The State of the Modern Comic Book

"The strength of what comics are is building on other people's legacies and enhancing them and making them even stronger properties in their own right."

That is a quote from Dan Didio, one of the brain trust at DC Entertainment, also known as DC Comics. Or at least, used to be known as DC Comics. After reading statements like this and seeing countless other statements made recently by the top brass about the reboot and about Before Watchmen, it is my belief that the DC Comics I grew up with is dead. Dead and buried. And we're all going to be mourning for the next few years.

Most of what DC has done in recent years seems to have been a response to what Marvel or Image has done. And even Marvel does things that are responses to moves made by DC. But it doesn't matter. That statement above is exactly one of the top problems with comic books today.

It is invalid. Irrelevant. And just plain wrong.

Comics are unfortunately seen in two camps for the most part: Intellectual properties mined by production companies specifically for movie-making. Or child's play. DC is pigeonholing themselves with this comment and with comics like Before Watchmen or Zero issues or event comics every single month.

Comics are not building other people's stories and making them better, nor are they taking an old comic and putting your own spin on it. No matter what some writers like Grant Morrison, Brian Michael Bendis, Geoff Johns and Mark Millar (who also falls into the category of the IP, but we'll get to that).

Comics are about the idea. The execution. In comics, you have a chance to tell any story you want and you are not beholden to anything. You don't have a budget (beyond the page rates of the creators and the creation of the book). You want the sun to smash into the Earth or vice versa? Go for it. All it takes is your imagination and the pen and paper of your artist. You want some superhero you just created on page one to die by page 10? Go for it. It's yours to do.

Comics are about bringing something to the reader that they maybe have never seen before, or bringing them something that is so fresh and idealistic and realistic that they can't believe what they just read. It doesn't always have to be, but that's what it should strive to do, at all times.

Comics should be bombastic fun and chilling horror and insane feats of action and strength that human beings should not in their right minds ever attempt. And above all else, comics are mythology, stories that one day you can tell to your kids as if they were the myths of the Greeks and Romans or Aesop's Fables even. These are stories that will be turned into movies, sure, but there are countless comics and graphic novels that are out there that are begging to be read and enjoyed and flipped through and gone back to time and time again.

But before I go any further, comics should not be boiled down into stereotypes. Can comics be about building legacies? Sure thing. Can they be about intellectual properties? Whether we want them to or not, people will continue to see them that way.

But the things is, they shouldn't be pegged in these finite definitions. When I first started reading comic books, they blew my mind. They opened doors of creativity that I never knew existed. They made me see the world and see movies and see colors and see everything in a different way. I looked at life in comic book panels. I looked at life broken down into 9 panel grids or splash pages or double page splashes or cover images that evoked some great tragedy.

Comics are still read, pretty much daily in my home. I've been reading them, religiously, since I was 8 years old. My dad gave me my first comics. One was a Jones Store insert from the local newspaper from the 1980s that he got after he and my mom had moved to KC. He had been holding onto it for years. He doesn't remember why. He just had it. We moved to a new house, he found it, and knowing that I loved the Batman movies and X-men cartoons and everything of that nature, he handed me that comic and my mind was blown. Sure, it wasn't the best comic ever. The art and story weren't the greatest. And the fact that the plot was built around getting a change of clothes for the Hulk at the downtown Jones Store was a bit of a letdown reading it later. But you know what? I still have it. I still read it. I still love it. And it made me love comics.

Here was this crazy thing where Spider-man and Hulk were in Kansas City fighting Kraven the Hunter, all while trying on new snazzy clothes. It was and still is hilarious. And I still love it. Every day.

From there, I was off into comics. The first comics I ever had were Superman comics and X-men comics. I came in right around the Death of Superman and picked up issues back and forth from there. I remember going to an IGA on a trip with my family to Maine and getting all four of the Return of Superman comics with Superboy, Steel, Eradicator and Cyborg Superman. To my mind at that time, this was insane. Superman was the greatest hero of all time and he was dead and here were four people taking over for him.

I wasn't cynical then about how he'd come back, how they all come back. Obviously now, we all know better. They all come back.

