Jay Busbee.com

Southern lit review: Jon Clinch's Finn

2008-06-10T23:26:00.006-04:00

Just finished up an exceptional book, Jon Clinch's Finn, which tells the story of Huckleberry Finn's father from before Huck's birth to just before his final appearance in Twain's novel. Finn, as he's called here, is a brutal, cruel man, lustful and petty and violent and indifferent all at once. Clinch has done something fascinating here, taking perhaps the best-known work of American literature -- Hemingway called it the wellspring from which all American fiction sprang -- and offering us a chance to view it in a completely new, yet utterly appropriate, light.

The entire book stems from these few paragraphs in Chapter 9 of Huckleberry Finn, when Huck and Jim come across the corpse of Finn himself in a ruined cabin:

"It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's ben shot in de back. I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan' look at his face -- it's too gashly."

I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but he needn't done it; I didn't want to see him. There was heaps of old greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles, and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal. There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, too. We put the lot into the canoe -- it might come good. There was a boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that, too. And there was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a baby to suck ... Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg, though it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find the other one, though we hunted all around.

Every single item named in that list there plays a significant role in Finn, and it's only after reading both together that you see how seamlessly Clinch wove his story around Twain's. The narrative loops around and around; the payoff for certain events hinted at in the book's final pages actually came in the opening ten. It can be confusing as hell, at first, particularly with the apocalyptic William Gay/Cormac McCarthy Southern gothic tone and vocabulary, but once I finished it I literally flipped right back to the start and reread the first hundred pages to get the full sense of what had happened.

And while Huckleberry Finn is taught in middle schools -- at least, those not held prisoner by illiterate ideologues -- Finn is most definitely an adults-only book. Cannibalism, perversion, coldblooded murder -- this is not a book for the squeamish. But Clinch has created a classic American figure out of the sketches Twain left behind, even adding a fascinating new twist to Huck himself that helps explain so much of why he did what he did. But Finn's tragedy is how he never even thought to light out for the territories the way his son would.

Fly the friendly skies of Tegucigalpa

2008-06-03T12:15:00.003-04:00

When I was dating the lovely woman who would become my wife, we used to grab a couple sandwiches, go to a little field just north of the National (now Reagan) Airport runways in Washington, D.C., and sit and watch the planes fly right over our heads. I can't imagine that's still possible now -- any of my DC-area readers verify this? -- because it damn sure looked like you could bounce a tennis ball off the underside of the plane.

And that's nothing compared to this, a landing in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where a plane skidded off the runway last weekend. (After seeing the video, all I have to say is, "only one plane?")

You see stuff like that, and you start to think that maybe donkeys aren't such a bad transportation option after all.

Marvel 1985 #1: Letting loose the inner geek

2008-06-02T23:23:00.003-04:00

Ah, 1985. A watershed year in comics, a year in which the last of the old innocent Silver Age comics died out and the first of the grim-n-gritty comics slouched onto the main stage. A time when The New Teen Titans and the Uncanny X-Men ruled the world, when Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars revamped all of comicdom. John Byrne's depowered Superman and Frank Miller's dehumanized Batman were still a year in the future.

In short, it was a damn good time to be a young comics geek.

Now, Marvel has produced "Marvel 1985," a six-issue series set in that year, but in this world. It's like a mainline jolt of nostalgia, so fierce and sharp I feel like I ought to be listening to Rush and pretending like I don't hear Mom calling me to dinner. The plot is pretty simple: villains from the Marvel Universe cross over into ours, and hell breaks loose.

Or not; this issue was all setup and very little action. Written by Mark Millar, who's always had an air of calculated cool to his work that veers between kick-ass and contrived, 1985 looks like it's going to be a hell of a good series that knows it's going to be a hell of a good series. Make sense? No? Well, hell with it, then. Here's my favorite two-panel sequence from the book, when the young protagonist goes to visit the strange visitors who have moved into the previously abandoned house in his neighborhood:

That's the Red Skull there leering out of an upstairs window, and that right there is badass creepy. Dunno if 1985 can sustain the skin-crawling strangeness it's set up -- I'd much prefer that to an all-out battle -- but yeah, I'm on board.

