Buy my comics, make me rich: CATWOMAN #81

This is (almost) it, kids, the penultimate issue of CATWOMAN. (At least by me and for now). It's an action-packed one, with Selina pulling off a penthouse heist, a truly nasty villain and a guest appearance by that guy starring in the billion-dollar blockbuster now playing at a theater near you. Here's the cover, by Adam Hughes, as always...

Interior art, also as always, is supplied by the exquisite team of David Lopez and Alvaro Lopez, with colors by Jeromy Cox and letters from Jared K. Fletcher. And, as long as running the credits, Nachie Castro edited the whole thing.

Comments? As always, bring 'em here -- and be sure to stop by a month from now for the final issue.

But when that clock strikes midnight, and I'm all by myself...

For no reason whatsoever, here's a vintage clip from my youth: the video version of "Junk Food Junkie" as performed by Art Lofredo and shown on the old HOOLIHAN AND BIG CHUCK show on Cleveland's channel 8, sometime late at night in the mid 1970s...



If you're not from there and then, this probably means virtually nothing to you. Want to know more? Go here. Otherwise, just enjoy the song!

A few observations about that WATCHMEN trailer...

As you might have heard, a trailer for a little movie called WATCHMEN preceded showings of THE DARK KNIGHT, and it was all over the Web even sooner. (I got my copy at this site.) Here are a few things I noticed...

Billy Crudup is in this movie? Why didn't I know this? Maybe it's because he's playing the big blue naked guy. Either way, I've always liked Crudup. I hope they at least used his voice and mannerisms.

Speaking of the big blue naked guy, is he 100 feet tall in this scene like he is in the comic? I sure hope so. (And I notice he's not naked here, but that's true to the comic, too.)

I'm impressed -- they even included the beauty mark next to Laurie's eye!

Twin Towers are still standing, but then again, it is the 1980s. Or a parallel universe where "God is an American." Or both.

Are we going to be able to tell who that shadowy figure is tossing that surprisingly fit old man out the window? I hope not, because that's like the major mystery of the entire story.

Old Nixon on a bank of TV with the smartest man in the world standing in the foreground? I guess we know when this scene takes place, eh kids?

I'm no fan of overdone computer effects, but really -- how else where they going to make this scene happen. I just hope that somehow, they keep the smiley face intact.

I showed this to a few guys who read the book and they were damn jazzed. I showed it to people who'd never heard of the book and had no idea what it was about, and they were jazzed. Could be a good sign.

A lifetime of questionable music choices, Side B

And here's part two of the list of my favorite album for every year since I was born. (Original Onion AV Club inspiration here, Wikipedia resource for making your own list here.)

1989: "Doolittle," The Pixies (narrowly edging out "Automatic," The Jesus and Mary Chain) --"Debaser" and "Wave of Mutilation" alone earn this one the spot, but the rest of the cuts are pretty choice, too.

1990: "Third Eye," Redd Kross (narrowly edging out "Flood," They Might Be Giants) -- One of the great unheraled pop masterpieces of all time. Catchy as hell, endlessly rockin' and, as a bonus, with a song professing love to a character from PLANET OF THE APES ("Zira"). Whatever happened to these guys?

1991: "Trompe le Monde," The Pixies -- Diehard fans may disagree, but I'd argue that, song for song, this the best Pixies album. Each track is full of go-for-broke energy that suggests the band knew it was headed for the big breakup while they were recording it. And, as a bonus, the disc has a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Head On" from 1989's "Automatic."

1992: "It's a Shame About Ray," The Lemonheads -- Maybe not the greatest year in the history of recorded music, but this album was pretty good. I especially like "Allison's Starting to Happen," with the line "She's the puzzle piece behind the couch that makes the sky complete." Now that, my friends, is great pop songwriting.

1993: On the Mouth, "Superchunk" (narrowly edging out "Our Bodies Our Selves," The Mr. T Experience) -- My love for Superchunk, my favorite band of the modern era, started when my pal Rob duped me this album. Great, great stuff.

1994: "Teenager of the Year," Frank Black (narrowly edging out "Dookie," Green Day, "Weezer" and "Foolish," Superchunk, and "Let's Go," Rancid) -- Hell of a year for music, but this disc from former Pixies frontman Frank Black (aka Black Francis) is truly great and has a solid spot in my all-time top 10. At the moment, my favorite song is "White Noise Maker," but that could change. They're all good.

