For
Greg Burgas, because he asked so nicely about
Planet of the Capes: "It's okay, I guess, but I don't get it. What's the bleedin' point, ultimately? And if it doesn't have a point, why am I spending 13 dollars on it?" I could be arch and say, "Read the back cover; the whole point of it is spelled out for you right there." I could be mysterious and say, "The work is what it is; think about it." I could be an aloof jerk and say "Sorry, Greg, I don't get into philosophical debates with individual audience members about their inability to grasp a book that's been out for a year." I
could be helpful and
point out an
in-depth examination or two of the work, or I could tell you to scroll down a bit and read some
Augie. I suppose I could just get my
Warren Ellis on and ask, "Is
Google broken where you live?"
Or I could answer all of those different ways and admit that people are complex contraptions and Dave Sim really is right when he opines that "all stories are true."
Hope this helps.
Shane Bailey has the company in on his graphical exploration of "100 Things I Like About Comics."
I give
Sean Maher kind of a hard time when I see him at the Isotope because of this fedora he wears around. C'mon, Sean! I always think. Don't be the-guy-in-the-fedora. It's a nice one, he paid some money for it; it's not a Tom Baker floppy felt thing, but still. The guy-in-the-fedora was played out when
I was in my twenties. I've never talked to him about it, because I'm too busy teasing him, but as far as affectations go, I'd try something more original. The Joe-Casey-never-taking-off-the-shades rock star thing is too obvious... I dunno... carry an unlit pipe? Maybe a WWI silk flying scarf? I'll have to think about this.
Where was I? Oh, yeah,
Sean has a nice review up of
1000 Steps to World Domination, and a decent giveaway sponsored by Rob Osborne himself.
It's that time of the week, again, where we find out the...
THE KHEPRI.COM TOP 05 GN/TPB/HC OF 2005, WEEK 09 (FEB 27 - MAR 05)
05. Battle Pope v1 TPB (Funk-O-Tron)
04. Ministry of Space TPB (Image Comics)
03. Fables v5: The Mean Seasons TPB (DC/Vertigo)
02. Teenagers From Mars TPB (Gigantic Graphic Novels)
01. Scurvy Dogs v1: Rags to Riches TPB (AiT/Planet Lar)facing some stiff competition from newcomer
Teenagers From Mars, the
Scurv still hangs on to the Number One spot.
Speaking of the
Scurv, apparently there be some sort of "shindig" this weekend where you can "meet" the "lads" ...
Neil Kleid has a new
column up at Scryptic, where he talks a bit about character "branding." Asking me and Maureen McTigue to give a little thought to the subject, who would have thought that it would be the normally polite Mo who'd give Neil the Larry-like admonition to just "stop worrying about it."? Worth reading the whole thing just to see Mo go out on that one. She and I, of course, both follow the advice of the
little green man.A guy named
Guy LeCharles Gonzalez gave me my best belly-laugh of the day so far, with his hilarious "review" of
Demo #1-12, which consisted mostly of a screed against "hype" and the film
American Beauty. Guy then lapsed into a diatribe about how
Demo, in the end, didn't live up to his expectations for it. For a dude who bemoaned his inablity to escape the buzz on the book, ol' Guy seems to have missed the marketing tagline that was everywhere the first six or eight months: "I'm not who you want me to be." And, honestly, it's a little hard to take a guy seriously who writes things like "The final issue, 'Mon Dernier Jour Avec Toi' is a terribly boring romantic aside, four pages stretched to twenty, that reads like something a starry-eyed high schooler wrote to their first love" and yet has this:
and someone must tell their stories
and someone must raise their voices
to the tops of their lungs
until poetry is seen in grade school
in college
at home
at work
in bathroom stalls
on bodega walls
in black & white
in technicolor
in stereo
in person
and everywhere it's seen everywhere that it is seen it needs to be heard LOUD AND CLEAR!as a "manifesto" on his website
LoudPoet.com. Mister Kettle? A Mister Pot called. Something about you being black, sir. No, no other message.
Ed Cunard applies a little thought-sweat to Making Comics Better and summarizes my position as "action should trump talking about action." Although I'm personally glad he didn't add to his "Idea Store"
Breakfast Club II: Twenty Years Later about the kids going back to a reunion and getting snowed in at the airport, stuck together in the same room again, belly-aching about their now-adult concerns. I'm not sure we need that idea out in the world.
Ooops.
Scurvy Dogs makes
Chris Brown's Weekly Top Ten.
Reading the
Isotope Communique is definitely on the daily list of things-to-do. Hit that link to see the original Isotope Mini Comic Award-winning
1000 Steps to World Domination reviewed in Polish. Anyone who's ever told a Polish joke needs to apologize right now, because even comics reviewers in Poland get our difficult company name correct in the body of the review.
