I Want To Be Offended

Ever had a case where your idea of what a band should be like is somewhat different from the reality? I think I'm experiencing that with Reading's electro-pop artists Does It Offend You, Yeah? I blame the album artwork... I saw the dripping letters on the cover and the song titles such as 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'Being Bad Feels Pretty Good' on the back (both awesome tracks by the way) and thought that this was something resembling a cult complete with mission statement ('Does it OFFEND YOU, YEAH?!!!') Actually, that impression was probably only fully formed when I heard the first two tracks ('Battle Royale' and 'With A Heavy Heart (I Regret To Inform You'), which brought to mind the image of a cavernous pit of a venue filled with jumping, sweating bodies raising their fists and middle fingers to the conventional world above.



I think my first source of disillusionment was when I found that the seemingly venomous band title was not anything like a mission statement at all, as synth player Dan Coop recalls:

Everybody thinks the name is some kind of statement but it's a quote from David Brent in an episode of The Office. "When me and James Rushent first started writing music together we decided to put it up on MySpace. We needed a name to put as our profile name so just put what was the first thing that was said on TV, we switched it on and Ricky Gervais said "Does it offend you, yeah? My drinking?" so we just went with that. No thought went into it whatsoever.

So much for the revolution... But I held high hopes for when they recently played in Melbourne - perhaps I would still have my cavernous pit of raised fists and middle fingers after all. This illusion quickly began to dissipate when I first turned up at the venue and it appeared that nobody else over the age of 20 liked this band (or wasn't willing to go out and see them on a 'school night'). And then there was the band itself - I don't know... the vocals didn't seem to have the same bite as they do on record (even during the poppy songs)... I mean they were probably really good, actually they were probably better than most bands I'll ever see, but I was after transcendence goddammit! Or at the least to feel somewhat dirty. All I got was "does it offend you, perhaps?" Which was not the band's fault at all - if anything, blame their album designers...

In Appreciation of Ringo

Last week I bought 'The Beatles: Rock Band' for Wii and have subsequently spent about as long as you can singing into a ditzy little microphone and noodling around on a plastic bass without the aid of serious drugs. For someone who thought he'd been singing along fine to the Beatles for years, the game has been a revelation: turns out that the part in 'Back in the USSR' about Moscow girls really knocking Paul out is a lot harder to sing correctly than I thought, and that there are lilting words all over their back catalogue.



But the impression that's died hardest over the past few days is the one I had that basically any clod could sing Ringo's songs. I first noticed it when I tried 'Yellow Submarine' - surely an easy kiddies' ditty - and ran into a few spots of bother. But my ineptitude was really hammered home when I confidently launched into my rendition of 'With a Little Help of My Friends' only to find that Ringo was singing so low that I struggled to hit every third note. After a couple of verses of frustration and bewilderment I was relieved to hear the others chime in with 'Do you neeeeeeed an-y-bo-dy?' only to completely falter with Ringo's response that he just needs somebody to love. And on it went until the end, because this was the easy level and the 'no-fail' mode, which prevents the song from stopping no matter how god-awful you are, was automatically on. I have since tried 'Boys' (from the Beatles' first album) and put in a vaguely passable effort. I'm too afraid to try 'Octopus's Garden' yet.

So I dip my pink hat to you, Mr Starkey. Obviously, despite all my impressions to the contrary, you brought something to the Beatles that was difficult to match.

The Wooden Finger AFL All-Australian Team 2009

Not surprisingly, I predict that the team will be dominated by Saints and Cats this year, with those teams accounting for half the spots. Both of them won a hell of a lot of games, and as I showed in my very first post the selectors reward that.

If I'm right President Eddie should be reasonably happy as well, with three Magpies getting a guernsey, although I still think he will be spewing if Brownlow fancy Dane Swan misses the starting 18. For some reason, Swan is named as a forward in the preliminary squad, and while he may well end up on a half-forward flank I think he will actually end up as a victim of his own versatility and be relegated to the bench. Of the small forwards Chapman has to get in, and despite Johnson's recent injuries he should also have done enough, and I think that the selectors will be keen to reward Stephen Milne for his shift to a more defensive focus (i.e. being bothered to tackle) over the past year.

