After I got finished reading Batman: The Long Halloween I proclaimed that it was one of the best superhero books I had read all year - it's suspenseful, entertaining, the art is wonderful, and it gives you a real sense into how Batman goes about his work as the "world's greatest detective" (even though he doesn't necessarily live up to that title in this story). Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are a terrific writer/artist team, and they've done some other wonderful work which I haven't reviewed but really loved (I HIGHLY recommend Superman for All Seasons, which covers the early years of Superman and was apparently some of the basis for the Smallville TV show which is one of my favorites - it's engaging, good-hearted and totally easy for the casual fan to follow). Anyway, back to Batman.
Let me digress for a minute. I was never a DC guy growing up. I mean, I loved the Christopher Reeve Superman movies (the first 2 at least), I loved the terribly wonderfully cheesy Super Friends cartoon with the DC characters, but actually reading DC comics on an ongoing basis was never interesting to me. I was always (and this really applied to almost everyone I knew who read comics growing up) a Marvel guy. Superman and Batman may have been some of the most amazing, iconic characters ever created, but I think they didn't feel cool to us - not nearly as cool as Spider-Man and certainly not as cool as the X-Men. If you wanted to read something that was cool and totally awesome in the early to mid 80's, it was definitely all about the X-Men. They were misfits, they were outlaws, and they battled frickin' giant sentinel robots! Spider-Man was also a character that a young kid could relate to. First off, while he does have super powers, he's not godlike like Superman or Thor (probably why Thor never held any interest for em - he was just too powerful and in his case he was an ACTUAL Norse God!). If a character has the ability to destroy a planet or something, there's not so much you can do with them. Spider-Man, by contrast, was an incredibly human character. He fought bad guys on a relatively modest scale, he was really funny, and seemed to live a much more real life than other characters. Plus Mary Jane was hot. Anyway, all of this is a long-winded way of saying that in recent years, as I have gotten into reading more DC Comics, I have had to play a lot of catch-up. I'm getting a sense of who the players are and what the dynamics are between the various characters. DC has been a around a lot longer, and they seem to have a lot more characters just sort of hanging around. Frankly, a lot of their characters are not that interesting to me. Elongated Man? The Question? Eh, not so much (except perhaps as Question is one of the bases for Rorschach. Still, there's a whole huge universe and it's been a major undertaking trying to catch up.
Back to my review. This is a great story, and I appreciate that Batman really is a detective and is trying to solve crimes. The takeaways on this story are that the art is wonderful - hyper-realistic and occasionally excessive, but portraying the true essence of each character. The writing is terrific, and as a huge Godfather fan I appreciate that the story is chock full of references to that movie. Very clever stuff. I highly recommend.
If my takeaway from The Long Halloween is that it's a great story, then Marvels is an absolute masterpiece. Here's what makes it so special. It takes events that have occurred through the history of the Marvel universe and retells those events from the eyes of a newspaper photographer, so you see and experience what he (and other regular people) were experiencing when these events happened - like, the first appearance of Captain America (who battles the Nazis), or the notoriety of the Fantastic Four, or the appearance (and societal backlash) against mutants like the X-Men. By itself, the story is brilliant. It was exhaustively researched and coordinated by Kurt Busiek to fit perfectly within the Marvel timeline. If that was enough, it would be fantastic. But it is taken to even higher levels of greatness by the artwork of Alex Ross.
Ahh, Alex Ross. Of all the comic artists I have seen, he is far and away my favorite, because his style is so unique and different in the comic books world. He is a painter, and his artwork has the appearance of being painted. See for yourself what I mean. His work is absolutely beautiful and iconic, particularly his work on Superman (and in Kingdom Come which I should talk about some time). Anyway, I definitely have an art-crush on him. I also wish he was illustrating actual books these days. I know he is busy doing covers for different books, but I'd love to see him do a whole book again.
The artwork is amazing and so incredibly life-like, you feel almost like you're reading about real events. The whole thing is an absolute wonder, full of hidden treasures. I've spoken in previous posts about my love for Astro City, and it's clear that the team of Busiek and Ross first developed the idea of telling stories about a universe full of superheroes from doing Marvels. It's a wonderful idea, and here in Marvels they give you a sense of the wonder and danger and conflicting attitudes you might have, living in a world where people exist who can do such extraordinary things.
