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Monday, October 31, 2005
Back to Scary
A Halloween Gift for You from Phil Spector! Via Will Pfeifer.
Permanent Link: 9:35 AM |
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Friday, October 28, 2005
The TV Show: The Play: The Post
Are you ready for Batman: the TV Show: The Play? It's playing at The Dark Room here in San Francisco until Oct. 30th so you better catch it quick. Hell, I don't know if I will able to find the time to see it but you should if you can. It's an original story based on William Dozier's campy creation. Anyone paying tribute to this grand TV show and keeping live theater alive at the same time gets my respect. For more info here's my school's paper article on the play.
Now, call me crazy but I always thought the Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams would make a fun, campy play. You could fill it with "social message" songs of the time like The Temptations "Ball of Confusion" and Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction." And who wouldn't want to see "My ward a junkie!" delivered live?
Permanent Link: 10:11 AM |
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Thursday, October 27, 2005
"Is there a dive bar in that suit?"
Re: Patton Oswalt on Adam Carolla's show
It started with Oswalt telling Adam "if you want to get your girl into comcis you've got to give her Ghost World." Then they went to Hollywood Blvd. and Chewbacca was yelling that Superman was on crack.
It was good and nerdy and certainly funnier than past episodes of Carolla's show but I think I like Oswalt's take on it better (from aspecialthing.com):
Doing the show was painless and fun.
I watched it last night and it was painful and not fun.
I like Adam. I think he's funny. But that's not the right setting for him. Having him host a show one-on-one with no audience is like having me host a sports roundtable on ESPN in front of Bush voters. Or having me act in BLADE III. (emphasis mine)
When I was at Adam's show, I kept asking people whose idea it was to lose the audience. I never got a straight answer.
Tivo should add a feature where you can call up a P.I.P. box with the angry black Chewbacca guy in it whenever you want.
Then he linked to this easter egg from the Revenge on the Sith DVD. It's bizarre enough without knowing that George Lucas was cackling away at it at some point.
Permanent Link: 2:49 PM |
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Nice to see you again
When reading comics it might always seem like “what’s next” is the most important thing. There’s the anticipation over what’s going to arrive in the Direct Market on Wednesday (the best of these posts are done by Jog and Kevin). There are cartoonists out promoting their latest graphic novels from companies like Pantheon (Hear Charles Burns and Chris Ware do it). I think it can be a lot of fun waiting for that new book, getting it in your hands and then cracking it open to absorb all that sticky comics goodness. As much as I love it I’m finding joy in what can be considered the opposite.
Let’s hear it for re-reading. Not just going through reprint material that’s new to you such as Showcase and Essential books; I’ve got plenty of that. I mean digging into that place where you store the comics you’ve already bought and read and enjoying a familiar story all over again because it’s just that good. Hell, we’ve already gotten one of the best blogs ever out of it. To go through that comic that isn’t just another story that a company had to tell about a certain character so they can still hold on to the copyright or a book that’s part of some crossover that seems dated as soon as the year is past (although I do love Scipio doing just that with Crisis on Infinite Earths). Instead there’s the experience of enjoying a comic that doesn’t necessarily fill you with nostalgia as much as it impresses you with the creators’ talent and storytelling on repeat readings.
For me it has been Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier. It’s a big, epic story filled with DC Silver Age superheroes to take a look at post-WWII society. If it was a movie it would have been a “road show” epic. All the satisfaction that comes from reading it is simple. There’s the majesty instilled in these creations of Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Jack Kirby and others (each issue ends with dedications to cartoonists and writers from the time). Cooke writes forgotten or second-rate characters like King Faraday or Martian Manhunter into compelling personalities with conflicts and problems that reflect the larger goings on in the book on to a human scale. There’s the ending with all the heroes doing that “slow walk” into this fantastic action-packed ending sequence. Just reading page after page of Cooke’s art that combines the best of Kirby’s dynamism, Infantino’s sleekness and Alex Toth’s simplicity is pure comic book goodness. The way he combines that with that art deco, pop art '60s look is just beautiful. I remember being a bit hesitant buying this series of the stands because of the $6.95 price tag for each issue. Now I find myself getting more out of it than comics I’ve bought for far less. I took the comics out of the longbox a few months ago just because I knew they were great reading. I did the same thing a few weeks ago.
It’s a type of reading experience that’s divorced from any type of context. Any of the punditry or news articles you read about this or any other comics doesn’t matter anymore. There’s no need to compare this book to what you were reading alongside it at the time. There’s just your brain, the pages in front of you and a lazy Saturday with nothing else to do. It’s a pure type of comic book reading and one worth indulging in more often. There are a lot of great books coming out but that also means there’s this sense of trying to keep up that can occur. Slowing down and reading something you’ll know you’ll like is a far more relaxing pleasure.
Anything you’ve been enjoying for a second or third time?
Permanent Link: 11:26 AM |
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Men of Tomorrow
Gerard Jones’s book not only informs us of new things about the birth of the comic book it also gives us some of the best takes on the stories everybody has heard of. The birth of Superman or Fredric Wertham’s crusade of comics are two stories that are familiar with anyone who has paid even a little attention to comics history but Jones fleshes out the people behind them and connects the stories to history and the rest of the world. Jones puts every event in context of what was going on at the time and profiles many of the people involved in bringing the comic book to life. The story of Siegel and Shuster’s fight for their own creation is the story that holds the book together but from there Jones explores the chaos, corruption and debauchery of that “Golden Age” of comics.
Jones represents the men of the day as characters just as big and lively as the characters they published. Harry Donenfeld is a guy with a big mouth and big ideas on how to get rich and who is more interested in hanging out with gangsters like Frank Costello than doing right by the people below him. Jack Liebowitz started out as a champion of the working-man only to become a master of American capitalism sitting on the board of Warner Communication. Jerry Siegel is a kid with a lot of ideas but often time filled with righteous anger over how he and his partner Joe Shuster got screwed out all that Superman money. The book is like a lightning bolt to the brain with all these characters bustling around creating a new art form (although few would consider it as such). There are these fantastic stories like the creation of the first issue of Daredevil (not Matt Murdock, the older one). There’s even a twist suitable for an old Republic serial in the way Bob Kane tries to get out of the original contract he signed. These descriptions and anecdotes also raise suspicions of how accurate these characterizations are. In the Notes on Sources section we see that Jones relied on many interviews from those who were there and those who knew those who were there. Some of the stories, especially the ones about Donenfeld, become a mixture of legend and fact. It also exposes how slippery comics history can be, certainly in the late ‘30s and ‘40s, but it wouldn’t be a true illustration of the time if it didn’t include all those far-out tales based on the very real unruliness of the time. It often feels like we learn of the way things were by tying this mix of what is real and what is half-real together to sort through the mindset of so many poor Jewish kids making their way in the new world with a new medium.
