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[russburlingame]

Guice is one of the absolute legends who made the Superman titles of the '90s so good that people stayed on after the death and return story.

Man. RIP Jackson Guice, the man who was tasked with drawing a boozy ex-boxer praying over Superman on the floor of a bar and turned it into one of the most heart-wrenching sequences of panels in comics.

[russburlingame]

recently got back into collecting vinyl after having my collection and setup stolen from me by an ex partner and i was in a little record shop in the city and found a phil ochs record for a dollar i bought because of you, so thank you for indirectly gifting me a beautiful addition to my collection as i try to heal

I am glad to have been of assistance in that, if it isn't pushing, could you tell me which album it was?

[russburlingame]

[russburlingame]

Phil Ochs is A Complete Unknown

While Bob Dylan became a living legend, the era's most earnest folksinger has been largely forgotten

Last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced eight Academy Award nominations for A Complete Unknown, a biopic about one of the most exhaustively-documented artists of the 20th Century.

Okay, that’s a joke. I like Bob Dylan as much as the next guy (provided The Next Guy isn’t Ray Padgett, who writes the terrific Substack Flagging Down the Double Es). “A complete unknown” is obviously a lyric from Dylan’s seminal hit “Like a Rolling Stone,” and it’s a clever title.

(Also, the other obvious choice — No Direction Home — is already a book about Dylan by Robert Shelton and a documentary by Martin Scorsese, so it’s pretty well spoken-for.)

But making fun of the title plays nicely into my premise here.

That’s because while I like Dylan as much as the next guy, I like Phil Ochs considerably more than the next guy. And A Complete Unknown has had me thinking a lot about Ochs, and his relationship to Dylan. Not so much their personal relationship — which was tortured and mostly one-sided — but their cultural relationship. While I hate it, it’s objectively true that almost every conversation about Ochs eventually drifts to Dylan.

For those who haven’t looked too much into it — it’s difficult to overstate the impact that Bob Dylan had on the folk movement in the 1960s. He was to folk music what Gretzky was to hockey or Jordan was to basketball — not only widely considered the best, but also seen as someone who completely redefined the “game.”

He did that again in 1965, when — at the event which wraps up A Complete Unknown — Dylan “went electric” at the Newport Folk Festival, polarizing folk music fans but setting himself up for more and bigger successes in the broader music industry.

Following Dylan’s explosive folk-rock success, he became increasingly detached from the protest music that drove the New York City folk scene. The scene itself remained vital for years, but it was forever fractured by the departure of its biggest star, and by the changes he left behind. There is, in fact, an argument to be made that a movie picking up where A Complete Unknown leaves off might be more interesting than the one we got.

While Dylan got increasingly enthusiastic about drugs and heady songwriting, he largely left activism and topical music behind. While there was always an undercurrent of criticism — even hostility — from those in the folk movement and from the activists who felt he abandoned them, those voices were in the minority.

This is a story about Phil Ochs, but it’s opened up with…what, 500 words?…of framing about Bob Dylan. And that’s kind of the point. I prefer Ochs to Dylan, and I think he’s the best topical singer-songwriter of the era (except possibly Joan Baez, who covered Phil’s great song “There But For Fortune”).

If you happen to be one of the 50 Phil Ochs fans on the internet (word is, we can’t be wrong!), you’ve likely seen quite a bit of discourse around A Complete Unknown. There were quite a few fans who were upset to hear that Phil wouldn’t make an appearance in the film, which is set in and around the Greenwich Village folk scene at the same time as Ochs and Dylan were friends.

I wasn’t one of those people, for a simple reason: Ochs deserves better than to be treated like some angry weirdo on the fringes of Dylan’s orbit…especially since, the long run, Phil held onto his principles and was defined by them, while Dylan largely gave up on politics to focus on getting high and making cool, weird art.

There is, of course, a constant struggle between art and commerce. Dylan and Ochs are a fascinating way to view that struggle, because while Dylan is a great artist, he’s also a pioneer of making yourself a “brand.” The idea that Dylan is all art and no commerce is nonsense, and you can actually see that through the lens of an anecdote that is constantly shared about the two.

In late 1965 or early 1966, not long after the success of “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Positively 4th Street,” Dylan was on top of the world. His next single, “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?,” failed to crack the top 40 on the charts, and Dylan appears to have been a lot more frustrated by this than he would have liked to let on.

According to a story Phil Ochs used to tell, Dylan previewed his next single — “One Of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)” — for Ochs and another friend, David Blue, expressing enthusiasm and thinking it was the kind of song that was likely to be a big hit. While Blue praised the song, Ochs was lukewarm on it, and didn’t think it was likely to be a hit. Dylan reportedly took it quite personally and, when the time came for the trio to move to their next location, Dylan told Ochs to “get out” of his limousine and find his own way.

