GOD IS DEAD! Or gods is dead. Gods are dead? Gods are…human? I don’t know. I don’t think Nietzsche was a Critter. That’s right Critical Role just wrapped up its third campaign and all signs are pointing towards big changes for their 10th year. I’ve been watching since the very beginning and I have a lot of thoughts, so let’s get into it.
Like I said, I‘ve literally been watching Critical Role since that first poorly mic’d session ten years ago. I had been watching Felicia Days solo stream for awhile and when she announced Geek & Sundry would start a Twitch channel, I was all in. It kind of became a daily ritual for me at the time to just see what was on stream before heading to work. Geek & Sundry introduced me to a lot of folks I still follow to this day like Ify Nwadiwe & Erica Ishii who do a lot of stuff with Dropout, Heroes Reforged, and of course Critical Role.
On Geek & Sundry there were people playing Rocket League, Magic The Gathering, HeroClicks, and all sorts of other stuff but I was most excited when a Dungeons & Dragons show appeared on the schedule. I had only had on brief experience of being around folks playing D&D and then promptly got in trouble with my religious mother (and not religious dad who suddenly cared about black magic out of nowhere) as my parents had fallen for the Satanic Panic BS. So I was forbade from gambling my immortal soul in my friends basement or local hobby shop. But a sure way to get me interested in something is to tell me not to do it. How could I resist a new show on a Twitch channel I already watched as they broadcast something I wasn’t allowed to participate in as a kid?
So I tuned in day one and, despite bad audio and other onscreen jitters, I was hooked. You don’t need another person telling you how good Critical Role is but between the masterful DMing from Matthew Mercer and the obvious chemistry from the cast (well most of the cast), it was hard not to get hooked on this seemingly new way to tell a story. But I was as shocked as anyone, cast included, with just how many people loved it. Suddenly this thing I thought was only for the nerdiest of dorks was huge. What a time to be alive! I tuned in each week without fail, at least when there wasn’t a Marvel midnight premiere to get to. We really were living in a gold age of stuff that was extremely my shit. *sigh*
As time when on, campaign one came to an emotional close. You could tell the actors had a deep connection to these characters and letting go was hard and scary. The same could be said for us in the audience. Latching on to Vox Machina was easy. They were architypal characters, your traditional good guy heroes, but they ran a kind of deep you only get from playing the same character for years. But everyone could feel the change coming both on and off air. Would they have lightning strike twice for a whole new set of characters? Turns out, yes because while everyone loved Vox Machina, what we really were attached to were the people making the show. A lesson Geek & Sundry learned the hard way when Critical Role broke off into its own thing.
Campaign two brought with it many exciting changes. A whole new continent, new conflicts and lore, a completely new branch of magic, and most excitingly, new, darker and morally complex characters. These weren’t big broad heroes but broken people doing their best to heal and begrudgingly do what’s right. The danger was more amorphous and operating from the shadows. The stakes were high and not everyone made it out but their heroics didn’t lead to global fame. I loved the journey even if the end battle left me wanting more.
But that brings us to Campaign three. BIG SPOILERS AHEAD! I wish I could find it but while answering a question on their old aftershow, Liam once said something along the lines of “You can’t be an atheist in Exandria because you can see proof of the gods everywhere.” and I feel like Matt heard that and said “Bet.” and went home to create Ludinus. I love a villain that, as they explain the reasoning behind their seemingly hideous acts, you can’t help thinking, damn, they got a point. The theme throughout the campaign of questioning where authority comes from and who gets to wield it really speaks to me. I know, big shock, the anarchist likes the story of fighting the biggest authority figures of all, the gods, but it raises so many interesting questions. Just because you created something, does that give you authority over it in perpetuity? Even parents must eventually let their kids grow up and be their own selves. If you are backed up by something as powerful as a god, does that give you the right to exert your will on the world? And if you found the power to kill the gods, does that mean you have the right to push your will on others? Might supposedly makes right after all.
These are the questions this new batch of characters had to deal with and what I found great about it is they didn’t come to a consensus on them until the last moment when they had no choice but to make a choice. Instead, they found a common ground, that if this power existed, Ludinus couldn’t have it, and worked on that. Then when the time came to make this ultimate decision, they had built up enough trust in each other that, even if they didn’t agree with the others choice, they trusted the person making the choice enough to know they were doing what they think is best, even if it wasn’t what they would do. It’s a beautiful lesson in praxis over theory and I know a few left wing groups that could learn that lesson.
I won’t break down the last, marathon episode myself, you can check out a channel like Luboffin for that, but I will say the 8 hours kind of flew by. The stakes could not of felt bigger than having a board room meeting with all the gods. Decisions were made that have me intrigued about the future of this fictional world. I can’t wait to see how Exandria deals with a world without gods and literal aliens being resettled. That always goes well here in the real world! I almost feel bad for Predathos after the natural 20 Laura rolled, forcing it into a life of starvation. But I bet some of the gods are dumb enough to think the threat has passed and will try to ascend again just to be eaten. It just might be a race to see who it will be.
As for the campaign as a whole, it took me a bit to get into it but once I did I was just as invested as I’ve always been. I loved the twist on classes some players took, especially Taliesin with his magically infused barbarian. Give me more Exandrian punks! This campaign did a great job connecting all that came before and telling a story of a world, not just a group of characters, and as I said before, asking big questions about the structure and origins of that world.
That all being said, I hope the next campaign is much more disconnected. I don’t want Critical Role to fall into the Star Wars trap of only exploring one small chunk of its history over and over. Maybe a story set far from all these places we’ve seen before. So no Vasselheim or Whitestone. Just a whole new part of the globe like most of Campaign two. After an Avengers Endgame level, three campaign crossover like this, it’d be nice to get some distance from it. I’d also like them to spend more time as low level fuck ups just getting into low stakes, yet silly scrapes. I’ve been watching Dimension 20’s StarStruck Odyssey and what I love about it is, even with an overarching story, they are just a gaggle of idiots most of the time and Critical Role could use some more of that. With Campaign three, it felt like we got right into the deep end with everyone’s backstories and we ended up with, even after four years, a lot of untugged threads. So I guess what I’m saying is, I’d like to see more side quest before the big bad comes calling.
