Merz Virs

One of my fave local metal bands, Meza Virs is playing this Sat at baybeats.

http://www.esplanade.com/whats_on/programme_info/meza_virs/index.jsp

The last time I saw them was with Shark at a Goth party all the way at Mandai. Talk about ulu.

We had just come from the Ngak gig at esplanade which was a disappointment. But Merz Virs made up for it.

MJ died that week and the male singer wore a single white glove in tribute to the King of Pop. And they covered Rammstein's Du Hast. (listed by a recent metal issue of Classic Rock magazine as one of the songs that forged metal, 1990 - 1999)

It was one hell of a night.

Printed in Malaysia!

Was reading You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!, the second volume of stories by Fletcher Hanks and came across the above. It was in the early 1990s when I was buying The Complete Crumb Comics from Comic Art Gallery "under the counter" that I noticed the "Printed in Singapore". That made me feel more proud of being a Singaporean than anything else back then. The Complete Crumb Comics printed in Singapore! (by Palace Press) But then again, so were Playboy books I was told. How sad we couldn't buy these above the counter. I wanted to make friends with Palace Press so that I can get free books from them. Damaged or dented also never mind. Misprints still can read. Especially the centrefolds.

Years later, it was TWP, Tien Wah Press that were on the lips of Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly when I met them in NYC in 2006. Their books were printed in Singapore and TWP is the choice printer.

[The Resident Tourist Vol 3 is also printed by TWP recently.]

So now it seems Fantagraphics Books have gone across the Causeway. Another sign of us losing our competitive edge? Another Tanjong Pelapas?

Where do you buy your comic books?

Met some old friends at the con and shooting the breeze. Asked them where they buy their comics these days. The answer: Kinokuniya.

I know Kino has a policy of bringing in the trades and graphic novels but leaving the single issues to the comics shops. A balance, a trade-off as we need the comics shops alive to keep the fandom/community going. Or just a place to hang out if you are old school like me.

Looks like the balance is shifting. Or perceptions are. Comics = trades and graphic novels. Hardly anyone (has the time?) to follow and buy singles. Arguments have been made in the US about the importance of single issues. Not everyone has the luxury to work on a long story. What/Who's going to pay the bills when you spent months working on a 100 page graphic novel? Most comics companies do not pay advances like book publishers. Single issues is still the norm for most.

So what the views of comics shops owners in all these? I actually suggested that the con should have such a debate, about the state of the scene and industry. But alas...

Warren Ellis

Just picked up Ellis' Frankenstein's Womb from Kino and read it in one sitting. It's awesome. Ellis is really going into history these days. Stories about Mary Shelley and how she came to write Frankenstein are not unknown. There's Gothic (1986) directed by Kent Russell and starring Natasha Richardson as Mary. I saw that in the late 80s at one of the Singapore Film Society screenings when the Gothic Institute was at the Singapore Shopping Centre. (a no-prize if you can tell us where that was)

[others: Haunted Summer (1988) and the sci-fi Frankenstein Unbound (1990)]

I won't spoilt it for you, but this is one of the best treatise about fate, destiny and modernity I have read in recent times.

The art by Marek Oleksicki is impressive too.

If you like this, try Ellis' Crecy as well. That's about the 1346 battle between the Britons and the French, which "changed modern warfare forever". And also Aetheric Mechanics.

"It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist. Or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organised dust ready to fly abroad the moment the spark goes out which kept it together. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable and life is more than a dream."

GI Joe

Sometimes you get into the hype. And so I did when I picked up GI Joe: Best of Snake Eyes (IDW). This reprints the Marvel Comics stories featuring the mysterious but cool Snake Eyes, sort of the Wolverine of GI Joe.

Was never a fan of Joe in its original Marvel run in the 1980s. (only had #3 in my early comic book collection) Too much of a comic book based on toys thing for my liking. But reading these now made me realised how much killings and deaths were in the the Joe comic books for a Marvel title then. Remember the big deal about Wolverine slicing up the Hellfire foot soldiers in Uncanny X-Men #133? That's nothing compared the violence here. Maybe it's because this was an army/soldiers comic book rather than a superhero comic book...

Larry Hama is underrated. His Joe stories may not be top-notched. But just check out his Nth Man: The Ultimate Ninja (1989-1990), probably one of the best things Marvel put out that year.

Alright, let me go back and read the Image run of Joe (Front Line) from 2002 that I just picked up...

p/s: for fans of Fables, Steve Leialoha is the inker for some of the stories here. He also drew the Firestar mini-series and also also some issues of The New Mutants in the 80s.

Bestselling Comics at Kino for July 09

1. BATMAN: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CAPED CRUSADER
by NEIL GAIMAN, ANDY KUBERT

2. FINAL CRISIS
by GRANT MORRISON

3. 100 BULLETS VOLUME 13: WILT
by BRIAN AZZARELLO

4. GREEN LANTERN: RAGE OF THE RED LANTERNS
by GEOFF JOHNS

5. HALO: UPRISING
by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS, ALEX MALEEV

6. WARCRAFT: LEGENDS VOLUME 4
by RICHARD A. KNAAK

7. VAMPIRE KNIGHT VOLUME 9
by MATSURI HINO

8. FULL METAL ALCHEMIST VOLUME 20
by HIROMU ARAKAWA

9. WATCHMEN
by ALAN MOORE, DAVE GIBBONS

10. WARCRAFT: LEGENDS VOLUME 1
by RICHARD A. KNAAK