Sam Costello
Writer on and of Technology, Comics, Fiction, & Culture
New Book: My iPad for Kids- Technology: About iPod/iPhone
- Lit Blogging: Full Stop
- Horror Blogging: Amazing Stories
- My Comics and eBooks
- Split Lip Webcomic
- Horror Writing: All of Them Witches
- Twitter
- Contact
-
New Book: My iPad for Kids
- my new book
Step-by-step instructions and corresponding step number callouts on photos show you exactly what to doHelp when you run into problems or limitations of your iPad or its apps and you need to figure out what to doTips and Notes to help you get the most out of your iPad and its apps
Learn more and buy the book at Que Publishing
-
Posts
- May 22, 13
Music
Single of the Week
Boy, by Emma Louise
- Download at iTunesFree Song
Gasoline, by Alpine
- Download at iTunesTV
When Pigs Fly, from BBQ Pitmasters, Season 5
...
- Download at iTunes - May 16, 13
- At Google's I/O conference this week, the search (and everything else, really) giant announced a few important things of relevance to iOS users:
- A new and improved version of the Google Maps app is coming to the iOS, now with support for iPad.
- A new streaming music service to compete with Spotify, Rdio, MOG, and other companies. Called Google Play Music All Access (catchy name), the service will cost $9.99/month.
- One thing Google didn't announce--and why would they?--was that a new study shows that over 90% of all malware (viruses, etc.) on mobile devices infect Android. The percentage for iOS? Zero.
- The U.S. Department of Justice's price-fixing suit against Apple for its eBook pricing practices popped up a few notable items this week:
- The DOJ produced an email from Steve Jobs that it says implies that Apple wanted to drive the price of eBooks up.
- Apple responded by saying that publishers had already agreed to fix prices at higher levels before it got involved.
- At Google's I/O conference this week, the search (and everything else, really) giant announced a few important things of relevance to iOS users:
- May 15, 13
Music
Single of the Week
All You're Waiting For, by Classixx
- Download at iTunesTV
Episode 1 (Original UK Version), from Downton Abbey, Season 1
- Download at iTunesThe Cast Look Back, from The Office, Season 9
...
- Download at iTunes - May 10, 13
New and substantially updated content added to the site recently includes:
App Reviews
iTunes 11
- How to Sync Apps to iPod touch (update)
- How to Use iTunes Match (update)
- Using Sound Check with iTunes (update)
- Browsing Content at the iTunes Store (update) ...
- May 09, 13
Not a lot of news while we await the fall's new products, but a few notes of interest:
- iOS 7 is coming soon and it's showing up in web server logs
- The new OS will be running on new iPhones, of course. One report has the screens for those phones going into production in June, with another saying the entire phones will start manufacturing in June/July. Sounds like a late summer/early fall launch timeframe for these models.
- On the iPhone carrier front, T-Mobile (whose entry into the iPhone game I detailed a few weeks ago) has already sold over half a million iPhones and saw its first subscriber growth since 2009 as a result of the iPhone. Also, U.S. Cellular, the 6th largest wireless phone company in the U.S., will be offering the iPhone later this year. ...
- May 08, 13
Music
Single of the Week
High Heel Leather Boots, by Baby Bee
- Download at iTunesTV
Pilot, from The New Normal, Season 1
...
- Download at iTunes - May 02, 13
- There's been a lot of action recently at the low-price end of the cell phone market when it comes to the iPhone. For one, T-Mobile (a very recent iPhone addition) and MetroPCS have merged. No word yet on when a MetroPCS-compatible iPhone will debut, if at all. For another, there are rumors that the iPhone may be coming to Boost Mobile this year.
- When iOS 7 debuts later this year (which should still happen on schedule, despite reports to the contrary), expect to see major changes to the look and feel of the OS. Since the firing of Scott Forstall, rumor has it that the Jony Ive-led design team is undoing all of those interfaces designed to look like real-life objects (the gaming table in GameCenter, the leather in Address Book, etc.) and replacing them with more modern, forward-looking alternatives. If so, I can't wait.
- Apple today release iOS 6.1.4 for the iPhone 5. It's free and available through iTunes or your iPhone. The update reportedly just adds a tweak to the speakerphone (though weird to issue an update just for that, no?).
- Path, the app maker who has been slapped down for grabbing users' data and taking it for themselves without permission, seems to be at it again. ...
- May 01, 13
- Apr 25, 13
- Apple announced its financial results for its second fiscal quarter this week. The highlights of the announcement:
- 37.4 million iPhones, 19.5 million iPads, 5.6 million iPods were sold in the quarter. The first two numbers were up over the second quarter of 2012, though the iPod number was down. The sales graph on the iPod has been pointing steadily downward for quite a while. That product line is drying up.
- Revenue for the quarter was US$43.6 billion, with $9.5 billion in profit.
- The iTunes Store generated $4.1 billion in revenue in the quarter. This is also the 10th anniversary of iTunes, and Apple has posted a neat history of iTunes here.
...
- Apple announced its financial results for its second fiscal quarter this week. The highlights of the announcement:
- Apr 24, 13
Music
Single of the Week
Recovery, by Frank Turner
- Download at iTunesTV
Episode 1 (Original UK Version), from Downton Abbey, Season 1
- Download at iTunesChapter 1: The Boy in the Iceberg, from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Season 1
...
- Download at iTunes
-
Posts
- Feb 28, 13
There aren’t many lists of the coming year’s comics releases (though Robot 6′s and io9′s are worthy ones), but after seeing some of the exciting lists for books, I wanted to attempt my own for comics. This list largely ignores monthly comics, with the exception of Multiversity and Sandman, which are big enough to prompt a visit to the comic shop.
Here are 10 comics and graphic novels I’m looking forward to in 2013:
Very Casual by Michael DeForge
Publisher: Koyama Press
Release Date: MayDeForge is a major new alternative comics talent who applies his rapidly developing skills to a range of short stories, many of which skew towards the unnerving or horrific, all of which are rendered in a signature avant-garde style. Much of DeForge’s work has appeared as webcomics and anthology contributions. Very Casual collects the best of those stories and is sure to be a highlight for fans of experimental, unusual, and beautiful comics.
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by Suehiro Maruo
Publisher: Last Gasp
Release Date: JulyDelayed long past its initial spring 2010 publication date, Panorama Island should finally arrive this year. In Panorama Island Suehrio Maruo adapts Japanese mystery/horror titan Edogawa Rampo’s novella about all of life’s best things: grave robbing, identity theft, wife stealing, and an island turned into “a playground of hedonistic excess.” Maruo is among the most adept and challenging comics creators working today, but his material is so transgressive, sometimes so repulsive, that only two of his full-length works have been published in English; neither is in print. If your stomach and conscience can stand it, new work by Maruo is cause to celebrate.
The End of the Fucking World by Charles Forsman
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Release Date: AugustBesides being the force behind Oily Comics, Forsman is an accomplished cartoonist. This book collects his minicomics series, which chronicles the mundane, alienated, violent, and tender moments of James, a budding sociopath, and Alyssa, his girlfriend. While there’s certainly violence and horror here, Forsman handles the subject as a character study, not a lurid glorification, making James sympathetic and his deeds all the more monstrous.
