We Love the City

Author: Ryan

  • I am Happy

    So it’s not even 10 AM yet, and I’m already in a good mood. Why? Thanks for asking.

    Good News Item #1 came to my attention courtesy of the concert listings in Eye: The Long Blondes are coming to Toronto in June! This makes me very happy.


    However, there is the very real danger that I will become deleriously obsessed with Kate Jackson if I actually see her in person. I am willing to take that risk.

    Good News Item #2 came courtesy of my friend and yours, The Internet. Dark Horse has revealed the cover to Buffy Season 8, #6:


    Frankly, that’s not one of Jo Chen’s best covers. But it’s got Faith on it, and that makes me happy; the fact that Faith’s arc is being written by Brian K. Vaughan makes it super-duper happy. To be honest, I’d been looking forward to Vaughan’s arc moreso than Joss Whedon’s opening, but then Joss had to go and knock #2 out of the park, setting a pretty high standard. (Review forthcoming, perhaps? We shall see, I suppose.)

    So yeah, good day.

  • Hot Fuzz: Ice Cold

    Hot Fuzz, like Shaun of the Dead before it, is a pretty clever piece of filmmaking. Edgar Wright knows his source material – zombies in Shaun, action movies here – and his cast, particularly Simon Pegg, is on the same page. Unfortunately, the execution continues to be sloppy, and the ideas have long run out by the time the film finishes its (rather excessive) two-hour running time.

    There are really three films in Hot Fuzz: The first, and the one you’ve probably seen the most of in the trailers, involves hotshot London constable Nick Angel being transferred to the peaceful village of Sandford as a consequence of making everyone else on the force look bad. It’s a standard “Big City Cop in the Small Town”, and it’s the fairly safe sort of comedy one used to be able to watch on PBS on Saturday nights. It’s funny enough, though: Bill Nighy breezes through as Angel’s old boss, and Jim Broadbent gets a slightly meatier role as Sandford’s top policeman. Angel has to retrieve missing swans, allay the neighbourhood watch association’s fears about the encroachment of jugglers and living statues, and confiscate the arsenal of a farmer who’s been hoarding firearms since WWII. It’s not cutting edge material, but it’s funny enough. There’s also a great uncredited (and nearly unidentifiable, except in closeup) by Cate Blanchett.

    It’s the middle third of Hot Fuzz that will have you looking at your watch. Nick’s partner, the rather lacklustre yet nepotistically gifted Danny, tries to befriend the Serious Big City Cop by introducing him to the local pub and the oeuvre of Michael Bay. It’s an attempt at character development with characters that are only slightly deeper than a Mr. Turtle pool; Hot Fuzz is mostly fluff – intentionally and generally enjoyably so – and errs greatly when it tries to delve into more serious material. It similarly takes another wrong turn in trying to spin a mystery, as Angel investigates a series of gruesome murders he’s convinced are connected. There’s depressingly little comedy in this section, though the murders offer some brief black comedy. And while the ultimate plot is revealed to be quite absurd, it’s delivery is so serious that there are no laughs to be had. It’s here that the greatest flaw of Hot Fuzz is most obvious: It’s too silly to be taken seriously, but doesn’t provide nearly enough humour to be a successful comedy.

    Things pick up in the third act as the film jumps into full-on Super Action Cop Movie parody. After failing to clean up Sandford by following the rules and playing it safe, Angel takes care of business the only way a Real Man knows how: He grabs a bunch of guns and shoots things up. If Wright has missed an action movie cliché, it’s probably a pretty obscure one: There’s plenty of leaping through the air while firing two pistols, fisticuffs with big dumb brutes, splattering blood (and tomato sauce), and car chases.

    But unfortunately, Wright seems to have left out much of the humour and leaned more towards an homage: After a promising opening in which Angel delivers a flying kick to the face of an old woman (er… yes, but it’s funny when you see it), Wright trots out the same gag for the next ten minutes or so. Yes, he’s exchanging automatic weapons fire with a bunch of mild-mannered and middle-aged villagers. We get it. Can we move on to something else? While earlier sequences hint at Wright’s gift for glorious excess, there’s not nearly enough on display as the film builds towards its climax: It’s all kind of stupid, but falls short of actually being funny. The modern action movie is ridiculous all on its own, and requires something more than simple imitation to make a successful satire. One wonders if Wright isn’t too in love with the source material: He’s so busy blowing shit up that he’s lost sight of the fact that other directors have been blowing shit up in far more interesting ways for several decades. The one thing Wright could bring to the mix – his sense of humour and gruesome excess – is sadly missing.