But that's the point! They shouldn't have to.

If Dan Didio is going to make comments about legacies, shouldn't the legacies be allowed to live and breathe? Shouldn't Superman be allowed to age and die? Shouldn't Batman? Shouldn't someone else be allowed to take over the mantle and move the story along, natural progression and what have you?

Some of the greatest comics stories of all time were stories that broke heroes down or made them rise back up. Some of the best moments in Batman history, in my opinion, featured Dick Grayson under the cape and cowl. Some of the best moments in Superman history didn't involve Kal-El. And some of my favorite Spider-man moments happened with Ben Reilly under the mask.

That's the idea behind a legacy. A legacy isn't about rehashing the same story over and over again. We don't want to see the prequels to Watchmen (admittedly, some do, I won't buy a single issue). We don't want to tread down the same paths laid out for us 50 years ago.

Why can't Superman or Spider-man be married? Why can't Daredevil stay unmasked? Why can't the Punisher die and force a new group to take his place? Why can't the X-men stay moving forward and not keep going back and forth between hated and feared and superheroes and on and on and so forth?

Why is it that every single story in comics history seems to happen in a vacuum? The only characters who have stayed dead, tried and true, are Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy and maybe Superman's true parents. But Krypton has come back a number of times. Various Kryptonians have come back from the dead or come back from a planet that no longer exists. Gwen Stacy turned out to have had kids with Norman Osborn (maybe, that might have gotten retconned by this point) and I think Bruce Wayne's parents never came back from the dead either.

Every single story happens in a vacuum though, was my point. Sadly, every great story has an ending, and every story after it will either change something about it, bring someone back from the dead, or just retcon the whole thing. Having Peter Parker revealed as a clone was a brilliant and scary move by Marvel in the day, and then taking it all back was a stupid mistake that never should have happened. Look at all the amazing stories told about Spider-girl by Defalco and the gang. That book was downright genius and only happened because of the Clone Saga.

There are so many others. So many great comics out there that people don't read or don't pay attention to. Because they're busy spending their money on a Night of the Owls Crossover or the next big arc in Justice League or the next big Avengers vs X-men series in which 5 comics tell the same story and nothing happens in any of them.

Rasl is a great comic. It's almost done. And I can't wait to read and re-read and re-read over and over again the collected editions. Hand them out to friends. Give them away as presents.

Madman is a great comic. Always has been and always will be.

Bone. Planetary. Skullkickers. Invincible. Top Ten. Walking Dead. Hellboy. Scalped. Preacher. Secret. Powers. And countless others that I honestly can't think of right now. But comics that maybe buck a trend or two. They don't try to be the big seller. They don't try to change the world. They aren't always written with the express purpose of being sold as an intellectual property. And sometimes they come out from publishing divisions of the big two.

But it doesn't matter. To me, comics are a dream. Getting to make comics, whether it's a horror story I'm creating on my own or a spy comic that I'm writing for someone else or an adapted screenplay or a television series turned into a comic book for the first time, I'm doing something that I never dreamed I would do.

Whether I become a household name or not isn't why I do this. Whether I sell an intellectual property or not isn't why I do this.

I'm doing this because I love comics. Because comics help me breathe. Because comics have been a part of my life longer than most people I know. Because comics have helped me through tough situations and bad patches. They've been my friends and my family and my loved ones and the people I could count on to get me to the next stepping stone in my life. They taught me life lessons and helped me become who I am.

Comics are a way of life. If you don't believe that, if you're not on my side, then get the whole out of my way.

Pitching for comics

This is somewhat a touchy and tricky subject. How does one pitch for the comics world?

One of my friends, Jeff, asked me this question, as I had bluntly stated on Facebook how I was in a pitching mood and had a number of items that I was planning to pitch to various comic companies. He asked me the question of how do you put together a pitch and I had to think long and hard about it. It's a tricky subject.

It's strange because not every company is looking for the same things. That's the first step. Know the audience for your book and know the audience that you're pitching to.

You don't want to pitch a hardcore sex and violence book to Archie Comics. You don't want to pitch a Superman story to Marvel. You don't want to pitch a Doctor Who story to anybody because IDW has some of the rights and you trying to pitch a story is not what they're looking for.

