Peter Hoflich

WC

Wednesday Comics – This is a fantastic experiment in simultaneously breaking new boundaries and going back to the traditional adventure comic tabloid format, and the end result is stunning to look at – an enormous coffee table book of DC comic book stories, done in every storytelling style and artistic format you could imagine, carrying over a dozen stories of major and not-so-major DC icons, each with a story that only covers 12 pages (with appendix stories of one page each). What’s impressive about the collection is that each artist is supremely distinct from the other, ranging from the ultra-modern to the sedately ultra-conservative, from the cutesy to the cerebral. They even have a contribution from Michael Allred! And Neil Gaiman!! Wow!!!

The first story is about the Batman, and it’s a simple detective story, a whodunnit about an old millionaire with his young trophy wife as the main suspect in his murder. The color and the layouts are stunning, even if the story isn’t anything terribly special.

Kamandi is a bit better – great art, cool cliffhangers at the end of every episode (last panel) like the old comic serials, with Kamandi getting in a battle between the tiger nation, the lion nation, the gorilla nation, and the horrible rat raiders! Kamandi briefly gets a hint at other humans that are still alive – his own kind! It’s the series in a capsule, and a nice, tasty 12-page treat, even if the outrageous action is a bit implausible – who cares? Great art too!!

The Superman 12-pager has him fighting a three-eyed alien creature that spooks him when it says to him “you don’t belong, do you?” Great and layout – the artis makes fine use of the expanded real estate, and there’s a cool drawn-out battle, as supes gets whipped.

The Deadman story is fairly nutty, and involves multiple murders. Deadman goes through various dimensions, meets his benefactress, demons and wizards, and he solves an unlikely mystery. Great! The art is gothic Cartoon Network cool. Some pages have cool, trippy mass spreads – cool layouts indeed!!

The Green Lantern pages are totally gorgeous, and are crowded with 1950s chic, as a lot of the action takes place in a seaside diner, with an old cowboy western on TV. In the story, Hal Jordan thinks back to meeting Navy pilot Joe Dillon in some sort of Top Gun-like situation. Then, when Joe turns into a lobster creature on live TV, Hal flies off to the rescue. Funky indeed!

Next up is Metamorpho, the Element Man, who gets the Michael Allred and Neil Gaiman treatment. Our heroes are frolicking at the seaside, where Metamorpho saves spoiled billionaire’s daughter Sapphire Stagg from drowning – her foot is caught by a giant clam after the selfish brat tried to make off with a giant pearl, a very Allreddish episode (I also like how Metamorpho fends off a shark attack by turning into an iron chain. Billionaire tyrant Simon Stagg comes onto the scene, with his neandrathal manservant Java (!!!), and off they go to Antarctica (!!!) to search for treasure – the fabled Star of Atlantis!!!! Early on there are two great full-page splashes that are stunning, although they’re “complimented” by wacky commentary from fan kids (thankfully this only continues for two pages – it’s kind of lame). They come across Element Girl and have all sorts of zany adventures, there’s some hilarity with the French chefs that have come along, a zany Snakes And Ladders game, more cave action, and a goofy “move along the table of elements wordplay” twin page spread that’s pretty amazing to see! And in the end, there’s a clever twist as the villain reveals himself, and the mystery is solved. All-around Allred fun!! The episode ends with hints at more Metamorpho fun!

Meanwhile, the Teen Titans episode is done in a very stylistic, kiddy story that’s a bit silly and hard to comment on. At least the villain is cool – Trident!

Strange Adventures, being tales of Adam Strange, comes out looking very cool and retro, yet also inky and modern, as there’s all sorts of Zeta ray travel between Rann and Earth, where Adam Strange is an old man! Great royal mandrill monkey rebel general grotesquerie!! It’s all very much like Terry and the pirates, with unusual panel shapes. Nice!

Meanwhile, Supergirl has a silly adventure with her super dog Krypto and her super-kitty Streaky going berserk. The art is gorgeous, but a bit too cutesy. Besides a strange interaction with a bratty Aquaman, there’s nothing special here.

The Metal Men (and woman) tale is a nice one, because it’s just the way I remember it (I had one issue when I was a kid), and the art is big and brash. Nothing revolutionary or bold here, but certainly enough traditional stuff to keep fans happy.