This story has been conflated with another one numerous times, including in a couple of Ochs biographies, but there’s actually a pretty great Reddit comment that provides a pretty credible account of it that seemingly dispels some of the myths.

This story is an interesting one to me. In most cases, it’s reported that Dylan kicked Ochs out of the limo mid-journey, and that he told him, “You’re not a writer, you’re a journalist,” supposedly disparaging Phil’s commitment to activism and topical music. The latter is something Dylan did say to Ochs once, but not in the limo, and in a context where Ochs supposedly didn’t take much offense.

The story is often used to frame their relationship, illustrating the power imbalance between Dylan and Ochs. And there’s definitely that aspect to it, but I think this version — which more closely matches the story as Ochs told it during his lifetime — reflects more on Dylan’s insecurities and the fact that he felt Ochs might have been right about the song. The more traditional version shows Dylan as an egomaniac who doesn’t respect Phil’s opinion, and that doesn’t really seem to track.

“I just can’t keep up with Phil,” Dylan told the folk magazine Broadside in 1964. “And he’s getting better and better and better.”

That doesn’t sound like somebody who doesn’t value Phil’s input. Granted, a lot can change in a year and a half, particularly after Dylan’s controversial appearance at Newport and the rock-star levels of success that followed. Nevertheless, the version of this story that has become folklore (no pun intended) to many Ochs fans never really rang true to me.

Phil, meanwhile, is an interesting character himself. He was desperate for the kind of critical and commercial success Dylan had, and he never got it. Ochs was, by most reckonings, a great songwriter who lived in the shadow of one of the all-time greats. The fact that they happened to move in the same circles and consider one another friends likely complicated the dynamic.

It’s basically undisputed that Dylan was reportedly often cruel to Ochs, and that he took for granted Phil’s loyalty and admiration. Young Dylan was mercurial, sarcastic, and self-centered — something that contributed to the love triangle that plays into A Complete Unknown.

(To his credit, Dylan reportedly asked for Suze Rotolo’s name to be changed in the movie, so that she wasn’t even further dragged through the mud by her relationship with him.)

Something I really hate as an Ochs fan is the prominence that the “limo story,” and Dylan in general, tends to have in Phil’s story.

There’s an obvious reason — Dylan loomed large over that whole era, and Phil was clearly envious of his success — but viewing a great artist exclusively through the lens of how they relate to another artist is…gross. You see it a lot with marginalized groups who are viewed through the lens of their relationship with prominent white, male artists, which makes the practice doubly suspect (although that’s obviously not the case with Ochs).

Phil’s envy of Dylan was clear, and so he is at least partially responsible for inviting these comparisons. While Dylan spoke highly of Phil as a songwriter, it doesn’t seem like he was a very good friend to Phil, but Phil took it because, like everyone else in the scene at the time, he wanted to be friends with Bob. Not that Phil didn’t occasionally take his own shots…

I would never say that the relationship between the two isn’t important. Dylan even came through for Ochs in a big way toward the end of Phil’s life. After the U.S.-backed coup in Chile, which led to the deaths of both Salvador Allende (the democratically-elected leader of Chile) and Victor Jarra (the country’s version of Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan, and a friend of Phil’s), Ochs put on a fundraiser for Chilean refugees, and Dylan showed up to play — effectively helping the concert meet its goal simply by being there. The relationship was important — to Phil, to his music, to his reputation — and it was complicated, messy, and emotionally taxing for Ochs.

But I’m tired of seeing Phil through Dylan’s lens. The man deserves to have his story told…as his own story.

I’ve been (very slowly and) quietly working on writing a script for a nonfiction podcast that will delve into Phil’s life. This isn’t to promote that script, which is still not done and which I won’t get paid for, but that’s how strongly I feel about telling a version of this story that isn’t “hey, look! We got to pick a guy in a hat out of a crowd in a Dylan movie!”

There are a couple of definitive Ochs biographies, although hardcore fans have pretty serious critiques of both of them. There’s a fairly new one, which people seem to quite like, although it appears to be primarily centered on Ochs’s mental health. I’ll include links to all three below. There’s also a documentary film, which is great but also difficult to find these days. Last I checked, you can stream it on Kanopy (using your library card), or buy it on DVD.

Before the links, enjoy one of my favorite Phil songs:

There But For Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs

Death of a Rebel: A Biography of Phil Ochs

That Man in the Gold Lame Suit: Phil Ochs’s Search For Self

[russburlingame]

My Hottest MCU Take

Here's a rant I just went on, over on my Discord. Feel free to jump in if you want!

My hottest MCU take is that the good ones aren't as good as you remember, and the bad ones aren't as bad as you think. People talk about the MCU as though everything prior to Endgame was a 10/10 movie and everything since has been a 3 or 4.

