Blogcritics Author: Nik Dirga

Book Review: Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

Nik Dirga — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 09:33:27 EDT

Superheroes jump off the comics page and into prose in this entertaining first novel.
If you had superpowers, what would you be -- the good guy, or the bad guy? Most of us like to hope we'd be the hero, but there's a heck of a lot of us who'd be the villain, really. Now in paperback, Austin Grossman's first novel Soon I Will Be Invincible is an affectionate take on the superhero genre. Grossman writes in a very...

Music Review: TV On The Radio - Dear Science,

Nik Dirga — Thu, 2 Oct 2008 19:09:13 EDT

TV on The Radio is back with an art-rock masterpiece that might just be the album of the year.
Calling all stations – TV On The Radio is back on the airwaves, and it's worth tuning in for this. The Brooklyn art-rock combo's third disc, Dear Science, is here (yes, the comma's part of the title), and it's a dazzling and inventive "letter to whom it may concern" that's funky, angry, and open-hearted. If TV On...

Graphic Novel Review: Too Cool To Be Forgotten by Alex Robinson

Nik Dirga — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:19:16 EDT

You're a teen again � you've heard the idea before, but Alex Robinson puts a funny, sad spin on it in his latest graphic novel.
There isn't an adult alive who hasn't idly wondered what it'd be like to go to high school again. Forty-something, balding Andy Wicks has done it -- he's zipped back more than 20 years to relive his high school geek days in 1985. It's the plot of the latest graphic novel by the indie comics creator Alex Robinson, Too Cool To Be Forgotten. Robinson...

Music Review: Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust (Sony Legacy Edition)

Nik Dirga — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:33:13 EDT

A breakthrough of righteous Australian rock gets remastered in a new CD/DVD special edition.
It's hard to remember what a breath of fresh air the music of Midnight Oil seemed like on the American Top 40 back in 1987, when the song "Beds are Burning" suddenly was everywhere. A fiery call to arms, with that catchy chorus "How can we dance when our earth is turning / How do we sleep when our beds are burning?" It had...

Book Review: Johnny Boo - The Best Little Ghost In The World! by James Kochalka

Nik Dirga — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:51:25 EDT

A ghost, an ice cream monster and much silliness in cartoonist James Kochalka's new children's comic.
James Kochalka is a master of cute alternative comix. In fact, he even wrote a book called The Cute Manifesto. But he also uses his deceptively sweet style to tackle everything from autobiography to surreal fantasy to raunchy adults-only superhero parodies. But how about a nice, normal children's illustrated book? Well, when it's Kochalka...

Book Review: The Wild Trees by Richard Preston

Nik Dirga — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:27:33 EDT

Head into a hidden world with this fascinating exploration of California's redwood canopies.
One of my favorite places in the world has always been California's most remote regions, far away from the crowds and traffic, the foggy Northwesternmost coast of Eureka and Arcata and Crescent City. Redwood country. It's a long ways from anywhere – five, six hours at least from San Francisco along some really winding roads. The...

Music Review: The Old 97's - Blame It On Gravity

Nik Dirga — Sat, 24 May 2008 21:34:20 EDT

Love and romance with a country twang, the Old 97's return with a fiery new album.
"Cowboy poetry" is one of those phrases you sometimes hear and don't know quite what to make of it. Odes to sagebrush and saddle sores, perhaps? But the music of the Old 97's, with its high lonesome sound, always felt like a kind of cowboy poetry to me. The Dallas-spawned band draws on country music to create something that's not quite alt-country...

Music Review: The Replacements - Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash, Stink, Hootenanny, and Let It Be (Special Edition Reissues)

Nik Dirga — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:22:38 EDT

An '80s band that matters: Nearly thirty years on, the rough and raw Replacements still soar in four great new reissues.
Lots of people think of '80s rock and they think hair metal, Boy George, and that moonwalking guy. But the '80s also brought us a band that endures, the rangy junkyard mutts of the Replacements, a scrappy bunch of Minneapolis yokels who turned from aspiring punk rockers into crafters of some of the most perfect yearning pop songs you'll...

Book Review: After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Nik Dirga — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:42:19 EDT

As a kind of throat-clearing between bigger tales, the enigmatic After Dark is almost more of a tone poem than a fully fleshed-out novel.
Haruki Murakami is one of Japan's finest authors, and for my money, one of the best writers wielding a pen these days. His works, global in voice but with a uniquely Japanese perspective, are filled with layers that disappear into subterranean mists. Murakami's work is that of a modern man's probing of where Japan today fits into its...

Music Review: Everclear - The Vegas Years

Nik Dirga — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:42:22 EDT

1990s rock icons Everclear retrench with a covers record paying homage to their idols.
When a rock band does an album of covers, you're kind of trained not to expect much. It's often a sign of writer's block, or just a more light-hearted ramble through the music that inspired them. Sure, a few folks like Cat Power or Sinatra can do something amazing with covers, but most of the time, not so much. Everclear's The Vegas Years is your...