Watching the Watchmen

When Watchmen was first published in 1986 by DC Comics as a 12-part miniseries, the term “graphic novel” was barely known in the United States. The Europeans and the Japanese had been taking the comics medium seriously for years, though, with the French referring to their publications as “albums” and the Japanese unabashedly gearing their work to adult audiences. In the States, where the medium was invented, they were still comic books, largely relegated to a literary and graphic ghetto. A revolution had been quietly festering for years, however. Jim Steranko’s work on Marvel’s Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. built on Jack Kirby’s action style, and redefined what could be told in the confines of a 7”X10” vertical layout. Neal Adams and Denny O’ Neil laid the groundwork for resurrecting Batman from campy cartoon to grim avenger. Mostly, only the comics diehards took note at the time. That all changed in 1986, when writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, along with colorist John Higgins, teamed to produce a 12 part series for DC called Watchmen.

Watchmen wasn’t a superhero story so much as it was a tale of youthful excesses and midlife crisis set against a backdrop of murder, conspiracy and global turmoil in an alternative 1980’s. That it continues to reflect the uncertainty of Western Society As We Know It may explain why those 12 issues evolved into a single edition that’s never been out of print since first published, It also explains why a movie version, once thought impossible, is scheduled for release in March 2009. And it definitely explains why Time named it one of the 100 most important novels of the last 75 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4blSrZvPhU

Twenty some-odd years later, comes Watching the Watchmen, artist Dave Gibbons’ recollections on how the masterpiece came to be. At 256 pages bundled in a 12”X9.5” hardcover edition, there’s no denying that this is a book that any fan of Watchmen would consider an essential companion piece to the series that became a graphic novel. Given Watchmen’s cult status, that’s not surprising.

But Watching the Watchmen is much more than a coffee table book. Sure, there’s a wealth of art (early sketches evolving into finished illustrations), and that would be enough from a historical perspective. Dave Gibbons’ detailed memories of how it all came to be paint a landscape of the world before computers and FedEX, where everything was actually done by hand, and delivered via cab to the participants in the project. Consequently, the book works as a time capsule that seems somewhat quaint today, even though it all came about scarcely twenty years ago.

It’s hardly necessary to be a fan of Watchmen to appreciate Watching the Watchmen. What Gibbons achieves here is more than a memoir of the creative process that goes into any collaborative effort. It’s a personal recounting told from the illustrator’s point of view—writer Alan Moore’s perspective is absent here, due to his ongoing disputes with DC. That’s all the better in this case. Because of his writing prowess, Moore tends to eclipse his collaborators. To see in detail the creation of this seminal work from the artist’s perspective is is resultantly quite refreshing. As much as Moore’s story deconstructed the superhero mythos, they would have been shallow without the almost detached approach Gibbons’ nine panel grids imbued the characters with a sense of ennui in the face of global devastation.

At its core, Watching the Watchmen is more art book than scholarly history. The design of the book, by Chip Kidd and Mike Essl, both of whom are noted for their design work on various adaptations of Batman in film and graphic novels, ensure that Gibbons’ sometimes scattered sketches and remembrances remain cohesive. As a result, the artwork, from marker layouts to pencil sketches to the rare finished art is a joy to behold.

With The Dark Knight a serious Oscar contender and Frank Miller’s The Spirit opening Christmas Day and the film adaptation of The Watchmen coming out in March, superheroes are the new canon of 21st century literature. “Who watches the Watchmen?” is no longer merely a clever catchphrase—it may be a clear indicator of movie trends in 2009. That in mind, Watching the Watchmen may be the perfect gift for anybody interested in pop culture, film evolution, contemporary art or graphic novels in general. It’s a book I’d strongly recommend as a gift this year.

Contraband Considered As Video Angst

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You can pretty much lay that “fifteen minutes of fame” theory to rest. We move way too fast for that. You have fifteen seconds—and that’s if you’re very lucky. Our cell phone culture makes everybody and everything newsworthy for at least a blip on the cyberspace network. The most miniscule moment, whether it’s a clip of a skateboarding dog or an impassioned plea to save Britney, can garner rave reviews and a gazillion hits in a matter of hours. And it falls into oblivion even more quickly.

