Sequential Heart

Sugarshock #3 "The Greatest Story Ever Blogged" is up!

2007-10-11T20:09:00.000-05:00

Oooh, Phil's doing a thing; Why are you talking in spurts?; Squirrels have NO SOULS!; And L'Lhidra learned how to use a lathe!

Review - Clockwork Creature: Chapter One

2007-10-04T17:18:00.000-05:00

Review - Clockwork Creature: Chapter One
Written & Drawn by Kyle Strahm
Ambrosia Publishing, Fall 2007; $6.95

“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.”

This infamous line, which is uttered by a witch during the opening of Act IV of Shakespeare’s tragic play Macbeth, could replace the tinderstick-like title text of Clockwork Creature: Chapter One. Better still, the rest of the artwork in the book lives up to this devilishly enchanting forecast - delivering a carnival of menacing shadows and bewitchingly garish patterns. In short: Pure visual delight from cover to cover.

Drawn exclusively in high-contrast black and white, Kyle Strahm’s pages are black pools of night etched with figures and structures ablaze in searing white moonlight. His ghostly farm-town and its inhabitants are strung with diaphanous shadows that conjure amazing subtleties of depth of field. The spectral details of their agrarian charms are strangely visually magnetic: The frayed edges of overalls and errant facial hairs cast harsh shadows in the unforgiving glare of sinister moonbeams.

The creature itself appears graceful and innocent in comparison, despite its mammoth proportions. The solid, quadrapedal beast is hidden beneath a patchwork quilt of checkers, stripes and polka dots, stitched together with big loops of ivory thread. The blanket edges and hollows billow and flap gracefully about the creature, rife with anthropomorphic suggestion. In odd contrast to the vintage environment and its own old-fashioned drapery, the creature has rounded, metal robot feet, with big coiled springs for Achille’s heels.

If only the actual story were not such a disappointment, CC would be a masterpiece. At best, CC promises to be a tepid adaptation of Frankenstein; at worst, a mystery with no intrigue. Not every mystery has to have a clever twist, but every story has got to have a resolution. And nothing compelling is accomplished in Chapter One.

The story is not without promise during its set up. A bizarre creature has appeared in town; men have disappeared. Fearful townies have gathered at a local watering hole to suss out a solution. Weakened by panic (and, one suspects, not being overly-endowed with a surplus of mental acuity in the first place) the men fall prey the verbal rallying of the nefarious Baron von Salt, who looks like an evil circus ringmaster. Sadly, the gist of the Baron’s diatribe is to kill the beast with what looks like a Tommy gun, which he ridiculously brandishes as a “weapon … FROM THE FUTURE!” The only thing the presence of the modern-day gun really destroys is the delightfully antediluvian atmosphere.

Meanwhile, some of the missing men have found some of the other disappeared fellows, who in turn have figured out that the creature is not a menace at all. Rather, they have determined that the beast was lonely, based on the fact that several of its supposed victims (chickens) are still alive, and that the mute beast itself has saved a man from the creek (which reminds me of a scene from Universal Studio’s 1931 version of “Frankenstein,” in which the famous monster makes friends with a little girl on the bank of a lake).

In a very movie-monster manner, the pitchfork-brandishing mob descends upon an old mill, where the creature waits unsuspecting with its new friends. There follows the most awkward shoot-out scene of all time, in which almost everyone gets killed by the Baron. Enraged by this slaughter, the creature brutally murders the Baron, thus frightening its remaining friends (who are oddly un-phased by the mass murder of their neighbors by a total stranger). They run off, leaving the creature alone, to bow its head and amble along alone once more. Ho-hum.

None of the characters were developed enough for the reader to care about what happens to them! The creature has not been developed enough for the reader to care that it is lonely (again). The Baron may have had an evil design upon an innocent creature, but we don’t know enough about it to rejoice in his downfall. Finally, the townfolk (with one exception) have that sort of collective personality that, in the end, simply amounts to unaffecting numbers, in the same way that newspaper reports of body counts are less moving than a single tale of tragedy.

The sole exception to this stale conclusion is a man by the name of Jebbins. He is the man who was saved from the creek by the creature. As Jebbins’ friend tells it, “I don’t reckon you could get Jebbins away from its side if you wanted to.” But the scene in which Jebbins is saved is not part of the story. He’s also the first to die in the massacre. Perhaps a future issue will flashback to this scene, which would go a long way toward developing some characters that would make this book worth reading in the long term.

Without a proper ending, a masterfully illustrated comic book is little more than a gilded goblet with a big hole in the bottom. It gets you geared up for a drink of something special, and all you are left with is a faint taste on your lips and a very wet lap. At least when you’re finished reading it, you won’t feel guilty about snipping out a few choices panels for some uniquely cryptic home decor.

Review - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 No. 5 (variant cover)

2007-09-27T15:30:00.000-05:00

Review - Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 No. 5 (variant cover)

Writer: Joss Whedon
Cover Artist: Georges Jeanty
Penciller: Paul Lee
Inker: Andy Owens
Colorist: Dave Stewart

One-shot issues are the quickie of the comic book medium. And, like its sexual counterpart, the one shot can be incredible and mind-blowing, or - more often than not - an embarrassing experience best hastily forgotten by all those involved. Buffy the Vampire Slayer No. 5 bounces back and forth between these two poles.

The in-and-out nature of communicating a story in one issue is an unappreciated challenge: On the one hand, the writer has got to show his faithful fans a new angle of familiar material; while, on the other hand, the one-shot affords the writer an opportunity to step out of continuity and reach a new crowd. In this case, the new reader could be (gasp) someone so unfamiliar with the Buffyverse (Joyce forbid!) that they just bought the book because they dug the cover art.

For Buffy buffs, the success of No. 5 hangs, quite literally, by a nose. There is no denying that Sarah Michelle Gellar's most idiosyncratic facial feature is her long, thin nose, which has two very angular pieces of cartilage sitting atop each nostril. BTVS No. 5 presented Paul Lee with a daunting task: To draw a vampire slayer who has gone undercover posing as Buffy that looks enough like Buffy to fool other characters in the story, but also enough not like Buffy that fans know she's not the real Buffster. Lee achieved this by making imposter-Buffy's nose look different. Alas, I didn't catch that imposter-Buffy was not the genuine article until the story revealed the plot twist. I just thought Buffy's nose looked funny. This was a pretty crucial blow to enjoying the book the first time I read it.

And I don't administer that nose note as a criticism of Lee's art. The illustrations in the book are solid. Particularly memorable are the underground creatures, such as the faeries, slug clan ... and who can forget "that thing that looks like a leaf-blower"?

That said, the non-linear storytelling in this issue further confounded the reveal. Whedon seems to vacillate between wanting to spell everything out for new readers, and being flippant with rehashes to keep his fan base satisfied. For example, one sequence jumps quickly among three threads: Imposter Buff (henceforth IB) on her present undercover mission; IB passed out on her high school lawn after the physical trauma of realizing she is a slayer (which involves being hit with the collective memory of a bajillion slayerettes at once - very skillfully illustrated by Lee); and listening to Giles give a speech at the slayer academy. Running over all these panels is some throw-away monologue about what it means to be a slayer. To give him the benefit of the doubt, Whedon likely had too much to say and not enough space to say it, which resulted in some fast-forwarded, over-dramatic build-up with no, ahem, climax.

The few choice moments when Whedon does slows down to assemble the moment-to-moment narrative is when he really woos the reader. These scenes include such stellar quotes as, "I didn't lay my faerie eggs inside your inner ear canal to watch you die!" And let's not forget: "I left you one to wipe with." Perhaps my favorite sequence in the book is Whedon's depiction of a slayer field training session, in which IB and her slayer squad face off with a group of vamps in (where else?) a dark alley. IB's fighting skills aren't flawless and winning her hordes of adoring fans, but she does "take a bite" (from a vamp) while saving a fellow slayer. This poignant vignette captures a truism we all know yet too often forget: It is better to be loved by one person than popular with many. A million fans won through acts of showmanship are worth less than one loving friend acquired through an act of self sacrifice. And self sacrifice is more difficult. When IB disparages her neck wound as the result of her lack of prowess, her friend not only reminds her of this, but also dishes out the clever compliment: "Besides ... I hear Buffy's got a neck wound too." (Can you hear me smiling?!)

So, all in all, for Buffy fans, this one shot does what any good quickie should: keep you coming back for more. The name "Buffy" means something different to every fan, but what all BTVS fans have in common is the knowledge that, as IB so cleverly illustrates in BTVS No. 5, "millions of people go into making a name." BTVS No. 5 gives us a glimpse into the life of one of those millions; one who is ultimately OK with living and dying anonymously. In this era of fame-worship and celebutantes, that is a very stirring idea.

But what about non-BTVS regulars? They may still find the aforementioned heart of the book moving, but maybe not as much as a Buffy fan, to whom the name really means something. Although it may not appeal to every comic book fan, I think there are enough enticing story angles to compel certain persons of discerning and unusual taste - those who like their entertainment to have a heart and a lesson plan - to return for another round.

Law of the Jungle, or Lions Love Their Children, Too?

2007-09-24T13:14:00.000-05:00

Based on true events in which a group of lions escape from a zoo during the opening days of the U.S. "shock and awe" bombing campaign against Iraq, Brian K. Vaughan's Pride of Baghdad dramatizes their short adventure through the ruins of the eponymous city. Driven by hunger and the need to avoid intermittent explosions, the four lions- a protective, savvy male; an eager cub; and two lionesses- one old and world-weary, the other in her prime, pining for freedom from the Zoo- explore, hunt, fight, and take time out to gaze at the sunset until finally they are machine-gunned to pieces by a dopey American soldier.

Niko Henrichon's art is drawn with a confident, sketchy style brought to life with painterly coloring- particularly nice is his use of light and shadow filtered through trees, as well the varying concentrations of algae in the water. Detailed cityscapes, strong use of perspective and careful attention to leonine anthropomorphic facial emoting makes the overall presentation very attractive.

Vaughan's characterization is adequate though at times perfunctory, with relationships just plausible enough to keep the story moving forward and its premise afloat. The writing is at its best when Vaughan takes the time to develop a unique animalian culture. Creating something foreign yet plausible is pretty hard to do with sort-of- sci-fi situations (think aliens with Chinese accents). I like to see how writers resolve this problem. In this case Vaughn creates feline-specific maxims: "Little brains belong in our mouths, not in our heads."

Still, the effect is at times undermined by the occasional colloquialism seemingly coopted from their human oppressors. "You don't look a gift horse in the mouth," says Zill (the male lion), "you eat him." I would guess this particular line was hard to resist, but the story suffers from this inconsistency. It may be a comment on the institutionalization of those imprisoned, but it's somewhat less interesting than being taken through something idiosyncratic and new, a possibility I see existing for the depiction of a familial unit of animals who in nature do little else but kill and sleep.

The basic idea behind the premise, which is to see the devastation of the Iraq war through the eyes of animals (i.e. 'innocents'), is the only really well supported theme in this story, but it feels tired and weather worn, especially considering the fact that it's been used in every animal drama from Bambi to Twilight of the Cockroaches. And there was the inevitable comparison to Disney, vis. the Lion King, initiated by the evident resemblance between the respective lion cub characters and perpetuated by the story's underlying sentimentality w/r/t the lions' love/meat relationship with humans, all of whom they naturally refer to as 'keepers.' While obviously more violent and gritty (giraffe explodes halfway up the neck), it's hard to keep akuna matata from niggling in your head, at least for the first few pages.

It's tough to pin down the story's central themes: Statements like "trust me, nothing that size has enemies" when referring to roving tanks seems weighty and ironic, but isn't supported by and therefor doesn't contribute to any other aspect of the story, and doesn't really even make sense. When the dopey American soldier scrambles to justify the shooting, his superior officer consoles him by saying the lions are now "free."

Even the epiloguey final word, following a note informing the reader that all this really happened, is unsatisfyingly ambiguous: "There were other casualties as well." Considering the context it's hard not to conclude that Vaughan means to suggest the human cost is somehow less tragic than that of the lions. That humans are vile and deserving of the horrors they visit upon themselves is a fair attitude for a certain kind of writing to have, though considering the half-million and rising civilian death toll in Iraq, it's inappropriate here. And in any case, it contradicts one of the central conflicts, which is whether humans are friends or meat.

In general this story feels like a drama that can't decide whether to use the adventure/tragedy as an analogy for man's intrusion into nature and innocents specifically or as a self-aware critique on the vile human condition. By straddling the line between the two, not fully committing to either, Pride of Baghdad comes off as opportunistic and unfocused.

Best line: "I always wanted to kill a baby goat!"

Sugarshock #2 is available @ DHP!

2007-09-22T17:48:00.000-05:00

Get thee to the Dark Horse Presents myspace page! (Unless you haven't read the first issue, then click here.)

The Joss commandeth you! Oh, and a special little piece of news: It appears that the 3rd issue will be the final. Show your support of this delightful title, although I can't see Sugarshock! disappearing forever.
While you are over at DHP, also take a moment to look at the other complimentary issues including Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey.

Review - Buffy Season 8 #5

2007-09-09T20:00:00.000-05:00

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: SEASON EIGHT #5
By Joss Whedon, Paul Lee & Andy Owens
Colors by Dave Stewart, Letters by Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Jimmy
Published by Dark Horse Comics, August 2007. $2.99

Joss Whedon has weaved his basic themes of redemption, equality, and female empowerment in all of his stories and here he is doing it again with confidence. A decoy Buffy, explored in this issue, received her powers with a shock of thunderous pain, along with the bonus prize of shared memories and the legacy of female strength. A hilarious television commercial is presented by Andrew, who I imagine is functioning in a public relations capacity, which calls back to his many awkward daydreams and graphs in season 7. Decoy Buffy is recruited through these means and her life is forever changed. She feels the tug of humanity, and discovers the resources to believe in her abilities. In one of her first missions with a group of young slayers she is savagely bitten while trying to save a fellow mate. The mate lets her know the wound is a badge of honor as she has heard Buffy has a neck wound too. One particularly moving sequence involves a recruiter offering her the mission as decoy Buffy saying, “….I gotta figure you want the truth. As in ‘Why me? Did I get the hardest, darkest path to walk ‘cause I’m strong, I’m good, I can handle the heavier burden? Or am I weak, expendable, the one that won’t be missed. The truth? There is no truth. There’s just what you believe.” That passage cuts to the heart of the whole series

Yes, I am the resident Joss Whedon fanatic, and it would be difficult for me to point out any serious flaws in anything he has done thus far. I feel fortunate that I can say “The Chain” is his best work since Angel season 5’s disturbing episode, “A Hole in the World.” With that, I must point out this is not the strongest issue to enter the series as a new reader. The structure is non-linear and there is only brief mention made of our new world of 2,000 slayers and the decoy Buffies running around. The comics have proved innovative in allowing Joss to focus his microscope away from the core Scoobies. If you’re only a fan of the adventures of our merry band, this may be a difficult issue for you. The television series would never have had an installment like issue #5. Within its pages are rooms in the house of the Buffiverse we have never explored. Finally, guest artist Paul Lee does an impressive job over regular artist George Jeanty. The various underground faerie-tale creatures the decoy Buffy brings the gift of equality are fantastically realized, even the one that looks like a leaf-blower.

I am bowled over by this one, I must admit. It holds within its pages one of the best genre stories to explore the human condition in 16 pages. Up next, Brian K. Vaughan brings us Faith, the darkest slayer yet!

Can we get together and make this happen please?

2007-08-31T12:15:00.000-05:00

Dame Darcy!

Flavor Flav!

Flavor of Love 3!

Go vote for Dame Darcy today!

Gigantism -- you're getting it!

2007-08-28T14:29:00.000-05:00

Rachelle Goguen at Living Between Wednesdays gives us a look inside WORLD'S FINEST 238, featuring a tale of the Super-Sons of Superman and Batman. They look EXACTLY like their dads, but they jive-talk and, um, ride tandem bikes.

Check out her blog for a rundown of the entire issue -- it's worth it. And, in the holy name of Kal-El, pre-order your copy of Superman/Batman: Saga of the Super-Sons today. Amazon says it's due in September.

Review - Batman 668

2007-08-25T00:10:00.001-05:00

BATMAN 668
By Grant Morrison and JH Williams III
Colors by Dave Stewart, Letters by John J. Hill
Published by DC Comics, August 2007. $2.99

While Grant Morrison is raking in accolades (and rightfully so) for his work on ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, he’s also chugging along on some of the finest -- if also most nostalgic -- Batman stories to come along in some time. His premiere storyline, “Batman and Son” with Andy Kubert, swam the rivers of late-80s Batmen, revisiting Talia al Ghul and the events of BATMAN: SON OF THE DEMON. The current story, “The Island of Mister Mayhew,” revisits the Batmen of All Nations, an international club of Batman look-alikes first seen in DETECTIVE COMICS 215 from 1955.

In this second of three parts, “Now We Are Dead!,” the Batmen (now called “The Club of Heroes”) are having a rare reunion on the very Island of Mister Mayhew of the arc’s title -- only they’ve become trapped on the island and are being picked off one by one. Morrison does a very nice job building interesting and engaging personalities for each of the Batmen -- Man-of-Bats and Raven Red are a Native American father and son duo with a strained relationship, El Gaucho is an Argentine vigilante worth respecting, and the Legionary is an overweight Italian who revels in the stories of his youth -- while still moving the mystery along at a nice clip.