Who is the audience you're going after? If you're pitching a superhero story right now, you better hope to everything you believe in that you've got something really special or your story will mean nothing to none of the publishers out there.

A big problem right now is the fact that DC relaunched their universe. Marvel and DC pretty much corner the comics world on superheroes. That doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done. It's just going to make your job infinitely tougher.

Take me for instance. I've been trying to pitch a comic book called Dannemora for as long as I've been writing comics. I'm on year 4 now. Like I told Jeff, that's nothing. This comic has gone through so many changes since I was a kid and came up with it that it barely resembles the original work any longer.

It started as an X-men style team book where the characters were called The Immortals and all had powers similar to the X-men or Justice League. There was your leader and his brothers who didn't get along (think Cyclops and Havok) and their father who just so happened to turn out to be the villain with the heart of gold (think Magneto, ish). There was the hero who was crusty around the edges that couldn't die. There were the femme fatales and the vixens. There was a little bit of everything.

I had notebooks and notebooks of these characters that are somewhere in my parent's house, gathering dust. Some have made comebacks in other stories. One specific character from this universe is at the heart of Dannemora.

But. I created this comic when I was probably 10 years old. I'm 28, almost 29. So over the last 19 years, it has changed considerably.

And that's another big part of it. Do not fear change. If you fear change and stand stagnant, you will be left in the dust, a relic of a forgotten time (think John Byrne or Chris Claremont over the last 10 or so years). No one will like your new work and will just constantly go back to what you did before that was so great, and you, unfortunately, will go back to that well.

But I digress.

Comics pitching is like all of this. It's a lot of words building a story about something you truly believe in. I love my comic, Dannemora, I think it's something special. It's not really ever been done in comics before and I believe someone, somewhere, will help me tell this story and the world will see what I mean by that.

Carl and I will sit back and laugh, knowing what we had all along and how wrong everyone who said no was. That's the truth. I can be a humble person, but I can also carry a vengeance when I need to.

Dannemora is one of my babies. It's probably my magnum opus. It's probably my Hellboy. It's probably the one thing that I plan to give the world, to leave behind that will always be in my name and will always be out there for the world to enjoy.

But hey, I'm just spitballing here. Strangely enough, it won't be my first comic book release of creator-owned proportions. That's Stillwater. Which you will hear about in my next blog.

Running Up That Hill

It doesn't hurt me, you wanna feel how it feels, you wanna know know that it doesn't hurt me, you wanna hear about the deal I'm making...

Here's the deal: Since 2008, I've been writing comic books. I'm pretty damn good at it. I think. Some people tell me. Some people think I'm a big deal. That's great. That's fantastic. But that's not all there is to it.

Comics is a constant hike up a very steep hill. A steep hill that is made of sand and blood and guts and tears and lost dreams and fallen hopes. Just like writing in general. You can equate it to writing a novel. Writing a screenplay. Writing anything at all.

You could write a bible and get a million followers and it still wouldn't be enough. You need to make a deal with someone sometimes, and some days it's the devil and some days it's a god. Most days, you're making the deal with yourself.

You're going to write today.

You're going to create.

You're going to dream.

You're not going to give up.

That's a big one. The hill will face you as you try and overtake it. You will try everything in your power to exchange one experience for another. You will write a book or a comic that day. And some days, you lose. You give in and you fail.

Recently, I'm failing more than I'm winning. I'm losing. I'm running up that hill, but I keep falling backwards.

I keep falling and falling and falling. It's like asking to swap places with someone for a day. For one day, it's all well and good. That person can live your life and see your misery and you can see theirs.

Other days, unfortunately, you're on your own. Writing is a lot like that. Most days, you're on your own. You're your own worst enemy and your biggest fan at the exact same time.

I need to be my own biggest fan more than my worst enemy, but sadly, most days I'm the enemy.

Time to start fighting back.

New Beginnings

I know, I know, I know, I've been gone so long I'm not even sure that I'm still here anymore. The Gonzo lifestyle hasn't caught on yet, but it will. Oh, it will.

