A Plague On Both Your Houses
The story delivered via movie (10)
A tale of star cross’d lovers, taken as (10)
Either a lamentable tragedy, (10)
Or comedy, lest either view offends. (10)
The viewers that day were unimpressed (9)
Anguished cries turn to punchline in their ears (10)
Cottoned; by their cocoon protected (9)
Willing to unknow- death is ever near. (10)
What then is death to them but a word? (9)
Call you it kindness to force these youths emergence, (12)
Then on fresh untried wings, to battle have them gird (12)
These then insincere, unhappy youths? (9)
I return to the question old as thought (10)
Is it bliss against which I’ve always fought? (10)
Yeah, so they played the Leo DiCaprio Romeo + Juliet for a school group at work twice this week. A lot of the high schoolers weren’t keen on sitting through the whole thing, and of course it’s those noisy kids that get all the attention. But I love that movie, it’s so energetic, I don’t know the name of the one technique involved but there’s a trick where they speed up the actors onscreen in a choppy fashion (yeah yeah, fast forward) but it’s really nineties. And awesome.
So it made me want to do a bit of stanza work. Man, you should see what the first stanza looked like! It sucked. I mean more so than now. It was super super bland, it just had zero energy. Of course now I’ve basically stolen all the energy that exists intrinsically in the words “star cross’d lovers”. And now that I think of it, “view offends” is pretty reminiscent of the Puck speech ending A Midsummer Nights Dream.
I did far less rework on the remaining stanzas- I WANTED to change “Anguished cries turn to punchline in their ears” because you read it and you just want it to end in eyes for the fuller internal rhyme with cries- but that wouldn’t make any sense! Everything about the line is audible… ah I couldn’t figure it out. As it stands it’s pretty discordant and sudden, which I guess is okay.
I do enjoy using the word “gird” in something, and the two line… uh… what is that thing called? You know, the ending. Well, I really like those lines. The innocence versus experience thing, you know?
Of course I’ve added the syllable count to show that I am aware of it, and tried to stick to a pattern within each stanza- the (10) lines representing simplicity and then as it grows to a greater discrepancy (it’s crescendo reached in the third stanza with sudden distance between (9) and (12) ) to show how complicated things become as you move away from that innocence.
That’s pretty much everything about this thing. I didn’t worry about patterns of strong-weak syllables (all that pentameter type stuff) because I just haven’t developed the ear for that kind of thing- so if you see/hear anything that SOUNDS like I gave it a particular metre, well I didn’t. Credit goes to where it belongs, either me, or the coincidence fairy.
***
A friend of mine has a show on tomorrow at the Silver Dollar room, it’s her bands CD release, and I’m really looking forward to it. I'll busy myself with being incredibly amazed by the performance. It’s always a lot of fun, high energy, personable- even while she goes “yeah, man, we just didn’t do that well today” and I sit there flabbergasted.
***
A trick I picked up my last year of high school for posture was to pretend to have a string attached to the top of your head that’s pulling you up- so that’s what I’ve done whenever I’ve thought to correct my posture. This past week I’ve mixed it up, experimenting with an imaginary string atop my head as well as my chest and diaphragm. I’m quite pleased with the result, a satisfying firmness in my abdominals in addition to being super tall.
That paragraph just sounds self aggrandizing, but come on- I’m describing myself as walking around with what is essentially the mental image of a marionette. Does that not sound funny?
Oh man, I was going to talk about how much I’m enjoying this book “Père Goriot” but I’ve gone on long enough. And I can’t really do it tomorrow because of my friends show… Saturday? That works fine for me, I’ll even be done the book by then, so all the better.
I’ll mark my calendar.
I don’t think I have a calendar right now.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
There's always one...
I've circled the one kid who has both his left foot and left arm swung forward. So very awkward.
Got a call from a friend of mine today, haven't seen him in a while, we just talked for an hour about Preacher, Kick-Ass, his latest comedy set. It was really nice.
Back of the bus today had an old guy yell at this kid for putting his foot on the seat- it escalated a bit before I turned around and said (to the old guy) "sir, really, it's not that big a deal, just let it go" and then to the kid I said "and you need to show some respect to your elders."
So when everyone has settled down, not five minutes later, I couldn't help but chuckle to myself- "show some respect to your elders"- what planet exactly do I think I live on?
