Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
Today’s episode of Crushing Comics will be coming to you 12 hours later than usual, and it will be something very different than what I’ve been doing since the show debuted in November.
Tonight, I’ll be joined by my friend the illustrious FanGirl on a live broadcast where we will discuss and dissect Neil Gaiman’s classic series The Sandman, starting from the first issue!
Want to watch this all-new, all-different pilot episode? Tune in tonight at 8pm ET / 5pm PT / 2pm New Zealand time.
You can get the best out of life when you are willing to engage in forgiveness and grant an occasional second chance.
That’s a reminder I could use a little more often. Whether we’re talking about a vegetable I’ve never eaten before or a song by a new artist, I tend to treat any first encounter as an absolute litmus test without room for reassessment.
It’s a great habit when it comes to quickly whipping through a huge swath of new material (a situation more common for songs than vegetables), but not always great for tracking the evolution of an artist.
Which bring us to Haim, a band of singer-songwriter sisters.
I wasn’t a tremendous fan of Haim’s first album, 2013’s Days Are Gone. It had two of the elements of music I love most – namely, tasty guitar riffs and multi-part female harmony – but I just couldn’t connect with it. That wasn’t helped by catching a few videos of truly miserable live performances from the band where they could not reassemble the harmony from the record.
I chalked them up to a flash in the pan and considered them cancelled. On to the next thing!
That’s why it took me a little while to actually listen to any songs from their 2017 sophomore record, Something To Tell You. I thought I already knew enough of Haim’s story to tell you how my listen would end – decidedly uncharmed, mostly underwhelmed.
I was so incredibly wrong.
Something To Tell You is the work of a much surer band than Days Are Gone. While it has a slimmed down sonic palette compared to their debut, what’s left is a greatly refined blast of sunny melodies that evoke Fleetwood Mac and Wilson Phillips, with a touch of Shania Twain’s drama and a pinch of Sara Bareilles’s theatre nerd.
Nowhere is this more apparent to me than on “Want You Back,” which is a perfect blend of those four major touchtones (and, I suspect, major influences) with some of the tightest harmony I’ve heard from the band yet.
Of course, it’s one thing to record a song this tight in the studio. Can they reproduce it live?
Oh, how they can. I’m not even sure which version I love the most! This Live Lounge studio recording (with tons of mugging from the ladies); a slower, subtler version Live on Triple J; or this powerful staged version from Graham Norton – all three with stunning harmony.
I’m so happy I gave Haim another chance so I could fall in love with this song, which might have been my most-played new track of 2017. Or, in the words of the band:
And I had a fear of forgiveness
(Said it from the beginning) I was too proud to say I was wrong
(Said you’d always see me through) but all that time is gone
No more fearing control, I’m ready for the both of us now
It’s part two of my Claremont/Lee Omnibus unwrapping, where I discuss the events that follow X-Tinction Agenda that briefly brought the teams together, split them apart, brought them together again and – finally – launched a new X-Men book!
Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.
Episode 60 features X-Men by Claremont/Lee Omnibus, Vol. 2, which covers material in both the Guide to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont and Guide to X-Men (1991-2001).
Welcome to our second pilot post of Back Issue Review, where I give you the run-down on all the not-new comics I read this week. (Did you miss last week’s edition?)
I know the knee-jerk reaction for a lot of readers to a post like this might be to say either “I don’t read comics” or “I’ll just tune in when you talk X-Men.”
My reply to you is that comics as a medium is so much more than what you’re seeing on the big screen or in the pages of X-Men books.
I’d love to connect you with a new favorite read, but also with a wider awareness of the medium.
Today’s back issue review includes write-ups on:
That’s a lot of indie comics and absolutely no Marvel!
Please let me know if you like this this post – it’s the second pilot of this new weekly series, but there’s no guarantee it will be back for more.
And now – let’s get to the comics! [Read more…] about Back Issue Review: The Flintstones, Green Lantern Corps, Eugenic, Space Battle Lunchtime, and more!
Welcome to the second week of “The Pull List,” where I give a quick rundown of all of the non-X comics I read this week.
My pulls this week came from a wide spread of publishers – Marvel, DC, Image, Aftershock, and Valiant! It was also a week where the minutia of the craft really took me out of enjoying the storytelling. I had a lot of bones to pick with letterers, and many comments about pace and continuity.
This week’s Pull List included:
You might be surprised at which of these books I loved and which left me in a seething rage. There’s at least one where I disagree with seemingly 99% of the folks who I’ve seen react to the book in the past few days. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Avengers in No Surrender, Detective Comics, Mister Miracle, Paradiso, & more!