You have not heard the last of me

Hey dudes. You still drop by once and a while? Aside from the faithful commenters who let me know VERY INTERESTING POST THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOU BUY IMITATION ROLEX WATCH CHEAP, YES?

I haven't posted anything lately because I have had what is known as The Internet Trouble. So I thought I would get you up to speed with what has been going on.

Liam is very nearly ten months old now, and he's grown his two front teeth on top. There's a decent-sized gap between them, however, and I cannot help but think that he looks like a baby Terry-Thomas (and, therefore, also Mad Jim Jaspers).

I have been getting into Concrete for the first time thanks to my local library. I am several decades too late to inform you of how good this is, but it is really good stuff. It's just so earnest, you know? You'd never get away with it today. I mean, it's high concept, but there's absolutely no "elevator pitch" with it, you know? "So a senator's speechwriter gets his brain transplanted into a super-tough concrete body? So what's he do with it, fight the aliens that did this to him?" "What? No, those aliens are gone, I don't care about the aliens. Mostly he does things he thinks would be interesting, like trying to swim across the ocean or help out a struggling farm family. Oh yeah, and in one issue he writes a letter to his dying mother." CLICK. Dial tonnnnne.

Been catching up on a lot of comics through the library. I'd been mildly curious for some time to read the Jim Kruger/Alex Ross/Doug Braithwaite joint Justice, but I'd never had the opportunity, particularly since DC packaged the 12-issue series in three separate trades of four issues instead of one package like anyone sensible would do. The art was surprisingly hard to follow. I'm not sure that the "realistic" painting approach translates well to superhero action comics, because I spent the whole time going, "Wait, is that a laser beam? What exactly is happening to Clayface here? Man, could we get John Byrne to draw this or something?" The writing does that thing I hate that every superhero writer thinks s/he has to do where it tackles why superheroes are reactive and just uphold the status quo instead of, you know, feeding the hungry, curing the sick, that sort of thing. Except there is no good answer to that, so asking the question just draws attention to something we're supposed to ignore. Even Grant Morrison did it in JLA #4 and it was just as unconvincing there. If I am willing to play along with genre conceits like superpowers and secret identities, I will also play along and accept that Batman causing massive property damage to stop the Riddler from knocking over a bank is the socially responsible thing to do.

Oh yeah, I also sold two more stories this week, so apparently there is something to be said for this "believing in yourself" thing. Let's hear it for Dark Highlands and the newly launched Arcane for thinking that I am worth somebody's time to read. More on this as it develops.

Battery's running down gotta go now laterz

Man of Kleenex

Oh hai.

Last week I was on a trip to Miami for a work-related thing. It was an interesting time. I ate at Joe's Stone Crab, saw a bunch of local landmarks you'd recognize if you've ever watched Dexter (which I have not), and watched locals bundle up for 65-degree-Fahrenheit weather, knowing that when I returned to Wisconsin I would have to dig my car out of some snow.

I also got to fly on a plane, which is still an enormous treat for me. (Less exciting: Eat Pray Love as the in-flight movie.) Which brings me to my little anecdote for today.

Somebody asked me on the trip what it's like to have a baby. And my standard answer is that I don't have anything interesting to tell them, because it is just like what everybody else says it is like. You know? "Um...I don't know, man, it's like...it's the greatest thing, although all of a sudden you're more okay with the idea of handling somebody else's poop and it takes you about fifteen extra minutes anytime you need to leave the house." Really, just listen to any stand-up comedian with a baby, and whatever he says probably goes for me as well. I don't usually have much to add.

But I had five hours of plane ride back home on Saturday, and so I decided to watch some Dini/Timm Superman and Batman episodes on my iPod. One of them was the Superman pilot, "The Last Son of Krypton, Part I," which, as you may or may not remember, is all the Krypton part of the Superman origin. And I've seen this episode before. And I've read or seen countless "Jor-El and Lara put baby Kal-El in the rocket and send him to Earth before Krypton explodes" scenes.

