Will Pfeifer's Blog, page 50

Advance Team Tuesday: A bit more about the badguys

Here's another look at the antagonists of "The Advance Team," the graphic novel written by me and drawn by German Torres that will be hitting stores next spring.

Last week in this space, we saw a shadowy vision of the badguys. This week's image is slightly less shadowy but just as mysterious. Everything will be made clear in the future -- specifically about seven or so months in the future, when the graphic novel arrives on store shelves.



As a bonus, you can see a thrilling bit of editing in that last panel, where I decided that "PAY" was shorter than "BE PAYING." Stay tuned for more fascinating peeks behind the curtain!

MTV RIP: Power Pop 101

You have to hand it to this video from The Producers -- as far as '80s power pop goes, it checks all the boxes: blazers and T-shirts, shag haircuts, bouncy (literally!) performance style, simple lyrics, lovelorn theme, crisp production, snappy drumming (just get a load of those fills) and, last but not least, a keyboard play who serves as the official group goofball -- especially when at around the minute 48 mark, he leaps out and the keyboard comes with him.

And it's all over in less than 2 1/2 minutes. What the hell else could you possibly want from a pop song?





The band's follow-up semi-hit was the following catchy little ditty, which somehow is even more a time capsule of its era than "What's He Got," even if that era is a year or so later. Notice this time around our keyboardist is already wearing his instrument when the song begins. Notice also how this is more of a storytelling video, sprinkling a few bits of business (involving a woman with the epitome of an early '80s look) in with the performance footage -- which takes place partly on a roof, of course. And both the hair and sleeves on the band have gotten shorter, better apparently, to appeal to that teen girl demo.



By the way, here's something that never works: having the hot babe in your video pretend to play the guitar.

Advance Team Tuesday: Bring on the badguys

Here's another glimpse at the art of my upcoming novel "The Advance Team," excellently executed by my collaborator German Torres. This page, which comes about 1/3 of the way through the book, shows the villains of the story -- though, in keeping with the centuries-long tradition of making villains look spooky and ominous, it keeps them suitably in the shadows.



Who are they? Who are they talking about? What are they up to? All those questions and more will be answered next spring, when you pony up the dough for your own copy! (Then again, I might answer them here, too -- so keep watching this blog!)

MTV RIP: I like it here with my childhood friends

Confession time: I wasn't exactly the most music savvy kid.

As a child, the only singles I remember owning were "Convoy," "Billy, Don't Be A Hero" and "The Rubberband Man." When I got slightly older, I acquired my music by taping it off the radio, which entailed setting my Emerson tape record next to my clock radio and pressing both the play and record buttons when the song finally came on -- I'd either get some DJ chatter at the beginning or miss the first few seconds, but at least I got the song. Or most of it anyway.

As far as albums (i.e. cassettes), I stuck with the basics of the era: Styx, ELO and the like. Because I had the cassette of Styx's "Paradise Theater," I missed out on the groovy way the LP had some stupid logo engraved into the record via laser (ah, the 1970s!), and though it would be years before I came back around to appreciate the operatic pop stylings of Jeff Lynne, I played the hell out of Electric Light Orchestra's "Time" cassette, mostly because of all the mind-bending sci-fi themes. As I mentioned, I was listening to (and buying) Devo in those days, but otherwise, the groups I saw on MTV inspired zoned-out, brain-dead viewing, not actual album purchases.

Until, that is, I saw the following video. Laugh if you will at its overwhelming '80s-ness, but it sounded pretty good to these ears three decades ago. It was fun, it was catchy and it had a certain dark undertone that I've always appreciated. I realize that today this song must seem like a Rubik's Cube or a pair of leg warmers, some artifact of the 1980s that feels made-up by latter-day nostalgists. But no, this song actually existed, and the album it existed on, "Business As Usual," was a colossal hit. I wasn't the only one who owned the cassette...







I still think it sounds pretty solid, and there's nothing easy about writing a catchy pop song. As far as the video itself goes, lead singer Colin Hay said in more than one interview back then that his lazy eye was just about the band's only visual gimmick, so they made the most of it.

I'm happy to say that, more than a decade later, Hay performed on one of the final episodes of the great "Larry Sanders Show," and his song provided the perfect accompaniment to one of the series' best dramatic moments, when Larry finally decides it's time to call it quits. And, as a bonus, you get to see Hay reference that lazy eye one more time...



Coming up next: Has there ever been a good song with a keytar in it? Maybe...

Rick Perry explains how abstinence education works in Texas. Oh, wait, no he doesn't.

Imagine if Perry's parents had practiced abstinence...

MTV Rip: Well, how did I get here?

Sometimes, I forget how flat-out strange MTV seemed back in those early days.

It's been such a narcotizing presence for so many years that it's hard to remember back to when it was new, different and even a little bit unnerving -- at least to kids in Ohio who'd barely heard music from bands that didn't heavily rotate on the local rock station.

Sometimes, that strangeness took the form of crazy costumes, off-kilter cinematography, wacky haircuts or disturbing imagery. And sometimes, it took the form of a nerdy guy in a suit against a plain white background...



Sure, these days the Talking Heads are the epitome of safe, respected music, with a spot in the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame and the sort of sound that fits comfortably onto a soundtrack aiming for that quirky -- but not too quirky -- touch. Heck, even back in their glory days, the Talking Heads were the least threatening of the CBGB bands, lacking the cartoony danger of the Ramones, the gritty poetics of Patti Smith or the sexual tension of Blondie. A fine band, don't get me wrong, and one with some swell songs on their discography .... but nothing too weird, right?

