Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - HIGGS BOSON BLUES

Shot by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, FILMED live on location at London’s Three Mills Studios featuring : Cave, Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos, Barry Adamson and Martyn Casey.

Wind

WIND from robert loebel on Vimeo.

Review -- MANIFEST #1

Manifest #1

(Josh Self / Orlando Rivera II / Sam Wohl / Jeff Nitzberg / Orlando Rivera II)

Manifest takes as its impetus the idea that the things we imagine can become real. That sounds nice, right, the classic dream of youth? How many of us as young men and women thick with inner lives full of vibrant colors and undulating sounds haven't sat back and thought, if only, if only...

But in the pages of Manifest, writers Josh Self and Orlando Rivera II take our childhood ruminations and put a dark twist on what should be sparkly dreamings.

According to the solicitation, “The story of Manifest chronicles a group called The Hourglass who upon death can manifest their imaginations into reality.” What manifests in Manifest, though, aren't lemon scented cherubs or chimpanzees named Adam who are all ears to your ill-formed feelings of loneliness (long story, that); rather, there's some nasty-ass shit spewing out of people's heads – things big and abominable and vicious. They're kinda like those beasts inhabiting your base squealing fears, only in this book it's like they're made of boardwalk salt-water taffy.

At times there is a face. At times there isn't. It's hard to tell where it starts and where it ends.

Tag Team Review: MIXTAPE #4

Daniel and Jason have been reviewing all four issues thus far of Brad Abraham's comic Mixtape, which revives all kinds of memories of music and passion, growth and nostalgia. This time they look atMixtape #4. For previous tracks on this album, look here, here and here.

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Jason Sacks: Okay, Mixtape #4 is the story of Siobhan King...

Daniel Elkin: Yea, we're back in late 1990, back in Garrison Creek.

Brad Abraham gathers the gang in Mixtape #4, thus pulling together all the disparate threads of the series so far. But Siobhan is the focus; Siobhan having returned from Europe a changed girl has to figure out how she fits into her old life and if she even can.

Sacks: Or if she even wants to... the girls who seemed like cool and interesting real friends end up being cold, nasty, backbiting bitches.

Elkin: Gossip girls -- how nasty they can be, full of rumor and innuendo:

"Pulling a train for drinks from College Guys" -- that's some serious slander.

Siobhan has gained self-awareness – that as things have remained in stasis back home, she has transformed.

Sacks: She's grown and they've stayed the same. That's the magic of getting out of town and having new experiences.

Elkin: And the first step to her finding her new self is not only gathering among other independent souls (geeks and losers and outcasts), but also finding the soundtrack to her new life.

Sacks: Her own soundtrack for her own life - so true

Review -- Tim Gibson's MOTH CITY #6

Moth City #6

(Tim Gibson)

I keep coming back to Tim Gibson's Moth City as there keeps being more to say about it, which is a testament to its conception as much as its execution. Issue six of this eight issue series has just hit the digital "stands" (as it were), and this one had me choking as it wrapped its fingers across my throat. Moth City has been a brutal series. As it careens towards its conclusion, though, the depravity of its brutality becomes far more than just two words with a nice end rhyme. When the acts of the living are more horrifying than those of the undead, you're treading on some thick moral carpet. Perhaps it is lime green shag and it hasn't been vacuumed in awhile. You don't expect me to sleep on that do you? I have allergies, and I fear what is certainly sloughed off therein.

As a storyteller, Gibson continues to demonstrate his command of his medium and his unique digital niche therein. His story unfolds like the linen your grandmother kept on the top of the closet for the “good guests”, creased but special, important and soft, tough but lace delicate.

There's the requisite action here, but this is really not an action comic, and, to be honest, Gibson draws a lousy fight scene. What propels Moth City #6 are the jarring moments when people do unspeakable things to those they hate, but more so, to those they love.

Review -- SHADOWMAN #13

Shadowman #13

(Peter Milligan / Roberto de la Torre / David Baron / Dave Lanphear / Alejandro Arbona; Valiant)

The Blood. The Vomit. The Bodies. In the world of Shadowman, if you're Jack Boniface, you've got some problems. First off, you've got violent psychotic tendencies and you're possessed by the Shadowman Loa. Next, the people who are supposed to be on your side, the Abettors ... well, now they want to kill you.

What you need is a Mambo, a punk rock backwoods priestess whose spirit guide is Sid Vicious and whose ritual of separation involves sniffing glue.

Oh, and one more thing, “Before she helps you... she'll want a human skull.”

The World Outside My Window

Your Chicken Bop Enemy -- The Fun Won't Stop

Blade Runner - The Aquarelle Edition

Numbers -- Your Chicken Enemy

Review -- LOUD COMIX 1

Loud Comix 1

(Frankie Nowhere / Erika Lane / Sonny Joe Harlan / Alan King / Jamie Vayda)

Published by Birdcage Bottom Books, Loud Comix 1 is a collection of “tales of glory, humiliation, terror, and the abnormal” written by a group of leading lights from the Southern Punk Rock scene: Sonny Joe Harlan (Murder Junkies, Shitcan Dirtbag, The Sonny Joe Harlan Band), Frankie Nowhere (The Chumps, Eastside Suicides, Faster Disasters, Flash Boys), Erika Lane (DISAPpointed PARents, Early Graves, KILLZALL, The Stovebolts) and Alan King (Hellstomper, Polecat Boogie Revival, The Beer Drinking Christians).

Review -- Frank Candiloro's BEYOND THE MOON

Beyond The Moon

(Frank Candiloro)

Frank Candiloro may be the most prolific self-publishing comic creator around. In the interim since I last reviewed two is Australian work ethic (if there is such a thing), maybe it's the epic number of stories he has flying around in his head that urge him to get them all down while there's still time, maybe he doesn't need to spend any of his time on such mundane things as eating or sleeping or watching reruns of Home and Away.

 

Anyway, one of his three new books is Beyond The Moon. This comic begins with a quote from Georges Melies, the director of the famous 1902 film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune), "My friends, I address you all tonight as you truly are; wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, magicians... Come and dream with me." Though these words may start this story, they are the last words seen, as the rest of this is a silent comic – a story told all in pictures. As an homage to silent movies, this makes sense as an artistic choice. It also provides an opportunity for Candiloro to experiment with the storytelling possibilities of his unique cartooning.

 

Tuesday...

Review -- POOP OFFICE 2

Poop Office #2

(Ben Pooped)

Well, here's a sentence I never thought I would ever write. “It's been awhile since I last checked in with what was going down at the Poop Office.” Remember when I found myself asking the question, “Has Ben Pooped written a 21st century update of Kafka's Metamorphosis?”

After reading issue two of Poop Office, I need to change that question to: “Has Ben Pooped written a Dadaist manifesto of survival in the bureaucratic structure inherent in modern life?”

My answer to this newly worded question is an unequivocal yes.

Sure Poop Office #2 still makes references to the use of “Compooters” to send “Peemails”, but where issue #1 focused on this sort of humor, issue #2 is all about absurdity.  Ben Pooped is telling us that in order to have a chance of thriving in a world gone to shit, we must recast ourselves as turds, assimilate into the bowels of the social order, congeal our impurities, and be defecated back into the system. Otherwise we would go mad.

Poets You Should Know -- Louise Mathias

I was introduced to this poet through Poem-A-Day from The Academy of American Poets.

Louise Mathias's most recent book of poems is The Traps (Four Way Books, 2013). She lives in Joshua Tree, California, a small town in the Mojave desert.