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January 28, 2005
Subway Reading: Pigtale
It has been a while since I last saw a fellow comic book reader on the subway. The dry spell finally ended a few days ago, when I saw a tall, bearded, young white guy reading a weathered copy of The Watchmen. It's nice to see people enjoying the classics! Then yesterday I saw an older Asian gentleman reading some kind of... well, I guess I would call it manga, though I could be way off base. It was a small digest-size paperback, black and white, with 8 panels per page and some kind of prose running vertically down the right-hand 1/3 of each page. The art was simple and stylized, with smooth, nearly featureless figures. There were word balloons in the panels, which lead me to believe that it was a narrative and not, for example, some kind of instruction manual. Unfortunately the guy got off the train at the next stop so I couldn't snoop any further.
I like to imagine that one day I will mention one of these sightings, the comic fan in question will read the blog, and leave a comment like, "Hey! That was me! Awesome!" And then... well, I suppose that's the entirety of that lame little fantasy. So if you were the middle-aged Asian guy on the downtown F train last night around 6PM, please let me know what you were reading. Thank you. Now on to today's review...
Pigtale #1 - This quirky black & white comic book from Image is written and drawn by Ovi Nedelcu. Nedelcu comes to comics from animation, and that experience is a clear influence on the scripting and the visuals in his comic book debut.
The story has its fair share of stock elements. Protagonist Boston Booth wants to follow in the footsteps of his late father by becoming a private eye. Unfortunately he can't find a job and the bills are mounting. Meanwhile, he pines for a beautiful waitress/singer but finds himself too afraid to ask her out. All fairly pedestrian stuff... but then there is the last-page reveal. Without giving too much away, it indicates that the story is about to veer sharply into the world of the wacky. On one hand, the tone of the story was a little too shifty for me to get comfortable. But that could also be an indication of the book's originality and idiosyncratic charm. It's not unheard of for a new story to take a few issues for the writer to settle into a more comfortable flow and for the readers to get used to a unique tone. That could well be the case for Pigtale.
Visually, Nedelcu does some very interesting work in this book. His drawing style clearly owes a lot to animation, with its smoothed-out contours, minimal rendering, and exaggerated forms. The artist's background includes a lot of character design work, and his ability in this field shines through. The gang of bullies was a great example. The tiny size of the little guy who yells "Get him!" made me laugh out loud. The pacing of the script was very tight, matching the impeccable visual pacing of the panel-to-panel transitions. My criticisms have to do with the finished artwork and some of the page layout decisions. I found some of the 2/3 page and full-page splash panels kind of distracting. I understand the desire to give more weight to certain moments in the story, or to establish time and place. But the timing in the smaller panel sequences was so crisp that the larger panels seemed like wasted opportunities. As for the look, the halftones were a little too overused at times. Gray tones can be deceptively tricky in comics. In this case, the error was on the side of using it too often. The small variations in value got swallowed up and the page too often turned into a grayed-out blur without enough visual hierarchy. While I am usually a champion of black and white, I kind of wish this book had been in color instead. I also thought that Nedelcu's actual lines were a little too jaggy and sketchy for his otherwise clean, shape-based style. Overall, though, he did a lot more things right than wrong, and I am sure that he will be able to take the lessons from seeing the final printed version and apply them to future issues.
For more of Nedelcu's work, check out his web site at www.ovinedelcu.com. His weekly sketches page, which includes work that ranges from loose sketches to finished color pieces, shows off his considerable character design skills and visual ingenuity. This comic had a lot going for it, mostly in the form of the creator's obvious skill and imagination. It has a lot of potential and I hope it gets a chance to develop. 3.5 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 04:50 PM
The Invasion of... The Suckytarian!!!
Ed: The following post was contributed by an old friend/foe of mine. He resides on a square earth populated by stone-skinned bad-taste versions of myself, all of whom follow the teachings of Wizard Magazine to the letter and worship at the altar of their philosopher-king deity, Rob Leifeld. Men call him The Suckytarian. Women don't call him much at all. (Har, har!) Without further ado, please welcome this blog's first (and hopefully last) guest post...
Ok you bloggy little bastards, listen up! I’ve had enough of Mr. Pissy Pants Pickytarian here telling you all what to think about a bunch of no-selling, no-name, underground ashcans, with the occasional "I love Bendis" thrown in to keep the fanboys happy. I’ve known the Pickytarian for over a decade now, and it is with great pleasure that I’ve spent a good portion of that time bringing him back to reality on the differences between right and wrong, good and bad, lame and cool. I’ve also put in plenty of time trying to explain to this assclown how to have a good time and actually ENJOY his hobbies. This guy is a total masochist, spending all of his hard earned money every Wednesday just to feed his ulcer.
Anyway, just the sight of a certain new TPB on the comic store shelf this week sent the poor boy into a fit of rage. Long story short, he’ll be back as soon as I’m able to collect bail money. And in his honor, I will share my thoughts on the very book that was his downfall, the very tome towards which -- in its monthly form not too long ago -- the Pickytarian repeatedly shared with you his loathing. I share with you -- Avengers: Disassembled
And yes, thar be spoilers ahead!
