SOUNDTRACK: THE ENFIELD TENNIS ACADEMY-The Dark (2017).
The Enfield Tennis Academy is one of the major locations in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. So, of course, a band that names itself after it must be listened to.
This is the second release by the band (which states “The Enfield Tennis Academy is TR.”
The Dark is described as
This EP is a collection of remixes and covers of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark”, from the 1984 album “Born in the U.S.A.” It is not ironic. “Dancing in the Dark” is © Bruce Springsteen and Columbia.
And that is literally what this is. Five tracks that rethink “Dancing in the Dark” each one called “Dancing in the Dark.”
Track 1 opens with someone doing a kind of Elvis impersonation (or is it actually Bruce?) of the first line of the song: I get up in the evening…” It then gets echoed and looped on itself until it is inaudible. After a minute a guitar comes in strumming music backwards, I believe. The big takeaway is the rolling “I” repeated over and over. After 1:30 there’s a rather pretty sax solo. which may be from the song, I don’t know it that well.
Track 2 is an ambient piece with electronic claps and a kind of slow almost pixelated pipe organ version of the main melody of the song. There’s some of those 80s processed “ahhhhs” added to the end. It would eerily make you think of the song without knowing exactly why.
Track 3 is a noisy track. Electronic drums played very rapidly and then some glitchy guitars playing the melody in triple time. It is the least recognizable of the five pieces.
Track 4 is a fingers-on-chalkboard electronic screech with what I assume is the song played in reverse. It’s a tough minute before the noise clicks away and we’re left with the backwards vocals. If you didn’t know it was “Dancer in the Dark” you might not recognize the melody but if you do, you can kind of hear it.
Track 5 plays the original song in the middle ear. But in the left ear is another song (as if the radio was staticky and in the right ear is another even louder song. But Bruce is squarely in the middle. It’s pretty disconcerting. Ultimately, the left ear gives way to people talking and the right ear reveals itself to be “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.” It fades and for about ten seconds during which you can hear pretty much only the Bruce song, but then it all falls apart into glitchy noise.
The longest track is 2:15; the rest are about 2 minutes. No one will say this disc is enjoyable, but it is kind of ugly fun.
[READ: January 30, 2017] Liō ‘s Astonishing Tales from the Haunted Crypt of Unknown Horrors
I have observed before about the maddening publication life of Liō books. It’s going on four years since a new collection has been published.
But at the same time there are a number of books that cover the same territory. Like this one.
This book collects “Liō” (which I take to mean Happiness is a Warm Cephalopod) and Silent But Deadly. But what puts this book head and shoulders above the others (and just about any other collection of any series) is that it is almost completely annotated.
I didn’t compare the two books to see if all of the strips were indeed included. But I’ll assume that claim is true.
Tatulli doesn’t comment on every strip but he does on a lot of them. Like the very first one (in which he criticizes his–admittedly horrible-looking–spider.
He has at least three comments about what a genius Charles Schulz was. Including the first time he tried to draw Lucy and Charlie: “I wanted to use the retro 1950s Peanuts look, but it was a bitch to reproduce…Schulz just make it look so simple.”
He’s also very critical of his drawing style of Mary Worth: “I won’t even tell you how embarrassingly long it took to make this lousy copy.”
He also tells us strips that he hates as well as strips that people complained about–these are especially funny because people always assume the worst like: People assumed that Liō killed a cat to give it an autopsy (no evidence that Lio did that). There’s another one where people assumed he was doing experiments on a bunny. Tatulli says there are stitches up the side of the bunny to indicate it is a stuffed animal but he admits that it may have been too subtle.
One of my favorite comments is about the joke where Liō takes a potion in order to play football–he turns into a giant monster. One reader wrote to complain that this strip encouraged the use of anabolic steroids. “Note to parents: if your kid is replicating stuff he or she is reading in comic strips, I would suggest the problem is not my comic but your goofy kid.”
Some people complain that Liō is too rough on hunters. “I point out that Liō is just a comic strip and, despite the comeuppance that Liō unleashes within context of these panels, it is not real and hunters will continue to kill small, defenseless animals with impunity. So just relax.”
