Read Comics

This isn’t really a review of a 24 year old comic, it’s more of a reminiscence. New Mutants #21 was the first issue of New Mutants I ever read, and possibly the first Marvel comic that got added to my collection. I was 13, and living in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Prior to that, I was mostly a DC reader, and really didn’t know anything about Marvel other than random Spider-Man comics that I’d read at the barber shop. It was the cover that drew me in for this issue of New Mutants. I didn’t know who the characters were, and I didn’t even really know the X-Men at that point. Not even Wolverine.

I bought the comic and started reading it. There were all these new characters who were about my age, and they had powers. The girls were having a slumber party, and the boys had been to a ball game. It was set at some boarding school, and there were a bunch of other characters who I also didn’t know. There were references to past events that I had no idea about, like Dani being in a wheelchair.  And then the weird stuff really started happening.  Some really strange looking black and white alien robot shows up and starts acting like a vampire, draining the life from organic things.  The blond girl materializes a sword and armor and pops in and out of holes that appear in the air.  One of the girls turns into lava and another turns into a wolf.  And there was a dragon!  And I loved it.  I couldn’t wait to read the next issue and then go back and find the back issues.  I think I ended up getting a package containing the first 20 issues for Christmas that year.  I had no idea who these people were or what was going on, but that just excited me to find out more.  It was expected that I would catch on by jumping into the deep end of this book, even though I was only 13.

There is no way this comic could make it out the door today. There is no synopsis page telling the “story so far”.  It’s not a “jumping on point.”  I guess my point is this: give people, and specifically kids more credit and don’t worry so much about comics being accessible to new readers.  If the stories are good, if they’re well-written, if they’re compelling, if the characters are intriguing, readers will yearn to learn more.  You don’t have to give it all to them on the first page.  When I bought New Mutants #21, there were no trade paperbacks collecting the issues virtually as fast as they came out.  There was no wikipedia to look things up on.  I suppose you could argue that there were message boards in the form of a BBS, but not the way there is today.  There was virtually no way for me to find out who these characters were aside from learning more about them each month, and seeing if I could find the back issues someplace.  But I didn’t care!  I loved learning about them bit by bit, and filling in the missing puzzle pieces where I could.

At some point, the comics industry lost sight of this, and it seems like they now feel that the only way to sell people on comics is to make sure no one ever gets lost, no one feels like they won’t know what’s going on from the beginning.  I constantly hear people complain about continuity, and how it’s impossible to know what’s going on unless you’ve read 20 years of this or that comic.  I’d say that’s only true if the writer isn’t doing their job, and by that, I don’t mean filling the reader in on 20 years of continuity.  I mean the writer isn’t telling a good story in that issue which makes the reader more interested in finding out more about who all these characters are and their histories.  It’s so easy to find that out today, too.  It’s practically impossible to find a comic character that doesn’t have their own page someplace on the Internet.  A friend recently linked me to a website devoted to international super-heroes (he loves the Phillipino ones).  Everything you need to know to follow along with Final Crisis, or Secret Invasion, or even the latest happenings in Duckburg is all there.  Maybe along the way, we as readers got a bit lazy too, after having everything spoonfed to us.

If anything comes of this mild rant, I hope that people will go and find a random comic on the shelf, doesn’t matter what issue number and give it a chance.  Find one where you like the cover, where something speaks to you, and pick it up and read it.  Even though you’ve never heard of these characters, even though you don’t know everything that’s happened to them.  Read it.  And hopefully you’ll feel what I felt reading New Mutants #21 when I was 13.

Those of us who watched Farscape when it was on (1999-2003) know that it was a beautifully shot science fiction show with a staggeringly hot cast of complex female characters spanning many alien species.  The hottest was Chiana, a gray alien exiled from her native culture for her rebellious ways and added to the crew in the middle of the first season, becoming one of the main characters and staying on through the final episode and miniseries.  Spazzy fangirl that I am, when I met the actress who played Chiana, Gigi Edgley, at a wedding/ unicycle competition in Minnesota yesterday, I gawked and grinned, texted Susie, and basked in her stardom.  The rest of the crowd got word that she was a famous actress, but no one else seemed to have a clue about the specifics.

A mutual friend introduced us to Gigi at the wedding, and she was incredibly nice and gracious about fan attention.  She is still doing a lot of appearances at conventions, and has also been branching out into projects of her own.  She is launching a comic titled Blue Shift.  Here is more info from her press release:

What’s Blue Shift?
BLUE SHIFT is a brand new Science Fiction Adventure comic series by Gigi Edgley, an Australian actress best known for her role as “Chiana” on the hit TV series FARSCAPE, and Brian Meredith, a comic book writer of such titles as Sprecken and Lucifer Fawkes and Co-Founder of the Emerald City ComiCon. The artwork for this series is by Sidney Lima, the artist for Zorro by Papercutz.

