The Bendis Batman / Daredevil thing

Only because BMB asked that retailers pester Levitz over this thing, here's one retailer's 2 cents. Putting aside the whole "DC sucks! It's just like the old days with Stan! Except I talk about penises!" trip that Quesada and Jemas were on (and, see, actions have consequences -- does no one remember the adage of being nice on your way up because you get to meet all of those people again on your way back down?), I don't think there's a lot of value in DC getting in bed with Marvel as long as Marvel's current publishing policies are as they are.

Remember AVENGERS/ JLA? Marvel printed #1 and 3. Limited to initial orders only. Sold out upon release. Took no responsibility whatsoever.

DC printed #2 & 4. Had copies available for reorder. Still do, in fact. When #4 ran late, DC applied their returnable policy for mini-series and took BOTH #2 and #4 returnable.

I mean, game set and match.

Plus, let's not forget that they've done it before. Try 1997 and 2000?

-B

Awesome!

So, Ben showed me his first real signs of higher intelligence yesterday. We got him some blocks a month or so ago, and he did a lot of the "raking claw" and mostly just knocked them around the room. Which is cool, and all -- he's still a baby.

But for the last week or so, everytime I've played with him I've tried patiently to show him how to stack the blocks. Didn't really work, he mostly showed interest in knocking down the stack, flinging the blocks all over the room. This might have been because he was so excited he couldn't control his fine movements, but I was starting to despair that he wasn't figuring it out.

Anyway, I'm reading last night, and Ben is playing in the living room, and I popped my head out every few minutes to check on him, and what do I see? He's sitting quietly, in the middle of the room, all alone, happily stacking and unstacking his blocks, gently grasping them and carefully placing them on top of one another.

W00t!

Here's some comics from this week:

JLA #103: "Everyone Cries" continues. This time, John Stewert cries. Apparantly everyone up at DC has forgotten that JS already cried a bunch considering he was responsible for the death of an alien planet, but, hey, that's OK, I guess, isn't it? ISN'T IT? Eh.

LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #182: "War Games" part 2. There's some running, and some shouting, and lots of gunfire, and I can't really keep all of the characters straight, but that's OK, I guess, because it's just act one, and half of them will be dead before this is all over. But on the bright side, this is polybagged with a CD, and the extra pound of shipping costs per 3-4 copies doesn't have a credit issued to retailers, and our sales will be cut because the stupid things are bagged, and you probably can't find a mint copy... wait, that's not good, is it? Eh.

NIGHTWING #96: "War Games" part 3. Probably should be called "The Adventures of Tarantula, guest starring Nightwing", but who am I to complain? I like the info dump scene where Dick finds out stuff we already know, but, structurally, it should probably have happened before the halfway point, y'know? I'm not a big fan of these kinds of crossovers, can you tell? Eh.

GREEN ARROW #41: "War Games" part... wait! This isn't a "War Games" crossover... which is funny, because the plot looks almost exactly the same. Planning! At least this one is easier to follow... OK.

PUNISHER #10: "War Games" part... nah, that jokes not funny a second time. Hell, it wasn't funny the first time. Loathsome people being loathsome, and lots and lots of cursing! I liked this better when it was a comedy... Eh.

LEGION #37: I'm still not at all sure what anyone's motivation or reasoning here is, but Karate Kid and Timber Wolf came off pretty cool. Eh.

ACTION #818: Hitting! Shouting! Exploding! It's all action, all of the time! Supes acts like a big jerk, and no one thinks twice about it, and I keep flashing back to Kingdom Come and thinking "We've forgotten the cautionary tale, already?" It's hard to picture a universe where this is worth two-dollars-and-fifty-cents, isn't it? It took me, maybe 120 seconds to read this. 2 cents a second? Now that's a deal! Awful.

BMW's THE HIRE #1: This also took almost no time to read, but the difference is, it was at least a complete thought, had several vividly drawn characters, as well as a contemporary plot. This Matt Wagner kid can really draw, he might be going somewhere! On the other hand, it's sorta a commercial (even if the car doesn't actually exist), so I can't be as enthused as I might otherwise be. OK.

DC COMICS PRESENTS: THE FLASH #1: Two cute uses of the cover image, but there's nothing woodmaking here. OK.

ALPHA FLIGHT #6: Comedy super-heroes don't really work -- at least not as a team book, because everyone needs to be in on the joke. The worst part is how badly Marvel missed the bet -- there really is an actual audience for a good AF book. We sold like 40 copies of #1 in 3 days, and by issue #5 we're down to like 11. I can't imagine this is going to make it past the first year, can you? Hell, Marvel's even tried to disassociate it from the X-Men line (It's now a "Marvel Heroes" book), which is smart, because this is Awful.

X-FORCE #1: No, Liefeld still can;t draw, but it looks K3wl, and it has lots and lots of scratchy little lines, the kind boys like! Having said that, actually, this wasn't as horrible as I thought it might have been -- the plot lurched forward adequately, and it probably is what people want. Have fun, people! Eh.

AUTHORITY #14: The "last issue"... except that it's going to be rebooted by Brubaker is like 2 months. Have we learned nothing from Star Trek, people? If a concept if dying/dead, you should take a WHILE off to recharge the DESIRE of the audience for it. Six months, a year maybe -- Authority V3 #1 isn't going to sell any better than V2 #14 when it's coming out in October, fercryinoutloud! Anyway, this was slop -- revenge revenge revenge with a slight (and cynical!) attempt to be uplifting there on the last few pages. Too bad the Coup D'etat concept when nowhere... Awful.

TEEN TITANS #14: Solid, if non-exceptional, superhero stuff -- as an attempt to give Gar an "Arch Villian" it seems to work fine. Let's call it a low Good.

HULK #75: Except for all of the "The Helicopter will just fly itself!" stuff, I kinda liked this -- certainly better than the first 3 years of Jones' run. Darick Robertson's Hulk is kinda fun looking, too. Call it a high OK.

