The Death Star...
Chapter 10. New name! Same weird taste!
A name change!
My cat!
Stuff I did write- Joker and Gordon have a sleepover! Something wild comes to Gotham!
Sweet drinks!
Some of you may have noticed I changed the name of this here thing. Some of you didn’t notice I’m sure, which is fine. And some of you probably didn’t even notice it had a name at all, and that’s okay too, I guess. It used to be called “Inspired by a True Story” and is now called “Based on a True Story.” Why the change? Well a long time ago when you wrote things for TV based on real events they had legal teams evaluate what you wrote vs. the actual events. From there they’d give you classifications as to what you can call your show. The most accurate being “A True Story,” the second most accurate being “Based on a True Story,” and the final one being “Inspired by a True Story.” After that they tell you to not even bother pretending this is based on anything because you’ll get everyone sued. So I named my little email diary here after the one that was furthest from the truth but could still technically be called a version of the truth. But nobody seemed to get the joke. Also “inspired by a true story” feels a lot like some self help shit and that is… How do I put this?… Nobody should be getting life advice from me. So I changed it to “Based on a True Story” because more people will get the joke. And then I just explained the joke which pretty much ruins the joke. yay.
Big news this week about my dear sweet boy Shutterstock. I have decided that he is handsome enough to be a model so I hired a professional photographer to take headshots. I think they came out great. Would you please hire my baby son to be in your generic calendar or your commercial for prescription drugs?
So I’m working on a bunch of new things that are about to get announced and I am excited because I’m really proud of them, but I’m also excited because I will have a lot of stuff to talk about here finally. It’s insane that you all have stuck with me this long and we’re all lucky this didn’t go totally off the rails. Doing a weekly newsletter is a lot of work and if I wasn’t careful with it I’d end up having to review milk and make up stories about pets I didn’t own…
In the meantime I have two big releases in comic shops this week that I am very excited for people to read. My buddy James writes a little book called THE JOKER for the DETECTIVE COMICS COMICS company. He and Guillem March decided to take a little break and so they invited myself and the legendary Francesco Francavilla to come play in their book. James had an idea for what the story should be and when it should take place. Yadda yadda yadda, I got to tell the story of the Joker’s first night in Arkham Asylum! Tonally we tried to tell a story that would fit well right after BATMAN: YEAR ONE which is arguably the best Batman comic ever written. So it seemed like a good idea to compare ourselves to that. THE JOKER #5 is in shops tomorrow.
This issue also features more of the great Punchline story by James, Sweeney Boo, and my dearest friend Sam Johns, who some of you may remember I referred to as “my mortal enemy” in a previous newsletter. But here’s what you may not know- Sam sometimes reads this here publication. Hi, Sam.
Also in shops tomorrow, BATMAN URBAN LEGENDS #5 which features the final chapter of my Grifter story with Ryan Benjamin and Antonio Fabela. Grifter is one of my favorite characters in comics and this has been such an honor to write. The reaction to it has been pretty overwhelming too, so thank you. There isn’t a lot I can say other than THERE IS SOME REALLY CRAZY STUFF IN THIS ISSUE! People will be talking about this one, so if you don’t want it spoiled get to your local comic shop early… Or destroy your computer and your phone right now… Whichever works for you.
This one has some big guest appearances. I won’t spoil it but here’s a teaser-
Due to literally no demand, I have decided it is time for another installment of “Sweet Drinks.” This is the segment where I review Chocolate Milk, ostensibly for you, but at this point we both know that is probably not true.
Not long ago a video was going around the internet where a man pronounced Wawa in the best possible way. You know what? I’m not going to do it justice. Just watch it here.
So yeah, pronouncing it like you’re a sad baby is amazing. But that doesn’t change the fact that Wawa is great. I remember when they started opening 7/11’s in Manhattan and I was so bummed. Bodegas are the lifeblood of this island and no corporate bullshit chain like that should ever get a foothold here… But I have to admit I’d maybe make an exception for Wawa.
To me Wawa will alway remind me of going down to Philly to see hardcore shows, getting all sweaty and exhausted, then remembering you forgot to get dinner but it’s going to be okay, because there is a Wawa. Only it turns out you don’t need some short skinny kid to look at you funny on the floor and then have you think “he’s just some skinny dude. Whatever.” and then the breakdown starts and he is spin-kicking everyone in the fucking face and you get real nervous because you know you rolled your eyes at him earlier so you spend the next hour asking so many questions. How does he get his leg that high? How hard can you get kicked in the head before it ruins your week/month/life? Is this what his parents wanted for him when he was born? To watch their son spin-kick someone to death during the breakdown of Release The Fiend? Anyway, yeah. Turns out you can just go to Wawa without all that. And while you wait for your computer sandwich you should get yourself some chocolate milk.
Wawa used to have two kinds of chocolate milk. The regular and the Double Dutch. Was the regular good? Not really. It was fine. But you’d buy one anyway. Why? Because you’d drink it first and then you’d drink the Double Dutch so you could really appreciate it. But I guess selling the “before” drink in a “before/after” comparison is not a great business model.
But let’s get down to business. We’ll start with the fact that it’s a dutch chocolate. That in and of itself is a rare treat in the chocolate milk game these days. For those of you who don’t know, we’ll call you dummies for short, Dutch cocoa is a process where an alkalizing agent is mixed in while the cocoa is processed. This removes some of the acidity that naturally comes across. What does it mean for the taste? Well it means it’s not as sharp, which allows the palette to detect some of the finer notes in the chocolate. Where this gets really exciting, dummy, is in how the dutch cocoa is then used. Often times people undercut the bitterness that comes from the acidity with lots of sugar. A dutch cocoa doesn’t need as much sugar to make it palatable. This gives you the chance to make a chocolate or a chocolate milk that is less aggressively sweet and has more of it’s natural flavors not crushed under tons of sugar. Some people complain that dutch cocoas taste more like an unsweetened baker’s chocolate, and while that is somewhat true, if handled well it can be a great alternative to what most people are used to.
What’s “Double Dutch” chocolate? I don’t know. Gibberish maybe. I think it’s a joke on the children’s game and it doesn’t mean anything. It makes me think of that Liz Phair song.
How is the Double Dutch Chocolate Milk? It’s good. Bordering on very good. I feel like it used to be a bit better, but I still really enjoy it. Not too sweet, not too heavy, a good flavor that has the right balance of refreshing and delicate. It would definitely benefit from a slightly higher fat content to help hold the flavors together more, but it still very much leads with the cocoa and that is commendable. As far as widely distributed chocolate milks go, it’s probably one of the best flavor profiles you’re going to find and I have to applaud them for not going the obvious route. For me this is an every time buy... But some of that probably has to do with how many times I got kicked in the head.
That’s it for me again. Big stuff coming that I’m excited to share soon.
In the meantime stay safe and take care of each other.
-Matthew Rosenberg
NYC 7/12/21
I’m here mainly for the chocolate milk content
Love the new name. New Shutterstock is...a nightmare.