I made the decision to hold off for the trade on this story after having read what I still think is an absolutely kick-ass amazing, grab-you-by-the-balls, action-packed first issue (being Avengers #500). It was a tough decision to make for that first month, but then the feedback began to trickle in from the fanboy universe. The Pickytarian was not alone in declaring that Avengers: Disassembled (A:D) was the drizzling shits of comic stories. A.K.A., no good. I all but forgot about the series by the time Wizard Magazine accidentally spoiled the ending when issue # 503 shipped late. And to find out that Scarlet Witch was to blame for all the shenanigans seemed far fetched if not downright stoopit with my having only read 1 of 3 issues. But hot damn that first issue rocked.
Now in collected form, and after months of hearing how awful the story was, and having had everything about it spoiled a few times over by Wizard and the Internet, I must say it was a well spent $15.99. I still think the first issue is full of fantastic, gleeful mayhem, and the second and third issues are more of the same. Doc Strange’s 3rd issue info dump to justify the chaos? Not offensive to me like it was to some (Pickytarian!). In fact, I kind of liked the way it was handled visually with flashback panels.
Sure it’s all a big clusterfuck excuse to cut loose some dead weight from the series, and way too many characters showing up just to show up -- and surviving! And David Finch is a horribly inconsistent artist. Take a look at Hawkeye out of costume. Now take a look at Hank Pym out of costume. Now take a look at every other blond-headed male this joke draws. They all look like the same bloated, box-headed Brad Pitt caricature. Hack. And he looks like Sloth from the Goonies in his publicity photo.
But Finch does draw big action very well. And Bendis writes it well. He basically wrote the kind of insane spectacle that I would have played out on my bedroom floor if I had a bigger collection of superhero toys as a kid. As it stands, I only had Kang and Iron Man from the Secret Wars line -- and they usually ended up fighting Chewbacca or Hulk Hogan. But this story is fun!
Fun? How can it be fun with so many beloved characters dying and so much continuity being turned on its head and that stupid ad for Young Avengers appearing in the trade, and Spider-Man and Wolverine joining the New Avengers one month later? How? How? How? --- asks some whiny little girl or the Pickytarian from his jail cell.
It’s fun because they’re comic characters! 2-D cartoons. Just enjoy the ride! A:D was the most fun I had reading a Marvel comic since The Infinity Gauntlet. And it was the same situation -- overblown insanity with lots of action and death and to hell with continuity. I know that at the end of that story, everything was returned to how it was at the start, and maybe that made it more palatable to some people. But A:D did that story one better by NOT returning things to normal.
Now we get a year of well drawn Marvel All-Star action in New Avengers. I don’t mind seeing Spider-Man or Wolverine on the team because I don’t buy any of the 37 other books they’re in on a weekly basis. Hell, I don’t buy this one. I’ll pick up the first trade and see where to go from there. But flipping through the first issue, that art looks sweeeet.
We get a solid lead-in to Marvels big 2005 "event," House of M, which looks to be a Crisis-style cleanup for the mutantverse. Magneto and his kids will be key to that story, so A:D hopefully did its job to put Scarlet Witch over as a bigtime player. I mean I know how powerful she is just from memorizing my old issues of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. But casual readers and the youngsters needed something like A:D to put Scarlet Witch’s powers into perspective.
Dead weight like the Hawkeye, Vision, Wasp, and Ant-Man are now officially written off of the Marvel U active roster. It also adds to the worth of the Ultimate Universe, where all (well not the Vision, yet, right?) of these characters have been handled way better and made more relevant again.
Oh and absolutely yes you will see any and all of these characters -- as soon as someone comes up with a GOOD IDEA for them. Joss Whedon brought back my favorite X-Man, Colossus, recently. It was done well. I don’t care about that stupid villain that he dropped into X-continuity. I just really enjoyed the fact that Colossus and Kitty Pride were back in an X-book acting like themselves, but with a new dramatic layer added to their fictional 2-D lives. I hope whoever writes the inevitable story about Hawkeye’s return from imprisonment on some magical alternative reality sprung up from a mixture of Scarlet Witch’s warped reality and the explosion of a magical Kree warship does it justice. And I hope that whoever rebuilds the Vision reduces the size of that collar on his cape. That shit is wicked out of style.
As far as I’m concerned, out of the chaos of a few issues of one silly little comic, we’ve got a whole world of possibilities. But someone really needs to tell David Finch that Wonder Man’s eyes are red. A:D TPB = 4 stars!!!
SO SAYETH THE SUCKYTARIAN!
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 01:07 PM | Comments (11)
January 27, 2005
Subway Reading: The Amazing Joy Buzzards and We3
The Amazing Joy Buzzards #1 - Since we were kids, my friends and I have been making our own comics. There's nothing professional-quality about them; the fun comes in the way we make them. One person comes up with a panel, then the book gets passed to the next guy, who draws the next panel, and so on. It doesn't take long - usually about three panels or so - for the stories to veer into the absurd. The one-upmanship involved in the endeavor means that things only get wackier from there. This exercise always reminds me of one the things I love about comics: anything can happen. There are no limits except the ones the author places upon himself. Something is too complicated to describe in words? It can be drawn! An idea is too subtle to present through pictures? Explain it through narration, dialogue, or inner dialogue! The tropes are all there, ready for exploitation. Most importantly, time travel, giant monsters, hyper-violence, pirate ships, and anything you can dream of can all be mashed together into the same story.
