Hello everyone,

The blogging's kind of stopped, at least for the moment, because of my busy schedule, but all AG updates can be found on the ANTIGRAVITY website!

COMICS STORYTELLING, OR ARE YOU GETTING A BANG FOR YOUR BUCK? (OR ARE YOU JUST GETTING BANGED?)

On Wednesday I buy comics. And I love my comics. Of course, that's another post. One of the things I enjoy about comics (and movies, too, when I think about it) is how the story comes together. It's odd that a person who doesn't know much about storytelling can watch a movie that falls a bit short in the plot and immediately knowthat something just doesn't quite fit. Usually what you hear is "they could've done a better job," which is layperson for "that plot's got more holes than Swiss cheese."

I digress, though, because this isn't really about plot, but pace. Lately, one of my favorite books has been Marvel's NEW AVENGERS. NA is admittedly a geek fest, Marvel's attempt to toss in some of their biggest characters (Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and Wolverine) with some B-listers and sell a shitload of comics. Yeah, it's a geek fest but it's been pulled off pretty well by Brian Bendis. Bendis is one of my favorite writers from way back, with JINX, TORSO, POWERS, DAREDEVIL and a ton more under his belt. He's a technically good writer, which is why I was kind of dissapointed by NEW AVENGERS #16.

One thing that can be really exciting in comics is the splash page of art. It's probably overused, but when used correctly it can accentuate an action sequence, or even a "talking heads" sequence, with the knockout punch of a fight or maybe a kiss between lovers. If abused it can be boring, and, worse, lazy.

NA #16 has 21 pages of "story," not counting the first page, which is a recap of previous events. The first EIGHT PAGES are spash pages, with two pages taken up with one spread. One page is a shot of Earth from space, the next is the same shot of Earth, but it's getting hit by an energy beam from an unknown source. Or is the energy coming FROM Earth? One wouldn't know by looking at the page. Then it takes another TWO pages to set North Pole Alaska as the city we're seeing, the two page spread to show its destruction, and another two pages to show there's some energy being who's maybe responsible for the damage.

21 pages of story and eight are essentially wasted telling what I figured could be told in half that. NEW AVENGERS is one of Marvel's cheapest books at $2.50 and it seems as if Bendis wasted four pages of story with possible laziness, making the issue a very quick read. The cliffhanger isn't that much of a cliffhanger, for goodness' sake. The New Avengers are being called in to handle the energy man? I'd hope so, since the books is titled NEW AVENGERS and all.

I know, where have the posts been? I wish I had an answer other than "I've been busy," but you know, that'll have to do. Things have been crazy around AG lately, with Feb. being a short month (what doesn't help is Mardi Gras falls at the very end of the month, which happens to be at our deadline, which isn't convienent), big meetings for ads and an ad salesperson (which is today and will hopefully go well), and regular everyday stuff.

Anyway, I'll try to post more, really. In the meantime I want to start today with a little writing exercise to stretch my brain.

The new AG website is up and running, so do me a favor and check it out. Then do me another favor and let me know what you think!

It had been a few weeks since the last package from the Comic Geek Speak guys came in (and honestly, I'd figured that to be done, since they've all done so much more than I could've ever asked for) and all of a sudden a box from Head Geek himself, Peter Rios, shows up at the house.

Hey, the FABLES vol.1 would've been plenty, but he sweetened the pot with the I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League arc from JLA: CLASSIFIED. I absolutely LOVED all the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League stories, so this was another great set to add to my quickly swelling new comics collection. When we get set up in our new apartment (more on that soon), I'll have to take a photo of the collection-so far.

Anyway, back to the point of the post: Thanks, Peter!

Every once in awhile I like looking at this blog's top referrers, or at least the most recent 20. Last time I looked at it the nugget of comedy was "can I die of something if I go back to Chalmette?"

Nothing of that caliber this time around, but some highlights include a couple instances of "at delta we love to fly and it be showin'," which of course is a reference to my post about my New York flight. I can't imagine why people would put that into a search engine, unless they're looking for that old spoof commercial from eight years ago, which is what that line is a reference to.

There were a few along the lines of "busted traffic light," which linked to the photo I took of the light at Felicity and Camp back in September.

The top highlight, though, is this: "chris rose and his daughter on new orleans smelling like ass." I have no idea what that person was looking for, or even what page of the blog that would bring up, but I hope they found what they were looking for.

The new issue of AG is at the printer. After getting about 3 hours sleep over two days, it's done.



