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Lazy blog posting

This poster for the upcoming The Losers just makes me feel good because it manages to almost completely capture Jock's original cover.

If I can get a bunch of other stuff done this week, I really want to reread The Losers before the movie comes out.  It was one of my favorite comics of a couple of years ago.  If you're enjoying a lot of the crime comics out right now, go back and dig out The Losers. 

Hey, the first two stories are out in one handy trade on Amazon.

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Review: Joe The Barbarian #1

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A John Hughes coming-of-age story by way of Jack Kirby and He Man.

To Grant Morrison, the world is so much bigger, dangerous and even wonderful than what we see and experience every day.  Usually, Morrison is trying to tell us that with big, loud and colorful comics, whether it's in New X-Men, All Star Superman or even We3.  He wants to show us some new concept or idea; one usually designed to blow our minds.  That's how we get Superman saving reality by singing in Final Crisis or even the painting that ate Paris in his Doom Patrol run.  Morrison's built his own comic's cottage industry of playing with these grand, meta-universal themes on a large scale.  So the pleasant surprise of Joe the Barbarian is how small and personal the story feels.

For a Grant Morrison penned book, the amazing thing about Joe the Barbarian is how "normal," the book feels, how grounded and down to earth it is.  Joe Manson is a normal, high school age boy, with all of the normal insecurities that brings.  Raised by a single mom (his dad apparently died while serving in the military) and having to watch his blood sugar levels ("Make sure you eat your candy" his mom reminds him,) Joe is a very normal, practically mundane, character, something we get so little of in Grant Morrison's writing.  Having no guns, no powers and, more importantly, nothing special is what makes Joe so special and unique among Morrison's characters.

Like most of us geeky kids that age, Joe's wonderful attic bedroom is still full of his toys; superheroes, army guys, Star Wars and robots.  These are the substitutes for the friends and family Joe doesn't seem to have besides his mother and pet rat Jack.  They're what live up in his bedroom.  And during one moment where Joe's blood sugar maybe drops a bit too far, they come alive to him.  An Action Elite soldier and Ultimus Alpha (think GI Joe and Tranformers) tell Joe, "Death Coats came.  Playtown burns from Teddy Bear Alley to Starbase Heights.  And the drains are soaked with guts and stuffing."  Yes, his toys talked to him about the danger they're in.  As Joe says after that incident, "Uh-oh."  Are this toys really in some kind of danger or is Joe's vision caused by his diabetes? 

Sean Murphy and Dave Stewart provide the art and coloring for this book.  As Morrison simplifies his own writing, Murphy and Stewart fill Joe's world with such vivid detail that makes this one of the most accessible and identifiable Morrison stories ever.  From the deep dark shadows of a school bus to the endless fields of a military cemetery and even to Joe's home, a few decades behind current fashion, Murphy makes Joe's world real and tangible.  Even when Murphy draws the toys talking to Joe, there's a wonderful sense that they're both life-like and toyish at the same time.  Seeing some of the toys missing limbs and looking lost creates a wonderful tone to the story.

Make no mistake about it; Joe the Barbarian is a Grant Morrison book, filled with the usual concerns that Morrison writes about, but it's a much simpler book.  It's much more open and approachable than Morrison is known to be.  Toys coming to life, showing the signs of a great battle and teddy bears limping along on crutches-- yeah, that sounds like the most approachable opening to a Grant Morrison story in a long time.

Joe the Barbarian
"Chapter 1: hypo"
Written by: Grant Morrison
Drawn by: Sean Murphy
Colored by: Dave Stewart
Lettered by: Todd Klein

No visible means of support and you have not seen nothing yet

There are many Sunday mornings where I'm sorry that I missed Tom Spurgeon's Five For Friday calls for submissions and this week has to be one of the ones I would have really liked to participate in; Confessional.  This week, Tom asked "Make Five Confessions Related To Comics That Don't Necessarily Portray You In A Flattering Light."  And as usual, one of Tom's own 5 for Friday's jumped out at me:

"3. I frequently think of throwing all my comics away."

I know that there are people who think throwing away comics is close to a capital crime but a similar sentiment was echoes at least a couple of times in the other replies for 5 for Friday.  It's kind of odd because I've been thinking lately of throwing away a large chunk of my collection.  You see, I've been collecting comics pretty much non-stop for almost 35 years or so and, during all of that time, I've barely gotten rid of anything.  I still miss the days of being a kid, when a large part of my collection could fit into a grocery bag that I'd lug to a friend's house.  We'd stay up all night haggling and trading comics, getting rid of the stuff that just didn't do it for me and getting something new and great.  In a nostalgic way, I really miss that simpler time of collecting comics.

