Author: Gil

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Classic Comics Criticism: Black Hole Son-In-Law

My in-laws’ tradition (on my wife’s dad’s side) for the big family gathering on Christmas eve is that everyone draws the name of another family-member and buys a present for that person. This is probably totally normal to the rest of you, but it’s an alien concept to me because

a) I’m Jewish, and

b) I don’t have much extended family on this continent, so there was never any mass gift-giving event.

Two years ago, my father-in-law drew my name and smartly went to my Amazon wish list to find something for me. So, surrounded by my new in-laws, most of whose names I can’t keep straight, I opened my gift and discovered . . . the hardcover collection of Charles Burns’ amazing serial, Black Hole!

What a great gift! I immediately thanked my father-in-law, started flipping through the book, and then asked, “You, uh, you didn’t read this, didja?”

Here’s a review I wrote of the fifth issue in that serial:

From TCJ #203, April, 1998:

Black Hole #5 • Charles Burns • Fantagraphics, $3.95

burnstailI’m sure glad I didn’t go to high school with Charles Burns. Black Hole harkens back to Burns’ “teen plague” strips, but this time Burns has dropped most of the sci-fi elements that filled his earlier work, keeping only the sexually-transmitted plague that causes strange and awful physical mutations to teens. The comic is a compelling, creepy look at the social interactions and sexual longings of the painful period of American life. The latest installment revolves around a conversation between a girl who’s got the plague and the guy who infected her. The episode narrated by the infected girl, delves into a flashback of her experience with the plague, developing into a rumination on her status as sexual pariah. Taken as a metaphor for teenage pregnancy, HIV, STDs and every other sexual secret we keep, the concept of teen plague has grown increasingly effective as the series has gone on. Through the awkwardness of their dialogue, Burns conveys the fragility of these kids’ lives, illustrating the mixture of sexual longing and confusion that characterizes our high school years. Visually, the book is a treat, albeit a dark one. While burns has refined his art style, it’s not overly different from his past work. His page layouts are more imaginative, and that’s probably a function of drawing for the comic book page and not for the dimensions of a syndicated strip.

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Outsourcing is a Hit!

Three weeks ago, I wrote about CIA Director Leon Panetta’s “I’m not here to talk about the past” op-ed piece, in which the agency was just following orders for the previous 8 years. Mr. Panetta was writing because of an uproar over a secret “jihadist” assassination program that had been devised during a previous regime. He canceled the program the day after he found out about it, and reported it to Congress, noting that it had never been put into operation and had not been used to assassinate members of Al Qaeda.

It always felt like a piece of the story was missing, and now we might have that missing piece. According to the NYTimes, the program also employed an outside contractor, Blackwater USA, for “planning, training and surveillance.” And, well . . .

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

Now, the main point of my day job is that organizations should stick to their core competencies. You know: “If there’s a function that you can’t do well in-house, then you should look to outsource it.” Still, I can see where a privatized hit team getting captured on foreign soil might create some problems. Fortunately,

Blackwater’s work on the program actually ended years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program.

So, good for Mr. Panetta for ending the program the day he found out about it, but I’m afraid this (or programs like it) is going to be like Pete Rose’s slow-motion confession about gambling on baseball: the admissions will keep getting a little worse and a little worse.

Read all about it.

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Shred It Up

Rufus having fun with the packaging from Amy’s Crate & Barrel order:

Right at the end, I say his safe word.

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0-fer Africa

In honor of Sec. Clinton’s recent trip to the dark continent, this week’s literary 0-fer is . . . Isak Dinesen!

If she wrote under “Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke,” I probably would’ve gotten around to reading her by now.

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Lost in the Supermarket: Zhang Yimou edition

I’m a big fan of Zhang Yimou‘s movie Hero (no, not the Andy Garcia one!). An Asian friend of mine described it as a “Confucian action movie,” and I’ve stuck with that definition ever since, even though I know little about Confucianism.

I wasn’t such a fan of House of Flying Daggers, because it looked like a bunch of spare footage from Hero. Don’t get me wrong; I’m also a big fan of Zhang Ziyi, but her gorgeousity wasn’t enough to carry it for me.

I’m disappointed that he’s working on a sequel to that one, but I’m glad he’s got a marketing tie-in for his new actioner —

— House of Steamed Potato!

(Really, the only Chinese movie I’m pining for is a sequel to Kung Fu Hustle.)

See the whole Lost in the Supermarket series!

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What It Is: 8/17/09

What I’m reading: Moby Dick, The Jew of New York, The Nobody, and Everybody is Stupid Except for Me.

What I’m listening to: Arular, by M.I.A., Yes by Pet Shop Boys, and Welcome to the Pleasuredome by Frankie Goes to Hollywood (thanks to their roof-raising performance in that Trevor Horn tribute concert we watched last week).

What I’m watching: Old episodes of The State, to commemorate the cancellation of Reno 911!, Anchorman and Pulp Fiction. Our current Netflix discs are The Man Who Would Be King and Bubba Ho-Tep.

What I’m drinking: Juniper Green & Q Tonic, and Red Stripe lager.

What Rufus is up to: Staying out of the heat. We skipped another Sunday greyhound hike because we had a bunch of Amy’s friends coming over for lunch that day, and needed to get the house clean(ish).

Where I’m going: Connecticut next weekend, to visit my cousins and let Rufus meet the Golden Retriever side of the family.

What I’m happy about: That someone made a movie for the 9-year-old me who was serenaded daily on the school bus with taunts of “Heil Hitler!”

What I’m sad about: This whole aging process.

What I’m worried about: The dietary habits of yuppies, and whether it stunts their ability to have intelligent conversation. (Good job, Agitator!)

What I’m pondering: Whether Smokey Bear is a gay icon.