Read Comics

Townscapes was fantastic. Its four stories (although the first is only a few pages, and serves more as an introduction than anything else) share this in common: They all feature a white haired man with mystical powers who does something fantastic. Actually, the man may not even be white haired in all the stories. Regardless, something fantastic happens, and most of the time you think he did it.

I think my favorite of these was the one about the city that just starts to float. One morning everyone wakes up and the town is just floating six feet (or so) off the ground. There is a military base relatively near by, and everyone (at least partly correctly) blames it.

This is another comic translated from the french, and it solidifies my opinion that there should be more of them in general. It almost makes me want to brush up on my french to the point of understanding, so I can import everything else these two have ever created (and the rest of the Sky-Doll series, and the rest of Valerian).

The art, while gritty and sometimes quite drab, is also absolutely beautiful. I think it is the first full length thing that Enki Bilal fully illustrated. (Do you say illustrated when it’s a comic?) Regardless, it doesn’t look like your average comic, it feels more like a horror comic to me somehow. But the subject matter, while sometimes borderline horror, is really more fantastic.

As an aside, I’m also reading Reading Comics, by Douglas Wolk, right now, and suddenly I’m all self-conscious about the language I’m using to describe comics. Am I describing things in the context of comics, or in another context? I think I tend to skew toward literary depictions of the comics, and tack on something about the art as an afterthought. Perhaps this is because I was an English major in college, or perhaps because I’m more of a reader than an art connoisseur. After all, this is ReadComics.org, so maybe that’s ok.

I stood in line for an hour or so today to get him to sign my copy of Invincible #51 and the first Hush TPB. He was really nice, and tried to figure out what my tee-shirt meant before asking. He also asked if I had any really cool apps on my iPhone yet. (I said yes, but then admitted that I don’t have 2.0 yet because I’m waiting for the jailbreak.) He seemed like a really nice guy.

Bonus links: Here’s an interview with Jim Lee by Geeklabel Radio. (This was just the first Jim Lee interview I found. Lee talks about how he got started and answers some lame questions.) Also, here’s a photo of Jim Lee with Mark Hamill last week at SDCC.

Planetary: Crossing Worlds is good, universe-expanding stuff.

Basic premise here is that there are 196,833 parallel universes. (How do they know the exact number, exactly?) Planetary and the Authority both deal with these universes on a fairly regular basis. The first story here is a Planetary/Authority crossover, where they deal with some other universe’s bad guys who look suspiciously like other versions of some of the Authority characters. The second story takes place entirely in another parallel universe, one in which the Planetary folks are the bad guys (and also “control” the world), and Batman, Superman and Wonderwoman are little more than two-bit vigilantes. Elijah Snow also looks suspiciously like Lex Luthor. The final story is a Planetary/Batman crossover, but the interesting thing about it is that we visit a bunch of (3 or 4) different Batman Universes, with a different version of Batman in each one. Totally fascinating.

I really liked this TPB, and thought each story got progressively better as the book went on. You don’t really have to know anything about the plots of Planetary or the Authority to “get” these stories, but knowing the characters is probably a pre-req for total enjoyment. And enjoy it you will.

Webcomics authors Richard Stevens (of Diesel Sweeties) and Meredith Gran (of Octopus Pie) gave an hour long presentation at Google sometime back in June. I don’t remember how I stumbled onto it, but found this originally over at Major Spoilers.

Update: This should be required viewing (I mostly just listened) for anyone wanting to start out and make a webcomic. Some of the names dropped were Scott Pilgrim (not a webcomic, unfortunately), Kate Beaton (interesting, I’ll have to look at this more), jonathan rosenberg (who does Goats which is AWESOME), MC Frontalot, Scott McCloud and Ryan North who does Dinosaur Comics. This was part of the Authors@Google series, and there are hundreds of these videos, including one of David Hajdu (who, as you may recall, wrote Ten Cent Plague).

As someone stuck up here in Minnesota rather than in California for San Diego’s Comic-Con, I basically just have to sit back and watch the news roll in from everybody else. But this report about the panel on Dr. Horrible is just too good not to share. Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, Simon Helberg and of course Joss Whedon himself were all present.