So anyway, I never had that period of not reading comics that so many people go through.  I never sold my collection to buy a guitar or an Atari 2600 (just to date me a bit) so I've got a large portion of every comic I've ever bought.  Sure, some stuff has been sold off on Ebay but I don't think it's been enough to really make any huge dent in my collection.  Also, it's probably been almost 20 years since my collection has been in any kind of comprehensive order.  Once I left for college and started up a "mini" collection (enough to fit into a dorm room,) my collection has never been a unified whole-- bagged, boarded and in complete alphabetical order.  And it's just become less and less of a priority; as my collection has grown, I felt less of a need or a want to actually try to organize it.  That in itself has been a pain when I've wanted to read a 20 issue run of something and can only find about 17 issues.  Those other 3 issues exist in a small area but are well hidden and elusive, camouflaged by so many other comic books.  Here are two looks at what my comic book collection looks like right now:

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Photo1

Even more scary is the fact that this is even after it's been straightened up a bit.  How do all of those people in Robot 6's Shelf Porn organize their stuff?

I don't mind the bookshelves so much but all of those longboxes have to go.  There's just no denying that I don't really want them anymore.  Sure, there are runs that I'll keep no matter what (all my Avengers, X-Men, Byrne Fantastic Four and even my Micronauts) but do I really need as many post-Byrne Superman books or those Further Adventures of Indiana Jones anymore?

So it has to go.  Ideally, the number of boxes should be about 1/3rd of what it is now but I'll probably add another bookshelf and move it to a different wall.  I'm figuring there's at least a four pronged attack to whittling down my collection:

  • Sell it.  If I can find stuff in this mess that's worth the time and that I don't want to keep, it'll hopefully get sold somehow.  I'll probably be doing more "garage sale" posts around here and various forums to try and get a few ducats out of this mess.
  • Donate it.  I have a feeling a large chunk of this stuff will be donated to various charitable organizations. 
  • Recycle it. So much of what's in here just isn't worth the time or effort it'll take to give it away.  It needs to go one way or another and, if I don't think it's worth selling or donating, it'll end up in a recycle bin somewhere.
  • Bind it.  There's stuff in here that I know will probably never be collected.  I want to take some of that stuff and put it in a nice collection myself and put it on one of the bookshelves where it'll be more appreciated than it it was to stay buried in a box somewhere.
When all is said and done, by the beginning of the summer, I want this collection to be much smaller and more manageable.  That also means that going forward, I'll have to change my spending habits, which I've already done a lot of.  No more impulse purchases.  No more just keeping things to keep them-- if it isn't good, it'll have to go one way or another.

Of course, the first step is always the hardest.  I've looked over the collection a couple of times in the past week and wondered how I could throw any of it out.  I think once I throw the first batch of books in the recycle bin, it'll get easier from there.  I just need to do it.

The comics have to go.  I want the stories that are in a lot of them but not the comics themselves.  I just don't want them anymore.

 

 

Weekly Comic Shopping List 1/27/10

It's my week of apathy toward the new books.

  • Atom & Hawkman #46 (Blackest Night Tie-In)-- I think I have this ordered but you know, I really don't care.  I'm tired of Blackest Siege or whatever is happening right now.  Happy birthday, Geoff Johns, but you can stop writing comics now.  Let someone else play in the sandbox, please.

  • Detective Comics #861--  So I guess it's only three more issues of Rucka writing Batwoman and then...  Who knows what comes next other than the much talked about Batwoman ongoing somewhere down the road. 

  • Afrodisiac HC-- Another book I've got ordered and am waiting to see.  This Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg book is poised to set the internet on fire but I guess we'll see if it lives up to expectations.


Review: No Hero by Warren Ellis & Juan Jose Ryp

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Imagine if the drug scene in 1966 San Fransisco didn't set the way from the Summer of Love or the Age of Aquarius but gave us our first super heroes.  Instead of having Timothy Leery preaching the use of psychedelics to expand our minds, what if he used it to produce his own army of superpowered humans?  What would Vietnam have been like?  Would Watergate have happened?  What would the world be like now if one man had the ability to give others the power of flight, of invincibility or of being able to make things explode with their mind?  In No Hero, Warren Ellis shows us that man, capable of giving powers with one magical pill, the wonder drug FX7.  But the question he asks is "how much do you want to be a superhuman?"

