Posts

Posted on

Step Three, Seasonal Profit

What makes a good Christmas story?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, for obvious reasons — look at the calendar, after all. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, as any number of singers will tell you if you listen to the radio long enough, and that means that I’ve been watching more than my fair share of holiday movies and reading just as many (if not more) holiday comic books. I even made the mistake of watching Red One, the “Chris Evans is a dirtbag and Dwayne Johnson is a giant security elf and I guess they’re a buddy comedy team now?” movie from this year, and…. oh boy.

The problem with Red One is the problem with Spirited, a very similar holiday movie starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds from last year; both are comedies in which a real-world cynic comes to accept the magic of the holidays while paired with a secretly-disillusioned magical being who also comes to believe in the holidays all anew, and everyone lives happily ever after, and both make the mistake of thinking that the way to do this is by replacing magic with a mixture of special effects and “hilarious” real-world elements. Santa’s treated like the President with a special security detail, get it? The North Pole is an efficiently-run bureaucracy, understand? It’s so relatable.

Except, of course, it’s not. It’s restrictive and boring and makes everything feel more generic; there’s, if anything, a purposeful lack of magic, as whimsy and wonder get replaced by cynicism and formula.

My contrast, I’ve been re-reading Will Eisner’s The Christmas Spirit throughout the month, which collects the various holiday-themed installments of his 1940s newspaper strip The Spirit. Every single story in there feels like a model of what works for a good Christmas story, because every single one is based around a very simple idea: at some point, someone will be moved to make a kinder choice than they normally would, and everything changes for the better as a result. It’s a formula that doesn’t require gimmicks, winks at the audience while referencing Santa, magic, or snowmen, or anything other than the belief that the holidays are really about trying to be kind and good… and seeing what happens as a result.

There’s a lesson there for… well, basically everyone who’s thinking that Vin Diesel should play Santa’s half-brother through adoption who has to save the holidays in a big budget streaming special this time next year. But then, seeing what Eisner did and trying to learn from it has never really been a bad idea.

Posted on

Christmas is a Time Travel Story

At this time of year, thoughts turn to holiday playlists, and the essential songs that have to make it on to every single one. (I shared mine earlier this week.) I had a thought the other day bemoaning the lack of good new Christmas songs, before I realized two things simultaneously:

  1. I am old, and therefore almost destined to find so much of “new” music to be boring, dull, or just simply not my bag, daddio.
  2. More than arguably any other music genre, the appeal of Christmas music is that it’s nostalgic and pulls you back to simpler, earlier times in your life. So finding “new” Christmas songs that appeal to you as much as songs you grew up with it… difficult, to say the least. (Which is to say, sorry Sabrina Carpenter and your Nonsense Christmas Song.)

That last one is something I should have realized sooner, because it’s a lesson I learned when I was a kid myself. There were many Christmas traditions in my house growing up, which is almost certainly why I’m such a holiday fiend to this day. One of the major ones, though, was that when we did the decorations for the living room and the rest of the house, we would listen to Christmas music, and if at all possible, that would start with the music my mother grew up listening to at that time of year — which is to say, Nat King Cole’s Christmas album.

I say, “if at all possible,” because there was a period where the album was gone for some reason. Maybe it was destroyed, or misplaced? I don’t remember what happened to it, but I do remember that a replacement was eventually purchased after a couple of years, and it was clear the difference it made in her experience just hearing him sing “The Christmas Song” again. It was what completed the whole thing for her; without that song, it wasn’t really Christmas.

I’m the same. Not just with “The Christmas Song” (I learned from the best, and was taught at a young age), but with “Merry Xmas Everybody” and “I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday” and at least half of the Phil Spector Christmas album. That’s not to say that new songs can’t be added to that must-listen list, because they can — things like Low’s “Just Like Christmas,” The Blind Boys of Alabama’s “Last Month of the Year” and The Executor’s “Christmas is a Joyful Day” have all achieved that goal since I was a kid — but the core songs, those ones that get played the most and induce the strongest festive feelings… all of them come from way back, and remind me of the wonder that you feel most strongly when things were simpler, happier, and I didn’t have to worry about taking time off work in order to celebrate everything appropriately.

Posted on

Bright Candle Flame, Etc.

Sure, my thoughts might have turned to the festive musical season a little later than usual this year — or, rather, I was surprised how quickly December arrived, when my brain apparently had a lot more November to deal with — but I rallied and built myself a holiday playlist to play while getting in a holiday mood. Unusually for me, this one is all killer and no filler, with the arguable exception of its opening track (I love it, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if other people disagree); it felt like a year to bring things into sharp focus with the classics, maybe. Anyway, for those who want two hours of holiday music, it’s right here for your Spotify ears. And what’s on it? Why, check out the screenshots below.

