REVIEW: Supergroup super-comics

I LOVE supergroup superhero comics. I think they’re super. I am an Avengers freak from way back and have followed a bunch of gangs in spandex over the years – including X-Men, JSA and The Invaders – all great titles that fell out of favour due to bad art, bad writing, bad company direction or a combo of all three.
Thankfully, due to the efforts of virginal fat boys and comic book creators who’ve never grown up, superhero group comics are thriving once more. Here are reviews of just a few of my current faves:
The Defenders (Marvel): A new miniseries from Keith Giffen, JM DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire, those wacky gents who brought us the zany 80s version of Justice League and the more recent I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Justice League over at DC.
Personally, I love The Defenders and have since they first appeared in the early 70s. Well, actually, I was more of a fan of the Steve Gerber/David Kraft/Giffen run (late 70s, mid-30s thru to mid-50s).
I wasn’t too fond of the initial Doc Strange-Hulk-Submariner-Silver Surfer combo. Nor was I a big fan of the late Defenders run when it was marred by appalling Don Perlin art.
Um…I didn’t think too much of the Secret Defenders from the early 90s either.
As for the early 2000s reboot…well, it was okay (Giffen wrote and Erik Larsen co-wrote and drew), but the concept (the original Defenders brought together by an unbreakable curse) was kinda lame…even if I got to see my fave Defenders (Nighthawk, Hellcat, Valkyrie) again.
After it was cancelled, the subsequent miniseries The Order (where the big 4 became corrupted and tried to take over the world) was barely passable.
So now the original Defenders are back, written in that smart-arse style that only Giffen and DeMatteis can write. I miss Hellcat, Nighthawk and Valkyrie, but I’ll take any Defenders over no Defenders at all.
The storyline? Uh…the dread Dormammu and his sister Umar The Unholy are preparing to invade Earth…again. Don’t let it bother you too much – the cast spend most of their time taking the piss out of the plot, so why should we be any different?
Just sit back and enjoy the fun as Bruce Banner mocks Doc Strange’s accent, Bruce Banner mocks Subby’s winged feet and the Silver Surfer goes…um, surfing. Cowabunga, dudes!

GLA (Marvel): This rather downbeat four-issue pisstake of the Avengers: Disassembled storyline – featuring the hapless heroes of the Great Lakes Avengers (remember them from West Coast Avengers, c. mid-80s?) – ended much better than it started.
Initially, I thought writer Dan Slott was gonna kill off the entire group after his efforts in the first three issues saw, well, three members die in pretty unpleasant ways. Even a brief cameo from my alltime fave hero Captain Ultra did little to lift my spirits. Nothing like an uncaring writer getting his jollies by casually offing helpless heroes in a minor-league group to get yer down. But Slott – ably assisted by artists Paul Pelletier and Rick Magyar – did a fine job salvaging the bleak storyline and coming up with a quirkily upbeat ending. And not everyone had to die at the end. Bonus.
Other supergroup titles to keep an eye on: The Ultimates 2 (getting very nasty now courtesy of Mark Millar), Supreme Power (a fascinating real world take on the Squadron Supreme written by J. Michael Straczynski), Wildguard (Image crosses reality TV with superhero groups – lighthearted silly fun from Todd Nauck), Albion (Alan Moore’s reimagining of the classic British heroes such as Robot Archie and Captain Hurricane. A very pukka English supergang is being formed as we speak, I think) and Battle Hymn (there are too many grim miniseries for my liking at the moment. Having said that, this bitter, real-world take on The Invaders is a hoot. B. Clay Moore’s writing is quite vicious and I love Jeremy Haun’s stylised art).

REVIEW: Rubber Johnny

CHRIS CUNNINGHAM and Aphex Twin: never have two artists been so intertwined and synonymous with perverse horror.
The former, a film-maker, has been the most authentic producer of hallucinatory visual terror of the past 25 years – going back to Come To Daddy (1997) and Windowlicker (1999), the terrifying music videos he made for the latter, a nightmarishly brilliant British electronic composer.
When I learned Cunningham had made a new six-minute short titled Rubber Johnny – with music by Aphex Twin – I went searching and discovered it’s, in fact, a DVD and 42-page booklet (filled with disturbed computer-distorted photography and art) available from www.amazon.co.uk/.
Being lazy, I knew I had to track it down on the Net and I did at http://wimp.com/rubberjohnny, a site that should be immediately visited by all aspiring horror film directors and all fans of general weirdness…even if the film’s flawed in places.
Rubber Johnny opens promisingly with an unseen man (Doctor? Psychiatrist?) talking calmly to a retarded man-child with shining eyes in a darkened room. The severely retarded child (A mutant?) burbles “Momma” a few times, but when the voice asks him whether he’d like to see his mother, the man-child grows hysterical and has to be given an injection to calm him down. Cue opening credits.
It’s an unnerving start to the movie and things get better when we return to the darkened room where a small dog laps nervously at a water bowl. He’s disturbed by the tortured breathing of his unwanted companion: poor deformed Johnny, asleep and naked in a wheelchair.