Jones doesn’t spend much time thinking about the comic book form, it would have surely slowed the book down, but because this is a book that is about a certain segment of America as much as it is about comic books it becomes easier to understand the comic medium’s present. The world of comics and graphic novels is getting real respect now but we see how easy it is for the American public to consider the medium and adolescent superhero stories as one of the same because America had to learn to read both at the same time.
Action Comics #1 was ground zero for a type of storytelling that was ready to be told to millions of people who felt the same way the two kids from Cleveland did. Jones writes about all the aspects of the ‘20s and the ‘30s that led up to it: the bodybuilding craze of Bernarr McFadden, the importance that Hugo Gernback attributed to science-fiction, the pulp stories of Doc Savage and The Shadow and the fan community that was absorbing it and discussing it. Siegel and Shuster crystallized it in these larger-than-life stories and characters that that lived in picture after picture combined with this loud, excited writing style. The comic book form was already invented by then. Jones believes that there can’t be one true creator but instead Charlie Gaines, George Delacorte, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson and others combing their ideas in pursuit of profit all played a part. It was the brash superhero appearing in these magazines as opposed to a newspaper strip, which would happen later for Superman and others, or written as prose for the pulps that made an impact for an America that was going through a depression at home, a war in Europe that America would have to get into and a future that would see it become a global superpower (even the name of the term tells you why these comics were so of their time). It’s why heavy metal bands or movies like The Warriors were later seen as “comic book” material when they weren’t actual adaptations of any comics. They just celebrated that same sensibility of big, primal figures displaying their power through physicality and teenage sexuality (sometimes only found in subtext). There’s a certain romance to it even though there’s enough there to turn people off as there is to turn people on. Creators like Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware would have to fight an uphill battle against it although other artists like Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns would take this aesthetic and subvert it for their own creative goals. It isn’t the only way to make good use of the comic book but Jones gives us reason why it is an important one and why so many young kids were so attracted to reading them as well as creating them.
Jones does analyze many of the important comics and does a wonderful job of it. The early Superman strips are cut-and-paste jobs with an overeager imagination to hold the whole thing together. Bill Finger is proven to be comics’ first great writer, someone who could carry book with his own visual imagination (hello giant typewriters) even with Kane’s lack of skills. Of particular note is the way Jones connects the real emotional insidiousness in the stories Siegel and Otto Binder wrote for Mort Weisinger and the turmoil Siegel, back to working on the strip as an underling after fighting so hard to make his co-ownership known, and Weisinger were going through. It presents these stories now as a disturbing undercutting of traditional superhero story grimmer than what Stan Lee, Kirby and Steve Ditko would do only a few years later.
The most satisfying thing Men of Tomorrow does is make you want to read all the comics Jones writes about. Even if you’ve read the contents of certain DC Archives or Marvel Masterworks before, you’ll want to look at them again and think about the passion mixed with corruption that gave birth to this bizarre art. Here comics tell us about the Jewish experience and about how America real works. Jones writes “The comics business was not a meritocracy. Call it an opportunocracy, a fluke-ocracy, a dumb-ass-luck-ocracy. The truest kind of American enterprise.” Now ask yourself, how much has changed?
Permanent Link: 2:21 PM |
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Monday, October 24, 2005
Ware and Burns in Radioland
The two cartoonists have been one a promotional blitz lately (I went to the Ware signing on Friday on Hiaght St. and will forever treasure the sketch he drew for me). If you can't make it to Harvard's Brattle Theatre to see the two speak, don't worry. You can hear them on Radio Open Source at 7-8pm on 89.7 WGBH. Or you can just wait for the site to podcast it a few days later.
I finished Black Hole yesterday. I'm working on a big review of it but for now let me just tell you it's one of those books that will have you telling yourself "oh yeah, this is why I read comics."
Permanent Link: 11:58 AM |
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Too much sin?
Weinstein Bros. to develop Sin City TV series.
I don't expect this will materialize. I don't know how everything that was so good from the first film can be translated into a weekly TV series. Although there was an Onion AV club interview where Miller said he wouldn't a Sin City TV series if Bruce Timm did it. I'd see that.
Permanent Link: 9:53 AM |
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Thursday, October 20, 2005
Suggestions
Dear Ed Brubaker,
Congratulations on your new Dr. Doom series arriving soon from Marvel Publishing. I and many others consider you one of the finest writers creating superhero comics today and have confidence you'll craft a great story out of one of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's most compelling creations.
I do, if I may be so bold, have a few suggestions of concepts you might want to include in the series. Since the comics medium is the synthesis of narrative and pictures I felt it would be most appropriate if I presented these suggestions graphically. I believe that taking these ideas into consideration will make what is sure to be a great series even better and more pleasing to today's sophisticated comic magazine reader.
If you will:
Furthermore it could prove to be a truly fruitful "meeting of the minds" if you discussed certain past works of one of today's most original cartoonist "Beaucoup" Kevin Church with the man himself. You both seem to have an interest in this, one of Marvel's most respected properties.
Either way I and many others are awaiting Books of Doom with pointed yet subdued excitement. Thank you for listening to my recommendations.
Respectfully and in eternal gratitude,
Herman Suspicions
Permanent Link: 9:52 PM |
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Readings in Noir midterm
Just to get some outside feedback I have decided to post my midterm for my Theory of Literature class. The class is based around the noir genre of films and books. I've enjoyed it more than any other class I’ve taken this semester and I'll probably delve into my personal reactions to the work later. For now I'll just give you the essay I have written based on the David N. Meyer's quote "in a world without certainty, noir embrace[s] the unpredictable. It provides[s] an outlet for America's...confusion over an unknown future, the demise of any demarcation between right and wrong, the shifting roles of men and women, the frustrations of nonconformity, and the poetic alienation of the outsider.”
David N. Meyers’s quote about noir reflecting the confusion Americans felt in the first half of the Twentieth Century is an apt description of the genre. Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity all feed off this cultural displacement that Americans, specifically the white heterosexual middle-class male Americans, were feeling at the time. Woman suffrage had arrived in 1920 shaking up gender roles. Seeing women gain a stronger voice in the matters of the day caused many to fear that the male establishment would lose their long held power over how society functions. Prohibition began at the same time. The government trying to regulate morality but instead it strengthened organized crime and exposed how arbitrary the line between the lawful and the unlawful could be. The Depression of the 1930’s created more unrest in the country with many Americans’ having their way of life turned upside-down, one of them being Chandler himself. The three books listed, as well as the film adaptations of all three, took the internal and external conflicts citizens had to deal with and turned it into drama. There is no reassuring voice to be found telling the audience what is right and what is wrong. These stories live by the blurred line between right and wrong informing reader about society then and now by being as such.
