Five Things: A Near-Fall Dispatch from North Hollywood

What’s up my readers, friends, and parents who subscribe to this Newsletter?

Right now things are quiet, I am waiting to hear back about a number of project proposals I sent out, and as I said to someone last week, I am striving to find peace in that quiet. As I do that I’m starting to take in a lot more movies, tv shows, comics, books, and albums. This week felt like a good time to do a Five Things where I run through some of the things I took in over the summer that really hit me.

So, let’s get into it!

1. Greg Daniels is one of the greatest comedy writers television has ever had, and one who has been a massive influence on me. From work on Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, to co-creating King of the Hill, the American version of The Office, and Parks and Recreation so much of my comedic sensibility, story sense, and appreciation for character work has come from Daniels’s body oeuvre. So when news of The Paper, a spin-off of The Office co-created by Michael Koman, I was more excited than nervous. And I was right to feel that way. The Paper is an excellent sitcom and really hits the ground running. I have heard there are people upset it’s not more connected to the Office or not more of a one-to-one follow-up…I am not one of those people. Like with every Greg Daniels’s show the cast is phenomenal, the stories become compelling and rich with character quickly, and there’s plenty of moments that will make you laugh.

2. I am going to double dip on TV because right now…TV is back and it’s pretty damn good (special shout out to Peacemaker and Alien: Earth as well). Last Sunday I watched the first episode of Brad Ingelsby’s new show Task on HBO starring Mark Ruffalo as FBI agent Tom Brandis who has to lead a task force to investigate a series of drug house robberies that are being done by a crew led by Tom Pelphery’s Robbie Pendergrast. The first episode is one of the best episode’s of TV I’ve seen in a long time. I was thrilled to have Mark Ruffalo play another complicated law man after his phenomenal turns in Michael Mann’s Collateral and David Fincher’s Zodiac, and he creates another terrific, flawed, and sad keeper of the peace in this show. I have definitely seem Tom Pelphery in other shows and movies but he completely took me off guard here as a soulful garbage man and father by day and a leader of a band of thieves by night. It’s excellent. I had seen Ingelsby’s other show Mare of Easttown and that was a massive oversight on my part. After seeing how phenomenal Task is I’m going to definitely go back and watch Mare of Easttown ASAP. This show is what HBO does best and I’m delighted to have it for another five weeks. Also special shoutouts to Raúl Castillo who is delight in everything he is in and that is especially true on this show, and to Emilia Jones who completely transforms into her character of Maeve in a remarkable way.

3. Last year I saw the fewest amount of new movies I had seen in any year in my adult life, the outlook at the cinema was grim. There was a few things I really loved but I was not eagerly going to the movies more weeks than not which is my normal. This year I am happy to say things have been back to normal, it’s been a strong year at the movies, and in August when I went back to Western Massachusetts I saw five new movies with my brother Josh, all pretty great. Weapons, Nobody 2, Highest 2 Lowest, Caught Stealing, and one you may not have heard as much about called She Rides Shotgun. A crime-thriller directed by Nick Rowland based on a Novel by Jordan Harper follows a young girl named Polly who is picked up from school one day by her convict father Nathan she’s never met and they immediately go on the run from the white supremacist gang Nathan was once apart of. A tense, character-driven thriller with some great action sequences and wonderful scenes between Polly and Nathan. I am a massive crime thriller fan and if I had my way we would get five or ten of these movies a year, I thought this movie was awesome and it makes another strong film in the resume of Taron Egerton who I think is a wonderful actor who consistently makes films and choices in his career I do not expect but am often delighted by.

4. Comics are great right now. This past weekend I caught up on all the books that had been waiting for me in my pull list while I was in Massachusetts, it was pretty close to fifty plus comics. I had such a great time reading through everything coming out right now. Last time I did this I highlighted Aquaman by Jeremy Adams and John Timms which is still fantastic, but I wanted to shout out some other books I have been loving. Batman: Dark Patterns by Dan Watters, Hayden Sherman, and Triona Farrell is tremendous, when I left Batman I was worried it was going to be hard for me to like Batman comics again, it turns out I can still like Batman comics and I adore this one. Bug Wars by Jason Aaron and Mahmud Asrar is a great heavy-metal urban fantasy comic with an eighties vibe, the book is about to go on hiatus but I am psyched for it to come back. JSA by Jeff Lemire and Diego Olorteugi is a great teambook, the JSA is probably my favorite DC super hero team and Lemire and Olorteugi handle a massive cast month in and month out with expertise, each character gets served and every month is as good as super hero comics gets. The Absolute line at DC and the Ultimate line at Marvel are still delivering some of the best comics out there, I wanted to put a special spotlight on The Ultimates by Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri. It’s been one of my favorite reads for over a year now and I can finally articulate why. Camp put in a brilliant super structure for the book that allowed each issue to feel like a great stand-alone/single issue story but in reality every chapter pushes the story forward and there is no wasted space in this book. As a mostly former editor, I can attest that everyone wants to do one shots and single issue stories, but readers are usually allergic to them because they are often throw away stories, or more importantly…they stop the ongoing story of a series in it’s tracks and readers feel like they can take said issue off. On top of being a great comic series, Ultimates is master-class on how to make every issue feel like a great individual read while pushing a grander story forward. AND while the original Ultimate line from when I was a teenager was often criticized for not pushing it’s reimagining of classic Marvel ideas enough, this incarnation of The Ultimates delights me every month in how willing it is to reimagine and mash-up classic Marvel ideas, I love this book.

5. My two favorite albums this year have both come from bands from the Canada. The Beaches’ No Hard Feelings is a tremendous collection of songs about love gone wrong, burgeoning sexuality, and the fear of putting your real feelings out there. I have listened to it a bunch and I will be listening to it a lot more. The Beaches is a fantastic Canadian rock band and I hope they have many more albums to come. And then there’s the Dirty Nil, who I have been lucky enough to see live, these dudes play loud, fun, guitar rock music, and then will take you off guard with a song that devastates you with it’s message and emotional honesty. And never has that assessment been more true on their new album The Lash. I highly recommend both bands, both records, and hell their whole discographies!

Don’t forget that next Friday-Sunday I will be at LA Comic Con Artist Alley Table E12 with the great Chris Robinson. Bring us books to sign, prepare to get books from, and be ready to have a wonderful time meeting us we are delightful! I am so excited to be doing LA Comic Con for the second year in a row, it was the first con I ever tabled at, and I think this time around things will be even better than they were the first time! Help make those hopes a reality and not a set-up for devestation!

Until Next Week?

Stay Safe!

—Dave Wielgosz