Hibbs? Why is HE stinkin' up the joint?!?!

Hi, it is me, the y'know, original founder of this blog.  You might have noticed I've been just a little slack in posting since around Christmas time. The Season soaked up my time, then I started my new consulting business, but mostly, I needed a break from writing reviews.  It happens! I was going to start posting a few weeks ago, but that was the week where Abhay descended out of the blue for a solid week of posts, and I didn't want to step on his toes.

This week, we welcome our newest SavCrit -- the artist formerly known as J_Smitty (Yes, eventually every regular commenter will be given a seat in the big chair*), now unveiled as Jordan Smith, whose first post is directly below this one, but I felt like I couldn't put off my return for much longer (it is MAY!), so join me below the cut, would you?

Hi!

Now, I am hella hella rusty, so forgive me as I get back up to speed... and I also picked a maybe not so great week to do this, since it be a little thin on the new comics beat, but let's see where we get how we get when, shall we?

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #15AU: I haven't especially been a fan of this title since it launched -- I really don't feel like it has had a point or direction of any particular value (Except, maybe, "Let's try to capitalize on the Avengers movie 15 months ago"), and THIS issue is a tie-in to one of the most drama-free Big Crossover Events. I mean, let's face it, "Age of Ultron" isn't really going to have any real impact, even if they DO take away Logan's healing (though, looking at the new Wolverine movie trailer, one assumes that that is REALLY being done to tie in with the film...), or bring Angela into the Marvel universe.

(which, by the way, is a real "WTF?!!?" moment and, honestly, feels more like a vindictive swipe at McFarlane ["Hah! I'll give it to MARVEL!"] than anything resembling a cohesive creative plan.... or, for that matter, something that any fan, anywhere was looking for)

So, one generally assumes that tie-ins to such a beast would also be inconsequential and uninteresting -- and I think they mostly have been so far to date.

Not so this one, however.

Well, I guess it is "inconsequential" because nothing that happened in this comic will matter in 6 weeks or 6 months, or, probably, even be referred to in the parent book, even -- but so far this was certainly the most interesting bit of  AoA to date, being a look at how AoA is impacting Britain, introduces at least one interesting new character, and had a really tremendous "What If...?" status change for another major character.

AA#15au is written by Al Ewing, who is very rapidly becoming  my favorite new writer, and whom I'm very much suspecting really is The Real Deal, y'know? I want to see Ewing on an original US series of his own creation because based on his doing other people's ideas I would guess he's got his own SANDMAN, TRANSMETROPOLITAN or PREACHER in him (if, y'know, you're about my age, those are big big touchstones....)  I thought this comic was the best Avengers thing I've read in a really long time, and was absolutely VERY GOOD.

BATMAN AND ROBIN RED HOOD #20: Snyder's run on the main title, and Morrison's various perambulations through the Bat-mythos have largely overshadowed Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason's title, which some months really is the best of the bat-books. I like what they're doing here post-Damien, using the other bat-family sidekicks as stand-ins for the Stage of Grief. On the other hand, I'm decidedly uncomfortable with "Carrie Kelley" (The "Dark Knight Returns Robin"), one because she doesn't seem even remotely like Carrie Kelley in DKR to me, two because it some how seems disrespectful to DKR, and three because bringing in a new Robin this close to the dispatch of the last one, seems like a really lousy idea. We'll see, we'll see, maybe they're just fucking with us, I sure hope so.  I thought (with the exception of the pages she appeared on) that this was pretty GOOD.

CHIN MUSIC #1: You'd think that 30s Gangsters and The Occult would go together like buttah, especially when you've got Horror-Guy Steve Niles teaming with Tough Guy Tony Harris on a new creator-owned series, but I got to tell you: I could hardly follow the who and the what and the why do I care here. Interest almost always comes from character, not situation, and there aren't any realized characters on display here.  EH.

GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS #6 (OF 6): Even though you really needed to read an entirely different series of "Battlefields" comics to appreciate the end of this issue, and even though Russ Braun's art is a little too... flat for my tastes (though, good on Garth for loyalty and keeping Braun working), I thought this was a pretty wonderful, poignant, and moral and human ending to the story -- Ennis' specialty, really. This kind of work will never find a wide audience, but I'm so appreciative that Ennis makes sure it keeps coming out. VERY GOOD.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #3:  Three issues now, and I've yet to feel a moment of interest in this set-up or collection of characters -- the story is so Plothammer-y that it ain't funny, and David Finch looks like he had about an hour to draw the issue. Plus, that whole "WTF" thing didn't really work, did it? Most of the "shocks" weren't, or, worse, were merely rhetorical questions. Plus that they're still shipping into May... ugh. this book may represent everything twhat's wrong with the New52 as a whole: plothammered and ugly. But maybe I'm just cranky. Either way, I thought it was fairly AWFUL.

UBER #1:  I don't get this comic. I mean who is it for and all that. I can see (somewhat) the intellectual appeal of a story about nazi superman, but when the rubber meets the road, these are the antagonist, and, for this to work as a story, we're required to have protagonists for whom to root. I don't see any in the first issue (or in the #0, for that matter), and the art by Caanan White is "Avatar House Style" enough (and ugly) that that won't be bringing me back. Avatar, trying to harness the Power of Bleeding Cool tried to convince people that the book is "hot" somehow, but it's pretty icy cold on the real world racks (besides the coupla speculator-types that bought #0). I generally like Kieron Gillen's writing, but I think he's pretty much entirely missed the needle here, not just the eye. AWFUL.

UNCANNY AVENGERS #8: I truly don't get the point of this comic either, if it's not a showcase for John Cassaday. I like Daniel Acuna's art fine, I guess, but he's pretty far in style from Cassaday, and the story has felt to me like the worst excesses of Rick Remender, trying to do Big Story with characters that aren't strong enough to support it, using obscure and uninteresting bits of Marvel history to do so. This is pretty EH for a "flagship" book.

WOLVERINE #3: If you had told me that there would be a Wolverine comic where I'd only be ordering 1 single rack copy by issue #3, and that, by Friday, it would still just be sitting there on the shelf, despite being by Paul Cornell and Alan Davis, I'd laugh at you. But here we are. Honestly, it's not that bad -- really, it is OK, so why are people just not buying this?

Right, that's enough to start, I thinketh. Like I said: rusty. But, as always, I want to know what YOU thought....

-B

* = Note: This will NOT be happening; don't get your hopes up, you!

Giving it All Away

My Dad had a modest stack of old comics up in our attic. Conan. Some really old Superman, a Creeper comic, A few isolated issues of Spider-Man, and a weird one with typewriter lettering titled “The Last Days of Pompeii.” I don’t know what drew me to them initially. I just know I used to really like going through my parents’ old stuff in general. It was a heady experience when you discovered these people existed before you were born and did not live solely to see to your needs. I couldn’t get enough of it: Old yearbooks, newspaper clippings, stacks and stacks of National Geographic magazines dating back to at least the 30’s - passed down, I assume, because it seemed wrong to throw them out. That would have been disrespectful. But out of all this…stuff…I was drawn to the comics.

Like most of you, or at least a few of you, I eventually took what was a fascination and turned it into a habit. Thanks to Morgan’s Drug Store and its (sadly now not so) ubiquitous spinner rack I grew up with a lot of mainstream comics crudding up my general development. Some of my collection I took in with huge gulps. One summer my ten-year-old self was lucky enough to achieve a compound fracture of my left arm via spectacular back yard football blooper. That was quite a haul. So too were the later years where I was foolishly willing to drive for forty-five minutes to get to a “proper” comics shop. Oh for the days of 98 cent gasoline!

Now, I’m in my thirties and I’ve got a pull list. I also have a donut shop that I own and work in – a lot.

Sexy, right?

My local comics shop (Packrat Comics) has helped me out with giveaways in the past and continues to do so but I wanted to get more out there. More personally involved. So, anywho, I see kids come and go with their parents and I think they could benefit from some of my ACCUMULATION. They might really ENJOY it. Personally, I’m six long boxes deep and my goal is to get that down, way down. You might say, “Oh that’s not so big a collection,” and you’d be right. But, to me, it feels big and feels like it’s time. So, here’s the deal.

1. There are things in my collection that are just “not okay” to put out for some 12 year old to pick up. I get to decide what those are and how I’ll get rid of them. If any of you want them I’d consider sending them out. If not, they’ll probably just get donated to some worthy cause. After all, I’ve got a community rep to consider. The Image Comics ’95 swimsuit special finding its way into little Joey’s hands would probably be detrimental to that. Detrimental also to Joey’s understanding of functional anatomy but thankfully a problem my tax dollars are already hard at work addressing in the public schools!

2. This stuff tends to FLY out of here. Giving things away for free has a tendency to DRIVE SALES. Two days into this project and the rack has been emptied twice.

3. Once a weekish I will post what’s been on the rack – what has gone and what remains and any info I can glean from the people who take it.

4. The accompanying short pieces that go along with the give away info will just be about the things I notice throughout the collection. They won’t be reviews, per se, or follow any ongoing format. Largely, they’ll be wonkish about things I like and rueful about things I regret.

5. As I’ve been prepping for this I found I was really looking forward to it and mostly anticipating sharing the info and the results with you. This is not some fed-up goodbye to comics. This is merely a clearing of the decks - a passing of the torch and a letting go. I plan to continue buying comics but I no longer plan to collect them. A comic book, as I have often espoused, is supposed to be rolled up, stuck in your pocket, and shared around – breathlessly.

So, you can look forward to a lot of chat about 1980 – 2013 comics when you check in here – a few notable exceptions aside. Feel free to comment, share recollections, and talk trash about my atrocious 13-year-old taste. Oh god, the WildC.A.T.s. Still, always remember…

“That's the thing about (comics). Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. (Comics). Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.”

J.D. Salinger on comics…or girls…whatever.

See you soon,

J_Smitty_

"...Achieving Liberal Ends By Fascist Means." COMICS! Sometimes They Fight To Make Men Free!

...and it stank like it something had crawled up it and died! What? I'm on? That's a bit ahead of schedule. Caught me on the hop a bit there, let's see what we can do. Hold on...let me check my pockets...right! Harumph! This'll have to do. Here goes. Welcome, International Comrades! In this exciting post I will be treating the eyes of all to the sight of many comic covers. Yes! These coruscating covers adorned the 1982-4 run of BLACKHAWK; a run written by Mark Evanier and drawn by Dan Spiegle with back ups from a heavenly host of talents. Pleasure for all viewers ensured as I have mastered the scanner! Technology is yet servant to the flesh! Yes! So, unlike the measly Luis Dominguez scans so unworthy of your mighty gaze these scans provide plenty of artistic acreage for your eyes to graze upon! Also, get ready to meet your new favourite artist Mr. Dan Spiegle! Anyway, this...

