What I Am Reading: The Bulletproof Coffin

Warren Ellis' Planetary.
Grant Morrison's Animal Man.
Alan Moore's...majority of his work...

I like comics that play around with a meta narrative and I've made no secret about it. Subversion of reality, historical metaphors, character analogues--these are things that I love to read in comics and The Bulletproof Coffin delivers all of that in full.


Writer David Hine and artist Shaky Kane bring us this delightful comic about a man waking from his boring life and entering the world of sexy action he finds in his favorite comic books.

Steve Newman works for the city. When somebody dies and doesn't bequeath any of their belongings, Steve has to haul the valueless possessions to the dump. As a pop culture junkie, he enjoys his job because he gets to scavenge anything he wants to keep. One day, he finds a comic that shouldn't exist as well as the costume of his favorite old superhero, Coffin Fly.

Steve begins to take on the identity of Coffin Fly and follows clues hidden in mysterious old comics in an effort to save all of humanity. He travels through portals to a post apocalyptic future, meets all of his favorite comic book characters, fights Shadow Men, dinosaurs, a platoon of zombie soldiers from Viet Nam, and even falls in love.

The high concept of this series is that all the old comics that Steve finds are pastiche's of classic pulp comics and Hine and Kane have inserted themselves into the story as the creators of these comics. In the fictional history of this book, these comics, published by Golden Nugget comics, were bought out by another company aptly named Big 2 Comics who promptly fired the creators and killed the characters. The comics Steve finds are all published and numbered after they were canceled, meaning they don't officially exist, yet inside each of them lies clues to the fate of mankind.

These comics, with titles like Red Wraith, The Shield of Justice, The Unforgiving Eye, and Ramona: Queen of the Stone Age, are all wonderfully represented. In each issue of The Bulletproof Coffin, the narrative jumps back and forth between Steve's story and the old Golden Nugget comics and, eventually, the two begin to collide.


"--Am I a man, dreaming I'm a Coffin Fly--or am I a Coffin Fly, dreaming--"

The play between the comic book pastiche and story narrative is reminiscent of Alan Moore's acclaimed work on Supreme, which is easily one of my favorite works of Moore.

I was wonderfully surprised by the quality of this book because I'm completely unfamiliar with both of the creators. UK comic readers are probably familiar with the art of Shaky Kane, who has worked regularly in UK comics magazines like 2000 A.D. I've never read any of his work before but I really loved what I saw in The Bulletproof Coffin. Some of his line work can be kind of dirty and there's some loose anatomy but there's a real pop flare to his compositions and character work that is very reminiscent of Jack Kirby. He also utilizes a beautiful coloring style full off bright, primary colors. It's the kind of coloring you don't see regularly these days except for in work by Mike Allred.

I'm only familiar with writer David Hine from seeing his name on some scattered low profile Marvel books that I have no interest in reading. There's a lot of imagination in this story and although the narrative is purposefully fractured and jumbled, it's very easy to follow. Most importantly, The Bulletproof Coffin delivers a perfect ending. It's an ending that sums up the intent of the book, the history of comics, and the story plot very succinctly in a way that is both obviously simple and thought provoking.

I really loved this book. It's the kind of book that I wish I would have written, but now have no need to because it could never compare to The Bulletproof Coffin.

The Greatest Expert Team on Earth G.I. Joe

I have an unashamed love for G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, not for the toys, the cartoon, or the comics, but for the entire franchise. So entrenched was G.I. Joe in my developmental childhood years that it's impossible for me to look at the franchise objectively. Hasbro successfully pegged me in it's target demographic.

There are a lot of reasons why G.I. Joe was so successful. The biggest thing that appeals to me is the direct and obvious influence of classic superhero tropes. This should come as no surprise since the franchise was created by comic book writer Larry Hama. He managed to take a lot of characteristics and distill them down into easily recognizable and broad costumes and code names.

But the comic book influence extended into the cartoon as well. Again, this comes as no surprise when you realize that guys like Marv Wolfman, Steve Gerber, Denny O'Neil, Paul Dini, and Gerry Conway all wrote for the show. These guys, who when not busy writing classic Marvel or DC comics, turned in some classic G.I. Joe episodes.

I've been watching the cartoon lately and I'm honestly impressed with how well most of it holds up. Sure, there's continuous animation mistakes, some odd censorship here and there, and lamentable plots every now and then, but the stuff that's good...it's really good. I find that pretty impressive considering that, not including the two mini series that aired a few years prior, they belted out 85 episodes in two years and followed that up the next year with a feature length movie.

