Spring Wild Card Edition

Usually, we stick with a theme you can follow.  A genre, a concept, an idea, but out WildCard Edition throws all of that out of the window.  This month, we bring you a veritable buffet of sci-fi crazy, a gumbo of the irreverent, the unusual, the avant-garde, and the just plain weirdly awesome.  Leo breaks down some documentaries that are stranger than fiction (even science fiction).  George pens an ode to the indie comic book store (and why you need to buy local), and Clarence finds some rowdy reads to shake the dust off your frontal lobe and tickle your funny bone.  (Cerece even throws in her favorite Game of Thrones fan sites). It’s Spring – so go ahead, take a walk on the wild side.

Best Always!

Team Narazu  

All Indie. All Awesome.

We Live In Public by Ondi Timoner

I love it when I have no idea where a documentary is headed, where I feel crammed and breathless in the passenger seat, constantly turning my head to share wide-eyed stares of horror with the filmmaker before gravely turning back to witness the continuing scene through the glass. Such is the case with We Live in Public, Ondi Timoner’s terrifying, prescient, and gobsmackingly strange film about maverick early-internet entrepreneur Josh Harris, and especially the disturbing series of conceptual art projects that present (among many other things) the early building blocks of reality television and modern influencer life as we now know it. Harris originally founded Pseudo.com, an “internet television network” that may or may not have been a simple appetizer for his lifelong pursuit of art; that is, showcasing surveillance, voyeurism, and the utter dissolution of human privacy in exchange for…what? Recognition, fame, professional success, drugs and scooby snacks? It’s hard to say, but Timoner’s unfurling, stupefying capture of Harris’ work is appalling and enthralling, and it reaches its startling apex with “Quiet: We Live in Public.” In this living piece of conceptual art, a slew of creatives, luminaries, and weirdos all lived together deep under New York City streets, able to tune in to each other 24/7 on screens as they bathed, slept, had sex, went to the bathroom, did drugs, fired guns in a shooting range, and so on. The only rule was that they weren’t allowed to leave, and all the footage was Harris’ to keep forever. Did I mention that they first underwent a bizarre psychological evaluation in a bunker overseen by people wearing fascist cosplay? Why are you still reading this and not watching We Live in Public to make sure everything in this paragraph is 100% true (it is)? You can stream the film on YouTube, and Amazon, who also has copies of the DVD in stock.

Darwin’s Nightmare by Hubert Sauper

Where Timoner’s film is engrossing and largely upsetting in a mysteriously creative and/or theoretical way, Darwin’s Nightmare is a quieting, enraging, and intimate narrative on the deadly ramifications of globalization and capitalism (or, perhaps more specifically, colonialism). In this 2004 documentary, the technology of the exportation of foodstuff clashes with the famine experienced by Tanzanians surrounding Lake Victoria. Austrian documentarian Hubert Sauper details the horror of the Nile Perch, a fish introduced commercially to Lake Victoria in the mid-20th century whose rampaging growth and flourishing functionally eradicated the ecological balance of the area, causing the extinction of hundreds of species while simultaneously lining the pockets of the importers who ship the factory-farmed fish to European plates. As if that wasn’t bad enough, starving local Tanzanians are not even permitted to fish out of the lake themselves, since this capitalistically-driven species invasion is now wholly owned by conglomerate interests. It’s no less than infuriating to watch, but Sauper’s intimate camera is more interested in closely introducing us to the people around the capitalist crime (even those who fly the planes, definite players in the suffering around them), and he rarely if ever steps in with Herzogian commentary, all of which makes the real story of Darwin’s Nightmaremore effectively disturbing. Hence, meditative asides on Lake Victoria’s relationship to the life-giving Nile now being subverted by unfeeling mercantile interests are kept to a minimum, left to the viewer to design and conclude. In fiction, this story could be the nefarious origins of a cyberpunk megacorp, but here it stands as a crucial investigation of the resource path from village to plate, and all the devastation that wreaks. Although the film isn’t streaming anywhere right now, a few copies of the DVD are available for purchase on Amazon.

Dead Slow by Mauro Herce

And, finally, let’s muse even further with our final documentary, since there’s almost nowhere else to venture but inside when you’re trapped on a freighter in the middle of the ocean. Such is the life for the Filipino crew of The Fair Lady, a gargantuan cargo ship locked into measured hypnotic travel towards its destination. What is it carrying, and to where? And for whom? What is so important as to require human beings with families and personal lives to completely transform the rhythms of their existence in devotional compliance to this enigmatic behemoth of industry? Are oceans actually outer space, is the nighttime sky the ocean? Is that sound still there, that humming and yawning, and is it an effective counter to blank-gazing entropy? These and other questions will assail the viewers of Dead Slow Ahead, an incredibly slow-moving-yet-moving and powerful piece of world cinema, directed by Spanish filmmaker Mauro Herce. It’s swept critical awards and, while it may appear somewhat daunting and academic, more concept than content, remains a compulsively-watchable, incomparable and accessible film meditation. It’s a true space documentary made on the Earth’s waves, dignified and beautifully shot. The director notes, “We imagined that we were filming the last ship of mankind…” DVDs are hard to come by (there has yet to be a formal American release, despite the fact that the film hit festivals in 2015), but Vimeo fortunately has a stream/buy page directly presented by Nanouk Films themselves.