Totally opposite of this is Wonder Woman‘s highly experimental avant grade entry, drawn as it is in fine detail and very small panels that flow in strange ways; lots of text, contextualized colors, and the story’s not too bad either – Wonder Woman has a crazy dream every night, the dreams link up, and somehow it becomes a real adventure: Wonder Woman versus Dr Poison and a few other baddies. And when the artist gets sick of drawing too many micro-panels… he tries big giant ones!! Hard to follow, but worth it for those who do. Look at the pictures too, if you can!!

Joe Kubert’s Sgt Rock and Easy Co is an ultra traditional comic, that simply blows up the standard 3×3 panel concept, passing up any of the advantages of this large format. Too bad, actually… missed opportunity to spread those wings, Joe. Brutal stuff, but also some humor – at one point Easy Co hits the ground when they see a grenade being lobbed at them, except that it turns out to just be a potato (they’re hungry).

The Flash/Iris West story is amazing – it’s supremely well-drawn, it’s sufficiently experimental, it’s got Gorilla Grodd, and it is wildly Liechtenstein-ish in parts (with the dotted colorings – nice). Also, interesting how General Grodd briefly gets his own part of the title, alongside Flash’s part and Iris West’s part. The ninth page is wildly experimental, integrating classic era comics (Peanuts, Blondie, Flash Gordon), as is the 11th page, with a crazy vortex drawing/layout concept. Amazing.

Walter Simonson’s telling of a Catwoman-meets-The-Demon adventure has the potential of good fun, but doesn’t really follow through (more Morgan le Fay… yawn). Given its subject of old England, the castle ruins, and the presence of gothic heroes, makes for a very Hellboy-ish theme, and Simonson sometimes draws a la Mignola (or did Mignola originally ape Simonson? I can’t remember…).

The final full tale is one of Hawkman. It’s drawn by wunderkind Kyle Baker, although I’m not really enamored with his style here. Hawkman fights alien skyjackers disguised as fundamentalist terrorists (he also fights a T Rex – wow, dinosaurs!!); unfortunately, it’s pretty silly, as are the one-page Plastic Man and The Creeper stories, although at least the former is pretty funny (the latter tries to get all poetic, man…).

HOH

The House of Hades, by Rick Riordan – Zen has been a massive Rick Riordan fan since he got The Lightning Thief at age seven, and he’s been reading all of the books over and over again ever since. He’s also read outside of the series on Greek and Egyptian myths, which I think is great, and has become the family authority on mythology as a result.

This book picks up where the previous cliffhanger ending left off – Percy and Annabeth have just plunged into the maw of Hell – so is probably one of the most highly-anticipated stories in the series, at least in my opinion (the climaxes to the first series, and the final book in the Kane Chronicles series, would be similar). It chronicles Percy and Annabeth’s journeys through Tartarus, as well as the voyage of the other demigod heroes into central Europe (Italy, Croatia, Malta and Greece). While Riordan relies heavily on caricatured gods and goddesses, this book is interesting in that he shows the human side to one titan and one giant who are not horrible monsters, and he does it in a near-believable way (at least in the case of the giant, who – as an opposite to the god of war Area – was built to be more peace-like than any giant really should be). He also brings out interesting aspects of complicated goddesses like Hecate, for example, intriguing us even further. And as if all this wasn’t enough, Riordan even goes out on a limb by showing one of the demigods coming out of the closet!! Wow!!!! It’s still treated platonically, and is more like “he has a crush on him” stuff, but it’s still quite a modern take on teenage life. Nice.

The ending of this penultimate book in the series leads up to the finale, and has less of a cliffhanger than the preceding book did (how could it top THAT???!!!). Nonetheless, I really enjoyed this book.

TMSOS

Toni Morrison, Song Of Solomon – I’ve had this book on my to-read list forever and ever, and I finally got to it! Yay!!! I wish I could say that I loved it, but… I didn’t. Somehow it seemed a lot like a historical novel that tried to self-consciously distinguish it from a historical novel by… inserting magic realism, and… creating poetic passages, and… cutting back on resolution of characters (for example – Macon Dead seems like a major character throughout the first 2/3 of the book, but he’s then abandoned completely in the ending part). Toni Morrison doesn’t do magic realism well, in my opinion, and more parts of the book struggle than really gel. Guitar’s motivation for seeking Milkman’s death, for example, is pretty silly, and having him attempt the assassination in the middle of a rural Virginian bobcat hunt is totally… INSANE!!!

