Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Image Comics’ Category

Andi Watson, Simon Gane–Sunburn (2022)

Posted in Andi Watson, Donkeys, Drinking, Graphic Novel, Greece, Humiliation, Image Comics, Romance, Simon Gane, Vacation on July 24, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: June 25, 2023] Sunburn

I haven’t read a book by Andi Watson in a long time.

I used to be a big fan of his indie comics and then I lost touch with him–turns out he was hired by the big guns and has been working with Dark Horse for a pretty long time.

This surprises me, because his stories were usually very quiet and introspective.  Like this one.

It also surprises me that Simon Gane did the art for this book because I was especially attracted to Watson for his drawing style.  However, Gane’s designs are quite excellent and work really well for this story.

The story starts out pretty simply.  Rachel is a sixteen year old British school girl.  Her parents are typical, with her dad giving her a hard time because she doesn’t like eggs.  And making dad jokes.

Then her mom comes in the kitchen and says that Peter, Rachel’s dad old friend, has invited Rachel out for the summer holidays.  Rachel is mortified at the thought of spending the summer with her parents’ friends–ones she doesn’t even remember–is horrifying.

Until her mom says that they are vacationing in Greece.

Greece is lovely–so much more beautiful than rainy England.  Peter is an older gent and is super nice, but it’s Peter’s wife Diane who is full of ebullience and life.  She swoops down, gives Rachel a huge hug and tells her to make herself at home.   She gives her regionally appropriate clothes to wear (British swim suits are very different from Grecian ones) and even lets her have some wine with dinner.

That first night they go out to a grown up (boring) party.  Fortunately, there’s a local boy, Benjamin, who is very nice to her and they begin hanging out. Rachel teaches him to swim and he provides her with her first kiss.

But things seem a little off.  Or if not off exactly, then maybe uncomfortable.  Benjamin says that everyone knows everyone else at these parties.  There’s no secrets.  “I know who cheats at backgammon and I know who’s gobbling pills by the handful just to make it through the day.”

It turns out that everyone at these parties also knows about Ben and Rachel.  One day Diane warns her to be careful to not bring home “anything unwanted.”  She is offended by the lectureand is upset when Ben doesn’t act the way she thought he would.  He basically says that no one cares about what they do, but it sounds a bit like he means he doesn;t care what he does either.

Things grows tense.  And then even more tense when an actual secret comes out.  I was rather surprised by the secret myself.

But it’s also nice that Rachel grows from the experience.

Read Full Post »

David F. Walker, Chuck Brown & Sanford Greene–Bitter Root: Volume One: Family Business (2018)

Posted in Afrofuturism, Alice Walker, Ceeon D. Quiett Smith, Chuck Brown, David F. Walker, Dieselfunk, Drugs, EC Comics, EthnoGothic, Ezra Clayton Daniels, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Hate, History, Image Comics, Ishmael Reed, James Baldwin, Jeremy Love, John Jennings, Kinitra Brooks, Language, Magic, Murder, Nalo Hopkinson, NPR/PRI/PBS, Ntozake Shange, Qiana Whitted, Racism, Regina N. Bradley, Sanford Greene, Shaneé Gibbs, Shawnelle Gibbs, Stacey Robinson, Supernatural, Taneka Stotts, Tiny Desk Concert, Toni Morrison, Victor LaValle, Violence, W.E.B. DuBois on May 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAVE-Tiny Desk Concert #908 (November 8, 2020).

Usually if you go by a mononym, your name is unique.  This British rapper goes by “Dave,” which seems rather bold since it’s hardly unique.  It also seems like it would be very hard to find in a search engine.

Perhaps the understated name applies to his understated delivery.  He has a lot of great things to say, but he’s not grandiose about how he says them.

He also seems very nervous (you don’t mind if I steal one of these waters, do you?).

 Dave made a special trip all the way from the UK just for his Tiny Desk performance. If that isn’t proof that it was a big deal, his nervousness before the show confirmed it. But he powered through in a performance that puts his gift for making the personal political on full display.

“Location” is first.  Tashera Robertson sings the introduction. There’s quiet but somewhat complex guitar work from Markelle Abraham.  Daves’ rapping is very understated almost quietly rhymes.  His delivery is almost mumbly because it is so quiet, but her remains clear.

