Oops

Just back from the gym and errands and having water and a shower before my two-days-belated birthday party. Small gathering, at least, mostly friends in the neighborhood. Yesterday there was a bit of a kerfuffle over at Fanboy Rampage over my mini-rant in my Comic Book Galaxy column. Lots of the readers seemed to get that while my point was sincere, the delivery was exaggerated for effect, or at least they chose to have a laugh at it rather than get worked up. Paul O'Brien was the inspiration for it--I guess you could call him the "target" if I was really attacking him and not just the frustrating disenchantment he represents--and he didn't seem particularly troubled. I tend to think UK folks tend to have better senses of humo(u)r, anyway. I actually toned the piece down from the first draft, anyway, which I wouldn't have done if I'd meant the guy harm. It was more a performance than anything. I'm not disowning it, apologizing for it, or explaining it anymore, so enough of that.

One interesting comment, quite unintentional on the guy's part who made it, was a semisnipe "since when did comics become like hip-hop?", meaning that I guess my column as equivalent to a rap song threatening a rival rapper. It's a poor comparison, but I do think comics themselves really could do with more musicality to them, in the approach. Not so much the subject matter: Batman: Jazz; the Wu-Tang comic; that dreadful J Torres thing about the Supremes (sort of). Jim Mahfood reflects hip-hop style very well, and while he hasn't written any great stories yet, that's a little more what I'm talking about. And just as Warren Ellis made the great comparison of great self-contained one-shots being like great pop singles, you could go farther with that. Maybe a one-shot like this, followed by an "extended remix" that played with the existing elements and extended them and added other "beats" and callbacks of the "melody" (plot/emotion) and such. Fast mixes, slow mixes. I'm also interested in if you can apply pop song structure to pop comics structure, what would represent the hook and how do you keep going to it without it being redundant or boring. I'm going to think more about this after I read the latest EXILES. RIMSHOT! :)

My son was playing with the butter knife at dinner last night while I was tending to my daughter, and he cut the corner of his lip. It's no fun looking over to see your 5 year old with a mouth full of blood. It's fine, now, and he played soccer this morning with no reopening.

Though not a relevant band anymore, Oasis are still good for interviews, so I recommend the latest in Q. Liam: "Fuck God and fuck Bono. If I want to see God, I go down the pub and have a Stella. After ten of 'em, I AM God!" It's a funny interview: the interview tries for days to get the brothers to admit they love each other, to little avail. Noel: "It's kind of better unsaid, innit?"