POP-CULTURE COLUMN: In 2026, we’re all subscribers
By Dan Brown Once upon a time, subscriptions were a rare thing. But today it feels like every bloody product and/or service works according to a subscription model. And what I’m sensing is people are not thrilled with this shift. Back in the old days, by which I mean the 1970s/1980s, you could get subscriptions to a finite list of items. For example, as a young superhero fan I had a subscription to only one comic, Captain Canuck. I took this extraordinary (for me) step because it was the one title I never wanted to miss. Since I mostly bought comics off spinner racks (one in the stationery place in Sherwood Forest Mall, the other at the variety store in Westown Plaza Mall), the risk I took was that if I didn’t go often enough, I would miss the latest issue of my favourite comics. Hence I became a subscriber at a young age. Dedicated comic stores were still a few years off for me. They based their sales model on each customer’s individual pull list, which is just another kind of comic subscription. My brother and I had gift subscriptions to Omni, the sci-fi magazine, from a favourite aunt and uncle, as well as to Owl, the children’s equivalent of National Geographic. They arrived at our house every month through the mail. It seemed like some kind of dark magic was at work. At about the same time, when I was attending elementary school, my first job was delivering the London Free Press to the subscribers in Poplar Hill who read Southwestern Ontario’s daily newspaper. My parents also took the Freeps. And that was just about the extent of the subscriptions in my life. When cable television came along, it wasn’t a factor for me because our tiny hometown wouldn’t get any kind of service for decades. But if we fast-forward to the early 1990s, with my family then living in neighbouring Coldstream, there was a kind of subscription service that changed my world because it exposed me to such a wide variety of TV shows and content. I’m talking about the old gigantic grey-market satellite dishes. Once the dish was installed, every month our family would receive the new codes to descramble the signals beaming networks like the Comedy Channel, HBO, and Cinemax to our backyard. It was a Golden Age. I watched so many movies, it became my own version of film school. Was it entirely legal? Probably not. Did exposure to so many classic movies expand my imagination? You bet. When I moved to Toronto to attend journalism school, then later Saint John for work, I was abused by almost every cable company you can name. And by this point the idea of paying by monthly instalments had become firmly entrenched in all of our lives. Now leap ahead in time to 2026. Everyone who has a cellphone has to pay a monthly fee. Such music-streaming services as Spotify work the same way, as do Netflix, Disney+, and YouTube Premium. M’Lady and I pay for monthly services like our home digital assistant, our internet, even a farm share that provides us with in-season produce in the warmer months. You can also get car maintenance by subscription, as well as makeup, clothing, meal kits, craft beer, cloud storage, car washes, Peloton, daycare, museums, house cleaning, MasterClasses, and wine. I get the business imperative: The companies behind all of these products and services have established a revenue stream that never runs out. But if you’re feeble-minded like me, you might be having a hard time keeping track of all the things you subscribe to. Someone needs to come up with an app that helps consumers make sure they pay all of their subscriptions every thirty days. And of course you’ll pay for it – one month at a time. 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.
Monster of the Abyss artist Eric Olcsvary visits with GNG
By Dan Brown SPOILER WARNING: This column contains plot details. If you value surprise, stop reading now. You’ve been warned! The L.A. Mood Graphic-Novel Group met Saturday, April 11, and had a special guest, Tillsonburg artist Eric Olcsvary. This is a brief outline of our discussion with him during our hour-long meeting. The book: The first two issues of Monster of the Abyss, written by Scott Wojcik, and illustrated by Olcsvary. The discussion: Eric gave us a look into his creative process, his background, and his partnership with Wojcik, who is also a local creator. Olcsvary says Wojcik is an idea machine! Wojcik’s kids Ashton and Hayden helped the writer come up with the story for Monster of the Abyss. This comic series follows the adventures of Sleepy Joe, who is a “magical and unique” stuffy brought home from a store in the “Eatons Mall.” Over the two issues he undergoes a drastic transformation, and Olcsvary said Joe being able to think but not talk (his mouth is stitched shut) is a key part of the character’s personality. Oh, and although many readers have asked the creative team about this, Sleepy Joe is not a reference to former U.S. president Joe Biden! By issue No. 2, Sleepy Joe has become Creepy Joe after being pulled into the underworld and having his persona changed. L.A. Mood co-owner and GNG member Gord Mood said the entity that forcibly transforms Joe, the Gloom King, is a Nietzschean kind of