1.  Put echo on every instrument including vocals.
2.  Make the beat even more obvious by including drums that clash with the general aesthetics of the song.
3.  Include synthesized voices, because everyone loves a singing robot.
4.  Add even more echo on vocals.
5.  Add handclaps.
6. Lengthen the song—take an enjoyable three-minute song and turn it into “The Stairway to Heaven” with handclaps.

Days ago I decided I would read Dave Sim’s epic, Cerebus the Aadvark, in its continuity and tweet micro-reviews of every issue.  On first glance, it gave the impression of a good idea.  Other people thought so too.  So encouraged, I began reading and tweeting.  And honestly I’m not pleased with any of my “reviews” so far.  As a result, I’ve decided to alter rather than abandon my ambitious, little plan.

Why Cerebus? Isn’t this title old news?

It is old news, unless like me, you’re late to the party.  When I started buying my comics from a comic book store rather than from a rack at the convenience store, Cerebus intrigued me.  From the covers alone you knew the creative team took risks with those subdued colors, tightly cropped images, and an Eisner-like willingness to feature text as part of their designs.  Then one day while thumbing through an issue, it was obvious to me the storyline was both vast and dense, two words that signify one thing – back issues!  So rather than diving in, I dipped a toe, buying a lone reprint of issue one.

Unfortunately that’s where my adventure ended—somewhere between the pages three and four of issue one, the Earth-Pig and I parted ways.  Why?  Simply put, aesthetics.  At the time I was buying Kitchen Sink’s reprints of The Spirit, and Barron and Rude’s Nexus, and I knew the art in that first issue of Cerebus didn’t satisfy.  I also knew the art improved (the Earth-Pig told me so) and improved dramatically, but I was unwilling to invest the time, the money, and the patience.  So Cerebus remained a book that intrigued, but one that would have to wait.

The time came after visiting a local comic book store with a burning need for something to read. I wanted a comic book with lavish art, an ambitious story arc, and a single creative team like the old Lee and Kirby collaboration.  And I found nothing that fit that description.  Then there in all his black and white and independent-glory, sat the infernal Earth-Pig.  I reconsidered and this time I dove, opting for a run of the first eighty-seven issues rather than the now famous phone books.

So what’s my plan now?  Last night I was running a high fever and watching the tube, when I accidentally hit the INFO button on the remote.  The description for Attack of the 50 Foot Woman popped up and read as follows:

Turned into a giantess by an alien, a woman finds her husband in a bar with a floozy.

I started laughing because somewhere – out there – someone writes this stuff.  Someone has a job to reduce movies, regardless of quality and importance, to a single, elegant line of prose.  And it was at this moment I found the solution to my little problem.  Think of it as if TV Guide posted an entry for your favorite, prime-time television show starring a cunning but barbaric aardvark.  It’s an absurdity worthy of the Earth-Pig.  And who knows, perhaps I’ll borrow a page from Jeff Sim?  Perhaps my little project will become more ambitious – more sophisticated, and develop its very own Cerebus Syndrome?

©2012 Kent Gutschke  All rights reserved.

©2012 Kent Gutschke.  All rights reserved.

—The Bizarro Code from Adventure Comics no. 285, 1961

As a kid in the 70s, I didn’t collect comic books—I amassed them.  I first saw them on a spinner rack in a gas station during a family trip.  I was four and the book was The Amazing Spider-Man, but before I could pronounce those big, bold letters in the title, my dad whisked me out the door.  All next week, I pestered him until finally, he broke, taking me to Winn’s to buy a large ICEE and my first copy of Gerry Conway and Gil Kane’s amazing Spider-Man.  It was then and there that I began amassing comic books for some impending Crisis that would shatter the multiverse.

It turned out the crisis happened when someone said comic books were worth something, and that something was money.  There were these people called collectors and they had a good book called a price guide; and the collectors assigned grades – like you get in school – to your books.  And they invoked three Greek goddesses: Polypropylene, Polyethylene, and Polyester.  They spoke of backing boards, long boxes, and even of climate control to slow the newsprint from bronzing with age.  And in hushed tones, they whispered of a condition called mint.

Now mint is a curious condition – a book with only the most imperceptible of defects if any at all.  It’s likely no such books even exist, but that hasn’t stopped collectors from seeking and valuing such books.  Who knows if outside both Time and Space some Platonic comic-book collection contains perfect issues of Journey Into Mystery, Adventure Comics, and What if … ? Now it’s against this perfection, real or imagined, that collectors determine the worth of a comic; when you think about it, it’s a condition reminiscent of the Inhumans hopelessly trapped in a Negative Zone.  And if you’re not alert, this condition has a curious way of clouding your judgment.

Clarity and my one-way ticket back to Bizarro World came with Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd’s Plastic Man and Jack Cole: Forms Stretched to Their Limits.  The book induces vertigo to any mind clouded with the collectors’ spell. Kidd celebrates all the flaws of old comics—pages creased, taped, burned to bronze with acid, and bound with haphazard printing defects.  Occasionally he blows up a single panel and the coarse fibers, the inks, and the dissonance of textures risk overwhelming the eyes until – WHAM! – Cole’s lush, dynamic line makes crazy sense and beauty of it all.  Bizarro Superman was most wise when he banished perfection from Bizarro World.

Yeah, blame the Kidd for my nostalgia—books like Bat-Manga: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, Peanuts: The art of Charles M. Schulz, and Shazam! The Golden Age of the World’s Mightiest Mortal showed me how to revel in flaws rather than worry about them.  There are times now when I see a slick, pristine book or a garishly clean digital comic and I run to my worn copy of Fantastic Four #59 and opening it, inhale the musty fumes of old newsprint burning with acid; and as the acrid taste wraps up my tongue, it fuels my four-colored, pre-adolescent screams!

©2012 Kent Gutschke.  All rights reserved.

The Metaphysicians ought to love language for her charm and her correctness, but most of all, for her unfaithfulness.

©2011 Kent Gutschke

©2011 Kent Gutschke

©2011 Kent Gutschke

If This Were an Actual Emergency …

He looked at me earnestly through thick, black-rimmed spectacles, and straight-faced I explained that everyone should keep a holy book on the bed stand; and this should not be done as a cure for insomnia or for periodic edification, but for the day when THEY show up, reticently hovering above the unbridled panic of our city streets.

©2011 Kent Gutschke

Apocrypha

Naked I watch white-robed Angels roll massive TVs in colossal, white rooms.  No fire.  No brimstone.  No cords.

Then an angel clicks a switch; a sucking sound follows the click; there’s a hum from hidden folds of Time and Space and my sinful selves lie — splayed —  shoulder to shoulder like holographic snakes.

©2011 Kent Gutschke

©2006 Kent Gutschke