Battling Boy, vol. 1 by Paul Pope
Publisher: First Second
Release Date: OctoberPope is one of American comics’ great stylists and is known for his quirky approach to genre (generally character-driven science fiction), pop design sense, and kinetic compositions. Much of his work is self-published and currently out of print, though First Second plans to release some of that material after Battling Boy. Here, Earth’s cosmic defender has died, opening a void for a new hero — a boy whose father is the god of war. Expect to see more of this: Paramount Pictures and Brad Pitt’s production company are already at work on a movie.
Multiversity by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
Publisher: DC Comics
Release Date: Late 2013I’m not terribly interested in superheroes, but Morrison and Quitely (We3, All-Star Superman, New X-Men) merit attention. Morrison is obsessed with meta-fiction, often inserting himself or proxies into stories, and the reality of fictional worlds, laying bare — even to the characters — that they are inside a story (his fourth-wall breaking Animal Man #19, in which the main character becomes aware of the reader beyond the page, is particularly arresting). Multiversity tackles DC’s various alternate universes over an 8-issue miniseries. Details are scarce, but this is Morrison’s wheelhouse and Quitely is a dazzlingly talented artist — and one of Morrison’s best collaborators — so details are largely irrelevant.
His Face All Red and Other Stories by Emily Carroll
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Release Date: UnknownThis short story collection compiles webcomics wunderkind (she drew her first comic in 2010 and had a publishing contract barely 18 months later) Carroll’s engrossing comics. Read the knockout chiller title story and you’ll know why this is on the list. “His Face All Red” is a terrific gothic-tinged story of fratricide, guilt in which the dead (or are they?) come back changed. Not much information has been released yet, but presumably the book will include some other stories from Carroll’s website plus new material. This is easily the book I’m looking forward to most from this list.
The Legend of Luther Strode by Justin Jordan and Tradd Moore
Publisher: Image Comics
Release Date: UnknownThe Legend of Luther Strode is the sequel to Jordan and Moore’s The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, an unexpected hit of 2011/2012. In that book, the put-upon, geeky high-schooler Luther sends away for one of the “become a real man” training courses that comics used to advertise. When the course delivers on its promise, he’s transformed into a superhuman. Nothing is free, though, and a shadowy figure tracks him down, itching for a fight. Luther Strode is a fun riff on classic tropes wrapped in buckets of ultra-violent splatter and adding up to an energizing debut. Legend promises to be just as good.
The Conclusion of Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
Publisher: IDW
Release date: UnknownIn addition to writing acclaimed horror novels, Joe Hill (nee King; Stephen’s son) has also been writing this horror epic. Spread across four books (and a few floppy comics), Locke& Key concerns the Keyhouse, the Locke family’s ancestral home, which contains a multitude of doors to unusual places, and some dark forces. The characters seek the keys needed to open locked doors and unravel the mysteries of the house. The final miniseries, Clockworks, is being published monthly now. Expect the collected edition to hit shelves in late 2013.
Untitled Sandman Prequel by Neil Gaiman and JH Williams III
Publisher: DC/Vertigo
Release Date: UnknownGaiman returns to the series that made him famous with a prequel to the Sandman series published from 1989-1996 with this list’s biggest mainstream title and the one guaranteed the most attention outside comics. The prequel promises to detail what Dream was doing prior to Sandman #1 that allowed him to be captured by humans. The monthly comics will be out in 2013, meaning the collection isn’t likely to reach stores until 2014. Still, this one may require a trip the comic shop.
Readers, any graphic novels or comics you’re especially anticipating this year?
- Jan 15, 13
In comics, nothing stays dead. Characters whose deaths clog the news over and over and over one year are assured of their resurrection the next. Series are constantly cancelled then revived. And it’s not just characters or their series; the last few years have proved that even comics publishing formats don’t stay dead.
For their first 50 years or so, American comics were virtually synonymous with the short (usually 32 or so pages), magazine-style publications once commonly found at newsstands and drug stores. The conventional wisdom of the last decade and a half, though, has been that the floppy (as the traditional format is often called) comic is passing from the shelf of history, increasingly superseded by graphic novels and, more recently, digital downloads. But it wouldn’t be comics if the floppy weren’t now resurgent thanks to a new crop of boutique and micro-publishers focusing mini and traditional, floppy comics.
While their format recalls the primary-color super heroics of youth, these publishers—Hic and Hoc, Domino, Oily, Retrofit, Space Face, to name a few—offer formally and artistically challenging indie/alternative/art comics. Their focus on floppy comics distinguishes them from their more established alternative counterparts, such as Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly, which have virtually abandoned the floppy in favor of the graphic novel. With the ever-shrinking number of comics shops (fewer than 3,000 in the U.S., down from a 1990s peak of almost 10,000), and the increasing consolidation of those stores around Marvel, DC, and Image, floppies no longer make sense for larger publishers. But the micro-publishers are driven less by economic imperatives (most don’t have payrolls to meet) than by what they enjoy.
“When the mid-sized publishers stopped printing floppy comic books there was this hole created,” says Charles Forsman, the cartoonist who started Oily Comics in early 2012. “A lot of people missed what was in that hole. Something needed to fill [it].”
The love of floppies also inspired acclaimed indie cartoonist Brian “Box” Brown to found Retrofit Comics in 2011.
“I was jealous of fans of superhero comics,’” says Brown. ”Superhero fans can get multiple new issues of comics every Wednesday for a couple of bucks. The cheap, stapled comic pamphlet has fallen out of favor for alternative comics publishers. But while the economics of the stapled comic pamphlet has made it less profitable, the format is still an excellent one for readers and creators.”
While Brown and Forsman both focus on floppies, their comics aren’t as physically similar as those shipped every week by Marvel and DC. While most mainstream comics share the same pagecount, trim size, and paper types, the micro-publishers’ output varies significantly. Retrofit’s comics resemble the size and length of those from Marvel and DC, while Oily’s are 12-page hand folded and stapled, black and white mini comics.
“Mini comics, for me, is a special thing … they provide an intimacy that is hard to get from a screen or a book printed overseas. Someone probably put it together by hand, one-by-one, in their underwear while watching TV,” says Forsman. “It can be like getting a hand-written letter in the mail.”
Because floppies are cheaper to produce than slicker mainstream comics, the micro-publishers can support more experimentation.
“Oily is … a low-stakes environment,” says Forsman. “I started [The End of the Fucking World] after finishing a pretty labor-intensive comic. I wanted to do something fast and fun. So I try to get that idea across to the artists I invite to make an Oily book. To sort of help them push away expectations of themselves or their readers to free them up to have fun.”
The more manageable economics also allow developing or noncommercial cartoonists to reach a larger audience.
“There is a wealth of excellent comic artists working all over the world that remain ‘undiscovered,’” says Brown. “One of my goals with Retrofit is to spread that wealth around.”
