I didn't expect to come back for another post in 2006 but I have to pay my respects to Soul Brother Number One. Brown's music is ground zero for what good R&B, funk, hip-hop and anything else dependent on a groove should be. In the best songs everything you could need for good dance music is there. The scratch guitar riff in "The Payback" could go on for seven minutes or seventy. It's hypnotic. He worked his band, alumni of which includes Bootsy Collins and Maceo Parker, so hard to make sure they were in the pocket. The result was a sound machine that could hit anyone with blood flowing to get their boogie on. Truly some of the most beautiful music ever recorded. Permanent Link: 1:02 PM |
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Thursday, December 21, 2006
Free Crime
This will probably be my last post of 2006 so in the spirit of the holidays how about I give you free comics (and by "give" I mean "point you in the direction of other people who have posted this comics on-line for free (and totally legal)").
Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips created one of my all-time favorite comics Sleeper and now they're putting their talents towards the creator-owned Criminal. Marvel put the first issue on-line for all to enjoy. Brubaker's style of character-heavy noir is in full effect and Phillip's art looks great. It looks even better as a comic in your hands than a picture on your monitor so if you like the book why not buy a copy?
I liked Michael Avon Oeming and Ivan Brandon's Cross Bronx so much I named it one of my favorite books of the year. Now you can enjoy it yourself by reading the entire first issue. Like Criminal it's a good noir story but now with a mystical touch. One of the true joys of reading it is seeing how Oeming challenges himself as an artist and delivers his best work.
I contributed to PW Comics Week Critics Poll for the best graphic novels of the year. I'll post my personal list later on down but I figured I'd use this blog to talk about my favorite floppies of the year. I find my comics reading goes between so-called "highbrow" stories in books and the fun stuff in magazine form. I do occasionally read indie books in pamphlet form but for some reason I prefer that type of material between two Chipp Kidd designed hardcover while I get my genre jollies from something I can read in its entirely on the bus trip back from the comic book store. In no particular order here are my favorite books from 2006 that are stored in a longbox:
Casanova #1-6 by Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba Basically this is everything I want a comic to be. Fraction packs every one of the sixteen story pages with intrigue, adventure and wit and Ba's art reads like some cool strange foreign spy movie poster come to life. Every issue stood on its own but it all leads up to a "season finale" (that's issue #7). It's sort of like TV but nothing on TV is like a psychedelic James Bond.
Solo #12 by Brendan McCarthy This is everything I imagine comics are. McCarthy ended DC's anthology series with its best issue yet and probably one of the most experimental and fun comics DC has ever published. McCarthy offers a wide range of both art and story styles but they all work together. McCarthy leans more to the poetic and intuitive side of comics. His art looks what would happen if Gary Panter was a British kid who grew up listening to Madness and spray painting anti-Thatcher graffiti.
Batman Year 100 #1-4 by Paul Pope Many comics tried to make something out of current political anxieties but Pope's sci-fi superhero story did it the best. The superhero trope of a secret identity became a means to contemplate the rights to privacy in a world where those rights are no longer respected. Pope didn't feel the need to hit you over the head with "a message." He just told a rollicking good story featuring a character open to many interpretations
The Escapists #1-6 by Brian K. Vaughan, Philip Bond, Jason Alexander and Steve Roslton A comic book about making a comic book could have been the most insufferable thing to read but instead Vaughan and various artists drawing in various styles made something pretty damn good out of it. Like Chabon's original novel, this was really a story of young people trying to achieve their dreams against the corruption of the adult world and superheroes were, excuse the pun, the key. The last issue was especially strong, both a celebration of creativity and having the guts to escape your hometown.
Daredevil #82-88 by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark and David Aja I didn't think Brubaker could write anything as strong as Sleeper for a company owned character but with Lark and one issue by Aja I was thankfully proven wrong. With a stylish dark but always readable look, Matt Murdock and his supporting cast try to survive in the pressure cooker of prison. Murdock's battle to hold on to his civil side was particular compelling. Good pulp-y fun.
Seven Soldiers #1 by Grant Morrison and J.H. Williams III This just might be the loudest and most breakneck comic I've ever read three times in one sitting. Williams's drawing in the style of all the other 7S artists and then some was a magnificent feat probably only one in 100,000 artists could pull off. Morrison put you right in the middle of the action and as many questions about the maxi-series were answered about as many more arose. This issue also led to my favorite interview I've ever done.
