Werewolves of Montpellier

Jason - most things
Fantagraphics Books - publisher

This is kind of a riff on The Sun Also Rises, yes?  Expats, emasculation, jewel thieves, detachment & dissatisfaction, werewolves – that’s all from Hemingway, no?

Jason’s coloring is absolutely glorious here.  I’m currently totally in love with artists who go really light on panel background details and really heavy on colors.  Like solid color backgrounds.  Like just about every back-in-the-day iconic panel you (I) can conjure & like what’s missing from just about everything on the stands today.  Jason (the one word name?  what the fuck?) runs it from vibrant to somber depending on mood and time of day & he quietly rocks the eight-panel page to the fullest. 

And those vacant eyes!  Like a doll’s eyes!  Aaeeiioouu! (That’s my creepy noise, in vowel order.)

Fantastic Four #588

Jonathan Hickman – writer
Nick Dragotta – arter
Paul Mounts – colorer
Rus Wooton – letterer (and producer?)
Alan Davis, Mark Farmer & Javier Rodriguez – coverers
Lauren Sankovitch – associate editor
Tom Brevoort – editor
Marvel Comics – publisher

How did I get here? I swear I used to like this. I swear this used to be good. (That was dick.) 

But no! This is wrong! This is false and cheap and kinda pretentious!

The death of the Human fucking Torch has less of an impact than that of Marla what’s-her-name? The Human fucking Torch is dead? So sloppy & unnecessary. 

Although how badass is Valeria Richards? That Kill Annihilus sequence is wicked cool. And part of me (the part of me that loves such movies as Dirty Dancing) thinks it’s totally boss that Doom shows up at the funeral.

But really?

And Spider-Man joins up now. I suppose that sorta makes sense and sorta works out considering their history together, but Spider-Man is irreverent and quippy and Human Torch is/was irreverent and quippy, so why bother?

But Spidey bums a buck from Franklin for a wiener and that’s cutesy and I’ll buy the next fucking issue.

Such a vagina.

Amazing Spider-Man #655

Dan Slott – writer
Marcos Martin – arter
Muntsa Vicente – colorer
Joe Caramagna – letterer
Ellie Pyle – assistant editor
Stephen Wacker – senior editor
Marvel Comics – publisher

I went into the shop this week intending to drop Amazing Spider-Man from my pull list for like the umpteenth time, but I’m a sucker for white covers, so cha-ching.

And if Slott keeps his scripting up to this standard, I’ll keep forking over the cash. I feel like we’ve endured years of creative teams struggling to regain the glory and glee of bygone ASM, to capture the tragedy & euphoria that made Spidey such a thrill for so long. All the gimmicks and branding, the forced dialogue and quips and alliterative editorial intrusions, they’ve been pretty painful.

But this one is simultaneously classic & fresh. I don’t feel browbeaten by formulaic Spidey schtick. Slott manages to give Marla’s death real emotional resonance by placing it the context of past failings in Peter-Man’s life. I guess that does sound a wee formulaic, but it’s restrained and basic and it works. I was a little worried when Petey asserts at the end of the issue, …Whenever I’m around, wherever I am…No one dies!, 'cause it’s, you know, a ludicrous statement, but then Slott offers a nice KBLAM on the next page, so pfff to me.

And the art is still the best part! I love Marcos Martin’s spindly lines and minimalist backgrounds, and his panel arrangements are often fantastic – JJJ in bed, JJJ over the coffin, the Spidey spiral. But Muntsa Vicente’s colors are the real delight here. They’re very clean and uncomplicated and sometimes stark, and that makes for great contrast and truly striking images.

So yeah, very solid mainstream superheroics.

The Bee’s Knees: I Bought These on February 16

Tiny Titans #37 

Art Baltazar – writer & artist

Franco – writer

Kristy Quinn – editor

DC Comics – publisher

Tiny Titans is the most huggable comic on the stands, month in and month out. You should read it whilst lying on the floor, belly down, feet up. Then you should giggle and clap and do little air kicks. I mean that’s how I do it & look how happy and successful I am.