But this time I had to turn it off, because I'm sitting on a plane and I feel tears welling up, and I don't want somebody to think I'm crying at Eat Pray Love.

Like, he has to put his baby on that rocket, man. He has to send him away and he'll never know what will become of his son. And that baby...! Kal-El has no clue. He's sleeping when he's put in the rocket; he falls asleep in his parents' arms, he wakes up someplace else and they're gone. Bruce Wayne remembers his parents and that's the whole point, but (barring some sort of super-infant-memory, which I'm sure was probably featured in at least one story over the years, right?) Superman has no memory of anything that happened there.

*hnkkk*

Man, I did not sign up to choked up about Krypton, you guys.

On Seinfeld

Hey dudes. Yes, still alive.

Haven’t been around here much. Part of it is having a baby – which is not only time taking care of a baby, but of course, savoring the baby. I mean to write some posts, but then it’s like, “Well, should I spend an hour or two writing some kind of gripey thing about comics or should I watch my brand new son wave his arms about and look at things out the window?” Having essentially dedicated the first twenty-five years of my life to triviality, it is a strange time indeed to have something decidedly non-trivial drop into your lap (and, subsequently, poop in it).

But when he is asleep, as he is now, that part of me that wants to write about things that are unimportant to the majority of people but are terribly important to me wakes up.

So, I don’t really have time to write something, sit on it, think it over on a drive to work, edit it, and finally post it two days later like I used to. But what the hell, we are only blogging here. Let’s just talk about some things, and if I say something stupid or at best not very well thought out, then we’ll just talk about that next then, okay? Stimulating conversation is more interesting anyway.

Anyway: I promised like a month or two ago I’d do this thing about Bronze Age Spider-Man, which has been pretty much done for some time but I wasn’t totally happy with it, but I’ll just post that baby sometime next week anyway and be done with it. Also - tell your friends! – I am doing a “Good Marvel Comics Really Did Exist in the Late 90s, Although Admittedly in Somewhat Small Quantities” post for realsies, and that is something I think is terribly important. Look for that soon, in addition to – could it be? – an actual Adventures of Wyatt Earp in 2999-related update, because you may recall, there is a comic that I write that gives this blog its name.

Also a mystery writing project in the works, but I don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up too much in case it sucks. It might suck, I won't really know until it's out there, will I?

But tonight: I want to write about television, and write quickly.

I borrowed the first three seasons of Seinfeld on DVD from my brother, because I’ve been reading the AV Club’s recaps on them, and it’s been years since I watched what was once my favorite show that I knew top to bottom, quotes and trivia and behind the scenes factoids (I was, it may distress you to know, that kid in middle school). I also borrowed the first two seasons of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which I have never watched, but Zach recently got into it and has been really digging it.

Watching Seinfeld up to 20 years later…those intensely observational first episodes don’t strike one as so bewildering as they did the NBC executives and test audiences when they first came out. It’s obvious that they shouldn’t, because of Seinfeld’s tremendous influence on the pop-culture landscape. You can have two guys talking about Superman or cereal or poorly positioned shirt buttons in any TV show or movie and nobody questions it. It’s not important anymore if Seinfeld’s a “show about nothing” because now anything can be about nothing, and in 2010 I have a blog where I talk about communists of the Marvel Universe.

So we’ll look at the other part of the Seinfeld pop-culture narrative, which is that the show supposedly has unlikable characters.

This has never rung true to me, and watching It’s Always Sunny has helped point it out, because there you have some genuinely unlikable characters. Like, reprehensible. Selling liquor to minors and pretending to have cancer to get a girl and going to pro/anti-abortion rallies for the sole purpose of meeting chicks. They’re bad people who do outrageous things, so when bad things happen to them we don’t feel bad. I’m quite enjoying the show.