In the coming weeks I'm going to list my Top Ten Favorite Episodes. There's a lot to love in those 95 episodes and feature movie, and it was actually harder than I expected to whittle it down to ten episodes. In fact, only two of the classic comic writers I mentioned before had episodes that made the cut.

There are a number of great episodes that, for one reason or another, just didn't make it into my top ten. The Movie, for example, was fantastic really. It had a really nice character arc with the new recruits(along with some of the funniest interactions with my personal favorite Joe Beach Head), sweet Sgt. Slaughter scene's, and some crazy Lovecraftian nonsense of a finale. I loved it. It's too bad that Hasbro chickened out of Duke's death. There was a really strong dramatic climax with Falcon(voiced by the awesome Don Johnson) that was neutered by slapping Duke in and out of a coma instead. Yet, for whatever reason, my mangled childhood memory of the movie was of Duke indeed dying. It wasn't until I watched it many years later did I realize that it was a coma. I suppose that's a testament to the visual storytelling, which clearly tells a story that can't be undone by two hastily added lines of off screen dialog.

Of course, I also remembered Arnold dying at the end of Predator, so maybe I was just a dumb kid who didn't pay attention.

Regardless, I'm not a dumb kid anymore, despite the opinions of my closest friends and family, and there's a lot to talk about when it comes to G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Sure, it was produced by a toy company trying to sell toys, but there was some genuine love and craft that went into G.I. Joe that truly connected with and inspired children's imaginations.

Ultimately, I think that speaks more toward it's merits than anything else.

Death and a Franchise

I'm always annoyed at the way death is belittled in superhero comics.

Death is such a powerful tool in fiction. One only needs to look at Disney classic Bambi for proof of that. Of course, you don't need to look much further beyond Bambi to see the inherent differences in a full feature movie and a decades old serial publication.

There are readers who's mantra is, "it doesn't matter what happens as long as it's a good story." That's a perfectly non partisan attitude to maintain as a reader, but when this careless attitude begins to infect the creators and the publishers, the franchise begins to deteriorate.

Recently, there was some hullabaloo over some comments made by David Gabriel, Senior Vice President of Sales at Marvel Comics. Namely, due to the success of the death of The Human Torch, Marvel would kill a character every quarter.

After the news broke, he made some follow up clarifications, stating that the storylines are not about killing characters, but instead about the landscape of the comics afterward. The new directions and developments that the living characters go through are what's really important. He then pointed to the new book Future Foundation, spinning out of Fantastic Four as a positive example.

This attitude completely ignores and deflects the complaints people have about death being used recklessly as a sales tactic. In fact, it does more to validate them.

With Marvel and DC, it's a constant back and forth with the creative possibilities versus the marketing sensibilities, and this stems from the simple fact that both Marvel and DC are trying to maintain profitable franchises. Marvel faces this problem more than DC because one of the underlying selling points of Marvel, established by Stan Lee, was that their characters aged, grew, and progressed as characters. This was great for the first couple of decades, and really helped them gain an edge over their competition. But as time passed, it grew to become more and more of a problem and the process was more or less neutered in the 80's and 90's. Now all their characters are stuck in this faux aged purgatory, where they have aged roughly a decade since their first appearance but are clearly not going to be getting older any time soon. In fact, some of them are getting younger.

[If one were so inclined, one could find a certain amount of ironic similarity in the state of arrested development between Marvel's franchised characters and their core fan base, but I'm not here to talk about obvious ironic metatextual occurrences.]

This schizoid approach to writing characters has been the biggest hurdle to Marvel's creative teams for a score of years. It's really hard to have your cake and eat it too.

Repeatedly killing characters is the only solution that pleases both the Creative and Marketing departments. Trading on a character's popularity for a few extra sales by killing him will always keep the money crunchers happy. As for the creators, well, it gives them something to write about.

But I still maintain that killing the characters is ultimately damaging to the franchise. We need look no further than the Fantastic Four, which is both the origin of a lot of the current controversy and a well regarded book as well. Here are the cynical facts as I see them. The Fantastic Four debuted in November of 1961. The Human Torch died in Fantastic Four #587. The series ends with #588 and relaunches with a new #1 as FF, which stands for Future Foundation. So, we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the Fantastic Four. I will be extremely shocked if we don't see FF run for a dozen issues before turning back into Fantastic Four #600, celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary with the return of the Human Torch.