Most Marvel movies are solid, formulaic, action movies. They have great actors turning in likable performances, they have top-notch visual effects and comforting stories. They aren't Shakespeare, but the floor for quality is pretty high. They're incredibly competent movies that feature popular actors playing beloved characters. On the other hand, they're still a corporate product, and people have to strain pretty hard against the system to make great art.

My opinion is, all those threes and fours are really closer to fives and sixes once you get a little distance and context. And most of those nines and tens are more like sevens and eights. There are periodic exceptions (more commonly with nines than with fours) but I really do think almost every MCU movies reverts to a mean six to twelve months after it's released. Go rewatch Captain Marvel and Age of Ultron, and tell me they aren't of VERY comparable quality.

I also think the reports of the MCU's death are greatly exaggerated -- largely by people who have been cheerleading for it for a long time. I think the last few Marvel movies have kind of proven James Gunn's point that there isn't superhero fatigue in the sense we typically think about it; there is mediocre superhero movie fatigue, and if you make an entertaining, appealing movie, you can overcome it.

Both Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 and Deadpool & Wolverine outpaced not only the prior installments of their own specific franchises and also the movies that immediately preceded them in the MCU. That's both in box office dollars and the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (critics score, the second installments outpaced the third, but I think that's a whole other conversation, honestly).

[russburlingame]

Review: Booster Gold: The Complete 2007 Series vol. 1

DC has released a new collection of one of my all-time favorite comics: the 2007-2011 Booster Gold vol. 2. It's a pretty cool book that promises something exciting coming next, but it's still a little wonky.

The new book -- you can get it here, and I should get a tiny commission -- collects the first sixteen issues of Booster Gold vol. 2, the bulk of which were written by Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz, with art by Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, and Hi-Fi on colors. One additional story was written by Chuck Dixon with art by Jurgens, Rapmund, and Hi-Fi, and another was written by Rick Remender and featured art by Pat Oliffe, Jerry Ordway, and Hi-Fi.

Most (not all) of these issues had a "commentary track"-style interview that I did with Katz and Jurgens at Comic Related, a now-defunct site where I worked before ComicBook.com. All of those commentaries (plus others) are collected in my book The Gold Exchange, which you can get here.

With Booster Gold: The Complete 2007 Series Book One now in stores, I'm super tempted to make tiny little ebooks or paperbacks (or both) that are JUST supplements to these volumes and break up The Gold Exchange into particular runs of issues.

(That's a little inside baseball and not really pertinent to a "review," but it just felt like something that I could and might do, and so I figured I would mention it. Believe it nor not, since I never crowdfunded it and only sold it once it was completely done, The Gold Exchange is my top seller on Amazon the last time I looked at my books.)

The review part of the review:

Booster Gold: The Complete 2007 Series Book One is a fine addition to your library, particularly if you are precious about your now-out-of-print hardcovers. The interiors are largely similar to the contents of the original printings of Booster Gold 2007, with a notable exception that has both good and bad aspects to it:

In between single issues of the comic, both collected editions would share the cover for the original book. The first two issues had variant covers, and so one side of the page would feature the standard cover, with the variant on the back. On every other issue, where there were no variant covers, the back of the page varied between the first and second collected editions.

In Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up (the first original collection), dynamic images from within the issue were framed inside playing cards. That works for a number of reasons: Booster's "original sin" was gambling, while the first issue began with him taking down the Royal Flush Gang. Also, Booster Gold #3 (so -- the first issue without a variant cover) features a cover where Booster is in the Old West, playing poker with Jonah Hex.

In Booster Gold: Blue & Gold, the second original collection, they got rid of the "card pages" and instead just used the same image each time: a piece of the cover from Booster Gold #0, framed in a "circuitry" frame that was styled to the cover logo.

In The Complete 2007 Series Book One, this is improved upon: they retain the cards as a framing device, choosing a dynamic image of one of the lead characters to frame in each one. My only quibble is that a number of them are shots that appear fuzzy, small, and in low resolution because, while the pose might be dynamic, it was taken from a small panel on the page and then blown up to suit the card frames.

This seems like sheer laziness on DC's part: surely there are high-resolution digital files somewhere. After all, they have to provide them to Amazon for the books to be available on ComiXology, right?

Looking a second time, they are mostly not as bad as I remembered, but there absolutely are at least a couple that should not have passed quality control, and it's a baffling decision because the choice was made to unify the collection and improve the overall reading experience. With that context, it's even weirder that some of the pages look amateur.

