shut up, bacon
But first!
THE MEAT
It is Thanksgiving week and once again I travel, though my schedule is unusual this time around: I fly out on turkey day, and roam my wasteland home for a week of fun and trenchcoats. Thus, I may not update the comic until after the 3rd of December, when I return, delirious from tryptophan and airports. Until then, two comics, one of which I have just issued forth and the other to come late Wednesday.
TOWARDS A BETTER RETRO
The latest buried ‘80s artifact to hit my viewing queue, which I submit for your retro night consideration, is Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains. What the hell for, you ask? Honestly because to this day whenever Kathleen Hanna or a member of Sleater-Kinney points at something and says “that made me who I am” Pavlov cranks my head around and there I go spending money again. In any case I approve. I mean, no, the movie doesn’t exactly work or anything, but honestly? I had more fun watching this than re-watching Ghostbusters a while back – so it gets the retro party stamp of approval. Highlights:
• Diane Lane (yup) carrying the film as the most pissed-off teenager I’ve ever seen in an ‘80s movie (seriously, J.D. is a distant second. Somewhat off topic I finally saw The Professional a couple weeks ago and what do you know they were right Natalie Portman was really really good in something)
• wrapping your head around the satire of the music scene in… exactly... 1981: This band is a mashup of KISS and Rush! Old, busted! That band is basically The Clash! Wise, cool! (“That band” is actually good and contains actual historical punk rockers.) That other band is basically The Talking Heads or R.E.M. or some flaky college shit! But they all completely rock compared to Fall Out Boy! Boggling! Can’t we all just get along?
• even weirder, wrapping your head around the satire of top-down mass-culture circa 1981: it seemed like such a juggernaut even a few years ago, but now you look at the events that transpire in this movie and think, jeez, you’d get 200,000 hits on Youtube for that. And disorientation makes for retro!
• totally guaranteed to go over the heads of retro movie fun watchers circa now: I am pretty sure that the end of the movie is supposed to be an aesthetic catastrophe. Videos were selling out, people!
All in all slot it in your retro movie night maybe after some comfort food like Sixteen Candles or Rambo or whatever. Tons of “focks” and tons of see-through blouses, but really, are you looking at Nobody Scores! for kid-safe recommendations? See. Fun.
THE LINKSLUT EDITION
One of the benefits of running a website with a readership that exists is that, instead of having to always go out and find websites you’d be interested in, you can watch your referral logs, see what websites link to you, and go visit them on the theory that you might have some common interest of some sort, and what do you know it works. Things I’ve found:
MIGHTYGODKING – I think you have to use all caps for the title – is a worthy pop culture blog from which I have nicked a considerable number of amusing links. Especially notable for the amusement-making parody cover art that pops up from time to time.
You’ll never find the link to Nobody Scores! in the jungle here, but it exists at This Recording, where – and it’s hard to tell how actual the professional-magazine-staff conceit is, here, though I vote “imaginary” – various writers generate link-heavy pop culture book reports just about every single freaking day. The site also has the most extensively catholic blogroll I’ve found anywhere ever. Kill time!
I believe the owner of this blog comments here, and the blog features repeated positive plugs for this here cartoon experience, so this is surely the linksluttiest of all my slutty links. Nevertheless, now that I am properly suited up (why did I remember that scene?) I wanted to point out This Week in Webcomics as a nice example of amateur webcomics press that focuses on reading comics, and having comics mean something, and it’s a nice thing to focus on, especially because reading about the “industry” awakens my inner punk rocker and I WANT TO BURN SHIT DOWN BURN IT ALL and what do motherfuckers want to talk about? The industry. Here’s the industry. Over here you have some dudes selling self-published books and t-shirts. Over there, there’s Penny Arcade. And over there? That guy in the Dark Horse booth, right? DIFFERENT INDUSTRY NOW SUCKAS. There, there is all the industry news that is interesting.
Finally we have a webcomic, Journey to Mt. Moriah, which started off a little before Nobody Scores! did, initially (it seems) chasing after Perry Bible Fellowship, but soon enough branching off into different types of stories and different comic forms. Funny funny sometimes, meditative sometimes, sometimes in the middle – worth a look.
AND STFU BACON
Obviously you can talk about whatever you want in the comment box. May I suggest: foods that are better than bacon? It’s true, I am known to eat a bacon with an egg or a tomato sandwich. But, internet, please. I need to find me some early ‘90s rap that’s all about not eating the pork, because, damn. Fuck a bacon!