Either way, I'm back. This is just a taste of what's next. I'm going to restart this blog the right way. Fear and Loathing in Kansas City this time, and you're going to get some stories.

Fear and Loathing in Overland Park pt 115

Have you ever been unceremoniously dumped?
Taken for granted because of the way you act?
 
Talk?
 
Smile?
 
Laugh?
 
Or just your general sense of self?
 
Have you ever lived your life thinking everything was peachy and
immediately been slapped in the face in one single moment where everything
changed?
 
That happened recently. And I'm not talking about a girl.
 
You'll notice that number 114 is missing. I've been pushing this blog in my
head for awhile and I just couldn't bring myself to write it.
 
The hurt seemed to be too much.
 
Like it would never go away.
 
I wanted to stand outside the window, blaring love songs written by Peter
Gabriel to get the love back.
 
Inkkc dumped me.
 
Me and so many others were left in the cold recently due to a change in
scenery.
 
Basically, I wasn't cool enough for them so they dumped me.
 
Here's what I gather from that.
 
My face, my attitude, my blog, was too much. They can claim that they
changed the site because they were forced to, but in all reality, by
unceremoniously dumping people that had written so many blogs for them,
they turned their backs on their original followers.
 
They turned their backs on those that loved them before they were much of
anything at all.
 
They, in essence, sold out.
 
We will talk about selling out later.
 
But for the time being, here's my point.
 
Fear and Loathing in Overland Park was in the Inkkc magazine a number of
times. We had followers. We got hits. People knew who we were.
 
We were infamous for our rants, antics, and think pieces.
 
And because Inkkc wanted to be known as a party magazine, we were left in
the cold when things changed hands.
 
No big deal.
 
Things change.
 
Time heals all wounds.
 
And the good news is I now have the push that I need. To get out there. To
boil this down to its core.
 
To bring Fear and Loathing into a new realm for more people to follow it.
 
It will get bigger.
 
It will get more gonzo.
 
It will find a new home but it will stay here.
 
Fear and Loathing in Overland Park is all about what I see. What I go
through. The trials and tribulations of living here and going through the
motions of a life that needs something more.
 
This will be the push for something more.
 
This will be something more.
 
This will be everything.
 
It's a new page. A new leaf. Plenty of fish in the sea you see.
 
Just like being dumped, you're left with two options: wallow or grow. Adapt
or die.
 
We adapt.
 
We grow.
 
We roll with the punches.
 
We make a choice and stand up and will be the change that we've asked so
many others to be.
 
This is where it starts.
 
My real name is not Momar Van Der Camp.
 
But it will be.

Fear and Loathing in Overland Park pt 113

So it begins. The hype begins anew and all I can do is fan the
flames.

We all hype and gripe about certain things. We all see things
that we don't believe the hype on and other things we believe
all hype in.

Case in point a movie with a guy wearing bat-ears.

But there are other times where hype is not the answer. Where
hype just seems misplaced, mismatched, completely strange
and really out of the ordinary.

Case in point: Captain America.

Some of you may have seen the news today about a big event
and wondered, what the hell? Why is this news?

If you're a fan of comics, or just a fan of the movies they make
of them, you may have heard how Captain America was shot
and killed in 2007.

And the press had a field day with that comic. Making it sell out
super fast.

Now today, word comes in from news media around the New York
area (at the least), that Marvel Comics is "resurrecting" Steve
Rogers Captain America and bringing him back to the forefront
in a comic called Reborn.

My first reaction, and one most people will agree with, is

who cares?

In fiction, there are so many cases where people are killed
and resurrected that it almost defeats the purpose of the
original story.

And when I say almost, it's all but a certainty.

The first thing a comic fan thinks when their favorite hero or
villain is killed or their book is cancelled is so what, when do
they come back?

It's never a question of will they come back. It's always a
question of when.

DC did the same tactic back in 1992 when they "killed" Superman
and brought him back 6 months later.

They did the same thing this year by "killing" Batman and
revamping the comics to have a younger Batman take his place.

We all know Bruce Wayne will come back. It's only a matter of
time.