1995: "... And Out Come the Wolves," Rancid (narrowly edging out "Here's Where the Strings Come in," Superchunk) -- "Let's Go" was good, but the boys in Rancid pulled out all stops on this disc. Long, jam-packed and endlessly entertaining.

1996: "Fountains of Wayne" -- Finally, classic pop music makes a triumphant return. They didn't get their radio hit until "Stacy's Mom," but this album made it obvious that the Fountains were something special

1997: "Spice," The Spice Girls -- Sue me. It wasn't a great year for music, and this is still a good album. And yes, it's all loaded up on the iPod.

1998: "Life Won't Wait," Rancid -- Lacking the free-for-all fun of "... And Out Come the Wolves," this one's a more serious effort, but still full of great songs. Sort of their "London Calling," if you know what I mean.

1999: "Loud, Fast and Out of Control" -- Is it a punt to pick a four-disc set of music from the 1950s? Probably, but listening to this Rhino collection of early rock over and over (and over and over) spoiled modern music for me for months. Nothing could compare to the crazed energy of these cuts.

2000: "Tsar" -- If there were any justice in this world, Tsar would be the biggest band on the planet. As things stand, though, they're just a little-know group of pop rockers who've released two nearly perfect albums so far. This one slows down a bit toward the end, but until then it's nothing but sensational, highlighted by the shoulda-been-a-hit "Kathy Fong is the Bomb."

2001: "Tenacious D" -- Damned funny, and it rocks. Even the non-musical cuts are amusing. I know a guy who was disappointed it didn't have the acoustic sound of the HBO performances, but isn't the whole point of Tenacious D to go as far over the top as possible? Yes. Yes it is.

2002: "Spend the Night," The Donnas -- Maybe it's not a classic, but there's nothing like a girl group who really knows how to cut loose.

2003: "Elephant," The White Stripes (edging out "Welcome Interstate Managers," Fountains of Wayne and "The Electric Version," The New Pornographers) -- Pretty good year for music, with releases by perennial favorites the Fountains and the New Pornographers, but if you ask me, this is where Jack and Meg White really found their sound. Wish I could find my copy of the disc.

2004: "American Idiot," Green Day (edging out "Scissor Sisters" and "Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi") -- One of the best albums of the last 10 years, at least. I remember how "Smile," the long-awaited Beach Boys album got a sort-of release that year, and try as I did to see the reputed brilliance in those tracks, I kept coming back to "American Idiot," which I really did sound like a masterpiece. Still does, in fact.

2005: "Band Girls Money," Tsar -- Finally, Tsar returns with an album that's louder, faster, crunchier and even better? -- yes, better -- than their debut. Where's No. 3, guys?

2006: "The Black Parade," My Chemical Romance -- I've rarely felt as out of touch when I wandered into my local Borders, pushing my daughter's stroller, and bought this disc that everyone else had been listening to for months and months. I'm glad I did, though -- it's damned good.

2007: Did I even buy a new CD last year? I don't think I did. Boy, am I old.

2008: "Stop Drop and Roll," The Foxboro Hot Tubs -- Still half a year to go, but so far it's the best thing I've heard. It's really Green Day, in case you didn't know. Nice retro design, too.

So that's it. Sort of a lame ending, I'll admit, but that's what happens. Next I'll do movies, and I promise that should remain interesting right up to the last listing.

A terrifying peek into the past!

Side B of my year-by-year musical retrospective is coming soon, but in the meantime please to enjoy this vintage photo from 1994...

It features yours truly (on the left, skinnier and with goofier hair), artist extraordinaire Hilary Barta (center, looking virtually the same) and MANHUNTER writer Marc Andreyko (right, more hair) debating some arcane point of comics trivia.

My ol' pal Jill Thompson sent it my way and thinks it was taken at a New Year's Eve party in Chicago hosted by her then-not-yet husband Brian Azzarello. The event, if memory serves me, was highlighted by a burning Christmas tree being tossed off the top of a building.

Ah, the holidays!

A lifetime of questionable musical choices, Side A

At a temporary loss for blog post ideas (after all, the choice movie stuff goes here, and I can only write so much about THE TWO COREYS), I stumbled onto this Onion AV Club entry and decided I might as well steal it. So here, for everyone who was dying to know, are my favorite albums for each year since I was born.

I tried to be honest here, and not just pick the most significant, critically acclaimed or just plain cool. There's no Fab Four, Stones or Dylan on this list, for instance. And believe me, I'm as surprised as anyone to see REM take the title two years in a row. (Before their long decline -- which began with side 2 of "Document," in case you're curious.)