So everything is taken care of nice and neatly. The fans get taken on a little ride that shatters the book, causing things to "never be the same again" and then ends by bringing everything back together to it's familiar settings. I've got to give credit where credit is due in that it is all very neat and tidy. Furthermore, it's all being written by one creative team as opposed to a committee. It's the type of story that fans have come to accept. It looks to be fairly short lived and unobtrusive.

So, why do I have a problem with it? I dislike it because it sets two very bad precedents throughout all other books. Firstly, that death is necessary to get anybody interested in the franchise. The Fantastic Four scenario may be neat and tidy, but it is being presented in a comics landscape that is glorifying death. Just in the last few years we've been dealing with the death and return of Batman, Captain America, Flash, and countless X-Men. Not only that, but while Marvel is publicizing their current death of Human Torch story, they are advertising for the future, "Death of Ultimate Spider-man" story. You can't swing a dead cat in the comics industry without hitting a dead superhero.

The second precedent being set is that death always results in a Resurrection. I find this to be especially damaging because it destroys the narrative power of death. Death is no longer taken seriously.

Comic fans will hear that and say, "So what? That's comics! Nobody stays dead!"

I find that to be especially ironic because Superhero Death has only been a carefree accepted way of doing things in comics for maybe the last twenty years, during which the fan base itself has been dying.

[okay, maybe one last ironic metatextual observation.]

Music Review: POND FROND

By far, my absolute favorite album of 2010 was FROND by Australian psychedelic band POND.



Starting with the opening track, Betty Davis(Will Come Down From Heaven to Save Us) you know what kind of a ride you are in for with this band. Wild howling, crashing drums, and freaked out guitars.

I got this album on a whim, based entirely on them being tagged as a "psychedelic" rock band, and I was not disappointed. But the true glory of this album is not the psychedelic rock it is rooted in, but also in the various other genres present underneath the surface. From the funky bass of Cloud City, the pop rock of Annie Orange Tree, to Berlin era Bowie style synth rock of Mussels Tonight? this band skirts across multiple layers of rock while still maintaining a free form psychedelic posture.



As I said, there's a refreshing freestyle feeling to most of the songs construction. This is a band of talented young men laying down the foundation of a song, and then just going crazy on top of it.

POND is definitely a "headphones" band, as I call them. There is so much going on in each song, so many subtle layers of noise, guitars, and synthesizers swirling around underneath the lead riffs and chorus of vocals that you need to immerse yourself in the music and just let it all wash over you.

Time Waster

I'm a time waster.

A big one.

I've got a million things to do and only so much time in which to do it. And in the limited free time I have, I probably spend most of it sleeping.

Procrastination is my most hated enemy, not only because of my frequent battles with it, but also for the way it afflicts others. Many people that I know, be they musicians, artists, or writers, really struggle with actual content production. Lack of focus is the most common culprit, it often seems.

It's easy to get lost in video games, movies, books, or what have you, and before to long you find yourself sitting around talking about all your good ideas, but very few, if any, ever get fully realized. It's also easy to blame outside forces beyond your control. The day job is my biggest target, it eats up 40 hours a week and can leave me stressed and worn out, completely drained of all energy or ambition. But stress is a natural and healthy part of all our lives, and if it wasn't my day job, it would probably be something else. Obviously there are varying levels of stress, and there certainly are going to be outside influences that legitimately hamper your production rate, but it can be difficult to gauge at times. The key, is learning to work with your stress and monopolize the time that you do have to work with.

Often times the smallest amount of production feels like the greatest victory when you utilize your time properly. Every little bit that you accomplish, every sentence your write, gets you that much closer to the finish line. The immensity of a project can be overwhelming. It is of utmost importance not to let yourself be defeated before you even begin.

There are various methods by which people use to overcome their personal obstacles. I don't believe there is any secret to help motivate, encourage, or manage an artist's production. Ultimately, it's up to the person to set realistic goals for themselves and have the determination to see them through.

I'm not very big on Mission Statements, I don't make New Year's Resolutions, and I don't like making a ceremony out of something that should be a common occurrence. I also don't like to use a reward system. Finishing your project is the true reward. Conducting prizes and self congratulations is a waste of time and energy that should be spent on the project itself.

So with that in mind, I plan on being a much more active blogger. For years, I've maintained this blog very sporadically and irregularly. It's purpose was to have a location online to post various writings I've done(like any blog, I suppose), but now it has a new purpose. In an effort to curb my time wasting tendencies, it's going to become a deadline, starting with regular updates. There's no mission statement or declarations of intent(beyond what I just said...)

