Wow! Does she really think she can win the Presidential Election in 2012? Or does she have some more suspicious reason for resigning? Sex scandal, maybe? I mean, why not! Everyone else is doing it…

Either way, I have to say that I’m surprised that Palin is stepping down by the end of July. But I’m not too surprised that I can’t take a moment for a bit of shameless self-promotion.

In honor of Palin’s big move, I suggest you take a few moments and read through all eleven installments of Zombie Palin, a webcomic by Pete and I that ran in late 2008 wherein Vice President Sarah Palin rises to the top spot as leader of the free world when zombies attack the White House and kill President McCain.

I may not know much about plastic surgery, but I can’t imagine it’s something you go into casually without an endgame in mind. Mikey must of had some sort image of what he wanted to look like after all that surgery was done.

Unfortunately, we may never know exactly what MJ’s goal was with all those disturbing facial modifications, but here are my best nine guesses.

9. Superman. Okay, so MJ missed the mark if he was going for a Clark Kent vibe. But you have to admit that the chin implant is very superhero-esque. And when I think of superheroes with a strong chin line, first and foremost I think of Supes. Still, like I said, Michael Jackson wasn’t THAT reminiscent of the Man of Steel. If he was going for a DC Comics hero, he was probably aiming more towards…

8. Wonder Woman. This super Amazon is far more in line with MJ’s final appearance than the guardian of Metropolis. Jacko was obviously going for a feminine look, so maybe he took some cues from Diana of Themyscira (though, upon further scrutiny, MJ looked more like an old school Jack Kirby drawing than any DC superheroine). At the end of the day, whether aiming for Wonder Woman or not, Michael Jackson ended up looking like a…

7. Nightmare. Literally. We all know that Michael Jackson preferred Marvel Comics. And who better to take inspiration from than one of the greats: Steve Ditko. When my friend said MJ looked like a nightmare, I automatically added a capital N on the front. BTW, do me a favor and remember this entry for later on in the list, okay? Anyway, back to the current section of the countdown. MJ, after all was said and done, was far too put together to be going for a Nightmare look. In fact, I would say his desires were more along the lines of…

6. Betty Page. Seriously. With those lips and that silky black hair, MJ was totally going for a high-contrast pinup lady look. Ms. Page was, of course, the most notorious of the black and white pinups. Who better to emulate, right? Well, if Mikey was trying to look like Betty Page, unfortunately he ended up more like…

5. Elizabeth Taylor. Anyone else out there ever find it ironic that Michael Jackson was not only close friends with Elizabeth Taylor but also slowly turning into her? For what it’s worth, I thought about this even as a kid. And while this classic Hollywood starlet certainly inspired millions, I think it’s safe to say that Micheal’s eventual appearance seemed to be inspired a bit more by…

4. Cher. And I’m not talking 1970s Cher. I’m talking modern Cher, like Cher from the Believe video. Even if MJ was trying to look like Cher, he was aiming for the next octave up with his voice. Take that, Cher! When it came to looking like women, you two were tied. But when it came to sounding like women, well, Mikey had you beat there. But don’t fret Cher – at the end of the day, Mike wasn’t your doppelganger. He always reminded me more of…

3. Elvira. You know, the original sexy goth chick. We’ll never know if MJ really wanted to look like Elvira, but visual evidence certainly points in this direction. Hell, maybe he was just jealous and wanted to get the Tom Jones treatment too. But while Elvira always rocked a feathered fashion mullet, Michael appeared to prefer flowing black locks a bit closer to those of…

2. Snow White. The pale skin. The jet black hair. The big red lips. That whole song about talking to a mirror. His love for poisoned apples. Okay, that last one I made up. But the first three all are bonafide facts! Snow White is a pretty huge icon, just like Mike. Maybe he was trying to take the whole iconic thing to the next level. If that’s what his aim was, he was a bit off. Instead of capturing the pale countenance of Snow White, Michael Jackson ended up with the same complexion as…

1. Morbius, the Living Vampire. Not only did MJ have the complexion, he also had the miniature nose and the same exaggerated facial shape as Marvel’s resident anti-hero vampire. Remember when I told you to remember #7? Here’s the payoff: when I told my friend about the Nightmare reference, he agreed but felt that MJ resembled Morbius to a greater degree. And he’s right. The whole Michael Jackson look was very “Living Vampire.” And here’s some visual evidence:

More: The Top 9 Least Intimidating Supervillains

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

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Dear Hot 97,

As a recently returned New England-expat, I was very excited to listen to Hot 97 in my car again. I remember how you brought the heat, musically speaking, and kept me up to date on hiphop. Without a doubt, Hot 97 was the only radio station qualified to serenade my ears. Hot 97 was a shining oasis in a sea of Prophet,  Clear Channel, and short playlists.

You may notice my use of the past tense above; it is intentional. The Hot 97 of today, is rather different from the one I used to listen too in high school and during college breaks. Apparently today’s playlist was a unending loop of 3 Drake/Young Money tracks (Best I Ever Had, Every Girl, Successful, and now That One w/ MJB). For every six times I heard Drake, I heard maybe one JayZ (D.O.A), Wale (Chillin), or even Kid Cudi (Day and Night – the techno remix no less) track. (ed note: for those of you regular readers, you may notice some similarity to/overlap with this week’s Culturology. I can assure you that I drafted this at least a week before Pete last logged into WordPress)

Now, I understand Drizzy and anyone even remotely affiliated with Lil Wayne is a hot commodity these days. I also know that you have to give the people what they want. I’ve even begun to accept the rapid decline of hiphop thanks to youngsters like Soulja Boy and ignorant fools like Shawty Lo. I get all that. I know that radio has a lot to do with money.

But when did you allow jackass Weezy et al to outright buy your playlist? Last I checked, blatant over the counter payola was illegal. And, how on EARTH is Fab’s Throw It In The Bag track your #1 on the midday countdown? Clearly the streets are not being represented. Anyone with even half  a brain knows that the last track Fab did with any semblance of ‘heatrock’ness was Breathe. Additionally, does Miss Info provide anything that her blog does not? I don’t want to hear celebrity news during my midday forays into the city, all I want is hiphop! And another thing, how about a little old school RnB in the morning – give the kids a little taste of where some of these killer samples came from. I don’t mean the 90’s, I mean Chaka Khan’s Through The Fire and Robert Flack’s Killing Me Softly. There is (was?) an independent station in Rochester (whose name I don’t recall since it’s been 5 years) that does this amazingly well. Seriously, drive your asses to Rochester for some dope ass radio.

Obviously, I can get my musical fix via alternate methods, but I maintain that radio is the purest form of in-car entertainment. Additionally, my iPod was stolen the week and my car can’t handle XM, so throw me a frickin’ bone here. Moreover, I want to like Hot 97, it has a storied history of world premiers and exclusives. I value that and good programming. As they say, variety is the spice of the life. So let’s put the heat back in Hot 97!

Sincerely,

Neal – AudioShocker.com

Granted, radio is hardly relevant beyond one’s car, what with the internet and all. But you get what I’m trying to say right? On another note, I’ll be out of blog range until the 21st. Peace!

Shove the AudioShocker podcast RSS feed into your favorite RSS reader. Review the AudioShocker on iTunes. Call the AudioShocker Comment Line at 412-567-7606 or have our comment line call you.

Shove the AudioShocker podcast RSS feed into your favorite RSS reader. Review the AudioShocker on iTunes. Call the AudioShocker Comment Line at 412-567-7606 or have our comment line call you.

I wouldn’t say so at the time–it’s entertaining enough, and I like talking about music, etc, don’t get me wrong–but there’s something inane about the iPod listening-conversation game. (And it should also be mentioned that this particular iPod behavioral pattern is still way better than the let’s-constantly-tweak-the-playlist-and-fuck-around-so-we-never-even-hear-a-complete-song game. This particular play list was all hip-hop, which is fine too, and brought up the usual kind of conversations about hip-hop that you’d expect a bunch of 25-35 year old white graduate students to have:

+ Does Jay-Z suck or not? (Jay-Z does not suck; he was probably the last rapper to get famous based on his being a great rapper, as opposed to other, more malevolent forces in the universe. Also, Jay-Z is a better rapper than common.)

+ What MF Doom album is the best? Does it belong in the pantheon of great rap albums of all time? (Operation Doomsday, yes, yes it does.)

+ Def Jux? (Fuck no.)

+ Is it time yet for ’90s nostalgia? (This split the group more decisively, with the under-30s leaning away from it and the over-30s embracing it. Further evidence of the strange demographic no-man’s land of being 26-29 years old. Though, and this is outside of hip-hop, obviously, I have been having a strange tendency to feel like listening to Mogwai and Low and Dirty Three, etc. recently, which could be considered a kind of 90s nostalgia in its own right.)

+ Oh man, is this [insert next track on iPod playlist] track fresh or what? (Yes, it’s fresh.)

and so on and so forth.

Again, I can’t really get all that worked about such a thing. Surely the random play list thing solves many of the modern party-givers life’s problems. And maybe it’s just a fault I have to get so self-conscious about such activities. And DJ-ing, as a notion, at least in clubs and music venues is still alive and well (despire the iPodification of contemporary radio (ClearChannel radio being basically iPod shuffles of the seven most-payolaed songs of the week). And I’m sure I’ve still got a few random CDs at the bottom of a box somewhere that say something obnoxious like “Party Mix” (’cause you know, I was always hosting those bomb-ass music parties, back in my day), which is only one step better. In this context, perhaps the best thing about being the age that I am is that I am just barely old enough to have made mix tapes (several of which I still have), and to have that tape-making culture backed up by having bought actual tapes of music at the music store. Those mix-tapes were just that much more carefully made than mix CDs, which are still better than random play list shuffles.

Though, I do wonder if I’m just being a curmudgeon and an unabashed atavist. One can pretty much pick any period of time and find huge swaths of the extant culture complaining about whatever the newest media technology was (except for maybe movable type, since it promoted a level of propaganda theretofore unavailable to the theocracies of that time). I’d like to think of myself as modern, and forward-thinking, but dagnabbit why do I feel like such and old man about this stuff?

Culturology Summer of Booklove Bookclub #3: Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth

This is moved up a week, as per Neal’s request, so hopefully you’ve all had time to read it by now. I’m expecting big things from Neal on this one too, comments-wise. It read pretty fast for me. A good-enough, if somewhat familiar, narrative, paired with the usual werewolf’s-eye-view of what it’s like to be a werewolf. And it claims to be an epic poem in free verse, which provides the central gimmick of the book (yes, its a gimmick–I was not at all surprised to read in the author’s bio blurb that he works in advertising; I agree that the concept of an epic poem about werewolves in Los Angeles is completely awesome).

But the book is not a poem. Just because you take your prose and chop it up into lines that look more or less like contemporary international free verse does not mean that suddenly you’ve written a poem. Any one who reads poetry regularly (as I do), will recognize the not-a-poemness of Sharp Teeth, the main characteristic of which is a general lack of concern for the line, and how it might work as a structural, especially sonic unit. It seems that Barlow’s main concern in chopping up his sentences into poem-looking lines was to make it clear that it isn’t prose.

It does work occasionally though, in terms of using the line to control the pacing in rapid-fire sequences or to rattle off quick lists of various things. But when it doesn’t work, the passages clunk around (perhaps only from a poetic perspective; the average reader might not notice the clunkiness if they’re not more used to reading refined verse) and the language gets boggy, boring and plain and not even the not-prose layout can’t save it. Which is too bad, because most of my disagreement with the book is at this poetic level; I thought the characters and the story were fine, and its plotted well enough (if straightforwardly). There is a level of paranoia and conspiracy that is alluded to but never fully paid off, which is also a disappointment, but if I imagine a “general” reader who doesn’t know anything about poetry–and most people everywhere (except maybe in Ireland) know very little about poetry–enjoying this book quite a bit. It does verge a bit on becoming a Young Adult novel as well, but that probably comes with the territory with a book about how good it feels to become part of a pack.

If you’ve read this and want to know what a real Novel in Verse is like, pick up Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red which is an absolutely amazing example of what a modern poet might do to craft herself an epic poem, or novel in verse.

(Culturology, and therefore the book club, will be taking a vacation for most of July, so there aren’t any more advance-warning deadlines for books until Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road to be read by the first Monday of August.)

Captain America gets reborn by Joe Quesada

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The Marvel vs. Capcom series has a great wealth of fighters. But from the beginning, I’ve only had one favorite: Steve Rogers, Captain America. I’ve been playing as Cap at the arcade and at home for as long as I can remember. He never lets me down.

Cap is coming back. In fact, Reborn #1 hits shelves this Wednesday and that’s why we’re gracing you with this awesome Joe Quesada, Danny Miki, and Richard Isanove variant cover. From what I understand, this cover won’t be available for a few more weeks. But here’s a little taste to get you pumped for the Reborn reprint, I suppose!

Thanks to Comic Book Resources and their new Cup O’ Joe feature for the image. Be back here next Monday for a brand new Iron Man Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

8. Bob Bogle. I’m sure most of you aren’t familiar with him, but Bob Bogle has been one of my guitar heroes for as long as I can remember. He was a founder of The Ventures, the world’s greatest instrumental rock band.

7. Natasha Richardson. Speaking of not being familiar, I don’t think I’ve seen any of Natasha’s films. Unfortunately, thanks to the way news media works in this country, I’m very familiar with her death.

6. Mike Tyson’s daughter. Exodus Tyson was strangled by a loose cord hanging down from a treadmill. Very sad.

5. Autotune. Killed by Jay-Z. Autotune’s death has been hitting the pop music world pretty hard, especially T-Pain.

4. Ed McMahon. Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show sideman. Star Search host. Publishers Clearing House home sabotage ringleader and over-sized check presenter. Damn, Ed did a lot of stuff.

3. Farah Fawcett. Charlie’s most famous Angel died after a very public fight with cancer.

2. David Carradine. Kill Bill died an awful, kinky death. It’s true that Carradine was into some weird shit, but it looks like he was able to keep most of it under the radar until his untimely passing in a Bangkok hotel room. At first it looked like suicide and/or solo sex play gone wrong, but now it seems like foul play.

1. Michael Jackson. Mikey was the man. A weird man, yes… but THE MAN nonetheless. It’ll be interesting to see what the public deems his legacy to be over the course of the next couple decades.

[Thanks to Neal for inspiring this week's theme and helping put together the list.]

More: The Top 9 Currently Dead Superheroes and Supervillains

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Or not. I only got about 10 minutes into The Brown Bunny before someone asked me to do something and I got sidetracked, but as I recall, Chloe Sevigny gives him a hummer onscreen. And the general media was mortified. I don’t know what went wrong, perhaps it was one hit wonderdom, or maybe homeboy should stick to being a rocker. I’m not sure, but I know homeboy has another good movie in him.

Buffalo 66 took a while to get started but it built to a great ending. Today’s loser/slacker comedies are heavy on slapstick and breakneck pacing: Airplane! to the extreme. Perhaps another Gallo film would help us remember how great it is to have a beat in between laughs. The world isn’t some witty Xkcd panel or an episode of The Office. Not everything has to be mile a minute laughs.

Anyway, just thought I’d share that.

Thanks to Seth Fronzoli for helping me give Destruct-O-Tron his name. Thanks to Neal for co-writing and performing the Super Haters theme song with me (you can listen to the theme song below!).

The elevator opens up and bam – a freaking dog. no leash, no shame, just a big old fatass dog. To his left, hot babe, and to his right, some dude in sunglasses slanking against the glass. Tight squeeze, but we all shuffle in. I’m bored so I just stare straight ahead while homie cracks jokes about being unable to control the dog.

My sister took an actual picture and all, but it's from the back, poorly lit, etc.

Ground floor. Dog and handlers leave while my fam and I stroll out. My sister waits a beat, then whips around and says, “do you know who what was?!” me: “no?” “that was definitely John Legend!!” The doorman confirms, but I’m still skeptical. We creep outside so big sis can have her starstruck moment and witness an unfettered poochface and his model mommy un into traffic and nearly get creamed. Convincing? Almost. Few people other than famous / rich people allow their pets to run free all over a major city like NYC. Then, I spy the most damning of proof: his air-freaking-yeezies. If that isn’t proof positive of celebrity and thus identity – well, I’m not sure what is.

Anyway. I’m not a big fan of Legend’s music, but celebsightings are always neat. I beleive he is playing at Foxwoods or the other CT Casino in August with India.Arie.

Maybe it’s an age thing, once again. I’m in the closing months of my mid-20s, soon to be embarking on my late-20s, and more and more I find this to be an awkward age. I probably sit at about the median age of my social circles, but that means that a fair number of people that I see socially on a regular basis are already in their 30s (mostly in their early-30s, but a few are in their mid-30s). I bring this up because of a certain logic that seems to exist in comedy movies, that movies about high school are written for a pre-teen audience (though the raunchy subset of high school movies finds a broader audience, I suppose), movies about college for a high school audience, movies about twentysomethings capering about (Saving Silverman, maybe?) for college students, and movies about thirtysomethings written for twentysomethings. So, by only several minutes into The Hangover, I found myself thinking “wow! I can’t wait ’til I’m in my mid-to-late thirties!”.

If this age-based thing seems too general, or off base, it’s also further complicated by The Hangover’s simultaneous existence as a caper comedy and as a Vegas movie at the same time. It may well, in fact, just be the fact that it takes place in Las Vegas that this movie is successful at all (how could a combination of Dude, Where’s My Car? and Very Bad Things succeed otherwise?). Given that some many of its jokes seem so familiar, the thing won’t age well, but then again, that’s not really the point, I suppose. Comedy-for-the-ages is a different beast than comedies-that-make-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars (or even of less immoderate success). Take, for instance, Something About Mary and Kingpin, from all the way back in the ’90s: Mary seemed like the ground-breaking movie at the time, as the culmination of the ’90s gross-out movement, and made more money (I’d imagine), but Kingpin was the movie built to last–Bill Murray’s comb-over alone will maintain this movie for centuries to come (not to mention possibly the best groin-hit (between Harrelson and the two baddies) of all time). I could rattle off a massive list of classic comedies but there’s no real point to it; I’m fairly confidant that the trends would point to aspects of quality rather than quantity of viewers.

