Showing posts with label Joss Whedon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joss Whedon. Show all posts
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Sugarshock #2 is available @ DHP!
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.
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.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Review - Buffy Season 8 #5
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!
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!
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Review - SUGARSHOCK!
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!
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Review - Astonishing X-Men vol. 3: Torn
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.
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.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Review - Buffy Season 8 #4
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)