Confessions of a Pop Fan

Monday, November 05, 2007

HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS

Item: After concluding last year's Permanent Records project, I had it in my head that I would do a new feature called "What's the Criterion?" that would focus on Criterion DVDs that I watched. This never quite happened, largely because I had burnt myself out so much on that weekly music project, I didn't really feel all that energized to start yet another series, no matter how intermittent.

Well, at the urging of my DVD editor, I am finally going to undertake that project, though in a slightly altered form. I have set up a new offshoot blog called Criterion Confessions to gather all of my Criterion DVD reviews in one place. Right now, I am working on reprinting my DVD Talk reviews from the past, but shortly I will start to write about other discs. Being my own blog, the format will be bendable. In fact, I am thinking one of my inaugural original pieces will be exploring the connection between David Lean's Brief Encounter and mine and Marc Ellerby's comic Love the Way You Love.

Item: Last week, two Andi Watson trade paperbacks hit comic book stores, a new edition of Slow News Day and the first collection of his and Simon Gane's Paris.

My connection to these books is small, but meaningful. I did a late-in-the-game proofreading on Slow News Day before the original trade came out, and I am quoted on the inside cover of Paris. Here is my blurb:

"When reading Paris, one's head swims as if we ourselves were Andi Watson's love-drunk heroine. His scripts make our knees weak, but Simon Gane's art catches us as we crumble, completing the seduction with casual grace."

And I mean it, kids, it does!

Current Soundtrack: iPod shuffling, coming up with Raymonde, Kylie, Interpol, Garbage, Klaxons

Current Mood: active