How I get in the holiday spirit: I substitute “killer bees” for key lyrics in many beloved Christmas carols. It works in almost all of them.
Commercials I really hate: Okay, I get it, T.J. Maxx. There’s something pumped into the ventilation system at your stores that turns people into insufferable bargain braggarts. Consider me warned.
Oh, and I can’t forget Jared, the Galleria of Jewelry, the bauble outlet of choice for viciously competitive people who weigh love based on brand names.
Future shop: ICv2 runs through some upcoming releases from DC, including the single-volume Shirley from Kaoru (Emma) Mori. If I didn’t already own the entire run in one form or another, I’d also have my eye on the Starman Omnibus, one of my favorite super-hero titles ever. (Okay, writer James Robinson had a tendency to give his pet villainess, the Mist, the full Dark Mary Sue treatment to make her seem threatening, but it was great all the same, and the later issues give you the opportunity to see why many people liked Ralph and Sue Dibny.)
Not dead yet: The fifth volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Dark Horse) is much better than the fourth, which cheers me. (Again, the fourth was still very good manga, just not what I’d come to expect from the generally stellar series.)
Sir, it’s too good, at least? Mely notes that Stephen Sondheim has given his thumbs-up to Tim Burton’s movie version of Sweeney Todd, which has apparently been nominated for Golden Globe awards before it’s even opened in cinemas. (I’ve always found the Golden Globes to be the least persuasive of movie award programs.) I’m unconvinced. I love Sondheim, and I think he’s brilliant, but he has shown a worrying tendency to roll over for celebrities in the past. (I mean, he rewrote the lyrics to “Send in the Clowns” for Barbra Streisand. I know it’s his song, and he can do what he likes with it, but that song is one of the perfect gems of the musical canon.)