The collection features the cover to Booster Gold #1 as its front cover and the cover to Booster Gold #0 as its back cover. That's playing it pretty safe, since those are two of the most commonly-reused images from the whole run...but while it was used heavily throughout the Blue and Gold collection, the #0 cover did not appear on the back cover of the original collection (or any other that I can recall). This, along with the use of the cards in place of the "circuitry pages," could suggest DC is putting a little more thought into these collections than is immediately evident.

The biggest benefit to having The Complete 2007 Series Book One, though, is the reprints of Booster Gold #13 and 14. Those are the issues by Remender, Oliffe, and Ordway, and unless I'm missing something, this is the first time those have been reprinted at all. My recollection is that Remender had been led to believe he might be taking over the title, so he planted seeds to pay off later. that never happened, because Dan Jurgens was given both the writing and art jobs starting with Booster Gold #15, and so it's likely that they originally felt Remender's issues would have complicated the otherwise-straightforward narrative that they created between the Dixon/Jurgens and Jurgens solo stories. It is, however, nice to have them finally collected.

Those issues alone make it worth buying, especially if you weren't reading the series at the time and have only read (or re-read) it in collections. It isn't the best Booster Gold story ever told, but it's an interesting glimpse into what it was like having a very different voice on the book. One of its hallmarks during most of its run would be its consistency of tone and sense of direction, so any issue that breaks away from that is, if nothing else, a valuable artifact.

It's a little funky that the front cover lacks credit for Dixon, Remender, Oliffe, or Ordway. I suppose at some point you have to make a cutoff, though, and they only worked on a few issues. The back cover does list the primary creatives with "...and many more" attached, though.

The collection itself feels strange. It jumps right into the issues, and feels like it would benefit from an introduction of some kind. That MIGHT be a kind of optical illusion -- the thickness of this much-larger collection makes it feel like it should have some kind of introduction or table of contents or whatever. But even then, DC seemed to intuitively know this in the past. The original trades didn't have a proper foreword either, but they did have a recap page, as well as Booster Gold's origin page from 52, which immediately preceded the volume.

The inclusion of the Remender issues, paired with the apparent desire to keep the page count and cover price down as low as they could, also means that any backmatter originally published in the collections -- which included alternate covers and early sketches of Booster from Jurgens's notebook (remember -- Jurgens created the character!) -- are all but missing here. That's particularly a loss because there were some really cool images in a "rejected cover gallery" at the end of Blue and Gold.

Still, as noted above, I wouldn't go as far as to say it isn't a worthwhile collection. Bringing the Remender story in is good, as is bringing some of these stories back into print for the first time in years. Before the announcement of the upcoming Booster Gold [HBO] Max series, none of the 2007 collections were in print. Even after the announcement, it was just 52 Pick-Up that was rushed back into stores.

The biggest thing here is that Booster Gold ran for 49 total issues before it was wiped out by the annihilation wave that was The New 52 reboot in 2011. Jurgens wrote, drew, or both most issues of the series -- although the Justice League International writing team of J.M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen teamed with a number of fan-favorite artists to make about a year's worth of the book while Jurgens was off working on Time Masters: Vanishing Point, a story that tied into the events of The Return of Bruce Wayne and set up Flashpoint.

(Fun fact: That story is also widely credited with being a big influence on the development of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, the TV show covered in my next book!)

Booster Gold: The Complete 2007 Series Book One carries a $29.99 price sticker, which is pretty reasonable considering it weighs in at over 300 pages of comics, some of which are ordinarily pretty difficult to find. The value proposition is definitely there, and given that this is one of DC's most consistently entertaining comics of the last 20 years, it's definitely worth picking up if you have a friend who needs a Booster Gold primer ahead of that casting announcement we've all been waiting for. You can get it at a variety of online retailers, and it's likely in stock at your local Barnes & Noble as long as they have a decent comics section.

[russburlingame]

I have a lot to say about Jeannie Epper. Most of all, I loved her. I always felt that we understood and appreciated one another.

After all, it was the 70s. We were united in the way that women had to be in order to thrive in a man’s world, through mutual respect, intellect and collaboration.

Jeannie was a vanguard who paved the way for all other stuntwomen who came after. Just as Diana was Wonder Woman, Jeannie Epper was also a Wonder Woman.

She is so beautiful to me. Jeannie, I will miss you.

[russburlingame]

Springsteen in Syracuse (for the first time in decades)

I got to see Bruce Springsteen tonight. Well, technically last night, because Bruce is Bruce, so the concert ran for about three hours and ended at almost 11 p.m.

I’m a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen, so my review of the music itself wouldn’t be of much value to most of you. I love his work, and I had a great time at his show. This is — I think? — my sixth Bruce show, which is not much compared to a lot of the hardcore fans who follow him around the world…but for somebody like me, who doesn’t have a ton of disposable income and only gets to see a concert once a year or so, it’s not insignificant.

