It kinda flies right into my face and out the other side: Graeme finishes off 1/9.

Wow, so that wasn't exactly a banner week for comics, was it...? Or maybe I'm just more bitter and twisted than usual...

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS #16: I'm really tempted to make some kind of snarky "And it only took eight months for something to happen!" comment, but even with something happening, I'm not that involved in the book. Am I really supposed to be invested in a big war between two cosmic entities that I still don't really understand the motivations of or care that much about? Still, at least Pete Woods is getting work. Okay, but I'm pretty much ready to skip to the end and get Grant Morrison involved already.

GREEN ARROW AND BLACK CANARY #4: After three issues of my feeling better about the book than most people on this site, I think I've reached my limit of superhero angst with this go-around... Maybe it's because the comatose-in-hospital angle is a little too touchy for me right now, or maybe it's just that it's as if the book can't take a step forward (I really like the casual sense of superheroics displayed here, if that makes any sense) without taking one back (Can people stop dying/being presumed dead/being depressed, please?) - It's as if the book wants to be a light-hearted adventure book, especially with Cliff Chiang's art, but it can't quite escape deadly melodrama. Eh to that, for now, at least.

JENNA JAMESON'S SHADOW HUNTER #0: Imagine my surprise when the worst part of the book was reading Deepak Chopra's son admit his familiarity with Jenna's porn. I don't know why that freaks me out so much - Shouldn't he be meditating or something instead? - but it got the most reaction out of me in the entire book, which has to be some kind of problem, right? Shouldn't I have been more interested in, you know, the actual content of the book? Problem is that, even in the few preview story pages, there's absolutely nothing here to differentiate the book from numerous other t&a books, even in the sense of it being worse; it's like a black hole of Crap.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #7: Here's the problem with this book being, what, four or five months behind thanks to Frank Cho's perfectionism: This feels like yesterday's newspaper. We've already seen the end of the Venom invasion - complete with roughly sketched out solution - in New Avengers, and so, seeing it start (and knowing that it's going to continue for another couple of issues)? Old news. Same with Tony Stark's reaction to Elektraskrull - which we've seen in more depth in New Avengers: Illuminati #5 - and Spider-Woman joining the team, which has also been shown in New Avengers. Everything that would have been surprising or interesting when originally planned has been seen before, leaving this as a pretty Eh example of Deja Vu. It's a shame; the idea of the two interrelated Avengers books is a good one, in theory.

NOVA #10: I'm sure this issue is probably very interesting to someone, but coming after the last couple of issues, this straight-forward story feels pointless and filler to keep the slow and dull "Will Nova succumb to the techno-organic virus" plot alive until the annual and continuation of Annihiliation: Conquest. It's the first real bum note of the series, to be honest, and a glimpse at how generic a book like this could get if not treated properly. Crap, sadly.

THE SPIRIT #12: Oh, man, talk about going out in style... Adapting not just Eisner's stories, but also his art style in the flashbacks (with really, really well done colors), Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone really end up with their best issue so far. Everything about it is tone-perfect, even if throwing the Octopus in there seemed a little bit like overegging the pudding. Excellent stuff, and the easiest way to make sure that I'd check out whatever Cooke does next, even if that was already a foregone conclusion.

THE TWELVE #1: Meanwhile, in the alternate universe that J. Michael Straczynski lives in, there is apparently a demand for this Captain America rip-off that you can just tell is going to have Watchmen pretensions down the road. It's a shame that Chris Weston is on this book, because his art makes it all seem much more worthy than the unimaginative, overly-familiar, Ass that it actually is. Nice cover design, though.

If I were doing PICK OF THE WEEK, it'd easily be The Spirit, while The Twelve wins PICK OF THE WEAK by showing just how life-sapping a lack of imagination can be. Next week (which happens to be tomorrow)! More Amazing Spider-Man, just so I can see if Dan Slott can get more annoyed at me, and on the more enjoyable side of things, 76 and Booster Gold. But what did you think, as the saying goes?

Arriving 1/16/2008

Not that great of a week, but far better than the last two (at least in terms of # of titles)

100 BULLETS #87
2000 AD #1567
76 #1 (OF 8)
AMAZING SPIDER-GIRL #16
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #547 BND
AMERICAN VIRGIN #22
AMORY WARS #5 (OF 5)
ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #3
ATOMIC ROBO #4 (OF 6)
AVENGERS CLASSIC #8
BETTY #171
BIRDS OF PREY #114
BONEYARD #27
BOOSTER GOLD #6
CABLE DEADPOOL #49
CATWOMAN #75
CEMETERY BLUES #1
CHECKMATE #22
COUNTDOWN SPECIAL THE NEW GODS
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 15
DMZ #27
DOMINION #4 (OF 5) (RES)
FALLEN ANGEL IDW #23
FEAR AGENT #18 HATCHET JOB (PT 2 OF 5)
FELL #9
FLASH #236
GRAVESLINGER #3 (OF 4)
GRENDEL BEHOLD THE DEVIL #3 (OF 8)
GROO HELL ON EARTH #3 (OF 4)
HAWAIIAN DICK #2
IMMORTAL IRON FIST #12
INCREDIBLE HERCULES #113
INSOMNIA #3
IRON MAN POWER PACK #3 (OF 4)
JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #266
JUGHEAD AND FRIENDS DIGEST #26
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #17
KISS COMIX #182 (A)
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES IN THE 31ST CENTURY #10
MARVEL ADVENTURES AVENGERS #20
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #35
MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS #5
MARVEL ILLUSTRATED ILIAD #2 (OF 8)
NEW EXILES #1
NEW WARRIORS #8
NEW X-MEN #46 MC
PALS N GALS DOUBLE DIGEST #118
PENANCE RELENTLESS #4 (OF 5)
PROGRAMME #7 (OF 12)
RESURRECTION #2
RETURN OF THE SUPER PIMPS #4 (OF 6)
ROBIN #170
SCOOBY DOO #128
SHADOWPACT #21
SIMPSONS COMICS #138
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #184
SPAWN #174
ST TNG INTELLIGENCE GATHERING #1 (OF 5)
STEVE NILES STRANGE CASES #3
STRANDED #1
STRANGE EMBRACE #8 (OF 8)
SWORD #4
TALL TALES OF VISHNU SHARMA PANCHATANTRA #1 (OF 5)
THIRTEEN STEPS #4
TWO GUNS #5 (RES)
UMBRELLA ACADEMY APOCALYPSE SUITE #5 (OF 6)
WILDSTORM REVELATIONS #2 (OF 6)
WITCHBLADE #113
WOLVERINE ORIGINS #21
WORLD OF WARCRAFT #3
WORLD WAR HULK AFTERSMASH WARBOUND #2 (OF 5)
ZOMBIES VS ROBOTS VS AMAZONS #2 (OF 3)

Books / Mags / Stuff
ALTER EGO #75
BACK ISSUE #26
BONE COLOR ED SC VOL 07 GHOST CIRCLES
CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED DELUXE SC VOL 01 WIND IN THE WILLOWS
DARK HORSE HEROES OMNIBUS TP
DOCTOR GRORDBORTS CONTRAPULATRONIC DINGUS DIRECTORY HC
DOOM PATROL TP VOL 06 PLANET LOVE
EC ARCHIVES CRIME SUSPENSTORIES HC VOL 1
ESSENTIAL MARVEL SAGA TP VOL 01
FANTASTIC FOUR AND POWER PACK DIGEST TP
FIGHT FOR TOMORROW TP
FINAL GIRL POCKET MANGA VOL 01
GRAPHIC UNIVERSE SC ATALANTA RACE AGAINST DESTINY
GRAPHIC UNIVERSE SC DEMETER & PERSEPHONE
GRAPHIC UNIVERSE SC JASON QUEST FOR GOLDEN FLEECE
GRAPHIC UNIVERSE SC ROBIN HOOD OUTLAW OF SHERWOOD FOREST
HARLEY QUINN PRELUDES AND KNOCK KNOCK JOKES HC
HOUSE OF M HC
HULK PREM HC THE END
JUDGE DREDD COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL 9 TP
KABUKI REFLECTIONS #9
LAST MUSKETEER SC
LEES TOY REVIEW JAN 2008 #183
LIFELIKE HC
LUST KINKY ONLINE PERSONAL ADS FROM SEATTLES STRANGER HC
MERMAID SONG VOL 1 TP
MOME GN VOL 10
PINUP ART OF DAN DECARLO SC VOL 02
RED SEAS VOL 1 TP
SHOJO BEAT FEB 08
THUNDERBOLTS BY ELLIS VOL 1 FAITH IN MONSTERS TP
WEDNESDAY CONSPIRACY VOL 3 RESTLESS PEOPLE GN

What looks good to YOU?

-B

My Dinner With Brill, Episode #1: Outrage is the New Fun?

I always enjoy talking with Ian Brill--he inevitably brings a new angle on topics I'm considering--so when he asked if I'd be interested in doing a chat on fans and fun, I was more than game. I'd love to do more of these with him (although, don't worry, first I'll try to figure out how to run the "hide post behind jump" trick that commenters have pointed us toward recently), so let us know if that suits your fancy.

IAN BRILL: Mark Waid has said in a CBR interview that "'fun' is a death word in comics these days." I'm beginning to understand what he means by that. Seeing the reaction to One More Day, which I don't want to talk about specifically because I think we've all had enough of that, it seems a lot of fans value the high they get from a major negative reaction to a book. A book like Brave & The Bold, which Waid was talking about in the interview, gives a fan a solid ten or fifteen minute read. But I think the "fun" that fans are looking for now involves the theatre that comes with reading a book, going on-line and arguing about it, reading the articles on Newsarama about it, arguing some more, and so on. The superhero comics with modest goals get lost in the shuffle and are constantly canceled and relaunched. They can't compete because now it seems like a book doesn't really mean something unless it elicits this drama from everyone involved. Well, as you critics so savage are known to ask, what do YOU think?

JEFF LESTER: That's an interesting point, although I may have to throw it back to you pretty quickly: a couple years back, I stopped following Newsarama, ostensibly to stop from spoiling things that were going to happen in books that I liked. But once I did stop following "the N" (and I never bothered with Wizard), I found myself mellowing out a lot about some of this big "OMG, they're going to kill Captain America!" news. When Spider-Man unmasked in Civil War #2, that was pretty much when I gave up hope that I'd be able to draw enjoyment from going on the Internet and rattling the bars of my fanboy cage: I wrote a piece about it for Savage Critic that expressed what I felt, mentioned that I was going to stop buying Civil War, and that was that.

Amusingly, even though it was costing him moolah because I'd pre-ordered Civil War, Hibbs was the guy who kept teasing me about that: "You're really not going to buy Civil War?? Really??? How can a Marvel fanboy like you resist?" And I'm sure that friendly goading helped keep my resolve. But ultimately I found that, whatever attraction "finding out" what happened held for me, I just didn't want to pay for Mark Millar's new pool, or his bionic small intestine, or whatever, you know? So that probably started me on my way to kicking the "Hate" habit. It just seemed like another way to play into the hands of the marketers. I decided to focus on books I really enjoyed--the fun stuff like Brave & The Bold, or Iron Fist, or Blue Beetle--for capes, and a shitload of manga, and leave the rest of the crap behind me.

