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Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Easily in my list for top 5 Jar Jar Binks stories.
I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I'm already recommending Star Wars Tales #20. Why? I just finished the first story, which is Tony Millionaire (who also drew the cover) doing a Jar Jar Binks story. Yes, it's Tony Millionaire doing Jar Jar Binks and it's as good and funny as it sounds.
Oh yeah, it's also got James Kochalka, Gilbert Hernandez, Peter Bagge, Bob Fingerman and more doing their Star Wars stories. I've never liked Star Wars, but I do like those cartoonists. How can you say no to that line-up?
Well, don't just sit there reading my drivel, go buy that damn book!
Permanent Link: 8:33 PM |
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Empire review
Hello, I would like to talk to you about a comic book called Empire. It’s by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson, and the book is certainly interesting. Overall, I liked it if not loved it.
Oh wait, I have to write more than that? I guess so. The book’s plot concerns a Dr. Doom-type villain achieving his goal of world domination. The villain, named Golgoth (one of the things I didn’t like about this book was the character’s name. They seemed like something a twelve-year-old boy would come up for some fantasy novel), deals with the reality of the old cliché “be careful what you wish for.”
Golgoth achieved his goal through absolute brutality. This is the first mature-readers book from Mark Waid I have read and it was kind of startling to see the man known for bringing back a Silver Age feel to comics do a book that features torture, nudity and drug use (I really, really liked the way Waid dealt with the world’s last superhero). Still, none of it seems gratuitous. It all has to deal with what I believe the theme of the book was. That is, the vicious and ruthless approach Golgoth used to accomplish his objective has infected everything else in his life. I don’t want to spoil anything (one thing I like about this book is that it has some very surprising plot twists) but even the part of Golgoth’s life that he tries to keep pure and good soon turns out to be as rotten as any of his underlings are.
His underlings are in fact a big part of the book. Lucullan, Golgoth’s Minister of War, proves to be one of the most interesting. He is someone who at first seems to be a not-so-bright follower figures heavily in one of the more absorbing developments in the book, one involving the resistance movement in Greenland. The assassins Xanna and Lohkyn were also written very well and were two characters that show how the corruption in Golgoth’s empire affected everybody.
Kitson’s art, which I wasn’t familiar with before this book, was certainly better than the average genre-book artist. The design of the characters (especially Golgoth) and the world around them is able to really bring across the menace in the book. For some reason the look of the book reminded me of 80’s sci-fi movies, and I mean that in a good way. The book does sometimes have a cinematic feel, but it doesn’t hit you over the head with it like books such as The Ultimates do. I understand that Waid and Kitson are going to be working on the Legion of Superheroes. I think Kitson will be able to do some fun stuff with the DC Universe in the 30th Century.
Pick up Empire if you want to see certain conventions in superhero comics done in a smart way. I’m glad that Waid and Kitson were able to get all of their issues of this creator-owned series out (the original publisher went bankrupt). When these two come back again with something of their own, I’ll be sure to try it.
Permanent Link: 11:47 AM |
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Monday, June 28, 2004
Birthday post
When I got this blog I made a promise to myself that I would update it at least three times a week. I'm still going to stay true to that, but for right now I'm just going to post a preview of things to come. Why? Because today's my birthday (I'm officaly 21 now), so I've got to go celebrate.
Coming up, on days that aren't my birthday, I'll have a rundow on the Vertigo Creeper series in the "Comics You May Have Missed" dept.
A new feature here will be "Comics Reviewed by Non-Comics People." I have someone reading The Dark Knight Returns right now and I've got someone who might be able to do the first Cerebus trade.
I also want to talk about the Death of Superman story that first appeared in Superman #149. Just because it's one of my favorite Superman story and I likes me the Superman comics.
Bye for now.
Permanent Link: 12:38 PM |
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Saturday, June 26, 2004
Catwoman #32 review
Let’s talk about new comics. Well, one new comic that is.
Catwoman #32 came out on Weds. It’s by Ed Brubaker and features guest artists Sean Phillips (Brubaker’s collaborator on Sleeper) and Stefano Gaudiano. I haven’t been following Catwoman really, although I did read the first trade. This was a stand alone issue though, so I gave it a shot.
I liked this story a lot. Besides the fact that it is completely accessible to someone who hasn’t been following the book (always good for a single issue story), it is a good example of a superhero story told in a mature and smart way.
