Merry Christmas

I hope anyone reading this is having a very Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season.

Cheers!
Jon

Mildly Informative Review - The Salon by Nick Bertozzi

It seems that I'm the last in a long line of people to praise this book, and worthy of praise it is. Not only is the story engaging (who doesn't like a good murder-mystery?) and the characters all well rendered and written (I can't think of Picasso in any other way now) but the use of colour is exceptionally striking as the panels adhere to a really structured format throughout.

I love this movement to take early twentieth century figures in Paris and turn them into a sort of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This book explores quite a few things at once, which is the essence of the art that Braque and Picasso were striving for. In one story we have the exploration, definition and construction of a new artform, multiple character interaction subplots and a surreal murder mystery. And at its core each element presented in the book is an exploration or reflection of that basic artistic idea presented via Braque and Picasso. To see something from many angles and using colour for emotional resonance allows the art to explore a new type of reality.

The comic itself, the physical object of the book, reflects this as well. The book is a landscape format often used to gather newspaper funnies, but it is vibrantly colourful in a minimalist sense with two colours used per page. And while all this fits into the idea of looking at the form slightly different, Bertozzi also manages to show how all movements that work out a final definition also become constraining in its own way. There is a rigid grid of four panels per page, that doesn't ever change. This can reflect the cubist ideas but it also shows how that movement itself, after its novelty wore off, became restrictive in its own right.

So, you can explore this book on whichever level you like, and I feel that if I had a bit more art history knowledge I'd enjoy it a bit more (or at least be able to place more of the characters easily). On it's purest level, this is a story you can just pick up and enjoy on face value. You don't have to think about the form or the ideas if you don't want to, you can simply read about a bunch of guys doing wild things in order to capture a demon sprung forth from a canvas. It is a rollicking adventure as much as it is a meditation on immortality through art.

3rd in a series

I totally forgot I had this in my sketchbook because the course ended, and well, I got really busy the day I meant to post it. Here's my sketch of a relatively serious Chris Sims. His is one of few blogs I read on a regular basis and am always thoroughly entertained and as inconceivable as it may seem for a blog especially renowned for kicks to the face in comic books, informed. He's proof that the internet is not bereft of great writing talent.

And since that sketch looks a bit too much like a cross between Mr. Hooper and a character from The Far Side, here’s my sketchbook take of how our blogs compare to one another.


See how I spent seconds lettering and decided to forgo such artistic mainstays as head to body proportions? Yeah, I almost spent minutes on that thing.

Insert coal here

Well if Santa's list was based solely on blogging activity I'd be getting nothing a pile of coal. Not a big pile, mind you, but nothing but coal nonetheless. This has been a bit of a weird year. I was sort of thinking of doing a year in review type post but don't really have much to say except this is the year I sort of faded away from comics, not so much as burned out on them. I did find that the big two super-hero companies had changed their focus enough to lose most of my attention. A few years ago they were creating stories that brought me back in and then squandered opportunity after opportunity to really knock things out of the park. I guess it's that road paved with good intentions.

On the bright side, all that pap makes the diamonds shine all that brighter. Books like All-Star Superman or The Spirit were fantastic, if not exactly prompt in delivery. World War Hulk seems to have gone over well as far as massive cross-overs go, but to be honest I didn't read a darned thing attached to it. I did however enjoy the heck out of the Marvel Adventure titles. Particularly the Avengers and Iron Man ones.

But honestly, most of my enjoyment this year was being able to read books that did come out this year at all. I enjoyed exploring the library system a bit more and just taking random chances on a few books that I ended up loving the hell out of. I've just picked up The Salon and Laika, both of which I'm enjoying a heck of a lot. And there was that last post - man I loved that book.

So in case I don't post again, Happy Holidays all.

Mildly Informative Review - Essex County: Tales From the Farm

I’ve been trying to come up with a good post for this book for quite a while now but it seems that the workLIFE continuum had other plans for me. In essence I’ve read Jeff Lemire’s Essex County: Tales from the Farm and I’ve also been slowly reading Scott McCloud’s Reinventing Comics. In McCloud’s book he explores the notion of comics not only as art but as literature and how, at the time of publication for his book, comics were still coming to terms with this notion. That comics have yet to achieve that potential while facing the numerous challenges within and without the medium.