So although I guess I can agree with what Waid's saying, it doesn't hold any relevance to me or my reading habits. Books that are described as "fun" are the ones I 'm most tempted to pick up these days. But you know, that's my lame, currently non-Savage side of the story.

IB: Let me ask you, do you feel the effect of this climate of sensationalism affecting what you still read? My purchasing habits are similar to yours and I'm in constant fear that the books I dig are headed for the chopping block because no one gives a damn about a self-contained book that his its own stories to tell. Real stories, not just a series of "explosive" events tethered together ever so slightly amongst various books. That's another thing I worry about. The skill to write a real thorough story is losing its value when the interconnectedness of a shared universe can be used as a crutch.

JL: What worries me is almost the opposite: as sad as I'd be to see a book like Blue Beetle get the chopping block, I think it'd be worse if someone at DC thought the best way to "help" the book is inextricably tie its storyline to Countdown. An example might be something like Punisher: War Journal, which had a pretty great first issue, and then got incredibly blah for me: I can't tell if that's because I really don't like the current team's take on the book, or if the book never got a chance to develop a take that wasn't tied to whatever big event was happening in the Marvel Universe. And now that (if I remember correctly) sales are going down, and the tie-ins to Civil War and the Death of Cap are over, how hard is going to be for the team to avoid tying the book into Secret Invasion or whatever big event Marvel's got coming down the pike?

Writing a strong, self-contained story will never lose its value in the marketplace, I think. What's worrisome is that those who can do so will think that they can also do that and start a massive fifty issue event. Sometimes they can--look at Geoff Johns and the Sinestro War--and sometimes they can't--look at Grant Morrison and the Return of R'as Al Ghul storyline which I thought didn't do much more than sap more momentum from Morrison's inert Batman run.

So, for me, as long as Iron Fist and Blue Beetle keep on keeping on, no matter how truncated those books may end up being as a result, at least it ends up being something I can read, and re-read, without the nasty taste of big event cross-continuity affecting everything. But let me ask you this: do you think there's a sweet spot where shared universe events and cross continuity can still be present but avoid screwing a decent title? One of the big joys of a superhero book, I think, is the idea of the shared universe. Do you agree? And if so, how much of that does a book really need? Brave and The Bold takes place all over the DCU, which is part of what makes it (and here's the dreaded word) "fun." What separates that from, I dunno, Countdown to Mystery? At what point for you, I guess I'm asking, does the tool become the crutch?

IB: See I was going to say I would rather have a series I dig do a few crossover issues if it keeps it from getting canceled. If the people behind the book have to play politics to achieve what they want I'm fine with that.

Personally I'm not drawn to shared universes. What draws me to superheroes is the imagination, the strangeness and sometimes the grotesqueries found in a superhero book that go all out. I dig soap operas (well done soap operas that is) that include aliens and guys made out of rocks within those stories. It's not that I mind a shared universe. It's cool that a creative team has a number of concepts and characters they can draw from. I suppose I like the idea as long as it is a catalyst for creativity, not a hindrance. That's why I feel out of step from a lot of superhero stories (and have been for sheesh, coming up to four years now). I subscribe to something of an auteur theory when it comes to comics in the fact that I think the best stories are told by one person or a tight group of a few all doing a great job of achieving high goals they set for themselves. This as opposed to the stories created at summits and handed down by editorial. Perhaps that's what I meant more than implying there are poor writers out there just using a big event to fill up 22 pages easy. If anything, maybe those writers are just waiting to be unleashed!

I want to get back to the fan situation since that's what got my mind started in the first place. I think instead of doing what you did, stopped buying a book you didn't like, most fans keep buying a book (or many books as the case may be) but find someone to turn their feelings of disappointment into elation by going through this process of ridicule and displaying outrage. I mean, you may have hated the retcon they did with Dr. Smash-em-up's history but it gave you a chance to get into a passionate discussion with your pals, and wasn't that fun? So these books still make money and it doesn't matter how outlandish the ideas can be. Fans will still get some kind of a kick out of it. Perhaps I'm making connections that don't exist. What do you think?

JL: You know, before I address your point, let me just say that I do think there are poor writers out there just using a big event to fill up 22 pages--I haven't followed it that closely, but whenever I check out Ghost Rider, it seems to be precisely that and it makes me sad--because you shouldn't have to resort to big crossover events to juice up a book about a flaming skeleton that rides a motorcycle after selling his soul to the Devil.

As for the fan situation, you're right in large part. What you describe is one of the things I enjoyed most about working at CE: talking with Hibbs and trying to make each other laugh about the terrible books we read that week. But one thing I learned at working at CE, and it's worth mentioning in this discussion, is that the fans on the Internet are not the sum total of the fans buying the books. There are lots of people who buy comic books because they want to read shit that is bad-ass. I sold copies of Civil War, Infinite Crisis--hell, even dull ol' House of M--to guys who ate this stuff up with a spoon because it was, again *bad-ass*. So there are assuredly people who think it's really cool that Dr. Smash-em-up is now the Totem of the Smash-em-up God because it means Dr. Smash-em-up can now kick twice as much ass as he used to. And they feel that way because they dug Dr. Smash-em-up since they were five, or nine, or eleven, and they have a very deep complex connection to Dr. Smash-em-up that would be kinda difficult and embarrassing to explain to others. All they can share, really, is their enthusiasm. Similarly, in many cases, people who go apeshit on the Net about Dr. Smash-em-up have that same complex connection, but the retconning changes or challenges that connection. And again, all they can really share is their bitter disappointment. But of course, they go and buy the next issue anyway because that connection is still there. Or they quit the book because it isn't.

What it sounds like you're suggesting--and I think it'd be worth hearing you talk about--is the idea that the fans are, like wrestling fans, enjoying the opportunity to yell and holler and scream, and that's what's keeping the machinery going. Are you suggesting that?

IB: Maybe. Yeah I think so. I'm suggesting that and also saying that books that try to be something more than just a smogarsboard of deaths and rebirths get lost in the melee. I've seen the letter pages of old Marvel books and I've seen what Fantaco put out in the '80s. Fans, some anyway, got real analytical about this shit. That tradition lives on, including on this very webpage. But often I feel that critical thinking has lost to easy jokes and puffed-up anger. Whether it's the fans reflecting the books or the books reflecting the fans I don't know. On the note about fans on the Internet being a minority, that's probably true but there are more blogs and podcasts popping up all the time. Those blogs and podcasts have their own fans who are probably being introduced to the world of on-line fandom because someone at their store said "hey, read my blog." It's a growing minority and I think it's already reached a size worth noticing.

JL: That's a good point. In fact, it may have reached a size large enough to warp its own perception: how many bloggers felt the compulsion to read "Brand New Day" and give their take on it as quickly as possible? I know I did. As more and more bloggers and podcasters hit the scene, it makes sense that the competition for people's eyeballs can lead to an increase in hyperbolic outrage. As a blogger, you feel like you gotta feed the beast, and nothing's easier to react to than some outrageous action by one of the big two.

IB: I think you're right Jeff. There's a certain fervor that comes from both how fast these arguments play out and how many people are involved. I'm a big believer in the idea that whenever you're doing something creative (and I do think blogging and podcasting are creative endeavors) there's value in stepping away from what you're doing and coming back with fresh eyes. I'd like to see fans adhere to that before you get the 100+ page threads that a moderator has to shut down because someone calls for Joe Quesada's head.

Come to think of it, I'd like the creators and editors to employ that strategy of "cooling off" before they come up with the next set of events that are sure to cause fan outrage. Actually, the more I think about this topic I realize there's a thin line between fan and creator in this business. Maybe that's why things can get so heated when creators respond to negative fan reaction. It's not two sides against each other. It's one type of personality looking at itself in the mirror and seeing things it doesn't want to see.

Don't make me bored, you wouldn't like me when I'm bored: Graeme doesn't dig Hulk.

It's probably sad to point out that HULK #1 marks the point where Jeph Loeb has started recycling Al Milgrom plots, but I am a man cursed with a long memory for off-periods of Marvel history. But still, despite the seeming return of the Rick Jones Hulk - Didn't Rick die, on panel, in World War Hulk, or am I misremembering? - and the (unfulfilled) potential for big dumb visuals, this comic ends up feeling much more flat than it should.

Part of that is that, for all the ideas that feel as if they should be popping, none of them are actually taken anywhere new. A Hulk shooting bad guys with a massive gun? Not only does it sound like a bad idea straight from the 1990s - well, this is a Jeph Loeb comic, and he is friends with Rob Liefeld - but we've just come from the Planet Hulk era where a Hulk using weaponary (and dressed like a gladiator, to boot) was commonplace. A second Hulk - who may or may not be Rick Jones - is, as I said above, straight from Al Milgrom in the '80s. And the last page "shocker" comes directly from Mark Millar's Ultimates... But, unlike other, similarly Magpie-esque, comics from Loeb, this doesn't even feel like a greatest hits compilation for the character... it just feels done already.

For the sake of ease, I'm going to blame it on Ed McGuinness. It's not that there's anything especially bad with his work here, but somehow it's missing the fun that he brought to something like Superman/Batman... His characters seem more generic, and his staging more dull. In the past, he's managed to take books with less ideas or intelligence than this (See: Superman/Batman, for example) and nonetheless turn them into some bizarrely enjoyable pop moment of balloon-muscled square-jaws in colorful adventures. Here, that energy's gone, and it makes the problems with the writing that much more obvious.

It's a weird book in general; there's nothing in the set-up that doesn't feel temporary, which makes for an experience where it's hard to really care about anything (An experience which is also helped by the melodramatic, surface-deep, dialogue and characterization, and by the turn-around of status-quo of the two main characters just a couple of months after their fates in World War Hulk). Most of the characters are borrowed from other series, lending the whole thing a cheap mini-series feeling (Because, come on, like anything's going to happen to She-Hulk here. And isn't Doc Samson in some other book these days as well?), and with a movie coming in the summer that features Bruce Banner as a green Hulk, it's severely unlikely that we're going to stick with a red Rick Hulk beyond the opening arc of the series... So, instead of thinking "Where are they going with this amazing storyline?", the reader is left wondering "How quickly are they going to fix things?" before shrugging their shoulders, saying Eh, and going off to read something else.

Here Comes Everyone: A Quick Bit of (Kinda) Self-Promotion.

