Crecy by Warren Ellis and Raolu Caceres

I am still new to this whole comic book/graphic novel world but the other night while reading about who are supposed to be the best writers in the medium I kept on bumping into the name "Warren Ellis". I recognized the name because years ago when I was last into this world I did read all of Transmetrollitan which blew me away (I hope to reread it one day) so I made a note to look into more of his stuff since I already knew that I liked the guys style of writing.

So, when I read that he wrote a 50 page graphic novel about the battle of Crecy I was interested in checking it out as a quick read. I especially got even more interested when I read a review that described it as "a very violent nc-17 history lesson" I was sold.

Now, I have never even heard anything about the battle of Crecy until I read about what exactly this graphic novel was about. As it turns out the battle of Crecy was when England decided to invade France with an a small, under equipped, but highly trained army that was mostly made up of longsbowmen and crossbowmen as France was threatening their home security.

So, as you can imagine the battle was pretty fucking bloody and epic.

Warren Ellis decides to tell the full story of this battle through the perspective of one vile, vulgar, French hating, and nameless longsbowmen who will be fighting in the battle. About 90 percent of the story is told through this character and his ongoing monologue that breaks the 4th wall. Before you even realize it you know why the fight is happening, who are the political figures, and their war strategies.

My favorite moment comes when this nameless soldier breaks the 4rth wall completely and shows the reader the different ways that they infect their arrows (including dipping it in human shit) in order to do as much damage as possible. It really makes you just go "damn." knowing that that this all actually happened.

So, basically, what Ellis does is give you 35 pages of information until you all caught up with everything and then through Raolu Caceres detailed black and white art lets the battle just unfold in its full violent glory for the remainder of the book. Horses get killed, heads get smashed, and arrows enter bodies from every single angle. When its all over you realize that you just learned a full history lesson on the battle of Crecy and you just think”Hm. That was really cool and fucked up" and I am pretty sure that this was Warren Ellis' goal.

It's a quick, short, fun, vile, violent, and vulgar read. I wish it was a bit longer but part of its charm is its length. It's very impressive that Ellis is able to present such a big part of history in 50 pages while always keeping you entertained. History has neve been so much fun.

The Wire: Season 1

I can not put my admiration and love towards the first season of The Wire into words. It's a difficult task trying to write about why it's so good because I know no matter how much I write right now that I will still not be doing the series justice. I'm sure that you have already read and heard about how the show is supposed to be amazing and the best thing you can actually do is just sit down and watch it. After one episode you will begin to see why its held in such high regard. After 4 you will be hooked. After 8 your mind will be blown time and time again. When the 13 episodes are done you will just be in awe and wont even think twice before calling it a masterpiece.

The first season of The Wire follows a drugs and murders investigation in Baltimore told through the perspectives of the both the police and the targets that they are trying to arrest. Every character in this richly layered world gets their story told and soon enough you begin to see that The Wire is not a simple "good guys vs bad guys" cop show. The series multi perspective storytelling serves to create a world where you are almost always in a moral grey zone and switching your opinions towards its many characters time and time again.

David Simon who created The Wire worked as a crime reporter for The Baltimore Sun and it's really because of his years of first hand experience with the crime world as well as years of being a reporter and getting "the full story" that The Wire reaches a level of storytelling that is unlike anything I have ever seen on television. The world he creates is a complicated one with a massive and epic scope to it all. Every detail and every character (and there are lots) is important and Simon is not afraid to challenge its audience and their patience as he continues to develop storylines that begin to connect to eachother which in turns creates one giant 13 hour epic story. He himself describes the series as being a "visual novel" and that is really the perfect way to put it.

I hope to maybe have one giant write up for the full series when I am done watching it all but I am kidding myself if i think that I will be able to fully justify the series greatness when it's all over. I had enough of a hard time even doing the first season some justice. I don't know what else to write other than "go watch this right now." It seems like a phrase that gets used a little bit too often but you really have to see it to believe it. It will live up to its fame and much more.

Masterpiece

Comic Books? Really? Since when? Aren't you enough of a loser already?

I just thought I would post this entry to give a little backstory before things start getting really nerdy up in here.

Me and my brother used to love collecting comic books and reading them when we were kids. We had boxes full of them and could go into long discussions that most of the time always sprang from a "what if..." type of question. It was a lot of fun and it was the thing me,my brother, and my dad would bond over everytime we would go to the comic book shop about once every 2 weeks.

My brother who is 6 years older than me discovered girls and also discovered that loving comic books hardly ever leads to girls. He grew out of it and through him I grew out of it too for years and years. It just became one of the many fads I bought into when I was a kid.

Years passed and I never even thought about getting back into it until I met a girl who would then become my first girlfriend. On top of being the cutest girl ever, she was also the coolest girl a guy like me could ask for. She had tons of quirks which I fell in love with instantly (its easy to when you are 13/14) and one of her many quirks was that she was really into comic books. She then started getting me into comic books and showing me that there was some amazing stuff out there. She got me to read all of Garth Ennis' Preacher first and I was sold from there.