And then I read Essex County, which to me, is the modern of embodiment of comics as literature. This is a book that has a unique yet approachable voice, from a story that understands its audience to a look that is a departure from the superhuman copy reality blandness. Here you are presented with characters that look rough around the edges because they exist as characters that are meant to be rough around the edges while still being easily identifiable and unique. This is actually a book that looks like nothing else on the shelves, which is very welcome, but that uniqueness does not detract from its appeal or ability to convey the narrative or emotions of the characters.

The story itself is quite stark, again something I find Lemire’s character work and general layout of panels helps portray. The main characters have all suffered a loss, from a sister, to a mother, to a fabled career and possibly a son. The plot involves Lester as the boy always in a cape and mask living on his uncle’s farm as his mother, Ken’s sister, dies. While this is a generally strained relationship between two men at different points in their lives dealing with a shared loss Lester does manage to befriend the local gas station attendant Jimmy LeBoeuf. Their relationship starts because of their appreciation for the make believe worlds in comics but develops into a shared trust of one another, since they’re both cast as outsiders (amplified by comics' status as outsider entertainment)

But none of this really explains why I think this is my new example of comics as literature. No, for me it’s in Lemire’s storytelling. Whenever the characters retreat into their minds the panels have a new presentation, from Lester’s own comic book to Ken’s remembrance of his sister. When the somewhat jarring climax takes place it is never presented differently, which leaves it up to the interpretation of the audience. Did it really happen or does Lester just believe it happened? That is the open ended question being asked of the audience, and without reading it again I’m unsure I can come down on one side of the coin or the other. It works because it is so out of left field but also perfectly sensible within the story being told. That’s the moment that really sealed the deal for me, to say nothing of the reminiscent of Sling Blade relationship between the boy and man.

All in all, this is a fantastic piece of comic bookery. I think Jimmy LeBoeuf says it best.

Thanks Jimmy.

Mildly Informative Review – Zombies Calling

I know, I know, what’s with the relatively current comic book review here? Well, sit right down on that comfy chair by the wood fire and let me tell you a tale. It turns out that if you forget that Volume 4 of Scott Pilgrim is coming out on a Wednesday you can’t actually get it on the Thursday. So I bought other comics, okay, I bought Zombies Calling and All Star Superman, so a brace or pair, if you like. It just looked like my kind of thing and I was looking for something new.

I’m glad I picked it up because for the most part I enjoyed the book. Yes, I used “for the most part” in that sentence. It’s not meant to be a backhanded comment or anything but there were a few things that I’ll get to at the end although nothing too discouraging I hope.

I know what you’re probably thinking as I thought it too – Another zombie book? Hasn’t that well been dipped into one too many times? Well, turns out not really, no. This is a book that is in many ways part of the self-aware zombie movement. Not that the zombies are self-aware but the story and the book acknowledges the source material not just as references and sources but blatantly by the characters. They watch zombie movies and are thus prepared for the zombie invasion moreso than pay homage to the materials they are homaging. I can appreciate that self-awareness, a lot because it helps alleviate a lot of the blasé repetitiveness that you can get when reading genre fiction.

This is a book that has a heck of a lot of charm. Faith Hicks manages to create characters that are cute but not cutesy and expressive without being over-wrought or over-rendered. In other words, pretty much what I'm looking for in pulp art. The characters lend themselves well to kinetic action scenes (like various face kickings and other zombie violence) as much as their emotional moments which comes off as feeling charming. I’m not using charming to be dismissive or belittling here, it’s a genuine compliment because it is so rare in so many comic books these days. Heck even the zombies are cute and goofy versions of the undead more so than the nightmare inducing rotting corpses one is used to.

The characters are all easily relatable if not on the verge of cliché but, hey, it’s a zombie comic and apparently there are rules. I get a bit of a Mary Sue vibe from Joss, but hey I can relate to anglophiles, zombie movie fans, Canadian student debt, and Halifax so I may be a bit biased there. There is basically the geeky leader, the attractive arty friend and the dumb as a defense guy. They’re relationship together is well balanced and I’m glad there wasn’t a bloated cast of protagonists.