This is part one, by the way. I'm an old, old man now, and will need two rambling blog entries to encompass all my years on this planet. Tune in tomorrow (or soon) for years 1989 through 2008. I'll warn you ahead of time: The last few years are going to be tough, because like all aging former hipsters, I no longer buy much new music. It's all noise!

If you decide to make your own list, let me know in the comments section, OK? And if you're looking for a resource for what albums dropped (as the kids say) in what year, check out this link. Standard Wikipedia warning -- it might not be completely correct.

1967: "The Velvet Underground and Nico" -- Screw "Sgt. Pepper." The Velvets and I debuted the same year, and I still love this album. Before I even owned it, I used to listen to it in the student union at Kent State. This was so long ago, incidentally, that it was an actual LP. Two sides!

1968: "The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society" -- I'vc always loved the Kinks, and this album is a widely acknowledged high point. They'll show up later in the list, with a much less widely acknowledged high point.

1969: ""The Stooges" -- If you need proof of the greatness of this album (and you really shouldn't), watch LOCK, STOCK & TWO SMOKING BARRELS and see how amazingly effective the instrumental opening of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is used when our hero learns he's lost a fortune in a poker game. Then listen to the album, so you can hear Iggy's tormented vocals. (Narrowly edging out "Johnny Cash at San Quentin," by the way, and I mean narrowly)

1970: "Back in the USA," The MC5 (narrowly edging out "Fun House," The Stooges) -- I prefer this stripped-down sound to the previous year's rougher-edged "Kick Out the Jams." "Teenage Lust," The American Ruse" and "The Human Being Lawnmower" are great originals, and their cover of Chuck Berry's title cut makes me -- no kidding -- proud to be an American. I wish it was the national anthem.

1971: "Hunky Dory," David Bowie -- With this album...

1972: "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars," David Bowie (narrowly edging out "#1 Record," Big Star) -- and this one, you've got some of the best rock 'n' roll of the modern era. Manages to sound classic and ahead of its time all at once, even 35-plus years later.

1973: "The New York Dolls" -- An all-time favorite, with a rock-solid place in my personal top 10. I can still remember the first time I heard a cut off it, when a surprisingly imaginative DJ played "Personality Crisis" at a bar in Akron (and this was in the late '80s). My roommate loaned me his copy, then I bought a used LP as soon as I could. Not a bum cut to be found.

1974: "Greatest Hits," Alice Cooper -- Best greatest hits collection ever? Quite possibly. With all the flash and trash, you forget how great Alice Cooper was at crafting pop songs.

1975: "The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!," The Dictators -- Punk before punk, and a hell of a lot of fun.


1976: "The Modern Lovers" -- Another album lodged in my top ten, and one that just might take that coveted top spot, if push comes to shove. Insanely catchy, endlessly fascinating. "1-2-3-4-5-6..."

1977: "Rocket to Russia," The Ramones -- Where the Ramones really became the Ramones. "Cretin Hop," "Rockaway Beach," "Teenage Lobotomy," "We're a Happy Family," the cover of "Surfin' Bird" and, best of all, "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker," one of the greatest pop songs ever written.

1978: "Are We Not Men? We Are Devo" -- One of my first musical loves, before the Ramones or Replacements, was this group from nearby Akron. I still remember mom walking into the living room when my little brother and I were watching the video for "Whip It" on MTV, and immediately shutting off the set.

1979: "London Calling," The Clash -- Yes, this is the year the UK version debuted, but who's counting? I didn't hear either version until the mid 1980s anyway. Another top ten candidate.

1980: "Back in Black," ACDC -- Like you don't own it. Please. One of the great rock albums of all time.

1981: "Give the People What They Want," The Kinks -- Most people ignore late-period Kinks, but I've always thought this album ranked among their best. It's sort of a theme album, with the theme being "boy, the world is a miserable place." Songs -- catchy as hell -- cover such heartwarming topics as media conspiraces, apathy, boredom, murder, child abduction, greed and domestic abuse. And Lola makes a cameo appearance.

1982: "1999," Prince -- Remember how revolutionary this double LP sounded back in the early 1980s? There was nothing else quite like it.