As for the off screen future of Critical Role, there are also changes coming. For one, I’m almost positive they’ll be switching systems to Daggerheart, the system they created. It just makes the most sense since they have their own system and Hasbro/Wizards continues to be an awful company. Once the D&DBeyond sponsorship disappeared, the fact that Wizards didn’t immediately assign someone to keep that relationship healthy is one of the biggest fumbles I’ve seen since Jonathon Majors. But this is the company that let its relationship with the studio behind Baulder’s Gate 3 dry up as well, so I’m not surprised. All that being said though, I will miss D&D if they do switch. But maybe I’m just getting old and starting to fear change a little more. It’s been ten years of mostly good times but all the things I started watching from back then have disappeared or morphed into other things. Critical Role has been one of the few constant bright spots for me and a lot of others over a wild decade in the world and I hope we have many years ahead. I’m glad it’s still kicking after all these years but nothing last forever. Ugh, I’m making myself sad. Let’s wrap this up.
What did you think of Campaign three? Favorite moments or characters? What do you think will come next in Critical Role Land? Let’s talk about it in the comments and as always, death to the algorithm.
*playing with action figures* Oh! I didn’t see you there. I was just- uh- having a little fun. Much like they did on the first season of Skeleton Crew! Imagine that. A Star Wars show that’s fun! What a time to be alive. Let’s talk about it.
Skeleton Crew is a fantastic new show set in the Star Wars universe starring Jude Law and, get this, some kids! That’s right, it’s obstensivly a kids show, Goonies style. That of course isn’t to say adults can’t love it, I sure did, but this show seems to try and get back to it’s Star Wars roots and move back toward their target demographic of kids and away from the toxic basement dwellers who throw a tantrum online every time a person who doesn’t look like me picks up a lightsaber. And boy howdy what a welcome move that is. This show was such a blast because of it. Seeing the very familiar Star Wars universe through, extremely sheltered, kids filled the story with heaps of wonder and whimsy that has been missing from Star Wars for some time. Don’t get me wrong, I love stuff like Andor that’s very adult and grounded or mythical shows like The Acolyte (see my review here), but sometimes it’s good just to have a silly adventure with no galactic consequences.
In fact, one of this shows greatest strengths is just how little it has to do with the rest of the Star Wars universe. There were no shoehorned cameos, no characters from other shows or movies, no connective plot threads. If you’ve never gone out and seen yourself a Star War, you’ll understand like 95% of this show. This makes it the perfect gateway drug into the universe, which is why it’s so smart to aim it at kids and hook ‘em young. That’s drug dealing 101! There are still Easter eggs that lifelong fans will get but none of them are essential to the story and really just make for good, immersive story telling. That isn’t to say that the revel of The Supervisor as a giant computer wasn’t a little disappointing though, as I personally was hoping it would be Honda Oknocka, but I’m glad they aired on the side of keeping the show self contained in the end.
This is a total side tangent but, speaking of Easter eggs only the old heads will get, wasn’t great to see Jaleel White in something again? A lot of the TGIF stars I grew up watching either disappeared into the ether or turned into assholes so it feels great when one of them makes it out alive, reputation intact. I mean two thirds of the Home Improvement kids are locked up aren’t they? So yea, it was nice to see the original voice of Sonic The Hedgehog out there working and having fun. *sigh* Fuck I’m getting old. Anyway-
I think my only real complaint with the show is how abruptly it ended. The finale cuts to credits almost the instant the action is over. I could have used a least a small epilogue scene, set maybe a week or so later, showing me the kids getting back to life and Atatin interfacing with the New Republic. Maybe even set up a season two. But unfortunately, in this nightmare age of streaming, even the best stuff is never guaranteed a next season, so maybe they wanted to keep the show self contained in a completely different sense to hedge their bets. If they are gonna do a season two, and I hope they do, they better act fast. Kids don’t stay kids long and I’d love to see these young talents reprise their role. Although, I have a pitch for Disney if they do decide to wait a few years.
So here’s what you do. You wait till these kids hit their teens, then have them come back as these characters but this time they have to save a new batch of kids that have gone missing. Maybe Wym, now in training to be an X-Wing pilot, rounds up the gang to hunt down the pirates that took the kids hostage to gain access to the mint. Could be fun!
One thing this show has in common with something like Andor is it focuses on the oft overlooked section of the Star Wars universe, the average person. Living in a universe that’s full of space nazis who follow an emperor clone and light sword wielding religious zealots with magic powers must be stressful. The adventures of ordinary folks, and in this case kids, as they eek by and try to do the right thing in the face of absurd power is always thrilling and empowering to watch, even when it’s a zany pirate adventure. Fortunately for us, we don’t have the same problems they do……right?
That is about where the similarities between the two shows end though and that gives me hope for Star Wars as a franchise. One of the great strengths of the MCU is that it can be molded into many different genres with a sprinkling of superheroes mixed in. For a long time, I thought the Star Wars universe wasn’t as malleable. But this show and shows like Visions have proved that wrong. Star Wars can do it all if you get the right creative teams at the helm. You can have your big mythological stories and your grounded political thrillers and your war film Clone Wars era stories (which I’m glad Filloni has started to move away from since, for a minute, every story happened in the same like 20 years), all set in the same universe and have it all work. Am I still excited for season 2 of Andor? Oh hell yea. Season one was one of my favorite Star Wars anything, probably topped only by The Last Jedi. But I’m also glad everything is not Andor. It’d get old real fast and it shows that the future of Star Wars is bright if it can tell many different types of stories.
But what did you think? Did you like Skeleton Crew? Are you excited for them to turn the whole show into a ride at Disneyland? Who do you wanna see in season two? Let me know in the comments below and like, subscribe and as always, dear to the algorithm.
Hello. So this channel has so far been almost exclusively about nerd shit, movies and music because that’s the shit I like. And I wish we had built a world where I could just focus on that and have a good time, all the time. But that is not the world we live in. So, in the interest of clarity, I’m gonna lay it all out on front street. I’m an anarchistic. If you don’t know what that means (don’t worry there will be at least one video on it in the future all about it), to put it simply, I’m about as far left as you can get. I’m everything Fox News has warned your racist uncle about. So naturally, I’m not thrilled about another Trump term. Out of all the bad options, he’s the worst. But no president is ever gonna stop this channel from being a place that is explicitly antifacist, antiracist, pro queer, space for people who aren’t shitty. That’s the line in the sand, so if you can’t get behind that, fuck off. For those left (and I do mean left), let’s talk about what we are gonna do.
First off, I wanna talk to the liberals who might be here. And when I say liberal, I mean the centerist who are not revolutionary and would just like to see some reforms to the current system so we could “get back to the way things used to be”. I know you’re gong through it right now and I don’t want to dogpile. But your time is over. The system you are trying to save is the problem. The good times you want to go back to don’t exist and probably never really did, at least not for everyone. We have tried your way for at least as long as I’ve been alive and now we are here. An election every few years, reforms, and participation in a corrupt system will not save us. At most, electoral politics can gum up the works and slightly slow the march of fascism. The time for begging and asking nicely for a better world is over. We need to start building that world now, by any means.
