Not In Season

Alright, friends and neighbors! I'm back at an actual keyboard with a real chance to sit down and type this out. Travelling was amazing but coming back to the Midwest was hard. I could feel the cold radiating through the bulkhead of the plane before we even touched down. Like a dummy, I hadn't brought a coat so my shock was even more severe. I got back to the apartment and unpacked, shivering the whole way, I shoved a couple books back onto the shelf. Something there leaped out at me. A comic that reopened the genre for me. That comic?


The Long Halloween.


Written and inked by the highly regarded team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. Loeb and Sale are renowned for spinning excellent yarns about the Dark Knight, netting them both Eisner Awards in the process. I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here, but I assume if you're reading this blog you have at least a passing familiarity with Batman and his endeavors. Created by Bob Kane, Batman has been an anomaly in the comic industry for his nature of being a non-super hero, a man whose gadgetry and detective skills are more involved in the story than superhuman feats. Possessing a rich and immersive back story to draw on, The Long Halloween tells an epic tale of corruption and human fallibility in the city of Gotham. 

Having the origin story exquisitely retold in Frank Millar's  Batman: Year One, Loeb and Sale were approached about continuing the world set in motion in Millar's tale of gangsters and corrupt policemen. Year One was a straight-forward, old school retelling of the first year of Batman's first 12 months getting into form, becoming the figure that would stand against evil in Gotham. While the plot resolved in the collected issues there was definitely more story to tell. Mob Bosses left in power and super-criminals on the horizon remained to be taken down by the bat.


Setting this 13-issue arc into motion is the marriage of Johnny Viti, nephew of "The Roman" Carmine Falcon. Asking for for Bruce Wayne's favor on a bank vote, Falcon is rebuked and swears to investigate into the Wayne Foundation and put the screws to Bruce. A burglar on the scene sends the reception into disarray, necessitating Batman's intervention. Meanwhile Harvey Dent, nosy DA that he is, is in the garage taking down license plates on those in attendance for future record. The contrast of the two knights, and the main underlying theme of the book, is apparent here - The Dark Knight, brawling with mobsters in the office upstairs, The White Knight dutifully doing the paperwork in the parking garage and receiving a beating for his work. The disparate methods these two forces of justice approach their work with is a central theme to what unfolds and things quickly spiral out of control. Inspiring a majority of Christopher Nolan's fantastic 2008 take on The Dark Knight, The Long Halloween sets up a pact between Bats, Dent and long suffering Commissioner Gordon in a long-form plan to bring down The Roman and his family.

All sides agree to work within the law, or "bend it" at the most. As I wrote above, however, things quickly go awry and people start turning up dead. First off is Johnny Viti, shot in his bathtub. Next, the Irish gang that attempted to bomb Dent for his noble actions. On New Years, Carmine's son is shot during a party aboard the Roman's yacht. So it goes for a calendar year, an organized, calculated hit on someone involved with the mob on all the major holidays. Suspicions and paranoia run rampant. Accusations are cast. No one feels safe. The first time I read the comic I was genuinely mystified, pouring over the pages trying to suss out the person behind the Holiday Killings. Bats? Dent? Catwoman? Batman works his way through the rogues gallery of usual suspects, apprehending them all and interrogating them for whatever he can get on the matter. Joker, Riddler, Solomon Grundy, The Penguin, Scarecrow - they all make excellent appearances here, in wonderfully fleshed out versions of themselves. It's a thoroughly gripping tale of intrigue and deception, with the ending leaving your head spinning and the reader asking themselves if what they saw was true.

True to form for some of the best Batman stories, it's a full on noir comic. Pistols with serial numbers filed off, heat-waves setting the scene for smokey, booze filled weddings, footprints in the snow from criminals and confrontations in the sewers - it's all here. This hits all the hallmarks for all my favorite scenes for a story. The scenes and dialogue are incredibly dynamic and of the highest quality. The inspiration for The Dark Knight is clear throughout the book - entire scenes have been drawn upon, while motifs are apparent in others. What is essentially a crime story plays out in fantastical fashion, with a pair of twisted and obsessively driven detectives at the center. 


I honestly cannot recommend this comic enough. If you've never read a Batman comic it's a great starting point - all the major players are here with a massive yet digestible story at the heart. It's also one of the high water marks, so there are few places to go but down. If you have read anything about Batman - WHY HAVEN'T YOU READ THIS? You should know better. I'm disappointed in you. You should know better. 


For reals, yo. Read The Long Halloween. It's amazing.

Nerd Alert!

Well, hello there!

Today, in a move of geeky self-awareness, I want to tell you about an excellent multi-media presence in our world. The thing I speak of is the Nerdist podcast. The brain child of Chris Hardwick, known for his appearances on G4 and Chelsea Handler (or for those of us who watched MTV in the 90s, hosting Singled Out with Jenny McCarthy), the Nerdist podcast was first made available February 8th of 2010. Hardwick, who had at the time just started hosting Web Soup, a you-tube heavy spin off of The Soup, wanted an outlet for talking to friends and fellow comedians about things they found to be nerdy or worthy of geeking out over. The general idea was to find things that were worthy of obsession and passion to specific audiences and bring it a more public view, be it comedians they felt people needed to know about, or personalities who were changing the landscape of distribution and what it means to have a career being an artist, like Scott Sigler or Jonathon Coulton. Enlisting his friends, fellow comedian Jonah Ray and tech-savvy Matt Mira, they launched both the podcast and a blog to evangelize the world on their nerdist views. 

