Very, very sorry about this: hit some snags in editing Wait, What? Ep. 85 (essentially, far too many family and friends visiting at one time) and so the episode will not be available until, um, maybe late Wednesday afternoon?
(There's a slim chance it'll be ready by first thing Wednesday morning, but that chance is mighty slim, jim.)
Anyway, just wanted to let you know. Again, my apologies and please check back tomorrow!
Nice Big Week of funnybookical wonderfulness!
2000 AD #1778 ALABASTER WOLVES #2 (OF 5) AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PARALLEL LIVES #1 ARTIFACTS #17 AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #3 AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #7 BATGIRL #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) BATMAN #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) BATMAN AND ROBIN #9 (NITE OF THE OWLS) BATMAN ARKHAM UNHINGED #2 BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #201 BTVS SEASON 9 FREEFALL #9 CAPTAIN AMERICA #11 CAPTAIN AMERICA AND HAWKEYE #630 COURTNEY CRUMRIN ONGOING #2 CROSSED BADLANDS #5 DAN THE UNHARMABLE #1 DARK SHADOWS #5 DEADPOOL #54 DEATHSTROKE #9 DEJAH THORIS & WHITE APES OF MARS #2 DEMON KNIGHTS #9 DICKS COLOR ED #4 DOCTOR WHO CLASSICS SERIES IV #4 (OF 6) DPD DOKTORMENTOR JAIL BABE SURGEON #6 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS FORGOTTEN REALMS #1 FAIREST #3 FATALE #5 FERALS #5 FRANKENSTEIN AGENT OF SHADE #9 FRANKENSTEIN ALIVE ALIVE #1 GREEN LANTERN #9 GRIFTER #9 HIGHER EARTH #1 HULK #51 HULK SMASH AVENGERS #2 (OF 5) INCORRUPTIBLE #29 INVINCIBLE #91 IZOMBIE #25 JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #637 EXILED LADY DEATH (ONGOING) #17 LEGION LOST #9 (THE CULLING) LOBSTER JOHNSON THE BURNING HAND #5 (OF 5) LORD OF THE JUNGLE #4 MARVEL UNIVERSE AVENGERS EARTHS HEROES #2 MARVEL ZOMBIES DESTROY #1 (OF 5) MEGA MAN #13 MEMORIAL #5 (OF 6) MORNING GLORIES #18 MYSTERY IN SPACE #1 NEW AVENGERS #26 AVX NIGHT FORCE #3 (OF 6) NIGHT OF 1000 WOLVES #1 (OF 3) PUNISHER #11 RESURRECTION MAN #9 ROBERT JORDAN WHEEL OF TIME EYE O/T WORLD #24 SCARLET SPIDER #5 SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #21 SKULLKICKERS #14 STAR WARS KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC WAR #5 (OF 5) SUICIDE SQUAD #9 SUPERBOY #9 (THE CULLING) TAKIO #1 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES COLOR CLASSICS #1 TICK #100 TICK MEETS INVINCIBLE TRIO #1 ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #10 ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #11 UNCANNY X-FORCE #25 WALKING DEAD #97 WASTELAND #37 WOLVERINE #306 WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #10 AVX WORLD OF ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #17 X-MEN LEGACY #266 AVX
Books / Mags / Stuff ANNE RICE SERVANT OF THE BONES HC ATOMIC ROBO TP VOL 06 GHOST OF STATION X AVENGERS BY BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS PREM HC VOL 03 BATMAN HC VOL 01 THE COURT OF OWLS BIBLE HC BRIGHTEST DAY TP VOL 02 CAPTAIN AMERICA BY ED BRUBAKER PREM HC VOL 02 CHOKER TP VOL 01 DC SUPERHERO CHESS FIG COLL MAG #4 PENGUIN BLACK KNIGHT DC SUPERHERO CHESS FIG COLL MAG #5 CATWOMAN WHITE QUEEN DC UNIVERSE LEGACIES TP ESSENTIAL BLACK PANTHER TP VOL 01 FLCL OMNIBUS GN FORGETLESS TP LIVE TO SEE LAST CALL NEW ED GREEN WAKE TP VOL 02 LOST CHILDREN JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL TP VOL 01 SIGNAL MASTERS LEGION OF SUPER HEROES ARCHIVES HC VOL 13 MAGNETO NOT A HERO TP MANARA EROTICA HC VOL 01 (A) MEGALEX COMPLETE STORY HC NARUTO TP VOL 56 OZ OZMA OF OZ GN TP POPEYE HC VOL 06 ME LIL SWEE PEA POWERS PREM HC VOL 06 SELLOUTS PRO ONE SHOT (NEW PTG) SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN TP VOL 11 SILVER SURFER PARABLE PREM HC SPIDER-MAN SEASON ONE PREM HC WITH DIG CDE SUPERMAN GROUNDED TP VOL 01 ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN HC VOL 12
What looks good to YOU?
-B
Hey, the postman finally turned up.
I guess the hostiles must have been restless out there in the Badlands or something. Anyway, he may not have rung twice but he did drop off a box of comics. Here's me going on about some of them after the break: A NOTE FOR OUR AUDIENCE: According to Brian "Link-Hider General" Hibbs you can now purchase some of these comics direct from The Savage Critics!
There is a link under both Comix Experience Links and Industry Links which says "Digital Comics From The SavCrit Store!". It's that one.
I have of course followed the rigorous journalistic code of the 21st Century and given all the comics available from that link a rating of EXCELLENT! No, not really, because as a salesman I am a bit lacking.
As ever, here's some comics and what I thought! Buy 'em! Don't buy 'em! Leave them at the scenes of violent crimes to throw off the Feds! I don't know, don't look at me for help. Because I'll just look down and whisper "No."
And Now Our Feature Presentation- SOME COMICS WHAT I DID READ:
ANIMAL MAN #8 Art by Steve Pugh, Travel Foreman & Jeff Huet Written by Jeff Lemire Coloured by Lovern Kindzierski Lettered by Jared K. Fletcher DC Comics, $2.99 (2012) Animal Man created by Dave Wood and Carmine Infantino
Since he literally throws his daughter to the wolves I’m afraid I have to say Buddy Baker is the worst father in the DCU and he’s a pretty craptastic superhero to boot. You’re going to have to think of something better than beating an army of undead animals to death one by one, Buddy Baker! This guy is such a dumbnuts I’m getting tired of reading about him. The best thing about ANIMAL MAN is that it reminds me how wonderful Steve Pugh’s art is.
I love the solidity he gives everything and the way his art allows the realistic and the insane to exist frictionlessly together. If he’s too radical for the DC masses, and it doesn't take much to be that, maybe Dynamite could get him on some books? Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself; I haven’t got to THE SHADOW yet. Anyway, ANIMAL MAN was OKAY! But really his wife would have left him about 6 issues ago and in about 3 issues I expect Social Services to be having a firm word in his shell-like. Buddy Baker is a danger to himself and everyone around him, and not in a good way.
FATALE #4 Art by Sean Phillips Written by Ed Brubaker Coloured by Dave Stewart Image Comics, $3.50 (2012) Fatale created by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
Um, I don’t want to be the party pooper but I’m not really feeling this one. Where others would see complexity I see only confusion and the horror and crime aspects don’t mix well at all; blanding each other out if anything. I’m not convinced at all that Brubaker & Phillips are as deft with horror as they are with crime. There’s one sequence in particular which is meant to suggest the soiled undersheet of reality flickering on the edges of the protagonist’s vision, but it takes up a whole page. Which is a bit like the secret supernatural underpinnings of the world putting on a straw boater and doing back flips in front of you while belting out showtunes. Subtly unsettling it’s not. Mind you this series seems to not be a lot of things. Coherent and inventive being amongst the things it isn't. So far the whole thing seems a stolid muddle which barely fends off the blunt teeth of cliché. The police scenes are about the width of a gnat’s dick from busting out the old “This is straight from The Fifth Floor, you've got 24 hours to clear this case or you’re back handing out parking tickets! Capiche, you maverick bastard!” And then there are the narrative captions and, boy howdy, are they bad. But then I think there’s a difference between understated and lifeless. These things are like “I saw a cat. It was big.” bad. It’s like Dan Brown bad. But then Dan Brown’s very successful isn't he?
After all, in a shocking real-life terror twist, it turns out that FATALE is the most successful thing Brubaker & Phillips have produced. Previously this was true of INCOGNITO which I thought was pretty bad. So, it looks like success beckons the Brubaker & Phillips team, but what appears to bring them success isn't what brings me reading pleasure. Mind you, they are professional enough to produce a comic that despite my tinny whinging still comes off as OKAY! While I found the front matter lacking, Stephen Blackmoore provides a compelling backmatter piece concerning a real life gumshoe called Harry Raymond. That bit was VERY GOOD!
You can buy FATALE from HERE.
RAGEMOOR #2 Art by Richard Corben Written by Jan Strnad Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot® Dark Horse Comics, $3.50 (2012) Ragemoor created by Richard Corben and Jan Strnad
Corben’s art looks a bit odd in this issue, as though he’s got some settings wrong on his software or something. It looks a lot less crisp than last issue. It’s still great because it’s still Richard Corben but…still. Fortunately Strnad’s scripting is really strong so that helps soothe any misgivings. I didn't really know where the series could go after the first issue’s seemingly complete unto itself set-up.
I certainly didn't expect it to make the previously understated humour blossom so broadly; so broadly that at times it verges on farce. I certainly wouldn't have expected it to work so well either. There’s horror here but humour too and in an impressive feat of facility each complements the other leading to a comic that is a really satisfying read indeed. I don’t want to give too much away but hopefully the fact I thought it was VERY GOOD! will be enough to tempt the unwary!
THE SHADOW #1 Art by Aaron Campbell Written by Garth Ennis Coloured by Carlos Lopez Lettered by Rob Steen Dynamite, $3.99 (2012) The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson
I know you've all been on tenterhooks so let me assure you that I did indeed receive a copy of this comic with the Howard Victor Chaykin cover. I thank you all for thinking of me during this period of uncertainty. It was always a bit of a gamble though wasn't it? What with Dynamite’s penchant for plural covers. Mostly they get some decent names doing some good stuff. Howard Victor Chaykin, for instance, obviously did this one well before it struck Gin O’Clock at Chaykin Towers. He’s even used a different face shape; nice job Howard Victor Chaykin! The art on the inside of Dynamite’s books tends to be a bit more problematic. Problematic in the Early Anglo Saxon sense of “bloody awful”. Aaron Campbell manages to buck this trend by being decent for most of the book, except when The Shadow erupts into murderous action at which point Aaron Campbell impresses the Heck out of me. Really, jolly good work on those parts! I’m still not a massive fan of the old drawing over the top of photographs business so the rest of the book was just okay art wise.