But what really makes this issue shine is JH Williams -- bar none, one of the finest artists making comics today. That he spends so much of his time working the superhero side of things is a one of the best reasons I can think of for superhero fans to get out of bed on Wednesday mornings. A flashback to the last Club of Heroes meeting, captioned “Eight Years Ago,” is playfully rendered in a six-panel grid colored with “comic book dots,” which I’m sure have a real name that simply escapes me tonight. When we’re blasted to the present day -- with the Club’s discovery of another of their murdered number -- we get some of the most sophisticated paneling I’ve seen outside of Frank Quitely. Even in splash pages, Williams employs a handy trick -- a thin black border around details worth our attention, with specific colors standing out of the otherwise gray background. I seem to remember him doing the same things in his run on DESOLATION JONES, and I’m happy to see him back in action here.

BATMAN under Morrison and Williams is, simply put, superior storytelling of trademarked characters. Batman might not be forever changed by the end of next issue, but some of these other characters will be -- if any of them survived -- and thanks to the storytellers involved, that will matter to me just as much.

Tell me more: JH Williams III, Grant Morrison.

Review - Sharknife: Stage First

2007-08-21T19:36:00.001-05:00

SHARKNIFE: STAGE FIRST
By Corey Lewis
Grayscaling by Alejandro Fuentes
Published by Oni Press, March 2005. $9.95

I used to see SHARKNIFE mentioned in the same breath as SCOTT PILGRIM a lot, because they both came out around the same time, and both from Oni Press, and both in the same format -- digest-sized, to fit next to the manga -- and both with similar influences and tropes. Like PILGRIM, Corey Lewis through SHARKNIFE invents a world with its own rules and logic, centering on the Guangdong Factory, a Chinese restaurant constantly threatened by monsters that live inside its walls, and constantly defended by the busboy Ceasar Hallelujah, who transforms into the mighty bio-mech ninja Sharknife with the munch of a magic fortune cookie.

Also populating this world are Chieko, daughter of the Guandong Factory’s owner, baker of the magic fortune cookies, and damsel-in-distress to Sharknife’s conquering hero; Ombra Ravenga, crime boss of Sharknife’s unnamed city, and ringleader of the villains who send monster after monster to do battle with Sharknife; and a manageable but forgettable supporting cast that wouldn’t be out of place in an 80’s cartoon with much the same setup.

That’s the great weakness of SHARKNIFE -- it begins with a concept that’s well-worn, and despite artwork has flashes of kinetic fun, doesn’t rise above what we’ve seen before from other post-modern medium-bending action/adventure tales. Chieko is practically Olive Oyl, fainting when monsters attack, and Ravenga might as well be Mum-ra, Skeletor, or any other villain who’s ever lurked in the shadows, flinging deadly beasts at The Hero, either for purposes unclear or clichéd (in this case -- Ravenga is a crime lord who also ran the city’s hottest restaurant, until the Guandong Factory lured all of the customers away).

The dialogue tries to be ironic and sly, but where SCOTT PILGRIM has heart behind its awkward posturing and battle scenes, SHARKNIFE simply stumbles from fight to fight to fight. There’s no sense of what’s at stake, Sharknife himself comes across as a kid’s Ultimate D&D character -- always with a bigger, badder trick up his sleeve, and never in any real danger. And I know that’s part of the joke -- the bombast, the heroic pronouncements -- but knowing your dialogue is stilted doesn’t un-stilt it by itself.

While the artwork shows gleams of a Paul Pope influence (there’s even a Paul Pope poster behind Corey Lewis’s author photo), it’s often too hectic and confusing to follow what’s going on. This could be a case of mine eyes being unused to SHARKNIFE’s manga influences, but I like to think I’m not yet too old to appreciate the Brand New Scene. So, fine, I’ll say it -- grindcore IS just noise, and this comic IS, at times, too busy.

There’s some fun to be had in SHARKNIFE -- asides and captions like “Oh noes!” and “ZOMG!” give the book a sense of humor and freshness, but ultimately it’s a book that doesn’t rise above its influences.

Tell me more: Corey Lewis, Oni Press.

Review - SUGARSHOCK!

2007-08-14T17:40:00.000-05:00

SUGARSHOCK!
By Joss Whedon & Fábio Moon
With Dave Stewart and Nate Piekos
Published by Dark Horse Comics, August 2007. Free for you, and free for me!

LOUD MUSIC! LOUD MUSIC! STRANGE BUZZING!! “I’m not saying that I’m better than you…. I’m not saying I’m rubber and in no way did I suggest you’re glue” goes the future pop-hit from SUGARSHOCK! a four-piece band hailing from another beyond I would not mind visiting. Joss Whedon is taking off to more otherworldly outfits to get his brand of girl power on and I couldn’t squeal louder. SUGARSHOCK! is his own tweaked take on Jem and the Holograms or Josie and the Pussycats and has genre-mashed its way into my heart. One thing I have come to know about Joss is his passion for music, whether it is Sondheim or slow jams. Born from this love of hard-rockin’ tunes, SUGARSHOCK! is poised to be a release for all the creative energy stifled from the cancellation of Firefly, as this online-only web comic draws the closest, of his recent work, to representing the energy and the wit of the tragically befallen series.

Dandelion, the lead singer of the band, is a precocious and slightly schizophrenic Viking- hater. Her drummer, Wade, is a voluptuous woman of such awesomeness she brings home a groupie from every concert for indiscreet sex and absolutely no talking. L’Lihdra, lead guitarist, looks masculine in her pinstriped suit but has ways of resolving the in fighting with a sensitive touch. Then there is Robot Phil, the robot bassist, who is a robot, and he likes to ride shotgun and not to be threatened. I love these characters in a way I have not loved a group of people since the crew of Serenity. Their personalities are so distinct, and every word that comes out of their mouths are facets of who they are, marvelously specific. The language is a shade too precise, and all of the background details are awkwardly, and hilariously, straightforward. (The winner of the South Fairville Hormer’s Shrimp n Taco Rock Off receives a giant check with BIG CHECK written on it. Hee.)

The gorgeous artwork makes this my favorite single issue to come along based on the art alone. Fábio Moon has a way of making everything loose and flowing with electricity. Whimsical details like Dandelion’s stink-eye projecting a small lightning bolt are funzies. I took a special shine to a cloud of hearts obstructing the view, of which I won’t say anything more. Whedon’s mission is to make us fall in love with yet another amazing ensemble, and SUGARSHOCK! is an unqualified success. All I want is to read more, get to know the group better, and see what’s going to happen next. This is 8 pages of pure joy, man, go read it!

Review - De:Tales

2007-08-12T15:01:00.000-05:00

De:TALES
By Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá
Published by Dark Horse Comics, June 2006. $14.95

At the risk of turning this into the Moon/Bá blog, I recently spent some time with the brothers’ “first major American release,” a collection of short stories, memories, and tales from Brazil. It looks like the earliest of the stories is dated 2002, so De:TALES covers the twins’ work over the course of a few years, and it’s hard to know when Fábio’s work stops and Gabriel’s begins, but I think that’s how it’s supposed to work.

The collection dips into magical realism from time to time, such as when the brothers pee in a circle to invoke the spirit of a friend who has passed on, just in time for his birthday; or when one of the brothers (Fábio, maybe?) goes on an imaginary date with a girl he was too shy to actually talk to one night in a bar. But just as fulfilling are the stories about being tourists in Paris, or getting into a fashion show for free after waking up in a stranger’s bed.

De:TALES is also an examination of form and craft, particularly when Fábio and Gabriel take turns illustrating the same story with “Reflections I & II.” “Reflections I” paints Fábio as the defter hand at panel layouts and pacing, but part of the fun of looking at a Gabriel Bá comic from 2002 is knowing that by 2006, Bá was producing work like CASANOVA -- a superior study in pacing and layouts if ever there was one.

Tell me more: Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá, De:Tales preview at Dark Horse Comics.

(The only real smudge on De:TALES is the introduction from Diana Schutz, in which she tells us she “chose to politely ignore” the writing not done by Moon and Bá in a Xeric-award winner the brothers passed on to her at CCI years before they found a home at Dark Horse. Maybe it wasn’t to Schutz’s liking -- it was, goodness forbid, an “action-adventure tale” about superheroes -- but why take time in Moon and Bá’s introduction to put down some nameless writer’s early work? There are 112 pages of enjoyable comics to follow -- revel in that instead.)

Review - Madame Mirage: First Look

2007-08-10T20:36:00.000-05:00

Madame Mirage: First Look
By Paul Dini & Kenneth Rocafort
Colors by (pgs 4-7) Blond, Letters by Troy Peteri
Published by Top Cow, May 2007. $0.99

Paul Dini is partially responsible for my geek awakening, as I was a serious addict of Batman: The Animated Series. His work on Lost is excellent, and I enjoy his Eisner winning one-shot Mad Love. He is a writer I respect, but Madame Mirage made me feel excluded.

The first thing, well first two things, that struck me are the size of Madame’s breasts. I understand Top Cow has a reputation for having large bosomed women in their comics, but I believe it cheapens the title. I feel this choice is particularly off mark considering Madame’s power. She has the ability to appear as anything she wants; like a mirage, one might say. Therefore, unless there is a character driven reason why an action heroine would desire huge breasts I’m not going for it. Besides, the big failing of the story is we never witness a demonstration of her Mystique-like powers to solve the conflict. Instead, she blows her prey out of the sky with a large pistol. I could not discern a single moment to invite the reader to understand what she is about. Dini’s two-page introduction detailing how Madame Mirage began as an internet cartoon and became a comic series is interesting, but the material for this ongoing series does not grip me.

When I read Dini’s introduction, I thought the pulpy mixture of sci-fi super heroics and noir crime drama sounded intriguing. Of interest is Dini’s goal to explore unusual super powered villains, and I do see promise in a heroine who can appear as anything. It is particularly intense because most everyone depicted has armor or gear of some kind in assisting their power, it seems, but Mirage tramps around in a white high slit slinky number and a wide brimmed hat. I wonder how it is she can allow herself to be vulnerable. I wonder if she can even be vulnerable at all. I’ll admit I am curious to discover why she has investment in fighting crime syndicates, and where her interests align.

I will wait for the trades, and my hope is Dini can impress me. I would be pleased if Dini could subvert every expectation I have from a Top Cow title such as Alan Moore has done with several Image titles. Based on this preview I find the weaknesses outweigh the promise. Rocafort’s artwork is competent, but not impressive. Dini says Madame Mirage is to follow in the footsteps of his quirky girl characters Jingle Belle and Harley Quinn. As this 99-cent preview makes evident, Madame Mirage is more an attempt at a new Aeon Flux.

Why the X-Men will always win ...

2007-08-10T17:11:00.000-05:00

(From an Engine thread on the greatest panels in comics.)

Review - Casanova 8

2007-08-10T16:58:00.000-05:00

CASANOVA 8
By Matt Fraction and Fábio Moon
Letters by Sean Konot, Cover by Gabriel Bá
Published by Image Comics, August 2008

The very first time I read an issue of CASANOVA was on a bus from Milwaukee to Chicago, following a visit to the Masters of American Comics exhibit, in order to see original pages from LITTLE NEMO and POPEYE. I read it and I thought, “oh, okay. He’s trying to write a Grant Morrison comic book.” It wasn’t as good as a Grant Morrison comic -- what the eff is? -- but it was fun for all of its sixteen pages of comic book, five pages of backmatter. I came back for issue two.

And I came back for issue three, and four, and five-six-seven.

What kept me coming back -- and what I look forward to as I read every issue -- is that backmatter that comes after the story proper. Writer Matt Fraction talks about process, about how each issue was constructed, about how seeing the giant cranes on the Oakland side of the San Francisco Bay (which I’ve been looking at myself for the past year) informed a scene, or a visual, or an entire issue. He talks about overheard conversations that came along at just the right time, and about how the act of creating CASANOVA is a testament to the life that he lives. Folks like Cormac McCarthy go out of their way to NOT talk about the creative process, to let the work rise and fall by virtue of the work itself. But it’s not that simple all of the time -- with CASANOVA, part of the work is the life that surrounds it. I like that a lot. And by the time issues five or six were coming out -- and far and away by the time this issue, issue eight, came out -- I was making special trips to the comic shop on the Wednesdays a new CASANOVA was due. It still feels very Morrison-influenced (especially in eight’s backmatter, where Fraction recounts writing Casanova recover from an illness, so that HE might recover from an illness), but instead of feeling like sheer imitation the way issue one struck me, it now feels like Fraction is building on a tradition instead of replicating it.

The art in this issue, which starts a new story arc, is taken over by Fábio Moon, twin brother and studio-mate of CASANOVA co-creator Gabriel Bá. Though it comes from a different artist, there’s a certain inspired-pop-magic in twins trading off on illustrating a book that very much concerns itself with evil, alternate universe, and sexy twindom. Fábio and Bá are fantastic, apart or together, as I gushed on about a little bit in my review for 5, and they’re on the verge of the rest of the world recognizing it, too.

One thing that leapt out at me -- there’s a pretty unfortunate foot on page four, as Casanova kicks backward at a up-to-no-good nurse … but even that is part of CASANOVA’S charm, watching quality comics craftsmen draw weird looking feet from time to time, or slip into action-comics patterns only to shake themselves free of it a few issues later. CASANOVA is one of the special ones -- a comic book worth reading, re-reading, and examining from all angles.

Tell me more: Matt Fraction, Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá.

Green Arrow: Year One

2007-08-09T16:27:00.000-05:00

Green Arrow: Year One No. 1 & 2 (of 6)
Both written by Andy Diggle
Both drawn & cover art by Jock
Published by DC; $2.99
July 2007

There are virtually no limits to where a comic book can take its readers - and I don't just mean showing green-furred koalas who can shoot laser beams out of their nipples while picnicking on Saturn. How many people know what it's like, firsthand, to bungee-jump the Grand Canyon? Barrel-roll a stealth plane? Dive the Titanic? Seduce a supermodel? Activities that can feasibly be executed in the real world provide excitement a-plenty if your main character has the means of an over-indulgent, thrill-seeking playboy. So, why we learn about the aforementioned escapades of Oliver Queen (Green Arrow to be) while he's sitting on a glacier in the Arctic - essentially, a snowy hillside setting that is little more than a blank, white page - is completely beyond my comprehension. And very, very frustrating.

Subtract engaging art from Green Arrow: Year One No. 1 and there's little else to make up for it. Year One cooks up the proverbial orphan-turned-vigilante-hero origin story. We start with the insanely wealthy Oliver Queen, who has been seasoned generously with disillusionment. His sense of purpose has been strained off long ago and he has been sparingly garnished with interesting minor characters. I'm not claiming that because a storyline is commonplace it has to be mundane, but Year One does more stating than creating. For example, Ollie/G.A. "thinks" (I quote): "My whole life, I've surrounded myself with sycophants and yes-men who'll tell me whatever I want to hear" ...and that's it. There are no actual portraits of that situation. Uh, I'd like know what's it'd be like to be surrounded by "yes-men." It's why I'm reading this comic book. Rather than impose that interior monologue over an image of a boat in the middle of the ocean (bo-oring!), I want to watch some flunky laugh at Ollie's awful jokes, which they both know are not funny. Or show me some asshole egging the Arrow onto buying a meteor crater so he that can fill it with champagne. Anything is better than is nothing.

The only other character fleshed out in Year One is Ollie's one "true" buddy, Hackett, who is straight with him about how empty his life is. (He almost literally tells Ollie just that – "There's something missing in you, Ollie.") When Hackett betrays Ollie, it's not really a surprise – not that I saw it coming - but I just didn't care. In fact, I am betting that you will care so little about that story twist, too, that you won't mind that I didn't issue a spoiler warning just now.

The art in Year One No. 1 aspires to that sloppy, bad-on-purpose style that artists like Ben Templesmith can get away with, but few else can ... and too many try. Yeah, there's the occasionally exceptional panel, but it's difficult to tell if it's attractive on its own, or just standing out from the rest of the scribbles in the book. I do give Jock some props for his skill at drawing hair. There is some nice-looking hair in issue No. 1, especially in the last few pages. Jock really nails that upscale, chin-skimming, frat-boy look that some future CEOs get during their "cut-loose" college years.

Sadly, the transition between issue No. 1 and No. 2 was not very encouraging. At the end of No. 1, Ollie's buddy heaves him overboard in the middle of the ocean. No. 2 begins with Ollie washing up on an island shore. I protest not the degree of improbability in this situation, but its utter lack of adornment. Give me a life-saving school of dolphins! A mermaid! Even a hallucination of Robin Hood would have sufficed. Anything, please! - except for what we get, nothing!

What we do get (finally), looking on the bright side, is some decent character development. There is a stunning description of Ollie's first taste of water in several days. Diggle pens some entertaining reflections on the hoops Ollie has to jump through to survive on the island, even if some moments are sullied by over-obvious and unnecessary observations to the effect of "things are more satisfying when you do them for yourself." The highlight of No. 2 is an dynamic costume-acquiring sequence that is good enough to leave as a vague mention ... so as not to spoil.

Overall, the storytelling improves in issue No. 2. The art is more detailed and the narration switches to present-moment activities rather than just recounting past experiences and summarizing relationships. The effect is amazing. As the ol' design dictates: Simmer your hero with suffering; butter with meaning; and serve with a side of cold-hearted, mysterious injustice.

True to form, the relatively quiet, character-building No. 2 ends with our newly-reborn hero getting back in action. Even though I'd comfortably wager my life's savings on who the villain in this mini-series is, I still might pick it up No. 3 - just to find out what happens. Green Arrow Year One's hardly a shot through the heart, but it doesn't miss the entire target completely.

Review - Ultimate Spiderman #111

2007-08-06T19:51:00.000-05:00

Ultimate Spiderman #111
By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley, and Stuart Immonen
Colors by Justin Ponsor, Letters by VC’s Cory Petit
Published by Marvel Comics, July 2007. $2.99

After two game-changing action-packed arcs - The Clone Saga and Ultimate Knights - Brian Michael Bendis has grabbed our shaken, frail bodies and forced us to sit with him and have a quiet chat. Between fighting various mutated freaks, dealing with the Ultimate love triangle, going to school and working at the Daily Bugle, Peter has had no time to deal with his disapproving Aunt May who once figured so closely to his daily life.

