Year in Review: My Favourite Comics of 2011

Favourite Ongoing Series: Amazing Spider-Man continues to be reliably solid under writer Dan Slott. His massive “Spider-Island” tale this year was both ridiculously goofy and a lot of fun, as the entire population of Manhattan mutates into “Spider-People.” Slott knows the balance of humour and action is important in Spider-Man. While not every issue is a home run, the comic is the best it’s been in years, welcome news for this longtime Spider-fan. Runners-up: Batman Inc. by Grant Morrison; Criminal/Incognito by Ed Brubaker.

Finally got sick of: Brian Bendis' Avengers books. There was a freshness and novelty to The Avengers when Bendis took over and added characters like Wolverine and Luke Cage to the mix. But I’ve gotten really sick of his dialogue tics, his spinning out one issue worth of story into six, and his overuse of the ridiculous villain Norman Osborn (who should’ve stayed dead back in the 1970s, dammit). Enough already.

Best gamble that paid off: The "New 52" by DC Comics. As monthly comics face dwindling sales, there’s going to be more drastic action in the future. DC relaunching every comic was the first shot fired. Not every book was a winner but there's been enough to enjoy here and some particularly fun offbeat series -- the "horror hero" books like Animal Man, Swamp Thing and Frankenstein are my favorites.

Best overlooked book: Red Hulk by Jeff Parker & company. The Red Hulk is one of those awful-sounding comics concepts like the son of Wolverine that shouldn’t work, but under talented writer Parker, his book has become a real gem. The Red Hulk is the “green" Hulk’s former foe General Thunderbolt Ross, who has, as you do, become the thing he most hated. What I like about the Red Hulk is the character behind him - a frustrated, 60-something military man who now has to be a superhero. It's not revolutionary Hulk comics, but there's something unique in Parker's spin on the character and Red Hulk has become an inventive, exciting ride each month.

Disappointing: Some of my favourite alternative comics creators delivered heavily hyped, but unsatisfying new work this year – Chester Brown’s bizarrely cold and clinical memoir of patronizing prostitutes, “Paying For It,” which suffered from a very dry, emotionally distant art style. And then there’s Frank Miller’s “Holy Terror,” which has very quickly assumed almost legendary flop status. Rushed art, juvenile writing, and a paranoid world viewpoint that seems torn directly from the furthest fringes of the far right.

Biggest bomb: Fear Itself. Yet another overhyped, overpriced "event comic." Each time I get disappointed by a "Siege" or "Secret Invasion" I say I'll stay away, but the muddled, overblown calculated chaos of Fear Itself finally convoked me to stop buying the hype.

Best new series: I love Daredevil, but the grim, rain-soaked loner facing constant tragedy bit got very old. So it’s a delight to see Mark Waid deliver a more happy-go-lucky take on the Man without Fear, which doesn’t abandon the past but embraces a more optimistic view. And artists Marco Martin and Paolo Rivera have, for the first time in Daredevil’s nearly 50-year-history, come up with some amazing and inventive ways to illustrate a blind superhero’s perspective of the world. Runner-up – a bold new take on Animal Man at DC Comics, with a creepy, Clive Barker-meets-David Lynch sensibility and some truly disturbing art. Not sure it’s got enough steam for the long haul yet, though.

Best writing about comics: The good folks at TwoMorrows Publishing continue to put out some great reading. Back Issue magazine is the only mag about comics I get anymore (now that the Comics Journal is once every year or two). And their books are even better -- I just got The Quality Companion which is a retro-fan's delight of information about the comics from this Golden Age publisher – from Plastic Man to forgotten oddballs like The Jester, Bozo the Robot and The Whistler. Great stuff!

Best reprint series: We truly do live in a golden age of great comics reprints, when even my old 1980s guilty pleasure West Coast Avengers gets deluxe hardcover treatment, but I was especially pleased this year to see Fantagraphics kick off a massive reprinting of Carl Barks’ delightful Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics, easily some of the best kid-friendly comics ever created. Reading the first volume, “Lost in the Andes,” with the boy was a great experience, and knowing there’s a flood of future volumes to come is great. Beautifully designed, full of content and at a reasonable price.

Best Comic Book Movie: I've got high hopes for The Adventures of Tintin, coming in a week or so, but until then the most enjoyable comics-based movie this year was Thor - with X-Men: First Class and Captain America not far behind. Green Lantern and Cowboys Vs. Aliens, we won't speak of.

Year in Review: My favorite music of 2011

It's that time of year, so here my picks for my favorite music of 2011, in alphabetical order:

Beirut, “The Rip Tide”
Sometimes sad is good, and Beirut does wonderful sad. Imagine Morrissey if he'd loved world music and brass bands. Zach Condon is only 25, but his music sounds like it's been around forever, steeped in old-world charm. Beirut's third disc, "The Rip Tide" is all sweeping melancholy and Condon's mournful voice, but it's the kind of sad that feels good to listen to. The jaunty "Santa Fe" is perhaps my favorite song of this year, while the title track is beautiful, broken-hearted and grand. If you like Arcade Fire or the National, you need to listen to this one.

Ben Folds, “The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective”
OK, technically it’s a box set, but it’s got new stuff, too. And what a treasure trove for fans of Folds and his wry, witty piano pop – three discs of hits, rarities and live versions. Folds’ tunes straddle the line between Elton John and They Might Be Giants, with a song able to break your heart and crack you up in the same verse. The Ben Folds Five were one of the great underrated acts of the 1990s and Folds’ solo career has been pretty winning. This set offers a whole new chance to appreciate the hooks and harmonies, and discover rare gems.

Fabulous/Arabia, “Unlimited Buffet”
New Zealanders Lawrence Arabia and Mike Fabulous have collaborated to create a dreamlike and gorgeous piece of Kiwi pop. Arabia's last album "Chant Darling" is one of the best Kiwi records of the last few years -- in that same creative, vibrant zone bands like Phoenix Foundation and Liam Finn are operating in -- and this record is nearly as good. High harmonies, floating hooks, a bit of winking irony and an undercurrent of funk swim together in an album that is perfect for listening to on a New Zealand summer's day, watching the waves roll in at the beach.

Kanye West & Jay-Z, “Watch The Throne”
It’s a gaudy and cocky monument to consumerism, with barely an ounce of subtlety – but still, the two titans of hip-hop deliver a caffeinated, hook-filled romp of an album. While less epic in its reach than Kanye's last album, it's still a pretty dazzling mix of ego and invention, with some of the best uses of samples in a long time. Most “event” albums -- like Lady Gaga’s latest -- fall short, but this one manages to deliver.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, “Soul Time!”
Unabashedly retro soul-funk, which may not be particularly groundbreaking but sure lights up a room. I've been on a big classic soul kick lately -- Otis, Aretha, Stax -- and Jones is one of the few folks today who carry on that tradition in a way that doesn't just seem like a tribute act. Top-notch musicianship and utter sincerity abound in songs like "Genuine" and "What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?" I'd take the well-seasoned, passionate voice of Sharon Jones over the staggeringly dull Adele any day of the week, myself.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, "Mirror Traffic"
Ah, Malkmus. Don't ever change. On the heels of the great Pavement reunion tour comes another slab of Malkmus' quirky, goofy rock, this time produced by Beck. Full of jammy guitar riffs, wacky lyrical asides and hooks that burrow into your brain, "Mirror Traffic" is good partly because it seems so damned effortless for the band. Only Malkmus could deliver the chorus to "Senator" with a straight face: "I know what the senator wants / what the senator wants / is a blow job." Awesome!