Posted on

Call Me By Someone Else’s Name

If there’s a literary tradition I am inordinately fond of, it’s the nom de plume. I love the idea of people working under fake names for whatever their reasons, and perhaps even more so, I love the idea that others can then discover the true identities behind the name through a small amount of detective work; the whole thing seems like a strange, sometimes sadly necessary, game that I find myself all too eager to play on any number of occasions.

(I have, to the best of my admittedly poor memory, only employed a fake name in work once — which is not the same as ghostwriting, which is something I’ve done a lot and, as I continue to work as an editor, find myself doing with no small amount of frequency. The fake name I did use was a matter of necessity, as I was under a non-compete contract at the time but also owed another outlet a story. Shhhh. Don’t tell.)

My admittedly ridiculous joy in the practice might stem from growing up reading 2000 AD as a kid, where there were issues where 4/5 of the stories were written by the same writing team, but using different names to disguise the seeming lack of available talent. Names which were familiar to the kid-who-was-me at the time — John Howard, T.B. Grover — were, in fact, not real people at all, a fact that utterly delighted me when I eventually found out, years later. I’d been a fan of no-one, this whole time!

I was thinking about this recently upon discovering that there’s an Elephant 6 band called Major Organ and The Adding Machine that… well, no-one actually seems to know for sure who it is. It feels like the pseudonym taken one stage further, somehow; a group identity that people can (and have!) made guesses about the truth, but which more than 25 years later, no-one really knows for sure. Imagine if the Beatles had released Sgt. Pepper’s… but kept the act up the whole way through…

I have, on more than one occasion, promised myself that I’d start doing a webcomic under a fake name and just put it out there for people to randomly discover. Maybe that’s a project for 2025.

Posted on

That Is The Feeling That I Wish For You

For someone who is both such a fan of the holidays in general — embarrassingly so, achingly so; it genuinely is probably my favorite time of the year — and specifically such a fan of the traditional holiday music that generally fills the airwaves at this time, I’m suitably embarrassed to admit that, the first time I heard Christmas songs on the radio this year, it came as a surprise.

In my defense, November was another beast of a month that left me feeling somewhat adrift in time. Even with the anchor of Thanksgiving — one that, for the first time in years, had actual guests, and from out of town at that, making it more of an event! — the entire month seemed to go by so quickly that I wasn’t entirely sure when I was the entire time. (Surely November had only just started, right? Wasn’t Hallowe’en just the week before? When was the election?) I was, bluntly, not prepared to hear the twinkle of the Beach Boys’ singing about Ol’ Saint Nick just yet.

I wonder, in some absent-minded, half-hearted manner, whether there’s something to be said for a pop cultural indoctrination or preparation; traditionally, Thanksgiving around these here parts means watching Miracle on 34th Street and putting my head into that Santa space, but this year that fell by the wayside because of the guests, so maybe I just wan’t properly prepared…

Here’s the thing, though; it wasn’t just that the songs were surprising, it’s that they felt so welcome when I heard them – at once familiar and oddly grounding, as if letting me know that I knew exactly where I was on the calendar and maybe a little bit emotionally, as well. In my defense, it wasn’t actually the Beach Boys that did that trick, but hearing “Linus and Lucy” from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special; hearing that piano hit me so strongly, in a good way, and put me in the mood I should have been in for a few days prior.

Chalk another one up for the magic of music, the holidays, or that very particular combination of the two, I guess. Next year, I’ll try to remember this ahead of time to get me where I’m supposed to be.

Posted on

The Movies of November 2024

I’ll be honest: finally watching Deadpool & Wolverine when it showed up for free on Disney+ was something that I had been quasi-looking forward to for some time — I relatively like the other Deadpool movies, and who didn’t want an over-the-top self-aware Marvel roast at that time in the world? That feeling went away maybe inside 10 minutes, and what followed was one of the most exhausting, depressing movie experiences I’ve had in a long time, so much so that I switched off after an hour because I could only handle so much smugness in one sitting. (The second half of the movie felt less annoying than the first, but maybe I was simply in a better mood the next evening.)

The very next movie I watched was The Elephant 6 Recording Co., a documentary about the collective of bands in the 1990s that worshipped at the altar of Pet Sounds, Revolver, and 4-track recording only to become successful despite themselves. Watching a bunch of scruffy middle-aged nerds offer variations of, “We were just so into what we were doing, fuck knows why it got big” for 90 minutes proved weirdly healing after the glossy Marvel of it all. Anyway. Here’s what I watched in November.

