The Funny Papers

Every week for the past month I've gone to Austin Books & Comics and there's only be one of my regular books new on the shelf, or one new book I've decided to pick up. This could only mean one thing: some week soon, I'd end up with a shit load of books all out at once. This was that week.

I came away from the store with no less than 6 new books today, all of them more or less regulars with the exception of one impulse buy. So what did I get?

Wasteland #30 - Antony Johnston / Christopher Mitten / Remington Veteto
It is a bittersweet circumstance that this comic has been coming out less and less frequently since it first hit the scene several years ago. I've been on board since issue 1 and I'm always eager to consume a new issue. The fact is simply that the book's writer, Antony Johnston, has been in high demand and while Wasteland is his labor of love, I get the feeling it doesn't quite pay the bills. Luckily he's got work at Marvel and oh ... he wrote the script for the first Dead Space game as well. Still, it's nice to get a new issue of Wasteland. As a story he's had in his head since he was a teenager, I don't think he'll be letting it go anytime soon. It would be nice to see more than a few new issues a year, but whatever he and Chris need to do in order to put out a quality book is fine by me.

Incognito: Bad Influences #3 - Ed Brubaker / Sean Phillips
This is the second series for Incognito, a sort of noir/hard boiled take on the anti-superhero genre. It's rare that I get into superhero stuff these days, but as Incognito is self-contained and takes a nice twist with it's crime drama edge, I've been into it.

The Amory Wars: In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth 3 #8 - Claudio Sanchez / Peter David / Aaron Kuder
Yes, this is the comic book adaptation of the story in the Coheed & Cambria albums. I understand that there is limited appeal here, but as a huge Coheed fan this falls squarely in my wheelhouse. Honestly, since Claudio paired up with veteran scribe Peter David, the books have gotten a lot better. I think David imposes an improved sense of pacing and fleshed out detail in the dialog that Claudio was missing in the previous series. As the album we know the least about (in terms of official story explanations) it's been a treat for me to see the tales behind the songs illustrated for the first time with In Keeping Secrets.

Unwritten #22 - Mike Carey / Peter Gross / Vince Locke
I don't remember why I first picked this book up several years ago, but I did and what at first seemed like a Harry Potter satire with a real world twist, turned into something much more. Tom Taylor is a real world adult. Tommy Taylor is the boy wizard in his estranged father's best-selling novels. Tom wants as little to do with Tommy as possible, even though fans of the book revere him as much as his namesake. But what if Tom and Tommy are the same person? What if the story became a real person? That seems to be the initial concept behind the whole plot and we still don't know for sure that Tommy and Tom are one and the same. All we do know is that in Unwritten, stories are much more than they seem and there are those who may have been using the power of stories to manipulate the real world for a very long time. Is Tom the key to unraveling the mystery or is he a pawn in a bigger game? This is what keeps me coming back every month. This is DC/Vertigo quality in the tradition of Sandman and Trensmetropolitan. Go read it ... now!

Northlanders #37 - Brian Wood / Simon Gane
When this book started it seemed like Brian Wood writing DMZ except set in medieval Norway. I think he's since grown with the series and now feels much more at home in this time period. Northlanders isn't one big story, but rather multiple stories all set in roughly the same time and place: medieval Europe. It's got a definite pulp feel to it and I think that's something Wood has really embraced as the series has grown. What initially seemed like another set of stories about angst-y teens and 20-somethings fighting against "the man" has turned into a varied collection of tales running the gamut from action to drama, with even a little comedy sprinkled therein. It's just good, brutal fun, and who doesn't like vikings?

Deus Ex: Human Revolution #1 - Robbie Morrison / Trevor Hairsine
I usually don't by movie, TV, or video game tie in comics. Usually these books end up being nothing more than advertisement, typically handed off the the new guys to rush out the door. I don't know that this book is the same deal, but it looked decent enough (good art, not too wordy ... as is often the case with these types of books)
and I hunger for any information I can get about the world of the new Deus Ex game. It's a great fiction that was created in that universe and any reason to go back there is worth the price of admission.

