Happy Birthday To Me

Dearest mum from whose loins I sprung not quite done, you do not yet know it, but I totally fucking bought these awesome comics for me by you.  And by ‘you,’ I mean ‘your Amex card.’  Thanks for birth!

P.S. I’ll post about’em as I read’em.

The Arctic Marauder

Incredible Change-Bots

 

Egg Story

Powr Mastrs Volume 1

Prison Pit Book One

Jersey Gods Volume 2

Spider-Man: Fever

WinterWorld

Asterios Polyp

By David Mazzuchelli
Published by Pantheon Books, 2009

After several attempts embarrassingly aborted, I finally read Asterios Polyp!  And I feel nothing!

But if I had feelings, they would feel like these.

Thank you, Geoff Grogan, for being my surrogate feeler.

Vertigo Resurrected: Finals

Will Pfeifer – writer

Jill Thompson – arter

Rick Parker – letterer

Rick Taylor – colorer

Joan Hilty – editor

Vertigo/DC Comics – publisher

Huzzah for resurrection!

Finals was originally published as four single issues in 1999, though I hadn’t heard of it until it was re-released this week as a “100-page spectacular.”  It’s pretty killer. 

Jill Thompson’s art is cute & gonzo here. I like her delicate wispy line work, and I like how the odd angularity of her characters makes folks look creepy and deranged.  She draws really emotive faces, I like that, too.  And Taylor’s bright & poppy coloring contrasts delightfully with the often grisly & macabre plot.  I mean, the plot is funny & satirical, but there are guns and cults and scalpels so, you know, also grisly & macabre.

But Pfeifer’s script impresses me most.  And it’s his first work in comics!  I love the “message from your college president” and “who’s who” blurbs that kick off each issue, although his writing is so assured and his characterization so precise they’re almost unnecessary. 

So unhinged college president Michael Woolrich annually demands of his KSU (Knox State University, or “Kaos U,” inspired by the Pfeifer’s Ohio alma mater, Kent State University) seniors a final project worth 75% of their grade.  The push for completion inexorably devolves into a cutthroat gauntlet of no holds barred mayhem, and in gruesome Very Bad Things fashion, lots of shit hits lots of fans as graduation day approaches. 

And in the end, Woolrich says of one of his grads, he says, Can’t you see that he’s brutal, vicious, and single-minded to the point of psychosis!?  Why, he’s the perfect college graduate!  Now, go, son!  Go and carve out your place in the world!, which is a gleefully grim & misguided extrapolation of the actual Kent State University fight song:

Fight on for KSU
Fight for the Blue and Gold!
We're out to beat the foe;
Fight on brave and bold!
Fight on for victory,
Don't stop until we're through.
We're all together,
Let's go forward, K-S-U!

So yeah, the whole thing is over the top & sardonic & kind of glorious. Ra!

Jersey Gods, Vol. 1: I’d Live And I’d Die For You

Glen Brunswick – writer

Dan McDaid – arter

Rachelle Rosenberg – colorer

Rus Wooton – letterer

Dan McDaid & Rico Renzi – TPB coverer

Jonathan Chan – book designer & producer

Image Comics - publisher

Is Jersey Gods super popular?  I feel like Jersey Gods should be super popular. It’s totally awesome.  The TPB back cover sports gushing blurbs from Chris Sims, Mark Waid, and Kurt Busiek, and they all say it’s awesome, too.  Maybe I just missed all the fanfare.

McDaid’s art is pretty stupendous.  Beyond the exaggerated Kirbyism, his style seems inspired by the very people who contribute alternate covers to this volume: Darwyn Cooke, Paul Pope, Mike Allred, and Erik Larsen. (Thank you Jesus for back cover promotional text, I don’t have to think for myself!)  That there is a righteous orgy of influence.  McDaid’s panels are chaotic and frenzied and packed with action.  Many panels do feature some cool background details, but the majority are awash with explosive coloring by Rosenberg. 

The overall effect of the art is so overwhelmingly vibrant and kinetic, you might just gloss over the words, but don’t do that, the script is equally fucking great.  Brunswick’s writing a good old fashioned cosmic love story & his characterization is unabashedly sensitive and sweet. Zoe is quirky and fun and bad at relationships and a (falsely) suspected lesbian.  Barock and Helius are like Ted and Barney from How I Met Your Mother. Only, you know, gods and stuff. 

