At this point it's between J Mcnaily and myself for the bracket winner. I need Uconn to win , he needs Kansas to win.  One game to decide the whole Shebang.

This is going to come down to those who are still alive at this stage and predicted either Kentucky or UConn to make it to the final game. (The other side of the bracket is completely shot for everyone, I trust.)

Sigh. I did well up to this point but this is where I stop. Ironically, it looks like the same bracket I entered for my workplace is going to win because I am 30 points ahead in that bracket at this point too, but in this case no one thought to put Kentucky or UConn into the final game. Whew.

Everytime I start organizing my comics I think of the scene from High Fidelity:

Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No...
Dick: Not alphabetical...
Rob: Nope...
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fucking way.

Rob: And If I want to find the song "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac I have to remember that I bought it for someone in the fall of 1983 pile, but didn't give it to them for personal reasons.

I used to order my albums according to style of music, and I had a good system for it: Prog rock transitioned to folks rock transitioned to hard rock transitioned to fusion albums transitioned to straight up jazz.  I even had Chicago closer to rock and Blood Sweat and Tears closer to fusion and all.

Then the 80s happened and the styles were no longer logically separated as in the 70s band, and I said "screw that". Alphabetical by artist all the way now. Except for compilations. Which I don't like generally anyway.

That autobiographical sorting is a funny idea but it comes across as plausible only if you can remember the events of your life. It may work well when you're in your 20s when there isn't that much to remember (which was the case in High Fidelity IIRC). I can's see that line being written by someone in their 40s...   Unless that was the way they were in their 20s. 

I am relatively new in the singles collection (had a hiatus so long that the collection from my teen-age years are stuck somewhere in my mom's attic, unfortunately), so I can't offer anything out of experience. But, the system have right now is:

1. Alphabetical by title (Detective Comics comes after Batman, and Casanova comes in between, for instance)
2. Adjectives ignored (I don't collect those, but Spiderman, The Amazing would come before Spiderman, The Spectacular, both under "Spiderman")
3. Different incarnations of the same title are ordered chronologically (Legion of Super Heroes, original run comes before the Giffen run, which comes before the threeboot, etc).
4. Publishers are ignored: I feel like that's the equivalent of ordering books according to publishers, or DVDs according to studios.

What screws the logic of these is the thematic intersections with events: Say Civil War Spiderman versus the regular Spiderman. I would probably place Civil War Spiderman with the regular Spiderman for consistency's sake.

This is from Deadline.com:

Showtime has bought a script for Chew, a quirky half-hour cop show based on John Layman and Rob Guillory’s bestselling comic book of the same name. Stephen Hopkins is attached to direct and executive produce the project, which hails from Circle of Confusion, the company behind AMC’s hit series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead.

It'll be interesting to see the kind of culture wars that could erupt over a show that would supposedly be "glorifying cannibalism" and "shoving veganism down our throats" simultaneously, if you know what I mean...

Chris (on the podcast) said that it was really ballsy to make a strong political statement (which DKR does make) using a really mainstream hero (Batman). He went on to say that he wishes more comics had that much balls today.

Paradoxically, it's a really tough thing NOT to make a political statement when Batman picking up a French/Algerian (?) Muslim as a Batman in France and the whole segment of our political spectrum goes nuts. Or when an awesome black actor with one of the more memorable stares is picked to play Heimdall in the Thor movie and the same segment completely loses it.

Mainstream titles on the big 2 may be reluctant to serve up a political position just so that they do not trigger a backlash from one group or the other, but given our current climate where everything is politicized and one particular segment being so pumped up about rooting out the "enemy within" especially in the media, they will find it even harder still to remain apolitical. Like the rest of us.  Not for lack of trying though.

(I haven't heard the episode yet, so I don't know if I am being redundant.)

V for Vendetta is  probably the most overtly political semi-mainstream comics out there.  It was pretty much Moore's love letter to anarchism.

The Authority had some serious political theme going ... most of which was a tad too neo-fascistic  for my taste (Ellis had that between the lines and Millar brought it out into the open IMO), but it was what it was. (Similar themes were explored in Squadron Supreme by Gruenwald before.)

Ex Machina. Obviously.