Discovering these publishers in 2012 revolutionized and revitalized my interest in comics. I’ve read 40 or 50 graphic novels a year for the last 10 years or so, basically ignored mini and floppy comics, and was starting to feel that I’d seen virtually everything the English-language market could offer. There were titles I enjoyed, some I even loved, but very few that excited me. The immediacy that Forsman talks about, Brown’s thrill of discovering a new cartoonist (Forsman was that cartoonist for me; his The End of the Fucking World is a chilling, and admirably subdued, chronicle of the development of a teenage sociopath) made comics seem new to me again. Amid a calcified mainstream comics market, that’s practically a super heroic feat.
Interested in sampling these publishers? Check out:
The End of the Fucking World, by Charles Forsman. Oily Comics
Retrofit Five Pack, by Brendan Leach, L. Nichols, Tom Hart, John Martz, and Nathan Schreiber. Retrofit Comics
Molecules, by Michael DeForge. Space Face Books
DemonTears, by Bernie McGovern. Hic and Hoc Publications
- Dec 14, 12
Karen Berger quit her job earlier this month. Unless you follow the minutiae of the pretty minute U.S. comics publishing industry, that won’t mean anything. But Berger’s resignation marks both the end of an era and solidifies some important, disappointing truths about the mainstream U.S. comics industry.
Berger was executive editor & senior vice president at DC Entertainment (aka DC Comics), overseeing the Vertigo imprint. Even if you’re can’t muster interest in the latest Aquaman tale but enjoy comics and graphic novels, there’s a good chance you’ve read something from Vertigo. Sandman. V for Vendetta. Y the Last Man.
For nearly 20 years, Vertigo has been one of the leading—and for a while one of the vanishingly few—reliable homes for high-quality, serious comics for adults. But that, like the person leading it, is changing.
Under Berger, Vertigo helped create both the form of and market space for graphic novels. In 1993, the year Vertigo began, comics were dominated by increasingly stale, over-rendered, under-written superhero titles. At the same time, Berger was nurturing a line of offbeat, sophisticated stories within DC. While mainstream comics were gaudy and gross and dumb, Vertigo offered nuanced, thoughtful stories with adult-strength doses of sex and violence.
Crucially, Vertigo didn’t only publish monthly comic books. It collected them into the book-length editions we now call graphic novels. While that wasn’t groundbreaking, Vertigo was the first major publisher to collect virtually all of its output into graphic novels and make them a fundamental pillar of its business. It also helped move those books beyond specialty comic shops into mass-market bookstores.
Besides being a chance to praise her, the end of Berger’s tenure at Vertigo also makes clear current, and dispiriting, trends in mainstream comics—particularly as embodied by its twin colossi, DC and Marvel. Berger is leaving Vertigo because DC has been slowly, inexorably, been eroding the imprint out from under her.
Comics publishing is not awash in money in 2012. Sales are too low, expenses too high. But since DC and Marvel are owned by giant media companies (Time Warner and Disney, respectively), publishing isn’t the end game. It’s the beginning. Publishing is where new “transmedia” (sorry) properties are developed before they’re farmed out to where the real money is made: TV, movies, licensing. But for that to happen, the companies insist on owning those properties. (Unlike traditional book publishing, the writers and artists working for DC and Marvel generally don’t own their work. Instead, they’re doing work for hire, assigning their copyright to the companies.)
Not so Vertigo. Vertigo often functioned like a traditional publisher, releasing many books owned by their creators and not taking a stake in non-book income. But publishing books owned by their creators has left DC vulnerable to bad PR. Watchmen still sells 20,000 copies a year a quarter century after it was first published, but writer Alan Moore charges that DC essentially stole his masterwork. Though Neil Gaiman doesn’t own Sandman (his series was based on work by comics’ greatest tragic figure, Jack Kirby), he’s essential enough to have de facto control over the property. Bad PR and having to negotiate with creators obstructs the smooth licensing out of intellectual property.
And so Vertigo published fewer books wholly owned by their creators (it now shares in the other-media exploitation of its properties). Then its creator-owned comics started ending. DMZ. Northlanders. Scalped. Sweet Tooth. All creator-owned series whose now-vacant spots in the Vertigo slate haven’t been filled. (As further proof of DC stymieing Vertigo, DMZ writer Brian Wood says that AMC was interested in adapting the series for TV but DC blocked the deal.)
Despite these changes and Berger’s departure, Vertigo lives on. In fact, she will continue there until March 2013, helping find her replacement. But the Vertigo that that successor inherits will be a paler version of the imprint. DC Comics is entrenching itself as a purveyor of grim, surprisingly violent super heroics for 25-to-50-year-olds that focuses on licensable properties. There’s little room for quirky, potentially non-commercial stories that won’t fit in the multiplex.
Happily, Berger and Vertigo expanded the industry. While the form and content of Vertigo’s output was once rare, there’s now great diversity. From genre stories from Image and Dark Horse to alternative works from Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly (to be fair, those companies have published adult graphic novels for decades) and far beyond, there has been tremendous development of serious comics. Imagine a comics reader time traveling from 1990 and seeing that New York Review of Books spread on Building Stories. She wouldn’t be able to believe it. While the part of the industry where Marvel and DC consume all the oxygen is turning ever more inward, the rest of the industry continues to open thanks to Berger’s work.
-
Posts
- May 14, 13
The first V/H/S was a boy’s club. The sensibility of that film, an anthology released to much acclaim and success in 2012, was so aggressively straight and male that the entire film was nearly spoiled.
From the framing sequence’s group of men assaulting women while videotaping their exploits to the frat-boy bar pickup/sex in a hotel of Amateur Night to the video-chat sex in The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger, V/H/S is packed full of gratuitous–and too-often victimizing–female nudity. You got the sense that the movie was made by bros, for bros. By the end of the movie, I felt like I’d had toxic testosterone overdose.
To be fair to the filmmakers (who I’m sure are not all bros, and who have made good work in the past), it seems the goal was to mimic the vibe of the 1980s home-video horror boom, which was long on gory kills and jiggling boobs.… - Apr 29, 13
In his terrific monograph, H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, French novelist Michel Houellebecq proposes that Lovecraft differs from virtually all fiction writers before and after him because his work constitutes a founding mythology. Houellebecq is referring to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, which he created and developed, and then—in a move practically unthinkable in today’s environment in which every shred of intellectual property is staked out as a potential gold claim—invited his friends, colleagues, and literary descendants to adopt, appropriate, and integrate into their fiction.
August Derleth, Frank Belknap Long, Brian Lumley, and many others used elements of the Cthulhu mythos in their fiction without needing Lovecraft’s permission (which was good for Lumley and his contemporaries, since Lovecraft was dead by the time they were writing) or to work from some kind of authoritative story bible that enforced coherence across the stories.…
- Apr 16, 13
While researching my article on this spring’s horror TV debuts, I was struck by the volume of new programs. Six new horror shows joining a field already somewhat dense with genre series felt unusual.
