Keeping it daily: the 2 best comics Hibbs read this week

I'm still lagging behind my reading (yeah yeah, shut up), but I HAVE just read two of the best comics I've read all year, and you probably should, too CRIMINAL #5: A great (if horrifically downer) ending to this first arc. Brubaker's on fire lately, and for my money, this is him at his purest. If I had to say something bad about the book, it might be that this issue just felt a little STRAY BULLETS to me. Sean Phillips art is as loverly as ever, and this is just one of the nicest looking packages, of design and backmatter, being released as a periodical comic book in 2007. We'll see if the second arc holds up to the strength of this first, but there's really no reason to think it won't, is there? VERY (very!) GOOD

SHAZAM: MONSTER SoCIETY OF EVIL #2: Oh! My! God! That was astonishingly stellar on almost every level! Tha sequence with Mary zipping around the Big Red Cheese had me laughing out loud, and there's just a sheer exuberant level of fun from every page of this. Not to mention mystery, and suspense, and perilous peril. Hoo-boy, that's what the funny books is 'sposed to be about, and there's no doubt whatsoever that this is EXCELLENT in every way possible.

More tomorrow....

-B

I'm on a PLAIN, I can't complain: Graeme gets to read Minx.

It's actually kind of unnerving to read Hibbs say that he completely agrees with me about 52. I'd kind of devolved into a mindset where I was the one more likely to go to extremes with reviews, while Brian would come along with something that was carefully considered and more concise, yet utterly correct, so reading that he thinks the same thing I do about the recent issues of DC's weekly comic kind of makes me feel as if I've accidentally discovered the meaning of life or something. Luckily, this time out I'm the complete inverse of Jeff Lester, so normal service has apparently been resumed. THE PLAIN JANES: Perhaps it's my love of shows like Gilmore Girls, The OC or America's Next Top Model, or perhaps it's the fact that I went to art school (first as a student, then as a teacher, fact fans), but there was something about this book that made me love it almost from the get-go, despite its flaws... right up until the end. Cecil Castellucci's experience as a novelist is obvious from the over-reliance on narration (occasionally leaving Jim Rugg high and dry with the accompanying illustrations), but I completely bought into the narrator's - admittedly teenage angst-ridden - struggle for an identity that she could only find in comparison to others (both her friends and the town society in general). The narration, in fact, might be the strongest part of the book; the voice is strong and believable, bringing the main character Jane (who co-stars with Jane, Jayne and Polly-Jane, partially-hence the title of the book) to life in a way that doesn't quite happen through her interaction with the other characters. There's something about the space provided in book-length narration that allows for contradictions and humor and doubt that the other characters don't have, allowing (main) Jane to transcend her stereotypical origins in a way that the other characters don't. You could make an argument for that being intentional - when we're teenagers, we're all the center of our own worlds, after all - but it doesn't change the fact that the book doesn't really give enough of a reason for why the other Ja(y)nes are friends before Jane comes into their life; they just are, because it's what the story needs, apparently.

But I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, pointing out what didn't work for me, instead of what did. The narration, then, I enjoyed. The art terrorism of PLAIN, I loved; it was wonderfully pointless and pointed at the same time, and the confused, scared reaction it causes in the town felt like an interesting counterpoint to what Jane herself was going through (The embracing chaos/denying it thing, I guess). The random love interest plot, and the awkward interplay between Jane and her crush was fun, even if the crush himself came across as pretty generic and McGuffin-esque, appearing and being cool at just the right points throughout the story. When it all goes wrong, too, felt honest and is dealt with satisfyingly quickly, for the most part.

No, what really didn't work for me was the ending. This is where writing advance reviews gets annoying, because I really want to talk in specifics about why the ending didn't work for me - because, in theory, it should; it has all the ingredients you'd expect, but the execution is lacking, partially, I think because of space - but I can't, because that would completely spoil the story for everyone else who wants to read the book. Suffice to say, if the last two pages had been about five times longer and included a particular reason for a particular decision to be made, then it wouldn't've (a) cheapened the climactic event that had just happened, and (b) kind of ruined the book for me.

"Ruined" may be a bit strong, of course. There's nothing in those last couple of pages that invalidated the enjoyment I'd gotten from the rest of the book - the close of the prologue of the book, the eighth page, is something that I'm just completely in love with for some reason, for example - but the book just kind of stops, as opposed to actually coming to an end, and the way that it stops almost goes back on some of the promises that've been made earlier, that the small things have weight and importance, so the big things should have even moreso (The book starts with what seems to be a flashback to 9/11, but curiously, it's never explicitly stated as such as the city Jane comes from is always called "Metro City," which may be some shoutout to famous comic cities like Metropolis or Star City, but still feels weird each time. While the climax of the book is nowhere near that scale, it's still... I don't know, something larger than other events but isn't treated as such, which undermines not only that event, but also the motivations of the characters from earlier in the book. Again, I really want to go into specifics, so ask me again when the book comes out).

Overall, though, I liked the book. One thing that I'm with Jeff in is the wanting to like the Minx line on principle, and from looking at the previews of other books in the launch cycle at the back of this book, The Plain Janes is probably the best book to launch with, with clearer art and premise than the others (For no reason whatsoever, I just want to point out that almost all my excitement for the Andi Watson book was killed by seeing the Josh Howard art in the preview - Howard's stuff can be fine sometimes, but just doesn't work in the pages they show here). It's a very un-DC book for DC to be pushing like this, but that's probably the point. I just hope that it finds its way to a receptive, less-critical-than-Jeff-or-I, audience who's willing to come back for more. Good.

Meanwhile, for those in the San Francisco Bay Area that I call home: Pick up today's Examiner (Hey, it's free), and look at the letters column. You'll know why when you see it.

We've lost! Quick! Eat the comics!: Graeme reviews some more books from the last two weeks.

Day six in the Big Brother house, and Good Lord, but my head is spinning from all the reviewin' going on here. Remember when we never used to post? Those were the days, my friend. THE AUTHORITY #2: Can we now finally start the "Grant Morrison needs a vacation, desperately" meme? This much-delayed second issue of his Wildstorm relaunch finally ships, and proves to be pretty much a disappointment all-round. The discovery that the Authority have somehow crossed over into "our world" is unconvincing (They all seem to deal with it very well, I must say. "Hey, there's our lives as a comic book! Let's make a joke about how much comic books cost these days!") and, at this point, a tired theme from Morrison that he's handled better in Animal Man, Doom Patrol and even The Filth, the dialogue is flat and uninspiring, and even Gene Ha's artwork is inconsistent and overly reliant on the colorist to fill-in the details. After what felt like a much more impressive first issue, this is a massive letdown, and considering that the title is now "on hiatus" until further notice, more proof that Morrison may have burned himself out for the moment. Crap.

FANTASTIC FOUR #543: Happy 45th Birthday, Fantastic Four! Shame that you have to celebrate it with such a depressing lead story that has to jump from one editorial edict ("Civil War has torn this family apart!") to another ("Black Panther and Storm are the newest members of the team!") even though both of them don't really say anything about the characters themselves. Much, much better are the back-up strips, with Paul Pope revealing a deep love for early '60s Marvel that I wouldn't have guessed, and Stan Lee firing on all cylinders - surprisingly, considering his "Stan Lee Meets" books - on a story (with awesome art by Nick Dragotta and Mike Allred) that shows off the absurdity, comedy and love that the series used to be full of. Good for the price, and if you ignore the main story, much better.

THE FLASH: FASTEST MAN ALIVE #9: Okay, sure, it's much better than what came before, but that's possibly the most backhanded compliment possible considering what had come before. At least now the characters seem to be back in character, and the book has a voice that's more recognizable as both Bart and a Flash book in general. That said, this is clearly a filler issue, a palate cleanser and attempt to make it up to the fans who'd stayed around by playing firmly to continuity and the DC faithful with guestshots and shout-outs to touchstones for Bart's particularly hardcore fanbase, more than a successful story in its own right. Okay, I guess, and if nothing else, a step in the right direction.

GREEN LANTERN #17: I really want to like this book. I love the character - He's a space cop with a magic wishing ring! What's not to love? - and like the writer and artist, so why do I end up feeling so uninvolved with the whole thing? For every right move (the Batman as Sinestro thing was funny and smart, for example), there just seems to be a lack of... I don't know, direction? momentum? in this series that I can't explain. A hesitant Eh, I guess.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #6: Brad Meltzer is a massive fanboy, and that's the biggest problem with this book. He gets really excited in the small details of the story (How to fight Amazo, in depth. Because, really, we all want to know that Superman goes for the eyes while Batman goes for the legs. And we need to take three pages for that, don't we?) and sadly the larger plot gets lost in the process. The book reads as if it were written by a kid: "And then they fight and then they win because they win because that's what they do!" Weirdly enough, I don't think that Meltzer's at fault for this, though; he's a good enough writer to do better, but he's clearly not getting the editing he needs - the double-page spread of Amazo and Red Tornado looking sad is something that really should've been killed at script stage, instead of using it and adding pages (and cost) to the final book - or deserves. Okay, but it should be much, much better.

MARVEL ZOMBIES VS. ARMY OF DARKNESS #1: Yeah, I don't know. It's fun enough, I guess? But this joke stopped being funny about a year ago, and even John Layman's best attempts to keep the comedy coming fail to raise a smile. Eh.

SHAZAM!: THE MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL #2: If anything, even better than the first issue. Jeff Smith shows that he can do something that's so wonderfully old-fashioned that it seems contemporary again, bringing a pitchperfect sense of wonder and menace (The Monster Society here manages to be scarier than 52's Sobek, perhaps because of the context they work in - or maybe just their go-for-broke "let's eat all the children" plan B) to the character and superheroics in general. I can't wait for the eventual collection, because if ever there would be a great book for kids who like superheroes to read, it'd be this one. Excellent.

Now that I've done all of this week's books, I can safely say that Shazam is the PICK OF THE WEEK, and Civil War: The Initiative is a sloppy, tossed-off PICK OF THE WEAK. Apparently, I've chosen what kind of superhero comic I'd rather read in the future.

Tomorrow: The last day of my week-of-posting, and Jeff Lester and I will have to fight over it.

I'm still alive on Saturday

I felt fine again on Friday morning, but by noon or so I wilted again. Spent a couple of frustrating-to-Jeff hours in the store trying to catch up on stupid-mundane tasks (like refilling quarter boxes and starter sets), but then went home and collapsed again for like another 16 hours. So far today I've had a full day trying to just get caught up on losing 3 days of work (and, really, being a small business owner who is locked into a 7-day cycle because of product release, that's a big big big loss of time), even at 80% capacity, so I hope you'll forgive me for just talking about one funny book.

Which will be 52 week 44

It's fairly rare these days, content-wise, but I agree with nearly every word Graeme wrote below about 52, and I'm sorta freaked out that there's only 8 issues to go, and we can be pretty much guaranteed that at least 3 or them will focus nearly-exclusively on the Black Adam thread and "World War 3". Wolk's 100 item list not-withstanding (and seriously, proabably half of it falls into "ok, not really important" land), there's a LOT of stuff that needs to come to a head/be resolved VERY VERY SOON, and I can't possibly imagine that there's room enough to do it in, given the WW3 thing.

At the very least, I absolutely INSIST on proper closure on anything that's COVER-FEATURED (which would specifically include #5's "how did all of the space-based people get better (eg Hawkgirl being a giant), and wtf happened to them in the first place, anyway?") during the run.

I do not think this will happen.

I am especially mad at week 44 because it, as Graeme pointed out, resolutely tears down everything since week 12 or so we've been told about Isis. It's not "wow, they killed a character I've grown to love ("against all odds")", it's "wow, that's a big plothammer, and doesn't jibe at all with what we were told all the way through this"

You know what's funny? 52 was largely posited on 4 discrete threads: Steel, Booster, Ralph, and Question/Montoya. Steel's thread was 4 issues, max, and they probably gave us the equivilant of 8 issues worth. Ralph was handled "just about right", though Wolk's History of the Wishing Gun will always stay with me. The Question thread has gone on way too long "Who are you?" "Good Question." isn't a sustainable narrative (I think it's fair to argue that Cowan and O'Neill could really only sustain it for 24 issues, really -- the last 12 aren't half as strong; and the less said about Quarterly, the better, really), which leaves Booster and the connection to time travel and maybe somehow that links up to Oolong island and Doc Magnus and all that too, which has (between both threads) the thing I think most people have been digging on the most... but we almost never see those threads.

