Posts tagged Matt fraction

Acts of kindness: How two comic book writers were the first to know Sara was pregnant

Now it can be told.

Sara is in her 12th week of pregnancy - the first twelve weeks was us, keeping it to ourselves (mostly), trying not to jinx anything, and waiting.

At one point Sara suggested I find myself some books about pregnancy that I might enjoy reading. Since I wasn’t aware of Jon Stewart, Anthony Bourdain, or Paul Pope having written any books about pregnancy, I wasn’t sure where to start.

Enter Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick:

Matt Fraction, as I’ve written about here before, is my favorite comic book writer. He, and the extremely talented Kelly Sue (also a comic book writer), have two kids and have shared little bits and pieces of their journey as parents online with their friends, family, and fans. I’ve always enjoyed watching them and their kids from across the internet and think they seem like great parents. So I figured, why not see if there were any books they enjoyed. If I like their writing, chances are I might also like their choice in books.

So I got on Kelly Sue’s message board and specifically asked Matt if there were any books for expectant fathers that he enjoyed. He responded that there was a three book set he really liked, but couldn’t remember the name. No biggie. The search would continue.

Then, a few weeks later, I’m walking through the grocery store when I get a text - I pull out my phone to see a direct Twitter message from Kelly Sue, asking for my address, and saying that she and Matt would like to send me the set of books Matt had mentioned.

Let me make something clear here: I am a fan of Matt and Kelly Sue’s. I have asked them questions on message boards and I shook Matt’s hand at a comic book convention last year. That is the extent of our relationship. They don’t know me from Adam. Yet they took the time to track me down on Twitter, contact me, then send me the books ON THEIR DIME! I offered to pay shipping and they refused.

Comic book fans can be weird. Matt and Kelly Sue have written some of the biggest name characters in comics, from The X-Men to Supergirl to Iron Man. That kind of puts a target on your back for some people. One wrong move and all of a sudden there’s a blog out there dedicated to WHY YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND SPIDER-MAN THEY WAY I DO. So, for the two of them to reach out like this, to a complete stranger, says a lot, to me, about their hearts.

I was already a fan of them both - now, Sara, who doesn’t read comics, is a fan. I will do everything in my power to ensure that our baby, once he/she is old enough to understand the intricacies of spatiotemporal holocaust, is a fan.

Thank you Matt and Kelly Sue.

(Just kidding about the spatiotemporal holocaust bit. Casanova is my favorite comic but I will not let my child read it until he/she is forty.)

Why I love comics - March 2012

Prophet

Yesterday I picked up Prophet 21 and 22 from Image comics and they’re great.

Back in the 90’s Rob Liefeld had an imprint at Image Comics called Extreme. One of the books he created was called Prophet. In a lot of ways, it was kind of the essence of what Rob was doing at Extreme, distilled down into one character. Big mysterious guy with swords, guns, shoulder pads and head gear in a lot of highly cross-hatched action poses. I don’t say that to be dismissive - it was pretty sparse as far as concepts go, but kids loved it, and it probably got a lot of kids into comics, so good lookin’ out.

Twenty odd years later, Image has revived the character with a completely new team and largely new concept (but kept the old issue numbering). Prophet is written by Brandon Graham with art by Simon Roy. It’s a slowly unfolding story about a man who wakes up from a technologically induced hibernation with a mission to fulfill on an earth filled with strange new alien life forms. Simple, yet involving. It’s one of those books like Orc Stain where the creators are engaging in some serious world building - where new ideas are tossed out on every page. It’s great. I read two issues last night and immediately wanted a third. Well done to everyone involved.

To recap, this:

Became this:

And it’s great.
—

Rick Remender

Rick Remender is one of those names I’ve always kind of been aware of, but never figure heavily into my monthy reading for whatever reason. When the feeling hit, I would pick up the random book like Doll and Creature, Fear Agent, or Last Days of American Crime, but that was the extent of it.

He grabbed a tighter hold on my attention when he and Tony Moore turned The Punisher into a Frankenstein monster. It was fun and goofy but still played straight enough to enjoy. No easy feat, I’m sure.

From there I started reading his work on Uncanny X-Force. It was his collaboration there with the phenomenal Jerome Opena that initially hooked me. Opena is now in a rotating position as artist on the book, but Rememder’s writing has kept me coming back (along with some other great artist - Rafael Albuquerque, Esad Ribic, Greg Tocchini). Something about Remender and his run on this book reminds me of Chris Claremont on Uncanny X-Men back in the late eighties. Claremont was writing great, involved, emotional stories with a talented regular artist (John Romitat Jr) and incredible fill-in artists (Arthur Adams, Barry Windsor Smith, and Rick Leonardi).