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Zadig as typed without a right index finger
Sitting down to dinner, a ton of nuggets and random veggies, beside a radio that is playing suitably rebellious fare.
I'm quite enjoying it, even in spite of the fact that I burned my finger on the oven (so long fingerprint).
I had told myself that I wasn't going to get any more library books for a while, so that I could just play my game boy or do whatever for awhile... but I couldn't help myself and now I've got a good seven books or so to go through. It should be a lot of fun, and I will certainly add the odd impression here, especially for Catcher in the Rye.
Read through the second story in the Voltaire collection, Zadig, and I liked it better than the first story- Candide. Where Candide was an effort to tear down the idea that "all is as it should be in this world" which can be accomplished in a paragraph long pamphlet and be done with, thank you very much.
Zadig followed this really smart man that kept getting burned by his wisdom- chiefly at the hands of jealous rivals- until the end when he finally became king of Babylon and lived happily ever after.
One example of Zadig doing his thing: A Lord orders his harem to find him a basilisk to be cooked as per his doctors orders. Whoever finds it will be taken on as his wife, and he'll get to prepare the basilisk and get well. Zadig wants to marry one of the girls belonging to this Lord (she was Astarte, the former Queen of Babylon before coming on some hard times) so he goes to this Lord, says he is a Doctor and has the basilisk, but that it isn't to be taken internally.
Zadig's prescription has the Lord punching the "basilisk" in a bag. The first day this punching is excruciating for the Lord, but then it gets easier over time until the Lord is finally in perfect health. It's at this point that Zadig reveals that there was no basilisk, and that the Lord just needed some excercise in his daily routine. This success of course threatens that first doctor, and Zadig ends up making another enemy.
The whole story basically consists of such anecdotes, and it's always cool to read about a guy getting by with his smarts.
Man my finger hurts.
Unless I read something else from the collection that really grabs my attention I'm probably done talking about this book. So don't say I never gave you anything.
I'm quite enjoying it, even in spite of the fact that I burned my finger on the oven (so long fingerprint).
I had told myself that I wasn't going to get any more library books for a while, so that I could just play my game boy or do whatever for awhile... but I couldn't help myself and now I've got a good seven books or so to go through. It should be a lot of fun, and I will certainly add the odd impression here, especially for Catcher in the Rye.
Read through the second story in the Voltaire collection, Zadig, and I liked it better than the first story- Candide. Where Candide was an effort to tear down the idea that "all is as it should be in this world" which can be accomplished in a paragraph long pamphlet and be done with, thank you very much.
Zadig followed this really smart man that kept getting burned by his wisdom- chiefly at the hands of jealous rivals- until the end when he finally became king of Babylon and lived happily ever after.
One example of Zadig doing his thing: A Lord orders his harem to find him a basilisk to be cooked as per his doctors orders. Whoever finds it will be taken on as his wife, and he'll get to prepare the basilisk and get well. Zadig wants to marry one of the girls belonging to this Lord (she was Astarte, the former Queen of Babylon before coming on some hard times) so he goes to this Lord, says he is a Doctor and has the basilisk, but that it isn't to be taken internally.
Zadig's prescription has the Lord punching the "basilisk" in a bag. The first day this punching is excruciating for the Lord, but then it gets easier over time until the Lord is finally in perfect health. It's at this point that Zadig reveals that there was no basilisk, and that the Lord just needed some excercise in his daily routine. This success of course threatens that first doctor, and Zadig ends up making another enemy.
The whole story basically consists of such anecdotes, and it's always cool to read about a guy getting by with his smarts.
Man my finger hurts.
Unless I read something else from the collection that really grabs my attention I'm probably done talking about this book. So don't say I never gave you anything.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Quite distracted. Posting this should help clear my mind. Or not.
I keep bringing my copy of the Metro paper home, despite the fact that I’ve long since completed the Sudoku, because I keep trying to remember to mention this: I’m pretty tired of hearing that the name of that Iceland volcano sounds like something just randomly typed on a keyboard. That’s lazy and pretty offensive. Eyjafjallajökull, yes, it’s a different language, different ways of emphasizing sounds, but could our various journalists just take two seconds to think of something better to say than “Eeeeyeah that’s hard to say.”
I’ve broken it down into something that makes sense to me: Ee-af-alla-yolk-ul. That probably isn’t a 100% right, but at least it’s something. And of course I’m not required to talk about the thing on broadcast television. Yeah, this probably would have been more interesting a few days ago when it was actually semi timely.
