THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT: Comics and music reviews. Really review-y rather than criticism-y, because I’m not sure how much I have to say about any of this stuff.

Comics. Daredevil: The Murdock Papers. The end of Bendis and Maleev’s awesome run on Daredevil. You can get my thoughts on the second-to-last book here. This last book struck me as very slow (and with not nearly enough Det. Del Toro) until the end, when it suddenly sped up and became excellent. The ending was perfect enough that I am really looking forward to the first volume of the new team (Ed Brubaker and somebody), even though I’d been resigning myself to putting this title aside when Bendis and Maleev left.

Jaime Hernandez, Ghost of Hoppers. This is a story about Maggie Chascarrillo and the death of Hoppers. So you’re either saying, “Oh my God! I need this now!!!”… or, “And I care because why?”

If you’re in the first group–well, you probably already have the book. Just in case you don’t: This is better, I think, than the other two post-Love and Rockets Jaime volumes (Dicks and Deedees, and even Locas in Love). It’s wiggy and funny and–by the end–very frightening, and unresolved. There are the usual beautiful, curvy women (Maggie is especially rowr!), although I did feel like Jaime was making up more excuses than usual to show the women, hot or not, less than thoroughly clad. But basically–this is Maggie, her love life, her friendships, her family, her job, three thousand percent Margarita Luisa Chascarrillo, and you know you want it. [ETA: I will say that in this book Izzy Ortiz felt like a plot device, rather than a character, in a way that distressed me. I still think the book is really good, but… Izzy’s misused, I think, in what should have been almost as much her story as Maggie’s.]

If you’re in the second group: OK, so Love and Rockets. It’s two brothers, Gilbert (mostly South American slice-of-life/magical-realist stories) and Jaime (mostly bright lights big city California punker girls) Hernandez. It’s given me the best horror comic I’ve ever read (Flies on the Ceiling) and two of my top five graphic novels ever (Poison River and Chester Square, in that order). The big problem is that L&R; stories generally get at least some of their kick from continuity, and it’s really hard to just jump in at Act Two. I don’t have a hugely satisfying answer. All I can do is promise that if you go to your local comicopia, pick up a volume somewhere between v3 and v6 or v7, leaf through it, and really take your time–you’re in for an amazing, addictive read. Just some of the best stuff ever done in comics. So, okay, its peak has probably passed. You won’t even care by the time its hooks are in you.

Music: Against Me!, The Disco Before the Breakdown. Okay. So I got this three-song EP because of this thread at HolyOffice, on indie rockers and their God; which is also where I found out about the amazing band The Weakerthans. (And while we’re here: The more I listen to Reconstruction Site, the more it gets to me, on every level. It’s phenomenal, seriously.) This disc was… not as much my thing. It’s yellingish emo rock, and I’m kind of not up for that right now; and I didn’t think “Tonight We’re Gonna Give It 35 Percent,” despite its utterly terrific title, had as much going on as the HolyOffice comments led me to expect. So… not for me, I guess.

Martin Tielli, Operation Infinite Joy. In my continuing quest for bands with songs about Winnipeg.

Anyway, Tielli is… maybe experimental-pop-pastiche is the best term. And for me it was a lot like that Far Side cartoon with the man talking to his dog: “Blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER!” For brief moments it was really excellent, firing on all cylinders; and then it would seem like Tielli lost confidence in his direction, and the song would waver and go somewhere else, and no longer be awesome. Too much pastiche, maybe, too much self-consciousness, not enough pop? I’m not sure. I’m warming to this album on second listening, but it still seems like background music punctuated by swiftness. (I mean, I can’t completely dislike anything with lyrical quick-hits like, “CINCINNATI! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK? I… I am not”; or, “Anything you do is OK by me,” which totally reminds me of the moment when I fell in love with Absolutely Fabulous–“I’ve known you longer than anybody, Eddie, and everything you do is all right by me! –Can I take the car?”)

I feel like this album is working the same end of the spectrum as other people who have done it better. In about this order, I am reminded of Jane Hohenberger (although where you find her music these days, I couldn’t tell you); Huggy Bear (especially Rhythm and Destruction, and to a lesser extent the even better album Taking the Rough with the Smooch); They Might Be Giants in their “Nightgown of the Sullen Moon” mode; and Brian Dewan’s excellent “Obedience School” song. (The missing line is, “I could ring a dinner bell.”) All of those tripped many more of my triggers than Tielli. But… I don’t know. I don’t think I was the target audience for this album. If the above sounds intriguing, you could check him out for yourself.