Tonight’s show was my wife’s first time seeing Bruce, and she seemed to have a great time. I was really glad about that. I liked that she wanted to come with me, but she isn’t as big a fan as me, and so I knew a 3-hour show was a lot.

The show was great. Not just because I’m a Springsteen fan, but because the audience was great, which is something that existed in tandem with high energy from the band. And the setlist was exactly what it should have been — although I’m sure some hardcore fans would disagree.

Tonight’s setlist reminded me a lot of the “Greatest Hits Tour” that Springsteen did around the time Tracks and Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits came out. I was in college back then, and it was a huge deal that he was touring actively with the E Street Band again for the first time since Born in the USA.

I know some of the people who have the means and determination to follow the band around, don’t like hits-heavy setlists, and would prefer to see more oddities and rarities. But since Bruce and the band hadn’t been in Syracuse since the 1980s, I’d argue it’s exactly the right setlist for Syracuse. And, yes, the reactions of the audience bore that out.

I love that I got to see “Thunder Road” and “Growin’ Up,” two big hits I haven’t ever seen live before tonight. And I know a lot of hardcore fans would have been thrilled to see “Detroit Medley,” which isn’t necessarily my favorite and which I saw back in 2003 at Shea Stadium. But by and large, only a very small number of songs they played tonight — “Darlington County,” “Spirit in the Night,” and one or two of the newer songs — weren’t staples of the setlist and staples of the Springsteen catalogue. It was exactly the setlist you want to play for a venue where you haven’t appeared in 40 years.

Anyway. It was a ton of fun. I had fun. My wife had fun. The band was obviously having fun. If you have a chance to see Bruce and E Street live, I recommend it highly.

Here’s the setlist:

Lonesome Day

Night

No Surrender

Two Hearts

Darlington County

Growin' Up

Ghosts

The Promised Land

Spirit in the Night

Hungry Heart

Atlantic City

My City of Ruins

Nightshift

Last Man Standing

Backstreets

Because the Night

She's the One

Wrecking Ball

The Rising

Badlands

Thunder Road

Born to Run

Glory Days

Dancing in the Dark

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

Twist and Shout

Detroit Medley

I'll See You in My Dreams

[russburlingame]

[russburlingame]

Reblog this picture of me holding a Family Size box of Honey Nut Cheerios? I’d really appreciate it.

[russburlingame]

Meet Your Heroes, Kids.

I have always thought “never meet your heroes” was a terrible piece of advice. In my life and career, I have been lucky enough to meet a number of people whose work I greatly admire. I have only had really bad experiences once or twice, versus dozens of great experiences on the other side (and even a few lifelong friendships). Yesterday, my daughter was lucky enough to have a similar experience.

I had a day off yesterday, so Cali and I decided to surprise Samantha with a day trip to New Jersey to meet StacyPlays, an author and entertainer who Sammy calls her “favorite YouTuber.” Of all the (many) people Sammy follows on YouTube, Stacy has always been one of my favorites, too. She’s smart, creative, and makes art that brings something positive into the world. None of those things are necessarily de rigueur on social platforms.

Stacy has a new book out (I actually talked to her about it for my day job, in an article that should be up tomorrow!), and she’s doing a signing tour. When we saw there was an appearance less than 4 hours from Syracuse, we decided to make it happen for Sammy.

Sammy struggled in the run-up to the trip. She was very excited to meet Stacy, but also very nervous about the prospect of meeting her hero. I shared a story with her about the first time something like that happened to me, and how I was nervous, too. Sammy also gets car sick easily, so she was on edge more or less the entire trip about that.

We left very early, hoping to spend a little time in Paramus, because we didn’t want to be at the end of the line for StacyPlays. That was lucky, because about halfway there, our car died. Totally unexpected, not something we were prepared for, and Sammy was despondent. She was scared, and cold, and convinced that we were going to miss meeting Stacy.

I’ll spare the details – there are many. But the short version is, everything that could go right, did go right. A tow truck literally happened to be driving behind us when we pulled over. We got the last rental car reservation in the county. After about 90 minutes, we were back on the road.

Getting to the point of all this – StacyPlays is an absolute treasure of a human being.

When the signing happened, we were the second people in line (I told you we left early!). Stacy quickly read Sammy’s nervousness, and was working VERY hard to bring Sammy out of her shell. She was kind, attentive, and repeatedly tried to engage Sammy even though Sam was obviously feeling very intimidated.

We took some photos, and the first one is really emblematic of the moment, with Stacy smiling up at Sammy from her seat. I’m not sharing it, because nobody was posed yet, and so it isn’t the most flattering photo of Stacy – but it’s my favorite, because not only is Sammy beaming, but Stacy is radiating the same level of enthusiasm. She looks like she genuinely cares about this kid she just met, and she’s really happy to be taking a photo. It’s an incredibly kind and empathetic moment that I clocked in real time and captured (kind of) on camera.