Oh, hey, speaking of broadcast television, you know why I actually said “broadcast television” there instead of television? Because it sounded better to me. But it’s actually been pointed out that it’s an anachronistic phrasing in a world the vastly favours cable or satellite. I mean, in the TV watching world. Television categorization really doesn’t make sense in, say, the Australian outback or something.
And while I’ve got this Metro in front of me: William Shatner for Governor General? On the one hand that’s probably a bad idea… on the other hand it’s got to be the best idea I’ve ever heard! I personally don’t feel I’m getting the proper entertainment value out of my Canadian political landscape.
I had a sentence here that was neither funny nor clever. So it’s gone. Don’t worry, you really aren’t missing much.
Okay, I no longer need this Metro. *throws it away*
Very freeing.
A few additional thoughts that wanted writing down:
So I mentioned SpongeBob Squarepants the other day- it’s a great show but really over exposed. I’m concerned about the cartooning options for this generation of kids; they just aren’t getting the wealth of material that ages with you. Watching Pinky and the Brain growing up I wouldn’t necessarily know all the references they were making but it was still really funny to me, and it just got funnier as I got older and actually got the reference.
Just now, I’ve changed the channel to a show about cartoons which is saying exactly what I was about to say here. Which is a really good way to demotivate me from writing it here. And is really distracting too.
It looks to me like kids are just getting cheap dubbed over versions of anime over here, and that’s no good. I just don’t like that many anime, on the whole it’s all visual style with no substance.
Actually there’s one I like, it’s called “Ouran High Host Club” and my brother can’t figure out why I actually like it- well it’s “surface dumb”, every cheesy joke made is fully aware of itself, already a huge leap ahead of most anime. The other thing is a lot of anime is ridiculously full of fanservice for guys, and I hate it- so while a “traditional” anime would have some awkward guy surrounded by a gaggle of women and hijinks ensues, “Ouran High Host Club” is about a “straight man” girl named Haruhi who is forced to join a gaggle of goofy men in entertaining girls at their school, it’s a great reversal, and the show is just so silly that I have to love it.
So for the record: cynically using scantily clad women to sell your story will turn me against your show. Using the exact same gags, but with men- big win.
And while I’m talking about it I should certainly point out that I adore “Akira”, both in anime and manga form (the two versions actually have a different story to it). So yes, I shouldn’t just warn against anime in general. But man, it isn’t a great ratio out there.
Well, that’s enough for now, I’m far too distracted. Maybe I’ll write more tomorrow?
One last quick thing though- Wednesday sucked for me, I was feeling interminably trapped, but given a day of reflection, perspective, and necessary alteration of my plans, I’m feeling much better. I’d imagine a day of peace is almost as good as having a confidant on whom you could thoroughly rely on. Ah well.
I’ve broken it down into something that makes sense to me: Ee-af-alla-yolk-ul. That probably isn’t a 100% right, but at least it’s something. And of course I’m not required to talk about the thing on broadcast television. Yeah, this probably would have been more interesting a few days ago when it was actually semi timely.
Oh, hey, speaking of broadcast television, you know why I actually said “broadcast television” there instead of television? Because it sounded better to me. But it’s actually been pointed out that it’s an anachronistic phrasing in a world the vastly favours cable or satellite. I mean, in the TV watching world. Television categorization really doesn’t make sense in, say, the Australian outback or something.
And while I’ve got this Metro in front of me: William Shatner for Governor General? On the one hand that’s probably a bad idea… on the other hand it’s got to be the best idea I’ve ever heard! I personally don’t feel I’m getting the proper entertainment value out of my Canadian political landscape.
I had a sentence here that was neither funny nor clever. So it’s gone. Don’t worry, you really aren’t missing much.
Okay, I no longer need this Metro. *throws it away*
Very freeing.
A few additional thoughts that wanted writing down:
So I mentioned SpongeBob Squarepants the other day- it’s a great show but really over exposed. I’m concerned about the cartooning options for this generation of kids; they just aren’t getting the wealth of material that ages with you. Watching Pinky and the Brain growing up I wouldn’t necessarily know all the references they were making but it was still really funny to me, and it just got funnier as I got older and actually got the reference.
Just now, I’ve changed the channel to a show about cartoons which is saying exactly what I was about to say here. Which is a really good way to demotivate me from writing it here. And is really distracting too.