Any time Ollie Queen is on, you expect some political angle to pop up.

But I don't know that any of these qualify as mainstream mainstream though. As a general rule of thumb, the more mainstream something is, the more it tries to avoid any political tones ... at least that's been the case on this side of the 80s, I think.

Did anybody who read this catch a possible "Dune" reference?  The resident teleporter in the group is a big orb that houses a Space-folding worm.  Awesome!  And by awesome I mean I wish I had one of those.

That's a character that's been around for a while. Check out the TP "Eye for an Eye", which is a Legion of Super Villains story (including that wormy being), which also happens to be the beginning of the peak of the Levitz run in the late 80s.

I know it's too late to suggest this but I propose that we should do a winner gets a new graphic novel library...

What I mean by that is whomever losses has to send one graphic novel they no longer want (they must own it already) to the winner.  Media mail shipping of one book should be just a couple of bucks (like $3).  So be shear volume, everyone sending the winner one book gives the winner a "new library"!

A library of unwanted books. Hmmm. Sounds like fun. I'm cool with that. 

its better than:
super robin
robin x
extreme robin
black robin

Or X-Robin ... as in ... he used to be Robin but now he's not. 

legion of super heroes annual (this year's)

I think Grant Morrison is probably the only real "mind blowing" writer in mainstream comics (but we all know how you feel on that topic).

Just to show you how opinions may vary ... I think Grant Morrison is a very hot and cold type a writer. Sometimes he's just plain fantastic, other times he makes you scratch your head and wonder why you're bothering.  (And by "you", I mean "me".)

Waid??? I don't  know that this is right chemistry for the character in the post-Bendis world.  I feel like this is going to be a significant change in tone and trajectory for the title.

He's a great writer, no doubt about that. But on Daredevil, I'll have to take a step back and see what he does.

(I would have loved to see Rucka on Daredevil ...)

Well my complete guesses have been made, theres a lot of blue in my final 4 (not sure I'm happy about this)

Have a horrible sense of history repeating itself for my gators, suprise #2 seed and a possible game against Michigan State in the 2nd round 

It may be UCLA against Florida as well. That's a team capable of beating anyone and losing to anyone ... a very up and down team that can be moody and is in need of some senior leadership it doesn't have. They are a year away from being a top 10 team.  They can go to Elite Eight this year, or they can lose in the first round, and anything in between.

Being a Bruin fan means being on a constant rollercoaster ride that never stops.

I'm in.

It is entirely possible that the series somehow doesn't speak to you. I went through the first three TPs and was still not getting it, though I know some people I would very highly recommend it to because I feel like it would work for them.  Personally, Fables and I just didn't click either. It happens.

Is Rachel Pollack working in comics now?

I believe she was "on loan" from the science-fiction prose world and returned to it after  her Doom Patrol run. If she has done some other work in comics, I am not aware of it.

Allen Toussaint: "The Bright Mississippi"

Finally had the chance to go through the whole run .... Some thoughts:

Rachel Pollack's run on Doom Patrol took place between issues 66 and 87, May 93 to Feb 95.  Most importantly, she took over the series right after Grant Morrison's run.  Note that Morrison's run on Doom Patrol was not only one of the greatest runs any writer had on any title, and an unadulterated explosion of manic creativity going on in those pages, but the way he ended the series, he had pretty much brought the title to its logical end.  If noone took over the title after him and it was the end of Doom Patrol as we knew it, it would have been a perfectly good and legitimate ending.

So Pollack took the title after that legendary run (and you can see in the letters, that the fans were just not happy that she was not Morrison) and immediately found herself in a tough situation of (presumably) wanting to follow Morrison's brand of DP, but also having to do this with a new set of characters. So she brings Cliff Steele back (as every incarnation of DP must) and goes back to Morrison's Dorothy character, and Niles Caulder's head.

Her run can be logically divided into two parts: The first part is where she was (awkwardly) trying to emulate Morrison and his surrealistic stories in 66 through 74. The art is transitioned from Richard Case to Linda Medley, the team is moved to some haunted house in the countryside with ghosts of people who dies while engaged in sexual fantasies (called SRS's). Two new members join the team, George and Marion, who are known as bandage people, and appear very Larry Traynor-ish, but it is hard not to miss the bondage/bandage pun. The plot of the first major arc involves some Fox, some Raven, using the townspeople to continue their perpetual war etc etc ... Very Morrisonesque in its surrealistic settings. And since it is very hard to match Morrison's ability to whip up crazy situations and still make it interesting and worthwhile,  I would say Pollack was clearly having a hard time in this phase, not knowing what direction she should be going with these characters.

