krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

a brief rest stop

February 12, 2024 by krisis

Happy Monday, y’all! This is just a brief note to let you know that I am in the middle of seeing all 650 kilometers of North Island’s Highway 1 right now as I head on a road trip from Wellington to Auckland and back.

That means no new comic guide for Patrons this week (and maybe not next week, either). Plus, some of my regular Drag Race coverage might be slightly delayed as I get back to my daily routine.

This is my first “away from the house” vacation since 2019, if you can count more than 16 hours of driving in a 60 hour period as a vacation. But, if all goes to plan I should get to go on proper amusement park rides with the kid for the first time since she was not-quite four years old, so we’ll call it a win!

If you’re seriously missing my comic book opinions, mark your calendars now for this Thursday @ 1pm US ET (Friday @ 7am NZT) – where I’ll be continuing my string of appearances on Near Mint Condition’s YouTube channel with a major Marvel live stream. In fact, you might call it “oversized”… but, more on that later this week.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 6 – Welcome to the DollHouse Power Rankings

February 11, 2024 by krisis

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16, Episode 6 was a two-for-one “Welcome to the DollHouse” challenge that tested the queens in both design and branding as they had to create an outfit for themselves and their own special edition dolls.

This was the first chance this season we’ve had to see the queens flex their intelligence and aptitude for marketing, and it yielded some interesting results.

Many RuPaul’s Drag Race veterans (including Trixie) love to say that the real race begins after the season ends. We’ve seen Drag Race finalists disappear from view and from fan conversation. We’ve also seen early outs lean into their personal brands to become cult favorites amongst the fandom – including Katya and Trixie trailblazing with YouTube content nearly a decade ago, Yuhua Hamasaki with Bootleg Opinions, and Maddy Morphosis with Give It To Me Straight.

That’s why I love it every time the queens are handed a challenge with a marketing element, and this one is one of the best. It’s not about designing an energy drink or making an inane commercial. It’s literally about the queens selling themselves in the form of their own dolls! We’ve seen RuPaul, Manilla Luzon, Alaska, and Trixie all sell their own dolls over the years

The secret to winning this challenge wasn’t just designing a gorgeous garment. The queens needed to figure out a way to create a “Special Edition” of themselves that felt both essential and toyetic. Even if none of them have the chance to create their own dolls, the ability to boil down their brand to a single image will serve them in all of their future merchandising endeavors.

I was delighted to discover that almost this entire cast of queens was up to the challenge, giving us a week with many strong contenders and only a few certified peg-warmers. OMG, get your mind out of the gutter! A “peg warmer” means the figure in a toyline that no one buys, though it stays “warming” the metal pegs that products hang from in a toy story.

So, which queens were a sell-out and which ones, um… got pegged? The results were interesting, and they caused some surprising shuffling compared to last week’s Girl Groups Power Rankings as the picture of our Top 6 becomes increasingly clear.

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best drag queen win!

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2, Episode 1 – Queens’ Variety Show Power Rankings

February 10, 2024 by krisis

The Olympics of Drag Race is back! It’s RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World Season 2 Episode 1 – a Queen’s Variety Show talent performance and a national pride “For Queen and Country” runway.

That allowed 11 queens from 7 different Drag Race franchises to show off their brands and how they’ve grown since their original run (or, in a few cases, how they stayed exactly the same).

The entire point of the Talent Show as a challenge on Drag Race is for each queen to have a minute of uninterrupted stage time to show off the idiosyncrasies of her personality and aesthetic.

Very few queens actually manage to do that.

Across many franchises, we’ve seen dozens of queens misunderstand this challenge as “deliver your club performance (without using a licensed track).” Really, the challenge is, “give us a commercial for your brand that people will always remember you by.”

Think of some of the most-impactful talent show performances we’ve seen on Ru-hosted franchises. For me, that includes Tatianna, Willow Pill, Anetra, & Jimbo. They were all unique, slightly surreal, and surprising while also making complete sense once we got to know the queens better. Tatianna is about unclockable realness with moments of silliness. Willow Pill is about making light of morbidity. Anetra is about being a ballroom-imitating martial artist.

And Jimbo is about… baloney?

Those performances can be endlessly imitated, but the original magic will never quite be recaptured because each one was as much about talent as it was about brand and personality.

Three queens figured that formula out on this episode, and it was unsurprising to see all three of them in the top of the critiques.

The same thing is true about any kind of runway about local or national pride. It’s not about dressing as a cheesesteak if you’re from Philly. It’s about showing your home and what it means to you as seen through your own unique lens of drag.

What did that mean for our power rankings compared to my pre-season prognosticating? Two queens quickly vaulted to the top, a shaky queen solidified her standing, and one predicted finalist didn’t have the intense glow-up I was expecting.

(Want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. The World outside of the UK? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best international drag superstar win!