What’s It About?
BLUE SHIFT is the tale of a young woman named Pepper Jones [pictured above], who is abducted and experimented upon by an alien race that capture and sell humans (and other less advanced races) as slave labor for other aliens.

However, before these malevolent aliens can finish modifying her for hard labor and blind obedience, the unthinkable happens: Pepper fights back! With the help of another captive, she manages to escape their vile clutches, something that has never happened before.

Now, with her new companion at her side, Pepper finds herself traveling among the stars as she makes a new life for herself.

When Is It Coming Out?
BLUE SHIFT is scheduled to be released as a 3-issue miniseries in the summer of 2008. It is currently being produced by Rorschach Entertainment, which has put together a Blue Shift Preview Ashcan that contains the original 10-page story that started it all. This book is available for purchase online.

Buy The Blue Shift Preview Ashcan Here!! [currently out of stock]

More info can be found at the Blue Shift website.

Narcopolis was absolutely phenomenal.

This four-part miniseries was essentially about a future in which one city, (or citystate, we don’t really know how big it is), has colonized the world. This is meant in the historical “exploiting the indigenous cultures” sort of way, except that, as far as we can tell, the entire rest of the world is part of the exploited culture. But all we really see of it are a few African tribes getting blown to smithereens, so I guess that part isn’t especially explicit.

Anyway, you don’t really know whether the main character, named Gray Neighbor, is a freedom fighter, or just one lucky bastard who manages to escape the fascist state a few times, and ends up ultimately in training for the police force.

The first thing that really stood out for me about Narcopolis was the dialog. Anyone who has read George Orwell’s 1984 will probably be reminded of newspeak. As with reading 1984 for the first time, I felt the language really set the book apart from standard fiction (in this case comic book fiction), and really just sounded and felt totally different from what I’d consider to be every day conversational English. You could also tell that writer Jamie Delano really put a lot of thought and effort into the dialog, mostly because it never felt forced or unrealistic.

The parallels to 1984 don’t stop at the dialogue. There are all kinds of elements of the police state at play here, but I don’t want to say too much about plot, because the sense of discovery is part of the attraction of this comic, or it was for me anyway.

The art in Narcopolis is also pretty spectacular. Jeremy Rock appears to have a pretty publishing limited history, (especially when compared to Jamie Delano), but he more than holds his own by giving us a vivid glimpse into this distopia. I should probably mention that there is quite a bit of nudity in this comic, and it’s not for children both visually and thematically.

In short, Narcopolis absolutely blew me away. I am so far behind in reading stuff that the first three issues of this had sat unread on my shelves until this week when issue #4 came out and I resolved to read them all forthwith. Mostly I just wanted to make sure I’d read them before any more issues came out and I would then have had to decide whether to buy another issue of something I hadn’t yet read. Turns out, issue #4 was actually the last in the series, so I needn’t have worried. But I’m glad I did, because it gave me the push I needed to finally read these, and damn was it worth it!

The first issue of the next Northlanders arc came out today, and I decided not to get it.

As those of you who have been paying attention will already know, we chose Northlanders for our very first Comic Book Book Club. This was several months ago now, and just after the sixth issue of Northlanders had been released. I had somehow neglected to add Northlanders to our pull list, so it wasn’t until today that I finally had issues #7 and #8 to finish up the story.

Read on for a spoiler-filled analysis of the series so far, and especially the last two issues of the first story arc. (more…)

Unfortunately, I have to say, the jury is still out on Casey Blue for me.

Issue #4 came out last week, and before last night I had basically been collecting these without reading them. I liked the art, and had been hooked by the first couple of pages of the first issue (labeled “Now”) where it’s revealed that Casey is watching her own funeral. Then we jump presumably before the funeral (for a single page labeled “Then”), and then jump again to the main story line where Casey is a normal high school girl who plays volleyball. (This story line is labeled “In-Between”.)

Interesting enough premise, but in four issues, we have yet to return to that “present day” when Casey watches her funeral. We’ve figured out a bunch about who she is and why she’s a violent killer, although most of that is hearsay from a woman who tells her to “trust her instincts”. Let it suffice to say that we still really don’t know what’s going on.

