odds and ends

Check this out:

All these books cost me less than $7 dollars. I bought them from Hastings, a regional merchant of new and used books, movies, video games, and all sorts of other things. I’ve made some really fun purchases from Hastings before (see my Halloween decorations post for more on that) but this past week they had a 30% off Used Books sale… and since Hastings always has free shipping for books, I indulged $7 bucks worth.

The Buffy: Panel to Panel book is usually $15 to $20 dollars in stores… I got it and three of these other books for like a buck and a quarter. Ditto all the other books save for the Aliens Omnibus. I believe that one set me back like $2 dollars… but we all know how much I love the Aliens franchise.

Most of these are books I’ve been wanting to check out for awhile but haven’t had the money or the time to give a shot… Jon Sable: Freelance being at the top of that list. In fact, the only dud of the bunch was the NewUniversal trade, which I bought on the strength of Warren Ellis’ writing. Still, at $1.25 or so, I don’t exactly feel cheated about not liking the book.

I mention Hastings here because I had a really good experience with the company and highly recommend them. The books came in like-new condition and they were shipped to me in like a day and a half. Hastings does  sales all the time so it might be worth bookmarking them and/or checking back from time to time.

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Besides my Hastings orders, I’m also making my way through the addictive I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum.

This is an “oral history” book very much like the seminal Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Music, or the more recent Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. Marks and Tannenbaum interviewed hundreds of personalities, executives, and talent involved with the golden age (1981 to 1992) of MTV. The results are engrossing, especially if you remember the channel from its’ music-playing heyday.

I watched MTV regularly during the early 1990′s (early enough to appreciate the book’s later coverage of Nirvana and Pearl Jam) but I also remember being a kid and scouring the channel during their  “all music, all the time” period. My tastes back then were limited to Michael Jackson, any video employing animation (Take on Me, Sledgehammer, You Might Think), and Weird Al cuts… but there was something to be said for the format, where the randomness of what videos played and when demanded you sit down and watch for hours at a time.

One of the book’s virtues is that it doesn’t seek out many of the big names you associate with MTV; you won’t find candid sit-down interviews with Madonna or Bruce Springstein here. Instead, you’ll find those superstars’ stories being told by the rank and file who surrounded them and I think that’s a pretty apt way to look at those folks. The secondhand nature of the stories shared here extends the air of mystique those performers carried with them then and now.

At any rate, it’s a good read. It will make you think about Alan Hunter for the first time in decades… but it will also make you think of Kennedy for the first time in decades as well, so I don’t know why where I’m going with this.

2011-2012 school year: word of mouth

A couple of things:

1. I’m sorry for overusing the word “always” in this comic. It happened. I saw it. I didn’t fix it. My apologies.

2. Our discussion of “word of mouth” was made unexpectedly interesting this past week with the passing of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. His death was falsely reported on Twitter and spread like wildfire on this Saturday past. Paterno’s family made public statements that Paterno was still fighting. He did  succumb to lung cancer on Sunday, but it was an interesting lesson on the nature of news reporting on social networking services.

2011-2012 school year: pie chart!

Seriously, folks… newspapers are DEAD after my generation. It breaks my heart… growing up, I lived in a “three newspapers a day” household (The New York Times, The New York Daily News, and our local paper). I would by the Daily News with my own money because I wanted to know what was going on in NYC. By and large, my students have no need or interest in picking up a traditional newspaper.

I guess I’ll talk about this a little bit more as we go further with these journalism class comics, but man oh man… goodbye print media.

2011-2012 school year: why did you take this class?

So far, it’s been interesting to teach a class where most of the students chose to be there, rather than be required to participate. Add onto that many of my former students coming in for another go-around and it’s a nice combination.

2011-2012 school year: getting on with it

Eagle eyed among you will recognize some students from this comic, all the way back in September.

…and I’m not slagging off ice breaker games here, don’t get that idea! I’ve done plenty of comics in the past about the different activities I use to get the ball rolling in my 9th grade classes. It’s just, a 12th grade class? At least in my school, most of those kids know one another already. You could argue that an ice breaker could, in some ways, bring the class together even if they DID know one another already. That’s a fair point, but with a half-year class, it’s hard to give up time for something like that. You hope the culture of the classroom will form regardless.

Wow, that probably could have been a comic in and of itself.

chalkboard drawings: the “i don’t think we’re in kansas anymore” edition

The first full week was Wizard of Oz themed. I’m less a fan of the 1939 musical than I am the original L. Frank Baum novels… and less a fan of the first, more famous book. I started with The Marvelous Land of Oz and moved through the rest of the series in that way. In fact, I’m not even sure I ever read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz all the way through.

That being said, I went with the movie interpretations of the characters because they are the best known. Also, John O’Neill is WAY too good an artist for me to try and imitate. He’s incredible.

thrift store finds: the young indiana jones chronicles coloring/activity book

The Internet was aflame earlier this week when this profile piece from The New York Times indicated George Lucas, mastermind behind many of the most successful blockbuster movies of the last thirty years, would be retiring from big budget moviemaking and instead focusing on “personal films.” According to Lucas, he’s depressed by the nasty backlash which accompanies his new takes on both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, all of which received a sound drubbing by fanboys and girls upon their release.

I could write 10,000 words on what George Lucas’ movies meant to me growing up and how deluded I’ve found him to be in regards with his perplexing choices regarding the Star Wars franchise… but I’m not going to. Instead, for today’s Thrift Store Find, I’d like to talk about the first time I remember been truly disappointed by George Lucas and why it doesn’t really matter.

