GLAD:
I shouldn’t like this new Jens Lekman album this much, should I? Shouldn’t I be dismissing him as twee and affected? When I heard When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog a few years ago, I thought it didn’t quite live up to its title. Clever but a little precious, it never quite synthesized its borrowed hooks and throwback beats into something organic, nor did the point seem to be to highlight its artifice.
But Night Falls Over Kortedala—that’s another story. I gave it a chance mainly because I needed to burn the last few downloads on my eMusic subscription for the month, but boy am I glad I did. If Dog seemed overly enamored of the bits and pieces of its own pastiche, Night is in full control of its influences. The safe-soul horn arrangements, the economy romance string sections, the tinny disco beats, the affably heartbroke lyrics come together in an immensely satisfying way on most of these tracks. (“Sipping on the Sweet Nectar,” “The Opposite of Hallelujah,” and “Postcards to Nina” are the obvious standouts.) Is it wrong to like an album that sounds so much like the imaginary soundtrack to an un-purchased 1976 Aaron Spelling pilot? A game show pilot? Starring daytime celebrities? I have become indifferent to such questions.
Lekman’s songs skip lightly through the minefield of preciousness (the mines throw shrapnel made of repurposed Teddy Ruxpins), their confident steps made possible by his complete commitment to the project: There’s a total lack of irony on this album, a refusal to wink at any of these conventions—I wanted to say “creaky conventions,” but here they sound well greased and nimble. They lyrics are blessedly free of self-pity and self-consciousness, and maybe even of self. The point of these songs is not ostentatious sensitivity but the pure joy of playing with the sounds of pre-punk (pre-Dylan?) AM radio. Even the lyrics about heartbreak refuse to wallow; they seem to be here mainly as a concession to the genre. The same affection for the putatively square world of parents and great-aunts that animates Jonathan Richman’s “Old World” drives these songs—but what Richman did lyrically, Lekman is doing formally.*
*This makes the one millionth comparison between Jens Lekman and Jonathan Richman. What’s my prize?
SORRY:
I was much looking forward to hearing Reading Comics author Douglas Wolk and comics artist Steve Leiber’s panel at last week’s Louisiana Book Festival. And I guess I’m still looking forward to hearing what they might have to say about comics art, the comics industry, and comics criticism. But the audience, misunderstanding the phrase “We’ll have a Q&A at the end” jumped right in about 5 minutes into their prepared talk. Did you notice how between 2:30 and 3:30 last week there were no crazy people anywhere around you? That’s because they all came to the Wolk/Leiber panel to ask the same two or three questions over and over again . . .
“What’s the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel?”
“Yeah, but what’s the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel?”
“My son likes Darth Vader. What comics should I buy for him?”
“Isn’t a graphic novel really different from a comic book?”
“Can it be a graphic novel if it has Superman?”
“Why don’t all superhero writers write like Alan Moore or John Ostrander?”
“Don’t the images take away from the words and keep you from using your imagination?” [Steve Leiber: Do you think that’s true of film? Questioner: Yes. Steve Leiber: OK, so maybe you shouldn’t read comics. In fairness to Mr. Leiber, this was the only exchange in which he seemed even mildly testy, and this was the eleventy-dozenth question from this particular questioner—he and Douglas Wolk comported themselves with tremendous grace throughout.]
“Comic books and graphic novels: is there any difference, do you think?”
“Don’t you think graphic novels are better than comic books?”
My misanthropy, it spiked, but only briefly—it was too beautiful a day to over-indulge that particular emotion. On the bright side, the big turnout indicates that people are interested in comics on a broad scale; this particular audience just needed to work on their active listening skills. (They may have been overwhelmed with book festival greatness.) But as I say, Wolk and Leiber seemed like swell guys, patient proselytes for comics, and I got to talk to Wolk for a few minutes after, so it wasn’t a total wash.
Hmm. I should have ended with a “Glad.” Here:
GLAD:
The latest issue of Whedon and Cassady’s Astonishing X-Men was such a well crafted delight that it makes me want to go back and re-evaluate their run from the beginning. The book’s chronic lateness has robbed it of a lot of its momentum, and I imagine the big reveal at the end of this issue—one Whedon has been building toward and misdirecting us away from for a while—would have packed a greater wallop six months ago or whenever. Nevertheless, I’m excited about this book again for the first time in a long while, and am going to have to reconsider my evaluation of the series as a vehicle for pure nostalgia for the 80s Claremont/Byrne stories. (It may only be 60% nostalgia.)
Incidentally, anyone wanting to catch up on AXM should have a gander at Geoff Klock’s issue-by-issue evaluation of the series. And I just noticed to my delight that Klock has a three-part series on “Fault Lines” by the Mountain Goats, one of many perfect songs on All Hail West Texas. Worlds are colliding my friends, worlds are colliding. Check it out!
Did they ask, “What is the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel?”
Also, you have done it again with your metaphorical panache. . .
“Lekman’s songs skip lightly through the minefield of preciousness (the mines throw shrapnel made of repurposed Teddy Ruxpins), their confident steps made possible by his complete commitment to the project”
How could one NOT want to hear what you are describing!
Thanks for the link!
Let every heart proclaim and every tongue express—West Texas! West Texas! West Texas!
