Where am I?

Yep, Crowdpleaser is poised to go the way of the dodo. I've taken my proverbial quill to another blank slate: RPG Diehard, a new-ish blog I'm writing with a friend. For me, this project is a much more focused type of writing; rather than simply spouting off about life, liberty and geekery, I'm part of a small -- but growing -- cadre of bloggers who write and muse about our shared hobby. Join me there, if you'd like. Otherwise, you probably know how to contact me via email. If not, drop a comment here with your own email and I'll get in touch with you.

I'll transplant a few key Crowdpleaser posts into the archives of RPG Diehard, then in about a month I'll delete Crowdpleaser altogether.

Trade show ho!

I leave tomorrow for a two-day trade show in Las Vegas. Yesterday the publisher dropped by and asked me if I had everything in order for my trip. I nodded and affirmed my commitment without bothering to tell her that I was born to work trade shows. I’m at home amongst the rows of brightly decorated temp booths, each full of squeeze balls or candy or water bottles in an attempt to lure me in.

I stalk these corridors confident in my role as a journalist, able to ferret story ideas and separate the wheat from the chaff. My free pen collection should get a big boost.

Iron Man review for PasteMagazine.com

Austin L. Ray, a fine scribe and inspiring leader of Men, published my review of Iron Man today on Paste's Web site. Was I too warm with my praise? In a word: No. Upon leaving the the theater, I was struck by how much I preferred Iron Man over Spider-Man, Marvel's previous meter-bar superhero flick. It just seemed like Iron Man was more overtly geared towards adults, get me?

Read the my review for Paste here.


Can't wait for: Indiana Jones, The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk.

Have you read my letter on To Whom It May Concern?

Spruth article in Conscious Choice

I wrote an article on Eric Spruth's tattoo coverup service for Pain Magazine last year. Just this month, however, I was able to check in on another of Eric's myriad social programs. The result was this article from the February issue of Conscious Choice.

The Pen is Mightier

Through the Cook County jail, Eric enrolls inmates in a journaling program that helps them learn to express themselves through writing.

The results offer a rare window into the lives of Chicago’s mentally ill, a population that is often criminalized because no other recourse for treatment exists. Their handwritten stories tell of heartache and hope in the face of adversity.

“I think the name ‘Finding Your Voice’ says it all,” says [Kevin] Davis, who has volunteered a few nights a week for the past six years. “These are people who, for most of their lives, haven’t been listened to. Almost every time that I go there and teach this class, I’m always moved in some way. I leave there thinking that I’m taking away more than I brought in.”

Taking stock...

It occurred to me when I was describing my monthly comics reading list that I no longer read any superhero comics.

It's science fiction and fantasy all the way, baby. This is probably a phase, but still: it's curious that I've eschewed superhero fare almost entirely these last 12 months.

OK, if you want to split hairs, I do still read All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, but that's more of a luxury read than an ongoing series. Any week it shows up in my pull box is a good week, but I don't sit at home and pine over its delayed arrival either.

So what am I reading, you ask?

• Elephantmen (the monthly spinoff set in the world of Hip Flask.)
• BPRD and Hellboy (the Hellboy mythos is the best its ever been with these series.)
• The Walking Dead (trades only at this point.)
• DMZ (it's not been at the top of my list lately, but I'm holding out hope that Brian Wood sharpens things up in 2008.)
• Ex Machina (superb book; I get the trades.)
• Doktor Sleepless (with issue #4, this book will officially become the longest-running Avatar book in history. If it gets there.)
• Fell (another book that's more of an occasional treat rather than a monthly essential.

And a few more oddball things from Warren Ellis, Mike Carey and others.

Hmmm...looking at this list, it appears that I no longer read any Ultimates books. Also interesting; those titles, especially Ultimate Fantastic Four, were my mainstays for a long time. Things change.

I am the virus

So things got exciting today around 3 p.m.

A friend clued me in to the Dark Knight's new viral marketing campaign, which apparently launched yesterday with whysoserious.com. The splash page shows what appears to be a dirty workbench covered with cut-up photographs, along with a note from the Joker instructing fans to follow his directions and reap the rewards.

Clicking on the photo thumbnails launches popup windows, each one containing instructions on some specific landmark to photograph in cities around the country. After a little trial and error, I found the three Chicago clues and set out, camera in hand, to find the one closest to me.

It turned out to be the Metcap Bank, and it was pretty clear the Joker wanted a picture of their signature 'M' logo.

I went back to the office, uploaded the pic and started clicking around on the site. Pretty soon I got a nifty letter written with the clipped-up photos that the Dark Knight's nerd legion no doubt snapped that same day. See below for the letter. It reads "The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules."

Seconds after I grabbed the screenshot, the image burned away (literally; there were flames) and I got a sweet-ass look at a new Joker pic!


And then I clicked on the Joker pic and went to rorysdeathkiss.com, which apparently is a call to arms for all the Dark Knight fans. We're supposed to dress up like the Joker and clown around our favorite city landmarks today (Halloween) and take pictures of the whole affair. Uploading the pics will please the Joker, which will in turn result in an unspecified reward for me, the human virus.

This is how the world ends

Take what you need while there's time,
The city will be earth in a short while.
If I'm not mistaken,
It's been in flames.
You and I will escape to the seaside.

--From "Lighthouse" by The Hush Sound

Lately a confluence of events has dumped a diverse array of post-apocalyptic media on my lap. The genre fascinates me: how many different ways can you imagine the end of the world? Will it be nuclear? An eco-crisis? A plague? It's all very chilling, considering how closely we're flirting with any number of dooms these days. Here's the breakdown of what I've been checking out:

The Road
A stunning, heartbreaking novel by Cormac McCarthy, this novel rightly won the Pulitzer last year for fiction. The sparse, stripped-down narrative style left me starved for details, which turned out to be a very interesting and perhaps unintentional way of helping me sympathize with the two main characters, a father and son who are making their way across a burned and blackened countryside. Some unnamed cataclysm brought about this nightmarish landscape some five years ago; the father and son are confronted in turn by extreme hopelessness and faint, fleeting tenderness. Staggeringly matter-of-fact in its setting and tone, I think The Road will be with me for a while. Look for the movie in 2008.

World War Z
A perennial Crowdpleaser fave, I recently purchased this sucker in paperback to get me through a four-hour airport layover. I've read it before, so I'll simply point readers to my September 2006 review of the book.

Time of the Wolf
I've been interested in this French movie for some time now, but when it arrived in the mail from Netflix I ended up being too bored to finish it. It's not that it's a bad movie; quite the contrary, the film ratchets up the tension quite well with the story of a displaced family traveling the French countryside after some unnamed apocalypse befalls the land. And though I could recognize the talented filmmaking, overall it was a bit too sedate for my liking.

Wasteland
I loved Wasteland last year, but now it's stagnating for me. At first, the potential for a comic book about a stranger wandering a dry, barren post-apocalyptic earth seemed perfect. However, writer Antony Johnston has delved deeper into the one aspect of the story that I could do without: the religion. In his world, a sun-worshipping religious minority is being oppressed by the ruling class in a sprawling metropolis. Yawn. I could get that storyline from any number of comic books. I first picked up Wasteland because I thought the action would stay where it belonged--out in the desert, the wasteland itself. The raw appeal of the story seems to have dissipated now that the characters are involved in political intrigue in the city. Get 'em out now, I say, and keep the namesake of the book intact.

Oh, and the opening song lyric there is a remarkable one I found from The Hush Sound. Those four lines pretty much sum up the entirety of The Road. Coincidence? You be the judge.