"Oh, Jumping Joe!" COMICS! Sometimes They Appeared Daily In Newspapers While The World Burned!

Hello again! What could be more alluring than a look at some old timey newspaper strips from the days when World War Two was still in full swing, strips by a man who has been dead since 1994! I shall capture that Youth Market, yet. Anyway, this...

FRANK ROBBINS' JOHNNY HAZARD VOLUME ONE: The Newspaper Dailies 1944-1946 By Frank Robbins Introduction by Daniel Herman Hermes Press, $49.99 (2011) Johnny Hazard created by Frank Robbins

When it comes to comics posterity can be a bit of an ass. Case in point: Mr. Frank Robbins esq. (1917 – 1994). Now, Frank Robbins was an artist, sorry, an Artist. And this might be difficult to believe if you think of the things we usually think of when we think of Frank Robbins. Because what do we think about when we think about Frank Robbins? Some of us might think of his work on DC’s The Shadow or maybe the fact that he is credited as starting Batman comics on the long, dark road to gritdom, but mostly let’s face it, effendi, most of us remember him for The Invaders and stuff like this:

Which is where I, in a younger incarnation, first saw Frank Robbins’ art and fell for it hard. No, not so much the issues where Vince Colleta’s horrific inking dehydrated Robbins’ art to the point of dusty incoherence, rather the issues where Frank Springer put the, er, spring back in Frank’s step with lovely slabs of black and a wholly sympathetic feel for the effects Frank Robbins was after. And the effect he was after was “aliveness”. Robbins’ art was primarily concerned with imbuing a sense of life within his static images. And on the pages of Johnny Hazard the reader gets to see Frank Robbins achieve this effect in every panel. Because on the pages of Johnny Hazard Frank Robbins is flying solo. Uncompromised by the penciller/inker division of The Big Two the reader is allowed to appreciate Robbins’ art fully.

The sense of life is most apparent in Robbins’ humans. Very few of his figures stand stock still as though they have a stick holding them up, instead they are usually portrayed in a way which seeks to fix their existence in that particular moment caught in his particular panel, and to further imply that before that panel and after that panel they will continue existing even if we never see them again. Arms are folded, shoulders cocked, hands gesticulate, faces crinkle and open appropriately and that’s just when they are at rest. When in motion Robbins’ figures really move. But Robbins’ genius here is in his ability to convey the sense of life via the inanimate objects. Everything from the clothes characters sport to the environment around them and the machines which seek to destroy both contain bold yet elegant cues to their texture. With a style as heavy as Frank Robbins’ style these anchors to reality enable even the most casual of readers to enjoy the content.

And the most casual of comics readers did enjoy Johnny Hazard. Robbins began the strip in 1944 and it folded in 1977, a hardly negligible run. The strips in this book cover 1944 – 1946 and so Johnny Hazard is firmly set in World War 2. It isn’t a war strip though, it is an action/adventure strip set in war time. Nonetheless Robbins’ does on occasion briefly acknowledge the horrors of his setting with the death of a mother, the exhaustion of the pilots and the reactions of survivors to losses incurred. Mostly though Johnny Hazard is entertainment set in war time. This may be a tough sell for some but the war was still underway for the majority of the time Robbins produced these strips and it’s not usual for the Home Front to desire a conflict’s complexities and true horrors to be presented while they are still up to their necks in it. I thought the material did a decent job of being entertaining without ever slipping into gung-ho jingoism. The war in Johnny Hazard is a hard war and while the essentially screwball nature of Johnny’s antics might distract from this it is still apparent.

But the war was a long time ago and so were these comics and much has changed in the meantime. Consequently old comic strips have the added burden of being read by potentially revisionist eyes. Racism, we’re heading into racist territory here. Great. And I’d say Johnny Hazard comes off pretty well. Which is more than the Japanese Armed Forces does, but then, and it really is very important to note this, they were the enemy at that particular point in time. And still, and still, despite the garbled syntax, period appropriate slurs and occasional buffoonery on display Robbins’ is really just emphasising the villainous nature of Johnny’s opponents in a typically melodramatic style suited to his genre. Individuals are singled out for this treatment so as to allow the audience to boo and hiss but the wider context of the strip still conveys a sense that the Japanese are a formidable enemy. Any Chinese characters encountered are resourceful and brave indicating that it isn’t not being Caucasian that’s the problem; rather it’s being the enemy. Although the Chinese do have that silly syntax too. Mind you so do one of the Yanks and a French lady. I guess Frank Robbins hated everyone! No, I don’t know, racism? There’s a bit. You're young and strong, you'll cope.

And what of the ladies how do the ladies fare in Johnny Hazard? The ladies fare surprisingly well in Johnny Hazard. They are all capable, feisty, determined and other such characteristics which are generally positive. Woman wise here Robbins’ art seems erotically imprinted by fever dreams of Veronica Lake and is less heated and torrid than it would later become when Joan Crawford apparently became Robbins’ epitome of eroticism. Sure, there’s a woman who uses her feminine wiles but then again there’s another woman who is a hard as nails resistance fighter who could care less about romance. One stops tanks by flashing her gams while the other gets the most startling scene of violence in the book; upending a bowl of hot coals onto the head of her nemesis and just flat staring down at him as he dies screaming. Yeah I reckon Frank Robbins has plenty of range when it comes to the ladies.

The stories are okay, too. They are though adventure serial yarns with a sense of humour some might see as verging on the cornball. One pivotal plot point revolves around someone’s name being phonetically similar to the word “marijuana”. Which is okay by me. Still, for every pilot who thinks he’s in the navy and speaks and acts accordingly to not entirely hilarious effect there’s a masterpiece of visual comic staging like this:

Which is apt because on every page of this book the visuals trump everything. The real appeal of this book is the art by Frank Robbins. All else is just a vehicle for the delivery of Robbins’ art. Which is appropriate because Frank Robbins was an artist. Sorry, an Artist. This is made clear in the sparse but dense blurb adorning the book about the man himself. This tells us that amongst other achievements at the age of nine Frank Robbins was awarded a scholarship to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, he later illustrated for Life and The Saturday Evening Post and his paintings were exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art amongst other such tony venues. So, it would be a bit of a shame if we remembered Frank Robbins primarily for this:

Frank Robbins' Johnny Hazard Volume One: 1944 – 1946 is not only cumbersomely titled but is also pure Frank Robbins and is thus a much better way to remember him. Although I bet the ‘70s volumes when his Sweat’n’Shadows style was at its apex are well worth waiting for. And wait I shall. In the meantime Johnny Hazard, despite the meat’n’taters nature of the packaging and maybe a smidgen of racism, is VERY GOOD!

Who knew Newspapers don't just contain fish'n'chips, sometimes they contain - COMICS!!!

Whither Watterson?

Oh, I've missed you comics internet. Sorry it's been so long since I've posted here (perhaps you've taken it as a welcome respite?) but with the donut business a-booming and my tour of Oktoberfest concluded I am returned to you.

Let's talk legends!

Dear Mr Watterson (link to the forthcoming documentary)

We’re coming up on 20 years since the end of Calvin & Hobbes and by extension 20 years since the end of Bill Watterson’s public cartooning life.  He was only 37 years old when he dropped the mic and walked off stage – never to return.  Some 6 years before that decision, in 1989, he made a short speech at the Festival of Cartoon Art at Ohio State University.  I can only assume the title of the documentary comes from an anecdote he relayed at the outset of that speech.

I received a letter from a 10-year-old this morning. He wrote, "Dear Mr Watterson, I have been reading Calvin and Hobbes for a long time, and I'd like to know a few things. First, do you like the drawing of Calvin and Hobbes I did at the bottom of the page? Are you married, and do you have any kids? Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

Watterson then, characteristically, takes the child’s supposition that he may have been convicted of a felony off into some pretty interesting directions.  What really struck me about this speech is its extraordinarily prescient judgment about the state of cartooning in 1969 – 1989 – or 2013.  He’s able to distill 4 significant obstacles to improving the form itself and the treatment of its creators.

1)                  Recognizing cartoons as legitimate art

2)                  Ownership of the created work

3)                  The dominant role of merchandising and licensing

4)                  Failure of existing media to properly use the comics form.

The complete text of the speech is available here:

http://floobynooby.blogspot.com/2011/03/awesome-speech-by-bill-watterson.html

The whole thing is well worth a few minutes of your time.  I’ll just be quoting a few very relevant passages.

First, on the subject of recognizing comics as art Watterson is very direct.  The assumption has long been in place that cartoonists are simply employees.  That the job of a cartoonist / illustrator is to create a product that serves a largely commercial purpose.  What that assumption discounts is the presence of artistic concerns on the part of the creator.  For comics work to achieve the distinction of art cartoonists are more and more often asked to do more with less.  Smaller pages, less flexible deadlines, and in general an understanding that the comic itself is a secondary concern – all of these are rapier cuts on a form that had achieved so much, so early.

“In a way, it's surprising that comic strips have ever been that good. The comics were invented for commercial purposes. They were, and are, a graphic feature designed to help sell newspapers. Cartoonists work within severe space constraints on an inflexible deadline for a mass audience. That's not the most conducive atmosphere for the production of great art, and of course many comic strips have been eminently dispensable. But more than occasionally, wonderful work has been produced.

Amazingly, much of the best cartoon work was done early on in the medium's history. The early cartoonists, with no path before them, produced work of such sophistication, wit, and beauty that it increasingly seems to me that cartoon evolution is working backward. Comic strips are moving toward a primordial goo rather than away from it. As a cartoonist, it's a bit humiliating to read work that was done over 50 years ago and find it more imaginative than what any of us are doing now. We've lost many of the most precious qualities of comics. Most readers today have never seen the best comics of the past, so they don't even know what they're missing. Not only can comics be more than we're getting today. but the comics already have been more than we're getting today. The reader is being gypped and he doesn't even know it.”

That feeling on Watterson’s part that comics are moving toward ”primordial goo” is one that would play out not only in newspapers but in the funny books themselves.

Consider only the most successful strips in the papers today. Why are so many of them poorly drawn? Why do so many offer only the simplest interchangeable gags and puns? Why are some strips written by committees and drawn by assistants? Why are some strips still stumbling around decades after their original creators have retired or died? Why are some strips little more than advertisements for dolls and greeting cards? Why do so many of the comics look the same? If comics can be so much, why are we settling for so little? Can't we expect more from our comics pages? Well, these days, probably not. Let's look at why. The comics are a collaborative effort on the part of the cartoonists who draw them, the syndicates that distribute them, and the newspapers that buy and publish them. Each needs the other, and all haves common interest in providing comics features of a quality that attracts a devoted readership. But business and art almost always have a rocky marriage, and in comic strips today the interests of business are undermining the concerns of the art.

It's certainly not an original refrain and it's mostly well trod criticism at this point by the comics crit literati.  Still, there are encouraging signs that the creative community are waking up to this reality and taking steps - steps that move their art away from the interminable cycle of exploitation and abandonment.   And while it's all the rage to "be positive!"  it's worth noting and eviscerating examples that wear false clothes (e.g., Abhay's, John's, and to a lesser extent my own issues with Lazarus) so that we might better grapple with the business / art dichotomy.

The real possibility that creators (writers and artists alike) have conflated the difference themselves is the new hotness, btw.  AKA - "I'm not a buisnessman, I'm a business, man!"

Next time - Star Trek: The Next Generation and Brandon Graham's Prophet!

Wait, What? Ep. 137: Zombook Club!

This and Battling Boy are the subjects of today's book club. Go pick up copies and argue along!

Greetings from the Cosmic Habitrail! (That is how Flash now gets from one dimension to the next, right?) Due to an overabundance of running around and an underabundance of organizational skills, I have very, very brief show notes for Episode 137, our Book Club edition. but! I do also have a two hour long podcast for you, so... <nudge, nudge>. Eh? Eh?

After the jump...both of those things!

00:00-05:28:  Greetings! We start off with a short, but happy bit of news about Erotic Vampire Bank Heist.  At the time of recording, EVBH was #13 in the Heist category in the Kindle store (as of the time of these notes, it's #23).  (If you like pulp adventure, crazed '70s adventure, and a generous dollop of explicit sex but have not picked up a copy, check it out! Yes, those are indeed two hyperlinks to the exact same page.  I am shameless like that.) 05:28-36:48:  Graeme has had a busy week, improved by Marvel's solicitation text of Miracleman that, instead of using Alan Moore's name, uses the impressive nom de plume, "THE ORIGINAL WRITER."  Unsurprisingly, this leads us to discuss the pro & cons of Marvel's approach in reprinting the material.  Other topics included: Neil Gaiman; inappropriate spouses; the brilliance that is Hayley Campbell; beard conditioner; Joel Golby; anal bleaching; Don DeLillo; nostalgia; dick pails; and (somehow) more. 36:48-41:35:  Want more comic talk with less mention of dick pails?  Graeme has read the second volume of the Secret Society of Super-Villains, in a follow-up to the episode where I read the first and he is more than happy to report on his findings. 41:35-44:54: In a bit of compare and contrast, Graeme has also read Justice League of America #8, a Forever Evil tie-in issue by Matt Kindt and Doug Mahnke. 44:54-52:07: Also on Graeme's reading table: Forever Evil: Trinity of Sin: Pandora ("Yes, now it was has two subtitle,s" as Graeme puts it) by Ray Fawkes and Francis Portela, and Rogues Rebellion by Brian Buccellato and Patrick Zircher.  The latter leads us to talk a bit about (of course) The Rogues, The Flash, William Messner-Loeb's run on The Flash, inexpensive Comixology reprints, Kamandi, and more. 52:07-1:04:12: From Kirby, we move on to the first subject of this episode's installment of Wait, What? The Book Club:  Battling Boy by Paul Pope.  It's Paul Pope doing Jack Kirby as a Miyazaki movie! (With a lot of Ditko and Fleischer Brothers' Superman cartoons thrown in there.)  What could be wrong with that? Help Graeme try and solve "The Mystery of The Phantom Grouser" and see! 1:04:12-1:21:32: Al Ewing wrote Avengers Assemble #20, a done-in-one Infinity tie-in issue, which Graeme wanted to talk about, and Jeff asks about Al's Mighty Avengers. Although this is a perfect segue to talk about the next subject for WWBC, Jeff throws in .02 about the latest issue of Batman &…. by Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason.  (It's issue #23, the one with Two-Face.)  Jeff also wanted to talk about Detonator X, the pre-Pacific Rim Pacific Rim by Ian Edginton and Steve Yeowell, that's collected as the graphic novel pack-in for issue #341 of Judge Dredd Megazine.  There's a bit of discussion about Beyond Zero, the pack-in from Meg #340, as well. 1:21:32-1:53:37: But finally we do get around to the second topic of the Wait, What? The Book Club:  Zombo:  You Smell of Crime…And I"m The Deodorant, by Al Ewing and and Henry Flint. It's a little tough to just jot out a quick list of stuff we throw into the mix while talking about this because so much is in this book. But needless to say, The Beatles, Robocop, Steve Gerber, the Rutles, Nick Fury, Frank Miller and Jack Kirby, 2000 A.D. and Donald Trump, and much more are mentioned, but the brilliance of this book is actually really, really hard to accurately sum up or oversell.  It's really brilliant stuff and you should pick it up, whether you listen to us blather about it or not. 1:53:37-end:  Closing comments!  We talk about the possibility of "best of" lists, a bit more about Secret Society of Super-Villains, classic DC's weird obsession bylaws, Justice Legion, our future podcasting schedule and more!