Noir may toil in the crime genre but after examining enough texts it’s clear that these stories aren’t about “whodunit.” In Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep using a private eye as the protagonist is a way to get into the corrupt underworld of a city, San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively. The use of crime as a catalyst for the plot is a way to introduce all these characters involved in some dirty dealing or another. The Maltese Falcon has Hammett play up the secret world of the criminally inclined. Sam Spade is as far from a hero as an anti-hero can get. He gives little mind to the death of his partner expect when it comes to his partner’s wife, who Spade has been sleeping with. He is our guide to a world where the fears of the Depression-era man is ripe for display. There are those nasty foreigners, the fast women, fat and greedy men who use big words and those gays who Lord knows must have some kind of psychological deficiency to act in such a perverted manner. It’s there in one of the first noir book and in Huston’s film adaptation, the first film noir, that ugliness of this world is exaggerated for dramatic effect, as if the world of noir is not realistic but “hyper real.”
The Big Sleep gets even more use out of drowning in the muck of society. It starts with Marlowe entering the elegant and respectable house of General Sternwood while looking rather clean cut. As soon as he meets up with the General he is no longer as sober and well dressed as he praised himself for being at the beginning of the book. The opening transformation of Marlowe is a microcosm for what’s going to happen to him as the plot thickens. He is going to delve deeper and deeper into a world of gamblers, blackmailers, pornographers and the General’s two nutty daughters. Homosexuals are thrown into the mix as well and while we can hope that today’s enlightened world won’t necessarily considers them another group of “no-goodniks” that Marlowe has to deal with a reader in 1939 could see them as “crazed perverts” and just another unsavory group that makes the atmosphere of The Big Sleep just that much more dark. The aversion to homosexuals Hammett hints at in Spade’s character and Chandler makes clear in Marlowe’s is a definite sign of the typical American man becoming uncomfortable with his society. Leslie Fiedler writes in his essay “Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, Huck Honey” about the resentment Spade would have against a “gunsel” like Wilbur. “The existence of overt homosexuality threatens to compromise an essential aspect of American sentimental life: the camaraderie of the locker room and the ball park, the good fellowship of the poker game and fishing trip… (page 4)” Many of the psychological underpinnings of noir are about that comfort being robbed from the strong men who are meant to lead society.
Something else that makes Chandler’s Los Angeles seem darker is that, unlike Spade, Marlowe has some decency to him. He has a code of ethics he subscribes to that isn’t all about serving himself. He genuinely does care for General Sternwood and doesn’t charge the rich man more than the standard fee. In the film version directed by Howard Hawks Rusty Regan was made to be something of a surrogate son to the General. It seems that Marlowe would be much happier to be that surrogate son for the General, perhaps a son-in-law. He doesn’t send the General’s crazier daughter Carmen to jail for the murder she commits but instead tells her sister Vivian to get her some help, showing how he is more compassionate than a character like Spade would be.
The stylized hyper reality of these books reflects the kinky atmosphere of these books. Hammett’s book featured some snappy dialogue for Spade but it was rather straight forward compared to the way Chandler writes. In F.R. Jameson’s article “On Raymond Chandler” there’s a quote from Chandler about his writing style. “I had to learn American just like a foreign language. To use it I had to study it and analyze it. As a result, when I use slang, colloquialism, snide talk, or any kind of offbeat language, I do it deliberately.(page 134)” The use of slang and the fact that the writing of Chandler. Hammet and others appeared in pulp magazine like Black Mask meant that noir was a far more proletariat form of literature than most other contemporary novels. It mined the neurosis of the modern man while speaking to him at the same time.
Cain’s book doesn’t feature lawmen in any real role. It is about the faceless working class, the male members of which might be found reading Black Mask. It features a Southern California housewife and an insurance salesman as the lead characters. Cain alerts readers to the boring way their lives proceed in the inoffensive conversations Phyllis Nirdlinger and Walter Huff have in their first meetings with each other. It’s Phyllis that proves she can bring some excitement into the life of Walter by taking out her husband and living off that big insurance payout that’s sure to come out of his death. Walter then imagines himself as some kind of criminal genius, thinking of just the right way to commit the perfect crime. He feels like a man of importance with something to really distinguish himself from the other anonymous bums that make up the working class of Los Angeles. This puffed up manhood of the outlaw is then subverted when it turns out Phyllis is the real evil genius who is smart enough and powerful enough to get away with murder. More than the other two novels, Double Indemnity is about male dominance being cut off in the face of a real powerful woman, a woman that won’t fit into any pat characterization that some man can come up for her. The real love is instead between Huff and his boss Keyes, as the screenplay by Chandler and Billy Wilder for the film makes clear by the end. The story is not filled with one character after another with that does something uglier to the next one. It doesn’t live by the secret society of Los Angeles’s black market. It’s a story that resides in the darkest places of the average man and woman’s psyche.
Noir might be a prime target for those self-proclaimed guardians of morality who blame it for the furthering coarseness of American society. The usual defense against that reductive argument is that popular entertainment is just reflecting society. Noir uses violations of what some governing body calls law as a way to reflect the world. It just uses a funhouse mirror to do it.
Please don't be afraid to tell me how you feel. I appreciate it!
Permanent Link: 10:22 AM |
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Wednesday, October 19, 2005
James Sime has bought me more beer than I have ever bought for myself
I am blogging.
I am blogging from free Wi-Fi.
I am blogging from free Wi-Fi in a bar.
I am blogging from free Wi-Fi in a bar with some of the Isotope crowd.
I am blogging from free Wi-Fi in a bar with some of the Isotope crowd and an author of an AiT/Planet Lar book.
I am blogging from free Wi-Fi in a bar with some of the Isotope crowd and an author of an AiT/Planet Lar book with a Grant Morrison book in my possesion.
I am blogging from free Wi-Fi in a bar with some of the Isotope crowd and an author of an AiT/Planet Lar book with a Grant Morrsion book in my possesion and being called, most truthfully, a "super-geek."
This is the wave of the future (I think). It is all a blessing.
Thanks to Mr. Ian Evans Yarborough for letting me use his brand-new computer. Thank to Mr. Sime from buying the happy juice.
Permanent Link: 10:26 PM |
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Silver Age DC Wedding
Plenty of pcitures of a wedding where many came in costume, most as DC characters from the '60s. It may be mind-blowingly geeky but honestly, I respect anyone who shows up at a wedding dressed as Earth-2 Robin.
Also, is this the same Jaz that posted on The Comics Journal message board years ago (and still does for all I know)?
Yet again found via the NYC Mech board. I might turn this into a weekly feature (at least I'm not the only one who does it).
Permanent Link: 9:30 AM |
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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Burns, Ware and a threesome
Where I'll be on Friday:
Friday, Oct. 21, 7PM
Booksmith
1644 Haight Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
That's where Charles Burns and Chris Ware will be, bringing down the house. Be sure to catch Ware looking for old ragtime recordings at Amoeba afterwards.