Sorry, I’m not getting it…

MPM

Malhavoc, Premeditated Murder – I love this album and know all of its tracks very well. I bought it in 1992 or 1993 in Taiwan on cassette and listened to it to death; now I can’t listen to that cassette any more… so I bought the used CD online! Nice. All Malhavoc is good music. The band changed a fair bit over the years, but this is their heaviest and most cohesive album.

The songs are evil industrial metal with a bit of drum machine and keyboard, but are generally very dark and crunchy. The lyrics are processed Whisperer From The Dark scary-sounding voices, and this is a concept album built around serial killing that is is dedicated to George Romero. Opening track “Languish” is a cool tune built around a very nice riff, a build-up of drums, bass, and finally the spooky vocals. In the middle is an empty bridge part that leads into a very scary growl-fest with nasty big drums that just make you want to stomp! Aaaah!!! “Solitude” starts off with a mellow distorted drum sound, hits the fake drum machine beats, then gets going into nastiness. There’s some cool Sabbath-like riffing, a slowed-down bridge, with a buildup into a very cool “leave me alone, leave me alone” moment. It’s said with such scariness that I doubt anybody would disobey that request!! Fantastic riffing on the outro, it’s like a totally new song!! “Crusade” starts off with weird guitar riffage, then bursts into… metal disco! Very groovy indeed, and totally unexpected. Maybe the best song on the album for effect. “Conspiracy” starts quick with a light riff, a “yo”, and then tough riffing. The last part gets very mellow, then a quiet moment… and it all starts up again!! “The LOC (Loss Of Control)” is more of a standard thrash tune with wild wah-ing notes, and some trippy programmed drums. Nice. “Kill (Dislocated)” is one of the weaker tracks on the collection, dominated by a chiming keyboard sound, although with time the guitars still find a way to take over. It bounces between jumpy sections and doesn’t ever really build up a groove – it serves merely to irritate and build tension. Not sure why the spooky keyboard instrumental “Extro” appears in the middle of the album, other than as a musical joke reference, but it’s a nice intro to “Beginning The End”, which is built out of a cheap drum sound and a cheap guitar sound, it nevertheless gets going nicely in the middle when it really gets the lead out with some great shredding. “Age Of Dark Renaissance” is an instrumental intro to “Urban Grandier” that starts off with drums, which combine with guitars to make a funky intro to a very cool doomy tune with big bad Electric Wizard bass sounds. “Urban Grandier” has a creepy, weird opening riff that incorporates strange drum timings. Not sure how they get that off-rhythm rhythm effect, but it’s marvelous! The song changes and changes and changes – prog metal. The vocals are the most whispery vocals on the whole album, and there are amazing instrumental sections in the second section. Halfway through it gets really weird and spooky – stunning! “Dunwich Horror” is HP Lovecraft stuff, with thick riffs glomming on and on into Metallica land. The instrumental eventually builds up into a very cool guitar and drum back-and-forth that is just eternal! “Emprical Minds” is a bit of denouement that has a very nice little spin to it, with Renaissance-sounding chords, slow instrumental bits that are near-melodic, and then the insanity returns. It’s also the longest song on the album. Very groovy.

STNMFTSF

Suicidal Tendencies, No Mercy Fool!/The Suicidal Family – A pretty cool re-recording of seven Suicidal Tendencies songs from their second album of 1987, “Join The Army”, as well as seven No Mercy songs, four of which appeared on the first (and only) No Mercy album “Widespread Bloodshed Love Runs Red”, with three No Mercy new recordings (although one of them, “Something Inside Me”, has turned up here and there, such as on Friends And Family Volume 2).

The new recordings sounds pretty good, with funky new intros, and showoff bass moments. “Possessed To Skate” gets a big new doomy intro of nearly 30 seconds before the famous bass squall kicks in. Cool Rocky George-like guitar squealing here, something that the band has abandoned recently (although the guitar synthesizer sound in the chorus is a bit silly). “Join The ST Army” is a bit harder than the original, a bit less funky. Strangely, the band does not re-record “War Inside My Head”, an ST classic.

