I don’t agree with much of what he says about Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin, but Colin Smith over at Too Busy Thinking About My Comics is doing the job right. He’s even got a book coming out soon, Shameless? The Superhero Fiction of Mark Millar courtesy of The Sequential Art and Literacy Organization. I’ll be buying a copy, guaranteed.

I mean, how else am I going to explain to my students how one man wrote both of these excellent books?

*blantantlystolenfrombeaucoupkevin.com

Excited!!!

The library here at Augusta State University just received a grant to bolster their collection and each full-time English faculty member gets $460 to spend how they like for the stacks. I’m excited to begin a section on graphic novel criticism. Scott McCloud’s three books on the process are a beginning, plus some books that I already have copies of like The Sandman Papers. Just the idea of shopping for these books makes me happy. I don’t know how long I’ll be at this school, but I want this (and an eventual class) to be how I make my mark for ASU. It’s a small school and only recently became a four-year university, but I think that’s an opportunity for me. They want to figure out how to stand apart, to be a 21st century school. A graphic novel concentration for English graduate students (creation and criticism) could be part of that.

Last night, I finally finished this excellent (if frustratingly short) revisionist take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos and am happy to report that it is a fine, fun time. It not only meets the high expectations already placed on any new BBC show developed by Stephen Moffat, but, more importantly, it equals the most successful Holmes interpretation: the decade long run with Jeremy Brett in the title role.

Okay, let’s get things a few quick things out of the way. This is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as if they lived in early 21st c. London as opposed to late 19th c., but there’s not a lot of difference in mood. There are several similarities between the two time periods, so much so that it’s sort of terrifying. Watson, for example, is a veteran of an Afghanistan conflict, just as he was in the original stories. Though there’s no (apparent) Ripper plying his trade through the east end, there is a healthy interest on the part of contemporary viewers in criminal medicine procedurals. Even the general gloom of Victoria’s reign is echoed by the panopticon-like security-camera-state that London has been building towards for decades thanks to the paranoia of another equally powerful woman.

But Sherlock Holmes is fun! It’s a show for puzzle lovers, for those people whose idea of a good time includes climbing into bed with an Agatha Christie mystery. And fun it is.

The most important element that the show had to maintain was the intelligence of the original work. Arthur Conan Doyle was a physician by trade. He operated a small practice and largely due to his lack of success in finding clientele, he began to write. Taking the model of his former professor, Joseph Bell, a physician dedicated to the careful observation of his patients, and merging it with his own strong sense of justice (Conan Doyle overturned the sentences of two men in cases previously thought closed, thus inspiring the Court of Criminal Appeal), Conan Doyle gave his creation what he considered to be the single most effective weapon against injustice: the mind.

Benedict Cumberbatch is a terrific successor to Jeremy Brett, who I’d always seen as the quintessential Homes. He’s every bit the part: physically thin and angular, pale from spending most of his time indoors with his books; and ghostly, a man haunted by something. Holmes, at his core, is far more than the computer brain pop culture has made him. What drives a man to study in such a fashion? And why add the police? In other words, what separates Holmes from Moriarty? What Jeremy Brett managed to bring to the role through his talent was only accentuated by the death of his second wife during the first year of filming, and, too, by his struggle with depression. I can’t say exactly what Cumberbatch might be personally bringing to the role, but he’s captured the Aspbergerish qualities of Holmes magnificently: the black moods, the violent outbursts and the fascination with others capable only through near-pathological detachment. One of the most charming and terrifying moments of the first episode come when Holmes angrily corrects a police mocking his behavior and describes himself as a “high-functioning sociopath.” In the scene, Cumberbatch is on the verge of explosion, barely holding it together by the intense need to think out the clues before him.

Martin Freeman, who played Tim in the original Office series and Arthur Dent in the last adaptation of The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is solid casting for Watson and the highest praise I can give him is that he takes light off of Cumberbatch. David Hardwicke, who played the role opposite of Jeremy Brett, was near-invisible, often outshone by Brett’s presence. To be fair, his more traditional Watson was always a bit of a dunderhead, only in the story as an audience proxy, someone to see the scene wrongly and be corrected by Holmes. Freeman’s performance, however, is more assured than Hardwicke’s. His Watson serves the same narrative role, but Freeman taps into the character’s background as a war-time, military doctor and gives the same lines with confidence. His mistakes seem natural rather than foolish. In dialogue heavy scenes, his Watson frequently challenges Holmes and refuses to be treated as anything less than Holmes’ equal partner.

The casting may feel a little odd. Cumberbatch and Freeman are in their mid-thirties and this can be jarring at first, given that nearly all portrayals of the characters (outside of the teen version shown in Barry Levinson’s 1985 Adventures of Young Sherlock Holmes) are those made by men pushing 60. No worries, however, as it all starts to feel perfectly natural. Only Andrew Scott’s Moriarty comes off as unnaturally young, despite the actor being in his mid-thirties as well.

