What I bought, read, watched, or otherwise consumed — June and July 2025

So far the history of Belgrade, like many other passages in the life of Europe, makes one wonder what the human race has lost by its habit of bleeding itself like a mad medieval surgeon. (Rebecca West, from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon)

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Another off-kilter one this month. That’s just the way it is!

Birds of Prey volume 3: Bird Undercover by Kelly Thompson (writer), Sami Basri (artist), Juann Cabal (artist), Vicente Cifuentes (inker), Adriano Lucas (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer), and Jessica Berbey (collection editor). $17.99, 120 pgs, DC.

Black Badge: The Complete Collection by Matt Kindt (writer), Tyler Jenkins (artist), Hilary Jenkins (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer), and Eric Harburn (editor). $19.99, 264 pgs, Boom! Studios.

Free Agents volume 1: After the War Was Over by Kurt Busiek (writer), Fabian Nicieza (writer), Stephen Mooney (artist), Tríona Tree Farrell (colorist), Richard Starkings (letterer), Tyler Smith (editor), and Kel Symons (editor). $19.99, 165 pgs, Image.

Geiger volume 3 by Geoff Johns (writer), Gary Frank (artist), Paul Pelletier (penciler), Andrew Hennessy (inker), Brad Anderson (colorist), John Kalisz (colorist), Rob Leigh (letterer), and Brian Cunningham (editor). $16.99, 109 pgs, Image.

The Idris File by Dix (writer/artist). $24.99, 126 pgs, Fantagraphics.

James Bond 007: Your Cold, Cold Heart by Garth Ennis (writer), Rapha Lobosco (artist), Jorge Sutil (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer), and Ivan Cohen (collection editor). $24.99, 122 pgs, Dynamite.

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu volume 1: Leave Home by Jed MacKay (writer), Joe Kelly (writer), Alessandro Cappuccio (artist), Domenico Carbone (artist), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Emilio Laiso (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (colorist), Cory Petit (letterer), and Daniel Kirchhoffer (collection editor). $19.99, 125 pgs, Marvel.

The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos volume 2 by Tate Brombal (writer), James Tynion IV (writer), Isaac Goodheart (artist), Naomi Franq (artist), Morgan Beem (artist), Soo Lee (writer/artist), Nick Robles (writer/artist), Fernando Blanco (artist), Miquel Muerto (colorist), Héctor Barros (colorist), Patricia Delpeche (colorist), and Aditya Bidikar (letterer). $24.99, 208 pgs, Dark Horse.

Seance in the Asylum by Clay McLeod Chapman (writer), Leonardo Marcello Grassi (artist), Mauro Gulma (colorist), and Frank Cvetkovic (letterer). $19.99, 80 pgs, Dark Horse.

Titans volume 3: Hard Feelings by John Layman (writer), Pete Woods (artist/colorist), Serg Acuña (artist), Matt Herms (colorist), Wes Abbott (letterer), and Brittany Holzherr (collection editor). $17.99, 120 pgs, DC.

Where Monsters Lie volume 2: Cull-de-Sac by Kyle Starks (writer), Piotr Kowalski (artist), Vladimir Popov (colorist), and Joshua Reed (letterer). $19.99, 80 pgs, Dark Horse.

Comics for June: Black Badge is a “What if the Boy Scouts were spies?” thriller from Kindt, and it’s perfectly fine. Kindt knows how to write these things, so he takes us through it well, and it’s a solidly entertaining spy story, if nothing spectacular. You can see everything coming a mile away, which is not terrible but not great either. I like spy thrillers, so I enjoyed this, but it’s a bit forgettable. Kindt has done much better spy stuff, but I’ve already read that, haven’t I? So if you’re looking for something “just” entertaining, Black Badge is pretty good. I was hoping for something a bit better, though. Speaking of solid-but-not-great entertainment, Busiek and Nicieza team up for Free Agents, which is basically WildC.A.T.s in that alien soldiers are stranded on Earth, but this time they know the war they fought is over … or is it? Their commanding officer, whom they thought dead, shows up and wants them to continue the war, but they’ve started living lives on Earth and don’t necessarily want to give them up. It’s not bad, but I do wish Busiek’s penchant for showing how superpowered beings live life showed up a bit more — the action stuff is fine, but not as compelling as whether one character will pass her college class (at least to me). Busiek and Nicieza set this in the “regular” Image Universe, so Superstar and Radiant Black show up, which is fun. It’s a decent superhero-esque story, with solid art by Mooney. Maybe in the second volume we’ll get a bit more “real-life” stuff. Moving on to other old-school dudes, my disturbingly positive relationship with Geoff Johns’s writing continues with the third volume of Geiger. This isn’t quite as good as the first two, because Paul Pelletier takes over drawing the “regular” series, and while Pelletier is fine, he’s not as good as Gary Frank. Frank does do the “secret origin” of Geiger, which probably wasn’t that necessary, although it does set up some things that I’m sure Johns will come back to. He moves the plot along, certainly, and he begins bringing in the other characters from this big universe he’s creating, but it does feel just a bit like water-treading. Still, pretty good.

