Big and Little Things
Detective Comics #859
There’s a lot to like in this issue, most of which (I think) is the fault of Williams III. Most of these are small details: the simple motif of the ring in the first part of the flashback. It begins the issue as the pride of the navy, every fellow sailor exclaiming its beauty in jubilant glee (no one ever said this comic was subtle), in short: Kate as the favored. To compliment the favor, Williams III has the army dress when half naked moment, eroticizing the encounter for Kate (which, as we’ve already seen, has been a source of tension before in this book). Read the rest of this entry »
Reed Richards was yelling at me after my last post:
Dude was right. And so I’m back. I’d like to say it’s for good, but lord knows I can’t keep a blogger’s promise to save my wordpress account password, so, let’s just see where it goes. At the very least, I’m back into reading comics regularly. Could writing about them be far behind? Read the rest of this entry »
Inert, but Not Forgotten!
Wednesday Comics #4
It’s already been four issues, hasn’t it? It seems like just yesterday this title was bursting with promise, and now it’s trying to actualize it. It could use a check-in.
(More reviews below the jump)
I think I’m going to make this kind of a feature.
Each week, I’ll review a comic that came out which inspired thoughts. Sounds like a great deal for visiting a comic blog, right?
After Wednesday Comics’ for the most part stutter step which may or may not deserve more mention, I instead turn to the impeccable but impeachable
Captain America #601
Forum Rhetorical Strategies Before They Were Cool
For the forum comics reader lamenting the raping of one’s childhood (who would probably be very far away from this blog), I present Alex Toth, 1991, who lamented the dirth of entertainment’s moralities both before it was cool to link it with the apocalypse, and to also provide a reasonable framework for the apocalypse (logically, he gives it a couple generations for Shadowhawk to turn into the Anti-Christ), and while he does imply that comics need to be changed, he spends more time in lament than imperative, a slyer move when one’s target is an industry instead of its itinerants.
Oy.
If only he drew this manic condemnation in minimal black and white style, an inferno creeping up with background images of children reading about Speedy shooting heroin turning into vicious mosnters. For an artist at once concerned with both storytelling detail, innovatingly dropping backgrounds out of his frames to intensify moments and plopping details into a comic’s setting to slow it down, all while obsessively focused on the formal aspects (just read through any of his Zorro comics and look for the lighting source in each comic. Characters walk around a room, shadows remain fixed, and proportions are scrupulously maintained). Which is to say that he abandons all of these conventions besides the usage of no verbs to make his adjectives more exciting and powerful, ironically inverted to his common dropping of the background’s nouns to foreground a story’s verbs, in this small prose piece. He instead becomes the grumpy old man (whose work) we all know and love telling Howard Chaykin his comic skillz are terrible, and the gentle fan humbled that he even got an insult from the man.
Okay, my OTHER favorite type of superhero comic came out this week.
I have definitely been getting back into comics lately these days, but mostly it has been like me finding a good price of those spiderman/Carnage/Silver Surfer issues on ebay instead of ones that are interesting to blog about. An exciting situation carries an artist well versed in costume designs but little else, my review would glumly say before scans and scans of pure, Cosmic Carnage, and any detached, critical thought evaporates from my gleeful eyes.
This trend, however, changes with this week’s comics in a big way. May I introduce the best idea for a 12 issue comic event since Solo or maybe even Big Numbers:
Wednesday Comics #1
My absolutely favorite type of superhero comic came out this week,
and it’s pretty much the reason I still, more and more briefly these days, digest panels, and its related to the format’s work-for-hire aspects, a tremendously negative effect in every artistic way (“Now, who here wants to work without knowing who your collaborator is necessarily going to be, and you also better finish by the end of the month, m’kay?”, I imagine Jim Shooter announcing during annual Marvel recruiting sessions. The rest of the crowd shouts back, screaming, yes, gloriously yes, just let me draw Deathlok!). I speak not of the deadline crunching aspect (eww!), but the sheer creative industry involved in making comics. Out of the contemporary scene’s soup, an editor plucks enough creators available to draw this month’s issue of Batman, and the random fill-in guest star could astound. When Bill Sienkiewicz first drew an issue of New Mutants, or Frazer Irving drew a Civil War tie-in comic recalls finding a lost gem more than reading a storied classic. Read the rest of this entry »
Two Potshots from Mozzle, pt. 1 (of 2)
(note: scanner works: images in; post more comprehensible).
(note note: I never actually wrote the second part of this review. It involves Seaguy as a disappointing reenactment of Morrisonian themes, retreading the same ground as the first mini-series but in only occasionally fantastical light, stressing the unimportance of sequels and rehashing superhero concepts for a second time. Judging by the comic’s stolid approach to its once subversive themes, the irony indeed has escaped Mozzle)
Man, I’m so glad no one (that I read regularly) has reviewed this, yet. All my comments will read like pristine nuggets of wisdom and insight plucked from a wonderfully intricate puzzle piece that simply appeared as a straight forward super hero action story!
I’m sure tomorrow won’t be so kind, but, without further introduction, the return of ME (oh, and Batman, and, and the two headed comics-creating behemoth Quitely-Mozzle).
Batman and Robin #1
First off, what a cover! The minimalist background with the cheesy yellow cover, the placement of Batman and Robin stressing the difference in height and eagerness of the two (Damian’s stepping forward from batman, closer to the camera” and still so short, both tied together into a single image, a misshapen U, by their shared vehicle, the Batmobile. This is visually compelling work. I only wish it did not have the shoddy logo and creator names forming the U into a lumpy O, framing unimportant yellowness instead of its clever composition. Yadda yadda Quitely even gets lighting on shiny Kevlar and shiny car right, making the former a bright pulses, the latter a huge splatter.
Hey, here’s something pretty close to the ideal cover:
And onto content:
Azrael: Battle for the Cowl #1 is really, really amazing. It’s been a while since we’ve seen some Frazer Irving. March 08 had Gutsville #3 with full interiors, and July 08 saw X-Men: Divided We Stand #2 with a short penciled by him, but man I miss an entire story handled by Frazer, and it’s totally worth the wait.
Another Reason why Target is twenty times cooler than Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart got AC/DC and Guns and Roses exclusive selling rights: Target gets frickin Prince! And charges $12 for two CD’s worth of Prince stuff! Plus a bonus disc of his own protege stuff. I’m just going to have to fight back all urges to actually buy music there.
