didn't know why the police were on her case, someone I mentioned this to said "it's East Germany, the police were investigating everyone."  Point taken, but were they searching every apartment, and giving everyone regular strip searches?  I could figure she was sleeping with a government official, but not who or what or where or why, or if that relationship had anything to do with everything else or if it was just happenstance.  And the filmmaking itself stumbled over its wonderful gentleness and subtlety to the point of becoming, well, a little bit dull.  This was the official German entry into the Academy Award race for Best Foreign Language Film.  It didn't make the shortlist from which the nominees will be selected.  Nobody's being robbed.  This is a classic case of a movie made more for snobbish critics than people who actually go to watch movies.

I saw this at the Angelika Mosaic, a new movie theatre that's part of a major retail development in suburban DC, walkable from the Dunn Loring Metro station.  There are all kinds of housing and retail developments that have been going up in the neighborhood over the past five or ten years, turning suburban wasteland into a livable transit-oriented development.  The movie theatre is quite nice, but seemed quite quiet on a Friday night.

The next morning I headed out to the Landmark Bethesda Row to see Rust and Bone, a French movie.  The director, Jacques Audiard, is something of a US critic's darling.  The first film of his I saw was The Beat That My Heart Skipped, which was quite dreadful in my opinion.  His next film to get a major release in the US was A Prophet, which got great reviews and was in fact quite quite fantastic.  My review is in this post.  This also got excellent reviews, albeit with a couple significant dissenters.  I was a little wary, but I really did like A Prophet.  Not Rust and Bone.  It's a boring mess of a movie.  It's not well made in my opinion, as an example one of the most prominent scenes in the movie is of Marion Cotillard losing her legs in an accident at a French Sea World thing, and the blocking and shooting of the scene is done so poorly that I couldn't for the life of me explain how the accident happened or how the character's legs were lost.  We aren't given much about the character to care about her lost legs.  Her boyfriend?  We aren't given much reason to care about him, either.  The movie just drags on and on, improbability piled on improbability for the sake of -- I don't know what, honestly.  A dreary bad mess of movie.

This theatre is down the street from the Bethesda branch of Georgetown Cupcake, which is one of the best cupcake places around.  However, it's hard to buy their cupcakes in hot weather and not eat them right away, because the icing is so soft and fluffy that it ends up glopping itself off the top of the cupcake.  I found out on this trip that is' hard to buy their cupcakes in cold weather not not eat them right away.  Walking around a bit before eating the cupcakes, the good news was that the icing had hardened a bit and didn't glop all over.  But the icing had hardened a bit, even the edges of the cupcakes had frozen up some, and the flavor was frozen away.

I didn't have great expectations for my next movie, The Guilt Trip, which was playing at the Regal Bethesda, an '80s style sloped-floor multiplex that is still around and doing a decent business.  It wasn't a pleasant surprise, but it was at least as good or bad as I was expecting.  It was a good enough movie that Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand could make it seem a little better than maybe it was, and I was generally smiling during the movie if not often laughing.  But the bottom line is that I'd dozed a bit during Rust and Bone, usually if I doze in one movie I'm not going to doze in another because I'm well-rested.  And this one, I wasn't just resting my eyes but was actually dozing during Seth Rogen's pitch session at HSN.  Which I'm sure was the comic highlight of the movie, there must be one in there someplace, and I missed it entirely.

We then walked down Wisconsin Ave. a bit to the AMC Mazza Galleria.  Many years ago, there was a small Cineplex Odeon sloped floor triplex in the basement of this upscale mall.  As part of a mall redevelopment, that gave way to a much larger stadium seating AMC theatre on the upper level.  This was my first time seeing a movie there even though the new theatre has been open for several years, I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the screens and the overall comfort of the theatre, and I'm sure I will be back.

My first film there was This is 40.  I'm not the Judd Apatow fan club.  I walked out of 40 Year Old Virgin.  Knocked Up was kind of OK.  I regret not seeing Funny People.  I think he might be better as a Producer of movies by other people than a director of his own.  This particular movie has a lot of pitch perfect and telling moments.  It has a lot of laugh out loud moments.  There's plenty to recommend in the film.  Unfortunately, the film's also close to 2:15 in length, which is way way way too long, and I started to feel every second of the film's length and squirm and rest my eyes and otherwise find plenty to focus on other than the perceptiveness and occasional LoL funny in the movie. There's no way I should doze off in three straight movies, no way, when that happens, it's not me being tired but movies that are too easy to sleep during.

Which is ultimately why this blog post is titled "The Big Sit."  All of these are movies that make you focus heavily on the fact that you're sitting and sitting and sitting, which are not transporting you to another world, holding you rapt in their spell.

Across from the Mazza Galleria is the site of the former Borders #285.  Which was one of those underperforming stores that Borders had too many of, and which they spent too much money remodeling at least twice, when they really needed to find a way out from under the lease.  A DSW Shoe Warehouse has now opened.  At least here, I know where the Borders was.  Walking along Walnut St. in Philadelphia a couple days later, I was pained to realize that I could no longer to tell which store had held the original downtown Philadelphia Borders.

The final movie in this four-in-a-day marathon was Jack Reacher.  Which may not be -- no, let's be frank, it isn't -- a particularly good movie, but which by the standards of the other movies I'd seen was exceptionally good.  It was the only one that didn't drag, that didn't put me to sleep, that came close to delivering on the hopes or expectations that you might take with you into the theatre.  I haven't read the Lee Child novels, so I could just focus on the fact that Tom Cruise was in it, and as a general rule, most movies with Tom Cruise have something going for the, and Cruise usually makes decent decisions on what movies to be in.  I don't think he has many outright duds in his filmography, in part because he is in the movies.  There's a particularly good if small supporting turn by Robert Duvall.