I wondered whether there were other periods in televised horror that offered as deep a roster of shows. There were a few, but my research also uncovered that this may be the best all-time era for horror television in the U.S. (which, these days, includes imports from the UK, thanks to BBC America and Netflix).
I broke my findings into 6 eras, each clustered around shows that aired during roughly the same years. As a result, the eras map to rich creative periods, not decades. I counted only original television series, not made-for-TV movies, series that show theatrical movies (which removed all the classic horror host/creature feature series from the running), or online series.…
- Apr 05, 13
Sequels tend to be the re-used tea bags of film—reminiscent of earlier, stronger experiences now weak and watery. Remakes can be even more dangerous, especially when the original material is revered. There are some instances where the remake is superior (the U.S. versions of The Ring and The Grudge outstrip their original Japanese incarnations, for instance), but you might have trouble counting off two hands worth.
Which means that many horror fans may be looking with trepidation towards this weekend’s debut of the new Evil Dead movie.
The original films, especially the second and third, are considered classics of horror camp, so many fans aren’t anxious to see this particular deadite escape from the basement—or at least they weren’t before they saw the trailers, which promise that this is one remake worth seeing.
So, if you’re unsure about whether you’re seeing the new Evil Dead this weekend, or if you’ll be there and want to learn about the film, here are the things you need to know:
- It’s A Reboot, Not a Sequel—This version takes the basic elements of the original (in which there was relatively little comedy, remember)—a group of friends go to a cabin in the woods, unleash demons, horror ensues—but it’s not a sequel. …
- Mar 19, 13
True Blood stirs no interest in me, I don’t enjoy The Walking Dead, and my feelings about American Horror Story are deeply mixed, but as a fan of horror TV, I owe something to all three shows. Thanks to them, it’s a great time to be a fan of TV horror–and it’s about to get better.
True Blood’s success, both critical and popular, on the prestige cable network was an unmissable sign to the TV industry that there was an audience for quality horror. The Walking Dead’s popularity–spreading, as it did, like an outbreak–showed just how big that audience could be (viewership of each season premiere was higher than the last, with Season 3′s audience topping 10 million). American Horror Story proved those shows weren’t flukes, or all the audience could bear.
The entertainment industry has seen that televised horror can draw a large, literate, influential audience, not just fans so starved for genre TV that they’ll accept any poorly written, badly acted concoction (how long this will last, though, who can say).…
- Mar 05, 13
Thanks to the mainstreaming of genre it’s no longer disreputable in many parts of academia to declare an interest in and love of genre. While too much interest in genre might once have marked a dead-end career path, genre studies are increasingly simply another option for engaging with art, ideas, and culture.
It’s a good thing, too. A generation (maybe two) of academics have their roots in childhood love of comics, SF, fantasy, horror, and any number of other subjects that fall outside the traditional cannon. It would be a shame to force them into ever-more-repetitive studies of “great books.”
Thanks to this growing acceptance of genre in the academy, we have Cultographies.
Cultographies is a new series of short monographs on important cult films, written by academics and film scholars. The series is published by Columbia University’s Wallflower Press in association with the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and the University of British Columbia. Cultographies has so far produced eight titles which give a pretty good sense of what series editors Ernest Mathijs (film studies professor at UBC) and Jamie Sexton (film professor at Aberystwyth) are after:
- Bad Taste, by Jim Barratt
- Blade Runner, by Matt Hills
- Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, by Ian Cooper
- Donnie Darko, by Geoff King
- The Evil Dead, by Kate Egan
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show, by Jeffrey Weinstock
- This Is Spinal Tap, by Ethan De Seife
- Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, by Glyn Davis
Evil Dead (more on that in a minute) and Rocky Horror might be low-hanging fruit for a cult-movie series, and Superstar may be an odd fit (I’m not familiar with it), but titles on Donnie Darko and Spinal Tap sound excellent.…
- Feb 19, 13
Prior to the 1991 introduction of SoundScan, record stores self-reported what was moving off their shelves. That system, open to bias and shaky math, created rigid separation in sales charts that ensured you didn’t find country albums on the pop charts. But SoundScan’s precise, computerized measurement revealed an uncomfortable truth for the music industry: The album-oriented rock and radio-friendly pop that had dominated the charts was not the most popular music in the land. The top-selling album of 1991 wasn’t Nirvana’s “Nevermind.” It was Garth Brooks’ “Ropin’ the Wind.” The king of 1992 was—seriously—Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Some Gave All.” The country’s taste was much different than the music industry had imagined (or wanted to believe).
Something similar is happening in our current ebook revolution. Fantasy, mystery, science fiction, horror, romance both traditional and paranormal, et al. are no longer oddballs categories confined to genre ghettos.…
-
My Comics and eBooks
Last Caress and Other Stories
The final collection of Split Lip stories. One hundred ninety-three pages of bone-chilling tales.
More Info
Termites In Your Smile and Other Stories
Another collection of 176-pages of horror comics from the Split Lip anthology.
More Info
The Harvestmen and Other Stories
A 150-page collection of 9 stories from Split Lip.
More Info
Not Sleeping Well and Other Stories
The first U.S. edition of Split Lip features 11 stories, for a total of 158 pages of horror comics
More Info
Labor and Love
A collection of comics adapting 4 of these classic folk ballads, created in collaboration with artist Neal Von Flue.
More Info
Sympathetic Monsters
Sympathetic Monsters is an ebook featuring interviews with six writers, artists, and musicians discussing their thoughts on horror.
More at Amazon and Barnes and Noble
-
Posts
-
Posts
- Beware of the Dog
Millennium Season 2 Episode 2
Words in the Opening Credits: This. Is. Who we are. The time is near.
Days remaining: 826- The comet is still in the sky, the portent is ever-present. Things are happening.
- This episode brings right back to one of the most frightening TV shows I saw as a child, an episode of In Search Of where three men in an RV are harassed by Bigfoot. I remember finding that terrifying and also unable to wait for the next episode. In this case, a retired couple parking their RV in a new town is savaged by a pack of wild dogs.
- The town is, of course, beset by a rash of dogs attacks and the townspeople all know more than they’re saying. It’s another stranger-comes-to-town episode, much like last season’s Covenant. But whereas that episode kept up with Season 1’s existentialist concern by being about why the sheriff would kill his family, this episode is very much a Season 2 story: it’s about what. What’s happening? What are the machinations?
- Season 1 was about questions that could never truly be answered, mysteries that could never completely be revealed. Season 2, a more conventional but also more rewarding body of work, is about things that can be discovered and understood. It will offer answers—and it’s more compelling as a result.
- The townspeople talk about how there is a resident who used to be able to control the dogs, but he can’t anymore. Their town is overrun by a wild, uncontrollable threat. The same is true for Frank an Catherine. Frank used to be able to control the darkness and evil around them, but starting with Det. Bletcher being murdered in their house, he can’t anymore. The wild and dangerous world is impinging.
- Frank tracks the dogs into the woods and finds a mysterious cabin, in which a mysterious, wise mountain man lives. The mountain man, it turns out, is a Millennium Group member and meeting him is the real reason the Group wanted Frank on this assignment. The man knows about the Group, it knows it’s mission and agenda: “The reason you’re here is to learn about The Event.” This is a journey of knowledge for Frank.