Crank 2 was way funnier than The Hangover. Very different types of movies, admittedly, but the comparison can be made since The Hangover definitely went for the still-new “this is awesome” model of movie-making. Except that very little of its concepts were particularly awesome, and the thing was quite slackly-paced. The pacing issue probably has to do with it being a Vegas movie, where the director, one assumes, is compelled to lovingly film all those beautiful hotel rooms and hallways and scenic vistas blah blah blah. As usual, with popular things like this, part of me hopes that it leads some minority of its viewers towards actually good things, but that probably isn’t the case with this. Giggle! “So many crazy things happen in Las Vegas OMG!”

The only other point I want to bring up, dealing again with this movie’s placement in the canon of all comedies ever, has to do with Zach Galifinakis’s role. Dude’s been doing the awkward-comic thing for a while now, to decent effect (anyone else remember his turn in Out Cold? I sure do). Owes something to Andy Kaufmann, I’d assume. And he does pretty well steal most of the scenes he’s in–though, that’s not much of a feat when you’re competing against Ed Helms and some other douchebag. But awkward comedy is easy, especially for a mainstream audience, since it would seem much newer to them. Why? Because comedy is all about timing (for the best-timed joke in the history of movies, see the “It’s Enrico Pallazzo!” gag from the first Naked Gun movie), and awkward comedy is based in disrupting that timing. I can’t think of many things that I appreciate more than a well-timed joke (there were a couple decently timed gags in The Hangover but not many), and this can also appreciate blatant disregard for anti-timing, but in a movie where things more or less just move forward and jokes come and go, the awkward thing gets really boring.

And I guess that’s why I tried to warn myself off of writing about this movie, since it was doomed to boil down to “popular movies are boring,” which, while true, also leads to the similar aphorism that “elitists are annoying.”

Pete Can’t Believe He Hasn’t Read This By Now #4: William Faulkner’s Sartoris

I’m not sure by what this book should be hailed. It’s Faulkner’s third novel, and the first dealing with Yoknapatawpha County and its residents, but not first “major” novel overstates the case. The thing definitely shows signs of Faulkner having not quite his stride as a serious writer. But, given that it’s the first of the whole spate of amazing novels that defined and developed Faulkner’s primary literary universe, it’s an important work. I don’t know why I hadn’t read it by now; I guess because it isn’t as good as the sequence of amazing novels that followed it. In that regard, I tended to think of it as his first novel as I read it. Similar to reading Kundera’s The Joke last week, I’ve found it quite rewarding to go back and read the earliest novel of a writer whose later works I enjoy quite a bit.

Pretty much every summer, going back to my sophomore year of college, I’ve gotten this urge to read Faulkner. Something about the humidity maybe, draws me towards his descriptions of Mississippi. So it was only a matter of time before I got around to reading Sartoris. Reading one or two Faulkner novels a summer for eight summers in a row gets you there eventually. The plotting (really, the lack of plotting) in Sartoris once again matched the pace of my summer to this point, moving slowly, with not all that much happening. Given the amount of story that followed this book, though, its not surprising that its 300 pages take such a broad view and move so slowly, since Faulkner, here, is already trying to build so much of his imaginary world.

It’s interesting to me as well that, reading it after so many of the other Yoknapatawpha novels, this book didn’t feel like a “prequel” at all–that has something to do with the timelessness of Faulkner’s story-telling, and the sort of shifts in time that take place in those other works. Given that, what makes it seem earlier is really in the craft.

Particularly disconcerting is Faulkner’s treatment of African-American characters, often resorting unnecessarily to broad-strokes and racist stereotypes (an issue that he had corrected (at least to some extent) in his later works). I think most of us white middle-class readers are taught how to deal with this sort of stereotype-laden writing in Junior High, when we read Mark Twain, and are taught to ignore the “n-word” and consider it part of the social tapestry or whatever. But that’s not really satisfactory. Produces a lot of white liberal awkwardness, if nothing else. What’s strange here is that many of the black characters are well-developed, embark upon sub-plots and are treated fairly and humanely. Faulkner resorts to stereotype mostly in the background; in sentences that were either never written or edited out of later novels, or at the very least presented more complicatedly. Writing the novels about the South, especially during a timespan between the Civil War and The Great Depression, from the perspective that he had, Faulkner’s racism–or the racism in his characters–is generally present in all his works, but complicatedly so; in Sartoris its not complicated at all, but at least the reader can take to heart that it eventually will be (if never completely satisfyingly so).

For July 6th: Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth

Ye olde fist of War Machine is coming at cha, baby!

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Obviously I have some sort of weird addiction to War Machine. He’s in about 50% of all the Hyper Combo Wallpapers I’ve ever published. And my love for Marvel vs. Capcom certainly doesn’t diminish my infatuation with War Machine whatsoever.

While browsing the Internet for more hi-res Rhodey art, I stumbled upon an early Dan Slott issue – What If? #63: What if War Machine Had Not Destroyed the Living Laser? The art you see here is courtesy Manny Galan. I extracted the War Machine image from the cover, Photoshopped it at a high DPI using the cutout filter, and ended up with the excellent desktop wallpaper you see here.

Thanks to Demian’s Gamebook for the cover scan. Now go make sure that you get your ass back here next Monday for a new Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

More: War Machine Hyper Combo Wallpaper Archives!

But no, it’s just that simple. Steve Rogers is back. That’s what Reborn is all about. The “how” of his return is, I assume, the real shocker here.

I went to the comic shop on Monday evening, which turned out to be a great idea. Not necessarily great because of Captain America #600 (which is a good comic, by the way), but great because I got to hang with Phantom of the Attic’s Wayne Wise and the Comic Book Pitt’s Scott “The Duke.” On a normal Wednesday, it’s too busy to hang out and really talk. But on a slow Monday (which it was, despite the Monday release of Cap #600), I had all the time in the world to bullshit before I bought the comic and walked out the door.

So what about Cap’s return? He barely ever left, right? This could easily be called “Forever” instead of “Reborn”… except that I think the Reborn title has some literal significance here. Sharon Carter remembers shooting Steve with some sort of wide-mouth gun-shaped thing. To me, it looks like she took a tissue sample with it.

And then we see Sin, the Red Skull’s baby girl, in the jail infirmary. She’s restrained to her stretcher. But she also looks sort of pregnant, doesn’t she? Obviously there’s more to meets the eye because Crossbones won’t stop saying how people have no idea what really happened.

And then, of course, the Red Robot Skull sits around for a couple pages and soliloquizes about how loved the tension he had with Steve Rogers. He just couldn’t get enough of the back and forth fighting. He wanted to kill Cap, of course, but he was also exhilarated by the prospect of battling him constantly. I wonder if he just sits around all day and reminisces like this. The Red Skull has always been a nostalgia-deluded fool under Brubaker, hasn’t he?

Suffice to say that I was far more fascinated by the villains in Cap #600. Truthfully, I enjoyed the appearances by Falcon, Rikki, Patriot, and the other heroes. But the baddies were so much more compelling. Plus, the villains seemed to drop way more hints about the direction of Reborn.

We can all agree that there are plenty of video games that would make awesome movies. But I think it’s safe to say that some video games should never EVER let the lens tell their tale, including:

9. Dr. Mario. At first, I was going to give this slot to Circus Charlie, one of the few scrolling games that would have appeared on this list. But then I remembered my Dr. Mario addiction that I suffered from earlier in this decade – I was so hooked on playing this game that I had to literally go cold turkey. I haven’t played a single second of Dr. Mario since that time. The addictive properties of this game may compel some hapless producer out there to try and develop a movie, but I guarantee you that it would be pure crap, through and through.

8. Anticipation. This has got to be the least popular game on this list, which means that many of you have probably never played it. Good for you. This game was the torture of my NES-playing childhood. It’s like a game show or board game adapted to the Nintendo Entertainment System… and it blows. While most of the other games on this list are at least fun to play, this one is painful. Basically, the movie potential for Anticipation is non-existent and the game play is awful.

7. Arkanoid. I must confess that, on some my more bizarre days, I’ve attempted to conjure up a coherent narrative around Arkanoid’s premise: controlling the last vestige of the mothership Arkanoid, you are the spaceship know as Vaus, which hits a silver sphere around until things break apart (namely, your enemy named Doh). While I love the insane premise that Arkanoid is more than a glorified Pong paddle slapping a little ball back and forth, I would never allow my love of Arkanoid delude me into thinking that it would make for a great film. I suggest that Hollywood movie producers follow my lead and let this concept stay relegated to video games.

6. Marble Madness. I know that this was generally accepted as a good game back in the day, but I always hated it as a kid. And now it’s one of the few classic popular video games that I haven’t played as an adult. While I’m sure that (at some point in the late 1980s) it crossed the minds of a few film producers, Marble Madness has never been developed into a feature film. I think that was for the best, don’t you?

5. Bejeweled. Like Solitaire, Bejeweled is a PC gaming phenomena. At one point in my life, I even thought that it was a fun game. I may have been wrong about the quality of its game play, but I know that I’m right about Bejeweled’s blockbuster film potential – it doesn’t exist… at all.

4. Duck Hunt. It’s classic, I’ll give it that. And maybe this Nintendo game, that came famously bundled with Super Mario Bros., would be perfect for a digital short ala Saturday Night Live. I’ll give it that as well. But anything beyond that would completely suck.

3. Solitaire. Arguably the most popular video game in the world (because it comes pre-installed on nearly every single version of the Windows operating system), Solitaire is nothing more than a PC representation of the classic (and boring) card game of the same name. If somebody told me that Solitaire had been optioned and Zak Penn was attached to write the script, I wouldn’t be surprised. With that said, I’m a dude with an open mind… but this game would make for a totally shit movie.

2. Pong. It’s the original. But just because Pong launched a gaming revolution, that doesn’t mean it should attempt to launch a film revolution as well. The game consists of two paddles, either player or computer controlled, slapping a ball back and forth. It’s simple. And it’s great just the way it is. No movie adaptations, please.

1. Tetris. I’m sure that someone out there has attempted to make Tetris into a narrative film. I bet there are even spec scripts laying around somewhere in a Hollywood studio basement. And, not to be too harsh, but that’s exactly where those Tetris: The Movie scripts belong: buried somewhere deep below the Earth, never to emerge and influence a weak-minded film producer into following their lead.

More: The Top 9 Playable Marvel Characters in Capcom Fighting Games

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

I have officially retired the Spider-Man & Captain America webcomics series. That’s why you’re now seeing the above fill-in comic. Get your (b)ass back here next Thursday when I’ll debut a brand new (ORIGINAL!) webcomics series. If you want a special secret teaser as to the theme of my new webcomic, check out the Yamagato Industries Business Report when they air part three of the Pittsburgh Podcast Crossover.

I grew up on Chris Claremont’s writing. I’ve always loved his technique (honestly, I think the drama and the dense prose of his work is part of what makes it so much fun). He’s distilled his infamous Uncanny X-Men style down to its most engaging elements in X-Men Forever #1. If you’ve loved Claremont’s work in the past, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll love this first issue.

Some out there have been heavily hating on Claremont for the past decade. Personally, I’ve loved some of his most recent writing. Though New Exiles wasn’t my bag, I thought his latest run on Uncanny X-Men was just starting to pop with brilliance when he was shuffled off of the title (also, I think he suffered a heart attack around that time). While I found his collaboration with Alan Davis and Oliver Coipel to be decent, I found his work with Chris Bachalo and Billy Tan to be wonderful. Grey’s End was a chilling few issues that used a fascinating interpretation of the passage of time to tell a riveting tale. As for other recent work, I was also moved by CC’s issue of Excalibur that explored Nocturne’s frustration with her paralysis.

And while those comics were near and dear to my inner Claremont fan, they weren’t nearly as indulgent as X-Men Forever #1. When I say indulgent, I don’t mean it in a bad way. I mean indulgent like rich ice cream or expensive chocolate – indulgent like a delicious desert. Working with Tom Grummet, who’s been attached to Claremont for a couple of years now, seems to only deepen the indulgence. I’ve long been a fan of Grummet’s work and this issue may be some of his most enjoyable pencils to date.

All in all, this feels like a rebirth of the X-Men to me. Maybe I’m just too old school to properly move on from the glory days of John Byrne, Paul Smith, and John Romita, Jr. But I don’t care. X-Men Forever just feels right to me. Though I’ve vowed to shy away from as many $3.99 single issues as possible, I can’t deny myself Forever (get it?). I await issue #2 with bated breath.

My welcome home was just plain super. I woke up yesterday morning to find my front passenger window busted out, console/glovebox riffled, and iPod stolen. Have you ever cleaned up safety glass? It just crumbles in your hands, takes forever. It wasn’t even on the street, it was in my driveway! Add to this the whole corp card debacle and things are looking mighty shiny for the kid.

Oh, and while I was in Pittsburgh, I stupidly upgraded to WP 2.8. As a result, I lost the advanced navigation features on the blog (which Nick is actually pumped about). I got the blog working though. Then last night everything went pear shaped again, so I contacted dreamhost’s support and asked if we could downgrade to 2.7.1. Well, they did – by restoring a backup from like 7 months ago – not what I wanted. So after some downloading/web searchery/hackery/etc I was able to get the site working again. No thanks are necessary, just your everlasting gratitude. That is the last time I upgrade WP just because it tells me to.

But I ain’t whining. I’m going to Barcelona/Athens/Paris next month, and shortly thereafter will be moving to NYC. Things are actually pretty effin’ awesome.

The Pittsburgh Podcast Crossover listening order is:
Part 1 – AudioShocker Podcast #84
Part 2 – Comic Book Pitt Special #6
Part 3 – Yamagato Industries Business Report Annual #3 (scroll down!)

(As the subsequent parts are posted, links will be added to the listening order.)

As a brief update to last week’s discussion of Conan O’Brien’s new gig on The Tonight Show: my final night of TV watching (until I get around to purchasing a digital converter and I guess probably an antenna too) I went ahead and spent watching Conan O’Brien again, though my sense (and I’ve confirmed this with the few friends of mine that have also watched it) is that he’s definitely watered down his shtick for the earlier time slot—which is a shame since its still late at night. But, on said last night of watching TV (though the next night I did go over to a friend’s house to watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals on TV–a great game, with my hometown team coming out improbably victorious (enthusiasts and followers of this column will have already known that the biggest crack in the walls of my cultural-elitist firmament is my unabashed love of Pittsburgh sports)), Conan’s first guest was Norm MacDonald (here is the whole show on hulu, Norm’s the first guest), and it was the first genuinely funny thing on his show up to this point. Though, I’m a sucker for Norm MacDonald (many people are; he’s hilarious). I’m sure you’ll agree.

Really though, the funnier interview is a classic from Late Night with Conan O’Brien:

Also, further evidence of Norm MacDonald’s hilariousness include Screwed, Dirty Work, and his cameo appearances in The Animal (as a concerned member of the mob chasing Rob Schneider) and Deuce Bigalow, European Gigolo (as a Scottish gigolo). Also, his shtick on Comedy Central’s roast of Bob Sagat is totally classic.

Clearly, then, I’m not just suddenly jumping on the Norm MacDonald bandwagon. Sometime, way back in the ’90s, I saw one of his stand-up specials, and it was the funniest stand-up I’d seen until Dave Chappelle’s “Killing ‘Em Softly” special. The only other contemporary stand-up to generate as many laughs from me would be Mitch Hedberg.

I give further props to Conan, since it seems like, since Norm doesn’t really have anything going on, that he brought him on the show only because Norm is really funny. Way to go, Conan.

Pete Can’t Believe He Hasn’t Read This Before! #4: Milan Kundera’s The Joke

This is Kundera’s first book. Interesting because of its history of translation and retranslation (as documented in the “definitive version” which I just recently read). Interesting because Kundera is mostly an interesting writer. Why I never got around to reading it until now? I’m not sure.

To me, Kundera is one of those writers that I can’t help but like, even if it’s only because certain aspects of his books are so good that they overcome consistent annoying aspects. Which I suppose is why it was rewarding to go back and read his first book, to see where all this started from. One of his newer books, and probably my least favorite of the Kundera novels I’ve read, Identity, I didn’t like because it felt like the characters, rather than occupying any kind of “real” world–or straddling a line between a textual world and a real world (the way both Immortality, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being are successful)–they just felt like Kundera characters living in a Kundera world. Which is still okay, and I’m sure that Kundera enthusiasts may even like that more, since such a book plays into the cult of the author.

The Joke, then, though carrying certain Kundera-signifiers (its being in seven parts, the broad scope of cultural references contained therein, a certain focus on music, its unabashed political stance, etc), was still a bit simpler, and just worried about telling the story its telling; that is, it has no meta-fictional aspect, which becomes such an important part of Kundera’s later books. A pretty intense book, with a mostly despicable protagonist that the reader still feels impelled, if not to feel sorry for, than to forgive, since he’s seen as being a product of oppression; that he fails in his revenge is the crux of his presumed coming of age–if we take The Joke as a Bildungsroman for an oppressed humanity that has a forcibly extended adolescence.

The comparison, which is probably wildly off-base, that I always like to make is between Kundera and Tom Robbins. Partially to do with the way they interject their own knowledge into the fabric of their novels, and for the generally grand scope of their plots and the way that scope is balanced by an intense focus at the same time on small interpersonal relationships. I don’t know though; I don’t get too many chances to test out the analogy (which is odd to me, since it seems like if these authors are similar, its like that people that’ve read the one have read the other, but that’s not often the case–which maybe means that I’m wrong in comparing them (oh well)). Also, both authors are the type to kind of be read in phases; I haven’t read all of either of their complete works, but tend to pick up a book now and then at a used paperback store, enjoy it (more or less), then think to read more of it, but not for another year or whatever.

