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@Popdose: Red

What better time to write about a 5+ year old book than when the movie based on it opens up at #2 on the box office charts.  Here's some musings at Popdose on the comic RED by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner:

That is all we really get to know of Paul Moses and all we need to know of the man. There’s no back story about how Moses was recruited by the CIA, no revelations about why he was such a killer, no crying over the love he didn’t get from his father and no general exposition that may have given the reader a false feeling that they know Paul Moses better than they do. Ellis doesn’t add anything to Moses’ character that would make him a sympathetic character and that’s what makes Moses so fascinating. He’s a true stone-cold killer but he’s also tried to move beyond that past and be a normal man with a normal life and normal family. Ellis creates that tension in Moses as he does not try to tip the balance by making Moses a repugnant or sympathetic character. He is what he is and Ellis leaves it up to the reader to judge whether he is the hero or the villain of the story.

You can read the full review at Popdose here.

@Popdose: Uncanny X-Force #1

And here's a book that I went into with some hope but relatively little expectations:

The team of mutants that Remender has assembled for X-Force are the sexy mutants. There’s no room for any Gambit here. Wolverine and Archangel, holdovers from the previous X-Force team, are joined by Psylocke, Fantomex and Deadpool. In the first 5 pages, Remender finally makes Deadpool a character I can understand and like. Providing a Carl Spackler-like narration as he sneaks into an “Ominous Fortress of Impending Doom,” Deadpool comes off as both jokey and somewhat disturbed. Even as he watches a woman get killed in some kind of cult ritual, Deadpool briefly stops to muse on the band No Doubt as he tries to clarify a bit of narration. Later, tied to a slab with part of his head slashed open, Deadpool shows more of his musical knowledge as he recites a few lyrics by the Miami Sound Machine. Remender shows us how Deadpool is a character whose mind maybe doesn’t quite work in the same way that most of our minds do.



You can read the full review here.

5 Writers (October 2010)

Taking a cue from the 11 O'Clock forums and borrowing a bit of list making from David Brothers and 4th Letter, this week at Wednesday's Haul will be all comic related Favorite 5 lists.  Now the usual disclaimer should be in place:  these are just my opinions right now.  I reserve the right to change these at any time.  As well as listing out my current favorites, I'll also be talking briefly about a key work of theirs. 

These are all creators and works that have had some kind of influence on my and the way I look at comics. 

Here's the schedule:

Monday:  5 Writers
Tuesday: 5 Artists
Wednesday: 5 Writer & Artist Teams
Thursday: 5 Writers/Artists (single person)
Friday: 5 creators to watch in 2011

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Up first, 5 Writers:

 

  • Grant Morrison-- Invisibles V3 #1:  Grant Morrison has this neat trick that he pulls out on occasion.  After he finishes a long form story, he pulls out a coda and gives you more to think about.  That’s why I love “For Tomorrow,” his final arc on New X-Men.  It’s both unnecessary but has all of the keys to understanding his New X-Men run.  Before that, he did the same trick with the Invisibles, having Frank Quitely draw the last issue of The Invisibles, in a story that occurs in 2012 at the end of the world.  The penultimate issue (actually numbered #2 of Volume 3, when they were indulgently counting down with the issue numbers) wrapped up the grand plot that Morrison was telling but left all of the characters on their own while entering the 21st century.  While we saw glimpses of the new century during the run, we never really knew what King Mob’s own fate was.  Morrison caught us all up with these characters one last time, giving them a proper ending while giving us clues about how to go back and read the entire Invisibles saga. 

  • Neil Gaiman-- Sandman: Season of Mists:  I think this is where I knew that Gaiman was writing a future classic.  After tying his Sandman into some Shakespeare stories, Gaiman goes and decides to incorporate Milton and Paradise Lost into his story as Lucifer gives up the keys to Hell.  And even as his story truly goes epic, Gaiman keeps things close and personal with Sandman and his bickering family.  This is one of those books that struck at the perfect time for me as I was an English Lit major back in the early 1990s and Gaimain was writing about the things that I was studying in class.  But I also really like his Dream character, this all-powerful endless character who was just as love-sick and heart broken as any mere mortal.  Maybe Sandman was emo or goth but I wasn’t nearly cool enough at the time to really know what either of those were. 