See, Catwoman, a.k.a. Selina Kyle, has come back to Gotham City after having an adventure in Egypt. Boy on boy, is Batman happy to see hear her back. It seems Mr. Wayne is sweet on Ms. Kyle. So what happens when two people who are attracted to each other have been separated and finally reunited? Yes, they go to dinner. Yes, they catch a movie. Yes, they have a talk over a cup of coffee. And then they display their attraction physically. Or at least it’s what heavily implied.
Now, if I was telling you a true story about two normal folks in this situation no one would find this shocking. But these are two comic book superheroes. Many people believe superheroes aren’t meant to have sex. The idea that Batman would have genitals seems very dangerous and isn’t right for the character. I politely disagree.
The detractors of, shall we say, more mature superhero stories would point to the fact that the characters of Batman and Catwoman were created for children. True. But let’s get to something deeper than that. They were created from the imagination of Bob Kane and Bill Finger in the first place. Two characters that story tellers, in this case Brubaker, Phillips and Guadiano, are meant to tell stories with and preferably good ones at that. The fact that these characters were meant to be created for children’s entertainment was something that came out of the economic reality of the so-called Golden Age of comics. The fact that people still want them to be written for children is out of tradition. If Brubaker, Phillips and Gaudiano let those two forces, demands of the market and tradition, get in the way of telling a good story (which I feel this is) then they would not be the story tellers they are. They wouldn’t be as effective and frankly they wouldn’t be as good.
I don’t want to sound like I enjoyed this story on a base level. The story isn’t good because Selina and Bruce have sex. The story is good because the characters of Selina and Bruce are written well. Not just that, the supporting players like Selina’ friend Holly, series regular Slam Bradley and Bradley’s son are also written in a way that makes me interested in them. They have problems I find fascinating and deal with them (or don’t) in a way I find equally fascinating. I don’t want to continue buying the series because I feel that regular artist Paul Gulacy is a bad choice for the book, but I do want to pick up all three of the Catwoman trade paper backs. This one issue is just that good.
So hats off to Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Stefano Gaudiano. They told a damn good story that only cost me three bucks, which is pretty rare these days if you ask me.
Permanent Link: 12:11 PM |
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Friday, June 25, 2004
Confessions of an American Comics-Reader
Why do comics, good comics that is, thrill me so much that I seem to be a total addict of the medium? I think and talk about them so much that I sometimes have to try really hard to convince myself to do something non-comics related. Still, I make the effort else I become a total lost cause and just sit in my room all day, alternating between reading comics and getting more of them through eBay and Amazon. Something I would not like to become (I’ll admit, sunlight has its positive aspects) but I something I fear I could very easily become. Why? Because comics make me feel a certain way that nothing else does. I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what that feeling is.
Something that defines comics is still images. But it’s not like being in a museum marveling at a painting, comic books take multiple still images and try to make something of a story out of them (if you want to take a breather after reading that mind-blowing revelation you’re allowed). The great artists make a reader feeling like he/she is reading about characters that are alive. Of course we are aware that someone like Spider-Man is fiction and that Joe Matt’s stories happened to him in the past, but if the comic is that good and the reader is that captivated with the work the images on the page will feel like the only thing that matters. Because, and this is why I love comics, those lines on paper (as R. Crumb put it) enter your mind and suddenly you get something that is in between a movie and a dream.
I don’t know about other readers, but when I read a comic I imagine different voices for the characters (when ever I’m reading about Batman it’s always Kevin Conroy’s voice). When I see a gun go off I imagine the gun shot sounds even if there are no sound effect words. I’m not telling my brain to do this, I’m simply captivated enough by the story to seem that much more real to me. That’s why I keep coming back to comics, the books are just blueprints (well that sounds a bit reductive, but for the purposes of this essay they are) for a story that my brain, my body, tells me. Even with DVDs where we can slow down a movie or skip whole scenes, viewers are pretty much at the mercy of the film maker (remember Hitchcock’s “play the audiences like a piano line”?). I love reading those books without pictures in them, but even the best descriptions can’t match the information your brain gets from a drawing of Captain America by Jack Kirby or Superman by Curt Swan. No, there’s some weird formula where drawings plus story (done well) equals a hypnotizing, endorphin-pumping sort of “waking dream.”
