The FAQ: Beau Edition

As Cyrus said on his FAQ we get a lot of repeat questions so each and every leaguester will now have his own Lounge FAQ page to answer individual questions or more indepth answers to group questions. Think of them like the little solo albums each member of KISS did-just not as cool with the cover art.


Well now that Cyrus has given you the lowdown I'll be ringing in my two cents worth here. Some of these apply to me and some questions were applied to all of the League. My opinions are entirely my own I assure you.

1-Favorite comics?

THE ANSWER:
So many to mention, but let me start with the heart of my fandom-the original run of the Amazing Spider-Man. I’m mostly partial to the sixties and seventies era Spideys especially with art by John Romita Sr. and Gil Kane and the issues scripted by Gerry Conway. I’m also a big fan of the original runs of Moon Knight and Howard the Duck, issues 1-100 of Savage Sword of Conan. Jim Starlin’s run on Captain Marvel. Wolfman and Perez’ Teen Titans, the pre-Crisis Legion of Super-Heroes, seventies era DC horror lines (Unexpected, House of Mystery, The Witching Hour, etc.). I’m a big fan of a lot of stuff in indie producer Fantagraphics stable as well including Peter Bagge’s Hate, Dan Clowes’ Eightball, Love and Rockets by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, and Dame Darcy’s Meat Cake. Also really love Adrian Tomine’s Optic Nerve. I also love more than a few of Alan Moore’s America’s Best Comics titiles, especially Tom Strong and Top 10 (although he seems to have completely abandoned Top 10-dammit!). I think DC does a great job bringing independently minded artists under their umbrella-like a lot of people out there I was brought back into the fold of comic readers by Neil Gaiman’s work on Sandman. I also love vertigo titles such as Preacher, Transmetropolitan and my biggest current fave, Fables (and Jack of Fables to a lesser extent). I’m currently collecting DC Vertigo’s relaunch of House of Mystery penned by Fables Bill Willingham. Some other titles I currently collect are the relaunch of Moon Knight, Joss Whedon's Buffy Season 8 and Angel: After the Fall, and Alan Martin’s Tank Girl. Oh, and I’m a big fan of Judd Winick’s work on Green Arrow.

2-So what’s with the hate on for Tim Burton?

THE ANSWER
Well, nobody can induce hatred like someone you actually gave a shit about once upon a time. I was quite the Tim Burton fan in my day-I must have seen Beetlejuice in the theaters more than ten times and yes, I freely admit it, I loved the original Burton Batman and even to some extent Batman Returns (although I do not believe either of the Bat films has aged very well). I consider and still consider Ed Wood to be his magnum opus. It’s a brilliant flick, brilliantly acted, a love letter to the movies with few flaws BUT…

Great big BUT.

I don’t know what happened after Ed Wood. Maybe Burton had blown his creative wad. Mars Attacks! was pretty much poop on a plate and though it was followed by the somewhat tolerable Sleepy Hollow, fast on its feet came those two execrable “re-fucking-imaginings” Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, two gems from the geek cannon that Tim snatched up, threw to the ground and peed all over. Burton’s filmmaking technique at this point seems to be to finding the proper source material, redecorate it the way a sixteen year old gothic girl would redecorate her room and then shove Johnny Depp into it with instructions to act “weird” (and he shows no signs of stopping. His next batch of happy memories to add his urine too include Alice in Wonderland and seminal vampire soap-opera Dark Shadows). Now undoubtedly this is thrilling to the aforementioned goth chick but for fans of good moviemaking its cringe-inducing. To make matters worse, Burton just seems to have gotten more arrogant and insufferable the crappier his movies get. The straw that broke this camel’s back was his off-handed comments a few years back basically dismissing comic books as tripe and comic book readers as clods. Really Tim? Than why would I rather read one than sit through any of the last five films you’ve directed? Feh. Fuck that guy.

3-Jesus you're loud! What the hell is going on with that?

THE ANSWER:
Sorry. I actually was a pretty shy quiet kid and then puberty hit, the voice dropped and I started taking acting lessons. Blame the fact that my formative years were spent having overwrought drama instructors yelling at me to be louder. Or you can blame the fact that I worked in noisy rock clubs for over a decade where you pretty much had to combine screaming and pantomime to make yourself understood to anyone farther than two inches away from you. Whatever. Maybe its genetic. I'm just a loud bastard and when I get excited I get louder. Mea Culpa.


4-What comic hero would you like to see relaunched?

THE ANSWER:

Planetary and Alan Moore's Tom Strong have been doing a great job of reminding us how cool the old "pulp" Heroes were and how much comics owe to their legacy. I'd LOVE to see a serious relaunch of the original science hero adventurer "Doc" Savage done seriously. For that matter I'd lov to see Vertigo take on The Shadow, Tarzan, and Martian adventurer John Carter as well.

Some other heroes I'd really like to see done right by:

Dr. Fate
Plasticman
Aquaman

5-Dude, I added you on Facebook and you totally ignored me! WTF dude?

THE ANSWER

It's really no offense. Seriously. Even if I did add you I can assure you that you'd be bored silly by my posts-none of which are LEOG-centric. I basically use FB as a local network-finding out what's happening in Austin w/ my friends and inviting them out to the dumb crap that I am doing. That being the case I prefer to keep my FB friendslist down to people that I already know-preferably people in Austin though a few folks that I have made over the years that are in other states/countries/continents. Otherwise I'm hearing about and receiving invites to cool shit a thousand miles away from me that I have no hope of attending. And, as you may have noticed, I don't need anymore "bitter disappointment" in my life. Absolutely no offense intended-the other folks in LEOG and on FB do a much better job of offering you stuff that will titillate you. I'm very boring. I swear.