Comments Off | Posted: June 20th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Sure, there’s Absolute New Frontier and these gorgeous covers featuring the Man of Steel:
But, really – CBR has The Only DC Solicitation For September That Matters:
SNAKES ON A PLANE #1 & 2
Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Gordon Purcell
Photo covers
Issue #1 Variant cover by J.G. Jones
Issue #2 Variant cover by Jerome Moore
You’ve heard the Internet buzz…seen the hair-raising trailer�now experience the comic of the sensational summer movie Snakes on a Plane, written by Chuck Dixon (NIGHTWING) with art by Gordon Purcell and painted covers by J.G. Jones (52) and Jerome K. Moore (JSA: LOST)!
Snakes on a Plane stars Samuel L. Jackson as an FBI agent assigned to escort a government witness on a flight to Los Angeles. But when a crimelord sets loose hundreds of deadly snakes during the flight, the agent must band together with the pilot, frightened crew and passengers in a desperate attempt to survive and protect his witness!
Why’s it have to be snakes? Relax, they’re first-class fliers. Retailers please note: Each issue will feature two covers; see order form for details.
Retrosolicited � Issue #1 on sale August 16; issue #2 on sale August 30 � 1 & 2 of 2 � 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US � MATURE READERS
Comments Off | Posted: June 19th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
In a mood, it’s going
to storm – these are
my picks among the comics
coming to your shop on
June 21.
DC Comics
MAR060295 ALL STAR SUPERMAN #4 $2.99
I bet that there’s a pool in Vegas that covers the odds on how far behind this series is going to be by the halfway mark. Can’t Quitely get helper monkey or something so he doesn’t leave the drawing board at all?
APR060286 BITE CLUB VAMPIRE CRIME UNIT #3 (OF 5) (MR) $2.99
Unpleasant, funny, and scathing. My kind of Vertigo book.
MAR060299 SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN VOL 2 TP $16.99
Promised last week, delivered this week. Worth any wait, really.
Image
APR061769 AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS VOL 2 TP $12.99
While the art slipped schedule slipped and fill-ins take up a good portion of this volume, this is still one of my absolute favorite high-concept comics.
APR061763 CASANOVA #1 (MR) $1.99
This is a chunk of comics – dense and beautifully illustrated and with an enticing price point plus good creators, I’m pretty sure this is going to be the next Image breakout title.
Marvel
APR062089 CHAMPIONS CLASSIC VOL 1 TP $19.99
I love the Champions – I’ve described them as the sort of 70s b-list team that’s the result of a particularly heinous bar bet, but I’d much rather have an Essential volume than a full-color reprint, especially as this does not include Swarm.
APR062098 ESSENTIAL SAVAGE SHE-HULK VOL 1 TP $16.99
Speaking of Essentials…
Yeah, I’m 99% sure I’ve ordered this.
APR062022 ETERNALS #1 (OF 6) $3.99
I’m unsure if I’m getting this; the last Gaiman project for Marvel was so underwhelming in the end.
APR062030 GIANT SIZE HULK #1 $4.99
This doesn’t just feature some Planet Hulk material; the Peter David Hulk: The End, a perfectly bleak little tale illustrated by Keown that goes for silly money is also included.
Other Companies
MAR063447 110 PER CENT GN $12.95
Originally slated for last week, too. Huh. Still, it all still applies – Consiglio’s a hellaciously talented man.
MAY062991 COMIC BOOK HOLOCAUST GN (MR) $9.95
There is nothing wrong with comics that Johnny Ryan can’t make worse. Read Spurgeon’s interview with him here.
DEC053140 LOVE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE #5 (MR) $5.95
The Mature Readers notice here perplexes me – I’ve certainly not noticed anything that’s anything more than a mild PG-13 in this series so far. Maybe this one features hard anal or something…
Comments Off | Posted: June 19th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
So, if none of you have noticed, “words” have been in short order on my internet website of the last week or so. Some of this has to do with the fact I’ve been pumping out tons of words for documentation that had to be revised and re-revised and indexed, so getting home and typing or doing work with Rage Engine One have seemed less than appealing. I’ve also been going through the books I picked up at MoCCA – expect reportage on that over the next week or so.