Drag Race Belgique Season 2, Episode 2 – Drag-en-Ciel design challenge Power Rankings

February 9, 2024 by krisis

Bon retour, mes chers lecteurs, dans plus de classements! Drag Race Belgique Season 2 Episode 2 was titled “Drag-en-Ciel,” and it was a design challenge with a single color theme. Each queen was randomly assigned one color for her constructed outfit.

(“En ciel” mean “in the sky” and is a play on “arc-en-ciel,” which is the French phrase for “rainbow.”)

Vous êtes-vous déjà demandé ce qui se passerait si toutes les reines échouaient à un défi? C’est bon pour l’emission si les reines se font bien. Mais la série ne peut pas faire grand-chose aider quand tous le reines se débattent avec le même défi.

The cast of Drag Race Belgique Season 2 did not completely fail at this single-color design challenge, but they came dangerously close.

The challenge included a bevy of what seemed like conventional materials that wouldn’t be hard to work with. Yet, on the whole this cast doesn’t seem to have an eye for styling – nor do they have or the punk spirit of last season. Even the high placements could have been bottom material on a stronger design challenge.

That made this episode drag a bit, since none of the workroom gnashing-of-teeth resulted in any truly awesome runway moments. Since it was a design challenge and not a ball, there were no other more-polished runways to rely on.

Drag Race has a vested interest in putting on a show, and when everyone fails it needs to turn that into a spectacle like “Shakesqueer” or the Season 14 Snatch Game to keep things entertaining. But, there was no righteous rage from Rita Baga this episode – that’s not Belgique’s style. Even the bottom queens were treated gently, and ultimately the right queen went home.

Drag Race Belgique is at its best when leaning into intellectualism and its national identity, but this felt like it could have been an episode of any franchise. The combination of underwhelming designs and a muted response from the judges – plus a distinct lack of nerve amongst the contestants – made for a weak episode.

What does that mean for our Power Rankings? Some shake-ups from the Episode 1 “De Retour” talent show rankings as a quiet queen makes her move, a confident queen stumbled, and a safe queen seems to be doing pretty darn well.

(Want to watch Drag Race Belgique outside of Belgium? For most of the world, it’s available with a Wow Presents Plus subscription as soon as the episode is done airing.)

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – February 14 2024

February 8, 2024 by krisis

It’s the seventh new comic book day of the new year! This post covers Marvel Comics February 14 2024 releases. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering Marvel Comics February 7 2024 new releases.

This week in Marvel Comics: a true Jessica Drew, lots more Gang War, the return of Night Thrasher, Pet Avengers for the win, and more!

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. For each new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Marvel Comics February 14 2024 Collected Editions

Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951214 / digital)
See Guide to Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers. Ann Nocenti writes this bridging series between the concluded Kelly Thompson run and the impending Alyssa Wong run. I saw some internet fans come down hard on Carol being voiced badly, but I didn’t feel that way at all. This is a solid arc that makes good use of both Spider-Woman as a supporting player and various civilians to give Carol someone other than superheroes to bounce off of. I do think Nocenti tends to treat some groups of characters as a Greek Chorus rather than developing them individually, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not an all-time-best arc, but worth reading if you collect all of Captain marvel.

Edge of Spider-Verse: Across the Multiverse
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302957339 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man – Peter Parker (2018 – Present). This is an anthology of anthologies – collecting the three different “Edge of Spider-Verse” mini-series from 2014, 2022, and 2023. Each issue introduces new alternate-reality Spider-folks or revisits past one. The first series famously included the first appearance of Spider-Gwen. This isn’t a particularly satisfying read on its own, especially since most of the stories are written to subtly dovetail into the Spider-Verse events that followed. But, if you love Spider-Verse stuff in general and can’t get enough of alternate spiders, this one is for you!

Luke Cage Epic Collection Volume 2: The Fire This Time
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302955069 / digital)
See Guide to Luke Cage. This collects the second half of Luke’s original series from when it was titled “Power Man,” stopping prior to the first two issues he shares with Iron Fist before the indicia changes to “Power Man and Iron Fist” with issue #50. It’s really wild how we went from this series not being collected at all in color in 2014 to it being fully collected in Masterworks, Omnibus, and now Epic over the course of a decade. It’s one of the prime examples of how hard the Marvel Collected Editions department has worked to cover their 1970s series. (Of course, the Netflix shows helped!)

Marvel Unleashed
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1302931124 / digital)
See Guide to… um… I’m not sure, honestly, because this delightful story primarily stars Redwing, Chewie, and Bats the Dog, among other Marvel super-pets. If that sounds like a dull kiddie book to you, boy have you got a surprise in store! I read this a few weeks ago and it is consistently hilarious, beautifully drawn, and made me cry at the end. If you want to read a great Avengers adventure without any human Avengers, this is the book for you.