Everyone Loses: Hibbs on 9/3's cape comics

Four superhero books below that cut!

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #12:  Man, it would be nice to have a Marvel crossover once that ended right. I don't know what frustrates me more: Captain America's extraordinary hypocrisy in the face of the breaking point he engendered, or why no one is asking about what happens with all of the *good* stuff that the Phoenix Five engineered (food, energy, water, worldwide). but, these are superhero comics, and superhero comics don't like dealing with ramifications, do they? Like I said back at the review of #1, this comic clearly is reviewer-proof; nothing I could say or do would impact it's entire success as a commercial juggernaut -- I'm certainly selling twice or more copies of AvX than I do of either of the component characters any longer.

The thing is, I'm afraid that this series fundamentally broke the X-Men -- what are they any longer?

With Xavier dead, the mutants no longer an "extinct race", Cyclops considered a super-villain, what's presumably the world's stock of Sentinels melted down (along with all of the battleships and nuclear weapons in #6) "Uncanny Avengers", and so on -- well, what's next? Where can you go from here? The core metaphor might still have need today -- but can the X-Men still be the spirit of alienation in any clear way when mutants are now responsible for bringing peace and food and water to Africa, y'know? I have my doubts, especially because the first new x-book off the blocks this week is actually an Avengers title, and the "flagship" X-comic is going to be a time-travel story, which doesn't even sound remotely sustainable to me as an ongoing monthly.

At the end of the day, I thought AVENGERS VS X-MEN #12 was pretty AWFUL. Though I doubt that's any real surprise to anyone out there. I also thought that the X-Men "won", in that Cyclops was right, and his species is now viable again... even though they're left at the end as being a largely irrelevent concept in the Marvel Universe. Funny how those things work out.

AVX #6: As a modern piece of comedy, I thought this was generally pretty darn GOOD. "Captain America is level 15 in Guilt Trips," indeed! Though the Hawkeye sexploitation dream was pretty dang grody, and prevented the book from scoring higher.

DAREDEVIL END OF DAYS #1:  I was originally looking forward to this, because on paper, at least, it sounds good: Bendis, Mack, Janson, Sienkiewicz all back on Daredevil for one final story. Too bad the result is a gory mess, with multiple scenes of people beating each other to death. Yay, comics? Overall the art, mostly Jansen being inked by Sienkiewicz, has the worst of each artist's tics, though there are a few nice and painted panels that entirely work. Seeing those lovely panels make the rest of the book look that much worse, sadly.  Pretty AWFUL.

LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #1: So, this is a collection of  Batman stories that, as far as I know, ran as digital content before being collected here.  This is the fourth (fifth?) "re-purposed" digital comic, and, at my store at least, sales have all been uniformly awful on these books, but I can't tell if it is the chicken, or if it is the egg. Batman, in serialization, is going through a pretty nice period right now -- BATMAN itself is my top selling DC comic. and all five of his monthly books are selling at least 25 copies a month for me. This one? I sold 2 copies in week 1, and I'm not expecting that to grow in any manner I'm willing to carry the risk on. So, is LDK flopping out because it is digital first, and people don't want leftovers? Or is it flopping because it's Batman-led comic #6? Or is it flopping because it is shitty?

There are three stories here, one by Damon Lindelof & Jeff Lemire which is close to the worst Batman story I've ever read being, I think, a "what if?" of "What If Batman was an arrogant drunk?" Hrf?!? The second two stories are kind of  NEW TALENT SHOWCASE teaming newer writers with solid artists (JG Jones, Nicola Scott) -- but the stories aren't any great shakes, neither rising above what you might hope for in a new talent anthology series: not shitty, exactly, but not so great either. At least not for $4.

The bigger problem, for me, is that these comics are kind of the "proof of concept" for the problem of what you do for natively-digital work when the iPad landscape/computer monitor being different proportions from the printed page.  Mark Waid was the first person I ever heard who said, "Duh, just plop the two screens on top of each other, and your back to normal proportions", and I thought he was genius when he said that.

Except... now I've seen what it looks like in practice. It is... not very good.

So, first, if you're even slightly aware of it, you can "see" the weld made on each page as writers are aiming the "beat" for the bottom-rightmost panel of each "page", except each page now has two of THOSE, and it TOTALLY blows the "rhythm" of the comics page.

Second, because you have to present the page smaller than it displays on monitor/iPad, it feels oddly cramped, with too-small lettering.

Third, it really shows just how limited the landscape format is for density-of-content -- It is hard to cleanly fit more than 4 "panels" on any "page", then, which gives you an extremely limited number of choices of page layout and panel arrangement. then you see that twice on each printed page, and it is kind of a mess.

So, I guess now I really don't think that digital comics can be reformatted to print in this way without kind of crashing out the beauty and strength of the real unit of comic books: the page. I thought the Lindlehof story was AWFUL, but the rest was decent enough it could drag the entire book closer to an EH.

That's me, what did YOU think?

-B

Wait, What? Ep. 102: Age of Chance

From the thirteenth issue of Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, assembled by Miguel Corti.

The episode--she is long! (Just a bit over two hours and forty minutes, in fact.)

The show notes--they are extensive!

So join me after the jump for both, and a bit more about Watchmen issue #13!

Oh, and hey, let us know how this episode sounds to you, eh?  I gave a listen to the sound quality of the first call before throwing it into Levelator and thought it sounded...really okay?  So I'm mixing this raw.

0:00-3:38:  So, is this episode where Graeme is Goofus and Jeff is Gallant?  (Spoiler: No.)  But Jeff is much more chipper than last week, certainly.  At least until we starting discussing... 3:38-6:18: Comics!  (More specifically, Marvel Comics.) (Ultra-specifically, the twenty variant covers for Uncanny Avengers.) 6:18-28:46: Which leads us into discussion of Avengers Vs. X-Men #12 which Graeme has read and Jeff has not so it's time for some heavy-duty recapping on the part of Mr. McMillan. 28:46-43:52: Getting back to twenty variant covers situation, we ponder whether the fact Uncanny didn't outsell Walking Dead #100 is... a good thing? A bad thing?  Just a thing? [Insert "It's Clobbering Time" joke here, as appropriate.]  This ping-pongs us back to talking about (for lack of better expressions) "natural" events vs. "forced" events with Avengers Vs. X-Men, its sales, and whether or not the event was review-proof. 43:52-55:09: Sensibly, Graeme uses the recent (stunningly great) Grantland excerpt of Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story to compare and contrast Marvel's current marketing and operating approach with those prior.  The more things change, the more they stay the same? Well, maybe as far as killing off major characters and trying to capture female readers go.  But if you've ever enjoyed listening to us talk about Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, you should most definitely check out the excerpt...and probably the book?  (Also, if you haven't seen Howe's amazing Tumblr, check that out too. 55:09-59:40:  Another book up Graeme's sleeve: Batman #13, the first part of the upcoming "Death of the Family" storyline. Jeff counters with Action Comics #13 by Grant Morrison and Travel Foreman. 59:40-1:06:04:  Graeme talks a bit about The Nao of Brown by Glyn Dillon, published by Self Made Hero and distributed in the U.S. by Abrams.  For you pull-quote types:  Graeme McMillan says "It is just a blinding book" and "the most beautiful comic I've seen in the longest time." 1:06:04-1:29:19:  This gives Jeff an opening to talk about Gordon Harris' self-published graphic novel, Pedestrian, Graeme mentions Josh Cotter's Skyscrapers of the Midwest which we hunt up on Comixology.  Doing so reminds Graeme he had also read the digital only sequel to Chris Roberson's Memorial... which leads us to spend a few minutes kicking around the can that is digital pricing and real vs. perceived value using such varied examples as a Digital 2000AD subscription, Saga, Valiant's digital editions, Bandette, Comixology sales, full-price books from Marvel and DC, Shonen Jump Alpha, and more. 1:29:19-2:02:32: A quick rundown by Jeff of the other books he's read this recently: Harbinger issues #1 and #2, a detailed  discussion with Graeme about Amelia Cole and the Unknown World, Black Kiss #2.3, Fatale #8, the very strange saga that is issues #7-10 of Star Wars by Roy Thomas, Don Glut, Howard Chaykin, and Tom Palmer, Axe Cop: President of the World #3, a stunning story by Michael Fleisher and Alex Nino from Showcase Presents House of Mystery (Vol. 3) (and thanks, Dylan Cassard, for that one--you should check out his podcast and podcast-related Kickstarter).  All of which reminds Graeme (somehow) that he's also read issue #0 of The Phantom Stranger. 2:02:32-2:18:48: Also, Graeme has read Thanos: The End by Jim Starlin as well as The Return of Thanos trade paperback featuring both issues of The Thanos Quest.  We talk about that, a little bit about Englehart's first issue on Silver Surfer with Marshall Rogers, The Annihilation books, DC's Cosmic Odyssey, as well as Graeme's favorite Green Lantern. This is what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps! 2:18:48-end: And then, finally, we talk about the stunner that is the 13th issue of Watchmen, which listener Miguel Corti assembled after a discussion Graeme and I had on-air about just such an issue being via random cut-up of the first twelve.  Here's Miguel talking about the idea and how he executed it, excerpted from our correspondence:

Anyway, my original plan to show my appreciation for the effort you put into creating a show that I enjoy listening to was to make something for you based off of a throwaway idea from one of the episodes that came out in either early 2012 or late 2011. In that episode you discussed the idea of creating a 13th issue of “Watchmen” based on randomly picking panels out of the graphic novel and rearranging them until you had this ersatz issue. I was intrigued by the idea since I had just finished re-reading “Watchmen” and re-watching the movie version because I wanted to thoroughly compare the two and see why the book works and the movie doesn’t, especially since Snyder was so slavish about adapting the source material. Well, a little synchronicity was all it took to get my creative blood flowing, and I decided I would make that heretofore nonexistent 13th issue as way of further analyzing the superb work Moore and Gibbons did with that book, and maybe as something you might be interested in seeing. [...] What follows are the steps that went into making this issue. Please skip to the end if the details hold no interest for you.