I wanted to like The Idris File from Fantagraphics more than I did, although it’s not bad. It’s about a kid in 1974 Wales who discovers that there’s a Nazi plot to invade England brewing in the town. The creator, Dix, has problems with tone, as the comic veers wildly from one tonal pole to another — this is more like Time Bandits than you might expect, which struck me as odd. The townsfolk are odd for no reason, Idris — the boy who discovers the plot — sees a ghost for no reason, and the storytelling is occasionally wonky and unclear. That being said, it’s a strange and somewhat compelling tale, and Dix does some things you might not expect, and the book gets almost surreally humorous as it moves along. I can’t recommend it unequivocally, but it’s still kind of neat. Unfortunately, Garth Ennis’s entry into the 007 mythology doesn’t have that going for it. Much like Kindt, Ennis can write these kinds of stories in his sleep, and he might have done so with this one. There’s a horrific new weapon that everyone wants and which has been stolen, there’s a mole inside MI6 … you know the drill. Like Black Badge, it’s solid and entertaining, but it doesn’t have the hook of that book, so it’s just kind of entertaining and forgettable. Oh well. MacKay continues on with his Moon Knight Saga, re-introducing the principals and then making Marc think he needs to be alone because he keeps getting everyone hurt. I don’t love this kind of plot, because it’s been done to death and the hero should know better, but such is life. There are some fun moments (like when an old, weird villain of Moon Knight’s attacks), there’s some decent twists (like the deal with the cop who’s “taking over” Flint’s beat as “Cop Who Hunts Moon Knight”), plus the twist at the end is fun. I enjoy MacKay’s Moon Knight, but I get so annoyed that the trades are so short and they can’t keep an artist on schedule. What the what, Marvel? Sheesh.

The preceding trades were decent enough even if I had issues with them, but the second volume of Christopher Chaos is just boring, and I think I’m done with the book. There’s nothing wrong with the plot — monsters are fine and need to be protected from evil humans, which makes me think James Tynion saw Nightbreed in his youth and couldn’t shake it — but after a pretty decent first trade, this one spins its wheels hard, and it’s just not that interesting. It’s too bad — Goodhart’s art is nice, but the plot and characters are just dull. I’m also glad that Seance at the Asylum is only a mini-series, because I wouldn’t be back for the second arc if it weren’t. As usual, it’s not a bad idea — a fake psychic is employed by a veterans’ hospital after the Civil War to help with the patients’ trauma — but Chapman hits every cliché you can think of as our hero, Alicia, realizes that maybe things aren’t quite what they seem at the hospital. I know, shocking. This could have been a bit deeper — more about PTSD, even more about the way women were treated in the mid-nineteenth century — but Chapman simply goes for horror clichés at every turn. Too bad. Speaking of horror cliché, I noted that in the first volume of Where Monsters Lie, Starks relied so much on horror clichés that it got annoying, yet here I am with volume 2 … which is a bit better than volume 1. It’s still not great, and I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with volume 3 (which is heavily implied is coming along), but this trade — in which our hero there on the cover, Connor, is introduced to a second site of killers after it was revealed in volume 1 that he was, in fact, pretty good at killing — is kind of fun. Connor is brought into the fold, but he doesn’t necessarily want to fit into the gang of killers, so what to do, what to do? Starks does a decent job with the plot, and Kowalski is a good artist, so it’s kind of fun. Not great, but kind of fun.

Adventureman: Family Tree #1-3 by Matt Fraction (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler/colorist), Rachel Dodson (inker), and Clayton Cowles (letterer). $11.97, 68 pgs, Image.

Detective Comics volume “1”: Mercy of the Father by Tom Taylor (writer), Mikel Janín (artist/colorist), Norm Rapmund (additional inker), Alex Guimarães (additional colorist), Wes Abbott (letterer), and Ben Meares (collection editor). $19.99, 154 pgs, DC.

Meat Eaters by Meredith McClaren (writer/artist). $24.99, 244 pgs, Oni Press.