COUNTDOWN is in a curious place. If they IMMEDIATELY learn from the mistesps that 52 has made -- if it's more HEROES than LOST, to mix media -- then it could possibly fill all of the promise that 52 doesn't look that it is going to. But I have my doubts. I read somewhere, I think, that COUNTDOWN has been planned for a while, but didn't initiate as a year-long weekly. That it was the success of 52 that caused them to expland it. So I fear, that, just like 52, they're going to take what's maybe 20-30 issues worth of content, and vamp it out over a longer period.

The market REALLY REALLY wants a weekly comic, actually -- it just wants one with WEEKLY beats and meaning.

I'm unconvinced that any individual, or group of indivudals, can hit 52 week-to-week beats. Not without being mental and/or stuffing a gun in their mouth when its over.

Parenthetically, our preorders to date for COUNTDOWN are slightly less than half of our preorders for 52. This can (AND DOES) change dramatically as we get closer to release date, but it is a worrying sign.

-B

Brand New, You're Retr - Oh: Graeme does more books.

Honestly, I'm really running out of books that I've read recently. I mean, I could say something about the three volumes of Essential Spider-Man that I picked up at Wondercon (especially as they have some great John Romita, Gil Kane and Ross Andru art, and Harry Osborne grows a great moustache), but I should probably finish reading them first. So, instead, a random assortment of spined joys: MY DEAD GIRLFRIEND VOLUME 1: I have this problem with the way that (I seem to remember, although I may be wrong) Tokyopop forces their OEL creators to structure their books, with each volume being one act of a larger story told in the three-act structure (Meaning that Volume 1 is Act One, Volume 2 is Act Two, and Volume 3 is Act... Oh, you get it already): It makes the books seem very inconsequential. I remember having the same feeling about Becky Cloonan's "East Coast Rising" as I did about this book, that there wasn't really any payoff by the end. And, yes, it's part of a series and all, but when you're paying $10 for a 128- (or however long it is) page book, then I don't think it's too much to ask for something that feels slightly more worthwhile than your average #1 of a 32-page comic book. And I'm kind of annoyed that I feel like that about this book, because lack-of-ending aside, I really enjoyed it - Eric Wight is an amazing cartoonist who gets to really play around with his art here, pulling off a mix of styles that somehow all manage to work in the same world without too much visual disconnect, even when Peter Gallagher shows up to play the father of the hero; there's something about his art that manages to be retro and contemporary at once that helps keep things interesting to look at. The writing is loose enough to feel natural, but tight enough to carry the reader through some pretty expositionary moments without seeming too rough or losing your attention; it's definitely a book aimed to a teen audience, but done with enough skill and humor to have something to offer those of us who're almost twenty years outside the target demographic. As I said, I enjoyed it a lot; it's just that I finished the book immediately wanting to read the next one and find out what happens next - which is the sign of a Very Good book - and wishing that there had maybe been a little more meat on this one.

MAKING COMICS: The third book in Scott McCloud's "[Present Participle] Comics" trilogy, but it really feels like a sequel to "Understanding Comics" in both quality and content (I actually went back and re-read "Reinventing Comics" because I enjoyed "Making..." so much; "Reinventing" hasn't dated well - as could be expected for a seven-year-old book that tried to predict the future of technology - but it's a more scattered, more theoretical-based work, and doesn't really fit with the other books, feeling less certain of itself, and written for a different audience and purpose. Still worth reading, if you haven't, though). For all his modesty in the start of the book, McCloud knows perfectly well how do to good comics; what makes his book work so well isn't just the information that he's trying to give, but the method which he uses to impart said information. Like "Understanding," this is a joy to read, and even if you know half of this stuff, the presentation makes connections you may not have as well as acting as a good refresher. Excellent.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD: THE BATMAN TEAM-UPS VOLUME 1: Yes, that is an astonishingly long title. But it's worth it for the stories contained herein, because, man, Bob Haney really managed to take advantage of DC's lack of ability to do anything with Batmania in the late '60s. Sure, there may be other reasons for his being able to get away with everyone calling Batman "Batguy" and the rest of the wonderfully dated attempts to be contemporary that Haney filled this book with, but I'm going with that one as the most likely. The result is something that reads like "What if Terry Southern wrote Batman?", and fits in perfectly with my love for things like The Magic Christian (talking of Southern...) and the Monkees movie Head. DC purists probably hate the way that Haney completely fucks around with character in service of his goofy plot - especially when Wonder Woman and Batgirl both fall in love with Batman at exactly the same time and start fighting over him, letting the bad guy get away - but there's such a shameless lovability about the whole thing that is unavoidable, and perfect for this kind of cheap and cheerful format, especially with some great Neal Adams art towards the end. Very Good.

I start out by talking about the awesomeness that is late 60s Spider-Man and end by talking about late-60s Batman. I don't know if that is incredible planning or proof that I read far too many campy books from before I was born. At least tomorrow I'll be back to talking about this week's books like I normally do on Sundays...

Miles to go before I wake

So, I've been asleep for about 30 of the last 36 hours. Neat! I think I'm largely over my cold now, but I'm still moving at just a fraction of normal speed here, so take pity on the old man for missing a day of daily blogging. Let's do just a couple of comics before I have to go pick Ben up from school and go to work:

MIGHTY AVENGERS #1: Its big and goofy, filled with explosions and people hitting giant monsters. Its basically just fun. THAT'S pretty much what I've been wanting from an AVENGERS comic for a while, and this was the first time in (uh, like 3 years?) that I've thought that Bendis had the rythym of the "suepr team". I'm just a little less excited by the thought baloons (because they're mostly being used for shtick), but overall, I thought this was a fun little Marvel funny book, and a nice change from the sturm und drang of CIVIL WAR. Shockingly GOOD.

CIVIL WAR: THE INITIATIVE: Every single copy we recieved has mis-printed -- the Tbolts story repeats, and the final story is only the final 4 pages. Still, I think I can judge the contents pretty well. Its basically "BRAVE NEW WORLD" for 5x the price. How well that sits with you is likely to come down to how much you like Mark Silvestri's artwork, and I think he's over-rendered, and a mediocre story-teller. The price tag would have been less insulting had the "previews in the back" not been stuff out THIS week (or, worse, LAST week), but man, $5, seriously? AWFUL.

FANTASTIC FOUR #543: Wow, there's something deeply creepy about that cover, isn't there? Probably the worst-timed 45th anniversary ever, given what's going on in the Marvel U right now, and sadly, filled with a big bunch of "I don't buy it"s. I don't buy that Reed and SUe "reconcile" that easially. I don't buy that Johnny & Ben are so wedded to the FF as a *concept* that they're looking for new members. I don't buy that Panther and Storm make ANY sense whatsoever. So, the lead story? Pretty meh. But the backups pretty make up for it -- Stan Lee and Mike Allred, both being pure-injections of themselves, on one story, PAUL-freakin'-POPE on the other. Wow. That pulls the wqhole thing up to a GOOD for me, man.

OK, back later with more....

what did YOU think?

-B

Remember the Fiff-deeee-tooo?: Graeme starts to worry about weekly comics.

52 WEEKS FORTY through FORTY-FOUR: As the series comes uglily (is that even a real word?) towards its conclusion, I just can't buy the Black Adam plot thread. I mean, sure, the plot mechanics are all there in theory: Black Adam needed to lose his recent happiness in order to, for whatever reason, revert from everything he's spent the last forty-four weeks learning (Not that I really see why that has to be the case, but whatever; maybe it's some kind of nature versus nurture thing, or perhaps it's just the simplest "big finish" available to the creators at this point) and go on a murderous rampage across the four spin-off WWIII books in six weeks, and the easiest way for that to happen is to kill his family. Why not? It's a weekly schedule, and no time to work out another, less obvious, direction for that particular plot. Plus, this way you get to have some fight scenes, a genre staple that has been missing throughout the series until recently. (Not that that's a bad thing; if there's something that these five issues have shown, along with the earlier space showdown with Lobo and Lady Styx, it's that 52 doesn't really do action that well. I don't really understand why, considering the writers and layout artist involved, but one of the continual weaker parts of the series has been the art, and weak art makes things like fight scenes harder to carry out well.)

So, sure, I get that. No, what I'm missing is why Isis died suddenly doing a 180 on everything that the character has always been about since her first appearance. For as long as we've known her, Isis has been all about seeing the best in humanity. It's been her one defining characteristic, her one characteristic in general, and I'm really not getting why she changed her mind just before her death, outside of it being what the plot demanded at that particular point. I mean, yes, I get that Kahndaq was attacked and destroyed by the Four Horsemen and that she knows that the Four Horsemen were sent there by Intergang, but I don't see why that automatically translates into "the evil needs to die." Didn't she already know that Intergang were evil, considering that she had, you know, been their slave before her first appearance? And wasn't her brother also their slave? Did she somehow miss everything else that Intergang had been doing up until that point despite her involvement with the Question and the Crime Bible plotline? She has, so far in the series, been the one voice of (relative) reason for Black Adam despite what she's seen (Intergang using teenage suicide bombers at their wedding, for example), so I'm not buying that she completely abandons that entirely in her last dying breath and instead tells Adam that it's time to go kick some ass, without any hint that she would even consider this at any other point in the past thirty-odd weeks. For her last words to work as the scene played out suggests that either Isis only really takes these things that seriously when they directly affect her personally (and is therefore pretty damn shallow), or that the one thing that we were ever shown about the character - her pacifist, optimistic nature - was a lie.

Or, of course, she says it because it's cheap drama and an easy signpost to make Adam go on a murderous rampage.

That's the worrying thing about 52 as we get closer to the finish line. Not that it's beginning to seem more and more obvious that we're not going to get all of the mysteries answered (Doug Wolk made a list of 100 unanswered 52 questions on 52 pick-up this week, and pointed out that, with the number of pages left in the series, we'll have to get a resolution on every second page remaining on average if everything's to be answered, and somehow I'm not expecting that to be the case. Also, I keep hearing the rumor of 52 Week Fifty-Two being a 52-page issue, but it definitely wasn't solicited as one...), but that the creators are getting sloppier at moving all the pieces around in the rush to try and get the main stories finished in time, and the cracks are starting to show throughout the entire thing. For example, the Steel plot, which hasn't appeared at all in the last few issues, ended with an underwhelming slugfest and a climax that seemed to come out of nowhere ("Lex! You have powers that have never been mentioned before! But luckily, we can switch those powers off using this method that we've never mentioned before either!"). Likewise, the finale of Ralph's plot - or the finale so far, perhaps, in case we haven't seen his final fate just yet - also didn't really provide payoff to those who were only familiar with the characters through this series, relying on the Fate helmet to actually be the work of a characters who had only appeared in cameos before that point and motives that wouldn't be familiar to someone who'd never seen the characters before. It's both sloppy and not sloppy at the same time; consistent enough with former continuity to satisfy the longtime fans but too reliant on continuity outside the story itself to satisfy those only following 52 itself.

The various plot threads are starting to feel even more unbalanced than before - Three out of the past five issues have essentially dispensed with the original concepts of real-time storytelling and multiple storylines in each issue by focusing on near-issue-length setpieces that took place not only within one day, but within a matter of hours, in a manner that acts less like the earlier issues and more like the traditional superhero comic. Each thread itself is also beginning to seem muddied in the execution - I feel as if we've spent far too long waiting for Renee's story to catch up with where we all expected it to be months ago, and I'm completely unclear as to whether the Steel, Ralph or even the Adam Strange plots are actually over or not, because while they've each reached a conclusion, none of them have reached any real sense of closure. Maybe it's just exhaustion setting in for me as a reader as much as the writers by this point (and the artists, too; it might be unfair, but Dan Jurgens' professional-yet-unspectacular art in week forty-three made the book feel more tired than any "Giant crocodile eats crippled child" issue should), but there definitely seems to be a sense of the wheels falling off this wagon right now, when I'm sure that I should be getting excited for the ramp-up to the big finale instead. Still, there are eight weeks to turn everything around, so who knows what'll happen in that time? Right now, though: Eh.

What do the rest of you think? Am I the only one burning out on this series right now?

