Read Comics

I have been meaning to do this post for a while, ever since Florence posted the link to the list of the top women in comics of the last decade. Now in honor of my brand new niece! (congratulations Florence and Marty!) I present my favorite female comics characters.  I am not limiting myself to any decade, and am not going in any order of preference.

1) Grandma Ben, from Jeff Smith’s Bone

though her granddaughter Thorn is pretty special too, Grandma Ben is awesome, and unique.   When was the last time, any medium introduced, a female character with a Popeye-esque build, and gray hair, let alone one that could slay a dragon?   Grandma is tough as nails, a champion cow racer, and incredibly strong.   She is also a loving guardian for Thorn.   Grandma rules!

2) Death & Delirium, from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman

Sandman introduced some amazing female characters: Mazikeen, Nuala, and Titania among them. These two are my favorite. I don’t think I’m alone in finding the idea of death as a perky,  sensible, Mary Poppins quoting, goth chick, very comforting.  She is someone you’d want to hang out with, except you would have to die to do it.

As for Delirium, well I’m a sucker for the damaged, quirky, somewhat dangerous, yet fragile girls.   See also: River from Firefly, Drusilla from Buffy, Cassie from Skins, and Arkady from Freak Angels.   Del is the quintessential example of this kind of character, since she is the physical embodiment of insanity.  She is so vulnerable, that your heart aches for her.  She can also be charmingly innocent, and then turn on a dime and be scarily prescient. I love her, that is all.

3) All of the women of Strangers in Paradise, form Terry Moore’s Strangers In Paradise

While Katchoo and Francine are the female leads, every last character with two x chromosomes (and the ones with a y as well) is an completely fleshed out person.  From shallow bimbo Casey (who some how evolved over the course of the series into one of the most lovable characters), to Francine’s overbearing mother, to Tambi, Katchoo’s  hard-ass mafia connected half sister, had nuances and depth, that made them entirely believable.  I can’t single any of them out, they are some of the best written women I have every read.  They are also some the best  (if not just the best) drawn as well.  None of them looked the same (except Tambi, and Bambi, who are twins and even they had their differences), and that is remarkable in an industry where so often an artist just has one, totally unrealistic female boy that they draw, and just changes out the clothes, face and hair, to differentiate them.  All the women in SIP have different, and very real looking bodies, as well as faces.  Something that Terry Moore has continued into his new series Echo.  Well done Terry!

4) Buffy Summers, from Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Okay, Buffy  is not a character that originated in comics, but this is a list of my favorite female characters, and Buffy Summers has to be on this list.   Because she is Buffy freaking Summers!  In the Buffy season eight comics, Joss and his team have continued the growth of the character, that started in the tv series.  She is still struggling with her place as a hero and leader as it evolves, without it feeling like a retread of what has already been done with the character.  And she has her flaws as well as strengths, that makes her feel like a real person.  I am so glad we got more Buffy, regardless of the medium, but I think she is a great addition to comics’ pantheon of heroes.

5) Elaine Belloc, from Mike Carey’s Lucifer

I nearly put Mazikeen onto this list, and if it was a list of great bad asses she would be on it, but it’sa list of my favorite, and while Mazikeen is close, I am going with Elaine.  Elaine started as a little girl trying to get Lucifer to help her get revenge for her dead friend Mona.  She ended the run as a powerful, deity, in contril of her own universe.  In a way Elaine became as much of a main character, as Lucifer.  Probably because Lucifer, as interesting as he is, is not very relatable.  Elaine on the other hand was both relatable, and infinitely likable.  She was a plucky and clever, girl who could both stand up, to and for the devil.

6) Molly O’Reilly, from John Ney Reiber’s Books of Magic

Though the Books of Magic, was created by Neil Gaiman, the majority of it’s run was written by John Ney Rieber, and he is the one who introduced Molly.  When he left the series, he took Molly with him.  Like Elaine, she is character, that came to rival her series’ main character, in popularity.  Once she feel in love with Tim Hunter, poor Molly did not have it easy.   She got kidnapped, by an obsessed, evil, future version Tim, and stranded in the hostile realm of Faerie.  All the way I was rooting for her, she managed to stick up for herself, and survive.  While I was convinced she and Tim, were soul mates, I was never prouder of her, than when she told him off for treating her badly, and cut ties for good.  I would love to see a return of Molly at some point.