"It (BLACKHAWK) was about achieving liberal ends by fascist means." Howard Victor Chaykin amusingly summing up the concept in Comic Book Artist #5 (2005)

You don't know this (because you aren't psychic) but even when you can't see me I'm working. Sometimes I'm even working at the job I'm paid to do or, on rarer occasions ,working to be a decent father and partner but mostly, let's face it, I'm working on something to do with comics for you and you only! At the minute I'm invisibly having a pop at something on BLACKHAWK. A bit like I did for John Carter, you know - how it's changed over the decades. Anyway, I've got loads of stuff and it's all a bit overwhelming but work continues a(snail's)pace. Don't, you know, hold your breath or anything is my advice.

So, a I'm ploughing my way through this particular run of comics; a run I was previously unfamiliar with. And what gets me right from the off is the quality of the covers so I thought I'd share 'em. Now, I don't want to spoil anything I may later write but this series is solidly written by Mark Evanier in a slightly updated romantic adventure strip style. I like that, that's pretty good but Dan Spiegle? Dan Spiegle is a revelation. I will come back to this run even if I don't do the glutton's portion of BLACKHAWK, and I will do so for Dan Spiegle. No offence to Mark Evanier whose work is sturdy and entertaining but Dan Spiegle is...well, words you know, failure of.

Basically, in case I never finish the writing part I didn't want these covers to go to waste as some are sizzlers!  and there was a gap in the content. What does nature abhor? A lack of free content! So,  while you probably came for the Chaykin, Kane or Cockrum, I think you may find you stay for the Spiegle.

Anyway, some BLACKHAWK covers for your pleasure.  I hope you enjoy them.

And now, our Feature Presentation:

BLACKHAWK was created by Chuck Cuidera, Bob Powell and Will Eisner.

Art by Dave Cockrum

Art by Dave Cockrum

Art by Dave Cockrum

Art by Dave Cockrum

Art by Ed Hannigan & Dave Cockrum

Art by Ernie  Colon

Art by Howard Victor Chaykin

Art by Howard Victor Chaykin

Art by Howard Victor Chaykin

Art by Howard Victor Chaykin

Art by Dave Cockrum

Art by Howard Victor Chaykin

Art by Gil Kane

Art by Gil Kane

Art by Dan Spiegle

Art by Dan Spiegle

Art by Dan Spiegle

Art by Dan Spiegle

Art by Dan Spiegle

Art by Dan Spiegle

Art by Dan Spiegle

Art by Gil Kane

Blimey O'Reilly! I think we can safely say those were - COMICS!!!

All Wait, No What: The Accidental Skip Week

(A modified version of the Kate's Special Waffle, created here in San Francisco by yours truly: liege waffle, fried egg, toasted sunflower seeds, pickled peppers, and finishing salt. Very, very good.)

Uhhh, ooops.

This actually was not supposed to be a skip week. The plan was to have a big batch of books read and have Graeme and I dive right back in to our devil-may-care recording ways, but some family stuff came up for me last week and it just didn't look like it was going to come together.

We are really, really sorry, especially as we'll get only one recording session under our belt just before *another* skip week as Graeme goes on vacation. Yes, this is less the Golden Age of "Wait, What?: The Podcast" and more like the Golden Age of "Wait, What? We have a podcast?" We promise we shall make it up to you with a double-helping of pointless lists and misunderstanding manga genres! (Well, we promise to try, anyway.)

On behalf of Graeme and myself (but especially me since it's my fault), our apologies!

Arriving 5/8/13

We hope everyone had as good a Free Comic Book Day as we did here at the store! Now here's a list of comics of out this week that you can buy with money, after the break! 12 REASONS TO DIE #1 ARCHER & ARMSTRONG #0 ASTONISHING X-MEN #62 AVENGERS #11 NOW AVENGERS ARENA #9 NOW2 AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #15AU NOW AVENGING SPIDER-MAN #20 BATMAN #20 BATMAN AND RED HOOD #20 BRAVEST WARRIORS #8 MAIN CVRS BTVS SEASON 9 FREEFALL #21 CHIN MUSIC #1 CONSTANTINE #3 CREEPY COMICS #12 DAMSELS MERMAIDS #1 DARK SHADOWS #16 DEADPOOL #9 NOW2 DEMON KNIGHTS #20 FEARLESS DEFENDERS #4 NOW FERALS #14 FEVER RIDGE MACARTHUR JUNGLE WAR #3 (OF 8) GARTH ENNIS BATTLEFIELDS #6 (OF 6) FALL & RISE PT 3 GREEN LANTERN CORPS #20 GRIMM #1 HARBINGER #12 HARBINGER WARS I LOVE TROUBLE #5 IRON MAN #258.2 JIM BUTCHERS DRESDEN FILES GHOUL GOBLIN #4 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #3 KATANA #4 KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #197 LIFE WITH ARCHIE #29 MARVEL UNIVERSE AVENGERS EARTHS HEROES #14 MEGA MAN #25 MEMORIAL IMAGINARY FIENDS #3 (OF 3) PLUME #4 (OF 5) PROPHET #35 RAVAGERS #12 ROCKETEER HOLLYWOOD HORROR #4 SECRET AVENGERS #4 NOW SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #13 SPONGEBOB COMICS #20 STAR TREK ONGOING #20 STAR WARS #5 STORM DOGS #5 (OF 6) SUICIDE SQUAD #20 SUPERBOY #20 SUPURBIA ONGOING #7 TEAM 7 #8 THOR GOD OF THUNDER #8 NOW2 THRESHOLD #5 ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #24 UNCANNY AVENGERS #8 NOW2 UNCANNY X-FORCE #4 NOW WALKING DEAD #110 WARLORD OF MARS #24 WITCHBLADE #166 WOLVERINE #3 NOW

Books/Mags/Stuff AVENGERS ARENA TP VOL 01 KILL OR DIE TP NOW AVENGERS HEART OF STONE TP BAKUMAN TP VOL 19 BATMAN DEATH BY DESIGN TP BATMAN INCORPORATED HC VOL 01 DEMON STAR (N52) BENNY BREAKIRON HC VOL 01 RED TAXIS BTVS SEASON 9 TP VOL 03 GUARDED CHRONICLES OF KING CONAN TP VOL 05 BLACK DRAGONS COMEBACK TP DC SUPERHERO CHESS FIG COLL MAG #30 KILLER CROC BLACK ROOK DC SUPERHERO CHESS FIG COLL MAG #31 AZRAEL WHITE PAWN DISNEY PRINCESS MAGAZINE #13 DON QUIXOTE COMP GN ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS TP VOL 07 FREAKS AMOUR GN HELLBLAZER TP VOL 05 DANGEROUS HABITS NEW ED (MR) HELLRAISER THE ROAD BELOW TP VOL 01 LEGION OF SUPER HEROES TP VOL 02 DOMINATORS (N52) NARUTO 3-IN-1 ED TP VOL 05 NARUTO TP VOL 61 PLANET OF THE APES CATACLYSM TP VOL 01 POKEMON ADVENTURES TP VOL 16 SANDCASTLE GN SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN FAMILY TP VOL 04 SLAINE GRAIL WAR GN (MR) SPIDER-MEN TP STEED & MRS PEEL TP VOL 01 VERY CIVIL ARMAGEDDON THIEF OF THIEVES TP VOL 02 THUNDERBOLTS TP VOL 01 NO QUARTER NOW TWO GUNS SECOND SHOT DLX ED TP ULT COMICS SPIDER-MAN BY BENDIS TP VOL 03 WALT DISNEY DONALD DUCK HC VOL 03 CASTLES SECRET X-MEN FALL OF MUTANTS TP VOL 02

As always, what do YOU think?

Free Comic Day is Saturday 5/4!

Don't forget that the happiest day of the year, Free Comic Book Day, is Saturday 5/4/2013. Comix Experience is happy to present 33 different comics to choose from.

We ask that adults limit themselves to three choices, while attending children can have anything they are interested in.

FCBD is national event, so if you're not in San Francisco, find a store near you.

-B

"Choke! Gasp!" Not A Podcast! Not Comics! BOOKS! You Know, Like In Days of Yore!

It's a SKIP WEEK so the dulcet toned duo of Gentle Jeff Lester and Glamorous Graeme McMillion$ are off...um...doing, er, stuff and things. Probably. But we here at The Savage Critics love and value each and every one of you (especially you, sir! (or madam!)) and thus I have provided some hacky trash about some books you, let's face it, have no interest in. I know, you can hardly wait! Anyway, Jeff (who lives at home) and Graeme (who works from home) will be back next week. (Please, God.) Grin and bear it is my advice.  Say, anyone remember that time Howard Victor Chaykin got trapped in SWORD OF THE ATOM#3 (DC Comics, 1983) by Gil Kane & Jan Strnad? No, because (as our Savage Legal Dept were fast to point out) that didn't happen. Anyway, this...

TRAPPED IN THE SATURDAY MATINEE by Joe R Lansdale PS Publishing, £19.99 (2012)

This one’s another career spanning grab bag of bits’n’bobs from the Mojo storyteller hissownself. It’s mostly short stories but there’s also a couple of non-fiction pieces about how imaginative fiction and hard work (also, although modestly whispered, talent) saved the sturdy sensei from a life spent building aluminium lawn furniture. I’m sure we can all agree that aluminium lawn furniture’s loss is weird fiction’s gain. Back there I said another because Lansdale’s career’s so lengthy and his output so vast that there are now several of these retrospective things studding his bibliography. They are all pretty much of a muchness. Each effectively represents the progression of Lansdale’s relaxed and down home style and how he has used it with increasing success to corral his wild flights of fancy into work as entertaining it is deceptively sophisticated. To misquote the American poet and visionary Jon Bon Jovi; He gives pulp a good name (good name). The actual contents of these samplers vary some but they are consistent in demonstrating Lansdale’s vulgar vigour, his inexhaustibly inventive imagination, a nice line in potty mouthery and also the sure sense of place his work delivers. Well, if it’s set in Texas anyway. Which, no fool he, most of his stuff is. Since that’s where he was born and formed Lansdale’s work is deep fried in his Texas surroundings and the colourful vernacular thereof. This is extraordinarily appealing to someone who lives in a country as grey, damp and intrinsically self-hating as England. Hey, I guess if you live in Nacogdoches, Texas then Joe R. Lansdale would be gritty kitchen sink realism. That’s a wild and woolly thought right there. Fair warning for Lansdale fans: this volume includes Lansdale’s Hellboy novelette Jiving With Shadows And Dragons And Long Dark Trains. This being a tale which Lansdale doesn't own and so this will probably be the only book with his name on the spine in which it appears. Hey now, it’s one of them there books by that there Joe R Lansdale and that’s GOOD!