Anyhow, last night I reread the old Stern/Buscema/Palmer Avengers trade paperback Under Siege. That’s good comics right there, even if Jarvis gets the living tar beaten out of him. Under Siege is the sort of story that wouldn’t be out of place nowadays (even if it is a particularly old-school Marvel story) – Zemo leads a revived and improved Master Of Evil, but with current trends it would be a year of lead-ins and hints, leading to something ultimately unsatisfying instead of being just an event in the regular comic. I know, I know – I’ve made these complaints before, but I’ve narrowed it down to one specific complaint: “mainstream,” superhero comics storytelling has reached a level of sophistication in its storytelling that rivals Hollywood, but so few writers know exactly what to do with it.
The narration that Miller invented, or at least popularized, in material like Daredevil and Batman: Year One has replaced the thought balloon, but it seems like the storytelling shorthand – allowing the reader to make logical leaps with the protagonist and filling in pieces of the story – is pretty much forgotten, excluding writers like Ennis and Brubaker – authors whose material isn’t very superheroic most of the time. Instead, the narrative boxes find themselves conscripted – being used for Bendisian character riffing that does very little for the story; it’s chopping wood, as Mamet would probably say.
This bit of unwillingness to explain or elucidate plot points even the tiniest amount makes things like the other big comics universe event Infinite Crisis frustrating for me. I’m not a stupid person, believe it or not – I’ve read Proust and Joyce and love me the sprawling, drug-spiked narrative of William S. Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson, but Infinite Crisis and Rann/Thanagar War were completely opaque to me. Those works were littered with these loud, jagged bits of plot that are roughly linked together by other bits of plot, but story – how it affects the characters and why the casual reader who’s not pored over back issues and drank the Kool-Aid should care – is left completely out of the equation. When “they” manage to kill off the Superman of Earth-2 and I don’t even manage to feel the slightest twinge, then they’ve failed in their duties to me, the guy that likes a superhero slugfest but shouldn’t have to do years of homework before picking one up.
Johanna Draper Carlson (who removed me from her sidebar – don’t think I didn’t notice) mentioned that the adult audience that DC is aiming at doesn’t have the time to devote hours to things like Who’s Who and tracking down back issues anymore, yet they’re doing quite well of late. Maybe it’s the culture of cool they’re raising – the idea of a mass-kept secret that lets readers feel like they’re part of something elite and somehow valid – sort of like me and the Peter Saville-designed record sleeves I obsess over. I’ve heard rumors of an unofficial policy in place at DC – writers are to refer to events in other books without directly saying where or when they occurred, effectively making it so that a reader will only completely “get” the story if they’ve picked up other books at the time of their publication, and that sort of in-jokeyness probably appeals to a lot of the people who spend the majority of their entertainment dollar on pamphlets of spandex material.
Hell, I know I’m grousing over stuff I don’t really need to – I find it somewhat interesting that they’ve leveled the playing field to a large extent with One Year Later – storytelling gaps are in place that are getting filled in with 52 and a new tone that’s more accessible seems to be in place. Both the main Superman and Batman titles are allowing people to just drop in and be engaged directly without the hook of a Byrne-style complete reboot and outside of Black Adam repeatedly proving that he can, indeed, rip people apart when he feels like it, there’s a lighter touch to a lot of the material.
Mind you, it’d not hurt one bit to use editor’s notes or have a character say “Strangely, the same events happened to Green Arrow about three weeks ago…”
Comments Off | Posted: June 18th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Comments Off | Posted: June 17th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Comments Off | Posted: June 16th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
At this year’s MoCCA, I got to catch up and spend money with Pat Lewis, whose Lunchbreak Comics are eminently entertaining slabs of minicomics goodness. His cartoonish art is a delight and his writing always elicits a chuckle or two out of me.
Anyway, I went to his site and what did I see?
A comic about J. Jonah Jameson getting
bitten by a radioactive spider.
Brilliant. Go buy all of his comics so he can do more stuff like this.
Comments Off | Posted: June 16th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Roman, of the excellent “thank you” note of a while back, and his little brother Tyler are moving out today with their folks. I’ll miss having two kids that weren’t examples of why humanity should be exterminated hanging around.