    There is an old bit of dramatic advice that says if there’s a gun on the mantle in the first act, someone had better get shot with it by the third act. Hot Fuzz takes this a tad too far: Not only is there a gun on the mantle (metaphorically speaking), but someone picks it up, waves it around, and loudly proclaims that they are going to shoot someone with it at precisely 3:42 next Tuesday afternoon. When the setup is that blunt, one would hope for a punchline that involves a bit more complexity, but alas: It would be difficult to telegraph the jokes any further without handing out script pages to the audience. Are all those mentions of a scene in Point Blank going to relate to the story in some way? Is that conspicuous placement of a notebook in a breast pocket completely superfluous to the plot? What do you suppose is going to happen after the director is finished cutting back and forth between shots of a woman on a bicycle and a man sitting in a parked car? To some, these may be unfathomable questions; to those who have, you know, read a book or watched a movie, they can probably be fathomed a little bit.

    Hot Fuzz has a pretty funny trailer. There are even a few funny moments that don’t appear in the preview, and the shoot-em-up climax offers a decent spot of entertainment. But the middle third sucks the life out of the film, and two hours is entirely too long for this sort of parody. Some more judicious editing at the script stage might have helped keep it afloat, but even at 90 minutes I suspect the film would feel like a 15-minute sketch that somehow mutated out of control. Hot Fuzz falls far short of the satire mark set by the likes of Blazing Saddles and Airplane, and it’s equally unimpressive when set against all but the most mediocre action movie. Save for a few bright moments, it combines the worst attributes of bad action movies and bad comedies. And dear god, we’ve really got enough of those already.

  • Sticking to Your Guns or Tilting at Windmills?

    Posts like this always leave me feeling conflicted.

    On the one hand, it’s impossible to deny that the treatment and portrayal of women in Marvel and DC superhero books ranges from the clueless to the chauvinistic to the downright misogynistic. Even I, the white heterosexual male, point it out from time; when someone acts like an ass, they need to be called on it. And it’s hard to tell someone that they should ignore sexism without sounding like a complete fuckwit.

    But. (And obviously there’s a “but”, because otherwise I never would have said I was conflicted in the first paragraph.)

    My doubts come into play with this paragraph:

    “These stories are escapism. We all come to these stories to relax. Everyone opens a comic book hoping for a quick cheap thrill, a few laughs, maybe some unrealistic over-the-top violence, or to check on old friends (so to speak). Readers want a way to forget about life for a while.”

    Well, no. That may be why most people read superhero comics, though of course we can’t ignore the disturbingly common raison d’etre of “continuity addict” and “completist.”

    I don’t generally read ACME Novelty Library, Optic Nerve, or Queen & Country for escapism. Blue Beetle is definitely escapism, as is All-Star Superman, but even something like Seven Soldiers offers more than a few cheap thrills.

    It comes up periodically on a few blogs and forums that far too many people say “comics” but in fact mean “superhero comics.” More specifically, they mean “Marvel and DC superhero comics”, and, to be entirely specific “the Marvel and DC superhero books I read.”

    One of the things that bothers me the most about superhero fandom is the utter inability to let go of things. You don’t have to browse Newsarama and CBR for very long before you come across someone who’s irate that Roy Thomas isn’t still writing Avengers, or convinced that Marvel has been on a long slide towards creative bankruptcy ever since Jim Shooter left.

    I understand the sentiment. It can be hard to accept that something you used to love now sucks, or that (and this is more important) it’s simply not aimed at you any more. But for the life of me I can’t fathom the idea of throwing good money at bad product month after month. A bit of complaining when a title hits a rut is one thing, but continuing to follow something that makes you angry month after month strikes me as masochistic at best.

    All of which is to say is that when someone says “comics should be like this“, what they really mean is “the comics I’m reading should be like this.” You’ve probably seen it, if you’ve spent much time on the web: Angry Fan says they want more fun, traditional comics; Happy Fan says “have you tried the Marvel Adventures books?”, to which Angry Fan say “Those are for kids. I’m not reading that.”

