High Tide

Stan Lee Explains Why He Isn’t Insulted by the Phrase F**k You

FRIDAY AFTERNOON IN THE UNIVERSE

Friday Afternoon in the Universe from Sean McClintock on Vimeo.

Voice Over: Jack Kerouac - Lucien Midnight Music: DJ Shadow - Second

Convenient Truths -- HOLY ROLLERS: THE TRUE STORY OF CARD COUNTING CHRISTIANS

This review originally ran on Comics Bulletin.

Sometimes the most universal truths can be found in the smallest slices of life. That’s what makes independent documentaries so powerful, engaging, and entertaining. Not only do they show you little worlds to which you’ve never had access, but they oftentimes also tell the larger story of what it means to be human. Armed with this intellectual conceit, a bag of Funyuns, and a couple of Miller beers, Daniel Elkin curls up in front of the TV and delves deep into the bowels of Netflix Streaming Documentaries to find out a little bit more about all of us.

Today he and his friend Jason Sacks found 2011's Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians directed by Bryan Storkel.

Elkin: Gambling is the Devil's playground, right? The path to hell is paved with playing cards, and Satan is always raising the stakes. A true Christian would never succumb to the vice of gambling and the depravity of the casino.

Or would he or she?

Can you make your livelihood playing blackjack and still be a Christian?

Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians is a documentary that explores this very question in an immersive, engaging and thought-provoking manner that raises questions of faith, fortune and fidelity. The film follows a group of young Evangelical Christians, pastors, congregants and believers, who banded together as part of a blackjack team that crisscrossed America using the mathematical advantage that card-counting provides to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from casinos. In a three-year period, the film examines how they are able to reconcile their livelihood with their faith, as well as explore the dynamics of the fraternity this business venture engendered and relied upon for its success.

Fight.

The Avatars of They - He's Loco (official video)

The Start of the Work Week.

SOMETHING ABOUT THIS... IT'S JUST SO SOOTHING....

Sunday Stands For Star Wars

Let Me Tell You About My Boat...

Review -- CREEPY SCARLETT VOLUME 1

This Review Originally Ran on Comics Bulletin

Creepy Scarlett Volume 1

(Graeme Buchan/Felipe Sanuea Marambio/Ozzy Longoria/J.C. Grantd/Jessica Jimerson)

Last Sunset

The solicitation for Creepy Scarlett Volume 1 points to an "ancient struggle" between an "eternal evil" called the Red Sun and Creepy Scarlett (along with her Teddy Bear, Mr. Ted) as they vie for possession of "a series of artifacts and the control of an untold power they combine to create." While certainly not a blaze across the sky idea or a ground breaking foundation for a narrative, in the right hands the book could be all kinds of crazy gonzo fun.

Unfortunately, these were not the right hands. 

Affecting Effective Effects

Fandom

Hyper Hyping the Hype, Damn......

Comics Review - THE ILLUSTRATED PRESS: CHICAGO

This review originally ran on Comics Bulletin

According to writer Darryl Holliday’s introduction to The Illustrated Press: Chicago, “Comics journalism has the potential to incite new ways of thinking about what non-fiction storytelling can be.” That’s what this 59 page collection of vignettes purports to be: Comics Journalism. In the book, Holliday and Nelson present illustrated urban stories that ordinarily aren’t covered by major news outlets. Here you’ll find stories of prison marriages, public chess tables, nuns picketing immigration detention centers, recent graduates understanding of the student debt crisis, and more. Holliday calls it “a cross section of city-life via conversations and stories.”

And that’s really what this is: quick objective flashes of reporting from all over Chicago accompanied by some pleasant illustrations which help flesh out the moments. Each little slice is documenting and, taken as a whole, it is a form of reportage. But there lacks a cohesive theme to the collection (other than everything happens in Chicago) and the artwork, while nice, is illustrative only. It does little in the way of enhancing the narrative other than providing a snapshot of the experience.

Series Review -- THE INFERNAL MAN-THING

This Review Originally Ran On Comics Bulletin

The Infernal Man-Thing mini-series is a posthumous work by the great Steve Gerber. It is a sequel to Gerber's fantastic “Song Cry of the Living Dead Man!” from The Man-Thing #12 (December, 1974). You may want to check out Jason and Daniel's reviews of Gerber's run on Man-Thing (Part 1 and Part 2) and before reading this review.

Daniel Elkin: Okay, Sacks, how weird was it reading Gerber from beyond the grave?

Jason Sacks: Depressing and weird and kind of exciting all at the same time

Daniel: My sentiments exactly. It was like, BOOM, there we were, right back into it, but it all seemed to be thick with a foreboding foretelling of the future for Gerber.

Jason: Gerber was clearly a really depressed, unhappy man based on this story, Which is so sad for me. For all his greatness, Steve never reached his full happiness and never achieved the success he hoped to achieve. At least that's a takeaway that I get from this story.