The graphic novel Contraband, by TJ Behe & Phil Elliott, attempts to look at the consequences of such homegrown media endeavors. It’s a day after tomorrow scenario in which a youth subculture records, and in some cases, manufactures events for fun and profit in hopes for a slot on the cell phone video network Contraband. It’s a concept not far removed from our current culture, replete with references to mercenaries in Afghanistan, club culture and YouTube-style “citizen journalism.”

Contraband has all the ingredients for a near-future cautionary tale, a noir-drenched mystery or a twisting and turning action story. Unfortunately, it never really settles on one point of view. Yeah, it’s serpentine, but the twists it takes are more convulsive than constructive.

A large part of the problem with Contraband is Behe’s propensity to talking a point to death. According to his bio, he’s spent the last few years “developing compelling mobile content for global entertainment companies including BBC, SkySports, Playboy, MTV, and O2.” It’s a pity he never learned to master the art of the graphic novel, even sadder that he doesn’t recognize the most basic rule of storytelling: show, don’t tell.

Graphic novels, by definition, are visual storytelling. They’re like cinema, letting imagery flow as the narrative device. When they succeed, graphic novels are beautiful things, with illustrations and words merging as a seamless whole. When they fail, they’re jarring, a cacophony of pictures sparring with exposition. Contraband falls into the latter category.

Despite UK illustrator Phil Elliott’s best efforts, the art in Contraband is overshadowed by ponderous soliloquies by the characters, most of which serve only to make the novel read more like a manifesto than an actual story. Word balloons, arranged haphazardly, crowd out the art in too many panels, resulting in a jumbled mess that’s at best confusing, and at worst, seriously challenges the reader’s attention span.

Elliot’s art doesn’t really mesh with Behe’s story—rather, it comes off more as hurried sketches more suited to storyboards than an actual graphic novel. His style is somewhere between R. Crumb and Herge, sans the subtle intricacies of either artist. Thus, the reader feels disconnected from the characters, despite Elliots keen sense of establishing shots and perspective. Behe’s story, with its arbitrary flashbacks and flash-forwards, grows tiresome quickly as it is, and Eliot’s simple drawings of the characters, devoid of any outstanding features, make the story all the more difficult to follow.

It’s all presented in black and white wash, presumably to give it a noir feel, but it only serves to make the characters less discernible, and the contrived story even more murky. Contraband might work as a B-movie, and perhaps that was the intention of the creators. As a graphic novel, however, it comes across as a poor adaptation of a movie yet to be made.

Three Books for the Musically Obsessed

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As I write this, it looks as if we’ve survived 2007 after all. I’m not talking about the obvious calamities and uncertainties that we endured throughout the year. Those are the little demons that have beset humankind from the get go. What I’m breathing a sigh of relief over is that we’re finally done with the endless parade of mindless TV specials commemorating the 40th anniversary of the so-called “Summer of Love.” With almost no variation, all these specials looked at the time through rose-colored glasses, and focused on a generation who danced with wild abandon through turbulent times, but were destined to change the world. Not surprisingly, they were by and large made by baby boomers. Even less surprisingly, they were mostly bollocks.

Those of us who grew up in the sixties will tell you it was all about the music. We’d been raised on rock and roll—at least the do-wop and milquetoast soul of American Bandstand at the time. The Beatles changed all that. I was a little kid when I saw them on Ed Sullivan, but some primordial force was awakened within me—I had to have that mop top. And I absolutely had to get a guitar.

My misspent youth aside, the sixties was the decade in which rock music came of age. It was the time when the stentorian voice of youth was unleashed in full, the echoes of which still reverberate today. Sure, the voice has been assimilated into mainstream mores from luxury car commercials to presidential campaigns, but the grumblings and rumblings bubble just beneath the azure calm. The media has changed, but the message has remained the same after all these years.

