by Edward Champion

RIP Kevin Dubrow

Yes, it’s hair band day here at Return of the Reluctant. But that’s only because the dubious winds of news have breezed along a strange tendentious trajectory after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Quiet Riot singer Kevin Dubrow has been found dead in Vegas — a place where his services were, I hope, appreciated. Nevertheless, “Cum On Feel the Noize,” despite its crude mangling of monosyllabic words, did blast many a time on my speakers over the years. (And in Quiet Riot’s defense, it was Slade who first performed the song and first butchered the English language.) As did “Metal Health” — again, hardly the most graceful bon mot. But Quiet Riot was the first heavy metal group to have a #1 album on the Billboard charts, until it was ignobly unseated by the likes of Lionel Richie. This demonstrates that there is indeed no justice in the universe, whatever your positions on either Quiet Riot or Lionel Ritchie.

by Edward Champion

Janet Maslin: Abdicating Her Critical Faculties One Review at a Time

Slushpile has dug up further evidence of Janet Maslin’s critical inadequacies, as evidenced by this review of John Leake’s Entering Hades. Apparently, the fact that Michael Connelly did not give the book a blurb is reason enough to quibble with it. In fact, I’m wondering why Maslin didn’t just throw the book in the fireplace and devote her 900 words to qualities that had nothing to do with the book. What of John Leake’s pronounced fro or the fact that he sits with his arms crossed, but doesn’t appear intense enough in his author photo? (For Christ’s sake, he wears sandals! Well, that’s two strikes against the book, I’m afraid.) This is the news that’s fit to print in the dailies these days. Reading the New York Times‘s daily book coverage makes me so disheartened that I’d rather watch Michiko and Maslin in a nude mud wrestling match. That’s hardly my first choice of perverse entertainment, mind you, but I dredge this conceptual horror from my unwholesome imagination in order to make a larger point about journalistic integrity.

by Edward Champion

Extreme to Reunite!

Billboard: “Boston-based rock outfit Extreme is reuniting for its first studio album in 13 years and world tour in 2008, Billboard has learned. The group, best known for the 1991 No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit ‘More Than Words,’ disbanded in 1996 but reformed briefly in 2004 and 2006.”

Okay, speaking as a metal geek back from the early ’90’s and as someone who still listens to Poronograffiti from time to time, this is fantastic news!

by Edward Champion

December Comics Madness

Since the month of December is typically a slow month for the publishing industry, and since the wintry weather is conductive for this sort of thing, and since I have received several enticing graphic novels over the past few months, in December, I plan to devote these pages to investigating many of these volumes — while also gradually releasing the fifteen (!) podcasts I have in my backlog. In addition, I’ll also be covering the New York Anime Festival in a few weeks. If you are a comics publisher who would like to have your titles considered, feel free to email me or send me titles to the Flatbush address.