Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth

What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I'd recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth (Feral House, 2001).



I've got a lot of time for bubblegum pop from the sixties and seventies, even if I did not know much of anything about its backstory before reading this very fun collection of essays. There's a lot worse out there than the Monkees and the Banana Splits, that's for sure.

Still, since the Rolling Stone-dominated American media has valued "authenticity" over fun, learning about this music has often required a little work, and Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth does assume a level of understanding about its subject that was sometimes beyond me. I think that I counted three references to the songwriter-producer team of Kasenetz and Katz before any of the writers identified who the heck they were. Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz are only just the people who supposedly coined the term and were behind the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. Among devotees, this would be similar to reading a book about the Ronettes and the Crystals and not knowing who Phil Spector was when you sat down.

I've been reading a lot of music history books lately - more to come in these pages! - and using YouTube to provide the appropriate soundtrack and fill in the gaps. I really liked this book's approach, using multiple writers and interviews to tell dozens of stories from multiple angles, even if some of the writers' enthusiasm overwhelms their material. A contributor called Metal Mike Saunders could really have tuned it down a notch or twelve, but that's just the dry and boring academic in me talking.

The book goes right up to the end of the 20th Century, even with bubblegum's heyday long behind it. Comic artist Peter Bagge brings the subject to the modern day with an illustrated essay about the Spice Girls and their clones and imitators (B*Witched, Billie Piper), correctly assigning credit and praise to Mel C, who surely deserves it. Did you hear her single "Think About It," by chance? It was only one of the two or three best singles of 2011. Truth, that. Recommended.

Star Wars Tales # 20

What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I'd recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of Star Wars Tales # 20 (Dark Horse, 2004).



As much as everybody has enjoyed Marvel's recent Strange Tales anthologies, which open the company's characters to a gang of unexpected creators, none of them really known for drawing superheroes, it is strange that the 20th issue of the old Star Wars Tales hasn't been mentioned more often. This is the spiritual ancestor of the Marvel books, in which the outgoing editor, Dave Land, commissioned many of the same people to have fun with the Star Wars universe. In most cases, this involves making fun of Jar Jar Binks.

Tony Millionaire has a good time with his story about Jar Jar's despairing father, George*. Peter Bagge, who has written some very entertaining political cartoons in his time, shows us how Jar Jar's time on the intergalactic senate is managed by some long-suffering handlers who have to explain exactly what the heck the upcoming votes are about. James Kolchaka, while not among my favorite artists, contributes a fun short story about an incompetent member of the Fett family. Assigned to kill Jar Jar, he finds a Jawa with a talking novelty cup from 7-11 and figures that must be him. Nobody really likes Jar Jar, but he certainly fires up some unexpectedly funny stories!

In non-Jar Jar tales, the often reliable Gilbert Hernandez has a short about Young Lando Calrissian acting like a rogue and passing as a Jedi to scam some naive locals, and Rick Geary plays it straight, unlike most of his peers, with a great Luke Skywalker story that turns into a clever piece of detective fiction. Best of all, however, is Bob Fingerman's six-page contribution that shows a Jawa turning away from the business of ripping off farmers to become a consumer advocate.

I really enjoyed the twinkling sense of fun with this comic, and the goofy willingness to poke fun at sacred cows, and Gungans. Possibly not for the humorless, but otherwise recommended. It's long out of print, but better comic stores may be able to source a copy for you. Shop around!

(*Astonishingly, Millionaire just reposted this tale at his blog. Somehow, possibly because I'm a shortsighted idiot who needs to be hit over the head to notice a clever pun, I failed to catch the deliciously good pun that is the name of Jar Jar's father, George R. Binks.)

Roadstrips

What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I'd recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of Roadstrips: A Graphic Journey Across America (Chronicle, 2005).



This was a curious book that purports to have a focus but it really takes a lot of hammering to get all of the stories within it to reveal that focus. I found a used copy for three bucks at McKay Books in Nashville and was very surprised to see the original retail price was an oddly high $23. For three bucks, I'll happily buy a book with original work from Gilbert Hernandez, Pete Bagge, Peter Kuper and Jessica Abel.