  • Ed Brubaker—Sleeper: Here’s where Ed Brubaker’s career started for me.  His first collaboration with Sean Phillips has everything in it that the two would later expand upon in Criminal and Incognito.  Coming out during what will be known as the golden age of Wildstorm, Sleeper is a dark and dirty story that couldn’t be told with any existing hero or villain.  Holden Carver is the prototypical Brubaker hero, a good man caught in bad situations and the puzzle is to see how the hero adapts or fails to adapt to those situations.  In that way, there’s little difference between Carver and Brubaker’s Bucky or his Daredevil.  All these men are tugged in different directions by their past and their present. 

  • Matt Wagner—Grendel: Wagner is the modern pulp writer.  While he’s probably best known for the work that he both writes and draws (Mage & Grendel,) that over looks a great boy of work that Wagner has written for other artists.  Starting with the hyper-stylized Pander Brothers and then flowing into Bernie Mireault, J.K. Snyders III, Jay Geldof, Tim Sale and Patrick McKeown, Wagner’s Grendel cycle is an ambitious story ultimately about a concept and how it permeates into a society.   Grendel is his storytelling masterpiece but look at the work he’s done on Sandman Mystery Theater, Madame Xanadu and Zorro.  Wagner has the heart and soul of a pulp writer but expresses himself in very modern ways.

  • James Robinson- Starman:  I don’t really care what the man has done since, but Starman is one of the best stories that DC Comics have told in the past 30 years.  While it’s been 10 years since the adventures of Jack Knight disappeared from the stands, he still feels more real to me than most comic characters do.  Robinson created a true character in Jack, not just a mannequin who’s sole purpose was to wear a costume and fight bad guys.  Back in the early 90s, Robinson was on a roll with Malibu’s Firearm (a character that’s sadly faded into obscurity,) The Golden Age, a fun graphic novel called 60 Seconds but Starman was his masterpiece.   Jack Knight came to mean even more to me after I became a father and could see the character’s arc in a different light.  The ending of Starman is just perfect to me and I don’t ever really want to see Robinson or Tony Harris go back to the character.  I’ve got my story and it was almost perfect. 
Tomorrow: 5 Artists...

@ Popdose: Amazing Spider-Man Gauntlet V5- Lizard (really should be "Shed")

Over at Popdose this week, I wrote a bit about the latest Amazing Spider-Man collection:

Over the years, it seems like the classic Spider-Man villains, those created by Stan Lee, Steve Dikto and John Romita, have suffered at the hands of later creators because no one has really known what to do with them. After the wild popularity and offshoots of Venom, the older villains have been rehashed, remade and eventually transformed into jokes as creators scrambled to figure out how to make villains like the Lizard, a humanlike lizard who wears a lab coat as his costume, threatening. Usually they failed as none of the villains could be as memorable as the original Green Goblin or Kraven or any of the original members of the Sinister Six. With The Gauntlet cycle of stories, these original villains have been brought back and tinkered with just enough to remind us why they were great once upon a time. But with “Shed,” Wells and Bachalo succeed in remaking the Lizard into a more reptilian monster who can do more than just wear a lab coat. The Lizard is no long a scientist trapped in a mutated body. The scientist is gone and all that remains is the beast.

You can read the full review here.

Mad Men: "Hands and Knees"

It’s all Don Draper’s fault.

Last season, around this time, with his back up against the wall, Don Draper found out something about himself; he wanted more from life. He wanted to build something rather than skate along through it while trying to keep a low profile. The idea that if no one knew who he was, how could they be disappointed when they found out was dashed as soon as Betty discovered the truth about Dick Whitman. Forced to confront his past, he finally confessed to her who he was. In “Hands and Knees,” he’s at the same point but it’s not just his marriage and family that hangs in the balance, it’s his own life as the United States government has to start poking into the past of Don Draper. A simple ad job threatens to upend the small amount of security he has as words like “security clearance” and “background checks” begin to be heard around the hallways of Sterling Cooper Draper Price.