Ennis is behaving himself too, there's none of that aggressively puerile "funny" stuff or lashing out at easy targets with a nuclear bomb strapped to a machete. He seems to actually be having a good time too. He certainly gives The Shadow a clear personality, one that's all the more entertaining for being composed primarily of arrogant bastardry. But he's not without empathy either, which is a nice trick to pull off. The whole shebang is set in one of Ennis' well researched eras of upheaval, or at least imminent upheaval. Because, and it's to his credit this, Garth Ennis is one of the few writers in comics who shows evidence of reading books other than How To Bland Out And Find Big Bucks In TV And Movies. Books that demonstrate an interest on his part in the world around him rather than a monomaniacal need to write THE MENTALIST. If you like Ennis' war books you'll like this. If you like The Shadow you'll like this. Blimey, if you just like decent comics you'll like this. Because it's actually VERY GOOD!
SUPREME #63 Art by Erik Larsen & Cory Hamscher Written by Alan Moore Coloured by Steve Oliff Lettered by Chris Eliopoulos Image Comics, $2.99 (2012) Supreme created by Rob Liefeld
SUPREME is an Alan Moore genre comic. I miss Alan Moore’s genre comics. Alan Moore’s genre comics were packed with invention and humour. Alan Moore’s genre comics had more ideas on the page than most of today’s self proclaimed genii have in a lifetime. Alan Moore’s genre comics played with the form in a way that was charming and cheeky. Alan Moore’s genre comics had characters with character, but their character was never static and if it changed it would do so coherently. Alan Moore’s genre comics had craft. Alan Moore’s genre comics had joy. Alan Moore’s genre comics were VERY GOOD! Yeah, genre comics are much better off without Alan Moore. Yeah, F***k you, Alan Moore! Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Alan Moore! We don't need you, Alan Moore! We never needed you! We've got AVENGERS Vs X-MEN and BEFORE WATCHMEN now!
Oh God, what have we done. COME BACK, ALAN MOORE!
...please...
You can buy SUPREME from HERE.
And that's your lot! Yes, even I have other stuff to do!
Hope you had a good weekend, everyone!
Blah blah blah COMICS!!!
In 1987 DC Comics published a 12-issue "Maxi-series" by British (apparently I forgot one of them is of American origin) Creators. It did not change the world of comics forever but since it featured a robot dog in a fez and shades, a living head in a bucket and stupid jokes by the pound while still being "about" something I thought we'd take a look. Me and my notions!
OUTCASTS Art by Cam Kennedy & Steve Montano Written by John Wagner & Alan Grant Coloured by Tom Ziuko & Nansi Hoolahan Lettered by Bill Oakley, John Constanza & Augustin Mas Published by DC Comics 12 issues, $1.75ea (1987/88) Outcasts created by John Wagner, Alan Grant & Cam Kennedy
It is The Future and in Big City while the rich live in enclaves the poor are mutated and damned to shanty towns. It is The Future and the police are not your friends. It is The Future and The Mutant Clearances have begun. It is The Future and the TV is shit. It is The Future and Kaine Salinger wants revenge for her father's death and answers to her questions. What is happening to the mutants? Who is murdering the city's ruling elite? Can a 104 year old man get an erection? Who are The Satan Brothers? Why Aren't They Funnier? Why is that dog wearing a fez and shades? All these questions and more will be answered but it'll take THE OUTCASTS to do it!
Since OUTCASTS has never been collected the reader will have no option but to read them in pamphlet format, doing so means they will soon find that around the edges of OUTCASTS floats the ghost of Alan Moore Past. His sublime presence can be felt in the form of a house ad for his and Brian Bolland & John Higgins’ THE KILLING JOKE; now here he is rearing magnificently up in an Advertorial with David Lloyd talking about their V FOR VENDETTA series. I understand that Alan Moore would go on to great success and pretty much redefine American genre comics as well as, with his and Dave Gibbons & John Higgins’ WATCHMEN, laying the foundations of the Great Internet Civil War of 2012. (Thanks, Alan!)
However, OUTCASTS would see print and then fade from the collective memory; Alan Grant would find some success writing decent Batman comics and John Wagner would join him there for a time before they both pretty much confined themselves to 2000AD and creator owned properties like THE BOGIE MAN and SHIT THE DOG. Now, while Alan Moore, like Alan Grant (but not, Andrew Hickey reminds me below, John Wagner), is British (I bring you only the freshest (and wrongest) facts!) he was, at this point anyway, filtering it through a very American form of comics. Wagner &Grant (W&G), however, seem to have made little attempt to adapt to American comics. Other than the length of each episode OUTCASTS reads very much like a strip from 2000AD.
Very, very much like a strip from 2000AD in fact. So familiar in fact that it seems likely that W&G were attempting to directly port across the sensibility that had worked so well over the pond in the hopes that American audiences would react equally enthusiastically. Or DC Comics were hoping for that reaction. The Big City setting is very reminiscent of Mega City One in Pat Mills John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra's creation Judge Dredd as are the designs of the police officers, the fact that mutants are an important presence, the familiar contrast between the squalor of the masses and the empty plenty of the rich and the writers’ signature love of parodying the tranquilising distractions of mass media. The very presence of the talented Cam Kennedy is another echo of Judge Dredd. Since I'm about to chunter on about W&G I should take this opportunity to praise Cam Kennedy. DC Comics appear to have employed Steve Montano to tidy up Kennedy's work, so much so that on occasion it appears practically Gibbons-esque (now, why would that be?!?). Yet Kennedy's slightly off-kilter art is so idiosyncratic that it retains its pleasingly lolloping figures and chunkily eroded environments and, thus, its personality. As with your partner in life, personality's important in comic art and Cam Kennedy's art has stacks of it.
OUTCASTS could very likely have occurred in Judge Dredd’s world had Old Stoney Face been off (slowly) learning not to be a fascistic sh*thead off-planet. Any fan of Judge Dredd would find plenty to enjoy in OUTCASTS but the flavour of 2000AD is even more pervasive than that. The character B.D. Rickenbacker may obviously be a variation on W&G’s Dredd foe Mean Machine Angel but he is also an ex-Slaughterbowl player, as are the later characters “Killer” Kowalski” and “The Prof.” A key fixture in early 2000AD was the regular appearance of a strip about a fantastically violent sport (e.g. HARLEM HEROES, INFERNO, MEAN ARENA). Mutants were also all over the shop in 2000AD, not least in Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s excellent bounty hunting mutie strip STRONTIUM DOG. One of the Outcasts, Dag Skinnard, has blue skin and white hair which brings to mind Gerry-Finley Day and Dave Gibbons’ ROGUE TROOPER. W&G also seem to have written it exactly as they would have a strip for The Galaxy's Greatest Comic.
OUTCASTS may be 12 issues in total but it seems W&G split the writing duties with Grant doing the initial 6 issues and Wagner taking on the home stretch. I don’t know because England is, contrary to popular belief, actually big enough to ensure that I have never met them. But there’s a clear change in the series’ tone and direction with issue 6. Initially the series has a bleakly dour cast spiced up with touches of absurdism to prevent it all getting a bit too humourless. You can also tell, roughly where it’s going and how, probably, it’s going to get there. It isn't that it’s predictable as such it’s just that conventions, while being toyed with, are being upheld. With issue 6 that changes.
Now, I’m going to explain why I don’t really go in for plot synopses. I’ll usually put some bare bones of a thing at the top in an attempt to give a flavour of the contents, or sprinkle bits through the piece where it can’t be avoided, but mostly the hope is that if someone sourced the books I talk about they’d still have a few surprises in store. It seemed like a good idea at the time. OUTCASTS is a case in point. While it is hardly the cases that you’re going to soil yourself with surprise, the events in #6 and #7 should wrongfoot you enough to make the series a lot more enjoyable than you thought. That’s all. It isn't “Oh God, they’re all ghosts!” or “His bum was The Devil all along!”, no, but it’ll ensure you keep reading. After that the series becomes more absurd with touches of gravity to prevent it all getting a bit too silly. So there’s a certain disparity of tone that readers might want to be prepared for.
Another thing today's reader may not warm to is the political aspect of the series. Now, this isn't really political as such but it does involve pointing out that those who have will do whatever they can get away with to those who have-not, until those who have-not have not even life. Worse, the series has the temerity to point out that perhaps that’s a not entirely nice thing to do and when it all gets a bit out of hand maybe someone should do something about it. Which sounds reasonable enough to me, but I’ve been paying attention and I see times have changed, so someone somewhere will undoubtedly find all that violently objectionable and lily livered, verging perhaps on daydreamy pinko-liberalism. We just used to call such stuff basic human decency but, hey, it’s your future now. Just be kind to my son.
This kind of decency is a hallmark of W&G’s work and I say that having been reading their work since the ‘70s. Back then, since I am a traditionalist and have lived my life in a temporally linear fashion, I was a kid. When you’re a kid you learn things from the entertainment you consume and when I was a kid I consumed a lot of comics. Oh, there was TV, sure, but the kid’s stuff was only on for about 2 hours at tea time and mostly consisted of creepy puppets fixing things and Star Trek. So, while I can’t deny that a lot of my moral instruction came courtesy of Captain James T. Kirk and pals it would be more honest to accept that a lot more of it came from the pictures and words printed on paper one rung above bog roll in quality. There were proper books, yes, but this is a comics blog so I’ll concentrate on comics. After we've done talking about me, anyway.
Well, the “me” who is standing in for an entire generation of 1970s male children anyway. Now, if a parent had bothered to actually look at what their little rascal was poring over with all the unsettling intensity of a serial killer choosing a knife, they would certainly have got all Wertham about it stuck him in the Scouts and probably given him a good hammering to boot. Yes, you could thump your kids back then; it’s true The Past is always better! Underneath the surface thrills of seeing malarial and insane Tommies slaughtering people from Japan (“Aieeee!!”) or a dinosaur chewing on time travelling cowboys like they were screaming mince (“My legs! Oh, God! It’s eating my legs!”) there was a strong moral component. Not in a preachy way, just in a foundational way; these creators were fundamentally decent people and no matter how outré and savage their output that decency would always seep through. Okay, not all of them as that's a bit sweeping, but certainly in the case of W&G this is true. Oh, don't worry W&G are never afraid to deflate the mood by having a bunch of cybernetically enhanced brain damage cases break into a rap while someone is mourning the dead.
OUTCASTS is pretty much your basic Wagner & Grant comic what with its real life concerns almost apologetically presented alongside the drolly absurd and delivered with understatedly anthracitic humour. Cam Kennedy's art is perfectly suited to the tone of the book with its collision of grittines and goofiness. If you see the series in the back issue bins I think you'd not regret plucking it out. Because as comics go OUTCASTS is GOOD! Oh yeah, you'll be wanting to see the dog in fez'n'shades:
And like the mutants after the clearances - I'm GONE!
Have a nice weekend everyone! Go read some COMICS!!!
Everybody loves comics!
ACTION COMICS #9: This is a lot more like what I was hoping for from Grant Morrison on a regular ongoing Superman comic -- focusing on President Superman from Earth-23. last seen in FINAL CRISIS -- but I was a bit surprised to not find the "real" Superman anywhere in the story. Still, Silver Age-y without feeling dated, and lots of fun things happen. Gene Ha's art was as awesome as always. I thought this was VERY GOOD. AVENGERS VS X-MEN #3 (OF 12) AVX: Brubaker's got the writing spot this week, so maybe that's why I felt this issue had a bunch more plot? I can't even imagine how this is going to read in trade, with it's crazy tonal shifts every issue? I thought this one was strongly OK.
