Riz MC - Sour Times video

Alan Moore and Kevin o'Neill - The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 1910 (Knockabout 2009)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume 3 is upon us, and with it, Alan Moore’s propensity for Victorian filth and mind-expanding concepts. This time, The League is more ambitious, and dare I say it, purposely a fuck you to anyone who might consider trying to film it, after all film versions of his work have ended up ruining or only hinting at the genius in the original source material. Volume 3 of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is called Century officially and... spans... a century. Expansive. Gone are most of the characters we refamiliarised ourselves with (the original two volumes concerned literary characters from Victorian novels reimagined as a type of antequated MI5) and instead we are faced with brutal serial killers, songs and the occult. So prevalent are songs and rhymes in this first volume (with parts two and three due next year and the year after) that if it were filmed, it would take the place of a grotesque carnival musical, with filthy shanties and bawdy limericks pricking the surfaces of naked tortured skin. We catch up with Wilhemina Murray, the vampiric bride of Dracula, immortal and having outlived most of her original League, now with generation 2, comprising of Thomas Carnacki, a ghost detective, Quartermain’s son and Orlando a mysterious figure in possession of Excalibur. Carnacki’s visions lead him to murderous Armageddon in the East End and the occult who are trying to birth a moonchild. Meanwhile, Captain Nemo of the Nautilus dies, leaving his beloved submarine to his estranged daughter, absconded to England to work in a bordello by the docks. The book is self-contained and while it takes a while to get going, promises an interesting take on this century. Themes abound in volume 1 of the power of vice and how do-gooders trying to quell human desire for vice and virtueless violence are undoing nature’s own commands, and evil will out. Moore seems to be predicting the death of the century and along with it, the death of the human race. The violence is grotesque and bloody, the pirates that crew the Nautilus are ruthless and cunning. And the new League is still trying to find its feet. Volume 2 takes place in 1969 and concerns the hippy movement and volume 3 will bring us up to date in 2009, promising appearances from Jack Bauer, characters from the West Wing, and bizarrely, Armando Iannucci’s surreal retro-future comedy show, Time Trumpet. Definitely unfilmable then. But then after the disaster of the last attempt to commit The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a sombre and disgusting mediation on the human condition as told by literary figures in Victorian times, into cartoonish celluloid, I doubt anyone’ll be coming near this 100year spanning tome with hardly any ‘stars’ or recurring characters through each volume. Whatever happens, Moore has ensured he won’t be cursing any more film versions of his babies anytime soon. In the meantime, this is essential for any comic book reader and for any literary types who want to succumb to the filth and fury of 1910, as told by modern times’ most famous magus of wit and invention, Alan Moore.

Shappi Khorsandi - A Beginner's Guide to Acting English (Ebury 2009)

Look ma, a celebrity autobiography worth reading? Shock-a-rama... except this breakout memoir by comedienne Shappi Khorsandi has been what’s tipped her over the edge into the public eye, eyeing up appearances on Jonathan Ross and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. Instead of gracing the mirthless bowels of Radio 4 comedy, Shappi Khorsandi will now hopefully be commanding more high profile gigs based on this book. The memoir, documenting her arrival and early to teen years in the UK trying to fit in, shows she can write too. More poignant than laugh-out-loud funny, more tragic and beautiful than punchline-punchline-punchline, the book approaches the immigrant experience with a fresh yet familiar take, using a backdrop of England and classic Englishisms to tell a story about inherently Irani protagonists. Khorsandi discusses her first years at an English primary school, speaking not a word of the language, using her brother and other silent immigrants as emotional crutches, while occupying a fantasyland of make-believe and imagination at home, hero-worshipping her father and trying to teach her mother more English things. She talks about how English slowly crept up on her, through rhymes and stories before becoming her normal vernacular, how she went from being frightened of the English to scolding her mum for not being able to make her jam sandwiches. The centre of her attention is her father and his political leanings. While Iran undergoes some major changes, her father, a satirist and journalist and poet- hero-worshipped by the Irani community of London, meaning endless social engagements, debates and performances in front rooms- documents the changes, the fall of the Shah, the rise of the Ayatollah, the revolution and its divisive nature, as middle and upper class London-dwelling Iranis put their tuppence in. Meanwhile Khorsandi’s family in Iran feel the effects and impacts the changes in power structures have on their well-being. ‘Persepolis’ dealt with similar topics and told them from the same spiky brutally honest angle; here, the crucial difference is the journey that Khorsandi and her brother make towards accepting their present surroundings and how it impacts on their cultural identity, something easily identifiable for a generation of Diaspora immigrants in this country. This most tense and interesting section of the book, where men are dispatched by the new government to assassinate Khorsandi’s father. This section arrives in the second half of the book and is by far its most exciting bit. The writing teams with compassion and warmth, the humour in the situations and characters is sweetly scathing, the differences between Irani and English customs played out to great comic effect, and the sincerity in the prose, the unflowery honest writing makes it a strong memoir with its lightness of touch and comic timing.