Comments Off | Posted: June 15th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Rick Veitch is not an easy talent to pin down. His most popular mainstream work managed to keep the frank weirdness of Alan Moore’s
Swamp Thing while bringing the narrative to a more human plane and when his heady synthesis of art and story hits its peaks –
Brat Pack and
The Maximortal, very few mainstream-friendly creators (seriously,
Aquaman?!?) can touch him.
His latest work, the sprawling Can’t Get No, shows a casual mastery of his craft and manages to enthrall without ever making it look like he’s working for your attention. When pill-popping, ultra-successful Chad Roe’s company, makers of the Eter-No-Mark Ultra-Permanent marker is sued for $6,000,000,000 by the City of New York and property owners who find themselves unable to remove graffiti, he begins a surreal journey that starts at a bar and ends in the desert, surrounded by a circus. Along the way, he receives a full-body tattoo courtesy of two women and the product that brought his downfall, watches the Twin Towers collapse and meets an astronaut in the middle of a deserted amusement park dedicated to the Bicentennial among other beautifully realized moments that mash up cultural icons of the last half-century.
The entire thing smacks of Douglas Coupland after a particularly good ether binge – business, commerce, drugs, and sex with a woman who looks like Jackie Onassis, but it doesn’t have that smug-with-itself feeling that sometimes is a bit cloying. Veitch manages to be very experimental – dropping dialogue entirely for the sake of a rambling monologue that provides both counterpoint and contextual narration to the story – while clearly delineating the fall (of sorts) and redemption of Roe visually.
Special attention should be paid to Veitch’s use of 9/11 – that day has cast a heavy shadow on pop culture this year. The stark United 93 and the upcoming World Trade Center address the actions of people involved directly in the event, but the author uses it both as a metaphor throughout the story as well as a catalyst for Roe’s change at the beginning of the second act.
It’s nice to see Vertigo put out something like this – Can’t Get No is the sort of graphic novel that revels in the medium and wouldn’t translate to another form, so it doesn’t feel like a TV series or movie pitch in the same way so much of their output (like Y: The Last Man) often does. Well worth your time and a perfect bridge to Veitch’s more esoteric work.
Comments Off | Posted: June 15th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
To everyone who’s said that they’re having trouble reading or finding the
Nitroglycerin strips,
check this out. Now you can savor Birdie’s art at a proper size and read archives!
Now all you have to do is go out and buy X-Isle #1, where the print version of our strip debuts.
Comments Off | Posted: June 15th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Fact: I’m enjoying Civil War about a million times more than Infinite Crisis, despite the fact I’m sure that there’s going to be a giant Dr. Strange-related continuity “fix” to repair some of what we’re seeing as soon as Joe Quesada is no longer running Marvel. Sure, giant crossovers are sort of the antithesis of what I like in superhero comics, but this seems to be much better planned that I expected it to be and so far, the core series (the only component I’m reading) is entertaining well enough.
Fact: J. Jonah Jameson’s reaction to Peter’s announcement killed me stone dead.
Comments Off | Posted: June 14th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
At least credit me when you swipe lazy link posts from me, along with bandwidth.
Thank you, drive through.
XOXO
Kevin.
Comments Off | Posted: June 14th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
First, Wednesday means there’s a new Nitroglycerin strip at the bottom of the BOOM! Studios page. This week, there’s a monkey!
Second:
Comments Off | Posted: June 13th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Evan Dorkin sells his rough sketches on the cheap at shows and I’m amazed that I got four Eltingville character sketches in one set for as little as I did. I’m sure I’ll find a reason to scan in the others in the near future.
Comments Off | Posted: June 12th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Some reasons why I love The KLF, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Bonus Link courtesy of Gawker:
Did the KLF create Pete Doherty?
Comments Off | Posted: June 12th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Diamond says:
*****
PLEASE NOTE: Due to unexpected computer repairs, the shipping lists
for this week (June 14) and next week (June 21) will be
delayed by 24 hours and posted on Tuesday, June 13.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
*****
I say:
Damn it, we’re doing it anyway.
I’m too tired to fuss at this
point in time, so here’s
this week’s books,
hand-selected by
Kevin J. Church.