The Places We'll Go, The Trades We'll Read: Jeff's Look At Some Recently Released Trades

Gah. Welcome to the new Savage Critics' world of ultra-content [insert your own "Hope you survive the comix experience!" joke here], and enjoy it for as long as we can keep the plates spinning. Hopefully, as time goes on, we'll smooth out the wrinkles a bit, so you're not reading all three of us reviewing the same book with more or less the same take on it. For example, I'm writing this review of trades knowing that Graeme's got the same thing in the hopper and we're covering some of the same books, which I find a little daunting and also an excellent excuse to instead go and play a few more hours of Dragon Quest VIII (which I would totally recommend to readers of Dr. Slump, by the way, because Akira Toriyama designed the characters and monsters for DQVIII and they've got a great loopy touch to them). On the other hand, if it provides all y'all with some sort of guideline to track down a new book that you end up loving, I'll be happy.

BECK MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD VOL 7 TPB: It's always hard pretending to be a critic, and never more so than when you're reviewing something you love passionately but you know to have more than its share of flaws--for example, Harold Sakuishi's Beck, to which I'm passionately devoted. This volume finds Sakuishi relying ever heavier on a rather gaudy plot element--a stolen guitar that ties into the death of an American pop star--and abruptly ending scenes between characters so as to prolong the development of relationships over time, rather than letting his drama build, crest and peak naturally.

On the other hand, this volume of Beck is chock-full of Sakuishi passionately drawing things he clearly feels passionate about--pretty girls and guys hunched intently over guitars, gratuitous cartoon slapstick and people's faces contorted in song and anger and joy. And if you're invested in the slow struggle and triumph of the underdog protagonist like I am, it's like that long, endless ribbon of delicious nougat they'd show in candy bar commercials on Saturday morning--a simultaneous promise and delivery of cheap and blissful sensory overload. Very Good work, and worth reading despite the shortcomings.

DOOM PATROL VOL 5 MAGIC BUS TPB: Although I've been buying the trades, I've been pretty lax about re-reading these classic Grant Morrison Doom Patrol stories, but I tucked into this volume to see what was being reprinted and found myself impressed at the variety of material here--there's the "Mr. Nobody for President" story, a great Lee-Kirby piss-take {thanks, Duncan!], probably the most elliptical superhero origin story ever told, and the beginning of the final Doom Patrol arc which has all the balls to look at the origin of the Doom Patrol in a way that finally has it make sense. Although I'm probably preaching to the choir here, this is a Very Good set of reprints, and impressive for being a well-told superhero book (well paced subplots and everything!) as well as a flashy, gaudy, dazzling shot of pop-culture transgressiveness.

DRIFTING CLASSROOM VOL 4 TPB: Took me a while to get around to Vol. 4 of this and I worried that maybe it wouldn't be as grippingly insane as the first three volumes. Fortunately, Kazuo Umezu's volume opens with a bunch of first-graders convinced they can change into birds and leaping to their death, and then just gets better from there. Giant monsters, bloody dismemberment, semi-voluntary chloroforming, last minute life-or-death school elections--Drifting Classroom hurtles along like a full-bore nightmare, heedless of its own illogic and committed to making you break out in a cold sweat even while you're chuckling at the insanity of it all. It's been Excellent work so far, and I have every hope it'll continue its streak of brain-melting brilliance. Amazing stuff.

GARAGE BAND TPB: I didn't want to be the first SCer to review this because my take on the book is so pedantic. While I loved Gipi's art on this, I found myself wishing that First Second had opted for a foreword or an afterword to this tale of four kids trying to overcome any number of travails; for one thing, the book strikes me as deeply, deeply Italian with some of the struggles going on between the kids and their parents with Communism, Socialism and Nazism having pretty specific meanings within the ongoing free-for-all that is Italian national identity. Secondly, Gipi's central conceit--that the kids are playing in a garage owned by the father--is a pretty specific thematic concern to the book as the band struggles with the influence of family (particularly their fathers) in the way they're going to do with their lives and what's expected of them, and again I think this didn't strike as deep a chord with me as an American reader as it might someone in Italy for whom family is an all-pervading influence.

I'd like to think that such a foreword or afterword might help adjust a reader's expectations a bit, so that the focus is put more properly back on the kid's struggle, rather than whether they fail or succeed; becuase it's the struggle that Gipi is stressing here as important, not the success or failure, and it might make it a little easier to put the book down satisfied if one knows that going in.

Either way, it's a tremendous looking book and I'm glad that First Second is publishing it, but Garage Band is easier to admire than to love (which makes it exactly the opposite of a its subject matter) and I think that's a bit of a shame. OK.

GOLGO 13 VOL. 7 TPB: Although the exchange of prisoners never happens, and we are not passed from our sensible jailer Takao Saito to the crazed revolutionaries of Golgo 13 readers, editor Carl Horn picks two nice complementary Golgo 13 stories with more than a touch of the crazy to them. I particularly liked the villain of "Eye of God," a religion obsessed peeping tom satellite intel specialist who tries to deceive Golgo 13, with typicially sniperific results. But the second story, "Far From An Era" also has a enoyable denouement stemming from the bat-shit crazy idea that a guy would hire a professional killer to snipe an earring off his wife's ear. Oh, and Golgo 13 beds a lonely widow with little more than five sentences and three set of ellipses. Good stuff, and among the more enjoyable volumes released yet.

MUSHISHI VOL 1 GN: Picked this up because of some stuff Jog said (sorry I'm being too lame to look up direct links), and I wasn't disappointed. I was amused, however, by a possible influence on Yuki Urushibara's work that hasn't been noted; while everyone has pointed out the influence of Tezuka's Black Jack on this story of a wandering healer-for-hire in a rural, semi-magical time, I haven't seen anyone mention that Ginko wanders around in a trench coat, hair in his eyes, smoking a cigarette. Maybe everyone is afraid of making the terrifying high-concept pitch for this but I won't: if you've ever wanted to see Hayao Miyazaki try his hand at John Constantine, you'll probably dig Mushishi. I thought the first story, which won a prestigious manga award, was filled with tons of a cool ideas but was a little on the draggy side but by the time we get to the "Light In The Eyelids," Urushibara is crafting taut little stories about tiny innocent things we do that connect us to a more powerful and dangerous barely seen world. If you think it sounds like the sort of thing you'll like, then trust me, you will. Good stuff.

NAOKI URASAWAS MONSTER VOL 7 TPB: As Dick Hyacinth pointed out on his blog somewhere, Naoki Urasawa is a helluva cartoonist, and his love of jowly, mustached old men serves him particularly well in this volume--I could spend hours looking at the sequence on pgs. 146-148, where a tubby old guy has flashbacks while jogging. In fact, said old guy, Dr. Gillen, pretty much steals the show for Volume 7, which works in the volume's favor and makes it one of my favorites of the series. While Fugitive-style narratives with new characters constantly stepping into the limelight seems like a good idea for an open-ended story, in fact I think it just makes it easier for the reader to stop caring about the overall narrative. But Urasawa's solid cartooning chops and surehanded way with melodrama manage to keep me chained to the story every time. A highly Good read, I thought.

THE PLAIN JANES TPB: I'm cheating, because I only read the first half of Hibbs' copy before he dashed off with it. However, the two things that struck me the most were: (a) how much Jim Rugg's work here looks like Dan Clowes and all the half-baked conclusions that I leapt to as a result of that (is Ghost World a tremendously popular read in the teen girl market? Is Rugg's style and some of the plot element of Plain Janes an attempt to tap into that specific readership?) and (b) wow, this needed another draft. There's a lot of stuff I really liked about Castelluci's story--for one thing, the book's theme is about how the creation of art is implicitly tied to trauma and the attempts to come to terms with trauma, and so art can be uncomfortable, unsettling and challenging to the status quo even while it is for the status quo's ultimate good--but it's poorly structured: the protagonist's story flips around awkwardly in time as Castelluci tries to throw in all the important elements of the backstory while making a run at having the plot power forward. I'm sure the idea is to unpeel the protagonist's motivations seem mysterious and complex, but the opening covering the most dramatic part of that backstory (the explosion that changed her life) renders that pretty moot. What we get is a story that feels like it's told on the fly, one of those "Oh, wait! I forgot to tell you this part!" jokes where the punchline is going to end up mangled.

I really love the idea of the MINX line, and Rugg's art is gorgeous in places and clean and emphatic throughout, but I'm kinda relieved I can't give you a rating for the full book of The Plain Janes. The first half was Eh, but I hope when I get the chance to read the whole thing all my criticisms will be nullified by a terrific ending. I'm doubtful, however.

THE PROFESSOR’S DAUGHTER TPB: Like Bri and Graeme, I thought this was the hit of the upcoming First Second books I've read. In fact, having read Graeme's review, I don't know what I can tell you about it that he or Brian hasn't. The watercolor work on it is stunning; the story is goofy, but also romantic and touching and sweet. It's told with incredibly charm and brevity and scope, so that what starts off as a quiet afternoon in the park between an animated mummy and a professor's daughter becomes a crime story, love story, family drama and courtroom epic without losing its pitch-perfect note of whimsy. I'm pretty stingy with my Excellent rating, so hopefully the fact this book earns it (from me and Graeme and Brian) will send you in search of it. It's absolutely worth your time and attention.

Believe it or not, I've got another six or so trade reviews up my sleeve but I'll try and save 'em for later so your eyes don't explode. But what do you think of the new content-heaviness? Too much? Not enough? Both? Let us know...

I read the news today, oh boy: Graeme ignores Captain America, reviews books instead.

Aaaand we return and begin again with three reviews of things that aren't even out yet. Because, really, I'm just that damn popular that everyone can't help but show me previews.* GARAGE BAND: Garage Band may be the most beautiful book released this year. Gipi's artwork for it is stunning, all watercolor washes for landscapes and skies and busy, excitable linework for the characters themselves; it's one of those books that might be worth it for the art alone, without every reading any of the words attached. Imagine a less precious Jon J Muth, with a teenage Dave McKean helping out with the figures, and you might have some kind of idea what the book looks like. It's really something. Sadly, the art maybe dominates the book too much - the writing definitely seems to give the art enough room to show off, but at the cost of the plot... Each chapter of the book is too slight, too much of a specific scene or feeling to really allow for any plot development, leaving the end of the book as unsatisfying, because it doesn't feel earned. Despite that, though, I really enjoyed this; maybe I'm just a sucker for the amazing artwork, but it still seemed a high Good/low Very Good to me.

THE HOMELESS CHANNEL: For everyone who - like me - has been watching Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and thinking "Whatever happened to the old Aaron Sorkin? You know, the good one?" then you should probably pick up this book when it comes out (which is, I think, in May). I mentioned it here a couple of weeks ago, I think; it's the first graphic novel from a local creator called Matt Silady, a collection/expansion on a series of minicomics he made of the same name, and I have to admit that it's something that pretty much blew me away. I keep coming back to Sorkin as a touchstone when I talk to people about it (which means that it's probably someone like Mamet, but I'm uncultured, so what can you do?), because there are so many things that Silady does that reminded me of Sportsnight here - Definitely the dialogue is the most obvious, but the interplay of the characters and even the motivation of the characters and the way that's played out through the story reminded me of Sorkin back when he was really trying hard (The latter becomes more obvious as you get to the end of the book, I think, but that may just be me). There's something about the writing that feels both authentic and hyper-real at the same time, the dialogue given a very enjoyable stylization that makes conversations both familiar and the way that you wish people would talk, and a plot that often threatens to fall straight into the overly sincere and preachiness of early Brian Wood but manages to keep its balance all along, right up until the end. In a strange way - and I mean this as a compliment - it doesn't feel like a comic in many respects, because of the way the story is told; the focus and pace feel less selfconscious than most comics that try for this kind of mainstream drama, allowing everything to happen without the author's hand being too evident throughout. It's a fascinating book, to me; something that I finished and immediately started reading again, because I enjoyed reading it so much and felt as if there were things that I had missed and wanted to go back to check. It's not perfect, of course (the artwork at the start is a little too sparse and kind of stalled the reading process for me in a weird way, but that self-corrects throughout the book to the point where, halfway through, it's working really well), but it is Very Good, and, I feel, a pretty damn impressive debut book from one of the more interesting new creators I've seen in a long time.