Where to start? Well if you knew me outside of this channel I think you’d be able to guess what I’m about to say. I’m a big union guy. You spend a disgusting amount of your life at work and I’m willing to bet, it’s far from a democratic arrangement. A union is the way to even out the power imbalance between you, your fellow workers and your bosses. I’m co-chair of agitprop for my branch of the Industrail Workers of The World. The IWW is a revolutionary union that is less focused on organizing a single trade and more in the business of training you to help organize everyone into one big union. So, I may be biased (and a bad Agitprop co-chair) but, I’d recommend joining up and becoming a Wobbly, but really any union is better than no union. It really is one of the front lines in the fight against capitalism and can have a huge impact if done well. So find one that works for you and start talking to your coworkers behind your bosses back.
But a workplace union isn’t the only kind of union there is. If you’re one of the many, many, renters out there, you can also start a tenants union. It’s generally the same idea but instead of withholding your labor as leverage, you withhold your rent. Landlords are a parasite on society and we must do everything we can to starve them. Just like your boss makes money by exploiting your labor, your landlord makes money by exploiting your need to have shelter. If you need it to live (food, shelter, water, etc.), it shouldn’t cost money. These organizations, because they use one of the two languages a capitalist system understands, profit (the other being violence), makes it the other front line in the fight for a better world.
Both of these tactics have the same goal but also the same drawback. The end goal of course is to have such a build up of strikes that it leads to a general strike that starves the parasites of society enough to kill them off, so to speak. We have a saying in the organizing spaces. We are building a new world from the shell (or ashes) of the old. So all these disruptions and demands are not rooted in a general upheaval for the sake of chaos. Things need to drastically change, yes, but we aren’t trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. I only say this because I know for some, the idea of revolution or any change is scary. But all this organizing and marching and strikes are to demand that, the people who should benefit from and be in charge of the world we create are the people who do the work to create the world, us.
But something that is scarier than change, at least for a lot of folks I know, is the main drawback for all these tactics of organizing. That is that, you’re gonna have to talk to people. Not just online in your bubble but to your coworkers, your neighbors, strangers. We have to build genuine relationships with people. It’s the only way to figure out who has your back and who you can organize with. You can preach theory at people till the end of time but it is infinitely easier to build solidarity if you like each other. And on the flip side, much easier to dismiss and ignore folks that are strangers to you. You aren’t gonna like everyone or agree with everything others think. Some people are too far gone and I’m no hippie here to tell you that you just need to love them enough for them to change. But you won’t be able to make it through the coming years alone. So find your crowd. I don’t like it either. I’m a vampire loner type too. Why do you think I’m talking to you over the internet? But it’s gotta be done. This new world can only come about and last as a mass movement and mass movements need the masses.
One thing I can already tell you about those conversations is you’re gonna find that most everyone is struggling. Being alive is too expensive and everyone is one missed check away from their life completely falling apart. This is where the next thing, and probably the most empowering thing, you can do comes in, mutual aid. The idea of a strike or any disruption to the delicate balance of their life is impossible when it could get you fired, evicted or worse. The powers that be have sent the last 50 years dismantling the social safety net so no one has the energy or inclination to do anything but survive. So we have to build our own support systems outside of the official systems and, to put it simply, take care of each other. Free food, rent parties, childcare, skill trades, tool sharing, transportation. All these things we can do for each other and make it easier for people to take risk. Capitalism has turned all these things and more into commodities that exist solely to turn profit. We need to do it because, to put it simply, it’s good to take care of people. I think you’ll find too that, after some initial awkwardness, you’ll find something all of us have been lacking in this modern age, community. So after talking to folks around you and figuring out what everyone needs, join or start a mutual aid network and start helping. All these years you’ve been giving your power away in the voting booth to people who do not give a single shit about you. Stop waiting for permission to build a better world and get out there. The less we rely on the power structures we have today, the less power they have. Like Tinkerbell, if we all stop applauding, they’ll die out.
Most of this so far has been targeted at people shocked by the election result and searching for a different way forward. But now I want to talk to all the folks like me out there who have been radicals a long time. Look, I know it’s hard but this is not the time for a told you so’s or for any “I’m more left wing than you” dick measuring contest. No one wants to join a revolution full of self righteous pricks. I think all the late night host have proved we are not gonna lecture and ridicule our way out of this. No Reddit thread comment or sick subtweet is gonna destroy the fascist threat. We also have to accept not everyone is gonna read Marx and Lenin or Goldman and Kropotkin for that matter. It’s our job to know the theory so well that we can break it down in simple and effective strategies and messaging for folks who don’t want to read 170 year old dry ass tomes. FD Signifier has a great new video that I’ll link below that explains this better than I probably can but we must be making our own cool art, podcast and communities. We need to lead the masses to revolution but we gotta have fun doing it. Joy is in itself an act of resistance. So let’s wait until after we’ve stomped out the fascist to start telling the liberals that we could have had our better world 20 years earlier if they listened to us. For now, we got work to do.
So in case you needed to know where me and this channel stand, this is it. I hold only a few simple maxims close to try and find my way through this increasingly hostile world. One, no one has the inherent right to rule over another. No kings, no presidents, no bosses. You are your own authority, so act like it. Two, all power should be limited and temporary. Power itself is illegitimate until proven legitimate. For example, say you wanted to fix the potholes in the street but only your neighbor Rick knows how. Everyone would come together and say, ok Rick, you’re in charge of fixing these potholes. Tell us what to do. Rick would be in charge but only to tell you how to fix the potholes and once they were fixed, Rick has no more authority. Instead of how we do this today which is beg the city to fix the potholes, no one does it, you run an expensive campaign to elect Rick to some position that can tell someone else to fix the potholes but he’s also in charge of a million other things for several years. The former seems like a better system to me. Third of my closely held beliefs, not my circus, not my monkeys. What I mean by that is, unless you’re funding me, fucking me or friends with me, what you get up to isn’t really my business. So if you’re gay or trans or religious or whatever, as long as it’s happening between consenting adults, not my business.
Lastly and really, most importantly for our discussion today is, if we are gonna have society and a human civilization, its purpose should not be profit. Civilizations purpose should be twofold. To alleviate human suffering and to maximize leisure. We are currently burning the planet and everything on it in the name of making a few already rich pricks even richer. This just doesn’t make sense. It has just never made sense to me that we use so much energy and ingenuity just to make money. With just a simple change, from profit to human wellbeing, we could solve so many problems. A green energy transition will be too expensive? Who cares! Automation and AI are gonna take my job? Good! One less thing I have to do. We don’t want to hurt the healthcare industry’s bottom line? That’s an insane thing to say in a world where we take care of people because they are people and not a profit margin. Since I was a kid, the fact that some have too much and some have nothing has never made sense. Why are we doing this society thing if it’s not to make it easier for everyone to have a good life? We have enough to feed, cloth and shelter everyone if we just stopped trying to make a buck while doing it. For me, that’s what it all boils down to. After all, the economy is a human invention. Why shouldn’t work for all humanity?
