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Writer: Kieron Gillen / Artist: Stephanie Hans / Image Comics

Die #1 was a late entry to the 2018 comic book market, but it immediately left a lasting impression, so much so that it still stands in my mind as one of the contenders for best comic book series debut of 2018. Die #2 does the equally, if not more, impressive task of maintaining the high quality of exposition and visual intrigue, and even the recap of the last issue is utterly brilliant it’s compactness and impact.

If Die #1 was a crash course into the premise of the comic, Die #2 is best likened to a crash course into the actual game mechanics of the fantasy world. In many ways, it’s like a second #1 because the entire aesthetic is drastically different. We’re fully entrenched in a saturated land of fantasy. Hans’ artwork captures the desolate ruins of a once flouring kingdom and shows the discomfort of 5 adults who are forced to take up the mantles of literal past lives in order to confront a former delusional friend. It is haunting and terrifying, unifying the best elements of horror and high fantasy and is a great visualization of Gillen’s twisted machinations.

Gillen easily continues the eerie tour de force he started in the first issue. The pivot from emotional nostalgia to an encompassing overview of the new setting and the mechanics of the game are enthralling. Gillen’s metafictional attempts to examine the different classes of old school tabletops is a fascinating reflection of the types of people who used game as escapism. And the brilliance of all of this stems from Gillen’s hyperbolically deep understanding of trope.

Dictator. Fool. Grief Knight. Neo. Godbinder. Grandmaster. All of these are new concepts that have roots and origins in old rulebooks. Gillen’s greatest strength is his ability to manipulate that familiarity to be novel, to be unknown enough to be enticing.

Die is not slowing down. If you didn’t read last issue, please start 2019 right and start reading the single issues. Once you get started, you’re not going to be able to wait for the single issues. Whether you’re a fan of Dungeons & Dragons or not, this is a top tier fantasy comic that should be on everyone’s radar.

10 “Rulebooks” out of 10

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Colored pencils and guitars aren’t often mentioned in the same sentence, and with good reason: very few people on earth set out to master both. You can be a pencil person or a guitar person, but rare is the artistic genius who can wield the twain with equal aplomb. We have an inkling that YouTuber Burls Art may be one of those rare specimens, however; having previously made a snowboard out of (almost) nothing but duct tape, his sights have turned in a more musical direction to create a particularly virant musical instrument, as seen in this video we were tipped off to by Geekologie:

When you get down to it, it’s not a huge mystery how this was achieved, though how the gentleman maintained the patience to do it all is something we might wonder forever. With epoxy and resin, he made a solid block out of colored pencils (1200, in all), and cut and sanded it into shape. We’re guessing he’s a Vernon Reid fan, because this guitar is what you’d literally call living color.

Don’t skip over the parts where he’s sanding it down. The most beautiful wood shavings you’ve ever seen ensue, like glorious, inedible cotton candy. And yes, it really works in the end, as Mr. Art busts out a bit of “To God Be The Glory” by Mateus Asato, suggesting that perhaps divine inspiration was at work here. “Colors of the Wind” is the tune we were hoping for, but maybe he takes requests.

Image: Burls Art

We’re nearly three weeks into what is currently the second-longest government shutdown in U.S. history, meaning hundreds of thousands of government workers are still unable to work or are being asked to work without pay, and there’s no end in sight.

Donald Trump says he “can relate” to workers who are struggling to pay their bills and also claims many of those workers support the shutdown. But Trump was born into enough privilege to provide him with a permanent financial safety net. Does anyone believe that he actually relates to the realities of how this shutdown affects people and families?

Some federal employees are lucky enough to have savings or a partner with steady employment to bridge the gap until the shutdown ends. But many government employees live paycheck to paycheck, many are single parents, and many simply can’t work for weeks or longer without pay.

Trump also says many of those furloughed and unpaid employees support his shutdown, though that seems increasingly unlikely as many are two days away from missing a paycheck, and are struggling to make ends meet. Some–hundreds, even–are struggling so much that they’ve taken to Go Fund Me to ask for assistance.

