There’s been lots of entertaining blogging on the Jon Stewart-Crossfire dust-up, but one of my favorites comes from Wing Chung, who has helped give the world Television Without Pity and Fametracker. Here’s a sample:

“Imagine, for a second, that you’re Tucker Carlson. (Let me help you to get into character: you’re a dead-eyed assberet.) You know that, of the conservative pundits — a group that includes such non-luminaries as Sean Hannity and your own colleague Robert Novak — you are marginally the least loathsome. You are occasionally, privately, able to break from Republican doctrine (as he did in Vanity Fair this summer, talking some shit about the even more odious Karen Hughes). But on camera, you have an image to project, and that image involves a bowtie. If you ever had any idea of being a respectable journalist, that was a long time ago, and you can never go back.”

“Assberet.” Snerk.

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Mark Millar talked with Comic Book Resources about Ultimates and Ultimates 2, wondering why people think “shocking” can equal “bad”:

“It never ceases to amaze me when people talk about shock in a negative sense. Are the nerves of these softies really so weak that even a gentle shock can upset them to that degree? The original had maybe two or three ‘shocks’ over thirteen issues, one of which was Hank Pym beating his wife and being subsequently ass-thumped for it by Captain America.”

I don’t think it’s so much a case of weak nerves as it is possession of a functioning sensationalism detector. Plenty of readers love to be shocked, but many of those same readers would prefer those shocks arrive in the form of genuine narrative surprise as opposed to crass, under-motivated violence. (The fact that the characters in Ultimates are a bit malnourished actually helps Millar get away with this kind of thing. Since they’re largely undeveloped, can anything really seem out of character?)

As defenses go, I wonder about the wisdom of this argument:

“I nicked this exact set-up from the episode of “er” where Kovacs kicks the ass of the violent neighbour who beat up Abby, but I didn’t read a single review of that episode where anyone said the writers were going for cheap shocks.”

Where to start? Do I wonder about the percentage of crossover audience between a past-its-prime medical drama and a super-hero comic? Do I puzzle over how admitting he lifted it whole from another source constitutes an artistic justification? I mean, Chuck Austen heisted Romeo and Juliet for Uncanny X-Men. That doesn’t make UX-M Shakespeare, does it? Paul O’Brien certainly didn’t seem to think so.

So, in conclusion, “Creator willfully misinterprets criticisms of his work. Film at 11.”

There was just something in the air at the shop yesterday. Usually, the Wednesday rush is over by the time I get there, but I stopped by early, and… well… wow.

Family hour: A father, mother, and their young son came into the store. They were looking for information on Yu-Gi-Oh cards, which immediately made me grumpy, because even a brief glimpse at the cartoon can send me into a rage. It’s the most incomprehensible thing I’ve ever seen, and it’s about as exciting as listening to someone read the instruction manual that comes with tax preparation software. Anyway, every geek has his or her limits, and the staff couldn’t help. So, the father went on to ask if the shop carried any “adult anime.” (He wasn’t going all Tipper Gore on the shop. He seemed like a connoisseur of Japornimation.) Before I could process that shift, I was distracted by the mother sternly telling her son that, no, he could not have a Shrek comic book. Lady, you’ll buy your kid Yu-Gi-Oh, but not Shrek? What’s that about?

Moving on: I overheard another customer asking the owner if he thought there would be a price spike on Superman back issues in response to the recent death of Christopher Reeve. I was immediately reminded of the grave robbers’ song from Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.

Forgiveness: Okay, so the clerk I asked about ordering Scott Pilgrim totally forgot, so I had to ask again. (Don’t tell Christopher Butcher.) He redeemed himself through his recent work on the window display, which has comics, manga, action figures, DVDs, etc. Most importantly, the display features an Iron Man action figure fitted with a big, honking afro. The clerk took one of those foam balls, distressed it, painted it black, and plopped it on Iron Man’s head, and I absolutely crave that action figure. For those of you who’ve wondered, Iron Man can really rock an afro. I think Marvel should immediately come up with a fifth week event where Marvel super-heroes wake up with giant afros. I would buy so many copies.

Cutting the cord: I had planned to buy New X-Men and Noble Causes, but I just couldn’t. I flipped through both and felt tired. New X-Men is too crowded for any of the characters to be really interesting. I opened Noble Causes to a close-up of Gaia’s face, and I realized that I can’t take the book seriously as long as the characters look like something out of Time Squad. (And I love Time Squad, don’t get me wrong.)