That brings me - finally - to The Amazing Joy Buzzards. Written by Mark Andrew Smith with art by Dan Hipp, this book is busting at the seams with energy and fun. It's one of those comics where you can smell the love that the creators have for their creation. Throw a rock band, a Mexican wrestler, an evil robot, and a giant marauding monster into a pot. Stir, bring to a boil, and let it simmer for 15 minutes. When it's done you will pull out this delightfully charming comic book.
Hipp's art shows a strong manga and graffiti influence. There is a fair helping of Jim Mahfood in his style. Mahfood, in fact, contributes a back-cover pin-up to the book. I might have a couple of nit-picks here and there (the open mouths that spilled over with teeth and giant tongues were a little disturbing), but overall the visuals were appealing. The storytelling was clear and the character designs were fun. I love the clever camera angles, such as the shots of bassist Stevo from behind and inside the water glass. A little line-weight variation and some stronger blacks would be welcome; as it is, there is a bit of a coloring-book feel to some of these panels.
Speaking of nit-picks, there was one egregious lettering mistake, where word balloons from one tier overlapped word balloons from the next tier down, skipping over some of the intervening panels. But it's stuff like this that gives this book some of its charm. It's like there are too many ideas, too much humor, and the pace is too fast to dwell on minor mechanical matters of craft. That's why it made me think of the crude amateur comics my friends and I put together - what they lack in execution they more than make up for with manic energy. After a few issues, I'm sure the rawness of the craft will tighten up. Hopefully the raw love for comics that oozes out of this book will remain. 4 stars.
We3 #3 - Holy Cripes. I swear to you that this book gave me the chills. An actual cold sensation rippled through my body this morning as I read the last few pages, and it wasn't due to the single-digit temperatures outside. Grant Morrison's script is suspenseful, dramatic, funny, and heartbreaking, and the most amazing thing is how well he achieves it all with such a slight story and minimal dialogue. It's a tribute to his sheer writing skill that he can pare a story down so far and still say so much.
While reading this issue, I noticed that there was a different quality to the inking than I am used to seeing from Quitely. The finishes were done with a loose, open line that stood in very nice contrast to his careful rendering. As it turns out, Jamie Grant is credited with "digital inks." I have to say that this was the best example of the digital inking process that I have seen. Other titles, such as 1602 and Conan, have featured art that went straight from pencils to digital, but the results were blurry lines and soft edges. While there are nice effects that can come from this look. I have always had an affinity for the binary nature of ink. It's black or it's white, and if you want texture, lighting effects, or visual hierarchy, you have to work within those limitations. I don't know the details of how the process used on We3 differs from the process used on these other efforts, but I love the results. I was definitely "fooled" into thinking this had been done with pen and brush, and I marvelled at the drawing skill that must have been involved.
I know that I run the risk of jumping on the blog-love bandwagon for this title, but I don't care. This 3-issue limited series was one of the best comic stories that I have ever read. 5 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 02:15 PM | Comments (1)
January 26, 2005
That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more
Yesterday a well-known comic book news site ran a column wherein a pair of professional comic creators indulge in some good old-fashioned blog-bashing. I have been trying to decide whether (and how) to respond. A witty riposte? A vitriolic rant? A sober, point-by-point rebuttal? I have ammunition for all three. The gentleman who had the harshest comments for blogs has never impressed me with his insight or commentary. The criticism that he has for bloggers can be so accurately applied to his own contributions to that column that it's hard to take his ill-informed, inflammatory, and self-serving comments seriously.
Ultimately, though, I have already devoted way too much mental energy to the matter. Since I discovered comic-book blogging (ironically through a feature that ran on the news site in question), the attention that I have paid to the reheated press releases that this site passes off as news and thinly-veiled self-promotion that it calls commentary has plummeted drastically. It wasn't until another blogger mentioned the column that I heard about it at all. From my perspective, their comments look more like a desperate attempt to get noticed and linked to by the very blogs they disparage. So I guess that they got me. Gah!
I never liked the one guy's comics and now I know to continue my ignorance of the other guy's. If they want to blindly criticize what I do, well, that's their prerogative. They're the ones who stand to take a professional hit from the exchange, not me.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 02:16 PM
January 25, 2005
Subway Reading: Clyde Fans
Clyde Fans Book 1 - This book was written and drawn by cartoonist Seth. I had never read any of his work; my knowledge of him began and ended with two items. One, he was the designer for and one of the main forces behind Fantagraphics' beautiful complete Peanuts library. Two, he was the author of a book that I had never read, but whose title has long stuck with me as one of the greatest titles ever: "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken." Sit and cogitate upon that line. That's poetry. I'm sort of afraid to read that book because it can't possibly stand up to the magnificent story that my imagination has conjured up around those 8 words.
But, as usual, I digress. Clyde Fans is split into two chapters. Each chapter focuses on one of the Matchcard brothers, Abraham and Simon, and their work as salesmen for the electric fan company founded by their father Clyde. The first chapter is set in the present day. Clyde Fans has long since closed, and the elderly Abraham travels ghost-like through the company's office and the upstairs apartment where his parents and younger brother lived. The entire chapter, in fact, consists of Abraham talking directly to the reader, sharing lessons on his sales techniques along with memories of the business and his younger brother Simon. Abraham's disdain for his brother is evident. The younger Matchcard comes off as an aimless and irresponsible dreamer, especially compared to Abraham and the work he did selling for and eventually running the company.