being. “Even the strong-willed can be broken, their resolve crushed,” it tells the toy. “Friendship is a lie, when darkness rises they’ll leave you to rot. You’re better off embracing your true nature. You are a creature of fear, destined for darkness.” If you haven’t guessed by now, Monster of the Abyss is a horror story. Olcsvary explained to the group’s members that although he is a metalhead when it comes to music, he is not a big horror guy – he just keeps getting offers to draw horror books! The part of the book where Joe is in the black pit also prompted a digression among the group about brainwashing. To what extent can a person (or even a fabric toy) be induced to do things that are outside their normal moral sphere? We had wide-ranging opinions. Another point we spent a decent chunk of time talking about is the colouring of the book. The first printing of Monster of the Abyss No. 1 was in black and white, which was followed by a colour version with colours by Payton Atkinson. We agreed as a group that we enjoyed the coloured version more. Olcsvary has described his own lines as a “bouncy, ink-heavy art style full of movement and unique composition.” He told us on Saturday that inking is his favourite part of the comic-making process! You can find Monster of the Abyss on the rack reserved for work by local comic creators. L.A. Mood’s Graphic-Novel Group meets the second Saturday of every month. Next month’s selection is Mouse Guard: Dawn of the Black Axe by David Petersen and Gabriel Rodriguez. Be warned, I am a HUGE Mouse Guard fan! We’re set to meet May 9 at the gaming tables in the store at 11 a.m. All are welcome to join the discussion! 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.
POP-CULTURE COLUMN: Long live rock, killed by the CIA
By Dan Brown Who killed rock and roll? Turns out it was the CIA. This, according to a theory forwarded by Billy Corgan, lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins. “The industry purposely dialed down the ability of rock stars to have a voice,” he said on his podcast a month ago, as reported by Rolling Stone and other media outlets. He was talking about the end of his band's heyday in the 1990s: “Some people assert that the CIA was involved in all that, again, above my pay grade, but I saw it happen. I did witness it happen.” Corgan was speaking with his fellow 1990s rock star, Courtney Love. (Full disclosure: I haven’t seen or heard the whole podcast.) He described how it was MTV, the fondly remembered music channel, that played a key role in rock’s supposed demise. “If you were at MTV or around MTV [in] 1997, ’98, suddenly they decided rock was out, when rock was still very, very high up in the thing and it was replaced by rap, right? Their standards and practices immediately shifted.” Now, I love a crackpot conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but there are much simpler explanations than the Central Intelligence Agency teamed up with MTV – such as Corgan, Love and the rest were making bad music. The bald singer said rock gods were sidelined like it’s a bad thing, but perhaps the music-buying public just got sick of what his band was offering, as can happen with any product. Smashing Pumpkins albums are no different from commodities like hand soap, hubcaps, and sundried tomatoes: They sell for as long as the market demands them. Consumers are fickle yet rational. And perhaps the truth is Corgan and his bandmates could not keep up with the changing tastes of music fans. It’s few musicians who have a career that spans decades. People who want a stable life don’t become rockers. Now, I won’t lie to you. I have rocked out to the Smashing Pumpkins. Not all their songs are mediocre. I particularly remember one day in the spring of 1995 when I was walking across campus on my way to handing in my final assignment of the first year of journalism school at Ryerson University singing “Today is the greatest day I’ve ever known” out loud. I felt elated screaming those lyrics. That Corgan-written song captured my feelings at that moment. Flash-forward all the way to 2026 and the same singer comes off as . . . entitled. Who knows, he could be right. Maybe all the music-industry executives and radio and TV programmers did get together around a big oak table to decide that rap was the new rock. Or maybe, just maybe, later Smashing Pumpkins albums sucked canal water, and rap video drew more advertisers to MTV. By the way, should rappers feel abused that hip-hop, in turn, took over as the dominant form of pop music over rap? Is the secret music cabal responsible for that shift in taste, too, Billy? But back to the CIA’s influence on the Billboard Hot 100. Readers with long memories know this isn’t the first time the American intelligence agency has been accused of meddling in the development of pop music. I mean, wasn’t it convenient at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius at Woodstock, in 1969, that the heavens opened up and the crowd of peace-lovers got soaked with rain? So clearly the decades-old rumours are true: If the CIA and MTV did actually join forces to hurt Billy Corgan’s feelings, then it’s obvious CIA agents seeded the clouds above Max Yasgur’s farm with silver iodide to make it pour on the festival of love, peace and music. Someone in the Nixon Administration wanted all those hippies to go home. Possibly even Tricky Dick himself. 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 COLUMN: Absolute Batman is a Pinhead