Yeah, "kinda," because is it really self-promotion if you're promoting the people that you work with on this here blog. (Answer: Duh, of course it is!) First, in case you missed it, essays from both Abhay and Jog were mentioned(repeatedly) in Chris Mautner's excellent round-up of the best comics criticism of 2007 over at Blog@. Then, Johanna's fine blog, comicsworthreading.com, got name-checked by Newsweek magazine in its article on Wonder Woman (which, unfortunately, has one of the stupidest titles I've ever read). Finally, there's a blissfully long interview with Graeme conducted by Tom Spurgeon over at The Comics Reporter. (And The Comics Reporter has been exceptional lately, I think: even before it's accidental holiday hiatus, it was bursting with amaazing content. Currently, it's like reading a one-man Comics Journal ("OMACJ?") and really wonderful.)

Anyway, wanted to let you know. I should have slightly more substantial material than this (complete with special guest-star!) shortly.

Abhay Tries Writing About James Sturm & Rich Tommaso's Satchel Paige: Striking out Jim Crow

I. I first heard of James Sturm with the positive reception of The Golem's Mighty Swing, his 2001 comic about an all-Jewish baseball team lost in America during the 1920's. Sturm followed it with Unstable Molecules, an odd sort-of Fantastic Four comic but one transformed by Sturm and collaborator Guy Davis to elaborate upon themes from Golem: families struggling to stay together, families splintering apart; intersections between myth and reality; an America that seems to promise greatness if only just out of reach; grasping characters longing to escape from rural/suburban areas/their identities in society; et cetera.

Sturm's latest comic is a collaboration with Rich Tommaso entitled Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow. It’s “presented by” Sturm’s new school dedicated to comics, The Center for Cartoon Studies.

The comic's back cover purports that Satchel Paige will "follow Paige from his earliest days on the mound through the pinnacle of his career." It's a heck of a dishonest back cover: the comic doesn't "follow" Paige at all so much as present a story about the Segregation-Era South that happens to intersect with Paige's career at two differing points in time. It presents not a "story of a sports hero who defied the barriers of race" so much as an historic argument as to the significance of Paige. So: wag of the finger to you, dishonest back cover of Satchel Paige.

I wouldn't describe it as a history lesson. A few intriguing details aside, the comic is not heavy on historic detail, save what it provides in endnote annotations which prove far more interesting than the comic itself. (But shit: who wants to read endnotes when you could read comics instead?)

At a leisurely paced 85 pages, it feels like a short comic, which hurts here and there. The emotional life of Paige’s narrator (not Paige) dominates Satchel Paige, but given the length, the nameless generic narrator never becomes a full character so much as a stand-in for “all black people oppressed by segregation.” Some might find an unseemliness in presenting a comic about the black experience in US history, where all of one character is "Black Experience” but... you know, I’d imagine many readers will be forgiving given how interesting the figure of Paige himself is, despite the relative brevity of his appearances in the comic.

The high-point of the book for me: a swell 15-page chunk dives into the thoughts of a batter facing off against Paige. While I was reading that bit, I was hoping that would be the entire book. A comic going into a ballplayer’s head? Let alone in a situation like that? Good times.

And it shows off what I enjoy so much about Sturm’s baseball comics: Sturm/Tommaso might not consider the design of the entire page like a manga baseball author might (so it’s hardly never as plain-ol’-fun as baseball manga), but Sturm’s montages are always so crisp. Sturm/Tommaso especially know when to manipulate time— when to speed it up, when to slow it down. Tommaso? He has his highs and lows. Tommaso doesn't quite land the big bombastic moments: he’s doing a stiff “historical period piece” style that isn’t built for an exciting panel of a guy sliding into home plate, say. With Satchel Paige, the most show-off moment in a baseball comic is a double-page spread of cotton getting picked...? Also, Tommaso is disinterested in drawing backgrounds, so there are times when the backgrounds drop away for dramatic effect that are badly undercut by, you know, the other times they drop away. But Tommaso has his moments, too. For example, there’s a nice nighttime scene set in the rural south that plays to his strengths— it’s regrettable so much of the comic has to take place during daytime.

Still, the bad guy is “Segregation”...? Shit. I suppose you can’t really get that much nuance when your bad guy is Segregation, but I guess I should admit I got a little bored by the lack of nuance to the situation. I kind of know how I feel about segregation already. Personally? I’m against it! Also: I'm somewhat concerned to the extent the comic seems to almost argue that the powerful owners of industry, wealth and capital can be terribly challenged by minority entertainers (or any entertainers at all, for that matter).

I found it interesting how Sturm utilized the traditional Hollywood sports story, though. By gum, it’s a great recipe: (1) a game is "lost"; (2) a change in perspective takes place; and (3) after this change in perspective, a bigger, more important game is played where this change of perspective is tested. (There are, of course, fantastic exceptions to the formula—the skanky 70’s sports movies like Slapshot or North Dallas 40 being my favorite.) What’s interesting to me is how Satchel Paige adheres to the formula (e.g., ending with a Big Game), but plays off of it by making the "change of perspective" one of how the main character views Paige and how that view changes over time and through life-experience. I might have had mixed feelings about the content, but that structure-move had a certain elegance I admired.

II.

Still: Dude! Baseball comics!

Forgive any conflict of interest, but: Is there better material for comics than baseball? Jesus, it just has about everything a boy could want for a comic book: Exciting visuals? Larger than life characters? Rampant drug abuse? Check, check, and checkmate.

My favorite baseball comic creator is manga creator Mitsuru Adachi. Adachi does sports manga that are typically whimsical coming of age pieces; his H2, scanslated by the fine, fine folks over at Mangascreeners, is about a gentle rivalry between competing high school baseball stars and lifelong friends / romantic-competitors. They’re pretty shallow comics, though nastily addictive like all manga; but, shit, I just like how Adachi draws.

Here are fastballs from H2 and Satchel Paige. So... who do you think threw the ball faster? I'm going to go with Satchel Paige because he helped end segregation, apparently.

There’s more out there: Stopper Busujima. Touch. Taiyou Matsumoto’s Hanaotoko. There was Will Eisner. There was Charles Schulz. There was Ray Gotto.

Outside of comics, it’s not hard to find, either, no. There’ve been comedies, dramas, songs, poems. You can wind up with Charlie Sheen or Don Delillo’s Underworld; Phillip Roth or Walter Matthau. Here’s how James Sturm described it: “You could probably tell a hundred baseball stories, one could be about racism, one could be about closeted issues of sexual identity and another one could be about corporate corruption.”

III.

The downside is the competition; Joephisto can't beat the real thing:

In 1984, Dock Ellis claimed to have pitched a no-hitter on LSD. He says the ball told him what pitches to throw. If you say his name off a roll-call, it goes "Ellis, D." Bill “The Spaceman” Lee claimed marijuana made him impervious to bus fumes. In 1988 he ran for President of the United States on the Canadian Political Rhinoceros Party ticket. His slogan was "No guns. No butter. Both can kill." If elected, he promised to repeal the law of gravity. Steve Sparks dislocated his shoulder for the 7th time in his career trying to rip apart a phone book with his bare hands. As a “motivational technique.”

Here’s a quote from Mark Fidrych about giving up a home run to Carl Yastrzemski: "It blew my mind. It blew my goddamn mind. Just because ... hey the only reason it blew my mind was because, here I am, goin', I'm in front of my -- Fenway Park."

Former Kansas City Royal Mark Littell did an ad for athletic support that you can find online. My favorite part is when he says “Here we go, Ramrod.” Here’s Manager Phillip Wellman of the Mississippi Braves. Here’s a photo of Oscar Gamble. You can go to Las Vegas and Pete Rose will sign a ball to you that reads “I’m Sorry I Bet On Baseball” as a souvenir of your trip.

Pete Browning’s father died in a cyclone. He named all of his bats after biblical figures. He used to stare at the sun to “improve his lamps.” He was a “skilled marbles player” and “name figure skater.” He was deaf and illiterate. He was well-known for his love of booze and equally well-known for his love of prostitutes. He used to say “"I can't hit the ball until I hit the bottle!” He died after having lost his mind. The Louisville Slugger bat is named after him. His nephew Tod directed the movie Freaks.

Pitcher Rube Waddell used to leave the mound to chase fire engines. He wrestled alligators in the off-season. Opposing team fans used to hold up puppies to distract him on the mound. He was once bit by a lion. He was a superstar athlete. Some people now speculate that he may have been mentally retarded.

Groundhog Day: Douglas reads ASM

I'm probably a pretty decent test case for AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #546, since I haven't read a non-Ultimate series about Spider-Man regularly in many years, am fond of high-speed serialization in theory, enjoy Steve McNiven's artwork (particularly for action scenes), and don't have strong feelings about this particular continuity revision beyond my general distaste for it-was-all-a-dream soft reboots. (I should also note that the initial rumor I'd heard about the upshot of One More Day--about a year ago--was that it was going to reboot the entire 616 universe, the way Marv Wolfman intended to have Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot the DCU.) Jumping-on points? I'm all for 'em. So I've jumped on, and... it's Okay, but I don't think this is the train for me. The tone of Dan Slott's story is very much in the vein of what Spider-Man comics were like 30 years ago or so: there's a new villain with a cute gimmick, a couple of new supporting-cast members, J. Jonah Jameson is a one-dimensional jerk instead of the hardass newsman Brian Michael Bendis has turned him into over the last few years, Peter Parker can't catch a break, the storytelling is very straightforward despite the cute little temporal loop built into it, etc. In fact, the "this and that" page with the flashback to what Peter's been up to looks like a homage to the Ross Andru era of Amazing Spider-Man. (Note that we're seeing Hammerhead and the Rhino rather than, say, Venom.) And there are a couple of straight-up callbacks to Amazing Fantasy #15--Aunt May and her wheatcakes, the "I could have stopped the robber but I didn't" routine, etc. It's perfectly solidly executed, and Slott and McNiven are gratifyingly painstaking about the details: Jonah's mad-dog face, the cooing pigeon on the phone, even the filler text in the newspaper ads and the chairs (!) in the scene where Peter's interviewing for jobs. (I notice that the Ph.D. who interviews him is Stephen Wacker.) Everything that needs to be explained for someone who hasn't read Spider-Man comics in a while is there. And that first page of next week's issue that Wacker showed in his Newsarama interview yesterday is a fine little joke.

But there's a nasty irony to the scene where Peter wakes up in his aunt's house: he's too old for things to be exactly the same way they were long ago--he's still got his science-fair trophies in his bedroom, with the periodic table hanging over the bed--and it feels almost infantilizing, the same way this new direction for Amazing does. This issue is so thoroughly concerned with setting up the new ground rules for the series that it never quite gets to the exciting part: McNiven keeps drawing things from dramatically tilted angles to suggest a sense of chaos and drama (the entire final scene at the Bugle seems to represent the perspective of somebody overcompensating for a crick in their neck), but this is really mostly a talking-heads story, and not even very suspenseful.

