Club 33

I got into Club 33.

Club 33 is a private club located in the heart of the New Orleans Square section ofDisneyland. Officially maintained as a secret feature of the theme park, the entrance of the club is located next to the Blue Bayou Restaurant at “33 Royal Street” with the entrance recognizable by an ornate address plate with the number 33 engraved on it.^[1]

Club 33 members and their guests have exclusive access to the club’s restaurant, and the premises are not open to the public at large. It is the only location within Disneyland to offer alcoholic beverages, though Disneyland has a park-wide liquor license and has set up bars throughout the park for private events. Club 33’s wine list includes vintages priced at $1000. In addition to beer and wine, Club 33 has a full bar, though patrons may not order directly from the bar and must place orders through their server.

More pictures from my trip at Flickr.

One year

Pom Puppies from Robert Vogel on Vimeo.

It was one year ago yesterday, February 12, that we brought home our Pomeranian puppies, Yoshi and Harley. At first I was terrified of the responsibility and expense of having new born puppies with our schedules and finances, but now I can't imagine living without them. 

The truth is, we weren't certain we'd be getting a dog, much less two. But Stepho had been desperate for a puppy for quite a while and persuaded me to go with her to just "take a look" at a couple of dogs she'd found on the Internet. As you can see from the video, which was shot by Rob Vogel the night we brought them home, there was no chance we were leaving without one. Stepho bonded immediately with the little boy. She took him out of the small box and transported to some kind of cuteness heaven. I was watching them before I felt little paws on my arm. When I looked down I saw the girl puppy up on her hind legs, leaning on me and begging to be held. I would be lying if I said I didn't fall in love with that puppy. After I picked her up, Steph brought the boy near and they immediately began to play with each other while still in our arms. We put them back in the box and looked at how close they were. I've been a dog lover my whole life but I'd never seen littermates as connected as these two. Knowing there was a third pup from the litter who'd already found a home but was all alone, we knew there was no way we could separate this brother and sister pair. We brought them home that afternoon.

The proud parents

Sometimes I really miss the days when it was just me, Stepho and my 13-year-old cat Io (eye-oh, like the moon), but those feelings disappear pretty much immediately after either of them does more or less anything. And while we love both dogs and they love both of us, the bonds Steph and I formed with Yoshi and Harley, respectively, have maintained over the last year. In fact, I've never had a dog at any point in my life who was as devoted to me as Harley. She always wants to be in my lap or sleeping on my head at night; she always tries to protect me from Yoshi when he wants to crawl over my face on the couch; and she waits for me by the bedroom door while I turn out all the lights and lock the doors before bed. 

Like I said, at this point I can't even imagine life without them.

The slideshow below is in chronological order, so you can watch the puppies transform from little furballs with eyes into proper little dogs.

Looking forward to Comic-Con 2010

Loathe as I am to use this phrase and invoke the numerous nerd body-odor stereotypes and jokes that can and will certainly be made, I think there's something in the air around this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. It's true that the convention is offering more than ever (possibly too much) to genre fans and consumers in the forms of panel discussions/presentations, creator/celebrity interactions, product announcements, shopping, community events and more, but what’s exciting me are the developments in the digital content business that’s grown out of all this great stuff, and getting a chance to reunite with or finally meet and hang out with many of my colleagues in this area.

As you may know, I essentially went off the grid last September after about three years of full-time work at the mighty Comic Book Resources. Keeping the site and its content in tight, Eisner-winning shape was a great job but it was intense and I needed to do some other things like create this website, write more about music, get back into DJ’ing, play around with photography, go to more geek culture events, and write the occasional bit of hipster relationship advice. 

Curiously, it was during that time I rediscovered my enthusiasm for comic books and pop culture, an enthusiasm I’d been too busy to notice waning. I’ve read more comics and graphic novels in 2010 than I think I did in the preceding three years combined, resulting in some freebie evangelism here on my site, like my comprehensive guide to Grendel and eulogy for Phonogram, not to mention my semi-regular graphic novel, music and DVD recommendations.