Rutu Modan - Jamilti and other stories (Jonathan Cape 2009)

How much do we know about the people of Israel? We know the politics, have picked our sides to support and happily go on through our lives reducing countries to polemic and political policy. So thank god for the medium of graphic novels and for Rutu Modan, whose short pieces of pictoral fiction comprise a sturdy offering from the Jonathan Cape stable of thinking liter-ista’s funny books. This is a far cry from the spandex and superheroism of Marvel. This is a subtle intense funny set of short stories, all with their own brand of ultra-violence. In the titular ‘Jamilti’ we meet a bride-to-be, one of Israel’s bleeding heart liberals marrying an oafish pig of a far right man. Her quiet acceptance of her position and his boarish conversational gambits about terrorism and Palestine converge in a tense engagement where much is left unsaid. When she finds herself in the debris of a terrorist bombing, she finds herself face-to-face with a mutilated dying man who makes her feel appreciated and beautiful. That moment of pure vulnerability and synergy makes the closing pay-off all the more smarter. The characters in Modan’s book all lead quiet lives that are torn apart by violence, whether it be political or personal or emotional. ‘The Panty Killer’ follows the police investigation into The Panty Killer, a violent serial killer who leaves his victims with a pair of Y-fronts over their head. In ‘Homecoming’ a small community mourn the death of one of their boys gone off to war in different ways, unable to move on from the fact that he may have died at war, when a plane appears overhead and they reach fever pitch excitement wondering if he has now in fact returned. Each story is funny with a black heart stricken with the cancer of grief and bereavement, with the whisping underbelly of politics trying to muscle its way into the lives of these Israelis. The artwork is beautiful and sombre with a lot of strange yellows and pencil-coloured hair and backgrounds, each panel oozing with the mix between adult- and child-eye view of the scenes depicted, reminiscent of Tin-Tin. The precise nature of their expression and observation mean that the dialogue-light panels are effective at evoking deep emotions. With other stories ranging from parental discoveries to women with healing hands, the range of lives in Israel, macabre and twisted as they may sound are funny and sombre and dripping with a gallows humour only befitting a country with such a war-filled past.

Loops issue 1 (Faber/Domino 2009)

The independent spirit still thrives in the overwrought music and literature industries, both struggling to cope with pay-fatigue and other distractions away from their products, bigger and flasher with more flash images and snazzy coding. Oh, the independent spirit, it ebbs and flows that a DIY middle finger that deviates between sticking it up in rebellion and exploring the cavities of one’s nose with an awkwardness resigned to irrelevance. Oh, the independent spirit, a matador of such pride and ferocity and spirit, occasionally flagging up such works of wonder as issue 1 of Loops magazine. A co-project between Faber and Domino (recording home to Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Lightspeed Champion), this is a threefold attempt at bringing forth the danger: 1) it’s a quarterly magazine of highbrow essays and short stories, something in short supply in the advent of the blog ‘review’ offered as a free pdf download guaranteed for eyesore 2) it’s a return to the type of music criticism that made Plan B (recently sadly defunct) so vital, that made Lester Bangs so vital, that made music blogs so vital 3) it’s an opportunity to sell some products that, quite frankly, need your cash because yes, Lily Gaga may have farted out another album and Martina Cole may have vomited out another thriller, but they don’t need your cash. Independents with the independent spirit like Faber and Domino do, natch.