Three books have recently come across my desk that serve, with varying degrees of success, as snapshots of key moments that helped to transform rock and roll from a teen novelty to an integral aspect of our cultural landscape. The dispatches come from various geographic points from London to Los Angeles to upstate New York, and the viewpoints expressed are equally far-flung. The one commonality between them is they’re written by people whose love of the medium is readily apparent.

To fully appreciate Dominic Priore’s Riot On Sunset Strip, you have to accept the premise that it was Los Angeles, not San Francisco, that spawned the Californian movement that has become a cornerstone of modern music. He makes a compelling case here. As much social commentary as it is music history, Riot examines the brief moments between 1965-66 when LA’s Sunset Strip redefined pop culture before being effectively being shut down by the cops, who were taking their cues from conservative business owners. Priore recreates the climate of the times, and traces how the scene along a 1½ mile strip of Los Angeles real estate transformed the pop culture landscape forever. The Strip was the breeding ground for the Doors, Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Buffalo Springfield and numerous other bands whose influence is still being felt today. It was also a hub for art and fashion, and influenced a generation of filmmakers. Riot details it all in exquisite detail, lavishly illustrated with period photos. Priore’s style is almost breezy, yet incisive. For those interested in the evolution of pop culture, this is a must-read.

Million Dollar Bash, Sid Griffin’s exhaustive (and exhausting) study of the recording of Bob Dylan’s almost mythical The Basement Tapes, is not for the casual reader. While recovering from a motorcycle accident in 1967, Dylan holed up with a number of friends (most of which would later become the Band) to informally record what some consider his best body of work. Ironically, Dylan initially did not release the songs. Instead, they emerged as covers by the likes of Manfred Mann (“The Mighty Quinn”) and Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll and the Trinity (“This Wheel’s On Fire”). There have been numerous bootlegs of the tapes released over the years, but the only official version is the 1975 “The Basement Tapes,” released by Columbia in 1975. Griffin approaches the recordings with the wide eyes of a fan.
As a result, much of the book is based on speculation, breaking down individual songs into who played what, and when and how. The problem with this kind of attention is that the finished product often gets lost in the shuffle. It’s the kind of stuff that music geeks love, but it adds precious little to the Bob Dylan opus.

In Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America, author Jonathan Gould deftly traverses the rugged terrain that lies between the borders of pop culture, journalism, fan enthusiasm and music criticism. No matte how revisionists try to deny it, the Beatles had the single most important impact on popular culture in the twentieth century. In this book, Gould dissects the influence of the Beatles while examining how the sociopolitical upheavals of the time shaped their own musical evolution. This is by no means just another Beatles biography, although it does delineate finer points of their career that are often overlooked. The Beatles themselves, with the exception of John Lennon, were mostly unaware of how they were altering the face of rock and roll. What Gould has done here is not write a book about the Beatles per se, but instead has offered a chronicle of the sixties with the Beatles as the centerpiece. As a result, he presents perhaps the most comprehensive, enjoyable read concerning the Fab Four ever written. More importantly, Gould’s book illustrates how events influence our thought processes, and how we turn to idols to make sense of it all. This isn’t just a good book—it should be required reading for anybody interested in the influence of the sixties, and how we perceive ourselves now.

From the journalistic to the fannish to the scholarly, these three books are prime examples of rock journalism. Even at their worst, they’re leaps and bounds superior to the reviews I too frequently see passing as “criticism.” Power chords don’t hold much weight I the scheme of things. Lasting music does.

Are there really Rules for Renegades?

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If you say nothing else about Christine Comaford-Lynch, you have to admit she’s got moxie. She must have. How else do you explain how she’s gone from model to monk to multimillionaire? Her book, Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career, and Revel in Your Individuality, recounts her unlikely rise and offers simple advice as to how to thrive on your own terms.