THE QUIDDITY OF WILL SELF by Sam Mills Corsair, £12.99 (2012)

Thanks to the benevolence of the titular man with the face like a despairing hound Sam Mills uses the name and work of Will Self to lure readers into what would otherwise be a daunting work of bewildering convolution and disorienting stylistic facility. Yes! This is what you want! It’s several hundred pages embodying what Kingsley Amis found so unattractive about his own son’s work and graced with the phrased “titting the reader about”. Or as we mere plebs know it: post-modernism. Apparently this is Sam Mills’ first novel intended for an adult audience (adult as in grown up not adult as in brown paper bags, wandering hands and heavy breathing) and it took her nine years to complete it. Given all that and the fact that Will Self’s work haunts every page (if not every word; if not every letter; you get the drift) then I’d have to say Sam Mills is quite the fan of Will Self. Fans of Will Self or lovers of the use of the word "sesquipedalian" will get the most out of this, I guess. But that doesn't mean folk unfamiliar with Will Self will get nothing out of it. Mills is canny enough to have a character unfamiliar with Self’s work act as the reader surrogate and the various Self-ish sections are based in familiar genres (murder mystery, future dystopia etc) to aid immersion if not actual outright comprehension. It’s fun stuff but most of the fun comes from the bizarre turns and confounding twists this wonkily weird beast takes, so I'll not spoil any of them. I will note that that the underlying theme of how creativity in one person is insanity in another and is thus, by necessity, unique to each of us (if we have any) is vividly and entertainingly plumbed throughout this odd duck's duration. In sum, as Terence Blacker’s Kill Your Darlings is to Martin Amis so is The Quiddity of Will Self  to, well, Will Self, obviously. Keep up now. Or to put it another way The Quiddity of Will Self is VERY GOOD!

UMBRELLA by Will Self Bloomsbury, £18.99 (2012)

From what I can gather the writing of this book was pretty challenging for the lugubrious human lexicon known as Will Self. His previous book, Walking To Hollywood, was decidedly not a success (an unsuccess?) and he appeared somewhat shaken by its poor sales. I stress that he appeared so in interviews etc not in close personal encounters as I don’t know the man or anything. So, I certainly don’t have access to his sales figures but I can’t imagine Will Self has 7 Shades of Shit level sales in the first place so those must have been some pretty sobering sales. Which is a shame because it was a good book; a mix of psycho-geography, insane asides and a moving consideration of the debilitating encroachment of Alzheimer’s. It didn’t sell despite a scene where the Hulk bums a car and also an extended bloodily ferocious fight between the morose flaneur himself and James Bond (Daniel Craig flava). People just ain’t got no taste, I tells ya! Stung Self retreated, regrouped and reconsidered. The result was a book written in very short sentences about a vampire boy wizard’s adventures in sex and shopping set in space. My little elitist joke designed to raise your hackles there. No, the book Will Self wrote, Umbrella was a decades spanning examination of the effects of technology on the human psyche presented via the experiences of several characters ranging from a coma patient, her ambitious but flawed psychiatrist, her WWI trenches bound class agitating soldier brother and her icy, almost robotic arms manufacturer other brother. And to really reel in the punters, to really bother the upper levels of the sales chart, to ensure those units shifted, Self chose to do it all in a stream of consciousness stylee. In effect it’s a 400-some pages long single paragraph in which the text is so molten that there can be a shift in character and a jump of decades in a single sentence. Paying attention is required I’m very much afraid, but you will be more than amply rewarded for your payment.

The big sexy hook on which all this majestic Modernism (yes, Modernism not Post-Modernism) hangs is the Sleepy Sickness (or encephalitis lethargica for any Romans stil kicking out there) of 1915-1926 and the use of L-Dopa in the ‘70s to briefly awaken the surviving sufferers. Yes, that’s right, this is similar ground to Oliver Sacks’ Awakenings or, for the cinematically inclined, the Penny Marshall directed 2007 motion picture adaptation of same. But Sack’s was fact(ish) and this is fiction and if it were (and it won’t ever be) filmed it should come off like Terry Gilliam directing a mash up of Awakenings, Charley’s War and Britannia Hospital scripted by a maniacally focused Dennis Potter. Umbrella is a beautiful thing is what I’m getting at there. Self's been quite open that his choice to apply the Modernist style was a direct reaction to what he perceived to be a lack of invention in the fiction nominated for such literary lottos as the Man Booker Prize. In a move that could leave only a stone unmoved Umbrella went on to adorn the Man Booker Prize short list for 2012. That’s irony in action there. But! Hilary Mantel took the prize with Bring Up The Bodies the second in her more traditionally honed Richard III Thomas Cromwell trilogy. That’s the literary establishment putting someone in their place in action there. And when you hit the crossed out words you'll see reality taking me down a peg or two too. As the splendidly well read and  factually accurate Jacob pointed out in his comment - I was talking out of my (smart) arse with this next bit. I wrote this stuff on paper, typed it up and forgot to do a basic fact check.  N.B. It is particularly important to fact check books you haven't read.  I've left it in because who doesn't like to see someone humbled? Gandhi? Are you Gandhi? No you are not, sir; so enjoy the schadenfreude it's free!... Still, there’s no shame in Self’s loss as the cosmic fix was clearly in anyway as, shortly after her win, the actual corpse of Mantel’s main character was found buried in a car park. Richard III just pops up for fuck’s sake, what are the chances?!? When reality is pulling publicity stunts on your behalf then winning the Booker’s a walk in the park. I’m sure Hilary Mantel’s book deserved its award but Umbrella was my book of 2012 because it was EXCELLENT!

Well? What did you want? COMICS!!!

Arriving 5/1/2013

May day! May day!

3 NEW STORIES ONE SHOT 47 RONIN #4 (OF 5) 8 1/2 GHOSTS ONE SHOT (O/A) ABE SAPIEN DARK & TERRIBLE #2 ACTION COMICS #20 AGE OF ULTRON #7 (OF 10) ALL NEW X-MEN #11 NOW AME COMI GIRLS #3 ANIMAL MAN #20 AQUAMAN #19 ARCHIE #643 ARCHIE MEETS GLEE PT 3 ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #239 ARTIFACTS #27 BATWING #20 BLACK BAT #1 BLACKACRE #6 COLONIZED #2 (OF 4) DAN THE UNHARMABLE #12 DETECTIVE COMICS #20 DIAL H #12 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS CUTTER #2 (OF 5) EARTH 2 #12 EPIC KILL #10 FAIREST #15 FASHION BEAST #9 GAME OF THRONES #14 GARFIELD #13 GREEN ARROW #20 HARBINGER WARS (VU) #2 (OF 4) HAWKEYE #10 INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK #7 NOW INVINCIBLE UNIVERSE #2 IRON MAN #258.1 IRON MAN #9 NOW2 IRON MAN COMING OF MELTER #1 JOE PALOOKA #6 (OF 6) LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #8 MARS ATTACKS #10 MICE TEMPLAR IV LEGEND #2 MICHAEL AVON OEMINGS VICTORIES #1 (OF 5) TRANSHUMAN MISS FURY #2 MISTER X EVICTION #1 (OF 3) MOVEMENT #1 PHANTOM STRANGER #8 PLANET O/T APES CATACLYSM #9 POLARITY #2 (OF 4) RED SHE-HULK #65 NOW2 RED SONJA UNCHAINED #2 (OF 4) SATANIKA ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL SAVAGE DRAGON #187 SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #33 SESAME STREET #1 SHADOWMAN (VU) #0 SHERLOCK HOLMES LIVERPOOL DEMON #4 (OF 5) SIMPSONS ILLUSTRATED #6 SNAPSHOT #4 (OF 4) SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #248 SPAWN #231 STORMWATCH #20 SUICIDE RISK #1 SUPER DINOSAUR #19 SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #9 NOW SWAMP THING #20 TEN GRAND #1 THANOS RISING #2 (OF 5) NOW THE SPIDER #11 TMNT COLOR CLASSICS #10 ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #26 WASTELAND #44 WINTER SOLDIER #18 WORLDS FINEST #12 X-FACTOR #255 X-MEN LEGACY #10 NOW2

Books / Mags / Stuff ARMY OF DARKNESS TP VOL 01 HAIL TO THE QUEEN BABY BACK ISSUE #64 BEDLAM TP VOL 01 BLACKACRE TP VOL 01 CABLE AND X-FORCE TP VOL 01 WANTED NOW CASTLE WAITING HC VOL 02 DEFINITIVE ED COMPLETE CRUMB COMICS TP VOL 05 HAPPY HIPPY (NEW PTG) DUNGEONS & DRAGONS DRIZZT TP VOL 01 NEVERWINTER GET JIRO TP GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO HC VOL 02 G-MAN TP VOL 03 COMING HOME GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES TP GREAT PACIFIC TP VOL 01 TRASHED HAPPY GIRLS GN (A) HEAVY METAL #262 NEWSSTAND ED HOUSEWIVES AT PLAY WHERES YOUR MOTHER GN (A) IRON MAN WAR MACHINE TP HANDS OF MANDARIN JACK DAVIS EC STORIES ARTIST ED HC (NET) JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS HC VOL 02 MAD MAGAZINE #521 MU AVENGERS EARTHS HEROES DIGEST TP VOL 03 PETER BAGGE OTHER STUFF TP PIETROLINO HC RAYS DAYS GN (A) SHAME GN VOL 02 PURSUIT SUPERMAN ACTION COMICS HC VOL 02 BULLETPROOF (N52) SUPERMAN ACTION TP VOL 01 SUPERMAN MEN OF STEEL (N52) SUPERMAN EARTH ONE TP VOL 01 TMNT ONGOING TP VOL 05 WHAT LIES BENEATH HC WORLD OF WARCRAFT DARK RIDERS HC

What looks good to YOU?

-B

"That Soldier--He's A Woman?!" COMICS! Sometimes We Sing A Song For The Unsung!