But you look at the other partners in this episode—Roger fighting to keep SCDP together on two fronts, Pete having to take the fall for Don’s past, Lane having to be bullied by his father and even Burt, the once proud ad man now reduced to a doddering relic, sitting around the office because he has nothing better to do. It’s all Don Draper’s fault.

For all of these men, the key men in Mad Men, the relics of a passing age, they’re hanging on to what they have by the most tenuous grips. They thought they faced the worst when Sterling Cooper was being sold off by the Brits but Don’s realization that he didn’t want to be part of some large machine dragged all of them, Peggy, Pete, Joan and Harry along on this dangerous and uncertain path. “I want to build something” Don told Roger and Burt and we all believed him at that moment, didn’t we? We could see that even as his marriage was ending, he found something to fight for in keeping his professional independence.

For whatever else it was, the old Sterling Cooper was solid; it was a rock. With Roger, Burt, Don and Lane at the helm, SC was an institution. So what was lost between the Machiavellian moments when Lane Pryce fired Don, Roger and Burt and any moment in season 4. In the old days, could Lee Garner Jr. have made Roger dress up as Santa Claus? In the old days, would the creative bullpen have been overran with frat boys and “artists” rather than business men and professionals? Maybe it’s a sign of the changing times but the dreams at the end of season 3 were never fully realized because Don simply didn’t know how to build anything. He had never built anything so how could he know what to do?

Roger also never built anything as Lee coldly reminded him even as he pulled the carpet out from under Roger. Everything Roger has is inherited from his father, the first Sterling at Sterling Cooper. In that way, Roger has more to lose as he has always been the boy with the silver spoon in his mouth. Even as he’s getting slapped down by Lee and Lucky Strikes on the business end of his life, he’s watching the destruction of his personal life as Joan is pregnant from their one night stand. He loves Joan more than he has loved either of his wives but it’s always been a game to him, a harmless flirtation. Well, a baby makes it real and when he learns that Joan is pregnant, he says everything but the right things to her.

There have been many themes in Mad Men this season but the broadest one seems like it’s the old versus the new. We’ve seen generational conflicts, racial and sexual conflicts, old husbands versus new husbands and even old loves versus new loves. The world is changing around Don Draper and for every instance where it seems like he recognizes that change, there are 10 more where he falls into his old ways, unable to accept and embrace the new. Of course Don would try to buy his daughter’s love with Beatles tickets at Shea Stadium. But also, of course he would wear earplugs to that concert. It's his fault that he has to be there in the first place.

@ Floppytown-- Hulk #25

100 words just wasn't enough for my thoughts on Hulk #25.  Thankfully I've got my own blog to go into a bit more detail.

There's a moment just before Red Hulk jumps off into battle, where he's almost thanking Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner for the opportunity he's been given for redemption-- that moment almost made the book for me.  The biggest problem I had for the book was that it seemed to be rehashing Hulk #2 from just a couple of years ago, having the Red Hulk fight Iron Man.  And next up is Thor?  It almost looks like we're going in circles.

My other own personal issue is that between this and the recent incarnations of Atlas, I think Jeff Parker is a better writer than he's given the opportunity to be.  Now I don't know if it was his own storytelling tendencies or some mandate from on high, but I would have liked to see him have the time to establish his take on Hulk without bringing in so many other characters.  And that was my issue with Atlas as well, where it felt most like a team-up book (Atlas and the X-Men, Atlas and Namor, Atlas and the Avengers..) rather than an straight-forward Atlas book.  I understand in these times that the X-Men and the Avengers sell more books than Atlas but that first Agents of Atlas miniseries was so smart and strong because it skirted the outside boundaries of the Marvel Universe.  It was the underground book.  But in a day and age where you need to have a success with issue #1, there's no time or opportunity to be underground.

Like Atlas, Hulk is in a nice position to be an underground book but Captain America, Iron Man and Thor showing up right off the bat make it anything but a potentially sleeper hit. 

And I hate that in that review I didn't get a chance to really mention Gabriel Hardman's art or Betty Breitweiser's coloring.  There are a handful of artists working in the mainstream now that draw by creating light and darkness on the page and Hardman's firmly in that camp.  I love the way he creates images with light rather than with line.  I wish more artists could follow in his footsteps that way. 

