consume

Review: Wolf, Vol. 1 – Blood and magic, by Kot, Taylor, Loughridge, Cowles, & Muller

June 1, 2016 by krisis

I’m an increasing supporter of the idea of True Fans as Subscribed Patrons, a mass of individuals who band together to sponsor the work of an artist they trust rather than simply buying it after the fact.

That’s not only because of services like Kickstarter and Patreon taking root, but because it reflects how I actually consume art. Once I’ve decided your work speaks to me, I want it all. Don’t make me keep an eye on release calendars. Don’t let a middleman get a share of my dollar. Take my money whenever you’re feeling the artistic feels and I’ll gladly accept what you deliver as often as you’d like to deliver it.

The beauty (and, let it be said, gratification) of that concept has a single point of failure: editing. Artists who are free to deliver directly to their benefactors run the risk of no longer performing the “Will it float on its own?” evaluation of their artwork. That could lead to unbidden creativity, it could result in fan-pandering, or we could wind up with some half-baked dreck.

Which brings me to author Ales Kot. This is a guy whose brain I’d love to be permanently jacked into based on what I’ve read from him so far. Even if there have been a few duds along the way, the hits are very big hits with me. I’ve exchanged niceties with him on Twitter here and there and a huge part of me simply wants to say, “Look, would you like my $100-a-year up front, because I’m doubtlessly going to buy every damn thing you do.”

He’s doing the utter opposite of that – publishing his creator-owned work through Image, where there is little in the way of advances or guaranteed sales. Every issue he releases is in pure sink or swim mode; every new project must find its own fans until he has an army of auto-buyers like me.

Right now he’s swinging for the fences on every release. I get the impression he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Wolf, Vol. 1 – Blood and magic.

Collects Wolf #1-4. Written by Ales Kot with art by Matt Taylor, color art by Lee Loughridge, lettering by Clayton Cowles, and design by Tom Muller.

#140char review: Wolf, v1: pure comics magic. @ales_kot knows the perfect amount of things not to say on the page. I re-read it one second after finishing.

CK Says: Buy it!

Wolf is a powerful work of low fantasy, casting supernatural elements like vampires, ghostly winds, and a tentacle-faced man alongside the stars on Mulholland Drive and the streetwalkers on La Brea Boulevard in Los Angeles. Kot and his collaborators have conjured a bit of true magic with this ouroboros of a tale that forced me to pick it up for a re-read just seconds after I finished.

The book opens with a gut-punch image of a man on fire. Not a superhero or an immolator, but a burning man on a stroll rendered all in reds and oranges. This is Antoine Wolfe, an immortal weary of life who’d prefer not to be set on fire as much as he’d like to stay out of both spooky plots and police investigations – and, especially anything that synchronizes all of those things together.

This is not his story and we’re left in relative darkness about his history and the exact nature of his powers. All we know is that he’s the kind of death-proof, magical guy you hire to look into things that require looking into in a Los Angeles that borders directly on Hell. (Kot is vague on whether that’s figurative, literal, or both.) He’s also a magnet for supernatural trouble, whether that’s his half-Lovecraftian buddy who is late on rent or a strangely-calm teenager in the midst of a murder investigation with an X-Files sort of twist. [Read more…] about Review: Wolf, Vol. 1 – Blood and magic, by Kot, Taylor, Loughridge, Cowles, & Muller

Music Monday: “Springsteen” – Eric Church

May 23, 2016 by krisis

I don’t hate Country music.

I don’t think that I ever did. In fact, I had not consciously formed much of an opinion of it at all given my scant signposts of Patsy Cline, Garth Brooks, and Shania Twain.

However, a thing I’ve learned about being an adult is that sometimes the unconscious – both your own and the collective – decides something on your behalf, and that determination lingers in your mind in the place of an actual decision until you realize you’ve started making other decisions based on it.

Case and point: Country music. I don’t hate it. Yet, from absorbing a “my truck” here and a “my woman” there from songs playing in the background of life, I was passively assuming I hated country music. People at Smash Fantastic shows would request country songs from time to time and I would selectively ignore them. When Ashley gently suggested that it was finally time for us to learn a few country songs for the band, my reflexive response was, “UGH, NOT COUNTRY MUSIC.”

Despite that, I love to please a crowd, so I looked up a few of the artists that had been shouted in our direction. One was Eric Church. I fired up iTunes and YouTube to see what his most popular song was and they came back with a resounding answer of “Springsteen,” from Church’s third album, Chief.

Fast forward six months and “Springsteen” is AKA my favorite cover song to sing and my toddler’s bedtime song and generally just a fucking masterclass in songwriting.

(Advance to :24 to get to the beginning of the song.)

To get to that realization I had to stop hearing the twang in Church’s voice, because it was activating that unconscious bias of “UGH, NOT COUNTRY MUSIC.” Honestly, it’s a tiresome affectation on any singer, especially when it’s obscuring wonderful pop songs or gatekeeping them from the wider consciousness. You just have to hear past it to get to the performance and the lyrics. Singing it yourself aids in that, if you are able.

Somewhere between that setting sun, “I’m On Fire” and “Born to Run”
You looked at me and I was done. We were just getting started.

Beneath the twang and beyond the minimal band arrangement is the wonderful device of singing about how to find a person who doesn’t exist anymore. Not his long lost high school lover – she’s still walking around in the same town, skirting the edges of his life.

No, the person that no longer exists is his long lost high school self, and the only way to find him for a moment is to hear Bruce’s ragged baritone. [Read more…] about Music Monday: “Springsteen” – Eric Church

RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S8E05 – “Supermodel Snatch Game”

April 6, 2016 by krisis

Last week Thorgy Thor was consolidating her lead after a minor meltdown from Bob and a strong weak finish from Chi Chi. Did that top three get shaken up this week?