I AM NOT FINE WITH THIS! I need to get back to work ASAP!!! https://t.co/dwDXKjJrt6

— Julie Burr (@juliedotburr) January 5, 2019

According to CBS News, more than 700 campaigns have been launched on Go Fund Me to cover rent, bills, and other basic expenses. (Apparently, that advice to trade chores for rent didn’t go over well with too many landlords.)

Trump and his supporters have tried to convince Americans not to sympathize with furloughed and unpaid workers. They’ve declared them to all be Democrats or well-off pencil-pushers (as if they then don’t deserve to be paid for the work they do). But these campaigns have raised about $50,000 so far, and those that have received media attention have far surpassed their goals, making it pretty clear that people support the workers being hurt by Trump’s stubbornness.

There are 800,000 people not getting a paycheck right now. In those GoFundMe campaigns, there are stories of all sorts of people, from tax inspectors to janitorial staff.

There’s a single mother of six, who is also a veteran and is struggling to make ends meet.

There’s a federal employee whose wife is currently on unpaid maternity leave, taking their double income down to none, and with a newborn in their home.

There’s a TSA worker returning from unpaid maternity leave to a job that is now itself unpaid.

Meanwhile, the shutdown has led to actual deaths across the country. At least seven people have died in national parks since the shutdown began, which is not itself unusual, but because of the lack of oversight within the parks, at least one of those deaths in Yosemite went unreported for more than a week.

Sharice Davids, one of the two freshmen Native American Congresswomen, says the shutdown is hitting Native populations especially hard. She told NPR that she “spoke with one tribal leader who said that they actually lost a tribal member because they were unable to plow the roads so that an emergency service vehicle could get to him in time.”

Lives are literally at stake b/c the federal government is shutdown. Thank you @NPRWeekend for highlighting the shutdown’s devastating impact on Native communities. https://t.co/mBejLRQlqV

— Congresswoman Sharice Davids (@RepDavids) January 6, 2019

In his Oval Office address last night, Trump called the need for a wall “a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.” There is clearly a crisis of the soul happening here but it has nothing to do with a wall and everything to do with a man throwing a temper tantrum and causing destruction in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

(image: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

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As the parent of a toddler who watches Mary Poppins at least once a week, there are a few things I know.

(1) The 1964 Mary Poppins film is indeed practically perfect in every way, and (2) Mary Poppins herself is not a nice person. Now, it’s debatable whether Mary Poppins is a person at all. She could be some ancient, eldritch being sent to spread chaos and madness among mortals. She might be an ange—or a Time Lord.

What’s clear is that Mary Poppins is a manipulative, lying, gaslighting jerk. It’s highly possible you haven’t realized this if you haven’t, like me, seen Mary Poppins eighty-seven times in the span of fourteen months, but trust me, I know what I’m talking about.

Get your spoons full of sugar ready; it’s time for some medicine.

Mary Poppins’ modus operandi (popperandi?) is that she makes the most peculiar things start to happen around her and then acts like they aren’t happening. She uses that confusion and consternation to do whatever she wants and steamroll everyone around her into her idea of correct behavior.

She forces her way into a job then makes poor Mr. Banks think he’s going nuts. She does blatant magic in front of Jane and Michael and then acts like they’re delusional and rude for mentioning it, or worse, that it’s a tiresome distraction from whatever errand they’re on. It’s highly ironic that the sequel (which we’ll get to, believe me) has a lamplighter as a main character, because this is classic gaslighting.

Mary doesn’t inspire imagination or creativity; she inspires paranoia, mania, and self-doubt. She’s the worst kind of adult: one whose actions are directly contradictory to their words and supposed beliefs, and the poor Banks family is lucky they had a real hero around to bring them some joy and help them learn important lessons.

That’s right: Bert.

Despite Dick Van Dyke’s less-than-great “cockney” accent, this jack-of-all-trades is the true heart of Mary Poppins. He’s honest with the kids, he’s fun, he’s hard-working and innovative, and most importantly, he’s there to dispense some candid, good advice to the Banks family when they need it.

When Jane and Michael are upset with their father, who’s there to explain to them that Mr. Banks is a slave to the capitalist system? Bert. When Mr. Banks is at his lowest and needs reminding that it’s his family where the real riches come from, who’s there to sing to his heart? Bert! But does this hero of the proletariat get any credit? No! Mr. Banks quits his job singing a song he wasn’t even onscreen to hear and gives Poppins all the credit.