DC Comics
MAR060378D CANT GET NO SC (MR) $19.99
Rick Veitch? OGN? What’s the deal, yo? Let’s let DC’s marketing department give you the old “back cover quotes” roll call:
“…supremely, magnificently strange, and like nothing else I’ve read.”
� Neil Gaiman
“…one of the most remarkable achievements in recent comics history.”
� Publishers Weekly
“Can’t Get No is a smooth, magnetic yet intricate book, whose storyline, combined with the Hopperesque starkness and elegance of the artwork, is what they always called in the old days ‘ a good read.’”
� Ed Sanders (Tales of Beatnik Glory)
“…a remarkable allegorical tale.”
� Library Journal
“Most impressive.”
� Booklist
Sounds pretty good just from that, eh? Veitch is one of those remarkably underrated talents that deserves to get a lot of attention – maybe this is the project that will push him into the spotlight.
MAR060326D JLA CLASSIFIED #22 $2.99
The Detroit JLA finally gets the attention they deserve from DC.
MAR060324D JLA CLASSIFIED NEW MAPS OF HELL TP $12.99
Warren Ellis wrote himself a damn fine little story with this 6-part. The art near the end gets pretty sloppy (Guice must have been under a tight deadline), but there’s some truly awesome moments showing off why the JLA is the best there is at what they…
…aw, man.
MAR060299D SHOWCASE PRESENTS SUPERMAN VOL 2 TP $16.99
Silver-Age Superman Madness! Oh, yesssss. I probably have about a third of this volume in various formats, but I don’t care.
FEB060251 SUPERMAN VERSUS LEX LUTHOR TP $19.99
Love the cover image, hate the copy placement and burst. Nice collection, really, even if it’s lacking in the Ultimate Tale Of How Fucked Up Lex Luthor Is: Action Comics 510, 511, and 512. That there is some quality 70s Superman material.
Marvel
APR062043D MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX LOVE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD $2.99
Great, Marvel. The only thing I’m buying from you this week is a freakin’ remix comic.
Nice one.
COMICS
MAR063447F 110 PER CENT GN $12.95
I got this at MoCCA and it is brilliant. Middle-aged women obsessed with a boyband and how it affects their personal lives?
Better than any goddamn episode of Desparate Housewives.
Tony Consiglio manages to make you laugh and get a little misty with great aplomb and his skill as a cartoonist, while not flashy, keeps you engaged. The last act ties everything together perfectly.
I hope this review makes up for making Alex Robinson sign my copy for Tony.
(Who signed right under Alex, gracefully.)
(Don’t worry – everyone was in on it.)
(Really.)
APR063412 SUPER F$$$$$S #3 (MR) $5.00
Jack Krak is the motherfucker and don’t you fucking forget it, you shit-sucking asslicker.
This comic does bad things to me.
(The third issue is quite hilarious and manages to get really disturbing near the end.)
APR063411 TALES OF WOODMAN PETE GN $7.00
Yet another Top Shelf title worth checking out? Why are they pounding us into submission this week?
Because they can.
Lilli Carr� does a great job creating a new American myth and entertaining the reader in a svelte 80 pages. Lovingly illustrated and more clever than you deserve, this is going to be one of those books I pick up again and again.
APR062884 URSA MINORS #1 $2.95
Dudes in cybernetic bear suits beat up evil.
Sold!
Comments Off | Posted: June 12th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Today’s Morrissey Moment has been brought to you by KFC:
In America, It brought you the hamburger,
Well, America you know where
You can shove your hamburger
And don’t you wonder,
Why in Estonia they say,
“Hey you! Big fat pig!
You fat pig, You fat pig?”
Comments Off | Posted: June 12th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Too wiped from the weekend to make a proper blog post, other than to thank everyone that helped make my MoCCA Fest experience the best. Birdie, Chris, Ed, Gina, Neilalien, Kitty – thank you. I missed getting to catch up with Butcher or MacDonald (she of the awesome shoes on Sunday) but I’m sure you people are pretty sick of me already. It was particularly nice to see fellow Somerville residents Liz Prince and Tim Finn at the show – howdy!