I can only be me, so I'll probably just be writing about music and comic books and, if I'm being honest with myself, cats. And if I don't succeed, I'll just delete it from the internet and it'll be like it never happened!

This blog post cost me $14.95

A month ago I signed up for one of those free credit report websites. I had payed off some debt and wanted to know where I was sitting and where I would be going in the future. Freecreditreport.com was the lucky recipient of my business. I'm sure you've seen their ads around the internet. They advertise a free service, but in reality you must become a member of their website. The monthly membership fee is $14.95 which they will continue to take from your bank account/credit card until you decide to cancel your membership. As a new member you have a 9 day period when you can cancel before they begin charging you, thus accounting for the "free" service. There are various websites around that run the same scam, and it's a good one, because I'm sure there are plenty of people that sign away their information without thinking about it.

Now, I know how their scam works. Normally, I don't like to mess around with sleazy services like this, but I wanted information and this appeared to be the quickest method by which to attain it. I singed up for the service, got my information, and proceeded to cancel my membership an hour later. Naturally, you can't cancel your membership online, you have to call one of Customer Care people and do it over the phone. Lord knows you can sign away all your money with a few errant clicks of the mouse, but they are going to make it as difficult as possible for you to protect your assets. I have no interest in paying for a service I will not use, so I called them and got my account canceled. Truth be told, it was a pretty simple process. I was pleased with the outcome and assumed the whole situation to be done and resolved.

How foolish I was. Last week, as I was going over my bank statement, I noticed that I was charged a fee of $14.95 by freecreditreport.com. My heart sunk, because I immediately knew that there was no way I was getting my money back. Mind you, I've wasted more money on crappy comic books than I did on this website, but it's the principle of the matter. The fact that, despite my careful planning, I was still falling victim to their scam infuriated me. It was late at night and their Call Center was closed, so I sent them this simple e-mail:

Again, to reiterate, I wasn't exactly expecting a refund, or much of a response even, I just need to get that stupid membership canceled before they decided to take even more of my money. Surprisingly, I received a response fairly quickly.


As you can see from their response, they completely sidestep the problem and make no attempt to address the claim that I did indeed cancel my account. Instead they offer a half hearted explanation as to why they won't refund my money. The good news was that my account was canceled (again), which is really all I was hoping for. Although I was still angry about the whole ordeal, I considered it done and over with and, as a form of venting, sent them this e-mail:


I considered this the end of it, which was again foolish as I received this form response:




At this point I realized that they were going to keep giving me form responses and decided to see how far I could take it with this e-mail:


Predictably, I received this response (although it was a bit flowerier than the previous):


Admittedly, I was disappointed in this response, because their operators were obviously not interested in playing my games; which is not surprising since I'm sure they have to deal with a plethora of angry people on any given day. Still, it did not stop me from trying to get a communication going:

To which they responded:

Finally, it seems that they have had enough of me and cut me off. Of course I didn't call their number because $15 isn't worth the hassle and I already have a big enough headache. At the end of the day I am left feeling like Sam Lowry at the end of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, though thankfully I haven't been lobotomized and am instead only out 15 bucks.

King of the Road

I'm currently writing a kid's book called King of the Road. It's about the adventure of a house cat and a rabbit that was raised by stray cats. It is based off many of the animals in my neighborhood. This is the fourth chapter, where they meet another cat and a raccoon.

CHAPTER FOUR

RUMBLE

Quickfoot slowed his pace so that Chesterton could keep up with him. Together, they walked down The Road.

“How do you do that?” remarked Chesterton.

“How do I do what?” asked Quickfoot.

Chesterton noticed that Quickfoot had a peculiar way of walking. Whereas Chesterton had the lumbering stride of an overweight cat, Quickfoot didn’t seem to walk at all, he seemed to be pouncing on his hind legs for every step.

“How do you pounce on your legs like that? Why don’t you walk like me?

“I don’t know,” said Quickfoot, “This is just how I walk. I don’t know any other way.”

After some time, they decided to pause for a rest in front of a strange house. “I’ve never been here before. Do you remember the way back home?” worried Chesterton.

“Yeah, of course I do. It’s that way,” Quickfoot said, pointing down the other end of The Road.

“I smell something different,” Chesterton said, turning his attention toward the house.

“Me too, it’s over here,” said Quickfoot.

“Wait for me,” yelped Chesterton.

Chesterton caught up with Quickfoot and together they began stalking around the back of the house. The house was built on a hill and as they made their way around the house the ground began to decline. Before they knew it they were standing at the bottom of a hill and the house seemed very far away.