The King is Dead

I've listened to The Decemberists latest album The King is Dead several times now and find that it's been growing on me each time. What at first I mistook for a return to a pre Crane Wife sound has actually turned out to be something else. Certainly the foibles of The Crane Wife are not to be found here much in the same way as they were absent from 2008's The Hazards of Love, but there is something else going on here as well, something new, but familiar.

Much had been said about this album before it released about the band moving to a more stripped down sound, but in comparison to the intricacy of The Hazards of Love almost anything else by The Decemberists might be considered "stripped down". Still there is a sense of a return to basics here, maybe not so much in the music (this is very much a multi-instrument album), but perhaps in the presentation of the album itself. I think what's struck me most about the album however is a certain maturity in the songs.

The Decemberists have always been a band with it's tongue set firmly in their collective cheeks much of the time, whether singing songs about whoring mothers, whalers, or chimney sweeps. While it is very much the aesthetic of the band and certainly within Colin Meloy's purview to be writing about subjects that would have been considered fodder for pop music standards in the early 1900's, there is still a certain silliness that came with earlier Decemberists releases. With The King is Dead I feel as if they've momentarily shirked the silliness for a bit of folksy maturity. This is not to say that this is an overly serious album and it's obvious they're still having fun, but it's almost as if they've taken a break from the cheekiness of the past to write and play an album of folk rock standards.

Personally I find the end result to be just as satisfying as any of their other albums, but somehow much more accessible. The Decemberists have very much been a band of geeks for geeks, with SAT words aplenty and subjects only an English major could love. And while The King is Dead certainly feels like a Decemberists album, it's the one you'll probably let your friends listen to first before unleashing the awesome power of The Whaler's Revenge Song.  With this band however, one can't help but assume this is merely a rest stop on the way to bigger, better, and perhaps sillier/geekier things to come.

Review: Machinarium

There wasn't much I was interested in purchasing (or hadn't already purchased this summer) in the recent Steam sale, but the indie point and click adventure game Machinarium caught my eye so I gave it a chance. Having just finished the game I would have to highly recommend it. The stylized sound and visuals are incredibly well done and made the game a delight to keep coming back to. The game has no text so the majority of the interaction is between the main character, the world, and the character's inventory. Any story movement or exposition is handled via animated thought balloons over characters head when you interact with them.  Functionally the game employs the classic adventure game mechanic of picking up items and combining them either with other items or objects in the world to solve puzzles. The variety of puzzles goes beyond that though, with a number more traditional single board-style puzzles or games and there are even a couple more modern arcade like puzzles/games as well. The difficulty ramps up fairly steadily and for the most part the game does a good job of giving the player enough cues to figure out what to do next. As with any adventure game, observation is key, but for those who fail to observe or who try and still can't get past a given puzzle, there are two layers of hints built into the game. The first is a simple one panel image for each area that illustrates the key goal or solution the player should be looking for. The second is a flat out walk through. The hints are accessed by pressing a button on the top right of the screen as is the walk through. The catch with the walk through however is that in order to unlock them, you need to play a quick side scrolling shooter game. The game is easy enough, to the point where you start to lament having to play it again when you get stuck, but I applaud the developers attempt to put a little game play into cheating. Somehow it doesn't make it feel so bad. My only regret with Machinarium is that there isn't more of it. I'd love to get lost in that world again for a much longer period of time.

Review: Black Swan

I'm bad at reviews, specifically the part where you summarize the movie without giving everything away and still make it interesting to read. That being said, I'm not going to review Darren Aronofsky's latest film Black Swan, I will however comment on several aspects of it.