Concurrently and consequently, I’ve been able to familiarize myself with the increasingly great number of awesome websites and commentators that have emerged as the stars of comic book and geek culture rise. There are a lot of cool people doing really entertaining work that’s different from and beyond the more or less straight news line I was on before, and it’s inspired me to get involved again. I’ve been very quietly inching my foot back in the door of the comics/film/television/music digital content business (I’ve written a press release for CBR about something that is genuinely cool, you will see it tomorrow) and applying my experience in the digital music business to some comic book-related ventures as well as some other things I -- God help me, I can’t believe I’m going to say this -- can’t talk about yet.

I feel like there are some exciting opportunities waiting for me at this year’s Comic-Con. Opportunities for new work? Sure. But what I’m looking for this year are those opportunities for that once elusive mutant, the terrifying work-fun hybrid.

DJ gig: FORMA Design.Build

I played music at the showroom opening of FORMA Design.Build, a very cool home design studio specializing in custom, hand-made work in the European style. The event was open to the public and a lot of fun, with lots of cool things to look at, including the photography of Gusmano Cesaretti. The showroom is right next to Silverlake's popular Red Lion tavern, so there was a lot of hipster foot traffic mixed in with the highfalutin-types. Probably 100 people at the most.

A great success i think, and the patrons and management complimented me several times for my selections, which was a relief because I was just playing whatever I felt like that might also fit the ambience. As you'll see in the setlist below, I definitely indulged myself.

Click to enlarge

Setlist 

1. Underworld - Ansum
2. Saint Etienne - How We Used to Live
3. Moloko - Familiar Feeling (Martin Buttrich Remix)
4. Annie - Greatest Hit
5. Goldfrapp - A&E (Maps Instrumental)
6. Mylo - Valley of the Dolls
7. The Prodigy - 3 Kilos
8. Underworld - Oich Oich (Lemonworld Jam)
9. The Chemical Brothers - The Boxer (DFA Version)
10. M.I.A. - Paper Planes (DFA Remix)
11. Daft Punk - Fresh
12. Underworld - Cups (Salt City Orchestra's Version)
13. Primal Scream - Autobahn 66
14. Röyksopp - Happy Up Here
15. Mylo - Emotion 98.6
16. New Order - Thieves Like Us (Instrumental)
17. Beck - Diamond Dogs
18. Meat Beat Manifesto - Everything Counts
19. The Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want (Soulwax Remix)
20. Underworld - Jumbo
21. Moby - Porcelain
22. Saint Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Andrew Weatherall Mix)
23. Saint Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Beta Version)
24. Mylo - Guilty of Love
25. Underworld - Dirty Epic (Dirty Guitar Mix)
26. Daft Punk - Voyager
27. Leftfield - Release the Dubs
28. New Order - Regret (New Order Mix)
29. Saint Etienne - Hug My Soul
30. David Byrne & Fatboy Slim featuring Nellie McKay - How Are You?  
31. The Chemical Brothers - Das Spiegel
32. Pet Shop Boys - Flamboyant (Scissor Sisters Silhouettes & Shadows Mix)
33. Scissor Sisters - Running Out
34. Antônio Carlos Jobim - Insensátez
35. Underworld - Banstyle (Jam Version from Everything, Everything DVD-ROM)

A Grendel primer

Created in the 1980s by Matt Wagner, Grendel is more of a primal force of nature than a specific, individual character. Beginning with the brilliant and seductive yet ruthless and sociopathic killer Hunter Rose and concluding with the invincible cyborg Grendel-Prime, Wagner explores the nature of violence itself in an ambitious, sophisticated and bloody narrative that spans centuries into the future.

The very long and non-linear publishing history of the Grendel saga has made it daunting for new readers to discover the grim world of Wagner’s creation, which is a shame because it is incredibly compelling and genuinely beautiful. My hope is that this post will help curious parties find their ways into the world of Grendel and avail themselves of the great graphic literature that Dark Horse has seen fit to reprint lovingly in a number of recent volumes.

Many Grendel readers will have their own versions of this roadmap, but this is the one that makes the most sense to me, and the one that puts the best of Wagner’s work up front.

