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If you are in a good relationship chances are you’re bored out of your fucking mind. All good relationships are boring, all the exciting relationships are bad ones.

– Chris Rock, “Never Scared”

I’m a guy, which may or may not have something to do with my antipathy toward romance stories. Chris Rock pretty much nails the why: it’s mostly formula, it’s mostly boring and we know where every leading man and leading woman are headed.

Plus, once the characters are together, there’s usually nowhere to go with the story.

Think about it—name one story where it’s still interesting after the two lead characters get together. The formula is pretty straightforward: the couple won’t get together until the very end. All the drama, the tension and the conflict are gone when the two leads finally becomes a couple.

Who wants to see a movie that begins with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks meeting at the top of the Empire State Building? All they’ll do is make puppy dog eyes at each other for two hours. (This is not to say that formulaic stories can be a lot of fun—I loved both “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “High Fidelity” which somewhat follow the romantic comedy formula). Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not in the business of predicting politics, but I think there’s a fairly decent chance Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States.

Predicting popular culture? I’m game for that. So here goes: If Obama is elected, popular culture—music in particular—will become a lot less political.

The last eight years have yielded some of the most intense protest art since the 1960s. Everything from “Fahrenheit 911″ to “American Idiot,” George W. Bush has been nothing short of an inspiration to America’s left-leaning arts community (and late-night comics). Even more so than Reagan, I’d venture. Read the rest of this entry »

We had a bit of an art crisis at work– no photo to go with my story about a local ballet’s production of Frankenstein. No photo? No problem.

Long time readers/friends might remember Levin as a Communist Yearbook contributor or even a Royal Nonesuch contributor (I think his comic was called “Reggae Bob,” but don’t quote me on that).

He’s also good friends with my cousin who did the music for this, along with my buddy Jonah. He’s going to blow up soon, get signed by Cartoon Network or whatever. Dude’s a genuis and I’m lucky that he’s contributed to some of my dumb projects along the way.

So I kinda screwed up here- in the book Mitch is wearing loafers in this page, but I uploaded an earlier version where he’s wearing sneakers (to be consistent with scenes later in the story). If I can remember, I’ll try to fix it. But, it’s late and I’m late a day anyways posting this… so enjoy!

So I’m illustrating this statistics book for a professor in Vancouver. It’s a fun gig. Anyway, the prof had me sketch Bogart for one of the cartoons. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

In case you couldn’t figure it out for yourself. But, even if you don’t read comics you’d enjoy Bendis’s “Fortune and Glory.” Honest.

I’ve been watching a lot of reality television. Let me clarify—a lot of reality television for someone who doesn’t really watch much television (let alone work a remote control). In this case “a lot” translates to “two, possibly three” shows.

I watched “I Want To Work For Diddy” because my former camper Boris Kuperman was one of the contestants. I’m watching “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” because a woman from Woodbridge, Lauren Watts (who goes by “Zui” on the show), is a contestant and I want to write about her progress. I will watch the next season of “American Idol,” if, as rumored, my old classmate John Twiford is a contestant. (A while back I wrote how Twiford turned down a previous season of “American Idol,” but he e-mailed me recently to let me know he’s had a change of heart). Read the rest of this entry »

Listening to Ben Folds is like going to see Lord of the Rings in the theater.

Listening to They Might be Giants is like playing Dungeons & Dragons in mom’s basement.