The Savage Sword of Conan #9 by Patrick Zircher (writer/artist, “The Sunless Isle”), Fabian Nicieza (writer, “The Invisible Assassin”), Sean Chen (artist, “The Invisible Assassin”), and Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith (letterers). $6.99, 58 pgs, Titan Comics.

Standstill by Lee Loughridge (writer/colorist), Andrew Robinson (artist), Alex Riegel (artist), and Rob Tweedie (letterer). $29.99, 192 pgs, Image.

Welcome to the Maynard by James Robinson (writer), J. Bone (artist), Ian Herring (colorist), and Jim Campbell (letterer). $19.99, 108 pgs, Dark Horse.

The Woman with Fifty Faces by Jon Lackman (writer) and Zachary Pinson (artist). $29.99, 227 pgs, Fantagraphics.

The Young Nomads by Andrew Kafoury (writer), Matt Keener (writer), Aaron McConnell (artist), Jeremy Colwell (colorist), Pete Carlsson (letterer), and Justin Zimmerman (editor). $9.99, 142 pgs, Battle Quest Comics.

Comics for July: I don’t have a lot to say about Adventureman — it’s doing its thing, it’s taking forever to come out, and I dig it. Fraction takes this “arc” to show us how members of the Connell family line up with members of Adventureman’s cadre, and it’s fun to go back and forth between the “real” world and the “fictional” world of Adventureman. Much like happened with Hawkeye, though, it does feel like he’s spinning his wheels a bit and not getting on with it, but I don’t mind it quite as much, mainly because he’s also world-building, and I like world-building, plus, at least each issue feels like a separate adventure, so the lack of forward progress doesn’t bother me quite that much. Honestly, the biggest problem I have with the book is how slowly it comes out. I guess it doesn’t make any money, so that’s an issue, but I do wish we’d get more than 3-4 issues a year. That would be nice. Skipping one book, we find the latest fun Conan magazine from Titan, with a very cool long (47 pages) story with Conan and Valeria fighting monsters. Patrick Zircher writes and draws it, and while it’s very adventurous, Zircher adds more humor than we usually see in a Conan story, so that’s fun. The back-up is an interesting one featuring Kull, in which knights in his court fight against a person clad in invisible armor. It’s pretty good. As always, Savage Sword of Conan is just a nifty magazine. Standstill is a fun thriller in which a scientist invents a device that can stop time except for the person wearing it, but the device has been stolen by someone who’s using it to commit horrible acts of violence (for a reason, of course), and our scientist needs to invent another one so he can stop him. It’s a good thriller, but it shifts about halfway through into a different kind of thriller, and I’m not sure it’s that successful. Loughridge has had this idea cooking for a while, so maybe he changed his mind about where it was going, but it’s just a bit odd. Still, it’s pretty neat, and the biggest problem with it is that Robinson only draws roughly half of it. It’s taken so long to come out, and Robinson couldn’t keep up with it, so he left. Riegel does a fine job, but he’s just not as good as Robinson is. Still, it’s a pretty good comic, which is nice. The Young Nomads is another interesting fantasy book from Battle Quest, as they continue to put out solid comics. Two young people from different and a bit antagonistic tribes need to find an all-powerful weapon that will help them defeat the evil invaders of their homeland. Nothing unique, of course, but Kafoury has shown that he can put some interesting spins on hoary old stories, and he does so here. It’s a decent adventure, and it doesn’t make me any less of a fan of what Kafoury is doing with his publishing concern.