Summer of Booklove Bookclub Reminder: Next up is Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth for July 6th.

Red Hulk? No way! Only Capcom Hulks here!!!

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I love special characters. I especially love unlockable characters that retain a familiar element while introducing a new theme. Marvel vs. Capcom features Orange Hulk, who is basically a slightly faster and stronger version of the classic Jade Giant. He’s not the most ingenious special character… but still tons of fun.

An illustration by Ed McGuinness, this picture comes from the new Hulk series (which is getting turned back to the original series numbering any day now). In its unaltered form, this picture has Rulk on the left and Hulk on the right. I Photoshopped Rulk to be Orange Hulk and PRESTO!

This image… well, um, its origin is unknown to me. But I do know you should be back here next Monday for a brand new Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

Okay, not exactly like it was yesterday, but I still remember when those first few issues of X-Men came out. It was sweet.

I also remember finding hundreds of them strewn throughout backissue bins for the ensuing 18 or so years. Did Marvel Comics just overprint the issues or did people really wanted to forget X-Men #1-3 that bad?

Honestly, it doesn’t matter anymore. Wednesday brought us X-Men Forever #1, a sort of revisionist X-Men #4 if you will. And here are the Top 9 things that Chris Claremont didn’t write into X-Men Forever #1 (but he probably should have!):

9. Professor X renounces his mission of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants to pursue a career as a tranny stripper. Really, what’s more popular these days than strippers? If you ask T-Pain, the answer would be: “Nothing!” To top it off, Charlie could also be a closet transvestite. So would all this make him the first tranny stripper in a floating wheelchair? The world may never know. Way to drop the ball on this one, Claremont.

8. Kitty Pryde confesses that she’s in a sexual relationship with Lockheed. There’s nothing very shocking about being gay nowadays. Stories have been there, done that. So the only truly shocking sexual plot twist left is the admission of inter-species and/or bestiality love. Luckily, Kitty would admit both of those when she owns up to getting it on with her pet dragon from outer space.

7. Magneto uses his powers to give Colossus a face lift. While this isn’t truly shocking, it does make for a fascinating use of Magnetio’s metal-bending abilities. It would go down like this: Piotr turns to metal, Mags gives him a little surgical tweak to tighten up the cheeks and blend away those pesky laugh lines, and then it’s like Colossus is 10 years younger. Ahh, if only we could all be made out of metal… isn’t that right, Ashlee Simpson?

6. Cassandra Nova moves into the X-Mansion disguised as a sexy nurse. Chris Claremont, deciding to combine two character concepts into one, tells his version of the Cassandra Nova story. But his Cassie Nova is mashed up with Nurse Annie from Chuck Austen’s run on X-Men. Sexy Nurse Cassie begins a tumultuous relationship with Beast and decides that the new Sentinel invasion should feature furry mutant-killing robots in honor of her soon-to-be-deceased lover.

5. Professor X opens Xavier’s School for the Un-Gifted. Growing dissatisfied with his preoccupation with the elitist concept of “gifted,” Chuck decides to expand his mind and open his mansion doors to any and all interested students. Sooner than later, Xavier’s school becomes just like any other poorly managed public high school. Within three months, Polaris has to check every student on their way in to see if they’re carrying any guns or knives. (Hahahaha… it would be like Dangerous Minds starring Prof X! Get it? “Dangerous Minds”!!!)

4. Wolverine gets a Brazilian waxing. Yeah, he knows that the hair would only be gone for one night. But Logan has a secret date with Jean Grey and he’s got to make sure that he’s smooth like butter.

3. Sabretooth gets a Brazilian AND a manicure. Chasing after his mortal enemy, Victor Creed winds up inside the same beauty spa as Wolvie. Upon entering, he decides that his impending reunion date with Mystique would go a whole lot better if he was smoothed down and trimmed up. Imagine a great double page spread of Victor and Logan getting massages as they lay next to each other, giggling uncontrollably. That would be groundbreaking stuff right there.

2. Magneto uses his powers to give Colossus that extra length he’s been seeking. Inundated by spam emails telling him that his dong needs to be longer if he wants to get in with the ladies, Piotr asks his Asteroid M director to stretch his member out a little bit. Excited with the promising results, Colossus quickly returns to Earth to share the goods with Kitty, only to find that his “Katya” is doing the nasty with a small purple alien dragon.

1. Jean Grey gets caught cheating on Cyclops thanks to Joey Greco and Cheaters. It’s a dark night at the Salem Center harbor. Scott Summers meets up outside with Joey Greco after receiving a phone call that private investigators have finally gotten the evidence they need to prove that Jean Grey is in fact cheating on him with another mutant. Scott watches the small hand-held video player and cringes. He knows who Jean is cheating on him with – that goddamn Logan. Scott and the camera crew of Cheaters quickly head to Professor Xavier’s yacht, currently docked at Pier 4. Scott charges onto the boat and confronts the scandalous lovers on their secret date. After getting up in Wolvie’s face, Logan’s adamantium-laced fist connects with Scott’s jaw and sends Cyclops to the ground. Joey Greco picks up where Scott left off, confronting Wolvie about his infidelity with Jean. Pissed, Wolverine does what he does best and stabs Joey Greco in the gut. Two weeks later, Cyclops watches the episode on TV and promptly creates a profile on NoCheatersDate.com.

More: The Top 9 Greatest X-Men Pencilers of All Time

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Cap is a "the glass is half-full" type of guy.

But to give JRjr all the credit would be unfair to the other great artists on the book. Bob Wiack inked everything, and from what I can tell, he’s the best inker JRjr ever paired with. Well, that’s my opinion, at least.

And John Byrne was great, too. The guy wrote the damn thing and it’s a terrific story. Did Byrne write this story arc in Marvel-style or full script? Unfortunately, I’m not too familiar with the behind-the-scenes stuff that went on with Armor Wars II, so I have no idea what the answer is to that question.

The reason why I think this may have been a Marvel-style piece is because JRjr’s name is listed as the first credit in the book throughout the story arc. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any other serialized superhero book where that’s been done… unless the penciler was also the co-plotter. And with Marvel-style, the penciler becomes the de facto co-plotter.

(Speaking of “de facto,” that makes me think of Tom DeFalco. See this blog post for more.)

BUT back to Armor Wars II and on with my praise of the artists involved. Paul Becton’s colors were gorgeous. They had a slightly sloppy look here and there, which was actually an wonderful touch on top of JRjr’s occasionally sketchy work. Panels sans backgrounds became especially vibrant when Becton used a solid splash of bright color to fill up the blank space.

Last but not least is letterer Michael Heisler. Now I’m about 85% sure that Chris Eliopoulos did the final issue of Armor Wars II, but Heisler did the rest. Oddly, the issue with the strongest letters is missing a letterer credit (is it #264 or #265… maybe #263?). The letters in Armor Wars II are a bit more compact than most comics. This isn’t an overly wordy story, but the dialogue does get involved at times. Heisler did an expert job at making the letters interesting but never intrusive.

If you could read only one issue of Armor Wars II, read Iron Man #261. That comic book absolutely blew my mind. It’s told as two separated stories that complement each other. The stories never intersect, yet nearly every page is split right down the middle, with Iron Man up top and the Mandarin below. I would bet big money that this particular issue was a huge inspiration on a young Chris Bachalo.

It’s important to mention that the Armor Wars II label is a bit of a misnomer. There isn’t too much in the way of armored hijinks until the final two issues. Not that Tony’s armor isn’t important throughout the whole story – it’s just not the focal point necessarily.

In the first Armor Wars, you’ll notice that the story arc is actually called “Stark Wars” in the original issues. My understanding is that it was later changed to “Armor Wars” in collected editions and other reprints. Oddly enough, Stark Wars or even Stark Wars II would have been a far more accurate name for Armor Wars II.

But all in all, I can’t complain. Armor Wars II is wonderfully paced and extremely satisfying from cover to cover. Just know that the end is a bit anticlimactic. Still, despite the rapid escalation and deflation of the action in the final few pages, I think the ending is interesting and very natural. It just needs a “FIN” or “END” caption in the last panel.

P.S. Oh, and JRjr definitely draws the best Rhodey ever. Armor Wars II just confirmed my feelings I had after seeing his version of James Rhodes in Iron Man #256.

I was roped into helping via Wayne Wise, my friend and comics mentor from Phantom of the Attic Comics in Oakland (make sure to be at Phantom @ 12PM on June 14th for an awesome podcast experience!!!). By roped, I mean recommended. And by helping, I mean sitting behind a table and reading comics while occasionally selling a few art prints. It was a fun night, especially after I received some company in the form of the Comic Book Pitt.

The strangest thing about the fundraiser was the crowd. It was a bizarre mix of indie artist types (from Pittsburgh’s Dr. Sketchy’s, mainly), comic book creators and/or fans (like myself), and well-dressed (seemingly) rich people (who I assume are frequent patrons of the arts). Oh, and I almost forgot about the cougars. That’s right. Hot, sexy, mature women in their 40s and 50s walking around in tiny tight dresses. It was surreal to see them mixed in with everyone else.

The arts patrons were an odd mix unto themselves. There were young couples that looked like they should be going out to the clubs in the Strip, and there were older couples that looked like they should be attending a lecture at the Carnegie Museum. The indie artists and the comic book people? I expected them. But the rest of the crowd caught me off guard.

Seeing Ron get the award was by far the highlight of the night. Of all working artists in comics today, he certainly deserves it. Apparently this was his first award, too. That’s criminal.

The runner-up highlight? Sitting down to sell prints and noticing a stack of old Iron Man comics at the table to my left. I was wearing my War Machine t-shirt, and I coincidentally snagged Iron Man #269-272, where a drunk Tony Stark’s behavior first forces Rhodey to put on the Iron Man armor. AWESOME!

Sadly, none of the other attendees noticed the confluence of shirt and reading material that I had going on. They were too busy clapping for Ron Frenz and Tom DeFalco… and, of course, ogling the cougars.

Looking for music news? Well, all I have is Amerie’s new video for Why R U? All I can really say is, “I’d Smash!” I mean, she is objectively one of the hottest RnB singers out. (Those legs!) And oh yeah, I dig her music too.

And that is all I got people. I hope you enjoy this week’s Nick/Ross cast. Apparently, the AudioShocker crew generates so much content that a single podcast simple can’t contain it! Peace

Make sure to be back here tomorrow for the debut episode of A Podcast with Ross and Nick!!! A direct continuation of this episode, A Podcast with Ross and Nick #1 features tons of fun as the guys take a look at the Wold Superhero Registry and get some evil inspiration.

It’s been okay, I guess. I’ve always thought the dude was a pretty good interviewer, and that seems to still be the case, and likely to hold the show together while the rest of the shit shores itself up. The only particularly disconcerting aspect to me has been Conan’s habit of shouting excitingly after the crappy rock bands on his show play their crappy songs. If I was an old person, I’d never want to hear that kind of shouting.

Watching Conan, I also realized that I’d never bothered to watch Jimmy Fallon as his replacement on Late Night, so after Conan’s first show I went ahead and “stuck around” to see what that shit was like. Having The Roots as his “house band,” gains him some points, but Fallon is remarkably similar in my mind to Carson Daly; that is, I have no empathy with the kind of idiots and jocks or whoever that actually think the guy is funny or an appealing host. But I was watching it, figured I’d stick it out for at least the whole episode. I thought I would anyway, until Fallon got to his desk, said a special “hello” to hold-over viewers from Conan that had never seen the show before, then proceeded to pull out a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice and say that the night’s show was sponsored by said beverage, then continued to have a conversation with his announcer about how good the stuff was. I realize that all television is advertising, but that’s a bit much, isn’t it? Turned the thing off. Disinterest has become boycott.

Really, though, I can’t get myself all that worked up about talk shows.

Pete Can’t Believe He Hasn’t Read This Before! #3: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami

This book is a couple decades younger than the first couple entries of the Pete Can’t Believe! books, having first appeared in English in 1997 (or maybe ‘96), but qualifies nonetheless because of the splash that it made almost immediately. This is another example of my predisposition away from popular things: just because the book immediately garnered all this acclaim and then more or less stayed around as a known good, that didn’t mean that I should read it. Or, no, I’m being to hard on myself, I’d only really barely heard of it (I Can Believe It!), and am happy to finally have read it.

It’s a mythic quest starring a hapless 30 year old who starts the book unemployed and steadily becoming estranged from his wife of several years. I’ll give this as advice to any book readers out there: finding books accidentally where some piece of the protagonist’s life matches yours always makes for better reading. For my own well-not-quite-thirty-really but very much jobless summer, the match was great, since the passages where the narrator reports reading a book, then taking a nap, and going to the store for a small number of groceries after that struck quite close to home.

I have some sense that there were a lot of references, or homage, or outright adaptation of older Japanese tropes and mores involved in the construction of the book, but they don’t necessarily distract from the book in English read by a non-expert, since the dreamlike quality of the plot carries a lot of weight on its own (I don’t have any particular desire to go into any kind of cross-cultural comparisons here, at all, with do nods to all the post-colonialists out there, but I would go far as to say that I do reckon that I, in reading this, read a different novel than someone more schooled in the roots of its mystical aspects).

The protagonist is also one of those hero types that does very little. He mostly does what other people tell him to do. That’s part of his problem, I suppose. What he succeeds at doing best is clubbing a guy (maybe two) with a baseball bat. Which is actually pretty cool in its own right. But since he’s kind of carried along in the plot by the various characters that are introduced and help him, it strengthens that bond between reader and action, as any reader (even in Choose Your Own Adventure books) is always carried along by the plot of what they’re reading (I reckon this is why so many literary theorist’s want to empower readers, since all readers are ultimately powerless to words of the text they’re reading).

Or maybe I just think that under the influence of entry #2 of this reading sequence, associating If on a winter night a traveler’s reader-protagonist with all other readers and protagonists. Nah… the parallel is there.

For July 6th: Sharp Teeth

For August 3rd: Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road

Some sublime Venom courtesy Chris Bachalo

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Venom is back for the second part of his double-shot wallpaper series! Marvel vs. Capcom’s favorite black goop bad boy is what it’s all about!

Sad to say, the Venom in this Chris Bachalo illustration is NOT the Eddie Brock Venom you know and love. It’s Mac Gargan, the former Scorpion, from the cover of Dark Reign: The Sinister Spider-Man #2. But if you squint your eyes and use your imagination then you’ll never know the difference!

Thanks to Comic Box for the image. I’m there every month because they post the best hi-res comic book solicitations on the Internet. Be back here next Monday for a brand new Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

This 2009 Eisner-nominated comic book shop will house the world’s biggest and baddest comic book podcast crossover ever at 12PM on Sunday, June 14, 2009. Headquartered at 411 S Craig St in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, this is going to be a mega podcast event featuring the recording of AudioShocker Podcast #84 as well as your chance to win FREE AudioShocker t-shirts!

Here’s a schedule of our upcoming podcast awesomeness:

• Tuesday, June 9, 2009 – AudioShocker Podcast #82*
• Wednesday, June 10, 2009 – A Podcast with Ross and Nick #1
• Sunday, June 14, 2009 – Pittsburgh Podcast Crossover @ PotA
• Tuesday, June 16, 2009 – AudioShocker Podcast #84*
• Wednesday, June 17, 2009 – A Podcast with Ross and Nick #2

* Confused? See, AudioShocker Podcast #83 ran this past Tuesday. Why? Because we decided to skip #82 in honor of our fallen episode (and just in case the lost audio ever found its way to my Google Voice inbox, which it did). That’s why the Pittsburgh Podcast Crossover will air in AudioShocker Podcast #84 and not #83.

First up, on this Tuesday, June 9, 2009, we have the shocking return of AudioShocker Podcast #82. This podcast audio was initially lost due to a technical mistake with Google Voice, but we held out hope and ran #83 last Tuesday just in case a miracle happened…

AND happen it did! Tom from Google Voice read my bitchy blog post and saved my conversation with Ross Campbell from permanent deletion. So take a trip back in time and listen to #82 this Tuesday.

Then make sure to get your ass back here the very next day for A Podcast with Ross and Nick #1, a direct continuation of AudioShocker Podcast #82. Airing Wednesday, June 10, 2009, this show is the debut episode of a brand new weekly AudioShocker podcast series. Comic book writer/artist Ross Campbell and I will be talking about whatever the fuck we want, including comics, movies, real-life superheroes, domain renewal scams, and tons more.

So keep it locked on the AudioShocker as we continue to bring you the most ridiculous conversation on music, movies, comics, TV, video games, and tons more… now TWICE a week!!!

A few things to know: Captain America is dead. Well, erm, actually, Steve Rogers is dead. He got shot a few years ago. He’s almost always been Cap, but now his former WWII protege is wearing the red, white, and blues. Also, the “solicitation” copy (a.k.a. the description) of Reborn #1 will be revealed on June 16th, the day after Cap #600 hits. And there’s a Captain America movie slated for the summer of 2011. So it’s all interconnected and there’s some secretive shit going down.

So what the fuck is really going on with Captain America? Here are my most educated and asinine guesses:

9. Captain America was raped by Doctor Light. To start some sort of 21st century Marvel Comics / DC Comics crossover, the companies have decided to show us that sexual abuse isn’t just for the ladies anymore. One day, Doctor Light snuck into the Avengers Mansion and took Steve Rogers from behind when he wasn’t looking. Hilarity ensues.

8. Captain America raped Doctor Light. Seems a little more shocking than the alternative, doesn’t it?

7. Steve Rogers never died, he was just a Skrull the whole damn time. Since Steve’s corpse received a secret burial at sea by Iron Man, Hank Pym, Namor, and the Wasp, not too many folks actually saw the body of Captain America for the last time. Wasp kicked the bucket in Secret Invasion, Tony Stark is currently erasing his entire brain while on the run from the US government, and Namor is busy ogling Emma Frost’s boobies all day long. Conveniently, Hank Pym was actually a Skrull at that time (and thus will be referred to as Skank Pym from here on out). After the four of them dumped Steve’s “corpse” into the Arctic Ocean, Skank Pym went down there and picked up the Steve Rogers impersonator (who was just feigning death). As Reborn #1 opens, Skank Pym and fake Steve are headed back to their Skrull spaceship where the crew is currently in the process of anally probing the real Steve Rogers just for kicks.

