Crushing Krisis

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Haul Around The World: Prelude to FOMO Haul – EVERY New Epic & DC Finest, X-Men, Compendiums, & More

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I hauled around the world and I, I, I, I… I am out of shelf space.

No, seriously, this is the haul where I have truly run out of any space on any shelf where I can possible fit the books. And, this is just one of TWO (or maybe THREE?) parts of the haul that resulted from my FOMO show a few weeks ago! This is mostly the things I decided to buy while MAKING the FOMO list. A few FOMO items are on here, but… a lot more is to come in the next Haul.

Join me as I dig into EVERY new classic Marvel Epic Collection, EVERY new DC Finest, tons of DC Compendiums, X-Men in omnibus, and some indie books that you may have never heard of before!

Seriously, this haul is absurd. I’m not sure what I was thinking. Honestly, even before the FOMO show, the FOMO had taken control of my brain like a rat sitting beneath a chef’s hat, except mine would be a Golden Lion Tamarin clinging to the back of my head (maybe that’s why the back of my hair never quite looks right – it’s the Tamarin!)

The D&D Open Gaming License / The Dangers of Playing with Other People’s Toys

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This week everyone is talking about Dungeons & Dragons, but it’s not for a good reason.

Last week, a revision to the longstanding D&D “Open Gaming License” leaked. I’ve written about the OGL before, but in short it’s the persistent legal agreement that allows independent creators to use the core rules and concepts of D&D to create their own 3rd party material. While that ostensibly exists for people who want to sell their own 3rd-party D&D supplements, it also acts as a safety net for anyone homebrewing their own content.

Many outlets have written at length about the newly-drafted version of the OGL – i09 reporter Linda Codega broke the story at Gizmodo last week. The draft institutes a number of restrictions, including tightening the ability to distribute digital content, enforcing royalty-sharing on big earners, and instituting some potentially-invasive rights to reproduce creator content.

Understandably, both creators and players are in an uproar – after all, every D&D player is also a co-creator of their campaign’s story! Even if they never intend to publish or profit from their storytelling contributions, there’s a pervasive feeling of “this affects all of us” solidarity from the D&D community.

Another reliable leak mentioned that D&D owners Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Hasbro would be looking at digital DNDBeyond subscription cancellations as an early metric of the community’s response to the OGL changes. A leak coming from within the DNDBeyond team makes a lot of sense. WotC and Hasbro bought DNDBeyond last April from Fandom for $146 million dollars. The DNDBeyond team don’t have a long-term allegiance to the Hasbro corporate overlords and they are watching the stellar good will they’ve amassed as a community platform being quickly eroded by this decision.

As the DNDBeyond team may have feared (but also secretly wished for), this new leak immediately lead to a cascade of hundreds of players posting proof of their subscription cancellations on DNDBeyond forums and on Twitter.

I was one of those players.

Tomorrow is my bi-weekly D&D date with my best friends from the states and I am currently the Dungeon Master of our campaign. That means today ought to be spent finalizing maps and building out potential encounters for my custom campaign that has taken a hard left turn from the official campaign in Storm King’s Thunder.

Instead, I’m spending the day wondering if it’s worth putting in the effort to tell stories in a fictional world that is just another capitalist playground. [Read more…] about The D&D Open Gaming License / The Dangers of Playing with Other People’s Toys

From The Beginning: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman (1989), Issues #2-4

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Tonight’s discussion is on The Sandman (1989) issues #2-4, which follow Dream as he returns to his kingdom of dreams and sets out on a quest to rediscover two of his three crucial tools – his pouch of sand and his helm.

What people often forget in talking about Sandman as a modern masterpiece is that it started out as very much a horror comic. It was also not so specifically disconnected from the DC Universe – we peek into Arkham in issue #2, hang out with Constantine in #3, and meet Etrigan in #4.