But that’s not what Seinfeld is. Not really. If George was really a monster he wouldn't care if he got that busboy fired. A truly reprehensible Jerry wouldn't worry about the "pony remark" and whether it contributed to his aged relative's death. The key to why Seinfeld resonates is because the show vocalizes ugly things that we’re all secretly thinking but don’t say. The character of George doesn’t work if we despise him; we have to identify with him on some level, even if it's remote. Of course, that’s not to say that we’d all be exactly George Costanza if we weren’t keeping ourselves in check, but he does magnify that part of ourselves that can be petty, can be shallow, is jealous and angry and all that other stuff. George Costanza is a potential us…

You know what, actually? Maybe I’m making a dumb comparison I’ll regret later, but George is kind of The Hulk, isn’t he?

Anyway, at the same time, Seinfeld is a comedy of manners. The It’s Always Sunny gang doesn’t care what anybody thinks of them, but the Seinfeld gang does – the petty side just usually wins out, that’s all.

And because we care what people think about us too, the narrative develops that the Seinfeld gang is “unlikable,” and it seems a bit like denial. Whenever the characters do become genuinely unlikable, as in the series finale and a few other later season episodes, it feels wrong. We’re not supposed to be judging from a position of moral superiority, as we are for It’s Always Sunny, it’s really more of a “There but for the grace of God…” thing, isn’t it?

You want an example? "The Switch," in which Jerry isn't getting along with his girlfriend, but thinks he might like to date her roommate. If you or I found ourselves in this situation, I think most people, if we're being totally honest, would consider that possibility, at least for a second. We in all probability wouldn't act on it, and it's hard to argue that it isn't good that we don't, but there is a tiny element of, "If only..." Seinfeld, at its best, simply removes the "If only..." and runs with it (but also usually reinforces the societal norms, because no real lasting good ever comes from any of it, and most often it actively blows up in their faces).

So what I think makes Seinfeld still relevant and interesting and funny today is how honest it is about how ugly it is. If you will permit a moment of pretentious self-indulgence, I would even venture that Seinfeld is an influence on my own writing. To be able to risk characters being perceived as unlikable in the pursuit of touching something inside of us that we (quite rightly) deny. We can say that the Seinfeld gang is unlikable only if we admit that everyone is unlikable, at least in theory.

I don’t know, I think this Seinfeld thing is gonna be a hit, but nobody’s going to be sure why…

BABY TIME

NAME: Liam Lesniak Zyduck. ("Lesniak" (LESH-knock) is my wife's last name, but it's used here as a middle name, as was a custom in days of yore, rather than a hyphenated last name; "Lesniak-Zyduck" is just too Polish for one baby, and actually I think he works out to be a quarter Russian anyway. Also, you must agree that "Liam Lesniak" would be a good name for a late 19th century/early 20th century Irish bareknuckle boxer.)

BORN: Wednesday, May 19, 12:27 p.m.

WEIGHT AT BIRTH: 5 pounds, 4 ounces. He is, in fact, a tiny little man.

HEIGHT/LENGTH: 19 inches.

DAD WAS READING IN THE HOSPITAL: Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger when I needed something chewy and engrossing to get wrapped up in so as not to freak myself out worrying, and Essential Fantastic Four vol. 3 when I needed comfort food.

MOM WAS READING IN THE HOSPITAL: Ivanhoe. The resident who assisted in the delivery seemed to think this was funny.

DAD'S FIRST WORDS UPON SEEING CHILD: "Holy crap, it's a baby." (Shameful, perhaps, but true.)

MOST FRIGHTENING QUESTION ASKED BY NURSES: "Is there anyone who is stalking you or who would want to do harm to you or your baby?" (Standard security question we answered "no" to, but still...)

VISUAL AID: At birth he looked kind of like actor Wallace Shawn, but the pointiness of his head has gone down. Josh's speculative illustration is fairly accurate, although he was born with a porkpie hat and not a bowler.

Got back from the hospital today; at one point I was foolishly expecting, "Oh sure, we'll be out of there Thursday afternoon, no problem" (FALSE). Baby's mom is healthy after the high blood pressure concerns that resulted in the induced labor. Blogging will resume at some point, and I do not intend to gas on about ah, the dizzying highs and terrifying lows of parenthood to no end, but I am just having my moment right now.