Loops features some quality articles written by some interesting writers, some musicians, all from varied spectrums of the music listening platform, from blogger to musician to journalist to critic to fan. Nick Cave’s insane new book ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’ is included as an extracted from early on in its demonic road trip to the soul of tragic father figures. Chris Killen, another Canongate author, presents a bizarre dream sequence involving a narcissistic and sad Paul Simon fighting with Chevy Chase. Richard Millward, author of ‘Ten Storey Love Song’ a book drenched in musical psychedelic and Madchester verve, provides a retrospective on Spaceman 3, your favourite fuzz drone space rock band’s favourite band. Mystery music blogger Maggoty Lamb provides a scathing and insightful review of the last year in music journalism, destroying all sacred cows, dissecting the death of music journalism and its conquering by blogs and websites and people actually writing about bands they like rather than bands they think you’ll like with the biggest ad budget. James Yorkston describes a recent tour with humour, self-deprecation and humility, nailing the touring musician’s spirit with eloquence and heart. Susan Sontag has the best piece, a hilarious deconstruction of hip hop and its inherent campness, using its feelings of bravado and machismo to implicate rappers in the biggest homo-erotic undertones since... well... errr... the last one. Loops, at times, feels a bit too cleverly put together, like there was a list of ubercool cult authors and musicians... right, now, who can we get? But this is a small quibble in a publication well edited and commissioned and put together like a biannual labour of love. Music journalism, music criticism, just writing about love music, seems relevant again.

Ho! The Morally Questionable Cartoons of Ivan Brunetti - Ivan Brunetti (Fantagraphics 2009)

Satirical ‘former cartoonist’ Ivan Brunetti has been flying the flag for independent and underground comics for a while now, veering between the high brow cerebral stories and ironic filth. This collection of new one-panel cartoons and quips and visual one-liners, is a brutally funny and disturbing attempt to push some buttons, either uncomfortably or comfortably mired in taboo. The aesthetic of freaks, geeks, nerds and ugly men and women, all with dark pasts, dirty fetishes, sociopathic tendencies, and murderous habits all play out over 120 odd pages of frenetic cartoon violence, sometimes sexual, sometimes suicidal, sometimes offensive, but always funny. It’s hard to write a review of this book without putting up some of the images, but I think to take them out of the context of the book reduces the ‘hilarious’ impact of page after page of dick mutilation, rape and droopy breasts. You get the feeling that Brunetti is not to be taken literally, that these cartoons have been deliberately constructed to break taboos and to irk the sensible. Culled mostly from out-of-print work (Hee! and Haw!) and other anthologies, the contents are discreetly presented in an uninviting, funereal package of unglamorous black and white. The gallows humour of sexual fetish gone awry keeps us guessing as to how far Brunetti will take it, but also to who’d have bowed out by now, too shocked to continue to the end. It’s a funny book that plays with the idea of obscenity and censorship in a way that shows Brunetti to be the master of gag cartoons… especially ones about skull-fucking and severed dick lollies.

Check out more Fantagraphics books, some of the best in the funnybook business.

Joe Simon and Jack Kirby - The Best of Simon and Kirby (Titan 2009)

Comics were so much more innocent in the 60s, during the ‘Golden Age.’ They oozed nostalgia, Americana and an innocence depiction of good versus evil. The only shades of grey were the suits the superheroes wore in their everyday guises. Everything was black and white, good and bad. Well, in Marvel’s case, everything was primal American flag colours versus green and khaki, symbols of Nazism and communism and pure evil. Marvel has always held a patriotic view of its all-American heroes, lacking the egoes, gold complexes and macabre elements of DC’s more nightmareish grey areas. Most heroes in the Marvel canon operate in the same red, white and blue costumes, spandex representations of their patriotic selves.

