Satan and Datin'

Via Tom Spurgeon's The Comics Reporter, I found this little story about the runaway success of Mike Allred's Mormon-based comic, The Golden Plates. But what an obviously wrong line near the end about how, "generally, a comic is considered a success if it sells 60 copies. Golden Plates has sold 2,000." Huh? How could the (anonymous) writer actually think 60 copies would be successful, unless the list price was $1,000 or something? 2,000 sounds about right for the actual sales, I guess, though I really expected this might actually have a bigger success with Mormons. Probably, even with articles in this Utah-based site, most people don't know about it, as it seems to just be in comic book stores. Maybe when Allred collects it, you might find it doing a whole lot better. I have a curiosity about the book, as I like Allred and figure anything he's passionate about stands a good chance of being interesting, yet whole-cloth dialogue from The Book of Mormon, and the tenets themselves, don't interest me.

I also had a casual sorta-date last night with my son's preschool teacher. Her friend was there, too, though she left a little early. Good time, just dinner and margaritas and lots of talking. Nothing huge to report, and this wouldn't be the right place, really, but it was nice just to go out and not have any big worries about it--she asked me out, actually--and just have a good time.

Today is a real kick-back day, though I do have things I need to get done, like this tedious online traffic school, revisions begun on Irregular Joe #1, and folding/ironing laundry. May watch a movie or some SHIELD later, and am itching to read some comics.

Listened to the new White Stripes yesterday in the car, GET BEHIND ME SATAN. I respect artists doing their thing, but it does puzzle me a bit why, after you really break through with the last album, ELEPHANT, you wouldn't kind of stay the course, or at least offer some more good rockers. Aside from the first single, "Blue Orchid", which is pretty short of guitar pyrotechnics, nothing else rocks out, most of the songs being more piano-based. And that's fine--they make up some of the better songs on ELEPHANT--but they haven't quite jumped out of the speakers for me on the new one yet. I did find it funny how prominent and up-front the use of the humble maraca is. Some odd uses of percussion in general. "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)" is a really cool ballad, though. My tip if you download the album--add the song "Black Jack Davey", which I think was an iTunes exclusive but you can find it elsewhere if you look. This is a rocking cover of an old folk song; I think Dylan has covered it as well.