BLOODHOUND #2: I really quite enjoyed this. Good solid police story set in the DCU, with strong characterizations, a "gritty" hero who actually seems complex, and nice art. It won't make it past issue #12, though. because I think we sold all of 7 copies of #1, and that's not a big enough base to decline from. Gotta give this a chance though, folks -- I thought it was a very solid Good.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #30: "At the (thanks) of Batroc"? Even Kirkman can't make Batroc seem like an even slightly credible threat. Sheesh. Still, while it's the Chinese menu syndrome ("I'll have the Red SKull from Column A, and the Serpent Society from column B"), I enjoyed this enough to give it a low Good.

CHOSEN #3: Hahahahahaha! I know Lester will bag on this, but I liked the "twist" at the end (though I figured it out around page 5) -- I sorta want to put up a "spolier warning", but now that you know there IS a twist, you know what it is, right? Anyway, this isn't great comics, no, but at least we can't make Ultimate Jebus jokes any longer. Good.

And that's it for today. More later, as I read them.....

-B

A Few More Reviews of Old Books....

And then I'll get out of the way of Brian and the new batch of books.

BATMAN THE TWELVE CENT ADVENTURE: There were a lot of typos in this. For example, I think the title is supposed to be SPOILER: THE TWELVE CENT EXPOSITION. Eh.

BLUE MONDAY: PAINTED MOON #2: I like Blue Monday so much more when the humor comes from the characters and not the magical talking leprechauns or imaginary fart-monkeys or whatever. Consequently, I thought this was the best issue I'd read in some time. Very Good.

CATWOMAN #33: A great idea for a story format, and I loved the individual title cards, but at least two of the stories are told so quickly they have no weight to them--it's the classic "telling, not showing" problem. A little less ambition might have actually served Brube better here. Eh.

CONAN #6: The art is shockingly uneven, but I liked the story for what it is. Which is, y'know, Conan. OK.

DC COMICS PRESENTS HAWKMAN: The first story has some of the best Byrne art I've seen in a few years--he really breaks away from his standard panel layouts here. But the second story was just too busy for me--too much going on in Walt's art and too much going on in Kurt's story: I found myself just glossing right over it. Eh.

DC COMICS PRESENTS SUPERMAN: I liked both of these stories, with Stan turning in dialogue that's very, very funny in the first one. And Giffen's artwork was much less--claustrophobic, maybe?--than it's been in some time. Good.

RICHARD DRAGON #3: Probably personal preference on my part, but Scott McDaniel's art seems too weightless to me--I just don't feel any sense of impact from all the bone-crunchings and eye-gougings. And I think Dixon is setting his story up to have his cake and eat it too--it looks like there's gonna be a way to acknowledge the old series and its ties to Bat-continuity and get new characters out of this--but because it's appearing three issues in, it's too late for me: rather than intrigued, I've had time to get distrustful and bored. Eh.

SUPERMAN #207: "They didn't stand a chance, let alone a trial!" Wha? Does anyone "stand a trial?" Don't they just "stand trial?" It seems to me if Jim Lee is going to spend a year drawing your story, you'd spend more than twenty minutes writing it (although to be fair, that line might be the victim of a dashed-off rewrite). I found both stories in the Phantom Quarterback issue of DC Comics Presents more enjoyable than any of the Azz/Lee issues to date, and it's a damn shame. Awful.

X-STATIX #25: It's no Iron Man and Mr. Sensitive fighting nude in a field, sadly. Eh.

Y THE LAST MAN #25: There's a whole long thesis to be written about why Brian Vaughan's dialogue is clever and why Brian Azzarello's is merely showy and fake, but I'm too lazy at the moment to write. Vaughan should be careful though, because his work is moving a bit in the wrong direction. Good.

Some more from 8/11

INVINCIBLE #14: Top notch super-fun here -- I really liked the teleport gag. A few captions are pretty radically overwritten, but, ah, so what? Very Good IRON MAN #432: Ah. Add another Dead Girlfriend in the Fridge to the list, Gail. This is taking the easy path to drama, but at least no one got raped.... Eh

SPIDER-MAN #5: Nice Frank Cho art, but, blech I don't like Millar's characterizations of anyone here. Why is MJ calling Felicia "Babe"? Or insisting she's an idiot over and over again? "This is supposed to be the HOBBY"? No, sir, I don't like this. I don't want "gritty" Spider-Man! Awful.

I mentioned the other day that people should pick up BIRTH OF A NATION, but I've finally read it now. Wow, excellent stuff. A modern "The Mouse That Roared" (sorta), and it's wickedly funny, and touching, and insightful all at once. I really loved this, and give it an unreserved thumbs-up, HC or no. Excellent.

-B

OK, I won't be defeated

Let me try to summarize what I spent two hours (total) writing twice, and see if the universe (NASTY BEAST!) lets this through IDENTITY CRISIS #3: Extremely powerfully skillfully done. This comes from affection, rather than cynicism, and it's a great piece of craft.

BUT, you can't ask the audience to take Justice League of America #166-168 to its logical extreme AT THE SAME TIME as saying that they guy named "Deathstroke, the Terminator" doesn't actually wax the JLA when he could do so effortlessly.

Don't bring the "real world" into the ACTUAL comics. These aren't characters for today, these are characters for forever.

Grant Morrison is right: the DCU is shiny hope-filled place or it should be, at least.

I don't want to see Myrna Loy raped and murdered. No matter how compelling the story is.

Do it as an Elseworlds, or an analogue, or a cautionary tale (Supreme Power, Kingdom Come, Watchmen, whatever), but, please, for the love of fucking god, please please please don't do it to the "real" characters.

It's a perfect, logical and seamless continuity implant for the "real reason" that Ollie and Carter were always fighting... but it makes me deeply sick in my heart.

Bottom line: would Watchmen have been better or worse if it had turned out that Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt was the one who had murdered The Peacemaker, in his bid to cover his monstrous plot?

Exactly.

Execution, skill, craft, passion, this is clearly Very Good, but because the absolutely wrong set of characters were picked to tell this story, I also think it's Awful. I think both things at once.

-B

(It was much funnier and much more poetic the first two times, damnit -- this would have set link-blogs off across the country. Now it's just there. Foo.)

Lament

OK, I've learned something very important about Blogger. If you're selecting text in a window using the shift key (Say, to make a copy) , and the post is many pages long, and you're going from the bottom to the top, if you go "too far" (that is you're still using the up arrow past the top of the post), all of your text will go bye bye leaving you with nothing. That's TWICE I've done this now in one day -- the first time taking more than an hour to write a long long essay about IDENTITY CRISIS #3, the second time doing it in about 40 minutes.... and I lost it both times.