This is also a funny book what with the evil professor commanding an army of zombies to some of the humor is based solely in Canadiana, which again, I’m happy to read.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the core message of the story. It is simple and yet it is highly appropriate. Basically, the current post-secondary education system in Canada is full of zombies that ensure you go through the next twenty odd years of your life as a dazed corpse. As someone who is paying off student debt until he is forty, I’m very amenable to this message. I’m a sucker for anything criticizing Canada’s delusions of grandeur.

I think this book is a fantastic beginning for Ms. Hicks as she has created the most charming twenty-somethings in Canadian comics since Scott Pilgrim took up his fight. We get some raw emotion at what I can only guess if personal experience of a higher education but it’s filtered through such an approachable cast of characters that I’m really interested to see what Faith Hicks takes on next. And that’s the only slightly annoying thing with the book, that while all the pieces are strong on their own, it still feels like a first work in a few ways. I kept reading about how the rules of zombie movies would help the characters survive without ever having the characters tell me what the rules were. It’s the classic first work mistake of telling and not showing, and while it is slightly distracting it’s not a deal breaker for enjoying the heck out of this work.

Two fun things for a Snow Day

Today I am enjoying my first snow-day since I was in Grade 12. I was still a gentleman and walked my wife to work but I'm home now drinking coffee wondering if I should fire up The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or Night of the Living Dead dvd? Decisions, decisions.

Otherwise, I did managed to watch a fantastic movie this weekend as well as read a fun, if not hard to explain its existence, comic.

I read the Hellboy Animated: Black Wedding digest. It was great Hellboy story with witches, demons, and magic book stores all taking place in Paris. It's basically the equivalent of the Batman Adventures comics only with Hellboy. There is a long explanation of the series in the introduction that is sort of a primer on how big time animation happens, and it is both and interesting story and a slightly foreboding message to anyone thinking of just breaking into the animation world.

So what you have is a slightly more cartoony version of the Hellboy characters in a fairly standard Hellboy adventure although there is still the death of an agent so I'm not entirely sold on whether this was completely censored for kids - which of course makes it awesome. I mean, really, it can't be a Hellboy comic without some BRPD agent dying. But unlike the Batman adventures which took a bloated franchise and reduced it to its core awesomeness, this is a bit unnecessary for a franchise not really flagging. I guess it can introduce a new audience, but I'm not sure a lot of parents who aren't already familiar with the character would be willing to pick up a cartoon book called Hellboy, especially when there is a blood-slug eating through the chest of a man in the middle of the story.

That being said, I really enjoyed it, but I generally like this kind of thing anyway. I have to say the Young Hellboy/Lobster Johnson backup story is pretty much worth the cover price on its own. I mean who can't love someone who replaces the word "pain" with "justice" and uses phrases like "Time to inflict some justice"? If you don't like that you pretty much don't have a soul. Or Hellboy may have used his right hand of doom on your sense of humour.

Movie wise I watched Equilibrium and it was pretty much one of the coolest movies I've seen in a long time. It's basically The Matrix without Keanu. It stars Christian Bale who does a wonderful job of acting emotionless as opposed to Keanu's inability to emote. Let's just say this movie is a mixture of 1984, ritalin, Fahrenheit 451, and Gun-fu. In order to avoid war humanity has come up with Grammaton Clerics who study the Gun-Kata in order to punish Sense Offenders in the name of the Tetragrammaton and Father. If that doesn't sound like the best movie ever then know that the big change is sparked by someone finding a puppy. Yes, a cute puppy. Then reems of unfeeling armored thugs are taken out at extreme close range by a dude with two guns in a mix of kung-fu and wild west quick draw because someone tries to kill the puppy.

It is really good and don't let my attempts at humor or flippancy deter you from giving this movie a whirl. If you are in the mood for an action movie but don't want to watch something like Live Free or Die Hard, it's because you want to watch Equilibrium. It was recommended strongly by two people at Elgin St. Video and it's the first time I put a note on the returned DVD thanking someone for their recommendation.

The Eternals - Briefly

So I was reading the relaunch of The Eternals by Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr when I got to the end and discovered this was only the first half/part of a bigger story. That was disappointing, even moreso than the constant shoe-horning of Iron Man and the Civil War mandated appearances. Although, having the Eternals out dickhead Tony Stark was kind of a nice touch - the did kill an eleven year-old kid afterall.

I never experienced Kirby's version so I have no reference point for comparison here, but I liked what I read which makes the random ending all the more disappointing. This is good comics that sort of ends like someone ripping a band-aid off your scraped elbow, it's just sudden and jarring and you're not too sure it was such a good idea.