There was much banter — repartee even! — at the expense of scoopage. After an audience member playfully accused Whedon of liking to kill off his female characters, Harris deadpanned, “You do kill a lot of chicks.” Retorted Whedon, “I have two tricks. You’re either out, or your dead.” Fillion, meanwhile, cracked some choice phallic “Captain Hammer” jokes, then claimed that Harris, vis-a-vis Doogie Howser, invented the blog. And Harris? He claimed he didn’t recall said show, referring to that time in his life as his “heroin years.”

But there were a few revelations among the revelry. On the ever-enduring Buffy front, we learned:
• Joyce Summers had Whedon’s favorite death on Buffy. Said Whedon: It was “the most time I got to spend with something that close to me.” Awww.
• Oz will return to Dark Horse’s most-excellent Buffy comic(!).
• Willow was basically outed only because Oz left the show.
• And, no, Whedon was never going make Xander gay.

And in Dr. Horrible news:
• Harris did some of his own MTV Cribs-like choreography in the musical, including that beloved shoulder shimmy in the second act.
• While filming, Whedon sang as Hammer to Felicia’s character. And cowriter Maurissa Tancharoen has it on tape.
• They’re hosting a contest for “Evil League of Evil” video submissions that are no longer than three minutes. The top 10 will be on the Dr. Horrible DVD.
• The Dr. Horrible soundtrack will be available for download in a couple of weeks.
• Lastly, if you want to be an agent of doom, and rock an iPhone, you too can log onto the very same interface Doc Horrible used in the film at www.thesoftwire.com/horrible_remote.html.

Pretty cool, huh? Here is more coverage of the panel including a video, and confirmation that Whedon said there will be more Dr. Horrible.

More comic-con news: EW’s Popwatch, Wizard’s SDCC news central, and finally Newsarama’s coverage guide. There’s tons more where that came from, but who has time to read it all?

This was every bit as good as the original Top Ten, maybe even better.

I absolutely loved this book. At heart, it is a story about outsiders and racism, about culture clash, and a melting-pot society. It’s maybe also about coming of age and coming out. At face value, it’s the story of how the city of Neopolis is formed. Neopolis is the main setting for Top 10, and this is a prequel that takes place in the city’s early days.

I’m finding it hard to say anything because I don’t want to give anything away. It’s such a great story, and of course Gene Ha’s artwork is phenomenal as well. The whole thing is given a sort of sepia toned color pallet–subdued, which lends a sort of old-timey feel to the whole thing, like watching an old black and white movie or something. But the art is no less spectacular for it.

Read this book! Read the original Top 10 first, but don’t stop there, or you’ll be missing out.

The Source Comics and Games is having Jim Lee sign this Saturday. Here is info from their email:

• It will be a ticketed event that does not require a ticket! Let us explain. All current Source & Uncle Sven’s comic book subscribers have already been given numbered VIP tickets. Numbered tickets will go first in numerical order and when they are finished, the general public will have access.
• Jim will be signing from 1PM to 4PM. Door open at 10AM.
• Jim will be signing a maximum of two items per person. The reason for this is we want to give as many people as possible a chance.
• There will be other Super Star Comic Book Artists in the house as well. They will be announced one week before the event.
• Special storewide sale beginning at 10AM going until Jim hits the trail!
• An ocean of cool Jim Lee comic book stuff will be available!
• We will be collecting donations on behalf of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

Just FYI, I have not seen an email with a list of the other creators who will be there.

Also, for those of you who are inclined to video games, Jim Lee is the Executive Creative Director of the new DC Universe Online game. Here is a video of Jim Lee introducing the “first look” at that new MMORPG.

ElfQuest, to celebrate their 30th anniversary, is putting the entire catalog of ElfQuest comics online.

They appear to be going up at a rate of about five comics a week, but the entire first 21 issue series is already available. The quality of the scans is very nice from what I’ve seen, and I intend to read them all… someday.

All this via a rather old post on boingboing. But some more recent news is that there is a movie in the works, to be directed by Rawson Thurber (who directed Dodgeball). I think it’s a bit early to be announcing this, frankly, as a script hasn’t been written yet, and the format is also yet to be determined.

I’ve only just read the first issue so far, so if you’re at all knowledgeable about ElfQuest, please forgive my inadequate summary, but from that first issue, it seems that the premise is essentially that elves are descended from an ancient civilized alien race who somehow found themselves on earth. (That first issue isn’t terribly clear on whether they close Earth as their home, or whether it was a magical appearance, or what.) Anyway, these descendants are in constant in fear of destruction from the evil humans.

