THE RUNDOWN: Sponsored By The Metatime Council And Mickey Eye

1 Comment | Posted: June 4th, 2009 | Filed under: The Rundown | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

1.
Grant Morrison had two DC comics today that couldn’t be further apart in tone even as they both bear the hallmarks of Morrison’s approach to the superhero meme, expanding upon the metacommentary he’s slipped into various comics over the last two decades. Batman and Robin‘s debut and the final issue of Seaguy: The Slaves Of Mickey Eye invoke common themes of DC’s superhero comics without any of the pastiche that marks the usual superhero comic book treatment of such material. As much as I enjoy comics like the original Squadron Supreme and Astro City, I really appreciate it when people use the past as a springboard to something new, and Morrison does that in style with Batman and Robin.

While Morrison’s run on the mainline Batman title let him indulge in some good old-fashioned silver age fetishism, this tite’s mandate seems to be “You know the basics, what can we do now?’ Batman and Robin #1 is extremely new-reader friendly (throwaway lines explain pretty much everything to a neophyte,) but the way that Morrison plays with the myth of Bruce Wayne’s Batman and what that means to Gotham is very satisfying in this meaty-yet-fast-paced first installment. Special note, of course, should be made to Frank Quitely’s art. It’s very rare that Morrison’s collaborators are able to keep up with him, but Quitely manages to kill in each and every panel, just as he did in his rightly-lauded Flex Mentallo and All-Star Superman.

Just as Batman and Robin manages to do something new with a 70+ year-old icon, Seaguy’s second adventure’s climax features our hero teaming up with others of his ilk, a quest for true love, an imaginary friend, and a villain who gets his comeuppance because that’s what happens to bad guys. Taken on their own, these events aren’t anything significant, but the way that Morrison layers them one on top of the other, letting the reader absorb them as matter-of-fact moments in the narrative, is close to masterful. Cameron Stewart is the perfect artist for this sort of project, able to be just cartoonish enough to sell you on Seaguy’s technicolor world but with a solid hold on anatomy and keen storytelling abilities. I’d love to see a collection of his concept work for the two Seaguy stories so far; while Morrison’s imagination is clearly at work, it Stewart’s ability to sell the ridiculous and sublime that makes me appreciate the title that much more.

2.
I read a comic with Buffy in the title, but it had nothing to do with Joss Whedon’s world (outside of one reference to a stalker) and everything to do with Becky Cloonan’s uncannily easy scripting and Vasilis Lolos’s art. This story of teenage boredom and vampires would fit very nicely alongside any of Becky Cloonan’s minicomics, where it’s apparent that she’s had a solid grasp of dialogue and storytelling that has gone underappreciated, particularly in lieu of her high-profile creative partnerships with writers like Brian Wood. Maybe this, alongside the forthcoming Pixu will get more exposure for her writing talents. (If you’re at MoCCA, you should see if she has her Minis book in stock. It’s a solid collection of her very early work that I found surprisingly good.)

3.
I have bought three comics by Jeff Parker in the last two weeks. It’s just my way of repaying him for his pinup in The Rack: Year One (Mostly). It doesn’t hurt that they’re all really readable, particularly Agents Of Atlas, which I feel like I should write more about sometime. It’s a dense comic with some pretty inventive writing in unusual places.

4.
Oh, oh, oh, I remember. I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed Warren Ellis’s Bastard Cop With A Jetpack in Ignition City. There’s a very casually-used bit in there about how he uses people’s first names when speaking to them, a cheap salesmen/law enforcement trick that I pick up on every time it’s used against me and hate. I love that it went unnoted by other characters, but if you were there, it would have rankled something fierce.

5.
That’s kinda it. I’ve not even opened my copy of Side B or that DC Comics Classics Library: Roots Of The Swamp Thing collection that Danny Levitz was going on about in last week’s picks. In fact, outside of Design Fetish and the usual self-promotion hijinks, this blog’s going to be pretty silent until Tuesday. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the rest, really.

I finally talk about some comics I’ve actually purchased.

3 Comments | Posted: September 19th, 2008 | Filed under: Reviews | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Please note that these sort of reviews are going to be more sporadic going forward. I’m only buying a few titles a week and with people like Sims and Caleb writing nicely about the periodic titles, I just don’t see why you’d want me to bleat on very often.

Anyway.

The last issue of All-Star Superman is just about perfect. I won’t lie: I had a lump in my throat at least twice, but I am a soft damn touch when it comes to a well-done Superman story and this whole thing was exactly that. It was lovely to see a pair of creators who work so well together embrace the truly bizarre mythos attached to the character and use them for maximum effect while doing something new. While I’m certain I’ll enjoy upcoming Superman stories in the future, I’m also pretty sure that they’ll feel just the slightest bit hollow and sad in comparison.

The debut for Age of the Sentry features a flying corgi (complete with cape) and The Mad Thinker and The Terrible Tinkerer disguising themselves as directors shooting a series of public service announcements with a parasitic camera that sucks the title character’s strength and powers away. Yes, I’ll be reading more, particularly with Paul Tobin and Nick Dragotta involved.

David Tischman and Glenn Fabry’s Greatest Hits is so thunderingly obvious in concept that I’m shocked that I’ve not seen it before: Four British Pop Superheroes During The Sixties Operating As An Analogue To That Most Famous Of Pop Groups. It’s funny and savvy while offering further evidence that Vertigo’s slow reinvention of itself that began a couple years ago is a good thing.

Marvel Adventures Avengers continues to be the only iteration of that most favored of superhero team books that I’m reading. While Mighty Avengers and New Avengers (and soon, Dark Avengers, Nude Avengers and Diet Avengers) continue to ably serve as The Brian Michael Bendis Event Comic Backstory Hour, this comic actually – get this – has a team called “The Avengers” who go out and have adventures! This issue featured Luke Cage and His Momma and a story in which a cat from another dimension needed rescuing, along with a smartmouthed Hammerhead. That sort of thing is certainly more entertaining to me than Skrulls repeatedly cloning Reed Richards until one of the major plot holes of Secret Invasion gets filled in.

Finally, I found myself very much enjoying Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple’s Omega The Unknown despite my distaste for the author’s prose novels. It reads like a Jim Jarmusch superhero movie, sort of Ghost Dog meeting Spider-Man with enough truly Weird Shit to compare favorably with the original book that spawned it. Dalrymple’s art is as perfect a complement as I could imagine for the script: intentionally flat to the point that the surreal elements – a giant walking hand, for instance – pop that much more. Marvel’s $30 pricepoint may seem a bit high, Amazon has it for a very reasonable $20.

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