Especially in the wake of the Newton CT shootings, Jack Reacher has taken a lot of heat because of its violence.  The opening scene is a sniper's eye view of shootings on the Pittsburgh waterfront as the gunman takes aim at a series of targets and kills what he's aiming at.  The thing I find odd about this is that Lee Child gets kind of a free ride.  It's as if the movie just decided all on its lonesome to be full of shootings and violence in a typical Hollywood kind of way, full of brutality toward all but especially toward women.  Nobody then wants to step back to do the "but," to acknowledge that the movie might be doing all of these things but that it does them in service of an adaptation of a published book, nobody analyzes if the film's treatment of these things does justice to or is independent on the book on which the movie is based.  Does Jack Reacher the movie take a kind and loving novel and turn it into the typical Hollywood gunfest?  Or does it take a book that has these qualities, and bring those qualities to the screen?  I guess I should be happy that I'm a literary agent who gets to work with the books that might get a free pass here because they're books which are literary and good.  But I'm not, I'm disappointed that there's so much verbiage about the film that ignores the source.  And of course since I haven't read the Lee Child novels I don't know the extent to which the tone and approach of the movie diverges from or stays true to that of the books, I only know that it's not good journalism or criticism or reviewing to take aim at the movie without putting it into the context of its source material.

Funny Book Round-Up

Besides all the New 52 books, what else has been in my funny book pile in recent weeks...

Phantom Lady and Doll Man, a 4-issue mini-series by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti and artists Cat Staggs and Tom Derenick.  If I'd gotten around to reading the first issue, I wouldn't have read the second.  It looks really nice, but it didn't cohere.  It seems to be bits and pieces of a story instead of a story, a Zan and Jayna of a comic book.

I always buy some Bongo.  Bart Simpson #75 was an OK issue of this title.

American Vampire has a great story arc going on, The Blacklist.  I think this is the third arc I'm into since I started reading this DC/Vertigo title, and this might be the best of the three. There's some great artwork by Rafael Albuquerque, Scott Snyder is doing some excellent work.  I don't know why I didn't cotton to this series when it started, but I'm totally into it now.

I had two issues of The New Deadwardians.  This is an excellent Vertigo mini-series. Since I started reading Sweet Tooth and American Vampire in recent months after not taking to them at the start of their runs, and have been enjoying New Deadwardians and Saucer Country from their 2012 launches, I am back in the game with Vertigo after a bit of a drought following the end f DMZ. Deadwardians is a zombie vampire detective yarn set in London and thereabouts, written by Dan Abnett and very will illustrated by I.N.J Culbard.  The writing is stylized, clipped Victorian, but never annoyingly so.  The issues often end with classic cliffhangers.  It is a true graphic novel with both the words and pictures of importance, take a look at the pull back on page 3 of issue #6, the dialogue says "I'm starting to get the willies," the picture tells us why.  Sometimes, kind of lime Aquaman, there isn't much dialogue.  But unlike Ivan Reis in Aquaman, there's something about the art that makes me linger.  And that's without a lot of heavy line work. I have really been loking this mini-series which ends with the October on sale issue.  I would definitely suggest checking it out once it is collected, or seeing if you can find the run on Comixology or such. 

I got three annuals, Superman, Detective Comics starring Batman, and Flash at the end of August, I shouldn't have gotten any of them.  They all had interesting aspects.  Superman had a little different art for the character, almost more of a charcoal feel, but then it also had the Daemonites whom I want to see expunged from the DC Universe.  Detective had lots of classic bat villains but not much of a story.  Flash started off strong, almost maybe like a lead in to the 0 issue which had Flash's dad, but then veered all over and ended up nowhere.  Or worse.  Promising a Gorilla Grodd story line for issue #13.  Grodd is a classic character that's was great for the camper days of Julius Schwartz editing Flash or when Cary Bates was writing the character decades ago.  He doesn't work as a serious part of modern comics mythology but everyone wants to use him, it must be seen as fun to write or draw gorillas. More for the creators than the readers, if you ask me.

Back in Bongo land, the Simpsons have a spinoff book One Shot Wonders that allows background characters to have a come all to themselves.  The latest is for Little Homer, and it wasn't great bit gave me a nonstop smile.  The young Homer has to figure out what to do with a gravy boat genie, listens to a bedtime story about a boy who never bathes, becomes a model.  A smile, not a guffaw, but good enough.

I buy The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror as a triumph of hope over experience, but happily this year had some nice things in it.  The best, Homer takes the family to the cabin where Duff Beer was invented, and of course, you know what happens when you go to a cabin in the woods.  Another tale features Bartman, and was as enjoyable a potpourri of Batman villains as the Detective Annual.

And finally The Simpsons #194.  This is one of the most consistent books I have purchased for an extended period, and this issue is solid.  It is kind of Homer mashed up with Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Lisa at gym class and other things in that typical stream of conscious with a purpose Simpsons kind of a way.

Leaving Bongo behind...  Sweet Tooth #37 is a very solid issue full of portent and I tribute as this Vertigo title heads toward a planned ending, perhaps without the strong sense in Y: The Last Man and even a little in DMZ that things were being stretched or milked a bit I. the final year.

As noted above, Saucer Country is one of the new wave of Vertigo books I've been digging.  Issues #6 and the newest #7 have been giving alternate histories of alien invasion in #6 and now of science and the space program vis a vis extraterrestrials.  They've been interesting and intriguing. But what I would like is a bit of a summarization when we've finished these to re-ground us in which characters are which.  Much as I have been liking the series I was starting to have trouble with the who's who, and now taking a break from the ongoing story for the revisionist history of these past two issues will make it that mich harder to get back into things when the series renews its forward march.

