Some of you on teh internetz may know a dude named Ryder Ripps. I know Ryder. My girlfriend introduced me to him and he’s an alright guy. Anyhow, Ryder has recently started a website that as he puts it is “Currently documenting a global phenomenon.” The website is Cornholio.biz and I suggest checking it out. Hopefully this isn’t just me and my timeless obsession with Beavis & Butthead that finds this site incredibly hilarious.

You can send in your own pix of cornholioing to r@internetarchaeology.org. Now go find some TP for your bunghole.

Mastodon – Crack the Skye (2009)

Vs.

Baroness – Blue Record (2009)

The Game is simple… if only one could exist which would it be?  What’s more important… personal relevance, cultural significance, or simply being the better album all other things aside? Choice is yours…

When Mikhail mentioned that a dude he knew was putting comic books into phones I chuckled at the notion, imagining somebody shoving Bazooka Joe comics into the receiver holes of a telephone. Or maybe calling a Batman hotline where he greets you with “Hey crimestoppers, turning down the thermostat saves money and that reminds me of a crook I captured! It all started when-” Mikhail explained that it actually had to do with releasing issues of comic books as downloadable content for iPhones, the Star Trekkiest device that exists in modern living. I have mixed feelings about this.

I have loved buying, reading and owning comics more than anything else since before I could read.  I still have the earliest comics I was given before I could read: Muppet Babies and Archie, for the most part.   I’ve always loved all comics and I used to read all that I could get my hands on. When I was twelve, I was reading Gen 13, Spawn, Sandman, R. Crumb, Will Eisner, my dad’s silver age DC superhero books, Punch Magazine anthologies, Madman, Impulse, etc… I loved it all.   Even when the comics upset me or confused me, I still read them.  When I first came to New York, being ten blocks from a comic store at any time almost led to my starvation since I would spend all my money on comics.  The size of my collection grew and grew until it peaked at twenty short boxes, three magazine sized boxes, and two bookshelves of just trade paperbacks and graphic novels. I’ve slimmed down my collection to a less depressing size and slimmed my depression down to a less debilitating amount, but comics are still the most important art form to me.

A lot of cinema nerdos hate that people watch movies on this teeny cigarette box sized screen. Music tardises hate CDs and MP3s. I don’t really know if putting comic books in people’s iPhones makes sense or not. I don’t have an iPhone, although I wish I did. I like paper, I like the comic shop environment, and I like owning a solid object. For people less fussy about how they absorb art and media, these concerns will probably not stop them from enjoying something they like in a more convenient form.

Mikhail set me up with John Roberts from comiXology who is involved with making current popular comics available for sale as iPhone downloads,  and we discussed his new thing.

Who are you? What are you doing?

My name is John Roberts and I am the CTO for comiXology, a website dedicated to comic books. I maintain the design of the site as well as do most of the development on it.

Do you remember the first comic you saw, read or owned?

My father had collected comics in college, so he had/has a decent collection that is boxed away, but he also had early trades like Bring on the Bad Guys and Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told. I would sneak into his office and read them when he wasn’t around, so I can’t tell you what the first comic was, but I remember reading his Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four in trade paperback format. The first comic I ever owned was probably Superman. I do remember when we went to buy my “first” comic, but I don’t remember what it was.

What’s coming out now that you like?

I really like Irredeemable from BOOM! Studios, Mark Waid is doing an excellent job. I consistently read Invincible, Madman Atomic Comics (although that’s over now), Ex Machina. My tastes have changed since I’ve gotten older, I seem to like the more off-beat, non-mainstream comics. I really enjoy The Walking Dead, I started reading that thanks to our iPhone Application.

Is Walking Dead non-mainstream? It’s getting made into a TV show and it seems to be the comic that non-hardcore comic readers talk to me about the most when they find out I like comics. They used to ask me if I liked Craig Thompson’s Blankets. I would say no.

It’s not Marvel/DC and its not superheroes, so I would consider it non-mainstream. Road to Perdition was based on a comic as well, but how many people know that? American Born Chinese is another great non-mainstream comic I enjoyed.

What is comiXology?

comiXology is a mixture of things, there’s the website, which lists all the upcoming comics coming out in the next few months and allows users to create a “pull list” of items they want to purchase at their local comic shop. There’s also our retailer tools that allow comic shop owners to have access to their customers’ pull list information to help them in their ordering. And finally there is our Digital comics initiative that allows users to purchase and read comics on their iPhone.

