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TSOYA.  That's was the display on my XM Radio when I tuned into the channel 133, the PRI station.  TSOYA?  Sounds like a health food product.

No, it's an acronym for The Sound of Young America, hosted by "America's Radio Sweetheart", Jesse Thorn.  I discovered this program a couple of months ago, where I was stunned to hear Thorn interviewing two cast members of The Wire, Andre Roya and Wendell Pierce (Bubbles and Bunk).  After looking at the TSOYA archives, this podcast was immediately added to my Zune RSS feed.  (Yes, I am of those lunatic Zuners.)  Thorn hits my pop cultural G-Spot right on the money with guests like Chris Elliot, Nick Hornby, Ira Glass, Tony Millionaire, Austin Grossman, Elmore Leonard, Steven Wright, etc.  One of my favorite interviews was done last year with Marty Krofft, the producer-creator behind HR Pufnstuff and a gaggle of other Saturday morning shows.  Comics professionals pop into the podcast from time to time.

This interview with Evanier is really good.  I've been pushed over the edge to buy Kirby: King of Comics.  Listening to Mark Evanier talk, I really think he's one of the luckiest guys in the world, to get to know both Jack and Roz Kirby in their home and watch the King create some of the most memorable comics of all time.  Both the podcast and the book bring some new insights into Kirby, something which I didn't think was possible, as I have a ton of Kirby material already from TwoMorrows.  I've flipped through the book at Borders and it's really well done.  It has some amazing Kirby pencils and the larger size of the hardcover makes it easy to appreciate them.

Link: Mark Evanier on TSOYA Podcast, discussing Kirby: King of Comics.

Link: Maximumfun.org, the home of TSOYA.

Link: Mark Evanier's Blog.

I am halfway through The Titans Companion, a book published in December 2005 by TwoMorrows Publishing. Written by Glen Cadigan, this is a delight for hardcore Teen Titans fans who want to get the inside scoop on the Titans from their initial conception in the 1960s to the present day. Like their previous effort, The Legion Companion, this volume offers articles, interviews, and an amazing array of artwork by Perez, Cardy, Garcia-Lopez, etc. It starts off, not with the Titans, but with a history of each of the teen sidekicks. I knew Robin, Kid Flash, and Speedy very well, but I was always unclear about Aqualad and Wonder Girl's origin. Aqualad is not Aquaman's son-he's an Atlantean who was initially afraid of fish! Wonder Girl was initially a flashback to Wonder Woman's childhood, until Robert Kanigher retconned her adventures into a computer simulation. It was Marv Wolfman who actually devised the origin where Donna Troy was rescued from a burning building by Wonder Woman. The idea for the Teen Titans was first suggested by a letter in Brave and Bold #30. The editor, George Kashdan, agreed and assigned Bob Haney the job of scripting their first adventure in Brave and Bold #54.

As a kid, I was crazy about Robin; I wanted any comic with him on the cover. That extended to the Teen Titans as well. I thought it was a terrific concept to have Kid Flash, Speedy, Robin, Wonder Girl, and Aqualad in one book. The early adventures were really hokey, with villains like the Mad Mod and Ding-Dong Daddy Dowd. The book covers Bob Haney's involvement in the initial series, which is a real treasure, because Haney is an elusive character in comic book history. Haney was understandably bitter when Dick Giordiano became the editor and replaced him with Steve Skates.

Throughout these early years, Nick Cardy's artwork is just astonishing. I think the costume he designed for Wonder Girl is a classic. Even though Perez and Jimenez came up with some good inventions, the Cardy red-stars will always be my favorite. There's a very good interview with Cardy where he talks about Wonder Girl's new costume. Cardy's drawings of Wonder Girl are peppered throughout the book. I don't think any heroine has ever been depicted so cute and sexy.

I remember being shocked by Titans 25, a really shocking change occurred when the kids failed to stop the assassination of a scientist who won the Nobel Peace Prize. Writer Steve Skates and Editor Dick Giodiano talk about this phase in the Companion. It seems incredible that Kid Flash couldn't stop it all by himself, but it happens. On his deathbed, the scientist says to the group: "Your powers and capacities for violence…carry awful responsibilities. You're like…living atom bombs, but you're still only kids." The Justice League threatens to shut the kids club down for good. Luckily for the Titans, it's Lilith's first appearance, dancing in a go-go bar cage and rattling the boys into a sexual frenzy. She introduces the Titans to a mysterious man called Mr. Jupiter who convinces the heroes to give up their costumes and go undercover. Two new heroes, Mal and Lilith joined, and shared a brief kiss-daring, for the 1960s, because he was black and she was white.