6. Sharon Carter is going to give birth to an elderly Steve Rogers who will de-age to be Captain America again. The title of the upcoming miniseries is reborn… so what if that title was literal? Inspired by the success of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Marvel Comics has decided to literally have Steve Rogers reemerge from the womb. How? Time travel, of course! Sharon Carter, Cap’s secret agent girlfriend, thinks that she was impregnated by Steve Rogers shortly before he died. She’s wrong. She was actually impregnated by an android from the future. First, the android traveled back in time to secure a sample of semen from Steve Rogers’ father. Then it headed back to the future where the semen was genetically engineered to include a preexisting dosage of the Super Solider Serum. Then the android traveled to the exact point in time where Steve and Sharon were getting ready to have hot and heavy sex. The android drugged Steve and took his place. After doing the deed, the android returned home to the future. Back in our present, despite being “de-pregnated” by the Red Skull, Sharon Carter gives birth to an elderly Steve Rogers. She cares for him until Cap can get the shield swinging again. And then, in a shocking twist.. they become lovers! That’s right – Sharon starts getting it on with the superhero who emerged from her own vagina as a 90-year-old man. Now that’s entertainment.

5. Captain America was raped by Sharon Carter. Though not nearly as shocking as other scenarios, it provides an interesting backdrop for an exploration of female-on-male sexual abuse. The collected edition of this story will be in bookstores just in time for the Captain America movie.

4. The new Captain America is Batman. Over at DC Comics, everyone thinks Batman is dead. Actually, Bruce Wayne is just lost in reality. Reborn opens as the Caped Crusader is shifting across multiple different alternate realities, trying to find his way home. Bats ends up in the Marvel Universe, where he decides to have some fun and suit up as the Star Spangled Avenger. Image the merchandising and cross-promotion possibilities for Marvel and DC. We’re talking big bucks, baby! Big bucks!!!

3. Steve Rogers was actually Barack Obama the whole time. Nothing sells comic books nowadays like a guest appearance by Barack Obama. Not to be outdone by the competition, Marvel Comics has decided to secretly make our 44th American president the Sentinel of Liberty. The reason Cap was “shot” in the first place? So Obama could have more time to run for president. Now that he’s president, Obama wants to get back to kicking ass… Captain America style! Also, this would coordinate well with the rumor that Marvel Studios wants to cast Will Smith as Captain America. This way, Smith gets to play both Barack Obama AND Captain America in the same time movie.

2. Captain America raped Barack Obama. Seems eve more shocking than the other alternatives, doesn’t it?

1. Captain America was actually Hitler the entire time. At some point during WWII, Hitler managed to kill Steve Rogers. But instead of bragging about it, Hitler decided to put on Cap’s costume and impersonate him (sans creepy moustache, of course). Fast forward a year or so, and Adolf is tired of fighting the war. He fakes BOTH of his own deaths and goes underground. Years later, after extensive genetic modification, he reemerges as the “unfrozen” Captain America and joins the Avengers. He proceeds to pretend to be Steve Rogers for far longer than anyone could ever imagine. Sick of the endless charade, Adolf fakes his own death AGAIN and goes underground to plot his rebirth. In Reborn, Hitler reveals his master plan and shocks everyone by proving that he was Captain America the whole time. Then he rapes Barack Obama. The end.

More: The Top 9 Currently Dead Superheroes and Supervillains

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Kill him, Cap. Just put him out of his misery.

This 1990 issue falls at the end of Bob Layton’s second lengthy run on the title (David Michelinie is, sadly, not involved with this one). And, if I’m not mistaken, this issue marks JRjr’s first work on the Iron Man series. So it’s like a passing of the torch in a creative respect, since JRjr will go on to draw Armor Wars II as written by John Byrne.

And speaking of Romita, Jr., he’s in top form here. The guy has had many different qualities to his style over the years, and I think that Iron Man #256 catches him at one of his peaks. In particular, his faces reach an artistic pinnacle here, finding a balance between his previous work on Uncanny X-Men and his later work on Spider-Man. Rhodey looks especially excellent. In fact, I think JRjr’s Rhodey is my favorite visual depiction of the character (out of costume, of course).

As for story in this issue, Tony Stark ventures out to his nearly decimated orbiting space station to attempt a little bit of cleanup. Max Cauwfield of Cauwfield Chemical has designed a way for Tony to fix up the damage that AIM did to the space station earlier in the series, and Tony jumps at the chance to get his station functioning again.

And when I say earlier in the series, I mean 40 issues previous to this tale. That’s one slow burn plot element! However long it took to cook to the surface, though, it’s gratifying to see a character revisit an old plot element and make good on the dangling plot threads from years before.

Of course, things don’t go to plan and Iron Man’s journey out to the fringes of Earth’s orbit make for a fascinating and introspective solo jaunt. I truly enjoyed the storytelling here, almost as much as I enjoyed Len Kaminski’s run on the title.

Speaking of Kaminski, he too will revive the space station plot element at a later date, pitting Shellhead against the Technovore supervillain in Iron Man #294-295. The Technovore is mad science gone wrong, as Cauwfield’s organization was performing dangerous experiments in Tony’s oribital station and things got a bit out of hand and then there was an accident and… well, let’s just say that Technovore is a classic Len Kaminski technology monster and leave it at that.

Point is, Iron Man #256 is sort of like the midway point in a trilogy of spread out tales, ranging from the fight with AIM in Iron Man #215 to this “clean up” in #256 to the eventual battle against Technovore in #294. This excellent story is allow to gestate and build in the background of Tony Stark’s life over the course of no less than 80 issues. In my mind, that’s an awesome achievement.

It’s always nice to see Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely working together. I’ve been reading Flex Mentallo slowly over the past few weeks, and it’s great to contrast that collaboration with this new effort.

Interestingly, the art in this comic feels very contained in some places. Certain panels almost make me feel claustrophobic at times. Still, I think this compressed type of art induces the desired effect when Quitely shifts to a splash page or a spread, so in that sense, it’s very successful.

I’d like to see a bit more of Dick Grayson’s lighthearted attitude. It’s genuinely fun to get a Caped Crusader that’s not full of angst. I’d just like a little bit more of that fun. Granted, it was only 22 pages and we didn’t even see one hand-to-hand fight yet, so I’m sure some more of Dick’s acrobatics are yet to come. I look forward to those moments.

All in all, I’m glad I snagged this issue and I look forward to more like it.

Regina’s new album Far drops on the 23rd, and Laughing With is the lead single. I know nothing about it, so I won’t color my expectations with online press/junket crap. Instead, I will say I am super effing psyched. I loved her last disc, Begin to Hope, and I ended up getting all her previous stuff and seeing her live in Chicago back in 2007. I was a bit fanatical then. But hey, what’s wrong with being a Regina Stan?

Laughing With seems to be a departure from the typical Regina. There is little if any dynamic range to the vocals and the piano track is way too smooth. You would never guess that this cute redhead was capable of ballbusting tracks like Flyin, Hotel Song, or Poor Little Rich Boy. Which actually brings up a sidepoint that some of her best tracks have very little piano in them at all. (Sacrilege, I know). And where is the catchy hook? Everyone knows a good lead single has to have a catchy hook!

I’m not saying I hate it, but I am saying it isn’t what I was hoping for. I wanted Regina to come flying out of the gate like she did last time. Compare Laughing With to Regina’s last lead single Fidelity. Fidelity is infinitely better, both acoustically and visually. It is an engaging song with highs and lows and a cute video to match. Laughing With is a downer with a boring video. Fidelity built up to a fun ending, while Laughing With ends just as lackadaisically as it began.

So Regina, I take back my comment from earlier this year back, you were never on my “shitlist”, just my “come on release something already!” list. That said – I am praying for a killer second single. Laughing With is a weak effort and I know you are capable of something 10x better.

Ed Note: Moving sucks. I’m in the process of moving out and it is just a total mess. Selling furniture, putting stuff in storage, cleaning the place, paring down to the essentials – blah blah blah. The only joy I get is from tossing stuff in the dumpster. Obviously this is no excuse for irregular posting, but try to be sympathetic, ok?

P.S. No. You are not losing your mind. AudioShocker Podcast #82 never happened. It had… issues. And since there is a slight chance it may yet get recovered, we moved onto #83 in the meantime.

Star Trek was great, Wolverine pretty much blew (apologies, as usual, to Nick, for my failing to find its stalwart action movie tropes to be as exciting and enjoyable as I should have), and Terminator falls somewhere in the middle. Where I was hesitant to compare Star Trek and Wolverine, I feel the opposite impulse between the latter and Terminator. Mostly ‘cause they’re both more or less straight-up sci-fi/action flicks, and both come from similar pedigrees (having two quite good movies been made in their franchises with questionable third movies—though T-3 was way way better than X-Men 3). Wolverine riding his motorcycle out of an exploding barn? Meh. T-800 jumping off an exploding bridge holding an axe and using that axe to climb onto a giant flying robot? Awesome!

Beyond the explosions-and-leaping comparison, the obvious choice to put against each other are the special effects; it’s very easy to say “Terminator looked much better, and was therefore the better movie.” In fact, it’s one of those arenas where I have the most trouble getting an objective sense of my own taste. Ideally, I wouldn’t really care one way or the other about the look of the movie, and gauge it more for its editing/action/pacing, but its hard to ignore the fact that Wolverine looked so cheap and careless, whereas Terminator (and Star Trek, for the matter) had much bigger budgets (though also, arguably, more of a need for those effects) for the computer graphics. But sci-fi is one of those genres where I think it does matter. Look at Star Wars: what was it that separated those first three Star Wars movies from the pack of all the rest of the sci-fi in the ‘70s? It’s set-design, specifically the darkness of its sets (this isn’t necessarily something that I feel like I can actually fully argue, but it’s been my sense for a long time that the only reason Star Wars was ever popular is because of the darkness of its sets). Terminator 2? The Matrix? Special effects are what cement their place in action/sci-fi movie history. Total Recall sits at the absolute pinnacle of the greatness of pre-CGI special effects. Tron. Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain will eventually have massive cult status for its non-computer-generated sci-fi backdrops. Jurassic Park. Even Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a movie which exists in its own special corner of science fiction (I think its one of the best spaceship movies ever made), was recognized for its special effects—it was the “ultimate trip”.

Much rarer is the sci-fi movie known for its awesomeness without its effects. Robo-Cop is the one movie that springs to mind. Maybe Tremors. All the Star Trek movies seem to skirt the issue pretty well (despite whatever amount of mockery of the original TV show). And there are certainly movies that had great effects but sucked so much that it didn’t matter (though I’m drawing a blank here at the moment). So if Wolverine’s claws hadn’t looked so shitty, would it have been a better movie? It might have been—it may well at least have been way more enjoyable. But its main problem lies deeper than its half-assed visual sense: Wolverine utterly lacked ambition in its film making. Not that Terminator: Salvation set any records for mind-blowingly good ideas, but there was at least sense through all of its set-pieces that it knew it was going up against classics of the genre in its forebears, so had to provide some novelty to it. Compared to Terminator, Wolverine seems more like a B-movie than a blockbuster.

Culturology Summer of Booklove Book Club #2: A Scanner Darkly

As soon as I started reading this book, I realized that I should have picked a different Philip K. Dick book than this one. Although it certainly exemplifies a major piece of the PKD puzzle, its way more of a drug novel than real sci-fi. During the passages of the book where its just junkies hanging out and rapping with each other, it might as well be taking place in the mid-70s, rather than the imaginary 1997 of its fictional future. So I apologize for that; but there are still some interesting things to talk about here.

Philip K. Dick is known, of course, for his long-standing popularity as a writer whose books or stories are prime material for movie making. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, and many more were all based on PKD material. Part of the reason I picked A Scanner Darkly was because Linklater made a movie version of it a couple of years ago which I haven’t seen yet, and figured that at some point this summer I can spend some quality blog-time bitching about it (Linklater being about the least interesting (and most annoying) of the current set of young American filmmakers). But after reading the book, I’m not even sure that I would care to defend it against even a crappy film adaptation.

Its basic premise is pretty cool. In the future, drugs will be more powerful and more harmful than what they were, drug manufacturers will be more powerful as well, and the police will be more impotent than ever in stopping the trade. So Fred ends up narcing, and using his fair share of Substance D, which causes his brain to split in half (a trendy idea for a while there, back in the sci-fi day; the other must-read of split brain sci-fi being Stanislaw Lem’s Peace on Earth), and is commanded to narc on himself as Bob Arctor. Bob/Fred is a sad character. And given PKD’s own history of drug abuse (apparently it was something like a massive acid trip/schizophrenic episode which launched him into the last phase of his novel writing, which was massively paranoid and infused with Gnostic religious leanings (see the VALIS trilogy, for instance)), I struggled in reading it to not just associate Bob/Fred with some vision of the actual Philip K. Dick. PKD also, apparently, for a while, had decided that the FBI was watching him, so started mailing them letters where he would narc on himself, so the paranoia that soaks through Scanner perhaps works so effectively because its writer really believed in it.

The idea of the drug manufacturer’s turning addicts into zombies in order to add them to their own numbers is appealing too, though it’s hard to see any kind of real-life analogue to it. It’s interesting to me, since we only get that information at the tail end of the book, but it’s really a scheme worthy of a mastermind criminal’s epic climactic “I did it” speech. I do enjoy paranoid fiction—Pynchon’s novels are all great for it—the sense that the world is built up of these massive schemes that the average person has no control over. The two basic ways to pay off paranoia plots are obvious enough: either someone is pulling all the strings, or no one is. I personally lean towards the no-mastermind plot resolution, but I think A Scanner Darkly’s ties up in a satisfactory way; if the drugs make you paranoid, it probably does work better for there to turn out to actual be a massive, carefully controlled scheme working against you.

Next Week: Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

For July 6th: Sharp Teeth

For August 3rd: Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road

Mmm hmmm! Venom is gonna eat good tonight!!!

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It’s Venom. He’s fishing. What more can I say? Marvel vs. Capcom wouldn’t be the same without Eddie Brock and his symbiote suit from space.

Honestly, I forget where I found this picture. The important thing to know is that this is the first part of a Venom wallpaper double-shot. Be back here next Monday for a new Venom Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

8. An atrocious noise began to filter down as my neighbor then decided to vacuum directly above my bed (and, in turn, my head) for a good 30 minutes. Laying awake and angry about the noise, my thoughts wandered as…

7. I started thinking about how bad I want to read my Iron Man “Armor Wars II” backissues. But I promised myself I’d finish reading A Scanner Darkly before I started reading any new comic books because…

6. I’ve been desperate to finish reading A Scanner Darkly for Pete’s Culturology book club. I vowed to complete it in time for this Monday, despite the fact that I’ve reached the end of a grand total of two prose novels in the past four years. Thus, with the loud sucking noise still persisting…

5. I finished reading A Scanner Darkly and it sucked. And that makes me cranky. You wouldn’t like me when I’m cranky. Disappointed with the novel and still unable to sleep…

4. I found myself busy responding to the AudioShocker Grammar Police on a throw-away post I wrote about zombies. Pleased that Neal stuck up for me, I then decided to peruse some other blog comments when…

3. I became perplexed while trying to figure out why Neal saw Sanchez, of “Dirty Sanchez” fame, as a “sweaty day laborer.” I mean, why couldn’t Sanchez be a wealthy Mexico City businessman or a student at a prestigious university who just happened to like both blow jobs AND anal sex? Recognizing a trend…

2. I became concerned that a lot of people I know like to make comments that perpetuate negative Hispanic stereotypes. And after all this, I see that it’s now 4 AM and I’m still awake because…

1. I’m busy writing this goddamn list.

More: The Top 9 Horror / Psychological Anime – Part One (Remember how I used to split The Top 9 up into two parts? How obnoxious!)

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Cap is right. I saw the sex tape. It was hot.

Problem is, there are significantly less Mini Marvels coming out these days. This concerns me. If you want to read more Mini Marvels comic strips in your monthly comics (or even in digest form), then you should email adventures@marvel.com and tell them. I did.

P.S. While we’re on the topic of Mini Marvels, I should mention that Chris G has a new digest out from Image Comics called G-Man: Learning to Fly.

P.P.S. I love you, Elephant Steve.

Frankly, I think it might be a good idea to retire them altogether. Not forever, mind you, but just for a couple years. A little zombie break might be healthy.

Or maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe zombies should be milked for all they’re worth right now. Ring the goddamn undead dry until they don’t sell comics anymore! Maybe that’s really the way to go. Let them kill themselves like any other good capitalist trend.

P.S. What do I know? I’m guilty too.

I think I’ve only seen a merman in a comic once. An issue of Peter David’s Aquaman, I think. Obviously it wasn’t THAT memorable, a clear sign that we need more mermen in comics in general.

Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t have more mermaids. I just don’t think the need is as great as the need for mermen. Mermaids traditionally have a much higher profile than their male counterparts. We should still have more of them too. Just not at the expense of the mermen.

Where could the mermen show up? Obviously, in any superhero title dealing with the seas. But Aquaman and Namor don’t have solo series right now, so that makes it a bit tougher. But anywhere really. I’m not picky.

Some merman fight scenes could fit nicely into any comic. Maybe New Avengers? Or possibly in JLA? Anywhere is fine with me.

P.S. What if Wolverine teamed up with a badass, cigar-smoking merman who carries a machine gun? That could be sweet.

One thing is certain – we’ll have AudioShocker Podcast #82 for you fresh and early next Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009. Until then, whey don’t you relive some of our greatest Ross Campbell podcast moments?

