Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Crushing Comics S01E062 – Jonathan Hickman’s Infinity + brushes with the supernatural

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I open this episode by discussing my abridged history of brushes with the supernatural, including memorable stories CK posts like the blue hair dream and the graveyard ghosts. Then, I unwrap a pair of books that were the anchor to the early part of Jonathan Hickman’s run on Avengers and New Avengers – Infinity and Infinity Companion.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 62 features Jonathan Hickman’s Infinity and the Infinity Companion hardcover. See my Guide to Marvel Events for more information.

Crushing Comics S01E061 – Comic Book Tattoo + The Music of Tori Amos

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Today brings a rare book that I could identify in its wrapping simply by picking it up thanks to its peculiar shape and heft. Comic Book Tattoo is an anthology of stories based on the songs of singer/songwriter Tori Amos, including work from comics stars like Colleen Doran and Jonathan Hickman. That makes this a sort of hybrid episode that’s half Crushing Comics and half a journey through Tori’s massive discography.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 61 features the hardcover slipcased edition of Comic Book Tattoo: Tales Inspired by Tori Amos.

From The Beginning: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman (1989), Issue #1

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Tonight’s discussion focuses not only on Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman (1989) issue #1, but who Gaiman was as an author at the time. (Spoilers: he wasn’t very well-known!)

The Sandman (1988) #1 is not a perfect comic, but it’s an excellent one. The issue tracks Dream from his imprisonment in 1916 through his reemergence in 1988.

He does very little in those years, but the world changes around him even as some people sleep the entire time away and others never have a true dream. While Dream is imprisoned and they dream, his tools are stolen and dispersed around the world and his original captor passes away.

Gaiman’s script here is impossibly tight, filled with little details in every inch of narration. Sam Kieth’s art is memorable but a bit haggard at points – this is early in his career, still a few years before defining work on Ghost Rider or Maxx.

Some of Kieth’s long-faced, dropping facial work detracts a bit from the otherwise stellar issue – it’s probably not what you expected from Sandman based on the covers, later interiors, or Overture.

From the Beginning: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman

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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.

Song of the Day: “Want You Back” – Haim

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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