The three best comics I read in the past two months came out in July. Welcome to the Maynard is a fun heist story, taking place at a magical hotel in San Francisco. Pip begins working at the Maynard, which only humans with at least a touch of magical qualities can see, and she becomes embroiled in a strange crime story, as someone is stealing unusual objects from the hotel. There is, of course, much more to Pip than we know at the beginning, and of course, being the protagonist, she becomes more involved in the crimes than you would expect a random bellhop to be, and Robinson keeps things zipping along nicely. One thing Robinson has always done well is create interesting characters on the fly, and while the monkey wrench he throws into Pip’s relationship with her girlfriend feels a bit contrived, he does a good job with the more “real-life” parts of the book, which keeps it a bit grounded. Bone does his usual excellent job on the art, and it all adds up to a pretty keen comic. Meat Eaters is the latest excellent McClaren comic — she usually does excellent comics, whether she’s writing them or not — in which a girl wakes up in a forest with no recollection of how she got there, and there’s something seriously wrong with her. I don’t want to spoil it, so I won’t get into what happened to her, but this is a story almost equal parts charming and chilling, as Ashley tries to piece together what’s going on with her. It’s a story about finding your place in life, but also with some monsters. You know, monsters are always fun to chuck into your comic! McClaren is just out there, putting together a seriously good bibliography, and this is the latest addition to it! Finally, The Woman with Fifty Faces is a terrific comic about Maria Lani, a Polish Jew who conned some of the great artists of the 1920s into doing portraits of her, which she claimed would be used in a movie she was making. Lackman does a really nice job showing us Lani’s life and why she wanted to be an actor and how the stories about her being a con artist weren’t exactly true, although they weren’t exactly false, either. It’s a tragedy, as any story about a European Jew in the 20th century probably will be, but it’s also about the human spirit and desire to be loved. Pinson does good work on the art — the inking is exquisite — and he does something with Maria that is a bit forced but works marvelously in the context of the book. I won’t give it away, but it really does show the value of art and the way artists interpret the world. It seems like it’s unclear what happened to the portraits of her, which is too bad — it sounds like a marvelous exhibition. Still, it’s an excellent book about a strange time in Europe and a woman who desperately needed something life couldn’t give her.

Finally, DC’s ALL IN initiative is starting to get collected, and I got a few of them and thought I’d mention some things about them. the third Birds of Prey trade, “Bird Undercover,” is much like the first two — I enjoyed them but feel like they’re just missing the mark slightly, and I can’t figure out why. Thompson obviously has a good handle on the characters, and her dialogue is as excellent as ever. She makes sure that it feels like a continuing series and not just simple arcs — in the first arc in this trade, the Birds figure out what happened to the Amazons that disappeared in an earlier arc, and in the second story (which is only two issues), Sin is still dealing with her new status quo and the weird magical “seam” is still causing problems, so it’s not really that, either. It just feels … slightly off. Like in the first story, when Cassandra goes undercover in the company that is keeping the Amazons prisoner, it’s unclear what she’s supposed to be doing. Do the owners of the company hire her but then change their minds and try to capture her for the same nefarious reasons they did the Amazons? Did she go in expecting that they would capture her, or is that a monkey wrench? The entire series feels like that, as if we’re missing just a few pages in which we learn a bit more — not too much! — about what’s going on. Still, it’s a fun comic, the art is very nice, and I’ll keep getting it. Maybe it will read better as an entire epic.

Layman, meanwhile, seems to have a good handle on the Titans and their personalities, and he’s going for a bit more soap opera than I might have expected, as the relationships between the characters is a kind of crucial part of the plot. The team doesn’t want to be part of the Big-Ass Justice League In The Sky, so they head back to New York and try to do good there. Dick puts Donna in charge, and it’s fun to see him defer to her because he’s not good at it, Roy is back being a douchebag (never change, Roy!), Gar and Raven are a nice couple, and the book zips along nicely. The Clock King is the villain in the first issue, but after he’s defeated, Deathstroke approaches him and tells him they need to have better planning to take out the Titans. It’s not a bad plot — Layman brings some fun characters back, and the issue with Killer Frost is very good, as she’s looking for her place in the world and doesn’t know how to be a “good” guy — and while it’s a pretty standard one, it’s always interesting to see villains trying different things. Layman manages to add some good soapy interpersonal drama, Woods does nice work on the art (I don’t love Woods because his line is a little light for me, but he’s still a good artist), and we get a solid superhero comic. I got this almost completely because of Layman — I got a nice signed copy at the Phoenix convention — but I like Layman as a person and a writer, so I figured it would be good. And it is. Is the greatest thing ever? No, but it’s a good superhero comic. Ain’t nothing wrong with that!

Finally, we have Taylor’s Detective, which looks great. Janín’s art is moody and evocative when it needs to be, and his inking is superb — precise yet beautifully lush, and when he wants to be, it can be much more ligne claire so that the art looks brighter, in contrast to some of the more disturbing parts of the story. His Gotham feels like a real city, and his characters look like real people, even in the heightened reality of comics. His coloring is also superb, as he uses watercolor effects to create light and shadow, while his shading is terrific, too. It’s actually fascinating looking at the pages that Rapmund inks, because Rapmund’s an old-school inker — he’s been working for over 30 years — and his strong line hardens Janín’s art a bit and makes it look a bit like Tom Grummett’s in places, which is odd. It’s not as good as when Janín inks himself, but it is an interesting contrast. Taylor’s story is fine, I suppose, although it does feel stretched a bit — this is 7 issues long but feels like it could be 6 or even 5. As I noted when I got the first issue, the fact that Bruce even considers taking the drug that Hot Young Scientist offers him is ludicrous, and it bites him in the ass a bit in later issues, as we knew it would. Bruce ends up banging Hot Young Scientist, as we knew he would, but as we all know from Pop Culture Rule #1, you can Never Trust The Woman, so should he really be banging her and shouldn’t he know better? I don’t know — Taylor does a nice job with the characters, and he’s trying to throw some curveballs at us, but whenever Bruce acts dumb, I get annoyed, and he acts dumb a lot in this arc. Still, it’s entertaining and not super-bleak and we get more Bruce than we usually do, which is never a bad thing. I’ll probably get the next trade, at least, just to see where Taylor is going. This isn’t great, but the art goes a long way, and it’s decent enough.