Look, I‘m not gonna lie to you and say it’s all gonna be ok. It’s not. Things are gonna get much worse before they get better, if they get better at all. I’m an eternal pessimist. What keeps that pessimism from becoming nihilism is a healthy mix of spite and a love of humanity. Everything I talk about on this channel, art, music, games, food, has all come about because humans broke free of their existence to create something beautiful or silly or dumb. I would love for the world to become a place where everyone could take part in that creation. But if instead we continue down the path towards our demise, I’m at least gonna go down swinging.In the description I’ll leave links to some stuff to help you get started. Until next time, death to the algorithm and death to fascism. See you in the streets.
This must be the age of villains as we just had not one but two great TV shows focused on some truly evil folks. While very different in tone and look, both deal with the nature of power and what you have to give up to get it. It just be the season of the witch because we are talking about Agatha All Along and it must be winter because, The Penguin? I don’t this cold open got away from me. Just roll the intro.
Before we get into what these shows have to say in tandem, let’s look at them individually first, starting with Agatha. I admit I was skeptical of this show at first. It’s an odd case of being a spin off of a spin off and those rarely work out. I was afraid it would be WandaVision (which I liked by the way) season two without the main characters. That assumption wasn’t entirely off base. In the first episode we are reminded of the framing device that I liked so much in WandaVision, trapping Agatha in a police procedural. But the show quickly takes a turn into it’s own territory onto a path of being completely it’s own thing. Although, I still don’t think I could recommend this to someone who hasn’t seen WandaVision first. Much like the rest of the MCU, this interconnectedness is both its biggest flaw and greatest strength. It’s the price you pay for continuity story telling I guess.
That one small gripe aside, if you could even call it that, I loved this show. To start with the obvious, the cast was stacked and everyone, including folks I was unfamiliar with beforehand, brought their A game. It seems to me it’d be easy enough to just get that Marvel check and phone it in if you’re a big name like Aubrey Plaza, Kathrine Hahn, Patti LaPone, etc. But no one, as far as I could tell, did. They all seemed like they into it and having a ball.
As for the show itself, it was so well thought out and precisely written. The twist and reveals were so well sprinkled throughout the show and wrapped everything up so satisfactorily, I was honestly shocked by how expertly all is revealed. From Audrey Plaza being Death to the witches road being a construct of Wiccans mind, it was beautifully executed. This is something I harped on in the last episode of Pitch Please on this channel (which you should go watch) but this is why you need to know your ending when you start. You can tell these creatives knew where they were gonna end up and worked backwards from there to sprinkle in just the right amount of foreshadowing and connections to tease their way to a satisfying prestige, if you will. The divination episode I found to be especially great as it wove its way though the rest of the previous episodes bringing context to something that at first glance seemed only to be a bit about the weird fortune telling witch. You know I liked that an episode because I normally hate tarot and all that other mystic shit.
This show is also gay as hell and I love it for that. Not to poke the toxic fanbase or anything but, as a straight white cis dude, I’m so bored of seeing shows about people just like me. Representation matters and not just because it’s good for folks to see themselves onscreen and not just because it’s good for little folks who look like me to see folks different from them on screen and realize they aren’t so different, therein building empathy for others, but also because, rather selfishly, I’m tired of only seeing my perspective on stories. I know what it’s like to be me. I wanna see new angles on the world, both real and fictional. I don’t recall there being a straight white dude in the whole show and honestly, it’s refreshing.
I think my only nitpick with the show is again not really with the show but with the MCU as a whole and that’s that I like these characters but who knows when we will see them again. It seems reasonable to assume that Marvel is racing towards a Young Avengers, which has probably only accelerated since the Jonathan Majors debacle, but who knows how many years away that is. The MCU just has too many loose ends and cool characters floating around, waiting to be brought back. Because of the break neck pace of the last few years, Marvel has signaled they are gonna slow down and put out less stuff, which just means long times between seeing these characters. I’m very much in favor of Marvels slowing down though. We only had two Marvel related things this year (What If Season 3 is coming soon as well) and both of them are great. Focusing on quality of quantity wins the day again but it seems for 2025 Marvel is ignoring that signal and barreling through with five shows and three movies. I’m excited for them but I do worry. If they have another rough streak as they had recently, t might be the death of the MCU. So cross your stretchy fingers Fantastic Four pans out true believers.
Moving from the happy go lucky world of Marvel over to Gotham, let’s talk about this amazing first season of The Penguin. I loved The Batman for nailing the gritty realist take on a character that so many other superhero films fall short of and had high expectations for anything based on it that this show consistently met and exceeded. Much like Agatha, every actors and every department absolutely crushed it. This show truly is a high bar for genre television. Every episode flew by, with no filler, that it really could have been an eight hour movie and. Would have been fully invested. But I’m also one of those sick freaks that likes 8+ hour movies.
The star of the show is obviously Colin Ferral as Oz Cobb, which I personally think is a dumb name and not really a change that was needed but whatever, who, under heavy makeup, gives a stunning performance. The whole of the show is set up to portray Penquin as a sympathetic villain only to subvert that in the end by showing his true colors as someone who is truly evil. In fact, that perception of him as an everyman underdog is just another tool he uses to obtain the power he is so desperate for. His speech to the other gang leaders sounds so much like a spiel I’d give to get people to unionize it’s frightening. The way the character uses the truth to weasel his way to power should be studied by organizers so they can keep watch for those that use all the right language but are not actually interested in revolution but just their own personal power. If we can’t recognize people like that, we might just find ourselves and any movements we are apart of in Vics shoes. Unceremoniously smothered once these so called leaders have what they want.
Speaking of Vic, what a performance of such a tragic story. Here’s a kid that just wanted a life a little better than he had and Gotham just kicked him down at every turn. Then, just when he thinks he’s found his ticket to everything he wants and he’s traded any morals he had to hitch himself to that horse, he’s dumped like trash, dead in the park. He acts as such a great audience surrogate because he is not interested in power for power sake. He just wants the forgotten people of the city to get theirs and for that, he has to die because the people can never get the power they deserve. If they did, there’d be none left for the Penguins of the world. And I’m sure I’ve said something similar about other shows but, when the girl you’re into and is obviously into you, says to come with her to Cali, you get your ass to Cali. Will Hunting didn’t end up face down in the dirt, did he Vic?