Lost Season 4 Finale: Give a little, get a little

2008-05-30T14:44:00.002-04:00

So after a five-hour-long swim meet -- at which my kids swam for a total of about four minutes -- I came home last night, collapsed on the couch and cued up the Lost season finale. I'm no Lost maniac -- I only occasionally scan one of the many Lost websites, and I've never played any of the games or whatever on the site -- but I'm fairly knowledgeable about the show. I'm also a big fan of several of the writers/exec producers, comics guys like Brian K. Vaughan and Jeph Loeb.

I don't think I'm exactly breaking new ground here by saying that this season was the finest since One. This one answered more questions than it asked, and the mysteries it posed were all in the context of previously established storylines. (No more four-toed statue feet.) Having the end zone in sight has definitely allowed the writers to flourish and drop clues that will certainly pay off.

Some thoughts here, and SPOILERS may be present. What I dig about the series is the way it can constantly recontextualize itself -- after last night, the show's present is now "our" present, 2008, and it's done this pretty much seamlessly. There are still gaps to be filled in -- what happened to the rest of the Castaways on the island? What went on during the three years between the rescue of the Oceanic Six and the death of Jeremy Bentham? -- but what's clear is that now we're looking at moving forward in time WITH the cast, which for some indefinable reason is infinitely cooler than the perpetual flashback that the series had become. Plus, the reimagining of familiar faces -- led by Sayid as a James Bondian hitman -- is satisfying on both a storytelling and an entertainment level.

ET has its usual great wrapup of the series finale right here. Well worth a read. While Lost hasn't yet approached the greatness that is the Wire, it's still probably among the top five TV shows ever, in my humble opinion. Lost still has a couple storylines that just don't interest me as much -- the Others in the woods have never done it for me, and neither did Claire and her "bay-bay" until she got all dead and creepy -- whereas every scene in The Wire was riveting. But hey, 99 percent is good enough for me. Just sucks that we have to wait until January for the next round.

The Greatest Collection Of Bass Players In The Known Universe

2008-05-29T12:18:00.002-04:00

So this is one of those wandering posts, where it starts out being about something and ends up being about something else. I was going to riff on the news that Stonehenge has been a burial site for centuries, and then bounce from there into a video of Spinal Tap's "Stonehenge" (where the demons dwell!) So then I went YouTube trolling, and found this -- the greatest collection of bass players in human history:

Sweet. I love bass that sounds like it's pulling your guts out through your big ... toe.

RIPPED cover art, with the promise of more goodness inside

2008-05-28T15:46:00.004-04:00

This right here is some sweetness -- the cover to RIPPED, the original graphic novel (or OGN, as the kids say) by myself and Jason Flowers. (Premise: time travel/conspiracy.) Not bad, eh? The promotional push is starting soon, but for now, art:

Nazis! Trojans! Soldiers! A punk kid! This one's got it all, folks, including the secret role that an iPod played in the JFK assassination! Coming very soon from Arcana Studio.

Comics art: Once again, I have chosen the right friends

2008-04-25T14:13:00.002-04:00

Here's some extraordinarily cool artwork from a couple of upcoming projects I'm writing. First, from Kade: Rising Sun #1, a samurai epic from Arcana Studio:

Man, that's badass, and it's just dudes drinking tea! At the opposite end of the spectrum, we've got a piece from the upcoming anthology "Dear Santa, I Can Explain...", a collection of tales of Christmases gone horribly wrong. Mine's a story about dressing up as Santa for my kids, but before that, I used to don the beard in college:

Those of you who were at those old Flat Hat parties back in the day will remember--that's exactly what it was like. No artistic license taken by the spectacular Mr. Wes Molebash whatsoever. (The final version will be in full, glorious color.)

The Kade series is scheduled for later this summer, with the Christmas anthology slated for -- imagine this -- Christmastime.

USA Today & The Eisners

2008-04-23T23:58:00.003-04:00

Some fun news of late ... I made it into an issue of USA Today a few days back when this post I wrote for Yahoo! Sports got picked up by the national media. Seems Forbes decided Atlanta was the nation's most miserable sports city, and I tried my best to fight back. I think you can read it there, midway down the second column:

Yep, I may be the first person in history to get the phrase "Thanks a pantload" into USA Today. My parents raised me right!