Most frustratingly, there's nothing particularly fresh going on here--nothing that opens up the Spider-Man concept to the 21st century, or finds new depths in the 45 years of stories that precede it. There doesn't seem to be any subtext at all in this issue (what is it about? it's about Spider-Man, duh!), and there's barely any open space, either visually (the cover is almost the only image this issue that suggests Spider-Man's sense of free motion through the city) or in the story; I can't imagine the plot going anywhere unexpected or novel. I feel like this is an upgraded version of a story that was accidentally left out of Essential Spider-Man Vol. 7--sharper dialogue, prettier modeling for the artwork, but very much the opposite of brand new.

Brand New Year, apparently: Graeme, Spidey return.

"You missed One More Day!"

This was Hibbs, yesterday, when I went into pick up the books I've missed during my three weeks away from everything. And it's true, I did miss One More Day... or, at least, the end of it, the part that we all knew was coming and still managed to want to read nonetheless. I can't quite work out if I'm sad about that or not - Having kept track of all the upset, melodrama and gossip that's spun out of the damn thing, I kind of feel as if I've managed to read it after all, as if there was some kind of geek osmosis that gave me One More Day cooties through the internet just by reading about it.

(I also missed the chance to do any kind of "That was 2007, here were my favorite books from the year" thing. If you care, they would've included The Homeless Channel, The Professor's Daughter, Laika, The Salon, Casanova, King City, Darwyn Cooke's take on The Spirit and others that I can't remember right now. You probably didn't miss anything.)

Thing is, no matter how much they screwed up One More Day – and they really did, at least in terms of Marvel PR, which is normally much better than releasing promo images that had nothing to do with the story or having creators argue with each other through competing websites – none of it really matters to Brand New Day. It's a relaunch to the franchise, after all, and no matter how much continuity may be completely fucked, if the first issue of Brand New Day's brand new status quo was good enough, all would more likely be forgiven.

Here's the thing, though. While AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #546 may be one of the best Spider-Man stories that Marvel has put out in awhile, that's pretty much just because of the context of at least a year's worth of shitty stories preceding it. Taken on its own merits, it's just Okay.

A lot of this really comes down to the presentation; considering the writing in this issue – and the idea of the revamp in general – is so retro, using Steve McNiven's pretty-but-sterile-and-static artwork and that particular font for Peter's narration seems out of place and a little against the grain. There are some nice images, sure, but McNiven's stuff is weirdly lifeless to me and, maybe more importantly for a Spider-Man book, weirdly humorless as well. Don't get me onto why I dislike the lettering so much, because I doubt I could explain, beyond the fact that it's such an impersonal typeface, and I'm sure that Spider-Man's narration should at least pretend to be handwritten, so as to appear both more friendly and more neighborhoody. Yes, I'm complaining about the lettering on a book. I am a nerd.

Storywise, it's... It's fine. It's nothing that we haven't seen before - Even the cliffhanger is familiar - even if it's something that we haven't seen for awhile. It's perfectly okay, but there's nothing in it to excite you if you haven't been sitting around wanting it to be 1976 in the Spiderverse again. Dan Slott's script is servicable enough, especially considering the amount of world-building he's had to do, but still, there are questions that the book itself raises, outside of One More Day, that niggle; Why did Peter stop being Spider-Man, for one thing? It can't have been anything major, because in the middle of the issue he's all ready to put on the outfit again but stops for a pretty petty reason... The dialogue fits well enough, but that's kind of the problem: Everything is "good enough" instead of actually "good". Where's the excitement, or the humor, or the anything to try and win fans over?

I'll pick up the next issue, out of curiosity and because I kind of like weekly books in general, but so far, you'd be better off picking up an Essentials collection and getting more of the same thrills for your money.

We Found It: Jog scratches up some 1/9

Note that while the images I'm posting in the following review are in b&w, the actual comic is in full Laura Allred color. I just can't seem to find any color preview material, save for the Nick Cardy/Dave Stewart cover. To wit:

Teen Titans: The Lost Annual: This was originally known as the Teen Titans Swingin' Elseworlds Special, back in 2003 when it was first expected for release. The story and art were complete at that time, but the material was nonetheless denied publication for reasons that remain somewhat vague to this day. Penciller Jay Stephens has recently cited the dialing down of the Elseworlds line and a potential for confusion with the contemporaneous launch of the Geoff Johns-written Titans series as contributing to the situation, while earlier accounts suggested everything from the book's 'uncommercial' and 'weird' nature to its anti-war slant in the face of the just-begun Iraq conflict -- or even spillover controversy from inker Mike Allred's presence as artist on Marvel's X-Statix, then under close scrutiny due to its planned (and later aborted) Princess Di storyline -- as reasons for the postponement.

Regardless, it's only seeing print now as a pamphlet-format Annual, with last week's (cute as a button) Teen Titans Year One launch providing a nebulous tie-in. But while that current miniseries updates the original Titans lineup to adolescents of the modern age, this book sees the team romping around the '60s heyday of writer/co-creator Bob Haney, here providing his final comics script. It's not a clean timeline, mind you - the Titans didn't debut until 1964, while this story (by its own plot details) takes place no later than 1962, even though the team is already fully formed, and specific period details don't quite match up. The Elizabeth Taylor movie Cleopatra didn't open until after the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example.

Not that it matters much, given the deliriously messy allegory Haney cooks up. The story sees the team (minus useless Aqualad) whisked away to an alien world to save a brainwashed President John F. Kennedy from escalating a conflict between blue-skinned 'mod'/Yellow Submarine types and furry brown knife-swinging quasi-hippies, thus accounting for inter-counterculture strife, racial disharmony and Vietnam, all of it presented as the 'straight' Titans dealing with shifting cultural tides, while also simultaneously presenting JFK as an avatar for the decade's conflicted yearning for war and peace. In terms of sheer ambition, Haney's got the recent works of Stan Lee beat easily.

Truth be told, it's somewhat haphazard and overextended as a story, and I suspect a good portion of its success belongs squarely to the aforementioned art team; contrary to Hibbs, I liked Stephens as inked by Allred, in that the latter solidifies the former's simpler designs into just the sort of general DC '60s look amenable to conveying the broad swathe of time implicated by the script. I suspect the reverse would have looked too much like... Mike Allred, thus distracting things with specificity. And any less technically skilled a combo might have let the pages collapse into jabbering nonsense.

As it is, things proceed conductively, even as Haney piles on action sequence after action sequence, extends a Wonder Girl romantic betrayal well past the point of interest, and has the brainwashing plot turn on a scheme involving: (a) a special hat; and (b) potentially deadly blunt force trauma. Never mind that (b) does rather cancel out (a) in the world of logic - this story takes place on Earth Propulsion, and Robin only needs retrive a hat so that things can keep on moving.

In spite of that, I do feel this is still a GOOD comic, because Haney's hyperactive storytelling and inclusive setting, as well-served by the art as they are, ultimately compliment his extra-broad themes. This isn't any plainclothes 'relevant' story - it's a big, loud superhero epic aiming to embody a big, loud time, with larger-than-life symbols of one or more mighty social forces thundering around to and fro.

For example, one could say that Haney's characterization of the clear-minded Kennedy as a tireless advocate of peace is up for debate, but he's really playing off the notion of Camelot, the feeling that Kennedy came to embody for some, a state that's worth grasping in a superhero comic of this sort: everyone is sort of decent, nobody is beyond recovery and all trespasses are forgiven. This is presented as the natural state of affairs for superheroes, or at least the young superheroes of that time, acting as both reflections of and engines behind a distinct idealism. In this construct, they act to bring out the cooperative state in everyone.

That kind of thing can't really sustain itself, and the book knows it. The story ends with a major blow toward idealism (though, in keeping with the plot's temporal jumble, it's a shot fired before a lot of the strife represented earlier), and there's tears on the final page. As such, the story does feel like a final Titans adventure, if only in that it acknowledges the eventual downgrading of its own worldview. Growing old, if you will. It's is a hopeful comic book fantasy, however, and it suggests that not only could the heroes keep on fighting, but that the spirit of the time has merely gone somewhere else, and can be presumably be recalled. An effective sentiment for a comic so steeped in an older aesthetic - it's too damned upbeat to admit that funnies of this kind can't come back. I mean, look at what's in your hands!

Of course, that was all in a comic meant for 2003. And then it was 2004, and Bob Haney died. And now it is 2008, and the comic is finally here. And I think, in spite of all positive thought, it is not as easy as it seems.

New Year, Old School -- Hibbs on 1/9/08

I've been meaning to do an "old school" style Savage Critic for a while now, but keep running out of time at the end of each day. So today, I thought I'd try instead of reading everything, then writing it all up, that I'd write-as-I-go, in between helping customers (it's a slow day too, so I guess that works out). Hopefully this won't suck too hard...

This is pretty properly "old school" too in that I'm just writing up my reaction to the work presented, rather than actually reviewing anything, or being a "critic" -- most things will have two sentences or less. Its been a good long while since I've tried it this way, so be sure to tell me how much you hate it....

52 AFTERMATH THE FOUR HORSEMEN #6: All in all, pretty much a big nothing -- it strikes me any characters could have taken the place of the "trinity", so, meh. EH

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #546: I've already talked about how I thought the "One More Day" story was stupid and contrived (if executed alright at the end), but if you put all of that aside (something I know many of you won't be able to do), I thought this was quite a decent "new start" for Spidey. The writing is crisp, the art is really nice, and, most importantly, it feels exactly like a Spider-Man comic book should (something that was missing through much of the JMS run). I won't know for a little while whether people are BUYING this or not (as I write this, I've been open for 20 minutes), but I'm willing to look at OMD as a band-aid ripping off -- sure it stings, but you're better off at the end of the day. Judged on its own, I thought this issue was pretty GOOD.

BAT LASH #2: Great Severin Art, solid enough story, so let's say GOOD.

BOYS #14: Good enough conclusion, if uninspiring. A low GOOD.

BPRD 1946 #1: Terrific as always. VERY GOOD.

COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 16: The last couple of issues have been pretty decent, I have to say. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they rewrote the back half of this series once they saw the commercial reaction. I wouldn't nominate the Mark II phase of COUNTDOWN for an Eisner or anything, but I've read far worse comic books. EH.

EVIL DEAD #1: I didn't so much "read" this as page through it. I have a hard time in believing that anyone, at this point, is looking for an adaptation of this film, even "expanded" like it is. Nice art, but who cares? EH.

GOON #20: Funny stuff, and very well drawn. VERY GOOD.

GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #4: Man, Cliff Chiang's gets better and better each issue; and Judd didn't do anything too objectionable here either. I think a "Hey, aren't you dead?" might have been nice from someone, and the kinda huge absurdity of the situation (Superman can't find a trace, the bullet also had a poison, and so on) works badly against it, but yeah it was pretty as fuck. Still, four issues in, it would be nice to know by now to know what the book is about, y'know, thematically? OK

GREEN LANTERN CORPS #20: Yeah, that was fine; nothing much more that I can say. OK.