I think the only real qualm I have with the show is something that has been floating around the internet, the absence of Batman. It didn’t really cross my mind for most of the show, which shows you how engaging it is, until the bomb went off in the underground drug lab. Then I thought, Batman might have noticed that. But then again, as we saw in the preceding film, he’s new at this. Maybe he’s just too busy chasing down small time bliss peddlers to find his way to the big fish in time. After all, he doesn’t yet know the city as well as the gangs if, like in the comics, he left to train for his formative years. So it wasn’t so far fetched that he was no where to be found. It was really strange not to have some interaction with Gordon though. At least a press conference or something. But this is a very small gripe and I better cut myself off here because I could praise this show for hours.
I used a word a lot so far in this review and that is because both of these shows ultimately revolve around it, power. Both shows are about villains obsessed with obtaining power at all cost. And no matter how much power they have, it’s not enough as long as someone has more. In Agatha, we she how power affects women. All the witches realize men have to power in society and look for ways to get some back. But as they do, they are punished and cast out from society to maintain patriarchal order. The only one of their coven that starts with power, subconsciously punishes them for obtaining their power, and ends the journey with any power is a man. A gay man, but a man none the less. Some women hope to obtain power to help uplift and protect other women but there are those like Agatha who, although they recognize the power imbalance, still only seek power to hold others like her down. She hopes to become part of the system and not to abolish it.
In the end, Agatha doesn’t get what she wants and finds a slight hope of redemption. Oz on the other hand gets what he wants and loses everything worthwhile. He is so blinded by his psychotic pursuit of power that any humanity he has must be killed or locked away. Sofia, on the other hand, is born into that power and thinks she’s above it, that i’s unimportant, until it’s turned on her. Then she realizes just how devastating it can be and even just by association can stain your soul and tarnish your humanity. Even then, she is addicted and tries to use what’s left of her power to escape and get some revenge as she climbs out of the cesspool and back on top. But that stink never comes out. The problem isn’t these people, but instead the systems of power (both in these fictional worlds and our real world) that are inherently based on exploitation. Can power be used for good? Yes, obviously. But only when wielded properly and horizontally. Otherwise it is a corrupting force that harms those exploited by it and those wielding it.
Anyway, I should probably wrap this thing up. What did you think of these shows? Excited for more? Comments, questions, concerns, critiques, death threats, they all go down below in the comments. Subscribe and all that jazz and, as always, death to the algorithm.
Hello again and welcome back to Pitch Please. It’s a show all about guiding you through something new. I’m your host Jason and this episode we are talking comics! But we aren’t talking the big two. No we are talking about a newer publisher on the scene, creator owned DSTLRY Comics! Oh fancy…
Before I drill down into DSTLRY, let me show my bona fides a bit and talk about my love of comics. As you can probably guess just from looking at me, I grew up on superhero comics. (Shocker) As a kid, my neighbors uncle used to sell comics for a dollar each, every year at their annual garage sale. It was mostly 90’s trash (complete with wild body proportions and infinite pockets) with gimmick 3D lenticular covers, but I was like 10 so those gimmicks worked on me and I was hooked. As I got older, I fell off of superhero comics (for reasons I’ll get into), replacing them with superhero movies and more adult (ie pretentious) graphic novels. I stopped reading DC and Marvel books and started reading stuff from Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, and the like.
As I got older, I also started to learn the stories of the people who made some of my favorite books and noticed a theme of them getting absolutely boned by the corporations they were writing for. I’m thinking of people like Alan Moore with Watchmen, Bill Finger with Batman, or Shushter and Segal with Superman. It seemed that, just like the rest of the working class, the creatives I loved were being exploited by creating some of the most recognizable and profitable characters in fiction and never seeing the fruits of their labor. You shouldn’t be able to invent Superman and die penniless.
It’s all possible through a trick as old as the creative industry. In case you don’t know, when you make anything for a big comic publisher, most of the time you’re under contract with them. So whatever you create is theirs. You’re just the hired gun. (It’s the same idea behind all the gig apps like Uber and Doordash. It’s a nice little trick to get out of giving people the benefits of being a full employee)The trade off is that, theoretically the corporation has the resources so that, whatever you create, will be seen by more people (and you’ll get a bigger upfront check). Theoretically. Even if you aren’t creating characters whole cloth, any story you write or picture you draw, is theirs to do what they see fit with. So say, years down the line, there’s a multibillion dollar movie that is inspired heavily by something you created, while it may be cool, you won’t see a dime.
This changed in the 90’s when Image comics came along. Image offered artist the chance to publish their work and keep the rights to whatever they created. Image wasn’t without its controversies (chronically late books, tensions amount partners leading to lawsuits, the 90’s comic bubble crash, etc. It’s almost like they had a bunch of artist in charge of a company. Weird.) but this strategy seemed to work out for them in the long run. They are now the third largest publisher out there and have put out some of the all time most influential comics in history (Spawn, The Walking Dead, Invincible, god damn Saga. It’s a star studded list). It’s almost like if you give creative folks room to be creative, you have a higher chance of getting quality work. Crazy.
The brings us to DSTLRY, which seems to be looking to replicate that Image success, albeit in a simpler, smaller, and more modern way. DSTLRY was started by the guys behind Comixology, the digital comics reader (another thing that Amazon has gobbled up and essentially destroyed). Now, I’ll be straight with you. I don’t trust these suits as far as I can throw them. Unlike with Image, they are not artist, they are business men (which means they are not in it because they like comics. They’re in it because they like money.) and business men are not to be trusted. (That might be our first evergreen rule on this channel. Let’s put it on the board.) For example, while the company stresses that their digital collectible comics aren’t NFTs, they certainly smell like NFTs. So before I go heeping praise on the books they’ve been pumping out, let me be clear that just because they’re a corporation that has realized that giving the creatives that give your brand value a steak in the company, thereby aligning your wellbeing to their wellbeing, does not mean they aren’t still a corporation at the end of the day.
