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35-for-35: 2000 – “The Easy Way Out” by Juliana Hatfield

November 18, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Do you know what “slept on” means?

It’s a slang term for overlooked, forgotten, or ignored and I feel like it describes at least half of my record collection.

Juliana Hatfield’s Beautiful Creature was slept on. Criminally. I almost slept through it, actually. I acquired it in the spring of 2000 from a basket of unreviewed promo records during a day apprenticing at Philly Weekly on assignment for my first journalism course. “Take whatever you want,” they said.

I vaguely knew who Juliana Hatfield was because of one of her two breakthrough hits, the peculiar 5/4 ode to kissing in the closet, “Spin the Bottle.”

Somehow she had escaped my omnivorous appetite for 90s women in rock, which is a sad confirmation of how slept on she was already before releasing this LP. I saw the cardboard sleeve for Beautiful Creature (paired with her harder rock record, Total System Failure) in the review copies bin and thought it would be worth a listen.

A few months later, and it was an LP I was plugging in several of CK’s earliest posts. It’s a perfect blend of Hatfield’s 90s rock bonafides with a late-Beatles acoustic simplicity she had left behind to get increasingly grungy.

“Easy Way Out” is a song that’s more on the grungy side, a riff-heavy rock tune that betrays the heaviness that Hatfield tried to constrain to Total System Failure but keeps the focus on irresistible melody.

It also keeps up Hatfield’s habit of being just as ribald and rude as the boys of rock in her songs while still cutting to the bone. Her last effort, Bed, was all about sleeping around, and this disc is all about love and drugs. “And he cries like a girl,” she yells in the refrain. “And he lies to the world. And the hate and the guilt and the pills – it’s an easy way out.”

julianahatfieldtop13 I kept lending Beautiful Creature and putting it on mix tapes for years. I tried to convince acappella groups to cover its songs as late as 2007. I kept on waiting for it to break through, for Hatfield’s unrecognized genius to be acknowledged by everyone I knew.

Fifteen years later and I guess it’s probably not going to happen for Beautiful Creature. I can’t even call it Hatfield’s best album, because the ones that came before and after it are equally amazing. Yet, it’s this one that remains one of my favorite LPs of all time, and since its release I have become convinced that Juliana Hatfield is one of the best performing songwriters working in America today.

If I get a day to linger in the year 2000, the year of Crushing Krisis’s birth, you can be sure I’m going to spend a portion of it lingering on Juliana Hatfield.

You don’t have to take my word for it – stream it for free right now if you have Amazon Prime.

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Savage Dragon #13 & WildCATs #14 (Image X Month)

November 17, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Stormwatch’s “Images of Tomorrow” wasn’t the only gimmick going around Image’s books in the summer of 1994. “Image X Month” saw all six image creators swapping flagship books with each other, with Jim Lee and Erik Larsen trading WildCATs #14 and Savage Dragon #13, respectively.

I couldn’t find another blogger who wanted to write you 100 posts this month, so I stuck with “Blog of Tomorrow” as the theme rather than “Blog X Month.” ;)

savage-dragon-013-lee The trade offers a fascinating glimpse into the minds (and work ethics) of a third of Image’s founders.

Lee delivers a beautifully penciled issues at Image with Savage Dragon #13 even with an army of finishers, but it’s effectively a Grifter one-shot guest-starring Savage Dragon.

Larsen tries hard to single-handedly give the WildCATs a lumpy but fun one-off adventure that shows off their entire team but also promotes his hapless Freak Force book, and mostly succeeds.

(Larsen would also later release his own version of Savage Dragon #13, wanting to maintain his unbroken streak of penciled issues.)

Savage Dragon #13 comes first, and though it doesn’t say so you really have to have read Kindred to make heads or tails of it.

That’s because Grifter is suddenly hanging out in a Chicago restaurant with a romantic interest Alicia (who presumably has plenty of free time if this happens after Gen13, since Lynch is AWOL).

We learn that Grifter grew up in Chicago and that he worked for “The Syndicate” (a mob network) from the casual opening scene. Unfortunately, the pair of lovebirds happen to be in the same place as Savage Dragon’s sting operation. Everything quickly goes south as Grifter inserts himself into a massive shootout that leaves both him and Dragon’s partner wounded.

The rest of the issue unravels just how Grifter is connected with a mob that’s being investigated by Savage Dragon and infiltrated by I.O.. Plus, the mob has a super-powered baddie trying to usurp the business.