In other news, the amazing Postcards anthology, for which I wrote the story "Meet Me Tonight In Dreamland," has been nominated for an Eisner Award. For those outside the comics industry, the Eisners are comics' Oscars, the most prestigious awards in the industry, and I'm just glad I didn't torpedo the book myself. If it wins, I'll officially change my name to "Eisner winner Jay Busbee," even if I only deserve 1/32nd of the credit. Huge congrats to my man Jason Rodriguez for some well-deserved recognition for pulling the whole damn thing together.

Stupid Writers! Nobody Reads Magazines Anymore!

2008-04-02T17:23:00.003-04:00

When I was a wee lad of about sixteen or so, I had dreams of moving to New York and going to write for Rolling Stone, Esquire, and the other big-name glossy magazines. Well, soon afterward, I found out that you could write from wherever you were without having to survive on table scraps and ketchup packets in New York City. And then along came this thing called "the Internet" that reworked the whole conversation.

So moving to New York isn't in the immediate plans any longer. But I remain fascinated by magazines -- I'm a regular subscriber to RS, Esquire, The New Yorker, the Oxford American, and plenty of others. They pile up in my office, threatening to crush small children.

What's interesting is that I'm apparently part of a dwindling breed, at least according to The New York Observer. In an article entitled "Freelance Fizzle," writer Dorree Shafrir breaks down the many ways in which the once-dominant magazines have lost their hegemony, their influence, and their status as nirvana (lower-case n) for young writers:

“There’s not one path anymore,” David Hirshey, executive editor of HarperCollins and former longtime deputy editor of Esquire magazine, said the other day. “Thirty years ago, you worked at a newspaper, you moved to a magazine, and then you wrote books or screenplays. Today you can be a blogger who writes books or you can be a stripper who wins an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.”

Hey, he's talking about me! (The first part of that last sentence, not the second. I still haven't won an Academy Award.) Anyway, it's a fascinating look at the "decline and fall," as the subhead goes, not just of the freelance magazine writer, but of the magazine industry itself. Well worth a read. Oh, and the comments are good too, both the informative ones and the nakedly jealous ones too.

Back from LA

2008-03-17T17:27:00.003-04:00

This past weekend, I hit Los Angeles for your basic whirlwind tour of the Wizard World LA comics convention, signing books, shaking hands, and seeing almost nothing of the city except for the two-block stretch between the hotel and the LA Convention Center. (In that two blocks was the Staples Center, where the Pac-10 tourney was going on, but alas, no chance to see any college hoop.) I did see the Hollywood sign as I was cruising to the airport an hour later than I intended -- hung around to catch editors leaving a panel. Thank God there was NOBODY in the security line at LAX. Never would've made an Atlanta flight.

It was a lot of fun, roaming the floor and signing copies of INCURSION at the Platinum booth. Also bugged a few editors for work and stalked a comics creator or two. No truly great con stories this time around; the Wizard party at the Hotel Figueroa was held outside by the pool, and with the weather dropping into the 40s and the time passing 3am body-clock time, I was faaaading fast.

But I did stock up on some reading material for the next few months; picked up volumes 1 and 2 of the Complete Frank Miller Daredevil, a volume of the Joss Whedon Astonishing X-Men run, and a bunch of other stuff I can't quite remember now. Also got a copy of my man Jorge Vega's Gunplay, winner of the 2007 Comic Book Challenge. Get your hands on a copy, trust me.

Overall, a fine show, even if Boushh there wouldn't let me borrow her thermal detonator. (Little short for a stormtrooper, ain't he?)

Beginning The Indoctrination Over At Yahoo

2008-03-05T17:08:00.002-05:00

So I've been writing for Yahoo!'s From the Marbles NASCAR blog for about three weeks now, and here's one thing I've discovered pretty much immediately:

NASCAR fans have no sense of humor.

Okay, that's not entirely true. There are a large majority of NASCAR fans who actually do enjoy a good laugh, who can appreciate it when some idiot blogger makes fun of their favorite driver. But there's a good chunk who takes even the slightest insult to Dale Jr. as a critique of their entire lifestyle, and reacts accordingly. In the first few weeks, I was called an "idiot," a "homo," a "d1ckhead" (gotta get around the censors), and told to "get a life" because I was not an honorable man for daring to have a little fun at their favorite driver's expense.

To which I say: damn straight.