52 #1-32 by Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, J.G. Joes, Kieth Giffen and a cavalcade of artists Honestly, every issue of this series has been pretty uneven and some have been outright mediocre. But at this point this weekly series has been a compelling mapping of the DC Universe. Most of the joy of reading is seeing how close this book comes to succumbing under its own weight in bizarreness but instead managing to make it all make some sort of sense.
Wolverine #42-48 by Marc Guggenheim and Huberto Ramos Yeah I put a Civil War tie-in on my list. Why? Because it's awesome. Guggenheim manages bombastic superhero action (Wolverine's been burned to a skeleton! Now he's in Tony Stark's Iron Man suit!) and having the main character come to terms with the futility of vengeance. Ramos's art was made for this crazy kind of storytelling and the epilogue issue saw him really stretching out depiciting Logan's view of the afterlife.
Cross Bronx #1-4 by Michael Avon Oeming and Ivan Brandon Brandon and Oeming invent Santeria Noir with this crime book. It's a portrait of a man who has been beaten down so hard he can't look up as much as it is a story of revenge. The trigger happy blue ghost who haunts this book is one of those perfect looking comic book creations.
Angry Youth Comix #12 by Johnny Ryan Ryan's work is at its best when his crude scatological humor reaches truly astounding levels of grotesqueness. This joke-pocalypse brought on by sociopath/comedian Boobs Pooter is an all-time high (low) from Ryan's special type of genius
Now, how about some graphic novels! They're even in best-of order (also, you can tell I had finals going on while having to write about these books).
1. Fate of the Artist by Eddie Campbell Campbell has pulled off the unthinkable: combining experimental storytelling techniques and domestic comedy.
2. Castle Waiting by Linda Medley Through many years, locations and species of talking animals Medley keeps strong characterization a constant.
3. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel Family relationships, homosexuality and autobiography itself are examined in this smart memoir.
4. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang Both a great coming of age story and a story of race, it also has a monkey urinating on God's fingers.
5. Absolute New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke The best superhero story in decades gets its due with a beautiful expansive addition.
6. Sloth by Gilbert Hernandez Both Hernandez’s imagination and humanism is put to good use in a story of rock 'n' roll and urban legends.
7. Monster by Naoki Ursawa There’s medical drama and criminal intrigue in this continuing series but the real strength is reading the psych-outs Dr. Tenma and his supporting cast go through in this modern noir story.
8. 24Seven by Various An astounding collection of bright and talented new creators are featured in this anthology edited by NYC Mech’s Ivan Brandon.
9. Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. Volume 1: This is What They Want by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen Not only hilarious it's better written and better drawn than "serious" superhero comics.
10. Drifting Classroom by Kazuo Umezi Quite simply: this is the freakiest comic I have ever read. Permanent Link: 2:46 PM |
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Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Things that are Awesome
Finals have got me all bugaboo but that doesn't mean I have to ignore my good readers. First off, the long-awaited Brill/John Hodgman collaboration. Well, not so much a collaboration as much as both are voices show up on the latest Sound of Young America spin-off The Untitled Thorn/Morris Project. It's fun stuff...maximum fun even.
How about twopages from one of the greatest comics Marvel has ever produced What If Vol. 1 #34? Roger Stern and Ed Hannigan wonder what would happen if superhero stories featured the characters just standing around talking to each other. That's crazy, isn't it! Who would have thought of such a thing? The Watcher's right, that kind of stuff could only be for a select audience (inspired by Mr. Church for writing this smart little post)
Finally, the trailer for Trouble Man
As a writer I worry about plotting, pacing and all that nonsense but what I wouldn't give just to write stuff that had that style to it. I suppose I can only hope to be as good as screenwriter John D.F. Black, who also gave us the Star Trek episode "The Naked Time" a.k.a. The One Where Sulu Fences Topless.