The Sandman (1989) #2 is Gaiman building a world, and dispensing a lot of information along the way, though some of it we will not recognize until much later. Sandman discovers his Cain and Abel, his librarian, and his decrepit castle – all of his dream time falling apart without him to hold it together.

Dream resolves to regain his three aspects and consults the trio of fates for them in a memorable sequence packed with literary references. His pouch of sand currently resides with Constantine, which he views as easier to acquire than his jewel (with the League) or his helmet (with a demon). Kieth’s art is a bit lumpy here, though the later recolor does it many favors. It’s our first time seeing Morpheus unbound, and he bears an uncanny resemblance to his creator.

The Sandman (1989) #3 is a low point of early Sandman for me – bringing in the caustic John Constantine and showing us Dream through his eyes. It feels much more like a Hellblazer issue than a Sandman issue.

Also, Kieth and Dringenberg’s art here goes a bit sour, just too inconsistent and droopy across a tale told primarily with a specific, human character (though there are some great panels, like the reveal of Constantine’s former lover).

I think it is in The Sandman (1989) #4 that Sandman became a classic. This issue is firmly rooted in Christian mythology, but also features an active, clever Dream increasing in his powers. It’s also quite boldly drawn by Kieth and Dridenberg, with the notable trio of demons – Beezlebub, a human with a fly’s head, Azazeal, a sort of Beholder, and Lucifer Morningstar, who is apparently a Space Oddity eta David Bowie.

Dream’s journey to the underworld is dire with a dash of humor beneath as Etrigan takes him through the suicide grove and past his own lost love, and later as Sandman engages in the most famous sort of wizard’s duel, that we all know from Sword In the Stone.

Song of the Day: “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both of Us” – Sparks

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When was the last time a song you never heard before totally pierced your brain to become an automatic favorite?

I can tell you exactly when it was for me: July 1st, sitting in our friend Liz’s living room, listening to Sparks’ “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both of Us.”

Research says there is a “magic age” somewhere in our 20s where our musical taste becomes more set, owing to a combination of factors ranging to hearing loss to not having as many new experiences for music to soundtrack.

While some people concern themselves with anti-aging creme and memory-extending games, I am more worried about avoiding the potential to stop liking new music. It’s terrifying to me. Even though I already have lists of thousands of favorite songs, I still want more.

Really, it’s not as though we stop appreciating songs entirely at some point. It’s about our preferences becoming locked in. If you’ve always loved Garth Brooks, chances are you might still enjoy a new Garth Brooks song when you are 42. The thing that could become more scarce is liking something that sounds entirely new.

(Perhaps that is why our interest in popular music dwindles as we age – the sound keeps evolving with out us.)

From that perspective, I don’t think me liking “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both of Us” is as encouraging as me falling in love with the songs of Czarface on that same night, as East Coast Hip Hop is a little bit further outside of my typical preferences as the Glam Rock of Sparks.

Glam Rock was my whole life for a while there, right? The theme song of my new internet show is a song called “Glam,” wherein I state “When I was 16 I thought I was David Bowie because nobody told me there was more than life than being glam.” Liking Sparks should come as no surprise.

One way it was a surprise was just that I had never heard of Sparks. I have a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of rock history and a song collection to match, yet they were a complete stumper for me when Liz put them on the stereo.

Not only that, but the song sounded completely alien to me. I instantly recognized it as a form of Glam Rock, but it also had a galloping free time feel to it that I associate with mathier rock, like Rush. And I was convinced it was being sung by a woman, which left me completely incredulous when Liz reveal the band is comprised of a pair of brothers!

What was this sorcery!

[Read more…] about Song of the Day: “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both of Us” – Sparks

Track-by-Track: Lady Gaga’s Joanne – “Hey Girl” with Florence Welch (Track 10)

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lady-gaga-horse-2016I’ll be dissecting Joanne song by song every day until November, which will bring a monster month of daily music and comics content with it.

“Hey Girl” fascinates me to no end. After over a week of listening, I’m still not sure if I like it or not, but it definitely holds my interest.