First, I had to find a copy of “Watchmen” that wouldn’t object to being gutted and mutilated so heartlessly. Not as easy as I thought. The only copy I had here in Japan was the Absolute Edition, and my softcover TPB was in the states. I just wasn’t up for taking digital photos of such an unwieldy book. So, I bought another softcover (used from amazon.co.jp) and tried taking pictures with that. Again, the quality wasn’t what I wanted. For a split second I contemplated cutting up the softcover, but fortunately the rational side of brain pointed out—quickly—that I would end up only being able to use the panels from one side of a page. So then I thought: a-ha! This is the digital age! I can just download a copy from DC and then take screenshots with the iPad and then transfer them to my computer. Well, wouldn’t you know it, but for whatever reason, none of the digital comics providers were selling “Watchmen.” No one. Not even DC. (This may have changed in the intervening time, but this was the fact of the matter when I started this project earlier this year.)

So, I turned to the pirates, and found a PDF of the entire series and downloaded it. I’m not proud, but since I had already purchased the book 3 times in my life, this was as close to a victimless crime as I was going to get. (Unless, of course, you count all the people who were leaching off my seed with bittorrent while I was downloading it. There’s a chance some of them never have and never will buy the book.) If I could have found a proper digital copy (which would have made the work a lot easier) I would have gladly bought it. Unfortunately, I had to come to terms with the moral ambiguity of the situation and move on.

Next, came breaking down the work. I remember you had discussed that the book was a 9-panel affair throughout. In theory, yes, but there are a lot of double and triple panels throughout the book. Each page is built on a 9-grid layout, however. In some places, there are a whopping 18 panels on the page, but they’re still laid out with the 9 grids. I assigned each grid a number. For example, the panel in the top right of page 5 in issue 1 with Rorschach picking up the Comedian’s happy face pin would be 1-5-3 (issue 1, page 5, panel 3).  The panel after it would be 1-5-4. I made an Excel sheet with the entire book broken down like that. I needed the numbers to all fit within the margins of the paper I was going to print out, because I was going to cut them up and literally pull panel/grid numbers out of a hat. (It ended up being a plastic bag.) Unfortunately, all the issues don’t have the same page count, prohibiting me from doing a simple copy/paste over the whole file. The first issue is 26 pages, then issues 2 through 11 are 28 each, and issue 12 is 32.

After sorting that out, I printed out the file and sat down to cut it up. But, wait! On the last panel of every page, the panel is always abbreviated to allow space for a quotation in a black box. I couldn’t have my 13th issues without one of those, so I needed to separate the 9th panel/grid for each issue’s last page from the rest of the panels. I highlighted them so I could find them after cutting up the pages, and set those 12 scraps of paper aside. (The one I ended up using in my issue is from issue 5.)

Having cut up all the pages, and placed all the scraps in a plastic bag, I thought it would be easy as pulling numbers out of hat. I was wrong. Again, it’s that damn 9-panel grid that messes with you. Sometimes some panels take up more than 1 grid space, and that would alter what I was trying to do. Usually, I would pull 9 scraps out of the bag, and then record them in the order I pulled them. Then I would copy the panel from the PDF into a Word document. I ran into trouble when, for instance, I would go to get the panel matching the number on the 3rd scrap of paper, but it would turn out to be a 2- or 3-grid panel, or more on some occasions. This meant I had to discard that scrap for now, and keep pulling new one’s until I found one that match the space allotted.

What the last two paragraphs showed me is that even though I tried to make my fake issue as random as possible, that randomness was still subordinate to the original work. You can only imagine the relief I felt at work saved when the first scrap I pulled for one of the pages happened to be from the grid of one of the full-page panels in issue 12. That was the easiest day of copy-pasting-cropping during the whole project.

For the last page, I pulled a scrap from the final panels first because, well, not all of them only occupy one grid’s worth of real estate. This was the only time I went out of order.

Finally, I needed an ersatz cover for my ersatz issue 13. As you probably already know, the cover images of the original series all lead in to the first panel of the interior art. I took my cover from the panel before 10-16-2. If I was any good with Photoshop, hell if I even owned Photoshop, I would have been able to edit out that tail from the word balloon, but so be it. OK, enough of the nuts and bolts. What did I learn? First, the issue itself. It’s just as unreadable as you would imagine an endeavor like this to be. However, there are some interesting aspects that illuminate the whole.

1.     Dave Gibbons drew way more 2-or-more-grid panels than I remembered, which shows how important the size and pacing of the layout was to the story. Every time I come across a comic with half a page’s real estate devoted to something mundane like a plane flying or a car driving, it makes me want to drop the book. I don’t know if the writer or the artist is to blame, but most of the panels in modern comics don’t require that much space, especially now with the shortened book lengths. Gibbons and Moore paced “Watchmen” perfectly, and when panels are drawn bigger than average, it’s for an important reason. The opening full-page panels of issue 12 are shocking because Gibbons held that back until the very end. And despite their size, you’re not sure of what your seeing because you’re visually overwhelmed (at least the first time through), which is the disorienting feeling, I believe, they wanted to convey. Every time I read a comic now that ends with a full-page splash of just a person sitting in a darkened room with no visible background, I want to throw it across the room. And then maybe walk over, pick it up, and tear it apart. Too many modern comics writers and illustrators are just piss-poor storytellers. Whatever your opinion of the work “Watchmen” may be, I think it’s hard to argue against the fact that it is pure comics from start to finish. It’s rare to find creators who actually embrace the medium and do what books and film cannot. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about this because it is tangential to my field of employment (video games) where too many games are trying to be movies instead of doing what they should be doing: being and interactive medium. Games that fail to be interactive are doing a disserve to the consumers, and comics that settle for storytelling that could just have easily been done in a movie or book, or even better in those media, are doing a disservice to comics readers everywhere. 2.    As the narrations of Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan are the most prevalent  in the work, their panels in this composite issue have a weird interstitial effect of ordering the randomness of the chosen panels. It helps that in many of Dr. Manhattan’s source narrations he was already jumping around the timeline, so it doesn’t feel out of place here. Many of Dr. Manhattan’s panels tied eerily to the next panel, although the placement was random and almost always from a non-sequential section of the story. For example, on page 12, panel 3, Dr. Manhattan narrates, “They’re shaping me into something gaudy and lethal…” Then the next panel depicts Adrian in his gaudy purple suit swinging a post at his erstwhile assailant. On page 13, panel 2, Dr. Manhattan again narrates: “Laurie’s met him several times. She says his name is Dreiberg.” In the next panel Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are locked in a kiss. There are many other pieces of synchronicity, but the best are tied to Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan because of their strong narratives. In my issues 13, the story becomes Dr. Manhattan’s tale to tell, with Rorschach in a supporting role, a victim of the event surrounding him. One could argue that this isn’t too far from the original’s narrative. The fact that it continues to be so in this jumble I have assembled speaks to the focus and intent of the original. Or maybe there were just too damn many Dr. Manhattan panels to begin with. 3.    Almost all of the commentary on politics and the Cold War itself is lost in my issue. Time is the only strong theme from the original work that remains. Again, that is one of Dr. Manhattan’s themes. The lack of that political backdrop robs the story of some of its weight. I felt that when I watched the movie version too. Because although Snyder is almost slavish in adapting the source material, he does it ever so superficially. Sure it’s still set in 1985, but it doesn’t feel like the world is on the brink of a nuclear war in the movie like it did in the book. New York doesn’t really feel like the dirty, crime-drenched metropolis of the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the book, despite all the advances in technology, New York still remains a non-gentrified, citywide slum, which is exactly what the mass media wanted you to believe about New York in the ‘80s. Snyder’s New York is too aestheticized to feel like it ever needed vigilantes in the first place. This also ties into the altered ending as well. I understand that a faux alien invasion spearheaded by a giant squid would have been a tough pill to swallow for viewing audiences of Snyder’s “realistic” superhero movie; but the fact of the matter is, Snyder revealed his ignorance of current affairs when he made that film 8 years after 9/11. In the book, just like after 9/11, it’s believable that the world would stand with the United States after the tragedy that had befallen it. In the movie, however, the fake Dr. Manhattan attacks hit cities around the world, not just New York. Again, not wholly bad, because of the fact that it was Dr. Manhattan and not an outsider, a la the alien, I have a hard time believing the world would unite in global cooperation. What’s more likely is that the world would erupt in furor at the U.S. for creating Dr. Manhattan in the first place. The U.S. would be culpable in the world’s eyes. What’s worse is that in the context of the movie, there’s nothing for the people of the world to not assume that this wasn’t an attack by the U.S. aside from the fact that the U.S. was hit as well. Since the world knows Dr. Manhattan was created in an accident, how does the world know that a preemptive attack by the U.S. on the Soviets didn’t backfire on them when they tried to exploit Dr. Manhattan?

