Wolverine monogatari (#167 & #168)

James Mangold's The Wolverine was said to draw a great deal of inspiration from ten films, including Ozu's Floating Weeds (a remake of the director's earlier silent classic). Mangold's camera never goes static like that of Ozu, far from it. His shot composition instead does a beautiful job of evoking Ozu's depth of field, where the very architecture of Japanese buildings dictates the geometry of the camera angle and position. The opening shot (above) is evocative of many landscape shots throughout Ozu's color films. Including this post, you'll see more from my chronological retrospective Discovering Ozu this week.

Mangold's commentary on The Wolverine, and the longer cut of the movie itself, improve on what I already considered the best X-Men movie in the series thus far. That the extended cut and commentary are only available on the most deluxe version of the movie doesn't bother me.

That there's a retailer exclusive, half-hour-long featurette doesn't bother me too much, since there's only one retailer exclusive extra. What does bother me is that you can only watch it through Target's flavor of UltraViolet storefront. It's more a retrospective of the X-Men series thus far than anything to do with this movie, so it isn't a huge loss.

Fievel, Hendersons, Coens, SOMEWHERE IN TIME on Blu March 2014

The following catalog titles are all getting Blu-ray releases from Universal Studios Home Entertainment on 4 March 2014. According to the info provided by USHE, no new special features are being added to any of them. I've noted in boldface the ones I think are the most noteworthy, including a long-desired (by me) Coen Brothers movie, my wife's favorite childhood movie, one of Don Bluth's greatest triumphs, and one of the most beguiling modern romances committed to the screen.

• An American Tail
• Big Fat Liar
• Harry and the Hendersons
• A Simple Wish
• Far and Away
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Intolerable Cruelty
• Somewhere in Time

"Moral Repugnance" and THE WIND RISES

To allege that Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises does not do enough to emphasize the war crimes of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, as Boston critic Inkoo Kang put it during a critic society vote, is as reductive as saying that there are purely good and purely evil people in the world, and that everyone of Japanese descent should answer for their country's crimes in WWII.

Ordinarily, I would see people float arguments like this online and leave them in the "Why Bother, Who Cares?" pile. This argument has gained too much attention and traction; moreover, it's too damned stupid and ColdWar-ish to leave alone. Jiro Horikoshi, the chief developer of the Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" fighter, is the protagonist of The Wind Rises. The allegation is that the film should, on a moral imperative, disclaim and decry the lives taken and destroyed by Japan during WWII because it dares make a hero of the man who designed a plane.

Apparently, his inventing of planes used for war was directly instrumental in making every bad thing related to WWII, and in fact he gave the orders that resulted in Japanese troops raping and mistreating prisoners. Jiro Horikoshi apparently also ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor, according to these people. I'm stretching it thin on being facetious with that last one, but the detractors' point is that he was in no way an innocent, and since losers are losers in war and there is no other art on the planet about WWII, context must be given in thus-and-so way here and now. This is all being leveled against a peace-demonstarting, anti-nuclear, anti-violence filmmaker who was born in January of 1941.

When confronted with that information, I have seen said detractors counter with "well, how is the audience supposed to know any of that?", and my blunt answer is "how about the goddamned subtext and nuance of film language?"

Regardless of the distance from a major international conflict, revisionist attitudes and ethnocentric viewpoints are common. The further out we get, the more judgmental and sneering they become. The oft-repeated lesson is that we must learn from the mistakes of our past, not obsess over how stupid they are and consider our present-day selves so much better. That is precisely how we blind ourselves through complacency to the current evils in the world around us.

Miyazaki's final feature as a director is, if nothing else, deeply entrenched in the story of the struggle between genius craftsmanship and the human cost of making something in one's chosen field. In Jiro Horikoshi's case, he designs planes. What Inkoo Kang criticizes directly is that not enough is done to extrapolate the concatenated human cost incurred by Horikoshi developing planes used in war. My friend Devin Faraci has said on Twitter that he perceives Horikoshi as entirely indifferent to the fact his planes will be used in war. I disagree completely with his assessment, and would instead put forward that Horikoshi acknowledges that his planes will be used to kill, and that there is nothing he could do short of abandoning his chosen art form and profession and move somewhere else. We should all be held to such standards of moral perfection.

In the ramp up to war, it's made quite plain in the movie's narrative that Japanese plane technology was lagging far behind that of other countries in the face of a major international conflict. I wonder if Horikoshi were American, Korean, or Chinese…would that make a difference to these detractors? Were these countries somehow more worthy of having superior military technology? The 1931 incursion into Manchuria by Japan is summarized in an early paragraph in this post from my Discovering Ozu series. The incursion occurs during the timeline of The Wind Rises, if I'm not mistaken.