Beautiful, beautiful artwork though. I could honestly just open this thing up at random and gaze at the colours on the verge of glowing themselves off the page. This book is luminescent as far as the artwork and coloring is concerned. Fantastic pairing.

Eisner on Racism and History

Reading Will Eisner’s Fagin the Jew is a bit like reading three separate stories that are related via one character. If you are thinking of writing comics and have tried to read as many writing resources as you can before putting pen to paper you will have come across the three act structure more than once I can assure you. And this story is no different, however each act feels almost detached from the previous one. Of all the Eisner stuff I have read this work feels the least structured.

The majority of what I’ve read by Eisner, outside his work on The Spirit, tends to be thematically linked works that don’t necessarily equate three acts of one story. Work like The Contract with God trilogy or New York Stories tend to share a setting or some characters to achieve their ends so their multiple arcs under one banner work in their own separate ways. In Fagin the Jew, the connection between the three arcs is one character so the difference in narrative is more pronounced.

Fagin’s early life is pure Eisner comics with a run down kid living as a refugee Jew in the unforgiving streets of London. Here he quickly learns how being streetwise is what will let him survive in a city that has nothing but contempt for him. From his father’s lessons and short life, to his apprenticeship with the accepted Jews who try to lift up their brethren by collective charity or simply by deciding to be culturally Jewish but religiously Church of England. It is a fascinating exploration of an immigrant culture at a specific time that feels timeless in many respects because of the shared history of the Diaspora.

When the story moves into the plot of Dickens’ Oliver Twist it feels like a different actor has been introduced to play Fagin. Suddenly this rather sympathetic character is forced to fit into the mold cast by Dickens and I’m not sure it is completely successful as Fagin becomes a harder personality with a few moments of warmth. It feels like he is suddenly removing himself from culpability and being entirely too selfish all of a sudden in order to fit the Dickens role, when he was entirely more accessible and slightly more gullible leading up to this point. In many ways that warmness is repressed as a reaction to his previous treatment and while understandable on an intellectual level, and upon recollection, it still feels like Eisner is trying to balance his message with the plot of Oliver Twist.

And in the final arc the message comes full circle in Oliver’s treatment of Fagin. How this man we’ve come to know and understand is so easily cast aside. His life only becomes important upon recollection and as the future generations take a more generous and accepting attitude towards one another does he become a more powerful and important figure worth remembering. And in that, I think the book is success in delivering its message even when it struggles to balance the two narratives.

Eisner’s run down artwork is the perfect presentation for this story. From the sepia tones to the fuddled lines of the characters clothes it is the perfect presentation for something meant to feel historic. And what it does is make the work feel timeless. It is next to impossible to remove Eisner’s non-Spirit work from a certain period in New York and even this story looks and feels as if it could easily be displaced there rather than Victorian England.

I’m a huge fan of Eisner’s ability to give his art emotion. From the embarrassment at their position in life to their pride and joy at other moments, every emotion looks genuine. And they look genuine even through their shabby dress because the structure of each character and panel is simply masterful, that no matter how many layers of rags are heaped upon it the natural understanding of comic book art always shines through.

This is a book worth your time both as entertainment and as something of a historical document. Just reading Eisner’s own introduction makes it something worthwhile to any student of Eisner’s and the comic book medium where Eisner confronts his own creations. He speaks of creating Ebony and how looking back at it, it is obviously racist even with all the qualities the young character portrayed and Eisner explores his relationship with the character and his later attempts to fix those errors. I have to say that I think the approach that The Spirit Archives is taking is the one Eisner would have approved of, in that these stories deserve to be read, warts and all, because they are important for their content as much as for how they recorded attitudes in a specific time and place which is lost for various reasons in the Tintin removals. Eisner is aware of what he did and he realized that apologizing wouldn't simply make it go away, so in many ways this work here is both an exploration into how his own racist portray came to be as much as it is an atonement for it.

Both still good

I just read book five (or six, sorry can't recall at the moment) in The Walking Dead series and the last Runaways digest. Both are still quite good, although I don't need the torture porn in The Walking Dead, but that's because I'm not a fan of the genre. I understand that The Governor is a bad man and did horrific things but that was a bit much for me, which is odd seeing as this takes place in a zombie book where the living undead constantly evicerate or are blown away with rifles and hatchets.

