YouTube Obsession

Mil-sim dudes crack me up. Like, your hobby is pretending to be in the military? Yall know there’s an actually military that you can join right? They’ll pay you.

Anyway, Karmakut is a mil-sim guy who isn’t annoyingly dude-bro and he plays mil-sim games that I find interesting but would never have the patience to play² .

Like Door Kickers 2.

I find the Door Kickers series interesting to watch, especially when the person is knowledgeable about SWAT tactics. There is just something about min-maxing every movement of a raid and then watching it all back.

Watching

William Friedkin’s 1985 crime thriller To Live and Die in L.A. is a movie that -at any moment- will fly apart at the seams. A neck-breaking pace and absolute apathy towards audience expectations, it is truly an 80’s noir. Not a noir set in the 80’s but a noir as only could be produced in the heart of the Reagan austerity cuts and market excesses. Accompanied by an ecstatic Wang Chung soundtrack that jacks up the low hum of anxiety that permeates this movie.

Not to mention that this might be the most masculine film ever. Masculinity sans sexuality. It’s 30 minutes before we even meet a female character and she’s treated as more of a obligation to the main character than any desirable relationship. Even the sex scene, which has male full-frontal nudity, explicitly shows the main character’s flaccid penis. This is easy to pass off as the MPAA would not allow an erect penis but that is exactly the point of that scene. These men are only allowed perform masculinity; jumping off bridges, shooting guns, getting into car chases, wanting a woman but cannot actually get hard for a woman.

In fact, the only sexually active characters in the film are a fem coded Willem Dafoe (who is impliedly pegged in one scene) and his bisexual female partner in crime. The message is that sexuality is a crime. A presentient message in fact, considering Marvel movies, the most popular male-oriented movies in the world, have shied away from male characters expressing any kind of sexual desire aside from blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quips from a 60yo Robert Downey Jr (Robert Downey Sr is in To Live and Die in L.A., coincidentally).

Another thing about this movie and Friedkin movies in general is the sense that this is just one story in this world. It is most likely a byproduct of adapting novels, a medium that can indulge in multiple stories, to a film that can only afford to focus on one plot line. This has the effect of making the worlds in Friedkin movies feel lived in and alive. It is no less true for To Live and Die in L.A. There are so many moments and characters that could be spun off into their own movies.

This year is the 40 year anniversary of To Live and Die in L.A. and I highly recommend you see this movie. At least rock out to the so 80’s it hurts OST put together by Wang Chung.

Reading

I read Invincible by Robert Kirkman, illustrated by Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley back in 2008-ish when my local comic shop in Bloomington, Indiana, The Vintage Phoenix¹ had a huge sale on the trades on Free Comic Book Day. Despite enjoying the first 13 issues, I never kept up with the series because comics are expensive and I had an expanding drinking habit to support.

I checked out the Invincible series on Amazon when it came out and I liked the changes it made to the themes and narrative, but I cannot stand the animation.

Recently, the YouTube shorts algorithm have been showing me clips from the 2nd season of the Invincible show and I like what I see. The animation looks vastly improved and even though I still have issues with the celebrity voice casting I am going to give the show another try.

After I read the comics. Which is easy now that all the compendiums are accessible from my library on Libby. The first compendium collects issues 0-47 and it’s hard to explain the level of miserly joy I get from saying that.

Obviously: SPOILERS AHEAD.

It’s interesting to reread this in 2025 after the superhero genre has truly broken mainstream and -to some extent- collapsed. All the tropes that felt so fresh in Invincible in 2008 have since been trod and trampled by so many inferior comics and movies. It’s obvious to me now why the Amazon show had to change so much of the comic’s core themes and story. It would have felt outdated.

Despite it’s “classic” story it also shows it’s age in that you can tell it is an independent comic from the mid aughts. The art doesn’t always communicate a world, a character is often presented in a blank background, but I hold independent comic artists less accountable for time saving than a show funded by a trillion dollar company. It can still be beautiful:

Obviously this was a complaint when the comic was being being released because there’s an entire bit dedicated to addressing lazy art.

A bit that was reproduced in the show.

Again, it’s funny when independent artists point out their shortcuts, less so when Amazon not only insults their audience but also their animators that are underpaid and over-worked.

Overall, I’m enjoying the comic far more this time around because I can read more than 4 issues at a time.

Other Notables

** I know it’s pot/kettle because I was the one googling how old I am but AI is really fucking stupid.

** Better than any of the 2025 oscar noms

1  It’s still open amazingly.

2  I also secretly harbor that he “sounds cute.” I hope I never see what he actually looks like.