It’s no wonder the family doesn’t even say goodbye to their nanny at the end; they’ll have a happier and much less abusive time without her!

Now, all of this isn’t to say that Mary doesn’t have her charms. I used to buy into the story that Julie Andrews won the Oscar for Mary Poppins as a consolation prize for being denied the chance to repeat the role she created on Broadway in the film version of My Fair Lady, in favor of Audrey Hepburn. But really, it was through a true feat of acting and charm that Andrews made Mary Poppins likable at all, when she’s really a terrifying creature bent on sewing discord and doubt among all she encounters.

Andrews also had the help of some of the greatest Disney songs of all time, including Walt’s (and my daughter’s) personal favorite, “Feed the Birds.” It’s a perfect piece of music, and its theme—to pay attention to the little wonders, the things that aren’t magical at all—is the best message of the film. It’s the nicest and least heartless thing Mary Poppins shares with the children. You may not have thought of it this way, but since I get to sing this song every single night, I’ve had some time to meditate on it.

Since my child is, to put it mildly, obsessed with Poppins, it was a logical choice for us to make Mary Poppins Returns her first movie in a theater. She spent the entire twenty minutes of previews (dear god, why) asking, “Where’s Mary Poppins?” and I spent it hoping that this new outing would make Mary herself a little kinder and a little less prone to convincing people they’ve gone insane.

While my kid deeply enjoyed it any time people were singing (except for Meryl Streep, which she found as baffling a cameo as I did), I was a bit disappointed. This version of Mary was explicit in hyping up the joys of “imagination,” yet was still adamant that the extraordinary things she did, and that people saw, were just ordinary, or didn’t matter.

Many children’s movies walk a fine line between making it explicit that all the magic is in the minds of the characters or that it’s real. Both Mary Poppins films try to have it both ways, to the psychological detriment of the Banks family and their friends.

At least the original Mary took her charges on age-appropriate outings, while Emily Blunt’s version takes them to a bawdy burlesque hall, where she gets so caught up singing with Lin-Manuel Miranda (which … understandable) that she loses track of the children in the magical dreamscape she created, and they end up in mortal peril! For all her faults, Andrews’ Mary Poppins was a semi-competent caretaker, while Blunt’s lets them wander off every other.

Neither Mary acts at all emotionally invested in these kids, so it’s understandable.

The problem with Mary Poppins Returns as a movie is that it attempts to ape the original in all the wrong ways, while adding some of the worst Disney tropes. (A dead mother! A useless love story! A powerful man saves everyone!) It’s nearly a beat-by-beat retread of the 1964 film’s structure, down to a disaster at a bank followed by a dance number from charming working fellows of a bygone era.

Mary Poppins herself is still haughty and almost cruel, but this time, instead of Julie Andrews’ soprano charms elevating her to a mischievous diva, we’re left with Blunt singing alto, trying to bring life to a character who might not even be human and has no clear personality beyond her own smug practical perfection.

The greatest asset Disney had in their arsenal for this film was the original score, and it’s squandered. While we hear a few bars of the familiar tunes, we never get a reprise of any of those iconic songs, and instead, we’re saddled with derivative, repetitive numbers that sag under the weight of trying too hard. Again, the highlight of the film is the working-class sidekick, and Miranda does a great job with a character that’s about as poorly sketched as Poppins, but having such a genius in the movie still feels like a wasted opportunity.

The original Mary Poppins, it turns out, remains a wonder of a movie because it caught lightning in a bottle—perfect music, a perfect cast, and a deft touch that made a character who isn’t really a very nice person into an iconic heroine. Even though Mary is a tool, I don’t mind watching it over and over (and over) because it’s bursting with sincere joy and lightness.

Mary Poppins Returns feels like a pale copy that had all the elements, but none of that spark. Even so, I’m sure I’ll be watching it again. And again. And again.

(images: Disney)

Jessica Mason is a writer and lawyer living in Portland, Oregon passionate about corgis, fandom, and awesome girls. Follow her on Twitter at @FangirlingJess.

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