My tweets of the last week:
Personal
Awake and Asleep with Taxicab Racers, and other stories
By the time I went to sleep on Thursday night I had been awake for over 24-hours, found a fellow academically-minded songwriter slash comic nerd, invited a rock band from Tennessee back to our place to sleep with us, and nearly fell off a stage due to momentary blindness.
My life, it’s strange.
I. Wide Awake
Thursday night brought E and I to Northstar Bar to play a Filmstar a show, coincidentally two years less a day after our big Blame-a-Thon bash that I helped to organize and Filmstar rocked.
In a similar state of affairs to Blame-a-Thon, I was on my way towards 24 hours of wakefulness and running nearly empty. The freak storm on Thursday early morning woke me up at 2am, and I could go back to sleep (partially because I was freaked out about my friend Kris being trapped on I-76 overnight for four hours).
Our load-in was posted for 6pm. You never really know what load-in means. It could mean, “that’s when we’ll unlock the door,” or it could mean, “be on stage and ready to soundcheck 15 minutes later.” E and I being E and I, we were freaking out that we wouldn’t arrive until 6:20pm. Filmstar being Filmstar, the other half of the band managed to beat us there. [Read more…] about Awake and Asleep with Taxicab Racers, and other stories
DC New 52 Review: Men of War #1
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with G.I. Joes. A lot of kids were. They were three dollars each with a seemingly infinite amount of new line-ups to collect.
Except, my obsession was slightly different – my G.I. Joes were superheroes. Each one of them had a special power, and they formed teams and went on missions just like comic book superheroes. In fact, I even kept a binder outlining all of their story exploits, including issue summaries, origins, and deaths.
(Yes, I was an intense kid.)
Since my playtime was more about building narrative than mashing pieces of plastic against each other, I wasn’t shy about playing with G.I. Joe’s straight into high school. The toys allowed me to be a sort of writer/director, visualizing plots that found their way out of my imagination and later into short stories.
All that is to say, though I loved G.I. Joes, I never particularly cared for G.I. Joe as a concept. I don’t love war stories and gun violence. That put DC’s new war anthology on shaky ground with me, unless they managed to power it up, a la my erstwhile 3 3/4″ friends.
Men of War #1
“Joseph Rock,” written by Ivan Brandon, art by Tom Derenick
“Navy Seals, Human Shields,” written by Jonathan Vankin, art by Phil Winslade
Rating: 3 of 5 – Good
In a Line: “Anyway, I got out of the Peace Corps ‘cuz it made me realize – if you want to do good, it helps to have an assault rifle.”
140char Review Men of War #1, hard-bitten war anthology w/slightest twist of super. Not my kind of comic but I can’t deny it was well-done, esp terminology
Plot & Script
The scripts of both stories are beautiful things, in their way. Word balloons are stuffed with armed forces acronyms and special ops lingo, and they help to transport you into the world these characters inhabit without much prior knowledge.
The plot of first story about Sgt. Rock is solid but strangely unfilling. We’re treated to the grimly stubborn infantryman Rock, promoted to a special ops squad thanks to countless acts of unspecified badassness. Then he heads into an unnamed region filled with unseen insurgents, witnesses an unidentifiable super-being
wreak havoc, and watches his team die an ignominious death (not really a spoiler, since we see it in the first panel)
While all the dialog is ace, I feel as though the vaguely-detailed story depends on some foreknowledge or affection for Sgt. Rock. Without that, it’s a one-and-done tale about a brave soldier being decimated by a superior force. I don’t see much point in a second issue.
I liked the Navy Seals tale much better. We get the personalities of a core cast of characters in short order as they deal with a high pressure situation. Vankin does a great job differentiating the team in limited panel time, giving each man a smattering of personality to go with his call name.
Despite not caring for army comics too much, I found myself investing in the outcome of their story. I cared if the wounded guy died, was frustrated by the impulsive actions of Tracker, and was genuinely shocked and sickened by the story’s climax.
Artwork
The problem with army books is that everyone starts looking the same.
In the Sgt. Rock story this is a major problem for me – not so much because of the pencils, but the colors. It was like military-grade sepia tone. In a series of lowly-lit situations all of the shadowed faces begins to blend together.
While I liked the line art and colors in the second story much better, the lack of differentiation was actually worse. For white army dudes in the same uniform, and you only give one of them facial hair to help us tell them apart? The dialog does a decent job, but I wouldn’t have minded a minor visual differentiation, even if it slightly shattered the perfect adherence to real-life army code.
I love the fuzzy cover with its subtle phoenix image in the blood and gunfire – I missed that detail on the small preview image.
CK Says: Consider it.
Men of War is an anthology collection that delivers 100% on the promise of its title, with an ever-so-slight superhero skew of existing in the DC Universe.
Fans of old Sgt. Fury comics and The Hurt Locker alike will probably enjoy the on-the-ground glimpse of infantry and Navy SEALS.
For superhero junkies, the outcome is more hazy. While this is well-written and full of action, it’s less Captain America and more G.I. Joe.
Crushing On: You Know What I Hate?
A few weeks ago I was cruising my Facebook feed and I noticed a link to a blog post entitled, “#32: People who confuse karaoke night with American Idol auditions.”
Being that person, naturally I clicked through.
Unfortunately, the post I discovered was not on a blog titled, “Stuff That Makes People Awesome.” Nay. It was called “You Know What I Hate?”
I bristled, awaiting the salvo against my karaoke perfectionism. You know what happened instead? I laughed. I laughed because the post was right-on, and it wasn’t only about me wanting to sing one song well at karaoke – it was about people who consider themselves performers due to their karaoke prowess.