He shares the inspiration behind the aptly-titled song “Black” from his opus of a debut. “It’s just about the black British experience,” he says. “Everyone’s experience of being black is a little bit different, but this is my take on it. I wanted to deliver it to the world and here it is for you guys.”

“Black” starts with a spooky piano melody Aaron Harvell and a very simple drum beat Darryl Howell based around rim shots.  The bass from Thomas Adam Johnson punctuates the melody.  There’s cool scratching sounds from Abraham on the guitar which add a spooky texture.  Robertson sings backing oohs and ahhs.

But the lyrics are fantastic

Look, black is beautiful, black is excellent
Black is pain, black is joy, black is evident
It’s workin’ twice as hard as the people you know you’re better than
‘Cause you need to do double what they do so you can level them

…

With family trees, ’cause they teach you ’bout famine and greed
And show you pictures of our fam on their knees
Tell us we used to be barbaric, we had actual queens
Black is watchin’ child soldiers gettin’ killed by other children
Feelin’ sick, like, “Oh shit, this could have happened to me”

…

Black is growin’ up around your family and makin’ it
Then being forced to leave the place you love because there’s hate in it

…

Her hair’s straight and thick but mine’s got waves in it
Black is not divisive, they been lyin’ and I hate the shit
Black has never been a competition, we don’t make this shit

…

Black is my Ghanaian brother readin’ into scriptures
Doin’ research on his lineage, findin’ out that he’s Egyptian
Black is people namin’ your countries on what they trade most
Coast of Ivory, Gold Coast, and the Grain Coast
But most importantly to show how deep all this pain goes
West Africa, Benin, they called it slave coast

…

Black is like the sweetest fuckin’ flavour, here’s a taste of it
But black is all I know, there ain’t a thing that I would change in it

The song builds slow and dramatically with more guitar work as Dave’s delivery gets more powerful.  It’s really intense.

But the climax here comes near the end, when Dave takes a seat at the piano to accompany himself while rapping his 2018 hit, “Hangman.” In the moment before he plays the opening keys, he pauses to take a breath before channeling the weight of the world through his fingers.

“Hangman” is more of the intense personal political storytelling.  His delivery is so perfect for this power of his lyrics.  This song has a few extra musical elements–some cool bass lines and guitar fills.  It also has an instrumental interlude at the end which allows Robinson to sing wordlessly.

I’m not sure if he has earned his mononym, but it’s a great show.

[READ: April 30, 2020] Bitter Root

I was drawn to this book by the outstanding cover art.  A 1920s era family dressed to the nines standing around a robot-like creature.  It’s sort of steampunk, but with a Harlem Renaissance twist,

In the essays in the back, the style of this book is described with a bunch of awesome phrases: cyberfunk (black cyberpunk), steamfunk (black steampunk) and dieselfunk (black dieselpunk).  There’s also EthnoGothic and ConjurePunk.

This story starts in 1924 indeed, during the Harlem Renaissance.

The story opens with music and dancing in full swing until something terrifying happens.

Next we see some police officers.  The black officer saying that “these people” give me the creeps.  A white police officer says “these people?” and the black officer says “The Sangeyre family ain’t my people. My people don’t mess with this mumbo jumbo.”

So then we meet the Sangeyre family.  Blink Sangeyre says she doesn’t like it that the police just bring them to their store. But Ma Etta Sangeyre says it’s better they bring them in before the kill someone.

We cut to the roof where Berg Sangeyre, a very large man with a wonderfully expansive vocabulary says “Cullen, might I offer you a bit of sagacious insight to your current predicament.  My assistance would hardly prove heuristic to your cause.”

Cullen Sangeyre is a skinnier, younger gentleman and he is fighting a bright red, horned demon known as the “Jinoo.” (more…)

Read Full Post »

Sam Humphries, Jen Bartel–Blackbird Book 1: The Great Beast (2019)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Deathprod, Graphic Novel, Huh?, Humiliation, Image Comics, Jen Bartel, Magic, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Patient Sounds, Sam Humphries, Supernatural, Unfinished series, Viking's Choice on September 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DEATHPROD-“Disappearance / Reappearance” (2019).

Every once in a while I like to check in with Viking’s Choice on NPR’s All Songs Considered.  Lars Gottrich specializes in all of the obscure music that you won;t hear on radio.  For this month, he did a special focus on Patient Sounds. a small label based out of Illinois.