Right now, we're in the Indoctrination Phase over at Yahoo!. That's where I go balls-out with what I'm going to do, and it either pisses people off so badly they don't want to return--in which case we're probably better off without 'em--or it forces everybody, commenters and blogger, to raise their game to a higher level. It's painful but necessary, and once we get everybody on the same page, the site will be that much better for it.

And it's working--take a look at the progression of comments in this post right here. Soon, all will kneel before Zod...er, Busbee.

Stopping By The Blog On A Snowy Evening

2008-03-03T21:54:00.003-05:00

A warm evening, actually. But it's been so damn long since I've been here regularly that there's dust everywhere, roaches running all over the place, that strange smell wafting up from the basement--oh, crap, I forgot to feed that drifter I had chained up down there...

Anyway, it's been a lively few weeks. Most significant is the new gig I've got over at Yahoo! Sports. (That exclamation is mucho important.) I'm running their NASCAR blog there, and having a damn fine time doing it. (Click over there on the right for the link.) I'm also still running the show at Atlanta Magazine's Right Down Peachtree blog. Sports Gone South and this one have, for the nonce, gone a bit quiet, but we'll see about changing that.

In other projects, I've got comics aplenty coming out; INCURSION just wrapped its four-issue run and did well enough that the boys at Platinum greenlit not one, but two sequels: INSURRECTION, due out later this year, and INDOCTRINATION/INCULCATION/INFATUATION (we haven't settled on a title yet, obviously) closing out the trilogy late 2008-early 2009. RIPPED is nearing completion, as is THE NETWORK, and holy crap are those gonna be good. I'm working on the scripts for the second issues of WHITE EYES and KADE: RISING SUN; more details on those in a bit. And SUNSHINE STATE is back up off the deck, slated tentatively for a summer release from Arcana. I'm also finishing up a story for the DEAR SANTA anthology, and...and I think that's it for the comics.

Book work on the Braves and Bulldogs books proceeds apace, and I've just submitted a proposal for another book that I don't want to jinx by talking about until we've inked some deals. And the regular article-writing continues for BLUFF, CHOPTALK, and a buncha other places.

So there's your ego-trip post. Actual content coming tomorrow.

(That photo? I dunno why it's here. It makes me laff. Just remember, Hillary-bashers, in the 2016 election, those kids all will be of voting age...)

Incursion #2 Out, Incursion #3 Cover Up

2008-01-13T23:01:00.000-05:00

Incursion #2 has hit the stands, leaving a smoking hole of excellence. In this issue, our intrepid band of Air Force commandos trapped in the mystical dimension of Twilight basically blow the ever-lovin' crap out of everything they see, while on earth their sergeant works furiously to try to bring them home! All this, and the first time the phrase "Tuscaloosa mudslide" has ever been uttered in American comics...or, according to Google, anywhere in recorded history! Getcha copies now!

And here's a look at #3's cover, by the amazing Tone Rodriguez. Choice, huh?

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T23:49:00.000-05:00

Hey howdy ho. Hope 2008's a good one for you, dear reader. I'm gonna be stuffing plenty of goodness your way, between three blogs, half a dozen comic series in the pipeline, and a buncha articles. So, you know, get your rest. There will be a quiz.

The Most Wonderful Day Of The Year

2007-12-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

Hey, it's my birthday today! Me, Sergei Federov, Jamie Foxx, Steve Buscemi, Ted Nugent, Dick Van Dyke, Pope Sixtus V, and the immortal Jewgeni Petrow (no, I don't know either) will be celebrating today, but probably not together.

Everybody loves their birthday, but mine's been quite a significant day the last few years. In 2000, this was the day that Al Gore finally conceded and George W. ascended to the presidency. In 2003, this was the day that Saddam Hussein was dug out of his hole. And today will see the release of the Mitchell Report blowing the whistle on dozens of steroid-using baseball players. Man, now that I think about it, lots of people have reasons to hate my birthday. Sorry, folks...cake's on me.

Flickadaweek: Grindhouse

2007-12-11T13:03:00.000-05:00

So I'm scalp-deep in pre-holiday deadlines--sucks now, but damn, son, am I going to be chillaxin' this holiday--but I finally ended up seeing both halves of Grindhouse, so I gotta write about it:

Check out that poster. Sweet, huh? And yet, almost nobody saw the movie when it came out earlier this year. Why not? I can hazard a few guesses, but after seeing both flicks, I've got to say that the folks who stayed away had at least half of the right idea.