The podcast is up on iTunes and it is also below.  Please check out Brian's shipping list, John Kane's fine round-up of comics he's read, and other lovely bits and pieces below  (Brian's piece on understanding how to order books in the direct market over at Comic Book Resources is also great). We wouldn't want to rob you of the experience.

Next week: Next week!  We'll see you then!

Wait, What? Ep. 137: Zombook Club!

Arriving 10/23/13

A standard week of comic style books, featuring the debut of Pretty Deadly from Kelly Sue Deconnick and Emma Rios and the second issue of Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky's Sex Criminals. Together that makes for a strong week. Of course, there are other books, you can find out what they are after the cut!

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #6 ALL STAR WESTERN #24 AQUAMAN #24 B & V FRIENDS DOUBLE DIGEST #236 BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #24 BETTY & VERONICA #268 BEWARE THE BATMAN #1 BOUNCE #6 BRAVEST WARRIORS #13 CATWOMAN #24 CHOOSE THEIR FATE #1 CLONE #11 CONAN PEOPLE O/T BLACK CIRCLE #1 (OF 4) DAREDEVIL #32 DARK HORSE PRESENTS #29 DC VS MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE #2 (OF 6) DOCTOR WHO VOL 3 #14 FEVER RIDGE MACARTHUR JUNGLE WAR #4 (OF 8) FF #13 FLASH #24 FUTURAMA COMICS #69 GREAT PACIFIC #11 GREEN TEAM TEEN TRILLIONAIRES #5 HARBINGER #17 HAUNTED HORROR #7 INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK #14 INFINITY HEIST #2 (OF 4) INFINITY HUNT #3 (OF 4) IRON MAN #17 JUDGE DREDD #12 JUSTICE LEAGUE #24 (EVIL) JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #24 (EVIL) KISS ME SATAN #2 (OF 5) LARFLEEZE #4 LOOKOUTS RIDDLE VOL 01 #6 MARVEL NOW WHAT #1 MASS EFFECT FOUNDATION #4 MASSIVE #16 MEGA MAN #30 MIND MGMT #16 NOVA #9 INF NUMBERCRUNCHER #4 (OF 4) OTHER DEAD #2 (OF 6) PATHFINDER #10 PRETTY DEADLY #1 RAT QUEENS #2 RED LANTERNS #24 ROCKETEER SPIRIT PULP FRICTION #2 (OF 4) SAMURAI JACK #1 SATELLITE SAM #4 SAVAGE WOLVERINE #10 SECRET AVENGERS #10 INF SEX CRIMINALS #2 SONIC UNIVERSE #57 STAR TREK ONGOING #26 STAR WARS LEGACY II #8 SUPERIOR CARNAGE #4 (OF 5) SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN TEAM UP #5 NOW SUPERMAN #24 SUPURBIA ONGOING #12 TALON #12 TEEN TITANS #24 (EVIL) THE SPIDER #15 THUNDER AGENTS #3 THUNDERBOLTS #17 INF TMNT NEW ANIMATED ADVENTURES #4 TOM STRONG AND THE PLANET OF PERIL #4 (OF 6) ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #28 UNCANNY #4 UNCANNY AVENGERS #13 UNWRITTEN #54 VELVET #1 VENOM #42 WASTELAND #49 (MR) WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #37 BOA WORLD OF ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #33 YOUNG AVENGERS #11 ZOMBIE WAR #1 (OF 2)

Books/Mags/Things 2000 AD PACK AUG 2013 ABSOLUTE JOKER LUTHOR HC ALTER EGO #121 ARCHIE THE MARRIED LIFE TP VOL 04 BATGIRL HC VOL 03 DEATH OF THE FAMILY (N52) BOING BOING GN COWBOY NINJA VIKING DLX HC DOCTOR WHO OMNIBUS TP VOL 02 FABLES ENCYCLOPEDIA DELUXE ED HC FETISHISMS IMMORAL GN GARTH ENNIS ERF HC HELLBOY MIDNIGHT CIRCUS HC JIM FEATURING SIF TP VOL 02 SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION JUDGE DREDD YEAR ONE TP MMW SGT FURY TP VOL 01 MY LITTLE PONY TALES TP VOL 01 POWERPUFF GIRLS CLASSICS TP VOL 01 POWER PARTY SHADOWMAN TP VOL 02 DARQUE RECKONING SIZZLE #59 SPIDER-MAN TP LIFE IN MAD DOG WARD STAR TREK TNG DOCTOR WHO ASSIMILATION COMPLETE HC SUICIDE SQUAD TP VOL 03 DEATH IS FOR SUCKERS (N52) THOR EPIC COLLECTION TP WAR OF PANTHEONS TMNT ONGOING TP VOL 06 CITY FALL PT 1 UNCANNY AVENGERS PREM HC VOL 02 APOCALYPSE TWINS WASTELAND APOCALYPTIC ED HC VOL 03 X-MEN TP X-CORPS

As always, what do YOU think?

Tilting #227 is up!

You wanted my postmortem on Villains Month?  How about "The Bucket Theory"?  All of this, and (not) more is now up on CBR! You can comment here if you don't want to there.

-B

"This is Worser Than Washin' An Elephink!" COMICS! Sometimes It's Like I'm Shouting This At You While I Run Past!

Borag Thung, Earthlets! I have been quiet of late but I rested easy in the knowledge that the delightful Messrs Khosla, McMillan, Lester and Hibbs had been satisfying all your comicy needs to the highest of standards as ever. Not that I was resting you understand. So, practically writing this one as I move towards the door...Anyway, this... David Lapham from The Strain in DARK HORSE PRESENTS  #28

POPEYE:CLASSICS #14 Written and drawn by Bud Sagendorf IDW/Yoe Books, $3.99 (2013) Popeye created by E.C. Segar

Some issues of POPEYE: CLASSICS are available from the Savage Critics Store (which you have all quite patently forgotten about. Sniff!) HERE.

Month in month out the nautically attired freak faced grammar mangler continues to pleasantly baffle me with the weirdly logical escalation of the ludicrous incidents which comprise his preposterous adventures. Since Popeye, for all his charms, is in fact a fictional construct I’m going to place the credit for this consistently entertaining package at the door of Bud Sagendorf, a real life man (now deceased) who went done drew and writed it all. Fans of the magic old men do can marvel at Sagendorf’s use of long shot silhouettes to prevent a total nervous breakdown from having to repeatedly draw a train in what are quite small panels indeed. As a special bonus Sagendorf serves up some right nice visual gaggery, the best of which are the parts where sound FX have a physical effect on the drawn environment they inhabit. Basically they hit people on the chin is what I’m saying there.

Bud Sagendorf from POPEYE CLASSICS #14

In this issue the main tale involves Popeye buying a railroad, Olive Oyl’s demanding customer, an attempted hijack and a visual stereotype of a re..native American (altho’ in the world of Popeye this might actually be a vacationing accountant in racially insensitive fancy dress). Then there’s a story where Popeye buys the world’s cheapest and laziest race horse, another story where Popeye and Olive simultaneously seek to teach Sweetpea a lesson and demonstrate their poor parenting skills by scaring the shit out of the wee tyke in an abandoned mine, and a short with Wimpy being out foxed by a cow (“a lady of the meadow”), there’s a text story as well but I skipped that. Bud Sagendorf wasn’t writing for the &*^%ing omnibus is what I’m getting at here. Popeye is printed on weirdly bloated pages, haphazardly coloured and always, always a welcome arrival in my field of vision so I’m going to say it’s VERY GOOD!

THE SHADOW ANNUAL 2013 Art by Bilquis Evely Written by Andre Parks Coloured by Daniela Miwa The Shadow created by Walter B. Gibson Dynamite, $4.99 (2013)

Man, I’m not exactly Sammy Stable at the best of times (“No shit, John!”) but the temporal shenanigans in this thing almost gave me a panic attack. It’s five minutes ago! Now it’s three hours later! No, hang on, it’s five years earlier. No, it’s been seven hours and fifteen days. And nothing compares. Nothing compares. To yaaaooooooooowwwww. Clearly the comparison being begged here is that this comic is like Brief Encounter but starring two psychopaths and set in Vegas before Elvis conquered it.

Bilquis Evely from THE SHADOW ANNUAL 2013

Even more clearly it’s not like that at all but instead is very much like having to find your train in a busy station where all the clocks show the wrong time, people keep getting stabbed and shot and you’ve found yourself in the company of some boring jabberjaw who won’t shut up about his first love. Shadow, dude, move on. This is unseemly in a man of your standing. Fucking chin up, old son. As for the art, well, it’s okay, it’s alright, but there’s a tendency for noses to look like the owner has a heavy cold. That’s Sean Murphy’s influence (influenza!) in action there. So, a nice idea, not terribly well executed at a price point I want to hit with a stick makes this EH!

DARK HORSE PRESENTS #28 Art by David Lapham, Neal Adams, Richard Corben, Steve Lieber, Patrick Alexander, Ron Randall, Menton3, Michael T. Gilbert, Aaron Conley and Geoff Darrow Written/plotted by David Lapham, Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Corben, Neal Adams, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Ron Randall, Steve Niles, Michael T. Gilbert, Janet Gilbert and Damon Gentry Coloured by Lee Loughridge, Moose Baumann, Rachelle Rosenberg, Jeremy Colwell, Michael T. Gilbert, Sloane Leong Lettered by Clem Robbins, Nate Piekos of Blambot, Ken Bruzenak, Steve Lieber and Damon Gentry

Dark Horse Presents is an anthology so, you know, it’s a bit all over the shop. Mostly though it keeps its footing on the shiny tiles and rarely sends the display of stacked tins (Pork and beans! For the poor!) spinning madly about. First up, David Lapham reminds me how good he is at comics with his The Strain chapter. Even though I have no particular interest in this property and there's a bit of cultural shorthand verging on the cliched Lapham quietly did the business on every page to ensure that the final panel came as a punch to the guts and I actually wanted to read what happened next. Later in the ish Lapham resurfaces with the conclusion to his introductory Juice Squeezers tale which, with its teen focused Cronenbergyness, proves to be the kind of nuts that comics would benefit from more of and yet truculently resists embracing.

Michael T. Gilbert, Janet Gilbert and Ken Bruzenak from Mr. Monster Geoff Darrow’s spot illustrations continue to amaze with the visual conviction with which they deliver scenes at once grotesque, impossible and droll. In a similar fashion to the comics Darrow produces elsewhere, comics which chafe some SavCrits so (but, strangley, not this eminently chafeable one), Sabretooth Swordsman with its surprising Savage Pencil influences is an optically delirious but narratively slight piece.

Aaron Conley, Damon Gentry and Sloane Leong from Sabertooth Swordsman

Richard Corben chucks out another Poe adaptation which is notable primarily for the truly scintillating colour work executed therein. I am absolutely horrible at appreciating the colour in comics but even here, even I, had to stop and marvel at more than one point. Ken “The Chameleon” Bruzenak is here in several different stories and in each case serves up lettering apposite to the pieces in question; in the very traditional Trekker his work is attractive but modest while in Mr. Monster he provides an ostentatious display of madcap fonts.

Richard Corben and Nate Piekos from Edgar Allan Poe's The Assignation

As a whole Mr Monster, additionally armed as it is with Michael T Gilbert’s invigoratingly loose art, continues to cock a scruffy snook at seriousness; which I like. Mrs. Plopsworht's Kitchen by Patrick Alexander succeeds in making physical and emotional abuse funny which is an interesting type of victory. Oh, and there’s some other stuff here; Steve Niles producing his trademark pound shop horror; Alabaster continuing to not be anything I want while not actually being terrible and Blood by Neal Adams continuing to be Blood by Neal Adams. Overall though I had a good time so DHP was GOOD!

JUDGE DREDD CLASSICS#3 Art by Carlos Ezquerra Written by John Wagner & Alan Grant (as T.B. Grover) Coloured by Tom Mullin Lettered by Steve Potter Judge Dredd created by John Wagner & Carlos Ezquerra IDW, $3.99 (2013)

Look, before I start acting like a pissy arse let’s get this one thing straight: these are great comics. I know this because it isn’t the first time I’ve bought them and it certainly isn’t the last time I’ll read them. When I first read them they blew my school socks off (not a kink; I was at school). The Apocalypse War was where Carlos Ezquerra returned to the character he (co) created after an absence occasioned by unfortunate editorial decisions. Carlos Ezquerra was back and Carlos Ezquerra meant it. Carlos Ezquerra drew the cremola out of The Apocalypse War even as The Apocalypse War blew the world of Dredd to grud and back. Because The Apocalypse War was where Wagner & Grant (AKA T.B. Grover) took all the pages of world building that had gone before them and applied a match. After The Apocalypse War the world of Dredd would never be the same again. Really. In The Apocalypse War Dredd made a decision no man should ever have to make, a decision only a man who was not a man could make, and the following decades of the strip have shown the consequences and ramifications of that decision fashion Judge Joseph Dredd into a man at last. With The Apocalypse War Wagner & Grant’s breathlessly hi-octane narrative pace in tandem with Ezquerra’s consistently brutal style created an epic that looked like the end of everything but was instead the birth of the strip’s future. These are great comics.