Aunt May’s guilt over Uncle Ben’s death became known in an issue similar to #111, "The Talk", the appropriately titled “Guilt,” issue #45. In “Guilt,” Aunt May talks to her psychiatrist about her inability to cope with a world where vigilantes run around in their pajamas doing whatever they want. She is relieved at the assurance her nephew is not involved in this fast growing trend. Issue #111 brings her growing concerns full circle. May has come to know the ugly truth: Peter Parker IS Spiderman. Yes, it’s time for that talk. I enjoyed reading Peter’s rationalization of the Spidey-sense, and Aunt May knowing the full story of the day the infamous radioactive spider bit Peter. In an odd, subtle moment, he tosses off the once traumatizing incident when Green Goblin threw Mary Jane off Brooklyn Bridge as mundane.

The one disappointment with this issue is a flashback to a battle with Ultimate Spot at the ROXXON labs just before picking up Aunt May at the hospital. The artist Stuart Immonen, to whom regular artist Mark Bagley is passing the Ultimate torch with #111, illustrates this sequence. The reader has the unfortunate position of only seeing their dialogue along the margin. I am disappointed this dull “staged reading” effect was implemented. While I love the witty exchange with May’s comical inability to understand what Peter is saying, and that the trashed lab hurt Peter’s young scientist heart, I would have expected a more ambitious execution of the conversation. Interspersing the intimate kitchen chat with the fight would have proved more engaging, especially if Bagley’s softer style had been integrated with Immonen's contrasting angular take on action sequences. This section felt like there was a last minute decision to include Immonen on the story; as a result, it felt lazy.

In the end, this issue delivered great moments for Aunt May. Her questions are just the right ones, as she feels increasingly nauseous the more she unweaves the delicate web of deceit. May discovers that Ben's familiar wise words of; "with great power..." is the great motivator for Spiderman. In her smile, I can see her relief. She can have a conversation with a superhero, thus providing the perfect bookend to “Guilt.”

Review - Lost at Sea

2007-08-05T17:05:00.000-05:00

LOST AT SEA
By Bryan Lee O’Malley
Published by Oni Press, 2nd ed. March 2005. $11.95

LOST AT SEA is a pre-SCOTT PILGRIM graphic novel from Bryan Lee O’Malley concerning four teenagers, a road trip, lots of cats, a blinking NO, and lost souls. Our hero is Raleigh, who believes she lost her soul the summer after her childhood best friend moved away. What led Raleigh to be in this car with three strangers is something she pieces together for herself, and for us, as the trip progresses.

Raleigh’s lost best friend is given a fair amount of art-and-pagespace early on, only to go unseen for the last two-thirds of the book, but once LOST AT SEA turns into what it turns into, it’s a touching chronicle of post-high school moments that is fulfilling and truthful.

Steph, one of Raleigh’s car-mates, tells her toward the end that Raleigh has survived “your life’s great trauma,” which is melodramatic in the way it should be. But like real life, Raleigh’s story doesn’t end or crescendo with her life’s great trauma -- it just keeps going, moment by moment, as her experiences add up to be who she is. So even though LOST AT SEA doesn’t have the storytelling balance of SCOTT PILGIRM'S PRECIOUS LITTLE LIFE, the honesty of the story being told still endears it to me.

What I noticed in particular about Bryan Lee O’Malley’s art in SCOTT PILGRIM, and what is even more relevant to my own experiences in LOST AT SEA, is his eye for true detail even in a cartoony world. I’ve never seen the spartan utility of rest stop bathroom portrayed so accurately -- even down to the tilt of the mirrors. I feel like every location was drawn a photograph tinged with memory, which makes the story’s proceedings feel even more important -- and makes me remember the rest stops, diners and Americana I’ve experienced in my own travels. LOST AT SEA is the kind of book I resisted at first, but now that it’s done, I keep turning over in my head again and again, finding the places in my own life where my experiences match up with Raleigh’s.

Tell me more: Bryan Lee O'Malley, Oni Press.

Small Press Review - 5

2007-08-04T14:52:00.000-05:00

5
By Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Rafael Grampa & Vasilis Lolos
July 2007. I paid four bucks for mine!

I picked up 5 at CCI, and along with THB and the Fourth World Omnibus it was easily one of my favorite purchases. It’s essentially a love letter to comics, to making them, and to each other, by Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Vasilis Lolos and Rafael Grampa.

5 is made up of four short stories and a cover, each by one of the contributors. The first story is “Becky,” by Gabriel Ba, about a tiny (but menacing!) lady getting out of prison, going home to her pet tiger and dirty dishes, and chaining herself to her drawing table.

“Fabio & Gabriel,” by Becky Cloonan, involves two artists, a mysterious egg, and “Becky’s” Becky reaching up through the comic page to flick the nose of one of our heroes.

“Vasilis” by Fabio Moon concerns itself with spaceships, even more cross-referencing from the previous stories, broken ankles, and yet more comics drawing.

“Grampa,” by Vasilis Lolos, and probably my favorite contribution, features an artist doing battle with a squidy-pug-in-a-jar before the unbelieving stares of the general public -- except for a grinning kid, who happily believes it all, and is rewarded for it with a comic book. Sweet!

Rafael Grampa provides the cover and title pages to every story. His website calls 5 the first, but not the last, collaboration between the five artists, and I really hope that’s true. The Engine occasionally flares up with talk about a “slimline anthology," an inexpensive periodical put together by four or five like-minded souls -- and if Becky, Fabio, Gabriel, Rafael and Vasilis were the souls behind such an effort, I’d be a happy, happy dude.

(I don't know when or where outside of San Diego copies of 5 are available, but earlier this week Comic Relief in Berkeley had copies -- let 'em know you want one!)

Tell me more:

Becky Cloonan
Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba
Vasilis Lolos
Rafael Grampa

Capsule Reviews

2007-08-03T15:45:00.000-05:00

San Diego was an absolute blast.

See?

But in lieu of one of those con-reports everyone likes to post (and which you can find from my Heart Partner Juan down below), here are a few things I read this week:

GREEN LANTERN CORPS 14
By Gibbons, Gleason, Unzueta, Rollins, Major & Balsman

Part three of the Sinestro Corps War and … not much happens. My spidey sense wonders if the Corps is just filler, and the real action will unfold in the main GL book. But Sinestro looks really good, and it’s fun getting a glimpse of his homeworld -- now under the jurisdiction of another red-skinned, and possibly untested, Green Lantern. But Sinestro pulls the old “I will hint at my evil plans without doing much that’s actually important” trick.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 542
By Straczynski, Garney, Reinhold, Milla & Petit

Hey, whattya know -- Spider-Man does the same kind of thing here with the Kingpin. In the words of the Monarch, “all sound and fury, signifying nothing.” But next time -- ooh, next time! -- you better believe it’ll be good!

THE ORDER 1
By Fraction, Kitson, Morales, White & Artmonkeys Studios

Almost called “The Champions,” this book is a non-mutant, non-satirical, post-Marvel-Civil-War X-STATIX. It has the feel of a Matt Fraction book, even if I dunno quite what that means yet -- but if you took the credits off, I’d point to at as by the same author as the last SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN annual, even if it’s not as satisfying. The thing about X-STATIX was that even the fake-out members -- the folks who died in the first issue, for example -- were still interesting individuals in their own right. But the fake-outs in THE ORDER, quickly replaced by, you know, all the folks on the cover -- are pretty obviously ringers. But I trust Fraction enough by now (Spider-Man, IMMORTAL IRON FIST -- yes, sir!) to come back for a second issue. And besides -- the issue two cover tease promises a fight twixt a bear and a robot. It’s like he read my mind!

Per-pow!

Review - Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, vol. 1

2007-08-02T02:54:00.000-05:00

JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS, Vol. 1
By Jack Kirby
Inks by Vince Colletta
Published by DC Comics, July 2007. $49.99

“This kid doesn’t get it. The Kirby tradition is to create a new comic.”

I always think it’s such a great idea at first, to by yet another collection of Silver Age comics, something big and prestige (or cheap and black and white), but usually I get an issue or two in, and I’m ready to return to the latest given issue of any old thing at all. Even the beautiful weirdness of SUPERMAN IN THE FIFTIES wasn’t enough to sustain my attention through the entire volume.

JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS was another San Diego purchase, and I was wonderfully surprised by how quickly I read through the sixteen comics reprinted therein. The volume contains seven issues of SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN and three issues each of THE FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE, the titles handled by Jack Kirby upon his defection from Marvel to DC in 1970, presented in chronological order. While they can occasionally stray into absurdity -- Don Rickles and his look-alike Goody Rickles show up in the last issue of JIMMY OLSEN reprinted -- those moments are easily outweighed by the creepiness of Mantis emerging from his energy cocoon, Granny Goodness seeking to return Scott Free back to her orphanage, and Darkseid’s goon Desaad hooking up all sorts of Kirby machines to his own flesh.

The Fourth World, as Mark Evanier puts it in his afterword, is Kirby at his most Kirby. He had an epic in mind, but he was making it up as he went along. Not willing (or, um, able) to rest on the success of, you know, creating the Marvel Universe, Kirby was playing with themes he’d return to again and again -- gods doing battle on Earth among humans, and mankind meeting the cosmic face to face. A book like GODLAND is fun and all, but see the quote up above -- if Kirby were alive today and still making comics, they wouldn’t look like that. They wouldn’t look like any Kirby comic we’d ever seen before.

Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS is probably the most Fourth World-like project the comics world has seen in recent years, and while that was executed with a beginning and an end, it still was born from the creations of those who had come before. Heck, most of them were actual Kirby creations. To see the pure comic book manic energy SOLDIERS sprang from -- and to understand the debt all of comics, and much of pop culture, owes to Jack Kirby -- the FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS is a great place to start. It’s the first of four volumes, with the second due to arrive later this month.

(Marvel’s DEVIL DINOSAUR OMNIBUS is also new to the shelves, along with Image’s reprint of THE SILVER STAR, a late-80’s Topp’s-published “Kirbyverse” effort. I dunno about SILVER STAR, but DEVIL DINOSAUR is more weird fun -- I think there’s an ETERNALS OMNIBUS out that collects that entire run, as well. I’ve had my eyes on DC’s KAMANDI ARCHIVES for a long time too … look, long story short? Go read some Kirby comics.)

Tell me more: Jack Kirby, Fourth World wiki.

Review - THB: Comics From Mars 1

2007-08-01T14:53:00.000-05:00

THB: COMICS FROM MARS 1
By Paul Pope
Published by AdHouse Books, July 2007. $4.95

An SDCC exclusive, this is the first THB comic in … I dunno. Years. It coincides with the release of AdHouse’s Pulp Hope, an absolutely gorgeous art book by Paul Pope, one of the best artists working in comics. Also announced at San Diego was the release of THB in a complete four-volume series from FirstSecond, but in the meantime: if there’s any way you can get your hands on this beautiful, scratchy, black and white comic, do so but quick.

THB is the comic Paul Pope has been returning to again and again for more than ten years now, chronicling the adventures of HR Watson and her bodyguard mek (that’s the Tri-Hydro-Bioxygenate of the title), but it’s also more than that -- Paul Pope’s Mars is so fully realized that it’s possible to dip in and out and feel engrossed without getting lost. COMICS FROM MARS offers four short stories that 1) offer a glimpse of a zooball game, 2) give a crash course on Martian history, 3) convey the work day of mek/comics mechanics, and 4) show HR in the course of her normal day, seeking out only the fat-bubbliest of bubble hipshakes.

I think my favorite thing about this issue of THB -- more than the inky black inks, the energy of new comics being told, or the hope of more THB to come -- are Paul Pope’s letters. Hand-lettering is beautiful and slipping away into memory, and I treasure every glimpse of it I can still catch. I don’t know if Eddie Campbell is still hand-lettering or not, but I know for a fact that his letters on FROM HELL made the book just as much as Alan Moore’s words and Eddie’s own art. Paul Pope’s letters in COMICS FROM MARS are another piece to an exquisite puzzle, and for all the fun I had at San Diego this year, one of the best things to come from the con was the news that THB will soon be collected and complete.

Tell me more: Paul Pope, AdHouse Books.

Review - Astonishing X-Men vol. 3: Torn

2007-08-01T00:39:00.000-05:00

ASTONISHING X-MEN Vol. 3: TORN

By Joss Whedon & John Cassaday
Colors by Laura Martin, Letters by Chris Eliopoulos
Published by Marvel Comics, February 2007. $14.99

Like the best Spider-Man comics these days, the best of the X-Men seems to revel in nostalgia. I forget where I happened on it, but not too long ago I read a theory that there were three or four Spidey stories that are told and told again, and the same seems true of Joss Whedon’s run on X-Men. TORN, which collects ASTONISHING X-MEN 13-18, gives us the X-Men taken apart by one of their own, and a revamped (sort of) Hellfire Club, before blasting them off for what will probably be the last ASTONISHING nostalgia trip, the X-Men in space.

So while it’s nothing particularly new, it’s definitely nostalgia done well. John Cassaday packs in the homages to X-Men eras past, from the Storm/Cyclops battle for leadership to a shot of Kitty Pryde, on her own in the sewers, spinning around and ready to free her team from the Hellfire Club’s clutches -- taken right from a John Byrne panel of Wolverine doing the same in UNCANNY’s defining run of the early 80s.

Along with his recent run on BUFFY SEASON 8, Joss Whedon has proven himself a master of comic book pacing -- the reveal of Perfection’s true identity is topped only by Kitty’s reaction to the reveal, and I’ve never LOL’d to a sex scene the way I did at Kitty and Colossus finally getting back together, after years of Excalibur and death-related separation.

While ASTONISHING doesn’t have the dynamism and what-will-come-next of UNCANNY’s Claremont/Byrne run (or even the Claremont/Silvestri run, which is where I first found Marvel’s mutants), the Whedon/Cassaday connection consistently deliver a noble retelling of the X-Men myth, in a way no other creative time is capable these days.

Tell me more: Joss Whedon, X-Men wiki.

San Diego Comic-con wrap up

2007-07-31T10:27:00.000-05:00

So, San Diego has come and gone again, and now it's time to look on to the rest of the year.

Well, frankly, I am Comic-con-ed out! Whew!

This years was awesome, and it was a first for me. I saw how big it all was last year, but this year? Jesus. No matter how many folks scream at you about how big it is, YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!
After all the crowds, all the smells and all the screaming of Comic-con, you did have the Panels, and here is some of the Wisdom from the con:

+ Only at Comic-con can you find people with legitimate eye patches on
that are not pirates.

+ Finish it! Submit It!

+ Before you get that big project you dream of, you need to get
published EVERYWHERE.

+There is a difference between what happens in a story and what a
story is about.

+Proof the fuck out of your books

+If you don't look at something you did 5 years ago and don't hate it,
you're not doing it right

+Comics are Graphic Design and Poetry

+I want my work to be like ransom notes for hostages, people didn't know
were missing

+ When you're drawing your characters, that is the only time your touching them

+What you're working on, that is your work

+Nothing is more Amateur that poor lettering

+Why does this story need to be told?

+Be creative with you idea, but be creative with your business

+You may look at it as a comic, but really you're creating a business

There was some more stuff, but whatever I didn't write down on my Moleskine, I really didn't retain in my brain. It could have something to do with getting out of the con and getting fucking ripped every night.

I'm surprised that I didn't buy that much loot too, except for some heavy ass Frezzato Albums from Heavy Metal, my bag wasn't that heavy. I did get a lot of indy stuff wherever i could so i may put something on later on in the week about it.

You can pretty much see all my coverage on here through FLICKr and my Blog.

Ok, time to decompress and get back to work

...regular transmissions to resume shortly...

2007-07-25T14:14:00.000-05:00

The Heart's been beating a little quieter than usual lately ... once we get over the summertime hump that is San Diego, expect us to get back up to speed. In the meantime, enjoy your summer, read some comics, and may the Force be with y'all!

The Comic Bandwagon?

2007-07-20T15:18:00.000-05:00

First Zuda, then Go Phone (They've been around for a bit thought) and now Virgin Comics merging with Myspace to make comics? Oh WTF? Every jump on the COMIC BOOK band wagon! Whoo!

You know I don't want to be the guy whining about a lot of what's been going on in webcomics and comics in general, and say that it's some type of exclusive "thing" to "us" the die-hard fans/creators, or it's some culture people can't appreciate, etc, etc, etc.

All this news is to the contrary.

But just look at the state of punk rock : Hot topic, crying, pussy fart, dead, garbage.

I remember when we used to really suffer to get a zine, when we used to travel hours on a bus to go to some far off fucking record store, just to find an Operation Ivy CD.

We suffered for our punk.

Hence why each and every fucking song meant something to us, every damn album was a painstaking ordeal, and every mix tape was ourselves making reality a little bit better for us.

I remember when a Misfits shirt was hard to come by.

Now that shit is gone, and you can download the stuff off the net in a second. Sometimes you don't even have to pay for it. You're deluged with video on Youtube, of concerts and videos that you had to by off some fat fuck who smelled like bourbon, tacos, and ass.

And if you want to look the part you just have to go to Hot Topic where they'll sell you a personality for the low cost of any type of ingenuity and your parents credit.

You know what? Thats fine. That shit if over. Let it die, and be happy you got to experience and go forward. YAY. It's jsut sad that it's not there now for the kids growing up. It's all changed and shitty, made in a little bite sized morsels, and it's gone in a second. Nothing was made to last forever but this stuff is a joke.

So if this comes to comics, fuck me silly, but that would just be so sad.