Disclaimers aside, DSTLRY is making one business decision that I do agree with in that they are copying that Image model. Artist and writers not only get to keep the rights to their creations but the founding creators even earn equity in the company. So if their books sell and the company does well, they do well. Rising tides and all that. What that means is, say some all consuming media conglomerate comes around and wants to make a movie based on, let’s say Gone by the artist known only as Jock, then instead of the company who just happened to print the book and happens to have a relationship with Diamond Distributors, raking in the dough, Jock makes that money and, crazy thought, could even work on the movie based on the book he made. (If only there was some way for all workers to get the value they create and own the means in which they produce value in common. Hmmmm)
But for any of this scheme to work you have to have some damn good founding creators and attract some big talent with big ideas. In a business dominated by to behemoths, it’s a steep uphill climb to even be noticed, so you need some heavy hitters (and, in the case of a few folks, whose name alone can move a few units). Well between the founding creators and the folks currently slated to have books put out on DSTLRY, it seems the these business types went deep into their Rolodex to call in some award winning titians from around the industry and world to write a book of two and have ended up with an absolutely stacked list of creatives. (Kids, a Rolodex is this mechanical device we had before cellphones…never mind)We have the likes of (and apologies if pronounce any names wrong here) the aforementioned Jock, Becky Cloonan, Marc Bernardin of podcast fame, Jamie McKelvie, Scott Snyder, Chip Zdarsky, and on and on. This a group of people that have put out some of the best comics this century and here they are, under one label, given what seems like free rein. (At the very least there seems to be no restrictions on content, style or genre)
So far, hiring the best comic book writers and artist has paid off. Every book DSTLRY has put out as of writing has been good or, often times, better than good. There’s any genre you can dream of here (except, notably, superheroes.) from western to sci-fi to romance to heist. Each with enough of a twist to get deep hooks in you. Plus, the art in some of these books is stunning. It helps that all their books come in this oversized, magazine dimensions that really suck you into the artwork. I love a big ol’ physical piece of media (He said in front of his 1500 records. Admittedly, this doesn’t make them harder to store but I think it’s worth it). When you make something this size, it feels like a statement. Like a celebration of the medium. Maybe it’s the American in me but, bigger is usually better (I can hear you snickering) and these are some hefty comics.
While the physical size of the books may be supersized, one thing I really like about DSTLRY is each story is only three or four issues long, with the exception of Life which is listed as being six issues. But still in the single digits. The big two could learn a thing or two from this approach. Actually, I think this is gonna take us to a new segment, Side Rant. Come join me in my old man corner.
One of the things that caused me to fall off of superhero comics was the tendency for them to spin out into multiple books with long arcs over hundreds of issues. For example, I started reading the Ta Nehisi Coates run on Black Panther month to month. It was a really interesting take on the character by a great writer who was from outside comics. But then that single book spun off into three books and, if I recall correctly, was broken up by one of those crossover events that superhero comics love so much. I stopped reading because I simply didn’t have the funds to collect that many books every month. It was just too much. And not just for me but for you, the publisher, too judging by the amount of times you have to reset the continuity. It became unwieldy and the story just fizzled out. And for my money, the ending is the most important bit!
So here’s my pitch. Less is more. Instead of ongoing series with no real end, limit the story to a maximum twelve issues. The artist pitches a story for the character THAT MUST INCLUDE AN ENDING, and that goes for movie producers too. People only remember the ending so it’s best to start there. Then you stagger your books so there’s always something coming out but in a way that there’s always a number one each month and readers know there will be a satisfying end to the story and a fresh jumping on point regularly. So it’d be like: Superman: Luthors Revenge: 1 of 7, or whatever, and once it was done, new creative team, new story, new number one. Everything as an interconnected collection of miniseries.
Granted, it has been a while since I bought single issues so maybe the big two are already doing this and I just don’t know it. I read Absolute Batman #1 recently and it appears that all these Absolute stories will be miniseries. In which case, I’m really showing my ass here. All I know is, if there’s a book with a lot of hype out, I usually wait for the collected softcover or the big hardcover if it’s really special. Maybe that’s just me and I’m yelling at clouds again. Anyway, rant over. Back to what we were talking about.
Ok, where were we? Oh yea, DSTLRYs short and sweet runs. I love this approach as it’s concise and means you always have something new on the horizon. But I will admit, it’s a double edge sword. It is a very hard thing to world build in three issues, especially if you’re doing something a little more out there. Gone, the book by Jock I mentioned before, is a prime example. This book takes place in what seems like a deep, interesting universe with a lot of characters and factions I’d love to see more of. But with only three issues, you really have to focus on the one story you’re telling. That’s not to say Jock couldn’t come back and expand in further series but maybe he’d rather move on to other things. In the end, it’s always better (in fiction, movies and playing music) to leave the audience wanting more rather than have them grow tired of you.
And let me tell ya, boy do I want more of these books. No matter what book you start with, you’re gonna get quality. I’m gonna go over some of my favorites but I’d honestly start with the first book the put out, The Devils Cut. This compilation book serves as a great taste of everything they’re doing over there at DSTLRY. It’s like a bunch of trailers for these comics. You can read through this and figure out which stories you want to get or keep an eye out for. DSTLRY has only been around for about a year, so there’s not so much backlog that you’re going to be way behind on. The only just started putting out collected hardcovers (That I very much like as well). So not everything in The Devils Cut has been expanded into a full book yet, but plenty has.
A lot of what I’ve read are just number ones so I’ll start with the aforementioned new hardcovers. The first, Somna by Becky Cloonan & Tula Lotay, is the story of a woman at the height of the witch trials having an affair on her witchfinder husband with the devil…in her dreams. (I can’t do it because I’ll get a copyright strike but, if you could put the band Witchfinder General on in the background here while I talk about this book, that’d be ideal) If that synopsis doesn’t do it for you, I don’t know what will. I love how this book uses its setting and the supernatural to explore how society was (and let’s face it, still is) openly hostile to women who dare to reach for power of any kind. And how other women, instead of coming together in solidarity, use that hostility to turn on other women. The addition of the actual Devil only serves to bring out those gulfs between the powerful and powerless. Plus the art is fabulous, switching from a more traditional comic art to this soft watercolor look when the character is in the dream world. I won’t spoil the ending but, while I liked it, I did wish it’d go a slightly different way. (As always, I was rooting for everyone to burn)
The second collected hardcover is a book I’ve mentioned a few times already, Gone by Jock. I first became aware of Jock when he did a book with Scott Snyder called Wytches that creeped me the hell out (in a good way of course). His art in that book was so experimental and different that it was hard not to become engrossed in the book. In Gone, Jock is doing everything, so the art is a little more traditional but still with great design and incredibly inventive page layouts and panel work. This world feels grimey and lived in but with the scale of the future in its giant slums and looming ships (making use of the large format book). The story is that of a kid who, while tying to steal supplies from a luxury interplanetary ship, gets trapped aboard, stranded for possibly many years back on Earth (The ship travels at light speed so it’s your classic case of one year for her is like six back home. Or is it the other way around? You know, that old gem.). The fact that they cover so much story in just three issues is kind of mind boggling. There are many twists and turns and factions and politics that sort of get glaced off of in pursuit of telling the main characters story well. But as I mentioned before, I’d love to spend more time in this world.