And finally...  Looker is a one-shot in a "National Comics" series DC is doing to re-introduce some older characters, this one from Batman and the Outsiders, a long-ago team up character.  This revitalization doesn't entirely work.  The script by Ian Edginton is interesting, but not quite clear enough, I read it and don't have a handle on who the character is.

So I am caught up on funny books, more or less, for the first time in several weeks, save that a new batch of books came out yesterday.  But still, caught up.  Which is a nice feeling.

The New 52 Weeks Later, Pt 4

Wherein we come to the end of our exploration of the new DC Universe after its first 13 months of existence...

I thought Birds of Prey started off strong and then went off track pretty quickly.  The 0 issue by Duane Swierczynski, Romano Molenaar and Vicente Cifuentes will probably be my last.  It didn't interest me, hard to say why, but it didn't.  Nor did Superman #0 by Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort. Here, at least I know why.  The art wasn't my style.  And more to the point, I know there that I have zero interest in having another retelling of the Krypton side of Superman's origin.  Been there, done that, got it it one in the opening 20 minutes of Superman: The Movie in 1977.  And for all the reboots of Superman since from John Byrne's in the mid-1980s and onward, it is what it is.  While I'm not likely to  continue with the book with this art team, it's possible there are other story-lines, perhaps with other art teams, that I'll decide to try.  The Flash was another back story that didn't interest me story-wise, but there's been enough good work done on this book over the past year by writer Francis Manapul, with art in this issue by Brian Buccellato, that I'll certainly be back next issue.  And while the story here didn't interest me much, it was at least well done, creatively thought out, and very nice to look at.  Just not for me.  And finally, we come to Voodoo.  Another of those books with the Daemonites.  And this, well, there was some interesting stuff in the script, and the art wasn't bad, but I just don't find myself digging anything with the Daemonites, and as this issue got more and more caught up in advancing hte current continuity I got less and less interested.  And yet, there's also some pull to this and to Grifter, some primal element with the characters and settings and situations, that keeps wanting these to work for me, that makes me keep wanting to give second and twenty-second chances to these books.  I should stop, yet part of me isn't sure that I will.

What did work for me?

Talon, with a script by James Tynion IV based on a plot by he and Scott Snyder, and art by Guillem March, was fantastic.  I purchased this without even looking inside because of Scott Snyder's involvement.  I started to ask myself why, because the Talons from the Night of the Owls story-line in Batman and the other Batman books, are the bad guys.  And I don't much dig anti-hero comic books. Which this kind of isn't.  Our lead character is Calvin Rose, a Talon gone bad (gone good?), escaped from the bad guys and trying to stay a step ahead.  I'm totally caught up in the character.  I liked the art. I'm just totally in for this one.

This was a good issue of Aquaman, a book that I've warmed to a lot less than others. Writer Geoff Johns takes Aquaman back to Atlantis.  The art by Ivan Reis and Joe Prado is good, my problem with the art in Aquaman isn't with the art itself as with the script, which too often requires the art to be elongated fight scenes that serve to chew up pages, not so much of that here.  Of course, the first issue of Aquaman a year ago was solid, the big question now is what level the book will maintain moving forward.

It's always interesting to see how a writer can be good one place and not so good the other, while I didn't enjoy Scott Lobdell doing the umpteenth Krypton story that I've read, I liked what he did in Teen Titans #0 quite a bit, bringing us a fresh take on the origin of Robin, Red Robin.  Familiar yet fresh, giving real emotional weight both to Tim Drake and to Bruce Wayne/Batman.  Three inkers over Tyler Kirkham pencils.  Of course, Teen Titans is another New 52 title that started off really strong but kind of faltered over the course of Year 1, so as with Aquaman the question is what level they can maintai going forward.

And finally, Firestorm #0 by Joe Harris, Yildiray Cinar and Marlo Alquiza.  I probably purchased more issues of Firestorm over the last year than the should have.  For old time's sake, I guess.  I really cottoned to Firestorm when he was introduced in 1978, I was distressed and dismayed when the series disappeared as part of the DC Implosion after the first five issues.  I wrote lots of letters urging for the series to return.  And I was oh so happy in 1981 when it was announced that he would.  This is something like the 4th Firestorm comic book.  This issue #0 does a nice job of rebooting the story after it got very fight-heavy and honestly very boring with fights.  Joe Harris took over halfway through the first year, so is it his fault it got fight heavy or was he stuck with a storyline he had to finish out?  It will have a chance to fail out, and I hope it will not.

In summation...

When I commented on the second month of the New 52 here (including links to all my original New 52 posts from a year ago) I've got to give DC an excellent passing grade.

I purchased 24 New 52 "0" issues in September 2012.  I purchased around 20 New 52 "#2" issues in October 2011.  Even allowing for around a half dozen of these 0 issues that I purchased due to the 0 issue marketing gimmick to see what we going on etc., the fact is that most of the books that I got an issue #2 of were still doing something good enough that I was back a year later, though I might not have purchased every issue of every single book over that year.  And should I count it against DC that they came up with a marketing gimmick that gave me a starting point to feel I could give a comic book a test run?  I don't think I should, one of the largest problems in the industry was that it was to self-referential that you couldn't ever get back into something easily once you left.  You give credit, not blame, when people recognize a problem and try and come up with a solution to it.

There are still some question marks.  DC hasn't yet done a big company wide crossover with the New 52.  They've done focused crossovers that haven't all worked for me, but it's been 50/50 with some crossovers like Night of the Owls getting me to sample books I might not have otherwise and others that have had me skipping a book I might otherwise have purchased.  Pre New-52, those odds were way lower that a crossover would get me to buy a book rather than drop one.

With all the focus on the New 52, there were some other good DC superhero books over the past year. My list would include The Huntress mini-series and The Ray mini-series, especially.