So the fact that the New York Daily News and other news media
outlets have taken the bait and ran with it just seems completely
ridiculous.

Why?

Why do they feel that this is news?

Isn't there some kind of news bit about Iran, Korea, or the world
teetering on the brink of annihilation they can run?

Instead they run news about a comic book character "returning"
from the dead.

I've been a comic fan for years and years and years now. One of
the first events I was party to was, in fact, the Death and Return
of Superman.

I had fun back then.

Now it just gets ridiculous.

And this is coming from a guy who not only reads and buys comics
monthly but writes them. This is coming from a guy who has an
entire run of a couple of his favorite comic books.

This is coming from a guy who has been burnt out on those
comics that he loved and the fatigue that comes with the
constant need for sensationalism and something bigger.

The big event comics that drive comic sales right now just are
killing the industry as a whole.

When a new and inventive idea or comic comes around, most
people don't see it because they are so entrenched in the world
and continuity of one single comic universe that they can't jump
the fence and try something new.

One in particular is Rasl.

This is a comic book that doesn't feel like a comic. It feels like
artificial history as told in comic book form with so much science
fiction thrown in that it puts the Sci-Fi channel to shame.

It's from Jeff Smith, the creator of Bone, one of the all-time
greatestcomics ever created and a long-running staple of the
independent comic book world.

It's the model by which I read my comics these days.

Most people hear about comic books and all they think about
are the muscle-bound heroes and heroines who wear super-tight
clothes and punch each other.

They don't see the crazy adventures of a character named Frank
Einstein who has existential problems and fights more with his
friends than he does actual enemies.

They don't see comics that tell the story of a warrior aardvark
and think anything of it.

They don't see comics about the Holocaust that feature mice
as the Jews and cats as the Nazis and think it could be high art.

They don't look past that initial glance and see what we comic
readers know.

There are so many comic books out there that each person
in this world could read and enjoy and love and just utterly fall
in love with that if you tried to tear yourself away from it you'd
be forced to read it even more.

Each and every person in this world has something they love.
Something that they fight for.

Something in them that needs to be told. A story.

Anecdote.

Personal lessons learned. History.

Anything.

And a lot of these comics that people don't pick up are
telling those stories.

That's what I hope for.

I'm currently involved in an endeavor that involves comics and
a specific comic book in general that I am very proud to
be a part of.

I'm supposed to be going to the big San Diego Comic-Con to
help promote this book and possible series.

It's crazy. My head swells with ego but also in anticipation of
what this means for me. For it. For us.

But then I worry.

I worry about all those comic books sitting and gathering
dust and I wonder.

I wonder.

What makes us different?

Is it the fact that I've seen failure on the faces of friends who
do create?

Is it the fact that I've read book after book after comic after
comic detailing the process and what it takes?

No.

It's that I'm ready for failure. I'm prepared to make a mistake
and I'm ready for the negativity.

I'm prepared for someone to say no.

Because when I hear no, all I hear is another opportunity.

To show them what I mean.

If one person tells me no, a thousand people tell me no.

And I've heard them.

Being a writer trying to break into two all but impossible
industries prepares you for the nos.

But once that one yes comes, it's so glorious.

So as I said, the hype will begin.

My hype.

Some of the future installments will discuss the project
in detail and we will look at what is to become of this.

Our fingers are crossed.

Our choice has been made.

Now we must continue along that path.

No matter where it takes me.

Fear and Loathing in Overland Park pt 112

NIN at Starlight.

EDIT: I apologize for the length, but apparently
the blog didn't want to post properly.
Which is why I had to get creative to fit it all in.

And what a night was had by all. But let's get down in it real quick
and discuss why it took so long to get to.

First thing: last Wednesday was one of those days where calling
this Fear and Loathing makes perfect sense. To me at least.
So let me paint
you a picture.

We all know Murphy's Law.

Anything that can happen will.

I'm going to blog about it someday, but just so you know,
Murphy's Law happened in a big way.

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

The day started absolutely perfectly and didn't have any big
major events.

No earthquake.

No tornado.

No real rain.

My wife had set an eye appointment for her and myself
so that was going to be a thorn in my side right before NIN,
but NIN! NIN!