    My rather roundabout point is that none of us are entitled to any sort of entertainment. Marvel, DC, and every other publisher are going to focus on the demographic that makes them the most money, and if you’re not in that demographic you’re out of luck. Me, I want superhero books that aren’t mired in continuity and plagued by crossovers; I want publishers to give Peter Milligan carte blanche to do whatever crazy stuff he wants; I want creativity and a sense of humour to accompany these pulp deities in spandex. I also want books that aren’t about superheroes at all: science fiction and fantasy and mystery and comedy.

    Alas, it sucks to be me. Well, it doesn’t really – I just have to look further than the Big Two for my sequential storytelling needs. Thankfully I’ve got an awesome comic book store in my town, so actually I get by pretty well; frankly, my bank account would be happier if I had a harder time finding comics that interested me. I can complain about Civil This and Infinite That, but I’d rather just read All-Star Superman and Scott Pilgrim.

    So coming back to my point: There are many, many comic books out there that make more of an effort to appeal to female readers. (Or – lest I be accused of not knowing what female readers want, which is a distinct possibility – at least aren’t targeted exclusively at the white, straight male demographic) Indeed, there are plenty of comic books written and drawn by women. There just aren’t very many published by Marvel and DC. (And no, that’s not a blanket “Go read manga” or “you know Neil Gaiman, right?”) You can find almost anything you want in comics – sometimes you just have to look a little harder.

    At some point, you have to balance your crusades (in my case, it’s artistic integrity over faceless commercialism) with the reality of banging your head against the wall and railing against a corporation that doesn’t care if it gets your money or not. (Obviously they care, but not if it means losing sales from their primary sales base.)

    There are plenty of things Marvel and DC could do better that might bring them bigger audiences, but if they’re not interested, they’re not interested. They know where their cash flow is coming from, and that’s going to receive the majority of their attention. They’re dealing in the marketplace of ideas (inasmuch as “who can we kill next?” is an idea), and that marketplace is saying “we want what you’ve got and don’t care about that other stuff.” Just as there’s no right to the entertainment we want, there’s no compulsion for a corporation to change a sales tactic that works. (outside of actively discriminating against people) It seems far more productive to reward the publishers who do the things you want instead of complaining about the ones who don’t.

    Ultimately, I think we’re all much happier when we ignore Mark Millar and Michael Turner.

  • The imminent and total collapse of DC Comics

    There seems to be some small amount of panic regarding DC’s recent sales numbers. They’re not terribly encouraging of course – 52 is their only regular, reliable hit, with most of their other top sellers shipping bi-monthly or even more sporadically.

    I can’t argue with the notion that they’ve launched entirely too many books in the last year or two, most of which lack any sort of original voice. On the one hand, DC should, and probably will, look at culling the severe underperfomers. But then again, it’s not like 20,000 readers will stop buying Checkmate and sink their dollars into Justice League – odds are the people who buy Checkmate are probably sinking plenty of dollars into DC Continuity every month, anyway. And The Atom isn’t hoarding a top-notch creative team that could keep Batman at the top of the sales charts. I’m sure DC will be sorting these things out, but I can’t say I care terribly, as long as they stay the hell away from Blue Beetle.

    There’s also the distinct possibility that 52 is sucking up whatever dollars fans have that might otherwise be used on new titles; maybe people can’t afford to try new books when they have to get their weekly dose of the book that’s absolutely totally essential to understanding the DC universe. But if that’s a problem, DC certainly hasn’t clued in, as they’ve lined up Countdown to take over. How that title will perform without the big guns of Morrison, Rucka, Waid, and Johns as draws remains to be seen, but I suspect DC is in for an unpleasant surprise.

    DC was probably counting on the big Wildstorm revamp to bring in some cash, but that obviously hasn’t gone according to plan: The scheduling vortex that sucked in Authority and Wildcats has tainted the line to the extent that online fandom is awash in statements of “Wildstorm is a joke!” despite the fact that 5 of the 7 relaunch titles have delivered more-or-less on time. But perhaps that doesn’t really matter: Sales on the second-tier books weren’t terribly impressive to begin with, and most of them debuted with variant covers. The problem here, I think, is that mainstream, direct market fans simply aren’t interested in other superhero books; they want their Spider-Man and Batman, and aren’t going to bother with Wildstorm’s ever-so-slightly-mature line of c-list heroes unless they’re being driven by all-star creators. They’re profitable enough books for Image, but they don’t appear to meet DC’s standards.