- The mountain man tells Frank that the Group’s real purpose is to maintain equilibrium between good and evil in the world, and that they’re losing balance (unsaid, but implied, is that the Group can do evil, not just good, in the name of balance). Frank’s gift, he says, and his role is to help fight the evil and re-establish equilibrium. FInally! Finally we have a real, actual mission statement for Frank, something he lacked all of last season.
- This is another in a line of creepy, knowledge-filled cabins, a la the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks and Jacob’s cabin in Lost. What is it with that image/concept that people like so much?
- Just another fantastic Morgan/Wong episode. There’s been more action, more tantalizing mystery and promise in these two episodes than in all of Season 1.
- The Beginning and the End
Millennium Season 2 Episode 1
Words in the Opening Credits: This. Is. Who we are. The time is near.
Days remaining: 833- The first seconds of the second season open in space, which is just the first of many coming signs that this season is going to be very, very different. Last season was about reason and facts, things grounded in Earthly reality, empiricism. As this scene announces, not Season 2.
- Season 2 is far and away my favorite Millennium season. Where last season was full of dragging, logy, awkward episodes, this season has much more forward propulsion, more intrigue, less endless dwelling on the grimmest aspects of the human psyche. Not only does the tone change substantially, so does the subject matter, as we’ll see. All of these changes are down to the change in show runners. Gone is Chris Cater, back to work on the X-Files, and in his place as writers Glen Morgan and James Wong (who wrote a number of Season 1 episodes). I remember from the Season 3 DVD extras that maybe their tenure wasn’t as popular among the cast and crew, but I love it.
- There’s no opening quote here, just the title of the episode.
- There’s a comet in the sky, a sign and portent, “the prophecy of extraordinary events,” according to Frank’s opening voiceover. The killer who has abducted Catherine turns out to have an agenda that goes well beyond vengeance on Frank. He sees great meaning in the impending millennium (though I bet this is a Morgan/Wong-introduced change. There was no hint of it before).
- The killer, by the way, is played by Doug Hutchison, the douchey guy married to Courtney Stodden and who played Horace on Lost.
- Even halfway into this episode, the feel of the show is palpably different. There’s less rain, less gloom, much more tension and action, much more engaging for the audience.
- In just one scene in this episode, Terry O’Quinn gets more meaty material than he did in all of Season 1. In him telling Frank the story of his fruitless, self-torturing search for the killer of a child, we see the first blushes of the talent and skills—especially in line readings—that made O’Quinn so fresh and compelling as John Locke on Lost.
- Another thrilling development here comes from getting a clearer sense of what The Millennium Group does. They don’t just consult on crime to the FBI. Peter Watts is mysterious about what, exactly, their agenda is, but it’s big and Frank plays a key role. With just one scene, the Group is suddenly 1000% more interesting and the possibilities for the series have greatly expanded. Now we’ve got intrigue and mystery coming from multiple directions, not just killers. This is reminiscent of the forces circling around Frank from Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions, but much more interesting. It gives the viewer a sense that the writers have a real plan about where they’re going with this show, that they have a purpose. You never got that sense from Carter (or ever do in any of his shows). He never seems to have a long-term plan or vision.
- When Frank rescues Catherine, the killer manages to stab him once, but then Frank wrestles the knife away and stabs the hell out of him. Five or six quick strikes. We’ve seen Frank hold back so many times, cling tightly to his humanitarian values. He’s never killed, he’s lived his moral truth, and now he’s violated it. A man who has been against the death penalty has himself killed someone. As per the title, it’s the end of his old morality, the beginning of a new phase in his life.
- It’s also a major change to his family. Catherine, while grateful, is disturbed by what he did, unsure whether it was wrong. She plans to move out for a little while, but Frank does instead, driving away from yellow house.
And now there is merely silence, silence, silence, saying, All we did not know.
William Rose Benét- Paper Dove
Millennium Season 1 Episode 22
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who Cares?- This whole season, Millennium has dwelt and wallowed in the icky, sticky realities of the human body. Those details have generally been gross, but also somewhat illuminating. We’re right back to that obsession in the opening sequence here, which finds a man stalking a housewife as she leaves the supermarket and drives home. We cut inside his dingy van to find him driving around in nothing but his tight whities. Except then, of course, he shows up in her house with no more clothes on, but now a leather butcher’s apron, too. I’m not sure how that combination of sartorial choices became a short-hand for disgusting dudes that kill, but I feel like I’ve seen it dozens of times across TV, movies, and comics.
- The quote opening comes from early 20th century American poet William Rose Benet. Tomorrow.
- Some things will be coming to a head in this episode. That becomes clear when the man who has been stalking Frank’s family and sending pictures of them follows them to Maryland where they’re visiting Catherine’s family. Frank has flown thousands of miles across the country and yet evil, the darkness of the world, has followed him. He can’t escape it, but does he attract it, too?
- Frank’s expertise travels, too. Rather than just having a quiet family visit, Catherine’s dad wants him to talk to a family friend who’s son has been convicted of murdering his wife. The friend is convinced and wants to let his son rot in jail, while the mother is sure her son is innocent.
- Which leads to the most awkward existential conversation in the entire season, in which some FBI agents ask Frank about The Millennium Group and whether some members believe that violence is increasing in society because there’s greater evil in the world. Terribly tone deaf bit of dialogue.
- The family friend’s kid, of course, didn’t actually kill his wife. Instead, she was a victim of the Big Woodsman (which is a pretty wonderful name for a serial killer), who was talking the woman in the opening, too. In keeping with Millennium’s emphasis on gore this season, we get a pretty explicit description of how the wife was killed: The Big Woodsman cut out her larynx, but left her alive and bleeding, so she couldn’t speak at all, could only sort of wheeze and die when her husband found her. That—as a thing that might happen to a person, and as a scenario to write—is shockingly horrifying.
- Another moment of great creepiness from the Woodsman comes when he find out what he does: he’s an in-home nurse for the elderly. In one scene, he’s detailing his crimes to an old woman so far gone in dementia that she not only doesn’t remember, she doesn’t understand him. That horror happening around unknowing people reminded me of the American Horror Story scene when the ghost of the maid stands right next to the house’s new owners as they make out.
- The Big Woodsman is working with the killer who’s been taking pictures of Frank’s family. For all of his insight, all of his intuition about how people and the world work, his sense in recent episodes of something supernatural, Frank completely fails to see the real, tangible, human threat that’s stalking him and his family. And he fails to see that it’s about to strike when they return home to Seattle. Frank and Jordan go to get the car, while Catherine waits for the bags. When Frank comes back, she’s gone. Disappeared. Abducted.
- Smash cut to black. That’s the end of Season 1 and one hell of a months-long cliffhanger.
Behold ye scoffers, For I will work wonders in your days, Which ye will not believe.
