I should write about comics instead of just writing comics sometime, huh?

OK, here’s what I’ve been reading, with extremely brief notes.

1.
The new edition of Avengers Forever is a beautiful thing with larger trimsize giving Carlos Pacheco’s artwork the room it needs to really hit you. There’s a lot of cute throwaway details, but unless you’re a massive fan of The Avengers and excited about Kurt Busiek’s sometimes-too-neat superhero storytelling being wrapped around a near-incoherent plot involving time travel, Kang vs Immortus (who is also Kang) and something called the destiny force, I don’t actually recommend it.

2.
The praise I’d heard for Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka is very justified. While the quick-and-dirty pitch is “Watchmen for Astro Boy,” Urasawa’s storytelling (which has grown by leaps since Monster, another series I’m catching up on) is nuanced and willing to let the reader work a bit and the emotional beats he hits are a bit stunning, especially considering how much of this work revolves around robots.

3.
Yotsuba&! #6 is likely the comic I’ve looked forward to the most this year, and yes, I know how creepy that makes me sound. Still, despite my inherent cynicism, there’s something so refreshingly irony-free about observing life with Yotsuba and I can’t help but get sucked in and laughing and worrying and cheering for her. It’s a bit like the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer that way — kid-friendly material that works on every level because it’s not aiming at anyone in particular.

4.
Boy, Philip Tan is not the artist I would have followed Frank Quitely with on Morrison’s Batman and Robin fourth issue. He certainly makes some game attempts to match Morrison’s scripting, but they come off as forced versus the effortless way that Quitely packs creatively-laid-out panels with detail and still manages to be readable. There’s a scene where a card is falling from the air and the camera tracks it into Batman’s hands and it lacked a certain kind of alchemy that Morrison manages to do with his best collaborators.

All of this aside, I absolutely love how these comics are scripted and how they play with conventions like titles and credits. It’s sort of the less-formalized version of All Star Superman and it makes each chapter’s inertia play out a certain way.

5.
I’m just going to presume Jeff Parker writes Agents Of Atlas for me and Chris Sims and the rest of you are lucky enough to be along for the ride. The latest issue has a terrific gag centering around a personality implant for M11 just identified as “The Greatest.” I won’t spoil it, but I’ll say it’s a perfect example of how to slip neat asides into your superhero comics without getting bogged down in the too-cute-oh-hey-here’s-a-meme syndrome that some writers fall into.

6.
You’re reading my new comic, right? OK, good.

THE RUNDOWN: Sponsored By The Metatime Council And Mickey Eye

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.

THE RUNDOWN: I should totally create a fake ad for a home Continuitology course.

1.
Seaguy: Slaves Of Mickey Eye #2 featured more of exactly what I like about the Seaguy universe: straight-faced surrealism that celebrates the superhero. I’ve heard people complain about the opacity of this work, but I figure they’re overthinking the whole thing. While symbolism is rife and Morrison’s scratching his usual meta-fiction itch, the story and events are presented in an extremely straightforward manner. Cameron Stewart’s art is, as usual, too good for mere words. I’ll just gesticulate for a while instead, making cooing sounds.

2.
One of the main reasons I love reading Jeff Parker’s Agents Of Atlas month to month is how it is that rarest of things: the single issue that feels like a proper dose of story. Combined with Parker’s whip-smart dialogue and way it effectively makes use of the Marvel Universe’s history without requiring a degree in Continuitology, this is easily my favorite ongoing Marvel title of the moment.

3.
I really did enjoy Fing Fang 4 Return, but that’s a comic that you were either already looking forward to or that you shoved aside in your haste to pick up whatever Marvel’s telling you is important this week, so there’s not much to add. It’s great that Langridge is getting so much well-deserved attention lately.

4.
The scene in which burglars are exiting police headquarters carrying the Batsignal is not the stupidest moment in the latest DC Comics Classics Library installment, The Batman Annuals, but it may be the funniest. I understand the rending of cloth that has accompanied the $40 price point on these, but if you’re paying that much you’re not much of a shopper, are you?

Read this.