DIAL H #1: China Mieville's comic debut, and it's pretty decent. There are a few mechanical problems with the set up (most namely: how do you dial four digits 0n a *rotary dial* phone by accident when trying to call for help in the middle of witnessing a horrible beating?), and I have to admit that I'm not sure that I at all like the notion that the H-dial is in a static location, but putting that aside, I very much liked this issue. (On the other hand, I always liked the Robbie Reed version as well) (Sockamagee!)
I liked the schlubbiness of the protagonist, I very much liked the dialed up heroes (Captain Lachrymose needs an ongoing series, stat!), and I just liked the general weird vibe on display here -- this comic could be perfectly at home at pre-Vertigo Vertigo, and whatcha know, it's Karen Berger editing her first superhero comic in 20-something years.
The art by Mateus Santolouco sort of veers back and forth between some Ted McKeever-looking wonderfulness to "Ugh, you need more fundamentals", but it certainly works with the book just fine. Overall: VERY GOOD
EARTH 2 #1: Having read this, I really really can't even begin to understand all of the faffing about in the pre-print interviews of "well, we really can't describe this to you", because, unless there's a dramatic change from what's on display in this first issue (which would then, arguably be a not-so-good FIRST issue), this seems easy to shorthand: it's the formation of a NEW e2-based Justice Society (though maybe they'll never be called that, who knows), where the set-up is in contemporary times, rather than ww2.
I'm a pretty big ("real") JSA fan, and I didn't really like any of the new costumes we've seen so far, so I was suspicious of this at first, but yeah, I very much liked the setup and world building, and slow roll-out of characters.
James Robinson's script was solid -- I felt a real emotional tingle in that scene between Bruce & Helena -- and Nicola Scott's art is as strong as always. I don't know if I will like the new JSA, really (there's really only 7-8 pages of those characters, the rest of the oversized space is dedicated to setting up the world), but as a "Yes, I would like to see more, please" first issue, I thought this was VERY GOOD.
EPIC KILL #1: If you want to see teenage hotties do acrobatics like River Tam in Firefly, with lots of slaughter, then this is surely the comic for you. Largely reading like a pitch for a movie, it at least has fairly pretty art by Raffaele Ienco that kind of reminds me of John Ridgeway, I think -- detailed, but with straight lines not noodly curvy ones, yet just ever so slightly stiff because of that. Anyway, since the base idea feels so "Seen that a dozen times", the joy of this kind of work is all in the *execution* of the idea, and there's just enough "hey, cool" scenes to have me say that this is GOOD.
GI COMBAT #1: Half the book is about soldiers fighting dinosaurs, so there's that, and as a plus the art is by Ariel Olivetti, and it really fits here; the other half is yet another new take on "Unknown Soldier", who is getting close to becoming DC's equivalent in the if-we-keep-relaunching-him-someone-will-like-it-eventually-right? sweepstakes to Moon Knight. I think they need to try again, as I was really entirely uninterested in this version, sorry. I think this may be a concept that just can't work in the 21st century, maybe because of the "unknown" part, and that doesn't work in our database-driven world (esp with regards to soldiers, I'd have to say). Anyway, like the first half, disliked the second, which means I can't say better then EH.
MIND THE GAP #1 :Another book that reads a little more like a pitch then a comic, but I thought this pitch was fairly terrific. The set-up is for a whodunnit kind of mystery, with the victim's spirit interacting on the, dunno, astral plane, maybe is what to call it, with what looks like a little touch of Deadman-meets-Quantum Leap, maybe? Jim McCann's script is very strong, and the characters vivid, while the art by Rodin Esquejo and Sonia Oback is realistic, without being creepy and off-putting, like some in that style become. As a bonus, this first issue is oversized @ 48 pages, and just a mere $2.99, making it a helluva deal. No doubt this was a VERY GOOD comic!
STAR TREK ONGOING #8: Given that the premise of the first six issues of this series was adapting/converting classic Trek episodes with the movie characters, you might have missed that they followed that with a two-parter (starting in issue #7), that followed up on the film, with the Romulans and the last drop of "Red Matter" -- I know I sure did until I grabbed this issue to read, and went, "Wait... that's not TOS!" (from the "next issue" pic, it looks like they're going back to that and "The Return of the Archons"). I don't know that I exactly care about the tattooed Romulan faction, or Red Matter, but it was nice to see something wholly new set in this universe (and, in theory, "official"). I thought it was highly OK, and if you miss the TOS characters, recast or not, this was a fun little follow-up.
SUPREME #64: Wow. this should be taught as a masterclass in how to utter destroy a previous set-up in 22 pages, and replace it with the exact opposite. I really loved the clever way that Moore set up his "all versions are true" love letter to Superman, and it's own set up gave all of the ability to complete rewrite the rules as new creators came onboard, but instead Erik Larsen rips it all to shreds and chucks it out the window for the ugliest possible of all iterations of Supreme. That takes mad skills, yo. The craziest part to me is actually the letter's page to the issue (which I suspect won't be in a digital version, sorry) where Larsen defends his actions by comparing this to following Todd on Spider-Man, or whoever followed Miller & Mazuchelli after "Born Again" in Daredevil. the difference, of course, being that there's a 15-or-so year gap here between issues, and while the argument is at least understandable when related to regular ongoing production of corporately owned icons (the trains, in fact, have to keep running), it's utterly bizarre in this case, especially after they went out of their way to try and show "respect" to Alan Moore by illustrating his final "lost" script.
Obviously, the difference between, say, WATCHMEN and this situation is that the creator of the property is the owner and can do whatever they want on work-for-hire material, but there's a dissonance here that my brain is ringing from.
Erik is a talented creator, and this work has a lot of energy, but I really liked the Moore version of Supreme (and pretty much hated the grim'n'gritty take that preceded it), so I thought this comic was pretty AWFUL
WORLDS FINEST #1: I have to say that if I were DC marketing, I wouldn't have scheduled the two Earth-2 related comics in the same week, but I just sell the things, what do I know? But, I also have to say that I really really liked this one, as well. Paul Levitz turns in the first script in months that I genuinely liked from start to finish, and the twin artist (George Perez in the modern sequences, Kevin Maguire on the flashbacks) really worked much better than I thought it would. Yeah, I really thought this was strong, VERY GOOD stuff.
The one problem? That logo. Jesus, that's a horrible horrible disaster -- it looks cluttered and terrible using the "across the room" test (if you can't pick a logo/design element/whatever from across the room, it fails), and it's not at all clear what the name of the comic IS, with "Huntress" being over "World's Finest". Yow.
X-O MANOWAR (ONGOING) #1: If you read the original in the 90s, you've pretty much read this first issue, as it really alters very little of the original setup, just with a little more depth, maybe. It reads well, it's pretty enough, but I didn't feel like "OMG! I need to read the next one right now!" Maybe I'll check back in a few issues to see if they're doing new stories and not just retelling things I already know. Or, maybe I won't. OK.
Right, that's me -- what did YOU think?
-B
There's NO WAY I am going to do this each and every week, but I thought it might be instructive to look at first week digital sales here. So far, we've sold six comics.
One was to a fellow retailer, who, when contacted, said "just wanted to see what the user experience would be like, thought that was worth $4!", so I'm kind of not going to count that one.
Of the remaining five, and I find this FASCINATING, only 2 of the 5 were a book from a review (in this case, Popeye #1... which, additionally, IDW seems sold out on; or at least, there were no copies to reorder this week)
Two other sales were for Danger Club #1 (which sold terribly for me in print -- I'll be cutting my order for the next one by 2/3rds, I think), and there was also one for Manhattan Projects #1 (which sold well, and continues to sell well with a second printing, for me in print)
The five sales were to four unique customers. Going by the mailing address on their PayPal accounts, two of them are in Ohio, one is in Texas, one is in Washington (the state). That's as close as I'm willing to identify individuals to you. Three of the four live in cities that HAVE a comic book store. OBVIOUSLY, the mailing address on a PayPal account isn't necessarily factual, or takes things into account like "I travel 10 months of the year" or whatever.
But, I have to point out that I sold 6 print comics within four minutes of opening the store this morning (and Tuesdays are, generally, our worst days), and I earned a much better margin on those sales, and don't have to split them with a bunch of fellow reviewers, so this is not, as of this second, going to fund my retirement!
-B
First off, our new graphic is courtesy of the incredibly talented Adam P. Knave (who on top of all the other things he does and does well, has added podcaster to the mix. Go check out The Glory, The Glory, why don't you?) and our old dashed-off scattershot introductions to the podcast, courtesy of me who has once again managed to land himself behind a scheduling eightball.
But! That doesn't mean we didn't attend to our duties, as far as answering your questions go. On the contrary, Episode 84 of Wait, What? is our first hour and forty five minute foray into the savage wilds of your inquiries. Among the ground covered by Graeme McMillan and me: our recommendations for DC Showcases and Marvel Essentials (both real and imaginary), the fall of Vertigo's Sincere Age, Alan Moore and the plight of 1963, our Free Comic Book Day picks, the damning influence of Big Question Mark, event comics, follow-ups to articles discussed without being read, work for hire vs. creative owned work, Steve Gerber and Foolkiller, Submarine, Elite Squad, our favorite comic book city, and assorted cage matches and Hunger Games.
Also: Stuff. Additionally: Things.
Men and Women With X-Ray Eyes (And/Or Specs) have already seen the podcast radiating in the iTunes spectrum (grappling perhaps with an Infrared Manta). Those of us with only stereoscopic or lesser degrees of vision can certainly be satisfied with the auditory equivalent, as available below:
Wait, What?, Episode 84: Q and A DNA Q
As always, thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy!
It's a week on the, numerically, smaller side (2 pages of count-in sheet, vs a normal 3-page list), but heckfire if there's not a TON of terrific books this week...