F. U. C. K.

So, I give up, clearly the universe doesn't want this published yet, there's no way I'm going to write it a third time. Maybe I'll try again around when #4 is released.

I'll be back with more one sentence reviews SINCE THAT'S CLEARLY WHAT THE UNIVERSE WANTS FROM ME, THE FUCKER later.

-B

A Few Quick Reviews from Jeff

Yo. Since I destroyed all previous comments, I thought I’d make it up to you by giving a few quick reviews of what I’ve been reading lately. Some of it isn’t “current” because I’m a few weeks behind, but, you know, it’ll give you something to look for during those quiet weeks at the shop. (Although as you’ll see, most of what I’ve read so far is probably the stuff everyone picks up.) ASTONISHING X-MEN #3: Sweet Jesus, this is lovely looking work. Remember those young naive days when we thought we’d be getting Morrison and Quitely monthly on New X-Men? This is that book, filled with art and art that can deftly swing from quiet to violent to funny in the blink of an eye. And I like how Whedon plays with the conventions of the page break to bring an extra twist to his story’s pacing. I’m not sure I care very much about that particular story, but that’s probably just me. Very Good.

AVENGERS #500: One of the sad cases where, before reading, I bought in to the hype. Whoops. We’ll see where it goes, but with characters acting less from established character and more because the script demands it, events happening with little explanation and often less resonance (I love how the Vision crashes the Quinjet and everyone just stands around like, “Huh, that sucked.”), I’m not particularly encouraged. Might be useful in determining a qualitative scale of talent, as apparently “bad Brian Bendis=relatively okay Chuck Austen.” Eh.

PLANETARY #20: Planetary is the new cough syrup overdose: so much can happen in one issue, and yet so long can be spent waiting for that one issue, I can feel simultaneously underwhelmed and overwhelmed reading it. I very much liked the emotional beat to this issue—Elijah the perennial explorer is so obsessed with revenge he actively sacrifices a chance to discover what may be the origin of all humanity—but because I spent three months going “Gee, I wonder what the Planetary version of The Thing is gonna look like,” it was almost entirely lost on me. I’m sure that’ll resolve itself in the trade. Good.

POWERS #2.2: I probably like this book too much. Bendis & Oeming could have Deena beat guys up with a baseball bat every week and I’d be very happy. I think if I was a new reader I’d be pretty baffled (I think it would all make sense, more or less, but I’m not sure if it would feel resonant enough for me to care), but that’s a quibble. Very Good.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #9: Pretty much sums up the Ultimates line for me: for every two things that go right (powers being revisualized, heroes being unsure of what they can do) there’s usually one thing that can go very wrong (Dr. Doom goes from being the untouchable head of a distant nation to the Trash King of the Euro-Buskers). It’s nice to have a writer on FF who actually has an idea of what’s happening in science these days, but the idea we'll get to see Doom build his Doombots out of old disposable cameras and expired Eurorail cards is a little underwhelming. OK.

ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE #1: That alien broadcast goes on two and a half pages too long (by page 9, I was chilled; by page 11, eye-rollingly impatient) although that was probably exacerbated by the heavy, heavy ad count in the first half. And Hairsine isn’t half the “actor” Cassaday is—it kinda looks like Nick Fury is pooping his pants on the bottom of page 19—but it’s got potential to be interesting. And I don’t know why Marvel decided 2004 was to be the year We All Love The Falcon, but I ain’t questioning it. Because, you know, I’ve always loved The Falcon. OK.

CARNET DE VOYAGE: Cartoon karma is a fickle, fickle thing. Just a few short years ago (last year?), Craig Thompson’s Blankets became the must-have of the convention circuit, the toast of the comix world, and catapulted Craig Thompson into indy comix superstardom. This year, he releases Carnet de Voyage and all everyone seems to be talking about is The Flight Anthology and the Bone-In-One book (or whatever it’s called). A shame, because I find humble little Carnet, which Thompson himself disparagingly introduces as “a self-indulgent side-project,” to be the most purely enjoyable thing Thompson’s done, and arguably one of the best “young American abroad” novels ever. As page after page of gorgeous sketch goes by, Thompson weaves an achingly honest self-portrait of the solo traveler—lonely, unsettled, observant and deeply horny—familiar to any of us who’ve tried to wander in a distant country. Additionally, Thompson perfectly nails how the razor-thin self-consciousness of Americans abroad can move in a minute from self-conscious guilt to annoyed impatience, from deeply felt internal to external frustration. Even Thompson’s amusingly bathetic ending (a very emo and unnecessary summing up), suggesting a loss of nerve in an artist unsure of himself and his audience, didn’t put me off this. I think this is Excellent work and very much worth picking up: If this doesn’t become huge in our post-Lost In Translation pop culture, it’d be both surprising and sad.

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The Books of 8/4

Then I'm done for another week! (which starts, uh, tomorrow) BIRTH OF A NATION: OK, so I haven't actually read it yet (it's at the top of my pile), but it's Kyle Baker art, and it looks faboo, so demand your LCS get you a copy.

LOEG VOL 2 TP: OK, League v 2 is finally out in SC, time for you to buy it if you've been waiting this whole time. It's the bestest adventure ever! Also The TP/GN of the Week

LUCIFER VOL 6 MANSIONS OF THE SILENCE TP: I'm really digging this, and I personally think it is the strongest thing Vertigo is publishing at the moment. Reads really good in trade. Get it!

STAR TREK KEY COLLECTION VOL 1 TP: Dude, the Enterprise has rockets coming out of the back! What could be cooler than reading Star Trek stories from people who had never seen the show in thier lives? Well, OK, a lot, but for pure howling kitsch, here's your comic for the week.

TRANSMETROPOLITAN VOL 11 TALES OF HUMAN WASTE TP: Oddly is numbered "0" on the spine, while 11 on the invoice. Should probably be Pi or thereabouts. Contains "I Hate it Here" and "Filth of the City" since those semi-floppies (sloppys?) are OP. Funny and brutal stuff.