Rhodey vs. Tony... All Out Aerial Assault!

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Hero versus hero is what Marvel vs. Capcom is all about! It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the arcade version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. However, that’s the only way you can fight War Machine and Iron Man against each other.

This image comes from the cover of Invincible Iron Man #11 by Salvador Larroca and Frank D’Armata. Thanks to Comic Box for the hook up. They always have the best hi-res comic book solicitations on the Internet. Be back here next Monday for a new Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

More: War Machine Hyper Combo Wallpaper Archives!

Delighted with our insane rant, we hit “4″ on the keypad and heard the “call recording off” voice I’ve come to love over the years. But then something horrible happened – THE RECORDING NEVER DELIVERED TO MY GOOGLE VOICE INBOX.

I’ve lost three hours of podcast talk time intended to fill the upcoming AudioShocker Podcast #82 as well as the first three episodes of A Podcast with Ross and Nick. What the hell, Google Voice?

This never would have happened with GrandCentral. For those of you unfamiliar with Google Voice, it used to be a service called GrandCentral, which assigned you a dummy phone number and allowed you to record incoming calls. It was an amazing service. I never had a single technical problem with it.

But Google Voice has not been so smooth. First off, they changed the user interface to something far less friendly. Then they complicated the back end settings. Then they made call recording unreliable. I’ve had issues getting my recorded calls to deliver to my inbox in Google Voice before, but that was just when I was testing it out.

Everything went fine when I interviewed Paul Tobin a couple months ago. But this is only the second time I’ve tried to use Google Voice to record a podcast interview for the AudioShocker and the damn service dumped my entire recorded call. WTF!?!?!?!?!

I should have known there was going to be a problem recording that night. Ross and I had technical issues from the start – I tried calling in my usual fashion and the service kept sending me to the voicemail checker instead of to Ross (even though I clearly unchecked my phone number from the list in the settings tab).

So users beware – Google Voice is not the same as GrandCentral. It’s got a lot of problems and it’s pissing me off right now. I know it’s a free service and I shouldn’t be this mad, but I could always depend on GrandCentral. Obviously I can’t do the same when it comes to Google Voice.

9. Ross Campbell wants us to pay him to do podcast interviews from now on. (C’mon, Ross… the damn things are already shameless fucking self-promotion!)

8. To save money on multimedia expenses, we almost changed our catchphrase to “Music. Movie. Comic. A little bit of media here and there is sort of our thing.”

7. To save even more money, we almost changed our catchphrase to “iMeem. Hulu. Zuda. Free media is DEFINITELY our thing.”

6. Gotham Chopra stopped hanging around the blog because his comic books all turned to liquid. (Get it!?! Virgin Comics = Liquid Comics! They used to be in print and now they’re just online! … Okay, fine, you win – the joke sucked.)

5. Justique has a whole lot less extra cash to spend on pornography. (She’s down to about $200 per day.)

4. Nick has even less extra cash to spend on hookers. (He’s down to about $2 per week… but DAMN that prosthetic handjob is worth every penny!)

3. Kirsten stopped commenting on Pete’s blog posts because she was too busy earning some extra money on the side working as a high-paid lesbian escort (see this incriminating photo for evidence).

2. Neal couldn’t hire the Elan Luz Rivera lookalike stripper he wanted for his birthday. (Instead, he had to settle for the Susan Sarandon lookalike GMILF from next door.)

1. We know you love the AudioShocker just the way it is, but be on the look out for our new blog name… COMING SOON: “Tampax Tampons presents the AudioShocker podcast & blog”!!! (Our new catchphrase: “We’re stuffing some music, movies, and comics all up in that shit!”)

More: The Top 9 Social Networks! (And how to choose the right one for you.)

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Next week: Cap makes Spidey cry like a baby.

So let me be the first person that I know of to go on record by saying that Len Kaminski’s run on Iron Man is THE SHIT. No, it’s not shit… it’s THE SHIT. It’s smart. It’s fun. It’s gripping. It’s awesome.

And, of course, Kaminski didn’t do it alone. Len had some excellent collaborators in the form of Kevin Hopgood and Tom Morgan. With Hopgood, Kaminski co-created the War Machine armor (and, in turn, the superhero War Machine). Not being a huge Shellhead history buff in my early years, I had no idea that Tony Stark originally piloted the War Machine himself (albeit for only a few issues) previous to Jim Rhodes. (Tony’s War Machine was different, though, and by the time Rhodey stepped into the suit, it had upgraded.)

With Tom Morgan, Kaminski closed out his amazing run of Iron Man tales, attempting some rather ambitious storylines including an early adventure (literally) on the Internet and a “fantastic voyage” into Captain America’s bloodstream (via the science of Hank Pym, naturally). Morgan also drew a few fill-in issues during Kev Hopgood’s run, mixing well with Hopgood’s unique artistic imprint.

So why has this run been overlooked by the fandom haunts I’ve frequented? Maybe it was the forums of discussion I visited. The message boards at Newsarama and Comic Book Resources tend to be full of high-turnover users who have more to say about the present than the past. At my local comic shop, none of the employees are Iron Man fanatics and none of the customers I know espouse their love for Stark Enterprises.

And then, of course, these comics came out during the 1990s. Before I proceed down this tangent of discussion, let me say that I have nothing against the comics produced during the 1990s. I love them as much as the books from any other decade. BUT many people out there – whether they’ve actually read comics from the last decade of the 20th century or not – bring a heap of preconceived notions to the table when discussing comics produced during the 1990s. It’s generally accepted as a low period when savage success for the medium transitioned into savage decline.

While those assumptions of the 1990s hold some weight in the realm of comic book marketing and business practices, most preconceived notions about the superhero comic book content of that era are flat out wrong. True, books back then often tried to up the “gritty” quotient following Watchmen, Born Again, and The Dark Knight Returns. But many cosmic comics of that time had more colors and insane concepts than ever before (and anything since!), while attempts to explore the explosion of information technology yielded some interesting results.

The latter was where Len Kaminski shined on Iron Man. His explorations into the notions of technology in a recently information-rich business world are fascinating. Modern business vs. the demands of modern technology is a constant theme throughout Kaminski’s work. And who in superhero comic books is equipped to better deal with that relationship than Tony Stark? None, of course.

I could go on for countless paragraphs about the interesting themes explored within the pages of Iron Man #278-280. I could probably write a fucking dissertation exploring the dialectical relationship between Tony Stark’s human frailties and his adventures to the very boundaries of known technology only using examples from Kaminski’s work. I could even accuse Google of ripping off Len Kaminski’s restructuring of Stark Enterprises in Iron Man #306.

But instead of continuing endlessly in shameless praise, I’ll settle for a HUGE “Thank You” to Len for his awesome work on Iron Man. Another GIANT “Thanks” goes to Kev Hopgood and Tom Morgan for the excellent imagery (along with the letters by Phil Felix and the colors by Ariane… and of course, Nel Yomtov, who edited the whole damn thing).

In closing, I’d like to extend a personal plea to all superhero comic book fans out there to go back and dig up Iron Man #278-318. Hell, you can even just start with #280 if you want (since #278-279 are Galactic Storm crossover issues). Most importantly, I challenge the tastemakers who evangelize about superhero comics on a regular basis to read Len Kaminski’s run on Iron Man and see if you can restrain yourself from praising these comics up and down. I bet you can’t do it.

P.S. With that said, I’d LOVE to see Marvel reunite Len Kaminski and Kevin Hopgood in time for the debut of Iron Man 2 in 2010. If we’re going to see War Machine in action in that movie, I think it’s only fair to bring his creators back to the Iron Man comic books, if only for a short miniseries akin to David Michelinie and Bob Layton’s Legacy of Doom mini (which came out around the time of the first Iron Man flick).

Were any of you even ready to handle MObama coming in at 3:03? I nearly lost it people. We’re talking a near miss.

Oh BTW, I’m officially on educational leave as of 4pm today and headed to the sunny beaches of Folly Beach, SC. I’ll see all your broke asses in a week! ESTOY DE VACACIONES!

DVD Round-Up

Beyond just reading novels and generally not working, not doing much of anything at all, really, I’ve decided to keep my internet DVD rental service within my budget, as getting a few movies a week to watch seems to take the edge off of having so many hours a day to be so painfully aware of my own uselessness (a pretty straightfoward reaction to being jobless, I reckon). So I’ve finally gotten around to seeing a bunch of movies that came out sometime in the past:

Once: This wasn’t terrible. As much as I haven’t gone for the whole singer-songwriter thing since the first half of my sophomore year of college, the music in this was okay, and the whole notion of making a small movie about making music is one way to get me to admit that not everything sucks. It’s interesting to me too, ’cause I reckon this movie did well enough last year that people will be trying to repeat the success, and make more “indie-pop” musicals or whatever. But, as generally impressed as I was with this movie, I switch right back to my more usual cynical appraising as soon as I think of the idea that there would be a market for this stuff. Not that I want to dredge up any old issues of hipsters and what they ruin (see early Culturologies for the epic hipster conversation of 2008), but I’d imagine that this, if co-opted by indie-panderers, would become a style of movie which falls ever so neatly into that category of “the new sincerity,” that explicitly post-ironic or anti-ironic aesthetic mush that gives cultural credence to treacle in the process of recanting its own usually heavily ironicized worldview.

Role Models: I realize that he wasn’t directly involved with this movie, but I’m gonna go ahead and make the association: Judd Apatow is ruining American comedies. There’s plenty to like about Role Models (not the least of which is the fact that the above-mentioned comedy-ruiner isn’t actually involved). Actually, I almost went and saw this in the theaters. There are some good jokes, and Seann William Scott is a funny guy. David Wain is a funny guy. The Jesus bit from The Ten was funny enough to make seeing something with Wain and Rudd working together a reasonable thing to do. But I can’t help but feel like this movie would have been funnier if certain other movies hadn’t built a certain set of expectations for character arc and nerd-comfort in comedies. Maybe it’s wrong to blame other movie-makers for the badness of something unrelated, but I feel like the comparison is an obvious one to make. At least we have the eminent release of The State DVDs to look forward to.

My attitude there is also influenced by having finally gotten around to seeing Pineapple Express, which was barely funny at all, and mostly bad. And Knocked Up was unwatchable. Normally, my attitude with this online-based DVD renting is that to get my money’s worth, I must watch fully (not including special features or commentary tracks) everything that I rent, but I sent back Knocked Up after watching maybe its first twenty (if that) miserable minutes. And, for comparison, I did manage to watch all of

Leonard Part 6: This is a terrible movie. The only reason I managed to get through the whole thing was that the villainess was a crazy vegetarian woman who used henchmen dressed like animals, and lots of actual animals to accomplish her nefarious plots. This thing won a ton of Razzies back in ‘89, deservedly so. Cosby’s at his worst. But it is made worthwhile because at a crucial point, Cosby defeats the head henchman by getting him to take a bite of a hotdog, which causes the henchman’s head to explode (it appears to have been filled with sawdust, I guess to keep their PG rating).

Pete Can’t Believe He Hasn’t Read This Before! #2: If on a winter’s night a traveler

This book is probably only on your radar if you went to college, and maybe even only if you studied some amount of English literature (though it was originally written in Italian, and translated into English). Why? Because it’s probably one of the better examples of the kind of book which gets labeled as “postmodern” but is actually quite good. The structure is very interesting, with ten sections each being the first few pages of different novels which a character, addressed in the second person, gets involved with in interstitial chapters, in a wild international hunt for an elusive entire book.

Those of you that did study some amount of English probably see this as being indicative of the literary atmosphere in Europe after the ground-breaking critical work of Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida, who liberated the text from the author, the reader from the author, the text from meaning, etcetera etcetera. The poor protagonist of If, then, is a kind of atavistic fellow who just wants to read a good old fashioned book, and doesn’t like all this fragmentation and historicizing of the text. There’s an awful lot of heady nonsense to be said/written (of course, if we’re speaking post-Derrida, then everything is “writing”) about If on, which is probably why I never bothered reading it until now.

Last week, I talked a little bit about the notion of the canon, and the fact that there are many different canons of work that all exist simultaneously, as different ways to sort the same set of books (the big set being something like All The Books That Are Readable By Demographic X). If on a, to its detriment, falls into the canon of books That Are Likely To Be Talked About By Annoying Lit Majors That Think They Know Something About Stuff, when, of course, they know very little. It’s a reasonable stance, especially the further one gets from having been in an American college or university, to hate what’s broadly called in this country “postmodernism”.

But it’s a really good book! I don’t often go for books that use “you” like this (see Bright Lights, Big City for another–very different–example), but it works here, as its taken to such ridiculous heights as the poor Reader tries to keep a hold on any of the books he starts to read. In the end, if I were to read some sort of philsophical or theoretical aspect into If on a winter’s, it’d be that it’s pro-old-fashioned reading, rather than against it, and demonstrating that, as much as Barthes and his acolytes might proclaim the author’s death, the reader is never all that empowered either. Language rules (the only theory that I know that actively works with this notion that language-itself yields the power in cultural works is the still-burgeoning “meme theory” which rises out of neo-Darwinism (the word “meme” was coined by heavy-hitting evolutionist Richard Dawkins, though, in anything I’ve read, he hasn’t returned to the concept all that much).

Next Week: Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (this might actually take me more than a week to read, since its pretty thick).

For June 1st: Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly

For July 6th: Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth

Other requests?

Morrigan shows off her impeccably shaved armpits.

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I know Morrigan primarily from Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of the Superheroes. In fact, I was a bit embarrassed when Ross Campbell told me she was originally from the Darkstalkers video game series.

I may have never played Darkstalkers… but that’ll change soon. My copy of the first game will be arriving any day now, and if I like it, you can be sure to see more Hyper Combo Wallpapers featuring Capcom’s heroes of the night.

Thanks to The Fighter’s Generation for the Capcom art. Next Monday? Another Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

Just because I’m a stubborn bastard, here are the Top 9 reasons I’m still refusing to go see the Star Trek motion picture at my local cineplex.

9. The line “What do you suggest we do, Spock? Spank it!?!” appears nowhere within this film’s dialogue.

8. Where’s Sulu Prime? I was hoping for some hot John-Cho-on-George-Takei action.

7. I was busying watching the entirety of Star Trek: The Original Series for FREE on YouTube.

6. Patrick Stewart is in the new Wolverine movie, not the new Star Trek movie. (Granted, he’s only a CG face… but he’s still in there!)

5. The trailers contain no scenes whatsoever involving a Star Fleet vessel and a whale.

4. I was busy watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine for the third time.

3. According to all the trailers and previews I’ve seen, Uhura exists only to act as a sexy love interest. I mean, seriously, they just keep showing that same shot of her taking her shirt off. Zoe Saldana should be pissed.

2. Zachary Quinto looks like an elf, not a Vulcan.

1. There’s no William Shatner cameo.

More: The Top 9 Ways to Piss Me Off in the Movie Theater! (The #1 entry on that list happened to me for my entire third viewing of X-Men Origins: Wolverine… that guy now has a special place in hell waiting for him.)

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Can he still get his webs up at that age?

In anticipation of the impending return of the classic comic book letter column, I present to you a time-tested template that’s sure to get your letter printed in the back of your favorite series.

Dear [SEMI-WITTY LETTERS PAGE TITLE],

I’ve been reading comics for over [OUTRAGEOUS NUMBER] of years, and this is the very first time I’ve ever written a letter. After I read [COMIC BOOK TITLE AND NUMBER], I couldn’t believe it! How could you do that to [CHARACTER THAT RECENTLY DIED, LEFT THE BOOK, OR EXPERIENCED A MAJOR CHANGE]? He/she was my favorite and I just don’t know if I’ll be able to keep reading [COMIC BOOK TITLE] anymore.

Still, I have to commend [WRITER'S FULL NAME] on an incredible story. Even though I’ll be fuming about what happened to [CHARACTER THAT RECENTLY DIED, LEFT THE BOOK, OR EXPERIENCED A MAJOR CHANGE] for the rest of my life, I have to admit that the story was amazing. This was [WRITER'S FIRST NAME OR NICKNAME]’s best issue yet!

[ARTIST'S FULL NAME] was wonderful, as always. I also have to take the time to add special praise for [INKER, COLORIST, LETTERER, OR OTHER ARTIST NOT TYPICALLY RECOGNIZED IN FAN LETTERS]. He/she has been turning out the best work of his/her career in [COMIC BOOK TITLE] and this series just wouldn’t be the same without him/her.

Also, I noticed a mistake on page [ANY NUMBER FROM 1 TO 22], when [CHARACTER NAME] said, “[SHORT ARBITRARY PHRASE].” I think he/she really meant to say, “[ERRONEOUS REPLACEMENT FOR SHORT ARBITRARY PHRASE].” I hope you’ll fix this mistake in the collected edition!

Well, I should wrap this up before I ramble on for too long. I’m still mad about what you did to [CHARACTER THAT RECENTLY DIED, LEFT THE BOOK, OR EXPERIENCED A MAJOR CHANGE], but I guess I’ll have to be back next month to find out if [WRITER'S FULL NAME] can top his/her job in [NEXT ISSUE'S NUMBER]!

Sincerely,
[NAME]

P.S. Is it true that [MAIN CHARACTER] and [FORMER LOVE INTEREST] are really getting back together again? Say it ain’t so! I always thought [CURRENT LOVE INTEREST] was a much better match for ol’ [MAIN CHARACTER'S ENDEARING NICKNAME], and having [FORMER LOVE INTEREST] around could really mess things up between [MAIN CHARACTER] and [CURRENT LOVE INTEREST]!

For bonus points, make sure to withhold your address or use a fake international name and location.

Despite with these relative disappointments, there are a number of other records I am looking forward too.

Amy Winehouse - Say what you will about Amy Baby’s drug wacked out lifestyle, Back to Black was a phenomenal disc. I’ve been waiting for something new since 2007. Hurry the fuck up Amy!

