By Chris Kromphardt
Staff Writer, Justice Administrator

Skottie Young lives 10 minutes away from the town in which I grew up.

Allow me to amend that: recently-named Eisner Award winner Skottie Young lives in the Illinois town that’s home to my high school’s arch rival football team. Think Friday Night Lights, only with cornfields instead of cattle ranches, and you’ve got an idea about how I view this place. It hurts me to say nice things about it.

Normally, having a comic artist living near you might not be anything to make a fuss about. But both towns are what I like to think of as suburbs of the suburbs of Chicago, small enough that the high schools drew from “feeder” junior highs — needless to say, not too often does something exciting happen.

I first found out that Young had moved nearby a few years ago on a trip back home to my local comic shop. For a while this was always just something kind of cool to me and other people back home who read comics. However, that changed when Young won the Best Penciller/Inker Eisner last Saturday for his work with writer Eric Shanower on Marvel’s string of mini-series adapting L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels. By change, I mean that once again, I was faced with explaining to people why I like comics.

In a piece I wrote last summer that got mentioned on Newsarama, they took a shot at the title of my column. “Comics still need defended?” they scoffed. While it’s probably easy to take a stance like that when you write for a big-name comics web site, in the real world it’s a little different. In my experience, people who don’t read comics generally don’t get comics. They wouldn’t get, say, why I nod my head in recognition when I read something like Brian K. Vaughan extolling how the “very pure, undiluted creative vision” of comics is part of what makes it “the best form of storytelling ever created.” Needless to say, anytime I get it in my head that I’ve got to persuade someone of the merits of comics, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

This includes my mom. When I first heard Young had won, I called home to tell her because, as a reporter for a county — I told you they were small towns — newspaper this was the kind of human-interest story I knew they like to run. Describing the Eisner as “comic’s Oscars,” I launched into how cool it was that a guy who lived nearby had won and that the paper should totally do a story. “Chris,” she told me, “that’s nice and all, but it’s 11 o’clock at night and I don’t care right now. I’m going back to bed.” Twitter keeps different hours than a reporter for a small newspaper, I guess.

We touched base again a few days later, after my mom had had a chance to pitch the idea to her editor — to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting, listening to two middle-aged women talking about comic book artists, would have been incredible — and began talking questions should Young agree to an interview. And while we talked, I realized I was again doing something I’ve always struggled with: expressing what makes comics special. Why I had gotten excited in the first place to find out that a guy who lives in the cornfield-town next to my own cornfield-town who makes his living working on the bazillionth iteration of the Oz stories had won an award.

I still can’t explain it to my satisfaction. Perhaps Stephen King was right when he wrote, “[W]ords shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out.” Perhaps it’s because comics are by design more than words: they’re words accompanying pictures, inert on the page but waiting for the reader’s imagination to give them life in the mind.

All I know is, so long as I keep getting excited by even the most trivial in comics, I’m going to keep trying to explain why.

Front page photo from conventionscene.com, interior photo from Skottie Young’s official Facebook Fan Page, Ozma of Oz cover from comicrelated.com.

ARTIST: Foo Fighters
ALBUM TITLE: Wasting Light
RECORD LABEL: RCA
RELEASED: April 12, 2011

By Chris Kromphardt
Staff Writer, Justice Administrator

“These are my famous last words!” Dave Grohl howls on “Bridge Burning,” the opening track of the Foo Fighters latest album, Wasting Light. That declaration is, of course, untrue, but now that Mr. Grohl and company have your attention, they’re not about to relinquish it. The title Wasting Light suggests an urgent demand for your attention, and it suits, as this is one of the Foo Fighters’ most aggressively infectious albums in some time.

The Foo Fighters began a bit of a mellowing phase around the time of their double-album In Your Honor, which featured half rock songs along the lines of what you’d expect from them, and half more stripped-down, acoustic songs. The approach worked, particularly on songs like a duet with Norah Jones called “Virginia Moon” that showcased Grohl’s trademark growl reduced to barely a whisper. The Fighters’ next album, 2007’s Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, was a bit of a blend of the approaches on IYH, and while a solid effort, winning the Grammy for Best Rock Album and notching hits like “The Pretender” and “Long Road to Ruin,” it lacked the balls-to-the-wall, manic energy fans had come to expect. Fortunately, WL sees the Foo Fighters return the balls to where they belong: firmly on the wall from the word “go.”