From FLOG!
***
Johanna Stokes's column about how guys can get their girlfirends to read Neil Gaiman's lesser works has caused a lot of responses. I have really one reposnse to this controversy, a question:
Do people work this hard to talk their significant others into a threesome?
It's just to me that seems like something way better than reading Bone with someone you'll end up getting sick of anyway.
Permanent Link: 7:20 PM |
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Racist Batman
Today is Batman DVD day. Sure, you could get the two-disc deluxe edition of Batman Begins. You could get the two-disc deluxe edition of Tim Burton's Batman featuring Jack Nicholson's Joker, one of my favorite versions of the character. You could even rent the two-disc deluxe edition of Batman & Robin to hear Joel Schumacher's own commentary track of the damned.
The only DVD released on Batman DVD day that I'm really interested in is that of the 1943 serial The Batman. I've heard and read a lot about it and must say that it sounds like such a bizarre take on the character that my interested is quite piqued.
This serial was created right in the middle of World War II and reflects the mood of the time. Batman and Robin are not vigilantes but deputized FBI agents. Their villain is the Japanese Dr. Tito Daka who teams up with 5th Columnist Americans to create some kind of machine that zombifies normal citizens. Having the Irish-American J. Carrol Naish playing a scheming Japanese villain would be bad enough but all the reports I've read tell me that this serial didn't skimp on demonizing this particular member of the Axis. One bit of narration praised the Roosevelt administration program of interment camps. According to one Amazon.com reviewer when the serial was released on VHS the racist dialogue was edited out, meaning that every line but one was changed in the final chapter (I have no clue whether the serials contained in the DVD set are edited but I hope they aren't. It doesn't help anybody to whitewash the past).
Superheroes, certainly those of the Golden Age variety, are these big iconic characters that are often used by their creators to contemplate certain neuroses. The idea that two characters everyone is familiar with, at least by name, are shown perpetuating the dark side of American patriotism in live action sounds like an interesting study in American pop culture.
If you've seen the serial in whatever form please share in the comments section below. I myself am going to see if I can rent this, which I'll then report my findings to you.
Permanent Link: 1:45 PM |
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Monday, October 17, 2005
"If that guy's straight then I'm sober"
 James Kochalka  Corey "The Rey" Lewis
Comic book artists drawing Arrested Development characters. My two geek obsessions combined. I feel reborn. You can find more at Zach Smith's blog (Scroll down a bit). Found via Will Pfeifer.
***
A recent conversation between me and Brian Hibbs when I purchased DC's first two Showcase volumes:
Brill: Sometimes I think DC and Marvel should just stop putting out new books and simply concentrate on reprints their old stuff.
Hibbs: You and a lot of other people.
In that case lets get down to some of Marvel's archival books shipping in the future. The MarvelMasterworks.com page is a great source of news on this subject. Under the headline "SCHEDULED BOOKS ROUNDUP!" we are informed of new Essentials such as Essential Godzilla (the story is that Marvel got the rights to one print run of this book, after that it's gone), Essential Moon Knight, Essential Nova and the start of Essential Handbook.
The most exciting news for me is the continuation of the hardcover "Marvel Visionaries" series. Roy Thomas gets his book but the best news is that Jack Kirby gets a second one. In it you'll find:
Captain America #1, Marvel Mystery Comics #23, Yellow Claw #4, Strange Tales #89, Two-Gun Kid #60, Love Romances #103, X-Men #9, Strange Tales #114, Tales Of Suspense #59, Sgt Fury #13, Fantastic Four #57-60, Not Brand Ecch #1, Thor #154-157 and Devil Dinosaur #1.
There's something about Not Brand Ecch and Devil Dinosaur ending up in an onversized hardcover that makes me happy.
***
 Rob G
***
So long Graeme, and thanks for all the rampaging memories. Is this the true end of the FBR story? Pehaps not because this very blog you're reading now will feature an interview with Graeme looking back at his wild days of blogitude. Stay tuned!
With FBR gone does this mean we all have to step up our survelliance of message boards to find the next great rampage? I'd do it but there are only so many times you can read about Scarlet Witch's state of bugfuckery.
***
If this is what happens when Ed Cunard thinks too much about superheroes then by golly, I want him to think about superheroes a Hell lot more.
***
 Colleen Coover
 Jim Rugg
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Plugs not drugs
That's been pretty much my attitude to superhero comics, actually -- it's sort of like keeping in touch with old school friends once in a while. Although I generally find that they're alcoholics and I don't want them hanging around.
That's Roger Langridge, the subject of a great interview with Adnrew Farago that's just been posted on The Comic's Reporter. Fred the Clown and Zoot Suite are wonderful comics that celebrates all that is great in comedy (Marx Bros., W.C. Fields, Goon Show, etc.) and it's worth your time to read Landgridge's work and his words.
Hey, are ever in the Georgetown area of Washington D.C. or Fredericksburg, VA? Then head on down to Scipio Garling's comic book store Big Monkey Comics. Check out their Cafe Press store, the E-bay store or the radio station. Be sure to pick up those New Gods books, Scipio loves that stuff!
Permanent Link: 4:33 PM |
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Friday, October 14, 2005
More comics piracy stuff
Remember when I wrote about how Marvel and DC will have to combat comics piracy head-on (it’s the second item)? I mentioned the CD-ROM collecting 40 years of Spider-Man comics in passing, noting how the .PDF files don’t stand up against CDisplay. Now, found via Johanna, there’s a press release informing us that the program of collecting several decades of comics on DVD-ROM will continue with the archiving of the X-Men, Avengers and MAD books (CD-ROM is being discarded, including re-releasing 40+ Years of Amazing Spider-Man on DVCD-ROM).
I wonder if this isn’t Marvel and Time-Warner’s attempt to out do the comic book uploaders. Unlike the multiple gigabyte files you can download of the entire Avengers series, these books guarantee the original coloring, ads, letter pages, Stan’s Soapboxes and the files won’t be corrupted. The sets cost $49.95 for over 500 comics, so you’re paying less than a dollar for a comic. CDispaly offers an easier way to read the comics but that might be enough for some people to keep downloading.
The only problem is that these sets are only for those who want a full line of a series. If you only want John Romita Sr.’s work on Amazing Spider-Man you can enjoy his work without any garish computer coloring but you’re also paying for a lot of comics you don’t want. Referencing iTunes yet again, there’s no alternative for anybody who just wants one or a few comics from a series run. While these DVD-ROMs will stop from fans from downloading comics, that’s one big reason why there still needs to be work on a legitimate comics downloading system.
iTunes is brought up a lot but there’s no reason why that has to be the only model. This is a different medium after all. I just hope that the archival craze both DC and Marvel share will meet up with some innovative thinking soon.