And finally, the 0 issues had what I, at least, considered to be excellent first issues for Amethyst in Sword of Sorcery, for Talon, The Phantom Stranger, and for Team 7.  If the biggest question a year ago was whether the New 52 was just a quick-lived quick-flaring gimmick or something real, the answer is clear that it was and is something real.  A lot of the New 52 books have seen diminished sales over the past year, which you'd kind of expect as you get further out from all the bright lights of the launch.  But on balance, the company is selling more copies of more books.  And a lot of them to people like me, to lapsed superhero fans whom DC was able to bring back into the fold.

My next comics post will be on the books I've gotten over the last month that haven't been part of the New 52.

The New 52 Weeks Later, Pt. 3

In part 2 of the New 52 Weeks Later posts there were a lot of 0 issues worth talking about at some length.  Not so much in the third batch...

Frankenstein: Agent of Shade started out scripted by Jeff Lemire as intriguingly weird thing, with some intriguingly weird art.  But it quickly got too weird and not near as intriguing, and soon had a new writer in Matt Kindt.  There's still some nice Alberto Ponticelli and Wayne Faucher art, and a script that's just a very prosaic origin that still leaves things weird.  I think I may bow out of this one, once and for all.

Green Lantern: New Guardians #0 by Tony Bedard, Aaron Kuder and Andrei Bressan doesn't drown in continuity, it's half of a good comic book.  But eventually it harkens back to this thing that previously happened and that thing that previously happened and isn't very interesting to me.  So the 0 issues got me to give it a second try, but haven't converted me.

Nor did Catwoman, which I skipped at the start of New 52, sampled a bit as the year progressed, and am sampling with the 0 issue.  But the story jumps around, it doesn't make me care all that much about Selina Kyle or Catwoman.  The art isn't bad, but the story is just too flat.

And Superboy has had its moments, but #0 doesn't have anything in it that's interesting, or at least which isn't (a) interesting and (b) not hinted at in the 12 issues that have come before.  I don't think this book has lived up to its potential over the last 12 months.

Team 7 is the first issue of a new team-up book by Justin Jordan and Jesus Merino.  Maybe...  I like that there are characters like Grifter whom I've been lukewarm to in their current adventures who may have more interesting stuff in the past that's represented by the Team 7 team-up book.  The origin covers a lot of ground pretty efficiently, in that regard Justin Jordan is off to a better start than Geoff Johns has been.  I'll keep with this and see where it goes.

Nightwing has had its ups and downs, but on balance has been a consistently solid part of the New 52, not as many wrong turns as some of the other series, but on the other hand I keep thinking there's some interesting stuff going on in the background that ought to be in the foreground, and which isn't as the book keeps drifting to be a superhero book instead of grappling with a potentially interesting character.  #0 is all of that in a nutshell.  It goes a little further back for its original than a lot of the other #0 issues, and it finds some real emotional heart in the Nightwing character and the Robin that he once was.  But toward the end, it drifts away from the good parts of the issue in order to drag in the necessary character background for a future story arc that seems skippable.  

The best of this batch is Sword and Sorcery #0 featuring Amethyst.  There are two "A" characters that DC introduced a while back, Arion and Amethyst, and I have fond memories of both, but especially of Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld.   I can still see bits and pieces of the Ernie Colon artwork that was fresh and distinct and creative, especially for its day, little gems speckled throughout.  So I was quite happy to hear that Amethyst would be returning in September as part of the "third wave" of New 52 titles.  And happier still to report that it's a successful return.  Christy Marx is the writer, Aaron Lopresti the art.  The story they've come up with isn't new.  Definitely not.  In fact, it's a distaff version of Rick Shelley's Varayan Memoir.  Girl's been promised on her 17th birthday that she's going to get to go home, find out where her father's buried.  Home is an alternate world.  Which is a fantasy trope that I've seen plenty of in my life.  But familiar doesn't mean bad.  Marx's script does a good job of establishing the character of Amy on Earth, a bit of a loner, strong mental compass, being trained without quite knowing it for a battle she doesn't know is hers to have to fight.  We get just enough on the gemworld to find out what the stakes are for Amy, but only that, so the story can focus on the development of our lead character.  Aaron Lopresti's art isn't always good technically, look as an example at the top panel of page 5, with its somewhat stilted poses.  However, if the characters aren't always well drawn technically, the storytelling and flow of the art from panel to panel and across the page doesn't falter.  The characters have facial expressions, ones that actually help tell the story and are worth looking at.  There's something going on in the background.  The most annoying thing about Sword and Sorcery is that it's rounded out with an entirely disposable back-up story, a retelling of Beowulf.  It doesn't add anything to my enjoyment of the book, it does add to the price tag.  It's an average of 7 or 8 minutes for me to read a comic book, paying $3.99 for that instead of $2.99 doesn't delight.

It's not a bad batch when there are two "first issues" for Amethyst and Team 7 that have me interested in seeing the next.  If I'm not otherwise going to add one of the established New 52 titles to my list based on the 0 issues, I'm game for the two, Superboy and Nightwing, that I've been reading.

The New 52 Weeks Later, Pt. 2

Continuing a series where we check in on DC's New 52 one year after its launch in the midst of their anniversary "0" issues.  The second batch I read gave lots to chew on and think about...

Batwing was a pleasant surprise in DC's New 52, fresh hero and fresh setting and freshly written from Judd Winick with some very nice, clean art by Marcus To.  I don't think the totality of the first year has been up to the promise of the first issue.  We got a very attenuated origin that was interesting but which went on too long, a lot of information withheld mostly because, why do in two parts what you can do in four.  A lot of effort given to getting Batman involved because its a bat book, to fitting the Batwing square into the circular Night of the Owls.  But for all my disappointment that the series isn't as good as it maybe could have been, it's been good enough for me to keep buying it every month.  The 0 issue takes us back to that period of time between the "Batwing as a child" part of the origin and the actual becoming Batwing and becoming part of the international network of Bat thingies.  No real surprises, there aren't many blanks in this issue that we couldn't have filled in ourselves.  But the writing is solid, the art is solid, I'll keep going but always with the deep down wish for it to achieve something more.

