New Year

You know, spending every single holiday at my overnight job may not have been the best plan.
I have but one significant resolution:
Make peace with this city, or move. I am giving myself a year to accomplish one or the other. That is all.
Have a happy, lucky, and safe New Year, everyone.
love, KJ

Lost and Despondent Comics #6, 7, & 8, plus outtakes

The top three up there are my very favorite comics.
LDC #6:
The "blood" in #6 is red glitter nail polish. That is totally my dad in panel 2. He won an award at his company, Redneck Trailer, the same week this comic went up for the first time, and he thought it was pretty funny that he also made an appearance in an "avant-garde" comic at the same time. From panel 7, "Socialism: Communism With A Smile!" is a phrase I find inherently hilarious, although I did not make it up. I stole it from my brother, who is a lot funnier than I am.
LDC # 7-8:
These are my adventure game tribute comics. I really like the way the black background with the white text looks, and it is pretty evocative of text adventures, but it killed my ink cartridge. The rest of the background is filled in with construction paper. Most of this comic is Infocom (specifically Zork universe) and Lucasarts in-jokes. I suppose it's funnier if you are familiar with those things.

Overall, I thinks these are the strongest comics because the are the most verbose (teh funnay, such that it is, was always in the words) and visually interesting. The art is not great, but it works the best it ever did in LDC #7-8.

Outtakes:
What was happening here was I was going to do a rock-opera epic homage, because I was obsessed with Tommy and the Monkees movie (see earlier post) at the time. I really have no idea what I thought I was going to do for dialogue. The dude there is supposed to be the poet ("play the goldfish!") from LDC #1. The backgrounds are bits from the local newspaper, a phone book manga, and an old Flipside, I think. I do think it looks quite nifty, and it is too bad I never thought of anything to write.

That's the end of the comics unless I get a wild hair and draw some more. Click to make big and enjoy.

Quick and Dirty Lazy Video and Links Post #1

Lovely things for yooouuu.

ORCILIM



JAGUAR LOVE



JAY REATARD



RATATAT






The Jesus Lizard reunite!

Pretty Kitties!

rrrrrrr!

Lost and Despondent Comics #3, #4, # 5 & #9

Let's get these out of the way so I can finish up with my favorites for the last few comics posts. Click to make gigantic and readable! Since the only people who read this know me, the guy in LDC # 3 is not actually supposed to be the most obvious candidate, just so you know. I was really angsty and crushing hard at the time, and so I drew silly comics about it. Which was at least sort of productive. LDC #4 is a more general catalog of personal failings. Panel 2 is almost 100% historically accurate. "The Boyfriend Potential Inventory" from panel 3 was a real thing, although I never really made a scoring system. I'd post it here, but I can't find what I did with it. LDC # 5 is pretty boring and self-explanatory. Just making fun of those crazy guys who scream the "word of God" at college kids. LDC #9, or Quick and Dirty # 2 was about this one time with this one dude who did not...return the favor, but instead was all "thanks!" and absconded. Exit, stage left! Now, I'm not allowing that kind of fuckery in my life anymore, but that's what happened at the time, and so I drew a comic about it, cause that's what I did at the time. I got to confront this particular person about said fuckery at a later date, so it's all right, kinda. Next comics post: my favorites, and the outtakes.

I am very stupid

So.
True Confessions!
When I was younger, and more creative, and more innocent, and dumber... I was also stupid-in-love with an older man. He'd throw me some crumbs every once in a while, one of which was letting me listen to a tape of his high school band. I made a copy of that tape over a copy of my guitar demo tape. At the time, this seemed like a great idea. Poetic, or something.
HOW STUPID AM I?
Why is this such a big deal? Surely I still have more than one copy of the tapes I labored for hours over and poured my little soul into, right, not just the one I copied over?
No.
No, I do not, apparently. All gone, bye-bye!
Everyone, art means as much as love, even if the art kind of sucks. Don't be an idiot and erase it for no reason.
All that's left was these three songs from the B side, which I think may have been bad takes, and some of the best are missing. They all sound the same.
I QUIT. Burn the field, salt the earth.
ENJOY!