Again, the detractors cry "why did they not focus on this?", and the answer is again simply "that was not the focus of this movie", in the same way that not everyone across Japan was even aware of it happening, or Japan's culpability. Internet-style insta-reporting simply did not occur. A case in point is the Japanese Pearl Harbor bomber who crash-landed on the Ni'ihauu island of Hawaii, who was initially shown hospitality and pulled a con only because the people who lived there had no idea the bombing at Pearl had happened. They threw him a party the night of his arrival. The whole thing led to the internment of Japanese-Americans in the US, something that I suppose should be disclaimed and portrayed in every single movie that features Americans as WWII-era protagonists.

The Wind Rises is a fantasy-infused, romantic fictionalization of the life of Jiro Horikoshi if someone wants a different movie, they should seek different subject matter or make their own movie.

All of this is to say that not every movie need be a comprehensive guide to historical events, even if active literacy rates are abominable. There are many very good reasons that World War II is still not entirely covered by multiple TV series, miniseries, and three-hour movies. The best reason being that it was a massive conflict full of many, many stories to be told from many perspectives.

War is a bad thing that does bad things to innocent people. If we spend enough time tracing the blame for all deaths related to war, we would end up with a timeline of blame causality that would envelop everyone on the planet, because one of the fundamental functions of being a living organism is that we consume and thereby destroy to survive. Whether you're omnivorous, pure vegan. or anything in-between, no matter how it is cased, something suffers somehow because we all exist on the planet. If all you do is think about that and try to become purely, perfectly good, you'll go insane. This is not a defense of war and conflict as necessary evils that should be accepted with passivity, but rather, an acknowledgement that they are facts of existence and that they happen. Would I prefer it if we as a species didn't kill, rape, starve, and torture each other? Of course I would.

The only way for someone to prove that they effectively protest the advance of technology as the great evil in the world (with complete moral authority) would be their decamping from the modern world to live in the wilderness, off the grid. I would (and do) admire people for doing things like this. The people who do so are exceptionally rare. The argument forwarded comes from so high a horse I don't think it's been genetically engineered yet.

At once, I acknowledge that it's possible to lessen one's impact and have a conscience about how we live our lives on the planet. I try to do so, and wish more people would. To compare Horikoshi to Josef Mengele, or a rapist, or a government official from any time in history is disgusting. To compare Miyazaki to Leni Riefenstahl for not doing so is flatly idiotic. It's also hilarious to accuse the Horikoshi in the movie of not caring that people will die because he developed a piece of technology.

The fantasy sequences in the film are all about the weight of regret that Horikoshi  carries throughout most of his life. I guess the development chief behind aluminum alloy should throw himself off a bridge since, without aluminum alloy, the planes could not have been built. Enabling Japan to enter the modern age of aircraft ended and saved countless lives on all points of the conflict. Without the strength of Air Force they did have, Japan 

The desperate cry for this guy who designed aircraft to singlehandedly answer for all war crimes committed by his country is insanely nationalistic and ethnocentric. It makes just as much sense to say that all Americans alive during WWII must be held accountable for the internment of Japanese Americans during the war. I would also love for every person calling out The Historical Record to acknowledge in the same breath whether they'd even heard Jiro Horikoshi's name before seeing the movie or finding out about its existence.

Cars weren't created to kill, but then they were transformed into tanks. Planes weren't created to kill, they were created to fly. This guy, as portrayed in the movie, wanted to push the still-new world of manned flight to new heights and achievements after they were already being used for war. If an animated movie about flight were made about the Wright Brothers, it would probably not have a disclaimer about how they chronologically weren't first in flight and stole a bunch of ideas and so on, because in the USA we like to hide dirty laundry and tout our exceptionalism.

We make and watch movies to ask, answer, and sometimes just meditate on the notion of "what if?". In the years following WWII, the real Horikoshi had decades to reflect on the ravages of that war for himself, his people, and the world. To be furious that Miyazaki did not make a movie about how badly Horikoshi felt his role in the war is to wish one were making films of their own. It's an arbitrary pronouncement of how the critic would have preferred the movie been focused were they in charge. Miyazaki acknowledges that his treatment of Horikoshi is fictionalized, with a very specific focus, and and the movie succeeds for me on all points, armchair directors be damned.