Permanent Link: 4:45 PM |
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Fin-heads, fin-heads, rolly-polly fin-heads
Mr. Ellis, if you will (from a recent Bad Signal):
The New York Times arts section
today has a large feature on the
new DC, home of Grim Fin-Headed
Arserape. Rather than Mark Waid's
happy shiny take on it -- which is
essentially that once they get
through all this Dark Stuff things
will be lovely again -- grim fin-headed
Greg Rucka is heard to say that
when the fans call it too dark, it
means they're scared.
(And I'm sorry, Greg, but I cannot
resist the comedy of applying the
prefix "grim fin-headed" now.)
They're an odd mix, the four DC
guiding lights of the moment. Grant's
superhero stuff operates on what
he *thought* Silver Age comics
were like, not what they were
*actually* like. Waid talks a good
happy shiny game, but his work is
often remarkably bitter. Geoff
Johns comes off as the classic DC
"respectful" guy. Greg, as a
storyteller, is incredibly egoless --
it's almost impossible to find a
signature to his writing. It's a far
weirder mix than it looks at first
glance.
Rich Johnston's column has also speculated on the planning of this new DC. According to a recent Lying in the Gutters (which I would link to if CBR wasn't down) Morrison and Waid want to bring back that bygone sense of wonder, Greg Rucka wants to keep things dark and Geoff Johns is the man in the middle. I don't know how much credence we can attribute to these takes on where DC wants to go but it does add something interesting to the reading experience of these books.
I remember the glory days of 2004 when people were noticing a dichotomy between DC publishing the grim, deconstructing Identity Crisis as well as the celebratory The New Frontier. Perhaps Infinite Crisis wants to start in Identity Crisis territory and end up where The New Frontier was? Maybe that's too simple.
As to Ellis's take on Morrison's writing, as far as I can tell the magikal Scotsman sees Silver Age books as an outpouring of imagination wrapped up in twisted human affairs adhering (most of the time) to a dignified moral code leading up to a genuine positive outlook on life. I understand having a different idea of what Broome/Infantino or Lee/Kirby stories are about but if the preceding isn't seeing Silver Age books the way they actually are then I suppose I'm not either. Doesn't stop me from filling my bookshelf with reprints of the stuff.
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Superman II: A One Man Show!
Yes, that's what it is. I love the fact that the guy just went ahead and did the second movie. The article even covers the controversy off Richard Donner getting fired from the film and the lost footage Donner shot showing up on DVD some day.
Second post this week from the NYC Mech board. Check out the board even if you've never read the comic, it's got good stuff there (oh, and do check out the comic if you get the chance).
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Thursday, October 13, 2005
"It's not a crisis if they know they're going to win."
I remember having a conversation with a very smarter writer who told me “I’m reading all of DC’s crossover stuff. I can’t defend it but I’m reading it.” It’s now after completing Infinite Crisis #1 do I totally get what he was saying.
I’ve written how not being schooled in DC’s sprawling continuity can be a hindrance when trying to follow along with some of their stories. I prefer reading the stories that happened before the 1986 Crisis on Infinite Earths house-cleaning event, and apparently they don’t matter anymore (or do they?). I actually haven’t read the first Crisis so I worried that I might be confused with what’s going on in this comic.
My fears were unfounded. Geoff Johns spells out everything the reader needs to know in this series. “The world is going to Hell” as Wonder Woman tells us but many of the superheroes who are there to protect the world are too busy squabbling amongst each other to get things done. Early in the book Superboy proves to be too much of a wimp to help anybody. The Quality Comics heroes like Uncle Sam and Phantom Lady try to do some good but get beat up by the likes of Reverse-Flash and even Bizarro. Everything seems to be getting worse until Earth-2 Superman, or as I prefer to call him “Classic Superman,” decides to smash the dimensional boundaries and help this world. It looks like he’ll show these whipper-snappers a thing or two about shutting the Hell up and actually getting stuff done.
While I may have been able to follow the events of the book they don’t have that weight of importance for me. Beyond reading Spoilt! I haven’t gotten caught up in the soap-opera DC’s built for themselves since reading and being unimpressed by Identity Crisis. These books sell like gangbusters because creators know exactly what buttons to push as to build anticipation in long time readers. A lot of what’s going on is some character unable to save the day and revealing that some bad shit is coming down because of it. If you’re not a long time reader then you’re not given as much of a reason to care why you’re not coming in with a vested interest in the wizard Sahazam or Rann and Thanagar battling it out.
There are quieter moments with the characters in between the superhero action that are meant to help us understand the toll this is taking on those who carry the world on their shoulders. Unfortunately the main one, the fights between the “Big Three,” seems shrill. Other moments of characterization worked better. The last page revelation was effective because it had a counter-example with the earlier sequence with Superboy, something that happened in the book and not some other series that ties-in to this.
Infinite Crisis still provides entertaining stuff in it for new readers. Phil Jimenez’s art creates some very impressive scenes. The OMAC stuff was great, leading up to a good-looking double page spread starring Nightwing. The Rann-Thanagar War could have been a confusing mess but Jimenez kept it clear enough. Both of the big superheroic fights were engaging and fun to read. Even though some of the quieter bits may not have worked, Johns does a good job of balancing between the big, loud fight scenes, never making the transitions between the two jarring.
This book doesn’t suffer from the pretentiousness and dour seriousness that Identity Crisis did. While dreadful narration sucked the energy out of that story, here Earth-2 Supes provides a somewhat skeptical and knowing take on what’s going on in Infinite Crisis. It makes what would have otherwise been a list of bad stuff happening into something quite readable.
The architects of this big events may talk about evolving DC’s properties for the 21st Century for a more sophisticated audience, but there’s nothing here that’s more evolved or sophisticated then anything you would find in a superhero comic from the past 25 years (to be fair neither Johns or Jimenez were quoted in the article). Dorian’s definition of this stuff I find more apt. That is its all "big dumb super-hero melodrama." Call me crazy, but that makes these books sound much more appealing than what Greg Rucka and Dan DiDio are selling to us in The New York Times.
Like the writer I quoted above, can I defend reading this stuff? No. It’s “big, dumb super-hero melodrama” done in an entertaining fashion and nothing else. By all accounts the cynicism on display will be subverted for a happier, kinder DC and that sounds appealing. Although why they have to have one event book after another to introduce such a concept instead of just writing happier, kinder books is beyond me. Still, if this is how they want to introduce such a thing it could be worse.