One of the frustrations with Geoff Johns is that he doesn't seem to understand in writing Aquaman that there's a minutes-per-dollar part of the value equation that we apply toward our leisure time.  Comics are, at best, mid-tier.  TV is cheap and plentiful, movies are surprisingly cheap, Broadway is expensive.  Regular books are great value.  Aquaman is shitty value.

Not Batgirl #0,  Gail Simone delivers a script that's sufficiently wordy to make me feel I'm getting my money's worth without being the overly prolix prose of bad Roy Thomas, or the early issues of the New 52 Superman.  There's enough room left on the page for me to really admire the artwork of Ed Benes, both pencils and inks.  It manages to feel clean and give a sense of charcoals or loosely finished pencils at the same time.  It made me want to longer, which hasn't happened too much since I stopped having a chance to admire Pier Gallo's art on the pre-52 Superboy written by Jeff Lemire.  Even though Batgirl is a familiar character, there's some fresh ground, fresh insight, into the character.  Of the 0 issues I've commented on so far, this might just be my favorite.

Writer Scott Snyder collaborates with penciller Greg Capullo and inker Jonathan Glapion on Batman 0.  This would be a good issue by the standards of almost every other book in the New 52.  But Scott Snyder's done such excellent work over the first year of his New 52 run on Batman, which might be the most consistently excellent of the books, that his 0 issue falls just a little bit short.  In part, I think it's a little too intent on introducing the Red Hoods as villains for a forthcoming arc in the series or event in the DC Universe that it can't quite be all it should be in this issue.  But still, good enough.  There's a backup story Tomorrow by James Tynion IV and Andy Clarke that does well enough in its purpose-driven life of touching on all the various Robins and other Batman sidekicks that need a shout-out in the 0 issues.  

Grifter is the entry point to a discussion of the Daemonite books in the New 52.  It, Voodoo and Resurrection Man all started out with first issues that were awfully good and had me looking forward to discovering some new and interesting heroes with new and interesting things going on.  But then all of them ended up being part of some mega-story about this group of aliens called the Daemonites that must be part of some pre-52 DCU something or other that I didn't even get the bare outlines of from some kind of osmosis process.  The contrast for this is Swamp Thing and Animal Man, which dealt with a lot of stuff about red, green and rot that I hadn't read much of during my many years completely away from comics and then ten years reading some but not too many of the standard Superhero books.  As the story lines in all three books converged on the whole Daemonite thing, they became progressively less interesting to me, and I'd look at each new book but became increasinly reluctant to by them.  It didn't help that the books were often not offering good value, more 4 or 5 minute reads than 7 or 8 minutes.  

Which is kind of the story of Grifter.  The creative team has changed, with Rob Liefeld as a new plotter as of the 8th or 9th issue with dialogue by Frank Tieri and art by Scott Clark and Dave Beaty.  And there are some interesting concepts in the script about Grifter's background.  But there are also those damned Daemonites that I just don't find to be very interesting.  And there are too many pages like the double-page spread on page 2+3 or pages 12 and 16 and 17 that don't have many words and don't have art that makes me want to stop and stare and linger, so I'm not feeling a lot of value for my $2.99.

Green Lantern #0 by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke and a trio of inkers got a lot of press (Johns was doing an appearance in Dearborn MI while I was in Ann Arbor, so the local papers were all over this, but the national media was certainly on this) for introducing a new Arab-American Green Lantern.

Other than trying Green Lantern: New Guardians for a few issues before it too drowned in continuity, I skipped the Green Lanterns books because they were too reliant on prior continuity even after the New 52 reboot.  To give some credit where due, the attention to this issue, a fresh origin story that was continuity free, inspired me to give it a go.  If there are a few other people like me... there's some real thought and real smarts behind what DC's been up to the past year.

I'm not sure where I'll go from here.  I'd like to be reading a Green Lantern book.  This one isn't bad.  But is it good enough?  The script and art were unclear enough that I didn't realize until a few pages later on when everyone else was talking about it that the new Green Lantern had found a car bomb in the van he hijacked.  I don't instinctively find car thieves to be the kinds of identifiable lead characters that are going to get me super interested in what they are up to.  It's hard to sympathize with the guy when he's being interrogated because the bomb might not have been his, but he sure did steal the van that was holding the bomb.  There isn't enough in here to explain or justify how this guy is the "man without fear" type that I recall earned a Green Lantern ring, or is that one of the things that changed in the many years I wasn't reading Green Lantern books?  But is is new, it is different, there's some nice classic comic book art (the interrogation scenes, especially.  We'll see.  Not as good as it should be, not bad, the odds are I can give it a few issues, and then it will drown in some big GL title crossover saga that won't interest me, and I'll have a convenient excuse to repurpose that $2.99 in my budget.  But I've gotta say, I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, to see this series gain its sea-legs and for the GL titles to enter an extended period when they can be read without requiring a degree in GL history.

The New 52 Weeks Later, Pt. 1

The first in a series of posts looking at the first year of the DC Comics New 52, which series have been making the grade, which of the September "0" issues I am liking, that sort of thing...

Aquaman:  This is supposed to be one of the big successes of the New 52.  Not for me.  I buy an issue or two, it's a fight scene I don't care about with little text to read and not enough texture to the art for me to spend more than five minutes reading.  So I stop, then decide flipping through to give it another go.  Issue 12 was a "give another go.". And just good enough I want to buy another, just bad enough to do it without much enthusiasm.  