Note the slightly different logo. The cover theme is from our Best Of '05 pieces, which are completely unscientific and left up to the whims of our staff's opinions.

It should be out on Monday, if all goes right.

It was three weeks ago, but I'm finally posting some photos of my trip to New York. The post below is all about the bass ackwards way we got to New York, if anyone's interested.

The two full days we spent in NY (Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th) were disjointed a bit. In one way it was nice to be in a city that had its shit together after being in New New Orleans for three months. Of course, the corollary to that is that it was also depressing as hell to be in a city with its shit together when our home was struggling to get the streetcars running.

Anyway, I refrained from taking too many pictures because I never want to be THAT GUY in New York, staring in the sky and holding up foot traffic, but we nonetheless snapped a few. We stayed in Astoria, which is in Queens, and on Saturday we took a train into Manhattan and walked around. We stopped at Midtown Comics, which is just outside of Time Square. It's a great comic shop, two stories and just full of neat stuff. I grabbed some indie comics I couldn't get in New Orleans and we doubled back to Jim Hanley's Universe, where I did more of the same. We walked all the way down to Grenwich Village and wound up in a pretty neat coffee/wine shop before walking the 40 blocks back to Penn Station.

On Sunday we were to go into Brooklyn but didn't have a ride to the subway and instead decided to be lazy and go back to Manhattan. We hopped on the train again and went to see the tree in Rockefeller Plaza. It was quite unimpressive. Huge, yes. Impressive, not so much since it was decorated in only white lights. We did a bit of shopping, including stopping in the ESPN Zone to catch up on some scores (I was happy to find the Pats beating the Bills pretty handily).

On to the pictures:



This is the view from our hotel room. It's real snow!



We stopped for lunch at a random pizzeria (the pizza wasn't so great, but the lasagna I had was pretty good) and I had to take a picture of their directions in case of emergency.



A picture of us near Grenwich Village. Not bad, considering I took it, right?



Sunday night we stayed with some friends of Michelle's and watched some NY public television, including a talent show put together by some Spanish guy. He had a few women with mediocre talent lip sync to songs, and this Karen America woman was just crazy.

And that about sums it up. Monday morning we got on our flight to come home and that went off without a hitch, fortunately.

Final thoughts? New York is okay, but it's a case of "nice place to visit..." I'm just a New Orleans boy at heart, I guess.

Just when I thought the packages from the Comic Geek Speak guys ceased, I get another one from Bob (I threw the wrapping away before grabbing the address, sorry), full of more cool stuff.



Old comics, which I love, and an Ultimate X-Men trade that I actually had before the flood. All great stuff, so thanks, Bob!

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be in New York," you ask?

Nah, I'm back in the outskirts of New Orleans, though not by choice. Hold on, hold on, let me get something out of my system...

DELTA AIRLINES FUCKING SUCKS!

There, I said it. As to why I'm home and not in New York (we actually should've touched down at LaGuardia about an hour ago), it's because Delta inexplicably switched our arranged flight to Cincinnati to Atlanta, which was no big deal until the Atlanta flight was pushed back from 4:15 to 6:15, meaning that we would then miss our connecting flight to New York. Put us on another connecting flight, you're thinking? It would make total sense, except that the A T L had no flights to NY leaving until 3:30 tomorrow afternoon, meaning we'd not only have to spend the night in Atlanta but putz away half the day before getting into NY at 9 p.m, leaving us with a solid day to spend before coming home.

With no other airline flying to New York (and a JetBlue flight not only being booked solid but costing $310 one-way anyway), we finally switched our flight until tomorrow at 2 and our return flight to Monday afternoon, meaning we get the full two days in New York we planned for, but we won't be back in time to celebrate my birthday at home. Which is not a really big deal, I guess. Theoretically, I'll have other birthdays.

As to why we were bumped from our Cincy flight and why our Atlanta flight was delayed, who knows. All I know is my flight to Houston next Friday is through Continental and I'll never fly Delta again, if I can help.

And, for Dereck and Purnell (who I ran into at the airport, fittingly enough)..."DELTA...WE LOVE TO FLY, AND IT BE SHOWIN' LIKE A MOTHERF**KER!!"

Not much new to report here, but the new AG is 95% out there. There are still a few spots on the West Bank I need to hit (in old Algiers), as well as in the Marigny, but it's pretty much done. I'll have the hi-res .pdf on the site soon.

I leave for New York tomorrow afternoon, but our own Patrick Strange should be in BR Friday night for the Eames Era show, so look for that if you're in the ol' Red Stick.

Now it's time for work.