Bleeding Neon

When cosplay goes bad ...

I guess I haven’t actually even mentioned this on here, which is a bit odd, but if anyone’s looking for me over the next four days, I’ll be in San Francisco. We’re meeting up with friends old and new, both SF denizens and parties coming from distant points. And … going to Wondercon, the smaller, less insane, but just as geektastic comic book convention being held at Moscone Center Friday through Sunday.

The last pop culture convention I hit was San Diego Comic-Con in 2007, which I covered for Racket magazine (and by “covered,” I mean took pictures of cosplayers and wrote mocking captions about them). It was also the first one I’d been to since I was 13 or 14, when I attended a relatively small convention in Philadephia, where I only recall a) buying Avengers #28 (to this day, the only comic book I keep in a mylar sleeve) and b) meeting inker John Beatty, who signed a bunch of Batman comics on which he worked.

Comic-Con was fun but exhausting — I spent two days there with about 8 billion people*, bought a bunch of $1 comics, a sketch or two, took a lot of pictures and ate too many pretzels. Oh, and met Henry Rollins, attended a preview of Reaper with pilot director Kevin Smith and … um … got free hugs.

We’re only hitting Wondercon for one day — tomorrow — and I plan to attend only one panel, “It Was the Age of Marvel Comics,” moderated by Mark Evanier. Otherwise, I’m going just to go, you know, take in the sights, snap some pictures and maybe stalk an editor or two (a writer has to keep his options open, you know?). Given the “big day” of the convention is Saturday, it should be pretty chill. In theory.

Surely I’ll be randomly updating Twitter throughout the weekend, but don’t expect to see any photos, videos or reports from SF until next week, as I’m not taking my laptop to the Bay Area.

Oh, and if you haven’t bought tickets to my band’s next show yet, they’re going really quickly, and I would strongly recommend doing so now. Thanks.

*Estimate only.

Geoff Rickly and Tim Payne taste the chaos

For the most part, my musical tastes haven’t fluctuated much since high school. I tend to lean toward classic rock, ’90s alternative and anything either from or inspired by the New Romantic scene: The Doors, Soundgarden, The Cure, Morrissey, Depeche Mode. When I glom onto new bands, they tend to be derivatives of those groups (She Wants Revenge, Bloc Party, Editors, etc.).

None of which explains Thursday.

Oh, sure, lead singer Geoff Rickly’s voice has been compared to a young Robert Smith, but that’s a limited, and mostly inaccurate, comparison.  Otherwise, the post-hardcore band from New Brunswick, N.J. — which I’ve written about numerous times — comes from an unfamiliar scene  during a time in which I was pretty out of touch with anything new and stuck in my ways. I think it was during a trip to Hot Topic in 2001 (right before aging out of that demographic) that I picked up the band’s Victory Records debut, Full Collapse, on a whim (it was a featured album, and the “Robert Smith singing in a hardcore band” tag must have actually worked on me).

From that moment, it was on. Back then, I didn’t have a car, so I spent a lot of time on public transportation with only my portable CD player (and notebooks, of course) to keep me company. And I wore the hell out of Full Collapse. Skull-penetrating melodies. Breakneck drumming. Dissonant guitars coming from all directions. And Rickly going from whine to scream to whisper — and sometimes speech — all the time delivering some of the best-written, most insightful lyrics I’ve ever heard. (continue reading…)

Well, part of the carpet is red ... (Photo by Jo Hale for Paramount Pictures)

Yes, kids, while those of us in the Colonies wait until March 6 for the release of the long-anticipated (and much-overdiscussed) Watchmen, the British Empire hosted the world premiere of the film today at the Odeon in London’s Leicester Square.

Who watches the Watchmen? Bloody U.K. scum! (Photo by Jo Hale for Paramount Pictures)

Boy, look how happy Dave Gibbons looks. That’s what normal people do, Alan Moore — they find joy in earning a good living from their creative output. Even if said output gets bastardized for prophylactic novelties.

Well, at least now I know why the DMV turned down my custom license plate request.

(Caught by my friend Jamie, somewhere out there)

Guys, ease up! He doesn't even have any powers now!

NBC’s Heroes has come back strong from its season break with a new volume, “Fugitives,” and it seems to have shaken off a bunch of its discombobulated storylines with overcrowded characters, leaving viewers with something much more streamlined: New York Senator Nathan Petrelli is rounding up all powered people as a campaign to keep America “safe” for normal people, and the central “heroes,” on the run, have teamed up to oppose his efforts.

While the plot is basically a convolution of several X-Men comic book storylines (including “Days of Future Past,” in which mutants are rounded up into internment camps), it works pretty well. Gone (for the most part) are the wildly varying character personae, the confusing continuity and the unclear objectives of each sub-plot.

Whereas Season Two was … nearly unwatchable, the first volume of Season Three, “Villains,” was entertaining but draining. I look at “Villains” as nothing more than a set-up for “Fugitives” — a way to clean the slate and reboot the show. And now I find myself not just tolerating Heroes with hope for something better, but thoroughly enjoying every twist and turn and dangling on every cliffhanger ending.

To Tim Kring and his writers: Stay the course. You have a good thing going here, and might even see a return to those vaunted Season One numbers (or as close to in this attention-scattered age) if good word spreads around.