Landlock Surf

White Trash Blues

The Last Song

The greatest thing ever, Part II: Music Movies

At one point or another, I declared that I hate musicals and musical movies. This blanket statement was unfair; as there are several that I love to pieces. It turns out that I actually just hate The PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and LES MISÉRABLES. For Phantom, it’s just the romanticizing of a totally abusive asshole relationship that bothers me. “He’s misunderstood, you can never know about out LOVE tra la la” fuuck yooouuu! As for LES MISÉRABLES, I have no idea why, maybe because the damn thing never ever ends. Just hate. This is similar to my feelings about STAR TREK. I used to say that I hated it, but I recently discovered that it turns out that both the original and The Next Generation are pretty awesome in a dorky way. True confessions: when I was a little girl, I had a huge crush on the much-maligned Wesley Crusher. It was later that I decided that I hated all of it, but it turns out I just hate Voyager. Getting back to the point, here’s a run down of my favorite music movies with clips. You should rent them.

HEAD: THE MONKEES MOVIE
My other big childhood crush was Davy from the Monkees. A whole other generation of little girls got to fall in love with him through Nickelodeon syndication in the late 80s. Now that I’m a big girl, he just seems too pretty for me. Anyway, HEAD was the Monkee’s big artistic statement, “What is HEAD all about? Only John Brockman's shrink knows for sure!” It’s absurdist, essentially without a plot, surreal, and bizarre. I don’t think it’s supposed to make sense, and it doesn’t. I really can’t believe a studio gave them a bunch of money and allowed them to make this, but it was a different time. I don’t know why it doesn’t have a bigger following, because it’s so hilarious and strange, and the music is great. There’s a lot of celebrity cameos, including Annette Funicello and Jack Nicholson. I’ve never gotten anyone else to sit through the whole thing with me, so I guess you need to be hardcore, eh?





BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

This is probably one of my very favorite movies of all time. Endlessly quotable and soapy, it is pretty obvious they were just making things up as they went along. It is a classic showbiz corruption of the innocent story, complete with, drugs, sex, attempted suicide, and a double wedding. Featuring the best fake band ever, The Carrie Nations, and a real band with one of the best names of all time, The Strawberry Alarm Clock!



TOMMY

Oh, TOMMY. This is probably the quintessential rock opera. Here’s another one I can’t believe a studio funded, as this had to be pretty expensive, but again, it was a different time, and the Who were really popular. Tommy is basically a religious savior story, revolving around how little Tommy grows up to be the new messiah, via the medium of pinball. There’s a bunch of other stuff going on, too, including a weird fantasy scene involving Ann Margaret in a beautiful all-white room, and then baked beans and chocolate spew forth from the television. There’s too much going on to recount it all here. More big celebrity cameos here, including Tina Turner as the Acid Queen, Elton John as the Pinball Wizard, and Jack Nicholson (again!) as a psychiatrist.





ROCK ‘N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

A bubblegum punk love letter. I’m not going to pretend I’ve seen a significant fraction of everything Rodger Corman has been involved with, but I’d bet folding money that this is probably one of the best. High school kids, led by a girl with the improbable name of Riff Randell, take over the school with the help of the Ramones to fight the new fascist principal. Cute cute cute. A fun drinking game: drink whenever anyone says “ Rock and Roll High School.”








VELVET GOLDMINE

Directed by Todd Haynes, who also made the all-time classic “banned” movie: SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY, a tale of celebrity anorexia told with Barbie dolls. VELVET GOLDMINE is a flashy, beautiful, fictional tribute to glam rock that showcases the romance between the David Bowie archetype Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and the Iggy Pop/Kurt Cobain figure (Ewan McGregor) Curt Wylde. Christian Bale is also prancing around this movie looking hot. It’s pretty much live-action yaoi with a glam rock soundtrack. It has been said that this film is more style than substance, but to me, this movie is really about the redeeming power of music.





EDIT:
I can’t believe it! I totally forgot about THE PRODUCERS and WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY!

THE PRODUCERS

The musical remake is fine and all, but the 1968 original is one of the best movies ever made. Not really a musical, but a movie about a musical, the worst musical ever.
The last video is not really so much a spoiler, but I’d save it unless you have already seen the movie.







WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Another one featuring Gene Wilder that has an inferior remake. Anyone saying this movie is just goofy and fluffy probably hasn’t seen it, or saw it as a kid. It is often very funny and light-hearted, even cheesy. However, there are really creepy, even menacing, moments throughout the film. The bit with the tinker (“ up the airy mountain…”) is at about 6:15 in the second clip.