Each episode is roughly an hour and features a guest of the week, typically recorded in Hardwick's home along with Raye and Mira. Fair warning, there is more than a moderate sprinkling of profanity, just in case your ears are allergic to that sort of thing. Topics and guests range from voice actor extraordinaire Billy West (known for voice work on shows like Futurama, Doug and Ren & Stimpy) to Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame, to Mixed Martial Artist Jason 'Mayhem' Miller (host of MTV's Bully Beatdown) to Rob Zombie (of Rob Zombie fame). Hardwick, Raye and Mira spend the duration of the show  both interviewing and joking with their guests, to great success and amusement. While critics of the show have accused the hosts of fawning over whoever they bring on, Hardwick defends his enthusiasm as just that - he prefers to have guests whose company he actually enjoys and wants to learn about. As he posited in one of the episodes, why would he want to have to talk to someone for an hour, in his own home mind you, whom he can't stand? In several episodes Hardwick relates his own struggles with negativity and how he tries to see the best in everything, and his show's perspective and method of guest selection follows that ideology.

Each interview provides insightful glimpses into the minds and processes of each guest. It's fascinating to hear Drew Carrey talk about what it was like to do the Tonight show with Johny Carson and how it could literally open up your career overnight, or hear Stan Lee (of Marvel Comics legend) talk about where the ideas for characters and plots originated. At one point Hardwick had an opportunity to interview Ozzy Osbourne for an unrelated piece and they hit it off well enough that he put up the whole interview for that week's episode. Who knew Ozzy was a massive Dr. Who fan? In a particular instance of absurdist humor, Hardwick interviews the Muppets, yes those Muppets, and asks questions like they're normal, everyday people. Hearing someone give a straight-faced interview with Fozzy, Kermit and Gonzo is bizarre, to say the least. 

With the podcast updating every week and Hardwick and  Ray tweeting about things in between their respective gigs as professional comedians, eventually the concept started to get too large for just them to run on their own. To satisfy the demand for content and consistency, they reached out to writers they admired and had them take the reigns on the Nerdist blog, which I've had a link to on my own site since it's beginning. It was a stroke of genius for Hardwick, as he wanted to keep up the steady stream of content and writing without it becoming a time-sink for his own life. The result? We get new episodes every week, the blog is updated on a frequent basis and non of the content flags due to disparate schedules or obligations. Anything from bizarre news stories to sightings of the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile end up on the blog, which is always a good read. The podcast stays consistently awesome as well. Check out some of the guests they've had: 


Kevin Smith
Ozzy Osbourne
Bill West
Marc Maron
Sarah Silverman
Greg Fitzsimmons
Brian Posehn
Mike Birbiglia
Rain Wilson
Bill Maher
Fred Willard
Jim Gaffigan
Joel Mchale
Andy Richter


See that? See how many awesome, amazing people they've had on? Here's the best part: all these hysterical, entertaining and insightful podcasts are FREE. That's right, no cost! Go for it! Download them on itunes or off their blog. There is something for everyone, I guarantee it.

Another Late Night Post

To be perfectly blunt, I'm spent.

The well is dry tonight folks.

I have no zeal today for a long and pretentiously insightful post on something I love. As penance tomorrow will have either one long and detailed post, or another double post extravaganza. Such are the up and down thrill rides that are my weekends.

To maintain my streak of daily posting and positivity, I thought I'd throw out two really cool links to artists whose work I really dig. The first is completely in character and expected, the other is a little more esoteric but quite beautiful.

The first unabashedly geeky artist is Kodykoala (real name Donald) from El Paso, Texas. An avid gamer, he makes these amazing sculptures out of vinyls and other material, both for sale and his private collection. I'm not going to post any shots here as I don't want to take anything away from his site, but you really ought to check out his work. He does some amazing things with plastics and has a crazy good pop style that I love. I plan on aquiring something from his line once I have a place to display any art that doesn't hang on a wall. Condo dwelling forces an economical use of space - right now most horizontal areas are covered with books and keyboards, so no room for Mega Man statues. 

The second is another site for an artist whose work I am constantly thrilled and enthralled by, Jon Klassen. His site, Burst of Beaden, showcases his gorgeous and dynamic works that are available to purchase. Among his pieces are some design work he did for the movie "Coraline", based on the children's books. His style displays a deft use of minimalist shapes and distinct color/tone choices that are both jarring and engrossing. I see his work and my mind instantly kicks into high gear, both analysing it and musing over what my mind creates by interpreting his skillful absence of anything extemporaneus. It's quite moving. Head over to his site and take a look, I can't say enough about it to do it justice.

That's about all I have for tonight. Like I said, not everyday is going to be a barn burner, but it's something! Mnemosyne were fantastic last night at the Cabooze in Minneapolis, expect a write up on their excellent mix tape soon. I also have a few projects up my sleeve for storing up content to fill in on these lackluster days, but I don't want to ruin the suspense. Secrets, secrets! 

Until tomorrow, dear readers! Sleep tight.