By Dan Brown Absolute Batman is a new version of the Dark Knight who’s setting DC fandom and the sales charts on fire. Instead of coming from a rich family, this Bruce Wayne is a young man of modest means while his nemesis, the Joker, is Gotham’s resident billionaire in this continuity. You can also recognize this new superhero because, as drawn by Nick Dragotta, he has a massive body but a pinhead for a noggin. Scott Snyder handles writing duties. I’ve been reading a number of Batman collections lately, ranging from the awful (The Long Halloween) to the superior (The Court of Owls Saga). For this column I read The Zoo, which collects the first six issues of Absolute Batman. The title has been lauded for its visual storytelling, and is selling gangbusters – we’re talking manga numbers. “Absolute Batman is now consistently selling 300,000 issues a month, a monster number in the comic-book publishing field,” the Hollywood Reporter noted in an article on April 3 (I’m sure a part of that total is single copies with variant covers). What you’ll see in Absolute Batman: The Zoo is fresh takes on familiar names and institutions. Jim Gordon is Gotham City’s Mayor. His daughter is Barbara, a cop like the main-universe version, except she’s black. Instead of a Batmobile, Wayne steals a motorcycle. His father, a grade-school teacher, is killed in a school shooting, inspiring the young man to become a crime fighter. Alfred Pennyworth is an ex-special forces soldier-turned-mercenary, and possible partner for the Dark Knight. Selina Kyle is a childhood friend of Wayne’s. Not having the financial resources of the original Bruce Wayne, our hero must use whatever materials come to hand, like when he commandeers a gigantic dump truck in a chase scene. He also leans on a group of friends that includes the Absolute equivalents of Two-Face and the Riddler. No doubt some of the people buying this series are speculators, but there’s no denying this is a novel and energetic twist on the Batman we’ve all come to know in the past. I especially appreciated Absolute Batman No. 4 because it was drawn by frequent Jeff Lemire collaborator Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and delves into this particular Batman’s origin story. The strong demand for the series has led to multiple printings of the first few issues. Fans are genuinely excited to see where the creative team will take the title. I’ve always argued, when anyone says Batman is just a regular guy (unlike Superman), that his superpower is the Wayne family fortune, which allows him to be prepared for any threat to his hometown. So it’s interesting to see how this Batman’s anger is directed at the city’s One Per Centers, who he feels have an obligation to their community, but are instead pretending to literally be above it all, hiding from their responsibility in penthouse apartments. Are you reading Absolute Batman? What do you think? How do you suppose he got his shrunken head? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 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.
POP-CULTURE COLUMN: The Pitt Is Eating At My Gut
By Dan Brown I gotta stop watching The Pitt. The HBO Max medical drama about a chaotic ER in Pittsburgh is stressing me out. Now in its second season, the Pitt is an unrelenting show from the beginning of every episode to the final minutes. My life is already stressful enough without having to keep track of all the storylines and characters. I have two jobs, a wife, two dogs, two cats. I have enough going on in my life without the extra pressure of not knowing if the ER team, led by Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby, is going to make it through the day. Each hour of the show represents an hour of a shift. In the first season, the shift was unfolding like any other day when a mass shooting shook the city, flooding the hospital with wounded patients. In the current season, the major complication is how a ransomware attack means the doctors, nurses, and specialists on duty must do their jobs without the help of computers. The problem for me is that the show is so damn compelling. When the next instalment drops, I know right now it’ll be hard for me to resist watching. I guess I want to see how Wyle and his co-stars deal with the patients that wind up needing emergency care. It’s called competence p*rn – how fans get off on seeing characters who are professionals rise to an occasion beyond their understanding by improvising. The same fetish is also powering the stellar box-office numbers for Project Hail Mary in theatres right now. People love watching Ryan Gosling get stuff done on the big screen. Some human beings are apparently turned on by people who are really good at their jobs. I’m one of those suckers. I do feel a sense of relief when a dying patient is saved on the Pitt. Or when a student doctor pulls a solution out of their butt – the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is