    But ultimately, I wonder if DC isn’t right where they’re meant to be. For most of my recollection, Marvel has ruled the monthly sales charts. DC got some shots in with the death of Superman, and Image had their time in the sun, but it almost always come back to Marvel.

    Marvel has proven itself to be the master of The Now. They find or grab all the hot new artists, and pick up on the trends that will sell books. DC, on the other hand, has always remained largely traditional – their big properties (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) have reputations as being stodgy and cardboard, perhaps a necessary result of protecting such immensely valuable trademarks. For many years, their most notable characters were steered by good-yet-unimaginative creative teams.

    But behind that stereotype lies an entirely different company. For all the talk of Marvel’s innovation and market driving, it’s DC that published Watchmen, Dark Knight, Swamp Thing, Sandman, and others. DC has far more perennial sellers than Marvel. There are few Marvel books of 20 years ago that remain relevant or popular. Miller’s Daredevil, maybe Squadron Supreme and the Claremont/Byrne X-Men.

    While I have no doubt Civil War will sell plenty of copies when the TPB debuts, I can’t imagine it being an industry standard in five years, if Marvel even keeps it in print that long. Of their current crop only Daredevil, and maybe Captain America, looks like it has long-term potential. Perhaps Nextwave, but that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part. (I have no idea how Neil Gaiman’s recent Marvel projects will look in a few years) On the other hand, I can see several recent books that have a potentially long shelf life at DC: All-Star Superman, Jeff Smith’s Shazam, New Frontier, Justice, perhaps even Seven Soldiers. That’s not even getting into the Vertigo books, though who knows which of the current crop will survive. (100 Bullets is probably the best bet; I love Y, but I’m not sure how it will hold up.)

    DC doesn’t always put its best foot forward, but that foot usually makes the company enough money to keep the good stuff going. Marvel may take the monthly market 10 months of the year, but DC is the company with the big Alan Moore catalogue, Vertigo, and many of the books people will point to and say “see, this is what comics can do.” For all the talk of innovation, Marvel hasn’t really done anything new since the days of Claremont & Byrne and Frank Miller, with a minor yet exciting hiccup in the post-bankruptcy years. (Milligan & Allred’s X-Force and Bendis & Gaydos’ Alias are among my favourite books ever published by anyone)

    All of which is to say that in 10 years, nobody is going to care who sold more issues in February of 2007. But I’m going to look at my bookshelf, or the graphic novel section of a book store, and see who came out ahead. No matter how many times DC relaunches and cancels The Atom and Firestorm, their successes eventually speak louder than their failures. And since I’m more interested in art than publisher finances, that’s all that should really matter.

  • Pretty Things from DC in July

    Faker #1Behold the DC July solicits. There’s some promising stuff coming out, including some creators who’ve been MIA for too long.

    Faker #1: Mike Carey? Check. Jock? Check. “Chock full of ruthless characters with hidden agendas, FAKER takes place during freshman year in college; the ultimate time of reinvention, where, if you’re up for it, you can lie, cheat and fake your way through almost anything”? I’m completely and utterly sold, and have been ever since this series was announced late last year.

    The Programme #1: Peter Milligan returns to the sort of (presumably) creator-owned book where he can do his own thing. It sounds quite promising, and features a nifty cover by C.P. Smith, but I have to admit to being worried about this project: Milligan is never a top seller, Wildstorm is having trouble selling books, and the last Soviet-themed book, The Wintermen, sold dismally enough to be semi-cancelled and retooled before being completed.

    Batman #668: At last, this might be the Batman book I’ve been waiting for. I wasn’t terribly impressed with Grant Morrison’s run on the book, but I’d attribute that largely to the art by Andy Kubert, who’s just too Image-Nineties for my tastes. But this is the second issue in a row to be drawn by J.H. Williams, who did a very nice issue of Detective Comics before getting called back to Seven Soldiers. I doubt we’ll see more than a handful of issues of Batman with this stellar team, but we should enjoy it while we can.