Modest Mouse - I was late on the MM bandwagon, but I made up for it with rabid fandom. Much like Amy, MM hasn’t given me a studio worthy in a hot minute. I hear there is an EP upcoming in August, but until then, I’ll be Satin In A Coffin.

Clipse – Road Till The Casket Drops – If the mixtape remixes are any indication, the album should be great. I’m talking hardbottomed knock and carefully exaggerated punchlines. Clipse isn’t always 100% – but when they’re on, they’re on. (a lot like Cam). And if you still need proof, listen to Kind of A Big Deal. You’ll be sold.

Rilo Kiley or Feist – Yeah, I know they are totally different, but either would be sufficient for another year. Perhaps RK, Feist’s last disc is probably still sufficient for another year (that goes double for The Ting Tings). There are only so many albums I can overplay in a year.

The Cool Kids – When Fish Ride Bicycles - I’m sorry, I had to mention it. I’ll shut up now!

That’s all I got for today. What records are you waiting for?

Since I’m not going to talk about that stuff, I’m left in the usual bind of having not all that much to say. Thirty-one blog posts (even though at least two of those are non-posts) is a lot to come up with, especially since I try pretty hard not to repeat myself too much. Certain themes come up again and again, certainly, but you know, I try to keep it fresh… I suppose I could be preparing more, and stop writing these things at the last minute, since that technique was mostly an artifact of the strenuous schedule that I was a Graduate student maintain during the semester, and now that the semester is over and I have no class and no job I could be rededicating myself to this column. But this is neither here nor there, is it?

Once again, I’m getting the impulse to broaden what it is that I talk about in these here columns, but my concern there is that, without the confines of popular culture (however out of touch with pop I might be), I’ll get even more pedantic and obtuse than I already am. Which would be a crying shame.

This, too, then, though slightly longer than the previous non-posts, is still mostly a non-post. Ugh.

Pete Can’t Believe He Hasn’t Read This Before! #1: Slaughterhouse-Five

As much as I’m a rabid fan of several things (let’s say, Mr. Show, Pierre Boulez, and the first six seasons of The Simpsons as examples), I tend to be wary of books or movies or tv shows that spawn hideous armies of obsessive nerd fans. Given that I can admit to the rabidity of several of my own fandoms, this might be easily explained away as nerd insecurity or nerd delusion, but I don’t think it’s that easy. Especially given the amount of easily consumable crap produced by the culture industry, the opposite impulse, to glom onto something seen as “outside” the system or typical cultural consumption seems like a fine impulse, but being contrary doesn’t necessarily lead to good taste.

My own impulses, then, as a consumer are both anti-mainstream and anti-outsider. I guess that’s what makes me such a negative dude about so much of what there is in the world. I’ve talked about this before, my notion of things being “good for good reasons,” and the fact that this goodness, as I perceive it, can be separated from its mode of production. So, just as some corporate popular stuff is actually good, much of what is produced independently or “alternatively” is total crap. Which is fine. I do still prefer independent garbage to mainstream garbage (or, there’s a threshold of pretension over which independent badness becomes worse than corporate badness).

So most questions come up when deciding whether or not something is “good”, or more accurately, when defending said notions of “goodness” to other people. This comes up, more than with anything else, I think, for me, when discussing books (or “literature”). Case in point: I refuse to read Harry Potter. I am too cool for it, and am not gonna read a bunch of mediocre children’s books just because everyone else in the damn English-speaking world is. When I announce this stance (which I guess is already outdated since the HP thing has come and gone) to some other people, they are quite incensed, the main argument against me being that its hypocritical to read so deeply into the established canon of Western literature, to take the words and attitudes of a bunch of dead white men as being worth listening to, but ignoring the attitudes of the bunch of contemporary actually living, and supposedly diverse readers of Harry Potter.

Some of those folks, especially ones that took any literary theory classes in college, and have been seduced by the watered-down nonsensical version of “postmodernism” popular at many American colleges’ English departments, extend that argument further to say that the canon should be dismantled, and that I, as an “inevitably postmodernized” reader should “unlearn” the precepts of my literary forebears. But there’s always a canon, always will be a canon, and there cannot not not be a canon. We can water it down if we like, but there will always be classics, or books that you have to have read to join a given discussion (to book-club Slaughterhouse-Five, it will be much easier if you have read the book); to overthrow the white patriarchal hegemonic canon is not to overthrow the canon itself, but to modify its contents.

My canon, then, would be based on books that are “good for good reasons,” and I’m willing to take a wide variety of people’s words for it. But wide-spread commercial success is not a model for goodness that I at all trust. And there are plenty of other books to be read instead. The choice of reading, making and managing a reading list, seems to be what gets the obsessive nerds in trouble–the people who love Kurt Vonnegut so much that they read him over and over again, etc. Which is where I come to distrust the popularity; if there’s a particular aspect of Vonnegut that makes him so nerd-popular, how can I be sure that other crappier aspects of his work are being overshadowed by the disproportionate goodness of whatever “good” parts?

But I have read several of his books in the past, and liked them quite a bit. I really liked Cat’s Cradle and Mother Night. I guess I had never quite gotten around to reading Slaughterhouse-Five until now because it’s the most famous, most popular of his books, and I more or less knew its conceit and plot already, from having heard so much about it.

So, yeah, it’s a pretty good book. I didn’t like it as much as Cat’s Cradle, which probably makes me a simpleton in the minds of many Vonnegut fans, but I wasn’t as impressed with the getting unstuck in time thing from S-5 as I was with the Ice-9 in CC. Especially because S-5 is quite outward in its anti-warness, the fatalism common to both books is harder to swallow there, since to me it muddles the parable (this feeling of muddledness is probably what gets me labeled as a simpleton by the smarter Vonnegut fans out there (in a similar way, I will accuse the movie Donnie Darko of being muddled, to find myself being accused of not being as smart as I think I am)).

Or maybe S-5’s sci-fi elements are just the wrong ones for me. I am thoroughly underwhelmed by the whole Tralfamadore thing. What am I supposed to do? I can’t whelm myself on the book’s behalf, just because I understand that other people really like it. I would say, though, that there’s no particularly good reason for me to have not read it by now, since it only took a few hours to read. Short books have something going for them. They definitely do.

Next Week: Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler

And we’ll figure out a schedule for the more official “book club” entries (which mostly involves me acquiring a copy of that book Neal wants to read–gotta go join my local library).

Illegal Street Fighter sex orgy or a casual gathering of friends?

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DISCLAIMER: This excellent “menage a million” shot of Street Fighter is pre-SFIV. Therefore, it includes everyone except for our new friends Rufus, El Fuerte, Crimson Viper, Seth, etc. We now return you to your regularly scheduled wallpaper blog post.

Ahhh, Street Fighter. My love is deep. Apparently yours is too, as you weren’t content with the slam bang thrills of the Marvel vs. Capcom series. No, you had to go get it on with Final Fight and every other goddamn fighting game ever made by Capcom.

That’s okay. You may be a slut, Street Fighter, but I still love you anyway. This wallpaper is for you, baby. (You can thank UDON for the kickass art, by the way. In fact, you should thank them by buying their awesome Street Fighter comics books.)

To be 100% honest with you, I don’t remember where I found this image. I know I received some help from a Google image search, but otherwise… I’m clueless! But not so clueless as to deprive you of another Hyper Combo Wallpaper. Never fear – a new one will be flying in your face next Monday!

9. For some odd reason, a Hugh Jackman lookalike was cast in the role of Wolvie’s father. This would be all well and good if it weren’t for the fact that the guy playing Wolverine’s father actually turns out NOT to be Wolverine’s father. Did the casting director even read the script?

8. Nobody at a thuggish New Orleans dive bar seems to notice the ridiculously extravagant poker player wearing a top hat and shuffling cards with his arms stretched wide like a bad stage magician. Never mind the fact that he goes by the name Remy.

7. When Logan spies a decapitated bear head casually laying around his lumberjack work site, he logically jumps to the conclusion that Sabretooth must be nearby (because, ya know, severed bear heads follow Victor Creed like the scent of cheap perfume on an ugly hooker).

6. An elderly couple spies Logan as he goes streaking across their secluded Canadian farm (unbeknownst to them, naked Wolvie just escaped from the Weapon X project).

5. To portray mutant teleporter John Wraith, apparently will.i.am raided Burt Reynolds’ closet circa 1978.

4. Remember that elderly couple? Yeah, Agent Zero picks them off through a small, dirty barn window. They drop dead and Wolvie gets mad. Then Stryker and Zero blow up the barn. Exploding barns = AWESOME.

3. Naked Wolverine jumps into a waterfall to escape the Weapon X project. I know it should have been an exciting moment, but all I could think was, “Oh shit. That’s gonna be really fucking cold. SHRINKAGE!”

2. Wolverine goes one-on-one in the boxing ring with a severely overweight Fred Dukes to get some answers about Stryker’s plans. Fred’s enormous, jiggly man-boobs are going to give me nightmares tonight. I guarantee it.

1. Logan learns he’s been double-crossed in the worst way when Silver Fox is revealed to be alive and well, employed by Stryker at his “secret” military base… which begs the question: did she fake every orgasm?

More: The Top 9 Most Intimidating Supervillains! (Featuring no less than two (2!) of the characters from X-Men Origins: Wolverine.)

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

The Spectacular Spider-Jerk does it again.

That’s why I’ve created My Comic Book Fanifesto (get it??? It’s like a manifesto but I switched the “m” for an “f”!!!). These are rules to help me be the best comic book fan that I can be, on the interwebs and beyond.

I will stop whining. I will spend less time complaining about the business and marketing plans of comic book publishers, and I will spend more time sharing the comics I enjoy. I will not personally criticize any comic book professional unless the situation is a personal issue. In that case, I will keep my communications as polite and respectable as possible, avoiding undue or unrelated attacks in public.

I will vote with my wallet. I will no longer buy comics and then complain about them month after month. If I don’t like something or I would like to see less of its kind, I will not buy it. I will not pay for books I do not like. First and foremost, I will let companies know what I want through my purchasing habits.

I will support comics I like. If I like a comic book and want to see more like it, then I will buy it. I will not download it illegally. I will not talk about how great is yet fail to read it regularly, in single issues OR in collections. And I will make sure to tell other people how good the comic is whenever I get the chance.

I will not harp on comics I don’t like. If there’s a comic book I don’t enjoy, I will simply say “it’s not for me” and move on. I will not make it my life’s mission to attack the comic. I will not actively seek to criticize its creators on a personal basis. I will simply not buy it and I will let it be at that.

I will not be ashamed to let people know that I read comic books. I will read them in public. I will give comics to friends and friends of friends. I will speak intelligently about comics and respect the intelligence of those who are just learning about comics. I will represent the culture of comic books the best that I can whenever and wherever possible.

There you have it. My Comic Book Fanifesto. If you like what you see, feel free to adopt and/or modify my fanifesto for yourself.

Chuck Season Finale
From the moment Chuck threw the first kick, Kirsten called it, ‘Guys, I know Kung-Fu’. Cue her cheering and me groaning. It was a great ep – but if NBC axes the show, I won’t cry too much. This is as natural an endpoint as any. We all knew Chuck would re-up with the Intersect, but who knew his dad was one too? Bringing Chuck’s dad back as a recurring character and killing off Bryce is way too shark jumpy for me. Compound that with Devon knowing about Chuck’s secret identity and things get sticky. Plus now Chuck is some sort of super autodidact? Too Matrixy. My opinion: lock all this shit down in S3E1 or just end the show now and leave people salivating.

Did you miss the ep? watch it here courtesy of Hulu:

The Cool Kids – Gone Fishing Mixtape
(Ed. Note: Neal selected The Cool Kids’ Bake Sale as 2008 You Don’t Suck Awards Music Winner)
The mixtape dropped on Monday. This is just the quiet before the storm (When Fish Ride Bicycles). You have to love how artists are using the lead up to their studio albums to drop free mixtapes full of even more great tracks. Peep Champions for a great piano beat and the updated Pennies remix for guest verses by Luda and Bun B. The tape is a little overstuffed considering the typical Cool Kids release is between six and eleven tracks. Of course, single artist ‘mixtapes’ regularly weigh in over 30 tracks, so whatever. Also take a listen to Hammer Bros. and Broadcasting Live.

House – S5E23 – Under My Skin
Great episode. The patient’s skin sloughs off, House detoxes, and though I’ll miss halluci-Amber… DO IT TO IT HOUSE! HIT THAT! Um, anyway, moving on….

Eminem – 3 A.M Music Video

Cold Garbage. I can’t even watch the whole thing. The flow is terrible and the visuals are as trite as it gets. I’m not feeling any of the cuts I have heard from Relapse so far. I hope he’s saving the best for later.

Swine Flu
What’s the quickest way to get the pig flu? Twitter! Get it? It’s a joke. (though not a very timely one) Anyway, this is about as much H1N1 as any blog post should have, so I’m done with that, and this blog post. BOOYAH!

When it all ends, Neal and Nick talk X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Straight up? Neal hated it. Nick liked it. They argue the pros and cons of the Hugh Jackman solo flick including Will.I.Am, Emma Frost, Gambit, Deadpool, and more. Then Nick delivers his report on the Death Note: L, Change the WorLd one-night-only subtitled presentation. Then pure media mayhem erupts into Nick of Time, Must Love Dogs, Darkstalkers, Free Comic Book Day 2009 comics, Collage, Carlitta Durand, The Clipse, Kanye, KRS-One, Eminem and the Punisher, and tons more.

Well… are there?

The main question that I have is how many movies like this one Marvel will be able to make before the mystique runs out. I, and most other people as well, have plenty of reason to root for Marvel, since they’re the little guy, and independent, and fully committed to making all these movies (DC being less concerned since they’ve got Time Warner behind them). It’s hard to imagine anything like a general collapse of Marvel studios happening any time soon–or ever… maybe I, personally, fail to understand the demographic for, not Wolverine, but the inevitable (no matter how precipitous the drop in Box Office figures from this past weekend to next weekend) Wolverine 2, and any other X-Men: Origins stories. Since the movie-makers so obviously stuffed this thing to the gills with mutants, hoping for anything to stick well enough to be a spin-off, how many of these mutants are really all that popular out there in the real world that people would bother going to a movie about them?

Take Gambit, for instance. Cool character, cool powers. But the dude they cast as Gambit couldn’t maintain his accent for a whole scene, let alone the whole movie. I can’t help but feel like the idea was to plug Gambit in there in order to have him show up in more movies, possibly headlining one eventually. Otherwise, it’s just, what? for the nerds who like to play spot the mutant? Not that nerds have ever been a viable demographic; they aren’t. But if they were a market, I think the mangling of Deadpool and similar crimes-against-nerds pretty well eradicates the market for a while.

But that’s it right? Marvel gets a marketshare so long as its got characters that will bring out the normals, as Wolverine is obviously capable of doing. And its not like formulaic movies aren’t successful. So, again, since I’m generally pro-Marvel, I have hard time being that pissed off by the fact that Wolverine: The Movie was not very good. It’s a bit harder to wrap my head around the fact that it looked so cheaply made (the CG looked decades old, certainly not up to the standard of the first two X-Men movies). But this is why I end up being so hopeful for non-comic-book superhero movies, since they have to work harder to get noticed, which I think would tend to lead to more ambitious (Push was definitely way more enjoyable than Wolverine).

Nor do I really think that it’s bad thing if Marvel Studios churn out a couple of mediocre or bad comic book movies every year (I mean, they already are, and have been for a while). Gotta make money. And it’s always inappropriate, in the realm of popular culture, to expect people to make good products. Goodness happens occasionally (the first two X-Men movies, Iron Man), but the norm will still be bad (X-Men 3, Wolverine, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Hulk, etcetera). And these movies don’t effect the quality of the books, so so long as that’s the case, everything should be hunky dory.

Speaking of books…

Culturology Summer of Booklove Bookclub #1: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

So I thought this was pretty good book. The tone is set immediately, with those epigraphs from Fantastic Four and Derek Walcott, and I think especially the first 80-90 pages were really compelling. The narrator’s–Yunior’s–voice is one that I don’t think I would always like, in terms of its colloquialisms and informality, but it seems to crucial to this, since without the voice, Oscar would go from a GhettoNerd to just a plain old Nerd, which would’ve lost the entire book’s project. So maybe it’s wrong to point out some obvious lynch-pin to the thing like that, but it’s what makes it good, worthwhile, etc.

One thing which stuns me about the book is that Oscar is basically an unlikable character. It’s easy to feel bad for him, certainly, but in terms of actually caring about him, its more of a stretch. But his being so utterly out of place makes for compelling fiction. I suppose there’s some amount of allegorizing that people might do in terms of contextualizing Oscar’s “story” and his uprootedness, and maybe that’s the right thing to do. I dunno. There’s obviously some thematic connection to be made between being an immigrant and failing to belong socially in school and all that. Maybe I just feel unqualified to go into it.

But this is, like, a club, right? So what do you all want to talk about? I know at least Neal read it.

And, in terms of future books, let’s do some brainstorming. I read a lot, so I’ll probably just plug in whatever’s next for me personally any given week, so we can plan ahead to stay more current than that. My reading list is currently stuff that I should have read by now but haven’t. For next week: Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut. It’s true, I’ve never read it before now. And I wanna read Blindness at some point this summer. And Neal wants to do Sharp Teeth; that’s fine too.

Ken Masters has a gift for your face... it's his foot.

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You may have thought to yourself (much like I have in the past), “Hey, Ken Masters is awesome in the Marvel vs. Capcom games, but he’s not in the seminal Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of the Superheroes. What a rip!”

Well, you, my friend, thought wrong. Ken may not be in MvC1 in person, but his moves are still there. Just hold down the “Select” button when you choose Ryu as your character, and you’ll be fighting with Ken’s moves. Personally, I think it’s one of the best ways to play MvC. And for those of you who aren’t special character inclined, you can play as Ken in every other game from the Marvel vs. Capcom series… so go get kicking!!!