The second chapter moves back in time, following Simon on his doomed attempt at selling for Clyde Fans. Desperate to prove his worth to his older brother and to find a steady career, Simon travels to the town of Dominion with a list of leads and a sample case. Each sales call goes worse than the one before it, and soon enough Simon is out of leads and facing the fact that Abraham's predictions of Simon's failure have been fulfilled.
Seth draws with a deceptively simple yet highly communicative line. He proves himself to be a superb designer, and not just with his tightly-organized layouts. The book itself is a beautiful package, with covers and endpapers that contribute quite a bit to the plot and tone. the interiors are 2-color (printed with blue and black only), but Seth's careful duotones and halftones give the artwork a remarkable amount of depth and richness.
The story itself takes a long, hard look at the profession of sales. My dad was a salesman for a long time, and he was pretty successful at it. I've always been simultaneously fascinated and repelled by the job. It makes unique demands on a person; you need to be calculating and opportunistic, yet genial and trustworthy. You need to withstand an unfathomable amount of rejection, both gentle and outright hostile. The perpetual travel alone is enough to wear down even the heartiest soul. In the opening chapter, Abraham looks back on a life in which he withstood the demands of the sales life. But at what cost? Despite the amount of people that he met, a lifetime of glad-handing and sales pitches has left Abraham lonely and regretful. Pondering the volumes of receipts and purchase orders that he has signed and left throughout the province, Abraham muses, "It occurs to me that these papers probably have a more meaningful relationship with the outside world than I do."
The other big theme in Clyde Fans is the relationship between older and younger siblings. While sending Simon out for his first sales trip, Abraham admonishes him with his opinion that "Another salesman is missing out on a commission so that you can take this little jaunt." Simon is cowed by his brother's scolding, and the prospect of facing Abraham and confirming the elder's fears becomes more terrifying than the failure itself. In his old age, though, Abraham's opinion of Simon has grown more philosophical, tempered by regrets about his own life. "I could imagine Simon living the quiet life of a monk. While I went out and piled layer upon layer of hypocrisy upon myself." Seth communicates the distance and differences between the brothers by showing them in separate chapters and eras. It's instructive that so much of each brother's mental energy is devoted to the other one.
Seth examines these ideas in an understated and subtle manner. This is a very quiet book; the drama sneaks up on you rather than smacking you in the face. The risk with this kind of storytelling is that the reader may lose interest and wind up overlooking some of the nuance. For the most part, Seth bounces up against this line but stays on the correct side of it. I could have lived with about half as many tone-setting cityscape panels in the second half, for example. but that's a minor quibble against an otherwise impressive effort. A "Book Two" is supposedly going to follow, but this graphic novel stands on its own as a compelling and haunting character study. 4 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 03:04 PM
January 24, 2005
This is for you, Stukuls
I may be the last person on earth to hear about this blog, but... I read the comics so you don't have to by Josh Fruhlinger. For those of you who share my love/hate relationship with daily newspaper comic strips. That is, you love them so much that the consistently odious quality of them fills you with impotent rage.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 03:48 PM | Comments (2)
Subway Reading: Manhunter and Madrox
Madrox #5 - This chapter concludes Peter David's Madrox series, and it does so in entertaining, satisfying fashion. I loved the tone of this book: it's self-aware superhero detective noir, with exciting action scenes balanced out by light-hearted dialogue. More often than not, multi-issue story arcs get bloated and slow in the middle (the current Daredevil arc, for example), or they start off great and peter out towards the end (District X comes to mind). With this Madrox series and his latest Fallen Angel arc, David has demonstrated that he knows how to avoid these common traps and build up to an ending chapter that truly feels like the climax of a story.
Over the course of these five issues, the art either grew on me or improved. The distractingly odd shadows largely disappeared, and the general rendering has tightened up considerably. The tight, closed-line style of penciller Pablo Raimondi and inker Drew Hennessy is still a bit stiff for my taste, but the storytelling is solid, and the expressive acting is a great complement to David's snappy characterization and dialogue. I would definitely recommend this entire arc to any superhero fans who are looking for a familiar story that is presented in a refreshingly unique and well-crafted manner. And isn't that exactly what superhero fans are looking for? 4 stars.
Manhunter #6 - I love the quality of inker Jimmy Palmiotti's line work, but there is something anatomically weird about penciller Jesus Saiz' people. He draws lithe, beautiful bodies, but the faces, heads, and necks in his close-up shots can get awkward. This disparity is a bit unusual; more often it's the other way around. Story-wise, I'm getting into the flow of this series. Writer Marc Andreyko is starting to give us some insight into protagonist Kate Spencer's morality and behavior. The series is very solidly grounded in the DC superhero world; in fact, it looks like the JLA will be around for a few issues as the Identity Crisis storyline has spilled over into this title. Luckily, Andreyko pulls this off without alienating casual DC fans like myself. All in all, this isn't the world's greatest comic by any means, but you could do a lot worse for your three bucks. 3.5 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 12:16 PM | Comments (2)
January 21, 2005
I Am Geeking The F*ck Out
Inked art for the cover to Hulk #81. Lee Weeks pays homage to Frank Frazetta. Courtesy of Peter David's blog.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 10:22 AM | Comments (3)
January 20, 2005
Disturbingly Hypnotic
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 01:30 PM | Comments (2)
Subway Reading: Daredevil, BPRD, Wanted, X-Men
Daredevil #69 - The current storyline is solid, and the art by Alex Maleev gets more and more spectacular each month. But for cripes' sake, NOTHING HAPPENS in this issue. Bendis engages in one of his new favorite tricks, which is reproducing scenes from previous issues. Flashbacks fill in some entirely unimportant details about how and why the events of the previous three chapters happened. And then the book ends. Indulgent, crass, and all-around distasteful. Thank heaven for Alex Maleev, because it's on the strength of his effort that I can give this book 2 stars.