Johnny’s eyes flicker open. He stares at the dog and the fun begins.
Or so it should. Instead, Cunningham decides to get silly (ala the more off-the-wall moments of Windowlicker).
Electronic music kicks in and Johnny starts dancing in his wheelchair round the room like a spastic puppet. It’s more comical than frightening and kills the overwhelming feeling of dread that preceded it.
Suddenly, a door opens and light fills the room. A man’s form (Johnny’s father?) checks on the now-motionless Johnny, then closes the door.
Johnny snorts a line of coke or speed (Where the frig did that come from?) and starts dancing crazily again, repeatedly smashing his malleable face into the video camera.

The dog looks on in bewilderment.
Finally, the door opens again to reveal a silent Johnny back in his original twisted position in the chair. The door closes, filling the room with darkness again. End of film.
What do I make of Rubber Johnny? It’s strange, terrifying, fantastic, yet also a little disappointing.

It's a film of two halves and the first half is infinitely superior. When we have a gibbering retarded infant afraid to see his own mother...well, that's HORROR.

But seeing the baby later change into a young man dancing like an "E" freak at a rave...isn't.

One gets the feeling if Cunningham had stuck with the pure disturbed uneasiness of the film’s first two minutes, then it could have been a work of genius.
And if he’d then taken those two minutes and expanded the concept to produce a 30-minute short film, well, who knows? I’d probably still be pooing my pants as we speak.
Instead, as fascinating as it is, Rubber Johnny reeks of unfulfilled potential.

The coming of Dr Riot

In future, all wrestling-related posts will appear on a new blog run by the legendary Dr Riot, a scholar and a gentleman and an expert in the sport.

His blog can be found at http://docriot.blogspot.com/.

Shinya Hashimoto RIP (1965-2005)

Just read this on the Observer:
"Shinya Hashimoto passed away at approximately 9:30 a.m. Monday morning in Yokohama, Japan. His death is believed to have been due to a brain aneurism. He collapsed suddenly and was rushed to the hospital and is believed to have been dead on arrival. No other details are available at this moment. He was 40. Hashimoto, a many time IWGP champion and Hall of Famer, had, along with Hulk Hogan, headlined more successful huge live pro wrestling events than any wrestlers in the history of the business. He had been out of action for several months due to a shoulder injury and the collapse of the original Zero-One promotion. He was recovering from surgery in December. "

Another legend bites the dust. Farewell, you fat magnificent bastard...

As always...

If you're not a blogger and you can't comment directly on this web site, but you wish to say something on ANYTHING I've written, please feel free to e-mail me.

You can also find out info on buying brand-spankin'-new issues - and slightly tattered back issues - of my zine Betty Paginated.

Reviews from the Isa

THERE isn’t much to do in Mt Isa, apart from drinking beer and watching the hundreds of hawks circling the warm desert sky.
So I spent a lot of my spare time reading. I got through four books during my week-long stay, which is pretty damn impressive if I say so myself.
Here are some quick capsule reviews (partly just in case any of youse might be interested in reading them yourselves but, mainly, so you can see what a well-read smarty-pants I am).