7) Harley Quinn from various Batman comics

Like Buffy, Harley originated on tv, in the animated Batman series, and she was so popular, she was added into the official Batman continuity.  When you try to describe her, she comes across as a character I just should not like.  She is obsessed with the Joker, and is happy to let him walk all over her, and treat her like crap.   She has a very shaky moral center, and will probably betray her friends, if it will get her into the Joker’s good graces (she is getting a little better about that).  Yet I love her.  There is something that is so charming about her.  She makes me laugh any time she is involved in a story.  I like her best, when she is being written by her creator Paul Dini, as she is in the current Gotham City Sirens series.  It helps that in comics, we don’t hear her grating, over the top, (Brooklyn?) accent.

8) Gert Yorkes, from Brian K. Vaughan’s Runaways

Runaways is another series that has a lot of good female characters to choose from.  I love Gert for many reasons, one of them being that she is a teenage female comic character, that does not have a supermodel body (and she still got a hot boyfriend).  She also is smart, sardonic, and brave.  Plus she has purple hair and a pet dinosaur!

9) Agent 355, from Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man

This is the character that would top the list of all time bad asses (along with Mazikeen, Tambi, and Grandma Ben).  In a series that has just one male character, 355 is the standout female.  She is a tower of strength.  She does her job, no matter what.  Somehow Vaughn managed to show her more vulnerable side, without diminishing her toughness.

10) Jessica Jones, from Brian Micheal Bendis’ Alias and the Pulse

Jess started the series as a bit of a self destructive mess.  As the series progressed we got to see the very justifiable reasons for it, and also see her grow past it.  Now Jessica Jones, may not be the greatest super powered person in the Marvel universe, but she rivals Spider-man for me as the most human.

11) Babara Gordon, from Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey

Barbara has been part of the DC universe since the silver age, first as Batgirl, then as Oracle.  However it was Gail Simone’s run on Bird’s of Prey, that really sold me on the character.  After all, she is a hero for the simple reason that she is very very smart.  She is also a very capable fighter, despite not having the use of her legs, and a good mentor to younger female heroes.  Plus, she is a hot red head with glasses.

12) Kabuki, from David Mack’s Kabuki

Kabuki is an amazing comic, and Kabuk is herself is at the center of it.  She is a touch crazy, and for good reasons.  Watching her story evolve from a simple revenge tale, to an in depth examination of her damaged psyche, has been fascinating.  The art is gorgeous, as well.

13) Knives Chau, from Bryan Lee O Malley’s Scott Pilgrim

Of the three main girls in Scott Pilgrim, Ramona is still too much of an enigma, for me to relate to.  And Kim, is funny, but not given much to do.  Knives however, I get.  Probably way too well.  She is a teenager, who has fixated on an older guy, who just never actually cared about her that much.   Her flailing attempts to get him to notice her, and later to just be in his circle, seemed very authentic.  Besides, she can do kung fu, that is cool!

14) Lois, from Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For

There are countless, realisticly portrayed women, over the course of this twenty some year strip.  I chose Lois because, she seems like the one who’d be most fun to spend an afternoon with.  The rest have too many neroses, and issues, which makes them feel very real, but might make spending time with them a bit stressful.

Couldn’t find a picture of  Lois:(

15) Marlys, from Lynda Barry’s Ernie Pook’s Comeek

Marlys, is just the greatest!  She will tell you so herself.  She is also a wonderful spaz.  Totally upbeat, in the face of adversity, and creative to a fault.  She makes me happy.  And she is a hell of a dancer!

Okay, were there any glaring omissions?  Let me know.

Yet another fascinating and tantalizing podcastical tribute to comics! This book club issueissode focused on the awesome Echo, by veteran comic creator Terry Moore.

Marty, Florence, Mike, Jason and Susie wax your ears off with unquestionable eloquence, only straying satirically from the subject for brief but satisfying interludes. (We’re segue savants, so of course you probably won’t even notice.) This episode is best enjoyed in the company of a well trained room full of monkeys with typewriters.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #039 (27 MB, 58 minutes)

Comics read since last time:

Last Defenders 3-6
Teen Titans 13-15
Echo 1-6
Wolverine: Logan 1-3

The Last Defenders got a lot better as it went on. I liked how Nighthawk tried different line-ups until he found one that worked, even if it didn’t include him. I can see this continuing on as a series, with a team on the run from the authorities, kind of an A-Team, always one step ahead. It had a bit of a NextWave vibe to it, with a little bit of Exiles thrown in. It really feels like a prelude to something else, with Yandroth playing a bigger role down the road.