Before we move on, let’s take a look at the money I spent in June and July!

4 June: $99.72
11 June: $55.44
18 June: $116.19
25 June: $72.86
2 July: $170.04
9 July: $74.93
16 July: $18.18 (!!!)
23 July: $97.92
30 July: $47.71

Total for June: $344.21 (’24: $758.34; ’23: $550.91; ’22: $839.57; ’21: $598.36)
Total for July: $408.78 (’24: $434.13; ’23: $569.95; ’22: $740.07; ’21: $699.79)
YTD: $3234.98 (’24: $3616.09; ’23: $3670.78; ’22: $6258.80; ’21: $4469.68)

I was slightly ahead of the pace at the end of May, but these two months saw a significant drop-off, and now I’m far behind the pace. I wonder if Diamond’s dissolution means that some books I might have gotten were canceled and therefore I didn’t get them? I know there’s been a lot of turmoil with getting books, so perhaps in the coming months, some big-ticket items will show up. I also think it’s just that I’m really trying to not buy as much! We shall see!

So, that’s it for comics of the past two months. Let’s get to other things!

In TV World, we watched a bunch of shows that, as usual, were entertaining but not superb — that’s just the way it is, I suppose. Miss Austen (PBS) is an adaptation of a novel about Jane Austen’s sister, who later in life tries to protect her sister’s legacy when their sister-in-law wants to find possibly incriminating letters that Jane wrote years earlier. It’s based on the fact that Cassandra Austen did, in fact, burn a lot of Jane’s letters, although the contents of them are entirely fictional (in the show, of course, the contents are revealed). The show zips back and forth between the present of 1830 and Cassandra and Jane’s adolescence, and it’s a charming drama — it has some heavy parts, but mostly it’s hopeful, which is nice. Keeley Hawes does a nice job as the adult Cassandra, and the rest of the cast is good, as well. It’s nothing amazing, just solid television. Sherlock & Daughter (CW) was a pretty charming mystery, especially because David Thewlis (at 62, a bit old to play Sherlock in 1896, but whatever) plays Holmes as an actual nice person — he can be curt, of course, and he doesn’t suffer fools in positions of authority, but he cares deeply for Watson and Mrs. Hudson (who are kidnapped for much of the season, which is why he needs an assistant) and warms up quickly to Blu Hunt, who plays his daughter. Thewlis is always terrific, of course, but Hunt does a nice job as the headstrong young adult who’s convinced that Holmes is her father (which he is, of course, but it takes him a while to accept that). The plot is fine — there’s an organization that wants to fill the void left by Moriarty’s imprisonment (nope, he didn’t die at Reichenbach) and kidnaps Watson and Mrs. Hudson so Holmes doesn’t get involved, which is why Hunt takes such an active role in the investigation, and despite some very strange “woke-ness” (Hunt’s dead mother invented a tank in the 1870s, which is a bit odd) and some things that don’t make sense (why would Hunt’s peace-loving mother invent a tank and then try to sell it to the British government when they’re just as awful as the colonizing American government?), it zips along nicely. Dougray Scott (Wolverine!!!!) does a nice job as Moriarty, and the cast is pretty solid. It’s a perfectly fine mystery series, and I look forward to season 2. The Last of Us season 2 (HBO) finally came out, and it was a bit disappointing. Like that other long-running zombie show, the showrunners decided that the zombies are the least interesting parts of the show, so we get … humans being horrible to each other, which we can find literally anywhere. I know that constant zombie attacks would get boring, and building the world back up wouldn’t make for compelling television, but showing groups of humans simply being awful to other groups of humans is also kind of boring. The death of Pedro Pascal is a bit annoying, too. I get that it happens in the game so it wasn’t that big a shock, but part of the fun of the first season was his relationship with Ellie (TINY GIRL!!!!), and we don’t get that in season 2. At the beginning of the season, they’re a bit estranged (five years have passed since the end of season 1, and Ellie is now a snotty 19-year-old), and he gets killed in episode 2, which means that the rest of the season is Ellie traveling to Seattle to track down the people that killed him. It’s not surprising that the best episode of the short (7 episodes?!?!?) season