HULK #1: There's something funny about the Hulk pulling out a gun and busting a cap in someone's face, but, like much of Loeb's work the "big funny idea" doesn't really play that much out into becoming a good comic. There's nothing really wrong with this book; but there's equally no real reason for this reader to come on back for issue #2. OK

INFINITY INC #5: Uninteresting characters, ugly art... but even with moving Pete Woods on to the book (see Newsarama today), it's hard to imagine any audience coming back/sticking with this. It's generally impossible to recover from such a lousy start. AWFUL.

JENNA JAMESONS SHADOW HUNTER #0: The cover price says $2.99, but it's actually meant to cost 25 cents. If you bought one, and your LCS charged you more than a quarter, go ask for your money back. In fact, if you paid that much, you might want to ask for your money back, since this isn't a story, but a "preview" of #1 (wait... what?!?). This can't even be rated, since it isn't actually a comic, but an ad they're charging for.... NO RATING

JLA CLASSIFIED #50: Stern and Byrne reunite for some "old school" JLA action -- decent enough material, but won't set the world on fire. A rock-solid OK.

MIGHTY AVENGERS #7: "Super hero hoo hah" is, I think, the phrase? I'd probably have been more enamored if we hadn't seen the Venom scenes what feels like 6 months ago. Lime green lettering on a yellow background is REALLY hard to read. Still and all, strongly OK.

NIGHTWING #140: I liked it. Solidly well written, with some interesting bits of history and whatnot. Though the idea of Bruce Wayne owning the Cloisters is... kinda strange. GOOD.

NOVA #10: I wish this stupid transmode virus storyline would end already -- I'm not interested in a page of it. On the other hand, being trapped in a transdimensional birth-canal is pretty much high concept. EH

PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #15: A seriously nothing idea stretched out too long, and that didn't end as much as stop. Plus the art was pretty stinky. AWFUL

SALVATION RUN #3: What happened to Bill Willingham? Not that he's really needed here -- this is a limp premise, limply executed. Lots of running and hitting and gnashing of teeth, but nothing I especially care about or want to see how it ends up. AWFUL.

SCALPED #13: Really strong stuff. I haven't read the last 3-4 issues either, and I followed everything here just fine. This is probably Vertigo's strongest current title. VERY GOOD.

SIMON DARK #4: Pretty, but I just don't care about any of the characters or situations. EH

SPIRIT #12: I find myself carrying very little about the stories involved in this series, but instead just marveling over the art and storytelling. Cooke's amazing Eisner flashbacks raise that bar even further. A really strong GOOD.

SUICIDE SQUAD RAISE THE FLAG #5: solid enough espionage material, though a big part of me wonders why this is running concurrently with CHECKMATE when they both basically mine the same territory. Another part of me wonders how this lines up with SALVATION RUN, which shows some of these characters off world... Either way, a low GOOD.

SUPERMAN #672: Perfectly fine, I guess, but I was a bit more interested in the Chris-has-a-fever sections than the Insect Queen stuff... probably because she may look like Lana, she isn't. Reasonably OK.

TEEN TITANS THE LOST ANNUAL: Seriously strange (as was probably to be expected), but I think Jay Stephens inked by Allred didn't look as good as I was hoping it would -- the other way around might have been better? EH

TWELVE #1: No idea where this can/will go, moving forward, but as a single issue I was strongly entertained, both by the setup and fish-out-water elements, as well as the relative innocence of the "golden age" heroes. Spiffy art, too. VERY GOOD.

WOLVERINE #61: Another storyline that went probably an issue or two past its expiration date. The real problem is that despite the "stakes" and the Angel of Death and the talk of missing souls, there's little real tension involved here -- its not like they're going to kill Wolverine, after all. EH

WONDER GIRL #5: Terrible art, and a yammering on-and-on story (this coulda been 3 issues, tops) AWFUL

X-FACTOR #27: Another week, another chapter of crossover. Actually, this has been a reasonably strong event all around, but nothing thrilling for me. Probably because of all of the time travel elements, which seem like they're overwhelming the point of this. EH.

YOUNGBLOOD #1: Pretty generic hero stuff, and nothing that hasn't been done better elsewhere, really. EH

There, my patience came to an end -- not quite everything read, but most of it....

PICK OF THE WEEK: I'm going to go with THE TWELVE #1 -- nice solid read, with an intriguing set up

PICK OF THE WEAK: Let's say SALVATION RUN #3

TP/GN OF THE WEEK: This one is easy: BLACK HOLE COLLECTED SC -- if you haven't read it yet, it's the must have.

So, what did YOU think?

-B

Arriving 1/9/2008

Comics are finally back to Wednesday, hurrah!

Another tiny little week, however....

52 AFTERMATH THE FOUR HORSEMEN #6 (OF 6)
A G SUPER EROTIC ANTHOLOGY #73 (A)
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #546 BND
ARCHIE #581
ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #185
BAT LASH #2 (OF 6)
BATMAN STRIKES #41
BOYS #14
BPRD 1946 #1
CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK #21
CORY DOCTOROWS FUTURISTIC TALES HERE AND NOW #4 (OF 6)
COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 16
EVIL DEAD #1 (OF 4)
EXTERMINATORS #25
FALL OF CTHULHU CVR A #9
FOUNDATION #1 (OF 5) (RES)
GEN 13 #16
GENE SIMMONS DOMINATRIX #6
GHOST RIDER #19
GOON #20
GREEN ARROW BLACK CANARY #4
GREEN LANTERN CORPS #20
GRIMM FAIRY TALES RETURN TO WONDERLAND #5 (OF 6)
HICKEE VOL 3 #4
HULK #1
INDIA AUTHENTIC GARUDA #8
INFINITE HORIZON #2 (OF 6)
INFINITY INC #5
JENNA JAMESONS SHADOW HUNTER #0
JLA CLASSIFIED #50
JOHN WOOS SEVEN BROTHERS SERIES 2 #4
KADE SHIVAS SUN #1 (OF 4)
KILLING PICKMAN #2 (OF 6)
LOST BOOKS OF EVE #4 (OF 4)
MAINTENANCE #7
MARVEL ADVENTURES HULK #7
MIGHTY AVENGERS #7 SII
NIGHTWING #140
NOVA #10
ONSLAUGHT REBORN #5 (OF 5)
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL #15
RAMAYAN 3392 AD RELOADED #3
SALVATION RUN #3 (OF 7)
SCALPED #13
SHEENA #4
SIMON DARK #4
SNAKEWOMAN VOL 2 TALE OF THE SNAKE CHARMER #6 (OF 6)
SPIRIT #12
STAR WARS LEGACY #0 1/2 ONE SHOT
STARKWEATHER IMMORTAL #2 (OF 4)
SUICIDE SQUAD RAISE THE FLAG #5 (OF 8)
SUPERMAN #672
SWORD OF RED SONJA DOOM O/T GODS #4
TEEN TITANS THE LOST ANNUAL
TELEVISION #1
TWELVE #1 (OF 12)
UN-MEN #6
WILDSTORM FINE ARTS SPOTLIGHT ON WILDCATS
WOLVERINE #61
WONDER GIRL #5 (OF 6)
X-FACTOR #27 MC
YOUNGBLOOD #1

Books / Mags / Stuff
ART OF BRYAN TALBOT SC
BEYOND TP
BLACK HOLE COLLECTED SC
BPRD TP VOL 07 GARDEN OF SOULS
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS TP VOL 03
CAPITOL HELL POSTCARD BOOK
CONAN BLOOD STAINED CROWN AND OTHER STORIES TP
CRIMINAL MACABRE COMPLETE CAL MCDONALD STORIES TP
DEATH JR VOL 1 PANDORA GN
ESSENTIAL CAPTAIN AMERICA TP VOL 04
GHOST RIDER TP VOL 03 APOCALYPSE SOON
HEAVY METAL MARCH 2008 #115
JSA PRESENTS TP VOL 02 STARS AND STRIPES
JUSTICE LEAGUE SER 7 BALANCED INNER ASST
LITTLE SCROWLIE TP VOL 03 APOCALYPSE SCROWL
MANGA SUTRA GN VOL 01 FUTARI H (A)
MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE WS DVD
MYTH ADVENTURE COLLECTION ANOTHER FINE MYTH
NEW WARRIORS TP VOL 01 DEFIANT
NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE TP VOL 02 I KICK YOUR FACE
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN VOL 1 TP
SHOWCASE PRESENTS ROBIN THE BOY WONDER TP VOL 01
STAR WARS DARK TIMES VOL 1 PATH TO NOWHERE TP
STAR WARS KNIGHTS O/T OLD REPUBLIC VOL 3 TP
TOYFARE HEROES TOYS CVR #127
ULTIMATE X-MEN TP VOL 17 SENTINELS

ASSHAT OF THE WEEK: ONSLAUGHT REBORN #5 -- originally scheduled to ship in March.... of 2007. Hurray! Word is, however, that it isn't Liefeld's fault, but rather Jeph Loeb not turning in the script. Still, it's like a curse on Liefeld's house...

What looks good to YOU?

-B

Johanna Does DC: Atom, Supergirl, JLAC, Teen Titans

All-New Atom #19 -- A classic fill-in issue, with the first page featuring the hero thinking about all the things going on in the "regular" title storyline, before the rest of the book becomes about an unrelated adventure. Some have of his buddies have been exploring an abandoned mine, and they haven't returned in days. The Atom goes after them, with text lumps conveniently explaining heavy-handed plot needs to keep the story going: the radio must not work at that depth, no one can excavate because the ground gives way, and so on. A scary underground inbred community living like its the 1800s has already been done, and much better, by Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving in Klarion the Witch Boy. Here, it feels very by-the-numbers, and the "hero" is just along for the ride. He falls into a cavern, where he's thrown deeper, and he's freed from imprisonment because someone else gets a crush on him. He doesn't take any positive action or solve any problems on his own, even to the point of standing by helplessly while his best friend is dragged off to presumed death. The resolution only comes about through some pseudo-scientific claptrap leading to a punch and the bad guy going poof.

I don't understand why inker Keith Champagne keeps getting writing work. His plotting is mundane and his dialogue even more cliched. Expectations these days should be higher. Eh

Supergirl #25 -- The first page features before-and-after shots of Kara's best friend as a skull-crushed skeleton. This is really what gets approved by the Comic Code Authority these days? I guess it goes along with the creepy Terminator ad featuring a girl's head, breasts, and armless torso. Doesn't make me want to watch the TV show (even if it is River from Firefly). Instead, it makes me ponder when female dismemberment (even if she is a robot) became an attractive advertising feature.

Back to Supergirl. Apparently, she's having disturbing flashbacks about remembering how her world was destroyed. I guess it's a benefit that today's superhero comics can acknowledge post-traumatic stress disorder instead of the earlier generation's "gee, it's good to be here, cousin Kal!" I do wish it was handled more substantially, though. Or at all. Superman tries to talk to her, but the sum total of his message is "I feel it too". So it's always about you, dude? She reaches out, he bails... And then we get the other half of the issue, pointless fight time. I couldn't even tell what was supposed to be happening during some of it. And nothing's resolved, the better to try and bring the readers back next issue.