At first after reading them, I was happy with these purchases, but in retrospect, while I was totally engrossed, not enough is actually happening, and I think my satisfaction with Issue #5 may determine whether I drop the series from my pull list.

I loved this issue for a lot of different reasons.

But an Einstein quote printed in the inside of the front cover has been making me think about it for days:

“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” –Albert Einstein

The first time I was reminded of it, I was totally confused. I’m in the process of reading the novel Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross, and all of a sudden the quote is utterly relevant, and I start paging through the book looking for it. I didn’t remember at first that it had been from this entirely unrelated source.

Then later I was thinking about the first Fear Agent TPB that got me all in such a tizzy last week, (I do, finally, have TPB 2 & 3 waiting for me to read them) and I realized the quote is relevant there also, although it’s a bit more of a stretch. Maybe this is just the month for time travel and death in hard science fiction for me. But surprising that it would come from Echo, which, as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with time travel (thus far) whatsoever!

Other reasons that I loved this issue: The pacing has really picked up. Things are happening fast. Also, the characters! Such interesting and varied characters have appeared that I immediately want to know their backgrounds and stories. Almost badly enough to permit time taken away from the incredibly fascinating story that is unfolding. In general, this issue is more of the same, and by that I mean REALLY REALLY GOOD. I know I tried to read Strangers in Paradise at some point long, long ago. That was well before I’d read many comics, and I just didn’t get into it. Echo is so good that it makes me want to try again.

I have finally finished reading Space Circus, written by Mark Evanier and drawn by Sergio Aragonés. I’ve been writing this post for almost as long as I’ve been reading it. (Like a week or so.) Unfortunately, the comic was just okay. The art was (mostly) fantastic, and there were fun little things to look at in the background of the panels on almost every page. (My biggest qualm with the art, and this is pretty nitpicking, was that Aragonés, like most artists, has no idea how to draw people juggling. Generally the objects either just get scattered in the air above someone’s head, or they get drawn in a giant circle or arc from one hand to the other. I’m a juggler, so this bothers me.) Anyway the story was pretty mundane, in spite of its rich and enjoyable premise: basically about a boy who accidentally stumbles onto the Space Circus space ship while they’re making repairs on earth after having been set upon by space pirates, and the hilarity that ensues. Except, unfortunately, there is less hilarity than expected, or desired.

But I did manage to enjoy this anyway, and along the way I wracked my brain for additional references to circuses in space. (I did some web searching too.) More space circuses after the jump. (more…)

El Gorgo by Mike McGee and Tamas Jakab

El Gorgo is published online in a standard 28-page (well, really 56, being a double digest and all) format, in PDF and Comic Book Archive formats.

And it’s…. well, I’ll be honest. I just don’t know what to make of it. Is it satire? Is it campy?

I think it’s both– it’s a campy satire about the amazing adventures of a super-ape/Mexican wrestler/millionaire/novelist time traveling superhero. Yes, really. It is that campy!

But it’s also fun! With references to H.P. Lovecraft to fill in for those needing a bit more “meat” to their storyline, there’s a definite sense of the “potluck storyline” going on here, with an almost ADD-like bouncing in place, time, and character focus. We have eldritch cults, big fancy celebrity events, a love interest, time travel, and, of course, dinosaurs.

How can you not love a Mexican wrestler in a throwdown with a Tyrannosaurus Rex?

Besides, I only need two more UPC codes before I can send in for my Deep Ones sea creatures (advertised in the back of this clever parody).

My only complaint? The PDF is laid out with 2 pages side by side, which makes it hard to read the text without scrolling both horizontally and vertically. This issue is resolved if you read it in the Comic Book Archive format.

Kill All Parents!, by Mark Andrew Smith, Marcelo Di Chiara, and Russ Lowery, published by Image.

I can’t tell if it’s a one-off or not, but this clever satire takes on the “standard superhero backstory #1: dead parents.” Featuring a set of superhero parodies you’ll easily recognize, this issue tackles not just the stereotypical backstory, but also the angst, anger, and anxiety of being a super-orphan.

The story itself is a little weak and feels like it was intended to be told in a 4-6 issue series that was then condensed down. But the artwork is very well done, and there are a few clever moments sprinkled throughout the issue. My favorite is the graveyard on Father’s Day, crowded with superheroes paying their respects to their absent dads.

The relationship between superheroes and their parents seems to need addressing in every comic series, whether it’s Superman’s adoption story, Batman’s orphaning, or the single parenting in Buffy. Although the superhero genre often reinforces the status quo, I wonder if it also portrays alternative families in a sympathetic way. Or, perhaps, it’s a reflection of the audience’s wishes and makeup.

