Shelf Porn

so apparently, this is a thing we're doing today. Ilias Kyriazis challenged me (practically)

so here's (most of) my shelf porn, I've left out the main DVD shelf and some other random comics shelves around the house. cos you can never have enough really, can you?

needless to say, I have too many comics

*annotated for hilarity and OCDness

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FF twitter-craze

"it's hella boring tonight. I'm gonna read the entire Hickman FF run from the start. hells to the yes."

that was me, 6 hours ago, on my new comics-specific twitter account. what followed was a 6-hour long live-tweeting marathon as I read through the last issues of the Mark Millar run and then the entirety of Jonathan Hickman's run on Fantastic Four, two years worth of FF stories, and tweeted or twitpic'd every thought or comment going through my head in the process. It's a worthwhile exercise in insanity.

and you should read all about it and tell your friends (cos papa's account is new and he needs more followers)

#ff @theComicsGreek

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Hercporn fanmail

Dear Marvel. As much as I rejoice in the news of the continuation of the overarching Hercules saga by mr Pak and mr Van Lente in a new title with a new #1, and as much as I appreciate the gay overtones in the book's solicitations --

This April prepare for Herc #1 – an explosive new ongoing series from New York Times Best Selling writers Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente and artist Neil Edwards setting Marvel’s baddest bone-breaker loose on a raging one-man beat down of the Marvel Universe’s vicious criminal underground. And he won’t be relying on his fists alone! Armed with the keys to Ares’ abandoned armory, Hercules is ready to unleash three thousand years worth of brawling experience upon his foes while preparing to confront the perils of FEAR ITSELF!

-- I must voice my concerns as per the sudden, and ill-thought-of, surely the product of a momentary lack of good judgement, perhaps following a drinking binge in one of the creator summits or a drunken bar-crawl around San Diego with an assortment of nerds of the heterosexual persuasion, decision to, well... how do I put this...

to clothe him.

I mean, you have a loyal fanbase that has grown accustomed to, nay - I say spoiled by - bare hairy leather-strapped thighs, naked hairy torsos with bulging heroic pecs, ridiculously short manskirts with revealing slits in the front, and a constant barrage of compromising positions that, had they been featuring a female character in similar garb and positioning, would have resulted in an endless storm of menstruation-fueled hate letters from feminist organisations piling up at your doorsteps.

simply put: We want our hercporn back.

signed,

your Mighty Marvel Queers

p.s.

-sigh-

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X-Men Legacy #244

Creepy.

Mike Carey is one of the best horror writers in comics, it's good to see him dusting off some skills in his current x-workload, even if it's for one page. The rest X-Men Legacy #244 has Rogue following the young mutant Blindfold who's following the hints in her precog dream on the first page and questioning various persons of dangerous interest around the island, as a means of tying up (the seemingly un-tieable) events from the last year's worth of storylines on the book (Emplate, Proteus, Sentinel) - and thus producing a linear coherent feel to this title which has suffered lately mostly as a result of being treated by editorial as the perrenial stepchild of the X-Men books - and reintroducing us to some characters that will doubtlessly be the focus of the next few months' worth of stories in the much-anticipated (and very-cool-looking) Age of X storyline. I mean, Dragoness? Whoever dug her up? (and after much deliberation I even spotted Stinger in a panel there.)

The issue is a whole lot of summarisation and exposition and some interestingf character work culminating in an out-of-nowhere nonsensical final battle with...

yes... a giant Spider-Squid. that was kinda cool and random.

p.s. I can't be the only one with severe eye-ache at Rogue's current outfit. I have yet to see a single artist draw it in any pleasing way. Just a great big green eyesore. with cleavage.

burn it!

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find the odd one out

anyone can play along from home. Christos Gage has created in Avengers Academy a fresh batch of riveting and diverse teenage would-be(?)-heroes, and, as is evident from their brief character bios in the issue summary page cropped above, he has smartly used each of their powers as a subtle and powerful metaphor for their personality. well, for the most part. one of them may have just been saddled on him to boost (?) sales through the crossover factor with a currently successful cartoon program. dunno, you figure it out.
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speaking of birds behaving queer...

must be some new batch of Q1N1 avian flu. second hit already this week.

(That is of course the Batman villain 'the Penguin' having a fit in the pages of Gail Simone's as-of-lately very-theme-specific Birds of Prey)

Source: Birds of Prey #8 (DC Comics)

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RuPaul's Duck Race

The financial crisis has hit Duckville the hardest and Donald has had to seek out other, baser, means of employment. No, he's not actually the surprise contestant in the upcoming RuPaul's Drag Race Season 3, but he does somehow (ok, so I didn't actually read the whole issue) end up in a Hollywood flick, in drag, as the leading man's paramour (including an almost inappropriate almost gay kiss).

If there's one thing to take home from this issue, it's that we finally get an answer to the ages-old question: 'What would Donald Duck's drag name be?'

DONNA MOO GOO!



Thank you for this, Boom Studios! When reached for comment backstage , Donald didn't have much more to add than the obvious:




Source: Donald Duck #362 (Boom! Studios)
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Tough Guy Talk circa 2011

to say that the new 'vs vampires' adjectiveless X-MEN book sucks would be both an appropriately cringeworthy pun and an understatement.
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in space noone can hear you bark Cowabanga

When Cosmo, the telepathic commie space dog, surfed through space with the Silver Surfer, silver-shiny-shiny herald of the planet-eater Galactus. Hilarity ensued.