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil by John Berendt
I started reading this on the plane back from America. Helen bought it for $8 in a second-hand bookstore in Milwaukee run by one of the surliest gentleman I’ve had the misfortune of meeting. She read it before we hit Savannah, Georgia and it certainly helped her (and me, as Helen acted as my unofficial guide while we were there) gain a better understanding about this beautiful, historic, isolated city overflowing with southern charm.
Berendt wrote the book (“based on a true story”) in 1994 but it’s set in the 1980s. He was a New York journo who fell in love with Savannah, its beautiful architecture and eccentric citizens...characters such as white trash sex god Danny Hansford, the flamboyant black transvestite The Lady Chablis (pictured left), charming-but-crooked lawyer Joe Odom and mass murderer in the making Luther Driggers are lovingly described by Berendt.
In fact, I was so enjoying reading about his bizarre ensemble cast that it caught me by surprise when – 170 pages in – the book turned into a murder mystery-come-courtroom drama.
Did arrogant antiques dealer Jim Williams really murder his lover/companion Hansford?
The book unfolds with twists and turns as Berendt follows the rumours, gossip and innuendo through swanky parties, low-brow drinking sessions and one-on-one meetings with everyone from the defense lawyer and prosecutor to defendant and Minerva, the voodoo witch hired by Williams to protect him from Hansford’s malevolent ghost.
Midnight’s such an entertaining read, I can forgive Berendt for liberally messing with the truth: from twisting the sequence of events to suit his narrative purposes…to changing the names of some characters…to making other characters up entirely.
Hey, don’t let the facts get in the way of a brilliant novel…er, true-crime book...er...
Aw, fuck it…just consider Midnight an amazingly outrageous tourists guide to Savannah.

PJ Harvey: Siren Rising by James R. Blandford (2004)
Fuck! How easy is this? A hack collates a bunch of magazine articles on and interviews with the enigmatic English indy rock singer/songwriter…rips out the best quotes from ’em…then publishes an “unofficial biography”.

Talk about lazy journalism – no first-hand interviews with the lady in question or any of her friends and associates, just second-hand quotes, some dating back to the early 90s, which makes them fairly outdated.
And what do we learn about the pocket dynamo from this book? Well, PJ’s pretentious (she’s friends with Vincent Gallo, for fuck’s sake), aloof towards her fans and all-round fucked in the head (think breakdowns, bad relationships, having Vincent Gallo as a mate, etc).
She kicks arse, though, so it was cool for me to finally learn something about her.
Yep, Siren Rising sucks, but for us PJ fans, anything’s better than nothing and, until now, NOTHING is all we’ve had.

The Amazing Web by Harry Stephen Keeler
I read my first Harry Keeler novel (1941’s The Sharkskin Book) last year and it turned my head into creamed corn.
Noted Aussie Keeler-ite Chris Mikul (of Bizarrism zine fame) kindly gave me a copy of The Amazing Web and, by the time I finished reading it, my head was mushy creamed corn all over again.
Written in 1930 (the copy I have has no date on it, but I assume it’s a later edition), the convoluted plot’s hard to explain but I can tell you it deals with an honest lawyer, crooked cops, a wronged woman with a handbag made out of Australian sixpence pieces, a redheaded fop accused of murder and his uncanny look-alike, a trick cyclist, 1200 men carrying suitcases, notorious pirate Captain Kidd and an ancient Chinese safe carrying a deadly cargo.
Let Fender Tucker from Ramble House (who have republished nearly all of the great man’s works) tell the Keeler story:

“Never heard of Harry Stephen Keeler? Don't feel alone. He's America’s most forgotten author, victim of a plot by publishers to weed out all writers who don’t write swift, easy-to-read, dumbed-down prose for the masses. Harry wrote because he enjoyed it and early on developed a style all his own. He devised incredibly convoluted plots involving ethnic characters (who speak in outrageous dialect), pop culture of the 30s and 40s and his favorite MacGuffin: skulls. Modern-day writers have their DNA evidence; Harry preferred skulls. Once you read a Keeler, you're never quite the same, and now – thanks to Ramble House – you can read all you want. And more!”

End of plug. Go to Ramble House, find out more about Harry Stephen Keeler, buy a book or three and feel your brain liquefy.

How To Talk Dirty And Influence People by Lenny Bruce
This is the 1992 re-release of the original 1965 autobiography by the controversial Yank comedian. I’ve had this book for more than 10 years and I couldn’t understand why I’d avoided reading it for so long.
Maybe I had an inkling that How To Talk Dirty accurately reflects Lenny’s career – the first half is a funny look at his childhood and growing up, showing how an ex-navy guy wound up a rich and successful stage comic.
The second half gets bogged down in court cases and transcripts over Lenny’s many arrests for obscenity and narcotics possession.
And, like any good lying junky, he desperately denies the blaring obvious truth to readers.
I skipped large chunks of this section ’cos it was so goddamn boring, same as Lenny’s stage shows near the end of his life.
Which is a shame ’cos the early part of the book – just like much of his career – rocked.