The bulk of the interviews involve Marv Wolfman and George Perez in their co-creation of the New Teen Titans. It's one of the most revealing behind-the-scenes interviews on any comic book creation. Wolfman talks about how he took his time designing the team, concentrating not on powers, but on their personalities and relationships. By having a cyborg, a demon empath, an Amazon, an interstellar princess, and members of other DC classic teams, Wolfman would set himself up to tell almost any type of story. Both men are brutally honest. Wolfman regrets what happened to the Omega Men after they got their own series. Perez initially took the Titans job as a favor to Marv and as a way to get the Justice League assignment he desperately craved. When the Titans became a hit, Perez gave up his other assignments in order to improve as an artist and give the fans more. So many classic storylines were planned in advance: Blackfire, Vigilante, Terminator, Terra, and Jericho. Wolfman proved that he was as adept at superhero stories as he was at Tomb of Dracula. The Terra storyline that climaxed in The Judas Contract has to be one of the best superhero stories ever told. Who could forget Tales of the Teen Titans 44 that featured the first appearances of both Nightwing and Jericho? Wolfman and Perez grew the Titans from teenagers to adults. Dick Grayson became not only Nightwing, but one of the most strategic leaders of any superteam.

No subject is spared in Titans Companion. Titans West is covered in an interview with Bob Rozakis. Neal Adams discusses the three issues he worked on. Chris Claremont talks about the X-Men/Titans team-up. Kevin Maguire and Phil Jimenez are interviewed about the spin-off series, Team Titans! The first three issues of Team Titans had some of the best Maguire art that I've ever seen.

The Titans Companion rocks. If you're a Titans fan, get it now. Nuff said.

External Link:
Marv Wolfman Interview on Word Balloon (covers Titans and Crisis)

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I've been listening to the Anansi Boys unabridged audiobook recording. The narrator is Lenny Henry, an English standup comedian that you might have seen in the comedy Chef! (This has been rerun many times on PBS-if you're a fan of Fawlty Towers you must rent the DVDs now.) The key thing that makes any audiobook entertaining is the narrator's ability to match the material with a variety of accents. Henry is perfect for the Anansi Boys, the story of a sad-sack loser who discovers that his father was a Spider-god. He does everything from Jamaican to African American to upper-crust English accents. The story is quite funny and touching, and although I haven't finished it yet, I think it's probably Gaiman's best work to date. Nuff said.

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I just finished reading Smartbomb. It's a good overview of the video game industry. It takes the time to profile both leading video game designers as well as the people who rabidly play their creations. CliffyB, Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, John Carmack, John Romero, Seamus Blackley, J Allard, and the makers of Ultima Online\Star Wars Galaxies (whose names I forget) are among the designers profiled. The Carmack\Romero material is a rehash of things we already know from Masters of Doom. The view on the other creators is much more revealing and fresh. For example, CliffyB does everything he can to pimp up his image. He feels trapped by the Unreal franchise and wants to do something new. Ed Fries promises to give him a 360 break with Gears of War. Shigeru Miyamoto is a company man to the core; he would never think of leaving Nintendo to start his own company. The design and initial launch of Star Wars Galaxies was very interesting. But the chapter on Will Wright is something else: whenever he gets accosted by fans\reporters at conferences, he gives them the "Vulcan Death Glare" if he doesn't like the question. Wright is a pretty tall dude, so he's looking down on just about everyone. The chapter on J Allard\Seamus Blackley is great, too. I didn't know that the two of them didn't get along. Nor did I know that J is actually his legal first name-he changed it to match internet addresses. I love Allard; he represents everything good/bad about Microsoft design, culture, and marketing. And I'll never forget that hoodie that he wore on the MTV Xbox 360 launch special.

Smartbomb's profiles on the fans include Angel Munoz and the CyberAthelete Professional League and online game players. Online profiles include a player who works at Best Buy during the day and returns to his dark bedroom (equipped with a decked out PC and Dolby Digital surround sound) and enters the world of Anarchy Online. His avatar has been built into a high level creature with aspects of generosity, far different from his persona at Best Buy. His entry into the world of Star Wars Galaxies is charted, and he encounters Aaron Ruby (the author). Ruby carefully writes about this in the third person to take himself out of the story.

It's a good book…if you can stop playing long enough to read! I read it on a trip. Nuff said.

See also: Smartbomb blog and web site.

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I arrived fairly late to the world of Harry Potter. I had written off this series as kid stuff, judging the books by their cover and their publisher, Scholastic. A friend of mine who is a voracious reader told me that the reason why Harry was so popular was that adults read the books as much as kids did—if not more! By the time I started reading, four books in the series had been published, and once I started to read them, I had completely succumbed to the magic. Spoilers abound in this review, so if you haven't read the book yet, you are fairly warned.