Random Quotes: Abhay on Bendis on Comic Criticism

 "I want Comics to be what I want it to be, instead of what it actually is."

Go and read Sean Collins' piece at CBR on the Bendis rant (follow the CBR links to it) against what passes for comic criticism and journalism and then scroll down to read Abhay Kholsa's response to it.  Abhay may be one of the most stream-of-consciousness comic critics out there.  His writing ranges from performance art to esoteric insight but at least he's usually entertaining.  

I caught his feelings on Matt Fraction and Keiron Gillen and, sadly, found myself nodding along with Abhay.  Casanova and Phonogram are two of my favorite series from the past 5 years.  Both really got me excited for the creators and creations.  I want to see more of these books.  I need to see more of these books.  And what do I get instead?

Uncanny X-Men.

Now I've got a box of X-Men books upstairs.  If I want to read an X-Men story, I've got plenty to chose from.  I don't need more.  So why do I have to read an X-Men book if I want to read Fraction or Gillen?  Now, I'm not disparaging them because they've got a good job and something that pays but I know what I want.  I want Casanova.  I want Phonogram.  And I get X-Men.

As Warren Ellis said so long ago and is still true today, "this is what they want."  I realized a while ago that I'm not part of the same group that they are.

With all of this Bendis brouhaha, I'm surprised that no one has even mentioned the awesome picture that Kevin Huxford is using on his post on Bendis.  I want to get that shirt and wear it to the next convention I go to.  Don't know why but I do.

Mad Men-- "The Beautiful Girls"

There are many ways to say “goodbye.” Some are loving and kind. Some close doors and end relationships. Make no mistakes about it; Sally Draper closed the door on her father. There may be a chance for Don Draper to repair any damage he did in this relationship to his young daughter but by forcing her to go home, by never once trying to find out what’s happening to her in the Henry Francis household, by never once trying to find out what’s in the mind of this young girl, he basically kicks her to the side of the road so he can get on with his life. The suburbs and that house no longer exist; his children are as much in his past as his father and brother are. When Sally Draper says “goodbye” to her father, there’s no love in those words and no hope. She’s basically a prisoner now in an unloving house and her one chance at escape has sent her back.

In “The Beautiful Girls,” Mad Men shows us that no matter how much things change, things stay the same. Women and blacks still suffer for who they are. The young and the old are pushed aside—Burt Cooper doesn’t have an office? Seriously? For as much lip service as Don Draper paid to change and growing up a bit last episode, how much of that did we really see this episode? Don Draper doesn’t fight his battles; he tries to get others to do it for him, particularly Faye who is woefully unprepared to deal with a small girl. 

But the world is changing around him. The neighborhoods that Roger Sterling and Joan Harris walked through just a few years ago have become run down and dangerous. Peggy, with her horizons expanded, sees the injustice and horrors of the world but what can she do as she’s shot down by Don who doesn’t want to face those concerns. He doesn’t want to face the injustices dealing with a client who won’t sell their product to black people in the American south. I think by now we know enough of Don to understand that he knows about these injustices but he just doesn’t have the courage to stand up to them. The same way he doesn’t have the courage to stand up to his daughter or his ex-wife.

It’s funny and sad that even as we watch Don Draper stumble through life, looking for one, true human connection, we have to watch as Roger and Joan have to fight to deny theirs. Is there any doubt that both of them would be happier if only they could have the real relation they want with each other? If you can say one thing about Roger, it’s that his life has been a pursuit of happiness. Some of those pursuits have been momentary and fleeting, such as most of his affairs. Actually, most of his pursuits have been fleeting but Joan has always been there. And likewise, Roger has always been there for Joan. Who can really figure out what Joan’s marriage is? Does he really love the guy or is it that he’s not Roger so she won’t feel the pain that way? The romantic in me hopes it’s the former choice but I really think it’s the latter; her husband is not Roger Sterling. He’ll never be Roger Sterling so he can never hurt her in the way that Roger Sterling can. Of course, he can never love her and make her smile in the same way that Roger can. 