I will talk about this by using a coloring/activity book I bought for fifty cents.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles premiered on ABC in the spring of 1992, three years after Indy’s last theatrical outing. The show was designed to focus on the youthful exploits of the character, both as a child and a teenager. I’m guessing Golden Books published this coloring/activity book around the same time. The book I found was in pristine condition and still has the price sticker on the cover.

odds and ends

I’m proud to say the first book I’ve read in 2011 was Quarry’s Ex by Max Allan Collins, a new release from the Hard Case Crime imprint.

I’ve tooted my horn about my enjoyment of the HCC series of books here and I will continue to do so because I find them to be fun, quick reads. I’m especially a fan of these Quarry books- Collins has crafted a weirdly appealing blue collar antihero in his midwestern hitman. Oddly enough, Collins ended the series with The Last Quarry before dipping into his past with the next few HCC novels.

Quarry’s Ex takes place in the 1980′s and directly references previously established continuity by brining the guy’s former wife into the fold while he investigates a film director on whom a hit has been taken. I really enjoyed the movie-making setting of Quarry’s Ex as a change, but I missed some of the bleaker Midwestern settings from the previous books. In all honesty, Quarry’s Ex is probably the least of the newer Quarry novels, although I enjoyed it a hell of a lot. I wonder if Collins boxed himself into a corner by giving his working stiff hitman a happy ending in The Last Quarry.

That aside, I’m on the hook for any new stories Collins chooses to tell with the character.

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I suppose I’m late in this, but IFC recently released the first season of their sketch comedy series Portlandia to Netflix and I’ve been really enjoying the first season. Starring Saturday Night Live‘s Fred Arminsen and Carrie Brownstein, Portlandia is sort of a send up of youth culture based in and around the eclectic West Coast city. Armisen and Brownstein do the heavy lifting in the series, although there is a nice stable of guest stars in the first season’s six episodes.

One of the things I really like about Portlandia is that, on the surface, it seems like Armisen, Brownstein and Company are mining an ultra-specific topic for their comedy… but as you watch a few episodes, you begin to realize that the hipster trappings are just window-dressing for the quirky humor. One of my favorite sketches in the series so far involves two artistic go-getters pimping their genius aesthetic strategy of taking things and “putting a bird on it!” While there is a hipster veneer to that sketch, the concept quickly degenerates into easy-to-appreciate goofiness.

When I was a teenager in the 1990′s, there were half a dozen sketch comedy series percolating on the upper dials of cable television. Reruns of SNL and The Kids in the Hall were ubiquitous on Comedy Central… and I remember watching shows like The State, Exit 57, The Vacant Lot, and Friday nights on HBO, Mr. Show with Bob and David.  Even the networks would occasionally take a run at sketch comedy with things like The Dana Carvey Show and The Edge, although I think the only real success on that front was In Living Color.

I’m probably forgetting half a dozen shows which didn’t make it beyond their first few episodes. Sketch seems to be a television show format which has died down in recent years. Every once and awhile it will show signs of life but I’m surprised there aren’t more cable channels actively developing and supporting more shows like Portlandia.

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Last week, The Onion’s AV Club (my go-to source for intelligently written pop culture articles and barely comprehensible message board discourse) has published a helpful article detailing what exactly makes a good all-ages comic. Author Oliver Sava give a nice run-down of the subject and also provides a list of comic books that would be great to share with young readers. He hits the big ones (Bone, Owly) while making some nice arguments for newer books like DC Comics’ O.M.A.C. and Marvel’s Mystic.As it happens, I have copies of both O.M.A.C. and Mystic in my lending library thanks to a generous donation from a friend of mine and although no one’s yet picked up Mystic, the first issues of O.M.A.C. has been a pretty big hit with my students.

Written by Dan Didio with art from superhero comics’ mainstay Keith Giffen, O.M.A.C. IS sort of an Incredible Hulk type story with lots of fighting and a really appealing lead character. The book was easily accessible with beautiful pencils by Giffen, sporting a heavy Jack Kirby influence. I was looking forward to picking up more issues… but sadly, the title was cancelled last week.

I don’t agree with Sava that Good as Lily is the best title of DC’s now defunct MINX line of books (I’d tip my hat to The Plain Janes on that one) but besides my own personal preferences I give the article a recommendation.

2011-2012 school year: yes please

There was a bit more to the decision to start this class. I’d been campaigning for it ever since I was hired… but our English classes aren’t for the most part structured around electives. I guess I’ll say more about this the next few weeks.

Support your local cartoonist’s classroom time again: I’ve got a DonorsChoose project, just itching to be funded. We’re a little shy of $300 dollars toward receiving a whole bunch of new graphic novels for my classroom. If you use the matching code CHASE when you check out, your donation will be matched up to $50 bucks. 

If you donate $5… my classroom will get $10. If you donate $50… we get $100. Remember to use the code CHASE when you check out. Every little bit helps.

If you would like to help my class and you e-mail me after you donate, I’d be happy to draw something for you! I have many happy donors who walked away with a doodle of their choice after helping my school get new books.

If you’re not comfortable with DC and you’d like to help in any other way… e-mail me too! 80% of my students are on free or reduced lunch and I’m always looking for ways to expand their horizons.

2011-2012 school year: i guess primetime teen soap operas aren’t factual?

I’m not a BH90210 superfan like my best friend Melissa, but I watched enough episodes in syndication to know the broad strokes of life at West Beverly High.

That being said, I am aware that The West Beverly Blaze did NOT publish an edition after the scandal of Donna Martin drinking before prom… however the bearded advisor to The Blaze was featured prominently during that kerfuffle. He  encouraged Brandon Walsh to lead an (ultimately successful) walkout to protest Donna’s treatment by the school’s administration.

What I’m saying is, don’t write me angry e-mails telling me how wrong I am about my 90210 continuity. Instead, feel free to write angry e-mails about my horrible drawing of Gabrielle Carteris OR my potentially unfair indictment of Emily Valentine in the above comic.