As you'll hear on the podcast, Graeme and I greatly enjoyed reading Miguel's assemblage, and we wanted to give you the opportunity to check it out and get inspired for yourself. [link is 22.8MB]  And as I mentioned to Miguel in an email to him, I found this project and his analysis to be a tremendous DIY counterpoint to Before Watchmen--it really is a way to revisit Moore and Gibbon's story while respecting the original achievement. We are incredibly pleased to have played even the most indirect part in this project.

Hmm, feel like I'm forgetting something?  Oh yes, the podcast, the podcast... As tempting as it would be to add to the artsy shenanigans and leave only these notes and the book as a type of seashell on the beach for you to find, Episode 102 is indeed out there in the world (provided you define "the world" as your RSS provider of choice) and you can listen to it here as well, should you choose:

Wait, What?, Episode 102: Age of Chance

As always, we hope you enjoy...and thanks for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 100: Year Zero

(One of my favorite hundredth issue covers, by Joe Staton and Dick Giordano for DC Comics)

I don't know why, but for a moment there... I was very afraid this episode wouldn't end up existing?  I think because, you know, you say something is a thing, as opposed to just being business as usual, and the next thing you know there's a certain nimbus of expectation around it, even if only to yourself?  Sometimes it  seems like that kind of nimbus makes the best kind of target for capricious fate...

Anyway, enough of that "and then he tore his eyes out in the fifth act!" musing, join us behind the jump for show notes and celebratory waffles, yes?

0:00-8:24: Graeme brings a message to piss Jeff off...from the future!  What can it be? Hint: Before Watchmen is involved.  Laughs are had and the distance between qualified and unqualified is considered.

8:24-20:54: And on a related note--time for some red-hot sexy DC New 52 Issue #0 talk.  Batman, Inc. #0, Batwoman #0, Wonder Woman #0, Supergirl #0, Justice League #0, Earth 2 #0, and OMAC and DC Universe Presents #0.  Warning: Graeme has read 38 of these by now.  I mean that's...wow.

20:54-46:59: ASM is being cancelled!? Jughead is going on hiatus?! (A reference to) cats and dogs living together under the same roof?! What the hell is happening?

Also, Graeme has the chance to have some quality time with the listeners. Also also, in the coming attractions end of thing, we discuss how Bendis' X-Men is shaping up, in light of Avengers Vs. X-Men #11. Additionally, we run down Professor X's CV. If you want to guys remembering off the top of their heads the names of Hank McCoy and Bobby Drake's old girlfriends, this is where you want to be.

46:59-54:59: Mattotti and Zentner's The Crackle of the Frost.  We actually talk about it, finally!

54:59-1:13:33: And from there, Jeff and Graeme go on to discuss Jennifer Blood, as conceived by Garth Ennis and executed by Al Ewing.

1:13:33-1:22:51: And from one crime book to another, we also talk about Stumptown issue 2.1 by Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth. With special guest appearances by John Updike and J.D. Salinger!

1:22:51-1:30:24: And from there we got to Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer?  I think it says something great about the current state of the comics marketplace that we can talk about three different type of pulp stories that are still a long ways away from superhero books.  Also, it's Graeme's turn to take a powder while Jeff gets to talk directly with the listeners.

1:30:24-2:16:04: Phone calls! From listeners!  We have them, and they are awesome.  Many thanks to Voodoo Ben, Alex, Robert G., Sean Witzke, J.L. Blair (whose call did not survive the round-the-world treatment, sadly and whom I initially misidentify, to boot) and Derek (or Garrett?).  Though most of the calls are just well-wishes, we do tackle a suggested topic--Jim Starlin at Marvel in the '70s, '80s and '90s--at some length, as per Alex's request.  Who says this isn't the Golden Age for Whatnauts?

2:16:04-2:26:31: Jeff, whose attention span is crushed, all but leaps in mid-answer from talking about Hank Pym to discussing Bloodshot.  Graeme, for his part, has been catching up on old issues of Milestone Shadow Cabinet issues. Add 'em all together and you get...Chaykin's Black Kiss 2 #2?  Not really, but we end up talking about that as well as well as the pretty brilliant (non-comix, though there's a chart or two) book by Jarett Kobek, If You Won't Read, Then Why Should I Write?

2:26:31-end: And then, because it wouldn't be a Wait, What? podcast without goofy technical difficulties, Graeme turns into the Lord of the Flies again, a clear sign to sign off. (Although we also manage to praise Bandette #2, Double Barrel, the xckd strip Click & Drag, and Dustin Harbin's Boxes before we're done).  At one point, I'm laughing while Graeme is talking, and it just sounds like there should be the sounds of a building burning down and maybe some backmasked electric guitars...which is maybe the most fitting way to celebrate our hundredth episode?  Lord only knows what we'll sound like by episode 150....

Anyway, you should be able to find it on iTunes (although there's now that whole bullshit separate app for Podcasts, can you believe it?) as well as your RSS feeder of choice.  Alternately, you can take a swing at the audio pinata below:

Wait, What? Ep. 100: Year Zero

And then next week...Ep. 101?  (Man, I gotta go fan myself on the divan at the thought of it!) In any event, whether this is your first time listening to Wait, What? or your one hundredth, we hope you enjoy and thank you for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 96: Cool as Cooks

Our first non-food podcast pic in a month and of course it's David Aja from Marvel's Hawkeye #1.

Graeme and I are getting dangerously close to the big #100. (Almost in time for Onomatopoeia #200!)  I feel like we should do something special but...God only knows what?

Anyway, join me behind the jump, won't you, for show notes so you can discover what we did for this episode. (Hint: it rhymes with "balk a lout's tonic schnooks...")

Notes about the show:

1:00-21:09 : We jump *right* into the funny books. Seriously.  Our brains are broken by Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss 2, and we have to talk about it.  (Spoilers: obviously). Lots of discussion ensues about discussions, genitals, and (of course) Eddie Campbell.

21:09-29:40: Talking about the possible digital sales of Black Kiss 2 leads to us talking about the No. 2 top selling comic on Comixology, Earth Two, the second wave of DC's New 52--World's Finest, Dial H for Hero, and G.I. Combat--as well as the upcoming third wave.

29:40-37:50:  Hawkeye #1! (see above) Graeme can and has read it; Jeff cannot and has not.  We talk about it anyway, as is our want. Graeme has some very good things to say,

37:50-58:19: Graeme has some, uh, less good things to say about Avengers Vs. X-Men #9.  We talk about the current plot, possible swerves, the nature of Emma Frost, and more.  Will Cyclops die? Should Cyclops die? And other rhetorical questions...plus proof that Jeff is bad at math.  (Among other things.)

58:19-1:35:18:  Mark Waid vs. Newsarama!  It starts as part of our conversation about the challenges of creating today (one of which is instant feedback) and then becomes its own thing about personal ethics, obligations, how malleable the Internet actually is, and understanding comics creators and commentators on the Net.  Sadly, neither of us think to pull a "Waid, What?" pun.

1:36:18-1:53:23:  And then...comics!  We discuss Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Score.  Graeme and I have similar reactions, but I feel like maybe we go in different directions with them.  Also, at some point, I think Graeme also coins the phrase "Princess TitsOut" while discussing European graphic albums and God do I want that phrase on a t-shirt.

1:53:23-2:07:21:   Back when I thought Black Kiss 2 would be working the crime vibe of the first series, I wanted to talk about it in relation to Cooke's adaptation of Parker: The Score and an amazingly formatted paperback graphic novel adaptation of Donald Goines' Daddy Cool by Donald F. Glut and Alfredo Alcala.  Fun fact: when I say on the podcast that Abhay interviewed him at a retrospective, it was actually during a promotional campaign for the book I mention on the 'Cast--Brother Blood, the "African vampire on the Sunset Strip during the '60s book" (That was written before Scream, Blacula, Scream).  Of course, we can't help but being slightly sentimental about the horrible way comics ended up chopped into bits to fit into a standard paperback.

2:07:21-2:16:57: Action Comics #12.  Not really much like either The Score or Daddy Cool, but we talk about it anyway.

2:16:57-The End: Closing comments!  They come so suddenly.  Graeme mentions he has a Formspring account where he's answering questions.  Oh, and remind me to ask Graeme about the Crackle and Frost which he doesn't have time to tell us about this time.

