Now that 52 has found its groove as a series I think it's one of the better superhero books out there. It's still very hit-and-miss but when it hits it hits good. One of my favorite story lines is the "island of mad scientists" and the introduction of Chang Tzu, the all-new and non-racist version of Egg Fu. The best thing about this new character:
There are some differences but it looks to me that Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid are giving DC it's own MODOK. God bless them.
(If you're were wondering if this post was just another excuse to post an image of MODOK let me just give you two facts: 1) I have to look at this blog more than anyone else, 2) I like MODOK popping in my visual range every now and then). Permanent Link: 9:11 AM |
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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Mastercard, I love good Punisher stories
One reason amongst a few that I dug the new Punisher War Journal:
From The Punisher (Vol. 2) #1 by Mike Baron and Klaus Janson, 1988
From Punisher War Journal (Vol. 2) #1 by Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti, 2006
I really hope that becomes Frank Castle's "It's Clobbering Time!" Except it's not so much of a battle cry as it is a waiting-patiently-until-you-can-mow-down-some-drug-dealers/pedophiles/supervillains-with-long-robot-legs cry. Which is cool. Permanent Link: 10:04 AM |
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Monday, November 27, 2006
It's time for goofy Star Trek shit
A young DeForest Kelley stars in "Suicide Theater"! The look on good ol' De's face makes that "twist" ending totally worth it. Found via John Gorenfeld.
Bay Area sketch group Kasper Hauser gives us Kirk on acid. I like that they didn't go for "funny Trek references" but instead went with "what it actually sounds like when you're tripping." Permanent Link: 5:09 PM |
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American Born Chinese
Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese is at its core a story about the importance of coming to peace with one's self and not trying to be something you are not. It's a well worn territory, but Yang finds vitality in it. He tells his story, actually stories, within the context of race relations amongst young Americans. Jin is a Chinese-American trying to be cool in a world where cool is all relative to certain Anglo-Saxon traits. Transformation is a major theme of the book and Jin finds it comes at a cost.
Jin doesn't feel comfortable being ostracized from the rest of the kids on the playground, all white. He doesn't want to be friends with Wei-Chen, the new student whose family has emigrated from Taiwan. I am reminded of a bit in Johnathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude where that book's white protagonist finds another geeky white guy in their otherwise all African-American Brooklyn high school. Dylan doesn't want anything to do with this kid but as Lethem writes "they were doomed to friendship." Jin faces that same doom with Wei-Chen, who is called an F.O.B. (Fresh Off the Boat) not by any racial tormentors but by Jin himself out of anger and embarrassment. As the kids enter junior high Jin is more comfortable with his friend but never truly comfortable with himself.
He certainly isn't when he is courting Amelia, a white girl. This leads to one of Jin's forays into inauthenticity. He gets a perm as to look like the guy with curly blond hair that Amelia is always hanging out with. I must say on a personal level I found this very funny. When I was younger I wished to not have dark curly hair like almost all the other people on the Jewish side of my family. I wanted straight hair of my gentile classmates who had cool spiky hair-do's. But that's just it. When you're young you'll pick up on whatever separates you from the rest of the crowd and obsess over it. For many young people that difference is their own ethnicity. Whatever you're not that's what you want to be. You can imagine how much success Jin doesn't achieve in his quest to be a perfectly "normal" suitor for Amelia. It leads to the most devastating scene in the book. Jin is told by Greg, the guy with curly blond hair who is friends with Amelia, that he shouldn't see Amelia anymore. Greg never mentions race, not even in a panel where we see him talking privately to his white friends. In fact earlier in the story Greg talks down to kids who are harassing Jin based on their ignorant presumptions about Asians. Still, when Greg delivers his message it is clear that there are boundaries in these kid's worlds and misguided ideas on race are some of the materials that build those boundaries. Jin finds he can go no further in his school's social structure. He wishes to wake up white the next morning. The wish is granted.
I should mention at this time that Jin's story is complimented by two other stories that at first seem unrelated except thematically. The first tells of the Monkey King who after getting rejected from a party where all other deities are swinging decides to change himself out of the spite he feels. He reinvents himself as The Great Sage Equal to Heaven and walks as tall as a man and with shoes, the opposite of the monkey he once was. This story of mythical figures acting irrationally and immaturely compares favorably to some of Neil Gaiman's work like Anansi Boys. The other features a white kid named Danny who's cousin, for some reason, is the embodiment of all Asian stereotypes. His l's and r's are switched around in speech and at one point literally pee-pee's in Coke. I saw this story as what was going on in Jin's subconscious while hanging out with Wei-Chen. Near the end of the book we find that Jin is what Danny has become when he wished to turn white. It's a turning point in the book where all the storylines begin to meet.
