I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: Sirius Radio-The Grateful Dead Channel

I’ve never been a big fan of the Dead (even though I like Phish quite a bit). I never really got into the subculture, and really the music seemed peripheral to their fanbase. I recall being very disappointed when I bought What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been back when I was a metal head and couldn’t believe that a band with that name and with skeletons all over the place was that wimpy.

Well, it turns out that Sarah was something of a fan, and, after all these years of listening to Phish, I’ve grown an appreciation for the Dead as well (and Cherry Garcia, of course).

So, as we have Sirius radio, we put on the Grateful Dead channel one night. It’s a fascinating channel, as it sounds like it’s some guy playing all of his Dead bootlegs. It was funny to not hear any LP tracks. I found the whole experience rather pleasant. It worked great as background music, and was utterly inoffensive (not exactly a ringing endorsement, I know but). I enjoyed the experience and would definitely do it again. Probably not anytime too soon, after all, that was a lot of Dead to ingest. But someday, I’m sure…

[READ: June 10, 2008] Zombies Calling

Aside from Oni Press, my favorite comics publisher is SLG, Slave Labor Graphics. They’re generally a little darker and weirder than the Oni stuff, so it suits my dark side when needed. But they are still quite funny. As is this. The premise of the book is zombies (duh). Joss, a fan of zombie movies lives with Sonnet, not a fan of zombie movies, and Robyn (despite the spelling, Robyn is a man) who is kind of a slacker. They go to university in Ontario (I didn’t even know it was set in Canada when I ordered it).

At first I didn’t like the book that much, it seemed to rely way to much on things seen in movies: follow the “rules” of zombie flicks (hello Scream), and, while I guess every zombie film starts out the same way (and that is the point I guess), the same tried and true opening was used as in most zombie flicks. I did like that there were posters for popular zombie movies on the walls though (28 Days Later) (nodding to what you’re stealing from is a good thing).

The story got really interesting once it broke out of the “follow the rules” set up. The story behind how the zombies came to be is fantastic, and wonderful social commentary (plus it’s funny). And, the arrival of the Canadian army (yes, they have one) was unexpected and delightful.

The style of the art was also really appealing to me. There’s something sligtly comfortable about the style…it seems like it looks like someone else’s style but as you look at it more, you see that it is not only her own style but that it’s quite interesting as well. The dark, dark lines are really evocative. And she captures expressions very well.

There’s also some bonus features (ie. a sketch book) that show the original iterations of Joss. As I mentioned with Art Spiegelman book in McSweeney’s 27, it’s really interesting to see an artists’ original ideas. These sketches are mostly just attempts to flesh out the characters, but they’re really interesting, and fun to see the choices she ultimately made.

I hate to be down on the beginning of the book, but I feel that once you get past the basic set up, it’s a great read.