The best part about both movies was the fake trailers for other, unmade flicks. Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving"--about a massacre on Turkey Day--is flat-out spooky thanks to the Blair Witch-style camerawork and dead-voiced narrator. And if Robert Rodriguez doesn't make a full version of "Machete," starring Danny Trejo as a revenge-crazed psychopath--one guess as to his weapon of choice--well, there is no justice in this world.

First of the two films was Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," which threw together zombies, horror, barbecue, military conspiracy, and love gone wrong into a nut-crunchin' good time. Freddy Rodriguez probably made himself a legit career with this movie, and Bruce Willis, Naveen Andrews (Sayid from "Lost"), and everybody else chews scenery like...well, like the zombies chew brains. Highly recommended for a beer-and-pizza Saturday night.

More problematic is Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof," starting with the fact that I don't know who it would be recommended for other than Tarantino himself. One of the problems with being a trailblazing visionary, which Tarantino was with "Pulp Fiction," is that once you've blazed the trail, others are going to catch up with you. "Death Proof" has at its heart the concept of a stuntman who can never die as long as he's strapped into his car. Nice idea, if not quite as transcendent as, say, a glowing suitcase. But the problem is that "Death Proof" comes off like a parody of a Tarantino film--endless meandering talk that goes nowhere, chicks with attitude a mile long and no real reason for it, geekout references to long-forgotten pop culture ephemera, loving/fetishistic shots of bare feet. It's all here, and it all adds up to far less than the sum of its parts. True, Kurt Russell has one of the best lines of 2007 in it: taking a young woman home, he pulls to a three-way stop. He asks her if she wants to go right or left. She says right. He replies, "That's too bad. See, if you were going left, it would be a while before you got scared. But since you wanted to go right, you're going to have to start getting scared right now." And off he goes to the left...and eventual oblivion. A shame the rest of the movie was such painfully forced "cool."

Tarantino's supposedly still at work on his WWII epic "Inglorious Bastards." And yes, I'll line right up to see it. But if it's full of soldiers yammering about the metaphoric implications of Rosie the Riveter and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," I'll be flying out to Hollywood to kick Tarantino's ass...and I'll probably have to stand in line when I get there.

The Incursion #2 Cover

2007-12-04T18:06:00.001-05:00

Check it, y'all:

Scheduled to hit hopefully later this month. Remember, nothin' says "I love you" at holiday time quite like a comic full'a demon spawn!

You Just Can't Beat The Classics

2007-11-30T13:20:00.000-05:00

My daughter is learning to play the cello, which I'm sure will one day sound beautiful but for the moment sounds like a small animal having its internal organs gnawed out by beavers. We take her to lessons at a local music store, and when it's my turn to take her, I always channel my inner fifteen-year-old and head straight over to the rows of guitars. I'll throw on some headphones, crank up the distortion, and wail out a little "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" or "Sweet Child O' Mine." (Anything with apostrophes.)

The other day, I was hanging there when six or seven little early-teen goofballs came in, half with dirt-lip moustaches because they weren't yet sure how to shave. They picked up the twelve-string guitars and immediately launched into "Over The Hills And Far Away"--the exact same song I play when I grab the twelve-string. The road goes ever on and on...and I can tell my kids that I was right, my music IS the best. Hell with Hannah Montana, it's all about the Zeppelin, baby.

The New Musical Obsession: Sonny Landreth

2007-11-29T14:19:00.000-05:00

Music hits you in the strangest places. (Yes, sometimes even the groin.) Last night, I was walking into the den to shut off the TV for dinner when some music caught my eye (and ear). PBS--left on by my Dragon Tales-obsessed son--was playing the full concert of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival from this past summer, and some cat was completely tearing up the stage with a combination of amazing fretwork, slide, and melody--three things that almost never go together. I was freakin' mesmerized. After getting hollered at by the entire family to GET IN HERE, DINNER'S GETTING COLD, I did a little research on the web and found that the dude's name was Sonny Landreth, the tune was called "Uberesso," and hey presto, here it is:

Not bad, huh? Check out some of the other videos where he hangs with Clapton Himself. (Clapton's got a habit of coasting musically, but when a big-time player challenges him, he comes up huge.) Far as I can tell, Landreth's never released this particular song commercially, but he's got some other great material out there, which I immediately vacuumed off iTunes. And go check out SonnyLandreth.com, where he's got some free stuff for download. (It's in the "Lagniappe" section.)