One last incredibly cool thing to comment on. I’ve heard, for a few years now, the plight of authors having to deal with the existence of instant-communications technologies. The complaint is that tension was often cut by a contemporary character’s ability to talk to someone or have access to information at any moment’s notice. I used to sympathize, but do no longer. The most impressive feat accomplished by Moffat, in my eyes, is that these technologies have enhanced the drama and, in the case of A Study in Pink, driven it.

Though a ten year run on the character (as Brett was able to accomplish) seems unlikely given the BBC’s nature to keep their series short in episode length and overall run, I eagerly await new episodes.

*You are not mistaken. But why discuss the recent Guy Ritchie adaptation (despite it’s merits), when a pair of Dr. Who writers and unknown actors, have so clearly outdone them?

So, I recently finished the last issue of The Metabarons available to non-French-speaking peoples (#17 is the last translated into English) and have finally picked up enough pieces of my brain to write out my thoughts on it.

It was FUN.

I’m a child of American comics, the DC brand specifically, and so was reared on the epic.

Side note: Though I love Marvel comics– the lack of a larger world, the lack of legacy heroes and their focus on street-level, real world characters and concerns didn’t pull at me as a child in the same way as did the grandiose gods of DC. Now, some of this has changed for both companies, but I think the comparison is still a fair one. Neither is better than the other, however, and anyone who professes to read “only DC” or “only Marvel” is just plain ridiculous to me.

It’s the twelve-year-old in me, really, that’s drawn to The Metabarons and European comics in general. And to borrow from Michel Gondry, I’ve always been twelve years old. A twelve-year-old raised on his father’s paperback collection of Michael Moorcock, Phillip Jose Farmer, Piers Anthony and Roger Zelazney is a strange creature. He devours stories of other worlds and their cultures. He dreams about ancient astronauts and secretly hopes that he is either one of them or will one day be their equal and meet them in the heavens. There’s a lot too, about being a hero and fighting with honor in epic battles that determine the fate of billions. And let’s not forget about the sex. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that fiction written by outcast teenage boys (ironically pariahs to teenage girls experiencing their own sexual transformations and resulting anxieties) would be preoccupied by the hyper-realization of something that seems forever out of their reach.

It’s for this reason that the hero’s journey is such a popular trope for fantasy/sci-fi. People who read those types of stories are looking to step out of their world and it’s problems. When you’re harassed by bullies (emotional as well as physical), why wouldn’t you be drawn to stories in which a seeming-nobody becomes someone of great respect and importance? Paul Atreides and Luke Skywalker were nerds. I was a nerd. There were bullies. I dreamed that there was something special about me that I’d discover, allowing for the emergence of some previously hidden ability, giving me the strength to defeat bullies for myself and my nerd friends. Doing this, of course, would sway the pretty girls to my side.

Or, at least, that was me when I was twelve. I think it might be interesting (if only for me) to write more about that later.

But anyway– The Metabaron has all of those things in spades. It’s a pure distillation of everything I looked for in fiction when I was twelve. It has nerds (of a sort), bullies and beautiful ladies. It’s violent, but those who use it with honor are rewarded. The

It’s science fiction focusing on a long family line of warriors known as the “meta barons.” They’re the ultimate fighters a creed of supreme fighters and defenders of the galaxy. We see the beginning of the line to the most recent metabaron, the title passed from father-to-son for hundreds of years. The title passes down through purposeful mutilation of the body that culminates with final combat between father and son. There can only be one metabaron at a given time and the son must be able to take the title from his father.

Though it was published in by the French press Les Humanoids (the original publisher of Metal Hurlant, or as we know it, Heavy Metal), the work is by the Chilean writer Alejandro Jodorowsky and Argentinian artist Juan Giménez. It looks and smells French. The influence of Jean Giraud is all over this. It’s weird and sensual at the same time. The color is soft and reminds me of Milos Manara’s watercolor-reminscent work. Giménez’s exotic creatures, strange races and wildly sadistic weaponry are ripped from late-60′s pop-romantic-science fiction.

Now, it’s not perfect. It can be silly with the nonsensical technical jargon (and this can be the fault of the translation, I’ll never know) and the Laurel and Hardy robot narrators are tiresome after a while as Jodorowsky tries too hard to give them things to do outside of their narrative role. The title also wears it’s influences on it’s sleeves. It does so proudly, but those elements of the pastiche that it copies have for so long been mined, they produce little real excitement. Jodorowsky can make some old tropes shine (Melmouth’s “Poet Warror” is well-played) but others (the Technopopes and the Shabda-Oud are ripped wholly from Dune) suffer from having been seen far too often.