That's why I'm worried about the future of comics, only because I saw what all the publicity of the "salesmans" can do, like it did to punk rock, and Punk is deader than fried chicken, my friends.

I don't mind people making money I just hate to see something I love be shitted on for it.

By the way I'm going to San Diego Comic-con next week...screwy ain't it?

Review - Star Wars: Legacy 14

2007-07-13T02:52:00.000-05:00

STAR WARS: LEGACY 14
By John Ostrander, Jan Duursema & Dan Parsons
Colors by Brad Anderson, Letters by Michael Heisler
Published by Dark Horse Comics, July 2007. $2.99

It’s summertime, so I’ve been re-playing KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPBULIC. Which means I’ve been walking around in my daily life and imagining lightsabers. More than usual, I mean. So I tried one of the many STAR WARS comics to see what was what in the world of the not-movies.

I’m not a big fan of the Expanded Universe stuff. I love Star Wars, as it existed circa 1984 -- the first three movies, the old figures, the Millennium Falcon. Everything else (prequels included) has been like fancy fan-fiction, and that’s fine with me. It’s fun to imagine and re-imagine Star Wars and it’s characters, but like anything some of it hits and some of it doesn’t.

Playing KOTOR and reading this issue of LEGACY -- the setting of the latter being 137 years after the first (released) Star Wars movie -- it seems like the general pattern of non-movie Star Wars stories is that the Jedi/Sith conflict is one that repeats itself over and over again. There’s always a Jedi in danger of falling to the dark side, and there are always scoundrels and bounty hunters getting caught up in the action. The Republic is always on the verge of collapse, and there are always new colors of lightsabers to be seen.

LEGACY’S Jedi in question is Cade Skywalker, a Luke’s descendent and a surly youth. He abandoned the Jedi and became a bounty hunter -- sort of like taking Luke and Han and blending them into one character. But the thing is -- Luke and Han worked best because they balanced each other out. Cade is like everyone’s high school D&D character. He’s the smartest, most charismatic, fastest, strongest, Force-iest character around, and while that makes him pretty badass to the teenager playing him, he’s not very interesting as a fictional being. And seeing him square off against a new legion of Sith, in this case Darth Krayt, who looks kind of like Stryfe from Marvel’s old X-FORCE series, just feels like the same old Star Wars story in a new pair of pants. There’s a Wookiee, there are Imperials, there’s a Hutt and a hot twi’lek -- but the pieces are rearranged into a new design.

I understand the appeal of that -- in the case of the first KOTOR it was very satisfying. But while LEGACY is competent, it doesn’t have the freshness KOTOR had. It’s interesting to see how the creators make the familiar Star Wars pieces fit, but it doesn’t have that spark of Something New necessary to keep anyone but a die-hard Star Wars fan coming back.

Tell me more: Star Wars Official Site, Star Wars @ Dark Horse.

New Avengers 32 addendum -- advertisements

2007-07-13T02:50:00.000-05:00

The ads in NEW AVENGERS 32 were interesting -- I swear, almost all of them were for Marvel-related products. Wolverine boxer shorts, Hulk movie contests, Marvel Heroes purified water (“The Coolest Water in the Universe!”), Marvel rides at Universal Studios Orlando, and the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer video games and, um, milk.

But the really weird one was a two-page spread from Marvel Toys advertising a line of “Legendary Comic Book Heroes” action figures, with a line-up straight out of, no kidding, 1996 -- Monkeyman & O’Brien, Madman, The Darkness, CyberForce, the Savage Dragon, the Pitt -- weird, man. I would have loved them if they'd come out when I was in high school -- er, I mean, elementary school.

Review - New Avengers 32

2007-07-13T02:41:00.000-05:00

NEW AVENGERS 32
By Brian Michael Bendis & Leinil Yu
Colors by Dave McCaig, Letters by AS & Comicraft’s Albert Deschesne
Published by Marvel Comics, July 2007. $2.99

… and then there’s NEW AVENGERS. Now, on paper? Marvel Comics, Skrull invasion, Spider-Man crackin’ wise, jet planes crashing? Awesome. Well, not literally I guess, because here it IS on paper, and it’s kind of … less than awesome.

This is probably the third separate occasion I’ve picked up an issue of NEW AVENGERS, because I want to like it so much. And I wouldn’t have even bothered this time around, except I read a six-page preview on Newsarama featuring the team on a jet arguing about Skrulls, having the same kind of conversations internet fans were having about who could be a Skrull and why, and it was funny and clever, and I saw it on the shelf this week and said -- yes, okay. New Avengers.

The backstory is this -- the team fought Elektra in the last issue, Elektra died, and turned into a Skrull. The assumption is that this signifies a Skrull invasion of Earth, in which anyone we know could be a Skrull -- and who knows how long they’ve BEEN a Skrull. Which is a pretty neat idea -- not brand new, but a kind of retro-cool that I appreciate in my superhero comics.

The art by Leinil Yu is positively gorgeous -- lots of blacks, thick lines, but also great facial expressions, especially from Spider-Woman. But when paired with Brian Bendis’s wordy panels, and the entire New Avengers team riding on a jet, in a pretty complicated seating arrangement -- it’s often difficult to figure out who’s talking, and what’s happening. The characters don’t really have individual voices, so when it’s hard to tell who a word balloon is pointing to, the words therein don’t really clear it up either. The latter half of the issue involves a (Spoiler Alert!) plane crash, and there are some intricate goings-on within the plane that are hard to figure out here, too. It took me three reads to figure out what’s going on between Wolverine and Spider-Woman, for example. So while the art is gorgeous, it doesn’t always flow so well.

And while the words are clever, there are just flat out too many of them. I know it’s cliché to say that of a Brian Bendis-scripted comic, but the dude’s got a certain reputation for a reason. There’s one awkward paragraph in particular where Spider-Woman gives us 88 words (I counted!) about the history of aliens in America and Spider-Man’s reasons to distrust the media that a simple writing exercise could’ve helped -- “cut your word count here in half, and see how it reads.” Odds are, you’ll still get the info you want, and the restriction will make you the cleverer for it. Um, Mr. Bendis. Sir.

There are a lot of high points to his dialogue -- his Spider-Man is spot on, with lines like “Was that Skrully of me?” But whereas GREEN LANTERN 21 starts a superhero epic that conveys history, moves the plot forward, but doesn’t overwhelm -- NEW AVENGERS 32 is too much talky, too confusing to follow, and really only has one thing that happens plot-wise. The Skrull Invasion’s a neat idea, but I think I’ll hold off on my big Marvel crossovers until Mark Millar is writing them again.

Tell me more: Skrulls, Brian Michael Bendis.

Review - Green Lantern 21

2007-07-13T02:09:00.000-05:00

GREEN LANTERN 21
By Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert.
Colors by Moose Baumann, Letters by Rob Leigh
Published by DC Comics, July 2007. $2.99

A pair of superhero sagas tonight -- first, GREEN LANTERN! The cover says this is part two of “The Sinestro Corps War,” while page one says it’s chapter one of “Sinestro Corps” -- either way, this issues features the fallout of Sinestro’s master plan to wipe out the Green Lanterns throughout the galaxy. Now, I was born and raised a Marvel man -- I kept up with DC mostly through the SUPER FRIENDS and SUPER POWERS TV shows, so I know Sinestro is the pink guy with the mustache who fights Green Lantern. What this issue tells me is that he’s teamed up with an assortment of DC baddies -- Cyborg Superman from the “Reign of the Superman” story of the 90’s, Superboy Prime from INFINITE CRISIS, and the robot Manhunters from I-don’t-know-what -- and they’re murdering Green Lanterns, following the rings to their replacements, and murdering them too. The villains wield yellow power rings, and there’s an evil insect-like parasite involved called Parallax that used to possess to Green Lantern Hal Jordan, and now possesses Green Lantern Kyle Rayner.

Whew! The good news is that most of that information flows like honey and doesn’t impede the enjoyment of the story whatsoever. In fact, it probably amplifies it -- even without the benefit of a “Previously In…” page like Marvel uses these days, it’s not that hard to get caught up in the story, and it feels -- in a good way -- like I’m being plopped into a superhero sci-fi epic that has been going on for some time now. There’s a lot of history here to take in, especially for someone (me!) who doesn’t know many Green Lantern specifics, but it reminds me of the way I felt when I read SECRET WARS as a kid -- there was a large cast of characters with pre-existing relationships, but I was able to keep up with what was happening now while appreciating the history they were sprung from.

There are a few points of confusion -- why Sinestro is embarking on this master plan, for one thing. Sinestro’s history as a Green Lantern himself is alluded to, but it’s not explained how things went sour -- something about a fall from grace, and too much pressure placed on his shoulders. I also don’t know if I buy Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Earth, as the doubting hero unwilling to bear the burden of leadership. I thought Hal was supposed to be fearless, the greatest Green Lantern there ever was. But I dunno, maybe that was Earth-2 Hal, or pre-Crisis Hal, or something like that.

This is still the opening salvo of the Sinestro Corps storyline, so there’s not a whole lot of forward movement here -- but I’m for sure coming back for more. GREEN LANTERN and “The Sinestro Corps War” is shaping up to be one good superheroes-in-space epic.

Tell Me More: Green Lantern.

The Boys, Volume One: The Name of the Game (Issues No. 1 - 6)

2007-07-12T18:15:00.000-05:00

The Boys, Volume One: The Name of the Game (Issues No. 1 - 6)
Dynamite Entertainment; $14.99, June 2007
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Darick Robertson

If you commute to work via public transportation, then you know what a lifesaver a good comic book can be. A gripping plot spirits you away from the shouted cell phone conversations, the ever-present reek of urine and sweat, and the general jostling that you are subjected to as a passenger. “The Boys Volume One: The Name of the Game” trade paperback had taken my brain so far from the train that I may as well have been in my own fortress of solitude… until I turned a page to reveal a full-length image of two buck-naked, sweaty cartoon people having sex (doggie-style, no less) and shouting expletives at each other (we’re talking F-bombs, here). I was suddenly reading obscene cartoon porn in plain view of a massive crowd of people crammed into a little box with nothing to do but cast furtive glances at each other. Needless to say, I snapped the book shut.

But I had to know what happened next! The need to read torment me. And that is what The Boys is all about: A tale so gripping - yet so depraved - that you will feel anguished for enjoying it. Don’t let that stop you. Read this comic. It’s going to be legendary.

On the surface, The Boys is the story of an anti-hero team that has reformed to police the world’s superheroes on the C.I.A.’s tab. (The American government being the only country with enough money and paranoia to fund such a motley crew.) By no means a public organization, The Boys shepherd the superheroes with sordid and dirty tactics ranging from blackmail-crafted public humiliation to all-out street brawls, in order to remind them who’s really in charge of this globe. However, the corrupt capes and the revenge-bent (or otherwise-demented) anti-heroes are simply the Capulets and the Montagues in what promises to be the most vulgar, riveting and gut-wrenching Romeo and Juliet story to ever grace the pages of a comic book.

The Boys are a unit of four men and one woman: The Frenchman, Mother’s Milk, Butcher, The Female and Wee Hughie. The Female (“of the species” as she is parenthetically noted when she is introduced, which provides a gleeful hint to her primal nature) is a silent, petite, Asian version of Transmetropolitan’s Yelena, with a penchant for literally ripping the faces off of her targets. She isn’t overly developed in the first arc; in fact, she hasn’t spoken a single line yet. You get the sense that Garth Ennis is masochist-ly savoring the buildup to her breakout moment. Mother’s Milk is a Luke Cage-type Bad-ass, with a soft spot. He can makes the Feds jump with a snap of his fingers, but he can’t discipline his own daughter. The Frenchman resembles (to me) Desolation Jones. Darick Robertson claims in his sketchbook notes in the back of the book that he was concerned about making him look too much like Spider Jerusalem. Teetering on the bipolar edge of insane rage and boundless affection, The Frenchman sports a trademark set of red goggles and some very expressive crow’s feet.

The protagonist with whom we are to identify, Wee Hughie (our Romeo), is the focus of the first arc. The Butcher is trying to recruit him as the fifth member of The Boys. Hughie is intentionally drawn to look like Simon Pegg (most famously Shaun, from “Shaun of the Dead”) and of all the sketchbook extras included in the back of this trade, Wee Hughie’s are the best because they show the trouble that Robertson had trying to capture the (as he puts it) contradictory combination of “innocent but tough determination” that Ennis wanted the character to portray. Wee Hughie’s got every reason to whole-heartedly jump into The Boys’ work, but he’s too realistic of a character to be that one-dimensional.

The supes in this world are a hierarchal mishmash of regional teams, with the “The Seven” at the top of the heap. Annie January, a.k.a. Starlight, (our Juliet) is the newest member. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed, cleft-chinned and barrel-chested (were you expecting anything less?) team leader is the Homelander. The rest of the team comprises Queen Maeve, a big-breasted lush of a valkyrie; a be-goggled speedster named A-Train; the dark knight Black Noir; Jack from Jupiter, the token alien; and The Deep, who is, as far as I can tell just a guy in an antiquated diver's suit (possibly a statement on the ridiculousness of all aquatic, yet land-faring superheroes?).

There’s not much else I want to reveal about The Boys, because I don’t want to be a spoiler. There are plot points that create new arms in the superhero mythology. There are scenes that push the limit of deviance and moral acceptability, which are nonetheless entertaining and therefore confounding. The events and conversations that happen in first volume of The Boys will make you laugh out loud, and also occasionally blurt “Oh, fuck!” and “Holy shit!” The Boys houses a collection of plot twists and turns, one-liners and quote-able quotes that, when you meet your mates out for a pint later in the evening, you will recount with relish, as they were something that happened to you during your day. Jings! Did I mention this should be for “mature readers only”?

P.S. The Boys is, according to Wikipedia, a creator-owned property, which vouches for its genuine depravity and creativity. The first six issues were originally published by DC-owned Wildstorm, before Dynamite took over.

Review - X-Men: First Class No. 1 (of 8)

2007-07-09T18:03:00.000-05:00

X-Men: First Class No. 1 (of 8); $2.99; June 2007
Writer: Jeff Parker
Pencils: Roger Cruz
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colorist: Val Staples
Cover: Marko Djurdjevic

This is that "safe" issue you have been waiting to buy for yourdaughter/niece/wife/girlfriend. X-Men First Class No. 1 has what I like to think of as "The Big Three" of stereotypically non-fangirl, superhero-focused comics: 1) there is no outrageous violence, 2) it contains only a few gratuitous depictions of the female physique (none at all, really, compared with your standard X-Men issue) and 3) it has a "girl-power" focused plot.

Not that I need gratuitous violence (though I do appreciate it on occasion, if it's accompanied by the proper wit; Check back later for my upcoming review of "The Boys"), but if you are going to have a comic book plot that is primarily focused on superheroes' relationships, the writer has really got to whip up some sterling private moments to keep those pages turning. X-Men FC No. 1 is all about Marvel Girl and the trials and tribulations of being the only female on the newly formed X-Men team, alongside Cyclops, Beast, Angel and Iceman. It's a worthy premise that's short-changed by being crammed into a one-issue arc.

Professor X sums up this plot for the reader in an interjection that's about as subtle as a Tony Stark pick-up line. Faster than you can say "Xavier," Sue Richards, a.k.a. The Invisible Girl, flies in to mentorJean, and immediately gets called back to save Manhattan from the Mad Thinker and an Awesome Android. Now I ask you: What teenage girl, upon hearing that her assigned role model is cutting out early on the job, is going to blurt, "I wish you didn't have to leave. I'd like to hear more of your insights"?? So, maybe it's not the most awkward statement, but it's just not something Jean would say.

Herein lays the snafu of introducing yet another re-telling of the X-Men’s origin: Because we fans know our beloved characters so well, and because they are so well-established, Parker’s writing is held to a higher-than-normal standard. Even otherwise forgivably bland or dull writing can seem offensive, such as my example illustrated. Jean’s witty. She’s a sullen teenager. And it’s the Invisible Girl, which is just begging for some corny “What, you’re going to disappear on me already?” pun.

On the other hand, when the writing is true to character, the author can tackle present-day issues, such as what it's like to be the only female on a superhero team, and give the reader a new level on which to identify with the characters.

There are some nice moments. In one particularly touching instance, Jean and Sue are quietly picking through some debris to sniff out theThinker's lair and Sue lets slip some worthwhile advice in casual conversation. This scene is capped off wonderfully by an excellent display of the Invisible Girl's power, in which she turns an entire sprawling, rocky valley transparent to reveal the underground hideout. I think Parker captures Jean's reaction juuuust right: "Sue…you're a little bit on the AWESOME side."

The art is what I'd call "equal-opportunity" exploitative. Everybody's lithe, sinewy and bulgy in all the right places. Some panels look a bit cartoon-y for my taste (low-detail faces; stars encircling heads, that sort of thing), but Cruz does hand over some memorable panels.

The page of original artwork to buy from this issue has got to be No. 13: Cyclops' expression after watching the Human Torch hit on Jean in front of the press on TV is priceless. It's his wrinkled little chin, beneath that gaping, wounded-puppy-dog shock that really does it for me. Nice chin-job, Cruz!

If I could ask Cruz one question about his art for this book, I would definitely want to know where his preoccupation with abdomens comes from. I would brush off the "womb-power" placement of the X insignia merely as the artist trying something new - different for the sake of difference - with the X-costume, but there's too much love of the lower intestine in the figures throughout the issue to claim it's coincidental.

All in all, the female-affirming theme of X-Men FC No.1 can be chalked up to the first step in team-building-themed miniseries about the formation of the original X team. I’d wrap up this issue and give it to a friend who didn’t grow up reading the X-Men.

