2018 Revival: The Sounds Of The Streets

Because I am permanently behind the curve, I only really started using Spotify last year, and used it entirely sporadically this year — which would be why the albums I bought and listened to incessantly, like this year’s Gorillaz and The Good The Bad and The Queen aren’t reflected on the below list at all, nor is my obsessive David Holmes re-binging — but here are apparently the 10 songs I listened to most on Spotify in the past twelve months. 

Goodbye, 2018. You had some amazing high points and some horrific low points. But, all told, I’m glad you’re behind me as of tomorrow.

2018 Revival: THR Newsletter Logos

Something unusual — I do the header logos for the THR Heat Vision newsletter every week. I fell into it by accident, because I started by tweaking the logos someone else had done, and then somehow I was just doing the logos every week. It’s a surprisingly fun part of my week, even if I know my logos are far below the standards of people who, you know, do this for a living. Here are some of my favorites from the first few weeks.

2018 Revival: My Personal Top 10 Comics Issues List

This one wasn’t written for publication or performance; it was the notes I made to accompany my submission to Shelfdust’s Top 100 Comics Listwhen I submitted my Top 10. (To clarify: It was specifically top 10 comics single issues, not storylines/collections/graphic novels, and it was by any definition I wanted — I went for something between what they meant for me personally and how good I thought they were.) I didn’t know that it wasn’t for publication at time of writing, because I didn’t know whether we were supposed to write note to share or not, but that just made sure that I wrote more, which is always good. 

#10: The New Guardians #1 (1988, DC Comics)

— I loved Millennium, the crossover this came from, so much that I subscribed to this (for an exceptionally large amount of money; I was in the UK, after all) before it launched. The series was a disaster, with Steve Englehart leaving midway through the second issue, but even today, there’s something special about the launch issue: A vision of socially inclusive and diverse comics that I was looking for but hadn’t found yet.

#9: The Invisibles #12 (1995, DC/Vertigo)

— The Invisibles was a (the?) seminal series for me, and this is arguably the most important issue in it; the one that introduces the true hero of the whole thing, and also explains how bad guys become bad guys. It’s very much in the whole pulp tradition, but also something that asks and expects a little kindness from those reading.

#8: Uncanny X-Men #185 (1984, Marvel Comics)

— The comic where I decided that I was going to collect comics. What was it about this? Claremont arguably in his prime, Romita Jr. and Dan Green at the 1980s best, but also the sense of it being this expansive fictional universe that went far beyond the superhero comics I’d read as a kid. This felt “other,” it was amazingly exciting.

#7: Or Else #2 (2004, Drawn & Quarterly)

— Kevin Huizenga has the honesty of an Eddie Campbell, but the formal curiosity of a Chris Ware and the heart of a Jaime Hernandez. This was the first thing I read from him, back when it was a mini comic called Supermonster #14. The reprint (that was, I think, also redrawn and/or expanded?) just cemented how wonderful he, it, and comics in general, are.

#6: Deadline #5 (1989, Deadline)

— The first issue of Deadline I bought, and the place where I discovered comics that weren’t superheroes or 2000AD. My first taste of Philip Bond, Jamie Hewlett, Nick Abadzis and Shaky Kane. This was unspeakably important to me at the time; it really felt like the world was opening up and comics were a place to explore all these things in a language I’d understand.

#5: Mister Miracle #10 (2018, DC Comics)

— No comic has ever felt like a more perfect expression of a relationship than this one, to me.

#4: Flex Mentallo #4 (1996, DC/Vertigo)

— “Being clever’s a fine thing, but sometimes a boy needs to get out of the house and meet some girls.”

#3: OMAC #1 (1974, DC Comics)

— One of the most perfect first issues ever made in comics, and also one of the most prescient pieces of 20th Century science fiction. Oddly, also released in the same month I was born, apparently.

#2: Dork #7 (1999, Slave Labor Graphics)

— Evan Dorkin writing about his nervous breakdown was (and, in many ways, still is) a shock considering this had previously been his humor anthology, but he does it with such honesty, anger and wit that it’s undoubtedly one of the best comics I’ve ever read.

#1: Grafitti Kitchen #1 (1993, Tundra)

— Simply one of the best one-shot issues ever, one of the best autobiographical comics ever — sure, he’s pretending to be Alec McGarry, but still — and one of the most honest pieces of writing about how complicated and dumb and hopeful we get when it comes to relationships.

2018 Revival: Who Is The Best Supervillain?

Another thing written for an unexpected outlet this year, and an unexpected revival — this was for io9, which asked me for a brief submission about the best supervillain. It was my first piece there for… eight years or so…? I also went to a get-together of io9 writers past and present at NYCC this year, so perhaps I’m over my weird grudge finally.

There’s a tradition in superhero comics for truly powerful beings to be beyond human morality — so, you get characters like Marvel’s Galactus, who eats planets but is somehow not evil because, hey, who are we to judge? Similarly, Marvel also has characters like the Beyonder or Michael Korvac, both of whom are omnipotent and definitely antagonists, but could they really be considered supervillains…? There’s an argument to be made against, seeing as neither are really trying to do much more than survive and learn, even if that process threatens the free will of everyone around them. Surely intent figures into deciding whether or not someone is a villain, super or otherwise…?

I really want to say it’s Darkseid, because Darkseid is obviously the best supervillain. He wants to eradicate free will, and he’s got no problem doing whatever it takes to achieve that aim, even though he’s bound by his own weird sense of honor. He’s complex, contradictory and fascinating, and he’s also been able to kill Batman and beat up Superman and screw with the entire Justice League, so he’s clearly pretty powerful. But, really, he’s not the most powerful supervillain. We’ve seen far stronger. (Nekron, for example; he could bring all the dead guys back to life as evil zombies!)