30 DAYS OF NIGHT ONGOING #7 ACTION COMICS #9 AGE OF APOCALYPSE #3 AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #685 ENDS ANIMAL MAN #9 AVENGERS ACADEMY #29 AVX AVENGERS BLACK WIDOW STRIKES #1 (OF 3) AVENGERS VS X-MEN #3 (OF 12) AVX B & V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #224 BART SIMPSONS PAL MILHOUSE #1 BATWING #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) BLUE ESTATE #11 BOYS #66 BULLETPROOF COFFIN DISINTERRED #4 (OF 6) DAREDEVIL #12 DEFENDERS #6 DETECTIVE COMICS #9 (NIGHT OF THE OWLS) DIAL H #1 DOROTHY AND WIZARD IN OZ #6 (OF 8) DOROTHY OF OZ PREQUEL #2 (OF 4) EARTH 2 #1 EPIC KILL #1 EXILED #1 FANBOYS VS ZOMBIES #2 FURY MAX #1 GARFIELD #1 GI COMBAT #1 GREEN ARROW #9 HACK SLASH #15 HULK SMASH AVENGERS #1 (OF 5) INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #516 JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #9 KIRBY GENESIS SILVER STAR #5 LIFE WITH ARCHIE #19 MARVELS AVENGERS AVENGERS INITIATIVE MIND THE GAP #1 PIGS #7 RED LANTERNS #9 RED SONJA #66 RED SONJA WITCHBLADE #3 REX ZOMBIE KILLER ONE SHOT RICH JOHNSTONS THE AVENGEFULS #1 SKELETON KEY COLOR SPECIAL ONE SHOT SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #1 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #236 SPAWN #219 STAR TREK ONGOING #8 STORMWATCH #9 SUPREME #64 SUPURBIA #3 (OF 4) SWAMP THING #9 SWEET TOOTH #33 TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1 (THE CULLING) THE LONE RANGER #5 THE SPIDER #1 TOY STORY #3 (OF 4) ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #10 VENOM #17 WOLVERINE AND X-MEN ALPHA AND OMEGA #5 (OF 5) WORLDS FINEST #1 X-FACTOR #235 X-MEN #28 X-O MANOWAR (ONGOING) #1
Books / Mags / Stuff AMAZING SPIDER-MAN SECRET ORIGINS TP AMERICAN VAMPIRE TP VOL 02 ANIMAL MAN TP VOL 01 THE HUNT AVENGERS KREE SKRULL WAR HC AVENGERS X-SANCTION HC BATMAN AND ROBIN TP VOL 03 BATMAN ROBIN MUST DIE DOGS OF MARS TP HEAVY METAL MAY 2012 (NOTE PRICE) HOWARD LOVECRAFT & UNDERSEA KINGDOM GN HULK RETURN OF MONSTER PREM HC JUSTICE LEAGUE HC VOL 01 ORIGIN KIKI DE MONTPARNASSE GN LOCKE & KEY TP VOL 04 KEYS TO THE KINGDOM MARVELS AVENGERS PRELUDE TP NETWORK GN PEANUT BUTTER GN VOL 06 (A) RICHIE RICH TP VOL 01 WELCOME TO RICH RESCUE ROGER LANGRIDGES SNARKED TP VOL 01 SANDMAN TP VOL 09 THE KINDLY ONES NEW ED SPIRIT WORLD HC
What looks good to YOU?
-B
Yes, it's Sunday Afternoon Kirby Deification Theatre!More after these messages from our sponsors!
Nah, not really. I know you're all expecting me to link The Avenger, Jack Kirby and Justice and do some frothing rant about how Marvel Comics should just give The King his due so we can all just get on with our lives. But I didn't. I just wrote about an odd little '70s comic The King did on his way out of the door at DC Comics. I don't even go on about The King that much. Okay? I like to keep you guessing!
JUSTICE INC #1 - 4 Art by Al "Mysterious" McWilliams and Jack "KING!!!" Kirby Inks and letters by Mike "Royalty" Royer Words by Denny "No Heel!" O'Neil (Assisted by Paul "I Am Legion!" Levitz) Characters created by Walter Gibson and Lester Dent Issues 1,2 based on the "novels" by Paul Ernst ("Kenneth Robeson" was a pen name covering the work of the above three men.) (DC Comics, 1975, $0.25ea)
The Avenger first appeared in his self-titled magazine in 1939 and by 1942 he was gone. So, it's probably fair to say that "Lester Dent"'s attempt to replicate the success and appeal of Doc Savage failed. It's also probably fair to say that The Avenger's failure was due to the public just not wanting another pulp hero rather than the character being bad or anything. There must be something to him because he keeps popping up in The River of Time like a badly weighted corpse. After all, The Avenger was part of DC Comics' 2009 FIRST WAVE pulp sales disaster and had an (uncollected) 2 part prestige series in 1989 by Helfer/Baker. And in 1974 he butchly brooded on the pages of this series. So, yeah, who is The Avenger and how did his face gets so dead? Glad you asked.
Since this series lasts only four issues there isn't much room to expand on the basics of the character much, but luckily Editor Allan Asherman provides a comprehensive run down on the character in the back of #1. So, I can just steal all that and look right clever and if Jess Nevins wants to question any of it he can just go get all up in Allan Asherman's face instead. Anyway, Dick Benson is a family man, ah, but he is a family man of the '30s! Hence it is quite believable that he was previously an adventurer and treasure hunter because, apparently, career choices in the '30s were a lot more fun. (What Allan Asherman omits but Wikipedia (hey, I'm not proud!) does not is the fact that Dick Benson also lead "native armies in Java". Which I guess makes him a mercenary. Yeah, they've dropped that by the '70s.) It doesn't really matter what unlikely employment Benson's had all that matters is that he's really wealthy and astonishingly well trained at violence. Because if an average Joe gets has his family killed by sinister criminals he tends to just have a breakdown, never find who did it and end his life living with a woman who really likes cats and is too deaf to hear him weeping in the night. That's not really very pulp though whereas a man who is master of Karate, Kung-Fu and Savate (which is not apparently a male fragrance), possesses a photographic memory, has knowledge of the sciences, and has spent an entire YEAR (Asherman's emphasis) learning to use a gun and a knife is very Pulp. He's also probably someone with very poor hand-eye coordination (a YEAR!!! (my emphasis)). Fortunately his family die and he gets to put all these mad skillz to good use attempting to destroy ALL crime!
Unfortunately the shock of Benson's family's death results in total facial paralysis and his face, hair and eyes all turning as white as Jesus' conscience. Really quite white, that is. The best bit is that although Benson's facial muscles are paralysed the face itself is infinitely malleable. With a few deft cheek chuches and finger digs he can replicate the features of anyone! Sure, medical professionals may be tutting and shaking their heads at this but I'm sure the rest of us find this scenario only too plausible. Oh, and he's right handy at makeup which he keeps in a "small" make-up kit, which comprises make-up, every colour of contact lens, shoes with lifts of different heights, padded shirts and wigs in every style and colour. That's an interesting use of the word "small" there I'm sure you'll agree. Come on now, if you are expecting the adventures of a man with a malleable face who has trained as a one man army in a fight to destroy all crime to be sensible, well, you've probably misread the signals even worse than tha time that chick just upped and glassed you in the face. It's absurd is what it is. And I like absurd things and these comics are pretty absurd.
As you've probably noticed Al McWilliams draws the first issue not Jack Kirby. I don't know anything about Al McWilliams and for all I know he could be a pseudonym for Al Williamson or something. There were a lot of artists working for more than one company under different names (e.g. cheeky Gil Kane) around this time so it's possible. More likely Al McWilliams just never took to being exploited like an unloved drayhorse as is comics' wont and is a real human being who I've just insulted by positing his imaginary nature. He draws in a heavily realistic and illustrative style which is pretty good. There's not a lot of sense of motion but that's par for the illustrative approach, however, the realism does help the absurdity on display go down smoothly. That's one way to go but it's not the way Jack Kirby chooses.
(In the comments below J. Kevin Carrier points out that "Al McWilliams drew a bunch of comics from the ’40s to the ’80s, mostly for Dell, Gold Key, and Whitman. He also drew the newspaper strip “Twin Earths”." so there you go. Apologies to Al McWilliams and thanks to J. Kevin Carrier!)
He chooses to pump up the preposterousness to such a level that absurdity looks tame indeed. Actually that's not a choice he's made, as by 1974 that was Kirby's style. And it's a great fit for something as lovably daft as this. The book is set in the '30s and Kirby's '30s look like Kirby's '70s or Kirby's '80s rather than the real world '30s. The buildings look like a gifted child's been at the building blocks again, everything is ornately chunky even the people. By 1974 as far as his art was concerned every town was Kirbytown! It's not his best work but it is his work and so it has pleasures and rewards on every page. I guess it wouldn't have been his best work because Kirby's work here is probably among the last pages he worked on at DC Comics before Marvel got to kick him around one more time.
By the end of his time at DC Comics Kirby was just being given up work to make up his agreed page rate as all his own books were cancelled. It must have been quite a shock for him working off someone else's scripts. Sure, he'd worked with Joe Simon but that seems to have been a properly collaborative relationship with both of them mucking in on different aspects as and when. Prior to Kirby's '7os DC work he would have been used to the Marvel Method. Allegedly this could be seen as involving Jack Kirby coming up with ideas and drawings which some other guy would reword the dialogue for with snake oil slickery before claiming complete credit. Some people might say that anyway. So, Kirby was probably befuddled by the fact that Denny O'Neil had provided him with a full script with a structure and dialogue and everything with only the expectation that Kirby draw it. So he does because he was The King and that's what The King did.
There's a repetitive aspect to O'Neill's scripts that's worth addressing. In every issue several things will always occur. There will always be a scene where the two black characters (Josh and Rosabel) act in a Minstrelly way. The first time you see this your heart just sinks and you immediately imagine that bit of text they have to put in certain reprints now about how "Bits of this comic are a tad racist but look, it was a long time ago, and people didn't hide it as well as they do now. So don't be writing us angry letters about Billy Batson using burnt cork on his face as a disguise, please." It's okay though because immediately afterwards the two characters will have been revealed to have been acting dumb and are in fact "extremely intelligent college graduates." The book is set in the '30s after all so I think O'Neill does as good a job as can be expected of acknowledging and undercutting the racism of the time in a book produced in the '70s and aimed primarily at children.
There will always be a scene where The Avenger shoots someone only to have to explain that he never takes life and the shot has just "grazed" their scalp. This is interesting because although Benson is intimate enough with his weapons to have named them Ike (the knife) and Mike (the gun) all his training has been towards the end of being so proficient in their use that he can use them and not take life. Today a character would train in order to be able to take the most life as possible in any situation. So, yes, Benson may be creepy enough to give his weapons names but he's still better than that sad twat The Punisher. Also, Benson doesn't fight alone he has a bunch of chums who accompany him in the relentless quest to kill ALL Crime! The weird thing is all of them are spectacularly intelligent but talk in a way which belies this intelligence. Except for Smitty who talks daft in the books but doesn't in the comics. That's Algernon Heathcote Smith not regular commentator J_Smitty, because as intelligent as the former is at no point does the comic book Smitty mention donuts. Or Kickstarter.
Now all this repetition, together with the customary every issue regular recap of Benson's origin and skills, isn't the result of O'Neill's lack of writerly skills. No, it's a product of the time. The emphasis in the '70s was on single issue stories as there was no expectation that readers would be able to find the next issue and so in two separate letter columns Asherman has to defend his book's choices along these lines:
"We wouldn't have minded devoting two issues to the origin either. But we also like to give our reader's their money's worth, and personally, would YOU like to buy a first issue and find "to be continued" at the end of the story?" (from issue3)
Interesting, n'est pas?
Some of the other repetition is a little harder to explain. With the exception of the first issue the three other issues end with the villain falling to his death. Seriously. Look, I faffed about in Photoshop and everything to prove it:
I don't know what that's about! Although it should be noted that it is partially explained in that issue 2 and issue 4 have exactly the same plot with only details and names changed. I guess this is because they knew they had one more issue but that was it so, hey, here's issue 2 again, who wants to go out and hold doors open for ladies!?! It's still a lot of death plunges, I feel.