Ezauerra, Wagner, Grant, Potter and Mullin from The Apocalypse War

Alas, when I talk about greatness I’m talking purely about the pages of comics in here. The actual physical pamphlet comic is a bit lacking. You know, these are great comics. Do I repeat myself? I repeat myself. Great comics, so how’s about a bit of care and attention; a bit of respect. That’ll have to remain purely theoretical because, oh, he’s off now…The cover’s a bit lacking for starters; look, I’m all about negative space and clear, crisp design but that looks a bit, well, I don’t think it achieved its aim. Imagine if they’d rejigged an original 2000AD cover featuring The Apocalypse War. Trust me when I say the new cover would be a poor second. Then, oh dear, the inside front cover seems to think this story is called Block Mania but it isn’t; Block Mania finished last issue. This story in this issue, (which is all reprints and cost $3.99) is called The Apocalypse War which is why I’ve called it that through all the preceding verbiage. Then between each chapter there’s a perfunctory full page graphic. Grud on a Greenie! I realise the space has to be filled due to the page counts of each episode but could you not have had a bit of fun, IDW? Got a bit creative? Maybe stuck the original covers on there instead, or blown up a portion of a panel pop art style like on those DC Kirby/Ditko/etc Omnibooks? You’ll notice, IDW, that I’m not even daring to suggest you commission some, choke, original content. I mean I realise reprinting decades old comics and charging $3.99 a pop might not allow for such largesse. Sarcasm there.

Ezauerra, Wagner, Grant, Potter and Mullin from The Apocalypse War

Then there’s that weird waste of space at the bottom of the page. Again, I appreciate you don’t want to mess with the size ratios but, drokk it all, that’s some token stuff there, IDW. And there's a page out of sequence. A page out of sequence in a comic of reprints selling for $3.99! However, I am okay with the colouring. Obviously, I’d rather they hadn’t bothered because the art was drawn for B&W (except for the opening spreads) but I understand Americans are fond of their colours. There they are America: enjoy your Colonial colours! Moan, moan, moan except this is all basic stuff. I'm hardly asking for Cher to sing live in my living room here just some vague pass at professionalism, if you please.

Ezauerra, Wagner, Grant, Potter and Mullin from The Apocalypse War

So, a confounding miscalculation on the part of IDW here; this material is readily available in a number of other formats and has been for decades so making a new iteration stand out from the crowd would, I’d think, be imperative. Making your books expensive and ill-designed is certainly a novel approach. Luckily, these are great comics so even though the crime is Fail the sentence is GOOD!

Anyway, I'm off now. With any luck I'll bump into some COMICS!!!!

Wait, What? Ep. 136: Finally, Finally, Finally.

Anyone remember in what book Tolkien references the Battle of the Open-Faced Sandwich?  Infographic/opening salvo by the invincible Kate McMillan.

Oh, man. I hope that infographic does not hog up too much of our precious SavCrit real estate--please don't miss Abhay writing about Lazarus or that piece about how DC ran its print runs for Villains Month, or other fine entries!

Also, do join us after the jump for shownotes for our latest "Reunited-and-it-feels-so-good-except-Graeme-and-I-exchange-words-about-Game-of-Thrones-so-how-good-can-we-feel-really?" podcast!

0:00-22:17: Hey, we are back and we are discussing some of the groovy NYCC announcements that the savvy Mr. McMillan knew at the time of recording.  Among the various bombshells dropped:  Priest and Bright back on Quantum & Woody; DC's announcement of the Batman weekly, Batman Eternal;  and a huge block of time wherein Graeme tells us about the Marvel announcements, including Trial of The Jean Grey; the Black Widow's new title; Al Ewing on a new Loki title; Ales Kot taking over on Secret Avengers; Avengers Undercover; All-New Ghost Rider #1 (which sounds pretty ridiculous but as I've since found out Felipe Smith of Peepo Choo fame is writing it, I'd be into it, and ditto on the Disney title written by Witch Doctor's Brandon Seifert); and much, much more. 22:17-55:14:  But there were also some pretty great comics that came out in our semi-skip weeks too and we sit down to talk about those too:  a very brief discussion of Paul Pope's Battling Boy (Graeme had read it; Jeff hadn't); Saga #14 (see?  It's been a while, hasn't it?) which leads into a talk about…TV(?) including the season debuts of Parks & Recreation, Nashville, New Girl, and others; The Star Wars #2 (with some impressive kvetching from Graeme) and which features this:

(sorry about the dumb reflective lighting in the pic, we have pretty awful lighting in our place)

Empowered: Nine Beers with Ninjette; Fatale #17; IDW's Powerpuff Girls #1 by Troy Little; Rocket Girl #1 by Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare; and Batman #24 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. 55:14-1:07:50: Additionally, Graeme has read Superman Wonder Woman #1; Green Lantern Corps #24, Forever Evil: Arkham War #1; and the first issue of Coffin Hill by Caitlin Kittredge and Inaki Miranda, and goes on to discuss them, thank goodness, otherwise I would've really wasted some time typing those names out. 1:07:50-1:13:01: Graeme has also read Kings Watch #2 by Jeff Parker and Mark Laming, and a copy of First Second's Fairy Tales Comics in which Chris Duffy has assembled a powerhouse of comic talent--it is worth looking out for. By contrast, Jeff scratches his weary head over Walking Dead #115. 1:13:01-1:17:33:  And yet, we were both surprised and delighted by Afterlife with Archie by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francavilla (The interview with Aguirre-Sacasa that Jeff calls out is available here.  The image Jeff chooses to babble about briefly that you can't see because we are an audio podcast is this one:

1:17:33-1:21:16: Compare and contrast with Shaolin Cowboy #1 by Geoff Darrow from Dark Horse Comics?  How can one? And yet, Jeff does. 1:21:16-1:39:56: Lazarus #4.  Lazarus has received a pretty good drubbing on this site, but Jeff continues to read it.  If you want to hear a new, far-more-inarticulate set of frustrations with the title, these are the few minutes for you! 1:39:56-1:45:16: Our most controversial topic yet--the open-faced sandwich!  (See above.)  Little did Jeff know when he recorded his solocast that he was inviting tremendous dissent from many…most especially the formidable Kate McMillan. (Again, see above.) 1:45:16-1:59:44: And, finally: we talk about the long-gestating secret project that's been keeping Jeff busy seemingly forever -- the electronic imprint Airport Books and its first title, the reprint of E.J. Ehlers' never-before-printed Erotic Vampire Bank Heist.  Although we aren't the type to shill heavily (for ourselves, anyway), Graeme is kind enough to help Jeff do so here, and we do hope that if this is the sort of thing you're interested in, you consider picking up a copy for your Kindle or Kindle reading app. 1:59:44-end: Closing comments! A bit of excited blurbing about the Zombo trade leads to the promise/threat of a Zombo book club for next week!  Here's the cover so you know what to look for:

(See, I told you we don't shill for ourselves....)

And but so!

The podcast is on iTunes (probably, maybe, probably) but it is also here for your audible delectation:

Wait, What? Ep. 136: Finally, Finally, Finally.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go celebrate the launching of my imprint in fine style and go get my teeth cleaned and drilled. (On the plus side, the nitrous will probably give me hallucinations of chatting with Amanda Urban over some choice canapes, so maybe that's the perfect launch party.)

Thank you for your kindly attention, and we'll be back with ep. 137 next week!

Arriving 10/16/13

Love & Rockets and, after a prolonged hiatus, Hawkeye return this week. Those are some big things that should keep you happy for a week, but if not there are plenty more comics to note this week immediately after the cut! Click it!

100 BULLETS BROTHER LONO #5 (OF 8) 100 PENNY PRESS THUNDER AGENTS CLASSIC A PLUS X #13 ADVENTURE TIME #21 AME COMI GIRLS #8 ANIMAL MAN #24 AVENGERS #21 CASTELLANI LEGO VAR AVENGERS #21 INF AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #20 INF BALTIMORE INFERNAL TRAIN #2 (OF 3) BATMAN 66 #4 BATMAN AND TWO FACE #24 BATMAN BEYOND UNIVERSE #3 BATMAN SUPERMAN #4 BATWOMAN #24 BATWOMAN #24 VAR ED BIRDS OF PREY #24 BLOODHOUND CROWBAR MEDICINE #1 (OF 5) BLOODSHOT & HARD CORPS #15 BPRD HELL ON EARTH #112 BRAIN BOY #2 BUZZKILL #2 (OF 4) CABLE AND X-FORCE #15 CONAN THE BARBARIAN #21 CROSSED BADLANDS #39 DARK SHADOWS #21 EXTINCTION PARADE #3 FABLES #134 FANTASTIC FOUR #13 FOREVER EVIL #1 (OF 7) DIRECTORS CUT FOREVER EVIL ROGUES REBELLION #1 (OF 6) GREEN LANTERN NEW GUARDIANS #24 GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #7 HAWKEYE #13 HUNGER #4 (OF 4) IMAGINE AGENTS #1 (OF 4) INDESTRUCTIBLE HULK SPECIAL #1 INVINCIBLE #106 JENNIFER BLOOD #32 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #8 (EVIL) JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICAS VIBE #8 KINGS WATCH #2 (OF 5) LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #13 LETTER 44 #1 LIBERATOR #4 (OF 4) MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #19 SYU MERCY SPARX #2 MORNING GLORIES #33 MYSTERIOUS STRANGERS #5 NEW AVENGERS #11 INF NOWHERE MEN #6 RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #24 REGULAR SHOW #4 MAIN CVRS SERGIO ARAGONES FUNNIES #10 SHADOW #18 SHADOW GREEN HORNET DARK NIGHTS #4 (OF 5) SHADOW NOW #1 (OF 6) SHELTERED #4 SHOOT FIRST #1 (OF 4) SIMPSONS COMICS #206 SIX GUN GORILLA #5 (OF 6) SIXTH GUN #35 STAR TREK KHAN #1 (OF 5) STRAIN THE FALL #4 SUPERGIRL #24 SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #19 THIEF OF THIEVES #17 TOMORROWLAND #4 (OF 4) TRINITY OF SIN PANDORA #4 UNCANNY X-MEN #13 BOA WHISPERS #6 WOLVERINE MAX #12 WONDER WOMAN #24 X-FILES SEASON 10 #5 X-MEN LEGACY #18 X-O MANOWAR #18 ZERO #2

Books/Mags/Things 2000 AD PACK SEP 2013 ADVENTURE TIME FIONNA & CAKE TP ART OF CHARLIE ADLARD HC AVENGERS PREM HC VOL 03 PRELUDE TO INFINITY BLACK BEETLE NO WAY OUT HC VOL 01 CINEFEX #135 COMPLETE CRUMB COMICS TP VOL 17 CAVE WIMP COURTNEY CRUMRIN SPEC ED HC VOL 04 FRAN HC GREEN LANTERN TP VOL 02 REVENGE OF BLACK HAND (N52) JOKER DEATH OF THE FAMILY HC (N52) JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #340 LOVE AND ROCKETS NEW STORIES TP VOL 06 MARVEL ZOMBIES TP COMPLETE COLLECTION VOL 01 SANDMAN ENDLESS NIGHTS TP NEW EDITION SKETCHING GUANTANAMO HC COURT SKETCHES 2006 - 2013 SUPERCROOKS TP SUPERMAN DARK KNIGHT OVER METROPOLIS TP TIBONOM GN TMNT WORKS HC VOL 02 VINTAGE MARVEL COMICS 2014 12 MONTH WALL CALENDAR WALT DISNEY DONALD DUCK HC VOL 04 XMAS BEAR MOUNTAIN X-FILES CLASSICS HC VOL 02

As always, what do YOU think?

Abhay: LAZARUS-- The Worst, Just The Worst

LAZARUS, a comic by Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, Santi Arcas, and Eric Trautmann, published in 2013 by Image Comics:

I.

As Mr. John Kane has already discussed more efficiently and with more of a sense of humor, LAZARUS is a talking head comic told in the faux-cinema vernacular of modern comics, which is to say it fails to offer any inspiration as a comic itself.   Michael Lark's art is yolked to rendering nothing more than a televisually-limited depiction of Rucka's script.

Though Lark's style can be pleasant within the proper genre (e.g. Lark arguably "fit" with the detective comic Scene of the Crime), here, he's drawing a science fiction comic, a genre where, at least in comics, an artist's visual imagination tends to be a deciding factor.  Lark's studious if not photo-referenced style doesn't offer any pleasure on its own terms, not to the degree an attentive reader can find from other science fiction comics (see, e.g. the late Paul Gillon's Les Naufrages du Temps, to pick a random example), especially in the brief action scenes which are disjointed,  and, in disregarding the 180-degree rule from panel to panel, don't flow much at all.  While the 180-degree rule's applicability to comics is admittedly extremely questionable, even for action scenes, LAZARUS disregards it in the context of a comic that otherwise is attempting to recreate the visual experience of watching a 10 pm NBC television drama.

Consider this action sequence from page 7 of the first issue, which given the lackadasical nature of "modern" comics pacing means that we're still in the opening scene, the "hook":

And so the reader begins viewing this sequence from in front of the girl, with a man holding a sword to the reader's left.  Then, the reader is pulled behind her with the man now holding a sword to the reader's right; then, the reader is again jolted in the other direction and the man is again holding the sword on the reader's left.  Any attempt to define the geography of the action terrain in the first panel is undone by the latter two panels.  No flow.

(This is not an isolated instance of this in the opening action sequence: the camera has an even worse shift in orientation on the page before, and a similar shift on the subsequent page.)

Again, one might find similar "problems" in a good action comic; after all, comics are comics, arguably a very lawless medium, and the 180-degree rule is a movie rule, not a comic rule.  But with its "widescreen" panels, unexaggerated "un-cartoony" plain-jane figure drawings, and "grass is green, sky is blue" color palette, the comic tries relentlessly otherwise to suggest the visual storytelling of movies (or perhaps mid-budget television, in the goodly Mr. Kane's estimation).  Therefore, unlike other comics where that might not be the case, the violation of the movie rules here sub-communicates within the first 8 pages of the comic (exclamation mark) that we are not only watching a movie but a bad movie, photographed by an inattentive cinematographer.

