"Oh Goodie!" – Updates MWF

Had the pleasure of doing two interviews with Amanda Lanyon-LeSage of The Modern Day Pirates. One is a video review (which you can see below), and another is a text interview which you can read here. Watch me babble like an idiot to promote my comic!

Last minute reminder, I’ll be at the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con this weekend all weekend with Jason Week of Billy the Dunce. I posted a comic last Saturday as a reminder, but there’s a slight correction I need to make.  We’re at Booth #3214, not #3124 as I mistakenly put in there.  I’ll be selling posters, prints, buttons, and the originals of many “Oh Goodie!” comics.  So if you want to take home one of my honest-to-goodness ink-on-Bristol comics, now’s your chance!

A few more things while I have your ears:

- I will not be updating until Monday. Combined with getting laid off and getting ready for this con, I was simply too wiped to have a comic ready.  I will however be doing some very intensive and detailed stuff next week while I look for a new job, so I’ll be coming back with a vengeance.  And I’ll be active on my Twitter page all weekend with fun little posts and pictures of people I see there.

- Two other cons are happening this weekend that I honestly considered getting a table at, but in the end decided to go local.  First is the Minneapolis Indie Expo, going on at the Soap Factory this Saturday.  A lot of friends of mine are going to be there including Ryan Dow, Reynold Kissling, Bart King, Sean Lynch, Zak Sally, Ed Moorman, Tyler Page, Evan Palmer, Steve Robbins, Barb Schulz, Brent Schoonover, Tim Tapp, and of course the great Paul Taylor of Wapsi Square.

- The Dallas Webcomic Expo is also going on this Saturday, so if you’re in the area I highly recommend you go.  It broke my heart to cancel my table, but I simply couldn’t afford to fly out and stay in Dallas.

See you guys at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center!

When I heard they were making a “Scott Pilgrim” movie, I was excited.  As a comic geek I knew the original Bryan O’Malley series pretty well, and to have a movie made out of a comic of that level was unprecedented.  But I grew concerned when I heard it was going to be live-action.  Couldn’t it be animated in the style of the original comics?  The designs would lend themselves perfectly to that!

…But all my fears dissolved when I heard Edgar Wright was directing.  I’m just gonna say it: Edgar Wright is my favorite comedy director working today.  “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” are two of my all-time favorite comedies.  He gets that the point of comedy is to laugh.  It helps to have some heart thrown in, but really you’re there to bust a gut.  He takes the basic theory of movies like “Airplane!” and “Blazing Saddles” (another two of my favorite comedies) by just BOMBARDING YOU with jokes.

Think about how many jokes are in “Shaun of the Dead” or “Hot Fuzz”.  Big jokes, little jokes, subtle jokes, not-so-subtle jokes, obvious jokes, inside jokes, you name it!  Not only is this good for the initial theater experience, but it makes it fun to re-watch on DVD to catch all the stuff you missed the first time.  The original comics were the same way, with tons of little stuff scrawled into the margins.  When I heard “Scott Pilgrim” was in his hands, I put my fears to rest.  Edgar Wright hasn’t let me down yet and I see no reason he’d let me down now.

I confess I DID get a little skittish when I saw the initial trailers and saw they had even kept in the sound effects from the original books.  I get nervous/annoyed when movies try to actually LOOK like comic books.  One of my most loathed movies is Ang Lee’s “Hulk” because of the way he’d cut and edit it to make the film transition like comic book panels.  A little message to filmmakers in Hollywood: MAKE YOUR MOVIE LOOK LIKE A MOVIE, NOT A COMIC BOOK. When you’re translating a story from one medium to another, you should use the strengths OF that medium, not try to imitate another.

…But believe it or not, the use of the sound effects and all the other visual stuff didn’t really bother me as it did with Ang Lee’s “Hulk”, and I think I know why: “Scott Pilgrim” is a comedy.  It doesn’t take itself seriously and is all about having fun.  When you see the sound effects or the little video game references, you laugh.  Ang Lee’s “Hulk” was trying to be DEAD serious, and the goofy visual style just killed any hope of that.  With “Scott Pilgrim”, it’s a help rather than a hinderance.

