Dancing With the Moonlit Knight Tuesday, July 14, 2009

I've made a couple of rediscoveries lately. Portishead's third studio record, which I didn't even play all the way through when it came out, popped up on the shuffle and I was surprised at how strong it was. It's definitely not as fun as the earlier ones; it doesn't have that trashy-sexy vibe and there are very few hooks to grab onto. But it's an ingratiating headphone record: a moody, meditative record with some rough patches to keep you from zoning out entirely. I hope the next one is a little friendlier, but I won't be disappointed if they keep going down this path.

Meanwhile, sorting through my shortboxes to find stuff to dump, I came across Camelot 3000. I loved it as a teenager but some friends had been smack-talking it lately. On a re-read, I can definitely see why it comes off as unsophisticated. Everything in the book has very bright edges, from the terrific Brian Bolland art on down. Even with the usual Arthurian breast-beating, good is good, and bad is terrible. All in all, it feels very much like a traditional superhero series. If somebody put this out today, it would probably be jam-packed with Alan Moore-ish erudition (pagans, rape, Olde English) and populated with ambiguous characters.

Still, I dug it. The art is terrific and the writing is smart: Everybody's got an arc, and all of them pay off. Good stuff.

@ 6:27:00 AM,

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