This one gets my super-duper extra special good highest recommendation. A real treasure.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Gee, Joe, I feel really bad for you
The quote in this link from Conservative talk show host (and former Republican congressman) Joe Scarborough is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Um, should we feel bad for them?
On the other hand, the hateful, scary stuff people are yelling at McCain/Palin rallies reminds me a little too much of a lynch mob, or some third world country with coups, dictators and "militias" roaming the streets.
On the other hand, the hateful, scary stuff people are yelling at McCain/Palin rallies reminds me a little too much of a lynch mob, or some third world country with coups, dictators and "militias" roaming the streets.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Update
Good news on the technology front - I got an A/B splitter and it solved the problem with the new DVD player. $16.99 well spent at Radio Shack.
In other news, I'm probably not going to be posting as frequently because I'm taking a writing class and with 2 little kids at home and work as well, there's only so much time in the day for writing. I'll try to post stuff when I can.
In other news, I'm probably not going to be posting as frequently because I'm taking a writing class and with 2 little kids at home and work as well, there's only so much time in the day for writing. I'll try to post stuff when I can.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
I'm so surprised by this finding
Apparently, Tim Donaghy was the only bad actor. Well, whaddya know.
I think Obama will actually win big - you can blame me if it turns out differently
Maybe I am being unrealistic, but I think that recent weeks (the financial crisis in particular) have corrected reality to how I thought it was going to be, which is a big win for Obama in November. I actually don't think it's going to be that close. Here's some evidence.
My day in sales (an old story)
This is an old story about something that happened to me a long time ago, when I was out of work and in between jobs. Actually, it was in the Spring of 2003. Funny (at least to me) experience, so I want to write about it.
I'm a lawyer by profession, but was in between jobs back in 2003 and was considering whether maybe I should be looking at jobs outside the legal profession. I thought about what might be interesting areas to me, and because I think of myself as a reasonably creative guy, I considered jobs in advertising and marketing. So, I looked up job listings and found this one position in a city just outside of Boston. I don't want to give too much detail but I will say that there's a lively discussion here and here of the business and its pitfalls, and here's another very comprehensive overview of what I had gotten myself into. I'm just going to cover my own experience.
The first tip-off that this was going to be weird was that they responded to quickly to my resume. You know that old saying by Groucho Marx that he wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would let him in? That was the initial sense I got. But, I was desperate, and needed to work.
I went to the interview which was pretty weird. It was in this really bare-bones office with a bunch of boxes, and I had a really short interview with this guy that was the owner of the business. He was a young guy, who claimed to be educated at an Ivy League school. I remember sitting in the office beforehand, listening to the receptionist take call after call after call to set up interviews. I thought, "wow, that's a lot of interviews - pretty weird". Anyway, the interview was short, but long enough for me to figure out that this was a business, the foundation of which was door-to-door sales. Yikes. Not exactly what I went to college and law school for, but again, I was desperate.
I was told that I did well and they wanted me to come back for a "day of observation" so I could see what it was like to work as a part of this business. So, I came back two days later for what I was told would be a whole-day experience. Definitely an experience.
I arrived early in the morning as each "team" was getting ready to head out for a day of sales. I was in a car with a guy, let's call him Jock, who claimed to have formerly been a pitcher for a major league baseball team. I later saw his name somewhere on the web and it seems that he may have in fact had a cup of coffee in the bigs, but that was about it. One can only assume that had he done better, he would have been in this particular racket. Anyway, with me and Jock was another guy, let's call him Schlemiel. Schlemiel had already joined the company as a salesperson and was a few weeks in to his formal training. He was really not very good at it, which I'll get to later.
So we drove to a particular neighborhood in a town directly north of Boston, and our job was to canvas that area with booklets for a particular neighborhood car wash. We were to greet each house here by saying something along the lines of:
Salesperson: "Nothing serious here, folks, just going around the neighborhood for ------ car wash."
Homeowner: "ok."
Salesperson: "Do you have a car?"