So, JUSTICE INC then? Not the world's greatest comic coming across as it does as being cancelled before finding its flow and thus making its flaws all the more obvious. But in its favour it does have '70s Jack Kirby art which, for me, is the best kind of art. And maybe even more than that JUSTICE INC has plots like the one in #4 which involve the villain releasing seagulls loaded with explosives from his zeppelin and guiding the fatal flock by radio at his own airplanes in order to collect on the insurance. I mean, what could go wrong? Any comic drawn by Jack Kirby with a plot that absurd could never be less than GOOD! Me, I'm neither fierce nor noble but, like The Avenger, I am gone!
Hope you had a nice weekend and read some COMICS!!!
Until May 5, you can download this month's installment of our in-store newsletter, COMIX EXPERIENCE ONOMATOPOEIA, from this link. If you also want the subform that goes with it, click here.
-B
I have reviews, yes, under the jump.
ARCHIE #632: In the "just because I can sell you one digitally" category, let's start off with this one. This is the third in the "Archie Gets Married" comics -- this time it's to... Valerie of Josie & The Pussycats? Uhm, OK? I must be horrible backwards on my Archie-ana lore, but I didn't even have the slightest idea that they'd ever even dated before? Did they? Oh, huh, wikipedia says that they first dated in ARCHIE #608 (2010) ("making her Archie's first black girlfriend; previously, Archie Comics has been very hesitant to depict interracial romantic relationships.") which sounds about par for the course for the modern Archie.
The thing of it is, in 2012 (or even 2010), the idea of a mixed race couple isn't much of a big deal... well, at least here it isn't; I'd say at least 20% of the families at Ben's school are mixed in one fashion or another... and if you opened that up to religions as well, it might be as much as half -- so it is really hard to find a dramatic hook in this; though that's clearly why Archie tried this as another "stunt" book.
What I found somewhat interesting here is that Archie's path in all of these "memory lane" stories is largely dictated by Archie's choices before he proposes -- for example in the "....marries Veronica" story, he's working for Mr. Lodge, while here he's a full-time musician with "The Archies" band. Implying that his choice of romance is dictated by his job.
I also find it a little weird that there's a little subplot about the paparazzi are very interested in this marriage, but most of it focuses on the Pussycats side. Why is that weird? Well, I don't know, it's kind of because Valerie is the "...& the Pussycats" portion, and the real world would seem to suggest that only the "front man" is considered famous -- what portion of the world could name a single member of "....& the New Bohemians" or "...& the Blackhearts"? Unless, in earth-Archie, the Pussycats are on par with the E. Street Band? Yet, conversely, Mr. Andrews band is *called* "The Archies" (which is actually weird, when you think about it, it's almost like, say, The Talking Heads being called "The Davids"), but it really doesn't read in the comic that he's the "star" of the band. Weird.
There's also this really weird 3 panel interlude where some chick with a white streak in her hair schemes to take Val's place in the Pussycats, but I have absolutely no clue whatsoever who she is supposed to be, since she's not named, and I don't have a degree in Pussycat-ology.
So, yah, cute, if house-style art, sloppy writing (both by Dan Parent), and low-stakes drama... yeah, it's an Archie comic, and it's certainly no worse than many I've read, and better than a few (like the Kiss crossover) -- it's perfectly competent and OK.
AVX VS #1: I'll say that the "this has no plot!" introduction page removed much of the weight that might follow here, and, yup, just punching. I pretty much disagree with the results of BOTH of the fights, as shown, especially since they were both X-Men losers, AND they were "worthy antagonists for an entire team of characters" characters, but it was still fun enough for the brainlessness of the work (I also liked the running "fun fact"s), but CHRIST ON A BIKE, $4? Are you nuts? Damn, that's just crazy brutal, takes it down at least two grades, relative to the depth of the content, and means all I can say is EH.
Also? I think it's kind of insane that the Parent book, titled "Avengers Vs. X-Men" looks like it's called "AvX" on the rack, while this one, which IS called "AvX" looks like it's actual title is "Avengers Vs X-Men" -- I don't think we can quite call that "bait and switch", but it's some dumb planning, if you ask me.
BATTLE SCARS #6: Seriously?
I mean, it's stupid enough that they're trying to align Marvel comics continuity with movie continuity (seriously, anytime the answer to "wait, who is that?" has to be answered with a paragraph long description, you've just fucked up your continuity), but to have a nearly last page reveal that "Marcus Johnson's" name WAS ALWAYS "Nick Fury", so that's what everyone is calling him now, is just kind of insanely dumb. There's also nothing in the text of the comic that would suggest that this kid is even vaguely competent enough to be made head of S.H.I.E.L.D., and, in fact, since his pal "Cheese"... er, I mean "Agent Coulson" (Gr!) bugged him in order to have the Avengers rescue his ass, I'd say the text suggest quite the contrary. At the least, the OLD Nick shoulda died... but he's still bouncing around in the background, so it's probably just a year or three before this gets reversed.
This might not suck if people actually cared, or bought it, but I've sold ZERO rack copies of #4 & 5 of this series, and #6 survived Wednesday without anyone showing any interest whatsoever. What if you threw an origin and nobody came?
Really the only positive thing I can say is that, as a $2.99 book, which Marvel has made self-cover, and removed 4 pages of ads, there's a significantly better reading experience by not having those ads. On the negative side, with the reduced cover stock and the one less signature, these $2.99 books have AWFUL "hand" -- they feel flimsy and cheap and terrible. I'd strongly recommend they pump the cover stock back up to compensate.
This was a badly told comic, for an unreasonable and unwanted goal, and that really makes it AWFUL.
MOON KNIGHT #12: I didn't write them up, but I really liked the twists of the last two issues, and of how Moonie's mental illness was being expressed, and I thought the book was finally actually going somewhere, but this issue just has the Avengers come in all Ex Machin-y, and makes the whole thing kind of pointless. Can Marvel now admit that Moon Knight can't carry a solo book? Even with Bendis and Maleev? Sadly, this last issue was very EH.
POPEYE #1: Another we'll-sell-it-to-you digitally book, and this one at least, I can thoroughly and unreservedly recommend. No, it isn't E.C. Segar, but it's done with so much respect for that original work, that it wouldn't feel out of place with Thimble Theatre. Roger Landgridge's script has the voices Just So, and the art by Bruce Ozella is astonishing -- absolutely in line with Segar, but it doesn't feel "old fashioned" or slavish for that. You couldn't really ask for a better first issue, though I was surprised to not see a single can of spinach on display. I thought it was VERY GOOD.
RICH JOHNSTONS CAPTAIN AMERICAN IDOL #1 RICH JOHNSTONS SCIENTHORLOGY #1: I think I can review this as a pair? Honestly, if Rich's name wasn't on these, I wouldn't have ordered a single copy; and even with is name on it, it's really only down to the audience that reads Bleeding Cool. These kind of look hacked out to my eye, or cashed-in, your choice, and while each has an amusing moment or two in them (Thor punching someone in a Guy Fawkes mask, saying "thou art Anonymous!" is the height of the wit here), the best thing they have going for them is David Hasslehoff cast as Curtis Joh... er, I mean, Nick Fury. If you're looking for CRACKED-level parody, without the Severin art, as you build up to Avengers, then this might be the comics for you! Me, I thought they were both EH (with Thor being marginally better, mostly due to Michael Netzer's art)
Yeah, so that's me; as always, what did YOU think?
-B
Firstly, if you haven't seen Hibbs' post from earlier today, you should go and read it right now. I'll wait. It's relevant to your interests, if your interests are "buying comics" and "things that'll be happening to this site." Back (or didn't click on the link to begin with)? Okay, now I'll do my bit.
Savage Criticians*! Jeff and I are doing another round of question-answerin' for next week's Wait, What?, which we'll be recording tomorrow. This gives you, oh, 20 hours or so before we start recording to leave questions/comments/declarations of undying love in the comments of this post that we'll either get around to tomorrow or, as we all saw last time we did this, the following week. We promise to try our best to answer as many as possible, but you know us; we tend to go off-topic and on-tangent more often than we mean to.
Anyway, go and leave us questions (Or, if you do the Twitter thing, send them to @graemem and @Lazybastid there). Thankyouverymuch in advance.
(Oh, and Eric Rupe and Matthew Murray, we'll try and remember to answer your questions from the comments to the last 'cast, promise. Although I can reveal that I'm not in the pocket of Big Question Mark, because that bastard hasn't even spoken to me since he broke up the Mysterons way back when. I cried 96 tears, let me tell you.)
* - I may have made that word up.
I don’t know if you’ve heard but comic book artist Tony DeZuniga is in a really bad way. The details are here.
So, I thought I'd jaw a little about some of his work.
And then Brian "Call Me Mr." Hibbs dropped his MASSIVE ANNOUNCEMENT that I've just stepped over with my big cow patty boots. Er, sorry, but time seemed an issue here, so REMEMBER below this post Brian "Future Town" Hibbs has a MASSIVE ANNOUNCEMENT. Below the break I just have some words.
Now, I don’t know about you but I’m pretty tired of reading about all these guys’n’gals who created the magical characters that made my childhood almost pleasant only when their foetally curled carcasses are chipped off the bottom of a skip every winter. (Perhaps even a skip in an alley outside a cinema showing the latest billion dollar grossing motion picture extravaganza featuring their creations. In the foyer – soda pop with ice made from Jack Kirby’s ghostly tears! Or Don Heck’s! Or…etc) So, here’s this guy, Tony DeZuniga, having a bad time medically and financially and, I don’t know, I’m not asking you to give anything except maybe a little attention; a little consideration to his work maybe. It won’t help him any but it might count for something.
Mr. DeZuniga was born in the Philippines and got his start in American comics working at DC around 1969/70. In 1973 he created Black Orchid with Sheldon Mayer. So I imagine the BLACK ORCHID DELUXE EDITION by Gaiman/McKean which has been released this week, according to "Pappy" Hibbs' Shipping List, will see DC Comics sending Mr. DeZuniga some money at this most unfortunate time. I’ve never read any of the original Black Orchid but I have read a lot of comics featuring the character Mr. DeZuniga created with the writer John Albano in 1971 - Jonah Woodson Hex. Yeah, me and Mr DeZuniga go way back. Not personally, I’ve never met the man, but in a comic book way. When I was a kid, man, I used to love me some of that DeZuniga Jonah Hex. And, hey now, since Jonah Hex was created by Tony DeZuniga and John Albano what could be more appropriate than to look at some of his work there.
(Okay, I also really liked Mr. DeZuniga’s work on Roy Thomas and Ernie Colon’s creation ARAK but I don’t have any ARAK since the Great Purging my parents conducted while I was off failing to be educated. So that would have been a pretty short post. (Hey, I heard that!))