BPRD: The Dead #3 - The plot thickens and thickens. I have gotten used to John Arcudi's writing style, which is more straightforward and traditional than Mignola's. I think it works for a story like this, with its ensemble cast and many plotlines. The real stars of this, though, are artist Guy Davis and colorist Dave Stewart. Their work on this book is flat-out amazing. 4.5 stars.
Wanted #6 - This has been a strange series for me, because there is really nobody to root for. The badguys win. I guess that there is nothing inherently wrong with that premise; it makes for an interesting experiment. Just in case you miss the writer's intention, which is to upset the reader, hang on until the last few pages. At that point the Eminem-lookalike protagonist breaks the fourth wall to insult and berate the reader for, among other things, buying the comic book. Like I said, it's an interesting experiment, but not what I would describe as an enjoyable story. JG Jones' artwork will burn the eyes out of your head, though. I mean that in a good way. The guy is a technical wizard.
X-Men #166 - One of my favorite writers, Peter Milligan, takes over with this issue. The story is the sort of stock premise that I have seen a million times before, but it's popular because it works. The B-list X-men show up in the South Pole to investigate a distress signal from some kind of remote "mutant utopia." Surprise, surprise, they get there to find that almost everybody is dead and a mysterious message has been scrawled on the wall in blood. I have not been following the B-list X-Men, so some of the soap opera love triangle stuff went over my head.
The visuals in this issue were not terribly impressive. Penciller Salvador LaRocca has an appealing style, but it was often hard to tell what was going on or who was who. Inker Danny Miki rarely used anything more than the finest fine line and the colors by "Liquid!" were all the same value. These shortcomings only made things less readable. While I'm on the topic of the coloring, I should mention that the special effects that were used on Iceman made him look like more of a ghost than a solid piece of ice.
I got a hearty eye-roll out of the fact that Wolverine is featured prominently on the cover of this issue but is then nowhere to be found inside. Good stuff. All in all, I can't really say that I loved this issue, but out of loyalty to Milligan I am going to hang in there and give the series a chance at redemption. 2 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 01:28 PM | Comments (3)
Subway Reading - Temporary
Temporary #1 - Damon Hurd, author of the well-received tearjerkers My Uncle Jeff and A Sort of Homecoming, changes gears with this comedic effort. For the most part, it's a satirical look at the cubicle-hell offices in which so many of us (The Pickytarian included) spend our days. I qualified that description because there is another aspect of this book. Hurd explores the questions of what is real, what isn't real, and how do we tell the difference? There is a surreal, dream-like tone to this book, expressed both explicitly and implicitly.
Temp worker Envy Saint-Claire is hired to spend the day doing data entry for the Calvin T. Nelson HMO. Soon after arriving, she realizes that things are amiss at the office. The computers are fake, for one thing. One guy has the job of delivering the "e-mail," which arrives in the form of hand-written post-it notes. Towards the end of the book, Envy learns the truth about this bizarre office. Everything is seemingly sewn up, and the book seems to be an amusing if slightly obvious one-joke effort. Then there is the last scene of the book, when Envy returns home. At this point the book veers headlong into... well, I'm not sure exactly what. It's not clear whether the bizarre closing scene is taking place only in Envy's mind, or if it's an element of the somewhat off-kilter world in which she lives. I can see its relationship to the overall theme of not knowing who is crazy or who is sane. In that way it works, but the literal side of me wanted some resolution to this question. There is a second issue advertised on the inside back cover. But is that for real? Most of the rest of the package (inside front cover, etc.) is tongue-in-cheek. If this is a continuing story, then the ending presents an interesting cliffhanger. If not, the ending is too ambiguous.
The surreal nature of the story is also expressed in the art. At first glance I dismissed it as the dreaded naive-style, but after reading I realized how well it complements the story. It is as though that drawings were scrawled by one of the desperate and not-entirely sane characters (I think I mean that as a compliment). There is a general lack of specificity in terms of the time or place. This ambiguity helps to communicate the corporate culture of conformist drones, and it also creates the dreamy haze that suffuses this story.
I'm not going to let artist Rick Smith completely off the hook, though. The bizarre nature of the story does excuse the lack of setting and the awkward anatomy. But the acting is fairly non-existent. It's odd because the back cover depicts Envy in an evocative pose, with a forlorn, faraway look on her face. On the interior pages, though, she traipses through the virtually non-existent scenery like a painted marionette. In fact, this impenetrability of her character only makes the intention of the strange ending that much more unclear.
Like I said, there may be another chapter in this series, so I am not going to consider the ending when I bestow my stars. I did enjoy the clever plot and the tone. The overall execution, however, was sort of uneven. 3 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 09:46 AM | Comments (3)
January 18, 2005
Subway Reading: Spider-Man/Human Torch and The Ultimates
Spider-Man and Human Torch - In his work on She-Hulk, Slott nimbly dances between homage to and parody of 80's Marvel Comics. Here, he looks at 60's-era Marvel through the same lens. By setting this one-shot story in the heroes' past, writer Dan Slott is able to imitate the light-hearted tone of the Lee-Ditko era without the overhead of present-day continuity or characterizations. The results are highly enjoyable and entertaining.