After feeling nauseous most of the day, and being really stressed and scared when the car died and we were trapped two hours from home, Sammy told me last night that she had a good day, and that she was really glad she got to meet Stacy. Cali and I were struck by how incredibly lucky we got in a number of ways, and how great everyone was. I’m praising Stacy here because she’s a public figure and was incredible, but B&N manager Laura was also a rock star. A very long, very stressful day was made worth it by simple acts of kindness, including by Stacy.

I’ve gone to dozens of comic conventions, signings, and other events like this over the years. Most professionals are friendly and happy to spend a few minutes with you. The people who want to genuinely and empathetically engage are a lot more rare, and I think it’s worth celebrating them – especially when their audience is made up primarily of kids.

So, in short, meet your heroes, kids. And buy Stacy’s book if it sounds like your kind of thing. She deserves the love.

[russburlingame]

Keith Giffen.

Keith Giffen, one of the most original and influential voices in modern superhero comics, has passed away.

The 70-year-old writer and artist, who co-created characters like Rocket Raccoon and Lobo, is probably best known for two wildly different things: his dire, epic Legion of Super-Heroes story The Great Darkness Saga, and his long-running Justice League stories with co-writer J.M. DeMatteis (and usually artist Kevin Maguire).

In Justice League, Justice League International, and their numerous spinoffs, Giffen and DeMatteis transformed the Justice League into a workplace comedy, blending high stakes with intimate character studies. Giffen may not have been directly involved with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but it was Justice League International that established a template for the kind of superhero book that would inspire those films.

Depicting the heroes of the Justice League as deeply flawed and deeply human, Giffen, DeMatteis, and their collaborators took characters with little-to-no established fan bases and transformed them into key parts of DC's universe and lore, complete with personalities so immediately identifiable that they inspired everything from Geoff Johns and Dan Jurgens's Booster Gold revival in the mid-2000s to Tom King's recent Human Target.

Giffen, a proud curmudgeon, seems to have known that his time was limited. In April, he recruited his son-in-law to launch a podcast titled I'm Not Dead Yet!, in which he recalled stories from his decades-long comics career. The announcement of his passing, posted to his personal Facebook page, was also certainly very much in Keith's voice:

I told them I was sick… Anything not to go to New York Comic Con Thanx Keith Giffen 1952-2023 Bwah ha ha ha ha

That "bwa-ha-ha," which became synonymous with Giffen and Dematteis's Justice League, is a heartbreakingly perfect final piece of writing to come from the pen of Keith Giffen, and it seems that he was prepared, and taking things as well as he possibly could. that's certainly some comfort, but since most fans and comics professionals had no idea he was close to the end, a lot of people -- myself included -- are in a little bit of shock tonight.

Sending love to all of Keith's friends, family, and collaborators. He couldn't pick me out of a lineup to save his life, but the handful of times we interacted I always enjoyed it. His work has enriched my life and made me love comics far more than I would have without it, and his loss will be felt, by a lot of people, for a long time.

I can't think of anything good to say. But I needed to say something. I imagine Keith would hate this, and say so.

Goodnight.

[russburlingame]

Peanut

Hawkman: Someone threw a peanut at me. Someone threw a seed that has a shell and grows under the ground. Whoever is throwing peanuts had better watch out!

[russburlingame]

C is for Comics and D is for Dinosaur!

Back again, back again.

Okay, so let me tell you a story about comic books.

No, this isn't another quasi-autobiographical rant, like I had about video stores (although I could do that, too!). This is a mini-rant about how the C week of the Alphabet Superset...well...got away from me.

Kind of.

A while back, while I was mowing the lawn, I had a story come to me fairly fully-formed. That's...amazing...for me. I haven't written fiction in many years, as I noted in the A is for Accident post.

Okay, so...comics. Why is C for comics? And why haven't I shown you any comics yet?

When that story came to me while I was mowing, I didn't seriously think I would do anything with it -- it's based on characters I don't own, and I'm certainly not planning on pitching it to the owners.

Still, I jotted most of the key points down. Far be it from me to completely dismiss an idea, even one that wasn't practical to consider.

In the months since then, new ideas have kept popping into my head with regard to the fiction story, and I quickly realized that it had to be a graphic novel. I have an artist in mind, who agreed to do it for a very modest fee, and while I haven't paid him or talked about the book to my bosses at Paramount yet, I'm not sharing any of my character sketches and wacky comic ideas here because...well...I feel like I'm going to make the comic.