I don’t know, but I did appreciate something poking a little fun and whimsy at the situation, and, even more, the way the superheroes respond to the revelation of the true author of their grief.

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.

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 picked up the new Bomb Queen (issue #3 of 6) last week, having been pretty well sucked in by the first two issues in the recent series, and I have to admit that I am sort of grudgingly liking it for reasons other than the T&A, (which is certainly present, and more realistically why I like it). Normally I don’t really enjoy when the bad guys are the focus of a story, but for some reason when you dress that bad guy up in next to nothing and make sure it gets ripped off of her every once in a while… well, lets just say it changes the tone quite a bit.

Bomb Queen is essentially a really hot female super-villian who runs her own town somewhere in middle america. Apparently the authorities (ie, federal and state government) are willing to let this one town be governed by a supervillian because… it’s good for profits or something. Essentially Bomb Queen has a puppet Mayor who does whatever she asks, and she creates zones of the city that are lawless, and where the police can’t actually charge you for committing a crime. It sounds horrific, and honestly is even more horrific in the comic (rape and pedophilia are both referenced relatively frequently, if not, thankfully, shown), but it’s all done in a relatively humorous style that glosses over the horror and focuses on the hyper-sexualized Bomb Queen herself.

To be honest, Bomb Queen is a completely guilty pleasure. So much so that I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I picked up the first four TPBs of Bomb Queen at Wizard World a few weekends ago. So after reading the latest individual issue, I went ahead and read the first TPB, Bomb Queen: Woman of Mass Destruction. In it, we are introduced to Bomb Queen, given a bit of back story, and then we get to the guts of the story where her reign is being threatened by a politician running for mayor against her puppet the incumbent. The whole thing is pretty ridiculous, and pretty much neither more or less than exactly what I expected. The TPB has some fun extras at the end of the book, including a B&W comic that all takes place from Bomb Queen’s cat’s perspective called Ashe’s Day Out.

Cthulhu Tales is exactly what fans of the Old Ones can expect from a comic dedicated to the Lovecraft mythos. It’s dark, creepy, a little funny, and it offers only glimpses into the eldritch horrors.

Cthulhu Tales 2 is told in three storylines, each written and drawn by different creators. “The Hiding Place,” by Steve Niles and Shane Oakly is the dark “reveal” story, culminating years of detective work, trying to prove that the mysterious Solomon King had, in fact, been a serial killer. The art is stark, almost noir, and is inked in black and white with only a yellow wash for highlighting, giving it that a very retro feel.

“Katrina,” written by Eric Calderon and drawn by Jon Schnepp, is a short bit with a post-Katrina cleanup crew of prison labor. One of the laborers finds a hand-written journal from the storm and reads it. As all lovers of Cthulhu tales know, one should never read mysterious hand-written journals. Ever.

The issue ends with “How to Get Ahead in the Occult,” by Christine Boylan, art by Chee. Here we have a wonderful college dorm room situation with a budding witch and her poetry-major roommate. This sweet coming of age story has it all– drunken frat parties, angst over growing up, jealousy, and of course Elder Gods from the Deep.

I can’t say unequivocally that I’ll pick up issue 1 or any future issues. I like the Cthulhu stories, but I can only take so many of them before my brain starts leaking out of my ears (and I start locking all the doors and windows in a futile attempt at escaping the horror…. oh, the horror! ahem). And one thing that always bugs me about Cthulhu: you don’t get the continuity of characters to bond with (unless you find protagonist sympathy with scaly monsters bent on eating the world). But I will say this was a great example of “hit ’em hard, hit ’em fast.” Each short story is about 8 pages long, so they get to the point, hit you with the punch, and get out of there like a band of mugging swamp things.

I went into the local comic book shop in Norwood, Massachusetts and said “teenaged superheroes.” After shoving copies of Runaways and a few other interesting series in my hands, one of the customers there suggested Omega: the Unknown by Jonathan Lethem, with art by Farel Dalrymple. I’m coming in at the second issue (2 of 10), so I feel a little bit like I’ve missed some Very Important Stuff (involving robots, trauma, and a hospital bed), but I caught the gist of it about halfway through.

This poor geeky kid Alex, with the burns on his hands and the trauma in his face is having his whole life tossed upside down. Robots fight in the street outside his new home, and there’s this weird dressed-in-cape “blue guy” who keeps hovering nearby (and getting the snot kicked out of him, I might add).