Going on with team books, I’m still catching up with the 2003 series of Teen Titans. We’re running up to Infinite Crisis in a couple of trades, which is where I started reading the series regularly. A few of the subplots allude to the upcoming events; the main story in this three-issue arc covers Gar Logan’s temporary cure of his green hue, but at the loss of his animal powers, of course. Entertaining, but to be honest, I was more interested in the asides with Wonder Girl, Superboy and Tim Drake (formerly Robin–this is where Spoiler took over, just prior to War Games). How do you stop being a super-hero? The Loners touched on this with Julie Power trying to give up being Lightspeed (something I’d like to see more of–someone should write a Power Pack All Grown Up comic–maybe I should!) I should look for the Robin issues that tie-in here.

Terry Moore’s foray into the super-hero genre is good so far, but he seems to be taking his sweet time in getting anywhere. I’m not sure I could handle reading these in single issues–it was much more satisfying as a trade, although only sort of, because after six issues, it seems like we still haven’t really gone anywhere. The crazy homeless guy seems a bit of a stereo-type.

Brian K Vaughan wrote a sweet Logan story here. It’s short, it’s beautifully illustrated, and fits in well with the Wolverine: Origins series, although not officially a part of that. While Wolverine is far too overused as a character (I wonder what would happen if there was a year-long hiatus of using this character), I’m enjoying these little chapters in his life. It’s reminding me a lot of what’s going on with Iron Fist, where we get a window into the past, and the stories are very self-contained.

Florence and I have decided to do reviews of new issues from our pull list as they come out each week. Beware of spoilers, as we’ll be discussing the comics in depth. So far, as you can see, we have a fairly lame and generic title. Let us know if you have any suggestions in the comments.

This week it was just two issues, the new Echo and Invincible. Enjoy.

Echo #7

Florence: Moore’s art has really developed over the years, especially on men, since I’m more used to him drawing women. I feel like he’s doing a good job creating more than one male face. I really like his style, but he does sort of tend to have one face for all women, even though he does woman’s body shapes in more variety, which I really appreciate. I’m most intrigued by the character of Ivy Raven right now. When we were first introduced to her, she was a very sweet and loving mother, and now she’s clearly very formidable. In one panel we see her anger, and it’s scary. It shows that no matter what level of calm she exhibits, she’s dangerous. The last panel of the comic was very difficult to decipher.

Martin: I agree about the last panel being confusing. I won’t describe it for fear of giving it away, but I probably couldn’t if I wanted to, since I have no idea what happened. The old guy on the cover was the only other person at the crash site where Julie got her metal breastplate. Obviously he’s got some of whatever she has stuck to his hand. We only see him for about half a page in the whole comic, which felt weird since he was so prominently featured before we opened the book. I do feel like this was consistent with the rest of the story telling in the series, but the pace seemed to slow down quite a bit here. Not as much happens in this issue, and I guess I was a little disappointed by that.

Florence: That’s really just in contrast to the pacing he’s set already with the other issues in this title. That’s not compared to any normal comic’s pacing. This one has just started big and kept going. He’s set us up to expect that from every issue.

Martin: That’s true, but I guess I did feel like there were unnecessary scenes in this comic. If it doesn’t turn out that there’s a reason for the missing dog, then her asking about it was only to further highlight the stupid pet monkey that’s chained outside their motel room. The monkey got way more panels than necessary, IMHO.

Invincible #54

Florence: It’s your turn to go first.

Martin: Ha! I’m the one typing, and it looks like you were wrong about that prediction! Seriously, WTF? Invincible has sucked for like 4 or 5 issues now. I don’t even remember the last time it was cool. What ever happened to stuff happening in this comic?

Florence: I have detected no deterioration. I think it’s nice that he’s dating Atom Eve. I could have done without the four page spread of their relationship. It seemed to be both past and present. Like a montage.

Martin: I was going to say that, damnit. It was totally a montage! Montages are lame in all their forms. Except when used to make fun of montages, like in Team America: World Police.

Florence: Really though, if this just disappeared and I got twice as many Walking Dead issues, I’d be fine.

Martin: Totally. I never thought it would get to this point. I used to love Invincible SO MUCH. I do have hope for the future though. Maybe someday they’ll get back to the plot line with that one-eyed alien, and Invincible’s dad…

Florence: Now that I think about it, I did really like the future stuff, the stuff with Immortal. It seemed like a plausible path for him.

Martin: I guess this was sort of like a one-off book. I think Kirkman should have written it as an Invincible spin-off with a different title. Maybe another Invincible Presents Atom Eve… No, that one actually had a cool story, and stuff happened in it. Maybe it should have been called Atom Eve loves Invincible.

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.