So, I managed to wrestle a broken down wreck of a scanner out of the garage. To give it a proper work out I scanned in a bunch of covers by the artist Luis Dominguez; who I totally rate. I chucked in a bit of context but don't worry there aren't many words in this one. Mostly it's a bunch of '70s Western covers by a neglected Argentinian artist. I say mostly covers but also the famous scene where Scalphunter arm wrestled Abe Lincoln. Top that, Spielberg! Anyway, this...

Luis Dominguez is an Argentinian comic artist who, I believe, is still extant despite having been born in 1926. So it's pleasing that I can bring notice to his work while he's still with us. Dominguez worked for numerous US publishers such as Gold Key and Charlton in the '60s but it's his work for DC in the '70s which is most fondly remembered.  A lot of this work was for DC's "Mystery" (the big mystery with these wonderfully nonsensical books was what the writers had been sniffing) titles, but I first noticed Luis Dominguez' work in Weird Western Tales where he was then illustrating the violent antics of the surly sore arse Jonah Hex.

Now, the recently deceased Tony DeZuniga may well be the artist most associated with that scrunch faced character but Dominguez was no slouch. There was, however, one slight problem; he just really never seemed to get what was going on with Jonah's face. Everything else was great though, pages and panels filled with dusty and period specific locales populated by a variety of convincing characters; really very good stuff indeed, I tell you true. Then with issue #39 Jonah jumped ship into his own title and the previous backup strip became the  headliner.

This strip featured the character Scalphunter, created by Sergio Aragones and Joe Orlando. Scalphunter was one Brian Savage, a Caucasian who had been raised by Native Americans. Brian doesn't seem to have been a popular child as his new family bestowed upon him the name Ke-Woh-No-Tay ("He Who Is Less Than Human"). Storywise Brian's deal was that the native Americans didn't like him and nor did the Caucasians due to, well, basically racism. Lot of friction there. So, tension, violence and sullen stoicism were Brian's eternal lot.  Luckily, Brian was really violent and being really violent got you a long way in '70s DC Western comics. Anyway, this isn't about Brian it's about Luis Dominguez. While Dominguez did some interiors mostly this was limited to inking (saving) Dick Ayers' pencils; his full Luis Dominguez magic graced the covers of WWT until, in 1980, it fell down an abandoned mineshaft with issue #70.

So, what follows is an incomplete (I don't have 'em all) visual tribute to Luis Dominguez' work on Scalphunter. His covers mostly, but also that bit where Scalphunter "Indian wrestles" Abe Lincoln because that always brightens up the darkest day. It just seemed like a good idea, that's all. These are fine covers that deserve better than their neglected lot. As does Luis Dominguez. But really it's just me saying, "Thanks, Luis Dominguez!"

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Luis Dominguez...

Art by Luis Dominguez & Dick Ayers. Words by Gerry Conway. Sinew by Brian Savage. Decency by Lincoln.

So, no, I don't actually know much about Luis Dominguez but I know that he is - COMICS!!!

Rich Johnston & WATCHMEN

Usually, I don't really mind when Rich Johnston gets something wrong -- usually it is future news, he's playing telephone, and publishers don't want to co-operate with him. He's going to get shit wrong, c'est la vie. But history? That's important to get right!

This morning, Rich opened a story like so: "Today, the final issue of Before Watchmen: Comedian is published, a couple of months late. Which is about how late the very original final issue of Watchmen was."

No.

NO!!!!

WATCHMEN was not (especially) late -- certainly not monthS!

Travel back to 1986, and comics really just weren't late at all -- in fact, they had ship WEEKS that, without fail, comics shipped in.  If the comic was going to be late? FILL-IN ISSUE. So I get why people who were there might FEEL that WATCHMEN was very late, because every other comic book around it shipped with clockwork precision.

Thanks to the Awesome John Jackson Miller, we can back things up with actual facts. To wit:

	Cover Date	Ship Date	Capital City Orders	C.C. Rank	#1 book that month at Capital City Distribution
Watchmen #1	Sep-86	May 13	34,100	5th	Classic X-Men #1
Watchmen #2	Oct-86	Jun 20	38,350	10th	The Man of Steel #1
Watchmen #3	Nov-86	Jul 8	38,000	10th	The Man of Steel #3
Watchmen #4	Dec-86	Aug 12	40,500	8th	The Man of Steel #5
Watchmen #5	Jan-87	Sep 9	33,150	11th	Superman Vol. 2 #1
Watchmen #6	Feb-87	Oct 14	32,700	15th	Superman Vol. 2 #2
Watchmen #7	Mar-87	Nov 11	30,150		Prob. Uncanny X-Men #215
Watchmen #8	Apr-87	Dec 9	28,150		Prob. Uncanny X-Men #216
Watchmen #9	May-87	Jan 13	28,150	15th	Uncanny X-Men #217
Watchmen #10	Jul-87	Feb 10	26,850	13th	Uncanny X-Men #218
Watchmen #11	Aug-87	May 19	28,300	13th	Punisher #1
Watchmen #12 (canc.)	Oct-87		31,900	9th	Uncanny X-Men #220
Watchmen #12 (res.)	Oct-87	Jun 23	34,150	6th	Uncanny X-Men #221

See? WATCHMEN shipped 12 issues in 13 months.

I get that 1986 is a long time ago, but let's give perfect fucking credit to WATCHMEN, one of the most intricate and clockwork of comics, one of the highest standards of comics craft and storytelling, AND IT (mostly) SHIPPED ON TIME. Certainly, it DID ship on time according to DC's revised schedule.

Now, Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS? Yeah, that one was months late in the end. (#3 and #4 were very late), and also CAMELOT 3000 which, as I recall, end up 13 months late in the end. Then there are things like SONIC DISRUPTORS where we're STILL waiting (some of us!) for the last four issues to ship.

But WATCHMEN #12? On-freakin'-time.

So I say to you: Shame on you, Rich Johnston, shame!

-B

Wait, What? Ep. 122: Capespaces

From Bandette #4 by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover. It's pretty damn delightful.

Hey, everyone!  Next week is a skip week!  Do you hear me? SKIP WEEK.

Show notes?  Oh yes, there are certainly show notes. RIGHT AFTER THE JUMP.

(BECAUSE I LIKE ALL CAPS, THAT'S WHY.)

0:00-3:08:  Welcome to the opening!  Topics include: Internet woe explanations; sexy talk; waffles; beard pics; etc. 3:08-4:35: And right off the bat we have a potential conundrum -- when it comes to the week's books, we are woefully under read.  What to do? What to discuss?  Graeme confesses to reading Moranthology by Caitlin Moran and rereading the awesome Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe. Graeme also gives Jeff the biggest opening for a joke comic book title ever and Jeff gets paralyzed with the possibilities. 4:35-10:05: So we talk about Age of Ultron #6. Dont't worry, it's only for five minutes.  No, really.  We set a timer. 10:05-31:21:  Don't pay attention to these time codes.  It really was five minutes and when the timer went off we were already talking about the, um, Ultron to Age of Ultron's Vision:  The "Days of Future Past" storyline by Claremont and Byrne from Uncanny X-Men.  We consider it kosher to continue talking about that piece past the timer.  Does it hold up?  Was it really good to begin with?  Discuss. Also covered:  The X-Men Chronicles; that one issue of Uncanny X-Men with Captain America and Black Widow on the cover; Chris Claremont and his greedy delight; John Byrne and "drawing right"; the great twitter account @JohnByrneSays, Who's Who in the DC Universe; and more. 31:21-45:53: Jeff's out of blue question for Graeme: Top Five Comic Book Capes. (Jeff swears he didn't bring up this topic just to bitch about the wasted potential that is Todd McFarlane's Spawn). Also discussed: The Vision; Freak Flags; Steve Ditko; more stuff. Come for the cape references, stay for the game of "The Blind Leading The Blind" with regards to Spawn publication schedules and collaborators. 45:53-1:04:59: And in part two of "The Blind Leading The Blind": Jeff tries his best to explain "Moe" while describing the very odd concoction that is Stan Lee and Hiroyuki Takei's Ultimo. 1:04:59-1:05:21: Intermission One. 1:05:21-1:21:18: And we're back, with Graeme still suffering PTSD from reading Stormwatch #19.  It leads into a bit of what was being discussed earlier -- what changes in a creator's work as they age that makes them less palatable even as they retain everything that's identifiably them?  And, conversely, creators who still had all of it even as they got older?  Don't ask about those odd faux-Frink noises made by Jeff -- he still can't figure out why he made them. 1:21:18-1:22:04:  And then, just when you expect it least:  we answer questions from Whatnauts posed to us back in December of last year!  Yes! Woo! Got your nose! 1:22:04-1:29:10: Miguel Corti on December 6th, 2012 at 11:00 pm asked: "What current artists are the best at comics storytelling? I don’t mean the best illustrators or the best frozen pose/cover artists, I mean, from panel to panel, who can carry the story, draw your eyes across the page, and not interfere with the story being told? It seems to me that comics are blessed with many a good illustrator, but there aren’t many competent cartoonists. Is this the fault of the artist or the writers who don’t know how to script for them?" Mentioned by us:  Chris Samnee, Al Ewing, Avengers Assemble (the Age of Ultron issue), Jackson Guice, and others. 1:29:10-1:34:04:  Joel Greenlee on December 7th, 2012 at 7:08 am said:  I was wondering if you guys have read either of Harvey Pekar’s final books, “Not the Israel my parents promised me” or “Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland” I think they’re great, but I’m a lifelong Harvey fan a Clevelander as well. Could I get some non-homer perspective from you guys on the books if you’ve read them? Discussed: Harvey Pekar, Alan Moore, R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, Joe Zabel.  Not mentioned: Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis, although they were great. 1:34:04-2:04:04:  Matt Miller on December 7th, 2012 at 9:47 am said:  By what rationale does Jeff continue to buy DC Comics? Under the new management structure, hasn’t DC proven itself to be Marvel’s equal (at least) in lack of respect for creator rights, poor retailer relations and overall creative bankruptcy? Discussed: DC, Vertigo, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Marvel, Stephen Bissette, a terrifying number of indie publishers, Monkeybrain, Double Barrel, The Best of Milligan and McCarthy, Bandette, and the super-strong slate of Eisner nominations. 2:04:04-end:  Closing comments!  Skip week imminent!  Shortened engagement to follow! The Joker's daughter! Nixon! Thank you and good night!

...

Yeah, I kind of went out in a blaze of exclamation points at the end there, didn't I?  Well, that's what happens when a vacation looms, I guess.

