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@ Pop Syndicate-- Captain America: Who Will Wield the Shield?

So Captain America: Reborn isn't even done yet but we're already living in a pre-Siege world so Marvel had to get this book out now:

"Looking at the themes that Brubaker has been exploring in Captain America, Who Will Wield the Shield? should work a lot better than it actually does.  After the sensationalism of his post-Civil War stories, Brubaker should be able to get back to focusing on shared struggles of Rogers and Barnes.  He does here but it comes off as too packaged and manufactured.  In one issue, Brubaker has to establish and answer their struggle—who will get to keep the costume and shield and who what will the future hold for the one left without an identity in the end.  That should be a bigger story…  No, that is the bigger story and it’s been the story that Brubaker has been telling so why now that he has both characters back, does it get addressed and ended so quickly?"

You can read the full review at Pop Syndicate.

Below is an uncolored page from this book (and you can see some more here.)  I absolutely love the way Guice put this page together.  There's fantastic emotion and energy on this page as it's more about what's unsaid between the characters than what is said.  The 4th panel, with Cap shadowboxing just shows how antsy he is on the snowy night, how unsure he is about what to do.  I really wish that Guice had been able to draw the whole book because once Luke Ross takes over, there's a horrible shift in the nature of the art, where Ross is more concerned about the figures and the action than he is about the mood and subtext of the story.

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Weekly Comic Shopping List 12/23/09

What a week for great artwork? 


  • Detective Comics #860-- The final part of Rucka and Williams III's Batwoman: Year One.  For my money, this has probably been the best superhero comic of the year under Rucka and Williams.  

  • Original Johnson Vol 1 GN-- It's been a long time since I've really looked at Trevor Von Eeden's artwork.  As a kid, I remember his stuff being not necessarily to my liking but I think that if I revisited his stuff now, I'd really enjoy it.

  • Winterworld HC--  Here's another series I haven't thought about in years.  This originally came out from Eclipse back in the last 80s I think.  

  • Captain America Reborn Who Will Wield The Shield--  From what I've seen of the preview art in this book by Butch Guice, I'll pick this up just for the art, even though it'll still be a few months until I get to read CA: Reborn.  

  • Criminal The Sinners #3-- I don't know many more ways to say that Criminal may be one of my favorite ongoing (for as much as it is) comics right now.  

  • Footnotes In Gaza GN-- I've been looking forward to new Joe Sacco for a while now.  Waiting for this book has made me wait on putting out any "best of 2009" list because I want to read this before I make a final judgment on this year's comics.

@ Pop Syndicate-- The Last Days of American Crime #1

For some reason, I've been looking forward to this book.  I haven't read that much Remender stuff so I never got into books like XXX Zombies, Fear Agent or his Punisher like other people have but I've always at least enjoyed the little bit of the ride I was on.  Without really knowing a lot about The Last Days of American Crime, I jumped into the book and felt it was the best thing of Remender's that I've read.

"Coming out from Radical Comics, Remender’s story is already on the fast track with a movie deal.  The story about crime, the decay of America and the abuse of power seems perfect for the multiplex but I wonder if any big screen adaptation will look as good as Greg Tocchini has made this book look.  Tocchini’s artwork generates a lot of the books forward momentum as his unique blend of line work and color produces a wonderfully seductive and dangerous world.  The opening seen in a drug house, with it’s warm tones, allows the reader to sink into the scene, washed over by the colors before seeing the true violence and horror that takes place in that house.  Tocchini defines the pre-fascist America, making the last-minute attempts at escape and freedom exciting and inviting.  Through his line work and his color, there is an energetic hum to this book, an electrical charge, on every page."

You can read the rest of the review at Pop Syndicate.

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Weekly Comic Shopping List 12/16/09

What a weird week.  So far, luckily, I don't think I've had any kind of huge week in December.  It's either no one is putting out anything or I'm not reading anything. 

  • Elephantmen #23 --I think the beauty of Elephantmen is that it can be almost any kind of story.  I know I've read almost every issue but I've kind of lost track of the story at this point.  This is part 8 of a storyline that I hate to say I couldn't tell you want's happened in the previous 7 parts.  I need to dig out all of the issues and catch up with this one.

  • Children of the Sea V2 -- I never got much of a chance to write about the first volume but I absolutely loved this book.  The loose art was such a different thing than I'm used to seeing in manga, where everything looks so controlled and deliberate (at least in what I've been exposed to so far.)  I've gotten a bit too used to the bi-monthly release of Urasawa's stuff that I've been anxiously waiting to get this book.

  • Ooku Inner Chambers V2-- I've been told that this is a very good series but for some reason, I haven't read the first volume yet.  Hopefully when this one comes, I'll read both of them and figure out if this is one to stick with or not.

$800 to have carpet vacuumed at McCormick Place

Even as Chicago fans are waiting for C2E2 to begin next year at the lakefront McCormick Place, Chicago has been watching more and more trade shows leaving the area for other, more wallet friendly locals like Las Vegas.  This morning's Chicago Tribune has an interesting article about how it's getting too expensive for a number of high-profile industry shows and vendors to make the trip to Chicago anymore.

"It's not just the big-ticket items that rankle Maguire, like a $22,000 tab to move one company's equipment from the convention hall's neighboring truck yard to its exhibit booth, and back after the show. That was more than triple the round-trip expense of shipping it from Baltimore. The smaller charges grate as well, from the $800 a night to have the other firm's booth carpet vacuumed and the trash cans emptied, to the $100 a day for a pot of coffee in the booth."

So, for DC, assuming that they have their usual carpeted area and going by these prices, they'll have to pay at least $2,400 just to have their area vacuumed and the trash taken out.  Right now, I'll volunteer to do it for a whole set of Green Lantern rings and maybe even a mint copy of John Byrne's Man of Steel #1. 