Homeowner: "Sure."
Salesperson: "Do you like to keep it clean?"
Homeowner: "Sure, I guess."
Salesperson: "Well here, check it out."
At "check it out" the goal was to get the coupon book into the hands of the customer. Apparently at this point they're more likely to want to buy it since it actually seemed like a pretty good deal. Anyway, we walked around the neighborhood for a while, with Jock leading the way, and giving Schlemiel the chance to try, and he was TERRIBLE at it. He would get tongue-tied, and couldn't remember the script. After about 15 minutes I had memorized the script. I felt sort of out of place with these folks, and pretty shitty overall about my life at this point. I remember I used some word (don't remember what) and they characterized me as "Mr. Dictionary" or some other moniker denoting my usage of "big" words.
All the while, Jock was also quizzing me on these certain points tat I'm supposed to learn and remember for a quiz at the end of the day. If you check the links above, you'll see some of these key points, but I remember it being weird, like "what makes a successful person" and my answers were not correct, there were certain correct answers I was supposed to give them.
Anyway, we did this for pretty much the whole day until we had essentially canvassed the whole neighborhood trying to peddle these coupon books for the car wash. We sold a few of these books, but all the while I was walking around I was trying to do the math and come up with some scenario where selling these little books could possibly be profitable. I couldn't come up with one.
At the end of the day we all went back to the offices and this was a social gathering time. As each team came back to the office, there was this incredibly weird ritual where if someone sold a certain number of these booklets (say 5) they got to ring a little bell. If they sold a bigger number (maybe 10) they got to ring the bigger bell. Everyone yelled and cheered for them as this was happening. I looked around, not quite sure I was really experiencing what I seemed to be experiencing.
After the bell-ringing ceremony, there was some socializing where I got a chance to meet some of the other sales people. Everyone was REALLY friendly, but they all asked the same question:
Sales people: "So what do you like to do for fun?"
Me: "Well, I enjoy reading, creative writing, spending time with my wife, being active in my Synagogue, etc."
Well, as you can guess, I got these sort of quizzical looks. I think the answer they were looking for was more "I like to work hard, and play hard!!!" or something to that effect.
At the end of the night after I had taken my quiz, Jock came to me and told me that they had a good feeling about me and wanted to bring me in the the business. I really agonized about it for a little while (which in retrospect seems ridiculous) but at the time I was pretty desperate to be working. As I took the T home, I really had to think about it. It became more and more clear though that I felt like it was kind of a scam, and that I'd have to work too hard for not much money, and that, to be honest, it felt beneath me (I know it's a snobby thing to think, but I really didn't feel like I spent 4 years in college and 3 years in law school to be a door-to-door salesman). Additionally, it required having a car, and we only had one car, so that was a problem too.
Thankfully for me, the legal work picked up after that, I had some good temp work for a while and a few months later got a permanent position at a firm. I'll always look back fondly though at my day in sales. I wonder what Jock and Schlemiel are doing now? I hope he's gotten his script down by now.
I'm a lawyer by profession, but was in between jobs back in 2003 and was considering whether maybe I should be looking at jobs outside the legal profession. I thought about what might be interesting areas to me, and because I think of myself as a reasonably creative guy, I considered jobs in advertising and marketing. So, I looked up job listings and found this one position in a city just outside of Boston. I don't want to give too much detail but I will say that there's a lively discussion here and here of the business and its pitfalls, and here's another very comprehensive overview of what I had gotten myself into. I'm just going to cover my own experience.
The first tip-off that this was going to be weird was that they responded to quickly to my resume. You know that old saying by Groucho Marx that he wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would let him in? That was the initial sense I got. But, I was desperate, and needed to work.
I went to the interview which was pretty weird. It was in this really bare-bones office with a bunch of boxes, and I had a really short interview with this guy that was the owner of the business. He was a young guy, who claimed to be educated at an Ivy League school. I remember sitting in the office beforehand, listening to the receptionist take call after call after call to set up interviews. I thought, "wow, that's a lot of interviews - pretty weird". Anyway, the interview was short, but long enough for me to figure out that this was a business, the foundation of which was door-to-door sales. Yikes. Not exactly what I went to college and law school for, but again, I was desperate.