Thanks to The Fighter’s Generation for the Capcom art. Next Monday? Another Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

Even poorly lit, this t-shirt looks amazing

Sold yet? If so, holler at us and maybe we’ll order some real ones on purple or black shirts. If you really like the white one – I’ll setup a Cafepress storefront.

Neal thinks it stinks

Was not a fan. Alt ending was lame. The whole thing was just refs to other characters and setups for other movies. Remy was shitty too. And Will.I.Am??

Nick attended a later screening in Pittsburgh and had this to say:

Nick says it's a go

I enjoyed the Wolverine movie. It had its problems but overall it was pretty fun. They really fucked up Deadpool, but it still managed to make sense. 7 outta 10

Personally, I think Mr. Marino is being way too generous (I do agree re Deadpool), but he is entitled to his opinion (as are you). Look for our heated debate on Tuesday, in Podcast Episode 79!

Therefore, in place of that comparably mundane countdown, I present to you a collection of well-known characters – both fictional and otherwise – who have that extra special something that makes them all the more memorable.

9. Mr. Fantastic. Probably the least known entity on this list, Mr. Fantastic makes up for his lack of popularity among the masses by being, by and large, the most extendable member of this countdown. I mean, the guy can stretch EVERYTHING. And by “EVERYTHING” I mean he can also stretch his dick. And when I think of extended dicks, my thoughts naturally lead to…

8. Kim Kardashian. Ya know, maybe Kim isn’t quite “this list” material… but she is pretty damn popular right now, to the point where nine out of ten people could easily tell you that she’s primarily known for having a huge ass. Speaking of being known for having a huge body part, let’s talk about…

7. The Coneheads. Their enlarged and elongated craniums are far more iconic than you would expect. Amazingly, this ancient Saturday Night Live sketch managed to return in the mid-90s as a corny spinoff film. Their longevity might be even better than…

6. ZZ Top. The super stretched beards of ZZ Top are both “extra” and “extended,” making them natural choices for this list. That’s a double whammy right there, folks. They might even have the most famous extended body parts in rock, if not for Tommy Lee and…

5. Gene Simmons. While the awesomeness of KISS as a whole is somewhat up for debate, it’s pretty safe to say that the length of Gene Simmons’ tongue is universally accepted as “really fucking long.” And although this makes for a rather weak transition into our next candidate, Gene is a HUGE fan of Marvel Comics, publisher of…

4. Wolverine. Of course, you knew he was going to be on this list from the start. Wolvie’s extendable claws make him extremely iconic on the page and on the big screen. Plus, they make it cool to run around the house with a bunch of kitchen knives between your knuckles. Speaking of kitchens, that reminds me of…

3. Marge Simpson. Marge’s giant blue beehive hairdo is the shit. Just admit it. It turns you on. You want to caress it and feel it wrap around you with its warm embrace… I know you do. Don’t lie to me or else you’ll end up like…

2. Pinocchio. This little guy might just have world’s most famous nose. I mean, who’s his big competition? Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anyone else who can claim their fame solely for their proboscis. Still, this devious wooden puppet can’t hold a candle to…

1. The Three-Boobied Lady from Total Recall. C’mon! How can you NOT love this chick? I can sum up her elite iconic status in one short phrase that says all you need to know: she’s a Martian hooker with three boobs!!!

More: The Top 9 Biggest Superhero Movie Mistakes of the Past Ten Years.

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Peter Puker, The Spectacular Spider-Vomit

Even though your brain is steeped in six claws and mutton chops right now, try and remember back to the Watchmen movie. It’s hard, right? Believe it or not, that movie only came out two months ago (though it feels more like two years).

Around the time of the film’s debut, DC Comics attempted an “After Watchmen… What’s Next?” program to steer potential readers to like-minded material. I’ve decided that’s just what Wolvie needs to coincide with his silver screen solo outing. Thusly, I present to you:

AFTER WOLVERINE… WHAT’S NEXT?

Books That Reinforce Stereotypes About the Modern Superhero

When everyone thinks about superheroes nowadays, they think about The Dark Knight, Spider-Man’s evil black suit, and Superman being a deadbeat dad. (And, oh yeah, what was it called? HMMM… oh right! That Watchmen thing.)

It’s true: superheroes are emo right now. “Dark” is hot. “Dead” is even hotter.

So if you like your heroes dark or dead, then you’ll love these current comics:

• Batman: Battle for the Cowl. Batman’s dead (sorta) and a bunch of supporting characters are fighting for the right to wear his tight blue undies.
• Captain America. Cap got killed and the shit kept rolling. He’s been replaced by his once-dead teen sidekick that used to be a KGB assassin. Meanwhile, an evil scientist made Cap’s girlfriend miscarry his baby.
• Dark Avengers. Marvel’s premier Dark Reign title wherein the Avengers have been replaced by replica supervillains… but Johnny Q. Public doesn’t know it!
• X-Force. Cyclops decides to create a black ops team of mutants who wear all black as they travel around the world and act like terrorists (or is it anti-terrorists?).

More Books With Wolverine

This one sounds deceptively easy, doesn’t it? Well it’s a bit trickier than it may seem. See, the Wolverine you know from the movie isn’t the Wolverine who’s starring in the monthly Wolverine comic book right now.

To find the Wolverine you enjoyed from the movie, you’ve got to look for him in:

• Wolverine: Weapon X. A brand new comic book made to (sort of) coincide with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It’s so new that I don’t even know what to expect… except for six claws and mutton chops.
• New Avengers. From what I hear, Logan is still hanging around with Luke Cage and whining a lot. But I could be wrong about this.

Books That Push The Boundaries of Anti-Hero Fiction

He’s a killer. He’s a hero. No… he’s a killer AND a hero.

If you enjoy the walking contradiction that is Wolverine, then you may also enjoy the exploits of these other famous anti-heroes:

• Lobo. I have no idea if Lobo has any comics coming out right now. He’s like a cosmic Wolverine with a bad complexion and a twisted sense of humor.
• The Punisher. Already a movie star in his own right, Frank Castle straddles the line between hero and villain even more than Logan. He’s got two ongoing comics on the racks right now.

Best-Selling Books From Best-Selling Authors

Riiiiiiiiiiight. We’re just going to skip this one.

Books For Immature Readers

Surely, the idea of a man who backs up his irrational anger with knives that come out of his hands isn’t the most mature-minded notion out there. While the “dark” trend sweeping comics right now tends to be overly emotional, some books out there still know how to have fun and not worry about it.

Here are a few current comics that delight in the more visceral elements of sequential storytelling:

• Street Fighter comics by UDON Entertainment. Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter IV spend most of their time on kickass tournament fight scenes with huge SFX and bright colors that slap you in the face. Shiny pages! Big fights! AWESOME!
• Skrull Kill Krew. Evil aliens never stop trying to take over the Earth, so Riot and the Skrull Kill Krew never stop trying to kill them. Get it?

As a fitting end to this post, I should note that this upcoming Saturday is Free Comic Book Day. If you don’t buy comics on the regular, why not at least stop down to your local shop and get some for free? (There’s even one about Wolverine!)

Then the podcast goes interactive as we ask listeners to join along as we visit www.freecomicbookday.com to make our picks for Free Comic Book Day 2009. We check out the full range of books available for FCBD on Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 as we chat about comics (and more) including Avengers, Blackest Night #0, Bongo Comics, Love and Rockets, Mercy Sparx, Archie Comics, GI Joe Resolute, Fist of Justice, the art of Gurihiru, Street Fighter IV #2, the TMNT 25th anniversary, and tons more.

(If this looks a bit off model, it’s mostly because I just got a haircut, don’t have a skinny, cartoon-style neck, nor any facial structures that are accurately represented there-above; there’s a reason that Nick does the drawing and I do the writing in our collaborations.)

There! Now you can put a face, however shittily drawn, to the voice that has brought you these 25 or so deeply empirical studies into the machinations of the American Culture Industry. Though, as often discussed, as much as cultural neutrality seems possible, it never is. Like the movie I just saw over the weekend, Crank: High Voltage. I thought that this Crank was almost as awesome as the first Crank (which was completely awesome). The chart would look something like this:

Now, I realize that not everyone does or would think that Crank is awesome. Why? Because they are lame, and not ready for the future of action movies of this sort, which operate in the more-or-less linear fashion of “This is awesome. Now this. This is also awesome. Here’s another awesome thing.” etc. My appreciation of this movie was probably easy to predict, given my previous statements in favor of Jason Statham as pretty much the only true action start making movies right now. So it makes sense, that he’s certainly a different type of action star, than say, Schwarzenegger (also completely awesome).

But I’m breaking one of my own rules, namely that I don’t do reviews. So saying that the movie is awesome, but not awesome for everyone is not good enough. It’s even hard to say that all action movies should be like these Crank movies, in fact, the opposite is probably the case. But there really is something to be said for movie-makers that adhere to this linked-awesome sequence model. What is impressive about Crank: High Voltage, then, is the fact that they managed to fit a lot more plot into this movie than the first one. That happens when you have a revenge movie, revenge always involves plot. I don’t know that any of the techniques utilized (in terms of the scattered, wide-spread awesomeness) will ever leak back into more conventional action movies, though, not because of their frenetic pace, but because it requires a certain amount of meta-awareness on its viewers. It strikes me that (for lack of better terms) older and/or dumber viewers would be either a) put off or b) bored by the kind of we’ll do anything if it seems cool kind of approach, since it might only be interesting to follow if you figure out that they’re really only making the movie as a tongue-in-cheek affair, with the (already mentioned) mind towards awesomeness.

And it’s box office showing, a paltry 11 million in two weeks, seems to back up my sense that, depsite its being way more entertaining than most other movies out there, Crank: High Voltage is too awesome for the average viewer. Bummer. Oh well, gotta cut this column short, in order to jump my motorcycle over a gorge.

SUMMER CULTUROLOGY SPECIAL!!!

Also, since its the summer, and the book-oriented section of AudioShocker seems to have fallen tragically by the wayside, I am going to implement a special Read-with-Pete Culturology Book Club to run for the next several months. Book Club commentaries will be seeded by myself in the post-space that used to be occupied by the Things That It Was or Wasn’t Okay to Like. We will hope to avoid any general book-clubbing, like saying why or why not we liked given books or characters or plots, rather focusing instead on a more scientific appraisal of the various pieces of literature. Up first: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. Totally appropriate for comics-readers as well. And it won a Pulitzer. Alright! Get Reading!

How does Spidey get web fluid off his costume? It sticks to everything!

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In the Marvel vs. Capcom games, Spider-Man is what I like to call a “clutch character.” Basically, that means if Justique is kicking my ass with Jin or Pete is running me with Venom, I go to Spidey to help me get some payback. I typically only call on Peter Parker when I need that extra boost.

This wallpaper is penciled by Joe Quesada, inked by Danny Miki, and colored by Richard Isanove. It comes from the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #544, from the controversial One More Day story arc.

Thanks to Marvel Avalon for the image (I’ve been getting my hi-res scans from them for years). Be back here next Monday for another Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

9. Jessica Alba’s blue eyes in 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I actually love this film, to the chagrin of many superhero movie enthusiasts on the Internet. But one thing nearly ruined the movie for me – Jessica Alba’s fake blue eyes. Aside from the fact that the first Fantastic Four film featured Alba’s far more subtle peepers, her new contacts were an unreal shade of disturbing (and distracting) blue. Still, they could never be as distracting as…

8. Christian Bale’s husky voice in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. I don’t care for the new Batman movies, but I do recognize how much they satisfy their audience. Still, there’s one negative thing that most fans agree on: Bale’s Batman voice is ridiculous. His husky, throaty whisper is enough to make me crack up during even the most serious and thrilling scenes. But even though Bale’s Batman needs a little vocal work, he’s still light years ahead of…

7. Ben Affleck starring as Matt Murdock in Daredevil. There was just something supremely wrong with Matt Damon’s boy toy taking the lead role in Daredevil. He was stiff, he didn’t look the part, and his bad acting destroyed any chance of a redeeming sequel. Instead, it gave us an ever crappier spinoff movie because apparently…

6. Someone thought it was a good idea to make an Elektra solo film. Elektra Natchios was played by Jennifer Garner in a skimpy Spandex outfit. I assume that’s the only reason why this horrid Daredevil spinoff got the green light, because the rest of the movie is shit. Still, a solo Elektra movie could never be as bad as…

5. A Catwoman film removed from everything Batman. Warner Bros. decided to make Catwoman a legacy character and remove her feline ferocity from the Batman franchise with Halle Berry’s Catwoman solo film. Don’t get me wrong – Catwoman is a great character. But taking her out of the Batman universe is a slap in the face to loyal Batman fans and a confusing turn of events for the general public. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only superhero flub perpetrated by…

4. Halle Berry. That’s right. Not only did this actress crap on Catwoman, she took a dump on Storm too (in three consecutive X-Men films!). That’s four awful superhero performances in one decade. Why, Halle? WHY??? At least she wasn’t cast in…

3. The obnoxious musical number featured in Spider-Man 3. I truly enjoyed the beginning of Spider-Man 3… until I realized that I was watching a Spider-Man movie and not a romantic comedy about three friends caught in a love triangle. Upon realizing how lame that was, Sam Raimi delivered the killing blow – a Toby Maguire song and dance number. Something inside me died that day. The decision to include this musical interlude is only eclipsed by the misguided decision to make…

2. Superman Returns as a sequel. Now this is supremely hypocritical on my part because I’ve never seen the film. But did I even need to? It’s a sequel to Superman II… a movie I didn’t even like that was made over 25 years ago!!! To make matters worse, Bryan Singer ditched the X-Men franchise to make this film, which leads us to…

1. X-Men: The Last Stand. The whole movie. One. Big. Mistake.

More: The Top 9 DC Comics Movies Warner Bros. Should Be Making Right Now.

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Silly Spidey, brains are for tricks!

So what am I to do for digital long-form comics? Let’s do a quick run-thru of the existing formats:

Torrents. I can illegally download comic books to my heart’s content. The organization of the content is weird though – things tend to be grouped in either massive decades-spanning archives, an entire year’s worth of comics from one publisher, or a single week’s worth of output from the entire industry.

DVD Archives. Marvel Comics pioneered this format back in the early 00s. They took about 40 years worth of scans from a single character’s catalog, plopped them onto a DVD set, and sold them for an extremely modest price. I’ve never used these before, but the marketing concept alone sounds solid.

Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited. Aside from the hilarious DCU name, there’s not much that appeals to me about Marvel’s current digital purchase option. The interface is essentially the same Flash reader they’ve been using for the past decade. It resizes the pages to a pixelated fit-to-screen window.

Blogs and Promotional Previews. Just about every comic book publisher has put up entire issues for free on the Internet. This is great to get the flavor of a series. But the purpose of putting an entire issue up on a blog is to drive sales of the printed product.

Now that we’ve outlined the primary ways to read long-form digital comics, let’s take a closer look at each format. First up, we’ve got torrents. Frankly, I strictly reserve this option for out-of-print collections and other impossible-to-find comics. I feel strongly about buying a comic if I enjoy it. Simply put, torrents are a great option but a bad solution.

The DVD archives are closest thing to a solution, but they still have their flaws. While the format gives the reader ownership of the material, their product selection is highly limited and it’s grouped by character. For example, if I wanted to pay $10 for the DVD equivalent of a recent 12-issue run, I simply don’t have that option. It’s either 40 years of classics or nothing at all.

Marvel’s DCU program is inventive – I’ll give it that. But it suffers from three problems: 1. Comics must be consumed over the Internet, 2. Their comics reader makes the art look bad and it’s hard to navigate, and 3. Marvel’s online catalog leaves much to be desired. I like their attempt to take digital comics to a direct consumer level. But their delivery method is far from perfect.

As for blogs and promos? Well, the answer is pretty easy: it’s a great marketing tool but not good if you want more online content than a single issue. While this method of distribution may slowly become the online standard in a modified way, as it exists right now, it only works for advertising.

And all this goes without even mentioning the biggest obstacle to reading and enjoying digital comics: there’s no satisfying portable product to read them on!

Yeah, you can carry around a regular laptop. But that comes with its own inherent hassles. There was a time when I flirted with the notion of buying a touch-screen tablet laptop for digital comics. The aspect ratio is perfect for the single-page size. But at the time, I was getting paid to review comic books on a weekly basis using the low-quality PDFs that Marvel, DC, and other publishers send out to online reviewers. When I stopped doing those weekly reviews, my need for the tablet computer ceased.

I’ve heard talk of reading comics on other portable digital devices. However, the one thing that seems to be lacking from all of these non-laptop solutions is size. They’re just too damn small. They might be great for webcomics and similar strips that can be read one panel at a time. But that just won’t cut it for a full-sized comic book page. Like I told Neal the other night, you can’t expect digital comics to have a decent distribution method until there’s a decent device to read them on.

It’s not like we don’t have the technology to make an awesome digital comics reader. We definitely do. And I know that selling images is difficult without massive piracy, but I’m sure it can be done effectively. I know it can. But, yet, here I am, desiring digital comic books but completely dissatisfied with all the available options.

This is where I should probably tell you about my predictions for summer jams. The thing is, I haven’t heard a Hey Ma, Hot In Herre, or Izzo (HOVA) yet this year. Am I destined to spend my precious 4 days on the beach listening to Lady Gaga, Flo Rida, and (gasp) Jeezy!? If so, kill me now and spare me the horror. But, perhaps my musical sphere is just too small – I do live in a musical vacuum afterall.

So help me out here AudioShocker readers: What are your 2009 Summer Jam picks?

Need some more inspiration? This track, Would You Like To Ride, by Mr. West, Malik Yousef, and Common was my joint around… 2003 or 2004. The track is syrupy smooth and works whether you are cruising at 25, blazing at 80, or just standing still. Kanye stuck to the basics and relied on a few simple samples combined with a steady knocking beat. West’s verse gives us a preview of the great wordplay we’ve come to associate him with, and Common just destroys Erykah Badu. If you weren’t already up on this one — act like you know!

