Up All Night (Reading Comics)

 

I broke out El-P's 2007 I'll Sleep When You're Dead recently and found myself unable to get this particular song out of my head. I love where this man has gone with his craft, both as an artist and producer, since I found this album in a thrift store circa 2010 and was immediately hooked by the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me sample that opens it.

 

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READ:

I've read quite a few comics recently that surprised the hell out of me. Here's a rundown:

I mentioned wanting to read this after hearing writer Al Ewing interviewed on Marvel's Pull List Podcast, so I found it on Kindle and dug in. What a pleasant surprise! This almost feels like Neil Gaiman's Sandman at times, the way the story weaves through different iterations and incarnations of classic Folklore characters and situations. There's a charming complexity in Loki: AOA, which is part heist film, part fantasy, and part straight-up classic Marvel Super-Hero. Also, I'm really loving the art by Lee Garbett, who if this is any indication, is a criminally underrated illustrator.

If you want to know more, there's a great review of the Last Days chapter of the Loki saga over on Slings and Arrows HERE.

Next up, Venom 200 did some things I never would have seen coming from a mile away:

I won't spoil anything here, I'd rather just post more of this awesome cover art, however, let me just say that I've always had a bit of an issue with Brock as a 'good guy' character based on his early, heinous crimes after acquiring the symbiote. In fact, after buying and getting rid of the first issue of the original Venom series (Lethal Protector? How lame) (but if I'd held onto it despite my ire, I could sell that issue for a pretty f*&king penny today) in short order, I did not read another Venom book until a friend turned me onto Rick Remender's run, which eschewed Brock for Flash Thompson. I still feel that was the pinnacle for the character as a hero, instead of a villain.

That said, Venom 200 alleviated most of my "Brock issues," and ultimately changed the course of the character (hopefully) for all time. Because of this, and because the aforementioned Mr. Ewing is taking over the book from departing rock star Donny Cates, I'll probably stick around for a while. 

Finally, I picked up Planet-Size X-Men purely as an investment. I have NO intention of reading any X-books despite this purchase, but I did read and kind of marvel at the direction the franchise has taken. But I am SO tired of these characters, regardless of this drastic new direction, so while I enjoyed reading this simply for big picture reasons, this is where I leave you, oh brotherhood of dreary mutants. 

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Playlist:

Slope - Street Heat

Turnstile - Nonstop Feeling

Nick Mason and Rick Fenn - White of the Eye OST

The Jon Spender Blues Explosion - Now I Got Worry

Lustmord - Heresy

Various - Twin Peaks (Music From the Limited Event Series)

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III: Alive After Death 

Pixies - Trump le Monde

 

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Card:

 Okay, I really have no idea what the hell I'm NOT seeing here, but the cycle remains. 

Slope

 

This is a 'Thank the Universe for my friends" post, because both of the two things I'm posting here, I NEVER would have found and/or given the time of day to without my friends. First up, Jacob, who sent me Slope's new album on Apple Music yesterday and totally picked up the later part of my day. This album rules! It starts almost like NIN's Broken, with a slowly building noise, then leaps into something that initially sounded a lot like nu-metal to me. I was just about to click off when the first change in the song hit, and I was roped back in - and from there, I could no stop. This record is fantastic - reminds me SO MUCH of Infectious Grooves' debut album, which I desperately wish I still had, 'cuz it's streaming on nothing. In the interim, Slope will help (or push me to buy the CD on ebay for $20 - I had the cassette).

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Watch:

MODOK - First: Patton Oswalt can do no wrong.

MODOK has long been a joke between myself and my good friend Joe.Baxter, the other half of on-again-off-again musical project Christian Fisting. In fact, if you could go to the Christian Fisting website (which is down) , you would see that MODOK even figured into our fake 'origin story' that we wrote for ourselves back in, oh, 2011 or so. Anyway, apparently Joe and I weren't the only people who found MODOK comical, and I glad of that after seeing this INSANE Marvel/HULU collaboration. Part Robot Chicken, part... I don't even know, I'm laughing my ass off as I watch this. And that's not very easy to do. 

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Playlist:

Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs 

Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color

Blur - Parklife

Windhand - Eternal Return

Slope - Street Heat

K's 70s Playlist 

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Card:

 

Clearly, I'm on repeat, going around and around, because I keep getting The Devil card from this deck. Until today. Unless this is just another way the deck is telling me what I'm apparently not hearing.