This was a waste of my time. Nothing about it was interesting or worth looking at. Awful

JLA Classified #49 -- This issue is a typical example of the problems of increasing continuity. I was intrigued by the cover, promising to focus on "those left behind" (which, from the image, was girlfriends, wives, and Alfred). The cover is misleading, by the way, instead being mostly a conversation between Alfred and Lois Lane when Bruce Wayne ducks out on an interview with her because the JLA is off fighting aliens.

I have no context for this story, so when Lois, greeting a returning Superman, says "we don't know each other well", I'm left wondering. Is this story set years ago? (Yet Lois uses a Blackberry.) Has DC decided they're not married? That she's married to Clark but doesn't know he's Superman? It's the only thing that sticks with me after reading, and that distraction does the story a disservice. Puzzled

I've just noticed I haven't bothered to mention the art in any of these comics. It's the generic mediocrity so common to DC these days. Competent, but nothing outstanding or memorable.

Teen Titans Year One #1 -- Always good to end on a high note. This is great stuff. I'm immediately interested in the characters and the mystery. Batman's going berserk, way too grim on minor criminals, and Robin's asking for help from other kid heroes. This is the best portrayal of what it would be like to be Kid Flash I've ever seen, with pages capturing the boredom he feels in only a few minutes.

Writer Amy Wolfram really gets what it's like to be young, with the kids communicating through IM and believable attitudes, ably backed up by Karl Kerschl, Serge LaPointe, and Steph Peru. Terrific stuff, made better by the way the text and art work together and Wolfram is willing to rely on the pictures to tell her story. Very Good

Letting The Days Go By: This Is Not Diana's Beautiful Comic, 1/3

I hate to kick a man when he's down (because, really, Chris Claremont couldn't be any further down at this point), but EXILES: DAYS OF THEN AND NOW presents the perfect argument to avoid the upcoming NEW EXILES relaunch. I'm going to expose a bit of a bias on my part here: in earlier times, Judd Winick's EXILES was my favorite X-book. Yes, even more than Morrison's NEW X-MEN. To this day, I think of EXILES as the last truly good book Winick ever wrote: the characters were dynamic and engaging, the line-up was fluid and changed frequently, the premise allowed for some interesting use of the old "What If" scenario, and the pace allowed an occasional introspective issue.

The shine came off during Tony Bedard's run - I tried to support it, but looking back I think Bedard's mistake was shifting the focus from the characters to the plot, and the series lost something in the transition (its "heart", if you will). I liked it, but I didn't love it anymore.

Still, I followed EXILES for eighty-nine issues and an annual (minus the two Chuck Austen runs, of which the less is said, the better). And when Chris Claremont's first issue came out, I took it off my pull list without a second thought.

Now, during my time as a comic critic, I've never concealed my belief that writers can be profiled according to their strengths and weaknesses - that they have certain qualities which travel from book to book. Any series by Mark Millar will utterly fail to understand the meaning of "subtlety" (or "overkill", for that matter); a Brian Bendis-written comic will feature a dozen characters using the exact same speech patterns, and will most likely focus on rewriting Marvel's past rather than directing its present; any women found in a Frank Miller comic will be... well, I'm sure you can guess. Of course, profiling isn't an inherently negative practice: Warren Ellis knows his sci-fi, and you want Ed Brubaker on a crime/noir series, etc. Neither are these values absolute - I suppose it's possible that Garth Ennis will one day write the world's greatest SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE, it's just not bloody likely.

My point is, there are certain qualities I've attributed to Chris Claremont over the years that make him black-list material for me. See, this is what happens when Claremont inherits a book: first he sets it up as a vehicle for his own wish fulfillment (look, Psylocke's back! And there's the male Mystique he always wanted!), then he spins his wheels with the old mind-control/slavery routine, then he starts dredging up decades-old abandoned plot threads (Merlyn, Roma and the Fury - AGAIN). As all this is going on, character dynamics become embarrassingly soaplike and dialogue mutates into some quasi-teen speak that makes you want to grind your teeth. It is, quite literally, "same old same old", and there's a healthy trail of incomprehensible comics Claremont has left in his wake to prove it, if you're inclined to look.

How does this relate to EXILES: DAYS OF THEN AND NOW? Precisely that it's everything Claremont's NEW EXILES won't be. For example, Mike Raicht's protagonist, Quentin Quire, visits four alternate worlds in about forty pages and not once does he meet anyone from the Fantastic Four. Or Storm. Or Kitty Pryde. Raicht depicts four worlds (five counting Quire's home reality, itself an interesting fusion of PLANET HULK and ANNIHILATION), and there's not a single Captain Britain in sight. And the team that ultimately emerges at the end of the issue is a diverse, interesting group - one I'd gladly pick over the Claremont Cast-Off Collection.

That's what used to define EXILES for me: unpredictability, the feeling that a beloved team member could drop dead and be replaced at any moment, that the next alternate reality could be paradise or purgatory, that their next mission could be eating a danish or murdering an innocent child to prevent genocide. For a little while, Mike Raicht brought that feeling back for me, in a GOOD show of variety and inventive decisions - things you won't find when the next issue comes out.

A Plug, A Random Observation and A Question From Jeff...

Happy New Year, everyone! Kinda got a couple things on my plate but I did want to direct your attention, in case you missed it, to the recent launch of io9.com, a sci-fi blog run by some of CE's favorite people--Annalee Newitz, Charlie Anders, and Wassisname McMillan covering comics. Mr. Ellis didn't like it too much, nor did Mojo, but I think it's a fun little nerd culture blog that promises to feed me some thoughtful stuff to go along with my fix of "wait, Tyler Perry is in the new Star Trek?!" news.

In other news, I'm just getting over that stomach flu that's been going around, and recommend if you get a chance to watch the first season of Dexter while reading Tezuka's Buddha and running a mild fever, I totally recommend you do so. The completely fucked up dreams make it more than worth it.

And finally, while shopping the other day in a Target, I came across this relatively amazing Marvel shirt:

As a Kirby fan and an old-school Marvel dude, I was pretty impressed. I mean, there are *four* Inhumans on there, as well as...is that Sgt. Fury or Wyatt Wingfoot? To say nothing of the Kirby Falcon...

And there's something in the layout that kinda rings a bell for me: didn't Foom come with a sheet of stickers or something, that might've been the original template for this? I doubt it's an exact match since Foom was finished by the time Byrne was drawing Wolverine, but it still seems awfully familiar.

Anyway, I was hoping someone might know something about this shirt, because I'm sorta mystified by it. Feel free to drop any info and/or crazed conspiracy theories into the comments...

Douglas raises a toast to 2008

I recently put together a list of some of the graphic novels/squarebound comics coming out in 2008 that sound potentially interesting to me, but I figured it might be helpful or interesting for other people too. Please note that this list is incomplete, and that there are a lot of publishers whose release schedules I don't have; if I left something off, that's not an indication that I'm not looking forward to it. (And if I've gotten something wrong, please write or comment and correct me.) Also note that I've only included books whose release dates have been announced somewhere--in most cases Amazon, sometimes Read Yourself Raw or elsewhere--to within a month. (So Kramers Ergot 7, one of the forthcoming books I'm most excited about, isn't here, and neither are R. Crumb's Book of Genesis, Freckled Face, Bony Knees, and Other Things Known About Annah, Artichoke Tales, the new edition of Art Spiegelman's Breakdowns, etc. For all I know, they're not even coming out in 2008.) Finally, these dates are likely to be wrong: if you walk into your local comics store on that date expecting a copy of the book in question, be prepared to be stared at. Man, is this going to be a good year for comics.

Jan.--Bill Mauldin: Willie & Joe: The WWII Years (Fantagraphics)

Jan. 15--Robert Kirkman et al: The Walking Dead vol. 8 (Image)

Jan. 16--Morrison/Case et al.: Doom Patrol vol. 6: Planet Love (Vertigo)

Jan. 31--Ellen Forney: Lust (Fantagraphics) Jason: The Last Musketeer (Fantagraphics)

Feb.--Guy Delisle: Albert and the Others (Drawn & Quarterly) Philippe Dupuy: Haunted (Drawn & Quarterly) Harold Gray: The Complete Little Orphan Annie vol. 1 (IDW) Fred Hembeck: The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archive Omnibus (Image)

Feb. 27--Elektra by Frank Miller Omnibus HC (Marvel) Showcase Presents: Superman Family Volume 2 (DC)

Mar.-- Drawn & Quarterly Showcase vol. 5 (D&Q)--the presence of T. Edward Bak in this one sold me on it

Mar. 3--Tom Spurgeon/Jacob Covey: Comics As Art: We Told You So (Fantagraphics)--this is probably an appropriate place to note that I really miss the Comics Reporter and hope it's back online very shortly

Mar. 4--Ron Regé Jr: Against Pain (Drawn & Quarterly)

Mar. 12--Steve Gerber et al.: Howard the Duck Omnibus HC (Marvel)

Mar. 18-- David Hajdu: The Ten-Cent Plague (FSG)--not comics, but a book about the Great Comics Scare of the '60s

Mar. 30--Joost Swarte: Modern Swarte (Fantagraphics)

April--Jaime Hernandez: The Education of Hopey Glass (Fantagraphics) Ray Fenwick: Hall of Best Knowledge (Fantagraphics)

April 1--Gary Panter (PictureBox)--a massive 700-page career retrospective Ariel Schrag: Awkward and Definition (Touchstone) Joann Sfar: The Rabbi's Cat 2 (Pantheon)

April 7--Jules Feiffer: The Explainers (Fantagraphics)

April 8--Morrison/Millar/Champagne: JLA Presents Aztek - The Ultimate Man (DC)

April 15--Fraction/Moon: Casanova vol. 2 (Image)

April 25--Peter Bagge: Apocalypse Nerd (Dark Horse)

April 29--Jessica Abel/Gabriel Soria/Warren Pleece: Life Sucks (First Second) Peter Blegvad: Leviathan (Overlook)--a new paperback edition of one of my favorite books

May: Tony Millionaire: Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird (Fantagraphics) Jack Kirby's O.M.A.C. (DC) The Legion of Super-Heroes: 1,050 Years of the Future (DC) Absolute Sandman Vol. 3 (Vertigo)

May 5--Thomas Ott: The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 (Fantagraphics)

May 6--Will Eisner et al.: The Spirit Archives vol. 24 (DC)

May 13--Lynda Barry: What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly)

May 21--Greg Pak/John Romita Jr.: World War Hulk (Marvel)

May 30--Tony Millionaire: Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird (Fantagraphics)

June: Gilbert Hernandez: The Troublemakers (Fantagraphics) Blake Bell: Strange & Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko (Fantagraphics) Dash Shaw: The Bottomless Belly Button (Fantagraphics) Los Bros Hernandez: Amor Y Cohetes (Fantagraphics) Jason: Pocket Full of Rain and Other Stories (Fantagraphics) Frank Miller/Jim Lee: All Star Batman vol. 1 (DC) Brian Wood/Becky Cloonan: Demo (DC) Brian K. Vaughan/Pia Guerra: Y: the Last Man vol. 10 (DC) Alan Moore/Kevin O'Neill: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier Absolute Edition (ABC/WildStorm)

June 1--Ben Jones/Frank Santoro: Cold Heat (PictureBox)

June 10--Jessica Abel & Matt Madden: Drawing Words & Writing Pictures (First Second)

June 17--Hope Larson: Chiggers (Ginee Seo Books)

June 24--Neil Gaiman/P. Craig Russell: Coraline (HarperCollins)

June 25--Noel Sickles: Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles (IDW)

July--Carla Speed McNeil: Finder: Voice (Lightspeed Press) Jerry Moriarty: The Complete Jack Survives (Buenaventura Press)

July 1--Scott McCloud: Zot! The Complete Black and White Stories 1987-1991 (Harper Paperbacks)

July 25--Milton Caniff: The Complete Terry & the Pirates vol. 4 (IDW) Alex Robinson: 2 Cool 2 Be 4Gotten (Top Shelf) William Messner-Loebs: Journey Vol. 1 (IDW)--424 pages' worth!