The greatest things ever, part I: Korean movies

I took a class in Korean film in college, which turned out of be life changing for personal reasons too weird, complicated, and embarrassing to get into here. More interestingly, it changed things forever because I got some of my favorite (and one of my most hated) movies ever out of it, and gave me one of the best untranslatable vocab words ever: han. My understanding of the word han is that it something like suffering and resentment, tied up with identity, inescapable. If freedom is the American motto/identity, han is the Korean identity. So it seems that the concept of han is essential to really understanding Korean movies. That’s a really glib crash course-y way of explaining it, but I’m not a Phd in film or anthropology, OK? To describe it in an even more shallow way: Korean movies are usually sad as hell, even the “funny” ones. Now, some of the Best (and one of the Worst) Things Ever: A quick list and summary of my favorite Korean movies (and one I hate).

Nowhere to Hide

I just love this so much. It’s a pretty basic detective story, but it’s very stylized, alternately seriously and cartoonishly violent, hilarious and sad. It's a thing unto itself. Detectives Kim and Woo (aka Detective $100 Haircut and Detective Ugly) search for a murderer over the course of several months. The film is long, and some scenes seem a little tedious, purposefully, as the director was trying to capture the true nature of police investigations. The American cut is shorter and more fun, maybe, but the original cut is better in terms of artistic vision.



Sopyonje
The surprise hit phenomenon that helped to revive the lost art form of pansori by legendary director Im Kwon-taek. The success of the film also helped to usher in the “Korean New Wave” cinema, and was one of the most successful Korean films of all time until it was surpassed by Shiri, down in Honorable Mention below. The movie is about as artsy as they come, slow, about a family of pansori singers wandering the Korean countryside. It includes a truly pathetic and shocking act of cruelty. Really hard to find.



Peppermint Candy Begins with a man’s suicide and flows backwards-thorough time through his corruption to his innocent, hopeful beginnings.

Christmas In August

A sweet, sad little love story about death. A relationship begins, but never really has a chance to take off.

A Tale Of Two Sisters

If you haven’t been totally burned out or turned off Asian horror by the awful American remakes and ripoffs, this is a lovely, creepy horror film. "Fear your family."

Attack The Gas Station!

A group of delinquents take a gas station hostage after the owner doesn't have any money to give them in a robbery because they already robbed it! The bit with the music producer showing up out of nowhere and the final showdown with the delivery boys are worth the price of admission, but the whole thing is pretty funny.

Why Has the Bhodi-Dharma Left for The East?

Fuck this fucking movie. Yes, yes, I am an unsophisticated savage incapable of appreciate the delicate Buddhist beauty of this film. This kind of nonsense gives a noble religion a bad, pretentious name. This might be the most boring movie I have ever seen. Here’s what I remember:

Old Buddhist guy knocks out little Buddhist kids’ loose tooth with a rock or something
Little Buddhist kid hurts a bird, feels bad about it, tries to save it, it dies anyway
Little Buddhist kid almost gets drowned by a bunch of jerk kids while swimming
Young Buddhist guy who is kind of an ass goes back to his family

I really really tried, but I kept falling asleep through the rest. Watch it if you want to pretend to be fancy, I guess. But you won't fool me.

Honorable Mention

Shiri

Good old Shiri. One of biggest Korean movies of all time. It's kind of ludicrous sometimes (I need me some head-explodey pills!) but it's a great action movie that still manages to be genuinely sad.



Vengeance Trilogy: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, (Sympathy for) Lady Vengeance
I haven't seen Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance yet, but Oldboy and Lady Vengeance are excellent. I'm saving them for my revenge movie post, though.

Movies I want to see:

Barking Dogs Never Bite

Memories of Murder

Pulgasari

This one is directed by Shin Sang-ok, the same guy who directed and produced some of the 3 Ninjas series under the name Simon Sheen. He was kidnapped by that good old rat bastard Kim Jong-il for North Korea and forced to make Communist propaganda films. His movies were supposed to somehow magically project a fearsome image while simultaneously improving the Western view of North. Then he escaped! Here's the story. Pulgasari is a supposed to be a weird Godzilla-type movie featuring a lot of random folk dancing. Does it not sound awesome? It’s the only one of the North Korean movies to get a Western release, and then it was billed as “Banned in America!” and so forth, although the ban had nothing to do whatsoever with content.