Of course, the rest of the comic is talking, dialogue scenes, more "Widescreen" panels of course, panels of small heads making that narrow range of expressions that's possible with the faux-reality style Lark has selected, adjacent to word balloons and caption boxes and, of course, nothing more.  Make no mistake that this is all rendered very pleasantly-- Michael Lark is a skilled and experienced artist, and consequently, every panel shows an attentiveness to detail and effort and especially an attention to the texture of objects, the texture of locations, the subtle differences between tile and mud, etc.  Within the parameters of the choices he's made, Lark perhaps excels, at least.

II.

The moment where LAZARUS most crosses over from dreary to yuck is in issue 2.  Consider this chunk of uninterrupted dialogue from the middle of that issue, set Family Ties-style in a kitchen:

Jonah:  "How LONG is she going to be there with him?

Another character:  "Jealous?"

Jonah:  "This is FAMILY business.  She shouldn't even BE there!  She's not even his REAL daughter, she's just--

Beth:  "You shut your FUCKING MOUTH, Jonah.  You don't SAY it, you don't even THINK it, ANYwhere she could POSSIBLY hear.  Do you know what happens if she learns what she REALLY is?  The QUESTIONS she'll start to ASK?"

Jonah:  "So she LEARNS the truth and she goes BUGFUCK CRAZY, big deal.  We put her DOWN... And then you and James play hide-the-pipette for a while and make us ANOTHER one."

Beth: "I'll fucking KILL you-- You miserable little ABORTION, you MALIGNANT piece of SHIT--"

Jonah:  "aah!  AHHH!!!  Crazy BITCH let GO--"

Beth:  "-- I will flay you open, I will--"

Jonah:  "Let me UP let--"

Beth:  "-- DRAIN every worthless DROP of your BLOOD--"

These are the characters whom the reader is paying to spend time with.

Besides the fascistic amount of bold-facing (and the weird comedy created by its ill-advised attempt at Altman-ish overlapping dialogue, at least when Beth says "I will flay you open, I will" like a crazed Dick-Van-Dyke in-Mary-Poppins), what's striking about the scene is its relentless inauthenticity.  A character driven to rage using a three-syllable word like "Malignant" while waving a knife around?  Of course, lengthy Shakespearean monologues during fight scenes have been a mainstay of comics since time immemorial; three-syllable words never hurt Stan Lee's career as a "writer with an asterix next to the word writer" any. No what rankles is that in its "ooooh, edgy" invocations of abortions, its relentlessly over-the-top references to malignancies and Bobby "flaying", how this dialogue seems to spring not from any observation of people but from an observation of internet flamewars.  This is internet flamewar dialogue, thrust into people's mouths.

The internet creates this illusion now that any user can be a voyeur; Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window could've spent all that time on the Something Awful forums, end of movie.  And with "geek culture ascendant," more and more, perhaps people believe this alternate MMORPG reality their twitter accounts and tumblr dashboards feed them resembles reality, rather than the funhouse mirror it actually is.  A reality where it's acceptable to ever use the word "amazeballs", or certain bad, tedious special-effects films are somehow "original" and deserve championing over other equally bad equally tedious special-effects films, or every viewpoint that differs from our own must, must, must be a result of "privilege".

But in LAZARUS, the reader can see the consequences of that at least to our art, a comic filled with carefully drawn, walking-talking Youtube comments.

III.

What annoys with LAZARUS isn't merely the moment-to-moment writing of it; other comics suffer in that respect far, far worse, after all.  Again, Rucka is an experienced professional so while LAZARUS is moment-to-moment dull, so dull, it rarely is as moment-to-moment dumb as many other comics now on sale.

(One might quibble how much that is the result of the very, very low numbers of chances Rucka took with the material, i.e. people who make the good old "we're fine looking dumb because we tried something special here, man" argument might be irked to any undue praise to the relatively generic pleasures of LAZARUS.  Not sure really who "wins" in that argument-- probably not readers.)

But LAZARUS pretends to more than its mere story, as it pretends to offer the reader a "critique" of late-stage capitalism.  The concept of LAZARUS is as follows:  the super-rich (or "the 1%", if you must) have become feudal "families" who have divided a near-future world into geographical swaths; those who work for them are considered "serfs" while the remaining population of the super-poor are considered "waste."  The comic, however, does not focus on the serfs nor the waste, but on Forever Carlyle, a highly-specialized, technologically-enhanced, high-ranking member of a particular Family (owners of the Monsanto empire who now control Los Angeles and its surroundings, apparently).  Every super-rich Family includes someone like Carlyle apparently, a "Lazarus" who handles the Family's violent business for them and has to face-off against the ... Lazari (?) of other family.

The comic hints that the story of LAZARUS will be the "strong female character" of Forever questioning her sociopolitical surroundings and ultimately opposing the income inequality posed by the Family's very existence.

And so, once again, a slight variation on the Batman Fantasy.  In the Batman, the reader is presented a fantasy that in a broken-down society, a rich person will lead a war to repair that society, which war will involve the rich person waging a brutal war of violence upon the filthy lower-class.  At no time is it questioned that the rich person is inherently and unavoidably the beneficiary of the broken-down society, or that the under-class on whom he wages violence are reacting to the very inequalities that created him.

While the variation that LAZARUS presents is a main character who wages war on the "filthy upper-class" instead, the underlying deficiency to this fantasy is the same:  the fantasy posits that the only true "Solution" to late-capitalism must unquestionably come from the victors of that same capitalism.  And so, the reader is comforted that they are nothing more than a victim of late-capitalism, with no agency in their own impoverishment and no agency to end that impoverishment.  Most importantly, the reader is given no tools to question the structure of late-capitalism or hint that any such tools even exist, other than to hope, hope, hope for a Redeemer to arise, to save them.  In making the Redeemer a member of the upper-class, it is thus inherently sub-communicated to the reader that the current social order is in some way correct, and that the class structure they are imprisoned in is as a result of the heroics of these "rugged entrepreneurs" who bestride the world of late-capitalism, who are contained within the upper class.  What is left for the lower classes but to marvel upon the spectacle of these figures whether they are robber barons, the fairy tale "benevolent multi-conglomerate" Wayne Industries, or now Forever Carlyle?  What is the reader truly told but to stay asleep?

In previous feudal systems, the Redeemer superhero in question was at least Christ, who say what you will about beard-rock, offered a more comprehensive lesson-plan for the lower classes than the lone-wolf warriors advanced by late-capitalism, whether that be "criminals are cowardly" with Batman or whatever thin "eat the rich" sentiment LAZARUS ultimately evolves.

The business of comforting the reader is not the business of critique, and thus LAZARUS fails at its very core in that mission.

IV.

What makes the LAZARUS critique especially obnoxious is the possible autobiographical aspect of it. Namely, to the extent that LAZARUS is the 'dutiful servant' who learns that her masters do not have her best interests at heart, to what extent is that an attempt by Greg Rucka to rewrite his own history in comics, to reposition himself as the victim of that history, and to posit the existence of LAZARUS itself self-flatteringly as a redemptive act?

Consider the year 2005.  According to Wikipedia, Dan Didio had been named Vice President -Executive Editor, DC Universe in 2004, and so in 2005 we see him before the series of events that would make him the Co-Publisher of that company.  And 2005 also marked the great legacy of Greg Rucka to mainstream comics, in the publication of Countdown to Infinite Crisis, a comic which he co-wrote and far and away, the most important comic he ever wrote to the history of mainstream comics.  As its title portends, Countdown commenced a wave of DC crossovers, with those crossovers then culminating in the Infinite Crisis mega-crossover, soon to be followed by a host of other crossovers, including Final Crisis, Flashpoint, Blackest Night and so forth.  This in turn triggered Marvel Comics to shift away from their previous strategies to a similar strategy of crossovers, endless crossovers, with Marvel presently publishing about two-to-three mega-crossovers right this second, eight years later.

Critically, this is not the first time this happened in comics; this all happened before in the 1990's.  Every single thing about it had happened before.  And so, unless they are canaries or simple creatures of limited memory unable to remember 5 years earlier, it should have been well known to comics professionals that a crossover-driven environment is inherently one in which editors become supreme, editors become bullies, and the creative personnel suffer accordingly. The current situation in comics, which now sees freelancers write coded "I heard from a birdie that someone somewhere is getting bullied maybe" hints out of fear, and sees even that little lauded as "courage," can all be tracked to that ascendancy of Dan Didio, an ascendancy to which Rucka is inextricably intertwined at its roots.  Rucka contributed to Countdown, 52, a myriad of Final Crisis tie-ins, whatever was asked of him...

... Until he woke up to "discover" that despite being a "good soldier," Didio somehow did not respect his contributions to the horrible edifice to which he had willingly contributed, that in late capitalism, there is no "loyalty" to the employee and any such concepts are just advertising for commodities.  Oh, the shock of it all...

And so, LAZARUS, the comic where it turns out that the good soldier was just being lied to all along, you guys, was a decent person who was mislead, wasn't wasn't wasn't an oblivious clown who got clowned and deserved to get clowned for their sins, and certainly didn't have their head in their sand as to the mistreatment of others or their own responsibility for the state of things because they were at all times guided by their own sense of honor and code.

How fucking convenient...

Thus, both within and without, LAZARUS suggests over and over again that the only way to receive late-capitalism is with a victim mentality.  Greg Rucka's attempts to rewrite his own history accordingly simply lack credibility.

This might be tolerable if LAZARUS had the decency of being entertaining.  Whether this comic is entertaining will differ reader by reader, but for those who think the job of being entertaining eludes Rucka and Lark, LAZARUS offers a uniquely obnoxious comic experience.

V.

Never Not enough hentai.

Massive Sidewalk Sale, Sunday 10/13

If you're in town for APE, I think it would be worth swinging by for this  

How DC printed Villains month

The Sep sales charts are out, and we can make some very interesting observations: (Under the jump, though)

Normally, we have no idea how many comics are printed. Like none at all.  That's because all that the Diamond sales charts report is what is ordered by retailers, but that could be every copy printed, or it could be 1/10th of what is printed. No way to know.

BUT, for Villain's Month, DC sold out 100% of the 3-d covers, and, in fact, ALLOCATED each and every one, so there were NO reorders.  Therefore, it is logical to say that the number that appears on the chart is the number printed (with the sole caveat that this doesn't include Diamond UK)

So, how much faith did DC have in their own promotion?

Well, the previous "normal" issue of BATMAN (#23), ICv2 reports 128,230 copies ordered for the four "Batman" issues of VM?  ICv2 reports:

Joker: 107,680

Riddler: 107,413

Bane: 95,298

Penguin: 89,850

So, therefore, DC expected to sell no more than 85% of Batman on JOKER, and 70% on Penguin.... despite giving it the same series code (the mechanism that triggers Point-Of-Sale system to pull subscription preorders) -- and that's WITH the 3d covers!

JUSTICE LEAGUE #23: 104k (I'm going to round from here on, look to those links in previous paragraph for "real" numbers)

Darkseid: 78k

Secret Society: 44k

Lobo: 36k

Dial E: 26k

Those last two are insane, as the 2D VERSION HAS HIGHER ORDERS FILLED -- 39k on Lobo, and 34k on Dial E. DIAL H #15 (the August issue) was 11k.

BATMAN SUPERMAN #3 87k

Doomsday: 68k

ACTION COMICS #23:  43k

Cyborg Superman: 50k

Zod: 50k

Lex Luthor: 50k

Metallo: 43k

Note that those are in chart order -- while it is by within hundreds of copies, Diamond is reporting more sales of Cyborg Superman than Lex frickin Luthor. Bizarre!

BATMAN AND (Nightwing) #23: 56k

Two Face: 50k

Ras al Ghul: 50k

Court of Owls: 50k

Killer Croc: 48k

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7: 94k

Black Adam: 50k

Deadshot: 32k (Suicide Squad #23 was 22k)

Killer Frost: 32k

Shadow Thief: 32k

DETECTIVE #23: 62k

Poison Ivy: 50k

Harley Quinn: 49k

Scarecrow: 49k

Man-Bat: 47k

GREEN LANTERN #23: 59k

Sinestro: 49k

Relic: 37k

Mongul: 36k

Black Hand: 36k

SUPERMAN #23: 42k

Parasite: 44k

Brainiac: 37k

Bizarro: 36k

HEL: 36k

AQUAMAN #23: 44k

Black Manta: 37k

Ocean Master: 36k

EARTH 2 #15: 41k

Desaad: 32k

Solomon Grundy: 32k

FLASH #23: 39k

Grodd: 32k

Rogues: 31k

Reverse Flash: 31k

BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #23:  46k

Ventriloquist: 32k

Mr. Freeze: 31k

Clayface: 31k

Joker's Daughter: 30k

TEEN TITANS #23:  32k

Trigon: 32k

Deathstroke: 31k

WONDER WOMAN #23: 35k

Cheetah: 32k

First Born: 27k

GREEN ARROW #23: 25k

Count Vertigo: 27k

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #23: 64k  ("Trinty" crossover, #21 was just 25k)

Creeper: 27k

Eclipso: 27k

SWAMP THING #23: 23k

Arcane: 26k

So, do you see? WHY were these books being pounced on by the speculators?  Because, in most cases, DC PRINTED FEWER COPIES than the baseline orders that THEY established. And, where they DID go up (mostly at the bottom of the chart), it was generally within just 10%.

Some of these are truly crazy -- WW FIRST BORN, for example, may as well be a normal, regular issue of WW, from a plot POV, and it's about 20% UNDER the parent book.  Same with REVERSE FLASH.  And RELIC and HEL might as well be the first chapters of family-wide crossovers... and they're printed well below the parents.

So that's why these books disappeared so fast -- DC absolutely printed far too few of them; even if they were normal covers!