What is this that you’re doing, putting the comics into the phones? Do you know how crazy this sounds?

Not that crazy, the Japanese have been doing it for years, but it wasn’t until the iPhone that doing it in the US became practical. The resolution on the iPhone allowed us to take the original art from the publishers and use it without having to resize it or degrade the quality. But crazy does describe this whole strange journey.

“A strange journey” you say? To quote Rocky Horror callbacks, “How strange was it?”

This whole thing started because I couldn’t remember what I wanted to buy at the comic shop once I got there. That prompted me to create a Dashboard widget that allowed the user to browse the Diamond Shipping Lists, which prompted me to build the website (it was easier then building a Konfabulator Widget), which prompted my partner to enter us into the Stern Business plan competition (which we won), which evolved into what the site is now, finally ending up on the iPhone. Yet I still can’t remember what I want to buy when I go to the comic shop.

Mikhail told me about you putting comics onto iPhones. Tell me more of how that works, from the getting to the reading.

We have an iPhone App called Comics by comiXology which allows users to download and read comics on the iPhone. We went to great lengths to try and maintain the experience of reading a comic, so that means we leave the pages as is, and use cropping and subtle movements to navigate the page. I had my reservations, at first, about what the user experience would be like, but as I previously mentioned, I’ve been reading The Walking Dead solely on the iPhone. I like the idea of Digital Comics; there are a lot of comics that I’d love to read, but don’t want to own. This option allows me to get the stories, but not the clutter of owning the books.

I hear you on the clutter. I just bought the first two Marvel Zombies trades and they were awesome but I can’t see myself re-reading them. Every couple months I take a rolling suitcase worth of comics to Jim Hanleys to trade in for credit.

That’s good to know, I have a ton of trades that I don’t think I’d ever read again, that I’d like to get rid of.

So what’s the interface like? You see the whole page and then touch a panel and it gets larger?

We have a demo version of the player which we use to present our original comic Box 13 by David Gallaher & Steve Ellis of Zuda’s High Moon.

The player presents you a viewable panel. You can choose to have the full page shown at the end or the beginning of a page, and you can zoom and pan that image, but for the most part, you are presented with a cropped version of the page. You click to go forward or back and are taken through a “guided view” of the comic, which allows you to read the comic in the best means possible, with as little effort as possible.

It’s rather elegant, moving smoothly across the page, revealing the story, and, in some cases, displaying the story better because reveals are honest reveals, as opposed to the bottom panel of a page you can view in full.

A lot of nerds hate the idea of music or film on iPods.  Have you had any backlash to what you’re doing?

There are always going to be people who will prefer paper to digital, and we don’t want to see paper disappear, we just want to accompany it. The comic industry is really tough right now. Diamond Comics, the primary distributor of comics in the US, has increased the minimum number of orders on a comic in order for them to carry it. As a result, a lot of the smaller publishers are unable to distribute their comics. Haven Distributors has been working to help smaller publishers get their comics out there, and we’re hoping to do the same. Also, there’s a lot of stuff out there that I’d love to read, but don’t want to own, and digital distribution allows smaller publishers to reach a larger audience that wouldn’t normally buy their product.

What comics are going to be released this way?  Does it cost the same as the physical copy of the copy?

We have approximately 25 publishers, plus a “Creator Owned” category that is made up of various creators, and the list is growing. We have Marvel, Image, Red 5, Devil’s Due, Moonstone, SLG, Top Cow, Zenescope, Viper, First Salvo, Digital Webbing, BOOM!, Arcana, A Wave Blue World, AdHouse, Asylum Press, Bluewater, com.X, EigoMANGA, Evil Twin, AAM/Markosia, SLG, Studio 407, Th3rd World and our own label, which we will be releasing original content on the iPhone with. The first title, Box 13, is already available both on the iPhone as well as on our website.

And that’s where we left it.  If you are a person who commutes and likes the idea of comic books in your phone, then follow the links and see what’s up. Check out this video of how the thing works:

A.V. Club continues its Best-of-the-Decade series. There was the Best TV of the Decade I posted about last week, while this past Friday saw the site post their Best Music of the Decade. I’m not really going to comment much on that list because, truthfully, it’s more or less along the same lines as Pitchfork’s P2K (albeit much shorter). I would, however, like to give A.V. Club credit for acknowledging Metal and doing a Best Metal of the Decade list to compliment their general Best of Music. Since Pitchfork usually can’t be bothered to see past anything not named Mastodon or on Southern Lord, it’s great that a site with as wide and varied a readership as A.V. Club will, with this list, expose some of their audience to some great albums from this past decade. But let’s get onto the list, shall we?