The conclusion of American Born Chinese that features a unification of all three stories is the most satisfying part of the book. It is the twin triumphs of Yang's art and storytelling that makes it all work. The stories are all told in different styles but with certain similarities. Jin's story has a faux-autobiographical narration to it while The Monkey King is told like a fable and Danny and his cousin's story is a parody of a sitcom complete with laugh track. Yang's visuals are simple and direct so that it's easy to discern each story yet switching between them is never jarring. Yang prefers a few big panels on a page to tell the story. This technique creates the overall feel of a comfortably told tale for both the The Monkey King and Jin's stories, either as a fable or as an adolescent anecdote. Danny's story has this ugly representation of every hurtful stereotype of a people so those sections are hardly as easy to read but the sitcom parody aspect and Yang's much more sparring use of that story has it fit nicely in the book.
There's an interesting parallel between the stories syncing up and Jin's realization that he must put his life back together. As Jin misses the point of his problems in school and takes a wrong turn the reader is taken out of the story and put in another one. Danny/Jin soon finds his problems can't be escaped from by denying who he is and that's when the book comes together. The surface and the thematically levels of the book meets. It's a great trick and Yang pulls it off beautifully. That's the joy of American Born Chinese. From the stylistic gambles to the handling of the delicate subject of race all the chances the book could go wrong instead turns into storytelling excellency. Permanent Link: 7:26 AM |
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Sunday, November 26, 2006
Dave Cockrum R.I.P.
As someone who grew up an X-Men fan I have many thanks to Mr. Cockrum for creating the look of many of my favorite characters. Those early Uncanny X-Men issues written by Len Wein and Chris Claremont pack a lot of entertainment in 17 pages. I'm sad to see him go. Permanent Link: 2:23 PM |
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Thursday, November 23, 2006
Happy Thanksgiving, Chaykin Style
If it's an American holiday, why not some American Flagg?
His method, and a bit of his madness, were on display here recently in front of a roomful of actors, writers, an ex-cop and a lip-reading deaf girl. They had come to Mr. Milch’s plain-vanilla offices to work on a pilot for “John From Cincinnati,” a drama for HBO. The pilot, scheduled for broadcast in the spring, is based on the travails of a mythical first family of surfing. “John from Cincinnati” is taking shape under Mr. Milch’s direction as executive producer, with the surf novelist Kem Nunn, among others, providing aquatic verisimilitude. The story defies television genre-speak, but in literature it would be called surf noir. There is a dysfunctional family viewed through the twin prisms of surfing and heroin addiction, a space alien and a lawyer named Dickstein. It should be mentioned that some characters occasionally levitate. (emaphases mine)
I don't know if it will be good or bad but I like that the man behind Deadwood is trying something really out there. It's far better than trying to make lighting strike twice as most TV producers do.
The article has many quotes from Milch that are...interesting. I must say that I do like it when creators get grandiose and a bit bizarre about their visions. I see no problem with being a little eccentric if it means that a creator is really committed to producing ambitious and thought-provoking material.
If you came across the 13-year-old Ian Brill chances are he would be wearing the T-shirt Dark Horse produced based on that cover. Madman was an early favorite mine and Mike Allred's artwork is always a treat to see. I'm really glad Madman is coming back. That Newsarama interview mentions the possibility of a new X-Statix miniseries which would also be cool as the Dead Girl limited series was nothing but awesome.
There are a lot of comics publishers who have been nice to send me books that I should be reviewing here and I will, I promise! But I must talk about a far less pressing series, a Wolverine comic from the early '90s. Namely it the trade Wolverine: Blood Hungry, which collects the Peter David/Sam Kieth Wolverine stories from Marvel Comics Presents. My main reaction can be found in the queries "what the fuck?" and "seriously, what the fuck?"
Along with Allred, Kieth was an artist whose work I dug. I would read every issue of The Maxx I could get as well as follow the MTV cartoon. I picked up this trade real cheap out of curiosity. I wondered what Kieth was doing before The Maxx, working on a corporate superhero and from another writer's script. I was glad that David knew enough to let Kieth be really creative. The story is nutso. Part of it is your typical "Wolverine bad-ass" story with the Canadian X-Man running around naked in the jungles of Madripoor and then going up against drug dealers with adamantium skin. Then part of it is this surreal psychological freak out Logan has, where he imagines him and his antagonist Cyber as part of a James Dean-like story of heartbreak and betrayal with pronounced Freudian imagery. Added to this is David's tendency to get really cutesy with the dialogue, throwing in bad puns while dangerous gangsters discuss drug deals. The shifts in tone are jarring but I think it does ultimately create something interesting and with merit (I do consider something being all-out wacky as worthy of merit). Kieth's art get as wild as anything in The Maxx or those early issues of Sandman just now it's with big hulking men who like to grit their teeth. I enjoyed the story just because it was so odd. What was the reaction when this book came out? It seems to be having a bit of fun with the perception of Wolverine at the time.
Any week where we get two Matt Fraction comics is a good week. Casanova I must say is my favorite monthly book. Every issue is full of great ideas pulled of with such style by Fraction and Gabriel Ba. I also look forward to the return of the white-gloved, knife-in-boot Frank Castle. I read the character in my youth and I'm glad he's in the hands of a writer who knows how to make something from the past cool without making it a needless nostalgia trip. And Ariel Olivetti? Have you seen his Atom covers? Oh this is going to be good.