Altogether it’s a little bit too much coincidence piled on top of itself, especially when we discover a family connection for Grifter. All of the interweaving effectively makes Savage Dragon a guest star in his own story. He periodically shows up to threaten Grifter and then acts as his muscle in a final fight.I t could have easily been avoided without adding the I.O. element, which is meant to give Alicia some agency in the story but just renders her a damsel in distress.

I get the sense that Lee and Choi didn’t study up on Savage Dragon as much as Larsen did WildCATs, but I’ll be damned if Dragon doesn’t look utterly awesome in every panel he appears.

WildCATs #14 follows (maybe directly – I’m not sure that any other WildCATs adventure fits between them, though it’s a handy gap for anything that includes this full original team.)

wildcats-v01-014 Larsen gives the WildCATs one thing they haven’t yet encountered – some frivolous fun. His lightweight tale has no big life or death stakes, but it shows the team confidently cutting loose both in battle and (briefly) in relaxation.

Larsen’s WildCATs are a rough-looking bunch in battle, although he does them the credit of showing them defeating a Daemonite right on the first page of the book – Void is even conscious, and Spartan in one piece! However, Voodoo has had enough of the constant Daemonite-hunting, and demands a break.

Larsen’s casual team is a much better-looking bunch as they prepare to hit the beach (with Larsen mocking Choi’s tendency to use every possible adjective and explain them all with editorial boxes). Just before their departure, Maul hears a news report about an old friend injured in a super-human rampage (one side of which was Freak Force member Mighty Man) and puts a hole in the wall of his room in his eagerness to check on her.

The teams clash until Savage Dragon arrives to break things up, and Larsen playfully teases the tropes of the book, affirming some (Maul being big and dumb, Spartan getting ripped to shreds, Warblade basically being John Patrick’s character from Terminator 2) and mocking or reversing others (Void actually being effective, Zealot getting sucker punched while monologuing about her training).

The art on WildCATs #14 is beneath the typical Jim Lee par, but no one at the time compare with Lee’s slickness outside of his WildStorm protegés. Larsen’s rubbery action-figure fights and plain, expressive faces are effective, especially in the plain clothes scenes. It only goes to show how reliant WildCATs has been on the Lee factor to keep it moving, which should make the next arc a fascinating read.

Need the issues?

WildCATs #14 by Larsen is collected in The Savage Dragon, Vol. 4: Possessed (ISBN 978-1582400310) along with Larsen’s own version of Savage Dragon #13 (Amazon / eBay).

Savage Dragon #13 issue by Lee and Choi is collected in the 1998 trade paperback Savage Dragon: Team-Ups, ISBN 978-1582400471 (Amazon / eBay), but is not included in the later Savage Dragon Archives line, which includes’s Larsen’s #13 instead.

For single issues, Try eBay (WildCATs #14 / Savage Dragon #13) or Amazon (WildCATs #14 (alt link) / Savage Dragon #13). Since further WildCATs series reached #14, be on the lookout for this Larsen cover to make sure you get the right issue. And, remember, Larsen released his own, totally-different Savage Dragon #13 – and both versions are referred to as “#13a” in different places.

Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read – tomorrow we’re already back to Stormwatch with #14-16 as they edge inexorably closer to their grim end!

35-for-35: 1999 – “Center of Attention” by Guster

November 17, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug] lost-and-gone-forever-guster Lindsay, Erika, and I formed an only-child club together in 2001, but its origins were in 1999 and 2000.

That’s when five of the more senior members of The Drexel Players – Erika, Kate, Laurel, Megan, and Anthony – all shared the top two floors of an old row home at 3418 Race Street. For all of us Freshman, it’s where we decamped after every informational meeting, audition, and rehearsal. It’s where I met so many of the friends I still hold dear today, and where I met my entire wedding party (aside from Gina, who still factors into this tale).

There were certain records that never left the CD spinner in that house, such that their songs have become synonymous with one or more of those people for me. (Yes, CD spinner, though we were into into the heyday of Napster at this point.). Some of the records were the stereotypical white college kid things you’d expect – Dave Matthews was a frequent play, especially his Live at Luther College with Tim Reynolds.

Perhaps influenced by that choice, there was also Guster’s Lost and Gone Forever, produced by longtime DMB collaborator Steve Lillywhite.

Sometimes when I hear an album for the first time it seems so melodically obvious that I cannot believe I haven’t heard it before. Other times an album is so perfect that I consider every song a slice of 5-star perfection and can listen to it endlessly.

Lost and Gone Forever is both.

There aren’t a lot of catchy, pop-oriented bands that break through mostly on the power of acoustic guitars and harmony, which is the trick Guster somehow pulls on songs like “Center of Attention.” The amount and intricacy of Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner’s harmony is really quite incredible. It hardly ever sticks to the straight thirds most bands plaster their songs with. At points they’re what I’d call the nearest male analog to The Indigo Girls.

