Tyger style

In the midst of looking for a couple Punisher issues from the first Barracuda storyline so I can get caught up, I found this Punisher: The Tyger one-shot from 2006 I hadn't read yet.

With the regular series we have Frank Castle defined as the Punisher in action. And while writer Garth Ennis' run will be known as a legendary one, and undoubtedly the best Punisher stuff ever, his moments outside the regular series in which he further defines how the Punisher came to be really stand out. Those being the Born miniseries and this Tyger one-shot.

Yeah, Castle's family was murdered by mobsters and he flipped a switch. But when the lights came on they powered by something there all along. In Born we saw its manifestation in Vietnam. The Tyger takes us back further, to the 10-year-old Castle in 1960s Brooklyn. He's already displaying skills he'll put to use as the Punisher, but it's the lessons learned, not necessarily the deeds done here, that inform the guy with the skull on his shirt.

Brian Wood was recently commenting on how Ennis would be leaving giant shoes to fill when he leaves the title, which will be soon (and that Wood wanted no part of attempting the filling). It's hard to imagine anyone else writing the Punisher at this point. Matt Fraction, who's writing the Punisher: War Journal series, might be a logical choice. I like Fraction, but haven't read War Journal, so don't have an opinion there. Assuming the title continues though, Marvel has a tough task.

Art on The Tyger was handled by awesome Punisher covers regular Tim Bradstreet, with interiors from comics legend John Severin (started in the business in the 1930s — wha?!?), whose pencils were pitch-right for this tale.

The Sword is the bomb

You're a talented art student, a paraplegic with a doting father, living a fairly idyllic life with a loving family. Sitting down to dinner one night the door bell rings. It's three strangers, they're addressing your dad by a weird name, they want to know where some sword is, and they'll use superpowers to devastating effect to find out.

The Sword is nuts, and really good through the first four issues. We still don't know the back story behind the bad guys, Dara's father and the sword she discovers, but getting there's the fun part.

Created by The Luna Brothers, the story is basically modern day fantasy with a lot of action thrown in. The art has a simple look, but pulls no punches on some graphic visuals. I mean, with a name like The Sword, you know you're getting some people cut in half right?

Though the art looks slightly pixelated, you can check out the first issue craziness here.

Behind The Wire

Creator David Simon offers some behind-the-scenes insight into making the best show on TV, The Wire. Turns out Baltimore's real life mayor and developers weren't big on the show. Shocker. Simon makes some compelling points on the value of the show, no matter what city it's set in. The fact New York City never seems to have a problem with crime-ridden projects based in the Big Apple, and support from most Baltimoreans — the mayor aside — seal his point.

Amazon reviews, a cautionary tale

Surfing around this morning I came across A Slate.com article wherein an author details his discovery of shenanigans in the Amazon review process. Not startling, but kind of disappointing and fairly annoying. Pretty pathetic too.

Not that I really pay much mind to the reviews, especially when it came to reviewers' rankings, etc. I typically don't surf around Amazon looking for stuff to blow money on, I'm there to get something I already know I want. And reviews can be helpful in comparing different DVD versions of the same movie, for example, detailing what features on on which. The only extended reading of reviews I recall centered on the various DVD versions of The Killer or Hard Boiled, can't remember.

Obviously with the anonymous postings, anyone can write reviews — publicists, the authors themselves. You know that going in. But clearly some of these regular reviewers are cooking the books, so to speak. Averaging 45 book reviews a week? Uh, yeah, OK. Maybe this guy could pull that off, but otherwise you'd need time to eat and breathe, no?

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Connecting the dots

The dots, in this case, could be the approximate decade between the end of the initial punk movement and the rise of Nirvana and mainstream, MTV-frequenting alternative music. The dots could also be the substantial periods of time elapsed between my tackling of chapters in Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991.

My brother-in-law Andy lent me a first edition, published in 2001, either that year or in 2002 while vacationing with family in Sea Isle City, N.J. I'm pretty sure I knocked out the first two chapters on Black Flag and the Minutemen down the shore, but it was the summer of 2006, waiting for the PECO man to turn on electricity and gas in my new apartment, before I finished the third chapter on Mission of Burma. It was more than another year before I determined to finish, and another shore vacation and a New England trip via train offered the opportunity.

Far from a tough read though, once you start you want to keep proceeding from band to band. Thinking I had to allot the time for such an effort may have kept me from picking it up sooner. Luckily, Azerrad keeps noting the connections and citing history as the paths of the bands overlap. So some time between reading doesn't hurt too bad.

While I think Nirvana was great, the band wasn't blazing new ground. They were there with the right sound at the right time. They wouldn't have been there without the bands chronicled in Our Band, however. They were blazing the trails, not only musically, but also in establishing national touring circuits, their own distribution methods and, maybe most importantly, creating a lasting community based in the music. Punks most media outlets forgot about with the Sex Pistols done, the advent of MTV, and more easily reported stories to cover.

In his introduction Azerrad acknowledges there were many more bands, labels etc. that made significant contributions in the discussed time period, but he narrowed his focus to the best and most influential bands. Aside from the three already mentioned, he covers Minor Threat, Husker Du, the Replacements, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr., Fugazi, Muddhoney and Beat Happening.

I'd read or seen a good deal about Black Flag, Minor Threat and Fugazi, and their presence in this book no doubt confirmed my interest in it. But I probably most enjoyed the chapters on the bands lesser-known to me, and those I only knew by name. And in the case of Butthole Surfers, a band I really had no interest in reading about. The Surfers chapter however, including an account of a raving drunk Gibby Haynes at a Netherlands festival, is not to be missed. Those guys are nuts.

The thoroughly researched parts make an entertaining whole, and the importance and impact of the bands discussed is continually emphasized. You can't help but be awed at the artistic feats and cultural accomplishments of these young men and women, but with any writing about punk bands, it's the minutia of the van rides and barely attended gigs that provide the most entertainment.

Guess I can give the book back now.

What it's all about

By 2007 it had been years since I read a traditional book (non-graphic novel, though those and numerous unread comics were piling up as well). I knew I was not reading enough, but it was not until I committed to finishing a long ago started, but never finished book over a few days at the Jersey shore and a trip to New England that I rediscovered the joy of long-form written word.

With the hunger back, I resolved to read much more in 2008. And this blog is dedicated to that effort. So more books, but as all reading can be informative and entertaining, I'll also be talking up comic books, magazines, newspapers, blogs — anything I'm reading.

The name of this blog is just a name. Other possibly more clever names were thought up and discarded, usually because someone else already had a blog by that name (though they typically hadn't posted anything). The final name is a nod to the Time Enough At Last episode of The Twilight Zone.