Monday Mixtape 01: alpha
March 11th, 2013 by david brothers | Tags: ann nocenti, curren$y, hideo kojima, kendrick lamarHere’s a new thing. Let’s do it:
Eight songs here, which should play in random order. The list:
-Kendrick Lamar – Poetic Justice feat. Drake – good kid, m.A.A.d city
-D’Angelo – Devil’s Pie – Voodoo
-Blur – Pressure on Julian – Modern Life Is Rubbish
-Gucci Mane – Walking Lick feat. Waka Flocka Flame – Trap Back
-Cool Breeze – We Get It Crunk feat. Kurupt – East Point’s Greatest Hit
-Kilo Kish – creepwave – k+
-Notorious BIG – Niggas Bleed – Life After Death
-Curren$y – Jet Life feat. Big KRIT, Wiz Khalifa – The Stoned Immaculate
It’s hard to explain my rationale with regards to picking these songs. They’re all tracks that made some sort of an impression over the past seven days — technically ten, if you include my trip to Emerald City Comicon, where I had this idea. Some songs I played repeatedly, like “Jet Life” and “We Get It Crunk.” Others just leapt out at me as being particularly apropos, or significant, or something.
I’m still figuring out what this is, and what it’s going to be next week and the week after and so on. This is a weird mix. It’s not meant to flow in a certain order, and it’s stripped almost entirely of context, but hopefully you still dig it. Different songs next week. Maybe talking about those songs, too? I dunno. We’ll get there.
–Michael Peterson wrote a really good essay on the Beauty & The Beast Unit from Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 4. If you don’t know the B&B Corps, picture a small group of beautiful women being forced into action on the front lines of war as a special operations group. They’re cyborgs, they’re completely under someone else’s control, and they’re victims. Michael does a great job pointing out why their story is so sad and interesting. I’m a big fan of that game and that group in particular. Even if you aren’t familiar, give it a read. Read Project Ballad, a webcomic he writes and Kevin Czap draws, too. Chapter one is wrapping up, so now’s probably a good time to start binging. They’ve got 80-some free pages up there.
–I like this thing, too, by someone I know on Twitter. I just realized I don’t know her real name, but her twitter name is Twerksten Lapid, and that’s pretty cool. It’s about… everything? Nothing? It’s sorta high and low, here and there. I really like the part about suddenly becoming one with the world and marveling at nature and whoops there’s a coyote, poopin’. I also dig “This morning, I am disguised by a pretty dress and a blazer.” It’s a great turn of phrase, very evocative.
–This one’s NSFW for nudity, but you should still sneak and read it. This one’s another friend of mine, and she’s writing about a lot of things, too. The lure of objectification, body image… it’s pretty bracingly honest, and it’s about something where there aren’t really right answers (or any answers?), so much as the ways we figure out to survive. I dig this piece a lot. I read it on my phone in Seattle and it stuck with me. Maybe it’ll do the same to you.
–I like the look of this Freakestate Kickstarter by Gerald Forton and Drew Ford. Sounds like it’s right up my alley.
–Ann Nocenti speaks to Louise Simonson, moderated by Josie Campbell. This is a good interview. I love Nocenti and Simonson, and seeing them rap about the old days is neat.
–I wrote a piece on Spider-Man for The Atlantic. I’m playing it off like it’s not a big deal, but it’s kind of a big deal for me?
–I wrote about Mark Andrew Smith’s shady behavior on the Sullivan’s Sluggers kickstarter.
–I wrote about Yuuki Kodama’s Blood Lad and Kitty Pryde, a combo sure to bore ComicsAlliance readers to death.
–I wrote about Jimmie Robinson’s Five Weapons, a pretty good start to an adventure tale.
Y’all see Justified last week? Hooo-wheee. That was an episode.
Open thread. What’re you reading/watching/hearing/enjoying? I thought about doing a Justified discussion thread and I still might maybe, but I think having a weekly open thread would be fun, if y’all are into it.
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Thanks David! Real nice of you! Plenty of time for folks to catch up, after this week we’re taking a long, long break.
(I owe you some e-mails but it’s going to take a while to put together so w/e–)
Yeah, so:
I’m playing Ni No Kuni. I just wrapped up the volcano – the bit that was used in the second half of the demo. I’m having a hard time judging it because in some ways it feels like the game is still in tutorial, even though it isn’t. It does have that Pokemon problem where I’ve already caught 20-something little creatures and I’m never going to use most of them, which starts to feel wasteful to me.
My wife and I watched a compilation on YouTube of the Metal Gear Rising story stuff, since I’m not sure how much of a rush we’re in to get that without Kojima behind the wheel? And that sure does feel like a cover band rendition. There were parts that seemed to work, but I sure had some problems with it.
I’m reading Multiple Warheads, Homestuck, Meat and Bone, and Grimjack. And I just tried out Ava’s Demon, as well, which was interesting. A lot of it is about place-setting in my head right now, gearing up for more script writing soon.
Just caught up on that last season of Archer on Netflix. That’s a show that’s improved a great deal. And I got to show my wife the original Muppet Movie for the first time, that was fun.
Mostly it’s been working, though. Blah.