August--George Herriman: Krazy & Ignatz 1943-1944 (Fantagraphics) Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely: All Star Superman vol. 2 (DC) Will Eisner et al.: The Spirit Archives vol. 25 (DC)

Aug. 5--Grant Morrison et al.: JLA Deluxe Vol. 1 (DC) Frank King: Walt & Skeezix 1927-1928 (Drawn & Quarterly)

Sep. 23--Osamu Tezuka: Black Jack, vol. 1 (Vertical)

Oct. 14--David Hahn: All-Nighter (Vertigo)

Oct. 31--Gary Panter: Dal Tokyo (Fantagraphics)

Comix Experience Top Selling comics 2007

Same as the last list, except this time we're talking comics. Like the previous, this is actually from August on, and missing the last 4 hours of sales for the the year...

People like Joss Whedon!!!

Rank Title Issue # 1 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 6 2 Dollar Book 3 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 7 4 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 8 5 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 9 6 ASTONISHING X-MEN 22 7 ALL STAR SUPERMAN 9 8 ASTONISHING X-MEN 23 9 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 5 10 Quarter Book - Single 11 Quarter Book - 10 for a Buck 12 WORLD WAR HULK 4 WORLD WAR HULK 3 14 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 12 15 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL 1 16 DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN 7 17 NEW AVENGERS 35 JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA 8 BRAVE AND THE BOLD 6 20 NEW AVENGERS 34 NEW AVENGERS 33 BATMAN 667 23 JLA WEDDING SPECIAL #1 1 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER 7 25 X-MEN MESSIAH COMPLEX ONE SHOT THOR 2 HELLBOY DARKNESS CALLS 5 28 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 14 29 WORLD WAR HULK 5 BATMAN 668 31 NEW AVENGERS 36 BATMAN 669 33 NEW AVENGERS ILLUMINATI 5 BOYS 9 35 ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER 8 36 BATMAN 670 37 THOR 3 38 JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA 10 HELLBOY DARKNESS CALLS 6 40 ULTIMATES 3 GATEFOLD HEROES VAR 1 NEW AVENGERS ILLUMINATI 4 DAREDEVIL WRAPAROUND 100 BRAVE AND THE BOLD 7 44 BOYS 10 45 NEW AVENGERS 37 JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA 9 GREEN LANTERN 22 CAPTAIN AMERICA 29 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 544 50 COUNTDOWN 37 51 UNCANNY X-MEN 492 THOR 4 RUNAWAYS 28 ALL NEW BOOSTER GOLD 2 55 X-FACTOR 25 UNCANNY X-MEN 490 UNCANNY X-MEN 489 MIGHTY AVENGERS 5 LOBSTER JOHNSON THE IRON PROMETHEUS 2 LOBSTER JOHNSON THE IRON PROMETHEUS 1 INCREDIBLE HULK 109 GREEN LANTERN 24 DAREDEVIL 99 COUNTDOWN 38 ANGEL AFTER THE FALL 2 ALL NEW BOOSTER GOLD 1 67 GREEN LANTERN 23 CAPTAIN AMERICA 30 BLACK SUMMER 3 70 X-MEN 202 INCREDIBLE HULK 110 COUNTDOWN 39 BOYS 11 74 THUNDERBOLTS 116 FABLES 65 DAREDEVIL 101 CAPTAIN AMERICA 31 BPRD KILLING GROUND 1 79 X-MEN 205 ULTIMATE POWER 8 FLASH 231 FABLES 64 CAPTAIN AMERICA 32 BOYS 12 85 Y THE LAST MAN 58 X-MEN 203 ULTIMATE POWER 7 88 UNCANNY X-MEN 491 SPIRIT 9 IMMORTAL IRON FIST 9 FABLES 66 CRIMINAL 8 COUNTDOWN 36 BATMAN 671 ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE BOOK TWO #4 8 96 Y THE LAST MAN 59 UNCANNY X-MEN 493 LOBSTER JOHNSON THE IRON PROMETHEUS 3 JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA 11 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 15 IMMORTAL IRON FIST 10 DAREDEVIL 102 CASANOVA 8 BLACK SUMMER WRAP CVR 2

What did YOU buy of this list?

-B

Comix Experience Top Selling Books 2007

Hurray for the POS system, I can "effortlessly" extract this information (well, it took 10 minutes to reformat it, and add the ranking numbers)! And, well, it isn't all of 2007 -- it is only from when we installed the POS... therefore from August onwards.

And, I'm cheating a little -- there's still four hours left in our shopping year, so some of these COULD adjust upwards a tiny smidge...

Still, this is what it looks like (lets hope that blogger doesn't gut the formatting....):

Rank Title 1 LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN THE BLACK DOSSIER HC 2 WALKING DEAD VOL 07 THE CALM BEFORE TP 3 SCOTT PILGRIM VOL 04 SCOTT PILGRIM GETS IT TOGETHER GN 4 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER LONG WAY HOME TP 5 100 BULLETS VOL 11 ONCE UPON A CRIME TP 6 WATCHMEN TP 7 FAFHRD AND THE GRAY MOUSER TP SERENITY TP 9 DMZ VOL 3 PUBLIC WORKS TP 10 EX MACHINA VOL 6 POWER DOWN TP 11 POWERS VOL 10 COSMIC TP Y THE LAST MAN VOL 1 UNMANNED TP 13 WALKING DEAD VOL 1 DAYS GONE BYE TP 14 FELL VOL 1 FERAL CITY TP WARREN ELLIS CRECY GN 16 HELLBOY VOL 07 THE TROLL WITCH & OTHERS TP Y THE LAST MAN VOL 9 MOTHERLAND TP 18 BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC FABLES VOL 1 LEGENDS IN EXILE TP FABLES VOL 8 WOLVES TP FABLES VOL 9 SONS OF EMPIRE TP 22 AMERICAN BORN CHINESE SC CONFESSIONS OF A BLABBERMOUTH LOEG VOL TWO TP SANDMAN VOL 1 PRELUDES & NOCTURNES TP V FOR VENDETTA TP 27 ABSOLUTE SANDMAN VOL 2 HC DMZ VOL 1 ON THE GROUND TP DMZ VOL 2 BODY OF A JOURNALIST TP FABLES VOL 2 ANIMAL FARM TP GOOD AS LILY LOEG VOL ONE TP SANDMAN VOL 2 THE DOLLS HOUSE TP 34 30 DAYS OF NIGHT TP MOVIE PTG ALAN MOORE THE COMPLETE WILDCATS TP ALL STAR SUPERMAN VOL 1 HC BATMAN DARK KNIGHT RETURNS TP CHANCE IN HELL HC CRIMINAL VOL 1 COWARD TP DR THIRTEEN ARCHITECTURE AND MORALITY TP JACK OF FABLES VOL 2 JACK OF HEARTS TP R CRUMBS HEROES OF BLUES JAZZ & COUNTRY WITH CD HC SHORTCOMINGS HC WALKING DEAD VOL 6 SORROWFUL LIFE TP WARREN ELLIS CROOKED LITTLE VEIN HC ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE TP 47 ASTONISHING X-MEN VOL 3 TORN TP BOYS TP VOL 01 EMPOWERED VOL 02 TP JOSS WHEDONS FRAY FUTURE SLAYER TP PREACHER VOL 1 GONE TO TEXAS TP NEW EDITION 52 CHRONICLES OF WORMWOOD LAST ENEMY GN DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER BORN PREM HC DC UNIVERSE THE STORIES OF ALAN MOORE FUN HOME TP GHOST IN THE SHELL 1.5 TP GOON CHINATOWN HC HELLBLAZER THE GIFT TP HEROES HC ALEX ROSS COVER I KILLED ADOLF HITLER GN JLA ULTRAMARINE CORPS TP JUSTICE VOL 3 HC LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK TP VOL 01 2ND PTG PULPHOPE ART OF PAUL POPE SC ULTIMATES 2 VOL 2 GRAND THEFT AMERICA TP WE 3 TP WORLD WAR Z ORAL HISTORY OF ZOMBIE WAR SC Y THE LAST MAN VOL 2 CYCLES TP 69 ARMY @ LOVE VOL 1 THE HOT ZONE CLUB TP ASTONISHING X-MEN VOL 1 GIFTED TP BATMAN SUPERMAN SAGA OF THE SUPER SONS TP BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS TP VOL 01 CRIMINAL TP VOL 02 LAWLESS EXIT WOUNDS HC GIRL GENIUS VOL 06 SC GOODBYE CHUNKY RICE PANTHEON ED HARD BOILED TP (NEW PRTG) I AM GOING TO BE SMALL GN NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE VOL 1 THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT TP PREACHER VOL 2 UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD TP NEW EDITION PREACHER VOL 3 PROUD AMERICANS TP NEW EDITION PREACHER VOL 4 ANCIENT HISTORY TP NEW EDITION SUMMER BLONDE TP TALES OF THE VAMPIRES TP TEZUKAS BUDDHA VOL 01 SC TRANSMETROPOLITAN VOL 1 BACK ON THE STREET TP WALKING DEAD VOL 2 TP MILES BEHIND US TP NEW PTG WALKING DEAD VOL 3 SAFETY BEHIND BARS TP NEW PTG WALKING DEAD VOL 4 HEARTS DESIRE TP Y THE LAST MAN VOL 3 ONE SMALL STEP TP Y THE LAST MAN VOL 8 KIMONO DRAGONS TP 92 30 DAYS OF NIGHT DARK DAYS TP NEW PTG 52 VOL 1 TP 52 VOL 2 TP 52 VOL 3 TP 52 VOL 4 TP BLANKETS GN (NEW PTG) BTVS TALES OF THE SLAYERS TP CIVIL WAR TP DC THE NEW FRONTIER VOL 2 TP EX MACHINA VOL 2 TAG TP EX MACHINA VOL 5 SMOKE SMOKE TP FABLES VOL 7 ARABIAN NIGHTS AND DAYS TP FILTH TP FLIGHT VOL 01 GN FLIGHT VOL 04 GN HELLBOY VOL 01 SEED OF DESTRUCTION TP HELLBOY VOL 06 STRANGE PLACES TP HEROES OF THE NEGRO LEAGUES HC IMMORTAL IRON FIST VOL 1 TP INCREDIBLE CHANGE BOTS GN JACK KIRBYS FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS VOL 03 HC JACK KIRBYS FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS VOL 2 HC MARVEL ZOMBIES HC PATH OF THE ASSASSIN VOL 07 TP QUESTION ZEN AND VIOLENCE VOL 1 TP READING COMICS AND WHAT THEY MEAN HC RUNAWAYS VOL 6 PARENTAL GUIDANCE DIGEST TP RUNAWAYS VOL 7 LIVE FAST DIGEST TP SANDMAN VOL 3 DREAM COUNTRY TP SUPERMAN THE BOTTLE CITY OF KANDOR TP SUPERMARKET TP TOP 10 THE FORTY NINERS SC USAGI YOJIMBO VOL 21 MOTHER OF MOUTAINS TP WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS GN Y THE LAST MAN VOL 4 SAFEWORD TP

How many of these have YOU read?

