In the late 2000s I had grown weary of the LA Club scene. The incessant hamster wheel of doing everything you could do to vault past a velvet rope to squeeze into an overcrowded circus of vacuous people to listen to droning tunes with a bass that vibrated your scrotum up into your throat only to meet, cajole and meagerly beg glistening women to acquiesce to a request for either contact information (which went nowhere) or if you were really a degenerate a bathroom BJ (not I). The night always ended with you standing on a boulevard with a bewildered look as the stench from cheap meat carts that sizzled their rotting carcasses with GMO peppers and onions assailed your nostrils and turned your stomach even more than you thought humanly possible.
So I pivoted. I somehow made a random acquaintance in my social circles who went by the name of Peter. He was a bald aging Jew from the East Coast who seemed to know everybody in LA. A former A&R guy of a major label he had plenty of connections…especially when it came to Art Galleries; and that’s where I went out at night for a spell: Art Galleries. Gallery openings. They were free. They had free drinks and sometimes food and you could walk around and actually talk to people and hear the conversation while referring to…art! Hey waddya think of that. Hmm, that’s interesting. You’re at an Art Gallery. You’re refined. You’re cultured. You’re horny but…you’re not desperate. I met scads of lunatics and eccentric yahoos. I met lots of Lesbians for some reason (I always wondered if that was a standard form of rejection in galleries, seems like it). I met enormous amounts of women who politely let me down unlike the psychopaths in the clubs who would break a bottle in half and have it at my throat for not reading their mind that they were dating Matthew Perry at the moment.
What does any of this have to do with this comic book??? Well, when I saw the cover of this comic it immediately flashed me back to my Art Galleryville days. There was something about this Artist, Matt Lesniewski, that jogged my brain, whirred my hard drive and brought me back to some warehouse in Culver City filled with carpet munchers, old farts, intelligentsia and horny nerds. The art just screamed Art Gallery Art Stuff, just the style. Nothing wrong with it but clearly Mind MGMT went in a different direction with the Artist for Issue #2, a clear departure from the standard style that defined their spectacular run. Now, due to the fact this is a limited series I’m left wondering if there’ll be a different artist for the next few issues as well.
It was weird, when I got my pull I saw this cover and said ‘What the hell is this’, it took me a few moments to realize what it was which then made me think that the Eraser had specifically pulled this comic just for me. It was an invitation to Zanzibar! Look at that Cat on the cover with the hypnotizing eyes. My mind went: Cat/Pussy/Want/Cant Have/Lesbian/Dammit/Free Food? Or maybe they wanted to activate my ‘horny for a pseudo lesbian’ programming which would activate a Lesbian that was in my gym who would then in turn go to Zanzibar! Or maybe I just pulled the damn thing instinctively because it was Mind MGMT and didn’t bother to look at the cover.
Well, I will say this, I think they jumped too far ahead in this issue. First issue this guy’s getting recruited and now he’s already found not one but two of his desired targets. One was debriefed over a hookah and the was other found hanging and debriefed by a tree after being cut down. Before you know it they’re already being attacked before we cut to a huuuge character that’s brought back from the original series. It all looks great. It’s all wonderfully written. But it feels a bit rushed. I think they’d pace this out over a number of issues in the previous series but now I feel like they’re mushing everything in because it’s a limited series. Why is this a limited series? Why is everything a limited series? Are all comic book creators and publishers serial daters? Is there no room for long term comic book relationships anymore? Why not just reboot Mind MGMT into an ongoing series? As I look at Meru and the Eraser facing off in the last panel I realize for the first time that they both must be Lesbians and that since I can’t have them it’s for the best this series ends as quickly as possible. Knowing Mind MGMT that’s exactly what they want me to think. Dammit. Excuse me while I go out into LA and look for some free food in a warehouse, just got the urge for some reason.
Rating: 8.3
Verdict: Pull
No comments:
Post a Comment