I guess somewhere along the way I became a 'fanboy' for the character. Yeah, I've got a whole heap of mouldering paper with his image on and I'm always ready to read another issue of Jonah messing up, likkering up, riding about a bit, riding a whore a bit and just generally making everyone around him's life just that bit more unpleasant even if he does save their lives. Which he doesn't always do. But having said that I think this 'fanboyishness' is due to the fact that the character has had strong creative teams behind him for the most part. Sure I like the character but I think I like the character due to the many talented people behind his comics. Because, while I do love me some comic characters, I never forget that the folk what made 'em up are just that wee bit more important. What with them being real live human beings and all. Creators like Tony DeZuniga, who is currently demonstrating just how human he is and without whom I would not have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Jonah Hex.
So, Jonah Hex then. Now the character design for Jonah is pretty striking, yes? There aren't a lot of ways to make a cowboy as visually striking as the comic book medium likes. It’s easy to slip over into camp given the sexual connotations of the breed in the popular imagination. John Voight wasn't in Midnight Accountant was he? No. DeZuniga (and Albano) give Jonah a striking presence on the page with his blue trousers and Confederate grey tunic before you even get to his famous face. And wearing that tunic in post Civil War times pretty much encapsulates the self hating suicidal swagger of the surly sonovagun right there. Clever stuff and then we get to the face. Striking is surely the word there for the flesh fondue frozen mid slide. It’s pretty simple but that’s why it’s so smart. There’s not a lot to get wrong. That's important in mainstream genre comics where other hands will be at the character more than likely. There are teething troubles as Mr. DeZuniga does initially demonstrate some indecision as to Jonah’s hat, soon ditching the practically ostentatious stripey hat band after a couple of issues and there he is pretty much as he remains to this day: Jonah Hex.
Even though the art reproduced here is from books created in the ‘7os I hope I've succeeded in making it evident that the page by page art is also rewarding and possessed of a surprising sophistication. Mr. DeZuniga’s early training in commercial art and work in advertising is evident in all kinds of pleasing ways. Admittedly this does mean his ladies seem a little too modern for the setting but otherwise all I can see are gains. Look on the bright side, his ladies certainly seem worth the courting. Here, let’s you and me look at the attention paid in this scene to the environment; the fixtures and fittings and particularly the wallpaper:
While the actions of the people are hardly thrilling the busy pattern keeps the eye occupied and alert as the mind digests the heavy load in the word balloons. Then at the end there’s a DeZuniga scene setting special. It’s a little overloaded with objects and a tad intrusive in the angling but this was still only 1973. He’d get smoother and subtler (but not that subtle; there’ll always be a broken wheel, a cattle skull or a twisted stump not far off.). When he was professionally active Mr. DeZuniga worked on plenty of books besides Jonah Hex; Romance, Mystery, Barbarian and, yes, super-heroes. The guy's work had range but it also had depth.
I haven't read every comic Tony DeZuniga ever drew but of the many I have read I can fairly say he always entertained. Even better there was always at least one part of the book where DeZuniga was clearly loving it. He'd crack out the Zip-a-tone or depict an action sequence in time-slices or exaggerate the physicality of violence to dull it with comedy or have Charles Bronson turn up as an Ind..Native American or... You get the drift, for someone working at the unforgiving pace of mainstream genre comics DeZuniga's work always excelled at melding his disparate influences and approaches into an attractive and experimental package. Tony DeZuniga did good comics is what I'm saying. And in 2006 Tony DeZuniga returned to JONAH HEX and proved he still did good comics:
Tony DeZuniga may not be one of The Greats but he was still pretty great. Force my hand and I'll say Tony Dezuniga was VERY GOOD! because Tony DeZuniga is one of the reasons I never grew out of loving COMICS!!!
All images reproduced from WEIRD WESTERN TALES #16,18 and 20 (1973) and JONAH HEX #5 (2006) published by DC COMICS.
Hey, remember a few weeks ago when I said "There's a big announcement coming!", and then I had to walk that back a little? Well, hey, it's here, below the jump! So, like first off, I'm just going to lay this out person-to-person. You understand that I am a retailer, and I sell things for a living, but I don't sell here at Savage Critic. I (and my wonderful cohorts) tell you what they think, whether that's good or bad or indifferent or [Schrodinger's Cat]. While I'm working up to a good and/or service, I'm going to speak to you how I like to be spoken to: largely focusing on ones/(my) Perception of The Truth, rather than trying to Sell you on anything.
People think of me as anti-digital, I guess; though that's really not accurate at all. It's more that I'm against any kind "Everything will be 100% better with digital" thinking, because I don't think the "problem" with the comics market is access and availability, but, rather that we're a niche market, not a mainstream one. Even at our highest highs (boy, isn't Walking Dead doing pretty super?), we're still at just a small fraction of the viewers of that TV show. WATCHMEN is past a million copies but, I think, short of two... while maybe something on the order of 15+ million people paid money to see it in a theatre, and hell, probably 3+ times that have watched it on DVD or streaming or cable or something else. Meanwhile, it's extremely unlikely that the "Before Watchmen" books will sustain 100k+ sales, and it wouldn't shock me if some of the involved titles bottom out below 50k.
We've been through "The grass is greener!" more than once, most recently with the bookstore market, and, guess what? We can still count the number of million copy best sellers... well, probably not on one hand, but it certainly isn't a large club. And that's in a population of 250+ million people.
Comics are an acquired taste. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Hell, I think we're smarter and sexier because we know comics and "they" don't, but "they" are a long long long way from even beginning to embrace us.
Further, I truly think that comics that are created for paper are inherently better ON paper, because physical space is an important part of how comics "work". I especially think that panel-by-panel viewing thing that cmX has is the absolute work of the devil -- the gutters are exactly where the magic of comics fundamentally lies, and you can't remove that panel border and have it still be comics, exactly. I truly think that comics belong foremost as a print medium, and I think that most of the audience agrees, which is why we're running entirely counter-cyclical to any "normal" digital trends in this medium.
Having said all of that, it is obvious and clear that some people disagree, whether it is from honest cognitive disagreement, or "well, that would be nice, but there's no place within 100 miles that sells any form of comics" or, just, "fuck, I don't want clutter any more". What *I* think about the "purity" of the medium really means fuck-all, doesn't it, when there ARE obviously some number of people that want digital.
cmX has a retailer participation model, but I've actually read the contract that you have to agree to, and I thought it was flatly one of the most lopsided, unfair, and kind of blatantly evil documents I've ever read. Others surely disagree, and there are certainly some retailers who will say that they're generating large sums with no overhead. But I'm totally unwilling to do so under the contract cmX offered.
So, that brings us to Diamond comics partnership with iVerse to bring digital comics directly into retail stores. Most of Diamond's focus has been on a kind of "do you want fries with that?" digital copy upsell in store. Hell, maybe that can even work -- though I have a hard time picturing it, and, besides, the physical print market is already niche enough that physical retailers would be, I think, largely foolish to even raise the possibility that customers in their physical stores might migrate to digital (not that I think they WILL, as a mass) (but the REAL problem is that if the "wrong" 10% -- the heavy users who buy most of the comics; the cats who buy 20+ comics every single week -- shifts their business, the entirely possibility of much of the physical market kind of disappears for the other 90% of the participants, whether they want it or not)
All I know is that I'm sure as hell not going to promote digital within my individual physical sales environment. I think that's plainly counter-productive to my physical print-based business.
The internet, however, is different. I'll be surprised if even 1% of my regulars read this blog posting, or even an aggregation site's picking up on the "story". But there are hundreds, thousands, lots! of readers reading these words who will never set foot in my store for the simple reason that you're nowhere near me whatsoever. SOME of you are interested in digital comics.
And so for you few and proud and awesome!!!, I've very proud to announce that because I'm one of the very very few people who has both a Diamond account, as well as an internet review site, boom, now we're selling digital comics.
Yeah, didn't expect that, didja?
We're selling digital comics through iVerse's program, but as you see from that URL and site, that's branded as SavCrit, and ComixExp; and all sales are pretty much under Diamond's Terms of Sale, with the main exception of the split. As it is set right now, I get one third, Diamond and iVerse get one third, and the publisher gets the last third. I don't know how Diamond and iVerse are splitting dollars, but even in a crazy unfair world, I bet Diamond is still preserving most of the profit slice they normally get, while having almost no overhead at all.
(I'm losing 33% of my gross profit on publishers that cap in print at 50%, and 40% of my profit on a brokered publisher like Image, where it's 55% off. But the upside is zero inventory expense for unsold copies.)
I know that there's going to be a vocal contingent of people who will say "yeah, but I use comiXology, and don't want a second system", and I feel you, I really do, but y'know, in this app based world I kind of have to file that one under "white people problems" -- switching between apps really isn't hard.
I don't expect anyone to really just go and "graze" at the store, instead what we'll do is, when we're reviewing a book that we also have for sale, there will be a hotlink to that book. I wish this happened a different week (Onomatopoeia, and order form this week!) so I'd have a proper review up at the same moment to show you how it works in practice, but pretend as I reprint this one from last week:
PROPHET #24: Ugh, now THIS is comics! Man, I don’t even know what this bit has to do with anything in the first three issues (same character, wholly different scenario), but I also don’t care, because it’s such fun science fiction, AND we get some wonderful artwork from Farel Dalrymple. I think I’ve said this before, but this reminds me of nothing less than HEAVY METAL from the 1970s, amazingly inventive and lavishly illustrated science fiction that may or may not make a ton of sense, but who cares because the passion just drips off it. I think this is truly EXCELLENT work.
Something like that, anyway -- I may not link the review summary word now that I see it looks kind of ugly. Either way, it's meant to be unobtrusive and not all "Buy!"-y
There are drawbacks to iVerse & Diamond Digital -- the first being that the back library is, right now, only a few months behind. The second being a fairly small number of publishers represented -- Ape, Arcana, Archie, Bluewater, Boom!, Broadsword, IDW, Image, Top Shelf and Viper. More, we presume, will be added as time goes on.
Also, I'm told that while you can buy comics using Firefox, you'll have to READ THEM (if you're doing so on a browser, rather than using the app) on a different browser for now. That kinda sucks.
All of "my" (1/3) share of the digital sales will be split evenly amongst the SavCrit participants while we test this -- so if you've always wanted to support the site, but have felt like you didn't want to do a direct Paypal donation or something (though certainly feel free to do that, as well), now you can buy comics and understand that it keeps Graeme and Jeff doing podcasts (and maybe even written reviews again, wouldn't THAT be nice!), or John one step closer to that high powered telescope, so he can watch EVERYthing that Howard Victor Chaykin does, and so on and so forth.
Oh, the last thing is that I, like Mark Waid before me, intend to be fairly open about the success and / or failure of this initiative. I suspect that once a year I'll pop in with a "this is how digital is doing" post.
Well... that's about that, I think? Please feel free to offer comments in the thread below, though I doubt I'll be able to answer any tech questions whatsoever.
So, what do you think?