You may have come across this episode hitching North on iTunes, or you may check it out here and now and right:

Wait, What? Ep. 96: Cool as Cooks

And, as always, thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy!

No. More. BJs! - Hibbs on 8/1/12

Foggy, gray Sunday here at the store (yes, working this weekend as well), but comics bring light and happiness! ACTION COMICS #12: One of my quintessential problems with the New52 is here were are at month #12, and I still really don't have a strong idea of whom this Superman is. This one is certainly not the same one appearing in the rest of the DCU, but, even here in the Grant Morrison penned series, Superman's character seems allll over the map.  So I have this weird relationship with this comic -- on the one hand: all over the map, so I am sad; but on the other hand, this issue features Adam Blake, Captain Comet, who, in few senses, can be considered the first Silver Age hero, and it also features a Silver Agey plotline of a super learning feat, and Batman is in it, and oooh, the first bits of a new Mr. Mxyzptlk... so awesome!  No backup story either, which made this a lot denser read. I'm sad Grant is leaving at #16, but mostly because I can't see how they replace him, especially without a clear frickin' direction for Superman, buuuuut I don't necessarily enjoy each issue fully..... *sigh* I suppose this one was GOOD.

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #9: You know what's nice to see? A genuine moment of heroism in the Marvel universe. So, yay for that.  Too bad it is in service of general nonsense -- the idea that puny Parker could stand up to a punch from Colossus is kind of ridiculous, let alone one that is Phoenixed-up. Then there's the whole off-camera "...and then the two Rasputins defeated each other...somehow." silliness. I'd go "Very Good" for Heroism, and "Awful" for story logic, and then we're something like an OK for a final grade?

FUCK ALAN MOORE BEFORE WATCHMEN NITE OWL #2: I really didn't think it was possible that this could get worse, but it's clear that I suffer from a severe lack of imagination. I remain convinced that this is somehow intended to be a parody, because no one could fundamentally misunderstand WATCHMAN like this on purpose. CRAP.

BLACK KISS II #1: Wow, that's really dirty. And not a BJ in sight! There's no real "protagonist" on display here, so how much you'll like this is going to come down (heh) to how much you like seeing Chaykin do "dirty".  EH.

DEADPOOL KILLS MARVEL UNIVERSE #1: Deadpool, for me, is one of those characters I don't really "get. I understand some people find him funny ("Yeah, funny like a crutch!" he said, in his best Lisa Loopner), but there's none of that in THIS comic, where they ECT the funny out of the concept, and go straight for the gory. Have fun with that, I guess? AWFUL.

FIRST X-MEN #1: Once, a long long time ago, Neal Adams was the hottest thing in comics; then "ToyBoy" happened, I guess? As a retailer, it is pretty dispiriting to order what you think a modern Neal Adams X-MEN comic might sell like, then to find that you've overshot your (extremely, extremely low) guess by 100% or more. AWFUL

HAWKEYE #1:  So this is what tears me up inside: there's no real market for a "Hawkeye" comic, as something like the last 30 years of the Marvel universe has taught us over and over again. What's the over/under on sales for this, nationally? Maybe 45k, if they're lucky? Down to 30k by issue #6?  Now, what's the same for "Matt Fraction, and David Aja on anything whatsoever"? See, I think it's something like 30k, maybe down to 21-22k by #6 (I mean, not in THIS store, I would have ordered the SAME 25 copies of "Purple Marksman #1" as I did of this, but I concede we're a little different)... but my point is, since this CAN'T be a "hit" for Marvel, why on earth do it FOR Marvel? There's no advantage in the medium run, and, in the long run, what odds do you want to give that Fraction/Aja will be earning significant royalties for this in 2020? Meh.

What's interesting here is: no costume, no villains, no antagonist (at least anywhere on Hawkeye's "level"), no hook to come back for #2 (except "well, that was PRETTY!") -- I mean, I liked it, and quite a bit, but almost as a novelty... I have a harder time imagining liking this the same after I've read six of them, because "Done in one" really shouldn't mean "Kinda dull, objectively". Overall, I think I'll call this GOOD.

LOVE AND CAPES WHAT TO EXPECT #1: Thom Zhaler's cartooning chops are really terrific, and I love his light hearted and loving DC universe romance comic here, but I want to murder him for those stupid translucent word baloons which make the dialogue incredibly difficult to read. *sigh* GOOD, and not two grades higher for those balloons.

ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #13 DWF:  Spidey is happening in a universe that's not even close to the same one that the other two "Ultimate" comics are set. Doing a "crossover" here that only highlights how Spidey is wildly out of tone and time with the rest of the universe is so odd. I like this comic for what it is (it is GOOD), but, man, once you commit to destroying Washington DC, and having Texas secede, and so on, fucking commit to it, will you?

That's it for me, me thinketh. What did YOU think?

-B

Wait, What? Ep. 91: Trip

Okay, super-super short here as I am in the process of, even now, packing and panicking like a full-fledged fool in preparation for the upcoming vacation to Portland. (And, yes, if it is not a waffle-filled one, I will be very, very pissed.)

We actually talk a little bit about that in this episode so I won't bore you with it now.  Instead, I will bore you with a fast list of the things Graeme and I talk about in good ol' ep. 91:  a long discussion about Casanova 3.4; Zaucer of Zilk by Brendan McCarthy and Al Ewing; Matt Howarth, Lou Stathis, and Those Annoying Post Bros. (from which the above image has been lovingly nicked); why the song remains the same; copied characters, satire, and analogues; the point of a first issue in modern comics; Spider-Men #1; that old Parker luck and the Spider-Man movie franchise; the evolution of Marvel's edgier heroes; Saga #4, Avengers Vs. X-Men, and more!

It's....probably on iTunes?  In fact, hell, let's just go ahead and say yeah sure it's definitely on iTunes.  But let's also make an amazing leap of faith and say that it is also right here, just below, and available for your listening pleasure:

Wait, What? Ep. 91: Trip

As always, we hope you enjoy and thanks for listening!

Pitiful Fool: Hibbs Catches Up

Man, do I pity the poor fool who has to follow that awesome post by Abhay -- it's going to make anything else sound like "Dur, duh, durdur!!" Oh, wait, the fool is me? *sigh*

Yeah, poor sad me -- my brain's not even fully in gear, since I had to work the entire weekend (and got the order form AND Onomatopoeia finished) -- but tomorrow I have to go to a vendor fair about what kinds of plastic bags will be acceptable (San Francisco's Board of Nannies Supervisors has decided no store will be allowed to give out bags come October), so if I don't get this done now, then I'm out for ANOTHER week, and that's not the deal, now is it?

And while I said that I was just going to totally skip the 6/13 books, I've decided instead to combine 6/13 and 6/20, since there wasn't a LOT I wanted to say about 6/20.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #51: I really do think that writing TO a plot point, rather than a plot point arising because there's no other way the character could act, is just plain weak, and I think the former is strongly on display here. I don't know, maybe it is because it is Pride week in San Francisco (Twin Peaks actually had a glowing Pink Triangle on it this weekend, made, I think, of Fiber Optic cables), which always strikes me as an excuse for outrageousness, rather than a celebration of actual outrageousness, if you see what I mean? I don't know, maybe it's all of the "Good Corporate Partner"-ing of beer companies trying to get a piece of that pink dollar, when Pride started as a way of remembering the anger of Stonewall; maybe it's that 50 foot high glowing Pink Triangle, which I don't think is actually an ironic recasting of the mark nazis put on gays and lesbians in the concentration camps (if 10% of the partiers know that, I'll be surprised), but this comic seems so deadly cynical and horrible to me, despite all of the tourists who flocked in to buy it. I don't know, it isn't my community, I don't actually get to judge, but it feels transparent and pandering to me. At least I'm not in Arkansas where I have to deal with the complete opposite reaction. *brrrr*, terrifying!

I think maybe the thing that set me off the most about this issue was the "con" side, as expressed by the character "Warbird" who says she can't attend the wedding because she thinks gay marriage is a lie. Yeah, except she's a half-bird alien, whose wiki page says (and I'm not making this up) "Warbird's life since birth has been, according to her, an endless parade of combat and murder and at unknown point in her life she conducted "mating rituals" with someone while trapped inside another being and surrounded by flesh eating monster aliens."

So, y'know, credible straw man.

Hell, why not have it be Rahne (Wolvesbane), who we already know to be a bigoted little lassie?

I'm sure Marjorie Liu has all of the best intentions, but this feels like cynical pink-washing to me, probably mostly because Kyle isn't even a character yet, just a hostage.

I did like Logan getting all drunk and maudlin though!

Anyway, I thought this was pretty AWFUL

  AVENGERS VS X-MEN #6: Man, it LOOKs a whole lot better, doesn't it? But, seriously, no mention of the demon princess or her bound-to-Cytorak brother? I mean, I know the whole set-up isn't exactly air-tight in the first place, but that seems like a significant detail to overlook? The other thing that made me nuts? That the solicits dropped, and the AvX HC is *$75*! Jeez louise, that's excessive! Oh, oh, and the OTHER other thing? that's there's ANY connection between Phoenix and Iron Fist. I can't possibly hate that idea more. Anyway, this issue was highly OK, but most of that is how much nicer that it looks now that Olivier Copiel is drawing it.