So yeah, I’d give this a w with five es and an exclamation point – weeeee!

All-Star Chip Kidd

 

 Click the pic to listen & watch.

Saw this at Bleeding Cool.  What a bummer. Chip Kidd is totally Kitty Snide.  Do I sound like that when I criticize things?  I hope I don’t sound like that when I criticize things.  Henceforth, I shall make a concerted effort not to sound like that when I criticize things & I apologize mightily for any such cockish criticism I have heretofore inflicted. 

Hugs & kisses.

Insurrection v3.6 #1

Blake Masters & Michael Alan Nelson – writers

Michael Penick – arter

Darrin Moore – colorer

Travis Lanham – letterer

Karl Richardson (Cover A) & Rael Lyra (Cover B) – coverers

Dafna Pleban – editor

Eric Harburn – assistant editor

I like this!  Insurrection v3.6 opens on Sparta in 3000 C.E., and the intro narrative is nice & concise, so here you go:

The fourth millennium has been a golden age of scholarship and philosophy.  Poverty, pollution, and armed conflict have been all but eliminated on earth.  But off-world, geo-economic blocs wage war for control of the precious silicates and ores that makes this utopian age possible.  Battles are fought… and soldiers die.

And while I’m quoting, here’s an excerpt from a CBR interview with the creator & co-writer, Blake Masters:

"The idea was to extrapolate into the future a world where multinational business conglomerates have replaced traditional nation states, and combine it with an epic 'Roman Empire' social structure, only where the role of 'slaves' would be filled by sentient machines," Masters told CBR. "The result is a world where the machines, called AUTs, are actually more human and live more vibrantly human lives than their cosseted masters who passively numb themselves with vids and exist in state of sterile ennui."

"What happens is, the large economic blocs that control life on earth, the 'Glomrat' and 'Retsu,' fight battles for control of scarce, off-world mines using their machines as surrogates," the writer continued. "Now, since no humans are in danger, the 'cost' of these battles is pure dollars and cents, a line item in the corporate budget, 'equipment lost during a hostile takeover.' So they are not 'wars' in the eyes of the corporation. The twist is, to the machines doing the fighting, it is war. Friends are killed, lovers lost. But to their human masters, a toasted AUT is the same as a broken toaster."

"Insurrection v3.6's" point-of-view character, Masters told CBR, is an AUT who rebels against this order. "The AUT messiah of this series is a Team Leader Model v. 3.6, who goes by the name 'Tim.' Ergo, he is Tim v. 3.6 and the revolution he leads is Insurrection 3.6."

That’s more than enough about the plot to decide whether or not this is your cup of revolution. It’s mine. 

The art is pretty slick & clean.  The line work is precise and almost ascetic, which suits the stark landscape.  Penick does a nice job with the spaceships and steel and cables and cavernous underground depots, and Moore’s coloring produces a delightful visual pop, particularly the outdoor/outer space scenes.  I like the circular close-up panels with the white & black border. 

And the script is really engaging.  It reminds me a lot of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War books, which I totally dig.  Masters writes very full & natural dialogue, so where your (my) typical sci-fi adventures are bogged down by dull explanatory narrative, Masters conveys everything in swiftly flowing verbal exchanges.

And if you peel back the sci-fi, I think you’ll find some prescient points. Substitute the U.S. for Masters’ earth, and the rest of the world for Masters’ off-world, and you get the now.  The idea that wars are only wars to those fighting them echoes the disconnect between current military conflicts and the homelands that produce the soldiers who fight them.  Or maybe I’m just foolish and there is no disconnect.  Is there a disconnect?  I feel like there’s a disconnect.  Either way, Masters’ setup makes the AUTs immediately sympathetic and the humans not so much.

Art Baltazar Art!

Art Baltazar is so dreamy.  Couple years back, I ordered a Tiny Titans TPB from his Electric Milk Creations website & don't you know I also got some swell freebies.  Raven & Plasmus are drawn on comic backboards.  Adorable! Lunar Lizard is signed on the cover. Signed!