My Morning Jacket, “Circuital”
Some fans hated MMJ's last album, the experimental "Evil Urges," but I kinda dug it. The myth-drenched Southern rock combo return with an album that sums up all their parts. "Circuital" combines the spooky, reverb-filled feel of MMJ's first few albums with the free-wheeling charm of their later work -- got to love a song called "Holdin' on to Black Metal," which is defiantly tongue in check. But then album opener "Victory Dance" is a slow-building thunderbolt of a song, knocking you flat with its building power.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra, “Unknown Mortal Orchestra”
Out of the ashes of New Zealand’s punk-pop band The Mint Chinks comes this groovy psychedelic funk rock outfit, now based in Oregon. There’s a kind of alien, trippy loose-limbedness to this record, which blends solid grooves to space-cadet melodies. A bit like MGMT or Of Montreal, it’s a band giving a hipster take on well-worn genres with true adoration. It’s seasoned with a strange dash of melancholy that only makes the beats dig deeper.

Tom Waits, “Bad As Me”
After nearly 40 years of doing this, isn’t Tom Waits’ schtick old by now? But “Bad As Me” is as fresh and strange as anything else in the master’s cellar, and like many other critics have said, it plays almost as a “lost greatest hits” album. Waits saunters through every style in his book – the mournful ballad, the warped road song, the tub-thumping rant. I remember Waits being a bit of a cult figure when I stumbled across him in the late 1980s. But icon status, and even admission to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, hasn’t dimmed his distinctive weirdness one bit.

Wilco, “The Whole Love”
After two lovely but mellow albums, there’s a welcome return of tension and experimentation to Wilco’s latest. There’s less of the anguish that marked the band’s classic “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” but there’s a resurgent curiosity and sense of play. The band’s secret MVP is astounding guitarist Nels Cline, whose textural clangs, chords and riffs give frontman Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics added space and mystery.

Bubbling under: Florence + The Machine, “Ceremonials”; PJ Harvey, “Let England Shake”; Bon Iver, “Bon Iver”

Songs of the year
Beirut, "Santa Fe"
The Drab Doo Riffs, “Juggernaut”
Bon Iver, "Perth"
Liam Finn, "Cold Feet"
My Morning Jacket, "Outta My System"
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, "Senator"
Urge Overkill, “Thought Balloon”
Florence + The Machine, “Never Let Me Go”
Tom Waits, “Hell Broke Luce”
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, “How Can You Luv Me?”

Show of the year
I've been a total slacker on the concert scene the second half of this year, because I'm an old man in my 40s, after all. But I did see some excellent stuff earlier this year, including the sprawling traveling review of George Clinton & P. Funk - the big man may be past his prime but he was backed up by a great all-star cast. A '90s fave of mine, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, were also garage-rock fun, but the real highlight for me was seeing the post-punk combo Gang Of Four tear it up, and energetic front man Jon King ripping the Powerstation apart like it was 1979 all over again.

Year In Review: My Top Music of 2010

So, 2010 was a pretty good year for me and music I dug -- old hands like Neil Young and Paul Weller put out stellar work, while young turks like Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti and Arcade Fire also delivered grand new sounds. Here's my 10 favorite albums of 2010 in alphabetical order:

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
Three records and not a duff move yet by this Canadian assembly. There's a beautiful melancholy over this latest set, a kind of ode to vanishing childhood, with one anthem after another. My favorite: "We Used To Wait," which makes the pre-digital era of the 1980s seem as faint and far away as Victorian England.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Before Today
I have a mixed record with getting into indie-rock Pitchfork-certified cool bands -- I love Grizzly Bear, didn't really get what the fuss about Animal Collective is about, but this band -- wow, what a curious, haunting record, like early Guided By Voices mixed with Prince and an '80s horror-movie soundtrack. Vague and strange, with keyboards washing in and out, hooky choruses diving in out of nowhere and quirky strange collages of sound. It's a ramshackle gem.

Roky Erickson, True Love Will Cast Out All Evil
A burned-out '60s psychedelic legend surfaces after years of problems to record a battered, beautiful record with the band Okkervil River. While it lacks the wacked-out frenzy of his old 13th Floor Elevators classics, there's a world-weary wisdom and gentle optimism to this fine comeback.

Grinderman, Grinderman II
Nick Cave's dirty ol' rock' n' roll band releases its second disc and it's even more raw than their first, with Cave's sinister power harnessed to raunchy garage rock. Way more unhinged than the Bad Seeds, it's loud and mean and fun.

LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening
Darker and spacier than James Murphy's first two discs, but still filled with marvelous half-snarky, half sincere tunes exploring the frontiers of dance-punk. Also notable this year was Murphy's soulful music for the "Greenberg" soundtrack which points in interesting new directions.

The New Pornographers, Together
Indie-rock's finest all-star collective produces yet another album of power-pop goodness, highlighted by Neko Case's wail and A.C. Newman's bittersweet romanticism. Consistently one of the best bands going.

Phoenix Foundation, Buffalo
This New Zealand group swerve from the terrific hooky pop of their last album into a halfway instrumental record that meanders and sways through deeply textured songs that end up in surprising places. Subtle and gorgeous and something distinctively Kiwi about it all.

Paul Weller, Wake Up The Nation
I finally saw the man live this year backing this well-received album, which distills his nearly 40 years of music with The Jam, Style Council and solo into one diverse whole. Hard-charging dad-punk, blissful balladry, psychedelic strangeness -- it's all here in this sweeping statement.

Weezer, Hurley
There seems to be a love-hate relationship with these guys on the internet but I loved the poppy simplicity of their 8th record, which made fine listening as I zipped along the epic highways of California this autumn. Full of energy and optimism and playfulness, which may infuriate some snooty fans who want Rivers Cuomo to record nothing but "Pinkerton Part II" for the rest of his career, but I enjoy a band that doesn't take itself that seriously and still deliver fun summer pop tunes. Give me this over Katy Perry any day.

Neil Young, Le Noise
Young's so prolific even into his mid-60s that this one snuck by many, but it's a real treat, produced by music legend Daniel Lanois and featuring nothing by Young and his feedback-drenched guitar creating a really fascinating brooding sound that hovers between Crazy Horse crunch and "Harvest" pastoral melancholy. One to crank up right around midnight, and bathe in the glow.

