Fantagraphics Books - publisher
Monday, February 28, 2011
Werewolves of Montpellier
Fantagraphics Books - publisher
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Fantastic Four #588
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
Amazing Spider-Man #655
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.
Monday, February 21, 2011
The Bee’s Knees: I Bought These on February 16
I Die at Midnight
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!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again
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!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Omega: The Unknown
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.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Batman: Year 100
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.