“Center of Attention” doesn’t really use any chords. Listen carefully in the first verse as it reaches the “walls inside my head” prechorus. It’s just a pair of riffs churning against each other to imply tonality. It’s also a perfect example of how Guster eschews the typical rhythm section of drums and bass, with most songs rooted by a baritone-range guitar figure and drummer Brian Rosenworcel pounding on all manner of congos, bongos, and even typewriters.

Guster promo flat

That doesn’t sound like it should make for great, catchy pop music and honestly it didn’t on Guster’s first two records. However, the combination of Steve Lillywhite as a producer and this remarkable set of songs created a whole that you could have never predicted by looking at the parts.

Lost and Gone Forever is an amazing record about the changing nature of friendship and platonic love, about selfishness and getting over yourself, and you can sing along to every song on it.

One of us won’t last the night
Between you and me it’s no surprise
There’s two of us, both can’t be right
Neither will move till it’s over

I’m the center of attention
and the wall’s inside my head
And no one will ever know it
if I keep my mouth shut tight

The that motley crew of Drexel Players I met Freshman year shifted in 2000-2001 as I started this blog. Three members of the house moved away, which is how at one point Lindsay came to be renting Laurel’s back bedroom, and I came to be sitting around in the middle of the day with her and Erika watching game shows.

Just as there aren’t many memorable acoustic pop bands like Guster, there aren’t a lot of great, catchy songs about the mental defenses you construct as a clever only-child. “Center of Attention” is, without a doubt, the only-child’s anthem in that regard. I’d say, “maybe that’s just me,” but Lindsay and Erika have proven that it’s not. You’re not only your own protagonist, as every child is, but all of your adventures are entirely contained in the gossamer bubble of your brain.

Somehow (and I honestly still can’t quite explain it, even with copious posts from the time to aid my memory), the three of us wound up renting a house together in the fall of 2001. Three only children, each as selfish and stubborn as the other, all holed up in the top two floors of our own apartment on 44th street (where we’d later be joined by a fourth only-child (sort of), Gina)).

My own little world is what I deserve
Cause I am the only child there is
I’m king of it all, the belle of the ball
I promise I’ve always been like this
Forever the first, my bubble can’t burst
It’s almost like only I exist
Where everything’s fine
If I can keep my mouth shut tight, tight, tight

I think the reason we found each other and became (and remained) so close is because we’d each tried to outlast each other through the night and failed. Once that defense is finally knocked down, you’ve found someone with whom who you don’t always have to keep your mouth shut so tight.

From The Beginning: WildStorm Universe – Wetworks (1994) #1-3

November 16, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]Whilce Portacio makes his slightly-delayed entrance into WildStorm with Wetworks, originally previewed in WildCATs #2 in 1992. It’s also the first true origin story of WildStorm other than Gen13 – in no other book this far have we watched as an entire cast of heroes has been created.

Portacio was of the same generation of beloved X-Men artists as Jim Lee and Marc Silvestri and was originally intended to be the seventh founder of Image Comics – with Wetworks as one of its flagship books. An illness in his family caused him to step away from the launch of Image, and it took him two years to make his entry – now part of the WildStorm table rather than its own imprint.

wetworks_v1_01 (Since these issues were written as much as two years prior to their release, they occur in story order prior to Gen13. As confirmation, we see that John Lynch is still with IO. They likely fit sometime just prior to Killer Instinct.)

Wetworks is a completely different flavor of team than WildCATs and Stormwatch. It’s a nearer neighbor to Deathblow, or even the Underworld film series. It’s all about big guns, synthetic symbiotes, and bloody ops, but also about vampires!

Back when it was intended to be part of Image’s launch, Wetworks was teased briefly in a four-page back-up in WildCATs #2. All we learned in thie brief story is that the team’s leader, Dane, is bulletproof and loves causing carnage.

Wetworks seems to be exactly the sort of “extreme” team title that Jim Lee wanted to veer away from on Gen13. Every member is dipped in gold from head to toe and festooned with guns, ammo, cybernetic enhancements, and ridiculous gear. There’s a slight hint of Wetworks being an anti-terrorist or maybe anti-war-crimes group, but mostly the our pages are about setting the tone – they’re a team of Punishers.

Wetworks #1 begins at least a few weeks prior to that preview. Prior to their golden years, Wetworks are the modern-day Team 7 – a team of well-armed but decidedly-human soldiers lead by original Gen12 member Dane (who maybe isn’t entirely human – we’ll see).

