THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

Historically, I've consumed comic books the old-fashioned way: pouring over monthly issues as they arrived, usually through the mail via Westfield Comics , given my distance away from any comics stores. It's only been the last few years that I've held off from buying certain monthly comics in favor of the trade paperback (TPB) collections. (It's kinda like the desire to watch TV shows via DVD collections of various seasons rather than watching individual episodes as they appear.) The TPB has been a fruitful format for me, allowing me to gorge on multiple issues of titles like Y: The Last Man , Ex Machina , Boys , and others, but I've really grown to look forward to the TPB's of The Walking Dead . Now, I'm a monster traditionalist in that I like my vampires to be parasitic and fearsome (more Nosferatu, less CW) and my zombies to be slow and numerous, so The Walking Dead ticks that box. (And yes, there's room for a discussion why post-millennial creat...

In the '80s, R.E.M. was one of my gateways into another cultural world outside my constricted Roscommon climes, and it all started when someone at my high school gave me one of their cassettes because she didn't like it. Although I was a radio kid from way back, R.E.M. hooked me from the first notes of "Feeling Gravity's Pull," and I became a fan for life, following their development and growth. Their small-screen I.R.S. years were fecund and rich, and when they moved into their new digs at Warner Brothers and quickly became million-selling arena stars, it seemed a natural progression rather than a false spiritual note. But when founding member and drummer Bill Berry left the band due to health reasons, R.E.M. took years to recast and rediscover themselves as a "band," and their recorded work lost something in the process. And just as they seemed to sturdy the ship with Accelerate ['08] and Collapse Into Now ['11], Michael Stipe and Peter Bu...

A time of travel and transitions, a year when I flew to Cabo San Lucas more than most people ever will in their lifetimes, a period where I started my second decade at North Central MI College. And there was music music music: Editors [Majestic Theater, Detroit 1.26] -- Sure, they sound like the incestuous child of Interpol and Coldplay, but they brought the arena-ready rawk like the Euro troopers they are. Justice / Diplo [Royal Oak Music Theater 3.19] -- Showed up late and missed Diplo (who starts a show on time?), but Justice wielded the thunder...even though they didn't show me anything I didn't see at Coachella the year before. Coachella Music & Arts Festival [Empire Polo Field, Indio, CA 4.25/4.26/4.27] -- Kinda sad that I had to look up the artists before I commented, but it's less about the acts as it is the whole immersion into another hotter & dustier world, albeit one with a great soundtrack. Hard to beat seeing Kraftwerk into Portishead in...