This Essay was posted before the US release of The Wind Rises, which, as of this writing, is expected to be an English-dubbed presentation of the original movie. 

Roku (3) Adds YouTube

This completes Roku's set of all the "majors" in streaming at long last. The channel is only on the newest and most expensive Roku 3 for now, and will filter to the ones with car and truck-style descriptors (LT, XS, etc) next year.

Discovering Ozu: 110 Years

The New Yorker's Richard Brody tweeted a birthday wish for a US release of Yasujiro Ozu's 1933 gangster movie Dragnet Girl. It's a movie that stands out quite a bit from the rest of Ozu's filmography, as I noted months ago in an installment of Discovering Ozu, a feature I've wrestled with how to better curate and maintain. In terms of US release, I feel like we would most likely see unreleased Ozu features in a third Eclipse set, but what in the hell do I know?

In some sort of tribute to one of my favorite directors, I think I've finally cracked a refreshed angle on this project, a tack I'm also taking with Soderberghopolis. I'm going to continue the big, meaty, and numbered chronological retrospective installments alongside more "tumbloggy" entries of a shorter length, like this one. It's never too late to get into Ozu's staggeringly brilliant films. Most of Ozu's movies, including those which only survive in fragments, are now available on Hulu Plus here in the US thanks to The Criterion Collection.

Screen Time #47: Romance of Paperwork

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5by5's new engineer Zak Holden joins me for an impromptu bonus episode to talk about Coen Brothers movies that deserve just as much recognition as The Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona. It's a fun, brief chat wherein we discuss a few favorites at varying length before cutting to an interview with newly Golden-Globe-nominated Inside Llewyn Davis star Oscar Isaac.

The Big Lebowski
Like many Coen Brothers movies, it rewards multiple viewings. You don't have to be intimately familiar with every line and nuance of the relationships between The Dude, Walter, Donny, Maud, and the rest of 

Raising Arizona
For $20, you can get four of the Coens' best movies on Blu-ray, including this one and the unmentioned-on-the-show Fargo and my beloved Miller's Crossing. A twenty is a cheap price to pay to find out what, indeed, the rumpus is.

The Hudsucker Proxy
Under-appreciated and unfortunately impossible to find for some time, the lovely people at Warner Archive Collection recently remastered and released this screwball comedy-of-industry (a sibling to Trading Places and Putney Swope). Tim Robbins and Paul Newman are at their best here. Amazon has it, but it may very well cost less direct from WBShop.com thanks to the frequent sales and discount offers they run.

Harold Lloyd in Safety Last!
Briefly mentioned in an aside is classic screen comedian Harold Lloyd. Criterion recently dropped their first in a series of Lloyd classics. If the box art in this post looks familiar, whether you've seen the movie or not, his style and signature have somehow filtered down to you through the years.

Blood Simple
Included in the four-movie box further up, this Austin-set southern noir story is a crackling, uncompromising, and intense ride for a first feature. If you're ever in Austin, you should look up the old Dessau Hall, which is often vacant as of the last few years. I once organized a screening of the movie outdoors in the parking lot of the bar, which features prominently.

Intolerable Cruelty
This movie includes a character named Heinz the Baron Kraus von Espy on top of giving George Clooney an opportunity to go completely screwball madcap goofy, on top of what is a delightful and at once ridiculous look at the world of gender relations, marriage, and divorce. Some would say it's terribly cynical (a word used to describe various Coen-ings), but I think it's delightful, honest, and fun.

A Serious Man
Richard Kind really did ask me if I was sure I wasn't Jewish when I told him I had seen this four times. You don't have to be Jewish (I'm not) to understand nor appreciate nor enjoy this dark, funny, and bewildering parable of fate.

Criterion Collected: Martin Scorsese's WORLD CINEMA PROJECT for $65

I try to not flood this feed with "DEALS EXTRA! LOWEST PRICE EVER (UNTIL NEXT WEEK)!" sorts of posts, but this case is an important exception. This week sees the release of Criterion's other big end-of-year boxed set release: the six-film Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project.

Amazon is selling it for $65 at the moment, and there's no way of knowing when the price will suddenly skyrocket. I hope that a sales success with this installment means that we see subsequent editions down the line.

For just over $10 per movie, you get new digital restorations, introductions to all the films by Scorsese himself, interviews with filmmakers, a visual essay, and more, including booklet essays by some of the sharpest critics in the world, including my friendly electronic acquaintance Bilge Ebiri among other experts in the cinema of different regions.