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According to Rules for Renegades, the secrets to an abundant life of riches can be broken down into ten simple rules:

Rule 1: Everything’s an Illusion, So Pick One That’s Empowering

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Rule 2: An MBA is Optional, A GSD is Essential

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Rule 3: Problems + Pain = Profit

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Rule 4: Build Power Instead of Borrowing It

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Rule 5: Rock Rejection and Finesse Failure

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Rule 6: Learn to Love Networking

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Rule 7: Only You Can Lead Your Life

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Rule 8: Work Your Money Mojo

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Rule 9: Resign as General Manager of the Universe

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Rule 10: Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There

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It all sounds very empowering on the surface, if a little too cut and dried. Indeed, much of the book reads like a motivational speaker’s notes. Still, Comaford-Lynch’s enthusiasm is infectious, and she backs up her “rules” with solid advice for realizing one’s dreams. Self-empowerment is at the core of her message. There’s nothing particularly new about that, but this book has a different take on it. The author begins with the tenet that if reality is made up of illusions, the best course of action is to build a reality around empowerment. She doesn’t dismiss the value of education, but insists that in the real world, the ability to Get Stuff Done pulls more weight.

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She knows whereof she speaks, and unabashedly shares her own triumphs and failures .throughout Rules for Renegades. The anecdotes are really what make the book entertaining, in fact. Particularly amusing is the recounting of her failed attempt to start a company called American Geisha - until she realized what such a venture would actually entail. Comaford-Lynch probably shares more information than she needs to when she reminisces about dalliances with Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, though in context, they’re more life lessons than gossip.

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More irreverent than incisive, Rules for Renegades is a light read that’s both entertaining and informative. While some of the advice (like post-it notes affirmations on the bathroom mirror) are a little hokey, the underlying theme still rings true. All in all, this is a valuable resource for anybody tempted to start a business. It’s not a panacea, but it does serve as a compass for the would-be entrepreneur.

The World According to Tom Hayden

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No matter how pundits on either side of the political fence debate or deny it, the fact remains that our planet has seen better days. The politicos frame it according to their own agendas, but even the most delusional among them—left, right or centrist—know in their heart of hearts that we’ve been cheating on nature for too many years. After turning a blind eye to our dalliances with our own egos all this time, nature is ready to kick us to the curb.

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We’ve reached a point globally wherein it’s screamingly obvious that humankind has to take some responsibility for the climatic upheavals that are occurring all over the globe. We can no longer shrug it all off as natural weather cycles that happen once or twice a millennium. In fact, it’s impossible at this juncture to even say what’s “natural.” The imprint we’ve left on this planet has indelibly altered our environment.
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In his book The Lost Gospel of the Earth, Tom Hayden makes a compelling case for linking spiritual tenets to environmental activism. In his view, much of our environmental crisis can be traced back to our lack of regard for the most fundamentally spiritual aspects of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Native American traditions and our disconnect with our ancestral roots. According to Hayden, we can break down our relationship to the Earth into three distinct philosophies. We can see ourselves as “Lords of the Universe,” and conclude we have a divine right to dominate and subdue our surroundings, since humans were placed here to hold dominion over all else on the planet. In the second scenario, humans are the “Stewards of Nature,” a gentler, but no less utilitarian approach to the environment, in which nature is molded to the ingenuity of man for multiple benefits, taking care not to destroy the environs in the process. Finally, the third way of thinking espouses a “Kinship with Nature.” In that line of thought, we recognize that we coexist with all life on the planet, and that we share a common bond with the creative process of Earth, and thus are codependent with all life here.
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While he sometimes sees contemporary religious doctrines and their adherence to mankind as holding dominion over the planet, Hayden doesn’t indict any sect as responsible for our environmental woes. Rather, he looks at how ancient texts have been corrupted through by political expedience. He makes an eloquent argument for a return to ancient spiritual philosophies as one tool on which to build a cohesive, logical plan for preserving Life As We Know It.
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It would be a simple matter to dismiss Hayden’s views as leftwing rhetoric, were it not for the exhaustive research he’s done on the subject. True, the neoconservatives here are pilloried as puppets for corporate interests, but the interests in China and India are held equally culpable. Hayden’s main interest here is a worldwide awakening of our spiritual bonds with Earth as an evolving organism. While some of his arguments may be flawed, his passion for the environment cannot be denied.
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Given the state of our planet in 2007, Hayden’s book is a worthwhile read. In fact, it may—maybe, just maybe—give us pause to consider what we’ve wrought in our 250 some odd years as a nation obsessed with more is better. As Hayden closes his manifesto: ”No state is greater than the state of nature. The nature of the state must reflect the state of nature, not the other way around.”