The first interesting thing about “Hey Girl” is that it’s a duet and a co-write with Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine. And, it’s a true duet – Florence doesn’t just pop in for a quick featured verse and some harmonies, she is threaded throughout the entire song along with Gaga.

Her presence makes a lot of thematic sense, since this is a song that’s unabashedly about female friends and girl power (and it’s not like Gaga was going to pick Madonna for that spot).

Hey girl, hey girl – We can make it easy if we lift each other
Hey girl, hey girl – We don’t need to keep on one-in’ up another
Hey girl, hey girl. Hey girl, hey girl.
If you lose your way just know that I got you

The other thing that will hit you in approximately 10 seconds of listening is one – maybe two – obvious nods to Gaga’s influences on this tune. (I know this because that’s exactly how long it took both Jake and I to notice.)

The first of the two influences is Elton John, as Lady Gaga is nearly plagiarizing the rhythm section of “Bennie and the Jets” here – a favorite that she’s performed with John! The back and forth octaves of piano that dip chromatically played against a loping drum beat make the songs nearly identical.

The second of the two influences is slightly more obscure, but makes a lot of sense in the context of 2016. The phased, swirling synthesizer sound paired with clean stabs of guitar is a straight lift from the Philly Soul sound of the A-Side of David Bowie’s Young Americans – “Win,” “Fascination,” and especially “Right.” As a major David Bowie fan, I can’t unhear it – you can start singing any of that trio of tunes directly from the chorus of “Hey Girl.”

It’s hard for me to get past hearing the influences to hearing the song. It has a certain flatness to its structure and chord progressions. There aren’t any big leaps or breaks. The songs flows forward like liquid, a particular trademark of Florence’s own work.

That brings us back to collaborations. While Gaga has collaborated with a number of producers and instrumentalists, she’s been much more selective about allowing other vocalists on her tracks. On Fame Monster Gaga’s guest star was Beyonce, who was just cresting her wave of being one of the most revered creators in pop. It felt completely appropriate to see these two women together, creating dancefloor anthems.

On Artpop, the collaboration was regrettably with R. Kelly, as famous for his self-parodying “Trapped In The Closet” as for his pursuit of sex with minors and a litany of alleged child pornography and sexual abuse. While Kelly is also at times an R&B genius, the dissonance of Gaga choosing him as a featured co-star was immediate – especially on a song called “Do What You Want (With My Body).” It was a rare example of her going off-message and being chided for it by the fans and media.

florence-welch-on-horse-with-swordFlorence Welch makes another, very particular kind of statement as a pairing with Gaga. Welch is seen as a nearly infallible, genre-defying female auteur who is mentioned in the same breath with the biggest rock stars.Like Gaga, she was a guest of the Rolling Stones to sing the duet on “Gimme Shelter.” While I didn’t love her last LP, if it was indeed a bit weak it did nothing to slow her popularity or weaken her ability to break through to modern rock radio.

In short – Florence is an image in which Lady Gaga is currently trying to remake herself, much as Taylor Swift veered towards the big tent mega-pop of Katy Perry on her last LP.

Gaga does a brilliant job of fitting into Florence’s mold across this album. And, true to the lyrics of the song, she uses it to lift Florence up – rarely has her vocals ever sounded silken and beautiful, even on her own records. I’d never say Gaga and Florence sound alike, but their voices are mixed so evenly here that it is truly hard to tell them apart at points.

That’s a lot of digital ink spilled on the context of the song without saying to much about the song itself, but for me that’s the thing – the song is all context. It’s a vessel full of ideas about influences, Gaga and Florence’s personal brands, sharing spotlight, and friendship. Its retro sound would feel out of place on the record without “Diamond Heart” as an opener and “Come To Mama” to proceed it, which further justifies that peculiar tune. At the same time, it helps to counterbalance the sexual revolution on the first half of the record with a feminist one.

Eventually I’ll figure out whether I like it or not.