Meanwhile, the local superhero legend The Mink is so full of his own celebrity, it’s impossible not to detest him a little. As soon as he starts pounding on mute guy, of course, we really hate him.

Our mute hero (who may or may not be Omega– it’s unknown!) reminds me of a borderline autistic adult. In addition to the muteness, he seems overall not to connect with other people, and he behaves in those strange ways that I recognize in folks in the spectrum. And yet, he does not seem to be a robot– after all, there are robots in this episode, and he’s not like them. He’s drawn intelligently– there’s no doubt he can put up a fight, but he is helpless in the realm of interacting with people. I like my comics to teach me something about being human, and this hero does that by the nature of his outsidedness.

In summary: robots. Autistic superheroes. Jerks we can’t stand. A very confused and traumatized teen. I realize the series is over (ha! I don’t have to wait!) and will be collected and published this October. I think I’ll go along for that ride.

I just got back from seeing Hellboy: the Golden Army.  I had been planning to see it because I had liked (but not loved) the first one and because director Gulliermo Del Toro had truly impressed me with Pan’s Labyrinth.  But of the summer movies I had put on my to see list (such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Iron Man, Wall-E, Hancock, and Dark Knight) I was not anticipating it the way I was some of the others.  Which is why I was so pleasantly surprised to have loved it.  I mean really loved it!  I mean gasping with shock, laughing hysterically, wishing for a pause button to get a look at all the cool creatures stuffed in a scene, and bouncing giddily waiting for whatever it threw at me, loved it!  It was so geared to my sensibilities, reminding me at times of Star Wars, the Princess Bride, the Muppets, Crouching Tiger, LOTR; that I don’t know if people who don’t share my tastes would love it as much.  In fact of the thirty or so other people in the theater only a man a few seats away from me (who happened to have a fidgety, but enthusiastic, six year old with him) was not just the only one laughing and ooing at the same places I was, but also the only one displaying any kind of reaction at all.  Perhaps it was just a subdued crowd, I certainly did not hear any one complaining or dissing the film on the way out, but nobody was praising it either.  I am sure it will not beat Hancock at the box office, which is sad in it’s own right because it is a far superior film.  I think it is more sad that most six year olds will be seeing Wall-E (which I did think was excellent) for the second or third time instead of Hellboy 2.  Because it was seeing similar movies at that tender age that had me grow up to be the kind of person who loves them at this  advanced and tender age.  I definitely recommend it, if only to gage what people who are not me thought of it.  Also I now am very glad that Del Toro has signed on to direct the Hobbit.  I am only sorry that Peter Jackson’s team did such a good job of establishing the look of Middle Earth, because I would have loved to see what Del Toro would have come up with from scratch.

I missed my chance to get her to sign anything for me, but I did catch a couple of starry-eyed glimpses of Gail Simone at Wizard World. I have genuinely enjoyed her writing in Birds of Prey, Secret Six, and most of all in Welcome to Tranquility, but I have to admit that my enthusiasm is even greater because she is a girl. I love that she is a force to be reckoned with in such a boy-centric industry, and the fact that she was articulate and charming on a Wonder Woman panel clinched my admiration.

I have never read Wonder Woman before, although (brace yourselves), I actually was Wonder Woman when I was ages 6-8. I had the underoos, and I could spin like nobody’s business. Needless to say, I was awesome. I could whip those powers back out anytime I want, I just choose to live the lazy life of an engineer. For now.

I have fond memories of the tv show, I love the character, but I’ve always been afraid to look at what the myriad of past writers and artists have done to her over the years. Since I heard that Gail was taking over the title this year, my interest has been peaked, but these quotes from the panel clinched it for me:

“Now [that Gail is writing it] I can show Wonder Woman to my 10 year old daughter.”- guy on panel

“When I was growing up, I thought the fairy tales I was told were bullshit. Then I discovered Wonder Woman; now there was a princess I could get behind.”- Gail Simone

That’s my princess, I recognized her when Gail spoke. She is tall and booby and gorgeous, yes, but she is also a warrior. Her rules are different than ours, she lives in truth and honor but she takes fighting very seriously, and she is good at it. After the panel, I scoured the many many booths and only found one with Gail’s WW issues on sale, which filled my head with rants about the zillions of crap titles everywhere and no respect for women customers, but they did have plenty of Buffy and Fables issues on display, so… I don’t know. The panel also made it sound like a low seller, despite the huge brand recognition.