I’ve also started picking up Secret Avengers since he came on board as the series writer. Two issues in and I’m hooked. What I loved about the Avengers when I was a kid was the discordant personalities and the tension they created - and so far it looks like that will be a big part of Remender’s run, so I’m in.

To recap: Rick Remender has my full attention
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Casanova

To recap: New issue of Casanova soon.

You Are What You Eat - 2011

Earlier in the year I posted a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” Makes sense. Here’s what shaped and fashioned me this year:

Early in the year I discovered Film Riot - an internet video podcast starring Ryan Connely and his crew of misfit filmmakers. Every week they dissect film making techniques - often by tackling requests sent in by readers to figure out how to reproduce big budget effects on a DIY budget. They never fail to be entertaining or useful.

I also found Vimeo’s Video School to be pretty useful. The information there can be a little elementary at times, but since they seek to address aspiring filmmakers at every experience level, that only make sense.

Moving from the web to television, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations was essential viewing. I’ve always loved the show, but this year, in it’s seventh season, it took on an almost religious significance for me. It started with the Haiti episode. There was just something about the scene where Bourdain tried to buy food for a bunch of hungry kids and inadvertantly caused a minor riot - his willingness to show how a seemingly benign act of philanthropy could spin out of control, that our actions, no matter how pure hearted, do not exist in a contextless vacuum. It felt like journalism. It felt like a man making television with nothing to prove. If you can take that kind of honesty and couple it with food porn that’s good TV.

This year also saw the release of a second show from Bourdain called The Layover. It’s presumably filmed on Bourdain’s actual layovers as he travels the globe filming No Reservations. It features Bourdain telling you the best places to eat, sleep, and drink in various cities. It’s No Reservation’s less heady, less serious little brother. I wasn’t hooked by the first episode (Singapore). No problem, I thought, I still have No Reservations. No sense being greedy. But the second episode featured Bourdain in New York, his home base, and it was awesome. It was a Bourdain we rarely see; smiling, comfortable, almost giddy. The best part was him arguing with some poor schlub in hamburger joint about whether you could get good sushi in New York. Hooked.

The Layover features a very different editing style from No Reservations. One I stole from liberally (though poorly)

Moving from the small screen to the big one - I saw a lot of movies in the theater this year - but not nearly enough for my liking - and not nearly enough that really blew my socks off. Here’s what I saw that I liked, though:

Thor and Captain America were both childhood dreams come true, Hanna kept me glued to the screen and looked nice doing it, X-Men: First Class was a nice way to re-imagine a dull franchise, Horrible Bosses was genuinely funny (instead of genuinely grueling like The Hangover 2), True Grit was the western we’ve all wanted for a few years now, and Driver was unexpectedly stylish, compelling, and sad (it’s larger here by random, not because it was my favorite movie by any means).

Musically, I had a lot of favorite bands release new albums this year but none of them truly stood out for me. Instead the highlights of my year musically were all live. First of all there was seeing The Mountain Goats live for the first time at Mercy Lounge in Nashville. Sara loves John Darnielle but had kind of a bad night so out of respect of her, I won’t go on and on about this one:

Next was discovering local boy made good, Vandaveer. Sara and I had a front row table for his show at Natasha’s back in the summer. It was the perfect way to experience a perfect show:

Later in the summer my friends Dan and Jen and I sat with about 30 other people at The Green Lantern and got to hear These United States rehearse a bunch of new songs before taking them into the studio. As far as good shows go, you can’t get much better than that:

Finally, my buddy Paul had his birthday party at Cosmic Charlies at the end of the summer on the same night that one of his favorite bands, Ha Ha Tonka was playing. The band not only sang Happy Birthday to Paul, they let him get on stage and mumble into a microphone for about the minutes while they played. Nicest band ever? Quite possibly:

Oh yeah! I almost forgot! This was also the year that my favorite local band, Sunday Valley, released their first new material in years. It was a great album and cause for celebration:

I watch a lot of TV, see a lot of movies, and listen to a lot of music in a given year - but more than any of those, I read comics. All kinds of comics. What did I read this year that I loved? Glad you asked. 2011 saw the release of the first new issues of Casanova in years. Issue 2, by creators Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba, in particular was comic book magic:

Fraction is my favorite writer in comics. As such, he created more than one book I really liked this year. For instance, his third issue of Mighty Thor was probably the best comic I read all year. It had it all: Norse Gods in space armor, Galactus, naked sword play, Silver Surfer saying cool stuff, Olivier Coipel. That’s a comic!

Other things I loved: Supernatural western, Sixth Gun from Oni Press

Mini comic Wolves from Becky Cloonan:

Weird fantasy book Orc Stain:

There was tons more, but space is limited.

What about books without pictures?

