Go Ahead, Buy Only the Greatest Hits
By Dan Brown Greatest-hits albums have a bad reputation. But sometimes all you need or want from a singer or band is their greatest hits. And I’m here to tell you that’s OK. You may remember the Kids in the Hall sketch in which Bruce McCulloch (as a record-store employee who is just a bit too devoted to the Doors) derides best-of collections as being for a lesser form of music fan. “Greatest-hits albums are for housewives and little girls!” he tells a startled Kevin McDonald. (By albums, I mean all formats of music, whether it’s vinyl, cassette, CD, download or stream. I’m sure McCulloch’s character would hate them all.) The knock on them from “serious” music fans is that they’re a money grab with no artistic credibility. They take little effort to produce and are almost pure gravy for the artist. It’s kind of like a university student recycling an old paper by submitting it to two different professors. By now, they are a rock-and-roll cliche. I don’t know who the first musician was to ever say, “Hey, let’s re-package some of our old numbers and see if we can sell fans the same material a second time,” but acts of a certain generation have all put one out. Your Aerosmiths, Police, U2. You know them. From what I understand, the typical band contract in the old days was for five albums, a live album, and a greatest hits. The best-selling physical album of all time is a greatest-hits collection, the first from the Eagles which, if you believe rock lore, the group’s members didn’t even want to put out because they were “serious” artists. The funny part is, it doesn’t even have their most-recognized song, Hotel California, on it. Speaking of the Eagles, I am a diehard fan of their drummer, Don Henley, but I’m going to give it to you straight: You don’t need to buy/stream all of his solo work. You’ll do just fine getting one of his greatest-hits collections. On the front of one of them, Actual Miles, Henley is dressed as a used-car salesman, which has got to be the most self-effacing album cover ever – he’s equating his greatest hits with a pre-owned car. So much for romance of the music industry. As with Henley, for so many artists isn’t necessary to hunt down every song they put out. Most of us are not completists, and in a world of limited resources we shouldn’t feel bad about that. None of us actually need a boxed set. You’re not a bad person if, like I did, you grab only the Guess Who’s greatest hits and leave it at that. The truly maddening part is when groups leave one of their most crucial numbers off their best-of, just so they can put out a second volume. Maybe it’s guilt from pulling stunts like that that motivates some acts to put a “new” song on their best-of offering. Yet these supposedly fresh takes are usually whipped up in a few hours in the studio, or are alternate takes, or are material that simply didn’t have a home on any other release. Again, laziness is the dominant vibe. The greatest-hits mentality has even spread into other areas of the entertainment world. Canadian fiction writer Alice Munro released My Best Stories in 2009, giving fans a fresh package for work she did long ago. So this holiday season, go ahead. I give you permission to get that greatest-hits package for the music fan on your list. But also get the one you want, as well. 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.
More Patented Tom Gauld Science Humour
By Dan Brown I’m a fan of Tom Gauld’s work, so I was already inclined to like his latest collection, Physics for Cats: Science Cartoons, which was published in October. It’s as strong as such previous books as his Department of Mind-Blowing Theories, Baking with Kafka, and Mooncop. The cartoons collected in his latest publication originally appeared in New Scientist magazine. They continue his tradition of absurdist humour and once again, he covers the gamut from slapstick comedy to highbrow references (H.P. Lovecraft has been a recurring source of laughs for many years). If the idea of a fun-sized Hadron Collider you can take to the beach strikes you as funny, then Gauld is the cartoonist for you. The closest comparison I can come up with is Gary Larson, who used to do The Far Side. Gauld has the same sort of cock-eyed way of looking at the world. The toons here feature a cast of cat scientists, human scientists, cockroach scientists, alien scientists, medieval scientists, and talking dogs. You don’t have to be a scientist to appreciate them, in fact a number of them revolve around petty office politics – apparently the science community is no different from any other made up of human beings. In fact, Gauld hints that the only thing separating modern scientists from old-school witches is their lab coats. Do real scientists actually take the extra bones from museum exhibits and create super-scary monster skeletons out of them? I don’t know, but Gauld’s men and women of science do. Or imagine a job interview at the Institute for Lifespan Extension Research. Of course the applicant is asked, “Where do you see yourself in 500 years?” There’s a fair bit of play with panels here as Gauld tries to stretch his usual platform of a single rectangular box. One panel in Physics for Cats can be read upside-down, another front to back. Yet another panel is phasing out of existence. And in one cartoon, the framing looks something like a traditional Sunday newspaper strip. In one three-part cartoon, a scientist looks at a floating black disc. “I stared into the abyss,” she begins. “The abyss stared back.” The punchline comes in the third panel: “One thing led to another, and now I meet the abyss for regular chats in the coffee shop near my lab.” Gauld has clearly mastered the cartoon form by now. I would still love to see him experiment more with long-form narratives, as he did with 2016’s Mooncop. That said, if you have an egghead on your Christmas list, or even just someone who’s really well-read, you could do a lot worse than Physics for Cats. 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.