THE PROFESSOR'S DAUGHTER: Brian has already raved about this, and he's entirely right. Taking the humanity, gentle romance and comedy of Joann Sfar's Vampire Loves (and am I really the only person who thought that book was wonderful? It was every teenage romance I never had, with added monsters) and matching it with the really gorgeous watercolor artwork of Emmanuel Guibert, this is an amazingly wonderful book that manages to tell what should be a goofy story (Boy meets girl, except that boy is a 3000 year old mummy and girl is the daughter of the professor who discovered said mummy. Oh, and she accidentally murders some people and they have to go on the run) with such heart and wit that it becomes something that's sincere and touching at the same time as funny and smart. It's the book to show to everyone who wonders what this whole comic thing is about, because it's just done so well that it's impossible not to be completely captivated by it (As I said a couple of weeks ago, I pushed this on the houseguests we had, neither of whom read comics, and they were both sucked in). Excellent, and the kind of thing that you want everyone in the world to read. I loved this book to pieces and then some.

* - This is untrue. But if anyone at DC is reading this and feeling particularly susceptible today, I'd really like to read The Plain Janes, please.

And on the 8th day came the plague: Hibbs & 3/7 (part 1?)

All that "tired" I've been feeling this week has turned into full-fledged "sick", and my nose is leaking like a sieve. So, in the interest of being able to go to sleep early, just one book today:

CAPTAIN AMERICA #25: I was less of a fan of the telegraphing of the issue (ie: all the "And here's why Steve is just the ginchiest!" stuff, and I thought the "Remember" flashback was pretty awkwardly staged as a story beat, and I also thought that as an "epilogue" to CIVIL WAR, this wasn't the statement *I* would have made (America Dies) in the wake of what they seem to want to be presenting as the through line (Surrending civil liberties is a good idea!), and I wonder how many people in the offices see that meta-textual read. Also, this is the SECOND assassination attempt during CIVIL WAR (remember, that's what turned poor ol' Robbie into PAINMASTER, THE GOTH-MAN AVENGER)

Also, as is probably not to be surprised, I don't much buy that Steve Rogers is "dead dead" -- I can think of at least 2-3 ways out of this story without even straining, and I'm no fancy writer-man, AND that doesn't even count the "cheap" kind of resurrection of Captain Marvel in THE RETURN. Steve will be back, probably within 3 years, more likely by issue #50. I do hope that Bucky doesn't become Cap -- Sharon'd be a much cleverer choice (but then, I think Ralph and Sue should come back as crime-solving ghosts, ala TOPPER, so what do I know?), but, for the most part, I trust Brubaker on this.

See, despite my sort of base level hesitations as noted above, I thought this was a pretty competent and well told story; one that, if a civilian were to read it, might possibly get them interested in comics over the long-haul. There's certainly craft on display here.

I wish Marvel had laid out the score for us a lot better -- certainly when Superman was killed, we knew MONTHS in advance, and it resulted in millions of copies ordered. Even with the supposed generous overprint, I'll be surprised if we end up with even the same number of copies of CAP #25 on the market as CIVIL WAR (ie, nowhere near enough). The REAL problem is, because (I'm guessing) the reorders are going to fill from newstand copies, and because of the way that Diamond and Marvel work with OSDs (over-short-damage), it seems likely that reorders won't arrive for 2 more weeks. That's going to be way too late, I think.

Anyway, all that aside, yeah, good craft, I'll go with a (low) GOOD.

What'd you think?

-B

Watch out for that grassy knoll: Graeme looks at Marvel books from the last two weeks.

Seeing as I have somehow magically picked up the "trying to post every day for a week" baton from Hibbs, it's probably time for me to look at just what happened to that whole Marvel Universe after their little Civil War, wouldn't you agree? But be warned, because I'm potentially spoiling the "controversial" Captain America #25 with all my complaining, in case you somehow haven't already read about the end in your daily newspaper (It's like Spider-Man's unmasking all over again!). So, you know, spoiler warnings and stuff. CAPTAIN AMERICA #25: Wait, that's it? Seriously? That's what everyone's been waiting for? Strangely enough, it doesn't make me think of anything as much as this past Sunday's Battlestar Galactica, from the self-important tone of foreshadowing that runs through the whole thing (Much worse here, especially as it feels as if everything right up until the climax of the book is filler - Far too much "Character X spends a page remembering why Captain America is so important to them" and far too little actual story for my liking) to the exceptionally unconvincing "death" at the end. Again, this book is worse than Battlestar in this respect, in that you don't even see an exploding spaceship, but just cut from Cap in an ambulance to being told that he died; yes, there's a body in the morgue wearing the Cap outfit, but come on, people: This is the least convincing death that comics has seen in a long time, leaving multiple chances to bring Cap back if and whenever Marvel editorial and/or Ed Brubaker feels like. As unfulfilling as this issue is, though, it feels even moreso because we've all been expecting this since Marvel first announced Civil War: Fallen Son Note: Not Actual Title a couple of months ago. Way to rob this Eh book of whatever shock and surprise that it may have otherwise had, Marvel.

(This week's Battlestar Galactica was Okay, by the way. And Starbuck is obviously a Cylon.)

CIVIL WAR: FRONTLINE #11: So we've all done the "Captain America doesn't watch YouTube?" jokes to death now, but let's look at the rest of Sally's speech to Captain America from this Awful book: "Your problem is that you're fighting for an ideal - - It's all you know how to do... The country I love treats its celebrities like royalty and its teachers like dirt. But at least I walk its streets every day. At least I know what it is." So... the hero of this book thinks that fighting for an ideal is bad and that it's okay that your country is fucked up as long as it's familiar. That, more than any amount of MySpace comedy or Daredevil crying because of the carnage he caused, is what stuck with me about this issue. That and the melodramatic desire to ask whatever happened to Marvel's soul. There's something about the... I don't know, the apathy about the whole thing, the lack of desire to question or take responsibility for yourself - the Tony Stark scenes in this, where the reporters confront Stark with proof that he tried to engineer a war with Atlantis to further his own political ends and then applaud him for it and say that they're going to bury the story because what he's doing is for the Greater Good JESUS CHRIST MY MIND IS MELTING was jawdropping in the active abdication of personal responsibility, the way in which the reader is essentially told that those in authority know better than us mere mortals - that really just depresses me more than I could honestly say. In my small little heart, superheroes are about more than upholding the law; they're for fighting for what's right and defending the little man. But in this new Marvel Universe, it's being made explicit that that's not the case anymore: Superheroes exist to toe the legal line, fighting for an ideal is derided for being outdated, and by the way, we all love Big Brother. Yes, it's all going to be undone at some point, but it'll be undone in some vague "Look! It's Mephisto! Let's all team up and be friends again!" way, as opposed to anything approaching an investigation into the morals and politics that Marvel have presented as "right" through the comics and interviews supporting the comics involved in Civil War. For now, though, we're stuck with Fox News Comics Presents: You Don't Know How Hard It Is For The People In Charge, Peasant.

CIVIL WAR: THE INITIATIVE #1: Would the phrase "Less a comic, more a glorified sales pitch" sum everything in this (as Hibbs pointed out, $5 for 24-pages of unique content) book? Probably. It's not the sixteen pages of previews for other books at the back that makes it feel that way, though, nor the one page checklist to make sure that you know each and every book that's telling you all about the "exciting new status quo for the Marvel Universe"; it's the main story itself, proof positive that both Brian Michael Bendis and Warren Ellis aren't above phoning it in long distance for the cash. Actually, calling it a story is being polite, as there's nothing resembling a plot here, just a bunch of money shots with some filler to try and make them hang together well. And, you know, failing (My favorite random scene is probably the Omega Flight reveal, where Sasquatch's speech balloon tail leads off the left of the page, even though he's on the far right of the image. Obviously his secondary mutation is superventriloquism). The writing here is so bad as to seem intentional, because how else do you explain narration like "Not too long ago, Tony made a massive technological breakthrough - - Instead of physically putting on his shining suit of armor, the armor is now part of him. It pours out of his skin. He is an Iron Man"? Not that Warren isn't trying to compete for the clunkiness, giving Penance the following lines: "I want you to hurt me. Pain is what activates my powers. And I'm already in pain. Pain you can't imagine. And I want more." It's as if he's trying to channel Scott Lobdell trying to channel Chris Claremont's fetish fantasies. The sloppiness of the writing - and sloppiness of the production, as the entire Ellis Thunderbolts scene gets repeated in the book, and it doesn't seem to be a printing error due to the pagination - underlines yet again the lack of respect that Marvel have for their audience right now... Clearly, they've realized that their fans are so hopped up on the goofball that was Civil War that they can sell them anything at this point, and they're trying to see how far they can push things. Really, really Awful.

IRON MAN #15: Yes, yes, I get it: Tony Stark is, like, totally dreamy and awesome. He takes over SHIELD and suddenly no-one dies and there's daycare and even Dum-Dum Dugan (who seems to have un-died since his last appearance in Wolverine: Origins) buys into it eventually. Wow, he's really not the same guy who built a murdering cyborg clone of his dead friend and tried to start a war so that he could make a fortune! You've convinced me, Marvel! I can see what is trying to be done in this book - repositioning it as a high-tech international spy thriller while also setting up a "things are good now, but just you wait" status quo - but it's just done with such little subtlety that it becomes ridiculous. But as Crap as the book may be, it has one saving grace: new artist Roberto De La Torre, whose work here is very, very nice indeed.

THE MIGHTY AVENGERS #1: Another one for the "Well, you can see what they're aiming for" pile, I think. What with the giant monsters (complete with comedy sound-effects - Look, it's "FOOM" - making me feel as if Bendis had just read Nextwave that morning and wanted to do something like that himself) and "we're picking the team" scenes, this has a self-consciously retro feel to it that doesn't really gel, mostly because of Bendis' traditional dialogue, which makes every character sound identical and weirdly fake. There are other problems with the writing that suggest that Bendis is becoming a little too enamored with himself - when discussing ideal Avengers line-ups, he lingers on the Spider-Man/Luke Cage pairing of his New Avengers longer than any other, for example - and in need of a stronger editor: the return of thought balloons to Marvel (You have to wonder if Walt Simonson got a similar amount of attention when he started using thought balloons in Hawkgirl last year; I don't think he did, did he?) just doesn't work, because the initial idea isn't as funny as the team apparently thinks it is. That said, it's nice to see a high profile Marvel book not dwell on how horrible everything is now that parts of Connecticut have been blown up, even if it's as uneven as this. Eh.

At this point, I'd have to admit that I'm on the side of not being a massive fan of this post Civil War landscape; even the fun comics seem shrill and oddly joyless. But on the plus side, if Cap really is dead, then at least he doesn't have to worry about people complaining about his online social networking anymore.

Brian Hibbs can't have all the fun: Graeme reviews books.

Not that I want to interrupt Hibbs' pretty stunning run of daily posting or anything, but I feel as if I'm due some reviews on here myself. Not that I've read any new comics in the last couple of weeks, mind you, so have a few trade reviews instead while I try and get my head around the fact that Brian and I were written up on Wired (Hello, Annalee). DEATH NOTE VOLUME 1: There's a trick to reading a lot of dramatic manga, just as there is a trick to reading almost every superhero comic; a language to learn, so that the sudden exclamations act almost as (very) short theatrical monologues to the audience instead of part of the story itself, telling everyone the emotional state at that particular instant. I'm not sure that it's something I've completely mastered yet - there were parts of this that still seemed very goofy, to be honest - but I could suspend my inner critic enough to dig the start of this mass-murdering spree story and want to see what happens next. The story shouldn't work, of course; as soon as the mysterious law enforcement officer who keeps his identity hidden from everyone appears, logic starts jumping out the window, but what saves it is the idea that both he and Light, who possesses the Death Note and can kill anyone he wants any way he wants as long as he knows their name, both think that they're saving the world in almost the same way - It's perverse enough to keep me hanging on to see if they're going to end up teaming up later on... For now, though: Very Good.