A rundown of the included films, from Criterion's site:

Touki bouki (Senegal, 1973)
With a stunning mix of the surreal and the naturalistic, Djibril Diop Mambéty paints a vivid, fractured portrait of Senegal in the early 1970s.

Redes (Mexico, 1936)
In this vivid, documentary-like dramatization of the daily grind of men struggling to make a living by fishing on the Gulf of Mexico (mostly played by real- life fishermen), one worker’s terrible loss instigates a political awakening among him and his fellow laborers.

A River Called Titas (India & Bangladesh, 1973)
The Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak’s stunningly beautiful, elegiac saga concerns the tumultuous lives of people in fishing villages along the banks of the Titas River in pre-Partition East Bengal.

Dry Summer (Turkey, 1964)
Metin Erksan’s wallop of a melodrama follows the machinations of an unrepentantly selfish tobacco farmer who builds a dam to prevent water from flowing downhill to his neighbors’ crops.

Trances (Morocco, 1981)
The beloved Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane is the dynamic subject of this captivating musical documentary.

The Housemaid (South Korea, 1960)
A torrent of sexual obsession, revenge, and betrayal is unleashed under one roof in this venomous melodrama from South Korean master Kim Ki-young.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE from Scream Factory, Summer 2014

This is biggest news in catalog Blu-ray bringing something long-awaited back into print in the USA. The only way to get Phantom of the Paradise on Blu-ray (or at all, for that matter) has been an all-region French import that I insist could look better and include better extras. Scream Factory will undoubtedly knock it out of the park, based on their amazing track record.

Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise is a favorite film of not only fussy film writers like myself, but brilliant filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, who spoke to me about it briefly on Screen Time #18 (Subscribe: iTunes/RSS). The brief Phantom bit comes while discussing Phantom star Paul Williams' work on the upcoming Pan's Labyrinth stage musical.

Soderbergh Revolutionizes Apps, Filmmaking Permanently (Forever)

As excited as I was about Warner Archive Instant arriving on iPad yesterday, I'm infinitely more ebullient about Steven Soderbergh literally and comprehensively changing the fundamental tools of filmmaking with his brand-new filmmaking app, SSHH 1.0 (aka Steven Soderbergh Hand Held 1.0). Using this multi-universal and omni-functional app, you need none of the craft inherent in aping his signature handheld style. Finally, one app to make us all shoot the exact same way.

Indie Kickstarter from Malick Producer

My friend Nick Gonda worked as a producer on both of Terrence Malick's most recent movies (The Tree of Life and To the Wonder), and he's lent his support to a new independent production. Co-produced by writer/director Anna Axster and musician/composer Ryan Bingham (Crazy Heart), A Country Called Home has up-and-comer Imogen Poots attached to star. They plan to start shooting in Texas early next year. I'm glad to see more production coming into the state.

In addition to producing movies, Nick Gonda is CEO of entertainment startup Tugg, a company that does on-demand movies in theaters. Kind of like Kickstarter, you set a day, time, and the movie, along with a ticket price, and once your screening hits a threshold of tickets sold, the screening happens. I've used the service more than once (and will again very soon), and had a great experience with it.

Warner Archive Instant Now on iPad

At long last, you can get Warner Archive's streaming channel on iPad. Sign up here for a free two-week trial, then go get the app. It's been available on Roku, and having the account allows access on either device. The library is continually growing, and includes loads of things in HD that aren't yet on Blu-ray. The app is Airplay-capable for AppleTV users.

Screen Time #17 Named One of Stitcher's Top Podcast Episodes

In my first of two interviews with Andrea Romano, she discussed her entire career. Screen Time #17 is one of my favorite interviews that I've ever done. I'm thrilled to report that Stitcher has named/ranked/noted it as the #3 podcast episode about TV cartoons in their entire library of curated shows. I didn't know Dan had 5by5 shows on Stitcher in the first place.

As highlighted by the people at Stitcher in the splash image they used, she discussed the reunion of the original Jetsons cast in the 1980s. Almost exactly a year later, I'm getting ready to post an episode with animator/director Tom Cook, who was working on Hanna-Barbera cartoons during the same era.

Subscribe to the show to get the latest episodes (iTunes/RSS)

Screen Time #46: How We Get Kryptonite

I'm joined this week by Badass Digest's Devin Faraci, USA Today's Brian Truitt, and DVD/Blu-ray producer Robert Meyer Burnett to discuss the death of Paul Walker, the future of Fast & Furious, the casting of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, the growing slates full of comic book blockbusters coming from major studios, back channel chatter about X-Men: Days of Future Past, and where (or if) we will hit a saturation point. Are Avengers-scale blockbusters the next bubble in filmmaking?