Review - All-Star Superman 8

2007-07-06T20:26:00.000-05:00

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN 8
By Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely & Jamie Grant
Letters by Phil Balsman
Published by DC Comics, July 2007. $2.99

No am tempted to yell preview in perfect English.

This issue of ALL-STAR continues Superman’s adventures on Bizarro-Earth, a square planet slowly sinking into the Underverse. He has to escape the planet or die under the influence of the Underverse’s red sun, and to help him he has only a bunch of Bizarros, a superslow Bizarro-Flash, and one singular Zibarro, the Bizarro-Bizarro. Also, Solaris, the Tyrant Sun makes a cameo.

I tell you this -- every issue of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN is packed full of more sheer dynamism and superhero excitement than anything else Marvel or DC will publish in a year. It’s not about fistfights and power grudges -- it’s about Superman and the people he loves. Grant Morrison is crafting the Superman stories Jimmy Olsen’s grandkids are going to hear about. He’s taking the myths and characters we know -- Clark & Lois, Lex Luthor, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen -- and infusing them with a new sense of wonder and love.

Penciller Frank Quitely is, for my money, one of the finest comics draftsmen I’ve ever seen. His layouts are simple but graceful, and the subtle difference in body language twixt Superman and Zibarro speaks more to their differences than any fistfight might. Digital inks and colors by Jamie Grant bring a unique atmosphere to every setting, from the red glare of the Bizarro World to the bright green of Mr. Quintum’s moon laboratory.

The only downside to getting chapter-chunks of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN is that the ads for other DC books look either disappointingly flat or deceptively exciting -- after living in the ALL-STAR world for 20-odd pages, I’d really love to believe that DC COUNTDOWN is as fulfilling a superheroic tale, but I just know it’s not true. Pick up ALL-STAR SUPERMAN in individual issues, read them, and pass them on to someone you like. Get the collected edition to keep and reread whenever you forget how super Superman can be.

Tell me more: Grant Morrison talks ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, Get the book, already.

Review - Buffy Season 8 #4

2007-07-05T00:51:00.001-05:00

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: SEASON EIGHT #4
By Joss Whedon, Georges Jeanty & Andy Owens
Colors by Dave Stewart, Letters by Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Jimmy
Published by Dark Horse Comics, June 2007. $2.99

I watched BUFFY on TV intermittently -- I was more of a FIREFLY guy when it came to Joss Whedon -- but it was without question one of the best written TV shows of its time, and Joss wrote the heck out of the X-Men recently, so I was pretty interested in what BUFFY SEASON 8 had to offer*.

The first four issues of BUFFY feel like a two-hour season opener. Some time has passed and we’re caught up on what our friends have been up -- Buffy’s still slaying, Xander has one eye, Dawn’s a giant -- and though not all of the “where are they now” questions are answered, there’s enough to set the new status quo. Like I said, I wasn’t the biggest BUFFY fan from the start, so there are certain things I’m not quite up to speed on -- the skinless dude introduced at the end of issue 3 felt like it was an important reveal, but I had no idea who it was -- but all the same, it feels more like a fully realized world you’re stepping into rather than something so continuity-laden you’ll be lost if you don’t have the DVD box sets to reference. Joss knows how to write comics, and he knows how to write BUFFY -- the characters come to life and the dialogue is fun, efficient, but tailored for the form.

The art, by Georges Jeanty and Andy Owens, captures the expressions of the actors who used to play these characters in a way that’s fun and familiar, but not overbearing. It’s amazing how a few lines on paper can capture Alyson Hannigan’s smirk just so.

The sort-of-downside is that this opening arc is working like a long episode of a TV show, whether you know it as a comics reader or not. There’s a moment in issue 4 when you think something terrible has happened to one of the characters -- we see their hand reaching up from off-panel, we turn the page -- and they’re fine! It’s a bit of a let down, because everything we’ve seen or half-seen up to that point has led us to believe some serious biz-ness has gone down with one of our near-and-dears, and given that this is comics and not TV, there’s a danger in the air that anything’s possible. If Xander only has one eye, and Dawnie’s a giant, who’s to say Buffy can’t lose an arm, or be turned into a dude, or Willow or Giles or Anyone Else No Matter How Important can’t be killed? When the Very Bad Thing turns out to not happen -- well, one gets the feeling there’s more to meets the eye, and that we’ll find out to what extent in later episodes. Er, issues. And that will no doubt pay off in the long run, but as a story unto itself, it feels a little like a bait and switch.

I bet the BUFFY SEASON 8 trade paperbacks are going to blow up. They’re really good comics, and the folks making them (so far) really know what they’re doing.

Tell me more: Joss Whedon, Dark Horse Comics.

*That said, with the news that VERONICA MARS SEASON 4 is coming to DC/Wildstorm immediately post-cancellation, I think an ill-thought trend is forming -- being that if it’s not good enough for TV, comics will still take it! Joss knows how to write for comics, he’s written for comics before, and he ended BUFFY on his own terms years before “Season 8” came to be -- so that’s fair game. But when a series is cancelled, no matter how well-loved the series may be -- I think it sets a bad precedent to immediately shift it over to comics, as if it’s a second-best medium. It’s a different medium, not the lunch table you can slink over to when the cool kids don’t want to talk to you anymore.

Review - Captain America 27

2007-07-03T17:29:00.000-05:00

CAPTAIN AMERICA 27
By Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting & Mike Perkins
Colors by Frank D’Armata, Letters by VC’s Joe Caramagna
Published by Marvel Comics, June 2007. $2.99

I’m not really a Captain America guy, and I don’t know what it means that this issue is part of “The Initiative,” which seems to be a post-Marvel Civil War non-crossover event, but what I do know is this: two issues ago Captain America died, and the result seems to be the best CAPTAIN AMERICA comics since the last time they got rid of the guy, when Ronald Reagan was revealed as…

…“The Deadliest Snake of All!”

Okay, so that was an imposter posing as Ronald Reagan. But it was still a pretty awesome comic book to nine-year-old-me.

These days CAPTAIN AMERICA is an ensemble piece, following Cap’s old partners the Falcon, Sharon Carter, and the Winter Soldier (a newly alive and bionic Bucky, Cap’s WWII-era teen sidekick) as they deal with his death. Also part of the supporting cast is Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, who many feel is directly responsible for Cap’s death following said Civil War. Oh, and Sharon Carter sees Dr. Faustus (the Marvel one, not the German one) in the mirror, taunting her over the post-hypnotic suggestion that a) caused her to murder her boyfriend Captain America, and b) keeps her from telling anyone about it, even though she’s tortured over what she’s done. Also Arnim Zola is in it. Arnim Zola’s head is in his chest:

If it sounds like superheroic soap operatics, it certainly is. And the Brubaker/Epting/Perkins team are doing a great job of it, too. Issue 27 also features the Black Widow, former Soviet spy and former lover of the Winter Soldier, who, for reasons unclear to me but probably clear to folks who read THE AVENGERS, the Winter Soldier thinks should be “an old woman by now.” But she’s young, hot, and dressed in leather instead! It’s actually a pretty neat moment when the Widow and the Soldier fight in the street over the possession of Captain America’s shield (the Widow is working for that dastardly Tony Stark, you see), and the ex-Bucky wishes that he could go back to the old days where his memory would be wiped after every mission. I don’t really know what that means, but if you’re used to having your memory wiped, and now all of a sudden it won’t be, and you’re fighting your ex-girlfriend over your dead best friend’s favorite shield ... well, I can understand a little pining for the good old days.

In summary: the current run of CAPTAIN AMERICA? Future superhero classic. Get it while it’s hot!

Tell me more: Marvel Comics, Captain America.

"That's right -- (Paul Pope is) blogging!"

2007-07-02T14:39:00.000-05:00

"All the iPhone is is a retarded Mother Box."

FINDER interview -- go read it!

2007-06-29T00:35:00.000-05:00

Carla Speed McNeil talks about FINDER with Newsarama. It opens with this exchange:

NEWSARAMA: Carla, despite your popularity on the internet, there are a lot of folks to whom your work is still an unknown. Can you give us a quick overview of Finder?

CARLA SPEED McNEIL: Ouch.

It is otherwise and interesting interview with the creator of one of my favorite comics, who you don't really see the comics sites talking to that much. She's putting out a hardcover collecting SIN-EATER volumes 1 & 2 into one book this summer, digest-size for the bookstores, which I think is a great idea. I hope the copious footnotes remain -- in addition to helping me understand what the frak is going on sometimes, they're a really fun and honest insight into Carla's creative process. It's probably the footnotes on SIN-EATER Vol. 1 that brought me back for Vol. 2. If you don't read FINDER -- start!

What we talk about when we talk about search terms

2007-06-27T03:00:00.000-05:00

A quick recap of the most popular Google search terms that brought visitors to the Heart this month...

-"call yourselves men" + "frank miller"

-john byrne racist

-"mystic arcana handbook"

-shaolin cowboy 8

-"shi long pang"

I hope you find what you're looking for, in comics and in life.

Review - Buddha Vol. 4: The Forest of Uruvela

2007-06-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

BUDDHA VOL. 4: THE FOREST OF URUVELA
By Osamu Tezuka
Published by Vertical, November 2006 (pub. in Japan 1987), $14.95

Whenever I talk to folks about manga, I can count on the same two or three things coming up: they don’t know what these kids today see in the stuff, it’s intimidating to have to buy into a 30+ volume series just because you want to read a comic book, and Osamu Tezuka doesn’t count as manga, because he’s just too good. It’s the same point of view that leads MAUS and PERSEPOLIS to be shelved anywhere but the graphic novel section in your local chain bookstore -- if it’s that good, it must not be comics.

BUDDHA really IS that good, and that’s why it’s important to remember that they ARE manga. They’re about as good as manga gets, but still -- it’s a nice reminder that Japanese comics aren’t all cat people and yaoi, you know? Assuming you’re not into cat people and yaoi, that is.

BUDDHA’S most valuable asset is that it’s telling one of the Greatest Stories Ever Told -- literally, the story of Siddhartha achieving enlightenment -- but it never forgets to have fun with it. When Siddhartha spends a year sucking the pus out of a diseased and disfigured woman, he notes that it’s a bit scandalous for a man to spend so much time with his lips on the body of another man’s wife. “Skip the dialogue,” he says, “and this panel would look like --” But of course, he’s cut off by another ascetic stumbling upon the scene, one who doesn’t have the benefit of reading the words on the page. The story ranges from melodrama to slapstick, with characters such as Assaji -- a snot-dripping buffoon who can tell the day and details of anyone’s death simply by looking at them -- but rather than feeling scattered, BUDDHA instead feels intricately woven, a masterwork by a comics master.

Tell me more: Osamu Tezuka official site, Osamu Tezuka wikipedia page, Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Vertical, Inc., Buddha (the dude).

Review - Hellboy: Darkness Calls 2

2007-06-23T19:37:00.000-05:00

HELLBOY: DARKNESS CALLS 2
By Mike Mignola & Duncan Fegredo
Colors by Dave Stewart, Letters by Clem Robbins
Published by Dark Horse Comics, May 2007. $2.99

Oh, Hellboy. I remember asking my folks to drive me to Raven’s Haven in Day Heights, Ohio, seeking out the first issue of HELLBOY: SEED OF DESTRUCTION, because MONKEYMAN & O’BRIEN by Art Adams was going a back-up feature in each issue. I wasn’t the least interested in this red dude with sawed-off horns, drawn by a guy whose art I’d hated in the Marvel Comics “Days of Future Present” storyline, but a talking gorilla and a hot redhead? Thank you, yes!

But as I picked up each issue of that first miniseries, I found myself drawn more to the story of a hulking devil with a red right hand fighting off Nazis and a ghostly Rasputin, than the misadventures of a monkey doing … whatever they did in that Monkeyman story. The point is, Hellboy is one of the few mid-90’s indie creations that’s been published (semi)consistently since its inception, and with DARKNESS CALLS it’s still finding new ground to cover. This is the first series drawn by someone other than Mignola, and while Duncan Fegredo’s art is discernably different, it still feels like the same world. Ghastly ghouls and speaking skeletons are still around, the pacing that feels Hellboy-unique is consistent with previous series.

I love the pacing -- the silent reaction panels, the close-ups of strange statues and weird birds -- you know you’re reading a Hellboy comic with the tiny panels and big-eyed owls. Though Hellboy lost his supporting cast a series or two ago (effectively spun-off into BPRD), this has actually managed to free the series to delve deeper into the Lovecraftian supernatural of his world. Issue two has witches, undead armies, Baba Yaga, battling zombies, more witches, mustachioed imps, and a cameo by Hellboy’s devilish dad -- the result is that it feels packed without being frantic. HELLBOY is probably best read in trades, which almost always contain a bonus epilogue not seen in the miniseries, but as single issues go, HELLBOY: DARKNESS CALLS is the only reason to paw through the otherwise license-cluttered Dark Horse shelf these days.

Tell me more: Hellboy, Dark Horse Comics,

Review - Hunter's Moon 1

2007-06-22T15:01:00.001-05:00

HUNTER’S MOON 1
By James L. White and Dalibor Talajic
Colors by Juanmar, Letters by Ed Dukeshire
Published by Boom! Studios, April 2007. $3.99

The cover of HUNTER’S MOON tells me it’s written by James L. White, writer of the Academy Award-Winning RAY, and the script feels like an early draft of a screenplay. There’s so much dialogue it doesn’t leave much work for the art to do, and the dialogue itself has the bloodless efficiency of movie-talk to it. The plot concerns Linc (short for Lincoln), who wants nothing more than to take his latest hot girlfriend up to a secluded cabin for the week -- until he gets saddled with the son he just can’t seem to connect with! His son wants to be a rapper … but Linc wants him to go to law school! Linc wants to order a piece of pie (“apple’s usually safe”) … but the eccentric waitiress won’t stop yappin’! We quickly discover that small town yokels pull guns on black kids for bumping into white folks, all Linc and his son need are some quality alone-time to find their stride, and that Strong Men Sometimes Cry.

I picked this book up because of two threads on the Engine, one wondering what Boom! Studios titles anyone was reading, and the other asking about titles featuring black women as lead characters. The ads for other Boom! titles on the back cover illustrate that they’re designed to option their titles as movies (“Cover Girl … A Lethal Weapon and Rush Hour-style action-comedy!” & “Dominion -- A new series that takes the storytelling tone of the TV show Heroes and gives it an Independence Day twist.”), and while it’s nice to see in HUNTER’S MOON a title that features black folks in lead roles, it would be nice if those roles, and the story they inhabit, were doing something new. Even the first issue’s twist ending (spoiled on the Boom! website if you’re interested) isn’t enough to bring me back for issue two -- it really just sets the story up to cover even more well-tread territory.

Tell me more: Boom! Studios.

Review - Amazing Spider-Man 541

2007-06-21T17:58:00.001-05:00

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 541
By J. Michael Straczynski, Ron Garney, and Bill Reinhold
Colors by Matt Milla, Letters by VC’s Cory Petit.
Published by Marvel Comics, $2.99

Marvel recently announced they’ll be canceling the two regular Spider-Man titles that aren’t AMAZING in favor of a three-times-a-month schedule for their flagship title, edited by Steve Wacker of DC’s 52, presumably with a staff of writers and artists working in concert, much like the way network TV is created these days. The change is coming after the “One More Day” storyline, which threatens to “change everything!”, which, itself, comes after “Back in Black,” in which we are smack dab in the middle. That makes the next few issues of AMAZING the end of a long, storied, Spidey-chapter, and since I've written before that I love Spider-Man the character and not-so-much SPIDER-MAN the comic, I thought I’d stop by AMAZING and see how the end of everything we know is shaping up.

AMAZING, and most mainstream superhero comics, are already taking several cues from TV. Most every issue starts out with a “Previously…” page to get you caught up in case you’re a new reader, or maybe just confused by all the competing Spider-appearances since the last issue of your preferred title. It’s interesting that in a given episode of, say, RESCUE ME, the previouslies take a good two minutes, getting us up to date on the goings-on of the expanded supporting cast, but with AMAZING, with 540 previous installments over the course of 40+ years, the previouslies consist of:

-Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, and is now Spider-Man

-Spider-Man revealed his identity to the general public

-Spider-Man and Iron Man got really mad at each other

-Aunt May got shot because the Kingpin wanted to kill Spider-Man

-Spider-Man got really mad at the Kingpin

On a TV show, the actor portraying Mary Jane might pull the executive producer aside and mention her disappointing at being a series regular, and a recognizable cog in the Spidey machine, and yet left with nothing to do these days but sit in a hospital room and offer Peter Parker an ignored shoulder to cry on. At least Aunt May, unconscious she may be, is a plot point. As it stands, Peter’s supporting cast a) doesn’t seem to exist in this issue, and b) for those who are around, don’t have much to do but watch this installment of AMAZING happen around them. Some might say, hey, if you want Mary Jane, go read SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE, about to be handed off to the capable Terry Moore -- but really, if this is the flagship Spidey title, and has been for the aforementioned 40+ years, why can’t I get it all for my three bucks? The internets points to Morrison and Quitely’s ALL-STAR SUPERMAN as superheroes done right, with every 22-page issue crammed full of ideas, drama, and modern mythology -- but really, we should be demanding the same of all of our periodical entertainment. Here’s hoping the upcoming sea change gives Spidey and his cast the depth they deserve.

Tell me more: Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Comics.

Review - The Black Diamond Detective Agency

2007-06-17T19:34:00.000-05:00

THE BLACK DIAMOND DETECTIVE AGENCY
By Eddie Campbell
Based on a screenplay by C. Gaby Mitchell
Published by First Second, $16.95

A fellow blogger picked up BLACK DIAMOND here at Heart HQ and gave it a flip recently. “It’s a good explosion,” she said. It sure is!

