'Nuff Said: American Graphic Media

The Avengers was a great movie. While excessive descriptors are sure to come, this essential truth might be loss. The Avengers is an action movie, thus it suffers from its summer movie mass audience mission.  Yes, the Avengers has massive special effects, and unlike some recent 3D efforts, I think the Avengers used the 3D for the benefit of the film, not simply to drive up ticket prices. Yes, the film has great cast.  The actors did an excellent job, Robert Downey, Jr. has found his stride as Tony Stark/Iron Man, and I think Scarlett Johansson really evolved the Black Widow as a character. Mark Ruffalo' Bruce Banner/ Hulk provide a nice counterpoint to Tony Stark/Iron Man and Whedon smartly put the two together.  Jeremy Renner did a great job as Agent Barton (never really got called Hawkeye...exactly. Like much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his take on Hawkeye has more to do with Marvel Ultimate Comics than the classic Silver Age Marvel, but that point is ...

Vidhu Aggarwal, editor of specs asked me to write a review for volume III. specs is...well, specs. From the webpage: specs a journal that aims to produce a charged atmosphere around artistic and critical approaches. Hence, specs is willing to live in a constant state of flux, with the mission of propagating strange and involved sympathies between disparate genres and forms. We want to break down hierarchies between poems, fictions, and critical writing. We hope for see pages, warped conversations, and misappropriations between areas of content. Vidhu, like a lot of my colleague at Rollins, is extremely smart and when I listen very hard I can kinda follow what she says. Case in point, I am helping out with volume III, which has a theme of "toys" in contrast to volume II, which had a theme of "faux histories." It will actually be a very interesting issue. She knows my interest in comics-- it is not some dark secret I hide from the world --and she suggested I revi...