In terms of a visceral comedy and action experience, “Scott Pilgrim” is a success.  I brought a friend who’d never read any of the original books and she died laughing during the screening.  I was almost jealous of her, experiencing it fresh for the first time.  Having read the books I knew about the Pee Meter, and the Vegan Police, and Ramona’s subspace hammer.  But my friend didn’t see any of that coming, and I’m sure it was a thrill.

I thought about nitpicking stuff I wish had made it into the film, but I already get enough of that from “Harry Potter” fans and I’m sick to death of that.  When you translate something from book to film (even if its a comic book), you have to make the story flow in the context of a two-hour movie.  This means stuff has to either get re-arranged, or cut out completely.

I will confess there was stuff I wished they had expanded on more (Nega Scott, Kim Pine, etc) and the story feels VERY compressed after the fight with the third evil ex-boyfriend (IMO the most spectacular fight of the movie), but I was still delighted with how much still made it in and how the ultimate points of certain plot lines were still made.  A lot of the dialogue is taken verbatim from the books and even when it’s re-arranged it still works in the context they put it in.

Looking up recent box office figures, “Scott Pilgrim” sadly didn’t win about #1, which I knew wasn’t going to happen.  It’s been a highly competitive summer for films, and the series has too much niche appeal to reach a very wide audience.  Not to mention I’ve spoken to plenty of people who don’t have kind things to say about Michael Cera, and that might’ve put some people off.  To those people: give him a chance.  Yes “Juno” was overrated and “Year One” flat out sucked, but I don’t think he was at fault for either one of those.  Just remember the Michael Cera from “Arrested Development” and “Superbad” and try to come into this with an open mind.  I guarantee you’ll have a good time.

Though I doubt “Scott Pilgrim” will tear up theaters, I do predict that it will be VERY successful on DVD and I think it’ll creep in on people like a fungus (but in a good way).  Oh, and the soundtrack rules.  Highly recommended, see it if you can.

“The Phantom Menace of Rock Albums”

In the last ten years, thanks to the internet making all music easily accessible, it seems most acts are mash-ups or combinations of classic genres.  Pop and rock music has become an inspirational free-for-all, and it’s quite exciting to see people paste together all these parts you normally think wouldn’t go together.  All while creating fun catchy songs.

Coheed & Cambria exemplified this perfectly.  They combined elements of pop, metal, rock (of the progressive variety), and indie to create music that was epic but accessible.  Their “Amory Wars” tale (told in the lyrics through all their albums so far) gave hardcore fans an epic story to follow, but their songs were energetic and catchy enough where casual listeners could be let in.

I should probably state right now that I like C&C in spite of themselves.  The “Amory Wars” story makes no sense and the Image comics depicting it (written by lead singer Claudio Sanchez himself) were lame.  Best I can tell you is the main characters Coheed & Cambria are robots and then are killed by this other robot and their son tries to avenge them but it turns out he’s the Kwisatz Haderach and he has to fight the dark lord Xenu to release some alien souls…oh forget it.

My point is you didn’t have to know this to enjoy C&C’s songs, so you just kind of indulged them as they tried to fit everything in the structure they’d set up.  Apparently the story has ended with the previous album “No World for Tomorrow”, so now we get a prequel to show how it all started in “Year of the Black Rainbow”.

A prequel?  Would that make this the “Phantom Menace” of Coheed & Cambria albums?  Y’know what, I’m gonna end that thought there.

“One” opens with what sounds like an orchestra warming up and delicate piano playing.  I expect haunting intros from Coheed, but this one doesn’t leave much of an impression like their previous ones.  It sounds like a robot whale singing through a sea of flange filters.

“The Broken” is the first proper song, and opens with the same Led Zeppelin march like their past hit “Welcome Home”.  Is Sanchez going “Blah blah blah” at me during the chorus?  I know he’s an overly wordy lyricist but it seems he’s just taking the piss now.  Doesn’t seem so much a song as a mash-up of chants, screams, and guitar squealies.