Animal  Man:  I had been reading few DC superhero books before the New 52, the one I enjoyed most and which I was saddened to see disappear two summers ago was Jeff Lemire and Pier Gallo's Superboy.   Consolation, that Lemire's Animal Man has been one of my favorites in the New 52.  So far the New 52 has mostly done crossovers that are, if not good, at least logical and within a group of related titles.  This series is crossing over with Swamp Thing as the two are immersed in a battle between the green and the rot, part of a battle best given context if you have read Pre-52 Swamp Thing and related but given enough info within the current series at one can get by comfortably. And the crossover is what crossovers should be and in the past twenty years rarely have been, a good extended story somewhat bigger than either book might be on its own with an underlying story-driven reason to exist.  Yes, these crossovers are still driven by an underlying corporate dicta, but there is some sign of lessons learned comparing these or the Knight of the Owls in the Batman books to the Pre-52 crossovers.  

Swamp Thing, written by Scott Snyder, has been the equal of Animal Man.  As with some of the other New 52 titles, it's wandered a bit in the middle months of the first year, a little like Aquaman in having some issues that have been too much fighting too quickly read to give good value for money. The recent Animal Man crossover helped bring it back to less swampy crowd.  So not entirely as good as Animal Man, but good.  And its 0 issue this month has given some good background on the rot, red and green that may help moving forward as well.

Grant Morrison's Action Comics got a lot of attention, some negative, for it's first issue depiction of a young hot-headed and immature Superman/Clark Kent.  That bothered me less than when the series left that behind in order to do some very Grant Morrison alternate history with a black Superman that came out of nowhere and left just as quickly.  His 0 issue is a surprisingly tender not at all what I would expect of Grant Morrison story of a oing Superman and someone even younger trying to fill Superman's "shoes." Solid, not an "all it can be" series, but still one of the better.  The art has been enjoyable, and Ben Oliver's in issue 0 quite quite good.

There is some churn in the New 52.  Phantom Stranger 0 is the first and origin issue for a series starting in September to replace one of the dear departed.  The character has been around in he magical part of the DC Universe for a long time. Writer and DC exec Dan Didio joins with artists Brent Anderson and Scott Hanna to craft a fist issue that ets me interested to come back for more.  

cultural capital

I ended up going on a bit about Animal Kingdom, let's so some quick takes.

Sunday August 22 I saw Eat Pray Love at Clearview's Ziegfeld and then The Other Guys at the AMC Lincoln Square, Aud #4/Olympia. Other Guys had higher highs and lower lows and Eat Pray Love was more consistently mediocre, so I'd give a slight nod to seeing The Other Guys. The best parts of Other Guys are in the first half hour and are often genuinely good and genuinely funny. There's good chemistry between Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. But as many of the reviews I read quite accurately point out, in the last half hour the movie becomes too much that which it is supposed to be spoofing, and I tuned out totally and completely. It was good to see Michael Keaton with a decent role in a mainstream movie. Where did he go? Eat Pray Love isn't without its pleasures. Julia Roberts, exotic settings, lush feel, eye candy in some ways. But it's flat. The script is kind of flat. I don't know what depths are to be found in the book the movie is based on, but this script doesn't show any. But as or more important the quality of the casting seemed to end with getting Julia Roberts. For all its flaws at least in Duplicity you had good chemistry between Roberts and Clive Owen, who has some of the same "it" that Roberts does. Billy Crudup isn't bad in this movie, but he doesn't have that it. James Franco, same thing; if Franco had that "it" he'd be much bigger a star than he's become, because he's had his chances. The role Richard Jenkins has is annoyingly scripted, and I'm not sure any actor could have made it work. With Javier Bardem, it might just be that I'm not a fan. In order for the movie to have worked as well as it could have, they needed to aim higher and get higher for the men in Julia Roberts' life.

Last week Peter V. Brett and I saw Scott Pilgrim at the AMC Empire, Aud. #20. Better than either of the two movies above, but not as successful as I would have liked. To the good, the filmmaking by director Edgar Wright, who's previously done Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, is lively and energetic. Comic book sound titles go sweeping along the screen kind of like the subtitles in Slumdog Millionaire. Michael Cera fits the lead role like a glove, most of his entourage are well cast and likable. There are some good choices for the smaller roles of the seven evil exes. On the opposite side, it's creative and energetic in a way that can wear out its welcome after a bit, and here I think that point is reached rather before the end of the movie. At its essence, the movie is a romantic action comedy. The whole premise is that Scott is fighting for the love of a girl. And the director, the script, the filmmaking ... a lot of that "little" stuff shows no interest in the romantic side of the romantic action comedy. The movie's so busy at the start introducing all of us to its bag of tricks that the arrival of the romantic lead kind of gets lost in the shuffle. Where did she come from? Why? Why does the Michael Cera character go with one girl over another? This film had an even more disappointing opening at the box office than Kick Ass, which has found some justified redemption with excellent early sales for the video. Will the same happen here? I had some issues with the unnecessary violence in Kick Ass, but overall I do think it was the more successful of the two movies.

Salt, which I saw at the Regal Gallery Place Aud #10 in DC on July 31, was a thoroughgoing delight, very similar in my mind to the Angelina Jolie movie Wanted. It's totally and preposterously silly, and it knows it is. The actors toe a fine line nicely, most of them knowing that they're in on the joke but taking themselves just seriously enough for the preposterousness of the film to be solidly grounded in some semblance of Hollywood reality. Angelina Jolie is a delight. I had a lot of fun with the movie. I'm not going to defend it as art, and Myke Cole did not like it, couldn't look past the silliness of it all enough to find the enjoyment in it. But me, I loved the over the top pleasures this movie had to offer, and I'd recommend it.