Runners-up: The National, High Violet; Joanna Newsom, Have One On Me; Wolf Parade, Expo 86; Eels, End Times and Tomorrow Morning; Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World soundtrack.

Worst record I bought: Peter Gabriel, Scratch My Back.
As a giant fan, this one makes me sad. The man goes a decade or so between albums for this? A limp collection of tired covers, done with a bland orchestral backing. While Gabriel's voice is still gruff and terrific, there's a dour, labored feel to this entire enterprise, with even the world music textures that colour his best work lacking. Joyless.

Best old music I discovered: The dB's awesome first two albums from 1981-82, "Stands for Decibels" and "Repercussion" together on one disc, which I stumbled across at Real Groovy. I've always wanted to check these guys out as you often hear about them as the missing link between Big Star and R.E.M., and they don't disappoint at all. Top-notch power pop with wit and stylistic experimentation galore.

Worst music news: Other than the continual closing and shuttering of old-fashioned record shops in the MP3 age, I'd have to say the worst news of the year was the death of Alex Chilton.

Best concert: Some good stuff this year like legendary Paul Weller, fantastic and sexy Florence + The Machine and an intimate audience with The New Pornographers, but I have to admit, being in the crowd for the reunited Pavement's first show in 10 years in humble lil' New Zealand was pretty dang cool, and Steve Malkmus and the gang were in full quirk-rock frenzy.

Year In Review: My Top 10 Movies of 2010

...No, I refuse to believe it's mid-December already and the year 2011 looms out on the horizon like some Kubrickian monolith. It's time for the usual year-end review wrap-ups to begin littering the blogosphere. So in the first of an intermittent series wrapping up the year that almost was, here's my Favourite Movies I Saw In 2010. As usual, several of the big Oscar hopeful movies haven't opened down under yet like "The King's Speech," "127 Hours" and "True Grit," so I'm keeping this strictly to what I've seen -- and a couple of movies from the tail end of 2009 sneak in as well.

In alphabetical order --
Black Dynamite
Man, this movie is a hoot. In and out of theatres in about 15 minutes last year, it's a spoof of classic '70s blaxploitation movies that is one of the funniest comedies in years. It's the kind of thing Quentin Tarantino tried to do with his 'Grindhouse' movies. The movie parody genre has been pretty much kicked to death by the hugely unfunny "Scary Movie" type flicks, but "Black Dynamite" harks back to the original "Airplane!" with how lovingly it parodies '70s cheese and Michael Jai White's great turn as the unstoppable Dynamite. And any movie that ends with a kung fu battle with Richard Nixon must be on a Top 10 list.

Boy
This New Zealand charmer became the top grossing movie EVER here this year, and writer/director Taika Waititi proved he's a talent to reckon with. His first feature "Eagle V. Shark" was a goofy romantic lark. Here, he digs in to make a surpassingly kind-hearted comedy/drama set in 1984 about a teen boy's life in an isolated East Coast Maori community when his shiftless, braggart father returns home. This ain't like the hushed and mythic "Whale Rider," though -- Waiti's fanciful script, witty asides and even Michael Jackson tributes make it feel uniquely New Zealand, yet accessible to anyone. If you like the "Flight of the Conchords" sort of deadpan humour seek this out.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Another one from late 2009 that opened in New Zealand in 2010, and I'd take Wes Anderson's take on Roald Dahl's kiddie classic over 100 "Shrek" movies. I'm a fanboy deluxe for pretty much every movie Anderson's ever done, but this was something special because both the 6-year-old and I could get into it. I love the charmingly low-fi animation, the production design filled with all of Anderson's trademark flourishes, and a pitch-perfect George Clooney as the voice of Mr. Fox. I've watched this at least 3 times so far and love it every time. I wish all movies aimed at children could be more like this one.

The Hurt Locker
The "best" movie of 2009? I dunno, I never place too much seriousness on that Best Picture Oscar, but this is miles better than the all-flash, little substance "Avatar," with a topical Iraq war story that incorporates more knuckle-whiteningly tense scenes than I thought I could handle. I've been a fan of director Kathryn Bigelow's eye for ripping action scenes ever since "Point Break." It may stumble a bit in scenes not on the battlefield, but the ones set in the heat of war are scorching.

Inception
There's a kind of gun-metal coldness to Christopher Nolan's style as a director -- movies like "The Dark Knight" and "Memento" are pretty much utterly humorless, shadowy views of the world, polished like gemstones. This one is almost a remake of "The Matrix" with more brooding and less sci-fi, and an excellent cast (highlighted by one of my favorite young actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Several fantastic set-pieces make this a summer blockbuster that sticks with you. Does the story make a lot of actual sense on a second viewing? Not entirely sure yet, but it sure sucks you in while you watch it.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
This one didn't do great at the box office, because for some reason it was perceived as a "hipster movie." Maybe it's Michael Cera, whose itchy dork characters seem to annoy some people. But Edgar Wright's high-octane adaptation of the graphic novel series may be one of the most faithful comic adaptations ever - like the "Sin City" movie with a video game gloss. It's tremendous entertainment, incorporating video-game effects, snappy wit and cartoony violence into a mish-mash of gleeful fun.

A Serious Man
Here's the Coen brothers in full-on "weird" mode, as in more "Barton Fink" than "Raising Arizona." But what a strange, captivatingly weird one this is -- a kind of tangled meditation on fate, faith and the cruel whims of the universe, all cycling around one Larry Gopnik's tragic, slow downfall in 1960s Minnesota. Gopnik (a superb Michael Stuhlbarg) is a college professor who over the course of the movie battles infidelity, spoiled children, crazy neighbours and student blackmail. It's the Coen brothers at their best -- comic in as black a fashion as possible, but also quizzical, with plenty to chew on afterwards.

The Social Network
Here we have a movie about a bunch of over-privileged geeks sitting around at their computers. So why it is so bloody fascinating? David Fincher brings the same ultra-intense feeling of dread he brought to his "Zodiac" to this tale of social hustling and nerds avenged. Aaron Sorkin's crackling script and some truly good performances by actors playing quite unlikable people make this one zip by, and I think it sums up the zeitgeist of life in 2010 as well as anything else could.

Teenage Paparazzo
I wrote about this one back at the NZ International Film Festival, and still think back fondly on this funny, insightful look at the relationship between the famed and the fans. "Entourage" star Adrian Grenier has made a nicely low-key documentary about a teenage celebrity shooter that twists and turns in amusing ways.

Toy Story 3
This is pretty much a no-brainer, but if this movie consisted of nothing more than its final 15 bittersweet minutes, it would still be a classic for the ages. As it is it brings together Pixar's usual top-notch quality storytelling with an ode to vanishing childhood that will make all but the most soulless of cretins sniffle a bit at the end. Happy trails, Woody.