Web site plugs

Before I forget, I recommend you check out the following three web sites about two of my favourite ladies.

First up is the legendary Vanessa Del Rio, queen of the Golden Age of Porn, who's still going strong with her long-running fab web site. It's a pay site, but there are also loads of free pics (including plenty of new sets of the mature Mistress), news updates and great stuff to buy. In fact, I suggest you sign up with her and see ALL that Ms Del Rio has to offer. Oh...and please tell her I sent youse.

Next up is American right-wing commentator and highly shaggable sheila Ann Coulter.
I think Ann's extremist xenophobic rhetoric is endearing and so does Bachem Macuno.
Which is why he's produced not one but two blogs about the hate-filled honey and darling of the Conservative elite (not to mention the vicious bastards at Fox News).
First up is this site, after which you should check out that site.
You'll laugh so hard - and maybe even get turned on a little - that you'll almost forget what a nutjob Ann Coulter is.

The pitter-patter of little feet...

Meet Indy and Missy, our new dogs. We got them from Doggie Rescue in Sydney a few weekends back. Aren't they cuuuuuuuute? :)

Sailing on the good ship Isa

“Kids grow up tough here, but they grow up with respect” – Bones (Mt Isa local)

THE smoke stacks – spewing forth sulphur dioxide and other gases into the Queensland outback air – dominate Mt Isa’s skyline like three massive skyscrapers.
The tallest of them – the imaginatively named Lead Stack – stands 280 metres (1000 feet) high.
One local likens the three stacks – located in the heart of the city – to the funnels on a giant cruise liner. A monstrous ship slowly poisoning its crew with noxious fumes…
Not that anyone complains…not when those stacks are the unfortunate-but-necessary byproduct of the very thing that puts food on the locals’ table and a 4WD in every garage.
I recently spent a week in the Isa, the “Rodeo Capital Of Australia”.
Unexpected events lead to unexpected actions. I always assumed I’d never visit Mt Isa. Now I have and I’m still trying to get the place out of my head.
Founded in the 1920s, Isa’s a rough’n’ready mining town. Nowadays, it tries to cultivate an image as an attractive tourist destination, but its primary industry still remains the mines. Thousands of people are employed and paid top money to dig up the vast quantities of silver, lead, zinc and other metals to be found in the earth.
The town’s isolation is overwhelming when you arrive by plane, almost physical. It hits you in the face.
Flying in, I could see why some call the town the “Oasis Of The Outback” – it looks quite green and hospitable compared to the thousands of kays of heat-blasted desert surrounding it.
Isa feels like the most isolated place in Australia, probably because it is.
Located in north-west Queensland, the city’s 1800km north-west from Brisbane, 880km west from Townsville, about 1000km south of Darwin, about 1000km east of Alice Springs and 1000km from anywhere remotely worth looking at “down south”.
Isa may be in the middle of nowhere, but if you happen to land in the joint, you’ll discover the town’s keen to tell every visitor of its achievements.
While there, I noticed several signs dotted round the town noting that Isa’s the birthplace of such celebrities as AFL footballer Simon Black, actress Deborah Mailman, golfer Greg Norman and former tennis champ Pat Rafter.
The town’s residents are also proud of the fact Isa’s the “largest city in the world”, a dubious claim linked to the size of the area administered by the local council…and that one town street stretches nearly 190km west to Camooweal, near the Northern Territory border.
The strangest sensation I felt during my stay in Isa was one of…emptiness. I’d drive my hire car round the streets and hardly see anyone.
It wasn’t until my second-last day I found out why: the town once boasted nearly 50,000 residents. With the recent closure of some mines, the town’s population has dropped to 23,000 – literally, there aren’t enough people to fill the streets. They get swallowed up by the vastness of the town.
In many ways, Isa is typical of many Aussie country towns I’ve visited: naïve, friendly (if you’re a whitefella), casually racist, expensive, devoid of any real culture and home to some of the most appalling food I’ve ever eaten.
But in other ways, Isa’s different…unsettling.
The unsettling feeling lasted into my last day when, in broad daylight, I nearly hit a kangaroo as I drove into town for the final time before dropping off my car and flying out of Isa.
Broad daylight…not dawn, not dusk, not the typical times when ’roos are supposed to leap onto the roads and kill unwary country drivers. No, it was 10am.
I flew out of Isa feeling anxious, uneasy.
That feeling still hasn’t quite left me.

This means something to me, OK?