In No Hero, some outside force begins killing members of The Front Line, Carrick Masterson's home brewed group of super-humans who supposedly fight for the good of man kind.  In the debut of his creations, he tells the press, "These are my friends.  They are free, and they want you to be free too.  Free from police brutality.  Free from mob rule.  Free from fear that this world that old men have made will just up and kill us at any moment.  Freedom is a level playing field.  All of us standing together as one."  Sounds almost real, doesn't it?  Sounds admirable?  For 40 years following 1966, that's what the world saw of Masterson and his team, from the hippy 60s, through to disco and eventually to what can only be described as "pervert suits" or "full body condoms" in the current day, The Front Line was there to protect mankind when they couldn't.  The latest person to answer "how much do they want to be a super human" is Josh Carver, a straight edge loner who's only goal was to be super human.  Even more than how bad he wants it, the question is will Carver be the next great member of The Front Line or will he cause the ultimate destruction of Masterson's dream.

Avatar gives Warren Ellis all the room that he wants when it comes to writing.  Sometimes he produces small, little gems like Frankenstien's Womb or even No Hero's predecessor Black Summer.  But that freedom also gives Ellis too much freedom other times, so that he either begins repeating himself or, worse yet, indulges himself too much.  Unfortunately, No Hero feels like the dark side of Ellis' Planetary and The Authority, where from a much more optimistic point of view, Ellis told stories of super heroes potentially running amuck in the world.  Much like Black Summer, Ellis explores the abuse of powers in those who should probably never have them but Black Summer was actually based around a story and a plot.  No Hero is based around a thin idea and reads like the writing of someone who hates superheroes.  It's the distant relative of Alan Moore's Watchmen but lacks Watchmen's humanity or basic plot.  It's about bad people doing bad stuff to other bad people but lacks any context or reasoning behind it.

Ellis is once again joined by his Black Summer artist Juan Jose Ryp, who's still doing his Frank Quitely/Geoff Darrow influenced artwork here.  The level of detail that Ryp puts into each and every panel, never missing the chance to put in one more graphitti tag or drop of blood, is quite impressive.  And he has all the more opportunity here in a 4 double-page sequence after Carver takes the miracle power drug.  For four double-page sequences, Ryp shows the horrifying acid trip Carver goes on as his body accepts the drugs.  The comic equivalent of Heirmonyous Bosch or Francis Bacon, Ryp creates a truly disgusting yet captivating part of the book where you're never too sure what's going on.  Tentacles, prehistoric monsters, chopped off fish heads and human ear, giant floating eyeballs and blood, lots and lots of blood, creates the most visually stunning and exciting part of the book, where Ryp's love of detail pays off. 

I kind of like Avatar because they are a publishing house where writers like Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and Jamie Delano can do whatever they want.  Maybe in books like No Hero or Black Summer, we're seeing an unfiltered and unrestricted Warren Ellis, uncompromised and free to be the writer he wants to be.  That's been a wonderful writer in Black Summer, Anna Mercury and Freak Angels but No Hero ends up feeling like half a re-worked concept, borrowing the best from Ellis' more popular books but never expanding on them to make this its own story.

No Hero
Written by: Warren Ellis
Drawn by: Juan Jose Ryp
Colored by: Digikore Studios and Greg Waller

Review-- Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars by Parker, Hardman, Pagulayan, Panosian & Rivoche

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There are two things in Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars that should be enough to entice any comic book fan or any geek in general:  a killer robot and a talking gorilla. Add into that the Sub Mariner's cousin, a Uranian who falls in love with sea anemone, a mythological siren and a super spy from the 1950s and Agents of Atlas is one of the coolest books around.

After Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk's 2006 mini recreated the Agents of Atlas as a secret underground organization bent on making the work a better place (whereas most secret underground organizations are bent on world dominiation,) Parker got another chance in early 2009 to tell Agent of Atlas stories with Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign but had to unfortunately tie them into Norman Osborn and the general Marvel shenanigans that were going on at the time.  The New Avengers even make an appearance and have to participate in the obligatory battle against the Jimmy Woo and his team.  It was great to see Jeff Parker and the team again in Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign but the book never really hit the magic that Parker found in the original miniseries.