Well, sure, maybe in the city of New York or the year of 2011. But those were both foreign countries to Niles, Ohio, circa 1981, and David Byrne -- soft-spoken singer/songwriter and beloved purveyor of world music -- just seemed creepy.

I mean, what was with that dancing? Why was he so sweaty? And what the heck was he doing with his arms? I still remember kids duplicating that chop-chop-chop motion down their forearms, never getting the rhythm quite right. But that didn't stop us from trying. Somewhere, out there, was a world we were only beginning to glimpse. It was not our beautiful house, and it was not our beautful wife -- it was something much more intriguing.

Coming up next: The eyes have it. Well, one of them anyway...

Advance Team Tuesday: More Marty! More Marty!

Due to the overwhelming response to last week's post featuring Marty, the crusty pizza parlor manager who may or may not be the real hero of "The Advance Team," I'm reprinting the thrilling panel we saw last week -- this time with dialogue from the graphic novel and -- and! -- the following panel, which truly shows Marty in action.

Or at least as much action as Marty ever gets involved in. Which is to say none.

Enjoy?

This blog post -- and all the blog posts in the "Advance Team Tuesday" series -- are brought to you by "The Advance Team," the graphic novel Tor/Forge will be publishing in the spring, with script by yours truly and art by German Torres. Read more about it here.

MTV RIP: Crack that whip! Shut off that TV!

It's hard to believe these days, with MTV having just turned 30, but once upon a time, it -- like rock 'n' roll and comic books before it -- was considered a dangerous influence on The Youth of America. Videos, whether they were too sexual (pretty much everything Madonna did) or violent (that Judas Priest video where the guy blows up at the end --and his pants fall down! Hilarious!) were rotting our young minds.

Of course, the ironic twist in this case was that they really were rotting our minds -- just not through any direct images of sex or violence,. Instead, they accomplished the task by feeding us hours of inane entertainment each day and hypnotizing us into wanting more ... more .... more... until someone -- usually a fed-up mom or dad -- told us to stop staring at the TV and go outside.



In my case, the parental hammer came down when my brother (three-and-a-half years my junior) and I were sitting around, staring at MTV, and the video for Devo's "Whip It" began spooling on the screen. Now, being an early '80s geek with a growing interest in offbeat pop culture, Devo was one of the few bands playing on MTV that I actually was acquainted with. I even had three of their early albums (including "Freedom of Choice," which included "Whip It"). But mom, bless her heart, had no idea what was lurking in my record collection* so when she wandered into the living room and saw this...





Devo - MTV2 120 Minutes

... she simply reached over and turned off the set, leaving me and my brother wondering what just happened.



I learned a valuable lesson that day: Watch MTV (or, in later years, Cinemax) when everyone else in the house is fast asleep. And I still like Devo.

By the way, a friend of mine had a similar thing happen to him -- but for a much funnier reason. His dad stumbled onto the video for Blotto's "Lifeguard" one day and told him he was forbidden to watch MTV because "It's too stupid."



Oh, how right he was.



* This fact would come in handy the next year when I managed to get my hands on a copy of the Dead Kennedys' classic debut album, "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables."

Buy my comics, make me rich: The Spirit #17

Boy, it's been a while since I've written one of these posts...

But today, Aug. 10, you can walk into your friendly neighborhood comic book shop and purchase the new issue of DC's "The Spirit," which has a story written by yours truly and drawn by my pal (and legendary comic book artist) Craig Russell. If that's not enough to sell you on parting with your $2,99, maybe the fact that the book also includes stories by Howard Chaykin and Brian Bolland and Paul Levitz and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez will help convince you.

Really, it's a hell of an issue, and I'm damn proud to be part of it. Plus, it was a real blast to write my version of a good, old fashioned Spirit story -- in which, like many of Will Eisner's stories, the Spirit is largely a background character.

Here's the cover of the issue...





And here's a great video by my friend Wayne Harold where Craig discusses the genesis of the story, reveals how it almost didn't get published (this was filmed before that decision was made, and when Berni Wrightson was part of the lineup) and -- best of all -- shows off some of his beautiful art. Seriously people -- the panel with Craig's version of the Sistine Chapel is worth the three bucks all by itself.





As always, any comments are welcome.

Advance Team Tuesday: Meet the REAL hero of the story

Despite what I've been implying in previous posts, the real "breakout character" in the upcoming graphic novel "The Advance Team" might not be Zack McKinley, the pizza delivery technician who finds himself in the middle of a decades-old, full-scale alien invasion.

No, the character I think all the cool kids are going to go for is Zack's boss, Marty...



What's not to love? He's overweight, unshaven, wears stained shirts and reads sleazy magazines. What's more, without his reckless disregard for his employees' safety, odds are Zack would never get involved in his life-changing, world-saving adventure in the first place.

So let's hear it for the real hero of "The Advance Team"! Let's hear it for Marty!



MARTY!



MARTY!!



All art, of course, by German Torres, my able co-conspirator on this book. You can follow him on Twitter at @german_TR. And, while you're at it, why not follow my fine, upstanding editor, Steven Padnick at @padnick. Without him, believe me, "The Advance Team" wouldn't even exist!