My favorite books read in 2009

So, here are a handful of my favorite books of 2009 -- a couple of which might've snuck out a bit earlier than this year but which are very much still worth reading regardless of publication date. There are many others that came out this year I haven't gotten around to as well -- finding a copy of Chuck Klosterman's latest down here is danged tricky, for instance.

But of the 75 or 80 books I read in 2009, here's what I liked best:

"2666" by Roberto Bolaño and "The Savage Detectives" by Roberto Bolaño - For someone who's been dead since 2003, this Chilean writer has had quite a year. His last few books of fiction have been translated into English and they're not quite like anything else out there -- surreal and vicious and intense and passionate, he was one of Latin America's most exciting voices. "2666" is a monster of a book, nearly 1000 pages (and apparently not entirely finished before his death) divided into three parts, an apocalyptic and nightmarish journey that circles around a plague of serial murders in Mexico and a secretive German writer. Bolaño had a knack for creating a disturbing, unsettling atmosphere. It's an epic book and by the end I felt truly changed a little by it in some undefinable way, which is what the best stories do. "Savage Detectives" is "lighter" in tone than "2666" but also marvelous, a kind of Kerouacian road trip following two poet buddies traveling around the world. It's both idealistic and disillusioned at the same time, and Bolaño's twisting, gorgeous prose is in full swing.

The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English by Mark Abley - People love to complain about how English is being "destroyed" by the Generations Y and Z, with all their LOLZ and txtspk. Abley genially upsets that assumption by painting a portrait of how English is always changing, always fluid, and how it has truly become a global language in the last few decades. In a great piece of anecdotal journalism he skips about the world looking at Japanese teens' "Japenglish," Hispanic Spanglish, the influence of hip-hop and the Internet, and how the way we communicate is constantly shifting. Instead of being debased, Abley argues that English is being constantly improved as a tool that works best for its particular audience at the moment. Thought-provoking and trivia-packed. (His "Spoken Here," about dead and dying languages, is also worth looking for.)

"Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood" by Mark Harris - Five movies that don't seem to have a lot in common -- "The Graduate," "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner," "Dr. Dolittle," "In the Heat of the Night" and "Bonnie and Clyde." But they were all nominated for Oscar's Best Picture of 1967, a year that changed the movie industry. This fascinating book explores the genesis, production and reaction to all five movies, each of which symbolizes a different aspect of Hollywood, whether it's maverick independence or bloated studio extravaganzas. The fertile explosion of film in the '70s can be directly credited to movies like "Clyde" while the more calculated blockbuster mentality is seen in a stumbling vanity production like Rex Harrison's "Dolittle." Harris' smart and funny narrative is a must-read for any fans of movies.

"Under the Dome" by Stephen King - I know, a Stephen King book on my "year's best" list, there goes my literature street cred I carefully built up with the dead Chilean writer above. But "Dome," while not King's best ever by any means, is a great "cheeseburger" of a fiction read, a very fast-paced 1000-page epic about a small town in Maine and what happens when a mysterious giant dome is placed over it. Yeah, sounds like a "Simpsons" episode, but King deals it up with his trademark mix of horror, humor and invention and a fair amount of satire on the post-9/11 American mentality. Sure, characters may be thin and 1000 pages may be padded, but I'd still call "Dome" his best in several years and to use a cliche, I could barely put it down while reading it.

Sunnyside" by Glen David Gold - I loved Gold's first novel, 2001's "Carter Beats the Devil," and it's been a long wait for his next book. "Sunnyside" is a challenging but quite satisfying read that entwines Charlie Chaplin, a would-be Hollywood stuntman, World War I and a cast of dozens of real-life and fictional personages of the 1910s. "Sunnyside" sprawls all over the place in its narrative that loosely explores the birth of the "modern" world of Hollywood, imagery and warfare, but it's Gold's portrait of Chaplin that holds the center -- his Chaplin is a confused, brilliant genius pulled in different directions by his muse.

"The Lost City of Z" by David Grann - Mysterious lost cities in the jungle of the Amazon? Sign me up! I've been on a big "exploration lit" kick for a while now and David Grann's stirring tale of the search for an ancient lost city is great fun. The focus of Grann's book is on legendary explorer Percy Fawcett, who disappeared into the Amazon in 1925 and was never seen again. Dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of valiant explorers have also been lost searching for traces of Fawcett. Grann does a great job revealing the secrets of the world's hidden places and giving us rollicking real-life Indiana Jones-style adventure.

"Juliet, Naked" by Nick Hornby - Hornby's latest novel is a nice return to his "High Fidelity/About A Boy" form after a few lesser books. "Juliet, Naked" is almost "High Fidelity 2" in how it digs into that strange world of music obsessives (um, not that I know anything about that), spinning a tale of fixated fans, reclusive musicians and lovelorn museum curators that's a real brisk, good-hearted and enjoyable read.

My 20 Top Albums of 2000-2009

So apparently it's like nearly a new decade or something. Or maybe not. I still get confused with the 9s and the 0s and so forth as to what is numerically proper. But anyhoo, many bloggers lately have been making with the decade-end lists, and you know I love a good list. So how about my Favorite 20 Records of the 2000s?*

*By the way I think it's really really weird that now that the decade is nearly over, we still don't have a "name" for it like the '80s, '90s, etc. The "Oh-Ohs"? The "Naughties"? (Which just sounds kind of dirty.) There's been a failure in the naming department.

My 20 Favorite Records of the 2000s, in alphabetical order:

Ryan Adams, "Gold" (2001) The high point of an extremely prolific career this decade, a mix of Americana, country-fried pop and down-home longing.

Fiona Apple, "Extraordinary Machine" (2005) Whatever happened to her? This was a great album of soulful ballads, but haven't heard a thing since.

David Bowie, "Reality" (2003) Bowie has only put out two albums since 1999 and this was his latest. While it's not up to his '70s peak, it's still a great little mix of Bowie hitting all the right spots.

Calexico, "Feast of Wire" (2003) Beautifully evocative Tex-mex soundscapes, like soundtracks to a Clint Eastwood movie that never was.

Johnny Cash, "American III: Solitary Man" (2000) The best of his Rick Rubin albums, before his voice was shot.

Cat Power, "Jukebox" (2008) Usually albums of cover songs are seen as filler efforts, but Chan Marshall makes this selection of songs by folks like Sinatra, Dylan and Hank Williams very much her own with her unforgettable voice.

Elvis Costello, "When I Was Cruel" (2002) Acidic and witty, inventive musically and lyrically sharp; the man has been a dabbler in everything from country to opera to soul this decade but this one seems his most "true" album.

Peter Gabriel, "Up" (2002) Gabriel has only released two proper albums since his 1986 smash "So," but every time he does it's an event for me. Dense, death-obsessed and gorgeous songs, lovingly labored over but very alive despite that perfectionism.