So, who were Joe Simon and Jack Kirby? Well, thanks to them we have superhero films and we have Marvel’s successful characters and we have the popcorn powerhouse of good and evil told in the fantastical. They were pioneers. Meeting in 1939, where Joe was an editor and Jack was a staff illustrator, they developed the costume, Blue Bolt, a mix of science fiction and derring-do. Football star, Fred Parrish, struck by lightening fights the nazis and the underground forces of the Green Sorceress. Blue Bolt set the tone for the slew of comic book heroes fighting nazis, developed by Jewish refugees practising wish fulfillment in their art, a device told beautifull in Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby went on to develop the all-conquering Captain America for Timely Comics, a character who eventually ended up frozen and resurrected in the modern-age as a Marvel character, a super soldier with a belief in truth, justice and the American way. Simon and Kirby rocketed to fame, launching hit after hit, spanning sci-fi, superheroes, horror, even romance, with industry-beating characters like Manhunter, Captain America, Sandman. They set the standard for superhero action.

And now Titan has lovingly collated some of their best issues spanning their most versatile genres for this new collection. With issues from the Fly, Stuntman, Fighting American, Bulls Eye, Private Strong, we are treated to some of the most memorable and lovingly regarded comics America ever produced before eventually commanding the entire market with the template Simon and Kirby created. This is the perfect introduction to their brand of imaginative yet simplistically themed good ol fashioned funnybook stories. Definitely worth picking up for anyone wanting to know their comic book history, for any Americana nostalgia freaks and for anyone who likes a good yarn about the never-ending battle between good and evil.

The Kominas - 'Wild Nights in Guantanemo Bay' (2009)

It's two thousand and fucking nine people... Iran is imploding, the BNP is exploding and we're all still doing the running man like it's 1988. Who the fuck is Lady Gaga? Who the fuck are the Kominas? Cos they'll poke---her------face...

Anger, destruction, energy, synergy, polemic, ire, fire- want one? Remember when music was exciting AND relevant and it made the hairs on your prickly skin stand up to attention as the righteous music caused revolutions all over your body, convulsing you into a spastic frenzy. Remember the first time Public Enemy melted your brain? Asian Dub Foundation made you dance for justice? Remember remember? Well, the Kominas do, and they're coming for you people. Formed after the book The Taqwacores, that launched a niche North American muslim punk movement, The Kominas are leaders through their buzzsaw guitars, wry lyrics and bombastic fascination with Bollywood conventions and overdramatised acting. 'From Dishoom Bebe's hilarious anecdotal Indian gangster to 'Sharia Law in the USA's anarchists, this is a funny no-frills batallion stomp through American foreign policy of the last 8 years and its inadequacies... but the difference is... you can mosh to it. Relevant and melodic, The Kominas destroy any stereotypes anyone holds about muslims with their riotous funtimes rock'n'roll party and polemical hardnosed rhetoric that tears apart att he very fabric of our society. Hip hop smashes in with references to Slick Rick and Brand Nubian. The Dead Kennedys, NOFX, and Disposable Brothers of Hiphoprisy. In songs like Wal Qaeda Superstore, parallels are drawn between Walmart and the oil industry in the Middle East, criticising and defending and detracting and redacting all at once. Look, this is punk fire, with 12 tracks of high energy contemporary political rock'n'roll, it's not for the faint hearted or apathetic, it's one to get righteously moshed out to and get out there and do something.