I’m sure some of this will become clearer as I read more, since there is a handy ElfQuest Timeline, and those first issues are somewhere in the middle of it. Enjoy!

When I found this entire series (issues 1-6) packaged together (and on sale) at Dreamhaven, I was intrigued enough by the cool robotech style artwork to give a second look. And in that second look I saw something that made this an immediate must-have for me: Robert Kirkman’s writing credit. Those of you who have listened to the podcast know that Florence and I recently saw Kirkman hold court at his very own panel at Wizard World in Chicago, and were immediately enamored enough to want to buy everything he’s ever written.

Well, as much as I love Battle Pope (which came out by Kirkman at least two years before Tech Jacket), the writing in Tech Jacket feels a bit amateurish in comparison. I can only explain it by assuming that this was written for a much younger audience, because Invincible started coming out around the same time as this (a few months later), and Invincible is totally awesome right from the beginning.

As Kirkman is aware (he sort of apologizes for this in one of the letter columns), Tech Jacket shares a lot in common with Invincible. They are both about teenagers who come into great power. They both prominently feature aliens. However, Invincible is still around, and Tech Jacket appears to have been canceled after only six issues. The series seems to “tie up” many loose ends in that final sixth issue, and apparently in the TPB, Kirkman says he chose to tie everything up quickly because sales were declining. Yet in the letter column of the sixth issue, Kirkman refers to the seventh issue, and there is even a preview of the seventh issue’s cover! I don’t know how to explain this, I’m just pointing it out.

E.J. Su’s art in this really shines when there are sprawling space battles. The rest of the art is okay too, but the space scenes, and in particular the level of detail given to the tech jacket itself and to the space ships is really impressive. As you can see from the first and sixth covers posted here, his art really seems to have progressed, or more likely, he just got more comfortable drawing the tech jacket over time.

All in all, this was only moderately satisfying, but well worth a read for those of us obsessed with Kirkman, or for anyone who loves a good space battle.

Astro City holds a lot of responsibility for my getting “into” comics. That having been said, The Dark Age has not really been my favorite plot line. There are certainly aspects of it that I’ve enjoyed, but the two brothers, the main lenses through which we are viewing Astro City this time around, they are not really protagonists. They are not really characters that I can empathize with. They have less of the “every day people” quality than many of the other Astro City main characters have had.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still quite enjoying the story, and it doesn’t even feel like I’m slogging through this, it’s just that I sort of wish Busiek would focus his efforts a bit differently. He’s made it clear (in the letters columns) that there are two more Dark Age books still to come out. Probably with one-off issues to be released between them. He also plugs the Astro City website (which is probably not so new anymore), but which does seem to have all kinds of interesting stuff on it.

Astro City is still one of my favorite comics. But if you haven’t read it yet, I suggest you start at the beginning. There is a lot of Astro City to love.

Sky-Doll issue #3 hit the shelves sometime in the last couple of weeks, (update: it’s now available as a Trade Paperback.) and I finally got around to reading the entire series. For those not familiar, this is a reprint of a french comic from 2003, translated and put out as part of a joint venture between Marvel and Soleil, a french publisher. It’s about a couple of space-faring “emissaries” who take on a stow-away female android who is more than she at first appears. The government they represent is a sort of tyrannical matriarchy, whose slutty female dictator/queen/goddess took over by ousting her sister and co-leader, who still has legions of ardent followers. It’s all pretty silly, but was surprisingly not annoying to me. (I usually can’t often stand stories with religious themes.)

I probably can’t say much that hasn’t already been said about this. A couple of observations I had: I probably liked this more than I would have otherwise due to the relatively “adult” art and themes. Marvel’s cover of issue #3 (the image in this post) “airbrushes” out the nipples on the android lead. (You can see the original without too much trouble by searching over at the comic book db.) The art really is amazing, and more of his sexy art can be found on Alessandro Barbucci’s blog, which is maybe a third or fourth in english. While we’re on the subject of blogs you can’t read, there are other interesting tidbits to be found on Barbara Canepa’s blog, the author of the series. She does post (rarely) in english, but as I said, there are visual tidbits to be found as well.

Sky-Doll really left me wanting more. I can’t help but wonder when the rest of the series will be translated into English, and maybe what I can do to speed along that process.

