Deliver Me From Nowhere
By Dan Brown As 2025 comes to a close, a belated book review of sorts. I recently finished reading Deliver Me From Nowhere by Warren Zanes. I loved it. This book is a commanding piece of music journalism about the making of 1982’s Nebraska, the first solo album from Bruce Springsteen. It came out in 2023 and was made into a motion picture – with The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White playing the famous singer – which landed in theatres this October. Got all that? Deliver Me From Nowhere is an exhaustive account of the emotions Springsteen put into Nebraska, which is a curious album. In Springsteen’s discography, it lands between The River and Born in the U.S.A. He was poised for mass success at that moment, and although Nebraska was loved by music purists, it didn’t get much attention from the public even after he became a megastar in 1984. When Nebraska landed in record stores, the place we all got our music in those days, its release coincided with an emotional breakdown the Boss suffered. Zanes covers all of this. Springsteen participated in both the writing of the book and the making of the motion picture. Nebraska remains an oddity for a number of reasons. For one, Springsteen didn’t really know he was making an album – he was just recording demo tracks while living alone in a rented house in New Jersey. It became a solo project only after he and the E Street Band tried to record full versions of the demos. After many flat takes, Springsteen came to a decision: The demos ARE the album. That’s why it has a stripped-down sound. Like I said, many music diehards consider it the last gasp of acoustic honesty before MTV became the primary pop-music tastemaker in North America. Springsteen had recorded the demos on a primitive four-track machine. Even the music snobs who don’t like Bruce’s brand of rock and roll, like Nebraska. I recommend Deliver Me From Nowhere to anyone with an interest in pop culture. The author, Zanes, is a musician by trade – he was a member of the Del Fuegos in the 1980s and once played with Springsteen on the same stage. He has also written a biography of Tom Petty and other volumes on music, and regular readers will know that I love thinkers who take pop culture seriously. Zanes has a tendency to wax poetic, which I didn't mind because Nebraska is that kind of album. But if you’re looking for a scholarly reserve, you won’t find it here. Zanes has mountains of respect and affection for the Boss, which makes sense: Why else would he devote a big chunk of time and effort to chronicling the making of one Springsteen album? I have yet to see the movie version of Deliver Me From Nowhere so I can’t tell you if it’s worth the watch. But I will certainly be looking for an excuse to catch it on streaming in the New Year. If you are one of those freaky folks like me who devours pop-culture information, you should check out Deliver Me From Nowhere. It’s readable, and Zanes is a wise and funny writer. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
The Year in Comics, 2025 Edition
By Dan Brown Another year gone! That means it’s time again to pick out the highlights from the last 12 months in the comics and graphic-novel world. As I always say when introducing the annual list, the categories are entirely my own invention, the choices reflect my tastes and no else’s, and I would love to see you chime in with your own picks! Best graphic novel of the year: Contenders include Jeff Lemire’s 10,000 Ink Stains (more of a memoir than a graphic novel, I know), Guy Delisle’s Muybridge and David Petersen’s Mouse Guard: Dawn of the Black Axe (yes, I know it will be several weeks before it appears in collected form), but I am going with D. Boyd’s Denniveniquity, which recounts the creator’s misadventures growing up in 1970s New Brunswick. I was transported back in time to a different Canada, and the book’s central character made me laugh! Best comic of the year: I’m going to say the J.Michael Straczynski-written Doctor Doom & Rocket Raccoon No. 1, in which the Latverian ruler drafts the genetically engineered rodent to help him travel back to a time before the Big Bang to understand the purpose of the universe. It includes a Jack Kirby-inspired collage, which got me excited. Local comics coming on strong: With offerings like Scott Wojcik and Jeff McClinchey’s Probed and Loaded, as well as Jeff McClinchey and Scott Brian Woods’ Black Helm Saga, it was a strong year for local creators. Speaking of which, Byron comic creator Jeff Lemire took over art duties on Skottie Young’s I Hate Fairyland this year! Best graphic novel I read this year not from this year: The second volume of Chip Zdarsky’s Public Domain came out in February, collecting previously published issues. As I wrote, “it’s a sophomore collection that enriches the storyline of an ongoing comic series, putting the characters in new and surprising situations.” Best comic adaptation of the year: The Sook-Yin Lee version of Chester Brown’s Paying For It came to London in 2025, and it stayed with me long after I saw it last winter. Brown himself sat a couple rows over. Most underwhelming comic adaptation: This is a tie between this summer’s Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps. There, I said it. These movies were popular for about one second, and consider this: The best character in Superman is Krypto, the superdog. The most