  AVX VS #3: I just want to give a strong and hearty "Fuck you!" to whoever it was who thought it was prudent and wise to have the Black Widow vs Magik fight take place mostly in Russian. That's a really cruel thing to do to a readership that has plunked down FOUR DOLLARS. "Ha ha, you can't even read it!" Cunts.

  BATMAN #10: I have to say, when I first got to the reveal, I was all "bogus!", but then I read the spoiler piece at Rich's, and I felt a smidge better. But, really,  pre-existing relationships or not, my bigger problem is "Yet Another Ideological Doppelganger", as Batman has just too many of those. I know that this is the most popular regular Batman story in a real long time, but I'm really really ready to see the back of the Owls, and to just have Batman be self-contained superhero stories for a few months, dang it. This story (and issue) is GOOD, but it's been dragging on for at least 2-3 months too long.

  FUCK ALAN MOORE BEFORE WATCHMEN SILK SPECTRE #1: After Minutemen, I was ready to write the whole project off, but then Darwyn Cooke went and completely made this one everything you might want in a prequel -- actually dwelling in a period that we don't know anything about, expanding the actually CHARACTER of Laurie, and containing subtle callbacks to the original work (Look at the staging on the fight between the Spectres, remind you of anything?). It also doesn't hurt that the art is absolutely lovely (just as everything that Amanda Conner draws is), AND also contains a (modified) 9-panel grid. I'm still not certain what the audience really wants from these (if anything), but this was very nearly straight-up "Rebellious Teenage Girl Comics" that would never ever be greenlit without the Watchmen connection, and, despite myself, I thought it was actually VERY GOOD.

  FUCK ALAN MOORE BEFORE WATCHMEN COMEDIAN #1 : this, on the other hand, was everything I feared and dreaded it might be. The Comedian is really just a plot device in the original, and a horribly loathsome one at that, and Azzarello chooses to go for the lazy political allegory than to show where the character might be from, or what shapes him. That last scene made me vomit in my mouth a little, too. While I thought this was AWFUL, I'm apparently in the minority -- this was the best selling of the three released so far, at my store.

  SAGA #4 : has now become our best-selling comic book at Comix Experience, something that thrills me utterly. I had first printing #1s up until this weekend, and was shocked (and kind of amused) to see that it is a FOURTH printing that I'll be receiving when I get in my reorder. There's really not a single page of this I'm not loving (and that includes those letter pages!), and I really thought that the presentation of Sextillion was perfectly perfect. I know I'm not adding anything new to the conversation, but I just like having at least one review where I can enthusiastically say: EXCELLENT!

  SHADE #9: Again, I don't care so much for the story (Shade's a supporting character, blah blah blah), but this issue was crazy good because of the fabulous Frazier Irving. Man, that page that's JUST a car driving was one of the best designed pages I've seen all year. This needs to be put up for an Eisner right here. VERY GOOD.

  SPIDER-MEN #1: this is the kind of first issue that just kills me -- that makes me want to close up the store and just give the entire thing up. For $4 we get a bunch of Peter running around, and he meets Miles on the FINAL PAGE. this is everything wrong with modern first issues. Why not have it start with them already having met, and actually have something (ANYthing!!!!) happen in the first issue. We wonder why Marvel's sales are circling the toilet right now (except for AvX?) Exhibit fucking A right here, people. Not only is this a cynical little exercise (Joe Quesada:  "We're officially out of ideas"), but it's ineffably shabby and thin. Completely AWFUL.

  X-MEN LEGACY #268 AVX: And, just to end us on a down note (sorry, It's alphabetical!), can I ask how on earth Marvel gets off billing something as an AvX crossover when it's almost exclusively about how Frenzy was abused as a child, and how Abuse is Bad, mkay?  It's not neccesarily bad, but it sure isn't the kind of thing i want to read for entertainment, no. AWFUL

Right, that's it for me until later in the week -- what did YOU think?

-B

Skyhigh -- Hibbs on 6/6/12

Hello from 30k feet!

Well, no, not exactly -- I'm writing this on a plane, coming back from Chicago, where I went to my cousin Ian's wedding (Ben was the ringbearer, and looked crazy awesome in a suit), but I won't post this until I hit the ground again. I only took a handful of comics with me, and only have something to say about maybe half of those, but I've been trying hard to have reviews every week, and I won't let something as small as "not being in town" stop me!

Nice town, Chicago -- last time I was here I was maybe 12 or so? Also for a wedding, for that matter, between my dad and stepmom, and I'd love to come back, so someone get married, and invite me! I had a chance to visit Chicago Comics, and see Eric Kirsammer and his kids, and that is a swell store, one of the better I've seen; and one I'd certainly shop at if I lived locally. I wanted to see several other stores (including Challengers, which I've heard nothing but swell things about), but, y'know, family obligations and all that.

Anyway, I don't want to write a travelogue, and I promised myself I'd tear through these books before I landed, so on with the show...!

ACTION COMICS #10: Wait... when is this taking place? It has to be just after the last storyline, I think, not in modern times, as the Justice League portion is a flashback. But why does he bounce back and forth between the t-shirts and armor, with no real mention of what's going on? I was a little excited, actually, about the notion of the death of Kent, and a new secret ID, because if anyone could actually make that happen (yeah, yeah, I'm a sucker), it would have to be Grant, but if this is still in flashback mode, obviously that's all garbage. Bah, for a time when I was less bitter and jaded, and when we'd just accept a premise straight-forwardly. I'm *liking* this, still, but I desperately want to be *loving* this, and 10 issues in and I'm not. 'sfine, but I want better than just GOOD, y'know?

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #5: that's a fun little plot twist, "the phoenix five" and all that, and while I'm totally willing to wait and see what they actually DO with it, it's hard to see in my head how characters used to/used by vast otherworldly power, like Peter and Illyana will work in this context. Or will they just ignore, wossname, cyttorak, is that the Juggernaut's mentoring power? I'm still deeply disliking the art, but the story is sorta kinda growing on me as act one closes. GOOD.

FUCK ALAN MOORE BEFORE WATCHMEN MINUTEMEN #1: As I said, I've not be in SF all week, so I haven't the foggiest notion as to how this is selling, but, after reading issue #1, if I was "just" a reader, I'd definitely not be coming back for issue #2. Not because it's badly crafted -- because it is very well-illustrated and written, indeed -- but because it didn't tell me anything I already didn't know, and, as a first issue, it was PAINFULLY "recappy". Absolutely nothing "happened", it just assembled everything we already knew from WATCHMEN into a chronological order. What the hell is the point of that? Darwyn Cooke was the one BW creator that I thought might actually make something I want to read (on this project, I mean), and was the one who, potentially, had the biggest canvas to play with, since the Minutemen characters aren't exactly character, but world-buildy background, but there's just nothing here at all. 17% of the page count gone, for shit-all purpose, foo. That's bad enough with "normal" comics, but on something as divisive as this? Ugh, no way. This was perfectly OK, but if you're going to take a big shit on Alan Moore, you've got to do a whole fucking better than this.

I ganked this picture from here

CREATOR OWNED HEROES #1: Really? Man, so first, that's a fucking AWFUL title for a comic, as it says just nothing about content. (Seriously, find me 50 people in the entire nation who inherently cares about the ownership of a work, rather than "is it any good?" I'll wait -- I had a "self published" section in the store until I got sick of answering people what that MEANT, so trust me, I KNOW) And second, the content is more padded than a twelve year old's bra. If what you want to do is "A magazine nowhere near as good or relevant as fucking HERO ILLUSTRATED, with a bunch of mediocre comics", that's cool, but shit, you could have told us that's what you were delivering. I Just don't give a damn about your convention snapshots (that's what Facebook is for, not something you're charging me $4 for!!), or features on cos-players, or, and this is the one that really got me, creator interviews that aren't ABOUT creator-owned work! I mean, the VERY FIRST LINE of the Gaiman piece is "I love his work on SANDMAN", which, y'know, is a notoriously creator-owned comic book, right? What a mis-thought project from ship to stern. AWFUL.

DARK AVENGERS #175: I'm mostly writing this bit for anyone writing up sales chart analyses: Marvel kept the NUMBERING of THUNDERBOLTS here, but did a really really weird thing after that -- it had Diamond assign the book a new SERIES code. A series code is an invisible-to-consumers code that allows retailers to sign up customers, well, to a series. Like (say) 123456 is the code for CAPTAIN FANCYPANTS, and it allows the computer to know that CAPTAIN FANCYPANTS #1 and CP #2 are *the same thing*. It also allows me to, say, take the various BPRD series, and assign it to a custom series code (like CUST123), so that every BPRD series gets pulled (even though Dark Horse treats them as *entirely separate* things, go figure)  In the past, when Marvel changed, say, INCREDIBLE HULK to INCREDIBLE HERCULES they kept the series code the SAME, which meant that all of the preorders AUTOMATICALLY transferred, here they consciously did NOT do that, in other words: eliminating 98% of the marketing-driven reason to carry over the numbering. What's even weirder, is that it really IS TBOLTS #175, and it's a bit hard to follow if you haven't read those previous issues (well, or the last year or so at least), while at the same time kicking off all of the people  who WERE buying it. I don't get it. The comic itself was perfectly OK.

