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The swirls of Box 13

Box 13 is the new iPhone-only (right now at least) comic from David Gallaher and Steve Ellis.  So far, there are three issue's of it up on Comixology's iPhone app and all have been impressive.  With each issue, I start out thinking I know what the book is going to be about but, by the end of the short chapter, anything I thought of is completely out the window as I'm sucked into the unknown.  Where Gallaher and Ellis are going, I have no idea but I'm enjoying the ride.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been glued to my copy of their High Moon, the collection of the first three "seasons" of their Zuda webcomic.  I was a bit disappointed with how the first Zuda collection Bayou looked.  The colors came out muted and a bit dark.  Again, with High Moon, the collection came out looking different than the web comic but I think I like how the book looks.  You can see the shades and subtleties in Ellis' coloring better in the book.  There's a lot more texture built by the colors in the book that I think make it a better experience than it is on the computer screen (and it's a dang fine experience on the computer screen to begin with.)

Box 13 is a completely different experience than High Moon.  Both creators have changed up their approach to this new story so that Box 13 reads as something completely new.  The 3rd issue was just released and the first page of it is incredible.  The 8 panel page really sucks the reader into the story.  From the explosive splash of the main character jumping into water to the next two panels where we just see the ripples of the splash down, Gallaher and Ellis take their time with this story.  Gallaher gives Ellis the space to tell the story, letting the images just show us what's happening.  I love how almost every panel is shown from a different horizontal angle like we, the audience, are being rocked back and forth by the water.  It keeps us as disoriented as the character is. 

Between Box 13 and High Moon (and even The Silencers, Ellis' earlier work with Fred VanLente,) I'm not able to pin down what his style is exactly.  There are parts of Box 13 which look like Becky Cloonan to me (that fourth panel) but I haven't recognized any Cloonan in High Moon, which reads more like an old Warren magazine horror/supernatural story.  Box 13 owes as much to the Wachowski Brothers right now as it does to Cloonan, with its Matrixy-style mysteries of what's real and what isn't.  At least, that's where I thought it was going after the first issue.  Now, I'm not too sure.  All I know is that thanks to Comixology, I'm starting to look as forward to Thursdays as I am to Wednesdays thanks to Box 13 (which happens to be free.)

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@ Pop Syndicate-- Daredevil: Return of the King tpb

"In that way, Ed Brubaker is the perfect writer for Daredevil because he has shown that, as a writer he is willing to make choices that others wouldn’t.  He is the man who brought Bucky back and then killed off Captain America.  His books Sleeper and Criminal are all about people who made bad choices and then have to live with the consequences.  During his run on Daredevil, Brubaker never took it easy on Murdock and refuses to let up in the end.  Matt still has to deal with his own infidelities and pride, even up to the end where he had to make drastically life changing decisions."

You can read the whole review here.

As I was thinking about this review, a thought struck me about Ed Brubaker; he may be one of the more mature writers at either Marvel or DC.  Right now, between his Captain America and Daredevil, Brubaker was writing comics that I really like as an almost 40 year old comic reader.  He wasn't trying to stroke some inner fanboy of mine like I think Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis try to do.  Brubaker, along with Greg Rucka at DC, are writing some of the best mainstream superhero comics write now because they're not writing like they're playing with their favorite old toys like the Flash or the Avengers but they're trying to write good, solid stories using these corporate characters.  There's the time and the place for Bendis' and Johns' fan service but Brubaker and Rucka, while maybe not as flashy or sexy, are much better writers than either of them because they know how to tell a story. 

Over Brubaker and Lark's run, I debated dropping the series a couple of times.  It felt slow at times but I'm really glad I stuck with it.  His story actually went somewhere and his "shock" ending actually works as a better conclusion to his story than Bendis' ending with Matt going to jail.  Bendis' ending still feels like he left in mid-story.  Brubaker's drastically changes up Matt's status quo but it's a strong conclusion to his run and almost nicely brings his story full circle by having Daredevil in a new environment, surrounded by more friends than enemies.

@ Pop Syndicate-- Sugarshock

"Much like its main character, Sugarshock quickly loses its focus and becomes about nothing even as it wants to be about something.  What that is, I’m not too sure.  Even as Dandelion starts going off on non-sequitor tangents, the robot bassist asks “were you even here?”  You’ve almost got to ask the same thing of Whedon as you go from one page to another; was he even here to see what he wrote two pages before?  Sugarshock is the writing of an author who has earned the freedom to do whatever he wants and all he wants to do is play around with words and characters without creating any kind of recognizable narrative.  Sure, there’s a loose story here but it exists secondary to allowing Whedon, through Dandelion, to throw out ridiculous and incoherent dialogue like “By the spirit of my in-no-way-Viking ancestors… You… Will… Be… Legs!”  Really, Dandelion says “you will be legs” but it’s is kind of amusing in the story.  Everything outside of Dandelion’s ramblings exists just to provide the illusion of a story."