It looks to me like kids are just getting cheap dubbed over versions of anime over here, and that’s no good. I just don’t like that many anime, on the whole it’s all visual style with no substance.
Actually there’s one I like, it’s called “Ouran High Host Club” and my brother can’t figure out why I actually like it- well it’s “surface dumb”, every cheesy joke made is fully aware of itself, already a huge leap ahead of most anime. The other thing is a lot of anime is ridiculously full of fanservice for guys, and I hate it- so while a “traditional” anime would have some awkward guy surrounded by a gaggle of women and hijinks ensues, “Ouran High Host Club” is about a “straight man” girl named Haruhi who is forced to join a gaggle of goofy men in entertaining girls at their school, it’s a great reversal, and the show is just so silly that I have to love it.
So for the record: cynically using scantily clad women to sell your story will turn me against your show. Using the exact same gags, but with men- big win.
And while I’m talking about it I should certainly point out that I adore “Akira”, both in anime and manga form (the two versions actually have a different story to it). So yes, I shouldn’t just warn against anime in general. But man, it isn’t a great ratio out there.
Well, that’s enough for now, I’m far too distracted. Maybe I’ll write more tomorrow?
One last quick thing though- Wednesday sucked for me, I was feeling interminably trapped, but given a day of reflection, perspective, and necessary alteration of my plans, I’m feeling much better. I’d imagine a day of peace is almost as good as having a confidant on whom you could thoroughly rely on. Ah well.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
No time at all, but a quick note on Kick-Ass
Hi, yes, I have zero time to write, I've got to be out the door and off for work in about half an hour, but I wanted to throw my voice among the throng of supporters for the movie Kick-Ass.
It's an extrememly visceral experience, although that isn't all the movie- I was hit with a stress bombshell basically an hour before going to the film, so my adrenaline was already swimming around my system, so maybe this experience will be even more uniquely mine- but it's a powerful film. I know that word is usually held off for dramas and Kick-Ass is more a high adventure/action/comedy, but the effect is still powerful.
I kept noticing the music just sucking me in, I was certainly on the edge of my seat, and it's a film so completely soaked in testosterone that by the end my head and heart were pounding. The last twenty minutes or so I was taken out of it by three jokers who were being obnoxious in the theatre, to the extent that I yelled at them to knock it off, leaving me all cross armed during the last part of the film, but even then the final fight scene and climax I couldn't help but smile and enjoy myself again.
I'd love to talk about the character turns (my favourite part from a character point of view happened relatively early in the film) but I'm not going to spoil anything for you. And I don't have the time.
Check out the movie, it's super bloody and violent (it has to be for the story), but really good.
Gotta go, later
It's an extrememly visceral experience, although that isn't all the movie- I was hit with a stress bombshell basically an hour before going to the film, so my adrenaline was already swimming around my system, so maybe this experience will be even more uniquely mine- but it's a powerful film. I know that word is usually held off for dramas and Kick-Ass is more a high adventure/action/comedy, but the effect is still powerful.
I kept noticing the music just sucking me in, I was certainly on the edge of my seat, and it's a film so completely soaked in testosterone that by the end my head and heart were pounding. The last twenty minutes or so I was taken out of it by three jokers who were being obnoxious in the theatre, to the extent that I yelled at them to knock it off, leaving me all cross armed during the last part of the film, but even then the final fight scene and climax I couldn't help but smile and enjoy myself again.
I'd love to talk about the character turns (my favourite part from a character point of view happened relatively early in the film) but I'm not going to spoil anything for you. And I don't have the time.
Check out the movie, it's super bloody and violent (it has to be for the story), but really good.
Gotta go, later
Monday, April 19, 2010
I don't have time for a full entry- so let's write a full entry!
Though I had a most excellent outing yesterday I think I must have gone over my sun quota- some extra redness to my usual colour palette of, you know, pale- I'm pretty drained. And that's me saying it the day after... well, yeah, okay, I did run to work this morning... but again, that's still tons of fun in the sun.
That reminds me I wanted to bring up the row of trees on the Exhibition grounds that are now just white flowers blossoming. It's pretty spectacular.
Wanted to treat myself with some carbonated beverage AND salt and vinegar chips... and as per usual regret it to some extent. Curse my status as a high performance machine! Back to apples and water for me...