EARTH 2 #2: Normally I despair against "decompressed" comics, but I have to say that I find the very slow world-building on display here to be very fine. I'll probably want it to move a whole lot faster once all of the players are on stage, but for now? I'm loving the hell out of this. VERY GOOD, and easily the best comic I read this week.

Right, almost time to turn off electronics, so ending it there. What did YOU think?

-B

Wait, What? Ep. 85: Dashboard

Okay, then. Slight delay but none of us are quite the worse for wear, right?

Unfortunately, I'm still kind of behind the gun, so lemme just block out the ep, aye?

For the first fifteen minutes, charming and talented Graeme McMillan and I shun the comic book talk and instead discuss Graceland, Video Games, and TV theme songs.  Those of you who show up just for the sequential gossip should probably skip over that.

But then we get on to the good stuff (at least as "good stuff" is defined and regulated by state law), talk Action #9, Earth Two #1, and Avengers Vs. X-Men #3.  

And finally, we start answering more of your questions from Twitter, with topics like level-ups in comics, Apocalypse Now,  John Romita Jr., today's hottest artists, today's favorite artists, cereal mascot deathmatch, Valiant Comics, Marvel trades, the big two's history of strange, Disney and Marvel, Damon Lindelof, Brad Bird, Shonen Jump Alpha, Mad Magazine, Saucer Country, the New Deadwardians, suicide squad, sinestro war, blackest night, fear itself, civil war, and much more stuff  I neither bothered to italicize or capitalize.  But believe me, if you're a fan of chiding, goading, apologizing or strange new recording levels, this is the episode for you!

It is very likely that by the time this posts, you will *not* have seen this on iTunes (because I am so very late, dontchasee) BUT it will be available very, very soon and, of course, you are more than invited to grab the file from here as well:

Wait, What? Ep. 85: Dashboard

And, as always, we hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening!

All this and Earth, too? Hibbs starts on 5/2

Everybody loves comics!

ACTION COMICS #9: This is a lot more like what I was hoping for from Grant Morrison on a regular ongoing Superman comic -- focusing on President Superman from Earth-23. last seen in FINAL CRISIS -- but I was a bit surprised to not find the "real" Superman anywhere in the story. Still, Silver Age-y without feeling dated, and lots of fun things happen. Gene Ha's art was as awesome as always. I thought this was VERY GOOD. AVENGERS VS X-MEN #3 (OF 12) AVX: Brubaker's got the writing spot this week, so maybe that's why I felt this issue had a bunch more plot? I can't even imagine how this is going to read in trade, with it's crazy tonal shifts every issue? I thought this one was strongly OK.

DIAL H #1: China Mieville's comic debut, and it's pretty decent. There are a few mechanical problems with the set up (most namely: how do you dial four digits 0n a *rotary dial* phone by accident when trying to call for help in the middle of witnessing a horrible beating?), and I have to admit that I'm not sure that I at all like the notion that the H-dial is in a static location, but putting that aside, I very much liked this issue. (On the other hand, I always liked the Robbie Reed version as well) (Sockamagee!)

I liked the schlubbiness of the protagonist, I very much liked the dialed up heroes (Captain Lachrymose needs an ongoing series, stat!), and I just liked the general weird vibe on display here -- this comic could be perfectly at home at pre-Vertigo Vertigo, and whatcha know, it's Karen Berger editing her first superhero comic in 20-something years.

The art by Mateus Santolouco sort of veers back and forth between some Ted McKeever-looking wonderfulness to "Ugh, you need more fundamentals", but it certainly works with the book just fine. Overall: VERY GOOD

EARTH 2 #1: Having read this, I really really can't even begin to understand all of the faffing about in the pre-print interviews of "well, we really can't describe this to you", because, unless there's a dramatic change from what's on display in this first issue (which would then, arguably be a not-so-good FIRST issue), this seems easy to shorthand: it's the formation of a NEW e2-based Justice Society (though maybe they'll never be called that, who knows), where the set-up is in contemporary times, rather than ww2.

I'm a pretty big ("real") JSA fan, and I didn't really like any of the new costumes we've seen so far, so I was suspicious of this at first, but yeah, I very much liked the setup and world building, and slow roll-out of characters.

James Robinson's script was solid -- I felt a real emotional tingle in that scene between Bruce & Helena -- and Nicola Scott's art is as strong as always. I don't know if I will like the new JSA, really (there's really only 7-8 pages of those characters, the rest of the oversized space is dedicated to setting up the world), but as a "Yes, I would like to see more, please" first issue, I thought this was VERY GOOD.

EPIC KILL #1:  If you want to see teenage hotties do acrobatics like River Tam in Firefly, with lots of slaughter, then this is surely the comic for you. Largely reading like a pitch for a movie, it at least has fairly pretty art by Raffaele Ienco that kind of reminds me of John Ridgeway, I think -- detailed, but with straight lines not noodly curvy ones, yet just ever so slightly stiff because of that. Anyway, since the base idea feels so "Seen that a dozen times", the joy of this kind of work is all in the *execution* of the idea, and there's just enough "hey, cool" scenes to have me say that this is GOOD.

GI COMBAT #1: Half the book is about soldiers fighting dinosaurs, so there's that, and as a plus the art is by Ariel Olivetti, and it really fits here; the other half is yet another new take on "Unknown Soldier", who is getting close to becoming DC's equivalent in the if-we-keep-relaunching-him-someone-will-like-it-eventually-right? sweepstakes to Moon Knight. I think they need to try again, as I was really entirely uninterested in this version, sorry. I think this may be a concept that just can't work in the 21st century, maybe because of the "unknown" part, and that doesn't work in our database-driven world (esp with regards to soldiers, I'd have to say). Anyway, like the first half, disliked the second, which means I can't say better then EH.

MIND THE GAP #1 :Another book that reads a little more like a pitch then a comic, but I thought this pitch was fairly terrific. The set-up is for a whodunnit kind of mystery, with the victim's spirit interacting on the, dunno, astral plane, maybe is what to call it, with what looks like a little touch of Deadman-meets-Quantum Leap, maybe?  Jim McCann's script is very strong, and the characters vivid, while the art by Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback is realistic, without being creepy and off-putting, like some in that style become. As a bonus, this first issue is oversized @ 48 pages, and just a mere $2.99, making it a helluva deal. No doubt this was a VERY GOOD comic!

STAR TREK ONGOING #8: Given that the premise of the first six issues of this series was adapting/converting classic Trek episodes with the movie characters, you might have missed that they followed that with a two-parter (starting in issue #7), that followed up on the film, with the Romulans and the last drop of "Red Matter" -- I know I sure did until I grabbed this issue to read, and went, "Wait... that's not TOS!" (from the "next issue" pic, it looks like they're going back to that and "The Return of the Archons"). I don't know that I exactly care about the tattooed Romulan faction, or Red Matter, but it was nice to see something wholly new set in this universe (and, in theory, "official"). I thought it was highly OK, and if you miss the TOS characters, recast or not, this was a fun little follow-up.

SUPREME #64: Wow. this should be taught as a masterclass in how to utter destroy a previous set-up in 22 pages, and replace it with the exact opposite. I really loved the clever way that Moore set up his "all versions are true" love letter to Superman, and it's own set up gave all of the ability to complete rewrite the rules as new creators came onboard, but instead Erik Larsen rips it all to shreds and chucks it out the window for the ugliest possible of all iterations of Supreme. That takes mad skills, yo. The craziest part to me is actually the letter's page to the issue (which I suspect won't be in a digital version, sorry) where Larsen defends his actions by comparing this to following Todd on Spider-Man, or whoever followed Miller & Mazuchelli after "Born Again" in Daredevil. the difference, of course, being that there's a 15-or-so year gap here between issues, and while the argument is at least understandable when related to regular ongoing production of corporately owned icons (the trains, in fact, have to keep running), it's utterly bizarre in this case, especially after they went out of their way to try and show "respect" to Alan Moore by illustrating his final "lost" script.

Obviously, the difference between, say, WATCHMEN and this situation is that the creator of the property is the owner and can do whatever they want on work-for-hire material, but there's a dissonance here that my brain is ringing from.

Erik is a talented creator, and this work has a lot of energy, but I really liked the Moore version of Supreme (and pretty much hated the grim'n'gritty take that preceded it), so I thought this comic was pretty AWFUL

WORLDS FINEST #1: I have to say that if I were DC marketing, I wouldn't have scheduled the two Earth-2 related comics in the same week, but I just sell the things, what do I know? But, I also have to say that I really really liked this one, as well. Paul Levitz turns in the first script in months that I genuinely liked from start to finish, and the twin artist (George Perez in the modern sequences, Kevin Maguire on the flashbacks) really worked much better than I thought it would. Yeah, I really thought this was strong, VERY GOOD stuff.