I've also left Fevola out of my forward line, even though he was the leading goalkicker. Frankly the guy only did anything every second or third game (I know - I had the misfortune of having him in my SuperCoach team). JB of Brisbane has been far more consistent and a more valuable presence for his team, and Goodes was awesome over the latter stretch of the year.

B: Sam Gilbert, Brian Lake, Nick Maxwell
HB: Brendon Goddard, Matthew Scarlett, Simon Goodwin
C: Leigh Montagna, Joel Selwood, Nick Dal Santo
HF: Paul Chapman, Nick Riewoldt (c), Steve Johnson
F: Adam Goodes, Jonathan Brown (vc), Stephen Milne
R: Aaron Sandilands, Chris Judd, Gary Ablett
I: Dane Swan, Matthew Boyd, Leon Davis, Mitch Clark

The Finger Points Outwards - No.21: Ten Great Marvel Covers

What? Another comics-related post? Bear with me.. as part of its 70th anniversary celebrations, Marvel Comics has compiled a list of its Top 70 covers, based on reader votes. You can view all 70 here:

Marvel's Top 70 covers ever!

Naturally I started thinking about which were my favourites. I'll spare you a little by only giving you my top 10, but hopefully you'll agree that these are all pretty damn cool (in a geeky sort of way).

Ode to Starbuck

I recently watched the final episodes of the very excellent sci-fi series 'Battlestar Galactica', and while I was a little disappointed by the identity of the final Cylon I thought the ending was pretty satisfying overall. Another thing I was initially a little disappointed about was the final fate of perhaps my favourite character in the series - the ever-unpredictable Starbuck. (I have since reminded myself that TV characters, if they are to seem true-to-life, can't always do what you want them to.) Nevertheless, I felt inspired to explain what it is that fascinated me about Galactica's 'trouble child' - and if that's not enough, I've done it in verse! Enjoy:



O Kara Thrace, I don’t know whether
You really are ‘best pilot ever’
But wait five drinks – I’ll believe you are
As your eyes glint over your cigar
You would bait a colonel just for fun
Do you think now you have at last won
Those fans who thought they would never see
Rough-and-tumble Starbuck jump for glee?
But I think perhaps I liked you best
When we saw how your pad was a mess
Random paintings on the landlord’s wall
(Then ‘destiny’ went and spoiled it all)
Some say you’re too liberal with yourself
I’d say you’re confused above all else
Lee’s for you, but fate gets in the way
And you love Sam too – he’ll always stay
And though nobody can read your head
And half the crew wish you’d just stay dead
And while it seems you don’t give a frak
Who else could bring the Fleet safely back?

Graphic Novels That You Would Like If You Weren't Too Chicken To Read Them - 'Weapon X'

Barry Windsor-Smith explained: “I was just fiddling around, trying to think of some character in the Marvel Universe who didn’t wholly offend me. I thought of Logan as a sort of Everyman type. He was closer to some kind of hero/anti-hero-type person for me, and I thought perhaps I could do something with this guy with spikes coming out of his hands.” [1]



The result was one of the most unusual, yet down-to-earth, of all Marvel epics – the one hundred and twenty page ‘origin’ of Wolverine, ‘Weapon X’. The story – if such a term applies here – recounts Logan’s unwilling participation in the Weapon X experiments. The first half deals with his captors’ attempts to strip away his humanity and transform him into the perfect killing machine. Then, in the second half, Logan breaks loose, and he’s not at all happy about what has been done to him.