We’re back! We wrangled Jason, Mike, Marty and Florence back into Marty and Florence’s dining room for podcast number twelve, in which we talk about: Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, musicals in general, comic book musicals, Batman, Ultimate Comics, What if..?, Superman: Red Son, Ant Man’s Big Christmas, Lobo/Authority: Holiday Hell, The Underburbs, Hereville, Castle Waiting: The Curse of the Brambly Hedge, Warren Ellis, Black Summer, Valerian, Soleil, Sky-Doll, Watchmen Motion Comics, the Watchmen movie preview, The Spirit movie preview, Neuromancer, Snow Crash, and comic adaptations versus movie adaptations versus any other sort of adaptation ever made.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #012 (34 MB, 73 minutes)

Well, the new Black Summer came out today, and it’s time I finally wrote some kind of review about the series.

When I first read issue #0, it really floored me. I’d never been that surprised and excited about a comic, I don’t think. At least, not right off the bat. What happens in that first issue is something I consider to be the stuff of legend. Honestly, I have no idea if other comic books have done it before. Hell, maybe it’s commonplace for comics to be this anti-government, but this was the first I’d seen of it. Anyway, as you can probably see from the Issue 0 wrap-around cover shown here, in that first issue, we see the President of the United States of America, killed by a superhero.

And at first, the premise alone was enough to get me to read the comic. But, as the story wore on, honestly, I started to lose interest. Yes, it’s still good, but in comparison with that one first deliberate act of insane marketing prowess, the rest of the comic honestly just fails to live up to it for me. And that was never more true for me than in this final issue.

Read on for continued discussion of Black Summer, including spoilers. (more…)

I really thought I was going to think this was just stupid. I’m one of those people who laughed once at real ultimate power, but then deemed it ridiculous and stupid. Similarly, I have never even watched a single episode of ask a ninja. But while, ok, yes Dr. McNinja started out as a webcomic, and the author Chris Hasting does admit to having started drawing Dr. McNinja over in the forums at Something Awful, Dr. McNinja actually transcends all of that internet idiocy. It’s actually quite funny, and while not drawn in a style that’s going to win any awards, the art doesn’t detract from the main focus of the comic, which I would consider to be hilariously situational. I might have a hard time arguing you’ll like it even if you’ve never watched a kung fu movie in your life, and honestly it’s probably not as enjoyable if you don’t enjoy a mindless action movie now and then, but there is a lot more than sophomoric humor here!

For instance, one of the main stories in this first TPB is about Dr. McNinja returning home (to the cave he was raised in) where his family of ninjas are all a bit disappointed that he’s a doctor. His mother leaves him pamphlets for what she considers to be more acceptable jobs where he can see them. Oh, my retelling really isn’t doing the story justice. Just go over and read the page I’m talking about. Then, after you’ve chuckled a bit, go back to the archive, and start reading at the beginning, with Dr. McNinja Vs. McDonalds, (which didn’t even appear in that first TPB, perhaps due to fear of legal repercussion).

It’s really funny stuff, and you can tell that a lot of thought went into these comics. I actually poured through the second TPB, Surgical Strike yesterday on a break at work, so I can attest that they’re fast and compelling reading material. Plus, who wouldn’t enjoy a story about banditos who ride velociraptors chasing after a guy they know only from a photo of his abdomen posted to myspace? C’mon, seriously.

Originally a three-issue miniseries, this TPB was a bit more dark and foreboding than what I normally think of as a Superman comic.

The premise is simple: let’s assume Superman’s cradle/spaceship landed in Russia rather than the U.S.A., and that he was raised on a Russian farming commune. The concept that he would also embrace and adopt the principals of communism is not terribly difficult to accept. After all, it doesn’t seem like that far a leap from saving humanity to giving everyone basic human needs and treating everyone as equals. But, like communism, the implementation doesn’t quite match up with the theory, and in the end of this book, Superman’s ideals are twisted and corrupted.

Read on for more analysis and discussion, along with some pretty major spoilers. (more…)

A guy I knew in grade school (and high school, I suppose) has started a new webcomic called BlankIt. I knew him as Lem Pew, but he’s going by Lemmo now, and he’s joined up with Aric McKeown to update this new venture twice a week.

I think the comic’s two characters (the first comic, pictured above, is the only one with just one) are based on the two creators/artists. So far not much has happened, but I’ll definitely be watching to see where they take it.