So went to work. Traveled alone. Road was pretty vacant
as I drove to work.

The long roads heading into town seemed
desolate.

Strange.

No rain. No movement.

Just seemed like it was me and me alone on the road.

I took a half day at work to prep for NIN.

To get myself Physical and a little ready to party.

I'm going to stop using NIN songs to write my blog
as of right now. The Wretched.

So worked my half day, and then noticed low on gas.
Fine. Whatever. No big deal.

Gas was steadily on the rise, but as I talked of previously,
what am I supposed to do?

Complain about it? Throw a temper tantrum? Or buy my
gas and drive off?

Bought gas. Drove off.

Went and got lunch. Things seemed to get a little better
from there.

Things looking up. Desolation slowly flows out of me as
I head to my apartment.

I get home and get prepared for the eye doctor visit.

What a scorcher that was going to be.

It had been a little while (over a year) since my last one,
and I wasn't looking forward to it.

Head into town, down Mission road heading toward the Corinth
area, and find the place. Gerry Optical.

Headed inside. Dressed ready for the concert (and by that,
I do not mean wearing a NIN shirt.
Nor was I wearing plastic Hot Topic clothing, black nails,
or knee highs. I was wearing proper concert attire and a
jacket since I knew it was going to get cold or rain all over me).

Step inside the Corinth Gerry Optical.

Look around.

An old man gives me a weird glare as if I'm the weirdest
thing he'd seen all day.

I want to laugh.

I want to tell him that he should go to this NIN concert
and see that I'm the furthest thing from the weirdest thing
he'll see today.

Maybe weirdest insides. But not on the outside.

He tells me I'm at the wrong place.

My happiness at being early is quickly defeated and turned
into something worse.

Something terrible.

Something monstrous.

So I leave, heading back up Mission toward 75th street to
head to Gerry Optical near 75th and Antioch.

Where I had just passed after getting off the highway.

Hey, I like the scenic route.

I get there right on time.

Get my eye visit done.

Bing bang boom. No surprises.

My eyes are fine.

Nothing new.

Nothing exciting to report.

Then it starts raining. Little by little, the rains start to fall.

My wife gets her eyes checked (at the right place, as
I was decent enough to call her and tell her
the right Gerry Optical to go
to), and she needs glasses.

Money.

Money.

Money.

So more money spent on new and exciting things,
and I'm going to a concert.

I've got a 30 pack in the back of my car, sitting in a nice cooler
with tons of ice, and I'm ready.

The rain lets up, and I head to my friend's house to pick him up.

Or at least, carpool/caravan what have you.

Me and two of mis amigos head to the concert.

Murphy's Law doesn't seem so bad anymore.

Have you ever seen PCU?

Where Piven yells at Favreau, telling him not to be
that guy?

The one who wears the concert shirt?

There were hundreds and probably thousands of those
guys.

And those girls.

Wearing the shirts.

Filling the seats.

One discussion had between my friends and I was about
concert-sitters.

Those people who are either too cool for school to stand
during the concert or just too damn lazy or too damn
boring.

There were hundreds upon thousands of those too.

Pet peeves galore.

As I'm still painting a picture (mainly to make certain people
jealous of my going and their not going), there are
still certain things to talk about.

Two guys from Iowa were there.

One had a ticket.

The other didn't.

They carpooled to KC just to see NIN and brought their german
shepherd puppy.

The dog was the shit.

And literally took a coiled shit in the parking lot of Starlight.

Glorious.

Hilarious.

More weirdness.

A Hari Krishna tried to sell one of his books to one of my
friends.

I was too busy drinking to pay attention to his religion
and his book sales.

He didn't even want to look at me.

Me?

I wanted to grab him by the back of the head and shake
the religion right out of him.

Open his eyes to the world around and how no one going
to a NIN concert that night should be interested in his teachings.

Unless they were high.

Or playing a trick on him.

So we finish the majority of the 30 pack (3 guys) and head
into the show.

Street Sweeper has started.

If you don't know who Street Sweeper is, let me just say
one name:

Tom Morello.