Artist Ty Templeton employs a clean, friendly style in this book that complements the tone nicely. He also indulges in a fair amount of homage, giving us a Kirby-esque Paste-Pot Pete and Ditko's slightly freaky-looking Aunt May. There was something wierd about the coloring, though. I don't mind the use of the computer-colors over the retro art, but they seemed a little too saturated. This was especially apparent in the darker shading, and the result was that the bold linework got blurred.
This book got me to wondering about the feasibility of a regular title that presents "lost stories" from historical eras in the Marvel Universe. Would such a series have legs? Or would it grow tiresome in a hurry? Either way, this issue was a perfectly sized dose of nostalgia and fun. 4 stars.
Ultimates 2 #2 - ...and then there was The Ultimates. This book could not be more diametrically opposed to Slott's Spider-Man and Human Torch. Mark Millar has assembled a cast of arrogant, unlikeable miscreants who battle the moral ambiguity of their world with cynicism and brute force. I may have some quibbles with some of the characterizations (Jarvis re-imagined as a prissy queen for example) but I suppose that's more of an opinion than a criticism.
What really drives this book for me is Bryan Hitch's artwork. I question some of his storytelling decisions, specifically the preponderence of half or full-page head-shot panels. It's starting to look less like a stylistic decision and more like a crutch or gimmick. His cityscape establishing shots in are this issue are very well done, though. The night-time Times Sqaure and the afternoon on the Venetian canals effectively drop you right into their settings. Laura Martin's coloring plays a large part in the effectiveness of these scenes, as does Paul Neary's inking. Neary's inks, in fact, may be the best part of the visual package. His finishes bring a loose, human quality to Hitch's tight, meticulous realism.
The plot in this issue stalls out a bit, but that is to be expected from a middle issue of one of Marvel's trade-ready story arcs. Nonetheless, Millar and the art team are doing a great job with this title, and I am eager to see where it goes next. 4 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 01:24 PM | Comments (2)
January 14, 2005
Subway Reading: Hard Time, Nightwing, District X
Happy birthday to me! What did the MTA give me for my birthday? Delayed trains! It is raining, after all, so why should I expect the subway to run smoothly? I mean, when they built this system 100 years ago, how were they supposed to know that it might rain sometime in the future? And in the 100 years since then, each time it has rained and train service has been screwed up as a result, why should they bother to fix the problem? It's not like it's going to rain again or anything!
And what did Marvel and DC Comics give me for my birthday? Two mediocre comics and one good one!
Hard Time #12 - I'm going to start with Hard Time, because it is my birthday (have I mentioned that?) and I want to think pleasant thoughts. If you haven't been reading this series up to now, and according to the sales figures, you probably haven't, this is probably not the ideal "jumping-on point." In fact, this issue concludes "Season One"* of the title, which will be re-launched sometime in 2005. If you haven't read this book, I implore you to buy the first trade paperback collection. You will be rewarded with a rich story that bursts at the seams with more engaging characters and entertaining plot threads than any mainstream American comic on the stands today. Hesitant superhero fans, be reassured that this book has more than enough violent action and super-natural sci-fi elements to satisfy your quota. And any fan of cartoon art should treat themselves to the work that Brian Hurtt is doing on this title. His combination of drawing "chops" (perspective, anatomy, line, shape, tone ,etc), cartoony exaggeration, and storytelling skills make him one of my favorite comic artists of all time.
Looks like this review of issue 12 devolved into another gush-fest about the series as a whole. Sorry about that. Suffice to say that, except for the believability-stretching idea that a young woman would just stroll into a prison dressed like a prostitute without even the traditional trenchcoat to cover it up, this issue delivered all of the goodness that I have come to expect. 4.5 stars.
Nightwing #101 - I am not a regular reader of this title, but the "Nightwing Year One" story caught my attention. Exactly how and why did Dick Grayson trade in his scale-mail speedo for a mullet and black tights? As far as I can tell from this issue, it's because Batman is kind of a jerk. I have seen commentary from various fans who don't like the "Batman is a jerk" characterization, but the idea doesn't really bother me. Without a few drops of sardonic wit, however, he becomes one-dimensional and tiresome. That's what happens in this book.
Scott McDaniel's blocky, shape-based style is unique and interesting. He handled the action sequences ably. I would have liked to have seen better acting, though. Body language and facial expressions could have been used to convey a lot more emotion. This was sort of like watching a story that featured action figures instead of human beings.
If you're looking for some well-presented Batman and Robin butt-kicking - not that there's anything wrong with that - this is the book for you. If, however, you're in the market for nuanced characterization, subtext, or a unique look at iconic heroes, you might want to look elsewhere. 2.5 stars.
District X #9 - When this book focuses on the outcast mutants of Mutant-Town, I enjoy it. When the focus shifts to the various personal dramas in the life of Detective Ortega, I lose interest rapidly. Luckily this issue was largely devoted to the investigation of the murders being committed by slug-like sewer-dwelling mutant Winston Hobbes. There's certainly nothing ground-breakingly original here, but the execution works for me. Hobbes' story definitely outshines the domestic melodrama and the business with Melek and his band of underground mutant saboteurs. Another story element that makes me groan every time it appears is transparently plot-advancing nature of the psychic painter who paints scenes from the future.