Book of Habakkuk- Maranatha
Millennium Season 1 Episode 21
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who Cares?- Another TV show using a tea-life disaster/tragedy for plot fodder. In this case, the Chernobyl disaster. I’ve had mixed reactions to this in the past—sometimes it’s really bothered me, other times (usually due to historical distance) it’s felt less problematic. In this case, it doesn’t bother me, but it’s been so long since Chernobyl. I wonder if I would have felt differently if I had seen the episode when it aired?
- Anyway, this episode posits that Chernobyl was caused by a legendary Russian boogeyman, Yaponchik. (There was a Russian organized crime figure with that name, but Google doesn’t immediately turn up a legend under that name.) Yaponchik eventually shows up in the U.S., killing his way towards a religious relic.
- Breaking again from the Bible, the opening quote comes from the Book of Habbakuk, the 8th book of the Hebrew Bible. It goes up tomorrow.
- Frank and a Moscow PD (operating in the U.S.? Really?) cop are working the case together. This is a required element of any cop show dealing with an ethnic subculture, right? We always have to have a cop that’s a member of that subculture to both interpret it for the gringos and also to have some conflicted loyalties that we can then tease as a source of potential uncertainty or betrayal. You can be sure that every single cliched note of fear of The Other is played in this episode.
- This episode was just no good. Between the cliche just noted, the slow pace, the relatively unthreatening menace of Yaponchik, and the lack of a clear connection to the more interesting plot hinted at a few episodes ago, there’s very little to like here.
- Broken World
Millennium Season 1 Episode 20
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who Cares?- After two engrossing episodes, we return to the old Millennium formula: the serial killer of the week. In a somewhat interesting twist, this subject hasn’t actually killed a human yet and Frank is racing to stop him.
- At a North Dakota horse farm, a woman takes her horse into a barn where it gets very spooked. She should be spooked, too, since there’s a man in the barn with a cattle prod. He shocks her and pulls out a knife. Cut to credits.
- This episode’s quote is an awfully fitting one, from Nietzsche. It goes up on Monday.
- As often happens when Frank arrives on the scene, the local cops don’t really want his help. They think they’re dealing with an isolated case. Frank points out that there have been 21 horse attacks in the region. “We’re witnessing the birth of a psycho-sexual killer,” he says, noting that they still have time to prevent him.
- Along with being back to serial killers, we’re also back to the bodily-functions-obsessed details. Having power over a human for the first time “excited and terrified him,” says Frank. In the stall next to where the injured woman was found, the proto-killer has killed the horse and masturbated due to the excitement.
- This episode is sort of a class on the development of this kind of sexual killer. Frank details the stages that this man is going through, from being just a strange guy to a full-blown killer. He moves through fantasies, confronting and accepting himself, escalating his behavior, all the way to killing. Which, in some ways, is pretty darn interesting. But in how it’s executed here, it just doesn’t quite enthrall. It’s a slow chase between Frank and the killer, but also between the killer and his own nature. Which sounds way more interesting, when I describe it that way.
- It feels odd to be back to serial killers. This episode was broadcast in production order, but I wonder if it was always planned for the 20th episode? Perhaps they couldn’t fit it in earlier in the season, or maybe it was intended as a palette cleanser before the final pair of episodes which, as I recall, return to the more apocalyptic, mystical concerns that will come to dominate Season 2.
Paranoia is just a kind of awareness, and awareness is just a form of love
Charles Manson- Powers, Principalities, Thrones and Dominions
Millennium Season 1 Episode 19
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who cares?- Another terrific episode, so dense with information and action and portent.
- In the parking lot of a suburban supermarket, a grungy-looking kid approaches a businessman and speaks: “I, Samael, bound by his will, command you depart.” The man seems to recognize the kid. The kid then raises a gun and shoots him, though Frank, who’s just run into the lot, sees it as a bolt of lightning. (Though Samael is an archangel, his Wikipedia entry is interesting reading: he’s not clearly good or evil.)
- Tomorrow’s opening quote is from Charles Manson.
- The investigation begins four days earlier with a ritualistic crime, a person killed on an altar. Frank is asked to come back to consult. Even though he says he’s not ready, Catherine convinces him that he has to return to work.
- As the investigation proceeds, a man kills a babysitter in broad daylight. When caught, the knife used to kill the babysitter turns out to have been used to kill the man on the altar. The man’s attorney (fantastically smarmy, in a 90s big glasses, big lapels, shaggy hair kind of way) turns out to be the businessman we saw killed by Samael in the opening.
- Too many coincidences. Things are converging and someone is pulling strings. Another Millennium Group consultant is called onto the case without Frank and Peter’s knowledge, evidence disappears, eye witnesses suddenly can’t recognize the killer, bloodstained jackets turn up clean.
- In one instance, the killer’s fingerprints have been wiped from a murder weapon that’s already in the evidence locker. When Frank asks why, another Millennium Group consultant replies, “Most people would be asking ‘how’?” Which is the exact difference between Frank and almost everyone else in the world of Millennium. His quest is one of understanding, of meaning, not of simple mechanics.
- This yearning for knowledge appears again when Frank becomes convinced that the lawyer—Alistair Pepper—is involved in the strangeness. Pepper offers Frank a job at his firm as an investigator. Pepper promises that he can keep Frank’s family safe, make the killer plead guilty, answer Frank’s every question. To which Frank simply asks “why?” Pepper smirks: “Except that one.” Which is, of course, the only question Frank really cares about.
- Later, when Pepper again tries to tempt Frank, Frank says “You’ve come to me before.” In different guises, of course, but Frank recognizes that there’s something inside Pepper that endures. Frank seems to literally be understanding Pepper to be a demon, the Devil.
- Which means we’re completely in a magical world now. For most of the season, the world was largely composed of logic and evidence, proof and rational understanding, but after the last episode, reality is now supernatural.
- The chase that brings Frank to the opening scene is through the supermarket, trying to catch the kid who reveals himself to be Samael. In that supermarket, Frank sees the kid, Pepper, Lucy Butler (from the last episode). There’s a clear sense that forces are gathering around Frank, that he’s important to them. He has an intimation of that happening but isn’t certain.
- After Samael kills Pepper, Frank catches him. While interrogating him, Frank delivers the line that sums up his entire character: “All along, my question has never been how or who, but ‘why’?”
- Lamentation
Millennium Season 1 Episode 18
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who Cares?- One of my favorite episodes of Season 1. It starts out like other episodes this season—a little plodding, very heavy on procedure—but takes a sharp turn and accelerates into the second half in a really thrilling way.
- Dr. Fabricant, a multiple murdering doctor, is undergoing surgery. Strapped to the gurney and on the way to the OR, he’s nervous for his safety. After anesthesia and before he goes under, the nurses surrounding him appear dead, their throats slit (perhaps his echoing his crimes?). As he’s recovering, a person—with a woman’s long hair but the frame of a man—beats Fabricant’s guard unconscious and abudcts Fabricant.
- Though this episode is heavy on Bible quotes, the post-credits except is from an English proverb (which, it strikes me now, is the template for the tagline for The Ring). It goes up tomorrow.