Three changes to the sidebar today:

1. The latest podcast title is now displayed, with a link to the podcast category archive.
2. The latest book club data book/time is now displayed — This uses the excerpt, so when you’re creating a new Book Club entry, you’ll want to keep that in mind.
3. We now list all our authors, with links to the author archives for each person.

Have any thoughts or suggestions about our sidebar? Leave a comment!

I went googling a few comic book scripts (more to see how they’re formatted than for any other reason), and found this interesting site: The Comic Book Script Archive. There’s no real design to speak of (it’s all created with Google Pages), and most of the links are to external sites that host the scripts, but I think this site is a worthy addition to our sidebar, of interest to burgeoning comic book writers and artists alike.

The next ReadComics.org Comic Book Book Club will be held Thursday, August 14th, at 7:30 pm. We’ll be discussing Omega the Unknown, the entire new series written by Sci-fi author Jonathan Lethem (Issues 1-10). You get extra credit for reading the original series from 1976, written by Steve Gerber. (Also 10 issues, but it’s been reprinted in a recent TPB.)

Right now we’re thinking we’ll probably just meet at Florence and Marty’s apartment, so please leave a comment if you’re a lurker planning on attending, and we might move to a more neutral location. Of course, the Book Club will be podcasted for posterity.

If you’re not already watching Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, then get your butt on over there, and check it out. Acts I and II are already available, and Act III is set to be released on Saturday. Susie posted about Dr. Horrible quite a while ago, but now it’s finally here, and by all reports it’s AWESOME.

It was so great, in fact, that the site went down due to high traffic the first night, and they had to switch servers to get it back up and running.

Anyway, Captain Hammer, who is Dr. Horrible’s arch nemesis, (played by Nathan Fillion of Firefly fame) has his own comic, which you can read on Dark Horse’s myspace page. It’s pretty awesome, and I actually really dig the art, drawn by Eric Canete, which is almost crayon-like at times.

You can also buy some Dr. Horrible swag, but the Captain Hammer shirts aren’t nearly as cool as the style he wears in the comic. (I’d totally buy a shirt if it looked more like the comic.)

Dreamhaven Books has been one of the staples of the twin cities comic book (and sci-fi fandom) scene(s) for as long as I can remember. They have had a shop in Uptown (prime retail real estate) for a long time, and I never go into that shop without finding something new and interesting. Anyway, they are moving their location and it sounds like scaling back their operation quite a bit. From the website:

Saturday, August 30th
Grand opening at 2301 East 38th Street.

The new store is somewhat smaller than the current store. Greg is planning to run it as a one-man operation. It will be open Tuesday through Saturday, noon-7pm.

In the mean time, they are also having a sale:

• Used hardcovers 50% off the marked price
• Used trade paperbacks 50% off the marked price
• Bagged collectible used paperbacks 50% off the marked price
• Regular used paperbacks 75% off the cover price, 75-cent minimum
• Bargain comics – thousands of titles, new titles added weekly 5/$1.00
• Bagged and boarded back-issue comics 50% off the marked price
• Comic book package deals 50% off the marked price
• All regular-priced manga books 50% off the cover price
• All sale-priced manga books now just $2.00

Mike and I went down there today, and the sale seems pretty low key, but there are definitely deals to be had, and I’ll be going back to pour through all the unsorted old comics sometime in the near future.

Without Garfield, Jon Arbuckle is a sad, sad man. And surprisingly, Garfield Minus Garfield takes on an entirely new and powerful poignancy. From the site:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

The comic was called “an inspired thing to do” by original Garfield creator Jim Davis in an interview with the Washington Post. Enjoy.

A couple of observations: 1) These felt like multiple stories, rather than one cohesive thing, and 2) I liked the first TPB much better than the second. I think there were just more interesting ideas in it. Don’t get me wrong, they were both good, just the second not as much. I’ll admit that story where Miranda Zero gets abducted had me pretty tense though.

Basically, the Global Frequency is a benevolent organization that is called upon when circumstances are particularly dire. There are 1001 members located throughout the world, and they are called upon when their specialized talents are needed. Most of the members we see are special ops type people. People who kick ass in a special way. Anyway, there are some really interesting things that happen here, but again, no real plot to speak of.

The eleventh ReadComics podcast was recorded from the consuite at Convergence science fiction convention. We had Jen with us, for the first time, along with your regular podcasters Jason, Florence and Marty.

