ohtani's jacket

Well, there is that about Twilight, but I have to plead ignorance about the original characters. I didn't know there was a New Frontier movie.

I finished the first arc of Strangers in Paradise. I was surprised by how violent it was. I was expecting some sort of slice-of-life relationship drama like Maggie and Hopey, but instead there was a crime fiction element to the story. It had its moments, but I wasn't a fan of the poetry and prose, and I thought the final chapter was weak. I also finished Tyrant. I really loved that book. Just a fascinating and brilliant concept. It's a crying shame that Bissette couldn't finish it. Apparently, it's somewhat outdated in what paleontologists think dinosaur life was truly like, but I thought it was a riveting piece of work.

I finished Bendis' run on Daredevil, which was very good, and at times excellent. It didn't really break any new ground as it was more or less an extended take on Born Again, but I liked the way that Bendis did a deep dive into Matt's psyche, and I thought he did some really cool things with the comic book form. I especially liked the storyline that was basically a group of people sitting around in a support meeting.

Stuff I read in May: Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier wound up being one of the best things I've read in quite some time. I don't have a strong affinity for DC Silver Age characters, so I don't know how others would view his take on the era, but I thought it was fantastic. I wasn't sure at first whether I liked his Batman: The Animated Series style artwork, but he won me over by the end of the first issue and I wound up loving it. I haven't read Kingdom Come, but I thought it was easily better than James Robinson's The Golden Age and one of the best superhero books I've read in a mightily long time. I also really liked Batman and the Monster Men. I'm sure some people might find the idea of taking a single issue Golden Age story and turning it into a six issue mini series to be of dubious merit, but I really like Matt Wagner's version of Batman and he has a great feel for the era. Personally, I found it to be one of the more interesting Batman stories I've read in a while. The other series I finished this month was Terminal City, which was decent but somewhat confusing. I still have trouble following Dean Motter's writing at times. Nice art by Michael Lark, though. I also read the first Lucifer mini-series, which was okay but didn't leave me hankering to read the ongoing series. Not just yet. Howard Chaykin and Jose Luis García-Lopez' Twilight was really good. The story is a bit dense, but you really get to see Garcia-Lopez cut loose and show his penciling chops. I was super impressed. There's a couple of other lesser known projects of his I'm hoping to check out where I'm hoping he does the same. I reached the point where Shade, the Changing Man starts getting good after a rough first year that is somewhat similar to the first Sandman storyline or the early Hellblazer in terms of being a little shaky.

Only in a world of hot takes and clickbait can the Warriors dropping a game when they're up 3-0 be a sign that they're in trouble. These talking heads spend too much time trying to impose their narratives on the game instead of commenting on what's actually happening. Then there's the incessant taking sides so that they can manufacture arguments. I don't know why I'm commenting on this. It's like getting upset at reality TV shows. It just feels like it's worse these playoffs perhaps because the games haven't been that competitive.

Holly shitballs.

Read Fables #151. I shouldn't be saying this since I only finished binge reading the original series a few weeks ago, but it feels like the series never ended. Willingham, Buckingham & Leialoha did an excellent job of picking up where they left off.

Anybody watching Pat Beverley do these sports shows? You can cut the tension with a knife.

Not to mention that Luka wins Game 7s.

Giannis ran out of gas in this series. The Bucks couldn't overcome to loss of Khris Middleton. I suspect they would have been bounced by Miami in the ECF. They ought to be in contention every year that Giannis is healthy, though.

So often Game 7s end up being a blowout for the home team. The Bucks should have pressed for the second seed instead of resting their starters. You have to give the Celtics a ton of credit though to come back from that Game 5 capitulation.

Let's see if we get a tackle like this one.

I don't think anyone mentioned Klaus Schulze, electric music pioneer and former member of the krautrock band, Tangerine Dream. He died on April 26th.

I was thinking about reading 1001 Nights of Snowfall. Undecided about any of the other spinoffs.

I finished Fables today, a series I first began reading back in December. It had its ups and downs as you’d expect any series to do that lasts 150 issues, but it consistently entertained me day in, day out for a solid five months. I read that Willingham originally envisioned the series running for one issue longer than Cerebus. I don’t know if Willingham had that many stories left to tell, but now I hear that the book is returning for another 12 issue arc, so we’ll see how that goes. A lot of people comment on how the book should’ve ended after the first 75 issues, and would have been better as a standard 60-75 issue Vertigo series. I never really felt that way reading it. In fact, I didn’t find the reveal of the Adversary’s identity, or the final battle against his Empire, to be hugely momentous. I actually felt that the conclusion to a lot of the arcs were anticlimactic. It got to the point where I started wondering if it was intentional on Willingham’s part or a weakness of his as a writer. What held the book together for me was the rich cast of characters and the uniform look that Buckingham and Leialoha gave the series. Willingham was lucky to have the same artists on the book for the majority of its run. Many people had strong opinions about this series. It almost rivaled the type of feedback you see from a television show. As I read the complaints, I began to develop a type of mentality of “Ok, let’s see what the writer chooses to do with these characters” instead of worrying about what I wanted to see happen. I didn’t agree with every decision Willingham made, but I wasn’t incensed by any of them, and I remained invested in the characters. Nobody’s forced to like the direction an artist goes in, but I sometimes think we lose track of an artist’s right to take things in a new direction. That said, I’m not sure where Fables would rank in my echelon of great comic book runs. Probably in my top 25 If it had been a bit more emotionally satisfying instead of intellectually stimulating it may have ranked higher. There were a few moments that were genuinely emotional, and well built, but the highs weren’t quite as high as other runs I’m fond of. Still, a remarkable achievement for any creative team to last that long, and now they want to come back for more?

I thought the ending was all right, however... It definitely wasn't an ending that kicked the show into the stratosphere of all-time great TV shows, I'll say that much.

Ruth has always been into hip hop. They've used Biggie, Wu Tang-Clu and Tribe Called Quest before for Ruth's scenes. I loved that surprise Killer Mike cameo, especially after they used his song "Untitled" so well. Great episode. Hand me on the edge of my seat right until the end.

The first episode of the second half of Ozark season 4 was insanely good.

Wow.

And that's only scratching the surface: "Doc Rivers has now lost nine Game 7s, the most in NBA history. He has lost five Game 7s at home, the most in NBA history. He has lost each of his last four Game 7s, the equal-worst streak in NBA history. He has 29 losses in potential close-out games, the most in NBA history. His .341 win percentage in close-out games, among coaches with 20+ games, is the worst in NBA history."

I guess you're supposed to watch them together, but I thought the second episode was much better than the first. Much more suspenseful.

Watched the first episode. Lalo was the highlight, of course.

Stan Sakai's run at Mirage was nowhere near as good as his stuff at Fantagraphics. I prefer Usagi in black and white much like I prefer samurai films in black and white to color. The stories didn't seem to resonate as much, either. They were easy reads, but didn't have the same energy. I believe things pick up again with his Dark Horse work. The Aardvark-Vanaheim/Renegade Press Flaming Carrot Comics were a lot of fun. I really enjoy Bob Burden's sense of humour. His ideas didn't always stick, but he was the master of absurd situations and quirky one-liners. I'm interested to see how well Flaming Carrot transitions into the 90s.

I really enjoyed Camelot 3000. Ordinarily, I would hate this sort of premise -- King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are resurrected and fight space aliens in the future -- but Bolland's art was brilliant. I understand there were all sorts of delays with the book because of how slowly he worked, but it left me wishing that he'd done more interior work during his career. Probably more of a triumph in collected form than it was off the shelves. Nonetheless, DC's 80s experiments were a fertile time in mainstream American comics.

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