Posted on

The Comics of November 2024

The first half of this month passed in a bit of a blur, for reasons I can’t even begin to comprehend — it’s not as if anything was particularly busy on my end, but I guess the election results left my head in more of a spin than I thought — but nonetheless, I kept on keeping on reading comics at a fair clip through the whole thing. Somehow, I ended up on both a John Ostrander’s DC work and a Greg Rucka’s later DC work kick (they’re connected, via Amanda Waller; I was also tracking through all the Suicide Squad material, as you can see), which proved to be far more enjoyable than I might have expected, despite the DC Universe Infinite app collapsing at the time. (It’s fixed, since; I celebrated by reading too many New Teen Titans comics, and oh boy.) Here’s what I read last month, anyway.

  1. Action Comics #1076
  2. Batman & Robin: Year One #2
  3. Batman & Robin: Year One Noir Edition #1
  4. Wonder Woman (2023) #15
  5. Titans (2023) #15
  6. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #33
  7. Catwoman (2018) #s 69-70
  8. Suicide Squad (1987) #52
  9. Justice League of America (1960) #159
  10. Star Wars: Battle of Jakku – Insurgency Rising #3
  11. Wolverine: Revenge #3
  12. NYX (2024) #4
  13. Suicide Squad (1987) #s 53-59
  14. Captain America (2023) #14
  15. Deadpool Team-Up #3
  16. Phases of the Moon Knight #3
  17. Namor (2024) #4
  18. The Power Fantasy #s 1-3
  19. Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt (2019) #s 1-5
  20. Star Trek (2022) #13
  21. Suicide Squad (1987) #s 60-66
  22. Suicide Squad (2007) #s 1-3
  23. Checkmate (2006) #1
  24. The Fury of Firestorm (1982) #53
  25. Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man
  26. Checkmate (2006) #s 2-4
  27. Firestorm (1982) #s 54-60
  28. Manhunter (1988) #s 5-7
  29. Blue Beetle (1986) #s 1-2
  30. Firestorm: The Nuclear Man (1982) #s 61-69
  31. Firestorm: The Nuclear Man Annual #5
  32. Manhunter (1988) #s 8-12
  33. Marvel Treasury Edition #28 (The Amazing Spider-Man/Superman)
  34. DC Universe: Decisions #s 1-4
  35. Titans (2008) #9
  36. Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk
  37. Drax the Destroyer (2005) #1
  38. DC All In Special #1
  39. Manhunter (1988) #s 13-15
  40. Firestorm: The Nuclear Man (1982) #70
  41. Aliens vs. Avengers #2
  42. The Avengers (2023) #20
  43. X-Men (2024) #7
  44. X-Force (2024) #5
  45. X-Factor (2024) #4
  46. Venom War #4
  47. Ultimates (2024) #6
  48. Star Wars: Battle of Jakku – Insurgency Rising #4
  49. Marvel and DC Present The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans
  50. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 20-23
  51. The New Teen Titans Annual (1984) #2
  52. One Star Squadron #s 1-2
  53. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #22
  54. Astonishing Spider-Man Infinity Comic #s 3-4
  55. One Star Squadron #s 3-6
  56. Damage Control (2022) #s 1-2
  57. Batman/Punisher: Lake of Fire
  58. Punisher/Batman: Deadly Knights
  59. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 24-27
  60. Checkmate (2006) #s 5-7
  61. Suicide Squad (2007) #4
  62. V for Vendetta #1
  63. Action Comics (1938) #1
  64. Action Comics #1077
  65. The Flash (2023) #15
  66. Superman (2023) #20
  67. Detective Comics #1091
  68. Absolute Wonder Woman #2
  69. Action Comics (1938) #411, 443, 482
  70. Superman (1939) #326
  71. World’s Finest Comics #s 251-252
  72. Suicide Squad (2007) #5
  73. Superman (1939) #327-328
  74. Action Comics #500
  75. Suicide Squad (2007) #s 6-8
  76. Hawkworld (1989 miniseries) #s 1-3
  77. Hawkworld (1989) #s 1-2
  78. Suicide Squad (2009) #67
  79. Secret Six (2008) #s 17-18
  80. Suicide Squad (2011) #s 1-5
  81. Darkseid vs. Galactus: The Hunger 
  82. Spider-Man and Batman #1
  83. Fantastic Four: Full Circle Expanded Edition
  84. Suicide Squad (2011) #s 6-8
  85. Checkmate (2006) #s 8-10
  86. Hawkworld (1989) #3
  87. Checkmate (2006) #s 11-17
  88. Outsiders (2003) #s 47-49
  89. Star Trek (2022) #14