I usually have trouble figuring out a way to review anthology books and this is no exception. Like many similar projects, some work here is going to be more appealing than others, but what disappointed me about the whole project was that many of the contributors didn't really sell me on the ostensible thread that tied it all together. If you can bear this pompous product description from Amazon, the book sets out to explore "identity on both a micro and a macro level, [illustrating] today's post-modern patchwork with bilious narratives, thoughtful tales, and hilarious memoirs. Taken together, their powerful and thoughtful stories create a composite national portrait like few others." But I didn't get a sense of any regional identity or character from most of these stories. Megan Kelso's story about life in the time of the Green River Killer didn't really tell me anything about living in the Pacific Northwest, though it was very well drawn. Matt Kindt's entertaining contribution was a good story about family vacations, but didn't fit that description either.

Since my wife and I love road tripping, this seemed like it would be an exciting and fun read, but I was left feeling a little confused by the whole thing, and jarred by the massive differences in the contributions. I'm not talking just about different styles, but the feeling that each of the 22 artists was given a different set of instructions regarding what the editor was hoping from them. It also appears that the editor was either confused as to what constitutes "the south" (it ain't Arizona, friend) or he did not feel like contacting anybody from this region. True, the best stories in this book were worth reading, but they were not very long. Recommended if you like any of these artists, but for a lot less than the retail price.

Everybody is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations

Here's how this works. I read a book or two and tell you about them and try not to get too long-winded. This time, a review of Everybody is Stupid Except for Me and Other Astute Observations (Fantagraphics, 2009)



You know it's bad when crazy pinko leftwingers like me have become so inured by the increasingly rabid, neanderthal bellowing of the disaffected right that when somebody can articulate libertarian viewpoints coherently and persuasively that my response is one of shock. You mean there might be a genuine point of view held by the right that isn't scaremongering distortion? Holy crap, I hope they never let this guy near a microphone.

Anyway, Peter Bagge has been doing a spectacular short comics (none more than four pages) for Reason magazine for ten years now, tackling everything from monorails to Christian "rock" to high-priced sports arenas to Amtrak to Ron Paul's campaign. Admittedly, Bagge's artwork is really tough to love - nobody in any field of illustration looks quite so ugly as an aging, bloviating windbag standing with his trophy wife on the steps of some capitol building, as depicted by Bagge - but if you can finish this book and think of a better political cartoonist in the country, good luck to you. Given the space to detail his arguments and research, and deliver them in a concise, clear, entertaining way, Bagge's work in this field is never less than fascinating.

And here's the real acid test: I like downtown businesses, and going to see basketball games, and at least in theory I like Amtrak, but after Bagge's demolition of the government boondoggery pulling strings behind them, I'm left scratching my head wondering how to respond. Well, heck, maybe high-speed rail isn't such a good idea. I have to agree with Reason's editor-in-chief, who notes in his introduction that regardless of whether you agree with him, Bagge makes you think.

Fantagraphics' collection of this material, which is grouped by theme rather than chronology, is pretty impressive, although I think it suffers a little for the lack of credits beyond the copyright dates in each piece. It's not clear whether this is a complete set of the Reason strips, either. But these are design quibbles; it's a very nice package, and Bagge's work is both hilarious and thoughtful, so this comes highly recommended.

Buddy Does Jersey

Here's how this works: I finish reading a comic collection, and I tell you about it, and I try not to go on too long.



Speaking of Peter Bagge...

I found myself liking the previous collection of Bagge's Buddy Bradley stories, Buddy Does Seattle, principally because of his bipolar, on-again-off-again girlfriend Lisa Leavenworth, but not enough to pick up the second collection until a 40% off sale earlier this spring. Honestly, I wasn't as taken with this one as the first, despite a whole lot more Lisa in it.

The problem is that the book just isn't funny. The Seattle book had Lisa's manic antics ratcheted up to twelve, and some absurd situations. Here, as Buddy settles into uncomfortable suburbia, the only outlandish things that happens are the idiotic crap he brings upon himself, or situations that are just so bizarre that they aren't amusing. And Lisa's just a jerk, not the catastrophe she was on the west coast. That's not to say it's not an occasionally compelling read - I cared enough to see what was going to happen next - but more comedy would have made the misanthropy more palatable.

Kudos to Fantagraphics for a great format. 350 pages for $15 is very, very good.

Pete Bagge draws horribly ugly people to look horribly, horribly ugly. When he draws them in flagrante delicto, I want to spoon out my eyes.

Recommended to readers familiar with the material.

(Originally posted Aug 6 2007 at hipsterdad's LJ.)