When I got home, I devoured the comics I had found (issues 14-20), and came across another wonderful quote; “Avoid fights when possible, but if you have to fight, fight to win.” This is a Diana who can tame genetically-modified warrior apes through a show of respect and regal authority, but who admittedly gets off on fighting. It is her thing, what she was raised for. I know that I’ve denounced graphic dumbass violence in comics before, but when she does it, I want to clap my hands with glee. Don’t get me wrong, there is way more in this arc than fighting, there is also the introduction of amazon courting rituals, which is hilarious and intriguing. When the boy in question comes out of his daze at being chosen, he manages to ask “Wait, if these are Amazon courting rituals, can they be applied to a man?” Diana replies, “We’ll have to muddle through.” Badass fighting, witty dialogue, and an allusion to ancient lesbian mating rituals all in one comic? How could I not be charmed?!

*Disclaimer- all quotes are probably wildly inaccurate.

While we were at Wizard World, we saw Warren Ellis speak at his ‘late night Q&A’ as the guest of honor for the convention. My first exposure to him was through the Authority years ago. I really liked it, but it wasn’t until Marty started reading his work that I began to encounter to more and more Ellis comics piling up in our household. I’ve liked some, and loathed others (Gravel just struck me as uninspired violence).

I may have heard the name before, but until Wizard hadn’t put any thought into Ellis’s Planetary book. At the Q&A, a drunken young man in the audience repeatedly begged for discussion of Planetary. He was rebuffed first by Ellis at the beginning of the evening, and then again later, when he had drunk enough whiskey to match the boy’s blood alcohol levels. I was not won over by Ellis’s persona, which was grandiose and rude in a very cultivated manner. The most amusing portions of the evening included imitations of other famous people and their craziness (name-dropping included Alan Moore, Patrick Stewart, and Tom Baker, it’s possible that only certain geeky audiences would be star-struck by this line-up, but it was hilarious). Other portions included an excruciating reading from his novel with open glee at the squirming he caused in the audience with his endless descriptions of godzilla bukake and testicles forceably engorged with salt water. I really don’t recommend indiscriminate reading of everything he puts to paper, especially since he brags that he has bullied every editor in the industry with into submission and no longer has any limits on what he wishes to publish.

On the subject of Planetary, Ellis would only say that he has written a new issue, and he expects Cassaday to create the art sometime before 2009. I think. Other than that, he said that he was totally burned out after an interview on the subject earlier that day. At the time, I couldn’t have cared less, but now that I have devoured the first 3 trade paperbacks (purchased by Marty at the convention), plus a Planetary/Authority/Trinity crossover, I have joined the ranks of fans waiting impatiently for more. There seem to be enough single issues to warrant another trade soon, but the pace has slowed, and Ellis does not have a good track record for sticking with a particular title once his initial creative outlet has been fulfilled, and he wants to continue with Cassaday, who is booked with other projects these days.

Planetary is perfect for those who love the Authority comics. It takes place in the same universe, and follows the Planetary organization, which includes long-lived super-powered people of questionable reputations and lofty goals, but this lot prefers to stay in the shadows rather than using their powers openly. The first trade was interesting, but it seemed to follow more of an episodic rhythm with stand-alone mysteries being investigated by the three Planetary field agents. The second TPB starts to thread things together, introducing a Big Bad and hinting at future answers. Then all of a sudden, a big answer is revealed and things really start moving fast. I was giddy at having so much to read at once, and so much satisfaction at the way the story progressed. I have a few more issues to look forward to (preferably after the trade comes out, if I can wait that long), but then I will be bereft and begging with Ellis’s other fans. And having met him, I expect no mercy.

Last weekend I was at Wizard World in Chicago and was going through the $0.25 comics bins (if you shop at a convention, wait until the last day – everything’s cheaper) and found this little gem from 1999. Just the cover alone was worth the quarter. While I’m a big fan of Henry Pym and have great affection for both him and the Wasp, he may be the lamest comic book hero Marvel has; you can’t help but not take him seriously. He’s the Aquaman of the Marvel Universe. So a Christmas book starring him and the winsome Wasp seemed funny. I was sure, however, that inside would be full of heart warming Christmas cheer as they taught lessons of peace, love, and good will toward ants. I was completely surprised by what I found.