Not with the corporate-owned characters, no. Rather, I'm thinking of using a blend of original characters and public domain superheroes from the Golden Age (since it's THAT kind of story anyway, honestly). Camp, comedy, heroics, heart...that's what I'm going to go for. I can't even kind of start writing it anytime soon, but I'll give you the very bare-bones concept here:

A group of time-travelers find themselves imprisoned. The charges? They've broken time, and nobody is quite sure how, or how to fix it. Before too long, it becomes clear that they have been set up: the head of the organization that's holding them, has a decades-long grudge against an old ally of the team. They have to get a message to that ally in order to get sprung from jail and...hilarity ensues.

They're stuck looking for a historical figure who was kidnapped and disappeared by his own government. with their ability to time-travel significantly limited, if they can't find this mystery man, they may be doomed!

Okay, and now for D is for Dinosaur.

I've put these two things together because neither one is really a stand-alone piece of creative work, but more an icon representing creative work that I've been doing behind the scenes. Also, so that I can share them more easily to the Alphabet Superset Discord server.

So that guy up there is Boone. You may recognize him from The VelociPastor, a 2019 micro-budget movie that became an instant cult classic. Back in September, I visited the set of VelociPastor II, did hours of interviews, and got lots of photo and video with my buddy Zach. And while I'll save the details for when there's an official official announcement, the thing I'm here to share is that I'm writing an official companion book for VelociPastor II. Called The VelociGospel, the book will be an oral history of VP and a companion to VP2, speaking with as many cast and crew as possible. The plan is to release it on the same day VelociPastor II comes out on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital.

More on this soon, but I just really, really want to let people know it's a thing that's happening so that I can mention it on Bluesky and not immediately feel like I have to chase my own tail or delete the post.

Yes! There's going to be a VelociPastor book! And I already have about 30 pages written!

So...yeah. These are project that I have been working on quietly in the last few weeks. But I can't share stuff just yet. Soon, I promise!

[russburlingame]

No, Sir Galahad is not in the Bible, and I never said he was.

OK, so in my series of posts and lectures about my work on Neil Gaiman's Chivalry, I pointed out that Sir Galahad's first appearance in Arthurian fiction was in the Vulgate, and that his name was originally spelled Galaad. Therefore the spelling in Neil Gaiman's Chivalry is correct, and Galahad is a later variant spelling.

Someone recently took me to task for saying this meant that I claimed Sir Galahad was in the Bible, and yet Sir Galahad appears nowhere in the Bible.

I never said Sir Galahad was in the Bible.

I said he was in the Vulgate.

Vulgate means "common version" in Latin.

The confusion here stems from the word "vulgate" which often refers to the 4th century Latin translation of the Bible commonly known as the Vulgate Bible.

But "vulgate" is also a term used to refer to The Lancelot-Grail Cycle, a 13th century French Arthurian cycle which is also known as the Vulgate or Vulgate Cycle -i.e. common version. Later translations of this work are known as Post-Vulgate.

Specifically, Galahad or Galaad appears in the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal.

Happy to help.

Chivalry is available wherever fine books are sold, and you can come see me at the San Diego Comic Con Museum on October 4 where I will be signing and lecturing and showing art. Thanks.

[russburlingame]

This is Russ, working at Emerald City Video (Store 2) in 2005. Photo by CS Muncy.

[russburlingame]

B is for Blockbuster

Okay, so this story isn’t about Blockbuster, but it’s about video stores. And for a generation of people – my generation – video stores and Blockbuster Video are inextricably bound together.

This is a fictionalized account -- or at least, the bit about my relationship with "Erin" (not her real name) is. What’s true, what’s not? Doesn’t really matter. The stuff that matters is true, and you get to decide what about this story matters.

I was 21 years old when my heart was broken for the first time.

I had been dating Erin – a friend from high school who turned into more – for a little over a year, and I was sure – absolutely sure – that I was going to marry her. When she got accepted to the University of New Hampshire – a several-hour-drive away – I bought my first car (hers) just so I could go see her on the weekends.

On her birthday, I was waiting for Erin to get back from dinner and call me, to let me know she had gotten home okay. She was on a trip with her sailing club – yeah, apparently that’s a thing at some colleges – and I just wanted to touch base before going to sleep. No, this isn’t a tragic story of somebody lost at sea. She just got drunk and made out with somebody.

Either way, she didn’t call me that night, or until well into the next day. This was 2001, and it wasn’t especially common for people to be in constant contact via text, so sometimes, you just…didn’t know what was up with people you loved. Crazy, I know.

Erin finally called me, tearfully confessed, and I forgave her. I was scared for her safety and glad to find out that she was fine.

We talked for hours that day, but a week later, she called again: she didn’t think she could keep up the distance thing. She needed more than a weekend boyfriend.

I was crushed, and I begged her to hold off on making a decision until we had seen each other again. The summer was coming up, and we were both really excited about seeing Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, so I figured it was worth having one last day out, and a long talk face to face.