At the end, we get some nice dirt from Rob Burnett about the work he's been doing on the Star Trek Blu-rays, both The Next Generation and Enterprise.

FAST & FURIOUS 6 Extended Edition: Blu-ray review

I wish this could just be your average, everyday disc review. I wish I were running a series of three interviews alongside this piece as planned, and not because I cared so much about getting them. I wish that the reason everyone is so hyper-aware of anything Fast-related hadn't come to pass. My colleague Brian Truitt conducted what now appears acknowledged as the last interview Paul Walker ever did.

The disc being released in the US next week currently defaults not to "Play Movie", but to a two-minute preview of the next Fast & Furious movie. Rumor chatter points to Universal having no choice, given the roadmap they had planned, but to start over from scratch. According to what Devin Faraci hears (as related on the most recent episode of Screen Time), this is by necessity, due to the movie and the planned eighth installment focusing heavily on Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner character. This may be the only footage from the first pass of the movie released, but I hope that isn't the case.

the preview sequence includes lots of Walker

including the final line, about his intent to exact revenge on Statham's character

Contrary to stories posted since the sudden and tragic death of series co-star Paul Walker, there's no way that Universal can remote-hide this, nor is the disc being recalled. The second pressing of the movie is a ways off, one expects, since this was positioned as the biggest mainstream home video release before the end of the year. Universal may remove it in further masterings of the F&F6 Blu-ray, but no one should go crazy buying up copies speculating that this version will be worth dozens of dollars. All around, it's pointless to speculate for now. If you are into this movie or its series, the disc is worth buying no matter what.

Regarding the movie itself, it is the culmination of what Justin Lin started doing in Tokyo Drift, the third in the series and his first in the director's chair. He took a series that was firmly planted in the "street racer" genre and allowed it to drift (pun intended) into espionage, heist, and finally, the superhero genre. The best part is that the audience is always in on the joke, and Lin's pictures (this one especially) manage good/evil divisions in a post-Cold War world by towing the line of selfish versus selfless. The dialogue, characterization, and circumstances are heightened to the point that the capers involved are fun, but that you care about the broad, archetypical characters. Under Lin's care, you will believe a car (and various drivers) can fly.

Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) leaves this room (and this guy) looking like this in a perfect example of the "comicbooking" of the F&F franchise

The highlight of the Blu-ray is far and away Justin Lin's solo commentary, which does point out differences that make the Director's Cut, at under a minute longer, his preferred version. In short, the differences a tiny bit of additional dialogue (maybe three lines), additional on-screen violence (a single kick at the end of Gina Carano's fight with Michelle Rodriguez), and a more harsh, realistic sound mix in Paul Walker's prison fight sequence.

With Lin directly alluding to it twice, I feel safe saying that 99% of the slight alterations made were in the interest of being sure in advance of obtaining a "PG-13" rating instead of "R". The changes are not so big that fans should be banging down the doors that Lin was robbed, shortchanged, or anything of the sort. I enjoyed his acknowledged desire to really re-frame these movies as comic book-style action movies.

this super-sized sequence was, at one time, the end of this movie, with the rest of Fast 6 being part of the 7th movie

The deleted scenes are all minor snips to existing sequences, all of which are better for their not being in the final movie (either version of it). The various featurettes are most notable in a couple of cases for showing just how practical a bunch of the effects were (The Flip Car, Planes Tanks and Automobiles), and at once highlighting just how unlikely it is that as many driving sequences in future franchise films will find the actors doing their own driving. Just as hyper-sensitive as the industry got to on-screen gun usage after Brandon Lee was killed on the set of The Crow, it is a very safe bet that from bond insurers and studio execs down to stunt teams, car safety is going to get ratcheted up significantly, even if only for appearance's sake.

The featurettes aren't EPK-style fluff, but they're basically the sort of things you'll watch once and be done with. The commentary is king.

"that's why your girls wear so much bling"

It's impossible to ignore the effect Paul Walker's death has had not only on the movies to come, but the ones that have come before. There are screen grabs I was planning to run in this article from the fiery climactic sequence, and to use them now would be beyond bad taste. It's tough to look at them in the folder on my desktop, let alone imagine them in some listicle post on Buzzfeed proclaiming "the 10 most prophetic shots of Fast & Furious 6".