The No Mercy songs are marvelous – “Come Alive” is sheer evil and rocks very hard, with nasty choruses along the lines of darker Infectious Grooves tunes. “Something Inside Me” pounds nastiness and shreds mightily, but other than the prominent shredding it still sounds pretty similar to the version of the song that ST recorded on Friends And Family Volume 2. “No Mercy Fool” is a cool stomper, that starts off with the promise “Let’s kick the dust off this mother!” It’s a big, nasty tune with tough guy shouted chorus stuff. (None of these first three No Mercy songs were on the original No Mercy album) “We’re Fuckin’ Evil” is a much faster song, it’s pounding and smashing all over the place (although it’s not as good as the version on Friends And Family Volume 2, which has a very cool intro). It’s EVIL!! “Crazy But Proud” is sweet and nasty and crunches along!! “I’m’ Your Nightmare” kicks off with a spooky intro, then after a while picks up into a messy fast punker. “Widespread Bloodshed… Love Runs Red” also grooves mightily, and that’s all she wrote.

ST13

Suicidal Tendencies, 13 – Suicidal Tendencies is back in 2013, a year that they really couldn’t resist putting out an album, given lead singer Mike Muir’s typical 13 logo shirts; oh yeah – it’s also been 13 years since their last album of new songs (although in 2010 they did put out re-recordings of their second album, and songs from the unreleased No Mercy second album). By the way, the album also has 13 songs (it would have had less, but they added two or three filler tracks to hit that magic number).

The new album is very busy, with tons of virtuoso string bending, drum pounding, bass flailing, and a kinda-sorta Rocky George-style shredding over a rockin’ base track. In the punishing first song “Shake It Out”, the lyric “can someone please get me a Diet Pepsi” is a hilarious send-up to the first song of the first album, “Institutionalised” with its famous “All I wanted was a Pepsi – and she wouldn’t give it to me!!” line, updated to modern times when each member of the band is plus-sized (sadly, the band has rarely put out a song to match the sheer fury and genius “Institutionalised”, and they certainly don’t on this album). “Smash It” is just that, and it’s a great opener, while “This Ain’t No Celebration” is good rockin’ tunage with a good riff. “God Only Knows Who I Am” is a cool mellow tune with great melodies and a cool swampy vibe. “Make Your Stand” is a silly punk rocker that sort of smashes on and on. “Who’s Afraid?” is a superior ST song – “who’s afraid to get psycho?!?!” “Show Some Love…Tear It Down” is a so-so punker, it’s okay. “Cyco Style” is another so-so punker, but with good riffs. “Slam City” is definitely one of the better songs on the album, with very cool crunchiness throughout and great songwriting. “Till My Last Breath” is so-so rockin’ punk. “Living The Fight” is a great rocker that just smashes on and on. “Life (Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It)” is a pretty cool tune, it rocks on and on as well. Great shredding!! “This World” is a big song!!

MFBTP

Marianne Faithfull, Before The Poison – This is the amazing CD that Ms Marianne Faithfull put out in 2003 in collaboration with PJ Harvey, and on some songs Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds! What’s not to love about that!! And even better… the collaborators bring in the goods!!! It’s not a disappointment – it actually really really rocks!!!! Oh Lord, yeah!!!!! PJ Harvey wrote four songs on the album (and co-wrote one more with Faithfull), while Nick Cave wrote one and co-wrote two with Faithfull. Filling out the album, there’s one song by Damon Albarn, and one more song by Jon Brion. The Bad Seeds back up Faithfull on the three songs that Cave wrote or co-wrote.