Slow is the New Fast
By Dan Brown In our fast-paced world, doing things slowly is not just a luxury, it’s also the ultimate power move. You’ve probably noticed we live at a moment in human history when it feels as though everyone on the planet is rushing around with their hair on fire. Just look at online retailers (think Amazon) or delivery services (like Skip the Dishes), that promise faster and faster service. Then there’s the employers who don’t want slowpokes. Bosses prize workers who can move like lighting. They hire employees who can keep to a schedule by meeting tight deadlines. In 2025, no one wants a slow hand, as the Pointer Sisters once did. “I wanna go fast,” singer Demi Lovato pleads on her comeback single, out now. Everyone everywhere wants to move quickly, to get to the next thing before too much time has elapsed. Making the most of your day no longer means savouring each moment, but packing as many moments as you can into each hour, minute, second. No one has time to waste. So is it any surprise those who move at a slower pace stand out? The first place I noticed it was on the road. Driving around London, I would get stuck behind cars that were going painfully slowly. Usually, these vehicles travelling slower than the minimum speed limit were pimped-out machines. It didn’t take long for it to hit me: Clearly, going slow is the cool thing to do. Cool people don’t rush. (Another place you’ll see this principle at work is in Grand Bend with the cars that cruise the Strip at a snail’s pace.) If you want another illustration of this truth, check out any speech on YouTube by former U.S. president Barack Obama. His trademark style was to speak deliberately, with lots of pauses. What he was saying without saying it out loud was: “I’m no fast-talker like other politicians. I choose every word carefully. I’m no fool.” He was trying to make people hang on his every syllable. Understanding Obama’s message required an attention span. He was no influencer on Tik Tok. Going slowly in today’s fast-food, fast-everything world is a power move because being slow on purpose projects a message. It says, “I’m not in a hurry, like all the normies. I’m not a slave to the clock. I’m too important to rush around. I’m not shackled to a schedule, I’ll arrive when I arrive.” People who have the superpower of being slow are above common concerns the rest of us share. They don’t have to be at the party on time, or – heaven forfend — early. Is there a bigger faux pas than arriving before all the other guests? The slow among us are our modern-day Ferris Buellers. If you recall, Bueller struck a blow against the tyranny of the clock in 1986 by goofing off for an entire school day. "Life moves pretty fast,” he said. “If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." I don’t know about you, but I would love just one extra day to do nothing in particular, not having to worry about using my time efficiently. If it’s true life is a race to the grave, then not hurrying is also a way of resisting mortality itself. The heavy-metal group Blue Oyster Cult tapped into that idea in their 1981 song Burnin’ For You, which is partly a meditation on time: Time is the essenceTime is the seasonTime ain't no reasonGot no time to slowTime everlastingTime to play B-sidesTime ain't on my sideTime I'll never knowHaving time to burn to indulge such silly impulses as actually listening to B-sides is the ultimate luxury today. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really should get going. I’m on a tight deadline. 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.