Even after this crash and burn of a dull Snatch Game and repetitive runway there is barely any daylight separating the top and the bottom girls in this week’s power ranking.

It might not have been the tightest Snatch Game in history, but this feels a lot like Seasons Four and Five with a larger, well-rounded cast with many potentially winners. The best few queens have all shown weak spots, and the bottom few are just one or two hot weeks away from snatching the crown.

Also, there was some strange editing contributing to the doughy episode this week. RuPaul was clearly having some weird energy on Snatch Game, and I suspect we lost some very funny answers from the queens to moments Ru simply didn’t want shown. That probably detracted from a few queens who the judges loved, and also didn’t make Acid Betty’s performance out to be quite as bad as it played on stage.

1. Bob the Drag Queen (Average 1; was: 2, 2, 1, 1)

bob-the-drag-queen-03 Yes, she’s back in the top spot, showboating and all. Bob’s Snatch Game was magnificent – a solid Uzo Aduba as Crazy Eyes (her poem answer was a scream) plus a Carol Channing that completely erases the memory of Pandora’s strong version.

As for the runway. Bob’s Madonna may not have been as iconic as the rest, but it was FLAWLESS. Sure, we all would have rather seen her rock early-80s punk Madonna, but that’s way too close to her actual look and probably would have gotten read by the judges. She found the right offbeat (and political) outfit from Madge’s oeuvre.

I can imagine several situations where Bob is bested by this confidence and fails to make the top three. We’ve seen her be able to sew a garment, but she’s not the makeup pro that some of the other girls are. That said, I know she’s a strategic player, and I’m willing to bet he’s got a few fashion stunners tucked away for the late game when he’s not so darn safe all the time. [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S8E05 – “Supermodel Snatch Game”

RuPaul’s Drag Race Power Rankings, S8E04 – “New Wave Queens”

March 30, 2016 by krisis

Last week Bob won the acting challenge but Thorgy walked out with the Power Rankings Emmy for her performance. How will the girls stack up after a live singing challenge? I’ll tell you, it’s my tightest ranking yet – despite being hard on these contestants, I can seriously see all of them reaching the final three.

Let’s get one thing out of the way before we begin that should clarify a lot of my rankings: I think Team NYC crushed the other two teams with their Street Meatz performance, even if “Rectangle Girls” was weirdly the most memorable of the three songs. The NYC girls looks, lyrics, and performance tics were so perfectly of the B-52s era that it’s shocking they weren’t awarded the win – but, more on that below.

1. Thorgy Thor (Average 4, was 1, 6, 7)

thorgy-thor-02 Thorgy owns the top spot for a second week in a row. She was on-point in her singing and stage presentation and she was one of the few queens who seriously read as neon, even if some of her styling ruined the impact.

This is a queen whose main weak spot (other than Ru not awarding her a win) is in her ability to edit – but even that has been shown to be within reason and based on a solid taste level. Maybe Snatch Game will change that streak.

2. Bob the Drag Queen (Average 2; was: 2, 1, 1)

Bob was predictably great in this challenge – both in her vocal performance and her onstage presence. As for her runway – eh, I could have lived without its pastel-not-neon-realness. However, the big show tonight was her inability to stop herself from arguing with coach and guest judge Lucian Piane. Yes, his advice was awful, but Bob just kept on arguing with him past the point of no return. You could even see in her eyes how bad an idea she thought it was!

The combination of Bob’s over-the-top, charm-laden performances and this slightly uncontrollable streak represents real risk of missing the top three. She’s still stronger than the rest of the field, but I’m a bit nervous for her.

Luke Cage, Power Man – Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Updated Mar 11, 2025! The definitive Power Man – Luke Cage – comic books issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated March 2025 with titles scheduled for release through June 2025.

Collecting Luke Cage

Luke Cage emerged from Marvel’s early-70s habit of stealing themes from pop culture – in this case, the emergence of Blaxploitation films. That made him only the second prominent black hero at Marvel, after Black Panther – who had become a staple in The Avengers.

Cage’s story could have easily come to an end with the waning of the 70s, but Marvel made an unusual move in 1978 – they introduced the similarly fad-based character Iron Fist into Cage’s title, rechristening it “Power Man & Iron Fist.”

A street-smart man with unbreakable skin and a billionaire’s son who mastered a secret martial art. This memorable odd-couple pairing lead to another eight years of an ongoing series, until 1986 when Marvel ended several long-running 70s books at the end of Secret Wars II. Afterwards, Luke Cage was basically put into mothballs, and when he was taken out he didn’t prove a hit on his own – his 1992 self-titled series lasted only 20 issues.

Despite numerous guest-appearances and a brief Heroes for Hire run during Marvel’s late-90s struggle, it was one man who brought Cage back to prominence despite never writing him in a solo title: Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis introduced Luke Cage as a foil and on-again/off-again flame to Jessica Jones in Alias, linking the characters from that point forward (and using them both in his Daredevil run). Then, he plucked Cage from relative obscurity to join New Avengers alongside surefire sellers Spider-Man and Wolverine.

Ever since then, Luke Cage went from occasional guest-star to one of the most prominent heroes in the Marvel Universe, though he occasionally takes a break to change a few diapers. Like Hawkeye before him, he serves as an anchor and mascot for Avengers teams and as a mentor for reformed criminals the Thunderbolts. He also has a habit of popping up in any Iron Fist title.

In the wake of his smash Netflix series released at the end of 2016, Luke’s profile at Marvel was as high as ever – with him appearing in his own title, as well as Jessica Jones and a re-branded Defenders team. [Read more…] about Luke Cage, Power Man – Collecting Guide and Reading Order