Another week, another printing of Identity Crisis #1. This time around, they’ve spared buyers the ugly Michael Turner Boo-hooperman cover, opting instead to go with someone who can draw hands and feet.

Rags Morales does the honors, and it’s right in the spirit of the title. “We shall shatter your Silver Age icons and drench them in blood! Bloooooooooood!” (I think the splatter is completely over the top, but I think the series is defined by its excesses, so there you go.)

Happily, all involved make it through the press release without trying to pass off IC as some Spider-Girl-ish underdog. Actually, Bob Wayne, DC’s VP of Sales and Marketing, has never played that card, for which I’m eternally grateful.

In other solicitation news, Marvel’s January blurbs sound a bit less like they’ve been written by a meth addict.

I’ll spare you the tedium (and me the shame) of posting my whole shopping list, but I did want to mention a few books that I’ve been enjoying.

DC offers Manhunter #3. I’ve been intrigued by the story so far; it seems like it could go in a number of interesting directions. And the art is gorgeous.

Madrox #2 (of 5) arrives courtesy of Marvel. This mini had a strong first issue, and I love Peter David’s work with this set of underused characters from his X-Factor run.

Is that… can it be… Yay! Yay, yay, yay! Amelia Rules Superheroes #3 shows up via Renaissance Press! This is one of those titles that I can read again and again. It’s a constant source of delight, and I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

The contests keep a-comin’! The lovely and talented Ed Cunard at The Low Road wants you to try Salmon Doubts, by Alternative Comics, and he doesn’t care how Troy McClure you get. Deadline for your ichthyologically inspired entry is Oct. 31.

If I hadn’t already ordered the OGN, I would certainly enter Steven and Rose’s Win Scott Pilgrim! contest at Peiratikos. (If I hadn’t already ordered it, I would have bought it this weekend up at Phantom of the Attic in Pittsburgh, as I have even less impulse control than I have contest luck. But I had ordered it, so I got the first three issues of Street Angel instead. You may remember John Jakala’s squid-themed contest related to that title. It all comes down to aquatic life, really.) Deadline? Nov. 5.

Last, but certainly not least, a reminder about Shane “Braaaaains” Bailey’s Walking Dead: Days Gone By contest. Shane wants you to get your zombie groove on, and he’s giving you until Oct. 30 to do so. Just in time for Halloween! So ask yourself, “What really drives the shambling undead… I mean, besides hunger for the flesh of the living?”

While the recent Star Wars movies don’t do much for me, the franchise’s spin-off games really get my geek on. The latest source of time suck has been Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR). (I know it’s been out forever. I usually only buy “previously played” games, which means I’m perpetually behind the times.)

I’m a geek, but I’m not quite geek enough to know anything about the major PC game developers. Consequently, seeing a particular logo on a game in the store doesn’t have any predictive value for me. But I’m getting the sense that Bioware, developer of KotOR and the delightful Baldur’s Gate (BG) series of games, knows what I like.

KotOR has a lot in common with BG. Both are role-playing games, and both give you a fair amount of leeway in just how your character will turn out. When I start these games, I’m always intrigued by the prospect of crossing over, morality wise. Of course, I invariably wind up with a player character who is a total cosmic brown-noser. Virtuous behavior is the monkey on my back, and in KotOR, I’ve got so many light-side points that my companions are forced to wear sunglasses. It’s nauseating, but I can’t help myself. I’m overwhelmed by goody-goody impulses, at least in a gaming context.

Speaking of those companions, it’s very weird hearing one of them voiced by someone who sounds exactly like Kin Shriner. (I was amazed to find out it wasn’t him.) It causes some nerd confluence in my brain, as all of my geekdoms – soap operas, super-heroes, and gaming – crash together. Every time this KotOR character opens his mouth, I wonder how Scott Baldwin from General Hospital wound up in a galaxy far, far away. (The same thing happens whenever Green Arrow shows up on Justice League Unlimited. I wonder why he’s fighting crime instead of plying Susan Moore with booze and trying to trick her out of her bastard son’s Quartermaine inheritance.) I find the KotOR character to be kind of a tool, so it’s actually a useful distraction.

But generally the voice work is great, especially by Jennifer Hale as prissy Jedi Bastilla. Trust me when I say you’ve probably heard her before. Don’t believe me? Check out her resume.