The list’s author (Leonard Pierce) self-admittedly concedes that this list is not comprehensive, and is in no particular order. It’s main purpose is to try and identify as many of the great releases from this decade, from across the wide spectrum of Metal genres. So did he do a good job? There are some things that are spot-on, some that shouldn’t be there (and I don’t mean Toxicity… that was as good as commercial metal could have gotten this decade), and other things that were completely overlooked. One blatantly glaring omission is the lack of modern Thrash albums. Skeletonwitch’s Breathing the Fire was as close as he got to including any of those albums. Kind of sad, since this decade (especially the last 5 years) has probably produced some of the best Thrash since the late 80s and very early 90s.

But my main point for posting this was to hopefully egg on Prolly and Jack Crank to go off on it in the comments section. Come on guys, look at my lead image… you know you can’t resist!

A.V. Club’s Best Metal of the Decade

Well, I can’t review my own record, so this isn’t a review. And, I’m Jewish, and thus eternally wracked with grief/shame, so this isn’t shameless self-promotion.

I put this record out in October. It started out as a mixtape, but my friend Chris who mixes and masters stuff for me was kind of busy, so I had the bright idea to just put out a series of EPs instead. I’ve been rapping and making beats for a really long time, but career-minded drives—which turned out to be ambitious at best (read no fruition)—had me keeping hip hop on the backburner while I studied Tabla, John Cage, Traps, American Minimalism, et al. I rap constantly, but the realization of recordings, the solidifying of my epehemeral genius, was not anything I’d put much thought into since 2002 or so.

In April of this year I got denied from every PhD program I had applied to (5 of them). This was the third year in a row, and it was the last straw for me. My proposed research project would have been an analysis of sampling’s relevance in hip hop, and the ways that producers listen. Unfortunately academia doesn’t have much of an interest in hip hop when the focus is taken away from issues of race, and placed on the music instead. So, I decided that instead of trying to find a way to make music work in a non-musical context I’m better off just making music.

In June I started making beats pretty heavily, and in July I started writing and recording. By September I had amassed a healthy amount of tracks, and thus the deluge begins. I have another EP that should be coming out in January, and I’m constantly throwing tracks up on the blog. It’s hip hop for people that love hip hop, and people that don’t know they love hip hop. It draws from lots of different schools of sound, but it stays true to the idea that hip hop music is ultimately about winning at life.

Whatever Works is absolutely free to download and/or stream. The title is a catch phrase/mantra I’ve been relying on for years to stay comfortable in the world, but it doesn’t hurt that Woody Allen and Larry David made a movie with the same title (google hits).

The King Khan & BBQ Show - Invisible Girl (2009) [In The Red] // Grade: B-

There is something profoundly annoying about dudes convinced of their own comic genius, especially when said genius is predicated mostly on shit and cock jokes. Start a punch line with “up the butt”, “in the butt” or any variation thereof, and I’m usually bored—but admittedly, this might have something to do with my being a girl who didn’t have a teenage life filled with that stuff. I mean, there’s a reason I’ve never totally gotten on board with Superbad or Sex Drive, either. It’s not that I don’t understand the pull. I just don’t care.

Which isn’t to say King Khan & BBQ aren’t funny, or that they’re even so enamored of themselves that they actively try to be; it’s just that a song like “Tastebuds”—a pithy little jam about tastebuds on cocks, cunts, nuts, whatever—feels silly and indiscrete in tandem with the duo’s penchant for wigs and stage banter. But here’s the thing: The King Khan & BBQ Show have always been so inarguably great, both technically and compositionally, it’s easy to look past the dumb shit if it’s really not your thing. Humor aside, third LP Invisible Girl channels everything from The Byrds to Screamin’ Jay to The Five Satins in the authentic way they’ve been honing since 2005′s insta-cultish debut. It’s a sort of Crampsian formula: grab the best of first gen rock and soul, combine with any number of American cultural touchstones, add a few pussy jokes and a heap of retro production, et voila. Rabid fans galore. Of course, the difference is that where The Cramps were sexy as hell, King Khan & BBQ are straight up goofy.