To all the creators that spent a moment or two to talk to me, I appreciate the time and hope you didn’t get the impression that I was going to murder you in your sleep. Reviews of things I purchased will be trickling in over the next week or so. What I read on the way home was universally entertaining and interesting, so nobody need fear a harsh word…this time.
Also: apparently, I missed seeing Tom Spurgeon, which actually makes me a little grumpy.
I’ll do The List later, but in the meantime, check out this beautiful sketch that Matt Kindt did for me:
Bonus Spy-Themed Link:
Click here to see the video for David Hasslhoff’s cover of “Secret Agent Man.”
Comments Off | Posted: June 11th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
(Click.)
Comments Off | Posted: June 9th, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Finally getting around to getting a moment or two to talk about this week’s books and since everyone’s noticing that 900 gorilla in the corner, I guess I should go ahead and discuss it, eh?
Wonder Woman #1 shouldn’t make me as intensely happy as it does, because I find it pretty hard to get excited about the character. Yes, she’s strong and dynamic and exactly the sort of feminist icon that should go a long way with me, but I’ve never been interested in her as a solo character – at all. Not even with George Perez drawing it and not even during the six-issue Simonson/Ordway run when she donned the Emma Peel whites in a modern context. In fact, here’s the really odd thing – only the Ellis pastiche of the character from Planetary and the Elseworlds version that showed up in JLA/Planetary have even tickled lobes at all.
Oh, there’s been moments with her that I loved – the bits with her and Arthur in Morrison’s JLA showed us a smart, funny side to the character that’s usually lacking in my observation and Diana always held her own in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon – but reading a monthly book featuring the character has been anathema to me, especially with someone like Greg Rucka writing. Then Allan Heinberg shows up with a restrained Terry Dodson and knocks my socks right off. The first issue of the new series hits the ground running – Donna Troy’s taken over the role, Steve Trevor’s in trouble, and there’s going to have to be some name-taking and ass-kicking. Backstory? You get six panels of exposition that cover the period leading up to Infinite Crisis, maybe three pages of “Oh, hey don’t trust me because I’m not Diana,” and then the Superhero Action As I Like It starts. Giganta, Cheetah, Dr. Psycho? Nemesis? Oh, yes, thank you!
It’s loud, day-glo and pop and exactly the sort of thing that I think should sell shedloads. Perfect for people (like me) who don’t care for uber-crossovers and super-serious takes on the spandex fare while throwing even the most rabid fanboy a bone or two, this is a great little comic and I look forward to further installments, which is something I couldn’t have imagined saying a few months ago.
Strugglers is “a little graphic novel” by fellow Somerville resident Tim Fish, based very, very loosely on the time he spent in St. Louis. Originally part of the Modern Tales Longplay site and presented under the name of Meet Me In St Louis, the 100-page graphic novel fills in the backstory of Tighe from Fish’s Cavalcade Of Boys series and is a pretty good read. I won’t say great – some of the characters never rise about near-skeletal caricatures (especially Tighe’s roommates) and the “Six Months Later” jump near the end feels like someone wanting to just get it over with already, but there’s plenty of funny, true-to-life moments and a sincerity that I appreciate. You should note that there’s a Cavalcade Of Boys omnibus solicited from Poison Press in this month’s Previews that I highly recommend – that material’s much more satisfying to me and Fish’s art is just delightful in it versus the rougher material presented here.
In Super-Brief, Because I Have To Get To Work:
Jonah Hex is a lean, mean comic as usual. Consistently entertaining and a title that rewards new readers with its episodic format.
The latest issue of Justice League Unlimited is a Very Special Installment where Gypsy learns a lesson. And fights giant robots. Everyone wins!
52 reminded me that, despite the editorial mandates that created him and the supremely silly stories that have featured the character, I really am quite taken with the idea of Steel. Sure, he suffers from uberdoctor syndrome and has a costume that’s just shy of being outrageously stupid, but a working-class Tony Stark with a giant hammer has always appealed to me. Also: Starfire’s boobies!
I have this to say about Fury: Peacemaker’s next issue: Nicky better shoot him up a ton of Nazis or I am going to walk away supremely unsatisfied. I have the feeling Ennis is going to oblige.