This just isn't my thing

I started to read Apparat and by the time this guy vomits into his lover's vagina I figured, I got the point of the comic and decided I had enough.

What, no faking dead or uppercutting?

I read Joe Kubert and Brian Azzarello's Sgt. Rock book, Between Hell and a Hard Place, and while I enjoyed it I also noticed how it differentiates from your standard Sgt. Rock story. Having the Vertigo imprint should be enough of a warning that this will not be your standard war comic. What they managed to get right are the supporting cast that Kubert developed for Sgt. Rock, from Wildman to the Ice-cream Soldier to Bull to Sure Shot the regular cast is all accounted for. What is different, at least for me, is that suddenly Easy Company is thrust into a specific battle and well, they all pretty much get wounded. I have to admit I haven’t read all that many Sgt. Rock comics but I’m pretty sure Easy Company always managed to get out relatively unscathed. Not here.

This is the fictional WWII setting but a specific battle and while that’s about as detailed as it gets, it seems to be a departure from the formula in itself. Well, the formula as I’m pretty much making it up, regardless. This isn’t a tale of bravery or survival so much as it is the tale of the battle and their role in it, heightened by a murder mystery.

There is bravery and there is bloodshed and while I think this was a good comic I don’t think it was a great Sgt. Rock comic. I expect Sgt. Rock to, at least once, play dead then sock a ratzi in the jaw (then blow up a tank with a bazooka). This was more a mixture of fact and fantasy, and it is successful in its own way. I don’t think any comic character should be limited to one type of story and this is an example of how changing the comfort zone of both characters and reader can still result in good comics. Here we get a different take on fictional soldiers in a real war setting, and it is quite moving because the story manages to make these characters feel a bit more realistic for their harshness and reluctant acceptance of their own bravery.

I think the characters, because of their setting, readily lend themselves to a more serious story. At the same time, the soldiers here don’t need to be the Sgt. Rock crew. And yet I applaud Azzarello and Kubert for tackling a more serious story with characters that were created to get kids believing in the superhuman good of American soldiers. In this story we’re given broken and detached men who seem to keep fighting despite the odds (which really isn’t all that new to Sgt. Rock comics) but they actually have more consequences here for all the established characters rather than just the new meat.

I was expecting an easy comic about the toughest man in comics beating up Nazis but what I got was a brilliant story using established fictional characters in an unexpected manner, and liking the story all the more for it. This is a prime example of making comics more serious and grim, but in a way that works for me, albeit mostly because of the setting.

This Comic is Good

All-Star Superman #9. Superman returns to Earth only to find a couple of Kryptonian astronauts have taken up his role only as in true Kryptonian style they decide to become petty tyrants. From their behaviour to their wonderfully alien costumes (head antennas included) they just do not seem anything like Superman. They bring a sense of hyperactive aristocracy to Earth and since they can they decide to take over and creaete New Krypton - something that happens a heck of a lot when Kryptonians other than Superman show up.

Well this Superman just doesn't stop trying to help these two even when they break the moon then stitch it up with the world's famous bridges. It's his ability to be both alien and human that rises him above the other characters here - from Clark Kent's antagonist Steve Lombard to Superman's antagonists Bar-El and Lilo. He's got the power of the aliens, which is their strength but the compassion of humans, which is their strength.

The bright colours make this feel like mainlining comic books into your system. The art is simultaneously awe inspiring, wonderfully kinetic and horribly alien and threatening. And the ending is both happy and forboding with the mini-tyrants in the Phantom Zone looking happy to take over a bunch of Kryptonian criminals but their look could be one of patience to eventually come back to trouble Superman or one of simple satisfaction because they get to do what they like (beat people into submission).

If you are ever in Toronto - 'Zine Museum Opens

Today the 'Zine Museum at the Ontario College of Art and Design is opening. It could be a heck of a lot of fun, and I’m wondering if they have any from my friend Brian – Grape Juice Plus, or another one I remember called “You Ride a Horse Rather Less Well Than Another Horse Would.”