ULTIMATE X-MEN VOL 8 NEW MUTANTS TP: Bendis' first run at the X-Men, and it's uneven, but also contains a beautiful Wolverine story that's almost worth the price of admission by itself.

And there you go, the significant TPs of the week! Or so I thought. What did you think this week?

-B

Polishing off the 8/4 comics

Just a few things to go, then I'll do the books post... LOVE AND ROCKETS v2 #11: Like I said, I don't "get" L&R, but are Jaime and Gilbert just excellent cartoonists? There are panels throughout each story that I like to just stare at. I especially liked bits from "Life Through Whispers". I just don't get the stories at all. Still, aesthetically, hard to say less than Good.

GUARDIANS #2: This is probably moving a lot slower than it should (page 2 and the plot is just starting?) but the art is nice and the characterizations are strong. I don't really care what happens, really (especially for $3 a throw), so let's call it OK.

WOLVERINE / PUNISHER #5: Hard to imagine a more phoned-in script, but, Christ, it's Wolverine & Punisher, I suppose I shouldn't expect Dostoevsky. Still, the story doesn' t end as much as stop, and practically promises a sequel. Big waste of my 5 minutes reading time. Crap.

X-MEN UNLIMITED: The juggernaut story was cute I guess (Except, um, what's up with the hearts in the last panel? Scott and Juggy have made a love connection? Ew!), but the Emma/Logan story didn't hang together than well. Overall, call it Eh.

ENGINE HEAD #4: I tried to read this twice, and I'm still not sure I understood what is going on. I usually like McKeever's art, but it seems unfocused here. Sorry: Awful.

BATMAN / CATWOMAN: TRAIL OF THE GUN: Generally, I have to say, if you gave me a choice, I'd ask to read stories, not one-sided screeds. I favor gun control, and could barely stagger through the polemics of this. Those 5 pages of super-extreme violence upfront were nasty, rather than affecting. Plus, let's be serious, the central idea of the story is inane -- a gun that "never misses"? What, it's telepathic? That sequence where they guy fires a burst IN THE AIR and the bullets circle around to hit 3 different people? Even with comic book physics that's preposterous. Why wouldn't the bullets circle around and hit the firer? Why wouldn't they all go after one target? Sheesh. Plus the whole concept that trying to find the prototype would mean anything? Hello, if such a thing exists, they have the plans to make more. Sheesh. The only saving grace here is Ethan Van Scriver's art, which in a few places is a breathtaking joy to behold. The horror in Selina's posture in what I'll call the mascara pages is really powerful. Too bad, it was in service to such a shitty shitty polemic. Crap.

There you go. Give me an hour or so to come back and do the books....

-B

Getting there

Two more posts should clear this week's comics.... RUNAWAYS #17: Terrific issue -- just about everyone seems to get what is coming to them, which is more of a relief than I can say. Very Good.

BLUE MONDAY: PAINTED MOON #2: Woo hoo -- 32 pages about masturbation! Fear teh pR0n! (OK, that's only funny if you were hanging around CE on Friday night, but trust me, it was hysterical) Very Good.

THE GRAY AREA #2: Solid enough, though it seems just a smidge half-baked of a premise. Lots of words too. Lots and lots. Overwhelming more than one page. And... it's a little expensive at $3.95. Can;t work up better than an OK.

THOR #83: I have a hard time reading an entire issue written in "thor font". That makes a great contrast against "regular" speech balloons, but it looks pretty ass if that's all you have. It's like putting comics that take place wholly in a foreign tongue in < >. *shudder*. Other than that, this was kinda Eh. Don't really care about Asgard and Ragnarok.

TRUE STORY, SWEAR TO GOD #10: Good stuff, if a little drawn out -- since we know Tom goes to PR, all the psycho blather about "oh, hurting my family!" seems pretty self-absorbed. He's a nice clean cartoonist though, and the central love story is pretty touching, so OK.

WILDCATS 3.0 #24: Punch hit 'splode. And a big deux at the end. Still, I thought the very last page was kind of lovely and sincere, so let's end this on a Good.

BALLAD OF SLEEPING BEAUTY #2: The FCBD BSB was the big surprise of that day -- only one of the entire batch that made me say, "More! Now!". And, of course, several other people thought that, and I sold out of #1 before I got a chance to read it. But I was still looking forward to #2... but, meh, very little of the charm and suspense of the FCBD comic was evident here, becoming much more of a standard western cliche narrative. Nice art, and the $1.99 price is great, but, I can;t work up much more than an Eh for this.

QUEEN & COUNTRY #26: Solid issue and more stuff "happens" than is normal for this series -- look, action! (mostly) -- and there's a genuinely suspenseful moment there at the end. I like the usual more cerebral adventures, but this was a great turn, too. Very Good.

Less than a dozen books to go... hopefully you'll have those tomorrow!

-B

Oooh, colors

Look, Jeff has changed the template! What a mensch! And yes, go read his Fanboy Rampage, as linked below, GO NOW NOW NOW!

(Huh, we need to add those links on the side... and I need a lot more "away from here" links too... give us a few more days folks!)

Ben's asleep (for the mo'), and I dinged 28 in City of Heroes, and I have 30 minutes before I have to get to work, so let's see what else I've managed to read, shall we?

MAJESTIC #1: Wow, fuck yah. I expected nothing from this (not of the previous iterations were all that hot), but I thought this was wicked funny and well characterized all the way through. Silver-age Superman level powers can be FUN, sometimes. Excellent, and barring some big surprise later in the pile, I'm willing to call this one The Pick Of The Week.

UNCANNY X-MEN #447: Damn Alan Davis can draw. Daddy likee. The story was a bit meh -- we've seen this one before from Claremont, more or less. I seem to recall essentially the same conflict circa the 200's -- that Sentinel from the future? Wossname? Nimrod, I think? (heh) But, this looks fab, so let's go with a real strong OK.

MILKMAN MURDERS #2: Despite how shocking this book is looking to be, I like that the first 3 pages were so understated and elegent in what they presented. I liked this quite a bit -- might be the strongest narrative I've seen from Casey, and Parkhouse art is always a joy to look at. Very Good.