You can read the whole review here.

Mad Men and Halloween-- the masks are off

So, who is Don Draper now?  In The Gypsy and the Hobo, we saw Don Draper lose the one thing that really matters to him; control.  His wife Betsy, in an amazing display of backbone, confronts Don in a surprise attack, as his latest affair sits in his car down the street, waiting for him for their romantic weekend.  Don has tried to keep Betsy as his own relic from the Ozzie & Harriet 1950's, the trophy wife whose only concern is raising the kids and having a warm meal waiting for him when Don decided to actually come home at night.  But when Betsy confronted him about the box that hid Dick Whitman's life- before Korea, before Betsty and Sterling Cooper.  The box that contained Dick Whitman's life before he became Don Draper.

This week's episode of Mad Men is about facing reality.  Specifically, about facing the reality of who and what we are.  Of course, the prime example of this is Don finally having to face Betsy about who he actually is and most of the things he's actually done.  But the Roger Sterling and Joan arcs of this episode also show two characters having to face up to reality.  Roger confronts his past in Annabelle, a girlfriend from his youthful days in Europe when he wanted to be Ernest Hemingway more than an ad man.  Annabelle offers him her business and herself but Roger knows that he's not the young Ernest Hemingway anymore.  Annabelle represents Roger's youth while his own young wife represents Roger today.  Much like Betsy's surprising backbone, Roger chooses the wife of today rather than the dalliances of the past.  Roger hasn't always made the right choices in the past but at least this time he has.

Joan's reality is much more frightening than Roger's is at this moment.  She's trapped with a loser husband who thinks that joining the army in the early 1960s is going to be easy street for him.  He's not making any money and she's trapped behind the counter at a department store.  It isn't too long ago that she had her own little kingdom at Sterling Cooper but now that's all gone and she's just another store clerk.  As if Roger didn't have enough to deal with in Annabelle, Joan reaches out to him for help.  But unlike Annabelle, Roger still cares about Joan.  Maybe it's not the passionate love it once was but you can see the horror on Joan's face as she has to call Roger for help even as you can see the love and concern on Roger's face.  He still loves her even if they can't be together.  She's still his "red head" and his "Joannie."  Even as she loses all of her confidence in her husband, she still knows that Roger is there for her.  That's her present reality.

While Roger and Joan have made up fictions to behind in their lives, none are as big as Don's fiction.  Pete and Cooper know that Don is really Dick Whitman but even with that knowledge, Don still maintains control in their relationship.  At least he does with Pete; Cooper knows enough to know how to use the knowledge of Don's identity and when to pull out that nugget of information.  But Don faced them both, standing defiantly even as he was exposed in his workplace where he has always been "Don Draper."  This time is different; this time he's confronted by Dick Whitman in his home, by his wife, betrayed by a misplaced key and a mysterious desk that contains everything of Dick Whitman. 

At the end, as he's out Trick or Treating with his kids, a neighbor jokingly asks Don "who are you supposed to be?"  That's the question now, isn't it?  Who is Don Draper?  Who is Dick Whitman?  Who's this new man, now that he's been exposed to Betsy?   Alan Sepinwall and Maureen Ryan, both a bit more invested in Mad Men than I am, both comment on how optimistic the end is when Don is asked "who are you supposed to be?"  I read that ending a different way.  This season has been about trapping Don Draper.  He's trapped by Sterling Cooper with his 3 year contract.  He's now trapped by Betsy who suddenly has the control in their marriage.  He's trapped by suburbia and Madison Avenue.   When Don Draper has been trapped, we've seen Dick Whitman run away.  Well, Don is trapped and maybe now Dick Whitman is trapped as well.   Will he man up like Roger is doing or will the old Dick Whitman show up, looking for an out from this charade he has built?


Weekly Comic Shopping List 10/28/2009

Looks like I'll have to place an Instock Trades order this week because somehow I missed ordering both BPRD and Freakangels. 

  • BPRD Vol 11 Black Goddess TP-- Sometime I need to take a week or two and just read this whole series from beginning to end.  I think I've read all of the books but for some reason, it hasn't hung together for me as the one long narrative that Mignola and Arcudi are trying to go for.  