- As you’d expect by now, Frank is consulting to the FBI task force convened to re-capture Fabricant. Not too surprisingly either, Frank originally caught Fabricant. His testimony helped prevent Fabricant execution, so he feels responsible that Fabricant could kill again. When Peter Watts tells Frank he did the right thing, Frank responds: “Was it worth one life?” This is the second time (after The Thin White Line) that, confronted with the return of evil from his past, Frank has questioned whether his earlier commitment to humanity could be a weakness.
- People who were involved in convicting Fabricant are killed. In the course of the investigation, Frank and Peter find an email that references Ezekiel 19:10: “Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.” More importantly, 1910 Ezekiel is the address of Frank’s yellow house in Seattle.
- After Frank and Peter question Lucy Butler, the woman Fabricant married over the Internet (and who has kidnapped him), someone dumps him at a hospital—missing his second kidney. And here’s where the episode takes its turn.
- Back at the yellow house, in the middle of the night, Catherine walks down to the kitchen, troubled by something. She opens the fridge and sitting on a plate is Fabricant’s kidney, a gory little slap of meat and blood and goo. Everything changes here. Catherine, shocked by the discovery, makes for the stairs, but standing at the top is a figure with long hair and a slender body. When lightning flashes, what looked like a woman seems to be a man.
- This is a huge transgression. The Blacks’ yellow house has been the one sanctuary from the world’s evil and darkness, the only place not weighed down by shadows and rain, a redoubt of light and good, where kids play with puppies and husbands and wives don’t harbor homicidal secrets. Now there’s evil inside the house. With its electricity cut, the sanctuary looks just as terrible and foreboding as the rest of the world. The evil that had been kept at bay has wormed its way into the yellow house.
- Called by Catherine, Frank dispatches Det. Bletcher to the house. Bletcher also sees the figure. As the figure descends the stairs, the lightning flashes and, at each flash, the figure changes: to Lucy Butler, a man, a winged demon. (This refers back to a conversation between Frank and Peter in which Frank says that someone with two personalities in them at once is the devil.)
- By the time Frank arrives, Bletcher is dead, his throat slit and body hung from the ceiling of Frank’s basement office. Not only has evil invaded the house, it’s marked the place by committing a heinous act. Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred
- The police bring Lucy in for questioning, but there’s no evidence against her. “I’m not the person you think I am,” she says to Frank.
- As Catherine tries to deal with the horror that’s taken place in her home, she tells Frank that “we were kidding ourselves” thinking that they could be safe from all the evil.
I remember the very thing that I do not wish to; I cannot forget the things I wish to forget.
Cicero, “Lamentation”- Walkabout
Millennium Season 1 Episode 17
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who Cares?- Oh man, what a boring episode. Not as bad as “Loin Like a Hunting Flame,” but not good. It’s got a fairly fundamental structural problem that I just can’t get past, which I’ll detail in a minute.
- The episode opens with a group of people locked in a small room, seemingly going crazy: they’re attacking each other, having sexual outbursts, one gouges his own eyes out. And then we see that Frank is in there with them. He’s banging on the glass in the door, tying to break it to escape, but he’s running out of time.
- Breaking with the Bible theme, the opening quote is from Cicero. And it will be posted Monday.
- Peter Watts comes to the yellow house to see Catherine, telling her Frank was in Yakima but hasn’t checked in with anyone.
- When Peter and Catherine check his computer and files, they find that he has been using the name “David Marx.” This, it turns out, was the alias Frank used to check into hotels under prior to his FBI-era breakdown. He’d disappear for days to decompress and hide out in hotels. The implication, of course, is that perhaps he’s on the edge of a breakdown again.
- And maybe it is: the Yakima police find Frank on skid row, passed out and looking homeless.
- The episode then takes the path you might expect: the investigation into what happened to Frank and how he got there.
- And this is the problem with the episode: it proceeds from the idea that these questions are interesting enough on their own to carry the entire story. In order for this structure to work, each revelation of how Frank got there has to be excited, has to have that “oh my god!” quality to it that continually adds unexpected twists, that rachets up the intensity and mystery (before it begins to resolve, at least). This doesn’t, though. We go step by step through the investigation with Peter and Frank. There’s a mystery, of course, and it does somewhat justify how Frank got himself into that situation, but no clue that they uncover ever feels shocking or thrilling or something that compels us to stick with them. They’re just the standard, linear clues we might expect (if not in their exact specificity, certainly in their function).
- And because of that, I kind of just waited for them to play out the string of the mystery and resolve it.
- But then the last scene adds an interesting note. Frank says to Catherine, “If Jordan has this thing, that I have … my gift…” The show is both acknowledging that something unusual is happening with Jordan and, for the first time, that Frank’s flashes are more than just insight, that they may be a special power.
- Covenant
Millennium Season 1 Episode 16
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who Cares?- A man is working in his garage, carving a piece of wood on a lathe. When his family pulls in, he’s oddly distant, not really connecting with them. Later that night, we see through the eyes of a killer: one of the kids standing on the stairs, a soft light glowing around the kid, like a halo.
- The opening quote comes from Job (again). It will be revealed tomorrow.
- A few months later, we drop in on the town where the family lived. The wife and kids were killed, the husband, Gary—a former sheriff—confessed to their murders. Now, they’re in the penalty phase of his trial and the county prosecutor brings Frank in to construct a profile of the killer that will secure the death penalty.
- If you can’t see the basic story outline coming, perhaps you’ve never watched TV or a movie? Of course, as he reviews the evidence, Frank begins to doubt the sheriff’s confession, becoming gradually more convinced that the sheriff didn’t actually commit the murders.
- In fact, Frank has been skeptical from before even arriving in town. After reading the confession, Frank tells Catherine that murderers almost never have the clarity about their actions that the confession shows. “So all that truth adds up to a lie?” Catherine asks. This question of what is true, especially in the face of unlikely or unbelievable scenarios, is another theme the show has revisited over and over this season.
- When Frank visits the house where the family was killed, he finds the place chock full of carved-wood angels made by Gary. Once again, Millennium says, religion is a useless defense against a world in which true evil walks.
- Everyone in the town is convinced Gary is truly the killer; the county prosecutor leans hard on Frank for a favorable profile. In the standard story that the episode seems to be following, the outsider—Frank—not blinded by local parochialism and small-mindedness is supposed to sweep into town, see through local prejudice, and reveal the truth (and the basic corruption of the town) to free an innocent person. But that’s not quite what happens here. Frank does want to free a person who he believes is innocent, but he doesn’t do it by condemning the community, discovering the biases of the locals. Instead, he pursues his goal dispassionately, applying logic and reason, not crusading passion. And he never comes to the conclusion that the locals are corrupt or ignorant. They’re doing what they believe to be right, as is he.
- In the house, after the murders, the word 12815 is written on the kitchen window in blood. It turns out to actually be I2815, for Isaiah 8:15: “And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.”