intriguing character in Fantastic Four is Doctor Doom, who is in the thing for like half a second. Blerg. Comic adaptations still hanging in: Despite all the talk of superhero fatigue, there were four such motion pictures in the domestic box office’s Top 12 for 2025: Superman (No. 3), Fantastic Four (No. 7), Captain America; Brave New World (No. 10), and Thunderbolts (No. 12). What was cool for comic fans is that for Superman and the FF movie, magazine-sized digests were published showing the stories that inspired each movie. Most confusing comic marketing: As part of the industry crossover involving the two biggest comic companies, DC released the one-shot Batman Deadpool and Marvel released Deadpool Batman. Got it? These were two different things. Creators involved with the making of these titles had to take to social media to combat the resulting confusion. Best local comics-marketing move: Joe Ollmann helped put together Bonk’d Volume 1, which collects work from Hamilton-based and -connected comic creators (Ollmann also has The Woodchipper coming out next year, his latest collection of short stories, which I am eagerly anticipating). Comic villain of the year: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took aim at graphic novels in school libraries, particularly the ones depicting LGBTQ relationships. I thought we were done with comic witch hunts in the 1950s, but apparently not. Biggest comics-adjacent development of the year: Netflix’s animated movie K-Pop Demon Hunters has caused quite a stir, although I have yet to see it. Now, it’s over to you! Tell me in the comments about your picks for this year! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
This Christmas, Let’s Muddle Through
By Dan Brown Much of Christmas pop culture is shabby, cheap and weird. And most Christmas songs are syrupy-sweet – when I hear them, my teeth ache. But there’s one exception. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas has been around for decades. It was originally written for the 1944 musical motion picture Meet Me in St. Louis and was sung by Judy Garland, who readers my age know as the mother of Liza Minnelli. It may be the only Christmas song whose dominant vibe is a melancholy one. It is certainly the only Yule tune I’ve heard in my 57 years that has the word “muddle” in it: Someday soon, we all will be togetherIf the Fates allowUntil then, we'll have to muddle through somehowSo have yourself a merry little Christmas now That closing verse captures the bittersweet mood of the song. The lyrics offer no certainties. They suggest we don’t control our own lives, and that we should enjoy this Christmas because nothing in life is guaranteed. I first heard it when I was a kid in the 1970s. That word “muddle” jumped out at me. We – my family, other families, the world – were doing a lot of muddling through situations in the 1970s, so it seemed appropriate. According to Wikipedia, the moody number was written in 1943 with Hugh Martin credited as composer, Ralph Blane as lyricist. I’m guessing it being written in the thick of the Second World War has a lot to do with that flavour of uncertainty. It was one of those moments in history when Western civilization, our shared way of life, was in jeopardy. People were worried that the fascist authoritarians would prevail. Many artists went on to record cover versions, and you may be thinking: “Wait a minute, I hear that tune every year at this time and I don’t remember any lyrics about muddling through.” Your ears are not playing tricks on you. There are indeed recordings in which that verse has been replaced: Through the years we all will be togetherIf the Fates allowHang a shining star upon the highest boughAnd have yourself a merry little Christmas now Apparently the lyrics were revised in 1957 at the request of legendary crooner Frank Sinatra, who wanted his own version to be more jolly. Since then, you can hear both versions done by many different vocalists. To my young ears, this was a different type of Christmas music. It wasn’t childish like other songs or carols. It wasn’t Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Winter Wonderland or Jingle Bells or The Little Drummer Boy. It spoke to me of a different Christmas experience. And no wonder. Heck, it was written only a few years following the end of the Great Depression, so they weren’t all happy days back then. And now, as an adult, I realize that muddling through life is sometimes the best you can do in this crazy thing called life.. Let me know in the comments about the festive songs you love hearing at Christmas! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Graphic-novel Gift Guide