Forget about any sappy Christmas stories we’ve come to expect with our usual holiday fare. Hank and Jan have possibly the most unhealthy relationship in comics, and while this story takes full advantage of this fact, there’s none of the melodrama that’s usually associated with these two. This comic brings the fun to dysfunctional. It starts out with the two arguing about who’s family to spend Christmas with, as they both despise the other’s families for petty reasons. Captain America intervenes like the Ghost of Christmas Responsibility, affixes them with disappointing stare #16, and sends them on a mission to bring Christmas cheer to a lonely boy who’s family can’t get along. It’s the Make A Wish program for kids who don’t need it. They discover that the kid is a spoiled brat who simply can’t put up with his families eccentricities. You can smell the sap coming a mile away with a complete set up for the two Avenging lovers to teach the kid about the importance of family during the holidays while learning the lesson themselves. Mercifully, there’s none of that. Instead, the two agree to teach the kid’s family a lesson by shrinking them down to ant size by surprise and torturing them into agreeing to never come back for Christmas again. And some of the tortures they come up with are quite inspired. The great aunt’s fussiness and habit of smoking a cigar and wearing too much perfume is combated by trapping her in a canister with a rotten orange, a fish’s head, and dog shit. The uncle with a fetish for the kid’s mom’s underwear is shrunk down, taped to the inside of a bra, and flung across the room. The cousin who brings unwanted guests and the uncle who’s only sin is telling tall tales about himself are trapped at ant size with a box full of beetles. And the cousins that bully the kid are set up for potentially permanent injury when a load of automobile tires are set up to fall on them, then they’re tied up, their crotches doused with sugar water, and ants are sent to swarm them and bite them. All while the kid video tapes the incident. Throughout all this, Ant Man and the Wasp are gleefully taking part and helping along, showing little responsibilities as adults. And these are supposed to be the good guys? I think that they use some of these methods in Guantanamo Bay. Hey, heroes, guess what – this is how Dr. Octopus and Mr. Sinister spend Christmas as well. Captain America would have to give you at least TWO disappointing stares if he knew about this.

Along the way, Ant Man is accused of being a pedophile, they nearly get eaten at ant size when trying to steal some of a families dinner, and there’s background talk about suicide. All your typical holiday cheer. If I paid the full $5.95 cover price for this, I’d be pretty pissed as the story really is pretty lame and silly, but for a quarter, it’s a fabulously ridiculous story that throws the Christmas genre out the window and stomps it into the dirty snow. It’s a great read.

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.

Along with many of the comics I’m collecting now in individual issues, this one has just sat on the shelf awaiting my inevitable catch-up reading. I don’t know why I chose them tonight, likely it was just because they were the near the top of the stack as issue #5 just came out.

After how good the first one was, I really dreaded reading the rest. You see, I don’t like thrillers. I don’t watch them in the theater, and I don’t read Stephen King. This story is solidly of the “thriller” variety, as my stomach gets all clenched up and knotted while reading it. But it didn’t have to be this way! There was a slim glimmer of hope after that first issue that the worst of it was behind us, and now we were just going to explore this neat old house and find out what it could do. But no. The guy who killed this family’s father is still out there, and there’s other freaky stuff happening besides.

Several of these issues end in cliffhangers (including #5), and even though I didn’t really want to keep reading, I did really have to know what happens. Wish I’d known this before I picked these up today, but apparently issue #6 ends the arc. I have some predictions about what’s going to happen, but I guess I don’t want to spoil it for you by talking too much about the plot.

I did just find out something pretty interesting that I didn’t know when I reviewed the first Locke & Key earlier this year: the author is one “Joe Hill”, a pseudonym used by Joseph Hillstrom King, the son of Stephen King. So this guy pretty much follows in his father’s footsteps, I guess. Apparently he’s already won some awards and had a book on the best seller list and everything.

Unfortunately, knowing that gives me some further expectations about where this story is going… or rather, what the story is not going to get into, and that is details about the supernatural events that take place in this book. I would absolutely love to be pleasantly surprised here, but we’ve got exactly one comic book issue to wrap up a pretty tangled story and conclude this thing. I have little hope that we’re going to find out why the house has a key that can take you anywhere you want, or what gives the youngest son the ability to turn himself into a ghost and float around as a spirit. Instead, we’ll wrap up the “serial killer kid traps the family and has everyone but the youngest son helpless in the basement” plot line, and we might get some details about the evil woman-spirit trapped in the well-house, but chances are good that there is going to be a lot left up to the imagination at the end of next issue.

Not to say that I have anything against imagination, but seriously, I read comics to experience other people’s imaginations, not as a launching ground for my own. And definitely not when it’s a horror comic. I’d just as soon not think about psychotic maniac killers, thankyouverymuch.