Lastly, they just released the collected Blasfamous by Mika Andolfo. This is the story of a new religion secretly run by demons, using immoral pop stars to turn faith and worship into drugs. It’s a wild concept but also not so far fetched if you’ve ever been around religion in your life (especially here in the states). Just imagine one of those megachurches plus JoJo Siwa. The art is lovely and borders on cartoonish with big spreads depicting angels and demons in battle. The story was fun but once again I was a little lukewarm on the ending. (It falls into the cliche I think a lot of big heady stuff like this falls into. High fantasy, sci-fi, cosmic stuff, it all gets to a point where it’s so out there that only a mcguffin of twisted internal logic, a special sword, a spell, the right code, can reset the story stakes arms race that had been going on beforehand. In comics, it’s usually in stories with cosmic multiversal enemies like The Anti-Monitor or Eternity) Other than that, I liked it a lot. It was the weakest of these three so far but I still had a great time.
That does it for their collected editions, so I’m gonna quickly run through my favs of the #1’s they’ve put out. Now, for these, I’ve only read the first issue. So if the ending sucks, I’m sorry, I’m waiting for the hardcover.
Let’s start with my favorite, White Boat by Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla. I don’t have many fears (some would say I have almost a complete lack of self preservation) but one big fear I have is water. The last six times I’ve been in a body of water, I’ve almost drowned. So we have an understanding now and I stay on dry land. (I’m even nervous in the shower at this point) So, I cannot think of a worse place to be when a Lovecraftian nightmare kicks in than on a cruise ship in open ocean. I’ve liked almost everything I’ve read by Scott Snyder (I wasn’t big on Dark Knight: Metal or The Batman Who Laughs) and he has scared me before with a comic I previously mentioned he did with Jock called Wytches. But this one feels like it’s targeted at me. Plus the Hellboy-esque, tattoo worthy art really adds to the atmosphere with it’s thick line work and jagged edges. (If you’re thinking of getting almost cliche tentacle tatttoos, get it in this style instead to mix it up) I’m really excited to see where this one goes. (And if anyone has an unsigned copy of the seven inch they put out with this book they can spare, slide into my DMs.)
Next up, Life by Brian Azzarrello, Stephane Philips, and art by Danijel Zezelj (again, so sorry if I mispronounced any of those names. I’m hopelessly white). Now, this looks like any other DSTLRY release except, what’s this? *flips book around* What the hell? Which side is the front? Up is down? Topsy turvy. This is actually a cool way to tell the same story from to different angles. One side from the perspective of a band of criminals looking for a score on what they think is an abandoned planet and the other side from the perspective of the mutant prisoners on that planet, with the two stories meeting in the middle. I have the first two issues of this because I think this (for lack of a better word) gimmick is so interesting. That’s why I love small publishers. They have the freedom to experiment with the format in a way the big two would never. Gimmick aside, it’s a cool villain on villian story that I’m actually gonna collect all six issues of. That’s like 12 stories! (Talk about bang for your buck)
Lastly, let’s talk about Spectregraph by James Tyrion IV and art by Christian Ward. Like White Boat, this is another horror book, this time set around a billionaires mansion (at least it’s on land this time) and the cult dedicated to whatever he’s building in there (insert Tom Waits reference here). These billionaires are always up to no good. They are not to be trusted. In fact, let’s update the board. (*adds billionaires to earlier rule*) The art is surreal yet crisp and like White Boat, really sells how unnatural all the goings on are. This real estate agent (and all around terrible mom) is in deep shit for sure. (Although, the housing market is so bad, I’m sure I know a few people who would take the house, murderous cult and all, if they could get it for cheap) I hope this gets collected soon so I can really spend some time in this unsettling mansion.
Those three are just my favorites but honestly, every book that’s come out so far has been good to great. I can’t wait to see what comes next. They’ve recently announced (or released depending on when I put this up) a few holiday one shots and have teased some upcoming books that all look intriguing, even if I’m not familiar with any of the names attached. But that’s actually what I would like to see from DSTLRY. Don’t get me wrong. I can think of a few names I’d love to see do books for them. I’m thinking Sean Murphy, Crom, Alexis Zeritt, Ben Passmore, Kelley Sudiconik, Andrew MacLean, etc. But the DSTLRY M.O. is great for new talent. You don’t have to worry about a new team tanking sales on a popular character or shoehorning their take into a bigger continuity and 3-5 issues is relatively not too big a commitment to take a chance. DSTLRY is what the world needs more of. Less big, risk adverse companies, churning out sequels and remakes and more smaller companies taking chances, making mistakes, and getting messy (to paraphrase Miss Frizzle). It’s been a banger year of books and I can’t wait for more (even if I’m very skeptical of the digital collectible side of things).
Well I think that about does it for this episode of Pitch Please. What are your thoughts? Have you read any of these books? Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Let me know in the comments along with any other comics talk you want. Do all that normal YouTube stuff with the liking and subscribing and shit and I’ll see you in the next one where we will talk about film photography. But until then, death to the algorithm.
Not so long ago, I was lucky enough to get this record a week early when I took the three hour road trip with my friend down to Cleveland to see one of three “secret” shows Bright Eyes was playing with Neva Dinova. Unfortunately, after a solid opening set by Neva Dinova, Bright Eyes came out and, well, Conor was fucked up. He had blown out his voice to the point of barely being able to talk, much less sing, he couldn’t remember lyrics, had real guitar tech problems and eventually after a set cut short, sat on an amp and talked about wanting to to kill himself. It was a truly depressing night and I guess I just wanna talk it out. So let’s get into this new album and what it’s like to watch someone you admire fall apart live on stage.
Let’s start with the record, Five Dice, All Threes. Musically, this record is full of upbeat and midtempo songs that occasionally breakout into bombastic guitars and big pounding drums. One of the lead singles, Bells and Whistles, sounds like it could be a Target ad. Aside from that though, the bouncy tunes mostly work for me. One of my favorites, Rainbow Overpass, feels like a mature version of The City Has Sex with its fuzzed punk sound that pushes the song forward with enough energy to pogo to if you felt like it. Really, that’s something you could say for most of the record. It’s a more mature and experienced version of a band that has been around for awhile now. Gone are the days of basement tapes and lofi jams or of sprawling poetic stomp alongs. Instead we have the tight production similar to that of their pervious record Down in the Weeds, that is from musicians that are focused and have plenty of experience to draw from. The biggest change might be that Conor has abandoned the over compressed, tightly double tracked sound on his voice, that I personally never a fan of, to return to a more naturalistic sound. A very welcome change if you ask me.
