Two things I hadn't heard of last month that I now love.

Maybe I'm getting out of touch in my old age but occasionally things slip past me.  Recently thanks to the invaluable spirit of browsing I discovered two things that by all intensive purposes I should've known of or experiences, but hadn't.

Firstly, Generation Kill.  I ditched HBO about 5-6 seasons into the Sopranos when it went from being must see for me, to must avoid like the plague once it turned into the biggest budget Actors/Writers workshop ever.  (Multi episode Coma Dream?  Are you fucking kidding me?!!?!)  So I catch up with what I hear is good on DVD and don't worry about the rest.

So when I was browsing through Netflix and noticed Generation Kill I figured I'd give it a shot.  If I had heard of it before I probably wrote it off as "Over There" with curse words.  Another Liberal whinefest (for the record I am a liberal and always thought Iraq was a bad idea, but hey since we're there we might as well win) designed to be about as subtle in its reflection of America as a installing a mirror above your bed.  So that coupled with my not having HBO probably meant it got purged from the old memory banks.  My bad.

It's essentially "Band of Brothers: Modern Warfare".   A straightforward, (I'm guessing) realistic and honest look, and apolitical look at the early war in Iraq.  A true story from the eyes, though not seen through his eyes thankfully, of an embedded reporter it deals with the boredom, minutiae,  misdirection, in-fighting, solidarity, brotherhood, and fog of war.  There are a few battles, but it isn't a constant blood and casualty fest.   One raid is "fought" against literally no-one.

 For my money it is leaps and bounds more interesting and "realistic" (I use quotes there cause, how the hell would I know if it was or wasn't, but this feels far more authentic) than "The Hurt Locker" (which I also really enjoyed).  And it looks AMAZING on Blu-Ray.   So go check it grab it.  But know that the last disc only has ONE FRIGGIN EPISODE ON IT!!! Really HBO?  You make me Q up one more disc for that?  Oh and as I mentioned CoD: MW... Generation Kill clearly influenced MW2 down to the same shots and missions at times.  So, thats fun.

Secondly...

"Winter World".
Swinging by a Barnes and Noble to grab a magazine I took a glance at the Sci-Fi section and the Comics area to see if there were any books and whatever volume of DMZ I'm up to (I think 5).  Glancing around I saw this nicely presented Hardcover TPB of something I'd never heard of before.  It also looked like it could be very similar to a story I was working on (It's not) so I figured I'd check it out.

Written by Chuck Dixon and illustrated by Jorge Zaffino in the late 80's, "Winter World is a very simple, straightforward Post Apocalyptic tale of a trader doing whatever he can to survive in what was once America.  As often is the case in stories like this we have no idea why or when the world was covered in ice and snow but that mystery would be tangential at best to the struggles of our three main characters as they come up across every sort of nasty individual imaginable.  "Winter World" is only 3 issues and they bundle it with the sequel "Winter Sea", so it's a fairly quick read.  The story is so vivid, fleshed out, yet concise that it is a marvel that it hasn't gotten picked up by Hollywood.  It could make for a fascinating film without cutting really anything out, or puffing it up.

Based on the link above it's only 14 bucks at Amazon, so... just get it.

That is all

-GD

BONUS:  That isn't all.

 Since I'm on a sort of rough and tumble streak here with military and the apocalypse I feel this is as good a time as any to say that I am 100% addicted to Lock 'n Load with R. Lee Ermey. If it's on, I watch it.  It's R. Lee talking about the history of, then shooting guns. That's it.  But, even for a gun control law nut like myself it's a fascinating and fun show.

That is all.