Still, the goofiness doesn’t undermine the doo-wop opener “Anala” or dance-craze “Animal Party” (the silliest of the album, yes, but also the most musically spot on). And it especially can’t touch the high-school waltz of “Third Avenue”, a track that feels destined for a cherry-red Oldsmobile parked on Makeout Point or, better yet, a 60s prom. Invisible Girl does have its less-than-amazing moments—a quarter of the tracks feel a little like afterthoughts, as if they couldn’t be bothered to write more than a few seriously perfect throwbacks—but it’s mostly in contrast to the the duo’s previously raucous, and ultimately way more fun, releases. Take or leave the novelty, but do give the songs a shot; the best tracks definitely hint at musical genius, if not comic.

Girls haven’t looked so gross since Windowlicker.  Seriously, just check out the new Major Lazer video above.  The Video, again directed by Eric Wareheim of Tim and Eric fame, is pretty amazing.  It also happens to be my favorite song off the album.  Getatit.

Streetsboro, Ohio – 35-year-old John Ford was pulled over on suspicion of robbing a bank. While being frisked on the hood of the cruiser, Ford sees an opportunity and eats the note he used to hold-up the bank.

”He grabbed it in his mouth, just like Pacman,” (officer) Biada said. ”He just ate it right there.” (Source)

In Ford’s car, police found a .38 and a wad of cash covered in red ink from an exploding dye pack. The look on Ford’s face after swallowing the note is priceless.

This week, I was much more into Charlie Runkle trying to procure some coke for Rick Springfield than Hank’s family problems. His lackadaisical attitude towards Becca’s expulsion and Karen’s disgust for him was genuinely annoying. It wasn’t until the very last scene with Felicia that he seemed to stop being a parody of himself. Runkle, on the other hand, had it going on as the everyman fighting for his true love; saving her from Rick Springfield’s Hive of Coke. Is this the end for the Rickster? We’ll see. Charlie’s firing of him might also reap a serious backlash from Collini.

I didn’t buy Felicia Kooz’s “I’m tired of doing the right thing” line at the end. I dunno. Maybe it’s her accent, I just don’t see her as the reckless romantic. But Evil Rick Springfield I completely dig. He’s not even playing himself anymore, just an evil prick.

I have to admit that I used to enjoy the idea that Trinity had a sterling family life. It was an interesting wrinkle to his whole serial killer dynamic. It seemed interesting that the guy could be such a ridiculous creep, but still maintain a family life in a way that Dexter couldn’t comprehend. So when they began riffing on him being the typical psychopath that barely conceals his true appearance behind the feigned smiles of family members, I was sort of annoyed. It seemed too typical, too ordinary.

That was clearly before this episode.

This episode had one of the most insane scenes I think I’ve ever seen on Dexter. Now, I know that’s saying a lot, since there’s been countless mutilations and murders and other odd shit. But there has never been anything quite like the fucking mental breakdown that happened at Trinity’s house during a good old fashioned Thanksgiving dinner. I mean holy fuck, it almost makes my family look functional. No, seriously. I mean, what does an argument with your Uncle over politics have in comparison with Trinity breaking his son’s finger, his daughter trying to mack on Dexter’s dong, or his son throwing Trinity’s beloved urn across the god damn room?

Like, nothing.

And of course there was the most ridiculous moment. When Dexter interrupts Trinity, you know, choking his son to death by wrapping a god damn belt around Trinity’s throat? And then he drags him out of the living room and into the kitchen? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It seemed even too raw for Dexter. I certainly wasn’t expecting a full-on family meltdown, that’s for certain. Or to see Dexter about to stab Trinity to death in the middle of a kitchen floor, covered in potato shavings and other assorted holiday remnants.

If turning Trinity into a predictable serial killer gives me this sort of scene, then I’m okay with it. Well done, writers of Dexter. You made my butthole pucker for a good thirty seconds.

Then there’s the fact that Reporter Chick Who Shows Her Boobs Every Episode turns out to be Trinity’s bedeviled offspring! I didn’t see that shit coming. Are they some sort of serial killer Batman and Robin? She seems about the correct height to be responsible for pegging Deb with some hot lead. Or was she just doing her Dad a solid? What’s up?! Why does Dexter keep blowing my god damn mind at the every episode.