HARD TIME #7: "Meanwhile, back at the ensemble..." Now that the Focus "line" has been winnowed down to 2, it's time for a little of that comics Activism for this and Kinetic. Both are very strong books focusing more on human reaction than the garish zow of super-books. Both books have found their rhythm and both should be selling at least twice as well as they do. While I'm not giving this PotW, I really do urge you to pick up a copy the next time you're in the LCS, and give it a chance. Very Good.

MONOLITH #7: It's always smart to try and guest-star Batman to goose your numbers, but, folks, the bottom third of a cover is THE SINGLE WORST part of your cover to put any sales information. MOST stores overlap covers, and that's "dead" sales space. Seriously. (Wake up, there in DC -- Vertigo, especially, has been putting out a lot of covers lately with "misplaced" logos). Very nice art from Tom Coker, a good solid story from Palmiotti and Gray, and now that the story has started moving at a slightly brisker place, you should give this one a gander on the racks. Good.

SOF' BOY #3: Great cartooning from Archer Prewitt. While I've been a bit turned off by the sadism this has sometimes shown towards it's indefatigable, invulnerable lead, this I thought was wonderful and sweet and joyous. And god-damn nicely drawn. $4.95 is kinda a lot to swallow, but dem's the economics of doing askew work like this. This was a terrific issue: Very Good.

And so endeth this session of the Savage Critic. Wow I kinda liked everything is this part of the pile! More later.....

-B

A Big Head's-Up, or A Big-Head is Up?

Howdy, everyone. Jeff here with a quick bit of non-Savage shilling. I just put up eighteen or so old Fanboy Rampage columns covering a span ranging from two years ago to published just last month. If you're waiting for Brian to make with the Critic-ing, and you want some cheap Fanboy laffs, there's Alan Moore's turn on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, excerpts from Grant Morrison in Conversation, the second season of The Apprentice with Lex Luthor, and, as they almost always say, much, much more. It's not a complete archive--I've got about twenty to twenty-five columns to hunt up and/or convert--which means you still have to go to The Fourth Rail to read "The Fish Story," (which drives Hibbs nuts), but it's still a pretty good sampling of the free funny CE customers get every month in our newsletter, Onomatopoeia.

Okay, now I have to get my butt to the store to sell some quality funny books. I return you to regularly scheduled Hibbness.

Not Daily

As we can see, I'm not doing well at the daily updates. I'll try harder. Two nights ago, Ben kept waking up every 2 hours or so, moaning and whining. I say "woke up" except that his eyes never opened, and I don't think he was conscious at any point.

So I was kinda a wreck yesterday.

Plus I promised Tzipora that I'd finally clean my room, which mostly entails taking 9 months worth of comics and properly filling them on my bookshelves.

This is a five hour job, sheesh.

Anyway, that's why no update yesterday.

Let's start off sorting through the comics for the week of 8/4 (Which, incidentally, was Ben's 10 month birthday, hooray!)

BIRDS OF PREY #71: A solid issue though the cover was a smidge deceptive. I'm also a little meh on the drama of the ending, but like I said, solid issue. OK.

DCCP: SUPERMAN: I don't think you're likely to find another comic book every again that features both Stan Lee and Paul Levitz writing. And I was quite surprised how much I liked both stories. Art by Darwyn Cooke and Keith Giffen also helped. But Stan's story was genuinely charming -- if the "Just Imagine" books had been this sweetly written, they coulda been a big hit. I mean "SUPERMAN! How did you find me?" "Hey, I'm Superman." is just fun. Very Good.

SWAMP THING #6: And so, the original mini-series ends. Actually, this is a decent way to end things, because the story could go virtually anywhere from here, yet there's at least a moment of potential happy endings for just about everyone. Good.

Y THE LAST MAN #25: Is this the first we've seen of Beth in 2 years? Anyway, another solid issue, though I'd really like to see a few things come to a head pretty soon. Good.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE #2: I don't think I like any of these characters, to be honest. And a book without likeable protagonists isn't likely to keep much of an audience. Eh.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & FALCON #6: I really liked the first half, while I thought the second half descended into nonsense. On the other hand, the "new" Falcon scenes were super excellent. Hard to grade this one because of the abrupt shift in tone, so let's split the difference to an OK.

TRAILER PARK OF TERROR COLOR SPECIAL #1: What's odd is looking at the line work here, some of these stories would probably look better in B&W.... Otherwise, this is sub-EC stuff, tremendously not scary, nor "trashy" like the title might make one hope. Eh.

EXILES #50: Cute set-up. Exiles is sometimes neat because you can do things that you can't do in the "regular" books. I mean, a precog is one of the most powerful of powers, isn't it? You'd rule the world in 6 months with that, it seems. But you can't do that in X-Men. Anyway, Good.

JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #34: Top Notch "Big 3" story from Stuart Moore. Possibly my favorite single issue of this run. Very Good.

BATMAN 12-CENT ADVENTURE: Well, it's cheap so you can't really complain (though, as always, I find cursive captions to be a pain in the ass to read), and it is absolutely worth the money (and I don't mean that snarkily), but I'm pretty unsure if this works as an "intro" to the Bat books -- If I wasn't much interested in the bat-titles in the first place, the content here wouldn't be drawing me back, stunt pricing or not. OK.

DETECTIVE #797: The first "real" (numbered) bit of "War Games" and it is mosly a lot of running and shouting. *shrug* It's not bad, but I'm not at all excited about gang wars in Gotham. I kinda liked the back up story better, even though literally nothing happens. OK

FIRESTORM #4: I like the protagonist OK, but this is way too fast of a ride, with too little dealing with the "how does this all work?" question for my dollar. I sorta don't think this is going to make it out of the first year. OK.

ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE #1: I suppose the set-up is fine, but I breezed through reading this in less than no time. Looks nice, reads well, but super-fast. Let's see what #2 brings. OK.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #63: Very good and very strong up until Conners shows up. What was he doing there, again? Just a big "duh" moment. Good.

ULTIMATE X-MEN #50: Now with 20% more soap opera! Dunno, well told, but don't care. Eh.

X-MEN THE END #1: Wow. Really don't care.

That's all I gots read so far this week, more later.

-B

Sorry for delay

Sunday and Monday I had a store project I needed to finish and forgot about until zero hour. All done, though. I just got back from the store (doing THIS week's books), so let's wrap LAST week by talking about all of the BOOKS you should go and pick up and your local funnybook emporium when you stroll in tomorrow.