  • Ambush Bug Year None #7--  So I can't tell from all of Didio's blathering on Newsarama, is this the 6th issue but just cleverly numbered as the 7th?  Or was the 6th issue rejected and he had Fleming and Giffen do a 7th?  It's been so long since the 5th issue (which we'll retroactively call the 6th issue henceforth) that I don't know if I care anymore.

  • Blackest Night #4 -- Somehow, a zombie superhero comic seems appropriate the week of Halloween.  Here's another book that I've been enjoying that I think I've lost the flow of.  Hopefully the cliffhanger of this book is more than a bunch of dead heroes or villains showing up.  Johns has pulled that trick three times now.  He's got the hat trick but it's time for something to happen. 

  • Detective Comics #858-- Sure, J.H. Williams III is doing a lot of flashy artwork but I'm kind of shocked at how everyone is saying that Rucka's story is just kind of there, not up to the flash and bang of the artwork. I read the first four issues a couple of weeks ago and think Rucka's story nicely balances out Williams' artwork.  Rucka's solid story anchors Williams' artwork.

  • Green Lantern Vol 4 #47 -- My fear looking at the next few covers on DC's website is that this book will become about the other Corps fighting each other.  After last issue, I want to see more of the Hal/Sinestro/Carol triumvirate but maybe that's what'll be happening in the main series.

  • Spider-Man American Son HC--  And here's my second-to-last Spider-Man book for the time being.  I already had the next collection ordered when I finally decided to drop this title but I've been mulling over dropping Spidey for sometime now.  I've really enjoyed Amazing ever since Brand New Day began but under the Spidey braintrust, this is probably the ultimate serial soap opera going on in comics right now.  Amazing is a series of events, one right after the next and I don't get any feeling of a larger story, direction or purpose to these events.  They're good and enjoyable and kind of pointless.  That's good for a while but I've now got a nice collection of about 10 Spider-Man collections that I can go to whenever I feel the need for a Spidey fix.  

  • Freakangels Vol 3 TP-- I really enjoyed the first volume so I wonder why the second volume has just sat on my desk since it came out. 

@ Pop Syndicate-- Bloom County The Complete Library Volume One: 1980-1982

"Bloom County The Complete Library Volume One: 1980-1982 is an odd mix of looking back at the past but having to reflect on the present.  Ronald Reagan was President, the USSR still existed and still had their nukes.  There was a sharp divide between the conservatives and the liberals.  The Moral Majority tried to tell us what to watch and what to think.  And in the midst of all of this, the United States was going through one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression.  America wasn’t all that different of a country in 1980 than it is in 2009 which is a bit comforting but mostly sad.  We haven’t been able to put aside our political leanings that keep the country divided or really improve any of our foreign relationships.  It may seem like Reaganomics and Star Wars was so long ago but Breathed’s early Bloom County strips show us that they’re still relevant in the age of Obama and our current economic troubles."

Click here to read the full review. 

Occasionally while writing reviews, there are lines that pop up that I can't believe I wrote.  This review is actually filled with paragraphs that I can't believe I wrote.  But one of my favorite lines from this review is "Everyone from Hare Krishnas to Mr. Rogers in one way or another tries to indoctrinate Opus but he remains oblivious to their temptations of conformity and mass acceptance."  This line is true for this volume but of course, we see Opus searching for someplace to belong during the rest of the cartoon strips but he still always comes back to Bloom County and to just being a loveable water fowl.  

Weekly Comic Shopping List 10/21/09

Noir An Anthology Of Crime Comics TP--  It's been a year filled with crime graphic novels, hasn't it?  Well, Dark Horse is here with their entry into that category with an anthology by a lot of comic writers and artists who do really good crime stories.

Sugarshock One Shot (One-Shot Wonders)-- This is yet another repacking of Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon's MySpace comic but it's some fun stuff.  Maybe it's the Fabio Moon connection, but this story felt a lot like Whedon trying to pull a Fraction and write a crazy, stream of conscious type story. 

Final Crisis Legion Of Three Worlds HC--  Let's just call this what it really is-- Legion of Super-Heroes porn.  Luckily, I happen to be a fan of such stuff (hey, I actually enjoy The Lightning Saga) so this is up on my list of books to get.  Other than the awful turn that the end takes (talks about by Chad Nevett and Tim Callahan here coincidentally enough,) this isn't a bad story even if it short changes the Archie and the Waid Legions.  The fun in this book was in the comfort it provided for a long time Legion fan.  Does that make it a good book?  No but it'll be a nice book to pull off the shelf now and again just to catch up with the Legion.  Besides, everyone knows that the Time Trapper was Cosmic Boy.