"So, a couple of days ago I finished the graphic novel for Scurvy Dogs... The only comic book to boldly pronounce that 'pirates are the new mokeys.' OMG, is it funny. I must say, my co-workers have wonderful taste in comic books. I love the idea of modern day pirates... Especially done so comically. I mean, nothing beats a pirate vs. monkey fight."Let's give a great big sigh of relief for my pal Battle-Damage Colin Chan. Colin is my NyQuil Brother, and brunt/source of many intoxicated shenanigans Late Night at the Isotope. The poor bastard had his bike stolen, so I sold him mine about a year ago. Yesterday, I get
this in the ol' inbox:
Believe it or not, he's FINE. "The poor bike got run over twice, once when the car was going forward, the second time to scrape it off the bottom of the car, which is probably why it looks in much worse shape than I do. Lucky for me, rather than get caught under the car, I somehow landed on the hood, rolled up the windshield, and then rolled back down and flew off the car when the driver apparently noticed I was there and hit the brakes. Still not a fun ride, but two days later, and I barely have a scratch. The police officer on the scene practically laughed at the road rash I got."
March 9, 2035Did I know Larry Young? Oh, yeah; I knew him. From back in the day, too. Before the TV stations. Before the movie studios. Before MoonVision™ even.
I met him, as the kids are wont to say these days, "back in the closing days of the Twentieth Century." Hell, I suppose one might even say I helped move the needle a bit, but me, I'm not so sure.
The thing you’ve got to understand about Larry is he was always looking for the angle. Some folks have just got that whole "charisma" thing down pat. And Larry was one of them. In another life he'd have been a politician, maybe, but something deflected him as a kid, I think. We never really talked about it, but my guess is it was
Star Trek. I just have this picture of a ten-year old Larry, lying on his belly, bathed in the cathode rays, digging on those yeomen in those preposterously short mini-skirts, sailing through space, making a vow to himself that someday, somehow, he'd be the one on that bridge telling Yeomen Legs-Up-To-Here what to do.
What I'm trying to get at is that if the TV show had been on that had half-dressed, insanely-pretty women working for, say, a car dealership... well, the world would sure be a different place. But, no, it was space that caught his fancy.
"That will be me one day."
I think he said that a lot. And he pursued it, with all of his intensity and passion and, eventually, made that dream a reality.
So, anyway, he had a passion for fantastical fiction, born some early day, and that's how I met him.
See, I owned a comic book shop back then -- a good one too, I like to think;
Comix Experience -- and Larry started shopping there. Always looking for the angle, like I said, he proceeded to charm the hell out of us. He'd buy us beer on New Comics Day, and generally be a jovial son of a bitch, and he asked us if we'd sell his fanzine,
Planet Lar. Man, that was one amusing rag. Opinions, reviews, commentary on all sorts of pop-culture stuff. And it had these bitching acetate covers. It just stood out, y'know?
Well, anyway, it sure as hell impressed
me, so I asked him to write/edit/produce our in-store newsletter. Maybe if I hadn't done that he would have done something else. Maybe not. But, I figure odds aren't so bad that I pushed the empire further along that natural path.
And thirty years later we have his favorite movies being projected on the moon. Like I said, who knew?
Larry ingratiated himself among the comics (haha) "industry," and the ascent of his power was, honestly, meteoric. A few years, and he's publishing his own comic. A few more and he's publishing an entire line. A couple more, and he's bought out Marvel (might be before your day, but a character named "Nick Fury" used to run S.H.I.E.L.D.), then the dominoes toppled faster and faster.
The Astronauts Cable Network (most weeks drawing a greater share than the five "public" networks, combined); the chain of hologram theaters; even the fashion industry was transformed by Larry's touch -- the whole BubbleDome-chic thing was Lar's baby.
I'll never forget the day he came to me and said "Join me, and we will rule the galaxy as father and son" (and, yes, he really did talk like that) -- I admit it, I could see which way the future was leaning. What other choice did I really have? Today, some 80% of the entertainment the world consumes is produced or controlled by some subsidiary or another of Larry's. Why do you think they call it Planet
Lar, anyway?
Though, even I was surprised when he managed to get
Star Wars included in basic elementary school curriculum.
He got what he wanted in the end. When mankind's first corporate spacejet crashed on the surface of Mars, Lar was right there on the bridge, with the all-female, all-mini-skirted crew bringing him cocktails.
While we miss our founder, we're still following his vision the best we can. When the first Mars colony opens early next year,
Planet Lar will be waiting for them, with open arms, all of their entertainment needs ready to be fulfilled, our poly-neural entertainment net long built. And one day, maybe I'll even live to see it, we'll be
Universe Lar.This special limited printing, on old-fashion hardcopy, of Larry's earliest works, show the beginning seeds of the communications empire that took mankind to the stars. We've reissued it in hopes that, perhaps, your dreams will be inspired as much as his were. And if you, too, have that spark, that passion, that vision,
Planet Lar will be waiting, with many fine employment opportunities for you.
Brian Hibbs
comixexperience.com
March 9, 2035
Ross Richie gives me a
shout-out in the very first entry of his BOOM! blog. Home is wear you wear your hat, baby.
Millarworld regular
Sean Maher started up a blog so he could address a grateful nation while MW is down. I know where Josh Richardson's gone, so now we just need to find Mindy and Keith Mac.
Laura Gjovaag: "According to my Amazon.com stats, I have sold 3 copies of
True Story, Swear To God: Chances Are... through my website. This is two copies more than any other book I've sold, and honestly more than I ever expected to sell, as I usually sell about three books each
quarter, total. I hope that everyone who bought the book on my recommendation loved it at least half as much as I did, because that would mean you are buying
True Story, Swear To God: This One Goes To Eleven."