In friendly alphabetical order (Or, at least, Alpha by Diamond listings):

B KRIGSTEIN COMICS HC: Yes it is pricey, but damnation, it's worth every penny. Krigstein was a genius, and even the slightest story in this big-ass volume is pure gold. My one quibble: despite it being in the first, biographical volume, I think they missed a big boat by not putting "The Master Race" in this edition.

BONE ONE VOLUME EDITION: Well, you probably can't buy it anyway. We got allocated at just over 1/3 of our order (*sigh*) and all of the rack copies sold out in like 10 minutes. Expect a much much longer thought on this in about a week in Tilting at Windmills over on Newsarama.... Either way, this is top notch comics by a top notch cartoonist, and some version of Bone should be in your collection. I can't wait until Ben is old enough for me to read this to him... (though, actually, it'll be the HC I'll be ordering once it is solicited. I left the SC at the store since we got allocated)

CEREBUS V 16: THE LAST DAY: End of an era, and this volume is worth it for the essay in the back, alone. Honestly, I think it explains a bit more than I had previously understood about the last few years. (Lester, read it before I come in on Friday -- should give us at least 30 minutes of conversation...) One of these days, if I ever find time, I'll write an essay about Cerebus as a complete work, but if you can find a better all-around cartoonist than Dave Sim, I'd like to meet him. The timing, the draftsmanship, the craft and care -- I don't really care if the whole thing ends on the biggest reductio ad absurdum ever, I don't really care if you don't care for his politics or his thinking (fuck, if George Bush could draw like this, I'd buy his comics too!), comics will be a poorer place for not having Dave Sim around, month-in, month-out showing us how to do it. Seriously, read Cerebus, you'll be better for it.

CRISIS ON MULTIPLE EARTHS V3 TP: Well, you know, I've always been a sucker for the JLA/JSA crossover, but, man, are these stinky-ass stories. ("TEPPY STRIKES BACK!") On the other hand, these stories suck so much they're actually great. C'mon, dude, THE HUMAN BOMB! Rocks out, with it's cock out!

FINDER V 6 MYSTERY DATE: Carla Speed McNeil is an amazing cartoonist -- kinetic yet compressed, mystical yet focused on human emotions. Why she isn't a millionaire is a mystery to me.

JIM WOODRING PUPSHAW & PUPSHAW: At $17 for what's effectively 16 panels (well, it is a Japanese import), you have to be a big Woodring fan to appreciate this. Thankfully I am. Plus I only have to pay cost, seeing how I own the store and all. But damn, if he can't draw and tell a reasonably compelling tale in those 16 panels....

KYLE BAKER, CARTOONIST V 2: An excellent companion to volume 1, though it feels a smidge light for the price point of $14.95. It's the week of excellent cartoonists, as you can see (it wasn't the comics what killed me, it was the books), and Baker is up there high in the firmament.

P. CRAIG RUSSELL'S LIBRARY OF THE OPERA V 3 HC: Yah, OK you could wait for the 6 weeks or whatever it will take for the SC to come out, I suppose, but I prefer to have a binding that will hold up for repeated rereadings. Loverly loverly stuff, and he makes the source material palatable to those of us who hate opera as it's own art form.

PAUL AUSTERS CITY OF GLASS: Finally this exquisite book of David Mazzuchelli's adapatation of the Auster story is back in print, and let me hear a fuckin' hallelujah! Despite the (very!) stiff competetition this week, this is the A #1 must have, bug-your-LCS-to-stock-it item of the week. Seriously.

POWERS V 6 THE SELL OUTS: The perhaps-ironically named first post-image volume. While it's begining to flag a bit at this point of the narrative, this is still sharper than 80% of the super-hero work on the market.

SAMURAI EXECUTIONER V1 : If you liked DH's presentation of Lone Wolf & Cub, you're also going to dig this story Koike & Kojima did before. I'm only about 10% into it, but it's reading just as well, to me.

OK, that's what I took home on the book side, at least.

See you.... tomorrow with the first part of this week's books!

(God, tomorrow already? Does this ever end?)

-B

Sharp, pointy teeth

Ben has 4 teeth. They are sharp. Very very sharp. Ben likes biting on things... especially flesh. We call him Nosferatu, sometimes. Ben also likes french kissing. He'll launch himself at you with his open mouth, trying to stick his tongue in your mouth, or failing that, biting your lips off.

Babies are vicious, vicious things. BEWARE!

Let's see if I can clean out the ol in box, and give a clean palate for next week.

ROSETTA V2: Anthologies, as noted absurdly many times, are tricky things. Most are uneven (at best), but you can fault them little for trying, at least. I was more than halfway through this one before I found a piece I liked, but then it was like "Wow, this makes it alllll worth it!" -- Rosetta stacked the deck with three superb pieces in a row: Tobias Schalhen's (Probably spelling that wrong -- going from a handwritten note) excellent formalistic experiment of relating a conversation between two lovers who haven't seen each other in a long time against a set of disparate illustrations, Matt Madden's even better circling-viewpoints experiment of a woman who finds out her boss was once a porn star, and Jason Lute's piece. Concentrated comics goodness, and almost completely worth the price of admission just for those three. It's only like 10% of the book, however, so for the whole package, let's go with OK. Those three pieces, however, were Excellent.

LUBA #8: I've told you I don't "get" the Hernandez brothers, right? Superb storytellers, wonderful draughtsman, but there works never "speaks" to me. I have a little tiny amount of "indy cred", but they're my big weakness. I can tell this is Good or better work, but I don't care for it. Deal.

LAST TRAIN TO DEADSVILLE #3: There are days I think that Steve Niles is writing way too much, and diluting any real "brand loyalty" he may have created from 30 Days of Night. Hard to blame him, really -- he's been doing comics longer than I've been selling them, and he finally has a hit. If I were him, I'd probably strike while the iron was hot, as well. Thing is, it's usually better to pick one thing and do it perfect than to do 47 things "half-assed" -- this is why I run a comic book shop and not a comic book/anime/game/whatever store. I think Cal McDonald is Niles' best creation -- enough genre accoutrements to make it familiar, but a wide enough breadth of ideas fit very neatly into it's format. "Monster Investigator" is a great high concept. I think I'd rather see a monthly Cal comic than the 38 mini-series a month Niles produces. YMMV. Good.