-B

Arriving 10/09/13

This week is slightly larger than last week but it is choking on all of the great comics landing on Wednesday! It is even hard to just choose favorites to point out in here, but I am going to try! Multiple Warheads: Downfall finally makes it's appearance, Three from Keiron Gillen and Ryan Kelly as well as the other big new Image book from Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclare, Rocket Girl. Not one but two Walking Dead comics and another Vertigo launch with Coffin Hill. Plus the long awaited finale of Elfquest and easily the biggest of all of those is the new Shaolin Cowboy from the singular Geof Darrow! Plus so much more comic bookery past the cut!

A1 #5 ABE SAPIEN #6 ADVENTURE TIME CANDY CAPERS #4 (OF 6) AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE #1 AMERICAS GOT POWERS #7 (OF 7) ARCHER & ARMSTRONG #14 ASTONISHING X-MEN #68 ASTRO CITY #5 AVENGERS AI #4 AVENGERS ARENA #16 BATGIRL #24 BATMAN #24 BATMAN LIL GOTHAM #7 BUCK ROGERS IN 25TH CENTURY #2 (OF 4) CAPTAIN AMERICA #12 CHEW #37 COFFIN HILL #1 CONSTANTINE #7 CREEPY COMICS #14 CROSSED BADLANDS #38 DAMSELS #10 DEADPOOL #18 DEATH SENTENCE #1 (OF 6) DEXTER #4 (OF 5) ELFQUEST SPECIAL FINAL QUEST ONE SHOT ETERNAL WARRIOR #2 FBP FEDERAL BUREAU OF PHYSICS #4 FEARLESS DEFENDERS #10 INF FOREVER EVIL ARKHAM WAR #1 (OF 6) GEORGE RR MARTIN SKIN TRADE #3 GHOSTBUSTERS #8 GHOSTED #4 GREEN LANTERN CORPS #24 HEROBEAR & THE KID INHERITANCE #3 (OF 5) INFINITY #4 (OF 6) JOHN CARPENTERS ASYLUM #3 JUDGE DREDD #11 KATANA #8 KEVIN KELLER #11 LORDS OF MARS #3 (OF 6) MAGIC THE GATHERING THEROS #1 MANHATTAN PROJECTS #15 MARS ATTACKS JUDGE DREDD #2 (OF 4) MARVEL UNIVERSE HULK AGENTS OF SMASH #1 (OF 4) MEMORY COLLECTORS #1 (OF 3) MINIATURE JESUS #5 (OF 5) MULTIPLE WARHEADS DOWN FALL ONE SHOT NIGHTWING #24 PATHFINDER #9 PETER PANZERFAUST #15 RACHEL RISING #20 RED SONJA #4 RESIDENT ALIEN SUICIDE BLONDE #2 (OF 3) ROCKET GIRL #1 SHAOLIN COWBOY #1 SIDEKICK #3 SMALLVILLE SEASON 11 #18 SONS OF ANARCHY #2 (OF 6) SPONGEBOB COMICS #25 STAR WARS #10 STORMWATCH #24 SUICIDE SQUAD #24 (EVIL) SUPERBOY #24 SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN TEAM UP #4 INF SUPERMAN WONDER WOMAN #1 THINK TANK #10 THOR GOD OF THUNDER #14 THREE #1 TRIPLE HELIX #1 (OF 4) ULTIMATE COMICS X-MEN #32 UNCANNY X-FORCE #12 WALKING DEAD #115 WALKING DEAD TYREESE SPECIAL WARLORD OF MARS #28 WOLVERINE #10 WORLDS FINEST #16 X-MEN #6

Books/Mags/Things AVENGERS TP KREE SKRULL WAR ALL NEW ED BATMAN TP VOL 02 THE CITY OF OWLS (N52) BTVS SEASON 9 TP VOL 04 WELCOME TO TEAM CHRONICLES OF KING CONAN TP VOL 06 DEATH IN STYGIA COLDER TP COLONIZED TP COMPLETE PEANUTS HC VOL 20 1989-1990 DANGER GIRL TRINITY TP DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER TP MAN IN BLACK FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND #270 GOD HATES ASTRONAUTS TP VOL 01 HI FRUCTOSE MAGAZINE QUARTERLY #29 I VAMPIRE TP VOL 03 WAVE OF MUTILATION (N52) INTENSELY DUMB MAD TP KILL SHAKESPEARE TP VOL 03 TIDE OF BLOOD KODT BUNDLE OF TROUBLE TP VOL 41 LAZARUS TP VOL 01 LUCIFER TP VOL 02 MIND MGMT HC VOL 02 FUTURIST MY LITTLE PONY TP VOL 01 THE MAGIC BEGINS RAY AND JOE HC MAN AND HIS DEAD FRIEND STAR WARS EWOKS SHADOWS ENDOR GN THANOS RISING TP THOR GOD OF THUNDER PREM HC VOL 02 GODBOMB TREASURY OF MINI COMICS HC TRIGUN OMNIBUS TP X-MEN STORM BY WARREN ELLIS AND TERRY DODSON TP

Wait, What? Ep. 135.75: Mistake, Misspake

If nothing else, all of this has put me on the fast track to buying Swimming to Cambodia on DVD.

Hey, everybody: we were supposed to podcast, Graeme and I, after I returned from New York but since things didn't quite come together <<shoots withering look at my Internet connection>>, it didn't quite come together.  So I thought I'd give it a go at trying the solocast thing that Graeme did so well and so charmingly.

Anyway, it's longer, it's rougher, and it raises more questions than it answers (questions like: why did I think I liked this guy? and: who do we have to pay to make sure this never happens again?).  But hopefully it'll tide you over until Graeme and I can again form the strange Voltronesque entity that is this podcast.

It's on iTunes!  It's right here below!  It mentions Kirby & Copra & Momofuku Noodle Bar & Brad Pitt & Sex Criminals & sandwiches & albinos!  I apologize for it here and now, but hope it helps kill some time and/or brings amusement and/or can be used to torment the unsuspecting.

We thank you for your patience and patronage.  And by 'we,' I mean, 'I thank you for your patience and patronage.'  Dear God, do I thank you.

Wait, What? Ep. 135.75: Mistake, Misspake

Arriving 10/2/13

First Wednesday of the month blues as everything returns to normal this week. Vertigo shares some new books with Hinterkind and the new anthology one-shot Witching Hour, plus Warren Ellis shares Avengers: Endless Wartime with us. Those and more on the other side of the cut, for interested parties.

ABSOLUTION RUBICON #4 (MR) ACTION COMICS #24 ALL NEW X-MEN #17 ALL NEW X-MEN SPECIAL #1 ARCHIE #648 ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #244 BATMAN BLACK & WHITE #2 (OF 6) BATWING #24 BEDLAM #9 BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #216 CAPTAIN AMERICA LIVING LEGEND #1 (OF 4) CATALYST COMIX #4 (OF 9) (MR) CBLDF LIBERTY ANNUAL 2013 CVR A MARQUEZ CODENAME ACTION #2 (OF 6) CROSSED BADLANDS #37 DAREDEVIL DARK NIGHTS #5 (OF 8) DETECTIVE COMICS #24 DOCTOR WHO PRISONERS OF TIME #9 (OF 12) EARTH 2 #16 ELEPHANTMEN #51 FAIREST #20 (MR) FANTOMEX MAX #1 (OF 4) FOREVER EVIL #2 (OF 7) GARFIELD #18 GOD IS DEAD #2 (OF 6) GREEN ARROW #24 GREEN LANTERN #24 GRINDHOUSE DOORS OPEN AT MIDNIGHT #1 (OF 8) HINTERKIND #1 HIT #2 (OF 4) HUNGER #3 (OF 4) INFINITY HUNT #2 (OF 4) IRON MAN #16 JUDGE DREDD CLASSICS #4 LADY RAWHIDE #2 (OF 5) LAZARUS #4 (MR) LOONEY TUNES #215 MARA #6 (OF 6) MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #1 (OF 5) MARVEL UNIVERSE AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #1 MIGHTY AVENGERS #2 INF MIND THE GAP #15 MORNING GLORIES #32 MOVEMENT #5 OCCULTIST #1 (OF 5) QUANTUM & WOODY #4 REALITY CHECK #2 ROBOCOP LAST STAND #3 (OF 8) SAVAGE WOLVERINE #9 SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU #38 SHADOW NOW #1 (OF 6) SHADOWMAN #11 REG SOLID STATE TANK GIRL #4 (OF 4) SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #253 SPAWN #236 STAR WARS #2 (OF 8) LUCAS DRAFT SUICIDE RISK #6 SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN NOW #4 SWAMP THING #24 THUNDERBOLTS #16 INF TODD THE UGLIEST KID ON EARTH #6 TRILLIUM #3 (OF 8) TRINITY OF SIN THE PHANTOM STRANGER #12 UBER #6 WITCHING HOUR #1 (MR)

Books/Mags/Things AGE OF BRONZE HC VOL 03.B BETRAYAL PT 2 AVENGERS ENDLESS WARTIME OGN HC BATMAN COURT OF OWLS BOOK & MASK SET (N52) BATMAN ODYSSEY TP BATTLE ANGEL ALITA LAST ORDER TP VOL 18 BEN 10 OMNIVERSE GN VOL 01 GHOST SHIP CARBON GREY TP VOL 02 DAUGHTERS OF STONE CINEFEX #135 CTHULHU GN VOL 02 DARK TOWER GUNSLINGER TP LAST SHOTS DOCTOR WHO SERIES 01 HC WINTERS DAWN SEASONS END EARTH 2 TP VOL 01 THE GATHERING (N52) FABLES WEREWOLVES OF THE HEARTLAND TP ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE #42 IT GIRL & ATOMICS ROUND TWO WORLD IS FLAT TP JACK COLE DEADLY HORROR HC JLA EARTH 2 DELUXE EDITION HC JUDGE DREDD COMPLETE CARLOS EZQUERRA HC VOL 02 MONSTER MASSACRE HC VOL 01 MONSTROSITY GN MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO PICTURE BOOK HC NEW ED POKEMON ADV PLATINUM GN RAZORJACK COLL HC SONIC SAGA TP VOL 04 HOUSE OF CARDS SUICIDE RISK TP VOL 01 SUPERCROOKS TP THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON TP VOL 02 THOR SEASON ONE PREM HC UGLYDOLL SHHHHHHHH GN UNEXPECTED TP VIDEO WATCHDOG #175 WHAT IF AVX TP WOLVERINE TP BLOOD WEDDING

Wait, What? Ep. 135.5: Teen Titans Spotlight

Behind the scenes of the latest podcast.

Jeff Lester No More! Okay, that's not entirely true -- he'll back back next week.

The Lester Travel Schedule meant that he wasn't available to record this week's podcast, and so I took it upon myself to record the first (and, hopefully, only) solo Wait, What? ever because both Jeff and I felt really, really bad about springing another skip week on you with no notice. It's not really a real episode -- it's only 22 minutes long! -- but it does, finally, see me tackle the remainder of those questions you lovely listeners asked of us way back in December last year. Who said this isn't the Mighty Marvel Age of Taking A Really, Really Long Time To Get Around To Things?

The ep should be up in iTunes very soon, but you can also listen to it here. Everything'll be back to normal next week, I promise.

Wait, What? Ep. 135.5: Teen Titans Spotlight

"...Workers Killing Each Other In The Name Of Some Plutocrat's Lies." COMICS! Sometimes They Come Back!

My Internet is back up! Got no time for smalltalk. Who knows how long this window of technical opportunity will stay open? So, hello, my name's John and I wrote too many words about two comics and I hope you have fun. A boy can hope, right? So, let the merrymaking commence!

Anyway, this...

Here are two comics predicated on the fact that in the future things will be worse. It’s a pretty reasonable assumption since in the future there will still be people. And we all know what they are like, right? Jackasses. Except for you, you dreamy fool. And except for that one person who can make a difference, obviously. Thank God up in the big blue sky for that person! Is it you? It could be you (it won’t be you)! Both of these books also concern themselves with this special person. Anyway, I though the books’ premises had enough in common and their implementation had enough differences to justify another bunch of sense repelling words from yours truly, John The Ripper. And so without any further ado let’s get our papery candidates drunk and see who boils John’s eggs properly!

BUCK ROGERS #1 Art and Story by Howard Victor Chaykin Colours by Jesus Arbuto Letters by (Ken Bruzenak?) $3.99, Hermes Press (2013) Buck Rogers created by Philip Francis Nowlan

LAZARUS #1 Written by Greg Rucka Art and Letters by Michael Lark Colour by Santi Arcas Cover art and colour by Michael Lark $2.99, Image Comics (2013) Lazarus created by Greg Rucka & Michael Lark

Hell, I’m feeling saucy so let’s give this shameful shit a basic veneer of professionalism and crack out some titles:

Judging Without Reading or First Impressions and the Unreliability Thereof

One of these books, LAZARUS, is a creator owned comic from a creator owned friendly publisher. The accepted wisdom would be that by rights this should be the one fizzing with invention, reckless with innovation and altogether so comicstastic that it would be the nearest you could get to a good time without emitting liquids while pulling a stupid face. The other one, BUCK ROGERS, is work for hire intended to raise the profile of a 9000 year old Intellectual Property in a clear attempt to shift some of the meat’n’taters reprints of newspaper strips (or continuities if you are a TCJ reader) the publisher is primarily noted for. Some folk get all florid faced, spittle flecked and bug eyed when an old property is dusted off because new things should be created, always! Insipidly, I reckon it depends on whether the actual comic is any good though. So here comes Buck Rogers (yet) again! But in 20 years will anyone be bringing LAZARUS back from the dead? DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE! NO…DO YOU SEE WHAT THEY DID!!!

LAZARUS is new and the new is good! BUCK ROGERS is old and the old is bad!