“Guns of Summer” starts off with lightning fast drums and guitars with some synth growls.  It sounds like Michael Todd’s bass is farting.  The riff in the chorus has hints of vintage Coheed but not enough to make it memorable.

“Here We Are Juggernaut” suffers from the same problem.  It feels like a big wall of white noise with Sanchez’s vocals washed in reverb.  It made the riffs and rhythm a little difficult to discern.  At the end of it I wasn’t sure what I had just listened to.  This isn’t looking good so far.

“Far” opens with reverberating fuzz guitar and programming drum beats.  Sanchez gets a little sweeter here in his singing.  I want to call this a ballad, but it doesn’t have the tenderness of past ballads like “Wake Up”, or the build-up like “Mother Superior”.  In fact this song has no build at all.  It’s the rare “infinity song”, which since it has no build feels like it has no beginning and no end.

“This Shattered Symphony” has more lighting fast guitars and drums, with squawking guitars panned to the left.  You remember when Eddie Van Halen would go at his guitar with a cordless drill to make a real wild-sounding solo?…Yea this is nothing like this.  So far I’m not sure where Coheed is going with this.

“World of Lines” is the first song that approaches a memorable chorus and a memorable guitar riff, sounding almost like classic Coheed.  It’s still way below the standard they’ve set for themselves though.  Used to be you had catchy songs coming out of the wood work.  Did their songs get infested with catchiness termites?

“Made of Nothing (All That I Am)” is certainly an apt title at this point, and maybe should’ve been what they called the album.  So far I haven’t heard one catchy memorable song!  I mean the chorus for this song kinda comes close, but it’s still not quite there.  What the hell?

“Pearl of the Stars” starts out with acoustic guitars and more damn white noise!  Stop it with the white noise!  The electric guitars are washed in reverb again and sound like they might as well be a block down the road.  I suppose this would be a good trance song, and those can be well done (”Disintegration” by The Cure is a great example), but this feels as directionless as anything else.  Claudio sounds like he’s on fucking valium, and the song follows suit.

“In the Flame of Error” catches my attention with it’s opening lyric “I hate everything I’m becoming”.  I know Sanchez is writing this “in character” but considering how sullen, tuneless, and self-loathing this album has sounded so far I’m wondering if he needs a hug and a warm piece of pie.  The drums and guitars are quite furious on this one and feels like we’re getting closer to our goal, but it still feels like spastic thrashing instead of the purposeful songs of the past.

“When Skeletons Live” has a fairly memorable riff.  Everything’s still caked in reverb but it feels like we’re getting somewhere.  This is probably the most memorable song so far, so I guess you could call it my favorite (I guess).

Ugh, I don’t care anymore.  The final track (the title track in fact) “The Black Rainbow” is long, droning, and has too much reverb.  Even when the distortion kicks in it doesn’t up the energy of this song much.  I’m wrapping this up.

What the heck happened Coheed?  Everything I liked about you is NOT on this album.  The catchy riffs, the sing along choruses, the pumped-up energetic rhythms, none of it!  That’s the best way to describe this album: lack of energy.

I’ve heard from a few people that this record gets better on repeats listens, but with Coheed you didn’t NEED to do that.  Their songs were so catchy they grabbed your attention right away and only got better from there.  Even “No World for Tomorrow”, which was a VERY rear-heavy album, had more memorable songs in the first half than this entire record has.

Forget depressed, Claudio sounds like he’s falling asleep while singing.  We can’t even get to the level of suicidally depressing because it’s just so DULL.  You’d fall asleep from boredom before you even got the razor blade close to your wrist.

They finally complete the saga…and ultimately we don’t care.

My rating?  Disappointing.

If you see some changes to the layout of the site over the course of the next week, it’s just me cleaning house and re-arranging some stuff I’ve been meaning to for a while now.  You’ve probably noticed on the changes to the right sidebar to the site (including my Facebook page), and also the addition of new webcomic lists I’ve joined.  After this I’m gonna update and re-arrange the cast page, and more stuff will be coming by the time I move to the next storyline.