-B

Shipping 1/4/2008

Again, comics arrive on FRIDAY this week. Man, we went from last week's Biggest-Shipment-Of-The-Year, to this week's Smallest, *sigh*

ALL NEW ATOM #19 ANITA BLAKE VH GUILTY PLEASURES #7 (OF 12) ANNIHILATION CONQUEST #3 (OF 6) BIG PLANS #3 BLACK DIAMOND #6 (OF 6) BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #10 COUNTDOWN LORD HAVOK AND THE EXTREMISTS #3 (OF 6) COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS 17 COUNTDOWN TO MYSTERY #4 (OF 8) DETECTIVE COMICS #840 DOCTOR WHO CLASSICS #2 DOKTOR SLEEPLESS #4 DYNAMO 5 #10 END LEAGUE #1 EXILES DAYS OF THEN & NOW GRAVEL #0 HACK SLASH SERIES SEELEY CVR A #7 HEDGE KNIGHT 2 SWORN SWORD #4 (OF 6) HOWARD THE DUCK #4 (OF 4) JONAH HEX #27 JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #41 KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #134 LOBSTER JOHNSON IRON PROMETHEUS #5 (OF 5) LOONEY TUNES #158 LUCHA LIBRE #3 METAL MEN #5 (OF 8) MIDNIGHTER #15 MOON KNIGHT #14 MS MARVEL #23 NORTHLANDERS #2 OMEGA UNKNOWN #4 (OF 10) OVERMAN #2 (OF 5) SHARK-MAN #1 SILVER SURFER IN THY NAME #3 (OF 4) SIMPSONS SUPER SPECTACULAR #6 SORROW #3 (OF 4) STAR WARS LEGACY #18 STRANGE EMBRACE #7 (OF 8) (NOTE PRICE) SUPERGIRL #25 TEEN TITANS YEAR ONE #1 (OF 6) THUNDERBOLTS #118 ULTIMATE HUMAN #1 (OF 4) UNCANNY X-MEN #494 MC VERONICA #186 VINYL UNDERGROUND #4 WILDSTORM REVELATIONS #1 (OF 6) WITCHBLADE TAKERU MANGA #11

Books / Mags / Stuff 30 DAYS OF NIGHT TP VOL 08 RED SNOW APPLICANT SC AVENGERS WEST COST TP DARKER THAN SCARLET ESSENTIAL POWER MAN AND IRON FIST TP VOL 01 INDESTRUCTIBLE SC JLA KID AMAZO TP MARVEL ADV SPIDER-MAN TP VOL 08 FORCES OF NATURE DIGEST MARVEL MINIMATES ZOMBIES IRON MAN & BLACK PANTHER PX 2-PK MISS DD GN VOL 05 (A) MOON KNIGHT VOL 2 MIDNIGHT SUN PREM HC MS MARVEL VOL 3 TP MY BRAIN HURTS TP VOL 01 OKKO CYCLE OF WATER HC PATH OF THE ASSASSIN VOL 8 TP POWERS VOL 11 SECRET IDENTITY TP PRIDE OF BAGHDAD SC SGT FROG GN VOL 14 (OF 14) SHADOWPACT TP VOL 02 CURSED STORM TP SUPERMAN REDEMPTION TP X-MEN TP PHOENIX WARSONG

What looks good to YOU?

-B

More of Hell's Mirrors: Jog swings down on his silken cord for 12/28

For the record, my experiment in reading only Grant Morrison's bits of the recent The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul Bat-crossover wound up reconfirming that Morrison can write some decent, undemanding Big Superhero action - something I probably didn't need reconfirmed, but it wasn't unpleasant or anything. It seemed a bit like a constrained JLA.

Batman #672: As for post-crossover accessibility, this issue pretty much picks the story up from where it left off pre-Ra's (and pre-J.H. Williams III, for that matter), although there's always the chance that Morrison might string everything together later on. Or he's already subtly playing off of events in comics I haven't read. Certainly for me this run is already past the point where looking through prior issues feels like you're reading entirely new comics, due to the writer's foreshadowing and thematic play suddenly becoming clearer.

It's a technique Morrison generally pulls off with panache, although I suspect it might be working a bit stronger here since the actual stories he's been telling have been so thin. This issue is no more supple: a bombastic, quintessentially Morrisonian opening leads into some bland character work and a flurry of action and dramatic pronouncements that serve to both poke at things we already know and string out mysteries a little longer, the issue ending in a small jump forward. It might have stood out better with more distinctive art, but Tony Daniel and a squad of inkers is what we've got.

And don't forget the allusions - as Geoff Klock points out, the issue is also chock-full of nods toward prior Batman stories, especially Frank Miller's. It's all really starting to remind me of New X-Men in its notion of the hero(es) struggling to move beyond set ways yet being confronted with the same old issues (cleaning up the colorful baddies only to find more dirty cops, more political corruption), with the prospect of an awful future acting as the ultimate result of present-day discouragement. But while Batman #666 was much more fun (and a lot shorter) than Here Comes Tomorrow, the 'awful future' was a cleaner fit in the earlier work, since it doubles as a familiar X-Men trope itself.

Here, Morrison also sets up Batman's conflict as a doppelgänger of the challenges facing another major DC hero in the concurrently-running All Star Superman, with lots of troubled alternate versions of Our Hero running around. But most of these are demonic, dark Batmen, threatening to drag the real deal down into the muck and establish a most extreme '90s-style future; is it any wonder that Batman must set aside his street-level instincts and call on the likes of Bat-Mite for help? Is it all a critique of the grimmer side of the character? Might changes in the present be used to counteract the awful future? Will Jean once again give the cosmic wink so Scott can kiss Emma with his tongue, guilt-free, thus saving us all?

We'll only know in time. But unlike a lot of Morrison's longform superhero works, this run doesn't function very well as the series of stories it's nominally constructed as. Instead, it frustratingly seems to start and stops its long plot with breaks for things like an illustrated prose issue, a tepid (if visually rich) mystery and a line-wide crossover. Some of these detours do have thematic links to the main plot, and they may tie in more directly later, but none of them have been strong enough individually to alleviate the feelings of distraction and mild haste that have come to permeate the run; for once, the superhero serial form seems to be working against the writer. Makes for some EH chapters while waiting for the big picture to become clearer, although promise remains.

Diana Goes Digital #2: Our Princess Is In Another Castle

In connection with this week's featured webcomic, Dan Miller's KID RADD, I want to talk about cross-genre appeal. It seems to me that this particular creative strategy never works out well for the mainstream companies: I'm sure we all recall such catastrophic experiments as I HEART MARVEL and DC's line of ill-fated horror film adaptations. The failure was two-fold there - not only did the core readership stay away, but fans of those other genres such as romance and horror weren't interested either. That raises an interesting question: can comics accurately capture the cross-genre effect at all? Does MARVEL ZOMBIES scare you? Does it have the same effect as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD? Or, to make the comparison fairer, did MARVEL ZOMBIES/ARMY OF DARKNESS appeal to EVIL DEAD fans, or fans of horror films in general? I don't think so.

It might be an issue of compatibility: horror, after all, relies on scaring the audience, on audio cues (the soundtrack), on boogeymen leaping out of the shadows. That's not really something a comic can replicate. Then again, romance actually gains something when you have imagery to go along with the words (well, unless you're a fan of the whole overwrought "he thrust his purple-headed warrior into her quivering mound of love pudding" style), and yet: Mark Millar's TROUBLE. Go figure.

The reason this is relevant to KID RADD is because, aside from telling a great adventure story, Dan Miller designs a fictional world that appeals to me as a fan of video games, especially games from the late '80s and early '90s. A lot of KID RADD's humor is derived from conventions you'd probably be familiar with if you ever played a SUPER MARIO BROS. game, and it's precisely that mix of mediums and genres that makes a good webcomic even better.

Radd, our titular hero, is the protagonist of a platform video game where he blasts mindless drones in a quest to save his girlfriend Sheena. The comic begins with an introduction to Radd, his world, the game, and his relationship with the unseen player that controls him. Together, Radd and his player eventually beat the game, repeating the cycle over and over until they master it completely. And then one day, Radd's player doesn't come back.

That's where the story really starts.

Don't let the quasi-simplistic pixel art fool you - Miller actually raises some pretty complicated issues in KID RADD, particularly when it comes to philosophies like nihilism, fatalism and determinism. These concepts aren't explored to any great length, but they add some depth to what could've been a straightforward boomfest. Miller also makes good use of the telescoping plot structure: as the series progresses, the stakes get higher and higher, the tale becomes more and more epic, and Radd evolves and grows.

KID RADD is also noteworthy for the ways it uses its "canvas": combining pixel art, animation and MIDI music, Miller creates a true multimedia experience. Additionally, the entire webcomic is available for download via a self-extracting EXE file: it's about 30MB, over 3,000 files, and like the magic sword in Jeph Loeb's WOLVERINE, I don't know how it works - only that it clearly does. As I understand it, the panels aren't single images but bits and pieces combined with background, foreground and so on to create the complete panel.

For story, art and characterization, I give this webcomic a VERY GOOD, but its technical construction is so impressive that I'm bumping it up to EXCELLENT.

Technical notes: this pixel-based comic ran from February 2002 to September 2004, for a total of 601 comics split into 29 chapters. It's in color and uses a HTML/GIF-based viewer. Though the main page warns against viewing it through Internet Explorer 6, I've been using that for a while now and never noticed any problems (though some MIDI files lag when you stream them online). There's a selection of amusing "extras" available both at the site and in the EXE file - worth checking out after you've finished the story.