When watching the movie for the first time at a press screening, I could have sworn they were setting us up for a tragic death for his character, and I was surprised and delighted to see them swerve away from what it looked like they had telegraphed. For what it's worth, I hope they scrap everything they shot for the seventh movie and take his character into witness protection and relocation off-screen. If they use any of his footage, put it in Dom's dreams or something. It would be the only instance of the "it was all just a dream" mechanism that I would heartily endorse.

Giant Size #35: Neal Adams on The Shallow Seas

In what is definitely the most unique interview-focused episode of the show, I speak with comics legend Neal Adams. John and I spend a few minutes giving a primer as to who Adams is and why new readers should know, because the interview itself is off in its own solar system, barely talking about comics at all. Click on the cover art to order recommended reading material listed further down.

Rather than pepper him with the same series of Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow questions he's been asked for decades, I handed him the reins to explain his beliefs regarding the nature of the Earth and the universe, and how he believes they are growing (not "expanding"!).

Conducted at Dallas Comic Con's Fan Days show, I left in multiple interactions with fans who paid him for signatures at his table. I feel it adds some color in general, on top of how laser-precise Adams' mind is, such that he can pick up right where he left off from essentially every time. Mid-interview, there is a special appearance by Toadies drummer and Buzzkill co-creator Mark Reznicek.

John and I will double back on some of Adams' most prominent work in a near-future episode that will include an already-recorded interview with his collaborator Dennis O'Neil, one of the most important living legends in comics.

Recommended Reading

Green Lantern/Green Arrow
Until I read these, I didn't really care about Green Arrow. This run from the 1970's is one of the most iconic in terms of directly focusing a comics narrative on social justice issues of the day on top of intergalactic threats and so on. Some of the writing, as quoted by John toward the end of the episode, is a bit creaky now, but at the time, was extremely progressive. They make t-shirts of some of these covers, and I would wear them all.

Batman: Illustrated by Neal Adams Vol. 2
The redefinition of the character to counter the Adam West TV series' camp tone occurred on the watch of publisher Carmine Infantino, with the look coming from the pencil of Neal Adams. The reason I recommend skipping the first and starting with this one is that this is where the real gold from his Batman work begins, the stuff that is most-fondly remembered, including his work on some absolutely gorgeous issues of The Brave and the Bold (which undoubtedly is part of the creative influence on the recent Brave and the Bold animated series). Grab Volume 3 while you're at it, which picks up roughly just after the issues found here.

Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (Deluxe Hardcover)
Even if it were just for the novelty value of the Last Son of Krypton boxing The Greatest, the ~$15 you pay for this is pretty reasonable. There's some really outstanding background detail in Adams' art here, and the hardcover has extras in the form of development sketches and additional content of that sort. This is one of the coolest "X Meets Y" crossover one-shots of its kind not just due to historical significance, but because it's some of Adam's absolute best artwork.

The Art of Neal Adams (Hardcover)
If you are into art books, this is a pretty solid collection of a cross-section of Adams' work, runs under $40, and makes a good gift if there's an Adams art fan in your life. His Conan covers are still to die for.

Horse Trading (#166)

There was a time when courting was quite transactional. Giant is one of my favorite restorations of the year. I'm finally chewing through the rest of the James Dean Collection chocolate box this long holiday weekend.

Giant Size #34: Soft Gooey Center

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John and I discuss various and sundry things we're thankful for in comics from 2013 thus far. I also commit to a series of around 17 future show topics and gimmicks.

This week's interview is with the insanely talented Cary Nord, whom I spoke with at the recent Dallas Comic Con Fan Days. See the show notes page for a laundry list of links, including Matt Fraction's outstanding "Halloween" Twitter name.

I've embedded a couple of mentioned TPBs at left (which I'll update as some more come out). Support your local comic shop by ordering and subscribing to series from them. You'd be surprised how many back issues they can find for you.

While you're in the buying mood, spread the unholy brilliance (except on iBooks) gospel of Sex Criminals. Apple pulled it completely from ComiXology. Even though buying from Image results in no DRM whatsoever, pay for it because you nasty like that. This entire paragraph will make sense if you listen to the show, promise.

<-- Ghosted is a ghost heist series, first mentioned on the show by John on our "Not Saga" episode.

Fateful Terminus (#165)

If you've never watched Spaced, you have no idea how soothing it is to hear Julia Deakin's voice saying "Broian?" in your head no matter what role you see her perform. I love that she is the audience for Simon Pegg's trademark speech as Gary King.