“Don’t try to make me what I’m not. I just get by with what I’ve got. Live, let live, that′s my advice. If you′ve got questions, ask me nice.” From Ask Me Nice, written by Mose Allison.
When was the last time you read one of those year-end roundups and concluded “Hey, this year was damn good! Let’s do it one more time!”
Well, this isn’t it. Being a realist is a bitch. Because this place is called “Pop Culture Squad” and because my brain no longer possesses the bandwidth to reflect upon all of Earth’s currently crippling traumas, I will restrict my comments to on-topic affairs.
Over at the comics rack, when it comes to new material DC Comics and Marvel Comics have pretty much abandoned giving us stories and have focused their energies on events that are as humongous as they are repetitive and meaningless. Both imprints have given us some great writing here and there, often in the form of stand-alone stories and mini-series that are completely outside the framework. Perhaps the authors also can’t fathom these overpopulated jamborees.
Each month Marvel continues to pump out more and more spiders, and I include their symbiotes. Over at DC Batman has become such a relentless asshole he can run for president on the 2028 GOP ticket. Even his massive family mocks him. If not for Lois Lane, Wonder Woman, and the just-cancelled Birds of Prey, I’d restrict my DC reading to old copies of Scribbly.
I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but it bares repeating: DC’s holiday anthologies, largely written by youngsters, are a real hoot and often cover-feature characters that never get that type of exposure. I liked Marvel’s holiday season tome as well, but I usually do. I always loves me a good Thing yarn.
The rest of the comics wall showed more promise. Ahoy Comics continues to entertain me by boldly going after the weird and unusual. Mad Cave Studios has been pulling off the difficult task of taking truly classic characters and making them work for the mid-21st century while still appreciating what made them great in the first place.
As one would hope, there have been plenty of stand-alone graphic novels that are worthy of your time and plastic. Many reprint tomes are also virtuous.
Archie has been publishing some swell stuff, particularly in their kinda-horror line. My big problem with the publishing house is that they seem to have lost their ability to count past “one.”
Over on the twenty-four frame front, the line between television and movies is becoming thinner every day. In fact, the only reason we remember we still have those shoe-box theaters is because people keep on bitching about seeing movies on a screen that’s bigger than the ones at Costco and Best Buy. Amusingly, you can buy a damn good 65-inch teevee for only a bit more than you’d pay for two tubs of popcorn and a box of Whoppers at your friendly neighborhood cineplex, which most likely isn’t in your neighborhood anyway.
But what do we watch on that Big Boob Tube? Well, I think there’s more good stuff on television these days than at any time since Howdy Doody discovered Wonder Bread… but there’s a catch, and it’s a big one. Streaming television providers are going through a war that makes Lebanon look like the Yellow Brick Road. They produce a lot of good shows but all that is scattered across over a half-dozen companies who charge a lot, even if you take their “watch-the-commercials” option. Nobody wants to pay upwards of two grand a year to follow a minimal amount of viewing time on a per-streamer basis.
Live venues — sports, legitimate theater, concerts — have become so costly your Thanksgiving dinner celebration looks cheap by comparison… and that’s without parking.
Now that cannabis has been legalized for a majority of North Americans (perhaps temporarily), it is amusing to note that Artificial Intelligence has replaced mind-fucking drugs as our most cost-effective entertainment dollar.
Hey, all that was pretty negative, wasn’t it? Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer. I’m an optimist at heart (honest!) and there’s a lot of good stuff out there for those who can afford it.
Sadly, it’s been a couple decades since bank robbing was cost effective.