Same Great Cosplay, New Venue for Forest City Comicon
By Dan Brown No, that’s not me in the photo above – it’s another bald, middle-aged white nerd. The guy in the sawtooth Charlie Brown shirt is Ian Tyson. Like me, he’s a huge fan of pop culture, including such superheroes as Superman – Tyson has already seen this summer’s movie about the Man of Steel five times! Tyson is also. one of the key organizers for Forest City Comicon. If you attend the annual celebration of all things geeky this Sunday, you’ll likely see him hosting panel discussions. The timing for F3C this year – two days after Halloween – is no accident, he tells me via Facebook message. “It’s one of the reasons we chose this particular weekend at (Best Western Lamplighter Inn), with the notion being this Halloween, keep your costume on,” he explained. “I think Halloween has turned into more than just a day. It’s a whole weekend. So why not continue the celebration right into Sunday?” Forest City Comicon has always had a thriving cosplay scene. Tyson isn’t sure the exact reason. “We have a lot of great connections with our board to the cosplay community and that may certainly play a part in it. (The con) draws out really great creators and artists and people who just make incredible costumes,” he added, noting the afternoon cosplay contest attracts “everybody from the masterful ones to the little kids that are trying it out for the first time.” One outfit that stands out in his memory is from 2017, when one attendee dressed up as DC’s Hawkgirl. “She stood on stage and extended the (retractable) wings to their full span, which was significant!” Tyson recalled. “It was really incredible.” Tyson has been involved with every Forest City Comicon since it launched in 2014 at Centennial Hall. With the shift to the Lamplighter, this Sunday will be the first F3C to be held outside of downtown London. “The event features special guests, costumes, artists, exhibitors, board games, video-game tournaments, panel presentations, and more,” Tourism London boasts of the one-day show. “We’re very excited at the prospects of what’s gonna happen this year at the Lamplighter. I think the vibe will be lighter and more fun. It’s warm. It feels like summertime in there, and it’s just a great space,” Tyson said. “I think that we truly have something for everyone, and have put a really great show together this year.” Something that has been a staple of past editions of Forest City Comicon is to bring in not only actors, but also celebrity guests other than those with familiar faces. Sure, there have been performers like 2017’s Billy Boyd, who played Pippin the Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings movies. But also part of the meat-and-potatoes for Forest City Comicon have been the talented individuals who fill out the crew and cast of motion pictures and TV franchises, like voice actor Billy West, who came to London in 2016. This Sunday will see a visit by David Barclay, the puppeteer who helped bring Star Wars characters such as Yoda the Jedi Master and Jabba the Hutt to life. Barclay is also known for “all things Muppet,” Tyson says. Oh yeah, and Cocaine Bear is coming, too! That would be Alan Henry, the motion-capture artist who played the titular coked-out beast two years ago. He’s also played King Kong, as well as characters in the Marvel, DC, Avatar, Lord of the Rings, and Minecraft universes. “From our experience doing these cons, motion-capture actors are fantastic guests that have great stories,” Tyson said, adding mo-cap performers “have stories to tell. They have been on the sets of these big things that we love, major projects, and been there doing the heavy lifting.” “Plus, what I have found is they all very much seem to be fans of the work they are doing. They are into it and they love meeting fans of that work, too. It makes for great back-and-forth interactions. They are just good people and are a lot of fun.” You will also see me at Forest City Comicon on Sunday. But don’t worry, folks, I won’t feed the Cocaine Bear! 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.