Source: The Thanos Imperative: Devastation #1 (Marvel Comics)
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#1 of 2010

move over Gaga

TV taught me how to feel
now real life has no appeal

#1. Marina & the Diamonds - the Family Jewels





and the last day rundown:
2. Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More
3. Interpol - Interpol
4. Trouble Over Tokyo – Hurricane
5. Scott Pilgrim – OST
6. Monika – Exit
7. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
8. The National – High Violet
9. Scissor Sisters – Night work
10. Belle & Sebastian - Belle and Sebastian Write About Love
11. Hurts – Happiness
12. Kylie – Aphrodite
13. Robyn – Body Talk pt1
14. Mark Ronson & The Business Intl – Record Collection
15. Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid
16. Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles
17. Caribou – Swim
18. Natassa Mpofiliou – Εισιτήρια Διπλά
19. Klaxons – Surfing the Void
20. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz
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#2 of 2010

if Interpol was a slow-burning sneaky kind of romance that kind of creeps under your radar before it's too late to do anything about it, Mumford & Sons was a love-at-first-sight in-your-face kind of thing. an attack on the senses. banjos, folkiness, Christ-freak undertones, warts and all. but also pure, beautiful, melancholic, overwhelming, unassuming, love.

I'm such a sucker for that, no use denying.

But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my...

#2. Mumford & Sons - Mumford & Sons



Weep for yourself, my man,
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep Little Lion Man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself,
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head

Thistle & Weeds - Mumford & Sons from Jamie Fenton on Vimeo.

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#3 of 2010

some things you can't explain, they just click for you, they creep up inside your life, bit by bit, undetectable-- is it some of the words, is it the sound, the music, will it help if you play it backwards, will you be able to explain why you must repeat and repeat and repeat the same tracks from the moment you get up till you fall asleep, still humming them as you do?
when I started my rough draft for the top 20 albums for #blogovision, Interpol was a *maybe* for #17-18, but day by day it still persisted in my daily OCD-fueled elimination drama. Every day it was on the chopping block, but still I saved it for a better spot. and here we are today, I could only barely constrain myself to keep them from the two higher spots. and I still can't explain.

All that I seek...

please police me
I want you to police me
but keep it clean
uhhh...

#3. Interpol - Interpol





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#4 of 2010

Toph (="Trouble Over Tokyo") is insane enough to release his third album as a book. a cd with a hardbound lyrics book and commentary. or a poem collection as an audiobook? or a novel with a soundtrack? or... whatever-- something amazing.

a collection of personal experiences and emotions, refined to 12 songs-poems-stories-letters---storms. at the heart of each storm, each tiny hurricane, something terribly personal and vulnerable but universal and crushing, strong. or maybe I'm talking too much again. I'll sure be swept away

We, we know what we're doing
We know it can unleash dogs
We know it can break us
But we fight, we fight all the boundaries
We fight it with rule breaking
We fight it with mistaking

We keep saying that it's enough
To start fires that can't be touched
And flames flicker
Flames, flames flicker
The flames flicker and the fire gets bigger

#4. Trouble Over Tokyo - Hurricane





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#5 of 2010

it's a movie soundtrack featuring the songs from the movie based on the comic book, performed -and credited to- the bands in the movie, and the songs that inspired the comic book characters that make up the band that perform in the movie. straightforward? also, fun. energetic. youthful. trashy. the best adaptation of a comic on screen and the best adaptation of songs to fit the mood of the comic and the characters. the songs becoming the characters as much as the actors are. confused yet?

Beck writes the songs performed by Scott and his band (Sex Bob-omb, of course), Broken Social Scene perform as Crash & the Boys (with the fan-fave 0,7 seconds long sad, so very sad track) and Metric with the Clash at Demonhead's "Black Sheep", the track that has burned a hole in my ipod this year with its seductive, mean-spirited, ex-from-hell, sexy-as-heck opening:

Hello again- friend of a friend- I knew you when-our common goal- was waiting for- the world to end-

#5. Scott Pilgrim vs The World - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack





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#6 of 2010

half-way through the 7-and-a-half minute long quietly-melancholic "Our Love (or how we lost it)" Monika's voice starts to rise in fury, anger, desperation. and the music suddenly follows suit and explodes into a chaotic, uncontrollable drums tantrum, covering everything in dust and smoke -- and then subsides, with the last few of the disparate falling piano keys bouncing off the ground. six seconds of deathly, mournful, silent, nothing. and then -- her voice, whispering... God, I miss you... a soft murmur, and a heavy unliftable tear-filled sob from deep inside, a sigh that crushes your heart like a mountain of sorrow and regret.
Every time she plays this song in concert she provides an introduction, this is a song she wrote for herself, one she likes to play alone in her living room on quiet afternoons. a song about love, and losing it, a memory with music and words and, when there's no more need or space for them, without.

#6. Monika - Exit



cause every time I sing, I do it for you
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#7 of 2010

such a strange experience. a collection of songs, all unique, yet all one - merging with each other, a bit of one in one another, the suburbs in each and every one of them. growing up, leaving the suburbs. leaving home, leaving love, leaving hopes and dreams, changing, pretending to change, resisting to change, manning up, withering down. leaving... what behind?

In the suburbs, I... learned to drive. (away)

#7. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs



All the kids have always known
that the emperor wears no clothes
but to bow to down to them anyway
is better than to be alone
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