  90. Checkmate (2006) #s 18-20
  91. Suicide Squad (2011) #s 9-15, 0
  92. Superman in ‘The Computers that Saved Metropolis’ (Radio Shack 1980 giveaway comic)
  93. Green Lantern/Silver Surfer #1
  94. Silver Surfer/Superman #1
  95. Action Comics (1938) #512
  96. Superman (1939) #352
  97. Darker Image #1
  98. Checkmate (2007) #s 21-26
  99. Detective Comics (1937) #s 854-865 (Question back-ups only)
  100. Convergence: The Question #s 1-2
  101. Lois Lane (2019) #s 1-12
  102. 2000 AD Annual 2025
  103. Judge Dredd Megazine #474
  104. Suicide Squad (2011) #s 16-23
  105. New Suicide Squad #s 1-4
  106. Reign in Hell #s 1-2
  107. DC Universe Presents #s 13-16
  108. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #23
  109. X-Men: To Serve and Protect #3
  110. New Suicide Squad #s 5-8
  111. Uncanny X-Men (2024) #5
  112. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #61
  113. Captain America (2023) #15
  114. The Spectacular Spider-Men #9
  115. Venom (2021) #39
  116. Psylocke (2024) #1
  117. Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood #4
  118. Superman (1939) #355
  119. Superman (1939) #s 358-359
  120. New Suicide Squad #s 9-22
  121. New Suicide Squad Annual #1
  122. Harley Quinn and Suicide Squad: April Fools Special #1
  123. Suicide Squad: Rebirth #1
  124. Firestorm: The Nuclear Man (1982) #s 71-73
  125. Superman (1939) #s 360, 362
  126. Firestorm: The Nuclear Man (1982) #s 74-79
  127. Manhunter (1988) #s 16-17
  128. Doom Patrol (2001) #s 11-14
  129. Firestorm: The Nuclear Man (1982) #s 80-83
  130. Astonishing Spider-Man Infinity Comic #5
  131. DC: The New Frontier #1
  132. Firestorm (1982) #s 84-85
  133. Void Rivals #s 7-12
  134. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 1-8
  135. Venom War: Fantastic Four #1
  136. Suicide Squad by Jim Lee Unwrapped (includes alternate version of Suicide Squad (2016) #1)
  137. Superman (1939) #363
  138. Action Comics (1938) #s 523, 545
  139. Justice League vs. Suicide Squad #s 1-6
  140. Justice League (2016) #s 12-13
  141. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 9-10
  142. Manhunter (1988) #18
  143. The Spectre (1992) #9
  144. Martian Manhunter (1998) #0
  145. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 11-12
  146. Action Comics (1938) #546
  147. Final Crisis: Revelations #s 1-2
  148. Final Crisis: Revelations #s 3-4
  149. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 13-15
  150. Final Crisis: Revelations #5
  151. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 16-20
  152. The New Gods (1971) #s 2-3
  153. Star Wars (1977) #s 55-57
  154. Star Wars: Rebellion (2006) #s 1-2
  155. 2000 AD Prog 2410
  156. Battle Action (2024) #4
  157. Star Trek (1989) #s 7-9
  158. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 21-25
  159. Suicide Squad: Amanda Waller #1
  160. Superman (1987) #4
  161. Star Wars: Rebellion (2006) #s 3-5
  162. Inhumans (2000) #1
  163. Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Comic Magazine #1
  164. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes #1
  165. Wonder Man (1986) #1
  166. Marvel Spotlight (1971) #s 26, 31
  167. Marvel Spotlight (1979) #s 9-11
  168. Vigilante (1983) #36
  169. Superman (1987) #170
  170. The New Gods (1971) #4
  171. Hellblazer (1988) #s 25-26 (Grant Morrison fill-in)
  172. Constantine (2013) #s 1-3
  173. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 26-41
  174. Trinity Annual (2017) #1
  175. Trinity (2016) #s 12-16
  176. Star Trek (1989) #s 10-12
  177. Star Wars (1977) #s 58-60
  178. Action Comics (1938) #556
  179. Superman (1939) #403
  180. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 42-46
  181. Aquaman (2016) #s 39-40
  182. Suicide Squad (2016) #s 47-50
  183. Suicide Squad (2019) #1
  184. Zenith: Phase 1
  185. Batman/Captain America
  186. Uncanny X-Men (1963) #s 19-21
  187. Star Wars (1977) #s 61-66
  188. Zenith: Phase 2
  189. Suicide Squad (2019) #2
  190. Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #11
  191. Venom War: It’s Jeff #1