There's a scene early on in Supermarket that defines the book's star, Pella Suzuki, and the book itself. Coming downstairs for breakfast the teenager lectures her mother about the plight of farmers who never see any real money from the billion-dollar coffee industry. After taking that first sip in the morning Pella's sermon is interrupted so she can ask her mother "Is this Sumatran? S'good." That uneasy co-existence of two contradictory notions, enjoying the spoils of the industrial world while still knowing the injustices behind those spoils, is at the heart of both Pella's character and the book. Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson have created a comic that stars a would-be revolutionary who decries her urban surroundings while reveling in the almost sci-fi aesthetic of today's cities and their cultures.
After reading all available issues of both Demo and Local I realize that Wood's great strength as a writer is that he is capable of perfectly syncing up a story's rhythm and pace to the emotional information of the characters he wants to get across. Both those series tell a whole story in one issue and the best of them feel like they have the impact of a 200-page graphic novel after we've seen what these characters go through. In Demo you can actually read Wood mature as a writer as the series goes along, leading up to the poetic final issue. Local proves that Wood can practice this type of storytelling outside of fantasy and sci-fi tropes. The first issue of that series is wonderful, it builds drama from the repetition of a sequence like a good pop song does.
That awareness of how structure and characterization intertwine also shows up in Supermarket but in a much more traditional way. With four issues Wood has time to go back and forth between major action scenes as cool down periods where Pella contemplates her modern day anxieties. The plot has Pella on the run in what looks like a hyperreal version of Los Angeles. The parents who provided her with the upper-class lifestyle which she resented have been killed. It is revealed that Pella's father was in with the Yakuza while her mother was a member of an outfit that went by the delicious moniker the Porno Swedes. Orphaned and cut off from her savings Pella uses her wits to save herself from this Grand Theft Auto-esque situation. Unfortunately being a rich girl from Woodland Hills her wits are not exactly best applicable to these types of situations. Thankfully young Yakuza renegade Beta is there as a guardian angel in cool sneakers. Kristian's art makes these action bits successful. His art has a lot of stylistic touch of manga-ka's like Taiyo Matsomoto with the design sense of Western comics. It's fun to see how much kinetic energy he packs into scenes where a mob of Yakuza soldiers, with their guns, swords and swirling cigarette smoke, chase after a teenage girl through malls and parking lots.
Kristian also colored the book and creates an overall look for the comic that is stunning and reminiscent of little I've seen before. The post-modern enviroment of Supermarket is full of giant structures of pink and orange enveloping characters dressed in dark clothing. The colors of a scene will sometimes change between panels, not unlike lights illuminating different subjects as the camera angles move. The glare of neon lights and cell phone screens are cast on the book's players like shadows. Supermarket has a real "Pop Art" flavor but it's not a throwback to the '60s. It's Pop Art for a world where comics like these can be read on computers and most likely soon on cell phones and other portable devices.
The beauty that Kristian wrings from such industrialization comes with knowing, as Pella is not afraid to inform the reader, of the soullessness of "the sprawl." Pella's attitude is fittingly righteous and adolescent but when faced with trauma the character's facade falters. There's a powerful scene where Pella finds solace in the all the offerings found in a luxurious hotel suite. She is forced to grow up and realize now that she knows of the truth behind the modern world and her family, how she is going to live in this world. How, if she desires to, will she change things?
Unfortunately that question isn't quite answered. The story moves along nicely with Pella, Beta, Beta's Swedish girlfriend (they become something of surrogate parents to Pella) coming close to defeating the rival gangs. Then Wood's mastery of structure falters and falters bad. The story doesn't end as much as it comes to a halt. Pella gets a pre-recorded message from her mother that basically tells her "everything's cool now" and it is. With a few word balloons of exposition all the dramatic conflict is sucked out and Pella and her friends are free to live happily ever after. It's a disappointing way to end what was reading like a great rollick done with great skill by both its creators. Permanent Link: 8:28 PM |
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Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Batman/The Spirit
The perfect way to enjoy Batman/The Spirit would to be a fly on the wall when Jeph Loeb and Darwyn Cooke were planning on how to mix and match all of "the greatest hits" of both characters. It's not hard to imagine the enthusiasm of the two creators, fans themselves, as they exclaimed to each other "P'Gell seduces Commissioner Gordon! Poison Ivy and Lt. Dolan! The Cossack and Killer Croc!" The sexual tension in that last pairing is a little more downplayed.