We sat down at one of our favorite local comic book shops, The Source Comics and Games to record this, the ninth ReadComics.org Podcast. Unfortunately, the many D&D players around us create quite the background din, but hopefully you can more or less understand us as we wax lethargic about the first six issues of Northlanders, written by Brian Wood.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #009 (19.8 MB, 43 minutes)

I picked this up solely for the art. The characters have a very stylized and elongated look. Almost cartoonish, but too realistic to be lumped into that category. The issue starts (and almost ends) with a scene where a minister visiting a house where a daughter is experiencing the stigmata, and she has visions, visions of a boy who is getting wings. The main story is about the boy, whose name is “Warren Worthington the Third”, and he’s clearly going to sprout wings any day now. That’s about all I can say, because that’s about all that happens. There is a disturbing end to this otherwise fairly innocuous comic. There are also lots of religious overtones. The story is clearly incorporating elements from the christian mythos.

So far: Interesting. I’m reserving judgment until I’ve had a chance to read more, but I do really like the art. I’m not terribly familiar with the x-men character, but this is a re-telling of his origin.

Don’t forget, the Read Comics Book Club will be meeting this coming Wednesday, 11 June 2008, at 7:30pm. We’ll have a table in the back of the Source, near the soda machine, and we’ll be discussing Brian Wood’s Northlanders #1-6. We’ll also decide on the next discussion topic that day as well.

The Source Comics & Games
1601 West Larpenteur Ave
Falcon Heights, MN 55113
651-645-0386

We have no idea how many people to expect, so if you think you’re going to make it, please leave a comment below!

I just bought Part 4 of Drew Goddard’s ‘Wolves at the Gate’ arc of Buffy Season 8. Drew wrote for Buffy and Angel when they were on the air (he’s also a JJ. Abrams favorite, having written for Alias, Lost and Cloverfield). He has always demonstrated excellent pacing and wit in his writing, and I have been really impressed with his ability to transfer those skills over to the medium of comics. This issue completely sucked me in and then took me on the roller coaster that I expect in the Jossverse; weaving excitement, laughter, and wrenching heartbreak.  When it ended I felt drained and happy, hopeful and yet sure that soon, things would get much worse for these characters that I care about. Because it always gets worse, and yet it never feels depressing. The message has always been that the world can suck and there are no guarantees for a happy ending, but there are friends and there are moments of joy and connection, and that is the point. We keep fighting.

I just got home and looked on my shelf for something to read, and was shocked to discover the final issue of the latest Serenity miniseries untouched! I don’t know how this escaped me when it was bought, but with weekly and sometimes biweekly trips to the comic shop for our household, it must have gotten temporarily lost in the shuffle. In any case, I was thrilled to find it, especially because the chaos of moving in a few days would have undoubtedly sent it forever into an abyss of boxes and inadequate shelving.

Naturally I devoured the issue immediately, and was unsurprised to find it to be awesome. I don’t have much to add to my review of the first issue of this miniseries without spoiling anything new. The art is my favorite style, and the characters were so consistently true that the writing is easy to take for granted. Yay, Joss.

As some of our podcast listeners know, Jason would not be a fan of this arc of Welcome to Tranquility. It has zombies. It’s not trying to be original or modern or spectacular in its gore, this is just the next story to be told in this quaint all-American town full of superheroes, supervillains, and a sheriff who calls a demon a doodyhead.

Gail Simone revels in cliches, but manages to tell an original story stocked with characters who seem to have unique pasts and powers. Issue #7 starts with lingering looks into several characters’ daily lives. We visit the aging superheroine waking up in her ever-present bunny costume. An old man continuing a once-fierce battle with his neighboring nemesis, now reduced to bickering over the fence. The pan continues, dwelling on a cute goth boy, a drunk in a bar, a man tinkering with a beloved old car, and a singing undead Elvis-wannabe in a graveyard.

It felt like a chance to visit these people and review my memories of other stories I had heard about them. It’s hard to tell how many stories are from canon, and how many are from my own imagination, which seems to have allowed them to continue living since my last visit to town.

Giving away the general story arc wouldn’t really do this series justice. Its feels like old-fashioned story-telling with no higher purpose or message, but it really sucks me in and makes me care.

Mike bought the new Secret Invasion #2 this week, and I read his copy while we recorded the podcast tonight. Neither of us thought very much of it.

First of all, whoever drew the sentry’s butt in that first standoff page should be shot. There are other “bad butts” in the issue also, including Emma Frost’s and a very shadowy Wolverine. On the other hand, Sentry was drawn with quite a large “package”.

This is a big ‘ole review full of spoilers. Go get your copy of Secret Invasion #2, then come back here and finish reading this post.

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