Every Jerk in Hollywood Has One
By Dan Brown If you’re a celebrity, and you really want to stand out from the crowd, there’s one sure way to set yourself apart. Don’t launch a podcast. That’s because, at this point in the evolution of podcasting, EVERYBODY in the entertainment industry has one. Former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama has a podcast. Bowen Yang from Saturday Night Live has a podcast. So does Taylor Swift’s husband-to-be. Conan O’Brien has one, as do Oprah Winfrey, Amy Poehler, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Movie star Kate Hudson has a podcast, as well as Anderson Cooper, Anna Faris, David Tenant, Woody Harrelson, Ellen Pompeo, and Ricki Lake. They are so ubiquitous, even reality star Snooki from Jersey Shore has a podcast. Yes, Snooki. So at this point, those entertainers who don’t have a weekly show on YouTube are in the outnumbered minority. Why would you want to be just another jerk with a podcast anyway? I guess the easy money is the lure. Just be your A-list self, tell all of your old boring stories, and get ready for the dollars to come rolling in. I realize it’s not that easy, but that seems to be the dream for many stars. Celebrity podcasts in 2025 are like blogs were in about 2007. At that time, everyone in the media felt like they had to have a blog. I was once the new-media expert at a legacy-media outlet and I would have journalists coming up to me saying, “Should I have a blog?” not “I really want to blog.” And when they discovered blogging wasn’t easy, and building an audience required a lot of effort, they would abandon their blogs after about three days. The celebrity incursion into the podcasting world must also really burn people who are native podcasters – who actually put in the hours to make their podcast a success without the benefit of a well-known name. There is one good aspect to this flood of celebrities, though. It makes the podcasts that are truly special stand out all that much more. I’m talking about such shows as Under the Influence, which examines advertising culture, and Gracefully and Frankly, aimed at women of a certain age – queenagers. These are both pods I listen to regularly and they aren’t built on the fame of their hosts, but the quality of their content. They’re fun and educational. These podcasts are worth a listen because they have engaging hosts who are talented broadcasters and thought-provoking conversationalists. Not because they met Tom Cruise at a party once. How out of control has the explosion of celeb podcasts become? Yes, dear reader, even I had a podcast once. And I’m a nobody! 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.
New Star Wars Series Aimed at Fans
By Dan Brown Dedicated fans will get the most of out Marvel’s ongoing Star Wars title featuring Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia. I would say I’m a fan of Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back, and the first third of Return of the Jedi, so I enjoyed it just fine. This series – I looked at the first six issues – takes place in the timeline after the end of Return of the Jedi, with the Empire in tatters and our plucky bunch of heroes attempting to bolster the fledgling New Republic. There are all the usual trappings: blasters firing, lightsabres slicing, spaceships exploding, treaties being negotiated. (No one gets choked, though, which happens a lot in those original movies.) What will jump out at fans is how characters show up who have never been featured in a Star Wars movie. So the story – which revolves around Princess Leia wooing a system of planets to join her incipient interstellar government – has Solo teaming up with Valance, a bounty hunter who made his debut in Star Wars comics way back in 1978. Shades of Darth Vader, he was a self-loathing cyborg. Here, after he and Solo escape from a tight spot, the pair of rogues enjoy drinks at an alien-infested tavern. This is when Valance gives the Corellian a hard time for becoming part of the rebel establishment. “Things are different now, Valance. I can’t just hop in the (Millennium) Falcon and fly off on an adventure whenever I like,” the one-time smuggler and now married man explains. “The old days are gone.” What will also stand out for longtime fans is how the characters actually resemble the actors who portrayed them in the original trilogy — so Solo looks like Harrison Ford, Skywalker like Mark Hamill, and so on. Back in the day, the licence Marvel had with Lucasfilm stipulated that they couldn’t do this, in case George Lucas ever needed to re-cast any of the roles. What fans of those original comics got were bland, anonymous characters who had roughly the same hairstyle as the ensemble that made the movies such a sensation. It’s unclear how much of the interregnum between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens will be covered in the new series. And that’s part of the problem: Because there is so much plot infrastructure already in place, there’s only so many directions writer Alex Segura and artist Phil Noto can go. The result: The creative team is constrained in bringing real change to the existing universe (these comics are billed as canon, though). They can’t kill off a main character, for instance. Still, Luke does get to Force-shove some baddies out his way and fire up his laser sword. Solo does get to shoot his way back to his hunk of junk spaceship through a crowd of villains. And Leia does get hot-headed during some palace intrigue. If that sounds like fun, this is the series for you. By the way, I’m also a fan of the Last Jedi, the Mandalorian, Rogue One, Andor, and the standalone Solo movie. Now there’s an idea – since Solo: A Star Wars Story is unlikely to ever get a sequel on the big screen, why not have a comic series that details what happens to Han and Chewie in the decade before they meet Luke and Ben Kenobi on Tatooine? That would be something I could really get behind! 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.