Kominaspace

Colson Whitehead - 'Sag Harbor' (Harvill Secker 2009)

The fourth book by Colson Whitehead seems to be the one that'll finally break this hilarious writer out from the cult following that nurtured his flights of autobiographical fancy. Set in the titular Sag Harbor, a Hamptons for blacks in upstate New York, Whitehead introduces us to changes that ending up shaping urban culture and vomiting it out into the mainstream. Sag Harbor is a safe haven for middle class black kids. They spend their entire summers there, get to hang out with fellow African-American children and pound the streets safe from 'the streets.' They lead innocent lives and try to come to terms with the duality of their existences. For they are predominantly the only blacks in their classes and schools and thus have to partition part of themselves for school and parts of themselves for Sag Harbor. And thus it becomes a mythical, mystical, nostalgic setting for growing up. Benji, our main man, and his twin Reggie, earn money in cooking jobs, stalk the beaches for nudists and scare off any white people who try to beach themselves on their sections of the beach. For this is theirs, apart from the 'man' and away from 'whitey. Benji's a Converse-wearing, Smiths-loving, Dungeons & Dragons-playing nerd whose favorite Star Wars character is the hapless bounty hunter Greedo- out of sorts with his peers and contemporaries, who despite their lack of exposure to urban black culture are still rocking out to Afrika Bambataa and the Zulu Nation, scolding Benji when he informs them of where their samples come from (in this case, the Kraftwerk-sampling 'Planet Rock). The other boys, especially twin Reggie, seem more at ease with their sense of identity than Benji does and this pervades the rest of their 3 month unsupervised holiday in the summer of 1985. Essentially a coming of age novel, Benji's narrated story tells of his first kiss, the removal of braces, BB gun battles, slinging hip insults and deconstructing the myth of what it means to be black and what it means to be Benji. Filled with nostalgia, summery vibes, oodles of pop culture and hilarious self-deprecating narrative, 'Sag Harbor' is a warm and funny piece of literary comedy that is laidback like the summer it depicts and staunchly proud of its identity. A warmer and funnier read you won't find this summer.

Buck up you publishing fucktards

Look publishers, excuse the profanity but I feel a sense of release this morning. All this digital publishing isn’t destroying print books. People are reading less, yes, but that’s probably cos they’re getting dumber. People are reading blogs, tweets, profiles, news stories online, email etc etc etc… the world is getting smaller and more mobile but that doesn’t reduce anyone’s need for a good story, you idiots. So continue to put out good stories. Don’t think that publishing is an extension of lowest common denominator media like Big Brother or Kerry Katona’s Latest Meltdown.dot com or Strictly Come This Way Talentless Pricks. To the celebrity biogs and the ghostwritten books and the franchise series told in short chapters so they’re easier to commit to screenplay we say AWAY AWAY AWAY.

I had this realisation today because in a sea of books today, I saw my first e-reader. Yes, I was reading ‘Sag Harbor’ bu Colson Whitehead, someone was reading a Barack Obama book, someone was reading David Foster Wallace, another- James Lee Burke… and in the sea of manuscripts and pages and covers and art, I saw someone using an e-reader. She was dressed in a suit, wore glasses (well if you do everything on a screen like watch shop work read, say hello to speccy-vision) and snatched up nose trying to concentrate on scrawling electronic ways that pixellated the more her tired commuter eyes squinted. I manipulated some commuter dodging just to sit next to her and see what she was reading. And you know what it was? Yes, she was going through her electronic slush pile. She was an agent. It stands true… the rule that the only people using electronic readers are tired agents glued to ploughing through slush piles trying to find, in this economic apocalypse, a new Dan Brown or Sophie Kinsella.

So yes, printed books aren’t dead. I’m yet to find a real-life person sat with their electronic reader, reading for pleasure.

And you know who agrees with me? The editor of Granta. Read his article about print here. Also Dave Eggers is in on the action, declaring at a conference that if anyone wanted to email him about the death of printed books, they should email him.

Well, I did…

And here’s what he said (I hope he doesn’t mind my repeating this, it seemed like a pro forma reply):

Dear Person Needing Bucking Up,

Hello and thank you so much for writing. I feel honored that you would take the time to reach out and in many cases tell me your very real struggles with writing and work and the future of the printed word.

I have a few thoughts to share, though unfortunately in this space I can?t detail all the reasons I think we have a fighting chance at keeping newspapers and books alive in physical form. But before I do blather for a few paragraphs, I should apologize for sending you a mass email.