And then there's Mrs. Blankenship- poor, poor Mrs. Blankenship. In perhaps the funniest moments since a lawn mower was driven through the old offices of Sterling Cooper, Pete gets pulled in to help move Mrs. Blankenship's body and in a bit of marvelous pantomime, we see just how effective Pete is around SCDP.  Actually, it's the reaction to Mrs. Blankenship's death, particularly how hard it hits Roger and Burt, that shows just what effect these beautiful girls have on the men.  Even in her old age, Mrs. Blankenship obviously meant a lot to these two men.  "She was an astronaut" is Burt's epithet for her, commenting on how far the woman came in her life more than what she actually did.

Wildstorm for the non-Wildstorm fan

With the news that Wildstorm is shutting down, here are a handful of their deeper catalog books that you may want to take a look at just to see some of the excellent work that they've put out over the last 18 years.

  • Arrowsmith: So Smart In Their Fine Uniforms by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco- a fine, old fashioned adventure comic.  Pacheco really pulls off some classic artwork here.
  • City of Tomorrow by Howard Chaykin-- Maybe not Chaykin's finest hour but possibly the closest we'll see to a revival of Time2.
  • Desolation Jones by Warren Ellis and J.H. Williams-- This is one of those series that I wonder if we'll ever see the conclusion, with art by Daniel Zezjl, of.
  • Epicurus the Sage by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Keith-- Wildstorm has a lot of Keith books (Maxx, Four Women) in print but this may still be one of my favorite books of the 90s.
  • Gen 13-- I don't know if the final issues of the first series by Adam Warren and Rick Mays have ever been collected but they were a fantastic sendoff to these characters that really made me care for them for the first time.  Track them down if you can.
  • Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in the Big City by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson-- almost any Astro City is good but the original is still the best.
  • Mr. Majestic by Joe Casey, Brian Hoguin and Ed McGuinness-- fun, over the top superheroics as only Joe Casey can conceive them.
  • Mysterius the Unfathomable by Jeff Parker and Tom Fowler-- It's a crime that there hasn't been a followup to this series.  A CRIME!!!!
  • Steampunk V1 & 2 by Joe Kelly and Chris Bachalo-- I'm kind of surprised that only the first volume of this is listed on Wildstorm's website. It's incomprehensible but I can stare at the Bachalo artwork all day.
  • The Winter Men by Brett Lewis and Jon Paul Leon-- Russian superheroes long after the end of the Cold War.  I've been meaning to reread this one lately.
Another book that's never been collected but is worth tracking down is Joe Casey and Ashley Wood's Automatic Kafka, Casey's stab at recreating Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol.  It's another series that I've been meaning to revisit because the only issue I really remember is one featuring Charlie Brown and the cast of Peanuts as adults, maladjusted to life. 

Wildstorm will be remembered for WildCATS, Stormwatch, Gen13 and the Authority but there's a fantastic legacy to this imprint.  Hopefully some of the future, odder projects that they would have picked up won't be forgotten by DC. 

@ Popdose: The Marvels Project review

Over at Popdose, I wrote a bit on Marvel's recent The Marvels Project:


In Captain America, Steve Epting’s art never felt quite whole. It showed off his strong storytelling but the over-reliance that book had on Frank D’Armata’s coloring softened up Epting’s artwork and didn’t do much to show off his skill with pen and ink. In The Marvels Project, Epting’s artwork stands out more than any fancy coloring could ever allow it to. You can see how Epting is heavily influenced by the classic photo-realist comic strip artists of the past like Alex Raymond and Al WIlliamson. He can do a very realistic style without falling into the trap of losing all of the energy in the art. While he can draw the super-hero stuff nicely, it is when he gets to draw the more human adventures of Nick Fury, John Steele and even the detective called the Ferret that his photo-realistic style looks best. Epting is a great modern artist who can perfectly capture the look and energy of great old comic strip and comic book artists.



You can read the full review here.  

Going a bit beyond the review, I wish that this book were a lot more than just the origin of the Invaders, which is ultimately what it is.  While this is some of Epting's best produced artwork, the story feels like it could have spun off in a hundred more interesting directions, from the very Kingdom Come-like openings to even just being a story about the forgotten heroes of Marvel (but I guess that's The Twelve,) there never really was any kind of center for Brubaker's story to hang on.