Someday, It May Actually Change

Soooooo.... Yeah. Not much content here lately. Even less than normal it seems. It's not entirely intentional, just haven't really read any comics lately and don't actually think about them all that much to be honest. I've just burned out on superhero comic cross-overs and waiting entirely too long for the non-superhero books to come out. I do have a few books at home from the library, waiting for some free time - Will Eisner's Fagan the Jew and Warren Ellis's Apparat. I had a fire drill at work last week so I went to the library and just browsed to see what was there and, well, these caught my eye.

Now, that all being said, this is probably the first week in quite a few months that I'll actually be buying new comics. The new issues of Scott Pilgrim and All Star Superman are out so I'll be picking those up. I sort of have a feeling that I missed an issue of The Spirit somewhere along the line which I'll have to double check tomorrow.

With the holidays coming up I'll likely be picking up some new trades but I'm undecided on continuing with the Hellboy, Y: The Last Man, or The Walking Dead or simply trying another series that I never read but is meant to be fantastic like Fables, Sandman or Swamp Thing. Time and money will tell.

On a lighter note, tonight is naked model night at the drawing course. That will be odd seeing as I'm the only man and person under forty/without kids there and the community theatre is rehearsing A Christmas Carol in the gym next to our room - the wall separating us is totally windows, but there are blinds. I'm just wondering if you can see silhouettes because this might get some angry letters from parents if their children see silhouettes of a naked lady while they're learning to dance as Victorian Englishmen.

Jennings on Canada

I just heard CBC radio paraphrase Peter Jennings on what it means to be Canadian. He said, being Canadian is being proud to be Clark Kent rather than Superman.

I really like that.

Second in a Series

Here's the second comic book blogger I've sketched in about a minute or five. Mike Sterling of Progressive Ruin. I find myself reading less and less comic book blogs these days but Mr. Sterling will always have something interesting to say, and when he doesn't there is something fun. If only more actual superhero comics were like that. So what are you doing here, go read his musings on the retail side, the industry itself or something about the death of Superman.



Marvel at my inability to capture the likeness of a human being. Next time I'll just go for something completely abstract.

Don't spank that monkey, choke the life out of him.

Yesterday I picked up Zack and Wiki: The Search for Barboros' Treasure for the Wii. It is this old-school puzzle based point and click adventure game that uses just the Wii remote and treats each screen as a puzzle to be solved. The level design is amazing and each the presentation is pretty great all around except for my problems noted below. Better yet, additional Wii remotes can be used by anyone else around as a pointer onscreen to help you out. So up to four people can be involved.

It has also gotten a lot of good reviews across pretty much every online reviewing site.

But the voice acting is truly horrendous. I wanted to strangle the magical flying monkey every single time some dialogue box appeared. Seriously, mute the system and just press the A button as much as you can until you're at the first level. Reading the dialogue and dealing with the abrassive cacaphony of character cues and noise is enough to turn a saint into a video smashing child. I was ready to chuck my Wii remote at the obnoxious characters.

It's such an unfortunate contrast because the actual gameplay is a blast and just plain fun.

So get it for cheap just get ready to hate the characters before the game actually starts.

Kids love them four coloured superheroes

Yesterday me and my wife went to see Bee Movie with some friends of ours and their 3 kids. Afterwards we hung out at their place for the evening (played some Wii, watched the hockey game) and their 3 year old twin girls told me how much they love superheroes.

One just randomly told me she loved Batman and the other girl looks up and says she loves Superman.

They're three years old so I know they've never seen a comic book and wouldn't know what to do with one if they did. What they do have are some The Batman dvds that one of the girls chose. They do recognize the images of the characters and that they're superheroes. They are presented these characters in multiple other media to the point where the kids know about the characters but don't really know anything about them other than the image.

Good thing I'm in their lives. I can create little nerds and geeks. Lovely.

Good Grief

Today on CBC Radio there will be an interview with David Michealis the author of the recent Charles Schultz biography that is getting a lot of press these days, both good reviews and concern from the Schultz family. It will be streamed live at 2pm EST but should also be available via Q:The Podcast - whenever that is made available. I haven't tried it yet so I have no idea how it works.

Following a comic book fanboy thread here's a review of The Tracey Fragments starring Ellen Page who was Kitty Pryde in the last X-men movie. I'm sure this new movie will either excite or disgust the imaginations of KP fanboys. Highway 61, Road Kill and Hardcore Logo are some of my favourite movies and I'm not overly interested in challenging movies these days but I'll probably check this out if I feel like it.