Rockers in the Kitchen

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You can relate to this.

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The night went by in a blur. The music was loud, the dancing pumped you, and the drinks just kept you moving. But after that last call for alcohol, and you were informed you didn’t have to go home, but you couldn’t stay there, it dawned on you that you were hungry. Any respectable restaurant had closed hours ago, but Denny’s or IHOP served breakfast 24 hours, and coffee sounded like a good idea at this point.

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For bar bands, rock journalists, and serious clubbers in general, those forays into the food stops that never close were an essential component of survival. Every once in a great while, though, you’d run into somebody who wasn’t ready to throw in the towel yet, and an impromptu dinner party of sorts would happen at someone’s apartment. The snacks would be, well, interesting, but they beat the hell out of the obligatory 4AM pancake breakfast. Of course, they were on the fly recipes, lost forever once the sun was high in the sky.

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All of this brings me to I Like Food, Food Tastes Good: In the Kitchen with Your Favorite Bands, perhaps one of the most essential cookbooks ever written. Okay, that may be stretching a point just a bit, but it’s far and away the most entertaining cookbook ever written. You’re not going to find nutritional information or calorie counts here — you’re usually not going to find precise measurements for ingredients (as if anybody follows them anyway). What it may lack in precision, I Like Food more than makes up for in verve, though.

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What author (and music/food/travel journalist) Kara Zuaro has accomplished here is really quite amazing, given that her contributors are all indie-rock musicians — over 100, in fact — bound together by their common fondness for food. We’re talking base instinct fondness for food here — these guys are on the road much of the time, and there’s only so much fast food the palate can tolerate before the brain gets creative. And as this book demonstrates, hungry musicians can be dangerous when they get creative in the kitchen.

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Actually, there are some good recipes here, ranging from the purely survivalist to the surprisingly epicurean. The breakfast section, for example, admonishes the reader to first ask, ”How drunk am I?” before taking on some of the more involved menus. Matt Cherry’s southern cheese grits are a safe bet. Silkworm’s cheesy sleazy also is a good bit to forestall an impending hangover, and it doesn’t require precision, calling as it does, for “an onion, some red or green peppers ... and sausage and some other stuff to throw in there, if you’ve got it.”At the other end of the spectrum, Violent Femmes offer up a wild boar ragu, and Rahim’s drummer Phil Sutton shares a recipe for sauerbraten that he inherited from his dad. For more pedestrian tastes, Aloha shares a quick and simple fried chicken with biscuits and gravy. There’s also a section devoted to vegans, with such offerings as Vicki Pilato’s baked barbecue tofu and a very good eggplant parmesan, courtesy Houston McCoy.

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There are sections devoted to sandwiches, soups, desserts, and, of course, drinks. And while the majority of these are no-brainers, there are a few jewels. I never knew that sake and root beer complement each other, or that Tang serves as a perfect mixer for either Absolut or Jack Daniels. I seriously doubt I’ll try Death Cab for Cutie’s veggie sausage and peanut butter sandwich, though — at least not without having consumed one or two of those Tang highballs.

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In all seriousness, I Like Food, Food Tastes Good is an interesting compendium of recipes not likely to be recommended by the Food Channel or Martha Stewart. That’s not really the point of this book. It does give you an idea what humans can come up with in desperate road conditions, when money’s tight and Burger King just isn’t going to cut it. All the recipes are written by the band contributors themselves, and appear unedited. Some of them are actually quite tasty, while others I’ll leave to braver souls than myself.

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If nothing else, I Like Food, Food Tastes Good finally explains why rock and roll will never die. It may get a hangover, it may get indigestion, it may even pack on a few pounds here and there. But as long as it maintains its unruliness in the kitchen the same way it does on stage, it will outlast anything that dares challenge it. In the kitchen, as on the stage, the first rule is there are no rules.