You'd think I'd enjoy a little sugar high before crashing and napping from 5-8, but nope, basically scarfed it down, couldn't keep my head up, so down it went. Maybe the scarf wasn't long enough?
And once I woke up I had to take advantage of the time to work on some mandatory staff training stuff that takes far too long. Especially when my brother finds an old episode of "Lois and Clark" on tv. But ESPECIALLY when "Castle" comes on the air. er, screen.
All of this is the not so short preamble to my lamentation that I just don't have the time to sit back and discuss the fact that I've FINALLY finished reading that Candide by Voltaire. You know, that story I picked up from the library like two months ago (or something like that, it feels that long ago anyways, but time moves so slow and fast I really can't say) until I got distracted by a mountain of comics that I naturally had a lot of fun with.
Hmm, I've been really good about going to bed lately (even with naps, which is pretty weird.) but if I don't talk a bit about Candide now I won't get to it at all.
There's a sense of anti climax to Candide that reminds me of Don Quixote, The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy annnd.... ahh it never fails, when I mention The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy I can't remember the name of this book, and when I remember the name of this book my mind blanks on Tristram Shandy...
argh anyways that anti climax probably has to do with the fact that all these entries are satires of either writing convention or attitudes of the times (for example Don Quioxte lampoons the stories of knight errantry, Candide takes the philosophy of "everything is as it should be, and is for the greatest good" and just tears it apart) by building up an adventure, maybe calling it "How Our Heroes Came Across A Surprise" only to be a distinctive flower on the road or something.
Excuse the paragraph break, I just felt your eyes were getting tired. Well, since we're here I may as well continue on with a slightly different "idea", thereby justifying that line break.
That build up of expectation only to be let down with something especially mundane is an effective comedy style- I flatter myself in the idea that I use it quite effectively. Which sounds like I'm saying I never have anything particularly interesting to say: it's all just tales of me crossing the street, going on the bus, or buying milk- and that's just sad. Also, quite accurate.
Back to the books and away from however interesting I am: that reversal of expectation is also just a sign of the differences of our times- stories keep having to up the ante all the time, especially in the past century when the condensing of our literature (by which I mean the sudden accessibility of all literature to all places- should have just said that in the first place) means that every cliffhanger and tale of suspense is informed not just by recent European history (as is the case with my examples above, yes even that book whose name I forget- it's seriously killing me over here) but by everything- Journey to the West, the Mahabharata (you wouldn't believe how close I was to spelling that right without checking it, I was only off by the placement of one 'h'), etc.
I mean, Journey to the West has a monkey king pestering gods while riding a cloud. You've really got to step up your game when that gets thrown onto the field. Like yellow-sponges-in-square-pants-living-in-a-pinapple-who-work-in-an-undersea-fast-food-restaurant kind of stepping up of your game. It's big leagues stuff.
Okay, I'm up way too late, you've suffered through enough of my parentheses, and there's work tomorrow plus a movie, and I have no intention of napping through one of those (I'm totally kidding workplace!).
For the record I like ol' Spongebob. Just in case I sounded sarcastic or somesuch. Ooh, now I know what I want to talk about next time. Apologies in advance.
That reminds me I wanted to bring up the row of trees on the Exhibition grounds that are now just white flowers blossoming. It's pretty spectacular.
Wanted to treat myself with some carbonated beverage AND salt and vinegar chips... and as per usual regret it to some extent. Curse my status as a high performance machine! Back to apples and water for me...
You'd think I'd enjoy a little sugar high before crashing and napping from 5-8, but nope, basically scarfed it down, couldn't keep my head up, so down it went. Maybe the scarf wasn't long enough?
And once I woke up I had to take advantage of the time to work on some mandatory staff training stuff that takes far too long. Especially when my brother finds an old episode of "Lois and Clark" on tv. But ESPECIALLY when "Castle" comes on the air. er, screen.
All of this is the not so short preamble to my lamentation that I just don't have the time to sit back and discuss the fact that I've FINALLY finished reading that Candide by Voltaire. You know, that story I picked up from the library like two months ago (or something like that, it feels that long ago anyways, but time moves so slow and fast I really can't say) until I got distracted by a mountain of comics that I naturally had a lot of fun with.
Hmm, I've been really good about going to bed lately (even with naps, which is pretty weird.) but if I don't talk a bit about Candide now I won't get to it at all.