ESSENTIAL FANTASTIC FOUR VOLUMES 1 - 5: What's really surprising about reading the complete Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run on Fantastic Four isn't how jaw-droppingly awesome it is all the way through, but how long it takes before everything comes together - It isn't until, weirdly enough, the addition of Joe Sinnott as inker at the start of the third collection (#44, for those of you paying attention) that everything gels; it's not just the art (which, once Sinnott comes along, magically becomes both the stereotype "Marvel" look and the classic Kirby look at once), but the stories that suddenly snap into place. The same issue that Sinnott comes aboard also introduces the Inhumans, Kirby's first attempt at a Magical Family that would later become the New Gods, the Eternals and probably countless other Krazy Kirby Koncepts in his head, and then BLAM! the characters go from fighting the bad guy of the month to jumping through infinity and feeling every single emotion in the world to an almost operatic level all the time. Which isn't to say that it's not good for the first 43 issues, because it is, but it's good in the same underwhelming way that the Steve Ditko issues of Spider-Man are to me; classic and groundbreaking, sure, but in a strangely ugly disjointed manner that reads... kind of "off" (And this is where I get jumped on by purists. Sorry). Classic Marvel to me is art that's a mix of dynamic layout and lush linework, and stories that have grand concepts that the script tries to have both ways, trying to convince you of its greatness and immensity while at the same time having some character offer a variation of "Can't ya just speak English for once, stretcho?" as a punchline for the expositionary monologue as if winking at the reader and implying the Kirby line "Don't ask! Just buy it!" Once Sinnott comes on board and smoothes out the art, and the stories seem to, well, become much more Kirby-esque, then it becomes the zenith of my definition of Classic Marvel - There's such energy and potential in the stories, and such movement in the characters that you can understand, finally, why they could get away with calling it The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. Sure, Kirby clearly stopped giving his all by the time that you reach the fifth collection, but even mid-level Kirby at that point was still staggering. In terms of historical importance, all five volumes are a must read - they redefined what comics could be as a medium! - but in terms of just old fashioned good reads, Volumes 3 and 4 are Excellent, Volume 5 Very Good, and the first two volumes still a strong Good.

LOST AT SEA: I'm not sure what I expected from Bryan Lee O'Malley's first book, and now that I've read it, I'm not sure what I got, either. But there's something fitting about that, because this seems like a book about uncertainty and insecurity (and as such, the emotional opposite of Scott Pilgrim, where Scott is too dumb to think about such matters for the most part)... I'm not sure if there's even a story here as much as a journey for O'Malley himself when he was creating the book, but I enjoyed it nonetheless; he hits some emotional points that feel true, and that makes all the difference on this kind of angst book, you know? A tenuous high Good.

Coming up later this week: More trade reviews, including my favorite two books of the year so far.

And this makes 7 of 7.

I'm extremely frickin' bushed today -- I woke up feeling tired, and never got back on track. ANd we get our comics on Tuesdays, so I'm doubly tired from messing with all of those massive massive piles of double-sized funny books. And so, I don't really feel like tackling the rest of last week's comics -- I've already started reading this week's!!

But.... some reviews, I guess. FirstSecond has been kind enough (about, uh, 3 weeks ago) to send me advance copies of thier next batch of books, so let's justify thier expense, shall we?

GARAGE BAND: Really fabulous looking book, and absolutely engaging as I was reading it. Then I hit the last page, and it just kind of stopped with no real sense of conclusion. I don't know if there's meant to be a second volume or something, but I was ultimately disapointed with this as a "read". Gipi's art is really kick-ass, however, and it's absolutely worth a look when it comes into your LCS. Up until the last page, an easy GOOD. But, here six hours later, now that I've digested it, the sudden stop makes me feel like just an EH.

TINY TYRANT: I didn't bother to read SARDINE IN OUTER SPACE v3, because I didn't much care for v1 & v2, but this one's a solid book that's a lot of fun for both kids AND adults. The art is nice, kind of looking a bit like "Fairly Odd Parents", but with much more detail and texture, and there's some wonderful subtext going on in most pages. I've only read about 1/3 of this, but since it's just non-continuing vignettes (of a child king, and the adults that cater to him), there's no sense that it has to "end" well or not. Anyway, really terrific, and I thought it was VERY GOOD.

THE PROFESSOR'S DAUGHTER: the real gem of the batch. A reborn Mummy, and the daughter of the Professor (duh) who found him, during Victorian England. It's funny, strange, romantic, and more than anything else, human. Truly EXCELLENT material, and the one you really NEED to track down once it ships.

Anyway, that's what I got for you. Time to put Ben to bed, then lay down with this headache and try to read some post-CIVIL WAR comics (wait, THAT won't help, will it?!?!?)

Oh, and THANK YOU for the VERY thoughtful comments on the digital comics thread -- I'm still trying to digest them all, but I was truly impressed by the care and thought that everyone put into thier comments. Keep it up!

-B

Over, Under and Through: Jeff's Reviews of the 2/28 Books.

Wow, Wondercon. Wiped me out, man. And I didn't even go! Well, okay. I did go, but like for maybe two hours? On Sunday? And then I just had to leave: thanks to the awesomeness that is Drunken Master, I spent fifty bucks over my budget, found myself overwhelmed by all the other books and this sudden creeping--what? antipathy? shyness? exhaustion?--and cut out. If there was an olympic sport for lameness (as opposed to just most olympic sports being lame), I would've certainly been made the U.S.'s number one draft pick.

But, yeah, Drunken Master is awesome: they're like the PETA for fans of asian films as they refuse to carry bootlegs. So sometimes you have to have an all-region DVD player (or have hacked your DVD player to play all regions) but you can rest in peace knowing that the dudes who busted their hump making an awesome flick like The Host (which I highly recommend you catch when it comes to theaters next month) get paid. Plus, the guys there know their shit, so when you need help finding that kinda obscure Wong Jing flick, they generally know what you're talking about. I've nearly made dudes in Chinatown burst into tears trying to understand that, no, I don't want God of Gamblers, I want that spoof of God of Gamblers. You know? The one with the kid? Thanks to DM, I finally have a copy of Saint of Gamblers on DVD... and Osaka Wrestling Restaurant...and Welcome to Dongmakgol...and this digitally remastered copy of John Woo's Bullet In The Head...and more than a few others. It's awesome, but now I think I'm gonna have to rob a 7-11 to make it 'til payday.

So there you have it--the world's most retarded Wondercon report: they have non-bootleg DVDs there and I bought some. The End.

As for the week's books:

52 WEEK #43: Well, fuck. I really liked Sobek, so I wasn't thrilled by those last two pages (and you know I've been on the wah-wah wagon the last couple months about the casual use of explicit violence in several DC books, so I won't bore you with that) but I did think they were effective. Also, it probably counts for a lot that these were two characters created for this story and to serve the storyteller's ends (as opposed to, say, if the scene had happened between Capatain Marvel, Jr. and Mr. Tawny). So Good work for the most part, even if though it left me kinda pissed.

ACTION COMICS #846: If this was shipping on time, I'd be more-or-less stoked about it. I'm surprised that a book this late can still feel so slapdash (if nobody ages in the Phantom Zone, as Jor-El states, how do you explain the kid?) but it looks pretty and I appreciated the extra thought Kubert put into finding new angles from which to show someone being punched through a building. So at the least, it's on the high ranges of OK. Really shows how you late shipping can sap momentum from an extended stoyline, though.

ACTION PHILOSOPHERS #8: Probably their densest issue yet, I think, as I could feel the smoke flowing out my ears from the Hegel/Schopenhauer story alone. But I even made it through that (if just to read the rest of the jokes), which is a testament to the skill and humor with which Van Lente and Dunlavey build their narratives. It's not what I would give to someone as their first issue, but the exceptionally well-crafted "Immanuel Kant: Epistemological Attorney" story makes this issue a Very Good read all by itself: the rest is just gravy.

BLUE BEETLE #12: The great thing about Hibbs doing more reviews is I can now pick on him mercilessly again. Like, when saying good things about this book, he says it's his favorite "Not-Superstar" book from DC...like that's supposed to make a lick of sense to the rest of us. (Does he mean, "Not-Superstar" creators? Or "Not-Superstar" characters? I mean, I think he means the latter, but he's also a guy who's got a lovely portrait of Ma Hinkel hanging on his walls, you know?) For me, the only problem about this issue is that the art is little more than functional: yeah, it's effective, but there's a weird mix of factors (maybe there's too much happening for the layouts to really breathe? Maybe the Beetle's overly detailed outfit doesn't jibe with the low-key storytelling tact?) that keeps this issue from being more than a Good comic. If you're reading this book like I am, you'll dig it. If not, this wouldn't be the issue I'd try to change your mind with.

CITY OF OTHERS #1: I've never been that impressed with Steve Niles' work, as I think I've mentioned here before, so I was surprised I liked this. That Berni Wrightson art helped a great deal, particularly with José Villarrubia doing an amazing job on the color (that panel where the protagonist leaps into the snow with the rest of The Others knocked me on my ass), but there was something that kind of caught me in the narrative voice and the, I dunno, dream-like nature of the narrative. It'll probably all fall apart by issue #2 as I imagine the creators would like you to believe this story is actually happening, and isn't just a deliberately unreal story that later reveals itself to be an imagined narrative (a la The Singing Detective, say). But hey, it could happen, and just the fact that I believe that's a narrative possibility says worlds about how much stronger a piece of work this is compared to Niles' usual work. I found this highly OK, and hope it somehow manages to stay that way.

CIVIL WAR FRONT LINE #11: Completes the Tony-Stark-as-Ozymandias comparison as Ben Ulrich and Wassername show up and proceed to reveal Tony as the guy with the master plan who saves the world (and loses, if not his soul, then his ability to share the depths of his soul's sacrifice). The problem is, these two devoted passionate reporters--who've cast aside previous job security to strike out on their own--then go, "Of course, we couldn't tell anyone that because it'd really screw everything so don't worry, we won't! See ya!!" To bring the Watchmen comparison back in, it'd be like if there was an extra two pages at the end of Watchmen, where the guys from The New Frontiersman read Rorshach's journal and say, "Wow! For the good of the world, we can never tell anyone!"

In short: no, I don't think so. Sub-Eh.

CONNOR HAWKE DRAGONS BLOOD #4: Considering I just started reading last issue, yeah, OK. I have no idea why so many Green Arrow narratives of the last five or so years have to have a mystical component, but for what it is, it's pretty decent.

CROSSING MIDNIGHT #4: After an exceptionally slow start (I read issue #1 and maybe #2?), this book finally kicks into high gear, with exceptionally lovely art and the high concept (imagine Spirited Away adapted by the writer of Hellblazer, basically) made manifest: on Friday, I not only sold more copies of this issue than all the other issues on all the other Fridays combined, but I had people asking for back issues which had all disappeared. I hope it's not too little, too late, because I read this issue and felt like "Oh, I get it now. That's pretty cool." Good, and worth looking for--I'll be curious to see what where it goes from here.

DAREDEVIL #94: I think I see what Brubaker was going for here--he was trying to show how Milla and Matt have one of those co-dependent relationships where one member realizes that the whole thing is just going to go through the same thing but worse, time and again, and yet can't break away. More than that, I think he was trying to have us feel what it's like for Milla, with the very extensive recapping giving us a similar feeling of watching what we already know get played out again and again. (It's probably also a way to craft a new jumping-on point with readers.) Unfortunately, it felt less like that and more like an overextended recap story that went nowhere. A cool idea, but very Eh execution.

DOCTOR STRANGE OATH #5: A very satisfying wrap-up to a very strong miniseries, and with Vaughan taking his tongue out of his cheek long enough to give us some very cool little character moments and refine his vision on how this character can still be interesting. Very Good stuff, and should make a satisfying little trade.

ETERNALS #7: Maybe I suffered from too-high expectations on this one, because I read Hibbs' review and picked this up not long after I got in the store on Friday. But far from rescuing the mini, I thought this was another wet fart of an issue with only the merest flashes of Gaiman cleverness(Gaiman is still one of the few guys that can make a non-violent superhero seem not just sensible, but actually cool) rescuing this from total drudgery. I don't know. I guess I just feel if I pay out almost thirty bucks for your miniseries, I deserve a bigger finish than "Is it true that I'll save the world but suffer as no one ever has?" "Beats me. Race you to Sao Paulo! Yeehaw!" Eh.

FLASH THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE #9: Obviously benefits from comparison to the ugsome issues before it, but I like how Guggenheim doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water, and takes some of the concepts from the original arc (Bart as a telecommuter to his own life; a romantic life that, as befits a speedster, moves too fast). I didn't love it (in fact, I'm now hard-pressed to remember what happened in the superhero parts of it) but I can honestly say I want to pick up next issue and see how things develop. Hard to gauge, but certainly no worse than OK.

GREEN LANTERN #17: Again, I'm with Hibbs: that opening sequence with Batman was really, really cool. I'm going with a high OK because the rest of it, while competent, didn't really fry my burger. It was certainly a better issue than the previous issue led me to expect, though.