I was told that I did well and they wanted me to come back for a "day of observation" so I could see what it was like to work as a part of this business. So, I came back two days later for what I was told would be a whole-day experience. Definitely an experience.
I arrived early in the morning as each "team" was getting ready to head out for a day of sales. I was in a car with a guy, let's call him Jock, who claimed to have formerly been a pitcher for a major league baseball team. I later saw his name somewhere on the web and it seems that he may have in fact had a cup of coffee in the bigs, but that was about it. One can only assume that had he done better, he would have been in this particular racket. Anyway, with me and Jock was another guy, let's call him Schlemiel. Schlemiel had already joined the company as a salesperson and was a few weeks in to his formal training. He was really not very good at it, which I'll get to later.
So we drove to a particular neighborhood in a town directly north of Boston, and our job was to canvas that area with booklets for a particular neighborhood car wash. We were to greet each house here by saying something along the lines of:
Salesperson: "Nothing serious here, folks, just going around the neighborhood for ------ car wash."
Homeowner: "ok."
Salesperson: "Do you have a car?"
Homeowner: "Sure."
Salesperson: "Do you like to keep it clean?"
Homeowner: "Sure, I guess."
Salesperson: "Well here, check it out."
At "check it out" the goal was to get the coupon book into the hands of the customer. Apparently at this point they're more likely to want to buy it since it actually seemed like a pretty good deal. Anyway, we walked around the neighborhood for a while, with Jock leading the way, and giving Schlemiel the chance to try, and he was TERRIBLE at it. He would get tongue-tied, and couldn't remember the script. After about 15 minutes I had memorized the script. I felt sort of out of place with these folks, and pretty shitty overall about my life at this point. I remember I used some word (don't remember what) and they characterized me as "Mr. Dictionary" or some other moniker denoting my usage of "big" words.
All the while, Jock was also quizzing me on these certain points tat I'm supposed to learn and remember for a quiz at the end of the day. If you check the links above, you'll see some of these key points, but I remember it being weird, like "what makes a successful person" and my answers were not correct, there were certain correct answers I was supposed to give them.
Anyway, we did this for pretty much the whole day until we had essentially canvassed the whole neighborhood trying to peddle these coupon books for the car wash. We sold a few of these books, but all the while I was walking around I was trying to do the math and come up with some scenario where selling these little books could possibly be profitable. I couldn't come up with one.
At the end of the day we all went back to the offices and this was a social gathering time. As each team came back to the office, there was this incredibly weird ritual where if someone sold a certain number of these booklets (say 5) they got to ring a little bell. If they sold a bigger number (maybe 10) they got to ring the bigger bell. Everyone yelled and cheered for them as this was happening. I looked around, not quite sure I was really experiencing what I seemed to be experiencing.
After the bell-ringing ceremony, there was some socializing where I got a chance to meet some of the other sales people. Everyone was REALLY friendly, but they all asked the same question:
Sales people: "So what do you like to do for fun?"
Me: "Well, I enjoy reading, creative writing, spending time with my wife, being active in my Synagogue, etc."
Well, as you can guess, I got these sort of quizzical looks. I think the answer they were looking for was more "I like to work hard, and play hard!!!" or something to that effect.
At the end of the night after I had taken my quiz, Jock came to me and told me that they had a good feeling about me and wanted to bring me in the the business. I really agonized about it for a little while (which in retrospect seems ridiculous) but at the time I was pretty desperate to be working. As I took the T home, I really had to think about it. It became more and more clear though that I felt like it was kind of a scam, and that I'd have to work too hard for not much money, and that, to be honest, it felt beneath me (I know it's a snobby thing to think, but I really didn't feel like I spent 4 years in college and 3 years in law school to be a door-to-door salesman). Additionally, it required having a car, and we only had one car, so that was a problem too.
Thankfully for me, the legal work picked up after that, I had some good temp work for a while and a few months later got a permanent position at a firm. I'll always look back fondly though at my day in sales. I wonder what Jock and Schlemiel are doing now? I hope he's gotten his script down by now.
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