While more of what fans like is always good, it’s also important for a band to grow. “Everlong” and “Learn to Fly” are awesome, but we don’t need those songs repeated ad nauseum until each new album sounds exactly like the previous ones. And the Foo Fighters, bless ‘em, have managed to broaden their sound just enough so that it’s fresh and new again. Probably the best example of this is the song “Arlandia,” where Grohl borrows just enough from Queens of the Stone Age frontman—and fellow Crooked Vulture—Josh Homme to embolden the track from a good song into one that wrenches in to your brain, and one that I think could enter the Foo Pantheon in time.

Presenting here a slew of tracks that instantly feel like old friends, the Foo Fighters have crafted another great album. The first single should effectively “Rope” (pun intended) fans back in after a four-year interim between albums, and they won’t be disappointed by the intensity they’ll find here. I sure wasn’t.

RATING: 8/10

Visit wastinglight.foofighters.com to listen to Wasting Light before it is released, on April 12.

Front page and interior photo by Steve Gullick. Courtesy of RCA.

ARTIST: Rise Against
ALBUM TITLE: Endgame
RECORD LABEL: DGC/Interscope Records
RELEASED: March 22, 2011

By Chris Kromphardt
Staff Writer, Justice Administrator

Rise Against has long been a committed member of a group of contrarian rockers, which includes Rage Against the Machine and Against Me, who were so adamantly against something—the Man, likely—that they needed to adopt band names that really drove that point home.

Over several albums, they have rarely varied from their instantly recognizable song template—soaring vocals, passionate yet frequently platitudinous lyrics, and solid rock instruments. Theirs is an easily accessible type of hardcore, mixing screaming and loud instrumentation with familiar song structures; this approach to making music is further demonstrated by songs like the excellent, yet kinda emo “Swing Life Away.” For a band so antsy to be contrarian, Rise Against is remarkably—and Orwellian-ly—adept at branding themselves as the casual rock fan’s hardcore band.

None of this is negative criticism; I love Rise Against. Their music contains just enough piss-n-vinegar raging against the machine to scratch the radical itch developed during my teenage years that I never quite left behind. For me—someone who grew up in a small town just outside the Chicago suburbs—listening to Rise Against provides the same kind of vicarious thrill I get from rap like Eminem or Kanye West: an intense yet still safe pseudo-identification with a counter-culture of which I could never be a part.

Endgame is more of the same Rise Against I’ve always loved, and that’s a great thing; why mess with a winning formula? 2008’s Appeal to Reason was probably Rise Against’s greatest divergence from style, but even that was only evident in a few songs, particularly “Hero of War.” Endgame, then, is a return to the all-systems-go approach perfected in 2006’s The Sufferer and the Witness, a subgenre felicitously dubbed “melodic hardcore”: lack of dissonance characterizes these twelve songs to a “T”. There aren’t really any standout tracks either way — I’ve listened to Endgame beginning to end at least four times, only repeating a few songs, because each one’s solid. That in itself is an accomplishment — a well-paced album that rocks from start to finish.

If you listen to rock music, you probably already know whether or not you like Rise Against. With this review, I probably won’t persuade anyone to abandon those notions. But maybe, if you’re musically omnivorous, you’ll give Endgame a shot and perhaps appreciate the unique balance a band like Rise Against strikes between rock purists and an accessible sound.

RATING: 7/10

Front page photo from alterthepress.com, interior photo from interscope.com.

TITLE: Paul
STARRING: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Seth Rogen
DIRECTOR: Greg Mottola
STUDIO: Big Talk Productions, Relativity Media, Working Title Films, Universal Pictures
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 104 minutes
RELEASED: March 18, 2011

By Chris Kromphardt
Staff Writer, Justice Administrator

2011 is shaping up to be the Year of Rampant Spielberg Fanboy-ism, and Paul, the latest film to star the British comedic pair Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, is the first homage out of the gate. It is the pair’s first collaboration since 2007’s Hot Fuzz, and the first without director Edgar Wright, who was occupied with directing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. However, as eagerly anticipated as Paul has been by fans of both Pegg and Frost and Spielberg, perhaps its release in March—sandwiched as it is between the tail end of the deluge of Oscar-nominated films and the beginning of the summer blockblusters, and usually a dumping ground for movies that do not quite fit into either of these categories—is a sign that Paul might not be the film fans had been hoping for.

