Re-Reading Comics: DMZ (Wood)

Last week I talked about O’Malley’s first book, Lost at Sea. You can read my review here.

It’s a weird time to pick up Brian Wood’s Vertigo series, DMZ. Normally I wouldn’t think too hard about recommending it. When I read it the first time time, DMZ was exactly the kind of series I like: dark, gritty, urban, bleak, yet full of hope. Long enough I could spend a day binging dozens of issues, and collected into graphic novels so it’s easy to pick up. I looked forward to reading it, and when I finally did, it was everything I was told to expect.

Now, though, with our real NYC under lockdown from a very real threat, fictionalized versions struggle under an extra weight, and I’m not sure DMZ holds up the way it used to.

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Movie Review: Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives (2015)

Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives is basically a love letter to Adrian Bartos and Robert Garcia, who hosted “The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show” from 1990 to 1998, on the Columbia University radio station, WKCR. If you don’t already know the fundamental difference between a DJ who makes music, and a DJ who talks between playing tracks on the radio, this documentary won’t be for you. If you don’t already know the difference between rap and lyrical hip-hop, this won’t explain it. If you’re not intimately aware that the 90s rap scene in New York was unlike anywhere else in the world, well… you get the idea.

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