Instead, I’ll nominate the Anti-Monitor, the awkwardly-named villain of 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. While his motivation and, really, personality, were somewhat unclear in that series, it couldn’t be denied that he was powerful: He was literally destroying entire universes to further his agenda of destroying all positive matter — he’s the Anti-Monitor, after all —succeeding, he killed countless versions of DC’s biggest name characters and, thanks to the cosmic laws of DC mythology, his being from the Anti-Matter universe automatically means that he’s evil. Most powerful supervillain? Almost certainly. That costume alone should earn him a place on the list, let’s be real.

2018 Revival: Con Survivor

Finishing out a year in which a lot has happened, but there’s been almost nothing happening on this site — mostly because a lot has happened. But I’m using this place as digital storage by including some writing for unusual places from the last few months. First up, this is a piece written for the launch party of Oni’s The Long Con at Portland’s very own Books with Pictures, which ended up being read aloud by the wonderful Ben Coleman.

Based on the questions I’ve been asked over the years, there are a few preconceptions about being a journalist at Comic-Con that I feel the need to try to clear up. Firstly, no; it doesn’t mean that you automatically get into all the popular panels and hang out with movie stars and eat free food, although I did once accidentally leave Hall H in San Diego through the wrong door and ended up in the celebrity waiting room, which had a spread like you wouldn’t believe, and was filled with the cast of some big blockbuster I can’t even remember, all staring at me while clearly thinking “You don’t belong here.” I was quickly escorted out by security.

And, no, being press doesn’t mean that you automatically know where all the good parties are, and it definitely doesn’t mean that you get invites and can sneak everyone in. I mean, yes, there was that time I got into a party where the band was Josie and the Pussycats from Riverdale and they were actually performing live, and everyone lost their minds, but that happens, like, once or twice a convention, tops.

Most of all, despite what I’ve just said, it isn’t glamorous. It’s glamor-adjacent, and that’s fun and strange and great, sure, but it’s also weird and uncomfortable and occasionally just very… awkward. Here’s the best example of what I’m talking about. It’s about eight or nine years ago, and through some unlikely happenstance, I’m working for a well-known weekly news magazine that I won’t mention the name of. I mean, technically, I’m working for the website of a well-known weekly news magazine, but the distinction is meaningless to anyone I tell about the job. Honestly, it was pretty meaningless for me, too; I was firmly under the impression that I had arrived in the big leagues, and that everything was going to be great from then on.

This was before I arrived in San Diego to discover that I would be sharing a room with five strangers for the next four nights. And that the room had two single beds, and we could maybe get an extra cot if we were lucky. On the one hand, everyone seemed very nice and there was only a couple of people whose work I recognized and felt embarrassed to be sharing a bed with because, really, they deserved better. On the other, I can’t emphasize this enough: We were all working for a well-known weekly news magazine — like, one of the ones that’s actually a name — and they definitely could’ve afforded at least another room or two. This was just cheap.

It also made it difficult to do work. It isn’t unusual to end up working late into the night to meet deadlines at Con, and when you’re sharing a room with five people trying to sleep, it’s not so easy to stay up, typing away, without making people mad at you. All of which explains why I ended up sitting in the foyer of the hotel, trying to write a couple of stories at ten o’clock at night one night.

So, I’m sitting there with my laptop and headphones on, listening and listening and listening to this interview, trying to transcribe it and write whatever I was writing, and I kind of half-noticed that it was getting pretty busy. I didn’t really think that much about it, because it’s Comic-Con and everywhere is busy at Comic-Con, especially hotels. And it keeps getting busier, and busier, and at one point I look up and realize, wait, everyone looks really fancy. This is odd.

It took me about another hour or so, and by this point it’s maybe 2am and there’s really loud music and the foyer is just packed, to realize that there was actually a party going on all around me and I hadn’t realized. And it’s a big party; there’s a DJ, there’s people dancing and drinking and making out and all kinds all around me and I somehow just hadn’t noticed for hours. I didn’t know what to do, because I couldn’t go back to the room, everyone was asleep and I hadn’t finished work, so I just…stayed there. And pretended none of it was going on while I sat on a couch, with various things happening literally right beside me that were very distracting. Eyes fixed on the screen. Writing. Just writing.

And then, at one point, with no warning, the music just stopped suddenly. The crowd groaned en masse, but stopped when it became clear what was going on: Everyone shuffled aside to let an ambulance crew pull a stretcher towards the elevators, and then they disappeared. No-one said a word, everyone just staring at the elevators for minutes until the ambulance crew re-appeared, with someone strapped into the stretcher.

This sounds like a downer, I know, and you could tell at the time that the ambulance crew was clearly thinking the same thing. They didn’t look anyone in the eye as they moved towards the door of the hotel, and then they paused, before one of them said in this wonderfully embarrassed voice, “He’s going to be fine!” As in on cue, the music immediately started back up, and everyone got back to partying, like the whole thing had been planned.

That is what Comic-Con is like as a journalist. Being exhausted, under deadline, surrounded by people having more fun than you, probably, and unsure whether or not you just saw something actually tragic, or if it was some weird performance art piece in the middle of a party. And, you know, also getting to see Josie and the Pussycats perform live on a hotel rooftop standing next to the cast of Arrow as they lose they minds.

What can I say? It’s really large. It contains a lot of multitudes.