Portacio along with Brandon Choi on script mines the same geopolitical concerns we’ve seen across WildStorm, including how world peacekeeping has an undertow of political oneupmanship. Team 7 believe they sent to rescue hostages in Transylvania by the omnipresent International Operations (I.O.), but really they were being sacrificed – either to test the efficacy of newly developed symbiotic skins or to test the hardiness of the tribe of vampires infesting the area. Maybe both.

The sacrifice doesn’t go as planned, and the team comes away with nigh-indestructible, golden, synthetic, symbiotic skins seemingly permanently attached to their own. They also come away beholden to a decidedly sketchy member of the National Security Council, who is hip to the vampire threat and focused on destroying them. WetWorks is more interested in destroying the I.O. players who burned them on their Transylvania mission, but they’re happy to kill some vampires along the way.

wetworks_v1_02 That first issue is a visual stunner that’s all edge-of-your-seat action – a perfect pilot episode. Whilce Portacio’s style is adjacent to Lee’s, with slightly more penstrokes and slightly more emotive faces. He lends a real world weightiness to high-octane military action that most big-guns books are missing. While #2-3 aren’t quite as perfect, there’s no denying this is a visually stunning book. Portacio does decent blood and gore, but his fight choreography can be a bit stiff. His human moments are better.

My main critique is that the team is just too big and too homogenous for any reader to keep track of – even before they all turn gold! I’m even not sure how many of them there are. Maybe seven?

Choi doesn’t help by switching between their given last names and their call signs. It couldn’t have hurt to throw in more than just a single woman, some different body types, or someone non-white with distinct features. Even after the membership is thinned out by the end of this arc I can’t keep them straight. I’ve maybe got three of them down.

Without being able to tell the team apart, they read as a single lump with a relatively undifferentiated set of personalities. As a result, I found it difficult to get emotionally invested in their success, starting with their evacuation from Transylvania in #1 by the mysterious cybernetic Mother One. So many innocent soldiers wind up dying to abet their escape that as readers we’re almost forced to dislike them, although most of that blame can be shifted to their mysterious collaborator Mother One. Given that she also sacrifices Wetworks members in the name of science in issue #3, I think we’re right not to trust her.

wetworks_v1_03 It’s much easier to follow and sympathize with the pair of warring vampire factions, and when your book is having trouble getting the reader to root against vampires you might be having some problems. One faction wants to infect a the attendees of a fictional goth Grateful Dead band’s big show. The band happens to also be vampires from the other faction, whose queen is as obsessed with Wetwork’s leader Dane as she was with Hitler.

In the absence of caring about the team, the most interesting element of the book could be the symbiotic skins themselves. What is their origin? How can some of the vampires communicate with them? What was their intended use?

Wetworks is going to be an intriguing read if it can keep the focus as much on the the vampire-busting gore as on the mysteries behind it. However, it’s going to get old pretty quickly. if this turns into Venom as Punisher vs. Vampires.

Need the issues? These three issues have been collected as Wetworks: Rebirth (ISBN 978-1887279338), which you’ll find cheaper on eBay than Amazon. Or, you can purchase single issues – try eBay (#1-3) or Amazon (#1, 2, 3). Since further Wetworks series hit these same issue numbers, be careful to pick up issues from the 1994 series – an easy way to tell the difference is that Mike Carey is the writer on the later relaunch.

Here’s the schedule for the rest of this month’s WildStorm re-read – tomorrow we read just a pair of issues – WildCATS #14 and Savage Dragon #13, part of the Image X-Over month.

From The Beginning: Dr. Seuss – The King’s Stilts (Book #3)

November 16, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]It’s the third installment of my “From The Beginning” read of Dr. Seuss’s entire bibliography. Last week I covered his second book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

After that lengthy comedy of errors (sans the comedy), Dr. Seuss returned with another lengthy prose tale of royalty with The King’s Stilts. I despaired of reading this one with EV after her lack of interest in 500 Hats, and put it off for weeks. Finally, during one of her naps, I decided I’d simply read it myself for the review to spare her the boredom.

Since then, I estimate I have read this book another 40 times, at least – an entire waking day’s worth of reading.

I think I can safely say that neither of us are bored by it.

The King’s Stilt’s (1939) – Dr. Seuss

CK Says: – Must read!

Reading Time: 20-30 minutes

Gender Diversity: All named characters are male; housewives are mentioned and shown, but can’t keep their minds on their housework. However, the main character, Eric, is easily gender-flipped.