Long story short - she was forced to move somewhere far. My heart was broken. I stopped reading comic books. High School happened.

So, a couple of weeks ago I was walking through my library when I spotted a graphic novel/comic book section that I had never seen before. I decided to have a look and see what they had and resting on their shelf was a copy of Alan Moore's Watchmen which I have always heard is supposed to be one of the greatest works of fiction ever written (Time Magazine ranks in top 100 greatest american novels ever written) I decided to check it out and finally see what all the fuss was about and holy shit did it live up the hype and much,much, much more.

Ever since having my mind blown by Watchmen I got the urge to check out other comic books and graphic novels that are suppoed to be worth checking out and I am actually having a real blast getting into the whole world. I know its nerdy and I know its geeky but damn it...I'm hooked.

This new found appreciation and hunger for it plus recently becoming friends with a hardcore comic book fan have sent me off into this dark and oh so very nerdy world but damn it...its not like I was ever the coolest kid. I might as well just go all out, right?

Right?

Right?

=(

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008, Alex Gibney)

I discovered Hunter S. Thompson sometime in Middle School. Like many people it began with me renting a vhs copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, being amazed by its craziness, and then having my mind blown when finding out that its all based on a real story. It took me a couple of months until I finally sat down and read the book but I was hooked from the first page and became a fan for life. Over the years I have read more of his writings and my admiration for him has only grown more and more. It seems like a trendy thing to belong to the cult that thinks that Thompson is the man, but anyone who has read his stuff or has even seen Fear and Loathing can not deny it: Hunter S. Thompson is simply the man.

Few people can actually fit the description of being “man, myth, and legend” without the description seeming a bit tongue in cheek but Hunter is one of the few who still continues to be all of these three things even after his death. Alex Gibney’s documentary chooses to present the beloved icon that Hunter S. Thompson is by simply chronicling his life and work from his childhood up until his memorable funeral in hopes of showing you what exactly made Thompson so special. Every aspect of his career from his first big break writing about The Hells Angels, to his failed attempt at running for Sheriff, to his days as a political journalist are explored through a narration by Johnny Depp, old voice recordings and clips, and various interviews with people that knew Thompson.

Now, I am all for praising Thompson for 2 hours and glorifying him even more. I already sort of knew that the documentary would be just that the moment that I heard it was being made so there was little shock to see it play the “Hunter was the REAL DEAL you guys. Seriously, like, he was” card. I have no issues at all with this just because I love the man. But where I do have issues is the Vh1 documentary execution of it all.

VH1 documentary execution? Yeah. You know when you are watching those documentaries that VH1 decides to air once every now and then and they have the same vibe and look to them? You know, the ones where every time they talk about the 60s it cuts to the same stock footage of people rioting in the streets in Chicago while Jimi Hendrix sings “Hey Joe”. Or every time they talk about hippies or drug use it cuts to stock footage of people wearing flower dresses in a field while “Mr. Tambourine Man” plays. There really isn’t thing that bad about it only that it’s so terribly cliché and played out that it seems like these whole little stock footage segments are just being copy and pasted into everything. It’s just lazy.


Since Thompson was placed right in the middle of all these changes that happened in America through out the 60s and 70s we are treated to an orgy of these VH1 documentary style stock footage (with cliché music and all) with some generally awesome Thompson being bat shit crazy as usual footage to go along with it. You kind of wish that with such a strange and unique character Thompson was that Gibney would actually choose to make his documentary fit in with his lead subject instead of going down such a by the numbers path.

Fans of Thompson will recognize all of the footage that is used, will know the stories, and already know why he is so loved. So, I can only guess that this documentary was made for people who don’t know much about why he is considered a legend. It serves its purpose in that it does show you who he was and why he was special. It’s just presented with such a lackluster style to it all that it truly lessens Hunter S. Thompson’s grand life and in turn makes what could have been a spectacular documentary exploring that life into an uninspired one that really doesn’t do justice at all to the man,myth, and legend that is and was Hunter S. Thompson.

***/****

The Obligatory Introduction

I used to maintain a half assed film journal in order to just have movie discussions with my film geek/film buff/cinephile friends. This is because I am all of those three things.

I lost interest in that film journal a long time ago.

Lately I have had a couple of friends trying to persuade me into busting out the old one or creating a new one.

I went with the idea of a new one.

I will try to take this one a tad bit more serious.

I'm going to try and write something about every movie I watch as well as something about every book I read. I've also decided to write about the latest thing I am into...comic books...thats right...comic books whenever I finish one.

I will also try to spice things up with some other stuff when it comes to me. Thats if it even comes to me.

Thats about it.

Enjoy. (?)