WITCHES #4: You have to admire Marvel's stones for releasing this concurrent with Vertigo's Witching, and Identity Disk concurrent with Identity Crisis. Not thier brains, really, because this is go-nowhere, and be-dull-while-getting-there material, but thier stones sure. Eh

THE WITCHING #2: While meanwhile, I've found this an uneven start. The protagonist witch girl is too absurdly overpowered to be relateable -- but that's because she lives in our world. I have no problem with absurdly overpowered Lucifer or Morpheous as protagonists becase they're primarily concerned with thier own realms, y'know? There's a few great images in here, but I think this is merely OK.

CONAN #6: Wow that was a grim and very Howardian story -- the middle third lagged a bit, but this was a great wrap up. Very Good.

JLA: ANOTHER NAIL #3: Alan Davis does his own version of Crisis on Infinite Earths, and my is it good. I'm definately up for "JLA: A Third Nail", or maybe "JLA: The Hammer", depending. Hell, if Davis is doing it, I'm all about "JLA: Caulking Gun". Excellent.

NEW FRONTIER #5: I can understand you not being into superhero comics -- you have to read a lot to find the good ones. And I can understand you being a bit nervous about the $6.95 cover price (which is pretty absurd, yes), but, seriously man, this is the shit. I just feel a great soaring sense of wonder and hope as I read this book. Darwyn Cooke hit an enormous home run here, and you should absolutely be reading this. Excellent, and the Pick of the Week!

X-STATIX #25: Much like Kinetic #4 before it, I was really upset at myself for not having a blog when X-Statix #24 came out. Iron Man and Mr. Sensative having a nude grass fight? OMFG! Not only was it outrageous, it was outrageously funny, and a nearly perfect 21st century desconstruction of super-team battles. Six months too early to be a "Avengers Disassembled" tie in (with the extra sales), and then the book gets cancelled, and everything has to be wrapped up way too quickly, and the book ends on a fairly sour note. Ah well. Farewell to experimentation, mutant line, farewell! Good.

Bah, well I have a few more books to write up, but screw it -- that's enough typing on this week. Nothing particularly good in my remaining pack, anyway.

I'll be back tomorrow (I think) with the TP/Book list for the week....

-B

Behind

Gotta go to work in a few here -- Lester is on "vacation" (something about a nude midget chocolate factory?), so I have to go cover his shift. Curse you Lester, you infernal bastard!! I spend yesterday's shift doing "industry reading" Wizard, CBG, etc. There go my brain cells. So I only have 4 comics here to discuss. By tomorrow I plan to go over this week's trades, then take Sunday off and hopefully, Monday wrap up the last of this week's reviews just in time to get another pile of new comics.

This is my life. Week in, week out, over and over again.

BATGIRL #54: That was kinda cool -- the story actually turned on her illiteracy, and something mean was said. Good.

CAPER #10: A little too over the top, but there were some good one-liners here -- I can't see this being sustainable for 44 more pages though? OK

METAL HURLANT #12: Anthologies are usually pretty uneven, but I thought this first MH published under the DC co publishing deal was pretty solid from cover to cover -- as a a first, I don't think there was a story here I didn't enjoy. This was as good as Heavy Metal once was, decades ago. Good.

PLANETARY #20: Damn damn damn fine stuff. We finally meet the Thing, and take him out all at once. Barrelling towards a conclusion -- one uglier than we expect, I suppose. Excellent.

That's it for now -- be back soon.

-B

Strong!

Something they don't tell you about babies -- the little beasts are STRONG. Ben can easily haul 150% of his weight, and I'm scared he'll figure out what a fulcrum is.  The real problem, though, is that they have NO IDEA they are strong -- they use their full strength all of the time because, well, why wouldn't you? Me and Tzipora have little welts all over our bodies when Ben has given us a hard pinch while trying to climb somewhere.

While I'm going to try to review "everything" for the next few weeks, once I've cycled through a whole month, I'll probably drop back to "items of significance". Are you liking this format, by the way? Should I change anything? Add publisher credits, maybe? Opinions!

SINGULARITY 7: Ben Templesmith's new book and it's really pretty to look at. Sure, the story is pretty much a warmed over 21st century Dawn of the Dead meets Terminator, and, yes, his scripting is a little overwrought in places, but it's damn fine to look at, and the story problems don't get in the way of enjoying it. I also like that he's using a brighter palette than in 30 Days of Night -- this is Good stuff.

TAROT #27: And we veer ever closer to Bondage Fairies territory.  I'm continually stunned by the contrast of the messages of the comic compared to the ones in the editorial section. Reading Tarot always makes me feel like I'm a robot in "I, Mudd"... "But if you are telling the truth, then it must be a lie, but if you are lying, then you must be telling the truth. Norman.... coordinate! *fzzzt*" Awful, but I don't think you can judge this on the same scale of a real comic...

POWERLESS #2: It's a What If...? story, I guess, but it suffers from too-many-ingredients-itis. Honestly, less is more, and having this span the entire Marvel Universe-yet-not just gives me a headache. Nice art by Gaydos, but I didn't care about a single page of the 22. Eh.

BATMAN #630: While "last stand in the Batcave" is a good idea (and not one especially overused, really), it's probably better to save it for something of more significance than the (*shudder*) "Scarebeast". I suppose it's a stab at trying to solve the "Wait, what the fuck can we do with the Scarecrow, anyway? He's a sub-one-trick pony!" problem, but turning him into a version of the Hulk who says "Are you scared yet"? Nah, not the path to have gone. Other than Wagner's covers, I've really disliked this arc. Awful.

LEGION #36:  Something bad happens, something else bad happens, another bad thing happens.... did Gail steal Bendis' notes for Avengers? Waiting for motivations, or rationales or something to make it a mystery or a story rather than just a series of events. Part of the problem is that events are too big -- any humanity becomes a sidenote, rather than the focus like good fiction. It's not badly done, no not at all, but it sorta feels like plothammer more than anything else. OK.

AVENGERS #500: See Legion #36. Though I'll also say that I think the coloring was way too dark because on top of "busy" artwork, it's often difficult to tell what's going on. OK.