@Patchworkearth: Yeah, I’m not too far past where you are in Ni No Kuni. I think the tutorial feeling comes from it being an extremely family-oriented game, like the kid gloves never come off. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just different. I’m trying to work my way up to get a full suite of the cat-themed dudes, personally.
Metal Gear Rising was disappointing in the end. It ended when I thought the game felt like it was half over, and the last boss was cartoonish, and not even in that good Kojima way of being cartoonish. It honestly put me off the game for a bit. I’ll get back to it eventually, but man. That’s all it is? Bleah.
The latest season of Archer is pretty nuts. There’s a marked uptick in horrible, horrible jokes that are also really funny. I’m digging it.
—
I watched Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning last night, which is pretty much exactly what a Barry Windsor-Smith Wolverine movie would feel like, sort of how Man on Fire was the perfect Punisher movie. It was equal parts horror and action, which was interesting. It felt gross (in a good way, very uncomfortable) but enthralling. Good ending, too.
I like how Justified is shaking out. Season 1 was where it found its voice, season 2 was immaculately plotted, season 3 was chaotic but high on action, and this season is just a series open’n’shut affairs that have managed to build on each other like a snowball rolling down a hill. I was a little worried early on, thinking this series was more cartoony than the prior ones (it still is, in a way), but the latest episode got me right back in the saddle and in for the long haul.
I still can’t believe that the final boss of MGR is just Dick Cheney. Like, right down to the pacemaker.
How were you able to land that Atlantic gig?
@Enzo: They asked me via email, basically. I wrote something they liked in the past and that let me get my foot in the door.
Between yesterday and this morning I sped-read Brubaker & Phillips Criminal vol 1-3. Which is sort of desert after completing Season 1 of The Wire last week.
For me, The Wire S1 feels weak when we’re looking at the police higher-ups who feel more like obstacles than characters. I’m all for exploring intra-departmental obstruction but I felt categorically closed out of the emotional arcs of the police commanders. I can feel the writers getting into the heads of the detectives, into the heads of the drug dealers, fiends, et cetera. But the police higher ups just felt closed off.
Criminal, however, surprised me. My usual problem is that I can’t tell characters apart, can’t follow the convoluted scams and schemes. But somehow in Criminal, I get who is who and also they made enough of an impression that I understood the links when they appeared again.
With Criminal, I wasn’t necessarily on board with every character’s motivation but certain things I’ve learned to accept as given. I didn’t really like the characters any more than their necessity toward the plots. I did like the world. The drawings themselves as well as the tight three-tiered structure let me side into the realm fairly seamlessly. I think that when a comic book can use that level of restraint, it allows the reader to become more absorbed in the context of the story than when there are panel-breaking, super-impositions, inlays and two-page spreads. Those techniques are perfectly fine in the stories that they appear in but pulling back from all of that allows for a very controlled, cool reading experience.
I have been so on the fence about Revengence since it has come out, so I retreated back to the game which I have been playing the most recently Dark Souls. Exhilarating, terrifying and so cathartic no video game has come close to it for me outside the original Monster Hunter.
Also been reading through all the Vagabond VizBigs and am now both caught up and kinda upset because that format is so perfect that I will now be waiting for 12 instead of reading it as the new stuff comes out.
Also having just watched this http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J5b3nsWT7u8 gotta go re-watch all that Otomo animation again and maybe some other things that feel like it.
That Spider-Man piece was right smack on the front page, first thing, when I checked out the Atlantic site. Congratulations!
The current theme music of my life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy3MDyDShRo
Bill Burr’s podcast is the truth. Everyone should listen to it.
I’m calling a Hawk and Dove crossover in Teen Titans before summer, because Raven’s re-design is too H&D for words. A bunch of comic book buyers have probably heard me geek out about this on multiple occasions over the past few weeks.
Batman and Sons and Little League are back, so that’s pretty cool also.
What have I been up to?
I’ve been reading or plan to read a lot of comic trades I’ve been meaning to get to and have time to do now as my Graduate College has graced us with Spring Break this week. Of course, I also have big projects for the school to do so it’s a balancing act. I’ve read the first Demon Knights trade though, intend to read the first Scarlet Spider TPB, and read, “The Furry Trap”and was sufficiently disturbed. Also, I recently acquired the first volume of the new Valiant’s Bloodshot series and am eager to dive into that, to name some of the books I want to read or have read. One of the reasons I’m reading all this is for my site which was kind of stagnat in February so I’m trying to do more writing as it is always fun to share my opinion even if no one else cares what it is.
Also, I keep watching the trailers for “Watchdogs” as that game looks incredible. The debut trailer from E3 2012 still amazes as does the newer one shown off when the PS4 was announced.
I’m addicted to pawn shows such as “Pawn Stars” or “Hardcore Pawn” as they are weirdly fascinating and impossible to stop watching.
As for monthly comics, I always read a bunch of those but have been encouraging everyone I know to pick up the new “X-Men Legacy” series as Si Spurrier is just killing it with the writing and Huat is a great artist too.
Music-wise I’ve been listening to Big Boi’s newest album and am sufficiently impressed by his talent whilst also wishing Andre and he would get together again and make a new album as OutKast is my favorite music group, ever.
That’s me lately, thanks for asking me/us to share!