There's a sense of anti climax to Candide that reminds me of Don Quixote, The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy annnd.... ahh it never fails, when I mention The Life and Times of Tristram Shandy I can't remember the name of this book, and when I remember the name of this book my mind blanks on Tristram Shandy...
argh anyways that anti climax probably has to do with the fact that all these entries are satires of either writing convention or attitudes of the times (for example Don Quioxte lampoons the stories of knight errantry, Candide takes the philosophy of "everything is as it should be, and is for the greatest good" and just tears it apart) by building up an adventure, maybe calling it "How Our Heroes Came Across A Surprise" only to be a distinctive flower on the road or something.
Excuse the paragraph break, I just felt your eyes were getting tired. Well, since we're here I may as well continue on with a slightly different "idea", thereby justifying that line break.
That build up of expectation only to be let down with something especially mundane is an effective comedy style- I flatter myself in the idea that I use it quite effectively. Which sounds like I'm saying I never have anything particularly interesting to say: it's all just tales of me crossing the street, going on the bus, or buying milk- and that's just sad. Also, quite accurate.
Back to the books and away from however interesting I am: that reversal of expectation is also just a sign of the differences of our times- stories keep having to up the ante all the time, especially in the past century when the condensing of our literature (by which I mean the sudden accessibility of all literature to all places- should have just said that in the first place) means that every cliffhanger and tale of suspense is informed not just by recent European history (as is the case with my examples above, yes even that book whose name I forget- it's seriously killing me over here) but by everything- Journey to the West, the Mahabharata (you wouldn't believe how close I was to spelling that right without checking it, I was only off by the placement of one 'h'), etc.
I mean, Journey to the West has a monkey king pestering gods while riding a cloud. You've really got to step up your game when that gets thrown onto the field. Like yellow-sponges-in-square-pants-living-in-a-pinapple-who-work-in-an-undersea-fast-food-restaurant kind of stepping up of your game. It's big leagues stuff.
Okay, I'm up way too late, you've suffered through enough of my parentheses, and there's work tomorrow plus a movie, and I have no intention of napping through one of those (I'm totally kidding workplace!).
For the record I like ol' Spongebob. Just in case I sounded sarcastic or somesuch. Ooh, now I know what I want to talk about next time. Apologies in advance.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Didn't I say I was going to talk about this? Well I did, and I am.
Okay, let’s cover some stuff so I don’t make a liar out of myself.
So, Amazing Spider-Man #627 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks- the first thing you should know is that this isn’t a contemporary creative team, these are a couple of guys who’ve been around the block a few times, specifically doing extended runs on Spider-Man from at least the 80’s. In fact this comic, with the title “Something Can Stop the Juggernaut” is supposed to be a sequel of sorts to the acclaimed Amazing Spider-Man #229-230 “Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut” (I think that was the title of one of the issues anyway) which was done by, you guessed it, Roger Stern and Lee Weeks.
I’m not too impressed with the blatant desire to capitalize on famous storylines from over two decades ago- not to say this isn’t a great comic (it is) but that idea just rubs me the wrong way, especially with how misleading it is, to sell this as a simple rematch story about Spider-Man soundly defeating Juggernaut like this is Rocky II or something.
I’ve just got two more negative things to say and then it’s all positive from there- and these things aren’t even really about the comic.
I was concerned going in about the characterization for this one Carlie Cooper person- she’s a new love interest for old Spidey and in an interview with Roger Stern it sounded like he LOVED Carlie, was going to spend a lot of time building her up, and so I was worried that she would turn into a Mary Sue character for this story. Although Spidey does sing her praises in about three short “thought boxes”- that’s it. Carlie was portrayed as a reasonable friend, and Peter thinks “hey wow, that was nice, she’s pretty great.” I’m incredibly okay with that.
This is contrasted to how most characters (but especially women) are written in relation to Peter- as shrewish and unreasonable. Even during all the time Peter Parker was married to Mary Jane Watson the above rule still applied because it’s an easy (lazy) way to create drama. If we were to look back a few issues into the past we could see a scene where Carlie berates Peter for standing her up on a date, all the while he’s sitting there in full bandaged regalia from getting beat up. Does that make sense? With the POSSIBLE exception of some guy who goes to an underground fight club every night, I don’t care how often you see a guy get beat up; you’re not going to get desensitized to it and start yelling at him. A more plausible response is to check in on Aunt May and make sure she isn’t abusing him- that’s the Aunt May who will routinely have a heart attack from some stressful program on the news (the Parkers should probably invest in some specialty channel featuring 24 hours of paint drying television for her sake) so no, she isn’t really up for abusing anyone, but that would be a far more realistic reaction than to just yell at Peter.