USAGI YOJIMBO #77: Stan Sakai is a master cartoonist. And he gets better at his craft every year. Simple, clean storytelling, action every few pages, honest humanity, and a strong eye for humor and terror equally, it's hard to say there's a better comic being produced each and every month than Usagi. If people want to do comics activism, here's an excellent book for you to start with. Excellent.

NAUGHTY BITS #40: And this would have been a good one too, but unfortunately this is suddenly the last issue. That's a damn shame because Roberta Gregory is not only a fine cartoonist, but she's produced 40 issues which is a whole lot better than most "indy" books could hope for. I also really liked Robert Triptow's gay wedding comedy in the back of the book. Very funny stuff. Very Good.

(Marvel Knights) 4 #8:  As a comedy it falls kinda flat (The Watcher bookends were wretched), but as a character piece it's OK, I guess. In a week I'll have forgotten I've ever read it, though. Eh.

CATWOMAN #33: Not quite a fill-in, but it feels like marking time because of next quarter's crossover. It's a solid-enough story, but in the end it doesn't feel like it matters much. OK

SLEEPER V2 #2: This on the other hand, worked like a charm. "Now can I stop breaking your heart?" Wonderful stuff on both an action and human level. Very Good.

OK, time to go off and work at the store! Restock, hurray!

-B

Ben's asleep now!

The best part of him climbing up on the shelf is that he doesn't have the foggiest notion of how to get himself down, so he'll start crying about that, and I haul him to mother earth, and what does he do? Yeah, try to get back there right away. He understands there IS gravity, but he doesn't quite get how it works yet....

Still, I got him down for his afternoon nap, so back at my in-box....

KINETIC #5: There were a couple of books that really REALLY made me wish I had a column during the hiatus -- issue #4 of Kinetic was one of those. Wonderful quiet story about the reactions of his mother as her world shatter and changes around her, and all of her preconceptions are discarded in a moment. Kinetic started really slow, probably too slow, but it has really come into its own now, and is one of the most emotionally satisfying comics on the stands. This is "the next Sleeper" or "the next Runaways" -- the kind of book no one is reading, but they really should because they'd just love it if they did. Very Good.

FANTASTIC FOUR #516: I liked the first part of the arc, I thought the second was OK, but here at part three, I think it should have been a done-in-one. Nothing wasn't said here that wasn't said last issue. Eh.

SUPERMAN #207: This book is running the trajectory almost exactly opposite Lee's Batman run -- started strong (though less so than we anticipated), but it's bleeding readers every issue. I kinda don't even think this will be Top 10 by issue #12. Far too much blabity-blab talking about stuff that only tangentially matters ("faith" is a great topic for Superman to undertake -- setting it in this context robbed it of almost all of it's real-life human resonance). After six issues of Batman and 4 of this I think it's fair to declare what we all guessed going in -- Azzarello really doesn't "get" how to write super heroes. (which is fine, not everyone should / does)  Lee is a great artist, but the underlying material is so unremittingly dull and oddly paced that I just have no interest in this. Eh

SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT #12: And so the stealth reboot ends. I sadly found the whole thing to be a bit preposterous, and largely unnecessary -- this last bit of Luthor's big master plan was just dopey, and wrapped with a real whimper. Plus, trying to fit it into continuity with the offhand "You know Luthor will find a way to beat the charges" just hurt my tiny little head. I really don't think this added anything new or majestic to the legend, so foo. On the other hand, the last two pages, though slightly torturously arrived at, where a really touching bit of "closure" on the K-side. I liked that so much that I'm going to be a big softie and give the whole thing an OK.

FUTURAMA #18: Reasonably funny (Go, Ian Boothby, go -- how come I'm the only reviewer who ever says what a fabulous writer this guy is?), but doing extended storylines in a quarterly comic book is really a bad idea. Good.

DC COMICS PRESENTS HAWKMAN #1: I really thought the first three of these (Batman, Adam Strange, and GL) were really awful, so I'm glad to say this one was pretty charming. The Cary Bates story (w/ Byrne) brought back Earth-Prime (Did Cary "invent" that? I have strong memories of him starring in a JLA one... but I'm not sure if that is the first one) and the Kurt Busiek (w/Simonson) one had a decent Silver Age "feel", and ended on a sweet note. This isn't great comics, but it's decent stuff, and the strongest of the batch. OK.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #3: Joss has, I think, found his legs (fingers?) with the characters -- some razor sharp characterization, and some really fun scenes (Scott and Nick Fury aboard the Helicarrier, or the excellent Danger Room sequence) made this issue crackle. This is the first time I think I've ever found Scott an agreeable personality, because too often "all work" = "boring dick". Not here. This is great stuff, and I think I might even like this better than the mad-wild Morrison run. Excellent.

Right, that's it for the mo... gotta read more, but since Ben is asleep and Tzipi is out, I'm going to go grab an hour of City of Heroes instead. Probably a bit more tonight.

-B

Crazy baby

I'm watching Ben today while Tzipora is off shopping -- the kid is a little dynamo, trying to get into little nooks and crannies where he shouldn't be. There's only so much baby proofing you can do, and there's always some place he shouldn't be. His latest thing is to rip apart the CD collection... which is on a shelf under the TV, abotu 4 feet off the ground. Yet the little terror manages to crawl up there with no real problem. Quickly, a few more books while I've distracted him with some shiny keys!

WALKING DEAD #9: Like I said, I need to cleanse my palate every few shitty comics. Glad I picked this one. Gripping, human story by Kirkman, and fabulous art by Adlard. The book took a quantum leap forward (and it was already really good) when Charlie came on board. That little reaction sequence on the bottom of page 10 is good, chilling comics. Excellent.

Damn, he's bored with the keys already and is hauling ass into my office trying to rip up this week's funny books.....

Let's try this one-handed with the baby in my lap.

EXCALIBUR #3: We keep selling out of this, which surprises me -- this is the worst of Claremont's excesses, with few of the charms. The supporting cast makes "Nudge" from Doom Patrol look like a fully formed character. 3 issues in, and there's still no real explanation of how (and why!) Mags is back. Poop. Awful.

Ok, Ben is squirming too much, this isn't working... back later

-B