Granted, Paul may have been fighting a losing battle from the beginning. The other movies that qualify 2011 as the YoRSF—this summer’s Super 8 and the holiday season’s first installment of Tintin—are being released in more traditional times of the year for big movies, and feature the involvement of the man himself, Steven Spielberg, who seems to be staging a return to making the types of high-adventure movies that made his a household name. But Pegg and Frost have a devoted following of their own, accumulated thanks to films like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and the television series Spaced, so Paul faced greater expectations than simply being a send-up to Spielberg. Because of this fan base’s lofty expectations for Paul to be on par with their previous films, the filmmakers had their work cut out for them; consequently, the (almost) lack of Spielberg cannot be completely blamed for Paul’s failing to hit the mark.

Paul tells the story of two friends who are acting out one of their biggest dreams: traveling from their homes in Britain to America to visit San Diego Comic Con and tour the American Southwest, checking out Area 51 and other extraterrestrial landmarks. Their expedition is interrupted by the arrival of Paul—voiced to stoner perfection by Seth Rogen—an alien who crashed to Earth during the Forties. Paul, who’s been serving as a veritable PR representative for all-things-ET in pop culture during the last 70 years, senses he has worn out his welcome on Earth, and enlists our protagonists to help him flee the planet. Along the way they meet up with a fundamentalist Christian—a, at the risk of redundancy, weird Kristen Wiig—and are chased by federal agents, played by Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, and Joe Lo Truglio.

Paul’s not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a disappointing one. The cast has proven comedic chops, and previous collaborations by Pegg and Frost, while parodies, were engaging—the characters were of course funny, but you also cared for them and were interested in what they were doing. That is not so much the case with Paul, where once the characters and plot are set in motion things just kind of coast. Perhaps this is partially due to Wright—Pegg and Frost’s friend and frequent collaborator—not being in the director’s chair. A change in the chemistry that produced the brilliant humor of Shaun of the Dead may be the proximate cause of Paul’s, well, unremarkableness.

And that is Paul’s most salient feature: in a year where it is popular to harken back to some of Spielberg’s most iconic films, it is not enough go small and safe. You have to shoot for the stars.

RATING: 6/10

All photos from rottentomatoes.com.

TITLE: Rango
WITH THE VOICE TALENTS OF: Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Ned Beatty, Abigal Breslin, Bill Nighy
DIRECTOR: Gore Verbinski
STUDIO: Nickelodeon Movies, Industrial Light and Magic, GK Films, Blind Wink. Distributed by Paramount Pictures.
RATED: PG
RUN TIME: 107 min
RELEASED: March 4, 2011

By Chris Kromphardt
Staff Writer, Justice Administrator

It seems to be the thing with American animated films—previously the now all-but-extinct ones with hand-drawn animation and now those with the near ubiquitous computer-rendering—that they’re crafted to appeal to both kids and adults. Whereas animated films from Europe and of course anime may not hesitate to tackle more complex and adult stories, in America the story is almost always told simply enough that young children can follow along. Of course, the level of detail and control that animation enables means that filmmakers can throw in the occasional sly wink or innuendo to keep older audience members engaged.

Rango’s a little different, however. This fact, for me, was hinted at in the first trailer that I saw. Seeing a chameleon that looked like one of those journo-lizards in the bar in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, wearing Raoul Duke’s Hawaiian shirt, voiced by Johnny Depp—I knew this was going to be a movie I had to see. Coupled with some of the most gorgeous animation this side of Avatar—courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic—Rango’s a film that fits into a rather rare niche of American cinema: the animated film that puts the grown-up audience first.

This, of course, is not to say that Rango’s like Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Beavis and Butt-head Do America or, thank God, Team America: World Police. Rather, through its clear homages to the western genre and its brilliant subversion of those archetypes, Rango dares to take itself seriously. Not so much that it’s an austere film at all, far from it, actually. It is a movie for people who love movies.

Image from rottentomatoes.com.

Like most Westerns, Rango doesn’t have an overwrought plot. Previously terrarium-raised and with only toys for companionship, Rango finds himself somewhere—outside Barstow—in the Mojave Desert after a freak car accident rips him from his sheltered life. Having honed his performance skills as a way of keeping himself entertained—and, as a chameleon, he’s a natural at assuming roles—Rango is able to win over the locals of the desert town of Dirt with his bravado and charisma, and takes up the mantle of sheriff. A dwindling water supply provides the ostensible conflict, and to say much more would spoil the treat of watching the story unwind.