IRON MAN #15: Making Iron Man the director of Shield has a certain logic to it because I can't think of two concepts in the Marvel Universe more broken than (a) Iron Man, and (b) Shield. Still, I think Knaupf does OK work with the hand he's dealt, by playing up the cororate mindset (or at least a near-parody of the Silicon Valley version of it) against the military mindset (as personified by a guy who's been wearing a non-regulation bowler for over six decades). I'll check out next issue, but even all the good will and high concept smarts in the world may not be enough to make me excited about two played out one-note concepts joined together.

JLA CLASSIFIED #35: I liked the last few issues, why'd this one feel like a big suck-out? Somehow this issue took all the nuanced momentum and removed it, making it feel like just one more issue in a story that should've been three issues shorter. Awful.

KILLER #3: An anticlimactic end throws off an otherwise strong issue, but that amazing sliced-up bit of action on page 21 trumps any number of bad chapter breaks. Very Good stuff, and well worth you seeking out if you like gorgeously illustrated crime stories.

SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #27: Despite me not being a big fan of big cosmic wars (which always seem to happen in this title every ten issues or so), I thought Waid and Kitson gave us an enjoyable, highly Good issue. But even better was the passionate, edifying and touching tribute to Dave Cockrum which really laid out in no uncertain terms Cockrum's tremendous contributions to the LSH. I thought that was exceptionally classy and noteworthy.

TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #4: Wasn't until I re-read it that I realized Beland more or less put two self-contained stories side-by-side (I re-read it because I couldn't remember the first part to save my life) which is a pretty neat trick--although it might've been better if the two stories flowed into each other a bit better, it probably reads far better than if Beland had devoted an issue to each. A highly Good read.

WALKING DEAD #35: I agree with Hibbs again on this one--a very strong issue, and I also hope the end is a fake cliffhanger. Although the art is awesome as always, I really appreciated the shorthand Adlard is using here--that little set of panels on the top tier of page 9 reads as incredibly thrilling and violent even though, when you really look at it, it's barely more than abstraction. Adlard's managed to find that sweet spot where he barely has to put any detail on most of the zombies and the reader fleshes them out with their own fears and details. A pretty neat (and time-saving) trick, that. Very Good.

WOLVERINE #51: Hibbs giving this an AWFUL but encouraging those of you who buy this sort of thing for the art to do so seems baby-splittingly wise, and yet I can't follow suit--not only is Bianchi wasted on this story, but he's kinda wasted drawing Wolverine and Sabretooth, generally. Maybe I'm wrong and Bianchi thinks it's great he's getting paid hundreds of dollars a page to draw two hairy rednecks with bad haircuts fuck each other up, but I think it's kind of a waste. Sub-Awful, unless you've been looking for some material to add to your hot S&M bears-with-mullets slashfic story in which case, hey, this is the book for you.

X-FACTOR #16: An exceptionally strong issue, and the one I would use if I had to pitch a Madrox TV pilot--David really takes a swing for the existential fences here, and does it without going for the glib. Unfortunately, the art was flat and I couldn't care less about the B-story, so it just gets a plain ol' Good. But it's worth hunting up if you're not reading the title already.

PICK OF THE WEEK: I don't know, really. Action Philosophers? Walking Dead? Killer? Last issue of Dr. Strange? Love is in the air, baby!

PICK OF THE WEAK: You'd think I'd go with Wolverine, right? But, no. JLA Classified made me feel like a sucker, retroactively, and I can't imagine the last two issues will redeem that.

TRADE PICK: I want to do an all-trades post, hopefully this week, so I'll go into more detail later, but, yeah, BECK MONGOLIAN CHOP SQUAD VOL 7 was great.

Et tu?

Hibbs on 2/28 (part 4!!!)

Getting started late, so I guess this will post as "sunday", but it's still Saturday night in my mind. Um, boring day, but a gucky one anyway. I'm naturally a night owl, so I like to sleep like a bear for a bit alone when Tzipora (circa 5 am) and Benjamin (circa 7:30 am) get out of bed. I requested a late sleep in, but by 9 am Ben had the Daddy-jones, and wanted to come back into bed with me and snuggle up. Only problem, he refuses to wear pants or slippers around the house, so he's a little block of ice. Right, guess I'm awake.

Tzipora's not feeling well, so my turn to take Ben to the park. Which is great, because its a gloriously sunny day in San Francisco. Only he hasn't, I don't, maybe quite recovered from yesterday (where he didn't get his nap), or maybe it's the lunar eclipse, I don't know (he's definitely more hectic during the full moon, and less in the fingernail), but he's in full Toddler-Cranky-Mode (also known as "the terrible twos", except, really, they're worse at three)

He's chasing this one kid around the park, and fine, but the kid is a little younger -- 6 months, developmentally or so (dunno his chronological age), so I'm really stressing "Protect the Smaller" to Ben, but Ben is getting to rough, and I have to call him out a couple of times. Finally, he tries to snatch a sandtoy out of the kids hands, despite me yelling "whoa, Blondie! Take it down a notch!", and the kid, appropriately, snatches it back. Ben gets a little notch on his skin (can't even call it a cut), and moans bloody murder about it off and on for the next 90 minutes.

Then he wants to climb the twirly slide, which is generally cool, but not when littler kids want to slide down. Then you have to get out of the way, and let them go through. But Benny starts to do the flip out thing, "No, I want them to slam into me!" and whatever, and he starts to freak out about not being able to be on the slide, and I have to pick him up and physically remove him from the park.

I love this age, really I do, but I also bloody hate it to pieces on days like this, with the random freak-out. Man, nothing kills your mood for a day faster.

Finally get him down to a nap (one of those ugly crying-down sleeps -- compounded by him losing his favorite sleep aids, these two silk shirts of Tzipora's which he calls (and rightly so) "Purple & Black") We'll find out 6 hours later that he dropped them in one of his toy chests. HUrray!

Then in to work and doing the weekly inventory. I'm a grumpy-pants as I do it, and Rob probably thinks I'm an ass.

Bleh. Hardly ready any comics in the last 24, here's what I got:

ANNIHILATION HERALDS OF GALACTUS: Super-Skrull, Terrax, Stardust (? How many times has this character appeared before?) -- all decidedly 3rd rate characters, and much better suited as pure adversaries, rather than semi-heroic figures. But, regardless of that, I still basically enjoyed this issue just fine. Its nothing I'd spend my own money on as a reader, but I didn't feel like my time had been wasted, either, whihc automatically qualifies it for a OK.

BLUE BEETLE #12: This really is a charming little book, isn't it? Maybe it's even my favorite "Not-Superstar" book from DC these days. Fairly attractive protagonists, interesting circumstances, a touch of mystery, some revelations, enough action, this book has everything you can want from a b-list comic book, really. But that's it, its good, not great, and with the state of comics being what they are, its often hard to fit a title like this in your budget. I like it fine, and it's a low GOOD.

FALLEN ANGEL #13: I miss the painted look a bit, but this is fine solid character-driven work, and I think its worth an easy GOOD.

HERO SQUARED #5: Despite the kinda-false pathos of "oh god I killed a some people!", what bugs me is that there's so much plate spinning going on here, so much so that we're now going to be 9 issues in (adding the mini series) to address what I'd argue to be the central question: what did the big guy do to make Stephie become calig-whatever. This'd be much more acceptable in a book that came out, say, monthly. But not one on the laissez-faire plan. Or that costs $4. So while I basically like it, circumstances dictate that I say EH.

JOHN WOOS SEVEN BROTHERS #5: *snap snap* its over. Too much Deux, but plenty pretty to look at. PLenty OK.

TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #4: Its warm, its funny, I like it fine, a very high OK.

Right, that's it for today. Tomorrow I'm back to the con for the panel at 11:30. Show up! Really!

What'd you think?

(and Jeff? Graeme? Feel free to jump in any time!!)

-B

Hibbs on 2/28 (part 3!!)

Just back from WonderCon -- Fridays are generally slow there, so its definitely the right day to go. I expect Saturday to be Madness. MADNESS, I say! WC moved yet again -- this time to Moscone South, or "The Big Moscone", which made it seem even more slow, but, if I had to guess, attendance was probably up a little bit, just spread out over a bigger area.

Pro attendance seemed kind of low to me, but this may be a function of Convention Season Death March, with Florida 2 weeks ago, NY last week, and LA in 2 weeks from now -- how can people do THAT MANY shows in a row?

Ben came with me for a couple hours in the morning -- he's so adorable out in public; and the purchase I allowed him, after doing the whole show floor to make sure what he got what was he REALLY wanted, was a mummy pen and a sarcophagus pencil case. He loved showing that off to every adult we spoke to, and virtually every adult was pretty stunned to see such a little man know that it was called a "sarcophagus", and what Hieroglyphics were. Kid has himself an amazing vocabulary.

Got 2 new JSA pieces for the gallery from Matt Wagner -- Hourman and Mr. Terrific. They are awesome, and I will punch you if you don't think so. With the speed that I move to get things framed, it will probably be 3-4 months before they make it on CE's walls, so if you're at the store, ask and I shall show. We're just down to 4 pieces left... Atom, Spectre, and (Golden age) Superman and Batman. Maybe we'll even be finished by 2010!

Um, didn't read a lot of comics yesterday (as you'll see below) -- decided to get caught up on TV, and the week's worth of DAILY SHOWs backed up, etc. I desperately want to stop watching LOST because it keeps on spinning and spinning and spinning its wheels (LAST week, I *literally* screamed at the TV to HAVE SOMETHING [ANYTHING!!] HAPPEN!!!! and STOP INTRODUCING NEW FUCKING 'OTHERS', WE DON'T CARE YOU FUCKS!). The only reason I keep watching is because I feel like I invested some sixty hours of my life at this point, and I'd like that to fucking pay off, thankyouverymuch. THis is almost certainly a fool's errand at this point.

Didn't much care for THE BLACK DONNELEYS, but I'll give it one more episode to see if it's going anywhere.

Dude, have you seen the "Back To The Future" commercial for DirecTV with Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown? It bothers me. Deeply. Not just because I'd rather if every beloved movie wasn't whored out to shill for something. And not just because I kinda assumed Christopher Lloyd was the kind of savvy actor who had such a string of visible memorable roles that I kind of figured he was set for life at this point, and didn't need to do commercials. But really because it violates the very logic of the thing that it's trying to use to shill. Marty, after the rescue at the clock tower in the 1950s, zooms, well, back to the future, and Doc Brown comes running up and say "Great Scott! I forgot to tell Marty about DirecTV!". Yeah, except this is 1950s Doc Brown, who hasn't time travelled, and won't for another 30 years, and HE DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT ANY SUCH THING. Further, even if he DID tell Marty, what the fuck could Marty DO with that info? Marty is going back to the 1980s -- he's at least 10 years from even the possibility of ubiquitous wide-spread satellite TV. Fuck, sell out if you HAVE to, but at least have the shit make sense, wouldja?

Whaaaaaat? You want comics? Well, between last night and now I've only read three:

CITY OF OTHERS #1: I'm torn. It's really fucking pretty. Like "man, that's god-damn amazingly wonderful looking!"; and it has one of the strongest voices Steve Niles has ever delivered yet with a cold, disassociated killer. But, it's all in the service of what is pretty sub-NIGHT GALLERY story. First off, the killer is stupendously, no... RIDICulously! competent. TORE me out of the story. Second, what the fuck was up with that train? Third, isn't that pretty directly ripped off from "Midnight Meat Train" in Clive Barker's BOOKS OF BLOOD? Fourth, didn't Niles either directly adapt, or at least edit the adaptation to comics of "Midnight Meat Train"? (I may be wrong on that score, but am too lazy to google it) Fifth, (paraphrasing) that last line of "And that's how I knew it was zombies.... and vampires!" was truly truly cringe-inducing. Sixth, the fawning editorial page where she declares this, in effect, the second coming of horror comics, and how awesomely amazingly awesome it was, was just salt in the wounds. I dig she has a she-woody for Wrightson -- and hell, his art is really really damn fine handled this way -- but keep it in your pants. An editor should never come on the page and tell you how great something you just read was. (JOe and Dan could learn that lesson, too) It's... well, it is simply unseemly. How do you balance an AWFUL (the story) with a GOOD (the lovely lovely art, and the specific scripting)? I'll go with EH.