Towards the end of this phase, in issues 72, 73, 74, she begins to take a few steps back to regroup where she feels more comfortable. In issue 72 she brings in Coagula, who turns out to be a key character in her run; in 73, she dives straight into the bodyless head of Niles Caulder in a story that follows his dream (Gaiman's Dream and Death make a cameo), and does a fairly good job with that brand of surrealism, while in issue 74, he juxtaposes a game version of Cliff with the real Cliff in a very intriguing, character-driven story. This is also where we begin to see that Pollack's wheels have finally started turning. She is on to something.

The second half of her run sees Ted McKeever as the artist and the collaboration between the two is astounding to me. His simplified (but not cartoony) style that eschews details, filled with broad strokes becomes the perfect vehicle for Pollack's increasingly abstract storylines where the main conflict is no longer some surreal entity that wants to destroy the world, but a question on who the DP are and what to make of them. She opens the door to explicitly begin to question sexual identity and transsexualism.  Is a robot without a penis still a man? Is a head without a body still a man. Is a man who changed his sex to become a woman still a man? One feels that this new character, Coagula (= Kate), becomes a proxy for Pollack herself and her own sexual duality/identity.

And while her first arc, The Teiresias Wars (issues 75-79) deals with sexual identity (and halfway in that arc, McKeever's art also starts getting more and more abstract, and absolutely awesome, to the extent that I can appreciate art), the second arc focuses on menstruation and Dorothy coming to term with her womanhood. The final arc of the series Imagine Ari's Friends (issues 84-87), is about .... I am not sure ... end of the world, end of all creation, and some rabbi who can stop this if only DP becomes ... whatever ... at this point the story itself is deep into abstractions and symbolism, McKeever's art turns more omenous than before, and even though you are not exactly sure where the two are taking you, you're just enjoying the damn ride.

So overall, I would say the first part is ok, and definitely a drop off from the Morrison run, the second part where Pollack and McKeever are hitting on all cylinders, it is absolutely a terrific run that touches on all sorts of issues and questions that you don't normally see too many books even care to acknowledge, and does a great job in doing so without being preachy or over the top. I highly recommend it.

(Caution: based on the comments in the letter sections in the series, it seems like some of Pollack's takes on sexual politics, emphasis on the word "politics", tend to anger some people. If you are sensitive to that topic, you may not enjoy the series as much as I did.)

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=31274
What do people think?   Sound good?

I don't like it.

Lessseeee ... Thor and Cap ... yep, they each have a movie coming out and Marvel apparently decided they are the big enchilada right now.  In reality, I don't see any potential chemistry between the characters. Thor is a god forgodssakes. He operates at a different level and has very different concerns than Cap ... or Daredevil ... or Spiderman. He doesn't mix well with others, IMO. (Maybe to some extent, with global characters like Iron Man and the Fantastic Four, when they're cosmic.

Odin turns out to be not All-Father. Bad bad idea. Don't mess with Odin. He's supposed to be ancient.  Marvel's usual cast of characters are just entities that came to being this morning, from their point of view  (the red Skull? really? He just has a 50 year past, tops).  So unless the Eternals are getting pulled in to the "who's All-Father?" question (or better yet, the 4th World ... sigh), you just gotta leave the old man alone.

I am usually nonchalant about my love for comic books and I mention them the same way I mention my love for music, and college sports, and other things.  The thing is, I don't bring it up unless there is some context for it, and the context typically turns on a particular title relating to some movie, tv show, or books.

If you don't want to sound weird or creepy, you just have to watch for the context to see when it makes sense to bring these things up. Otherwise you will sound weird and creepy even if you're talking about something as popular as March Madness.<sup>[1]

[1]</sup> For our non-US denizens: "March Madess" refers to college basketball tournament that determines the national champion, and it is a very very popular sports event in the States.