  192. Firestorm (1982) #s 86-88
  193. Hellblazer (1988) #s 135-140
  194. Suicide Squad (2019) #s 3-5
  195. Star Wars (1977) #s 67-77
  196. The Spectre (1992) #s 10-13
  197. Battle Action (2024) #3
  198. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #24
  199. Astonishing Spider-Man Infinity Comic #6
  200. The Hunger and the Dusk #1
  201. Hellblazer (1988)  #s 141-143
  202. Daredevil/Batman: Eye for an Eye
  203. Suicide Squad (2019) #s 6-11
  204. Suicide Squad (2021) #s 1-3
  205. Teen Titans Academy #3
  206. Suicide Squad (2021) #4
  207. Firestorm (1982) #89
  208. Suicide Squad (2021) #s 5-6
  209. Suicide Squad Annual (2021) #1
  210. Superman and the Authority #s 1-4
  211. The Power Fantasy #4
  212. Batman and Spider-Man 
  213. Superman/Fantastic Four 
  214. Immortal Thor #17 
  215. Exceptional X-Men #3 
  216. Avengers Assemble (2024) #3 
  217. Phoenix (2024) #5 
  218. Storm (2024) #2 
  219. Wolverine (2024) #3
  220. NYX (2024) #5
  221. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 28-32
  222. Crisis (UK) #s 1-2 (Third World War stories only)
  223. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 33-36
  224. Destro #1
  225. Scarlett #1
  226. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 37-38
  227. The New Teen Titans Annual (1984) #3
  228. Infinity Inc. (1984) #45
  229. Destro #s 2-5
  230. The New Teen Titans (1984) #39
  231. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 39-42
  232. Teen Titans Spotlight #1
  233. The New Teen Titans (1984) #s 43-49
  234. The New Teen Titans Annual (1984) #4
  235. Scarlett #2
  236. Star Wars (1977) #78
  237. Crisis (UK) #s 3-4 (Third World War stories only)
  238. Teen Titans Spotlight #s 2-6
  239. Vigilante (1985) #s 20-21
  240. World’s Finest Comics (1941) #s 254, 270
  241. The New Titans (1984) #s 50-52
  242. Teen Titans Spotlight #s 7-11
  243. Vigilante (1985) #22
  244. The New Titans (1984) #s 53-56
  245. The New Titans Annual (1984) #5
  246. The New Titans (1984) #s 57-59
  247. Secret Origins Annual (1986) #2
  248. The Multiversity Guidebook #1
  249. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #25
  250. Batman (1940) #440
  251. The New Titans (1984) #60
  252. Harley Quinn in Paradise #1
  253. Scarlett #s 3-5
  254. Batman (1940) #s 441-442
  255. The New Titans (1984) #61
  256. The New Titans (1984) #s 62-67
  257. The Multiversity: Mastermen #1
  258. The Multiversity: Ultra Comics #1
  259. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #62
  260. Venom War #5
  261. The Multiversity #2
  262. The New Titans (1984) #s 68-70
  263. The New Titans Annual (1984) #6
  264. The New Teen Titans: Games OGN
  265. The New Titans (1984) #s 71-75
  266. The New Titans (1984) #s 76-77
  267. Crisis (UK) #5 (Third World War story only)
  268. The New Titans (1984) #s 78-79
  269. The New Titans Annual (1984) #7
  270. The New Titans (1984) #s 80-86
  271. Crisis (UK) #6 (Third World War story only)
  272. The New Titans (1984) #s 87-89
  273. Crisis (UK) #7 (Third World War story only)
  274. Astonishing Spider-Man Infinity Comic #7
  275. Deathstroke the Terminator #s 14-16
  276. The New Titans (1984) #s 90-92
  277. Team Titans #s 1-3
  278. Titans Sell Out! Special #1
  279. Deathstroke the Terminator #17
  280. Team Titans #4
  281. The New Titans (1984) #93
  282. The One Hand #s 1-5
  283. The Six Fingers #s 1-5
  284. Zombo: Can I Eat You?
  285. JLA (1997) #s 1-4
  286. Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight Returns #1
  287. The New Titans (1994) #s 94-100
  288. Zombo: The Day Zombo Died
  289. The New Titans (1994) #s 101-111
  290. Zombo: Planet Zombo
  291. Uncanny X-Men (1963) #168
  292. The New Titans (1994) #s 112-114, 0
  293. It’s Jeff! Infinity Comic #32
  294. The New Titans (1994) #s 115-117
  295. Superman vs. The Incredible Hulk
  296. Batman/Daredevil #1
  297. The New Titans (1994) #s 118-122
  298. The New Titans Annual (1984) #11
  299. The New Titans (1994) #s 123-130
  300. JLA/Titans #s 1-3