Elizabeth Sandifer

The Last Tournament in Albion continues apace; that’s the bracket after Round 2. Round 3 starts tomorrow.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Adventures Year Two #7

A bit of a comedown after an utterly charming issue, with the potential of Shada mostly being frittered on a Douglas Adams pastiche AI. Not a bad pastiche, mind you, but very much coming in below the excitement level generated by the previous issue. And the end thoroughly loses me; so far as I can tell River and Daak just sort of vanish? Anyway, largely reminded me of the sort of “this is almost great, oh, never mind” feeling that soured me after the first year of this, so probably back to done with it.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #6

The start of a crossover with Howard the Duck. Best part are Chip Zdarsky’s replies to Ryan North’s footnotes. Past that, it’s a standard (and thus delightful) Squirrel Girl issue, and thus delightful, if a bit fragmentary. I’m curious to see how the tone shifts when we move to the Howard the Duck conclusion next month, certainly.  

Darth Vader #18

As usual with Gillen’s Vader arcs, I’m finding myself really getting into this as we go on. I’m really enjoying how Gillen plays the austerity of Vader at this point, finding a wealth of very clever ways to work around the problem that his main character has no facial expressions and is pathologically averse to displaying any emotions. This arc has been particularly satisfying in that regard, working as a very methodical political battle with most of the pieces in plain sight, which combines well with Vader’s pecularities. Good stuff.

Saga #35

I know, I’m as surprised as you to see this doing well; I almost threw it back and dropped it, in fact. Still might after #36 in favor of trade-waiting, but in any case, as everything kicks into high gear for the climax this ends up working. The ultimate pay-off it’s building towards seems a bit too obvious – a crushing near-miss rescue of Hazel that will, in typical Brian K. Vaughan fashion, lead to another arc whose plot can be summarized as “several issues of individually focusing on characters as they travel.” But hey, you get what you pay for with Vaughan these days, and this was actually as worth $3 as any comic right now.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #5

An absolute delight. This is a simple issue with an unfussy plot – Moon Girl breaks Devil Dinosaur out of prison. And yet between its character beats showing Lunella’s anxieties and capabilities and its incredible knack for visuals (Moon Girl walking alongside Devil Dinosaur on giant spring stilts is probably my favorite), it’s an easy pick of the week – an untroubled thrill of a comic.…

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Fame, it’s not your brain, it’s just the flame That burns your change to keep you insane

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

Lions of King’s Landing: Tyrion Lannister, Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister, Tywin Lannister

Dragons of Yunkai: Daenerys Targaryen

Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow, Bran Stark

Bears of Yunkai: Jorah Mormont

Ships of Dragonstone: Davos Seaworth

Burning Hearts of Dragonstone: Stannis Baratheon, Melisandre

Direwolves of King’s Landing: Sansa Stark

Direwolves of the Twins: Arya Stark

The Kraken, Theon Greyjoy

Stags of King’s Landing: Joffrey Baratheon

Bows of the Wall: Ygritte

Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarly

Stags of Dragonstone: Gendry

Dogs of the Twins: Sandor Clegane

Spiders of King’s Landing: Varys

Flowers of King’s Landing: Shae

Winterfell is abandoned and in ruins.

The episode is in seventeen parts. The first part runs two minutes and is set at the Twins. The opening image is of Roose Bolton atop the battlements.

The second runs nine minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by family, from Arya to Sansa Stark.

The third runs two minutes and is set at the Wall. The transition is by family, from Sansa to Bran Stark.

The fourth runs two minutes and is set at the Twins. The transition is by dialogue, from Bran talking about the horrors of violating guest right to Walder Frey.

The fifth runs four minutes and is set at the Dreadfort. The transition is by dialogue, from Roose explaining what actually happened at Winterfell to Ramsey pretending to eat Theon’s penis.

The sixth runs three minutes and is set at the Wall. The transition is by hard cut, from Reek whimpering his name to Bran awakening.

The seventh runs three minutes and is set on Pyke. The transition is by hard cut, from Bran to an establishing shot of Pyke.

The eighth runs two minutes and is set at the Wall. The transition is by hard cut, from Yara setting sail to Bran inspecting the Dragonglass.

The ninth runs three minutes and is set on Dragonstone. The transition is by hard cut, from Bran and company walking out of the Wall to Davos entering the jails.

The tenth runs six minutes and is in two sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is three minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Davos talking about his son’s death to Shae looking out at the Blackwater, and from Davos and Gendry talking about not being highborn to Varys and Shae doing the same. The second section is three minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Shae and Varys talking about Tyrion to Tyrion.

The eleventh part runs two minutes and is set on the road outside the Twins. The transition is by dialogue, from Tyrion and Cersei talking about the horrible things they do to their enemies to the Hound and Arya riding past some Freys joking about Catelyn’s death.

The twelfth runs five minutes and is in two sections; it is set in and around the Wall.…

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Happy to have Last War in Albion back. It’s a hard project, and there are days I really don’t know how believable it is that it will reach a state that can be called “finished,” but my do I love it when things come together in it. 