Great music. Oh, and yes, I'm well aware of the fact that I'm trolling PBS for music means I'm old and in the way. Tough.

Incursion #1: The Commentary Track

2007-11-27T19:31:00.000-05:00

Incursion #1’s been out for almost a week now, so you should all have your copy. So now it’s time for the first of what will, hopefully, be many DVD-style commentaries on my comics. I’ll do up one of these for each issue, giving you a little insight into the creative process behind the books. And away we go…

Incursion’s my first hired-gun book, the first one where I didn’t come up with the idea and push it through to completion. Which was, to be honest, very nice. Work-for-hire’s got its critics and its drawbacks, but it also means somebody else is playing production traffic cop…and signing checks. I got hooked up with Incursion thanks to Sean O’Reilly, top dog at Arcana Studio (which published my 2006 miniseries Sundown: Arizona) and newly-hired VP at Platinum. Sean called me this past summer—like any struggling young writer, I think I was actually on the golf course when he called—and offered me the gig. Obviously, being a struggling young writer, I accepted on the spot.

Platinum had some detailed notes for the four-issue series that they wanted me to work off of, but they—led by editor supreme Dave Collins—were more than happy to let me wander a bit from the prescribed path. The book was created by Platinum head honcho Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, and its original title was “Twilight War Book One: Incursion,” which ought to give you some clues as to where this whole affair is going. Anyway, let’s begin.

This opening page, with the young Ray wandering out on a tree branch, was inspired by an incident involving my little brother. He climbed a tree and fell out—there was nobody there to catch him, unfortunately, and he landed on the chain-link fence that separated our house from our neighbors. He was fine, but to this day nobody can remember which side of the fence he landed on.

The construction of the opening page—which is something I added in to the original plot—is an outgrowth of my MFA grad school learning. Establish a theme, always a theme. The title of this issue, which wasn’t included in the credits, is “Balance.”

Next, we’re in Afghanistan. The Packers reference is because the Packers happened to be on in a preseason game when I was writing the script. There is no real-world analogue to the girlfriend story, which is a shame.

Back at Edwards Air Force Base, I tried to channel Warren Ellis with my explanation of how the XCE works.

“The Billies” is my own creation for Afghan rebels, an oblique reference to “The Skinnies”—the term for the Mogadishu rebels that brought down American planes in Black Hawk Down. Hopefully I didn’t accidentally back into some racist term.

My artist, Axel Medellin, did a good job with the badass pictures, huh? Check that one on the bottom of page 6.

Page 8—That’s the old English-major theology influence coming out there with the story of the monk and the knight. I was surprised at how well it ended up fitting into the overall theme of the story, but sometimes you get lucky that way.

Ray’s hint on page 10 of not sharing everything with his own men…you don’t think that’s going to backfire on him, do you? Not at all…

The scene on page 12 where the billies show up in ever greater numbers is a direct reference—I mentioned it in the script—to that scene in Return of the King where you see some orcs popping out of the ruins of that old city waiting for the charge of the heroes from Minas Tirith, and every time they cut back to the orcs, there are more and more and more of them, and you can’t imagine how there could be any more, and then there ARE, and then you think, oh boy—our heroes are screwed…

Page 15—Wait a minute! How the hell did Kyle’s dog tags end up in California? All will be revealed…

Page 18—My grandfather used to have those clicking-ball office toys…that is, until I slung them so hard that they all knotted up. This is my little way of saying sorry.

Page 19—Whoops. Reid just did the same thing I did to those little swingin’ balls.

Page 20—Whoa! Visual symbolism there in panel 1! That broken cross can't possibly represent anything bad coming down the pike, can it?

Page 21—My favorite demon in this whole thing is the big furnace-throated bad guy there in the top right. If I write another Twilight series, I'm making that guy a key player. Second place is the dude in the center with the sword; he’s either wearing two eyepatches or some sunglasses. Either way, he’s a badass.

Page 22—Zombies. Everybody loves zombies. How can you not?