a teaching hospital, a neat narrative trick that allows readers to understand what the medical team is up against in each individual case as the team talks out possible treatments. But it’s an ordeal to watch. The Pitt gets on my nerves in a way few TV shows ever have. When I was a young TV watcher in the 1980s, there was another series that had a similar effect, the cop drama Hill Street Blues. It was gritty and so realistic for its time. That was the first television offering to make me grind my teeth in the same way. Each episode of Hill Street Blues also started with the beginning of a typical shift and followed the characters through their long day. I credit the cast of the Pitt for grabbing my attention. The emotional give-and-take between head nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) and Dr. Robby is the heart of this second season. Keeping up such a hectic pace, it’s easy to see how the folks working in this particular ER would get burnt out quickly. And there are all kinds of subplots. One doc is a recovering addict. Another was recently homeless. Another may be about to do self-harm, which means I gotta see if she goes through with it. Who am I kidding? I know I likely won’t change my viewing habits. The Pitt is just too damn good. 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 COLUMN: Some No. 1s Are Different Than Others
By Dan Brown I call it the Spinner Rack of Your Dreams. It’s a second-hand comic rack that sits at home in my basement, which I have dubbed not the Man Cave, but the Dan Cave. My wife spraypainted it silver before I set the display up. It looks fantastic, but still lacks a topper – you know, the metal box that has “Hey kids! Comics!” painted on the sides. For the last several years I’ve been stocking it with the No. 1 issues that come into my comic collection. Why do I have a spinner rack in my basement? Because it makes the space feel like a comic store, and comic stores are my happy place. Many times when I’m downstairs I will add a comic or two to the issues on display, which I rotate in and out of the most prominent spot at the front of each individual plastic display case. Reflecting my tastes, two sides are devoted to Marvel No. 1s, one to DC debut issues and one to comics from independent publishers like Dark Horse, Eclipse, Image, and Pacific Comics. Most of the books are from the 1970s and 1980s. You see, I don’t collect old comics for their value, but the way they make me feel like a kid again. Stored on the rack are a few, I suppose, that are worth something. There’s a Moon Knight No. 1 from 1980. The copy of Black Panther No. 1 I have likely went up in value after the first Marvel movie of the same name came out. There’s Ms. Marvel, Nova and Spider-Woman, as well as Red Sonja. The most-represented comic creator is Jacky Kirby, who did the No. 1 covers for titles like the Eternals, Destroyer Duck, Kamandi, and Sandman. I have the Todd McFarlane-drawn Spider-Man No. 1, which I include on the display as a joke – after Marvel flooded the market in 1990 with that book, the issue plunged in value to the point of worthlessness. There are sentimental favourites, like my copy of Alpha Flight, Marvel’s Canadian superhero team. Also by John Byrne, one of my favourite artist/writers, is Doomsday+1 No. 1 from Charlton. And yes, I have the requisite copy of Watchmen No. 1 I have No. 1s of both the Savage She-Hulk and the Sensational She-Hulk. I’ve got the Thing No. 1 and Marvel Two-in-One No. 1, Ben Grimm being my favourite superhero. I don’t have to tell diehard comic fans how collectors fall into different categories. Some collect to make money, even if comics aren’t a surefire way to get a good return on investment. Some don’t care about the condition of their comics, they want to read them over and over. Some people love them as objets d’art. I probably fall into that category. I also realize, one No. 1 is not the same as another. They were not all created equal. I hate how Marvel, I guess to attract speculators, has been putting out a new No. 1 anytime a different creative team takes over a long-running title. Maybe it makes for a slight sales bump, but they are also devaluing the currency of all No. 1s since the upshot is that inaugural issues are becoming ubiquitous. In any given month, the so-called House of Ideas puts out a truckload of No. 1s, which disturbs the purist in me. Things really were different when I was young. Also, let’s not forget that a No. 1 from back in the day is usually not the best issue from that series, nor does it always contain the origin story of the title character. In Captain Canuck No. 1, for instance, you won’t find any mention of Tom Evans gaining the strength of two ordinary men after he was blasted with an alien ray because that detail wasn’t revealed until he had a few adventures under his belt. But as long as it has a No. 1 on the front, it’s fair game for the Spinner Rack of Your Dreams! I don’t make the rules . . . oh, wait, yes I do. Would love to hear your take. What’s your favourite No. 1? And while you’re at it, let me know the reasons why YOU collect comic books! 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.