Alejandro Sicat and Lan Medina's closed-line style still strikes me as too stiff. There is way too much distracting modeling, especially on the faces. On the positive side, I like the character design of Winston Hobbes as well as the briefly-glimpsed girl who describes him to the police artist.
Honestly I think I'm buying this title out of habit more than anything else. I like the premise, but more often than not, the book fails to deliver on it. This issue gets 2.5 stars.
* Am I the only person who is uncomfortable with this growing trend of referring to re-launched 12-issue story arcs as "seasons?" Aspiring to be thought of as a TV show sets the bar too low in my opinion.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 12:24 PM | Comments (5)
January 13, 2005
Subway Reading: Gotham Central & Stormbreaker
Gotham Central #27 - Last month I sang the praises of Jason Alexander's art in this title. This month, while I still enjoyed his use of white space, I was struck by a few too many moments of bad anatomy. It can be tricky to pick on things like that when an artist uses an expressionistic style like Alexander's. Exaggeration is to be expected, but in my opinion, awkward anatomy and inconsistent character likenesses fall outside the realm of stylistic license. This is only speculation on my part, but I wonder if this was a bit of a rush job.
Story-wise, this conclusion to a two-part story about Catwoman and a psychic detective also seemed a little rushed. I read a complaint somewhere about the cliched nature of last issue's overheard graveside confession. This issue features a few more favorite old chestnuts. The preacher with a secret sordid life, for example, as well as the heavy-handed moral lesson that the protagonist learns in the conclusion. All in all, this two-part story relied a little too heavily on TV-drama cliches for my taste. 2.5 stars.
Stormbreaker: The Saga of Beta Ray Bill #1 - Writer Mike Oeming kicks off this limited series in old-school fashion, introducing the characters and the conflicts with plenty of room left over for an extended action sequence. Imagine that! The Kordinite leaders may come off as a little too one-dimensional, but their earnest nature is part of the charm of a story like this.
The art was a mixed bag for me. The drawing was solid and well-rendered; Andrea DiVito's traditional style fit the tone perfectly. The page layouts and storytelling, however, seemed a little haphazard.
Compare this comic to Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. While Whedon pays tribute to a previous era by dusting off old characters, costumes, and even scenes from the books of yesteryear, Oeming preserves the story structure and tone of the old stories. The former provides a surface-level smile of recognition, but the latter actually reproduces the gut-level experience of reading the books that I remember and love. 3.5 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 01:35 PM
January 12, 2005
Subway Reading: Breach & The Question
Breach #1 - I have seen and heard many comics described as "boring." Concrete and Jimmy Corrigan are the first ones that come to mind. Next time somebody accuses any comic book of being boring, I will be sure to present them with my copy of Breach #1. This book presented a thoroughly trite origin story of a completely generic superhero. The characters were unsympathetic ciphers. The pace of the story was unnecessarily and painfully slow. The blame for the low quality of this book does not lie entirely with the writing, however. The art was uninspired and uninteresting. The characters' likenesses were interchangeable. There was a disturbing tendency towards uneven faces, especially in the three-quarter views. The lack of detail, backgrounds, or line weight variation conspired with the dry and derivative nature of the story and the rumbling of the subway train to nearly lull me to sleep. I was standing up at the time, yet I found my eyelids drooping. I'm sorry to be so negative, but I the only justification I can think of for recommending this book to anybody is to make other comics look better by comparison. 0 stars.
Question #3 - I am glad that I stuck with this series. The plot, characters, and themes have now begun to take shape. The hero's somewhat hokey inner monologue has been tamed. I don't know if there have been subtle shifts in the clarity of the visuals or if I have grown accustomed to the unusual style, but either way I find the art to be much more readable. I particularly enjoyed the depictions of Metropolis' underground network of pipes, tunnels, and wiring. Rick Veitch writes a heck of a comic story, using surface-level tricks such as clever scene transitions to communicate the sub-text and thematic overtones. I suppose this book may have more appeal to fans of comic storytelling craft rather than fans of its characters (The Question or the Superman cast). I would place myself in the former group instead of the latter, and for that reason I give this comic 4 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 01:00 PM | Comments (1)
Crisis on Infinite Blog Entries
Since beginning this blog, I have twice experienced corruption of its database because I exceeded the storage limit on my hosting plan. So I took action. Yesterday my site was finally moved to a different plan with double the storage space! Great news, right? Well, in preparing for this move, I downloaded all the files from the server. I did this on December 19th. This weekend I uploaded the files to their new home, in anticipation of the swtich. Can you see where this is going? Next thing you know, my old site is wiped off the map, the new one is up... and the last 3 weeks of blog entries are history. Woo hoo! Another brilliant job by The Pickytarian.
There remains a flicker of hope that I will be able to restore the missing entries. Most likely, however, we will just have to pretend they never happened. Gah!
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 08:32 AM | Comments (7)
January 11, 2005
Technical Difficulties
please stand by...