-B
The "arrival" lists are basically just cut & paste from my Diamond paperwork... which means that sometimes certain books get left off, because they're ordered from BOOK distributor sources instead. Usually this is minor stuff, but this week we have three MAJOR releases, all on sale right now today (ah, street dates!):
ARE YOU MY MOTHER HC (Alison Bechdel)
DARTH VADER & SON (Jeffrey Brown)
JERUSALEM (Guy Delisle)
We also got AMERICAN BARBARIAN, SOFT CANDY, YOUNG LOVECRAFT, and GON v5.
Yay to them all!
-B
Hoo boy. Did not think I was going to make this particular deadline. I won't bore you with the blah-blah-blahs, but let's just say: papa needs a new microphone and he needs one bad. I apologize in advance for all the not-especially-discreet cracking and popping going on at various points in the background of this. We are maybe two weeks away from a solution to both it and the mild echo chamber effect that's afflicted us ever since Graeme managed to transcend this corporeal realm.
Buttttttttt, anywayyyyyyy... Gotta keep this short and snappy so lemme just say this: Wait, What? Ep. 83 is two hours and twenty-seven minutes long, and Graeme and I do not spend all that time trying to remember if the boss at the end of Crazy Climber was a gorilla or not!
No. Instead, we do our best to cover a lot of lost ground by jawing about Iron Muslim and Zombies vs. Fanboys from Boom Comics, Kirby: Genesis, the current state of comics and the comics internet including Chris Roberson quitting DC and David Brothers' amazing article over at Comics Alliance, Before Watchmen, Grant Morrison, Brian Bendis and Avengers Assemble #2, as well as the Oral History of the Avengers.
Also? The eighth issues of Wonder Woman Justice League, OMAC, and Batman, Casanova #3, The Shadow #1, The Boys by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, Alabaster Wolves, Saga #2, Archie Meets KISS, Prophet #24, more issues of Glamourpuss, and much, much more.
This show was pretty late making its way to iTunes, but if it's not there yet, it will be there soon. But even so! You can also listen to it here and now if you would prefer. Behold:
Wait, What? Ep. 83: As Good As A Feast
As always, thanks for your patience. I gotta go jump through hoops for the next ten hours or so, but we'll have more for you next week--and, of course, thank you for listening!
Comics, yay!
ACTIVITY #5 AIRBOY DEADEYE #1 (OF 5) ALL STAR WESTERN #8 AMERICAN VAMPIRE #26 ANGEL & FAITH #9 AQUAMAN #8 ARCHIE #632 ARCHIE & FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #15 ARMY OF DARKNESS ONGOING #3 ASTONISHING X-MEN #49 AVENGERS ROLL CALL AVX VS #1 (OF 6) BART SIMPSON COMICS #70 BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #8 BATTLE SCARS #6 (OF 6) BLACKHAWKS #8 BLOODSTRIKE #27 BPRD HELL ON EARTH PICKENS COUNTY HORROR #2 (OF 2) CAPTAIN AMERICA #10 CAPTAIN AMERICA AND HAWKEYE #629 CROSSED BADLANDS #4 DANGER GIRL REVOLVER #4 (OF 4) DAREDEVIL #11 OMEGA DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER WAY STATION #5 (OF 5) DARKNESS #102 EXILE PLANET O/T APES #2 (OF 4) FF #17 FLASH #8 FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MEN #8 GAME OF THRONES #7 GARTH ENNIS JENNIFER BLOOD #12 GEARS OF WAR #23 GOON #39 GREEN HORNET #24 GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #8 GRIMM FAIRY TALES #72 HELLRAISER #13 I VAMPIRE #8 JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #8 KING CONAN PHOENIX ON THE SWORD #4 (OF 4) KIRBY GENESIS #7 MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 MASS EFFECT HOMEWORLDS #1 MERCILESS RISE OF MING #1 MIGHTY THOR #13 MOON KNIGHT #12 NETHERWORLD #5 (OF 5) NEW AVENGERS #25 AVX NEW DEADWARDIANS #2 (OF 8) NINJETTES #3 POPEYE #1 (OF 4) PTERODACTYL HUNTERS IN THE GILDED CITY (ONE SHOT) REBEL BLOOD #2 (OF 4) RICH JOHNSTONS CAPTAIN AMERICAN IDOL #1 RICH JOHNSTONS SCIENTHORLOGY #1 RICHIE RICH GEMS #47 ROGER LANGRIDGES SNARKED #7 SAVAGE HAWKMAN #8 SECRET AVENGERS #26 AVX SECRET HISTORY BOOK 18 SECRET HISTORY BOOK 19 SPACEMAN #6 (OF 9) STAR WARS BLOOD TIES BOBA FETT IS DEAD #1 (OF 4) STAR WARS CRIMSON EMPIRE III EMPIRE LOST #6 (OF 6) STAR WARS DARK TIMES OUT O/T WILDERNESS #5 (OF 5) STEPHEN KING JOE HILL ROAD RAGE #3 (OF 4) SUPERCROOKS #2 (OF 4) SUPERMAN #8 TEEN TITANS #8 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ARCHIE 100 PG SPECTACULAR TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ONGOING #9 TWELVE #12 (OF 12) ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #9 WITH DIG CDE UNCANNY X-MEN #11 AVX VOODOO #8 WAR GODDESS #7 WARLORD OF MARS #17 WOLVERINE #305 X-MEN LEGACY #265
Books / Mags / Stuff ABE SAPIEN TP VOL 02 DEVIL DOES NOT JEST ANY SIMILARITIES TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD HC ART OF AMANDA CONNER HC BATMAN KNIGHTFALL TP NEW ED VOL 01 BLACK ORCHID DELUXE EDITION HC CHEW TP VOL 05 MAJOR LEAGUE CHEW CRUISIN W/ HOUND LIFE & TIMES TOOTE GN (RES) DAKEN DARK WOLVERINE BIG BREAK TP DARK TOWER TP BATTLE OF JERICHO HILL DUNCAN THE WONDER DOG TP VOL 01 (OF 9) SHOW ONE (O/A) DUNGEONS & DRAGONS HC VOL 03 DOWN ESSENTIAL DAREDEVIL TP VOL 01 NEW ED FOLLY CONSEQUENCES OF INDISCRETION GN FRAZETTA FUNNY STUFF HC GOTHAM CENTRAL TP BOOK 04 CORRIGAN IM NOT A PLASTIC BAG HC JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #321 MAD MAGAZINE #515 PLAY BALL HC PREVIEWS #284 MAY 2012 SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE SPECTRE TP VOL 01 SIXTH GUN TP VOL 03 STAR WARS INVASION TP VOL 03 REVELATIONS SUPERMAN SECRETS OF THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE TP ULTIMATE COMICS X ORIGINS TP UNDERTOW GN WOLVERINE WOLVERINE'S REVENGE TP
What looks good to YOU?
-B
Happy 4/20! OK, getting much closer to being "on time", right there under the jump!
AVENGERS VS X-MEN #2: A jarring tonal shift comes this issue as Jason Aaron handles the scripting. It's sort of on par with the change of George Perez to Ron Lim on Infinity Gauntlet, because the voices couldn't be more different. I *liked* what Aaron's got on the page here, but man that's three issues in a row now with no consistency whatsoever between them, and the round robin of writers continues through the series (and art changes with #5, as well) I'm finding this jarring.
I'm also not following a specific plot point, and that's how is Phoenix "coming" in outer space, but also already possessing Hope?
Again, this book isn't for me, really, but I thought this issue was at least OK
BATMAN #8: This here is the first $3.99 issue, and I was a little concerned it would cause a jump off, but people seem to be enjoying the Owls storyline enough to keep supporting it. Again, we'll see what happens when the first Bat-line crossover happens next month -- it seems to me that most of the tie-ins are going to read very similarly, though: owls attack, fight owls. This arc has had a bunch of bizarre "power fluctuation", though -- you'll remember how it opened with Bats kicking the ass of dozens of traditional bat villains, at once. THEN, a single Owl curbstomped Bats about as hard as he's ever been hit. And NOW, Bruce is fighting off dozens of Owls at once, showing again how butch he is. I'd finding this awkward, at best.
The backup story was largely the epitome of "unneeded back up", as it just showed and elongated a moment that we'd seen just minutes before. Boo!
I'm liking the book, overall, but there's something a little off about this whole thing that I'm not figuring out yet. I still thought it was a very low GOOD.
PROPHET #24: Ugh, now THIS is comics! Man, I don't even know what this bit has to do with anything in the first three issues (same character, wholly different scenario), but I also don't care, because it's such fun science fiction, AND we get some wonderful artwork from Farel Dalrymple. I think I've said this before, but this reminds me of nothing less than HEAVY METAL from the 1970s, amazingly inventive and lavishly illustrated science fiction that may or may not make a ton of sense, but who cares because the passion just drips off it. I think this is truly EXCELLENT work.
RESET #1: Peter Bagge returns with something new, and while his cartooning is as good as ever, I had two kind of overwhelming problems with this. First is that the setup is just too thin -- we understand the protagonist is someone who is at least somewhat famous, who did some unspecified awful thing, but there are no details about any of that given here, and so it makes relating to the underlying science fiction premise (that there's a machine that can allow you to relive your life, and make different decisions, but it has to always start from one specific point) just too difficult. We neither know where the protagonist came from, nor where he is trying to go, so taking any kind of suspense or anticipation is rendered virtually impossible.
My second problem is that I think that Bagge has grown into an increasingly "safe" cartoonist as the years have gone by -- not from his underlying style, but from the range and direction of his work. There's nothing "edgy" about his work any longer, it feels predictable and almost staid. Safe.
This work is OK, at best.
SHADOW #1: I was a little surprised how much I liked this. Well, maybe not, because it's Garth -- but there's almost no Ennis-isms here (other than whatever is naturally baked into the character and supporting cast), just a great straight-forward, historically-appropriate period-piece version of the best of the character. If I had one "problem" its that Dynamite really could do itself a favor and instead of spending the coin to get four different unique comics stylists doing covers, they should spend at least that much attention on the interior art. Aaron Campbell is in no way a poor artist, but it's hard to not suffer in comparison to Alex Ross, Chaykin, Jae Lee and John Cassaday. Despite that, I thought this was swell comics, indeed, and thought it was VERY GOOD.
SUPERGIRL #8: I'm only pointing this out because George Perez is suddenly drawing a pair of issues of this book, and I thought this was a very solid little comic that your eye might have wandered away from. Here's a place to wander back for an issue or two -- I thought this was GOOD.
WONDER WOMAN #8: I've said before, ad infinitum, I so don't care for mythological supporting casts, and, so, overall while I've been liking this arc OK, it's really not for me. I still largely feel that way about this issue, but I'd be a big ol' meanie if I didn't observe just how much I liked Cliff Chiang's "redesign" of Hades and the afterlife -- that's some genuinely creepy and affecting stuff. GOOD.
That's it for me for today, as always: what did YOU think?
-B
Christ the truck with the NEXT batch of comics will be here in just an hour or two, I best get started writing....
AMERICA'S GOT POWERS #1: It's RISING STARS meets THE HUNGER GAMES!
Though, actually, like the latter example, I had some real problems with the set-up as presented: COULD a society evolve the way they posited?