Anyway, I haven't seen this one on iTunes yet which has me a little bit worried but, eh, it's been working pretty great for us so far...so maybe you'll see it sooner rather than later?

But either way, you have full unfettered access to the episode below.  See, really?  Look!

Wait, What? Ep. 122: Capespaces

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

Arriving 4/24/13

Millar & Quitely's first issue of "Jupiter's Legacy" is just one of the many books to look forward to this Wednesday. See what else is out after the break! A DISTANT SOIL #39 A PLUS X #7 NOW ALAN ROBERT KILLOGY #4 (OF 4) ALL STAR WESTERN #19 AMALAS BLADE #1 (OF 4) ANGEL & FAITH #21 ANSWER #4 (OF 4) AVENGERS #10 AVENGERS ARENA #8 BART SIMPSON COMICS #82 BATMAN INCORPORATED #10 BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #19 BEFORE WATCHMEN COMEDIAN #6 (OF 6) BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DOUBLE DIGEST #212 BPRD VAMPIRE #2 (OF 5) CLONE #6 DARK HORSE PRESENTS #23 DARKNESS #112 DEADPOOL #8 NOW2 DEADPOOL KILLUSTRATED #4 (OF 4) DPD DOKTORMENTOR JAIL BABE SURGEON #10 EAST OF WEST #2 END TIMES OF BRAM & BEN #4 (OF 4) FANTASTIC FOUR #7 FF #6 NOW FIVE WEAPONS #3 (OF 5) FLASH #19 FREELANCERS #5 MAIN CVRS FURY MAX #11 FURY OF FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN #19 GAMBIT #11 GI JOE #3 GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #2 HAUNTED HORROR #4 HELHEIM #2 HIGH WAYS #4 (OF 4) I LOVE TROUBLE #5 I VAMPIRE #19 INVINCIBLE #102 JENNIFER BLOOD #26 JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #651 NOW2 JUDGE DREDD YEAR ONE #2 JUPITERS LEGACY #1 CVR A QUITELY JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #19 KATANA #3 KILL SHAKESPEARE TIDE OF BLOOD #3 (OF 5) LOST VEGAS #2 (OF 4) MANHATTAN PROJECTS #11 MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #13 MASKS #6 MASSIVE #11 MIGHTY SKULLKICKERS #1 MIND MGMT #10 MIRIAM #1 MORBIUS LIVING VAMPIRE #4 NOW MORNING GLORIES #26 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #6 MY LITTLE PONY MICRO SERIES #3 (OF 6) RARITY NEW AVENGERS #5 RACHEL RISING #16 RED LANTERNS #19 ROGUES #1 SAVAGE HAWKMAN #19 SCARLET SPIDER #16 SHADOW #12 STAR WARS LEGACY #2 PRISONER O/T FLOATING WORLD (C: 1-0-0) STEED AND MRS PEEL ONGOING #7 SUPERMAN #19 SUPERMAN FAMILY ADVENTURES #12 TALON #7 TEEN TITANS #19 TMNT ONGOING #21 TRUE BLOOD ONGOING #12 ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #22 UNCANNY AVENGERS #7 UNCANNY X-MEN #5 UNWRITTEN #48 WHISPERS #5 WITCH DOCTOR MALPRACTICE #6 (OF 6) WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #28 X-TERMINATION #2 (OF 2) XT YOUNG AVENGERS #4

Books/Mags/Stuff 2000 AD PACK MAR 2013 BATMAN ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS TP VOL 02 COURTNEY CRUMRIN SPEC ED HC VOL 03 CREEP HC DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER TP DOUBLE FINE ACTION COMICS TP VOL 01 DOUBLE FINE ACTION COMICS TP VOL 02 JUDGE DREDD (IDW) TP VOL 01 JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #334 MEAN TEAM GN MEATHAUS TP #8 HEADGAMES (O/A) MORNING GLORIES TP VOL 04 TRUANTS PEANUTBUTTER & JEREMY BEST BOOK EVER TP (O/A) PEPITA INOUE MEETS GUADI HC VOL 01 PHINEAS AND FERB MAGAZINE #17 PREVIEWS #296 MAY 2013 SANDMAN THE DREAM HUNTERS TP SHADOWMAN TP VOL 01 BIRTH RITES SIZZLE #57 (A) SQUADRON SUPREME TP NEW PTG SUPERMAN BEYOND MAN OF TOMORROW TP TWELVE HC UNCANNY AVENGERS PREM HC VOL 01 RED SHADOW NOW WORLDS FINEST TP VOL 01 LOST DAUGHTERS (N52) X-MEN FALL OF MUTANTS TP VOL 02 X-MEN LONGSHOT TP NEW PTG

As always, what do YOU think?

"I Did My Bit To Make It Work, With Mixed Results, Up And Down, Good And Mediocre..." PEOPLE! Sometimes Genius Is Modest To A Fault!

Sometimes I read books about the people who make comics. These two books were about one man: Alex Toth. Now, obviously Alex Toth doesn't deserve two books. No, he deserves three at least. But only two have come out yet so here’s what happened when I read them and then tried to write about them.

Anyway, this…

All images are sourced from The Internet and this place in particular was very useful: The Library Of American Comics.

GENIUS, ISOLATED: THE LIFE AND ART OF ALEX TOTH By Alex Toth, Dean Mullaney & Bruce Canwell IDW, £37.99 (2011) GENIUS, ILLUSTRATED: THE LIFE AND ART OF ALEX TOTH By Alex Toth, Dean Mullaney & Bruce Canwell IDW, £37.99 (2013)

These two volumes comprise the first two thirds of a project to detail and illustrate the talent and life of the monumentally gifted, butchly moustachioed and abrasively tempered comic artist Alex Toth. Genius Isolated (Vol.1) was met with much fanfare and fan love on its release in 2011 while the second volume’s reception was so muted I was surprised when it arrived from my LCS (the LCS of the elephantine memory; no pre-order is too “pre” for OKComics!) having not realised it had even been released. Being enormously perceptive I realised this trend replicated that of the reception to Charles Burns’ THE HIVE (also vol.2 of 3; also consistently stunning; also a sort of an open secret). Hopefully, in both cases when the third volumes drop and the trilogies are complete (the prophecies fulfilled; the circle squared; Stella’s groove returned) the welcomes will be somewhat more raucous. This would be entirely natural as completeness does have a tendency to spur consideration. Hopefully, as I say, since at the moment both series are being a bit short changed in the kudos department. That’s okay because I was looking for a purpose in life! So, yes, I read both Toth volumes in rapid succession and then had a bit of a think. This took longer than I expected as that’s a lot of reading to do and thinking’s not my forte. (So apologies for the delay.) Well, I say a lot of reading, but there was also a lot of looking; for while there is a lot of written information here about Toth and his life off the page there’s also a plenitude of his life on the page in the form of his art, and it’s the looking at (basking in) these pages that slows the reading experience to a gentle stroll. A stroll through some of the best comics scenery you’ll probably ever see. If you've exchanged the not inconsiderable (but far from unreasonable) sums demanded for these volumes Toth’s talent probably isn't a surprise. You’re probably already okay about how much of a knack Alex Toth had at the comic book art lark, and you've probably picked them up to find out more about the man.

And find out about the man you do. These first two volumes cover Toth’s birth, life, work and death. They contextualise both the man and the art and seek to illustrate, if not explain, the precipitous stalling of his output and his eternal interpersonal difficulties. The Authors have obviously done the footwork, put the hours in, manhandled the microfiche and asked the people who knew and ended up with a pretty good picture of the man who drew all those lovely, lovely pictures. While it’s hardly The Running Man it’s no mean feat for Mullaney & Canwell to make the text as interesting as it is. This is, after all, the story of Alex Toth, which is basically the story of a man who sat in a chair smoking and drawing for several decades. His biographers aren't helped in the last stretch of Toth’s life when he packs in his nasty habit and spends most of his time just sitting and smoking. (AKA Living The Dream!) Luckily they have nous enough to realise that this long stretch of very little is a bit of a Mystery and there’s quite a lot of trying to pin down exactly why someone so gifted, so feted and (unusual for comics this) still in demand despite his age found it so hard to produce anything for so long. Toth has the obligatory odd relationship with his mother, a mysteriously detail light (particularly given the obvious research) early marriage, an army stint, alimony, children…basically a Life much like many others. There’s no smoking gun to be found, there’s no childhood encounter with a man in the park, no hiding under a pile of corpses, no secret love of show tunes, just a Life. A life with ups and downs and a marked decline in productivity somewhat sooner than might be expected. Personally, I think he just burned out early. Toth was ridiculously concerned with producing the best art he could and that’s not the best way to achieve longevity in comics. Quantity first and, hopefully, then quality; it remains the same today. He would constantly give his contemporaries (Kubert, Kane, Kirby, possibly even people whose names began with another consonant) grief for their shortcuts and shorthand, apparently ignoring the fact that sometimes you just have to draw someone walking down the street and you aren’t always going to look for a unique way to do that. Except Toth would, and I think eventually he ran out of ways to draw the same things in new ways. Hence his later preference of pin ups over sequential art. Eventually Toth was a victim of his own dizzyingly high standards; finally he found even his own work unworthy. Or maybe not.

As I say, comics has always rewarded quantity and it’s hard to see how Toth could have made a living given the ever decreasing volume of his output. Luckily back then comic artists had two escape hatches – syndicated strips and animation. (Sure there were also the old standbys of insanity, alcoholism, prison, suicide, politics and the foreign legion but those options are open to all of us rather than being exclusive to comic artists.) Syndication was the Golden Ticket; syndication was the one they all wanted. As TV is to today’s comic writers so was syndicated newspaperstrippery to yesterday’s comic artists. Joe Kubert had TALES OF THE GREEN BERETS, Jack Kirby had SKY MASTERS, Gil Kane had STARHAWKS and none of those, absolutely none of them, despite all the talent involved, are why those guys are remembered in all our hearts with more love than we afford members of our own family. It was a tough gig to get, syndication was, and I emphasise it only to show how the book implicitly demonstrates how the market has changed (Newspapers? Print? Eyes?) But I have also used it as an act of cheap misdirection because it wasn’t syndication but rather animation which may have saved Toth from wrestling with rats for scraps. As cheap jack and shoddy as those productions may appear now their impact on young minds is undeniable. While SPACE GHOST means the most to most people it means nothing to me. I’m not having a pop at it I just have no memory of it. However…however finding out that Toth designed the cartoons on The Banana Splits caused an explosion of fizzy and not entirely unpleasant associations from my childhood to sparkle briefly before swiftly dying in the infinite night of my mind.  Toth’s influence and appeal went far beyond comics and the emphasis (an entirely natural emphasis) given to the sophistication of his artistry should never overshadow the simple fact that his work never disdained his audience. Popularity and appeal were at the core of Toth’s work. The complexity of his techniques was entirely in thrall to his desire to communicate with his audience in the most direct manner possible. While the comics cognoscenti and the artistically educated will always, rightly, laud the technique, Toth’s (eternal? TBC!) popularity is due to this desire to be universally understood, to be enjoyed by anyone and everyone but never at the cost of his art and certainly never, ever by pandering.