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Just a quick plug: The Comic Journal #271 came out yesterday, with your truly writing a lot of the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con coverage. I didn’t post much about the convention here because almost everything I did those three days (I skipped Sunday) turned into write-ups for the magazine. There were some interesting panels covered by myself and my colleagues so it’ll be interesting to read. In particular, I thought the one-two punch of the Bill Finger Award panel and the Jack Kirby Tribute panel gave you a good sense of what the industry was and, in a lot of ways still is, like for creators. I hope you enjoy the articles.
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If you want to hear the creators back then, including King Kirby, then you’d do good in reading Mark Evanier’s examination of MMMS records., complete with mp3’s of both recordings. Mike gave me a CD with the 1964 records on it and I was mesmerized. It’s both hilarious and cringe-worthy to hear guys like Kirby, Chic Stone and Wally Wood performing for Stan Lee. Hearing Flo Steinberg refer to “Vince Colleter” is simply great in itself. Go listen, it is fascinating stuff when you start to think what was going on in those guys’ heads the day they recorded that stuff
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Comedy stuff
The news of new shows Comedy Central is developing features to points that could be interesting to comic fans.
The first is the latest project from Scud: The Disposable Assassin creators Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab:
Sarah Silverman project (untitled)
Created and executive produced by Sarah Silverman, Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab ("Heat Vision & Jack"), the Sarah Silverman pilot is a half-hour single camera narrative starring Silverman, who will portray a detached and eccentric woman with no discernible goals and whose tale will be told through an array of comedic scenes and songs that compose a single day of her life. The show will be based on Silverman's unique socio-sexual stand-up comedy. Heidi Herzon ("Jesus is Magic") will also executive produce.
If you can track down a copy of Heat Vision & Jack on eBay or elsewhere go for it. It’s the funniest sci-fi show never seen and one of Jack Black’s best roles. Dan Harmon also worked with Black in Computerman. Here’s hoping Harmon and Schrab’s collaboration with one of the funniest and most beautiful woman of comedy will be lead to some good stuff.
I really want to catch Jesus is Magic when it comes out. Silverman’s scene in The Aristocrats was horrific, hilarious and sexy all in one.
David Cross and H. Jon Benjamin share their take on superheroes:
"Freak Show"
David Cross ("Arrested Development," "Mr. Show") and Jon Benjamin ("Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist," "Home Movies") bring viewers this animated show about a band of freak show performers who also happen to be second-rate superheroes. When the world-famous justice squad rejects a mission from the government, the freak squad is on the case. Siamese twins Tuck and Benny, The World's Tallest Nebraskan, Primi the Premature Baby, The Bearded Clam and The Log Cabin Republican face off against some of the world's most notorious second-rate villains. "Freak Show" is being produced by Radical Axis ("Aqua Teen Hunger Force," "Squidbillies").
Benjamin’s voice acting is brilliant on Home Movies and Cross’s name usually means quality comedy. Methinks that it was Cross’s idea to make a Log Cabin Republican an animated superhero.
Also, Lewis Black tours Middle America and The Naked Trucker gets a show. November 11th is the air date of The Comedians of Comedy, a film I highly recommend. I was at the L.A. show and found the performances of Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn and Maria Bamford so great my face was hurting from all the laughter. Don’t you want your face to hurt? Watch the movie!
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Indie Crisis
I’ve enjoyed reading Mike’s predictions on who’s behind the Infinite Crisis muckity-muck (my money’s on Earth-2 Superman). The first issue of the long-awaited mini-series is coming up. I’ll check it out as I’ve enjoyed work from the writer and artist before. Not to mention I’m reading Seven Soldiers and there’s probably some point where DC’s two mega-projects are going to meet each other.
Since every single superhero book DC publishes will have to tie in to this event somehow I wonder “why stop there?” There’s a Wildstorm series starring Captain Atom that will have something to do with this mess but why not include all the Wildstorm and Vertigo books? Hell, why not have books that DC doesn’t even publish tie-in to the hoopla?
Love & Rockets:
Hopey: Magpie. Magpie, wake up!
Maggie: Huh?
Hopey: Jeez, you’ve been so much of a downer these past few days since Ray and Doyle had that conversation with you.
Maggie: What do you expect? It’s from them that I learned that ZATANNA ERASED MY MEMORY ABOUT THE ATOM’S WIFE KILLING SPEEDY!!
Milk & Cheese:
Milk: Say Cheese old chum, this old episode of Manimal has got me thinking it was wrong, so very wrong, for man to try and mess with the animal kingdom.
Cheese: It is true my carton-attired friend, the idea of man encroaching on nature is displeasing. I even hear there’s a place under the sea where one fellow can control animals with his mind.
Milk: You don’t mean-?
Cheese: Yes I do Milk, to save the balance of nature WE MUST DESTROY ATLANTIS!
Much chaos ensues as the two lactose pals steal scuba gear and showcase their ability to break anything and everything while firing off such one-liners as “The Donovan guy didn’t the first thing about this place!”
Acme Novelty Library
Chris Ware starts a new strip called “Arkham Brucie.” A millionaire remembers the good old days when he had a mansion and even a secret cave where he could hang out with young boys named Dick and Tim while wearing special costumes. Now he sits in a cell all day brooding over his current state. He overhears two orderlies speaking: “This place can get real depressing sometimes.” “I just read my superhero comics and play with my many material possessions to forget the ugliness of the world.”
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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
This post is clean!
With the release of The Shroud of the Thwacker Chris Elliott, the star and co-creator of both Get A Life and Cabin Boy, has been on a publicity tour. That includes interviews for The Onion and Suicide Girls.
Both interviews go over the cult status both the TV show and the movie achieved. I'm glad that the comedy brilliance of Elliott and Adam Resnick is getting some due. I just hope this book will be a hit so that we might get a special edition Cabin Boy DVD (complete with all the mentions it garnered on Letterman's show) or a DVD release of "Action Family" and "FDR: A One Man Show," still some of the funniest comedy I've ever seen. Elliott talks about a complete series DVD for Get A Life but the DVDs that David Mirkin did seem to be holding that up. That's sad, because I enjoy both Elliott and Mirkin's contribution to comedy and wish that whatever is going on between them will end and we can all get some good laughs in.
Elliott is appearing at A Clean Well Lighted Place For Books Oct. 23rd. Chances are I'll be there so expect a post on that. I'm hoping a San Francisco appearance for Elliott will bring out Dan the Automator, he of Handsome Boy Modeling School and his solo album Wanna Buy a Monkey?
***
In other “appeared on Letterman a lot in the 80’s” news, Alan David Doane did an interview with Harvey Pekar that has no official home. Listen to it here and you’ll be glad you did. It catches up on Pekar’s life after the American Splendor film as well as picks Pekar’s brain for what the future of comics might look like. And to be honest, I really dig Alan’s smooth radio host voice.
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David Mack and Redman
Found via the NYC Mech board.
No word yet that Brian Bendis is working on a Bobby Digital project with The RZA.