Luckily, if you want your fan enthusiasm behind the story to transfer to the reader have Cooke draw and at least co-write your book. Like New Frontier Cooke makes every character look cool with his animated/Jack Kirby/Alex Toth/art deco style. Within the first few pages of the book I was wondering what Cooke's creativity would do with those trademark Spirit splash pages. When it came around I was not disappointed. Cooke pays tribute to one of Will Eisner's greatest aspects of his strip and keeps a lively story moving. I didn't expect an homage to "Death Flies the Haunted Skies" by Archie Goodwin and Toth in the Batman splash but I was glad to see it all the same.
With the Batman franchise Loeb and Cooke had a spectrum of interpretations to choose from. They chose well. The base seems to be the Bruce Timm animated version, not just in Cooke's look for the book but with the vital role Joker and Harley Quinn play in the plot. Then there's bits pieces of the '70s dark detective, Cooke and Ed Brubaker's Catwoman, , even "Stately Wayne Manor" gets a nod. But with the The Spirit there's only one version Loeb and Cooke needed to use. A 48-page story doesn't lend itself to Eisner's greatest triumph, namely the economy of storytelling used in 8- and 10-page stories. What the The Spirit does well here is be an affable, lighter counter-personality to Batman. He's someone who works the same street level superhero territory as Batman but still keeps a level head. The cover says it perfectly. Batman's got some mean teeth gritting going on but good ol' Denny Colt's just smiling. He's in it for a fun and that's reflected in this book, a great little read. Permanent Link: 2:15 PM |
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Saturday, December 02, 2006
In the '70s everyone got laid
I highly recommend this Word Balloon interview with Matt Fraction. Fraction and John Siuntress spend a lot of time going back and forth on comics and movies they dig. It has that fun energy of people discussing entertainment they like both on an ironic level and a sincere level. When Fraction says '70s Marvel comics started resembling dream journals my mind just went "yes!" These are the types of conversations I have with Grame or Jeff whenever we see each other.
The new Minx line from DC has captured the imagination of many smart comic book people. Johanna notes the lack of women creators in the line, something many have noticed. Now, I certainly think the Minx line is a great idea and I look forward to new books from Jim Rugg and Derek Kirk Kim. But the fact is for anyone who desires more female visibility in comics the announcement of a line targeted to young women yet it being another area where men dominate is disheartening. There's a certain feeling I got reading about the new line that perhaps you did, too. It's that strange mix of on one hand recognizing it's smart for DC to reach out to this particular audience and on the other hand not being completely satisfied with how it's being done. Unfortunately it's a feeling I've gotten following DC Comics for a few years.
I say this as someone who truly appreciates DC's desire for more variety in their output. I know there are a lot of smart people working there who want to adapt to a changing marketplace. This post is only written in the spirit of constructive criticism as I air my feelings as a fan. That feeling is one of frustration as I see again and again DC try a new venture only to see it compromised and unable to, shall we say, reach its potential. Here is a list of examples just from what I could think of today:
The One Year Later jump launches with heralded new creative teams on books...creative teams that change and books that are delayed only a few months in
DC picks up the Humanoids line so many European comics are given new exposure...the line is unceremoniously dumped (I believe we all found out when Humanoids books weren't part of that month's solicitations)
The growing manga market is acknowledged with the debut of CMX...censorship in Tenjho Tenge alienates manga fans
Indie artists are given a chance to play with DC's big characters in the "Bizarro" books...for some reasons cartoonists can only write or draw the comics, not both
Now the controversy over the Minx line.
I want a company with real money behind it like DC to go beyond the superhero world. What I don't want is, because there is big money at stake, forces in the company that are on the conservative or cautious side leaving readers with product that pales in comparison to what other, much smaller publishers can give us (compare Bizarro Comics to AdHouse's Project: Superior). I understand that as a fan if I'm this frustrated people working in the company have to be pretty darn frustrated, too.
I don't have any solutions. I just want there to be case where DC announcing something that sounds cool, at first it is cool and then as time goes on it's still cool, maybe cooler. I'm sure if I was reading comics at the start of the Vertigo line I would have felt that way. There's a case where, even though I know small compromises had to be made in terms of content and whatnot, many new voices were heard by fans only a company like DC could reach. I want it to happen again. Permanent Link: 7:08 AM |
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