Hey look at that, all three of those bits added up. They all had something to do with the books I wasted my precious, precious youth on. To think, there are comic fans that fondly remember whimsical Mort Weisnger Superman stories and then there are comic fans like me who fondly look back on the days when reanimated corpses ate eyeballs, a big purple guy with claws could be the dream manifestation of a traumatized young woman and a jaunty roustabout named Francis would dispel justice with an armory fit to defend a small nation. What fun we had. Permanent Link: 4:57 PM |
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Robert Altman R.I.P.
I once saw Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights and Altman's back-up director on Prairie Home Companion) speak at UC Berkeley. The pensive director lit up when he talked about Altman. He described how the older auteur still had a driving force, planning new films and new plays while making a quick pit stop to pick up a lifetime achievement award at The Oscars. Anderson said the insurance companies were worried about his age but Anderson saw a man who had not slowed down at all. I'm glad to know that Altman was creating new work up until the end, it's an example of what made him such an appealing director. Altman made a lot of films and while he perfected the ensemble cast in American cinema he has been behind a variety of films. Rent MASH, Nashville, McCabe and Ms. Miller, Secret Honor and The Player to see what a talent he was. Permanent Link: 9:08 AM |
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Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Plug time, Morrison style
I'm the Bill Moyers to Grant Morrison's Joseph Campbell in this interview. Not only is the man a great creative mind I have found in my few interactions with him that's he's very nice and thoughtful. There are a lot of people who are wary of Morrison's work, finding it "too weird" or whatever. There are also people who really appreciate the fact that Morrsion puts so much intelligence and imagination into his work, especially on Seven Soldiers. I wanted to bring some of that discussion to the creator of these books. Jog helped me out with the article and I used a bit of Marc Singer's findings for the basis of one question. There's plenty of great 7S talk, I suggest you start with the Barbelith annotations. Permanent Link: 11:17 AM |
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There are comics that make me laugh. There are comics that make me cry. There are comics that fill me with suspense. There are comics that fill me with wonder. But there is only ONE comic that has me close the book and try to stifle my awe/nervous laughter as I try to figure out "what the fuck did I just read!?" I read most of my comics in public so I know I must look silly doing this but this series is just this crazy.
The Drifting Classroom by Kazuo Umezu takes all my nightmares as a kid and turns them into a story. A Japanese school seemingly explodes but actually ends up in a post-nuclear future. Now kids and faculty must survive on their own. Umezu has all adults act with varying combination of malice and ineffectiveness. The children panic but our star, the young Sho, tries to be a leader. Shenanigans ensue such as: teachers getting trampled by panicked students, teachers getting stabbed with scissors by students and a teacher stabbing his own son with the older man's eye glasses. That was the first bit that made me wonder "what the fuck did I just?" Those are all from volume one. Volume two is even crazier, mostly in the first few pages. I won't spoil anything but I will say the first chapter is named "Rage for Bread" and certainly lives up to its title.
I can't remember another comic where the intensity was sustained this long. Umezu makes it work, though. I never feel overwhelmed with the chaos in this comic. My feelings reading the series is more like this: "That's the the craziest thing I've ever seen in a comic...no, that is...my mistake once again, that is the craziest things I've seen in a comic." No other book comes close to spurring this reaction in me. I love it and eagerly await more. Permanent Link: 6:19 PM |
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The Onion laments the demise of The Dana Carvey Show. It's number three on their list of one-season wonders. From the article: But the fickle sponsors would've gladly returned if they could have foreseen the success of equally offensive shows like The Office and The Colbert Report. Also, it's hard to imagine a writing staff that included Colbert, Carell, Robert Smigel, Bob Odenkirk, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos assembled under one roof ever again. Who needs to imagine when you have YouTube?
Here's that team-up of Stephen Colbert and Issac Hayes you always wanted:
I think the weird turn this Regis and Kathie Lee parody takes makes it funnier than anything SNL would have done. Also, Carol Channing and Tony Randall have cameos:
Notice the name of Madonna's lawyer, played by Robert Smigel:
Here's Stephen Colbert doing the exact opposite of his character on The Colbert Report:
I think The Ditchers has to be one of the funniest ideas ever. Carvey and Steve Carell laughing like madmen over the credits is infectious:
How can I show these clips on my Interblog? Why it's Technofuture! I've felt like I have had an alarm clock tell me "you're Jewish! You're Jewish!" all my life:
It was Ditko's art that taught me to appreciate weirdness. Work that was idiosyncratic and strange but still crafted with skill and internally consistent. I love the psychedelic landscapes of the Dr. Strange stories, the angst of Spider-Man and the truly strange combination of the two in the underrated Shade the Changing Man title from DC. I even love the political stuff like Mr. A and the The Question. It's not that I agree with it I just get a kick out of the man's talent at art meeting his intensely held political convictions. It feels like the words and images are going to leap of the page in anger. That's just fun comic book reading.