Jeff Parker writes about the “value” of comics and how it affects his writing:

Obviously I’m only talking about monthlies and not even touching all the excellent stand-alone works, that again, require Active rather than Passive viewing. One of those is just way better for you, but I risk lapsing into my Everyone Watches Too Much Effing TV rant. Instead I’ll get back to that control-of-time point I mentioned. You’ll notice in 2009 that many of the books I work on, in particular Agents of Atlas and Mysterius The Unfathomable, will require you to slow down your reading speed. These books are packed fairly dense with information, and that’s not just wordiness. Many times the artist will be conveying information that adds far more to what is being said or narrated, often contrary to the image. This isn’t really because we’re trying to cram value into the books, that’s just a nice side effect, but because that method of storytelling works well with them.

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

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.

Kevin Reviews His Weekly Singles #16

I skipped last week. Deal. I’m also gonna skip Godland because it’s in the middle of an alternate universe storyline. I may also skip sobriety if today keeps going like it has been.

Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #1

I’ve never read Geoff Johns’s Flash run, but the character’s gallery of baddies has always appealed to me, and the allure of a more robust Scott Kolins reuniting with the writer transformed a cursory flip-through into an impulse buy. While this title is mired in the recent past of the Flash titles (in particular, the Rogues’ participation in the murder of Bart Allen,) readers like me get all the information they need to actually understand the story presented, even if the events are tied into Morrison’s Final Crisis event. It’s nice to see DCU villains actually feeling penitent for their crimes without actually becoming antiheroes; they enjoy the game and feel it should have rules of conduct, a nice nod to the Silver Age ethos that I sort of miss, particularly in the titles most closely associated with that gee-whiz period.

My only caveat is that Johns once again indulges in the ultraviolence that defines his weaknesses in my head with the return of one villain. While I understand the desire to make sure we know how horrible a criminal is, there’s really no need to show their acts or the amount of blood they generate. While the tonal shift and its impact is obviously done for a reason, I still found it distasteful and, worst of all, lazy.

Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #26

So, in this issue, aliens come to earth demanding to know how we got rid of Galactus because dude’s around the corner and totally hungry and the Avengers are like “Well, Reed Richards did this thing we can’t do again” and the aliens are all like “Oh no” and Captain America is all “Let’s go try to help them out anyway” and they end up playing baseball, chess, and Texas Hold ‘Em for the sake of the aliens who are, by the way, total douchebags. All of that in one nicely-drawn, funny all-ages comic by Jeff Parker, Ig Guara, and crew that doesn’t talk down to the kids one bit.

Kevin Reviews His Weekly Singles #13

This week was one of the textbook examples of “Not Much Goin’ On For Ol’ Kevin” in the singles. Only three titles found their way into my bag, and I’m not going to talk about one of them because what can someone say about the middle chapter of a DMZ storyline other than “Brian Wood seems to know what he’s doing with this”? So, here’s…

Anna Mercury #2

There’s a very good bit in this issue that shows how Ellis manages to nail characters in ways that are almost subliminal. The director of Anna Mercury’s agency explains what’s going on to the new governmental leader. It involves parallel worlds, strange physics, and Anna Mercury’s role in making sure the status quo is kept. He’s impatient, unable to explain everything in soundbites, and leaves the poor man flummoxed as hell, much like the readers, and that’s good enough. We sort of have a vague idea what’s going on, now let’s get back to Anna shooting the hell out of people. Yes, it’s got bits of Planetary in its DNA, particularly when you compare Anna to Jakita Wagner, but it’s got just enough new stuff to convince me to pick up the eventual trade.

Marvel Adventures Avengers #25

Jeff Parker + Arnim Zola = Love. Yes, it’s just that simple. Ig Guara’s art has a few moments where it just shines, particularly around the comedic beats, even if his action storytelling needs just a bit of work. This single issue perfect example of light superhero entertainment that is very comfortable with what it is and manages to engage readers at just about any possible age group. Here’s a preview so you can figure out if you want to pick it up next week.

Wow, this is short this week. I better come up with something that’ll earn those links.

Oh! I know!

A Picture Of Nerd Heaven