Ethnic Diversity: None

Challenging Language: commenced, furnace, pomp, dignity, impudent, feeble, measles, hobnail boots

Themes to Discuss: monarchy, “business hours” and busyness, work/life balance, predators and prey, conservation, conflicting instructions / when not to obey, lying and the importance of telling the truth, importance of communication

This prose story presents a fanciful story of a kingdom in peril due to one grinch-like goon who hates to see his king have fun. With a young protagonist, a thoroughly evil villain, and a threat that’s all-to-real in our world of global warming, this early Seuss book really holds up for modern readers!

That’s especially true for parents engaged in demanding jobs, since the central theme of the king’s stupor is that someone has taken away his work/life balance.

Right from the start, The King’s Stilts has more of Dr. Seuss’s characteristic whimsy than 500 Hats. King Birtram spends his days occupied with rather whimsical busywork that makes him the most industrious of all kings, although it’s hard to understand how he can have so many important decrees to sign each day!

Things get only more fanciful from there, with the king presiding over the changing of the guard of furious and clever Patrol Cats who hunt the dastardly Nizzards that threaten to plunge his kingdom below sea level by nibbling away the roots of Dike Trees. He then spends the day inspected as many Dike Trees as he can before five o’clock, when he races back home to grab his favorite pair of stilts.

the-kings-stilts-interior-06 We also get the perfect antagonist to a cheerful and dutiful king in the shape of the officious Lord Droon. Droon is an early Grinch prototype, a nobleman with nothing noble about him who proclaims, “Laughing spoils the shape of the face.” Lest you think he’s championing an ahead-of-its-time anti-wrinkle platform, he continues, “The lines at the corners of the mouth should go down.”

Lord Droon conspires to not only do away with the stilts (via the actions of the unwilling young Page Eric), but to convince the king it was his own subjects who stole the source of his fun so they would no longer suffer under the rule of an undignified king.

This leads to a terrific adventure for Eric, who is brave and capable in his mission to cheer up the kingdom and save the king. His efforts lead to an epic confrontation between King Birtram and the Patrol Cats versus the assembled Nizzards and the elemental force of the ocean! This single page is at once so epic and hilarious that I cannot help but giggle the entire time I’m looking at it. It’s truly one of Seuss’s best.

Beyond being an enjoyable read, what I loved most about The King’s Stilts is the careful balance of two key themes – duty versus play and conservation taking intent and action.

Despite being written in 1938, King’s Stilts serves as a perfect allegory for the importance of work/life balance and having passion for both. At the start we see a king who is the busiest of all kings. While you might argue that some of that business is busyness for the sake of busyness, there’s no arguing how committed the king is to his duties. However, that commitment can only occur if the king gets in some quality stilts-time wandering his kingdom. A lack of stilts sends him into a depression, even though he has the same amount of free time and the same important kingly duties. He has lost half of his passion, and without it the other half seems lacking.

the-kings-stilts-interior-14 (Also, don’t lose sight of the fact that this is a king who sees his position as a duty rather than an excuse for laziness or petulance. Sure, his work is as whimsical as his play, but it’s refreshing to read a children’s book about a committed member of the royalty.)

With a lack of attention from the king, we see his idyllic kingdom sharply decline in a series of cause and effect events. We go from uninspired cats to rising floodwaters and a scared populace who also cannot maintain their productivity. By placing the fate of the Dike Trees in the middle of this chain of events, Dr. Seuss emphasizes that our environment is not the first or last thing we must consider, but part of a spectrum of needs that keeps us happy and healthy. It’s a theme he’d return to more pointedly and with more whimsy, but it’s particularly effective here.

Also, Droon is one of Seuss’s better villains. He’s so over-the-top that he’d do some moustache-twirling if it wasn’t shamefully gleeful and smile-making. It makes Droon more readable (and laughable) when he gets ridiculous bits of business like being unable to hide the stilts under his cloak.

the-kings-stilts-interior-25 Despite nearly matching the length of 500 Hats, the prose in Stilts passes much more quickly while reading. Perhaps that’s down to the larger and more fanciful illustrations. Seuss repeats the spot-color red from 500 Hats, but here the color is used more liberally as a highlight. It’s the color of the stilts, but also of the Nizzards’ frilly necks and the Patrol Cats’ badges. Almost every major theme of the book gets a dash of red.

While it doesn’t exactly end with a moral, this story closes with everyone getting their due in a way that 500 Hats lacked, which adds to the satisfaction of the silly, high-stakes story.

(Plus, you can introduce your children to the “kid on stilts in an overcoat” trope!)

Dr. Seuss’s next book was the not-really-for-children The Seven Lady Godivas, which has not been printed for decades! Thus, I’ll be back next Wednesday with the Dr. Seuss’s fourth book for children (and, his first true franchise), Horton Hatches the Egg!