For me, I remember going to St. Mark’s because the newsstand I worked at part-time as a teen got stuff from them that didn’t come from our usual distributor. When the newsstand closed I would get a couple of independent comics from St Mark’s and other places. By the early 90s I was in college and money was a bit tight I was cutting down on the comics and not proud to admit it but I would walk over to the Borders Books in the World Trade Center Promenade and read them there it was probably on one of those walks that I discovered Chameleon Comics. At the time for a $5 membership you got 20% off of books along with bags and boards for your comics, only thing was you had to have a minimum of 10 comics on your pull list, for me that worked out and I got my comics there until I started interning at Milestone Media, through working at DC Comics where I was getting my comics for free but as soon as I left DC I went back to Chameleon to keep my habit going, the amazing thing was the owner Steve remembered me, still had my membership number open 5026 and for the next 18 years, this would be the place where I go for my weekly hit of comics.

Factors that contributed to these stores closing were rising rents and the diversification of how readers consume comics, we read them in trade paperbacks as opposed to going in every week, we read them digitally downloading them on our way to work or school reading them on our tablets or phones. It’s not easy spending money on comics but that’s why we use local comic stores and newsletters like this to help us find those right books, because sometimes the “because you read this, you’ll like this” algorithm will miss that surprising something that’s not exactly in your wheelhouse.

It would be irresponsible to not mention the toxic reputation that comic shops have garnered over the years, some deservedly so, but now a lot of them do more than sell comics and offend marginalized people. If you check you’ll see them hosting card tournaments, mini-cons, space for podcasts taping and every now and then get that superstar creator to come in and do a signing or talk. LCS are becoming the barbershop equivalent for geeks.

Saturday, May 4th is Star Wars Day, it’s also Free Comic Book Day, use this linkto find a store where you can get a free bag of mixed books that publishers want to use as a springboard for their comics and upcoming events, there are even a few independent comics participating. But please I cannot stress this enough do not grab the free bag and bounce, these books are free to you but cost that store money, go in look around and find something else, these places can only exist by buying comics, you don’t have to break the bank but spend $5 or $10 dollars, it will go a long way to helping that LCS keep its doors open and lights on for you to find your next favorite comic. And ultimately you will find that space and when you do let them know you’re looking for a comic recommended by the Narazu newsletter.

I Ain’t Afraid of No Book:
John Edward Lawson’s Bibliophobia 

Half a decade after dropping his sixth poetry collection, Wholesome Terror: Lawfully Combative Verse, publishing veteran John Edward Lawson is preparing a return to horror poetry with Bibliophobia.

After experimenting with form, humor, gore, and genre in his previous award-nominated collections, Lawson turns his eye to that which we have unreasoning fear of. The phobias we secretly harbor compel us to do horrible, inexplicable things. Bibliophobia explores each phobia in turn, translating what we know and love into a monstrous snare designed to haunt readers. Here’s a sample of what’s to come…

“Parthenophobia”

In my possession is an impoverished soul
full of blight and bent steel, and all the falsities
and full-bore regressions of a whip-cracking show
with charred animals spent on countless flaming rings.
Do they not howl, eyeless, to forbidden 
cities on the unmapped continent of your libido?

Slither nude through Death’s cowl to my smokeless glen
for there is a ritual to enact, and innocence to overthrow.
You will steal from my body every carnal deception
on a flotilla of blackened pelts, adrift on eddies
mirroring a rancid sky, our screams lonesome 
without an echo’s reflection

Look for Bibliophobia this October in paperback and eBook, with an expanded hardcover edition, available from Raw Dog Screaming Press.

Pretend Interview with

BILL CAMPBELL, writer of Baaaad Muthaz

as imagined by Clarence Young after reading the advance run

David Brame – Pencils & Inks
Other Damian Duffy – Letterer

4 QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT WANT ANSWERED AFTER READING BAAAAD MUTHAZ

1. How much fun was it writing Baaad Muthaz?
Look, any book that manages to meld a ton of funk references truly, razor-sharp commentary, and art that flows so fast it might as well be animation…is probably more fun than you’ve had since the mushroom incident of which, per signed non-disclosure agreement, we are not speaking of. Seriously, strap in and ride.

2. Baaaad Muthaz elevator pitch, go!
A sci-fi with baaaad Mutha has no use for elevator pitches. If I said SAGA by way of Bootsy Collins, would you go away?

3. When will Vol. 1 (the collected issues) be out???
The Muthaz trade comes out in September 2019. Show some patience. Write it down somewhere. Pick up the individual issues while you wait.

4. Should we expect to see Garth Brooks represented in the pages of Baaaad Muthaz?
No.

ROBYN BENNIS by Robyn Bennis

What do you do when the devil follows you home from a business trip and starts rifling through your purse, looking for spare tampons?

Do you pray, consult a religious authority, rage against the evil one? If you’re Jordan Liang, you do all of these things—albeit pretty half-assedly—but you also have a secret weapon up your sleeve: supreme snark. Oh, you think she isn’t snarky enough? Your mom isn’t snarky enough. You think that’s a tired, old joke? Your mom is a tired, old joke.

So begins The Devil’s Guide to Managing Difficult People (order link to your left. Your OTHER left), the latest book from Robyn Bennis, acclaimed author and person who’s still sore from banging your mom last night. That’s me, by the way, but my lawyer said I should use the third person whenever I’m emotionally abusing people into buying my books. He says it creates distance.

That’s also why, on the advice of counsel, The Devil’s Guide to Managing Difficult People will be my first novel written in the first person. Because, while Josette Dupre, the heroine of the Signal Airship series, was the kind of person I want to be, Jordan is the kind of person I really am. She’s prickly, emotionally withdrawn, uses sarcasm as a shield, and has a deep, dark secret regarding her mom.

Actually, now that I think about it, Josette has a deep, dark secret regarding her mom, too. You don’t think I have mother issues, do you? No. No, definitely not. I don’t have mother issues. YOU have mother issues. Don’t bother denying it. She told me all about them when we were spooning this morning.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah. Buy my awesome book!