is episode 6, which is a flashback to what Joel and Ellie were doing in the five years between seasons. The season also ends on an annoying cliffhanger, and it’ll probably be two years before it’s back, so I’m annoyed. Ramsey is good as always, and I’ve been a fan of Kaitlyn Dever since she was on Justified in 2011, so it was cool to see her here. The zombie stuff is still very good, and I’m sure I’ll watch season 3 when it shows up, but it wasn’t quite as good as season 1. Speaking of seasons, I’m a tiny bit annoyed that MobLand (Showtime) is getting a second season, because it felt for much of the first season that it would be a perfect show to be one-and-done. Tom Hardy heads the cast as the fixer for Pierce Brosnan’s crime family, and he’s excellent as always. Brosnan and Helen Mirren, playing his “Lady Macbeth on speed” wife, are superb, as is Paddy Considine as their son, Joanne Froggatt as Hardy’s wife, Lara Pulver as Considine’s wife, and Anson Boon as Considine and Pulver’s dissolute son. Early on, a rival gangster’s son ends up dead, and Eddie — the dissolute son — is the main suspect, so Hardy has to figure out a way to keep the peace. That doesn’t work, of course, and things quickly escalate into a gang war. It feels like they extended it because it was getting good ratings or critical acclaim, because it feels like the end of the war and the quasi-fall of Brosnan and Mirren ought to be the end of it, but late in the season, some new players emerge, and I guess it’s not a bad thing, because the show is enjoyable, so as long as they can get the cast back together (and why wouldn’t they?), a second season ought to be fine. We’ll see. Moving on, we watched The Eternaut (El Eternauta) on Netflix, which was both good and pissed me off a little. The original comic strip, from the 1950s, is still ahead of its time, as it’s weird and surreal and hypnotic and focuses, essentially, on one person — the so-called “eternaut” himself. You probably couldn’t make it into a decent television show, so the showrunners took the context in which the man exists and expanded it outward, so we get an alien invasion and how the humans in Buenos Aires are dealing with it. It’s fine — it’s a bit of a weird alien invasion, so even though it’s, you know, an alien invasion, they do a good job with it. They manage to retain some of the surreal-ness of the strip, so that’s nice. However, it pisses me off because the strip was, you know, finite, and it’s so clear they wanted at least a second season of this, if not more, that it just feels way too stretched out at times. The early episodes, which hew a bit more closely to the comic, are tense and claustrophobic (in the best way) and creepy. As the world expands, that goes away a bit too much, which I can deal with, but the story also slows down considerably, which feels like just something to do so they can get more seasons. I know I’m cynical, but man, I do wish this had been maybe an eight- to ten-episode series (this season is seven episodes) and they just tell the entire story, keeping it a bit closer to the comic. It’s still a pretty keen show, and it’s actually filmed in Buenos Aires, which is nifty to see, so it’s not a bad show to check out. Or you can just buy the collected edition of the comic strip and prepare to be blown away. Finally, we watched Patience season 1 on PBS, a perfectly fine cop show. So fine, in fact, that I’ve already watched it — it’s a remake of the French show Astrid, about which I’ve written before, here and here. So: tough, older, cynical female cop gets unexpected assistance from an autistic young woman who works in the criminal records department, decides to get to help on other cases, they become friends. Laura Fraser is Bea Metcalf, the cop, and Ella Maisy Purvis plays the title character. It’s a solid show, and the fact that Purvis is on the spectrum is interesting. She’s a bit more socially adjusted than Sara Mortensen from the French series — not by much, but a bit — and Fraser is a bit more cynical than Lola Dewaere, who plays Raphaëlle — the cop — in the French show, so that makes it a bit different. The show is set in York, and a lot of the exteriors were filmed there (the interiors were mostly filmed in Belgium), which gives is an interesting, unique look. It’s a decent enough show, if you like the whole “civilian-with-a-quirk-helps-the-cops” kind of show. I do, so it’s pretty good.