Anthony Bourdain makes good TV and writes good books. This year I read and loved his memoirs Medium Raw:

I also thoroughly enjoyed Blood, Bones & Butter, by chef Gabriel Hamilton:

Notice how both the books I mentioned were more or less about food? I love food. So it only make sense to mention some of the great meals I had this year. Cooking is as much of an art as writing or creating music or films after all.

This year Sara and I discovered Nick Ryan’s Saloon in downtown Lexington and had the best braised short ribs ever:

Our other great discovery was Nicaraguan Latin Grille, a little whole in the wall that blew out socks off:

We also went to Azure, home of local culinary star, Jermy Ashby, and had an incredible seven course meal. Below is just one of the delicious plates:

Then there was Hawaii. We had a lot of great Hawaiin food. Too much to get into, but suffice to say, I now have a deep abiding appreciation for macaroni salad:

There were tons more from tons of great restaurants like Cheng’s , Pho BC, Sam’s Hot Dogs, Planet Thai, Ramirez’ Taqueria, Local Taco, Doodles, Rossi’s, Ramsey’s, Winchell’s, Marikka’s, and El Rancho Tapitio.

Well, that’s it. That was what I ate in 2011. That’s what I loved, took in, digested, and was shaped by. Except for the dozen or so things I will think of as soon as I hit the “post” button.

On to 2012!

Wizard Buys A Hat

They come out to Broadway and they look for me
I’m on the red steps smoking a cigarette
Easy to recognize
Black bandages on my eyes
This is the church, these are the congregants

-Wizard Buys A Hat by The Mountain Goats

The music references get more complex in Casanova: Avaritia

Casanova: Avaritia preview

Yay!

Click here for a six page preview. BEWARE! DIRTY WORDS!

Meeting People You Admire - continued

Some time ago, I made a post about my recently devised goal to shake hands with people I admire. At the time I had met:

The Avett Brothers

And Alton Brown

In the last three weeks I’ve been able to knock a couple more off the list. Namely:

Comic writer, Matt Fraction, the story of which I detail in a post a little further down this page

And then, on Saturday, I was able to meet author Donald Miller

Miller was speaking at a local church and Sara and I waited around afterwards to meet him. Miller is a great writer and a seemingly neat guy. He writes a lot about growing up without a father and so his writing has meant a lot to Sara. She told me after we left that she wanted to say a lot more to Miller than she did, but was afraid she’d break into tears.

We thanked him for his writings and I thanked him specifically for some of the things he’s written about politics. He signed a book for us and posed for a picture. It was really nice.

So, the tally at present:

The Avett Brothers
Alton Brown
Matt Fraction
Donald Miller
Anthony Bourdain
Joel McHale

I’m also considering adding a few more names. This isn’t the kind of list that should ever really be complete, I think.

Heroes Con 2011

Last weekend I jumped in the car and drove six hours to Charlotte, North Carolina for a comic book convention called Heroes Con. I’ve been to a couple of comic book conventions, but not for several years, and never to Heroes Con.

I went, specifically, so I could mark one more name off my “People I Want To Meet” list; namely, comic book writer, Matt Fraction:

Fraction was really nice. We got to talk for a few minutes about Grant Morrison, Casanova, and The Mountain Goats. I asked if I could get a picture with him and he said, “Yeah. Okay, I’m gonna slurp on my coke and pretend to eyeball you.” Which he did. I got the kid in line behind me to take the picture. In hindsight, I should have given him a little tutorial on my camera first:

I also got Fraction to sign my Casanova: Luxuria hardcover:

I got a chance to do some other neat stuff while I was there. I bought a mini-comic from Becky Cloonan that’s only available at cons right now. I got to watch comics legend, Michael Golden, sketch a picture of Batman, and I got to basically walk around for four or five hours immersed in a hobby that I love.

My haul for the weekend included two of Stuart Immonen’s sketchbooks, a Paul Pope mini-comic, and the aforementioned Becky Cloonan book, Wolves:

When I wasn’t at the con, I got to try some different restaurants, my favorite of which was a braised pork cheek sandwich with pickled vegetables from a farm to table place called Blue Harvest Grille. I also had some good soul food at a place called Merts, and some mediocre sushi at a place I won’t name.

It was a good trip, but probably my last con for a long while.

Heroes Con

Assuming gas isn’t at $11 a gallon, I’m gonna nerd it up in June and drive to North Carolina for a comic book convention.

Please take a moment to point and laugh. I’ll wait.

All done?

I’m working on a to-do list for the convention. I’ll be posting it here in bits and pieces as new opportunities and interest present themselves.

Here’s what I have so far.

1. Kill all of my wife’s sexual attraction to me.

2. Shake this man’s hand and thank him for Casanova, probably making a total fool of myself in the process:

3. Buy a copy of this lovely looking book directly from Becky Cloonan:

4. Film a little.

Okay, that’s what I got so far. More to come as I peruse the Heroes Con website.