My Bags are Packed, Etc…
It's always nice when really smart people have nice things to say about you--both Dirk and Jog paid me very kind compliments today (re: the return of the Comics Column), particularly given that the final product found its way online riddled with my typos and lazy grammar mistakes. Thanks to both of you.
***
Speaking of Moore and Morrison, as that column continued to do, I just saw this post, which reaffirms some of the things I've said in the column thus far. Between this recent column and the earlier Gurren Lagann review, I've leaned on that Moore/Morrison thing a little hard lately, and I'm hoping to go someplace else in future columns. Morrison shows up a bit more than I planned in the next two installments, but it was a little unavoidable based on format--beyond those, I want to get a little further away before I'm permanently branded as an advocate of the same half-dozen comic people. The next column is in my editor's hands and the next is underway, but beyond that I'm not sure exactly where I want to go next.
***
I'm going out of town for a week--not sure if I'll be updating, even if the column's next installment goes up at the House in my absence (and I'm not sure exactly what the timetable on that is going to be). I'll be working on some reviews and things offline while I'm gone, but I might not be heard from until my return. That said, best way to reach me if necessary will probably be Twitter (see the sidebar). Let's meet back here next week, under the old oak tree.
Empowerment Fantasies: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Over at The House Next Door, I take a look at Gurren Lagann and what it has to say about its own genre:
If Evangelion is shonen giant robot fare through the lens of Alan Moore, a dissection and a dangerous swerve towards an underlying emotional reality, then Gurren Lagann is the same material through the lens of Grant Morrison: reactionary in part, but a distillation, mad and a little messy but more fun and a reminder of the original concept's power with a modern (and occasionally postmodern) gloss. (The image of Yoko in the virtual reality tank in the music video even inadvertently recalls Morrison's counterculture opus The Invisibles, in which a very different redhead uses the system to, appropriately enough, rewrite her own history).
Comics Column, House Next Door
In '08-'09, I posted a very infrequent comics column, focusing in part on comics in relation to film, over at The House Next Door (now a part of Slant Magazine). I'm still a contributor over there (link to a new review when it goes up) but I'm not yet sure what the state of this column is. Editor Keith Uhlich, who has been incredibly supportive, has left the door open, but I'm not yet decided whether the column is actually filling any kind of niche - most of what I've said has been said elsewhere, and better.
Here is the archive:
- #1: Windows on the Other Art
- #2: Poetry and New Languages
- #3: A Question of Accessibility: Studying Pathology and Archaeology
- #4: Mapmaking and the Hoi Polloi
- #5: Untitled (Pluto, Scott Pilgrim, Watchmen)
- Special: More Than Meets Few Eyes At All - The Legacy of The Transformers
The column received some kind press in its time: Jog still has it in his linkroll, I made it onto Journalista! once or twice, and Savage Critic Abhay Khosla pointed me out twice, here and here. I've also received kind words from Top Shelf's Leigh Walton, and an earlier version of column #2 found its way into David Mack's "Best of Letters" collected in Kabuki: The Alchemy.