Putting The “Fun” In “Funeral”

There’s a lot to be said in support for the coming-of-age narrative. As many do, they have first-person narrators, an arresting technique - the reader “comes along” with the narrator. The story is an oral tale, and we are listening as they speak. It is hard to discern who the narrator is in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. In many English classes, one is asked to never assume the writer and speaker are the same, but with a character named after the author, as well as author information that calls Bechdel an “archivist of her own life” it is safe to assume that this is the true life story of Bechdel.

Image courety Houghton Mifflin

Fun Home is the story of Bechdel’s father, a gay man living precariously in the closet, who she believes killed himself by jumping in front of a truck. The story shifts also to talk about Bechdel herself, from her coming out as a lesbian to her OCD childhood ticks. Family vacations and early work become the playground for Bechdel’s story, and we are moved through time, so instead of one big story about her sexuality and her father’s death, the narrative is compartmentalized to focus on specific aspects of her life.

The most fascinating aspect of Fun Home for me was Bechdel’s relation to fiction and reality. Throughout the text, she compares parts of her life to famous literature, and even brings in Wind in the Willows and The Addams Family. What is astounding about this project is how she is able to look back on her life as though it were a novel, and analyzing the “characters” of her “story”, she can make meaningful connections and observations with them. Read the rest of this entry »

Or, Countdown To My Last Nerve

Countdown is like 52 in that a new issue comes out each week and focuses on multiple characters. Countdown is different from 52 in that Countdown is kind of f*&%ed up. There has been a backlash the past few years against overly serious comics a la Frank Miller and getting back to the humorous, absurd roots of the medium. Of course, Countdown takes it too far, backlashing away from serious, passing campy, and landing somewhere between stupid and dumb. Read the rest of this entry »

More Boomstick For Your Buck

As I mentioned before, I met this crossover with hesitancy. But, after reading the first issue, I can say my fears were laid to rest.

One of those annoying mini-Ashes from Army of Darkness (film) finds a miniature Necronomicon and uses it to time-travel to Xena’s time. Ash goes back to retrieve the aspect of the Necronomicon and stop his tiny self from destroying reality. Read the rest of this entry »

They aren’t comic’s only married creative team, but they’re one of the few. Working together on such titles as Albion, Wild Girl, and titles using other creative properties, Leah Moore and John Reppion continue to bring new ideas and unique interpretations of the medium.

Recently, Moore and Reppion took time to talk to me about their new crossover and their zombie series, Raise the Dead. Read the rest of this entry »

Credit: NBC

‘Sright kids! Scrubs will be back for an additional 8th season to air next season. Plus, this season, the 7th, will be finished off soon and those episodes air later this spring!

Army of Darkness/Xena: Why Not? #1 (Dynamite) - As much as I love Bruce Campbell, I think he needs less focus. What I mean is the rate he’s going, he’s going to turn into a Chuck Norris Hot Topic fad that will burn out and with him, all that he’s ever touched, sort of like Rouge only with a bigger chin. I say this because fans of Evil Dead are excited about this crossover because the characters Campbell played, Ash and Autolycus, the King of Thieves, will meet. For me, that’s not that exciting as Campbell tends to play characters the same sarcastic way, and two versions of himself will be like someone talking to a mirror, only the reflection has a goatee. I’m more excited about Sam Raimi’s characters interacting with each other. I grew up on Hercules and Xena, and became enamored with the Evil Dead series because it was the same sort of humor. This should be about Sam Raimi and his legacy, and not about how “Bruce Campbell” they can make a comic. Read the rest of this entry »

“I know you didn’t just… turn gay all of a sudden.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #12, which acts as the “8th Season” of the television series, shows Buffy intimate with fellow slayer Satsu, the girl who risked her life to save Buffy in the previous issue. Read the rest of this entry »

The Spy Who Killed Me

Spy fiction in the 50s and 60s was one of the more successful of pulp fictions with a popularity bolstered by movies and TV. Due to the success of the spy formula, what followed was a repetition of the existing archetypes, usually drawing exclusively from James Bond. Recently, spy thrillers have tried to remind consumers of the very human emotions and struggles that spies would experience as humans, not empty stock characters. While many writers continue to fall back on the badass Bauer or swashbuckling Bond characteristics, Chip Mosher’s Left on Mission deals with the implications of being a spy AND a real human.

Mr. Mosher took time to speak with me about his Broken Frontier nominated series. Read the rest of this entry »

The new Incredible Hulk movie trailer is online.

Apparently Norton had the
same reaction I did when
he heard they were making
a new Hulk movie.

While I didn’t like the first Hulk movie, the one Ang Lee directed, as far as the graphics went it was perfect at portraying the Hulk. Of course, the plot was a little hokey and the comic panel recreation slightly jarring, but why after 5 years we need a remake boggles my mind. Sure, Hulk is cool, but do we need another movie?

That’s right kids, this movie is not a sequel - it’s starting from scratch to “save” the Hulk franchise. Why not make a remake of a better movie, like Howard the Duck?

And I can’t help but feel like we’ve seen Ed Norton is the MPD role before - Fight Club, only Tyler Durden is a jade giant.

Images courtesy Marvel.com

After researching supernatural romance detective novels for my column in The Buzz, I decided to give some of the books I haven’t yet read a try. So far I had only read all the Anita Blake books.

Rachel Morgan is a different sort of detective. Granted, it’s in the same vein as Anita Blake, and there are some similarities, and as far as the book’s gimmick goes, the differences of this world are more interesting. Instead of having characters operate in the back alleys of our world, the world of The Hollows series is an alternate history where bioengineering accidentally wiped out many humans. With so many mortals missing, the once hidden races, like vampires and leprechauns, now stood out. So instead of an all out war, every species integrated into human society. Of course, not without obstacles. Read the rest of this entry »