This art, intended for all but unique only to Toth, is plentifully and beautifully reproduced on the pages of both books. The one exception would be the Jon Fury pages which look like they have been reconstructed from pages on the verge of disintegration. Indeed this turns out to be the case; here posterity trumps prettiness, but everywhere else the art is reproduced to startling standards and is a representative mix of original pencils and printed product. Seeing The Crushed Gardenia pages in the original B/W shows just how much Toth was anticipating the colour used in the final version to complete his work. Drawing in B& W and drawing for B&W, Toth knew, are very different. All the art here is informative, educational and just plain enjoyable. Most of the credit is, of course, Toth’s but there’s a lot of credit due Mullaney & Canwell for sourcing it all and presenting it so attractively. 

Now, while these books are perfectly enjoyable in and of themselves they can be enhanced by also dipping into ONE FOR THE ROAD (Auad, 2001), SETTING THE STANDARD (Fantagraphics, 2011) and ZORRO: The COMPLETE ALEX TOTH, Image, 2001). These are all easily available and the STANDARD art documents a period for Toth of incredible output where quality was married to quantity and the great and sympathetic inking of Mike Peppe is seen at full force. The ZORRO book is generally agreed to be Toth’s greatest sustained burst of solo art and has even had grey tones reworked by Mr. Toth, thus making it as Artist Approved as anything by Alex Toth is ever likely to have been. The ROAD book collects a fat wodge of neglected strips about cars, surfing, girls, girls and, indeed, girls etc. where the free reign given to the artist results in Toth unclenching somewhat and producing some of his most innovative and exuberant work. I would like to recommend a volume showcasing his DC work but until DC produces one I can’t.

So, yes, visually, as befits books about Alex Toth, these are some handsome volumes right here. Beyond the art there are also pictures of the man. And if the number of photographs is surprising then the number of them on which Alex Toth is clearly happy is a revelation. Given Toth’s reputation as a curmudgeon non-parallel it’s important (and pleasant) to remember that sometimes his temper took time off and he was a normal person; one remembered as cheerful, funny, helpful and generous. Until he wasn't. It’s pretty obvious Toth had some problems and I’m no more going to pop psychoo-analyse him than the authors do. He was what he was and the nearest we can get to that is via the testimony of those who were there. And as I say, he seems like a nice man most of the time but, obviously, the other stuff remains more vivid and it all gets one more go round, a definitive go round given the authors’ thoroughness. There’s the Julie Schwartz Spat, the Kubert and the Art in The Car Boot Debacle, all the timeless standards and family favourites collected for all time in one place and extra bonus! -  a whole bunch of new people who Toth just cut off contact with because, well, because he could be a bit of a bear with a sore arse sometimes. But that’s a perhaps ungenerous and certainly one-sided way to remember Alex Toth and to their credit the authors make a concerted effort to show Toth finding a bit of light in his life towards the end with reconciliations and concessions raising up once more many of the bridges once thought burned beyond repair. It’s a biography not a comic so Toth still dies at the end, but the reader has a sense that he died well and with a measure of peace; a measure he would probably have never expected. I’d count that as a happy ending as far as these things go. Even happier, Alex Toth’s life and work are celebrated in his absence by a series of books which, thus far, are VERY GOOD!

The forthcoming third volume GENIUS ANIMATED: THE LIFE AND ART OF ALEX TOTH will apparently be a dedicated art book showcasing model sheets and presentations for the many animated series Toth worked on or pitched.

That’s going to be something to see even though it isn’t strictly speaking - COMICS!!!

Wait, What? Ep. 121: Gilded View

Erroneously called 'Barbarian Romance' by Jeff throughout the hours that follow. Image, I believe, by Corey Lewis for Brandon Graham; Apologies if that link is a jerk.

Oh my god, it almost doesn't matter what hour of the day or night it is, my next door neighbors WILL NOT FUCKING SHUT UP.

After the jump: show notes just the way Thomas Hobbes would like 'em: nasty, brutish and short.  (Actually, just short.)

Sorry, I'm angry and terrified about the bombing at the Boston Marathon.  My best wishes and condolences to everyone involved.  It feels weird just rolling this forward but the show must go on, right?

0:00-2:32:  We go right from greetings to tech problems to Age of Ultron in under two minutes! 2:32-28:14: Comixology, Apple, and SAGAgate!  Our least favorite controversy ever? Maybe!  Our favorite issue of SAGA yet? Almost certainly! 28:14-42:24: Comics! Graeme has read the Avengers Assemble AU issue written by Al Ewing and has things he quite enjoys.  Jeff talks about Age of Ultron #5, but in more of a light overview kind of way and not in his standard "Haters gotta hate and god am I a hater" kind of way.  Graeme has recently reread Bendis's Siege event and compares it with  the AoU pacing… 42:24-48:59: Jennifer Blood #25, writing credited to Al Ewing but it's not.  (What the hell is up with that, Dynamite?) 48:59-1:01:22: Batman & (Red) Robin #19 by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason: the term Haney-rific is used. 1:01:22-1:07:16:  Batman #19 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo: the term "Cronenbergian body horror" is used (but lightly, which may not count).  The four page preview of Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark also gets some love from us. 1:07:16-1:07:37: Intermission One! 1:07:37-1:30:56: Jeff talks about how great the Whatnauts are. (Big props to Voodoo Ben!) Also, for those of you unsure about our status as hunters & gatherers.I'd like to say we smoothly segue from there to Archer & Armstrong #9 but it's not smooth even slightly.  Graeme has some information about reaction from Quantum & Woody's co-creator, Mark Bright. Also discussed: Tony Bedard, Joe Casey's Sex, and Dive Bar by friend of the podcast Dave Clarke which you can read online. 1:30:56-1:46:34: Finally, Jeff gets around to talking bit more about what he digs about the Hulk, a point that was supposed to have been made several podcasts ago -- so thanks for waiting!). We cover the concept of a character's iconic era; the return of the Marvel 700 giveaway; Ditko; Bendis; Abhay; and more. 1:46:34-2:01:38:  Also on Jeff's mind these days:  Barbarian Revenge (as Brandon Graham might put it).  More specifically:  The Chronicles of Conan and Thundarr The Barbarian. So of course, we talk about Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Kamandi, uggs, Steve Gerber, Jack Kirby.  Is it any wonder Jeff is almost slobberingly rhapsodic at the end of it? 2:01:38-end:  Closing Comments! More Age of Ultron talking because -- well, honestly, I'm not entirely sure why. And Zeb Wells! And Richard Nixon! Also, this is the penultimate episode before a skip week so take note.

And, on the off-hand chance you read all that and want to listen to the podcast [Note to self:  put episode link above show notes?], well, it's probably on iTunes, fingers crossed, and you can also listen to it below:

Wait, What? Ep. 121: Gilded View

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

Arriving 4/17/13

The second Manhattan Projects trade and Batman Year 100 (one of our favorites) FINALLY back in print our the highlights for us this week, check what else is out after the break! ADVENTURE TIME #15 AGE OF ULTRON #6 (OF 10) ASTONISHING X-MEN #61 XT ATOMIC ROBO REAL SCIENCE ADV #7 ATOMIC ROBO REAL SCIENCE ADV #8 B & V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #233 BATMAN BEYOND UNLIMITED #15 BATWOMAN #19 BETTY & VERONICA #265 REG CVR BIONIC MAN VS BIONIC WOMAN #4 BIRDS OF PREY #19 BLACK BEETLE #3 (OF 4) NO WAY OUT BLOODSHOT (VU) #10 HARBINGER WARS BODIE TROLL #1 (OF 4) BPRD HELL ON EARTH #106 COLD DAY IN HELL #2 (OF 2) CABLE AND X-FORCE #7 CAPTAIN AMERICA #6 CAPTAIN MARVEL #12 CATWOMAN #19 CHEW #33 CONAN THE BARBARIAN #15 CROSSED BADLANDS #27 DANGER CLUB #5 DANGER GIRL TRINITY #1 (OF 4) DAREDEVIL #25 DAREDEVIL END OF DAYS #7 (OF 8) DARK AVENGERS #189 DARK SHADOWS YEAR ONE #1 DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #19 DOCTOR WHO PRISONERS OF TIME #4 (OF 12) DOCTOR WHO VOL 3 #8 FABLES #128 FIVE GHOSTS HAUNTING OF FABIAN GRAY #2 (OF 5) GHOSTBUSTERS #3 GODZILLA ONGOING #11 GREEN HORNET #35 GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #19 GRIMM FAIRY TALES #84 HE MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #1 HELLRAISER DARK WATCH #3 HOUSE OF GOLD & BONES #1 (OF 4) IRON MAN #8 NOW2 IT GIRL & THE ATOMICS #9 JENNIFER BLOOD FIRST BLOOD #4 JSA LIBERTY FILES THE WHISTLING SKULL #5 (OF 6) JUDGE DREDD #6 JUSTICE LEAGUE #19 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICAS VIBE #3 LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #19 LOOKOUTS RIDDLE VOL 01 #5 MARA #4 (OF 6) MINIATURE JESUS #1 (OF 5) NIGHTWING #19 NOVA #3 NOW2 PATHFINDER #6 POPEYE CLASSICS ONGOING #9 RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #19 RED SONJA #74 REVIVAL #9 ROBERT JORDAN WHEEL OF TIME EYE O/T WORLD #34 SAVAGE WOLVERINE #4 SHADOW YEAR ONE #2 (OF 8) SIMPSONS COMICS #201 SIXTH GUN #30 SIXTH GUN SONS O/T GUN #3 (OF 5) SONIC UNIVERSE #51 STAR WARS DARTH VADER & NINTH ASSASSIN #1 (OF 5) STITCHED #13 SUPERGIRL #19 SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #8 NOW SWORD OF SORCERY #7 THIEF OF THIEVES #13 THUNDERBOLTS #8 NOW2 TMNT VILLAIN MICROSERIES #1 KRANG TODD THE UGLIEST KID ON EARTH #4 (OF 4) ULTIMATE COMICS WOLVERINE #3 (OF 4) VENOM #34 WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #27AU WOLVERINE MAX #6 WONDER WOMAN #19 WORLD OF ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #28 X-FACTOR #254 X-MEN LEGACY #9 X-O MANOWAR (VU) #12