BUCK ROGERS: 0 LAZARUS: 1

Titles Or The Naming Of The Animals (and some puerile humour)

LAZARUS is called LAZARUS which is an immediately recognisable Biblical reference to anyone brought up in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, or anyone familiar with said tradition. Or just familiar with pop culture. This is actually quite a lot of people, particularly in America which is the book’s primary marketplace. The first scene involves the heroine coming back from the dead just like…my penis on a Saturday night! Oh, okay just like…LAZARUS! Although titling the book MY PENIS ON A SATURDAY NIGHT would certainly get tongues wagging. I used to be quite good on The Bible but that was a long time ago, so other than the fact that every word on its pages is super-true I’m a bit hazy. However, I don’t think Lazarus rose from the dead and proceeded to heal the world with violence. Unlike…my penis on a Saturday night! I know, don’t milk it. Like…my penis on a Saturday night! I can do this all night, you know. Like…my penis on a Saturday night! Anyway, as titles go it is pretty bad. Pretty Television. It is dismaying in its obviousness and empty in its promises of depth. Just like…all together now!

The Hermes Press comic BUCK ROGERS is called that because it is about a man called Buck Rogers. Truth in advertising there. It is written and drawn by the divinity made flesh Howard Victor Chaykin. (Bias ahoy!) Since his last book was filthier and funnier than my penis on a Saturday night (This? This is what pride feels like.) I half expected a Flesh Gordon approach but since he hasn’t called it FUCK RODGERS it looks like he’s keeping his pants on and his hands to himself this time. I feel compelled to note the lack of …IN THE 25TH CENTURY. This means that Hermes Press aren’t wishing to trade on nostalgia for the cheerfully shit TV Series which I enjoyed when a child; the one with Gil Gerard and Twiki. Anyway, Hermes Press (or HVC) have gone back to the source for this one; buck to basics! (You liked that.)

Title wise then BUCK ROGERS wins despite the fact it is a dully literal title because it is at least honest while LAZARUS goes for a veneer of sophistication about as convincing as a politician’s choice of favourite authors.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0

INTERVAL: It’s Ladies Night! A Brief Digression Guaranteed To Backfire Right In My Face Like Nobody’s Business, So Thank God I’m Drunk. Ladies! Why won’t you read comics, ladies! It’s okay, ladies! Because we here at The Comics have the answer! The answer to the question which is always phrased to imply that ladies will read comics but only if they are for ladies! Comics by Lentheric! This question about why ladies don’t read comics is Trojan horseshit. Ladies do read comics they just have better things to do than go on the Internet and get upset about Marvel or DC. That doesn’t mean ladies don’t read comics it means ladies have priorities. Anyway, so much concern about ladies and comics lately, so much, so very much. But as John Vernon said, don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining, Senator; all this concern about ladies and comics is really about how can they get ladies to like formularised pap and give them their money just like they did with the daft men folk? Nobody gives a shit about ladies reading comics except the people who make comics, and they don’t give a shit about ladies reading comics but they sure give a shit about those ladies’ money. Spending power as spur to equality! Well done, comics! Capitalism hasn’t been around long you’ll soon catch up! There’s clearly a popular conception that ladies will only read comics with ladies in them. But only comic book ladies who are violent because violence is strength! Also, violence means the men will read them too. And ladies, your time is nigh! Coming soon from Image is a new series about a lady spy. She’s a Spy! But she’s a Lady! She’s soft! But she’s strong! She’s…Silky! From Image! Also, a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey but in the future and…with a lady! When she went on an odyssey it was an…Ody-SHE! From Image! The home of comics for women written by men who can’t master a safety razor! I can see their logic here about ladies only reading about ladies and it is sound. Personally I only read comics about embittered old men who can only build themselves up by dragging other, better people down. And POPEYE; I like those Sagendorf Popeye comics. As boring as it is I fear that the answer to the question of Ladies and Comics is: just make good comics. Maybe ladies will read those. Maybe they already are. Lead Character or Lead(en) Character

Of course, ladies and comics? I don’t write comics (which, really, I am all eaten up inside about) and I’m not a lady (but I have brushed up against a few in crowds, purely for research) so I know bupkis. I don’t even know what bupkis is. Is it when you burp while kissing? Greg Rucka isn’t a lady but he writes comics for a living and so he knows what to do. What Greg Rucka usually does is give us a troubled woman in a sweaty vest kicking nasty men in the face in a series of mundane locations. When tasked with reimagining Steve Ditko’s ideologically charged and visually iconic character The Question Greg Rucka gave us a troubled woman in a sweaty vest kicking nasty men in a pay-n-stay car park…but wearing a hat! In a bold move Rucka here gives us a troubled woman in a sweaty vest kicking nasty men in the face in a series of mundane locations…but in the future! Form an orderly queue, ladies! She is a strong female character in the thuddingly literal sense that she is physically strong. She is also called Forever Whatsit like a bathroom suite in a catalogue. This leads to some inadvertently cringey dialogue when people say things like “We were attacked, Forever.” and “I was in the toilet, Forever.” Any such amusement occurring is probably inadvertent because humour isn’t high on the agenda for LAZARUS. Naturally Forever Amber is pretty. Despite being a killing machine she remains unmarred by scars, her nose is unbroken and her teeth unsoiled by tea or coffee stains. Although she is a killing machine she feels sad about all this killing; it is important that she feels sad about killing all these plebs because otherwise she would be a mass murdering monster with nice hair. Forever Amber is vulnerable though. Forever Amber’s vulnerability (despite her being a killing machine) is stressed by her being surrounded by people who are using her, lying to her and just downright being a bunch of two faced meanies. Forever Amber also comes across as not a little feckless and more than a bit stupid. I mean these people around her are practically twirling their moustaches and tying her to railroad tracks. She’s no Keatinge and Campbell's GLORY, is what I’m saying there. For all its surface sophistication LAZARUS is oddly unsophisticated in many very basic ways. Subtlety’s not even in this race, it’s Cliché all the way! So much so that I was hoping the ultimate signifier of Monied Evil would appear; the sweater draped over the shoulders with the sleeves fastened over the chest. Not yet but give it time, though.

Over in Buck Rogers we find Howard Victor Chaykin’s Wilma Deering outranks Buck Rogers and is busy getting on with her job and sassing him back. Like Forever Amber Wilma kills people but everybody in BUCK ROGERS is killing people. But it's in that sort of pulpy weightless way. Okay, Colonel Deering doesn’t exactly look like a bag of spanners but other than that she’s treated as a capable individual in her own right. It’s hard to find fault in that, really. Mind you, Howard Victor Chaykin’s female characters have always skewed towards the independent, intelligent and individual. If they weren’t also so keen on lingerie more people might have noticed. It’s okay though, he’s only been doing this for forty years. The real star of BUCK ROGERS is, naturally, Buck Rogers whose voluminous and lively quiff sets my mind at rest on at least one score; in the future there will be pomade. Buck Rogers is portrayed as an adult human being who has had a number of experiences before the book opens and is written as being capable of rational thought and informed decision making. He is also purposefully written as a bit irritating. He can however quote Eugene Debs in support of his acceptance of his sexually equal future.

I have now become tired of summarising.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0 Setting The Scene Or Budgetary Restrictions Of The Mind’s Eye

The worlds visualised in these books are quite different. The world of LAZARUS is oddly dull. There’s a tepid quality to the storytelling by Rucka & Lark, a sense that nothing should be too exciting, too challenging. A sense of imposed limitations. I don’t know what they are and they might not even exist outside my mad head, but reading LAZARUS the storytelling felt constricted. There’s a sense that everything on these pages wouldn’t be beyond the reach of a mid-level Television budget. Coincidence, I’m sure. I don’t find Lark’s art to be exactly to my palate, he’s far too parsimonious with ink for my tastes. He can draw well though and he draws everything he’s asked and while nothing really stood out as amazing, nothing stood out as awful. A measured and professional performance from Lark, I guess.

Meanwhile, Greg Rucka’s done his research and Greg Rucka lets us know he’s done his research. The tepid world of LAZARUS is based on fact, okay, it’s based on prediction based on fact. Facts like the statistics Rucka quotes to prove that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider despite the fact that no one believes the opposite is ever the case. Except rich people. And  in the book there is science, but the science is based on real things that might happen based on real things happening now. Or at least things Warren Ellis told him might happen when Greg Rucka e-mailed him. Apparently Warren Ellis can see the future! Can he see the future where he finished that NewUniversal series? Future cloudy, ask later! Maybe warren Ellis just has a subscription to New Scientist. There’s even some maths to prove the elite control the majority. A great deal of work has been put in to make the world of LAZARUS convincing. It’s admirable really the work Greg Rucka and Michael Lark have put in conceptually and visually delineating the world of LAZARUS. Sadly, they appear to have built a living breathing world and populated it with papier-mâché people.  When I was young and shone with fear of the world I used to build dioramas using TAMIYA kits. Mine were a bit shit but other people could work wonders making the hardware and the scenery as realistic as could be. But the figures would always be stiff and there would never be any life in their faces. That's what LAZARUS reminded me of. People in LAZARUS say things like, "She's asking questions.", "AGAIN?" and "We can't have her getting IDEAS." It's very Television dialogue. But wait, run those numbers about the Elite and the oppressed past me again. Hmmmm, I think I see a way out!

And so does Buck Rogers! And it’s the same way out because for all its differences the world of Buck Rogers has the same central problem as the world of LAZARUS: an elite few are mucking the many about. Buck Rogers has figured out that if all the oppressed band together instead of fighting amongst each other, maybe…just maybe! Oh, sorry, no, it's okay, settle down, my American friends, that’s not Socialism, it’s just common sense. Common sense which, and I’m going out on a limb here, it will take Forever Amber many issues (seasons maybe (uch!)) to reach but HVC’s not interested in the long haul (the DVD box set) so Buck’s already figured this out by the time he arrives in the 25th Century. In fact there’s a truly super page of storytelling where, reading down the page via a series of repeated set ups with different specifics to suggest the passage of time, we see Buck’s ideology evolve. Great page of comics. It is also preceded by another great page of comics where HVC’s modern technique of cut’n’paste and vivid texturing gels so well I had to genuflect and concede that when HVC’s modern approach works it really fucking works. Of course not every page works that well but they all work at least well enough for the story’s requirements. Well…okay, he does really chuff up the origin bit. I had no idea what happened there. It’s like some text or some pages were missing or something. Seriously, that whole how Buck got to the future bit was seriously muffed. Otherwise I liked the storytelling and art just fine. Even the fact that a scene seemed to take place in an apartment from BLACK KISS 2 but with different textures was okay; it just made it seem even more like a cheapy pulp serial where you’d recognise bits of scenery from other stuff. A fun side effect that.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0

Colours or Colors(sic)

LAZARUS' world is coloured in a way that further study might prompt me to use the word subtle, but as it is I just read the thing and afterwards I thought: brown. Actually I didn’t think about the colouring much at all. That may be the point. Colouring can be purposefully unobtrusive after all. The palette did appear to be one chosen to suggest seriousness, and also to be easily replicable on a mid-level TV budget. Coincidence, I’m sure.

Jesus Arbuto vividly and vibrantly colours BUCK ROGERS’ world and over it all hang great slabs of sky in unnaturally cheerful hues. These bring to mind nothing less than the vivid and arrestingly swirling skies of Mike Hodges’ majestic Flash Gordon (1980). Here even the colourist is in on the pulp sensibility action and the colourist goes Big and Bold and it is lovely and it is apt.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0

Lettering or The Strange Case of The Invisible Bruise

I didn’t like the lettering in LAZARUS. The text is oddly placed in the balloons in just such a fashion that before I’d read the contents I mentally went NnnnH! Then I’d read the contents and I’d go NnnnH! verbally. Basically, the lettering seems to have been tasked with being as unobtrusive as possible. This is the default setting for genre comics and so no great demerit. But. But it does indicate a disinterest in exploiting the visual possibilities of comics as a medium. Which would make it easier for people to visualise it in another medium. A mid-level budget TV series perhaps. Just a guess.

BUCK ROGERS has fun lettering bouncing about all over the shop. The ray guns make silly noises in an overwrought retro font, an explosion FX is shaped and there’s just a real sense that the letterer, like the colourist, is contributing to the whole lurid pulp aesthetic. There’s also a strong suspicion the letterer is Ken “The Bruise” Bruzenak. It’s only a suspicion as I couldn’t find any letterer credit so I don’t know. I hope that this was an oversight that will be corrected by Hermes Press in future. It’s okay bringing back old IPs but we don’t want to bring back the bad habits of not crediting creators with them.

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: 0

Back Matter Or Ingratiation Really Grates

The back matter of LAZARUS is a slick mix of interesting yammering about process and clammy glad handing. Some will find this fascinating and feel privileged to receive such a peek into the world of the creators. For those people I am happy. But I am a bitter man, slow to trust and quick to flinch from unsought intimacy. Basically, I’m British. Look they’ve got a hard row to hoe here because by this point I’ve read the comic and I’m not sure I believe the unchallenging lukewarm TV friendly content of the comic is really such a passion project for the creators. That sounds shitty but it’s actually a compliment to the creators. Shitty compliments; that's me all over. As usual with creator owned comics’ back matter it’s a bit like someone hugging you while clumsily going through your pockets. The worst bit is when Greg Rucka recounts a conversation he had with a financier friend of his. The financier friend tells Greg Rucka that because he was on The Inside he can tell Greg Rucka that during the recent financial crisis we were seconds away from it All Going To Hell. Greg Rucka stresses that this person is intelligent and so implies that this fear mongering talk should be taken as a clear indication that the world of LAZARUS is just another bunch of inadequately regulated arrogant greedy c*nts away. Greg Rucka tends to forget that people talk nonsense, even intelligent people, particularly when talking to writers. Anyway, we can tell things were sixty seconds from shit city because this totally blameless financier dude was on the cusp of buying shotguns and actually stocking up on pork and beans. Christ, reduced to pork and beans! Pork and beans yet, like an animal! My heart went out to him here, it burst from my chest and travelled across the Atlantic to shatter his window whereupon he shot it with a shotgun (“for hunting purposes, Officer”) because he thought it was after his precious pork and beans. What I took away from this bit was comfort knowing that when it all goes down the financiers will be armed. Armed financiers. Great. Maybe LAZARUS would have been a better comic if Greg Rucka had talked to more of the people more directly affected by the crisis. You know, the people who would have been on the other end of his financier pal’s shotguns. He could even have bought them dinner. After all, pork and beans are cheap.