Also, it was really fucking funny.
I kept reading. The author doesn’t just hate annoying people (like #15: People who are good at running) – her biggest category is actually moments of intense expectancy violation; times where she isn’t sure why something is happening or how she should react.
Her writing swerves from confrontational second person to babbling interior monologue, all delivered as a stream-of-consciousness with a delightful, seemingly-compulsive frankness. Even when the thing she hates is something I endorse (#19: Expensive first dates, for example), her argument is still so salient and caustic that I can’t help but agree a little bit while giggling. I found myself heading back to Thing #1 so I could read her entire screed in one go.
Last weekend I lucked upon the opportunity to meet the reclusive blogger – and it took some digging to get her to admit her authorship. Once I had dragged a confirmation out of her and confessed my major crush, she asked to me deliver a dramatic reading to her small crowd of friends of a draft in-progress with the title “#34: Not knowing what to do when you wake up in someone else’s bed.”
In my shameless attempt to get you to read You Know What I Hate?, please allow me to present a recording of my reading of said post.(NSFW content, but language is clean)
#FollowFriday Interview: @MikeyIl, Interactive Designer & Social Do-Gooder
@mikeyil as shot by Colin M. Lenton Photography.
This week my #FollowFriday is Michaelangelo Ilagan – known to all corners of the Philly social media world as @mikeyil.
Mikey can be glib and ridiculous, but he also just gets it. Not just social. It. Being a unique person trying to connect with others who are both different and the same. Or, in Mikey’s more eloquent words:
Light is made up of a spectrum of rays in every color. People can be the same way.
I met Mikey at my first Social Media Club of Philadelphia meeting. It was the first day of summer camp all over again. So, being at least a capable, socially-climbing brand of wallflower in those situations, I located the loudest, most gregarious person in the room, and introduced myself to him.
I think you can see where this is going. Mikey was awesome and introduced me to all of his friends. Even after I wandered out of the radius of his conversation, I could still hear Mikey yelling “BOOMslam” repeatedly from across the room to an uproarious table of beer drinkers.
I assumed that – being the loudest and possibly most well-known guy in the room – that Mikey was a “cool kid,” and that would be the last I would see of him.
I was ever so wrong. About the seeing him part, I mean. He’s totally a cool kid. Two-and-a-half months later we jumped out of a plane together, and two years ago today we threw a 24-hour fundraising marathon together. Et cetera, et cetera.
Since then, Mikey has turned into legit Philly digerati. If there’s a social event, a special brand promotion, or a plugged-in conference, you are going to see him there. He also absolutely bristles with opportunities – he’s always working with a new company on a social promotion and hoping to spread the love around to the business, bands, and artists among his Twitter follows.
For all that, and more, he’s my #FollowFriday of the week – and he had a lot to say to me over the course of our interview!
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@krisis: How do you use Twitter?
@mikeyil: These days, I primarily use Twitter to connect with like-minded folk. These people are of similar mindsets, interests, and geography (or geographic mindset). I use it mostly to discuss my passions of Philly, food, technology and design.
@k: I think of you as sort of a “fast foodie,” in that you love good food but you also have favorite culinary delights at a number of chain restaurants. What’s with the fast-food fixation?
@m: I am not afraid to admit that I kind of grew up on fast food. My parents were new to this country, so all types of American food were kind of a novelty, a treat. People were a lot more naive about health concerns back then. Coupled with the fact that we were perpetually on the go, and I’m sure I was a brat being victim to 80’s and early 90’s marketing-awful-food-to-children campaigns, my parents were probably led to placate me.
@m: Fast-food has been a part of my life ever since. Granted, I’m wholly American and in a less-naive era, but fast food will always be something that I’ll have a strange obsession with. My tastes in food really do range from prince to pauper. I’m no snob about the half-a-Benji entrees I’ll sometimes throw my money at, but I’m also not afraid to admit I eat like shit sometimes.
@k: What’s your favorite greasy treat?
@m: My favorites throughout the late 20th century: The Western Whopper and Rodeo Cheeseburger from Burger King in the late 1990’s. Taco Bell’s Enchirito which existed from 1970 to 1993, discontinued and then brought back in 1999. It’s still served. It’s a portmanteaux of enchilada and burrito, so that’s part of the reason why I like it, the wordplay and the dish itself. Hell, I love everything Taco Bell has pretty much ever made.
Lastly, I don’t actually like the KFC Double Down (too greasy, too much fried meat) but I enjoy it as a symbol of ironic, gross negligence and stubbornness in a modern era where self-responsibility is replaced by corporations being forced into a position where they can’t even produce products for people who actually have self-awareness and control. (Does that make any sense?)
@k: You refer to yourself as an “interactive designer,” but I’ve also come to know you as a photographer, writer, SM coordinator and even an event promoter. How did you amass these mad skills? And, do you see them as separate streams, or part of one big package?
@m: I see these skills as one big package. Sometimes I’ve got to apply a one-line label to myself. My LinkedIn simply says “Creative Professional,, my business cards say “Interactive designer, blogger, etc.”
I don’t like adhering to one medium, nor do I feel like I’m particularly very proud or exceedingly strong in any one department. I have a lot of skills, interests and creativity and I use them where I see fit. Design has been paying the bills for the duration of my career. Writing and taking pictures has given me creative outlets, and maybe some pocket cash.
[Read more…] about #FollowFriday Interview: @MikeyIl, Interactive Designer & Social Do-Gooder