欧宝娱乐

Ghostface Killah's attempt at being an author offends me to the core, but then so does any celebrity who uses their cash and influence to commit artistic masturbation and flaunt it in our faces.

Too many people work too hard for too long to become authors. Most toil in anonymity, some finally self-publish, a lucky few find a small publishing house where their books gain a tiny audience, and the luckiest few hit it big. Not all of these toilers are truly talented, but their work and their commitment are honest.

But then guys like Ghostface Killah come along. They have a name so publishers like the Hachette Book Group publish whatever drivel they spew simply because it will move copies.

It reminds me of Michael Jordan's brief career with the Birmingham Barons. It wasn't that he was terrible, but he wasn't particularly good either. He hit .202 for the White Sox' Double-A affiliate. He had a couple of homers, a decent number of stolen bases, and some RBIs. His biggest impact, however, was in the fans Jordan brought to Regions Park. The park seats just over 10 thousand fans, and during Jordan's tenure the Barons drew 985,185. But some poor right fielder, some kid who'd worked his whole life for the dream of playing professional baseball -- at any level -- missed a season full of games, so that rich and famous Michael Jordan could live his father's dream.

Now I know it is unlikely that Ghostface Killah's crappy graphic novel took the position of a proper graphic novelist, but the frustration is no less potent. I am a writer of graphic novels myself (amongst other things), and I can't find an artist to complete my work. I don't have the money to pay someone, like Mr. Wu-Tang Clan does, and finding someone to collaborate with for free is nearly impossible because they need to work paying gigs so that they can eat and live. And I can't blame them for that.

It doesn't matter that my work is vastly superior to the garbage that Ghostface Killah has stuck us with. I don't have a name. I don't have the money. My stories languish. His don't.

And let me say this quite plainly: Cell Block Z is awful. There are one or two interesting ideas, and in the hands of a talented writer/artist team those ideas could be turned into a pretty impressive ongoing series. There is enough potential material in Cell Block Z, in fact, to fill twelve 100 page graphic novels. But Ghostface Killah and his "writing team" were so taken with Mr. Killah's narcissistic ego trip -- he is the protagonist in his own story after all -- that they ignored everything needed to make a good graphic novel: pace, characterization, plot, originality. Cell Block Z has none of these essentials (not in anything approaching significant quantity and quality).

Ghostface Killah's love letter to himself is a string of ultra-violent cage battles, broken up by short bursts of pontification, all wrapped up in the worst kind of feel good naivete. Oh...and some idiotic connection to terrorists who, we are told, are "the plague" of modern civilization.

Please, please, please, do not buy this book.