Tape Waves - Sundowning

 

Wow. I LOVE this band. I listened to Tape Waves' new record Bright about three times in a row last Friday night after Joe Bob's Last Drive-in, and I just can't get it out of my head since. Which is good, because I don't want it out of my head!

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NCBD:

What a short but totally SWEET week for NCBD:

Hell is primed to break loose in this issue. Heads is gunna roll...

Love this book. Many thanks to my Drinking with Comics cohost Mike Wellman for making sure I read this book!

This Horror Anthology series is one of the best things to come down the pipes in years, and it has really given me an appreciation for Michael Walsh. 

Finally! I don't love this series, but I like it a lot, and a big part of that is Ryan Stegman's art. There have been several iterations of Venom's spooky-ass visage, and this is my favorite. By far. I actually ordered a couple of variants for this one, too:

I will actually probably sell both of these on eBay, however, this Stephanie Hans one is pretty damn awesome. Those colors!

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Playlist:

Prince - Sign O' the Times

David Bowie - Reality

The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia 

Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine

Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

Empire of Love - Violet Cold

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Card:

 

What am I missing? Apparently I'm clinging to something, but I'm not really sure what the hell that is.

Trackademicks

A track I heard last week at my Horror Vision cohost Ray L's first Cineray of the pre-COVID era. This is a very '2000s' track for me, however, it's been cool to reintegrate some of that vibe over the last few years, kicking off with my rewatch of Veronica Mars, a show I first watched and fell in love with back during my first year or two after moving to California, when the 2000-ness of everything was at full height.

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READ:

I finished re-reading Phillip Pullman's The Subtle Knife this past Sunday, and I have to say, reading these first two books in the His Dark Materials series I originally read in the early 2000s has highlighted just what a faithful adaptation of the BBC ONE/HBO's series is. 

Whatever I imagined the characters to look like previously is gone, and the cast of the show has now fully inhabited the imaginary world I'm experiencing as I read. These are tomes, and I've been pretty slow in re-reading, however, only one book left before I can begin the newest entry in the saga, 2017's The Book of Dust, which my A Most Horrible Library cohost Chris Saunders gifted me a few months back.

Most interesting to me is how, whoever my favorite character may have been during my first read, it is now Lee Scoresby by a longshot, all because of actor Lin-Manual Miranda's portrayal of the aeronaut. Interesting, because during the first season, he was the one casting choice I felt did not fit the character. Now, as I read, I see Mr. Miranda, and it's very cool.

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Playlist:

Trackademicks - 7th Heaven EP

ACDC - Highway to Hell

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Dance With the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1

The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia

 

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Card:

 

There is a common goal I share right now with my better half. It's a huge idea that will ultimately change our lives forever. More later.

Strength in Patton

 

Here's some live Mr. Bungle from The Night They Came Home to start off our week. Strength in Patton.

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Watch:

Hitting VOD on July 2nd, I'm really looking forward to this one. 

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Playlist:

Silent - Modern Hate

Turnstile - Mystery (single)

ZZ Top - Rhythmeen

The Joy Formidable - AAARTH

El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead

Tape Waves - Bright

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite (single)

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine

Entropy - Liminal

Cinderella - Long Cold Winter

Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend

Run the Jewels - RTJ4

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme 

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Card:

A lot of different areas of my life have been up in the air of late, and this tells me I'm laying the groundwork for a new era of Stability.

New Deafheaven!!!

This hit yesterday, but I've been writing and scheduling these posts at least a day ahead to try and regain some sense of consistency. Wednesday was already a pretty good morning when Mr. Brown text me that Deafheaven dropped a new track and announced an album. As you can imagine, I FLEW to pre-order Infinite Granite HERE, then spent a good amount of time listening to "Great Mass of Color "over and over. So good. I guess all the black metal blow-hards can shut the fuck up, since the band has obviously now embraced integrating so many other elements. That's what the best of any genre does - refuses to be limited by the tropes of their chosen peers.

Infinite Granite lands August 20 on Sargent House.

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Watch:

Well, Marvel's Loki started last night, and after watching it, all I can say is... loved it. Not really sure where this is going, except I'm thinking we might be meeting a certain purple time traveler by the end of this series. Which would be pretty f*&kin' cool. 

One of the things that put me in the mood for this series was listening to the Marvel's Pull List podcast that dropped yesterday. I've become quite a fan of both this and the This Week in Marvel 'cast, and on this week's Pull List they interviewed Al Ewing, a writer whose name I've been seeing on the solicitations for a lot of Marvel books of the last few years, but who I haven't really read outside of an aborted attempt at Immortal Hulk (not the book's fault; I plan to get to this eventually, especially now that it's ending). Anyway, the interview kind of primed me for Loki because apparently, Al wrote a series called Loki: Agent of Asgard that I very vaguely remember seeing on the shelves back circa 2014, and he spoke at length about what an attachment he has to the character, and how he kind of ushered in a more 'fixed' take on the character. Really interesting stuff, so I just may read this series, too.

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Playlist:

Deafheaven - Great Mass of Color (pre-release single)

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Entropy - Liminal

Principles of Geometry - Lazare (Tommy, you are SO right on this one) 

Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild

NIN - Ghosts I-IV

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III: Alive After Death

Run the Jewels - RTJ4

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Card:

After drawing The Devil two days in a row, my good friend Missi - who made the Raven Deck - suggested that perhaps I needed to "turn the volume down on the real world a bit."

 Well Missi, I would say Your creation agrees with you. Here's me turning down the volume on the real world for a bit. 

Turbo Kids Zooma

 

I mentioned this one yesterday and then had to hear it. The whole record is just tough-as-nails bass playing by one of the masters. Hit play and prepare to bang your head.

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NCBD:

First - the pre-orders for Behemoth Comics's Turbo Kid Prequel series is up! Go HERE if you are interested. Look at these tasty f*&king covers! 

Next, here's this week's haul:

You see why I jones when a week goes by without an issue of Amazing Spider-man at this point, right? 67 just hit last week and here we are again! 

Loving this series, especially as we continue to climb the tiers of antagonists who Geiger will no doubt eventually have to square off against.

 

One more issue to round out a very dark but somehow also extremely pleasant surrealist take on death. 

Watching Peter Parker slowly become Venom is creepy and fun as hell. 

I just can't say enough good things about this book. 

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Playlist:

QOTSA - Rated R

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme

Ghost - Infestissumam

Sampa the Great - The Return 

Dance With the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1

The Foundations - Baby, Now That I've Found You (single)

The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup (single)

Blur - Parklife

Iggy Pop - Lust for Life

Entropy - Liminal

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Card:

 Two days in a row, eh? Okay, I'm assuming someone is trying to tell me something I am not listening to. Time to take off the blinders and pay attention.

Gift of Screws

Heaps of praise to Mr. Brown for introducing me to Lindsey Buckingham's 2008 solo album Gift of Screws, an album I am fairly certain would never have wound up on my radar without the guidance from my friend. This is one for the ages - as Brown stated in a text recently, the whole thing really highlights his guitar playing, an aspect that often gets pushed to the background in Fleetwood Mac. Opener Great Day has some truly fantastic finger-picking, and most of the tracks - especially "Did You Miss Me" above - would have made stand out singles for the radio, if there was an outlet in the major markets for guys like Buckingham, who are more often than not relegated to the 'was in a classic rock band' category. Reminds me a bit of the first time I heard John Paul Jones' record Zooma. 

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Watch:

I haven't watched Richard Kelley's The Box since it was in theatres in 2009. After that viewing, I left scratching my head even harder than I did after my first viewing of his Southland Tales. Do I like either of those movies as much as I do Donnie Darko? Not at all - in fact, I don't even know if I can say I actually like either. Well, Southland grew on me, and despite the fact that it's a fractured mess, I like enough of it to say, "Yes." The Box though... after this second viewing I'm less convinced I like it than if I had just left things at the one viewing eleven years ago. That said, it's a conversation piece for sure, and pretty damned engaging, so this isn't a dis, just a renewal of the hesitancy I reserve for everything Kelley did after DD.

 

The actual viewing of this film leaves me a bit baffled and I think it's because in some way I do not possess the technical vocabulary to describe, Kelley filmed this to look like a tv show from the 50s and seeing it packaged with the expectations of a big-budget (well, not that big) Hollywood movie creates a kind of cognitive dissonance that makes it hard for me to reconcile. Also, there's an element of the film that involves people becoming transmitters for alien intelligence, and I think Kelley brilliantly worked this into the fabric of the film itself, into performances, camera angles, and dialogue, so that many scenes are just jarring enough to create a disconnect with the viewer. I don't know. I'm not getting rid of my DVD copy of The Box or anything, but it may be another eleven years before I watch it again.

 

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Playlist:

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

Run the Jewels - RTJ4

El P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead

QOTSA - Rated R

Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

Lustmord - Heresy 

Slayer - Show No Mercy

Small Black - Cheap Dreams

 

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Card:

 

New ideas can free you from yourself. This is something I'm always glad to be reminded of because another side of the Devil is obsession or narrowing of vision, which is essentially anathema of a writer. 

Conjuring Lustful Sacraments

 

LOVING the new album from James Kent, AKA Perturbator. Apparently, there are those out there who find his new direction uncool, but I say you can't make the same album over and over forever. Here's a current favorite selection.

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Watch:

 

Well, after hating part two, I went into The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It with probably as low of expectations as possible. Turns out, I dug it. Not as good as the first, and Hollywood Horror is almost always going to take a backseat to the indie stuff, but this one was good. The lighting and camera work especially stand out, and I really dig Vera Farmiga in everything, even if these movies are starting to treat her a bit like Jean Grey with her psychic ability.

You can hear more of my thoughts on The Conjuring 3, as well as that of my cohosts, on the newest episode of The Horror Vision.

Interesting side note, I wandered into the Comic Bug this afternoon and found out this had come out:

Two stories, both cool. The second a stand-alone and penned by Scott Snyder, the first the opening installment in a larger tale. The Warrens are not on hand, but I'm assuming they will be eventually. 

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Playlist:

Perturbator

Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws EP

Harakiri for the Sky - Maere

Blur - Parklife

QOTSA - ... Like Clockwork

QOTSA - Villains

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues 

Various - Twin Peaks: Music from the Limited Event Series

Calexico - The Black Light 

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Card:

 Yes, this is exactly the right card at the moment. Solitary introspection that nearly drives me mad. 

New Zeal and Ardor!!!

FUCK YES! I'm a little late with this one, as I've been so preoccupied with the new Perturbator that I forgot Z&A dropped a new track and announced an album coming out sometime in early 2022. I think; I swear I saw a February date when I first went to this song, but I can't find that any longer, so maybe I'm wrong and we'll get the album sooner. That would be fantastic!

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INTERVIEW:

Super psyched that my cohost on A Most Horrible Library, Chris Saunders and I got to interview comics legend Glenn Fabry this past week. Check out the episode on Spotify, Apple Music, any other pod-platform, or just right here on youtube:

If you're unfamiliar with Glenn, he's best known as the man who did every single cover for Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion's Preacher, still my all-time favorite comic. To say this was an honor would be an understatement indeed.

While talking to Glenn, we found out he has a Big Cartel shop, and I had to throw up a link. Glenn doesn't make royalties on almost anything he did cover-wise, so he's not exactly sitting on top of the world like Mr. Ennis is (deservedly so, but still). I picked up a couple awesome prints from Glenn's shop, and wanted to spread the word. 

Glenn's Big Cartel is HERE, and his Creature From the Black Lagoon is NO JOKE.

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NCBD:

Seriously, I think there was like a week this month without a Spider-man book and I felt the void! What has become of me?

And I guess because we had a week off, two spidey books this week!

Wrapping up what has been a fantastic series that truly is unlike anything else I've ever read. The solicitation logline, "Breaking Bad meets The Sandman" isn't exactly right, but it gets you in the ballpark, and I'd never take issue with such an over-the-top comparison because it did its job - it convinced me to take a chance that I do not regret.

Somehow I missed issue three of Dead Dog's Bite, so I'll be holding off reading this until I can pick that up, too.

YES! Issue 45 was my favorite comic of the year so far, so I can't wait to see what else the 90s has in store for Marcus and crew.

Cool series, but another one that I hiccuped and missed a few issues of. I'll remedy that by next week though. So glad to be reading some Larry Hama again.

This book continues to impress me, despite its over-the-top, almost classic Image feel.

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Playlist:

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

Harakiri for the Sky - III: Trauma

Silent - Modern Hate

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Tinderbox 

Zeal and Ardor - Run (Single)

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

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Card:

 

Super appropriate - Opportunites revolving past me in several areas, leaving me dizzy, uncertain and confused. Fighting to stand atop my decision and look at it all with a meticulous and discerning eye.

Every Little Star

I still just absolutely adore everything about this song. 

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Watch:

New Russian creature feature Superdeep looks pretty promising:

 

Hit Shudder on June 17th.

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Playlist:

Lustmord - Heresy

Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)

Swans - The Seer

Led Zeppelin - Presence

Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs

PM Dawn - Set Adrift on Memory Bliss (radio edit single)

Various - The Best of Northern Soul

David Bowie - The Next Day

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

K's 70s Playlist

Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead

Dream Division - Beyond the Mirror's Image

PJ Harvey - Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea

Joy Division - Closer 

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife

Pigface - Live in Chicago 2019

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Chelsea Wolfe - Diana

 

Any day we get a new Chelsea Wolfe track is a good day. This one is in conjunction with DC Comics and the Dark Knights: Death Metal series they're doing that I know absolutely nothing about except that I couldn't care less about it. Except, now I love this song. So that's one thing Dark Knights: Death Metal has going for it. DC is releasing a full soundtrack for the series, which, if you're of a mind, you can pre-order in whatever format you like HERE. Tracklisting below: 

Mastodon - Forged by Neron 

Chelsea Wolfe - Diana 

HEALTH, Tyler Bates - ANTI-LIFE (feat. Chino Moreno) Maria Brink, Tyler Bates - Meet Me In Fire (feat. Andy Biersack) 

Grey Daze - Anything, Anything 

Rise Against - Broken Dreams, Inc. 

Manchester Orchestra - Never Ending 

Denzel Curry, PlayThatBoiZay - Bad Luck Carach 

Angren - Skull With a Forked Tongue 

Starcrawler - Good Time Girl 

GUNSHIP, Tyler Bates - Berserker (feat. Dave Lombardo) 

Greg Puciato, Tyler Bates, Gil Sharone - Now You've Really Done It Show Me 

The Body - Stone Cold 

Earth IDLES - Sodium 

Soccer Mommy - Kissing in the Rain

That's a pretty interesting lineup, and despite my lack of interest in the comic, the artwork is cool and features heavily in the vinyl release.

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Watch:

Planning on watching this over the weekend:

 

Also, after fighting through 30 or so minutes of Zack "Slo Mo" Snyder's Army of the Dead last week, I may try again. May.

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Playlist:

Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)

Windhand - Split EP

Les Discrets

Lustmord - Heresy

Swans - The Seer

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

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Card:

Ah, I love a direct pull:

Dealing with an ongoing staffing issue on my team at the biorepository. Always tempted to say things I should not, so this is a great reminder to play it cool.

 

My Last NCBD in SoHo proved Violetly Cold

Violet Cold's album Empire of Love is a bit uneven to me, but that's because it swings BIG, and that's not a bad thing. This track was the first I'd ever heard of them - really a one-man project - when it came up in Apple Music's algorithm. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first, but it quickly gained favor. Then, yesterday morning, I realized I had this song irrevocably in my head, and as soon as I fired it up on my headphones, it felt like an ice-cold mouthful of water on a hot day.

Check out Violet Cold's Bandcamp HERE. 

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Watch:

Oh Edgar Wright, how I love thee:

 

Looks fantastically Argento-inspired. 

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NCBD:

This is a day late, but my Wednesday proved to be a beast. 

This week's NCBD was considerably quieter than I've had in a while, for sure. Which is nice on the wallet, and the stack of books I still haven't read from last week.

This cover art is SICK. I'm thinking this is the issue where all hell breaks loose and I can't wait to see that!

Possibly my favorite comic at the moment, I'm really loving Daniel Warren Johnson's take on this character. This book reminds me of old TSR gaming, 80s style, where it felt like ideas, monsters and weapons from every corner of pop culture were being drawn together into one great, big beautifully pulpy soup. It's Daniel Warren Johnson's aesthetic, and it's enhanced by his art, which is just scratchy enough in the right places to feel like a throwback to the way comics used to look.

Feels like I've been waiting for this one for longer than however long it's been since The Last Ronin #2 came out.

A very solid historical Horror story.

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Playlist:

Goatsnake - Breakfast with the King

Silent - Modern Hate

Vreid - Wild North West

Harakiri for the Sky - III: Trauma

Violet Cold - Empire of Love 

Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Live for the Dead

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

CCR - Eponymous

The Replacements - Tim

The Veils - Time Stays, We Go

The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed

Various - Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series)

Silent Trese

Whenever my good friend Jacob sends me a band to listen to, I know it's going to rule. Silent, however, even tops the best of his previous recommendations. I cannot express how much I LOVE this album; it embodies everything I love about a modern post-punk aesthetic and reminds me A LOT of how much I loved that first Savages album back in what feels like one hundred years ago.

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Watch:

I don't really know much about Trese yet, except my DwC cohost Mike Wellman sent me the trailer last week and it's being made by/with people who our friend Karen Kunawicz knows. Mike has a copy of the book it's based on hold for me, so I should be picking that up and reading it soon, so I will leave you with the trailer for now and report back on the book later this week.

Really cool stuff, from the looks of it. 

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Playlist:

Led Zeppelin - Coda

Silent - Modern Hate

Mudvayne - Choices (single)

Exhalants - Atonement

Windhand - Split

Deftones - Ohms

Violet Cold - Empire of Love

ZZ Top - Rhythmeen

White Zombie - Astro-Creep 2000

QOTSA - Villains

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Lustmord - Heresy

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Leviathan the Fleeing Serpent - Corpse Eater: Satanic Misery Love for the Dead

Various - Lords of Salem OST

 

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Card:

 

I can't really go into it here - or more like I don't want to at the moment - but I take this as a direct commentary on a BIG question that has been on both K and my own mind these last few days. 

Coda of the Dead

 

Probably the second Led Zeppelin song I ever heard, and possibly the first one I heard while seeking out the band's music (oh so long ago now), I still have a huge crush on "Ozone Baby". I feel a huge Zep binge coming on and I welcome it with open arms.

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Watch:

While I won't be watching Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead tonight - it's Joe Bob night, of course - I will be checking this out at some point this weekend. I'm hoping for big, dumb fun but not really expecting to get even that. I really hope I'm wrong. 

 

Speaking of Netflix, here's a teaser the streaming giant just dropped for an upcoming flick that has me very intrigued. I hardly go to Netflix anymore for anything, however, that sometimes works against me. I have to try and remind myself that despite the ginormous size of the company and somewhat banal output, they did bring us flicks like Cam, Hold the Dark and even Stranger Things. So they are capable of really hitting the nail on the head. 

Love that red!

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Playlist:

Les Discrets - Prédateurs

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark

The Mothers of Invention - Freak Out!

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

White Lung - Eponymous 

The Jesus Lizard - Liar

Jackie Wilson - Higher

Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild

Faith No More - The Real Thing

David Zinman, Dawn Upshaw & London Sinfonietta - Gorecki: Symphony No. 3

Dead Man's Bones - Eponymous

Led Zeppelin - Coda

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Card:

And now for something completely different...

I hung out with my good friend Keller yesterday (we're both vaxxed), and at the crux of our evening, he pulled a spread for me with his Marseille Deck. My question pertained to K and I looking for a house, and his answer was extremely helpful, even if it wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear.

The Associate

This track popped up in Rose Glass's Saint Maud - which we review and discuss on the newest episode of The Horror Vision Horror Podcast, and it made me immediately pull out Down and pop it into rotation. Of the classic Lizard triptych of essential records - Goat, Down and Liar - Down usually comes in third for me. That said, it's still among the greatest albums of the 90s in my opinion, and it's always a good feeling to reconnect with their music, especially after encountering it in a modern movie. 

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NCBD:

I'm LOVING that Marvel is taking so much of my money every month for Amazing Spider-Man. Nick Spencer's run has me hooked, and as of this issue, it looks like Bagley is back on the art!

The Autumnal is one of those rare, truly unnerving stories that feels like it could very easily be picked up and turned into an A24-ish movie. Let's hope that happens eventually, but in the meantime, issue 6 left us in a place that suggests this week's #7 will be crazy!

This series is riding at about a 65% approval rating with me at the moment, but I've apparently locked back into Marvel fan-boy gear for the first time since the MCU's Civil War broke it, so I'm enjoying the hell out of that 65%. Also, Dane's anthropomorphic black goat-headed butler is named Phillip. I can't love that enough.

This series. Whoah. Timely; a much-needed window into what other people go through to get into this country. 

I HAVE to have this cover. Love Stray Dogs, and issue #3's cliffhanger has had me on edge at the mere mention of the series since last month. 

Another book I also wanted to mention is Osaka Mime. I was lucky enough to have Behemoth Comics reach out to my podcast A Most Horrible Library a while back and send us an advance of Andy Leavy and Hugo Araujo's Osaka Mime graphic novel. I really dug this book and seeing its release slated for this week, suggest people pick it up.

A black and white Urban Horror story set in Japan, here's the solicitation:

"When a couple are found brutally murdered in the Dotonbori District in Osaka, Japan, two detectives from the Supernatural Unit of the Osaka PD must hunt down and apprehend a dangerous and murderous Mime, a shadowy shape-shifter which can take the form of the last person it ate. How do you catch something so dangerous, that can hide in plain sight?"

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This one snuck in under my radar, but looks fabulous! Featuring Raised by Wolves' Niamh Algar, the idea of setting a Horror story in the video nasty area already has me hooked, however, toss in the missing sister seen-in-a-movie bit that Ed Brubaker just played with in Friend of the Devil, and I'm super psyched for this one to drop on VOD June 18th!

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Playlist:

The Jesus Lizard - Down 

Soundgarden - Down On The Upside

Neverly Brothers - Dark Side of Everything

Ghost - Meliora

Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

The Doors - LA Woman

 

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A good omen considering we have officially begun to settle back into a genuine sense of normalcy. K's birthday Dinner at Lazy Dog Cafe on the patio last night was the first time we'd eaten a meal in a restaurant in over a year. It felt nice to celebrate my Empress with such a marked occasion that signifies a return to life as we knew it B.C.

Snake Eyes

This came on in the car last night as K and I were driving back from our time at the track, and despite hearing the song in its entirety, I immediately came home and threw Zeppelin IV on the old record player just to hear the song the way it was meant to be heard. 

Glorious!

Is When the Levy Breaks the greatest rock song of all time? Well, a claim like that is an impossibility anyway. There is no 'greatest rock song.' Also, it would be hard to back up that claim when you think about all the other great songs just from the era of this album, alone, let alone before or after. That said, it's also a claim I would not contest if made in my presence. Because if Levy isn't the greatest, it's certainly one of them.

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The fact that Parmount dropped a GI JOE trailer this week is serendipitous because last week I actually bought a digital copy of GIJOE: Retaliation. I had not seen it since the theatre, and to quote a tweet I dropped during my re-watch:

#gijoeretaliation is a hot mess that has just enough fan service to make me not hate it, but enough contrivance to make me want to.

— Shawn C. Baker (@OpiniontdBastrd) May 9, 2021

This was K's first GIJOE anything, and she liked it about as much as I do. Anyway, the fact that Retaliation came closer to making me happy than Cobra Rises did felt like a good sign at the time the film came out, and I held out hope that a part three might continue that trend. However, cinematic tie-in properties and shared universes have come a long way since then, and here we are with a reboot.

 

I suppose I should explain that GI JOE is hallowed ground to me. Or at least Larry Hama's 80s comic continuity is. Despite the usual dalliance with comics in my very earliest days - from which all I remember is Thor and Uncle Scrooge - Hama's GI JOE was the book that made me a comics kid. I still remember issue 49, published July 1986. 

I wrote about this somewhere before, but I bought a tattered copy of this issue on the schoolyard from a total dick who actually charged me $0.25 over the cover price (!) while taking a summer school algebra class between 4th and 5th grade. I still have that copy. I must have read that comic 100 times, and when #50 came out, I began having my parents take me to the local comic shop every month so I could buy keep up. Then I began raiding back issue bins. My collection of what I'd consider Hama's essential run of Joe (issues 1-126, although by then the title was waning under the stress of Hasbro's demands that Hama help them save a sinking property) has never been complete, and I don't revisit them often. That said, because of all this, yeah, I want someone to adapt the book into a movie as good as Marvel has done with theirs. 

Hopeless? Maybe, but despite my love of Hama's work, the version of Joe I think would adapt the best to the big screen is the understated reboot that Mike Costa and Christopher N. Gage did in the 00s for IDW, specifically the Cobra book. There has been talk of that series getting the TV show treatment, but in the meantime, we're left with what you see above. Which looks like it might be a better big-budget take on Joe than what we got with the previous two films. I mean, I'm not sure how you kick off a franchise with a single-character origin film, but regardless, this will put my ass in a seat.

Yo Joe!

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Playlist:

The Jesus Lizard - Down

Balthazar - Fever

David Bowie - The Next Day

Dance with the Dead - B-Sides: Vol. 1

Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man OST

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

Led Zeppelin - IV

Saint Maud and Her Zodiacal Light

There's a reason Sunn O))) named a song after Earth founder Dylan Carlson.  

I'm largely unfamiliar with Earth except for this album, which I picked up shortly after its release in 2014, and which became ingrained in my psyche in 2015 as I listened to it over the course of a year where my life imploded and then put itself back together (better). This song, in particular, and Rabia Shaheen Qazi's lyrics and delivery really resonated with me at that time. 

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Well look what finally found its way to a platform where most people can actually see it:

 

I've had a lot of misgivings about this flick and the interminably long build-up to its release. First, A24 makes great stuff, however, I've developed a growing awareness of the films they release that seems to have the express intent of being 'the next Hereditary.' Seeing the Saint Maud trailer for the first time a little over a year ago marked the beginning of this suspicion and the feeling has only escalated since. 

Next, to have bypassed the usual VOD platforms where the everyman fan can pay to rent the film, A24 instead made a deal with West Coast cable channel Epix, where the film has remained exclusive for the last several months. 

Really? Being that no one I know that doesn't live in California has ever even heard of epix, I don't know where - if anywhere - this film was available elsewhere in the country, but I consider this a frustrating manuever on A24's part. I mean, all is forgiven if this helped put the film and its writer/director Rose Glass in a good place in a world where movie releases have become increasingly uncertain and unprofitable. 

Anyway, regardless of these misgivings, I watched Saint Maud yesterday. My reaction?

Wow. 

When religious lunacy replaces addiction, bad things happen. That's all I'll say, other than I really dug Saint Maud, and although I don't really feel as though the way A24 handled its release was warranted, the film is definitely worth watching if you're a fan of the more psychological take A24 tends to curate for their release.

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Playlist:

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings 

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Windhand - Eternal Return

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Algiers - The Underside of Power

Arctic Monkeys - AM

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Federale - No Justice

Madeleine Peyroux - Careless Love (single)

David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)

The Dandy Warhols - Playlist

Cutting Crew - (I Just) Died in Your Arms

Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

Corniglia - Eponymous

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Yes. Perfect pull, as the paradigm of the past year died yesterday when, for the first time since early March, 2020, I walked to my coffee shop writing spot and put in a solid writing session. It felt awesome, and I'm going back today!

The Green Knight Full Trailer

More Type O from their final album, and if this isn't a case of the best goddamn final song for a band's career, I don't know what is. I still get chills every time I listen to it, and I've been listening to it a lot. 

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I feel like I may be the only person I know that didn't give very much of a toss about the teaser for David Lowery's The Green Knight that A24 released last year. Earlier this week the full trailer dropped and I have to say, I still don't know that the glimpses of the story that peek through are catching me, however, visually it looks as though we may finally have a companion to the ergot-infused witchery of Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army:

 

There's something so sublime about the imagery here and the narrative it suggests. I'm reminded of Ben Wheatley and John Boorman simultaneously. This may be a reason to head back into a theatre. Maybe.

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Sampa the Great - The Return

Viet Cong - Eponymous

The Police - Outlandos d'Amour

Primus - Sailing the Seas of Cheese

The Smiths - Meat is Murder

Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers + Queers 

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When you have all the bloody pieces but just can't get things to work out quite right, that is when Ruin threatens. Which feels more than a little accurate in terms of money and potential residences to be purchased.