Joe Kubert - Another Legend Passes

The advert was in a copy of Wizard Magazine my mother bought for me at the grocery store. It popped off the page and declared to me the magical Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. Suddenly a boy who had been given countless sketchbooks and nearly filled them all had a target, a goal point on the horizon. I aimed to attend that marvellous school.

Things change, sadly, naturally, and I forgot about the desire kindled in the me of my childhood to attend Kubert's school. I never forgot the raw energy of the illustrations accompanying that ad, though. They remain vibrant in my mind's eye.

I was saddened at the news I discovered when I opened my email this morning around 3:00am. It said that Joe Kubert had passed away. The words were there as bold and as powerful as the man's inking, which I've greatly admired ever since I first saw it in Wizard. Another great image-smith from the good old days of comics has left us and a massive void in the industry.

Joe Kubert will be missed and will continue to be admired many, many years from now. I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to behold the man's stunning and powerful artwork. I'm thankful to have seen that ad so long ago and, later in my life, to have beheld his short piece in the first volume of Batman: Black and White. I'll not forget his character Tor. I'll always remember and appreciate his texts on drawing and his desire to teach those who longed to better themselves as artists. He was without a doubt one of the greats, truly.

Thank you for everything, Mr. Kubert. Rest well.

The X-Files - I Believe - Part 1

The title from the opening credits of The X-Files.

It has been a little over a decade since the hit Fox television series The X-Files left the air. After nine seasons and two films, the latest being released in 2008, fans still shout out their desire for more. They, like the series' main character Fox Mulder, still want to believe.

The show hit in the early 1990s and forever changed television. Drawing from inspirational sources of paranormal TV wonder like Darren McGavin's Kolchak: The Nightstalker and David Lynch's Twin Peaks, The X-Files went where no show had gone before. It was a television series in which FBI procedures and crime scene investigations were conducted in a seemingly mundane foreground while sinister, or sometimes not so sinister, supernatural elements thrived in the surrounding shadows. It was atmospheric, engaging, and accommodating to those who embraced the popular trend of 1990s paranoia.

McGavin, depicted here, starred as the sometimes frantic, open-minded reporter Carl Kolchak. Alliteration again marks the hero, I suppose.

Over the next few days and weeks I intend to revisit and comment on the many aspects of this series. It is a show which has greatly entertained me since my childhood and has served to introduce me to ways of thinking which have allowed me to consider the universe in which we all live in exciting and vastly different from normal ways. Through these posts I'll address the production of the series, the cast and crew, the X-Files' affect on culture, and my favourite episodes and moments from the show's long and healthy run.

Stick with me as I travel back to the mid-90s and move forward to explore that marvellous television program that was The X-Files. Please feel free to leave your comments, questions, and any suggestions on the blog post's comment section. I look forward to sharing my X-Files-centric writings with you. 

Also, I no longer seek what Fox Mulder sought for through his adventures I found something meaningful. His tagline, the one which followed him throughout the run and made for an incredibly popular poster, was "I want to believe." After reflecting on The X-Files and making the decision to compose these posts I've decided that instead of wanting to believe or seeking belief I can confidently say, concerning The X-Files, that I believe.

It's that point in the Ante Meridiem...

There's that moment when you're at the local grocer and find yourself wandering the aisles in search of something that may or may not contribute to the heightening of the quality of the evening. You find yourself in the wine section, the vintner's unofficial department of finery, trying on your fancy, your Fitzgerald, your monsieurs or madames, but then you say fuck it and submit to your basest self choosing the Hemingway, then sprinting through the checkout to your seemingly impatient automobile which points in a foreshadowing manner towards that seemingly blissful direction. 

It's at home where you fine the implement which has graced your life with the most splendour, the cork screw. After you employ it, attempting severe efficiency, you dive headlong into a hopefully endless, progressing series of blurred conscious moment after blurred conscious moment until you're there. The invisible door stands before you, your demanding hands find it and eagerly forces its portal. You're in. You're sotted. You're fucking drunk. Célébrer, ma soeur ou mon frère!

Now I write to your from the other side, from the soggy side, blurred out of hope of recovery until sleep carries me back to the bounds of reasonable safety. I've twisted the cork, turned the screw, and writ here a shameful admission of non-sobriety. To bed I turn in hopes now of ridding myself of the shame of the journey. Sober and rested may I be at the waking. Until then, away the spirit of spirits, the reek of winebibbery, and the drunken displacement of judgements.