Here's a factoid for you: there are more dog owners in San Francisco, then families with school age children -- and SF proper doesn't have a high birth rate (I think it is one of the lower in California), with what looks like just about 8k kids born annually in SF county. Since the book posits every child in any state of in utero in SF being born "instantly" and overnight, and with superpowers, we might assume this being 9/12ths of that annual number, or something along the lines of SIX THOUSAND super powered children, all the same age.
So, how do you convince parents and/or the kids to do this for what feels like a few years in the story? Since they were 13 maybe? I don't think it spells it out exactly? Certainly long enough to build a giant stadium that appears to connect to Alcatraz island (!) -- though, really how they do that and not devastate shipping into Oakland, I'm not entirely sure...
I don't know, I think if I'm 13 years old, I'm not so inclined to use my awesome superpowers to fight my peers, actually -- I think we (since what 13 year old doesn't think they know better) use it to set ourselves up for something better. Sure, SOME kids go along with it... but anywhere near the majority?
And even those? When they start using robots with live fire against us?
Jonathan Ross' writing is crisp, and Bryan Hitch's art is as nice as ever, but it would seem to need to be some other check or balance going on here to have even the slightest chance of this working as posited. Ultimately, that breaks my Suspension of Disbelief, and made me think this was merely OK.
SAGA #2: Well, I liked the second issue here even better than the first one, so that's a good sign. I really liked Alana's willingness to sacrifice her child, rather than giving it over to the freaky topless spider-chick. Yeah, this is VERY GOOD comics, I think.
SECRET SERVICE #1: Mark Millar is hardly subtle, but I thought the neat class juxtapositions here, coupled with the thinking about government austerity programs and the "super spy" was actually a fairly trenchant piece of social commentary. Doesn't hurt to have Dave Gibbons drawing it, either. VERY GOOD.
Ugh. three books? That's all I have time for, and two of them are only semi-reviews? Sorry... but I need to check in this Baker & Taylor box before the truck arrives with the new Diamond books... more on (I hope) Thursday, getting me more recent...
What did YOU think?
-B
If I recall correctly then this Tuesday the lovable light entertainers Mr. Jeff Lester and Mr. Graeme McMillan will not be with us this evening. Now I know you've all travelled a long way tonight and so, in an effort to avoid rioting, their part tonight will be played by me.
Mr. Jeff Lester And Graeme McMillan In Happier Times.
Not available on iTunes! Uninteresting and self-indulgent free content available only at The Savage Critics!
THE COMPLETE POEMS OF PHILIP LARKIN By Philip Larkin Edited by Professor Archie Burnett 768 pages, Faber and Faber, £40.00 (2012)
As the delightfully demure Mr. Brian Hibbs has pointed out in his past comments comics and poetry share many qualities. He was speaking from a primarily retail perspective because, and I don’t know if he’s ever told anyone this but, that’s what he DOES! I’m no retailer, just a reader but from a reader’s perspective I can tell you that poetry and comics are also like comics. In fact I will tell you.
For starters this particular volume illustrates that poetry, like comics, is always being repackaged and resold. Only last year I bought a Larkin collection and here I am buying another. And the one I bought last time wasn't the first one I’d bought either. Hopefully this will be the last time as, unless the title is a big fat lie, this is a complete collection of verse from the most gifted librarian to be employed by The University of Hull. It should be the last time because the dour genius’ papers have been gone over by academics so thoroughly you’d think they were looking for clues to Lord Lucan’s whereabouts. It should definitely be the last time since Larkin died in 1985 and his output has slackened off somewhat since then.
A fair indication of the completeness of the contents is given by the contents page which lists: The (previously collected)Poems, Other Poems Published In The Poet’s Lifetime, Poem’s Not Published In The Poet’s Lifetime and Updated or Approximately Dated Poems. Unless we’re going to start employing mediums to bring back Poems The Poet Thought About Doing But Didn't then, yes, this should be as complete as it gets. It’s probably going to be as comprehensive as it gets as well since the poems end on p.329 and the rest of the book is composed of Commentary and Appendices where Professor Archie Burnett gets to strut his funky stuff.
Now to fit all that nutritious Knowledge in there and not have the book become even bigger and even pricier one interesting change has been made to the poems. Throughout the book the poems follow directly on from each other. Directly. Now, again like comics, it is quite important how the poem looks on the page. It’s not as important as the content of the poem of course but still the cluttered effect of these pages is a bit unfortunate if necessary. Yes, all across the globe poetry fans will be reading this book and then clustering together to politely but insistently engage in what is basically exactly the same process as comics fans getting aerated over the colouring changes in the new FLEX MENTALLO collection.
So, while the poems are as accessible in their wonderfully disheartening and exhilarating glory as ever the rest of the book is a bit elbow patches and chalk dust. This is just a pissy way of me intimating that I haven’t actually finished the book while at the same time needlessly denigrating the sterling work of Professor Archie Burnett for the sake of a cheap laugh. Sometimes my lack of class appals even me.
It’s The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin so how could it be less than EXCELLENT!
THE BALLAD OF BALLARD AND SANDRINE By Peter Straub 92 pages, Subterranean Press, £15.00 (2012)
From what I can gather for the last few years Straub has been troubled by ill-health and that certainly explains the variable quality in his recent novels and a seeming shift towards the shorter forms of fiction. Which is what this is an example of and that’s just fine because the short form seems to suit Straub best at this stage of the game. Throughout his long career Straub’s early poetic ambitions have informed his fiction via a truly remarkable talent for using the most seemingly innocuous of language to achieve the most devastating of effects. Reading this one was like chatting to a well-groomed scholarly looking type only for him to lean in at the last and whisper something you only barely comprehend but the foulness of which is so evident that it sticks to your brain like shit to a straw mat. Since I’m a bit of an odd bod that made this VERY GOOD!
TARZAN: THE LOST ADVENTURE By Edgar Rice Burroughs and Joe R. Lansdale Illustrations by Studley O. Burroughs, Gary Gianni, Michael Kaluta, Monty Sheldon, Charles Vess and Thomas Yeates Preface by George T. McWhorter 211 pages, Dark Horse Books, £14.99, (1995)
I don’t know about you (I really don’t, sometimes it’s like I don’t even know you) but if I picked up a book in which Joe R. Lansdale completed an unfinished Tarzan fragment left behind by Edgar Rice Burroughs when he died I’d expect one of those prefaces. You know the ones? The ones that are pretty much composed of oleaginous bullshit and make you angry at the waste of your time and the lack of respect shown for the reader’s intelligence. This preface isn't like that. Oh, it wants to be and it tries so hard to be but, seriously, George T. McWhorter is the curator of the Burroughs Memorial Collection and although he tries to hide it it’s clear he clearly don’t cotton none too much to this Joe R Lansdale fella. It’s pretty funny. I mean Mr. McWhorter is trying to be a real sport but, damn, he just can’t hide it. Look at this,
“Mr. Lansdale…met the challenge head on and conquered…the prose reads fluently and the story now has a beginning, a middle, and an end that hold’s the readers attention.”
The switch from “conquered” to a list of quite mundane accomplishments is pretty revealing isn't it? Possibly more so than the bit where he chunters on about Lansdale’s incorrect usage of “pole vault”. Look, he might not have been entirely pleased by the enterprise but Mr. McWhorter’s honesty pleased me. Alas, Mr. McWhorter is clearly no comic fan as he describes luminaries such as Kaluta, Gianni and Yeates who provide illustrations as "competent artists".They are far more than that and the spot illos. and chapter headings they provide are, as ever with these men, things of joy.
As for the story, well, I’m not really up on my Burroughs but I am up on my Lansdale and I can safely say that any Lansdale fan will be pleased as punch with the results. It’s got all the deadpan humour, savage violence and bizarre creatures one could want from the master of modern pulp. I particularly enjoyed the part where Tarzan senses danger and spins round to snatch an arrow out of the air and, without halting his momentum a jot, spins to release it and sends it straight back. It’s a totally implausible moment lent total plausibility by Lansdale’s earthy approach. On the whole though I’d guess Burroughs’ Tarzan wasn't this sarcastic and less people in the original books commented on the fact that he walked about in just his ‘pants’. But it is Tarzan in the jungle doing his jungly thing so I guess, on balance, fans would be pleased, if not entirely satisfied, by the final outing for the vine swinging one. A bit like George T. McWhorter in fact. Me, I like The Lansdale, I like the artists and I like The Pulp so I thought it was GOOD!
Because this is a comics blog I thought what could be more natural than to talk about three Sean Connery films made before most of your parents were even born. This is what you want!
ZARDOZ (1974) Directed by John Boorman Written by John Boorman Starring Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestleman and John Alderton
"The Penis is evil!" (Zardoz speaks Truth in the motion picture presentation ZARDOZ.)
The best way to watch ZARDOZ is just to watch ZARDOZ. If at all possible you should have a friend or loved one purchase the film and load it into your player without you even seeing the box. Going in cold will really pay off for the first-time viewer. Messrs Lester and McMillan have already sung this film’s praises on podcasts past so you know it is worth a look. Well, they may not have sung its praises exactly but they pretty much described it as what would happen if Jack Kirby’s NEW GODS was produced by a traumatised adolescent. Actually the best way to watch ZARDOZ is when you are fourteen and your Mum and Dad are asleep and it’s just you, the TV, a box of tissues and a hunting knife. Some people think ZARDOZ is EXCELLENT! Some people think ZARDOZ is CRAP! In the end though it can only be that which it is and it is ZARDOZ!
THE OFFENCE (1972) Directed by Sidney Lumet Screenplay by John Hopkins based on his stage play This Story of Yours Starring Sean Connery, Trevor Howard, Vivien Merchant and Ian Bannen
In 1965 Lumet, Connery, Bannen and Howard delivered the powerfully unsettling film THE HILL. Set in a British army prison in WW2 it’s a B/W masterpiece that drags you in and on to an ending you’ll want, like the camera itself, to look away from. You might want to watch that before this one because as harsh as that one is this one bites. THE OFFENCE is set in the’7os of my frolicsome youth and Lumet’s quietly innovative film accurately depicts that land of vicious banality, sheepskin coats and hastily scoffed fish suppers troughed in newsprint wilting in perpetual drizzle. Connery plays a copper whose soul is so eroded and his self so stained that in his struggle to function he’s become something he can’t even acknowledge from the corners of his thuggish mind. When a child goes missing and a suspect is found an unbearable man will face truths he cannot bear. And outside the rain persists regardless. It’s probably the performance Connery should be remembered for but won’t be because remembering it is painful. If you ‘enjoyed’ David Peace’s knock-a-bout Red Riding Trilogy books then this film is right up your cobbled and un-lit alley. THE OFFENCE is the kind of film that rightly attracts words like blistering, powerful, unforgettable, upsetting and miserable and because I am a regular laughing boy that makes it EXCELLENT!
Hopefully next week Mr. Jeff Lester will have finished scourging his body with a diet consisting solely of bird seed and motor oil and Mr. Graeme McMillan will have stopped hiding from his Mother-in-Law. Or whatever it is they are doing.
Me, I’m done. Time to read some COMICS!!!