Topics included: Convergence, Wizard World, other comic book podcasters we met at Wizard World, Planetary, Robert Kirkman, Walking Dead, Sandman, Neil Gaiman, Mark Evanier, Jason’s panel appearances at Convergence, Jen’s crafting at the Renaissance Festival, the comic book code (and David Hajdu’s appearance THIS Tuesday), Jack Kirby, Marv Wolfman, Jennie Breeden and her webcomic The Devil’s Panties.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #011 (25 MB, 55 minutes)

So, I must reiterate that I really dug Top 10. It blew me away, and I couldn’t wait to get more of them. And while I didn’t dislike this, it didn’t grab me in the same way. I liked the art, and the story was ok, but it didn’t have the same hugeness factor. It didn’t feel like it was just brimming with possibility and promise the way Top 10 did.

In my post about Top 10 vol. 1 and 2, I suggested that I’d have to try and find Smax at Wizard World because it was the next in the series. I did end up finding it, in the artist alley, on Zander Cannon’s table. He was in the middle of a conversation, but I interrupted him long enough to buy a copy and have him sign it. He suggested I go tell Gene Ha how much I’d liked Top 10, and told me I really didn’t need to read the other parts of the series in order, as they were all pretty disconnected. He also said they’re starting up another Top 10 series that’s going to take place just after the first two TPBs. He seemed to think it was going to be out pretty soon. (I never did end up finding Gene Ha.)

Also in that last post, I sort of blamed Alan Moore for how great those first two TPBs were, giving the artwork second fiddle. I think I’d like to retract that statement now. It really was the art in Top 10 that made the comic, it was absolutely fantastic, and the writing was only just a cut above passable, balancing out somehow into a really great comic for me. Smax, on the other hand, had a very different artistic style. A lot more cartoony and, unfortunately, without all the crazy detail in every panel that really endeared me to Top 10. Don’t get me wrong, the art was totally good, and interesting, just not as interesting as Top 10.

It was also pretty different in terms of scope and scale, setting, everything, really. The character of Smax had always seemed so cynical in the first comic, just a loner, without any real social skills, but I guess he just never seemed dumb to me, and they really made him out to be a bit daft in this comic. Although maybe he wasn’t, and just had friends (relatives, really) who made him out to be. Either way, I didn’t particularly like that direction.

My only other quibble was the incest factor. For those who haven’t read the comic, I’ll try not to spoil it for you, but incest is suddenly acceptable by the end of the comic. I think it’s an interesting question, the concept of whether, maybe, in a fairy tale universe with different rules and all that, maybe incest would be acceptable. But in this comic, it was really just a minor sub-plot. I don’t really feel like the comic sold us on that concept. So it just ended up feeling jarring. Maybe that was the point, but in an otherwise pretty fluff-filled, humorous comic about a dragon slaying, it was a sub-plot that just felt out of place, and maybe didn’t need to be there. But then again, I’m not Alan Moore.

What with Wizard World last weekend (still writing an in-progress wrap-up about that), you might think we’re all a bit conned out, but it turns out a glimpse of the panel list for this weekend’s impending 10th anniversary of Convergence science fiction convention has me all excited to get down to that hotel! There’s even a panel at 8pm tonight titled “Censorship in Comics – The Past and Future”, that features, among other folks, Mark Evanier (of Groo fame!), and Bernie Wrightson.

Our very own Jason will be appearing in the “GLBT SF&F that Everyone Should Read” panel that starts at 9:30 pm TONIGHT.

The full list of special guests this year is especially impressive. Other comic book panelists include John Kovalic, Len Wein, Greg Weisman and Marv Wolfman.

I guess Wizard World wasn’t as good for ReadComics.org posting as I’d imagined. I did read a ton of comics in the last three days, including The Filth, written by Grant Morrison, which I finished yesterday in the car ride home.

The Filth is as interesting as it is incomprehensible. I’d probably have to read this again to fully understand it. I was left wondering, at the end, whether a second read would clue me in to what had actually happened. Did 9th gear take you into another dimension, or just shrink you to the level of germs? Was “the Hand” actually Slade’s hand? Was any of that stuff even real? (And these are the “easy” questions.)

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the book (for me) was speculation about whether the end, in which microscopic man-made creatures (with the ability to cure cancer) take over the world, was optimistic, or pessimistic. They were set to turn everything into a land of flowers and happiness… is that a good thing?