Angel vs Frankenstein One Shot Incentive John Byrne Virgin Cover-- I'm not getting this.  I'm just posting it because I have to chuckle every time I see the words "John Byrne Virgin" together.  Yes, I'm only 12 years old. 

Elephantmen #22-- Here's a title that I really need to try and reconnect with.  The first 12-15 issues were some of my favorite books a few years ago but then the book hit all kinds of shipping issues and delays and, while I've gotten and enjoyed all of the issues since, I've lost track of the larger story that Richard Starkings is trying to tell. 

Captain America Road To Reborn HC--  As far as I can tell, there's only 4 issues in this and Marvel is still charging $24.99 for this.   That's over $6 per issue!  I've been all over these hardcovers for a couple of years but this price point is ridiculous for what they're reprinting.  Even if they reprint #601 twice (in color and again showcasing Gene Colan's black & white artwork,) that's still $5 per issue.  I don't know if Marvel's trying to put a high price point on their collections in the hope that more people will go back to the single issues but all this is doing is making me think it's time to drop even more Marvel books in any sort of form.

Dominic Fortune #3--  Well, I'll drop anything that doesn't have midgets doing perverted acts.  Luckily, Howard Chaykin's Dominic Fortune has midgets doing perverted acts so that book is safe.

Nexus Space Opera TP-- Kind of like Elephantmen, here was a book that wasn't helped at all by the delays and shipping issues.  To this day, Nexus remains one of my all-time favorite comics but I couldn't muster up a lot of enthusiasm over this series because I couldn't follow it.  Here's hoping that it holds together better as one large story and here's still hoping that this isn't the last we see of Baron and Rude's Nexus.

Naoki Urasawas 20th Century Boys Vol 5 GN-- Reading the 4th volume, Otcho became my favorite character in this series.  Something about his journey, what little we know if it, really struck me.  Much like he did in Monster, Urasawa is taking his time telling this story, giving the characters space and time so we can get to know them rather than having them just be means to deliver plot points. 

Real Vol 6 GN-- Speaking of characters, I love how Inoue's story is more about broken people rather than wheelchair basketball.  The game is what unites everyone but Inoue is telling a fantastic story about how our lives don't go the way we want them to.  The saying is that life is what happens while you wait for your plan for your life to begin.  While that may be a bit of a cliche, it's what Real is about as life happens to these young men, taking them off of the path they had planned out for themselves.

What A Wonderful World Vol 1 GN
What A Wonderful World Vol 2 GN
-- These collections of Inio Asano's inter-connected short stories.  After discovering Asano's Solanin late last year, I've been waiting to see more of his work. 


@ Pop Syndicate--- Adventure Comics #3

"The biggest problem with Johns’ Superboy story here is that, at best, Superboy is functioning in a supporting role.  The last two issues have revealed more about Wonder Girl and Red Robin than they have about Superboy.  This issue even reveals more about Krypto’s loyalty than it does about Superboy.  Going back to the start of Geoff Johns’ run on Teen Titans, Conner Kent has remained a blank state, searching for a purpose.  Of what we’ve seen in this series so far, Conner is only interesting insofar as it’s been fascinating to see Johns tell about the reaction to Conner’s return.  Wonder Girl’s search for what their relationship is or Red Robin’s lack of direction are far more gripping than Superboy trying to figure out chem class or checking off what makes him the same as or different from Superman and Lex Luthor."

Click here to read the full review.

I'm caught up right now in a love/hate relation with Adventure Comics.  Part of me loves it in a Dawson Creek way (not that I ever really loved Dawson Creek) but this should be that kind of story where you can almost hear Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait Forever" softly in the background but then it gets bogged down with Lex Luthor and Brainiac showing up as the evil geniuses whose cackling you can practically hear throughout the entire book.  I'm liking this book on one level but fear the eventual Luthor/Superboy meeting.

But the Francis Manapul artwork is fantastic.  I hope this is the style he uses on Flash.

Art Appreciation-- Rasl #7

Over at Boneville, Jeff Smith just posted the cover to Rasl #7's cover.  Smith's Rasl covers have always been eye-catching.  He's managed for the 5 issues so far to produce just the perfect image to characterize each issue.  My favorite so far has been #3, with the alluring glance of one of Rasl's many love interests.   After the somewhat disappointing Shazam mini that Smith did, Rasl has been an excellent followup to his Bone.  Like Bone, Rasl shows off Smith's fantastic storytelling without having to retread the same ground that Smith already covered.

Rasl #7's cover stand out from the other issues by the subtle use of color that Steve Hamaker applies.  Each cover has had one color added to shade and tone the image but Hamaker here offers up many shades and creates a lighting effect that hasn't been seen in the previous Rasl covers.

Rasl7