By Dan Brown I love giving (and getting) graphic novels and comics at Christmas! As you’re shopping for family and friends this festive season, I’ve got some suggestions on which books to get the different people who made your list. Check it out! For the newbie graphic-novel reader: I would recommend a starter pack of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus. Released at roughly the same moment in the 1980s, these are the foundational graphic novels – along with Will Eisner’s A Contract With God – that showed comics could be taken seriously. For the superhero fan: I would give this person Irredeemable from Boom! Studios. Written by Mark Waid, it takes a look at what happens when an all-powerful hero in the mold of Superman goes off the rails. For the fan of Canadiana: Maurice Vellekoop’s I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together is a gay coming-of-age story set in Toronto and includes a lot of history about the queer community in the Big Smoke. There’s also Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, set in Alberta’s Oil Patch. For the fan of local talent: Derek Laufman has books like Bot 9 and The Witch of Wickerson for kids, plus titles such as Crimson Fall: The Shore Tower for mature readers. He recently published the first issue of The Rats of Ironwood and has taken over art duties on Skottie Young’s I Hate Fairyland series. A Byron resident, Laufman is as local (and as good a creator) as it gets. For the fan of overlooked gems: Get this person on your list anything Mouse Guard, Londoner Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Seconds, or Southwestern Ontario native Jeff Lemire’s The Nobody, the latter of the three being a re-telling of the H.G. Wells novel The Invisible Man in a small town. For the history buff: Maybe I’m in the minority, but I had not heard of Eadweard Muybridge, the pioneering photographer who was also involved in one of the most notorious murder trials of the 1800s, until Quebec graphic novelist Guy Delisle published this biography. A fascinating character whose story is told in a fascinating way. You could also try Scott Chanter’s Two Generals, about the D-Day invasion told from the perspective of two Canadian grunts. For the political buff: Are You Willing to Die for the Cause? is the first of a two-volume history of the FLQ, the separatist terrorists who are portrayed by veteran cartoonist Chris Oliveros as a bunch of stumblebums. For the art lover: I came relatively late to Dean Motter’s Mister X. Check out Mister X: The Archives or Mister X: The Modern Age, with its glorious retro look, billed as “a fusion of film noir, Art Deco and German Expressionism.” All of those elements combine to make a comic that will live in your imagination for a long time. And Los Bros Hernandez worked on some of the early issues of this Canadian classic! For the lover of the printed word: Anything, really, by Hamilton’s Joe Ollmann. If you want a starting point, try some of his short graphica, for instance Happy Stories About Well-Adjusted People. If you like what you read, move on to Fictional Father and The Abominable Mr. Seabrook. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joe’s art, too, but there are few comic creators whose voice comes through as clearly as Ollmann’s does. For the one who loved this summer’s Superman movies: The James Gunn film was based on a number of storylines, including All-Star Superman, Superman For All Seasons and Superman: Birthright. If you can find a compilation of John Byrne’s 1980s run on Superman, this person on your list will likely enjoy that one, too. For the one who loved The Fantastic Four: First Steps this summer: The Essential Fantastic Four Volumes 1-5 were the source material for this movie, with its retro-futuristic look. The new motion picture was dedicated to artist Jack Kirby, and these five volumes contain his entire influential run on the title with Stan Lee. For the one who is looking forward to Avengers: Doomsday next year: See my Fantastic Four recommendations. Also the Essential Super-Villain Team-Up Volume 1 and the individual issue The Invincible Iron Man No. 150 – in which Doctor Doom faces off against Iron Man. For the music fan: Scott Chantler’s Bix, Rush: The Making of a Farewell to Kings and David Collier’s Topp: Promoter Gary Topp Brought us the World. For the person who’s impossible to buy for: Why, a gift certificate, of course! So that’s it for my suggestions for this year. Are there any graphic novels/comics you are giving this year, or hoping to see under the tree? Let me know in the comments! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Franklin the Turtle is Bombing Boats
By Dan Brown Ye shall know them by the pop culture they appropriate. There’s no better example than a troll post this week from U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. It shows a beloved Canadian cartoon icon, Franklin the Turtle, targeting narco terrorists with a rocket launcher from a helicopter overhead. The image was the former Fox News host’s way of mocking critics who have slammed U.S. Navy drone attacks on vessels coming from Venezuela. The difference, of course, is that there’s no evidence the real boats being bombed are manned by armed terrorists running drugs. If there was evidence, Hegseth would be posting that instead of a smiling, bloodthirsty Franklin. Being a huge pop-culture fan, you might think it upsets me when politicians mess with icons like Franklin the Turtle, but I have come around to a new way of thinking. I think it’s great, because it tells us exactly who they are. It puts a human face on government. If U.S. voters and folks around the world didn’t know anything about Hegseth before this, they now have all the information they need to make an assessment of his character. Commenters have been having a field day, with some telling Hegseth that Franklin is committing war crimes, which underlines the risk political leaders take when they dive into pop-culture waters. Oh, and Franklin’s publisher isn’t happy that their intellectual property has been co-opted, either. For me, it calls to mind a forgotten fact from the late 1990s when the