 

Click to buy on Amazon.com1. Grendel: Devil by the Deed

The beginning, the end, and the one Grendel book all readers must own. Hunter Rose is an unmatched genius, best-selling novelist, olympic-level athlete, charismatic socialite, and, secretly, the legendary masked crime lord Grendel. An easy description would be: imagine if Batman was a villain. Like Bruce Wayne, Rose is so rich that he could set fire to his ill-gotten gains, it doesn't matter. All that does matter is Grendel's relentless quest to utterly dominate every single person in New York. Grendel knows all. He sees all. He cannot be stopped.

Devil by the Deed tells the story of Hunter Rose in 48 of the most beautiful pages I've ever seen. Wagner's story is classic  -- all subsequently published Hunter Rose stories take place between the events of this most critical volume -- but the gorgeous art deco illustrations are reasons enough to read this book. I can't say it enough, Devil by the Deed is beautiful. 

Click to buy on Amazon.com2. Grendel: Black, White, & Red

While actually produced about 20 years after Devil by the Deed, the Black, White, & Red volume comes next chronologically. Hunter Rose is the most essential component of the Grendel mythos and, in my view, the most engaging character. More so than with any of the subsequent Grendel vessels, Wagner gets so deeply into Rose's head that the villain almost becomes real. If you're like me, you will wait until the middle of the night to read Hunter Rose stories and fully immerse yourself in his dark and horrible world of aggression and blood. But should you choose to go on to the legacy characters and their incredible tales, the more you understand about Rose, the greater the sense of dread will you feel in the later stories.

Black, White, & Red features many short stories of Hunter Rose and his bloody empire, each one illustrated by a different luminarie of the comic book medium. Such artists include: John Paul Leon (Earth X), Tim Sale (Batman: The Long Halloween), Duncan Fegredo (Hellboy), D'Israeli (Lazarus Churchyard), Ho Che Anderson (Young Hoods in Love), C. Scott Morse (Soulwind), Bernie Mireault (Dr. Robot), Paul Chadwick (Concrete), Tim Bradstreet (Maximum Black), David Mack (Kabuki), Guy Davis (Sandman Mystery Theatre), the Pander Brothers (Secret Broadcast), Stan Shaw (Sunglasses After Dark), Jay Geldhof (The Lost), Teddy Kristiansen (House of Secrets), Jason Pearson (Body Bags), Woodrow Phoenix (Sugar Buzz), Troy Nixey (Trout), Chris Sprouse (Supreme), and Dean Motter (Mister X). 

Click to buy on Amazon.com3. Grendel: Red, White, & Black

Black, White, & Red was released to much acclaim and earned a number of Will Eisner Awards, the comics industry's equivalent of the Oscars. Red, White, & Black continues that award-winning format and features new Hunter Rose stories illustrated by Zander Cannon, Andy Kuhn, Ashley Wood, Tom Fowler, Mike Huddleston, Cliff Chiang, John K. Snyder, and more, including Wagner himself. 

Both Black, White, & Red and Red, White, & Black are currently out-of-print, but they can still be found inexpensively on Amazon.com and on the shelves in many comics stores. 

Click to buy on Amazon.com4. Grendel: Behold the Devil

Hunter Rose continued to rack up Eisner nominations in Behold the Devil, the first Grendel story in ten years entirely drawn by Wagner.  A complete epic in one volume, Behold the Devil follows the original Grendel through a period of his life so traumatic that he ripped the associated pages from his journal -- which, within the world of the Grendel mythos, is how anyone knows anything about Hunter Rose and his true, terrifying nature. In the story, which is set early in Rose's criminal career, Grendel's identity comes under close examination by a driven detective and an intuitive reporter, forcing the Devil to take drastic measures that go against everything he thought he was. 

The latest project in the Grendel saga, I finished reading Behold the Devil in one sitting only last night, and it was this most excellent book that inspired me to compile this information.

Click to buy on Amazon.com5. Grendel: Devil Child

Chronologically the first story to take place after Rose's demise and the only one on this list not written by Matt Wagner, Devil Child is a painfully close look at the destruction of little Stacy Palumbo, Hunter Rose's adopted daughter, in the aftermath of Grendel's sensational unmasking. Not for the faint of heart, Devil Child is perhaps the most grounded and realistic story in the Grendel pantheon, exploring the consequences of mixing violence and trauma with love and devotion. The book is expertly written by longtime Grendel editor Diana Schutz and illustrated by superstar Batman artist Tim Sale with Teddy Kristiansen, and it is gorgeous.