The strength of The Metabarons lies in two things: the scale and rhythm of the saga and those moments where Jorodowsky does something truly new (most of this comes during the Metabaron Steelhead’s reign).

Last year, Devil’s Due Press partnered with Les Humanoids after the French publisher’s deal with DC Comics expired. According to Publisher’s Weekly, they plan to start with the work done by previously established American artists John Cassady (the truly excellent I Am Legion) and Guy Davis (The Zombies That Ate the World), but do hope to get to the other European titles. Stephen Christy, manager of IP development for Devil’s Due, says he has a two-year contract for 15 titles. One goal is to finish reprinting the Metabarons saga, although whether to start from the beginning or start with previously untranslated material is yet to be decided.

As I see that the final part of the series, Final Incal, is done by Jose Ladronn (and also on Devil’s Due’s schedule), I hope they get started sooner rather than later. The twelve-year-old in me can’t wait forever.

It’s hard to say why, but I’m fascinated with The Movie Title Stills Collection.

The Unbearable Awesomeness of Brynner

Should I ever be faced with the bizarre challenge of having to choose only one cable channel to watch for the rest of my life– Turner Classic Movies is it. This summer, they’re doing their annual “Summer of the Stars” and, to celebrate, they did modern updates of classic movie posters. Some are, eh, but others are as glorious as the above image for The Magnificent Seven.

The “To Catch a Thief” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” are my faves, but the others are all worth an appreciative look-see.

Now that I have a readership (all lovely two of you), I don’t know, I suppose I’m interested in maintaining this weblog again. It was only mean to serve as an electronic and, thereby, semi-permanent version of my falling-apart little black idea book. I only ever plan to use it as such, but I’m ravenous for Who-stuff again and trying to figure out why. I figure W will have an idea of what I’m thinking since we’ve the same shared Who-history. E, coming at this fresh, will have a better idea of why this silly little television show means so much to me if I do some out-loud thinking.

The other night, E and I let a History Channel faux-docu about Star Trek run in the background. I love Trek, I do, but I took slight affront to Armin Shimmerman (or maybe it was Takei– doesn’t matter) claiming that no other show had gone 40 years this present summer. Granted, Trek has a global fan-base and a far larger merchandise catalog, but the BBC put out a little show-that-could called Doctor Who 45 years ago and without the twenty-year gap in television production that Trek suffered.

Doctor Who has been treated by the BBC as a children’s show since its inception (there’s something special about a country when as intelligent a show as Who can be thought of as toddler fodder) and its writing, science and special effects are very much in line with that. Strangely enough, though, Who is the number one adult show on the BBC flagship channel with millions tuning in every week. Grown men such as myself and W continue to care about the characters years despite our introduction to them as children and we reminisce about our favorite episodes with the clarity of our own past birthdays. And merchandise? Doctor Who has long been first in the British heart and wallet.

If pressed, I’d have to say that my favorite thing about The Doctor (as he’s referred to throughout the show) is not his unwavering dedication to humanity, but his intelligence. He’s not one for weapons, using his charm and intellect to outmaneuver his opponents at every turn. One favorite memory of The Doctor has an artificially aged-Doctor knock a captor unconscious by showing him a written mathematical equation. Is it funny? You bet. But it wasn’t played for laughs. This character’s brain is so deadly that it’s often far more effective than any judo chop (not to say I don’t love the Kirk’s vast judo repertoire) could ever hope to be. The Doctor had an incredible impact on me as a young boy. Brain = Awesome.

He’s also the most vocal proponent of Humanity’s greatest trait: our insatiable need for knowledge and our complete disregard for danger in order to cross the next horizon. Despite his personality, whether he begrudgingly admires us as Colin Baker was wont to do or “whiz-bang!” as David Tennant can be, he admires what I admire most in people. I don’t doubt that he’s why I admire it, too. He’s a wicked critic of our species, too, as disappointed in us as he is impressed but I’m getting off track (not to mention making him out a little more Christ-like than I’m comfortable with). He’s a literal and metaphorical “doctor.” It is his role, his function in the universe. In the way that some people are Artists or Explorers or Leaders, he is a Doctor.

So, ’round about 1991, after a series of catastrophic budget cuts and an insufferable actor playing the role (for E: one of the genius gimmicks of the show is that The Doctor has the ability to regenerate his physical form after great injury, allowing a new actor to step into the role whenever needed. Because of the trauma of the process, The Doctor’s personality shifts as well, allowing for an evolving dynamic between he and his friends and enemies), Doctor Who was canceled. Three years ago, the series was renewed, continuing to build on the previously established canon. While excited that one of my favorite television programs had returned, I was very disappointed with the product. What was scary and exciting as a child, only now seemed predictable and safe. Christopher Eccleston was an excellent Doctor, but the writing was… blech. I assumed that I was looking back on my memories of The Doctor more fondly than they deserved (as I’ve come to discover with GI Joe, Transformers and the Spider Friends) but decided to stick with it anyway; enjoy what I could and ignore the rest. And so the first two seasons went. A new actor, the previously mentioned David Tennant, stepped into the role, but the show never seemed to improve or make that step back to the quality that I remembered the previous series having.