Not so for Dinner With Schmucks, which I saw the next day at the same location, Aud. #13. Schmucks. Yuck. I don't even want to talk about this movie very much. It's not well-scripted, or well-made, and it just kind of lies there. It's not totally without laughs, but nowhere near enough of them.

And while in DC, I also saw two plays.

One Man Lord of the Rings is by the same guy who did One Man Star Wars. If you think you'll like it from the name, you probably will. Check here, maybe one of the shows is coming soon to a theatre near you. It was my first time seeing something at DC's Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. And then the Studio Theatre had Passing Strange. My classic DC theatre visit, that show had played on Broadway, gotten nice notices, wished I'd seen it, so this was my last chance I really must go and partake sort of thing. This is an autobiographical show of the artist's road to musical theatre. The Studio production was lively and energetic, I had a wonderful time, I'd recommend anyone go. It's also kind of entirely forgettable, almost while you're watching it. But while you're there, you're having fun, and that's not a bad way to go.

It's still just a cupcake

Maybe I need to get out of town more.

In around 33 hours actually in the Washington DC area over the weekend, I managed to see 3 plays, visit 1 B. Dalton, 4 B&Ns, 4 Borders, chow down at 2 Whole Foods and a Pizzeria Uno, do the Saturday NY Times puzzle, two from Sunday, a regular and a cryptic, read 70% of the new Violette Malan book and get started on Tanya Huff's next.

I'll talk more about the plays later, but just a few idle observations.

I've sung the praises of Georgetown Cupcake before, no doubt I'll do so again, they're some of the only overpriced cupcakes that at least taste really, really, really good. But what is the world coming to when I pop by their new expanded flagship location in Georgetown and see over 30 people curled around in the store waiting to buy cupcakes. It's just a cupcake. It's not worth waiting, sorry, no possible way unless it's your child's bar mitzvah and the caterer's truck with the viennese table pastries overturned on the beltway, that anyone should wait 30 minutes for a friggin' cupcake. I noticed they had a new location in Bethesda down the street from the B&N on Bethesda Row, much closer to that B&N than the Georgetown location is to the B&N in Georgetown, and the Bethesda store does a much better business in sf/fantasy than the one in Georgetown, so I expect in the future that I'll go to the Bethesda location, and I did wait five minutes or so the next day. And yes, the carrot cupcake was yummy, and the chocolate/vanilla and the key lime pie and the chocolate mint, even though the icing had kind of run off from the top of the cupcake by the time I ate them back home after taking them around with me for several hours and I had to scoop the icing back on top of the cupcakes.

The original home of the Rockville Pike Borders, which became an Anthropologie when Borders moved down the street into White Flint Mall, is an Anthropologie no more. The store is up for rent, so if any of you want to open a store in a historic retail location on 11500 Rockville Pike... And this huge Borders location no longer has even a single visible store-discretion shelf facing in its Front of Store, nor really does the wonderful Borders on 18th and L have any store discretion that's visible in its FOS. I find this a little depressing. I can remember back 20 years when a Borders had character. Of course, there weren't 500 stores back then. And one of the problems the chain had was that it had too much character and not enough management. And I wasn't very happy with George L. Jones because he didn't run a tight ship. But the nostalgic part of me wishes the chain could be a well-run chain while still retaining some of that store-specific character.

B&N will soon have Elizabeth Moon's Deed of Paksenarrion back on shelves. Should have been there all along, but that's a long story. Maybe I'll tell that story in a blog post some day. That was one of the nice things to see in the stores. The bummer thing is that Borders is underordering on Peter Brett's Desert Spear, around half as many of those as the new Robert Redick hardcover, though I bet Peter will outsell the Redick by about that same margin.

It's soon going to be $8.30 for a one-day pass on the DC MetroRail system. Is it that long ago this was a $5 bargain?

As I get older I get more crotchety about my hotel rooms. I went down twice to ask for a new room because any of the ones facing the air wells on either side, the HVAC equipment at the bottom of the airwell, all that noise just shimmies up the walls. Which leaves a room facing the street so you can get the street noise as the "best" option. I probably won't race to book the Hilton Garden Inn on 14th St. again.

I've never seen so much snow in DC. Knocked over light posts and paper boxes. The sidewalks not so bad but at the corners where snow was plowed from two different streets, you had some interesting detours.

The Pizzeria Uno in Bethesda is closed. And right before I headed to DC, my younger brother told me the one in Manchester, CT is closed now as well. I enjoyed my dinner at the Union Station location. I tried the honey crisp chicken salad for the first time, along with that new moroccan lentil soup, and it was a good thing.

Whole Foods is about to open the new store in Chevy Chase, MD just over the border from DC in Friendship Heights. May 18, I'm told. That's just a little over a mile from the Tenleytown store in DC and not far from the River Rd. location in Bethesda, so I see some same-store cannibalization in the near future. And it's maybe but three years ago that the Tenleytown store was given a pretty major remode. I also see on their web site that the store in Lake Grove, NY will be opening on March 17.

With my little weekend trips the past two weekends when I've been considering myself as on vacation and able to do more than just the Sunday Times crossword, well, I've impressed even myself with how well I've done on the Saturday puzzles. They're not easy, and it takes some backing and forthing and fermenting in the back of the mind while I do other stuff, but I've been very pleased.

I just can't seem to get as much done on a weekend when I'm home.

District Affairs

I go down to Washington DC fairly often, often doing the same things over and over again though trying at some level to always experience something new on each trip, even if it's walking down a different block.

On my latest visit I decided I wanted to try very very hard to do some things recommended to me by the Washington Post.

