"I’ll take Potpourri for $500, Alex."
Comments Off | Posted: July 26th, 2006 | Filed under: UncategorizedThis is the first morning that’s felt remotely normal in a week – no air travel, comics conventions, casino hotel rooms, or first-days-back-at-work are involved – and, frankly, I’m a little put out. What am I supposed to do with my time?
I know, I’ll tell you all that the new Bumperboy book, Bumperboy and the Loud, Loud Mountain is well worth picking up. Debbie Huey’s second full-length featuring the adorable, bodysuited hero is a surprisingly sophisticated all-ages book that should appeal to kids and adults in equal quantities. Bumperboy and the Loud, Loud Mountain performs this balancing act perfectly: the art is a masterpiece of cartoonish minimalism with never an extra line, even while conveying humor and fairly complex ideas about working to help the environment and the tone is educational and sweet never managing to be very cloying or resorting to easy lectures.
I’ve been thinking about comics I like more than they deserve lately. 1995′s Superman/Aliens is one of them. I reread it last night (shut up) and even when Jurgen’s scripting is particularly atrocious (who says “tough time” instead of “rough time,” anyway?), Kevin Nowlan’s inking and the appearane of a Kryptonian-speaking young woman named Kara from Argo almost make up for the slightly cheap feel of the crossover. Who really thought Superman was going to die in space with a Xenomorph bursting out of his chest, anyway?
Another comic I have a stupid amount of affection for is Alan Moore’s WildCATS run. It’s bog-standard work by the bearded mage, with very little subtext and unremarkable narrative, but I can practically hear Moore happily humming along, writing slightly-clever bits that Scott Lobdell would have given his eyeteeth for. There’s also the art, which is generally uneven but manages to feature a Travis Charest shaking his Lee-and-Liefeld-isms off and doing something new among other niceties.
Then there’s Marvel Two-In-One, which is, in general, a very stupid comic. Still, Ben Grimm is a character I have no small amount of affection for (even if our love will never hit the dizzying heights of the Sterling/Swamp Thing affair) and getting to see the Marvel Universe parade through his title gives me a bit of a giggle. I would gladly argue that material such as Project Pegasus and the fairly clever anniversary issues deserve collecting. When are we going to get a second Essential volume, anyway?
I’m sure there’s more (Atari Force and Johnny Ryan’s work spring to mind) – maybe even enough to function as a semi-regular feature that will die pretty quickly. Hmm.
Speaking of the Essential line, I noticed that Billy Tucci had a very-similarly-designed cheap omnibus for the Shi comics he’s managed to eke out a living from for the last decade and change. In fact, it was so similarly designed that I think Marvel should have a little talk with him. There’s “capturing the zeitgeist” and then there’s “shamelessly copying.” All told, it’s pretty deceptive, in my mind.
I’ve been rereading the first Fu-Manchu novel and Our Band Could Be Your Life concurrently. The idea of Nayland Smith joining Big Black and fighting the yellow peril of corporate rock appeals to me more and more As in: I want to figure out how to make something similar work on paper.
Without the white superiority, of course. I’d leave in the drum machine, though.
Finally, we have this video from Tim Leong of ComicFoundry.com. Interesting in its own right because Tim is one of the good ones fighting the good fight, this features certain moderately-known comics blogger at the 3:34 mark talking about a very well-known comics creator’s bathroom habits. You can also hear the moderately-known comics blogger encourage Spurgeon to throw a chair on stage.
(I’m seen at bars far too often.)