Rango is voiced by Johnny Depp (also the lead in Fear and Loathing) and I can’t imagine any other actor playing the role. It’s great to see him really sink his teeth into a role in a way he hasn’t done since Captain Jack Sparrow, and he’s perfect with Rango’s schizophrenic inhabiting of role after role. Ned Beatty, who after this and Toy Story 3 appears to be the go-to-guy for voicing malevolent characters in animated films, plays the Mayor, and a swath of other big names—from Alfred Molina to Isla Fisher to Bill Nighy to Timothy Olyphant—round out a cast that is just superb. The only problem sound-wise with Rango is that sometimes it is a little hard to understand what some of the characters are saying. There was an entire song sequence where I didn’t understand a word.

I have a hunch, and while I can’t confirm it I still think it’s pretty sound. It goes like this: given the number of people who worked on both this and the Pirates of the Caribbean flicks—Depp, Nighy, director Gore Verbinski—Rango became a pet project for that crew. With its delightfully weird cast of misfit characters, coarse dialogue, and almost hallucinatory method of storytelling, this is, as I said at the beginning, not your standard animated film. However, thanks to the marquee-quality names attached to it, I think Rango may find a place among mainstream audiences, much as, say, The Nightmare Before Christmas did: an irreverent story that utilizes the unique possibilities of animation to tell a truly memorable story.

RATING: 8/10

Front page image from getthebigpicture.net.
For more from Johnny Depp, check out The Tourist and Alice in Wonderland.

Jaques. Image from mycosmicdna.com.

By Chris Kromphardt
Staff Writer, Justice Administrator

The Media Center at John F. Kennedy Elementary and Junior High School in Spring Valley, IL is a fairly small room, filled with books and other materials available for use by the hundreds of students who go to school there. Its modest size, however, does not betray the considerable influence its contents have had on the countless adolescents who over the years have scoured its shelves for something, anything that looked interesting.

My reading tastes as a junior high student around the turn of the millennium were largely dictated by what those shelves had to offer. This was before The Craze That Was Harry Potter had swept too far through the youth lit landscape. Without a strong guiding beacon, I found myself wandering amongst those stacks looking for something, anything that might appeal to an introverted 12-year-old boy.

The influence of many of my discoveries during this phase of my life still resonate; while I’ve moved on from reading the likes of John Grisham and Richard Adams, Michael Crichton and Terry Brooks, I can fondly remember poring through those books, titillated by some of the foul language and violent scenarios, held rapt by the sheer breadth of the stories they contained as compared to anything I could find on TV (remember: this was before the ascendance of the internet), all while my reading tastes were being decisively honed every day by people I would never meet, and yet, after spending so many hours reading their work, I still felt like I knew them.

And yet none of those authors had anywhere near the impact as Brian Jacques.

Mr. Jacques, who died Monday at the age of 71, was best known for writing the Redwall series of books, and from the moment I pulled that first thick book with a mouse on its cover off the shelf I was forever changed.

For the uninitiated, Redwall is the name of an abbey found deep in the Mossflower Woods. It was the home of all sorts of “good” creatures—mice, moles, squirrels, otters, the occasional hare, and, of course, at least one badger. These anthropomorphized creatures were the protagonists of Mr. Jacques medieval-tinged stories; each species was like its own separate race, from the everyman-archetypal mice to the perilous hares of the Long Patrol brigade who lived at the mountain Salamandastron to the oh-my-God-awesomeness that were the badgers. Of course, what good are protagonists without those who threaten their peaceful way of life, and Mr. Jacques showed devilish imagination at conjuring up baddies who tried to conquer Redwall and its inhabitants: Cluny the Scourge, a rat; Slagar the Cruel, a fox with a harlequin mask; and my favorite, Ferahgo the Assassin, a weasel with impossibly blue eyes who was as merciless as he was brilliant.

These characters brought so vividly to life by Mr. Jacques’ prose—the original Redwall was written by Mr. Jacques for blind children; his descriptions of both feasts and battlefields were therefore a special, sensory-ridden treat—didn’t just inhabit Redwall Abbey and Salamandastron; they lived in my imagination. And they still do. It’s been years since I picked up one of the books, but the first fourteen or so are still sitting on my bookshelves in my old bedroom back at home.