Sadly, the video is trash – but real summer jams should be on the stereo – not your television!

Then we bring you your regularly scheduled program: Neal does not understand Lady Gaga so Justique tries to explain her appeal. Justique does not understand M.I.A. so Neal tries to explain her appeal. Meanwhile, Alan Arkin gets slammed for Sunshine Cleaning. Nick demands to know the etymology of the Stanky Leg (not the Stanky Legg!). Then Neal insists on talking about mixtapes that no one has ever heard about (no one, that is, according to Nick). This somehow leads to the revelation that MTV is going to start showing music videos again… too little too late, MTV!!!

The reason that this would get me out there into the internet in order to watch this is pretty clear–as an Arrested Development enthusiast (it’s not my favorite show ever, but I like it a lot, and appreciate the fact that when I make reference to it in conversation, way more people notice the reference then when I–preferably–reference, say, Mr. Show), I was excited to see that Mitchell Hurwitz was doing another show. Pretty standard reaction, I think. Plus some of the usual voice talents that seem worth listening to, with some obvious overlap with AD in Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Henry Winkler. The presence of Tom Kenny (of Mr. Show and Spongebob fame) as a voice talent also scores points.

The show itself, though, was pretty much a disappointment. It wasn’t a struggle to watch, for its 20 minutes, but there wasn’t much about it that struck me as “good.” They seem to be working some kind of meta-show element in there, with various characters having “catchphrases,” and there being occasional winks to the camera, and breakings of the fourth wall, etcetera, but given the kind of slackerly vibe the whole show gives off, its disconcerting to me that that element may well turn out to be never more than completely half-assed. Which is too bad, since “meta-” shit is super trendy these days, so it just comes off as so much contract-renewal pandering. Which is fine, shit’s gotta pander, I realize that, but hear me out:

in terms of “meta” texts, what tends to work well about them (and I’m thinking mostly of the “postmodern” novels that were popular in the 70s-90s) is their complicating their given medium (whether its a comic, or a novel, or a movie) at the level of plot. When Milan Kundera interrupts The Unbearable Lightness of Being to muse about his own vantage on the characters he’s created, he, as an author, is acutely aware of what this intereference does at the level of plot, primarily upsetting the realism of the cause and effect of the plot of the novel, toying with the reader in a novel (pun intended) way, and complicating the reading experience as a whole. Or when Paul Auster inserts a character into City of Glass who is named “Paul Auster” it complicates the relationship between the author and the other characters, yes, but also, importantly, effects the plot, since the reader now has to question whether some characters have more power than others, and whether or not the cause and effect can be taken for granted.

Let’s take another meta-textual example, this time one which seems to have less impact on its text: the “Black Freighter” element of the ever-popular Watchmen. Some folks (Neal, for instance) argue that this aspect of Watchmen is completely unnecessary and boring, not even in need of reading. This stance comes about because the meta-comic doesn’t really bear any effect on the plot of the comic-as-such; it adds a level of awareness certainly, in terms of the role of Watchmen as a comic about comics, and does a lot of character building, in terms of the men on the street roles of the kid reading the book and the newsstand guy that does all the talking at the same time–more important than you might think, since these two characters are crucial in developing concern in the reading on behalf of the citizens that get killed by Ozymandias’s psychic-vagina-squid. The argument against the Black Freighter being, then, that there are other, better ways of building character without being unnecessarily “smart” (i.e. meta) about it. But from another aspect, we can see that the meta-comic actually does play an important role in the plot: its author, who has mysteriously disappeared, turns out to be a crucial aspect of Ozymandias’s plan–the writer of the most twisted comic ever is also the author of the nightmare about the extra-dimensional vagina-squid that is implanted into peoples brains when the climactic event occurs. This is why, in one of the books, we actually see this author die, as he and everyone else involved in the project are blown up on the boat, his story–the Black Freighter–causes him to be selected to write the nightmare which is the crux of Ozymandias’s plot; that is direct engagement with the plot, if I’ve ever read it.

But it does straddle the border. I tend to agree with the –generally populist-seeming– argument that self-awareness in any given cultural artifact isn’t necessarily a good thing. Think of the huge number of major studio quasi-”B” movies which attempt to wink at the camera and pull in the recreationally ironic demographic but end up making nonsense movies which fail at all levels. Winking at a two-way mirror on the fourth wall is not the same thing as breaking that wall (I can only imagine that Brecht would find much to complain about in contemporary “meta” culture). So, when Sit Down, Shut Up winks at the camera, especially given that pop cultural stuff has already been doing that move for a long time, it is not only not-fresh, but annoying and off-putting. There’s some chance that they develop it further, such that it might turn into a cool thing; I’m not giving up on it yet, but as of now its hard to be optimistic.

Sit Down, Shut Up is not helped by the fact that it appears to be going in the post-Family Guy direction of general plotlessness in favor of snarky jokes, loosely assembled under an umbrella arc on an episode-by-episode basis (ditching plots is what ruined The Simpsons). Here again, if anything of what I’ve written, in terms of plot-importance being the aspect that makes meta-textuality interesting, makes sense, SD, SU will need to have more plot to work better. Though, one supposes, most humans just like plain old jokes, not plots, in their comedies, so maybe the show’ll do just fine.

Speaking of plots, I’ve also been watching–this too is probably easily predictable–Dollhouse on the internet. Pretty good. Gets a lot better towards episodes 5 and 6, but its worth watching the first few episodes to get to the middle ones; it seems like the show is gonna be solid through the rest of this season, thought it already seems to be headed right for cancellation once this season ends. Oh well.

Pick a card... any card! Actually, just take that King of Spades, okay?

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“C’mon!” That’s what the Ragin’ Cajun says at the start of every match in Marvel vs. Capcom. He’s also in a bunch of other Capcom fighting games.

He’s also on the cover of X-Men Origins: Gambit, where this week’s sweet wallpaper comes from. It’s drawn by David Yardin and colored by… well, um, I’m not sure. The issue doesn’t come out till June.

Thanks to MySpace Comic Books for the hi-res image that became this week’s wallpaper. They’re great for that sort of thing. Be back next Monday for a new Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

9. Green Arrow. Supermax, eh? What a fucking stupid idea. Why would you introduce Green Arrow to the film audience through a prison breakout movie? Play this one close to the vest and tell the tale of a spoiled rich kid that turns into a modern Robin Hood. It’s that easy. Get some imaginative director to envision fun archery antics (including a slo-mo Matrix style arrow shot, of course) and you’ve got another superhero blockbuster on your hands, Warner Bros.

8. Metropolis. This is an unusual suggestion that could work out unusually well – take the highly successful Smallville TV series and spin it off into a blockbuster film where everything we know about the TV show changes. Let Clark Kent grow up and make the transition that we knew he was always going to make. Bring back familiar cast members – Lex, Lana, and more – while solidifying Clark’s status in the big city. Show Kal-El taking hold of the Superman mantle and growing into his infamous role.

7. Arkham Asylum. A horror movie where the spotlight is on the Batman’s rogues gallery. People already know the cast of characters well… so now give them a freaky thriller where every villain gets the same sort of hyper-serious treatment that Heath Ledger and company gave to the Joker. The story could focus on one frightening night when the prisoners of Arkham get loose inside the building and attempt to escape from the asylum. Tell the story from the viewpoint of a psychiatrist working there. People would love this.

6. Green Lantern. Supposedly, this movie is going to get made soon. But Warner Bros., you’re like the “the film studio that cried wolf” when it comes to superhero movies. I’ll believe that you’re actually making this when I see some production stills or photos from the set. And it’s probably best to go with the John Stewart version of the character – that’s who the public is mostly familiar nowadays. Plus, the DCU film universe could use a bit of diversity.

5. The Daily Planet. A film about the most famous fictional newspaper in the world. Redefine Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White for the masses. Show what it’s like to cover news in a world where the unbelievable happens on a regular basis. On the whole, this should be largely devoid of Superman (maybe just a little foreshadowing). However, this movie must be developed with the notion that relaunching the Superman franchise as a sequel is a given. As a tease, have the final scene feature a young Clark Kent being introduced to Lois Lane for the very first time.

4. Flash. The character is truly iconic. That’s what he has in spades over most other superheroes. His name alone gives you everything you need to know: it’s all about speed. Plus, the Flash logo makes for incredible merchandising. The marketing potential for this property is tremendous. To top it off, this legacy character has more than one classic iteration. Therefore, you can kill off Barry in the second film (for unparalleled dramatic superhero tension) and have Wally rise to the challenge.

3. Aquaman. As a huge Aquaman fan, I may be a bit biased. But this character is known across the world and beloved by many who grew up on Super Friends. Those two things alone make it the perfect time for an Aquaman movie, which would be a lavish underwater epic. Still need more proof that this should get made? Entourage has already done the viral promotion for the film! Warner Bros., if you wait too damn long then you’ll never be able to capitalize on that free publicity!!!

2. Superman Begins. Yeah, we already have five modern Superman movies, not to mention countless hours of animated film and TV shows, and then there’s Smallville… and a WHOLE LOT MORE. But the Superman film franchise is in the crapper right now. Warner Bros., just admit that Superman Returns didn’t turn out like you expected and relaunch the whole franchise from the beginning. Keep it simple and go with the “Begins” motif that worked wonders for your Batman franchise.

1. Wonder Woman. Seriously, why is there no Wonder Woman movie yet? I know the story blah blah blah Whedon blah blah blah wrote a script blah blah. WHO CARES!?! Just make the damn movie already!!! This is one of the most famous superheroes in the world and all she has right now is a dated (albeit awesome) 70s TV series and a (LAME!) direct-to-DVD animated film. Stop making excuses, Warner Bros., and make a goddamn Wonder Woman movie!

More: The Top 9 WORST Actors in Live-Action Superhero Films.

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

The Amazing Spider-Bigot strikes again.

]]> http://www.audioshocker.com/2009/04/16/spider-man-captain-america-in-my-new-costume/feed 0 http://www.audioshocker.com/2009/04/15/asher-roth-fallin-asleep-in-the-bread-aisle-while-having-a-bad-day http://www.audioshocker.com/2009/04/15/asher-roth-fallin-asleep-in-the-bread-aisle-while-having-a-bad-day#comments Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:20:03 +0000 neal http://www.audioshocker.com/?p=1833

The album drops 4/21 (4:20 FAIL)

Ha – what a clever title! Anyway, let’s get to it.  We’ve all seen the I Love College video.  We’ve all heard the requisite Eminem comparisons. We’ve all thought to ourselves, “Seriously? Is this guy for real?” These days, Ash Roth, like Soulja Boy’s wack ass, seems to be inescapable when it comes to hip hop.

I’m not sure I really buy the whole package – but I was willing to give him (and maybe next week Bobby Ray (formerly B.o.B)) a shot. I mean, I Love College is obviously a gimmick right? There has to be something else.

And I think there might be. I copped the album, Asleep In The Bread Aisle, the other night and I have been putting it through it’s paces. I’ll reserve my comments for the Podcast, so I actually have time for an informed opinion, but a couple quick notes.

Production seems solid, the beats are simple and uncomplicated. To it’s credit, the album is actually pretty light on guests considering the amount of hype that dude has. Chester French, Busta, New Kingdom, Jazzy Pha, Cee-lo, Beanie Siegel – that is pretty good for a debut album these days.

How nuts is this mixtape cover?!

So far, two tracks are standing out to me, Bad Day (ft. Jazzy Pha) and Fallin‘. They’re both story tracks (I really dig story tracks) with decent beats and are a little different than what I had heard up till now.

Fallin‘ gives you a piece of where Ash is coming from (or if you are a cynical dick – where the label wants him to come from). take a listen for a different take on Roth.

Bad Day – if it had a few more sound effects, increased BPM, more bass, and a little bit of manic yelling would be a dead ringer for an Eminem track. The track is great (and short!) – but Ash, please don’t shoot a video for it. It will only cement your image as an Em-clone. Use Sour Patch Kids or something instead.

Too lazy to download? Well too bad, YouTube removed all the embeds I had. Pfffff

That is about as far as I have gotten so far, so stay tune in next Tuesday!

Then we talk movies. Neal thinks that Fast and Furious makes Paul Walker look taller and Vin Diesel look the same, he is also pumped to see Nine (produced by Tim Burton, natch), Nick and Justique saw the mediocre Monsters vs Aliens in excellent IMAX 3D, they also started watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya anime and they love it, and Neal thinks Big Stan is a ripoff of The Longest Yard.

Doom commands you to download his wallpaper!!!

DOWNLOAD WALLPAPER :: 1280 X 1024 :: 1440 X 900 :: 1600 X 1200

Ahhhh YES! The good Doctor makes his Hyper Combo Wallpaper debut as drawn by President Nelson and colored by, well… yours truly!!! Yes, yes, I know how excited this makes you. I understand… it is very exciting.

You know who else is excited? Doctor Doom. Yep, Victor von Doom loves being a special character in Marvel Super Heroes. On the PS1, beat the game with any character and go to the character selection screen. Go to Captain America. Tap “down” twice and hold it. Then hit and hold the following buttons in this order (while holding “down”): “light kick,” “medium kick,” and “hard kick.” VOILA! Pure Doom. He’s also in MvC2, but you know how I feel about THAT game…

Thanks to deviantART for hosting the account that delivered us this wonderful image. Amen. Be back here next Monday for a new Hyper Combo Wallpaper!

9. 2 for 1. If you play your cards right, you may get invited to two consecutive seders. Imagine Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner back to back.

8. Exclusivity. Outside large Jewish communities, Passover largely flies under the radar. As such, most seders I have been to were pretty small and intimate. I always got a kick out of being the only Indian kid in town who knew the bread prayer.

7. Matzo ball soup. Like I could really leave this out, talk about a staple!

6. Passover Coke. I suppose it is a symptom of living in Peoria that I just found out about this. (and no, this isn’t kosher cocaine) I am going to buy every freaking yellow capped bottle I see. (no HFCS!)

Follow the yellow cap to HFCS-free bliss

5. Brisket. No joke. I love me some hot and juicy brisket. I’ll chomp on that stuff until my jaw hurts. Everyone in Sq seems to be a genius when it comes to beef.

4. Finding the afikoman. I can’t say I was ever very good at this game – but it was a lot of fun tearing the place apart looking for a piece of matzo.

3. Wine. 4 cups – it’s a Rabbinic requirement. Nothing says awesome like a religiously mandated tipple.

2. The Passover story. When we were kids, my parents would always invite stranded CMU grad students over for Thanksgiving and my sister and I would have to recite the story of the first Thanksgiving. So come spring, it was nice to have someone else do the storytelling.

My only weakness

1. Manischewitz Macaroons. You know, I could do a Top 9 based on Manischewitz products alone, but these macaroons, seemingly available only during Passover, are my favorite. I buy these suckers by the truckload every chance I get.

That’s it folks. Nick will be back next week with a superwacky Texas themed Top 9. Stay tuned!

More: The Top 9 UK Oddities

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what Nick calls math.

I always had a feeling he was a bigot...

]]> http://www.audioshocker.com/2009/04/09/spider-man-captain-america-in-always-lying-to-me/feed 0 http://www.audioshocker.com/2009/04/09/podcast-pointers-taking-the-noise-out http://www.audioshocker.com/2009/04/09/podcast-pointers-taking-the-noise-out#comments Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:52:13 +0000 nick marino http://www.audioshocker.com/?p=1818 Noise Removal. This is the most troublesome task I encouter every week while editing the audio for our podcasts.

Obviously, the easiest and most efficient way to decrease noise (static, hissing, movements, and shuffling sounds) is to record your audio with as little noise as possible in the background. Regular podcast listeners often listen to me harass Neal during the show when I can hear static on his end of the audio. That’s because I don’t like taking it out later!!!

Here are my current recording settings:

Recording Device: iMac G4 built-in microphone (in monitor)
Recording Level: the low side of 0.4 (on the Audacity mic input slider)

It’s inevitable that noise will end up on your recording. Otherwise, you’d have to be sitting in a sound booth with a high-end microphone and some extremely still participants. Basically, what I’m saying is that you WILL have noise, so you better learn how to get rid of it.

How do you eliminate noise? Even though I have my ProTools running again, I still record and edit my podcast audio in Audacity. It’s less of a strain on my iMac G4 (which is a bit outdated and slow). Audacity is great because it’s a lighter program and the editing tools are simple. But it’s also maddening because the built-in effects are different for Mac and Windows. The best of these filters are, unfortunately, incompatible with the opposite operating system.

Luckily, Audacity on the Mac has the best filter for noise removal. It’s listed as Apple: AUDynamicsProcessor and it saves my life week after week.

Here are my AUDynamicsProcessor filter settings:

Compression Threshold: 20 db
Head Room: 40 db
Expansion Ratio: 1.89
Expansion Threshold: -82 db
Attack Time: 0.005 Secs
Release Time: 0.510 Secs
Master Gain: 0.0 db

The “Expansion Threshold” setting is the most important of all. For quiter audio, you want this to be in the low 80s, high 70s. For more robust audio (and great amounts of static), you’ll want to toggle this somewhere in the low 70s or 60s.

You know that you’ve just got a bad signal when you have to start messing around in the 50s to knock off the static. At that point, I would either rerecord or just cut your losses and leave in some of the noise.

These settings may not work for you, but they’ve become ingrained in my brain after a year and a half of weekly podcast editing (not to mention countless hours of editing vocals for music as well). If you’re running Audacity on a PC… I’m sorry. There simply isn’t a tool like this that comes default with the program. You’ll have to do trial and error with 3rd party plugins. The filter you want is most easily defined as a “gate,” but unfortunately, not all gates are created equal.

Once you’ve taken care of the noise, then you have to move onto volume levels (a.k.a. compression). But that’s a whole other bag, so it’ll have to wait for the next edition of Podcast Pointers!