Let's get one thing straight right from the start here, Black Swan isn't a film about Ballet. It's a film where ballet figures heavily, but Black Swan is as much about ballet as Kubrick's 2001 is about space. This is a film about identity, obsession, and madness, themes Aronofsky has proven himself adept at depicting in the past to great effect. Unlike his previous effort, the character portrait piece The Wrestler, Black Swan sees Aronofsky concentrating less on the physicality of the character and more on the metaphysical and succeeds with almost Bergman-esque precision. Black Swan is ultimately a unique thriller where the protagonist's ultimate rival is herself. Aronofsky deftly ramps up the tension throughout the film primarily through the constant use of close-ups, creating not only a claustrophobic effect in the viewer, but also affixing our gaze almost interminably to the character of Nina's face. Natalie Portman deserves all the praise she gets for this role as she completely owns the broken creature that is Nina and succeeds in the challenging task of making us feel both compassionate and uncomfortable as she loses her grip on her own sense of self in pursuit of perfection as the titular Black Swan. In addition to the close ups and the stellar performances from Portman, Kunis, and the entire cast, Aronofsky's use of score and deft editing techniques feels more at home here than in any of his previous films. The last 20 minutes alone were a tangle of quick edits reminiscent of Aronofsky's oft-times difficult to watch Requiem for a Dream.

In the end, Black Swan was a film that left me with a grin on my face and a lot to analyze in my head and was one of only a handful of films I've seen this year that I would consider to be truly Oscar worthy. It's better late then never I presume, but I suppose this year we're going for caliber over quantity. There are still a few awards nominees for me to check out yet this year, but if Black Swan is any indication, the studios saved the best for last in 2010.

Film Review - The American

I just got back from seeing the American and it was startlingly good. I must admit I didn't expect much going into it other than that the idea of George Clooney as an assassin couldn't be bad. What could have been another fast-paced, Bourne-style shoot-em-up, ended up being something else entirely: a slow-paced, deliberate thriller; practically bereft of dialogue, yet mesmerizing.

This type of assassin film like Leon (aka The Professional) isn't about a man who kills for a living, it's about an artist, a master. These films are about a man who has honed his craft so well that it has swallowed him whole, such that he has no life beyond the work except perhaps a single antithetical hobby (with Leon it was old movies, with The American it was butterflies). The assassin/artist remains locked in this life of endless mastery of craft until he is snapped out of it by an outside force, a woman.

The American follows the old tropes well, but it does so in such a deliberate manner. There is nothing wasted in this film. Every line of dialogue, every shot, is loaded, but subtly so. This is not a film for those with wandering attention spans, The American demands your attention just as much when it is saying nothing as it does during the few true action sequences. In the end this is a movie for critics and film students though. The average moviegoer is unlikely to appreciate the artistry of a film like this. Even when Tarrantino does "deliberate" and "methodical" he's usually doing it while cramming a ton of dialogue in the scene. Watching The American is at times like reading a comic book without words, it's the same art form, but it requires more from the audience and the filmmaker.

I don't know quite what to compare this movie to. It reminds me of Leon in the basic theme of the assassin, but has far less outright action. I suppose it invoked images of The Third Man, yet even that's not 100% correct although as far as correlations go it's likely more apt. At any rate, if you're looking for something different and you like this brand of assassin fiction as I do, then you owe it to yourself to see The American.

Action Film Making 101

Action movies (especially creature flicks) are about creating tension and then releasing it through the course of an action sequence. If you look at any of the great creature action flicks from the 70's, 80's, and even the 90's you're likely to see at most  a 60/40 distribution between "action" and "non-action" sequences and perhaps as low as 30/70. A movie like James Cameron's "Aliens" spends the entire first act building towards the doomed mission to the atmosphere processing plant and then makes us wait another while before the next action sequence with Ripley and Newt evading the face hugger. The original Predator makes us watch Arnold prepare his trap for the eponymous alien near the end of the film for what seems like an almost excruciating amount of time, but that tension is relived in the prolonged action sequence that results.

