I Just Read About That…

 SOUNDTRACK: ELIZABETH ANKA VAJAGIC-Stand With the Stillness of This Day [CST028] (2004).

Elizabeth Anka Vajagic is a singing in the vein of Carla Bozulich (whose solo album CST would release a few years after this one).  She has a powerful, raw voice that can go low but can also rage.  She has a lot of control over her voice (which is seems sometimes Bozulich doesn’t) which leads to a lot of tension-filled songs.  EAV plays guitar and some piano.  These songs are also filled with cello, harmonium and an oud.  The songs are slow but powerful, and her voice suits the melodies very well–dark and full of longing.

“With Hopes Lost” has that mournful keening vocal, and the cello really provides that hopeless-feeling component.  “Around Here” is a dark stormy song with aching strings and piano.  “Where You Wonder” is a dark song but with a fight left in it–resistance to the darkness it feels.  The song feels mostly sparse until 4 and half minutes when it rages with a screaming guitar solo and big bold chords.  “Iceland” has probably the most fun chorus of the bunch, something actually sing-alongable.    The next song is called “Why.”  I’m always suspicious of a song called “Why” and this one is a little deservedly so–vague statements are not really anyone’s forte.  She has the keening down well, but it feels a little flat–brevity helps on this one.  “And the Sky Lay Still” opens with a slow echoing guitar, and as it slowly builds, ther’s a great vocal melody that builds for the verse  “Sleep with Dried Up tears” is an acoustic song.  It’s definitely a bit of a downer after the intensity of the album (which is dark but powerful).

EAV is definitely not for everyone.  It depends on your taste for screaming and, your taste for strings instead of heavy guitars to accompany those screams.

[READ: April 23, 2014] The Adventures of Superhero Girl

I grabbed this book from the library because I like Hicks’ work.  When I brought it home, Sarah thought that I brought it for her because it is on her Hub Reading Challenge List.  But no, I liked Hicks enough for myself (so selfish–although I did let her read it first).  She loved it, and so did I.

The Adventures of Superhero Girl is an online comic which Hicks seems to have started in 2010.  Online it is black and white (this book is done with colors by Chris Peters). I didn’t check to see if this is the entire series, but I assume it is. It went on hiatus in 2012 and has been eerily silent ever since.  So at least we have this pretty hardcover document of this hilarious series.

The strip is a genuine, honest to god, comic strip–8 panels and a punchline!  (okay most have fewer than 8 panels, but that’s the set up).  It’s sort of a goof on superheroes, but as the introduction by Kurt Busiek points out, it is really not a parody of the genre.  Superhero Girl is a superhero, with powers (but not amazing powers) and she does help people and she suffers angst from it.  But Hicks plays around with the most basic tropes of super heroes.

Superhero Girl, first of all, doesn’t have a superhero name.  She’s not hugely muscular, she’s not super sexy, she doesn’t wear a sexy costume.  She’s a young Canadian girl in a mask and (sometimes) a cape. She doesn’t have an agonizing backstory.  She just has superpowers and wants to help people.

The real problem is that she lives in a small town in Canada where nothing bad really happens (Hicks is from Nova Scotia).

There is a continuing story in the strips–Superhero Girl lives her life and makes enemies and what have you, but each strip more or less stands on its own, and each one is quite funny.  I love that her arch nemesis is just an annoying guy.  I like that she mostly fights ninjas (and that the head ninja decides to give up his life of crime to become a successful business man) and I like theat the “real” superhero in the family is her brother (Kevin, grr) who is big muscled, handsome and all-around super.

Hicks has created some wonderful villains, like Monocle Bear and the squid thing that looks like an adorable kitty cat.  And she has created some fun ancillary characters too, like her roommate and the occasional ninjas whom she chats with (before punching them out).

The book is a real treat.  It’s worth reading the book because the colors really make the story pop (and you get to see some sketches too).  But if you read it online you also get Hicks’ commentary about each strip, which is pretty nice.

I felt this book was a wee bit too mature for Clark.  It’s not bad at all, just a few word choices that seem to have it aimed for about ten or eleven.