The one problem? That logo. Jesus, that's a horrible horrible disaster -- it looks cluttered and terrible using the "across the room" test (if you can't pick a logo/design element/whatever from across the room, it fails), and it's not at all clear what the name of the comic IS, with "Huntress" being over "World's Finest". Yow.

X-O MANOWAR (ONGOING) #1: If you read the original in the 90s, you've pretty much read this first issue, as it really alters very little of the original setup, just with a little more depth, maybe. It reads well, it's pretty enough, but I didn't feel like "OMG! I need to read the next one right now!" Maybe I'll check back in a few issues to see if they're doing new stories and not just retelling things I already know. Or, maybe I won't. OK.

Right, that's me -- what did YOU think?

-B

Hibbs catches up, sort of -- 4/18's books

Happy 4/20! OK, getting much closer to being "on time", right there under the jump!

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #2: A jarring tonal shift comes this issue as Jason Aaron handles the scripting. It's sort of on par with the change of George Perez to Ron Lim on Infinity Gauntlet, because the voices couldn't be more different. I *liked* what Aaron's got on the page here, but man that's three issues in a row now with no consistency whatsoever between them, and the round robin of writers continues through the series (and art changes with #5, as well) I'm finding this jarring.

I'm also not following a specific plot point, and that's how is Phoenix "coming" in outer space, but also already possessing Hope?

Again, this book isn't for me, really, but I thought this issue was at least OK

BATMAN #8: This here is the first $3.99 issue, and I was a little concerned it would cause a jump off, but people seem to be enjoying the Owls storyline enough to keep supporting it. Again, we'll see what happens when the first Bat-line crossover happens next month -- it seems to me that most of the tie-ins are going to read very similarly, though: owls attack, fight owls. This arc has had a bunch of bizarre "power fluctuation", though -- you'll remember how it opened with Bats kicking the ass of dozens of traditional bat villains, at once. THEN, a single Owl curbstomped Bats about as hard as he's ever been hit. And NOW, Bruce is fighting off dozens of Owls at once, showing again how butch he is. I'd finding this awkward, at best.

The backup story was largely the epitome of "unneeded back up", as it just showed and elongated a moment that we'd seen just minutes before. Boo!

I'm liking the book, overall, but there's something a little off about this whole thing that I'm not figuring out yet. I still thought it was a very low GOOD.

PROPHET #24: Ugh, now THIS is comics! Man, I don't even know what this bit has to do with anything in the first three issues (same character, wholly different scenario), but I also don't care, because it's such fun science fiction, AND we get some wonderful artwork from Farel Dalrymple. I think I've said this before, but this reminds me of nothing less than HEAVY METAL from the 1970s, amazingly inventive and lavishly illustrated science fiction that may or may not make a ton of sense, but who cares because the passion just drips off it. I think this is truly EXCELLENT work.

RESET #1: Peter Bagge returns with something new, and while his cartooning is as good as ever, I had two kind of overwhelming problems with this. First is that the setup is just too thin -- we understand the protagonist is someone who is at least somewhat famous, who did some unspecified awful thing, but there are no details about any of that given here, and so it makes relating to the underlying science fiction premise (that there's a machine that can allow you to relive your life, and make different decisions, but it has to always start from one specific point) just too difficult. We neither know where the protagonist came from, nor where he is trying to go, so taking any kind of suspense or anticipation is rendered virtually impossible.

My second problem is that I think that Bagge has grown into an increasingly "safe" cartoonist as the years have gone by -- not from his underlying style, but from the range and direction of his work. There's nothing "edgy" about his work any longer, it feels predictable and almost staid. Safe.

This work is OK, at best.

SHADOW #1: I was a little surprised how much I liked this. Well, maybe not, because it's Garth -- but there's almost no Ennis-isms here (other than whatever is naturally baked into the character and supporting cast), just a great straight-forward, historically-appropriate period-piece version of the best of the character. If I had one "problem" its that Dynamite really could do itself a favor and instead of spending the coin to get four different unique comics stylists doing covers, they should spend at least that much attention on the interior art. Aaron Campbell is in no way a poor artist, but it's hard to not suffer in comparison to Alex Ross, Chaykin, Jae Lee and John Cassaday. Despite that, I thought this was swell comics, indeed, and thought it was VERY GOOD.

SUPERGIRL #8: I'm only pointing this out because George Perez is suddenly drawing a pair of issues of this book, and I thought this was a very solid little comic that your eye might have wandered away from. Here's a place to wander back for an issue or two -- I thought this was GOOD.

WONDER WOMAN #8: I've said before, ad infinitum, I so don't care for mythological supporting casts, and, so, overall while I've been liking this arc OK, it's really not for me. I still largely feel that way about this issue, but I'd be a big ol' meanie if I didn't observe just how much I liked Cliff Chiang's "redesign" of Hades and the afterlife -- that's some genuinely creepy and affecting stuff. GOOD.

That's it for me for today, as always: what did YOU think?

-B

Big and Bad: Hibbs 4/4's

I know you'd never know it from my Industry-driven posting (seriously? It's what I DO), but I've actually been sick as a dog the last week, and have barely read any comics at all. But I said "I'm back on the horse", and, barring the two weeks where I couldn't log on TO post here, I am , I am! So, here's 3 (or maybe 4) books, below the cut.

AVENGERS VS X-MEN #1: Rich Johnston was right, I think, when he said this book is review proof. No one is going to buy or not buy this comic based upon anything I (or anyone else) says about it, and, because it's purely an exercise in smashing the action figures together, I doubt anyone is really looking at this for an exceptional example of sequential storytelling, or anything.

Which is terrific, because it kind of sucked.

Sort of even to the point that I'm not even really sure where exactly to begin.

Well, let's start with the talent. I like JR JR, I really do... but I like him on things that are gritty and "street" and dark -- KICK ASS he's suited for, shiny-Avengers-heroes? Not so much. Scott Hanna's inks help a little, but overall, the effect here is of the absolutely wrong artist for the book.

Then you have the "Story" credit going to FIVE different people. Really? Reallly? I mean, I have to assume that something really change-up different is going to happen at some point here, because "The Avengers and the X-Men fight" hardly needs FIVE plotters. Damn, it don't need one -- even my eight year old can plot this. In fact, I asked him to tell me why they might fight, and he said, and I shall quote: "they're superheroes, they just do"

Smart kid.

And, oh, oh, oh, the scripting. I don't know if it's that Bendis is just getting too frayed from working on too many comics, or that I've just "learned" his ear too well from reading too many of them, but his dialogue has descended into self-parody at this point. "What's going on? Never Mind. Don't care. Are we having an Avengers meeting or--?" "Guys -- we got a thing here."  Damn, they all have the same frickin' voice. Even the single normal human being in the entire comic, who has a line after flying through the sky with the rubble of the Chrysler building, then is webbed safely by Spider-Man (wait, what? How?!?! 3/4 of those people should be corpses!) says "Wow. That's It. I'm moving. I'm done."

Gawd.

(Plus, like, destroying the Chrysler building? This is your signifier of "yeah, the stakes are real!"? Ugh)

(See, even *I* am doing the bendis voice! Man!)

I also really like that "scorecard" thing at the top of the issue that has like 20+ Avengers, including a bunch not even cameoing in the issue (War Machine?), while the X-Men side is all of 6 people.

I don't, AT ALL, get Cyclops' motivations here. I could maybe possibly understand him if it was "We don't have enough power, we need more, we can't let the humans have this", but all of that bullshit he was spouting about rebirth and shit? Are you nuts? Scott should hate the Phoenix force more than almost any other human in the universe, given that it destroyed his first love, his child, his school, and now it is going after his grand daughter, who is "the future of the mutant race". Given what happened to Jean, how could he POSSIBLY be ok with Hope getting anywhere near the force?

Also: Where the fuck is Rachel, anyway? Why would the thing WANT Hope in the first place? We've always always seen the Phoenix force go after TELEKINETIC TELEPATHS -- what does it want with a girl whose powerset is *copying* other powers, and who, afaik, is utterly powerless without other mutants around?

Hell, maybe that's what we need five plotters to explain?

So, nope, didn't like it, not a bit... but it's going to make a big pile of money regardless. I thought it was pretty AWFUL.

INFINITE COMICS #1: Free with the digital download of AvX #1 was the first of Marvel's "Infinite Comics", by Mark Waid and Stuart Immonen. I read this as well.

I have to say that I thought it was... adequate. Waid's script is filled with some fun things about moving faster than the speed of light, but there's not a single thing about the PERSON behind the suit (other than his liking hot dogs or whatever it was, but that was so generic, it literally could have been interchangeable between Spider-Man, the Human Torch, Speedball, or fifty other characters).

The art was fairly pretty (duh), but when it came to major, important things like, dunno, SMASHING THROUGH THE CHRYSLER BUILDING, it's staged in such a way you can barely tell what's going on.

As a "What happened between panels 5 & 6 on page 4" (or whatever), it was perfectly adequate... maybe even fairly decent.