People complained that a dopey guy looked like an old-style stereotype of a Japanese person. “I was just going for a dumb-person look, but people are always looking to be offended by something.
He also makes this statement: “The most satisfying strips to me are the ones with absolutely zero text.”
There’s also comments about things that affect his everyday life–he hates those blow up football guys.
He also talks about his editor and how they often agree but there are somethings that they don’t agree on–he usually takes the editor’s advice and changes things accordingly. Like that he wanted to put a sign that said Gates to Hell on a Sunday strip but his editor said you can’t say hell on Sunday. In church yes, n comics, no. A few months later though he did get to include prostitute on a Sunday comic (which he assumes is a first)
I also loved this. In a strip in which he has kids pile into a time tunnel where they get eaten by dinosaurs he says Some person complained that the strip was especially offensive because it called to mind the Nazi’s persecution of the Jewish people and how the Nazi’s stole their worldly goods (including shoes) and resold them. I may be crazy, but I think that’s a reach, no? Or a person complained that a strip called to mind the Columbine High School shootings. “There I go again calling to mind horrible real-life events. Whats wrong with me?”
He also tells us about some other artists who have commented on his using their characters in his strips. He says that most cartoonists add a line :”with apologies to” when using another cartoonist’s characters. “I don’t because I think it implies that I’ve done something wrong and I never try to do anything truly mean-spirited. Second, if I did add that line, I do crossovers enough that it would seem like I was always apologizing. I know that whenever cartoonists use Lio it’s always fun to see their interpretations.”
Cathy Guisewite called the day he used characters from Cathy. He said it scared him to death. “I thought she would be pissed, but she was flattered and very sweet about it. Cartoonists are pretty cool, even the girls.” He says that Bill and Jeff Keane (Family Circus) were also cool about him using their characters. Jack Elrod (Mark Trail) also enjoyed the use of his strip in Liō (Mark is afraid of Liō‘s mice).
I believe that Tatulli was very prescient when he made the strip of Lio’s dad imploding while watching TV. Lio races to get a hammer that says “In case of too much reality television.” In the comments he says “The Real Housewives of Orange County and The Hills were slowly killing us all.” He should have added The Apprentice, which is quickly killing us all.
He got a nice call from Bunny Hoest when he spoofed the Lockhorns. She thought it was very funny. Her husband created the Lockhorns and she has continued it since his death
On the less generous side, Mort Waker said n a podcast that he never reads Liō, so he doesn’t feel guilty about spoofing Beetle Bailey. “Plus, his strips are in like a billion paper, he can afford a little poking.”
By the same token he did one where Garfield gets smacked by a giant spider: “Garfield fans hated this strip. Garfield has a lot of fans.”
I especially liked this one: Somebody complained that I was making fun of kids who help the teacher when homework hasn’t been assigned. “In this case, I definitely was.”
He did a spoof of For Better or Worse called For Worse or for Best by Joann Keystone. It’s a note perfect drawing in which Liō changes the cure cards (I love these gags). He says it was the first appearance in the Washington Post–it must have been a strange shock to readers. He also makes the point that this was written three months before the real life turmoil of Lynn Johnston’s married life became public. He says he never would have written this if he had known.
I enjoyed the comment about the strips with the ventriloquist dummy. People say it’s a cop-out because there is dialogue, but the joke of course is that it’s only the dummy who speaks: “You know in real life, they don’t talk”
Also, “I actually saw a yard sale with a bow tie and a rotary phone. And the seller wasn’t kidding. Real people are weirder than anything you’ll find in my comic.”
There is talk of a Liō film (live action) but as of 2017 there’s no word on it yet.
In addition to Tatulli making the cover look like a Tales from the Crypt book, the inside covers are chock full of :”comic book” advertisements like Miniature Spy Cameras and Joy Buzzers and X Ray Spex. There’s also a few pages on the origins of Liō–from early sketches to comments about how he considered making Liō (a teenager? a bunny rabbit???). I always like this kind of stuff and would have loved to see more of it.
The back cover also has a great joke: Hey Fellows! be a successful cartoonist and earn big $$$ earn $300, $400, $500.. even $1,00 a year!
I Just Read About That... 
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