I dare DC to find a better offer than that.


Go read THE COMICS JOURNAL #300

Last week, I finally got my copy of The Comics Journal #300, the final issue of the current incarnation of the Journal.  After this, it'll become a once or twice a year event which may or may not be the wisest move for the magazine.  While TCJ has been known to crawl up its own but on plenty of occasions, it's always featured some of the best writing and interviews about comics.  I know that the Journal has the reputation of being unfriendly towards the mainstream but, in the last few years, it's featured some great interviews with everyone from Brian Michael Bendis to Norwegian artist Jason.  I still think the Bendis interview from around 3-4 years ago is the quintessential Bendis interview.  You can go here to find an archive of full reviews and excepts from the past years.  The Journal has always been full of great interviews.

I think they may have topped themselves with #300 where instead of straight-forward interviews, they have a number of writers, artists and cartoonists talking with each other.  The idea is to have a younger comic creator talking with an older one and the conversations are just completely engrossing.  Each conversation goes off into interesting and fascinating areas.  Starting with the Art Spiegelman/Kevin Huizenga discussion about art, through the discussions of the similarities and differences of the American and French comic industry by Sammy Harkman and Jean-Christophe Menu, I haven't been able to put this magazine down yet.  I'm currently on the Dash Shaw/David Mazucchelli conversation (another fascinating discussion about art) but have been flipping ahead to the Ho Che Anderson/Howard Chaykin and the Matt Fraction/Dennis O'Neil conversations that are more about the business of comics and the life of comics than they are about the heady ideas of art.  But it's all fascinating and gripping. 

If this is what the Journal could have produced more of, conversations between different artists, I would have loved to see more of it in print.  So far, I haven't found anything gripping yet on the Journal's new website but it's still early.  There's a feeling that the Journal is finally trying to redefine itself for the web-age something that, honestly, it should have done years ago. 

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@ Pop Syndicate-- Jonah Hex #50

If my comparison of Jonah Hex #50 to both The Matrix and to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wasn't enough, I wrote some more about the issue over at Pop Syndicate:

"During the course of this story, both Hex and Tallulah have to face the idea of who they are and who they want to be.  The ugly truth is that neither of them is a particularly good person and maybe neither deserves to have anything resembling a good or normal life.  For half of the issue, Tallulah abandons her traditional black clothes and tries to change herself by wearing a white dress.  “I’m just running’ till I can’t see my past ‘round every corner” she tells the local sheriff.

"Hex never gets to be as poetic about his struggles as Tallulah does."

You can read the full review at Pop Syndicate.

Weekly Comic Shopping List 12/9/09

A nice week, nothing too big, except GoGo Monster which I'm still waiting for Borders to get.

  • Daytripper #1-- One of the best books that no one read this decade was De: Tales, a collection of short stories written and drawn by twin brothers Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon.  Their tales of Brazillian life combined a bit of autobiography and slice-of-life stories with a wonderful magical realism to create a book that had sounds all its own.  I still think I could hear Brazil outside of the windows that Ba and Moon drew in that book.  I haven't read that much of what Daytripper is supposed to be about but I keep hoping that it will capture a sound and rhythm like De: Tales did.

  • Ex Machina Vol 8 Dirty Tricks TP--  It feels like it's been forever since I read about Mayor Hundred and his NYC and I can't remember where this story is at right now.  But that usually happens.  I guess, like I seem to do once a year, I'll have to pull out all of the collections and just read them straight through.

  • Phonogram 2 Singles Club #6-- With this and Daytripper in one day, I think I'm going to be pretty happy after reading comics tomorrow night. 

  • GoGo Monster HC-- Now that I think of it, I don't know if I've ever finished Tekkon Kinkreet.  I think I know what I'm reading next.

  • Naoki Urasawas 20th Century Boys Vol 6 TP-- Volume 5 was the one I was really waiting for, one of those "everything you think you know is going to change volumes."  After six volumes of each, I still can't figure out which I like more, this or Pluto.  Pluto is so much more reserved and compact while 20th Century Boys is so sprawling and free.  

With the sun behind him... quick thoughts on Jonah Hex #50

I'm putting together notes for my review of Jonah Hex #50 but since I first saw an online preview of the issue a couple of days ago, I've been smitten with the first double page spread in that comic; Hex on his horse, jumping over the varmints he's tracking.

Darwyn Cooke may be one of the most cinematic artists working in comics right now.  This just has the feel of the finale of a great western movie as our hero finally catches up with the bad guys and puts them in their place, usually using his own trusty six-shooters.  The imagehere of the horse, jumping as high as he can, almost weightless and flying, against the cloudy sky, is practically timeless.  And you also have the great coloring of Dave Stewart, creating the sunshine halo behind Hex, who's anything but an angel.

It's a classic western image but it also reminds me of something that the Wachowski Brothers (siblings now?) did in the Matrix movies and even in Speed Racer-- the way that they just stopped time, long enough for you to realize how cool what they were showing you really was.  The image here is perfectly frozen.  Going for another movie comparison, and a more apropos movie, this is almost the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where Butch and Sundance rush out of the small, dingy bar to meet their fate.  Of course, that's the end of Butch and Sundance's story and Cooke's image is the beginning of Hex's story but both images capture a moment in time perfectly and say everything you need to know about that moment.

This is just one of many great moment out of Jonah Hex #50.  The last page of the book is an absolute killer scene.  And to give some credit where credit is due, writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have created a classic Jonah Hex story here.  They cram a lot of story into this issue but pace everything perfectly.  There's a lot of heart and soul in Jonah Hex #50.

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