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What is this all about now?
Like many young men discovering comics my formative years were all about Marvel Comics. While some were lucky to be born at the right time so they can buy an issue of Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four or John Romita Sr.’s Spider-Man right off the stand. Others, like your humble blogger, were there for when Sabretooth and Venom went from villains to badass anti-heroes.
I would have loved to be around for the Marvel Age of comics and probably would have been something of an active letterhack. Instead I got that Marvel that had successfully purged all its energy of chaotic fun for that soulless corporate taste. I came in when the X-Men franchise had already succumbed to all of Chris Claremont’s worst tendencies and The Clone Saga was being milked for every fan dollar. That’s why appreciate any current Marvel comic that can cut through the bullshit just a little bit to capture that bizarre but welcoming feeling I get when reading “Essential” volumes and back issues. Two books came out last week that did that for me. The first used Kirby’s Marvel work to create something that wouldn’t look out of place in 1975. The other was more modern in its approach but just as fascinating.
Devil Dinosaur is the first of the “Marvel Monsters Group” line of books. If this is where this series is going then I’m in. Eric Powell, with writing help from Tom Sniegoski, has one of Kirby’s beast 60’s creations, the Hulk, get in a fight with one of Kirby’s best 70’s creations, the eponymous dino. This is all because of those nutty Celestials, the introduction of which gives Powell a chance to show off even more his Kirby influence. The Hulk gets some great “stupid-genius” lines that remind me of when Steve Englehart and Roy Thoams wrote the character. The book puts Hulk in the Devil Dinosaur world, complete with the historically-accurate cavemen riding dinosaurs, and let’s the hilarity ensue. I now want to read more of Powell’s books so it’s good on Dark Horse they’re offering a 25 cent sampler of The Goon the week after this book came out.
Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan introduced me to the art of Seth Fisher, of which I am thankful for. He reminds me Taiyo Matsumoto if Matsumoto played a ton of Nintendo games (Fisher is also a video game designer). I’m surprised that Marvel let Fisher draw these characters as odd as he did. We get the deformed, shrunken versions of the FF and characters with Matt Groening-esque bug eyes. It fits in nicely with all the weird monsters Fisher creates, one right after another. I can’t do it justice here but it’s entertaining to see what he does when he lets his imagination run loose. Zeb Wells’s script gets all the characters stuff down but most importantly it gives Fisher plenty of room to show his stuff.
***
Since I prefer those old ways to the new ways when it comes to high adventure I’m always glad to see what’s getting collected from the vaults. That House of Mystery Showcase book is a must buy and I’m glad City of Tomorrow is getting a trade but I was most interested in JLA: The Greatest Stories Ever Told.
I love those old “Greatest Stories Ever Told” books from the 80’s, with the 1950’s volume being my favorite. The old school Justice League of America is my favorite DC book. This should be perfect, right?
Well, while I’ll still probably buy the book I do have to wonder at some of the comics they left out. I know there’s no shortage of reprints of the Fox/Sekowsky stuff but is there only one issue of their run that they can put in the book? They defined the feel of the Justice League with their plot-drunk stories and dizzying overload of characters. The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told was almost 50% Broome/Infantino stories, I think they could have snuck a few more of the original JLA book in (hopefully there will be a gallery of those great Murphy Anderson covers). I’ve got no problem with the next few stories included, especially since we get plenty of that great Dick Dillin artwork, but why aren’t issues 141 and 142 included? The Manhunter arc is indeed the greatest Justice League story ever created, it deserves to be in this book more than anything else. Maybe they’re waiting to include it in The Greatest Green Lantern Stories Ever Told?
I’ll check out the three-part Gerry Conway story included here, but of Conway’s entire run shouldn’t the madcap 200th issue be there?
Of course Grant Morrison’s relaunch of the book has to be represented. That’s when I discovered the book and became fascinated by the concept of creating the biggest stories you can month-in and month-out. It’s then that I’m wondering why is the Morrison story here something written for Secret Files and not the Tomorrow Woman story or The Key two-parter? Both of those are better examples of what Morrison brought to the book (and Oscar Jiminez’s artwork is a lot better than Howard Porter’s).
I suppose this just silly, although I do wonder what goes into deciding which stories to assemble here. At least it gives fans of these books chances to go over our own favorite stories.
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Check your local listings because PBS is presenting a documentary on Parliament-Funkadelic. One of the greatest musical outfits of the 70’s and one, really two, of the most important bands in pop music history get their history told. Even if the film sucks you’ll still have great music to listen to.
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Dude, a Public Enemy comic! Now that’s what I’ve been waiting for. No word on whether the Flava Flav character will be featured in a crossover with Red Sonja.
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Monday, October 10, 2005
Two different things
I assure there will be something resembling a real post tomorrow. Just indulge me here because but after a hard day of schoolin' there's nothing I like better than giving people info on cool things they might like to spend money on.
Do you like those new "Showcase Presents" books? I do! This guy does! They make funny scans!
Well prepare for more funny because Amazon informs us that one of the blogosphere's biggest targets is getting his own Showcase volume. Yes, Green Arrow is the next Showcase subject. It doesn't look like this collects the Kirby Green Arrow books which is a shame because I think more people should be exposed to Xeen Arrow (you read that right).
EDIT: I have been informed in the comments section that the Kirby stuff will be featured in the book. Sounds good as I can never enough big black-and-white books with Kirby artwork in it.
Oh Duh. It says so right here. Fuck it, dude just read the next item.
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Priest Feast
Priest Feast!
Priest Feast!!!
I can't make it but if you can go for it. It will rock you to you are nothing but a Rock-Containment Unit. Then you will be popular with girls.
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Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Plug Time - The Quitter edition
If you could so kind to check out my audio interview with Harvey Pekar and Dean Haspiel I would really appreciate it. I assure you that if you get over the hissing on the tape and my stammering you'll find a great conversation between two wonderful collaborators. You'll also learn about one of the finest new graphic novels out there, which came out today. Listening to it is 35 minutes well spent.
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Tuesday, October 04, 2005
A few recommendations for today
Hard Time by Steve Gerber, Mary Skrenes and Brian Hurtt returns in December. I’ve sung the praises of the book here and urge all of those who want a quality comic book reading experience to order it from your Previews catalog right now. Howard the Duck made Gerber known as a satirist but I think Hard Time can be seen as an even more vicious take on the world as Harrow learns about how society works in this brutally rendered microcosm of American society, a prison.
In this interview Gerber says he considers the book for fifteen-year-olds and up. I think it’s a great book to expose younger readers to because it promotes a skeptical view of those with power and those always willing to clique up.
Not that the satirical element is the only reason to read the book. Gerber and Skrenes’s have the way all these characters interact with each other feel very genuine. It would be easy in a jailhouse to come up with stereotypes but the writers never make it that easy. It’s another reason the book is so addictive once you start sampling a few issues. The first trade is only ten dollars and there’s a .PDF preview of the new season right here.