The first song “The Mystery Of Love” is a pretty little song that is more in the usual Marianne Faithfull vein, but the second one, “My Friends Have”, could have been a PJ Harvey rocker. Very nice indeed – short, sweet, rocking, and you get that unmistakable PJ Harvey background vocal effect too; both of these songs were written by PJ herself. “Crazy Love” has music by Nick Cave and lyrics by Faithfull, it’s a nice storytelling piano-driven tune with gorgeous fiddle in the middle. “Last Song”, written by Damon Alborn, is a beautiful guitar tune, and you really get Marianne’s gorgeous voice full on, with spooky piano kicking in mid-way. Not sure the orchestration was really necessary, though… “No Child Of Mine” is a cool little guitar and piano tune, very spooky, but it quickly gets quite dramatic, with handclaps and plenty of percussion. “Before The Poison” is largely a guitar song, with some percussion, and very melancholic. It also rocks!! “There is a Ghost” is a fantastic Nick Cave track that sounds like an outtake from “And No More Shall We Part”, probably his best album, so this is a very nice “forgotten” find for Bad Seeds fans. “In The Factory” is a strumming little tune that rocks nicely. “Desperanto” is a rambling near-rap collaboration with Cave that features the full roar of The Bad Seeds rocking and making unholy noise, somewhat like “Babe, I’m On Fire”, the superior closing number to Cave’s Nocturama of the same year that deliciously just roams on and on – this one does too, but for only four minutes! Closing track “City Of Quartz” is a light lullaby-like tune by Jon Brion,

One small complaint – the release is simply too short! These talented collaborators could have pulled off a few more numbers, or even a double album! The cover photo, of our lovely junky posing with a sweet young girl in a colonial mansion, is also stunning. The booklet has a pretentious introduction by Will Self (“Cuntish cantor, ululating underwriter, it has the front to sell you insurance at the very door to your burning heart.”), and closes with a thank-you note by Faithfull.

JCTES

Joseph Conrad, The Eastern Stories – Penguin has compiled the stories that Joseph Conrad wrote about his seafaring in Southeast Asia and put them in a single volume, which concludes with “The Secret Sharer”. There are six stories, ranging from 18 pages to 158. Many of them are quite dull, but all of them are well written, and many was the time I drifted out of my boredom and realised that I was reading a really awesomely well-written piece of English fiction! Many of the pieces are semi-autobiographical, especially the first one, “Youth”, which tells the tale of a near-disastrous voyage carrying coal from Newcastle to Bangkok. Ah… youth! Recounted by an old man around a table in the public house with fellow company directors, it’s a man vs nature tale of romance and majesty. “The End Of The Tether”, the longest tale in the book, is probably the best, recounting the tale of a washed-up seaman who takes on a contract with a despotic ship-owner, also the ships chief engineer (who therefore accompanies every voyage and hampers the captain’s work), who comes to a disastrous decision. It’s also the only tale in the book to drift into Singapore, with some scenes around the Padang and the Esplanade. Crazy stuff. “The Secret Sharer” is also a strange, nearly homoerotic tale of a man and his double. “For The Dollars” is a tale of tragedy and sacrifice deep in the jungle, very nice stuff. “The Lagoon” is an interesting tale of a man who betrays his brother for the love of a woman, while “Karain: A Memory” is another tale of revenge gone wrong. At the beginning is an 18-page introduction by Ban Kah Choon, whom I know nothing about, but I suppose he’s some sort of a historian specialising in the history of 20th century Southeast Asia.

Wow – a concert from 1973 featuring Stompin’ Tom Connors playing at the Horseshoe Tavern! History!!

Nice weekend – Saturday morning we went to see Zen’s (most likely) future school, where he was invited to attend after doing well in a softball try-out (they have a softball team) and showing promising academic scores – he still needs to do well in the actual year-end tests to clinch the deal, but he should be able to. It’s a very good school in Singapore, so it’s a great opportunity.

It’s in Serangoon, so it took us about 45 minutes to get there – we were luck with the transfers, and there was only light traffic, Zen will probably have to deal with longer commutes when he’s actually attending the school. Oh well…

We were very impressed with the campus, on top of a hill and next to a park, although we had trouble finding it – the Maris Stella Secondary School near the bus stop was actually the primary school!! Talk about mis-labelling.

After that we went to eat a Singapore-style hot pot. Nice restaurant, the food was not too bad, but it was empty – weird to eat in an empty restaurant.

Spent the rest of the afternoon and evening chilling out and relaxing. Sunday morning reading, cleaning, guitar playing, songwriting, and in the evening I went to see Chris Lister play live at Crazy Elephant.

park next to Maris Stella school

Maris Stella school gate

In front of Maris Stella school

In front of Maris Stella school’s softball trophy case

Our hot pot lunch – before

Our hot pot lunch – after

The 96%

Here’s a poster for a recent “kindness campaign” in the local transportation system. They give a number, “96%”, but don’t cite any source or survey, so I’m guessing that someone just made up the number; surveys are expensive, gotta save money!!