All is made right again in Agents of Atlas: Turf War, the latest volume following the Agents as they try to recreate the Atlas Foundation from what was once an evil organization under the control of the Yellow Claw, trying to make it something good, something better that it ever was before.  After they got the obligatory Norman Osborn story out of the way in AoA: Dark Reign, this book is a much more natural outgrowth from the original miniseries.  Kicking off with  two shorter stories featuring the Agents meeting Namor and the Hulk, the majority of this book features Atlas's leader Jimmy Woo trying to find his old love and niece of the Yellow Claw, Suwan.  During Agents of Atlas: Dark Reign, we saw Suwan in flashbacks to the 1950s, where she served the standard girlfriend-in-trouble role.  That was the past and in Parker's new story, we see that Suwan is every bit her uncle's niece as she now goes by Jade Claw, the leader of a splinter group from the Atlas Foundation who wants to rule both groups.

In AoA: Turf Wars, Parker finds the fun mix of levity and danger that he had in the original miniseries.  The stakes are huge in this book, the control of the Atlas Foundation, but Parker never lets that get in the way of a good visual joke or a funny line.  Having a talking gorilla gives Parker an incredibly humorous mouthpiece, able to make an inappropriate joke in almost any situation and to make it work.  But he never loses sight of the story either, building a threatening and dangerous world around the Atlas Foundation.

Four different artists work on this book: Gabriel Hardman, Carlo Pagulayan, Dan Panosian and Paul Rivoche.  A lot of books would suffer with that many hands working on it but they all kind of blend nicely on this book.  Hardman contributes the most to this book and he's got a wonderful, classic looking style built up by lighting and shadows.  Panosian is quite distinct from Hardman, combining the best of the 90s Image style with old time Marvel mainstay Sal Buscema.  It's almost too bad that Panosian wasn't able to draw the Hulk story in this book.  Pagulayan is the most modern of the artists and his work may be a bit too slick amid the others but this is still a book to look through and just soak in the great art on display.

Agents of Atlas: Turf War is the book I was hoping for as a followup to the 2006 miniseries.  It captures the best elements of the miniseries while keeping the story of the Agents and the Atlas Foundation moving forward. 

Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars
Written by: Jeff Parker
Penciled by: Gabriel Hardman, Carlo Pagulayan, Dan Panosian & Paul Rivoche
Inked by: Gabriel Hardman, Jason Paz w/Noa Salonga, Dan Panosian & Paul Rivoche
Colored by: Jana Schirmer & Elizabeth Dismang with Sotocolor
Lettered by: Blambot's Nate Piekos & Tom Orzechowski


Agents of Atlas: Turf Wars is available on Amazon.com.

New Comic Shopping List 1/20/09

  • Starman Vol 2 #81 (Blackest Night Tie-In)-- I honestly don't know whether I'm excited about this book or whether I dread it.  Starman is one of the best series of the 90s and one of the best series ever so the idea of revisiting Opal City is kind of nice but I just don't know if James Robinson has the chops to pull this off.  But I'll say, that Tony Harris cover is one of the best things he's done lately.  In fact, the Starman Omnibus covers have been fantastic so I go into this one hoping that some of the old magic still exists in Opal.
  • Joe The Barbarian #1-- You know, I've avoided a lot of the hype machine about this one so I really don't know what it is other than childhood and fantasy.  But it's Grant Morrison so that's got to be good for something.  And Sean Murphy's artwork on this series has looked pretty good so this hopefully will be as well.
  • Thunderbolts #140-- I bought issue #139 mostly for the Agents of Atlas appearance but was pretty surprised by the art in the book.  I don't really care for this iteration of the Thunderbolts but I'll give Jeff Parker another chance to impress me on this title.
  • Rasl #6-- Jeff Smith's wonderful series about art thieves, interdimensional hopping and physicists returns.  Is this the first of the bi-monthly run?  If we get 6 issues of this in 2010, I'll already predict that it'll turn up on my "Best of 2010" list at the end of the year.
  • Tezukas Black Jack Vol 9 TP-- More of Tezuka's underground doctor.  This is always an enjoyable, if somewhat light, series. 
  • Oishinbo A La Carte Vol 7 Izakaya Pub Food TP--  I'm sorry to see this series go but I believe that this is the last one for now.  This series isn't a showcase of storytelling or anything but it was always really fun, entertaining and informative. 
  • Pluto Urasawa x Tezuka Vol 7 TP-- The 6th volume really felt like it could have been a conclusion to this series, didn't it?
  • Real Vol 7 GN
  • Vagabond VIZBIG Edition Vol 6 TP--  Two Takehiko Inoue books.  I'm caught up on Real but only have the first Vizbig edition of Vagabond.  I think Viz will soon be caught up with the Japanese volumes (if Wikipedia is to be believed) so I wonder what will happen then.  I've read parts of the massive tome that is Vagabond Vizbig V1 and really need to dive into that series soon.

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