And then we’re done. Oh, wait, the ads. First off—Kade. Hmm. Interesting character, that Kade. And later on, Scott calls my work “nothing short of brilliant”—thanks, man! And I can’t recall the last time I was called “up and coming,” but hey, that’s cool too.

Here endeth the commentary for the first issue. No. 2’s scheduled to drop—man, that’s an unfortunate sentence construction—sometime in mid-December. Order now!

The Endorsement: The Dark & Stormy

2007-11-26T14:56:00.000-05:00

So how was your Thanksgiving? Good? Turkey, family, shopping, blah blah? Great. I spent a significant portion of mine in a pleasant buzz thanks to my personal drink of choice, the Dark and Stormy. (Screw the mojito--that's so 2006.) It's Gosling's dark Bermuda rum combined with ginger beer, and if you're lucky, you can pick both up in a handy all-in-one case at your local hooch shop. I got addicted to the things back in the summer of '06, when I accompanied the wife to her business junket to Bermuda. While she attended training classes and such, I drank more Dark & Stormys than water. It was a good trip.

So, yeah...that's what I did over break, and as you can tell from the in-depth content of this post, I'm not yet hitting on all literary cylinders. Anyway, go get yourself a Dark & Stormy yourself. It's a little chunk of Bermuda right there in your glass.

I'll take my endorsement fee now, Goslings.

Sebastian Bach Deserves A Nobel For Figuring Out How To Get Axl Rose Off His Ass

2007-11-21T11:26:00.000-05:00

Sebastian Bach's gotta be full on in careful-what-you-wish-for mode. The former Skid Row lead singer just released his first solo album in seven years, Angel Down. And while it's pretty solid post-hair-band metal--melodic with thick bass and doubletracked guitars--all the talk about the album centers on the reclusive yeller who shows up for three tracks, fella who used to go by the name Bill Bailey.

Longtime readers of the site know that Axl's one of my--well, "heroes" ain't the right word, more "fascinations." So, yeah, when I read that Axl was going to be performing on Bach's album, I was there before you could say ooooooooaaaaaaaAAAAAA (cough, cough) OOOOOOOWWWwwwuuughh. (Transcription of 2000s-era Axl trying to nail that opening scream on "Welcome to the Jungle.") Axl duets on three songs--an utterly perfunctory cover of Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle," a paint-by-numbers Whiskey-A-Go-Go tune called "Love Is A Bitchslap," and "Stuck Inside," a juggernaut that's by far the best of the bunch. Of course, I bought 'em all. The rest of the album is like visiting your old school after years away; it's instantly familiar, completely comfortable, and will annoy the hell out of anybody who didn't live through that past with you.

One of the ironies of this album is that when Skid Row put out its monster "Slave To The Grind" CD back in the summer of 1991, all anyone could talk about was how it was a perfect holdover for the then-delayed "Use Your Illusion." Now, Bach's solo CD is a bit of an appetizer for "Chinese Democracy." Of course, Illusion was delayed by only a couple months; Democracy's going on thirteen years delay. And yes, whenever it does come out, I'll be right there at the front of the line, oxygen line and all.

Getcha Free Taste Of Incursion Here

2007-11-20T18:07:00.000-05:00

Another quick post because as the holiday nears, I'm swamped with oh-my-God-where-is-my-article-you-lazy-ass-writer emails. But Incursion #1 is out tomorrow, and I'll be heading over to Great Escape Comics to pick up my copy, along with the Dark Tower hardcover and the second Hawaiian Dick trade. If I had in-laws coming in town, I'd have plenty to read in the crawlspace while I hid out from them.

Meantime, why don't you head over to Platinum's Drunk Duck mini-site and read the first few pages of Incursion? I'll be doing a DVD-style commentary in the next few days.

"Mister Moore, will you sign my DVD of Watchmen Babies?"

2007-11-19T20:28:00.000-05:00

Awesome.

Non-geek translation: Alan Moore, who wrote some of the best comics, like, ever--Watchmen, V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen--guested on the Simpsons last night as himself. And Moore has a long history of loathing how badly his characters get raped once they make the jump from comics to other media. Hence, "Watchmen Babies in V for Vacation!" Hence, geek-out funny.

Screw That Lightsaber Crap, Luke Should've Just Busted Vader In The Grill

2007-11-16T17:25:00.000-05:00

A little Star Wars silliness to kick off the weekend...

Have a good one, all!