I haven’t been read too many novels in the past few months. Video games, work, television, the Internet, and the Sony PSP have taken up all of my free time. Now with the penultimate book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6), my interest in fiction is rekindled again. It arrived on Saturday, courtesy of Amazon (free shipping and no tax). I spent the next few evenings reading the book so feverishly that I even hated to go to the bathroom. The first two chapters were a surprise, because the Potter books so far have followed a fairly traditional structure: usually we open on Harry, suffering with his relatives, the Muggle Dursleys. They usually torture Harry until he snaps and accidentally uses magic on them in some funny way. There has never been any chapter in which the point of view switches from Harry to another character. Rowling breaks that convention in the first chapter: we have the view of the Prime Minister of England as he receives a visit from the outgoing Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. Through this chapter we learn that England is beset with a variety of disasters, all of which are caused by the war with Voldermort. Furthermore, all of England’s Prime Ministers have known about the world of Magic, yet they have all kept the secret in fear of being judged insane.

Chapter 2 is the most alarming chapter in almost any Potter book to date, and it makes the reader want to fly through the rest of the novel. In a dreary muggle neighborhood we find Professor Snape meeting Narcissa (mother of Draco) and Bellatrix, allies of Voldermort. Previously we’ve seen that Snape is a mysterious figure. Though an expert practitioner of the Dark Arts, Dumbledore has repeatedly claimed that Snape is on the side of good. In this chapter it appears that Snape has fallen back in league with Voldermort and answers all of Bellatrix’s questions. Why did he not join with Voldermort immediately after the Dark Lord’s revival? Why has he not killed Harry Potter after five years at Hogwarts? Snape answers all of these questions and furthermore makes an Unbreakable Vow to help Draco fulfill Voldermort’s plans. Rowling plays this chapter in a sneaky way: the point of view belongs to Narcissa and partially Bellatrix. We see what Snape is doing, we hear Snape state his intentions, but we don’t have privy to his innermost thoughts, another layer of mystery that we can’t wait to uncover. The film version of Half Blood Prince will have to be marvelous with Alan Rickman getting more delicious screen time in the role of Snape.

After Chapter 2, Rowling returns to her traditional structure: we see Harry at the Dursley’s (though there is no accident this time), Harry reunites with his surrogate family (Ron and Hermione), returns to Hogwarts, struggles with his classes until the end of the school year, when he confronts a number of adversaries. By the time we get to the end of the book, Hogwarts is changed forever and Rowling teases the reader with the thought that Harry might not even return for his final year of school. Voldermort never appears in the current timeline of the story, but we see him in a variety of flashbacks, courtesy of the Pensieve, a sort of Holodeck that plays back various memories that Dumbledore has collected. We see how Voldermort’s mother met his father, Tom Riddle. Riddle was a Muggle, making the various taunts about Mudbloods even more gut-wrenching because it’s all self-loathing. There have been many parallels suggested about Harry and Voldermort, and we see another one here, that both are orphans, mistreated in their Muggle homes, until Dumbledore summons them to Hogwarts. I’ve often thought that Harry’s orphanage makes him a classic hero in the mold of Superman and Batman, two heroes who do great things to uphold their parents’ memory. We see that Voldermort is almost Harry’s dark polar opposite. Rowling makes us empathize with Voldermort to a certain extent. We can feel sorrow for Voldermort’s predicament until he really turns evil and murders his Muggle born father.

Hagrid is a background character this time around, as the kids are too busy to take his Magical Creatures class. The main characters driving the book are Harry, Snape, Voldermort, Dumbledore, and Draco, who is mostly conspicuous because of his absence until the very end. Harry falls out of puppy love with Cho Chang and in real love with Ginny Weasley, Ron’s sister. Ron and Hermione provide interesting diversions and add to the soap opera elements. And the new Potions instructor, Professor Slughorn, makes every ass-kisser you’ve ever known seem pale in comparison. Snape finally becomes the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and he furthers his relationship with Harry in a way that gets discovered at the very end of the book. I don’t believe that Snape is evil at all. I think he has tried to help Harry by exposing his laziness. Harry has never been a very good student at Hogwarts. He’s cheated in various classes and utterly failed at Occlumency (closing the mind to telepathy), which led to the death of Sirius Black in book five. Snape hammers all of Harry’s weaknesses in the end, reminding him why he has no chance against Voldermort unless he becomes a better wizard. Harry will either have to improve or depend on Hermione for the knowledge to overcome his enemies.

When the as Half Blood Prince ends, you feel that book seven can’t arrive quickly enough, as this promises the mother of all magical battles. I am sure the earliest that this can arrive is 2007; perhaps we might have to wait as long as 2008. I bet the book reading public hasn’t been this captivated since Dickens serialized Great Expectations. When it does to come out, I imagine I will be so excited that I will have to read it in one day. Until then, Potter has rekindled my desire to read fiction, and I am currently reading Godplayers. I suppose that’s the same for kids as well, and for that reason alone, Harry Potter has contributed something to society more than mere entertainment.

JK Rowling interviews on the Half Blood Prince:
The Leaky Cauldron, 4-part interview.