MUSIC

Ok, I’m finally trying to make a huge dent in the music suggestions you guys were nice enough to leave when I asked for it back in March 2024. I apologize for taking so long! So far, I’ve written about: Leprous with “Distant Bells,” which I did like, but I just thought it took a while to get going; “Octane Twilight” by Johnny and the Distractions, which is pretty decent but nothing special (to me, that is); Grant Hart’s “(It Was) A Most Disturbing Dream,” which is odd but keen; “Expert in a Dying Field” by The Beths, which I very much enjoyed; “Poor People’s Store” by Shinyribs, which is a fun song … for most of it. Let’s move on, at last!

First up, from noted musicologist Eric van Schaik, we have Guilt Machine with “Twisted Coil,” from 2009. This is a side project by Dutch musician Arjen Lucassen, and, as Eric likes long, heavy songs, this is a long, heavy song. It’s quite good, though — Lucassen, I assume, wrote the lyrics, which are about trying to leave behind guilt (I don’t love the fact that the name of band is included in the lyrics, but such is life) and other things dragging you down in life. It begins slowly, with lead singer Jasper Steverlinck crooning calmly over ethereal keyboards and muted drums, but about halfway through (it’s almost 12 minutes long), the guitar begins crunching and Steverlinck lets loose a bit. I usually dig this kind of music, so I appreciate Eric bringing it up!

I’ve only heard a few songs by And Also the Trees over the years, and they never quite stuck with me, and Eric’s next selection, “Simple Tom and the Ghost of Jenny Bailey” (1988), is a good example of why not. The music is fine — a nice, oddball rhythm and a moody vibe — and the lyrics are pretty good: “The day flees the town with a drunkard’s yell / Silence from the slaughterhouse / And the midnight bell / Shudders down Shambles alley / Slamming shutters” is how the song opens, and that’s keen. But I just don’t dig Simon Jones’s voice. He sounds like the love child of Ian Curtis and Morrissey, and that ain’t no good, believe you me. It just puts up a barrier between me and the music. That’s ok, though. Life moves on!

“Tame,” Eric’s next suggestion, is by Blur from 1995. Here’s another band that I know of, of course, but they just kind of passed me by. “Tame” is a nice, weird song. The lyrics are oddly opaque, but that’s ok, and I don’t think I’ll ever completely love Damon Albarn’s voice, with the languidness and overly-Englishness of it all, but for this song, with the goofy, spooky music (it sounds like someone got ahold of a theremin and decided that they were going to use it!), it works pretty well. I don’t think I’ll ever love Blur, but this is a pretty good song.

Finally, he suggested “World in My Eyes” by Depeche Mode. I’m not going to write anything about that, because I already have it! It’s a nifty video, though:

Thanks, Eric, I appreciate the suggestions!

Edo’s up next — he suggested classic Portland rock (he was the one with the Johnny and the Distractions song above), beginning this time with “Harden My Heart” by Seafood Mama (1980), who changed their name to Quarterflash. “Harden My Heart” is a perfectly cromulent song — it’s so late ’70s/early ’80s that I feel like I should throw a sweater around my shoulders and knot the sleeves together — as Rindy Ross croons over a steady drum beat and lets loose with some nice sax playing, while her husband Marv plays a nice, jazzy guitar solo. Quarterflash re-recorded the song a year later, and it became their biggest hit. It’s fine, but nothing special. Throw it on in the background at your next fondue party!

Edo then suggested “Coochie Coochie Coo” by the Hudson Brothers (1975), which is a goofy and fun song with a very cool piano solo (by Mark Hudson, it seems) in the middle of it. It’s a very 1975 song — it vaguely sounds like it’s a track the James Gang never recorded — and while the lyrics are nothing to write home about, it’s a rollicking tune, and that’s nice. I don’t know — there’s not much else to say about this track. I dig it. The Hudson Brothers had a brief-lived variety show around the time this song came out (which my wife remembers watching, because of course she did!), and I imagine they dressed up in matching white suits with wide collars and bow ties and jammed out to this song on a random Saturday morning in 1975. I hope they had a good time!

Edo then suggested Sequel’s “Just a Summer Romance” (1982), which is very early 1980s rock song — breezy, wistful, a short, kicky guitar solo, lyrics that straddle the line between sad and creepy (whenever there’s a song where the implication that the girl is a bit too young for the dude, it comes close to the line). There’s nothing bad about the song, but, for me, there’s nothing really memorable, either. If you had told me this was a B-side on a Romantics single or an early Huey Lewis track, I wouldn’t have disbelieved you. I don’t really have too much to say about it!