It didn’t really work out that way. She agreed to the idea, but didn’t call me again for the rest of the semester, and it was pretty obvious things were doomed. When she got home from school, she asked if I wanted to come over for an afternoon, and I did – although this was about a month and change early for Kevin Smith.

We hung out, played Scrabble, fooled around, and got into a playful wrestling match. She managed to pin me to the ground, and instead of taking advantage of my helplessness, she kissed me on the cheek and got back up.

Oof.

With a few hours left before her parents came home, we decided on watching a movie.

What movie?

No ideas came. Erin suggested a trip to the video store.

Now, you young’uns don’t understand that the video store was a great place to hang out in the days before the modern internet. I could kill hours there. So, hell yeah, let’s go to the video store. Erin drove, and we headed east out onto the big boulevard where all the stores are. To my surprise, we passed right by Blockbuster. Where were we going?

The local Blockbuster, which was about a half-mile from Erin’s house, was the only video store I knew of on this side of town. To go anywhere else I knew about, it was at least an extra ten to fifteen minutes of driving. Chimney’s, the great video store that had been another mile or so down the road, had recently folded, much to everyone’s collective chagrin.

Erin turned toward Chimney’s, and I figured maybe she was just confused.

“Chimney’s is closed,” I said, bemused.

“Yeah, I know. I’m going to a place my dad likes,” she answered. Another mile, a turn, and…well, damn. There’s another video store.

Emerald City Video was a store with a narrow storefront, but inside, it was cavernous. The store was probably 20 feet wide by 60 feet deep, with a great selection and an adult room hidden in the back corner. Movie props hung from some of the walls – high enough up that you couldn’t take them down and mess with them – including a shield from Spartacus, a costume used in Killer Klowns From Outer Space, and high-end replicas of props from The Mummy and the James Bond franchise.

This. Was. Heaven.

I was so immediately taken with the place, that I barely noticed when the guy behind the register greeted us. I wandered to the “special interest” section – where they had cult classics, documentaries, and anything LGBT-themed – and looked it up and down. A middle-aged woman with short hair and glasses saw me staring, and asked if I needed help.

“Oh – no, I was just checking things out. I’ve never been here,” I admitted. “This is a great store.”

Erin had gone to a more mainstream section of the store to find a movie we could watch while cuddling. It would be the last time, and by this point both of us knew it, so she looked for something sweet and timeless and sentimental. She really went all in on giving this relationship a proper sendoff.

Me? I was sitting in the Special Interest section, talking with…umm…

“I’m Russ,” I said, offering my hand. The woman took it.

“I’m Rita,” she said. “I’m one of the owners.”

I don’t remember what movie Erin and I watched. I don’t remember what Rita and I talked about. What I do remember, is that by the end of the conversation, Rita suggested I should apply for a job at the store.

I had just, days before, started a job at Barnes & Noble. Like basically everyone else, I applied to be a bookseller, and got immediately hired to sling coffees for B&N/Starbucks. I take black coffee, and am very – very – bad at making sweet, frothy coffee drinks. I knew my days were numbered. I took the application. It’s been more than 20 years since I walked into that store for the first time, and as far as I know, there are no extant photos of “Store 1” – the location where I first encountered Emerald City Video. But I can still see it when I close my eyes. It was – ironic, given its name – a magical place.

I would work at Emerald City Video – mostly at Store 2 – on and off for the next 7 years, before moving to New York City to chase down my dreams of being an entertainment writer.

Where was Store 2? Well, we manage to get hold of the store formerly known as Chimney’s. For years, it had been our town’s home entertainment Mecca, and now, ECV was going to restore it to its former glory.

Of course, now it’s split up between a cardio kickboxing place and a laser hair removal center. But still.

I still love Erin. Dating her was good for my personal development, good for my soul. She’s a good person, and the once-in-a-blue-moon when we get to chat, I always enjoy it. And on top of everything else, Erin gets to claim credit for introducing to the place that would change my life.

When I was 24, I first met my (now) wife Cali…at Emerald City Video.

Cali was a customer, and she had a crush on me. I was in another relationship, and entirely oblivious to her interest. My obliviousness was taken as disinterest, and nothing happened for a handful of years, before we finally bumped into each other while single. But it’s funny to think about how the first girl to really, truly break my heart, was the one who brought me to Emerald City Video. She put me in the right place, at the right time, to meet the person who still makes that heart swell every day.

In 2021, I fulfilled a life-long dream and published my first book. For a variety of reasons, I went the self-publishing route. The name of my publisher? ECV Analog. The logo: a modified version of the old Emerald City Video logo. Rita and her husband Jim, the owners of Emerald City, joined me at a movie theater nearby to celebrate the book launch.