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 08:20 PM
Subway Reading: Captain America and Tom Strong
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
Captain America #2 - This weekend I had a conversation with friend and loyal Pickytarian Tim-Man. On my suggestion, Tim-Man picked up the first issue of Captain America. He enjoyed it to an extent, but he posed a question to me which I could not answer: "Why is everybody so mad at Captain America for killing a couple of terrorists?" He has a very good point. I suppose that the response is that S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury are worried that Cap was shaken up by the recent dis-assembly of The Avengers and the related deaths of Hawkeye and The Vision. My question is: why does Nick Fury have this Dr. Phil-like interest in Cap's feelings? The two men are soldiers, right? They have presumably survived countless deaths of their fellow soldiers over the decades. Captain America famously watched his loyal boy-pal Bucky die. I would think that Nick Fury would give Cap the benefit of the doubt.
It is possible that there is more to it than meets the eye, of course. Fury and Sharon Carter's interest in Cap's feelings may be due to some as-yet unrevealed plot point. It's sort of irrelevant for now, because this second chapter of Ed Brubaker's story moves away from the touchy-feely and towards the whammo-smacky. Cap and S.H.I.E.L.D. begin investigating the murder from last issue and the related terrorist plot. Machine-gun fire and shield-chucking ensues. The dialogue contains some gems, such as Cap's disbelief that the aforementioned murder victim is actually dead. I also appreciate the way the Brubaker drops in brief expository nods for those of us who are not aware of obscure-yet-relevant history from these characters' long continuity.
The visuals, courtesy of artist Steve Epting and colorist Frank D'Armata, continue to impress me. The underground sewer environment is portrayed as shadowy and dark, but the action is not obscured by overly murky coloring. Epting's drawing style is highly naturalistic, but it is done with a loose line that keeps the action dynamic and fluid. I can't express how happy I am to see Epting's work again after the unfortunate demise of CrossGen's El Cazador title. The appealing art combines with an above-average if not exceptional story to earn this issue 3.5 stars.
Tim-Man's question about Captain America led to a discussion of Identity Crisis and the school of superhero writing that places the character in a more "real-world" setting. While I do not want to get into the various manifestations of this tendency and their relative merits, I do want to mention it as the context for my next review...
Tom Strong #29 & #30 - Ed Brubaker also wrote this 2-part Tom Strong story, and the tone could not be further removed from that of Captain America. For me, the joy of Tom Strong has always been its lack of "grim n' gritty" real-world darkness. Their constant hopping between timelines and alternate realities leaves the Strong family with little time for existential angst. And how melancholy can you get when you have Solomon the talking ape and his British accent around to cheer you up?
Ironically, this story maintains that fanciful tone even while dropping Tom into an extremely grim alternate future. The reason is that the alternate future into which Tom falls is a cheerless world without super-heroes, where political corruption, poverty, and war have turned Millennium City into a bleak dystopia. Tom himself becomes is an overweight factory worker, trudging from his unhappy marriage to his miserable job, trying to understand why he has dreams and memories of a life as a science-hero.
Duncan Fegredo has long been one of my favorite artists. In this book he shows off a couple of different variations on his style, splitting them between the "real" Tom Strong timeline and the "fake" one. In the bookend current timeline scenes Fegredo uses an unusually fine line, almost as though he is drawing at a larger magnification than usual. The alternate timeline scenes are depicted with more of his trademark thick lines, but there is a loose, un-connected quality to them that help communicate the dream-like haze of Tom's experience. The coloring also shifts in tone, abandoning its usual bright primary-color palette for a muted grays, browns, and considerable white space. Ultimately I think I prefer Fegredo's tried-and-true style, but the experimentation definitely worked in this context.
If, like Tim-Man, you have grown weary of the constant tragedy and brooding that has made such a resurgence lately in super-hero comics, I suggest you take a break from it with this or any other Tom Strong story. 4 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 07:24 PM
January 06, 2005
Subway Reading: Skyscrapers of the Midwest
Skyscrapers of the Midwest #1 - I caught a favorable review of this book on another comic blog recently, but I can't remember which blog it was. Whomever that reviewer may have been, I would like to thank him or her for bringing this comic to my attention. Josh Cotter has crafted a delicately ugly and sublimely beautiful work that will haunt you for some time after you read it. The primary stories center around a sad, overweight, outcast cat-boy and his eager-to-please younger brother. Cat-boy? Well, yes. Cotter employs more or less the same anthropomorphic device that Art Spiegelman used in Maus, and the effect is similar. By removing the human appearance of these otherwise human characters, Cotter counter-intuitively makes it easier for the reader to relate to them.
These stories are broken up by one or two page existential shorts featuring rabbits, aliens, robots, and most striking of all, a skeleton. These stories contribute to the tone of melancholic desperation that hangs over this book. In fact, they enhance the communication of this tone because their format and subject matter are so different from the main stories. The longer pieces rely on a more traditional narrative structure, while the short stories use their characters to illustrate simple, direct statements of life's futility and insignificance.
I don't mean to imply that the book is overwhelmingly sad or depressing. The fake ads and advice columns provide deliciously dark humor. The longer cat-family stories rely heavily on the children's imaginations, which are wonderlands of giant robots and grisly action. In these imagination sequences, Cotter simultaneously exposes the dual nature of a young boy's fantasy world: whimsical adventure combined with destructive power fantasies.
Cotter's art is distinctively reminiscent of R. Crumb's, with its obsessive hatching and wobbly lines. The artist's hand is unmistakably involved, and that helps to communicate the intimate nature of these stories. Cotter ably uses lights and darks and heavily-layered hatching to bring depth and clarity to his crowded panels. The lettering has the same semi-obsessive hand-scrawled quality, completing the visual package. 4.5 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 12:35 PM