- For a show whose basic message seems to be “there is great evil in the world and we can’t be protected from it, we can only struggle against it, and God—if he exists—is impotent against it” Millennium is awfully interested in the Bible. The majority of the episode-opening quotes come from it, characters reference it, faith is an ongoing and central theme. And yet the Bible offers nothing of true value to the characters. Solace, perhaps, but not protection. For a show about good and evil, about the end of the world, I suppose using the Bible is short-hand for getting the gravitas and import you want the stories to have. It’s a bit of a cheat, though. I mean, how can it be that religion, particularly Christianity, is so important to so many people engaged in evil and bizarre deeds?
- The episode ends on a weird note. Frank solves the mystery, but it’s up to Gary, and what action he decides to take, to save his own life. Frank just gets in his car and drives off, leaving us to never know what happens. Kind of a bold choice—stating that the truth may matter more than the outcome—but I’m not sure it’s 100% satisfying for the viewer.
He said to me in a dreadful voice that I had indeed escaped his clutches, but he would capture me still.
St. Teresa of Avila- Sacrament
Millennium Season 1 Episode 15
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who Cares?- The Black family, including Frank’s brother and sister-in-law, are at Frank’s nephew’s baptism. When the ceremony is over, he finds Jordan crying in a pew, saying that a bad man is hurting her aunt, even though she can’t see it happening. After the incident with the solar system model two episodes ago, this is the second intimation that something odd is going on with Jordan. It’s odd for us, too, because he don’t really know whether Frank’s flashes into the minds of killers are insight or second sight. Though that is in keeping with the show’s restrained tone.
- A foreboding quote from St. Teresa of Avila, which will go up tomorrow.
- Frank’s sister-in-law has been kidnapped. The episode is a race against time to save her from a sexual sadist. It’s also the first time someone this close to him has been directly threatened. It won’t be the last, though.
- And when that time comes, will Frank be able to meet it? His brother, frustrated by Frank’s inability to find his wife, lashes out at him, saying Frank can’t keep the evils of the world in his basement, that he “can’t keep them from any of us”
- Again with the theme that nothing can protect us from evil: the abduction happens in a church.
- When all seems lost and people begin to resign themselves to the sister-in-law being dead, Jordan knows that her aunt is still alive, that her kidnapped is angry with her. More hints at psychic abilities.
- The man we believe to be the kidnapper lives at home with this parents after having been released from a mental hospital. But he’s tortured, too, by the sense that Satan is planning to come from him, claim him for the fires.
- When the men save the sister-in-law, Frank realizes something: the true evil here is the father of the suspected kidnapper, that he had been driving his son to commit some crimes. The father is a smoker, his pants pulled up over his belly button. Again the theme: the person who’s most supposed to care for and love you, one of your parents, is in fact the evil that tortures you, that drags you to hell.
A man’s past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame.
George Eliot, Middlemarch- The Thin White Line
Millennium Season 1 Episode 14
Words in the Opening Credits: Wait. Worry. Who Cares?- Opening quote from George Eliot. Now we’re getting into some new territory!
- Frank sees a woman die in an emergency room. She has a cut on her palm that is identical to a scar he has on his. And we’re flashing back to his days in the FBI, searching a building for a suspect, the time in which he got that scar.
- Frank knows that the original killer is in jail serving 7 life sentences and that it can’t be him. Instead, it’s that guy’s recently released cellmate. He knows this so early, there’s no mystery in the episode. And that’s the point. This isn’t a whodunit, or even really a whydunit. This is an episode very much about Frank—perhaps more than any other episode so far—and him wrestling with aspects of his past.
- In the flashback, the original killer dispatches 3 FBI men and nearly kills Frank, too. Yet, even after seeing 3 of his colleagues slaughtered in front of him, when he has the chance, Frank doesn’t shoot the killer. It seems that part of him wants to, but even in these extreme circumstances, he can’t bring himself to do it. Is he afraid? Is he weak?
- As the bodies pile up, he says to Catherine that maybe he should have killed the original killer when he could, that other people would have lived if he had. She replies that he could no more have killed him than killed her or Jordan. That, in Catherine’s eyes, is the depth of Frank’s resolve to not step over the episode’s titular white line.
- To try to catch the current murderer (the cellmate), Frank goes to interview the first killer, without telling the killer who he is. Really, of course, he’s confronting his past, trying to come to terms with it.
- It’s a bit unclear how, exactly, this incident from Frank’s past has affected him. He wouldn’t kill then, he doesn’t now. He’s certainly haunted by his past now, but it doesn’t seem that this is the specific incident that caused that haunting or caused his breakdown. He’s still able to stop killers, able to do his job. He even has moments of true, deep happiness amidst the horror. I like the idea of focusing on Frank and his past, on him trying to wrestle with the horror he’s seen and experienced, but it doesn’t completely connect for me here. Good episode, but perhaps it could have been more fully realized.
-
Tweets
- Amazon creates official, licensed fan fiction platform that pays writers. Huge potential media changing development. http://t.co/3xlzNi6p72
- The mysteries of the Millennium Group are found in a cabin in the woods; Millennium Season 2, Ep 2 http://t.co/c8b4rmDBqW
- The world changes completely in Millennium Season 2, Episode 1 http://t.co/oPY2hzcvN9
- Bicyclist riding through Boston Common with live pigeon perched on his helmet, along for the ride. (2/2)
- Seen during noontime walk in downtown Boston: Iron & Wine's Sam Beam, with guitar case, waiting to get into car service car. (1/2)
- "And now there is merely silence, silence, silence, saying, All we did not know." - William Rose Benét http://t.co/799T8GpYTw
- MT @comicsreporter: every time I look at box office receipts I'm thankful they weren't put at risk by cutting modest checks to the creators
- My latest post for @amazingstories0 examines the lack of female directors in horror (specifically in V/H/S): http://t.co/arBIh09FWO
- "Behold ye scoffers, For I will work wonders in your days, Which ye will not believe." - Book of Habakkuk http://t.co/cW5qrY49pS
- Just donated to @heroinitiative. I try to donate 3x ticket price for every Marvel movie I see to help creators not being paid by the films.
- The ghosts of Chernobyl visit Frank Black in Millennium Season 1, Episode 21 http://t.co/IzvkFdpdhi
- MT @racheldeering: Comics news sites: Please cover some @comiXology Submit titles. Do rundown of your favorites, pick a few. We need press!
- RT @kevin_church: Pay what you want for SHE DIED IN TERREBONNE, my neo-noir with @tjkirsch. http://t.co/LRtYxLKIFW
- Horror/weird comics fans, you MUST get Frontier #1: Uno Moralez. See previews and pre-order here: http://t.co/Y623KA1amF
- @kenlowery I've only seen 3 eps so far, but have been surprised at how much I liked it. Didn't expect to but it's been really good.
- MT @tjkirsch: I'm having a sale on commissioned art today until 4pm! http://t.co/OJSgCz7J4v // High-quality art here, folks! Check it out.
- @highway_62 Sounds wonderful.
- @highway_62 I was writing today about a vivid Bigfoot episode of In Search Of that I saw around that age. Terrified & thrilled at once.