WOLVERINE #51: Oh cripes. Second verse, same as above. BEAUTIFUL looking little thing. HORRIFIC thing to read, filled with jibber jabber and blah blah blah and nonsensical nonsense about pretty much nothing. Marvel is offering a color-free version of the book (still $3, though! HAHAHAHAH!)... what about offering a words-free version? If it was just Bianchi drawing 22 pages of whatever-the-fuck... well, I wouldn't have "enjoyed it", but I'd be a lot closer to "Cool!", but this is dragged down by the script. Sorry, we average out to AWFUL in this case (though, again, I FULLY SUPPORT those of you buying it for the art)

X-FACTOR #16: Art was much less likeable this go round (and likely drops it a full "grade"), but this was a really strong episode of Madrox Finds Himself. Didn't really care about the Monet/Siryn thread too much, though. Monet is too one-note to continue to be entertaining. With the possible (and not always) exception of ASTONISHING, THIS is the best X-book being published each month. GOOD.

I'm sort of undecided about this "daily" experiment. I'm probably writing more than I would, and it's not "Oh, God, block out 3 hours..." chore that writing a big one entails, but more manageable 30-60 chunks, but I also know I really can't maintain this over the longer haul. Let me know if you like it like this, or if you prefer the longer single-entry-for-a-week entries...

I'll be back tomorrow with more (assuming I get to read any more)

As always.... what did YOU think?

-B

Hibbs on 2/28 (part 2!)

Lost a couple of hours today because some DC staffers popped in the store before WOnderCon, but I should be able to get this done before midnight, and keep my schedule... Speaking of WonderCon, I've got a panel on SUNDAY:

11:30-12:30 Comic Retailer Roundtable— Join moderator Dan Shahin (Hijinx Comics) and fellow comic retailers Joe Ferrara (Atlantis Fantasyworld), Joe Field (Flying Colors), Brian Hibbs (Comix Experience) and Ryan Higgins (Comics Conspiracy), for an up to the minute look into the realities of modern comic book retailing. Special focus will be placed on recent industry changes and how retailers are adapting and planning for the future. Room 228

Do feel free to come and yell things at us...

ACTION COMICS #846: Horrifically crippled from the scheduling problems (We had, what? 50 years where ACTION shipped 12x a year or better?), I've lost some of the thread here, and a significant part of my interest. Still, despite feeling lost in several places, this was an OK enough issue. I'm less comfortable with some of the grafting of SUPERMAN-THE-MOVIE continuity in here, but probably more from seeming to contradict the SUPERMAN II continuity more than anything else. But, yeah, highly OK

BLACK PANTHER #25: A week later, this seems pretty "yeah, and...?" to me. I may have enjoyed this more last week, WITH CW #7. EH.

DAREDEVIL #94: Great cover. Lotsa recap on the insides. I felt like there were really only 2-3 pages of "new" content in here. So, gonna go with EH.

ETERNALS #7: If you asked me what a Neil Gaiman-written ETERNALS comic would be like, this issue would be very very close to that answer. That is to say that I kinda thought this single-handedly "rescued" the whole mini, and gave them at least an adequate new purpose in the Marvel U, if anyone follows up on it. I'll go with a GOOD.

GREEN LANTERN #17: That one sequence with Batman and the Sinestro ring makes the whole thing worth it to me. It could have been followed by 19 more pages of Hal picking his nose and saying "Dur!" to the camera, and I still'd probably have liked this. Well, maybe not, but still: great moment. GOOD.

JLA CLASSIFIED #35: Yeah.... don't care. AWFUL.

RUNAWAYS #24: BKV's run ends nicely. This has been a fun little book, and I hope that Whedon (and who ever is post-WHedon) can keep it up. GOOD.

SUPERGIRL AND LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #27: Too many characters, too much chicken-with-head-cut-off running around. It's not BAD, but too busy to be any fun. EH.

And... believe it or not, that's everything I've read so far now.

OK, off to pay bills (WHERE THE HELL DID FEBRUARY GO?!?!) and get some more pre-WC stuff done... More (maybe, probably) tomorrow...

What did you think?

-B

Hibbs on 2/28 (part 1)

Oddly (not really), now that I have this week's comics, I don't want to talk about last week any longer. On the other hand, I promised.

So... I'm going to start writing about this week's books, at least what I've read so far. My intention, this week, will be to write daily posts, each covering 4-5 things, then by the end of the week I'll have it pretty much all done. One possible road-block: WonderCon is this weekend, so I might slip on Friday, but otherwise, let's see if I can handle 7 days of blogging this time out.

52 Week 43: The last couple of issues have had a density that I was bemoaning early on -- here we have 3 (or maybe 4, depending on what the Four Horsemen things works out to) threads working things out, and now we feel like we have some real momentum. Oddly, I think, the cover featured bit is maybe the slightest of them (and was also the one I wanted to read the most), but it's under-cut by the apparent loss of a caption on page 15 which makes the next scene confusing. Plus, now we know who "hunger" is (though I'm kind of unclear as to what the motivations to hang around in plain sight all of this time were), because it ends in a gore-soaked explosion. That was probably 2 panels too long, really. Finally, we end with Dan Didio telling us to buy COUNTDOWN in a fairly unconvincing way, and I'm going to be REALLY interested in how the audience reacts. Quick straw polling indicates that, in advance, very few current readers of 52 are looking forward to another year, though, obviously, the quality and content of the printed work will ultimately be what matters. Anyway, I thought this issue reasonably GOOD.

FIRESTORM #33: I think this is McDuffie's first issue? (*looks*) Yeah, it is. Weird start for a book -- clearly starting a new story, but I, as a reader feel like I'm right in the middle of something else. This isn't a smooth transition, especially because its more about the New Gods than anything else (and I find them pretty dull in most cases). Also, we're back to a quick regression for Prof Stein where, although he's the McGuffin for the plot, he is pure sideline (to the point of "This better be important, I was i the middle of a lecture" -- what, he's been fired, then, yes?). The tricky thing about a character like Firestorm is to balance the different parts of the matrix. A sloppy start, and it felt very "by the numbers" to me, so I'll say EH

CIVIL WAR FRONTLINE #11: Wow, I'm amazingly disappointed. After all of the build up to a "shocking secret" and a "traitor", the answer is obvious and telegraphed, and then absolutely dismissed and swept under the rug. Am I really to believe that 2 passionate reporters, after laying out a whole line of extremely criminal charges, and who (at least Ben) have close ties to two characters nearly eviscerated by the actions they describe, are just going to walk away from the story with a smile and a wink? Muh? I kinda liked the Cap half of the story, though I have to give the closing notes an AWFUL

IRON MAN #15: So begins "Director of S.H.I.E.L.D", which I was hoping would have a lot of scenes of Tony doing paperwork. Oh well! It's also probably worth noting that I'm less than thrilled they forced 2 covers on this issue, but only branded one of them as part of "The Initiative". Not really sure what to say here otherwise -- obviously, I'm as concerned about the overall direction of the book and character because handing that much power to one person ain't ever a good idea. And I found the introduction of the Sal character into S.H.I.E.L.D. infrastructure to be... weird. But there's some potential for interesting stories (particularly in "civilian-izing" a military organization), and the actual execution of the comic was highly OK. I definitely don't see this as having much of a chance, ala Mark Millar's predictions, of this attracting a huge new long-term audience to the character, or "breaking 100k". So, yeah, highly OK.

FLASH #9: Marc Guggenheim comes in to try and save a sinking ship, and he does a yeoman's job with it, but we're still quite a distance from there being an actual direction here, or a reason for it to be Bart in the red, really. There are a couple of fine enough scenes here, I liked the humor of the copyright-infringing villain, and I thought the "break up" (?) (though probably a good idea -- whatshername isn't a very memorable character) flowed pretty well, but, I don't know, the whole thing felt kind of weightless to me. I was (as above) pretty disappointed with the New Gods thing, and especially with the Deux Ex Machina way they resolved it, but the real problem is I still don't really care for or about Bart in the red. Still, its at least OK.

WALKING DEAD #35: Largely a return to form for this reader. But I really hope that the Martinez thing at the end of the issue is a fake cliffhanger ("What, what? I was just using the bathroom!") because I think its way too soon to go back to Woodbury. To a certain extent, it's like "The Others" in LOST -- I think that show jumped the rails when they introduced and POVed that set of characters. Clearly the "Woodbury" thread is going to have to be dealt with, but I hope it doesn't become the focus of the title. Also: note on the lettercol -- "On the cusp of being on schedule" is a pretty loose definition when you're shipping an OCT06 book (due in December 2006) in the very last week of February 2007. You'll be "on the cusp", Robert, if you shipped that book in the first week of Jan. Anyway, this issue was GOOD.

OK, that's it for now. See you tomorrow (night) with more! What did YOU think?

-B

How I Won The War (And Lost The Universe): Jeff's Reviews of 2/21 Books

I'm being so damned slow Graeme's already posted his other reviews since I started this entry, so lemme just dive in (although if everything works out, you should see Dick Hates Your Blog over there in our blogroll): 52 WEEK #42: For a storyline I didn't care about, I thought this was a Good issue with some strong art by Darick Robertson--it's good to see Ralph look like an ectomorph again, if nothing else. I'll leave it to the rest of you who actually cared about Ralph's storyline to make the call on whether it actually worked or not, but I thought it was worth picking up on art and readability alone.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #538: Both Hibbs and Graeme thought I was higher than a kite for liking this, but I thought Straczynski did a pretty good job milking all of his non-reveals: they felt fun, and knowingly funny, and did a better job with the self-commentary (for me, it was worth the anachronism to have JJJ solemnly ponder his possible spoilerific headlines, although I wonder if JMS feels more like that lonely dude in the hotel room waiting for the authority to take his shot) than Millar's stuff in Civil War #7. Of course, next issue may well make me regret saying anything nice at all, but this was OK to me. Please be warned that you may very vehemently disagree.

BIRDS OF PREY #103: I would've preferred a much smoother work-up to the new Spy-Smasher's connection to Oracle--it suffered a bit from Hush-itis, where the dramatic situation hinges too heavily on how much you can buy into a suddenly prominent (but previously unmentioned) character from the protagonist's backstory (arguably a little harder to excuse here since Simone's been on the book for a while)--and I just didn't buy the last page (of course, I've never bought that Barbara would hide her secret identity from her father so I'm at a disadvantage going in). So it's I guess the usual BOP-itis for me again, where there's enough interesting stuff going on and talented people at work that I pick the book up, but somehow not enough that I actually enjoy myself. Eh.

BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1: I was expecting this Waid & Perez book to feel stuffy and self-important, but damned if this didn't read just like a Haney/Aparo issue of Brave & The Bold, except done by Waid and Perez--which means enjoyable amounts of OCDish attention to tiny details even while the overall storytelling gets played fast & loose. (At one point during a fight, Batman says he's out of weapons while he's in the Batcave. Wha-huh?) But you've got Batman, Green Lantern, space aliens, old supervillains, Bruce Wayne in a tux and Hal Jordan in a flight jacket, with Las Vegas thrown in to boot. It was a Very Good chunk of superhero fun, and I enjoyed it.

CIVIL WAR #7: Listening to Hibbs make all his points in-store yesterday (I didn't read his or Graeme's review because I hadn't yet read the book) was pretty exciting, and I could almost imagine his ideas working--Marvel's universe gets its shit together, most of the supervillains disappear, work begins on making a better world and then slowly, everything starts to unravel and fall apart and we end up in a new (but rougher) version of the original Marvel Universe, one that even feels a little more like our own... I could really see it.

But could I see Marvel doing it? Oh, please.

In fact, it may be true or not, but these days I think of DC as having the editorial infrastructure to get everyone on board (but having nowhere to go) and Marvel as being the place with lots of really big ideas (and absolutely no idea how to get everyone--or anyone, really--to get there, so howzabout a nice three page "Dear Sue" montage instead?) Maybe they'll prove me wrong, but considering The New Avengers launched with dozens of supervillains escaping The Raft and all Marvel wrung from that was one paltry miniseries and the Avengers shaking down some dude in front of a French restaurant, I find myself far from hopeful. (And let's face it, can you imagine Brian's dream of an exciting new status quo being done in any satisfying way from the guys who published Civil War: The Return? I can't.)

Weirdly, it was Marvel--good ol' Nu-Marvel back at the end of the '90s--that got me to finally let go of my fanboyish near-deathgrip on continuity. In the early Jemas/Quesada days, they were mostly avoiding crossovers, editors apparently weren't coordinating, and you could have major shit going down in Grant Morrison's New X-Men without being told you had to pick up Busiek & Perez's Avengers to see why they didn't, for example, show up to help pick up Genosha. It was annoying at first, but it quickly became a relief: as long as I was reading a good story, who cared if the Wolverine I was reading in one book had only the faintest similarity to the Wolverine in the other?