This is what so many of the post-Matrix film makers don't seem to get, so wowed by camera and fx choreography are they that they fill their films with pointless action. At best this type of action film making becomes exhausting for the audience due to lack of rests, at worst it's boring due to lack of tension. The sad part is that for all of the Matrix's fancy camera and fx work, it displays a classic understanding of tension building and release, but some people can't seem to look beyond the obvious in-your-face elements and it seems these are the people getting most of the action scripts in Hollywood these days. These modern action films have all the tension of a Home Run Derby. Yeah it's nice to see a guy hit a home run in the majors; as a display of athleticism it's an impressive feat. When that's all that's happening though, when that is in fact all that is on display, you can't expect it to be very exciting. And that's what happens in so many action films these days. There is a whole crop of film makers pulling off camera moves and fx sequences like tricks at a skate park, but I personally don't watch films for the fx, I'm after a fuller experience.

I recently saw the latest installment in the Predator franchise. Predators suffers from a "works on paper, but not on the screen" premise and has far too many characters for any one to develop, but it doesn't substitute camera and fx choreography for old fashioned in-your-face action. While I can't say it was perfectly executed, the director obviously understands the language of action film making, even if he doesn't speak it fluently. So while I can't praise it as the resurrection of a franchise, it does make me forget about those lame AvP movies, a perfect example of flash over substance film making.

Alpha Protocol: First Impressions

Let's get one thing straight: I really want to love everything Obsidian Entertainment does. The reason for this is simply pedigree. Obsidian was founded by one half of the remnants of Black Isle, makers of such 90's CRPG classics as Fallout 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, and the Icewind Dale games. Black Isle also helped give BioWare their start with Baldur's Gate. They haven't done too bad for themselves so far. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 both meant well and had a lot going for them, but they launched in a buggy and more or less unfinished state and in the case of KoTOR 2, never recovered through patching. Still the spark was there and I've been looking forward to their original IP espionage RPG offering with Alpha Protocol.

I haven't spent much time with the game yet, having only played through the tutorial and one of the first missions, but I'm getting sense of what to expect. First things first, the tutorial is grueling. While granted, there are things I need to learn, the in-story start up to the game did more to confuse me than anything else. When you get through the initial jump and you get the option to run through a few obstacle courses - with bonus missions unlocked by excellent performance - things get better. Still, the story from the beginning suffers from a bad case of "that's for me to know and for you to find out." All I know right now is that some bad people in the desert blew up a plane and this warrants a super secret US spy agency to recruit me and send me abroad with a fancy safe house to hole up in. My handlers fall into the predictable categories of: coquettish genius analyst chick, jealous hot shot gadgeteer, surly misanthropic old guy, and non-nonsense in-charge CO. Conversation options so far have made the old guy dislike me, the hot shot neutral, and the CO and the chick like me. What effect this will have remains to be seen.

The RPG elements are almost the same as Mass Effect 1, in fact the skill tree might as well be the same. Loading out your character is somewhat interesting, allowing you to mod your weapons, armor, and gadgets to suit the upcoming operation. The conversation system is even similar, except instead of choosing paraphrases, you choose the general tone of your response. In a typical conversation I'll often be offered choices like: aggressive. professional, or suave, with each one having a different effect on the person I'm talking to based on their own personality. While I prefer the paraphrase system, I don't really mind this lighter approach except that they've saddled it with a timer, so whatever your cursor is on then the NPC is done speaking is the response you give. This is often a hassle when the last thing the NPC says may change how you want to respond.

Where the game seems to shine so far is in the openness of the missions. I'm reminded of Deus Ex in that there are specific objective and story points that I'm going to hit no matter what, but (in the map I played anyway) there are numerous options for achieving those objectives. The obvious options are: stealth or guns blazing, but it's never just one choice. I found myself bouncing between total stealth and avoidance, to sneaky take downs, to outright assaults several times during my mission.

Overall the game is what I think I tend to expect from Obsidian, which is probably best described as: entertaining, but clunky. If the rest of the missions play out with the same breadth of choice my first one did, then I think I'll find a lot to like about Alpha Protocol. Right now I won't say to just run out and buy it, but you could do much worse and it's either this or Splinter Cell for the espionage genre these days.