This book felt a bit like a pornographic daydream, perhaps something I would have imagined in my teenage years. (Forcing the president to get breast implants and dance for his crack pipe? Sick and brilliant.) I probably wouldn’t recommend it unless you: a) love Grant Morrison so much that you’re wiling to invest some heavy time into reading and re-reading for full understanding, or b) you’re just in it for the journey, and not going to care that large swaths of pages seem entirely pointless by the end of the book.

This was a bunch of different stories in the Fables universe, all tied together by their narrator, Snow White. The art is pretty, but with the exception of Snow White’s first story, about her learning to sword-fight, I didn’t much care for the stories themselves. They were mostly just fairy-tales changed subtly to fit into what I presume to be the Fables universe. (This is only the first Fables story that I’ve read.)

Conceptually, I would think that the universe of Fables would be one I’d be interested in, but it turns out I’m not actually all that excited about re-imagining fairy tales. I think it was for this reason, more than any other, that I was disappointed with this book. The art was good, the writing didn’t cause any problems or anything. It just didn’t captivate me like it should have.

The most appealing story was that of Snow White, who asked Prince (now king) Charming to teach her to fence so she could track down the seven dwarves and kill them. (Presumably for things they did to her while she was asleep?) Florence tells me that the regular Fables issues don’t actually re-imagine fairy tales, so maybe I’ll still give it a chance, but this particular collection just didn’t do it for me.

This was initially going to be a review of the new No Hero Issue 0, written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Juan Jose Ryp, but then I started thinking about the similarities between this title and Black Summer, which was done by the same creative team.

Aside from the art, which is quite interesting in both projects, I think the biggest reason for this observation of similarity is that these are both comics about people who gain superhuman powers in our generation, in our time. They are set in our universe, and they are essentially near-future science fiction superhero comics. There is no magic, no mythological talismans of great power, and no “black box” plot devices. This is the kind of science fiction that I really go in for. It’s also the kind of science fiction that, unless it’s done really well, often dates itself, and thus has a relatively short shelf-life.

In a way, Black Summer already dated itself by using the president’s name (I think) right away in issue 0. No Hero dates itself by using actual dates in this issue, which more or less just sets up the story. I guess that also makes it alternate history. We’ll see in 2011 whether its still readable after the main part of the story would have already happened. That makes three genres in these comics: superhero, near-future science fiction, and alternate history.

Warren Ellis is also writing Freak Angels, which I believe to be one of the most interesting web comics I’ve ever read. It could also get thrown in with these as another near-future science fiction, although it involves telepathy (and probably telekinesis) which in my mind at least makes it more fantasy than science fiction. In Black Summer it’s technology that gives the super-heroes their meta-human abilities. In No Hero it’s chemistry and drug use. We don’t really know what gives the Freak Angels their abilities. It hasn’t yet been explained.

As a side-note, I should get to meet Warren Ellis later today at Wizard World.

Anyway, I love these gritty (bloody) near futures that Warren Ellis is creating for us. I’ve been waiting to write about Black Summer until the last issue comes out, but its been one that just keeps getting better with each issue (and it started out pretty damn spectacular). I can’t wait for the conclusion of Black Summer, and I’ll definitely be looking forward to reading all of No Hero as it comes out.

I absolutely loved these graphic novels, based on the first two Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. I can see why they chose to package these two together. The first ends in a cliffhanger, and the second more or less ties up all the loose ends created in the first. I can only assume this is consistent with the novels, because I’ve never read them.

I really liked this, and I may just have to read me some Terry Pratchett in the near future.

What you’ll find inside: Puns and humor galore, magical-sword wielding swashbuckling heroes who have their faults same as everyone (yet never seem to fail, because they are… well, heroes), dragons that appear when you believe in them, magic with new and interesting rules, and a world shaped like a giant disk perched upon the back of a giant turtle swimming through space… what’s not to like?

The art is well done and consistent almost all the way through. It felt like maybe there was a new artist somewhere in the middle of the second graphic novel, but I could be wrong. (It kept a similar style.) Initially I didn’t get into it all that much, but the farther along I got, the more I appreciated the art. I have no idea if this was my own appreciation growing, or the artistry itself.

I suppose I should mention that this collects The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic, which were initially created back in 1991 and 1992 respectively. (This particular edition is relatively new.)

Highly recommended.