Green Day, "American Idiot" (2004) Bush bashing might seem passe now, but this "rock opera" spanned a ton of genres and still sounds genuinely passionate; this year's "21st Century Breakdown" seems a pale contender in comparison.

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch," Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2001) This 2001 movie about a transgender rock star is a glam rock joy, and the soundtrack is fantastic, irreverent and yet soulful fun.

The Hold Steady, "Stay Positive" (2008) Working-class wordy rage and righteousness, from this year's Elvis Costello model.

LCD Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver" (2008) If Moby, Prodigy and the like had wry senses of humor, they might make techno-punk this much fun. The best David Bowie album Bowie didn't make this decade.

The Mountain Goats, "The Sunset Tree" (2004) John Darnielle has released a ton of music, but for the tune "This Year" alone, I think this is his best.

New Pornographers, "Twin Cinema" (2005) If you put Squeeze, ABBA, Cheap Trick, ELO and The Beatles in a blender you might get this all-star alt-rock collective. Power pop pleasure.

Of Montreal, "Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer?" (2007) Sorely underrated angst-ridden electro glam-pop, a concept album about depression and digging your way out.

Radiohead, "Kid A" (2000) Confession, I'm not a gigantic Radiohead fan, but I love this abstract, jittery album of gloomy experimentation; it might be heresy but I prefer it to "OK Computer".

The Shins, "Oh, Inverted World" (2001) Dreamy pop that sounded like transmissions from an alien planet the first time I heard it.

The White Stripes, "Elephant" (2003) Their best of an excellent career. I don't care what any "experts" say, I love Meg White's drumming.

Wilco, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (2002) If I had to be pressed, this Jeff Tweedy masterpiece might just be my album of the decade. It's anxious and hopeful and marvelous, and I never tire of it.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Fever To Tell" (2003) Utterly ferocious grrl-power punk rock; the album Courtney Love wishes she could have made.

Year in Review wrap-up: Movies, TV and Comics a-go-go

Right -- after about two weeks into the new year, you really can't get away with "Year in Review" posts much more. So let me quickly zip over my thoughts on 2008 in movies, TV and comics (previous, longer posts on Books and Music already done).

MOVIES
I'm really loathe to do a "Top 10" movies list when I usually only get to the theater 5-6 times a year anyway, and a great many of the year-end Oscar bait movies don't make it here to New Zealand for months. So I haven't seen many of the movies that would likely end up on an eventual top 10 of 2008 list. I did watch a ton o' movies, but they were like, old and stuff. That said, movies I did like? Well, I'm a comics blogger geek, and this seemed like a pretty good year for superheroes on screen -- "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" made for a heck of a tag team, of course. I actually saw Dark Knight in the theatres twice which I never do anymore. While I do have a tendency to rebel a bit against the BEST MOVIE EVAR!! hype you see online, I have to admit it's one heck of an entertainment, Heath Ledger was masterful, and it's the best darn Batman movie since Batman fought off sharks with bat-shark repellent spray. (What? I love Adam West.)

I also really liked Hellboy II and enjoyed the underrated Incredible Hulk. (Wanted, though, might have looked pretty and been brainlessly fun, but it bore about as much resemblance to the comic as my left shoe.) In non-big event type movies, other films I really dug that came out in 2008 were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (probably my current pick for Best Picture) and Tropic Thunder. Guess I'll have to wait and see if Milk, Frost/Nixon and Slumdog Millionaire make it down here eventually to catch up!

TV
No contest, really -- Doctor Who was my favorite show of the year, with Lost and Torchwood a close second. And, er, well, that's actually just about all the TV shows we watch -- I try to catch the hilarious 30 Rock when it airs down here, but that's about it.

I know some quibbled but I really liked the latest Doctor Who series, particularly the apocalyptic everything-and-the-Dalek sink finale. Catherine Tate made a very entertaining companion, although I'm not a fan of her final fate. Like most, I'm not quite sure about the new guy -- I think a black doctor would've been really cool, but hey, let's see where they go with Mr Matt Smith in 2010. Just hope he changes that emo hair.

COMICS
I finally became disenchanted (I know, I should've years ago) with the endless big-event hype by Marvel and DC. Sadly, the hefty price of comics here and the small market makes finding much in the "alternative" comix scene a real chore. So I'm barely in the art comix market anymore, and am starting to get hardcore about dropping the superhero stuff if they don't amuse me. Marvel's Secret Invasion was particularly annoying -- Brian Michael Bendis can't write endings to save his life, just leaping from event to event. The quirks that were fetching to me in his earlier work on Powers and Alias have generally become obnoxious cliches, and the ending of Secret Invasion -- leading into yet ANOTHER crossover -- was the final straw.

Still, there's good stuff out there -- my favorite books this year would include Criminal (the nifty Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips crime noir which I'd probably pick as my favorite ongoing series this year), All-Star Superman, Daredevil, Ultimate Spider-Man (my sole remaining Bendis book), The Boys, Hellboy: The Crooked Man (with superbly eerie Richard Corben art), Omega The Unknown, and a rejuvenated Amazing Spider-Man. While it's not quite perfect, the thrice-a-month schedule has resulted in more consistently good Spidey stories than we've seen in years, with some real gems (anything drawn by Pablo Rivera, the return of the indomitable John Romita Jr., and I'm finally enjoying the return of Norman Osborn as a character). Biggest comics letdown: Ambush Bug: Year None. We waited nearly 20 years for this? Sigh. You can't go home again.

* As we wrap up 2008 for good, let me throw in a plug for the nifty Hype Machine which compiled 774 bloggers including yours truly into the mega master list of blogging album picks!

The one in which we repeat old sentences

Stolen (or is that tagged?) from bloggers Roger and Gordon, a meme of the year that just was: you randomly select a line from your blog - one post per month for the past year - and then post the lines (and links) publicly. So consider this a Spatula Recap of 2008; and later this week I'll post my final thoughts on 2008 stuff and then we'll finally move on to 2009!

January 2008: (Sir Edmund) Hillary was a remarkable soul, and while there's been the typical amount of hyperbole one gets when someone this famed dies – let's rename mountains after him! let's declare a national holiday! (all ideas he would've hated from most accounts) – there's also been a fair amount of soul-searching as to what being a Kiwi means.

February: Now he is a mighty four-year-old and the baby days are rapidly fading into the past...

March: The Conchords on the other hand are particularly Kiwi as they focus in on the idea of the Kiwi man, a stoic "bloke."

April: Underneath everyday doings like feeding your cat and playing a jazz record lie the potential for strange abysses indeed.

May: It is perhaps the finest moment of Cher's life.

June: Spidey uses fists, webs, construction equipment, even, in a dazzling sequence illustrated by the young John Romita Jr., a loaded gas tanker.

July: Clark's biggest foe is the general impression she's "had long enough" and even though NZ has done pretty well under her, it's been a dismal year with the economy slowing and a steady drumbeat of violent crime and gang worries.