Tales Designed to Thrizzle by Michael Kupperman could very well destroy people with its comedy. The last issue of the book featured a ton of laughs starting with Mickey Rourke telling a guy how to shave his pubic hair only for things to get stranger from there. It also featured Kupperman growing as an artist as the “Tales Designed for Old People” section featured some beautifully imaginative takes on the four-panel comic strip.
The second issue will arrive in January so I suggest you order it from the next Previews as soon as it’s in your hot little hands. Kupperman’s artwork is the middle ground between woodcuts and 1950’s advertising artwork. The eerily stilted people make the bizarre things Kupperman has them say just that much funnier. The concepts he comes up with are so weird they’re irresistible. I still think The Mannister is one of America’s finest superheroes. It’s sort of like the weird stuff Monty Python would come up with or vintage Conan O’Brien episodes would feature (think “Staring Contest” and when they debut new characters). Find out more by reading Tom Spurgeon’s interview with the cartoonist.
As for what’s coming out tomorrow I think Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #11 will be worth picking up. It’s the comic version of one of the Halloween episode of The Simpsons and this time it brings back some great talents of horror comics past. John Severin, Angelo Torres, Al Willamson, and Mark Schultz do the EC tribute; Swamp Thing creators Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson do a story and the Tomb of Dracula team of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan do another story. I have that distinct feeling that Gene Colan’s artwork combined with The Simpsons just might destroy my brain in a nerd explosion.
This comes with the news that Season 7 of the show arrives Dec. 13. That’s the episode where Millhouse becomes Fall Out Boy for the Radioactive Man movie, Bart, Milhouse, Martin an Nelson going on a road trip to the Knoxville World Fair, “The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular” and the brilliant beyond belief “22 Short Films About Springfield” which might be my favorite episode o the show. I think I know where my Christmas money is going to.
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Monday, October 03, 2005
What I’m Reading
I’ve found that the there’s a big disconnect between what I’m reading and what I write about here. Most of my reviews are now for The Comics Journal or Comic Book Galaxy. That still leaves me room to review superhero books here but while that’s some of what I’m reading it isn’t all. I don’t go over solicitations here or list what I’m buying on Wednesday. I can’t think of anyway to make that material interesting to read here so I just leave well enough alone. Unfortunately this means all the readers I appreciate have little idea of what kind of consumer of comics I am. So in one fell blogging swoop here’s what I’ve been wastes my time with.
Of the pile near my bed are the books I’m currently reading. That includes the snazzy new Showcase Presents: Green Lantern because I love the way Gil Kane draws and fascinated by the way John Broome writes. The stories are also just silly fun. I picked up the Superman Showcase and second Essential Thor books as well but I’m waiting until I finish one of these books. The third volume of Yotsuba& comes out this week but I’m still on volume one and enjoying it. I find it funny how this little girl just overreacts to everything, revealing her excitement or anger with bigger and bigger facial expressions. I wasn’t alive for the era of humor books like Little Lulu or the Harvey books so I feel this is the way today’s readers can read light comedy stories.
I’m reading through Geoff Johns’ Flash run through trade paperback, currently with the “Blitz” trade featuring Scott Kolins and Doug Hazelwood on art. The stories are at their best when Johns works his talent with characterization and creates interesting personalities for Flash’s villains as well as Wally West himself. Some of it reminds me of Batman: The Animated Series in the way that the members of a hero’s Rogues Gallery are giving a deeper psychological and sometime sympathetic level of complexity to them. Then there are times I’m reading the book and I realize that I can’t take superheroes as seriously as some modern superhero comics need me to be. I like the irreverence supplied in Dan Slott’s work and the postmodern take on classic Marvel books in Godland. It’s when a superhero book is completely earnest about every aspect, even those that were created in the fun and frivolous ‘60s, that I sometimes wonder how far I’m willing to go with the authors. One previous trade featured this great story about Captain Cold’s life. One part of me was into how it takes the history of a character and adds it up to so there’s an interesting personality and back story there. The other part of me was thinking “this is the guy who wears silly glasses and appeared in books like these” So far my misgivings haven’t been too frequent so I might continue this run until the end. This take on Flash’s world is better than having a writer who seems ashamed of the Silver Age silliness and wants to make everything dark and cool for a different time, which was the vibe I picked up from Identity Crisis.
(This reminds me of a story about “modern superhero tolerance.” I have a friend who’s a reader of Jorge Luis Borges and a fan of Jan Svankmajer’s films. I thought he’d love Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol. I handed him the first trade and he opened up the page where Robotman wakes up screaming. I then heard a snort of laughter and then heard “Ian, this is why I can’t read superhero books. It’s a robot having a nightmare.” I still love that era of Doom Patrol but I can sympathize with my friend’s view on things.)
Enough of that, let’s gets to what’s on the “to read soon” pile. There’s Corey Lewis’s Peng which looks like it will be better than Sharknife. Lewis comics are some of the most exciting comics I’ve read lately. Thanks to the Shojo issue of TCJ I picked up A, A’ by Moto Hagio. It looks beautiful and I’m always up for some intelligent sci-fi in comics. I’m going to make a Sunday for myself devoted to reading Chris Ware’s new Acme Novelty Library collection. Chris Ware’s comics are the reason why I got back into comics and remain some of my favorites. I might post something about why Acme Novelty Library #15 is so important to me.
I love the comics with spines but I still get that rush of going to a shop on Wednesday and loading up on floppy comics. Going through Previews with James I found out I read more of them than I thought. Everything Slott writes I’ll read as well as Young Avengers which can’t stay on the shelves at my store. Fell and Local both impressed me with strong first issues so they’ll definitely be on my list, as will be Warren Ellis’s other great book Desolation Jones because the art team is the best a mainstream company is employing. Or Else might be my favorite regular series, but Love & Rockets comes close. I’m also picking up the Infinite Crisis mini-series because I figure “how bad could a book by Geoff Johns and Phil Jimenez be (I hope I don’t live to regret those words)?”
My favorite manga being published now is Tokyo Tribes. Santa Inoue’s art has that sense of “grotesque glamour” makes these stories of gang wars and hip-hop. The story is becoming less and less the point, it’s about Inoue creating this exhilarating comic reading experience. That’s what I like to see. MBQ, which might be the subject of a bigger review, proved itself interesting enough for me to want to check out the second volume. I think I liked Felipe Smith’s artwork; again with the mix of grotesque and cool, more than anything but there are some interesting questions about an artist’s quest in creating comics being raised in the last chapter.
There you go, proof I read too much comics. I could have gone over the titles I sampled then gave up with but this post was self-indulgent enough.
What are you reading?
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