Devil Child is out-of-print but still available cheaply on Amazon.com and in many comics stores.

Click to buy on Amazon.com6. Grendel: Devil's Legacy

In the mythos of Grendel, Devil by the Deed is the name of a book by Christine Spar, daughter of Stacy Palumbo, that tells the story of Hunter Rose as gleaned through his journals as well as police reports, press clippings and the author's own personal knowledge of events. Devil's Legacy is the story of Christine Spar and her succumbing to the spirit of Grendel. The solicitation copy on Dark Horse's website describes this story much better than I could: 

The author of the definitive account of Grendel's life, Spar is living the life of a minor celebrity, but that's all about to change. The very subject which propelled her to success is about to drag her into a dark pit of despair and anger. Soon Spar's life of metropolitan leisure will be eclipsed by that which sleeps within her, the bitter blade of Grendel and the desire for brutal balance: an eye for an eye, a death for a death. Along the way, she will find tragic love, take many lives, suffer a badly battered body, and take on the old foe of her adoptive grandfather, Hunter Rose. 

I must confess I am not a fan of the illustrations in Devil's Legacy. The Pander Bros. artwork is certainly skillful and absolutely unique, but it just doesn't appeal to my sensibilities, especially with my being such a fan of Wagner's art deco stylings. 

Devil's Legacy is out-of-print but still available cheaply on Amazon.com and in many comics stores.

Click to buy on Amazon.com7. Grendel: The Devil Inside

Vexingly, I have not read this one! And it's in print! Here is the description from Dark Horse: 

The spirit of Grendel seethes in the mind of everyone it encounters. A touch of death, of fear, of anger infects all, gripping at the soul, and wreaking havoc on the lives of those in its path. In this now-classic chapter of the Grendel saga, we return to Brian Li Sung, a once-successful Broadway stage manager who became Grendel after losing the love of his life--the granddaughter of the original Grendel, Hunter Rose. Now down and out, living in the slums of Brooklyn, Li Sung struggles as an off-off-off-Broadway stage manager by day; by night, he stews in the hatred and violence that is Grendel, and becomes a cold-blooded killer. When old friends can't help him, and the city can no longer cope with this scourge of destruction, it's up to one desperate cop to stop the murderous rampage, or die trying. 

Sounds pretty good!

Click here to buy on Amazon.com8. Grendel: Devil Tales

Written and drawn by Matt Wagner, the tales contained in this volume are Hunter Rose stories told in the future by the last policeman to have any personal knowledge of the Grendel cases. The art and storytelling in Devil Tales is very experimental and not just in the visual sense; Wagner also redefines what the Grendel series can be. Up until this point, the spirit or essence of Grendel -- which is to say, the primal forces of violence and aggression themselves -- have manifested in one person in a mask and then moved on to another. In Devil Tales, we see that force infect multiple people at once, setting the stage for years of stories to come.  

Devil Tales is currently out-of-print. Used copies are not hard to find but they can be somewhat expensive, around 20 dollars or more. As I said, I consider all the Hunter Rose material to be essential, especially that drawn by Wagner himself, so I think it's worth buying. 

Click to buy on Amazon.com9. Grendel: God and the Devil

This is where my expertise ends, I'm afraid. I have purchased God and the Devil, which has been described as Wagner's magnum opus, and intend to read it soon. I'm reliably informed that from here on out, the Grendel mythos goes off the proverbial chain, so I'm looking forward to reading it -- especially because all this material is currently in print and easily available.

From Dark Horse:

In the centuries since the mask of Grendel was last seen, humanity's survived a third World War, the fall of Western Civilization, and the rise of an all-powerful church state. But when the depraved Pope Innocent XLII begins construction of a new church tower hiding a powerful and deadly secret, two men will rise against the church's corruption. One is Orion Assante, a man determined to expose the Pope for who he really is. The other is a mysterious figure wearing the all-too-familiar face of Grendel!

Grendel: God and the Devil masterfully interweaves sanity with madness, churches with corporations, and good with evil in one of the most stunning and prophetic stories of modern comics.