“What did you smell?” asked Quickfoot.

“I don’t know,” remarked Chesterton, “It was something I’ve never smelled before.”

They continued investigating the large hillside. Eventually, Chesterton came across the wooden support beams of the house’s back porch. The smell was growing stronger and he began sniffing around further.

“What are you looking for, fatty?”

Chesterton swirled around and stared at Quickfoot, who was sitting still in the grass.

“What?” asked Quickfoot.

“What did you say to me?” snapped Chesterton.

“I said it. Up here.”

Chesterton and Quickfoot both looked up and saw two figures sitting on the porch railing.

“Who are you?” asked Chesterton.

“The more appropriate question is, what are you?” responded the tall, statuesque figure on left.

“What are you talking about? I’m a cat, same as you!” The thin figure on the left had the smell of cat all over him, Chesterton was sure of it. It was the shorter, round figure that confused his sense of smell.

“Like me? I don’t think so.” The figure jumped off the railing onto the ground in front of Chesterton. He sat upright in the most dignified fashion. He was lean and muscular. His short hair was entirely black, and the moonlight reflected off his shiny coat, outlining his feline features. His eyes beamed in the dark like tiny yellow diamonds.

The swarthy cat sat there and stared at him. Not knowing what to do, Chesterton decided to introduce himself. “My name is Chesterton T. Cat. What’s yours?”

“Midnight,” the cat said curtly, “and my estimable colleague up there is Ratchet.”

Ratchet jumped off the railing and landed with a crash. His body was rounder and his coat was a coarse gray except for the black patches over his eyes.

“Evenin’ fellers,” he grunted, “What brings you to this neck of the neighborhood?”

“My friend and I were just out investigating,” confessed Chesterton, “I’ve never been this far from my house.”

Midnight and Ratchet chuckled. “Obviously,” sneered Midnight. “Where is your friend, anyway?”

Chesterton looked around. “I don’t know,” he said, “Quickfoot, where did you go? It’s okay, we’re all cats here.”

Quickfoot timidly hopped out of a nearby bush.

“I am not a cat, boy,” laughed Ratchet, “and neither is that.”

Midnight laughed, “Little one, if you were any smaller I’d be making dinner out of you.”

“Hey,” hissed Chesterton, “that’s not very nice!”

Quickfoot turned to leave but in one sleek motion, Midnight leapt over him and blocked his path. “Why in such a hurry? You just got here.” Midnight raised himself up to his proud, full height and flashed a menacing grin. He was missing one of his fangs, which made the remaining fang stand out like a solitary shining knife.

Chesterton yelped, “Where’s your other fang?”

“In the back of a dog’s neck,” Midnight sneered.

“There are dogs out here?” gulped Chesterton.

“Dogs AND Coyotes,” Ratchet chirped.

“And they would make a hearty meal out of you, chubby,” quipped Midnight.

A flash of lightning cut the night sky in half. Quickfoot was frozen in place. Chesterton shrunk down and his hair stood on end. He turned away from Midnight but Ratchet, standing on his hind legs, towered over him. Ratchet brandished his clawed fingers and snapped his teeth.

“Look, we just want to leave,” Chesterton said meekly.

Midnight began licking his paw and flashed his claws. “Come now, that’s not very sporting.”

“Don’t you boys want to have some fun?” Ratchet cackled.

Chesterton’s ears twitched and filled with the low rumble of thunder. Quickfoot remained still, ready to run at any moment. Chesterton could feel the moisture in the air. It was unfamiliar to him and he began to panic.

Just then, a woman’s voice sang out over the thunder. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” the voice sang. “Midder baby. Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”

Midnight huffed, “I must go. It’s going to rain anyway.” In one glorious jump, Midnight leapt onto the porch railing. He turned and stared down at Chesterton and Quickfoot. “If I see you two around here again, I’ll make stew out of you.” And with that he jumped out of sight. Chesterton heard the woman remark, “Midnight, get your little butt in here.” “Where’s my pillow, woman?” Midnight meowed.

Ratchet scampered off. “You boys got lucky. See you around,” he grunted.

Chesterton tried to breathe a sigh of relief, but he was still very tense. He felt the first drop of water land on his back and his entire body twitched. His back arched and his whiskers stood on end. “What was that?” he hissed.

Quickfoot jumped. “Chesterton,” he yelped, “it’s going to rain! We need to find shelter. NOW!”

Chesterton felt more water hit his back and finally a drop landed square on his nose. He lost all sense of control and took off running. Quickfoot tried to followed him as best he could.