(From Publishers Weekly's 13-page preview)

Eddie Campbell’s artwork is gorgeous throughout. It’s a story of 19th Century America, which returns Eddie to the time period of FROM HELL -- but even though some of the mustaches might bring back memories of his seminal collaboration with Alan Moore, BLACK DIAMOND is a whole other creature. Instead of relying on a standard nine-panel grid, Eddie’s page layouts are more varied and inventive, and the use of color throughout paints (ha!) a more dynamic view of the world than the black and white sooty oppressiveness of his Jack the Ripper examination.

And while the internets tell us that Eddie took liberties with BLACK DIAMOND’S basis, a screenplay by Charles Gaby Mitchell, its plotting and pacing and scripting aren’t on the same level as FROM HELL. The book is essentially a mystery, and as Eddie says in the above-linked CBR interview, “I thought the mystery ought to be more complicated, being a long time reader of the greatest detective mystery writer Raymond Chandler. I believe that a book can bear more of that kind of complexity than a movie, because the reader is more at liberty to back a few pages to resolve difficulties, while a movie moves relentlessly forward.” The mystery is suitably complex, but it doesn’t possess the graceful efficiency of a movie like BRICK, which takes a complex mystery, drives it relentlessly forward, and yet still offers the viewer -- whether a first-timer or someone coming back for more -- a satisfactory experience. BLACK DIAMOND can be confusing for the sheer number of characters -- detectives and secret service agents -- that people its pages. I think some of them even died, but it was honestly hard to tell.

The dialogue tried to do a lot of expository work, but not always to the best result. We get a villain’s recap of his plan at the end, and his statement that his revelations are possibly “out of sour grapes” doesn’t lessen the fact that it’s a terrible cliché. On the other hand, there are also a lot of moments of pure dialogical bliss -- “You don’t know a goddamn thing about a goddamn thing” was a simple thing that made me smile, and of course “Up yours, modern times!” might as well be engraved on a plaque and hung in Mr. Campbell’s home.

Spending time with BLACK DIAMOND is a lot like Eddie’s Batman one-shot from a few years ago, BATMAN: THE ORDER OF THE BEAST. It’s fun to see him work in color, and an interesting Campbellian aside into the worlds of Batmen or American gangsters, respectively. But what I’m really looking forward to is THE AMAZING REMARKABLE MR. LEOTARD, his promised next book, and one that springs, presumably, in its entirety from Eddie Campbell’s mind.

Tell me more: Eddie Campbell, First Second Books.

Review - Mystic Arcana Handbook 1

2007-06-12T16:44:00.000-05:00

OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE - MYSTIC ARCANA 1
By lots of people
Published by Marvel Comics, $3.99

Okay, nerds -- I love this kind of stuff. It’s a whole lot of pages of obscure magic-related minutiae, featuring profiles of characters you might know, like Alpha Flight’s Talisman or the Fantastic Four’s resident witchy babysitter Agatha Harkness, but mostly it’s page after page of folks I defy you to have ever heard of, like Bible John, who looks like a serious Lynyrd Skynyrd fan and apparently hangs out a lot with Blade, and Papa Shorty, who is from New Orleans, has no legs, and seems to levitate.

I wasn’t going to actually this review this masterpiece -- and in fact hadn’t done more than flipped through it -- but then I happened on this excellent capsule review from Hannibal Tabu and the Buy Pile. Mr. Tabu pointed out the supertrash magnificence of MYSTIC ARCANA, which spends a lot of its time summarizing various magic-related storylines from Marvel’s storied history.

My hands-down favorite, from the entry on Black Talon, who is a voodoo master dressed up like a rooster, reveals that “Having grown tired and angry at Eric’s (the Grim Reaper -ed.) constant racism, (Black Talon) and another ally, Man-Ape, abandoned Eric during the battle.”

Man-Ape, in case you’re not a Marvel Comics nerd, is this guy:

I mean, how much of a racist do you have to be to piss off a black guy who calls himself Man-Ape? I’m not saying that Black Talon and Man-Ape, as fictional characters, shouldn’t be outraged at racism. I’m just saying that, as fictional characters, a black houngan who dresses up like a rooster, and a black African who dresses up like a giant monkey, aren’t inherently sensitive depictions of African or African-American culture. And that it’s pretty funny for one of them to stand up and say, “Enough with the racism, The Grim Reaper.”

What this teaches me is that magic-based Marvel comics should stop trying to be so serious, and should revel in their ridiculousness.

There’s also a guy named Cadaver who is, naturally, a reanimated corpse, and whose magic sword was created when he pulled out one of his own ribs. And let’s not forget the previously mentioned Talisman, daughter of the super-heroic Shaman, and whose last name is “Twoyoungmen.” Ahh, classic John Byrne!

Seriously, dudes -- buy this book as soon as you can. It’s got to be the funniest Marvel comic in years.

Tell me more: Mystic Arcana.

Review - American Elf, Book 2

2007-06-11T02:16:00.000-05:00

AMERICAN ELF, BOOK TWO
By James Kochalka
Published by Top Shelf Productions, $19.95

I had a friend over the other day and she was looking through my stacks and shelves of graphic novels, looking for something to read. She picked up AMERICAN ELF BOOK TWO, a collection of James Kochalka’s diary comics from 2004 to 2005, and she flipped through a few pages, made a funny face, and said, “Are these supposed to be funny?”

And I said, “Well … they’re about real-life, so sometimes that’s funny.”

She kind of scrunched up her face and flipped through a few more pages, and then picked up a copy of STRANGERS IN PARADISE to read instead.

I love James Kochalka, and I love American Elf -- as a character, a book, a website, a philosophy. I read them everyday on AmericanElf.com, but it’s a different experience to read them in a book. I look at the dates and think about where I was on Novemer 29th, 2004, and where I’ve been since then. I watch the daily snapshots in the life of this other artist, and the lives of his family, as they gather momentum day by day. I can see them from a different perspective and take in years in a life in just a few hours. It’s truly a whole that’s more than its pieces.

It’s a little strange to think that this is probably his life’s work -- that James Kochalka’s life has come to be about chronicling his life -- but it’s such purely enjoyable work that I can find no flaw in it. That’s not to say it’s flawless -- simply that its flaws are part of its beauty, just like every day of life itself.

Tell me more: American Elf, Top Shelf Productions.

Review - Madman Atomic Comics 2

2007-06-10T16:44:00.000-05:00

MADMAN ATOMIC COMICS 2
By Michael Allred
Colors and Separations by Laura Allred, Letters by Nate Piekos
Published by Image Comics, $2.99

The first awesome thing about the 2nd issue of the MADMAN relaunch is that the entire first issue is reprinted inside of it -- granted, without dialogue and all on one page -- but it’s still a pretty cool recap. The second awesome thing about the 2nd issue of the MADMAN relaunch is that Madman is in it, and he’s all existential!

Ah, the mid-90’s … I was in high school, my three favorite comics were MADMAN, BONE and JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN (!), and I had a secret crush on a redhead named Mindy. For various reasons, none of these things are true anymore. All the same, it’s great to see Mike Allred back with Frank Einstein and a book where he can tell any kind of story he wants to tell. My love for the Dark Horse-era MADMAN COMICS sprang from the giddy fun Allred dove into with every issue -- there were mutated street beatniks, time machines, giant robots, gelatinous cubes, and true love. It started to lose me around the time when Madman crossovers became more prevalent than regular issues of MADMAN -- there was MADMAN/NEXUS, MADMAN/THE JAM, THE SUPERMAN/MADMAN HULLABALLOO … but in the process, the emphasis ironically shifted from ginchy fun to existential melodrama. The book became less about Madman and his love Joe and more about Madman thinking about Madman.

Unfortunately, as fun as it is to see old friends back in action, the first two issues of MADMAN ATOMIC COMICS have been mired in setting up some new kind of status quo. The first issue told us that “everything we knew was wrong!”, but the second issue tells us that “wait, everything we knew is still sort of right!” Which leaves me asking, “okay, then what happens next?” It still looks and feels like a Madman story, but I’m left wondering what the story is. If it’s still “Frank Einstein tries to find himself,” then I’m left a little wanting. The back cover reminds me of Madman of old -- Mott from Hoople, the Puke, bad robots, clone caves -- if MADMAN ATOMIC COMICS finds its way back there, I might be rushing to the comics shop every few weeks like it was 1994 again.

I’d have to revisit some of the old MADMAN COMICS issues to compare, but the art style seems a lot … broader, if that makes any sense. The panels are bigger, there are a lot of two-page spreads, and the art-on-the-page flows like it’s in command of itself, instead of adhering to panel restrictions. I like that a lot, but in a few cases it made the word balloons hard to follow. Particularly in the two-page spreads, it wasn’t always clear if I should go strictly left-to-right, up-to-down, or somewhere in between. Eddie Campbell has posted a series of blogs on balloons and their placement that has made me think about the flow of information on a comics page in different ways, and the balloon-sprawl in this issue was a little distracting.

But it still feels -- like MADMAN always has -- that these are the comics Mike Allred most wants to make, and I'm glad he's making them again.

Tell me more: Michael Allred.

Review - The Sensational Spider-Man Annual 1

2007-06-07T13:46:00.001-05:00

SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL 1
By Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca
Colors by Paco Roca, Letters by VC’s Cory Petit
Published by Marvel Comics, $3.99

Spider-Man is hands down my very favorite comic book character. And while most of my weekday afternoons were spent watching G.I. JOE, and then playing G.I. JOE, I was usually pretending that the figures were really Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends.

But the thing is -- most Spidey comics aren’t so great. When the Ultimate line started I thought, at last, there would be a Spidey title I could pick up from time to time, whenever I wanted to read 20-odd pages of web-slinging and witty rejoinders. In practice, ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN is now 100+ issues into its own complicated continuity, with a lot of time spent crying around kitchen tables, I think. And that’s okay -- it’s a pretty good book, just not the ideal Spidey comic for me.

And this is the part of the review where I say: SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL is the ideal Spidey comic for me. I’m sure it will definitely be seen as a comic of its time, what with the main story involving Peter Parker, whose identity the world now knows, conspiring to turn himself over to the authorities to spare his family any more pain and hurt, just as his wife Mary Jane conspires not to be arrested (by a former flame at that -- that’s classic Spider-Man!) on account of being the wife of the outlaw Spider-Man. But the story’s real charm comes from the flashbacks, illustrated with a lovingly Romita-influenced charm by Salvador Larroca, where we see the old days -- when Peter and Harry were pals, and the boys were dating Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane, respectively.

I guess it’s telling of where the Spider-Man franchise is in 2007 that my ideal Spidey story is a sad one, looking back at the past through rose-colored glasses … but with all things considered, it’s still a story of hope, and of love, and of web-slinging and witty rejoinders. If Matt Fraction ever signs on to write a regular Spider-Man book, that might just be the one that makes it fun to read Spidey again.

Tell me more: Sensational Spider-Man, Matt Fraction

Review - All-Star Batman & Robin 5

2007-06-06T14:11:00.001-05:00

ALL-STAR BATMAN & ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER 5
By Frank Miller, Jim Lee and Scott Williams
Color by Alex Sinclair, Letters by Jared K. Fletcher
Published by DC Comics. $2.99

Rumor has it that ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN has seen a full year pass between issues 4 and 5. We here at Sequential Heart do not concern ourselves with such things as “release schedules” and “mathematics.” We are interested in the comic books and what is inside of them!

What is inside of this comic book is Wonder Woman getting really mad and saying things like “Shut up. You call yourselves men? Shut up,” and Superman being all “Damn you, Diana! Damn you and your Amazon arrogance! You don’t know anything!” and then Wonder Woman being like “I hate your guts. You make me sick,” and then Superman totally grabs Wonder Woman and kisses her and the narrator goes “Then Zeus stabs the world of man with thunderbolts and somewhere Poseidon roars with laughter. The thunderbolts. They stab them both,” and then Wonder Woman stomps off and goes “I hate you all.”

I picked up the first two issues of ALL-STAR BATMAN & ROBIN just like most everyone else did, and they were pretty much awful. Not just as “All-Star” titles, and not just as superhero titles, but as comic books and things that I trade money for. They were lousy. But the internets whispered that with this new issue, the title crossed from “bad comics” into the realm of “supertrash bad comics,” and I’m a pretty big fan of supertrash. Like that old issue of Superman where a tiny Superman grows out of Superman’s hand, with all the powers and abilities of big Superman, and it makes big Superman feel bad about himself that everyone loves tiny Superman just as much as him? Awesome. I don’t even know that it counts as supertrash, it’s so awesome. There are beans behind the beans in a thing like that.

But ALL-STAR BATMAN & ROBIN 5 doesn’t have any beans behind the beans. I’m not so sure there are even any beans in front. It’s just Frank Miller coming indoors for a few minutes after swimming in his Scrooge McDuck pool of gold coins, smearing Batman-shaped crap on a computer screen, and laughing maniacally as he sends it to Jim Lee to draw. I mean good for him for being able to write the kind of stories he wants to write and all … but as much as he or other readers might feel like there’s subtext and commentary and Art Worth Seeing in this title, there’s just nothing in this book for me to take away, except perhaps for the warning that “there but for the grace of God, etc. etc.”

Tell me more: DC Comics: All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder

Review - Shaolin Cowboy 7

2007-06-06T13:30:00.000-05:00

Reviews begin now!

SHAOLIN COWBOY 7 - by Geoff Darrow, colors by Alex Wald.
Published by Burlyman Entertainment. $3.50

This book comes out pretty infrequently, but I go to the comics shop pretty infrequently so we’re about even. The art is gorgeously and strangely detailed … the first issue, which is not this issue, featured a page in which our hero, the Shaolin Cowboy of the title, meeting his foes, a motley assortment of villains who conspired for his doom. They were met in a splash page the borders of which disappeared page-right. You turned the page and the splash continued, a whole new row of foes, and you turned the page again, and you turned the page again and again -- it was essentially a splash that bled on for about six pages before the panel ended and the Cowboy took up the task of defeating his enemies. A long story short, it was a book with a sense of fun that played with not only genre conventions, but technical conventions as well. Later issues featured attack-sharks and talking zombie heads.

SHAOLIN COWBOY 7 has all of those things on paper, but there’s a certain something missing from the mix … I suspect it’s “forward movement.” There are still ultra-detailed moving mountain-beasts, flying baby-seeking demons, mystic monkeys, and twain zombie heads whose word balloons are cut in two, but I’m missing the won’t-stop-to-breathe momentum of previous installments. It may simply be (and I suspect is) the pitfalls of serialized entertainment. The same way folks say LOST SEASON 2 plays a lot better on DVD than it did week to week, it’s possible this respite from non-stop Shaolinity is a welcome breather were one reading the Cowboy’s adventures in long gallop, or were one creating the Cowboy’s adventures at said speed. But like the swellest of season two LOSTS, as an issue standing alone it feels more like a gorgeous advertisement for the next issue than a completely satisfying experience of its own.

That said -- I’m glad Burlyman Entertainment still exists, that I might someday see SHAOLIN COWBOY 8. The ad in the back for DOC FRANKENSTEIN 6, which I can only assume is as infrequent, if not moreso, than SHAOLIN, states “We’re working on it … honest.” I believe you, Burlymen!

Tell me more: http://burlymanentertainment.com

a man trying to dry a wet dog by frying it on the stove.

2007-05-21T09:44:00.001-05:00

As always, I think My. Ellis, has something....What say we to something like this? Who here wants to be kill saints and kill devils?

I think it could work in the form Ellis was saying:"You know... five smart writers producing two 300-word single-work reviews a week each would absolutely kill."

"I knew this would happen" FILE# 62123244234

2006-09-01T10:43:00.000-05:00

"Heroes" a new NBC show coming September 25th, is based on, yes indeed, superheroes, and form this little spew on it, some crap rip of X-men, I guess.
I have no qualms about this, it could be good, or could suck large marsupial genitalia, I don't know; I just want you all to notice that the world of comics if getting used alot now a days, more so than ever. Now I'm not against that, no not really, and i'm no elitist about it, but many a itmes it can get handled in such a way that well, you can't help but want to put a powerdrill through somebodies freaking head about how bad it can be, how damaging it is to comics already delicate smelly taco meat image and how it can backlash on all of us.
You think maybe i'm being extreme? Hey you haven't lived lived through the early 90s prismatic cover days, ok? It killed comics for me.

No VIGIL this Weekend? Que pinga?!?!?!

2006-08-23T16:11:00.000-05:00

Hey Folks,due to a DNS issue ( I have no idea what that is, don't ask) VIGIL will not be seen this weekend (Aug 26th and 27th) as the server will be rebooting and changing and some other stuff, says my publisher, Joey Manley:

"I will be kicking off the DNS changeover on Friday afternoon.

The goal is to get all DNS issues cleared up before Monday morning.

You can essentially expect the site to be down for the weekend. It may
come up earlier than that, but I am telling you now: if your comic is
supposed to update anytime between Friday afternoon and Monday
morning, don't count on the site being available to you or your
readers (it may be, it may not be -- most likely, it will be available
to some, not to all -- that's how DNS works).

When the DNS is cleared up, and my own ISP recognizes the changeover
from one server to another, I will log in via FTP, install the new WCN
engine, and the new Graphic Smash will be born."

So the good news is, a new Graphicsmash.com will be born! What it will do exactly, I have no bloody clue, but it's for the best, I think.

I wil be aiming to replace those pages and have a mega weekend on September 2nd and 3rd and maybe before and after I'll see, but keep watching I will be posting.....

Oh shit, they Killed BEAST!