    Green Arrow: Year One #1: I’d say that July is Jock Month at DC, but that might bring up the wrong mental image. Anyway: In addition to Faker, action artist extraordinaire Jock reunites with Losers writer Andy Diggle for a story about a rich guy stranded on an island who learns to shoot a bow. Hell yeah. (Jock also turns in another nice cover for the latest issue of Scalped.)

    JLA #11: I’ve got little-to-no interest in DC’s primary line of superhero books, but this may be an exception as Gene Ha abandons the sinking Authority ship to do an issue of one of DC’s flagships. I’m not much of a fan of Brad Meltzer, but Ha’s work is always top notch. The one down side: Unless I want to pay $10-15 for Ha’s variant cover, I will have to buy a book with a Michael Turner cover. Dilemma: Do I buy a variant, or do I actually tear the cover off a new book I just bought?

    Alan Moore: The Complete WildC.A.T.S TP: I’ve never read this stuff, produced by Moore while I was taking a break from comics. Probably among Moore’s lesser works and WildCATS better stories, I’ll probably take a look at least.

    A few other random observations:

    • Wildstorm’s relaunch appears to be disintegrating rapidly. Wildcats and Authority are notoriously MIA, while most of the original creative teams are gradually moving elsewhere: Garth Ennis is replaced on Midnighter by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, though they do manage to swing some Brian Stelfreeze pencils; Doug Mahnke is off Stormwatch; both Mike Carey and Whilce Portacio have left Wetworks. Gail Simone is still on her two books, and Deathblow maintains its original creative team, even though the bi-monthly schedule means they’ve only produced six issues. Sales were pretty disappointing with the A-list relaunch creators; is DC slowly pulling the plug?
    • Were people really demanding an omnibus volume of The Death and Return of Superman? $75 (US) for comics by marketing and editorial committee?
    • More corpses and sad superheroes! At least they’ve stopped fetishizing Mary Marvel.
    • On the other hand, they do manage to skank up Catwoman and Supergirl for their statue line. Was there really a conversation in which someone suggested the woman in skintight leather and the teenager girl who flies around in a cheerleader skirt needed to be sexed up?
    • Grant Morrison finally seems to be taking a break, with only one comic out this month (Batman).
    • New Frontier action figures! Tres cool.
    • I question the veracity of including “DC/Top Cow” and “Classics” in the same paragraph, let alone the same title.
    • Showcase Presents: Adam Strange: I love the more obscure Showcase volumes DC has produced, and this one promises to meet all your ray-blasting needs:

  • Good & Bad Canary

    So DC announces a Black Canary mini. I can’t say I’m interested, but whatever. What does interest me – and not in a good way – is the cover for #2:

    Just look at that pose. It manages to combine all the worst attributes of “Look at my ass” cheesecake and “I’m going to punch you, the reader,” badass. (It’s true: There’s a whole lot of ass, both literal and figurative, on that cover) If you want to make Black Canary look tough, how about giving her a stance in which she could actually throw a punch with any force? Or, if you just want to be gratuitous about it and remind everyone that she’s a hot babe wearing fishnets, just abandon the pretense of her fighting anyone and trot out a real T&A pose.

    I was going to swear off pointing out stupid covers like this, because hey, it’s just too easy. Note, for example, that I have not gone anywhere near a Michael Turner cover lately. But this stands out a bit more than usual, I think, because of another recent cover that made Black Canary look tough and hot at the same time without totally disregarding the laws of anatomy or physics:


    Granted, plenty of artists will look sucky next to Adam Hughes. But that’s just about a perfect cover: It manages to convey the beautiful-but-deadly cliché with just the right mix of drama and silliness. That is what a Black Canary cover should look like. She’s tough and she can kick your ass without even trying, but it’s still a character who’s been wearing fishnet stockings while fighting crime for nearly 60 years.

    Yes, it’s still a pinup of a hot blonde. But it’s a good pinup of a hot blonde. If we’re going to give in to objectification, let’s at least do it properly, shall we?

  • Environmental Accounting

    I don’t have much of an opinion on the Kyoto Protocol. It’s certainly a step in the right direction, even if it has its flaws.

    However, it’s quickly becoming apparent that Kyoto is turning into a political card trick, a shortcut to being Environmentally Friendly that doesn’t require any more than the absolute minimum of interest in the environment.

    Take this article, which raises the point that Canada has large forest areas that could be maintained and used to offset emissions. (For now, let’s not get into the idea that since we have forests, we can pollute more.) There’s just one problem: Forests burn, particularly when you’ve got droughts and insect infestations.