Until the third new season. After dumping companion Billie Piper (E: most of the time, The Doctor, in order to stave off the loneliness of being first a renegade and now the last of his kind, travels with a companion, sometimes human, sometimes not), Freema Agyeman came aboard, providing a pleasant change from Piper’s blonde, starry-eyed gooeyness. Note: despite numerous attempts otherwise, The Doctor is no good at romance. While pleasant, Freeman’s first episode was uninspired. The second, a trip to meet Shakespeare and to offer an explanation for a missing play Loves Labours Won (no fiction here, this is a legit mystery) was equally weak. The third episode, however, titled “Gridlock”, was the first step to this series’ salvation. Agyeman is gone, now, however, simply because she wasn’t Piper. And so the same was for poor Catherine Tate.

Now, it’s understandably difficult to write dangerous situations for a character as smart as The Doctor, situations that seem truly dire, but not impossible. Seventy years of Superman comics is proof positive of that. The mystery of this episode was a capital-M mystery. Many episodes these past two years have been a repeating pattern of evil makes it self known, Doctor knows exactly what’s going on and how to fix it, and the tension is instead whether or not he can do so in time. Fortunately, that’s not what makes this guy so appealing. Of course he’ll fix it in time. The mystery is the matter: how dangerous, how interesting, how hard to solve. Since the third episode, I feel like I’m solving the problem WITH The Doctor rather than he acting as a Deus Ex Machina for his own stories and stealing away any real sense of discovery his audience might experience. And more than that… despite being 900+ years old in the body of a thirty-year-old, he’s starting to feel the wear of his existence and of this unspoken role as Doctor for the universe. He’s lonely and the companions now seem more important than ever. Excellent episodes this season have dug into the pain that he carries being so old and traveled and suddenly the last of his race. Mystery is the only thing he has left. Tennant has done with the Doctor that no one since Peter Davison has been able to do: make me thankful for him, while making me feel guilty for needing him.

(I know that by not describing some of the episodes that really hit home, I’m making it more difficult to explain what I like and what I don’t like, but I’ve W’s own sense of mystery to consider.)

So now Tennant is gone, soon to be replaced by Matt Smith (an awful American-sounding name for what’s a very British character) and I’ll miss the hell out of him. There’s rumor that he’ll play the Doctor in a legitimate big-budget movie, however. I hope so. If anyone can bring new fans in its Tennant’s extraordinarily charming take on the character.

Lately, I’m less interested in realist fiction because there seems little mystery in it anymore. The only thing left is how people will react to how the world is rather than how the world can be. It’s become a sad repetition of emotional patterns. I need the fantastic at this point in my life because I need that mystery, I need to be forced to remember what potential is in fiction, what strange shit that I can just throw in because it interests me. While I should certainly limit myself to true, genuine reactions for my characters to have in the light of these worlds, I should not limit myself to the types of worlds they can react to.

But I also just love Doctor Who again, which I was afraid I was no longer capable of doing.

PS. He’s on a great number of occasions, saved the world while in his jimjams.

The Night Train story “Lately” was posted here a few days ago and my “Three Dances” piece was just picked up by Pindeldyboz. You can read it now. I like how the address reads “jhdances.”

So, anybody reading this knows of my deep and abiding love for movies. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as Turner Classic Movies, so the education that I did have came from either early mom-and-pop video stores or the local Fox affiliate. Back then, Fox wasn’t the major broadcaster it is today and could barely program three full nights of television, let alone fill up a Saturday or Sunday. Those local stations turned to cheap filler instead and it was this way that I came to see the classic movies and television that my parents grew up on. Between being versed in the history of the Shaolin fighting monks, the Bradys and learning what Star Trek “canon” meant, I also became immersed in classic movies and began to learn who directors were and what they did.

Now, Saul Bass never directed a feature film, but he’s as important to movie history as the movies he did work on. My lovely wife, E, has recently begun to see the art in trailer-cutting. I would posit to her and any others that the opening credits sequence can be equally inspiring and is necessary to setting the mood of a film. Remember the reverse credits at the end of Seven? Or the opening to the recent Dawn of the Dead remake? Hell, or most HBO shows?

I don’t have much to say here that this site doesn’t say more eloquently than I could.

Bass also designed several of pop-culture’s most memorable movie posters. These three are a small sampling: