This one is just weird. It’s gritty electronica hip hop with rapper LEIF(kolt) who tends to spit, growl and hiss more than rap, and San Diego producer Dusty Nix.
Get the EP as a digital download here.
Here’s a vid of the best cut off the EP.
Duh. The headline is that 25 years after-the-fact, DC finally decided to snatch the money off the table. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen is the bestselling graphic novel of all time, and there’s good reason for it: It’s a piece of art with mystery, politics, philosophy, and (of course) action and violence, told using characters with depth and weight.
So why do prequels and fuck that all up? Simple. $$$
Yeah, there’s a lot of talent attached to the seven 4-issue minis that will each focus on a particular Watchman, but I can’t imagine why this story needs to be told. Dave Gibbons graciously calls the project a “tribute” to the originals. As you can imagine, Moore hasn’t been as kind—he calls it “shameless…confirmation that [DC Comics is] still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago.” Fans of comic history will recall that it is this precise book that led to Moore’s exit from the “big two” once and for all when DC stopped paying him royalties. 15 years later, still angry, he rebuffed DC’s offer to give him back the rights to his (entirely original) characters if he would take up the prequel/sequel project. He refused because he’d done what he wanted to do with the Watchmen characters and didn’t want anyone else playing in his sandbox either.
I’m not saying I agree with Moore: When, as a creator, you agree to sign with a publisher and create stuff for them, it ain’t yours no more. Can you imagine if Stan Lee threw a hissy fit every time someone worked with Spidey? Or what if Alan Moore himself hadn’t rejiggered Charlton Comics characters to create the Watchmen in the first place? Or what if they stopped using American Gothic knockoffs in commercial projects? (Okay, he’s got me there.)
Moore’s kind of a nutbag. Genius, but nutbag.
So now, DC has finally decided that they don’t need no stinkin’ Alan Moore. I pray they’re wrong, but I’m practically certain that they are wrong and they do need him.
Here’s the lineup on the various books.
The only ones I’m really interested in reading are Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan (because I want to see how JMS handles that). Oh, and Silk Spectre. Because I’ll read Amanda Conner drawing just about anyone’s boobs.
Now hit the break for more news you can’t use, about X-Men First Class 2, Spider-Man and the Avengers flicks, Robocop, and more….
Ocean City Defender is distributing their new EP on Bandcamp at the “Name Your Price” rate (which includes, of course, zero bucks). If there was a category of music called “indie 1980s,” it would fit. The mellow waves flow like Simple Minds, New Order (but smoother), Yaz, etc.
Good stuff!
As a kid, I loved (adored!) Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Moon Knight book. It was absolute dark-hero bliss, and everything I wanted Batman to be but, at the time, what Batman simply wasn’t. Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev’s Moon Knight book is at least the seventh “reboot” of the title since the first one, and now this one is ending at #12. I haven’t loved this run, but I haven’t hated it, either. And at least it was different. Previous reboots have tried to make the character into various levels of dark/violent/psycho. They haven’t all been bad (but several were), but those that weren’t bad weren’t all good, either.
5. Early Appearances. Moon Knight started in 1975 as a guy with parachute sleeves who hunted Werewolves. Designed by Doug Perlin, the character had a ways to go appearance-wise, and he wasn’t developed very much in these early appearances. Still, even in these developmental early days he
If you buy a collection of old MKs, make sure it also reprints the covers...
immediately stole the show; he was one of those side-characters for whom you’d buy a comic just to see him. See: Werewolf By Knight #32-33; Marvel Spotlight #28-29; Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider Man #22-23.
4. Moon Knight Vol. 6 (ongoing). This is Bendis and Maleev’s complete reimagining of the character. It’s fresh, it’s different, but it just isn’t as innovative as what Moench did thirty years earlier.
3. Moon Knight Vol. 5 (2006) #1-13. Charlie Huston came the closest to matching Doug Moench in terms of writing about a character rather than a concept, and it didn’t hurt that he had David Finch on the art. But this is a very, very dark and psychological comic. Be warned.
2. The Hulk! Magazine (backup features). The first glimpses of Moon Knight sold comics, so they made him a back-up feature in the oversized, overpriced Marvel magazine. These stories were more in depth, and we got to learn a lot more about the character. The stories were also ahead of their time in terms of their depth and weight. Moench wrote them all, and Sienkiewicz drew most of them. Clearly, they are the masters of Mark Spector. See: Hulk! Magazine #11-15, #17-18, and #20.
1. Moon Knight Vol. 1 by Moench and Sienkiewicz, issues 1-25. This was the first book to be pulled off the newstands due to low volume sales and sold only directly to comic book stores. Even that couldn’t save it, and the book died at issue #38. I’m only including the first 25 issues because after that the book did begin to wane significantly. Also, I’m recommending you actually go purchase the individual issues or that if you buy a collection you make sure it’s got Bill’s amazing covers. Whenever this book came out, I’d hang it on my wall. Just about every cover was frame-able art.
Just for giggles, I’m making naming Shadowland: Moon Knight #1-3 here. Because I can’t miss a chance to call out anything with Shadowland in the title. Worst event ever.
Daytripper #8 made me cry. No shit. I mean, I wasn’t blubbering or anything, but there were definitely tears. Then issue ten, the finale, did it again. This is a book that everyone should read. Some people want to buy the world a coke, I’d like to buy them this.
Daytripper tells the story of one man’s life’s obsession with his own mortality, by showing his loves, his fears, his broken relationships, and his shattered—and realized—dreams. It is a graphic novel in which it is impossible to separate words from art. Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá work together, seamlessly, like the best music you’ve ever heard, to combine elements of words and picture, lines and imagination, and transport the reader into the life of a fictional character who, by the end of the work, feels as real as your own family.
I don’t want to say too much about it because it is full of surprises, but I will say that I was reluctant to read it because it sounded boring to me. A fake biography? No capes? No zombies? No guns?
But this creation shows what comic books can do that no other medium can. Yes, I can see how Daytripper could be made into an art film and probably a decent one. Hell, probably a damn good and impactful one. But I doubt a movie would stay with me the way this book undoubtedly will. Unlike movies, comic books allow the reader to linger and focus—to pause, and reflect. And Daytripper invites a lot of that. And unlike novels, where the reader has to conjure pictures in his head, comic books provide basic imagery so that when the brain begins to tire of reading, it can refocus and regroup. When I read novels, I find my mind frequently wandering, but comic books let me focus.
Let me also say this: I read Daytripper on my iPad in one sitting. The iPad is a terrific way to read this—it’s bright, you can zoom in on particularly detailed and beautiful panels (many of which are almost like paintings)…But as soon as I was done, I ordered the hardcover.
I want other people to read this book. It is brilliant, and it is the greatest graphic novel I have ever read.
I leave you with this, just one visually beautiful and well written panels out of hundreds in this ten-issue series.
Youtube to mp3