Books/Mags/Stuff ALIENS HC INHUMAN CONDITION ANGEL & FAITH TP VOL 03 FAMILY REUNION ART OF STEVE DITKO HC NEW ED AVENGERS PREM HC VOL 01 AVENGERS WORLD AVENGERS VS X-MEN TP X-MEN LEGACY BART SIMPSON BIG SHOT TP BATMAN YEAR ONE HUNDRED TP NEW PTG BRICKJOURNAL #23 DIAL H TP VOL 01 INTO YOU (N52) DISNEY GIRLS PRESENTS #13 DISNEY JUNIOR MAGAZINE #13 EDEN TP VOL 01 ITS AN ENDLESS WORLD EDEN TP VOL 03 ITS AN ENDLESS WORLD FRANKENSTEIN AGENT OF SHADE TP VOL 02 SECRETS  DEAD (N52) HAPPY TP HARVEST HC HOUSE OF SECRETS OMNIBUS HC HP LOVECRAFT CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD GN IRON MAN 2020 TP MANHATTAN PROJECTS TP VOL 02 MARS ATTACKS IDW TP MARSHAL LAW THE DELUXE EDITION HC POPEYE CLASSICS HC VOL 01 RISING STARS COMPENDIUM TP SLOW NEWS DAY TP SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 TP VOL 01 THE GUARDIAN STAR WARS DARTH VADER & GHOST PRISON HC THE LODGER GN TRANSFUSION TP UNCANNY X-MEN COMPLETE COLL BY FRACTION TP VOL 02 X-MEN LEGACY TP VOL 01 PRODIGAL

As always, what do YOU think?

KILLOGY #1 -- Clipping Jamooks

ALAN ROBERT'S KILLOGY: GUILTY PARTIES #1 Cover C (possibly KILL-SKULL-SYMBOL-GY) by Alan Roberts and Denton J. Tipton, based on the likenesses of Frank Vincent, Brea Grant, and Marky Ramone, published by IDW Publishing in October 2012: I would just like to describe this comic to you.  That's all.

Marky Ramone is one of the three "stars" of KILLOGY #1, a recent comic published by IDW Publishing which utilizes his likeness. Ramone was the drummer for The Ramones. According to his bio in the comic, "in 2009 he launched his first worldwide clothing line with Tommy Hilfiger. In 2010, Marky shared his recipe for pasta sauce by introducing 'Marky Ramone's Brooklyn's Own Pasta Sauce."  

Ramone's co-star in KILLOGY is "American actor, musician, author and entrepreneur" Frank Vincent.  Vincent was last seen and may be best known for his role as Phil Leotardo in HBO's The Sopranos, but he was also in Goodfellas (he was the "Go get your shinebox" guy).

Basically, a cartoon character with Vincent's likeness named Sally Sno-Cones is trapped in a prison cell with cartoon characters resembling Marky Ramone as well as actress Brea Grant (NBC's Heroes, Dexter).

Does an existential one-act play ensue? Nope: a zombie comic.

Sample dialogue (and I should note here that I've sought to preserve the bold-facing and punctuation featured in the original comic):

Frank Vincent Let me tell you somethin', fucknuts. You made my list with that bullshit you pulled back there. When we get outta here... you and me, we're gonna sit down, capice?

Brea Grant Jesus. C'mon, already. Tell us what happened.

Frank Vincent All right, all right... Aspetta. I'm gettin' to it. A guy in my line of work don't get very far havin' loose lips, if ya know what I mean. So, what I'm 'bout to tell yous two... well, I never told nobody, ya understand? So, if we ever find a way to get the fuck outta here alive... well, this stays between us. YA GOT ME?!

(beat)

Now, let's see... Jeez, where the fuck do I even start? Okay. Well, my wife's Eldorado was runnin' on fumes by the time I rolled back into Brooklyn that mornin'. I'd been drivin' 'round all friggin' night-- way out to the Jersey Dumps and back again, diggin' up whatever bones were left from some dead wiseguys I'd whacked like a hundred years ago. See, once I caught wind that The Boss of the family flipped for the feds, I knew it was only a matter of time till they came knockin' on my door. I mean, this rat fuck was yappin' all over town, blamin' me for every goddamned thing. Like he never ordered the friggin' hits in the first place?! I was furious.

But then a complication arises: a Turban-wearing gas station owner refuses to sell gasoline to Mr. Sno-Cones.  "YOU NO PAY -- YOU NO GET NO GAS!  [...] NO GAS FOR YOU!!", the brown-skinned "Gas N' Sip" employee cries, apparently upset that Mr. Vincent's character had "stiffed" him on a previous visit.

Well, as you might imagine, Frank Vincent's character Sally Sno-Cones is irritated by this refusal to fuel his wife's Eldorado, so he draws a firearm and says...

Frank Vincent

Yo, Habib... Get off your fuckin' magic carpet ova there and fill up my goddamn tank. And make it super while yer at it, you Aladdin lookin' muddafucka! Start pumpin' asshole.

Sally Sno-Cones is later confronted by flying severed zombie heads.  The heads serenade him with a rousing rendition of "Just a Gigolo." However, Sally Sno-Cones shoots the flying zombie heads-- "What's da matter... Don't know any goddamn Sinatra?!"-- and shortly after doing so, this first issue of KILLOGY concludes.

IDW is the 3rd largest publisher of comic books in North America.

Tilting #222 is live!

It has been a little while, but here's a new TILTING AT WINDMILLS, wherein we show the inherent value of conflict! Not a single comment in the CBR thread, gotta love it!

-B

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #1 -- Giuoco Piano

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #1 by Brian Michael Bendis, Steve McNiven, John Dell, Justin Ponsor, VC's Cory Petit, Manny Mederos, Ellie Pyle, Sana Amanat, Stephen Wacker, Axel Alonso, Joe Quesada, Dan Buckley, Alan Fine, Tom Brevoort, David Bogart, Ruwan Jayatilleke, CB Cebulski, David Gabriel, Jim O'Keefe, Dan Carr, Susan Cespi, Alex Morales, Stan Lee, and Niza Disla, published in March 2013 by Marvel Comics: I was catching up with SCARLET and the latest POWERS relaunch, so while I was at it, I thought I'd check in with what Bendis was up to in the mainstream. I picked up this, and two of his X-Men comics (issue #3 of UNCANNY X-MEN and issue #3 of SOME MORE X-MEN).

Going in, I was expecting to like GALAXY more than the X(s). Boy, I was wrong-- the X(s), Bendis really seemed to show up for those way more. The shifting alliances and competing philosophies / views-of-mankind an X title invites seem really suited to Bendis's strengths. Bendis writing Magneto in particular seems to make a particular sort of sense, mathematically. Whatever Bendis found exciting about working those comics made it onto the page, and with a noticeable confidence.

GALAXY #1, on the other hand, Bendis focuses on an action scene...? Why? Are there people who tell him he's good at action scenes? Do those people have their own internet? Why is he writing this comic, other than that there's a movie coming out soon?  After #1, I couldn't say. The story promised by the last page of GALAXY is a fart: inconsistently designed spaceships attacking London...? Go, Aliens, Go! Blow all those people up, them and their erotic Jon Lewis snowmen. USA! USA! ... Will aliens blow up London?? Too much suspense.

Never read any of this generation of GALAXY comics? Reasonable minds differ on this point apparently, but issue #1 didn't explain who the GALAXY were, why they were a team, what their mission was, or why a talking squirrel or a talking tree were in outer space (??). (Footnote:  This has been the third first issue I've talked about this week that has been just mystifying, in some respect...)

Granted, he was working with better artists on the X(s)-- Stuart Immonen and Chris Bachalo are veterans, whereas GALAXY's Steve McNiven... McNiven doesn't draw the moon, in a splash page of the moon. He just pastes a photograph of the moon onto the page; calls it a day... Facepalm: they hired a guy who can’t draw THE MOON to draw a comic set in outer space. (Was it a photo-realistic painting of the moon?  It looked like a photo) Plus: science-fiction comics, you want an artist with design skills-- those are pretty important for an SF comic. McNiven's spaceships don't really reflect him having ever focused much study time on drawing tech before, while his Iron Man armor... No. No.

Sure: I don't care. I'm not sticking around for any of these. Mainstream comic publishers are too gross; I don't trust anyone at that company to tell me a story, instead of using the comic I'm reading as a paid advertisement for some rip-off crossover. I don't want to pay for advertising for a movie I won't want to see.  I was just curious what Bendis was up to. But if you want to be in that world? I'd go with the X(s). Seem more fun.

GALAXY was interesting at least one way, though: it's another example of how Bendis so often seems to commence his runs with a long-standing status quo becoming unmoored because of a Spoiler Character.

His Daredevil run starts with the Silke character organizing a coup d'état against the Kingpin. His Avengers run starts twice-- once with the Scarlet Witch "disassembling" Avengers, and the second time with some shadowy character engineering some jailbreak. Spiderwoman starts with that character trying to recover from having her identity stolen by the Skrull queen, when she gets recruited by SHIELD or somebody right...? GALAXY starts with somebody's dad showing up and yelling that all the rules of outer space had changed (in what I took to be a visual homage to that staircase shot in Howard Chaykin and Jose-Garcia-Lopez's TWILIGHT...? yes? no?).

If I were to think of other writer's opening gambits, I'd think "our old patterns no longer suffice-- we must become new" (a Morrison opening), or "a bold new status quo! ... and a bold new threat!" (I imagine most mainstream books use this gambit, to diminishing returns) or "a startling new mystery that reveals a sinister expanded world that the main character was previously unaware of" (e.g. Snyder's BATMAN #1; Fraction-Brubaker IRON FIST #1 back when, maybe?), or "everything we thought we knew about this character is wrong" (e.g. The Anatomy Lesson-- which is pretty, pretty close) or "orifices, they need shy boys to fill them" (e.g. hentai).

Who else does "the Spoiler Character unmoors a long-standing status quo" opening other than Bendis? Who else leads with a Karen Page from Born Again?