2006-08-16T13:47:00.000-05:00

LOOK AT THAT!
It really doe slook like him dont it? At least the Grant Morrison/New X-men lion head one....
SO waht the fuck is it?
TURNER, Maine — Residents are wondering if an
animal found dead over the weekend may be the mysterious creature that
has mauled dogs, frightened residents and been the subject of local
legend for half a generation.

That blue fur really knocks me out....

uhm.... who didn't know WIZARD sucked?

2006-08-11T16:14:00.000-05:00

This is in response to Tim Leong blog about the latest Wizard. It's actually a video blog, and you know what, a bit spot on. I really don't care for him beating around the bush about it, but the fact that Wizard has sank so low over the years , and is well, defying the laws of physics by sucking and blowing at the same time, it does feel good that somebody "IN" the industry comes out and says it a bit. It' snot too much of a hidden fact by the way, it's saying "N'sync sucks" and waiting for the round of applause but still a good turn in giving them the good ol' archers finger, you know?

Me? Well:
1. WIzard is just catching with all the bullshit the rest of insensitive society is doing in the media, and/or what seemingly passes for media and is shoveled down our throats.

2. It's not like Wizard had far to fall, since it's sucked large donkey genitalia, always.

3. They're not even good at reporting media stories, half the sites out there beat them to the punch anyway.

4. Fucking magazines a catalog really.

5. Comic book fans, in general tend to be fucking tards, so, they spponfeed some raw bacon of idiocy to the people sometimes. If they don't make a ruckus about it, or other thing, why should the rest care?

6. Thanks for saying something. JUSt don't beat around the bush. WIZARD IS HARMING THE COMICS COMMUNITY AND IS AN ARSE OF A MAGAZINE MADE FOR AN ARSE OF A CROWD.

This sort of bugs the hell out of me....

2006-08-11T16:09:00.000-05:00

ROCKET PIRATES is a Web comic collection of folks curated under the mindful eye of Warren Ellis, writer and pig-shooter extroardinaire being developed (lobbied) right now. The chance was given by Joey Manley, our Stone guard Warlord over Graphicsmash and Moderntales and such, and could be a real site to see later on, fer sure.

The thing that chaps my balls, is that I can imagine only how many wanton fuckers probabaly went ape shit to have the chance just to have their names next to Mr. Ellis, just so they have some sort of crap bragging rights. People might even develop whatever they got to throw on there and see whats taken jsut for the chance, and it might be crap. I wonder how many of the comics sent now are full of piercings, or split scrotums, just to see how they can kiss up up to Warren's affections.
Shit me.

Now why I say this? I'm not gonna like it crossed my mind too, but hell I owuld be lying to myself if I had anything that would or even had the fucking time to do anything for the site. SO I said fuck it, I'll stay in the audience. I'm just worried at how many haf-assers out there are bringing shit in.

Warren will probabaly smell the shit from a mile away and all will be good but then they'll be the line of arses complaining that warren didin't pick them and some boo hoo fucks.

That when I'll slap them with my cock.

Seeing an Artist Habitat can go a long way...

2006-08-03T16:31:00.000-05:00

ARTISTS, ILLUSTRATORS,
  DESIGNERS & CREATIVE
  FOLK SHARE THE STUFF
  ON THEIR DESKS...
I dig these little entries about people's art spaces and what they got going in them; it really shows the process by which people work and get things done....these sort of things and sketchbooks really intrigue me to no end. I always like to see how other artist work and go about their business.

Sometimes I learn something about myself, other times I leanr something about my own process, maybe jsut a bit, and not something as big as right and worng, but just process, you know, A,B, C or C, B, A? You know?
Now a whole Blog of this? Sheez I'm going to be all over it.

Maybe I'll submit?

Go on Sweet Prince!

2005-08-02T09:48:00.000-05:00

Top Shelf Says Goodbye to Chunky Rice
from The Comics Journal #270
Posted July 29th, 2005
Top Shelf Publisher Chris Staros confirmed to the Journal that Craig Thompson will be taking his breakthrough graphic novel Goodbye Chunky Rice to Pantheon. Thompson had previously confirmed to the Journal that his next work would done for Pantheon, but the fate of his Top Shelf backlist, including the popular, award-winning Blankets and Carnet de Voyage, remained in question. Staros said Blankets and Carnet de Voyage are still under contract to Top Shelf, and he is still negotiating with Thompson in hope of renewing the contracts. Staros who said he had invested a great deal in helping Thompson develop his work and career, is finding it hard not to take the defection personally.

Let him be. He's showing that the creator that are out there can go and do the next thing. You'll always be seen as the dude who found him.... right?

Teenage Boys and Teenage Girls

2005-07-30T17:45:00.000-05:00

Dirk Deppey has a great editorial in the new Comics Journal, which you can also read online, called "She's Got Her Own Thing Now." The issue, and the article, are about shoujo manga, Japanese graphic novels for for teenage girls:

Speaking for myself, the straw that broke the camel's back fell during this year's Emerald City Con in Seattle. I'd stepped out to smoke a cigarette and was watching the passersby. I noticed a family leaving the convention -- a Mom, a Dad, and a little girl no older than eight years of age. The girl was decked out in a beautiful, elaborate kimono and clearly distressed by what she'd just encountered. "But they didn't hardly have any manga at all!" she said as they walked away.

When I was done with my cigarette, I went back inside and relayed this story to an acquaintance prominent in the art-comics publishing scene. "I hate to say it, but good," was his reply. Indeed, I told the story several more times that day, to both indy-comics and superhero-comics professionals, and the reaction was more or less the same each time. A young reader disappointed by the selection offered to her? Good. The future of comics walks out the door, unable to find what she wants? Good. I left the convention early, lost in a foul mood. I swear: I love the comics art form with a passion, but my utter contempt for the American comics industry grows like a cancer with each passing day.

Every July or August I get to really thinking about comics and graphic novels, creatively and professionally; I also get to thinking about manga. How manga reaches a much broader audience, both in Japan and the US, then American comics do, and about how Japanese storytelling hits certain beats that aren't as embedded in my brain as Western storytelling moments are. Going to see Howl's Moving Castle made me think of this--even though it's based on a Western novel, it's adapted and directing by a Japanese filmmaker, and I just didn't know where the story was going or how it would unfold at times. It still has that classic three-act structure, sure, but that's just the bare-bones of it. The muscle and flesh built on top of the skeleton does things that surprise me in ways Western stories and movies usually don't, even the unconventional ones.

But whenever I get that itch to explore manga, I go to the local bookshop or comic store and stand before the racks and racks of manga--the local borders has about four times as many manga titles as American super-hero books--and I just get lost. There's so much, and I don't know the nuances of it all. I can flip open a super-hero title and get the gist of it, recognize the artist or the kind of story being told, know the era the comic is from and probably the company that put it out. I know genres, sub-genres and tendencies of the artists and writers involved, and I know whether or not I want to keep reading. But with manga, I just don't know what's what--I'm not educated in it, I don't recognize the patterns that are surely there to see, I don't know what to start with, what to move on to, where to go. So I tend to skink away, promise to come back a little later, and then never do.

But after reading the TCJ article, I went out and picked up a copy of Shonen Jump, the monthly American version of the popular Japanese weekly magazine that serializes a good 300-pages worth of new manga with each issue. Shonen means to boys what shoujo means to girls--they're comics for teenage boys. Yu-Gi-Oh! is one of the serialized stories in the current American version, for example. But I thought it would be a good place to start--a fat packet of culture for five bucks, right?

And Wizard World Chicago is next weekend, so I'll be headed to the 50% off trade-paperback boxes to grab whatever manga looks interesting--girl stuff, boy stuff, adult stuff, all of it. I'm not sure if that thinking-out-loud warrants its own entry here, except to say if anyone has some manga recommendations leave them here in the comments--I'll be keeping my eyes open.

Another Good Feeling.

2005-07-26T09:40:00.000-05:00

Finally put the logo up on top. For now it’ll be on my Flickr account, but son I will move it to my server so as not to run the risk of bandwidth problems. What do you guys think?

A good feeling

2005-07-25T11:33:00.000-05:00

I just let a little boy count a Calvin and Hobbes collection as a chapter book for his summer reading list. (He didn't think we would let him.)

Making out with Comics again

2005-07-14T13:07:00.000-05:00

Since we're all about sharing the love of comics, I wanted to state a bit of love on Young Avengers:

YOUNG AVENGERS #4 & #5
Written by Allan Heinberg; Art by Jim Cheung, John Dell; Cover by Jim Cheung
MARVEL UNIVERSE | 32 PGS | Color | $2.99
The other listening to the Comic Geek Speak Podcast ( link) I was listening to comics they like of Marvel and heard the Title “Young Avengers” being said. Right there, my mind swirled with this vision of Iron Man, Thor and Captain America with Pacifiers in their mouth, in some horrible Teen Titan rip off attempt to make a cool teen fighting group to appeal to the teens out there in the Teen land of Teen America.
Ugh.
Then in the Podcast, they said it was good. It was a good book. It was? I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe that the one crap book that’ll make it through the lines of good taste and people will only soon after repent on the alter of Comics for buying this crap. (Like Rob Liefeld fans from the early 90s)
So when I found issue #4 in the bookstore, I raised an eyebrow and took a look; Well that art was good and the bits here and there is spotted seemed great, and Kang looked old school, but now he was menacing and he felt like a villain. I liked it.
So grabbed Issue #4 and #5 and put them on the pile. After digesting all the good books I like and have been waiting for, I got to reading these issues, and you know what? The Comic Geeks (link) were right! This was good! When I started reading about the team and who they were and what there were trying to do, and seeing that it’s a just bunch of Fanboy’s who happen to have Superpowers I really dug them. They were teens too, they really acted like it; now one tried to be the adult here, and they had real worries, like the Appearance of Kang, and his younger self, and their powers and who they were and who lead. Ultimately this showed best when they’re biggest worry was that the Avenger were going to turn them over to the Cops or even worse, their parents! (DUN-DUN-DUN!)
I got this weird happiness form the Young Avengers that seemed familiar, and I pin pointed it now as I was writing this; it reminded me of the early days of the Gen 13 comics back in the 90s. Even though we still had all the idiocy of the prismatic and alternate covers in those days, the comics really stood out in story, the character involved were awesome, at first a bit trite, but sooner or later they were familiar faces to you and you understood their motivations for things, form dialogue to actions. They were fun, young and what’s happening, and when you mix that with superpowers, you gave a damn. Young Avengers delivers on that in this book, but in a less glamorous way but with the same energy it was a great read, and It made me realize that you needs book like these to counter balance at times the hard nosed anti hero plotlines of other books, by being a little bit lighter, human and caring on the developments of the character all the way being a little bit more fun, even in the action. Young Avengers has gone to the top of my list and I hope it can stay like that as long as the stories remain as interesting and ever changing as it has here.

What I may pick up this week:
ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE BOY WONDER #1
MANHUNTER #12
GRAVITY #2
NYX #6
PUNISHER #23
DESOLATION JONES #2
GREEN ARROW #52
FRESHMEN #1
ESSENTIAL THOR VOL 1

Currently Reading:
Daredevil Legends
Persopolis
Green Lantern #1 & #2

Of course, not all is good in comics land. Just check out my review of BLOOD OF THE DEMON #5 & #6.
"Gone Gone from the from of Man
Turn into a comic I can not stand!"

Honey, I Love

2005-06-22T17:39:00.000-05:00

..I love how, until the other fellas post again and Jent gets his internet back, this is totally my site. Yeah!!

Having total power makes me feel like talking on one of my favorite subjects: library stuff. I'm a librarian in a big city, and the individual at the top of the library system decreed several years back that comics, graphic novels, etc have no business being in libraries, so we were not going to have any. The rule has relaxed a little since it was imposed; the central library has a decent selection of classic and current books, and most of the local libraries have things like Dark Knight and Watchmen. We also have some collections of popular syndicated strips. And oh yes, we have Tintin. But there's no collections of comic books, no manga (very popular with the kids these days), and we represent only a fraction of the many wonderful graphic novels out there.

It's pretty sad. When I was in library school (about a year ago), I needed some young adult books during a visit to the folks and found that the library in my ultra-conservative little hometown has a solid collection of graphic novels. The shitty library at which I did a two-week stint before Jesus himself outstretched His hands and personally delivered me into a good job was pretty great with the sequentials; they had a large selection of graphic novels and collected strips, and also a full rack of plain-old comic books (X-Men, Superman, Bone etc).* So, basically, if we take these two little suburban libraries as a bellwether for what's going on in the whole country, like I'm doing, our big fancy cityfolk library is way behind the times.

It's also pretty hypocritical. If I swivel my head about 40 degrees to the left I will be looking at one of the largest collections of children's picture books in the city. The definitions for sequential art/graphic novels and picture books are scarily similar: stories told in both words and images, where neither words nor images could convey the story alone. It's just that one is intended for kids and the other is not.

So, why is it that sequential art is beneficial for kids and not for adults?

That is a topic for another blog, plus we're closing so I have to go.

*Both of these libraries kept their graphic novels in the young adult sections, even if they weren't necessarily for young adults. The librarian at the shitty place told me the only one she had qualms about giving to teenagers was "Preacher," because it is so violent. I am currently reading "Preacher" and can attest that this is true, although I'm sure it's no worse than a video game.

Of promises made and forgotten

2005-06-09T20:10:00.000-05:00

The time has come, it seems, as it does for all blogs, to turn the discussion to heartbreak. Let me take a deep, shuddery breath and continue with Part Three, the concluding chapter in the story of comics and me and how we came to be:

So, by senior year of college, I was the willing love-slave to Strangers in Paradise, and had dabbled in some others like Schizo, Artbabe, Optic Nerve, etc. I was also reading a lot of stuff by Chris Ware because I had a good friend who had lent me his personal folder of clipped-out newspaper strips---Quimby the Mouse, Jimmy Corrigan, Big Tex, and some randoms. This was the year I was in charge of little old art+performance, my school's super-hip arts magazine. I had one issue to plan, design, and produce, and I decided we would jump on the cool train and do a comics issue.

Friends, it was beautiful. 36 pages, full-color cover (colored by ME, and I'd never done it before), glossy paper. Original work by several nationally known artists and a very talented current student. Interviews with fascinating people, including Ivan Brunetti (on whom I still have a wholly unreasonable and heartfelt art-crush). Essays on such topics as being The Girl in the comics store, animated cartoons we had loved, and even a how-to guide. It was.. majestic.

(To set the scene, let me also tell you that during the 2-week period of heavy production on this issue, in which most nights ended with a 3am ride in the escort car back to my apartment, I was finishing three classes, one of which I had only attended 7 times, studying for finals, writing my honors thesis, of which I deleted half immediately after finishing, working 25 hours a week, and dealing with a recently acquired knitting addiction. Ok, so that was my fault, but I couldn't stop. I was also watching at least three hours of PBS Kids a day and crying a lot.)

And then? It didn't happen. A total motherfucking heartbreak. Our funding fell through at the last minute--because the school funding office forgot to cut a check to the printing company. It was awful... My co-editor and I consoled ourselves with the idea that we'd publish it first thing in the fall. The bitch then spent a glam-o summer in New York City taking all kinds of design classes, got all fancy, and upon returning to campus in the fall (I was graduated and gone), completely scrapped the comics issue and made a whole new one full of flashy pictures. My jaw knocked the phone out of my hand on its way to the floor when she told me. Never printed, none of the material ever used, including the original art!

My heart and soul! Poured out, then blotted up by a funding error and an Illustrator ego. It was a long while before I could read comics again. Too harsh. The disappointment still tears at me on occasion, like, when I think about it.

Oh well.

A year later I took a class on graphic novels and I read some more good stuff. 100 Bullets started my heart on the road to repair. It's just that good.

And for your penance..

2005-06-07T09:37:00.000-05:00

I've been saying rosaries all day to punish myself for never picking up Meat Cake. The covers just never looked interesting. Dame Darcy, can you forgive an old fool?

Doin It and Doin It and Doin It Well

2005-06-04T15:54:00.000-05:00

My quest for a randomly enjoyed superhero comic has met a successful end!

Well, it begins again anew with every trek to the comics shop, whether it ends in success or failure, but this week, at least, it ended well. I picked up #2 of BATMAN: DARK DETECTIVE by Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin. I picked it up because I liked the cover--because the cover looked like a superhero comic I would have bought 20 years ago, even though I've never been a big Batman fan. It shows a bunch of Batman villains--the Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face, and more--ready for battle. In the foreground, as if we're looking over his shoulder, is the side of Batman's face--he's a little taller than us and we can just barely peek under the nose of his cowl. The title on the cover: "by love . . . BETRAYED!"

Hell, yes!

I didn't kow what his min-series was, but the art looked pretty John Severin-like as I flipped through it. Apparently it's a reunion of heavy hitting 70's bat-team, but it's set in present-day continuity. BUT, even though it's set in the present, I was so-not-lost, even though I haven't been keeping up on all of the latest pre-INFINITE CRISIS hullaballoo.

And!

(. . . this is the best part . . .)

Stuff happens in the book! Stuff happens in the book, and it's fun to read, and it makes sense, and it's self-contained in a way that doesn't leave you confused, yet moves the story ahead, yet makes you want to read the next issue. Will Two-Face kill the Joker if J. doesn't drop out of the governor's race? Will the *other* candidate for governor find out that Batman/Bruce Wayne is rollin' around on the ground with his lady, and Bruce's ex, Silver St. Cloud? What the heck is the Scarecrow up to, dressing as policemen and planting slow-acting gas on Batman's cape?

I mean, egads, folks! Them's is good comics!

My other attempt this week was #4 of Spider-Man/Human Torch, because it seemed to be set in the post-Secret Wars era black costume/Black Cat days. It was, but alas, it didn't live up to those stories I used to enjoy. I'll pass on more issues of Spidey/Torch, but Dark Detective is one I'll be returning to.