Somehow, despite every indication being that I’d love it, I’ve managed to resist trying City of Heroes. There’s something about on-line gaming that just seems like an admission of defeat to me. I already spend too much time gaming. I already spend too much time on-line. It would be like baking crack into pizza crust. I’ll just wait for the sequel to Freedom Force. (Come on! It’s the gaming equivalent of a JLA/JSA crossover. You expect me to resist that?)

DC has launched its manga line, CMX, with three titles. I passed on From Eroica with Love (mostly due to the truly unsettling design of the title character) and Madara (as Johanna said, it sounds too much like a video game), but I’m a sucker for shojo and snapped up a copy of Land of the Blindfolded, by Tsukuba Sakura.

It’s a tricky volume to review. Just over half of the content is from the title series. There are also two “bonus” stand-alone stories from Sakura. The Land of the Blindfolded material is perfectly competent stuff, if a bit under-realized. The bonus stories, however, are marvelous and give you a much better sense of Sakura’s gifts as a storyteller.

Land of the Blindfolded has an elegant and promising premise. Outgoing everygirl Otusaka Kanade can get glimpses of a person’s future when she makes physical contact. Naitou Arou, almost too good to be true but a bit withdrawn, can see a person’s past under the same circumstances. Kanade sees her gifts as a way to help people avoid misfortune. Arou fears Kanade will cause more trouble than she averts when she meddles. They’re both a bit right and a bit wrong in the way they view things, and the first two chapters show them reaching common ground. Beyond their shared abilities, Kanade and Arou also seem to be crushing on each other a bit.

Their dynamic gets a shift in the third chapter with the introduction of Namiki Masahiro, who shares Kanade’s ability to see the future. He doesn’t share her conscience, however, and seems more than happy to watch hapless people step in front of speeding cars. (That would take him from callow to sociopathic, in my opinion.) Kanade, the optimist, refuses to believe Masahiro would let anyone come to harm if he could prevent it. Arou knows better. Masahiro actually rather enjoys taunting future-blind Arou with dire predictions about classmates, including Kanade.

The characters are all distinct, and it’s nice to see their individual philosophies evolve with experience (even Masahiro). It’s also nice to see the girl pursued by two boys, as opposed to a more traditional role as a competitor for a boy’s affection. Unfortunately, the various elements of the story – the mysticism, the romance, the comedy — don’t mesh as well as they should. The pacing of the stories has an odd rhythm, stopping cold when it should be moving forward or racing along to the expense of smaller, more edifying moments.

Those flaws become more evident (or maybe more disappointing) when you see Sakura’s tremendous facility for thoughtful human comedy on display in the bonus stories, “After the Festival” and “The Mistaken Man.” Each story takes a charming and generous view of human foibles, the small reversals that make life interesting, and how an open heart can turn misunderstanding into good fortune.

“After the Festival” is both spectacularly romantic and wonderfully ordinary. Two students meet on a school sports day. Each steps out of traditional comfort zones to try something new, and they’re rewarded with a promising change in their lives. I would love to list all the wonderful aspects of this story, but I can’t without spoiling the effect of reading it. (Even the art is better; there’s a truly amazing sequence towards the end that made me gasp… or maybe swoon.)

“The Mistaken Man” features two friends, one chronically absent-minded, the other an amusing lothario. They come into conflict when they meet a mysterious and beautiful fellow student, and they have to overcome misunderstandings and self-interest as the story progresses. (Again, to give too much detail would be to spoil the story’s effect.)

So where does this leave me? Sakura is obviously a gifted storyteller, as evidenced by the two stand-alone stories. She can handle themes and character types central to the ongoing story with ease and inventiveness, but she hasn’t yet done so. At the same time, if Land of the Blindfolded can achieve (or approach) the level of craft as “After the Festival,” it will be something really special. And the only way for me to find that out is to buy the second volume.

Tease.

We went up to see the Carnegie International exhibition up in Pittsburgh today. Some of it is really spectacular, but most of it justifies every joke ever made about modern art. Even worse was the collection guide. I’m used to museum literature that tells you about the artist’s intent, but this was more like an instruction of how precisely one should react to each individual piece. (Beyond the obvious, “What the hell?”) Annoying.

Still, it’s nice to be a culture vulture sometimes. And, who knew there was a comic store right around the corner from the Carnegie? Better still, I finally managed to track down all three issues of Street Angel, which makes me the very last comics blogger in the world to read them. With that feather in my cap, I shall now move on to my next challenge: being the very last comics blogger in the world to read Scott Pilgrim.