When I learned Monday morning that Brian Jacques, a man I’d never met who was nonetheless the conjuror of more of my juvenile flights of fancy than I’d probably care to admit to, had died, I felt like I’d lost a friend. But I take solace in knowing that I’ll always have the well-read and well-loved books that are sitting in the bedroom in which I grew up—and the memories.

Front page image from penguingroup.com.

ARTIST: The White House Band
ALBUM TITLE: The Method EP
RECORD LABEL: Cap City Records
RELEASED: November 9, 2010

By Chris Kromphardt
Staff Writer, Justice Administrator

For a band that self-promote as a mix of ‘70s guitars, Kid Cudi and the Roots—their sound’s a blend they dub “New Vogue,” which features rap, rock, and blues, and is surprisingly apt—the White House Band make a statement with this collection of four tracks.

The first thing you’re going to notice listening to this EP are the instruments—they’re distinct and they’re loud and they tend to overwhelm front man David E Beats. On my second listen, I paid particular attention to Beats’ lyrics, and they still didn’t grab me. He does however up his game on “Sky High,” a song that’s not on this EP that reveals a better-balanced mesh of the band’s considerable collective talent.

Photo from mi2n.com.

The White House Band would remind me of early Linkin Park—back when they were known as Hybrid Theory—if that band hadn’t been so committed to the tight songs that populated their debut EP and first few albums. Both bands freely mix rap and rock to produce distinctive sounds that aggressively grab your attention. Where TWHB really start to shine is when they tend to let a song just ride: their ‘70s influence is especially apparent on songs like “Maybe Tomorrow,” with the extended guitar riff.

The bottom line on The White House Band is that The Method EP is an uneven but promising first effort. It’s definitely worth a listen on their web site at www.thewhitehouseband.net—not the least reason being that “Sky High,” also available on the site, builds on and is a better showcase of their intriguing sound. For an act that’s not even a year old, I think we can expect to hear a lot more from this independent Brooklyn band.

The Method EP: 5/10
“Sky High”: 8/10

Front page image from truestoriesradio.com.

ARTIST: The Decemberists
ALBUM TITLE: The King is Dead
RECORD LABEL: Capitol Records
RELEASED: January 18, 2011

By Chris Kromphardt
Staff Writer, Justice Administrator

With The King is Dead, the Decemberists have gone from just being a band with a weird name—apparently a variant of an unfinished Tolstoy novel—that I was sort of familiar with to one whose back catalog of albums now has me wondering what kind of gems it might hold. A catchy, well-paced album, King presents a welcome opportunity for the alt-rock dabbler to get better acquainted with the somewhat intimidating (they did take their name from a Tolstoy novel, after all) guys and gal of the Decemberists.

I knew the Decemberists as a band with a reputation for distinctive songs; you always knew it was them. Colin Meloy’s clear singing voice and articulate songwriting are the key distinguishing characteristics of any Decemberists’ song. For me, those hallmarks always set them apart from the myriad similar bands you might hear on any alt-rock or “indie” radio station; the casual listen aside, though, I’d never checked out a complete album of theirs.

Photo from facebook.com/thedecemberists.

While I can’t say that The King is Dead will make the Decemberists one of my favorite bands, it definitely upped their position on my radar. It’s a very listenable and accessible album, and if, like me, you’ve ever wanted to get more into them, this is as good a place as any to start.

It’s also a great way to study for the GRE—how many other bands are going to drop “panoply” into a song, as the Decemberists do in “June Hymn”? But you know what, it works. Meloy’s never going to team up for a duet with someone like Kid Rock (he could, however, pretty effectively mix with Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig); his nerd-rock stylings weave the eloquence of a classic novel with the simple yet strong instrumentation of folk music.

Some standout songs for me are “Down By The Water” and “This Is Why We Fight.” King is an album you can listen to straight through, but I found myself hitting the repeat button for these two. “Down By The Water” features an uptempo pace and well-crafted lyrics that have a way of etching themselves in your memory, while the quiet passion of “This Is Why We Fight,” the penultimate song on the album, serves as a fitting benediction to the album and a beautiful cry for freedom: “When we die/we will die/with our arms unbound/this is why we fight.”

A little folksy, and with the occasional shanty, The King is Dead is probably not going to reach a wide audience. But an album by the Decemberists likely isn’t going for that. So if you’re fan of thoughtful songmaking, give this album a shot. Otherwise you should probably steer clear, as you might get bored.

RATING: 7/10

Front page photo from decemberists.com.