In Which Frank Miller’s Name Comes Up Three Times.

My lord, a ship labeled the USS Giant Margaritas docked in my belly last night and apparently, all of the sailors decided that my cerebral cortex would be a fine, fine place to get in a few fights, make a little love, and generally get down as I slept. Let’s see if I can pry open the other eye enough to take a look at a few of this week’s comics as well as bitch a bit about things worthy of bitching. You’ll know it’s time to turn the page when you hear Artoo Detoo beep like this…

I think 52 and I might have to break up soon. It’s not that it’s not good for what it is, but this week’s issue indicated that, no, not much is going to change for the mainline DCU material as far as storytelling goes. There’s a double-page spread of Black Adam addressing a large group of villains this week and there’s not a single bone thrown to the reader who may not know who Sonar or Starfire’s Crankier Sister, Whatshername are. It’s this lack of taking care of a non-initiated reader that puts me off. With very little effort, you could make it so that somebody got brought up to speed quickly. Do I want everyone speaking like Jim Shooter crapped in their mouth? No, but an arrow or balloon pointing out the name, if nothing else, of that Guyver-looking motherfucker, would help me feel like I wasn’t walking into a Super Sekrit Fanboy Society meeting.

Boy, I really like this new title, The Escapists. Brian K Vaughan is not my favorite comics writer (I believe the phrase “one-trick pony” has come up in past references I’ve made to his work on Y: The Last Man), but there’s this sense of momentum, of joy in this title that I found infectious. Yes, I’d already read this issue’s story in the predecessor series featuring Kavalier and Clay’s most famous creation, but I didn’t care. It was like hearing a pitch-perfect pop song and it niggling the back of your head for months before the single magically lands in your lap. What’s The Escapists about? Comics, boy meets girl, taking a chance, and letting Philip Bond just draw the heck out of the entire thing. Just buy it. Discover that enthusiasm that’s been beaten out of you. First hits only $1 and has a fun Frank Miller cover.

Speaking of Miller, there’s some of his energy in Riccardo Burchielli’s art in DMZ #9. I’ve never noticed it before, but the itchy lines and … er … beautifully done blood splatters that crop up in the latest issue recall the Sin City auteur’s work without aping it or even resembling it very much. I really am becoming more of a fan of this book every month and remembering what happens from issue to issue, which is supremely rare for me. The latest is no exception to this upward trend, with the last page placing Matty and Zee in a position that is going be very, very difficult to recover from without it feeling like a….Brian K Vaughan comic.

Heh.

Again with Miller here: Christopher Mitten’s art on Wasteland is….very familiar in places that involve things like cloth, motion, chains, and rocks to the side of the head. In fact, if those were Spartans in the first four or five pages of this comic, I’d think it was an outtake from 300. While I’ve never liked Mitten’s unfocused art before, this new style is too derivative to not distract me from Antony Johnston’s decent, if fairly typical script about a post-apocalyptic world.

To work, I go now. I’m sure there will be more later.