August: It was strange coming back to my homeland after nearly two years away, and seeing what had changed and what hadn't.

September: What I wouldn't give to be working at my old paper for that one day!

October: Biggest regret in life: When I interviewed Alice Cooper a couple years back, I didn't ask him about "Muscle of Love."

November: When he spoke of 106-year-old Anna Nixon Cooper tonight, and her journey from "a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky" to today when "she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote," for a moment I felt the quivering membrane of history, and how quickly something can change.

December: Running across some of the few remaining giant kauri is a bit like coming across a solid wood wall in the middle of the forest.

Year in Review: My Top 10 Books Read in '08

So it's time to look back at the books I read in 2008 -- and I read a lot. (Too much, if you ask the lovely wife.) The final tally is 76 books read in 2008, give or take -- of which 22 were fiction, about 50 nonfiction. Graphic novels don't count in my tally. I did a lot of biographies or autobiographies this year, of everyone from Orson Welles to Charles Darwin to Sir Edmund Hillary to Phil Spector. The fiction I read was generally top-notch, but for some reason filling in the considerable gaps in my real-world knowledge has just been more appealing to me lately.

As for the top 10 -- well, I can't just limit it to books that came out in 2008, although several of these did. In alphabetical order by author, my favorite 10 books read in 2008 (as with all lists, it's one that could change given my mood):

“Man In The Dark" by Paul Auster (2008) -- One of my favorite writers, Auster is dizzyingly prolific -- a book a year, usually. The last few years have seen Auster doing shorter, novella-length work, quite good but not quite at the level of his classics like "City of Glass." But this tale -- also very brief -- is concise yet hugely powerful. It starts off as a strange science-fiction pastiche of a writer imagining a devastated America left in ruins by a Bush-created civil war. What's astounding is how Auster turns these musings around into a shocking end that is among the best, starkest fiction I've seen yet generated out of "war on terror."

“Over The Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe” by Laurence Bergreen (2004) -- I love tales of exploration, about back when the world was mysterious and people drew dragons at the edges of maps. Ferdinand Magellan is one of those figures you know but don't really know much about, and Bergreen does a marvelous job telling us about his harrowing adventure circling the globe for the first time. Magellan isn't someone I admire, like Captain Cook; indeed, he's a bit of an authoritarian jerk, but he's also a project of the intensely religious, crusading culture of his time. (Sea captains usually discipline their men, but Magellan's the first one I've read of who drew and quartered someone. Ew.) Bergreen places Magellan into his context very well, and makes you feel the menace and uncertainty of the then-unknown world.

"2666" by Roberto Bolaño (in progress). (2008) -- Technically, this is a cheat, as I'm about 350 pages into this three-volume 900-page monolith. But unless it undergoes a radical deterioration, it's a thrilling ride, which reminds me in turns of some of my favorite writers like Haruki Murakami, Milan Kundera and Borges. Bolaño crafts a tale that starts out as the search for a missing, mysterious German writer, but it winds and catapults into endless fascinating digressions. Bolaño plays words beautifully, spinning out into gorgeous riffs and tirades. There's a deep sadness at its heart, yet it's also a playful, exciting work of fiction. I can't wait to read more of it.

“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz (2007) -- When I saw Diaz last year in Auckland, I wrote how "like Jonathan Lethem or Michael Chabon, Diaz has the knack of channeling a diet of '70s pop culture ephemera" into his fiction. But Diaz also draws on the history of his native Dominican Republic to create a kind of Spanglish fable. "Diaz" tosses geek-cred Mordor lore side-by-side with the history of one of the last century's forgotten dictators and the battered but passionate culture left behind. One of the most enjoyable writers going these days, and hopefully his next book doesn't take the 10 years or so this one did to gestate.

“33 1/3 series: Black Sabbath: Masters of Reality” by John Darnielle (2008) -- I've barely ever listened to Black Sabbath, but I'm a huge fan of Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle, who turns out to be as good at fiction as he is at song lyrics. This entry in the highly enjoyable music chapbook series is a fictional diary of a Sabbath-obsessed teen in a mental institution, and Darnielle does an uncanny job of getting into the voice of an angry, unstable kid who just loves his Ozzy and Iommi. By the end of this brief story this Sabbath novice wanted to crank up "Sweet Leaf." A valentine to music and the power it can have, whether you like Sabbath or Dylan or Mozart.

“Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005) -- This one's been talked about a lot lately post-Obama's victory, and his own Cabinet choices do seem to show some of the Lincoln template – former political foes gathered together under a novice president. But Goodwin's book is also invigorating just as history, a worthy addition to the towering forests of Lincoln lit that sheds new light on Abe, the character of his cohorts like Seward and Chase, and also rescues poor Mary Lincoln a bit from the title of unbearably tragic madwoman. A great read for political junkies.

“Dishwasher: One Man's Quest To Wash Dishes in All 50 States" by Pete Jordan (2007) -- From the pages of zines (how's that for a pre-Internet buzzword?) springs this genial and amusing little gem. Pete Jordan's a dishwasher, and his mission in life isn't to move on up to being a chef or a restaurant owner -- it's to wash dishes in all 50 states. A very engaging look at a so-called "slacker" as he bops around America, washing dishes all the way. We read lots of books about writers and policemen and senators and so forth, but this humble tome shines a light on a blue-collar life, and will give you a bit of respect for the humble "dish dog."

“The Audacity Of Hope" by Barack Obama (2006) -- What turned me on to Obama was reading his first book, "Dreams from my Father." The man can write; not especially lyrically, maybe, but with an honesty, insight and ease that appeals to me. (And it really irritated me everytime I heard Obama described as some kind of utterly blank slate -- if you want to learn about the man, read his books, for cryin' out loud, which were written without ghost-writers I might add.) "Hope" is more policy-wonk focused than the highly personal "Father," and so can be a bit dry in spots, but it's a compelling summation of what he believes in and hopes to do as president. Obama is the best writer-President we've seen since Teddy Roosevelt; let's hope he measures up in other fashions.

“Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America" by Rick Perlstein (2008) -- Speaking of presidents -- this huge 800-page tome attempts to explain how American political culture has changed since 1960, and how it's all Richard Nixon's fault. A biography of Nixon the politician that also sums up the last 40 years or so of American life, how the change of the '60s echoed throughout the ages of Reagan, Clinton and Bushes. Will President Obama mark another change on the order of the Nixon shift, perhaps one that plays a little less to our venal natures? In a year full o' political reading, "Nixonland" offered a lot to chew on.

“The Wild Trees” by David Preston (2007) -- I reviewed this in length earlier last year, and I still love it. An epic look at a world high in the redwood trees on Northern California, a rare and remote ecosystem most of us will never see.