Actually, most annoyingly, the backmatter in LAZARUS comes across mostly as an attempt to kneecap any criticism. Rucka pre-empts queries why he chose a lady lead with, er, because it had to be so. He shows his data to reinforce the possibility of the future he presents and provides his liberal bona fides with Occupy memories and stresses he and Lark have waited ten years to tell this story, and only this story and only in this way could it be told and...such and so forth. All this pre-emptive defensiveness does is convince me of a lack of confidence in the material. Read the comic and ignore the back matter and what do you have? A not very good comic. Factor in the back matter and only an animal wouldn't feel bad about pointing that out. The backmatter almost worked, I admit; I almost spiked this because I felt bad. And also because it is too long, the jokes are weak and posting stuff always makes my nerves sing like cats with stepped on tails. Sure, the intentions are good and the creators are talented but this comic just sits there, failing to engage. I don't like writing negative reviews. I put the humour (if humour it is) in to soften blow but maybe it just sharpens the knife, I don't know. I really don't sit here touching myself at my perceived superiority as I bring my foot down again and again on the newly hatched chick of independent creativity. But it is what it is and LAZARUS isn't very good, to my mind, and no amount of back matter can change that.

Howard Victor Chaykin requires no caveats. Howard Victor Chaykin remains brazen. His back matter blather consists of him outlining his basic approach to the series; he read some old continuities thought about it a bit and kept what worked and updated the rest. Then there’s a quick bit of comics criticism in which he maligns the reprint books advertised a page or so later but makes me hungry for some Russell Keaton Buck Rogers Sundays. Then there’s all the variant covers and a promo poster reproduced in colour and black and white which is just spoiling little old me really. Now I can scan the B&W ones in and play at being Jesus Arbuto (Arbutov? Make your mind up, son.) for a day! Basically beneath all HVC’s usual loveable grumpalumpagus schtick there’s the usual humble air of “I did what I did and I did it as best I could. I hope you like it. Now pound leather, foetus. Did I mention I live by the beach?” It’s quite short words wise and there’s a couple of typos giving it a hurried air as though HVC had somewhere else to be. Maybe he had a dinner appointment? Christ, maybe HVC stayed in and ate pork and beans that evening even though there was no State of Emergency. Pork and beans, like an animal! Or worse, a poor person! I hope he ate with his Colt Python near at hand. For as Jesus said, the poor will always be with us. And apparently they will always be after our pork and beans. Arm yourself, Jesus!

BUCK ROGERS: 1 LAZARUS: Pork and Beans!

The Verdict or Who’s Better, Who’s Better, Who’s Best?

BUCK ROGERS is messy and vivid and altogether lively. It is fast, funny intelligent and far from flawless but it has a genuine sense of pulpy fun shining out of it on every page and so it is GOOD!

LAZARUS is cold and calculating; it affects to address real human concerns but instead it's like someone returned from the dead but with something crucial missing. Something intangible, something like a soul perhaps. That's why LAZARUS is EH!

The Intellectual Properties may be old or they may be new but as long as there are good ones, in the future there will be - COMICS!!!

Comic Reviews... for the Internet. OR "I've Got a Ticket to Snide!" So, hey, guy, how long do you think these subject lines can be? Here's the first paragraph of Dickens's David Copperfield-- let's find out: Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

I went to a shop yesterday and did my impulse buying.  Now, because I've had a long day, I will write sloppily about those impulse buys, from the back of my motorcycle, which I have ridden to a cliff, one of those cliffs that you see in Tom Cruise movies.  Look at this view!  Oh no, my motorcycle is on fire!  Damn, sometimes my lifestyle is almost TOO dangerous.  COMIC BOOKS!

SEX CRIMINALS #1:  I had thought this comic was going to be a comedy, and I guess it is one, but.  The first issue starts with the main character's dad dying in a shooting rampage and then her screaming impotently at her alcoholic, emotionally walled-off mother from a place the mother can't hear her wails.  So... you know: comedy.

I like comedies more than anything else because comedies can be anything and can go anywhere, as long as a thing is funny.  Comedies can be Hunderby or they can be Bad Education; This is the End or In a World(...), Celeste & Jesse Forever or Eagleheart. There's a zillion different ways for something to be funny, and they're all great if they make you laugh.  (And if they don't-- well, I always thought it was hard to get too upset about a person trying to make you laugh, but I guess the internet proved me wrong on that one, lately).    So, I wouldn't say digging a hole like "dad murdered in shooting rampage" on page 1 issue #1 is a "mistake", necessarily, or insurmountable.

But boy, that's a pretty, pretty deep hole.  The underlying math seems sounds: "sex as escape from family dysfunction" seems like an honest, relatable thing, and I think honest, relatable things are a good foundation to build comedies on... But the bummer seriousness of "child screams helplessly at mother" plus a needlessly fractured timeline plus a joke deficit plus a lengthy quotation of Nabokov plus... (I quite like the art and so don't interpret anything I say here to mean that I don't; one panel of a guy in the dark, taking the main character's virginity, from the main character's POV, in particular, is worth seeking out and being horrified by) but plus art where all of the panels seem to have been labored over in Photoshop (a lot of panels that were shrunk down?), everything seems to have this level of detail that (this is why I don't write about art, "why don't people write about art more??" people!  BECAUSE I'M BLOWING IT!  This is you watch me blow it in real time!)...

It just all adds up to a very anxious comic.  There's bits around it that aren't-- the back cover's got a loose gag to it; the dedication's got a gag that feels loose; but the comic itself just seems... anxious that you be impressed with it. I say that knowing that was always the rap people would lay on Casanova and I remember thinking it was unfair there, so maybe I'm being unfair here, maybe there's a Comics Alliance reviewer out there somewhere about to drop a "This comic is the greatest thing that will ever be made so I'm going to blow my brains out because everything is downhill from here, goodbye cruel world" essay that'll school me but good, but... but... But I'm just not entirely sure that the flop-sweat anxiety is the best soil for laughs, necessarily...?

Maybe it's not a comedy though and I misunderstood and I'm actually reading a serous comic about people who stop time when they orgasm...?  I don't think I'd be reading that long. That'd make for a pretty unpleasant one-two punch with Satellite Sam (a.k.a. "who knew a comic about a lady getting eaten out could be so boring?").

PARASITE #1 Or Some Ridiculous Decimal Point I Didn't Really Understand What Was Going On:  This is a DC Comic about a Superman villain.  I was curious what this whole Forever in Blue Jeans DC stunt-event was even supposed to be, once you got past the 3d Cover Incompetence Hooplah Spectacular.  Plus, I was in the mood to read a Superman comic after reading this story about a screenwriter guy, one of the guys who wrote that new movie where Superman is all killing people while System of the Down music plays (didn't see it; wild guess based on how people talk about that movie).  In the article, that screenwriter guy said, "Yeah, Superman would totally kill all sorts of people while listening to System of the Down.  That's the logical way people should perceive a character named Superman."  Put me in the mood to see what the comics were like...

Anyways,  I went with this one because it had a writer/artist on it (Aaron Kuder?), and I have a kneejerk belief in the inherent superiority of writer/artists that isn't really intellectually defensible, but what can you do. It was just an origin story, though.  In the Didioverse, Parasite is now an irritable bike messenger who got evil-Parasite-man powers from having electrocuted a monstrous squid-octopus-monster thing...?  I guess.  That's basically the whole comic.  I just told you the whole comic.

Some people say that superhero comics are made for older fans now, but when I look at these comics "as an old person", as a card carrying old ... With Marvel comics, I don't recognize half the characters in crowd shots anymore (that big yellow guy with the horns and a gaping asshole on his forehead?  who is that guy?), whereas with DC ... Why would I want to see a new origin for a character I already thought I knew...?  What would the "fun part" of that be, exactly?  So, I don't think superhero comics are made for old fans because I usually don't even know what the fuck I'm looking at.  I just think they're made for hyper-obsessive goon squads. (But I love you!  I love every one of you).

This comic though, being from a writer/artist-- you get that thing of seeing a guy trying to liven up stuff that's just structurally DOA.  It's an origin story of a character no one anywhere cares about!  The best case scenario for that comic is still a pretty shitty comic.  But poor guy tries!  He tries to "fun" it up with playful layouts, a lot of playing around with sound effects, interesting panel borders, all that shit.  He really, really tries.  (You can see a page of what I mean over here).  I admire the effort of it at least, even if it all seems dishonest, like he's dressing up this pointless boring thing to make it seem "fun," draping same-old same-old with the "signifiers" of a "fun comic" to try to falsely mislead the reader that they've seen something fun...?  Was any of that English?  I think he's created a facsimile of a fun comic instead of a fun comic, basically.  There's kind of something admirable about that, even if there's something sad about it...? That's basically the job.

It's almost interesting being an older person reading DC right now because when I was a younger fella, the dudes who were like... not over Crisis of Infinite Earths?  Not over the fact that series had happened?  Those people always seemed kinda sad / C-R-A-Z-Y to me, to be honest.  But I get it a little more now, I guess.  What's the point of any of these comics?  What's the point of finding out Parasite's new origin?  They're trying to tell some epic crossover story, I guess, but in a completely weightless space.  What could possibly have weight when every character in your "universe" is now two years old?  But ... But:  I sound like one of those Crisis cats!  I know that's what I sound like.  (Up to and including the "ignoring DC can't build a business on people like me who don't even care, don't even show up to a show up to a shop every week", etc.).

I mean, even now-- I see dudes sometimes online going, "Reverse the New 52 and get back to what it was."  But What it Was?  That was POST-CRISIS.  That's what you're trying to get back to.  So ultimately the thing that makes a DC Comic feel most like a real DC comic now (besides being dull) is that feeling of "everything would be better if my time machine could take us back in time" which is the most DC thing there is left, now, for me.  So, so DC, that.  I know it's been said before by other people, but:  they didn't just create a new universe; they created a new old-universe-that-it-was-a-mistake-to-throw-away.  You know?  I kinda find the poetry of it all interesting, if not the reading the DC comics part. (I tried to read the new Levitz-Giffen LEGION so... I bought that one issue...)

Also: Dan Didio and Bob Harras should be fired and driven out of comics.  That doesn't really have anything to do with this comic.  We should all just say that more often, generally.  Also, we should all live in teepees because in a lot of ways, that'd be better.

PROPHET # Man, I don't know what number it is because they re-started this bullshit with some arbitrary number which is still tripping me up on the regular and ... like, I'm convinced I missed some issues but which ones??  I have no idea because what am I, sitting around remembering double-digit numbers in my spare time? Is that really what's expected of me?  Go fuck yourself, numbers!  I don't have enough stress in my life??:  Oh, this one was really great.  The issue about Die Hard (the Rob Liefeld character, not the movie)?  You should track that one down, issue # whatever.  There's a whole bunch of artists, jamming out a millenia-spanning biography for this shitty old Rob Liefeld character.

I think I've missed some issues-- I'm not sure which or how many, for reasons set forth above, but it highlights how what I think I appreciate most with this comic is how much the pleasures of it are the pleasures of the moment.  A page, a panel, a drawing...?  Do you know what I mean?  Like, by comparison, I still enjoy that comic SAGA, I think that's going along pretty swell (I especially like how he's set-up The Will's shadow-family). Still, SAGA is a more traditional comic in that ... each issue is fun but there's a sense (maybe illusory or "wrong") that each issue is a small part of some greater story, and so ultimately the real "fun" of it is to come, when the thing is complete and we possess the whole of it.  Whereas PROPHET... I could give a shit about the whole of it, because ... it's about Rob Liefeld characters in outer space...?  It's a nice way to mark time waiting for MULTIPLE WARHEADS to start back up again...?  But it doesn't matter because the actual sitting down and reading of it is such a pleasant thing.

ASTRO CITY #4: I quite liked this one.  At least, on the "I'd read another story about that character" level, that one worked out pretty good, I thought.  But the ending was a little too NICE again...?  Same issue I had with #3.  In my hazy recollection of the Astro City issues that I've liked the most, in years past, as a younger fella, I remember the comic being a little more willing to have rougher edges to its characters, things they were unhappy about, endings that weren't perfect happy endings.

This flirted with that, with the main character's guilt about not having lived up to her potential.  There's a darkness to that idea-- my skin crawls when I hear the "living up to his potential" phrase anyways.  That's just Anxiety Juice to me, that phrase.  But the ending seems to veer away from that at the end; the end is again, like #3, "the main character reassured." Maybe it's a failing of me as a reader, but I'm not sure why that felt necessary.  Maybe that's the right choice for the book's audience, though-- maybe that's how other people who read Astro City want to see that story end...?  Maybe bolder, clearer emotions are a smart choice commercially, after years away, reentering this market.  It'd be a stingy thing not to be willing to give it that time.  Anyways, I liked it besides.

Gundam Origin Volume 2:  Oh, I read this a while back.  It was just a fun action manga thing, some nonsense with robots.  That's all.  I just remembered this while I was sitting here typing.  I wanted to read super-fast action shit, and this had a quote from Jog on it saying this was good, so.  What more do you need than that?  Seconded.  (Volume 1 sold out at the store I went to, though.  It didn't seem to matter any).  Oh, though why did they decide that manga about robots should have the shittiest, whiniest twerp main characters possible?  Why is that a staple for that genre?  I can't really figure the math on that.

That Marvel Crossover #2:  The one with Thanos?  I forgot the name.  Which-- I think there's two other crossovers going on right now so sorry about that; "the marvel one" doesn't really narrow it down!  Anyways, I picked it up, the Thanos one. I'd impulse bought #1 before, too, even though, at least for me, as a reader, just for me, maybe not for you, but for me, Jonathan Hickman has never met a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz he couldn't snoooooooooooreeeee.

I tried to give that Jonathan Hickman a chance this year; tried to read a run from the guy, and it... I didn't make it too far.  I've tried his independent stuff.  I've tried his mainstream stuff.  We're just not meant to be.  He seems like he's aggressively pursuing his vision, and I admire that; good for him; keep at it.  Uhm.  It's not a vision I'd want to ever share in or be aware of or know about.