The problem is, how can the music possibly be as good as the prose describing the music?
I want to hear what Proffuryessor has to say about the upcoming death of Batman. There seems to be a sense he is too old, and we must have a new one. I heard about this on The Daily Galaxy, by the way. Much debate over whether he should be replaced by Tim, Jason, or Nightwing.
By the way, what is the difference between a graphic novel and comic book?
Probably not Pre-dylan radio which would put you in the 50s world of Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, and Tony Bennett. Not the worst palce to be. Or to be even more arch, I doubt Dylan got lots of radio play before FM kickedin in the early 1980s. He simply wasn’t the right sound for treacly AM stylings.
Remember The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan dates to 1962 and became a hit in fall 1963 pre-Beatles. Its radio “hits” were covers by others, most notably Peter Paul & Mary with “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Here the Springsteen cmparison is fascinating. Cf. Manfred Mann’s version of “Blinded by the Light” and/or The Pointers Sister’s Fire as the counter to Hendrix’s electric “All ALong The Watchtower.”
Back to the time thing. Remember the 4 great early lps all predate the 67 and the “summer of love”
1963 Freewheelin’
1964 Times They are A-Changin’
1965 Highway 61 Revisited
1966 Blonde on Blonde
and rightfully belong in the folk tradition more than a rock one. Don’t know if this helps to contextualize Lekman, but it surely can’t hurt.
Douglas is a sweetheart. I befriended him at the first EMP Pop Conference in Seattle; when I gave hima copy of the Nick Honrby Sessions CD and he gave me some Dark Beloved Cloud rare 3” CD singles. We’ve carried on an extremely intermitten correspondence since then.
Since my comics knowledge stops and starts with an elemnentary school fetish for Richie Rich mags I’ll desist in entering ths particular fray . . .
I knew bulb would have some useful info here. And Perry Como probably isn’t a bad point of comparison for a few of the tracks on this album.
The Wolk/Leiber answer to the question of the difference between comic books and graphic novels, an answer which I wholeheartedly endorse, is “type of binding” or “price.” Comic books have staples; graphic novels are square-bound. New comics cost about 3 bucks. New graphic novels cost about 20 bucks. It’s all comics. It’s all the same medium.
I haven’t kept up with the recent rumors of Bat-death (and hey, don’t forget about Batman’s insane test tube son with Talia al-Ghul as a candidate for New Batman), though I’m not surprised: first because of all the buzz Marvel built by killing off Captain America recently, and second because it lends credence to the theory that DC is headed toward some kind of line-wide continuity reboot. Of course, their multiple past attempts at such reboots have suffered from a lack of commitment or coordination, so who knows how this will really turn out. Perhaps we’ll be returning to a 1970s status quo, where there were stories a-plenty featuring the Bat-family of Earth 2—grown-up Robin, Huntress (daughter of Batman and reformed Catwoman), etc—alongside the more familiar versions of the character.
If I had my druthers, DC superhero continuity would bifurcate: one branch would keep the current continuity but allow characters to age/die/transform in something a bit slower than real time, and the other branch would be a continuity-light shared universe featuring—classic? definitive? licensable?—versions of the characters, something like Marvel’s Ultimate line except done right. Each branch could have its own tributaries. The first branch would be sold mainly in direct market comics shops; the second would be sold at Target, Wal-Mart, Borders, etc, and probably in some kind of manga/digest type format. I don’t know if the market could sustain such an approach, though. I doubt it.
Certainly, given the example of Marvel’s recent handling of Spider-Man, one tends to doubt any company’s sustained commitment to such an approach. After all, we’ve got all the Peter-in-high-school stories we could possibly need over in Ultimate Spider-Man, yet Marvel still wants to reset the mainstream MU Spider-titles to the closest version of that status quo that they can get (getting rid of Mary Jane, etc—even though, as Mike Sterling has pointed out, Peter and Mary Jane have been married as long as many current comics’ readers have been alive.)
To the question of Batman’s successor: my vote is for multiple Batmen; one to be in the JLA and do all the science-fiction stuff, one to patrol the streets of Gotham and beat up muggers, one to have campy high-concept adventures. These would all exist simultaneously in the same DCU —so, essentially the same way Batman works now, but with the ever ramifying multiplicity of his characterization built right into the narrative.
In a recent cartoon, one character asks another “what’s the difference between a graphic novel and a comic book?”
The other responds, “about $15.”
Prof, you missed one pretty cool possibility that probably isn’t ever going to happen: continue from where Miller’s Dark Knight left off, with the Sons of the Batman. I’d read it. Also, just throwing this out there, but Huntress = win.
I really meant to go the book festival, but from the way you make it sound, simply yikes. I’m not entirely sure I could have kept the kill urge in check after comics vs graphic novel question #3. Blood. Lots of blood.
Whedon has surprised me already, but, I suppose I was looking to be surprised. The man does good work, although I was extremely doubtful when he decided to go into comics. But, hey, Firefly surprised a lot of people, too. He’s usually about five minutes from a sleeper hit waiting to happen.
I endorse this report. I actually opened the talk by asking Douglas the “what’s the difference” question to get it off the table. Oh well. I will say that the crowd’s enthusiasm more than made up for the repeated questions: a mixed crowd that actually wanted to hear what we had to say? That’s rare for any touring author.