I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ENORMODOME-“I’m Gonna Love You” (Tiny Desk Contest Runner-Up 2015).

Last week, a Tiny Desk Contest winner was announced. This week, All Songs Considered posted ten runners up that they especially liked.  And I want to draw extra attention to a couple of them.

I know very little about these bands, so I don’t know if they are on the trend (opposite of yesterday) of two guys playing really loud music.  And man, they rock the office.  Sometimes a gimmick makes you want to watch a video, but the song has to be good for you to watch it more than once.

This video was filmed in the office of the Mayor of Flagstaff–what a good sport!  I love that they have his employees coming around and working as usual while these two guys are making an unholy racket.

I’ve been very impressed with most of the two person bands who really make a very full sound.  And this one is no exception.  I was sure there were more than two guys playing along.  And their voices gel nicely.  The only weak spot is during the solo, when the rest of the  guitars drop out so it’s a little too spare.  But aside from that the song is a great rocker.  I like the simple blues riff, but I really like the way the middle section (before the solo) messes with that riff somewhat–it’s very cool.

[READ: February 22, 2015] Axe Cop Volume 4

Like Volume 2, Axe Cop Volume 4 is a full length story.  This one pushes the idea that came up in a previous book that Axe Cop is President of the World.  For the writing of this book Malachai was 8 years old.  It was at this point that I started to wonder how different the stories of an 8-year-old would be from those of a 5-year-old.  Since my son is nine, I know that he understands the logic of storytelling a bit more and he even understands the internal logic of stories, so I assumed that Malachai’s stories would be more linear and less surreal.

And of course, the nature of a big graphic novel like this is that it must be linear and coherent.

I liked that the book opened with something we hadn’t seen before–Axe Cop is having a recurring nightmare about a talking gorilla.

But then we get down to business.  As president, Axe Cop is going to live in the Gold House in the real Washington (not DC). But his real business comes down to one question–since he got rid of all the bad guys, the people want to know if they will ever come back.  Axe Cop talks to God (!) and is told that they will come back in 1 million years, but until then it is time for peace in the world.

In fact, he opens a portal and sends all his team away for a million years to do something else.

But a mad scientist was outraged by Axe Cop’s words and he set out to create the biggest team of bad guys from every planet he could encounter (apple planet, soccer planet, etc).  And he planned to have a majestic battle in 1 million years.

Axe Cop is approached by man made of goo. He says that aliens kidnapped his family–they aren’t part of the bad guys on earth.  Axe Cop says he will help him, but not yet.  In the meantime, Axe Cop learns how to heal animals, and when he sees an injured gorilla and heals him it talks to him (just like his nightmare!).  The gorilla is called Junior Cobbb and he asks Axe Cop to help save his planet (Planet Weird Gorilla). Axe Cop agrees immediately (which rather upsets Goo Man) and they do battle with evil robot penguins.

When a million years was up and all the good guys came back there were no bad guys waiting.  Huh.  So Axe Cop sent them away again.  But the next morning the scientist came with his bad guy team.  And the bad guys were super mad that there were no good guys to fight.  But a fight does ensue (on the Space needle of course).

During the fighting there is a bounce off competition (which Axe Cop wins of course).  The prize is a golden mustache.

Perhaps the best moment is when a guy turns into “everything” (he’s pretty horrifying and must have been very fun to draw) and Axe Cop says “I think he is awesome. I want him on my team.”

The end of the story involves an amusing plot twist (seems to me they should have blown up the fake earth, but whetvehs).  And the nice thing is they eventually do help Goo guy.

I enjoyed a lot of this story (the addition of new characters and monsters was great), but I enjoy the short pieces so much more (which is why I like the TV episodes too).

As far as I can tell there are two more volumes of graphic novels, although I didn’t see them at the library.  I’ll have to track them down in the future.  Also, according to the Axe Cop site, there will be more Axe Cop animations coming later this year to Animation Domination High Def.  Huzzah!