I'm not sure if I can articulate it past that, though. I mean... are they my least favorite comics I've read this year, or anything like that?  I wouldn't say that because I feel so emotionally detached from the work I saw.  (Plus: I just get really, really irritated by that Greg Rucka / Michael Lark comic LAZARUS, for reasons I maybe don't even myself know and certainly can't even articulate, so that's the clear winner of 2013 so far).  Like... if we were to sit down, and I had to describe Hickman work, I'd say it's schematic and inauthenetic and emotionally autistic and all that stuff; I'd make hand gestures like a bird that's flying but then crashing into a helicopter blades and falling to the ground; then, I'd take off my pants and warm my hands between my buttocks (that last bit wouldn't have anything to do with Jonathan Hickman comics; that's just how I live my life, one quarter-mile at a time, one quarter-mile of buttock).

But if we were to sit here and try to anatomize the whole thing, what would make... What should he put in there that'd make it not feel schematic? What's the missing ingredient?  I don't really know. I saw some of those Fantastic Four comics and there were scenes that were like, "Here are the characters having human emotions."   I just didn't buy those scenes.  So I'm not sure what the "missing bit" is...

ANYWAYS, this comic-- uhhhhh, It's that thing where... like, for a while, if you were to randomly pick up X-Men comics, the X-Men cared a lot about a Marvel universe version of Hamsterdam-- you know, Hamsterdam from that show The Wire-- from the because the people who made X-Men comics obviously had just bought The Wire on DVD.  Or there were those Captain America comics where Captain America ran around yelling "Grawr, I watch the TV Show LOST!"  Do you remember those?  Or there was that crossover where they'd just bought the Battlestar Galactica DVDs, and suddenly Iron Man was like, "Cyclons have a plan!"

The news here is they got Game of Thrones on DVD so this is just all Game of Thrones-y, it's gamey, except without Dinklage.  Suddenly, the Marvel Universe cares a lot about KINGS and SONS and TRIBUTE and NAKED WHORES.  (Well, okay, not that last one)(Yet).  It's all pretty silly and inorganic; these crossovers always seem to work when they focus on the characters people care about interacting with one another-- that seems like it's been the obvious winning strategy since Secret Wars (though I didn't read Avengers v. X-Men); these Massive War / Invasion-based crossovers always seem like a misfire...

Every couple pages in this story they advertise spinoffs.  There's a chunk of this comic that's just a recap of spinoffs (I think), plus it ends with ads for more spinoffs.  The message is very clear, that you only get the whole story by purchasing the spin-offs.  Which is just what Marvel and its people do in these comics.  I find that disgusting incidentally, just no-joke disgusting behavior.  If you really delve into the fandoms of these characters, if you ever sit on the internet and do that.. Man, the fans of these comics love those characters so goddamn much.  It-- it can be moving.  And to imagine writers looking at those people, seeing them at conventions, talking to them on twitter, to imagine the writers turning around and selling those people advertising instead of stories...?  I just think it's all so gross.  I don't think crossovers have to be that way; it's gross that's how they are.

Blah blah blah-- what happened in this one?  Uhm, Thanos wants Inhuman babies or something? Oh, there's a scene where aliens destroy a planet but the only way to find out that happened is by reading the narration captions. (Have you ever skipped all the captions in a comic as an experiment, to see how it reads when you skip those?  It's fun; I recommend trying it sometime). Uhm.  There were spaceships; there was a part with spaceships...?  I read it last night-- it didn't stick.  The guy who draws these, Something Cheung?  Jim?  John?, he does a good job of making it all look like a Star War-- it's certainly very, very slick looking.  Maybe too much so-- it looks like one of the prequels, you know?  Past a certain amount of slick, it's hard to see a human heart beating anywhere.  (oooooh look at me with the human heart... the hell am I talking about??  THIS IS WHY I DON'T WRITE ABOUT ART!)

I don't know who the big yellow guy with the asshole-forehead is though.  What is going on with that?

Powers -- Volume Something? # I'm not sure -- I'm too surprised it's still coming out on time to know the number: I know that there's not a comic info-tainment fan-press that "takes requests," and I know no one gives real interviews... but boy, I'd really love to read an interview with Mike Oeming about the art in Powers lately.

It seems... I've seen some of the pages he's done for his day job for Valve (does he still have that Valve gig?), and they've been detailed and careful "proper comic pages".  While with Powers he's gotten-- everything feels really rough and straight from the drawing board.  I'm guessing a lot of these pages... no-pencil, no thumbnail, straight to ink?  Like, there are these silhouette panels-- characters standing in silhouette where... I can't even properly call them "silhouette panels" because the figures are just these blobs of blank ink.  There's a panel in this new one where it looks like a breakdown that never got fully drawn in.  A certain level of surface detail that you used to see in POWERS, he's not bothering with anymore and it's sort of like he's focusing more on composition and seeing how much he can do with blacks and...

It all seems deliberate.  I find it interesting, at least. And... I mean, as I think I've mentioned before, it's not a comic whose plotting has ever seemed very careful i.e. I can't follow the plot anymore, so if anything Oeming's art becoming more improvisational maybe feels truer to the spirit of how messy this comic has become.

I'd just really like to read that interview.

Arriving 9/25/13

Strong week this time around! Not only is SAGA #14 dropping, but Fraction's Sex Criminals  and Cameron Stewart's Sin Titulo sneak in late in the month. That is merely the tip of the proverbial ice berg that is new comic books this week! You know what to do, click the link and see what else is happening!

A PLUS X #12 ACTION COMICS #23.4 METALLO ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #5 AQUAMAN #23.2 OCEAN MASTER ARTIFACTS #31 ATOMIC ROBO REAL SCIENCE ADV #11 AVENGERS #20 INF AVENGERS ASSEMBLE #19 INF BART SIMPSON COMICS #86 BATMAN #23.4 BANE BATMAN AND ROBIN #23.4 KILLER CROC BATMAN SUPERMAN #3.1 DOOMSDAY BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #23.4 JOKERS DAUGHTER CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT #3 CLIVE BARKER NEXT TESTAMENT #4 (OF 12) CRIMINAL MACABRE EYES OF FRANKENSTEIN #1 (OF 4) CROSSED BADLANDS #36 DARK HORSE PRESENTS #28 DARK SHADOWS YEAR ONE #6 DEADPOOL #17 DETECTIVE COMICS #23.4 MAN BAT EAST OF WEST #6 EMPOWERED SPECIAL #5 NINE BEERS WITH NINJETTE FARLAINE THE GOBLIN #1 FATALE #17 FF #12 GAMBIT #17 GARTH ENNIS RED TEAM #5 GODZILLA RULERS OF THE EARTH #4 GREEN LANTERN #23.4 SINESTRO GUARDIANS OF GALAXY #6 INFINITY HEIST #1 (OF 4) ITTY BITTY HELLBOY #2 (OF 3) JUDGE DREDD CLASSICS #3 JUPITERS LEGACY #3 (MR) JUSTICE LEAGUE #23.4 SECRET SOCIETY JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #7.4 BLACK ADAM KING CONAN HOUR O/T DRAGON #5 (OF 6) LIFE WITH ARCHIE #32 REG CVR MARVEL UNIVERSE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #18 MIND MGMT #15 MISS FURY #6 MOUSE GUARD LEGENDS O/T GUARD VOL 2 #3 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #11 MYSTERIOUS STRANGERS #4 NOVA #8 INF OTHER DEAD #1 (OF 5) PLANET OF THE APES GIANT #1 POWERPUFF GIRLS #1 PUNISHER TRIAL OF PUNISHER #1 (OF 2) RAT QUEENS #1 REVIVAL #14 SAGA #14 SCARLET SPIDER #22 SEX #7 SEX CRIMINALS #1 SIMPSONS TREEHOUSE OF HORROR #19 STAR TREK ONGOING #25 STAR WARS LEGACY II #7 STITCHED #16 SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN TEAM UP #3 INF SUPERMAN #23.4 PARASITE TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE #82 TMNT ONGOING #26 TODD THE UGLIEST KID ON EARTH #5 TOM STRONG AND THE PLANET OF PERIL #3 (OF 6) TOMORROWLAND #3 (OF 4) ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN #27 UNCANNY AVENGERS #12 UNWRITTEN #53 WAKE #4 (OF 10) WASTELAND #48 WOLVERINE AND X-MEN #36 WONDER WOMAN #23.2 FIRST BORN YOUNG AVENGERS #10 NOW

Books/Mags/Things ADVENTURE TIME MATHEMATICAL ED HC VOL 02 ARCHIE 1000 PG COMICS EXTRAVAGANZA TP BRICKJOURNAL #25 CRIMINAL MACABRE FINAL NIGHT 30 DAYS NIGHT XOVER TP DOCTOR WHO PRISONERS OF TIME TP VOL 02 HARBINGER TP VOL 03 HARBINGER WARS HIP FLASK UNNATURAL SELECTION 10TH ANNIV ELEPHANTMEN ED HC JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #339 JUDGE DREDD TRIFECTA GN JUSTICE LEAGUE HC VOL 03 THRONE OF ATLANTIS (N52) JUSTICE LEAGUE TP VOL 02 THE VILLAINS JOURNEY (N52) LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT JIM APARO HC VOL 2 MARVEL UNIVERSE ULT SPIDER-MAN DIGEST TP VOL 04 MMW ATLAS ERA TALES TO ASTONISH TP VOL 01 PREACHER TP BOOK 02 SAILOR MOON TP KODANSHA ED BOX SET #1 VOL 1-6 SHAZAM HC VOL 01 (N52) SHIELD TP NICK FURY VS SHIELD NEW PTG SIN TITULO HC SPIDER-MAN 2099 TP VOL 02 WORLD MAP ROOM GN YOUNG MARVEL TP LITTLE X-MEN LITTLE AVENGERS BIG TROUBLE

As always, what do YOU think?

Wait, What? Ep. 135: Err Travel

From the entertainingly wrong-headed Secret Society of Super-Villains trade paperback.

I am so bummed I made that reference to the opening of "Don't Believe The Hype" a few weeks back, because now that I've got a trip coming up I could've made a "I've got so much travel on my mind" pun...but now, no, I can't.

Anyway, after the jump, show notes for this late-to-bed, early-to-rise episode of Wait, What?

Yes, well, once again, under the gun, you know how it goes.  Got less than 48 hours to hop on a plane and have easily 48+ hours worth of chores, so:

0:00-4:28: Greetings! And greetings! And greetings! A plan thwarted, and more non-comics talk. 4:28-25:32: Comics--we do remember to discuss them relatively quickly into the process.  We start with DC's attempted homicide of Graeme via Villains Month comp copies.  (If you listen carefully around the 6:34 mark, you can hear the strange corduroyesque whiffle of comics with the 3-D covers being pushed around).  Discussed: Darkseid, Reverse Flash, The Court of Owls, H'el, Cheetah, Lobo, Harley Quinn, The Riddler, and more. 25:32-33:19: Graeme re-read Forever Evil #1, and then read the deluxe edition of JLA: Earth Two; the Black Manta Villains Month issue; and what the fuck is up with Aquaman's villains, generally. 33:19-44:33: Jeff asks Graeme about Infinity since that is a thing he can do.  Graeme moves very quickly from there to Mighty Avengers by Al Ewing and Greg Land--you may be surprised by which member of that team we spend the most time talking about!  Also, for those of you, like Graeme, who were not aware of the Hungarian suicide song Jeff references, you can check it out here. 44:33-48:17: Jeff can't talk about Mighty Avengers by Al Ewing, but he can talk about Mars Attacks Judge Dredd by Al Ewing and John McCrea. 48:17-1:04:28: Also covered from the amazing week of comics that was our week off:  Murder She Writes by John Allison; 2000AD Prog #1850, featuring Damnation Station by Al Ewing and Mark Harrison; what is happening with the Megazine; and the differences between what sells in American comics as opposed to British comics; whether or not a bi-monthly book might work in the  direct market; and more! 1:04:28-1:29:01: Jeff purchased and took delight in the very consistent awfulness of The Secret Society of Super-Villains trade paperback, by Gerry Conway, Pablo Marcos, David Kraft, Bob Rozakis, Rich Buckler, Bob Layton and more.  Hopefully, I have the wherewithal to put up the photos I took of some of these pages because they are pretty amazing. Oh wait, here are a couple that we do indeed reference in our talk:

Darkseid, his dramatic potential fully realized by Pablo Marcos, Ernie Chua, and Vince Colletta;

Face forward, true believers! I think this is a deliberate spoof of Kirby poses; Graeme was thinking Gil Kane (by Rich Buckler and Bob Layton);

And speaking of True Believers, Funky Flashman is in most of these issues and by the end, the visual reference used is, uh, pretty darn direct (by Rich Buckler and Bob Layton)

Also included: an all-too-brief discussion of Marvel's similarly addled Super-Villain Team-Up (no accompanying visuals, alas). 1:29:01-1:49:32:  One book that both Graeme and I read this week (and--spoiler!--enjoyed) the first issue of Zero by Ales Kot, art by Michael Walsh, colors by Jordie Bellaire.  And Jeff thinks Graeme would really enjoy the "jam" issue of Prophet by Brandon Graham and everybody else.  Leads to a discussion about comic book writers, writers who write visually, and writers who are interested in created uniquely visual works.  How does this lead us back to the discussion of the ads in the Villains Month 3-D books as opposed to the 2-D books?  I'm editing this, and even I don't know. 1:49:32-2:01:04: That does lead us into a discussion of the ads in Batman '66, which are different. The advantage to this is, we get to talk about all the delightful stuff Jeff Parker and assorted artists are doing on Batman 66. Also covered: the Top Shelf sale that was going on while we recorded, and is still going on as this first gets posted. And that leads us to talking about the stuff available digitally for 2000AD, and comparing the prices for day-and-date-DRM'd digital subscription, and the DRM-free direct from the digital store stuff. 2:01:04-end:  Closing comments!  We are very confused about our recording schedule since Jeff will be traveling to New York.  We…think we will be back next week?

Anyway, that's the name of that tune, as Robert Blake used to say back in the days when he was quaint and not utterly terrifying.  You can find the ep. on iTunes and you can find it here.  The choice...is yours!

Wait, What? Ep. 135: Err Travel

Tilting #226 is up!

Forgot to post this earlier -- the newest TILTING is up at CBR, on liquidating books and stuff.  SEXY TOPIC! Comment and let me know that people do read what I write...  

-B