Year in Review: My Top 10 CDs

...Wow, you know, for me 2008 was actually quite a fantastic year for new music. Some years I've had trouble picking a Top 5, but this year I nearly could have done a Top 20. As it is I had to make some painful arbitrary cuts. Acts I've loved for years such as REM and Beck put out swell new albums, but I also discovered a ton of excellent acts this year (many thanks to cool blogs*) -- like the Hold Steady, Wolf Parade, NZ's own Flight of the Conchords and She & Him.

The order of my Top 10 could easily shift given a change of mood, and there's still a couple of '08 albums I really want to hear but haven't had a chance yet. All that as a caveat, in my humble opinion you can't go wrong with any of these discs from the year that nearly was:

1. Hold Steady, "Stay Positive"
Anthemic, inspirational and literate good ol' rock 'n' roll, and a constant in the stereo/iPod all year long. Frontman Craig Finn is one of these dowdy rock poets you see every once in a while, worshipping at the altar of Costello and Springsteen, and on his band's fourth album, creating a rockin' record that never ignores the tough moments, but ultimately seems one hell of a life-affirming document. Swinging from singing about being too old for the "scene" to crooning about cult filmmaker John Cassavetes, Finn manages the tricky business of juggling knowing when to rock and when to go for the killer lyrical hook. A great album has layers, and I'm still digging down deep into this one.

2. Cat Power, "Jukebox"
I know, an album of cover tunes? But nobody does covers like Cat Power, who takes a song and massages it into her own blood. Her takes on tunes by Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday are grooving, sultry and utterly her own. I'd have to say she's my favorite singer performing these days. Seeing her live back in March performing these songs was one of the year's highlights.

3. Wolf Parade, "At Mount Zoomer"
Broody, swirling and strange, the second album by this Canadian group is also kind of beautiful because (or in spite of) all the left turns. Sometimes it feels as if a few songs have been squashed together into one. It's got the grandeur of their mates Arcade Fire but sometimes also reminds me of The Doors without the boozy pretension. There's an urgency to it all that keeps the tunes in your head.

4. The Mountain Goats, "Heretic Pride"
I'm finally going to see them live this Wednesday, and I'm psyched. John Darnielle is one of "low-fi" pop's best writers, cunning with a turn of phrase and a fine eye for detail. He started out with boom-box recordings that were faint, tinny and strangely absorbing, but expands into a full band here with glorious results.

5. TV On The Radio, "Dear Science"
This one's on everyone's top 10 lists this year. Am I being a dork by saying I've been into them since 2004? I am so cool. Anyway, TV On The Radio abandons their more prickly side for a bit more mainstream sound, but their industrial-strength doo-wop punk-soul is still hugely compelling stuff, backed up by the dueling vocalists, dense instrumentation, and a state of mind that unerringly captures the confused, battered yet optimistic post-Bush, pre-Obama mindset of the world today.

6. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, "Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!"
The Australian high priest of weird doom and gloom, back with a roaring album of lust and temptation and sprawling story-rant lyrics. Like hearing a deranged preacher yelling at you in the subway, but backed by a garage band so propulsively cool you can't help but listen. If that doesn't sound like a recommendation, you don't know Nick Cave.

7. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, "Real Emotional Trash"
Combines the quirky whimsy of his old band Pavement with long, groovy psychedelic guitar jams, like a mash-up of Guided by Voices and Television. Wonderfully loopy and unexpectedly emotional, it's the best he's done since Pavement broke up and a terrific guitar record. Put it on, turn it up and stare off into space.

8. Bob Dylan, "The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs"
Strictly speaking, not "new" music but what a revelation of material from Bob's work of the last two decades. Gorgeously packaged alternate versions, unreleased songs and live tracks -- it's like getting a couple of new Dylan albums this year! I don't know if three versions of "Mississippi" were needed but "Red River Shore" is a sheer classic and just about justifies the album on its own. Dylan never really "finishes" a song and this look at his sketchbook is fascinating. (Now when do we get an official "Basement Tapes," dagnabit?)

9. Liam Finn, "I'll Be Lightning"
OK, this is a technicality, because it actually came out in New Zealand in 2007, but was released in America in 2008 and I bought it in 2008, so thppppptt. Liam, the Kiwi son of the great Neil Finn of Crowded House, crafts honey-sweet tunes that combine the House's melancholy beauty with a ramshackle, fuzzed-out charm. He's a one-man band, playing nearly every single instrument on this dense album (see him live, it's great how he recreates the sound). It's one of the more promising "famous musical kids" discs I've heard, and grows on me more with each listen.

10. Calexico, "Carried To Dust."
Moody Tex-Mex Americana rambles along through one of this Arizona band's best albums. It's the kind of music you listen to while driving through red dirt and ever-setting sunsets. There's a genuine warmth to Calexico's work, which is like soundtracks for epic western movies that never quite existed. In terms of evoking a mood, these guys are hard to beat.

The almost-tops, tied for #11:
Ryan Adams, "Cardinology," Jenny Lewis, "Acid Tongue," She & Him, "Vol. 1," Elvis Costello and the Imposters, "Momufuku," Beck, "Modern Guilt," REM, "Accelerate."

Best live show:
Tough call as Wilco, Sonic Youth and Cat Power all delivered most excellent Auckland shows, but the massive Big Day Out back in January squished Arcade Fire, Spoon, LCD Soundsystem, Bjork, Liam Finn and Billy Bragg into one hell of a day, so that gets the nod. One of my all-time great musical memories -- here's hoping Neil Young, TV on the Radio and Prodigy can deliver a fitting follow-up next month!

(*As always, go to Largehearted Boy for the coolest dang wrap-up of just about every blog in the universe's Top 10 lists!)

30 Days of Bloggery: Comics Year In Review

I realized the other day I've been collecting comic books for more than 25 years now, since a spinner rack at Lucky's supermarket sparked a monthly addiction to the old Marvel Star Wars comics. Ups and downs of the industry aside, I still love nothin' better than kickin' back with a pile of comics and jumping into the four-color world.

One thing that's a drag in New Zealand is it's really hard to get "alternative" comics or they're hugely expensive when you find them, so I've had to miss out on a lot of the alt-stuff lately, having to special-order what I really do want from the U.S. (High comic prices in NZ also discourage the impulse purchase). But hey, I still found joy in my little superhero corner of comics, with these my picks for the year's best and worst of the comics I buy:

BEST ONGOING SERIES: A tricky call this year, so I'm making it a tie -- both by the man I'd also pick as my favorite writer of the year, Ed Brubaker. Daredevil and Criminal are different in their approach - one a beloved superhero, one a R-rated Tarantino-esque crime comic - but really, they're flip sides of the same noir coin. I'm loving Ed's grim take on Daredevil, as he's trying to push a bit beyond the Miller/Bendis era and reintroduce some superhero elements into a comic that's of the streets, full of gritty foes and a hero who'll never give up. Criminal, on the other hand, is a lot like David Lapham's fine Stray Bullets, a series of interconnected tales of dead-end losers and their grand criminal plans. Both comics together offer road maps to the dark side of men's souls, wrapped together with some smashing action and made for fine reading (and I'm not even including Brubaker's other monthly blast, The Immortal Iron Fist, because I'm only reading that one in trade paperbacks, but it's another one well worth checking out. Kung fu action!).