As you probably know, in May I gave a speech to about 100 people in New York, and I didn?t foresee it getting out there on the web. (Shows how much I know.) And I really didn?t expect this email address to be given out.

Again, though, that was my lack of foresight. And I?m an infrequent emailer, so I?m unable to respond to most of the (plaintive, beautiful,

heart-ripping) emails that have been sent to me these past few days. So I apologize for not being able to answer your email personally. Or at least not in any timely manner.

Anyway. I would like to say to you good print-loving people that for every dire bit of news there is out there, there is also some good news, too. The main gist of my (rambling) speech at the Author?s Guild was that because I work with kids in San Francisco, I see every day that their enthusiasm for the printed word is no different from that of kids from any other era.

Reports that no one reads anymore, especially young people, are greatly overstated and almost always factually lacking. I?ve written about youth readership elsewhere, but to reiterate: sales of young adult books are actually up. Total volume of all book sales is actually up. Kids get the same things out of books that they have before. Reading in elementary schools and middle schools is no different than any other time. We have work to do with keeping high schoolers reading, but then again, I meet every week with 15 high schoolers in San Francisco, and all we do is read (literary magazines, books, journals, websites, everything) in the process of putting together the Best American Nonrequired Reading. And I have to say these students, 14 to 18 years old, are far better read and more astute than I was at their age, and there are a million other kids around the country just like them.

These kids meet every week at McSweeney?s, and things at our small publishing company are stable. We?re a hand-to-mouth operation to be sure, but we haven?t had to lay anyone off. To some extent, that?s because we?re small and independent and have always insisted on staying small and independent. We take on very little risk, and we grow very cautiously. It?s our humble opinion that the world will support many more publishers of our size and focus. If you can stay small, stay independent, readers will be loyal, and you?ll be able to get by publishing work of merit. Publishing has, for most of its life, been a place of small but somewhat profit margins, and the people involved in publishing were happy to be doing what they loved. It?s only recently, when large conglomerates bought so many publishing companies and newspapers, that demands for certain margins squeezed some of the joy out of the business.

Pretty soon, on the McSweeney?s website ? www.mcsweeneys.net ? we?ll be showing some of our work on this upcoming issue, which will be in newspaper form. The hope is that we can demonstrate that if you rework the newspaper model a bit, it can not only survive, but actually thrive. We?re convinced that the best way to ensure the future of journalism is to create a workable model where journalists are paid well for reporting here and abroad. And that starts with paying for the physical paper. And paying for the physical paper begins with creating a physical object that doesn?t retreat, but instead luxuriates in the beauties of print. We believe that if you use the hell out of the medium, if you give investigative journalism space, if you give photojournalists space, if you give graphic artists and cartoonists space ? if you really truly give readers an experience that can?t be duplicated on the web ? then they will spend $1 for a copy. And that $1 per copy, plus the revenue from some (but not all that many) ads, will keep the enterprise afloat.

As long as newspapers offer less each day ? less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos ? then they?re giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself. With our prototype, we aim to make the physical object so beautiful and luxurious that it will seem a bargain at $1. The web obviously presents all kinds of advantages for breaking news, but the printed newspaper does and will always have a slew of advantages, too. It?s our admittedly unorthodox opinion that the two can coexist, and in fact should coexist. But they need to do different things. To survive, the newspaper, and the physical book, needs to set itself apart from the web.

Physical forms of the written word need to offer a clear and different experience. And if they do, we believe, they will survive. Again, this is a time to roar back and assert and celebrate the beauty of the printed page.

Give people something to fight for, and they will fight for it. Give something to pay for, and they?ll pay for it.

We?ll keep you posted throughout the summer about our progress with this newspaper prototype, and any other good news we come across.

Thanks for listening for now,

Dave

P.S. The email address you wrote to ? deggers@826national.org ? was a new one I set up to give to the attendees of the Author?s Guild. I won?t be able to check it very often, as I?m slow with email to begin with.