1983: "Subterranean Jungle," The Ramones (narrowly edging out "Hootnenany," The Replacements) -- Some great covers ("Little Bit of Soul," "Time Has Come Today") and unjustly forgotten originals (Joey's "Every time I Eat Vegetables, It Makes Me Think of You" and Dee Dee's spacey, oddly touching "Highest Trails Above.")


1984: "Let It Be," The Replacements -- Just look at that cover, one of the greatest in rock history. And then remember that the cuts inside -- including "Favorite Thing," "Unsatisfied" and "Answering Machine" -- are even better.

1985: "Fables of the Reconstruction," R.E.M. -- A friend of mine liked R.E.M. a couple of discs before I did, but eventually I caught on and picked up whatever was available. (Actually I taped copies of his albums.) I'd forgotten how strong this one is: "Can't Get There From Here" is the cut everyone remembers, but "Driver 8" is a minor classic at the very least.

1986: "Lifes Rich Pageant," REM -- And this album is even better. "I Believe," "Begin the Begin," (a Cole Porter pun I completely missed in college) and "Cuyahoga" are great tracks, but "Hyena" is my personal favorite. And then there's that cover of "Superman" that showed up in one of the Grant Morrison's issues of ANIMAL MAN.

1987: "Pleased to Meet Me," The Replacements (narrowly edging out "Appetite for Destruction," Guns N Roses and "Sister," Sonic Youth) -- Another top ten candidate, and the album, more than any other, that I associate with the great, goofy times I had at college. Full of great cuts -- and speaking of comic books, it's even quoted in an issue of "Love and Rockets." (Ray and company are listening to "Valentine.")

1988: "Daydream Nation," Sonic Youth -- I loved the previous year's "Sister," so when my roommate got a freelance gig with Alternative Press and learned he'd be reviewing the new Sonic Youth album, we were damned excited. The copy we got was actually on cassette (!), but it sounded great, and still sounds swell two decades later. I saw Sonic Youth in Cleveland on the Daydream Nation tour and actually bumped into Kim Gordon (literally) on the way to get a beer. Fascinating story, eh? You bet.

If you ever respected me, get ready to change your mind

With the summer rerun season in full swing, the only new shows I've been watching are SWINGTOWN, RENO 911 and my favorite (I'm not proud to say), THE TWO COREYS. I've never been a fan of either Feldmen or Haim, but I am a fan of failed former stars ("Stars"? Really?) caught in a perpetual nosedive, and that bill is certainly fit here, by Haim if not technically by Feldman, who seems to have achieved some sort of relatively stable and comfortable mediocrity, even though he has no acting roles (except, of course, for this show.)

I thought the first season was swell, what with the faked and forced ODD COUPLE setup, with Haim living with the Feldmans, causing comedic chaos with his sloppy ways and irresponsible attitude. But -- and again, I stress that I'm not proud of this -- I find the current season has taken a quantum leap entertainment-wise, mostly because it's shaping up to be a dark drama, not just a wacky comedy. Haim is apparently near the end of his rope, and all the sessions he and Feldman are having with their shockingly irresponsible therapist are building up to trouble. I can't wait to see the upcoming episode when the straight-to-video sequel to the (should have been straight-to-video) LOST BOYS finally starts shooting, and Haim apparently loses it. Try being that compelling, SWINGTOWN!

And, like any work of modern art, THE TWO COREYS has a video game tie-in. Don't believe me? Just click here to play this...


Personally, I like playing as Haim. His bitter resentment, which has had the chance to curdle over the years of no acting roles and no Stuff Magazine-ready wife, fuels some suh-weet finishing moves. And if you've seen the show, you know he's got the sort of twitchy energy you see in a guy stuck in a room counting the seconds 'til he can go outside and score. (I'm not saying Haim is counting those seconds, but you know what I mean.) That sort of nervous, anxious personality is perfect for the fast attacks and quick dodges of a video game.

Go ahead. Watch. Then play. Please. I don't want to be alone in my shame.

Buy my comics, make me rich: BLUE BEETLE #28

Here it is, the second in my two-issue run of one of the best pure super-hero books on the shelves, BLUE BEETLE. In addition to the usual thrills and spills, this issue features a couple of flashbacks to the career of the first Blue Beetle (that'd be Dan Garrett, not Ted Kord) and artist Davide Baldeón (with inks by Steve Bird) does a beautiful job of nailing that Golden Age style in all its crude glory.

Here, by the way, is the cover (courtesy of Rafael Albuquerque), so you know what you're looking for on Wednesday.

As usual, any comments, questions, etc, bring 'em here.