Click to buy on Amazon.com10. Grendel: Devil's Reign

From Dark Horse:

The year is 2530, and the corrupt Church, Vatican Ouest, has fallen, spreading upheaval across North America, along with an infestation of vampires. In this new world, Ex-COP leader Pellon Cross is still at large, devil-possessed Eppy Thatcher is missing, and Orion Assante is on an ambitious quest to restore order to the continent and gain legitimate power. But will Orion attain his goals before threats from overseas change the rules in this game for power?

Grendel: Devil's Reign is a groundbreaking synthesis of politics, war, religion, and the devil created by two of the top talents in comics!

Click to buy on Amazon.com11. Grendel: War Child

From Dark Horse:

Matt Wagner's Eisner Award-winning tale of the post-holocaust Grendel-ruled planet in ruins remains vital and entertaining. The Grendel-Khan, Orion Assante, is dead, leaving his only son as heir, a political pawn for the Khan's widow. The passing of the Khan, the military ruler of the earth, left the world warrior society in fragments, the once-controlled planet shattered into rival clans and apocalyptic zombies. But the Khan left a paladin behind to protect his only son from political ping-pong, a half-man, half-machine weapon of ultimate destruction: Grendel-Prime! Upon kidnapping the rightful heir from his mother's "protection," Prime begins a high-speed chase, ending the lives of many and ultimately deciding the fate of the tattered world. As it did when first printed, Grendel: War Child features dynamic pencils by Patrick McEown and dynamic colors by Bernie Mireault.

Click to buy on Amazon.com12. Grendel: Past Prime (Illustrated novel)

From Dark Horse:

Matt Wagner's award-winning comics series takes on new life as an illustrated prose novel, written by acclaimed wordsmith Greg Rucka, renowned for his popular crime novels featuring detective Atticus Kodiak (Keeper, Finder, Smoker). The ranks of Grendel warriors have now disintegrated into leaderless anarchy, but a savior exists, and one lone Grendel seeks the key to restoring the empire--and she won't take no for an answer. Writer Greg Rucka (Whiteout) tells this compelling story of Susan Veraghen's search for Grendel-Prime. With 50 striking pen-and-ink illustrations and a stunning cover painting by Grendel creator Matt Wagner, Grendel: Past Prime is fast-paced, hard-edged adventure laced with thematic depth and visual firepower.

Click to buy on Amazon.com13. Grendel: Devil Quest

From Dark Horse:

In seven chapters, all written and lusciously painted by Wagner, the deadly cyborg Grendel-Prime pursues the past with singular purpose, even while the decadent and decaying world he has forsaken hunts him for reasons of its own. With each chapter a twisted relation to the children's rhyme, "Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief," this tightly crafted work is an essential piece of the Grendel canon, and a tie-in to Wagner's popular Batman/Grendel series.

MISCELLANEOUS

Click to buy on Amazon.comBatman/Grendel

This volume collects the two Batman/Grendel crossover series written and drawn by Matt Wagner. They are both canonical as far as Grendel is concerned, and they are both fucking awesome. The first one, where Batman meets Hunter Rose, is possibly one of the best Batman stories produced by anybody, for reasons both obvious and subtle. The second story finds the cyborg Grendel-Prime time traveling to Gotham City to retrieve the skull of Hunter Rose, no matter the cost. 

Click to buy on Amazon.comGrendel Cycle

This is the book you buy if you can't find any of the previous stories. Unfortunately, Grendel Cycle is also out of print!

Grendel Cycle is basically a sourcebook for the mythos of Grendel, summarizing the major movements of the epic alongside new artwork by the series' key collaborators. The book is extremely helpful and worth seeking out, especially for the eight-page Grendel primer by Wagner, which is one of my all-time favorite bits of comic book storytelling. 

Click to buy on Amazon.comGrendel Archives

Before Wagner tightened the focus on the Grendel concept in Devil by the Deed, he created some little black-and-white Grendel comics in the form of now-defunct publisher Comico's Primer #2 and Grendel #1-3. These stories are the first appearances of Hunter Rose as well as Wagner's first published work. Not necessarily canonical, the material reprinted in Grendel Archives is quite good despite its relative unsophistication, and serious Grendel fans will enjoy watching the creator and character take their first steps together.