The final song Edo suggested was “Fine Tunin'” by the Crazy 8s, which is an interesting song. I already had it on my phone, because I’ve had the Crazy 8s’ greatest hits album, Still Crazy After All These Beers, for 30 years, and “Fine Tunin'” is on it. However, it’s a different version of the original — slower and a bit jazzier, while the original — which you can listen to below — is much faster and more ska. I’m not sure which version I like better — the slower version is a bit funkier, but the original has nice energy. The Crazy 8s are a fun band, though, on that Edo and I can agree!

Thanks, Edo! I’m sorry I didn’t like your songs more, but I did like them a little!

Pete Woodhouse, who suggested the Grant Hart song I mentioned above, is next up, with “Fever Moon” (2004) by Mission of Burma. This is a nice, grungy song with a bit of a funky beat underneath it all. There’s some good distortion in the middle, and while I dig the lyrics, there are too few of them — it’s a bit repetitive. Still, it has that nice, driving drum beat, and prowling bass line, and it’s pretty keen. I dig it!

His next song is “Pikant (Friendship)” (2000) by Ash Ra Tempel. You can listen to it below, but I don’t have much to say about this — it’s beautiful, but it’s also a 21-minute instrumental. If this came up on my phone while I was driving (the only time I listen to music on my phone), I would crash the car because this would put me to sleep. I’m not kidding!

Pete next suggests yet another instrumental, “Red” by King Crimson from 1974. As with almost every instrumental by good bands, I like the music but have no interest in having it on my phone. When I’m driving in my car, I like to SING THE SONGS LOUDLY!!!!! It’s just how I roll! So, this is a pretty neat tune, but there ain’t no words, man!

Finally, Pete lets me know about “Subterranea” by IQ, which is from 1997. This is also a pretty keen song — it’s like a dark disco song, which I’m not sure the band would appreciate, but so what, right? It has a very groovy bass line and a driving beat for the first 2½ minutes or so, at which it becomes more dark and brooding, the synthesizer taking over for a bit from the bass and guitars. You know the funk is coming back, and it does with a vengeance, and as the song closes, we get a steamy sax solo, which is unexpected and fun. This is part of a concept album, so the lyrics are a bit oblique if you just listen to this song, but they’re not hard to puzzle out — a dude is overwhelmed by the world and misses the person who can keep him grounded. There are some keen lyrics, but that’s basically the gist. Peter Nicholls, our lead singer, has an unusual voice — it doesn’t quite feel strong enough to deal with such heavy themes and music, and it just feels a bit incongruous. Still, this is a neat song. Good choice, Pete!

Thanks, Pete! While I don’t dig the instrumentals too much (they’re fine, but, you know — no words!), I do dig the two songs that have words!

That’s enough music for this month. I will try to get the rest of the suggestions done in the next two or so installments of this column. I know some people who left suggestions probably don’t even read the blog anymore, but I’m still going to write about their songs!!!!!

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I combined these two posts for various reasons — I wanted to do more music, honestly, trying to catch up on album reviews of CDs I’ve bought recently, but I couldn’t keep up. June was a shitty month in general — just a lot going on, and I could never get into any kind of rhythm with writing about my comics, so I didn’t. July has been better, but there’s still a lot going on. I won’t bore you with details, but I’m still looking for a permanent job, unfortunately, and my dad, who has Parkinson’s, had some issues a few months ago and I was finally able to fly to Pennsylvania for a weekend to see him, as we’re not sure if he’s ever going to be able to travel again, so we want him to see his grandchildren a bit. My younger daughter went with me, and we’re probably going to go again in the fall, although my mom is confident that he’ll be able to visit at Christmas. We’ll see. I’m also trying to get my older daughter covered by Arizona’s version of Medicaid, and that’s a bureaucracy, so it’s no fun, plus we’re living in a country where our president and his toadies are trying to destroy everything that makes life easier for anyone who’s not a billionaire, so there’s that. I don’t wish for anyone to commit violence against anyone, but if a certain someone would drop dead tomorrow from a stroke, I would not mind that one bit.

I apologize for not having more silly stuff to post, but I’ve just been consumed with doing other things, so I haven’t had a lot of time to waste on the internet, which is what I used to do and therefore came across silly stuff. Life is fine, I guess — we’re all healthy and the wife is working hard (too much, honestly, but the opposite is not working, and nobody wants that) — but it’s also annoying because of the external stuff with the Bloviator-in-Charge and the fact that the planet seems to be more actively trying to kill us than it has in the past. Such is life. I do have a podcast suggestion for all you word nerds — Words Unravelled is a new-ish podcast about word origins, and hosts Rob Watts and Jess Zafarris are very fun together. Start with the “naughty” words episode and go from there!

I hope everyone is doing well and staying sane (and safe). Keeping fighting the power!