Yeah, I kind of went on a bit about that… but it’s a systemic problem with the creation of the Spider-Man supporting cast, and it wrecks a lot of fun stories.
Okay, what was the second thing I didn’t like… I’ve kind of forgotten… nope, I’ve definitely forgotten. I guess everything else just kind of fades away when compared to the lazy characterization… which wasn’t even a problem for this book…
Well, this issue does take place in something of a vacuum relative to other Spider stories, it makes only the most basic references to key plot points we had otherwise been following up to now- the big one being Peter getting blacklisted from the photojournalism community, a move I’m not a fan of, because the writers wanted to tell the story of a Peter Parker down on his luck with no money to get by on… basically the exact same position he’s been in for years. So you get scenes here of Peter working as a photographer with only the dialogue to inform us that he’s just using the camera as an excuse to get close to the action and see what’s what.
I know this is a fill in story, probably written and drawn up long before the idea to leave Pete unemployed (for REAL this time) became written in stone- but that’s just all the more reason to not mess with the job. So much of selling these comic characters depends on how succinctly you can describe their world and how it’s different from every other caped wonder out there- take the Flash over at DC: for years he’s been played by a guy with no real life outside of the super hero biz and has been hard to nail down because of it. You know early on in his series he just up and won the lottery? And had wacky adventures because of it? And if you wonder why the Flash has had trouble getting a movie made about him, that’s why- they don’t know how to get this guy across. However, they’ve just changed it up, replaced that latest Flash with the previous model, Barry Allen- forensic scientist and superhero. I don’t have to tell you (I will though) that that guy was ahead of his time during his tenure between 1961-1985- so of course he’s being brought back now with all the cop shows and especially the CSI’s on the air. I say give it two years now at most before we hear about a Flash movie proposal that stresses the CSI aspect of his identity. Which bugs me because of how blatantly bottom-line-lets-make-money it is.
I seem to have gotten off track from Spider-Man. My apologies.
A word about the art- not only are the backgrounds incredibly detailed throughout, not only is everything well paced and suitably dramatic and action pose oriented, but there’s a bare minimum of… what would you call this- straight on shots? The camera is very rarely sitting parallel to the ground and looking straight at Spider-Man. What we’re given instead is a lot of high and low angle shots that remind us we’re reading about a guy swinging around a bunch of skyscrapers- an act of remembrance which draws us in. This is pretty amazing! It sucks that so often we just take for granted some really cool ability, like we just expect a character to lift a car over their heads or fly around the clouds. If I can feel the wonder of those imaginings, especially after the amount of time I’ve spent with Spidey over the years, than that is something being done very right.
Okay, I was going to move onto some other topics (well, okay, I could still mention the use of the “thought boxes” and their relative strengths and weaknesses to traditional “thought balloons” and THEN stop talking about Amazing Spider-Man #627) but I’ve kind of gone on too long.
Oh, hey, Spider-Man uses a web hang-glider in this comic, and that’s old school awesome. Yeah, sorry, okay, I’m done.
So, Amazing Spider-Man #627 by Roger Stern and Lee Weeks- the first thing you should know is that this isn’t a contemporary creative team, these are a couple of guys who’ve been around the block a few times, specifically doing extended runs on Spider-Man from at least the 80’s. In fact this comic, with the title “Something Can Stop the Juggernaut” is supposed to be a sequel of sorts to the acclaimed Amazing Spider-Man #229-230 “Nothing Can Stop the Juggernaut” (I think that was the title of one of the issues anyway) which was done by, you guessed it, Roger Stern and Lee Weeks.
I’m not too impressed with the blatant desire to capitalize on famous storylines from over two decades ago- not to say this isn’t a great comic (it is) but that idea just rubs me the wrong way, especially with how misleading it is, to sell this as a simple rematch story about Spider-Man soundly defeating Juggernaut like this is Rocky II or something.
I’ve just got two more negative things to say and then it’s all positive from there- and these things aren’t even really about the comic.