So the Shazam fam comes to town, Psimon wants a costume, and the Pet Club practices sleepytime. Hugs! And kisses!

Deadpool MAX #5 

David Lapham – writer

Kyle Baker – artist

Clayton Cowles – letterer

Sebastian Girner – editor

Marvel Comics – publisher

It makes sense that Deadpool is such a popular character now, right? I mean he’s got the wit & charm of Spider-Man, the nigh invincibility of Superman, the combat prowess of Batman, and the tortured & fractured psyche of Wolverine. Right? Who gives a fuck, Lapham & Baker make him good.

So Wade Wilson (…and the alliterative name!) confronts some reverse Oedipusm from surrogate mamma Taskmaster. An eyeball gets whipped the fuck out of its socket! (funnily enough, when I checked on how to spell Oedipusm, turns out it’s not a word, but Oedipism is & it refers to self-inflicted enucleation, so I went with fake word Oedipusm, but how odd) And Bob is being set up! Weeee!

  Uncanny X-Force #5 

Rick Remender – writer

Esad Ribic – penciller

John Lucas – inker

Matt Wilson – colorer

Esad Ribic - coverer

Cory Petit – letterer

Jared K. Fletcher – designer

Jody Leheup – editor

Marvel Comics - publisher

*too many fucking entities contributed to the creation of this comic

I can’t believe I buy two monthlies starring Deadpool. And I really can’t believe they're probably the best two monthlies I buy from Marvel. That’s like the cool thing to say now, right? I can’t believe blah blah Deadpool blah blah? Whatever, I’m down.

So Fantomex was born in The World (which is different from, you know, the world) & the pronounly confused creator of said World wants to destroy said Fantomex. And Deadpool is no kid-killer, motherfucker! But the Deathlok Avengers are mommy-killers. So sad.

I Die at Midnight

This one from Kyle Baker is mostly pretty cute. I was only just recently turned on to Baker’s work when I saw his art on Deadpool MAX, and then I found this slender OGN squeezed into the stacks the other day.

Dialing in to the more rash & unreasonable hysterics of Y2K, Baker has Larry down some pills on New Year’s Eve to off himself after his girl Muriel ends their relationship. Only then Muriel changes her mind. So Larry literally will die at midnight.

Unless!

And then it’s a comedic chain of events as Larry desperately searches for an antidote. It reminds me of the little animated shorts they used to show before feature films – the last one I remember I think was the Roger Rabbit Tummy Trouble before Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

Baker’s got a delightful palette & his colors here are typically purdy. I dig the OOOGGLARRGHHH! panel. The character work is a little more digital-animationy than the recent stuff I’ve seen from him. I actually really like the words outside the panels, doesn’t clutter the page & makes the story flow nicely.

So yeah, this is cool. But on to the feature!

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again

I’ve avoided reading DK2 for years. I hate me for that. I’m sometimes (oftentimes) way too influenced by product reviews. And there’ve been lots of snarky responses to Frank Miller’s 2001ish sequel to his 1986 Dark Knight Returns. And I really like DKR, enough so that I’ve been operating under the preposterous presumption that a poor follow-up would irrevocably tarnish my impression of the original. And I’m really cheap.

So I didn’t buy it or read it for like 10 fucking years now, which is just so astronomically stupid, because I finally did both of those things and I fucking love it.

I mean I’m not big on smarts, but in my rinky dink mind, DK2 is so much more artistically bombastic and comically significant (you know, comically like in relation to comics, not comically like funny ha ha – that word probably doesn’t work that way) than its predecessor. But I guess people don’t like the writing or the arting? I dunno, I think Frank Miller & Lynn Varley are the bee’s knees & this is my favorite of their collaborations & poor Todd Klein did the letters but you don’t care about that, do you!

Yeah, me neither :)

But Miller’s frenetic lines and Varley’s kaleidoscope colors really are absolutely glorious, and more people should like them more than they do. Pfff.

And the script is way ambitious and grandiose to boot. Miller writes the bumpy return of superheros period, not just Bats. Supes gives the sex talk to his Amazonian/Kryptonian daughter (Never with Terrans. They're fragile.) Dick Grayson is fucking crazy. The president does not exist! And when Hawkman’s enraged son bashes in Luthor’s skull with a ball & chain, Bruce cheers,

Way to go, kid! That was great!