Composite Superman!

2005-05-26T18:06:00.000-05:00

Speaking of action figures . . . I went to the comic shop today. I've been out of the loop I guess, because I was 100% surprised to find a Composite Superman figure on the shelf. One of the very first comics I owned was an issue of DC's WHO'S WHO series that was simply an encyclopedic list of the heroes and villains of the DCU. I left that thing in tatters, man--eventually I picked up a replacement copy just for nostalgia's sake. The appeal of that comic was that I didn't read any DC books, but here was a whole list of new heroes and villains to pit against Spider-Man and the Avengers in the comics I was making up myself. And the one that really blew my mind was this guy:

Composite Superman! He's got green skin and he has a costume that's a split-down-the-middle amalgamation of Superman and Batman. And if that wasn't weird enough, according to the back of the box, he has all of the powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

It's just weird, man. I'm not even sure it makes sense. He was a villain, according to my copy of WHO'S WHO, but in my six year old brain, green skin + Superman + Batman = Ultimate Superhero.

I wish the figure wasn't twenty bucks, though. I don't buy action figures these days, but I would totally set that one up on my desk. It's everything I dig about superhero comics these days.

Subway Pirates!

2005-05-25T21:11:00.000-05:00

I haven't been to the comic shop in ages.

I might make it tomorrow.

In the meantime, the new Entertainment Weekly lists "5 Reasons We Love SEVEN SOLDIERS," and at least one of them got me thinking:

"5: Morrison stuffs each issue--each page--with myriad wild ideas, a long-evolving style he calls 'compression.' It reaches maturity in SOLDIERS. 'Most comics spread a story too thin,' says Morrison. 'I'm throwing down the gauntlet. I'm saying 'Pick up your game.'"

I've only seen one issue of GUARDIAN so far, one of Morrison's SEVEN SOLDIERS titles, but in the first few pages we're introduced to this idea of subway pirates--they hijack subwar cars and run them on forgotten tracks in the underground rail system of New York City. They're tattooed and pierced and scary, looking like a good pirate should, and I can't help but think that in the hands of other writers, the idea of subway pirates would have been drawn out for six issues--first, the mystery of disappearing cars, by issue two Our Hero finds an outdated map showing unused lines, and maybe by issue 3 or 4 we get our first sight of the pirates. But with Morrison, and with GUARDIAN, we get right to the action. There's no slow reveal of what we already know is going to happen from reading PREVIEWS two months ago--subway pirates, page two, and on page three, more adventure!

I know I've gone on about ALL-STAR SUPERMAN already, but from what I hear the destruction of Krypton happens in the first quarter of the first page, and the rest of the issue is sci-fi superheroics. From time to time I think I might want to pick up a random issue of a superhero comic, just for the pure, four-color enjoyment of it; and in my heart of hearts, I'll always be a Marvel kid. I really like Spider-Man, for example, but I know if I pick up an issue of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN I'm as likely to get a four page spread of security guards talking about Spider-Man as I am 30 pages of a fight scene that still isn't resolved by the end of the issue. That's "writing for the trade," I guess, or what the kids these days are calling "decompression," but it's just bad storytelling, to me. It's what makes the new STAR WARS pictures seem so thin. Also in a recent issue of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (you see where I get all of my media news, huh?) George Lucas said that 60% of the backstory he had for the prequels is in EPISODE III, while the other 40% was spread between the other movies. That's awful! That's the worst thing I've ever HEARD from the mouth of George Lucas, including the dialogue he's written!

I'm talking about comics, man! Serialized comics, work that comes with an almost 70-year tradition of solid adventure stories, a slice of culture as Mr. Alan Moore likes to call them. I want subway pirates in the first three pages, not at the end of issue four!

By way of introduction, Part Two

2005-05-21T11:46:00.000-05:00

So when DID I first start reading comics, they're all asking..

So here's the thing: I read slow. I've always been a little self conscious about it, being you know, really into books and shit. I also had a hard time getting through books for school in the time we were given. High school, sophomore year: I'm at Barnes and Noble with my dad, on one of our late-night trips. The only things my dad and I have ever really been able to talk about are books and politics, and since at this point I was still interested in being pals with him, every time he asked me if I wanted to go to Barnes and Noble at 9pm I'd say "yes." One night I was looking through copies of Othello because I had to read it for school, and I found the graphic novel version by Oscar Zarate. I figured my teacher wouldn't mind, since it said it was unabridged. I was already translating my world history notes into cartoons in the margins, so I guess I knew that interpreting words and pictures together was easier for me than words alone. Anyway, I kept that comic book Othello around for years and re-read it many times..

Flash forward to freshman year of college, when I saw Chasing Amy and was like "(double take) ...people write comics about love and stuff?!" After watching it several times, I decided to write my own comic. It was loosely based on my angsty teenage adventures at home and school. I came up with a bunch of characters but I only ever wrote two pages. I drew it freehand with a pen and a tube of white-out. I think a lot of it was about my parents.

Sophomore year, when I left school and lived at home for a while and worked at Borders, a really cool-looking girl (rare in my hometown) once asked me if we sold Strangers in Paradise. So the name was familiar to me when my Summer of '00 roommate suggested I read them. I did, and I got so involved in the story that the Emma/plane crash issues gave me stomachaches. I LOVED it. A funny, realistic love-and-friendship story with great characters and a generous dose of violence. It's still the only comic I buy every time it comes out. SIP, I am your bitch.

But SIP did also turn me on to the general world of comics, graphic novels, etc. I started going to Quimby's and CC, and read some things like Eightball, which I didn't like, and My Monkey's Name is Jennifer, which I adored. I also started reading old issues of Artbabe, and a friend had gotten me into the Chris Ware comics in the Reader.

That's totally long enough for one blog.
Coming up next: The Comics Issue That Wasn't!!

Damn you Jent!

2005-05-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

Well thanks to Mathew and his bloody riting, I uped and slummed myself into the local comic shop (one I didin't like too much) and bought Issue 3-6 of "Identity Crisis"
Damn you Jent, now I'm hooked, and looking for issues 1 & 2
Damn you and your infectious love of comics!

On a side note, VIGIL is back 100%

2005-05-04T13:59:00.000-05:00

Juan Navarro returns to VIGIL, with a second “season” in the works and
short pieces in between, restarting May 8th, 2005. He kicks off the series with his
short “CAPES,” where reality shows meet supercrime.

After "CAPES," VIGIL will run the short “Pizza Run" and then lead into “Jackie and the Beanstalk,” plus
pin ups by Jon Morris, Jason Martin, Ramon Sierra, Serge' and Tim Kelly. And then, the second season,
as the team heads toward an inevitable showdown with their one-time mightiest member...

Get ready for more great stories of life, death and invulnerability. Stories of powers on the mean, sweaty streets. Stories of the endless VIGIL.

This can also be found on my Blog

Game Logic

2005-05-04T10:37:00.000-05:00

Hey Juan, do you think we could get Warren Ellis to start posting here? I don't always like his work these days, or even his Bad Signal emails, but from time to time he says something in them that leads me here to write something instead of just finishing my Red Bull and getting on the train, like I should be doing.

Today he sent one out about "Game Logic." The idea is simple--when something happens because it happens, it's game logic. It can be a jokey moment or a cute moment, but it's something that's not real-world-safe. A good example he gave was from a comic I'm not familiar with, where the hero raises his fist to the audience and exclaims, "Dude!" while his sidekick is shown with a thought balloon, exclaiming to herself, "Dude!"

Warren says, and I'm not going to go into a quoting spree here, but Warren says, "There's no self-consciousness, no irony, no distancing." What happens, happens--and you either buy in, or you don't.

To me, it's a sense of play. It's comics that are FUN and exciting, both to the people making them and to the folks reading them. It's comics where coincidences happen because it serves the story, because it IS a story, and it knows it, and the author knows it, and we know it, too.

I don't like the term Game Logic, but I like the idea behind it. Warren says two good examples of it are SHARKNIFE and SCOTT PILGRIM, so if those titles are as new to you as they are to me, go to the comic shop this week and take a chance on them. And go to Warren's site and sign up for Bad Signal, if you don't mind the occasional email about how he's cranky and tired. It's worth it when one like this comes through.

"With new radiant action"

2005-05-02T13:43:00.000-05:00

I guess I started reading comics when I was a little kid, although it was mostly the newspaper funnies.. The only comic book I can remember having was a Foofur adventure.. even though Spiderman was my favorite tv show, I remember being told (I don't know by whom) that comics were "for boys."

Action figures, though. Apparently there were no gender restriction on those mamas. I had a whole bunch of Star Trek guys (thanks, dad), a Spiderman, a Batman and a Robin.. These were not the super-cool touch-every-muscle-it's-real action figures like the ankle nippers have today; they were pretty basic and smooth to the touch. Eventually some of the paint started to flake off Spock and Kirks' faces.

When I was in high school Spiderman and Batman came back on as animated series, so the action figures came back too. Way better ones. I got a Spiderman, but I had moved on by this time to the Tick. Funny as hell, and they had some great toys. I still have mine in a secret location.... The prominently displayed figures in my apartment are the Barista and the Librarian, both purchased for me by my best friend when I was working those jobs. I expect the crazy cat lady for my next birthday.

I'm still fascinated by action figures, but since becoming a functioning adult I haven't had the money to do much more than look. But now I have a job so maybe that will change. Hmm.

PS By way of introduction I should point out that I am a chick, so the comics I read tend to be chick comics. Thank yooou.

PPS I read somewhere last week that rats are less likely to develop alzheimer's if they have lots of bright colored toys throughout their lifetime. I don't want alzheimer's.

Four-Color Funnies

2005-04-20T19:45:00.000-05:00

Man, I can't wait until ALL-STARS.

I visited my local comic shop today, the ever-wonderful Chicago Comics. Sometimes I go just to see what's new, sometimes I go to buy what I know I'll enjoy (the new issues of STRAY BULLETS and MEATCAKE this week, for example), sometimes I go to see what there is to see. Once in the store today, face to face with four-colored glory, I had the urge to partake in some serialized superheroics.

I looked around. The first issue of KLARION was out, the next chapter in Grant Morrison's ambitious SEVEN SOLDIERS OF VICTORY project that is revamping seven D-list DC characters. I really like Grant's work, especially lately. NEWXMEN was hit and miss for me, but We3 and VINAMARAMA have been fantastic, genre-defying work--I think We3 is the most visually stimulating book I've seen in--well, maybe ever. And four #1 issues later, SEVEN SOLDIERS has proven to be very interesting stuff. KLARION is probably my favorite of the bunch so far, largely because of the Grundies. In Limbo Town, where Klarion the Witch-Boy lives, the bodies of one's deceased family members are awoken and enslaved to be put to work. The living have blue skin and black hair, while Grundies are white-skinned, white-haired mumblers--a reinvention of Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday, which some of you folks might remember from the SuperFriends. But as much as I enjoyed this book, even at the shop I knew it wasn't going to satisfy the Fun Comics Craving I had in my guts.

I realized that what I wanted was to pick up a random book and read some superheroic adventures without having to wonder what the heck was going on with my favorite characters. DC's upcoming ALL-STARS line seems like it will fit that nitch. I'll be able to pick up a 20-odd page comic book featuring Superman or Batman and Robin and read an entire adventure, then go about my business. And with Grant Morrison and Frank Miller writing them, and Frank Quitely and Jim Lee drawing them (respectively, of course), I'm assured that they'll be top-quality books crafted with love of comics of yore, but with a modern sensibility built in. And at least in Grant's case with Superman, they'll be adventurously weird.

I thought about picking up ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN for a quick fix of Spidey action, since Hobgoblin was on the cover and all. But with Bendis still writing, I'm a little afraid that USM is still being written for the trades. I'm just as liable to see twenty pages of security guards talking about Spider-Man as I am to see Spider-Man himself. And if nothing else, I know I'd only be getting one section of a six-part story. With the ALL-STAR books, I'm guaranteed a complete story.

Man . . . I can't wait until ALL-STARS.

As for the design....

2005-04-19T09:11:00.000-05:00

Well Matthew of course, paints this site with great words, I need to make this site look like every other capsulated wreck of a blog out there, and believe me I'm hardly qualified. So when you come back to the site, and think your going through some sort Donnie Darko weirdness as its changes every day, it's us messing around, trying to find a template we can use and love.
So if you'll excuse me....

Excitement, halfway through

2005-04-13T20:19:00.000-05:00

I heard Terry Gross interviewing Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez on Fresh Air the other day. Terry was asking about the extremes of violence in the books and in the movie, throwing stars that could chop a man's arm off--saying she was glad such things didn't exist in real life. Frank said he didn't believe in holding anything back in fiction, that he wanted a distinct difference between FICTION and REAL LIFE.

I like that idea, of telling stories where you throw everything you can think of into something. Of writing something like it's the best story you'll ever write, so you might as well include as much as you can in it. Why stretch out for six issues what you can tell in one? It's one of the reasons I have such high hopes for the Morrison/Quitely ALL-STAR SUPERMAN. Grant has said in a few interviews that Superman's origin takes up about a quarter of page one, and the rest of the first issue is kick-splode Superman action. When I've written stories lately I knew I was on the ball when I wasn't holding anything back--I was making time jumps, I was fitting in as much STUFF as I could. Maybe a little more than should be there shows up sometimes, but that's fine--it's easier to trim something down than fill it up when there's not enough there.

It's one of the things that I enjoy and am most frustrated by when it comes to DC's COUNTDOWN TO INFINITE CRISIS. On the one hand--and if you don't want it spoiled for you, you might as well stop reading now--killing Blue Beetle was awesome. Huzzah to DC for shaking things up! It didn't strike me as a shock for shock's sake kind of move, and if they've upset/startled as many fans as they seem to, then good for them. If you're not upsetting people with a story, then it's too tame.

Then again . . . I just read 80 pages worth of comic book, and all I get is one thing? Because that's basically what happened. 80 pages of comics, teasers for four upcoming mini-series, and Blue Beetle shot in the head. Granted, they probably felt they needed to build up the characters of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold after leaving them out of the limelight for so long, and it IS titled the COUNTDOWN to the Infinite Crisis, and not the Crisis itself . . . but still. If you only need one-fourth of a page to blow up Krypton, you don't need 80 pages to kill off Blue Beetle.

I guess I'm bitching about not having enough kick-splode-changes in one issue, which isn't what I want SEQUENTIAL HEART to be about--I want to celebrate comics, not complain about them like this was an internet message board. And sure, serialized superhero fiction is always going to move sloooowly--be here next month to see if our hero survives!--so all in all, COUNTDOWN is a good first step. I suppose my point is that I want it harder, faster, now--throwing stars that cut off a man's arm, planets exploding on page one, holycraphowaretheygoingtotopTHIS--and there still 20 pages to go!

I want to love Comics

2005-04-12T13:40:00.000-05:00

I want to love Comics. I do. I mean, we go so great together.
I mean.
I like-like comics, you know?
I French kiss Comics all the time, and I give great back rubs (I'm like the king at back rubs)
Some times it's hard though.
Sometimes Comics don't listen. Sometimes, I swear, it's as if Comics are ignoring me. And I just sit there and take it.
Finally, when Comics does that thing with its mouth while eating, I freak out.
I tell comics how I feel. We start talk but it becomes a screaming match.
Next thing you know, I’m crying and Comics is in the next room fuming at me.
I walk out of the room, with my things in hand, and just stare at Comics.
"Ok, I'm going to go"
Comics just stares into space.
Walking out, I hold back the tears expecting to hear Comics running down the street to hug me. No. It doesn’t happen. On the bus, I cry about Comics.
It's not until the next day, that I love comics again. I sit up looking for Comics in bed, and Comics is not there.
I choke up.
Then I hear a knock.
There's Comics, arms out open, looking at me, as if pleading to take Comics back.
And I do.
You know, it's hard. And what people say about Comics and me.
But in the end.
I want to love Comics.

Introductions May Be Necessary

2005-04-11T19:16:00.000-05:00

I remember Blue Devil. I remember Sasquatch Vs. Sasquatch, Green Lantern hurtling to his death, covered in some kind of yellow goo, and Peter Parker being torn apart by his black costume and his traditional red-and-blues. I remember 1984, 1985, 1986, and being excited about trips to Waldenbooks in the mall, or to IGA in Owensville, digging past copies of Cracked to find a comic book I hadn't bought the week before.

I remember the Invisibles and wondering what the hell was going on. I remember Death, with her top hat and big black boots. I remember Madman with bright colors and laser guns and girlfriends. I remember realizing that comics could still be fun and smart and exciting, and getting the stink-eye from Don Parker when I brought friends into his comics shop in Milford, Ohio.

I remember We3 and American Elf and Billy Dogma. I remember From Hell and 1602 and Countdown to Infinite Crisis and Blankets and La Perdida. Comics have made me look forward to Wednesday ever since I found out they existed, and talking about comics gives me goosebumps on my arms and stars in my eyeballs and ideas in my head.

Last week, via his Bad Signal mailing list, Warren Ellis wondered aloud about what would happen if the online comics discussion were elevated above the negativity that permeates comic book message boards. He suggested a groupblog where the brightest superhero writers could have a dialogue about comics, could present ideas to their audience, could open the floodgates of ideas and conversation. It struck me as being a good idea, whether you're a popular comics writer or not. I mentioned it to some friends of mine, and they agreed. Juan suggested the title SEQUENTIAL HEART, and even though it happens to rhyme with the fine folks at Sequential Tart, it was too good to pass up.

I wanted to start a place where folks who loved comics could talk about comics. We'll be posting essays, musings, reviews, arguing back and forth and talking about the things we like more than the things we don't. Feel free to join in and comment, or just check in from time to time to read what we're up to. Sequential Heart--we're pumpin' good comics!