I was concerned going in about the characterization for this one Carlie Cooper person- she’s a new love interest for old Spidey and in an interview with Roger Stern it sounded like he LOVED Carlie, was going to spend a lot of time building her up, and so I was worried that she would turn into a Mary Sue character for this story. Although Spidey does sing her praises in about three short “thought boxes”- that’s it. Carlie was portrayed as a reasonable friend, and Peter thinks “hey wow, that was nice, she’s pretty great.” I’m incredibly okay with that.
This is contrasted to how most characters (but especially women) are written in relation to Peter- as shrewish and unreasonable. Even during all the time Peter Parker was married to Mary Jane Watson the above rule still applied because it’s an easy (lazy) way to create drama. If we were to look back a few issues into the past we could see a scene where Carlie berates Peter for standing her up on a date, all the while he’s sitting there in full bandaged regalia from getting beat up. Does that make sense? With the POSSIBLE exception of some guy who goes to an underground fight club every night, I don’t care how often you see a guy get beat up; you’re not going to get desensitized to it and start yelling at him. A more plausible response is to check in on Aunt May and make sure she isn’t abusing him- that’s the Aunt May who will routinely have a heart attack from some stressful program on the news (the Parkers should probably invest in some specialty channel featuring 24 hours of paint drying television for her sake) so no, she isn’t really up for abusing anyone, but that would be a far more realistic reaction than to just yell at Peter.
Yeah, I kind of went on a bit about that… but it’s a systemic problem with the creation of the Spider-Man supporting cast, and it wrecks a lot of fun stories.
Okay, what was the second thing I didn’t like… I’ve kind of forgotten… nope, I’ve definitely forgotten. I guess everything else just kind of fades away when compared to the lazy characterization… which wasn’t even a problem for this book…
Well, this issue does take place in something of a vacuum relative to other Spider stories, it makes only the most basic references to key plot points we had otherwise been following up to now- the big one being Peter getting blacklisted from the photojournalism community, a move I’m not a fan of, because the writers wanted to tell the story of a Peter Parker down on his luck with no money to get by on… basically the exact same position he’s been in for years. So you get scenes here of Peter working as a photographer with only the dialogue to inform us that he’s just using the camera as an excuse to get close to the action and see what’s what.
I know this is a fill in story, probably written and drawn up long before the idea to leave Pete unemployed (for REAL this time) became written in stone- but that’s just all the more reason to not mess with the job. So much of selling these comic characters depends on how succinctly you can describe their world and how it’s different from every other caped wonder out there- take the Flash over at DC: for years he’s been played by a guy with no real life outside of the super hero biz and has been hard to nail down because of it. You know early on in his series he just up and won the lottery? And had wacky adventures because of it? And if you wonder why the Flash has had trouble getting a movie made about him, that’s why- they don’t know how to get this guy across. However, they’ve just changed it up, replaced that latest Flash with the previous model, Barry Allen- forensic scientist and superhero. I don’t have to tell you (I will though) that that guy was ahead of his time during his tenure between 1961-1985- so of course he’s being brought back now with all the cop shows and especially the CSI’s on the air. I say give it two years now at most before we hear about a Flash movie proposal that stresses the CSI aspect of his identity. Which bugs me because of how blatantly bottom-line-lets-make-money it is.
I seem to have gotten off track from Spider-Man. My apologies.
A word about the art- not only are the backgrounds incredibly detailed throughout, not only is everything well paced and suitably dramatic and action pose oriented, but there’s a bare minimum of… what would you call this- straight on shots? The camera is very rarely sitting parallel to the ground and looking straight at Spider-Man. What we’re given instead is a lot of high and low angle shots that remind us we’re reading about a guy swinging around a bunch of skyscrapers- an act of remembrance which draws us in. This is pretty amazing! It sucks that so often we just take for granted some really cool ability, like we just expect a character to lift a car over their heads or fly around the clouds. If I can feel the wonder of those imaginings, especially after the amount of time I’ve spent with Spidey over the years, than that is something being done very right.
Okay, I was going to move onto some other topics (well, okay, I could still mention the use of the “thought boxes” and their relative strengths and weaknesses to traditional “thought balloons” and THEN stop talking about Amazing Spider-Man #627) but I’ve kind of gone on too long.
Oh, hey, Spider-Man uses a web hang-glider in this comic, and that’s old school awesome. Yeah, sorry, okay, I’m done.
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