Last Tournament in Albion also proceeds apace. Here’s the bracket after round one. Some impressive upsets there; I remain gutted that Alan Moore’s A Disease of Language, containing what are probably the two works of his to have most influenced me, got ousted by yet another BBC series with a dodgy sewer monster. And speaking of Neil Gaiman, a stunner as Coraline is ousted in a coin-toss finish by a Kieron Gillen work I might as well have sixteen-seeded, except I threw a Steve Moore novel on that I thought was even more obscure. That’s The New Games Journalism, his manifesto for what games criticism should be. 

Yes, you read that right. Coraline got ousted by aesthetics in video game journalism.

Also intriguing is the Fossil Angels vs Pop Magic! matchup, which ended with a narrow victory for Beard over Bald, and the surprisingly brutality of the first round to Warren Ellis, who was unable to get anything save for Transmetropolitan into the second round. He often did well – 45% for Nextwave against Animal Man, 43% for Gun Machine against Supergods, and 42% for Planetary against The Wicked and the Divine – but came up short save for his 65/35 drubbing of Grant Morrison’s anti-Invisibles, The Filth.

Anyway, second round match-ups have probably begun over on Twitter by now. Both today and tomorrow will have on-topic Moore vs Moorison matches; today pairing Morrison’s 2000 AD superhero strip Zenith against Moore’s Warrior strip Miracleman, tomorrow an all-Superman battle. There’s some really weird ones like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vs Phonogram and Young Avengers vs Swamp Thing. And next week’s got Watchmen vs Promethea and the discovery of whether Kieron Gillen can knock out “The Doctor’s Wife” in a battle of the things it would really be an indictment of The Last War in Albion if won. 

Complain about things in comments. Other than me, I mean.…

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A short and faintly unsatisfying week.

The Ultimates #5

There’s much to like here, most particularly the attempt to make Marvel Time actually have a canonical and in-universe explanation, but there’s an inherent thinness to a twenty-page comic with three splashes, a double splash, and a max panel count of five on any of the other pages, and between that and the inherent anticlimax of the resolution (which amounts to cosmic forces telling the Ultimates that their plan for the last three issues can’t work and sending them home) makes this a frustrating experience despite the entertainment value. As always, though, Rocafort’s art is very pretty and Ewing’s writing crackles nicely.

Digital code: THMNBL47H67W

Cry Havoc #3

It’s increasingly hard to see how the London setting here is going to survive more than another issue or so, but for now the virtuosic time-hopping is working well, with Spurrier enjoying the thematic transitions he can make and the way in which the overall issue’s plot emerges out of his three settings. And the three colorists trick remains brilliant. But we’re very much in the mid-arc doldrums here, with a degree of “OK, hurry up and show us a new trick already.” In other words, a strong example of why Kieron Gillen is right that reviewing individual issues mid-arc is a little bit of a mug’s game.

Klaus #4

Another series with similar problems with the idea of reviewing it at this point, further hampered by the basic weirdness of a Santa Claus series whose last issue is slated for June. But there’s an underlying delightfulness to this that’s nearly impossible not to live. Morrison is perfectly suited to the task of balancing an at times quite hard-edged tale with the fact that it’s an origin story for Santa Claus, and the resulting tone brings a genuine smile on multiple occasions here. Dan Mora’s art is simple but effective; the way in which characters eyes widen and become cartoonish as they grow more sympathetic to Klaus’s cause is as unsubtle as it is well-chosen. This remains a real pleasure of a series.…

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So apparently after the legendary Eruditorum Press Christmas Party Jane and James snuck off to another room and… recorded another podcast. What, where did you think that sentence was going? Anyway, it being spring now it seemed the right time for that to finally drop. You can download it right here.

(EDIT: Major problem with the audio on that file; we’re working on getting a fixed version up. Will update when we have it.)

In other news, the brilliant and utterly deserving of a Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist James Taylor just finished the other half of the painting that became the cover of Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons. As per usual, he talks fascinatingly about his progress over at his blog, and you should totally check that out. …

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“Goddammit, we registered at Pottery Barn, not Williams Sonoma!”

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

Dragons of Yunkai: Daenerys Targaryen

Wolves of the Wall: Jon Snow, Bran Stark

Wolves of the Twins: Robb Stark, Catelyn Stark, Arya Stark

Bears of Yunkai: Jorah Mormont

Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarly

Tigers of the Twins: Talia Stark

Bows of the Wall: Ygritte

Dogs of the Twins: Sandor Clegane

Winterfell is abandoned and in ruins, Dragonstone is vacant, King’s Landing is silent.

The episode is in twelve parts. The first part runs seven minutes long and is set at the Twins. The opening images are a series of deeply symbolic shots of Robb Stark’s map.

The second runs two minutes and is set in Yunkai. The transition is by hard cut, from Walder Frey to one of the Unsullied.

The third runs two minutes and is set north of the Wall. The transition is by hard cut, from Barristan side-eyeing Jorah to Sam and Gilly walking through the snowy woods.

The fourth runs two minutes and is set in the Riverlands near the Twins. The transition is by hard cut, from Gilly in awe at the Wall to the Hound and Arya riding.