To contrast with the joyous tunes (there are two or three slow, piano heavy songs, but even they have extra instrumentation and production experimentation that keeps them from being straight forward sad piano songs), lyrically this record is cynical, nihilistic and most of all vicious. Conor seems to feel like all the warnings he sang about on previous records have come to fruition and the people who are supposed to guide us, save us and give us hope have betrayed us. One such target is religion especially with songs like Hate, where Conor rails against all the conmen who have taken advantage of the downtrodden and led us to this special hell we have built for ourselves called the 21st century. He also seems to be grappling with getting older. This may be me projecting (I am writing and recording this a day before my 36th birthday so age is on my mind) but it feels like he’s going through something a lot of people loosely acted into the millennial generation are feeling. Amongst most my friends, there’s always been a sense that we wouldn’t make it this far. We all seemed to privately come to the conclusion that we would kick the bucket or the world would end by the time we were thirty and for too many of us, that was true. But for those of us that are still around, we didn’t really plan this far ahead and, frankly, judging by the state of things, it would have been pointless to try. It’s a fucked up and idiotic world out there and most of the time it doesn’t feel like there’s anything worth saving. We are tired and angry. Two of the main ingredients for hopelessness. And this record drips with that hopelessness and a failure to find a way to cope.
Which brings us to the not so secret warm up show at Beechland Ballroom. After getting an email with a link to tickets, my close friend and I got ourselves an airbnb (we’re old and can no longer drive three hours, see a show and drive back in one go) and headed down to Cleveland. As I said, Neva Dinova opened, playing some stuff off of their new record Canary, and it was a solid set. The songs were great to sway in place to and they caught and kept the audiences attention, which is no easy task when people are there for one specific act. Everything was added up to have the potential for a special night. The Beechland holds maybe 400 people, so it’d be the smallest venue I’d ever seen Bright Eyes in (Fun fact. The only other time I’ve been to the Beechland Ballroom was to see IDLES and not long after, they wrote a song about it. Or at least titled a song Beechland Ballroom). It was also a warm up show so maybe they’d play some songs they hadn’t played in awhile or have some fun stage banter while they figured stuff out. It’s not often you get to see such a big artist in such an intimate setting, so the crowd was tingling. Unfortunately, after a couple of songs, a bucket of cold water was thrown on that excitement.
From the beginning, you could hear something was up with Conors voice. It wasn’t its normal cathartic broken sound but something much more painful sounding. Apparently, he blew it out in the six days of practice leading up to the shows and the band has since canceled several dates on orders from a doctor (They actually just cancelled their shows for the rest of the year and honestly, the more I thought about it, it’d be terrifying to be a singer songwriter and be in danger of losing your voice. So here’s to a speedy recovery). Very unfortunate but ultimately the right call and if that’s all that was wrong it still would have been a good show (I can relate to this though as in the past, the less people in the audience, the harder I went in my bands and I was guilty of leaving it all on the field during practice). Unfortunately, in what seemed like an effort to self medicate, Conor ended up pretty drunk. As the show progressed, he stumbled through some of their biggest songs, forgetting lyrics, skipping whole sections of the set and by the end, letting the touring members of the band sing for him while he sat, head in hands, on his amp. There were at least ten minutes that he stopped the show and spent on a distortion pedal that didn’t seem to be working. He stumbled around, rambling and apologizing and in one too real moment talked about killing himself. After which he had to be reprimanded by Mike Mogis for brining it up on stage. The crowd morphed into a friend watching someone they care about lose a fight with addiction. We were watching someone who at some point in our lives gave us the strength to carry on, die on stage before our eyes. I don’t think anyone left there feeling hopeful for the future.
This would be bad enough if this was a one off occasion but unfortunately, it seems to be happening more and more and not just with Bright Eyes. The last time I saw Bright Eyes was at the Masonic Temple a few years back and at that show Conor was also almost too drunk to stand. At that show he also had dark rambled banter about being in the hospital and wanting to die. He even hurt his wrist falling off he stage at one point. It was a mess. I believe that tour ended in flames, if I recall. Online, comments suggest this is a typical Bright Eyes show. He’s always been this way, they say. That’s not the defense you think it is. In fact that makes it much worse. This pattern of addiction is not sustainable in the long term and you can’t help but wonder why it’s continuing. I’ve seen Conor play with some of his other bands and he seemed simply happier and more engaged (I’ve actually seen Conor play eight times. Four with Bright Eyes, twice with Desaparcidos, and twice with the Mystic Valley Band. He was definitely the most relaxed with the latter). If this band is leading you to your worst instincts and addictions and your addictions keep you from doing essentially what is your job, maybe you just gotta stop. But what can we do as fans? I don’t know Conor Oberst. Aside from a handshake and a few pleasantries, I don’t know him from Adam. As fans are we doomed to watch as someone important to us slowly marches to their grave? Is it the most that we can hope for that someone close to him can help and not just watch? I don’t know the answer I just know something has to change. Too many artist are melting down and cracking to the pressure. Bright Eyes and Conor are just the one I’m most familiar with but evenly we’ve seen a spat of folks lose it onstage. We are killing our idols in the most literal way. But I’m sure that Oasis reunion will be smooth sailing.
I know no one from the band will ever see this (I mean, I’m averaging what? 30 views a video?), but if I could talk to Conor, I’d say this. What are you doing man? It seems like this thing, this band, is killing you. So stop. Get some help. Just as an outside observer/long time fan, if the choice is between churning out a few more albums and tours where two out of three shows are passable until you burn out (to borrow a phrase from another doomed poet type I’m a fan of) and quitting but living longer, I’d take the latter every time. The world is better with you in it. And you’re right. Those who are in power, and especially the ones you’ve championed in the past, have betrayed our whole generation. They took our hope for change and used it to profit from the status quo. But you can’t let that send you down the spiral of nihilism because that only benefits the bastards. Use that betrayal to motivate you to help build a better world without the people you’re railing against on this and other records. You’ve written some amazing songs about the problems in this world and the pain it causes. You should stick around to write the anthems of the better world we are gonna build together and tell the stories of how we got there. You don’t want to make music anymore? Fine. Sculpt, paint, garden, write a novel, fly a kite, anything. Just stick around cause the world needs someone watching and holding them to the flame. It needs you. We are all rooting for you. Feel better.
Anyway, that about covers it. What do you think? What is the responsibility of fans if their favorite artist is obviously unwell? Did you listen to this record? What’d you think? Let’s talk about it in the comments and as always, death to the algorithm.
