The Best Books You're Not Reading: Ghost Rider #31

Ghost Rider #31
Written by: Jason Aaron
Art by: Roland Boschi & Tan Eng Huat

Guys and girls (there are girls who listen to our podcast, they admitted it to Rob's very hairy face) ... it's time for you guys to start listening to some of the very sound advice that we dish out. When I tell you all that a book is fantastic you should give it some credence. I mean we've been at this whole podcast thing for right at a year now. I can't even begin to tell you how big a rush that is for me and while we've never had more than 40 people download a single episode I think that we do our very best to give a good overview of each and every book we talk about and that we only talk about books that we really and truly enjoy. We wouldn't talk about a book just because it wasn't selling well and we had a bunch of copies in the store, that's not our job. So when I come here and tell you guys that there are really great books that you aren't reading I'm doing it to try and give you all a more satisfying experience with your comics every week. I mean there are times when I have over 20 books in a week and I hear someone say, "Well, nothing for me this week." ... and that hurts my soul. I mean I understand that the number of people who are going to have 15+ books each and every week are going to be small and are going to be even fewer and further between during these times of economic strain, but every single week there is something on the shelf of your local comic store that is worth your $2.99 ... and too many of you are so stuck in this rut of buying your same old titles month in and month out that you've become blind to the rest of the variety on the shelves. I've talked here before that there are titles out there for every man, woman, and child out there who enjoy fiction ... regardless of what kind of fiction you enjoy. Seriously, just look at the books, ask a few questions and the weeks that you thought you could just write off and wander out of the store will be far less often and you'll always have something enjoyable to read.
Taking all of that into account I will now tell you that one of those books that you're missing out on is Ghost Rider. Jason Aaron is without question the most exciting new creator to grace the world of comics in the last 5 years. He takes more chances in a single issue than most writers take in an entire run on a title. And it's becoming more and more clear that he's being recognized by the higher ups at Marvel as he's being given more and more product to work on (when a writer is given the reigns on a new ongoing Wolverine title you know that their writing is loved by someone at Marvel). And it's (as I've said before) certainly a strange position for me to be in when I can honestly say that I am enjoying a Ghost Rider book. There is just something on each and every level of this book that excites the hell out of me from the art to the plot to the dialog to the production quality. I really think that if you aren't reading this book that you are missing out on something special from a book that has largely been known as The Punisher with powers for far too long.

What Do You Mean They're Not Superheroes?: America Hates Smart People

Okay, first off, it's just plain true. When smart musicians or smart novelists or smart filmmakers or ... hell smart people ... start to become popular the first thing that happens is that everyone, not just The Left, not just The Right, not just Hollywood, not just the South, not just the West Coast, not just the East Coast ... Everyone starts throwing rocks at them. And that just plain sucks. America has become a place where everything, music, film, television, theater, talk radio, media ... almost all media ... is praised for it's mediocrity. That I live in a country where programs like The Wire can be on the air for 5 seasons and almost everyone I have ever talked to has never seen it ... I mean I realize that it's on HBO but just about everyone alive has seen an episode of Sopranos ... and that was on HBO as well. I am talking about this at least in part because of what Robert Kirkman had to say over on CBR (see I told you he changed my life). But also because I decided to start watching one of my all time favorite television shows again from the beginning. It debuted on September the 18th in 2006 and was watched by 13.14 million people ... a little over six months later it was cancelled. It's final episode aired on June 28th, 2007 and it was seen by 2.7 million people. It was created by two of the most publicly and critically acclaimed men to work in television in this young century. And after just one season it was cancelled. It was, it is, called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

It was the second, maybe third, smartest show I had ever seen on television. It is in my top 5 favorite television shows of all time. Two of that top 5 and three of my top 10 are all created by the same guy. Aaron Sorkin. He's maybe one of the most brilliant writers who has ever worked in television, he's also one of the most brilliant playwrights who has ever worked on the modern stage, he has also written some of the most intelligent films of our generation. He has done a good majority of his work in the last decade or so with an equally incredibly intelligent producer by the name of Thomas Schlamme, or as he has been referred to by his friends and those who work on his shows "Tommy Schlamme" (which I personally think is hilarious to say out-loud).

Seriously it was my favorite show of that season of television, and in that season we also got Heroes. But it was too smart. Which is ridiculous. Just like the brilliant show Lost when the network got it's hands on it tried to interject too much inter-character romance to appease to the masses. I am of the opinion that the highest form of art must always exist in a vacuum, separated at all costs from the nagging voices of the public and the unwarranted interference of those who are not truly creative. It is my belief that there has never been a show where the interference of the network executives have made a show better. Every time a show is toyed with by the people who only care about the money end it is dragged kicking and screaming toward mediocrity. The same could be said about comics, music, movies, novels, stage plays, paintings, sculptures, radio shows, any form of artwork. There is too much interference in the world.

When Marvel started putting it's grubby fingers into the JMS run on "Amazing Spider-Man" it suddenly started getting bad reviews. When DC got to mucking around with Rucka's run on
"Wonder Woman" it lost quality. When Marvel pushed Bruce Jones to write a particular kind of story during his stint on "Incredible Hulk" it made the whole of his run feel bloated and the story feel schizophrenic. And I don't think that there is a better example of what can happen to a great book when too many cooks start wandering around the kitchen is what has happened over in DC's once epically good title "The Flash". Intelligence ... being thrown out for appeal to the masses.

So, stop the insanity. Start supporting intelligent art. Start buying books like Criminal, Fear Agent, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, House of Mystery, Resurrection, Queen & Country, Fables, Daredevil, Powers, 100 Bullets, Walking Dead, Invincible, Jack Staff, Terry Moore's Echo, The Sword, Manhunter, Locke & Key, DMZ, Wasteland, The Spirit, Elephantmen, Hawaiian Dick, Scalped, Ex Machina, RASL, The End League, Godland, Madman: Atomic Comics, Boy Who Made Silence, Atomic Robo, Rex Mundi, Young Liars, and on and on and on ...

Support intelligent art. Just do it for gods sake.