But as a technical achievement? Wow wow what a dog!

Maybe, I don't know, but maybe possibly this is because I read it on an iPad 1 -- but this, rather than the "Luther" proof-of-concept where elements fairly seamlessly "floated" into place, here each new element was on a seperate page of it's own that I could LITERALLY *see* being served to me.

What this meant was that.

(tap)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen.

(tap)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen my eye automatically started to read.

(tap)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen my eye automatically started to read from the left again.

(tap)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen my eye automatically started to read from the left again until eventually the.

(LENS FLARE!)

What this meant was that as each page would come up on the screen my eye automatically started to read from the left again until eventually the whole page was finally rendered.

Oh. My. God! COMPLETELY unreadable.

I thought "Well, maybe it's just the first iPad?" so I went to try and read it in-browser on my computer, which Marvel SAYS you can do. I followed the link PROVIDED ON THE "redeem" page. No. That takes you to a page full of press releases about previous free digital downloads. Then I spent at least 20 minutes reading through help pages on Marvel.com, and finally found a different link that the help pages insisted was direct to "all of your free-with-print digital downloads", but THAT page redirected me instead to a four page preview of AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #1 that the only way it would let me escape was if I signed in to Marvel Digital Unlimited... which is not even close to the same thing, so I closed my browser in disgust and said "fuck it".

I probably wouldn't be so disgustipated if it wasn't for the THREE (!!) pages that IC #1 had to serve me to proclaim that this was the "FUTURE OF COMICSSSSSSSSS!!!!!"

Seriously?

If that's the "future" of comics, comics can go fuck themselves. As much as I didn't like the "hey we're showing off by taking control of your reading experience for you!" that "Luther" did, it was a BILLION times worse in the one-page-at-a-time slideshow on the iPad. It made me want to choke to death on someone else's vomit.

The CONTENT of INFINITE COMICS #1? EH. The EXECUTION?: Pure, stinking ASS.

THE BOYS #65:  While there are 3 (4? 5?) more issues left of the series, this is really the big moment everything has been pointing to since that first issue, and there's a clear Ennis-ian Nelson-style "Haw haw!" in here as everything everyone thinks is going on is flipped on it's side before the gory gory gory gory climax of it all. I liked the twist, I thought it was "fair", but this issue really REALLY suffered, I thought by being drawn by two artists, neither of whom is Darick Robertson. Russ Brown and John McCrea are just fine, but neither is the co-creator of the series, and I kept recasting every page if DR had drawn it. The version in my head is better. Still? Solidly GOOD.

SUPREME #63:  It's been like ten years since the last chapter, has it? I guess that explains why I sold less than a third of what I thought I might of this unseen Alan Moore Script? What's weird is that, as a silver age pastiche, it really kind of read as if I had just read the previous issue last month. I miss the hell out of this book. I can't believe this really was to be Moore's LAST script, though, because there's clearly 1 or 2 more issues to go along this whole thought.

I quite liked Erik Larsen's art here, though -- made me think he was channeling Kev O'Neill, especially on those Suprema pages. The blurbs seem to indicate that the next issue is abandoning the silver age stuff and going back to 90s-style Rob Liefeld Supreme, and while they're earned one more issue from me for that, my instincts say I'd rather be forced to read INFINITE COMICS again.

Anyway, does this mean we can hope for a proper reprint book of Moore's runs that isn't scanned at the wrong resolution or whatever the hell the problem was with those Checker editions?

Right, that's it for me this week, see you in a day or two with the next batch of reviews!!

As always: what did YOU think?

-B

Wait, What? Ep. 81: On Tact Cleanses

[Image above from the awesome Sharknife: Double Z by Corey Lewis, which we did not discuss in this episode, but believe me it was rad.]

Sorry, sorry, for reasons that will probably be apart for those who listen to the podcast, I've got to pull some serious Hello!, I Must Be Going shit because I'm on night nine of the ten day Flowers for Algernon diet.

So join poor old Graeme McMillan and I for two-plus hours of the jibberty that goes jabberty.  Our topics include The Silence of Our Friends by Nate Powell and Mark Long; Shooters by Steve Lieber, Brandon Jerwa and Eric S. Trautmann; Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks; digital comics and Infinite comics; Spaceman issues #4 and #5; the Wednesday Comics HC; Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, and Joe Casey; Jim Shooter's Legion of Superheroes, New Deadwardians #1, Avengers Vs. X-Men #0, Scarlet by Bendis and Maleev, and the proverbial much, much more.

Nine out of ten dentists who choose Jif, etc., etc., iTunes, turn, heel, kick--jazz hands!

Wait, What?, Episode 81: On Tact Cleanses

P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard.

Wait, What? Ep. 77: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

(Illustration from Chapter 166 of Bakuman. Remember it's a right-to-left world out there.)

Remember how The Uncanny X-Men would, like, get psychically mind-raped by The Hellfire Club, or shot full of Brood babies and be torn apart from the inside, or bound and gagged to the inside of Magneto's rumpus room, and then afterward there'd be an issue of them playing baseball and walking around the recently rebuilt (since it had also been recently destroyed) mansion of Professor X?

This episode is a little bit like that, I guess, with Graeme and I recovering from answering (almost) everyone's questions and having ourselves quite the crazy time of it on the Internet.  So Episode 77 is two hours of amiable chitchat from your friends on the Wait, What? team talking Graeme's library picks, Spider-Island, the high initial ordering numbers of Avengers Vs. X-Men, our ignorance of current MTV reality shows, He Who Cannot Be Named, the pros and cons of going to the comic shop, The Hunger Games, Earth 2, Dr. Who, Tintin, and that one movie with Christian Bale and the gun-fu, as well as the One Piece Meets Toriko (which I brain-deadedly call "Tobiko" throughout) one-shot available from Shonen Jump Alpha.   (Which I almost ganked a picture from instead.)

Four out of five dentists who recommend choosy mothers choose iTunes, but Episode 77 is here, coiled and cautious, if you dare plunge your fists again and again into its evil, undying heart:

Wait, What? Ep. 77.1: The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking

As always, we hope you enjoy and thanks for listening!

Wait, What? Ep. 75: Joshua Judges OMAC

[Above:  Not a deliberate shout-out, I'm sure, but we'll take what we can get, of course.]

Thanks for your patience during our mild vacation! In return, we offer you Wait, What? Ep. 75, which features more than two and twenty minutes of Graeme McMillan and me "stealing the air" or "pump[ing] up the volume" or whatever it is you "kids" call it. [Thanks to Joolian for pointing out that should really read "two hours and twenty minutes," damn my eyes!]

Do we talk Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and The Walking Dead? Do we, ever! Dare we discuss Gary Friedrich, Ghost Rider and Marvel? Dare, we do! Tire I of answering rhetorical questions? Frankly, yes, but I won't let that get in the way of telling you we also chat about L.J. Smith and The Vampire Diaries; John Rozum, Scott McDaniel, and Static Shock; and James Doohan and William Shatner and Star Trek.

Also, there's Brian Bendis' ideas for the New 52; sales expectations for the Marvel and DC; Marvel's possible reboot and their strategies for Avengers Vs. X-Men; the myth of the Marvel Architects;  Joss Whedon and Buffy The Vampire Slayer; and et cetera, and what have you, and like that.

If you were the type to indulge in auditorial gambols, you may have encountered our gift in the wild autumnal splendor that is iTunes (where nearly-extinct creatures like Ping and DRM still play).  But if not, please take it as it is offered here, with utmost generosity and verbal pomposity:

Wait, What? Ep. 75: Joshua Judges OMAC?

As always, we thank you for listening and hope you enjoy!

Wait, What? Ep. 66: Winter Oner-Land

The image above ties into the podcast in only the most tangential of ways (we discuss Frank Springer for the merest of moments) but I had to include this image, in no small part because I've been enjoying Graeme's Comics Advent Calendar over at Blog@ Newsarama so much. (And because...the Hatemonger for the Holidays?  May be even more topical now than when it was published...)

So, anyhoo.  We had one of those podcasts where we only spoke for around ninety minutes and there wasn't much of a place to cut it very neatly.  (I wasn't crazy about doing an hour ten for part one, and thirty minutes for part two.)

So this is a "oner" episode for you, with Mr. McM and I talking about the recently releasedDefenders #1, the power of secret shout-outs, Dark Horse Digital's recent pricing hullaballoo, Avengers vs. X-Men, Bendis leaving Avengers, Spaceman #2, OMAC #4, Daredevil #6, the Lethal Weapon comic that never was, Flash #3, Secret Avengers and Wolverine (both at issue #19) and, yes, of course, The Muppet Movie. It is so very close to being an hour and forty minutes (so! very! close!) and yet, somehow, it isn't.

Is it on iTunes?  Probably!  But it is most certainly here for you right now:

Wait, What? Ep. 66.1: Winter Oner-Land

Our plan is to record this week and, God help us, next week so there should be a steady stream of our patented level of giggly jibber-jabber to carry you into the new year.  As always, we hope you enjoy!  And thank you for listening.