BEST MINISERIES: Hey, World War Hulk wasn't perfect, but far better than most event crossovers with their convoluted plots and letdowns. The plot is simple -- Hulk returns to earth to get revenge on everyone -- and man, this series delivered the smashing and bashing, especially thanks to the utterly epic art of John Romita Jr. Old-school heroics and finally a miniseries that felt worthy of being an event. While it had the usual ton of tie-ins, the 5-issue series also stood up nicely on its own.

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL: Sure, it's almost dizzingly erudite and perhaps too much text and too little comics for its own good, but I have to admire the sheer scope of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier. It takes on a vast array of pulp fiction and while it's less story than exposition, and has a disappointingly fanciful ending, it's still far more sweeping and rewarding for re-reading than most books. I particularly love the way Moore incorporates figures like Orwell's Big Brother, Virginia Woolf's Orlando and P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster into his topsy-turvy tapestry of tales. It just begs for annotation of all its nooks and crannies of fictional realms, which is why it's so nice we have the likes of Jess Nevins to provide them.

BEST NEW SERIES: Mark Waid and George Perez's The Brave And The Bold revival for DC is one of the only comics I buy from that publisher, which has taken a needlessly gory and cynical bent with most of its heroes lately. But this one is a fan-geek's dream of old-fashioned team-ups and Perez's always-amazing detailed art. Batman and Green Lantern? Check. Metal Men? Check. Flash and Doom Patrol? Check. Lobo and Supergirl? Check. It's like Waid's private playground away from the charnel house of the DC universe these days, and while it ain't very deep, it's just a heck of a lot of fun to read. I'm very sad Perez is leaving the art chores soon but hopefully Jerry Ordway will be a decent replacement.

BEST REPRINT: It's a sure sign that the age we live in I look more forward to reprints than I do the vast majority of monthly comix. What a plethora of material is out there, from cheap black-and-white phone books to elaborate color fetish objects. I got a ton of stuff this year I dug - the E.C Segar Popeye V. 1 and 2, the ongoing Complete Peanuts series, the wonderfully quirky I Shall Destroy All Planets, to name a few. But I have to admit my heart right now lies with DC's Showcase Presents line, and its huge, cheap reprints of reams of material from Batman and The Flash to obscurities like The War That Time Forgot and Enemy Ace. I particularly loved the classic Joe Kubert and Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson art in Showcase Presents The Atom and Hawkman Vol. 1-- two of my favorite second-tier DC characters, whose classic adventures have always been out of my reach financially. Sure, these tales are from a simpler time, but often they deliver more enjoyment than many of today's labored, stretched-out retreads.

WORST DISAPPOINTMENT: Um, case in point. Why oh why can't Marvel do right by Spider-Man? The character's adventures have been up and down in comics the past few years, with some intriguing developments (Aunt May finally learns the secret, the unmasking) handled without any real imagination. But worst yet was "One More Day," a rock-bottom awful storyline that was four issues of pointless rambling wrapped up with a bankrupt "Bobby Ewing in the shower" ending that basically wrote out 20 years' worth of Spider-Man comics because editor-in-chief Joe Quesada wanted to. (And as most of the blogosphere has pointed out already, Spider-Man does this by making a deal with the devil???) It spits in the face of the notion a character might actually grow over 40-something years of publication, and decrees that Peter Parker needs to stay a neo-teen loser for his entire life. It shows painful signs of editorial edict over solid writing. I'm still such a fan of the character that I'll keep reading the comics in 2008, but boy, this is about as clumsy a refit as I've ever seen for something that didn't need fixing (and that will surely be undone within five years anyway). I'm hopeful the "Brand New Day" this all set up is worth the garbage we had to wade through to get to it.

30 Days of Bloggery: Best Movies I Saw In 2007

I'd love to play the year-in-review top 10 game with the movies, but I have to admit I've only been to the theater a half-dozen times or so in 2007, and a ton of the critical favorites I'm dying to see like No Country For Old Men and I'm Not There have yet to make it here. So listing my best of 2007 when I've probably barely seen 10 flicks of 2007 seems premature.

But what the heck -- we do watch a fair amount of deeveedees, so instead I'm going to list my 10 favorite movies I saw in 2007 -- no matter what year they first came out in! That's right, I'm a rebel. (Well, it turns out half my list is 2007 movies anyway.)

In alphabetical order:

Ace In The Hole (1951) - A long-lost golden oldie getting its first release on DVD this year, from the all-time legend Billy Wilder. Kirk Douglas embodies rampant cycnism at its best in a story of a man trapped in a well that becomes a media circus. Pitch-black satire that's fresh and relevant today.

Children of Men (2006) - It's the countless small details of this grittily real science-fiction drama that stuck with me, as it painted a picture of life in 2027. Clive Owen is smoulderingly good and it's all filled with a battered kind of hope as mankind faces its self-created extinction.

The Darjeeling Limited (2007) - Why, I just saw this! Wes Anderson, train trips, humor that trips the edge of sorrow, another gem from my favorite movie director.

The Departed (2006) - I know, I know, late to the party, but I finally watched this on DVD and it's taut and dazzling Scorsese, with some fantastic performances by DiCaprio and Damon. And wasn't it nice for Marty to finally get an Oscar for it?

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005) - This documentary looks at the damaged life of Daniel Johnston, a kind of idiot savant crafting so-stupid-it's genius music down in Texas and battling mental illness. Moving and funny, a great portrait of a creative life held back -- and fed -- by the demons in his head. Best documentary of its sort since "Crumb."

Helvetica (2007) - A documentary about a typeface that actually delves deep into how we perceive the world around us. Saw this at the Auckland International Film Festival and haven't stopped thinking about it all year. You'll never look at street signs quite the same way again.

Hot Fuzz (2007) - The creators of "Shaun Of The Dead" return with another bizarrely over-the-top action comedy, this time combining a look at quiet English country life with cop drama. The lurches in tone in this may catch you off guard but on a second and third viewing it's a marvelously goofy piece of work. And any movie that references "Point Break" as a motivational plot point is OK with me.

Knocked Up (2007) - Judd Apatow continues to put out the smartest dumb comedy in the business, with a movie about growing up when you're eternally immature. Not quite as great as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but only just short.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) - Everyone and their brother loved this one from last year; it's a potent combination of mythology and murder, examining the thin line between fantasy and reality... that, and utterly killer design and creatures by the amazing Guillermo del Toro. Haunting and immensely sad.

Sunshine (2007) - Perhaps the plot was a bit rote, but the gorgeous images and philosophical lean of this crew-alone-in-outer-space tale really stuck with me long after viewing. If you view the final act as an allegory, it works even better.