Vatican released a list of movies it invited the faithful to check out. Strangely, 2001: A Space Odyssey was on there, which is still a puzzler to me. Why would the Vatican endorse a film in which an alien monolith provides the evolutionary spark that helps dumbass apes transform into humans? Why would it endorse a film with evolution at all? Doesn’t that fly in the face of the Christian creation story? I still don’t get it. But just as Hegseth’s use of Franklin the Turtle inadvertently tells me a lot about him, so did the Pope’s movie picks tell me something about the strangeness of the Vatican bureaucracy. One of the earliest examples in my life of politics and pop culture colliding was former vice-president Dan Quayle speaking out in 1992 against Murphy Brown for choosing to have a baby out of wedlock. Knowing Quayle was attacking a fictional character from a sitcom for an immoral life choice provided us with a fascinating glimpse into the Republican’s mind, confirming everything Quayle’s critics had been saying about him being an airhead. Did he know Murphy Brown is really a role played by Candace Bergen, not an actual broadcaster? (Quayle’s boss, George H.W. Bush, also slammed The Simpsons, saying the proper TV family to serve as role models should be the Waltons, not Homer and his brood. I am not even kidding, this actually happened.) I guess Franklin the Turtle firing a bazooka at bad guys is what we should expect more of, considering how the man who picked Hegseth to run the Pentagon is best-known as a former reality-show host Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Autumn Mini-reviews
By Dan Brown Here are brief reviews of a some of the comics I’ve been reading this fall. As always, there’s no logic to these selections, other than each cover caught my eye on the new-releases shelf at L.A. Mood. Alien Vs. Captain America No. 1: The result of a partnership between Marvel and 20th Century Studios, this miniseries takes place during the Second World War. Last seen on the big screen in Alien: Romulus, the xenomorph is the weapon Nazis hope will turn the tide as the allies march closer to Germany. Best moment is when Cap uses his shield as a Frisbee to decapitate a baby alien that has just burst out of a chest cavity, about to jump Nick Fury. Herobear and the Kid: What can I say? I’m as much a sucker for a cartoon polar bear as the next guy. This all-ages book taps into the Calvin and Hobbes vibe with the young protagonist alluding to the final Bill Watterson strip by declaring, “We’re going explorin,’” in one of the opening panels. Also, the bear exists as a stuffed animal until he is bopped on the nose, which brings him to full-sized life. Fun. Binary No. 1: One of the big events happening over in the Marvel Universe these days is its Age of Revelation crossover, which takes place a decade into the future in an alternate North America where a virus has killed millions and turned the survivors into mutants. Oh, and Carol Danvers is once again Binary, but a Binary on steroids. “I have the powers of the Phoenix,” she explains. No biggie. Cloak or Dagger No. 1: Cloak and Dagger are also caught up in the Age of Revelation event. They seem to be government/military operatives. This story also has a marauding hippo, which I did not have on my bingo card. Probed & Loaded: Love the heedless energy of this Scott Wojcik/Jeff McClinchey joint. Our redneck heroes are abducted by a UFO, which is bad news for their alien captors. It’s a weird situation. “Lucky for me, weird is where I shine,” the Elvis-esque Gunny narrates. McClinchey’s art calls to my mind classic Mad Magazine stuff. Black Helm Saga No. 1: My favourite of the bunch. Created by Jeff McClinchey and Scott Brian Woods, it takes place in the interregnum between Ragnarok and the coming of a new world in a snowy forest. SBW’s pencils remind me of Jeff Lemire’s expressive lines. And the idea of a many-eyed, fanged monster lurking beneath the snow, waiting to push its way up like a great white shark, actually makes a lot of sense to me this dreary fall. Fantastic Four No. 4: A thought-provoking one-and-done story about aliens that appear to be cute, harmless puppies, but are actually many-tentacled beasts with jagged teeth. The only problem is that Alicia, Ben Grimm’s blind partner, is the only one who can perceive them in their true form. Loved the Skottie Young cover featuring H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot, who was last seen on the big screen this summer in First Steps. The Amazing Spider-Man No. 15: With a cover that riffs on Peter Parker’s first-ever glimpse of Mary Jane Watson, this story finds our arachnid hero having deep-space adventures which involve a sentient costume. “I have a complicated history with alien suits,” he deadpans at one point. This suit, called Glitch, is mechanical in nature, not organic like Venom. He also gets to kiss an alien with yellow skin and cat’s ears. Absolute Batman No. 1: This one actually came out a few months ago, and imagines a Gotham City in which Bruce Wayne is of humble means while the Joker is a billionaire. It has apparently generated quite a stir among fans of the Dark Knight. With Alfred as a traveling mercenary, it doesn’t lack action! What comics or graphic novels have you picked up this fall? If you have recommendations, I’d love to hear them in the comments! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