[UPDATE: At the end of 2019, Patient Sounds closed shop. I’m not sure if any of these songs are available outside of Bandcamp].

Lars had this to say about the label

Matthew Sage, who runs the label, knows that dynamic drone, jittery footwork, oddball drone-folk, hypnagogic guitar music and cosmic Americana can exist in the same space.

The first song is by Deathprod.  Lars says:

Deathprod’s first album in 15 years, Occulting Disk, smothers dank, dark drones around the void of your soul, like a frozen hug from a cyborg teddy bear.

This song is 8 minutes long.  It consists almost entirely of a single loud distorted note/chord played on a synth until it fades into distorted crackles.  The note changes, but it is a pretty ominous soundtrack, like the slowest monster approaching you.

[READ: September 2, 2019] Blackbird

This book starts out with a very realistic concern but quickly become supernatural.

Nina was 13 years old and had a vision of an earthquake coming.  Her sister just called her a crazy baby (something the whole family called her). But moments later, the Verdugo Earthquake happened.  She and her family fled, and were almost crushed by a collapsing bridge.

But then a beautiful celestial monster came down and fixed the bridge and saved them.  The creature cast a forgetting spell over everyone, but somehow Nina remembered it all.

Despite the magical creature’s help, Nina’s life went to hell from there.  Her mother and father began fighting.  He began drinking and she died in a car accident while trying to get away from him.  Nina had been a great student but high school became unbearable.  She became “the girl who talked about magic and wizards and paragons.”

Now as an adult, she has a dead end job at a bar, is living with her sister and is sneaking painkillers.

There’s a guy, Clint, who seems to be stalking her at the bar.  I mean, he’s cute, but he’s always there. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Skottie Young, Jorge Corona–Middlewest Book One (2019)

Posted in Circus, David Popper, Foxes, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Graphic Novel, Image Comics, Jorge Corona, Kian Soltani, Marriage Trouble, Memory, Monsters, Parenting, Skottie Young, Supernatural, Surreal, Unfinished series, Violence, YA Books, Yuck! on September 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KIAN SOLTANI-Tiny Desk Concert #880 (August 16, 2019).

I feel like listeners are more familiar with a violin than a cello.  Violins are everywhere (they’re so portable), but cellos only seem to come out when you need a bigger string section.  I have come to realize that I much prefer the sound of a cello to a violin  The cello can reach some impressive high notes (check out about three minutes into the Hungarian Rhapsody) but its the richness of the low notes that really impresses me,  Or maybe it’s just the historical value of Kian Soltani’s cello

It’s not every day someone walks into our NPR Music offices and unpacks an instrument made in 1680. And yet Kian Soltani, the 27-year-old cellist who plays with the authority and poetry of someone twice his age, isn’t exactly fazed by his rare Giovanni Grancino cello, which produces large, luminous tones. (He also plays a Stradivarius.)

I love Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody, and I love this one as well. What is it about Hungary that inspires such wild songs?

The Hungarian Rhapsody, by the late 19th century cellist and composer David Popper, traces its inspiration to similarly titled pieces by Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms, but showcases a number of hot-dogging tricks for the cello, including stratospheric high notes, flamboyant slides and a specific high-velocity bouncing of the bow called sautillé. Soltani nails all of them with nonchalant elegance, backed with companionable accompaniment by pianist Christopher Schmitt.

He says that that piece was a very extrovert, out-there piece and so from this mode we take it more inward.

To prove he can make his instrument truly sing, Soltani worked up his own arrangement of “Nacht und Träume” (Night and Dreams) by Franz Schubert, replacing the human voice with his cello’s warm, intimate vocalizing.

It’s fascinating to think that this song was musically written for the piano and voice.  But he has taken the vocal track and turned it into a moving (possibly better?) version on the cello.

His parents emigrated to Austria from Iran in the mid-1970s.  He grew up in Austria and loved it as a locus of great classical music.  But he also hold on to his Persian roots.

And in the Persian Fire Dance, Soltani’s own composition, flavors from his Iranian roots – drones and spiky dance rhythms – commingle with percussive ornaments.

This is a wonderful Concert and Soltani’s playing is really breathtaking.

[READ: September 1, 2019] Middlewest

I had heard of Skottie Young as the author of I Hate Fairyland (which sounds like a children’s book but is definitely not).

This book is also definitely not for children (although I see some people think it could be for YA readers).