The lead guitarist of both Rage against the Machine and
Audioslave and the guy behind Night Watchman is now
the lead guitarist for Street Sweeper.

The lead singer is Boots or Boo somebody or other.

He looked and acted like a cross between Lenny Kravitz
and Zach de la Rocha.

But why would anyone care about Street Sweeper?

They spread their message of peace through rock music.

Strange I know.

But they tried to get everyone to text them something
or other to get on a list to get news and updates about
how we can help save the world.

I just came to see Morello play.

And he did.

Very well.

So well in fact that the only thing I could decide then
and there was that the only other band I saw at Starlight
previously, The White Stripes, needed to have a guitar-off
with Tom Morello.

Jack White vs Tom Morello

That would be a guitar-off that would literally shake the sky
and make our faces melt off.

Watching Tom do his thing, sans hat, was a little weird.

But awe-inspiring.

And depressing at the same time.

I knew at that moment, same as when I watched the White
Stripes, that I would never be as good as Morello.

I would just pale in comparison.

The main event: NIN.

All night, we waited.

And waited.

Patiently trying to figure out who would be the backing band.

Would it be a reunion for the original NIN?

This was their last show so it was possible.

Would it be a consortium of weirdoes that he'd always
wanted to tour with and play with before he trailed off into
the horizon?

See above.

It was neither.

It was a standard backing band. It was his choice.

Fink on guitar, and two others who did a fantastic job but
never really heard of before.

He opened with Wave Goodbye, a new song (?) that pretty
much is summed up by the title.

That immediately broke into Terrible Lie and immediately
kicked the night's ass and made me happy as all hell
to be there.

He played songs like The Wretched.

March of the Pigs.

Physical.

Wish.

Songs from all over the place. Collector. Hurt. Burn.

Survivalism and Physical were my two favorites of the night.

Watching Trent, dressed in full Freddie Mercury-esque attire,
singing and basically barking into the microphone on
Survivalism was outstanding.

Physical made me laugh because he said here's one from
the beginning and everyone immediately thinks Closer.

Boom, Physical.

Not many people know that song from Broken but by
Veloci-jesus it's an amazing song that people should know.

And we got to see him.

We got to enjoy it.

I had some dick standing still, motionless in front of me.

That pissed me off.

Him and his goon buddies knew some of the songs, thank
the lord, but for the most part, they stood there.

They didn't sit though.

Two people in front of us, a couple loving on each other very
much, sat and stood only for the sake of seeing.

They didn't know the songs.

They didn't care to learn them.

They just looked at the weirdos as they sung along.

They were apparently there to see Jane's Addiction,
so whatever.

I was not.

I was there to see Trent and enjoy myself.

And I did.

Worst part of the night was the standing on a concrete
slope for 2 hours.

With a bad ankle.

And drizzle from time to time sprinkling down on us.

That was it though.

The night was capped by leaving the venue after NIN
was finally done (because who the hell cares
about Jane's Addiction) and finishing off the 30 pack.

Beautiful.

We did hear some of the Jane's songs, and they were just
what you would come to expect from him and them.

Trent and NIN were damn near perfection.

One of the best concerts I've ever seen (close to Tool at
Memorial Hall or APC at Municipal Auditorium).

Starlight is an amazing place to see a concert.

Just turn around and look at all the people behind you
and then look at all the people in front of you.

It's amazing.

It's absurd.

It's amazing.

Trent played a lot more guitar/piano/keyboard
than I expected.

After seeing Tool 3 times in my life, you get used to
Maynard picking up the guitar for half a song.

Trent had the guitar attached to him quite often.

It was real showmanship.

It was good to be a part of this, especially if it's one
of the last he does.

But nothing merch came home with me.

I'm not about to spend 40-75 dollars for a shirt/sweatshirt
I can buy for 10 online. I'm sorry.

And Starlight?

Get your head out of your ass.

Having one merch tent for a GIANT venue seems completely
ridiculous to me.

The two shows I've seen there have had lines longer than
the ones to see the Star Wars movies in theater just to get
to the front of the line and NOT buy a shirt for 40 dollars.

Ridiculous.

Aren't you jealous?