What made ‘Weapon X’ stand out, however, was the manner in which it was told, which was very much unlike most Marvel comics of the time, although its techniques are more evident today. First, while ‘Weapon X’ is about Logan, he is hardly present in the narrative at all; instead, the narrative is given from the point of view of the three main technicians on the Weapon X project – the insidious megalomaniac known as the Professor, and his less willing conspirators Dr Cornelius and a young woman called Hines. The result is a tension between the narrators’ attempts to objectify our hero – essentially treating him as some strange type of fleshy material on which to conduct their experiments – and the knowledge that, underneath all the probes and hi-tech equipment, is a man who is having his soul ripped out. Second, what narrative exists is relatively sparse, leaving clues for the reader to follow but also requiring the reader to do much of their own interpretation. Third, the action, apart from an absence of capes and tights, is unusually bloody and brutal for a Marvel comic, with Logan and his new-found claws slicing and skewering whole teams of guards, before proceeding to hack off his creator’s limbs.



Despite the violence (or maybe in part because of it), ‘Weapon X’ is beautifully drawn, finding a sense of poetry in the primal yet efficient manner in which Logan dispatches his jailers. Windsor-Smith wrote, drew and coloured the entire story (including the wonderful covers), and the care and mastery with which he renders his tale makes me wish that we could see this approach in mainstream comics more often. It is close to the hippest thing that Marvel has ever produced; a story about a superhero that is almost completely removed from the superhero genre. But in the end it’s primarily about a man and his struggles, both physical and psychological, and if done right that can work in any genre.


[1] 'The Road To Rune', Wizard #28)

The Finger Points Outwards - No.20

My final article for the Australian Fair Pay Commission - 'Labour market outcomes for low-skilled people in Australia' has been released in hard copy (although most of those copies are sitting in boxes a couple of rooms away from my office). The interim version, which is pretty close to the final version, can be found here - mine is the last article in the report.

Here Come The 'Wednesday Comics' (But For How Long?)

Last week saw the much-heralded release (at least in comic book circles) of DC’s new weekly series, ‘Wednesday Comics’. It has been a while since I have been this interested (OK, I’ll just admit it… geeked out) by a new series. The book is printed on newsprint and folds out to reveal 15 broadsheet-sized pages, each with a different story. And they are not just ‘inventory’ stories either, but new work by top creators such as Neil Gaiman (of ‘American Gods’ and ‘Sandman’ fame), Mike Allred, Paul Pope, Brian Azzarello, Eduardo Risso, Kyle Baker, Kurt Busiek, Dave Gibbons (the ‘Watchmen’ artist, though he’s writing here) and Joe Kubert. Being one of those kids who would go straight to the newspaper funnies each weekend, this is something I didn’t realise how much I wanted until somebody invented it.



Or do I? One of the frustrating things about the newspaper funnies was those strips that never told a complete story but that you would have to follow for weeks on end to understand what was going on. All of the strips in ‘Wednesday Comics’ are like that, which one reviewer likened to a cute date that disappears right before you can order your food. Not many of the writers seem to have adapted their styles to the new format, the twin ‘Flash’ and ‘Iris West’ strips being an exception. Still, just sitting on the couch staring at the art was my reading highlight of the week.

I suppose the question is how long the novelty will last. The buzz around most innovative new series fades away at around the 12 to 18-issue mark (examples off the top of my head: ‘American Flagg’, ‘Bone’, ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’, ‘The Authority’ and ‘Planetary’, all of Alan Moore’s ‘America’s Best Comics’ line, ‘Madman’, etc… watch out ‘Umbrella Academy’…). ‘Wednesday Comics’ is only scheduled to run 12 issues at this point, although surely given the success of its debut DC must already be thinking about another series. I hope it continues, as long as they can keep the quality of the stories high. And I don’t think it necessarily has to be big-name creators that make it a success, there may well be lesser lights whose special genius is writing and drawing a killer ‘newspaper strip’ (for those who understand cricket analogies, the graphic novel would be the Test match, the newspaper strip would be Twenty20). If DC can manage that, then ‘Wednesday Comics’ could soon be a staple of every comic reader’s week.