Abel is a young boy who lives with his abusive father.  His father, Dale, is a real piece of work. Abel’s mother left, so Dale blames Abel and is on him all the time.

As the first chapter opens, Abel has overslept his paper route (the second time in five years).  His father is very angry even if Abel has been getting up at 4:30 every day for five years. As Abel is running late delivering the papers, his friends tell him to blow it off–it’s too late anyway, just go with them to play video games. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Christopher Sebela, Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, Triona Farrell, Cardinal Rae–Crowded: Volume 1: Soft Apocalypse (2019)

Posted in Adventure, Cardinal Rae, Christopher Sebela, Crowdsourcing, Death, Fire, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Guns, half•alive, Image Comics, Murder, NPR/PRI/PBS, Ro Stein, Social Media, Ted Brandt, Tiny Desk Concert, Triona Farrell, Unfinished series, Unlikable main character, Violence on September 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: half•alive-Tiny Desk Concert #879 (August 12, 2019).

This is one of the more fun Tiny Desk Concerts I’ve seen.  I didn’t think I knew half•alive but I recognized one of the songs from the radio.  They had just released their debut album, so I guess they are a New Artist.

Formed in Long Beach, Calif. in 2016, half•alive is a band with a clear vision and gift for design, not just in the earworms they write, but in their entire presentation, with often-matching outfits and carefully selected color schemes.

The band, fronted by singer and guitarist Josh Taylor, didn’t try to squeeze in any costume changes, but they do play three songs from their debut album.

 It wasn’t at all surprising to see and hear the care they took to make their Tiny Desk debut a memorable one.

On “RUNAWAY” Taylor sings in a kind of slacker deadpan chattering style (but catchy).  It’s quite a surprise when he sings a rather impressive falsetto in the chorus.   J Tyler Johnson plays a groovy Wurlitzer.  This is the only song with strings (Emiko Bankson: violin; Callie Galvez: cello)

I was really surprised to find that I’d heard “still feel.” before as I didn’t know this band’s name (and never knew what the song was called).  Joshua Taylor plays guitar on this song a wicked wah wah riff.  Johnson switches to bass and plays a cool funky riff throughout.  In fact this song has a massive disco feel and the falsetto vocals in the chorus really sell it

For this song, the strings have been replaced by Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry credited with choreography.  For this song one of them reads a book while the other is playing with a Rubik’s cube.

Well before arriving for this performance, the three guys in half•alive asked for the exact dimensions of the space behind Bob Boilen’s desk. Known for their live shows, with elaborate, synchronized dancing and costume changes, the group naturally wondered how they’d pull everything off in such a cozy space.

Their solution? Have the dancers sit for the performance. The choreography, now restricted to the width of two chairs, was incredible. You’ll see how it all works on the final song

The final song is “ice cold.” a new track from the band’s just-released debut full-length, Now, Not Yet.  For this song, drummer Brett Kramer switches Septavox while Johnson is back on Wurlitzer.  Taylor switches to acoustic guitar, but honestly who can even tell what’s happening musically because Jordan Johnson and Aidan Carberry have created an elaborate choreography.  Whenever they are on camera its impossible not to look at them.

I’m not sure if the song is any good, but I’ll be they’re a lot of fun to see live.

[READ: August 31, 2019] Crowded

I’m not sure what attracted me to this book.  The cover was certainly interesting and the visual style was cool.

But I’m so glad I read it because it is a funny (and violent) story that is all an elaborate take on crowd sourcing and social media.

The first chapter opens with a dialogue on the Dfender app. Charlie Ellison has hired Vita to Dfend her.  It turns out that someone has posted a bounty on her head on the Reapr app.

Charlie explains that she started the morning by cleaning her house for a couple who were Padhopping it for the weekend.  Then she drives for both Muver and Drift.  Then she loaned out her car for the day on Wheelsy and rented out a dress on Kloset.  Then she took a job on Dogstroll and on Citysitter *(the children seem unlooked after).  She ended her day by taking a job from Palrent to sit with an old man who feeds pigeons.

She hooked up with a guy at the bar before bed and snuck out in the morning.  That’s when the first person tried to kill her.

It was an old lady with a gun.  Charlie threw her coffee in the woman’s face, took the woman’s little dog and ran away because that’s when the second person tried to kill her.

Vita shows her the Reapr app and that the reward for killing her is over a million dollars. (more…)

Read Full Post »