How Superman Came to Earth

Found this crumbling beauty in a library sale bin.  It's a wee 4-3/4'' W x 4'' H Random House pocket book © 1980 DC Comics Inc.  With pretty pictures!  The art credits go to Ramona Fradon and Dave Hunt. Click the pics to enlarge.

Frank Miller on Daredevil

Probably my favorite clip on comics ever.  Frank Miller is for serious.  Click the pic to view it through YouTube & see below for my favorite lines. (Punctuated as I saw fit, motherfucker!)

“And this guy Daredevil, I kind of dug him, ‘cause, well, how many superheroes are known for what they can’t do? ... Daredevil, he’s blind.  He can’t see. That’s his distinguishing feature."

"So I think religion and politics both have a very profound relationship to comics because cartooning is taking reality and making it more so."

“What I’m after when I draw my pictures is I’m after is your guts. I want you to feel something.  I don’t want you to like me necessarily, the same with my characters.  And what I’m after when I draw is evocation.  It’s not pretty.  I love beauty.  I don’t care about pretty.”

“There was a lot of ruckus when I was working on Daredevil as it found its voice because the violence was so harsh, because people were getting cut up.”

“In comics, in comic books, in superhero comics, people have wasted an awful lot of creative energy and hard work looking for kids who aren’t there.”

“Matt should have been a villain.  He had a horrible childhood. His romantic life is the worst!  Oh sure, the girls look great, but they end up dead or killing him or something.”

“With Born Again, what I was really after, it was I think the first of a series of works that I’ve been involved with where I’ve looked at taking the machinery of the hero apart and putting it back together in leaner form, so it was more pure.”

“This lawyer vigilante thing, I mean, it’s always been shaky.  It’s a fun contradiction, but it’s a contradiction, and so I thought, break it down, destroy him, and then have the real deep hero emerge.”

“I thought there was something stupid about the way superheroes always had these normal girls for girlfriends – why? I mean, why would there be a Lois Lane to Superman.  Why wouldn’t he be running around with Wonder Woman? I mean, she can match him.  Why wouldn’t these people be operatic in their romance the way they are in their combat?  I mean, is there anything more insipid than seeing some superhero in a love scene, and all of a sudden he’s just another guy who looks like us, in a bed, naked?  No, these people would bring down buildings with their passion, that’s what they do with their fights.”

“He was not known as the most brilliant achievement of the Stan Lee regime, okay.” On Kingpin

“Light him.  You’re the guy who does the lighting.” Also on Kingpin

“Bullseye is the ultimate bad boy.  He’s a psychopathic killer, yes, but he’s really good at it, and he’s really smart.”

“I don’t think the symbolism of that sai going through her was lost on much anybody. I mean, it was rape-murder in a superhero comic, it was pretty weird.”

“What’s done by the hand in comics is something that movies cannot approach. We’ve felt so long like we were the retarded little bastard nephew of media that we’ve forgotten that we’re better at certain things than they are. And yeah, movies are much better at a bunch of things. Movies are much more powerful.  Movies control pace. A cartoonist has to be really smart to slow you down. A filmmaker just has to leave the camera where it is for a long time.  And it’s a different set of virtues and weaknesses.  So yeah, I came in wanting to make comics more cinematic.  I stay in wanting to make them less so.”

Wulf #1

Steve Niles - writer
Nat Jones - peciller & inker
Mai - colorer
Richard Emms - letterer & designer
Ardden Entertainment/Atlas Comics - publisher

1975 Wulf #1

2011 Wulf #1

2011 Wulf Page 7

So I’m sort of a sucker for all things barbarian, Conan of course being my first barbarian love.  I don’t necessarily mind if they’re derivative knockoffs as long as they look pretty and read nice.  Wulf looks pretty.  And it reads nice.  Score!

I don’t know anything about the original Atlas Wulf, so I can’t make any comparisons.  The plot here is straightforward and sparse and engaging.  There’s no need to overwrite this – Wulf scours apocalyptic planet for evil, evil splashes onto present day earth, Wulf gives chase.  Niles’ script is grim but swift, and Jones’ grisly art is a solid partner.  I like Mai’s coloring. That page 7 iron maiden torture mask is cool.

So yeah, score one for barbarianism.