I wonder if this is why many comics have used the idea of dreams in their stories. The most notable would be Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland as well as an early strip by McCay, Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. One of the finest and most imaginative comic strips of all time, Nemo had no bounds to reality at all save the last panel with Nemo falling out of bed from his dreams. I must admit I have not read much about McCay himself, but when I read Nemo (there’s a large collection at my local library, the one with pieces by Charles Schulz and Art Spiegelman) I feel like McCay has found the perfect way to exploit comic’s potential by taking moving images in the mind (a dream) and illustrating them on a comics page. It’s the exact feeling of a “waking dream” (I’m not thrilled about the term but it’s the best one I could think of). McCay’s strip would not be the last one to deal with dreams or, for that matter, hallucinations. Rick Veitch had his own project named Rare Bit Fiend that dealt with dreams. Jesse Reklaw of the strip Slow Wave has readers send in their own dreams and he draws them up. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman was all about dreams (it was the main character’s name) and communicating stories. R. Crumb, Victor Moscoso and other underground cartoonists had their artwork influenced by LSD and other hallucinatory medicine. Creators have also been known to keep dream journals so they have ideas for their work. Fop example, Grant Morrison has said he used one for his brilliant run on Doom Patrol.
So I suppose that’s it. Comics have often been said to take readers into a different world. While it sounds like a cliché now, there is something there. The beautiful thing, though, is that that world is already inside us. It just takes a good comic for us to find it.
Permanent Link: 3:26 PM |
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Thursday, June 24, 2004
An essay on the New Frontier
Well, this will be my first real essay on this blog. I don’t know how well it will look when any of you folks can read comic blogs by guys who know a hell lot more than I do. But I can’t say I didn’t try. Here’s my praise of Darwyn Cooke’s mini-series New Frontier and the latest issue in particular. I hope it’s not too insipid.
Cooke's portrayal of the DC Silver Age against the backdrops of the social happenings of the late-50s is a great idea and the way Cooke executes it is a testament to his talent. Not the least bit because Cooke doesn’t just use a simpler, cleaner line in drawing the characters but because the former magazine art director is creating a whole look for the book that perfectly matches the era and ideas he wants to convey. Just look at the inside cover of issue four, “Mystery In Space,” and you'll see an exciting space-age design and in the forefront a 45 RPM record on the ballad of John Henry. He just summed up two themes in this book brilliantly with just one page.
Cooke really indulges himself (and the lucky readers) when later on in the same issue the Silver Age Green Lantern Hal Jordan and his friends go to a car show. Who can resist big signs with smart fonts on them telling the world about the latest spine-tinglers? Maybe it's because my Dad took my brother and I to a lot of car shows when we were kids, but something about seeing a lot of cars with fins on them reminds me of the 1950’s, even though I wasn’t around for them (I’m 21). A few pages before this we got to see the Silver Age Flash in action. The great Carmine Infantino designed the character’s costume to look like the automobiles of the day. In fact all those Silver Age DC books were products of their time (aren’t all great superheroes?). They were filled with optimism about science and space technology as well as just bursting with bright colors and sleek designs for the characters (Flash has fins! Green Lantern has no cape!). I think Cooke gets this perfectly and seamlessly adds personalities to the characters.
We’ve had a lot of writers like Mark Waid, Jeph Loeb and Grant Morrison actively try to bring back the sensibilities of reading Silver Age comics. While I feel they were successful for the most part, most of the artwork for the respective books those writers were doing still had a modern feel to them. Nothing wrong with that, unlike some I like Ed McGuinness’ manga-influenced Superman. But Cooke is not just content to remind readers of the days when Gardner Fox and John Broome were coming up with tales of the enthralling fantastic, he wants to remind people of why Gil Kane and the aforementioned Infantino are held in such high regard. Not only that, Cooke wants to remind people of what the world was like outside of DC’s office at the time.
In contrast to the actual DC books of the late-50s and early-60s, Cooke doesn’t gloss over the realties of those times. The John Henry in this book is more than just someone in a song; he’s a wronged African-American who decides to fight back with as much heroism and bravery as the super powered beings we’re familiar with. The news report on the character’s death sparks something in J’onn J’onzz as a minority of one in the 50s. The way Cooke writes this character is the best I’ve seen yet. J’onzz is known by many comic readers as “the green guy who is always on the Justice League” but Cooke knows that if he’s going to tell a story about the era that brought about Joe McCarthy as well as Chuck Yeager, the Martian Manhunter is just the right superhero for the job.
This is a book by a great artist who clearly loves superheroes and telling their stories. It’s a real pleasure to read.
Permanent Link: 4:24 PM |
2 comments
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Plug away!
My pal Reid has posted an interview with Josh Neufield and Dean Haspiel. They mention some new projects they have going. It's even got pictures!
You can find the interview here: Interview!
Permanent Link: 9:29 AM |
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Blast Off!
Let's see if this works.
Permanent Link: 9:09 PM |
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