And say hypothetically that I'm right, and that Bendis has had this career-long opening gambit that's semi-unique to him. Why has that opening gambit connected repeatedly with readers? Why are they so moved by these Spoiler Characters? The people reading it—what do they get out of it? In my head, I'm just picturing some adult child of divorce, wanting to yell at his mom's boyfriends. "Everything was great until you got here, Barry!" But that's.. I would assume Bendis's 13-year long success streak in mainstream comics isn't thanks to a guy named Barry having sex on top of everybody's mom(s). If you take into account Barry's refractory time, there's just not enough hours in the day for that to be true. Even for sexy, sexy Barry.

I’m sure all fiction plays to some insecurity or another, but that seems to speak to such a specific, small insecurity, being constantly afraid of a bully coming and kicking over your sand castle. That your destiny is ever controlled by the whims of malevolent strangers, that you’re standing on a rug that someone will come out and pull out from under you, that other people can and will be the source of ruination … It’s just sad, to think about too much-- to think that a large swath of this audience all sharing that same insecurity. It’s sad to think some part of us is trapped in our heads that exact same way, prisoners of that same anxiety, cell-mates for life, building walls that don't need to be there.

WHERE IS JAKE ELLIS #1-3 -- Farmer Ted

WHERE IS JAKE ELLIS #1-3 of 5 by Nathan Edmondson and Tonci Zonjic and Joseph Frazzeta, published by Image Comics commencing in November 2012: WHERE IS JAKE RYAN  is a handsomely mounted espionage-agents-on-the-run thriller, in the vein of a Robert Ludlum or Donald Hamilton pulp:  that “vulnerable (physically & emotionally) secret agents racing through a global backdrop meant to seem realistically drawn” Jason Bourne jazz. (There’s some psychic power tomfoolery too, but it is presented in a conservative way that keeps it visually consistent with the thiller elements).

Zonjic and Frazzeta are working in a “cinematic” mode but it still suffices as a comic— they don’t use the language of comics on every page but they at least know how to drop a background here or slow time there. It’s not as emotionally charged as a Naoki Urasawa comic but they don’t have Naoki Urasawa's page-count either (or his sentimentality).  Zonjic seems like he’s aspiring to the same school as guys like Caniff, Frank Robbins, John Paul Leon—that’s a damn good school, by me.  He can spot a black; knows how to pace a page. Zonjic and Frazzeta’s colors are full of detail without being showy or crass—e.g. an action scene at an airport in #2 is a nearly one-color affair, drenched in oranges that accentuate the drama rather than drown the art. And thankfully, Edmondson knows how to trust his artists.  The pages aren’t crammed with show-off dialogue or bullshit narration.  He keeps the story moving at a rapid clip -- without feeling like that clip is at the expense of missing out on anything significant.  Oh, there aren’t a lot of “character moments” but… it’s an espionage thriller; do you want there to be...?

It doesn’t take much by way of risks, though—FURY does everything this comic does, and it takes wilder risks with its audience.  Or Cinemax’s STRIKEBACK has nudity-- pretty nudity. It's a bit generic.  But WHERE never falls on its face either—seems like they’re hitting the target they’re aiming at.  We can debate the merits of the target or our affection therefor, but this is at least a professionally made comic book.

One thing, though...

I didn’t really have any earthly clue what was going on the entire time.

WHERE is the sequel to a comic called WHO IS JAKE RYAN.  I dug Zonjic’s work on other gigs, but I’d missed that series.  This had #1 on it; I guesstimated that #1 meant it would serve a “jumping-on” point, a place for new readers to smell what this comic is cooking.  Turns out?  Nope.  None of the contents of WHO are ever set out in any detail—even though WHERE appears to be a direct continuation of those events!  Who are the main characters?  What do they want?  How are they related?  What do the bad guys want?  Why are they being chased in WHERE? First base.  Wait, wrong-- WHO is on first.  What’s on second?  THIRD BASE!

There’s a PREVIOUSLY section in #1 – it looks like this.  “As a matter of fact, I WILL fuck myself.”  I think a shittier PREVIOUSLY page that actually conveyed information would’ve been swank.  That’d have been nice.  That’d have probably solved everything.  But Jesus-- why am I armchair quarterback-ing a PREVIOUSLY PAGE?  Why am I in THAT position?  I admired the craft to WHERE enough that I might someday get around to WHO, possibly.  I wouldn’t spit at the thought of it at least.   But what do you make of this?  Is this anything?

There was Mike Mignola, and Mignola found success by selling his characters in a series of miniseries.  For Hellboy, for BPRD.  And then that became a thing.  It became a Way Comics Are Sold.  The series-of-miniseries approach, it offers all sorts of advantages that an ongoing doesn’t, e.g. a steady stream of new #1 issues, a diminished need to explain long breaks between issues, etc.  But Mignola?  He seems to have his miniseries function as such—at least, when I’ve read BPRD, those tend to start with some new mission, some new situation presenting itself. The series-of-miniseries to present constant jumping-on points.  A character yells “In this miniseries, I am going to go do something something something shadows on statues.”  Hijinx ensue.

That PREVIOUSLY page looks cool.  Changing the title from WHO to WHERE seems cool.  The only thing that was uncool was how I felt like I just wasn’t on the radar of the people making this comic.  But there’s a system for how comics are sold, and they just did the system.  They followed the map that’s in place, stepped in the footsteps of bigger feet, did “What You’re Supposed to Do” … Still, in the end, I’m sitting there and it took me three months, until I finally said, “Oh wait, I think those guy have psychic powers.”  Is the system wrong?  I wouldn't say that.  But it just seems like they did the system without thinking about the Why of the System.  WHY IS JAKE RYAN?

Easy answers and conventional thinking.  Form over function.  Cool over substance.  A disregard for new readers.  WHERE IS JAKE RYAN does a lot of the things that comics can do right.  Does it also do a lot of the things comics can do wrong?  More importantly, I always thought it was weird at the end of SIXTEEN CANDLES, when Jake Ryan lets Anthony Michael Hall rape Jake’s drunk girlfriend.  I was really hoping that’d be addressed somewhere in this series.  Why did he-- ....What?  Jake ELLIS???

… shit.  I’ve really been reading this comic ALL WRONG, you guys.

ANNNND SCENE.

Non-Humans #1 -- Becoming Obsolete

NON-HUMANS #1 by Glen Brunswick, Whilce Portacio, Rus Wooten, and Brian Valez, based upon an idea by Noah Dorsey, published by Image Comics in October 2012:  I just want to talk about the opening narration.  Listen to this:

 "Runaway American dream.  Suicide machines.  Sprung from cages out on Highway 9.  Crome [sic] wheeled, fuel injected and steppin' out over the line. [END OF PAGE 1]

That's an old song from my childhood-- singer-- name of Bruce-- was my mother's favorite.  He was talkin' about the road.  But he could as easily have been talkin' about Non-Humans.  They expect us to just live with the madness.  The road exposes everyone for what they really are-- you just gotta look for the underlying truth.  It's a tell-- window to their character.  Like you know the douchebag that's gonna run from an accident... from the dude who won't.  Worked the 405 for a spell before I got my first promotion  [End of Page 2]

 Or the N.H. that's gonna lie on a routine stop.  Not because it has to-- but because it's simply in the lying piece of crap's nature.  Victim twenty-two was my partner on the job.  Even dead, you can tell he was the kind of guy who'd take a bullet for you.  Which brings me 'round to my tell.  Can you see it?  I'm past the point of caring if you keep it to yourself or not.  I've failed everyone that's ever been close to me.  [End of page 3]"

… What?  What the hell is going on, you guys?  I just find this entire speech mystifying.  I’ve read it over and over.

 Born to Run reminds him of Non-Humans (whatever those are) but also the road, which reminds him of a job he had working on the 405 (which is a freeway in Los Angeles), which reminds him of looking for “tells,” which reminds him of his dead partner (who was … victim 22… okay) which reminds him of a dead dog with its brains split open which reminds of him when he really became Rorshach instead of pretending to be Rorschach which reminds him of—

-wait, no. I had it and then I lost it...

Like how I perceived Snapshot a certain way after Scarlet, I was struck by this comic in the context of the other first issues I’ve read recently, one after another of which have been so confusing, so seemingly hostile to just the basic act of explaining shit to a reader, helping them out with the basic concepts of the story at hand. I have been confused and I have been confused and I have been confused.  Non-Humans #1 starts with three solid pages of confusion (two whole minutes underwater!).  Why?  Why would that be a good idea to anyone?

The comic opens with an essay by Brunswick about how he and Portacio worked on this comic for an entire year before it was produced.  This wasn’t the product of haste or sloth. This was by design. This sounds like this because at some point, the people who made Non-Humans, the people who read it for them and gave them notes, the people at Image Comics who saw the pitch and signed it to their line, to all of them, this is just what comics sound like now.  For a non-negligible  crowd of people, this is how a comic should open, with three pages of … whatever is happening here (?).

And I have to acknowledge—I’m not reading Scott Snyder or Geoff Johns, Marvel Now! nor Walking Dead.  I am divorced from what is hip and what is happening.  I am old and I am stubborn and I am outside their intended audience and I am aesthetically conservative and maybe/probably I have become the Voice of Do It like It was Done Back When.  So there is a possibility—a not small possibility, even-- that they are right, and that this, this stretch of what is to me pure nonsense, is the Sound of Comics Now, or at least a logical attempt at that Sound.

Once you’ve seen enough comics, a comic from the 60’s doesn’t look like a comic from the 70’s; you can spot a comic from the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s from a distance, with a hand over your eye.  And so, now we’re, what, 4 years into this decade (you count the 0, right?), which mean that styles are due to change again. Or HAVE changed again, while I wasn't paying attention.  And each time these changes happen, there are the people left behind.  The sad comment-screamers ten years ago whining incessantly about decompression; the 80’s fans who flooded out in the 90’s; 70's fans whining about the deconstruction of the 80's ("Frank Miller made Catwoman a whore!  Miracleman showed a baby being born!"); Silver Age fans angry about the death of Gwen Stacy; every time there are those, Cutty say he can’t hang.

Do you expect the Sound of Comics to change again?  History tells you that you should.  But how do you know when it’s happening?  Or has happened already when you weren't paying attention?  What are you supposed to look for? Do you care about being left behind?  Should you?  Or am I just being unnecessarily jumpy and scared of an obsolescence that again, history guarantees for us all? Maybe everybodys out on the run tonight, but there's no place left to hide, and together we'll live with the sadness. I'll love you with all the madness in my soul but till then tramps like us, baby, we were born to run...? Also this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark. Jack and Diane are two American kids doing the best they can.