The fifth runs three minutes and is in two sections; it  is set in the Gift south of the Wall. The first section is one minute long; the transition is by family, from Arya to Bran and Rickon Stark. The second section is two minutes long. The transition is by family, from Bran and Rickon Stark to Jon Snow.

The sixth part runs three minutes and is set outside the Twins. The transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Arya Stark.

The seventh runs seven minutes and is set in the Gift south of the Wall. The transition is by family, from Arya to Bran and Rickon Stark.

The eighth runs two minutes and is set in Yunkai. The transition is by hard cut, from Ygritte watching Jon ride away to the pyramid of Yunkai.

The ninth runs three minutes and is set in the Twins. The transition is by hard cut, from guards streaming into the square to an establishing shot of the Twins.

The tenth runs three minutes and is set in the Gift south the the Wall. The transition is by family, from Robb and Catelyn to Bran and Rickon Stark.

The eleventh runs one minute and is set in Yunkai. The transition is by hard cut, from Osha sneaking off with Rickon to Daenerys’s camp.

The twelfth runs thirteen minutes and is set in the Twins. The transition is by hard cut, from Daenerys to the band playing “The Bear and the Maiden Fair.” It features the deaths of Joyeuse Frey, Grey Wind, Talia Stark, Catelyn Stark, and Robb Stark, killed by various sharp implements, mostly on the orders of Walder Frey. The final image is of Catelyn Stark failing spectacularly to achieve a Full Web.

Analysis

So this is how they decide to split A Storm of Swords: convert the Red Wedding, which takes place in the fifty-first of the book’s eighty chapters, into their ninth episode set piece, killing three credited regulars in a single scene.…

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I’ve only updated the bracket for The Last Tournament in Albion with day one’s matches, as I’m off to bed before Day Two’s morning set actually closes, but I’ll have them in once I get up, probably along with the afternoon. In any case, day three has already kicked off on Twitter with Phonogram vs the Neil Gaiman Miracleman run and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vs Ministry of Space (the latter already looking to be a tight race). And this afternoon we’ll have Journey Into Mystery vs Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and All-Star Superman vs Doom Patrol.

Anyway, go ahead and make your predictions about the ultimate winner or complain about the cruelty of my seeding in comments. …

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The second season of Fargo is a pretentiously well-directed television show that purports to be a crime drama, but is really just a vehicle for two men to urgently discuss the nature of the universe. In this regard it is a familiar thing. It’s also a familiar thing, of course, because it’s a spin-off of the acclaimed Coen Brothers film, previously discussed in these parts by Jack Graham, and more broadly is a show that giddily raids the Coen Brothers back catalogue for imagery and style. The fusion of these two familiar things, however, is gloriously unfamiliar.

Let’s start with the True Detective and Hannibal links, the better to cover up the fact that I’m not a huge Coen Brothers buff and haven’t actually seen the film version of Fargo or the first season (I’m working on it). On one level, it is True Detective that Fargo most fundamentally resembles, with its propensity for lengthy ruminations on the cultural decay and its ostentatious intrusion of the Weird in the form of occasional appearances from UFOs (a nod to the Coen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There; I didn’t say I was a complete n00b). It’s tempting to say that the difference is that Fargo has a sense of humor, but of course, True Detective is often wryly hilarious in its own right (“True crime. That’s the genre, not the title.”), and emphasizing Fargo’s sardonic sense of humor mostly serves to play at some drama/comedy distinction that’s too tinged with value judgment to be useful.

No, the core of the difference, and the one that Fargo seems at times to be evoking True Detective specifically to emphasize, is that Fargo is studiously uninterested in the tragic mythologizing of the Detective as something that can possibly be True. Its two main detectives, Patrick Wilson’s Lou Solverson (a young version of Keith Carradine’s character from the first season) and Ted Danson’s Hank Larsson, are of the mould established by Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson, described by Jack as “extraordinarily unextraordinary, she is simply competent at her job, fond of her husband, polite to her colleagues, etc.” They do not solve the case through any extraordinary response to pain and suffering nor through any astonishing powers of insight or deduction. They’re just good men doing their job.

In one sense, of course, this is also how it distinguishes itself from Hannibal; it does not engage in any Miltonian romanticization of murder. It comes close in the form of Bokeem Woodbine’s Kansas City heavy Mike Milligan, who deploys a practicedly folksy conversational style in the pursuit of intimidation and violence, but he’s carefully and deliberately undercut in this regard, most obviously by his ultimate fate as a middle manager in the generic office headquarters of the vast Kansas City criminal empire. But it is more complicated than that. Fargo’s response to True Detective is an outright negation of the premise. Its response to Hannibal – which seems equally self-conscious – is something else.…

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Holly Boson is back with another cracking installment of City of the Dead, this time looking at the 1967 potentially-not-a-classic The Deadly Bees. The official episode description:

In which your hosts meddle with forces they don’t understand.

What forces?

Bees.

I assume there’s at least one Nicholas Cage joke. Find out by downloading here.…

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