Barry balks, but Bruce says back to him, he says,

Get used to it, Barry. These youngsters play it rough. It’s a whole new ballgame.

Those are pretty prescient words considering the predominance of ultra-violence in comics lately. I’m not saying DK2 ushers in a new era of excess or anything like that, but it does at least acknowledge it & I do appreciate a moment as startling as Bruce gleefully basking in that sort of overkill, as an aged cape reborn in blood.

And I should’ve been there to appreciate it 10 fucking years ago!

Omega: The Unknown

The jacket copy on this one opines,

Beneath the quirky veneer of Omega the Unknown is a sensitive meditation on friendship and the emotional subtexts that make it an important asset to navigating the world on your own terms.

That blurb makes this book sound way more boring than it actually is. I don’t think that came out right. What I mean is, this book is not boring. But that blurb is. And this book would be boring, too, if it were just about the stuff that blurb says it is. But I don’t think it is.

There are a few exchanges & soliloquies about franchising that I think are closer to the core of the book. The most illuminating example comes in chapter seven, when Alex is wondering what the fuck is up with all the robots.

Fenton explains over several panels,

It's called 'Franchise Theory.' It's like the difference between White Castle and, you know, McDonald's, or Butterdog's. See, White Castle built all their restaurants themselves. They used to have the burger market locked up. Problem was, any failing restaurant dragged down the whole company. It's impossible to manage so many stores from a central office. When franchisers came along, they kicked White Castle's butt. Franchising means you get other people to build your outlets for you. They do all they [sic] work, they take the risk -- while you expand you [sic] brand all over the place.... See, the downside of franchising is quality control. You can't know what people are going to do with your brand, once you hand it over to them.

And Alex responds,

I have noticed that when people are quite hungry, they become less selective about what they eat.

I’m reading that as a nod toward mainstream comics & independent comics – it doesn’t work out perfectly, but I like the idea of it, and reading the book through that lens was fun for me, so fuck you.

With big publishers, you might to get watered-down superheroics, one character over ten titles, inconsistencies in quality. With indies, you might get less product less frequently, but you might also get a more passionate & unified vision. These are massive generalizations -- just because something's indie doesn't mean it's better, and just because something's mainstream doesn't mean it's worse. I mean, Marvel published this, and I kinda dig it.

The franchisers here are the big publishers, superheroes are their brand & White Castle is everything indie. Mink is the downside, the vulgar result of reckless franchising. Omega is the pensive intellectual, an island. Franchisers sacrifice heart & soul for quantity of output. Indies maybe alienate, what with their aloofness & reticence & often annoying arrogance, but at the same time tend to remain true to a more pure and stringent DIY creative code.

So I dunno if it’s there or not, but that’s how I read it. Sprinkle some Omega salt on your bland franchise burger, see how that fucker tastes.

Batman: Year 100

I meant to babble about this one back over the winter break when I first read it, but I never quite gathered my thoughts together. And I still haven’t. But I do really like the book. So here are some ungathered thoughts.

Pope’s art is just so interesting to look at – his characters’ faces look like mangled dough roughly pushed into place & I particularly dig the way he does lips, bee-stung, overfilled, fit to burst. The bat-fangs are way cool and the red-washed elevator scene is righteous & I think page 101 panel 1 (in the 2007 TPB), with Bats bunched into a ball rocking throwback boxing boots, is my favorite of the book.

I actually didn’t care so much for the script in the beginning, but that’s my fault – I wasted way too much time trying to figure out the timeline & not enough time rolling with the story. To pass the blame buck elsewhere, I feel like I’ve been programmed to place DC comics in continuity first, to appreciate them based on their ties to esoteric historia, and to enjoy them second. Those are the bitter words of someone not steeped head to toe in the minutia of DC lore, but whatever.

So then I relaxed about the who’s who and settled into the story. Pope boils Bats’ identity down to basics, and by the end, I didn’t care whether it was a Bruce or a babchi behind the cowl.