So I went to get cupcakes at Georgetown Cupcake.  Now, this whole cupcake craze has me a little befuddled.  Illogically, because I think it's crazy to pay in the neighborhood of $3 for a little cupcake.  Why do I say that's illogical?  Because we all have things we're willing to indulge in.  I pay $6.50 every so often for a slice of Juniors Cheesecake, so why not pay $3 for a cupcake.  But logically, because Juniors is really good stuff (I think so, most people I've introduced it to think so, or have sent as a gift).   But most of these cupcakes are pretty dreary, and paying so much money for a bad cupcake?  Like this little place in Sunnyside that opened up near me recently, and I tried one of their expensive cupcakes and it was so godawful dry and bad and ugh ugh ugh.  

But I was willing to give this Georgetown Cupcake a try because when the Washington Post did a whole series of cupcake reviews in the fall they actually admitted time and again over the course of the reviews that the emperor had no clothes, that most of the cupcakes they were trying weren't very good.  Neither place very good in week #1.  Week #2, one of the places "no better than grade school cafeteria."   Hence, when they concluded the series by rating Georgetown Cupcake as the best, I was willing to give them some credence, and so I happily waited on line to try some of them.  I ended up getting six cupcakes, which with tax cost $16.50.  Each a different flavor.  As things turned out I ended up carrying them with me to dinner, then to the train station, then home, and some of them toppled over a bit even though they give a very good box which does hold the cupcakes well in more normal transport, but they were more than good enough even so for me to concur that if you want to indulge in a cupcake this is a very good place to do it.  I liked the chocolate mint quite a bit, banana pudding not bad at all, red velvet much better than average.  Chocolate #3 was a little bit disappointing but wasn't one of the fresher by the time I got around to it.  Bottom line, the cakes were moist and yummy, and the icings were flavorful without being icky sweet.  

For the record, here in NYC the cupcakes at Magnolia, Billys and Buttercup are among those that leave me feeling cold.  Sage has a decent ersatz Hostess cupcake, the Little Pie Co. has a nice cream filled chocolate if eaten at room temperature (I also like Juniors best at room temp), and some Crumbs like the grasshopper are OK, but I think from now on I'll save myself for when I can do Georgetown Cupcake.

Dinner that night, cupcakes in tow, was at Ray's Hellburger, which the Washington Post liked quite a bit and put in their fall magazine listing as one of the best restaurants in DC.  Well, thank you Tom Sietsema!  This is one yummy hamburger.  I got a pepper encrusted burger cooked medium with some swiss cheese atop.  It was big and juicy, moderately but not overly messy.  Like the review says the bun was a little overmatched, but it was a good bun with some real texture and substance to it.  The surroundings are not luxurious.  You order at the counter then sit down and wait a few minutes for the burger to be delivered.  You might be sitting in close surroundings to somebody else.  I had my bags and cupcakes because my next stop was Union Station, and I had to kind of fight my way through the ordering crowd to get to the bathroom.  But if you want a good, no frills, eating experience when you're in DC. Rays Hellburger is well worthwhile.

If you want a bit of a walking tour, Rays is at the downhill side of the very walkable very pleasant Clarendon corridor.  Now that the B. Dalton won't be there any more I'm not sure if it makes sense to start a walk at the far end by Ballston Commons.  But certainly you can get off at Clarendon, enjoy the little park and admire historic theatres in the CVS window and think on the very good Delhi Club for some other meal someday, walk downhill to the upscale shopping mall, browse at the Barnes & Noble, check e-mail at the Apple Store, pick up some vino at Whole Foods, down a little further past the Arlington County courthouse and the AMC, then eventually go down Wilson a little bit further to Rays.  Have good burger, having built up nice appetite.  Then continue down Wilson to Rosslyn, walk over the scenic and glorious Key Bridge into Georgetown, with wonderful views in abundance, and then just a few short blocks to Georgetown Cupcake.  It's only 1.3 miles according to Mapquest from Hellburger to Georgetown Cupcake, downhill, (burn more calories by having cupcake first then going to burger), and my that would be good.  The problem with the Clarendon corridor is that it gives too many good choices.  If you eat at Ray's you can't eat at Whole Foods, if you go to Georgetown Cupcake who'll have an appetite for a slice of Linda's Fudge Cake at Cheesecake Factory, if you go to Delhi Club there's no chili at Hard Times.  

My other DC item to review quickly was the production of Grey Gardens at the Studio Theatre.  This was the classic Studio production for me to see, something I'd kind of wanted to see when it was on Broadway but never quite got around to, so the DC production becomes a last chance at a theatre that I know will generally do a good job of things.  The production was solid enough with the lead played by someone with lots of Broadway experience and another role filled by one of the cast members from the Studio's superb stunningly good wish-it-were-still-running production of Jerry Springer the Opera, but it's not a very good musical alas.  It's based on a documentary about some Onassis relatives living in squalor at the eponymous estate on Long Island.  The first act is set earlier in the 20th century when Grey Gardens is still a place to be seen.  Joe Kennedy is courting the ladies.  All very frilly but not very thrilling.  I don't care about these people at all.  The second act gets a little more interesting with some nicely staged numbers with the entire company and one particularly interesting song called Jerry Likes My Corn that is an ode to the handyman who's willing to help out the crazy ladies in Grey Gardens, but one bad act followed by one mildly interesting one doesn't make for a good night at the theatre to me.  So One Slithy Toad for this production, seen at the evening performance on Sunday January 1, 2009.  Interestingly enough, Peter Marks, the critic for the Washington Post seems to feel the same way that the production is much better in the second act than the first, and I guess overall liked much more than I since his capsule review gave it the "recommended" star.  But shouldn't he have genuinely liked both acts before he recommends it, instead of giving that little star to something that even he seems to say has some first act issues?