Armchair Eberts

    My rule for this blog is quite simple: if I am discussing it here, I like it. I will not tell you what to avoid. I will hopefully encourage you to seek something out you may have overlooked. Though I have been a critic of the thumbs variety, as a creator I simply don't want to embrace that anymore. The reason is simple. There is too much negative criticism on the internet, everyone can now be an Armchair Ebert.
 
    I do believe that the role of the critic is to contextualize something and also advance an idea with the work being the vehicle. I enjoy criticism, it's made me a better writer, and creating has allowed me the ultimate insight into the process. I still have a lot to learn on both fronts.
  
    Some of the filmmakers I admire most started out as critics: Francois Truffaut, Peter Bogdonavich, Paul Schrader. Their work was deeply influenced by learning about the history of their art through criticism. Their writing gave them access to their contemporaries (give a listen to the Hitchcock and Truffaut tapes) who became mentors, it taught them the language to not only articulate an idea, but an emotion.

    Most critics act as filters from the deluge of entertainment options. Their role has changed and so the tenor of the conversation. The dialogue has become more bombastic. Tearing something apart in a couple of keystrokes is our new bloodsport. We enjoy crucifying, and don't want to see a resurrection.

    The small change I can make is to avoid putting forth the venomous review. It doesn't do anything to improve the work, or offer insight into the process. I can tell you from experience, the joy of creating something is far greater than the satisfaction of calling someone out.


   

Twisted Memories - The Reboot and Swamp Thing #1

 

        Swamp Thing #1 is not a retelling, reinterpretation, or in the latest Hollywood parlance a reboot (as if it were even possible to shock the mind and strip the referent from its source material). Though the relaunch of Swamp Thing has been highly praised and is easily one of the most anticipated comics in the new line, the latest hobby in comix crit seems to be putting DC’s New 52 (a relaunch of all DC’s current titles) in the cross hairs and pulling the trigger, picking-off each new story as woefully inferior to its source. While it’s impossible to forget a cultural legacy, these stories must be examined on their own terms; there is nothing duller than a fan of the original griping about a sequel. A production of Shakespeare from the onset is viewed as the director’s interpretation, while the actor most often is unfairly compared to the legacy of the role (such is the price for being in front of the curtain.)
           Although comparisons between the Bard and Scott Snyder may be premature, he has certainly taken on a challenge that is daunting, and has achieved great success.  Much has rightfully been made of his meteoric rise in comics: the guy can flat out tell a great story. Yet, the challenge of writing Swamp Thing, a character that through Alan Moore’s poetically twisted interpretation virtually launched DC’s Vertigo Imprint, is to fundamentally rise again from the muck, as a creature that has absorbed past influences and yet, has become something wholly new. Swamp Thing is DC’s Golem and he is a creature worth watching.
     Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette’s story oozes virulence in every panel.  From the onset, some of the most recognizable Supes (Batman, Superman, and sure Aquaman) in the biz are up to their boots in bloodshed.  Birds are falling from the sky; there’s some strange hoodoo in the air.  Death cannot be avoided. The panel work is brilliantly paired with remembrances of things past and that is exactly the point. Snyder does not dodge the act of remembering, the reader’s or the protagonist's, he embraces it: a bold move when some diehards have unfurled their Alan Moore editions to examine.

             

 In fact, Dr. Alec Holland’s  M.O. in issues #1 is attempting to forget, to distance himself from the memory of what he has become, and what he still might be; a violent perversion of nature.  The past is the horror in this story, and memory is its co-conspirator. A fellow construction worker chides Dr. Holland about his past, Superman spurs on memories about a botany teacher who taught Dr. Holland about the inherent cruelty in the plant world; his origin story is told in nightmare. Infused with the existential angst of a great Noir character, Dr. Holland simply can’t forget. Could this be akin to the very angst that Mr. Snyder experienced in taking on the task? I am neither Harold Bloom nor a trained psychologist, but I certainly would be nervous.

            I will not focus on the well-executed and inventive horror of the body that takes place (you will have to read for yourself). I leave you with this, Snyder and Paquette have given us a vision of Swamp Thing that is now in all of our collective memories.

PIT! - Cockfighter: A Portrait of Sacrifice

Finishing Charles Willeford's Cockfighter: this has already become one of my favorite books. Willeford is a writer who is hard to pin down as he flirts with the crime drama through his protagonist's hard-boiled perspective, yet retains a range of references that surpasses many of his peers. His books are not to be relegated to the scrapheap of genre-fiction, but are downright literary. He offers first-person portraits of characters searching for their singular Macguffins (in the case of this novel, it's the Southwestern Cockfighting Championship) but, what is most revealing is the process of the protagonists contesting with their temporary rudderlessness.

Frank Mansfield is the greatest portrayal I've seen of a modern-day ascetic. He's a man that is so uncompromising and principled that he has given up the gift of speech as a form of self-flagellation from a cockfight gone bad in a hotel room. Yet, he has not lost his ability to shape his world; such is his strength and reputation. He frequently destroys what he loves most as not only a of matter of principle, but as a visceral sacrifice for what he wants most: to be the greatest cockfighter in the world.

The book is not for the faint of heart. There is blood, brutality, and backhands to women, but the source of all violence is the passion of the man himself. From Roy Hobbs (not the Malamud novel) to Rocky what we admire most in our fictive sports heroes is the discipline of the protagonist and their desire for glory. Frank is no different, and he may be the greatest sports hero to grace the fictional landscape ever created.  There is no doubt that the story still rankles feathers (the film version is still banned in England) and the subject matter will turn some readers away, but as a portrait of a man and perhaps even a definition of aspirational masculinity this book is unparalleled. Much like Frank Mansfield, I won't say another word.