So it's with no small sense of irony that I watch Marvel swing heavily into its new golden age of heavily cross-referenced continuity. It was, after all, that very lesson I learned from Nu-Marvel (and, of course, Hibbs being generous enough to let me out of books I'd committed to buying) that allowed me to drop Civil War in mid-storyline, leaving those first few issues orphaned in my collection. In order to win the Civil War (and save myself at least twelve bucks), I finally gave up on the Marvel Universe, and that's really probably for the best. I'll ignore the Civil War stuff until it goes away, keep looking for the books that do what I want them to do, and pray too many good books don't get railroaded into following editorially mandated storylines along the way.

Oh, and as for the book itself, it felt rushed (full page panels that felt like one half of a double-page spread, pages with no dialogue apart from hollered taglines), bloated and exhausted. Props to Jake W. (for linking to it in our comments), Brandi at Scans Daily (for posting it) and whoever was actually responsible for this, because, although obvious, it really is the more honest and satisfying ending to Civil War (and Wanted, really). If Hibbs had made me buy the books I signed up for, this would've been Crap, but since I more-or-less escaped, Eh.

EX MACHINA INSIDE THE MACHINE VOL 1: A behind-the-scenes puff piece that focuses mainly on the transition from script to art, and Tony Harris's working methods. If it was a freebie, it'd be fucking fantastic, because both Vaughan and Harris come off as intelligent and passionate about their book. But at $2.99, the only way I can justify that price is if I pretend it's an issue of Wizard where they left out the price guide and poop jokes. Eh, but maybe DC/Wildstorm will reprint the sucker as a FCBD freebie or an insert to send to libraries or something...

HELLBLAZER #229: Some strong understated work by John Paul Leon makes this one-off from Mike Carey seem better than it is. Don't get me wrong, it's highly OK but the way the story's constructed, it'd benefit from more Mad Ideas: Carey only works himself up to Unsettling Concepts. But his dialogue and, again, Leon's art are strong enough to cover for that.

HELLSTORM SON OF SATAN #5: It's a shame this was so solidly Eh: I thought Irvine's take on Egyptian myth was solid, and his thoughts about the gods and religion had a bit more sophistication than we normally get with this sort of thing. But swap out the trident and the tattoos and the annoying cellphone, and swap in a trenchcoat, some silk cuts and the occasional "Cor, Blimey!" and this could be just another Constantine story. And while maybe that's the point as far as the writer and editorial are concerned, it's pretty underwhelming.

IMMORTAL IRON FIST #3: It's a gorgeous looking book (the first flashback artist didn't really do it for me, but between David Aja and Russ Heath, I was in nerd heaven) but I know I can't be the only one who thinks it's reading very, very slow. Frubaker's script and some thought in it, the dialogue is witty, and the art is buttery smooth, but I'm worried nobody's going to be reading it by issue #8 except me and Arune if it doesn't get to the point where the ass meets the kicking in a pretty big way. Good, but I'm worried. (Although, admittedly, I'm a worrier.)

NEW AVENGERS ILLUMINATI #2: This is nine different kinds of boned, I'm afraid. Putting aside the pain caused by unnecessary retcons and possible present and future story fucking (I hope this whole infinity gem thing gets returned to again because if you expect me to believe that major players of the Civil War had gems and didn't use them, you're sadly mistaken) this is just a badly paced done-in-one issue. At the plotting stage, it must've looked like a classic Marvel comic (heroes meet and discuss the problem, heroes split up and face separate challenges, reunite to find out they've just exacerbated the problem, barely escape by the skin of their teeth) but by the time Bendis and Reed have their chatty Cathy way with the script, it ends up a both draggy and truncated, graceless and artless, meaningless unless you know the characters involved and unbeliebable if you do. Some expressive work from artist Jim Cheung keeps this from me rating it lower than Eh, although I should.

POWERS #23: Meanwhile, back at What-Bendis-Does-Best-Ville, this story had a dialogue-heavy confrontation where a possible revelation suddenly pops up and ends with a cliffhanger that "could change everything." And yet, what keeps you reading are the little character beats and payoffs from things put in motion dozens of issues ago. Very Good stuff, and although I can't fault Bendis for continuing to stretch himself, and write superhero team continuity books because of being a big ol' fanboy at heart, I'm amazed he continues to focus on work so far from his strengths.

PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #4: A very odd issue, in that Fraction seems spend most of it making excellent subtextual arguments against the ending he then proceeds to use anyway. While I think that pays excellent dividends this issue--along with Deodato's increasingly dark artwork, it creates a palpable sense of tension that grows in the last several pages--the returns could diminish pretty rapidly if the protagonist goes on to become the despoiler of everything the writer like. (Or, I dunno, maybe like some weird superhero version of The Sopranos, PWJ could turn into a deeply compelling denunciation of the lead character's values. Or, hmmm, something else, maybe? [Yeah, this review has gotten itself lost in the weeds, hasn't it?]) Good, but yeah, very odd.

SPIRIT #3: Lovely, lovely art with simply astonishing color (why'd it remind me of early DC romance comics? Was there some Sekowsky influence someone was trying to work in there or something?) helps me forgive a less-than minor flaw in the storytelling--if you're gonna switch storytelling perspectives every page, you can't decide to do that six pages into the story, just like you can't run your title credits sequence thirty minutes into your movie. It's a Good issue, and the potential continues to grow, but it's not there yet.

SUPERMAN #659: I guess from reading those Superman Showcases I was immediately aware as to how this had such a Silver-Age hook--an elderly religious woman assumes Superman is an angel--and such a non-Silver-Age execution: in the Silver Age version, the tension would've come from Superman continually trying more extravagant ways to prove that he's not an angel while fate or oversight foul things up ("Groan! The lighthouse beacon is bouncing off the silver nitrate I seeded those rain clouds with earlier! Now it looks like a heavenly light is shining down on me from above!") In the non-Silver Age version, Superman continues to save the increasingly adventurous religous woman until he ends up too busy (fighting an alien made out of radio waves at the South Pole) to keep someone from busting a cap in her ass. Admittedly, this was a unique situation--a fill-in issue published ahead of schedule because of other delays--but I think I would've preferred the Silver Age version: by the time I got to page four or five I guessed the rest of the issue (well, except for the alien made out of radio waves). Highly OK--particularly given the circumstances--but I was lefting wanting more.

PICK OF THE WEEK: BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1, which kinda blows my mind. Who'd a thunk?

PICK OF THE WEAK: NEW AVENGERS ILLUMINATI #2, because Bendis and Reed handle a continuity changing superhero team book with all the skill of those burglars from Home Alone.

TRADE PICK: KAMANDI ARCHIVES VOL. 2, DRIFTING CLASSROOM VOL. 4, GOLGO 13 VOL. 7, and MONSTER VOL. 7. I hope to have reviews of that stuff and other trades in the next week or so.

And you?

It's not all Civility, you know: Graeme reviews other books from 2/21.

So, Kate's sick. I know this because she keeps telling me, just in case I'd forgotten since the last time she told me. In between updates on her condition, she's keeping herself entertained by watching all of the television we have on TiVo from this past week, which we hadn't managed to watch because we had houseguests who - horror of horrors! - weren't fans of shows like The OC (Arune! Please tell me that you were getting all choked up at the end of it as well), Veronica Mars or Kate's current favorite, Spike's reruns of Star Trek: Voyager. Me, I'm getting 'round to reviewing things and fielding Kate's questions as to when I'm going to make her soup or hot chocolate, so I'll be quick for a change. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #538: Ehhhh, Awful. This issue just seems to show that J. Michael Straczynski either isn't getting updates from editorial or doesn't care what's happening in other books - the Kingpin is shown to be a mover and shaker, even though he's already been defanged and disposed of in Daredevil (Yes, I saw the "this takes place before" caption, but even still, it's an odd choice to place the character center stage of this latest "status-quo" changing event, knowing that he's due to be written off entirely soon), and the tie-in to Civil War #7 reads as if he doesn't know what actually happened in the issue itself, especially with the "some who will never get up again" bit," considering that only Clor died in CW. Maybe it's that, or maybe it's the story itself, but the entire book had the feeling of filler, trying to squeeze out as many extra pages as possible before dealing with the cliffhanger from last issue. And when that cliffhanger gets resolved - in the last couple of pages - it's dumb to the point of slapstick: Aunt May gets shot by mistake! Because she just happened to be in the line of fire, which means that Peter, Mary Jane and Aunt May were all standing in an exact line! No fun, and I still don't see why Spidey's going to wearing his black costume next issue. Whoever said that it's because black is slimming and helps hide Peter's comfort-eating may be onto something, though.

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1: God, remember when DC superheroes could team up without crying or rape? Mark Waid does, providing a Very Good revival of the old team-up title that captures some of the goofy fun of the classic Bob Haney era: Bruce Wayne and Hal Jordan going undercover in a casino where Hal wins the money and the ladies! Batman versus aliens! High concept murders (64 identical victims killed in identical ways)! This is what I want from my superhero comics, and I'm even willing to forgive unclear action sequences - what exactly happened in the Batcave? How did the penny get involved? - for lines like "Batteries to power... Turbines to speed" and the nerd glee they provide. Here's hoping that they can keep it up in the following issues.

NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI #2: Okay, so that was unexpected. We've all heard of Deus Ex Machina conclusions, but never Deus Ex Disappointed In You, Reed ones like we get here. If this issue isn't setting up some kind of conclusion for the Civil War universe, then I really have no idea what the point of it was - The Illuminati have all powerful cosmic gems that allow them to control time and space and stuff and say they're never going to use them and... well, that's it. It seems to contradict recent continuity, as well - If it happens after the end of Dan Slott's first She-Hulk series, did Professor X still have his powers by that point? Wasn't he vanished or something? (Paul O'Brien, where are you with your knowledge of X-Men continuity?) - and all seems very strange in light of what happened after that time: Why didn't the magic gems get used during Civil War (to, I don't know, go back and time and prevent the destruction of Stamford, for example?) or to deal with the Hulk instead of sending him into space? It's a retcon that doesn't make sense at all, in an issue that doesn't seem entirely convinced of it itself. Crap.

LOCAL #8: Brian Wood mentions in the text at the end of the issue that he's realized that this series is really all about Megan's life as opposed to a series of one-off stories that just happen to feature the same character in some way, so it's probably fitting that I ended up reacting to this less as the return of a series as seeing a friend for the first time in too long. I admit it; I'm a soft touch for Wood and Ryan Kelly's tour around America and a life, especially as both creators seem to be getting better with each issue - Kelly in particular puts in a stellar performance here, managing to give Megan the sense of seeming older than she was last issue without it being immediately obvious. Good, and hopefully Wood and Kelly's lives have settled to the point where we'll see this every month again.

SPIDER-MAN FAMILY #1: Worth buying for the reprints alone, as the Len Wein/Ross Andru Amazing issue and "Spider-Man J" both manage to amuse and entertain. The brand new stories less so, with both of them less complete stories and more filler to point towards later events with generic script and art. Okay, even if it's clearly aimed towards the Spider-Man 3 fanbase (Black costume Spidey versus Sandman? I would never have seen that coming).

THE SPIRIT #3: I don't know why I'm surprised, but another Excellent issue, as Darwyn Cooke revisits the Spirit's origin and sets up what looks like an ongoing plotline for future issues with style and speed - Moreso than earlier issues, the star here is the art, with Cooke and colorist Dave Stewart teaming up to give the flashback scenes a look that's both beautifully 1950s retro and contemporarily original. Each month, this book just keeps raising the bar on what you to expect from an ongoing mainstream superhero book. Which, of course, means that Superman will probably show up by #9 to crossover from Countdown to bring the tears. Pessimistic? Me?

PICK OF THE WEEK, despite the awesomeness of Spirit, is actually The Brave and The Bold, because sometimes you want ice cream instead of steak. Or something. PICK OF THE WEAK is Civil War #7 (or New Avengers: Illuminati #2, if you want one from this set of reviews), because, well, you know. TRADE OF THE WEEK, for me, is between a couple of pre-release sneaks that I got sent this week - AiT/PlanetLar's The Homeless Channel and First Second's The Professor's Daughter. Proper reviews for both coming when I finish the next set of book reviews, but for now, pre-order both safe in the knowledge that the houseguests loved The Professor's Daughter, at least.

Next week: Wondercon! Which probably means no reviews, sadly. But is anyone here going?