    The solution? We’re not going to count the forests any more. They’re not resulting in the math people want, so they’re out of the picture.

    Then we’ve got this item about Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton’s plan for meeting Kyoto targets. And guess what: We can do it without touching your car! We’re going to save the environment, but we’ll make sure your SUVs are still affordable.

    Kyoto seems to have fostered the idea that we need to do this much and no more. Meeting Kyoto Targets has become a substitute for environmental action, a set of numbers and formulae that get further removed from reality every time a politician shows he’s willing to take “action”.

    It’s like saying you have three smoke detectors in your house, so you don’t need a fire extinguisher in the kitchen; that the dentist said you have great teeth, so you can stop flossing; that your wrist may be broken, but your ankle is fine. It’s Enron accounting, moving numbers around to make them look better without trying to fix them in the first place.

    Kyoto is a step in the right direction, but it’s by no means all-encompassing. You want to talk about climate change, well, great. But what about our rivers and lakes? Protecting forests and wilderness? How ’bout we do something about the fact that if I go out biking on a hot summer day, I’m likely to come home coughing?

    But it’s become everything to politicians looking to score points from an electorate that’s suddenly concerned about the environment but would rather not make any significant sacrifices. It’s leading to hollow promises based on shallow principles, and the idea that meeting some of the goals of a treaty many nations are ignoring (or similarly paying lip service to) will result in a healthy planet.

    It’s not that easy.

  • Blah Blah Blah

    I don’t want to turn this blog into one of those horrible, diary-type me-me-me things. I don’t have much dignity, but I’ve got more than that.

    However, just let me say, in lieu of posting actual content, that Fate is a cruel, sadistic bitch. You know, in that “I don’t know if I should laugh or cry” sort of way.

    Anyway. Regular posting should resume soon-ish. For now, this is coool:

  • Now We’re Talking: Crossing Midnight #5

    If you’re a regular reader, you’re probably aware that I was a huge fan of Mike Carey’s Lucifer, and that I eagerly anticipated his new book, Crossing Midnight. His exploration of Japanese spirits interfering in the lives of a set of twins was good, and had many intriguing elements, but it wasn’t great. Perhaps I’m just impatient, but I wanted great right out of the gates. The latest issue isn’t quite great, but it’s a big leap forward from an already good book, and it solidifies the book’s place on my reading list. There’s no question about it: Crossing Midnight is quickly becoming one of my favourite books.

    (Incidentally, I’m going to try and write this review without referring to Lucifer. If you were a fan of Carey’s Miltonian epic, you’re probably already reading Crossing Midnight; if not, then all the glowing comparisons in the world probably don’t mean much to you. Still, though: Go and read Lucifer. You won’t regret it, particularly once you get to the second trade.)

    Carey changes tactics with this issue, switching focus from the mystical world to the “real” one. He explains the threat to Toshi & Kai’s father, revealed by Nidoru, spirit of needles, last issue: The very real, very dangerous, Yakuza gangsters. After noticing some accounting and shipping irregularities, Yasuo Hara is told by his boss to keep quiet and mind his own business. The local Yakuza, led by the blind Mr. So, is unhappy that anyone noticed the problem, and sees that Yasuo is promoted after his boss unexpectedly vacates the position. After a fairly gruesome initiation, Yasuo finds himself in the Yakuza’s pocket, cooking the books and making sure the money laundering goes smoothly – a task that becomes considerably more difficult when an auditor arrives for an inspection.

    It’s a fairly straightforward crime story – Yakuza are almost always cooler than the Mafia – though Carey adds his quirks, such as Mr. So demanding descriptions from his sighted lieutenant. So has a flair for the dramatic and the gruesome, testing loyalty and punishing failure with equal vigour. It’s only in the final pages of the story, as Yasuo approaches a choice with no right answer, that Kai and Nidoru reappear. Even then, it’s not quite as simple as an ancient and powerful spirit dispatching some Yakuza thugs: The spirit world and the real one have been mixing long before Kai and Toshi’s story began. The story is less about Yasuo himself than it is about his exposure to a new world: Like his children, he is plunged into something he knows nothing about, a bizarre existence dominated by powerful players.