Topics for this issue: Batman’s Death (we know nothing about this), Secret Invasion (similarities between Black Canary and Mockingbird), Gambit’s accent, Indiana Jones, Spider Man Loves Mary Jane, Joss Whedon, Southland Tales, sex in comics (Cherry Poptart), Iron Man, Starfox, and which superhero gets the most play.

For this podcast we had Martin, Florence, Jason, Mike and Susie.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #006 (32 MB, 70 min)

Lot’s of stuff to write about! 1)Last christmas Florence, and Marty got me the first volume of Absolute Sandman.  It was awesome, the second volume is even better.  The Absolute line (yes the name does make it sound like a promotion for Vodka) from DC is basically a repackaging of some of their most acclaimed series, in oversized, beutifully designed hard covered books.  Usually the art is recolored, and the back of the book is jammed with extra content.  I usually don’t think it is worth buying a second copy of something if the story has not changed, and other Sandman I don’t think I will (although Kingdom Come is tempting).  With Sandman they have reprinted three tpbs, per volume.  Volume 2 contains the Seasons of Mists, a Game of You arcs, and most of the short stories from the Fables and Reflections collection.  Though volume 1 had some really great issues, this is the period in Sandman in my opinion where it came into it’s stride both with the story and the art.  SoM, is an epic that feels like an ancient myth that no one had transcribed yet.  Lucifer decides to quit being the adversary, kicks everyone out of Hell, leaves locking the door behind him.  He gives the key to Dream, whom he had previously vowed to destroy but now just hopes it will make his life a little difficult.  Which it does, as figures from many different pantheons (religious as well as comic book) arrive in the Dreaming seeking the deed to Hell.  Reading it again now, it is amazing how a few small interactions in these early issues set in motion the conclusion of the whole series.   At one time Season of Mists was my favorite arc, but now I feel a Game of You surpasses it.  It is a much smaller scale story than most of the other large arcs, and though Morpheus id in it, he is mostly periphery.  The main character is Barbie, who was a periphery character in the Dollhouse (collected in volume 1).  She had at one time had a very vivid dream life, in which she was a princess in a magic world of talking animals called the Land.  She has however stopped dreaming, and no longer remembers the Land.  In her absence the Land has started to die and is under the thrall of a monster called the Cuckoo.  Barbie does eventually return to the land and the it causes serous damage to the waking world.   The story could just be another “magic land ” like Oz, or Wonderland, but the conclusion id entirely originally.  The supporting cast Barbie’s neighbors: sweet transvestite, Wanda, lesbians Hazel and Foxglove, and the witch Thessaly (the only one to have any importance to the bigger story of Sandman), as well as the Land’s animals, giant dog creature Martin Tenbones, and Wilkinson a cynical rat wearing a trench-coat, are some of the most memorable in the whole series.  These are the stories that where the art  finally moves away from the typical horror comic style (overly lined faces, and colored in sickly purples and greens) .  Despite having some of the most horrific  scenes in the whole series, a man chained to rock in Hell having his chest repeatedly torn open, a pile of decapitated heads singing, the face torn from corpse nailed to wall happily chatting away with it’s wagging tongue.  It was well worth spending seventy dollars for this excellent new printing. 2) I also read echo number 1.  It is Terry Moore’s new creator owned comic.  It appears to be his take on super heroes.  Of course the heroine is one of his beautiful girls.  the first issue is a simple origin story.  Girl taking pictures in the dessert, inadvertently finds herself in the path of a explosion, gain a super powered suit.  That is all that has happened so far.  Except that we know that the owners of the suit seriously nasty, killing the previous wearer of the suit (hence the explosion) just to test it’s durability.  I know in few issues this is going to have completely sucked me in, and the story will be any thing but simple.  This is from the creator of Strangers in Paradise after all. 3) I have totally fallen in Love the album Super Secret from the band Ookla the Mok.  They are by far the geekiest band I have every encountered.  Nearly every high energy song song is a packed with references to comic books, old school science fiction, or alien abductions.  A sample of one of there lyrics from the song Theme from Super Skrull “He can turn one leg invisible, which is not all that practical. Unless you are quite gullible, you won’t get fooled by Super Skrull!”  My favorite song on  the album is called Stop Talking About Comic Books or I will Kill You, but the one I can not stop humming is Guggenheim Love.  The songs are not only catchy, they are hilarious. 4)  In a couple of hours i will head over to my local comic shop and pick up a months a worht of issues.  Including issues of, Buffy, Angel, Runaways, Fables,  Astro City, and the first issue of Serenity: Better Days!  Woo hoo!That is all.