    Carey had previously hinted at the role the real world would play in his story – Toshi’s attempted defence against Lord Aratsu, and the detective who knows more than he lets on – and he brings Nagasaki’s other underworld to light most effectively here. He also builds nicely on Yasuo, who, along with Toshi and Kai’s mother, had previously been merely concerned, set-decorating parents. It’s another layer to a book that was already getting fairly complex, but Carey manages to keep the story intriguing and mysterious without veering off into confusion.

    Jim Fern also turns in some of his best work on the series thus far, though he hasn’t quite answered my concerns about his work. As he’s already demonstrated, he’s a very capable artist when it comes to the real world and regular people, and has a nice flair – aided amply by colourist Jose Villarubia – for dark and moody scenes. It’s the obvious and impressively magical beings he has trouble with: Nidoru looks somehow out of place, like a cartoon character who wandered into a Takashi Miike film. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while longer: He obviously has talent, and perhaps a bit of improvement combined with some different scripting decisions by Carey will even the book out a bit. Like Carey, Fern is still finding his footing – though quite a bit more slowly than his partner – though he manages to hit the notes exactly with the final pages, as Yasuo sees a vision of his daughter in danger:


    The final page is even better, and offers a hell of a tantalizing view of the future of the series. But I’m not going to tell you what it is, of course.

    This issue works quite well even on its own; while it’s obviously improved by knowing a bit of backstory, such as where Nidoru came from, it’s surprisingly self-contained. It’s still just the second half of a two-part story, the second story arc which began to build on the promise shown by the opening arc. Crossing Midnight is already my favourite Vertigo book being published, and it’s got the legs to go much, much further than that. If the first issue or two didn’t wow you, come on back: It’s beginning to hit its stride, and it could easily become one of the best books around if it keeps going in this direction.

  • Getting Social (The Internet Way)

    So a while ago, I yielded to peer pressure and got a Facebook account. Feel free to add me or whatever. (Or don’t; it’s really not a big deal, as I’m about to get into)

    While it’s kind of a neat idea, and there’s an initial sense of “Hey, cool!”, I don’t think Facebook is entirely for me. I just don’t have that many friends, you see.

    I don’t say that in a “oh, pity me!” sort of way. It’s just kind of factual: I never feel like I have much in common with most people. I feel little or no connection with 97% of the people I meet, and I don’t even meet a lot of people; I’m quite socially awkward, and though I can fake a bit of social functionality, the prospect of going to a gathering with more than three or four people I don’t know makes my stomach churn and I just want to go and hide in the dark somewhere. It probably doesn’t help that I have a slight fear of people I do like rejecting me for reasons I can’t adequately explain.

    Facebook, to a certain extent, is about reconnecting with old friends, or networking with current ones. The latter seems a bit pointless, since I can just email or phone the people I’m friends with now. Granted, significant portions of the internet are pretty pointless, so it’s not really a big deal. I suppose it’s handy to have a sort of personal forum for having get-togethers and whatnot.

    But do I really want to reconnect with people from my past? For the most part, one loses touch with people for a reason: At some point, it just became more effort than it was worth to pick up the phone or send an email. That’s not a lot of effort, either. Many of the people I used to know are just in another world right now: I was friends with them because of circumstances, whether it was history class or university residence. While I don’t have any regrets, and hold very few personal grudges, I also lack the will to pursue many reacquaintances: In my experience, you tend to run out of things to say after the intial round of “Good-to-see-you-what-have-you-been-doing-remember-when…” dies off. Most of those old friendships are a product of circumstances, and there’s not a lot left once those circumstances evaporate. Every now and then someone comes along and you think “Yeah, there’s still a connection”, but I don’t know what the percentage is. It’s not high, I suspect.

    I don’t really mean to sound so curmudgeonly. Facebook is an amusing diversion with occasional real benefits, even if it does lead to periodic bouts of “Geez, I have nothing to say to so-and-so.” But ultimately, I think this blog is far more rewarding. Granted, I have no idea who most of my readers are. But I know there’s a handful of people who come back semi-regularly, even though they don’t know me beyond what I write in this space, and every now and then someone finds it interesting enough to link to. That, I think, is more valuable than someone getting in touch with me after 10 years because they saw my profile listed on the net.

    See? There was a cheerful moral to the story after all. I love you all, in a totally casual, non-committal, internet kind of way.